{"edition": "Research and preservation edition 01", "compiled": "2026-10-26", "articles": [{"slug": "assyrian-identity", "title": "Understanding Assyrian identity", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrian historical heritage across church affiliations: religious labels and modern ethnic claims do not supply missing ancient ancestry evidence.", "sections": [{"title": "A living identity", "text": "This archive centres Assyrian historical, cultural and communal continuity across many languages, places and church denominations. The Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church and other Syriac Christian communities have intertwined histories, but ecclesiastical membership is not interchangeable with ethnicity. Ancient royal records, medieval church chronicles and modern self-identification each answer different questions."}, {"title": "A church affiliation is not an ethnicity test", "text": "The Chaldean Catholic Church is an East Syriac Christian church in Catholic communion, historically rooted in Church of the East communities. Baptism, rites, patriarchal jurisdiction and church membership are ecclesiastical facts, not primary evidence for an ancient Chaldean tribal genealogy or a separate ethnic language. This archive documents substantial shared Assyrian and East Syriac heritage across Catholic and non-Catholic communities. Modern self-identification as Chaldean is recorded when directly relevant to a person or contemporary movement, but it is never accepted as corroboration of descent from the ancient Kaldu. A claim to a separate ancient origin requires independent historical sources, not the religious label itself."}, {"title": "The history of a name", "text": "James F. Coakley's GEDSH entry traces a change from geographically specific uses of Assyrian in pre-modern sources to broader ethnic and national uses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is one scholarly account of naming. Changes in the use of a name are a different question from the survival of regional populations or traditions. A fuller treatment must compare competing historical interpretations rather than turn terminology alone into a verdict on ancestry."}, {"title": "Why modern Chaldean naming requires a timeline", "text": "The independent Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage distinguishes Chaldean as a historical church designation from its later national and ethnic applications. It records a papal use in 1445, early modern relations between the Church of the East and Rome, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century political debates. The modern usage was not first invented in the late 1990s. In the record of contemporary national advocacy, Assyrian and Chaldean names both occur as contested identity labels, while the historical overlap of Church of the East populations remains central."}, {"title": "Ancient Chaldeans and today's Chaldean Catholic name are different historical categories", "text": "The ancient Kaldu (Chaldeans) are documented in first-millennium BCE southern Babylonia. Encyclopaedia Iranica and Elizabeth Payne's independent ancient-history entry describe those southern Mesopotamian tribal populations as an ancient subject, not the origins of the much later northern Mesopotamian Chaldean Catholic Church. None of the primary records identified in this archive demonstrates a genealogical or communal chain from those ancient Kaldu to present-day Chaldean Catholics. A medieval or early-modern church title and modern ethnic self-description cannot fill that gap. The archive therefore does not present distinct ancient Kaldu descent as a supported alternative origin alongside the documented Church of the East and shared Assyrian historical inheritance. Historical population descent is evaluated from dated evidence, not a reused ethnonym or a church's own claim."}, {"title": "Proof status: ancient Kaldu descent not demonstrated", "text": "Evidence finding: NOT DEMONSTRATED in the cited historical record. The ancient Kaldu are attested as southern Babylonian tribes; the modern Chaldean Catholic Church is documented in a different era and northern Mesopotamian East Syriac religious context. No direct, independently verified ancient-to-modern source sequence, identifiable genealogical chain, or contemporaneous primary testimony has been supplied to establish that the modern Catholic community is a surviving distinct Kaldu ethnicity. An assertion of continuity cannot be treated as a live historical explanation merely because it cannot be logically disproved. The burden of evidence lies with any claimed connection. Modern self-identification is a descriptive fact about usage, not evidence of ancient ancestry. Compare ancient Kaldu specialists, Coakley's independent naming dictionary and Hanoosh's independently published modern community research."}, {"title": "Independent voices, denominational interests and bias", "text": "The archive distinguishes independent historical research from statements issued by churches about themselves. Coakley's Syriac heritage dictionary documents Chaldean Catholic ecclesiastical naming and later ethnic usages; Dandamayev and Payne describe ancient southern Babylonian Kaldu; Parker studies early modern church affiliation; Donabed presents an Assyrian cross-denominational interpretation; Hanoosh studies a modern identity formation without establishing ancient Kaldu descent. Such sources do not all address the same question and are not presented as competing genealogical proofs. Catholic diocesan publications may attest doctrine, communion and first-party positions, but they cannot supply missing primary genealogical evidence. Where scholarly conclusions or institutional interests differ, their provenance and limitations must remain visible."}, {"title": "What language evidence does and does not say", "text": "Shared Syriac liturgical heritage and varieties of Neo-Aramaic are documented across Catholic and non-Catholic East Syriac communities. Ecclesiastical names do not create distinct language families. The linguistic label Chaldean Neo-Aramaic is a descriptive convention for particular modern varieties: it does not prove descent from the ancient southern Babylonian Kaldu, whose attested setting and historical evidence are different. Linguistic classification and community self-description must be attributed to specialists and speakers, not inferred from ecclesiastical authority."}, {"title": "How the archive applies the evidence", "text": "In Biblical history, cite relevant Scripture as the first record of what that text says. In ancient history, use edited tablets and archaeological source descriptions. In East Syriac church history, distinguish Church of the East and Catholic communion chronology from modern ethnicity. In the present day, describe people respectfully using their own disclosed identification, and clearly attribute broader political claims to their advocates. Claims of suppression, engineered division or deliberate rewriting require documentation of a particular act or source; disagreement alone is not proof of motive."}], "sources": ["gedsh-assyrians", "gedsh-chaldeans", "iranica-ancient-chaldeans", "wiley-payne-ancient-chaldaeans", "parker-2018-chaldaean", "hanoosh-2019-chaldean-identity", "donabed-2012-appellative", "modern-acoe", "modern-chaldean", "gedsh-aramaic", "modern-kanna"], "related": ["chaldean-name-and-heritage", "chaldean-church", "church-of-the-east", "faith-and-churches", "aramaic", "australia", "diaspora", "post-imperial-assyria"], "image": null, "note": "Assyrian historical heritage is central. Independent scholarship and named source roles are distinguished from church advocacy and contemporary individual self-identification."}, {"slug": "ancient-assyria", "title": "Ancient Assyria", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "From a city on the Tigris to a major imperial power: an introduction to the places, periods and evidence.", "sections": [{"title": "Begin with Ashur", "text": "Assyria developed in northern Mesopotamia, with the city of Ashur as a central religious and political reference point. Its history covers changing institutions and territories over many centuries. The Old, Middle and Neo-Assyrian labels are scholarly period divisions; they should not suggest that the same imperial boundaries existed throughout."}, {"title": "Trade before the great palaces", "text": "Old Assyrian merchants operating in Anatolia in the early second millennium BCE left written accounts of trade, credit, travel and family affairs. Their tablets illuminate the practical work behind long-distance exchange. They offer a useful counterweight to the much later royal monuments that dominate popular images of Assyria."}, {"title": "The imperial centuries", "text": "Assyria expanded in the Middle Assyrian period and again in the ninth to seventh centuries BCE. Rulers constructed major capitals at Kalhu, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh. Monumental art proclaimed royal authority, while inscriptions presented campaigns and building works in the king's preferred terms. These are important primary sources, but their political purpose matters when assessing what they tell us."}, {"title": "After the empire", "text": "The late seventh-century BCE collapse of Assyrian imperial power marks a political transformation. It should not be treated as proof that every local population or cultural practice disappeared. Ashur itself experienced later occupation, including a Parthian revival. Studying subsequent centuries requires their own evidence rather than filling the interval with assumptions."}, {"title": "A route through the archive", "text": "Read the city entries for geography, the trade article for everyday documents, and the art entries for visual interpretation. Keep a distinction between an artefact's ancient setting, its modern excavation and its later museum history. The full story includes all three."}, {"title": "From a city to a territorial kingdom", "text": "Ashur stood on the Tigris before Assyrian kings governed a much larger territory. Early second-millennium merchants linked the city to Anatolian settlements, carrying tin and textiles and arranging business through households. The later Middle Assyrian kingdom extended political control westwards into northern Mesopotamia. Provincial offices, agricultural estates and obligations of service sustained that larger state.\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian centuries brought another expansion of scale. Some conquered areas became provinces, while other rulers remained in place under tribute and loyalty obligations. Those arrangements differed in how directly officials intervened in local government. An imperial map therefore represents several relationships, rather than one identical form of rule everywhere."}, {"title": "Why the capitals changed", "text": "Ashur retained religious importance after the royal court moved elsewhere. Ashurnasirpal II developed Kalhu, now Nimrud; Sargon II built Dur-Sharrukin, now Khorsabad; and Sennacherib centred his court at Nineveh. Each capital required labour, materials, provisions and a supporting landscape.\n\nNineveh's fall in 612 BCE and the later defeat of remaining Assyrian resistance ended imperial supremacy. They did not erase every settlement or population in northern Mesopotamia. The subsequent history includes changing states, regional occupation, languages and religious institutions. Following those later developments explains both continuity and change without pretending that the palace administration survived intact."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "met-assyria", "met-caravan", "unesco-ashur", "met-court", "oracc-rinap", "wikipedia-assyria"], "related": ["bible-reading-guide", "ashur", "old-assyrian-trade", "nimrud", "nineveh", "ashurnasirpal-ii", "assyrian-governance", "fall-of-nineveh", "post-imperial-assyria", "historical-evidence-methods", "black-obelisk-jehu", "middle-assyrian-overview", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration"], "image": "relief", "note": "Introductory synthesis. Ancient chronology can vary between scholarly systems; dates are approximate where indicated.", "passages": [["GEN", 10, 8, 12], ["2KI", 15, 19, 29], ["2KI", 17, 1, 6], ["2KI", 18, 13, 37], ["2KI", 19, 1, 37], ["ISA", 19, 23, 25]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "ashur", "title": "Ashur: city, sanctuary and crossroads", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The Tigris city at the heart of Assyrian political and religious life.", "sections": [{"title": "On the Tigris", "text": "Ashur, also written Assur or Aššur, is the archaeological site known as Qal'at Sherqat in present-day Iraq. UNESCO dates the city to the third millennium BCE and describes its setting near the transition between rain-fed and irrigated agriculture."}, {"title": "More than a capital", "text": "Ashur was an important trading centre and the religious centre associated with the god Ashur. A city's religious significance could endure after a ruler moved the court elsewhere. The city therefore belongs in histories of commerce and ritual as well as accounts of kingship."}, {"title": "A site with several lives", "text": "The site's history extends beyond the Assyrian imperial period. UNESCO records a revival under the Parthians. Archaeological layers must be dated and interpreted individually: a later building cannot automatically be read as evidence of an unchanged earlier institution. For conservation information, consult UNESCO's dated reports rather than assuming the site's condition is static."}, {"title": "A sacred centre beside the Tigris", "text": "Ashur occupied a defensible position on the Tigris. Its elevated northern area contained major public and religious buildings, while domestic neighbourhoods extended through the settlement. The sanctuary of the god Ashur linked the city's identity with Assyrian kingship. A ruler could establish a court elsewhere without making this religious centre irrelevant.\n\nThat distinction explains why Ashur remains important in a history often organised around the great Neo-Assyrian capitals. Political administration and sacred geography were connected but did not always have the same centre. The city's temples, houses and records also illuminate activities less visible in royal campaign accounts."}, {"title": "Several phases of occupation", "text": "Early merchants connected Ashur with Anatolia through goods, credit, family correspondence and disputes. Those commercial relationships preceded the best-known imperial palace programmes. Their records reveal a city involved in long-distance exchange, rather than an origin story concerned only with conquest.\n\nAshur also had substantial occupation after the empire's collapse, including a Parthian-period revival. Later buildings should be distinguished from Bronze and Iron Age structures. The same archaeological place can preserve several historical worlds; explaining their sequence is more useful than treating every surviving wall as part of a single Assyrian imperial moment."}], "sources": ["unesco-ashur", "wikipedia-assur"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "old-assyrian-trade", "heritage-stewardship", "assyrian-religious-life", "post-imperial-assyria", "middle-assyrian-religion-ritual", "middle-assyrian-households-inheritance"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "old-assyrian-trade", "title": "Merchants, caravans and clay tablets", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Commercial records open a window onto travel, enterprise and family life in the Old Assyrian world.", "sections": [{"title": "A trading network", "text": "In the early second millennium BCE, merchants from Ashur established settlements in Anatolia. Tin and textiles travelled through these networks in exchange for precious metals. Surviving tablets record investments, expenditure, loans and disputes as well as correspondence."}, {"title": "Read a real document", "text": "The Met's caravan account, object 66.245.10, is a concrete starting point. Its record connects an individual clay object to the logistics of moving goods. A catalogue description is useful, but a full historical argument also requires a text edition, translation and the tablet's archaeological context."}, {"title": "A different Assyrian world", "text": "These commercial archives predate the great Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs by many centuries. Reading them together is rewarding precisely because their social settings differ. The archive will expand this topic through individual documents, named merchants and the roles of women in family correspondence, using specialist editions."}, {"title": "How a caravan business operated", "text": "Merchants from Ashur carried tin and textiles into Anatolia and received silver and other returns. Donkeys moved consignments between settlements, while food, transport, taxes and intermediaries affected the result of a shipment. A profitable sale and the total profit of a journey were therefore different figures.\n\nKanesh, at modern Kultepe, became a major centre of this network. Merchants could maintain houses and records there while relatives and partners remained in Ashur. Credit and letters helped organise transactions across that separation. The business depended on maintaining obligations between people, not simply on finding a valuable commodity.\n\nA surviving account of Imdi-ilum's firm, Met 66.245.10, makes these costs concrete. It records investment in tin, textiles and lapis lazuli alongside guides, donkeys, equipment and fodder. Animals could be sold after arrival. The account then works towards a silver balance, showing how transport and sale belonged to one calculation."}, {"title": "Households supplied goods and information", "text": "Women participated in the commercial world through textile production, property and financial arrangements. Relatives could organise consignments, request payments and report difficulties. The household was consequently part of the enterprise, even when only one member travelled.\n\nA caravan account follows expenditure and returns; a private letter can carry an instruction or a complaint about a delayed payment. Read together, they explain different stages of a family business. These Old Assyrian commercial archives belong to an earlier setting than Middle Assyrian provincial administration and should not be used as interchangeable documents of one unchanging economy.\n\nIn Met 66.245.1, Puzur-Ashur writes to his brothers about a business dispute and companions reportedly detained before reaching Kanesh. Commercial correspondence carried requests for news alongside financial matters. The letter and caravan account concern the same family firm, connecting the figures in an account with the uncertainty experienced by its participants."}], "sources": ["met-caravan", "wikipedia-old-assyrian-period", "met-old-assyrian-caravan-66-245-10", "met-old-assyrian-letter-66-245-1"], "related": ["akkadian-and-cuneiform", "ancient-assyria", "research-guide", "middle-assyrian-routes-and-exchange"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "nimrud", "title": "Nimrud, ancient Kalhu", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "A royal capital whose architecture and sculpture shaped the visual language of Assyrian kingship.", "sections": [{"title": "A capital rebuilt", "text": "Ashurnasirpal II, who reigned approximately 883-859 BCE, made Kalhu a major royal capital. The site is widely known today as Nimrud. The palace sculptures now held in museums originally formed parts of architectural spaces, rather than independent pictures."}, {"title": "Reconstructing a setting", "text": "The Met's Assyrian Sculpture Court evokes a palace setting while explicitly acknowledging that it is not a full reconstruction. Its reliefs originated in multiple rooms. That distinction helps visitors separate a modern display from a securely known ancient arrangement."}, {"title": "Look closely", "text": "Observe changes in scale, repeated figures, patterned clothing and the relationship between carved imagery and inscriptions. Then ask where a panel stood and who could see it. Those contextual questions are as valuable as identifying the king or protective figure."}, {"title": "Kalhu as a working capital", "text": "Ashurnasirpal II transformed Kalhu into a major ninth-century BCE royal centre. The North-West Palace combined ceremonial display, controlled approaches and the needs of a court. Reliefs and monumental guardians were architectural elements encountered as visitors moved through its spaces.\n\nThe capital required stores, craft production, water and agricultural support. Transport and construction connected the palace to people and resources beyond its walls. Museum displays often privilege the carved decoration, but the city also depended on activities that left fewer spectacular objects. Royal art is one part of understanding how Kalhu functioned."}, {"title": "Ivories, tombs and the wider city", "text": "Excavations recovered carved ivories and objects associated with elite households and royal tombs as well as reliefs. Some ivories reflect artistic traditions outside Assyria, revealing the court's regional connections. An object found in an Assyrian palace was not necessarily made by a local workshop.\n\nKalhu is associated with the biblical Calah of Genesis 10. Nimrud is the later name commonly used for the site. Keeping those names together connects biblical geography, ancient urban history and archaeology without creating three separate cities. Findspots and building contexts then help explain where individual objects belonged."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "met-court", "met-lion", "wikipedia-nimrud"], "related": ["bible-reading-guide", "lamassu", "royal-reliefs", "ancient-assyria", "ashurnasirpal-ii", "shalmaneser-iii", "black-obelisk-jehu"], "image": "relief", "note": null, "passages": [["GEN", 10, 8, 12]], "passage_note": "Genesis names Calah among the cities in its account of Nimrod and Assyria. The identification of ancient Kalhu with the archaeological site now called Nimrud comes from historical and archaeological evidence; the modern site name does not establish that Nimrod lived there.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "khorsabad", "title": "Dur-Sharrukin and Khorsabad", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Sargon II's planned royal city, known through its remains, excavations and monumental guardians.", "sections": [{"title": "A royal foundation", "text": "Dur-Sharrukin, at modern Khorsabad, was built as a capital by Sargon II. It was a short-lived centre of royal power. The French Ministry of Culture's archaeological resource introduces the site, its palace and its excavation history."}, {"title": "Ancient city, modern discoveries", "text": "Paul-Emile Botta began major excavations at Khorsabad in 1843. Excavation records are part of the evidence, but nineteenth-century discovery narratives should be read alongside the history of the place and its local communities."}, {"title": "What needs further study", "text": "A complete entry should distinguish the original city plan, surviving archaeology, reconstructed architecture and objects dispersed among collections. Museum photographs alone cannot establish a palace's complete appearance. This introduction links to specialist material rather than presenting an imagined reconstruction as fact."}, {"title": "A city built around a king", "text": "Dur-Sharrukin, Fortress of Sargon, was Sargon II's ambitious new capital. Its palace, religious buildings and walled urban layout required timber, stone, workers and provisions. Construction was therefore an exercise in organising resources as well as a statement of royal authority.\n\nMonumental guardians and reliefs shaped the approach to royal space. Their arrangement made power visible to visitors rather than merely illustrating an inscription. At the same time, the practical work of building and maintaining the city connected the court to labour and materials drawn from a much wider region."}, {"title": "Why a great project could lose its purpose", "text": "Sargon died on campaign in 705 BCE. His successor Sennacherib established the court at Nineveh, so the new city did not retain its intended role as the principal capital. The scale of a ruler's investment did not compel the next reign to follow the same plan.\n\nKhorsabad's excavated architecture and dispersed sculptures now provide different parts of that history. Reconstructing a room requires plans and recorded findspots, rather than arranging surviving museum objects as if they formed a complete set. The capital's brief political prominence is itself an important part of its explanation."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "khorsabad-ministry", "wikipedia-dur-sharrukin"], "related": ["bible-reading-guide", "nimrud", "lamassu", "heritage-stewardship", "sargon-ii"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["ISA", 20, 1, 6]], "passage_note": "Isaiah 20 names Sargon and Ashdod. It does not name Dur-Sharrukin; the connection between Sargon II and that capital is supplied by the archaeological and inscriptional evidence cited in this article.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "nineveh", "title": "Nineveh and the library of Ashurbanipal", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Royal collections of clay tablets reveal a wider world of scholarship, copying and commentary.", "sections": [{"title": "A city of collected knowledge", "text": "Nineveh housed the royal scholarly collections associated with Ashurbanipal. Their tablets are central to the study of ancient Mesopotamian learning. The phrase \"library of Ashurbanipal\" is useful, but should not imply a modern public lending library."}, {"title": "Part of a larger network", "text": "Yale's Cuneiform Commentaries Project distinguishes temple, palace and private collections across several Mesopotamian cities. Nineveh's collections belonged within this wider scholarly landscape. Calling them the world's first library would erase earlier and parallel traditions."}, {"title": "Reading tablets today", "text": "Researchers compare manuscripts, identify joins between fragments and interpret texts with attention to copying and commentary. CDLI offers catalogue and text resources across cuneiform cultures. A digital record is a route into the evidence, rather than permission to reproduce every photograph or translation associated with it."}, {"title": "The capital extended into its surrounding landscape", "text": "Nineveh lay on the eastern bank of the Tigris within the area of modern Mosul. Sennacherib developed its palace, walls, gates, gardens and water supply. Those projects connected the enclosed city with a larger landscape supplying food, construction material and water.\n\nThe main archaeological mounds include Kuyunjik and Nabi Yunus. A mound contains accumulated phases of occupation, not a single building preserved untouched. Different excavations expose different parts of that sequence, while modern construction also affects access. The ancient site and modern city therefore overlap rather than belonging to wholly separate landscapes."}, {"title": "Learning was part of court activity", "text": "The tablets conventionally associated with Ashurbanipal's library include literature, lexical texts, omens, medicine and rituals. Learned work served religious and practical needs as well as preserving prestigious compositions. Copyists and specialists helped organise that knowledge.\n\nNineveh fell in 612 BCE to a coalition including Babylonian and Median forces. Destruction damaged and dispersed material while helping preserve some clay tablets. Later occupation and Christian history belong to subsequent phases of the place. Their existence is important, but does not mean that the imperial court or its administration continued unchanged."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "yale-libraries", "cdli", "wikipedia-nineveh"], "related": ["bible-reading-guide", "akkadian-and-cuneiform", "research-guide", "ancient-assyria", "sennacherib", "ashurbanipal", "fall-of-nineveh", "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah", "babylonian-chronicle-nineveh"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["GEN", 10, 11, 12], ["JON", 3, 1, 10], ["JON", 4, 1, 11], ["NAH", 1, 1, 15], ["ZEP", 2, 13, 15], ["MAT", 12, 41, 41]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "lamassu", "title": "Lamassu: guardians in stone", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Human heads, powerful bodies and wings: the monumental figures at Assyrian palace thresholds.", "sections": [{"title": "Protection and presence", "text": "Assyrian lamassu combined a human head with a winged bull or lion body. They stood at important palace entrances as protective figures. The Met's human-headed winged lion from Nimrud dates to approximately 883-859 BCE and is carved from gypsum alabaster."}, {"title": "Why five legs?", "text": "Some monumental examples have five legs. Seen from the front they appear firmly planted; seen from the side they seem to stride. This solution responds to a visitor moving past a doorway. It is a useful reminder to read monumental sculpture through viewpoint and architecture."}, {"title": "Ancient object, contemporary meaning", "text": "A lamassu may now function as a cultural emblem, an artistic reference or an image of heritage. Those contemporary uses deserve documentation in their own right. They should be distinguished from what an individual ancient sculpture's context supports. The photographs in this archive identify the actual museum object and its licence."}, {"title": "A guardian experienced from two directions", "text": "Assyrian monumental guardians combine a human head, wings and the body of a powerful animal, usually a bull or lion. At palace entrances, their composite form marked a protected transition into royal space. Their scale and position were part of their effect.\n\nMany examples have five legs. From the front the creature appears firmly standing; from the side it appears to stride. The sculptor accommodated two viewpoints rather than depicting an ordinary animal. A visitor's movement through the doorway was therefore part of how the work was experienced."}, {"title": "Stone, labour and religious protection", "text": "Quarrying, transporting, carving and installing a huge stone guardian required organised labour. Some examples also carry inscriptions, joining a physical presence with written royal statements. The object is evidence of resources and craft skills as well as protective imagery.\n\nProtective beings and the terminology associated with them have a longer Mesopotamian history. The giant winged palace figures should not be equated with every earlier image called by a related name. The origin, date and architectural position of an individual sculpture provide a stronger explanation than a claim that all guardians had one unchanging form."}], "sources": ["met-lion", "met-lamassu", "wikipedia-lamassu"], "related": ["nimrud", "royal-reliefs", "heritage-stewardship"], "image": "lamassu", "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "royal-reliefs", "title": "Reading Assyrian palace art", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Reliefs preserve extraordinary craftsmanship and carefully constructed statements about power.", "sections": [{"title": "Art within architecture", "text": "Assyrian stone panels formed parts of palace interiors. Their scale, arrangement and proximity to thresholds affected how they were experienced. Museum installations can help evoke this relationship, while remaining modern interpretations."}, {"title": "Ask who is speaking", "text": "Royal imagery is not a neutral photographic record. A ruler commissioned images to represent authority, ritual or military success. Read scenes alongside inscriptions, archaeological context and independent evidence before drawing conclusions about a particular event."}, {"title": "A practical looking guide", "text": "Begin with material and object provenance. Note the figure's posture, dress, gestures and repeated motifs. Check which elements a museum identifies confidently and which remain interpretations. Further articles should explore individual works, workshop practices, colour and the histories of excavation and collecting."}, {"title": "Scenes organise events into a narrative", "text": "A palace relief can arrange approaches, city walls, siege equipment, surrender, prisoners and royal reception into a sequence. Repeated figures and gestures guide a visitor through the campaign. Equipment and landscape details give the scene more specificity than a general victory announcement.\n\nThe composition nevertheless centres royal success. Scale and position communicate hierarchy rather than neutral measurements. Small details of clothing, furniture and military equipment can still provide useful information within that political presentation. Explaining the narrative and its visual choices allows readers to understand both the information and the court's purpose."}, {"title": "An architectural surface rather than a museum picture", "text": "Relief slabs originally worked with rooms, doorways, inscriptions and movement through a palace. Their modern appearance as isolated museum objects separates them from that setting. Ancient surfaces could also be painted, so bare stone is only part of their original visual effect.\n\nAt Lachish the subject is a named campaign; elsewhere hunting or ritual communicates different royal qualities. Comparing those subjects explains the selection made by a decorative programme. It was never a complete visual survey of ordinary Assyrian life, but its chosen themes reveal how a court wanted kingship to be understood."}], "sources": ["met-court", "met-assyria", "met-relief", "wikipedia-assyrian-sculpture"], "related": ["nimrud", "lamassu", "research-guide", "sennacherib", "ashurnasirpal-ii", "lachish-reliefs-context"], "image": "relief", "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "akkadian-and-cuneiform", "title": "Akkadian and cuneiform", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A language and a writing system are different things. This distinction unlocks the ancient evidence.", "sections": [{"title": "Language versus script", "text": "Akkadian is an ancient Semitic language; Assyrian and Babylonian are conventionally treated as its varieties. Cuneiform is a writing system used for more than one language. A tablet written with wedge-shaped signs is therefore not automatically an Assyrian text."}, {"title": "Finding texts", "text": "CDLI provides records, images and textual resources for cuneiform inscriptions across periods and languages. Search by object, collection and linguistic attribution where available. A transliteration represents the signs in scholarly notation; a translation interprets their meaning in another language."}, {"title": "The modern-language distinction", "text": "Modern Assyrian Neo-Aramaic belongs within Aramaic. It should not be described as present-day spoken Akkadian. Contact, historical memory and cultural inheritance are different questions from a language's linguistic classification. Follow the Aramaic and Sureth articles for the living-language side of the story."}, {"title": "A language is different from its writing system", "text": "Akkadian is a Semitic language with major historical varieties including Assyrian and Babylonian. Cuneiform is a writing system used for Akkadian and for other languages, including Sumerian. Seeing wedge-shaped signs therefore does not identify the language by itself.\n\nAkkadian texts combine syllabic signs, word signs and classifiers associated with names or objects. A word can be represented in more than one way. Transliteration expresses readings of the signs in Latin characters, while translation interprets their meaning in another language. Those are different stages of the reading process."}, {"title": "What a tablet's form contributes", "text": "A stylus impressed signs into clay before it dried. A small receipt could fit quantities, names and a date onto a portable object, while a learned composition might occupy several columns or tablets. Shape and layout were connected with purpose.\n\nDamage can remove part of a word or clause. Editors use conventions to distinguish surviving signs from proposed restorations, and a translation may include uncertainty that a fluent English sentence can conceal. Reading cuneiform consequently requires language and genre as well as sign recognition. A photograph, transliteration and translation supply different information."}], "sources": ["cambridge-mesopotamian-languages", "cdli", "gedsh-aramaic", "wikipedia-akkadian-language"], "related": ["aramaic", "old-assyrian-trade", "nineveh", "imperial-languages", "cuneiform-reading-methods", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "aramaic", "title": "Aramaic: a family of histories", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A broad linguistic tradition with many historical forms and modern speaker communities.", "sections": [{"title": "One label, many varieties", "text": "Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language tradition with a long and varied history. The name covers forms used in different regions, periods and communities. It does not designate one unchanged language shared identically by every speaker across time."}, {"title": "Syriac and living speech", "text": "Classical Syriac is an important literary and liturgical Aramaic variety. Modern Neo-Aramaic includes several distinct groups and local varieties. Cambridge's NENA project documents North-Eastern varieties, including those historically spoken by Christian and Jewish communities. Surayt, associated with Tur Abdin, needs its own description."}, {"title": "Choose a learning route", "text": "Before selecting a course, identify the goal: reading Classical Syriac, speaking a family's local variety or studying a particular regional standard. Record the teacher's terminology and pronunciation tradition. Materials aimed at one goal may be valuable without being interchangeable with materials for another."}, {"title": "What the archive will preserve", "text": "Future language entries should pair writing with native-speaker recordings, named local varieties and a clear transliteration key. The foundation edition links to documented external resources. It does not generate unreviewed pronunciation audio or claim that a short word list represents every community."}, {"title": "A widespread language developed local forms", "text": "Aramaic spread across communities and political networks in the first millennium BCE. Its alphabetic writing could be used on materials that survive differently from clay tablets. The surviving record is therefore not a direct count of all the speech heard in ancient households or offices.\n\nBroad official use did not make every speaker identical. Regional spoken and written varieties continued to develop. Aramaic describes a historical linguistic world with several periods and local traditions, rather than a single pronunciation preserved unchanged from antiquity until today."}, {"title": "Where Syriac and modern varieties fit", "text": "Classical Syriac developed from an Aramaic tradition associated with Edessa and became a major language of Christian literature and worship. Modern Neo-Aramaic includes Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and the Turoyo/Surayt tradition of Tur Abdin. Relatedness does not make every ancient text automatically intelligible to a modern speaker.\n\nThe officials' exchange in 2 Kings 18 provides a concrete example of language choice. Officials request Aramaic while the public audience has a different role in the confrontation. The passage shows why who understands a speech can matter politically, without establishing that all Assyrians used one language."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "gedsh-aramaic", "gedsh-syriac", "cambridge-nena", "gedsh-turoyo", "wikipedia-aramaic"], "related": ["bible-reading-guide", "classical-syriac", "sureth", "surayt", "endangered-languages", "imperial-languages"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 18, 26, 28], ["ISA", 36, 11, 13]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "classical-syriac", "title": "Classical Syriac", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The literary and liturgical language of a wide intellectual and religious heritage.", "sections": [{"title": "Origins and reach", "text": "Syriac is an Aramaic variety associated in its origins with Edessa, modern Urfa. It developed a large literary tradition, including prose, poetry and translations. Its texts preserve much more than ecclesiastical history: they also inform political, intellectual and cultural research."}, {"title": "A literary tradition", "text": "The fourth to seventh centuries were especially productive in Syriac literature. Manuscripts and later copies transmit works across many periods. The date of a physical manuscript and the date of the text it contains may be centuries apart."}, {"title": "Reading today", "text": "Classical Syriac continues in literary and liturgical use alongside living Neo-Aramaic varieties. Learning to read it requires attention to grammar, vocalisation and script tradition. The manuscript and script guides point to specialist teaching resources; the sources remain the place for fuller linguistic description."}, {"title": "A literature with several practical purposes", "text": "Syriac writing includes biblical translations, hymns, verse homilies, commentaries, chronicles, letters, law, grammar and learned works. It provided texts for worship and education while connecting readers with Greek, Iranian and later Arabic intellectual worlds.\n\nThe genres served different needs. A hymn could teach through repetition and performance; a chronicle could organise remembered events; and a commentary could explain a passage closely. Ephrem, Aphrahat and Jacob of Serugh represent different settings and forms within that tradition. Treating the whole literature as liturgy would miss much of what its authors did."}, {"title": "A learned language crossed political borders", "text": "Syriac authors and readers lived under several states and belonged to more than one church. Books and teachers could travel beyond the place of composition. Schools, monasteries, copyists and translators all participated in that transmission.\n\nThe learned register of a manuscript is not simply another name for every modern spoken Assyrian variety. A reader can ask both what a text says and what kind of language it uses. Those questions distinguish literary tradition, everyday conversation and ecclesiastical use without turning language into an exclusive label controlled by one institution."}], "sources": ["gedsh-syriac", "syriaca-intro", "wikipedia-syriac-literature"], "related": ["syriac-scripts", "manuscripts", "ephrem", "syriac-script-histories", "syriac-unicode-reading"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "sureth", "title": "Sureth and North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Living speech, regional variation and literary practice across related communities.", "sections": [{"title": "A name with local meanings", "text": "Sureth is used for several North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic varieties, especially in northern Iraq. Its exact scope varies between speakers and publications. A responsible word list should say whose variety it records rather than presenting one form as universal."}, {"title": "Written and spoken heritage", "text": "The GEDSH entry describes literary use attested from the late sixteenth century and discusses religious poems and recorded wedding songs. The history of writing is one part of the picture; everyday speech and oral performance require their own records."}, {"title": "Listen to documented voices", "text": "Cambridge's NENA project offers recorded material and descriptions organised by dialect. Such resources help readers encounter actual variation. When comparing vocabulary, preserve the locality, speaker context and transcription system supplied by the documentation project."}, {"title": "Local speech has its own history", "text": "Sureth is a community name used for speech within the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic world. Towns and villages across northern Iraq and neighbouring regions developed varieties that can differ in sound patterns, vocabulary and grammar. A shared wider identity does not remove those local histories.\n\nThe Cambridge documentation identifies recorded speakers and places. Alqosh and Ankawa are therefore not interchangeable samples of an entirely uniform language. A recording preserves the speech of a person in a setting, and migration, education and family relationships can also influence that speech."}, {"title": "Reading and speaking develop through different activities", "text": "Modern Assyrian writing commonly uses Syriac script, but a writing convention does not match every speaker's pronunciation in a simple one-to-one way. Reading lessons and family conversation can teach different kinds of vocabulary and fluency.\n\nChildren encounter language through households, classes, worship, music and media. Maintaining ordinary speech requires opportunities to use it, not only the ability to identify letters. Practical conversation and literacy contribute different skills to transmission. Resources become more useful when they identify the variety taught and connect examples with a spoken form and meaning."}], "sources": ["gedsh-sureth", "cambridge-nena", "wikipedia-suret-language"], "related": ["aramaic", "endangered-languages", "oral-history", "nena-dialect-comparison", "urmi-neo-aramaic-recordings"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "surayt", "title": "Surayt, also known as Turoyo", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A modern Aramaic tradition associated with Tur Abdin and its diaspora.", "sections": [{"title": "Place and language", "text": "Surayt, often called Turoyo in scholarship, is associated with Tur Abdin. It has its own linguistic and literary history and should not be reduced to a generic version of Sureth."}, {"title": "A growing written life", "text": "The GEDSH account describes wider written use in the second half of the twentieth century, including diaspora publications and writing for children. Literary development and spoken tradition belong together; a relatively recent print history does not make a spoken language new."}, {"title": "A course to explore", "text": "Freie Universitat Berlin announced the advanced SLOMO SURAYT course in 2020. Its online learning materials include grammar, texts and a glossary. Follow the university's project link to the course and review its terms before reproducing any exercises. Free learning access is different from an unrestricted content licence."}, {"title": "Tur Abdin and the diaspora are both settings of use", "text": "Surayt, widely called Turoyo in linguistic literature, belongs to the Central Neo-Aramaic tradition associated with Tur Abdin. Its history involves towns, villages and monasteries in south-eastern Turkey, while migration has made diaspora communities important centres of speaking and teaching.\n\nIt is related to other Aramaic varieties but should not be treated as a local pronunciation of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic. A course for one cannot automatically serve as a course for the other. Naming the language and its teaching convention helps a learner select appropriate material."}, {"title": "A lesson needs sound, meaning and use", "text": "Learning Syriac letters is useful for written Surayt, but it does not by itself teach verb forms, common expressions or conversational patterns. A written example becomes more useful when paired with a spoken form and an explanation of its use.\n\nA course arranges material for progression. A field recording documents a particular encounter and may contain forms outside a learner's current lessons. Moving between a short taught pattern and a comparable recording connects instruction with actual speech, rather than treating the course's selected convention as the only form every speaker uses."}], "sources": ["gedsh-turoyo", "fu-surayt", "wikipedia-turoyo-language"], "related": ["aramaic", "syriac-scripts", "endangered-languages", "surayt-documentation"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "syriac-scripts", "title": "Syriac scripts and the written word", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac are writing traditions with histories of use and adaptation.", "sections": [{"title": "Recognising the traditions", "text": "HMML School introduces Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac through manuscript examples. Letter forms, vowel marks and scribal practices vary. Script labels describe writing traditions; they do not provide a rigid test of ethnicity."}, {"title": "A script can cross languages", "text": "Syriac script has also been used for non-Aramaic languages. Garshuni, in the teaching resource linked here, describes Arabic written using Syriac letters. This is another reason to keep script and language separate."}, {"title": "Reading responsibly", "text": "A beautiful letterform is not enough to establish a correct transcription. Check orientation, joining, vowel marks and the manuscript's hand. Future alphabet lessons in this archive will need a stated tradition and specialist review. For now, HMML's palaeography lessons provide a stronger foundation than an unattributed alphabet graphic."}, {"title": "Three principal styles share an alphabet", "text": "Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac are major styles of Syriac writing, not three unrelated alphabets. Learning the underlying letters lets a reader compare how a hand or typeface draws them. A visible shape and an encoded or named character are different layers of identification.\n\nSyriac is written from right to left, has 22 basic letters and no upper/lower-case distinction. Joining and neighbouring letters affect appearance. Vowel and other reading marks can add information not provided by the consonant letters alone. Those features explain why letter identification must be practised in words as well as isolated charts."}, {"title": "What to observe on a manuscript page", "text": "Start with repeated shapes, joins, breaks and the placement of marks rather than immediately assigning a page to a church. An unfamiliar font or a damaged image can make one letter misleading.\n\nThe main text and a marginal note may also belong to different hands or periods of use. Script description can assist comparison, but dating and locating a manuscript require other evidence, including material, contents, colophons and custody. Recognising a style contributes to the book's history; it does not supply its complete provenance."}], "sources": ["hmml-palaeography", "wikipedia-syriac-alphabet", "unicode-syriac-standard"], "related": ["classical-syriac", "manuscripts", "surayt", "syriac-script-histories", "syriac-unicode-reading"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "manuscripts", "title": "Manuscripts and digital collections", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A guide to finding texts, understanding catalogue records and respecting collection rights.", "sections": [{"title": "More than religious books", "text": "Syriac manuscript collections include scripture and hymns alongside grammar, dictionaries, philosophy and natural history. The John Rylands collection at Manchester offers an institutional starting point, with holdings spanning many centuries."}, {"title": "Distributed heritage", "text": "HMML's Voobus collection documents manuscripts from several countries. The syri.ac discovery guide points to digitised material held across institutions. No single portal contains every surviving manuscript, and a catalogue record does not mean that every page is digitised or openly downloadable."}, {"title": "How to cite a manuscript", "text": "Record the holding institution, collection, shelfmark, folio or page, catalogue URL and access date. Distinguish the manuscript's copying date from the composition date of its contents. Check image rights independently from the copyright status of the ancient text."}, {"title": "Books, archives and modern scholarship", "text": "eBethArke, developed by Beth Mardutho and Rutgers, brings together printed books, manuscripts, recordings and other resources. Its range is a reminder that digital preservation covers modern intellectual life as well as ancient and medieval material."}, {"title": "The work and its surviving copy have different dates", "text": "A manuscript is a physical witness to a work, not necessarily its original composition. A much later book can preserve an earlier author's text alongside other works chosen by the people who assembled it. The date of the object and the date of its contents therefore answer different questions.\n\nGatherings, columns, headings and marginal notes also carry information. A colophon may identify a copyist, patron or place, while later readers can repair, annotate or rearrange a volume. The book preserves a history of use as well as the main text's words."}, {"title": "How a catalogue makes a passage findable", "text": "A useful reference identifies the holding collection, shelfmark and folio. A folio is a leaf with recto and verso faces; a digital viewer's image count is not necessarily the same numbering system. These distinctions matter when another reader tries to locate a passage.\n\nSyriac books now survive in collections far from their production places. Ownership notes and acquisition records can document some movements. A digital copy opens access to one witness, but does not make it the only version of the work or establish that its wording is always the earliest."}], "sources": ["manchester-syriac", "hmml-voobus", "syriac-digimss", "rutgers-ebetharke", "wikipedia-syriac-literature"], "related": ["classical-syriac", "syriac-scripts", "research-guide", "manuscript-provenance-practice"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "ephrem", "title": "Ephrem: poetry and theology", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "A fourth-century writer whose hymns remain central to the study of Syriac literature.", "sections": [{"title": "A documented literary figure", "text": "Ephrem, who died in 373 CE, was a deacon, poet and theologian associated with Nisibis and later Edessa. His works include hymns, metrical homilies, prose and biblical commentary. The scholarly GEDSH entry is the starting point used here."}, {"title": "Read the works with care", "text": "Later authors attributed additional works to Ephrem, and later biographical traditions are not all reliable evidence for his life. An article about him should distinguish securely attributed writing from uncertain or pseudonymous material."}, {"title": "Where to go next", "text": "A fuller treatment can examine an individual hymn through an identified edition and translation, then place its imagery within its theological and literary setting. Modern translations have their own copyright. This introduction links to scholarship rather than reproducing a complete translated hymn."}, {"title": "A career between Nisibis and Edessa", "text": "Ephrem lived in the fourth century and spent much of his life in Nisibis, connected with its Christian community and bishops. The handover of Nisibis to Persian control in 363 displaced its Christian population. Ephrem eventually settled at Edessa, where he spent the final part of his life before his death in 373.\n\nConflict, movement and doctrinal debate formed part of the setting of his work. They also explain why two cities recur in his biography. Later stories about his life need to be distinguished from evidence close to his own period."}, {"title": "Poetry made teaching memorable", "text": "Ephrem's Syriac writing includes hymns and other poetic forms. Biblical figures, natural images and ordinary experience allow an argument to develop through comparison. Repetition and patterned verse also support performance and communal instruction.\n\nA recurring symbol can gather meaning across a composition instead of functioning as an isolated statement. Reading a hymn therefore involves its imagery and structure as well as its doctrine. Ephrem matters to Syriac intellectual history both for what he taught and for the literary forms through which readers and listeners encountered that teaching."}], "sources": ["gedsh-ephrem", "wikipedia-ephrem-the-syrian"], "related": ["classical-syriac", "manuscripts", "faith-and-churches"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "faith-and-churches", "title": "Faith and the Syriac Christian traditions", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Shared East Syriac origins, denominational changes and the distinction between religion and ethnic heritage.", "sections": [{"title": "An intertwined East Syriac history with different churches", "text": "The Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church descend from intertwined East Syriac Christian communities and the historically recognised Church of the East. The Chaldean Catholic Church entered communion with Rome through early modern unions; this denotes an ecclesiastical relationship, not proof of a separate ancient people. The Syriac Orthodox Church is a different West Syriac institution and must not be used as a synonym for the Assyrian Church of the East or for every non-Catholic Assyrian."}, {"title": "What the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries changed", "text": "James Coakley's GEDSH Chaldeans entry records ecclesiastical naming in a papal document in 1445; Lucy Parker's specialist study follows East Syrian Catholic developments in the 1550s. Communities existed long before that organisational history. The name of a church, when it became Catholic, and the genealogy of its members are different propositions. Scholarship cautions that early-modern belief and affiliation were more fluid than later church labels suggest."}, {"title": "Ethnic heritage is not determined by sacraments or patriarchates", "text": "Shared Assyrian and East Syriac historical inheritance is documented across distinct Catholic and non-Catholic church affiliations. A shift into communion with Rome is not an ancient ethnic migration or proof of separate descent from Babylonian Kaldu. Church denomination, spoken language, ancient population history and present ethnic naming are different variables requiring different documents. A modern self-description may be recorded as first-person testimony but is not proof of ancient genealogical continuity. Where a claim to a separate ancient Chaldean people is made, the archive requires a positive historical source chain rather than speculation based on a religious name."}, {"title": "Use the right authorities for the right claim", "text": "The Assyrian Church of the East, Catholic dioceses and the Vatican are primary witnesses to their institutional histories and positions. To evaluate ethnic origins, language, ancient Chaldean tribal history and twentieth-century identity movements, consult independent scholarly works, including Coakley, Hanoosh, Parker, Donabed and ancient-history specialists. The presence of a religious title is not evidence for a distinct ancient ethnicity, and an Assyrian nationalist interpretation should likewise be attributed to its author."}, {"title": "Common heritage without a compulsory identity label", "text": "Present-day people may describe their heritage through Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac or combined labels. Historians examine why these terms were adopted, the circumstances of church unions, migration and politics, and how the labels sometimes create divisions. This archive documents those debates while resisting the practice of treating church membership as a forced assignment of ethnicity. Historical claims remain subject to source-based review."}], "sources": ["modern-acoe", "modern-chaldean", "modern-chaldean-history", "modern-syriac-constitution", "gedsh-chaldeans", "wiley-payne-ancient-chaldaeans", "parker-2018-chaldaean", "vatican-2001-church-of-east-unity", "hanoosh-2019-chaldean-identity", "donabed-2012-appellative", "gedsh-syriac"], "related": ["chaldean-name-and-heritage", "church-of-the-east", "chaldean-church", "syriac-orthodox", "assyrian-identity"], "image": null, "note": "First-party church descriptions do not establish a separate ancient ethnicity; historical and modern identity claims must be independently sourced."}, {"slug": "church-of-the-east", "title": "The Assyrian Church of the East", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "An introduction through the church's own account of its historical and Syriac heritage.", "sections": [{"title": "A first-party account", "text": "The Australian church's historical overview describes development under Parthian and Persian rule and identifies Syriac as its traditional ecclesiastical language. Its story belongs within a wider history of Christianity east of the Roman frontier."}, {"title": "Foundations and evidence", "text": "The church traces its foundation to apostolic activity while noting written records from the late second century. The archive preserves that distinction rather than presenting a traditional first-century date as an independently demonstrated event."}, {"title": "Further coverage", "text": "A full treatment needs scholarship on theology, liturgy, missions, institutions and modern history. The foundation edition avoids time-sensitive claims about leadership or parish schedules. Follow the official church source for its own descriptions and current institutional information."}, {"title": "A church east of the Roman frontier", "text": "The Church of the East developed within the Persian imperial world and organised its hierarchy around Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Political geography mattered because its communities did not simply belong to the structures of the Roman Empire. Councils, episcopal relationships and schools helped connect institutions spread across a wide area.\n\nIts historical reach included communities in India and China, making its history larger than the later denominational boundaries of Iraq. Particular missions and communities still need their own dates: geographical reach did not mean the same depth of influence everywhere."}, {"title": "Learning and shared inheritance", "text": "East Syriac liturgy, biblical interpretation and education formed a durable tradition. Schools and authors transmitted Syriac texts, while local communities also used other languages. Liturgical language and everyday speech should therefore be described separately.\n\nLater divisions and changes of communion produced modern churches with shared historical roots, including the Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church. The historical institution is broader than one present-day organisation's account. Explaining common inheritance makes real ecclesiastical differences understandable without treating a change of religious affiliation as a change in ancient ancestry."}], "sources": ["modern-acoe", "wikipedia-church-of-the-east"], "related": ["faith-and-churches", "chaldean-church", "classical-syriac"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "chaldean-church", "title": "The Chaldean Catholic Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "An East Syriac Catholic church in shared Assyrian and Church of the East history; no cited primary record establishes descent from ancient Babylonian Kaldu.", "sections": [{"title": "The name denotes a Catholic church, not an automatic separate ancestry", "text": "The Chaldean Catholic Church is an East Syriac Catholic church in communion with Rome and related historically to the Church of the East. Its denominational name identifies a church and its communion: membership alone is not proof of a separately descended ancient Chaldean population or an exclusive ethnic language. Assyrian heritage and familial continuities across East Syriac churches must not be obscured by presenting a religious schism as an ancient ethnic division."}, {"title": "How the religious designation developed", "text": "The independent GEDSH Chaldeans article records use for members joining Roman communion in a papal text of 1445. The English Historical Review study by Lucy Parker discusses the formation of East Syrian Catholic institutional affiliation in the 1550s and cautions that church allegiance was complex. The Catholic Near East Welfare Association and the Vatican describe the later communion and shared ecclesiastical background from a Catholic institutional perspective. The Church of the East, its followers and Syriac liturgical traditions long predate these ecclesiastical designations."}, {"title": "Modern ethnic interpretations are not a doctrine or a census", "text": "The term Chaldean also functions as a modern ethnic self-identification for some people, as documented in social-historical scholarship. That observation is not archaeological, genetic or textual evidence connecting those people to the ancient southern Babylonian Kaldu. Donabed documents a historical Assyrian identity across East Syriac religious boundaries and attributes an Assyrian self-description to a former Chaldean patriarch; Hanoosh studies why a distinctive modern name developed. Contemporary naming and political arguments do not create a demonstrably separate ancient ethnicity. The archive distinguishes what people call themselves today from what ancient primary records can substantiate."}, {"title": "Do not confuse modern usage with the ancient Kaldu", "text": "Ancient Chaldeans were West Semitic tribal groups attested in southern Babylonia in the first millennium BCE. That is the historical population described by Encyclopaedia Iranica and Elizabeth Payne's independent ancient-history overview, not the documented origin of the much later Chaldean Catholic Church in East Syriac northern Mesopotamia. No directly verified source in this archive establishes a continuous Kaldu-to-Chaldean Catholic descent line. The similarity of names is not affirmative evidence. An ancient ancestry claim must be treated as unsubstantiated until specific original records establish it, not carried forward as an equally evidenced possibility."}, {"title": "Ancient ethnic lineage: an explicit evidence finding", "text": "Evidence status - NOT DEMONSTRATED. The ancient Kaldu have a historical record in southern Babylonia, and the East Syriac Christians who entered Catholic communion have a documented Church of the East background. The archive has not identified primary evidence connecting the former to the latter by an unbroken ancestry or separate ethnic descent. A denominational name, church teaching, contemporary identity statement or later nationalist narrative cannot serve as that missing primary record. The claim of ancient Chaldean ethnic continuity therefore receives no affirmative historical status in this encyclopaedia. This does not erase present-day personal designations, which are data about modern identity usage and not genealogical evidence."}, {"title": "Shared Syriac inheritance and church differences", "text": "The Chaldean Catholic Church shares East Syriac language, liturgy and a broad cultural history with the Church of the East. It is distinct as an institution from the Assyrian Church of the East and also from the Syriac Orthodox Church, which belongs to the West Syriac ecclesiastical tradition. A church boundary does not automatically establish a national, ethnic or linguistic frontier."}, {"title": "How church sources are used on this page", "text": "The Chaldean diocese, CNEWA and the Vatican are cited for their descriptions of Catholic liturgy, communion and church governance. The historical origins of the naming, shared heritage and contested ethnic usages are compared with independent Syriac-studies dictionaries and peer-reviewed history or ethnography. Church institutional publications are not independently authoritative on whether all Chaldean Catholics constitute an ethnicity separate from Assyrians. Questions about motives for modern identity politics are presented only when supported by evidence, not inferred from disagreement."}], "sources": ["gedsh-chaldeans", "parker-2018-chaldaean", "vatican-2001-church-of-east-unity", "wiley-payne-ancient-chaldaeans", "modern-chaldean", "modern-chaldean-history", "hanoosh-2019-chaldean-identity", "donabed-2012-appellative", "iranica-ancient-chaldeans"], "related": ["chaldean-name-and-heritage", "assyrian-identity", "faith-and-churches", "church-of-the-east", "syriac-orthodox"], "image": null, "note": "Church institutional websites are first-party descriptions. Claims of ethnicity and ancient descent require independently attributed historical analysis."}, {"slug": "syriac-orthodox", "title": "The Syriac Orthodox Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "A West Syriac Christian tradition with its own institutional and cultural heritage.", "sections": [{"title": "An official self-description", "text": "The constitutional document provided by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate's Department of Syriac Studies uses the Syrian/Syriac Orthodox designation and describes the patriarch's institutional authority. It is a first-party source for the church's organisation."}, {"title": "Language and writing", "text": "The wider West Syriac tradition includes distinctive script and pronunciation practices described in specialist Syriac language resources. These are linguistic and liturgical categories; they should not be turned into fixed ethnic boundaries."}, {"title": "Scope of this entry", "text": "A full history of the church requires more than a constitutional document. Later stages should add comparative scholarship on theology, monasteries, architecture and regional communities. Apostolic foundation traditions should be attributed as traditions, and ethnic self-designations should be recorded with care."}, {"title": "A West Syriac tradition", "text": "The Syriac Orthodox Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family and maintains a West Syriac liturgical heritage. Its history is connected with the Christological disputes surrounding Chalcedon in 451 and the development of church structures across the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. It is distinct from the Church of the East, despite important shared Syriac literary traditions.\n\nDescriptions of theology should explain the position being discussed rather than repeat a hostile shorthand. In particular, the church's account of Christ's divinity and humanity cannot accurately be reduced to the claim that it denies his humanity."}, {"title": "Monasteries, books and communal worship", "text": "Monastic communities in Tur Abdin and elsewhere supported worship, manuscript copying, education and church leadership. A monastery could train readers, maintain books and sustain relationships with neighbouring settlements. Its significance lay in continuing activity as well as its architecture.\n\nWest Syriac chant, poetry and biblical readings connect written works to performance and repeated communal use. The modern diaspora adds further settings in which this inheritance is maintained. People, books and institutions moved together, making the history one of adaptation and transmission rather than a simple list of patriarchs."}], "sources": ["modern-syriac-constitution", "gedsh-syriac", "wikipedia-syriac-orthodox-church"], "related": ["faith-and-churches", "surayt", "syriac-scripts"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "akitu", "title": "Akitu and Kha b-Nisan", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "New Year celebrations as a meeting place for heritage, music, food and community.", "sections": [{"title": "A living celebration", "text": "Modern Assyrian New Year celebrations, often called Akitu or Kha b-Nisan, bring people together in homeland and diaspora settings. SBS Assyrian's reporting documents festivals that combine performance, books, food, art and community organisations."}, {"title": "Ancient references, modern practice", "text": "Contemporary celebrations draw meaning from ancient Mesopotamian heritage. That connection should not be expanded into a claim that every ritual, date or calendar reckoning has continued unchanged since antiquity. Ancient festival practices and modern cultural renewal need their own evidence."}, {"title": "Documenting an event", "text": "A useful festival record identifies the year, organiser, place, performers and community voices. The Sydney event linked below is historical reporting, not a current event listing. Future coverage can build a dated festival archive, with photographs and recordings used only with appropriate permissions."}, {"title": "What a modern celebration brings together", "text": "Kha b-Nisan is celebrated by many Assyrians on 1 April as a New Year occasion. Public events can include traditional clothing, music, linked dancing, processions and cultural activities. Families, associations and educational programmes can meet in a shared setting that presents Assyrian heritage publicly.\n\nDiaspora celebrations bring together people with different places of origin and local experiences. Their significance is consequently larger than a date on a calendar. Programmes vary, so the description of an individual festival should identify its community, place and year rather than become a compulsory template."}, {"title": "Ancient reference and cultural renewal", "text": "Ancient Akitu festivals belonged to particular religious and political settings involving deities, temples and kingship. Modern New Year observance takes place in a different social and religious world. The connection includes historical remembrance and interpretation, rather than proof that every rite has continued unchanged.\n\nBoth histories can be explained positively. Ancient ceremonies can be studied through their texts, while modern activities can be described through documented events and the meanings communities give them. A celebration can draw strength from antiquity without needing an invented uninterrupted history for every feature."}], "sources": ["modern-akitu", "modern-festival-sydney", "wikipedia-kha-b-nisan"], "related": ["dance", "music", "kileche", "assyria-community-broadcasts"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "dance", "title": "Khigga and Assyrian dance", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Shared steps, regional styles and the social life of dancing together.", "sections": [{"title": "A practice carried by people", "text": "Dance is an active part of Assyrian cultural life at celebrations and community performances. The Assyrian Student Association of Arizona's Akitu Dance Crew describes workshops and names several dances, including Khigga Yaqoora, Gubare, Sheikhani and Bablaka."}, {"title": "Variation matters", "text": "Dance names, spelling, tempo and steps can vary by region, teacher and performance context. A staged choreography is not necessarily identical to the way a family dances at a wedding. Each recorded example should identify the performers and setting."}, {"title": "Learning and preservation", "text": "The best future dance entries will combine a practitioner's explanation with permission-cleared video, a named variation and musical context. Modern practice does not need an unprovable ancient date to be culturally meaningful. This introduction avoids claims that a particular sequence of steps has survived unchanged for millennia."}, {"title": "Co-ordinating a shared sequence", "text": "Many Assyrian dances join people in a line or circle. Participants repeat a sequence while co-ordinating timing and movement with the music. A leader can guide direction and expression, while repetition allows a larger group to follow together.\n\nA dance's identity involves tempo, steps, accompaniment and occasion as well as its name. Khigga is widely associated with celebrations, while other named dances have different rhythms and regional connections. Describing movement and setting gives readers more useful information than treating every linked dance as the same performance."}, {"title": "Weddings, learning and variation", "text": "A celebration can bring together generations with different levels of language fluency. Experienced dancers guide newcomers by movement and repetition, making participation itself a way of teaching. Formal classes and recordings provide additional routes into the practice.\n\nDiaspora performances may alter scale, accompaniment or presentation on a stage. That variation belongs to a living tradition. Naming the performers and occasion distinguishes a local social practice from a choreographed festival display, without declaring one recording the only authentic version for every community."}], "sources": ["modern-dance", "wikipedia-assyrian-folk-dance"], "related": ["akitu", "music", "oral-history", "heritage-objects-and-practices"], "image": "khigga", "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "kileche", "title": "Kileche and the family table", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Food offers a way into family memory, celebration and everyday cultural knowledge.", "sections": [{"title": "A family account", "text": "Evan Yako's SBS Food feature presents kileche, Assyrian cookies, through his relationship with his mother Helen and the transmission of family food knowledge. It connects a recipe to a particular person's experience rather than treating food as an anonymous list of ingredients."}, {"title": "Many versions can belong", "text": "Names, fillings, shapes and methods may differ between households and regions. A useful food archive records whose recipe it is, where they learnt it and when it is made. One family's version need not be declared the only authentic one."}, {"title": "From link to cultural record", "text": "The original recipe remains on SBS. This archive does not reproduce its complete directions. Future contributions could pair a contributor-owned recipe with photographs, an interview and permission for publication, allowing cooking knowledge to be preserved alongside the story of the person who shares it."}, {"title": "Dough, filling and shaping", "text": "Kileche are festive baked pastries associated with Assyrian households and the wider food traditions of Iraq and neighbouring communities. Date-filled and nut-filled versions are familiar examples. Preparation involves separate stages of making dough, preparing filling, shaping and baking, with household differences affecting texture and form.\n\nDate filling can be spread through rolled dough before cutting, while other versions enclose filling in individual pieces. Particular recipes use flavourings such as cardamom. These details explain what people make without pretending that every family follows the same measurements, ingredients or technique."}, {"title": "The occasion is part of the food's history", "text": "Christmas and Easter are important occasions for Assyrian families to bake and share kileche. The practice combines hospitality with memories of relatives, kitchens and celebrations. Related pastries also belong to other communities and religious calendars.\n\nA family recipe has historical value when its maker and context are identified. That value does not require a claim that the exact recipe survived unchanged from ancient Mesopotamia. An informative account explains technique, social use and documented transmission before attempting a much longer argument about origins."}], "sources": ["modern-kileche", "wikipedia-kleicha"], "related": ["oral-history", "akitu", "australia", "heritage-objects-and-practices"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "music", "title": "Music, voice and cultural memory", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Songs and performances connect language, public life and personal experience.", "sections": [{"title": "Begin with listening", "text": "Assyrian music deserves coverage across artists, regions, genres and generations. SBS Assyrian offers interviews and audio programming that can help listeners encounter contemporary voices. Its Evin Agassi memorial reporting also documents how community members describe the significance of a musician."}, {"title": "Build a careful discography", "text": "A reliable artist entry should identify recordings, credited writers and performers, release evidence and the source of biographical details. A fan upload can be a discovery lead, but its title and date are not automatically a verified discography."}, {"title": "Preserve with permission", "text": "Lyrics, commercial recordings, cover art and videos usually have separate rights. The archive links to legitimate sources rather than copying complete songs or lyrics. Later stages can add authorised interviews, documented listening guides and artist-approved material."}, {"title": "Different music serves different settings", "text": "Assyrian music includes social dance music, popular songs, ballads and religious traditions. A wedding performance and a liturgical chant do not have the same purpose, even when audiences share language or community relationships. Rhythm, melody, vocal delivery and instrumentation affect how a piece is used.\n\nRecordings also allow music to travel beyond one gathering. A listener can hear the same song at home, through community media or at a celebration in another country. Music thus carries language in a form that can be repeated and shared across a dispersed audience."}, {"title": "Performance is only one kind of authorship", "text": "The singer need not have written the lyrics, composed the melody or arranged the accompaniment. Crediting those roles separately explains how a recording was made and distinguishes it from a later performance or remix.\n\nEvin Agassi's international audience illustrates the reach of modern Assyrian popular music. Dance-oriented and reflective songs address different needs within that audience. Discussing musical setting and themes makes an article informative without reproducing protected lyrics or presenting one artist as a complete account of the tradition."}], "sources": ["modern-radio", "modern-agassi", "wikipedia-assyrian-music"], "related": ["evin-agassi", "dance", "endangered-languages", "assyria-community-broadcasts"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "evin-agassi", "title": "Evin Agassi: a community remembers", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "A starting point for documenting an influential musical voice through community testimony.", "sections": [{"title": "A memorial record", "text": "SBS Assyrian reported on a memorial for Evin Agassi in Greenfield Park, Sydney, held on 22 September 2024. The report draws on attendance and community tributes. It offers evidence for how people remembered his music and its cultural meaning."}, {"title": "Reception is part of history", "text": "Accounts of a musician should include listeners, migration settings and language as well as a list of recordings. Memorial testimony is valuable evidence of reception, while remaining different from an independently checked account of every event in an artist's life."}, {"title": "A biography to develop", "text": "This is not a complete biography or discography. Future work should verify release details, credits and life dates against multiple reliable records, and seek permission for photographs and recordings. Where sources disagree, the archive should report the disagreement rather than silently select a convenient number."}, {"title": "An international career rooted in several settings", "text": "Evin Agassi was born in Kermanshah, Iran, in 1945 and died in 2024. His career included Persian-language work and a long association with Assyrian popular music. Recordings and performances connected him with audiences across North America, Europe, Australia and other diaspora settings.\n\nThe movement of a recording differs from the movement of its performer. Listeners could associate a song with their own households and celebrations far from the singer's birthplace. That circulation helps explain how a popular voice can become part of shared community memory across several countries."}, {"title": "Collaboration and remembrance", "text": "Agassi's repertoire included dance music, love songs and material engaging communal concerns. His brother Givergiss was an important collaborator as a lyric writer. Recognising that relationship separates the public voice of a recording from the authorship of its words.\n\nA biography becomes more useful when it connects particular releases and performances with dates and collaborators. Audience memories add another kind of evidence, explaining how songs relate to family, language and place. They complement a documented career rather than replacing it with an unsupported complete discography."}], "sources": ["modern-agassi", "wikipedia-evin-agassi"], "related": ["music", "australia", "oral-history"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "oral-history", "title": "Oral histories: voices worth preserving", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Personal testimony brings migration, language and everyday life into the historical record.", "sections": [{"title": "A voice in the archive", "text": "The NSW Migration Heritage Centre's interview with Sophia Kanna records her Assyrian background, her connection to Habbaniyah and her arrival in Sydney on 27 May 1964. It offers a specific account of home, work and language across migration."}, {"title": "Memory and evidence", "text": "An oral history tells us what a person remembers and how they understand their experience. It can be checked against documents without losing the value of the speaker's perspective. Broad historical claims made during an interview still need independent evidence."}, {"title": "A contribution method", "text": "For a future interview, record consent, the preferred display name, interview date, languages used and any access restrictions. Preserve the original recording and a transcript separately. Ask about places, objects, songs and ordinary routines as well as major events. Contributors should be able to discuss privacy before anything becomes public."}, {"title": "What an interview can preserve", "text": "An oral history can describe experiences that an administrative record omits: the order of a journey, the sounds of a household, the work of finding employment or the way a person learned a language. It records why an event mattered to a narrator as well as when they remember it happening.\n\nFor a migration interview, concrete prompts might follow the last day before departure, what was packed, the stages of travel and the first school or workplace after arrival. Such questions create room for ordinary life without asking one person to speak for an entire population."}, {"title": "Memory and corroboration do different work", "text": "A recollection establishes what a person remembers and how they tell it. A dated photograph or official document may clarify a date or location. If these differ, the difference should be recorded rather than silently editing the testimony into a perfect chronology.\n\nThe narrator also needs to understand whether material will remain private, be quoted or be published in full. Permission for one use does not automatically authorise every later use. An informative account can explain public testimony while protecting people whose personal details were not offered for publication."}], "sources": ["modern-kanna"], "related": ["australia", "assyrian-identity", "endangered-languages", "living-language-archive-ethics", "oral-history-interview-method", "heritage-consent-and-access", "migration-memory-research"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "australia", "title": "Assyrian life in Australia", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Migration stories, language education and community institutions offer a grounded introduction.", "sections": [{"title": "Start with a person", "text": "Sophia Kanna's archived migration history records her arrival in Sydney in 1964. Her account provides one route into the experience of building a life in Australia. It should not be treated as the single story of all Assyrian migration."}, {"title": "Community institutions", "text": "The Assyrian Australian Association dates its establishment to 1969. Its account describes language education, scholarships, settlement work and cultural events. Its Resource Centre records establishment in 1984 in response to settlement needs around Fairfield and Liverpool."}, {"title": "A wider picture to build", "text": "A fuller Australian section needs histories from multiple cities and generations, women's experiences, schools, arts, work, sport and public life. This edition does not publish an unsourced population total. Later demographic entries should specify census year, geography and the exact ancestry or language category being counted."}, {"title": "Settlement is a continuing process", "text": "Assyrian settlement in Australia includes migration from several Middle Eastern countries and different periods of displacement, employment and family reunion. Sydney's western suburbs and Melbourne are important community settings. People sharing an Assyrian identity can therefore have different journeys and histories of arrival.\n\nChurches, cultural associations, language classes, businesses and family networks help households establish ordinary life. A gathering can offer social contact and practical information as well as a place for younger people to hear Assyrian spoken outside the home. Settlement continues long after the date of entry."}, {"title": "Generations and institutions", "text": "An adult migrant and a child raised in Australia may experience language, schooling and a place of origin differently. Community institutions can connect those experiences through education, cultural events and intergenerational contact. Public remembrance also places Assyrian concerns within Australian civic life.\n\nAncestry, birthplace, religion and language are different census categories. A church total cannot simply be substituted for an ancestry count. Explaining institutions and daily life does not require inventing a single population figure that erases those distinctions or combining categories that may overlap."}], "sources": ["modern-kanna", "modern-aaa", "modern-arc", "wikipedia-assyrian-australians"], "related": ["assyrian-australian-association", "oral-history", "akitu", "migration-memory-research", "assyria-community-broadcasts"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "assyrian-australian-association", "title": "Assyrian Australian Association", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "A community institution whose history illustrates the work of cultural and settlement support.", "sections": [{"title": "An institutional history", "text": "The Assyrian Australian Association says it was founded in 1969. Its first-party history describes work spanning cultural events, language schools, scholarships and settlement support. These activities connect cultural transmission with the practical needs of a diaspora community."}, {"title": "The Resource Centre", "text": "The association dates the Assyrian Resource Centre to 1984, established in response to needs in Fairfield and Liverpool. The linked source is the appropriate place to check its own account of services."}, {"title": "Using this record", "text": "This entry is an introduction to the organisation, not an endorsement or a live service directory. Eligibility, programme availability and contact arrangements may change. Future institutional profiles should include dated records and preserve changes over time without turning old web copy into current advice."}, {"title": "The role of an association", "text": "A community association creates a public setting for activities that dispersed households cannot organise as easily alone. Cultural events, education, social support and community relationships can connect people beyond one congregation or extended family. New arrivals and established residents may use those activities in different ways.\n\nThe Assyrian Australian Association and its resource-centre material belong within that Australian setting. Their programmes and records explain the organisation's history, but do not replace the distinct experiences of every Assyrian household. A substantive account identifies what an activity did and the need it addressed."}, {"title": "Records and experiences illuminate different things", "text": "Newsletters, programmes and photographs can preserve organisers, dates and activities. An interview can explain what participation meant to someone. Using both supplies chronology and experience rather than treating institutional publicity as a complete social history.\n\nA cultural event may strengthen social contact, while a language programme develops a different kind of skill. Describing those functions helps readers understand why the organisation matters. It also makes the page useful before a reader follows its source links, without turning the article into uncritical promotion."}], "sources": ["modern-aaa", "modern-arc"], "related": ["australia", "oral-history", "assyrian-identity", "migration-memory-research"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "simele", "title": "Simele, 1933", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "An introduction to the massacre, its remembrance and the need for careful historical documentation.", "sections": [{"title": "The historical subject", "text": "Assyrians were killed during the Iraqi military campaign of August 1933 in northern Iraq, including at Simele. The event occupies an important place in modern Assyrian historical memory. Assyrian Martyrs Day is observed on 7 August."}, {"title": "Know the source type", "text": "The Assyrian Studies Association's 2020 letter calls for protection and impartial investigation of the site. The Assyrian Policy Institute's page presents a community advocacy perspective. These are useful sources for commemoration and preservation concerns, but an appeal is not a completed forensic investigation."}, {"title": "What this edition does not settle", "text": "The archive does not publish a single casualty figure from these sources as a settled total. A full article needs comparative historical scholarship, contemporary records and explicit treatment of disputed estimates. Recognition and site-protection status also require dated verification; older campaign pages should not be presented as current policy."}, {"title": "Violence and the disruption of communities", "text": "The Simele massacre refers to violence against Assyrians in Iraq in August 1933, involving Iraqi military forces and attacks affecting Simele and other settlements. It occurred amid tensions over security, minority protection, settlement and the legacy of British involvement in the early Iraqi state. That setting explains the crisis without diminishing responsibility for attacks on civilians.\n\nBereavement, displacement and insecurity extended the effects beyond those killed. Families lost ordinary means of living and confidence in safety. The event consequently became a defining part of Assyrian public memory, rather than only an anniversary."}, {"title": "Historical estimates and remembrance", "text": "Accounts differ over casualty totals and the geographical scope included. A responsible narrative identifies whose estimate is being used and what it counts, rather than turning an uncertain number into an exact universal figure. Witnesses, officials and later scholars also speak from different positions.\n\nAssyrian remembrance associates 7 August with Simele and wider communal loss. Commemoration preserves the event's place in identity, while historical study examines the actors, sequence and consequences. Explaining both makes an article more useful than linking directly to a memorial organisation without describing the violence itself."}], "sources": ["modern-simele-asa", "modern-simele-api", "wikipedia-simele-massacre"], "related": ["sayfo", "oral-history", "heritage-stewardship"], "image": null, "note": "Sensitive history. This foundation entry is limited in scope and requires a broader historical bibliography before expansion.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "sayfo", "title": "Sayfo and the First World War", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A research entry on mass violence against Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christian communities.", "sections": [{"title": "A field of historical research", "text": "The academic volume Let Them Not Return examines violence against Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians during and after the First World War, across borderland regions now in Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Sayfo is a central term in the study and remembrance of this history."}, {"title": "Scholarship and testimony", "text": "The annotated source published as Sayfo - An Account of the Assyrian Genocide presents an eyewitness narrative associated with greater Tur Abdin. Eyewitness accounts preserve essential perspectives; they should be contextualised through location, date, authorship and comparison with other evidence."}, {"title": "A careful expansion", "text": "This entry avoids an unsupported single casualty total and does not imply every region experienced identical events. A full treatment should distinguish local chronologies, survivor histories, displacement and later commemoration. The linked public catalogue descriptions are accessible, while access to complete books can vary. They are not marked here as freely licensed full texts."}, {"title": "Several regions, connected destruction", "text": "Sayfo names the genocide of Assyrian and other Syriac Christian communities during the First World War, especially in Ottoman territories and adjoining conflict zones. Killing, forced flight and the destruction of communities unfolded through different local sequences in Tur Abdin, Hakkari and the wider borderlands.\n\nWartime policy, local power relationships, armed mobilisation and frontier conditions affected particular episodes. Naming region and actors is therefore necessary when explaining what happened. One village's sequence should not become an assumed identical story for every other place."}, {"title": "Loss continued through displacement", "text": "Flight separated families from land, livelihoods, institutions and books. People also died under the conditions of displacement. The rebuilding of communities elsewhere belongs to the aftermath and should not be reduced to a short concluding sentence.\n\nTestimony, diplomatic and missionary records, community accounts and scholarship contribute different evidence. They help reconstruct local events and the wider pattern of destruction. Genocide describes that larger destruction, but cannot replace an explanation of people's experiences, the actions involved and the evidence for a particular event."}], "sources": ["modern-sayfo", "modern-sayfo-eyewitness", "wikipedia-sayfo"], "related": ["simele", "oral-history", "research-guide"], "image": null, "note": "Sensitive history. Public book descriptions were consulted; this introduction does not claim a full review of the volumes.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "endangered-languages", "title": "Keeping living languages audible", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Documentation, teaching and everyday use each play a role in language continuity.", "sections": [{"title": "A documented need", "text": "Cambridge's NENA project describes the dialects it documents as highly endangered. It makes linguistic material available to researchers and speaker communities. The diversity within those records matters: saving a generic label is not the same as preserving a local variety."}, {"title": "Record context as well as words", "text": "A useful recording includes the language variety, speaker's consent, date, place and the circumstances of the conversation. Stories, conversation and explanations of daily tasks can preserve forms that a vocabulary list misses. A transcription and translation make the recording easier to study."}, {"title": "Teaching is another task", "text": "An archive can support learning but does not replace opportunities to speak. Match learners with materials for their intended variety, including the free Surayt course where appropriate. Future audio in this hub should come from consenting speakers and be reviewed for transcription and pronunciation."}, {"title": "How language shift happens in ordinary life", "text": "A language becomes vulnerable when children have fewer opportunities to acquire and use it in everyday settings. Displacement, migration, disrupted schooling and the dominance of other languages in work or public services can narrow those opportunities. A household can value its heritage language while much of a child's day occurs in another language.\n\nThe potential loss extends beyond vocabulary. Ways of telling stories, expressing politeness and describing work can become harder to transmit. Because Neo-Aramaic varieties differ, preserving one recording or variety does not automatically preserve them all."}, {"title": "Documentation and use are complementary", "text": "Recordings preserve particular speakers, pronunciation and vocabulary. Grammars and dictionaries make patterns easier to study. These are documentation; maintaining everyday use also requires conversation, education, media and occasions to speak.\n\nA course should identify the variety and writing conventions it teaches. Learners can then connect lessons to family speech rather than being told every local difference is a mistake. Sustaining a language involves preserving knowledge and making it usable in changing lives. Both are practical work, not simply the collection of source links."}], "sources": ["cambridge-nena", "fu-surayt", "wikipedia-neo-aramaic-languages"], "related": ["sureth", "surayt", "oral-history", "nena-dialect-comparison", "living-language-archive-ethics"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "research-guide", "title": "How to research Assyrian history", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A practical path from an interesting claim to evidence that another reader can check.", "sections": [{"title": "Ask a precise question", "text": "Specify a person, place, language variety or period. \"What does this tablet record?\" is easier to investigate than a claim about an entire civilisation. Begin with a specialist overview, then follow its references to editions, catalogues and primary material."}, {"title": "Choose the right collection", "text": "CDLI is useful for cuneiform records. Syriaca provides a reference portal for Syriac studies. syri.ac points to distributed manuscript resources, while eBethArke includes books, archives and recordings. These collections overlap without being interchangeable."}, {"title": "Keep an evidence trail", "text": "Record author, title, publication date, stable URL and the page, folio or object identifier behind a claim. Distinguish a source's own words from your interpretation. If a translation or identification is disputed, name the alternatives and explain the basis."}, {"title": "Access is not a licence", "text": "A page being readable does not make its text, images or recordings free to copy. Summarise in original language, link to the source and check reuse conditions for each asset. The source library records public discovery routes without promising unrestricted access to every underlying work."}, {"title": "A worked example: a named monument", "text": "To investigate an Assyrian reference to Jehu, start with the Black Obelisk's tribute caption. It establishes a named political relationship on an identified monument. Whether the kneeling figure is an observed portrait of Jehu is another question, requiring a different argument.\n\nThis separates object, wording and interpretation of imagery. Kings can explain Jehu's accession while the monument supplies the external tribute reference. A source becomes useful when the reader understands exactly what it contributes, rather than merely being given its title."}, {"title": "Turn research notes into an explanation", "text": "A working note records an identifier, relevant passage, supported fact and important uncertainty. Writing for readers reverses that process: begin with the explanation and place the evidence beside it.\n\nFor manuscripts, retain collection, shelfmark and folio. For objects, use accession numbers; for Scripture, give book, chapter and verses. These details make checking possible. They do not replace the article's responsibility to explain the subject and why the cited information matters."}], "sources": ["cdli", "syriaca-intro", "syriac-digimss", "rutgers-ebetharke", "bm-black-obelisk", "oracc-riao-jehu-caption", "bible-webbe"], "related": ["manuscripts", "heritage-stewardship", "akkadian-and-cuneiform", "historical-evidence-methods", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "heritage-stewardship", "title": "Caring for cultural heritage", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Documentation is a responsibility to objects, places and the people connected to them.", "sections": [{"title": "Sites and collections", "text": "UNESCO's Ashur record is one starting point for understanding a major archaeological place. Museum records identify dispersed objects and their materials, dates and collection histories. Neither type of record replaces the voices of communities connected to the heritage."}, {"title": "Digital survival", "text": "Manuscript photography and cataloguing can preserve access to evidence. HMML's collections illustrate the scale and complexity of that work. A digital surrogate still needs reliable metadata, storage and a clear relationship to the physical original."}, {"title": "Practical principles", "text": "Preserve provenance, distinguish restoration from surviving fabric, record uncertainty and verify reproduction rights. Avoid publishing private family information or sensitive locations without consent. Future community contributions should document ownership, permissions and how the contributor wants to be credited."}, {"title": "Different objects face different risks", "text": "A monument is affected by damage to its material and surrounding site. A manuscript also preserves bindings, page order and annotations that can be lost through separation or careless handling. A digital recording can become unreadable through storage failure or obsolete formats.\n\nPreservation begins by identifying what must survive. A transcript does not preserve a voice's timing and sound, while an image of one manuscript page does not retain every material feature of the book. Different copies preserve different kinds of evidence."}, {"title": "A practical preservation sequence", "text": "Keep a master file, document its origin and maintain an independent backup that can actually be opened. A checksum detects changes to bytes, but cannot establish accurate description or publication permission.\n\nRecord who supplied an item, who owns it and what use was agreed. Private contacts and permission records should be separate from the public catalogue. Preserving context alongside content allows later custodians to understand both what the item is and what they may do with it."}], "sources": ["unesco-ashur", "hmml-voobus", "met-lion"], "related": ["ashur", "manuscripts", "oral-history", "heritage-consent-and-access", "heritage-objects-and-practices"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tur-abdin", "title": "Tur Abdin: language and a monastic landscape", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "A limestone plateau in southeastern Turkey with a distinctive place in Syriac Christian history.", "sections": [{"title": "A region with its own geography", "text": "Tur Abdin refers more precisely to the limestone plateau in the eastern part of Mardin province, between the Tigris and Nisibis. It is not simply another name for the whole province. Its villages, churches and monasteries form a connected historical landscape."}, {"title": "Monasteries and institutions", "text": "The scholarly GEDSH account describes Hah as an early episcopal centre and the later importance of the monastery of Qartmin, known as Mor Gabriel. The region's ecclesiastical geography changed over time, including divisions and reunifications of jurisdictions. These institutional histories help explain why an individual building cannot stand for every period of the region's past."}, {"title": "Language and memory", "text": "Surayt, also known as Turoyo, is associated with this region. Its spoken and written traditions extend into diaspora communities. The First World War violence remembered as Sayfo is also central to its modern history. Geography, language, monastic culture and displacement are connected subjects, each with its own evidence."}, {"title": "A landscape linked through institutions", "text": "Tur Abdin lies in south-eastern Turkey around Midyat and the wider Mardin region. Its towns, villages and monasteries have long been connected with Syriac Christian life, especially the Syriac Orthodox tradition. Mor Gabriel and other institutions belonged to networks of worship, education and local relationships.\n\nA monastery was not simply an isolated monument. Books, people and responsibilities connected it with neighbouring settlements and more distant communities. Architecture supplies important evidence, but continuing activity and the people maintaining it are also essential to the region's explanation."}, {"title": "Language, migration and particular places", "text": "Turoyo/Surayt is associated with the region's modern linguistic history. A named village may consequently matter to speech, family history and church records at once. Those relationships need individual evidence rather than treating the whole plateau as one interchangeable community.\n\nWar, persecution and migration changed population patterns. Diaspora communities maintain connections with family places and religious institutions. Visits, restoration projects and memories belong to that later history; they cannot substitute for evidence about how each settlement functioned in an earlier century."}], "sources": ["gedsh-tur-abdin", "gedsh-turoyo", "wikipedia-tur-abdin"], "related": ["surayt", "sayfo", "manuscripts", "assyrian-village-histories"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "urmia", "title": "Urmia: language, printing and community", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "A northwestern Iranian city whose schools, presses and speech belong in the modern cultural story.", "sections": [{"title": "A city and its surrounding communities", "text": "Urmia lies west of Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran. The city and its region have an important place in the history of the Church of the East and modern Assyrian cultural life. City history and the histories of surrounding villages should be recorded separately."}, {"title": "The nineteenth-century press", "text": "The GEDSH account describes the growth of missionary educational and publishing activity in the nineteenth century. The American mission press published Classical Syriac and Neo-Aramaic texts, including vernacular biblical translations and the periodical Zahrire d-Bahra, begun in 1849. Printing created new opportunities for circulation beyond the manuscript."}, {"title": "A spoken record", "text": "Cambridge's Christian Urmi dialect page identifies fieldwork by Geoffrey Khan and links recordings such as village-life accounts, stories and material about the Assyrians of Urmi. These recordings preserve language use in context. They are a research and listening resource, with their own access and reuse conditions."}, {"title": "Disruption and return", "text": "The First World War and the flight from Urmia in 1918 caused profound losses and displacement. Some Assyrian Christians later returned. This introduction avoids projecting an older source's community description into a present-day population estimate."}, {"title": "The city and its rural surroundings", "text": "Urmia lies in north-western Iran near the lake of the same name. Its surrounding plain and villages matter to Assyrian history alongside the city. Communities participated in agriculture, worship, education and regional exchange within a population using several languages and religious traditions.\n\nNineteenth-century educational and printing activity made the region especially important to modern Assyrian written culture. Mission institutions and local scholars contributed to that work. A biography or dialect recording should still distinguish the city, wider region and particular village rather than use their names interchangeably."}, {"title": "Printing, speech and displacement", "text": "Printing allowed religious and educational texts to circulate beyond the reach of individual manuscript copies. Work at Urmia involved Classical Syriac and modern vernacular language, making the relationship between literary inheritance and ordinary speech especially significant.\n\nEarly twentieth-century war and violence profoundly affected Christian communities and contributed to displacement. Later recordings can preserve linguistic features and memories connected with that world. They provide evidence about particular speakers, while the larger history also requires accounts of institutions, conflict and the rebuilding of community life elsewhere."}], "sources": ["gedsh-urmia", "nena-urmi", "wikipedia-urmia"], "related": ["syriac-printing", "sureth", "diaspora", "urmi-neo-aramaic-recordings"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "nineveh-plain", "title": "The Nineveh Plain", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "A region of living communities, language and religious heritage, distinct from the ancient city of Nineveh.", "sections": [{"title": "Place and terminology", "text": "The Nineveh Plain is a modern regional setting for communities and settlements around the Mosul area. It should not be confused with the archaeological city of Nineveh, or treated as interchangeable with the full territory of the ancient Assyrian Empire."}, {"title": "A linguistic landscape", "text": "The GEDSH entry on Sureth discusses North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic varieties associated especially with villages of the Mosul plain. A regional description still needs local detail: place names and language labels can have variant spellings and different histories of use."}, {"title": "A dated community record", "text": "A UNAMI release from 3 October 2018 describes meetings in Bartella and Hamdaniya district with Christian and Shabak representatives. Reported concerns included public services, employment, political representation and the effects of conflict and demographic change. This is a dated record of those discussions, not a current assessment of every settlement or a travel advisory."}, {"title": "The next level of detail", "text": "Future town entries should identify historic and current names, language varieties, institutions and sources for changes over time. Population and security information need explicit dates. Community histories should be represented through more than archaeological monuments alone."}, {"title": "A region beyond the excavated capital", "text": "The Nineveh Plain is a region of northern Iraq containing historic settlements, not another name for the ancient city of Nineveh. Alqosh, Qaraqosh, Bartella and Tel Keppe have distinct histories, institutions and speech. Proximity does not make their experiences identical.\n\nAgriculture, churches, family relationships and connections with Mosul shaped local life. A history built only around imperial capitals would miss these later communities. The plain belongs in the archive as a lived landscape whose development continued after the end of Assyrian imperial government."}, {"title": "Return requires more than reaching a place", "text": "The Islamic State's advance in 2014 displaced communities from many settlements. Loss of safety affected houses, livelihoods, religious buildings and ordinary life. Returning requires housing, services, employment and confidence in security as well as geographical access.\n\nReports of return or rebuilding need dates and named locations because conditions differ between places and change. The historical explanation here describes displacement and reconstruction; a claim about present population or safety requires current, settlement-specific evidence. Maintaining that distinction allows the page to explain the process without inventing a permanent snapshot."}], "sources": ["gedsh-sureth", "unami-nineveh", "wikipedia-nineveh-plains"], "related": ["nineveh", "sureth", "heritage-stewardship", "assyrian-village-histories"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "diaspora", "title": "Across borders: the diaspora", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Migration creates new cultural centres while preserving, adapting and sometimes interrupting connections to earlier homes.", "sections": [{"title": "Several migration histories", "text": "The Syriac Christian diaspora developed through different movements, rather than one departure at one date. The GEDSH overview identifies violence, political upheaval and limited educational or employment opportunities among the causes of migration. Displacement also occurred within the Middle East, not only towards Europe, the Americas or Australia."}, {"title": "New centres of life", "text": "The same overview describes late nineteenth-century movement from the Urmia region towards the United States and later communities in places including Sweden, Germany and Australia. These are examples, not a complete census. Its older church and population listings should not be read as current totals."}, {"title": "Culture in a new setting", "text": "Schools, churches, associations, media and family networks can create spaces for language and shared memory. The Assyrian Australian Association and Sophia Kanna's migration interview provide two Australian examples: one institutional, one personal."}, {"title": "A global section to build", "text": "A fuller diaspora record needs local histories from multiple countries, accounts of return and continuing connections to homeland communities. It should include ordinary work, intergenerational experience and cultural creativity as well as displacement. The archive will need country-specific evidence before making demographic comparisons."}, {"title": "There is no single migration route", "text": "Assyrian diaspora communities developed through flight from violence, employment, study and family reunion. People arriving in the same destination could have come from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey or an earlier diaspora community. One journey cannot represent them all.\n\nA destination becomes part of community history through households, work, institutions and relationships. Associations and churches can connect newcomers with established residents, while schools, businesses and events influence participation in the wider society. These activities explain settlement beyond a simple record of departure and arrival."}, {"title": "What is carried and what is rebuilt", "text": "Language, food, music, worship and memory travel with people but enter new conditions. Working hours, schooling and access to community spaces affect their transmission. A festival or class can become especially important when most daily activity takes place in another language.\n\nRecordings, publications, visits and family communication also connect destinations with one another and with places of origin. The resulting networks are not contained within a single state. They help explain shared concerns alongside the different local experiences of a dispersed community."}], "sources": ["gedsh-diaspora", "modern-aaa", "modern-kanna", "wikipedia-assyrian-diaspora"], "related": ["australia", "urmia", "oral-history", "migration-memory-research"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "syriac-printing", "title": "From manuscript to printing press", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Type, publishing and later digital tools changed how Syriac and Neo-Aramaic texts could circulate.", "sections": [{"title": "Early printed texts", "text": "The GEDSH history of printing distinguishes early Syriac woodcuts in European books from printing with type. It identifies Syriac type in an introductory language work printed at Pavia in 1539 and the Syriac New Testament printed at Vienna in 1555."}, {"title": "Presses in several regions", "text": "A Syriac Psalter was printed at the Maronite monastery of Quzhayya in Lebanon in 1610. In nineteenth-century Urmia, mission printing supported vernacular texts as well as Classical Syriac. The newspaper Zahrire d-Bahra ran from 1849 to 1918. Other important presses operated in Mosul, Beirut and India."}, {"title": "Print and a public readership", "text": "Printed religious and secular works connected publishers, readers and communities across distances. A publication's script, place of printing, language variety and intended audience each add context. Since the late twentieth century, digital composition has widened the practical possibilities for publishing in Syriac scripts."}, {"title": "What printing changed", "text": "Manuscript copying produces a physical witness through a copyist's work. Printing allows many copies of one setting of type to circulate. That affects teaching, access and the authority of particular editions, although manuscript production did not immediately stop.\n\nSyriac type had to accommodate joining letters and reading marks. Producing an edition therefore involved practical decisions about characters and their arrangement as well as textual editing. Typography was part of making a work readable, rather than a decorative stage added after the intellectual work."}, {"title": "An edition connects producers and readers", "text": "The Syriac New Testament printed at Vienna in 1555 is an important early landmark. Later presses in several regions served scholarly, religious and educational needs. Nineteenth-century printing at Urmia contributed to circulation in Classical Syriac and modern vernacular language.\n\nAn edition has an editor, printer, place and intended audience. Parallel texts can serve different linguistic abilities. Comparing editions consequently reveals approaches to teaching and translation as well as changing letterforms. The history of print extends the manuscript story instead of replacing it overnight."}], "sources": ["gedsh-printing"], "related": ["urmia", "manuscripts", "syriac-scripts", "urmi-neo-aramaic-recordings"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "edessa", "title": "Edessa, Urhay and Urfa", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "A city of trade, political change and literary importance in the development of Syriac.", "sections": [{"title": "Several names, one changing city", "text": "Edessa, Syriac Urhay and modern Urfa refer to a city in southeastern Turkey. Its earlier settlement was known through forms such as Adme. Seleucus I rebuilt the settlement as a Hellenistic city in 304 BCE and named it Edessa."}, {"title": "Aramaic and Syriac Christianity", "text": "The city's Aramaic variety is attested in inscriptions, documents and coins, and became the literary language of Syriac Christianity. Its Christian history includes diverse and sometimes competing traditions. A city associated with a major literary language was never simply a single, uniform intellectual community."}, {"title": "A place in literary history", "text": "Ephrem's later career connects Edessa with one of the best-known figures in Syriac poetry and theology. The city's history can be studied through chronicles, inscriptions, texts and archaeology. Foundation legends and later associations should be distinguished from independently dated evidence."}, {"title": "A city between political worlds", "text": "Edessa, associated with modern Sanliurfa and known in Syriac as Urhay, occupied an important position in Upper Mesopotamia. It was connected with Osroene and Roman government and lay within a wider Roman-Persian frontier world. Changes of authority affected institutions and relationships.\n\nIts literary importance developed through a local Aramaic tradition that gained wider prestige as Syriac. Christian learning helped works circulate far beyond the city. A place can consequently exercise influence through education and language as well as through the territory controlled by its ruler."}, {"title": "Schools and remembered beginnings", "text": "Traditions concerning Abgar and Addai became part of how communities narrated Edessa's Christian origins. Their literary form and surviving dates differ from contemporary evidence for every event described. Both the traditions and that distinction deserve explanation.\n\nThe closure of the School of Edessa in 489 and the movement of scholars form part of the wider history of Syriac learning, including Nisibis. Following teachers, books and disputes shows the city within a network. It gives readers more than a famous place name followed by a source link."}], "sources": ["gedsh-edessa", "wikipedia-edessa"], "related": ["classical-syriac", "ephrem", "tur-abdin"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "ashurnasirpal-ii", "title": "Ashurnasirpal II: rebuilding Kalhu", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A ninth-century ruler whose campaigns, palace building and inscriptions reshaped the Assyrian royal landscape.", "sections": [{"title": "The reign and its evidence", "text": "Ashurnasirpal II ruled approximately 883-859 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art places his reign within a renewed period of Neo-Assyrian territorial expansion. The dates are modern historical coordinates based on ancient evidence, not dates supplied by the Bible. Much surviving material was commissioned to present the ruler as victorious and legitimate. It gives historians indispensable information about places and royal priorities, but its literary self-presentation should be read critically."}, {"title": "Why Kalhu mattered", "text": "Ashurnasirpal made Kalhu, now usually called Nimrud, a major royal capital. Moving the political centre did not erase the older city of Ashur, which continued to matter as a religious centre. Palace rooms, sculptured orthostats and inscriptions reveal a deliberate effort to make authority visible to visitors and officials. The modern distribution of these objects among museums also belongs to their history; a displayed slab must be traced to its original room where possible."}, {"title": "Palace art as a political record", "text": "Protective figures, hunting scenes, military imagery and formal royal figures helped structure encounters with the king's power. They are not neutral photographs of daily life. The Metropolitan Museum's Assyrian Sculpture Court reuses objects in a modern arrangement and warns against treating that display as a complete reconstruction of the original palace. A precise study should pair each panel with its object number, findspot, text and original architectural position."}, {"title": "Read beyond the king", "text": "Royal inscriptions are disproportionately visible, while ordinary residents, craftsmen, women and displaced populations appear less often in the material most readily accessible to visitors. The reign therefore needs archaeological and administrative evidence alongside monumental royal sources. The introductory account does not invent a complete picture of social life from palace art, nor does it equate Ashurnasirpal's state with every later population called Assyrian."}, {"title": "Conquest and the building of Kalhu", "text": "Ashurnasirpal II ruled from 883 to 859 BCE and developed Kalhu as a royal centre. Campaigning and construction were connected through the movement of people, goods and resources toward the court. A new palace needed agricultural support as well as the materials visible in its decoration.\n\nThe North-West Palace joined ceremonial activity with a visual programme of guardians, reliefs and inscriptions. Visitors encountered a king represented as victorious, pious and capable of ordering the world. Royal authority was communicated through the spaces themselves."}, {"title": "The resources behind monumental success", "text": "The king's inscriptions describe severe punishment intended to discourage resistance. This is rhetoric of power, but the coercion it describes also belongs to the history. What counted as success for the court could impose heavy burdens on other communities.\n\nQuarrying, carving, construction, transport and provisioning required labour far beyond the decorated room. A relief is a surviving product of that system, not an account of everyone who sustained it. Explaining those connections makes the reign more than a list of campaigns and museum objects."}], "sources": ["met-assyria", "met-rulers-assyria", "met-court", "met-relief", "wikipedia-ashurnasirpal-ii"], "related": ["nimrud", "royal-reliefs", "ancient-assyria", "shalmaneser-iii"], "image": null, "note": "A historical synthesis of royal and archaeological material; no named biblical passage is asserted for this ruler.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "shalmaneser-iii", "title": "Shalmaneser III and the western campaigns", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Campaigning, inscriptions and the changing relationships between Assyria and western kingdoms in the ninth century BCE.", "sections": [{"title": "A long reign", "text": "Shalmaneser III succeeded Ashurnasirpal II and ruled approximately 858-824 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum places him among the kings who consolidated and extended Assyrian ambitions in Syria, the Levant and Anatolia. A reign of this length should not be collapsed into one victorious campaign; relations with neighbouring states shifted across decades, and the kings' own inscriptions prioritise achievements and claims useful to court audiences."}, {"title": "An inscriptional itinerary", "text": "The Royal Inscriptions of Assyria Online catalogue provides a named collection of Shalmaneser III's royal inscriptions. An inscription can locate a reported campaign or tribute episode in a specific official narrative, but the text must be tied to an edition and passage before being quoted as direct evidence for a disputed event. Campaign lists do not automatically establish continuous annexation or effective rule over every named country."}, {"title": "Kingdoms and coalitions", "text": "The Metropolitan Museum's regional chronology describes opposition to Shalmaneser's army in 853 BCE involving a coalition that included Ahab of Israel. This is an external historical reconstruction drawing on Assyrian evidence. The biblical books should not be made to say that they directly describe this particular confrontation unless the cited passage actually does so. Military interaction and later tribute should also be distinguished from provincial administration."}, {"title": "What comes after a campaign", "text": "Military inscriptions illuminate royal priorities more readily than individual villagers' experiences. Trade, tribute, alliances, and the need to maintain routes and garrisons made durable control more complicated than conquest rhetoric. To deepen this guide, the next research pass should identify specific inscriptions and the peoples they name, then compare those accounts with regional archaeology and dated records instead of relying only on modern narrative summaries."}, {"title": "Repeated campaigning met organised resistance", "text": "Shalmaneser III ruled from 859 to 824 BCE. His western campaigns encountered coalitions of regional rulers, with Qarqar in 853 BCE a major example. The Assyrian account claims victory, but subsequent campaigning shows that a victory statement did not automatically establish lasting control.\n\nLocal rulers could resist, submit or alter alliances. Supplies, transport, negotiations and renewed expeditions were part of that relationship. The frontier was consequently a continuing political problem rather than a line crossed once and permanently secured."}, {"title": "Tribute represented a hierarchy", "text": "The Black Obelisk arranges groups bearing tribute within an ordered display of the king's authority. Its Jehu caption connects a named ruler of Israel with Assyrian demands. In that royal presentation, tribute was a visible relationship of subordination rather than simply a voluntary gift.\n\nThe monument combines episodes from different dates into a later object. Its manufacture and the events depicted are not the same moment. Readers can distinguish the particular tribute reference from the broader claims communicated by the completed monument."}], "sources": ["met-assyria", "met-rulers-assyria", "met-levant-chronology", "oracc-shalmaneser", "wikipedia-shalmaneser-iii"], "related": ["ashurnasirpal-ii", "tiglath-pileser-iii", "assyrian-governance", "royal-reliefs", "black-obelisk-jehu"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tiglath-pileser-iii", "title": "Tiglath-pileser III: empire and provinces", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A ruler whose campaigns and administrative changes transformed Assyrian relations with neighbouring states.", "sections": [{"title": "A turning point in imperial rule", "text": "Tiglath-pileser III ruled from the middle of the eighth century BCE, approximately 745-727 BCE. The Assyrian Empire Builders research project presents his conquests and administrative changes as a decisive phase in the expansion of direct Assyrian rule. Such descriptions are scholarly assessments of a political process; the empire did not acquire one uniform legal or cultural system overnight. Royal inscriptions, letters and provincial evidence document different aspects of the transformation."}, {"title": "Direct rule and dependent kingdoms", "text": "The empire governed some conquered areas through appointed officials and provinces, while other rulers retained local thrones under Assyrian pressure. Confusing these arrangements overstates what maps and tribute claims can demonstrate. The Metropolitan Museum's eastern Mediterranean chronology describes directly administered provinces and policies of mass displacement. These mechanisms should be described together: political power operated through institutions and people, not only border expansion."}, {"title": "The Bible names the king", "text": "Second Kings 15:29 reports Tiglath-pileser's seizure of places in northern Israel and deportations. Second Kings 16:7-9 records Ahaz's appeal to the Assyrian king and the taking of Damascus. These verses are the primary biblical evidence for what Kings says; a historical chronology or geographic extent supplied by Assyrian records is a separate comparison. The account in 2 Chronicles 28:16-21 provides a different emphasis on the consequences for Ahaz."}, {"title": "Names across records", "text": "Biblical books preserve forms such as Pul and Tilgath-pilneser. Identifying ancient persons across differently transmitted names requires philological and historical comparison; a spelling resemblance by itself is insufficient. The archive retains each biblical form in its own context and uses Tiglath-pileser III as the conventional historical name where appropriate. The companion biblical guide and inscription collections should be read side by side, with every interpretive identification made explicit."}, {"title": "Annexation changed local government", "text": "Tiglath-pileser III ruled from 745 to 727 BCE and greatly extended Assyrian power. Annexation could remove or reduce a local dynasty and place territory under Assyrian officials. Paying tribute through an existing king and being governed as a province were different arrangements.\n\nPopulation transfers also served imperial aims by moving labour and weakening defeated communities. These policies changed households and local societies, not only the map. Their administrative purpose must be explained alongside coercion and its human consequences."}, {"title": "Ahaz's appeal had consequences beyond battle", "text": "In 2 Kings 16, Ahaz sends temple and palace wealth to secure Assyrian assistance. The defeat of Damascus answers an immediate threat but also places Judah within a dependent relationship. The narrative continues with Ahaz's visit to Damascus and alterations to worship.\n\nThe political story therefore does not end at military relief. External protection could affect finance, royal behaviour and religious institutions. The passage provides a particular example of imperial intervention reaching into the internal life of another kingdom."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "aebp-tiglath", "met-rulers-assyria", "met-levant-chronology", "aebp-governance", "wikipedia-tiglath-pileser-iii"], "related": ["bible-pul-menahem", "bible-tiglath-pileser", "shalmaneser-v", "assyrian-governance", "assyrian-deportation"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 15, 29, 29], ["2KI", 16, 7, 9], ["2CH", 28, 16, 21]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "shalmaneser-v", "title": "Shalmaneser V and the Samaria question", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A short reign, a contested succession and the care required when discussing Samaria's fall.", "sections": [{"title": "The successor to Tiglath-pileser", "text": "Shalmaneser V followed Tiglath-pileser III and ruled approximately 726-722 BCE. Specialist analysis in Assyrian Empire Builders discusses his earlier position as crown prince, his royal correspondence and his short reign. Letters offer unusually practical evidence of administration that royal victory texts rarely show. The available records should not be mistaken for a complete biography, and hypotheses about his death or the succession must be labelled as such."}, {"title": "The historical record is uneven", "text": "Only a small amount of official inscriptional material survives from Shalmaneser V's reign. The Assyrian Empire Builders study discusses the transition to Sargon II, whose ascent involved conflict. Later claims made by Sargon about his predecessor need particular care because they belong to a politically interested successor's narrative. Differences between sparse contemporary sources and later royal presentations are part of the historical problem, not editorial clutter to remove."}, {"title": "Samaria in Kings", "text": "Second Kings 17:3-6 names Shalmaneser in the account of Hoshea's tribute and describes the siege, capture and deportation associated with Samaria. The parallel account in 2 Kings 18:9-12 should be read in full. Identifying the named king with Shalmaneser V draws on historical chronology; deciding which ruler took the city and which later ruler claimed the victory also requires independent Assyrian sources. The archive must not make these distinct questions silently identical."}, {"title": "A necessary uncertainty", "text": "Assyrian Empire Builders treats evidence for changes in western provincial administration under Shalmaneser and the violent accession of Sargon. These scholarly reconstructions do not remove every chronological difficulty. A responsible guide states what Kings reports, what the surviving Assyrian materials support, and where the chronology remains disputed. The next source pass should identify the precise royal lines and dated records at issue."}, {"title": "Subordination, rebellion and siege", "text": "Shalmaneser V succeeded Tiglath-pileser III in 727 BCE and ruled until 722 BCE. His short reign falls at an important transition in the history of Samaria. The limited surviving royal inscriptional record should not be filled with invented campaigns or annals.\n\nKings describes Hoshea paying tribute, seeking Egyptian help and then withholding payment. The Assyrian response includes imprisonment and the siege of Samaria. The sequence explains a broken relationship of subordination before describing the city's fall."}, {"title": "The change of reign complicates attribution", "text": "Sargon II later claimed the conquest and reorganisation of Samaria. Kings names Shalmaneser at the siege's beginning and subsequently refers to the king of Assyria or the Assyrians. These witnesses create a real question about chronology and attribution.\n\nA useful account preserves what each positively states. Sparse evidence for Shalmaneser does not justify erasing the beginning named in Kings, while the biblical wording does not make Sargon's claim disappear. The transition itself is historical information readers need to understand."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "aebp-shalmaneser-v", "aebp-sargon", "met-rulers-assyria", "wikipedia-shalmaneser-v"], "related": ["bible-samaria", "bible-deportation", "sargon-ii", "tiglath-pileser-iii", "fall-of-nineveh", "samaria-assyrian-chronology"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 17, 3, 6], ["2KI", 18, 9, 12]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "sargon-ii", "title": "Sargon II: king, campaigns and a new capital", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A ruler known from royal inscriptions, Khorsabad archaeology and the single explicit Sargon reference in Isaiah.", "sections": [{"title": "A contested beginning", "text": "Sargon II came to power in the late eighth century BCE and ruled approximately 721-705 BCE. Assyrian Empire Builders places his accession amid conflict following Shalmaneser V. Royal accounts legitimising a new reign are not independent records of the predecessor's conduct. They require comparison with letters, provincial evidence and later historical interpretation. This distinction is especially important in discussing Samaria, which was also part of the political transition."}, {"title": "Dur-Sharrukin as a royal statement", "text": "Sargon founded Dur-Sharrukin, the archaeological site called Khorsabad, as a new royal centre. The French Ministry of Culture's site account documents the city, palace and modern excavations. Architecture, inscriptions and monumental sculpture show the project's political ambition. What survives today is incomplete; a reconstruction must distinguish original remains, nineteenth-century records and modern display. Sargon's planned capital should not be treated as a map of the whole empire."}, {"title": "Sargon in Isaiah", "text": "Isaiah 20:1 explicitly names Sargon king of Assyria when it describes the Tartan's action against Ashdod. The remaining verses present Isaiah's enacted sign and a warning concerning reliance on Egypt and Cush. Isaiah is the primary source for the biblical narrative. The connection between Sargon and the archaeological city Dur-Sharrukin comes from a different body of evidence and is not stated in Isaiah."}, {"title": "Claims, chronology and source roles", "text": "Historical essays and the royal inscription corpus can explain Sargon's campaigns and the administrative context of his reign. They do not establish the literal truth of every claim in royal rhetoric. A detailed comparison should specify which inscription, tablet or letter describes a given event, identify its date and authorship where known, and separate reports of taking a city from proof of long-term control."}, {"title": "Consolidating authority after accession", "text": "Sargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BCE. His accession and early reign involved political uncertainty, while campaigns sought to secure authority across dependent territories. The court presented the ruler as restoring order, but resistance required continuing responses.\n\nForce, tribute, provincial appointments and resettlement were related tools with different effects. A claim to install an official is not the same statement as a report of tribute or a deportation total. Explaining those differences shows what imperial control meant in particular places."}, {"title": "A capital tied closely to one reign", "text": "Dur-Sharrukin demanded labour, building material and supplies on a large scale. Its palace and religious structures created a setting for royal display, while the project reorganised resources around Sargon's court.\n\nHis death in battle in 705 BCE ended the reign unexpectedly. Sennacherib subsequently centred government at Nineveh. The new capital therefore demonstrates both the ability to reshape a landscape and the limits of a project dependent on one ruler. Enormous investment did not determine the successor's choice of residence."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "aebp-sargon", "aebp-shalmaneser-v", "khorsabad-ministry", "oracc-rinap", "wikipedia-sargon-ii"], "related": ["khorsabad", "bible-sargon", "shalmaneser-v", "sennacherib", "assyrian-governance", "sargon-ashdod-isaiah", "samaria-assyrian-chronology"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["ISA", 20, 1, 6]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "sennacherib", "title": "Sennacherib: Nineveh and Judah", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Palace building, the campaign against Judah and the distinct testimony of biblical and Assyrian records.", "sections": [{"title": "The capital at Nineveh", "text": "Sennacherib succeeded Sargon II and reigned approximately 704-681 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art identifies his development of Nineveh as a major transformation of the Assyrian capital. The city included the palace complex described in royal texts and represented in excavated architectural remains. The phrase 'palace without rival' comes from royal presentation and should be recognised as an expression of the king's ambitions, not an independent measure of architectural supremacy."}, {"title": "Lachish in stone", "text": "The British Museum catalogues gypsum palace panels from Nineveh depicting an Assyrian assault on the Judean city of Lachish. One registered panel, number 124904, depicts slingers and archers; another, 124908, shows prisoners and booty. Their findspot in the palace and their museum numbers make them independently locatable artefacts. They establish a material record of how the Assyrian court commemorated the campaign, not a complete account of every civilian's experience."}, {"title": "The account in Kings and Isaiah", "text": "Second Kings 18:13-16 reports Sennacherib's seizure of fortified cities and the tribute paid by Hezekiah. The narrative continues through the Assyrian delegation, Hezekiah's prayer and the divine deliverance reported in 2 Kings 19; Isaiah 36-37 preserves a parallel account. These passages are primary for the biblical account, including its theological claims. Details and numbers in the Bible should not be rewritten from an Assyrian inscription, or vice versa, without explaining the different witnesses."}, {"title": "How to compare the accounts", "text": "The royal inscriptions corpus is a route to the Assyrian king's own presentation of campaigns; biblical writings speak within their own historical and theological framework. Agreement on particular people or places does not demonstrate agreement on every reported outcome. A useful future comparison will cite exact inscription identifiers and lines, place them beside specific verses and explicitly discuss differences in motive, date, tribute and narrative focus."}, {"title": "War became visible within the capital", "text": "Sennacherib ruled from 705 to 681 BCE and developed Nineveh through palace construction and extensive urban and water-supply works. These projects transformed labour and resources into a lasting representation of royal authority.\n\nLachish's defeat was displayed in relief within the palace. A distant campaign was brought before visitors at Nineveh through scenes of assault, surrender and the processing of the defeated. The objects joined an architectural programme rather than serving as isolated pictures for a modern audience."}, {"title": "A kingdom under pressure in 701 BCE", "text": "The Judah campaign affected fortified settlements and the resources around Jerusalem. The royal annals emphasise defeat, tribute and Hezekiah's confinement, while Kings and Isaiah develop a confrontation involving public speech, prayer and deliverance.\n\nThose presentations share a particular setting while emphasising its outcome differently. A narrative should first make the crisis intelligible: Judah faced attacks, demands for wealth and a challenge to allegiance. Source comparison then explains the distinct claims without displacing the events behind general commentary."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "met-assyria", "met-nineveh-history", "bm-lachish-panel", "bm-lachish-deportees", "oracc-rinap", "wikipedia-sennacherib"], "related": ["nineveh", "bible-sennacherib-invasion", "bible-hezekiah-deliverance", "bible-rabshakeh", "esarhaddon", "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah", "lachish-reliefs-context"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 18, 13, 37], ["2KI", 19, 1, 37], ["ISA", 36, 1, 22], ["ISA", 37, 1, 38]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "esarhaddon", "title": "Esarhaddon: succession and Egypt", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "From the murder of Sennacherib to the campaigns in Egypt and the question of royal succession.", "sections": [{"title": "The succession in Scripture", "text": "Second Kings 19:36-37 describes Sennacherib's return to Nineveh, his killing by two sons and the succession of Esarhaddon. Isaiah 37:37-38 provides the parallel biblical account. This is what the passages explicitly report. The names and sequence can be investigated through other sources, but the Bible's wording should be presented before the historical comparison, and a later scholarly reconstruction should not be inserted into the quotation."}, {"title": "The ruler and the wider empire", "text": "Esarhaddon ruled approximately 680-669 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes his Egyptian campaign and the capture of Memphis in 671 BCE, followed by his death during a later expedition. These are externally reconstructed historical events, not subjects of the cited succession verses. Campaign records and royal inscriptions are valuable but must be read with attention to royal self-representation and to the limits of military control."}, {"title": "Ezra's settlement memory", "text": "Ezra 4:2 preserves the speech of people who refer to settlement in the land during Esar Haddon's time. Their claim belongs to a later biblical narrative and should be read with the surrounding verses. It is not a complete census of people moved by Assyria, nor does the passage provide the administrative files or the exact scale of that resettlement. Such details require independent historical sources."}, {"title": "Beyond one individual", "text": "Royal succession drew together dynastic politics, provinces, military forces and the court. An overview that speaks only of conquest omits the administrative apparatus that made campaigns possible. The RINAP corpus provides a route into texts attributed to Esarhaddon, while comparative institutional studies explain the types of evidence used. Future detailed claims require exact inscription lines, rather than a blanket citation to the entire collection."}, {"title": "Maintaining power through a royal transition", "text": "Esarhaddon ruled from 681 to 669 BCE after Sennacherib's killing. An accession required effective control of the court, recognition by officials and the management of rivals. A royal title alone did not make authority operate across a large empire.\n\nHis reign included major building projects, campaigns and preparations for another succession. Egyptian conquest displayed military reach, but long-distance intervention also required continuing supplies and responses. Conquest should not be mistaken for effortless or permanent administration."}, {"title": "Babylon and the next generation", "text": "Esarhaddon rebuilt Babylon after its destruction under Sennacherib. That work affected political and religious relationships with an important southern centre. The empire included cities with traditions and status that could not simply be treated as interchangeable provinces.\n\nThe arrangements for Ashurbanipal in Assyria and Shamash-shumu-ukin in Babylon sought to organise the future. Later conflict between the brothers shows that a formal settlement did not remove every tension. Succession was a continuing institutional problem, not merely a list of names in sequence."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "met-assyria", "met-rulers-assyria", "oracc-rinap", "aebp-deportation", "aebp-governance", "wikipedia-esarhaddon"], "related": ["sennacherib", "bible-esarhaddon", "ashurbanipal", "assyrian-governance", "assyrian-deportation"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 19, 36, 37], ["ISA", 37, 37, 38], ["EZR", 4, 1, 5]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "ashurbanipal", "title": "Ashurbanipal: king and the tablet collections", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Political power and scholarly collecting at Nineveh during the later Neo-Assyrian empire.", "sections": [{"title": "A late imperial ruler", "text": "Ashurbanipal succeeded Esarhaddon in the seventh century BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes a reign involving military action in Egypt, Babylonia and Elam. Dates differ slightly across modern chronologies and catalogues, which is a reason to identify the dating system rather than present one endpoint as certain. Courtly evidence is extensive but strongly shaped by the interests of the ruler and palace."}, {"title": "A library is not one room", "text": "The scholarly texts found at Nineveh include copied literary, ritual and learned works. Calling the collection the 'Library of Ashurbanipal' is conventional, but it must not conjure a modern lending institution. The Metropolitan Museum and specialist library studies place these materials within a much broader ancient tradition of scribal learning, copying and the movement of tablets. The collection is evidence of institutions and texts, not simply one king's personal reading preferences."}, {"title": "A tablet that can be checked", "text": "The British Museum catalogues object 1881,0204.188, a clay tablet containing a prayer and identified by its colophon as copied for Ashurbanipal's palace library. The museum records its provenance and physical characteristics. This specific object is a stronger traceable starting point than an uncited claim that an entire library survives intact. The inscribed wording and scribal context still require a qualified edition for detailed interpretation."}, {"title": "After the reign", "text": "The end of Assyrian imperial power followed periods of internal and external conflict. It should not be attributed to one simple cause or represented as proof of an abrupt disappearance of all people, language or culture associated with the region. Royal inscriptions, chronicles and archaeological strata offer different perspectives on these changes. The history of the collapse belongs in its own sourced article instead of being a single dramatic closing sentence here."}, {"title": "Court learning had practical purposes", "text": "The tablets associated with Ashurbanipal at Nineveh include literary works, lexical texts, omens, medicine and ritual. Specialist knowledge served the court's decisions and religious responsibilities as well as preserving prestigious compositions.\n\nCopying involved selecting witnesses, identifying contents and arranging texts in series. Scholars interpreted signs and advised rulers through learned traditions. The surviving material therefore reflects trained people and institutions, not a modern public lending library created for casual reading."}, {"title": "Conflict within an extensive empire", "text": "Ashurbanipal's reign included campaigns involving Egypt and Elam and a major struggle with his brother Shamash-shumu-ukin in Babylon. Scholarly and artistic production existed alongside the continuing costs of war and resistance.\n\nThe later imperial collapse belongs to a sequence involving succession, internal conflict and external enemies. It should not be reduced to a single automatic consequence of one king's death. The library's importance is greater when explained within that institutional and political world rather than detached from it."}], "sources": ["met-assyria", "met-rulers-assyria", "met-nineveh-history", "yale-libraries", "bm-ashurbanipal-tablet", "bm-chronicle", "wikipedia-ashurbanipal"], "related": ["nineveh", "esarhaddon", "fall-of-nineveh", "manuscripts", "akkadian-and-cuneiform"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "assyrian-governance", "title": "Running the Neo-Assyrian empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Governors, provinces, royal correspondence and the institutions behind military power.", "sections": [{"title": "A government beyond the palace image", "text": "Royal inscriptions frequently place the king at the centre of every achievement. Administrative letters and institutional texts show a more complex reality. The Assyrian Empire Builders project describes powerful officials, appointed governors, military officers and scribes who managed affairs across a large territory. Political decisions travelled through people and documents, not by royal presence everywhere. This evidence helps correct an account built solely from carved victory scenes."}, {"title": "Different relationships with regions", "text": "Some places were organised as directly administered provinces; other kingdoms retained local rulers while accepting Assyrian demands and political pressure. A map depicting both in one colour can conceal important legal and practical differences. Governors were appointed by the king, yet exercised substantial authority in their jurisdictions. The historian must distinguish a claimed campaign, a tribute relationship, a vassal kingdom and a province when assessing the territorial reach of the state."}, {"title": "Scribes, messages and delegated work", "text": "Administrative records and letters illuminate the work of provincial officials and palace scribes. The Assyrian Empire Builders study points to organised systems that transmitted instructions and allowed deputies to act in a superior's absence. Such mechanisms make the empire more intelligible than a succession of wars alone. They also reveal why isolated palace proclamations do not give a complete picture of political practice."}, {"title": "What a source can establish", "text": "An official text may attest that a king ordered an action, while a letter can record a response, obstacle or disagreement. Neither guarantees that every intended result was achieved. For each administrative claim, the archive should identify who wrote the document, its date where established, the office or place involved and the edition or catalogue reference. Surviving letters come from uneven locations and should not be used as a comprehensive census of imperial activity."}, {"title": "What direct provincial rule required", "text": "A governor linked a province's resources and obligations with imperial demands. Officials communicated orders, supplied personnel and goods, and reported problems requiring attention. The king depended on delegated work because no ruler could personally manage every settlement.\n\nA dependent kingdom might retain its own dynasty while owing tribute and obedience. Its relationship differed from direct provincial administration. Recognising that distinction makes both political decisions and maps more informative: imperial influence was not identical everywhere."}, {"title": "Letters reveal work rather than perfect order", "text": "A letter might report shortages, request instructions or explain an awkward decision. Government therefore involved practical uncertainty and negotiation as well as commands. Carrying out an order required people, animals, supplies and local knowledge.\n\nWriting made information portable, while messengers and routes connected levels of authority. Surviving correspondence reveals how that system worked and where it encountered difficulty. These details explain imperial operation beyond the court's declarations that every action fulfilled the king's intention."}], "sources": ["aebp-governance", "aebp-countries", "oracc-rinap", "wikipedia-neo-assyrian-empire"], "related": ["tiglath-pileser-iii", "sargon-ii", "assyrian-deportation", "imperial-languages", "ancient-assyria", "assyrian-deportations-texts", "historical-evidence-methods", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "assyrian-deportation", "title": "Deportation and resettlement in Assyria", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "State-directed migration, displacement, labour and the difficult evidence of imperial population policies.", "sections": [{"title": "People moved by imperial policy", "text": "Assyrian rulers organised the movement of populations across conquered and long-held territories. Specialist study in Assyrian Empire Builders examines relocation as part of imperial administration, agriculture and political control. These policies were not simply voluntary migrations. They disrupted existing communities and placed people under state power, even where official accounts described the outcome favourably. Different movements had different motives, and no single narrative describes the experiences of every relocated person."}, {"title": "The perspective of the state", "text": "Royal inscriptions and images often present displacement as a successful administrative achievement, with particular interest in labour, skilled crafts and settled production. These are sources for official policy and representation, not a direct statement from each affected household. Assyrian Empire Builders discusses the arrangements made for some deportees, but that evidence must not be used to dismiss coercion, danger, family loss or other experiences that are poorly recorded."}, {"title": "Deportation in the Bible", "text": "Second Kings 17:6 records Israelites being taken from Samaria to places in the Assyrian world; 2 Kings 17:24 describes incoming settlers. First Chronicles 5:25-26 also connects eastern Israelite groups with Assyrian deportation. These are biblical primary references for the movements they describe. Later scholarship addresses how such policies operated on a wider scale. Biblical texts and royal administrative perspectives should remain separately attributable."}, {"title": "Numbers and human scale", "text": "Large figures in imperial reports are not automatically verified totals. The numbers may be stylised or incomplete, while undocumented people remain invisible. The archive should prefer precisely identified records and explain how estimates are calculated, instead of repeating impressive figures without context. Individual letters, objects and biblical passages can reveal particular aspects of displacement, but they cannot reconstruct every fate or justify projecting modern identity labels uncritically backwards."}, {"title": "What forced removal changed", "text": "Deportation separated people from land, property and familiar relationships. Households could be required to work in a new setting while losing access to their previous livelihoods. The state also sought labour, skills and reduced resistance from conquered populations.\n\nAdministrative descriptions commonly classify people by origin or usefulness. That perspective supplies evidence about the policy but leaves much of the experience of those moved unrecorded. A history should explain both the intended imperial mechanism and the disruption imposed on communities."}, {"title": "Resettlement affected institutions and worship", "text": "New arrivals and existing residents had to live within altered relationships of authority, work and religious practice. The account of Samaria in 2 Kings 17 discusses worship as well as the movement of populations. Conquest's consequences exceeded a change in ruler or headcount.\n\nA later place name or personal name does not establish a complete modern genealogy. It can support a particular connection at a particular time. Explaining those documented relationships allows the article to discuss coercion and community change without inventing ancestry where the evidence is narrower."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "aebp-deportation", "bm-lachish-deportees", "wikipedia-neo-assyrian-empire"], "related": ["bible-deportation", "bible-samaria", "assyrian-governance", "tiglath-pileser-iii", "shalmaneser-v"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 17, 6, 6], ["2KI", 17, 24, 24], ["1CH", 5, 25, 26]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "assyrian-religious-life", "title": "Religion, temples and kingship in ancient Assyria", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The city and deity Ashur, temple institutions and the limits of reconstructing ancient belief from elite texts.", "sections": [{"title": "Ashur: city, land and deity", "text": "Ancient Ashur was a city and a central religious location, as well as the name associated with the chief Assyrian god. UNESCO documents temples, urban remains, kingship and the wider archaeological setting. The recurrence of a name across these domains calls for careful context; it does not turn every use of Ashur into a statement about the same subject. This account concerns ancient religious institutions, not the modern Syriac Christian faith traditions discussed elsewhere in the archive."}, {"title": "Temples and political authority", "text": "UNESCO records the religious and political importance of Ashur as well as the remains of major temple buildings and places linked with royal ceremonies. Palaces and temple estates could have distinct functions, and the movement of a royal residence to Kalhu or Nineveh did not erase Ashur's symbolic role. Surviving architectural phases should be dated separately instead of treating a site as a single unchanging sanctuary over millennia."}, {"title": "Ritual texts and scribal learning", "text": "A British Museum tablet from Ashurbanipal's collection preserves a copied prayer. This specific object documents scholarly transmission of a religious text in a palace setting; it is not a complete picture of household practice. Written texts, excavated spaces and images each reveal different aspects of ancient religion. Any assertion about what 'all Assyrians believed' should be checked for period, region, social group and evidence."}, {"title": "Separate historical and theological questions", "text": "The Bible contains its own accounts of Assyrian kings, gods and conflict. For biblical narratives, those cited passages are the primary textual references. Reconstructing historical Assyrian cult practice is a distinct question requiring archaeological and Assyriological evidence. Neither source category should be made to speak beyond its content. Later Christian Assyrian identities and practices require their own much later documented history, not an unsupported claim of identical religious rites."}, {"title": "Cult had a material basis", "text": "Temples needed people, offerings, vessels, textiles and the organisation of recurring activities. Their operation therefore appears in administrative as well as ritual records. Worship was connected with work and resources, rather than being only an abstract list of divine names.\n\nRoyal inscriptions present rulers as maintaining sanctuaries and fulfilling duties to the gods. This communicates legitimate kingship and draws attention to religious investment. It does not provide the private beliefs of every person participating in temple-related work."}, {"title": "Ritual and divination addressed different questions", "text": "Ritual instructions prescribe sequences of actions in particular settings. Divinatory practices seek information through signs, including celestial phenomena or the examination of sacrificial animals. Specialists maintained methods for interpretation and advice.\n\nThese practices belonged to ancient religious understandings of the world. Describing their historical procedures does not adopt their claims as modern explanations of disease or natural events. The useful questions concern what practitioners did, what they sought to know and how institutions supported their work."}], "sources": ["unesco-ashur", "met-assyria", "bm-ashurbanipal-tablet", "yale-libraries", "wikipedia-mesopotamian-mythology"], "related": ["ashur", "faith-and-churches", "assyrian-identity", "ashurbanipal", "ancient-assyria", "middle-assyrian-religion-ritual"], "image": null, "note": "Ancient Mesopotamian religious institutions are historically distinct from later Christian traditions.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "imperial-languages", "title": "Languages and writing across the Assyrian empire", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Assyrian Akkadian, Aramaic, royal inscriptions and the multilingual world of administration.", "sections": [{"title": "More than one language", "text": "Assyrian Akkadian was written in cuneiform, but the regions under Assyrian influence contained many languages. The empire's records preserve several forms of writing and varied local traditions. An Akkadian inscription makes a specific claim about the language of that text, not the everyday language of every resident. Later Aramaic and Classical Syriac developed in different historical settings and cannot be treated as identical to ancient Assyrian Akkadian."}, {"title": "Aramaic and an expanding empire", "text": "The Metropolitan Museum's regional chronology connects Assyrian imperial expansion and population movements with the wider spread of Aramaic language and alphabetic writing. This is a historical synthesis, not an assertion that everyone adopted a single spoken dialect simultaneously. Administrative correspondence and objects need to be examined individually for language, script, geography and date."}, {"title": "The biblical language exchange", "text": "Second Kings 18:26 reports the officials' request that the Assyrian representative speak in Aramaic because they understood it, rather than in the language of Judah before the listeners on the wall. Isaiah 36:11 gives a parallel account. These passages are the direct biblical evidence for the narrated exchange. They do not establish that the spoken Aramaic of the episode was the same as a contemporary Neo-Aramaic variety."}, {"title": "Scripts and continuity need precision", "text": "Cuneiform is a writing system, not a synonym for one language; Syriac script belongs to another historical writing tradition. The Syriac literary language is a form of Aramaic and requires separate sources when treated in detail. A responsible language history follows demonstrable texts, linguistic change and named varieties rather than using the survival of a script to prove that all spoken forms stayed unchanged. The longer language articles provide those necessary distinctions."}, {"title": "One state could use several languages", "text": "Akkadian cuneiform remained important in administration and scholarship, while Aramaic had a broad communicative reach. Individuals could have different spoken and written abilities, and languages could serve different functions within the same political world.\n\nSurvival also varies by material. Clay tablets remain more readily than many perishable documents. The size of the cuneiform corpus is therefore not a direct measure of every language used in households, streets or offices. Written evidence and spoken life cannot simply be equated."}, {"title": "The language choice at Jerusalem", "text": "In 2 Kings 18:26, officials request Aramaic because they understand it and wish to avoid the wider audience hearing the speech in its own language. The Assyrian spokesman instead addresses the people directly. Comprehension becomes part of a struggle over confidence and allegiance.\n\nThe episode distinguishes officials from listeners and explains a political use of language. It does not identify every soldier's daily speech or make the exchange identical to a modern Neo-Aramaic variety. Its specific account is informative without those larger extrapolations."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "cambridge-mesopotamian-languages", "gedsh-aramaic", "gedsh-syriac", "met-levant-chronology", "wikipedia-imperial-aramaic"], "related": ["akkadian-and-cuneiform", "aramaic", "classical-syriac", "sureth", "bible-rabshakeh", "cuneiform-reading-methods", "syriac-script-histories"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["2KI", 18, 26, 26], ["ISA", 36, 11, 11]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "fall-of-nineveh", "title": "The fall of Nineveh and the end of Assyrian imperial rule", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The late seventh-century collapse, its historical sources and the difference between political defeat and cultural disappearance.", "sections": [{"title": "The final imperial decades", "text": "The Neo-Assyrian state suffered severe political and military reversals in the later seventh century BCE. The Metropolitan Museum describes attacks involving Babylonian and Median forces. There was no single instant at which the complex system of cities, provinces and royal households ceased to matter. Dates for separate campaigns, sieges and rulers must be reconstructed from chronicles, inscriptions and archaeology, not from the simple label 'fall of Assyria'."}, {"title": "Nineveh in 612 BCE", "text": "Nineveh was captured in 612 BCE during the wars that ended Assyrian imperial domination. Historical narratives draw on Babylonian chronicle traditions as well as destruction and later activity at the site. The referenced Babylonian Chronicle tablet is one surviving material route into this chronology, but summaries and photographed objects are not substitutes for a line-by-line edition of the tablet. The archive should preserve the distinction between a dated chronicle report and an interpretation of archaeological destruction."}, {"title": "The Bible's prophetic witness", "text": "Nahum presents an oracle about Nineveh, and Zephaniah 2:13-15 announces the city's desolation. These are the primary biblical references for what those books say. Neither passage supplies an explicit date of 612 BCE, identifies every besieging force or narrates the Babylonian Chronicle. A comparison may show how later historians relate prophecy and historical events, but those added dates must be credited to historical evidence rather than attributed to the verse itself."}, {"title": "Why 609 BCE also matters", "text": "The Metropolitan Museum's regional chronology identifies a further Assyrian stand at Harran in 609 BCE. This distinguishes the fall of the major capital in 612 BCE from the end of attempts to retain or restore imperial rule. Confusing the two dates shortens the narrative artificially. The collapse of a political state likewise does not prove that every local person, language or cultural practice vanished with it."}, {"title": "Several defeats ended imperial power", "text": "Assyria's last imperial decades included succession struggles and the rise of Babylonian power under Nabopolassar. Median forces attacked Assyrian centres as well. Ashur fell in 614 BCE and Nineveh in 612 BCE, dealing connected blows to royal institutions and territory.\n\nResistance continued after Nineveh's destruction, associated with Harran and Ashur-uballit II. The events of 609 BCE belong to that remaining attempt to maintain or recover power. Ending the political sequence at 612 alone misses this continuation."}, {"title": "Why a capital's destruction reached beyond its walls", "text": "The court concentrated records, stores, workshops and people dependent on royal activity. Its capture could disrupt communication, supplies and livelihoods across a wider area. Destruction was consequently an institutional crisis as well as damage to buildings.\n\nChronicles and archaeology illuminate parts of that sequence. Nahum and Zephaniah interpret Nineveh in prophetic settings. None requires the conclusion that every person or settlement of northern Mesopotamia vanished when imperial government ended; later regional histories need their own evidence."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "met-assyria", "met-rulers-assyria", "bm-chronicle", "met-nineveh-history", "met-levant-chronology", "wikipedia-fall-of-nineveh"], "related": ["nineveh", "bible-nahum", "bible-zephaniah", "post-imperial-assyria", "ashurbanipal", "babylonian-chronicle-nineveh", "bm-21901-nineveh-chronicle-case"], "image": null, "note": null, "passages": [["NAH", 1, 1, 1], ["ZEP", 2, 13, 15]], "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "post-imperial-assyria", "title": "After the empire: Assyria's changing regions", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Political change after the fall of the Assyrian state and the evidence needed to discuss later communities responsibly.", "sections": [{"title": "An empire ends, a region remains", "text": "The destruction of royal centres and end of Assyrian imperial government in the late seventh century BCE did not cause the landscape or all its inhabitants to disappear. Yet one cannot infer the precise ancestry or unbroken institutions of later communities merely from survival of a place name. To study subsequent centuries, historians need dated settlement layers, inscriptions, documentary sources and the histories of successive states and religious traditions."}, {"title": "Ashur's later archaeological life", "text": "UNESCO describes the ancient city of Ashur as having later occupation and revival under Parthian rule. Its architectural and burial evidence provides a concrete example of post-imperial activity at a place central to earlier Assyrian history. Later structures cannot simply be labelled 'Neo-Assyrian' because they stand at Ashur. Each archaeological phase must be analysed for date, use and context; continuity of occupation and continuity of particular institutions are different claims."}, {"title": "Changing imperial contexts", "text": "After the period of Assyrian rule, northern Mesopotamia was affected by successive powers and shifting cultural networks. The regional chronology supplied by the Metropolitan Museum situates late Assyrian defeat within the rise of Babylonia and later imperial changes. Extending the article into Persian, Hellenistic and Parthian centuries will require further location-specific references rather than assuming that general eastern Mediterranean history explains every settlement in Assyria."}, {"title": "Language, faith and modern identity", "text": "Later Aramaic and Syriac textual traditions matter deeply to the history of communities associated with this region, but they belong to distinct historical periods and sources. A rigorous account can explore relationships among ancient geography, Syriac Christian literatures and modern Assyrian identities while acknowledging disputed interpretations. The continued existence of communities does not itself verify any single unchanged ethnic label, language or religious practice across twenty-six centuries."}, {"title": "A region within changing empires", "text": "Northern Mesopotamia passed into changing Babylonian, Persian and later Hellenistic political worlds. Administrative centres, territorial names and relationships could change. A later source's use of Assyria or a related regional designation therefore needs to be read within its own period.\n\nA former capital could lose imperial functions while retaining inhabitants, economic connections or religious significance. Ashur's later occupation illustrates why the end of an empire and the abandonment of every settlement are separate questions."}, {"title": "Continuity is compatible with change", "text": "Languages, populations and institutions can persist while changing form. Aramaic and later Syriac Christian literature belong to important subsequent regional histories, but do not mean an Iron Age palace administration continued under another name.\n\nA careful account follows dated occupation, texts, institutions and communities between periods. Such links establish particular continuities. They are stronger than assuming that everything remained identical or that conquest completely removed earlier inhabitants and memories. Both change and persistence require positive explanation rather than an automatic conclusion."}], "sources": ["met-assyria", "unesco-ashur", "met-levant-chronology", "gedsh-aramaic", "gedsh-assyrians", "wikipedia-achaemenid-assyria"], "related": ["ashur", "ancient-assyria", "fall-of-nineveh", "edessa", "assyrian-identity"], "image": null, "note": "Political continuity, population histories and cultural identity require separate lines of evidence; no unbroken lineage is asserted.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "cuneiform-reading-methods", "title": "Reading Assyrian cuneiform responsibly", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "How an ancient tablet becomes a catalogue record, sign transcription, linguistic interpretation and historical argument.", "sections": [{"title": "From object to identified text", "text": "A clay tablet or stone inscription is a physical object first. The University of Cambridge explains that cuneiform was employed for multiple ancient Mesopotamian languages, including Assyrian and Babylonian varieties of Akkadian. A wedge-shaped sign does not identify a spoken language by itself. The object's findspot, accession number, physical condition, palaeography and date must be considered before treating a reconstructed text as an ancient Assyrian statement."}, {"title": "Signs, transliteration and translation", "text": "A sign-by-sign transcription or transliteration attempts to record what is written; a normalised Akkadian reading adds philological interpretation; an English translation is another interpretive stage. They should not be presented as identical layers. A broken tablet may contain restored passages marked by editorial conventions, and a royal inscription may use formulaic language. Linking to CDLI identifies a place to search records and editions, not a licence to generate unattested original-language lines."}, {"title": "Assyrian and Babylonian as Akkadian traditions", "text": "Cambridge identifies Assyrian and Babylonian as closely related linguistic varieties often grouped as Akkadian. This ancient branch is not the same language as modern Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. Both belong to Semitic history in a broad sense, but genealogical classification and the lives of present-day communities answer different questions. This distinction protects linguistic scholarship from a mistaken equation of two texts separated by many centuries."}, {"title": "Check the claim against the edition", "text": "For a historical argument, record the artefact or inscription identifier, repository, ancient text edition, passage or line numbers, translation credit and uncertainty. Ask whether a statement is the king's claim, an administrative report or a later scholar's synthesis. Exact readings can be disputed; the archive should explain alternatives instead of silently replacing the tablet with a modern paraphrase. Full research comparison remains a future specialist task."}, {"title": "Reading the structure of a receipt", "text": "A quantity, commodity, recipient and date can occupy distinct parts of a short receipt. Identifying those roles clarifies what the document records. A barley allocation describes grain and responsibility, not automatically the recipient's entire diet.\n\nTransliteration represents sign readings, translation interprets words, and historical explanation places the transaction in context. Keeping those layers separate produces a clearer account than treating the English sentence as a direct photograph of the original object."}, {"title": "What damage changes", "text": "An editor may restore a damaged name from traces or parallels. That proposed restoration remains relevant when identifying a person. Fluent English can otherwise conceal an uncertain ancient reading.\n\nUnits and administrative terms require the same attention. An article can explain the secure parts of a transfer while retaining a question mark affecting another clause. The choice is not between inventing a whole biography and replacing all history with directions to consult an edition."}], "sources": ["cambridge-mesopotamian-languages", "cdli", "oracc-rinap", "gedsh-aramaic", "tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-corpus"], "related": ["akkadian-and-cuneiform", "old-assyrian-trade", "imperial-languages", "research-guide", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "syriac-script-histories", "title": "Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac hands", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Three connected manuscript traditions with changing letterforms, regional usage and imperfect boundaries.", "sections": [{"title": "One Unicode script, several written styles", "text": "The Unicode Standard encodes Syriac characters as one writing system. Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac are type or handwriting traditions, not three separately encoded alphabets. A Unicode letter such as ܐ (ALAPH, U+0710) remains the same code point even when a typeface renders a different historical letterform. Font style cannot, by itself, tell readers what language variety or personal identity a scribe had."}, {"title": "Estrangela over time", "text": "HMML's manuscript-based lessons illustrate early and later Estrangela hands. Letter proportions, joins and stroke details changed over time, and manuscripts can show features found in more than one named style. An illustrated chart of modern display letters therefore cannot authenticate an old manuscript. A responsible comparison identifies a specific dated or approximately dated folio and the diagnostic features on that page."}, {"title": "Serto and East Syriac", "text": "Serto became characteristic of many West Syriac manuscripts; East Syriac developed its own common shapes and vocalisation conventions. HMML cautions that boundaries are not rigid: a historical hand may retain Estrangela forms alongside Serto or East Syriac ones. An East Syriac liturgical page does not automatically document the pronunciation of a present-day Sureth speaker, and a manuscript style cannot be used as a simple label for a modern ethnic identity."}, {"title": "Images are not automatically reusable", "text": "HMML's teaching pages include attributed manuscript photographs with rights retained by custodians. This archive links directly to their annotated examples rather than copying their images. For any future manuscript comparison, identify the holding institution, shelfmark, folio, reproduction credit, typeface or hand, and licence. Modern letterform illustrations should be clearly distinguished from historical reproductions."}, {"title": "Compare characters before dating a hand", "text": "The Syriac letter alap, ܐ, can look different in different fonts while remaining the same character. Historical handwriting adds variation from tools, proportions and scribal habits. Identifying a letter and dating a written hand are therefore different tasks.\n\nWhen comparing Estrangela, Serto and East Syriac, examine repeated letters and joining behaviour across a line. One unusual shape can mislead, especially when damaged. A pattern is stronger evidence for recognising a style than one isolated resemblance."}, {"title": "A book can preserve several hands", "text": "A main text, correction and ownership note may have been added by different people. Their appearance can differ because they belong to different moments of use. A later annotation does not date the original copying.\n\nA useful description identifies the part of the page under discussion and combines handwriting with material, contents, colophons and documentary history. Script contributes to provenance but cannot alone supply a complete copying date or an exclusive church affiliation."}], "sources": ["unicode-syriac-standard", "unicode-syriac-names", "hmml-estrangela", "hmml-serto", "hmml-east", "hmml-palaeography"], "related": ["syriac-scripts", "classical-syriac", "syriac-unicode-reading", "manuscripts"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "syriac-unicode-reading", "title": "Syriac letters, direction and digital text", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A source-anchored primer for identifying Syriac Unicode letters without inventing pronunciations or manuscript forms.", "sections": [{"title": "A character is not its drawing", "text": "Unicode names identify characters such as ALAPH (U+0710, ܐ), BETH (U+0712, ܒ) and TAW (U+072C, ܬ). The same code point may appear in very different letterforms under Estrangela, Serto or East Syriac styling. The language hub prints the twenty-two core letter identities from the Unicode name list. Its shapes depend on fonts installed on the reader's device; no claimed historical hand is reproduced."}, {"title": "Right-to-left writing and connected forms", "text": "The Unicode Standard specifies that Syriac runs from right to left and follows contextual joining rules. Correct text shaping requires a suitable font and bidirectional implementation. A Syriac word copied as a sequence of valid code points may display incorrectly in software without Syriac support. Screenshots should not be preferred over editable text when preserving records, but both the text and font environment are worth documenting."}, {"title": "Letters are not a complete pronunciation key", "text": "Unicode character names are encoding identifiers, not a phonetic transcription standard or an audio lesson. Vowel and other diacritical marks have separate code points; traditions vary in their use and historical forms. Reading a modern spoken language from an unpointed manuscript needs linguistic training, local convention and context. This introduction deliberately does not assign one modern pronunciation to each character."}, {"title": "Safely cite digital examples", "text": "When presenting a Syriac sample, identify whether it comes from a specific manuscript, published edition, contemporary writer or a simple encoding illustration. Quote only what rights allow, and record any normalisation, added vocalisation or editorial transliteration. Text whose source cannot be checked should not be published as an authenticated biblical original or a supposedly ancient inscription."}, {"title": "A character is different from a glyph", "text": "ܐ is SYRIAC LETTER ALAPH, U+0710; ܒ is SYRIAC LETTER BETH, U+0712. These encoded identities remain the same when a typeface changes their appearance. A glyph is the drawn form rather than the underlying character.\n\nThis explains why copying text between applications can preserve letters while changing style. A screenshot preserves one appearance, while encoded text can be searched, selected and rendered with another appropriate font. Both are useful, but they preserve different things."}, {"title": "Marks and direction carry information", "text": "Syriac runs from right to left, while a page may also contain English references or numbers. The display system must arrange those elements together. Unexpected punctuation placement may be a bidirectional-layout problem rather than a linguistic change.\n\nReading marks can be separate characters attached to letters. Removing them can change the information available even when the consonants remain. Preserve source text, test an appropriate font and identify editorial removal of marks rather than silently calling the result an equivalent transcription."}], "sources": ["unicode-syriac-names", "unicode-syriac-standard", "hmml-palaeography"], "related": ["syriac-script-histories", "syriac-scripts", "manuscripts", "classical-syriac"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "nena-dialect-comparison", "title": "Listening across North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Why Urmi, Alqosh and Ankawa belong to distinct documented speech communities rather than one generic accent.", "sections": [{"title": "The dialect database is not a single voice", "text": "Cambridge's North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic project organises descriptions, transcriptions and audio by community and locality. Christian and Jewish speech traditions, including some now endangered or no longer spoken, are represented. The database makes it possible to compare particular recordings, but its available samples are uneven across dialects. A recorded pronunciation is evidence for its speaker and locality, not an automatic pronunciation rule for all Assyrians."}, {"title": "Alqosh in its own record", "text": "Cambridge catalogues the Alqosh Christian dialect separately and credits linguistic work associated with Eleanor Coghill. The site links to recorded narratives and grammatical descriptions. These materials are valuable because their spoken context is preserved alongside transcript or linguistic explanation. Anyone borrowing a word or phrase should note the local variety, the recording or text identifier and the scholarly transcription convention."}, {"title": "Ankawa in its own record", "text": "The Cambridge Ankawa record is identified as Christian, from north-eastern Iraq, and credits work by Roberta Borghero. It includes a locality-labelled oral narrative. Compare the same grammatical or lexical feature with Alqosh only where each record actually contains comparable evidence. A difference may reflect morphology, local usage, speaker background or transcription method, rather than an error to 'fix' by imposing one spelling."}, {"title": "A research-led comparison", "text": "Choose one research question, such as a particular pronoun form or verb construction, and document both the source variety and the fieldwork context. Distinguish heard speech, phonetic or phonological transcription, Syriac-script rendering and English translation. The archive links to audio hosted by Cambridge and does not redistribute it or train a synthetic universal voice. A future approved comparison should involve qualified speakers from the documented communities."}, {"title": "Compare like tasks in recordings", "text": "A greeting and a long narrative differ in genre as well as potential dialect. Comparable words or actions give a clearer basis for noticing sound, vocabulary and grammar. A listener must distinguish the task from the linguistic feature being compared.\n\nAlqosh and Ankawa identify separately documented localities in the Cambridge material, not two compulsory standards. A speaker's age, migration and recording circumstances can also affect what is heard. Local labels are a starting point for comparison, not a complete explanation."}, {"title": "Variation is not automatically an error", "text": "Two established varieties can use different words or constructions without one speaker being wrong. Naming the variety represented helps a learner connect teaching examples with family speech.\n\nAudio, transcription and translation contribute different information. The recording carries pronunciation and timing, the transcript displays an analysis, and the translation explains meaning. Comparing all three teaches more than collecting unfamiliar sounds or treating an English gloss as a full grammatical account."}], "sources": ["cambridge-nena", "nena-dialects", "nena-alqosh", "nena-ankawa"], "related": ["sureth", "urmi-neo-aramaic-recordings", "endangered-languages", "oral-history"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "urmi-neo-aramaic-recordings", "title": "Urmi: recording a living Neo-Aramaic variety", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Fieldwork-based listening and language history around the Urmia region and its diasporas.", "sections": [{"title": "Local speech, not one national norm", "text": "The University of Cambridge lists Christian Urmi as a distinct documented North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic variety, with fieldwork credited to Geoffrey Khan. The record includes audio and transcripts. That is a meaningful linguistic label, not proof that every family from Urmia, every Assyrian speaker or every church used exactly the same pronunciation. Migration, schooling and literary standards add further layers."}, {"title": "A documented oral archive", "text": "The Cambridge Christian Urmi page provides topics such as village life and other narratives. These recordings are linked as evidence of individual storytelling and language use. The site's grammatical feature counts describe entries in a database, not the total complexity or the importance of a dialect. No recording or transcript is copied into this archive without documented permission."}, {"title": "Urmia and print", "text": "Historical studies of Urmia describe printing and publication in Syriac and local Neo-Aramaic varieties. Printed standards, liturgical Classical Syriac and vernacular speech have overlapping but distinct roles. A particular press or newspaper cannot be assumed to represent every speaker's home language. Where dates, titles or scripts are discussed, consult the documented printing history rather than treating one printed spelling as universally normative."}, {"title": "What a reliable comparison needs", "text": "A future lesson could place a short, permission-cleared Urmi recording beside a speaker-approved transcript, literal gloss and optional English translation. It would also name the speaker's locality, consent terms, transcription conventions and date. The archive currently links to institutional recordings as the more reliable option; it makes no claim to supply a reviewed pronunciation course."}, {"title": "A voice belongs to a particular setting", "text": "An Urmi recording documents a particular person's speech on an occasion. A story preserves rhythm, pronunciation and expressions that a word list cannot show. Pauses and repairs can reveal how a narrative is organised without being defects in the language.\n\nThe regional label does not make every speaker identical. Family origin, education and migration can introduce variation. Documentation becomes more useful when it preserves those circumstances alongside the audio, rather than presenting a voice as the single form spoken by a whole population."}, {"title": "Connect speech with the written example", "text": "Urmia's printing history makes spoken and written relationships especially useful to study. Print conventions distribute educational material, while an individual voice can preserve pronunciations not obvious from an unvocalised page.\n\nA practical exercise follows a short segment through audio, transcription and translation: establish meaning, locate the words, then listen for their boundaries. That develops an actual reading skill and makes the resource usable on its own terms instead of leaving the page as a link described as linguistic evidence."}], "sources": ["nena-urmi", "cambridge-nena", "gedsh-urmia", "gedsh-printing"], "related": ["sureth", "nena-dialect-comparison", "syriac-printing", "urmia"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "surayt-documentation", "title": "Surayt and Turoyo: learning and documentation", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A careful entryway into the language of Tur Abdin and its diaspora, distinct from North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic.", "sections": [{"title": "A separate contemporary language tradition", "text": "The GEDSH Turoyo entry and scholarship on the Tur Abdin region describe a modern Aramaic language also called Surayt. It is not simply an accent of Christian Urmi or Alqosh speech. The relationship among local speech, ecclesiastical Classical Syriac and written materials is historical and sociolinguistic; speakers' self-designations should be recorded in their own terms."}, {"title": "A course with an identified authoring context", "text": "Freie Universitat Berlin announced an advanced SLOMO SURAYT online course containing structured grammar and texts. This is a credible route into material prepared for this language variety. The archive can link to the university's learning pages without reproducing their lessons, audio, vocabulary lists or illustrations. A learner should confirm which level and spelling practices a lesson assumes."}, {"title": "Writing is a separate editorial decision", "text": "Modern Surayt has written practices that vary across publications and learning projects. A script choice is not evidence of a community's sole authentic identity, and Classical Syriac spelling cannot simply be transferred to conversational Surayt without explanation. Future examples require labelled orthography, a named linguistic source and approval from competent speakers before being presented as instructional material."}, {"title": "Place and diaspora context", "text": "Tur Abdin has a documented linguistic and monastic heritage, while diaspora transmission occurs in different educational and family settings. Endangerment and preservation questions involve people, institutions and intergenerational transmission, not just digitising a font. A useful archive entry preserves local name, date, institution and consent, and avoids using one course to define all speakers."}, {"title": "A lesson connects sound and use", "text": "A greeting becomes useful when written form, recording, meaning and conversational setting are connected. Grammar can then develop through patterns recurring in meaningful examples. An alphabet chart alone cannot supply those relationships.\n\nSurayt should be distinguished from Classical Syriac and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic. Shared writing traditions do not remove differences in vocabulary and grammar. Naming the language and teaching convention lets learners choose material appropriate to their community and avoids treating unrelated examples as interchangeable."}, {"title": "A course and a field record do different work", "text": "A course selects and arranges examples for progression. A field recording preserves speech in a particular encounter, possibly including forms beyond a beginner's current lessons. Neither makes the other redundant.\n\nA useful pathway moves from a taught pattern to a comparable recording and back to explanation when differences appear. This connects documentation with practice. It also avoids treating a course's selected convention as proof that every speaker must use the same form."}], "sources": ["gedsh-turoyo", "gedsh-tur-abdin", "fu-surayt", "unicode-syriac-standard"], "related": ["surayt", "tur-abdin", "aramaic", "endangered-languages"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "manuscript-provenance-practice", "title": "How to document a Syriac manuscript", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "From a manuscript shelfmark to a reproducible historical citation with transparent rights and dating.", "sections": [{"title": "Separate a work from its surviving copy", "text": "A manuscript copied in a later century can preserve a much earlier composition. Record the physical manuscript's date or proposed date separately from an author's period and from any later binding or catalogue description. Institutional catalogues at Manchester and HMML are the starting point for this distinction. A copy date should not be silently presented as the date a text was composed."}, {"title": "A reproducible reference", "text": "A useful manuscript citation identifies the institution, holding collection, shelfmark, folio or page, language, script, catalogue record and consultation date. If an image is cited, record the image provider and licensing statement as well. HMML's palaeography examples add observed letterform characteristics to those catalogue coordinates. A visual feature can support a comparison without providing proof of every proposed date."}, {"title": "Mixed hands and changing letterforms", "text": "HMML's Serto and East Syriac lessons explicitly describe blended or ambiguous letter features in some manuscripts. Classifying a manuscript by one decorative heading may ignore the rest of the hand. A study should examine particular folios and marks; state when the palaeographic attribution is approximate; and avoid claiming that every Syriac-looking manuscript came from one ethnic group or place."}, {"title": "Access and reuse are different permissions", "text": "A digitised collection may make images available for reading without authorising redistribution or modification. The syri.ac discovery directory and institutional collections point readers to the custodians who can clarify conditions. The archive should preserve catalogue links and original scholarly credits, seek explicit permission for new facsimiles, and treat family papers or oral history as requiring additional consent beyond copyright."}, {"title": "Composition, copying and custody", "text": "A work can be much older than the surviving book that contains it. A later owner may acquire that book far from its production place. These are distinct histories: composition, the surviving copy and subsequent custody.\n\nFor an illustrative case, a seventeenth-century manuscript may contain a much earlier author's work. The copy date does not relocate the author's lifetime, and a later ownership note does not necessarily identify where copying occurred. Separating these questions prevents common mistakes in describing a book."}, {"title": "A reference another reader can follow", "text": "Identify the institution, shelfmark and folio. Recto and verso matter, and a viewer's image number may differ from the manuscript's own numbering. Preserve both where needed.\n\nThen explain what the passage supports: wording, a named copyist, a date or an ownership claim. Catalogue expertise can inform attribution without settling every stage of custody. Provenance becomes a usable account rather than an unsupported suggestion that a famous author personally made the surviving pages."}], "sources": ["hmml-palaeography", "hmml-serto", "hmml-east", "hmml-voobus", "manchester-syriac", "syriac-digimss"], "related": ["manuscripts", "syriac-script-histories", "research-guide", "heritage-stewardship"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "living-language-archive-ethics", "title": "Preserving living Assyrian language with consent", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Language heritage documentation that protects speakers, dialect specificity and future re-use rights.", "sections": [{"title": "Documentation starts with people", "text": "A living-language project should ask speakers how they identify their community, language and home variety. Cambridge's NENA work shows why such distinctions matter: its records span many Christian and Jewish local dialects with distinct linguistic histories. A file called 'Assyrian voice' without locality, date or speaker permissions is not an adequate scholarly record."}, {"title": "Record what the speaker authorised", "text": "Written consent should specify whether an interview may be streamed, downloaded, transcribed, translated, quoted, used for teaching or included in research datasets. Those permissions are distinct, and people may have good reasons to restrict a family story, voice or image. Avoid creating public synthetic voice models from recordings or treating public listening access as unrestricted redistribution rights."}, {"title": "Preserve context, not just sound", "text": "For a recording, retain a stable identifier, approximate date, language variety, locality where consent permits, recording environment, interviewer, transcription or translation credits and any redactions. The Cambridge databases illustrate how descriptive metadata helps listeners interpret variation. A future public archive should distinguish original recording, edited clip, transcription and editorial gloss as separate artefacts."}, {"title": "Enable correction and future review", "text": "Transcriptions and transliterations can contain errors or differ under valid conventions. Speakers, descendants and qualified linguists should have a clear way to request corrections, contextual limits or withdrawal where terms allow. A responsible archive keeps an internal revision trail, credits named reviewers when consented to, and never marks material as verified just because it has been uploaded. Current submissions in this project remain download-only."}, {"title": "Describe real uses before recording", "text": "A speaker may agree to a story being used in a language class without agreeing to unrestricted web publication, commercial reuse or the release of identifying family details. Intended uses need ordinary-language explanation rather than one vague permission.\n\nA practical record distinguishes attribution, variety, date and access conditions. Private contacts need not be public. Context and agreed limits strengthen the educational value because later users know what the recording represents and how they are permitted to use it."}, {"title": "Teach through an authorised segment", "text": "A short agreed example can explain meaning and grammar without exposing sensitive third-party details. A contributor's agreement does not automatically resolve the privacy of everyone mentioned in a story.\n\nPreserve corrections too. A speaker may clarify a word, correct a transcript or change public attribution preferences. Documenting that change improves reliability. Ethics supports usable language material rather than functioning as a separate checklist added after publication."}], "sources": ["cambridge-nena", "nena-dialects", "modern-nena", "modern-kanna"], "related": ["endangered-languages", "oral-history", "nena-dialect-comparison", "diaspora"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "oral-history-interview-method", "title": "Interviewing Assyrian families and elders", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Preparing a respectful oral history, documenting its context and protecting the narrator's right to decide what happens next.", "sections": [{"title": "Begin with a conversation, not a recording", "text": "An oral-history project starts by explaining the purpose of the interview, intended listeners, the anticipated archive and the limits of control after release. Oral History Australia advises informed consent before recording and an opportunity for the interviewee to review, correct or withdraw material. Explain those choices in a language the narrator understands. A participant should be free to decline any question or stop the interview. Recording is not permission to place a file online."}, {"title": "Invite the ordinary details", "text": "A family history can be richer when it includes everyday life: a home or village, school, agricultural work, trades, festivals, language at home, journeys and objects carried across borders. Questions should be open-ended rather than seeking confirmation of a pre-written historical narrative. People may identify themselves through different community, church or linguistic names. Record their own wording, and do not assign an ethnic or religious category based solely on a surname or place."}, {"title": "Keep testimony and historical claims legible", "text": "An interview documents the narrator's remembered experience and interpretation. It can contain specific dates, family names or explanations later compared with contemporary records, without reducing the person's account to a pass-or-fail fact test. A migration document, dated photograph or institutional file may support part of a recollection, but it does not validate every statement. Oral history should be identified as attributed testimony, while a scholarly reconstruction should carry separate references."}, {"title": "Before an interview is shared", "text": "Describe the intended access levels, who may quote or translate, the narrator's chosen public display name, any passages to restrict and how later corrections will be recorded. Oral History Australia recommends making those agreements clear and in writing. Include a review step for transcripts and translations; distinguish private preservation from public distribution. The Living Archive currently offers planning templates only; it does not receive, host or review private interviews."}, {"title": "Prompts that produce a concrete account", "text": "Instead of asking only what migration was like, follow a sequence: what happened before departure, who was present, what was packed, which place came next and what the first day after arrival involved. Follow up a detail introduced by the narrator.\n\nThese questions do not supply the answer or demand an emotional response. They allow ordinary routines and major events to appear together. An object or stage of travel can help organise memory without forcing the account into the interviewer's preferred story."}, {"title": "When dates and memories differ", "text": "Preserve uncertainty when a narrator cannot supply an exact date. A photograph or public record may clarify it, but the recorded recollection should not be silently replaced. Distinguish testimony from later context.\n\nBefore publication, check quotations, attribution and access. A contributor may authorise an edited extract while wishing the complete recording to remain private. Recording those choices helps future readers distinguish spoken memory, editorial explanation and independently established chronology."}], "sources": ["oha-australia-ethics", "oha-australia-practice", "nla-oral-history-rights", "modern-kanna"], "related": ["oral-history", "australia", "living-language-archive-ethics", "heritage-consent-and-access"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "assyrian-village-histories", "title": "Researching Assyrian villages and place names", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "A method for building village entries with dated maps, variant names and community testimony instead of one unqualified place label.", "sections": [{"title": "Start with the place and the date", "text": "Village history should distinguish a settlement, wider district, ecclesiastical jurisdiction and modern administrative name. The Nineveh Plain and Tur Abdin are different geographical and historical settings, and the full ancient Assyrian Empire is not a substitute for either. Record a place name as it appears in a dated source; preserve alternative spellings in Syriac, Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish or another language where the source documents them. Do not silently present one modern form as the original name for every century."}, {"title": "Use more than a family memory", "text": "A careful village entry may combine archived photographs, land records, maps, school or church documents, oral histories and academic descriptions. Each type has limits. A family account can identify a household's experience, while a government record may document administrative decisions but omit community perspectives. An undated map is not evidence for historical population size, and a location marked on a modern map does not establish an ancient province. Note when the source is a first-party statement or an institutional report."}, {"title": "The Nineveh Plain as an example", "text": "The archive's existing Nineveh Plain entry links to a dated United Nations account of meetings with local Christian and Shabak communities in Bartella and Hamdaniya in October 2018. This is evidence of discussions and concerns reported at that time, not a present-day census or a definitive list of village identities. Future town pages should document locality, variant names and dated access conditions; avoid projecting 2018 security information into the present."}, {"title": "Privacy and surviving places", "text": "Some village histories involve conflict, displacement, missing relatives or contested property. A contributor may wish to describe cultural life without making their relatives or property identifiable to strangers. An editorial record should not publish exact household coordinates, family documents or testimony about third parties without assessing consent and possible harm. A public bibliography can point readers to archives while leaving sensitive material uncollected."}, {"title": "Explain how a settlement functioned", "text": "Water, cultivation, travel, schooling and worship organise daily life. Buildings and family names become informative when connected with those activities. A village history should show a working community rather than merely list a church and several residents.\n\nAlqosh, Qaraqosh and Tur Abdin's settlements illustrate why locality matters. Their institutions, speech and relationships differ. Information about one cannot be transferred to another simply because both belong to a wider Assyrian landscape."}, {"title": "Organise change around documented events", "text": "A school opening, displacement, road connection or restoration can structure a chronology. Explain its consequences for ordinary life, using records for dates and testimony for experience where appropriate.\n\nIdentify modern names alongside historical ones. A current name helps locate a place, but does not prove that every earlier source meant the same territory. Connecting dated events, activities and names makes local history readable and checkable without inventing a complete past from family recollection alone."}], "sources": ["unami-nineveh", "gedsh-tur-abdin", "gedsh-sureth", "oha-australia-ethics"], "related": ["nineveh-plain", "tur-abdin", "urmia", "oral-history-interview-method", "heritage-consent-and-access"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "migration-memory-research", "title": "Migration memories in the Assyrian diaspora", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Reading individual journeys alongside community institutions while keeping geography, date, language and recollection distinct.", "sections": [{"title": "One account can be well documented", "text": "The NSW Migration Heritage Centre's published Sophia Kanna account records an Assyrian migration experience, including arrival in Sydney in 1964. Its value is its named first-person perspective and institutional description, not an implied claim to represent every migrant. A responsible article credits the person and collection; it does not copy full testimony, assume all photographs are freely reusable or infer a total population from a single family's story."}, {"title": "Institutions preserve another perspective", "text": "The Assyrian Australian Association dates its establishment to 1969 and its Resource Centre to 1984. These first-party institutional histories help identify organised settlement and cultural support in the Sydney region. Organisation websites are different evidence from private recollections, and their programme descriptions can change. When combining an association's chronology with a family story, identify which statement comes from which source."}, {"title": "A diaspora has multiple routes", "text": "Scholarly summaries describe movements involving Urmia and communities in Europe, North America and Australia over different periods. The causes, opportunities and consequences varied, and not every household shared the same journey. Research should record departure locality, intermediate countries, destination and approximate years separately. Avoid converting an individual story into a claim that the diaspora began at one event or that all descendants maintain identical linguistic or ecclesiastical practices."}, {"title": "Build a comparable but humane record", "text": "A voluntary record can use broad date ranges, places with consent, languages the narrator chooses to identify and links to approved documents. Ask what the narrator wishes to preserve, and allow anonymous or restricted versions where appropriate. If accounts disagree, make the differences visible rather than editing them into a false consensus. The archive's public examples remain external references, not newly collected personal records."}, {"title": "Arrival is not the end of migration history", "text": "Departure, temporary residence, travel, arrival and settlement can involve different countries and arrangements. The place issuing a document need not be the place a traveller regarded as home.\n\nEmployment, housing, schooling and language shape the next stage. A narrative ending at the airport misses the work of building a life. Family networks and community institutions explain how households established ordinary routines, while individual experiences keep those mechanisms concrete."}, {"title": "Compare without making accounts identical", "text": "Two people can leave the same region in different decades and under different circumstances. Their experiences may reveal changing transport, admission arrangements or community support. One story should not become a test that the other must match.\n\nAn institutional timeline supplies dates for an association or church; interviews explain participation. Together they provide chronology and experience. Claims about an entire diaspora require a wider basis than one compelling family narrative."}], "sources": ["modern-kanna", "modern-aaa", "modern-arc", "gedsh-diaspora", "nla-oral-history-access", "nla-oral-history-rights"], "related": ["diaspora", "australia", "oral-history", "assyrian-australian-association", "heritage-consent-and-access"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "heritage-objects-and-practices", "title": "Songs, recipes, photographs and inherited objects", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "How to document Assyrian cultural practice without assuming one family's custom is universal or that a public recording is free to reuse.", "sections": [{"title": "Context makes an object meaningful", "text": "A family photograph or inherited object may carry a place, name, date, maker, occasion or journey. Record those fields separately and mark estimates clearly. A scan preserves a likeness, not the entire story of ownership or use. If a portrait includes living people or a child, assess privacy independently of copyright ownership. Public release can reveal family relationships or locations; preservation and publication therefore require different decisions."}, {"title": "Recipes are histories of variation", "text": "SBS Food's attributed account of Evan Yako's kileche provides a particular recipe and cultural context. It should be described as one person's published version rather than a single authoritative preparation shared by all Assyrian families. A future community contribution might record ingredients, occasions, dialect names and changes after migration with the cook's permission. This archive links to the broadcaster instead of republishing its full protected recipe or photographs."}, {"title": "Performance needs named context", "text": "Community presentations of khigga and Akitu celebrations can document an occasion, choreographers or performers, a group and the audience. The Assyrian Student Association of Arizona describes one dance crew; SBS Assyrian reports a particular Sydney New Year celebration. Such records help show living adaptation. They should not be treated as proof that a particular choreography has been performed unchanged since antiquity."}, {"title": "Record rights for every medium", "text": "A music file, photograph, oral interview, handwritten poem and recipe may involve different contributors and rights. Permission to quote a speaker does not automatically clear background music or the rights of other performers. An editor should record creator, recording date, licence or agreement, public access restrictions, permitted extracts and corrections. Original recordings are not uploaded to this archive; users are directed to the source custodian."}, {"title": "Technique and occasion both explain food", "text": "A kileche account can identify filling, shaping and the occasion of baking. A family memory can then explain who taught the technique and why it matters. Readers learn what people actually do rather than receiving only a general claim that food preserves identity.\n\nVariation in tools, ingredients and methods can reveal adaptation to new places. Historical value does not require declaring one version the oldest or most authentic. Naming the household context makes the account specific without turning it into a compulsory recipe."}, {"title": "Objects and performances preserve different evidence", "text": "A garment or instrument has material features that can be described and photographed. A song or dance also depends on sound, movement, timing and participants. Description and authorised recording preserve different aspects.\n\nIdentify makers and performers where known. Ownership of an object is distinct from rights in its photograph or a recording. Those distinctions allow useful cultural explanation with proper credit instead of leaving the page as a promise to collect heritage later."}], "sources": ["modern-kileche", "modern-dance", "modern-festival-sydney", "nla-oral-history-rights"], "related": ["kileche", "dance", "akitu", "music", "heritage-consent-and-access"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "heritage-consent-and-access", "title": "Consent, access and rights for heritage material", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "A practical distinction between documenting a story privately, making it available for research and authorising public reuse.", "sections": [{"title": "An interview agreement is specific", "text": "Oral History Australia advises explaining recording, custody, copyright and potential later uses, and making a clear agreement before recording. Asking a person to participate is different from obtaining permission to publish their name, voice, image or an edited transcript. A suitable arrangement identifies participants and any other relevant rights holders, what material is covered, the intended repository and who can authorise future uses. The blank project checklist is a planning aid, not a signed release or legal opinion."}, {"title": "Research access is not public reuse", "text": "The National Library of Australia explains that oral-history material may be open for research yet require written approval for personal copies or publication. Restrictions can differ for the audio, transcript and summary. Publicly accessible catalogue metadata therefore does not mean the interview can be re-hosted, transcribed or used in a training dataset. The archive may link to the custodian's authorised page while respecting its item-specific conditions."}, {"title": "Protect living people and third parties", "text": "An interview may reveal personal addresses, health information, trauma, family disputes or the names of people who did not consent to participate. Contributors should not place such details in a public repository or browser-hosted demonstration. Separate the public descriptive record from restricted originals, document redactions and give the narrator a review opportunity where possible. Minors and vulnerable participants need appropriately designed safeguards and lawful permissions, not a generic checkbox."}, {"title": "Corrections, withdrawal and limits", "text": "A preservation plan should identify an editor or custodian to receive correction or access requests, explain restrictions that may already have arisen through third-party publication, and document what can and cannot be withdrawn. Oral History Australia's guidance supports review, correction and withdrawal opportunities; an archive must not promise global erasure of copies already lawfully distributed. This project's contact and review workflow is not operational: downloading a draft does not send a request, establish consent or trigger publication."}, {"title": "A contribution can have several access choices", "text": "A person may permit a quotation on a public page, private research consultation of a longer recording and no release of certain family details. Those choices are compatible and need separate records.\n\nIn an illustrative interview, the public catalogue might give an agreed name and broad topic while a private record retains contacts and restrictions. The existence of permission for the public extract does not authorise publication of the private record."}, {"title": "Withdrawal and correction differ", "text": "Before publication, explain the audience and the possibility of copying. Removing one web item cannot guarantee removal of downloads already made. Contributors need a realistic account of that limit.\n\nA mistaken date can be corrected with a note, while an access restriction may change whether a recording is available. Preserve the decision and reason so future custodians do not have to infer permission from the presence of a file. These practices protect contributors and improve the material's usefulness."}], "sources": ["oha-australia-ethics", "oha-australia-practice", "nla-oral-history-rights", "nla-oral-history-access"], "related": ["oral-history-interview-method", "living-language-archive-ethics", "heritage-stewardship", "oral-history"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "assyria-community-broadcasts", "title": "Community voices on radio and local media", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Publicly catalogued broadcasting can document language, festivals and cultural adaptation while retaining the publisher's rights.", "sections": [{"title": "Media as a dated historical witness", "text": "SBS Assyrian provides published news, radio and podcast material, including interviews and event coverage. A particular broadcast can attest what was reported or said on that date. Its transcript, audio and images remain the publisher's material unless explicit reuse terms permit otherwise. A link to a publicly streamed programme should not be misrepresented as a recording commissioned or owned by this archive."}, {"title": "Examples from living culture", "text": "SBS's report on Assyrian New Year celebrations in Sydney provides a dated example of community observance. An attributed SBS Food recipe and an Arizona student association's dance documentation show other ways cultural practice is presented publicly. None is a complete survey of Assyrian customs, and later researchers should identify event, speaker, location and date before drawing broad conclusions about continuity or change."}, {"title": "Language and reach", "text": "Community broadcasters can connect diasporic listeners through shared language and current affairs. A broadcast may use a particular pronunciation, spelling or audience designation. It is evidence for that particular production, not an authoritative national standard for every Assyrian speaker. For dialect-specific linguistic comparison, the Cambridge North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic database provides a different type of source with academic fieldwork methods."}, {"title": "Preserve citations, not illicit copies", "text": "A practical broadcast reference should retain the programme title, publisher, available publication date, stable URL, episode description, language and the moment or speaker being discussed. If an item later disappears online, document the broken link and an authorised alternative where one exists; do not bypass technical protection or mirror audio without rights. The Living Archive currently preserves external links and original editorial summaries only."}, {"title": "A public setting for language and discussion", "text": "A community programme can combine news, music, interviews and discussion in a language less available in mainstream media. It creates a public setting beyond household speech and connects listeners in different places.\n\nAn interview preserves a speaker's position on a date; a festival report documents an event. Neither automatically represents every community viewpoint. Identifying programme, contributors and subject explains what a broadcast contributes instead of turning it into an anonymous voice for all Assyrians."}, {"title": "Make an episode useful before listening", "text": "An episode entry should explain its topic, factual context and named contributions. An original summary can identify what happened or what practice is discussed. The external audio then supports and extends information already present on the page.\n\nCredit broadcaster and participant, date the material and distinguish reporting, opinion and testimony. This can be done without copying a protected transcript or song lyrics. Contextual writing makes a media archive readable as well as listenable."}], "sources": ["modern-radio", "modern-festival-sydney", "modern-kileche", "modern-dance", "cambridge-nena"], "related": ["music", "akitu", "dance", "heritage-objects-and-practices", "living-language-archive-ethics"], "image": null, "note": null, "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "black-obelisk-jehu", "title": "The Black Obelisk and Jehu of Israel", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Read the named Jehu tribute on Shalmaneser III's monument alongside the biblical record of Jehu's accession.", "sections": [{"title": "A monument with a precise identity", "text": "The Black Obelisk is a carved limestone royal monument of Shalmaneser III discovered at Kalhu, the site now known as Nimrud. The British Museum identifies it with inventory number 1848,1104.1 and describes five registers of tribute bearers. It was made late in the king's reign, around 825 BCE, although the tribute episodes depicted cover earlier campaigns. Its physical existence and royal inscription are separate from later interpretations of the king's historical achievements."}, {"title": "The name Jehu and the House of Omri", "text": "The second register names Jehu in connection with tribute from Israel, using the Assyrian designation House of Omri. The directly edited tribute caption is RIAo Q004693, obverse line 1, and the museum interprets the scene as tribute around 841 BCE. The designation need not mean that Jehu was the biological son of Omri: dynastic or territorial labels could persist when a ruler replaced his predecessor. The monument provides an independent Assyrian reference to Jehu and Israel in a specific imperial context, not a transcript of conversations in the Israelite palace."}, {"title": "Begin with the biblical accession", "text": "2 Kings 9:1-13 recounts the anointing of Jehu and his proclamation as king, while 2 Kings 9:14-37 and chapter 10 narrate the overthrow of the house of Ahab and Jehu's subsequent actions. Those chapters are the Bible's primary testimony about his accession and conduct. The Black Obelisk addresses tribute to Assyria instead; it does not repeat the prophetic commission or corroborate every event reported in Kings."}, {"title": "Royal spectacle and missing voices", "text": "The relief presents foreign tribute in the king's chosen visual language of dominance. A kneeling figure, officials and gifts are part of an official image programme, so it is not certain that the depicted person can be identified as an observed portrait of Jehu himself. Neither the visual scene nor its caption supplies the views of the tribute bearers, ordinary Israelites or Assyrian subjects compelled to fund campaigns. The objects and their omissions should be described together.\n\nThe obelisk arranges several tribute-bearing groups in horizontal registers, bringing different peoples and episodes into one ordered vision of Shalmaneser's power. Gifts and gestures communicate subordinate relationships.\n\nIts Jehu caption names an Israelite ruler, while the House of Omri designation supplies an Assyrian political-geographical label. It does not require Jehu to be Omri's biological descendant. External naming could continue after the dynasty within a kingdom changed."}, {"title": "A repeatable comparison", "text": "For a sound comparison, record the monument accession number, king and approximate display date, the specific tribute register, then read the full cited passages in 2 Kings 9-10. The supportable shared frame is a king called Jehu associated with Israel in the ninth century BCE. Whether Assyrian tribute occurred before or after any particular episode in Kings requires an explicit chronological argument, not an assumed one.\n\nKings describes anointing, revolt and the destruction of Ahab's house. The Assyrian monument records tribute. Readers can understand Jehu's accession in one narrative and his externally attested political relationship in the other.\n\nNeither witness must repeat the other's entire story to contribute information. The monument does not supply a portrait biography or the prophetic commission. Its value lies in the named relationship it does preserve, situated within the same ninth-century political world."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bm-black-obelisk", "oracc-shalmaneser", "oracc-riao-jehu-caption", "aebp-israel", "wikipedia-black-obelisk-of-shalmaneser-iii"], "related": ["shalmaneser-iii", "bible-reading-guide", "assyrian-governance", "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah"], "passages": [["2KI", 9, 1, 13], ["2KI", 9, 14, 37], ["2KI", 10, 1, 36]], "note": "Biblical passages and royal-monument descriptions are distinct witnesses. The museum interpretation is linked, not copied; no imagery is reproduced.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah", "title": "Sennacherib's prism and the biblical Hezekiah", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "An object-level guide to royal annals, Hezekiah's tribute, Jerusalem and the differences in source perspective.", "sections": [{"title": "The object and the composition", "text": "The British Museum catalogues the Taylor Prism as object 91032, a six-sided clay text of Sennacherib's campaigns dated to 691 BCE. The Israel Museum describes another prism of the annals, with an Akkadian cuneiform inscription of the same royal tradition. These are historical objects preserving Assyrian royal self-presentation. The 691 BCE date of a particular prism must not be mistaken for the 701 BCE date assigned to the Judah campaign it recounts."}, {"title": "The Bible supplies its own narrative", "text": "2 Kings 18:13-16 reports Sennacherib's attack on fortified cities of Judah and Hezekiah's payment of silver and gold. The following narrative, from 2 Kings 18:17 through chapter 19, presents the Assyrian envoy's address, the prayer of Hezekiah, Isaiah's response and the account of deliverance. Isaiah 36-37 provides a connected prophetic presentation; 2 Chronicles 32 gives another narrative framing. Read the distinctions among these passages before importing the language of the prisms."}, {"title": "What the Assyrian annals claim", "text": "The Assyrian annals boast that Sennacherib overcame rebellious Judah, received tribute and confined Hezekiah in Jerusalem. RINAP 3 Q003496, column iii lines 18-37, preserves the linked royal campaign and confinement accounts in a composite edition. The Israel Museum points out that the inscription does not explicitly describe a siege of Jerusalem. This observation is narrower than saying Jerusalem was not threatened, and it differs from a claim that the Assyrian text narrates the biblical deliverance. Comparing the sources requires attention to both what they positively report and what they leave unsaid."}, {"title": "Campaign, composition and outcome", "text": "A palace text composed after the campaign is a royal retrospective, shaped to display authority and success. The biblical record has its own theological and historiographical purposes. An Assyrian record of a Judah campaign and tribute supports the ancient setting of the biblical account, but agreement about those elements does not settle the reported destruction of the Assyrian force, Hezekiah's prayers, the chronology of every event or the precise motive for withdrawal.\n\nSennacherib's attack affected Judah's fortified places and surrounding resources. Pressure on the kingdom restricted Hezekiah's options even while Jerusalem remained the final narrative focus. The annals' confinement comparison presents the ruler as contained, not an explicit capture of Jerusalem.\n\nThose distinctions make the campaign intelligible before the witnesses are compared. They describe a kingdom under military and financial pressure rather than a story concerned only with the fate of a single wall."}, {"title": "Check the right evidence", "text": "Keep the prism accession number, inscription edition, campaign date and cited chapter together. RINAP 3 Q003496, column iii lines 41-42, records thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, whereas 2 Kings 18:14 records thirty talents of gold and three hundred talents of silver. Both figures must remain separately visible. A future independent collation should check exemplar variants and translation choices. Until such collation and outside review are documented, this is an evidence-led introduction rather than a certified line-by-line historical verification.\n\nKings reports payment before developing the delegation's public challenge and the events of chapter 19. Prayer, prophetic assurance and deliverance form part of that account, rather than optional additions to a tribute notice.\n\nThe differing silver totals remain separately stated here. Named rulers and the shared setting allow a precise comparison without making every detail agree. Explaining both the events and the difference gives readers useful information before they follow either source."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bm-taylor-prism", "imj-sennacherib-prism", "oracc-rinap", "oracc-rinap3-sennacherib22", "bm-lachish-panel", "wikipedia-assyrian-siege-of-jerusalem"], "related": ["sennacherib", "bible-sennacherib-invasion", "bible-hezekiah-deliverance", "lachish-reliefs-context"], "passages": [["2KI", 18, 13, 37], ["2KI", 19, 1, 37], ["ISA", 36, 1, 22], ["ISA", 37, 1, 38], ["2CH", 32, 1, 23]], "note": "The Israel Museum distinguishes the Jerusalem confinement boast from an explicit Assyrian siege description. No object image or unlicensed translation is mirrored.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "lachish-reliefs-context", "title": "Lachish: war pictured on Sennacherib's walls", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "From physical museum panels to the biblical campaign, distinguishing royal imagery from the experiences of displaced people.", "sections": [{"title": "An archaeological sequence, not a photograph", "text": "The British Museum records gypsum panels excavated from Room XXXVI of Sennacherib's Southwest Palace at Nineveh. Panel 124904 represents the beginning of the assault on Lachish, with slingers and archers. The preserved sequence was made for a palace audience and shaped to celebrate a royal military success. Its date of manufacture in the early seventh century BCE and its subject, a campaign normally dated to 701 BCE, are related but not identical."}, {"title": "Prisoners and the city after assault", "text": "British Museum panel 124908 depicts prisoners, carried goods and a landscape with vines, fig trees and olive trees. The catalogue makes clear that captives and spoil were essential components of this official story. Depiction supplies valuable evidence about the kinds of scenes Assyrian rulers chose to display; it does not give us named testimonies from the captured families or prove the treatment of every prisoner. A historical study must not erase those unheard people."}, {"title": "The military camp and supporting cast", "text": "A further panel, British Museum 124913, places royal bodyguards, horses and a camp near the conquest scene. The depiction includes logistical and ceremonial features, not merely combat. This helps researchers ask about food, transport, military preparation and the work of servants, while remaining alert to stylisation in palace art. A detailed image must not be mistaken for a measured map or a neutral operational report."}, {"title": "Read Kings before harmonising", "text": "2 Kings 18:13-14 describes Sennacherib moving against fortified cities of Judah and Hezekiah sending to the Assyrian king at Lachish. Verse 17 describes Assyrian officials travelling onward to Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 32:1-9 also frames the military threat. These chapters are the primary biblical accounts; the palace reliefs support the historical existence and Assyrian commemoration of the Lachish campaign, not every sentence about Jerusalem or divine deliverance.\n\nFortifications, siege equipment, surrender and the processing of the defeated form a visual sequence. Its detail distinguishes a particular campaign from an abstract victory claim. Civilians and possessions also appear within the consequences of conquest.\n\nThe programme does not preserve those people's testimony. Nevertheless, it makes displacement visible even within royal celebration. Reading the stages of action allows the archive to explain something of what conquest involved rather than only identifying a museum panel."}, {"title": "A precise citation trail", "text": "An object-based comparison records the museum number and palace room: 124904 for the opening assault, 124908 for prisoners and 124913 for the camp. Link the relevant chapter and verses instead of citing a generic phrase such as Assyrian relief. Reproducing the actual museum photographs requires a separate rights decision. This archive links to catalogue records and presents original prose, not copies of protected images.\n\nThe carvings were displayed at Nineveh, far from Lachish. They presented the campaign to visitors encountering Sennacherib's authority in royal space. The named subject and inscription connected the imagery with a particular episode.\n\nThis is a selected representation for the court, not a photograph made for the defeated city's inhabitants. Its political purpose guides interpretation without making its visual information disappear. Siege, surrender and deportation can be explained while that purpose remains clear."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bm-lachish-panel", "bm-lachish-deportees", "bm-lachish-camp", "imj-sennacherib-prism", "wikipedia-lachish-reliefs"], "related": ["sennacherib-prism-hezekiah", "royal-reliefs", "bible-sennacherib-invasion", "assyrian-deportations-texts"], "passages": [["2KI", 18, 13, 17], ["2CH", 32, 1, 9]], "note": "Accession-level image interpretation uses the British Museum object catalogue. No photograph or relief cast is copied.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "sargon-ashdod-isaiah", "title": "Sargon II, Ashdod and Isaiah 20", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A closely bounded comparison between a named biblical king, an official at Ashdod and Assyrian royal annals.", "sections": [{"title": "The named king in Scripture", "text": "Isaiah 20:1 names Sargon king of Assyria and says that the Tartan came to Ashdod and fought against it. This is an unusually explicit biblical reference to a named Assyrian monarch in connection with a particular western city. Isaiah 20:2-6 then describes a prophetic sign involving Egypt and Cush. The account must be read on its own terms rather than turned into an assumed copy of a palace inscription."}, {"title": "The Tartan and imperial command", "text": "The biblical text describes an officer associated with the army rather than explicitly placing Sargon at the head of the force in Ashdod. Tartan is a title used for a high Assyrian military office in historical discussion. Identifying the office does not give a personal name for the commander, and the text does not by itself fix the route of the campaign or the precise date of the prophet's sign."}, {"title": "Assyrian records of Sargon", "text": "The RINAP 2 corpus catalogues numerous inscriptions of Sargon II, including annals from Khorsabad. Specialist editions connect the Ashdod campaign with the late eighth-century western operations, commonly placed in 711 BCE. These royal sources give independent evidence for Sargon's campaigns and political claims, but readers should not treat every catalogue entry as a direct witness to the Ashdod incident; inscriptions have distinct places, states of preservation and editorial dates."}, {"title": "Prophecy and a campaign are different claims", "text": "Isaiah uses the Ashdod event to introduce a prophetic warning about reliance on Egypt and Cush. A royal campaign narrative and a prophetic oracle are not the same genre. Evidence for the military action does not directly verify the enacted sign, and the sign's interpretation cannot be derived from an Assyrian victory notice alone. The Bible remains the primary account for what Isaiah says.\n\nA coastal city in the southern Levant faced decisions about Assyrian pressure, local allegiance and possible outside support. Revolt or reliance on another protector could bring intervention from a far larger state. Isaiah 20's historical notice belongs within that political world.\n\nThe Tartan is a high official or commander sent by Sargon, rather than another king. Recognising the title clarifies who initiates the operation and who conducts the attack."}, {"title": "A cautious comparison route", "text": "Start with Isaiah 20:1-6, identify Sargon II in the specialist king profile, then consult the RINAP 2 inscriptions relevant to the Ashdod operation. The direct Ashdod account is identified in RINAP 2 Q006488, edited lines 90-109, including the changes of ruler at Ashdod and an expedition narrative. A closer specialist study must still collate the preserved signs and assess chronology before making a sentence-level correspondence. This guide supplies the first object and corpus route without claiming that independent peer review is complete.\n\nIsaiah's enacted sign is interpreted through the humiliation of Egyptian and Cushite captives. The final question concerns those who had hoped those powers would rescue them from Assyria. Their expected security collapses when the hoped-for protectors can themselves be defeated.\n\nThe chapter links a named king and city, a public prophetic action and a warning about confidence. Both the historical notice and that interpretation belong in an informative explanation. Neither should be replaced by generic remarks about checking sources."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "rinap-sargon-corpus", "oracc-rinap2-ashdod", "aebp-sargon", "bible-official-titles", "oracc-rinap", "wikipedia-sargon-ii"], "related": ["bible-sargon", "sargon-ii", "khorsabad", "assyrian-governance"], "passages": [["ISA", 20, 1, 6]], "note": "The chronology of the Ashdod operation uses scholarly Assyrian synthesis; the cited Isaiah verse is primary for the biblical description.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "samaria-assyrian-chronology", "title": "Samaria: Shalmaneser V, Sargon II and the biblical chronology", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Why a connected scriptural account and multiple Assyrian reigns must not be compressed into one unqualified conquest story.", "sections": [{"title": "Two biblical vantage points", "text": "2 Kings 17:3-6 names Shalmaneser king of Assyria, describes Hoshea's subjection, a conspiracy and the siege of Samaria, and reports deportation after its fall. 2 Kings 18:9-12 links the siege with Hezekiah's chronology and also names Shalmaneser at its opening. These passages should be read side by side, including their regnal dating, before assigning every stage of the siege to a single year or person."}, {"title": "What later royal records add", "text": "The Assyrian historical record includes material from the reign of Shalmaneser V and claims attributed to Sargon II. The RINAP 1 corpus and specialist king entries offer a route to the surviving evidence, which is not uniform in its detail. A royal claim to have taken a city might reflect conquest, reconquest, administrative settlement or a successor's royal presentation. It is methodologically unsafe to treat an authorial claim of credit as a complete operational chronology."}, {"title": "Do not erase the disputed attribution", "text": "Modern summaries often describe Samaria's fall around 722 BCE and debate how to distribute responsibility between Shalmaneser V and Sargon II. The biblical narrative and Assyrian royal self-presentation do not map onto each other automatically. Where the exact moment of capture, the ruler credited or the timing of deportations is disputed, record the uncertainty rather than asserting that one brief account settles the whole sequence."}, {"title": "People, movement and provincial administration", "text": "2 Kings 17:6 names deportation destinations; 2 Kings 17:24 describes later settlement in the cities of Samaria. 2 Kings 18:11-12 repeats the displacement theme. The Assyrian empire's administrative policies supply external context for organised population movement, but they are not a census of particular Israelite families. These narratives record the experience in theological and state language, and neither is an individual survivor's testimony."}, {"title": "How to pursue exact comparison", "text": "A high-resolution study should specify each royal inscription by ruler, edition and line, consider the biblical regnal synchronisms in full and distinguish conquest, regime change, provincial organisation and resettlement. This guide preserves that problem openly. The evidence demonstrates that multiple source traditions discuss the crisis of northern Israel; it does not make every chronological disagreement disappear."}, {"title": "Before the final siege: Menahem and tributary payment", "text": "RINAP 1, Tiglath-pileser III 32 (Q003445), obverse line 1, names Menahem of Samaria in a list of rulers providing tribute to the Assyrian crown. Second Kings 15:19-20 names Pul in its account of the Assyrian approach to Menahem and the forced collection of silver. The royal list and Kings speak about tribute in the same historical context, but their surviving forms serve different audiences. The Assyrian edition does not verify how a levy was distributed among household groups, and it does not describe the later three-year siege. The conventional identification of Pul with Tiglath-pileser III should be stated openly rather than silently substituting royal names."}, {"title": "Pekah and Hoshea: the original damaged verb", "text": "RINAP 1, Tiglath-pileser III 42 (Q003455), obverse lines 15'-18', places the fall of the older northern Israelite political order before the final Samaria crisis. It mentions Bīt-Ḫumrî, Pekah and Hoshea. Crucially, the verb near the death of Pekah is damaged: the edited commentary discusses readings equivalent to I killed and they killed. Second Kings 15:30 expressly names Hoshea in a conspiracy and killing of Pekah. The Assyrian king claims to install Hoshea, but the broken royal signs do not permit the present archive to prove who personally killed Pekah. A restoration in a printed edition is not the same as an intact inscription."}, {"title": "Shalmaneser V: biblical name and missing siege annals", "text": "Second Kings 17:3-6 and 18:9-10 both identify Shalmaneser V at the start of Assyrian action against Hoshea and Samaria. The University College London and ORACC specialist account of Shalmaneser V explains how few royal inscriptions survive from the brief reign. No directly preserved Assyrian royal inscription of Shalmaneser V documenting the Samaria siege has been entered here. His activity and possible new province are presented as historical reconstruction. This limits attempts to assign an exact final capture year or exclude the possibility of another royal action under Sargon II. Biblical dating and modern absolute-year chronologies should remain distinguished."}, {"title": "Sargon II and the independently attributed conquest claim", "text": "RINAP 2, Sargon II 007 (Q006488), lines 23-25, is a palace display composition in which Sargon II explicitly claims a siege and capture of Samaria, the removal of inhabitants and an imposed Assyrian administration. The inscription is direct evidence of what Sargon presented about his achievements, not a time-stamped neutral siege log. It overlaps the biblical story of capture and exile but does not erase the earlier attribution of the siege to Shalmaneser V in Second Kings. One campaign, successive phases, and later imperial appropriation are differently argued possibilities. The evidence does not by itself prove which interpretation is historically decisive."}, {"title": "Exile totals are different across Assyrian copies", "text": "The RINAP 2 edited display text Q006488 line 24 lists 27,290 Samarians removed, but the editor notes a variant 27,280 and an apparently attested 24,280 in other exemplars. The related Nimrud Prism Q006555 column iv lines 25-38 has a damaged number for which a reading of 47,280 has been proposed. The copies and compositions also differ in their reported chariot contingents. Second Kings 17:6 records deportation without supplying this figure. These exact-looking royal numbers must never be presented as a single securely established modern population census, and their textual variants should not be hidden from readers."}, {"title": "The province and relocated residents", "text": "Second Kings 17:24 reports the settlement of other populations in Samaria after the removal of Israelites. Sargon II royal texts also present imperial resettlement and the appointment of officials. RINAP 2 Sargon II 001 (Q006482), lines 12-17, contains heavily restored passages whose editorial reconstruction uses parallel royal records. It is an informative secondary textual witness to the same imperial policy but is not an independent complete list of the places named by Kings. Restored phrases, historical campaign dates and named population transfers each need their own evidence. Neither royal self-presentation nor a biblical theological explanation should be misrepresented as a modern census."}, {"title": "A provincial grain-tax letter beyond the conquest narrative", "text": "The edited administrative letter SAA 01 220 (P334789) documents a question about the grain tax of the Samarians, complaints about officials and a request for clarification from Arihu to Nabu-duri-usur. Its obverse lines 4-6 and reverse lines 1-9 are a rare direct non-royal perspective on Samaria as a functioning region of Assyrian government. The biblical notice in 2 Kings 17:24 records the transfer of populations into Samaria; it is not a tax document, and there is no warrant for treating its named communities as identical to the inhabitants mentioned in this letter. The surviving correspondence does not identify individual exiles, determine the ultimate conqueror of Samaria or settle its chronology. It does illustrate why provincial history requires more than royal victory inscriptions."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "aebp-shalmaneser-v", "aebp-sargon", "rinap-tiglath-corpus", "rinap-sargon-corpus", "rinap-tiglath-menahem32", "rinap-tiglath-peqah42", "rinap-sargon-samaria7", "rinap-sargon-nimrud74", "rinap-sargon-annals1", "aebp-israel", "aebp-deportation", "saa-samaria-corn-tax", "aebp-governors-overview"], "related": ["bible-samaria", "sargon-ii", "shalmaneser-v", "assyrian-deportations-texts"], "passages": [["2KI", 15, 19, 20], ["2KI", 15, 29, 30], ["2KI", 17, 3, 6], ["2KI", 17, 24, 24], ["2KI", 18, 9, 12]], "note": "The Shalmaneser V / Sargon II attribution is a historical question. No individual Assyrian royal inscription has yet been independently collated line by line to every biblical verse."}, {"slug": "assyrian-deportations-texts", "title": "Deportation in Kings, Chronicles and imperial records", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "What biblical exile notices say, what Assyrian state policy explains and which human experiences the sources cannot recover.", "sections": [{"title": "Israel and the east of the Jordan", "text": "2 Kings 15:29 reports Tiglath-pileser taking northern places and carrying people away. 1 Chronicles 5:26 describes Reubenites, Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh taken into exile, using names for Assyrian kings that must be read carefully. These are primary biblical reports of specific movements; the language of carrying away does not itself supply a complete register of names, ages, occupations or local destinations."}, {"title": "Samaria and population change", "text": "2 Kings 17:6 associates the capture of Samaria with relocation to Halah, Habor, the river of Gozan and cities of the Medes. Verse 24 then describes groups settled in Samaria from other places. This is a biblical account of removal and replacement. The historical record of Assyrian population management is relevant comparison, but later administrative categories should not silently overwrite the wording or implied theological reading of Kings."}, {"title": "Royal representations of resettlement", "text": "RINAP 1 contains edited inscriptions associated with Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V. The Assyrian governance and deportation resources describe resettlement within an imperial administrative system. Kings could boast about captives, labour and the ability to reorder conquered territories. Such texts tell us about state policy and propaganda, but not necessarily the wishes, faith or later identity of each person moved."}, {"title": "Objects, landscapes and captives", "text": "The relief of Lachish prisoners, British Museum 124908, gives visual evidence that captives and seizure of goods featured in Assyrian royal representation. It belongs to Sennacherib's Judah campaign, not the earlier fall of Samaria. Comparing the imagery with an eighth-century biblical exile notice can illuminate imperial practice, but claiming both were one event would be an error. Distinct reigns, locations and documentary genres need separate labels."}, {"title": "Limits of numbers and identity", "text": "Royal inscriptions sometimes give exact-looking totals of people moved. Without an inscription identifier, the actual preserved text and an explanation of what was counted, those numbers should not be repeated as verified population statistics. The archive also avoids presenting modern Assyrian identity or any present-day community as a simple direct statistic derived from ancient deportation records. A serious history combines Bible passages, specific records and cautious interpretation."}, {"title": "Halah and named biblical geography", "text": "Second Kings 17:6 and 18:11 name Halah among the places to which Israelites were carried. The Assyrian Empire Builders discussion of Israel identifies Halah with the Assyrian Halahhu region, associated with the area of Sargon's later capital province. That contextual identification is an important research route, but a biblical place name is not a complete transport list. We cannot identify individual settlers, the precise boundary of every community, or a verified modern itinerary. The chronology of deportation and the date of a particular place's administrative form are different questions. The evidence supports a historically plausible destination region, not a point-by-point exile map."}, {"title": "Guzana, Habor and the boundary of name evidence", "text": "Second Kings 17:6 places some deportees by Habor in Gozan; First Chronicles 5:26 also names the river Gozan within a different tribal exile narrative. The UCL / ORACC Israel study discusses Guzana in the Habur basin and cites the later letter SAA 16 63 as preserving names invoking Yahweh. Such names may inform research on Israelite presence in Assyrian territories, but a theophoric personal name on its own cannot fix someone's birthplace or document an unbroken line of ancestry. The original sign sequences in SAA 16 63 have not been collated here, and the country study is properly labelled a specialist synthesis rather than a primary-line citation. Nor should the Habor and every specific modern river course be mapped without cartographic review."}, {"title": "Median cities and cautious resettlement dates", "text": "Second Kings 17:6 and 18:11 name cities of the Medes without listing a particular ancient province as the only destination. The Assyrian Empire Builders geographical discussion considers Parsua, Harhar and Kissessim, but points out that Harhar and Kissessim were only organised as provinces in 716 BCE. If deportation and final settlement were immediate and simultaneous, that administrative chronology constrains possible reconstructions; if movement occurred in stages, another interpretation could follow. The text of Kings does not by itself settle when households arrived or how often they moved. This should be a comparison of dated documents and political geography, not a plotted certainty offered as the path of the so-called lost tribes."}, {"title": "SAA 1 220: Samarian grain taxes in an actual letter", "text": "The preserved Neo-Assyrian administrative letter SAA 1 220, also indexed as P334789, provides a direct witness to the practical management of Samaria under Assyrian authority. In its edited obverse lines 4-6 and reverse lines 1-9, Arihu asks Nabu-duri-usur about the corn tax of the Samarians, complains that officials do not perform their work, and requests a clear answer on the assessment. The letter documents administrative friction, not a triumphant royal account or a roster of deported families. The Bible's 2 Kings 17:24 narrates who was brought into Samaria, while the letter illustrates the separately attested existence of grain obligations in an Assyrian imperial context. Neither source determines an individual taxpayer's ethnic origin, status or family history. The named SAA edition is directly accessible for independent review."}, {"title": "SAA 19 17-18: convoys, provisioning and new households", "text": "Karen Radner's specialist UCL treatment identifies two Assyrian letters as NL 25 / SAA 19 17 and NL 26 / SAA 19 18. The first concerns supplies and transport animals to move Aramaeans; the second discusses officials' attempts to arrange marriage partners and the problem of bride prices. They provide a richer picture of what administrators planned for some forcibly moved people. Yet they concern Aramaeans, not the particular Israelite population named in 2 Kings 17:6. They were not independently collated from their individual tablets by this archive; the SAA text catalogue is provided for further work. The existence of provisioning orders does not establish consent, universally humane conditions or completed delivery. The very discussion of household formation underlines how imperial control extended into social lives."}, {"title": "Tiglath-pileser III's scribes and prisoners are a distinct relief", "text": "The British Museum entry for wall panel 1848,1104.5 identifies an officer and two scribes recording booty, sheep and goats, with prisoners in a joined scene which includes BM 118882. The museum attributes the relief to Tiglath-pileser III and a southern Iraq campaign, and dates its production to approximately 728 BCE. The object is useful evidence of how Neo-Assyrian rulers chose to portray administration, conquest and displaced people, but it is not a photo-like report of the Israelite deportation in 2 Kings 15:29. The figures cannot be labelled Samarian families, and an image supplies no imaginary Akkadian line coordinates. In contrast, the Lachish prisoner panel BM 124908 belongs to Sennacherib's later Judah campaign. Comparing such images is possible only if their dates, places and source genres remain explicit."}, {"title": "Provincial archaeology and the danger of assigning ethnicity to finds", "text": "Nadav Na'aman's 2016 chapter in the Cambridge McDonald Institute volume specifically studies how Assyrian deportee settlement sites in ancient Israel and southern Palestine might be located from texts and material evidence. Avraham Faust's Oxford chapter 7 in The Neo-Assyrian Empire in the Southwest (2021) highlights uneven archaeological indications for Assyrian administration and different levels of activity across provincial areas. Its abstract is accessible here, but the complete chapter has not been independently audited by the archive. Neither archaeological argument entitles the reader to treat each pottery type, building phase, personal name or isolated find as an ethnic census. The independently preserved words of 2 Kings 17:24 and the physical traces must be tested separately before proposing the origins of particular families or town inhabitants."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "rinap-tiglath-corpus", "rinap-tiglath-peqah42", "rinap-sargon-samaria7", "rinap-sargon-nimrud74", "rinap-sargon-annals1", "aebp-deportation", "aebp-governance", "bm-lachish-deportees", "aebp-israel", "saa-samaria-corn-tax", "aebp-kings-road", "bm-tiglath-census-relief", "cambridge-naaman-deportees", "oxford-faust-provinces", "aebp-governors-overview", "saao-downloads", "aebp-sargon"], "related": ["bible-deportation", "samaria-assyrian-chronology", "lachish-reliefs-context", "assyrian-governance", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations"], "passages": [["2KI", 15, 29, 29], ["1CH", 5, 26, 26], ["2KI", 17, 6, 6], ["2KI", 17, 24, 24], ["2KI", 18, 11, 12]], "note": "The Judah captives pictured at Lachish are a later, distinct event. Source roles and chronology are deliberately kept apart."}, {"slug": "babylonian-chronicle-nineveh", "title": "BM 21901: the Babylonian Chronicle and Nineveh's fall", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A particular cuneiform tablet brings the 612 BCE destruction into historical focus without collapsing Nahum into a court chronicle.", "sections": [{"title": "Identify the tablet, not just the date", "text": "The British Museum catalogues tablet 21901, accession 1896,0409.6, as a Babylonian Chronicle describing the years 616-609 BCE and the fall of Nineveh. Its catalogue dates the surviving clay copy to approximately 550-400 BCE, later than the events it narrates. An ancient copy of an earlier chronicle tradition is primary physical evidence for that transmitted text, but the age of the surviving tablet must not be confused with the narrated event date."}, {"title": "The political setting of 612 BCE", "text": "The chronicle is a Babylonian narrative concerning campaigns involving Babylonia, Median forces and Assyria. It provides an independently preserved chronological route for the destruction of Nineveh in 612 BCE and the struggles that followed. This does not automatically fix the precise boundaries of every surviving Assyrian province or identify the position of every army. The archive's historical atlas deliberately leaves uncertain terminal borders unmapped."}, {"title": "Nahum names Nineveh", "text": "Nahum 1:1 introduces an oracle concerning Nineveh. The following chapters use poetic images of siege, violence, judgment and the city's downfall. The Bible is primary for these prophetic pronouncements and their theological meaning. A Babylonian chronicle and a prophetic book can be studied in relation to the same ancient city, but poetry should not be treated as a verbatim eyewitness military diary or an automatic translation of the cuneiform account."}, {"title": "Zephaniah and later memory", "text": "Zephaniah 2:13-15 also speaks against Assyria and Nineveh and portrays the city as desolate. The biblical prophetic texts together create a rich literary witness to judgment and political upheaval. The chronicle supports the historical setting of Assyria's imperial crisis, not the proposition that every detail of prophetic imagery appears literally in administrative records. Reading genre and historical subject together keeps both testimony and differences visible.\n\nThe chronicle associated with BM 21901 places Nineveh's destruction within the conflict involving Babylonia, Media and the remaining Assyrian leadership. It helps distinguish the fall of a capital from the end of all resistance.\n\nIts concise entries compress large events. They can identify an outcome without explaining every motive, military movement or civilian experience. Their historical contribution lies in the specific sequence preserved rather than a complete account of everything that happened."}, {"title": "What remains to check", "text": "For precise chronology, retain the accession number, the copy date, the dated events and the specific preserved lines in a published edition. BM 21901 provides a stable object route; a future specialist comparison should collate the tablet's original-language line divisions with named translations and the passages in Nahum and Zephaniah. Source citation and plausible context are not yet an independent philological review.\n\nThe surviving tablet is later than the events it records. This ordinary difference between an event and a physical witness must be stated, but does not by itself erase the text's historical value.\n\nNahum and Zephaniah have different prophetic purposes, interpreting violence, pride, judgement and desolation. Comparing those witnesses becomes useful when their substantive accounts are explained first. A chronicle need not reproduce a prophecy's full message, and a poem need not supply every army's tactical movements."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bm-chronicle", "met-levant-chronology", "met-nineveh-history", "wikipedia-fall-of-nineveh"], "related": ["fall-of-nineveh", "bible-nahum", "bible-zephaniah", "historical-evidence-methods", "bm-21901-nineveh-chronicle-case"], "passages": [["NAH", 1, 1, 15], ["NAH", 2, 1, 13], ["NAH", 3, 1, 19], ["ZEP", 2, 13, 15]], "note": "The British Museum object record dates the surviving tablet several generations later than the events recorded. This distinction is central to its evidential use.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "historical-evidence-methods", "title": "How to compare Scripture, inscriptions and royal art", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A worked research protocol for handling dates, translation, ancient source genres and agreement without inventing certainty.", "sections": [{"title": "Begin by defining the exact claim", "text": "A statement that 2 Kings 18:13 reports an attack on Judah is a claim about the wording of Scripture. A statement that a particular prism was inscribed in 691 BCE is an object catalogue claim. A statement that every event of 2 Kings 19 is independently corroborated requires a much stronger evidential demonstration. Distinguish what the Bible asserts, what an external object preserves and what a modern scholar infers before putting them into a single paragraph."}, {"title": "Separate the four clocks", "text": "A single dossier can contain a date for an ancient event, the year a royal text was composed, the archaeological or manuscript copy date, and a modern museum cataloguing date. The Judah campaign associated with 701 BCE appears on prisms made in later years. Likewise the British Museum's surviving Babylonian Chronicle tablet was made after 612 BCE, the year of Nineveh's fall. None of those distinct clocks should be silently swapped for another."}, {"title": "Name the document and its genre", "text": "A palace relief, royal annal, chronicle, administrative letter, oracle and narrative history are all real source types, but they answer different questions. The Black Obelisk constructs a scene of tribute; the Lachish panels depict siege and captives; Isaiah 20 gives a prophetic sign; 2 Kings provides narrative and theological history. Document type shapes the selection of events, point of view and silences. A comparative account must make that visible."}, {"title": "Keep translation and preservation visible", "text": "For an inscription, identify a museum accession, ORACC edition or exact tablet number where possible. Record signs and line breaks that are missing, restored or uncertain before making close verbal parallels to a Bible translation. For Scripture, give the book, chapter and verse and specify which translation is being read. A secondary article linking to the correct corpus is a research route, not proof that the author of the archive has personally checked each preserved cuneiform line.\n\nKings names Sennacherib and Hezekiah and reports tribute. The Assyrian annals name the same rulers and describe pressure on Judah and Jerusalem. That supplies a particular shared setting rather than a generic resemblance between war stories.\n\nThe silver totals and emphases differ. A useful comparison states agreement and difference together. It does not require every detail to become identical before explaining what each witness contributes."}, {"title": "Record what agrees and what remains open", "text": "The most valuable result is often narrow: independent ancient records describe Sennacherib and Judah, and the Bible also narrates the Assyrian attack. Other reported events, speeches, tribute amounts, miraculous acts and the king's motives are separate claims. The archive should show evidence roles and limitations for each, with claims kept in the independent-review queue until a qualified person reviews and documents them. Identifying an overlap makes research stronger without turning the whole narrative into an unexamined equivalence.\n\nThe Taylor Prism is a surviving object of 691 BCE recounting earlier campaigns, including the Judah campaign conventionally dated to 701 BCE. BM 21901 is a later copy describing events around Nineveh's fall. Object date and narrated event date are different questions.\n\nThe same distinction applies to manuscripts and retrospective monuments. Identify what survives, then which events it describes and when it was composed or copied. That prevents a dating error while retaining enough substance to explain the history."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "oracc-rinap", "bm-taylor-prism", "imj-sennacherib-prism", "bm-chronicle", "bm-black-obelisk", "bm-lachish-panel", "oracc-rinap3-sennacherib22"], "related": ["research-guide", "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah", "babylonian-chronicle-nineveh", "black-obelisk-jehu", "middle-assyrian-overview", "middle-assyrian-women-and-law", "met-62-85-3-sealed-tablet", "bm-21901-nineveh-chronicle-case", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "passages": [["2KI", 18, 13, 16], ["2KI", 19, 1, 37], ["ISA", 20, 1, 6], ["NAH", 1, 1, 15]], "note": "Method guide, not a claim of completed independent historical, biblical or philological review.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"title": "The Middle Assyrian world beyond its kings", "summary": "How Assyria grew from its Tigris heartland into a territorial kingdom, and how farming, families and provincial offices sustained it.", "sections": [{"title": "A kingdom extending west from Ashur", "text": "The Middle Assyrian period, broadly about 1500-1000 BCE in the ATMAP project's chronology, saw a state centred on Ashur expand westwards across northern Mesopotamia. Ashur stood on the Tigris in what is now Iraq; the Habur valley, farther west in present-day Syria, became an important region of provincial government. This was the second millennium BCE, centuries before the campaigns of Sennacherib familiar from Kings and Isaiah.\n\nExpansion changed the scale of government. Ruling beyond the capital required provincial officials, agricultural resources and written communication between settlements. During the thirteenth century BCE, Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I ruled a kingdom whose western administration is particularly visible at Dur-Katlimmu. The city and its surrounding countryside helped turn territorial claims into organised supplies and labour."}, {"title": "Cities, fields and provincial stores", "text": "Dur-Katlimmu lay on the lower Habur, at modern Tell Sheikh Hamad. Its offices connected government to rural production: crops and herds had to be managed, goods accounted for and people supplied. Agricultural records from the city name barley, wheat and sesame, while livestock accounts concern cattle, donkeys and smaller stock. The kingdom's resources included the products of fields and animals as well as the people who worked with them.\n\nThis relationship explains why a provincial centre mattered beyond its walls. A court or official household could direct resources produced in the surrounding landscape. The excavated accounts describe particular institutional estates, however, rather than every farm or family in the valley."}, {"title": "Families and unequal legal standing", "text": "Middle Assyrian society distinguished people by freedom, household position, sex and marital standing. The law collection's veiling provisions make these divisions visible: some women were required to cover their heads in public, while enslaved women and women conventionally translated as prostitutes were forbidden to do so. The veil could mark a recognised social position, rather than a rule applied uniformly to all women.\n\nHouseholds were also centres of economic action. Contemporary deeds discussed by Frederick Mario Fales show women entering contracts for absent husbands, lending, borrowing, adopting and purchasing. These activities sit alongside legal prescriptions that place women under male authority. The history therefore includes both unequal power and documented opportunities for women to act."}, {"title": "Writing made obligations durable", "text": "A receipt turned a transfer into something an official could consult later. KAJ 233 from Ashur, for example, records barley received by Anu-shumu-erish for service horses. Another tablet, MARV 10, 07, records a pair of palace shoes assigned to Niri-shaldi, described in the edition as a hostage, under a steward's responsibility. These are small transactions, but they show how resources and people were placed within chains of accountability.\n\nThe modern ATMAP corpus contains more than 3,000 cuneiform pieces. Within that larger collection, individual receipts, letters and legal documents reveal different parts of administration. Their value for social history lies in the particular obligations they preserve, not simply in the size of the collection."}, {"title": "Asshur and Assyrian cities in Scripture", "text": "Genesis 10:8-12 and 10:22 provide biblical accounts of Asshur and named cities. Genesis 10:11-12 places Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen within its account of the region; Genesis 10:22 includes Asshur among the sons of Shem. These passages give the archive's biblical starting points for those names and relationships.\n\nThe Assyrian conquest described in 2 Kings 17:3-6 is a later episode: Hoshea's kingdom falls after the siege of Samaria, and Israelites are carried away to named destinations. Reading the passages in sequence helps distinguish the Bible's origins material from its accounts of the later territorial empire. Neither passage supplies the names or transactions in a thirteenth-century provincial receipt."}], "sources": ["tcma-corpus", "fu-dur-katlimmu", "bible-webbe", "harvard-dur-katlimmu-seals", "rollig-batsh9", "fales-veil-assyrian", "tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-marv-10-07", "tcma-bibliography", "harvard-dur-katlimmu-citadel"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "ashur", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "middle-assyrian-households-inheritance", "historical-evidence-methods"], "passages": [["GEN", 10, 8, 12], ["GEN", 10, 22, 22], ["2KI", 17, 3, 6]], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-overview", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Provincial offices and Dūr-Katlimmu", "summary": "How Dur-Katlimmu's officials managed western Assyria through correspondence, agricultural accounts and sealed documents.", "sections": [{"title": "A provincial centre on the Habur", "text": "Dūr-Katlimmu, identified with Tell Sheikh Hamad on the lower Habur, served as an important western administrative centre during the reigns of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I in the thirteenth century BCE. Its location placed an Assyrian office within the agricultural landscape of what is now north-eastern Syria, away from the royal and religious centre at Ashur.\n\nThe city mattered because western rule required continuing management after military expansion. Officials needed to handle supplies, personnel and correspondence. The archaeological and written evidence makes Dur-Katlimmu a place where the workings of a territorial kingdom can be studied at the level of an office and its records."}, {"title": "Building P and its records", "text": "Excavators recovered 666 registered fragmentary cuneiform tablets in a sealed deposit in room A of Building P, according to the Harvard-hosted glyptic research report. Thousands of clay sealing devices accompanied the tablets. The complex is interpreted as a chancellery associated with an adjoining, unexcavated palace. It was a setting for handling documents and controlled goods, not merely a store of literary texts.\n\nThe physical association matters: tablets carried written statements, while seal impressions supplied another means of identifying or controlling administrative acts. The recorded total belongs to this report's deposit and registration history. Other publications organise and count the site's written finds differently, so their totals should not be silently combined."}, {"title": "Who exercised authority", "text": "The western administrative centre was headed by a grand vizier. The glyptic project identifies the seal of Shulmanu-mushabshi, a holder of that office, and a seal of the district governor Etir-Marduk. These titles show that provincial government included several ranks rather than a single official acting in isolation. Seal images made office and authority visible on the material used in administration.\n\nAgricultural management formed another level. At Dur-Katlimmu, overseers of ploughmen directed cultivators and received personnel, draught animals and ration grain from the palace. The link between a high office, an agricultural supervisor and the people doing fieldwork helps explain how government reached into rural production, although surviving records do not provide a complete organisation chart."}, {"title": "What an office needed to account for", "text": "Institutional farming required officials to account for land, crops and animals. Dur-Katlimmu's records include the commissioning of herders and their later accounting for flocks, as well as the yields of cultivated fields. Responsibility continued after an initial assignment: animals and produce had to be related back to the person charged with them.\n\nA comparable chain appears in KAJ 233 at Ashur. The receipt names a quantity of barley, identifies its purpose as a ration for service horses and names the recipient and his father. Such details made a transfer distinguishable from another transfer. The two sites provide examples of accountable administration within the same broad period, rather than proof that every office used identical procedures."}, {"title": "Letters connected provincial households", "text": "Government and household communication could overlap. A Middle Assyrian letter from Tell Taban, TabT05A-134, is addressed by Lulayu to Labe'tu, whom he calls his lady. It reports on people's wellbeing, a meeting involving Ili-pada and arrangements for medicine and divination. At the end, Lulayu requests supplies and asks for his correspondent's instructions.\n\nThis example gives provincial correspondence a human dimension. A letter could carry news about illness while also coordinating resources and maintaining a relationship of authority. Tell Taban and Dur-Katlimmu are separate archives, but together they show why provincial history includes households and personal communication alongside accounts and official titles."}], "sources": ["fu-dur-katlimmu", "harvard-dur-katlimmu-seals", "reculeau-water-habur", "rollig-batsh9", "tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-tabt05a-134", "tcma-corpus", "harvard-dur-katlimmu-citadel"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-overview", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "assyrian-governance", "tablet-billa-30-barley", "tablet-marv-1-12-guard-rations", "met-62-85-3-sealed-tablet"], "passages": [], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Women, status and the Middle Assyrian Laws", "summary": "Who could veil, how marriage affected status and inheritance, what penalties the laws prescribed, and how women acted in contracts and household affairs.", "sections": [{"title": "What the laws are", "text": "The Middle Assyrian Laws survive in a set of cuneiform tablets from Ashur, rather than a complete legal code comparable to a modern statute book. Their provisions describe particular situations and the consequences to follow. Tablet A contains 59 provisions dealing largely with women and household relations, including marriage, property, sexual offences, accusations, veiling and debts. Tablet B addresses inheritance, farming and irrigation; Tablet C+G concerns pledges and deposits.\n\nThe surviving copies also have a history. Fales describes the collection as largely preserved in eleventh-century BCE copies of earlier material. That distinction separates the date of a surviving tablet from the possible age of its rules. The laws show a strongly unequal social order in which freedom, marital position and male household authority affected legal treatment. They prescribe outcomes; they do not count how often a court imposed them."}, {"title": "Veiling as a marker of status", "text": "Tablet A, provision 40, required wives and widows, and the free Assyrian women described in the rule, to cover their heads when appearing in the street. A concubine accompanying her mistress was also to be veiled. Enslaved women and women conventionally translated as prostitutes were forbidden to veil. Head covering therefore distinguished permitted public status as well as regulating dress.\n\nProvision 41 connects veiling to a change in household standing. A man could assemble five or six companions, veil his concubine before them and declare her his wife. The witnesses and declaration made the change publicly recognisable. A woman who had not undergone that act remained a concubine under the rule. Veiling here was part of a legal procedure, not simply an expression of private belief. Fales also discusses a category called qadiltu whose precise occupation remains uncertain; it should not be assigned a confident modern equivalent."}, {"title": "Marriage, inheritance and violent penalties", "text": "Provision 41 also addresses succession: if a man died without sons of his veiled wife, the sons of concubines were to receive an inheritance share. The rule shows why distinctions within a household had practical consequences. It also prevents the assumption that every child of a concubine was excluded from inheritance.\n\nThe penalties attached to prohibited veiling were severe. Provision 40 prescribes fifty blows and pitch poured over the head of a woman classed as a prostitute who veiled; for an enslaved woman it prescribes the cutting off of her ears. Men who saw a prohibited veil and failed to bring the woman before the authorities could themselves face corporal punishment and a month of royal service. These provisions attempted to enforce social boundaries through public denunciation and violence. They describe the collection's prescribed response, not a demonstrated record of every woman's treatment."}, {"title": "Women in contracts and household affairs", "text": "Contemporary legal deeds reveal forms of action that the punitive provisions do not explain. Fales notes women contracting in the name of absent husbands, granting or requesting loans, adopting and purchasing. These are specific capacities within documented transactions. They do not establish equal rights for all women, but they show that a history confined to restrictions would omit important economic activity.\n\nA provincial letter supplies a named example of a woman within a network of resources and instructions. In TabT05A-134, Lulayu addresses Labe'tu as his lady, discusses medicine and asks her to send what she has available and communicate her instructions. The letter concerns an elite setting and cannot stand for every household. It nevertheless lets the reader see a woman as a correspondent with a practical role, rather than only as the subject of a law."}, {"title": "Marriage and remarriage in Deuteronomy", "text": "Deuteronomy 24:1-4 describes a man issuing a certificate of divorce, the woman leaving his house and marrying another man. If the second marriage ends through divorce or the second husband's death, the first husband is forbidden to take her back. The passage's focus is that prohibited return after an intervening marriage.\n\nThis differs from the Middle Assyrian provisions discussed above, which use veiling, witnessed declaration and household status to regulate particular relationships and inheritance. Both traditions treat marriage as having consequences beyond a couple's private wishes, but their actual rules must be stated separately. Deuteronomy supplies the primary biblical account of this remarriage restriction; it does not establish that Assyrian women followed the same procedure or that one text borrowed from the other."}], "sources": ["tcma-law", "fales-veil-assyrian", "bible-webbe", "tcma-tabt05a-134", "tcma-corpus"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-households-inheritance", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "middle-assyrian-overview", "historical-evidence-methods"], "passages": [["DEU", 24, 1, 4]], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-women-and-law", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Households, property and inheritance", "summary": "Marriage, inheritance shares, loans and the people who made a Middle Assyrian household an economic and legal institution.", "sections": [{"title": "Marriage created different household positions", "text": "A Middle Assyrian household could contain people with different legal positions. The law collection distinguishes a wife from a concubine, and it also recognises enslaved women. These categories affected public appearance and the way a relationship could be acknowledged. Under Tablet A, provision 41, a man who wished to establish his concubine as a wife assembled five or six companions, veiled her before them and made a declaration.\n\nThe procedure made recognition a witnessed act. It gave other people a basis for distinguishing a wife from a woman who continued to hold the position of concubine. Household history therefore includes public legal relationships as well as domestic life, and the written rules place the power to make this particular declaration with the man."}, {"title": "Children and an inheritance share", "text": "The same provision describes what happened when a man died without sons of his veiled wife: sons of concubines were recognised as sons who could receive the inheritance share. The presence or absence of sons in one household category changed the position of sons in another. The rule links marriage status, recognised parentage and the transfer of property after death.\n\nIt does not supply a complete table of shares for every possible family. In particular, this clause should not be expanded into a claim about all daughters, all widows or every adopted child. Its concrete contribution is narrower and useful: concubinage did not automatically exclude a man's sons from succession in the situation the provision describes."}, {"title": "Women could arrange transactions", "text": "Household resources could be managed by women as well as men. In his discussion of contemporary legal deeds, Fales identifies women acting for absent husbands, making or requesting loans, adopting and purchasing. Those transactions required women to appear as parties with practical responsibilities and interests. An absent spouse did not mean that every economic decision in a household simply stopped.\n\nThis evidence complicates the impression created by laws that emphasise a husband's or father's authority. Fales suggests that the particularly restrictive norms may reflect the environment of the capital, while provincial practice was more varied. That explanation remains an interpretation. The documented activities themselves provide the stronger basis for describing women's economic participation without claiming universal legal equality."}, {"title": "Documents recorded transfers and obligations", "text": "Property arrangements needed records that could identify what had changed hands and who was responsible. ATMAP's catalogues distinguish types such as receipts, allocations, lists and sale transactions. At Tell Taban, the Middle Assyrian entries include two documents catalogued as purchases of enslaved people, each with an envelope, alongside letters and accounts. This makes coercive ownership part of the household economy visible, even though catalogue labels alone do not recover the purchased individuals' lives.\n\nAn envelope gave a transaction an additional physical layer of documentation. The flour document TabT05A-151+ preserves both a tablet and an envelope repeating the receipt's central details. It concerns an institutional transfer rather than an inheritance, but shows the documentary form through which obligations could be retained."}, {"title": "Illness and supplies crossed household boundaries", "text": "The letter TabT05A-134 shows an elite household participating in a wider social network. Lulayu writes to Labe'tu with reports of wellbeing and a meeting involving Ili-pada. His message turns to an illness, treatment with a herb and the scheduling of divination. He then asks his correspondent to send available supplies and promises to gather what is missing.\n\nThe practical picture is one of communication and co-operation: a household could be a point from which instructions and materials travelled. Health, authority and resource management appear in the same message. It is not a complete biography of Labe'tu, but it provides a particular event through which readers can understand household activity beyond an abstract list of legal categories."}], "sources": ["tcma-taban", "fales-veil-assyrian", "tcma-tabt05a-151", "tcma-tabt05a-134", "tcma-assur"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-women-and-law", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals", "old-assyrian-trade", "tablet-kaj-144-lead-house", "tablet-marv-10-07-footwear"], "passages": [], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-households-inheritance", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Fields, irrigation and livestock", "summary": "The crops, herds, water systems and seasonal obligations that sustained farming around Dur-Katlimmu and the lower Habur.", "sections": [{"title": "Farming depended on location and water", "text": "Farming in northern Mesopotamia combined cultivation sustained by rainfall with areas where access to river water made a substantial difference. The lower Habur lay toward the drier part of this landscape. Water supply helped determine which fields could be worked reliably and how intensively institutions could cultivate them.\n\nHervé Reculeau's study places Middle Assyrian irrigation within the expansion of royal investment in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BCE. It distinguishes the canals associated with Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta in the east from developments in the lower Habur to the west. These were different settings within the kingdom. Irrigation increased the possibilities of cultivation, but required construction and continued maintenance rather than delivering abundance by itself."}, {"title": "Barley, wheat and sesame", "text": "Dur-Katlimmu's agricultural documents name barley, wheat and sesame. Crop accounts measured the produce institutions expected to receive and allowed harvests to be compared. Wolfgang Röllig's edition of 106 written finds brings these records together with accounts of livestock management. They concern production administered around a provincial centre during the reigns of Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I.\n\nThe crop names give readers a more concrete picture than a general reference to grain. Cereals and sesame were separate products requiring accounting, and harvests varied. The records concern particular managed land, so they do not amount to a complete description of what every household grew or ate."}, {"title": "Herds required accountable herders", "text": "The livestock records describe herders being commissioned and later accounting for the animals entrusted to them. Cattle, donkeys and smaller livestock formed distinct parts of the managed stock. The herder's responsibility connected animals outside the settlement to the office that kept the account.\n\nSuch arrangements made animal management an ongoing relationship. An initial assignment had to be followed by a return or accounting, rather than disappearing from the record once the animals left. This is a documented feature of institutional husbandry at Dur-Katlimmu, not a modern reconstruction of every herder's seasonal route. The texts reveal supervision and responsibility more clearly than they reveal a full day in a herder's life."}, {"title": "Cultivators and their supervisors", "text": "Middle Assyrian agricultural personnel included ploughmen who actually cultivated land and overseers responsible for their work. At Dur-Katlimmu, the overseers received personnel, draught animals and ration grain from the palace. Organising cultivation therefore involved people, animal power and supplies together. The distinction between cultivator and supervisor is important: a title did not always describe someone physically doing the same task.\n\nCanal work added another demand on labour. Reculeau distinguishes continuing investments in agricultural personnel from the digging and cleaning of canals, which drew on compulsory service. The institutional farm was consequently more than a field and its crop; it was a set of obligations that made cultivation possible."}, {"title": "Harvests were vulnerable to disruption", "text": "Fields did not yield a stable surplus every year. The Dur-Katlimmu records describe production affected by hostile action and storms as well as water availability. These pressures could interrupt cultivation or reduce what an institution received. A regional centre could command labour and maintain accounts, but could not remove the risks of farming.\n\nThe Middle Assyrian Laws also treat agriculture and irrigation as matters requiring rules: Tablet B groups them with inheritance. This combination shows why land was both a productive resource and a legal concern. Families and institutions depended on its continuing use. The surviving accounts and laws illuminate that dependence from different directions, without providing a single guaranteed yield for the whole kingdom."}], "sources": ["reculeau-water-habur", "rollig-batsh9", "fales-veil-assyrian", "water-assyria-jstor"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "middle-assyrian-routes-and-exchange", "tablet-kaj-233-horse-barley", "tablet-billa-30-barley", "tablet-kaj-118-straw"], "passages": [], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-farming-water", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Workers, rations and compulsory service", "summary": "Named receipts show how food, footwear, temple work and compulsory obligations connected people to Middle Assyrian institutions.", "sections": [{"title": "Supplying workers and service animals", "text": "Middle Assyrian institutions distributed resources for specific purposes rather than treating every allocation as an undifferentiated food ration. KAJ 233, a receipt from Ashur, records 16 homer and 5 seah of barley received by Anu-shumu-erish, son of Siniya, for the horse or horses associated with Parparrayu's service obligation. The edition preserves uncertainty over the number of horses; the quantity is not a daily ration for one animal.\n\nThe receipt names the recipient, purpose and date. Its barley supported an animal connected to service, showing that an institution's supply commitments extended beyond human food. The ancient units are retained here because converting them to a modern weight would require assumptions about capacity and grain density."}, {"title": "A pair of shoes for a hostage", "text": "MARV 10, 07 records a pair of shoes belonging to the palace. They were under the responsibility of Apliya, the great steward, and were assigned to Niri-shaldi, whom the edition identifies as a hostage. The document links a named person, an item of clothing and an official responsible for the transfer.\n\nIts wording also refers to the Euphrates and the lands of Tummi and Nairi in a passage interpreted, with a question mark, as a campaign setting. The certain administrative relationship should be distinguished from that uncertain reconstruction. Providing footwear did not establish that Niri-shaldi was free to leave; the designation hostage places the transaction within a relationship of political constraint."}, {"title": "Temple work and compulsory service", "text": "KAJ 247 from Ashur mentions a group of 22 people, a banquet, a temple and named people responsible for the entry. Jacob Jan de Ridder's edition tentatively identifies the group as corvée workers and tentatively classifies the document as a receipt. Corvée means labour owed as an obligation, rather than freely negotiated employment. Because the reading is uncertain here, the record cannot establish the group's exact legal status.\n\nThe document nevertheless places organised personnel within a temple-related activity. It also refers to a writing-board, connecting a surviving clay record with another form of record keeping. Work, food-related events and religious institutions could meet within the same administrative transaction."}, {"title": "Flour moved through an institutional account", "text": "At Tell Taban, TabT05A-151+ records flour under Tehup-sheni's responsibility received by Ashur-ketta-leshir. It distinguishes quantities and kinds of flour, rather than simply recording food. The document survives with an envelope that repeats the main receipt, giving the transaction an outer written record as well as the tablet itself.\n\nIts continuation mentions several possible destinations or purposes, including the king, named towns and a meal associated with the king's daughter. The edition marks uncertainty about how these uses were included in the earlier total. The account therefore shows institutional provisioning across several demands, but does not justify assigning a specific meal allowance to every worker."}, {"title": "Obligation took different forms", "text": "These records describe different relationships to institutions. Anu-shumu-erish receives barley for service horses; Apliya oversees the issue of palace footwear to a hostage; the temple-related entry may concern compulsory workers; and a provincial flour account distributes responsibility between named officials. They should not all be translated into the single modern category of an employee receiving wages.\n\nThe legal collection supplies another form of service: in its veiling provisions, a man punished for failing to report a prohibited veil could be required to perform a month of the king's service. Labour could thus appear as an administrative obligation or a prescribed penalty. The documents make those differences visible even where workers' own accounts have not survived."}], "sources": ["tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-marv-10-07", "tcma-kaj-247", "tcma-tabt05a-151", "fales-veil-assyrian", "tcma-corpus"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-farming-water", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "assyrian-deportations-texts", "tablet-kaj-247-workers-temple", "tablet-marv-1-12-guard-rations", "tablet-kaj-118-straw", "tablet-kaj-233-horse-barley"], "passages": [["2KI", 17, 3, 6]], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Scribes, seals and the making of archives", "summary": "How Middle Assyrian scribes recorded quantities, dated transactions, protected tablets and used seals to identify authority.", "sections": [{"title": "Scribes recorded a transaction in ordered detail", "text": "A short Middle Assyrian receipt could preserve enough information to distinguish one delivery from another. KAJ 233 begins with a quantity of barley, then gives its purpose, the recipient and his father's name. It ends with a month, day and eponym year. The record's structure connected goods to people and time.\n\nThese details made a transaction available for later checking. A scribe did not need to tell the whole story of the recipient's life to establish an accountable transfer. MARV 10, 07 similarly identifies palace footwear, the steward responsible and the person receiving it. Scribal work converted a practical handover into a lasting institutional record."}, {"title": "Dates used named eponym years", "text": "The date on KAJ 233 gives the month Kuzallu, the thirteenth day and the eponymy of Adad-nirari. An eponym year was identified by a named official rather than by a number in the BCE system used today. Converting such a date into a modern year therefore depends on reconstructing the sequence of eponyms and the reigns to which they belong.\n\nMARV 10, 07 uses the same broad dating form but names Adad-resha-ishi as its eponym. A matching personal name is not by itself enough to equate two dates or identify an official with a king. The tablets preserve the ancient date statement; an absolute modern date requires a separate chronological argument."}, {"title": "Seals made authority visible", "text": "A seal could leave an identifying image in clay. At Dur-Katlimmu, excavators recovered seal impressions on tablets and on clay devices associated with an administrative deposit. The glyptic study identifies impressions connected to different levels of authority, including the grand vizier Shulmanu-mushabshi and the district governor Etir-Marduk. The material connects office holders to the physical handling of records and goods.\n\nThe Harvard-supported Dūr-Katlimmu research identifies numerous seal images and thousands of clay safety devices. It also notes that some sealed documents originated in other cities. A sealing found at Dur-Katlimmu need not have been made there, and the findspot alone cannot identify every seal's place of use."}, {"title": "An envelope could repeat the record", "text": "TabT05A-151+ from Tell Taban preserves a flour receipt and its envelope. The tablet names the flour, the responsible official Tehup-sheni and the recipient Ashur-ketta-leshir. The envelope repeats those core details. A reader can therefore see how the same transaction existed in both an inner record and an outer covering.\n\nEnvelopes also occur with the Tell Taban documents catalogued as purchases of enslaved people. They were part of documentary practice in more than one kind of transaction. The surviving tablet and covering provide concrete evidence of how records were packaged; they do not require us to invent a universal procedure for opening, checking or disputing every envelope."}, {"title": "Clay tablets belonged to larger record systems", "text": "KAJ 247 mentions a writing-board associated with Sin-ashared as well as the personnel and temple activity recorded on clay. The reference shows that the surviving tablet belonged to a world using more than one writing surface. A clay archive is therefore only part of the original record system, even when its individual transactions remain legible.\n\nModern publication adds another set of names: KAJ 247 is also identified by museum number VAT 08971 and Oracc/CDLI number P282259. Those labels let readers locate the same ancient object across catalogues and editions. They are modern reference tools, while the ancient names, quantities and date belong to the transaction itself."}], "sources": ["tcma-taban", "harvard-dur-katlimmu-seals", "tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-marv-10-07", "tcma-tabt05a-151", "tcma-kaj-247", "tcma-corpus"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "middle-assyrian-households-inheritance", "cuneiform-reading-methods", "met-62-85-3-sealed-tablet", "tablet-kaj-144-lead-house", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "passages": [], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Temples, ritual texts and sacred institutions", "summary": "Ashur's sacred kingship, temple labour, offerings and a provincial letter that connects medicine with divination.", "sections": [{"title": "Ashur linked city, deity and kingship", "text": "Ashur was both the name of Assyria's religious and political centre and the name of its principal god. The city contained a sanctuary to Ashur, a temple tower and a royal palace. In the ideology described by Fales, the god authorised a newly enthroned king and charged him with extending the land of Ashur. Territorial rule was consequently presented as a religious responsibility as well as a royal achievement.\n\nThat ideology helps explain the prominence of temples in accounts of kingship. A ruler's position was expressed through a relationship to divine authority. It does not tell us what every inhabitant privately believed, but it gives a concrete account of the sacred framework within which royal expansion was justified."}, {"title": "A written ritual organised offerings", "text": "KAR 139, an Ishtar ritual from Ashur, describes actions by a master of offerings. Its opening directs him into the Bit-eqi and toward a particular position within the ritual setting. Later instructions involve a wooden dish and the pouring of beer from libation bowls into a jar. The ceremony is presented as an ordered sequence of movements and offerings.\n\nThe text makes religious practice visible through actions, vessels and a named ritual role. It is more specific than a general statement that Assyrians worshipped many gods. The edition classifies the tablet as Middle Assyrian; its instructions describe a specialist ceremony rather than a complete calendar of worship for all residents."}, {"title": "Temples needed organised work", "text": "Religious institutions also required personnel and administration. KAJ 247 mentions 22 people, a banquet and activity in a temple under named responsibility. The edition tentatively reads the personnel as corvée workers and tentatively identifies the record as a receipt. Those uncertainties remain important, but the text directly connects a temple setting with the organisation of work.\n\nCult and supply also meet in the Tell Taban flour account TabT05A-151+. Among its possible purposes is a meal associated with the king's daughter for fourteen days, interpreted in the edition as cultic. The passage's accounting relationship is uncertain. It nevertheless shows why religious history includes food, institutions and resource management alongside prayers and divine names."}, {"title": "Medicine and divination could be considered together", "text": "In the Middle Assyrian letter TabT05A-134, Lulayu reports an illness and a suggestion that a herb be prescribed. The message also says that the days are not favourable for divination and that extispicy should wait until an appropriate day. Extispicy was divination through examining the internal organs of a sacrificial animal. In this correspondence, practical treatment and attention to auspicious timing appear in the same discussion.\n\nThe letter then turns to obtaining medicine or aromatics and asks Labe'tu to send what she has available. It provides a particular provincial example of care, supplies and religious decision-making interacting. It does not establish that every Assyrian illness was treated in the same way."}, {"title": "A later biblical account of an Assyrian temple", "text": "2 Kings 19:35-37 moves from the destruction of the Assyrian force to Sennacherib's return to Nineveh and his later death. Verse 37 places his killing in the house of Nisroch his god, names Adrammelech and Sharezer as his killers and states that Esarhaddon succeeded him. The passage supplies a biblical account in which an Assyrian king is worshipping when attacked.\n\nThat episode belongs to the later Neo-Assyrian kingdom, many centuries after the Middle Assyrian records discussed here. It contributes to the archive's history of Assyrian rulers and worship in its own setting. It should not be used to identify the deity, vessels or ritual sequence of KAR 139."}], "sources": ["unesco-ashur", "bible-webbe", "fales-veil-assyrian", "tcma-kar139", "tcma-kaj-247", "tcma-tabt05a-151", "tcma-tabt05a-134", "tcma-law"], "related": ["assyrian-religious-life", "ashur", "faith-and-churches", "middle-assyrian-overview", "tablet-kaj-247-workers-temple"], "passages": [["2KI", 19, 35, 37]], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-religion-ritual", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"title": "Movement, exchange and regional connections", "summary": "Letters, flour transfers, sealed records and palace supplies reveal how people and goods connected Middle Assyrian settlements.", "sections": [{"title": "A kingdom connected by provincial centres", "text": "The Middle Assyrian state connected its Tigris heartland with settlements farther west, including Dur-Katlimmu on the Habur. Rule over these areas required communication and supplies to move between places. The provincial centre was a point at which agricultural production, official responsibility and written records could meet.\n\nThe surviving documents identify connections more securely than they identify every road. A named destination in an account gives a place within an administrative network; it does not by itself reveal a carrier's exact route. This distinction still leaves a useful historical picture: the kingdom depended on repeated transfers and correspondence linking centres to other settlements, rather than on each city operating alone."}, {"title": "Flour was assigned across several demands", "text": "TabT05A-151+ from Tell Taban records flour received by Ashur-ketta-leshir from supplies under Tehup-sheni's responsibility. The continuation names the king, Nahur, Kulishhinash, Amasakku and a meal associated with the king's daughter. These references place several locations and purposes within one provincial account.\n\nThe wording does not describe a single commercial journey through all those places. In particular, the editor marks uncertainty over how the later uses relate to the received total. The concrete point is that an official receipt could connect locally managed supplies with several institutional demands. Its tablet and envelope retained the transfer's identifying details."}, {"title": "Letters co-ordinated supplies and instructions", "text": "A letter could arrange a movement before goods changed hands. In TabT05A-134, Lulayu asks Labe'tu to send what she has available for a medical need and says that he will gather what is lacking. He also asks her to send instructions and a greeting. The exchange combines information, requests and a relationship of authority.\n\nThis is a specific example of co-ordination across a social network. It makes visible the work of finding supplies and communicating needs. It does not name a market price or establish whether all the materials were bought, held in stores or obtained through another arrangement. Those unanswered details should not replace the information the letter does provide."}, {"title": "Palace provisioning could follow constrained people", "text": "The footwear receipt MARV 10, 07 gives another kind of connection. A pair of palace shoes was assigned to Niri-shaldi, a hostage, under the great steward Apliya's responsibility. The text mentions the Euphrates and the lands of Tummi and Nairi in a passage tentatively understood as a campaign context.\n\nThe receipt places a person under political constraint within the palace supply system. It therefore broadens the subject beyond voluntary trade: movement in an expanding kingdom included officials, military needs and people whose freedom was restricted. The uncertain campaign wording cannot establish Niri-shaldi's precise itinerary, but the named issue of footwear is a concrete administrative act."}, {"title": "Sealed documents travelled as well as goods", "text": "The Dur-Katlimmu seal study notes that the contents of some tablets point to origins in other cities. A document's place of excavation was therefore not necessarily the place where it was written or sealed. Correspondence and sealed records were themselves objects moving through the kingdom's administrative connections.\n\nThat circulation helps explain why one provincial archive can illuminate relationships beyond its own walls. It also distinguishes this evidence from the earlier Old Assyrian merchant correspondence associated with Anatolia. The Middle Assyrian examples here concern provincial supplies, palace responsibility and personal correspondence. They describe their own institutional setting rather than continuing an unchanged form of merchant organisation across centuries."}], "sources": ["tcma-corpus", "fu-dur-katlimmu", "harvard-dur-katlimmu-seals", "tcma-tabt05a-151", "tcma-tabt05a-134", "tcma-marv-10-07", "tcma-taban"], "related": ["middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals", "old-assyrian-trade", "tablet-marv-10-07-footwear", "tablet-billa-30-barley"], "passages": [], "note": "Original historical explanation with section citations. Normative laws and ritual instructions describe prescribed actions; receipts and letters record particular transactions. Independent specialist review remains pending.", "slug": "middle-assyrian-routes-and-exchange", "category": "History & archaeology", "updated": "2026-10-30"}, {"slug": "tablet-kaj-247-workers-temple", "title": "KAJ 247: workers and a temple account", "summary": "A Middle Assyrian tablet names a group of workers, a temple setting and an uncertain administrative receipt.", "catalogue": "VAT 08971", "edition": "KAJ 247 / CDLI P282259", "findspot": "Aššur, M 09 archive; excavation Ass 14446 df", "dating": "Middle Assyrian period; exact absolute year not established here", "genre": "Receipt? (editorial uncertainty)", "line_focus": "Obverse 1-5; reverse 7-11", "period": "middle", "kind": "Labour and ritual", "source_id": "tcma-kaj-247", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282259", "related": ["middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "middle-assyrian-religion-ritual", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals"], "sections": [{"title": "Identify the surviving object", "text": "The ATMAP/TCMA edition identifies KAJ 247 as CDLI P282259, collection VAT 08971, with excavation label Ass 14446 df from the M 09 archive at Aššur. These parallel identifiers refer to a single tablet, not several separate witnesses. Its catalogue marks the subgenre as a possible receipt. The findspot and archival label are firmer starting points than any imagined reconstruction of the group who used the document."}, {"title": "Follow the line divisions", "text": "The English edition associates the opening obverse with a group of twenty-two workers and an event interpreted as a banquet; the worker term itself and the precise nature of the event are qualified in the edition. Later lines refer to a temple and a person in charge, while the reverse contains language of performance or receipt and an eponym date. These observations require the source edition, not an unsupported modern narrative of a festival."}, {"title": "Work, institutions and surviving voices", "text": "The tablet makes institutional labour visible through the vocabulary of a particular record. It does not establish whether the listed people volunteered, were paid, belonged to a particular household or experienced the occasion in the way the institution represented it. A temple setting also does not settle the religious convictions of everyone present. Social history begins by noticing which people an official document counts and which people it leaves unnamed.\n\nThe entry connects 22 people with a banquet, temple activity and named responsibility. It also refers to a writing-board associated with Sin-ashared, linking surviving clay with another writing surface.\n\nThe mechanism matters: someone needed to account for organised personnel and an institution's activity. The worker category remains tentative. The record can illuminate organisation without proving that all people listed shared a precise legal status."}, {"title": "Uncertainty and the next check", "text": "The editorial question mark after the genre and the qualified worker reading should travel with any research reuse of this item. A future Assyriologist should collate the obverse and reverse against the published signs, account for any broken text and confirm the administrative verbs before translating the entry as an undisputed receipt. The archive links the edition and paraphrases its research value; it has not independently translated the Akkadian.\n\nAn obligation, a report of performance and acknowledgement by a responsible party are different stages. Interpreting the verbs is therefore central to deciding what the writer recorded.\n\nA banquet also required resources and organisation even where the account does not describe all provisions. The text's human significance lies in the relationship between an institution and the people counted in its work, rather than an imagined festival reconstructed from one uncertain entry."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-kaj-247", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tablet-marv-10-07-footwear", "title": "MARV 10, 07: palace footwear and a hostage", "summary": "An object-specific account of palace footwear, custody and a person called a hostage, with a disputed journey context.", "catalogue": "VAT 10052", "edition": "MARV 10, 07 / StAT 5, 07 / CDLI P282957", "findspot": "Aššur, M 07 archive; excavation Ass 21101 s", "dating": "Middle Assyrian period; dated by named eponym, not converted here to a fixed BCE year", "genre": "Receipt", "line_focus": "Obverse 1-5; reverse 7-12; dating reverse 13-15", "period": "middle", "kind": "People and mobility", "source_id": "tcma-marv-10-07", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282957", "related": ["middle-assyrian-households-inheritance", "middle-assyrian-routes-and-exchange", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations"], "sections": [{"title": "Identify the item before the story", "text": "This tablet is edited as MARV 10, 07, also published as StAT 5, 07, with collection number VAT 10052 and CDLI P282957. The ATMAP/TCMA catalogue places it in the M 07 archive at Aššur and retains the excavation number Ass 21101 s. Those details distinguish it from other palace supply records. A name appearing in the edition does not mean that a modern biography of that person survives."}, {"title": "What the edition actually records", "text": "The source edition describes one pair of palace-associated shoes under the charge of a named great steward, and assigns it to Niri-šaldi, designated a hostage. The route or campaign attached to the entry has a question mark in the scholarly translation. The tablet gives a transaction and an administrative classification; it does not allow a confident description of how the person became a hostage or whether the footwear arrived in an actual campaign camp."}, {"title": "A small object and a large political setting", "text": "Footwear is a mundane object, yet its written assignment shows that palace administration attended to clothing and supplies while categorising people by status. The term hostage alerts historians to unequal power and potential coercion. Neither a pair of shoes nor its administrative wording tells us the recipient's feelings, degree of agency, ordinary wardrobe or family connections. Inferring an entire personal story from one receipt would reproduce an institutional viewpoint.\n\nThe shoes belong to the palace, are under the great steward Apliya's responsibility and are assigned to Niri-shaldi, described as a hostage. Owner, managing official and recipient have different roles.\n\nAn ordinary object thus enters a political supply system. A hostage could receive provisions while remaining constrained. The issue of footwear does not establish voluntary employment, but it does document responsibility for a practical need."}, {"title": "How to review the uncertain clause", "text": "The editor's uncertain campaign language is a useful research task, not a reason to omit the record. Review the obverse and reverse line readings, find the name and status vocabulary in parallel Middle Assyrian texts, and distinguish attested place names from conjectural geographical routes. Any map built from this receipt should contain only the locations actually supported by the edition. The original edited text remains linked at the source.\n\nThe passage interpreted as campaign context names the Euphrates and the lands of Tummi and Nairi. Its uncertainty affects the setting, not the existence of the recorded footwear issue.\n\nBegin with the secure transfer and named people, then qualify the possible context. That provides information without inventing how Niri-shaldi became a hostage or every stage by which a person or object travelled."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-marv-10-07", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tablet-kaj-233-horse-barley", "title": "KAJ 233: barley for a service horse", "summary": "A single dated barley receipt links horses, service obligations and an administrative recipient.", "catalogue": "VAT 08950", "edition": "KAJ 233 / KAV 207 / CDLI P282245", "findspot": "Aššur, M 09 archive; excavation Ass 14446 p*", "dating": "Middle Assyrian, month Kuzallu, 13th day, eponym Adad-nīrārī", "genre": "Receipt with seal notation", "line_focus": "Obverse 1-6; reverse 7-8", "period": "middle", "kind": "Animals and agriculture", "source_id": "tcma-kaj-233", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282245", "related": ["middle-assyrian-farming-water", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "middle-assyrian-routes-and-exchange", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "sections": [{"title": "An identified ration text", "text": "KAJ 233 is also KAV 207, CDLI P282245 and VAT 08950. The ATMAP/TCMA record places it in Aššur's M 09 archive and identifies an excavation label. The museum collection number and publication names describe the same artefact, not independent confirmations of its details. Its classification as a receipt is supported by the edition, which includes a seal notation and a short dated text."}, {"title": "Barley, a horse and a named recipient", "text": "The edited obverse describes a barley quantity in traditional measures as a ration for a horse attached to a service obligation, with a named recipient. The reverse supplies a named month, day and eponym. These distinctions matter: the record documents an allocation and its administrative framing, not the full cost of feeding all horses, the physical delivery route or a modern conversion of its capacity units. The edition remains the source of the numerical reading."}, {"title": "What an equine ration implies", "text": "A service horse needed agricultural production, storage and people managing fodder. The receipt offers a glimpse into that supply system by recording one allocation. It cannot establish how healthy the horse was, whether the ration was sufficient or how ordinary agricultural families managed livestock. One horse entry also cannot be generalised to a royal cavalry strength. Ancient account keeping is evidence of an administrative intention in a specific setting.\n\nThe receipt records 16 homer and 5 seah of barley received by Anu-shumu-erish, son of Siniya, for the horse or horses associated with Parparrayu's service. The animal count remains uncertain.\n\nThe quantity is not a modern daily feed rate. Without a duration and secure number of animals, dividing it into a precise allowance would invent information. Its purpose and named responsibility nevertheless document animal provisioning."}, {"title": "Provenance before extrapolation", "text": "For a closer tablet-level study, check the edition's reading of the units, the service term and the eponym name, then compare genuinely contemporary equine allocations from the same archive. The source is stronger for the existence of a documented provisioning practice than for large statistical claims. A dated record is not a complete agricultural census, and the exact absolute calendar date is not established by this introduction alone.\n\nThe reverse gives Kuzallu, day thirteen and the eponymy of Adad-nirari. An eponym year used a named official rather than a modern numbered BCE year.\n\nDate, recipient, commodity and purpose made a compact accountability record. The tablet matters not merely because a horse appears, but because it shows how agricultural produce was assigned and how that assignment could be consulted later."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tablet-marv-1-12-guard-rations", "title": "MARV 1, 12: ten days of guard rations", "summary": "A sealed Middle Assyrian receipt records a barley allocation to several named groups guarding the inner city.", "catalogue": "VAT 18012 and VAT 18088", "edition": "MARV 1, 12 / VS 19, 12 / CDLI P281896", "findspot": "Aššur; individual archive affiliation not supplied by the consulted entry", "dating": "Middle Assyrian, month Kalmartu, day 26, eponym Abattu", "genre": "Receipt with seal notation", "line_focus": "Obverse 1-10; reverse 11-18", "period": "middle", "kind": "Workers and provisions", "source_id": "tcma-marv-1-12", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P281896", "related": ["middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "middle-assyrian-farming-water"], "sections": [{"title": "Why this tablet is an unusually useful case", "text": "The ATMAP/TCMA record for MARV 1, 12, CDLI P281896, names two VAT collection pieces and the earlier publication VS 19, 12. It gives the provenance as Aššur but does not assign a specific archive in the displayed metadata. That missing attribution should not be invented. The record is an administrative receipt with seal indicators and a date expressed in the ancient eponym system."}, {"title": "Groups and an allocation period", "text": "The edited text gives a barley distribution described for ten days and enumerates several separate sets of people linked to inner-city guard duty. The list distinguishes groups associated with Harallu, Qumānu and Muṣri as well as a group of enrolment lords. Numbers and groups belong to the particular document; the archival translator's phrasing, units and uncertain readings need to be checked before any modern caloric or headcount model is attempted."}, {"title": "A guard list is not a population census", "text": "This allocation suggests that guarding a city required coordinated provisioning and categorised personnel. It does not document the entire urban population, prove that each listed person received the prescribed portion or establish what anyone ate in private. The named locations are identifiers in an administrative formula, not a complete map of migration. The document's perspective is shaped by the offices responsible for issuing and recording resources.\n\nA guard needed to remain available for duty while an institution organised provisions. The ten-day allocation period makes that relationship concrete. It is not an annual military expenditure statement.\n\nSeparate groups show personnel classified for distribution. Those categories mattered to the account but do not by themselves reveal each person's birthplace or a complete migration history."}, {"title": "The testable research question", "text": "A useful next step is to collate the obverse list and reverse dating formula, then compare the provisioned groups with other securely dated military and palace accounts. Any proposed total should retain the unit system and interpretive uncertainty, without silently converting a ten-day allocation into an annual diet. The surviving transcript supports one institution's account, while the lives behind those totals remain only partially visible.\n\nA quantity becomes a rate only when the relevant people and interval are known. Retaining the ten-day period prevents a misleading annual total or universal diet from being inferred.\n\nThe document illuminates resources needed to maintain a public function and how writing related duty to supply. Readers can understand that mechanism while precise metrology and uncertain readings remain questions for specialists."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-marv-1-12", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tablet-kaj-144-lead-house", "title": "KAJ 144: lead and a house transaction", "summary": "A Middle Assyrian legal-administrative tablet links lead, household property, named parties and a seal.", "catalogue": "VAT 08609", "edition": "KAJ 144 / CDLI P282157", "findspot": "Aššur, M 11 archive; excavation Ass 14987 b", "dating": "Middle Assyrian period; no independent absolute calendar conversion", "genre": "Receipt? (editorial uncertainty)", "line_focus": "Obverse beginning and seal; check full edition for remaining lines", "period": "middle", "kind": "Households and property", "source_id": "tcma-kaj-144", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282157", "related": ["middle-assyrian-households-inheritance", "middle-assyrian-women-and-law", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals"], "sections": [{"title": "One object with several labels", "text": "KAJ 144 is identified as CDLI P282157, museum collection VAT 08609 and excavation Ass 14987 b, associated with Aššur's M 11 archive. The ATMAP/TCMA catalogue classifies its text as a possible receipt, with a question mark. A preserved seal notation gives an additional physical dimension to the document. It is useful precisely because it links a house-related transaction to a specific excavated tablet, not just a general statement about ancient property."}, {"title": "Metal, obligations and property", "text": "The edited beginning reports a substantial lead quantity, names parties associated with it and connects the obligation to a sale of a house in the inner city. The source gives its measures in ancient units, which should not be converted into a modern currency or a supposedly precise commercial valuation without a checked metrological study. The edition also contains damaged or qualified readings. A transaction is evidence of an obligation recorded, not a complete picture of ownership history."}, {"title": "How much can a legal receipt establish?", "text": "The record demonstrates that a house, materials and named persons could be connected through formal written obligations. It does not describe the floor plan of the house, the household's wealth, the experiences of its residents or the later resolution of every obligation. The presence of a seal cannot by itself identify the modern legal equivalent of a signature. Ancient document practice must be studied through contemporaneous textual conventions.\n\nThe edited beginning connects lead, named parties and a house sale in the inner city. It joins immovable property with a recorded obligation involving a movable commodity, providing more than a general statement that houses were bought.\n\nLead must not silently become a modern cash price. The role of the material belongs to the wording of the transaction. Building size, household wealth and a modern currency conversion are not supplied."}, {"title": "Questions for a specialist reader", "text": "A philological review should verify the lead measure, the relationship among the named parties, the sentence on the house, the seal owner and any damaged signs in the complete edition. The editorial uncertainty in the document classification should remain visible until that review is done. This article does not claim a new independent transcription, a legally enforceable modern deed or an exact reconstruction of the transaction's outcome.\n\nA document could preserve an obligation after the immediate meeting. A seal added another material feature whose interpretation requires the image and associated wording.\n\nOther records would be needed to follow earlier ownership, later transfer or a dispute's resolution. The tablet supplies a property-related relationship, not a full house biography. That distinction allows the actual transaction to remain informative without an invented account of residents and rooms."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-kaj-144", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tablet-billa-30-barley", "title": "Billa 30: barley obligations at Shibaniba", "summary": "A receipt from Tell Billa shows provincial barley recording, witnesses and gaps in the names and legal reading.", "catalogue": "UM 33-58-133", "edition": "Billa 30 / CDLI P282711", "findspot": "Šibaniba, modern Tell Billa; Aššur-kašid archive", "dating": "Middle Assyrian, month Muhur-ilāni; day partly broken", "genre": "Receipt", "line_focus": "Obverse 1-7; reverse 10-16; top 17-20", "period": "middle", "kind": "Regional exchange", "source_id": "tcma-billa-30", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/billa/P282711", "related": ["middle-assyrian-routes-and-exchange", "middle-assyrian-farming-water", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "sections": [{"title": "Provenance beyond the capital", "text": "The ATMAP/TCMA edition of Billa 30 identifies CDLI P282711 and collection UM 33-58-133, from the Aššur-kašid archive at Šibaniba, now Tell Billa. Its findspot is important evidence that Middle Assyrian record keeping was not confined to the city of Aššur. The tablet is listed as a receipt and preserves a dating formula as well as damaged witness and personal-name sections. It should not be treated as if its geography were uncertain just because some wording is broken."}, {"title": "A provincial grain entry", "text": "The edited obverse concerns a barley quantity associated with the palace and the men of Šibaniba, with a named family connection; the reading of the imposition is itself marked uncertain. The document's date and witnesses are partly damaged. These details make it a practical example of how a small account raises questions about the local economy and institutional obligations without revealing all the real-life events behind the text."}, {"title": "What we can and cannot reconstruct", "text": "A grain obligation entered in a receipt points to a social system of storing, demanding and acknowledging goods. It does not automatically mean that every household in the town paid the same amount, that a delivery is fully verified or that the broken witnesses can be confidently named. A modern reconstruction must distinguish certain tablet signs, proposed restorations and scholarly explanations rather than flatten them into a smooth narrative.\n\nThe Billa record gives a provincial example of grain administration rather than another document from the capital. Measurement, named responsibility and a recorded transfer were practical needs outside royal centres too.\n\nIts significance lies in a particular transaction connected with that place. It broadens a history otherwise dominated by palace monuments, without making one receipt a complete account of a province's production."}, {"title": "Next reading at line level", "text": "Compare the obverse quantity and status words with the published transliteration, review the reverse witness formula and retain the brackets that mark lost names or signs. Scholars could then compare other securely located Tell Billa receipts to ask whether practices changed between households or periods. This site supplies the edition route and a cautious original introduction, not a newly completed linguistic collation of all twenty written lines.\n\nCultivation, storage and movement lay behind a grain transfer, even when the text names only the party responsible at one point. Explaining those necessary operations supplies context.\n\nUnrecorded stages must remain distinct from attested detail. The article can explain barley's role in provisioning without inventing a shipment route or treating the recorded quantity as a whole harvest. A small account makes one part of institutional work concrete."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-billa-30", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "tablet-kaj-118-straw", "title": "KAJ 118: forty sacks of palace straw", "summary": "A named receipt involving palace straw, storehouse responsibility and multiple recipients at Aššur.", "catalogue": "VAT 08819", "edition": "KAJ 118 / CDLI P282131", "findspot": "Aššur, M 10 archive; excavation Ass 14327 by", "dating": "Middle Assyrian period; particular absolute year not asserted here", "genre": "Receipt", "line_focus": "Opening obverse lines; verify remainder in linked edition", "period": "middle", "kind": "Agriculture and logistics", "source_id": "tcma-kaj-118", "source_url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282131", "related": ["middle-assyrian-farming-water", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations", "middle-assyrian-scribes-seals"], "sections": [{"title": "A named administrative artefact", "text": "KAJ 118 is catalogued as CDLI P282131, collection VAT 08819 and excavation Ass 14327 by in Aššur's M 10 archive. The genre is recorded as a receipt. Because several scholarly references discuss the document, retaining the KAJ and modern corpus numbers makes it easier to compare readings instead of repeating the same object as independent evidence."}, {"title": "Straw and official custody", "text": "The edition's opening passage records forty sacks of straw associated with the palace and an institutional chain of custody, with named stewards, retainers and other people involved. The names and offices matter as much as the quantity: a palace supply chain was organised through specific recorded intermediaries. That does not establish whether the straw was delivered in full, stored for animals, used in construction or reallocated for another purpose."}, {"title": "The visible and invisible work", "text": "Agricultural production becomes visible here through an accounted commodity and the offices that handled it. The people who gathered the straw, transported it or needed it in a household are much less visible. The tablet cannot supply their family histories, work conditions or a regional crop estimate. The record says something concrete about palace management while leaving most daily experience outside the scope of its writer.\n\nStraw belonged to the agricultural economy alongside grain. Collecting, storing and moving it could require supervision, making it worth recording. The account draws attention to a resource less conspicuous than royal gifts or precious metal.\n\nThe connection between material and responsibility is the important mechanism. An institution treated it as something to manage; the entry does not establish the complete harvest from which it came."}, {"title": "Do not turn a receipt into a harvest", "text": "A future close reading should verify the measure, the precise number of named persons and the syntactic relationships of custody and receipt in the complete edition. Comparing other M 10 documents might reveal repeated roles or changing allocations, but that requires identification checks. Without those, the responsible conclusion is narrow: a Middle Assyrian archive retained one administrative account concerning palace straw and named officials.\n\nCultivation, harvesting, separation and handling preceded the stage recorded on a tablet. Explaining these operations is general agricultural reasoning, not a claim that the entry names every worker.\n\nIt cannot determine every later use of the straw or reconstruct a full workforce. It still preserves a specific administrative concern within farming and supply. That information restores part of the material basis of institutions known more spectacularly through monuments."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["tcma-kaj-118", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "met-62-85-3-sealed-tablet", "title": "The Met 62.85.3: a sealed administrative tablet", "summary": "A Middle Assyrian museum object catalogued with two cylinder-seal impressions, without claiming to translate unread lines.", "catalogue": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art 62.85.3", "edition": "The Met collection record 325514; no line edition verified for this study", "findspot": "Mesopotamia in museum catalogue; exact excavated settlement not established in this record", "dating": "About 13th century BCE (museum classification)", "genre": "Clay administrative record with two cylinder-seal impressions", "line_focus": "No line numbers verified; interpretation based on museum object metadata only", "period": "middle", "kind": "Material archaeology", "source_id": "met-62-85-3", "source_url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325514", "related": ["middle-assyrian-scribes-seals", "middle-assyrian-provincial-administration", "manuscripts"], "sections": [{"title": "The museum record's firm information", "text": "The Metropolitan Museum identifies object 62.85.3 as a Middle Assyrian clay cuneiform administrative tablet impressed with two cylinder seals. The catalogue places it around the thirteenth century BCE and gives physical dimensions of 2.4 by 3.6 by 1.6 centimetres. The museum record documents an object in an institution. It does not, in the readily displayed metadata, establish the original excavated archive or provide an independently checked line-by-line translation for this site."}, {"title": "Two impressions and an administrative setting", "text": "The museum's physical identification allows a focused question about how written clay and seal impressions could work together in institutional record keeping. The number of seals is an observed catalogue attribute, not an assurance that two named officials personally witnessed every action referred to in the text. A seal design may identify ownership or authority only after analysis of a wider comparative corpus."}, {"title": "Image rights and archaeological limits", "text": "The Met labels the object's digital image Public Domain under its Open Access framework. This archive links to the catalogue rather than silently duplicating artwork or proposing an unattributed photograph. Its current article does not infer a precise findspot, owner, transaction or reconstructed household from an image alone. A detailed reading requires a securely attributed scholarly edition and evaluation of the signs, seal surfaces and object history.\n\nThe museum identifies a clay administrative tablet with two cylinder-seal impressions. Its dimensions show that record keeping need not require monumental display. A portable object could combine a verbal record with impressed images.\n\nRolling a cylinder repeats a design across clay. The position of impressions in relation to text and edges can help scholars study manufacture and handling, even where a verified translation is unavailable."}, {"title": "What a future case study must add", "text": "To move beyond catalogue-level description, obtain the object publication or verified transcription, map its signs and seal impressions, and confirm its archaeological provenance and translation. A useful interdisciplinary review would compare metrological, legal and palaeographic findings with actual Middle Assyrian parallels. Until then, this is an object-level case with an explicit missing text edition, not a fictitious translation.\n\nMaterial, form, catalogue period and identified impressions can be explained directly. The broader role of written and sealed clay also provides historical context.\n\nThe particular parties, commodity and excavated archive cannot be invented from those attributes. Keeping the missing edition explicit protects the distinction between observed object and imagined story. The tablet remains a concrete example of the physical technology used in institutional records."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["met-62-85-3", "tcma-corpus"], "passages": [], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "bm-21901-nineveh-chronicle-case", "title": "BM 21901: the Chronicle of Nineveh's fall", "summary": "A later Babylonian copy records the events of 616-609 BCE, including Nineveh's fall, alongside distinct prophetic passages.", "catalogue": "British Museum 21901; registration 1896,0409.6", "edition": "Babylonian Chronicle, Gadd 1923 edition cited in the BM catalogue", "findspot": "South Iraq (museum findspot field; precise site not supplied)", "dating": "Surviving tablet dated about 550-400 BCE; narrative includes 612 BCE", "genre": "Late Babylonian historical chronicle; not a Middle Assyrian tablet", "line_focus": "Museum inventory and linked scholarly edition; line-level collation pending", "period": "later", "kind": "Chronicles and Scripture", "source_id": "bm-chronicle", "source_url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1896-0409-6", "related": ["babylonian-chronicle-nineveh", "bible-nahum", "fall-of-nineveh", "historical-evidence-methods", "reading-cuneiform-transliteration"], "passages": [["NAH", 1, 1, 15], ["ZEP", 2, 13, 15]], "sections": [{"title": "A tablet with two historical dates", "text": "The British Museum identifies this as tablet 21901, registration 1896,0409.6, a Babylonian Chronicle that narrates events from 616 to 609 BCE including the destruction of Nineveh. Its physical copy is catalogued to roughly 550-400 BCE, after those events. Those two dates describe different things: the historical events narrated and the surviving manuscript. Treating the physical tablet as a clay object inscribed during the siege of Nineveh would be a source-dating error."}, {"title": "The object and its provenance", "text": "The catalogue assigns the chronicle to Late Babylonian material, describes a clay object acquired in 1896 and gives a general south Iraq findspot rather than a secure detailed excavation address. It cites published scholarship including an edition of the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle. The museum record supplies an independently verifiable accession, physical classification and bibliographic route, but its brief summary is not a substitute for a newly checked complete line-level translation."}, {"title": "Read the Bible as a distinct witness", "text": "Nahum 1:1 names Nineveh in a prophetic oracle, and Zephaniah 2:13-15 speaks of the destruction of the Assyrian city. Those chapters are primary for what the biblical texts announce. A Babylonian military chronicle can independently contextualise the city's downfall, but does not establish that every prophetic image is a literal battlefield report. The theological claims and the chronicle's political prose belong to different ancient genres.\n\nThe chronicle describes events from 616 to 609 BCE, including Nineveh's destruction. Its sequence concerns Babylonian power, attacks on Assyrian centres and resistance after the capital's fall.\n\nAn annual framework relates events without making every entry an eyewitness report. The surviving tablet is later than the narrated events. Manuscript date and historical contribution must be assessed together rather than making one automatically cancel the other."}, {"title": "Do not merge historical periods", "text": "This object is included to demonstrate a necessary comparison technique: a later copy can preserve earlier events. It is not Middle Assyrian, despite appearing in the same archive website section as the new Middle Assyrian tablets. A future editor should collate the lines of a named scholarly edition with the biblical passages, identify breaks or restorations, and document disputed points in the review register rather than claiming a finished philological verification.\n\nNahum presents judgement against violence and pride; Zephaniah pictures desolation. The chronicle supplies a political and military sequence. Their forms of testimony differ.\n\nExplaining each lets readers understand both collapse and its biblical interpretation. A chronicle need not report a prophet's full message, and a prophetic poem need not list every army. The comparison is useful when the substance of each witness stays visible."}], "category": "History & archaeology", "sources": ["bm-chronicle", "bible-webbe"], "note": "Editorial case file. The linked object's identification, scholarly edition and line scope are stated separately from interpretation. No independent philological or historical peer review has been completed.", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": false}, {"slug": "reading-cuneiform-transliteration", "title": "How to read a cuneiform transliteration", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "A practical guide to edited sign sequences, normalized forms, translation choices and the visible uncertainties in ancient tablets.", "sections": [{"title": "The three different texts on the table", "text": "An Assyrian clay tablet is an artefact impressed with cuneiform signs. A scholarly transliteration represents the sign readings in roman characters, often preserving sign values, numerals, logograms and scribal features. A normalized Akkadian transcription represents how an editor understands the language; it is a separate editorial step. An English translation interprets meaning and grammar. These three views are related but not interchangeable. The original signs should not be described as merely another font for the Latin letters on a website."}, {"title": "What brackets, x and question marks really mean", "text": "Oracc's ATF conventions use square brackets for signs restored where material is missing and x for unidentified signs. A # flag marks a damaged sign; a following question mark signals a queried reading. Editors may also use raised corner brackets around partly preserved signs in publication displays, and asterisk or exclamation marks for collation and correction conventions. These marks preserve vital information about a text's condition. Removing them to make a smooth English sentence can make a confident-looking claim where the evidence is incomplete."}, {"title": "Why one sign can support several English readings", "text": "An editor may choose among logographic and syllabic possibilities, historical grammatical forms and spellings of names. A published English rendering may supply understood words or represent uncertain phrases with a question. The Oxford cuneiform conventions distinguish the letter-by-letter sign representation from language normalization. Oracc's guidance on translations also requires supplied and broken portions to be signalled. A line pair should therefore show the editor's document, a separately labelled reading cue and an explanation of what a competing translation would need to establish."}, {"title": "A real comparison from receipt tablets", "text": "KAJ 233 records barley with a sequence of ancient capacity signs and a dated service-horse account, while Billa 30 preserves a queried administrative word and some unreadable personal-name signs. These examples reveal two different limits: the commodity and numerical signs may be clear while the social meaning or a name is still debated. A reconstruction of the barley's modern volume or a missing witness's name would need separate specialist documentation. The comparison room intentionally displays very short attributed excerpts rather than copying full scholarly editions."}, {"title": "Scripture, chronicle copies and chronological discipline", "text": "The Bible is the primary source for what its passages state. Nahum 1:1 and Zephaniah 2:13-15 concern Nineveh, but they are not Middle Assyrian administrative tablet entries. British Museum BM 21901 is a later Babylonian copy of a chronicle describing the fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE. A secure comparison begins with the different text genres and copy dates before proposing a historical correspondence. A museum object without a verified sign-by-sign edition receives no invented transliteration here. Independent Assyriological review remains necessary before declaring a translation authenticated."}], "sources": ["oracc-atf-primer", "oracc-atf-translations", "oxford-cuneiform-conventions", "tcma-kaj-233", "tcma-billa-30", "bm-chronicle", "bible-webbe"], "related": ["tablet-kaj-233-horse-barley", "tablet-billa-30-barley", "bm-21901-nineveh-chronicle-case", "cuneiform-reading-methods", "historical-evidence-methods"], "passages": [["NAH", 1, 1, 1], ["ZEP", 2, 13, 15]], "note": "Original methodological guidance. Examples are small cited edition excerpts; no independent Akkadian translation, palaeography or ancient manuscript authentication is claimed."}, {"slug": "chaldean-name-and-heritage", "title": "Chaldean: church designation and shared Assyrian heritage", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Evidence assessment of shared Assyrian and Church of the East inheritance, ecclesiastical Chaldean naming, and the absence of a demonstrated ancient Kaldu descent chain.", "sections": [{"title": "What the word Chaldean identifies in church history", "text": "Modern Chaldean Catholics belong to an East Syriac church in communion with Rome and share a Church of the East historical inheritance with other East Syriac Christians. In ecclesiastical history Chaldean was a confessional designation, not an ancient ethnographic certificate. Independent specialist James F. Coakley's GEDSH Chaldeans entry identifies the papal use in 1445, while Lucy Parker's research discusses East Syrian Catholic church formation in the 1550s. These documents date terminology and institutional relationships; they do not attest ancient Kaldu tribal descent. Claims about the modern community must not silently borrow the antiquity of the southern Babylonian name."}, {"title": "Assyrian heritage transcends Catholic and non-Catholic affiliation", "text": "People of the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East share substantial East Syriac Christian history, cultural inheritance and, in many places, family origins. The Church of the East precedes the early modern Catholic communion changes by many centuries. Changing church allegiance does not change a person's ancient ancestry and cannot create a distinct people. Donabed argues for an Assyrian identity that spans these denominational labels, while the Vatican's ecclesiastical document independently describes the shared Church of the East institutional background. The ancient Kaldu descent proposition has a separate burden of direct historical proof and currently lacks an evidenced bridge in this archive. Shared East Syriac heritage is documented; merely proposed Kaldu continuity is not similarly supported."}, {"title": "Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Orthodox are not interchangeable church labels", "text": "The Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church are distinct ecclesiastical bodies. The Syriac Orthodox Church belongs to a West Syriac tradition, whereas the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East belong to the East Syriac inheritance. In this encyclopedia, the names are retained accurately rather than using Assyrian Orthodox as an undefined umbrella church designation."}, {"title": "Ancient Chaldeans in Babylonia are not the same historical category", "text": "Encyclopaedia Iranica documents the ancient Kaldu or Chaldeans as West Semitic tribal groups active in southern Babylonia during the first millennium BCE. Elizabeth Payne's ancient-history entry independently places those tribal groups in southern Mesopotamia. That is a separately dated population and source record from the much later northern Mesopotamian Chaldean Catholic institution. Sharing an English name does not establish an unbroken or distinct ethnic descent for today's Catholic community. More importantly, no primary genealogical or historical bridge demonstrating that specific descent has been identified in the archive's cited evidence. The archive therefore classifies the ancient Kaldu ancestry assertion as not demonstrated, not as an equally evidenced alternative to the documented shared East Syriac and Assyrian heritage."}, {"title": "Evidence ledger: the missing ancient-to-modern link", "text": "Claim under test: modern Chaldean Catholics are a distinct continuous survival of the ancient Babylonian Kaldu. Ancient primary evidence: cuneiform and other historical records attest Kaldu groups in southern Babylonia in the first millennium BCE. Medieval and early modern evidence: independent historical analysis identifies the Catholic Chaldean designation among Church of the East communities from 1445 and later sixteenth-century church changes. Required but absent: an independently evidenced chain linking these two populations as one discrete ethnicity across the intervening centuries. Evidence verdict: NOT DEMONSTRATED. Neither papal terminology nor a modern self-description repairs the missing historical link. The record supports a denominational naming history and substantial shared Assyrian / East Syriac inheritance; no claim of independent ancient Kaldu continuity will be presented here as verified."}, {"title": "The modern ethnic label has a documented history longer than the 1990s", "text": "The GEDSH Chaldeans entry discusses the association of the name with a broader ethnic identity in nineteenth-century writing and subsequent arguments by twentieth-century church authors. The seventeenth-century and nineteenth-century naming changes, and the twentieth-century diaspora and national debates, must not be collapsed into an assertion that the name first acquired any modern national use in the late 1990s. Researchers disagree about when, where and for whom ethnonational identities became dominant. That debate is real, and reducing it to one origin date conceals the sources."}, {"title": "Why Assyrian advocates object to denominational division", "text": "Sargon Donabed's 2012 peer-reviewed discussion describes an Assyrian cross-denominational interpretation and cites former Chaldean patriarch Raphael Bidawid as publicly identifying his ethnic heritage as Assyrian while distinguishing his church affiliation. This is an attributed source report, not a verified original interview transcript in the archive. The underlying concern is understandable: denominational labels can lead readers to picture anciently separated peoples where Church of the East communities share substantial history. Historians should test each proposed boundary against actual linguistic, genealogical and documentary evidence rather than assuming a religious institutional division proves an ethnic one."}, {"title": "Contemporary Chaldean self-identification and scholarly disagreement", "text": "Yasmeen Hanoosh's 2019 ethnographic study describes Chaldean Catholics as a modern Syriac, Aramaic-speaking community and expressly distinguishes the northern Iraqi community from its ancient Mesopotamian namesake. Her study addresses how a modern Chaldean communal identity developed, particularly in Iraq and the American diaspora; it does not present a verified ancestry chain from the ancient Kaldu. The archive may quote or record a person's current ethnic self-identification as contemporary testimony, but that is a different sort of evidence from ancient lineage. It cannot be used to imply an equally plausible distinct ancient Chaldean people survive today. Scholarly and community disagreements over modern nomenclature remain an accurately attributed subject, not a substitute for primary documents."}, {"title": "Linguistic inheritance is not a church-controlled ethnic boundary", "text": "East Syriac Christian communities share a Syriac liturgical inheritance, and many speak Neo-Aramaic varieties. The existence of different scholarly dialect names and liturgical usages does not by itself demonstrate ancient ethnic separateness. Conversely, shared language does not allow a researcher to determine each individual's present political or ethnic identity. Language classifications should be based on linguistic studies rather than a church website or nationalist assertion."}, {"title": "A source hierarchy that exposes advocacy and corrects bias", "text": "For a church's name, worship and institutional relations, a first-party church website or Vatican document is relevant evidence of what that institution states. Such evidence has no authority to establish ancient ethnicity through ecclesiastical assertion. Ancient Kaldu are evaluated from dated southern Babylonian records and specialist ancient-history research; the origin of the Chaldean Catholic designation is evaluated from historical church documents and independent Syriac studies. GEDSH, Parker, Iranica and Payne must be distinguished from Assyrian-oriented interpretation by Donabed and modern ethnography by Hanoosh. None is a substitute for a missing direct ancestry chain. The archive will not infer deliberate misinformation from group membership or disagreement, but will clearly mark unproven descent claims as NOT DEMONSTRATED rather than present conjecture as established history."}, {"title": "Readings for independent verification", "text": "Begin with the Chaldean Catholic Church article's church-history sources, then compare GEDSH Chaldeans on ecclesiastical and modern usage, Parker's sixteenth-century analysis, the Vatican's 2001 interchurch document, and Donabed and Hanoosh on the competing modern identity narratives. Consult Encyclopaedia Iranica separately for the ancient Kaldu. These are cited as different evidentiary kinds; the book and journal records with partial public access are not presented as fully examined texts. Historical and identity claims remain available for independent scholarly review."}], "sources": ["gedsh-chaldeans", "parker-2018-chaldaean", "vatican-2001-church-of-east-unity", "wiley-payne-ancient-chaldaeans", "donabed-2012-appellative", "hanoosh-2019-chaldean-identity", "hanoosh-2016-appellations", "iranica-ancient-chaldeans", "modern-acoe", "modern-chaldean", "modern-chaldean-history", "gedsh-aramaic", "gedsh-syriac"], "related": ["assyrian-identity", "chaldean-church", "faith-and-churches", "church-of-the-east", "syriac-orthodox"], "image": null, "note": "Editorial source review: Chaldean is demonstrably a Catholic ecclesiastical designation. Different present ethnic identifications exist; neither a church declaration nor an unreviewed descent claim proves a separate ancient population."}, {"slug": "bible-origins", "title": "Asshur, Nimrod and the earliest biblical geography", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Assyria in Genesis, the Table of Nations and Balaam's oracles.", "sections": [{"title": "Rivers and peoples", "text": "Genesis 2:14 places the Hiddekel in relation to Assyria and names the Euphrates as the fourth river. Genesis 10:8-12 introduces Nimrod and names Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen. Genesis 10:22 lists Asshur among the sons of Shem; 1 Chronicles 1:17 repeats that genealogy. These are the primary biblical starting points for Assyrian origins and geography."}, {"title": "Read the names precisely", "text": "The retained translation reads Genesis 10:11 as movement into Assyria by the preceding subject. Other translations take Asshur as the subject. This grammatical question should be stated openly when discussing who built the named cities. Genesis 25:3 also names the Asshurim among Dedan's descendants; that occurrence should not automatically be equated with the Asshur of Genesis 10:22."}, {"title": "Early references beyond Genesis", "text": "Genesis 25:18 uses Assyria as a geographical direction. Numbers 24:22-24 mentions Asshur in an oracle concerning captivity and affliction. These passages supply biblical language and relationships; converting them into a dated imperial boundary requires additional interpretation."}, {"title": "How names and places work in Genesis 10", "text": "Genesis 10 arranges peoples and places within a genealogy after the flood. Nimrod is introduced through power and the beginning of his kingdom; subsequent verses name cities in the Assyrian region. Asshur also appears among the sons of Shem. Ancestry, political beginnings and geography are brought together within the narrative.\n\nThose relationships are more informative than an isolated word list. The chapter identifies how names are connected, but does not provide a modern archaeological chronology for every city's earliest occupation.\n\nNumbers 24 and Genesis 25 belong to different narrative settings. A similar spelling can lead readers to a passage without proving that every occurrence refers to the same subject. The primary wording below provides a basis for following those relationships before a historical interpretation is added."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bible-genesis-translations"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "middle-assyrian-overview"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["GEN", 2, 14, 14], ["GEN", 10, 8, 12], ["GEN", 10, 22, 22], ["GEN", 25, 3, 3], ["GEN", 25, 18, 18], ["1CH", 1, 10, 17], ["NUM", 24, 21, 24]], "bible_group": "Origins", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-pul-menahem", "title": "Pul, Menahem and tribute to Assyria", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The payment recorded in 2 Kings 15 and the deportation memory of 1 Chronicles 5.", "sections": [{"title": "The account in Kings", "text": "2 Kings 15:19-20 records Pul, king of Assyria, coming against the land during Menahem's reign. Menahem gives him a thousand talents of silver to support his position as king. The payment is raised from wealthy men, at fifty shekels each. The narrative then says that the king of Assyria withdrew and did not remain in the land."}, {"title": "The reference in Chronicles", "text": "1 Chronicles 5:26 names Pul and Tilgath Pilneser in its account of the captivity of the Reubenites, Gadites and half-tribe of Manasseh. Read that statement alongside 2 Kings rather than silently replacing the names with a modern spelling."}, {"title": "Names and interpretation", "text": "Historical writing commonly identifies Pul with Tiglath-pileser III. That identification draws on comparison with other ancient evidence; 2 Kings 15:19 itself uses the name Pul. The archive preserves the name used in each passage and treats the historical identification as an additional explanatory step."}, {"title": "Royal security placed a burden on others", "text": "In 2 Kings 15, Menahem makes a large payment to Pul to gain support for his rule and then raises the money from wealthy men in Israel. The arrangement connects external pressure with an internal financial burden. The king makes the decision, but others supply the wealth.\n\nThe Assyrian king's withdrawal does not turn the transaction into an equal exchange. Menahem seeks stability under pressure. That sequence helps readers understand imperial influence before the kingdom becomes the subject of later conquest narratives.\n\nChronicles places Pul and Tilgath Pilneser within its account of the eastern tribes. The passages contribute different statements and should not be collapsed into one episode. External royal identification belongs to historical comparison, while demand, payment and withdrawal can be followed directly in Kings."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bible-pul-imj", "aebp-tiglath"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 15, 19, 20], ["1CH", 5, 25, 26]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-tiglath-pileser", "title": "Tiglath Pileser, Ahaz and the fall of Damascus", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Campaigns, deportation and Judah's appeal to the Assyrian king.", "sections": [{"title": "Israel and Damascus", "text": "2 Kings 15:29 names Tiglath Pileser as the king who captured northern Israelite places, including Galilee and the land of Naphtali, and carried people away to Assyria. In 2 Kings 16:7-9, Ahaz appeals to him against Syria and Israel, sends silver and gold, and describes himself as the Assyrian king's servant and son. Damascus is taken, its people are carried to Kir, and Rezin is killed."}, {"title": "The altar and the court", "text": "2 Kings 16:10-18 continues beyond military events. Ahaz visits Damascus, sees an altar and sends its design to Urijah. Changes to worship and palace access are part of the biblical account of the relationship with Assyria."}, {"title": "Read Chronicles alongside Kings", "text": "2 Chronicles 28:16-21 uses the spelling Tilgath Pilneser and stresses that the Assyrian intervention distressed Ahaz rather than strengthening him. The two accounts should be read together, retaining each book's emphasis instead of reducing the relationship to a list of victories."}, {"title": "Rescue led into a dependent relationship", "text": "Ahaz turns to Assyria under pressure from Israel and Aram. His appeal uses subordinate language and is accompanied by wealth from the temple and palace. Assyrian intervention defeats Damascus, but the story continues beyond the immediate military answer.\n\nAt Damascus Ahaz sees an altar and sends a model to Urijah. The changes that follow connect the political encounter with religious decisions and sacred space. The episode is consequently more than an entry in a campaign list.\n\nChronicles emphasises distress rather than lasting strength from Assyrian assistance. Together the accounts allow readers to follow both the request for protection and the costs of dependence. An intervention can remove one threat while creating obligations and changes within the protected kingdom."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 15, 29, 29], ["2KI", 16, 7, 18], ["2CH", 28, 16, 21]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-samaria", "title": "Shalmaneser, Hoshea and the fall of Samaria", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The siege, captivity and explanation preserved in Kings.", "sections": [{"title": "The siege narrative", "text": "2 Kings 17:3 names Shalmaneser as the Assyrian king to whom Hoshea became subject and paid tribute. The following verses describe Hoshea's approach to Egypt, the withholding of tribute, imprisonment and a three-year siege of Samaria. Verse 6 records the capture in Hoshea's ninth year and the removal of Israelites to Halah, the Habor at Gozan and cities of the Medes."}, {"title": "The parallel chronological account", "text": "2 Kings 18:9-12 recounts the same siege using the regnal years of Hezekiah and Hoshea. It explicitly names Shalmaneser at the beginning and then speaks of the Assyrians taking the city. These are the biblical chronological statements; an absolute BCE date is a reconstruction from these and other evidence."}, {"title": "The book's explanation", "text": "2 Kings 17:7-23 explains the catastrophe in terms of Israel's covenant conduct and the rejection of prophetic warnings. That theological interpretation is central to the biblical account. Later discussion of Sargon and the capture of Samaria should distinguish what Kings names from what other ancient records claim."}, {"title": "Rebellion, siege and the book's explanation", "text": "Hoshea first pays tribute as an Assyrian subject, then seeks Egyptian assistance and withholds payment. The response includes imprisonment and a prolonged siege. Capture is followed by removal to named destinations. That sequence supplies political background rather than presenting the fall as an isolated battle.\n\nKings also explains the catastrophe through worship, conduct, prophetic warnings and covenant rejection. This interpretation is part of the account's purpose, not a detachable introduction to military history.\n\nThe parallel notice in 2 Kings 18 relates the siege to Hoshea's and Hezekiah's reigns. A comparison with Sargon's later claims requires additional witnesses, but should not displace the narrative Kings actually supplies. Readers need the sequence and the book's stated explanation before deciding how other records relate to it."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "samaria-assyrian-chronology"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 17, 1, 23], ["2KI", 18, 9, 12]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-deportation", "title": "Deportation, resettlement and life under Assyrian rule", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The places and communities named in Kings, Chronicles and Ezra.", "sections": [{"title": "People carried away", "text": "2 Kings 17:6 and 18:11 name destinations for Israelites removed from Samaria. 1 Chronicles 5:6 singles out Beerah, while 5:25-26 recounts the removal of the eastern tribes to Halah, Habor, Hara and the river of Gozan. These references preserve more than a political conquest: they describe the displacement of communities."}, {"title": "New inhabitants of Samaria", "text": "2 Kings 17:24-41 describes people brought from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim into the cities of Samaria. The account includes the return of a priest and a description of mixed worship. Read the entire passage when using it to explain the religious situation portrayed by the biblical writer."}, {"title": "Memory in Ezra", "text": "Ezra 4:2 recalls settlement under Esar Haddon; 4:9-10 lists communities and refers to Osnappar bringing people into Samaria and beyond the River. Osnappar's identification with a particular Assyrian ruler belongs to historical interpretation. The passage itself and the names it supplies remain the primary reference."}, {"title": "Movement occurred in two directions", "text": "The passages describe Israelites being removed and other populations being brought into Samaria. Those are distinct movements with different origins and destinations. Conquest changes population and institutions as well as the person holding royal power.\n\nThe account of new settlers includes lions, an appeal to the Assyrian king and a returning priest. Kings then discusses the continuation of several religious practices. The settlement narrative therefore concerns worship and conduct as well as population transfer.\n\nChronicles recounts removal from the eastern tribes; Ezra preserves later claims concerning settlement. Each contributes a particular statement. Explaining their settings prevents the place names from becoming one undifferentiated migration route or a supposedly documented genealogy for every later household."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "assyrian-deportations-texts", "middle-assyrian-labour-rations"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 17, 6, 6], ["2KI", 17, 24, 41], ["2KI", 18, 11, 11], ["1CH", 5, 6, 6], ["1CH", 5, 25, 26], ["EZR", 4, 1, 10]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-sargon", "title": "Sargon and the sign against Egypt and Cush", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Isaiah 20 names an Assyrian king and the capture of Ashdod.", "sections": [{"title": "The named king", "text": "Isaiah 20:1 refers to the year in which the Tartan came to Ashdod, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, and fought against it and took it. This short statement is the direct biblical reference to Sargon. The text calls the commander Tartan, an office title represented here as a name in the translation."}, {"title": "The prophetic sign", "text": "Isaiah 20:2-4 describes Isaiah's enacted sign and says that the king of Assyria will lead captives from Egypt and exiles from Cush. The humiliation of those captives is an essential part of the oracle's warning."}, {"title": "What the passage warns against", "text": "The chapter ends with the dismay of those who had relied on Egypt and Cush for help against Assyria. The chapter should therefore be read as both an account naming Ashdod and a prophetic warning about misplaced political confidence. It does not supply the full boundaries of Sargon's empire."}, {"title": "The notice and the sign belong together", "text": "Isaiah 20 begins with a commander sent by Sargon attacking Ashdod. The passage then describes Isaiah's enacted sign and interprets it through Egyptian and Cushite captivity. The movement from event to action to explanation is the structure of the chapter.\n\nThe final question concerns those who expected rescue from those powers. Their confidence fails when the imagined protectors can themselves be humiliated. The chapter thus explains insecurity through a visible prophetic action.\n\nReaders encounter a named ruler and city, the prophet's conduct and the reason given for its significance. Historical evidence can extend that setting, but the short chapter is already substantive when its connected argument is explained instead of being reduced to a source reference for Sargon's name."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bible-official-titles", "aebp-sargon"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "sargon-ashdod-isaiah"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["ISA", 20, 1, 6]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-sennacherib-invasion", "title": "Sennacherib invades Judah", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The fortified cities, Lachish, tribute and the approach to Jerusalem.", "sections": [{"title": "The invasion in Kings", "text": "2 Kings 18:13 records Sennacherib's attack on Judah's fortified cities in Hezekiah's fourteenth year. Verses 14-16 describe Hezekiah's payment of silver and gold, including gold removed from the doors and pillars of the temple. Lachish is the setting of the exchange with the Assyrian king."}, {"title": "The delegation to Jerusalem", "text": "2 Kings 18:17-37 introduces the Tartan, Rab-saris and Rabshakeh, together with a large army. The speech challenges trust in Egypt, Hezekiah and the LORD. Isaiah 36 contains a parallel account, while 2 Chronicles 32:1-19 places the invasion alongside Hezekiah's defensive preparations and encouragement of the people."}, {"title": "Read the connected chapters", "text": "This account continues into the prayer, prophetic response and deliverance in 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37. The archive keeps the political and religious dimensions together. Place names, the king's regnal year and the stated tribute should be cited directly to their passages before adding a modern chronology or archaeological comparison."}, {"title": "From fortified cities to a public challenge", "text": "The opening describes attacks on Judah's fortified cities and Hezekiah's payment, including temple wealth. The scene then moves from Lachish toward Jerusalem as the Assyrian delegation arrives with force behind its demands.\n\nThe speech challenges confidence in Egypt, Hezekiah and the LORD. Listeners on the wall are part of the encounter, so the confrontation concerns morale and allegiance as well as negotiations between officials.\n\nChapter 18 carries the report to Hezekiah and into the prayer and prophetic answer of chapter 19. Following those transitions explains a kingdom under pressure rather than ending the story at tribute. Isaiah and Chronicles add their own emphases within parallel presentations of the crisis."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "oracc-rinap"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah", "lachish-reliefs-context"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 18, 13, 37], ["ISA", 36, 1, 22], ["2CH", 32, 1, 19]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-rabshakeh", "title": "Rabshakeh, diplomacy and the language of Jerusalem", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Officials, public speeches and the request to speak in Aramaic.", "sections": [{"title": "Officials on both sides", "text": "2 Kings 18:17-18 names the Assyrian delegation and the Judean officials who meet it. Isaiah 36:2-3 gives a parallel description. The officials' titles and names should be kept distinct: Rabshakeh and Tartan are conventional representations of court or military offices."}, {"title": "Language as a political choice", "text": "In 2 Kings 18:26 and Isaiah 36:11, the Judean officials ask for Aramaic because they understand it, and ask that the speech not be made in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people on the wall. Rabshakeh then addresses that audience directly. The episode makes language part of the confrontation."}, {"title": "The limits of the reference", "text": "These verses are important primary references for multilingual communication in the biblical account. They should not be turned into a claim that all ancient Assyrians used a single language, or that the language of this exchange was identical to a modern spoken Assyrian variety. Those are separate linguistic questions."}, {"title": "The wider audience was part of the strategy", "text": "Judean officials request Aramaic because they understand it and wish to avoid the public audience hearing the speech in its own language. The Assyrian spokesman rejects that restriction and directly addresses the people. Who understands becomes a political issue.\n\nThe speech offers a future under submission and challenges the reliability of king and God. It attempts to separate public confidence from leadership, rather than leaving the people as scenery around a diplomatic exchange.\n\nThe listeners remain silent under the king's instruction, and the officials report to Hezekiah. That response closes the public scene and moves the narrative onward. Audience, speech and silence together make the passage a particular account of pressure and decision."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bible-official-titles"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 18, 17, 37], ["ISA", 36, 2, 22]], "bible_group": "People & places", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-hezekiah-deliverance", "title": "Hezekiah's prayer and Jerusalem's deliverance", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The biblical account of prayer, Isaiah's response and the defeat of Sennacherib's army.", "sections": [{"title": "Prayer before the LORD", "text": "2 Kings 19:14-19 describes Hezekiah receiving the letter, going to the house of the LORD, spreading it out and praying. He acknowledges Assyrian victories while distinguishing the living God from the destroyed idols of other nations. Isaiah 37:14-20 preserves the parallel prayer."}, {"title": "The promised deliverance", "text": "The prophetic response in 2 Kings 19:20-34 addresses Assyrian boasting and promises that the king will not enter the city. Verses 35-37 record the angel of the LORD striking 185,000 in the Assyrian camp, Sennacherib's return to Nineveh and his later death. The number and the divine action are statements of the biblical narrative, cited here to their primary text."}, {"title": "Parallel witness and later remembrance", "text": "Isaiah 37:21-38 records the same sequence, and 2 Chronicles 32:20-23 gives a shorter account. Sirach 48 and 2 Maccabees 8 and 15 later recall the deliverance. These connections help readers follow how the account was remembered within biblical literature."}, {"title": "The prayer answers the challenge", "text": "Hezekiah spreads the letter before the LORD and acknowledges Assyria's victories, while distinguishing the living God from manufactured objects destroyed elsewhere. The prayer answers the spokesman's argument rather than denying the political danger.\n\nIsaiah's response addresses Jerusalem's fear and Assyrian boasting. Protection and the limits of the king's power are central to the promise. The narrative then reports destruction in the camp, Sennacherib's return and his later death.\n\nThreat, prayer, prophetic answer and deliverance form a connected account. Divine action is central to the biblical witness and should be stated as its claim. Comparisons with annals can illuminate the setting and differences of presentation, but cannot substitute a discussion of source agreement for the story itself."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "sennacherib-prism-hezekiah"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 19, 1, 37], ["ISA", 37, 1, 38], ["2CH", 32, 20, 23]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-esarhaddon", "title": "Esar Haddon and the death of Sennacherib", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Succession at Nineveh and a later reference to settlement in Samaria.", "sections": [{"title": "The succession notice", "text": "2 Kings 19:36-37 says that Sennacherib returned to Nineveh and was killed by Adrammelech and Sharezer while worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god. The sons escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esar Haddon reigned in his place. Isaiah 37:37-38 preserves the parallel notice."}, {"title": "Read the names in context", "text": "Adrammelech also appears in 2 Kings 17:31 as the name of a deity in the account of the settlers' worship. Matching the spelling does not make the deity and Sennacherib's son the same subject. The verse and its context must accompany any name index."}, {"title": "Esar Haddon in Ezra", "text": "Ezra 4:2 reports the speakers' claim to have offered sacrifices since the time Esar Haddon brought them into the land. This is a later narrative preserving an Assyrian settlement memory. Other campaigns attributed to Esarhaddon, including his Egyptian conquests, require their own ancient sources; these particular biblical verses concern succession and settlement."}, {"title": "A successor and a later settlement claim", "text": "Kings and Isaiah place Esarhaddon's accession after Sennacherib's killing and the killers' flight. This identifies a successor in a royal crisis, without narrating his entire reign.\n\nEzra 4 uses the name differently. Speakers seeking participation in rebuilding refer to sacrifices since the time Esar Haddon brought them into the land. The historical reference forms part of their argument about standing and religious activity.\n\nThese are succession and settlement memory in distinct settings. Explaining both makes the name useful to readers without assuming each occurrence tells the same story. Adrammelech, named as one of Sennacherib's killers, is also the name of a deity in 2 Kings 17:31. The deity and the king's son are different subjects; neither reference is another name for Esarhaddon."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2KI", 19, 36, 37], ["ISA", 37, 37, 38], ["EZR", 4, 1, 5]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-manasseh", "title": "Manasseh taken by the commanders of Assyria", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The captivity, repentance and restoration recorded in 2 Chronicles 33.", "sections": [{"title": "Taken to Babylon", "text": "2 Chronicles 33:10-11 records that Manasseh and his people did not listen when the LORD spoke. Commanders of the army of the king of Assyria then take Manasseh, bind him with bronze fetters and carry him to Babylon. The destination in this passage is Babylon, even though the commanders serve the king of Assyria."}, {"title": "Prayer and return", "text": "Verses 12-13 describe Manasseh humbling himself, praying and being brought back to Jerusalem and his kingdom. The narrative continues with defensive works and changes in worship. Its focus includes repentance and restoration as well as captivity."}, {"title": "A king left unnamed", "text": "The passage does not name the Assyrian king responsible. Assigning the event to Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal is a proposed historical identification, not a name supplied by 2 Chronicles 33. The Prayer of Manasses, included among this edition's additional books, is a related devotional text and should be identified separately from the account in Chronicles."}, {"title": "Humiliation is followed by a changed return", "text": "Chronicles introduces the captivity after warnings were not heeded. Commanders of the king of Assyria bind Manasseh and take him to Babylon. The military authority and destination are named, while the individual Assyrian ruler remains unnamed.\n\nIn distress Manasseh humbles himself and prays. His restoration is followed by building and action against worship previously promoted. The account moves from disobedience through humiliation to recognition and reform.\n\nThis gives the episode a purpose beyond identifying a prisoner. Political defeat supplies a setting for repentance and restoration. A proposed external date or royal identification may assist historical discussion, but is not a name supplied by Chronicles and must not obscure the narrative's actual movement."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["2CH", 33, 10, 20], ["PRM", 1, 1, 15]], "bible_group": "Accounts", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-jonah", "title": "Jonah, Nineveh and God's compassion", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The mission, repentance and final question at the heart of the book of Jonah.", "sections": [{"title": "Called to Nineveh", "text": "Jonah 1:1-2 introduces the call to go to Nineveh because its wickedness has come before the LORD. The opening flight, storm and rescue lead to a renewed commission in chapter 3. The narrative's focus is the prophet's response as well as the city's."}, {"title": "The response of the city", "text": "Jonah 3 records the proclamation of impending overthrow, the people's belief, fasting and the king's decree. The king is called the king of Nineveh; the text does not supply his personal name. God sees their turning from evil and relents from the threatened disaster."}, {"title": "Compassion and the prophet", "text": "Chapter 4 records Jonah's anger and God's question concerning the city, its people and its animals. Read this chapter with chapter 3 so that Nineveh is encountered through the book's account of mercy as well as judgement. Matthew 12:41 and Luke 11:32 later refer to the Ninevites' repentance. Second Kings 14:25 separately names Jonah son of Amittai in an account of Israel's restored border."}, {"title": "The city and the prophet respond differently", "text": "Jonah initially moves away from his commission. Storm, descent and rescue precede a renewed call and proclamation. Nineveh responds through belief, fasting and a decree joining outward action with turning from violence. God sees the change and relents.\n\nThe account then returns to Jonah's anger. The plant, its loss and the final question expose a tension between receiving mercy and resenting its extension to others. The prophet's own concern and distress make the issue concrete.\n\nNineveh is therefore more than a mission location. Its people and animals belong to the final appeal concerning compassion. The New Testament recalls the Ninevites' repentance, while Jonah also challenges its readers through the prophet's unresolved response."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["JON", 1, 1, 17], ["JON", 2, 1, 10], ["JON", 3, 1, 10], ["JON", 4, 1, 11], ["2KI", 14, 25, 25]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-nahum", "title": "Nahum and the oracle concerning Nineveh", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The prophetic book's language of judgement, violence and the fall of a city.", "sections": [{"title": "The subject named at the start", "text": "Nahum 1:1 identifies the work as an oracle about Nineveh and a vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. The first chapter speaks of the LORD's power, justice and protection. Its opening should remain attached to the later descriptions of the city's fall."}, {"title": "The city under assault", "text": "Nahum 2 uses vivid imagery of defence, attack, plunder and a lion's dwelling. Nahum 3 addresses a city associated with bloodshed, deceit and exploitation. It compares its security with that of No-Amon and ends with a direct address to the king of Assyria."}, {"title": "Read alongside Jonah", "text": "Jonah and Nahum both concern Nineveh, but they have different narrative and prophetic settings. Their pairing should preserve each book's message: repentance and compassion in Jonah; judgement against violence and oppression in Nahum. The book of Nahum does not itself give a BCE date for Nineveh's fall; such a date belongs to comparison with other historical evidence."}, {"title": "Security and violence are judged together", "text": "Chariots, walls, plunder and the lion's dwelling portray a powerful city losing its projected security. The address connects downfall with bloodshed, deception and exploitation. The poem concerns oppressive power, not merely the replacement of one victorious army by another.\n\nThe comparison with No-Amon questions whether Nineveh can be uniquely protected from another strong centre's fate. Resources and confidence do not provide exemption. The final address to Assyria's king broadens the significance beyond damaged buildings.\n\nJonah and Nahum concern Nineveh in different prophetic settings. Mercy following repentance and judgement against violence must each be explained through their passages. Historical chronology can then be added from identified witnesses without replacing the substance of either book."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "babylonian-chronicle-nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["NAH", 1, 1, 15], ["NAH", 2, 1, 13], ["NAH", 3, 1, 19]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-isaiah-assyria", "title": "Assyria in Isaiah: power, judgement and trust", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Isaiah's account of Assyria as an instrument of judgement whose pride is also judged.", "sections": [{"title": "The Assyrian threat", "text": "Isaiah 7:17-20 names Assyria in a warning to Ahaz. Isaiah 8:5-8 compares the king of Assyria and his glory with the river's mighty floodwaters. The imagery presents a political threat through a prophetic interpretation of events."}, {"title": "The rod and the boasting ruler", "text": "Isaiah 10:5-19 calls Assyria the rod of God's anger, then addresses the ruler's destructive intention and pride. The chapter distinguishes being used for judgement from possessing independent or unlimited authority. Isaiah 14:24-27 announces the breaking of the Assyrian in God's land."}, {"title": "Trust and deliverance", "text": "Isaiah 30:27-33 and 31:1-9 join warnings about reliance on Egypt to assurances concerning Assyria. Isaiah 36-37 supplies the narrative of Hezekiah, the Assyrian challenge and Jerusalem's deliverance. These chapters should be read with Isaiah's hopeful references to Assyria, especially chapter 19, rather than selecting only passages of conflict."}, {"title": "An instrument remains accountable", "text": "Isaiah 10 calls Assyria the rod of divine anger while distinguishing judgement from the ruler's intention to destroy and boast. The image of a tool exalting itself over its user criticises a claim to independent, unlimited power.\n\nThat argument belongs beside warnings about misplaced confidence. Assyria threatens, Egypt attracts hopes of rescue and Judah's decisions are interpreted through trust and faithfulness. The crisis gives those competing expectations a concrete setting.\n\nIsaiah also includes restoration and blessing involving Assyria. Reading the range prevents the book's treatment of a people and land being reduced to a permanent label of enemy. Threat, accountability, deliverance and hope are distinct parts of its prophetic account."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["ISA", 7, 17, 20], ["ISA", 8, 5, 8], ["ISA", 10, 5, 34], ["ISA", 14, 24, 27], ["ISA", 30, 27, 33], ["ISA", 31, 1, 9]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-isaiah-blessing", "title": "Assyria, the work of God's hands", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Isaiah 19:23-25 and the vision of blessing shared with Egypt and Israel.", "sections": [{"title": "The highway and shared worship", "text": "Isaiah 19:23 speaks of a highway from Egypt to Assyria, movement between the two lands and shared worship. Verse 24 places Israel with Egypt and Assyria as a blessing in the midst of the earth. The passage moves beyond the hostility described elsewhere in the chapter."}, {"title": "The blessing itself", "text": "Isaiah 19:25 names Egypt as God's people, Assyria as the work of his hands and Israel as his inheritance. The full verse is retained locally and should be read with verses 23-24. It is a central biblical passage for this archive's treatment of Assyria and hope."}, {"title": "Return and gathering", "text": "Isaiah 11:11-16 includes Assyria among places from which a remnant is gathered, while Isaiah 27:12-13 speaks of those ready to perish in Assyria coming to worship in Jerusalem. These passages support a reading route through restoration and worship. Interpretations of how and when these prophecies are fulfilled should be identified as interpretations, with their scriptural reasoning stated."}, {"title": "The passage develops a shared blessing", "text": "Isaiah 19 moves through judgement toward recognition, healing and worship. The highway between Egypt and Assyria and Israel's inclusion as a third party belong within that movement beyond hostility.\n\nVerse 25 gives distinct designations within one blessing: Egypt as God's people, Assyria as the work of his hands and Israel as his inheritance. The named peoples do not need to disappear for the others to be acknowledged in that wording.\n\nThe surrounding sequence therefore matters. Geography participates in a vision of worship and reconciliation, not merely an isolated phrase about Assyria. Other gathering passages broaden the restoration context. Particular claims about fulfilment remain interpretations needing an explicit scriptural argument."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["ISA", 19, 23, 25], ["ISA", 11, 11, 16], ["ISA", 27, 12, 13]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-hosea", "title": "Assyria in Hosea: alliances, exile and return", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The prophetic critique of seeking security in Assyria and the promises of restoration.", "sections": [{"title": "Turning to foreign powers", "text": "Hosea 5:13 portrays Ephraim going to Assyria for help that cannot heal. Hosea 7:11 compares Ephraim with a senseless dove calling to Egypt and going to Assyria. Hosea 8:8-10 and 12:1 continue the criticism of foreign entanglements and treaties."}, {"title": "Captivity and judgement", "text": "Hosea 9:3 and 11:5 speak of Assyria in relation to exile and rule. Hosea 10:6 concerns the removal of an object of worship as tribute. Verse 14 mentions Shalman and Beth Arbel; the personal identification and location are not fully explained by that verse and should not be presented as settled by its wording alone."}, {"title": "A different final confidence", "text": "Hosea 11:10-11 imagines a return from Egypt and Assyria. Hosea 14:3 says that Assyria will not save, setting political rescue against the appeal for mercy. The book's Assyrian references therefore belong to its connected account of judgement, repentance and restoration, rather than to a list of wars alone."}, {"title": "Seeking rescue does not heal the underlying problem", "text": "Hosea describes appeals to foreign powers through illness, wandering and misplaced trust. The criticism is not simply that Egypt and Assyria are strong. People seek security without addressing the conduct for which they are being called to account.\n\nExile, tribute and rule turn dependence into lived consequences. People and objects can be removed, and anticipated help becomes domination. The political relationship therefore affects worship and community life.\n\nThe later movement includes return and the rejection of Assyria as saviour. It answers failed confidence rather than erasing the crisis. Following appeal, judgement, repentance and restoration makes the references a connected argument instead of disconnected predictions of separate wars."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["HOS", 5, 13, 13], ["HOS", 7, 11, 13], ["HOS", 8, 8, 10], ["HOS", 9, 3, 3], ["HOS", 10, 6, 14], ["HOS", 11, 5, 11], ["HOS", 12, 1, 1], ["HOS", 14, 1, 4]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-ezekiel", "title": "Assyria in Ezekiel: alliances and the great cedar", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The imagery of Ezekiel 23, 31 and 32.", "sections": [{"title": "The attraction of Assyrian power", "text": "Ezekiel 23 portrays Samaria and Jerusalem through the figures of Oholah and Oholibah. Assyrian officers, clothing, horses and political relationships form part of the imagery. The chapter uses disturbing sexual and violent language to express its prophetic judgement; that literary form should be identified when quoting individual verses."}, {"title": "The cedar in chapter 31", "text": "Ezekiel 31 addresses Pharaoh and uses Assyria as the image of a magnificent cedar, nourished by waters and sheltering many nations. Its height and pride lead into the account of its fall. The tree is a prophetic comparison, not a botanical description of the extent of the empire."}, {"title": "Among the fallen", "text": "Ezekiel 32:22-23 places Assyria and its company among the slain. Read the image within the surrounding lament over the nations and the ruler being addressed. Together these passages use Assyrian power and collapse to communicate a warning about human pride and the limits of political greatness."}, {"title": "Another ruler is warned through Assyria's image", "text": "Ezekiel 31 addresses Pharaoh and develops Assyria as a magnificent cedar. Water, height and shelter communicate prosperity and the dependence of others before exaltation leads into downfall.\n\nThe comparison warns through the fate of an apparently secure power. Its beauty and reach matter because they precede destruction. Reducing the tree to literal territorial measurements loses the argument about pride and mortality.\n\nChapter 23 portrays Assyrian relationships through disturbing imagery, while chapter 32 places Assyria among the dead. Their genres and addressees differ. Each reference needs its literary setting so readers understand why Assyria appears, rather than encountering only a name and an external explanation."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["EZE", 23, 1, 49], ["EZE", 31, 1, 18], ["EZE", 32, 22, 23]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-micah", "title": "Assyria and the land of Nimrod in Micah", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Threat, deliverance and gathering in Micah 5 and 7.", "sections": [{"title": "The ruler and the Assyrian", "text": "Micah 5:2-6 moves from the promised ruler associated with Bethlehem to peace and defence when the Assyrian enters the land. Verse 6 places the land of Assyria alongside the land of Nimrod. Keep this wording with its prophetic setting when connecting the passage to Genesis 10."}, {"title": "A vision of coming from many lands", "text": "Micah 7:12 includes Assyria and the cities of Egypt in its picture of people coming. The chapter continues through desolation, shepherding, the nations' response and the praise of God's mercy. The Assyrian reference is part of that wider movement."}, {"title": "Prophecy and chronology", "text": "Micah's language can be discussed in relation to an Assyrian historical setting and in theological readings of the promised ruler. An interpretation should say which connection it is making. The text's named places do not, by themselves, establish a precise boundary or a modern territorial entitlement."}, {"title": "Peace is described against invasion", "text": "Micah 5 moves from the promised ruler associated with Bethlehem into peace and defence when the Assyrian enters the land. Danger gives the announcement its setting. Land, entry and resistance describe the threatened community's need.\n\nThe land of Nimrod accompanies Assyria within that prophetic language. It creates a reading connection with Genesis without supplying a modern boundary survey.\n\nMicah 7 includes coming from distant places, shepherding, the nations' response and praise of mercy. The references thus participate in both danger and gathering. A theological reading of the ruler should show its scriptural reasoning, while historical geography must distinguish the wording from a later reconstruction."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["MIC", 5, 2, 6], ["MIC", 7, 12, 20]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-zephaniah", "title": "Zephaniah and Nineveh's desolation", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The judgement oracle in Zephaniah 2:13-15.", "sections": [{"title": "Assyria and Nineveh named together", "text": "Zephaniah 2:13 announces the destruction of Assyria and the desolation of Nineveh. Verses 14-15 picture animals among the ruins and the astonishment of those passing by. The city is described through its former sense of security and self-sufficiency."}, {"title": "The surrounding nations", "text": "This short oracle belongs to a chapter addressing several peoples and places. Reading the whole chapter prevents the Assyrian passage from being detached from the book's wider warning and call to seek the LORD."}, {"title": "What is supplied by the text", "text": "The passage is a primary biblical witness to the announcement of Nineveh's desolation. It does not name the armies that captured the city or give an absolute year. Those details should be supplied from their own sources when a historical article compares prophecy with the surviving accounts of the city's fall."}, {"title": "A confident city becomes a deserted landscape", "text": "Zephaniah 2:13-15 names Assyria and Nineveh, then pictures reversal. A city once secure becomes a place of animals, ruined structures and astonished passers-by. Former confidence and later desolation carry the oracle's force.\n\nThe imagery is not a tactical campaign report. It makes the consequences of judged security visible rather than inventorying every damaged building.\n\nThe surrounding chapter addresses several peoples and places within a wider warning and call to seek the LORD. That setting explains the oracle's place in the book. The year and coalition associated with the historical fall require separately named historical witnesses, rather than being presented as information the poem itself supplies."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "babylonian-chronicle-nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["ZEP", 2, 1, 15]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-other-prophets", "title": "Assyria in prophetic warnings, lament and prayer", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Jeremiah, Lamentations, Psalms, Nehemiah, Amos and Zechariah.", "sections": [{"title": "Foreign dependence and oppression", "text": "Jeremiah 2:18 asks about going to Egypt and Assyria for water; 2:36 warns that confidence in both will bring shame. Jeremiah 50:17-20 recalls Israel as scattered sheep, with the king of Assyria as one of the powers that consumed them. Lamentations 5:6 names dependence on Egypt and Assyria for bread. Isaiah 52:4 recalls Assyrian oppression."}, {"title": "Prayer and historical memory", "text": "Psalm 83:8 names Assyria in the company of hostile peoples. Nehemiah 9:32 recalls affliction from the days of the kings of Assyria onward. These passages preserve the place of Assyria within Israel's memory and prayer, without each supplying a separate campaign narrative."}, {"title": "Exile and gathering", "text": "Amos 5:27 announces exile beyond Damascus and 6:14 announces an unnamed oppressing nation; connecting that nation specifically with Assyria is a contextual historical interpretation. Zechariah 10:10-11 explicitly names gathering from Assyria and the bringing down of its pride. Reading these passages together reveals both the memory of oppression and the language of restoration."}, {"title": "A shared name serves several purposes", "text": "Jeremiah criticises foreign dependence through water from Egypt and Assyria. Lamentations voices distress through the need for bread. Nehemiah places affliction within communal prayer and a history extending from the Assyrian kings.\n\nThese are not duplicate campaign reports. One rebukes a choice, another expresses deprivation and another remembers suffering. Their literary and social settings explain why Assyria matters differently in each.\n\nZechariah's gathering language adds another direction as people return and imperial pride is brought down. The collection consequently includes judgement, dependence, loss and restoration. An unnamed enemy elsewhere should not automatically be identified as Assyria unless that interpretation is separately argued."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["JER", 2, 18, 18], ["JER", 2, 36, 36], ["JER", 50, 17, 20], ["LAM", 5, 6, 6], ["ISA", 52, 4, 4], ["PSA", 83, 1, 18], ["NEH", 9, 32, 32], ["AMO", 5, 27, 27], ["AMO", 6, 14, 14], ["ZEC", 10, 10, 11]], "bible_group": "Prophecy & hope", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-ezra-memory", "title": "The king of Assyria in Ezra's later setting", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Assyrian settlement memories and the wording of Ezra 6:22.", "sections": [{"title": "The settlement claim in chapter 4", "text": "Ezra 4:2 refers to Esar Haddon bringing people into the land. Verses 9-10 name additional groups and refer to Osnappar. These statements belong to the book's account of opposition to rebuilding, and preserve claims about the origins of settled populations."}, {"title": "The wording in chapter 6", "text": "Ezra 6:22 says that the LORD had turned the heart of the king of Assyria towards the returned community to strengthen the work on the temple. The chapter's wider setting names Darius and recalls earlier royal decrees. Both the title in verse 22 and that surrounding setting should remain visible."}, {"title": "A title is not a new imperial timeline", "text": "Explanations of why the title king of Assyria is used here are interpretive questions. The wording should be preserved and investigated, rather than silently changed. It should also not be used alone to extend the same seventh-century Assyrian state through every later ruler who held authority in the region. First Esdras 7:15 preserves a related reference in the additional books."}, {"title": "A reference to the past supports a present argument", "text": "Ezra 4's speakers invoke Assyrian-era settlement while seeking a role in rebuilding. Their historical statement belongs within a dispute over participation and authority, rather than standing as a detached catalogue entry.\n\nCommunity names and the reference to Osnappar add further settlement memory in the chapter's correspondence. Their function in the argument should be explained before attaching modern historical identifications.\n\nEzra 6's title king of Assyria occurs in a later setting concerning support for temple work. Its use does not by itself establish a new Assyrian dynasty. Understanding an inherited political designation lets readers follow the passage without converting a title into an invented succession chronology."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["EZR", 4, 1, 10], ["EZR", 6, 1, 22], ["1ES", 7, 15, 15]], "bible_group": "Later remembrance", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-new-testament", "title": "The Ninevites in the words of Jesus", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Matthew 12 and Luke 11 recall Jonah and the repentance of Nineveh.", "sections": [{"title": "Matthew's account", "text": "Matthew 12:38-42 records the request for a sign, Jesus' response concerning Jonah and the reference to the men of Nineveh. Verse 41 says they will rise in judgement because they repented at Jonah's preaching, while someone greater than Jonah is present. The Queen of the South appears in the following comparison."}, {"title": "Luke's account", "text": "Luke 11:29-32 similarly speaks of Jonah as a sign to the Ninevites and of their repentance. Reading Matthew and Luke alongside Jonah 3 keeps the connection attached to the passages that make it."}, {"title": "An important distinction", "text": "These New Testament references concern Nineveh's response in the biblical account. They are not New Testament descriptions of the boundaries of the ancient empire or a census of a later Assyrian community. Acts 2:9 also names Mesopotamia among the origins of those hearing the apostles, but does not explicitly identify that entire group as Assyrians."}, {"title": "Nineveh becomes a comparison about response", "text": "Matthew 12 and Luke 11 recall the Ninevites in connection with Jonah. Their repentance is used as a comparison with responses to Jesus. The point concerns what people do with a message, not Nineveh's military power.\n\nThe sign and judgement language belongs within the surrounding argument. Finding only the place name would miss why the earlier account is recalled. The passages bring an existing biblical narrative into a later teaching situation.\n\nThese references do not name a contemporary first-century Assyrian kingdom. They preserve a literary and theological remembrance of Nineveh. Explaining that remembrance supplies information while leaving later populations and political identities to their own evidence."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["MAT", 12, 38, 42], ["LUK", 11, 29, 32], ["JON", 3, 1, 10], ["ACT", 2, 5, 11]], "bible_group": "New Testament", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-tobit", "title": "Tobit: exile, Nineveh and faithfulness", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "An account of a displaced household under Assyrian rulers, with all fourteen chapters available locally.", "sections": [{"title": "The Assyrian setting", "text": "Tobit 1 places Tobit's captivity in the days of Enemessar king of the Assyrians and describes his life at Nineveh. The retained translation later names Sennacherib and Sarchedonus. These spellings should be retained when discussing this edition; other textual traditions and translations can use different forms."}, {"title": "Life in exile", "text": "The opening chapters emphasise almsgiving, food, burial of the dead and the dangers of loyalty under royal power. Tobit's position changes as rulers change, while his household becomes the setting for the book's connected story of suffering, prayer, travel and restoration."}, {"title": "Nineveh in the closing chapter", "text": "Tobit 14 urges departure from Nineveh and recalls its anticipated destruction. The verse wording of this retained edition should be compared carefully when another translation refers to a different prophet or gives different details. Tobit is included in Catholic and many Orthodox Bibles and is treated differently in other traditions. Inclusion here makes its Assyrian material accessible without imposing one canon on every reader."}, {"title": "Exile shapes a household's obligations", "text": "Tobit presents an Israelite household in an Assyrian exile setting. Charity, burial, family life and suffering are central activities, while royal names locate parts of the story. The book's concern extends beyond the court.\n\nTobias and Raphael's journey develops guidance, healing and family relationships. Nineveh also belongs to anticipation of judgement and departure. Present conduct in exile is connected with a future beyond the imperial city.\n\nCanonical status differs between churches, and textual editions have distinct histories. Those distinctions can be named without depriving readers of the narrative. The local passage identifies the particular public-domain witness discussed, rather than leaving its Assyrian references as a short description and link."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["TOB", 1, 1, 22], ["TOB", 2, 1, 14], ["TOB", 3, 1, 17], ["TOB", 4, 1, 21], ["TOB", 5, 1, 22], ["TOB", 6, 1, 17], ["TOB", 7, 1, 18], ["TOB", 8, 1, 21], ["TOB", 9, 1, 6], ["TOB", 10, 1, 12], ["TOB", 11, 1, 19], ["TOB", 12, 1, 22], ["TOB", 13, 1, 18], ["TOB", 14, 1, 15]], "bible_group": "Deuterocanon & additional books", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-judith", "title": "Judith, Holofernes and the Assyrian army", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The biblical narrative, its named rulers and the question of historical setting.", "sections": [{"title": "Read the narrative as it is written", "text": "Judith 1:1 calls Nebuchadnezzar the ruler of the Assyrians in Nineveh. Chapters 1-3 describe royal war, demands for submission and Holofernes' mission. The account then moves to the resistance of the Judean community, the siege and Judith's intervention. The full sixteen chapters are available in the local reader."}, {"title": "Judith's action and the deliverance", "text": "The narrative follows Judith's prayer, entry into the enemy camp, killing of Holofernes and return. Chapters 14-16 describe the rout and celebration. Its concerns include trust in God, courage and the defeat of overwhelming force."}, {"title": "The historical question stays visible", "text": "The identification of Nebuchadnezzar as an Assyrian ruler at Nineveh differs from the conventional historical chronology. The USCCB introduction interprets the book's combined settings as historical fiction with a theological purpose. That is an identified interpretation, not a replacement of Judith's wording. The archive retains the biblical account and distinguishes it from a reconstructed imperial chronology. Canonical status also varies between Christian traditions."}, {"title": "A vulnerable community faces overwhelming force", "text": "Judith develops an imperial threat, a besieged community's distress and an intervention reversing expectations about who can act. Holofernes represents military confidence, while those threatened face fear, dwindling resources and the question of surrender.\n\nJudith's preparation, prayer, entry into the enemy setting and return supply narrative movement. Courage and reversal give the account more substance than a list of apparently historical names.\n\nThe identification of Nebuchadnezzar as an Assyrian king at Nineveh creates a problem beside external chronologies. That tension remains explicit here. It need not prevent explanation of the story and its theological purpose, nor justify inventing a harmonised campaign history unsupported by evidence."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe", "bible-judith-usccb"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["JDT", 1, 1, 16], ["JDT", 2, 1, 28], ["JDT", 3, 1, 10], ["JDT", 4, 1, 15], ["JDT", 5, 1, 24], ["JDT", 6, 1, 21], ["JDT", 7, 1, 32], ["JDT", 8, 1, 36], ["JDT", 9, 1, 14], ["JDT", 10, 1, 23], ["JDT", 11, 1, 23], ["JDT", 12, 1, 20], ["JDT", 13, 1, 20], ["JDT", 14, 1, 19], ["JDT", 15, 1, 13], ["JDT", 16, 1, 25]], "bible_group": "Deuterocanon & additional books", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-later-remembrance", "title": "Assyria remembered in the additional books", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Sirach, Maccabees and Esdras preserve further Assyrian references.", "sections": [{"title": "Remembering Hezekiah and Sennacherib", "text": "Sirach 48:17-22 recalls Hezekiah, Isaiah, Sennacherib and the defeat of the Assyrian camp. Second Maccabees 8:19 and 15:22 appeal to the same deliverance in later situations of danger; 3 Maccabees 6:5 also invokes the defeat of Sennacherim. These are valuable examples of biblical remembrance and prayer."}, {"title": "Assyria in other literary settings", "text": "First Esdras 5:69 and 7:15 preserve references to settlement and the king of Assyria. Second Esdras 13:39-47 describes the ten tribes taken away by Salmananser in an apocalyptic vision. Fourth Maccabees 13:9 refers to the three young men in Assyria. Each reference should be read in its own book and genre."}, {"title": "Edition and canon", "text": "These books do not all share the same status in Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions. The retained Bible edition includes them in an extended collection, and the site labels that collection explicitly. The source code 4ES is displayed here as 2 Esdras, following the retained edition's book title; different numbering systems can otherwise cause confusion."}, {"title": "Deliverance becomes a model for later hope", "text": "Later biblical texts can recall Sennacherib's defeated force without retelling Kings. A short reference assumes that the earlier event matters to a new audience. It can encourage trust or place another crisis within a longer story.\n\nSirach's praise of Hezekiah and Isaiah and references in 2 Maccabees use different literary settings. A praise of figures and an address in conflict do not employ the past identically.\n\nDistinguish the narrated earlier event from the occasion of remembrance. A later text directly documents how the account was received and used; it is not automatically an additional independent eyewitness report. This explains reception as a subject rather than only issuing a caution about evidence."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["SIR", 48, 17, 22], ["2MA", 8, 19, 19], ["2MA", 15, 22, 22], ["3MA", 6, 5, 5], ["1ES", 5, 69, 69], ["1ES", 7, 15, 15], ["4ES", 13, 39, 47], ["4MA", 13, 9, 9]], "bible_group": "Deuterocanon & additional books", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "bible-reading-guide", "title": "How to read the biblical references", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Primary text, translation, chronology and transparent interpretation.", "sections": [{"title": "Start with the passage", "text": "For events recorded in Scripture, this archive begins with the biblical account and identifies the book, chapter and verse. Follow the local reference links to the complete chapter. Parallel accounts are shown together so readers can compare what each book records."}, {"title": "Keep the textual layers visible", "text": "The biblical wording, the choice of translation and an interpreter's explanation are related but distinct. Genesis 10:11 raises a question about its subject; Hosea 10:14 leaves Shalman's precise identity unstated; Ezra 6:22 uses an Assyrian royal title in a later setting. The site preserves the wording while identifying those questions."}, {"title": "Use other evidence with a clear purpose", "text": "Archaeology, inscriptions and historical scholarship can supply context, proposed identifications and absolute dates. They are cited separately, so that a reader can tell when a claim comes directly from Scripture and when it comes from comparison or reconstruction. The Bible-first approach does not require presenting every proposed harmonisation as something the text itself explicitly states."}, {"title": "Scope of the verse index", "text": "The index is a reproducible search of the retained translation for the published names and aliases. It includes ambiguous name matches with context and separately labelled additional books. The topic guides add related passages that do not use a search term. This provides extensive coverage without claiming to settle every indirect allusion, translation variant or theological reading."}, {"title": "Follow an account before isolating a quotation", "text": "Begin with a connected narrative: Jonah 1-4 or 2 Kings 18-19. Follow who acts, who speaks, what prompts a speech and how the next event answers it. Then compare a parallel passage such as Isaiah 36-37, retaining differences in emphasis.\n\nA historical article identifying an inscription or object can come next. This order keeps the primary biblical account intelligible before external comparison is introduced.\n\nWith prophetic poetry, follow imagery and the person or community addressed. Flood, cedar and desolate city can carry arguments rather than literal dimensions. For later remembrance, identify the earlier event and the new setting in which it is used. These habits turn a collection of named references into material readers can actually study."}], "sources": ["bible-webbe"], "related": ["ancient-assyria", "nineveh", "historical-evidence-methods", "middle-assyrian-overview"], "note": "Biblical primary-source guide. Read the cited passages in their full chapter context. Dates and identifications added by interpreters are distinguished from what the text itself says.", "passages": [["GEN", 10, 11, 11], ["HOS", 10, 14, 14], ["EZR", 6, 22, 22]], "bible_group": "Reading & interpretation", "updated": "2026-10-30", "inline_scripture": true}, {"slug": "reference-assyria", "title": "Assyria", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Assyria[c] was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed from the 21st to the 7th century BC which conquered and administered most of West Asia from the Assyrian heartland in Upper Mesopotamia.[4] Assyria is called the first true military superpower in human history, and pioneered major inventions and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyria𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠\n\nc. 2025 BC[a]-609 BC[b]\n\n Symbol of Ashur, the ancient Assyrian national deity\n\nThe ancient Assyrian heartland (red) and the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BC (orange)\n\nCapital\n\nAssur\n(c. 2025-1233 BC)\n\nKar-Tukulti-Ninurta\n(c. 1233-1207 BC)\n\nAssur\n(c. 1207-879 BC)\n\nNimrud\n(879-706 BC)\n\nDur-Sharrukin\n(706-705 BC)\n\nNineveh\n(705-612 BC)\n\nHarran\n(612-609 BC)\n\nOfficial languages\n\nAkkadian\n\nSumerian\n\nAramaic\n\nReligion Ancient Mesopotamian religion\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nNotable kings \n\n• c. 2025 BC Puzur-Ashur I (first)\n\n• c. 1974-1935 BC Erishum I\n\n• c. 1808-1776 BC Shamshi-Adad I\n\n• c. 1700-1691 BC Bel-bani\n\n• c. 1363-1328 BC Ashur-uballit I\n\n• c. 1243-1207 BC Tukulti-Ninurta I\n\n• 1114-1076 BC Tiglath-Pileser I\n\n• 883-859 BC Ashurnasirpal II\n\n• 745-727 BC Tiglath-Pileser III\n\n• 705-681 BC Sennacherib\n\n• 681-669 BC Esarhaddon\n\n• 669-631 BC Ashurbanipal\n\n• 631-627 BC Aššur-etil-ilāni\n\n• 627-612 BC Sinsharishkun\n\n• 612-609 BC Ashur-uballit II (last)\n\nHistorical eraBronze Age to Iron Age\n\n• Foundation of Assur c. 2600 BC\n\n• Assur becomes an independent city-state c. 2025 BC[a]\n\n• Old Assyrian period c. 2025-1364 BC\n\n• Middle Assyrian period c. 1363-912 BC\n\n• Neo-Assyrian period 911-609 BC\n\n• Conquest by the Neo-Babylonian and Median empires 609 BC[b]\n\n• Sack and destruction of Assur by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nThird Dynasty of Ur\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire\n\nMedian Empire\n\nAssyria[c] was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed from the 21st to the 7th century BC which conquered and administered most of West Asia from the Assyrian heartland in Upper Mesopotamia.[4] Assyria is called the first true military superpower in human history, and pioneered major inventions and advances in the first libraries and large-scale preservation and accumulation of knowledge, as well as in statecraft, centralised government, bureaucracy, warfare, military organisation, propaganda, art, and architecture. \n\nAssyrian imperial history spans the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age, from its beginning as small Akkadian settlements in northern Mesopotamia to its zenith and collapse as the largest empire at the time, and is typically divided into the Early Assyrian (c. 2600-2025 BC), Old Assyrian (c. 2025-1364 BC), Middle Assyrian (c. 1363-912 BC), Neo-Assyrian (911-609 BC), and post-imperial (609 BC-c. 240 AD) periods.[5][6] The Assyrian people survive to this day and continue to live and practice their culture in their ancient heartland and in the diaspora. \n\nAssur, the first Assyrian capital, was founded c. 2600 BC, but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, in the 21st century BC,[3] when a line of independent kings starting with Puzur-Ashur I began ruling the city. Centered in the Assyrian heartland in northern Mesopotamia, Assyrian power fluctuated over time. The city underwent several periods of foreign rule or domination before Assyria rose under Ashur-uballit I in the early 14th century BC as the Middle Assyrian Empire. In the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, Assyria was one of the two major Mesopotamian kingdoms, alongside Babylonia in the south, and at times became the dominant power in the ancient Near East. Assyria was at its strongest in the Neo-Assyrian period, when the Assyrian army was the strongest military power in the world[7] and the Assyrians ruled the largest empire then yet assembled in world history,[7][8][9] spanning from parts of modern-day Iran in the east to Egypt in the west.\n\nIn the late 7th century BC the Neo-Assyrian Empire, weakened by a period of civil war, fell, conquered by a coalition of the ethno-linguistically similar Babylonians, who for some three centuries had lived under Assyrian rule or domination, and of Assyria's erstwhile vassals, the Medes and Scythians. Despite the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire ravaging much of Assyria's core urban areas, and the subsequent Neo-Babylonian Empire devoting minimal resources to reconstruction until the Assyrian-born Nabonidus took the throne, ancient Assyrian culture and traditions endured for centuries into the post-imperial era. Assyria revived during the Seleucid and Parthian periods, with several Assyrian kingdoms emerging under Parthian dominion from the 2nd century BC to the mid-3rd century AD. A later decline set in under the Sasanian Empire, which devastated many cities and semi-independent Assyrian territories in the region, among them Assur.\n\nThe remaining Assyrian people, who had survived and preserved their native culture in northern Mesopotamia, were among the first people to accept Christianity in the 1st century AD, traditionally having been evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus Christ, and by the disciples St. Addai and St. Mari, went on to develop a unique East Syriac rite and establish the Church of the East (which would go on to spread Christianity throughout large parts of Asia). The ancient Mesopotamian religion persisted at Assur until Assur's final sack in the 3rd century AD, and at certain other holdouts for centuries thereafter.[10] A number of religious and cultural symbols, practices, customs, artistic styles, and genres from the ancient Mesopotamian religion and culture continue to be used and repurposed in Syriac Christianity to this day, such as the star of Shamash and the Easter Monday 'gayasa' (a play in the Sumerian disputation genre).\n\nThe triumph of ancient Assyria can be attributed not only to its vigorous warrior-monarchs but also to its adeptness in efficiently assimilating and governing conquered territories, using inventive and advanced administrative mechanisms. The developments in warfare and governance introduced by ancient Assyria continued to be employed by subsequent empires and states for centuries.[7] Ancient Assyria also left a legacy of great cultural significance,[11] particularly through the Neo-Assyrian Empire, making a prominent impression in later Assyrian, Greco-Roman, and Hebrew literary and religious traditions.[12][13][d]\n\nNomenclature\n\nIn the Old Assyrian period, when Assyria was merely a city-state centered on the city of Assur, the state was typically referred to as ālu Aššur (\"the city of Ashur\"). From the time of its rise as a territorial state in the 14th century BC and onward, Assyria was referred to in official documents as māt Aššur (\"the land of Ashur\"), marking its shift to being a regional polity. The first attested use of the term māt Aššur is during the reign of Ashur-uballit I (c. 1363-1328 BC), who was the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[14] Both ālu Aššur and māt Aššur derive from the name of the Assyrian national deity Ashur.[15] Ashur probably originated in the Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of Assur itself.[2] In the Old Assyrian period the deity was considered the formal king of Assur; the actual rulers only used the style Išši'ak (\"governor\").[16][17] From the time of Assyria's rise as a territorial state, Ashur began to be regarded as an embodiment of the entire land ruled by the Assyrian kings.[15]\n\nThe modern name \"Assyria\" is of Greek origin,[18] derived from Ασσυρία (Assuría). The term's first attested use is during the time of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC). The Greeks called the Levant \"Syria\" and Mesopotamia \"Assyria\", even though the local population, both at that time and well into the later Christian period, used both terms interchangeably to refer to the entire region.[18] It is not known whether the Greeks began referring to Mesopotamia as \"Assyria\" because they equated the region with the Assyrian Empire, long fallen by the time the term is first attested, or because they named the region after the people who lived there, the Assyrians.[19] Because the term is so \"similar to Syria\", scholars have been examining since the 17th century whether the two terms are connected. Luwian and Aramaic texts from the Neo-Assyrian Empire era show that the shortened form \"Syria\" was used as a synonym for Assyria before Greek sources appeared; modern scholars generally agree the names are linked.[20]\n\nBoth \"Assyria\" and the contraction, \"Syria,\" are ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur.[21] Following the decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the subsequent empires that held dominion over the Assyrian lands adopted distinct appellations for the region, with a significant portion of these names also being rooted in Aššur. The Achaemenid Empire referred to Assyria as Aθūrā (\"Athura\").[22] The Sasanian Empire inexplicably referred to Lower Mesopotamia as Asoristan (\"land of the Assyrians\"),[23] though the northern province of Nōdšīragān, which included much of the old Assyrian heartland, was also sometimes called Atūria or Āthōr.[24] In Syriac, Assyria was and is referred to as ʾĀthor.[25]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nAgricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture,[26] c. 6300-5800 BC.[27] Though the sites of some nearby cities that would later be incorporated into the Assyrian heartland, such as Nineveh, are known to have been inhabited since the Neolithic,[28] the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, c. 2600 BC.[29] During this time, the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized.[26] There is no evidence that early Assur was an independent settlement,[3] and it might not have been called Assur at all initially, but rather Baltil or Baltila, used in later times to refer to the city's oldest portion.[30]\n\nThe name \"Assur\" is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC.[31] Through most of the Early Assyrian period (c. 2600-2025 BC), Assur was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia.[32] Early on, Assur for a time fell under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish[33] and it was later occupied by both the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur.[3] In c. 2025 BC, due to the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assur became an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I.[34]\n\nUnder the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, Assur was home to less than 10,000 people and likely held very limited military power; no military institutions at all are known from this time and no political influence was exerted on neighboring cities.[35] Assur retained influence in other respects; under Erishum I (r. c. 1974-1934 BC), the city undertook the earliest known experiment with free trade, assigning responsibility for trade and large-scale foreign transactions to private individuals rather than the state.[36]\n\nRoyal encouragement of trade led to Assur quickly establishing itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia[37] and soon thereafter establishing an extensive long-distance trade network,[38] the first notable impression Assyria left in the historical record.[32] The trade network is documented by extensive Old Assyrian cuneiform tablet collections from Assyrian trade colonies, most notably 22,000 tablets uncovered at Kültepe, near present-day Kayseri in Turkey.[38]\n\nAs trade declined, perhaps due to increased warfare and conflict between the growing states of the Near East,[39] Assur was frequently threatened by larger foreign states and kingdoms.[40] The original Assur city-state, and the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, came to an end c. 1808 BC when the city was conquered by the Amorite ruler of Ekallatum, Shamshi-Adad I.[41] Shamshi-Adad's extensive conquests in northern Mesopotamia eventually made him the ruler of the entire region,[39] founding what some scholars have termed the \"Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia\".[42] The survival of this realm relied chiefly on Shamshi-Adad's own strength and charisma and thus collapsed shortly after his death c. 1776 BC.[43]\n\nAfter Shamshi-Adad's death, the political situation in northern Mesopotamia was highly volatile, with Assur at times coming under the brief control of Eshnunna,[44] Elam[45][46] and the Old Babylonian Empire.[45][46] At some point, the city returned to being an independent city-state,[47] though the politics of Assur itself were volatile as well, with fighting between members of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty, native Assyrians and Hurrians for control.[48] The infighting came to an end after the rise of Bel-bani as king c. 1700 BC.[49][50] Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty, which after his reign ruled Assyria for about a thousand years.[51]\n\nAssyria's rise as a territorial state in later times was in large part facilitated by two separate invasions of Mesopotamia by the Hittites. An invasion by the Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1595 BC destroyed the dominant Old Babylonian Empire, allowing the smaller kingdoms of Mitanni and Kassite Babylonia to rise in the north and south, respectively.[52] Around c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC.[53] Another Hittite invasion by Šuppiluliuma I in the 14th century BC effectively crippled the Mitanni kingdom. Following that invasion, Assyria broke free of its suzerain and regained independence under Ashur-uballit I (r. c. 1363-1328 BC); his accession and campaigns against nearby lands are traditionally seen as the start of the Middle Assyrian Empire (c. 1363-912 BC).[54]\n\nAssyrian Empire\n\nMaps of the borders of the Middle Assyrian Empire (left) and the Neo-Assyrian Empire (right) at their respective heights in the 13th and 7th centuries BC\nAshur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar (\"king\").[40] Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Hittite kings.[54] Assyria's rise was intertwined with the decline and fall of the Mitanni kingdom, its former suzerain, which allowed the early Middle Assyrian kings to expand and consolidate territories in northern Mesopotamia.[55] Under the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305-1274 BC), Shalmaneser I (r. c. 1273-1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243-1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming a significant regional power.[56]\n\nThese kings campaigned in all directions and incorporated a significant amount of territory into the growing Assyrian Empire. Under Shalmaneser I, the last remnants of the Mitanni kingdom were formally annexed into Assyria.[56] The most successful of the Middle Assyrian kings was Tukulti-Ninurta I, who brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.[56] His most notable military achievements were his victory at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC, which marked the beginning of the end of Hittite influence in northern Mesopotamia,[57] and his temporary conquest of Babylonia, which became an Assyrian vassal c. 1225-1216 BC.[58][59] Tukulti-Ninurta was also the first Assyrian king to try to move the capital away from Assur, inaugurating the new city Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as capital[60] c. 1233 BC.[61] The capital was returned to Assur after his death.[60]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta I's assassination c. 1207 BC was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power.[62] Tukulti-Ninurta I's successors were unable to maintain Assyrian power and Assyria became increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland,[62] a period of decline broadly coinciding with the Late Bronze Age collapse.[62] Though some kings in this period of decline, such as Ashur-dan I (r. c. 1178-1133 BC), Ashur-resh-ishi I (r. 1132-1115 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BC) worked to reverse the decline and made significant conquests,[63] their conquests were ephemeral and shaky, quickly lost again.[64] From the time of Eriba-Adad II (r. 1056-1054 BC) onward, Assyrian decline intensified.[65]\n\nThe Assyrian heartland remained safe due to its geographical remoteness.[66] During these centuries, the decline of other states and fragmentation of lands around the Assyrian heartland allowed the revitalized Assyrian army to reconquer much of the empire with ease. Under Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BC), who campaigned in the northeast and northwest, Assyrian decline was at last reversed, paving the way for grander efforts under his successors. The end of his reign conventionally marks the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC).[67]\n\nThrough decades of conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to retake the lands of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[9][68] Since this reconquista had to begin nearly from scratch, its eventual success was an extraordinary achievement.[69] Under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the dominant political power in the Near East.[70] In his ninth campaign, Ashurnasirpal II marched to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, collecting tribute from various kingdoms on the way.[71] A significant development during Ashurnasirpal II's reign was the second attempt to transfer the Assyrian capital away from Assur. Ashurnasirpal restored the ancient and ruined town of Nimrud, also located in the Assyrian heartland, and in 879 BC designated that city as the new capital of the empire.[71] Though no longer the political capital, Assur remained the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria.[72]\n\nAshurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC) also went on wide-ranging wars of conquest, expanding the empire in all directions.[72] After Shalmaneser III's death, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered into a period of stagnation dubbed the \"age of the magnates\", when powerful officials and generals were the principal wielders of political power rather than the king.[73] This time of stagnation came to an end with the rise of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BC), who reduced the power of the magnates,[74] consolidated and centralized the holdings of the empire,[9][75] and through his military campaigns and conquests more than doubled the extent of Assyrian territory. The most significant conquests were the vassalization of the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border and the 729 BC conquest of Babylonia.[76]\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire reached the height of its extent and power under the Sargonid dynasty,[77] founded by Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC). Under Sargon II and his son Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BC), the empire was further expanded and the gains were consolidated. Both kings founded new capitals. In 706 BC, Sargon II relocated the capital to the newly constructed city of Dur-Sharrukin.[78] The following year, Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh, which he extensively expanded and renovated. He may even have been responsible for the construction of the Hanging Gardens there-one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.[79][80] The 671 BC conquest of Egypt under Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC) brought Assyria to its greatest ever extent.[77]\n\nAfter the death of Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC), the Neo-Assyrian Empire swiftly collapsed. One of the primary reasons was the inability of the Neo-Assyrian kings to resolve the \"Babylonian problem\"; despite many attempts to appease Babylonia in the south, revolts were frequent all throughout the Sargonid period. The revolt of Babylon under Nabopolassar in 626 BC, in combination with an invasion by the Medes under Cyaxares in 615/614 BC, led to the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire.[81] Assur was sacked in 614 BC and Nineveh fell in 612 BC.[82] The last Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballit II, tried to rally the Assyrian army at Harran in the west but he was defeated in 609 BC, marking the end of the ancient line of Assyrian kings and of Assyria as a state.[83][84]\n\nLater history\n\nDespite the violent downfall of the Assyrian Empire, Assyrian culture continued to survive through the subsequent post-imperial period (609 BC - c. AD 240) and beyond.[6] The Assyrian heartland experienced a dramatic decrease in the size and number of inhabited settlements during the rule of the Neo-Babylonian Empire founded by Nabopolassar; the former Assyrian capital cities Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh were nearly completely abandoned.[86] Throughout the time of the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid Empire, Assyria remained a marginal and sparsely populated region.[87] Toward the end of the 6th century BC, the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct, having toward the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire already largely been replaced by Aramaic as a vernacular language.[88]\n\nUnder the empires succeeding the Neo-Babylonians, from the late 6th century BC onward, Assyria began to experience a recovery. Under the Achaemenids, most of the territory was organized into the province[e] Athura (Aθūrā).[22] The organization into a single large province,[90] the lack of interference of the Achaemenid rulers in local affairs,[22] and the return of the cult statue of Ashur to Assur soon after the Achaemenids conquered Babylon facilitated the survival of Assyrian culture.[91] Under the Seleucid Empire, which controlled Mesopotamia from the late 4th to mid-2nd century BC, Assyrian sites such as Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh were resettled, and a large number of villages were rebuilt and expanded.[92]\n\nAfter the Parthian Empire conquered the region in the 2nd century BC, the recovery of Assyria continued, culminating in an unprecedented return to prosperity and revival in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The region was resettled and restored so intensely that the population and settlement density reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[92] The region was under the Parthians primarily ruled by a group of vassal kingdoms, including Osroene, Adiabene and Hatra. Though in some aspects influenced by Assyrian culture, these states were for the most part not ruled by Assyrian rulers.[93][94]\n\nAssur itself flourished under Parthian rule.[93][95] From around or shortly after the end of the 2nd century BC,[96] the city may have become the capital of its own small semi-autonomous Assyrian realm,[93] either under the suzerainty of Hatra,[97] or under direct Parthian suzerainty.[95] On account of the resemblance between the stelae by the local rulers and those of the ancient Assyrian kings,[93] they may have seen themselves as the restorers and continuators of the old royal line.[98] The ancient Ashur temple was restored in the 2nd century AD.[93][95] This last cultural golden age came to an end with the sack of Assur by the Sasanian Empire c. 240.[99] During the sack, the Ashur temple was destroyed again and the city's population was dispersed.[97]\n\nStarting from the 1st century AD onward, many of the Assyrians became Christianized,[100] though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for centuries.[10] After losing political power, Assyrians continued to form a significant portion of northern Mesopotamia's population until religiously motivated suppression and massacres under the Ilkhanate and Timurid Empire in the 14th century turned them into a local ethnic and religious minority.[101] The Assyrians lived largely in peace under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which gained control of Assyria in the 16th century.[102][103][104]\n\nIn the late 19th and early 20th century, when the Ottomans grew increasingly nationalistic, further persecutions and massacres were enacted against the Assyrians, most notably the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide),[105] which resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 Assyrians.[106][f] Throughout the 20th century, many unsuccessful proposals have been made by the Assyrians for autonomy or independence.[107] Further massacres and persecutions, enacted both by governments and by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, have resulted in most of the Assyrian people living in diaspora.[108]\n\nGovernment and military\n\nKingship\n\nIn the Assur city-state of the Old Assyrian period, the government was in many respects an oligarchy, where the king was a permanent, albeit not the only prominent, actor.[110] The Old Assyrian kings were not autocrats, with sole power, but rather acted as stewards on behalf of the god Ashur and presided over the meetings of the city assembly,[17][111] the main Assyrian administrative body during this time.[112] The composition of the city assembly is not known, but it is generally believed to have been made up of members of the most powerful families of the city,[110] many of whom were merchants.[37]\n\nThe king acted as the main executive officer and chairman of this group of influential individuals and also contributed with legal knowledge and expertise.[112] The Old Assyrian kings were styled as iššiak Aššur (\"governor [on behalf] of Ashur\"), with Ashur being considered the city's formal king.[113] In the Old Assyrian period, Assur's inhabitants commonly called the king rubā’um (\"great one\"), showing that, although their executive authority was limited, the kings were regarded as royal figures and as primus inter pares among the city's elite.[114]\n\nAssur first experienced a more autocratic form of kingship under the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I,[110] the earliest ruler of Assur to use the style šarrum (king)[115] and the title 'king of the Universe'.[116] Shamshi-Adad I appears to have based his more absolute form of kingship on the rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire.[117] Under Shamshi-Adad I, Assyrians also swore their oaths by the king, not just by the god. This practice did not survive beyond his death.[118] The influence of the city assembly had disappeared by the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. Though the traditional iššiak Aššur continued to be used at times, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocrats, in terms of power having little in common with the rulers of the Old Assyrian period.[113]\n\nAs the Assyrian Empire grew, the kings began to employ an increasingly sophisticated array of royal titles. Ashur-uballit I was the first to assume the style šar māt Aššur (\"king of the land of Ashur\") and his grandson Arik-den-ili (r. c. 1317-1306 BC) introduced the style šarru dannu (\"strong king\"). Adad-nirari I's inscriptions required 32 lines to be devoted just to his titles. This development peaked under Tukulti-Ninurta I, who assumed, among other titles, the styles \"king of Assyria and Karduniash\", \"king of Sumer and Akkad\", \"king of the Upper and the Lower Seas\" and \"king of all peoples\". Royal titles and epithets mirrored political developments and individual kings' achievements, simplifying in decline and growing grander as Assyrian power revived.[119]\n\nThe kings of the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods continued to present themselves, and be viewed by their subjects, as the intermediaries between Ashur and mankind.[120] This position and role was used to justify imperial expansion: the Assyrians saw their empire as being the part of the world overseen and administered by Ashur through his human agents. In their ideology, the outer realm outside of Assyria was characterized by chaos and the people there were uncivilized, with unfamiliar cultural practices and strange languages. The existence of the \"outer realm\" was seen as threatening Assyria's cosmic order, compelling the king to expand the land of Ashur and incorporate these strange lands, turning chaos into civilization.[121]\n\nTexts describing the coronation of Middle and Neo-Assyrian kings at times include Ashur commanding the king to \"broaden the land of Ashur\" or \"extend the land at his feet\". As such, expansion was cast as a moral and necessary duty.[121] Because the rule and actions of the Assyrian king were seen as divinely sanctioned,[122] resistance to Assyrian sovereignty in times of war was regarded to be resistance against divine will, which deserved punishment.[123] Peoples and polities who revolted against Assyria were seen as criminals against the divine world order.[124] Since Ashur was the king of the gods, all other gods were subjected to him and thus the people who followed those gods should be subjected to the representative of Ashur, the Assyrian king.[125]\n\nThe kings also had religious and judicial duties. Kings were responsible for performing various rituals in support of the cult of Ashur and the Assyrian priesthood.[126] They were expected, together with the Assyrian people, to provide offerings to not only Ashur but also all the other gods. From the time of Ashur-resh-ishi I onward, the religious and cultic duties of the king were pushed somewhat into the background, though they were still prominently mentioned in accounts of building and restoring temples. Assyrian titles and epithets in inscriptions from then on generally emphasized the kings as powerful warriors.[120] Middle and Neo-Assyrian kings inherited supreme judicial authority from the Old Assyrian period, though they generally showed less concern for judging than their predecessors.[127] The kings were expected to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the Assyria and its people, indicated by multiple inscriptions referring to the kings as \"shepherds\" (re’û).[120]\n\nCapital cities\n\nNo word for the idea of a capital city existed in Akkadian, the nearest being the idea of a \"city of kingship\", i.e. an administrative center used by the king, but there are several examples of kingdoms having multiple \"cities of kingship\". Due to Assyria growing out of the Assur city-state of the Old Assyrian period, and due to the city's religious importance, Assur was the administrative center of Assyria through most of its history. Though the royal administration at times moved elsewhere, the ideological status of Assur was never fully superseded[128] and it remained a ceremonial center in the empire even when it was governed from elsewhere.[72] The transfer of the royal seat of power to other cities was ideologically possible since the king was Ashur's representative on Earth. The king, like the deity embodied Assyria itself, and so the capital of Assyria was in a sense wherever the king happened to have his residence.[128]\n\nThe first transfer of administrative power away from Assur occurred under Tukulti-Ninurta I,[60] who c. 1233 BC[61] inaugurated Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as capital.[60] Tukulti-Ninurta I's foundation of a new capital was perhaps inspired by developments in Babylonia in the south, where the Kassite dynasty had transferred the administration from the long-established city of Babylon to the newly constructed city of Dur-Kurigalzu, also named after a king. It seems that Tukulti-Ninurta I intended to go further than the Kassites and also establish Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta as the new Assyrian cult center. The city was however not maintained as capital after Tukulti-Ninurta I's death, with subsequent kings once more ruling from Assur.[60] \n\nKar-Tukulti-NinurtaAssurNimrudDur-SharrukinNinevehHarran A map of the capital cities of ancient Assyria\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire underwent several different capitals. There is some evidence that Tukulti-Ninurta II (r. 890-884 BC), perhaps inspired by his predecessor of the same name, made unfulfilled plans to transfer the capital to a city called Nemid Tukulti-Ninurta, either a completely new city or a new name applied to Nineveh, which by this point already rivalled Assur in scale and political importance.[129] The capital was transferred under Tukulti-Ninurta II's son Ashurnasirpal II to Nimrud in 879 BC.[71] An architectural detail separating Nimrud and the other Neo-Assyrian capitals from Assur is that they were designed in a way that emphasized royal power: the royal palaces in Assur were smaller than the temples but the situation was reversed in the new capitals.[130]\n\nIn 706 BC, Sargon II transferred the capital to the city of Dur-Sharrukin, which he built himself.[78] Since the location of Dur-Sharrukin had no obvious practical or political merit, this move was probably an ideological statement.[131] Immediately after Sargon II's death in 705 BC, his son Sennacherib transferred the capital to Nineveh,[79][132] a far more natural seat of power.[132] Though it was not meant as a permanent royal residence,[133] Ashur-uballit II chose Harran as his seat of power after the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. Harran is typically seen as the short-lived final Assyrian capital. No building projects were conducted during this time, but Harran had been long-established as a major religious center, dedicated to the god Sîn.[134]\n\nAristocracy and elite\n\nBecause of the nature of source preservation, more information about the upper classes of ancient Assyria survives than for the lower ones.[135] At the top of Middle and Neo-Assyrian society were members of long-established and large families called \"houses\". Members of this aristocracy tended to occupy the most important offices within the government[135] and they were likely descendants of the most prominent families of the Old Assyrian period.[136]\n\nOne of the most influential offices in the Assyrian administration was the position of vizier (sukkallu). From at least the time of Shalmaneser I onward, there were grand viziers (sukkallu rabi’u), superior to the ordinary viziers, who at times governed their own lands as appointees of the kings. At least in the Middle Assyrian period, the grand viziers were typically members of the royal family and the position was at this time, as were many other offices, hereditary.[137]\n\nThe elite of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was expanded and included several different offices. The Neo-Assyrian inner elite is typically divided by modern scholars into the \"magnates\", a set of high-ranking offices, and the \"scholars\" (ummânī), tasked with advising and guiding the kings through interpreting omens. The magnates included the offices masennu (treasurer), nāgir ekalli (palace herald), rab šāqê (chief cupbearer), rab ša-rēši (chief officer/eunuch), sartinnu (chief judge), sukkallu (grand vizier) and turtanu (commander-in-chief), which at times continued to be occupied by royal family members.[138]\n\nSome of the magnates acted as governors of important provinces and all of them were deeply involved with the Assyrian military, controlling significant forces. They owned large tax-free estates, scattered throughout the empire.[138] In the late Neo-Assyrian Empire, there was a growing disconnect between the traditional Assyrian elite and the kings due to eunuchs growing unprecedently powerful.[139] The highest offices both in the civil administration and the army began to be occupied by eunuchs with deliberately obscure and lowly origins, since this ensured that they would be loyal to the king.[140] Eunuchs were trusted, since they were believed incapable of having any dynastic aspirations of their own.[141]\n\nFrom the time of Erishum I in the early Old Assyrian period onward,[142] a yearly office-holder, a limmu official, was elected from the influential men of Assyria. The limmu official gave their name to the year, meaning that their name appeared in all administrative documents signed that year. Kings were typically the limmu officials in their first regnal years. In the Old Assyrian period, the limmu officials also held substantial executive power, though this aspect of the office had disappeared by the time of the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[110]\n\nAdministration\n\nThe success of Assyria was not only due to energetic kings who expanded its borders but more importantly due to its ability to efficiently incorporate and govern conquered lands.[143] From the rise of Assyria as a territorial state at the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period onward, Assyrian territory was divided into a set of provinces or districts (pāḫutu).[144] The total number and size of these provinces varied and changed as Assyria expanded and contracted.[145] Every province was headed by a provincial governor (bel pāḫete,[144] bēl pīhāti[146] or šaknu)[146] who was responsible for handling local order, public safety and economy.\n\nGovernors stored and distributed the goods produced in their province, which were inspected and collected by royal representatives once a year. Through these inspections, the central government could keep track of current stocks and production throughout the country. Governors had to pay both taxes and offer gifts to the god Ashur, though such gifts were usually small and mainly symbolic.[144] The channeling of taxes and gifts were a method of collecting profit and served to connect the elite of the entire empire to the Assyrian heartland.[147]\n\nIn the Neo-Assyrian period, an extensive hierarchy within the provincial administration is attested. At the bottom of this hierarchy were lower officials, such as village managers (rab ālāni) who oversaw one or more villages, collecting taxes in the form of labor and goods and keeping the administration informed of the conditions of their settlements,[148] and corvée officers (ša bēt-kūdini) who kept tallies on the labor performed by forced laborers and the remaining time owed.[149] Individual cities had their own administrations, headed by mayors (ḫazi’ānu), responsible for the local economy and production.[150]\n\nSome regions of the Assyrian Empire were not incorporated into the provincial system but were still subjected to the rule of the Assyrian kings. Such vassal states could be ruled indirectly through allowing established local lines of kings to continue ruling in exchange for tribute or through the Assyrian kings appointing their own vassal rulers.[150] Through the ilku system, the Assyrian kings could also grant arable lands to individuals in exchange for goods and military service.[151]\n\nTo overcome the challenges of governing a large empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire developed a sophisticated state communication system,[152] which included various innovative techniques and relay stations.[153] Per estimates by Karen Radner, an official message sent in the Neo-Assyrian period from the western border province Quwê to the Assyrian heartland, a distance of 700 kilometers (430 miles) over a stretch of lands featuring many rivers without any bridges, could take less than five days to arrive. Such communication speed was unprecedented before the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was not surpassed in the Middle East until the telegraph was introduced by the Ottoman Empire in 1865, nearly two and a half thousand years after the Neo-Assyrian Empire's fall.[154][153]\n\nMilitary\n\nThe Assyrian army was throughout its history mostly composed of levies, mobilized only when they were needed (such as in the time of campaigns). Through regulations, obligations and sophisticated government systems, large amounts of soldiers could be recruited and mobilized already in the early Middle Assyrian period.[155] A small central standing army unit was established in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, dubbed the kiṣir šarri (\"king's unit\").[156] Some professional, though not standing, troops are also attested in the Middle Assyrian period, dubbed ḫurādu or ṣābū ḫurādātu, though what their role was is not clear due to the scarcity of sources. Perhaps this category included archers and charioteers, who needed more extensive training than normal foot soldiers.[155]\n\nThe Assyrian army developed and evolved over time. In the Middle Assyrian period, foot soldiers were divided into the sạ bū ša kakkē (\"weapon troops\") and the sạ bū ša arâtē (\"shield-bearing troops\") but surviving records are not detailed enough to determine what the differences were. It is possible that the sạ bū ša kakkē included ranged troops, such as slingers (ṣābū ša ušpe) and archers (ṣābū ša qalte). The chariots in the army composed a unit of their own. Based on surviving depictions, chariots were crewed by two soldiers: an archer who commanded the chariot (māru damqu) and a driver (ša mugerre).[155] Chariots first entered extensive military use under Tiglath-Pileser I in the 12th-11th centuries BC[155] and were in the later Neo-Assyrian period gradually phased out in favor of cavalry[157] (ša petḫalle).[155] In the Middle Assyrian period, cavalry was mainly used for escorting or message deliveries.[158]\n\nUnder the Neo-Assyrian Empire, important new developments in the military were the large-scale introduction of cavalry, the adoption of iron for armor and weapons,[159] and the development of new and innovative siege warfare techniques.[7] At the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian army was the strongest army yet assembled in world history.[7] The number of soldiers in the Neo-Assyrian army was likely several hundred thousand.[160] The Neo-Assyrian army was subdivided into kiṣru, composed of perhaps 1,000 soldiers, most of whom would have been infantry soldiers (zūk, zukkû or raksūte). The infantry was divided into three types: light, medium and heavy, with varying weapons, level of armor and responsibilities.[156] While on campaign, the Assyrian army made heavy use of both interpreters/translators (targumannu) and guides (rādi kibsi), both probably being drawn from foreigners resettled in Assyra.[161]\n\nPopulation and society\n\nPopulation and social standing\n\nPopulace\n\nThe majority of the population of ancient Assyria were farmers who worked land owned by their families.[162] Old Assyrian society was divided into two main groups: slaves (subrum) and free citizens, referred to as awīlum (\"men\") or DUMU Aššur (\"sons of Ashur\"). Among the free citizens there was also a division into rabi (\"big\") and ṣaher (\"small\") members of the city assembly.[163] Assyrian society grew more complex and hierarchical over time. In the Middle Assyrian Empire, the lower classes comprised multiple groups, the highest being the free men (a’ılū); although they, like the upper classes, were granted land for state service, the plots were too small for habitation.[164]\n\nBelow the free men were the unfree men[165] (šiluhlu̮).[164] The unfree men had given up their freedom and entered the services of others on their own accord, and were provided with clothes and rations. Many of them probably originated as foreigners. Though similar to slavery, it was possible for an unfree person to regain their freedom by providing a replacement. During their service they were considered the property of the government rather than their employers.[164] Other lower classes of the Middle Assyrian period included the ālāyû (\"village residents\"), ālik ilke (people recruited through the ilku system) and the hupšu, though what these designations meant in terms of social standing and living standards is not known.[166]\n\nThe Middle Assyrian structure of society by and large endured through the subsequent Neo-Assyrian period. Below the higher classes of Neo-Assyrian society were free citizens, semi-free laborers and slaves. It was possible through steady service to the Assyrian state bureaucracy for a family to move up the social ladder. In some cases, stellar work conducted by a single individual enhanced the status of their family for generations to come. In many cases, Assyrian family groups, or \"clans\", formed large population groups within the empire, referred to as tribes. Such tribes lived together in villages and other settlements near or adjacent to their agricultural lands.[162]\n\nSlavery was an intrinsic part of nearly every society in the ancient Near East.[167] There were two main types of slaves in ancient Assyria: chattel slaves, primarily foreigners who were kidnapped or who were spoils of war, and debt slaves, formerly free men and women who had been unable to pay off their debts.[168] In some cases, Assyrian children were seized by authorities due to the debts of their parents and sold off into slavery when their parents were unable to pay.[169] Children born to slave women automatically became slaves themselves,[170] unless some other arrangement had been agreed to.[171] Old Babylonian texts often note the geographic and ethnic origins of slaves, whereas Old Assyrian texts do so only once, referring to a slave girl as Subaraean; many other texts mention slaves without such detail. This suggests ethnicity was not considered important in slavery.[172]\n\nThe surviving evidence suggests that the number of slaves in Assyria never reached a large share of the population.[162] In the Akkadian language, several terms were used for slaves, commonly wardum, though this term could confusingly also be used for (free) official servants, retainers and followers, soldiers and subjects of the king. Assyrian texts often describe wardum individuals managing property and performing administrative duties for their masters, indicating they may have been free servants rather than slaves in the usual sense.[167] A number of wardum are also recorded as being bought and sold.[173]\n\nStatus of women\n\nThe main evidence concerning the lives of ordinary women in ancient Assyria is in administrative documents and law codes.[125] There was no legal distinction between men and women in the Old Assyrian period and they had more or less the same rights in society.[175] Since several letters written by women are known from the Old Assyrian period, it is evident that women were free to learn how to read and write.[176] Both men and women paid the same fines, could inherit property, participated in trade, bought, owned, and sold houses and slaves, made their own last wills, and were allowed to divorce their partners.[169]\n\nRecords of Old Assyrian marriages confirm that the dowry to the bride belonged to her, not the husband, and it was inherited by her children after her death.[177] Although they were equal legally, men and women in the Old Assyrian period were raised and socialized differently and had different social expectations and obligations. Typically, girls were raised by their mothers, taught to spin, weave, and help with daily tasks. Boys were taught trades by masters, later often following their fathers on trade expeditions. Sometimes the eldest daughter of a family was consecrated as a priestess. She was not allowed to marry and became economically independent.[178]\n\nWives were expected to provide their husbands with garments and food. Although marriages were typically monogamous, husbands were allowed to buy a female slave in order to produce an heir if his wife was infertile. The wife was allowed to choose that slave and the slave never gained the status of a second wife.[177] Husbands who were away on long trading journeys were allowed to take a second wife in one of the trading colonies, although with strict rules that must be followed: the second wife was not allowed to accompany him back to Assur and both wives had to be provided with a home to live in, food, and wood.[177]\n\nThe status of women decreased in the Middle Assyrian period, as can be gathered from laws concerning them among the Middle Assyrian Laws. Among these laws were punishments for various crimes, often sexual or marital ones.[125][179] Although they did not deprive women of all their rights and they were not significantly different from other ancient Near Eastern laws of their time, the Middle Assyrian Laws effectively made women second-class citizens.[125] It is not clear how strongly these laws were enforced.[179]\n\nThese laws gave men the right to punish their wives as they wished. Among the harshest punishments written into these laws, for a crime not even committed by the woman, was that a raped woman would be forcibly married to her rapist.[125] These laws also specified that certain women were obliged to wear veils while out on the street, marital status being the determining factor. Some women, such as slave women and ḫarımtū women, were prohibited from wearing veils and others, such as certain priestesses, were only allowed to wear veils if they were married.[179]\n\nNot all laws were suppressive against women. Women whose husbands died or were taken prisoner in war, and who did not have any sons or relatives to support them, were guaranteed support from the government.[180] The ḫarımtū women have historically been believed to have been prostitutes, but today, are interpreted as women with an independent social existence, i.e. not tied to a husband, father, or institution. Although most ḫarımtū appear to have been poor, there were noteworthy exceptions. The term appears with negative connotations in several texts. Their mere existence makes it clear that it was possible for women to live independent lives, despite their lesser social standing during that period.[125]\n\nDuring the Neo-Assyrian period that followed, royal and upper-class women experienced increased influence.[181] Women attached to the Neo-Assyrian royal court sent and received letters, were independently wealthy, and could buy and own lands of their own.[125] The queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire are better attested historically than queens of preceding periods of the culture. Under the Sargonid dynasty, they were granted their own military units. Sometimes they are known to have partaken in military campaigns alongside other units.[181]\n\nAmong the most influential women of the Neo-Assyrian period were Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824-811 BC), who in the reign of her son Adad-nirari III (r. 811-783 BC) might have been regent and participated in military campaigns.[182][183] Another is Naqi'a, who influenced politics in the reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal.[174]\n\nEconomy\n\nIn the Old Assyrian period, a major portion of Assur's population was involved in the city's international trade.[184] As can be gathered from hiring contracts and other records, the trade involved people of many different occupations, including porters, guides, donkey drivers, agents, traders, bakers and bankers.[171] Because of the extensive cuneiform records known from the period, details of the trade are relatively well-known. It has been estimated that just in the period c. 1950-1836 BC, twenty-five tons of Anatolian silver was transported to Assur, and that approximately one hundred tons of tin and 100,000 textiles were transported to Anatolia in return.[38] The Assyrians also sold livestock, processed goods and reed products.[185] In many cases, the materials sold by Assyrian colonists came from far-away places; the textiles sold by Assyrians in Anatolia were imported from southern Mesopotamia and the tin came from the east in the Zagros Mountains.[186]\n\nAfter international trade declined in the 19th century BC,[39] the Assyrian economy became increasingly oriented toward the state. In the Neo-Assyrian period, the wealth generated through private investments was dwarfed by the wealth of the state, which was by far the largest employer in the empire and had a monopoly on agriculture, manufacturing and exploitation of minerals. The imperial economy advantaged mainly the elite, since it was structured in a way that ensured that surplus wealth flowed to the government and was then used for the maintenance of the state throughout the empire. Though all means of production were owned by the state, there continued to be a vibrant private economic sector within the empire, with property rights of individuals ensured by the government.[187]\n\nPersonal identity and modern continuity\n\nEthnicity and culture are largely based in self-perception and self-designation.[188] A distinct Assyrian identity seems to have formed already in the Old Assyrian period, when distinctly Assyrian burial practices, foods and dress codes are attested[1] and Assyrian documents appear to consider the inhabitants of Assur to be a distinct cultural group.[175] A wider Assyrian identity appears to have spread across northern Mesopotamia under the Middle Assyrian Empire, since later writings concerning the reconquests of the early Neo-Assyrian kings refer to some of their wars as liberating the Assyrian people of the cities they reconquered.[189]\n\nSurviving evidence suggests that the ancient Assyrians had a relatively open definition of what it meant to be Assyrian. Modern ideas such as a person's ethnic background, or the Roman idea of legal citizenship, do not appear to have been reflected in ancient Assyria.[188] Although Assyrian accounts and artwork of warfare frequently describe and depict foreign enemies, they are not depicted with different physical features,[g] but rather with different clothing and equipment. Assyrian accounts describe enemies as barbaric only in terms of their behavior, as lacking correct religious practices, and as doing wrongdoings against Assyria.[191]\n\nAll things considered, there does not appear to have been any well-developed concepts of ethnicity or race in ancient Assyria.[191] What mattered for a person to be seen by others as Assyrian was mainly fulfillment of obligations, such as military service, being affiliated with the Assyrian Empire politically, and maintaining loyalty to the Assyrian king. One of the inscriptions that attest to this view, as well as royal Assyrian policies enacted to encourage assimilation and cultural mixture, is Sargon II's account of the construction of Dur-Sharrukin.[188] One of the passages of the inscription reads:[188]\n\nSubjects of (all) four (parts of the world), of foreign tongues, with different languages without similarity, people from mountainous regions and plains, so many (different people) as the light of the gods,[h] lord above all, supervises, I let dwell inside [my new city] on the command of Ashur my lord [...]. Born Assyrians, experienced in all professions, I set above them as supervisors and guides to teach them how to work properly and respect the gods and the king.[188]\n\nAlthough the text clearly differentiates the new settlers from those that had been \"born Assyrians\", the aim of Sargon's policy was also clearly to transform the new settlers into Assyrians through appointing supervisors and guides to teach them.[188] Though the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, in combination with resettlements and deportations, changed the ethno-cultural make-up of the Assyrian heartland, there is no evidence to suggest that the more ancient Assyrian inhabitants of the land ever disappeared or became restricted to a small elite, nor that the ethnic and cultural identity of the new settlers was anything other than \"Assyrian\" after one or two generations.[188]\n\nThe Akitu festival being celebrated in Duhok in 2008, and an Assyrian woman celebrating Akitu in 2019\n\nAlthough the use of the term \"Assyrian\" by the modern Assyrian people has historically been the target of misunderstanding and controversy, both politically and academically,[192] Assyrian continuity is generally scholarly accepted[188][193][194][195][196][197][198][199] based on both historical[200] and genetic evidence[197] in the sense that the modern Assyrians are regarded to be descendants of the population of the ancient Assyrian Empire.[193] Though the ancient Akkadian language and cuneiform script did not survive for long in Assyria after the empire was destroyed in 609 BC, Assyrian culture clearly did.[188] The old Assyrian religion continued to be practised at Assur until the 3rd century AD, and at other sites for centuries thereafter, gradually losing ground to Christianity. At Mardin, believers in the old religion are known from as late as the 18th century.[10]\n\nIndividuals with names harkening back to ancient Mesopotamia are also attested at Assur until it was sacked for the last time in AD 240[201] and at other sites as late as the 13th century.[202] Though many foreign states ruled over Assyria in the millennia following the empire's fall, there is no evidence of any large scale influx of immigrants that replaced the original population,[188] which instead continued to make up a significant portion of the region's people until the Mongol and Timurid massacres in the late 14th century.[203]\n\nIn pre-modern Syriac-language (the type of Aramaic used in Christian Mesopotamian writings) sources, the typical self-designations used are ʾārāmāyā (\"Aramean\") and suryāyā, with the term ʾāthorāyā (\"Assyrian\") rarely being used as a self-designation. The terms Assyria (ʾāthor) and Assyrian (ʾāthorāyā) were however used in several senses in pre-modern times; most notably being used for the ancient Assyrians and for the land surrounding Nineveh, and for the city of Mosul, built next to Nineveh's ruins. In Syriac translations of the Bible, the term ʾāthor is also used to refer to the ancient Assyrian Empire. In the sense of a citizen of Mosul, the designation ʾāthorāyā were used for some individuals in the pre-modern period.[25]\n\nThe reluctance of Christians to use ʾāthorāyā as a self-designation could perhaps be explained by the Assyrians described in the Bible being prominent enemies of Israel;[i] the term ʾāthorāyā was sometimes employed in Syriac writings as a term for enemies of Christians.[25] In this context, the term was sometimes applied to the Persians of the Sasanian Empire. The 4th-century Syriac writer Ephrem the Syrian for instance referred to the Sasanian Empire as \"filthy ʾāthor, mother of corruption\". In a similar fashion, the term was sometimes applied to the later Muslim rulers.[205]\n\nThe self-designation suryāyā, suryāyē or sūrōyē,[193] sometimes translated as \"Syrian\",[205] is believed to be derived from the Akkadian term assūrāyu (\"Assyrian\"), which was sometimes even in ancient times rendered in the shorter form sūrāyu.[193][194] Some medieval Syriac Christian documents used āsūrāyē and sūrāyē, rather than āthōrāyē, also for the ancient Assyrians.[206] Medieval and modern Armenian sources also connected assūrāyu and suryāyā, consistently referring to the Aramaic-speaking Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria as Asori.[207][208]\n\nDespite the complex issue of self-designations, pre-modern Syriac-language sources at times identified positively with the ancient Assyrians[200] and drew connections between the ancient empire and themselves.[205] Most prominently, ancient Assyrian kings and figures long appeared in local folklore and literary tradition[13] and claims of descent from ancient Assyrian royalty were forwarded both for figures in folklore and by actual living high-ranking members of society in northern Mesopotamia.[209] Visits by missionaries from western churches to the Assyrian heartland in the 18th century likely contributed to the Assyrian people more strongly relating their self-designation and identity to ancient Assyria.[208]\n\nIn the context of interactions with westerners who connected them to the ancient Assyrians, and due to an increasing number of atrocities and massacres directed against them, the Assyrian people experienced a cultural \"awakening\" or \"renaissance\" toward the end of the 19th century, which led to the development of a national ideology more strongly rooted in their descent from ancient Assyria and a re-adoption of self-designations such as ʾāthorāyā and ʾāsurāyā.[210] Today, sūryōyō or sūrāyā are the predominant self-designations used by Assyrians in their native language, though they are typically translated as \"Assyrian\" rather than \"Syrian\".[211][j]\n\nCulture\n\nLanguages\n\nAkkadian\n\nThe ancient Assyrians primarily spoke and wrote the Assyrian language, a Semitic language (i.e. related to modern Hebrew and Arabic) closely related to Babylonian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia.[40] Both Assyrian and Babylonian are generally regarded by modern scholars to be dialects of the Akkadian language.[1][40][212][213] This is a modern convention since contemporary ancient authors considered Assyrian and Babylonian to be two separate languages.[213] Only Babylonian was referred to as akkadûm, with Assyrian being referred to as aššurû or aššurāyu.[88] Though both were written with cuneiform script, the signs look quite different and can be distinguished relatively easily.[40]\n\nGiven the vast timespan covered by ancient Assyria, the Assyrian language developed and evolved over time. Modern scholars broadly categorize it into three different periods, roughly (though far from precisely) corresponding to the periods used to divide Assyrian history: the Old Assyrian language (2000-1500 BC), Middle Assyrian language (1500-1000 BC) and Neo-Assyrian language (1000-500 BC).[214] Because the record of Assyrian tablets and documents is still somewhat spotty, many of the stages of the language remain poorly known and documented.[215]\n\nThe signs used in Old Assyrian texts are for the most part less complex than those used during the succeeding Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods and they were fewer in number, amounting to no more than 150-200 unique signs,[176] most of which were syllabic signs (representing syllables).[215] Due to the limited number of signs used, Old Assyrian is relatively easier to decipher for modern researchers than later forms of the language, though the limited number of signs also means that there are in cases several possible alternative phonetic values and readings.[215][216] This means that while it is easy to decipher the signs, many researchers remain uncomfortable with the language itself.[216] Though it was a more archaic variant of the later Assyrian language,[216] Old Assyrian also contains several words that are not attested in later periods, some being peculiar early forms of words and others being names for commercial terms or various textile and food products from Anatolia.[217]\n\nIn the Middle and Neo-Assyrian empires, the later versions of the Assyrian language were not the only versions of Akkadian used. Though Assyrian was typically used in letters, legal documents, administrative documents,[215] and as a vernacular,[218] Standard Babylonian was also used in an official capacity.[218][219] Standard Babylonian was a highly codified version of ancient Babylonian, as used around 1500 BC, and was used as a language of high culture, for nearly all scholarly documents, literature, poetry[218][220] and royal inscriptions.[215] The culture of the Assyrian elite was strongly influenced by Babylonia in the south; in a vein similar to how Greek civilization was respected in, and influenced, ancient Rome, the Assyrians had much respect for Babylon and its ancient culture.[218]\n\nBecause of the multilingual nature of the vast empire, many loan words are attested as entering the Assyrian language during the Neo-Assyrian period.[221] The number of surviving documents written in cuneiform grow considerably fewer in the late reign of Ashurbanipal, which suggests that the language was declining since it is probably attributable to an increased use of Aramaic, often written on perishable materials such as leather scrolls or papyrus.[222] The ancient Assyrian language did not disappear completely until around the end of the 6th century BC, well into the subsequent post-imperial period.[88]\n\nAramaic and other languages\n\nBecause the Assyrians never imposed their language on foreign peoples whose lands they conquered outside of the Assyrian heartland, there were no mechanisms in place to stop the spread of languages other than Akkadian. Beginning with the migrations of Arameans into Assyrian territory during the Middle Assyrian period, this lack of linguistic policies facilitated the spread of the Aramaic language.[222] As the most widely spoken and mutually understandable of the Semitic languages (the language group containing many of the languages spoken through the empire),[223] Aramaic grew in importance throughout the Neo-Assyrian period and increasingly replaced the Neo-Assyrian language even within the Assyrian heartland itself.[224] From the 9th century BC onward, Aramaic became the de facto lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, with Neo-Assyrian and other forms of Akkadian becoming relegated to a language of the political elite.[222]\n\nFrom the time of Shalmaneser III, in the 9th century BC, Aramaic was used in state-related contexts alongside Akkadian and by the time of Tiglath-Pileser III, the kings employed both Akkadian and Aramaic-language royal scribes, confirming the rise of Aramaic to a position of an official language used by the imperial administration.[218][225] During the time after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the old Assyrian language was completely abandoned in Mesopotamia in favor of Aramaic.[88] By 500 BC, Akkadian was probably no longer a spoken language.[214]\n\nModern Assyrian people refer to their language as \"Assyrian\" (Sūrayt or Sūreth).[226] Though it has little in common with the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language,[88] it is a modern version of the ancient Mesopotamian Aramaic. The language retains some influence of ancient Akkadian,[227] particularly in the form of loanwords.[228] Modern Assyrian varieties of Aramaic are often referred to by scholars as Neo-Aramaic or Neo-Syriac. As a liturgical language, many Assyrians also speak Syriac, a codified version of classical Aramaic as spoken at Edessa during the Christianization of Assyria.[227]\n\nAnother language sometimes used in ancient Assyria as a language of scholarship and culture, though only in written form, was the ancient Sumerian language.[229][221] At the height of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, various other local languages were also spoken within the imperial borders, though none achieved the same level of official recognition as Aramaic.[223]\n\nArchitecture\n\nThere are three surviving forms of primary evidence for the architecture of ancient Assyria. The most important form is the surviving buildings themselves, found through archaeological excavations, but important evidence can also be gathered from both contemporary documentation, such as letters and administrative documents that describe buildings that might not have been preserved, as well as documentation by later kings concerning the building works of previous kings. Assyrian buildings and construction works were almost always constructed out of mudbrick. Limestone was also used, though primarily only in works such as aqueducts and river walls, exposed to running water, and defensive fortifications.[230]\n\nIn order to support large buildings, they were often built on top of foundation platforms or on mud brick foundations. Floors were typically made of rammed earth, covered in important rooms with carpets or reed mats. Floors in locations that were exposed to the elements, such as outside on terraces or in courtyards, were paved with stone slabs or backed bricks. Roofs, particularly in larger rooms, were supported through the use of wooden beams.[230]\n\nThe ancient Assyrians accomplished several technologically complex construction projects, including constructions of whole new capital cities, which indicates sophisticated technical knowledge.[231] Though in large part following previous Mesopotamian architecture, there are several characteristic features of ancient Assyrian architecture. Some examples of features of ancient Assyrian architecture include stepped merlons,[232] vaulted roofs,[233] and palaces to a large degree often being made up of sets of self-contained suites.[234]\n\nArt\n\nA relatively large number of statues and figurines have been recovered from the ruins of temples in Assur dating to the Early Assyrian period. Most of the surviving artwork from this time was clearly influenced by the artwork of foreign powers. For instance, a set of 87 alabaster figures of male and female worshippers from Assur before the rise of the Akkadian Empire greatly resembles Early Dynastic Sumerian figures.[235][236] Because of variation in artwork elsewhere, the artwork of early Assur was also highly variable depending on the time period, ranging from highly stylized to highly naturalistic.[237]\n\nAmong the most unique finds from the Early period is the head of a woman of which her eyes, eyebrows, and elaborate hair covering were originally inlaid. This head is typical of the art style of the Akkadian period, with an overall naturalistic style, smooth and soft curves and a full mouth.[235][238] Another unique art piece from the early period is an ivory figurine of a nude woman, and fragments of at least five additional similar figurines. The ivory used might have come from Indian elephants, which would indicate trade between early Assur and the early tribes and states of Iran.[235] Among other artwork known from the early period are a handful of large stone statues of rulers (governors and foreign kings),[238] figures of animals, and stone statues of naked women.[239]\n\nThe artwork known from the Old Assyrian period, other than a few objects such as a partial stone statue perhaps depicting Erishum I, is largely limited to seals and impressions of seals on cuneiform documents.[240] Royal seals from the Puzur-Ashur dynasty of kings, prior to the rise of Shamshi-Adad I, are very similar to the seals of the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur.[241] In the Middle Assyrian period, from Ashur-uballit I onward, seals looked quite different and appear to emphasize royal power, rather than the theological and cosmic sources of the king's right to rule. Among non-royal seals of the Middle Assyrian period a wide assortment of different motifs are known, including both religious scenes and peaceful scenes of animals and trees. From the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I onward, seals also sometimes featured contests and struggles between humans, various animals, and mythological creatures.[242]\n\nSeveral other new artistic innovations were also made in the Middle Assyrian period. In the temple dedicated to Ishtar in Assur, four cult pedestals (or \"altars\") from the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I have been discovered. These altars were decorated with various motifs, common inclusions being the king (sometimes multiple times) and protective divine figures and standards. One of the pedestals preserves along the lower step of its base a relief image which is the earliest known narrative image in Assyrian art history. This relief, which is not very well-preserved, appears to depict rows of prisoners before the Assyrian king.[243]\n\nThe earliest known Assyrian wall paintings are also from the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I, from his palace in Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. Motifs included plant-based patterns (rosettes and palmettes), trees and bird-headed genies. The colors used to paint the walls included black, red, blue, and white. An unusual limestone statue of a nude woman is known from Nineveh from the time of Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1074-1056 BC). An entirely new type of monument introduced in the 11th century BC were obelisks; four-sided stone stelae decorated all around with both images and text. Obelisks saw continued use until at least the 9th century BC.[243]\n\nCompared to other periods, a larger amount of artwork survives from the Neo-Assyrian period, particularly monumental art made under the patronage of the kings. The most well-known form of Neo-Assyrian monumental art are wall reliefs, carved stone artwork that lined the internal and external walls of temples and palaces. Another well-known form of Neo-Assyrian art are colossi, often human-headed lions or bulls (lamassu), that were placed at the gates of temples, palaces and cities. The earliest known examples of both wall reliefs and colossi are from the reign of Ashurnasirpal II, who might have been inspired by the Hittite monumental art that he saw on his campaigns to the Mediterranean.[244]\n\nWall paintings such as those made under Tukulti-Ninurta I in the Middle Assyrian period also continued to be used, sometimes to supplement wall reliefs and sometimes instead of them. Interior walls could be decorated by covering the mudbrick used in construction with painted mud plaster and exterior walls were at times decorated with glazed and painted tiles or bricks.[244] The most extensive known surviving sets of wall reliefs are from the reign of Sennacherib.[245] In terms of Neo-Assyrian artwork, modern scholars have paid particular attention to the reliefs produced under Ashurbanipal, which have been described as possessing a distinct \"epic quality\" unlike the art under his predecessors.[246]\n\n A statue of a praying woman, 25th century BC\n A statue of a praying woman, 25th century BC\n\n A wall relief probably depicting Ashur, 21st-16th century BC\n A wall relief probably depicting Ashur, 21st-16th century BC\n\n A cylinder seal and impression, 14th-13th century BC\n\n Temple altar of Tukulti-Ninurta I, 13th century BC\n Temple altar of Tukulti-Ninurta I, 13th century BC\n\n A statue of a nude woman, 11th century BC\n A statue of a nude woman, 11th century BC\n\n A glazed tile depicting a king and attendants, 9th century BC\n\n The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9th century BC\n\n A statue of Shalmaneser III, 9th century BC\n A statue of Shalmaneser III, 9th century BC\n\n Furniture ornament, 9th-8th century BC\n\n A crown of Queen Hama, 8th century BC\n\n A giant lamassu, 8th century BC\n\n A portion of the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, 7th century BC\n\n The ivory tusks that provided the raw material for these objects were almost certainly from African elephants, imported from lands south of Egypt, although elephants inhabited several river valleys in Syria until they were hunted to extinction by the end of the eighth century B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art\n The ivory tusks that provided the raw material for these objects were almost certainly from African elephants, imported from lands south of Egypt, although elephants inhabited several river valleys in Syria until they were hunted to extinction by the end of the eighth century B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art\n\nScholarship and literature\n\nAncient Assyrian literature drew heavily on Babylonian literary traditions. Both the Old and Middle Assyrian periods are limited in terms of surviving literary texts. The most important surviving Old Assyrian literary work is Sargon, Lord of Lies, a text found in a well-preserved version on a cuneiform tablet from Kültepe. Once thought to have been a parody, the tale is a first-person narrative of the reign of Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire. The text follows Sargon as he gains strength from the god Adad, swears by Ishtar, the \"lady of combat\", and speaks with the gods. Surviving Middle Assyrian literature is only slightly more diverse.[247]\n\nA distinct Assyrian scholarship tradition, though still drawing on Babylonian tradition, is conventionally placed as beginning around the time of the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. The rising status of scholarship at this time might be connected to the kings beginning to regard amassing knowledge as a way to strengthen their power.[248] Known Middle Assyrian works include the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic (a narrative of the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I and his exploits), fragments of other royal epics, The Hunter (a short martial poem) and some royal hymns.[247]\n\nThe clear majority of surviving ancient Assyrian literature is from the Neo-Assyrian period.[249] The kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire began to see preserving knowledge as one of their responsibilities, and not, as previous kings had, a responsibility of private individuals and temples.[250] This development might have originated with the kings no longer viewing the divination performed by their diviners as enough and wished to have access to the relevant texts themselves.[251] The office of chief scholar is first attested in the reign of the Neo-Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta II.[71]\n\nMost of the surviving ancient Assyrian literature comes from the Neo-Assyrian Library of Ashurbanipal,[249] which included more than 30,000 documents.[252] Libraries were built in the Neo-Assyrian period to preserve knowledge of the past and maintain scribal culture. Neo-Assyrian texts fall into a wide array of genres, including divinatory texts, divination reports, treatments for the sick (either medical or magical), ritual texts, incantations, prayers and hymns, school texts and literary texts.[253] An innovation of the Neo-Assyrian period were the annals, a genre of texts recording the events of the reigns of a king, particularly military exploits. Annals were disseminated throughout the empire and probably served propagandistic purposes, supporting the legitimacy of the king's rule.[254]\n\nVarious purely literary works, previously aligned by scholars with propaganda, are known from the Neo-Assyrian period. Such works include, among others, the Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Crown Prince, the Sin of Sargon and the Marduk Ordeal.[255] In addition to their own works, the Assyrians copied and preserved earlier Mesopotamian literature. The inclusion of texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Enûma Eliš (the Babylonian creation myth), Erra, the Myth of Etana and the Epic of Anzu in the Library of Ashurbanipal is the primary reason for how such texts have survived to the present day.[246]\n\nReligion\n\nAncient Assyrian religion\n\nThree symbols of the god Ashur, from reliefs at Nimrud\nKnowledge of the ancient polytheistic Assyrian religion, referred to as \"Ashurism\" by some modern Assyrians,[256] is mostly limited to state cults given that little can be ascertained of the personal religious beliefs and practices of the common people of ancient Assyria.[257] The Assyrians worshipped the same pantheon of gods as the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia.[212] The chief Assyrian deity was the national deity Ashur.[258][259] Though the deity and the ancient capital city are commonly distinguished by modern historians through calling the god Ashur and the city Assur, both were inscribed in the exact same way in ancient times (Aššur). In documents from the preceding Old Assyrian period, the city and god are often not clearly differentiated, which suggests that Ashur originated sometime in the Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of the city itself.[2]\n\nBelow Ashur, the other Mesopotamian deities were organized in a hierarchy, with each having their own assigned roles (the sun-god Shamash was for instance regarded as a god of justice and Ishtar was seen as a goddess of love and war) and their own primary seats of worship (Ninurta was for instance primarily worshipped at Nimrud and Ishtar primarily at Arbela). Quintessentially Babylonian deities such as Enlil, Marduk, and Nabu were worshipped in Assyria just as much as in Babylonia, and several traditionally Babylonian rituals, such as the akitu festival, were borrowed in the north.[257]\n\nAshur's role as the chief deity was flexible and changed with the changing culture and politics of the Assyrians themselves. In the Old Assyrian period, Ashur was mainly regarded as a god of death and revival, related to agriculture.[260][261] Under the Middle and Neo-Assyrian Empire, Ashur's role was expanded and thoroughly altered. Possibly originating as a reaction to the period of suzerainty under the Mittani kingdom, Middle Assyrian theology presented Ashur as a god of war, who bestowed the Assyrian kings not only with divine legitimacy, something retained from the Old Assyrian period, but also commanded the kings to enlarge Assyria (\"the land of Ashur\") with Ashur's \"just scepter\", i.e. expand the Assyrian Empire through military conquest.[136]\n\nThis militarization of Ashur might also have derived from the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I equating Ashur with the southern Enlil during his rule over northern Mesopotamia in the 18th and 17th centuries BC. In the Middle Assyrian period, Ashur is attested with the title \"king of the gods\", a role previous civilizations in both northern and southern Mesopotamia ascribed to Enlil.[262] The development of equating Ashur with Enlil, or at least transferring Enlil's role to Ashur, was paralleled in Babylon, where the previously unimportant local god Marduk was elevated in the reign of Hammurabi (18th century BC) to the head of the pantheon, modelled after Enlil.[263]\n\nAssyrian religion was centered in temples, monumental structures that included a central shrine which housed the cult statue of the temple's god, and several subordinate chapels with space for statues of other deities. Temples were typically self-contained communities; they had their own economic resources, chiefly in the form of land holdings, and their own hierarchically organized personnel. In later times, temples became increasingly dependent on royal benefits, in the shape of specific taxes, offerings and donations of booty and tribute. The head of a temple was titled as the \"chief administrator\" and was responsible to the Assyrian king since the king was regarded to be Ashur's representative in the mortal world. Records from temples showcase that divination in the form of astrology and extispicy (studying the entrails of dead animals) were important parts of the Assyrian religion since they were believed to be means through which deities communicated with the mortal world.[257]\n\nUnlike many other ancient empires, the Neo-Assyrian Empire did at its height not impose its culture and religion on conquered regions; there were no significant temples built for Ashur outside of northern Mesopotamia.[224] In the post-imperial period, after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians continued to venerate Ashur and the rest of the pantheon,[97] though without the Assyrian state, religious beliefs in many parts of the Assyrian heartland diverged and developed in different directions.[264] From the time of Seleucid rule over the region (4th to 2nd century BC) onward, there was a strong influence of the ancient Greek religion, with many Greek deities becoming syncretized with Mesopotamian deities.[265] There was also some influence of Judaism, given that the kings of Adiabene, a vassal kingdom covering much of the old Assyrian heartland, converted to Judaism in the 1st century AD.[266]\n\nIn the 1st century BC onward, as a frontier region between the Roman and the Parthian empires, Assyria was likely highly religiously complex and diverse.[92] Under Parthian rule, both old and new gods were worshipped at Assur.[267] As late as the time of the city's second destruction in the 3rd century AD, the most important deity was still Ashur, known during this time as Assor[97] or Asor.[268] Worship of Ashur during this time was carried out in the same way as it had been in ancient times, per a cultic calendar effectively identical to that used under the Neo-Assyrian Empire 800 years prior.[93] The ancient Mesopotamian religion persisted in some places for centuries after the end of the post-imperial period, such as at Harran until at least the 10th century (the \"Sabians\" of Harran) and at Mardin until as late as the 18th century (the Shamsīyah).[10]\n\nChristianity\n\nThe Church of the East developed early in Christian history.[269] Though tradition holds that Christianity was first spread to Mesopotamia by Thomas the Apostle,[270] the exact timespan when the Assyrians were first Christianized is unknown. The city of Arbela was an important early Christian center; according to the later Chronicle of Arbela, Arbela became the seat of a bishop already in AD 100, but the reliability of this document is questioned among scholars. It is however known that both Arbela and Kirkuk later served as important Christian centers in the Sasanian and later Islamic periods.[271]\n\nAccording to some traditions, Christianity took hold in Assyria when Saint Thaddeus of Edessa converted King Abgar V of Osroene in the mid-1st century AD.[100] From the 3rd century AD onward, it is clear that Christianity was becoming the major religion of the region,[10] with Christ replacing the old Mesopotamian deities.[200] Assyrians had by this time already intellectually contributed to Christian thought; in the 1st century AD, the Christian Assyrian writer Tatian composed the influential Diatessaron, a synoptic rendition of the gospels.[100]\n\nThough Christianity is today an intrinsic part of Assyrian identity,[10] Assyrian Christians have over the centuries splintered into a number of different Christian denominations. The historic Church of the East split in 1552 into rival factions which would by 1830 be consolidated into the modern Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East. The Assyrian Church of the East would suffer another schism in 1968, resulting in the creation of the Ancient Church of the East. A number of ethnic Assyrians are also a part of the Syriac Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church.[272] Though these churches have been distinct for centuries, they still follow much of the same liturgical, spiritual and theological foundation of the East Syriac and West Syriac rites respectively.[269] There are also Assyrian followers of various denominations of Protestantism, chiefly due to missions by American missionaries of the Presbyterian Church.[100]\n\nBecause the Assyrian Church of the East remains dismissed as \"Nestorian\" and heretical by many other branches of Christianity, it has not been admitted into the Middle East Council of Churches and it does not take part in the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. This does not mean that efforts to approach ecumenism have not been undertaken. In 1994, Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dinkha IV signed the Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, with some further efforts also having been made in the years since.[269]\n\nHistorically, the main obstacle in the way of ecumenism has been the ancient text Liturgy of Addai and Mari, used in the Assyrian churches, wherein the anaphora does not contain the Words of Institution, seen as indispensable by the Catholic Church. This obstacle was removed in 2001, when the Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith determined that the text could be considered valid in Catholicism as well, despite the absence of the words.[273] Some efforts have also been made to approach reunification of the Assyrian and Chaldean churches. In 1996, Dinkha IV and Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid of the Chaldean Church signed a list of common proposals to move toward unity, approved by synods of both churches in 1997.[274]\n\nSee also\n\nBeth Nahrain\n\nBeth Garmai\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nList of Assyrian tribes\n\nAssyrian cuisine\n\nNotes\n\n^ This date refers to when Assur became an independent city-state, i.e., the beginning of the Old Assyrian period. The Old Assyrian period was preceded by the Early Assyrian period, but Assur was not independent during this time, and distinct Assyrian cultural and religious practices had not yet fully formed.[1][2][3]\n\n^ This date refers to the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, when Assyria ceased to be a state. It omits the later post-imperial period, when there was no longer an independent Assyrian kingdom.\n\n^ Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠, romanized: māt Aššur\n\n^ See Neo-Assyrian Empire § Legacy\n\n^ Though often referred to as a satrapy by modern historians,[22] Assyria appears in Achaemenid royal inscriptions as a dahyu; a term of uncertain implications used to refer to both peoples and geographical locations (not necessarily synonymous with the formal satrapies of the empire).[89]\n\n^ The precise number is far from certain since the massacres were poorly documented by the Ottoman government. The Assyrian population prior to the genocide amounted to about 500,000-600,000 people and the generally accepted estimate is that about 50 % of the Assyrian people were killed.[106]\n\n^ The only example of ancient Assyrian art depicting foreigners with different physical features than the Assyrians themselves is the reliefs made in the reign of Ashurbanipal. Possibly influenced by Egyptian art, which did depict foreigners differently, Ashurbanipal's reliefs show Elamites and Urartians as stockier, Urartians with larger noses, and Arabs with long straight hair (in contrast to the curly hair of the Assyrians). Inscriptions and annals from Ashurbanipal's time however offer no evidence that foreigners were seen as racially or ethnically different in terms of biology or physiognomy.[190]\n\n^ Referring to the sun god Shamash.[188]\n\n^ This phenomenon does not only apply to the Assyrians; the Christian Greek populace of the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages overwhelmingly self-identified as Romans (Rhōmaîoi) rather than Greeks since the term \"Greek\" was associated with the ancient Pagan Greeks.[204]\n\n^ For alternate names and the name debate in the Syriac Christian community, see terms for Syriac Christians\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 39.\n\n^ a b c Lambert 1983, pp. 82-85.\n\n^ a b c d Roux 1992, p. 187.\n\n^ \"Assyria | History, Map, & Facts\". Britannica. 6 July 2023. Archived from the original on 24 October 2020. Retrieved 13 August 2023.\n\n^ Frahm 2017a, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Hauser 2017, p. 229.\n\n^ a b c d e Aberbach 2003, p. 4.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 133.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017b, p. 161.\n\n^ a b c d e f Parpola 2004, p. 21.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 196.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, pp. 195-196.\n\n^ a b Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 5.\n\n^ Aissaoui 2018, p. 22.\n\n^ a b Maul 2017, p. 344.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 754.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015, p. 3.\n\n^ a b Tamari 2019, p. 113.\n\n^ Rollinger 2006, p. 284.\n\n^ Rollinger 2006, pp. 285-287.\n\n^ Rollinger 2006, pp. 283-287.\n\n^ a b c d Parpola 2004, p. 18.\n\n^ Widengren 1986, pp. 785-786.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, p. 416.\n\n^ a b c Butts 2017, p. 600.\n\n^ a b Liverani 2014, p. 208.\n\n^ Liverani 2014, p. 48.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 61.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, pp. 729-730.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 731.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 745.\n\n^ a b Garfinkle 2007, p. 63.\n\n^ Foster 2016, chapter 3.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, pp. 739-740.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 62.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, pp. 758-759.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 61.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 34.\n\n^ a b c Garfinkle 2007, p. 67.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2015, p. 2.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 65.\n\n^ Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 115.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 68.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 66.\n\n^ a b Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 30.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 68.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 69.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, p. 112.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 81.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 191.\n\n^ Düring 2020, pp. 41-42.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 42.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 43.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 117.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 45.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 122.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 125, 129-130.\n\n^ Chen 2020, pp. 199, 203.\n\n^ a b c d e Düring 2020, p. 57.\n\n^ a b Gerster 2005, p. 312.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 46.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 133-135.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 136-138.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 165.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, pp. 166-167.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, pp. 165-168.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 136.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 144.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, pp. 167, 169.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017b, p. 169.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017b, p. 170.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 173.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 177.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 2.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, pp. 177-178.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017b, p. 187.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017b, p. 183.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017b, pp. 183-184.\n\n^ Dalley, Stephanie (2013). The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford University Press.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 266.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 192.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 141.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 193.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 20.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 232.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 236.\n\n^ a b c d e Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 314.\n\n^ Waters 2014, p. 97.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 19.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 230.\n\n^ a b c Hauser 2017, p. 238.\n\n^ a b c d e f Parpola 2004, p. 20.\n\n^ Drower, Gray & Sherwin-White 2012.\n\n^ a b c Harper et al. 1995, p. 18.\n\n^ Schippmann 2012, pp. 816-817.\n\n^ a b c d Radner 2015, p. 19.\n\n^ Radner 2015, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c d Donabed 2019, p. 118.\n\n^ Jacobsen 2021, p. 141.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 2021, pp. 27-28.\n\n^ Yapp 1988, p. 139.\n\n^ Mack 2017, From the Millet to the Sword.\n\n^ Donabed 2019, p. 119.\n\n^ a b Gaunt, Atto & Barthoma 2017, p. 10.\n\n^ Donabed 2019, pp. 119-120.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 22.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 43.\n\n^ a b c d Düring 2020, p. 38.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 37.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 70.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, p. 143.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 71.\n\n^ Chavalas 1994, p. 117.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 103.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 49.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 74.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 144.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 145.\n\n^ a b Parker 2011, pp. 363-365.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 365.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, p. 22.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, p. 29.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Bain 2017.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 367.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 146.\n\n^ a b Reade 2011, p. 109.\n\n^ Reade 2011, p. 112.\n\n^ Reade 2011, p. 114.\n\n^ Reade 2011, p. 118.\n\n^ a b Reade 2011, p. 120.\n\n^ Radner 2019, pp. 140-141.\n\n^ Reade 2011, p. 123.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, p. 155.\n\n^ a b Fales 2017, p. 402.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 146-147.\n\n^ a b Parker 2011, pp. 368-370, 377-378.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 190.\n\n^ Radner 2017, p. 213.\n\n^ Oates 1992, p. 172.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 58.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 359.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, pp. 149-150.\n\n^ Llop 2012, p. 107.\n\n^ a b Yamada 2000, p. 300.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 369.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 360, 370-371.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 360.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, pp. 149-151.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 154.\n\n^ Radner 2012, Road stations across the empire.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015b, p. 64.\n\n^ Radner 2012, Making speed.\n\n^ a b c d e Jakob 2017b, p. 152.\n\n^ a b Dalley 2017, pp. 526, 528.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 526-527.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 153.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 523, 525, 529-531.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, p. 531.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 528, 531.\n\n^ a b c Bedford 2009, p. 36.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 81, 83.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 156.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 101.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 156-157.\n\n^ a b de Ridder 2017, p. 49.\n\n^ de Ridder 2017, p. 56.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 84.\n\n^ de Ridder 2017, p. 57.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 83.\n\n^ de Ridder 2017, p. 51.\n\n^ de Ridder 2017, p. 50.\n\n^ a b Fink 2020.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 81.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 100.\n\n^ a b c Michel 2017, p. 85.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 88-89.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, 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Deutscher 2009, p. 20.\n\n^ a b c d e Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 315.\n\n^ a b c Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 111.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 112.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2021, p. 149.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 316.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 162.\n\n^ a b Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 321.\n\n^ a b c Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 318.\n\n^ a b Radner 2021, p. 147.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017b, p. 180.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 319.\n\n^ Donabed 2019, p. 117.\n\n^ a b Donabed 2019, pp. 117-118.\n\n^ Kaufman 1974, p. 164.\n\n^ Wagensonner 2018, p. 228.\n\n^ a b Russell 2017a, pp. 423-424.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, p. 511.\n\n^ Albenda 2018, p. 110.\n\n^ Kletter & Zwickel 2006, p. 154.\n\n^ Kertai 2019, p. 44.\n\n^ a b c Mallowan 1971, pp. 299-300.\n\n^ Russell 2017b, p. 453.\n\n^ Russell 2017b, p. 454.\n\n^ a b Russell 2017b, p. 455.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 32.\n\n^ Russell 2017b, p. 458.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 37.\n\n^ Russell 2017b, pp. 463-465.\n\n^ a b Russell 2017b, pp. 465-469.\n\n^ a b Russell 2017b, pp. 471-472.\n\n^ Russell 2017b, p. 487.\n\n^ a b Encyclopaedia Britannica.\n\n^ a b Livingstone 2017, pp. 359-360.\n\n^ Heeßel 2017, p. 368.\n\n^ a b Livingstone 2017, p. 359.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, p. 378.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, p. 379.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, pp. 383-385.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, pp. 379-380.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 365-367.\n\n^ Livingstone 2017, p. 364.\n\n^ BetGivargis-McDaniel 2007, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c Bedford 2009, p. 35.\n\n^ Lambert 1983, p. 83.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 763.\n\n^ Breasted 1926, p. 164.\n\n^ James 1966, p. 42.\n\n^ Maul 2017, p. 342.\n\n^ Maul 2017, pp. 343-344.\n\n^ Haider 2008, p. 200.\n\n^ Haider 2008, p. 202.\n\n^ Marciak & Wójcikowski 2016, p. 80.\n\n^ Haider 2008, p. 194.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 240.\n\n^ a b c Cassidy 2005, p. 49.\n\n^ Filoni 2017, p. 6.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 239.\n\n^ Akopian 2017, p. 409.\n\n^ Cassidy 2005, pp. 50-51.\n\n^ Cassidy 2005, p. 50.\n\nBibliography\n\nAlbenda, Pauline (2018). \"Royal Gardens, Parks, and the Architecture 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Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. II/8. pp. 785-786. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 7 February 2022.\n\nYamada, Shiego (2000). The Construction of the Assyrian Empire: A Historical Study of the Inscriptions of Shalmanesar III (859-824 B.C.) Relating to His Campaigns to the West. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 90-04-11772-5.\n\nYamada, Shiego. \"The Transition Period (17th to 15th century BC)\". In Frahm (2017).\n\nYapp, Malcolm (1988). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0582493803.\n\nWeb sources\n\n\"Ashurbanipal\". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 17 February 2023. Retrieved 28 November 2019.\n\nBain, Robert (2017). \"Women, Fundamentalism and Terror: Echoes of Ancient Assyria\". Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Retrieved 29 January 2022.\n\n\"Newly Digitised Manuscript Sheds Valuable Light on Assyrian Identity\". Assyrian Cultural & Social Youth Association. 23 January 2022. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022.\n\n\"Head of a male figure Assyrian\". MET. 22 March 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)\n\nRadner, Karen (2012). \"The King's Road - the imperial communication network\". Assyrian empire builders. University College London. Archived from the original on 19 August 2020. Retrieved 7 February 2022.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Assyria at Wikimedia Commons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 17881}, {"slug": "reference-old-assyrian-period", "title": "Old Assyrian period", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Old Assyrian period was the second stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of the city of Assur from its rise as an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC[c] to the foundation of a larger Assyrian territorial state after the accession of Ashur-uballit I c....", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Old Assyrian periodālu Aššur\n\nc. 2025 BC-c. 1364 BC[a]\n\nAssurShow map of Near EastAssurShow map of IraqLocation of Assur in modern Iraq\n\nCapitalAssur[b]\n\nCommon languagesAkkadian, Sumerian and Amorite\n\nReligion Ancient Mesopotamian religion\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nNotable kings \n\n• c. 2025 BC Puzur-Ashur I (first)\n\n• c. 1974-1935 BC Erishum I\n\n• c. 1920-1881 BC Sargon I\n\n• c. 1808-1776 BC Shamshi-Adad I\n\n• c. 1700-1691 BC Bel-bani\n\n• c. 1521-1498 BC Puzur-Ashur III\n\n• c. 1390-1364 BC Eriba-Adad I (last)\n\nLegislatureĀlum\n\nHistorical eraBronze Age\n\n• Assur becomes independent from the Third Dynasty of Ur c. 2025 BC\n\n• Conquest by Shamshi-Adad I c. 1808 BC\n\n• Collapse of Shamshi-Adad's kingdom c. 1776-1765 BC\n\n• Foundation of the Adaside dynasty c. 1700 BC\n\n• Subjugation under Mitanni c. 1430-1360 BC\n\n• End of the reign of Eriba-Adad I c. 1364 BC[a]\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nEarly Assyrian period\n\nThird Dynasty of Ur\n\nMiddle Assyrian Empire\n\nToday part ofIraq\n\nThe Old Assyrian period was the second stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of the city of Assur from its rise as an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC[c] to the foundation of a larger Assyrian territorial state after the accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC,[d] which marks the beginning of the succeeding Middle Assyrian period. The Old Assyrian period is marked by the earliest known evidence of the development of a distinct Assyrian culture, separate from that of southern Mesopotamia[7][8] and was a geopolitically turbulent time when Assur several times fell under the control or suzerainty of foreign kingdoms and empires. The period is also marked with the emergence of a distinct Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language, a native Assyrian calendar and Assur for a time becoming a prominent site for international trade.[9]\n\nFor most of the Old Assyrian period, Assur was a minor city-state with little political and military influence. In contrast to Assyrian kings of later periods, the kings in the Old Assyrian period were just one of the prominent leading officials in the city's administration and normally used the style Išši'ak Aššur, which translates to \"governor (on behalf) of (the god) Ashur\", rather than šar (king). The kings presided over the city's actual administrative body, the Ālum (city assembly), which was made up of prominent and influential members among Assur's populace.[10] Though lacking in military and political might, Assur was an important economic center in northern Mesopotamia. From the time of Erishum I (c. 1974-1935 BC) until the late 19th century BC, the city was a hub in a large trading network that spanned from the Zagros Mountains in the east to central Anatolia in the west. During their time as prominent traders the Assyrians founded a number of trading colonies at various sites in the trading network, such as Kültepe.\n\nThe first Assyrian royal dynasty, founded by Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC came to an end when the city was captured by the foreign Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I in c. 1808 BC. Shamshi-Adad ruled from the city Shubat-Enlil and established a short-lived kingdom, sometimes called the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, that collapsed after his death in c. 1776 BC. Events after Shamshi-Adad's death until the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period are poorly known, but there appears to initially have been some decades of frequent conflict in Assur and the surrounding region, not only between different states and empires, such as the Old Babylonian Empire, Mari and Eshnunna, but also between different Assyrian dynasties and nobles who vied for power over the city. This period culminated in the re-establishment of Assur as an independent city-state under the Adaside dynasty c. 1700 BC. Assur became a vassal of the Mitanni kingdom c. 1430 BC but broke free in the early 14th century after Mitanni suffered a series of defeats by the Hittites and began its transition into a large territorial state under a series of warrior-kings.\n\nThrough extensive cuneiform records, amounting to over 22,000 clay tablets found at the Old Assyrian trading colony at Kültepe, much information can be gathered about the culture, language and society of the Old Assyrian period. As in other societies of the Ancient Near East, the Old Assyrians practiced slavery, though confusion resulting from the terminology used in the texts might mean that many, but not all, of the supposed slaves were actually free servants.[11] Though men and women had different duties and responsibilities, they had more or less the same legal rights, with both being allowed to inherit property, make wills, initiate divorce proceedings and participate in trade.[12] The chief deity worshipped in the Old Assyrian period was, like in later periods, the Assyrian national deity Ashur, who had probably originated in the preceding Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of the city of Assur itself.[13]\n\nTerminology\n\nModern researchers divide the thousands of years of ancient Assyrian history into several stages based on political events and gradual changes in language.[14] \"Old Assyrian\" is one of these stages and is thus a chronological label. As defined by Klaas Veenhof in 2008, the term applies to \"the earliest phase of the culture of ancient Assur that is historically sufficiently recoverable to be called Assyrian\", \"Assyrian\" here meaning the city of Assur and its culture rather than Assyria as a state governing a stretch of territory; Assyria only transitioned from a small city-state to a kingdom governing a larger stretch of territory in the succeeding Middle Assyrian period. As such, \"Old Assyrian\" refers to the history, politics, economics, religion, language and distinctive features of Assur and its people from the earliest comprehensive historical records at the site to the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period. Assur was much older than the commonly used beginning date for the Old Assyrian period, though the preceding Early Assyrian period is much more poorly known and Assur was not independent during that time but instead part of a sequence of states and empires from southern Mesopotamia.[7]\n\nHistory\n\nPuzur-Ashur and his dynasty\n\nRoyal seal of Erishum I (c. 1974-1934 BC)Royal seal of Naram-Sin (c. 1872-1829/1819 BC)\n\nAssur is generally thought to have become an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I, who ruled c. 2025 BC.[15][16][17][18] Little is otherwise known of Puzur-Ashur, and it is unclear how exactly he came to power,[19] though his descendants, Assyria's first royal dynasty, wrote that he had restored the walls around the city.[20] Assur's independence was likely achieved in conjunction with the last Ur III ruler, Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028-2004 BC), losing his administrative grip on the peripheral regions of his empire.[21] Very little archaeological evidence survives from Assur in the first half of the second millennium BC and as a result, relatively little is known about the city, its people and its rulers during this time.[22] Surviving royal inscriptions from this time deal almost exclusively with building projects.[23] What is known is that Puzur-Ashur and his successors after independence did not actually claim the dignity of being kings (šar), as the Akkadian and Sumerian suzerains had done, but instead continued to style themselves as governors (Išši'ak), asserting that the Assyrian national god Ashur was king and that the Assyrian rulers therefore were only his representatives on Earth.[20][24] Assur was during the time of Puzur-Ashur's dynasty home to only about 5,000 to 8,000 people, which means its military power must have been very limited, and there are no sources that indicate any military institutions whatsoever. No surrounding cities were subjected to Assur and there are not even any known records of political interactions with the rulers of the city's immediate neighbors.[25]\n\nThe earliest known surviving inscription by an Assyrian king was written by Puzur-Ashur's son and successor Shalim-ahum, and records the king having built a temple dedicated to Ashur \"for his own life and the life of his city\".[20] Shalim-ahum's son and successor Ilu-shuma is the earliest Assyrian king known to have intervened in foreign affairs, campaigning and opening up trade. In one of his inscriptions, Ilu-shuma claims to have opened trade with the \"Akkadians [i.e. southerners] and their children\" and selling copper. That Ilu-shuma was able to sell copper to kings in the south is significant because it illustrates that Assur at this time was producing enough copper to sustain both itself and others. Where this copper came from is not clear, perhaps Assyrian miners made the long trip to Ergani in the north-west, in later texts described as a significant site of copper-mining.[26] According to his inscriptions, Ilu-shuma also constructed wells in Assur, used both as a source of water and to make bricks for the city wall.[23] Ilu-shuma was succeeded by his even more successful son, Erishum I (c. 1974-1934 BC),[27] the earliest king whose length of reign is recorded in the Assyrian King List, a later document recording the kings of Assyria and their reigns.[28] Erishum initiated the earliest known experiment in free trade, leaving the initiative for trade and large-scale foreign transactions entirely to his populace. Though large institutions, such as the temples and the king himself, did take part in trade, the financing itself was provided by private bankers, who in turn bore nearly all the risk (but also earned nearly all the profits) of the trading ventures.[29] Through Erishum's efforts, Assur appears to have quickly established itself as a prominent trading city in northern Mesopotamia.[30] Erishum earned some money himself through imposing tolls, which was put into expanding Assur itself: the temple of Ashur was rebuilt and expanded and a new temple, dedicated to the god Adad, was also constructed.[29]\n\nErishum's son and successor Ikunum (c. 1934-1921 BC)[31] rebuilt the fortification wall around Assur, an event which required financial contributions of silver not only from Assur itself but also from its widespread trading colonies. Whether the wall had to be rebuilt due to normal wear or due to having been damaged in war is not known. It is possible that it was damaged during conflict with the southern city-state Eshnunna, which at this time was pursuing an expansionist policy. In any case, repairs were not complete until the long reign of Ikunum's son Sargon I[32] (c. 1920-1881 BC).[31] Though Sargon's reign appears to have been a prosperous one during which Assyrian trade reached its peak,[32][33] the reigns of his son Puzur-Ashur II (c. 1880-1873 BC) and grandson Naram-Sin (c. 1872-1829/1819 BC)[31] saw Assur being threatened by foreign enemies, first by Ipiq-Adad II of Eshnunna and then by the more successful and dangerous Shamshi-Adad I of Ekallatum,[34] a city located near Assur.[35]\n\nTrading colonies\n\nThough evidence from Assur is scant, there are surviving rich textual records of Assyrian society and activity from the early Old Assyrian period, though they are not from Assur or northern Mesopotamia, but rather from central Anatolia. The largest known collection of old Assyrian tablets are from Kültepe, near the modern city of Kayseri. Kültepe, in this time period known by the name Kanesh, was also a city-state ruled by its own line of kings.[22] In the lower city of Kültepe, to the northwest, the Assyrians established a trade colony, or karum, out of which two levels (Ib, c. 1833-1719 BC, and II, c. 1950-1836 BC) have been archaeologically investigated.[36] Level II is particularly significant since it preserves about 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets that attest to a long-distance and extensive Assyrian trade network. The trade colony at Kültepe was a pivotal node in this network, which was centered in Assur and had extensive lesser trade posts throughout central Anatolia and likely Mesopotamia as well.[36] This trade network is the first noticeable impression left by the Assyrians in the historical record.[37] Assur was able to maintain its central position in the trade network despite being relatively small and having no history of military success.[1]\n\nAfter the discovery of the Kültepe tablets in the 20th century, many historians suggested that they were evidence of a large \"Old Assyrian Empire\", stretching into Anatolia, but this interpretation is today discredited based on surviving archaeological and literary evidence. It is however possible that the cultural traditions that reached Assur during the time of its early trade network played some role in the rise of the first Assyrian territorial state centuries later.[8] Though an extensive number of Assyrian traders are known to have lived in the Kültepe trade colony, approximately 500 to 800 people, there are no obvious Assyrian elements in the settlement itself, apart from the tablets and seals. The houses in the colony can not be differentiated from the houses of the locals, which suggests that the traders lived not as colonists, but as expatriates, using the local artefacts and houses.[36] In all likelihood, the Assyrian community at Kültepe did not live in a separate walled part of the town, but rather simply in their own part of the lower city, also home to local Anatolians. The Assyrian colony was not only a trading settlement, but also functioned as a center of various craft production activities, such as the production of pottery and metal objects. The preserved cuneiform tablets demonstrate that the Assyrians had their own separate administrative structures and court at Kültepe, and thus were somewhat self-governing.[38] The Assyrian court at Kültepe based its rulings on Assyrian law, and often based its decisions on commands from Assur, sometimes issued by the kings themselves. In addition to trade, the cuneiform records at Kültepe also provide insight into the family lives of the traders, who often corresponded with their wives back home in Assur. These wives were in many cases responsible for gathering or acquiring the materials sold in the trading colonies.[39]\n\nThe original trading colony at Kültepe appears to have been burnt down c. 1836 BC, which led to the preservation of the thousands of tablets, but it was shortly thereafter rebuilt, as attested by the presence of later Assyrian activity in the second layer. In total, it has been estimated that during just the time of documented trade in Level II of the Kültepe trading colony, about twenty-five tons of Anatolian silver was transported to Assur, and that approximately one hundred tons of tin and 100,000 textiles were transported to Anatolia in return.[36] The Assyrians also sold livestock, processed goods and reed products.[40] In many cases, the materials sold by Assyrian colonists came from far-away places; the textiles sold by Assyrians in Anatolia were imported from southern Mesopotamia and the tin came from the east in the Zagros Mountains.[39] An Assyrian trader could probably make the 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) distance between Assur and Kültepe in six weeks, travelling through donkey caravans.[36][41] Though the traders had to pay road taxes and tolls to the various states and rulers in the lands in-between, profits were massive since the Assyrians sold many of their goods at double the price in Mesopotamia, or even more.[36] Assur's importance as a trading center declined in the 19th century BC, whereafter Assyrian traders played a more modest role. This decline might chiefly have resulted from increasing conflict between the states and rulers of the Ancient Near East leading to a decrease in trade in general.[1]\n\nKingdom of Upper Mesopotamia\n\nConquests of Shamshi-Adad\n\nFrom the 19th century BC until the end of the Old Assyrian period, the Assur city-state frequently came under the control of larger foreign states and empires.[42] The portion of the Old Assyrian period that is best historically attested, chiefly through extensive records found in the ruins of the city of Mari, is the time of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1808-1776 BC) and his sons Ishme-Dagan I and Yasmah-Adad.[43] Shamshi-Adad (Samsi-Addu in his own Amorite language)[6] was an Amorite king, originally ruling the city of Ekallatum, where he had succeeded his father Ila-kabkabuhu c. 1835 BC. Threatened by Ipiq-Adad II in Eshnunna, Shamshi-Adad sought refuge in southern Mesopotamia for several years but returned to Ekallatum c. 1811 BC and conquered his rival.[43] Three years later, in c. 1808 BC,[43] Shamshi-Adad deposed the last king of Puzur-Ashur I's dynasty,[35] Naram-Sin's son Erishum II (c. 1828/1818-1809 BC),[31] and took Assur for himself.[1]\n\nAfter conquering both Eshnunna and Assur, Shamshi-Adad began extensive campaigns of conquest which culminated in his victory over Yahdun-Lim, the king of Mari, c. 1792 BC. Shamshi-Adad also went on to conquer cities to the north and east of Assur, such as Arrapha, Nineveh, Qabra and Erbil.[43] The realm founded by Shamshi-Adad eventually came to include most of northern Mesopotamia[1] and has been given various names by modern historians, such as the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia[44] and the North-Mesopotamian Empire.[45] To rule this new realm, Shamshi-Adad established his capital at the city of Shubat-Enlil and in c. 1785 BC[43] placed his two sons in control of different parts of the kingdom as his vassals; Yasmah-Adad was granted Mari and the surrounding lands and Ishme-Dagan, the elder son, was granted Ekallatum, Assur, and surrounding territories.[1] Under Shamshi-Adad's kingdom, Assur remained a distinct city and might have continued its trading with other cities. Local trade was evidently important for Shamshi-Adad, as there are records from his reign of an official overseeing merchants. Shamshi-Adad renovated the city and rebuilt the temples of Adad and Assur, though a sanctuary to the god Enlil also appears to have been added to the latter. Referring to the city as \"full of gods\", Shamshi-Adad respected Assur and sometimes stayed there to partake in religious ceremonies,[46] though he remained a foreign conqueror in the eyes of the locals and he placed his capital elsewhere.[47] The reason for making Shubat-Enlil his capital rather than Assur might have been that Assur was seen as formally ruled by the god Ashur, and had a powerful local city assembly, and was thus unattractive as a seat of power.[46]\n\nCollapse of the kingdom\n\nIn the 18th century BC, Shamshi-Adad's kingdom became surrounded by competing large kingdoms. In the south, the rulers of Larsa, Babylon and Eshnunna fought with one another to re-unite southern Mesopotamia. In the east, the rulers of Elam increasingly involved themselves in Mesopotamian politics and in the west, new kingdoms arose at Yamhad and Qatna. The success and survival of Shamshi-Adad's kingdom relied chiefly on his own military success, strength and charisma. Increasing conflict with the surrounding kingdoms and Shamshi-Adad's death c. 1776 BC led to the collapse of the kingdom.[48] Local rulers quickly returned to power in many parts of the former realm, including in Mari,[49] where Zimri-Lim ousted Yasmah-Adad from power.[46] Shamshi-Adad's senior heir, Ishme-Dagan, retained control only of Ekallatum,[49] from where he ruled,[2] and Assur.[49] Ishme-Dagan was respectful of Assur's cults and traditions and occasionally used the city as his residence. His wife, Lamassi-Ashur was even named after the god Ashur.[46]\n\nIn c. 1772 BC, the new king of Eshnunna, Ibal-pi-el II invaded Ishme-Dagan's kingdom, occupying Assur, Ekallatum and Qattare before seizing Shamshi-Adad's old capital at Shubut-Enlil. Ishme-Dagan fled from his realm during this time, taking refuge in southern Mesopotamia, now ruled by the Old Babylonian Empire.[46] Ibal-pi-el II's invasion was eventually pushed back by Zimri-Lim of Mari and around this time, probably with the aid of the Babylonians, Ishme-Dagan returned to power in Ekallatum and Assur. A few years later, northern mesopotamia was again invaded, this time by an army from Elam that also seized Shubut-Enlil and other cities. This invasion was pushed back by an alliance between Mari, Ishme-Dagan and Babylon and in its aftermath, Ishme-Dagan strengthened his position by seizing some territory to the south and making a treaty with Eshnunna. When relations quickly thereafter soured again, Ishme-Dagan fled to Babylon once more. Assur and the rest of Ishme-Dagan's realm shortly thereafter came under the, perhaps only brief, control of the Old Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi (c. 1792-1750 BC),[50][51] who conquered the region c. 1761 BC[51] and appears to have respected Assur and its institutions since he wrote in one of his inscriptions that \"I guided the people properly and returned to Assur its benevolent protective spirit\".[50]\n\nAssyrian Dark Age\n\nThe time between the collapse of Shamshi-Adad's kingdom in the 18th century BC and the rise of Assyria in the 14th century BC is often regarded by modern scholars as an Assyrian \"Dark Age\" due to the lack of sufficient historical evidence to clearly establish events during this time.[49] The main sources of historical records known from earlier Old Assyrian times; documents kept at other sites in northern Mesopotamia and in central Anatolia, fall silent in the 18th century BC and royal inscriptions and archival texts from Assur are very scanty in this time.[52] In any case it is apparent that Assur at some point returned to being an independent city-state.[49]\n\nThe Assyrian King List, the only real overarching source for the period,[53] presents a continuous sequence of rulers during this time,[49] but its account of at least the decades following Shamshi-Adad's death is clearly incomplete and does not fully reflect the politically uncertain time that followed,[54][55] when Shamshi-Adad's Amorite descendants, native Assyrians, and Hurrians appear to have fought one another for control of Assur.[56] According to the standard version of the list, Ishme-Dagan ruled for 40 years and was succeeded at Assur by the native Assyrian usurper Ashur-dugul.[31] Records at Mari establish that Ishme-Dagan only ruled for 11 years after his father's death, dying c. 1765 BC.[54] The king list also does not mention the brief conquests of Assur by outside powers, such as Eshnunna, Elam and Babylon during Ishme-Dagan's time.[3] Documents at Mari and a fragmentary alternate version of the king list also show that Ishme-Dagan was succeeded by his son Mut-Ashkur, who in turn was succeeded by Rimush. It is possible that these kings only ruled Ekallatum, and not Assur, but the Assyrian ruler Puzur-Sin, also absent in the king list, claims in one of his inscriptions to have deposed a-sí-nim, grandson (or descendant) of Shamshi-Adad and liberated Assur from the Amorites.[54][57] A-sí-nim is typically interpreted as a proper name, Asinum, in which case he was the last of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty to rule Assur, but it might alternatively have been a title, in which case the man driven away by Puzur-Sin could have been a local governor under Rimush.[54] In his inscription, Puzur-Sin prides himself on removing the ruler of \"foreign seed\" and demolishing their palace, erecting a religious sanctuary in its place. For these construction projects to have taken place, Puzur-Sin must have been able to maintain control over Assur for at least a few years.[58] Perhaps Puzur-Sin was omitted from the king list by mistake, or perhaps his omission reflects changing attitudes towards Shamshi-Adad and his dynasty by later Assyrians.[56]\n\nAshur-dugul, who ruled at some point after Puzur-Sin, is accorded a reign of six years by the Assyrian King List, which also states that his rule was challenged by six usurpers: Ashur-apla-idi, Nasir-Sin, Sin-namir, Ipqi-Ishtar, Adad-salulu and Adasi.[28] It is unclear if these figures were actually historical and actually claimed to be kings in opposition to Ashur-dugul. Their names are suspiciously similar to the eponyms (i.e. limmu officials) of Ashur-dugul's reign and they might thus in reality have been his generals and officials, misattributed as rival kings by the scribe who created the king list.[59] Ashur-dugul was according to the king list succeeded by Bel-bani,[31] c. 1700 BC,[60] apparently the son of Adasi.[31] Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty, which went on to rule Assyria for about a thousand years.[61] Later Assyrian monarchs, Bel-bani's descendants, would in times thereafter revere Bel-bani as a restorer of stability and as the founder of their long-lived dynasty. In time, he became an almost mythical ancestor figure.[62] It is possible that the Adaside dynasty originated as outsiders and that the family did not originally hail from Assur.[63] The name of Bel-bani's grandson[31] Shu-Ninua (c. 1615-1602 BC)[64] might mean \"man from Nineveh\"[e] and the repetition of the names Shamshi-Adad and Ishme-Dagan among the kings of the dynasty could suggest at least partial descent from Shamshi-Adad's dynasty.[63] The repetition of the names could alternatively be explained by Shamshi-Adad being revered by later generations as a great empire-builder.[66] The early kings of the Adaside dynasty also several times assumed names from the rulers of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, including Erishum and Puzur-Ashur itself.[65]\n\nThough it is not seen as reliable for the decades immediately following Shamshi-Adad's death, the Assyrian King List's account of the sequence of Assyrian kings and their reigns from Bel-bani onwards, when the rulers were securely based in Assur under a stable dynastic line, is thought to be reliable due to presumably being based on preserved chronological records. The precise relationships between the rulers might however not be fully reliable, as there is evidence to suggest that the genealogy of the early Adaside dynasty was at least partially reconstructed by later scribes.[67]\n\nRise of Assyria\n\nIn large parts, the invasion or raid of Mesopotamia by the Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1595 BC was critical to Assyria's later development. This invasion destroyed the then dominant power in Mesopotamia, the Old Babylonian Empire, which created a vacuum of power that led to the formation of the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia in the south[68] and the Hurrian[56] Mitanni state in the north.[68] The Hittite invasion must also directly have impacted Assur in some way, but there are no surviving sources discussing the matter.[49] Mitanni would in time become the dominant power in northern Mesopotamia, but in the power vacuum left after Mursili I's invasion, Assur also briefly rose to a first period of prominence.[4]\n\nAssyrian rulers from c. 1520 to c. 1430 were more politically assertive than their predecessors, both regionally and internationally. Puzur-Ashur III (c. 1521-1498 BC) is the earliest Assyrian king to appear in the Synchronistic History, a later text concerning border disputes between Assyria and Babylonia, suggesting that Assyria first entered into diplomacy and conflict with Babylonia at this time[4] and that Assur at this time ruled a small stretch of territory beyond the city itself.[65] In the first half of the 15th century BC, there is also evidence of gifts for the first time being exchanged between Assyrian kings and Egyptian pharaohs.[4] It is clear the Assur experienced a period of prosperity from the late 16th to the early 15th century, as can be gathered from the royal inscriptions of Puzur-Ashur III, his two immediate predecessors Shamshi-Adad III (c.1563-1548 BC) and Ashur-nirari I (c.1547-1522 BC), and his successor Enlil-nasir I (c.1497-1485 BC), the first rulers with known royal inscriptions since Puzur-Sin's time. The inscriptions by these kings demonstrate that many of the buildings constructed earlier in the Old Assyrian period were repaired, rebuilt and extended under their reigns, including the temples dedicated to Ishtar and Adad, as well as the walls of the city itself. Under Puzur-Ashur III, the city walls were extended to cover a greater tract of land, presumably attesting to a growing population. Later documents also reference the construction of a \"new city\" (alu eššu) during this time, adding to the earlier \"inner city\" (libbi alī).[65]\n\nAround c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni and forced to become a vassal, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC.[4] Assur retained some autonomy under the Mitanni kings, as Assyrian kings during this time are attested as commissioning building projects, trading with Egypt and signing boundary agreements with the Kassites in Babylon.[69] Chiefly responsible for bringing an end to Mitanni rule was another Hittite king, Šuppiluliuma I, whose 14th century BC war with Mitanni over control of Syria effectively led to the beginning of the end of the Mitanni kingdom.[70][71] At the same time as the Mitanni king Tushratta had to fight Šuppiluliuma I, he was also forced to contend with a rival claimant to the throne, Artatama II. After the war with the Hittites relegated Mitanni to a minor kingdom, Assyria managed to free itself from its suzerain. Assyria's independence, achieved under the king Ashur-uballit I (c. 1363-1328 BC) and Ashur-uballit I's conquests of nearby territories, most importantly the fertile region between the Tigris, the foothills of the Taurus Mountains and the Upper Zab, marks the transition between the Old and Middle Assyrian periods,[72] though Assur's transformation into a territorial state appears to have already begun under the last few decades of Mitanni rule.[73] Ashur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the dignity of king (rather than governor).[42] Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the pharaohs and the Hittite kings.[72]\n\nArchaeological evidence\n\nLittle archaeological finds have been discovered dating to the Old Assyrian period other than the trade archives at Kültepe. The lack of substantial finds at Assur is probably attributable to later Assyrian kings expanding and rebuilding portions of the city, which left few traces of the original Old Assyrian structures.[74] Surviving finds at Assur include a new phase of the city's Ishtar temple (dubbed Ishtar D), built during the preceding Early Assyrian period, as well as an early palace.[75] The new Ishtar temple measured 34 by 9.5 meters (112 by 31 ft) and was substantially larger than preceding temples at the site. This temple included a large rectangular cult room which worshipper entered from the side.[75]\n\nThe Old Assyrian palace at Assur, dubbed the Urplan Palace by archaeologists, was an enormous structure, measuring 98 by 112 meters (321.5 by 367.5 meters), and included a large central court surrounded by several smaller courts, though it appears to never have been completed.[75] The construction does not seem to have progressed beyond cutting foundation trenches, though some scant evidence suggests that some of these foundation trenches were later reused for a poorly known construction project during the reign of Shamshi-Adad I.[76]\n\nLittle evidence survives on non-monumental buildings in Assur.[45] Not a single house has been excavated, nor have any private archives of its citizens been discovered.[74] Over seventy graves are however known from the site, dated to between 2500 and 1500 BC. The graves differ in design and in how many bodies were buried, and include bodies placed in pits, large ceramic vessels and tombs with vaulted roofs built with stone or mudbrick. The vaulted tombs are of particular significance as the same type of tombs were later used by prominent Assyrian families to bury their dead collectively beneath their houses, illustrating that this was a long-lasting Assyrian tradition. Several of the tombs contain rich funeral gifts, including jewelry, seals, stone objects and weapons.[45]\n\nGovernment\n\nKingship and administration\n\nAssur in the Old Assyrian period was in many respects an oligarchy, where the king was a permanent, albeit not the only prominent, official in the city's politics.[45] Unlike in later Assyrian periods, the Assyrian kings of the Old Assyrian period are not thought to have been autocrats (i.e. rulers with sole power),[f] but rather they acted as the stewards of the city's god, Ashur, and presided over the meetings of the Ālum (city assembly),[24][76] Assur's main administrative body in this time.[80] The kings in the Old Assyrian period appears to have mainly functioned as the assembly's executive officers and chairmen. In documents from Kültepe, it is common to find mentions of \"the City\" (i.e. the city assembly) passing verdicts in judicial matters. Documents also however attest to rulers often being approached for legal advice, as they were seen as \"constitutional experts\".[80] Though the Assyrian kings themselves used the style Išši'ak, the citizens of Assur often referred to them with the style rubā’um (\"great one\"), clearly indicating authority and the status of being a primus inter pares (first among equals). Since the same title was used to refer to the kings in Anatolia, whom the Assyrians traded with, it also shows understanding of their king as a royal (and not simply civic or religious) figure.[81]\n\nThe composition of the city assembly is not known, but it is generally believed to have been made up of members of the most powerful families of the city,[45] many of whom were merchants.[30] From the time of Erishum I onwards,[74] a yearly office-holder, a limmu official, was elected from this body of citizens. The limmu official held substantial executive powers and gave their name to the year, which meant that their name appeared in all administrative documents of that year. Kings were usually the limmu officials in their first regnal years.[45] The city assembly is described to have convened either in a \"sacred precinct\" (ḫamrum) in the \"Step Gate\" (mušlālum) behind the temple of Ashur. In this sacred place, where oaths were also sworn, there were seven statues of divine judges. At other times, the assembly may have convened in a structure referred to in texts as the \"city hall\" (bēt ālim).[82] The city hall was run by the limmu official and was an important institution that managed the city's finances through collecting taxes and fines and also acted as a public warehouse, selling certain wares, such as barley and precious metals. On some wares, such as lapis lazuli and iron, the city all appears to have had a local monopoly.[83] Documents from Kültepe have shown that the verdicts of the local court, and thus possibly also the city assembly in Assur as well, during this time were reached by majority vote: the assembly was first divided into three groups and if no unamity was reached divided further into seven groups. A smaller group within the assembly, referred to as \"the Elders\" in a handful of texts, may have been the ones to finally pass verdicts.[82]\n\nAssur first experienced a more autocratic form of kingship under Shamshi-Adad I,[45] the earliest ruler of Assur during the Old Assyrian period to assume the style šarrum (king)[84] and the title 'king of the Universe'.[85] Shamshi-Adad appears to have based his more absolute form of kingship on the rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire.[86] In one of his royal inscriptions at Assur, Shamshi-Adad assumed the full style \"king of the Universe, builder of Assur's temple, pacifier of the land between Tigris and Euphrates\". In some inscriptions and seals this style was preceded by \"appointee of Enlil\" and/or succeeded by \"beloved of Ashur\". On inscribed bricks, used in the construction projects, Shamshi-Adad was more modest and assumed the for Assur more traditional style of ensí (the Sumerian version of the Assyrian Išši'ak) of Ashur.[87] Under Shamshi-Adad, Assyrians also swore their oaths by the king, not just by the god. This practice did not survive beyond his death.[88]\n\nRoyal seals\n\nRoyal seal of Sargon I (c. 1920-1881 BC)Incomplete royal seal of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1808-1776 BC)\n\nIn Ancient Mesopotamia, royal seals served as both instruments of office and personal seals for the kings.[89] Only four royal seals from the kings of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty are known, though only from their impressions, coming from Erishum I (two seals), Sargon I and Naram-Sin. With the sole exception of one of the seals of Erishum, found on a ceramic jar from Assur, they are all from the cuneiform tablets found at Kültepe.[90] The known seals of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty kings are highly consistent in content, both in the text and in the artwork. The inscriptions of the seals all include the name of the king, the title Išši'ak Aššur and further text establishing him as the son of the preceding king.[89] When compared to other seals of non-royal Assyrians in the Old Assyrian period, the motif itself-a goddess who is holding the hand of a bald man and leading him to a seated ruler with brimmed, rounded headgear-is not very distinctive and appears in other seals as well. An aspect that is distinctive when compared to the other seals is that there are no \"filler figures\" between the four primary figures depicted, making the space between them appear larger and the figures themselves stand out more.[91]\n\nIn terms of the artwork and the layout, the Puzur-Ashur dynasty seals are reminiscent of the seals of the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur,[89] though noticeable differences do exist, such as the presence of a second goddess behind the seated ruler, a very rare motif in both Ur III seals and in seals of non-royal Assyrians of the Old Assyrian period.[92] In Ur III seals, the seated ruler was the divinely ordained king of Ur, but as the rulers of Assur were not regarded as divine themselves, but rather as servants of Assur's true king, the god Ashur, this connotation would have been ideologically problematic. It is possible that the seated figure in the Puzur-Ashur dynasty seals should be interpreted as Ashur, with the bald servant being led before him by a goddess being the Assyrian king.[93] Though the seated figure is not given any other visual markers of divinity (such as horns or other non-human body features), the symbolism alone could not theologically be applied by the Old Assyrians to anyone but Ashur.[94]\n\nShamshi-Adad I retained in his more absolute kingship certain aspects of the royal ideology of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty as well and a mix of the traditions can be seen in his royal seals from Assur. The inscription designated him as \"Shamshi-Adad, beloved of Ashur, Išši'ak Aššur, son of Ila-kabkabu\", similar to the inscriptions of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty kings, but the visual depiction of Shamshi-Adad himself was noticeably different. Depicted with brimmed headgear, a full beard and one raised hand and one hand close to his body, Shamshi-Adad is in his seal more similar to the rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire than the preceding rulers of Assur. The middle portion of his seal is not known due to the fragmentary nature of all known surviving impressions, which means that it is impossible to determine whether a seated figure was depicted there or not.[86]\n\nSociety\n\nPopulation and culture\n\nThe distinct burial practices in Old Assyrian Assur suggests that a distinct Assyrian identity formed already in this period. Cultural practices such as burials, dress codes and foods are typically critical to the formation and maintenance of ethnic and cultural identities. Perhaps the distinct identity of the early city-state was reinforced by its frequent contact with foreigners through its trade network.[8] A verdict issued under one of the kings of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty decided that \"Assyrians can sell gold among each other but, in accordance with the words of the stele, no Assyrian whosoever shall give gold to an Akkadian,[g] Amorite or Subaraean\",[h] illustrating that the Assyrians viewed themselves as a distinct group.[95] Though Old Assyrian evidence concerning personal lives from Assur itself is limited, consisting of a few marriage contracts and wills, the extensive Old Assyrian cuneiform records found at Kültepe document not only the participation of the traders in the Assyrian trade network, but also their everyday life not only in Kültepe but also at home in Assur.[96]\n\nThere was no legal distinction between men and women during the Old Assyrian period and they had more or less the same legal rights.[95] Both men and women had to pay the same fines, could inherit property, participated in trade, bought, owned and sold houses and slaves, made their own last wills and were allowed to divorce their partners.[97] Society was instead divided into two main groups: slaves (subrum) and free citizens, referred to as awīlum (\"men\") or DUMU Aššur (\"sons of Ashur\"). Among the free citizens there was also a division into rabi (\"big\") and ṣaher (\"small\") members of the city assembly.[98]\n\nOld Assyrian families\n\nMarriages in Old Assyrian Assur were decided and arranged between the prospective groom or his family and the parents of the prospective bride; usually marriages took place at the time the bride-to-be reached adulthood.[97] Marriage gifts were customary; some texts mention that betrothals were broken off when no gifts were given. The dowry given to the bride belonged to her, not the husband, and was inherited by her children after her death. After the marriage was complete, wives moved in with their husbands, who were obliged to provide them with garments and food. Marriages were typically monogamous, but husbands were allowed to buy a female slave (sometimes chosen by the wife) in order to produce heirs in case his wife had not given birth to a child after being married for two or three years. This woman remained a slave, however, and was never seen as a second wife.[99] Old Assyrian families sometimes hired wet nurses (mušēniqtum), who were paid for their work. If a mother died, young children were entrusted to the care of other family members, such as her or her husband's grandparents or aunts and uncles.[100] Male and female children were raised differently. Girls typically lived with their mother, being taught to spin and weave and helping with daily tasks, whereas boys were taught by masters to read and write and then often followed their fathers to Anatolia to learn how to trade. The eldest daughter was sometimes consecrated to a god (presumably Ashur) as priestesses. Consecrated women were not allowed to marry but also became economically independent.[101]\n\nDuring the long trading journeys, the wives of Assyrian traders often stayed home alone in Assur, managing households and raising children.[95] Often they had to, as the heads of the household, oversee gathering food and supplies, repairing the house and providing clothing for the children. Sometimes they had to live with their in-laws, not always successfully.[100] Because the Assyrian traders in Anatolia could be away for long periods of time, they were allowed to take second wives in Anatolia. This arrangement had certain rules, including that the two wives could not be of the same status (one had to be the aššatum, \"main wife\", and the other the amtum, \"second wife\"), they could not both live in the same region (one had to live in Assur and the other in Anatolia) and a third wife in one of the trading posts in-between Assur and Anatolia was not allowed. Both wives also had to be provided with food, wood and a house to live in.[99] Children born of the \"second wife\" may have had less rights in regards to inheritance than those of the \"main wife\".[102]\n\nMost divorces recorded in the surviving texts were consensual and resulted from private discussions and arrangements. The high fines for divorce, up to 5 minas of silver, had to be paid by both the husband and wife and both were allowed to remarry afterwards. If a man grew to dislike his wife, he could return her to her family, but had to pay compensation. If the wife had behaved badly in some way, the husband could strip her of her possessions and chase her away. Divorces with the second wife in Anatolia were more common than divorces in Assur itself, resulting from their husbands retiring from trading and staying in Assur permanently. In these cases, the husband had to decide whether to take his children with him or not, and had to pay certain amounts of money depending on how many of the children he took. If a husband died, his children inherited his goods and had to take care of their mother. If there were no children, the wife kept her dowry for herself and was allowed to remarry. If the husband had written a will, his wife could also inherit his goods and estates.[103] If a man had died with unpaid debts, his sons became responsible for paying them before receiving their inheritance. Daughters held no responsibility for unpaid debts. Both sons and daughters, though primarily the sons, were responsible for caring for their elderly parents and after they died, were also responsible for organizing and paying for their funerals. After the funeral ceremony, there was an extended period of mourning. It was believed that the deceased lived on in the Ancient Mesopotamian underworld as ghosts and that they could appear in the dreams of their descendants. Deceased family members were often honored with prayers and offerings, a practice made easier since they were typically buried beneath the houses of their descendants and relatives.[104]\n\nSlavery\n\nSlavery was an important part of nearly every society in the Ancient Near East. In the Akkadian language, several terms were used for slaves, commonly wardum, though this term could confusingly also be used for (free) official servants, retainers and followers, soldiers and subjects of the king. Because many individuals designated as wardum in Old Assyrian texts are described as handling property and carrying out administrative tasks on behalf of their masters, many may have in actuality been free servants and not slaves in the common meaning of the term.[11] A number of wardum are however also recorded as being bought and sold.[105] All other terms used for slaves also had secondary or alternative meanings in other contexts:[105] for instance, the term subrum (used to refer to a collection of slaves)[106] could also mean utensils or livestock[105] and the term amtum (used for female slaves)[106] was the same word as the word used for second wives.[105] Another term that was sometimes used as a synonym for wardum was ṣuḫārum (female version ṣuḫārtum),[107] though this word could also be used to refer to a child.[105]\n\nThough Old Babylonian texts frequently mention the geographical and ethnic origin of slaves, there is only a single known such reference in Old Assyrian texts, a slave girl explicitly being referred to as Subaraean, indicating that these aspects were not seen as very important.[107] There were two main types of slaves: chattel slaves, primarily foreigners who were kidnapped or who were spoils of war, and debt slaves, formerly free men and women who had been unable to pay off their debts. Many chattel slaves were Anatolians who had originated as debt slaves but had lost their right to redemption.[108] In some cases, Assyrian children were seized by authorities due to the debts of their parents and sold off into slavery when their parents were unable to pay.[97] Children born to slave women automatically became slaves themselves,[109] unless some other arrangement had been agreed to.[106]\n\nOwning several slaves was considered a sign of wealth, similar to owning several houses; on average a male slave cost 30 shekels and a female slave 20 shekels. Typically slaves from Anatolia, where Assur had prominent trading colonies, were less expensive than slaves from Mesopotamia. Slaves were owned by both women and men, with many women being recorded as both purchasing and inheriting slaves of their own. Female slaves were tasked with cleaning, preparing meals and helping their owners in raising their children. At times, men engaged in sexual relations with their female slaves and they were sometimes forced to become pregnant and give birth to children on behalf of infertile owners. Some male slaves worked in the international trade as personnel in the trading caravans.[106] The major institutions in Assur, such as the city hall and temple of Ashur, owned slaves which were used for various maintenance duties. Slaves were sometimes sold to pay off debts,[106] and were sometimes taken by force by authorities as security for debts.[97]\n\nEconomy and trade\n\nA major portion of the Old Assyrian population appears to have been involved in the international trade[96] and it was largely organized around family businesses: every family member had specific tasks to perform and many professional relationships were founded in family ties. This is also reflected by the vocabulary used when referring to businesses; the boss, who often stayed at home in Assur and did not travel to the trading colonies, was typically referred to as abum (\"father\"), partners were called aḫum (\"brothers\") and employees were called ṣūḫārū (younger family members). Enterprises were often called bētum (\"house\").[110] As can be gathered from hiring contracts and other records, the trade involved people of many different occupations, including porters, guides, donkey drivers, agents, traders, bakers and bankers.[106] In family-run businesses, the eldest son was typically the one to move to Kültepe and other trading colonies whereas the father stayed at home. The other sons, if there were any, could also be settled in the colonies and often helped with transporting the goods themselves. Women were also part of the businesses, particularly through weaving the textiles that their male relatives then sold.[111] The women themselves received the gold or silver payment for these textiles and could in many transactions represent their husbands and brothers.[112] Sons could after their father's deaths either inherit their father's business or choose to start their own enterprises.[111]\n\nSome of the most common cuneiform tablets recovered from Kültepe are loan contracts, both within the Assyrian community or between the Assyrian traders and the locals. Non-commercial loans often consisted of small quantities of silver and were given out with interest; this interest amounted to 30% every year for Assyrians, though it was higher for the locals in the trading colonies. Loans usually had to be paid back within a short timespan, typically within a year, and successful repayment was marked by the loan contractor returning the cuneiform tablet recording the loan, sometimes alongside a receipt.[113]\n\nCuisine and diet\n\nEvidence of what the citizens of Assur itself ate during the Old Assyrian period is very limited, consisting only of a few mentions in letters of wives buying barley and preparing bread and beer. By and large, food was prepared by the women. More detailed records of food are available from the cuneiform records at Kültepe, which establish that bread and beer were the main food and drink products (water as well, though this was taken for granted and is thus typically not mentioned in the texts). Two varieties of bread were eaten; sourdough bread and bread made only with water and flour. Animal fat and sesame oil were sometimes used in cooking. To enhance flavors, honey was sometimes added as a sweetener, and common herbs and spices included salt, cumin, coriander and mustard. Meat, often grilled or in stews, was also eaten, with records of Assyrians eating sheep, oxen, pork, shrimp and fish. Animals were often killed at home, but it was also possible to purchase pre-cut pieces of meat, either in Assur or by traders along the travel routes.[114]\n\nThough beer and water were the primary drinks, the preserved texts also demonstrate a great appreciation for wine,[114] seen as a luxury commodity and called kerānum or, more rarely, karānum in Assyrian.[115] Wine was mainly made from grapes grown in Cappadocia,[114] though other sources existed as well, such as southern Anatolia or certain sites alongside the Euphrates river or Taurus Mountains.[116] When they drank beer, Assyrians typically also ate beer bread, made of crushed barley.[114] In certain situations, consumption of beer appears to have been formalized; the cuneiform texts found at Kültepe indicate that Old Assyrian traders bought and consumed beer when buying an animal, completing a journey, crossing a river, and when arranging meetings with important officials. It is also clear that guards and toll officials were paid not only in money, but were also regularly offered gifts such as beer. Wine appears to have been consumed in some ritualistic contexts, such as when swearing an oath to a deity.[117]\n\nLanguage\n\nThe language used to inscribe the Assyrian tablets found in central Anatolia is generally referred to as Old Assyrian,[22][118] a Semitic language (i.e. related to modern Hebrew and Arabic) closely related to Babylonian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia.[42] Both Assyrian and Babylonian are generally regarded by modern scholars to be distinct dialects of the Akkadian language.[8][42][119][120] This is a modern convention as contemporary ancient authors considered Assyrian and Babylonian to be two separate languages;[120] only Babylonian was referred to as akkadûm, with Assyrian being referred to as aššurû or aššurāyu.[121] Though both were written with cuneiform script, the signs look quite different and can be distinguished relatively easily.[42]\n\nOld Assyrian texts are for the most part limited to the early portion of the period, before the \"Dark Age\" from the 18th century BC onwards.[121] The signs used in the texts from these times are for the most part less complex than those used during the succeeding Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods and they were fewer in number, amounting to no more than 150-200 unique signs,[122] most of which were syllabic signs (representing syllables).[118] As letters sometimes include awkwardly shaped signs and spelling mistakes, it is likely that most preserved Old Assyrian texts were written by the authors themselves (and not hired scribes). Since some such letters are by women, it is evident that at least some women learned to read and write.[122] Due to the limited number of signs used, Old Assyrian is relatively easier to decipher for modern researchers than later forms of the language, though the limited number of signs also means that there are in cases several possible alternative phonetic values and readings.[118][123] This means that while it is easy to decipher the signs, many researchers remain uncomfortable with the language itself.[123] Though it was a more archaic variant of the later Assyrian language,[123] Old Assyrian also contains several words that are not attested in later periods, some being peculiar early forms of words and others being names for commercial terms or various textile and food products from Anatolia.[124]\n\nCalendar\n\nLike the calendars used by the early Egyptians and Arabs, the Old and Middle Assyrian calendar consisted of twelve months, each allotted three constellations (one constellation corresponding to a period of ten days). In Assyria, the months were named Ab sharrāni, Khubur, Ṣippum, Qarrātum, Tanmarta, Ti'inātum (or Sîn), Kuzallu, Allanātum, Bēlti-ekallim, Narmak Ashur sha sarrātim, Narmak Ashur sha kinātim and Makhur ilī. Several of the names demonstrate the astronomical origin of the calendar. For instance, Tanmarta was also used to refer to the heliacal rising of the star Sirius, Bēlti-ekallim was also the name of a goddess who was represented in the sky by the star Vega, and the name of the final month, Makhur ilī, means \"meeting of the gods\", probably in reference to conjunction of the moon and the Pleiades star cluster in the sky during this time.[125] The Assyrian calendar must have started in the autumn, at the time when the farmers ploughed the fields, sometime between September 23 (the September equinox) and December 21 (the winter solstice).[126]\n\nThe Old and Middle Assyrian calendar was not without its problems.[127] An extra week, a time-unit referred to as ḫamuštum, had to be added to the twelve thirty-day months. This appears to have normally been done in the form of adding an extra full month every four years.[126] Furthermore, eponym years did not always begin with the change of a year, but instead often coincided with stellar phenomena. If an eponym ended in the middle of a month, the next eponym also started with that month which means that sometimes the same month was repeated. As a result of its issues, the seasons over time moved backwards through the months of the Assyrian calendar by the speed of about one month every 120 years. In the 13th century BC, during the Middle Assyrian period, King Shalmaneser I had to adjust and correct the calendar, moving the months back to their original intended position.[127]\n\nReligion\n\nThe Assyrians worshipped the same pantheon of gods as the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia.[119] As known Old Assyrian texts are concerned mainly with trade, knowledge of Assyrian religion in the Old Assyrian period is not as detailed as in later periods.[128] The chief deity in Assur in the Old Assyrian period, and in later times as well, was the Assyrian national deity Ashur.[129][130] Though the deity and the city are commonly distinguished by modern historians through calling the god Ashur and the city Assur, both were inscribed in the exact same way in ancient times (Aššur). Because Old Assyrian documents sometimes appear to not differentiate between the city and the god, it is believed that Ashur is a deified personification of the city itself. Perhaps the site of the city, originating as a holy site prior to the city's construction and settled due to its strategic location came to gradually be regarded as divine in its own right at some point in the preceding Early Assyrian period.[13] Ashur's role as a deity was flexible and changed with the changing culture and politics of the Assyrians themselves. Though he would in later centuries be regarded as a god of war, guiding the Assyrian kings on their campaigns, he was in Old Assyrian times seen as a god of death and revival, related to agriculture.[131]\n\nOne of Ashur's main functions was also justice: it was believed that anyone who gave false testimony or unjust judgement in court would be struck down by \"Ashur's dagger\" (Patrum ša Aššur),[132][133] a weapon Assyrians had to take oaths on.[128][133] Women also took oaths on the \"tambourine (huppum) of Ishtar\".[128][133] Both of these objects were likely physical divine emblems in Assur.[133] The temples dedicated to Ashur in both Assur and the Assyrian trading colonies evidently included statues of the god and representations of his divine objects since one of the preserved texts describe thieves breaking into the Ashur temple in Kültepe and stealing Assur's dagger and a sun-disc that was placed on his chest.[133]\n\nAshur is frequently alluded to in surviving Old Assyrian texts and inscriptions. Assyrian texts from Kültepe show that Assyrians swore their oaths by \"the City and the prince\" or \"the City and the lord\", \"prince\" and \"lord\" probably meaning Ashur. In several texts, family members at home in Assur wrote to the traders in Kültepe that they ought to return to Assur and \"come and see the eye of Ashur\" or \"seize Ashur's foot\", suggesting that the god disapproved of his subjects leaving his city for too long periods of time only for the sake of monetary gain, even though there were sanctuaries dedicated to Ashur in all of the trading colonies as well.[134] Women were evidently greatly concerned with religion, recorded as making offerings, paying tribute to the gods and reminding their husbands of their duties to the gods.[128] In one text, two women wrote the following message to the prominent trader Imdu-ilum:[134]\n\nAshur warned you over and over again. You love money, (but) neglect your soul; can you not do Ashur's will in the City! Urgent! When you hear this message come and see Ashur's eye and save your soul![134]\n\nIn addition to Ashur, other prominent gods worshipped by the Assyrians of the Old period included the Sumerian weather-god Enlil, possibly because the weather-god had held a prominent role in the Hurrian pantheon. More prominent than Enlil was the Semitic weather-god Adad, whose name was also incorporated into about one tenth of the names of known individuals of the period. Equally prominent as Adad was the moon-god Sîn, whose name was also incorporated into about a tenth of all known Old Assyrian individuals, and who in later times became one of the major patron deities of the Assyrian royal family. Though names with Sîn are common, the presence of the name \"Laban\" in some Old Assyrian names indicates that Sîn was also sometimes worshipped under that name, otherwise used for him in the region corresponding to modern Lebanon.[136] Another prominent deity was the goddess Ishtar,[137] who had been worshipped at Assur since early in the preceding Early Assyrian period and was probably the original primary deity of the settlement.[138]\n\nFew texts of purely religious nature (i.e. not just allusions in other texts) are known from the Old Assyrian period. Known Assyrian religious texts from this time include a poem describing an evil demon, the daughter of the sky-god Anu who was cast down to Earth by her father due to her evil schemes. This demon worked in mankind's favor, attacking those who behaved against the will of the gods and weakening dangerous animals, such as lions. Another text, specifically related to merchant activities, discusses a demon in the shape of a black dog who lies in wait for merchant caravans. This demon was possibly related in some form to the water-god Enki and might have embodied thirst.[130]\n\nSee also\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nNotes\n\n^ The Old Assyrian period is generally regarded to end with the accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC; the commonly used date is the end of the reign of his predecessor, Eriba-Adad I, c. 1364 BC (Assyrian regnal years were generally counted from the first full year as king).\n\n^ Assur was not independent throughout the entire Old Assyrian period. In the 18th century BC, Assur was incorporated into the short-lived Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia under the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I, ruled from Shubat-Enlil.[1] After Shamshi-Adad's death, Assur briefly remained under the control of his family, then ruling from Ekallatum.[2] At times, Assur also fell under the control of Mari, Elam and Babylon.[3] Later, c. 1430-1360 BC, Assur became a vassal state of the western Mitanni kingdom.[4]\n\n^ Where applicable, this article follows the conventionally used middle chronology of Mesopotamian history\n\n^ The Old Assyrian period is sometimes alternatively defined as covering a shorter timespan, from Puzur-Ashur I to the death of Ishme-Dagan I c. 1765 BC. After Ishme-Dagan's death, Assyria entered into a \"Dark Age\" lasting until the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period, with few known surviving sources.[5] In this division scheme, the period between the shortened Old Assyrian period and the Middle Assyrian period is sometimes referred to as the \"Transition period\".[6]\n\n^ The name is alternatively read as \"Kidin-Ninua\", \"under the protection of (the deity of) Nineveh\", a name also with obscure political implications.[65]\n\n^ In this respect, the Urplan Palace appears to be somewhat at odds with the role of the kings.[76] It is possible that the palace was constructed under the more autocratic Shamshi-Adad I, but that would place it at a later point in time than it is conventionally dated.[45]\n\n^ Here referring to the people of southern Mesopotamia.[95]\n\n^ The Hurrians who lived north of Assur.[95]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f Garfinkle 2007, p. 67.\n\n^ a b Reade 2001, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, pp. 66, 68.\n\n^ a b c d e Düring 2020, p. 42.\n\n^ Veenhof 2003, p. 58.\n\n^ a b Yamada 2017, p. 108.\n\n^ a b Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 19.\n\n^ a b c d Düring 2020, p. 39.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 21.\n\n^ Nemirovsky, A (12 September 2020). Fast Way Upstairs: Transformation of Assyrian Hereditary Rulership in the Late Bronze Age. Springer International Publishing. p. 142. ISBN 9783030514372. Retrieved 22 May 2022.\n\n^ a b de Ridder 2017, p. 49.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 81, 84.\n\n^ a b Lambert 1983, pp. 82-85.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 5.\n\n^ Roux 1992, p. 187.\n\n^ Aubet 2013, p. 276.\n\n^ Veenhof 2003, p. 59.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 57.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 59.\n\n^ a b c Lewy 1971, p. 754.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 20.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 33.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 60.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015, p. 3.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 62.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, pp. 756-758.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 758.\n\n^ a b Lendering 2006.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1971, pp. 758-759.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 61.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Chen 2020, p. 198.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1971, p. 761.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 63.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 762.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1971, p. 740.\n\n^ a b c d e f Düring 2020, p. 34.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 63.\n\n^ Düring 2020, pp. 35-36.\n\n^ a b Garfinkle 2007, p. 66.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 64.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 65.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2015, p. 2.\n\n^ a b c d e Veenhof 2017, p. 65.\n\n^ Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 115.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Düring 2020, p. 38.\n\n^ a b c d e Veenhof 2017, p. 66.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 25.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 68.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Garfinkle 2007, p. 69.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 68.\n\n^ a b Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 30.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, pp. 109-110.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, p. 109.\n\n^ a b c d Reade 2001, p. 6.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 750.\n\n^ a b c Yamada 2017, p. 112.\n\n^ Chavalas 1994, p. 120.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 749.\n\n^ Reade 2001, p. 7.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 81.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 191.\n\n^ Brinkman 1998, p. 288.\n\n^ a b Reade 2001, p. 8.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 91.\n\n^ a b c d Yamada 2017, p. 113.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 748.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, p. 110.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, pp. 41-42.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, p. 114.\n\n^ Düring 2020, pp. 42-43.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 70.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 43.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, p. 115.\n\n^ a b c Veenhof 2017, p. 58.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 36.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 37.\n\n^ Chen 2020, pp. 197-199.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. xvi.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, pp. 81, 85, 89, 91, 92, 104.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 70.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 71.\n\n^ a b Veenhof 2017, p. 72.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 73.\n\n^ Chavalas 1994, p. 117.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 103.\n\n^ a b Eppihimer 2013, p. 49.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, pp. 66, 70.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 74.\n\n^ a b c Eppihimer 2013, p. 37.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 36.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 38.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 40.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 43.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 44.\n\n^ a b c d e Michel 2017, p. 81.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 80.\n\n^ a b c d Michel 2017, p. 84.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 81, 83.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 85.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 88.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 88-89.\n\n^ Michel 2017, p. 86.\n\n^ Michel 2017, p. 87.\n\n^ Michel 2017, p. 90.\n\n^ a b c d e de Ridder 2017, p. 50.\n\n^ a b c d e f Michel 2017, p. 83.\n\n^ a b de Ridder 2017, p. 51.\n\n^ de Ridder 2017, p. 56.\n\n^ de Ridder 2017, p. 57.\n\n^ Michel 2017, p. 91.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 92.\n\n^ Michel 2017, p. 94.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 92-93.\n\n^ a b c d Michel 2017, pp. 96-97.\n\n^ Barjamovic & Fairbairn 2018, pp. 249, 251.\n\n^ Barjamovic & Fairbairn 2018, p. 250.\n\n^ Barjamovic & Fairbairn 2018, pp. 256-257.\n\n^ a b c Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 315.\n\n^ a b Garfinkle 2007, p. 54.\n\n^ a b Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 313.\n\n^ a b Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 314.\n\n^ a b Michel 2017, p. 100.\n\n^ a b c Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 111.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 112.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 769.\n\n^ a b Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 238.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1971, p. 770.\n\n^ a b c d Michel 2017, p. 99.\n\n^ Lambert 1983, p. 83.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1971, p. 763.\n\n^ Breasted 1926, p. 164.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 766.\n\n^ a b c d e Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 103.\n\n^ a b c Lewy 1971, p. 764.\n\n^ \"Cylinder seal British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, pp. 766-768.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 767.\n\n^ Mallowan 1971, p. 300.\n\nBibliography\n\nAubet, Maria Eugenia (2013). Commerce and Colonization in the Ancient Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51417-0.\n\nBarjamovic, Gojko; Fairbairn, Andrew (2018). \"Anatolian Wine in the Middle Bronze Age\". Die Welt des Orients. 48 (2): 249-284. doi:10.13109/wdor.2018.48.2.249. JSTOR 26606978. S2CID 167103254.\n\nBertman, Stephen (2003). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\nBreasted, James Henry (1926). The Conquest of Civilization. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. OCLC 653024.\n\nBrinkman, J. A. (1998). K. Radner (ed.). The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Volume 1, Part II: B-G. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.\n\nChavalas, Mark (1994). \"Genealogical History as \"Charter\": A Study of Old Babylonian Period Historiography and the Old Testament\". In Millard, A. R.; Hoffmeier, James K.; Baker, David W. (eds.). Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 0-931464-82-X.\n\nChen, Fei (2020). Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-43091-4.\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-47874-8.\n\nEppihimer, Melissa (2013). \"Representing Ashur: The Old Assyrian Rulers' Seals and Their Ur III Prototype\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 72 (1): 35-49. doi:10.1086/669098. JSTOR 10.1086/669098. S2CID 162825616.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"Introduction\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nGarfinkle, Steven J. (2007). \"The Assyrians: A New Look at an Ancient Power\". In Rubio, Gonzalo; Garfinkle, Steven J.; Beckman, Gary; Snell, Daniel C.; Chavalas, Mark W. (eds.). Current Issues and the Study of the Ancient Near East. Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians. Claremont: Regina Books. ISBN 978-1-930053-46-5.\n\nLambert, W. G. (1983). \"The God Aššur\". Iraq. 45 (1): 82-86. doi:10.2307/4200181. JSTOR 4200181. S2CID 163337976.\n\nLendering, Jona (2006). \"The Assyrian King List\". Livius. Retrieved 29 May 2021.\n\nLewy, Hildegard (1971). \"Assyria c. 2600-1816 BC\". In Edwards, I. E. S.; Gadd, C. J.; Hammond, N. G. L. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume I Part 2: Early History of the Middle East (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07791-5.\n\nLuukko, Mikko; Van Buylaere, Greta (2017). \"Languages and Writing Systems in Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nMallowan, Max E. L. (1971). \"The Early Dynastic Period in Mesopotamia\". In Edwards, I. E. S.; Gadd, C. J.; Hammond, N. G. L. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume I Part 2: Early History of the Middle East (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07791-5.\n\nMichel, Cécile (2017). \"Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Old Assyrian Period\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nVan De Mieroop, Marc (2016). A History of the Ancient Near East (3rd ed.). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.\n\nReade, J. E. (2001). \"Assyrian King-Lists, the Royal Tombs of Ur, and Indus Origins\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 60 (1): 1-29. doi:10.1086/468883. JSTOR 545577. S2CID 161480780.\n\nde Ridder, Jacob Jan (2017). \"Slavery in Old Assyrian Documents\". In Kulakoğlu, Fikri; Barjamovic, Gojko (eds.). Subartu XXXIX: Kültepe International Meetings, Vol. II: Movement, Resources, Interaction. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-2-503-57522-3.\n\nRoux, Georges (1992). Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-012523-8.\n\nVeenhof, Klaas R. (2003). The Old Assyrian List of Year Eponyms from Karum Kanish and its Chronological Implications. Ankara: Turkish Historical Society. ISBN 979-975161546-5.\n\nVeenhof, Klaas R.; Eidem, Jesper (2008). Mesopotamia: The Old Assyrian Period. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis. Göttingen: Academic Press Fribourg. ISBN 978-3-7278-1623-9.\n\nVeenhof, Klaas R. (2017). \"The Old Assyrian Period (20th-18th century BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nYamada, Shiego (2017). \"The Transition Period (17th to 15th century BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-old-assyrian-period"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12023}, {"slug": "reference-middle-assyrian-empire", "title": "Middle Assyrian Empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Middle Assyrian Empire was the third stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of Assyria from the accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC and the rise of Assyria as a territorial kingdom[1] to the death of Ashur-dan II in 912 BC.[a] The Middle Assyrian Empire was...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Middle Assyrian Empiremāt Aššur\n\nc. 1363 BC-912 BC\n\nApproximate map of the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height in the 13th century BC\n\nCapitalAssur\n(c. 1363-1233 BC)\nKar-Tukulti-Ninurta\n(c. 1233-1207 BC)\nAssur\n(c. 1207-912 BC)\n\nCommon languagesAkkadian, Hurrian, Amorite, Aramaic\n\nReligion Ancient Mesopotamian religion\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nNotable kings \n\n• c. 1363-1328 BC Ashur-uballit I (first)\n\n• c. 1305-1274 BC Adad-nirari I\n\n• c. 1273-1244 BC Shalmaneser I\n\n• c. 1243-1207 BC Tukulti-Ninurta I\n\n• c. 1191-1179 BC Ninurta-apal-Ekur\n\n• 1132-1115 BC Ashur-resh-ishi I\n\n• 1114-1076 BC Tiglath-Pileser I\n\n• 934-912 BC Ashur-dan II (last)\n\nHistorical eraBronze and Iron Age\n\n• Accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC\n\n• First period of expansion c. 1305-1207 BC\n\n• First period of decline c. 1206-1115 BC\n\n• Second period of expansion 1114-1056 BC\n\n• Second period of decline 1055-935 BC\n\n• Death of Ashur-dan II 912 BC\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nOld Assyrian period\n\nMitanni\n\nKassite dynasty\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nToday part ofIraq\nSyria\nTurkey\nIran\n\nThe Middle Assyrian Empire was the third stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of Assyria from the accession of Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC and the rise of Assyria as a territorial kingdom[1] to the death of Ashur-dan II in 912 BC.[a] The Middle Assyrian Empire was Assyria's first period of ascendancy as an empire. Though the empire experienced successive periods of expansion and decline, it remained the dominant power of northern Mesopotamia throughout the period. In terms of Assyrian history, the Middle Assyrian period was marked by important social, political and religious developments, including the rising prominence of both the Assyrian king and the Assyrian national deity Ashur.\n\nThe Middle Assyrian Empire was founded through Assur, a city-state through most of the preceding Old Assyrian period, and the surrounding territories achieving independence from the Mitanni kingdom. Under Ashur-uballit, Assyria began to expand and assert its place as one of the great powers of the Ancient Near East. This aspiration chiefly came into fruition through the efforts of the kings Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305-1274 BC), Shalmaneser I (r. c. 1273-1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243-1207 BC), under whom Assyria expanded to for a time become the dominant power in Mesopotamia. The reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I marked the height of the Middle Assyrian Empire and included the subjugation of Babylonia and the foundation of a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, though it was abandoned after his death. Though Assyria was left largely unscathed by the direct effects of the Late Bronze Age collapse of the 12th century BC, the Middle Assyrian Empire began to experience a significant period of decline roughly at the same time. The assassination of Tukulti-Ninurta I c. 1207 BC led to inter-dynastic conflict and a significant decline in Assyrian power.\n\nEven during its period of decline, Middle Assyrian kings continued to be assertive geopolitically; both Ashur-dan I (r. c. 1178-1133 BC) and Ashur-resh-ishi I (r.  1132-1115 BC) campaigned against Babylonia. Under Ashur-resh-ishi I's son and successor Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BC), the Middle Assyrian Empire experienced a period of resurgence, owing to wide-ranging campaigns and conquests. Tiglath-Pileser's armies marched as far from the Assyrian heartland as the Mediterranean. Though the reconquered and newly conquered lands were held on to for some time, the empire experienced a second and more catastrophic period of decline after the death of Tiglath-Pileser's son Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1073-1056 BC), which saw the loss of most of the empire's territories outside of its heartlands, partly due to invasions by Aramean tribes. Assyrian decline began to be reversed again under Ashur-dan II (r.  934-912 BC), who campaigned extensively in the peripheral regions of the Assyrian heartland. The successes of Ashur-dan II and his immediate successors in restoring Assyrian rule over the empire's former lands, and in time going far beyond them, is used by modern historians to mark the transition from the Middle Assyrian Empire to the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire.\n\nTheologically, the Middle Assyrian period saw important transformations of the role of Ashur. Having originated as a deified personification of the city of Assur itself sometime centuries earlier in the Early Assyrian period, Ashur in the Middle Assyrian period became equated with the old Sumerian head of the pantheon, Enlil, and was as a result of Assyrian expansionism and warfare transformed from a primarily agricultural god into a military one. The transition of Assyria from a city-state into an empire also had important administrative and political consequences. While the Assyrian rulers of the Old Assyrian period had governed with the title iššiak (\"governor\") jointly with a city assembly made up of influential figures from Assur, the Middle Assyrian kings were autocratic rulers who used the title šar (\"king\") and sought equal status to the monarchs of other empires. The transition into an empire also led to the development of various necessary systems, such as a sophisticated road system, various administrative divisions of territory and a complex web of royal administrators and officials.\n\nHistory\n\nFormation and rise\n\nAssyria became an independent territorial state under Ashur-uballit I c. 1363 BC, having previously been under the suzerainty of the Mitanni kingdom.[1] Though the transition of Assyria from being merely a city-state around Assur (as it was throughout most of the preceding Old Assyrian period) had begun already in the last few decades under Mittani suzerainty,[4][5] it is the independence achieved under Ashur-uballit, as well as Ashur-uballit's conquests of nearby territories, such as the fertile region between the Tigris, the foothills of the Taurus Mountains and the Upper Zab, which modern historians use to mark the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period.[1]\n\nAshur-uballit was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar (\"king\"),[5] and the first ruler of Assur to do so since the time of the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I in the 18th century BC.[6] Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the pharaohs and the Hittite kings.[1] Ashur-uballit's claim to be a great king meant that he also embedded himself in the ideological implications of that role; a great king was expected to expand the borders of his realm to incorporate \"uncivilized\" territories, ideally eventually ruling the entire world. On account of political realism however, the true situation was most often diplomacy with adversaries of equal rank, such as Babylonia, and conquest only of smaller and military inferior states in the near vicinity.[6] Ashur-uballit's reign was often regarded by later generations of Assyrians as the true birth of Assyria.[6] The term \"land of Ashur\" (māt Aššur), i.e. designating Assyria as comprising a larger kingdom, is first attested as being used in his time.[7]\n\nThe rise of Assyria was intertwined with the decline and collapse of its former suzerain, Mitanni.[8] Assyria was subjugated by Mittani c. 1430 BC, and as such spent about 70 years under Mitanni rule.[9] Chiefly responsible for bringing an end to Mitanni dominance in northern Mesopotamia was the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I, whose 14th century BC war with Mitanni over control of Syria effectively led to the beginning of the end of the Mitanni kingdom.[10][11] It was in this struggle for supremacy and hegemony that Ashur-uballit secured independence.[1] The Mittani-Hittite conflict was preceded by a period of weakness in the Mitanni kingdom; the heir to the Mitanni throne, Artashumara, was murdered in the 14th century BC, which led to the accession of the otherwise minor figure Tushratta. Tushratta's rise to power led to internal conflict within the Mittani kingdom as different factions vied with each other to depose him.[8] During the wars that followed Tushratta's accession, multiple rivals came to rule Mitanni, such as Artatama II and Shuttarna III. The Assyrians sometimes fought them and sometimes allied with them. Shuttarna III secured Assyrian support, but had to pay heavily for it in silver and gold.[12]\n\nAshur-uballit, doubtlessly watching the conflict between Mitanni and the Hittites closely out of interest in expanding Assyria, directed much of his attention to the lands south of his realm. Successful campaigns were directed against both Arrapha and Nuzi, which was destroyed by Assyrian troops in the 1330s BC or before. Neither city was formally incorporated into Assyria; the Assyrian army probably withdrew to the Little Zab, allowing Babylonia to conquer the sites. In the centuries to come, Assyrian kings often found themselves as rivals of the Babylonian kings. Ashur-uballit himself did not wish to engage in long-lasting conflicts with the Babylonians, clearly illustrated since he married his daughter Muballitat-Serua to the Babylonian king Burnaburiash II.[12] Prior to achieving peace, Burnaburiash had been a prominent enemy of the Assyrians. At one point, he had attempted to tarnish Assyrian diplomatic and trade relations with Egypt by sending a letter to the pharaoh Akhenaten wherein he falsely claimed that the Assyrians were his vassals.[13] After several years of peaceful co-existence between Assyria and Babylonia, the Babylonian king Kara-hardash, son of Burnaburiash and Muballitat-Serua, was overthrown. Muballitat-Serua was most likely killed at the same time, which prompted Ashur-uballit to march south and restore order. The usurper who had taken Babylonia in the meantime, Nazi-Bugash, was overthrown and replaced by the Assyrians with Kurigalzu II, another son of Burnaburiash.[12]\n\nAshur-uballit's successors Enlil-nirari (r. c. 1327-1318 BC) and Arik-den-ili (r. c. 1317-1306 BC) were less successful than Ashur-uballit in expanding and consolidating Assyrian power, and as such the new kingdom developed somewhat haltingly and remained fragile.[14] Kurigalzu did not remain loyal to the Assyrians and instead fought with Enlil-nirari. His treason and betrayal resulted in deep trauma, still referenced in Assyrian writings concerning diplomacy and wars against Babylonia more than a century later; it was seen by many later Assyrians as the starting point of the historical enmity between the two civilizations. At one point, Kurigalzu reached as far into the Assyrian lands as Sugagu, a settlement located only a day's journey from Assur. Although the Assyrians drove him away,[b] an incursion this deep into the Assyrian heartland left an impression on the Assyrians, who in future conflicts often focused on Babylonian border outposts along the eastern Tigris river as a preventive measure.[15]\n\nFirst period of expansion and consolidation\n\nReigns of Adad-nirari I and Shalmaneser I\n\nUnder the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305-1274 BC), Shalmaneser I (r. c. 1273-1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243-1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming a significant regional power.[16] Though the other powers of the Ancient Near East, such as Egypt, the Hittites and Babylonia, had at first been reluctant to view the new Assyrian kingdom as their equal, from the time of Adad-nirari I onwards, when Assyria grew to take the place of Mitanni, its status as one of the major kingdoms became undeniable.[1] Adad-nirari I was the first Assyrian king to march against the remnants of the Mitanni kingdom[16] and the first Assyrian king to include lengthy narratives of his campaigns in his royal inscriptions.[17] Adad-nirari early in his reign defeated Shattuara I of Mitanni and forced him to pay tribute to Assyria as a vassal ruler.[17] Given that the Assyrian army extensively plundered and destroyed portions of Mitanni during this campaign, it is unlikely that there at this point were any plans to outright annex and consolidate the Mitanni lands.[16] Sometime later, Shattuara's son Wasashatta rebelled against the Assyrians, though was defeated by Adad-nirari who, as punishment, annexed several cities alongside the Khabur river. At Taite, a former Mitanni capital, Adad-nirari constructed a royal palace for himself.[17]\n\nThe primary focus of Adad-nirari was the conquest and/or pacification of Babylonia. Not only did Babylonia present a more immediate threat, but conquering southern Mesopotamia would also be more prestigious.[16] Through military focus on Babylonian border towns, such as Lubdi and Rapiqu, it is clear that Adad-nirari's ultimate goal was to subdue the Babylonians and achieve hegemony over all of Mesopotamia.[18] Adad-nirari's temporary occupations of Lubdi and Rapiqu were met with an attack by the Babylonian king Nazi-Maruttash, though Adad-nirari defeated him at the Battle of Kār Ištar c. 1280 BC and the Assyro-Babylonian border was redrawn in Assyria's favor.[19] Under Adad-nirari's son Shalmaneser I, Assyrian campaigns against its neighbors and equals intensified. According to his own inscriptions, Shalmaneser conquered eight countries (likely minor states) in the first year of his reign. Among the sites captured was the fortress Arinnu, which Shalmaneser razed to the ground and turned into dust. Some of the dust from Arinnu was collected and symbolically brought back to Assur.[20]\n\nAfter the new Mitanni king Shattuara II rebelled against Assyrian authority, assisted by the Hittites,[20] further campaigns were conducted against Mitanni in order to suppress the resistance.[16] Shalmaneser's campaign against Mitanni was a great success; the Mitanni capital of Washukanni was sacked[20] and, realizing that the Mitanni lands were clearly not controllable through allowing the local rulers to continue to govern as vassals, the kingdom's lands were with some reluctance annexed into the Assyrian kingdom.[16] The lands were not annexed directly into the royal domains, but rather placed under the rule of a viceroy who bore the title of grand vizier and king of Hanigalbat.[16][21] The first such ruler was Shalmaneser's brother, Ibashi-ili, whose descendants later continued to occupy the position.[21][22] This arrangement, placing the Mitanni lands under the rule of a lesser branch of the royal family, suggests that the Assyrian elites in the heartland had only a marginal interest in the new conquests.[16] Though Shalmaneser boasted of brutal acts against the defeated Mitanni armies, in one inscription claiming to have blinded over 14,000 prisoners of war, he was also one of the first Assyrian kings to take prisoners in the first place instead of simply executing captured enemies. Adad-nirari was also a great builder; among his most significant construction projects was the construction of the city of Nimrud, a highly significant site in later Assyrian history.[20]\n\nUnder Shalmaneser, the Assyrians also conducted significant campaigns against the Hittites. Already in the time of Adad-nirari, Assyrian envoys had been treated poorly at the court of the Hittite king Mursili III. When Mursili's successor Hattusili III reached out to Shalmaneser in an attempt to forge an alliance, probably due to recent losses against Egypt, he was insultingly rejected and called a \"substitute of a great king\".[19] The strained relations between the two empires sometimes erupted into war; Shalmaneser warred several times against Hittite vassal states in the Levant. The hostilities reached their zenith under Shalmaneser's son and successor Tukulti-Ninurta I, who defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC. The Hittite defeat at Nihriya marked the beginning of the end of their influence in northern Mesopotamia.[23]\n\nReign of Tukulti-Ninurta I\n\nShalmaneser I's son Tukulti-Ninurta I became king c. 1243 BC.[24] He had, according to historian Stefan Jakob, \"an unconditional will to create something that would last forever\"[23] and his wide-ranging conquests brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.[16] Even before he became king, neighboring kingdoms had been wary of his accession; when he assumed the throne, the Hittite king Tudḫaliya IV sent him a letter of congratulations but secretly also sent a letter to the Assyrian grand vizier Babu-aha-iddina in which he implored the vizier to dissuade Tukulti-Ninurta from attacking the Hittite territories in the mountains northwest of Assyria and to work on improving relations. Tudḫaliya's letter did little to dissuade him, who saw through the empty flatteries and attacked and conquered the lands in question in his first few years as king. According to his inscriptions, the conquest was widely celebrated as one of his outstanding early achievements.[23]\n\nLike his predecessors, Tukulti-Ninurta's main focus was on Babylonia. His first act in regard to his southern neighbor, Kashtiliash IV, was to escalate conflict through claiming \"traditionally Assyrian\" lands along the eastern Tigris.[23] Tukulti-Ninurta shortly thereafter invaded Babylonia through what modern historians generally regard to be an unprovoked attack. In the contemporary Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, a propaganda epic used to justify his exploits, the king is described as acting according to divine order against Kashtiliash, who is described as vile ruler, abandoned by the gods. In the text, he is accused of various atrocities, including attacking Assyria, violating temples, and deporting or killing civilians. Though there is no evidence for these accusations, they might well have been based on real events, albeit probably exaggerated.[25] According to the Tukulti-Ninurta epic, he marched south to the Diyala River and began targeting Babylonian cities, including Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu. Kashtiliash then attacked the Assyrians, confident that he would be victorious, but he was defeated and then avoided conflict himself for the rest of the war. Tukulti-Ninurta eventually emerged as the winner,[26] conquering Babylonia c. 1225 BC,[27] dragging Kashtiliash back to Assyria as a prisoner, and assuming the ancient title \"king of Sumer and Akkad\".[26] Given that some inscriptions report \"Assyrian refugees\" from Babylonia and that some soldiers were \"starving\", it appears that the victory was a costly one.[28] Tukulti-Ninurta's rule over Babylonia, which nominally placed territories as far south as the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule, lasted for several years and began the apex of Middle Assyrian power,[29] though Assyrian domination appears to have been rather indirect.[26]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta experienced some difficulties in keeping his empire together, particularly in Babylonia. Though the period after Kashtiliash's deposition is poorly attested in Babylonia, it appears that there was a second Assyrian campaign directed towards the south[31] c. 1222 BC,[24] after the rule of Tukulti-Ninurta's vassal kings Enlil-nadin-shumi and Kadashman-Harbe II, which resulted in the accession of another vassal, Adad-shuma-iddina.[d] Because Tukulti-Ninurta was able to come to Babylon as a guest in c. 1221 BC and make offerings to the Babylonian gods, it is clear that Adad-shuma-iddina enjoyed Assyrian support for his rule.[31] Though this campaign was followed by several years of peace, it is clear that Adad-shuma-iddina eventually stopped acting like a puppet ruler. Though Tukulti-Ninurta forgave him for a revolt in which he seized the city of Lubdi,[33] a second revolt by Adad-shuma-iddina in c. 1217 BC[24] was met with a third campaign against Babylon, in which Tukulti-Ninurta looted the city and carried off the religiously important Statue of Marduk (Marduk being Babylonia's national deity) to Assyria.[34] He assumed the further style \"king of the extensive mountains and plains\" and claimed to rule from the \"Upper Sea to the Lower Sea\" and that he received tribute \"from the four quarters\".[35] In one of his inscriptions, Tukulti-Ninurta went as far as proclaiming himself to be the sun-god Shamash incarnated, titling himself šamšu kiššat niše (\"sun[god] of all people\").[36] This claim was highly unusual for an Assyrian king to make as the Assyrian rulers were generally not regarded to be divine figures themselves.[37]\n\nThe last Babylonian campaign did not resolve all of Tukulti-Ninurta's problems; the Assyrian army at times had to be deployed to the mountains to the northwest and northeast of the Assyrian heartland to quell uprisings and soon enough, a Babylonian uprising led by Adad-shuma-usur, perhaps a son of Kashtiliash IV,[e] drove the Assyrians out of Babylonia[38] c. 1216 BC.[24] Tukulti-Ninurta is recorded to have complained to the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma II, at this point an ally of Assyria and expected to cooperate militarily, that he had \"remained silent\" on the \"illegal seizure of power\" of Adad-shuma-usur.[39]\n\nIn addition to his campaigns and conquests, Tukulti-Ninurta is also famous for the most dramatic construction project of the entire Middle Assyrian period: the construction of a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta,[40] named after himself (the name meaning \"fortress of Tukulti-Ninurta\").[41] Founded in the eleventh year of his reign (c. 1233 BC),[41] the construction and brief occupation of the city was the only time the Assyrian capital was moved before the Neo-Assyrian period, centuries later.[42] After Tukulti-Ninurta's death, the capital was transferred back to Assur.[40]\n\nFirst period of decline\n\nInscriptions from the late reign of Tukulti-Ninurta showcase increasing internal isolation, as many among the powerful nobility of Assyria grew dissatisfied with his rule, especially after the loss of Babylonia. In some of his own inscriptions, Tukulti-Ninurta appears to lament the losses since his glory days.[39] His long and prosperous reign ended with his assassination, which was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power.[29] Though some historians have attributed the assassination to Tukulti-Ninurta's moving the capital away from Assur, a possibly sacrilegious act,[43] it is more probable that it was the result of the growing dissatisfaction during his late reign.[44] Later chroniclers blame the assassination on his son Ashur-nasir-apli, perhaps a misspelled version of the name of his successor Ashur-nadin-apli (r. c. 1206-1203 BC). Another leader of the conspiracy appears to have been the grand vizier and vassal king of Hanigalbat Ili-ipadda, who retained a prominent position at the court for years thereafter.[45] Ashur-nadin-apli was after his short reign succeeded by two of his brothers, Ashur-nirari III (r. c. 1202-1197 BC) and Enlil-kudurri-usur (r. c. 1196-1192 BC), who also ruled only briefly and were unable to maintain Assyrian power. Though the line of Assyrian kings continued uninterrupted over the course of the decline, Assyria became restricted mostly to just the Assyrian heartland.[29] The decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire broadly coincided with the Late Bronze Age collapse, a time when the Ancient Near East experienced monumental geopolitical changes; within a single generation, the Hittite Empire and the Kassite dynasty of Babylon had fallen, and Egypt had been severely weakened through losing its lands in the Levant.[29] Modern researchers tend to varyingly ascribe the collapse to large-scale migrations, invasions by the mysterious Sea Peoples, new warfare technology and its effects, starvation, epidemics, climate change and unsustainable exploitation of the working population.[46]\n\nEnlil-kudurri-usur enjoyed a much poorer relationship with the line of vassal rulers of Hanigalbat, perhaps because he might not have supported the assassination of his father.[45] Such a poor relationship was dangerous given that these vassal rulers were also members of the Assyrian royal family, as descendants of Adad-nirari I.[47] At some point during Enlil-kudurri-usur's reign, Ili-ipadda's son Ninurta-apal-Ekur traveled to Babylonia where he met with Adad-shuma-usur. With Babylonian support, Ninurta-apal-Ekur then invaded Assyria and defeated Enlil-kudurri-usur in battle. According to the Babylonian Chronicles, he was captured and surrendered to the Babylonians by his own people. Ninurta-apal-Ekur then became king, ending the line of rulers who were direct descendants of Tukulti-Ninurta.[45] During his reign, c. 1191-1179 BC,[24] Ninurta-apal-Ekur proved to be, like his immediate predecessors, unable to do much about the collapse of the empire.[48] In the reign of his son, Ashur-dan I (r. c. 1178-1133 BC),[24] the situation improved somewhat as can be gathered from a campaign directed by Ashur-dan I against the Babylonian king Zababa-shuma-iddin, illustrating that hopes for gaining control of at least some southern lands and reasserting superiority over Babylonia had not been completely abandoned.[48]\n\nAfter Ashur-dan's death in 1133 BC, his two sons Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku struggled for power, with Mutakkil-Nusku emerging victorious[48] but then only ruling for less than a year.[24] Mutakkil-Nusku began a conflict with the Babylonian king[48] Itti-Marduk-balatu[49] over control of the city of Zanqi or Zaqqa,[48] which continued in the reign of his son and successor Ashur-resh-ishi I (r. 1132-1115 BC). In the Synchronistic History (a later Assyrian document), further tensions at Zanqi are described between Ashur-resh-ishi and the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I, which included a battle in which the Babylonians burned down their own siege engines so that they would not be captured by the Assyrians. Though the Synchronistic History describes Assyria as in danger of Babylonian aggression in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's father and predecessor Ninurta-nadin-shumi, it casts Ashur-resh-ishi as a savior of the empire, who defeated Nebuchadnezzar in several battles and was able to defend the southern Assyrian border. Ashur-resh-ishi as such began to reverse the decades of Assyrian decline and in his inscriptions claimed the epithet \"avenger of Assyria\" (mutēr gimilli māt Aššur).[50]\n\nSecond period of expansion and consolidation\n\nAshur-resh-ishi's son and successor Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BC) inaugurated a second period of Middle Assyrian ascendancy. Owing to his father's victories against Babylon, Tiglath-Pileser was free to divert his attention to other regions and not worry about a southern attack. Texts written already during his first few regnal years demonstrate that Tiglath-Pileser ruled with more confidence than his predecessors, using titles such as \"unrivalled king of the universe, king of the four quarters, king of all princes, lord of lords\" and epithets such as \"splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm\". In his first year as king, Tiglath-Pileser defeated the Mushki, a tribe who had taken control of various lands in the north fifty years prior. The inscriptions mention that no king had defeated them in battle before and that their 20,000 men strong army, led by five kings, was defeated by Tiglath-Pileser, who however allowed the 6,000 surviving enemies to settle in Assyria as his subjects. One of the Mushki strongholds, the city of Katmuḫu in the northeast, continued to be troublesome for a few years before it was reconquered, looted and its king, Errupi, was deported. Numerous other sites in the northeast were also conquered and incorporated into his empire.[51]\n\nTiglath-Pileser also went on significant campaigns in the west. The cities of northern Syria, which had ceased to pay tribute decades prior, were reconquered and the Kaskians and Urumeans, tribes who had also settled in the region, voluntarily submitted to him immediately upon the arrival of his army.[52] He also waged war on the Nairi people in the Armenian highlands. Famed for their knowledge of horse breeding, his self-admitted goal of this campaign was to acquire more horses for the Assyrian army. It is clear from his inscriptions that the goal of the campaigns were to instill respect among the rulers of the lands formerly subordinate to Assyria, to reconquer the old Assyrian borders, and to go beyond them; \"Altogether, I conquered 42 lands and their rulers from the other side of the Lower Zab in distant mountainous regions to the other side of the Euphrates River, people of Ḫatti,[f] and the Upper Sea in the west - from my accession year to my fifth regnal year. I subdued them to one authority, took hostages from them, (and) imposed upon them tribute and impost\".[53]\n\nTiglath-Pileser's inscriptions are the first Assyrian inscriptions to describe punitive measures against rebelling cities and regions in any detail. A more important innovation was increasing the size of the Assyrian cavalry and introducing war chariots on a grander scale than previous kings.[54] Chariots were also increasingly used by Assyria's enemies. In the final years of his reign, he twice engaged the Babylonian king Marduk-nadin-ahhe in battles with a great number of chariots. Though he did not conquer Babylonia, several cities, including Babylon itself, were successfully attacked and looted. He was probably unable to conquer Babylonia since a significant amount of attention needed to be diverted to the Aramean tribes in the west. Though he was one of the most powerful kings of the Middle Assyrian period, succeeding in imposing tribute from as far away as Phoenicia, his achievements were not long-lasting and several territories, especially in the west, were likely lost again before his death.[55]\n\nAs a result of Tiglath-Pileser's campaigns, Assyria became somewhat overstretched and his successors had to adapt to be on the defensive. His son and successor Asharid-apal-Ekur (r. 1075-1074 BC) ruled too briefly to do anything and his successor Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1073-1056 BC), another son of Tiglath-Pileser, managed to only briefly follow in his father's footsteps. Ashur-bel-kala campaigned in the mountains to the northeast and the Levant and is recorded to have received gifts from Egypt. Though political objectives had thus not changed since Tiglath-Pileser's time, Ashur-bel-kala too had to divert significant attention to the Arameans. Due to the Aramean tactics of avoiding open battle and instead attacking the Assyrians in numerous minor skirmishes, the Assyrian army could not take advantage of their technical and numerial superiority. The Arameans were not Ashur-bel-kala's only enemies in the west, given that he is also recorded to have fought against Tukulti-Mer, king of Mari. The conflict with Marduk-nadin-ahhe in Babylonia continued under Ashur-bel-kala, though it was eventually resolved diplomatically.[56] After the death of Marduk-nadin-ahhe's successor Marduk-shapik-zeri in c. 1065 BC,[49] Ashur-bel-kala was even able to intervene and install the unrelated Adad-apla-iddina as king of Babylon. Adad-apla-iddina's daughter then married Ashur-bel-kala, bringing peace to the two kingdoms. Though he shared his father's ambition, and claimed the title \"lord of all\" after his victorious campaigns in Syria, Babylonia and the northeastern mountains, Ashur-bel-kala was ultimately unable to surpass Tiglath-Pileser and his successes were built on shaky foundations.[57]\n\nSecond period of decline\n\nCentury of crisis\n\nAshur-bel-kala's son and successor Eriba-Adad II (r. 1056-1054 BC), and generations of kings thereafter, were unable to maintain the achievements of their predecessors. The period of decline initiated after Ashur-bel-kala's death was not reversed until the middle of the 10th century BC.[57] Though this period is poorly documented,[g] it is clear that Assyria underwent a major crisis.[3]\n\nAlthough Assyria was only marginally affected by the Late Bronze Age collapse, the collapse caused great changes in the geopolitics of the lands surrounding Assyria. In large part, the power vacuum left by the Hittites and Egyptians in Anatolia and the Levant allowed various ethno-tribal communities and states to take their place. In northern Anatolia and northern Syria, the Luwians seized power, forming the Syro-Hittite states. In Syria, the Arameans grew increasingly prominent. In Palestine, the Philistines and Israelites carved out realms of their own, eventually coalescing into the Kingdom of Israel. Though cuneiform had previously been the main writing system of these regions, the rise of new peoples and realms led to cuneiform being replaced in the west by more simple alphabetic writing systems. Out of the new players on the scene, the Arameans, through their at times eastward movements, had the most effect on Assyria. Documents as old as from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I demonstrate that even at that early stage, Aramean raids penetrated deep into the Assyrian heartland, at one point reaching Assur itself. The Arameans were tribal and their attacks were uncoordinated raids carried out by individual groups. As such, Assyrian kings were able to defeat several Aramean groups in battle. The guerilla tactics and ability of the Arameans to quickly withdraw into difficult terrain however prevented Assyrian armies from ever achieving a lasting decisive victory. From the death of Ashurnasirpal I (r. 1049-1031 BC) to the end of the Middle Assyrian period more than a century later, no surviving Assyrian royal inscriptions describe any military activities whatsoever.[58] Though kings from this time, such as Shalmaneser II (r. 1030-1019 BC) and Ashur-rabi II (r. 1012-972 BC), used names that proudly echoed those of earlier successful rulers, suggesting a desire to restore old glory, later Assyrian documents saw this time as one of painful losses of territory. By 1000 BC, Assyria was at the low point of its power, with many previously large settlements lying in ruins and local rulers battling new tribal chiefs for control of lands that were previously part of the empire. The Assyrian heartland continued to remain intact, however, protected due to its geographical remoteness.[59]\n\nBeginning of the Assyrian reconquista\n\nThe Assyrian kings never ceased to believe that the lost lands would eventually be retaken. In the end, the collapse of the Hittites and the Egyptian lands in the Levant benefitted Assyria; with the old empires shattered, the fragmented territories surrounding the Assyrian heartland would eventually prove to be easy conquests for the Assyrian army.[59] The reign of Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BC) effectively terminated the poorly documented second period of Middle Assyrian decline. Multiple inscriptions survive from Ashur-dan's time, several of which describe campaigns in the peripheries of the Assyrian heartland, illustrating that Assyrian power was beginning to resurge.[3] Ashur-dan's campaigns were mainly focused on the northeast and northwest. Among the victories recorded in his inscriptions was the conquest of Katmuḫu, which once again had gained independence during the decline. According to the inscription, Ashur-dan captured Katmuḫu, razed the city's royal palace, brought its king to Arbela, flayed and executed him, and then displayed his skin on the wall of one of his cities. Assyrian reconquest meant that a high level of threat had to be established in order to keep the vassals in line; an explanation for the brutality and violence of certain acts (such as Ashur-dan's treatment of the defeated king) committed by the Assyrian kings.[60] The descriptions of such acts in inscriptions do not necessarily reflect the truth given that they also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare.[61]\n\nThe campaigns of Ashur-dan paved the way of grander efforts to restore and expand Assyrian power, beginning in the reign of his son and successor Adad-nirari II (r. 911-891 BC),[62] whose accession conventionally marks the beginning of the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire.[2] Although historically sometimes treated as a separate and distinct entity from the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was clearly the direct continuation of the Middle Assyrian civilization given that the line of kings and inhabitation of the Assyrian heartland was continuous. The inscriptions of early Neo-Assyrian kings typically treat their wars of expansions as reconquests of territory lost during the decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[63]\n\nGovernment\n\nKingship\n\nPower and role\n\nIn the preceding Old Assyrian period, the Assyrian government was in many respects an oligarchy, with the king being a permanent, but not the only prominent, actor,[64] presiding over the meetings of Assur's main administrative body, the city assembly.[65][66][67] Perhaps partly inspired by the period of more autocratic rule when Assur was under the rule of the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I c. 1808-1776 BC, the influence of the city assembly had disappeared by the time of Ashur-uballit I's accession. Although the old traditional royal title iššiak Aššur (\"governor [on behalf] of Ashur\") continued to be used at times throughout the period, the Middle Assyrian kings had little in common with their Old Assyrian predecessors and were very much sole rulers.[68] As Assyria's power grew, the kings began to employ an increasingly sophisticated array of royal titles far more autocratic in nature than the old iššiak Aššur. Ashur-uballit I was the first to assume the style šar māt Aššur (\"king of the land of Ashur\") and his grandson Arik-den-ili introduced the style šarru dannu (\"strong king\"). The kings during Assyria's first major phase of expansion accelerated the adoption of new titles. Adad-nirari I's inscriptions required 32 lines to be devoted just to his titles, which included, among others, nêr dapnūti ummān kaššî qutî lullumî u šubarî (\"defeater of the aggressive armies of the Kassites, Qutû, Lullumu, and Šubaru\"), šakanki ilāni (\"appointee of the gods\") and rubā’u ellu (\"holy prince\"). The development reached its peak under the wide-ranging Tukulti-Ninurta I, who used various styles denoting the size of his domain, such as \"king of Assyria and Karduniash\", \"king of Sumer and Akkad\", \"king of the Upper and the Lower Seas\" and \"king of all peoples\". Royal titles and epithets were often highly reflective of current political developments and the achievements of individual kings; during the periods of decline, the royal titles used typically grew more simple again, only to grow grander once more as Assyrian power experienced resurgences.[69]\n\nIn addition to their roles as military leaders, the kings were religiously significant.[69] Already in the Old Assyrian period, the kings were regarded to be the stewards of the Assyrian national deity Ashur,[66][67] though this began to manifest itself even more in the Middle Assyrian period. The earliest Assyrian king known to have explicitly referred to himself as a priest (šangû) was Adad-nirari I, who among his titles used the epithet šangû ṣıru ša Enlil (\"exalted priest of the god Enlil\").[69] Several sources emphasize the Assyrian king being close to Ashur, and their role as intermediaries between Ashur and mankind. The king was expected to, in conjunction with the Assyrian people, provide offerings to the god. Middle Assyrian kings were also expected to care for all the other gods; Shalmaneser I in his inscriptions mentions that he provided offerings for \"all of the gods\". From the time of Ashur-resh-ishi I onwards, the religious and cultic duties of the king were pushed somewhat into the background, though they were still prominently mentioned in accounts of building and restoring temples. Assyrian titles and epithets in inscriptions from then on generally emphasize the kings as powerful warriors.[36]\n\nMiddle Assyrian kings were the supreme judicial authority in the empire, though they generally appear to have been less concerned with their role as judges than their predecessors in the Old Assyrian period were.[70] The kings were however expected to ensure the welfare and prosperity of the Assyrian lands and people, often referring to themselves as \"shepherds\" (re’û).[36] Middle Assyrian royal inscriptions also pay special attention to public works, with the building and repairs of temples being the primary concern, but construction of other works, such as palaces, also being mentioned. When rebuilding or constructing buildings, the kings often laid down foundation deposits with their names. Later rulers were expected to honor the works of their predecessors and anyone who did not was cursed. One of Tukulti-Ninurta's foundation deposits, relating to the construction of Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, included the message \"He who destroys that wall, discards my monumental inscriptions and my inscribed name, abandons Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, my capital, and neglects (it): may the god Ashur, my lord, overthrow his sovereignty, smash his weapons, bring about the defeat of his army, diminish his borders, decree the end of his reign, darken his days, vitiate his years (and) destroy his name and his seed from the land\".[71]\n\nRoyal palaces and attendants\n\nMiddle Assyrian royal palaces were prominent symbols of royal power, and the centers and main institutions of the Assyrian government. Though the main palace was located in Assur, kings had palaces at several different sites which they often traveled between.[72] The most important surviving source concerning Middle Assyrian royal palaces are the Middle Assyrian palace decrees, a set of documents composed either late in the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I or in the reigns of his immediate successors. These documents contain a large number of regulations on the personnel of the palaces and their roles and duties, in particular the women.[73] These regulations differentiate between the \"wife of the king\" (aššat šarre),[73] what modern historians would term the \"queen\",[h] and a group of \"palace women\" (sinniltu ša ekalle), i.e. a royal harem composed of women of lower rank. The life and court politics within the palaces followed strict rules, overseen by a council of appointed office holders closely linked to the royal court. Officials included \"provincial governors\" (bēl pāḫete), \"palace administrators\" (rab ekalle), \"palace heralds\" (nāgir ekalle), \"chief supervisors\" (rab zāriqe) and \"physicians of the Inner Quarters\" (asû ša betā nū). These councilors supervised the conduct of other courtiers, who were divided into ša-rēši and mazzāz pāni.[73] The meaning of these designations are poorly understood, and some individuals are attested with both.[76] It is possible that the ša-rēši were eunuchs, though this is disputed.[73] The mazzāz pāni may have been close friends and confidants of the king.[77]\n\nThe surviving palace decrees deal with rules and daily lives of the people who lived in the palaces. They include texts concerning admission requirements for male personnel and whether they should have access to the harem, the proper behavior of the palace women (both within and outside the palaces), custody of property and dispute resolution. Among the Middle Assyrian kings, Ninurta-apal-Ekur was responsible for a particularly large amount of decrees, perhaps because he wished to restore order after his usurpation of the throne. Curiously, one of his decrees is that any palace woman who \"cursed a descendant of Tukulti-Ninurta\" should be mutilated; despite Ninurta-apal-Ekur having taken the throne by force from Enlil-kudurri-usur, the last of Tukulti-Ninurta I's descendants to rule Assyria.[73]\n\nThe chief administrator of the palaces were the stewards (mašennu), identified in writings as \"great stewards\" (mašennu rabi’u) from the late 12th century BC onwards to distinguish from stewards of smaller households. The stewards were in charge of the large storage facilities of the palaces, where craftsmen produced various products gathered from raw materials. The stewards also served as organizers of long-distance trade. Their main duty was to provide the palaces with metals, animals, animal skins and luxury goods (such as jewelry, wooden objects, textiles and perfume).[78]\n\nAdministration\n\nRoyal administration and provincial framework\n\nRecognized as the intermediary between mankind and the gods, the Assyrian king was the head of the administration of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period.[79] Though there is no evidence that the Middle Assyrian kings had a cabinet of his highest officials, as might have been the case in the succeeding Neo-Assyrian period, the kings did surround themselves with a group of counselors that advised on politics and decisions. Among the most prominent such counselors were the viziers (sukkallu), who at times involved themselves in diplomatic matters. From at least the time of Shalmaneser I onwards there were also grand viziers (sukkallu rabi’u), superior to the ordinary viziers, who often also served as vassal rulers of the lands of the former Mitanni kingdom. The grand viziers were typically members of the royal family. Like many other administrative and bureaucratic offices, the position was hereditary, with sons succeeding their fathers. Other bureaucrats were drawn from the ša-rēši of the palaces and were tasked with various fields of responsibility to aid the king in keeping contact with various institutions throughout the empire, including keeping track of crop yields and the number of farm animals, allocating royal gifts, certifying private sales of land, and noting down amounts of tribute, prisoners of war and levies. If they so wished, the king could intervene at any level at any time, either in person, through a command, by issuing a decree, or by sending a representative. The most powerful officials had representatives of their own, termed qepū.[80]\n\nThe territory of the Middle Assyrian Empire was divided into a set of provinces or districts (pāḫutu), first attested during the reign of Ashur-uballit I. In some 13th-century BC sources there also appears another type of subdivision, the ḫalṣu (fortifications/districts), but these were soon thereafter replaced completely with pāḫutu.[81] The number of provinces changed as the territory of Assyria expanded and contracted, with the highest number of provinces being recorded in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I.[82] Each province was headed by a provincial governor (bel pāḫete) who was responsible for the local economy and public safety and order. Another important task of the governors was to store and distribute the goods produced in the province, which were inspected and collected by royal representatives once a year. Through this system, the central government remained informed about current stocks of supplies throughout the empire. The governors also supervised local craftsmen and farmers, organizing their activities and ensuring that they had enough food and other supplies to live. If rations were low, governors requested support from the king and other governors, and were in turn required to provide such support for others as well. In addition to taxes, provinces had to supply offerings to the god Ashur, marking their affiliation and allegiance to the Assyrian government. The offerings were quite small and mainly symbolic.[81]\n\nNon-provincial territories\n\nSome regions of the Assyrian realm were outside of the provincial framework but still subject to the Assyrian kings, these included vassal states ruled by lesser kings, such as the Mitanni lands governed by the grand viziers. Under the provincial governors, cities also had their own administrations, headed by mayors (ḫazi’ānu), appointed by the kings but representing the local city elite. Similar to the governors, though less important, the mayors were mostly responsible for local economy, including overseeing rations, agriculture and organization of labor.[83]\n\nThe Assyrians also employed what they referred to as the ilku system, not entirely unlike the feudalism of Medieval Europe; the Assyrian kings had claims to most of the empire's lands, including private property, so in turn for providing attendants and personnel with arable lands to sustain themselves, the kings expected their service in return. The extent and nature of these services varied and was determined by the royal administration. If a landowner died or refused their agreed-upon duties, his families could lose the lands they had been given. It is not clear what factors determined the nature of the services, nor what determined how much land a particular individual or family were given. The most high-ranking officials were typically provided with large states, perhaps including entire villages and their people. In theory, the system ensured close links between landowners and their land, but numerous factors destabilized the system. These included that the duties did not have to be exercised in person, but could be fulfilled by paying money or by sending a representative, and that lands could be sold to a purchaser, who then had to take on the duties the previous owner had been demanded to undertake. Over long periods of time, this meant that the connection between duties and overseeing the land allotted was severed.[84]\n\nSome influential Assyrian officials were as rewards for their services granted dunnu settlements, large estates that functioned as large farmsteads and were exempt from taxation on their produce.[85] Such estates are most common in the empire's western territories, were local governors and representatives required greater autonomy to deal with local geopolitics and challenges.[86] The most well-known site today that at one point functioned as a dunnu estate is Tell Sabi Abyad. Documents describe the estate as a large agricultural one, comprising about 3,600 hectares and employing around 100 free farmers and their families, as well as 100 unfree (šiluhlu̮) farmers and their families.[87]\n\nTaxation and recruitment\n\nIn order for the large construction projects and military activities of the Middle Assyrian kings to have been possible, the Middle Assyrian Empire employed a sophisticated system of recruiting and administering personnel. To keep track of and administer the diverse people under imperial control, a specific type of waxed tablets, dubbed le’ānū (le’ū in singular form), were employed. These tablets, attested from the time of Adad-nirari I onwards, summarized data on the available manpower, calculated required rations and provisions and documented responsibilities and tasks. According to administrative records on construction work at the royal palaces of Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta and Assur, these projects were completed with workforces of about 2,000 men, divided into recruits from various cities (ḫurādu), mostly gathered through the ilku system,[i] engineers or architects (šalimpāju), carpenters and religious functionaries.[84]\n\nThe taxation system of the Middle Assyrian Empire is not yet fully understood.[88] Though tax collectors are known to have existed, records of taxes being collected and what these were are lacking;[86] the only currently confidently attested direct tax paid by individuals was an import tax, levied on imports of goods from foreign states. In at least one case, this tax amounted to about 25 percent of the purchase price. Some documents also mention the ginā’u tax, which had some connection to the provincial governments. Other economically important sources of money for the empire included plundering conquered territories, which reduced the cost of the campaign that had conquered them, continuous tribute (madattu) from vassal states, as well as \"audience gifts\" (nāmurtu) from foreign rulers and powerful individuals. These gifts could sometimes be carry large value for the empire itself; one documents attests that a gift given to Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur while he was still a prince in the reign of his father Ashur-dan I included 914 sheep.[88]\n\nMilitary\n\nThere was no standing army in the Middle Assyrian period. Instead, the majority of soldiers used for military engagements were mobilized only when they were needed, such as for civil projects or in the time of campaigns. Large amounts of soldiers could be recruited and mobilized relative quickly on the basis of legal obligations and regulations. It is impossible to ascertain from the surviving inscriptions the extent to which Middle Assyrian levies were trained for their tasks, but it is unlikely that the Assyrian army would be able to be as successful as it was in the reigns of figures like Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pileser I without trained soldiers. In addition to the levies, who are called ḫurādu or ṣābū ḫurādātu in the inscriptions, there was also a more experienced class of \"professional\" soldiers, called the ṣābū kaṣrūtu. It is not clear what exactly separated the ṣābū kaṣrūtu from the other soldiers; perhaps the term included some certain branches of the army, such as archers and charioteers, who required more extensive training than normal foot soldiers, probably part of the ṣābū ḫurādātu. It is also clear from inscriptions that bands of mercenaries were recruited for some campaigns.[89]\n\nThe foot soldiers appear to have been divided into the sạ bū ša kakkē (\"weapon troops\") and the sạ bū ša arâtē (\"shield-bearing troops\"). Surviving inscriptions do not specify what kind of weaponry these soldiers carried. In lists of the troops in armies, the sạ bū ša kakkē appear opposite the chariots, whereas the sạ bū ša arâtē appear opposite to the archers. It is possible that the sạ bū ša kakkē included ranged troops, such as slingers (ṣābū ša ušpe) and archers (ṣābū ša qalte). The chariots were a separate component of the army. Based on surviving depictions, chariots were crewed by two soldiers: an archer who commanded the chariot (māru damqu) and a driver (ša mugerre). Chariots were not used extensively before the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, who put particular emphasis on the chariots not just as a combat unit but also as the vehicle to be used by the king. Clear evidence of the special strategic importance of chariots comes from chariots forming their own branch of the army whereas cavalry (ša petḫalle) did not.[89] When used, cavalry was often simply employed for escorting or message deliveries. Further specialized combat roles existed, including the sappers (ša nēpeše), particularly useful at sieges.[90]\n\nMilitary officials and generals, included individuals appointed to positions termed sukkallu, sukkallu rabi’u, tartennu and nāgiru. Generals were generally recruited from officials in the royal administration, not the common soldiers.[89] Some appointed generals used the title kiṣri (\"captain\"). The personnel of the baggage train, not partaking in active combat, also included a variety of people with different positions and duties.[90]\n\nSociety\n\nPopulation and culture\n\nSocial classes\n\nBecause of the limited surviving material, information regarding social life and living conditions of the Middle Assyrian period is generally available in detail only for the socio-economic elite and upper classes of society. At the top of Middle Assyrian society were members of long-established and large families, called \"houses\", who tended to occupy the most important offices within the government.[88] These houses were in many cases the descendants of the most prominent merchant families of the Old Assyrian period.[91] It is clear from surviving documents that corruption among royal officials, who at times used the resources provided to them by the Assyrian government to generate private profits, was a large problem. Corruption was viewed as high treason, with officials accused of using royal funds for their own personal gain simultaneously being accused of hating the king.[88] On the other hand, officials were at times expected to provide some of their own personal funds to public institutions if the king commanded them to. In addition to the funds granted to them by the government, high officials could generate money in various other ways. They could for instance loan money to private individuals and charge highly unfavorable interests, sometimes amounting to up to 100 percent, in addition to demanding goods such as sheep and vessels. Another source of income was \"gifts\" (šulmanū), i.e. bribes, from private individuals. In exchange for money, many officials are recorded to have paid extra attention to certain requests made to them or to the royal administration.[92]\n\nThe majority of the population, who did not belong to the upper class, had a much lower standard of living. The highest group in terms of classes was the free men (a’ılū), who like the upper classes could receive land in exchange for performing duties for the government, but who could not live on these lands since they were comparably small. Below them were the šiluhlu̮,[92] or unfree men.[87] These people were men who had given up their freedom and entered into the service (mainly agricultural) of others on their own accord, who were in turn provided with rations and clothes. Many of them likely also originated as prisoners of war and foreign deportees. It was possible for a šiluhlu̮ to regain their freedom by providing a substitute who could then fulfill their obligations. Though not wholly different from slavery, surviving documents demonstrate that the šiluhlu̮ were not considered property of their employers but rather of the Assyrian government. In one instance, royal officials are explicitly recorded to have intervened after the death of an employer of šiluhlu̮ to distribute their contracts among his sons and an apparently unrelated individual.[92] Other members of clearly lower social classes included the \"village residents\" (ālāyû), also depended on the owner of the land they lived on, as well as the ālik ilke (people providing services through the ilku system) and hupšu people, though their position, standing and living standards vis-à-vis each other is not clear.[93]\n\nFamilies and position of women\n\nSome information on families and living conditions in the Middle Assyrian Empire can be gathered from the preserved Middle Assyrian Laws, as well as from surviving lists of rations and censuses. The norm was that families were relatively small in size. In addition to family members, many households employed various servants. Such servants could be either bought or provided by the Assyrian government. Marriage was rarely decided between the prospective spouses, but instead the result of negotiations between their families. Polygamy was practised by Assyrians, as well as by foreign groups in the empire, such as the Hurrians and Elamites, though many monogamous families are also attested. Censuses and ration lists record members of families by age and sex, chiefly due to this aiding in calculating how much rations should be provided to each family. The head of a household was generally the father, but in the case the father was dead and his eldest son was not yet old enough to take over the role, the mother could also act as a representative of the household.[94]\n\nThe social position of women in the Middle Assyrian Empire can be examined in detail due to the laws concerning them in the Middle Assyrian Laws. These laws include punishment for various crimes, often sexual or marital ones.[94] Women's rights in the Middle Assyrian Empire appear to have decreased somewhat since the Old Assyrian period, when women and men had little difference in legal standing and by and large the same legal rights.[95] While out in the street, many women, including widows, wives and concubines, were obligated by law to wear veils. It is uncertain whether these laws were ever strongly enforced. Many women were also prohibited from wearing veils. Certain priestesses (identified as qadiltu priestesses) were only allowed to wear veils if they were married. Slave women and prostitutes (ḫarımtū) were not allowed to wear veils in any circumstance.[94] Children born of a concubine, or someone who was not the primary wife, were lower in status but could still inherit money and property if the \"main\" marriage remained childless. The status of widowed women depended on whether they were the main or secondary wife and on whether they had children. The Middle Assyrian Laws specify that a woman who lost her husband as a prisoner of war was expected to wait for two years; if she had a father-in-law or a son to support her, she was given no support from the government, but if she was alone and her husband had been a free man, she could appeal for government support by making an application to the \"judges\" (da”anū), royal officials who were obligated to help her.[96]\n\nEthnic groups\n\nThe expansion of the Middle Assyrian Empire, combined with deportations and movements of conquered peoples, led to contact between the Assyrians of the Assyrian heartland and foreign groups growing closer. The most prominent foreign ethnic groups within the Middle Assyrian Empire were the Hurrians (incorporated through conquests in northern Syria), Kassites (descendants of deportees and captives from the Babylonian campaigns) and Arameans. Though many Aramean tribes were fought by the Assyrian kings, others traded with the Assyrians and several Aramean tribes towards the end of the Middle Assyrian period had begun to settle and become well-established within Assyrian borders. People belonging to foreign ethnic groups often contributed with manpower, being employed in construction projects. Though most of them appear to have held inferior positions in society, they also contributed to Assyrian cultural developments with their own cultural traditions.[96]\n\nAncient Assyrian civilization was relatively open in regards to what an Assyrian was; with a person's fulfillment of obligations (such as military service), their affiliation to the Assyrian Empire and their loyalty to the Assyrian king being the primary factors of being seen as Assyrians, rather than language or ethnic background.[97] As such, there was likely several instances of gradual assimilation of some conquered peoples, who after just a few generations may not have identified as anything other than Assyrians.[97]\n\nLanguage\n\nThe ancient Assyrians primarily spoke and wrote the Assyrian language, a Semitic language (i.e. related to modern Hebrew and Arabic) closely related to Babylonian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia.[5] Both Assyrian and Babylonian are generally regarded by modern scholars to be distinct dialects of the Akkadian language.[5][98][99][100] This is a modern convention as contemporary ancient authors considered Assyrian and Babylonian to be two separate languages;[100] only Babylonian was referred to as akkadûm, with Assyrian being referred to as aššurû or aššurāyu.[101] Though both were written with cuneiform script, the signs look quite different and can be distinguished relatively easily.[5]\n\nThe Middle Assyrian textual record is somewhat spotty and what is known mainly comes from libraries in Assur and Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. As such, many stages of the language still poorly documented. Though a large number of texts are known from the 13th and 12th centuries BC, texts from after the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I are very rare. The Middle Assyrian form of the Assyrian language was not the only language to be employed in the Middle Assyrian Empire. Though most often used in letters, legal documents and administrative documents, the contemporary Babylonian dialect was often used for royal inscriptions and literature.[102] In Middle Assyrian texts from the royal archives, the most official documents, such as laws, decrees and descriptions of coronations, are all written in the Middle Assyrian language, with Babylonian, as in other cases, being reserved only for royal inscriptions and literature.[103] In some scholarly sources from the Middle Assyrian period, the ancient Sumerian language was employed alongside more modern versions of Akkadian.[104]\n\nRoad system\n\nA sophisticated Assyrian imperial road system was created in the Middle Assyrian period.[106] Though extensive road systems must have been employed in older civilizations as well, such as by the Hittites and Egyptians,[107] the Middle Assyrian road system is the as of yet the earliest known such road system in the Ancient Near East, its creation perhaps stemming from the trading expertise of the Assyrians in the preceding Old Assyrian period.[108] The road system of the Middle Assyrian Empire was the direct precursor of the sophisticated road systems of the succeeding Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid empires.[106]\n\nThe Middle Assyrian road system was mainly established through creating facilities along existing routes.[106][109] Contemporary Assyrian sources refer to the network of roads as harran sarri (\"the king's roads\").[106] Construction of new roads and extensive renovations of old roads appear to have been rather limited, probably because it was not needed since the ancient roads in the region were still in good condition. Only two stone bridges are securely attested to have been built in this period, one at Khorsabad and the other at Nineveh, with wooden bridges perhaps being used in other places. The new facilities, relay stations or rest stops, provided nourishment, accommodation for travellers, and additional horses if the need arose.[110] Though the distance between stations is not entirely clear from the surviving sources,[109] it appears that many stations were placed at distances from each other equal to about a day's journey by chariot,[110] perhaps amounting to intervals of about 30 kilometers (18.7 miles).[106]\n\nThe road system was an important factor in Middle Assyrian success as it improved communication channels within the empire.[109] The most frequent users of the roads, at least in terms of appearances in the surviving source material, were members of the Assyrian administration; couriers of officials and royal messengers, sometimes accompanied by an escort for protection. The roads are also known to have been used by foreign messengers and by private individuals not associated with the Assyrian government due to their appearances in documents describing the rations provided to them. Many travellers travelled in carriages or chariots, but many also travelled on foot.[109]\n\nReligion\n\nThe Assyrians worshipped the same pantheon of gods as the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia.[99] The chief Assyrian deity was the national deity Ashur.[111][112] Though the deity and the city are commonly distinguished by modern historians through calling the god Ashur and the city Assur, both were inscribed in the exact same way in ancient times (Aššur). In documents from the preceding Old Assyrian period, the city and god are often not clearly differentiated, which suggests that Ashur originated sometime in the Early Assyrian period as a deified personification of the city itself.[113] Ashur's role as a deity was flexible and changed with the changing culture and politics of the Assyrians themselves. In the Old Assyrian period, Ashur was mainly regarded as a god of death and revival, related to agriculture.[114][115] In the Middle Assyrian Empire, Ashur's role had been thoroughly altered. Possibly originating as a reaction to the period of suzerainty under the Mittani kingdom, Middle Assyrian theology presented Ashur as a god of war, who bestowed the Assyrian kings not only with divine legitimacy, something retained from the Old Assyrian period, but also commanded the kings to enlarge the \"land of Ashur\" with Ashur's \"just scepter\", i.e. expand the Assyrian Empire through military conquest.[91]\n\nIt is possible that the dominant military role of Ashur in the Middle Assyrian period was the result of the theology promulgated by the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I, who conquered Assur in the 19th century BC. Shamshi-Adad replaced the decaying original temple of Ashur in Assur with a new temple dedicated to the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon, Enlil. Since Shamshi-Adad also respected Ashur, and his temple was in later times used as a temple of Ashur, it is probable that Shamshi-Adad equated Enlil with Ashur. This equation might have been what resulted in later Assyrians viewing Ashur as \"king of the gods\", a role previous civilizations in both northern and southern Mesopotamia ascribed to Enlil.[116] The development of equating Ashur with Enlil, or at least transferring Enlil's role to Ashur, was parallelled in Babylon, where the previously unimportant local god Marduk was elevated in the reign of Hammurabi (18th century BC) to the head of the pantheon, modeled after Enlil.[117]\n\nThe importance and implications of the equation of Ashur with Enlil, the old Sumerian king of the gods, is first apparent in the Middle Assyrian period.[118] The goods sent by every province of the Middle Assyrian Empire to Assur to be a part of the offerings to Ashur demonstrates that it was seen as important that the basic care of the god was jointly carried out by every part of the empire. This helps explain why the empire as a whole was designated as māt Aššur, the \"land of Ashur\", since all parts of the land fed the god and the god in turn embodied the land. All parts of an empire donating goods for offering was not a new idea; it had for instance been employed under the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-2004 BC), though in that case the offerings were sent to Nippur and were for Enlil.[118] The development of Ashur into a unifying god for the entire empire through the offerings likely strengthened Assyrian identity among all social classes as it brought them together as people of the god.[119]\n\nSee also\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nNotes\n\n^ Ashur-dan II's death is the conventional end date for the Middle Assyrian Empire.[2] It derives from his son and successor, Adad-nirari II (r. 911-891 BC), reversing centuries of Assyrian decline, usually seen as marking the beginning of the succeeding Neo-Assyrian Empire.[2] Some historians alternatively include Ashur-dan II's reign as the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, thus placing the end of the Middle Assyrian period in 935 BC.[3]\n\n^ The Babylonian Chronicles (a later Babylonian source) claims that Kurigalzu defeated the Assyrians at Sugagu, whereas the Synchronistic History (a later Assyrian source) claims the Assyrians were victorious and that the border between Assyria and Babylonia was renegotiated. Later traditions suggest that the Assyrian account was closer to the truth.[15]\n\n^ The absence of a royal crown in this image is due to the king being depicted in a religious/cultic context.[30]\n\n^ The Babylonian kings succeeding Kashtiliash IV (Enlil-nadin-shumi, Kadashman-Harbe II and Adad-shuma-iddina) are accorded sequential reigns in the Babylonian King List, together amounting to a period just less than seven years, coincidentally the same amount of time that Tukulti-Ninurta is described as ruling Babylonia. The conventional interpretation is that these three figures, who are not described in the list as genealogically connected to previous kings, were Tukulti-Ninurta's vassals in Babylonia. An alternate interpretation is that these three figures were contemporary rivals, opposing each other, Tukulti-Ninurta, and the eventual succeeding independent Babylonian king Adad-shuma-usur.[32]\n\n^ Adad-shuma-usur is designated as Kashtiliash's son in later Babylonian texts. He himself claimed to be the son of Kashtiliash only in a handful of inscriptions; it is possible that he only claimed to be Kashtiliash's son to further his claim to the Babylonian throne. Records from Elam, though they were written centuries later, designate Adad-shuma-usur as an unrelated usurper, son of a man named Dunna-Sah from the \"middle Euphrates river\" region.[35]\n\n^ Ḫatti, the \"land of the Hittites\", here refers to northern Syria.[53]\n\n^ Though fewer in number than in preceding and succeeding times, a number of royal inscriptions are known from the second period of Middle Assyrian decline, particularly from the reign of Ashurnasirpal I (r. 1049-1031 BC).[3]\n\n^ Though the primary consorts of the Assyrian kings are typically referred to as \"queens\" by modern historians, that position did not formally exist in ancient Assyria. The feminine version of the word for king (šar) was šarratum, but this was reserved for goddesses and foreign queens who ruled in their own right. Because the consorts of the kings did not rule themselves, they were not regarded as their equals and as such not called šarratum.[74][75]\n\n^ Some personnel were also recruited from the provinces through other means, without any ilku obligations. People recruited through other means were sometimes referred to as \"perru troops\" (sạbū perrūtu), organized under \"lords of the perru\" (bēlē ̄perre).[88]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f Düring 2020, p. 43.\n\n^ a b c Merrill, Rooker & Grisanti 2011, p. 30.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017, p. 165.\n\n^ Yamada 2017, p. 115.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2015, p. 2.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017a, p. 139.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 144.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, p. 117.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 42.\n\n^ Düring 2020, pp. 42-43.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 70.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017a, p. 118.\n\n^ Galter 2007, p. 529.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 44.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, pp. 118-119.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Düring 2020, p. 45.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017a, p. 119.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 119, 121.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, p. 121.\n\n^ a b c d Phillips 2018, p. 270.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2015, p. 177.\n\n^ Koliński 2015, p. 12.\n\n^ a b c d Jakob 2017a, p. 122.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Chen 2020, p. 199.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 123.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017a, p. 125.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 203.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 126.\n\n^ a b c d Düring 2020, p. 46.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 212.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, p. 127.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2018, pp. 148-149.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 127-128.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 129.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, p. 130.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 145.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 357-386.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 129-130.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, p. 131.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 57.\n\n^ a b Gerster 2005, p. 312.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 38.\n\n^ Schaudig 1957, p. 156.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 131-132.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017a, p. 132.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 134.\n\n^ Fales 2014, p. 227.\n\n^ a b c d e Jakob 2017a, p. 133.\n\n^ a b Beaulieu 2018, p. 155.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 133-134.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 134.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 134-135.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, p. 135.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, p. 136.\n\n^ Jakob 2017a, pp. 137-138.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017a, pp. 138-139.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 166.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, pp. 166-167.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 167.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 22.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 168.\n\n^ Düring 2020, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 38.\n\n^ Veenhof 2017, p. 70.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015, p. 3.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 37.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 143.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 144.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 146.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 145-146.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 147-148.\n\n^ a b c d e Jakob 2017b, p. 148.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 109.\n\n^ Spurrier 2017, p. 173.\n\n^ Groß & Pirngruber 2014, p. 162.\n\n^ Groß & Pirngruber 2014, p. 173.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 148-149.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 149.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 146-147.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, pp. 149-150.\n\n^ Llop 2012, p. 107.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 149-151.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, p. 154.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 85.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 103.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 101.\n\n^ a b c d e Jakob 2017b, p. 155.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 152.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, p. 153.\n\n^ a b Fales 2017, p. 402.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 156.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, pp. 156-157.\n\n^ a b c Jakob 2017b, p. 157.\n\n^ Michel 2017, pp. 81, 84.\n\n^ a b Jakob 2017b, p. 158.\n\n^ a b Novák 2016, p. 132.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 39.\n\n^ a b Garfinkle 2007, p. 54.\n\n^ a b Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 313.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 314.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 315.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 316.\n\n^ Wagensonner 2018, p. 228.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 110.\n\n^ a b c d e Düring 2020, p. 109.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 111.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 140.\n\n^ a b c d Jakob 2017b, p. 151.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 79.\n\n^ Lambert 1983, p. 83.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 763.\n\n^ Lambert 1983, pp. 82-85.\n\n^ Breasted 1926, p. 164.\n\n^ James 1966, p. 42.\n\n^ Maul 2017, p. 342.\n\n^ Maul 2017, pp. 343-344.\n\n^ a b Maul 2017, p. 344.\n\n^ Maul 2017, p. 345.\n\nBibliography\n\nBeaulieu, Paul-Alain (2018). A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75. Pondicherry: Wiley. ISBN 978-1-4051-8899-9.\n\nBreasted, James Henry (1926). The Conquest of Civilization. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. OCLC 653024.\n\nChen, Fei (2020). Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-43091-4.\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-47874-8.\n\nElayi, Josette (2017). Sargon II, King of Assyria. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 978-1-62837-177-2.\n\nElayi, Josette (2018). Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 978-0-88414-317-8.\n\nFales, Frederick Mario (2014). \"The Two Dynasties of Assyria\". In Gaspa, Salvatore; Greco, Alessandro; Morandi Bonacossi, Daniele; Ponchia, Simonetta; Rollinger, Robert (eds.). From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86835-101-9.\n\nFales, Frederick Mario (2017). \"Assyrian Legal Traditions\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nGalter, Hannes D. (2007). \"Looking down the Tigris: the interrelations between Assyria and Babylonia\". In Leick, Gwendolyn (ed.). The Babylonian World. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35346-5.\n\nGarfinkle, Steven J. (2007). \"The Assyrians: A New Look at an Ancient Power\". In Rubio, Gonzalo; Garfinkle, Steven J.; Beckman, Gary; Snell, Daniel C.; Chavalas, Mark W. (eds.). Current Issues and the Study of the Ancient Near East. Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians. Claremont: Regina Books. ISBN 978-1-930053-46-5.\n\nGerster, Georg (2005). The Past from Above: Aerial Photographs of Archaeological Sites. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. ISBN 978-0-89236-817-4.\n\nGroß, Melanie; Pirngruber, Reinhard (2014). \"On Courtiers in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: ša-rēši and mazzāz pāni\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 41 (2): 161-175. doi:10.1515/aofo-2014-0015. S2CID 163481023.\n\nJakob, Stefan (2015). \"Daily Life in the Wild West of Assyria\". In Düring, Bleda S. (ed.). Understanding Hegemonic Practices of the Early Assyrian Empire: Essays dedicated to Frans Wiggermann. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. ISBN 978-90-6258-336-2.\n\nJakob, Stefan (2017). \"The Middle Assyrian Period (14th to 11th Century BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nJakob, Stefan (2017). \"Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Middle Assyrian Period\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nJames, E. O. (2018) [1966]. The Tree of Life: An Archaeological Study. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-01612-5.\n\nKertai, David (2013). \"The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 40 (1): 108-124. doi:10.1524/aof.2013.0006. S2CID 163392326.\n\nKertai, David (2020). \"Libbali-sharrat in the Garden: An Assyrian Queen Holding Court\". Source: Notes in the History of Art. 39 (4): 209-218. doi:10.1086/709188. S2CID 225090268.\n\nKoliński, Rafał (2015). \"Making Mittani Assyrian\". In Düring, Bleda S. (ed.). Understanding Hegemonic Practices of the Early Assyrian Empire: Essays dedicated to Frans Wiggermann. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. ISBN 978-90-6258-336-2.\n\nLambert, W. G. (1983). \"The God Aššur\". Iraq. 45 (1): 82-86. doi:10.2307/4200181. JSTOR 4200181. S2CID 163337976.\n\nLewy, Hildegard (1971). \"Assyria c. 2600-1816 BC\". In Edwards, I. E. S.; Gadd, C. J.; Hammond, N. G. L. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume I Part 2: Early History of the Middle East (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-07791-0.\n\nLlop, Jaume (2012). \"The Development of the Middle Assyrian Provinces\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 39 (1): 87-111. doi:10.1524/aofo.2012.0007. JSTOR 41440513. S2CID 163552048.\n\nLuukko, Mikko; Van Buylaere, Greta (2017). \"Languages and Writing Systems in Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nMaul, Stefan M. (2017). \"Assyrian Religion\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nMerrill, Eugene; Rooker, Mark F.; Grisanti, Michael A (2011). The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8054-4031-7.\n\nMichel, Cécile (2017). \"Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Old Assyrian Period\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nNovák, Mirko (2016). \"Assyrians and Arameans: Modes of Cohabitation and Acculuration at Guzana (Tell Halaf)\". In Aruz, Joan; Seymour, Michael (eds.). Assyria to Iberia: Art and Culture in the Iron Age. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-606-8.\n\nParker, Bradley J. (2011). \"The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Journal of Anthropological Research. 67 (3): 357-386. doi:10.3998/jar.0521004.0067.303. ISSN 0091-7710. JSTOR 41303323. S2CID 145597598.\n\nPhillips, Charles (2018). The Ancient World in Minutes. London: Quercus. ISBN 978-1-63506-109-3.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.\n\nSchaudig, Hanspeter (2010) [1957]. \"Cult Centralization in the Ancient Near East? Conceptions of the Ideal Capital in the Ancient Near East\". In Kratz, Reinhard G.; Spieckermann, Hermann (eds.). One God - One Cult - One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives. Göttingen: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-022357-6.\n\nSpurrier, Tracy L. (2017). \"Finding Hama: On the Identification of a Forgotten Queen Buried in the Nimrud Tombs\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 76 (1): 149-174. doi:10.1086/690911. S2CID 164734557.\n\nVeenhof, Klaas R. (2017). \"The Old Assyrian Period (20th-18th century BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nWagensonner, Klaus (2018). \"Sumerian in the Middle Assyrian Period\" (PDF). In Braarvig, Jens; Geller, Markham J. (eds.). Multilingualism, Lingua Franca and Lingua Sacra. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. ISBN 978-3-945561-13-3.\n\nYamada, Shigeo (2017). \"The Transition Period (17th to 15th century BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-middle-assyrian-empire"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12967}, {"slug": "reference-neo-assyrian-empire", "title": "Neo-Assyrian Empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Neo-Assyrian Empire[b] was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BCE,[17][c] the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of the South Caucasus, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean throughout much of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Neo-Assyrian Empire𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠[a]\nmāt Aššur\n\n911 BCE-609 BCE\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire at its maximum extent, around 671 BCE.[9][10][11][12]\n\nCapital\nAssur (911-879 BCE)\n\nNimrud (879-706 BCE)\n\nDur-Sharrukin (706-705 BCE)\n\nNineveh (705-612 BCE)\n\nHarran (612-609 BCE)\n\nOfficial languages\nAkkadian\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nReligion Ancient Mesopotamian religion\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nNotable kings \n\n• 911-891 BCE Adad-nirari II (first)\n\n• 883-859 BCE Ashurnasirpal II\n\n• 859-824 BCE Shalmaneser III\n\n• 745-727 BCE Tiglath-Pileser III\n\n• 722-705 BCE Sargon II\n\n• 705-681 BCE Sennacherib\n\n• 681-669 BCE Esarhaddon\n\n• 669-631 BCE Ashurbanipal\n\n• 612-609 BCE Ashur-uballit II (last)\n\nHistorical eraIron Age\n\n• Accession of Adad-nirari II 911 BCE\n\n• Nimrud made capital 879 BCE\n\n• Age of the magnates 823-745 BCE\n\n• Conquest of Babylonia 729 BCE\n\n• Nineveh made capital 705 BCE\n\n• Conquest of Egypt 671 BCE\n\n• Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire 626-609 BCE\n\n• Fall of Assur 614 BCE\n\n• Fall of Nineveh 612 BCE\n\n• Fall of Harran 609 BCE\n\nArea \n\n670 BCE[13][14]1,400,000 km2 (540,000 sq mi)\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nMiddle Assyrian Empire\n\nMiddle Babylonian period\n\nAram-Damascus\n\nKingdom of Israel (Samaria)\n\nMannaea\n\nTwenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt\n\nNeo-Hittite states\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire\n\nMedian Empire\n\nTwenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire[b] was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BCE,[17][c] the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of the South Caucasus, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean throughout much of the 9th to 7th centuries BCE, becoming the largest empire in history up to that point.[19][20][21] Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire has been described as the first world empire in history.[20][22][21][23][d] It influenced other empires of the ancient world culturally, administratively, and militarily, including the Neo-Babylonians, the Achaemenids, and the Seleucids. At its height, the empire was the strongest military power in the world[19] and ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as parts of Anatolia, Arabia and what is now Iran and Armenia.\n\nThe early Neo-Assyrian kings were chiefly concerned with restoring Assyrian control over much of northern Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia and Levant, since significant portions of the preceding Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1050 BCE) had been lost during the late 11th century BCE. Under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE), Assyria once more became the dominant power of the Near East, ruling the north undisputed. Ashurnasirpal's campaigns reached as far as the Mediterranean, and he oversaw the transfer of the imperial capital from the traditional city of Assur to the more centrally-located Kalḫu (later known as Calah in the Hebrew Bible, and Nimrud to the Arabs) The empire grew even more under Ashurnasirpal's successor Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BCE), though it entered a period of stagnation after his death, referred to as the \"age of the magnates\". During this time, the chief wielders of political power were prominent generals and officials, and central control was unusually weak. This age came to an end with the rule of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BCE), who reasserted Assyrian royal power and more than doubled the size of the empire through wide-ranging conquests. His most notable conquests were Babylonia in the south and large parts of the Levant. Under the Sargonid dynasty, which ruled from 722 BCE to the fall of the empire, Assyria reached its apex. Under Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE), the capital was transferred to Nineveh, and under Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BCE) the empire reached its largest extent through the conquest of Egypt. Despite being at the peak of its power, the empire experienced a swift and violent fall in the late 7th century BCE, destroyed by a Babylonian uprising and an invasion by the Medes. The causes behind how Assyria could be destroyed so quickly continue to be debated among scholars.\n\nThe unprecedented success of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was not only due to its ability to expand but also, and perhaps more importantly, its ability to efficiently incorporate conquered lands into its administrative system. As the first of its scale, the empire saw various military, civic and administrative innovations. In the military, important innovations included the large-scale use of cavalry and new siege warfare techniques. Techniques first adopted by the Neo-Assyrian army would be used in later warfare for millennia.[19] To solve the issue of communicating over vast distances, the empire developed a sophisticated state communication system, using relay stations and well-maintained roads. The communication speed of official messages in the empire was not surpassed in the Middle East until the 19th century.[24][25] The empire also made use of a resettlement policy, wherein some portions of the populations from conquered lands were resettled in the Assyrian heartland and in underdeveloped provinces. This policy served to both disintegrate local identities and to introduce Assyrian-developed agricultural techniques to all parts of the empire. A consequence was the dilution of the cultural diversity of the Near East, forever changing the ethnolinguistic composition of the region and facilitating the rise of Aramaic as the regional lingua franca,[26] a position the language retained until the 14th century.[27]\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire left a legacy of great cultural significance. The political structures established by the empire became the model for later empires, and the ideology of universal rule promulgated by the Neo-Assyrian kings inspired-through the concept of translatio imperii-similar ideas of rights to world domination as late as the early modern period. The empire became an important part of later folklore and literary traditions in northern Mesopotamia through the subsequent post-imperial period and beyond. Judaism-and in turn Christianity and Islam-was profoundly affected by the period of Neo-Assyrian rule; numerous Biblical stories appear to draw on earlier Assyrian mythology and history,[19][28] and the Assyrian impact on early Jewish theology was immense.[e] Although the empire is prominently remembered today for the supposed excessive brutality of its army, the Assyrians were not excessively brutal when compared to other civilizations throughout history.[30]\n\nBackground\n\nImperialism and the ambition of establishing a universal, all-encompassing empire was a long-established aspect of royal ideology in the ancient Near East prior to the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia (c. 2900 - c. 2350 BCE), the Sumerian rulers of the various city-states in the region often fought with each other in order to establish small hegemonic empires and to gain a superior position relative to the other city-states. Eventually, these small conflicts evolved into a general ambition to achieve universal rule. Reaching a position of world domination was not seen as a wholly impossible task in this time since Mesopotamia was believed to correspond to the entire world.[31] One of the earliest Mesopotamian \"world conquerors\" was Lugalzaggesi, king of Uruk, who conquered all of Lower Mesopotamia in the 24th century BCE.[32] The succeeding Akkadian Empire is generally regarded as the first known empire.[33]\n\nNumerous imperialist states rose and fell in Mesopotamia and the rest of the Near East after the time of the Akkadian Empire. Most early empires and kingdoms were limited to some core territories, with most of their subjects only nominally recognizing the authority of the central government. Still, the general desire for universal rule dominated the royal ideologies of Mesopotamian kings for thousands of years, bolstered by the memory of the Akkadian Empire and exemplified in titles such as \"king of the Universe\" or \"king of the Four Corners of the World\". This desire was also manifested in the kings of Assyria, who ruled in what had been the northern part of the Akkadian Empire.[34] Assyria experienced its first period of ascendancy with the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BCE, previously only having been a city-state centered around the city of Assur.[35] From the time of Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305-1274 BCE) onwards, Assyria became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East.[35] Under Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243-1207 BCE) the empire reached its greatest extent[36] and became the dominant force in Mesopotamia, for a time even subjugating Babylonia in the south.[37] After Tukulti-Ninurta's assassination, the Middle Assyrian Empire went into a long period of decline, becoming increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland.[38] Though this period of decline was broken up by Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BCE), who once more expanded Assyrian power, his conquests overstretched Assyria and could not be maintained by his successors.[39] The trend of decline was substantially reversed in the reign of the last Middle Assyrian king, Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BCE) who campaigned in the northeast and northwest.[40]\n\nHistory\n\nResurgence of Assyrian power\n\nInitial reconquest\n\nThe early Neo-Assyrian kings initially set out to reverse the long decline of Assyria, retake its former lands, and reestablish the position it held at the height of its power.[21][41] These two empires were not as distinct as their portrayal sometimes suggests, with Neo-Assyrian rulers part of the same continuous dynasty as their earlier counterparts.[41] The outward reexpansion by these new kings was cast as war to liberate those Assyrians cut off from Assyrian territory and forced to live under foreign rulers. This held at least some truth, with material evidence from sites lost and then reconquered by the empire demonstrating an endurance of Assyrian culture in the interim.[42] Early efforts at reconquest were mostly focused on the region up to the Khabur in the west.[21]\n\nOne of the first conquests of Ashur-dan II had been Katmuḫu in this region, which he made a vassal state rather than annexing it outright; this suggests that the resources available to the early Neo-Assyrian rulers were very limited and that the imperial reconquest had to begin nearly from scratch. In this context, the successful expansion conducted under early rulers was an extraordinary achievement.[43] The initial phase of the Assyrian reconquista was slow, beginning under Ashur-dan II near the end of the Middle Assyrian period and covering the reigns of the first two Neo-Assyrian rulers, Adad-nirari II (r. 911-891 BCE) and Tukulti-Ninurta II (r. 890-884 BCE).[40] Ashur-dan's efforts mostly worked to pave the way for the more sustained work under Adad-nirari and Tukulti-Ninurta.[44]\n\nAmong the conquests of Adad-nirari, the most strategically important campaigns were the wars directed to the southeast, beyond the Little Zab. These lands had previously been under Babylonian rule. One of Adad-nirari's wars brought the Neo-Assyrian army as far south as Der, close to the border of the southwestern kingdom of Elam. Though Adad-nirari did not manage to incorporate territories so far from the Assyrian heartland into the empire, he secured Arrapha (now Kirkuk), which later served as the launching point for numerous Assyrian campaigns into eastern lands. Adad-nirari managed to secure a border agreement with the Babylonian king Nabu-shuma-ukin I, sealed by both kings marrying the other's daughter. Adad-nirari continued Ashur-dan's efforts in the west; in his wars, he defeated numerous small western kingdoms. Several small states, such as Guzana, were made vassals, and others, such as Nisibis, were placed under pro-Assyrian puppet kings. After his successful wars in the region, Adad-nirari was able to undertake a long march along the Khabur and the Euphrates, collecting tribute from all the local rulers without military opposition. He also conducted important building projects; Apku, located between Nineveh and Sinjar and destroyed c. 1000 BCE, was rebuilt and became an important administrative center.[44]\n\nThough he reigned only briefly, Adad-nirari's son, Tukulti-Ninurta, continued his father's policies. In 885 BCE, Tukulti-Ninurta repeated his father's march along the Euphrates and Khabur, though he went in the opposite direction, beginning in the south at Dur-Kurigalzu and then collecting tribute while he travelled north. Some of the southern cities that sent tribute to Tukulti-Ninurta during this march were historically more closely aligned with Babylon. Tukulti-Ninurta fought small states in the east to strengthen Assyrian control in that direction. Among the lands he defeated were Kirruri, Ḫubuškia and Gilzan. In later times, Gilzan often supplied Assyria with horses.[44]\n\nDominion over the Near East\n\nThe second phase of the reconquista was initiated in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta's son and successor Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE). Under his rule, Assyria rose to become the dominant political power in the Near East.[45] In terms of personality, Ashurnasirpal was a complex figure; he was a relentless warrior[46] and one of the most brutal kings in Assyrian history,[47][f] but he also cared about the people, working to increase the prosperity and comfort of his subjects, establishing extensive water reserves and food depots in times of crisis.[49] As a result of the successful campaigns of his predecessors, Ashurnasirpal inherited an impressive amount of resources with which he could work to re-establish Assyrian dominance.[49] Ashurnasirpal's first campaign in 883 BCE was against the revolting cities of Suru and Tela along the northern portion of the Tigris river. At Tela he brutally repressed the citizens, among other punishments cutting off noses, ears, fingers and limbs, gouging out eyes and overseeing impalements and decapitations.[49]\n\nAshurnasirpal's later campaigns included three wars against the kingdom of Zamua in the eastern Zagros Mountains, repeated campaigns against Nairi and Urartu in the north, and, most prominently, near continuous conflict with Aramean and Neo-Hittite kingdoms in the west. The Arameans and Neo-Hittites had evolved into well-organized kingdoms, possibly in response to pressure from Assyria. One of Ashurnasirpal's most persistent enemies was the Aramean king Ahuni, who ruled Bit Adini. Ahuni's forces broke through across the Khabur and Euphrates several times, and it was only after years of war that he at last accepted Ashurnasirpal as his suzerain. Ahuni's defeat was highly important as it marked the first time since Ashur-bel-kala two centuries prior that Assyrian forces campaigned further west than the Euphrates.[46] Ashurnasirpal made use of this opportunity. In his ninth campaign, he marched to Lebanon and then to the Mediterranean coast. Though few of them became formally incorporated into the empire at this point, many kingdoms on the way paid tribute to Ashurnasirpal to avoid being attacked, including Carchemish and Patina, as well as Phoenician cities such as Sidon, Byblos, Tyre and Arwad.[46][49] Ashurnasirpal's royal inscriptions proudly proclaim that he and his army symbolically cleaned their weapons in the water of the Mediterranean.[49]\n\nAssyrian borders and campaigns under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE)Assyrian borders and campaigns under Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BCE)\n\nAshurnasirpal financed several large-scale building projects at cities like Assur, Nineveh and Balawat. The most impressive and important project conducted was the restoration of the ruined town of Nimrud, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris in the Assyrian heartland. In 879 BCE, Ashurnasirpal made Nimrud the capital of the empire and employed thousands of workers to construct fortifications, palaces and temples in the city.[46] Assur became a ceremonial city, although it was still the empire's religious center.[50]\n\nAshurnasirpal's aggressive military politics were continued under his son Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BCEE), whose reign saw a considerable expansion of Assyrian territory. The lands along the Khabur and Euphrates rivers in the west were consolidated under Assyrian control. Ahuni of Bit Adini resisted for several years, but he surrendered to Shalmaneser in the winter of 857/856 BCE. When Shalmaneser visited the city in the summer of the next year, he renamed it Kar-Salmanu-ašared (\"fortress of Shalmaneser\"), settled a substantial number of Assyrians there, and made it the administrative center of a new province, placed under the turtanu (commander in chief). Shalmaneser also placed other powerful officials, so-called \"magnates\", in charge of other vulnerable provinces and regions of the empire.\n\nThe most powerful and threatening enemy of Assyria at this point was Urartu in the north; the Urartian administration, culture, writing system, and religion closely followed those of Assyria. The Urartian kings were autocrats similar to the Assyrian kings.[50] The Assyrians also took some inspiration from Urartu. For instance, Assyrian irrigation technology and cavalry units, introduced by Shalmaneser, may have been derived from encounters with Urartu. The imperialist expansion undertaken by the kings of both Urartu and Assyria led to frequent military clashes between the two, despite their separation by the Taurus Mountains. In 856 BCE, Shalmaneser conducted an ambitious military campaign, marching through mountainous territory to the source of the Euphrates and then attacking Urartu from the west. King Arame was forced to flee as Shalmaneser's forces sacked the Urartian capital of Arzashkun, devastated the Urartian heartland, and then marched into what today is western Iran before returning to Arbela in Assyria.[51]\n\nAlthough Shalmaneser's campaign against Urartu compelled many small states in northern Syria to pay tribute, he was unable to fully exploit the situation. In 853 BCE, a coalition of western states assembled at Tell Qarqur in Syria against Assyrian expansion. The coalition included numerous kings of various peoples, including the earliest historically verifiable Israelite and Arab rulers, and was led by King Hadadezer of Aram-Damascus. Shalmaneser engaged the coalition in the same year that it was formed. Although Assyrian records claim he won a great victory at the Battle of Qarqar, it is more likely the battle was indecisive, as no substantial political or territorial gains were achieved. After Qarqar, Shalmaneser focused much on the south and in 851-850 BCE, aided the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I to defeat a revolt by his brother Marduk-bel-ushati. After defeating the rebel, Shalmaneser spent some time visiting cities in Babylon and further aiding Marduk-zakir-shumi in fighting the Chaldeans in the far south of Mesopotamia. As Babylonian culture was greatly appreciated in Assyria, Shalmaneser was proud of his alliance with the Babylonian king; a surviving work of art depicts the two rulers shaking hands. In the 840s and 830s BCE, Shalmaneser again campaigned in Syria and succeeded in receiving tribute from numerous western states after the coalition against him collapsed with Hadadezer's death in 841 BCE. Assyrian forces thrice tried to capture Damascus but were unsuccessful.[51] Shalmaneser's failed attempts to impose Assyrian rule in Syria resulted from his energetic campaigns, which overextended the empire too quickly. In the 830s BCE, his armies reached into Cilicia in Anatolia, and in 836 BCE, Shalmaneser reached Ḫubušna (near what is now Ereğli, Konya), one of the westernmost places reached by Assyrian forces. Though Shalmaneser's conquests were wide-ranging and inspired fear among the other kings of the Near East, he lacked the means to stabilize and consolidate his new lands, and imperial control in many places remained shaky.[52]\n\nAge of the magnates\n\nIn the latter years of Shalmaneser's reign, Urartu rose again as a powerful adversary. Though the Assyrians campaigned against them in 830 BCE, they failed to fully neutralize the threat posed by the restored kingdom. The 830 BCE campaign against Urartu was not led by Shalmaneser but by the long-serving and prominent turtanu Dayyan-Assur. Dayyan-Assur led other campaigns on behalf of the kings. Shalmaneser's final years became preoccupied by an internal crisis when one of his sons, Ashur-danin-pal, rebelled in an attempt to seize the throne, possibly because the younger son Shamshi-Adad V had been designated as heir instead of him.[52] When Shalmaneser died in 824 BCE, Ashur-danin-pal was still in revolt, supported by a significant portion of the country, including Assur. Shamshi-Adad was perhaps initially a minor and a puppet of Dayyan-Assur. Though Dayyan-Assur died during the early stages of the civil war, Shamshi-Adad was eventually victorious, apparently with help from Marduk-zakir-shumi or his successor Marduk-balassu-iqbi.[53]\n\nShamshi-Adad's accession marked the beginning of a new age of Neo-Assyrian history, sometimes dubbed the \"age of the magnates\". This time was marked by the number of royal inscriptions being much smaller than in preceding and succeeding times, and Assyrian magnates-such as Dayyan-Assur and other prominent generals and officials-being the dominant political actors, with the kings wielding significantly less power and influence.[53] Though the consequences of this shift in power remain debated,[53] the age of the magnates has often been characterized as a period of decline.[54] Assyria endured through this period largely unscathed, but there was little to no territorial expansion and central power grew unusually weak. Some developments were good for the longevity of the empire, since many magnates took the opportunity to develop stronger military and economic structures and institutions in their own lands throughout the empire.[53] Shamshi-Adad's earliest campaigns were against a series of Urartian fortresses and western Iran and quite limited in scope. Most of Shamshi-Adad's early reign was relatively unsuccessful; his third campaign against the small states in the Zagros Mountains region may have ended in an Assyrian defeat, and many of the small kingdoms in northern Syria ceased paying tribute. In 817 or 816 BCE, there was a rebellion against the king at Tillê, within the Assyrian heartland.[55]\n\nFrom 815 BCE, Shamshi-Adad directed his efforts mainly against Marduk-balassu-iqbi. In 813 BCE, he defeated Marduk-balassu-iqbi and brought him to Assyria as a captive. A year later, he defeated the Babylonian successor Baba-aha-iddina and annexed several territories in northern Babylonia. Southern Mesopotamia was left in disarray after Shamshi-Adad's victories.[55] Though Babylonia nominally came under Assyrian control, Shamshi-Adad took the ancient Babylonian title \"king of Sumer and Akkad\" but not the conventional \"king of Babylon\". Due to Assyria's perhaps somewhat weakened state he was unable to fully exploit the victory,[56] and the Babylonian throne remained unoccupied for several years.[55]\n\nShamshi-Adad's son Adad-nirari III (r. 811-783 BCEE) was probably very young at the time of his father's death in 811 BCE, and real political power during his early reign was probably wielded by the turtanu Nergal-ila'i and by Adad-nirari's mother Shammuramat.[55] Shammuramat was one of the most powerful women in Assyrian history and perhaps for a time served as co-regent;[57] she is recorded to have partaken in a military campaign, the only ancient Assyriain woman known to have done so, against Kummuh in Syria and is credited in inscriptions alongside her son for expanding Assyrian territory, usually only a royal privilege.[58] After Shammuramat's death, Adad-nirari continued to be dominated by other figures, such as the eunuch Nergal-eresh.[55] Despite his limited sole authority, Adad-nirari's reign saw some military successes, and Assyrian armies campaigned in western Iran at least 13 times. The western territories, now more or less autonomous, were only attacked four times, though Adad-nirari managed to defeat Aram-Damascus. In 790 BCE, Adad-nirari conducted the first Assyrian campaign against the Aramaic tribes living in the Assyro-Babylonian border regions. In c. 787 BCE Adad-nirari appointed the new turtanu Shamshi-ilu. Shamshi-ilu would occupy this position for about 40 years and was for most of that time likely the most powerful political actor in Assyria.[59]\n\nAfter Adad-nirari's death in 783 BCE, three of his sons ruled in succession: Shalmaneser IV (r. 783-773 BCE), Ashur-dan III (r. 773-755 BCE) and Ashur-nirari V (r. 755-745 BCE). Their reigns collectively appear to mark the low point of Assyrian royal power, as only a remarkably small number of royal inscriptions are known from them. In Shalmaneser IV's reign, Shamshi-ilu eventually grew bold enough to stop crediting the king at all in his inscriptions and instead claimed to act completely on his own, more openly flaunting his power. Probably under Shamshi-ilu's leadership, the Assyrian army began to mainly focus on Urartu. In 774 BCE, Shamshi-ilu scored an important victory against Argishti I of Urartu,[59] though Urartu was not decisively beaten.[60] There was however some significant successes in the west[60] since Shamshi-ilu captured Damascus in 773 BCE and secured tribute from the city to the king.[59] Another official who acted with usually royal privileges in Shalmaneser's time was the palace herald Bel-harran-beli-usur, who founded a city, Dur-Bel-harran-beli-usur (named after himself), and claimed in a stele that it was he, and not the king, who had established tax exemptions for the city.[59] Though little information survives concerning Ashur-dan III's reign, it is clear that it was particularly difficult. Much of his reign was spent putting down revolts. These revolts were perhaps the result of the plague epidemics sweeping Assyria and the Assyrian eclipse of 15 June 763 BCE; both the epidemics and the eclipse could have been interpreted by the Assyrian populace as the gods withdrawing their divine support for Ashur-dan's rule.[61] Though Assyria stabilized again under Ashur-nirari V,[62] he appears to have been relatively idle. Ashur-nirari campaigned in only three of the ten years of his reign and is not recorded to have conducted any construction projects.[63] Though the Assyrian army under Ashur-nirari was successful against Arpad in northwestern Syria in 754 BCE, they were also beaten at an important battle against Sarduri II of Urartu.[62]\n\nRevitalization and rise\n\nIn 745 BCE, Ashur-nirari was succeeded by Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BCE), probably another son of Adad-nirari III. His accession ushered in a new era of Neo-Assyrian history.[62] While the conquests of earlier kings were impressive, they contributed little to Assyria's rise as a consolidated empire.[34] Through campaigns aimed at conquest and not just extraction of seasonal tribute, as well as reforms meant to efficiently organize the army and centralize the realm, Tiglath-Pileser is regarded by some as the first true initiator of Assyria's \"imperial\" phase.[21][23] Tiglath-Pileser is the earliest Assyrian king mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible, and thus the earliest king for which there exists important outside perspectives on his reign.[64]\n\nEarly on, Tiglath-Pileser reduced the influence of the previously powerful magnates, dividing their territories into smaller provinces under the rule of royally appointed provincial governors and withdrawing their right to commission official building inscriptions in their own names. Shamshi-ilu appears to have been subjected to a damnatio memoriae, as his name and tiles were erased from some of his inscriptions.[64]\n\nDuring his 18-year reign, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned in all directions. In his first year as king, he waged war against Nabonassar, the Chaldean king of Babylon, and conquered territories on the eastern bank of the Tigris. In 746 BCE, he conducted a successful campaign in the Zagros, where he created two new provinces. From 743 to 739 BCE, he focused on Urartu and northern Syria. Campaigns against both targets proved resoundingly successful; in 743 BCE, Sarduri II of Urartu was defeated, and in 740 BCE, Arpad, Syria was conquered after a three-year siege. With the nearest threats dealt with, Tiglath-Pileser began to focus on lands that had never been under solid Assyrian rule. In 738 BCE, the Neo-Hittite states of Pattin and Hatarikka, and the Phoenician city of Sumur were conquered. In 734 BCE, the Assyrian army marched through the Levant all the way to the Egyptian border, forcing several of the states on the way-such as Ammon, Edom, Moab and the Kingdom of Judah-to pay tribute and become Assyrian vassals. In 732 BCE, the Assyrians captured Damascus and much of Transjordan and Galilee.[64] Tiglath-Pileser's conquests are, in addition to their extent, also noteworthy because of the large scale in which he undertook resettlement policies; he settled tens to hundreds of thousands of foreigners in both the Assyrian heartland and in distant, underdeveloped provinces.[26]\n\nLate in his reign, Tiglath-Pileser turned his eye towards Lower Mesopotamia. For a long time, the political situation in the south had been volatile, with conflict between the traditional Babylonian urban elites of the cities, nomadic Arameans in the countryside, and Chaldean warlords in the south. In 732 BCE, the Chaldean warlord Nabû-mukin-zēri seized Babylon and became king, a development Tiglath-Pileser used as an excuse to invade. In 729 BCE, he captured Babylon, defeated Nabu-mukin-zēri, and thus assumed the titles \"king of Babylon\" and \"king of Assyria.\" To increase the willingness of the Babylonian populace to accept him as ruler, Tiglath-Pileser twice partook in the traditional Babylonian Akitu (New Year's) celebrations, held in honor of the national deity Marduk. Control over Babylonia was secured through campaigns against the remaining Chaldean strongholds in the south. By the time of his death in 727 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser had more than doubled the territory of the empire. His policy of direct rule rather than rule through vassal states brought important changes to the Assyrian state and its economy; rather than tribute, the empire grew more reliant on taxes collected by provincial governors, a development which increased administrative costs but also reduced the need for military intervention.[65]\n\nTiglath-Pileser was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser V (r. 727-722 BCE). Though little to no royal inscriptions and other sources survive from Shalmaneser's brief reign, the empire appears to have been largely stable under his rule.[66] Shalmaneser managed to secure some lasting achievements; he was probably the Assyrian king responsible for the conquest of Samaria and the resulting Assyrian captivity, and thus bringing an end to the ancient Kingdom of Yisrael-Samaria, establishing the province of Samerina in its place. He also appears to have annexed lands in northern Syria and Cilicia.[67]\n\nImperial apogee\n\nSargon II and Sennacherib\n\nShalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon II (r. 722-705 BCE), who in all likelihood was a usurper who deposed his predecessor in a palace coup.[66] Like Tiglath-Pileser before him, Sargon in his inscriptions made no references to prior kings and instead ascribed his accession purely to divine selection.[68] Sargon's rise to power marked the foundation of the Sargonid dynasty, leading to considerable internal unrest. In his own inscriptions, Sargon claims to have deported 6,300 \"guilty Assyrians\", probably Assyrians from the heartland who opposed his accession. Several peripheral regions of the empire also revolted and regained their independence.[66] The most significant of the revolts was the successful uprising of the Chaldean warlord Marduk-apla-iddina II, who took control of Babylon, restoring Babylonian independence, and allied with the Elamite king Ḫuban-nikaš I.[69]\n\nThough Sargon tried early on to dislodge Marduk-apla-iddina, attacking Aramean tribes who supported Marduk-apla-iddina and marching out to fight the Elamites, his efforts were initially unsuccessful, and in 720 BCE, the Elamites defeated Sargon's forces at Der. Sargon's early reign was more successful in the west. There, another movement, led by Yau-bi'di of Hamath and supported by Simirra, Damascus, Samaria and Arpad, also sought to regain independence and threatened to destroy the sophisticated provincial system imposed on the region under Tiglath-Pileser. While Sargon was campaigning in the east in 720 BCE, his generals defeated Yau-bi'di and the others. Sargon continued to focus on both east and west, successfully warring against Šinuḫtu in Anatolia and Mannaya in western Iran.\n\nIn 717 BCE, Sargon retook Carchemish and secured the city's substantial silver treasury. Perhaps it was the acquisition of these funds that inspired Sargon to begin constructing a new capital of the empire from scratch, named Dur-Sharrukin (\"Fort Sargon\") after himself. Perhaps the motivating factor was that Sargon did not feel safe at Nimrud after the early conspiracies against him.[69] As construction work progressed, Sargon continued to go on military campaigns, which ensured that Assyria's geopolitical dominance and influence expanded significantly in his reign. Between 716 and 713 BCE, Sargon fought against Urartu, the Medes, Arab tribes, and Ionian pirates in the eastern Mediterranean. A significant victory was the 714 BCE campaign against Urartu, in which Rusa I was defeated and much of the Urartian heartland was plundered.[66]\n\nIn 709 BCE Sargon won against seven kings in the land of Ia', in the district of Iadnana or Atnana.[70] The land of Ia' is assumed to be the Assyrian name for Cyprus, and some scholars suggest that the latter may mean 'the islands of the Danaans', or Greece. There are other inscriptions referring to the land of Ia' in Sargon's palace at Khorsabad.[71] Cyprus was thus absorbed into the Assyrian Empire, with the victory commemorated with a stele found near present-day Larnaca.[71]\n\nLate in his reign, Sargon again turned his attention to Babylon. When Sargon marched south in 710 BCE he encountered little resistance. After Marduk-apla-iddina fled to Dur-Yakin, the stronghold of his Chaldean tribe, the citizens of Babylon willingly opened the gates of Babylon to Sargon.[66] The situation was somewhat uncertain until Sargon made peace with Marduk-apla-iddina after prolonged negotiations, which resulted in Marduk-apla-iddina and his family being given the right to escape to Elam in exchange for Sargon being allowed to dismantle the walls of Dur-Yakin. Between 710 and 707 BCE, Sargon resided in Babylon, receiving foreign delegations there and participating in local traditions, such as the Akitu festival. In 707 BCE Sargon returned to Nimrud, and in 706 BCE Dur-Sharrukin was inaugurated as the empire's capital. Sargon did not get to enjoy his new city for long; in 705 BCE he embarked on his final campaign, directed against Tabal in Anatolia. Sargon was killed in battle, and the army was unable to recover his body.[72]\n\nShocked and frightened by the manner of his father's death and its theological implications, Sargon's son Sennacherib distanced himself from his father. Sennacherib never mentioned Sargon in his inscriptions and abandoned Dur-Sharrukin, instead moving the capital to Nineveh, previously the residence of the crown prince. One of the first building projects he undertook was restoring a temple dedicated to the death-god Nergal, likely due to worries concerning his father's fate. Several of the vassal states in the Levant stopped paying tribute, and Marduk-apla-iddina retook Babylon with the aid of the Elamites.[73]\n\nSennacherib was thus faced with numerous enemies almost immediately upon his accession, and it took years to defeat them all. In 704 BCE he sent the Assyrian army, led by officials, to Anatolia to avenge Sargon's death. Sennacherib began warring against Marduk-apla-iddina. After fighting against Babylonia for nearly two years, Sennacherib succeeded in recapturing Babylonia, though Marduk-apla-iddina fled to Elam once again, and Bel-ibni, a Babylonian noble who had been raised at the Assyrian court, was installed as vassal king of Babylon.\n\nIn 701 BCE Sennacherib undertook the most famous campaign of his reign, invading the Levant to force the states there to pay tribute again. This conflict is the first Assyrian war to be recorded in great detail sources other than Assyrian inscriptions including the Hebrew Bible. The Assyrian account diverges somewhat from the Biblical one; whereas the Assyrian inscriptions describe the campaign as a resounding success, in which tribute was regained, some states were annexed outright and Sennacherib even managed to stop Egyptian ambitions in the region, the Bible describes Sennacherib suffering a crushing defeat outside Jerusalem. Since Hezekiah, the king of Judah (who ruled Jerusalem), paid a heavy tribute to Sennacherib after the campaign, modern scholars consider it more likely that the Biblical account, motivated by theological concerns, is highly distorted and that Sennacherib succeeded in his goals of the campaign and re-imposed Assyrian authority in the region.[73] Despite this, Herodotus, a Greek historian, noted an Assyrian defeat. The majority of scholars in this area believe the discrepancy is due to two sieges, one resulting in an Assyrian victory, the other in a failure.[74]\n\nBel-ibni's tenure as Babylonian vassal ruler did not last long, and he continually opposed by Marduk-apla-iddina and another Chaldean warlord, Mushezib-Marduk, who hoped to seize power for themselves. In 700 BCE Sennacherib invaded Babylonia again and drove Marduk-apla-iddina and Mushezib-Marduk away. Needing a vassal ruler with stronger authority, he placed his eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, on the throne of Babylon. For a few years, internal peace was restored, and Sennacherib kept the army busy with a few minor campaigns. During this time, Sennacherib focused his attention mainly on building projects; between 699 and 695 BCE he ambitiously renovated Nineveh, constructing among other works the Southwest Palace and a 12 kilometer (7.5-mile) long and 25 meter (82 feet) tall wall. It is possible that a large park constructed near the Southwest Palace served as the inspiration for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Sennacherib's choice of making Nineveh capital probably resulted not only from him having long lived in the city as crown prince, but also because of its ideal location, being an important point in the established road and trade systems and also located close to an important ford across the Tigris river.[75]\n\nIn 694 BCE Sennacherib invaded Elam,[75] with the explicit goal to root out Marduk-apla-iddina and his supporters.[76] Sennacherib sailed across the Persian Gulf with a fleet built by Phoenician and Greek shipwrights[75] and captured and sacked countless Elamite cities. He never got his revenge on Marduk-apla-iddina, who died of natural causes before the Assyrian army landed,[77] and the campaign instead significantly escalated the conflict with the anti-Assyrian faction in Babylonia and with the Elamites. The Elamite king Hallushu-Inshushinak took revenge on Sennacherib by marching on Babylonia while the Assyrians were busy in his lands. During this campaign, Ashur-nadin-shumi was captured and taken to Elam, where he was probably executed. In his place, the Elamites and Babylonians crowned the Babylonian noble Nergal-ushezib as king of Babylon.[75] Though Senacherib just a few months later defeated and captured Nergal-ushezib in battle, the war dragged on as the Chaldean warlord Mushezib-Marduk took control of Babylon late in 693 BCE and assembled a large coalition of Chaldeans, Arameans, Arabs and Elamites to resist Assyrian retribution. After a series of battles, Sennacherib finally recaptured Babylon in 689 BCE. Mushezib-Marduk was captured and Babylon was destroyed[78] in an effort to eradicate Babylonian political identity.[79]\n\nThe last years of Sennacherib's reign were relatively peaceful, but problems began to arise within the royal court. Though Sennacherib's next eldest son, Arda-Mulissu, had replaced Ashur-nadin-shumi as heir, around 684 BCE the younger son Esarhaddon was proclaimed heir instead. Perhaps Sennacherib was influenced by Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, who in later times became increasingly prominent and powerful. Disappointed, Arda-Mulissu and his supporters pressured Sennacherib to reinstate him as heir. Though they succeeded in forcing Esarhaddon into exile in the west for his own protection, Sennacherib did not accept Arda-Mulissu as heir. In late 681 BCE Arda-Mulissu killed his father in a temple in Nineveh.[78] Because of the regicide, Arda-Mulissu lost some of his previous support and was unable to undergo a coronation before Esarhaddon returned with an army.[80] Two months after Sennacherib was murdered, Esarhaddon captured Nineveh and became king, Arda-Mulissu and his supporters fleeing from the empire.[78]\n\nEsarhaddon and Ashurbanipal\n\nEsarhaddon sought to establish a balance of power between the northern and southern parts of his empire. Thus, he rebuilt Babylon in the south, viewing Sennacherib's destruction of the city as excessively brutal, but also made sure not to neglect the temples and cults of Assyria.[81] As a result of his tumultuous rise to the throne he was distrustful of his officials and family members; something which also had the side effect of an increased prominence of women in his reign, whom he trusted more. Esarhaddon's mother Naqi'a, his queen Esharra-hammat and his daughter Serua-eterat were all more powerful and prominent than most women in earlier Assyrian history.[82] The king was also frequently ill and sickly and also appears to have suffered from depression, which intensified after the deaths of his queen and several of his children.[83]\n\nDespite his physical and mental health, Esarhaddon led many successful military campaigns, several of them farther away from the Assyrian heartland than those of any previous king. He defeated the Cimmerians who plagued the northwestern part of the empire, conquered the cities of Kundu and Sissû in Anatolia, and conquered the Phoenician city of Sidon, which was renamed Kar-Aššur-aḫu-iddina (\"fortress of Esarhaddon\"). After fighting the Medes in the Zagros Mountains, Esarhaddon campaigned further to the east than any king before him, reaching as far into what is now Iran as Dasht-e Kavir, in the Assyrian conquest of Elam. Esarhaddon also invaded the eastern Arabian peninsula where he conquered a large number of cities, including Diḫranu (modern Dhahran).[84]\n\nEsarhaddon's greatest military achievement was his 671 BCE conquest of Egypt. With logistical support from various Arab tribes, the 671 BCE invasion took a difficult route through central Sinai and caught the Egyptian armies by surprise. After a series of three large battles against Pharaoh Taharqa, Esarhaddon captured Memphis, the Egyptian capital. Taharqa fled south to Nubia, and Esarhaddon allowed most of the local governors to remain in place, though he left some of his representatives to oversee them. The conquest of Egypt brought the Neo-Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.[84]\n\nDuring the reign of Esarhaddon, an alliance between the Bartatua dynasty of Scythia and Assyria was possibly established. In 676 BCE, Esarhaddon gave his daughter Šērūʾa-ēṭirat in marriage to Bartatua, with a legal submission that Bartatua had to take an oath of allegiance and thus become an Assyrian vassal state. While history is not explicit in whether Bartatua ever married Esarhaddon's daughter, it seems probable considering Assyria defeated Media in 653-652 BCE with Scythian assistance, and the firm Scythian-Assyrian alliance that persisted until the fall of Assyria.[85][86][87] Šērūʾa-ēṭirat was most likely the mother of king Madyes, who inherited the throne after Bartatua.[87]\n\nThough he was among the most successful kings in Assyrian history, Esarhaddon faced numerous conspiracies against his rule,[84] perhaps because the king suffering from illness could be seen as the gods withdrawing their divine support for his rule.[83] Around the time of the Egyptian campaigns, there were at least three major insurgencies against Esarhaddon; in Nineveh, the chief eunuch Ashur-nasir was prophesied by a Babylonian hostage to replace Esarhaddon as king;[84] a prophetess in Harran proclaimed that Esarhaddon and his lineage would be \"destroyed\" and that a usurper named Sasî would become king;[84][88] and in Assur, the local governor instigated a plot after receiving a prophetic dream in which a child rose from a tomb and handed him a staff.[84] Through a well-developed network of spies and informants, Esarhaddon uncovered all of these coup attempts and in 670 BCE had a large number of high-ranking officials put to death.[89]\n\nIn 672 BCE, Esarhaddon decreed that his younger son Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BCE) would succeed him in Assyria and that the older son Shamash-shum-ukin would rule Babylon.[90] To ensure that the succession to the throne would go more smoothly than his own accession, Esarhaddon forced everyone in the empire, not only the prominent officials but also far-away vassal rulers and members of the royal family, to swear oaths of allegiance to the successors and respect the arrangement. When Esarhaddon died of an illness while on his way to campaign in Egypt in 669 BCE, Naqi'a forced similar oaths of allegiance to Ashurbanipal,[91] who became king without incident.[92] One year later, Ashurbanipal oversaw Shamash-shum-ukin's inauguration as (largely ceremonial) king of Babylon.[93]\n\nAshurbanipal is often regarded to have been the last great king of Assyria.[93] His reign saw the last time Assyrian troops marched in all directions of the Near East. In 667 and 664 BCE, Ashurbanipal invaded Egypt in the wake of anti-Assyrian uprisings; both Pharaoh Taharqa and his nephew Tantamani were defeated, and Ashurbanipal captured the southern Egyptian capital of Thebes, from which enormous amounts of plundered booty was sent back to Assyria. In 664 BCE, after a prolonged period of peace, the Elamite king Urtak launched a surprise invasion of Babylonia which renewed hostilities. After indecisive campaigns for ten years, the Elamite king Teumman was defeated in 653 BCE, captured and executed in a battle by the Ulai river. Teumman's head was brought back to Nineveh and displayed for the public. Elam however, remained undefeated and continued to work against Assyria for some time.[93]\n\nOne of the growing problems in Ashurbanipal's early reign were disagreements between Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin.[94] While Esarhaddon's documents suggest that Shamash-shum-ukin was intended to inherit all of Babylonia, it appears that he only controlled the immediate vicinity of Babylon since numerous other Babylonian cities apparently ignored him and considered Ashurbanipal to be their king.[95] Over time, it seems that Shamash-shum-ukin grew to resent his brother's overbearing control,[96] and in 652 BCE he revolted with the aid of several Elamite kings. In 648 BCE Ashurbanipal captured Babylon after a long siege and devastated the city. Shamash-shum-ukin might have died by setting himself on fire in his palace. Ashurbanipal replaced him with the puppet ruler Kandalanu and then marched on Elam. The Elamite capital of Susa was captured and devastated, and large numbers of Elamite prisoners were brought to Nineveh, tortured and humiliated.[97] Ashurbanipal chose to not annex and integrate Elam into the Neo-Assyrian Empire, instead leaving it open and undefended. In the following decades, the Persians would migrate into the region and rebuild the ruined Elamite strongholds for their own use.[98]\n\nThough Ashurbanipal's inscriptions present Assyria as an uncontested and divinely supported hegemon over all the world, cracks were starting to form in the empire during his reign. At some point after 656 BCE, the empire lost control of Egypt, which was ruled by Pharaoh Psamtik I, founder of Egypt's twenty-sixth dynasty.[99] Ashurbanipal went on numerous campaigns against various Arab tribes, which failed to consolidate rule over their lands and wasted Assyrian resources. Perhaps most importantly, his devastation of Babylon after defeating Shamash-shum-ukin fanned anti-Assyrian sentiments in southern Mesopotamia, which soon after his death would have disastrous consequences. Ashurbanipal's reign also appears to have seen a growing disconnect between the king and the traditional elite of the empire; eunuchs grew powerful in his time, being granted large tracts of lands and numerous tax exemptions.[99]\n\nCollapse and fall of the empire\n\nAfter Ashurbanipal's death in 631 BCE, the throne was inherited by his son, Aššur-etil-ilāni. Though some historians have forwarded the idea that Ashur-etil-ilani was a minor upon his accession,[101] this is unlikely given that he is attested to have had children during his brief reign.[102] Despite being his father's legitimate successor, he appears to have been installed against considerable opposition with the aid of the chief eunuch, Sîn-šumu-līšir.[101] Assyrian official Nabû-riḫtu-uṣūr appears to have attempted to usurp the throne, but Sîn-šumu-līšir swiftly crushed his revolt.[103] Since excavated ruins at Nineveh from around the time of Ashurbanipal's death show evidence of fire damage, the plot might have resulted in violence and unrest within the capital.[104]\n\nAššur-etil-ilāni appears to have been a relatively idle ruler; no records of any military campaigns are known, and his palace at Nimrud was much smaller than that of previous kings.[105] It is possible that the government was more or less run by Sîn-šumu-līšir throughout his reign.[101] After a reign of four years, Aššur-etil-ilāni died in unclear circumstances in 627 BCE and was succeeded by his brother, Sîn-šar-iškun.\n\nSîn-šar-iškun's accession did not go unchallenged. Immediately upon his rise to the throne, Sîn-šumu-līšir rebelled and attempted to claim the throne for himself,[106] despite the lack of any genealogical claim[101] and as the only eunuch to ever do so in Assyrian history.[107] Sîn-šumu-līšir successfully seized several prominent cities in Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon, but was defeated by Sîn-šar-iškun after three months.[108] This victory did little to alleviate Sîn-šar-iškun's problems. The Babylonian vassal king Kandalanu also died in 627 BCE. The swift regime changes and internal unrest bolstered Babylonian hopes to shake off Assyrian rule and regain independence, a movement which swiftly proclaimed Nabopolassar as its leader,[101] who was probably a member of a prominent political family in Uruk.[109] Some months after Sin-shumu-lishir's defeat, Nabopolassar and his allies captured both Nippur and Babylon, though the Assyrian response was swift and Nippur was recaptured in October 626 BCE. Sîn-šar-iškun's attempts to retake Babylon and Uruk were unsuccessful, however, and in the aftermath Nabopolassar was formally invested as king of Babylon in November 626 BCE, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom.[110]\n\nIn the years that followed Nabopolassar's coronation, Babylonia became a brutal battleground between Assyrian and Babylonian armies. Though cities often repeatedly changed hands, the Babylonians slowly pushed Sîn-šar-iškun's armies out of the south.[111] Under Sîn-šar-iškun's personal leadership, the Assyrian campaigns against Nabopolassar initially looked to be successful: in 625 BCE, Sippar was retaken and Nabopolassar failed to take Nippur; in 623 BCE, the Assyrians recaptured Nabopolassar's ancestral home city Uruk.[112] Sîn-šar-iškun might ultimately have been victorious had it not been for a usurper, whose name is not known, from the empire's western territories rebelling in 622 BCE, marching on Nineveh and seizing the capital.[112][113] Though this usurper was defeated by Sîn-šar-iškun after 100 days, the absence of the Assyrian army allowed Nabopolassar's forces to capture all of Babylonia in 622-620 BCE.[112] Despite this loss, there was little reason for the Assyrians to suspect that Nabopolassar's consolidation of Babylonia was a significant event and not simply a temporary inconvenience; in previous Babylonian uprisings the Babylonians had at times gained the upper hand temporarily.[114]\n\nMore alarming were Nabopolassar's first forays into the Assyrian heartland in 616 BCE, which involved capturing border cities and defeating local Assyrian garrisons.[114] The Assyrian heartland had not been invaded for 500 years,[115] and the event illustrated that the situation was dire enough for Pharaoh Psamtik to enter the conflict on Assyria's side. Psamtik was primarily interested in keeping Assyria as a buffer between his growing empire and the Babylonians and other powers in the east.[116] In May 615 BCE, Nabopolassar assaulted Assur, the empire's southernmost remaining city. Sinsharishkun succeeded in repulsing Nabopolassar's assault and, for a time, saving the old city.[117]\n\nIt is doubtful that Nabopolassar would have achieved a lasting victory without the entrance of the Median Empire into the conflict.[111] Long fragmented into several tribes and often targets of Assyrian military campaigns, the Medes had been united under the leadership of Cyaxares.[111] In late 615[118] or in 614 BCE,[119] Cyaxares and his army entered Assyria and conquered the region around Arrapha in preparation for a campaign against Sinsharishkun.[118] The Medes mounted attacks on both Nimrud and Nineveh and captured Assur, leading to the ancient city being brutally plundered and its inhabitants being massacred. Nabopolassar arrived at Assur after the sack and met and allied with Cyaxares.[120] In 612 BCE, after a siege lasting two months, the Medes and Babylonians captured Nineveh, and Sinsharishkun died defending the city. The capture of the city was followed by extensive looting and destruction, and effectively meant the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[111]\n\nAfter the fall of Nineveh, an Assyrian general and prince, possibly Sîn-šar-iškun's son, led the remnants of the Assyrian army and established himself at Harran in the west.[121] The prince chose the regnal name Aššur-uballiṭ II[122] With the loss of Assur, Aššur-uballiṭ could not undergo the traditional coronation ritual and as such formally ruled under the title of \"crown prince\", though Babylonian documents considered him the king.[123] Aššur-uballiṭ's rule at Harran lasted until late 610 or early 609 BCE, when the city was captured by the Babylonians and the Medes.[124] Three months later, an attempt by Aššur-uballiṭ II and the Egyptians to retake the city failed disastrously, and Aššur-uballiṭ disappears from the sources, his ultimate fate unknown. The remnants of the Assyrian army continued to fight alongside the Egyptian forces against the Babylonians until a crushing defeat at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE.[125] Though Assyrian culture endured through the subsequent post-imperial period and beyond,[126] Aššur-uballiṭ's final defeat at Harran marked the end of the dynasty and of Assyria as a state.[127][128]\n\nReasons for the fall of Assyria\n\nThe fall of Assyria was swift, dramatic and unexpected;[101] scholars continue to grapple with what factors caused the empire's quick and violent downfall.[111] One commonly cited possible explanation is the unrest and the civil wars that immediately preceded Nabopolassar's rise. Such civil conflict could have caused a crisis of legitimacy, and the members of the Assyrian elite may have felt increasingly disconnected from the Assyrian king.[128] However, there is no evidence that Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun warred with each other, and other uprisings of Assyrian officials-the unrest upon Aššur-etil-ilāni's accession, the rebellion of Sîn-šumu-līšir, and the capture of Nineveh by a usurper in 622 BCE-were dealt with relatively quickly. Protracted civil war is thus unlikely to have been the reason for the empire's fall.[129]\n\nAnother proposed explanation was that Assyrian rule suffered from serious structural vulnerabilities; most importantly, Assyria appears to have had little to offer the regions it conquered other than order and freedom from strife; conquered lands were mostly kept in line through fear and terror, alienating local peoples. As such, people outside of the Assyrian heartland may have had little reason to remain loyal when the empire came under attack.[128] Further explanations may lie in the actions and policies of the Assyrian kings. Under Esarhaddon's reign, many experienced and capable officials and generals had been killed as the result of the king's paranoia; under Ashurbanipal, many had lost their positions to eunuchs.[128] Some historians have further deemed Ashurbanipal to have been an \"irresponsible and self-indulgent king\" since he at one point appointed his chief musician the name of the year.[130] Though it would be easy to place the blame on Sîn-šar-iškun, there is no evidence to suggest that he was an incompetent ruler.[131] No defensive plan existed for the Assyrian heartland since it had not been invaded for centuries, and Sîn-šar-iškun was a capable military leader using well-established Mesopotamian military tactics. In a normal war, Sîn-šar-iškun could have been victorious, but he was unprepared to go on the defensive against an enemy that was both numerically superior and that aimed to destroy his country rather than conquer it.[115]\n\nYet another possible factor was environmental issues. The massive population growth in the Assyrian heartland at the height of the empire might have led to a severe drought that affected Assyria far more than nearby territories such as Babylonia. It is impossible to determine the severity of such demographic and climate-related effects.[128]\n\nA large reason for the Assyrian collapse was the failure to resolve the 'Babylonian problem', which had plagued kings since Assyria first conquered southern Mesopotamia. Despite the many attempts of the kings of the Sargonid dynasty to resolve the constant rebellions in the south in a variety of different ways-Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon and Esarhaddon's restoration of it-rebellions and insurrections remained common.[132] This is despite Babylon for the most part being treated more leniently than other conquered regions.[133] Babylonia was for instance not annexed directly into Assyria but preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king or by the Assyrian king in a personal union.[134] Despite the privileges the Assyrians saw themselves as extending to the Babylonians, Babylon refused to be passive in political matters,[133][135] likely because the Babylonians saw the Assyrian kings-who rarely visited the city-as failing to undertake the traditional religious duties of the Babylonian kings.[136] The strong appreciation of Babylonian culture in Assyria sometimes turned to hatred, which led to Babylon suffering several brutal acts of retribution from Assyrian kings after revolts.[133] Nabopolassar's revolt was the last in a long line of Babylonian uprisings against the Assyrians; Sîn-šar-iškun's failure to stop it, despite trying for years, doomed his empire.[132] Despite all of these simultaneous factors, it is possible that the empire could have survived if the unexpected alliance between the Babylonians and Medes had not been sealed.[128]\n\nGovernment\n\nKingship and royal ideology\n\nSennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, king of the Four Corners of the World; favorite of the great gods; the wise and crafty one; strong hero, first among all princes; the flame that consumes the insubmissive, who strikes the wicked with the thunderbolt.\n\n- Excerpt from the royal titles of Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE)[137]\n\nIn documents describing coronations of kings from both the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, it is specifically recorded that he was commanded by Aššur, the national deity of Assyria and whose favored city was also called Aššur, to \"broaden the land of Aššur\" and \"extend the land at his feet\". The Assyrians saw their empire as being the part of the world Aššur oversaw and administered through human agents. In their ideology, the realm beyond Assyria was characterized by chaos and uncivilised people with unfamiliar cultural practices and strange languages. The existence of the \"outer realm\" was regarded as a threat to the cosmic order within Assyria, and as such it was the king's duty to expand the realm of Aššur, Assyria, and incorporate these strange lands, converting chaos to civilization.[138]\n\nThe king's position above all others was regarded as natural, since he, though not divine, was seen as the divinely-appointed representative of Aššur on earth. His power thus derived from his unique position among humanity, and his obligation to extend Assyria to eventually cover the whole world was cast as a moral, humane and necessary duty rather than exploitative imperialism.[139] Though their power was nearly limitless, the kings were not free from tradition and their obligations. The kings were obliged to campaign once a year to bring Aššur's rule and civilization to 'the Four Corners' (the entire world); if a king did not campaign, their legitimacy was severely undermined.[68] Campaigns were usually justified through an enemy having made a real or fabricated affront against Aššur. The overwhelming force of the Assyrian army was used to instill the idea that it was invincible, thus further legitimizing the king's rule.[140] The king was also responsible for performing various rituals in support of the cult of Aššur and his priesthood.[68]\n\nBecause the rule and actions of the king were seen as divinely sanctioned,[141] resistance to Assyrian sovereignty in times of war was regarded to be resistance against divine will, which deserved punishment.[142] Peoples and polities who revolted against Assyria were seen as criminals against the divine world order.[143]\n\nThe legitimacy of the king hinged on acceptance among the imperial elite, and to a lesser extent, the wider populace, of the idea that the king was both divinely chosen by Aššur and uniquely qualified for his position. Various methods of legitimization were employed by the Neo-Assyrian kings and their royal courts. One of the common methods, which appears to be a new innovation of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, was the manipulation and codifying of the king's own personal history in the form of annals. This genre of texts is believed to have been created to support the king's legitimacy through recording events of their reign, particularly their military exploits. The annals were copied by scribes and disseminated throughout the empire for propagandistic purposes, reinforcing the perception of the king's power. In many cases, historical information was also inscribed on temples and other buildings. Kings also made use of genealogical legitimacy. Real (and, in some cases, perhaps fabricated) connections to past royalty established both uniqueness and authenticity, positioning the monarch as a descendant of great ancestors who, on behalf of Aššur, were responsible for creating and expanding civilization. Nearly all Neo-Assyrian kings highlighted their royal lineage in their inscriptions. Genealogical qualifications posed a problem for usurpers who did not belong to the direct lineage. The two Neo-Assyrian kings generally believed to have been usurpers, Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, for the most part did not mention genealogical connections in their inscriptions, instead relying on direct divine appointment. Both of these kings claimed in several of their inscriptions that Aššur had \"called my name\" or \"placed me on the throne\".[144]\n\nNeo-Assyrian queens\n\nQueens were titled issi ekalli in the Assyrian variety of the Akkadian language, which could be abbreviated sēgallu, both terms meaning \"woman of the palace\".[145] The feminine version of the word for king (šarru) was šarratu, but this term was only applied to goddesses and queens of foreign nations who ruled in their own right as queens regnant. Since queen consorts did not rule, the Assyrians did not refer to them as šarratu. The difference in terminology does not necessarily mean that foreign queens, who often governed significantly smaller territories, were seen as having a higher status than the Assyrian queens.[145][146] A frequently used symbol, apparently the royal symbol of the queens, used in documents and on objects to designate the queens was a scorpion.[147]\n\nThough the queens, like all other members of the royal court, whether male or female, ultimately derived their power and influence from their association with the king, they were not pawns without political power.[148][149] The queens had their own say in financial affairs, and while they ideally were supposed to produce an heir to the throne, they also had several other duties and responsibilities, often at very high levels of the government.[149] The queens were involved in the organization of religious activities, the dedication of gifts to the gods, and the financial support of temples. They were in charge of their own, often considerable, financial resources, as evidenced not only by surviving texts concerning their household and activities but also by the treasures uncovered in the Queens' tombs at Nimrud.[150] Under the Sargonid dynasty, military units subservient to the queen were created. Such units were not just an honor guard for the queen, but included commanders, cohorts of infantry and chariots and are sometimes known to have partaken alongside other units in military campaigns.[151]\n\nPerhaps the most powerful of the Neo-Assyrian queens was Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad V, who might have ruled as regent in the early reign of her son Adad-nirari III and participated in military campaigns.[152][153] The mythical queen Semiramis was based on her. Also powerful was Esarhaddon's mother Naqiʾa, though whether she held the status of queen is not certain.[154] Naqiʾa is the best documented woman of the Neo-Assyrian period, and she is seen influencing politics in the reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.[57]\n\nElite and administration\n\nThe unprecedented success of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was tied to its ability to efficiently incorporate conquered lands into its administrative system.[155] It is clear that there was a strong sense of order in the Assyrian mindset, so much so that the Neo-Assyrians have sometimes been referred to as the \"Prussians of the ancient Near East\".[133] This sense of order manifested in various parts of Neo-Assyrian society, including the more square and regular shape of the characters in Neo-Assyrian writing and in the organized administration of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was divided into a set of provinces. The idea of imposing order by creating well-organized hierarchies of power was part of the justifications used by Neo-Assyrian kings for their expansionism: in one of his inscriptions, Sargon II explicitly pointed out that some of the Arab tribes he had defeated had previously \"known no overseer or commander\".[133]\n\nAt the top of the provincial administration was the provincial governor[156] (bēl pīhāti or šaknu).[157] Second-in-command was probably the šaniu (translated as \"deputy\" by modern historians, the title literally means \"second\") and at the bottom of the hierarchy were village managers (rab ālāni), in charge of one or more villages or other settlements with the primary duty to collect taxes in the form of labor and goods. Provincial governors were directly responsible for various aspects of provincial administration, including construction, taxation and security. Security concerns were often mostly relevant only in the frontier provinces, whose governors were also responsible for gathering intelligence about enemies across the border. To this end, a vast network of informants or spies (daiālu) were employed to keep officials informed of events and developments in foreign lands.[156]\n\nProvincial governors were also responsible for supplying offerings to temples, in particular to the temple of Ashur. This channeling of revenues from across the empire was not only meant as a method to collect profit but also as a way to connect the elites across the empire to the religious institutions in the Assyrian heartland.[158] The royal administration kept close watch of institutions and individual officials across the empire through a system of officials responsible directly to the king, called qēpu (usually translated as \"royal delegates\"). Control was maintained locally through regularly deploying low-ranking officials to the smaller settlements, i.e. villages and towns, of the empire. Corvée officers (ša bēt-kūdini) kept tallies on the labor performed by forced laborers and the remaining time owed and village managers kept provincial administrators informed of the conditions of the settlements in their provinces. As the empire grew and time went on, many of its foreign subject peoples became incorporated into the Assyrian administration, with more high officials in the later times of the empire being of non-Assyrian origin.[159]\n\nThe inner elite included two main groups, the \"magnates\" and the \"scholars\". The \"magnates\" are a grouping by modern historians for the seven highest-ranking officials in the administration; the masennu (treasurer), nāgir ekalli (palace herald), rab šāqê (chief cupbearer), rab ša-rēši (chief officer/eunuch), sartinnu (chief judge), sukkallu (grand vizier) and turtanu (commander-in-chief). These offices were sometimes occupied by members of the royal family. Occupants of four of the offices-the masennu, nāgir ekalli, rab šāqê and turtanu-served as governors of important provinces and thus as controllers of local tax revenues and administration. All of the magnates were involved with the Assyrian military, each controlling significant numbers of forces, and they often owned large and tax-free estates. Such estates were scattered across the empire, likely to defuse the power of local provincial authorities and to tie the personal interest of the inner elite to the well-being of the entire empire. The \"scholars\", called ummânī, included people specialized in various disciplines, including scribal arts, medicine, exorcism, divination and astrology. Their role was chiefly to protect, advise and guide the kings through interpreting omens, which maintained the ritual purity of the king and protected him from evil.[160]\n\nState communications\n\nTo govern an empire of unprecedented size, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, probably first under Shalmaneser III, developed a sophisticated state communication system.[161] Use of this system was restricted to messages sent by high officials; their messages were stamped with their seals, which demonstrated their authority. Messages without such seals could not be sent through the communication system.[162][163]\n\nPer estimates by Karen Radner, a message sent from the western border province Quwê to the Assyrian heartland, a distance of 700 kilometers (430 miles) over a stretch of lands featuring many rivers without any bridges, could take less than five days to arrive. Such communication speed was unprecedented before the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was not surpassed in the Middle East until the telegraph was introduced by the Ottoman Empire in 1865, nearly 2,500 years later.[24][25] The quick communications between the imperial court and officials in the provinces was an important contributing factor to the cohesion of the empire and an important innovation which paved the way for its geopolitical dominance.[164]\n\nThe government used mules for long-distance state messengers because of their strength, hardiness and low maintenance. Assyria was the first civilization to use mules for this purpose. It was common for messengers to ride with two mules, which meant that it was possible to alternate between them to keep them fresh and to ensure that the messengers were not stranded if one mule became lame.[165] Messages were sent either through a trusted envoy or through a series of relay riders. The relay system, called kalliu, was invented by the Assyrians and allowed for significantly faster speeds in times of need, with each rider only covering a segment of the travel route, ending at a relay station at which the next rider, with a fresh pair of mules, was passed the letter.[25] To facilitate transport and long-distance travel, the empire constructed and maintained a vast road system. Called the hūl šarri (\"king's road\"), the roads might originally have grown from routes used by the military during campaigns and were continually expanded. The largest phase of road expansion transpired between the reigns of Shalmaneser III and Tiglath-Pileser III.[166]\n\nMilitary\n\nAt the height of the empire, the Assyrian army was the strongest army yet assembled in world history.[19] The number of soldiers was likely several hundred thousand.[167] The Assyrians pioneered innovative strategies, particularly concerning cavalry and siege warfare, that would be used in warfare for millennia.[19] Due to detailed royal records and detailed depictions of soldiers and battle scenes on reliefs, the equipment and organization of the army is relatively well understood.[168] Communication within the army and between units was fast and efficient; using the empire's efficient methods of state communication, messages could be sent across vast distances very quickly. Messages could be passed within an army through the use of fire signals.[169]\n\nWhile on campaign, the army was symbolically led by two gods; with standards of Nergal and Adad being hoisted to the left and right of the commander. The commander was typically the king, but other officials could be assigned to lead the army into war. The army was chiefly raised through provincial governors levying troops. Provincial governors sometimes led campaigns and negotiated with foreign rulers. Under the Sargonid dynasty, some reforms appear to have been made to the leadership of armies; the office of turtanu was divided into two, and it seems that specific regiments, including their respective land-holdings, were transferred from the king's direct command to the command of the crown prince and the queen. The two most important developments in the Neo-Assyrian period were the large-scale introduction of cavalry and the adoption of iron for armor and weapons.[170]\n\nRelief of a Neo-Assyrian soldier, 900-600 BCE, NimrudNeo-Assyrian iron helmet, Nimrud, 800-700 BCE\n\nWhile the Middle Assyrian army had been composed entirely of levies,[171] a central standing army was established in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, dubbed the kiṣir šarri (\"king's unit\"). Closely accompanying the king were the ša qurubte, or royal bodyguards, some drawn from the infantry. The army was subdivided into kiṣru, composed of perhaps 1,000 soldiers, most of whom would have been infantry soldiers (zūk, zukkû or raksūte). The infantry was divided into three types: light, medium and heavy. The light infantry might have in addition to serving in battles also carried out policing tasks and served in garrisons and was likely mainly composed of Aramean tribesmen, often barefoot and without helmets, wielding bows or spears. Also included in that group were probably expert archers hired from Elam. The medium infantry were also primarily archers or spearmen but were armed with characteristic pointed helmets and a shield, though no body armor was used before the time of Ashurbanipal. The heavy infantry included spearmen, archers and slingers and wore boots, pointed helmets, round shields and scale armor. In battle they fought in close formation. Foreign levy troops drafted into the army are often distinguishable in reliefs by distinct headgear.[172]\n\nThe cavalry (ša pētḫalli) used small horses bred in northern Assyria. The cavalry was commanded by a general with the title rab muggi ša pētḫalli. The cavalry was at some point divided into two distinct groups; the archers (ṣāb qašti) and lancers (ṣāb kabābi), both of whom were also equipped with swords. The army incorporated foreign cavalry from Urartu, despite Assyria and Urartu often being at war. The role of cavalry changed through the Neo-Assyrian period; early on, cavalrymen worked in pairs, one shooting arrows and the other protecting the bowman with his shield. Later on, shock cavalry was introduced. Under Ashurbanipal, horses were equipped with leather armor and a bronze plaque on the head, and riders wore scale armor. Though chariots continued to be used ceremonially and were often used by kings while on campaign, they were largely replaced by cavalry as a prominent element of the army.[173]\n\nWhile on campaign, the army made heavy use of both interpreters/translators (targumannu) and guides (rādi kibsi), both probably being drawn from foreigners resettled in Assyra. The innovative techniques and siege engines in siege warfare included tunneling, diverting rivers, blockading to ensure starvation, siege towers, ladders, ramps and battering rams. Another innovation were the camps established by the army while on campaign, which were carefully designed with collapsible furniture and tents so that they could be swiftly built and dismantled.[174]\n\nSociety\n\nPopulation\n\nSocial classes, hierarchy and economy\n\nAt the top of society was the king. Below the king were (in descending order of prestige and power) the crown prince, the royal family, the royal court, administrators and army officers.[175] From the time Ashurnasirpal II designated Nimrud as the new capital of the empire onwards, eunuchs held a high position. The highest offices both in the civil administration and the army were typically occupied by eunuchs with deliberately obscure and lowly origins, since this ensured that they would be loyal to the king. The members of the royal court were often handpicked from among the urban elites by eunuchs.[176]\n\nBelow the higher classes were the Assyrian \"citizens\",[g] semi-free laborers (usually mostly made up of deportees) and then slaves. There was not a large number of slaves, who were made up of prisoners of war and of Assyrians unable to pay their debts and were thus reduced to debt bondage. In many cases, Assyrian family groups or \"clans\" formed large population groups within the empire referred to as tribes.[h] It was possible through steady service to the Assyrian state bureaucracy for a family to move up the social ladder; in some cases stellar work conducted by a single individual enhanced the status of their family for generations. Foreigners could also reach high positions with attestations of individuals with Aramean names in high positions by the end of the 8th century BCE. Though most of the preserved sources only give insight into the higher classes, the vast majority of the population would have been farmers who worked land owned by their families.[175]\n\nFamilies and tribes lived together in settlements near their agricultural lands. It is not clear how local settlements were organized internally beyond each being headed by a mayor who acted as a local judge (more in the sense of a counselor to involved parties than someone who passed judgement) and represented the settlement within the state bureaucracy. It is possible that the mayors were responsible for forwarding local concerns to the state; no revolts by the common people (only by local governors and high officials) are known. Though all means of production were owned by the state, there was a vibrant private economic sector within the empire, with property rights of individuals ensured by the government. Monumental construction projects were undertaken by the state through levying materials and people from local governors, though sometimes also with the help of private contractors.[175]\n\nThe wealth generated through private investments was dwarfed by the wealth of the state, which was by far the largest employer in the empire and had an obvious monopoly on agriculture, manufacturing and exploitation of minerals. The imperial economy advantaged mainly the elite, since it was structured in a way that ensured that surplus wealth flowed to the government and was then used for the maintenance of the state throughout the empire.[177]\n\nResettlement policy\n\nFrom the time of the reconquista onwards, the Assyrians made extensive use of an increasingly complex system of deportations and resettlements. Large-scale resettlement projects were carried out in recently defeated enemy lands and cities in an effort to destroy local identities, which would reduce the risk that local peoples rose up against Assyria,[26][179] and to make the most of the empire's resources, through settling people in a specific underdeveloped region to cultivate its resources better.[179] Though it could likely be emotionally devastating for the resettled populations[26] and economically devastating for the regions they were drawn from,[180] the policy did not include killing any of the resettled people and was meant to safeguard the empire and make its upkeep more efficient.[26] The total number of relocated individuals has been estimated at 1.5-4.5 million people.[181]\n\nThe state valued deportees for their labor and abilities. One of the most important reasons for resettlement was to develop the empire's agricultural infrastructure through introducing Assyrian-developed agricultural techniques to all of the provinces. As a result, many regions of the empire experienced significant improvements in irrigation and thus prosperity.[182]\n\nThe resettlements were carefully planned out and organized.[182] Resettled people were allowed to bring their possessions with them, settle and live together with their families.[183] They were no longer counted as foreigners but as Assyrians, which over time contributed to a sense of loyalty to the state.[183] This recognition as Assyrians was not in name only, as documentary evidence attests to the new settlers not being treated any differently by the Assyrian state than the old populations who had lived in the same locations for generations.[178]\n\nA consequence of the resettlements, and according to Karen Radner \"the most lasting legacy of the Assyrian Empire\",[184] was a dilution of the cultural diversity of the Near East, changing the region's ethnolinguistic composition and facilitating the rise of Aramaic as the local lingua franca.[26] Aramaic remained the lingua franca of the region until suppression of Christians under the Ilkhanate and Timurid Empire in the 14th century AD.[27]\n\nLanguages\n\nAkkadian\n\nThe ancient Assyrians primarily spoke and wrote the Assyrian language, a Semitic language (i.e. related to modern Hebrew and Arabic) closely related to Babylonian, spoken in southern Mesopotamia.[185] Assyrian and Babylonian are generally regarded by modern scholars as dialects of the Akkadian language.[185][186][187][188] The empire was the last state to sponsor writing traditional Akkadian cuneiform in all levels of its administration.[189] As a result, ancient Mesopotamian textual tradition and writing practices flourished to an unprecedented degree in the Neo-Assyrian period. Texts written in cuneiform were made not just in the traditionally Akkadian-speaking Assyrian heartland and Babylonia, but by officials and scribes all over the empire. At the height of the empire, cuneiform documents were written in lands today part of countries like Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iran, which had not produced any cuneiform writings for centuries, and in cases never before.[190]\n\nThree distinct versions, or dialects, of Akkadian were used: Standard Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian.[191] Standard Babylonian was a highly codified version of ancient Babylonian, used around 1500 BCE, and was used as a language of high culture, for nearly all scholarly documents, literature and poetry.[133][191] The culture of the elite was strongly influenced by Babylonia in the south. Though the political relationship between Babylonia and the Assyrian central government was variable and volatile, cultural appreciation of the south was constant throughout the Neo-Assyrian period. Many of the documents written in Standard Babylonian were written by scribes who originally came from southern Mesopotamia but were employed in the north.[133] The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian forms of Akkadian were vernacular languages, primarily spoken in northern and southern Mesopotamia, respectively.[191]\n\nAramaic\n\nThe imperialism of the empire was in some ways different from that of later empires. The perhaps biggest difference was that the kings did not impose their religion or language on the foreign peoples they conquered outside the Assyrian heartland; the national deity Ashur had no significant temples outside of northern Mesopotamia, and the Neo-Assyrian language, though it served as an official language in the sense that it was spoken by provincial governors, was not forced upon conquered peoples.[66] This lack of suppression against foreign languages, and the growing movement of Aramaic-speaking people into the empire during the Middle Assyrian and early Neo-Assyrian periods, facilitated the spread of the Aramaic language.[192] Aramaic grew in importance and increasingly replaced the Neo-Assyrian language even within the Assyrian heartland.[66] From the 9th century BCE onwards, Aramaic became the de facto lingua franca of the empire, with Neo-Assyrian and other forms of Akkadian becoming relegated to a language of the political elite.[192]\n\nDespite its growth, surviving examples of Aramaic from Neo-Assyrian times are significantly fewer in number than Akkadian writings, mostly because Aramaic scribes for the most part used perishable materials for their writings.[193][194] The somewhat lacking record of Aramaic in inscriptions does not reflect that the language held a lower status, since royal inscriptions were almost always written in a highly codified and established manner.[195] Some Aramaic-language inscriptions in stone are known, and there are even a handful of examples of bilingual inscriptions, with the same text written in both Akkadian and Aramaic.[193]\n\nDespite the Neo-Assyrian Empire's promotion of Akkadian, Aramaic also grew to become a widespread vernacular language[191] and it also began to be used in official state-related capacities as early as the reign of Shalmaneser III, given that some examples of Aramaic writings are known from a palace he built in Nimrud.[191] The relationship between Akkadian and Aramaic was somewhat complex, however. Though Sargon II explicitly rejected Aramaic as being unfit for royal correspondence,[i] Aramaic was an officially recognized language under his predecessor Shalmaneser V, who owned a set of lion weights inscribed with text in both Akkadian and Aramaic.[196] That the question of using Aramaic in royal correspondence was even raised in Sargon II's time in the first place was a significant development.[197] In reliefs from palaces built by kings from Tiglath-Pileser III to Ashurbanipal, scribes writing in Akkadian and Aramaic are often depicted side by side, confirming Aramaic having risen to the position of an official language used by the imperial administration.[191][196]\n\nOther languages\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire was highly multilingual. Through its expansionism, the empire came to rule a vast stretch of land incorporating regions throughout the Near East, where various languages were spoken.[189] These languages included various Semitic languages (including Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, Ugaritic, Moabite and Edomite)[189][198] as well as many non-Semitic languages, such as Indo-European languages (including Luwian and Median), Hurrian languages (including Urartian and Shuprian),[189] Afroasiatic languages (Egyptian),[193] and language isolates (including Mannean and Elamite).[189] Though it was no longer spoken, some scholarly texts from the Neo-Assyrian period were also written in the ancient Sumerian language.[199] Though they must have been necessary, Neo-Assyrian texts rarely mentioned translators and interpreters (targumānu). Translators are only mentioned in cases when Assyrians communicated with speakers of non-Semitic languages.[199]\n\nScholarship and engineering\n\nLiterature\n\nThe beginnings of Assyrian scholarship is conventionally placed near the beginning of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BCE, when Assyrians began to take a lively interest in Babylonian scholarship, which they adapted and developed into their own scholarship tradition. The rising status of scholarship might be connected to the kings beginning to regard amassing knowledge as a way to strengthen their power.[200] There was a marked change in royal attitude towards scholarship; while the kings had previously seen preserving knowledge as a responsibility of the temples and of private individuals, it was increasingly also seen as a responsibility of the king.[201] The scholarship appears to have begun already under Tukulti-Ninurta II in the 9th century BCE, since he is the first Assyrian king under which the office of chief scholar is attested. In Tukulti-Ninurta's time the office was occupied by Gabbu-ilani-eresh, an ancestor of a later influential family of advisors and scribes.[46]\n\nLibraries were built to maintain scribal culture and scholarship and to preserve the knowledge of the past. Such libraries were not limited to the temples and royal palaces; there were also private libraries built and kept by individual scholars. Texts found in the libraries fall into a wide array of genres, including divinatory texts, divination reports, treatments for the sick (either medical or magical), ritual texts, incantations, prayers and hymns, school texts and literary texts.[202]\n\nThe largest and most important royal library in Mesopotamian history was the Library of Ashurbanipal, an ambitious project for which Ashurbanipal gathered tablets from both Assyrian and Babylonian libraries. The texts in this library were gathered both through amassing existing tablets from throughout the empire and through commissioning scribes to copy existing works in their own libraries and send them to the king. The Library of Ashurbanipal included more than 30,000 documents.[203]\n\nCivic technology\n\nThe empire accomplished several complex technical projects, which indicates sophisticated technical knowledge. Various professionals who performed engineering tasks are attested in Neo-Assyrian sources, such as individuals holding positions like šitimgallu (\"chief builder\"), šellapajū (\"architect\"), etinnu (\"house builder\") and gugallu (\"inspector of canals\").[204]\n\nAmong the most impressive engineering and construction projects were the repeated constructions and renovations of capital cities (Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh). Royal inscriptions commemorating the building works at these sites often detail the building process. The level of sophistication in engineering is evident from solutions to technical problems like lighting throughout large buildings and canalizations of toilets, roofs and courts. A frequent challenge was to construct the roofs of large rooms since the Assyrians had to support them using only wooden beams. As a result, large representative rooms were often much longer than they were wide.\n\nThere was a general tendency of kings wanting to outperform their predecessors: Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh was significantly larger than that of Sargon II, which in turn was significantly larger than that of Shalmaneser III.[205] All the capitals contained great parks, an innovation of the Neo-Assyrian period. Parks were complex engineering works since they not only exhibited exotic plants from far-away lands but also involved modifying the landscape through adding artificial hills and ponds, as well as pavilions and other small buildings.[206]\n\nTo supply cities with water, the Assyrians constructed advanced hydraulic works to divert and transport water from far-away mountain regions in the east and north. In Babylonia, water was typically simply drawn from the Tigris river, but it was difficult to do so in Assyria due to the river's level vis-à-vis the surrounding lands and changes in the water level. Because periods of drought often threatened Assyrian dry farming, several kings undertook irrigation projects, including canal construction. The most ambitious hydraulic engineering project was undertaken by Sennacherib during his renovation of Nineveh. As part of his building project, four large canal systems, together covering more than 150 kilometers (93.2 miles), were connected to the city from four different directions. These systems included canals, tunnels, weirs, aqueducts and natural watercourses. Other hydraulic works included sewage and drainage systems for buildings which made it possible to dispose of wastewater and efficiently drain the yards, roofs and toilets of palaces, temples, and private homes.[207]\n\nTransportation from far-away locations of goods and materials sometimes involved very heavy loads. Wood was for instance relatively scarce in the Assyrian heartland and as such had to be gathered from distant lands and transported for use as a building material. Wood was typically gathered from distant forests, transported to rivers and then hauled on rafts or ships. The most challenging type of transportation was the transport of large blocks of stone, necessary for various building projects. Several kings note in their royal inscriptions the difficulties involved in the transportation of the single massive blocks of stone needed to create the great lamassu (protective stone colossi with the head of a human, wings and the body of a bull) for their palaces. Because the stones had to be transported from sources several kilometers away from the capitals and were typically transported on boats, it was a difficult process, and several boats sank on the way. Under Sennacherib a quarry was opened on the left bank of the Tigris river, which led to the stones being able to be transported fully over land, a more secure but still very labor-intensive project. When transported over land, the great stones were moved by four teams of workers, overseen by supervisors, using wooden planks or rollers.[208]\n\nLegacy\n\nCulture\n\nLiterary and religious traditions\n\nThe empire left a cultural legacy of great consequence.[28] The population of Upper Mesopotamia continued to keep the memory of their ancient civilization alive and to maintain a positive connection with the Assyrian Empire in local histories written as late as the Sasanian period.[209] Figures like Sargon II,[210] Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin long figured in local folklore and literary tradition.[211] In large part, tales from the Sasanian period and later times were invented narratives, based on ancient Assyrian history but applied to local and current landscapes.[212] Medieval tales written in Eastern Aramaic, particularly Syriac, portray Sennacherib as an archetypal pagan king, assassinated in a family feud whose children convert to Christianity.[211] The legend of the Behnam, Sarah, and the Forty Martyrs, set in the 4th century but written long thereafter, casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father.[213]\n\nSome Aramaic stories spread far beyond Upper Mesopotamia. The Story of Ahikar follows a legendary royal advisor named Ahikar of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon[214] and is first attested on an Elephantine papyrus from c. 500 BCE. This story proved popular and was translated into many languages. Other tales from Egypt include stories of the Egyptian hero Inarus, a fictionalized version of the rebel Inaros I, fighting against Esarhaddon's invasion of Egypt, as well as a tale recounting the civil war between Ashurbanipal and Šamaš-šuma-ukin. Some Egyptian tales feature a queen of the Amazons named Serpot, possibly based on Shammuramat.[28]\n\nSeveral legends of Assyria are known from Greco-Roman texts, including a fictional narrative of the founding of the empire and Nineveh by the legendary figure Ninus, as well as tales of Ninus's powerful wife Semiramis, another fictionalized version of Shammuramat. Legendary accounts were written of the empire's fall, erroneously linked to the reign of the effeminate Sardanapalus, a fictionalized version of Ashurbanipal.[214]\n\nThough the empire did not force religious conversions, its existence as a large, imperialist state reshaped the religious views of the people around it, prominently ancient Israel and Judah. The Hebrew Bible mentions Assyria about 150 times; multiple significant events which involved the Israelites are mentioned, most prominently Sennacherib's war against Hezekiah, and several Neo-Assyrian kings are mentioned, including Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and possibly Ashurbanipal.[214] Though some positive associations of Assyria are included, the Bible generally paints the empire as an imperialist aggressor.[215] Jewish theology was influenced by the empire: the Book of Deuteronomy bears a strong resemblance to the loyalty oaths in Assyrian vassal treaties, though with the absolute loyalty to the Assyrian king replaced with absolute loyalty to Yahweh.[214] Additionally, some stories in the Bible appear to be at least partly drawn from events in Assyrian history; the story of Jonah and the whale might draw on earlier stories concerning Shammuramat, and the story of Joseph was likely at least partly inspired by Esarhaddon's rise to power.[28]\n\nPerhaps the empire's greatest influence on later Abrahamic religious tradition was that the emergence of a new religious and \"national\" identity among the Israelites might have been a direct response to the political and intellectual challenges posed by Assyrian imperialism.[216] The most important innovation in Hebrew theology during the period roughly corresponding to the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was the elevation of Yahweh as the only god and the beginning of the monotheism that would later characterize Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It has been suggested that this development only followed experiences either with the henotheism of the Assyrians regarding Aššur, or the monocratic and universal nature of the imperial rule of the Assyrian kings.[29]\n\nArchaeology\n\nWhen the Medes and Babylonians conquered the Assyrian heartland, they put the monuments, palaces, temples and cities to the torch; the Assyrian people were dispersed, and the cities were for a long time left largely abandoned.[217] Though Assyria experienced a resurgence in the post-imperial period, chiefly under the Seleucids and Parthians, the region was later devastated once more during the rise of the Sasanian Empire in the 3rd century AD.[209][218] The only ancient Assyrian city to be continually inhabited as an urban center from the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to the present is Arbela, today known as Erbil.[219]\n\nThough the local population of northern Mesopotamia never forgot the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the locations of its capital cities, knowledge of Assyria in the west survived through the centuries chiefly through the accounts of the Bible and the works describing the empire by classical authors. Unlike other ancient civilizations, Assyria and other Mesopotamian civilizations left no magnificent ruins above ground; all that remained to see were grass-covered mounds in the plains which travellers at times believed to simply be natural features of the landscape.[220]\n\nIn the early 19th century, European explorers and archaeologists first began to investigate the ancient mounds. One of the important early figures in Assyrian archaeology was British business agent Claudius Rich who visited the site of Nineveh in 1820, traded antiquities with the locals and made measurements of the mounds. Rich's collection (which ended up in the British Museum) and writings inspired Julius von Mohl, secretary of the French Société Asiatique, to persuade the French authorities to create the position of a French consul in Mosul and to start excavations at Nineveh. The first consul to be appointed was Paul-Émile Botta in 1841. Using funds secured by von Mohl, Botta conducted extensive excavations at Nineveh, particularly on the Kuyunjik mound. Because the ancient ruins of Nineveh were hidden deep under layers of later settlement and agricultural activities, Botta's excavation never reached them. Upon hearing reports by locals that they had uncovered Assyrian ruins, Botta turned his attention to the site of Khorsabad, 20 kilometers to the northeast, where he discovered the ruins of an ancient palace. Botta had uncovered the ancient city of Dur-Sharrukin. The works of art found under Botta's supervision included reliefs and stone lamassus. In 1847 the first exhibition on Assyrian sculptures was held in the Louvre. After returning to Europe in the late 1840s, Botta compiled an elaborate report on the findings, complete with numerous drawings of the reliefs made by artist Eugène Flandin. The report, published in 1849, showcases the majesty of Assyrian art and architecture.[221]\n\nEnglish archaeologist Austen Henry Layard wrote in the 19th century: \"mighty ruins in the midst of deserts, defying, by their very desolation and lack of definite form, the description of the traveller\". Layard began his activities in November 1845 at Nimrud (though he believed this to be the site of Nineveh), working as a private individual without any permission to excavate from the Ottoman authorities; he initially tried to fool the local pasha through claiming that he was on a hunting trip. The expedition was funded by the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Stratford Canning. Layard discovered ruins of numerous palaces, including the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, with numerous walls covered in reliefs. Layard's illustrated two-volume book presenting his discoveries, Nineveh and its Remains, was published in 1849. Layard conducted a second expedition in which he turned his attention to the Kuyunjik mound. There he made significant discoveries, including the palace built by Sennacherib.[222] \n\nIn 1852, the French continued excavations at Khorsabad, with Victor Place instructed to procure \"the largest possible\" amount of Assyrian artefacts. Rivalry between the Louvre and the British Museum played a significant role in the intensity of early exploration and excavation of Assyrian sites. Though Layard left Mesopotamia in 1851, the British Museum appointed his close assistant, Assyrian Hormuzd Rassam, to continue excavation projects in the region. After the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, archaeology in Assyria remained dead for a long time, though excavations began again in the early 20th century and have continued since.[223]\n\nStatus as a world empire\n\nThough some point to the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BCE) or the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 1550-1290 BCE),[65] many researchers consider the Neo-Assyrian Empire to be the first world empire in history.[20][22][21][23] Although the Neo-Assyrian Empire covered between 1.4[13] and 1.7[224] million square kilometers (0.54-0.66 million square miles; just a little over one percent of the land area of the planet), the terms \"world empire\" or \"universal empire\" should not be taken as denoting actual world domination.[22] The Neo-Assyrian Empire was at its height the largest empire yet to be formed in history[20] and was regarded by the Assyrians and many of their contemporaries as \"universal\", while the lands remaining outside their dominions-such as the Arabian desert and the highlands of the Zagros Mountains-were dismissed \"empty\", at the fringes of the world and inhabited by uncivilized peoples.[22]\n\nA \"world empire\" can also be interpreted as an imperial state without any competitors.[43] Though there were other reasonably large kingdoms in the ancient Near East during the Neo-Assyrian period-notably Urartu in the north, Egypt in the west and Elam in the east-none were existential threats to Assyria and could do little else than defend themselves in times of war; whereas Assyrian troops routinely plundered and campaigned in the heartlands of these kingdoms, the Assyrian heartland was not invaded until the fall of the empire.[43] Nevertheless, the existence of other organized kingdoms undermined the notion of the Assyrians as universal rulers. It is partly because of this that large military campaigns were conducted with the express goal of conquering these kingdoms and fulfilling the ideological mission of ruling the world.[22] At the height of the empire under Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, only Urartu remained since Egypt had been conquered and Elam left destroyed and desolate.[98]\n\nIdeological influence\n\nIdeologically, the empire formed an important part in the imperial ideologies of succeeding empires in the Middle East. The idea of continuity between successive empires (a phenomenon in later times dubbed translatio imperii) was a long established tradition in Mesopotamia, going back to the Sumerian King List which connected succeeding and sometimes rival dynasties and kingdoms together as predecessors and successors. In the past, the idea of succession between empires had resulted in claims such as that of the Dynasty of Isin being the successor of the Third Dynasty of Ur, or Babylonia being the successor of the Akkadian Empire.[225] The idea of translatio imperii supposes that there is only one \"true\" empire at any given time, and that imperial power and right to rule is inherited from one empire to the next, with Assyria typically seen as the first empire.[226]\n\nAncient Greek historians such as Herodotus and Ctesias supported a sequence of three world empires and a successive transfer of world domination from the Assyrians to the Medes to the Achaemenids.[225] Inscriptions from several of the Achaemenid kings, most notably Cyrus the Great, alludes to their empire being the successor of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[227] Shortly after Alexander the Great conquered Persia, his Macedonian Empire began to be regarded as the fourth empire.[225] Texts from the Neo-Babylonian period regard the Neo-Babylonian Empire as the successor of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Babylonian texts from the time Mesopotamia came under the rule of the Seleucid Empire centuries later supported a longer sequence, with imperial power being transferred from the Assyrians to the Babylonians, then to the Achaemenids and finally to the Macedonians, with the Seleucid Empire being viewed as the same empire as Alexander's empire.[226] Later traditions were somewhat confused in the set of empires, with some conflating Assyria with Babylonia as a single empire, though still counting the Macedonians/Seleucids as the fourth due to counting both Babylonia and the Medes (despite them being contemporaries).[226] The Book of Daniel describes a dream of the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II which features a statue with a golden head, silver chest, bronze belly, iron legs and iron/clay feet. This statue is interpreted as an expression of translatio imperii, placing Nebuchadnezzar's empire (the Neo-Babylonian Empire; gold) as the first empire, the Median Empire (silver) as the second, the Achaemenid Empire (bronze) as the third and the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great (iron) as the fourth.[225]\n\nThe idea of succession of empires did not end with the fall of the Seleucid Empire; traditions were instead adjusted to include later empires in the sequence. Shortly after the Roman Empire conquered the last remnants of the Seleucid Empire in 63 BCE, literary traditions began to regard the Roman Empire as the fifth world empire. The Roman Empire spawned its own sequences of successor claimants; in the east it was followed by the Byzantine Empire, from which both the Russian and Ottoman empires claimed succession. In the west, the Frankish and eventually Holy Roman empires considered themselves to be the heirs of Rome.[226] Later scholars have sometimes posited a sequence of world empires more focused on the Middle East. In British scholar George Rawlinson's 1862-67 work The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, the five Oriental empires are regarded to have been Chaldaea (erroneous since no such empire existed), Assyria, Babylonia, Media and Persia. Rawlinson expanded the sequence in his 1876 The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World to include the Parthian and Sasanian empires.[226] Though expansive sequences of translatio imperii hold little weight in modern research, scholars today still recognize a basic sequence of imperial succession from the Neo-Assyrian Empire to the Neo-Babylonian Empire to the Achaemenid Empire.[226]\n\nAdministrative influence\n\nThe political structures established by the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the model for the later empires that succeeded it.[28] Key components of the Neo-Babylonian Empire were based on the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[228] Though the administrative structure of the Neo-Babylonian Empire is not known due to the scant surviving sources, and it is thus unclear to what degree the old provincial divisions and administration of the Neo-Assyrian Empire continued to be in use,[229] the organization of the central palace bureaucracy under the Neo-Babylonian kings was based on that of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, not any established earlier Babylonian models. Additionally, Neo-Babylonian construction projects, such as Nebuchadnezzar II's massive expansion of Babylon, followed Assyrian traditions; as the Neo-Assyrian kings had done in their new capitals, Nebuchadnezzar placed his palace on a raised terrace across the city wall and followed a rectangular plan for the inner city.[214] The sophisticated Assyrian road system, first created during the Middle Assyrian period, also continued to be in use and served as a model for sophisticated road systems of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid empires.[230]\n\nReputation of brutality\n\nI built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes and others I bound to stakes round the pillar. I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled. Many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I consumed with fire. The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates.\n\n- Inscription by Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE)[231]\n\nThe empire is perhaps most prominently remembered for the ferocity and brutality of its army.[232][233] Neo-Assyrian inscriptions and artwork are unusually explicit in description and depiction of various atrocities, often describing them with \"terrifying realism\".[233] It is chiefly from the Neo-Assyrian period that royal inscriptions describe atrocities in detail,[233] though various atrocities were enacted against enemy states and peoples by certain Middle Assyrian kings as well.[234] This may be attributable to the Neo-Assyrian kings using fear to keep their conquered territories in-line after declines in power during the Middle Assyrian Empire.[40]\n\nBiblical and other historical references to Assyrian brutality were reinforced by the 19th-century discoveries of ancient art and inscriptions, as well as by unflattering comparisons drawn between Assyria and the Ottoman Empire by the historians and archaeologists who found them.[232] Today, despite the diversity of ancient Assyrian culture, military and atrocity scenes dominate museum exhibitions on Assyria because of their distinct character.[233]\n\nThough there is no modern scholarly denial that the Neo-Assyrian government was brutal, the extent to which the inscriptions and artwork reflect actual atrocities is debated. Some believe that the Assyrians were more brutal than depicted because inscriptions and art do not include all the gruesome details or record every instance,[233] whereas others believe Assyrian kings used exaggerated descriptions of brutal acts as tools for propaganda and psychological warfare.[235]\n\nAlthough Neo-Assyrian art is particularly graphic, actual practice in war was likely similar in character to their cultural neighbors, if more effective and broader in impact because of a higher level of bureaucratic organization. Detailed analysis of palace friezes suggests that brutality was typically targeted to intimidate and dissuade foreigners and vassals from fighting against Assyrian dominion. The vast majority of depicted brutal acts were directed against the soldiers and nobility of Assyria's enemies, with civilians only rarely being brutalized, suggesting cultural limits and restraints for most of neo-Assyrian rule.[236][47]\n\nThe act of genocide in Assyria has been a matter of scholarly debate; Raphael Lemkin who coined the term \"genocide\", claimed that Ashurbanipal committed the most flagrant act of genocide against Elam, an attack motivated by desire for revenge and punishment.[237] Eckart Frahm explains that the indiscriminate killing of civilians was occasionally used by the Assyrians as a deterrent for possible rebels, but they had no interest in genocidal campaigns.[238] It also appears that no consistent pattern can be found in Assyrian texts indicating the extermination of particular ethnic groups.[239] \n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nSuperpower\n\nNotes\n\n^ Sign-by-sign transliterated as mat Aš-šurᴷᴵ, literally meaning \"Country of Ashur\". Equivalent in archaic Sumero-Akkadian cuneiforms: 𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠 KUR AN-ŠAR₂ᴷᴵ; the same in Assyrian cuneiform in Ashubanipal's Rassam cylinder: 𒆳𒀭𒊹𒆠 KUR AN-ŠAR₂ᴷᴵ,[1][2] pronounced in Assyrian mat Aušarᵏⁱ, then mat Aššurᵏⁱ mat Aššurᵏⁱ, meaning \"The country of the city of god Aššur\";[3][4][5][6] also phonetically in another inscription of Ashurbanipal 𒆳𒀸𒋩 mat aš-šur (Sumerian: 𒆳𒀸𒋩)[7] or 𒀸𒋩𒆠 aš-šurᵏⁱ (Sumerian 𒀸𒋩𒆠)[8] Also 𒆳𒀭𒀀𒋩 mat ᵈa-šur in Amarna letter EA 15 dating to c. 1340 BCE\n\n^ Rarely also the Late Assyrian Empire[15] or New Assyrian Empire[16]\n\n^ Adad-nirari II's accession is the conventional starting date for the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[17] Some historians alternatively include the reign of his predecessor Ashur-dan II as well, placing the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian period in 934 BCE.[18]\n\n^ See the section the Neo-Assyrian Empire as a world empire\n\n^ It has for instance been suggested that Hebrew monotheism, which developed around this time, followed experiences with the near-monotheism of the Assyrians in regard to Ashur or the monocratic imperial rule of the Neo-Assyrian kings.[29]\n\n^ Ashurnasirpal II is one of only four Assyrian kings who claimed to have slaughtered civilians in his inscriptions and the only one to claim to have killed and burnt young children. In terms of the variety and severity of brutal acts, he is rivalled only by the later Ashurbanipal.[48]\n\n^ For a lack of a better term; there was no corresponding ancient Assyrian term or clearly defined legal status.[175]\n\n^ Not to be confused with modern Assyrian tribes\n\n^ One of Sargon's letters, written in response to an official from Ur in Babylonia who wished to write to the king in Aramaic, reads \"Why would you not write and send me messages in Akkadian? Really, the message which you write must be drawn up in this very manner - this is a fixed regulation!\".[196]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Name used in Neo-Babylonian inscriptions, such as the Rassam cylinder of Ashurbanipal\n\n^ Rassam cylinder transcription in \"CDLI-Archival View\". cdli.ucla.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-06-13. Retrieved 2020-06-18.\n\n^ \"The country of Assyria, which in the Assyro-Babylonian literature is known as mat Aššur (ki), \"land of Assur,\" took its name from the ancient city of Aššur\" in Sayce, Archibald Henry (1911). \"Assur (city)\" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 788.\n\n^ \"rinap/rinap4\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2023-06-19.\n\n^ \"The name Anshar, softened into Aushar, and subsequently into Ashshur, was first applied to the town and then to the whole country\" in Sayce, A. H. (2005). History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12). Library of Alexandria. p. 223. ISBN 978-1-4655-4330-1.\n\n^ Pongratz-Leisten, Beate (2015). Religion and Ideology in Assyria. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-61451-426-8.\n\n^ Quentin, A. (1895). \"Inscription Inédite du Roi Assurbanipal: Copiée Au Musée Britannique le 24 Avril 1886\". Revue Biblique (1892-1940). 4 (4): 554. ISSN 1240-3032. JSTOR 44100170.\n\n^ \"Sumerian dictionary entry: Aššur [ASSYRIA] (GN)\". oracc.iaas.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-07-25. Retrieved 2020-06-19.\n\n^ O'Brien, Patrick Karl (2002). Atlas of World History. Oxford University Press. p. 39. ISBN 9780195219210.\n\n^ The Times Atlas of World History, p.57 (1989): Barraclough, Geoffrey (1997). The Times Atlas of World History. Times Books. ISBN 978-0-7230-0906-1.\n\n^ Bryce, Trevor; Birkett-Rees, Jessie (2016). Atlas of the Ancient Near East: From Prehistoric Times to the Roman Imperial Period. Routledge. p. 167. ISBN 9781317562108.\n\n^ A. Cetrez, Onver; G. Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo (2012). The Assyrian Heritage. Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 132. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)\n\n^ a b Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006, p. 223.\n\n^ Bang, Peter Fibiger; Bayly, C. A.; Scheidel, Walter (2020). The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume One: The Imperial Experience. Oxford University Press. pp. 92-94. ISBN 978-0-19-977311-4.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 148.\n\n^ Taagepera 1978, p. 187.\n\n^ a b Merrill, Rooker & Grisanti 2011, p. 30.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 165.\n\n^ a b c d e f Aberbach 2003, p. 4.\n\n^ a b c d Düring 2020, p. 133.\n\n^ a b c d e f Frahm 2017, p. 161.\n\n^ a b c d e Liverani 2017, p. 536.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 2.\n\n^ a b Radner 2012, Making speed.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2015b, p. 64.\n\n^ a b c d e f Frahm 2017, pp. 177-178.\n\n^ a b Filoni 2017, p. 37.\n\n^ a b c d e Frahm 2017, p. 196.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017b, p. 565.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, pp. 58, 71.\n\n^ Liverani 2013, p. 120.\n\n^ Liverani 2013, pp. 120-121.\n\n^ Levin 2002, p. 360.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 1.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 43.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 45.\n\n^ Jakob 2017, p. 125.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 46.\n\n^ Jakob 2017, p. 136.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 167.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 136.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 145.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. 144.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 168.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 167, 169.\n\n^ a b c d e Frahm 2017, p. 169.\n\n^ a b Bagg 2016, p. 60.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, pp. 59-60.\n\n^ a b c d e Mark 2020.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 170.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 171.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 172.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017, p. 173.\n\n^ Grayson 2002, p. 200.\n\n^ a b c d e Frahm 2017, p. 174.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2018, pp. 184-185.\n\n^ a b Fink 2020.\n\n^ Melville 2014, p. 228.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017, p. 175.\n\n^ a b Grayson 1982, p. 277.\n\n^ Radner 2016, p. 52.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 176.\n\n^ Grayson 1982, pp. 277-278.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 177.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 178.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Frahm 2017, p. 180.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 408-409, 410-416.\n\n^ a b c Parker 2011, p. 367.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 181.\n\n^ Na'aman, N., 'Sargon II and the rebellion of the Cypriote kings against Shilta of Tyre', Orientalia 67 (1998), 239-247 [reprinted in N. Na'aman, Ancient Israel and its neighbors: interaction and counteraction (Collected essays, vol. 1), Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005, 118-128].\n\n^ a b Radner, K. 2010: \"The Stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A focus for an emerging Cypriot identity?\", in R. Rollinger, B. Gufler, M. Lang, I. Madreiter (eds), Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts, Wiesbaden, 429-449.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 183.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, pp. 183-184.\n\n^ Breasted, James; Luckenbill, Daniel. \"The Annals of Sennacherib\" (PDF). University of Chicago Press: 12-13. Those who hold the two-campaign hypothesis [...] they are now in the majority feel that the difficulties presented by the Old Testament story [...] are most easily overcome by assuming a first western campaign in 701 in which the Assyrian king defeated [...] and a second campaign in 687 or 686, when he met a crushing defeat. The Old Testament is supposed to have telescoped the two campaigns at once.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017, p. 185.\n\n^ Levine 1982, p. 41.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1924, p. 15.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 186.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 210.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 166.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 186-187.\n\n^ Radner 2003, pp. 166, 168.\n\n^ a b Radner 2003, p. 169.\n\n^ a b c d e f Frahm 2017, p. 187.\n\n^ The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2. Cambridge University Press. 1998. p. 565. ISBN 0-521-22717-8.\n\n^ \"SCYTHIANS\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 2026-09-07.\n\n^ a b Dalley, Stephanie (2007-11-29). Esther's Revenge at Susa: From Sennacherib to Ahasuerus. OUP Oxford. pp. 46-47. ISBN 978-0-19-152712-8.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 172.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 188.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 63.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 188-189.\n\n^ Melville 2012.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 189.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 8.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 80.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 90.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 189-190.\n\n^ a b Mark 2009.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 190.\n\n^ Watanabe 1999, p. 320.\n\n^ a b c d e f Frahm 2017, p. 191.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, pp. 122-123.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 121.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 122.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 129.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 256.\n\n^ Oates 1992, p. 172.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ Jursa 2007, pp. 127, 129, 130, 133.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 14.\n\n^ a b c d e Frahm 2017, p. 192.\n\n^ a b c Lipschits 2005, p. 15.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 263.\n\n^ a b Melville 2011, p. 17.\n\n^ a b Melville 2011, p. 27.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 16.\n\n^ Melville 2011, pp. 13, 18.\n\n^ a b Lipschits 2005, p. 17.\n\n^ Melville 2011, p. 18.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 18.\n\n^ Radner 2013.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 136.\n\n^ Radner 2019, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 192; Lipschits 2005, p. 19.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 20.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 229.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 141.\n\n^ a b c d e f Frahm 2017, p. 193.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 265.\n\n^ Reade 1998, p. 263.\n\n^ Melville 2011, p. 21.\n\n^ a b Na'aman 1991, p. 266.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Frahm 2017, p. 162.\n\n^ Brinkman 1973, p. 90.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 212.\n\n^ Zaia 2019, pp. 6-7.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 140.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 363-364.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 364-365.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 372.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 365.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, p. 22.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, p. 29.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 365-367.\n\n^ a b Kertai 2013, p. 109.\n\n^ Spurrier 2017, pp. 173-174.\n\n^ Gansell 2018, p. 161.\n\n^ Gansell 2018, p. 158.\n\n^ a b Teppo 2007, p. 392.\n\n^ Svärd 2015, p. 159.\n\n^ Svärd 2015, pp. 163-166.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 113.\n\n^ Svärd 2015, p. 167.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 191.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 359.\n\n^ a b Parker 2011, pp. 370-371.\n\n^ Yamada 2000, p. 300.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 369.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 360.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 368-370, 377-378.\n\n^ Radner 2012, Road stations across the empire.\n\n^ Radner 2012, Authorisation needed.\n\n^ Radner 2015b, p. 65.\n\n^ Kessler 1997, p. 129.\n\n^ Radner 2012, The original hybrid transport technology.\n\n^ Kessler 1997, p. 130.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, p. 531.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, p. 525.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 523, 526.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 523, 525, 529-531.\n\n^ Jakob 2017b, p. 152.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 526, 528.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 526-527.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 528, 531.\n\n^ a b c d Bedford 2009, p. 36.\n\n^ Radner 2017, p. 213.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, p. 38.\n\n^ a b Radner 2017, p. 211.\n\n^ a b Radner 2017, p. 209.\n\n^ Radner 2017, p. 212.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, p. 33.\n\n^ a b Radner 2017, p. 210.\n\n^ a b Dalley 2017, p. 528.\n\n^ Radner 2017, pp. 209-210.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015, p. 2.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 39.\n\n^ Garfinkle 2007, p. 54.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 313.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2021, p. 147.\n\n^ Radner 2021, p. 148.\n\n^ a b c d e f Radner 2021, p. 149.\n\n^ a b Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 318.\n\n^ a b c Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 320.\n\n^ Radner 2021, p. 168.\n\n^ Radner 2021, p. 178.\n\n^ a b c Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 319.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 361.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, pp. 320-321.\n\n^ a b Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 321.\n\n^ Heeßel 2017, p. 368.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, p. 378.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, pp. 379-380.\n\n^ Fincke 2017, pp. 383-385.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, p. 511.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, pp. 511-514.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, p. 514.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, pp. 514-517.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, pp. 518, 520.\n\n^ a b Hauser 2017, p. 241.\n\n^ Payne 2012, p. 214.\n\n^ a b Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 5.\n\n^ Payne 2012, p. 209.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c d e Frahm 2017, p. 195.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 560.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 556.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 19.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, p. 584.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 583-584.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 584-585.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 584-588.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 588-590.\n\n^ Taagepera 1978, p. 191.\n\n^ a b c d Liverani 2017, p. 534.\n\n^ a b c d e f Liverani 2017, p. 535.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2017, p. 552.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 194-195.\n\n^ MacGinnis 2010, p. 153.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 109.\n\n^ Mark 2014.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 3.\n\n^ a b c d e Bagg 2016, p. 57.\n\n^ Dewar 2021, p. 71.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 22.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, p. 71.\n\n^ Lemkin, Raphael (2012-01-01). 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Relating to His Campaigns to the West. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11772-3.\n\nYamada, Keiko; Yamada, Shiego (2017). \"Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited\". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.). \"Now It Happened in Those Days\": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-761-2. Archived from the original on 2022-02-09. Retrieved 2022-01-28.\n\nZaia, Shana (2019). \"Going Native: Šamaš-šuma-ukīn, Assyrian King of Babylon\". IRAQ. 81: 247-268. doi:10.1017/irq.2019.1. S2CID 200251092. Archived from the original on 2022-01-22. Retrieved 2022-01-28.\n\nZawadzki, Stefan (1994). \"The Revolt of 746 B.C and the Coming of Tiglath-pileser III to the Throne\" (PDF). State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 8: 53-54. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-12. Retrieved 2022-01-28."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-neo-assyrian-empire"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 21890}, {"slug": "reference-assyriology", "title": "Assyriology", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Assyriology (from Greek Ἀσσυρίᾱ, Assyriā; and -λογία, -logia), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies,[1][2] is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers Pre Dynastic Mesopotamia, Sumer, the early Sumero-Akkadian city-states, the Akkadian Empire, Ebla,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyriology (from Greek Ἀσσυρίᾱ, Assyriā; and -λογία, -logia), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies,[1][2] is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers Pre Dynastic Mesopotamia, Sumer, the early Sumero-Akkadian city-states, the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, the Akkadian and Imperial Aramaic speaking states of Assyria, Babylonia and the Sealand Dynasty, the migrant foreign dynasties of southern Mesopotamia, including the Gutians, Amorites, Kassites, Arameans, Suteans and Chaldeans. Assyriology can be included to cover Neolithic pre-Dynastic cultures dating to as far back as 8000 BC, to the Islamic Conquest of the 7th century CE.\n\nThe large number of cuneiform clay tablets preserved by these Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian cultures provide an extremely large resource for the study of the period. The region's-and the world's-first cities and city-states, like Ur, are archaeologically invaluable for studying the growth of urbanization.\n\nScholars of Assyriology develop proficiency in the two main languages of Mesopotamia: Akkadian (including its major dialects) and Sumerian. Familiarity with neighbouring languages such as Biblical Hebrew, Hittite, Elamite, Hurrian, Imperial Aramaic, Eastern Aramaic dialects, Old Persian, and Canaanite are useful for comparative purposes, and the knowledge of writing systems that use several hundred core signs. There now exist many important grammatical studies and lexical aids. Although scholars can draw from a large corpus of literature, some tablets are broken, or in the case of literary texts where there may be many copies the language and grammar are often arcane. Scholars must be able to read and understand modern English, French, and German, as important references, dictionaries, and journals are published in those languages.\n\nTerminology\n\nThe term was first used by French Orientalist and Semitic scholar Ernest Renan in 1859 as a parallel to the term Egyptology, in a discussion of the translation of Assyrian terms from other cuneiform languages.[3][4] By 1897 Fritz Hommel described the term as misleading,[5] and today the International Association for Assyriology itself calls the term \"old-fashioned\".[6]\n\nThe term is defined in different ways by different scholars in the field.[7][8] Today, alternate terms such as \"cuneiform studies\" or \"study of the Ancient Near East\" are also used.[1][2]\n\nOriginally Assyriology referred primarily to the study of Assyrian texts discovered in the north of modern-day Iraq, ancient Assyria, following their initial discovery at Khorsabad in 1843. Although the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform had taken place prior, much of the subsequent decipherment of cuneiform was carried out using the multilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions, comparing the previously deciphered Persian with the Assyrian cuneiform where used in parallel scripts. Usage of the term began to expand after it was noticed that, in addition to Old Persian and Assyrian, the cuneiform script had been used for a sister language, Babylonian. Babylonian and Assyrian had diverged around 2000 BCE from their ancestor, an older Semitic language that their speakers referred to as \"Akkadian\".[9][10]\n\nFrom 1877, excavations at Girsu showed that before Akkadian, cuneiform had been used to write a completely different language, Sumerian. \"Sumerology\" therefore gradually became a branch of Assyriology. Subsequent research showed that during the 2nd millennium BC, cuneiform writing had also been used for other languages such as Ugaritic, Hurrian, Hittite or Elamite, which became subsumed under the increasingly ambiguous term Assyriology. Today the term designates the study of texts written in cuneiform script, irrespective of whether the script is from Egypt, Sumer, or Assyria.[9][10]\n\nHistory\n\nFrom classical antiquity to modern excavation\n\nFor many centuries, European knowledge of Mesopotamia was largely confined to often dubious classical sources, as well as biblical writings. From the Middle Ages onward, there were scattered reports of ancient Mesopotamian ruins. As early as the 12th century, the ruins of Nineveh were correctly identified by Benjamin of Tudela, also known as Benjamin Son of Jonah, a rabbi from Navarre, who visited the Jews of Mosul and the ruins of Assyria during his travels throughout the Middle East.[11] The identification of the city of Babylon was made in 1616 by Pietro Della Valle. Pietro gave \"remarkable descriptions\" of the site, and brought back to Europe inscribed bricks that he had found at Nineveh and Ur.[12]\n\n18th century and birth\n\nBetween 1761 and 1767, Carsten Niebuhr, a Danish mathematician, made copies of cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis in Persia as well as sketches and drawing of Nineveh, and was shortly followed by André Michaux, a French botanist and explorer, who sold the French Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris an inscribed boundary stone found near Baghdad.[13] The first known archeological excavation in Mesopotamia was led by Abbé Beauchamp, papal vicar general at Baghdad, excavating the sculpture now generally known as the \"Lion of Babylon.\"[14] Abbé Beauchamp's memoirs of his travels, published in 1790, sparked a sensation in the scholarly world, generating a number of archeological and academic expeditions to the Middle East.[15]\n\nIn 1811, Claudius James Rich, an Englishman and a resident for the East India Company in Baghdad, began examining and mapping the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, and collecting numerous inscribed bricks, tablets, boundary stones, and cylinders, including the famous Nebuchadnezzar Cylinder[16] and Sennacherib Cylinder, a collection which formed the nucleus of the Mesopotamian antiquities collection at the British Museum.[15] Before his untimely death at the age of 34, Claudius Rich wrote two memoirs on the ruins of Babylon and the inscriptions found therein, two works which may be said to \"mark the birth of Assyriology and the related cuneiform studies.\"[17]\n\nDecipherment of cuneiform\n\nOne of the largest obstacles scholars had to overcome during the early days of Assyriology was the decipherment of curious triangular markings on many of the artifacts and ruins found at Mesopotamian sites. These markings, which were termed \"cuneiform\" by Thomas Hyde in 1700, were long considered to be merely decorations and ornaments. It was not until late in the 18th century that they came to be considered some sort of writing.\n\nIn 1778 Carsten Niebuhr, the Danish mathematician, published accurate copies of three trilingual inscriptions from the ruins at Persepolis.[18] Niebuhr showed that the inscriptions were written from left to right, and that each of the three inscriptions contained three different types of cuneiform writing, which he labelled Class I, Class II, and Class III (now known to be Old Persian, Akkadian, and Elamite).\n\nClass I was determined to be alphabetic and consisting of 44 characters, and was written in Old Persian. It was first deciphered by Georg Friedrich Grotefend (based on work of Friedrich Munter) and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson between 1802 and 1848.[19]\n\nClass II proved more difficult to translate. In 1850, Edward Hincks published a paper showing that the Class II was not alphabetical, but was in fact both syllabic and ideographic, which led to its translation between 1850 and 1859. The language was at first called Babylonian and/or Assyrian, but has now come to be known as Akkadian.[19]\n\nFrom 1850 onwards, there was a growing suspicion that the Semite inhabitants of Babylon and Assyria were not the inventors of cuneiform system of writing, and that they had instead borrowed it from some other language and culture. In 1850, Edward Hincks published a paper suggesting that cuneiform was instead invented by some non-Semitic people who had preceded the Semites in Babylon. In 1853, Rawlinson came to similar conclusions, and texts written in this more ancient language were identified. At first, this language was called \"Akkadian\" or \"Scythian\" but it is now known to be Sumerian. This was the first indication to modern scholarship that this older culture and people, the Sumerians, existed at all.[19]\n\nSystematic excavation\n\nSystematic excavation of Mesopotamian antiquities was begun in earnest in 1842, with Paul-Émile Botta, the French consul at Mosul. The excavations of P.E. Botta at Khorsabad and Austen H. Layard (from 1845) at Nimrud and Nineveh, as well as the successful decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing opened up a new world. Layard's discovery of the library of Ashurbanipal put the materials for reconstructing the ancient life and history of Assyria and Babylonia into the hands of scholars. He was the first to excavate in Babylonia, where C.J. Rich had already done useful topographical work. Layard's excavations in this latter country were continued by W.K. Loftus, who also opened trenches at Susa, as well as by Julius Oppert on behalf of the French government. But it was only in the last quarter of the 19th century that anything like systematic exploration was attempted.\n\nAfter the death of George Smith at Aleppo in 1876, an expedition was sent by the British Museum (1877-1879), under the conduct of Hormuzd Rassam, to continue his work at Nineveh and its neighbourhood. Excavations in the mounds of Balaw~t, called Imgur-Bel by the Assyrians, 15 miles east of Mosul, resulted in the discovery of a small temple dedicated to the god of dreams by Ashurnasirpal II (883 BC), containing a stone coffer or ark in which were two inscribed tables of alabaster of rectangular shape, as well as of a palace which had been destroyed by the Babylonians but restored by Shalmaneser III (858 BC). From the latter came the bronze gates with hammered reliefs, which are now in the British Museum.\n\nThe remains of a palace of Ashurbanipal at Nimrud (Calah) were also excavated, and hundreds of enamelled tiles were disinterred. Two years later (1880-1881) Rassam was sent to Babylonia, where he discovered the site of the temple of the sun-god of Sippara at Abu-Habba, and so fixed the position of the two Sipparas or Sepharvaim. Abu-Habba lies south-west of Baghdad, midway between the Euphrates and Tigris, on the south side of a canal, which may once have represented the main stream of the Euphrates, Sippara of the goddess Anunit, now Dir, being on its opposite bank.\n\nMeanwhile, from 1877 to 1881, the French consul Ernest de Sarzec had been excavating at Telloh, ancient Girsu, and bringing to light monuments of the pre-Semitic age; these included the diorite statues of Gudea now in the Louvre, the stone of which, according to the inscriptions upon them, had been brought from Magan in the Sinai Peninsula. The subsequent excavations of de Sarzec in Telloh and its neighbourhood carried the history of the city back to at least 4000 BC. A collection of more than 30,000 tablets has been found, which were arranged on shelves in the time of Gudea (c. 2100 BC).\n\nIn 1886-1887 a German expedition under Robert Koldewey explored the cemetery of El Hiba (immediately to the south of Telloh), and for the first time made us acquainted with the burial customs of ancient Babylonia. Another German expedition, on a large scale, was despatched by the Orientgesellschaft in 1899 with the object of exploring the ruins of Babylon; the palace of Nebuchadrezzar and the great processional road were laid bare, and W. Andrae subsequently conducted excavations at Qal'at Sherqat, the site of Assur.\n\nEven the Turkish government has not held aloof from the work of exploration, and the Museum at Istanbul is filled with the tablets discovered by V. Scheil in 1897 on the site of Sippara. Jacques de Morgan's exceptionally important work at Susa lies outside the limits of Babylonia. Not so, the American excavations (1903-1904) under EJ Banks at Bismaya (Ijdab), and those of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur between 1889 and 1900, where Mr JH Haynes has systematically and patiently uncovered the remains of the great temple of El-lil, removing layer after layer of debris and cutting sections in the ruins down to the virgin soil.\n\nMidway in the mound is a platform of large bricks stamped with the names of Sargon of Akkad and his son, Naram-Sin (2300 BC). As the debris above them is 34 feet thick, the topmost stratum being not later than the Parthian era (HV Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition, p. 23), it is calculated that the debris underneath the pavement, 30 feet thick, must represent a period of about 3000 years, more especially as older constructions had to be leveled before the pavement was laid. In the deepest part of the excavations, inscribed clay tablets and fragments of stone vases are still found, though the cuneiform characters upon them are of a very archaic type, and sometimes even retain their primitive pictorial forms.\n\nDigital Assyriology\n\nalso known as Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies (DANES). Analogous to the development of the digital humanities and accompanying the digitization of the subject, computer-based methods are being developed jointly with computer science, the roots of which can be found in the late 1960s in the work of Gerhard Sperl.[20] In 2023, an open data set was published and used to train an artificial intelligence enabling the recognition of cuneiform signs in photographs and 3D-models.[21]\n\nImportant publications\n\nKeilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts (1919), a two-volume compendium of cuneiform inscriptions by Erich Ebeling.\n\nSee also\n\nAncient Near East\n\nAncient Near East studies\n\nAramaic studies\n\nEgyptology\n\nHebraic studies\n\nHittitology\n\nIranian studies\n\nList of Assyriologists\n\nMesopotamia in Classical literature\n\nNear Eastern archaeology\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Daneshmand, Parsa (2020-07-31). \"Chapter 14 Assyriology in Iran?\". Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Penn State University Press. p. 266. doi:10.1515/9781646020898-015. ISBN 9781646020898. S2CID 236813488. The term \"Assyriology\" is itself problematic because it covers a broad range of topics. Assyriology literally means the study of Assyria, yet the field is by no means restricted to Assyria… What Assyriology actually means, though, is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) and related cultures that also used cuneiform, like northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and western Iran. In other words, Assyriology is not merely one discipline, but a group of disciplines related to cuneiform that make frequent references to one another. An Assyriologist might be a specialist in the language, or archaeology, or history of the cuneiform world, but by no means is everyone who has worked on cuneiform materials an Assyriologist. Sir Max Mallowan might be better known as an archaeologist of ancient Near Eastern civilizations than an Assyriologist, to give one example. A hallmark that distinguishes Assyriologists from other related specialists is training in ancient Mesopotamian languages, mainly Sumerian and Akkadian. Apart from Sumerology, Assyriology also embraces disciplines including Elamitology, Hittitology, Ugaritic, Urartian, and old Persian studies. However, experts in these fields are not always comfortable being known as Assyriologists. In the preface of A Manual of Ugaritic, André Caquot asserts that \"Ugaritology deserves to be considered an independent historical discipline, one to be mastered by itself and for itself, as distinct a field as Assyriology or Egyptology, even if it appears easier because of the profound affinities shown by Ugaritic with other long known Semitic languages.\" This might well also be acknowledged by specialists in Elamite, Hittite, and Urartian studies, unsettled by the obsessive attention given to Assyriology. For the purposes of this paper, however, I subsume all the aforementioned disciplines and sub-disciplines within the category of Assyriology, or rather \"cuneiform studies,\" with more focus on philological studies in Akkadian, Sumerian, and Elamite.\n\n^ a b Renger, Johannes [in German] (2006). \"Ancient Near Eastern philology and history (Assyriology)\". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly, Antiquity volumes. p. 126. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1301250. ISBN 978-90-04-12259-8. Retrieved 2023-03-26. The term 'ancient Near Eastern', in the context of Western European and American scholarship, refers to the geographical area of the Near East and its pre-Christian or pre-Islamic civilizations in the territory of present-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, the Arabian peninsula and Iran. As understood by Eastern European scholars, the term ancient Near Eastern includes all ancient advanced civilizations between the Mediterranean and the China Sea. Originally, and to some degree even today, the discipline has borne the traditional name Assyriology, since it was inscriptions from ancient Assyria that marked the beginning of research on the culture of ancient Mesopotamia. In comparison with that term the designation Ancient Near Eastern Studies proved to be increasingly appropriate the more ancient Near Eastern civilizations became known. The enormous increase in inscriptions and archaeological material over the years led to the development of two sub-disciplines: Ancient Near Eastern Philology and Near Eastern archaeology, which, however, remain linked by a shared goal - which is to reconstruct an ancient advanced civilization on the basis of written and material evidence.\n\n^ Renan, Ernest (1859). \"Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie, par M. Oppert. Tome II, contenant les principes de l'interprétation de l'écriture cunéiforme assyrienne.\". Journal des savants (in French). Librairie Klincksieck.\n\n^ Charpin, Dominique (2013-01-01). \"Renan, un sémitisant au berceau de l'assyriologie\". Ernest Renan. Il faut pourtant d'emblée soulignerun fait qui semble ignoré : c'est Renan qui a donné aux spécialistes desécritures cunéiformes le nom d'assyriologues, qu'ils portent toujours. Dans le Journal des savants de 1859, il se réfère à «MM. les assyriologues» etajoute en note: \"Je demande la permission d'employer ce mot, nécessaire pour éviterde longues périphrases et que l'analogie du mot égyptologue semble autoriser.\" Le terme fut ensuite employé communément, sans que personne apparemment se souvienne de son origine, tant cette désignation semblait logique. Cependant, Renan ne fut pas réellement une bonne fée au ber-ceau de l'assyriologie… C'est que les données exhumées de plus en plusabondamment du sol de la Mésopotamie à partir de 1843 ne s'accordaient guère avec le système qu'il avait mis au point dans sa jeunesse et auquelil est peu ou prou resté fidèle toute sa vie.\n\n^ Hommel, Fritz (1897). The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as Illustrated by the Monuments. Society for promoting christian knowledge. pp. 29-31. It is necessary here to remark, that the application of the term \"Assyriology,\" as it is now generally used, to the study of the cuneiform inscriptions, is not quite correct; indeed it is actually misleading. It is true that the study of these inscriptions first began in connection with the Assyrian royal inscriptions, which for some ten years monopolized the public interest… But when the celebrated Clay Tablets of Assurbanipal's (or Sardanapalus') library were discovered and closely examined, it became more and more clear that the literary treasures it contained belonged to an epoch far earlier than that of the Assyrian monarchy, namely, to that which is now known as the early Babylonian period… Babylonia is the cradle of the earliest civilization, and could look back to a history covering several thousands of years at a time (about 1900 B.C.) when the history of Assyria was in its infancy; it is for this reason that the Assyrian civilization (its language, script, and religion) is, in the main, merely an offshoot of the Babylonian. It is absurd, therefore, to speak of an independent Assyrian literature; unless, of course, we are prepared to regard the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings as a separate school of literature by itself. The material which Sardanapalus placed in his library consisted, however, with unimportant exceptions, of mere copies of earlier Babylonian texts. As I have already pointed out, the study of the cuneiform inscriptions first began with the investigation of Assyrian monuments, and for this reason received the not altogether appropriate name of Assyriology. If, however, we go back to the first beginnings of the deciphering, we find ourselves again face to face with Babylonia, though, it is true, at a very late stage of its development; for it was a Babylonian translation of the early Persian Achaemenid texts-the inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes-which first led to the unravelling of the tangled web of Semitic cuneiform writing.\n\n^ \"The International Association for Assyriology - Welcome to the IAA website\". iaassyriology.com. Retrieved 2023-03-26. In our association, the old-fashioned term \"Assyriology\" covers all scholarly fields related to the study of the ancient Near East in the time of the cuneiform cultures, from the fourth millennium BCE to the first century CE in the historical regions of Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Levant, Iran, and Anatolia, including periods and regions of influence and contact.\n\n^ Meade, Carroll Wade (1974). Road to Babylon: Development of U.S. Assyriology. Brill. pp. 1-2. ISBN 978-90-04-03858-5. The term Assyriology is derived from these people, but it is very misleading. In fact the Assyrians make up only a part of the science of Assyriology... Ask ten Assyriologists to define Assyriology and, in all probability, you will get ten different answers… A philologist maintains it is the decipherment of the cuneiform tablets. To the historian the science deals with the history of Mesopotamia and Persia. The archeologist is quick to say that it is the archeology of these areas. Each is right, but only partially… The first cuneiform tablets discovered in any quantity were in Assyria. Later discoveries revealed that the people referred to their language as Akkadian. The northern dialect came to be known as Assyrian, and the southern one as Babylonian. In scholarly circles Akkadian has replaced the term Assyrian when speaking of the language, but the science remains Assyriology… Gradually Assyriology began to embrace the study of the majority of the peoples of the ancient Near East who wrote in cuneiform. This included the Hittites until recently. Today most authorities tend to regard Hittitology as a separate field, now that more is known about them. One wonders if Sumerology will break away (some schools have chairs of Sumerology), but this is doubtful, as the Sumerians furnished the foundation for the culture of the Assyrians, Akkadians, and Babylonians. Persian studies may make the break when the knowledge of the field is enriched enough to do so. For the purpose of this essay Assyriology is defined as the study of the history, literature, and antiquities of ancient Mesopotamia, Persia, and the littoral regions. This includes all facets of their civilization from philology to architecture. Major groups of peoples coming under study are the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Kassites, Elamites, and Persians.\n\n^ Erwin, Robert (1966). \"Cities Without Vistas: A Reconnoitering of Akkadian Civilization\". The Virginia Quarterly Review. 42 (1). University of Virginia: 43-57. ISSN 0042-675X. JSTOR 26442914. Retrieved 2023-03-25. Through the accident of the better preservation of the Persian ruins, visited by Europeans as early as the seventeenth century, the first Akkadian texts studied in the West came from this source. With little understanding of the Persians as supplanters, no knowledge yet of the Sumerians as predecessors, and mostly half-believed stories from the Old Testament and Herodotus to indicate that Babylon had existed, Westerners coined the term \"Assyriology,\" still to be found in university catalogues. Before Assyriology could go beyond its first misstep in the nineteenth century, however, some tangible remains of Akkadia were needed.\n\n^ a b Charpin, Dominique (2018-11-06). \"Comment peut-on être assyriologue ?\". OpenEdition Books. Au contraire de l'égyptologue, l'assyriologue n'était donc pas, ipso facto, un archéologue. L'assyriologue s'occupait de déchiffrer les textes en langue assyrienne découverts en quantité dans le nord de l'Irak actuel, l'ancienne Assyrie, à partir de 1843. On s'aperçut peu après que, outre l'assyrien, l'écriture cunéiforme avait servi pour une langue-sœur, le babylonien : babylonien et assyrien avaient divergé vers 2000 avant notre ère à partir de leur ancêtre, une langue sémitique que leurs locuteurs eux-mêmes désignaient comme « akkadien ». Par ailleurs, à partir de 1877, les fouilles de Tello montrèrent que, avant l'akkadien, le cunéiforme avait servi à écrire une langue complètement différente, le sumérien. La sumérologie devint donc peu à peu une branche particulière de l'assyriologie au sens large. Et la suite des recherches montra qu'au cours du Il millénaire avant notre ere, l'écriture cunéiforme avait aussi été employée pour noter d'autres langues, comme le hourrite, le hittite ou l'élamite. Dès lors, le terme assyriologue est devenu ambigu : dans son acception large, il désigne toute personne qui étudie des textes notés dans l'écriture cunéiforme. Mais ces textes, écrits dans des langues très différentes, relèvent de civilisations distinctes, même si elles ont été en contact suffisamment étroit pour partager une même écriture.\n\n^ a b Gelb, Ignace J. (2006) [1956]. \"introduction\". The Assyrian Dictionary. Chicago: University of Chicago. Oriental Institute. p. vii. ISBN 0-918986-05-2. OCLC 12555337. A few words are necessary to justify the use of the term \"Assyrian\" in the title of the project and of the published Dictionary. In the early years of Assyriology the term \"Assyrian\" was commonly used for the main Semitic language of Mesopotamia, for the well-known reason that most of the cuneiform documents then available had been recovered from sites situated in what was once ancient Assyria. With the recovery of Babylonian sites in the following years, many more tablets came to light, showing not only that the two dialects used in Assyria and Babylonia, respectively, were closely related, but also that their users called their language neither \"Assyrian\" nor \"Babylonian,\" but \"Akkadian,\" after the Akkadians who had established the first great Semitic empire in the middle of the third millennium B.C. under their renowned leader, Sargon of Akkad. As some of these facts became known, the term \"Akkadian\" (\"Accadian\") began to crowd out the term \"Assyrian\" in good Assyriological usage. However, the term \"Assyrian\" for the Assyro-Babylonian language continues to be used -though on a much more limited and mainly popular basis-in parallel to such firmly established terms as \"Assyriology\" and \"Assyriologist.\" The aversion toward the term \"Akkadian\" (\"Accadian\") in the popular American circles may be partially conditioned by the existence of the name \"Acadian\" (\"Cajun\") for the French Canadians of Nova Scotia (and later, Louisiana).\n\n^ Kramer, Samuel Noah: The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, p. 7. University of Chicago Press, 1963.\n\n^ The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963 p. 7\n\n^ The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963, p. 7\n\n^ The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963. p 8\n\n^ a b The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963 p. 8\n\n^ \"The British Museum\". Archived from the original on 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2016-07-22.\n\n^ The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963, p.8\n\n^ The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963, p. 11\n\n^ a b c The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Chicago Press, 1963, p. 13-15\n\n^ \nBogacz, Bartosz; Mara, Hubert (2022), \"Digital Assyriology - Advances in Visual Cuneiform Analysis\", Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, vol. 15, no. 2, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), pp. 1-22, doi:10.1145/3491239, S2CID 248843112\n\n^ \nStötzner, Ernst; Homburg, Timo; Mara, Hubert (2023), \"CNN based Cuneiform Sign Detection Learned from Annotated 3D Renderings and Mapped Photographs with Illumination Augmentation\", Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), Paris, France, arXiv:2308.11277\n\nFurther reading\n\nFink, Sebastian; Neumann, Hans, eds. (2025). Towards a History of Assyriology: Workshop Organized at the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Innsbruck 2018. Investigatio Orientis, 5. Münster: Zaphon. ISBN 978-3-96327-246-2. ISSN 2698-1904.\n\nExternal links\n\nOpen Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies (OpenDANES)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyriology"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4491}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-law", "title": "Assyrian law", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Assyrian law, also known as the Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL) or the Code of the Assyrians, was an ancient legal code developed between 1450 and 1250 BCE in the Middle Assyrian Empire.[1]: 272 It was very similar to Sumerian and Babylonian law,[2] although the penalties for offenses were...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian law, also known as the Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL) or the Code of the Assyrians, was an ancient legal code developed between 1450 and 1250 BCE in the Middle Assyrian Empire.[1]: 272  It was very similar to Sumerian and Babylonian law,[2] although the penalties for offenses were generally more brutal.[2] The first copy of the code to come to light, dated to the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BCE), was discovered in the course of excavations by the German Oriental Society (1903-1914). Three Assyrian law collections have been found to date.[2] Punishments such as the cropping of ears and noses was common, as it was in the Code of Hammurabi, which was composed several centuries earlier.[3] Murder was punished by the family being allowed to decide the death penalty for the murderer.[4]\n\nConjectural laws\n\nThe laws listed below are excerpts from the Code of the Assyrians. The list is incomplete due to some parts of the code being untranslatable or irrecoverable. The vast majority of the listed rules deal with sexual relations/encounters between men and women such as rape, and adultery. But some of the rules are concerned with divorce and domestic abuse. Much of Assyrian law revolves around lust, sexual intercourse, marriage, and pregnancy.[5][6][7][8]\n\n\"If a woman, whether the wife of a man or the daughter of a man, utter vulgarity or indulge in low talk, that woman bears her own sin; against her husband, her sons, or her daughter they shall have no claim.\"\n\n\"If a woman bring her hand against a man, they shall prosecute her; 30 mines of lead shall she pay, 20 blows shall they inflict on her.\"\n\n\"If a woman in a quarrel injure the testicle of a man, one of her fingers they shall cut off. And if a physician bind it up and the other testicle which is beside it be infected thereby, or take harm; or in a quarrel she injure the other testicle, they shall destroy both of her eyes.\"\n\n\"If a man bring his hand against the wife of a man, treating her like a little child, and they prove it against him, and convict him, one of his fingers they shall cut off. If he kiss her, his lower lip with the blade of an axe they shall draw down and they shall cut off.\"\n\n\"If the wife of a man be walking on the highway, and a man seize her, say to her \"I will surely have intercourse with you,\" if she be not willing and defend herself, and he seize her by force and rape her, whether they catch him upon the wife of a man, or whether at the word of the woman whom he has raped, the elders shall prosecute him, they shall put him to death. There is no punishment for the woman.\"\n\n\"If the wife of a man go out from her house and visit a man where he lives, and he have intercourse with her, knowing that she is a man's wife, the man and also the woman they shall put to death.\"\n\n\"If a man have intercourse with the wife of a man either in an inn or on the highway, knowing that she is a man's wife, according as the man, whose wife she is, orders to be done, they shall do to the adulterer. If not knowing that she is a man's wife he rapes her, the adulterer goes free. The man shall prosecute his wife, doing to her as he likes.\"\n\n\"If a man catch a man with his wife, both of them shall they put to death. If the husband of the woman put his wife to death, he shall also put the man to death. If he cut off the nose of his wife, he shall turn the man into a eunuch, and they shall disfigure the whole of his face.\"\n\n\"If a man have relations with the wife of a man at her wish, there is no penalty for that man. The man shall lay upon the woman, his wife, the penalty he wishes.\"\n\n\"If a man say to his companion, \"They have had intercourse with they wife; I will prove it,\" and he be not able to prove it, and do not prove it, on that man they shall inflict forty blows, a month of days he shall perform the king's work, they shall mutilate him, and one talent of lead he shall pay.\"\n\n\"If a man have intercourse with his brother-in-arms, they shall turn him into a eunuch.\"\n\n\"If a man strike the daughter of a man and cause her to drop what is in her, they shall prosecute him, they shall convict him, two talants and thirty mines of lead shall he pay, fifty blows they shall inflict on him, one month shall he toil.\"\n\n\"If a woman be dwelling in the house of her father, and her husband have died, any gift which her husband settled upon her---if there be any sons of her husband's, they shall receive it. If there be no sons of her husband's she receives it.\"\n\n\"If a woman be dwelling in the house of father, but has been given to her husband, whether she has been taken to the house of her husband or not, all debts, misdemeanors, and crimes of her husband shall she bear as if she too committed them. Likewise if she be dwelling with her husband, all crimes of his shall she bear as well.\"\n\n\"If a woman, who is a widow, enter into the house of a man, whatsoever she brings with her---all is her husband's. But if a man enter in to a woman, whatsoever he brings---all is the woman's.\"\n\n\"If a man divorce his wife, if he wish, he may give her something; if he does not wish, he need not give her anything. Empty shall she go out.\"\n\n\"If the wives of a man, or the daughters of a man go out into the street, their heads are to be veiled. The prostitute is not to be veiled. Maidservants are not to veil themselves. Veiled harlots and maidservants shall have their garments seized and 50 blows inflicted on them and bitumen poured on their heads.\"\n\n\"If a woman whose husband is dead on the death of her husband do not go out from her house, if her husband did not leave her anything, she shall dwell in the house of one of her sons. The sons of her husband shall support her; her food and her drink, as for a fiancee whom they are courting, they shall agree to provide for her. If she be a second wife, and have no sons of her own, with one of her husband's sons she shall dwell and the group shall support her. If she have sons of her own, her own sons shall support her, and she shall do their work. But if there be one among the sons of her husband who marries her, the other sons need not support her.\"\n\n\"If a man or a woman practice sorcery, and they be caught with it in their hands, they shall prosecute them, they shall convict them. The practicer of magic they shall put to death.\"\n\n\"If a man strike the wife of a man, in her first stage of pregnancy, and cause her to drop that which is in her, it is a crime; two talants of lead he shall pay.\"\n\n\"If a man strike a harlot and cause her to drop that which is in her, blows for blows they shall lay upon him; he shall make restitution for a life.\"\n\n\"If a woman of her own accord drop that which is in her, they shall prosecute her, they shall convict her, they shall crucify her, they shall not bury her. If she die from dropping that which is in her, they shall crucify her, they shall not bury her.\"\n\n\"If a virgin of her own accord give herself to a man, the man shall take oath, against his wife they shall not draw nigh. Threefold the price of a virgin the ravisher shall pay. The father shall do with his daughter what he pleases.\"\n\n\"In the case of every crime for which there is the penalty of the cutting-off of ear or nose or ruining or reputation or condition, as it is written it shall be carried out.\"\n\n\"Unless it is forbidden in the tablets, a man may strike his wife, pull her hair, her ear he may bruise or pierce. He commits no misdeed thereby.\"\n\nSee also\n\nList of ancient legal codes\n\nReferences\n\n^ Scholz, Susanne (2021). Sacred Witness. Rape in the Hebrew Bible. Fortress Press. ISBN 9781506482033. (E-book edition)\n\n^ a b c Encarta (2007), s.v. Assyria. Archived 2009-10-28 at the Wayback Machine 2009-10-31.\n\n^ Haremhab’s Great Edict\n\n^ Crime and Punishment in the Ancient World of the Bible - Unexplained \n\n^ \"Internet History Sourcebooks\". sourcebooks.fordham.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-30.\n\n^ “Ch 31-The Middle Assyrian Law-Book about Women.” Women in the Ancient Near East, by Marten Stol et al., De Gruyter, 2016\n\n^ \"Middle Assyrian Law Code\". jewishchristianlit.com. Retrieved 2019-10-30.\n\n^ Jastrow, Morris (1921). \"An Assyrian Law Code\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 41: 1-59. doi:10.2307/593702. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 593702.\n\nFurther reading\n\nJohns, C. H. W. (1904). Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.\n\nM. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, Atlanta, 1997, p. 153-194\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Code of the Assura, circa 1075 BCE (excerpts)\n\nThe Origin And History Of Hebrew Law"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-law"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1608}, {"slug": "reference-military-history-of-the-neo-assyrian-empire", "title": "Military history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Neo-Assyrian Empire arose in the 10th century BC. Ashurnasirpal II is credited for utilizing sound strategy in his wars of conquest. While aiming to secure defensible frontiers, he would launch raids further inland against his opponents as a means of securing economic benefit,[3] as he did when...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian Army\n\n Assyrian soldiers, from a plate in THE HISTORY OF COSTUME by Braun & Schneider (c. 1860).\n\nLeaderKing of Assyria\n\nDates active911 BC - 605 BC[1]\n\nHeadquartersKalhu (Nimrud), Assur, Nineveh, Harran, Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad)\n\nActive regionsMesopotamia, parts of the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt and western Persia\n\nSizecapable of 120,000+ men[2]\n\nPart ofAssyrian Empire\n\nWarsAssyrian wars of conquest\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire arose in the 10th century BC. Ashurnasirpal II is credited for utilizing sound strategy in his wars of conquest. While aiming to secure defensible frontiers, he would launch raids further inland against his opponents as a means of securing economic benefit,[3] as he did when campaigning in the Levant. The result meant that the economic prosperity of the region would fuel the Assyrian war machine.[4]\n\nAshurnasirpal II was succeeded by Shalmaneser III. Although he campaigned for 31 years of his 35-year reign,[4] he failed to achieve or equal the conquests of his predecessor,[5] and his death led to another period of weakness in Assyrian rule.[5]\n\nAssyria would later recover under Tiglath-Pileser III, whose reforms once again made Assyria the most powerful force in the Near East,[6] and transformed it into a fully fledged empire - the first of its kind. Later, under Shalmaneser V, Sargon II and Sennacherib, further Assyrian offensives occurred, although these were designed not only for conquest, but also to destroy their enemies' ability to undermine Assyrian power. As such, costly battles raged taking tolls on Assyrian manpower. Esarhaddon succeeded in taking lower Egypt and his successor, Ashurbanipal, took the southern upper half of Egypt.\n\nHowever, by the end of the Ashurbanipal's reign it appears that the Assyrian Empire was falling into another period of weakness,[7] one from which it would not escape. It appears that years of costly battles followed by constant (and almost unstoppable) rebellions meant that it was a matter of time before Assyria ran out of troops. The loss of the outer regions meant that foreign troops were gone too. By 605 BC, independent political Neo-Assyrian records vanish from history.[8]\n\nBackground\n\nThe Assyrian empire has been described as the \"first military power in history\".[9] Mesopotamia was the site of some of the earliest recorded battles in history.[10][11] In fact, the first recorded battle was between the forces of Lagash and Umma c. 2450 BC. Like many Mesopotamian records, it contains elements of fiction. The ruler of Lagash, Eanatum, was inspired by the god Ningirsu to attack the rival kingdom of Umma; the two were involved in minor skirmishes and raids along their respective borders.[11] Although Eanatum triumphed, he was struck in the eye by an arrow. After the battle, he had the Stele of the Vultures erected to celebrate his victory.\n\nMiddle Assyrian\n\nUnder Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1791 BC) and his successor Ishme-Dagan (1790-1754 BC), Assyria was the seat of a regional empire controlling northern Mesopotamia and regions in Asia Minor and northern Syria. From 1365 to 1076 BC, Assyria became a major empire and world power, rivalling Egypt. Kings such as Ashur-uballit I (1365-1330 BC), Enlil-nirari (1329-1308 BC), Arik-den-ili (c. 1307-1296 BC), Adad-nirari I (1295-1275 BC), Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BC), Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244-1208 BC), Ashur-resh-ishi I (1133-1116 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) forged an empire which at its peak stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caspian Sea, and from the foothills of the Caucasus to Arabia.[12] The 11th and 10th centuries BC were a dark age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people. Despite the apparent weakness of Assyria, at heart it remained a solid, well defended nation whose warriors were the best in the world. Assyria, with its stable monarchy and secure borders, was in a stronger position during this time than potential rivals such as Egypt, Babylonia, Elam, Phrygia, Urartu, Persia and Media.[13]\n\nInformation on the Assyrian army during this time is difficult to make out. The Assyrians were able to establish their independence on two occasions, during the Old Assyrian Empire and the Middle Assyrian Empire, with the latter reaching as far as Babylon in their pursuit of conquest. However, military tactics mainly involved using troops raised from farmers who had finished planting their fields and so could campaign for the king until harvest time called for their attention again. The result was that military campaigning was limited to a few months of the year. As a result, armies could not conquer vast amounts of land without having to rest (and hence allow their enemy to recover) and even if they did they would not be able to garrison conquered lands with troops for long.\n\nOrganization of the military\n\nThe Assyrian army's hierarchy was typical of the Mesopotamian armies at the time. The King whose rule was sanctioned by the gods, would be the commander of the entire army of the Empire. He would appoint senior officers on certain occasions to campaign in his place if his presence on the battlefield could or had to be spared.[14] Such officials included family members (for instance Adad-nirari III's mother Shammuramat and Sargon II's brother Sin-ahu-usur) or influential generals and courtiers (for instance turtanus such as Dayyan-Assur and Shamshi-ilu).[15] The Neo-Assyrian Empire took advantage of many different types and styles of militaristic vessels and engines for warfare. This includes chariots, cavalry, and siege engines.\n\nPre-reform\n\nBefore the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III, the Assyrian army was also very much similar to the other Mesopotamian armies of the time. Soldiers were mostly raised farmers, who had to return to their fields to collect the harvest. Professional soldiers were limited to a few bodyguards that protected the King and or other nobles and officials, but these would not have been deployed or wasted in battle unless the situation became urgent, as it later did.\n\nAssyrian armies could be very large; Shalmaneser III once boasted a force of 120,000 men in his campaigns against Syria.[2] Such a force required men to be extracted from conquered peoples. A large army also needed more food and supplies and for this the Assyrians organized what they needed for a campaign before they set out.\n\nPreparations for a new campaign\n\nPreparations for a new campaign required first and foremost the assembly of troops at a designated base. In Assyria, the designated locations included Nineveh, Kalhu or Khorsabad. On some occasions the designated meeting points would change depending upon the campaign. Governors were instructed to accumulate supplies of grain, oil and war material. Other requirements of the Governors included calling up the needed manpower. Vassal states were in particular required to present troops as part of their tribute to the Assyrian king and in good time: failure to do so would have almost certainly been seen as an act of rebellion.[2]\n\nThe arrival of the King and his bodyguard ended the preliminary stage and the army would move on to the target of their campaign. The army would march in good order; in the vanguard came the standard of the Gods, signifying the servitude of the Assyrian Kings to their primary God Assur. Following this was the King, the humble servant of Assur surrounded by his bodyguard with the support of the main chariot divisions and cavalry, the elite of the army. In the rear was the infantry; the Assyrian troops followed by the conquered peoples. Following this would be the siege train, supply wagons and then the camp followers. Such a formation would have been very vulnerable to a rear attack. Some columns of troops could travel 30 miles a day and such speed would have been used to surprise and frighten an opponent into submission.[2]\n\nReforms of Tiglath-Pileser III\n\nBefore long, the weaknesses of the Assyrian army soon began to show itself. Battle after battle killed off important soldiers, while the seasons ensured that soldiers returned after a short time to their fields without achieving decisive conquests. By the mid-eighth century BC, the Assyrian levy-army could not cope with the demands of an empire that often stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.[16]\n\nAll was to change when Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne in 745 BC. After increasing the efficiency of the Assyrian administration,[6] he went on to change the Assyrian army as well.[16] The most important aspect of his reform was the introduction of a standing army. This included large numbers of foreign soldiers mixed in with the Assyrian soldiers.[14][16] These men could be supplied by provincial governors as levies or recruited professional units, vassal states as tribute, or when demanded by the Assyrian King. They were given Assyrian equipment and uniform which made them indistinguishable from one another, possibly to increase their integration.[16] While the infantry in the standing army contained a large number of foreigners (including Aramaeans and even Greeks), the Assyrian cavalry and charioteers continued to be dominated by Assyrians.[14] There were exceptions however, and as casualties mounted additional troops would not be unwelcome; Sargon II reports that he managed to incorporate 60 Israelite chariot teams into his army.[16]\n\nTransportation and communication\n\nWith the rise of the Assyrian Empire, new demands were placed on transport and communication. Prior to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, roads in Mesopotamia were little more than well-trodden pathways used by the locals. However, this was inadequate for an empire whose armies were constantly on the move, repressing one revolt after another. The Assyrians were the first to institute, control and maintain a system of roads throughout their empire. A state communication system with regular way stations for messengers to rest and/or exchange mounts were established. Later, these would form the basis for the Persians to expand this system to their own empire.[18]\n\nRugged mountains were cut through thus greatly decreasing travel time. Engineers built fine stone pavements leading up to the grand cities of Assur and Nineveh, so as to impress foreigners with the wealth of Assyria. By the 2nd millennium BC, wooden bridges were built across the Euphrates. By the 1st millennium BC, Nineveh and Assur had stone bridges,[18] testament to the wealth of the kingdom of Ashur. The construction of roads and increased transport meant that goods would flow through the empire with greater ease, thus feeding the Assyrian war effort further. Of course, roads that sped up Assyrian troops would not discriminate and would speed up enemy troops as well.\n\nUse of camels\n\nThe Assyrians were the first to use camels as beasts of burden for their military campaigns. Camels were of greater use than donkeys because they could carry five times the load but required less watering. Camels were not domesticated until shortly before 1000 BC, on the eve of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[19] The first camel to be domesticated was the dromedary.[20]\n\nWheeled vehicles\n\nTraditionally, the Sumerians are credited for inventing the wheel sometime before 3000 BC, although there is increasing evidence to support an Indo-European origin in the Black Sea region of Ukraine (Wolchover, Scientific American, 2012). In any case, the Assyrians were the first to manufacture tires of metal, made from copper, bronze and later iron.[19] Metal-covered wheels have the advantage of being more durable.\n\nWeapons\n\nSpears consisting of a wooden shaft tipped with a lethal iron spearhead; 5 feet long altogether\n\nIron swords for fighting in close range\n\nDaggers for slitting throats with a secondary hand\n\nJavelins to break shields and for medium range thrown spears\n\nSlings to hurl stones at enemies\n\nBow and arrow was a ranged weapon used to attack from afar\n\nChariots\n\nThe core of the Assyrian army lay in its chariots. The chariot was a fast and extremely maneuverable vessel. The use of chariots in warfare resembled a well disciplined army that dominated the battlefield in flanking maneuvers, causing opposing forces to divide or flee the battlefield. Chariots usually consisted of two or three horses, a platform with two wheels, and two soldiers. One soldier would have control of the reins to steer while the other wielded a bow and arrow to fire at enemy troops. The use of chariots is limited to a relatively flat battleground, making it effective in certain locations.[21] The Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians used war chariots in this fashion as firing mobile platforms or as mobile command platforms; the elevated view would give the general some ability to see how the troops fared in battle. Because the chariot was fast and easily maneuverable, an alternative use for chariots was to send messages to and from the battlefield. They were also a prestigious vessel used by Assyrian kings to display wealth and power.[22]\n\nHowever, the rise of cavalry in the 1st millennium BC meant that by the 7th century BC, the chariot was demoted to combat duties only; lighter chariots consisting of two to three horses were later upgraded under the reign of Ashurbanipal to heavy four-horse chariots. Such chariots could contain up to four men. Heavier chariots also found new roles, smashing into enemy formations and dispersing the infantry in the process.[23] The Assyrian cavalry and infantry would then be able to exploit the gap and rout the enemy, thereby taking the battlefield.\n\nCavalry\n\nThe use of cavalry was the result of having diverse enemies in rough and mountainous terrains. Chariots could not operate on rough terrain which meant that a new protocol needed to be developed. The cavalry operated as the chariot corps did, as an intimidating, well-armored, elite class of soldiers that could dominate the battlefield. Cavalry units were well equipped with light armor, spears or lances as well as bows and arrows. The use of the cavalry in the 9th century BC operated almost the same as the chariots did; two horses with one soldier controlling the reins while another soldier wielded a ranged weapon. Over the course of nearly two centuries, the Assyrians were able to master the art of the cavalry.[24] However, Assyrian attempts were not without difficulties; horse archers were used but could not use their bows and the reins of their horses at the same time. As a result, cavalry under Ashurnasirpal are depicted in pairs, with one rider holding both reins and the other shooting with a bow. The Assyrians experienced fewer problems with cavalry when they were deployed as lancers; under Tiglath-Pileser III, the Assyrian cavalry continued to be paired, but this time each warrior held his own lance and controlled his own horse.[23] By the 7th century BC, mounted Assyrian warriors were well armed with a bow and a lance,[23] and armored with lamellar armour, while their mounts were equipped with fabric armour, providing limited yet useful protection in close combat and against missiles. Cavalry were to form the core of the later Assyrian armies. Cavalry could dominate the battlefields but their one weakness when attempting to divide enemy troops would have been long spears. Long spears were capable of eliminating cavalry units from a safe distance, allowing enemy troops to hold the line.[25]\n\nCavalry were rarely used by the Assyrians or many other Mesopotamians until the 9th century BC, when their use is mentioned during the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta II.[23] Before then, many nomads or steppe warriors who raided Assyrian lands relied on cavalry. The Assyrians had to counter this mobile form of warfare and so beat their opponents, notably the Iranians, at their own game.[26] Perhaps the greatest outside influence was that of the Iranian Medes. The raiding by that people assisted Assyrian attempts in building a cavalry army with which to destroy the Kingdom of Elam.\n\nLarge units of cavalry were required to be deployed by the Assyrians; some units consisted of hundreds or even a thousand horsemen. There is little doubt that without a continuous supply of horses, the Assyrian war machine would have collapsed. As the empire suffered horrendous casualties under Ashurbanipal's campaigns of conquest, the rebellions following his death may have contributed significantly to the downfall of the empire as fewer vassals were available to pay tribute horses and other war material needed. Horses were a very important war resource and the Assyrian king himself took a personal interest in overseeing an adequate horse supply. Three main sources of horses were:\n\nRaids designed to steal horses from opponents, such as the Scythians or other steppe peoples.\n\nTribute paid by vassal states.\n\nHigh-ranking state officers overseeing horse production and reporting to the King.[26]\n\nHorses were drawn from outlying provinces and brought in to be trained with new recruits for war.[26]\n\nInfantry\n\nWhile cavalry provided the most expensive and elite arm of the Assyrian Empire, infantry were cheaper and more numerous. Often, they were also more effective, for example in siege warfare, where the mobility provided by horsemen would be of no advantage. Assyrian infantry were composed of both native Assyrians and foreigners employed as auxiliaries, spearmen, slingers, shield bearers or archers. The latter type was the most dominant in Assyrian armies.[26] From the time of Ashurnasirpal, archers would be accompanied by a shield bearer while slingers might have aimed to distract the enemy into lowering their shield to protect against the stones, thereby allowing the archers to shoot above their shield walls and kill their enemies. Even in siege warfare, arrows were used to drive back defenders from the wall while engineers advanced against the fortifications.\n\nMany different types of bows are recorded by the Assyrians, including Akkadian, Cimmerian and their own \"Assyrian\" type. However, it is most likely that these were simply different variants of the powerful composite bow. Depending upon the bow, an archer would have a range of anything between 250 and 650 meters. Vast numbers of arrows could be expended in battle so in preparation for war many arrows would be made. Facilities also existed that would travel with the army's supply train that could manufacture more arrows.[27]\n\nLancers were introduced to the infantry under Tiglath-pileser III.[27] Depictions of infantry with special bronze scale metal protection are rare and reconstructions show the smallest vests to weigh as much as 20 pounds (9 kg), with armoured suits up to the ankles tripling that weight of metal and leather.[28]\n\nStrategy and tactics\n\nTactics\n\nAt the command of the god Ashur, the great Lord, I rushed upon the enemy like the approach of a hurricane...I put them to rout and turned them back. I transfixed the troops of the enemy with javelins and arrows. Humban-undasha, the commander in chief of the king of Elam, together with his nobles...I cut their throats like sheep...My prancing steeds, trained to harness, plunged into their welling blood as into a river; the wheels of my battle chariot were bespattered with blood and filth. I filled the plain with corpses of their warriors like herbage\n\n- Sennacherib[30]\n\nAssyrian frontal assaults were designed to shock the enemy and surprise them. However, they were also a strategy employed when time was not on their side:\n\nThe harassed troops of Ashur, who had come a long way, very weary slow to respond, who had crossed and re-crossed sheer mountains innumerable, of great trouble for ascent and descent, their morale turned mutinous. I could give no ease to their weariness, no water to quench their thirst; I could set up no camp, nor fix defences\n\n- Sargon II[31]\n\nDespite the above, Sargon II's instinct saved the day; leading his exhausted troops, he launched a surprise attack against his Urartian opponents who broke at the speed and surprise of the attack. So vicious was the battle that the Urartian King abandoned his state officials, governors, 230 members of the royal family, many cavalry and infantry, and even the capital itself.\n\nOverall war strategy\n\nThe nature of Mesopotamia, plain and fertile with few natural defenses, meant that defensive operations were out of the question; only a decisive attack could defend such vulnerable yet valuable locations. The cities of Assur and Nineveh were both sandwiched between rivers; Nineveh was more enclosed and protected by the Tigris, while Assur, while being close to the Tigris, was a fair distance away from the Euphrates. The result was that both cities had a measure of natural protection. However, rivers would not stop a determined army, so attacking and destroying their enemies' ability to wage war was the best method of ensuring the survival of the Assyrians. To this end, the Assyrians sought a decisive encounter that would destroy their enemies' armies.\n\nColonization: The Assyrians, in conjunction with their deportation policies (see below), would also send some of their own into foreign lands and settle them as colonists. The primary aim was to establish a loyal power base; taxes, food and troops could be raised here as reliably as at their homeland, or at least that must have been the hope. Furthermore, their presence would bring innumerable benefits: resistance to other conquerors, a counter to any rebellions by the natives and assisting the provincial Assyrian governors in ensuring that the vassal state was loyal to Assyria.\n\nDestruction of cities: One must be careful before assuming that the Assyrians utilized total war. However, it is known that the Assyrians, as part of their overall strategy of weakening their opponents and of exacting revenge, would violently destroy what they could not take back or could not consolidate. Regarding the Assyrian conquest of Elam, Ashurbanipal recorded:\n\nFor a distance of a month and twenty-five days' journey I devastated the provinces of Elam. Salt and sihlu I scattered over them... The dust of Susa, Madaktu, Haltemash and the rest of the cities I gathered together and took to Assyria... The noise of people, the tread of cattle and sheep, the glad shouts of rejoicing, I banished from its fields. Wild asses, gazelles and all kinds of beasts of the plain I caused to lie down among them, as if at home.\n\n- Ashurbanipal[7]\n\nPsychological warfare\n\nThe Assyrians fully appreciated the use of terrorizing their enemies. To conserve manpower and rapidly move on to solve Assyria's multiple problems, the Assyrians preferred to accept the surrender of their opponents or else destroy their ability to resist a surrender. This in part explains their offensive strategy and tactics.\n\nDeportations\n\nIt is not known if the Assyrians were the first to deport people, although since none before had ruled the Fertile Crescent as they did it is likely that they were the first to practice it on a large scale. The Assyrians began to utilize mass-deportation as a punishment for rebellions since the 13th century BC.[33] The purposes of deportation included, but were not limited to:\n\n1) Psychological warfare: the possibility of deportation would have terrorized the people;\n\n2) Integration: a multi-ethnic population base in each region would have curbed nationalist sentiment, making the running of the Empire smoother;\n\n3) Preservation of human resources: rather than being butchered, the people could serve as slave labor or as conscripts in the army.\n\nBy the 9th century BC, the Assyrians made it a habit of regularly deporting thousands of restless subjects to other lands.[34] Re-settling these people in the Assyrian homeland would have undermined the powerbase of the Assyrian Empire if they rebelled again. As a result, Assyrian deportation involved removing one enemy population and settling them into another. Below is a list of deportations carried out by Assyrian Kings:[32]\n\n744 BC: Tiglath Pileser III deports 65,000 people from Iran to the Assyrian-Babylonian border at the Diyala river\n\n742 BC: Tiglath Pileser III deports 30,000 people from Hamath, Syria and into the Zagros mountains in the east.\n\n721 BC: Sargon II (claimed) deports 27,290 people from Samaria, Israel and disperses them throughout the Empire. However, it is likely that his now deceased predecessor, Shalmaneser V ordered the deportation. (Babylonian chronicles state that Shalmaneser became king on the 25th day of the month Tebeth, following Tiglath-Pileser's death, and that he died in the month of Tebeth in his fifth year as king.)\n\n707 BC: Sargon II deports 108,000 Chaldeans and Babylonians from the Babylonian region\n\n703 BC: Sennacherib deports 208,000 people from Babylon\n\nTiglath Pileser III re-introduced deportation on a grand scale, deporting tens, even hundreds of thousands of people. Deportations were also coupled with colonization; see above for more details.\n\nDealing with rebels\n\nWhenever a rebellion broke out in the Assyrian empire, the Assyrian kings inevitably brutally crushed it (as an alternative to deportation) and enforced great punishments on the rebellious vassals. Tiglath-Pileser III, for example, destroyed Bit-Shilani so that it could look like a city destroyed by the Deluge. Afterwards, he impaled Nabonassar, the city's king, and forced survivors to watch.[35]\n\nAshurnasirpal II assured that the rebellions whom he encountered would be crushed with the same cruelty so that his opponents would never do it again. In one of his expeditions, Ashurnasirpal II described how he faced the rebels, in which they were being flayed, impaled, decapitated, or burned alive:\n\nI felled 3,000 of their fighting men with the sword. I carried off prisoners, possessions, oxen, [and] cattle from them. I burnt many captives from them. I captured many troops alive: from some I cut off their arms [and] hands; from others I cut off their noses, ears, [and] extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living (and) one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city, I burnt their adolescent boys [and] girls. I razed, destroyed, burnt, [and] consumed the city.\n\n- Ashurnasirpal II[36]\n\nThe brutal treatment of Ashurnasirpal II succeeded in pacifying the rebels. While campaigning in Syria, he was able to take a large number of soldiers from Mesopotamia, without fear of a rebellion cutting off their supply lines. They were so successful in their brutality in the northern cities of Syria in that many of the smaller settlements were immediately handed over to their troops, then they marched south in parallel of the Mediterranean.\n\nThe Assyrians considered their kings as ruling with the gods’ (or the god Ashur) sanction. To rebel against this most humble servant of Ashur, it means defying Ashur himself, something that could only bring divine destruction; therefore, the glorification of such brutality. Brutality was also a way to show the king's strength and power, which were considered to be heroic traits.[35]\n\nOther acts of brutality include: mutilating men to death, cutting off heads, arms, hands and lips and displaying them on the walls of conquered cities, hanging skulls and noses on the top of stakes, stacking or cutting corpses so that it could be fed to dogs and forcing people whose eyes were blinded to publicly roam so that natives would be demoralized.\n\nSiege warfare\n\nIn 647 BC, the Assyrian king Assurbanipal leveled the city during a war in which the people of Susa apparently participated on the other side. A tablet unearthed in 1854 by Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh reveals Ashurbanipal as an \"avenger\", seeking retribution for the humiliations the Elamites had inflicted on the Mesopotamians over the centuries. Ashurbanipal dictates Assyrian retribution after his successful siege of Susa:\n\nSusa, the great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered. I entered its palaces, I opened their treasuries where silver and gold, goods and wealth were amassed... I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa. I smashed its shining copper horns. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their gods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings I devastated, I exposed to the sun, and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur. I devastated the provinces of Elam and on their lands I sowed salt.\n\n- Ashurbanipal[37]\n\nThe plains and fertile lands of Mesopotamia were not only ideal for warfare but actually attracted war. Raiders from all nations coveted the lands of the Assyrians: Scythians to the north, Syrians, Arameans and Cimmerians to the West, Elamites to the East and Babylonians to the south. In fact, the latter never tired of rebelling against Assyrian rule.[5] As a result, in order to prevent chariots and cavalry from completely overwhelming these settlements, walls were constructed though often from mud or clay since stone was neither cheap, nor readily available. In order to destroy the opponents, these cities had to be taken as well and so the Assyrians soon mastered siege warfare; Esarhaddon claims to have taken Memphis, the capital of Egypt in less than a day, demonstrating the ferocity and skill of Assyrian siege tactics at this point in time:\n\nI fought daily, without interruption against Taharqa, King of Egypt and Ethiopia, the one accursed by all the great gods. Five times I hit him with the point of my arrows inflicting wounds from which he should not recover, and then I laid siege to Memphis his royal residence, and conquered it in half a day by means of mines, breaches and assault ladders\n\n- Esarhaddon[38]\n\nSieges were costly in terms of manpower and more so if an assault was launched to take the city by force-the siege of Lachish cost the Assyrians at least 1,500 men found at a mass grave near Lachish.[2] Before the advent of standing armies, a city's best hope would be that the harvest would force the enemy to return to their fields and therefore abandon the city. However, with the reforms of Tiglath Pileser III Assyria's first standing army was forged and could therefore blockade a city until it surrendered instead. Nonetheless, it is known that Assyrians always preferred to take a city by assault than to settle down for a blockade: the former method would be followed by extermination or deportation of the inhabitants and would therefore frighten the opponents of Assyria into surrendering as well.[39]\n\nSiege weapons\n\nThe most common siege weapon and by far the cheapest was the ladder. However, ladders are easy to topple over and so the Assyrians would shower their opponents with arrows to provide cover fire.[40] These archers in turn would be supported by shield bearers.[27] Other ways of undermining the enemies' defences included mining. A 9th-century Assyrian relief depicts soldiers using ladders to scale walls, while others use their spears to scrape the mud and clay from the walls. A soldier is also depicted beneath a wall, suggesting that mining was used to undermine the foundations and bring the walls down on their opponents.\n\nThe battering ram appears to be one of the best Assyrian contributions to siege warfare. They consisted of a tank-like wooden frame on four wheels. There was a small tower on top for archers to provide covering fire as the engine moved forward. When it had reached its destination, its primary weapon, a large spear, was used to batter away and chip pieces of the enemy wall. While this would have been almost useless against stone walls, one must keep in mind that mud and not stone was used to build walls. Even when dried, these mud walls could be attacked with such engines. Walls were strengthened with time and the Assyrians responded by building larger engines with bigger \"spears\". In time, they closely resembled a large and long log with a metal tip at the end. Even stone would not withstand pounding by a larger weapon. Larger engines accommodated greater numbers of archers. To protect against fire (which was used by both sides at the Siege of Lachish) the battering ram would be covered in wet animal skins.[41] These could be watered at any time in battle in case they dried.\n\nI captured 46 towns... by consolidating ramps to bring up battering rams, by infantry attacks, mines, breaches and siege engines\n\n- Sennacherib[39]\n\nSiege towers, even ones that could float were reported to have been in use whenever there was a wall facing a river.[2]\n\nVideo on The Assyrian assault on Lachish and a water tunnel in Jerusalem.[link removed]\n\nTimeline\n\n3rd and 2nd millennia BC\n\n2340-2284 BC Sargon of Akkad conquers much of Mesopotamia\n\n1230 BC Battle of Nairi\n\n1170 BC Nineveh at its peak power and influence\n\n9th century BC\n\nCavalry use first recorded by Tukulti Ninurta II\n\n883 BC Ashurnasirpal II takes power and begins expansion of Assyria beyond Mesopotamia\n\n877 BC Ashurnasirpal II takes Assyrian troops to the Mediterranean and Mount Lebanon for the first time.\n\n858 BC Shalmaneser III subjugates Bit Adini to vassal status\n\n853 BC After taking Aleppo, Shalmaneser III is stopped at the Battle of Qarqar\n\n851 BC Shalmaneser III defeats Chaldean revolt in Babylon\n\n849, 845 and 841 BC Shalmaneser III makes three unsuccessful attempts to take Syria\n\n840 BC Shalmaneser III fails to defeat Urartu\n\n832 BC Shalmaneser III fails to take Damascus in a siege\n\n824 BC Shalmaneser III dies, Assyria enters into period of weakness\n\n8th century BC\n\n780-756 BC Argistis I reigns over Assyria, lake Urmia lost by Assyria to Urartu\n\n745 BC Tiglath Pileser III seizes power in a coup; Assyrian Army reformed\n\n744 BC Mass deportation of Iranians by Tiglath Pileser III\n\nUnknown date: Tiglath Pileser III defeats Babylon\n\n743 BC Tiglath Pileser III decisively defeats Urartu, besieges Arpad\n\n741 BC Arpad falls to Tiglath Pileser III\n\n734-732 BC Syro-Ephraimite War: Rebellions in Syria and Palestine are crushed. Damascus falls in 732.\n\n732 BC Babylon is conquered by Assyria following an usurpation of the throne by a Chaldean. Lands around Babylon are devastated during three years of fighting\n\n724-722 BC Shalmaneser V besieges and then captures Samaria\n\n721 BC Coup of Sargon II results in Samaria revolt; it is quickly crushed.\n\n721 BC Sargon II defeats Babylonian rebellion\n\n717-716 BC Sargon II takes Carchemish to secure trade routes in the north.\n\n714 BC A major military disaster befalls Urartu; Sargon II destroys Urartu's ability to fight forever\n\n713 BC Rumours of an anti-Assyrian alliance leads Sargon II to take Tabal.\n\n710-707 BC Another Babylonian revolt is crushed by Sargon II\n\n709 BC Assyrian expeditionary forces sent by Sargon II force Midas to seek peace terms.\n\n703 BC Another Chaldean-backed Babylon revolt is crushed by Sennacherib, only one year after his succession\n\n701 BC Sennacherib moves down Mediterranean coast to subdue Syria and Israel. Lachish is taken after bloody fighting, while Egyptian aid is driven back. Siege of Jerusalem fails.\n\n7th century BC\n\n694 BC Sennacherib attacks Elam. Elam attacks Babylon, which is now unoccupied by Assyrian army\n\n693 BC Battle of Diyala River: Assyrian assault to Elam through Der is called back due to Babylonian revolt\n\n692 BC Battle of Halule: The alliance of Elamites, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Aramaic and Zagros tribes fight off the Assyrians.\n\n691 BC Sennacherib wins a Pyrrhic victory against Elam. However he is able to crush the Babylon revolt\n\n681 BC Sennacherib is murdered by two of his sons; another son Esarhaddon avenges his death and rules Assyria\n\n679 BC An alliance of Cimmerians and Scythians is defeated by Esarhaddon's forces.\n\n679 BC Esarhaddon's troops take Arzani and reach the Egyptian border.\n\n676 BC Esarhaddon launches an offensive to counter increasing Iranian power.\n\n675 BC An assault on Egypt is thrown back.\n\n671 BC Another Assyrian offensive into Egypt is a success;\n\n669 BC Memphis is sacked by Assyrian troops\n\n668 BC Ashurbanipal succeeds Esarhhadon, last King of Assyria to expand her borders beyond Mesopotamia\n\n665 BC A ten-year campaign against Media is launched.\n\n665 BC Elam attacks Babylon, but fails.\n\n663 BC Ashurbanipal relieves an Egyptian siege of Memphis and destroys Thebes in the south.\n\n655 BC Elam attacks Babylon. At the same time, Egypt launches another offensive. Elamite attack repelled by large Assyrian army assembled by Ashurbanipal.\n\nUnknown date (possibly 655 BC) Ashurbanipal drives Elmite forces across the River Ulai in the plain of Susa.\n\n653 BC Median invasion stopped by Scythian attack\n\n652 BC Babylon once more revolts\n\n651 BC Ashurbanipal abandons Egypt to focus on Elamite attacks; Assyrian army shows signs of overstretching itself.[42]\n\n648 BC Babylon is utterly destroyed by Assyria; Elamite civil war ensures no help from Elam.\n\n647 BC Battle of Susa: Susa is destroyed completely by Ashurbanipal.[37]\n\n639 BC Ashurbanipal devastates the lands of Elam. Elamite kingdom does not recover.\n\nCollapse of Assyria\n\n635 BC Egypt, unchecked since 651 BC, storms Ashdod.\n\n627 BC Ashurbanipal dies. Collapse of Assyria accelerates.\n\n622 BC An Assyrian expedition may have been launched west of the Euphrates; lack of Assyrian records points to a likely Assyrian defeat.\n\n616 BC Nabopolassar, King of Babylon since 626 BC, drives out Assyrian troops from Babylonia.\n\n615 BC Median invasion of Assyria results in capture of Arrapha.\n\n614 BC Assur, first capital of Assyria is sacked by the Medes under King Cyaxares.\n\n612 BC Battle of Nineveh (612 BC): Nineveh is destroyed by an alliance of Medians and Babylonians after a mere 3-month siege.\n\n609 BC Battle of Megiddo (609 BC): Egyptians unsuccessfully try to help the Assyrians.\n\n609 BC Fall of Harran: Newly established Assyrian capital at Harran is destroyed by pursuing Median and Babylonian forces.\n\nSee also\n\nAncient warfare\n\nAssyrian Levies\n\nList of artifacts significant to the Bible\n\nMilitary history of Egypt\n\nMilitary history of Iran\n\nMilitary history of Iraq\n\nSyro-Ephraimite War\n\nMedo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire\n\nReferences\n\n^ Until final Egyptian aid at Carchemish was beaten\n\n^ a b c d e f Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 23\n\n^ Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 7\n\n^ a b Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 10\n\n^ a b c Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 13\n\n^ a b Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 17\n\n^ a b Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 54\n\n^ Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 16.\n\n^ Burenhult, Göran (1994). Bra böckers encyklopedi om människans historia. 5, Civilisationens vaggor: tidiga högkulturer i esopotamien, Egypten och Asien (in Swedish). Bra böcker. p. 37. ISBN 91-7133-171-9. OCLC 186397556. Assyrien har med rätta kallats världens första militärmakt.\n\n^ Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 12.\n\n^ a b Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 13.\n\n^ The encyclopædia britannica:a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information, Volume 26, Edited by Hugh Chrisholm, 1911, p. 968\n\n^ According to George Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 282-283.\n\n^ a b c Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 19\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 523, 525, 529-531.\n\n^ a b c d e Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 18\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 253.\n\n^ a b Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 254.\n\n^ a b Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 255.\n\n^ L., Tignor, Robert (24 October 2013). Worlds together, worlds apart. Adelman, Jeremy,, Aron, Stephen,, Brown, Peter, 1935-, Elman, Benjamin A., 1946-, Liu, Xinru,, Pittman, Holly (Fourth edition, [Two volume edition] ed.). New York. ISBN 9780393922080. OCLC 870312289.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Archer, Robin. \"Chariotry to Cavalry: Developments In the Early First Millennium\". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\n^ J.N., Postgate (2000). \"The Assyrian Army In Zamua\". IRAQ. 62: 89-108. doi:10.2307/4200483. JSTOR 4200483. S2CID 194089136.\n\n^ a b c d Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 20.\n\n^ Stephanie, Dalley (1985). \"Foreign Chariotry and Cavalry in the Armies of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II\". IRAQ. 47: 31-48. doi:10.2307/4200230. JSTOR 4200230. S2CID 162367249.\n\n^ Scurlock, JoAnne (1997). \"Neo-Assyrian Battle Tactics\". Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: 491-514.\n\n^ a b c d Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 21.\n\n^ a b c Healy, The Ancient Assyrians, p. 22\n\n^ R. Hachmann, Frühe Phöniker im Libanon. [German] p. 94-100\n\n^ \"Manners and Customs of Babylonia-Assyria\". The Historians' History of the World. Vol. I. The Outlook Company. 1904. p. 470.\n\n^ Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. p. 47.\n\n^ Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. p. 32.\n\n^ a b Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. pp. Various pages.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 268.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP.\n\n^ a b Davenport, T.L. (August 1, 2014). \"Situation and Organisation: The Empire Building of Tiglath-pileser III (745-728 BC)\". The University of Sydney: 126. S2CID 159717852.\n\n^ Albert Kirk Grayson (1991). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC: I (1114-859 BC) (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Assyrian Periods. Volume 2). University of Toronto Press. p. 201.\n\n^ a b Persians: Masters of Empire\" ISBN 0-8094-9104-4 p. 7-8\n\n^ Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. p. 50.\n\n^ a b Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 17.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 267.\n\n^ Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. p. 30.\n\n^ Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. Whilst he did indeed give up the \"kingdom of the two lands\" (upper and lower Egypt, shows the frontline in 639 BC as including the Nile River)\n\nWorks cited\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2017). \"Assyrian Warfare\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nHealy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. London: Osprey. ISBN 1-85532-163-7. OCLC 26351868.\n\nBertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP.\n\nGrant, R.G. (2005). Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley.\n\nMistrini, Vinenzo (2022). Gli assiri : la prima superpotenza dell'Oriente Antico (in Italian). Gorizia: LEG."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-military-history-of-the-neo-assyrian-empire"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6967}, {"slug": "reference-library-of-ashurbanipal", "title": "Library of Ashurbanipal", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds and in various languages from the 7th century BCE. Among its holdings was the famous Epic...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Library of Ashurbanipal\n\nThe Library of Ashurbanipal in the British Museum\n\nLocationNineveh, capital of Assyria\n\nEstablished7th century BCE\n\nCollection\n\nSizeover 30,000 cuneiform tablets[1]\n\nThe Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds and in various languages from the 7th century BCE. Among its holdings was the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.[2]\n\nAshurbanipal's Library gives modern historians information regarding people of the ancient Near East. In his Outline of History, H. G. Wells calls the library \"the most precious source of historical material in the world.\"[3]\n\nThe materials were found in the archaeological site of Kouyunjik (ancient Nineveh, capital of Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia. The site is in modern-day northern Iraq, within the city of Mosul.[4][5]\n\nDiscovery\n\nThe library is an archaeological discovery credited to Austen Henry Layard; most tablets were taken to England and can now be found in the British Museum, but the first discovery was made in late 1849 in the so-called South-West Palace, which was the Royal Palace of king Sennacherib (705-681 BCE).\n\nThree years later, Hormuzd Rassam, Layard's assistant, discovered a similar library in the palace of King Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE), on the opposite side of the mound. Unfortunately, no record was made of the findings, and soon after reaching Europe, the tablets appeared to have been irreparably mixed with each other and with tablets originating from other sites. Thus, it is almost impossible today to reconstruct the original contents of each of the two main libraries.[6]\n\nContents\n\nAshurbanipal was known as a tenacious martial commander; however, he was also a recognized intellectual who was literate, and a passionate collector of texts and tablets.[7] In collecting texts for his library, he wrote to cities and centers of learning across Mesopotamia, instructing them to send him copies of all work written in the region.[8] As an apprentice scribe he mastered both the Akkadian and the Sumerian languages.[7] He sent scribes into every region of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to collect ancient texts. He hired scholars and scribes to copy texts, mainly from Babylonian sources.[4][5]\n\nAshurbanipal used war loot as a means of stocking his library. Because he was known for being cruel to his enemies, Ashurbanipal was able to use threats to gain materials from Babylonia and surrounding areas.[11] Ashurbanipal's intense interest in collecting divination texts was one of his driving motivations in collecting works for his library. His original motive may have been to \"gain possession of rituals and incantations that were vital to maintain his royal power.\"[12]\n\nThe royal library consists of approximately 30,000 tablets and writing boards with the majority of them being severely fragmented.[13] Many of these tablets contain a stamp stating that they belonged to his palace.[14] It can be gleaned from the conservation of the fragments that the number of tablets that existed in the library at the time of destruction was close to two thousand and the number of writing boards within the library can be placed at a total of three hundred.[13] The majority of the tablet corpus (about 6,000) included colloquial compositions in the form of legislation, foreign correspondences and engagements, aristocratic declarations, and financial matters.[13] The remaining texts contained divinations, omens, incantations and hymns to various gods, while others were concerned with medicine, astronomy, and literature. For all these texts in the library only ten contain expressive rhythmic literary works such as epics and myths.[13]\n\nThe Babylonian texts of the Ashurbanipal libraries can be separated into two different groups: the literary compositions such as divination, religious, lexical, medical, mathematical and historical texts as well as epics and myths, on the one hand, and the legal documents on the other hand. The group of the legal documents covers letters, contracts and administrative texts and consists of 1128 Babylonian tablets and fragments. Within the group of the literary compositions, of which 1331 tablets and fragments are classified so far, the divination texts can further be differentiated between 759 so-called library texts, such as tablets of the various omen series and their commentaries, and 636 so-called archival texts such as omen reports, oracle enquiries and the like.[15]\n\nThe Epic of Gilgamesh, a masterpiece of ancient Babylonian poetry, was found in the library, as was the Enûma Eliš creation story, the myth of Adapa, the first man, and stories such as the Poor Man of Nippur.[16][17][5]\n\nAnother group of literary texts is the lexical texts and sign lists. There are twenty fragments of different tablets with archaic cuneiform signs arranged according to the syllabary A, whereas one is arranged according to the syllabary B. The Assyrian scribes of the Ashurbanipal Libraries needed sign lists to be able to read the old inscriptions and most of these lists were written by Babylonian scribes. The other groups of Babylonian written texts in Nineveh are the epics and myths and the historical texts with 1.4% each. There is only one mathematical text that is said to be excavated at Nineveh.[15]\n\nThe texts were principally written in Akkadian in the cuneiform script; however many of the tablets do not have an exact derivation and it is often difficult to ascertain their original homeland. Many of the tablets are indeed composed in the Neo-Babylonian script, but many were also known to be written in Assyrian as well.[13]\n\nThe tablets were often organized according to shape: four-sided tablets were for financial transactions, while round tablets recorded agricultural information. (In this era, some written documents were also on wood and others on wax tablets.) Tablets were separated according to their contents and placed in different rooms: government, history, law, astronomy, geography, and so on. The contents were identified by colored marks or brief written descriptions, and sometimes by the \"incipit\", or the first few words that began the text.[2]\n\nNineveh was destroyed in 612 BCE by a coalition of Babylonians, Scythians and Medes, an ancient Iranian people. It is believed that during the burning of the palace, a great fire must have ravaged the library, causing the clay cuneiform tablets to become partially baked.[17] This potentially destructive event helped preserve the tablets. As well as texts on clay tablets, some of the texts may have been inscribed onto wax boards which, because of their organic nature, have been lost.\n\nThe British Museum's collections database counts 30,943 \"tablets\" in the entire Nineveh library collection, and the Trustees of the Museum propose to issue an updated catalogue as part of the Ashurbanipal Library Project.[1] If all smaller fragments that actually belong to the same text are deducted, it is likely that the \"library\" originally included some 10,000 texts in all. The original library documents, however, which would have included leather scrolls, wax boards, and possibly papyri, contained perhaps a much broader spectrum of knowledge than that known from the surviving clay-tablet cuneiform texts. A large share of Ashurbanipal's libraries consisted of writing-boards and not clay tablets.[15]\n\nAshurbanipal library project\n\nCreated in collaboration with the University of Mosul and funded by the Townley group, the British Museum has been compiling a catalogue record of artifacts from Ashurbanipal's library since 2002. The goal is to document the library in as much detail as possible in texts and images including sign-transliterations, hand-drawn copies, translations, and high-quality digital images.[18]\n\nThe project was undertaken in three stages with published results coming out in 2003, 2004, and 2014. Dr. Jeanette C. Fincke studied ancient oriental studies, Hittitology, and Egyptology at the University of Hamburg and was involved heavily during the first two stages. During the first stage, Fincke compiled an authoritative list of the 3500 library tablets in Babylonian scripts.[19] During the second stage, Fincke also compiled several astrological texts from Nineveh. The third stage was completed with the help of professor Riekel Borger, who died mid-catalogue in December 2010, and completed with the help of Andrew Mellon Foundation from 2009 to 2013 under the direction of Jon Taylor. During this last stage, the library produced high resolution digital images of all the library tables. Each image is created using 14 images which allows a virtual two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional tablets. The images have been released on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative website and British Museum Collections online site.[19]\n\nAs of 2020, the project has been focusing on two endeavors: the first is concerned with reconstructing medical texts from cataloged tablets, and the second is a project that is using scribes notations at the bottom of each tablet to extrapolate the scale and scope of the tablet collection.[20] The catalogue is still being updated and was made possible by contribution of material from several colleagues and projects including: State Archives of Assyria, Cuneiform Commentaries Project, Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts, and Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period.\n\nFrom 2020-2023 a collaborative project, Reading the Library of Ashurbanipal: A multi-sectional Analysis of Assyriology's Foundational Corpus, was created between the British Museum and LMU Munich explored the library's initial origins.[21] The goal of the project was to examine the scribal notes added to the end of the tablets (known as \"colophons\") to understand how and why the collection was produced. The project was led by Dr. Jon Taylor and Professor Enrique Jiménez.\n\nThe Project has been maintained and added to by many people, including volunteers from across the world. Since 2008, the project has been directed by Jon Taylor. Before that, from 2005-2007 it was directed by Irving Finkel, and from 2002-2005 by Christopher Walker. The project curators on the research projects from 2020-2023 were Babette Schnitzlein, Strahil Panayotov, and Krisztian Simko.[18]\n\nThe Hermitage of St. Petersburg, The Louvre of Paris, The Vatican Museums of Vatican City, the Penn Museum of Philadelphia, The Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, and the de Liagre Böhl collection of Leiden have all made their collections available for the project.[18]\n\nList of significant tablets and cylinders\n\nAzekah Inscription\n\nEsarhaddon's Treaty with Ba'al of Tyre\n\nNimrud Tablet K.3751\n\nSargon II's Prism A\n\nVenus tablet of Ammisaduqa\n\nEpic of Gilgamesh\n\nEnûma Eliš\n\nRassam cylinder[10]\n\nK.3364\n\nTablets and cylinders from the Royal Library\n\n Tablet containing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet 11 depicting the Deluge), now part of the holdings of the British Museum\n\n \"Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa\" with astrological forecasts. British Museum reference K.160 .\n\n Tablet of synonyms. British Museum reference K.4375 .\n\n The 10-faced Rassam cylinder of Ashurbanipal, British Museum.[10]\n\n Prism of Sennacherib, containing records of his military campaigns, culminating with Babylon's destruction. British Museum BM 91032.[22]\n\nSee also\n\nGreat libraries of the ancient world\n\nAshurbanipal\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Ashurbanipal Library Project (phase 1)\". British Museum.\n\n^ a b Murray, Stuart A.P. (2009) The Library: An Illustrated History. Chicago, IL: Skyhorse Publishing (p. 9)\n\n^ Wells, H. G. (1961). The Outline of History: Volume 1. Doubleday. p. 177.\n\n^ a b Polastron 2007, p. 2-3.\n\n^ a b c Menant, Joachim (1880). \"La bibliothèque du palais de Ninive\". Paris: E. Leroux. p. 33.\n\n^ \"Hormuzd Rassam | Middle East Archaeologist, British Museum Curator, Discoverer of Ancient Tablets | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-12-13.\n\n^ a b Roaf, M. (1990). Cultural atlas of Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. New York: Facts on File.\n\n^ \"Ashurbanipal\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-10-28.\n\n^ Luckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (PDF). University of Chicago Press. pp. 290-296.\n\n^ a b c \"Rassam cylinder British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\n^ \"Assurbanipal's Library - Knowledge and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". British Museum. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012.\n\n^ Fincke 2004, p. 55-60.\n\n^ a b c d e Parpola, S. (1983). \"Assyrian Library Records\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 42(1), 1-29.\n\n^ Taylor, Jonathan (25 October 2018). \"A Library Fit for a King\". The British Museum.\n\n^ a b c Fincke 2004, p. 55.\n\n^ Jeanette C. Fincke (2003-12-05). \"Nineveh Tablet Collection\". Fincke.uni-hd.de. Archived from the original on 2011-12-29. Retrieved 2012-05-30.\n\n^ a b Polastron 2007, p. 3.\n\n^ a b c Taylor, Jonathan (2022). \"About the project\". ORACC. Retrieved January 22, 2025.\n\n^ a b Taylor, Jon (2021). \"The Ashurbanipal Library Project at the British Museum\". Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 59th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Held at Ghent, Belgium, 15-19 July 2013. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. pp. 291-296. doi:10.5325/j.ctv1g80975.27. ISBN 978-1-64602-120-8. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1g80975.27. S2CID 233960691. Retrieved 2021-04-26.\n\n^ Taylor, Jon (2022). \"History of the project\". Department of the Middle East. Ashurbanipal Library Project. British Museum and Penn State University. Retrieved 2023-03-21.\n\n^ \"Reading the Library of Ashurbanipal\".\n\n^ \"Prism British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\nBibliography\n\nFincke, Jeanette (2004). \"The British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project\". Iraq, 66, Ninevah. 66: 55-60. doi:10.1017/S0021088900001637. S2CID 190727609.\n\nPolastron, Lucien X. (2007). Books On Fire: The Tumultuous Story Of The World's Great Libraries. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Library of Ashurbanipal at Wikimedia Commons\n\nBBC audio file. In our time discussion programme. 45 minutes.\n\n36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.3594°N 43.1528°E / 36.3594; 43.1528"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-library-of-ashurbanipal"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2213}, {"slug": "reference-sayfo", "title": "Sayfo", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Sayfo (Syriac: ܣܲܝܦܵܐ, lit. 'sword'), also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass killing and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during World War I.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Sayfo (Syriac: ܣܲܝܦܵܐ, lit. 'sword'), also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass killing and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during World War I. \n\nThe Assyrians were divided into mutually antagonistic churches, including the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church. Before World War I, they largely lived in mountainous and remote areas of the Ottoman Empire and Persia, some of which were effectively stateless. The Ottoman Empire's nineteenth-century centralization efforts led to increased violence and danger for the Assyrians.\n\nMass killing of Assyrian civilians began during the Ottoman occupation of Azerbaijan from January to May 1915, during which massacres were committed by Ottoman forces and pro-Ottoman Kurds. In Bitlis province, Ottoman troops returning from Persia joined local Kurdish tribes to massacre the local Christian population (Armenians and Assyrians). Ottoman forces and Kurds attacked the Assyrian tribes of Hakkari in mid-1915, driving them out by September despite the tribes mounting a coordinated military defense. Governor Mehmed Reshid initiated a genocide of all of the Christian communities in Diyarbekir province, including Syriac Christians, facing only sporadic armed resistance in some parts of Tur Abdin. Ottoman Assyrians living farther south, in present-day Iraq and Syria, were not targeted in the genocide.\n\nThe Sayfo occurred concurrently with and was closely related to the Armenian genocide, although the Sayfo is considered to have been less systematic. Local actors played a larger role than the Ottoman government, but the latter also ordered attacks on certain Assyrians. Motives for killing included a perceived lack of loyalty among some Assyrian communities to the Ottoman Empire and the desire to appropriate their land. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Assyro-Chaldean delegation said that its losses were 250,000, about half the pre-war population. The accuracy of this figure is unknown. They later revised their estimate to 275,000 dead at the Lausanne Conference in 1923. The Sayfo is less studied than the Armenian genocide. Efforts to have it recognized as a genocide began during the 1990s, spearheaded by the Assyrian diaspora. Although several countries acknowledge that Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire were victims of a genocide, this assertion is rejected by the Turkish government.\n\nTerminology\n\nThere is no universally accepted translation in English for the endonym Suryoyo or Suryoye. The choice of which term to use, such as Assyrian, Syriac, Aramean, and Chaldean, is often determined by political alignment.[1][2][3] The Church of the East was the first to adopt an identity derived from ancient Assyria. The Syriac Orthodox Church has officially rejected the use of Assyrian in favor of Syrian since 1952, although not all Syriac Orthodox reject Assyrian identity.[4][5] \n\nSince the Ottoman Empire was organized by religion, Ottoman officials referred to populations by their religious affiliation rather than ethnicity. Therefore, according to historian David Gaunt, \"speaking of an 'Assyrian Genocide' is anachronistic\".[6] In Neo-Aramaic, the languages historically spoken by Assyrians, it has been known since 1915 as Sayfo or Seyfo (ܣܝܦܐ, lit. 'sword'), which, since the tenth century, has also meant 'extermination' or 'extinction'.[7][8] Other terms used by some Assyrians include nakba (Arabic for 'catastrophe') and firman (Turkish for 'order', as Assyrians believed that they were killed according to an official decree).[8]\n\nBackground\n\nThe people now called Assyrian, Chaldean, or Aramean are native to Upper Mesopotamia and historically spoke Aramaic varieties, and their ancestors converted to Christianity in the first centuries CE. The first major schism in Syriac Christianity dates to 410, when Christians in the Sasanian Empire formed the Church of the East to distinguish themselves from the official religion of the Roman Empire.[9] The West Syriac church, later the Syriac Orthodox Church, was persecuted by Roman rulers for theological differences but remained separate from the Church of the East. The schisms in Syriac Christianity were fueled by political divisions between empires and personal antagonism between clergymen.[10] \n\nMiddle Eastern Christian communities were devastated by the Crusades and the Mongol invasions. The Chaldean and Syriac Catholic Churches split from the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church, respectively, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Each church considered the others heretical.[11]\n\nAssyrians in the Ottoman Empire\n\nIn its millet system, the Ottoman Empire recognized religious denominations rather than ethnic groups: Süryaniler / Yakubiler (Syriac Orthodox or Jacobites), Nasturiler (Church of the East or Nestorians), and Keldaniler (Chaldean Catholic Church).[11][6] Until the nineteenth century, these groups were part of the Armenian millet.[12][13] Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire lived in remote, mountainous areas, where they had settled to avoid state control.[14] Although this remoteness enabled Assyrians to avoid military conscription and taxation, it also cemented internal differences and prevented the emergence of a collective identity similar to the Armenian national movement.[15] Unlike the Armenians, Syriac Christians did not control a disproportionate part of Ottoman commerce and did not have significant populations in nearby hostile countries.[16]\n\nThere were no accurate estimates of the prewar Assyrian population, but Gaunt gives a possible figure of 500,000 to 600,000. Midyat, in Diyarbekir province (vilayet), was the only town in the Ottoman Empire with an Assyrian majority (Syriac Orthodox, Chaldeans, and Protestants).[17] Syriac Orthodox Christians were concentrated in the hilly rural areas around Midyat, known as Tur Abdin, where they lived in almost 100 villages and worked in agriculture or crafts.[17][18] Syriac Orthodox culture was centered in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin): Mor Gabriel and Deyrulzafaran.[19] Outside the core area of Syriac settlement, there were also sizable populations in villages and the towns of Urfa, Harput, and Adiyaman.[20] Unlike the Syriac population of Tur Abdin, many of these Syriacs spoke non-Aramaic languages.[14]\n\nUnder the Qudshanis-based Patriarch of the Church of the East, Assyrian tribes controlled the Hakkari mountains east of Tur Abdin (adjacent to the Ottoman-Persian border).[17] Hakkari is very mountainous, with peaks reaching 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) and separated by steep gorges; many areas were only accessible by footpaths carved into the mountainsides.[21] The Assyrian tribes sometimes fought each other on behalf of their Kurdish allies.[22] Church of the East settlement began in the east on the western shore of Lake Urmia in Persia; a Chaldean enclave was just north, in Salamas. There was a Chaldean area around Siirt in Bitlis province (northeast of Tur Abdin and northwest of Hakkari,[23] less mountainous than Hakkari),[21] but most Chaldeans lived farther south in present-day Iraq.[23]\n\nWorsening conflicts\n\nAlthough the Kurds and Assyrians were well-integrated with each other, Gaunt writes that this integration \"led straight into a world marked by violence, raiding, the kidnapping and rape of women, hostage taking, cattle stealing, robbery, plundering, the torching of villages and a state of chronic unrest\".[24] Assyrian efforts to maintain their autonomy collided with the Ottoman Empire's nineteenth-century attempts at centralization and modernization to assert control over what had effectively been a stateless region.[25] The first mass violence targeting Assyrians was in the mid-1840s, when Kurdish emir Bedir Khan devastated Hakkari and Tur Abdin, killing several thousands.[26][27] During intertribal feuds, the bulk of the violence was directed at Christian villages under the protection of the opposing tribe.[28]\n\nDuring the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Ottoman state armed the Kurds with modern weapons to fight Russia. When the Kurds refused to return the weapons at the end of the war, Assyrians-relying on older weapons-were at a disadvantage and subject to increasing violence.[29] The irregular Hamidiye cavalry were formed in the 1880s from Kurdish tribes loyal to the government; their exemption from civil and military law enabled them to commit acts of violence with impunity.[28][30] \n\nThe rise of political Islam in the form of Kurdish shaikhs also widened the divide between the Assyrians and the Muslim Kurds.[29] Many Assyrians were killed in the 1895 massacres of Diyarbekir.[31] Violence worsened after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, despite Assyrian hopes that the new government would stop promoting anti-Christian Islamism.[32][33] In 1908, 12,000 Assyrians were expelled from the Lizan valley by the Kurdish emir of Barwari.[34] Due to increasing Kurdish attacks which Ottoman authorities did nothing to prevent, Patriarch of the Church of the East Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin began negotiations with the Russian Empire before World War I.[17]\n\nWorld War I\n\nBefore the war, Russia and the Ottoman Empire courted populations in each other's territory to wage guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. The Ottoman Empire tried to enlist Caucasian Muslims and Armenians, as well as Assyrians and Azeris in Persia, and Russia looked to the Armenians, Kurds, and Assyrians living in the Ottoman Empire.[35] Prior to the war, Russia controlled parts of northeastern Persia, including Azerbaijan and Tabriz.[36][37]\n\nLike other genocides, the Sayfo had a number of causes. The rise of nationalism led to competing Turkish, Kurdish, Persian, and Arab national movements, which contributed to increasing violence in the already conflict-ridden borderlands inhabited by the Assyrians. Historian Donald Bloxham emphasizes the negative influence of European powers interfering in the Ottoman Empire under the premise of protecting Ottoman Christians. This imperialism put the Ottoman Christians at risk of retaliatory attacks. In 1912 and 1913, the Ottoman loss in the Balkan Wars triggered an exodus of Muslim refugees from the Balkans.[38]\n\nThe Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government decided to resettle the refugees in eastern Anatolia, on land confiscated from populations deemed disloyal to the empire.[38] There was a direct connection between the deportation of the Christian population and the resettlement of Muslims in the depopulated areas.[39] The goals of the population replacement were to Turkify the Balkan Muslims and end the perceived internal threat from the Christian populations. With local politicians predisposed to violence against non-Muslims, these factors helped generate the preconditions for genocide.[40]\n\nThe paramilitary Special Organization operated as spies and saboteurs in the Ottoman borderlands.[41] The Ottoman Empire ordered a full mobilization for war on 24 July 1914, and concluded the German-Ottoman alliance shortly thereafter.[42] In August 1914, the CUP sent a delegation to an Armenian conference offering an autonomous Armenian region if the Armenian Revolutionary Federation incited a pro-Ottoman revolt in Russia in the event of war.[43] The Armenians refused. According to Gaunt, a similar offer was probably made to Mar Shimun in Van on 3 August. After returning to Qudshanis, Mar Shimun sent letters urging his followers to \"fulfill strictly all their duties to the Turks\".[43] The Assyrians in Hakkari (like many other Ottoman subjects) resisted conscription into the Ottoman army during the mobilization, and many fled to Persia in August.[44] Those in Mardin, however, accepted conscription.[45]\n\nEthnic cleansing of Hakkari\n\nMassacres of lowland Assyrians\n\nIn August 1914, Assyrians in nine villages near the border were forced to flee to Persia and their villages were burned after they refused to join the Ottoman army.[46] On 26 October 1914, a few days before the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, Ottoman interior minister Talaat Pasha sent a telegram to Djevdet Bey, the governor of Van province (which included Hakkari). In a planned Ottoman attack in Persia, the loyalty of the Hakkari Assyrians was doubted. Talaat ordered the deportation and resettlement of the Assyrians who lived near the Persian border with Muslims farther west. No more than twenty Assyrians would live in each resettlement, destroying their culture, language, and traditional way of life.[47][48][49] \n\nGaunt cites this order as the beginning of the Sayfo.[50] The government in Van reported that the order could not be implemented due to the lack of forces to carry it out, and by 5 November the expected Assyrian unrest did not materialize.[51] Assyrians in Julamerk and Gawar were arrested or killed, and Ottoman irregulars attacked Assyrian villages throughout Hakkari in retaliation for their refusal to follow the order.[50][49] The Assyrians, unaware of the government's role in these events until December 1914, protested to the governor of Van.[49]\n\nThe Ottoman garrison in the border town of Bashkale was commanded by Kazim Karabekir, and the local Special Organization branch by Ömer Naji. Russian forces captured Bashkale and Sarai in November 1914 and held both for a few days. After their recapture by the Ottomans, the towns' local Christians were punished as collaborators, out of proportion to any actual collaboration.[52][53] Local Ottoman forces consisting of gendarmerie, Hamidiye irregulars, and Kurdish volunteers were unable to mount attacks on the Assyrian tribes on the highlands, confining their attacks to poorly-armed Christian villages in the plains. Refugees from the area told the Russian army that \"nearly the entire male Christian population of Gawar and Bashkale\" had been massacred.[54] In May 1915, Ottoman forces retreating from Bashkale massacred hundreds of Armenian women and children before continuing to Siirt.[55]\n\nPreparations for war\n\nMar Shimun learned about the massacre of Assyrians in lowland areas, and believed that the highland tribes would be next. Via Agha Petros, an Assyrian interpreter for the Russian consulate in Urmia, he contacted the Russian authorities. Shimun traveled to Bashkale to meet Mehmed Shefik Bey, an Ottoman official sent from Mardin to win over the Assyrians for the Ottoman cause, in December 1914. Shefik promised protection and money in exchange for a written promise that the Assyrians would not side with Russia or permit their tribes to take up arms against the Ottoman government. The tribal chiefs considered the offer, but rejected it.[56] \n\nIn January 1915, Kurds blocked the route from Qudshanis to the Assyrian tribes. The patriarch's sister, Surma D'Bait Mar Shimun, left Qudshanis the following month with 300 men.[57] Early in 1915, the tribes of Hakkari were preparing to defend themselves from a large-scale attack; they decided to send women and children to the area around Chamba in Upper Tyari, leaving only combatants behind.[58] \n\nOn 10 May, the Assyrian tribes met and declared war (or a general mobilization) against the Ottoman Empire.[59] In June, Mar Shimun traveled to Persia to ask for Russian support. He met with General Fyodor Chernozubov in the Salmas valley, who promised support. The patriarch and Agha Petros also met Russian consul Basil Nikitin in Salmas shortly before 21 June, but the promised Russian help never materialized.[57]\n\nIn May, Assyrian warriors were part of the Russian force which was rushed to relieve the defense of Van; Haydar Bey, the governor of Mosul, was given the power to invade Hakkari. Talaat ordered him to drive the Assyrians out and added, \"We should not let them return to their homelands\".[60] The ethnic-cleansing operation was coordinated by Enver, Talaat, and military and civilian Ottoman authorities. To legalize the invasion, the districts of Julamerk, Gawar, and Shemdinan were temporarily transferred to Mosul province.[61] The Ottoman army joined local Kurdish tribes against specific targets. Suto Agha of the Kurdish Oramar tribe attacked Jilu, Dez, and Baz from the east; Said Agha attacked a valley in Lower Tyari; Ismael Agha targeted Chamba in Upper Tyari, and the Upper Berwar emir attacked Ashita, the Lizan valley, and Lower Tyari from the west.[55]\n\nInvasion of the highlands\n\nThe joint encirclement operation was launched on 11 June.[55] The Jilu tribe was attacked at the beginning of the campaign by several Kurdish tribes; the fourth-century church of Mar Zaya, with historic artifacts, was destroyed. Ottoman forces based in Julamerk and Mosul launched a joint attack on Tyari on 23 June.[55][62] Haydar first attacked the Tyari villages of Ashita and Sarespido; later, an expeditionary force of three thousand Turks and Kurds attacked the mountain pass between Tyari and Tkhuma. Although the Assyrians were victorious in most of the battles, they had unsustainable losses of lives and ammunition and lacked their invaders' German-manufactured rifles, machine guns, and artillery.[63] \n\nIn July, Mar Shimun sent Malik Khoshaba and bishop Mar Yalda Yahwallah from Barwari to Tabriz in Persia to request urgent assistance from the Russians.[62] The Kurdish Barzani tribe assisted the Ottoman army and laid waste to Tkhuma, Tyari, Jilu, and Baz.[64] During the campaign, Ottoman forces took no prisoners.[65] Mar Shimun's brother, Hormuz, was arrested while he was studying in Constantinople; in late June, Talaat tried to obtain the surrender of the Assyrian tribes by threatening Hormuz' life if Mar Shimun did not capitulate. The Assyrians refused, and he was killed.[66][67]\n\nOutnumbered and outgunned, the Assyrians retreated further into the high mountains without food[68][64] and watched as their homes, farms, and herds were pillaged.[65] They had no other option but fleeing to Persia, which most had done by September. Most of the men joined the Russian army, hoping to return home.[64][69] During the 1915 fighting, the Assyrians' only strategic objective was defensive;[70] the Ottoman goal was to defeat the Assyrian tribes and prevent their return.[71]\n\nOttoman occupation of Azerbaijan\n\nIn 1903, Russia estimated that 31,700 Assyrians lived in Persia.[72] Facing attacks from their Kurdish neighbors, the Assyrian villages in the Ottoman-Persian borderlands organized self-defense forces; by the outbreak of World War I, they were well armed.[73][22] In 1914, before the declaration of war against Russia, Ottoman forces crossed the border into Persia and destroyed Christian villages. Large-scale attacks in late September and October 1914 targeted many Assyrian villages, and the attackers neared Urmia.[74] \n\nDue to Ottoman attacks, thousands of Christians living along the border fled to Urmia.[75] Others arrived in Persia after fleeing from the Ottoman side of the border. The November 1914 proclamation of jihad by the Ottoman government inflamed jihadist sentiments in the Ottoman-Persian border area, convincing the local Kurdish population to side with the Ottomans.[76] In November, Persia declared its neutrality; however, it was not respected by the warring parties.[73]\n\nRussia organized units of Assyrian and Armenian volunteers to bolster local Russian forces against Ottoman attack.[77] Assyrians led by Agha Petros declared their support for the Entente, and marched in Urmia. Agha Petros later said that he had been promised by Russian officials that in exchange for their support, they would receive an independent state after the war.[78] Ottoman irregulars in Van province crossed the Persian border, attacking Christian villages in Persia.[79]\n\nIn response, Persia shut down the Ottoman consulates in Khoy, Tabriz, and Urmia and expelled Sunni Muslims. Ottoman authorities retaliated with the expulsion of several thousand Hakkari Assyrians to Persia. Resettled in farming villages, the Assyrians were armed by Russia.[79] The Russian government was aware that the Assyrians and Armenians of Azerbaijan could not stop an Ottoman army, and was indifferent to the danger to which these communities would be exposed in an Ottoman invasion.[80]\n\nOn 1 January 1915, Russia abruptly withdrew its forces. Ottoman forces led by Djevdet, Kazim Karabekir, and Ömer Naji occupied Azerbaijan with no opposition.[81] Immediately after the withdrawal of Russian forces, local Muslims committed pogroms against Christians; the Ottoman army also attacked Christian civilians. Over a dozen villages were sacked and, of the large villages, only Gulpashan was left intact. News of the atrocities spread quickly, leading many Armenians and Assyrians to flee to the Russian Caucasus. Those north of Urmia had more time to flee.[82] According to several estimates, about 10,000[83] or 15,000 to 20,000 crossed the border into Russia.[84] Assyrians who had volunteered for the Russian forces were separated from their families, who were often left behind.[85] An estimated 15,000 Ottoman troops reached Urmia by 4 or 5 January, and Dilman on 8 January.[86][87]\n\nMassacres\n\nOttoman troops began attacking Christian villages during their February 1915 retreat, when they were turned back by a Russian counterattack.[88] Facing losses which they blamed on Armenian volunteers and imagining a broad Armenian rebellion, Djevdet ordered massacres of Christian civilians to reduce the potential future strength of volunteer units.[89] Some local Kurdish tribes participated in the killings, but others protected Christian civilians.[90] Some Assyrian villages also engaged in armed resistance when attacked.[86] The Persian Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested the atrocities to the Ottoman government, but lacked the power to prevent them.[91][92]\n\nMany Christians did not have time to flee during the Russian withdrawal,[93] and 20,000 to 25,000 refugees were stranded in Urmia.[91] Nearly 18,000 Christians sought shelter in the city's Presbyterian and Lazarist missions. Although there was reluctance to attack the missionary compounds, many died of disease.[94] Between February and May, when the Ottoman forces pulled out, there was a campaign of mass execution, looting, kidnapping, and extortion against Christians in Urmia.[91] More than 100 men were arrested at the Lazarist compound, and dozens, including Mar Dinkha, bishop of Tergawer, were executed on 23 and 24 February.[95] Near Urmia, the large Syriac village of Gulpashan was attacked; men were killed, and women and children were abducted and raped.[96][97]\n\nThere were no missionaries in the Salmas valley to protect Christians, although some local Muslims tried to do so. In Dilman, the Persian governor offered shelter to 400 Christians; he was forced to surrender the men to Ottoman forces, however, who executed them in the town square.[95] The Ottoman forces lured Christians to Haftevan, a village south of Dilman, by demanding that they register there, and arrested notable people in Dilman who were brought to the village for execution. Over two days in February, 700 to 800 people, including the entire male Christian population, was murdered in Haftevan. The killings were committed by the Ottoman army, led by Djevdet, and the local Shekak Kurdish tribe, led by Simko Shikak.[98][95]\n\nIn April, Ottoman army commander Halil Pasha arrived in Azerbaijan with reinforcements from Rowanduz. Halil and Djevdet ordered the murder of Armenian and Syriac soldiers serving in the Ottoman army, and several hundred were killed.[99][100] In several other massacres in Azerbaijan in early 1915, hundreds of Christians were killed[101] and women were targeted for kidnapping and rape;[102][103] seventy villages were destroyed.[104] In May and June, Christians who had fled to the Caucasus returned to find their villages destroyed.[105] Armenian and Assyrian volunteers attacked Muslims in revenge.[106] After retreating from Persia, Ottoman forces-blaming Armenians and Assyrians for their defeat-took revenge against Ottoman Christians.[91] Ottoman atrocities in Persia were widely covered by international media in mid-March 1915, prompting a declaration on 24 May by Russia, France, and the United Kingdom condemning them.[89][107] The Blue Book, a collection of eyewitness reports of Ottoman atrocities published by the British government in 1916, devoted 104 of its 684 pages to the Assyrians.[108]\n\nButcher battalion in Bitlis\n\nA Kurdish rebellion in Bitlis province was suppressed shortly before the outbreak of war in November 1914. The CUP government reversed its previous opposition to the Hamidiye regiments, recruiting them to put down the rebellion.[109][110] As elsewhere, military requisitions became pillage;[109][111] in February, labor-battalion recruits began to disappear.[112] In July and August 1915, 2,000 Chaldeans and Syriac Orthodox from Bitlis were among those who fled to the Caucasus when the Russian army retreated from Van.[113]\n\nBefore the war, Siirt and the surrounding area were Christian enclaves populated largely by Chaldean Catholics.[114] Catholic priest Jacques Rhétoré estimated that there were 60,000 Christians living in the Siirt district (sanjak), including 15,000 Chaldeans and 20,000 Syriac Orthodox.[115] Violence in Siirt began on 9 June with the arrest and execution of Armenian, Syriac Orthodox, and Chaldean clerics and notable residents, including the Chaldean bishop Addai Sher.[116][117] \n\nAfter retreating from Persia, Djevdet led the siege of Van; he continued to Bitlis province in June with 8,000 soldiers, whom he called the \"butcher battalion\" (Turkish: kassablar taburu).[118] The arrival of these troops in Siirt led to more violence.[117] District governor (mutasarrif) Serfiçeli Hilmi Bey and Siirt mayor Abdul Ressak were replaced because they did not support the killing.[119][120] Forty local officials in Siirt organized the massacres.[116]\n\nDuring the month-long massacre, Christians were killed in the streets or their houses (which were looted).[115] The Chaldean diocese of Siirt was destroyed, including its library of rare manuscripts.[121] The massacre was organized by Bitlis governor Abdülhalik Renda, the chief of police, the mayor, and other prominent local residents.[122] The killing in Siirt was committed by çetes, and the surrounding villages were destroyed by Kurds;[115] many local Kurdish tribes were involved.[123] According to Venezuelan mercenary Rafael de Nogales, the massacre was planned as revenge for Ottoman defeats by Russia.[115] De Nogales believed that Halil was trying to assassinate him, since the CUP had disposed of other witnesses. He left Siirt as quickly as he could, passing deportation columns of Syriac and Armenian women and children.[124]\n\nOnly 400 people were deported from Siirt; the remainder were killed or kidnapped by Muslims.[117] The deportees (women and children, since the men had been executed) were forced to march west from Siirt towards Mardin or south towards Mosul, assaulted by police.[119][125] As they passed through, their possessions, including their clothes, were stolen by local Kurds and Turks. Those unable to keep up were killed. Women considered attractive were abducted by police or Kurds, raped, and killed.[126] One site of attacks and robbery by Kurds was the gorge of Wadi Wawela in Sawro kaza, northeast of Mardin.[127] No deportees reached Mardin,[119] and only 50[119][117] to 100 Chaldeans (of an original 7,000 to 8,000) reached Mosul.[128] Three Assyrian villages in Siirt-Dentas, Piroze and Hertevin-survived the Sayfo, existing until 1968 when their residents emigrated.[129]\n\nAfter leaving Siirt, Djevdet proceeded to Bitlis and arrived on 25 June. His forces killed men, and the women and girls were enslaved by Turks and Kurds.[119][130] The Syriac Orthodox Church estimated its Bitlis province losses at 8,500, primarily in Schirwan and Garzan.[131]\n\nDiyarbekir\n\nThe situation for Christians in Diyarbekir province worsened during the winter of 1914-1915; the Saint Ephraim church was vandalized, and four young men from the Syriac village of Qarabash (near Diyarbekir) were hanged for desertion. Syriacs who protested the executions were clubbed by police, and two died.[132][133] In March, many non-Muslim soldiers were disarmed and transferred to road-building labor battalions. Harsh conditions, mistreatment, and individual murders led to many deaths.[134]\n\nOn 25 March, CUP founding member Mehmed Reshid was appointed governor of Diyarbekir.[135][136] Chosen for his record of anti-Armenian violence,[137] Reshid brought thirty Special Organization members (mainly Circassians) who were joined by released convicts.[135] Many local officials (kaymakams and district governors) refused to follow Reshid's orders, and were replaced in May and June 1915.[138] Kurdish confederations were offered rewards to allow their Syriac clients to be killed.[139][140] Government allies complied (including the Milli and Dekşuri), and many who had supported the anti-CUP 1914 Bedirhan revolt switched sides because the extermination of Christians did not threaten their interests.[139][141] The Raman tribe became enthusiastic executioners for Reshid, but parts of the Heverkan leadership protected Christians; this limited Reshid's genocide, and allowed pockets of resistance to survive in Tur Abdin. Some Yazidis, who were also persecuted by the government, aided the Christians.[141] The killers in Diyarbekir were typically volunteers organized by local leaders, and the freelance perpetrators took a share of the loot.[142] Some women and children were abducted into local Kurdish or Arab families.[143]\n\nThousands of Armenians and several hundred Syriacs (including all their clergymen) in Diyarbekir city were arrested, deported, and massacred in June.[144] In the Viranşehir kaza, west of Mardin, its Armenians were massacred in late May and June 1915. Syriacs were not killed, but many lost their property and some were deported to Mardin in August.[145] In total, 178 Syriac towns and villages near Diyarbekir were wiped out and most of them razed.[146]\n\nTargeting of non-Armenian Christians\n\nUnder Reshid's leadership, a systematic anti-Christian extermination was conducted in Diyarbekir province which included Syriacs and the province's few Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics.[147][148] Reshid knew that his decision to extend the persecution to all Christians in Diyarbekir was against the central government's wishes, and he concealed relevant information from his communications.[149] Unlike the government, Reshid and his Mardin deputy Bedri Bey classified all Aramaic-speaking Christians as Armenians: enemies of the CUP who must be eliminated.[150] Reshid planned to replace Diyarbekir's Christians with selected, approved Muslim settlers to counterbalance the potentially-rebellious Kurds; in practice, however, the areas were resettled by Kurds and the genocide consolidated the province's Kurdish presence.[151] Historian Uğur Ümit Üngör says that in Diyarbekir, \"most instances of massacre in which the militia engaged were directly ordered by\" Reshid and \"all Christian communities of Diyarbekir were equally hit by the genocide, although the Armenians were often particularly singled out for immediate destruction\".[152] The priest Jacques Rhétoré estimated that the Syriac Orthodox in Diyarbekir province lost 72 percent of their population, compared to 92 percent of Armenian Catholics and 97 percent of Armenian Apostolic Church adherents.[153]\n\nGerman diplomats noticed that the Ottoman deportations were targeting groups other than Armenians, leading to a complaint from the German government.[154][155] Austria-Hungary and the Holy See also protested the violence against non-Armenians.[156] Talaat Pasha telegraphed Reshid on 12 July 1915 that \"measures adopted against the Armenians are absolutely not to be extended to other Christians ... you are ordered to put an immediate end to these acts\".[156][157] No action was taken against Reshid for exterminating Syriac Christians or assassinating Ottoman officials who disagreed with the massacres, however, and in 1916 he was appointed governor of Ankara. Talaat's telegram may have been sent in response to German and Austrian opposition to the massacres, with no expectation of implementation.[156][157] The perpetrators began separating Armenians and Syriacs in early July, only killing the former;[158][159] however, the killing of Syriacs resumed in August and September.[160]\n\nMardin district\n\nChristians in Mardin were largely untouched until May 1915.[148] At the end of May, they heard about the abduction of Christian women and the murder of wealthy Christians elsewhere in Diyarbekir to steal their property. Extortion and violence began in Mardin district, despite the efforts of district governor Hilmi Bey.[161] Hilmi rejected Reshid's demands to arrest Christians in Mardin, saying that they posed no threat to the state.[148][162] Reshid sent Pirinççizâde Aziz Feyzi to incite anti-Christian violence in April and May, and Feyzi bribed or persuaded the Deşi, Mışkiye, Kiki and Helecan chieftains to join him.[148][163] Mardin police chief Memduh Bey arrested dozens of men in early June, using torture to extract confessions of treason and disloyalty and extorting money from their families. Reshid appointed a new mayor and officials in Mardin, who organized a 500-man militia to kill.[148][164] He also urged the central government to depose Hilmi, which it did on 8 June.[165][166] He was replaced by the equally-resistant Shefik, whom Reshid also tried to depose.[167][168] The cooperative Ibrahim Bedri was appointed as an official and Reshid used him to carry out his orders, bypassing Shefik.[167][169] Reshid also replaced Midyat governor Nuri Bey with the hardline Edib Bey in July 1915, after Nuri refused to cooperate with Reshid.[170]\n\nOn the night of 26 May, militiamen were caught attempting to plant arms in a Syriac Catholic church in Mardin. Their intent was to cite the supposed discovery of an arms cache as evidence of a Christian rebellion to justify the planned massacres.[171] Mardin's well-to-do Christians were deported in convoys, the first of which left the city on 10 June. Those who refused to convert to Islam were murdered on the road to Diyarbekir. Half of the second convoy, which departed on 12 June, had been massacred before messengers from Diyarbekir announced that the non-Armenians had been pardoned by the sultan; they were subsequently freed.[172] Other convoys from Mardin were targeted for extermination from late June until October.[173] The city's Syriac Orthodox made a deal with authorities and were spared, but the other Christian denominations were decimated.[174][175]\n\nAll Christian denominations were treated the same in the Mardin district countryside.[176] Militia and Kurds attacked the village of Tell Ermen on 1 July, killing men, women, and children indiscriminately in the church after raping the women.[177] The next day, more than 1,000 Syriac Orthodox and Catholics were massacred in Eqsor by militia and Kurds from the Milli, Deşi, Mişkiye, and Helecan tribes. Looting continued for several days before the village was burned down (which could be seen from Mardin).[175][178] In Nusaybin, Talaat's order to spare the Syriacs was ignored as Christians of all denominations (including many Syriac Orthodox Church members) were arrested in mid-August and murdered in a ravine.[179][180] In Djezire (Cizre) kaza, Syriac Orthodox leader Gabro Khaddo cooperated with the authorities, defused plans for armed resistance, and paid a large ransom in June 1915;[181] almost all Syriacs were killed with the kaza's Armenians at the end of August.[179][180] Some Armenian and Syriac Orthodox men were drafted to work in road construction or harvesting crops in place of those who had been killed. In August 1915, the harvest was over; the Armenians were killed, and the Syriacs were released.[182]\n\nTur Abdin\n\nIn Tur Abdin, some Syriac Christians fought their attempted extermination.[183][184] This was considered treason by Ottoman officials,[184] who reported massacre victims as rebels.[185] Christians in Midyat considered resistance after hearing about massacres elsewhere, but the local Syriac Orthodox community initially refused to support this.[186] On 21 June, 100 men (mostly Armenians and Protestants) were arrested, tortured for confessions implicating others, and executed outside the city; this panicked the Syriac Orthodox.[187][176] Local people refused to hand over their arms, attacked government offices, and cut telegraph lines; local Arab and Kurdish tribes were recruited to attack the Christians.[187] The town was pacified in early August after weeks of bloody urban warfare which killed hundreds of Christians.[188][184] Survivors fled east to the more-defensible Iwardo, which held out successfully with the food aid of local Yazidis.[184][189]\n\nIn June 1915, many Syriacs from Midyat kaza were massacred; others fled to the hills.[190] A month earlier, local tribes and the Ramans began attacking Christian villages near Azakh (present-day İdil) on the road from Midyat to Djezire. Survivors fled to Azakh, since it was defensible.[191][192] The villages were attacked from north to south, giving the attackers at Azakh (one of the southernmost villages) more time to prepare.[193] The primarily Syriac Orthodox village refused to hand over Catholics and Protestants, as demanded by the authorities. Azakh was first attacked on 17[192] or 18 August, but the defenders repelled this and subsequent attacks over the next three weeks.[192][193]\n\nAgainst the advice of General Mahmud Kâmil Pasha, Enver ordered the rebellion suppressed in November.[191] Parts of the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Armies and a Turkish-German expeditionary force under Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter and Ömer Naji were sent to crush the rebels, the latter diverted from attacking Tabriz.[194] To justify the attack on Azakh, Ottoman officials claimed (with no evidence) that Armenian rebels had \"cruelly massacred the Muslim population of the region\".[194][195] Scheubner, skeptical of the attack, forbade any Germans from participating.[194][196] German general Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz and the German ambassador in Constantinople, Konstantin von Neurath, informed Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg of the Ottoman request for German assistance in crushing the resistance. The Germans refused, fearing that the Ottomans would insinuate that the Germans initiated the anti-Christian atrocities.[197][198] The defenders launched a surprise attack on Ottoman troops during the night of 13-14 November, which led to a truce (lobbied by the Germans) which ended the resistance on favorable terms for the villagers.[199][200] On 25 December 1915, the Ottoman government decreed that \"instead of deporting all of the Syriac people\", they were to be confined \"in their present locations\".[201] Most of Tur Abdin was in ruins by this time, except for villages which resisted and families who found refuge in monasteries.[157] Other Syriacs had fled south, into present-day Syria and Iraq.[202]\n\nAftermath\n\nEthnic violence in Azerbaijan\n\nExternal image\n\n Les Assyriens et les Assyro-Chaldéens sur les routes de l’exil, 1915-1935.\n\nAfter their expulsion from Hakkari, the Assyrians and their herds were resettled by Russian occupation authorities near Khoy, Salmas and Urmia.[69][203] Many died during the first winter due to lack of food, shelter, and medical care,[204] and they were resented by local residents for worsening living standards.[69][203] Assyrian men from Hakkari offered their services to the Russian military; although their knowledge of local terrain was useful, they were poorly disciplined.[205] In 1917, Russia's withdrawal from the war after the Russian Revolution dimmed prospects of a return to Hakkari.[69][203] About 5,000 Assyrian[206] and Armenian militia policed the area, but they frequently abused their power and killed Muslims without provocation.[207]\n\nFrom February to July 1918, the region was engulfed by ethnic violence.[208][209] On 22 February, local Muslims and the Persian governor began an uprising against the Christian militias in Urmia. The better-organized Christians, led by Agha Petros, brutally crushed the uprising; hundreds (possibly thousands) were killed.[207] On 16 March, Mar Shimun and many of his bodyguards were killed by the Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak, probably at the instigation of Persian officials fearing Assyrian separatism, after they met to discuss an alliance. Assyrians went on a killing and looting spree; unable to find Simko, they murdered Persian officials and inhabitants.[210][211] The Kurds responded by massacring Christians, regardless of denomination or ethnicity.[209] Christians were massacred in Salmas in June and in Urmia in early July,[208] and many Assyrian women were abducted.[102]\n\nChristian militias in Azerbaijan were no match for the Ottoman army when it invaded in July 1918.[207] Tens of thousands of Ottoman and Persian Assyrians fled south to Hamadan, where the British Dunsterforce was garrisoned, on 18 July to escape Ottoman forces approaching Urmia under Ali İhsan Sâbis.[212][213] The Ottoman invasion was followed by killings of Christians, including Chaldean archbishop Toma Audo, and the sacking of Urmia.[214][209] Some remained in Persia, but there was another anti-Christian massacre on 24 May 1919.[209][208] Historian Florence Hellot-Bellier says that the interethnic violence of 1918 and 1919 \"demonstrate[s] the degree of violence and resentment which had accumulated throughout all of these years of war and the break-up of the long-standing links between the inhabitants of the Urmia region\".[62] According to Gaunt, Assyrian \"victims, when given the chance, turned without hesitation into perpetrators\".[215]\n\nExile in Iraq\n\nDuring the journey to Hamadan, the Assyrians were harassed by Kurdish irregulars[216] (probably at the instigation of Simko and Sayyid Taha);[214] some died of exhaustion. Many were killed near Heydarabad, and another 5,000 during an ambush by Ottoman forces and Kurdish irregulars near the Sahin Ghal'e mountain pass.[216] Dependent on the British for protection, they were resettled in a refugee camp in Baqubah (near Baghdad) which held fifteen thousand Armenians and thirty-five thousand Assyrians in October 1918.[209][217] Conditions at the camp were poor, and an estimated 7,000 Assyrians died there.[209] Although the United Kingdom requested that Assyrian refugees be allowed to return, the Persian government refused.[209]\n\nIn 1920, the camp in Baqubah was shut down and Assyrians hoping to return to Azerbaijan or Hakkari were sent northwards to Midan. About 4,500 Assyrians were resettled near Duhok and Akre in northern Iraq.[218] They worked as soldiers for the British rulers of Mandatory Iraq, which backfired when the British did not follow through with their repeated promises to resettle Assyrians in areas where they would be safer. After the end of the mandate, Assyrians were killed in the 1933 Simele massacre.[219] After the massacre, France allowed 24,000 to 25,000 Assyrians to resettle along the Khabur in northeastern Syria.[220] Other Assyrians were exiled in the Caucasus, Russia, or Lebanon, and a few immigrated to the United States, Canada, South America, and Europe.[221]\n\nAssyrians in Turkey\n\nA few thousand Assyrians remained in Hakkari after 1915, and others returned after the war.[222] Armed by the British, Agha Petros led a group of Assyrians from Tyari and Tkhuma who wanted to return in 1920; he was repulsed by Barwari chieftain Rashid Bek and the Turkish army.[218][223][224] The remaining Assyrians were driven out again in 1924 by a Turkish army commanded by Kazim Karabekir, and the mountains were depopulated.[69][222] In Siirt, Islamicized Syriacs (primarily women) were left behind. Their Kurdified (or Arabized) descendants still live there.[225] \n\nThe survivors lost access to their property, becoming landless agricultural laborers, or later, an urban underclass. The depopulated Christian villages were resettled by Kurds or Muslims from the Caucasus.[226] During and after the genocide, more than 150 churches and monasteries were demolished. Others were converted to mosques or other uses. Many manuscripts and cultural objects were destroyed.[227][228]\n\nAfter 1923, local politicians went on an anti-Christian campaign which negatively impacted the Syriac communities (such as Adana, Urfa or Adiyaman) unaffected by the 1915 genocide. Many were forced to abandon their property and flee to Syria, eventually settling in Aleppo, Qamishli, or the Khabur region.[229] Despite its effort to court the Turkish nationalists, including denying that Syriac Orthodox had been persecuted during the war, the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate was expelled from Turkey in 1924.[229][146] Unlike the Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, Assyrians were not recognized as a minority group in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[230] \n\nThe remaining population lived in submission to Kurdish aghas, subject to harassment and abuse which drove them to emigrate.[231][230] Turkish laws denaturalized those who had fled and confiscated their property. Despite their citizenship rights, many Assyrians who remained in Turkey had to re-purchase their property from Kurdish aghas or risk losing their Turkish citizenship.[231] A substantial number of Assyrians continued to live in Tur Abdin until the 1980s.[232] Some scholars have described the ongoing exclusion and harassment of Assyrians in Turkey as a continuation of the Sayfo.[233]\n\nParis Peace Conference\n\nIn 1919, Assyrians attended the Paris Peace Conference and attempted to lobby for compensation for their war losses. Although it has been labeled \"the Assyrian delegation\" in historiography, it was neither an official delegation nor a cohesive entity.[234] Many attendees demanded monetary reparations for their war losses and an independent state, and all emphasized that Assyrians could not live under Muslim rule.[235] Territory claimed by the Assyrians included parts of present-day Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.[236] \n\nAlthough there was considerable sympathy for the Assyrians, none of their demands were met.[237] The British and the French had other plans for the Middle East, and the rising Turkish nationalist movement was also an obstacle.[238][239] The Assyrians recalled that the British had promised them an independent country in exchange for their support, although it is disputed if such a promise was ever made;[207][240][241] many Assyrians felt betrayed that this desire was not fulfilled.[40]\n\nDeath toll\n\nAssyrian delegates at the Paris Peace Conference said that their losses were 250,000 in the Ottoman Empire and Persia, around half of the prewar population. In 1923, at the Lausanne Conference, they raised their estimate to 275,000. The source of these numbers is unknown and, according to Gaunt, their accuracy has been impossible to verify and the Assyrian delegation had an incentive to exaggerate.[242] Although more than 50 percent of the population was killed in some areas, Assyrian communities in present-day Syria and Iraq were left mainly intact.[243][244] The Sayfo was less systematic than the Armenian genocide; all Christians were killed in some places, but local officials spared Assyrians and targeted Armenians in others.[245][246] \n\nLosses, according to the Assyro-Chaldean delegation at the Paris Peace Conference[247]\n\nRegion\n\nLosses\n\nNotes\n\nPersia\n\n40,000\n\nGaunt says that this number is probably an overestimate, and there is no reliable figure.[209] According to historian Donald Bloxham, \"perhaps 7,000 Persian Assyrians\" were killed in 1915.[248] A German observer estimated that 21,000 Christians were killed in Azerbaijan between December 1914 and February 1915.[103]\n\nVan (including Hakkari)\n\n80,000\n\nAccording to Gaunt, \"This is a very high figure and should be treated with caution\".[249] Russian consul Basil Nikitin estimated that 45,000 Assyrians from Hakkari fled to Persia, out of more than 70,000 prewar residents.[250]\n\nDiyarbekir\n\n63,000\n\nCatholic priest Jacques Rhétoré estimated that 60,725 Syriac Orthodox, 10,010 Chaldeans, 3,450 Syriac Catholics, and 500 Protestants were killed, of 144,185 total Christian deaths in Diyarbekir. British Army officer Edward Noel estimated 96,000 Syriac Orthodox, 7,000 Chaldeans, 2,000 Syriac Catholics, and 1,200 Protestants out of 157,000 Christian deaths.[251]\n\nHarput\n\n15,000\n\nAccording to historian Raymond Kévorkian, Assyrians were spared from deportation from Harput;[252] Gaunt says that the Armenian genocide in Harput became a Christian one.[69]\n\nBitlis\n\n38,000\n\nRhétoré estimated that before the war, 60,000 Christians lived in Siirt district (including 15,000 Chaldeans and 20,000 Syriac Orthodox).[115] The Syriac Orthodox Church estimated its losses at 8,500 in the province.[131]\n\nAdana, Der Zor and elsewhere\n\n5,000\n\nGaunt lists Adana as a place where the Assyrian population was untouched by the Sayfo.[229]\n\nUrfa\n\n9,000\n\nGaunt also lists Urfa as a place where the Assyrian population was not affected by the Sayfo.[229]\n\nTotal\n\n250,000\n\n-\n\nLegacy\n\nFor Assyrians, the Sayfo is considered the greatest modern example of their persecution.[253] Eyewitness accounts of the genocide were typically passed down orally, rather than in writing;[254] memories were often passed down in lamentations.[255] After large-scale migration to Western countries (where Assyrians had greater freedom of speech) during the second half of the twentieth century, accounts began to be communicated more publicly by grandchildren of survivors.[256]\n\nThe Turkish government denies that the Sayfo was a genocide; unlike its denial of the Armenian genocide, however, it prefers to avoid the issue.[257][258] After the 1915 genocide, the Turkish government initially silenced its discussion in high culture and written works.[254] Non-Turkish music and poetry were suppressed, and the Syriac Orthodox Church discouraged discussion of the Sayfo for fear of reprisals from the Turkish government.[259] \n\nThe Sayfo is less well known than the Armenian genocide,[260] partially because its targets were divided among mutually-antagonistic churches and did not develop a collective identity.[261] During the 1990s, before the first academic research on the Sayfo, Assyrian diaspora groups (inspired by campaigns for Armenian genocide recognition) began to press for a similar formal acknowledgement.[262][263] In parallel with the political campaign, Armenian genocide research began to include Assyrians as victims.[264] In December 2007, the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution recognizing the Assyrian genocide.[265][253][266] The Sayfo is also recognized as a genocide in resolutions passed by Sweden (in 2010),[267][268] Armenia (2015),[269][270] the Netherlands (2015),[271] and Germany (in 2016).[271][272] Memorials in Armenia, Australia, Belgium, France, Greece, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States commemorate victims of the Sayfo.[273]\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Wozniak 2012, p. 73.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 2018, p. 770.\n\n^ Gaunt 2010, p. 9, passim.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 2018, p. 777.\n\n^ Gaunt 2010, pp. 12-14.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, p. 86.\n\n^ Talay 2017, pp. 132, 136.\n\n^ a b Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 7.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 17.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 18.\n\n^ a b Gaunt et al. 2017, pp. 18-19.\n\n^ Suny 2015, p. 48.\n\n^ Gaunt 2013, p. 318.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 57.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 60.\n\n^ Tamcke 2009, pp. 203-204.\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt 2015, p. 87.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 13.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 15.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 19.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 58.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 59.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, pp. 86-87.\n\n^ Gaunt 2017, p. 64.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, pp. 57, 59.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, pp. 2, 20.\n\n^ Gaunt 2017, p. 59.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2017, pp. 59, 61.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2017, pp. 60-61.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 20.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 2.\n\n^ Gaunt 2013, pp. 323-324.\n\n^ Gaunt 2017, pp. 63-64.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 323.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 56.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 85.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 110, 112-113.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, pp. 97-98.\n\n^ Yalcin 2009, p. 217.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, p. 98.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 58.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 56.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, pp. 56-57.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 127.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 310.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, pp. 247-248.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 128-129.\n\n^ Suny 2015, p. 234.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt 2011, p. 248.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 70.\n\n^ Kaiser, Hilmar (17-18 April 2008). \"A Deportation that Did Not Occur\" (PDF). Armenian Weekly. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 May 2021. Retrieved 27 June 2021.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 130.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 251.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 136-137.\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt 2011, p. 257.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 137.\n\n^ a b Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 128.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 138.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 123, 140.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 93-94.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 142.\n\n^ a b c Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 129.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 142-143.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt 2006, p. 144.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, p. 312.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 143-144.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, pp. 257-258.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 88-89.\n\n^ a b c d e f Gaunt 2015, p. 94.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 122, 300.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 259.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 73.\n\n^ a b Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 112.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 129.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 117, 125.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 250.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 249.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 117-118.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, pp. 129-130.\n\n^ Bloxham 2005, p. 74.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 60-61.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 252.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 226.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 119-120.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 103.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, pp. 103-104.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 119.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 105.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, p. 106.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 120-121.\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt 2006, p. 110.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, pp. 253-254.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 120.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 122.\n\n^ a b c Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 126.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 254.\n\n^ Naby 2017, p. 165.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 81, 83-84.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 108-109.\n\n^ Gaunt 2011, p. 255.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 121-122.\n\n^ a b Naby 2017, p. 167.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, p. 227.\n\n^ Hofmann 2018, p. 30.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 127.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 84, 104-105.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 93.\n\n^ Yacoub 2016, pp. 67-68.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, p. 234.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 37.\n\n^ Polatel 2019, pp. 129-130.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 237.\n\n^ Yacoub 2016, p. 54.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 250.\n\n^ a b c d e Gaunt 2006, p. 251.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, p. 339.\n\n^ a b c d Polatel 2019, p. 132.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 89, 251, 254.\n\n^ a b c d e Kévorkian 2011, p. 340.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 254-255.\n\n^ Yacoub 2016, pp. xiii, 116-117, 168.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 255.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 256.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, pp. 338-339.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 253.\n\n^ Yuhanon 2018, pp. 204-205.\n\n^ Yuhanon 2018, pp. 206-207.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 252.\n\n^ Yacoub 2016, p. 198.\n\n^ Yacoub 2016, pp. 132-133.\n\n^ a b Yacoub 2016, p. 136.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 60.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 154-155.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, pp. 60-61.\n\n^ a b Üngör 2011, p. 61.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 155.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 153, 155.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, pp. 362-363.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2017, pp. 65-66.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 420.\n\n^ a b Kaiser 2014, p. 419.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 422-423.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 323.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, pp. 363-364.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 366.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2011, p. 327.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 97.\n\n^ a b c d e Üngör 2017, p. 35.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 424-425.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 345-346.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 425-426.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 99.\n\n^ Gaunt 2017, p. 65.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, pp. 83-84.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 92.\n\n^ a b c Kévorkian 2011, p. 379.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt 2015, p. 96.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, pp. 45-46.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 322.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 84.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 314.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 309-311.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 313-314.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 316-317.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, pp. 35-36.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 316.\n\n^ a b Üngör 2017, p. 36.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 320.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 421-422, 429.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 290, 334-335.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 372.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, pp. 36-38.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, pp. 38-39.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 85.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, p. 373.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, p. 376.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, p. 39.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, pp. 39-40.\n\n^ a b Üngör 2017, pp. 47-48.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, p. 378.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 338-339.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 324.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 89.\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt 2020, p. 85.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 331.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 332.\n\n^ a b Kaiser 2014, p. 333.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 329-331, 333-334.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 334.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, pp. 376-377.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, pp. 89-90.\n\n^ a b c Kaiser 2014, p. 337.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, p. 90.\n\n^ a b c Kévorkian 2011, p. 377.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 340.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 91.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 91.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 343-345.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 340-342.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 91-92.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 90, 95.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 87.\n\n^ a b c Hellot 2003, p. 138.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 122.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, pp. 77-78.\n\n^ Koohi-Kamali 2003, p. 76.\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt 2020, p. 78.\n\n^ a b c Hellot 2003, pp. 138-139.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Gaunt 2020, p. 80.\n\n^ Koohi-Kamali 2003, pp. 76-77.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 79.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 17.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 744.\n\n^ a b Koohi-Kamali 2003, p. 77.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 77.\n\n^ a b Kévorkian 2011, pp. 744-745.\n\n^ Hellot 2003, p. 139.\n\n^ a b Hellot 2003, p. 142.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, pp. 80-81.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 36.\n\n^ Yacoub 2018, 17.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 72.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 81.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 27.\n\n^ Altuğ 2021, pp. 88-89.\n\n^ Altuğ 2021, pp. 89-90.\n\n^ Talay 2018, p. 8.\n\n^ Yacoub 2018, 13.\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt 2020, p. 88.\n\n^ a b Biner 2019, p. xv.\n\n^ a b Biner 2011, p. 371.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 69.\n\n^ Biner 2019, pp. 14-15.\n\n^ Lundgren 2021, pp. 63-64, 66.\n\n^ Lundgren 2021, pp. 67-68.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 18.\n\n^ Lundgren 2021, pp. 69-70.\n\n^ Lundgren 2021, p. 71.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 23.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 15-16.\n\n^ Müller-Sommerfeld 2016, p. 270.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 88, 96.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 96-97.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 2018, p. 776.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 2018, p. 775.\n\n^ Üngör 2017, p. 49.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 300.\n\n^ Bloxham 2005, p. 98.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 71.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 109, 129.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 85.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, pp. 390, 394, 415.\n\n^ a b Atto 2016, p. 184.\n\n^ a b Atto 2016, p. 185.\n\n^ Atto 2016, pp. 192-193.\n\n^ Atto 2016, pp. 194-195.\n\n^ Talay 2018, pp. 14-15.\n\n^ Koinova 2019, p. 1897.\n\n^ Atto 2016, pp. 184, 186.\n\n^ Kieser & Bloxham 2014, p. 585.\n\n^ Gaunt 2013, p. 317.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, pp. 94-95.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, pp. 7-8.\n\n^ Koinova 2019, p. 1900.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 8.\n\n^ Sjöberg 2016, p. 197.\n\n^ Biner 2011, p. 375.\n\n^ Sjöberg 2016, pp. 202-203.\n\n^ Sjöberg 2016, p. 215.\n\n^ Talay 2018, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Koinova 2019, p. 1901.\n\n^ Yacoub 2018, pp. 45-46.\n\n^ Yacoub 2016, p. 211.\n\nSources\n\nBooks\n\nBiner, Zerrin Özlem (2019). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-9659-4.\n\nBloxham, Donald (2005). The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927356-0.\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\nKaiser, Hilmar (2014). The Extermination of Armenians in the Diarbekir Region. İstanbul Bilgi University Press. ISBN 978-605-399-333-9.\n\nKévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85771-930-0.\n\nKoohi-Kamali, Farideh (2003). The Political Development of the Kurds in Iran: Pastoral Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-0-230-53572-5.\n\nSjöberg, Erik (2016). The Making of the Greek Genocide: Contested Memories of the Ottoman Greek Catastrophe. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78533-326-2.\n\nSuny, Ronald Grigor (2015). \"They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else\": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.\n\nYacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide: A History. Hurst. ISBN 978-0-19-063346-2.\n\nChapters\n\nAltuğ, Seda (2021). \"Culture of Dispossession in the Late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic\". Reverberations: Violence Across Time and Space. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 83-116. ISBN 978-0-8122-9812-3.\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). \"Introduction: Contextualizing the Sayfo in the First World War\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 1-32. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nGaunt, David (2011). \"The Ottoman Treatment of the Assyrians\". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 245-259. ISBN 978-0-19-978104-1.\n\nGaunt, David (2013). \"Failed Identity and the Assyrian Genocide\". Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (illustrated ed.). Indiana University Press. pp. 317-333. ISBN 978-0-253-00631-8.\n\nGaunt, David (2017). \"Sayfo Genocide: The Culmination of an Anatolian Culture of Violence\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 54-69. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nGaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 56-96. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\nHellot, Florence (2003). \"La fin d'un monde: les assyro-chaldéens et la première guerre mondiale\" [The end of a world: the Assyro-Chaldeans and the First World War]. Chrétiens du monde arabe: un archipel en terre d'Islam [Christians of the Arab world: an archipelago in the land of Islam] (in French). Autrement. pp. 127-145. ISBN 978-2-7467-0390-2.\n\nHellot-Bellier, Florence (2018). \"The Increasing Violence and the Resistance of Assyrians in Urmia and Hakkari (1900-1915)\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Gorgias Press. pp. 107-134. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4.\n\nHofmann, Tessa (2018). \"The Ottoman Genocide of 1914-1918 against Aramaic-Speaking Christians in Comparative Perspective\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Gorgias Press. pp. 21-40. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4.\n\nKieser, Hans-Lukas; Bloxham, Donald (2014). \"Genocide\". The Cambridge History of the First World War: Volume 1: Global War. Cambridge University Press. pp. 585-614. ISBN 978-0-511-67566-9.\n\nMüller-Sommerfeld, Hannah (2016). \"The League of Nations, A-Mandates and Minority Rights during the Mandate Period in Iraq (1920-1932)\". Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere. Brill. pp. 258-283. ISBN 978-90-04-32328-5. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.\n\nMurre-van den Berg, Heleen (2018). \"Syriac Identity in the Modern Era\". The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 770-782. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\nNaby, Eden (2017). \"Abduction, Rape and Genocide: Urmia's Assyrian Girls and Women\". The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. pp. 158-177. ISBN 978-1-138-28405-0.\n\nPolatel, Mehmet (2019). \"The State, Local Actors and Mass Violence in Bitlis Province\". The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 119-140. ISBN 978-1-78831-241-7.\n\nTalay, Shabo (2017). \"Sayfo, Firman, Qafle: The First World War from the Perspective of Syriac Christians\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 132-147. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nTalay, Shabo (2018). \"Sayfo 1915: the Beginning of the End of Syriac Christianity in the Middle East\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Gorgias Press. pp. 1-20. ISBN 978-1-4632-3996-1.\n\nTamcke, Martin (2009). \"World War I and the Assyrians\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq: Collected papers from the Christianity of Iraq I-V Seminar Days. Gorgias Press. pp. 203-220. ISBN 978-1-4632-1713-6.\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2017). \"How Armenian was the 1915 Genocide?\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 33-53. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nWozniak, Marta (2012). \"Far from Aram-Nahrin: The Suryoye Diaspora Experience\". Border Terrains: World Diasporas in the 21st Century. Brill. pp. 73-83. ISBN 978-1-84888-117-4.\n\nYalcin, Zeki (2009). \"The Turkish Genocide against Christian Minorities during WW1 from the Perspective of Contemporary Scandinavian Observers\". Suryoye l-Suryoye: Ausgewählte Beiträge zur aramäischen Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur [Suryoye l-Suryoye: Selected Contributions to Aramaic Language, History and Culture]. Gorgias Press. pp. 213-228. ISBN 978-1-4632-1660-3.\n\nYuhanon, B. Beth (2018). \"The Methods of Killing Used in the Assyrian Genocide\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Gorgias Press. pp. 177-214. ISBN 978-1-4632-3996-1.\n\nJournal articles\n\nAtto, Naures (2016). \"What Could Not Be Written: A Study of the Oral Transmission of Sayfo Genocide Memory Among Assyrians\". Genocide Studies International. 10 (2): 183-209. doi:10.3138/gsi.10.2.04.\n\nBiner, Zerrin Özlem (2011). \"Multiple imaginations of the state: understanding a mobile conflict about justice and accountability from the perspective of Assyrian-Syriac communities\". Citizenship Studies. 15 (3-4): 367-379. doi:10.1080/13621025.2011.564789.\n\nGaunt, David (4 October 2010). \"Identity conflicts among Oriental Christian in Sweden\". Sens public. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.\n\nGaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.\n\nHellot-Bellier, Florence (2020). \"Les relations ambiguës de la France et des Assyro-Chaldéens dans l'histoire. Les mirages de la \"protection\"\" [The ambiguous relations of France and the Assyro-Chaldeans in history. The mirages of \"protection\"]. Les Cahiers d'EMAM (in French) (32). doi:10.4000/emam.2912. ISSN 1969-248X. Archived from the original on 8 May 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2021.\n\nKoinova, Maria (2019). \"Diaspora coalition-building for genocide recognition: Armenians, Assyrians and Kurds\" (PDF). Ethnic and Racial Studies. 42 (11): 1890-1910. doi:10.1080/01419870.2019.1572908. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 March 2022. Retrieved 19 February 2022.\n\nLundgren, Svante (2021). \"Why did the Assyrian lobbying at the Paris Peace Conference fail?\". Chronos. 41: 63-73. doi:10.31377/chr.v41i.689 (inactive 1 July 2025). ISSN 1608-7526. Archived from the original on 22 January 2022. Retrieved 22 January 2022.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)\n\nYacoub, Joseph (2018). \"Longtemps méconnu par la communauté internationale: le génocide assyro-chaldéen de 1915\" [Long ignored by the international community: the Assyro-Chaldean genocide of 1915]. Relations Internationales (in French). 173 (1): 45-64. doi:10.3917/ri.173.0045.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAkdemir, Mary (2023). \"Big Secrets, Small Villages: The Collective Memory of the Assyrian Genocide\". The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and its Aftermath (1908-1923). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-83361-4.\n\nGaunt, David (2023). \"Late Recognition of the Assyrian Genocide\". The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and its Aftermath (1908-1923). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-83361-4.\n\nLundgren, Svante (2023). \"When the Assyrian Tragedy Became Seyfo: A Study of Swedish-Assyrian Politics of Memory\". Genocide Studies International. 14 (2): 95-108. doi:10.3138/GSI-2022-0002. S2CID 257178308."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sayfo"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 10657}, {"slug": "reference-simele-massacre", "title": "Simele massacre", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Simele massacre (Syriac: ܦܪܲܡܬܵܐ ܕܣܸܡܹܠܹܐ, romanized: Premta d'Simele, Arabic: مذبحة سميل, romanized: maḏbaḥat Simīl), also known as the Assyrian affair,[9] was a massacre committed by the Kingdom of Iraq under the leadership of Kurdish army general Bakr Sidqi. The massacre was committed in August 1933 against the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Simele massacre\n\nAerial view of Batarshah in northern Iraq, an Assyrian village destroyed by Arabs and Kurds in August 1933\n\n  Area where villages were looted\n  Heavily targeted Assyrian villages\n\nNative nameمذبحة سميل (Arabic)[1]\nܦܪܲܡܬܵܐ ܕܣܸܡܹܠܹܐ (Syriac)[2][3]\n\nLocation36°51′30″N 42°51′0″E / 36.85833°N 42.85000°E / 36.85833; 42.85000\nNorthern Kingdom of Iraq, notably at Simele\n\nDate7 August 1933 (1933-08-07) - 11 August 1933 (1933-08-11)\n\nTargetAssyrians\n\nAttack typeSummary executions, mass murder, looting\n\nDeaths300-600 (British estimate)[4][5][6][7]\n\n3,000-6,000 (Assyrian estimate)\n\nVictimsOver 20,000 Assyrians became refugees\n\nPerpetratorsRoyal Iraqi Army (led by Bakr Sidqi, Arab and Kurdish tribes[8]\n\nMotiveAnti-Christian sentiment\n\nThe Simele massacre (Syriac: ܦܪܲܡܬܵܐ ܕܣܸܡܹܠܹܐ, romanized: Premta d'Simele, Arabic: مذبحة سميل, romanized: maḏbaḥat Simīl), also known as the Assyrian affair,[9] was a massacre committed by the Kingdom of Iraq under the leadership of Kurdish army general Bakr Sidqi. The massacre was committed in August 1933 against the Assyrian population of Iraq in and around the village of Simele.\n\nAlthough primarily known for the attacks in the village of Simele, 54 villages in total are said to have been targeted during the four day period of the massacre, primarily in the Zakho and Simele Districts (now in the modern Duhok Governorate).\n\nThe massacre is known partly for having imprinted the memory of persecution on the modern Assyrian identity, while also being regarded as the turning point for the Assyrian naming dispute. Raphael Lemkin's coining of the term genocide was influenced by the events of the massacre.[10]\n\nBackground\n\nAssyrians of the mountains\n\nThe majority of the Assyrians affected by the massacres were adherents of the Church of the East (often incorrectly dubbed Nestorian; later known as the Assyrian Church of the East), who originally inhabited the mountainous Hakkari and Barwari regions covering parts of the modern provinces of Hakkâri, Şırnak and Van in Turkey and the Dohuk Governorate in Iraq, with a population ranging between 75,000 and 150,000.[11][12] Most of these Assyrians were massacred during the 1915 Assyrian genocide, at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, while the rest endured two winter marches to Urmia in 1915 and to Hamadan in 1918.\n\nMany Assyrians were relocated by the British to refugee camps in Baquba and later to Habbaniyah, and in 1921 some were enlisted in the Assyrian Levies, a military force under British command. In 1924, in response to attacks on Assyrian civilians, soldiers of the Assyrian Levies rampaged through Kirkuk, killing approximately 300 Muslims.[13] Most Hakkari Assyrians were resettled after 1925 in a cluster of villages in northern Iraq.[14] Some of the villages where the Assyrians settled were leased directly by the government, while others belonged to Kurdish landlords who had the right to evict them at any time.[15]\n\nIraqi independence and crisis\n\nDuring the Ottoman Empire until its partition in the 20th century, Iraq was made up of three provinces: Mosul Vilayet, Baghdad Vilayet, and Basra Vilayet. These three provinces were joined into one Kingdom under the nominal rule of King Faisal by the British after the region became a League of Nations mandate, administered under British control, with the name \"State of Iraq\". Britain granted independence to the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq in 1932,[16] on the urging of King Faisal, though the British retained military bases and transit rights for their forces; the Assyrian Levies continued to be stationed in Iraq.\n\nIraqi nationalists perceived the Assyrian Levies to be a British proxy force that allowed Britain to maintain influence in post-independence Iraq; soldiers of the Levies had not been granted Iraqi citizenship until 1924.[17] The Assyrian Levies received higher pay than their counterparts in the Iraqi military, further increasing resentment towards them.[18] Iraqi nationalists believed the British motive behind raising and maintaining the Levies was to encourage the Assyrians to become independent from Iraq and for other ethnic minorities such as the Kurds to follow their example.[19] The Iraqi military also harbored a hostile attitude towards the Assyrian Levies as the latter had in conjunction with British forces suppressed the Ahmed Barzani revolt after the former had failed to do so.[20]\n\nThe end of the British Mandate of Iraq caused considerable unease among the Assyrians, many of whom felt betrayed by the British. For them, any treaty with the Iraqis had to take into consideration their desire for an autonomous position similar to the Ottoman Millet system.[21][22] The Iraqis, on the other hand felt that the Assyrians' demands were, alongside Kurdish disturbances in the north, a British conspiracy to divide Iraq by agitating its various minorities against the central government.[23]\n\nAssyrian demands for autonomy\n\nWith Iraqi independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Shimun XXI Eshai (Catholicos Patriarch of the Church of the East), demanded an autonomous Assyrian homeland within Iraq, seeking support from the United Kingdom and pressing his case before the League of Nations in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian Levies and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave.[24]\n\nIn spring 1933, Malik Yaqo, a former Levies officer, was engaged in a propaganda campaign on behalf of Assyrian Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai (or Mar Shimun), trying to persuade Assyrians not to apply for Iraqi nationality or accept the settlement offered to them by the central government. Yaqo was accompanied by 200 armed men, which was seen as an act of defiance by the Iraqi authorities,[25] while causing distress among the Kurds. The Iraqi government started sending troops to the Dohuk region in order to intimidate Yaqu and dissuade Assyrians from joining his cause.[26]\n\nIn June 1933, Shimun XXI Eshai was invited to Baghdad for negotiations with Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's government but was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority.[27] He would eventually be exiled to Cyprus.[28]\n\nMassacres\n\nClashes at Dirabun\n\nOn 21 July 1933, more than 600 Assyrians, led by Yaqo, crossed the border into Syria in hope of receiving asylum from the French Mandate of Syria. They were, however, disarmed and refused asylum, and were subsequently given light arms and sent back to Iraq on 4 August. They then decided to surrender themselves to the Iraqi Army.[29] While crossing the Tigris in the Assyrian village of Dirabun, a clash erupted between the Assyrians and an Iraqi Army brigade. Despite the advantage of heavy artillery, the Iraqis were driven back to their military base in Dirabun. The Assyrians, convinced that the Iraqi army had targeted them deliberately, attacked an army barracks with little success.[30] They were driven back to Syria upon the arrival of Iraqi airplanes. The Iraqi Army lost 33 soldiers during the fighting while the Assyrian irregulars took fewer casualties.[31]\n\nHistorians do not agree on who started the clashes at the border. The British Administrative Inspector for Mosul, Lieutenant-colonel R. R. Stafford, wrote that the Assyrians had no intention of clashing with the Iraqis, while the Iraqi historian Khaldun Husry claims that it was Yaqo's men who provoked the army at Dirabun.[32][33] Husry supported the propaganda rumors, which circulated in the Iraqi nationalist newspapers, of the Assyrians mutilating the bodies of the killed Iraqi soldiers,[34] further enraging the Iraqi public against the Assyrians.[30]\n\nBeginning of the massacres\n\nEven though all military activities ceased by 6 August 1933, exaggerated stories of atrocities committed by the Assyrians at Dirabun and anti-Christian propaganda gained currency while rumors circulated that the Christians were planning to blow up bridges and poison drinking water in major Iraqi cities.[35] The Iraqi Army, led by Bakr Sidqi, an experienced brigadier general and Iraqi nationalist, moved north in order to crush the Assyrian revolt. Iraqi troops started executing every Assyrian male found in the mountainous Bekher region between Zakho and Duhok starting from 8 August 1933. Assyrian civilians were transported in military trucks from Zakho and Dohuk to uninhabited places, in batches of eight or ten, where they were shot with machine guns and run over by heavy armoured cars to make sure no one survived.[36]\n\nLooting of villages\n\nWhile these killings were taking place, nearby Kurdish, Arab and Yazidi tribes were encouraged to loot Assyrian villages. Kurdish tribes of Gulli, Sindi and Selivani were encouraged by the mayor of Zakho to loot villages to the northeast of Simele.[37] Most women and children from those villages took refuge in Simele and Dohuk.[38]\n\nOn 9 August, the Arab tribes of Shammar and Jubur started crossing to the east bank of the Tigris and raiding Assyrian villages on the plains to the south of Dohuk.[38] They were mostly driven by the loss of a large part of their own livestock to drought in the previous years.[39] More than 60 Assyrian villages were looted. While women and children were mostly allowed to take refuge in neighboring villages, men were sometimes rounded up and handed over to the army, by whom they were shot.[8] Some villages were completely burned down and most of them were later inhabited by Kurds.[40]\n\nMassacre in Simele\n\nThe town of Simele became the last refuge for Assyrians fleeing from the looted villages. The mayor of Zakho arrived with a military force on 8 and 9 August to disarm the city. During that time thousands of refugees flocked around the police post in the town, where they were told by officials that they would be safe under the Iraqi flag.[38] 10 August saw the arrival of Kurdish and Arab looters who, undeterred by the local police, took away the freshly cut wheat and barley. During the night of 10-11 August, the Arab inhabitants of Simele joined the looting. The Assyrian villagers could only watch as their Arab neighbors drove their flocks before them.[41]\n\nOn 11 August the villagers were ordered to leave the police post and return to their homes, which they began to do with some reluctance. As they were heading back Iraqi soldiers in armoured cars arrived, and the Iraqi flag flying over the police post was pulled down.[41] Without warning or obvious provocation, the troops began to fire indiscriminately into the defenseless Assyrians. Ismael Abbawi Tohalla, the commanding officer, then ordered his troops not to target women.\n\nStafford described the ensuing massacre:[42]\n\nA cold blooded and methodical massacre of all the men in the village then followed, a massacre which for the black treachery in which it was conceived and the callousness with which it was carried out, was as foul a crime as any in the blood stained annals of the Middle East. The Assyrians had no fight left in them, partly because of the state of mind to which the events of the past week had reduced them, largely because they were disarmed. Had they been armed it seems certain that Ismail Abawi Tohalla and his bravos would have hesitated to take them on in fair fight. Having disarmed them, they proceeded with the massacre according to plan. This took some time. Not that there was any hurry, for the troops had the whole day ahead of them. Their opponents were helpless and there was no chance of any interference from any quarter whatsoever. Machine gunners set up their guns outside the windows of the houses in which the Assyrians had taken refuge, and having trained them on the terror stricken wretches in the crowded rooms, fired among them until not a man was left standing in the shambles. In some other instance the blood lust of the troops took a slightly more active form, and men were dragged out and shot or bludgeoned to death and their bodies thrown on a pile of dead.\n\nIn his depiction of the massacre, Mar Shimun states:[43]\n\nGirls were raped and made to march naked before Iraqi commanders. Children were run over by military cars. Pregnant women were bayonetted. Children were flung in the air and pierced on to the points of bayonets. Holy books were used for the burning of the massacred.\n\nOn 13 August, Bakr Sidqi moved his troops to Alqosh, where he planned to inflict a further massacre on the Assyrians who found refuge there.[44][45]\n\nTargeted villages\n\nTargeted villages[46]\n\nAla Keena\n\nAloka\n\nBadalliya\n\nBaderden\n\nBagerey\n\nBakhitmey\n\nBameri\n\nBarcawra\n\nBaroshkey\n\nBasorik\n\nBastikey\n\nBenaringee\n\nBetafrey\n\nBetershy\n\nBidari\n\nBiswaya\n\nCarbeli\n\nChem Jehaney\n\nDair Kishnik\n\nDairke\n\nDerjendy\n\nFishkhabour\n\nGarvaly\n\nGereban\n\nGond Naze\n\nHarkonda\n\nIdleb\n\nKaberto\n\nKarpel\n\nKarshen\n\nKaserezden\n\nKerry\n\nKhalata\n\nKharab Koli\n\nKharsheniya\n\nKitba\n\nKorekavana\n\nKowashey\n\nLazga\n\nMajel Makhte\n\nMansouriya\n\nMawani\n\nQasr Yazdin\n\nRabibyia\n\nRekawa\n\nSar Shorey\n\nSezary\n\nShekhidra\n\nSidzari\n\nSirchuri\n\nSpendarook\n\nTal Zet\n\nTel Khish\n\nZeniyat\n\nThe main campaign lasted until 16 August 1933, but violent raids on Assyrians were being reported up to the end of the month.[47] The campaign resulted in one third of the Assyrian population of Iraq fleeing to Syria.[48]\n\nAftermath\n\nOn 18 August 1933, Iraqi troops entered Mosul, where they were given an enthusiastic reception by its Muslim inhabitants. Triumphant arches were erected and decorated with melons pierced with daggers, symbolizing the heads of murdered Assyrians.[49] The crown prince Ghazi himself came to the city to award 'victorious' colors to those military and tribal leaders who participated in the massacres and the looting.[50] Anti-Christian feeling was at its height in Mosul, and the Christians of the city were largely confined to their homes during the whole month in fear of further action by the frenzied mob.[50]\n\nThe Iraqi Army later paraded in the streets of Baghdad in celebration of its victories.[51] Bakr Sidqi was promoted; he later led Iraq's first military coup and became prime minister.[52]\n\nImmediately after the massacre and the repression of the alleged Assyrian uprising, the Iraqi government demanded a conscription bill. Non-Assyrian Iraqi tribesmen offered to serve in the Iraqi army in order to counter the Assyrians. In late August, the government of Mosul demanded that the central government 'ruthlessly' stamp out the rebellion, eliminate all foreign influence in Iraqi affairs, and take immediate steps to enact a law for compulsory military service. The next week, 49 Kurdish tribal chieftains joined in a pro-conscription telegram to the government, expressing thanks for punishing the 'Assyrian insurgents',[53] stating that a \"nation can be proud of itself only through its power, and since evidence of this power is the army,\" requesting compulsory military service.[53]\n\nRashid Ali al-Gaylani presented the bill to the parliament. His government fell, however, before conscription was enacted; Jamil al-Midfai's government did so in February 1934.[54][55]\n\nThe massacres and looting had a deep psychological impact on the Assyrians. Stafford reported their low morale upon arrival in Alqosh:[56]\n\nWhen I visited Alqosh myself on August 21st I found the Assyrians, like the Assyrians elsewhere, utterly panic-stricken. Not only were they disturbed, but their spirit was completely broken. It was difficult to recognize in their cowed demeanour the proud mountaineers whom everyone had known so well and admired so much for the past dozen years.\n\nBecause of the massacre, around 6,200 Assyrians left the Nineveh Plains immediately for the neighboring French Mandate of Syria, and were later joined by 15,000 refugees the following years. They concentrated in the Jazira region and built a number of villages on the banks of the Khabur River.[57] Over 20,000 Assyrians became refugees in total.[58]\n\nKing Faisal, who had recently returned to Iraq from a medical vacation, was under great physical stress during the crisis. His health deteriorated even more during the hot summer days in Baghdad; the British chargé d'affaires described meeting him in his pajamas as he sat in his bed on 15 August, denying that a massacre had been committed in Simele. Faisal left Iraq again on 2 September 1933, seeking a cooler climate in London. He died five days later in Bern, Switzerland.[59][60]\n\nMar Shimun, who had been detained since June 1933, was forced into exile along with his extended family, despite initial British reluctance. He was flown on an RAF plane to Cyprus on 18 August 1933, and to the United States in 1949, forcing the head of the Church of the East to relocate to Chicago, where it remained until 2015.\n\nIn 1948, Shimun met with the representatives of Iraq, Syria and Iran in Washington, subsequently calling upon his followers to \"live as loyal citizens wherever they resided in the Middle East\" and relinquishing his role as a temporal leader and the nationalistic role of the church. This left a power vacuum in Assyrian politics that was filled by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1968.[61]\n\nThe seat of the Assyrian Church of the East remained in the United States even during the times of Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV. Only with the newly consecrated Patriarch Mar Gewargis III in 2015 did the patriarchal seat of the Assyrian Church of the East return to Iraq relocating in Ankawa in north Iraq.[28][62]\n\nResponsibility for the massacres\n\nOfficial British sources estimate the total number of all Assyrians killed during August 1933 at around 600, while Assyrian sources put the figure at 3,000[32] to 6,000.[58] Historians disagree as to who was responsible for ordering the mass killings. Stafford blamed Iraqi nationalists, most prominently Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and Bakr Sidqi.[26][63] According to him, Iraqi Army officers despised the Assyrians, and Sidqi in particular was vocal in his hatred for them. This view was also shared by British officials who recommended to Faysal not to send Sidqi to the north during the crisis.[26]\n\nAccording to some historians, the agitation against the Assyrians was also encouraged by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's Arab nationalist government, which saw it as a distraction from the continuous Shiite revolt in the southern part of the country.[64][65][66]\n\nKhaldun Husry, who was close to the Iraqi establishment and is the most well-known minimizer of the Simele massacre, blamed the Assyrians for starting the crisis and absolved Sidqi and most senior Iraqi officials from ordering the mass killing in Simele. He claimed that the violence was not premeditated and that the responsibility lies on the shoulders of Ismael Abbawi, a junior officer in the army.[67] He hinted, but did not state, that Faysal might have been the authority who issued orders to exterminate Assyrian males.[63] Although Husry's article on what he calls the \"Assyrian affair\" is the most widely cited academic study of the crisis, it has been prominently critiqued by historians of Iraq as an example of anti-Assyrian rhetoric.[68] Close study reveals that it contains many basic flaws and contradictions, having been drawn from a mostly unedited Ph.D. dissertation chapter for publication.[69]\n\nKanan Makiya, a leftist Iraqi historian, presents the actions taken by the military as a manifestation of the nationalist anti-imperialist paranoia which was to culminate with the Ba'athists ascending to power in the 1960s.[70] Fadhil al-Barrak, an Iraqi Ba'athist historian, credits Sidqi as the author of the whole campaign and the ensuing massacres. For him, the events were part of a history of Iraq prior to the true nationalist revolution.[70]\n\nBritish role\n\nAnglo-Iraqi relations entered a short cooling-down period during and after the crisis. The Iraqis had been previously encouraged by the British to detain Patriarch Shimun in order to defuse tensions.[71] The British were also wary of Iraqi military leaders and recommended Sidqi, a senior ethnic Kurdish general who was stationed in Mosul, be transferred to another region due to his open animosity towards the Assyrians.[71] Later, they had to intervene to dissuade Faysal from personally leading a tribal force to punish the Assyrians.[63] The general Iraqi public opinion that the Assyrians were proxies used by the British to undermine the newly established Iraqi state, promoted by newspapers, was also shared by some leading officials, including the prime minister. British and European protests following the massacre only confirmed to them that the \"Assyrian rebellion\" was the work of European imperialists.[72]\n\nBoth King George V and Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, took a personal interest in the massacre. British representatives at home demanded from Faysal that Sidqi and other culprits be tried and punished.[72] The massacres were seen in Europe as a jihad against a small Christian minority.[73] In the long term, however, the British government supported Iraq and rejected an international inquiry into the killings, fearing that it would provoke further massacres against Christians in Iraq.[72] They also did not insist on punishing the offenders, who were now seen as heroes by the Iraqi public.[72] The official British stance was to defend the Iraqi government for its perseverance and patience in dealing with the crisis and to attribute the massacres to rogue army units. A report on the battle of Dirabun blames the Assyrians, defends the actions of the Iraqi Army, and commends Sidqi as a good officer.[72]\n\nThe change in British attitude towards the Assyrians gave rise to the notion of a \"British betrayal\" among some Assyrian circles.[74] This charge first surfaced after 1918, when the British did not follow through with their repeated promises to resettle Assyrians where they would be safe following the Assyrian genocide launched by the Ottomans during the First World War.[75]\n\nCultural impact and legacy\n\nThe massacre had a deep psychological impact on Assyrians in the new Iraqi state. Namely, Simele massacre is often cited as being a major amplifier for the modern Assyrian naming dispute, amplifying the denominational schisms that Assyrians would face.[76] Following failed negotiations, the Iraqi government exiled Shimun to Cyprus and the COE would relocate its patriarchate to Chicago. At the same time, Chaldean patriarch Mar Yousef VI Emmanuel II Thomas as well as Priest Wadisho of Alqosh and Mor Athanasius Thoma Kassir of Mosul of the Syriac Orthodox Church, had sent letters under duress congratulating Iraqi authorities for suppressing the Assyrian \"rebellion\".American resident minister and eyewitness Paul Knabenshue related to the U.S. Secretary of State that these letters were most likely written under threat and duress: \"The exaction of false testimonials from the various Christian dignitaries, virtually at the point of the pistol, is a sad testimonial to the integrity of the Iraq government\".[77][78] For many Chaldean Catholics and Syriac Orthodox, it was reason enough to be killed just by being Assyrian, so the perceived solution was to deny any affiliation with Assyrian identity and ethnicity.[77][79][80]\n\nThe massacres also had a deep impact on the newly established Kingdom of Iraq. Kanan Makiya argues that the killing of Assyrians transcended tribal, religious, ideological and ethnic barriers as Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Sunni Kurds, Sunni Turkmen, Shia Turkmen, and Yazidis, as well as Monarchists, Islamists, nationalists, royalists, conservatives, Leftists, federalists, and tribalists, were all united in their anti-Assyrian and anti-Christian sentiments. According to him, the pogrom was \"the first genuine expression of national independence in a former Arab province of the Ottoman Empire\" and that the killing of Assyrian Christians was seen as a national duty.[20]\n\nThe British were standing firmly behind the leaders of their former colony during the crisis, despite the popular animosity in Iraq towards them. Brigadier General E. H. Headlam of the British military mission in Baghdad was quoted saying \"the government and people have good reasons to be thankful to Colonel Bakr Sidqi\".[81]\n\nThe Simele massacre continues to remain integral to the understanding of modern Assyrian identity, as the memory of persecution still holds strong within descendants of survivors and the general Assyrian people today. Shlimon Bet Shmuel, an Assyrian artist from Iraq, sang a song publicly about the Simele massacre in 1973, which would lead to his exile to Tehran.[82] Shlimon had performed the song during the third anniversary of the Assyrian Cultural Club in Baghdad, and was identified as a nationalistic singer by the Ba'athist government of Iraq. Shlimon's song stands out as one of many different poems and stories that have been written about the massacre since 1933, with other's such as William Saroyan's Seventy Thousand Assyrians also gaining recognition.\n\nThe events of Simele are said to have influenced Raphael Lemkin in his coining of the term genocide when devising initial provisions to prevent such crimes from occurring again.[83][10] In the Assyrian community worldwide, 7 August has officially become known as Assyrian Martyrs Day, also known as the National Day of Mourning, in memory for the Simele massacre, declared so by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1970.[84][85] While the day is usually commemorated to remembering the massacre, it has since been extended to apply to other events such as the Assyrian genocide. In 2004, the Ba'athist Syrian government banned an Assyrian political organization from commemorating the event and threatened arrests if any were to break the ban.[86]\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"عضوة الكونغرس الامريكي جان شاكوسكي تصدر بيانا في ذكرى مذبحة سميل التي تعرض لها شعبنا عام 1933\". Zowaa (in Arabic). 8 August 2020. Archived from the original on 30 September 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2020.\n\n^ \"Sapra Suryaya\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 May 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2020.\n\n^ \"Search Entry\". assyrianlanguages.org. Archived from the original on 26 May 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2020.\n\n^ Sykes, Percy (1934). \"A summary of the history of the Assyrians in 'Iraq, 1918-1933\". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 21 (2): 255-268. doi:10.1080/03068373408725306. \"At other villages batches of men were killed, the total number aggregating 550.\"\n\n^ Zubaida 2000: \"The total number of Assyrian victims of these events was estimated by British officials at about 600, but Assyrian sources put it at several thousand.\"\n\n^ Llewellyn-Jones, Rosie (2019). \"The Assyrians in World War One and the 1933 Massacre: New Discoveries in the Rsaa Archives\". Asian Affairs. 50 (4): 569-587. doi:10.1080/03068374.2019.1672427. S2CID 211652462. \"Nearly 1,000 men, women and children were killed by Iraqi armed forces - and their villages were looted by Kurdish tribesmen.\"\n\n^ Carrington, Anca (2003). Iraq Issues, Historical Background, Bibliography. Nova Science Publishers. p. 150. ISBN 978-1-59033-292-4.\n\n^ a b Stafford 2006, p. 168\n\n^ Levene 1999, p. 3.\n\n^ a b \"EuropaWorld 15/6/2001 Raphael Lemkin\". 13 February 2008. Archived from the original on 13 February 2008. Retrieved 27 February 2025.\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 60\n\n^ Gaunt & Beṯ-Şawoce 2006, pp. 125-126\n\n^ Stafford 2006, pp. 62-63\n\n^ Stafford 2006, pp. 42-43\n\n^ Stafford 2006, pp. 53-54\n\n^ Ongsotto et al. Asian History Module-based Learning Ii' 2003 Ed. p69. [1]\n\n^ Omissi 1990, p. 65\n\n^ Kelidar 1979, p. 106\n\n^ Sluglett 2007, pp. 154-156\n\n^ a b Makiya 1998, p. 170\n\n^ Husry 1974a, p. 162\n\n^ Husry 1974a, p. 168\n\n^ Husry 1974a, p. 164\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 110\n\n^ Husry 1974a, p. 170\n\n^ a b c Stafford 2006, p. 128\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 133\n\n^ a b \"Biography of His Holiness, The Assyrian Martyr, The Late Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII\". Committee of the 50th Anniversary of the Patriarchate of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII. peshitta.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 23 September 2011.\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 136\n\n^ a b Stafford 2006, p. 145\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 146\n\n^ a b Zubaida 2000, p. 370\n\n^ Husry 1974a, p. 174\n\n^ Husry 1974a, pp. 175-176\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 183\n\n^ Stafford 2006, pp. 154-155\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 167\n\n^ a b c Stafford 2006, p. 158\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 169\n\n^ Makiya 1998, p. 168\n\n^ a b Stafford 2006, p. 159\n\n^ Stafford 2006, pp. 160-161\n\n^ Shimun 2010, p. a62\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. a62\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 162\n\n^ Eshoo, Majed. \"The Fate Of Assyrian Villages Annexed To Today's Dohuk Governorate In Iraq And The Conditions In These Villages Following The Establishment Of The Iraqi State In 1921\". Assyrian International News Agency. Archived from the original on 9 November 2011. Retrieved 23 September 2011.\n\n^ Stafford, R. S. (1934). \"Iraq and the Problem of the Assyrians\" (PDF). International Affairs. 13 (2): 159-185. doi:10.2307/2603135. JSTOR 2603135. Archived (PDF) from the original on 31 December 2006. Retrieved 7 August 2020.\n\n^ Official journal, Volume 18. League of Nations. 1937. p. 927.\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 184\n\n^ a b Stafford 2006, p. 188\n\n^ Anderson & Stansfield 2004, pp. 23-24\n\n^ Anderson & Stansfield 2004, p. 25\n\n^ a b Simon 2004, p. 113\n\n^ Eisenstadt, M; Mathewson, E (2003). U.S. policy in post-Saddam Iraq: lessons from the British experience. Washington Institute for Near East Policy. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-944029-84-8.\n\n^ Nisan 2002, p. 106\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 171\n\n^ League of Nations (1935). Official journal: Special supplement, Issues 138-144. the University of Michigan. p. 70.\n\n^ a b Parafiniuk, Adrah N.; Smith, Zachary A. (23 January 2025). Energy Resource Conflict: Origins and Global Impact. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-4408-7181-8.\n\n^ Husry 1974b, pp. 351\n\n^ Tariq, Tell (27 July 2022). \"Faisal I King of Iraq\". 1914 1918 on line. Retrieved 7 September 2023.\n\n^ DeKelaita, Robert (22 November 2009). \"The Origins and Developments of Assyrian Nationalism\" (PDF). Committee on International Relations Of the University of Chicago. Assyrian International News Agency. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2011.\n\n^ Richard Spencer, Iraq crisis: The streets of Erbil's newly Christian suburb are now full of helpless people Archived 14 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Daily Telegraph, 8 August 2014\n\n^ a b c Zubaida 2000, pp. 375-376\n\n^ Makiya 1998, p. 169\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 198\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 149\n\n^ Husry 1974b, p. 347\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (August 2022). \"The Existential Threat of Academic Bias: The Institutionalization of Anti-Assyrian Rhetoric\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 54 (3): 547-553. doi:10.1017/S0020743822000770. eISSN 1471-6380.\n\n^ Bet-Shlimon, Arbella (21 April 2026). \"\"Propaganda of the Victims\": Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies\". Review of Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/rms.2026.10037.\n\n^ a b Zubaida 2000, pp. 377-378\n\n^ a b Husry 1974a, pp. 173\n\n^ a b c d e Zubaida 2000, p. 371\n\n^ Husry 1974b, pp. 353\n\n^ Malek, Y. \"The British Betrayal of the Assyrians\". AINA.org. Archived from the original on 13 June 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2011.\n\n^ Ishaya, A. \"Assyrians in the History of Urmia, Iran\". Nineveh. Archived from the original on 12 October 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2011.\n\n^ Benjamen 2022, p. 11-12.\n\n^ a b Donabed 2012, p. 414.\n\n^ Al-Jeloo 2019, p. 116.\n\n^ Suermann 2018, p. 34.\n\n^ Tomass 2012, pp. 253-254.\n\n^ Makiya 1998, p. 174\n\n^ Benjamen, Alda (January 2022). Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108976633. Archived from the original on 21 December 2023. Retrieved 2 May 2022.\n\n^ Bulut, Uzay (5 August 2021). \"Resolution in US House Would Recognize Simele Massacre against Assyrians in Iraq - Providence\". providencemag.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2024. Retrieved 27 February 2025.\n\n^ Shapira, Aprim. \"Why is the 7th of August an Assyrian Martyrs' Day?\". Beth Suryoyo Assyrian. Archived from the original on 23 September 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2011.\n\n^ Johanson, Paula (2017). The Armenian Genocide. Greenhaven Publishing LLC. pp. 77-78. ISBN 978-1-5345-0120-1.\n\n^ Abraham, Salim (8 August 2004). \"Syrian Authorities Ban Assyrian Party from Commemorating Martyrs Day\". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 23 August 2011. Retrieved 23 September 2011.\n\nReferences\n\nAl-Jeloo, Nicholas (April 2019). \"Continuing the Ottoman Millet System: The Othering of Assyrians as 'Christians' in Iraq\". Discourses and Practices of Othering: Politics, Policy Making, and Media. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 112-121. ISBN 978-1-5275-9252-0.\n\nAnderson, L; Stansfield, G (2004). The future of Iraq: dictatorship, democracy, or division?. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6354-3.\n\nDonabed, Sargon (December 2012). \"Rethinking Nationalism and an Appellative Conundrum: Historiography and Politics in Iraq\". National Identities. 14 (4): 407-431. Bibcode:2012NatId..14..407D. doi:10.1080/14608944.2012.733208. ISSN 1460-8944. Retrieved 22 April 2025 - via Taylor & Francis.\n\nInterview with witness on YouTube by FreeAssyria4us\n\nGaunt, D; Beṯ-Şawoce, J (2006). Massacres, resistance, protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\nHusry, K (April 1974a). \"The Assyrian Affair of 1933 (I)\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 5 (3): 161-176. doi:10.1017/S002074380002780X. JSTOR 162587. S2CID 251026309.\n\nHusry, K (April 1974b). \"The Assyrian Affair of 1933 (II)\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 5 (3): 344-360. doi:10.1017/S002074380003498X. S2CID 162686283.\n\nJoseph, J (2000). The modern Assyrians of the Middle East: encounters with Western Christian missions, archaeologists, and colonial powers. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11641-2.\n\nKelidar, A (1979). The Integration of modern Iraq. Jefferson, NC: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-85664-510-5.\n\nLevene, Mark (1999). \"A Moving Target, the Usual Suspects and (Maybe) a Smoking Gun: The Problem of Pinning Blame in Modern Genocide\". Patterns of Prejudice. 33 (4): 3-24. doi:10.1080/003132299128810678. PMID 22043525.\n\nMakiya, K (1998) [1989]. Republic of fear:the politics of modern Iraq. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21439-2.\n\nNisan, M (2002). Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1375-1.\n\nOmissi, D (1990). Air power and colonial control: the Royal Air Force, 1919-1939. Manchester University Press ND. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-7190-2960-8.\n\nShimun, E (2010) [1934]. The Assyrian Tragedy. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 978-1-4535-1143-5.\n\nSimon, Reeva S. (2004) [1986]. Iraq between the two world wars: the militarist origins of tyranny. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13215-2.\n\nSluglett, P (2007). Britain in Iraq: contriving king and country. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-85043-769-7.\n\nStafford, R (2006) [1935]. The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0.\n\nSuermann, Harald (8 September 2018). Thekeparampil, Jacob; Varghese, Baby; Hobbel, Arne (eds.). \"Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq\" (PDF). The Harp: A Review of Syriac, Oriental and Ecumenical Studies. 35. St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute: 17-38.\n\nTomass, Mark (2012). \"Multiple Resource-Sharing Groups as Basis for Identity Conflict\". In Cetrez, Önver A.; Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo (eds.). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 9789155483036.\n\nZubaida, S (July 2000). \"Contested nations: Iraq and the Assyrians\" (PDF). Nations and Nationalism. 6 (3): 363-382. doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.2000.00363.x. Retrieved 23 September 2011.\n\nFurther reading\n\nKakovitch, I (2002). Mount Semele. Alexandria, VA: Mandrill. ISBN 978-1-931633-70-3.\n\nLlewellyn-Jones, Rosie (2019). \"The Assyrians in World War One and the 1933 Massacre: New Discoveries in the RSAA Archives\". Asian Affairs. 50 (4): 569-587. doi:10.1080/03068374.2019.1672427. S2CID 211652462."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-simele-massacre"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5704}, {"slug": "reference-aramaic", "title": "Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Aramaic[a] is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Arabia,[2][3] where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties[4] for over 3,000 years.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Aramaic\n\nארמית, ܐܪܡܐܝܬ\nArāmāiṯ\n\nRegionFertile Crescent (Levant, Mesopotamia, Sinai and Southeastern Anatolia), Eastern Arabia[1]\n\nEthnicityArameans and other Semitic peoples\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nWest Semitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramoid?\nAramaic\n\nEarly formsProto-Afroasiatic\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nOld Aramaic\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nMiddle Aramaic\n\nDialects\n\nEastern Aramaic\n\nWestern Aramaic\n\nArmazic †\n\nPalmyrene †\n\nWriting system\nSyriac alphabet (Christian)\n\nMandaic alphabet (Mandaean)\n\nHebrew alphabet\n\nHistorically Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3Variously:\narc - Imperial Aramaic\nsyc - Classical Syriac\nmyz - Classical Mandaic\nxrm - Armazic\nbjf - Barzani Neo-Aramaic\nbhn - Bohtan Neo-Aramaic\nhrt - Hertevin Neo-Aramaic\naij - Inter-Zab Neo-Aramaic\ntmr - Jewish Babylonian Aramaic\njpa - Jewish Palestinian Aramaic\njge - Kivruli\nkqd - Koy Sanjaq Neo-Aramaic\nlhs - Mlaḥsô\nmid - Modern Mandaic\noar - Old Aramaic\nsam - Samaritan Aramaic\nsyn - Senaya Neo-Aramaic\nsyr - Suret\nhuy - Trans-Zab Neo-Aramaic\ntru - Turoyo\ntrg - Urmia Neo-Aramaic\namw - Western Neo-Aramaic\n\nGlottologaram1259\n\nLinguasphere12-AAA\n\nAramaic[a] is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Arabia,[2][3] where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties[4] for over 3,000 years.\n\nAramaic served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires-particularly the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Achaemenid Empire[5]-and as a language of divine worship and religious study within Christianity and Gnosticism; it also has appeared to a limited degree in Judaism, where Hebrew remains primary. Several modern varieties of Aramaic are still spoken. The modern eastern branch is spoken by Assyrians, Mandeans, and a small contingent of Mizrahi Jews.[6][7][8][9] Western Aramaic is still spoken by the Muslim and Christian Aramean inhabitants of the towns of Maaloula, Bakh'a and Jubb'adin in Syria.[10] Classical varieties are used as liturgical and literary languages in several West Asian churches,[11][12] and appear in a few places in Judaism (where Hebrew remains predominant),[13][14] Samaritanism (where Samaritan Hebrew remains predominant),[15] and Mandaeism.[16] \n\nThe Aramaic language is considered endangered, with several varieties used mainly by certain older generations.[17] Researchers are working to record and analyze all of the remaining varieties of Neo-Aramaic languages in case they become extinct.[18][19]\n\nAramaic belongs to the Northwest group of the Semitic language family, which includes the mutually intelligible Canaanite languages such as Hebrew, Edomite, Moabite, Ekronite, Sutean, and Phoenician, as well as Amorite and Ugaritic.[20][21] Aramaic varieties are written in the Aramaic alphabet, a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet. The most prominent variant of this alphabet is the Syriac alphabet, used in the ancient city of Edessa.[22] The Aramaic alphabet became a base for the creation and adaptation of specific writing systems in some other Semitic languages of West Asia, such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet.[23]\n\nEarly Aramaic inscriptions date from the 11th century BC, placing it among the earliest languages to be written down.[4] Aramaist Holger Gzella notes, \"The linguistic history of Aramaic prior to the appearance of the first textual sources in the 9th century BC remains unknown.\"[24] Aramaic is believed by most historians and scholars to have been the primary language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth both for preaching and in everyday life.[25][26]\n\nName\n\nThe connection between Chaldean, Syriac, and Samaritan as \"Aramaic\" was first identified in 1679 by German theologian Johann Wilhelm Hilliger.[29][30] Other scholars followed, such as Anton Theodor Hartmann, who explained in 1807:\n[31]\n\nI deliberately refrain, with good consideration, from using the expression “Chaldean language,” because the Aramaic language had already existed long before the Chaldeans flooded into Aram, and in the Bible the language that is usually called Chaldean is never designated by that name, but is always referred to as the Aramaic language. Likewise, I find the designation “Syriac language” as a means of distinguishing it from Aramaic to be equally inappropriate; both are entirely one and the same language. The insignificant differences by which people have believed themselves justified in recognizing a separate language are merely changes that tend to arise over time in any living language.\n\nIn 1819-1821 Ulrich Friedrich Kopp published his Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit (\"Images and Inscriptions of the Past\"), in which he established the basis of the paleographical development of the Northwest Semitic scripts.[32] Kopp criticised Jean-Jacques Barthélemy and other scholars who had characterized all the then-known inscriptions and coins as Phoenician, with \"everything left to the Phoenicians and nothing to the Arameans, as if they could not have written at all\".[33] Kopp notes that some of the words on the Carpentras Stele corresponded to the Aramaic in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Ruth.[34]\n\nJosephus and Strabo (the latter citing Posidonius) both state that the \"Syrians\" called themselves \"Arameans\".[35][36][37][38] The Septuagint, the earliest extant full copy of the Hebrew Bible, a Greek translation, used the terms Syria and Syrian where the Masoretic Text, the earliest extant Hebrew copy of the Bible, uses the terms Aramean and Aramaic;[39][40][41] numerous later bibles followed the Septuagint's usage, including the King James Version.[42] This connection between the names Syrian and Aramaic was discussed in 1835 by Étienne Marc Quatremère.[43][44]\n\nIn historical sources, Aramaic language is designated by two distinctive groups of terms, first of them represented by endonymic (native) names, and the other one represented by various exonymic (foreign in origin) names. Endonymic terms for Aramaic language were derived from the same word root as the name of its original speakers, the ancient Arameans. Endonymic forms were also adopted in some other languages, like ancient Hebrew. In the Torah (Hebrew Bible), \"Aram\" is used as a proper name of several people including descendants of Shem,[45] Nahor,[46] and Jacob.[47][48] Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and what is now called Syria, is considered the linguistic center of Aramaic, the language of the Arameans who settled the area during the Bronze Age c. 3500 BC.\n\nUnlike in Hebrew, designations for Aramaic language in some other ancient languages were mostly exonymic. In ancient Greek, Aramaic language was most commonly known as the \"Syrian language\",[43] in relation to the native (non-Greek) inhabitants of the historical region of Syria. Since the name of Syria emerged as a variant of Assyria,[49][50] the biblical Ashur,[51] and Akkadian Ashuru,[52] a complex set of semantic phenomena was created, becoming a subject of interest both among ancient writers and modern scholars.\n\nThe Koine Greek word Ἑβραϊστί (Hebraïstí) has been translated as \"Aramaic\" in some versions of the Christian New Testament, as Aramaic was at that time the language commonly spoken by the Jews.[53][54] However, Ἑβραϊστί is consistently used in Koine Greek at this time to mean Hebrew, and Συριστί (Syristi) is used to mean Aramaic.[55] In Biblical scholarship, the term \"Chaldean\" was for many years used as a synonym of Aramaic, from its use in the Book of Daniel and subsequent interpretation by Jerome.[56]\n\nHistory\n\nOld Aramaic was the language of the ancient Aramean tribes. By around 1000 BC, the Arameans had a string of kingdoms in what is now part of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and the fringes of southern Mesopotamia (Iraq). Aramaic rose to prominence under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), under whose influence Aramaic became a prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca of the empire by Assyrian kings, and its use was spread throughout Mesopotamia, the Levant and parts of Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, and Ancient Iran under Assyrian rule. At its height, Aramaic was spoken in what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait, parts of southeast and south central Turkey, northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula and parts of northwest Iran, as well as the southern Caucasus, having gradually replaced several other related Semitic languages.[57][58][59]\n\nThe scribes of the Neo-Assyrian bureaucracy used Aramaic, and this practice was subsequently inherited by the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire (605-539 BC) and later by the Achaemenid Empire (539-330 BC).[60] Mediated by scribes that had been trained in the language, highly standardized written Aramaic-named by scholars Imperial Aramaic-progressively became the lingua franca of public life, trade and commerce throughout Achaemenid territories.[61] Wide use of written Aramaic subsequently led to the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet and, as logograms, some Aramaic vocabulary in the Pahlavi scripts, which were used by several Middle Iranian languages, including Parthian, Middle Persian, Sogdian, and Khwarezmian.[62]\n\nBiblical Aramaic was used in several sections of the Hebrew Bible, including parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra. Aramaic translation of the Bible is known as the Targum.[63][64][65] It was the language of Jesus,[66][67][68] who spoke the Galilean dialect during his public ministry, and of the Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, and Zohar. According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 38b), the language spoken by Adam - the first human in the Bible - was Aramaic.[69]\n\nSome variants of Aramaic are retained as sacred languages by certain religious communities. Most notable among them is Classical Syriac, the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. It is used by several communities, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, and also the Saint Thomas Christians, Syriac Christians of Kerala, India.[70][71][72] One of the liturgical dialects was Mandaic,[73] which besides becoming a vernacular, Neo-Mandaic, also remained the liturgical language of Mandaeism.[74] Syriac was also the liturgical language of several now-extinct gnostic faiths, such as Manichaeism.\n\nNeo-Aramaic languages are still spoken in the 21st century as a first language by many communities of Assyrians, Mizrahi Jews (in particular, the Iraqi Jews), and Mandaeans of the Near East,[75][76] with the main Neo-Aramaic languages being Suret (~240,000 speakers) and Turoyo (~250,000 speakers).[77] Western Neo-Aramaic (~3,000)[78] persists in only two villages in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in western Syria.[79] They have retained use of the once-dominant lingua franca despite subsequent language shifts experienced throughout the Middle East.\n\nPeriodization\n\nPeriodization of historical development of Aramaic language has been the subject of particular interest for scholars, who proposed several types of periodization, based on linguistic, chronological and territorial criteria. Overlapping terminology, used in different periodizations, led to the creation of several polysemic terms, that are used differently among scholars. Terms like: Old Aramaic, Ancient Aramaic, Early Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, Late Aramaic (and some others, like Paleo-Aramaic), were used in various meanings, thus referring (in scope or substance) to different stages in historical development of Aramaic language.[80][81][82]\n\nMost commonly used types of periodization are those of Klaus Beyer and Joseph Fitzmyer.\n\nPeriodization of Klaus Beyer:[83]\n\nOld Aramaic, from the earliest records, to c. 200 AD\n\nMiddle Aramaic, from c. 200 AD, to c. 1200 AD\n\nModern Aramaic, from c. 1200 AD, up to the modern times\n\nPeriodization of Joseph Fitzmyer:[84]\n\nOld Aramaic, from the earliest records, to regional prominence c. 700 BC\n\nOfficial Aramaic, from c. 700 BC, to c. 200 BC\n\nMiddle Aramaic, from c. 200 BC, to c. 200 AD\n\nLate Aramaic, from c. 200 AD, to c. 700 AD\n\nModern Aramaic, from c. 700 AD, up to the modern times\n\nRecent periodization of Aaron Butts:[85]\n\nOld Aramaic, from the earliest records, to c. 538 BC\n\nAchaemenid Aramaic, from c. 538 BC, to c. 333 BC\n\nMiddle Aramaic, from c. 333 BC, to c. 200 AD\n\nLate Aramaic, from c. 200 AD, to c. 1200 AD\n\nNeo-Aramaic, from c. 1200 AD, up to the modern times\n\nOld Aramaic\n\nAramaic's long history and diverse and widespread use has led to the development of many divergent varieties, which are sometimes considered dialects, though they have become distinct enough over time that they are now sometimes considered separate languages. Therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language; each time and place rather has had its own variation. The more widely spoken Eastern Aramaic languages are largely restricted to Assyrian, Mandean and Mizrahi Jewish communities in Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey, whilst the severely endangered Western Neo-Aramaic language is spoken by small Christian and Muslim communities in the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and closely related western varieties of Aramaic[87] persisted in Mount Lebanon until as late as the 17th century.[88]\n\nThe term \"Old Aramaic\" is used to describe the varieties of the language from its first known use, until the point roughly marked by the rise of the Sasanian Empire (224 AD), dominating the influential, eastern dialect region. As such, the term covers over thirteen centuries of the development of Aramaic. This vast time span includes all Aramaic that is now effectively extinct. Regarding the earliest forms, Beyer suggests that written Aramaic probably dates from the 11th century BC,[89] as it is established by the 10th century, to which he dates the oldest inscriptions of northern Syria. Heinrichs uses the less controversial date of the 9th century,[90] for which there is clear and widespread attestation.\n\nThe central phase in the development of Old Aramaic was its official use by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Achaemenid Empire. The period before this, dubbed \"Ancient Aramaic\", saw the development of the language from being spoken in Aramaean city-states to become a major means of communication in diplomacy and trade throughout Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Egypt. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum and the development of differing written standards.\n\nAncient Aramaic\n\n\"Ancient Aramaic\" refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent. It was the language of the Aramean city-states of Damascus, Hamath, and Arpad.[91]\n\nThere are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the 10th century BC. These inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The alphabet of Aramaic at this early period seems to be based on the Phoenician alphabet, and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that in time a more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. With increasing Aramean migration eastward, the Western periphery of Assyria became bilingual in Akkadian and Aramean at least as early as the mid-9th century BC. As the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered Aramean lands west of the Euphrates, Tiglath-Pileser III made Aramaic the empire's second official language, and it eventually supplanted Akkadian completely.\n\nFrom 700 BC the language began to spread in all directions but lost much of its unity. Different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt. Around 600 BC Adon a Philistine king, used Aramaic to write to an Egyptian Pharaoh.[92]\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nAround 500 BC, following the Achaemenid (Persian) conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Aramaic (as had been used in that region) was adopted by the conquerors as the \"vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic,[93][60][94] can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did\".[95] In 1955, Richard Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an \"official language\", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language.[96] Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought.\n\nImperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian gave the language aclarity and robust flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 330 BC), Imperial Aramaic - or a version thereof near enough for it to be recognisable - would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages. Aramaic script and - as ideograms - Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts.[97]\n\nOne of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis Administrative Archives, found at Persepolis, which number about five hundred.[98] Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, and Elephantine in particular (see Elephantine papyri). Of them, the best known is the Story of Ahikar, a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs. Consensus as of 2022 regards the Aramaic portion of the Book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b-7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic.[99]\n\nAchaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language.\n\nA group of 30 Aramaic documents from Bactria were discovered, and an analysis was published in 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia.[100]\n\nBiblical Aramaic\n\nBiblical Aramaic is the form of Aramaic found in several passages within four different books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh):\n\nEzra[101] - documents from the Achaemenid period (5th century BC) concerning the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.\n\nDaniel[102] - five tales and an apocalyptic vision.[103]\n\nJeremiah 10:11 - a single sentence in the middle of a Hebrew text denouncing idolatry.\n\nGenesis[104] - translation of a Hebrew place-name.\n\nBiblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. Biblical Aramaic presented various challenges for writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies. Since the time of Jerome, Biblical Aramaic was referred to as \"Chaldean\" (Chaldaic, Chaldee).[105] That label remained common in early Aramaic studies, and persisted into the 19th century. The \"Chaldean misnomer\" was eventually abandoned, when modern scholarly analyses showed that Aramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible was not related to ancient Chaldeans and their language.[106][107][108]\n\nPost-Achaemenid Aramaic\n\nThe fall of the Achaemenid Empire and its replacement with the newly created political order, imposed by Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, marked an important turning point in the history of Aramaic language. During the early stages of the post-Achaemenid era, public use of Aramaic language was continued, but shared with the newly introduced Greek language. By 300 BC all the main Aramaic-speaking regions came under political rule of the newly created Seleucid Empire that promoted Hellenistic culture and favored Greek language as the main language of public life and administration. During the 3rd century BC, Greek overtook Aramaic in many spheres of public communication, particularly in highly Hellenized cities throughout the Seleucid domains. However, Aramaic continued to be used in its post-Achaemenid form among upper and literate classes of native Aramaic-speaking communities and also by local authorities (along with the newly introduced Greek). Post-Achaemenid Aramaic, that bears a relatively close resemblance to that of the Achaemenid period, continued to be used up to the 2nd century BC.[109]\n\nBy the end of the 2nd century BC, several variants of Post-Achaemenid Aramaic emerged, bearing regional characteristics. One of them was Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official administrative language of Hasmonaean Judaea (142-37 BC), alongside Hebrew, which was the language preferred in religious and some other public uses (coinage). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean Aramaic. It also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms.\n\nThe use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic(-derived) scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian languages. Moreover, many common words-including pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries-continued to be written as Aramaic \"words\" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time these Aramaic \"words\" became disassociated from the Aramaic language and came to be understood as signs (i.e. logograms), much like the symbol '&' is read as \"and\" in English and the original Latin et is now no longer obvious. Under the early 3rd-century BC Parthian Arsacids, whose government used Greek but whose native language was Parthian, the Parthian language and its Aramaic-derived writing system both gained prestige. This in turn also led to the adoption of the name 'pahlavi' (< parthawi, \"of the Parthians\") for that writing system. The Persian Sassanids, who succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century AD, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well.[110][111] That particular Middle Iranian dialect, Middle Persian, i.e. the language of Persia proper, subsequently also became a prestige language. Following the conquest of the Sassanids by the Arabs in the 7th-century, the Aramaic-derived writing system was replaced by the Arabic alphabet in all but Zoroastrian usage, which continued to use the name 'pahlavi' for the Aramaic-derived writing system and went on to create the bulk of all Middle Iranian literature in that writing system.\n\nOther regional dialects continued to exist alongside these, often as simple, spoken variants of Aramaic. Early evidence for these vernacular dialects is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, some of those regional dialects became written languages by the 2nd century BC. These dialects reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not directly dependent on Achaemenid Aramaic, and they also show a clear linguistic diversity between eastern and western regions.\n\nTargumic\n\nBabylonian Targumic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in the Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan, the \"official\" targums. The original, Hasmonaean targums had reached Babylon sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. They were then reworked according to the contemporary dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow.\n\nGalilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee. The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century AD, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century AD onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative, the Galilean version became heavily influenced by it.\n\nBabylonian Documentary Aramaic\n\nBabylonian Documentary Aramaic (BDA) is a dialect in use from the 3rd century AD onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the 12th century, all Jewish private documents are in Aramaic. It is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps because many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout the Jewish community from the start, and Hasmonaean was the old standard.\n\nNabataean\n\nNabataean Aramaic was the written language of the Arab kingdom of Nabataea, whose capital was Petra. The kingdom (c. 200 BC - 106 AD) controlled the region to the east of the Jordan River, the Negev, the Sinai Peninsula, and the northern Hijaz, and supported a wide-ranging trade network. The Nabataeans used imperial Aramaic for written communications, rather than their native Arabic. Nabataean Aramaic developed from Imperial Aramaic, with some influence from Arabic: \"l\" is often turned into \"n\", and there are some Arabic loanwords. Arabic influence on Nabataean Aramaic increased over time. Some Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions date from the early days of the kingdom, but most datable inscriptions are from the first four centuries AD. The language is written in a cursive script that was the precursor to the Arabic alphabet. After annexation by the Romans in 106 AD, most of Nabataea was subsumed into the province of Arabia Petraea, the Nabataeans turned to Greek for written communications, and the use of Aramaic declined.\n\nPalmyrene\n\nPalmyrene Aramaic is the dialect that was in use in the multicultural[112] city state of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert from 44 BC to 274 AD. It was written in a rounded script, which later gave way to cursive Estrangela. Like Nabataean, Palmyrene was influenced by Arabic, but to a much lesser degree.\n\nEastern dialects\n\nIn the eastern regions (from Mesopotamia to Persia), dialects like Palmyrene Aramaic and Arsacid Aramaic gradually merged with the regional vernacular dialects, thus creating languages with a foot in Achaemenid and a foot in regional Aramaic.\n\nIn the Kingdom of Osroene, founded in 132 BC and centred in Edessa (Urhay), the regional dialect became the official language: Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya), that later came to be known as Classical Syriac. On the upper reaches of the Tigris, East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from the regions of Hatra and Assur.[113]\n\nTatian the Assyrian (or Syrian), the author of the gospel harmony the Diatessaron came from Adiabene (Syr. Beth-Hadiab),[114] and perhaps wrote his work (172 AD) in East Mesopotamian rather than Classical Syriac or Greek. In Babylonia, the regional dialect was used by the Jewish community, Jewish Old Babylonian (from c. 70 AD). This everyday language increasingly came under the influence of Biblical Aramaic and Babylonian Targumic.\n\nThe written form of Mandaic, the language of Mandaeism, was descended from the Arsacid chancery script.[115]\n\nWestern dialects\n\nThe western regional dialects of Aramaic followed a similar course to those of the east. They are quite distinct from the eastern dialects and Imperial Aramaic. Aramaic came to coexist with Canaanite dialects, eventually completely displacing Phoenician in the 1st century BC and Hebrew around the turn of the 4th century AD.\n\nThe form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best attested and is usually referred to as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form is Old East Jordanian, which probably comes from the region of Caesarea Philippi. This is the dialect of the oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch (c. 170 BC). The next distinct phase of the language is called Old Judaean lasting into the 2nd century AD. Old Judean literature can be found in various inscriptions and personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud and receipts from Qumran. Josephus' first, non-extant edition of his The Jewish War was written in Old Judean.\n\nThe Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the 1st century AD by pagan communities living to the east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often then called Pagan Old Palestinian, and it was written in a cursive script somewhat similar to that used for Old Syriac. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some of the Western Aramaic tendencies found in the otherwise eastern Old Syriac gospels (see Peshitta).\n\nLanguages during Jesus' lifetime\n\nIt is generally believed by religious studies scholars that in the 1st century, Jews in Judea primarily spoke Aramaic with a decreasing number using Hebrew as their first language, though many learned Hebrew as a liturgical language. Additionally, Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the Near East in trade, among the Hellenized classes (much like French in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in Europe), and in the Roman administration. Latin, the language of the Roman army and higher levels of administration, had almost no impact on the linguistic landscape.\n\nIn addition to the formal, literary dialects of Aramaic based on Hasmonean and Babylonian, there were a number of colloquial Aramaic dialects spoken in the southern Levant. Seven Western Aramaic varieties were spoken in the vicinity of Judea in Jesus' time.[116] They were probably distinctive yet mutually intelligible. Old Judean was the prominent dialect of Jerusalem and Judaea. The region of Ein Gedi spoke the Southeast Judaean dialect. Samaritan Aramaic was distinct; it ultimately merged [ʔ], [h], [ħ], and [ʕ] as a glottal stop, only maintaining [ʕ] in the initial position before the vowel [a]. Galilean Aramaic, the dialect of Jesus' home region, is only known from a few place names, the influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature, and a few private letters. It seems to have distinctive features including the collapse of gutturals and the maintenance of diphthongs. In the Transjordan, the various dialects of East Jordanian Aramaic were spoken. In the region of Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken.\n\nThe three languages, especially Hebrew and Aramaic, influenced one another through loanwords and semantic loans. Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic. Most were mostly technical religious words, but a few were everyday words like עץ ʿēṣ \"wood\". Conversely, Aramaic words, such as māmmôn \"wealth\" were borrowed into Hebrew, and Hebrew words acquired additional senses from Aramaic. For instance, Hebrew: ראוי, romanized: rāʾûi, lit. 'seen' borrowed the sense \"worthy, seemly\" from Aramaic ḥzî \"seen, worthy\".\n\nNew Testament Greek preserves some semiticisms, including transliterations of Semitic words. Some are Aramaic,[117] like talitha (ταλιθα), which represents the Aramaic noun טליתא ṭalīṯā,[118] and others may be either Hebrew or Aramaic like רבוני Rabbounei (Ραββουνει), which means \"my master/great one/teacher\" in both languages.[119] Other examples:\n\n\"Talitha kumi\" (טליתא קומי)[118]\n\n\"Ephphatha\" (אפפתח)[120]\n\n\"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?\" (?אלהי, אלהי, למה שבקתני)[121]\n\nThe 2004 film The Passion of the Christ uses Aramaic for much of its dialogue, specially reconstructed by scholar William Fulco, S.J. Where the appropriate words (in first-century Aramaic) were no longer known, he used the Aramaic of Daniel and 4th-century Syriac and Hebrew as the basis for his work.[122]\n\nMiddle Aramaic\n\nDuring the Late Middle Aramaic period, spanning from 300 BCE to 200 CE, Aramaic diverged into its eastern and western branches. During this time, the nature of various Aramaic dialects began to change. The descendants of Imperial Aramaic ceased to be living languages, and the eastern and western regional dialects started to develop significant new literatures. Unlike many dialects of Old Aramaic, much is known about the vocabulary and grammar of Middle Aramaic.[123]\n\nEastern Middle Aramaic\n\nThe dialects of Old Eastern Aramaic continued in ancient Assyria, Babylon, and the Achaemenid Empire as written languages using various Aramaic scripts. Eastern Middle Aramaic comprises Classical Mandaic, Hatran, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic dialects, and Classical Syriac.[124]\n\nSyriac Aramaic\n\nSyriac Aramaic (also \"Classical Syriac\") is the literary, liturgical, and often spoken language of Syriac Christianity. It originated in the 1st century in the region of Osroene, centered in Edessa, but its golden age was the 4th to 8th centuries. This period began with the translation of the Bible into the language: the Peshitta, and the masterful prose and poetry of Ephrem the Syrian. Classical Syriac became the language of Eastern Christianity and missionary activity led to the spread of Syriac from Mesopotamia and Persia, into Central Asia, India, and China.[125][126]\n\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic\n\nJewish Middle Babylonian is the language employed by Jewish writers in Babylonia between the 4th and 11th century. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the seventh century) and of post-Talmudic Geonic literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Judaism. The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of incantation bowls written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.[127]\n\nMandaic Aramaic\n\nClassical Mandaic, used as a liturgical language by the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, is a sister dialect to Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, though it is both linguistically and culturally distinct. It is the language in which the Mandaeans' gnostic religious literature was composed. It is characterized by a highly phonetic orthography and does not make use of vowel diacritics.[73]\n\nWestern Middle Aramaic\n\nThe dialects of Old Western Aramaic continued with Nabataean, Jewish Palestinian (in Hebrew \"square script\"), Samaritan Aramaic (in the Old Hebrew script), and Christian Palestinian (in Syriac Estrangela script).[128] Of these four, only Jewish Palestinian continued as a written language.\n\nSamaritan Aramaic\n\nSamaritan Aramaic is earliest attested by the documentary tradition of the Samaritans that can be dated back to the 4th century. Its modern pronunciation is based on the form used in the 10th century.[15]\n\nRoman Judea\n\nIn 135, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, many Jewish leaders, expelled from Jerusalem, moved to Galilee. The Galilean dialect thus rose from obscurity to become the standard among Jews in the west. This dialect was spoken in the surrounding region as well. It is the linguistic setting for the Jerusalem Talmud (completed in the 5th century), Palestinian targumim (Jewish Aramaic versions of scripture), and midrashim (biblical commentaries and teaching). The standard vowel pointing for the Hebrew Bible, the Tiberian system (7th century), was developed by speakers of the Galilean dialect of Jewish Middle Palestinian. Classical Hebrew vocalisation, therefore, in representing the Hebrew of this period, probably reflects the contemporary pronunciation of this Aramaic dialect.[129]\n\nMiddle Judaean Aramaic, the descendant of Old Judaean Aramaic, was no longer the dominant dialect, and was used only in southern Judaea (the variant Engedi dialect continued throughout this period). Likewise, Middle East Jordanian Aramaic continued as a minor dialect from Old East Jordanian Aramaic. The inscriptions in the synagogue at Dura-Europos are either in Middle East Jordanian or Middle Judaean.\n\nChristian Aramaic in the Levant\n\nThis was the language of the Christian Melkite (Chalcedonian) community, predominantly of Jewish descent, in Palestine, Transjordan and Sinai[130] from the 5th to the 8th century.[131] As a liturgical language, it was used up to the 13th century. It is also been called \"Melkite Aramaic\", \"Syro-Palestinian\" and \"Palestinian Syriac\".[132] The language itself comes from Old Western Aramaic, but its writing conventions were based on the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, and it was heavily influenced by Greek. For example, the name Jesus, Syriac īšū‘, is written īsūs, a transliteration of the Greek form, in Christian Palestinian.[133]\n\nModern Aramaic\n\nAs the Western Aramaic dialects of the Levant have become nearly extinct in non-liturgical usage, the most prolific speakers of Neo-Aramaic languages in the 21st century are Eastern Aramaic speakers, the most numerous being the Central Neo-Aramaic and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) speakers of Mesopotamia. This includes speakers of the Assyrian (235,000 speakers) and Chaldean (216,000 speakers) varieties of Suret, and Turoyo (112,000 to 450,000 speakers). Having largely lived in remote areas as insulated communities for over a millennium, the remaining speakers of modern Aramaic dialects, such as the Arameans of the Qalamoun Mountains, Assyrians, Mandaeans and Mizrahi Jews, escaped the linguistic pressures experienced by others during the large-scale language shifts that saw the proliferation of other tongues among those who previously did not speak them, most recently the Arabization of the Middle East and North Africa by Arabs beginning with the early Muslim conquests of the seventh century.[134]\n\nModern Eastern Aramaic\n\nModern Eastern Aramaic exists in a wide variety of dialects and languages.[135] There is significant difference between the Aramaic spoken by Assyrians, Mizrahi Jews, and Mandaeans, with mutually unintelligible variations within each of these groups.\n\nThe Christian varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) are often called \"Assyrian\", \"Chaldean\" or \"Eastern Syriac\", and are spoken by the Assyrians in northern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran, and in the diaspora. However, they also have roots in numerous previously unwritten local Aramaic varieties and, in some cases, even contain Akkadian influences. These varieties are not purely the direct descendants of the language of Ephrem the Syrian, which was Classical Syriac.[136]\n\nThe Judeo-Aramaic languages are now mostly spoken in Israel, and most are facing extinction. The Jewish varieties that have come from communities that once lived between Lake Urmia and Mosul are not all mutually intelligible. In some places, for example Urmia, Christian Assyrians and Mizrahi Jews speak mutually unintelligible varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic in the same place. In others, the Nineveh Plains around Mosul for example, the varieties of these two ethnicities are similar enough to allow conversation.\n\nModern Central Neo-Aramaic, being in between Western Neo-Aramaic and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, is generally represented by Turoyo, the language of the Assyrians/Syriacs of Tur Abdin. A related Neo-Aramaic language, Mlaḥsô, has recently become extinct.[137]\n\nMandaeans living in the Khuzestan province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq, speak Neo-Mandaic. It is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Mandaeans number some 50,000-75,000 people, but it is believed Neo-Mandaic may now be spoken fluently by as few as 5,000 people, with other Mandaeans having varying degrees of knowledge.[74]\n\nModern Western Aramaic\n\nVery little remains of Western Aramaic. Its only remaining vernacular is Western Neo-Aramaic, which is still spoken in the Aramean villages of Maaloula and Jubb'adin on Syria's side of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, as well as by some people who migrated from these villages, to Damascus and other larger towns of Syria. Bakh'a was completely destroyed during the Syrian civil war and all the survivors fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon.[138] All these speakers of modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic as well.[88] Other Western Aramaic languages, like Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic, are preserved only in liturgical and literary usage.\n\nGeographic distribution\n\nDuring the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, Arameans began to settle in greater numbers in Babylonia, and later in the heartland of Assyria, also known as the \"Arbela triangle\" (Assur, Nineveh, and Arbela).[139] The influx eventually resulted in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC) adopting an Akkadian-influenced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of its empire.[61] This policy was continued by the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire, and both empires became operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian.[140] The Achaemenid Empire (539-323 BC) continued this tradition, and the extensive influence of these empires led to Aramaic gradually becoming the lingua franca of most of western Asia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Egypt.[57][59]\n\nBeginning with the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate and the early Muslim conquests in the late seventh century, Arabic gradually replaced Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Near East.[134] However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary, and liturgical language for local Christians and also some Jews. Aramaic also continues to be spoken by the Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwest Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and southern Russia. The Mandaeans also continue to use Classical Mandaic as a liturgical language, although most now speak Arabic as their first language.[74] There are still also a small number of first-language speakers of Western Aramaic varieties in isolated villages in western Syria.\n\nBeing in contact with other regional languages, some Neo-Aramaic dialects were often engaged in the mutual exchange of influences, particularly with Arabic,[134] Iranian,[141] and Kurdish.[142]\n\nThe turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian genocide, also known as Seyfo, \"Sword\" in Syriac) has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are several sizable Assyrian towns in northern Iraq, such as Alqosh, Bakhdida, Bartella, Tesqopa, and Tel Keppe, and numerous small villages, where Aramaic is still the main spoken language, and many large cities in this region also have Suret-speaking communities, particularly Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, Dohuk, and al-Hasakah. In modern Israel, the only native Aramaic-speaking population are the Jews of Kurdistan, although the language is dying out.[143] However, Aramaic is also experiencing a revival among Maronites in Israel in Jish.[144]\n\nAramaic languages and dialects\n\nAramaic is often spoken of as a single language but is actually a group of related languages.[145] Some languages differ more from each other than the Romance languages do among themselves. Its long history, extensive literature, and use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not, similar to the situation with modern varieties of Arabic.\n\nSome Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic variety spoken by Syriac Christian communities in northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northwestern Iran, and the Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala, India. Most dialects can be described as either \"Eastern\" or \"Western\", the dividing line being roughly the Euphrates, or slightly west of it.\n\nIt is also helpful to distinguish modern living languages, or Neo-Aramaics, and those that are still in use as literary or liturgical languages or are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives \"Old\", \"Middle\", and \"Modern\" periods alongside \"Eastern\" and \"Western\" areas to distinguish between the various languages and dialects that are Aramaic.\n\nWriting system\n\nThe earliest Aramaic alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet. In time, Aramaic developed its distinctive \"square\" style. This alphabet was adopted for writing other languages, such as the Hebrew alphabet. It is the writing system used for Biblical Aramaic and other Jewish writing in Aramaic. The other main writing system used for Aramaic was developed by Christian communities: a cursive form known as the Syriac alphabet. A highly modified form of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet, is used by the Mandaeans.[74]\n\nIn addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by particular groups: the Nabataean alphabet in Petra and the Palmyrene alphabet in Palmyra. In modern times, Turoyo (see below) has sometimes been written in a Latin script.\n\nSample texts\n\nMatthew 2, verses 1-4, in Classical Syriac (Eastern accent), Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Suret (Swadaya):[146][147][148]\n\nEnglish (KJV):\n\n[1] Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,\n\n[2] Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.\n\n[3] When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.\n\n[4] And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.\n\nClassical Syriac (Eastern accent):\n\n[1] Ḵaḏ dēyn eṯīleḏ Īšōʕ b-Ḇēṯlḥem d-Īhūḏā b-yawmay Herodes malkā eṯaw mġōšē min maḏnḥā l-Ōrešlem.\n\n[2] W-Āmrīn: Aykaw malkā d-īhūḏāyē d-eṯīleḏ? Ḥzayn gēr kawkḇēh b-maḏnḥā w-eṯayn l-mesgaḏ lēh.\n\n[3] Šmaʕ dēyn Herodes malkā w-ettzīʕ w-ḵullāh Ōrešlem ʕammēh.\n\n[4] W-ḵanneš ḵulhōn rabbay kāhnē w-sāprē d-ʕammā wa-mšayel-wālhōn d-aykā meṯīleḏ mšīḥā.\n\nChristian Palestinian Aramaic:\n\n[1] Ḵaḏ eṯileḏ mōro Yesūs b-Beṯlḥem d-Yuḏō b-yawmay d-Herodes malkō w-hō mġušōya min maḏnḥō eṯaw l-Irušlem.\n\n[2] Ōmrin: Hōn hū deyn d-eṯileḏ? Ḥmaynan ger kawkḇeh b-maḏnḥō w-eṯaynan d-nesguḏ leh.\n\n[3] W-ḵaḏ šmaʕ malkō Herodes eṯʕabaḇ w-ḵuloh Irušlem ʕameh.\n\n[4] W-ḵaneš ḵulhun rišay koḥnōya w-soprawi d-qahlo wa-hwo mšayel lhun hōn mšiḥō meṯileḏ.\n\nSuret (Swadaya):\n\n[1] Min baṯar d-pišleh iliḏe Išo go Beṯlkham d-Ihuḏa b-yomane d-Herodes malka ṯelon mġoše min maḏnkha l-Orešlim.\n\n[2] W-buqrehon: Eykeleh haw d-pišleh iliḏe malka d-ihuḏāye? Sabab khzelan l-kawkhḇeh b-maḏnkha w-telan d-saġdakh eleh.\n\n[3] Iman d-šmayeleh Herodes malka aha pišleh šġhiše w-kulaha Orešlim ʔammeh.\n\n[4] W-qraeleh kuleh gurane d-kahne w-sapre d-ʔamma w-buqrehmennay eyka bit paiš va iliḏe mšikha.\n\nMatthew 28, verse 16, in Classical Syriac (Eastern accent), Western Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo and Suret (Swadaya):\n\nEnglish (KJV):\n\n[16] Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.\n\nClassical Syriac (Eastern accent)\n\n[16] Talmīḏē dēyn ḥḏaʕesre āzalū l-Glīlā l-ṭūrā aykā d-waʕad ennūn Īšōʕ.\n\nWestern Neo-Aramaic:\n\n[16] Bes aḥḥadaʕsar tilmit̲ zallun l-Ġalila l-ṭūra ti amerlun maʕleh Yešūʕ.\n\nTuroyo:\n\n[16] Wa-ḥḏaḥsar talmiḏe azzinnewa lu Ġlilo lu ṭūro ayko d-moʕadleh Yešū.\n\nSuret (Swadaya):\n\n[16] Ina talmiḏe khadissar azzillun l-Glila l-ṭūra eyka d-bit khwaʔda ʔammeh Išo.\n\nPhonology\n\nEach dialect of Aramaic has its own distinctive pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a phonological palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. Some modern Aramaic pronunciations lack the series of \"emphatic\" consonants, and some have borrowed from the inventories of surrounding languages, particularly Arabic, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish.\n\nVowels\n\nFront\n\nBack\n\nClose\n\ni\n\nu\n\nClose-mid\n\ne\n\no\n\nOpen-mid\n\nɛ\n\n(ɔ)\n\nOpen\n\na\n\n(ɑ)\n\nAs with most Semitic languages, Aramaic can be thought of as having three basic sets of vowels:\n\nOpen a-vowels\n\nClose front i-vowels\n\nClose back u-vowels\n\nThese vowel groups are relatively stable, but the exact articulation of any individual is most dependent on its consonantal setting.\n\nThe open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel (\"short\" a, somewhat like the first vowel in the English \"batter\", [a]). It usually has a back counterpart (\"long\" a, like the a in \"father\", [ɑ], or even tending to the vowel in \"caught\", [ɔ]), and a front counterpart (\"short\" e, like the vowel in \"head\", [ɛ]). There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects. There is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound. The open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א \"alaph\" (a glottal stop) or ה \"he\" (like the English h).\n\nThe close front vowel is the \"long\" i ([i]). It has a slightly more open counterpart, the \"long\" e, ([e]). Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced slightly more open. Thus, the short close e corresponds with the open e in some dialects. The close front vowels usually use the consonant י y as a mater lectionis.\n\nThe close back vowel is the \"long\" u ([u]). It has a more open counterpart, the \"long\" o, ([o]). There are shorter, and thus more open, counterparts to each of these, with the short close o sometimes corresponding with the long open a. The close back vowels often use the consonant ו w to indicate their quality.\n\nTwo basic diphthongs exist: an open vowel followed by י y (ay), and an open vowel followed by ו w (aw). These were originally full diphthongs, but many dialects have converted them to e and o respectively.\n\nThe so-called \"emphatic\" consonants (see the next section) cause all vowels to become mid-centralised.\n\nConsonants\n\nLabial\n\nDental\n\nAlveolar\n\nPost-alv. / \n Palatal\n\nVelar\n\nUvular / \n Pharyngeal\n\nGlottal\n\nplain\n\nemp.\n\nNasal\n\nm\n\nn\n\nStop\n\nvoiceless\n\np\n\nt\ntˤ\n\nk\nq\nʔ\n\nvoiced\n\nb\n\nd\n\nɡ\n\nFricative\n\nvoiceless\n\nf\nθ\ns\nsˤ\nʃ\nx\nħ\nh\n\nvoiced\n\nv\nð\nz\n\nɣ\nʕ\n\nApproximant\n\nl\n\nj\nw\n\nTrill\n\nr\n\nThe various alphabets used for writing Aramaic languages have twenty-two letters (all of which are consonants). Some of these letters, though, can stand for two or three different sounds (usually a stop and a fricative at the same point of articulation). Aramaic classically uses a series of lightly contrasted plosives and fricatives:\n\nLabial set: פּ\\פ p/f and בּ\\ב b/v,\n\nDental set: תּ\\ת t/θ and דּ\\ד d/ð,\n\nVelar set: כּ\\כ k/x and גּ\\ג ɡ/ɣ.\n\nEach member of a certain pair is written with the same letter of the alphabet in most writing systems (that is, p and f are written with the same letter), and are near allophones.\n\nA distinguishing feature of Aramaic phonology (and that of Semitic languages in general) is the presence of \"emphatic\" consonants. These are consonants that are pronounced with the root of the tongue retracted, with varying degrees of pharyngealization and velarization. Using their alphabetic names, these emphatics are:\n\nח Ḥêṯ, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, /ħ/,\n\nט Ṭêṯ, a pharyngealized t, /tˤ/,\n\nע ʽAyin (or ʽE in some dialects), a pharyngealized glottal stop (sometimes considered to be a voiced pharyngeal approximant), [ʕ] or [ʔˤ],\n\nצ Ṣāḏê, a pharyngealized s, /sˤ/,\n\nק Qôp, a voiceless uvular stop, /q/.\n\nAncient Aramaic may have had a larger series of emphatics, and some Neo-Aramaic languages definitely do. Not all dialects of Aramaic give these consonants their historic values.\n\nOverlapping with the set of emphatics are the \"guttural\" consonants. They include ח Ḥêṯ and ע ʽAyn from the emphatic set, and add א ʼĀlap̄ (a glottal stop) and ה Hê (as the English \"h\").\n\nAramaic classically has a set of four sibilants (ancient Aramaic may have had six):\n\nס, שׂ /s/ (as in English \"sea\"),\n\nז /z/ (as in English \"zero\"),\n\nשׁ /ʃ/ (as in English \"ship\"),\n\nצ /sˤ/ (the emphatic Ṣāḏê listed above).\n\nIn addition to these sets, Aramaic has the nasal consonants מ m and נ n, and the approximants ר r (usually an alveolar trill), ל l, י y and ו w.\n\nHistorical sound changes\n\nSix broad features of sound change can be seen as dialect differentials:\n\nVowel change occurs almost too frequently to document fully, but is a major distinctive feature of different dialects.\n\nPlosive/fricative pair reduction. Originally, Aramaic, like Tiberian Hebrew, had fricatives as conditioned allophones for each plosive. In the wake of vowel changes, the distinction eventually became phonemic; still later, it was often lost in certain dialects. For example, Turoyo has mostly lost /p/, using /f/ instead, like Arabic; other dialects (for instance, standard Assyrian Neo-Aramaic) have lost /θ/ and /ð/ and replaced them with /t/ and /d/, as with Modern Hebrew. In most dialects of Modern Syriac, /f/ and /v/ are realized as [w] after a vowel.\n\nLoss of emphatics. Some dialects have replaced emphatic consonants with non-emphatic counterparts, while those spoken in the Caucasus often have glottalized rather than pharyngealized emphatics.\n\nGuttural assimilation is the main distinctive feature of Samaritan pronunciation, also found in Samaritan Hebrew: all the gutturals are reduced to a simple glottal stop. Some Modern Aramaic dialects do not pronounce h in all words (the third person masculine pronoun hu becomes ow).\n\nProto-Semitic */θ/ */ð/ are reflected in Aramaic as */t/, */d/, whereas they became sibilants in Hebrew (the number three is שלוש šālôš in Hebrew but תלת tlāṯ in Aramaic, the word gold is זהב zahav[149] in Hebrew but דהב dehav[150] in Aramaic). Dental/sibilant shifts are still happening in the modern dialects.\n\nNew phonetic inventory. Modern dialects have borrowed sounds from the dominant surrounding languages. The most frequent borrowings are [ʒ] (as the first consonant in \"azure\"), [d͡ʒ] (as in \"jam\"), and [t͡ʃ] (as in \"church\"). The Syriac alphabet has been adapted for writing these new sounds.\n\nGrammar\n\nAs in other Semitic languages, Aramaic morphology (the way words are formed) is based on the consonantal root. The root generally consists of two or three consonants and has a basic meaning, for example, כת״ב k-t-b has the meaning of 'writing'. This is then modified by the addition of vowels and other consonants to create different nuances of the basic meaning:\n\nכתבה kṯāḇâ, handwriting, inscription, script, book.\n\nכתבי kṯāḇê, books, the Scriptures.\n\nכתובה kāṯûḇâ, secretary, scribe.\n\nכתבת kiṯḇeṯ, I wrote.\n\nאכתב 'eḵtûḇ, I shall write.\n\nNouns and adjectives\n\nAramaic nouns and adjectives are inflected to show gender, number and state.\n\nAramaic has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. The feminine absolute singular is often marked by the ending ה- -â.\n\nNouns can be either singular or plural, but an additional \"dual\" number exists for nouns that usually come in pairs. The dual number gradually disappeared from Aramaic over time and has little influence in Middle and Modern Aramaic.\n\nAramaic nouns and adjectives can exist in one of three states. To a certain extent, these states correspond to the role of articles and cases in the Indo-European languages:\n\nThe absolute state is the basic form of a noun. In early forms of Aramaic, the absolute state expresses indefiniteness, comparable to the English indefinite article a(n) (for example, כתבה kṯāḇâ, \"a handwriting\"), and can be used in most syntactic roles. However, by the Middle Aramaic period, its use for nouns (but not adjectives) had been widely replaced by the emphatic state.\n\nThe construct state is a form of the noun used to make possessive constructions (for example, כתבת מלכתא kṯāḇat malkṯâ, \"the handwriting of the queen\"). In the masculine singular, the form of the construct is often the same as the absolute, but it may undergo vowel reduction in longer words. The feminine construct and masculine construct plural are marked by suffixes. Unlike a genitive case, which marks the possessor, the construct state is marked on the possessed. This is mainly due to Aramaic word order: possessed[const.] possessor[abs./emph.] are treated as a speech unit, with the first unit (possessed) employing the construct state to link it to the following word. In Middle Aramaic, the use of the construct state for all but stock phrases (like בר נשא bar nāšâ, \"son of man\") begins to disappear.\n\nThe emphatic or determined state is an extended form of the noun that functions similarly to the definite article. It is marked with a suffix (for example, כתבתא kṯāḇtâ, \"the handwriting\"). Although its original grammatical function seems to have been to mark definiteness, it is used already in Imperial Aramaic to mark all important nouns, even if they should be considered technically indefinite. This practice developed to the extent that the absolute state became extraordinarily rare in later varieties of Aramaic.\n\nWhereas other Northwest Semitic languages, like Hebrew, have the absolute and construct states, the emphatic/determined state is a unique feature to Aramaic. Case endings, as in Ugaritic, probably existed in a very early stage of the language, and glimpses of them can be seen in a few compound proper names. However, as most of those cases were expressed by short final vowels, they were never written, and the few characteristic long vowels of the masculine plural accusative and genitive are not clearly evidenced in inscriptions. Often, the direct object is marked by a prefixed -ל l- (the preposition \"to\") if it is definite.\n\nAdjectives agree with their nouns in number and gender but agree in state only if used attributively. Predicative adjectives are in the absolute state regardless of the state of their noun (a copula may or may not be written). Thus, an attributive adjective to an emphatic noun, as in the phrase \"the good king\", is written also in the emphatic state מלכא טבא malkâ ṭāḇâ - king[emph.] good[emph.]. In comparison, the predicative adjective, as in the phrase \"the king is good\", is written in the absolute state מלכא טב malkâ ṭāḇ - king[emph.] good[abs.].[151]\n\n\"good\"\n\nmasc. sg.\n\nfem. sg.\n\nmasc. pl.\n\nfem. pl.\n\nabs.\n\nטב ṭāḇ\n\nטבה ṭāḇâ\n\nטבין ṭāḇîn\n\nטבן ṭāḇān\n\nconst.\n\nטבת ṭāḇaṯ\n\nטבי ṭāḇê\n\nטבת ṭāḇāṯ\n\ndet./emph.\n\nטבא ṭāḇâ\n\nטבתא ṭāḇtâ\n\nטביא ṭāḇayyâ\n\nטבתא ṭāḇāṯâ\n\nThe final א- -â in a number of these suffixes is written with the letter aleph. However, some Jewish Aramaic texts employ the letter he for the feminine absolute singular. Likewise, some Jewish Aramaic texts employ the Hebrew masculine absolute singular suffix ים- -îm instead of ין- -în. The masculine determined plural suffix, יא- -ayyâ, has an alternative version, -ê. The alternative is sometimes called the \"gentilic plural\" for its prominent use in ethnonyms (יהודיא yəhûḏāyê, 'the Jews', for example). This alternative plural is written with the letter aleph, and came to be the only plural for nouns and adjectives of this type in Syriac and some other varieties of Aramaic. The masculine construct plural, -ê, is written with yodh. In Syriac and some other variants this ending is diphthongized to -ai.\n\nPossessive phrases in Aramaic can either be made with the construct state or by linking two nouns with the relative particle -[ד[י d[î]-. As the use of the construct state almost disappears from the Middle Aramaic period on, the latter method became the main way of making possessive phrases.\n\nFor example, the various forms of possessive phrases (for \"the handwriting of the queen\") are:\n\nכתבת מלכתא kṯāḇaṯ malkṯâ - the oldest construction, also known as סמיכות səmîḵûṯ : the possessed object (כתבה kṯābâ, \"handwriting\") is in the construct state (כתבת kṯāḇaṯ); the possessor (מלכה malkâ, \"queen\") is in the emphatic state (מלכתא malkṯâ)\n\nכתבתא דמלכתא kṯāḇtâ d(î)-malkṯâ - both words are in the emphatic state and the relative particle -[ד[י d[î]- is used to mark the relationship\n\nכתבתה דמלכתא kṯāḇtāh d(î)-malkṯâ - both words are in the emphatic state, and the relative particle is used, but the possessed is given an anticipatory, pronominal ending (כתבתה kṯāḇtā-h, \"handwriting-her\"; literally, \"her writing, that (of) the queen\").\n\nIn Modern Aramaic, the last form is by far the most common. In Biblical Aramaic, the last form is virtually absent.\n\nVerbs\n\nThe Aramaic verb has gradually evolved in time and place, varying between varieties of the language. Verb forms are marked for person (first, second or third), number (singular or plural), gender (masculine or feminine), tense (perfect or imperfect), mood (indicative, imperative, jussive, or infinitive), and voice (active, reflexive, or passive). Aramaic also employs a system of conjugations, or verbal stems, to mark intensive and extensive developments in the lexical meaning of verbs.\n\nAspectual tense\n\nAramaic has two proper tenses: perfect and imperfect. These were originally aspectual, but developed into something more like a preterite and future. The perfect is unmarked, while the imperfect uses various preformatives that vary according to person, number and gender. In both tenses the third-person singular masculine is the unmarked form from which others are derived by addition of afformatives (and preformatives in the imperfect). In the chart below (on the root כת״ב K-T-B, meaning \"to write\"), the first form given is the usual form in Imperial Aramaic, while the second is Classical Syriac.[152]\n\nPerson & gender\n\nPerfect\n\nImperfect\n\nSingular\n\nPlural\n\nSingular\n\nPlural\n\n3rd m.\n\nכתב kəṯaḇ ↔ kəṯaḇ\n\nכתבו ↔ כתב(ו)\\כתבון kəṯaḇû ↔ kəṯaḇ(w)/kəṯabbûn\n\nיכתב ↔ נכתב yiḵtuḇ ↔ neḵtoḇ\n\nיכתבון ↔ נכתבון yiḵtəḇûn ↔ neḵtəḇûn\n\n3rd f.\n\nכתבת kiṯbaṯ ↔ keṯbaṯ\n\nכתבה ↔ כתב(י)\\כתבן kəṯaḇâ ↔ kəṯaḇ(y)/kəṯabbên\n\nתכתב tiḵtuḇ ↔ teḵtoḇ\n\nיכתבן ↔ נכתבן yiḵtəḇān ↔ neḵtəḇān\n\n2nd m.\n\nכתבת kəṯaḇt ↔ kəṯaḇt\n\nכתבתון kəṯaḇtûn ↔ kəṯaḇton\n\nתכתב tiḵtuḇ ↔ teḵtoḇ\n\nתכתבון tiḵtəḇûn ↔ teḵtəḇûn\n\n2nd f.\n\n(כתבתי ↔ כתבת(י kəṯaḇtî ↔ kəṯaḇt(y)\n\nכתבתן kəṯaḇtēn ↔ kəṯaḇtên\n\nתכתבין tiḵtuḇîn ↔ teḵtuḇîn\n\nתכתבן tiḵtəḇān ↔ teḵtəḇān\n\n1st m./f.\n\nכתבת kiṯḇēṯ ↔ keṯḇeṯ\n\nכתבנא ↔ כתבן kəṯaḇnâ ↔ kəṯaḇn\n\nאכתב eḵtuḇ ↔ eḵtoḇ\n\nנכתב niḵtuḇ ↔ neḵtoḇ\n\nConjugations or verbal stems\n\nLike other Semitic languages, Aramaic employs a number of derived verb stems, to extend the lexical coverage of verbs. The basic form of the verb is called the ground stem, or G-stem. Following the tradition of mediaeval Arabic grammarians, it is more often called the Pə‘al פעל (also written Pe‘al), using the form of the Semitic root פע״ל P-‘-L, meaning \"to do\". This stem carries the basic lexical meaning of the verb.\n\nBy doubling of the second radical, or root letter, the D-stem or פעל Pa‘‘el is formed. This is often an intensive development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, qəṭal means \"he killed\", whereas qaṭṭel means \"he slew\". The precise relationship in meaning between the two stems differs for every verb.\n\nA preformative, which can be -ה ha-, -א a-, or -ש ša-, creates the C-stem or variously the Hap̄‘el, Ap̄‘el or Šap̄‘el (also spelt הפעל Haph‘el, אפעל Aph‘el, and שפעל Shaph‘el). This is often an extensive or causative development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, טעה ṭə‘â means \"he went astray\", whereas אטעי aṭ‘î means \"he deceived\". The Šap̄‘el שפעל is the least common variant of the C-stem. Because this variant is standard in Akkadian, it is possible that its use in Aramaic represents loanwords from that language. The difference between the variants הפעל Hap̄‘el and אפעל Ap̄‘el appears to be the gradual dropping of the initial ה h sound in later Old Aramaic. This is noted by the respelling of the older he preformative with א aleph.\n\nThese three conjugations are supplemented with three further derived stems, produced by the preformative -הת hiṯ- or -את eṯ-. The loss of the initial ה h sound occurs similarly to that in the form above. These three derived stems are the Gt-stem, התפעל Hiṯpə‘el or אתפעל Eṯpə‘el (also written Hithpe‘el or Ethpe‘el), the Dt-stem, התפעּל Hiṯpa‘‘al or אתפעּל Eṯpa‘‘al (also written Hithpa‘‘al or Ethpa‘‘al), and the Ct-stem, התהפעל Hiṯhap̄‘al, אתּפעל Ettap̄‘al, השתפעל Hištap̄‘al or אשתפעל Eštap̄‘al (also written Hithhaph‘al, Ettaph‘al, Hishtaph‘al, or Eshtaph‘al). Their meaning is usually reflexive, but later became passive. However, as with other stems, actual meaning differs from verb to verb.\n\nNot all verbs use all of these conjugations, and, in some, the G-stem is not used. In the chart below (on the root כת״ב K-T-B, meaning \"to write\"), the first form given is the usual form in Imperial Aramaic, while the second is Classical Syriac.\n\nStem\n\nPerfect active\n\nImperfect active\n\nPerfect passive\n\nImperfect passive\n\nפעל Pə‘al (G-stem)\n\nכתב kəṯaḇ ↔ kəṯaḇ\n\nיכתב ↔ נכתב yiḵtuḇ ↔ neḵtoḇ\n\nכתיב kəṯîḇ\n\nהתפעל\\אתפעל Hiṯpə‘ēl/Eṯpə‘el (Gt-stem)\n\nהתכתב ↔ אתכתב hiṯkəṯēḇ ↔ eṯkəṯeḇ\n\nיתכתב ↔ נתכתב yiṯkəṯēḇ ↔ neṯkəṯeḇ\n\nפעּל Pa‘‘ēl/Pa‘‘el (D-stem)\n\nכתּב kattēḇ ↔ katteḇ\n\nיכתּב ↔ נכתּב yəḵattēḇ ↔ nəkatteḇ\n\nכֻתּב kuttaḇ\n\nהתפעל\\אתפעל Hiṯpa‘‘al/Eṯpa‘‘al (Dt-stem)\n\nהתכתּב ↔ אתכתּב hiṯkəttēḇ ↔ eṯkətteḇ\n\nיתכתּב ↔ נתכתּב yiṯkəttēḇ ↔ neṯkətteḇ\n\nהפעל\\אפעל Hap̄‘ēl/Ap̄‘el (C-stem)\n\nהכתב ↔ אכתב haḵtēḇ ↔ aḵteḇ\n\nיהכתב↔ נכתב yəhaḵtēḇ ↔ naḵteḇ\n\nהֻכתב huḵtaḇ\n\nהתהפעל\\אתּפעל Hiṯhap̄‘al/Ettap̄‘al (Ct-stem)\n\nהתהכתב ↔ אתּכתב hiṯhaḵtaḇ ↔ ettaḵtaḇ\n\nיתהכתב ↔ נתּכתב yiṯhaḵtaḇ ↔ nettaḵtaḇ\n\nIn Imperial Aramaic, the participle began to be used for a historical present. Perhaps under influence from other languages, Middle Aramaic developed a system of composite tenses (combinations of forms of the verb with pronouns or an auxiliary verb), allowing for narrative that is more vivid. Aramaic syntax usually follows the order verb-subject-object (VSO). Imperial (Persian) Aramaic, however, tended to follow a S-O-V pattern (similar to Akkadian), which was the result of Persian syntactic influence.\n\nSee also\n\nAramaic alphabet\n\nAramaic of Hatra\n\nAramaic studies\n\nArameans\n\nEphrem the Syrian\n\nGospel of Matthew\n\nHebrew alphabet\n\nList of Aramaic-language television channels\n\nList of loanwords in modern Aramaic\n\nPeshitta\n\nRomanization of Syriac\n\nTalmud\n\nNotes\n\n^ Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: ארמית, romanized: ˀərāmiṯ; Classical Syriac: ܐܪܡܐܝܬ, romanized: arāmāˀiṯ Also ܐܪܡܝܐ, ܐܪܐܡܝܬܐ. The form arāmāyā is less common in classical texts, but may be found (for example) in the Cave of Treasures (ed. Su-Min Ri) XXIV:10 and in Eusebius (ed. Cureton) p. 4 (Syriac pagination) line 10. See Payne Smith, R. (1879). Thesaurus Syriacus. Vol. 1. Clarendon. p. 387. and in English at Payne Smith, J. (1903). A Compendious Syriac Dictionary: Founded Upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Clarendon. pp. 29, 242.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Kozah, Mario; Abu-Husayn, Abdulrahim; Al-Murikhi, Saif Shaheen; Al Thani, Haya (9 December 2014). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century. Gorgias Press. p. 298. ISBN 9781463236649. The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.\n\n^ Thompson, Andrew David (31 October 2019). Christianity in Oman. Springer. p. 49. ISBN 9783030303983. The Persian location and character of the Metropolitan proved to be a source of friction between the Syriac-speaking Christians of Beth Qatraye who naturally looked to their co-linguists back in Mesopotamia.\n\n^ Raheb, Mitri; Lamport, Mark A. (15 December 2020). The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 134. ISBN 9781538124185. He was born in the region of Beth Qatraye in Eastern Arabia, a mixed Syriac- and Arabic Speaking region...\n\n^ a b Brock 1989, pp. 11-23.\n\n^ Greene, Jim. \"Aramaic Language | Language and Linguistics\". EBSCO.\n\n^ Huehnergard, John; Rubin, Aaron D. (2011). \"Phyla and Waves: Models of Classification of the Semitic Languages\". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 259-278. ISBN 978-3-11-018613-0.\n\n^ Gzella 2021, pp. 4-5: \"The overarching concept of Aramaic, strictly a historical-linguistic abstraction, is made more concrete by various terms for the various Aramaic languages (or dialects, where we are mainly dealing with regional vernaculars without a written tradition; the neutral term variety includes both categories). ... Or scholars use the same terms to refer to different historical periods, as with \"Old Aramaic\" or \"Imperial Aramaic.\" Others still are just misleading, such as \"Modern Syriac\" for the modern spoken languages, which do not directly descend from Syriac. When discussing what a certain word or phrase is \"in Aramaic\" then, we always have to specify which period, region, or culture is meant unlike Classical Latin, for instance. ... For the most part, Aramaic is thus studied as a crucial but subservient element in several well-established, mainly philological and historical disciplines and social sciences. Even in the academic world, only few people see any inherent value that transcends the disciplinary boundaries in this language family.\"\n\n^ Van Rompay, Lucas (2011). \"Aramaic\". In Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (Electronic Edition, Beth Mardutho, 2018 ed.). Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-714-8. Aramaic itself consists of a great number of language forms (and indeed languages), spoken and written in many different scripts over a period of 3000 years.\n\n^ Aufrecht 2001, p. 145, \"The Aramaic Language originated in ancient Syria at the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500-1200 B.C.), is one of the oldest continually spoken languages in the world.\".\n\n^ \nSchami, Rafik (25 July 2011). Märchen aus Malula (in German). Carl Hanser. p. 151. ISBN 9783446239005. Ich kenne das Dorf nicht, doch gehört habe ich davon. Was ist mit Malula?‹ fragte der festgehaltene Derwisch. >Das letzte Dorf der Aramäer< lachte einer der…\n\nMatras, Yaron; Sakel, Jeanette (2007). Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. De Gruyter. p. 185. doi:10.1515/9783110199192. ISBN 9783110199192. The fact that nearly all Arabic loans in Ma'lula originate from the period before the change from the rural dialect to the city dialect of Damascus shows that the contact between the Aramaeans and the Arabs was intimate…\n\nLabidi, Emna (2022). Untersuchungen zum Spracherwerb zweisprachiger Kinder im Aramäerdorf Dschubbadin (Syrien) (in German). LIT. p. 133. ISBN 9783643152619. Aramäer von Ǧubbˁadīn\n\nArnold, Werner; Behnstedt, P. (1993). Arabisch-aramäische Sprachbeziehungen im Qalamūn (Syrien) (in German). Harassowitz. p. 42. ISBN 9783447033268. Die arabischen Dialekte der Aramäer\n\nArnold, Werner; Behnstedt, P. (1993). Arabisch-aramäische Sprachbeziehungen im Qalamūn (Syrien) (in German). Harassowitz. p. 5. ISBN 9783447033268. Die Kontakte zwischen den drei Aramäer-dörfern sind nicht besonders stark.\n\nArnold, Werner (2006). Lehrbuch des Neuwestaramäischen (in German). Harrassowitz. p. 133. ISBN 9783447053136. Aramäern in Ma'lūla\n\nArnold, Werner (2006). Lehrbuch des Neuwestaramäischen (in German). Harrassowitz. p. 15. ISBN 9783447053136. Viele Aramäer arbeiten heute in Damaskus, Beirut oder in den Golfstaaten und verbringen nur die Sommermonate im Dorf.\n\n^ \nSokoloff 1983\n\nBeyer 1986\n\nLipiński 2000\n\nCreason 2008, pp. 108-144\n\nGzella 2015\n\n^ Gzella 2021, p. 222: \"Despite their divergent creeds and confessional affiliations, they retained their own West or East Syriac ritual prayers and liturgical formulae; on the one hand, there are the West Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholics...and also to a lesser degree the similarly Catholic Maronites (where Arabic is increasingly taking over the function of Syriac); on the other hand, there is the Assyrian \"Church of the East,\" which stems from the East Syriac tradition, and...the Chaldean Catholic Church. Additionally, some of the many Christian churches of India belong to the Syriac tradition.\"\n\n^ Greenfield 1995.\n\n^ Berlin 2011.\n\n^ a b Tal 2012, p. 619-28.\n\n^ Burtea 2012, pp. 670-685.\n\n^ Naby 2004, pp. 197-203.\n\n^ Macuch 1990, pp. 214-223.\n\n^ Coghill 2007, pp. 115-122.\n\n^ Lipiński 2001, p. 64.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, pp. 17-22.\n\n^ Daniels 1996, pp. 499-514.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 56.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 56\n\n^ Myers, Allen C., ed. (1987). \"Aramaic\". The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. p. 72. ISBN 0-8028-2402-1. It is generally agreed that Aramaic was the common language of Israel in the first century AD. Jesus and his disciples spoke the Galilean dialect, which was distinguished from that of Jerusalem (Matt. 26:73)\n\n^ \"Aramaic language\". Encyclopædia Britannica. 10 April 2024. Retrieved 10 May 2024.\n\n^ Kopp, Ulrich Friedrich [in German] (1821). \"Semitische Paläographie: Aramäische ältere Schrift\". Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit. pp. 226-27.\n\n^ Caputo, C.; Lougovaya, J. (2020). Using Ostraca in the Ancient World: New Discoveries and Methodologies. Materiale Textkulturen. De Gruyter. p. 147. ISBN 978-3-11-071290-2. The earliest of the Aramaic finds known to us is the so-called \"Carpentras stele\"...\n\n^ Schmidt, Nathaniel (1923). \"Early Oriental Studies in Europe and the Work of the American Oriental Society, 1842-1922\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 43: 1-14. doi:10.2307/593293. JSTOR 593293. Hilliger first saw clearly the relation of the so-called Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan (1679)\n\n^ Johann Wilhelm Hilliger (1679). Summarium Lingvæ Aramææ, i.e. Chaldæo-Syro-Samaritanæ: olim in Academia Wittebergensi orientalium lingvarum consecraneis, parietes intra privatos, prælectum & nunc ... publico bono commodatum. Sumtibus hæred. D. Tobiæ Mevii & Elerti Schumacheri, per Matthæum Henckelium. [Partial English translation]: \"The Aramaic language name comes from its gentile founder, Aram (Gen 10:22), in the same manner as the Slavic languages Bohemian, Polish, Vandal etc. Multiple dialects are Chaldean, Syrian, Samaritan.\"; Latin Original: Linguae Aramaeae nomen à gentis conditore, Aramo nimirum (Gen. X 22) desumptum est, & complectitur, perinde ut Lingua Sclavonica, Bohemican, Polonican, Vandalicam &c. Dialectos plures, ceu sunt: Chaldaica, Syriaca, Samaritana.\n\n^ Hartmann, Anton Theodor (1807). Aufklärungen über Asien (in German). p. 122-123. Ich enthalte mich mit gutem Vorbedacht des Ausdrucks chaldäischen Sprache, weil die aramäische Sprache schon längst existirte, als die Chaldäer Aramäa überschwemmten und in der Bibel die Sprache, die man gewöhnlich die chaldäische nennt, nie mit diesem Namen bezeichnet, sondern stets die aramäische Sprache genannt wird. Eben so unpassend finde ich die Bezeichnung syrische Sprache als Unterscheidungszeichen von der aramäischen; beide sind durchaus Eine und dieselbe Sprache. Denn die unbedeutenden Abweichungen, durch die man sich veranlasst geglaubt hat, eine eigene Sprache anzuerkennen, sind Veränderungen, welche sich im Lauf der Zeit in eine jede lebende Sprache einzuschleichen pflegen und lassen sich aus dem Einfluss der Luft auf die Organe, aus dem verschiedenen Gebrauch von Nahrungsmitteln, aus den vielen politischen Revolutionen, die jenen Länderstrich, wo Aramäisch geredet wurde, betroffen haben und ähnlichen Ursachen sehr leicht erklären, wie sich ganz bequem würde darthun lassen, wenn man hier ins Einzelne gehen dürfte. Selbst das syrische Alphabet offenbart sich bei genauer Vergleichung der einzelnen Schriftzüge als ein und dasselbe mit dem sogenannten Chaldäischen, die etwas auffallenden Abweichungen von Buchstaben lassen sich auf eine gemeinschaftliche Quelle eben so ungezwungen zurückführen, als die Veränderungen, welche das lateinische Alphabet im Mittelalter erlitten hat.\n\n^ Lemaire, André (2021-05-25). \"A History of Northwest Semitic Epigraphy\". An Eye for Form. Penn State University Press. p. 5. doi:10.1515/9781575068879-007 (inactive 11 July 2025). ISBN 9781575068879. Retrieved 2022-10-05 - via De Gruyter. In his Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit, Ulrich Friedrich Kopp (1819-21) established the basis of the paleographical development of the Northwest Semitic scripts...{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)\n\n^ Kopp 1821, p. 226-227 (§168-169): \"Irre ich nicht, so hat man die Benennung \"phönicische Schrift\" bisher etwas zu freygebig gebraucht, den Phöniciern alles gegeben, und den Aramäern nichts gelassen, gleichsam, als ob diese gar nicht hätten schreiben können, oder doch von ihnen nicht ein einziges Denkmal aus ältern Zeiten sich sollte erhalten haben. Selbst Schriften, in welchen sich die aramäische Mund-Art gar nicht verkennen läßt, nennen die Orientalisten phönicisch (§. 195), bloß weil sie noch nicht geahndet haben, daß eine Verschiedenheit vorhanden seyn könne. Ein Haupt-Unterscheidungs-Zeichen - So weit man, ohne auch dasjenige gesehen zu haben, was etwa noch entdeckt werden könnte, vorjetzt durch bloße Induction schließen kann - scheint in den Buchstaben ב, ד, ע und ר zu liegen. Denn so viele phönicische Denkmäler ich auch betrachtet habe; so sind mir doch in keinem einzigen ächt phönicischen diejenigen Gestalten vorgekommen, welche sich oben öffnen (§. 100). Nur bey dem einzigen ע finden sich, wie ich schon erinnert habe, jedoch höchst seltene Ausnahmen, die zuweilen bloß von der Uebereilung des Schreibers herrühren (z.B. im ersten ע der oxforder Inschrift (B.I. S.207). Wir haben sogar oben (§. 159) gesehen, daß selbst noch 153 Jahre nach Christi Geburt, als schon die Schrift in Phönicien sehr ausgeartet war, und in dem ganzen Zeit-Raume vorher, nie ד und ר mit von oben geöffneten Köpfen erscheinen. Dagegen haben diejenigen Denkmäler, auf welchen man sie antrifft, wie ich glaube, auch keinen Anspruch an Pönicier, als Urheber. §. 169 Unter solche gehört vor allen die Inschrift von Carpentras, welche ich hier um so lieber vornehme, als ihre Aechtheit über allen Zweifel erhoben ist... §. 195 Die Schrift darauf nannte man ehemals ägyptisch, welches freylich, weder in Vergleichung mit der ägyptischen Buchstaben-Schrift eine angemessene Benennung, noch der Sprache wegen eine zu wagende Vermuthung war. Schwerlich richtig ist aber auch die bey neuern Gelehrten (Gessenii Gesch. d. hebr. Spr. 139. Bibl. der alt. Literat. VI. 18. Hammer Fund-Grub. V. 277 °°) aufgekommene Benennung \"Phönicisch\". Ja Hartmann (II. II. 540) nennt sogar unmittelbar nach der ersten malteser diese \"eine andere phönicische Inschrift\". Schon die Mund-Art, welche nicht phönicisch, sondern aramäisch ist, würde uns vermuthen lassen, daß die Schrift den Aramäern ebenfalls gehöre; wenn nicht in dieser sich zugleich auch Merkmale einer Verschiedenheit von der phönicischen zeigten (s. oben §. 100. 168). Ich habe daher mit gutem Vorbedachte unser Denkmal von Carpentras aus meiner kleinen Sammlung phönicischer Inschriften (B. I. 195) ausgeschlossen. §. 196 Es scheint, als ob zur Zeit des oben (§. 193) mitgetheilten babylonischen Denkmals Aramäer und Phönicier eine und dieselbe Schrift gehabt hätten. Gegen 300 Sahre vor unserer Zeit-Rechnung war aber meiner Vermuthung nach schon eine Trennung eingetreten. Ich sage Vermuthung: denn mein Schluß gründet sich nur auf die einseitige Auslegung folgender Münze, bey welcher man mir vielleicht mehr als einen Einwurf zu machen im Stande ist..\"\n\n^ Kopp 1821, p. S. 182-185: \"Es gehört nicht viel dazu, um einzusehen, daß die Mund-Art, welche in dieser Inschrift herrscht, aramäisch sey. Schon de Wörter עבדת קדם ,ברת ,אמרת, u. s . w. verrathen sie. Allein rein Chaldäisch kann man sie nicht nennen; man müßte denn mit O. G. Tychsen zu manchen Vorausseßungen und Uenderungen seine Zuflucht nehmen wollen. [ ] ist nimmermehr chaldäisch; sondern entweder äthiopisch hic, hoc loco, oder das hebräische Demonstrativum. Denn man bemerkt auch ben [ ] die Orthographie, nach welcher [ ] statt [ ] gefegt wird. Ich war einmal in Versuchung das Relativum der Zabier darinnen sinden zu wollen, weil ich [ ] wirklich gedruckt fand. Als ich aber die Handschrift selbst verglich, say' ich bald, daß es ein Druckfehler, statt [ ], war… [ ]. Oyngeachtet die Endigung nicht gewöhnlich im Chaldäischen ist, so findet sich doch in der Ueberseßung des Buches Ruth (III. 10) dieses Wort grade so geschrieben. [ ] Daß dieses Zeit-Wort hier nicht perfectus fuit, wie gewöhnlich, heißen könne, lehrt der Zusammenhang. Es hat aber auch transitive Bedeutung, wie die Wörter-Bücher lehren (Simonis und Gesenius n. 2) und auch das arabische [ ] tamam wird für perfecit, complevit gebraucht. Ich habe mir daher um so weniger ein Gewissen daraus gemacht, ihm die transitive Bedeutung hier beyzulegen, als in dieser Anschrift, in welcher [ ], [ ] und dergleichen an keine Regeln gebundene Wörter vorkommen, es eine Recheit reyn würde, den Sprach-Gebrauch vorschreiben zu wollen. Daß übrigens in [ ] das [ ] für [ ] stehe, siehet man selbst aus dem Chaldäischen der Bibel (Dan. IV. 15. V. 8).\"\n\n^ Andrade 2013, p. 7.\n\n^ Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 1.144: \"Aram had the Aramites, which the Greeks called Syrians\" (Greek: Ἀραμαίους δὲ Ἄραμος ἔσχεν, οὓς Ἕλληνες Σύρους προσαγορεύουσιν\n\n^ Strabo, Geographica, 1.2.34: \"But it would seem that the view of Poseidonius is best, for here he derives an etymology of the words from the kinship of the peoples and their common characteristics. For the nation of the Armenians and that of the Syrians and Arabians betray a close affinity, not only in their language, but in their mode of life and in their bodily build, and particularly wherever they live as close neighbours. Mesopotamia, which is inhabited by these three nations, gives proof of this, for in the case of these nations the similarity is particularly noticeable. And if, comparing the differences of latitude, there does exist a greater difference between the northern and the southern people of Mesopotamia than between these two peoples and the Syrians in the centre, still the common characteristics prevail. And, too, the Assyrians, the Arians, and the Aramaeans display a certain likeness both to those just mentioned and to each other. Indeed, Poseidonius conjectures that the names of these nations also are akin; for, says he, the people whom we call Syrians are by the Syrians themselves called Arimaeans and Arammaeans; and there is a resemblance between this name and those of the Armenians, the Arabians and the Erembians, since perhaps the ancient Greeks gave the name of Erembians to the Arabians, and since the very etymology of the word \"Erembian\" contributes to this result\".\n\n^ Strabo, Geographica, 16.4.27: \"Poseidonius says that the Arabians consist of three tribes, that they are situated in succession, one after another, and that this indicates that they are homogeneous with one another, and that for this reason they were called by similar names - one tribe \"Armenians,\" another \"Arameans,\" and another \"Arambians.\" And just as one may suppose that the Arabians were divided into three tribes, according to the differences in the latitudes, which ever vary more and more, so also one may suppose that they used several names instead of one. Neither are those who write \"Eremni\" plausible; for that name is more peculiarly applicable to the Aethiopians. The poet also mentions \"Arimi,\"by which, according to Poseidonius, we should interpret the poet as meaning, not some place in Syria or in Cilicia or in some other land, but Syria itself; for the people in Syria are Arameans, though perhaps the Greeks called them Arimaeans or Arimi\".\n\n^ Wevers 2001, pp. 237-51.\n\n^ Joosten 2008, pp. 93-105.\n\n^ Joosten 2010, pp. 53-72.\n\n^ Joseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Brill. pp. 9-10. ISBN 9004116419. The designations Syria and Syrian were derived from Greek usage long before Christianity. When the Greeks became better acquainted with the Near East, especially after Alexander the Great overthrew the Achaemenian empire in the 4th century B.C., they restricted the name Syria to the lands west of the Euphrates. During the 3rd century B.C., when the Hebrew Bible was translated by Jewish scholars into the Greek Septuagint for the use of the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria, the terms for 'Aramean' and 'Aramaic' in the Hebrew Bible, were translated into 'Syrian' and 'the Syrian tongue' respectively. [Footnote: \"The Authorized Version of the Bible continued to use the same terms that the Septuagint had adopted. In 1970, the New English Bible, published by Oxford and Cambridge University presses, and translated by biblical scholars drawn from various British universities, went back to the original Hebrew terms, using Aram and Arameans for Syria and Syrians respectively.\"] In Palestine itself, according to Noldeke, the Jews and later the Christians there referred to their dialect of Aramaic as Syriac; in Babylon, both Greeks and Persians called the Arameans Syrians. The second-century B.C. Greek historian Posidonius, a native of Syria, noted that 'the people we [Greeks] call Syrians were called by the Syrians themselves Arameans….for the people in Syria are Arameans'.\"\n\n^ a b Nöldeke, 1871, p. 115: \"Die Griechen haben den Namen \"Aramäer\" nie eigentlich gekannt; ausser Posidonius (dem Strabo folgt) nennt ihn uns nur noch ein andrer Orientale, Josephus (Ant. 1, 6, 4). Dass Homer bei den 'Ερεμβοι oder in den Worten eiv 'Αρίμοις an sie dächte, ist sehr unwahrscheinlich. Die Griechen nannten das Volk \"Syrer\"\".\n\n^ Quatremère, Étienne Marc (1835). \"Mémoire Sur Les Nabatéens\". Journal asiatique (in French). Société asiatique: 122-27. Les livres du Nouveau Testament furent immédiatement traduits dans la langue du pays. Or ces livres étaient écrits dans la langue des Grecs, et offraient par conséquent les expressions et les dénominations en usage chez ce peuple. Or les noms de Syrie, de Syriens se trouvaient souvent employés dans les livres fondamentaux du christianisme. Les habitants des pays situés entre la Méditerranée et l'Euphrate, se voyant désignés par une dénomination qui leur était étrangère, mais qui se trouvait en quelque sorte consacrée par l'autorité des livres qu'ils vénéraient à tant de titres, ne crurent pas sans doute pouvoir rejeter ce nom, et l'adoptèrent sans répugnance. Ils se persuadèrent que, régénérés par un nouveau culte, ils devaient sous tous les rapports devenir un peuple nouveau et abjurer leur nom antique, qui semblait leur rappeler l'idolâtrie à laquelle le christianisme venait de les arracher. Cette conjecture est, si je ne me trompe, confirmée par un fait que je crois décisif. Dans la langue syriaque ecclésiastique, le mot armoïo, ܐܪܡܝܐ, qui ne diffère du nom ancien, ormoïo, ܐܪܡܝܐ, que par une seule voyelle, désigne un païen, un idolâtre. Ainsi s'intrôduisit le nom de Sourioïo, Syrien. Quant à la dénomination Orom, Aram, ou le pays des Araméens, elle fut appliquée de préférence à la contrée que les Grecs et les Latins appelaient Assyrie.\n\n^ Genesis 10:22\n\n^ Genesis 22:21\n\n^ 1 Chronicles 7:34\n\n^ \"The name Aram in the Bible\". Abarim Publications. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Frye 1992, pp. 281-85.\n\n^ Frye 1997, pp. 30-36.\n\n^ \"Strong's Hebrew: 804. אַשּׁוּר (Ashshuwr) - Asshur\". biblehub.com. Retrieved 2020-07-31.\n\n^ \"Search Entry\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 2020-07-31.\n\n^ Köstenberger 2009, p. 350.\n\n^ Hamp 2005, p. 4.\n\n^ Buth & Pierce 2014, pp. 107-109.\n\n^ Kautzsch, Emil Friedrich (1884). \"The Aramaic Language\". Hebraica. 1 (2): 98-115. doi:10.1086/368803. JSTOR 527111. The author of Daniel uses the word as a title for the members of the Babylonian guild of priests, as already Herodotus regards oi Xardalot as a designation of the priests of Baal, and the name was subsequently the customary one for the Magians, Astrologers, Soothsayers, etc., of the East. Jerome, however, and those who followed him, confused therewith the use of o'yu, as name of the people; and since, in Dan. II., 4, the \"Chaldeans\" speak Aramaic, so \"Chaldaic\" and \"Aramaic\" were held to be identical. And the matter has stood thus in the \"Chaldee grammars\" and the \"Hebrew and Chaldee lexicons,\" in spite of all protests,3 up to this day. [Footnote 3: Cf. already Schloezer in Eichhorn's Repertorium, viii. (1781), p. 118 sq.; the correct distinction of East-Aramaic (Syriac) and West-Aramaic (Biblical Aramaic and the language of the Targums) was expressly drawn again by Geiger ZDMG, xviii., 654, and Noeldeke, ibid. xxi., 183 sq,, and particularly xxv., 113 sq. (die Namen der aram. Nation und Sprache.)]\n\n^ a b Lipiński 2000.\n\n^ Khan 2007, pp. 95-114.\n\n^ a b Gzella 2015.\n\n^ a b Folmer 2012, pp. 587-98.\n\n^ a b Bae 2004, pp. 1-20.\n\n^ Green 1992, p. 45.\n\n^ Kitchen 1965, pp. 31-79.\n\n^ Rosenthal 2006.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, pp. 304-10.\n\n^ Ruzer 2014, pp. 182-205.\n\n^ Buth 2014, pp. 395-421.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 237.\n\n^ \"Sanhedrin 38b\". www.sefaria.org.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, pp. 38-43.\n\n^ Casey 1999, pp. 83-93.\n\n^ Turek, Przemysław (2011-11-05). \"Syriac Heritage of the Saint Thomas Christians: Language and Liturgical Tradition Saint Thomas Christians - origins, language and liturgy\". Orientalia Christiana Cracoviensia. 3: 115-130. doi:10.15633/ochc.1038. ISSN 2081-1330.\n\n^ a b Burtea 2012, pp. 670-85.\n\n^ a b c d Häberl 2012, pp. 725-37.\n\n^ Heinrichs 1990, pp. xi-xv.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 53.\n\n^ \"Did you know\". Surayt-Aramaic Online Project. Free University of Berlin.\n\n^ Duntsov, Alexey; Häberl, Charles; Loesov, Sergey (2022). \"A Modern Western Aramaic Account of the Syrian Civil War\". WORD. 68 (4): 359-394. doi:10.1080/00437956.2022.2084663.\n\n^ Brock, An Introduction to Syriac Studies Archived 2013-05-18 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Fitzmyer 1997, pp. 57-60.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, pp. 47-48.\n\n^ Butts 2019, pp. 222-25.\n\n^ Beyer 1986.\n\n^ Fitzmyer 1997, pp. 60-63.\n\n^ Butts 2019, pp. 224-25.\n\n^ Younger, K. Lawson Jr. (1986). \"Panammuwa and Bar-Rakib: Two Structural Analyses\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Owens, Jonathan (12 March 2013). Arabic as a Minority Language. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110805451.\n\n^ a b Arnold 2012, pp. 685-96.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 11.\n\n^ Heinrichs 1990, p. x.\n\n^ Fales 2012, pp. 555-73.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 14.\n\n^ Gzella 2012a, pp. 574-86.\n\n^ Gzella 2012b, pp. 598-609.\n\n^ Shaked, Saul (1987). \"Aramaic\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 251-52. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Frye, Richard N.; Driver, G. R. (1955). \"Review of G. R. Driver's 'Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B. C.'\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 18 (3/4): 457. doi:10.2307/2718444. JSTOR 2718444.\n\n^ Geiger, Wilhelm; Kuhn, Ernst (25 March 2002). Grundriss der iranischen Philologie: Band I. Abteilung 1 [Outline of the Iranian Philology: Volume 1. Division 1.] (in German). Boston: Adamant Media Corporation. p. 249. ISBN 978-1421246864.\n\n^ Stolper, John A. Matthew (2007). \"What are the Persepolis Fortification Tablets?\". The Oriental Studies News & Notes (winter): 6-9. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Collins 1993, pp. 710-12.\n\n^ Naveh, Joseph; Shaked, Shaul (2006). Ancient Aramaic Documents from Bactria. Studies in the Khalili Collection. Oxford: Khalili Collections. ISBN 1874780749.\n\n^ 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26\n\n^ 2:4b-7:28\n\n^ Hasel 1981, pp. 211-25.\n\n^ 31:47\n\n^ Gallagher 2012, pp. 123-41.\n\n^ Nöldeke 1871, pp. 113-31.\n\n^ Kautzsch 1884a, pp. 17-21.\n\n^ Kautzsch 1884b, pp. 110-13.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, pp. 212-17.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 28.\n\n^ Wiesehöfer, Josef (2001). Ancient Persia. Translated by Azodi, Azizeh. I.B. Taurus. pp. 118-20. ISBN 9781860646751. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Veyne, Paul (5 October 2018). Palmyra: An Irreplaceable Treasure. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226600055.\n\n^ Butts, Aaron (29 September 2015). Semitic Languages in Contact. BRILL. ISBN 9789004300156.\n\n^ Nicholson, Oliver (19 April 2018). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-256246-3.\n\n^ Häberl, Charles G. (February 2006). \"Iranian Scripts for Aramaic Languages: The Origin of the Mandaic Script\". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (341): 53-62. doi:10.7282/T37D2SGZ. JSTOR 25066933.\n\n^ Allen C. Myers, ed. (1987). \"Aramaic\". The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. p. 72. ISBN 0-8028-2402-1. It is generally agreed that Aramaic was the common language of Israel in the first century AD. Jesus and his disciples spoke the Galilean dialect, which was distinguished from that of Jerusalem (Matt. 26:73)\n\n^ Fitzmyer 1980, pp. 5-21.\n\n^ a b Mark 5:41\n\n^ John 20:16\n\n^ Mark 7:34\n\n^ Mark 15:34\n\n^ Darling, Cary (25 February 2004). \"What's up with Aramaic?\". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 3 April 2004. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ McNamara, Martin (2011). Targum and New Testament. Mohr Siebeck. p. 186. ISBN 9783161508363. a) Old Aramaic from the beginning (through Biblical Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene) down to the established eastern and western branches; b) Middle Aramaic, with two branches, eastern and western; c) Late Aramaic, with the contemporary western (Ma'alula) and eastern branches. This older terminology is still followed by M. Sokoloff in his recent work, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period.'1 A different division, now widely accepted, has been put forward by J. A. Fitzmyer.2 It is as follows: a) Old Aramaic, up to 700 B.C.E.; b) Official Aramaic, 700-300 .c.E.; c) Middle Aramaic, 300 ..E.-200 c.E.; d) Late Aramaic (= Middle Aramaic of Rosenthal's division), with two branches: the eastern branch consisting of Syriac, Mandaic, the Aramaic of the Talmud Babli, the Gaonic Literature and incantation texts found mainly in Nippur; and the western, consisting of Samaritan Aramaic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Galilean Aramaic (which some, for example Sokoloff, prefer to call Jewish Palestinian Aramaic) found in the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud and haggadic midrashim and other sources; e) Modern Aramaic (in its eastern and western [Ma'alula] dialects).\n\n^ Sebastian Brock (2021). \"The place of Syriac among the Aramaic dialects 2\". SyriacPress dot com. Retrieved 1 April 2022.\n\n^ Healey 2012, pp. 637-52.\n\n^ Briquel-Chatonnet 2012, pp. 652-59.\n\n^ Sokoloff 2012b, pp. 660-70.\n\n^ Reynolds, Gabriel Said (28 September 2007). The Qur'an in Its Historical Context. Routledge. p. 59. ISBN 9781134109456. …. Palestinian Aramaic also began to be written for the first time (Coptic was written in an adapted Greek script and Palestinian Aramaic in a modified Estrangelo….\n\n^ Sokoloff 2012a, pp. 610-19.\n\n^ Arabic in Context. Brill. 6 June 2017. p. 338. ISBN 9789004343047. For the Aramaic-speaking Christian communities of Sinai, Palestine or Trans-Jordan, Christian Palestinian Aramaic was the dominant language in local churches; for Syria and Mesopotamia, it was rather Syriac.…\n\n^ Arman Akopian (11 December 2017). \"Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites\". Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 573. ISBN 9781463238933. The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as \"Palestinian Christian Aramaic\", using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.\n\n^ Morgenstern 2012, pp. 628-37.\n\n^ Emran El-Badawi (2013). The Qur'an and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions. Routledge. p. 35. ISBN 9781317929338. However, what truly distinguishes the CPA Gospels from the Syriac ones is the strong influence that Greek Biblical tradi- tions had upon it. This is evident, for example, in the syntax of the Gospel passages and even in the spelling of proper nouns, both of which duplicate the Greek Gospels. Therefore, unlike Syriac where \"Jesus\" is spelled īšū', in CPA it is spelled īsūs.\n\n^ a b c Weninger 2012, pp. 747-55.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 1999.\n\n^ Khan 2012, pp. 708-24.\n\n^ Jastrow 2012, pp. 697-707.\n\n^ \"The Village of Bakh'a in Qalamoun: Interview\". 26 January 2020.\n\n^ \"Central Assyria, the lands between Assur, Nineveh and Arbela\". Assyrian empire builders. 2011-02-02. Archived from the original on 2 February 2011. The heartland of Assyria is demarcated by the city of Assur (modern Qala'at Sherqat) in the south, by Nineveh (modern Mosul with the ruin mounds Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunus) in the north and by Arbela (modern Erbil) in the east.\n\n^ Streck 2012, pp. 416-24.\n\n^ Kapeliuk 2012, pp. 738-47.\n\n^ Chyet 1997, pp. 283-300.\n\n^ \"The last of the Aramaic speakers\", Miriam Shaviv, 14 July 2013, Times of Israel\n\n^ \"Aramaic Israelis seek to revive endangered language of Jesus\". The Jerusalem Post. 9 November 2014. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Kutscher, Eduard (2007). \"Aramaic\". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 2 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. p. 342. ISBN 978-0-02-865928-2.\n\n^ C. Müller-Kessler (1 January 1997). The Christian Palestinian Aramaic Old Testament and Apocrypha Version from the Early Period. ISBN 978-90-04-66979-6.\n\n^ Christa Müller-Kessler; Michael Sokoloff. The Christian Palestinian Aramaic New Testament Version from the Early Period. STYX Publication.\n\n^ \"Classical Syriac\". rinyo.org. Retrieved 18 November 2023.\n\n^ \"Strong's Hebrew: 2091. זָהָב (zahab) - gold\". biblehub.com. Retrieved 2020-07-31.\n\n^ \"Strong's Hebrew: 1722. דְּהַב (dehab) - gold\". biblehub.com. Retrieved 2020-07-31.\n\n^ Rosenthal 2006, p. 23.\n\n^ Rosenthal 2006, pp. 42-43.\n\nSources\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2013). Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107244566.\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2014). \"Assyrians, Syrians and the Greek Language in the late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 73 (2): 299-317. doi:10.1086/677249. JSTOR 10.1086/677249. S2CID 163755644.\n\nArnold, Werner (2012). \"Western Neo-Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 685-96. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nAufrecht, Walter E. (2001). \"A Legacy of Syria: The Aramaic Language\". Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies. 36: 145-55.\n\nBae, Chul-hyun (2004). \"Aramaic as a Lingua Franca During the Persian Empire (538-333 B.C.E.)\". Journal of Universal Language. 5: 1-20. doi:10.22425/jul.2004.5.1.1.\n\nBerlin, Adele; et al., eds. (2011). \"Aramaic\". The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (Second ed.). Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press. p. 64. ISBN 9780199730049.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBlack, Matthew (1967). An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9781725272026.\n\nBowman, Raymond A. (1948). \"Arameans, Aramaic, and the Bible\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 7 (2): 65-90. doi:10.1086/370861. JSTOR 542672. S2CID 162226854.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, Françoise (2012). \"Syriac as the Language of Eastern Christianity\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 652-59. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1971). \"A Fragment of the Acta Pilati in Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 22 (1): 157-59. doi:10.1093/jts/XXII.I.157. JSTOR 23962351.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2002). Kiraz, George (ed.). \"Some Basic Annotation to The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage, I-III (Rome, 2001)\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 5 (1): 63-112. doi:10.31826/9781463214104-005. ISBN 9781463214104. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nBurnett, Stephen G. (2005). \"Christian Aramaism: The Birth and Growth of Aramaic Scholarship in the Sixteenth Century\" (PDF). Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 421-36. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.\n\nBurtea, Bogdan (2012). \"Mandaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 670-85. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nButh, Randall (2014). \"The Riddle of Jesus' Cry from the Cross: The Meaning of ηλι ηλι λαμα σαβαχθανι (Matthew 27:46) and the Literary Function of ελωι ελωι λειμα σαβαχθανι (Mark 15:34)\". In Buth, Randall; Notley, R. Steven (eds.). The Language Environment of First Century Judaea Vol. 2. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 395-421. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nButh, Randall; Pierce, Chad (2014). \"Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean 'Aramaic'?\". In Buth, Randall; Notley, R. Steven (eds.). The Language Environment of 1st Century Judea Vol. 2. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 66-109. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2019). \"The Classical Syriac Language\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 222-42.\n\nCasey, Maurice (1999). Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139425872.\n\nCasey, Maurice (2002). An Aramaic Approach to Q: Sources for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139438285.\n\nCoghill, Eleanor (2007). \"Fieldwork in Neo-Aramaic\" (PDF). Languages of Iraq: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq. pp. 115-22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-08-02. Retrieved 2021-02-08.\n\nCreason, Stuart (2008). \"Aramaic\" (PDF). The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 108-44. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-02-26. Retrieved 2017-05-16.\n\nChyet, Michael L. (1997). \"A Preliminary List of Aramaic Loanwords in Kurdish\". Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 283-300. ISBN 9781575060200.\n\nCollins, John J. (1993). \"The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, by Zdravko Stefanovic\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 112 (4): 710-12. doi:10.2307/3267414. JSTOR 3267414.\n\nDaniels, Peter T. (1996). \"Aramaic Scripts for Aramaic Languages\". The World's Writing Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 499-514. ISBN 9780195079937.\n\nFales, Frederick M. (2012). \"Old Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 555-73. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nFitzmyer, Joseph A. (1980). \"The Aramaic Language and the Study of the New Testament\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 99 (1): 5-21. doi:10.2307/3265697. JSTOR 3265697.\n\nFitzmyer, Joseph A. (1997) [1979]. A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802848468.\n\nFolmer, Margaretha (1995). The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period: A Study in Linguistic Variation. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789068317404.\n\nFolmer, Margaretha (2012). \"Imperial Aramaic as an Administrative Language of the Achaemenid Period\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 587-98. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1992). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (4): 281-85. doi:10.1086/373570. JSTOR 545826. S2CID 161323237.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1997). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 11 (2): 30-36. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-13.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1999). \"Reply to John Joseph\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 69-70. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-11.\n\nGallagher, Edmon L. (2012). Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004228023.\n\nGianto, Agustinus (2008). \"Lost and Found in the Grammar of First-Millennium Aramaic\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 11-25. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nGreen, Tamara M. (1992), The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran, BRILL, ISBN 978-90-04-09513-7.\n\nGreenfield, Jonas C. (1985). \"Aramaic in the Achaemenian Empire\". The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 698-713. ISBN 9780521200912.\n\nGreenfield, Jonas C. (1995). \"Aramaic and the Jews\". In Geller, M.C.; Greenfield, J.C.; Weizman, M.P. (eds.). Studia Aramaica: New Sources and New Approaches. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1-18. ISBN 978-0-19-922194-3.\n\nGzella, Holger (2008). \"Aramaic in the Parthian Period: The Arsacid Inscriptions\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 107-30. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nGzella, Holger (2012a). \"Imperial Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 574-86. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nGzella, Holger (2012b). \"Late Imperial Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 598-609. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nGzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004285101.\n\nGzella, Holger (2017). \"New Light on Linguistic Diversity in Pre-Achaemenid Aramaic: Wandering Arameans or Language Spread?\". Wandering Arameans: Arameans Outside Syria: Textual and Archaeological Perspectives. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 19-38.\n\nGzella, Holger (2021). Aramaic. A History of the First World Language. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 9780802877482.\n\nHäberl, Charles G. (2012). \"Neo-Mandaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 725-37. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nHamp, Douglas (2005). Discovering the Language of Jesus: Hebrew Or Aramaic?. Calvary Chapel Publishing. ISBN 9781597510172.\n\nHasel, Gerhard F. (1981). \"The Book of Daniel and Matters of Language: Evidences Relating to Names, Words, and the Aramaic Language\". Andrews University Seminary Studies. 19 (3): 211-25.\n\nHealey, John F. (1980). First Studies in Syriac. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. ISBN 9780704403901.\n\nHealey, John F. (2007). \"The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 115-27. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.\n\nHealey, John F. (2008). \"Variety in Early Syriac: The Context in Contemporary Aramaic\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 221-29. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nHealey, John F. (2012). \"Syriac\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 637-52. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nHealey, John F. (2019). \"Arameans and Aramaic in Transition - Western Influences and the Roots of Aramean Christianity\". Research on Israel and Aram: Autonomy, Independence and Related Issues. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 433-46. ISBN 9783161577192.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart, ed. (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2008). \"Old Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic: Some Reflections on Language History\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 1-10. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2012). \"Ṭuroyo and Mlaḥsô\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 697-707. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nJoosten, Jan (2008). \"The Septuagint as a Source of Information on Egyptian Aramaic in the Hellenistic Period\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 93-105. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nJoosten, Jan (2010). \"The Aramaic Background of the Seventy: Language, Culture and History\". Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. 43: 53-72.\n\nKautzsch, Emil F. (1884a). Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen: Mit einer Kritischen Erörterung der aramäischen Wörter im Neuen Testament. Leipzig: Vogel.\n\nKautzsch, Emil F. (1884b). \"The Aramaic Language\". Hebraica. 1 (1-2): 98-115. doi:10.1086/368803. JSTOR 527111.\n\nKapeliuk, Olga (2012). \"Language Contact between Aramaic Dialects and Iranian\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 738-47. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2007). \"Aramaic in the Medieval and Modern Periods\" (PDF). Languages of Iraq: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq. pp. 95-114. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-08-02. Retrieved 2021-02-08.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2012). \"North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 708-24. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nKim, Ronald (2008). \"Stammbaum or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 505-31.\n\nKitchen, Kenneth A. (1965). \"The Aramaic of Daniel\" (PDF). Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel. London: Tyndale Press. pp. 31-79. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.\n\nKöstenberger, Andreas J. (2009). \"Translating John's Gospel: Challenges and Opportunities\". In Scorgie, Glen G.; Strauss, Mark L.; Voth, Steven M. (eds.). The Challenge of Bible Translation: Communicating God's Word to the World. Zondervan. ISBN 978-0310321859.\n\nLemaire, André (2008). \"Remarks on the Aramaic of Upper Mesopotamia in the Seventh Century B.C.\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 77-92. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908598.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2001) [1997]. Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar (2nd ed.). Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908154.\n\nMacuch, Rudolf (1990). \"Recent Studies in Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 53 (2): 214-23. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00026045. S2CID 162559782.\n\nMorgenstern, Matthew (2012). \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 628-37. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999). From a Spoken to a Written Language: The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. ISBN 9789062589814.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-52. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nNaby, Eden (2004). \"From Lingua Franca to Endangered Language: The Legal Aspects of the Preservation of Aramaic in Iraq\". On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights. Bath: Foundation for Endangered Languages. pp. 197-203. ISBN 9780953824861.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1871). \"Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache\". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. 25 (1-2): 113-31. JSTOR 43366019.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1886). \"Semitic Languages\". The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 21 (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 641-56.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1904). Compendious Syriac Grammar (1st English ed.). London: Williams & Norgate.\n\nPeursen, Wido van (2008). \"Language Variation, Language Development, and the Textual History of the Peshitta\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 231-56. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nPrym, Eugen; Socin, Albert (1881). Der neu-aramaeische Dialekt des Ṭûr 'Abdîn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Verlag.\n\nRichard, Suzanne (2003). Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9781575060835.\n\nRosenthal, Franz (2006) [1961]. A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (7th expanded ed.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447052511.\n\nRubin, Milka (1998). \"The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity\". Journal of Jewish Studies. 49 (2): 306-33. doi:10.18647/2120/JJS-1998.\n\nRuzer, Serge (2014). \"Hebrew versus Aramaic as Jesus' Language: Notes on Early Opinions by Syriac Authors\". The Language Environment of First Century Judaea. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 182-205. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nSabar, Yona (2002). A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary: Dialects of Amidya, Dihok, Nerwa and Zakho, Northwestern Iraq. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447045575.\n\nJohn F. A., Sawyer (1999). Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781134801398.\n\nShepardson, Christine (2019). Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520303379.\n\nSokoloff, Michael, ed. (1983). Arameans, Aramaic and the Aramaic Literary Tradition. Tel Aviv: Bar Ilan University Press.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (1990). A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press. ISBN 9789652261014.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (2002). A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press. ISBN 9789652262608.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (2003). A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press. ISBN 9789652262615.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (2012a). \"Jewish Palestinian Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 610-19. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (2012b). \"Jewish Babylonian Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 660-70. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (2014). A dictionary of Christian Palestinian Aramaic. Leuven: Peeters.\n\nStefanovic, Zdravko (1992). The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 9780567132543.\n\nStevenson, William B. (1924). Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9781725206175. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nStreck, Michael P. (2012). \"Akkadian and Aramaic Language Contact\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 416-24. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nTal, Abraham (2012). \"Samaritan Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 619-28. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nTezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: With Special Reference to Homonyms, Related Words and Borrowings with Cultural Signification. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library. ISBN 9789155455552.\n\nTezel, Sina (2015). \"Arabic or Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo\". Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized: A Festschrift for Jan Retsö. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 554-68.\n\nTezel, Sina (2015). \"Neologisms in Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo\". Neo-Aramaic in Its Linguistic Context. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 100-09.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2002). \"Bilingualism and Diglossia in Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia\". Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 298-331. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nWaltisberg, Michael (2016). Syntax des Ṭuroyo. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447107310.\n\nWevers, John W. (2001). \"Aram and Aramaean in the Septuagint\". The World of the Aramaeans. Vol. 1. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. pp. 237-51. ISBN 9781841271583.\n\nWeninger, Stefan (2012). \"Aramaic-Arabic Language Contact\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 747-55. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nYitzhak, Frank (2003). Grammar for Gemara and Targum Onkelos: An Introduction to Aramaic. Jerusalem: Ariel. ISBN 9781583306062.\n\nYounger, Kenneth Lawson (2016). A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 9781628370843.\n\nExternal links\n\nAncient Aramaic Audio Files: Contains audio recordings of scripture.\n\nThe Aramaic Language and Its Classification - Efrem Yildiz, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies Archived 2008-09-09 at the Wayback Machine\n\nComprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (including editions of Targums) at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati\n\nDictionary of Judeo-Aramaic\n\nJewish Language Research Website: Jewish Aramaic Archived 2008-05-11 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 17765}, {"slug": "reference-akkadian-language", "title": "Akkadian language", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Akkadian (/əˈkeɪdiən/ ə-KAY-dee-ən; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝), romanized: Akkadû(m))[7][8][9][10] is an East Semitic language that is attested in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Babylonia) from the mid-third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Mesopotamians by the 8th century BC.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Akkadian\n\nBabylonian, Assyrian\n\n𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝)\nAkkadû(m)\n\nThe Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nErac. 2600-500 BC; academic or liturgical use until AD 100[1]\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nEast\nAkkadian\n\nDialects\n\nOld Akkadian[2][3]\n\nAssyrian\n\nBabylonian[4]\n\nCanaano-Akkadian[5][6]\n\nWriting systemSumero-Akkadian cuneiform\n\nOfficial status\n\nOfficial language inInitially Akkad (central Mesopotamia); lingua franca of the Middle East and Egypt in the late Bronze and early Iron Ages\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-2akk\n\nISO 639-3akk\n\nGlottologakka1240\n\nAkkadian (/əˈkeɪdiən/ ə-KAY-dee-ən; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝), romanized: Akkadû(m))[7][8][9][10] is an East Semitic language that is attested in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Babylonia) from the mid-third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Mesopotamians by the 8th century BC.\n\nAkkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language,[11] is named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script, originally used for Sumerian, but also used to write multiple languages in the region including Eblaite, Hurrian, Elamite, Old Persian and Hittite. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just the cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity, a lengthy span of contact and the prestige held by the former, Sumerian significantly influenced Akkadian phonology, vocabulary and syntax.[12] This mutual influence of Akkadian and Sumerian has also led scholars to describe the languages as a sprachbund.[13]\n\nAkkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in the mid-3rd millennium BC, and inscriptions ostensibly written in Sumerian but whose character order reveals that they were intended to be read in East Semitic (presumably early Akkadian) date back to as early as c. 2600 BC.[14] From about the 24th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the 20th century BC, two variant forms of the same language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively.[15] The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age. In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering a vast textual tradition of religious and mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, personal correspondence, political, civil and military events, economic tracts and many other examples.\n\nCenturies after the fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires (Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonia, Middle Assyrian Empire) throughout the later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c. 1150 BC. However, its decline began in the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, by about the 8th century BC (Tiglath-Pileser III), in favour of Old Aramaic. By the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD.[16]\nMandaic and Suret are two (Northwest Semitic) Neo-Aramaic languages that retain some Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features.[17]\n\nAkkadian is a fusional language with grammatical case. Like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots. The Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, include Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language.[18][19]\n\nClassification\n\nSumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary\n(c. 2200 BC)Left: Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary, used by early Akkadian rulers.[20] Right: Seal of Akkadian Empire ruler Naram-Sin (reversed for readability), c. 2250 BC. The name of Naram-Sin (Old Akkadian: 𒀭𒈾𒊏𒄠𒀭𒂗𒍪, romanized: DNa-ra-am DSîn, Sîn being written Old Akkadian: 𒂗𒍪, romanized: EN.ZU), appears vertically in the right column.[21] British Museum.\n\nAkkadian is a Semitic language of the East Semitic branch. Its relatives in the East Semitic branch include Eblaite. This group differs from the Northwest Semitic languages (such as Aramaic) and South Semitic languages (such as Geʽez) in its subject-object-verb word order, while the other Semitic languages usually have either a verb-subject-object or subject-verb-object order.\n\nIn contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative: ḫ [x]. Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages. Until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated.[8]\n\nAdditionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana (locative case, English in/on/with, and dative-locative case, for/to, respectively). Other Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə (locative and dative, respectively). The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown.\n\nThe Semitic languages are further grouped by most linguists into the Afroasiatic macrofamily of languages, meaning that Akkadian is distantly related to Ancient Egyptian, as well as many other languages spoken historically and currently across northern and western Africa and West Asia.\n\nHistory and writing\n\nWriting\n\nOld Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c. 2500 BC. It was written using cuneiform, a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the adapted cuneiform script could represent either (a) Sumerian logograms (i.e., picture-based characters representing entire words), (b) Sumerian syllables, (c) Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements. In Akkadian the script practically became a fully fledged syllabic script, and the original logographic nature of cuneiform became secondary, though logograms for frequent words such as 'god' and 'temple' continued to be used. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum ('god') and on the other signify the god Anu or even the syllable -an-. Additionally, this sign was used as a determinative for divine names.\n\nAnother peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a well defined phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ, do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities. Nor is there any coordination in the other direction; the syllable -ša-, for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA, but also by the sign NĪĜ. Both of these are often used for the same syllable in the same text.\n\nCuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among its flaws was its inability to represent important phonemes in Semitic, including a glottal stop, pharyngeals, and emphatic consonants. In addition, cuneiform was a syllabary writing system-i.e., a consonant plus vowel comprised one writing unit-frequently inappropriate for a Semitic language made up of triconsonantal roots (i.e., three consonants plus any vowels).\n\nDevelopment\n\nAkkadian is divided into several varieties based on geography and historical period:[22]\n\nOld Akkadian, 2500-1950 BC\n\nOld Babylonian and Old Assyrian, 1950-1530 BC\n\nMiddle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian, 1530-1000 BC\n\nNeo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian, 1000-600 BC\n\nLate Babylonian, 600 BC - 100 AD\n\nOne of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was found on a bowl at Ur, addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur (c. 2485-2450 BC) by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been from Akkad.[23] The Akkadian Empire, established by Sargon of Akkad, introduced the Akkadian language (the \"language of Akkad\") as a written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform orthography for the purpose. During the Middle Bronze Age (Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian period), the language virtually displaced Sumerian, which is assumed to have been extinct as a living language by the 18th century BC.\n\nOld Akkadian, which was used until the end of the 3rd millennium BC, differed from both Babylonian and Assyrian, and was displaced by these dialects. By the 21st century BC Babylonian and Assyrian, which were to become the primary dialects, were easily distinguishable. Old Babylonian, along with the closely related dialect Mariotic, is clearly more innovative than the Old Assyrian dialect and the more distantly related Eblaite language. For this reason, forms like lu-prus ('I will decide') were first encountered in Old Babylonian instead of the older la-prus.[24]\n\nWhile generally more archaic, Assyrian developed certain innovations as well, such as the \"Assyrian vowel harmony\". Eblaite was even more so, retaining a productive dual and a relative pronoun declined in case, number and gender. Both of these had already disappeared in Old Akkadian. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets in Old Assyrian have been recovered from the Kültepe site in Anatolia.\nMost of the archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use both of cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence.[24]\n\nOld Babylonian was the language of king Hammurabi and his code, which is one of the oldest collections of laws in the world. (see Code of Ur-Nammu.) Old Assyrian developed as well during the second millennium BC, but because it was a purely popular language-kings wrote in Babylonian-few long texts are preserved. It was, however, notably used in the correspondence of Assyrian traders in Anatolia in the 20th-18th centuries BC and that even led to its temporary adoption as a diplomatic language by various local Anatolian polities during that time.[25]\n\nThe Middle Babylonian period started in the 16th century BC. The division is marked by the Kassite invasion of Babylonia around 1550 BC. The Kassites, who reigned for 300 years, gave up their own language in favor of Akkadian, but they had little influence on the language. At its apogee, Middle Babylonian was the written language of diplomacy of the entire Ancient Near East, including Egypt (Amarna Period).[26] During this period, a large number of loan words were included in the language from Northwest Semitic languages and Hurrian. However, the use of these words was confined to the fringes of the Akkadian-speaking territory.\n\nFrom 1500 BC onwards, the Assyrian language is termed Middle Assyrian. It was the language of the Middle Assyrian Empire. However, the Babylonian cultural influence was strong and the Assyrians wrote royal inscriptions, religious and most scholarly texts in Middle Babylonian, whereas Middle Assyrian was used mostly in letters and administrative documents.[27]\n\nDuring the first millennium BC, Akkadian progressively lost its status as a lingua franca. In the beginning, from around 1000 BC, Akkadian and Aramaic were of equal status, as can be seen in the number of copied texts: clay tablets were written in Akkadian, while scribes writing on papyrus and leather used Aramaic. From this period on, one speaks of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian.\n\nNeo-Assyrian experienced an upswing in popularity in the 10th century BC when the Assyrian kingdom became a major power with the Neo-Assyrian Empire. During the existence of that empire, however, Neo-Assyrian began to turn into a chancellery language, being marginalized by Old Aramaic. The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as a lingua franca[28] of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian. Texts written 'exclusively' in Neo-Assyrian disappear within 10 years of Nineveh's destruction in 612 BC. Under the Achaemenids, Aramaic continued to prosper, but Assyrian continued its decline. The language's final demise came about during the Hellenistic period when it was further marginalized by Koine Greek, even though Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times.\n\nNeo-Assyrian was used in some surviving tablets containing poetry and also more prominently in surviving letters of royal correspondence.[29] Because of the multilingual nature of the empire, many loan words are attested as entering the Assyrian language during the Neo-Assyrian period.[30] The number of surviving documents written in cuneiform grew considerably fewer in the late reign of Ashurbanipal, which suggests that the language was declining since it is probably attributable to an increased use of Aramaic, often written on perishable materials like leather scrolls or papyrus.[31] The Neo-Assyrian Akkadian language did not disappear completely until around the end of the 6th century BC however, well into the subsequent post-imperial period.[32]\n\nSimilarly, the Persian conquest of the Mesopotamian kingdoms contributed to the decline of Babylonian, from that point on known as Late Babylonian, as a popular language. However, the language was still used in its written form. Even after the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Akkadian was still a contender as a written language, but spoken Akkadian was likely extinct by this time, or at least rarely used. The last positively identified Akkadian text comes from the 1st century AD.[33] The latest known text in cuneiform Babylonian is an astronomical almanac dated to 79/80 AD.[34] However, the latest cuneiform texts are almost entirely written in Sumerian logograms.[35] Iamblichus, a 2nd century Syrian novelist, may have been one of the last known people to know Babylonian.\n\nDecipherment\n\nEdward HincksSir Henry Rawlinson\n\nThe Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals, in particular Old Persian-Akkadian bilinguals, were of great help. Since the texts contained several royal names, isolated signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend. By this time it was already evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final breakthrough in deciphering the language came from Edward Hincks, Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the middle of the 19th century.\n\nIn the early 21st century it was shown that automatic high-quality translation of Akkadian can be achieved using natural language processing methods such as convolutional neural networks.[36]\n\nDialects\n\nThe following table summarises the dialects of Akkadian identified with certainty so far.\n\nKnown Akkadian dialects\n\nDialect\nLocation\n\nAssyrian\nNorthern Mesopotamia\n\nBabylonian\nCentral and Southern Mesopotamia\n\nMariotic\nCentral Euphrates (in and around the city of Mari)\n\nNuzi\nNorthern Tigris (in and around the city of Nuzi)[37]\n\nTell Beydar\nNorthern Syria (in and around Tell Beydar)\n\nSome researchers (such as W. Sommerfeld 2003) believe that the Old Akkadian variant used in the older texts is not an ancestor of the later Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, but rather a separate dialect that was replaced by these two dialects and which died out early.\n\nEblaite, formerly thought of as yet another Akkadian dialect, is now generally considered a separate East Semitic language.\n\nPhonology\n\nBecause Akkadian as a spoken language is extinct and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some conclusions can be made, however, due to the relationship to the other Semitic languages and variant spellings of Akkadian words.\n\nConsonants\n\nThe following table presents the consonants of the Akkadian language, as distinguished in Akkadian cuneiform. The reconstructed phonetic value[8] of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, alongside its standard (DMG-Umschrift) transliteration in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩.\n\nAkkadian consonants\n\nLabial\n\nAlveolar\n\nPalatal\n\nDorsal\n\nGlottal\n\nNasal\n\nm ⟨m⟩\n\nn ⟨n⟩\n\nStop/\nAffricate\n\nvoiceless\n\np ⟨p⟩[a]\n\nt ⟨t⟩[a]\n\nt͡s ⟨s⟩\n\nk ⟨k⟩[a]\n\nʔ ⟨ʾ⟩\n\nemphatic\n\nt’ ⟨ṭ⟩\n\nt͡s’ ⟨ṣ⟩\n\nk’ ⟨q⟩[b]\n\nvoiced\n\nb ⟨b⟩\n\nd ⟨d⟩\n\nd͡z ⟨z⟩\n\nɡ ⟨g⟩\n\nFricative\n\nvoiceless\n\ns ⟨š⟩[c]\n\nʃ ⟨š⟩[c]\n\nx ⟨ḫ⟩[d]\n\nvoiced\n\nʁ ⟨r⟩[e]\n\nApproximant\n\nr ⟨r⟩[e]\n\nl ⟨l⟩\n\nj ⟨y⟩[f]\n\nw ⟨w⟩\n\n^ a b c Borrowings from and to Sumerian have been interpreted as indicating that Akkadian voiceless non-emphatic stops were originally unaspirated /p/, /t/, and /k/, but became aspirated /pʰ/, /tʰ/ and /kʰ/ around 2000 BCE.[38][39]\n\n^ Alternatively transcribed as ⟨ḳ⟩.\n\n^ a b ⟨š⟩ represented the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ in the Assyrian dialect and a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ in the Babylonian dialect. Alternatively transcribed as ⟨s̱⟩.\n\n^ Alternatively transcribed as ⟨x⟩, ⟨ġ⟩, or simply ⟨h⟩.\n\n^ a b Akkadian ⟨r⟩ is usually interpreted as an alveolar [r], but some authors reconstruct it as a guttural [ʁ] .\n\n^ Alternatively transcribed as ⟨j⟩.\n\nReconstruction\n\nAkkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as ejectives, which are thought to be the oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages.[42] One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as Geers's law, where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally ⟨š⟩ has been held to be postalveolar /ʃ/, and ⟨s⟩, ⟨z⟩, ⟨ṣ⟩ analyzed as fricatives; but attested assimilations in Akkadian suggest otherwise.[8][43] For example, when the possessive suffix -šu is added to the root awat ('word'), it is written awassu ('his word') even though šš would be expected.\n\nThe most straightforward interpretation of this shift from tš to ss, is that ⟨s, ṣ⟩ form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates /t͡s/ /t͡sʼ/, ⟨š⟩ is a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/, and ⟨z⟩ is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative /d͡z/~/z/. The assimilation is then [awat+su] > /awatt͡su/. In this vein, an alternative transcription of ⟨š⟩ is ⟨s̱⟩, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible. /ʃ/ could have been assimilated to the preceding /t/, yielding /ts/, which would later have been simplified to /ss/.\n\nThe rhotic ⟨r⟩ has traditionally been interpreted as a voiced alveolar trill /r/ but its pattern of alternation with ⟨ḫ⟩ suggests it was a fricative (either uvular /ʁ/ or velar /ɣ/). In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian ⟨r⟩ was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar sound (though Greeks may also have perceived a uvular trill as ρ).[8]\n\nDescent from Proto-Semitic\n\nSeveral Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop *ʔ, as well as the fricatives *ʕ, *h, *ḥ are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. The voiceless lateral fricatives (*ś, *ṣ́) merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite, leaving 19 consonantal phonemes. Old Akkadian preserved the /*ś/ phoneme longest but it eventually merged with /*š/, beginning in the Old Babylonian period.[8][44] The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Akkadian, Modern Standard Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nAkkadian\n\nArabic\n\nAramaic\n\nHebrew\n\n*b\n\nb\n\nب\nb\n\n𐡁\n\nb/ḇ\n\nב\nb/ḇ\n\n*d\n\nd\n\nد\nd\n\n𐡃\n\nd/ḏ\n\nד\nd/ḏ\n\n*g\n\ng\n\nج\nǧ\n\n𐡂\n\ng/ḡ\n\nג\ng/ḡ\n\n*p\n\np\n\nف\nf\n\n𐡐\n\np/p̄\n\nפ\np/p̄\n\n*t\n\nt\n\nت\nt\n\n𐡕\n\nt/ṯ\n\nת\nt/ṯ\n\n*k\n\nk\n\nك\nk\n\n𐡊\n\nk/ḵ\n\nכ\nk/ḵ\n\n*ʔ\n\n(∅)/ ʾ\n\nء\nʾ\n\n𐡀\n\nʾ\n\nא\nʾ\n\n*ṭ\n\nṭ\n\nط\nṭ\n\n𐡈\n\nṭ\n\nט\nṭ\n\n*ḳ\n\nq\n\nق\nq\n\n𐡒\n\nq\n\nק\nq\n\n*ḏ\n\nz\n\nذ\nḏ\n\n𐡆 ,𐡃\n\nḏ, d/ḏ\n\nז\nz\n\n*z\n\nز\nz\n\n𐡆\n\nz\n\n*ṯ\n\nš\n\nث\nṯ\n\n𐡔 ,𐡕\n\nṯ, t/ṯ\n\nשׁ\nš\n\n*š\n\nس\ns\n\n𐡔\n\nš\n\n*ś\n\nش\nš\n\n𐡔 ,𐡎\n\nś, s\n\nשׂ\n\nś\n\n*s\n\ns\n\nس\ns\n\n𐡎\n\ns\n\nס\n\ns\n\n*ṱ\n\nṣ\n\nظ\nẓ\n\n𐡑 ,𐡈\n\nṯ̣, ṭ\n\nצ\nṣ\n\n*ṣ\n\nص\nṣ\n\n𐡑\n\nṣ\n\n*ṣ́\n\nض\nḍ\n\n𐡒 ,𐡏\n\nṣ́, ʿ\n\n*ġ\n\nḫ\n\nغ\nġ\n\n𐡏\n\nġ, ʿ\n\nע\nʿ\n\n*ʕ\n\nḫ / (e)[t2 1]\n\nع\nʿ\n\nʿ\n\n*ḫ\n\nḫ\n\nخ\nḫ\n\n𐡇\n\nḫ, ḥ\n\nח\nḥ\n\n*ḥ\n\n(e)[t2 1]\n\nح\nḥ\n\nḥ\n\n*h\n\n(∅)\n\nه\nh\n\n𐡄\n\nh\n\nה\nh\n\n*m\n\nm\n\nم\nm\n\n𐡌\n\nm\n\nמ\nm\n\n*n\n\nn\n\nن\nn\n\n𐡍\n\nn\n\nנ\nn\n\n*r\n\nr\n\nر\nr\n\n𐡓\n\nr\n\nר\nr\n\n*l\n\nl\n\nل\nl\n\n𐡋\n\nl\n\nל\nl\n\n*w\n\nw\n\nو\nw\n\n𐡅\n\nw\n\nו\nw\n\n*y\n\ny\n\nي\ny\n\n𐡉\n\ny\n\nי\ny\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nAkkadian\n\nArabic\n\nAramaic\n\nHebrew\n\n^ a b These are only distinguished from the ∅ (zero) reflexes of /h/ and /ʔ/ by /e/-coloring the adjacent vowel *a, e.g. PS *ˈbaʕ(a)l-um ('owner, lord') → Akk. bēlu(m) (Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 35).\n\nVowels\n\nAkkadian vowels\n\nFront\nCentral\nBack\n\nClose\n\ni\n\nu\n\nMid\n\ne\n\nOpen\n\na\n\nThe existence of a back mid-vowel /o/ has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this.[45] There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect the superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian.[46]\n\nAll consonants and vowels appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are transliterated as double consonants, and inconsistently written as such in cuneiform. Long vowels are transliterated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û), the latter being used for long vowels arising from the contraction of vowels in hiatus. The distinction between long and short is phonemic, and is used in the grammar; for example, iprusu ('that he decided') versus iprusū ('they decided').\n\nStress\n\nThere is broad agreement among most Assyriologists about Akkadian stress patterns.[47] The rules of Akkadian stress were originally reconstructed by means of a comparison with other Semitic languages, and the resulting picture was gradually amended using internal linguistic evidence from Akkadian sources, especially deriving from so-called plene spellings (spellings with an extra vowel).[47]\n\nAccording to this widely accepted system, the place of stress in Akkadian is completely predictable and sensitive to syllable weight. There are three syllable weights: light (ending in -V); heavy (ending in -V̄ or -VC), and superheavy (ending in -V̂, -V̄C or -V̂C). If the last syllable is superheavy, it is stressed, otherwise the rightmost heavy non-final syllable is stressed. If a word contains only light syllables, the first syllable is stressed.[48][47] It has also been argued that monosyllabic words generally are not stressed but rather function as clitics.[47] The special behaviour of /V̂/ syllables is explained by their functioning, in accordance with their historical origin, as sequences of two syllables, of which the first one bears stress.[47]\n\nA rule of Akkadian phonology is that certain short (and probably unstressed) vowels are dropped. The rule is that the last vowel of a succession of syllables that end in a short vowel is dropped, for example the declinational root of the verbal adjective of a root PRS is paris-. Thus the masculine singular nominative is parsum (< *paris-um) but the feminine singular nominative is paristum (< *paris-at-um). Additionally there is a general tendency of syncope of short vowels in the later stages of Akkadian.\n\nGrammar\n\nMorphology\n\nConsonantal root\n\nMost roots of the Akkadian language consist of three consonants, called the radicals, but some roots are composed of four consonants, so-called quadriradicals. The radicals are occasionally represented in transcription in upper-case letters, for example PRS (to decide). Between and around these radicals various infixes, suffixes and prefixes, having word generating or grammatical functions, are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates the original meaning of the root. The middle radical can be geminated, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription, and sometimes in the cuneiform writing itself.\n\nThe consonants ʔ, w, j and n are termed \"weak radicals\" and roots containing these radicals give rise to irregular forms.\n\nCase, number and gender\n\nFormally, Akkadian has three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and three cases (nominative, accusative and genitive). However, even in the earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs (eyes, ears, etc.). Adjectives are never found in the dual. In the dual and plural, the accusative and genitive are merged into a single oblique case.\n\nAkkadian, unlike Arabic, has only \"sound\" plurals formed by means of a plural ending. Broken plurals are not formed by changing the word stem. As in all Semitic languages, some masculine nouns take the prototypically feminine plural ending (-āt).\n\nThe nouns šarrum (king) and šarratum (queen) and the adjective dannum (strong) will serve to illustrate the case system of Akkadian.\n\nNoun and adjective paradigms\n\nNoun\n\nAdjective\n\nNumber / Case\n\nmasc.\nfem.\n\nmasc.\nfem.\n\nSingular\n\nNominative\n\nšarr-um\nšarr-at-um\ndann-um\ndann-at-um\n\nGenitive\n\nšarr-im\nšarr-at-im\ndann-im\ndann-at-im\n\nAccusative\n\nšarr-am\nšarr-at-am\ndann-am\ndann-at-am\n\nDual\n\nNominative\n\nšarr-ān\nšarr-at-ān\n\nOblique[t3 1]\n\nšarr-īn\nšarr-at-īn\n\nPlural\n\nNominative\n\nšarr-ū\nšarr-āt-um\ndann-ūt-um\ndann-āt-um\n\nOblique\n\nšarr-ī\nšarr-āt-im\ndann-ūt-im\ndann-āt-im\n\n^ The oblique case includes the accusative and genitive.\n\nAs is clear from the above table, the adjective and noun endings differ only in the masculine plural. Certain nouns, primarily those referring to geography, can also form a locative ending in -um in the singular and the resulting forms serve as adverbials. These forms are generally not productive, but in the Neo-Babylonian the um-locative replaces several constructions with the preposition ina.\n\nIn the later stages of Akkadian, the mimation (word-final -m) and nunation (dual final -n) that occurred at the end of most case endings disappeared, except in the locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapsed to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels were dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However, many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings, although often sporadically and incorrectly. As the most important contact language throughout this period was Aramaic, which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon.\n\nNoun states and nominal sentences\n\nCylinder of Antiochus IThe Antiochus cylinder, written by Antiochus I Soter, as great king of kings of Babylon, restorer of gods E-sagila and E-zida, c. 250 BC. Written in traditional Akkadian.[49][50][51][52]Antiochus I Soter with titles in Akkadian on the cylinder of Antiochus:\n\"Antiochus, King, Great King, King of multitudes, King of Babylon, King of countries\"\n\nAs is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of \"states\" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. The basic form of the noun is the status rectus (the governed state), which is the form as described above, complete with case endings. In addition to this, Akkadian has the status absolutus (the absolute state) and the status constructus (construct state). The latter is found in all other Semitic languages, while the former appears only in Akkadian and some dialects of Aramaic.\n\nThe status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending (e.g. awīl < awīlum, šar < šarrum). It is relatively uncommon, and is used chiefly to mark the predicate of a nominal sentence, in fixed adverbial expressions, and in expressions relating to measurements of length, weight, and the like.\n\n(1)\nAwīl-um\n\nman.NOM\n\nšū\n\n3SG.MASC\n\nšarrāq\n\nthief.ABSOLUTUS\n\nAwīl-um šū šarrāq\n\nman.NOM 3SG.MASC thief.ABSOLUTUS\n\nThis man is a thief\n\n(2)\nšarrum\n\nking.NOM.RECTUS\n\nlā\n\nNEG\n\nšanān\n\noppose.INF.ABSOLUTUS\n\nšarrum lā šanān\n\nking.NOM.RECTUS NEG oppose.INF.ABSOLUTUS\n\nThe king who cannot be rivaled\n\nThe status constructus is more common by far, and has a much wider range of applications. It is employed when a noun is followed by another noun in the genitive, a pronominal suffix, or a verbal clause in the subjunctive, and typically takes the shortest form of the noun which is phonetically possible. In general, this amounts to the loss of case endings with short vowels, with the exception of the genitive -i in nouns preceding a pronominal suffix, hence:\n\n(3)\nmāri-šu\n\nson.CONSTRUCTUS-3SG.POSS\n\nmāri-šu\n\nson.CONSTRUCTUS-3SG.POSS\n\nHis son, its (masculine) son\n\nbut\n\n(4)\nmār\n\nson.CONSTRUCTUS\n\nšarr-im\n\nking.GEN.SG\n\nmār šarr-im\n\nson.CONSTRUCTUS king.GEN.SG\n\nThe king's son\n\nThere are numerous exceptions to this general rule, usually involving potential violations of the language's phonological limitations. Most obviously, Akkadian does not tolerate word-final consonant clusters, so nouns like kalbum (dog) and maḫrum (front) would have illegal construct state forms *kalb and *maḫr unless modified. In many of these instances, the first vowel of the word is simply repeated (e.g. kalab, maḫar). This rule, however, does not always hold true, especially in nouns where a short vowel has historically been elided (e.g. šaknum < *šakinum \"governor\"). In these cases, the lost vowel is restored in the construct state (so šaknum yields šakin).\n\n(5)\nkalab\n\ndog.CONSTRUCTUS\n\nbelim\n\nmaster.GEN.SG\n\nkalab belim\n\ndog.CONSTRUCTUS master.GEN.SG\n\nThe master's dog\n\n(6)\nšakin\n\ngovernor.CONSTRUCTUS\n\nālim\n\ncity.GEN.SG\n\nšakin ālim\n\ngovernor.CONSTRUCTUS city.GEN.SG\n\nThe city's governor\n\nA genitive relation can also be expressed with the relative preposition ša, and the noun that the genitive phrase depends on appears in status rectus.\n\n(7)\nsalīmātum\n\nAlliances.NOM.RECTUS\n\nša\n\nwhich\n\nawīl\n\nman.CONSTRUCTUS\n\nEšnunna\n\nEšnunna.GEN\n\nsalīmātum ša awīl Ešnunna\n\nAlliances.NOM.RECTUS which man.CONSTRUCTUS Ešnunna.GEN\n\nThe alliances of the Ruler of Ešnunna (lit. \"Alliances which man of Ešnunna (has)\")\n\nThe same preposition is also used to introduce true relative clauses, in which case the verb is placed in the subjunctive mood.\n\n(7)\nawīl-um\n\nman.NOM\n\nša\n\nthat\n\nmāt-am\n\nland.SG.ACC\n\ni-kšud-∅-u\n\n3-conquer.PRET-SG.MASC-SJV\n\nawīl-um ša māt-am i-kšud-∅-u\n\nman.NOM that land.SG.ACC 3-conquer.PRET-SG.MASC-SJV\n\nThe man who conquered the land.\n\nVerbal morphology\n\nVerb aspects\n\nThe Akkadian verb has six finite verb aspects (preterite, perfect, present, imperative, precative, and vetitive (the negative form of precative)) and three infinite forms (infinitive, participle and verbal adjective). The preterite is used for actions that are seen by the speaker as having occurred at a single point in time. The present is primarily imperfective in meaning and is used for concurrent and future actions as well as past actions with a temporal dimension. The final three finite forms are injunctive where the imperative and the precative together form a paradigm for positive commands and wishes, and the vetitive is used for negative wishes. The periphrastic prohibitive, formed by the present form of the verb and the negative adverb lā, is used to express negative commands.\n\nThe infinitive of the Akkadian verb is a verbal noun, and in contrast to some other languages the Akkadian infinitive can be declined in case. The verbal adjective is an adjectival form and designates the state or the result of the action of the verb, and consequently the exact meaning of the verbal adjective is determined by the semantics of the verb itself. The participle, which can be active or passive, is another verbal adjective and its meaning is similar to the English gerund.\n\nThe following table shows the conjugation of the G-stem verbs derived from the root PRS (\"to decide\") in the various verb aspects of Akkadian:\n\nPreterite\n\nPerfect\n\nPresent\n\nImperative\n\nStative\n\nInfinitive\n\nParticiple (active)\n\nVerbal adjective\n\n1st\nperson\n\nsingular\n\naprus\naptaras\naparras\n\nparsāku\nparāsum\npārisum (m.) /\n pāristum (f.)\nparsum (m.) /\n paristum (f.)\n\nplural\n\nniprus\nniptaras\nniparras\nparsānu\n\n2nd\nperson\n\nsingular\n\nmasc.\n\ntaprus\ntaptaras\ntaparras\npurus\nparsāta\n\nfem.\n\ntaprusī\ntaptarsī (< *taptarasī)\ntaparrasī\npursi\nparsāti\n\nplural\n\ntaprusā\ntaptarsā\ntaparrasā\npursa\nparsātunu (m.) /\n parsātina (f.)\n\n3rd\nperson\n\nsingular\n\niprus\niptaras\niparras\n\nparis (m.) /\n parsat (f.)\n\nplural\n\nmasc.\n\niprusū\niptarsū (< *iptarasū)\niparrasū\nparsū\n\nfem.\n\niprusā\niptarsā (< *iptarasā)\niparrasā\nparsā\n\nThe table below shows the different affixes attached to the preterite aspect of the verb root PRS \"to decide\"; and as can be seen, the grammatical genders differ only in the second person singular and third person plural.\n\nG-stem\n\nD-stem\n\nŠ-stem\n\nN-stem\n\n1st\nperson\n\nsingular\n\na-prus\nu-parris\nu-šapris\na-pparis\n\nplural\n\nni-prus\nnu-parris\nnu-šapris\nni-pparis\n\n2nd\nperson\n\nsingular\n\nmasc.\n\nta-prus\ntu-parris\ntu-šapris\nta-pparis\n\nsingular\n\nfem.\n\nta-prus-ī\ntu-parris-ī\ntu-šapris-ī\nta-ppars-ī\n\nplural\n\nta-prus-ā\ntu-parris-ā\ntu-šapris-ā\nta-ppars-ā\n\n3rd\nperson\n\nsingular\n\ni-prus\nu-parris\nu-šapris\ni-pparis\n\nplural\n\nmasc.\n\ni-prus-ū\nu-parris-ū\nu-šapris-ū\ni-ppars-ū\n\nplural\n\nfem.\n\ni-prus-ā\nu-parris-ā\nu-šapris-ā\ni-ppars-ā\n\nVerb moods\n\nAkkadian verbs have three moods:\n\nIndicative, used in independent clauses, is unmarked.\n\nSubjunctive, used in dependent clauses, is marked in forms which do not end in a vowel by the suffix -u (compare Arabic and Ugaritic subjunctives) but is otherwise unmarked. In the later stages of most dialects, the subjunctive is indistinct, as short final vowels were mostly lost.\n\nVenitive or allative, not a mood in the strictest sense, being a development of the first-person dative pronominal suffix -am/-m/-nim. With verbs of motion, it often indicates motion toward an object or person (e.g., illik, \"he went\" vs. illikam, \"he came\"). However, this pattern is not consistent, even in earlier stages of the language, and its use often appears to serve a stylistic rather than morphological or lexical function.\n\nThe following table demonstrates the verb moods of verbs derived from the root PRS (\"to decide\", \"to separate\"):\n\nPreterite[t4 1]\n\nStative[t4 1]\n\nIndicative\n\niprus\nparis\n\nSubjunctive\n\niprusu\nparsu\n\nVenitive\n\niprusam\nparsam\n\n^ a b Both verbs are for the 3rd person masculine singular.\n\nVerb patterns\n\nAkkadian verbs have thirteen separate derived stems formed on each root. The basic, underived, stem is the G-stem (from the German Grundstamm, meaning \"basic stem\"). Causative or intensive forms are formed with the doubled D-stem, and it gets its name from the doubled-middle radical that is characteristic of this form. The doubled middle radical is also characteristic of the present. The forms of the D-stem use the secondary conjugational affixes, so a D-form will never be identical to a form in a different stem. The Š-stem is formed by adding a prefix š-, and these forms are mostly causatives. The passive forms of the verb are in the N-stem, formed by adding a n- prefix. The n- element is assimilated to a following consonant, so the original /n/ is only visible in a few forms.\n\nReflexive and iterative verbal stems can be derived from each of the basic stems. The reflexive stem is formed with an infix -ta, and the derived stems are therefore called Gt, Dt, Št and Nt, and the preterite forms of the Xt-stem are identical to the perfects of the X-stem. Iteratives are formed with the infix -tan-, giving the Gtn, Dtn, Štn and Ntn. Because of the assimilation of n, the /n/ is only seen in the present forms, and the Xtn preterite is identical to the Xt durative.\n\nThe final stem is the ŠD-stem, a form mostly attested only in poetic texts, and whose meaning is usually identical to either the Š-stem or the D-stem of the same verb. It is formed with the Š prefix (like the Š-stem) in addition to a doubled-middle radical (like the D-stem).\n\nAn alternative to this naming system is a numerical system. The basic stems are numbered using Roman numerals so that G, D, Š and N become I, II, III and IV, respectively. The infixes are numbered using Arabic numerals; 1 for the forms without an infix, 2 for the Xt, and 3 for the Xtn. The two numbers are separated using a solidus. As an example, the Štn-stem is called III/3. The most important user of this system is the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.\n\nThere is mandatory congruence between the subject of the sentence and the verb. This is expressed by prefixes and suffixes. There are two different sets of affixes, a primary set used for the forms of the G and N-stems, and a secondary set for the D and Š-stems.\n\nThe stems, their nomenclature and examples of the third-person masculine singular stative of the verb parāsum (root PRS: 'to decide, distinguish, separate') is shown below:\n\n#\nStem\nVerb\nDescription\nCorrespondence\n\nI.1\nG\nPaRiS\nthe simple stem, used for transitive and intransitive verbs\nArabic stem I (fa'ala) and Hebrew pa'al\n\nII.1\nD\nPuRRuS\ngemination of the second radical, indicating the intensive\nArabic stem II (faʿʿala) and Hebrew pi'el\n\nIII.1\nŠ\nšuPRuS\nš-preformative, indicating the causative\nArabic stem IV ('afʿala) and Hebrew hiph'il\n\nIV.1\nN\nnaPRuS\nn-preformative, indicating the reflexive/passive\nArabic stem VII (infaʿala) and Hebrew niph'al\n\nI.2\nGt\nPitRuS\nsimple stem with t-infix after first radical, indicating reciprocal or reflexive\nArabic stem VIII (iftaʿala) and Aramaic 'ithpe'al (tG)\n\nII.2\nDt\nPutaRRuS\ndoubled second radical preceded by infixed t, indicating intensive reflexive\nArabic stem V (tafaʿʿala) and Hebrew hithpa'el (tD)\n\nIII.2\nŠt\nšutaPRuS\nš-preformative with t-infix, indicating reflexive causative\nArabic stem X (istafʿala) and Aramaic 'ittaph'al (tC)\n\nIV.2\nNt\nitaPRuS\nn-preformative with a t-infix preceding the first radical, indicating reflexive passive\n\nI.3\nGtn\nPitaRRuS\n\nII.3\nDtn\nPutaRRuS\ndoubled second radical preceded by tan-infix\n\nIII.3\nŠtn\nšutaPRuS\nš-preformative with tan-infix\n\nIV.3\nNtn\nitaPRuS\nn-preformative with tan-infix\n\nŠD\nšuPuRRuS\nš-preformative with doubled second radical\n\nStative\n\nA very often appearing form which can be formed by nouns, adjectives as well as by verbal adjectives is the stative. Nominal predicatives occur in the status absolutus and correspond to the verb \"to be\" in English. The stative in Akkadian corresponds to the Egyptian pseudo-participle. The following table contains an example of using the noun šarrum (king), the adjective rapšum (wide) and the verbal adjective parsum (decided).\n\nšarrum\nrapšum\nparsum\n\n1st\nperson\n\nsingular\n\nšarr-āku\nrapš-āku\npars-āku\n\nplural\n\nšarr-ānu\nrapš-ānu\npars-ānu\n\n2nd\nperson\n\nsingular\n\nmasc.\n\nšarr-āta\nrapš-āta\npars-āta\n\nfem.\n\nšarr-āti\nrapš-āti\npars-āti\n\nplural\n\nmasc.\n\nšarr-ātunu\nrapš-ātunu\npars-ātunu\n\nfem.\n\nšarr-ātina\nrapš-ātina\npars-ātina\n\n3rd\nperson\n\nsingular\n\nmasc.\n\nšar\nrapaš\nparis\n\nfem.\n\nšarr-at\nrapš-at\npars-at\n\nplural\n\nmasc.\n\nšarr-ū\nrapš-ū\npars-ū\n\nfem.\n\nšarr-ā\nrapš-ā\npars-ā\n\nThus, the stative in Akkadian is used to convert simple stems into effective sentences, so that the form šarr-āta is equivalent to: \"you were king\", \"you are king\" and \"you will be king\". Hence, the stative is independent of time forms.\n\nDerivation\n\nBeside the already explained possibility of derivation of different verb stems, Akkadian has numerous nominal formations derived from verb roots. A very frequently encountered form is the maPRaS form. It can express the location of an event, the person performing the act and many other meanings. If one of the root consonants is labial (p, b, m), the prefix becomes na- (maPRaS > naPRaS). Examples for this are: maškanum (place, location) from ŠKN (set, place, put), mašraḫum (splendour) from ŠRḪ (be splendid), maṣṣarum (guards) from NṢR (guard), napḫarum (sum) from PḪR (summarize).\n\nA very similar formation is the maPRaSt form. The noun derived from this nominal formation is grammatically feminine. The same rules as for the maPRaS form apply, for example maškattum (deposit) from ŠKN (set, place, put), narkabtum (carriage) from RKB (ride, drive, mount).\n\nThe suffix -ūt is used to derive abstract nouns. The nouns which are formed with this suffix are grammatically feminine. The suffix can be attached to nouns, adjectives and verbs, e.g. abūtum (paternity) from abum (father), rabûtum (size) from rabûm (large), waṣûtum (leaving) from WṢY (leave).\n\nAlso derivatives of verbs from nouns, adjectives and numerals are numerous. For the most part, a D-stem is derived from the root of the noun or adjective. The derived verb then has the meaning of \"make X do something\" or \"becoming X\", for example: duššûm (let sprout) from dīšum (grass), šullušum (to do something for the third time ) from šalāš (three).\n\nPronouns\n\nPersonal pronouns\n\nIndependent personal pronouns\n\nIndependent personal pronouns in Akkadian are as follows:\n\nNominative\nOblique\nDative\n\nPerson\nsingular\nplural\nsingular\nplural\nsingular\nplural\n\n1st\n\nanāku \"I\"\nnīnu \"we\"\nyâti\nniāti\nyâšim\nniāšim\n\n2nd\n\nmasculine\n\natta \"you\"\nattunu \"you\"\nkâti (kâta)\nkunūti\nkâšim\nkunūšim\n\nfeminine\n\natti \"you\"\nattina \"you\"\nkâti\nkināti\nkâšim\nkināšim\n\n3rd\n\nmasculine\n\nšū \"he\"\nšunu \"they\"\nšātilu (šātilu)\nšunūti\nšuāšim (šāšim)\nšunūšim\n\nfeminine\n\nšī \"she\"\nšina \"they\"\nšiāti (šuāti, šâti)\nšināti\nšiāšim (šâšim)\nšināšim\n\nSuffixed (or enclitic) pronouns\n\nSuffixed (or enclitic) pronouns (mainly denoting the genitive, accusative and dative) are as follows:\n\nGenitive\nAccusative\nDative\n\nPerson\nsingular\nplural\nsingular\nplural\nsingular\nplural\n\n1st\n\n-i, -ya[t5 1]\n-ni\n-ni\n-niāti\n-am/-nim\n-niāšim\n\n2nd\n\nmasculine\n\n-ka\n-kunu\n-ka\n-kunūti\n-kum\n-kunūšim\n\nfeminine\n\n-ki\n-kina\n-ki\n-kināti\n-kim\n-kināšim\n\n3rd\n\nmasculine\n\n-šu\n-šunu\n-šu\n-šunūti\n-šum\n-šunūšim\n\nfeminine\n\n-ša\n-šina\n-ši\n-šināti\n-šim\n-šināšim\n\n^ -ni is used for the nominative, i.e. following a verb denoting the subject.\n\nDemonstrative pronouns\n\nDemonstrative pronouns in Akkadian differ from the Western Semitic variety. The following tables show the Akkadian demonstrative pronouns according to near and far deixis:\n\nProximal demonstrative (\"this\", \"these\")\n\nMasculine\n\nFeminine\n\nSingular\n\nNominative\n\nannûm\nannītum\n\nAccusative\n\nanniam\nannītam\n\nGenitive\n\nannîm\nannītim\n\nPlural\n\nNominative\n\nannûtum\nanniātum\n\nAccusative/Genitive\n\nannûtim\nanniātim\n\nDistal demonstrative (\"that\", \"those\")\n\nMasculine\n\nFeminine\n\nSingular\n\nNomiative\n\nullûm\nullītum\n\nAccusative\n\nulliam\nullītam\n\nGenitive\n\nullîm\nullītim\n\nPlural\n\nNominative\n\nullûtum\nulliātum\n\nAccusative/Genitive\n\nullûtim\nulliātim\n\nRelative pronouns\n\nRelative pronouns in Akkadian are shown in the following table:\n\nNominative\n\nAccusative\n\nGenitive\n\nSingular\n\nmasc.\n\nšu\n\nša\n\nši\n\nfem.\n\nšāt\n\nšāti\n\nDual\n\nšā\n\nPlural\n\nmasc.\n\nšūt\n\nfem.\n\nšāt\n\nUnlike plural relative pronouns, singular relative pronouns in Akkadian exhibit full declension for case. Only the form ša (originally accusative masculine singular) survived, while the other forms disappeared in time.\n\nInterrogative pronouns\n\nThe following table shows the interrogative pronouns used in Akkadian:\n\nAkkadian\n\nEnglish\n\nmannum\nwho?\n\nmīnum, minûm\nwhat?\n\nayyum\nwhich?\n\nPrepositions\n\nAkkadian has prepositions which consist mainly of only one word. For example: ina (in, on, out, through, under), ana (to, for, after, approximately), adi (to), aššum (because of), eli (up, over), ištu/ultu (of, since), mala (in accordance with), itti (also, with). There are some compound prepositions which are combined with ina and ana (e.g. ina maḫar (forwards), ina balu (without), ana ṣēr (up to), ana maḫar (forwards). Regardless of the complexity of the preposition, the following noun is always in the genitive case.\n\nExamples: ina bītim (in the house, from the house), ana dummuqim (to do good), itti šarrim (with the king), ana ṣēr mārīšu (up to his son).\n\nNumerals\n\nSince numerals are written mostly as a number sign in the cuneiform script, the transliteration of many numerals is not well ascertained yet. Along with the counted noun, the cardinal numerals are in the status absolutus. Because other cases are very rare, the forms of the status rectus are known only by isolated numerals. The numerals 1 and 2 as well as 21-29, 31-39, 41-49 correspond with the counted in the grammatical gender. The numerals 3-20, 30, 40 and 50 are characterized by polarity of gender, i.e. if the counted noun is masculine, the numeral would be feminine and vice versa.\n\nThis polarity is typical of the Semitic languages and appears, for example, in classical Arabic. The numerals 60, 100, and 1,000 do not change according to the gender of the counted noun. Counted nouns more than two appear in the plural form. Body parts that occur in pairs appear in the dual form in Akkadian; e.g., šēpum (foot) becomes šēpān (two feet).\n\nThe ordinals are formed (with few exceptions) by adding a case ending to the nominal form PaRuS. The P, R and S must be substituted with the suitable consonants of the numeral. It is noted, that in the case of the numeral \"one\", the ordinal (masculine) and the cardinal number are the same. A metathesis occurs in the numeral \"four\".[53]\n\nAkkadian numbers[54]\n\n#\n\nCardinal\n\nCongruence\n\nOrdinal\n\n(masculine)\n\n(feminine)\n\n(Gender agreement of the cardinal numeral)\n\n(masculine)\n\n(feminine)\n\n(absolute)\n\n(free)\n\n(absolute)\n\n(free)\n\n1\ništēn\n(ištēnum)\ništeat, ištēt\n(ištētum)\nCongruent (no gender polarity)\npānûm\nmaḫrûm\n(ištīʾum)\ništēn\npānītum\nmaḫrītum\n(ištītum)\ništeat\n\n2\nšinā\n-\nšittā\n-\nCongruent\nšanûm\nšanītum\n\n3\nšalāšat\nšalāštum\nšalāš\nšalāšum\nGender polarity\nšalšum\nšaluštum\n\n4\nerbet(ti)\nerbettum\nerbe, erba\nerbûm\nGender polarity\nrebûm\nrebūtum\n\n5\nḫamšat\nḫamištum\nḫamiš\nḫamšum\nGender polarity\nḫamšum\nḫamuštum\n\n6\nšeššet\nšedištum\nšediš?\nšeššum\nGender polarity\nšeššum\nšeduštum\n\n7\nsebet(ti)\nsebettum\nsebe\nsebûm\nGender polarity\nsebûm\nsebūtum\n\n8\nsamānat\nsamāntum\nsamāne\nsamānûm\nGender polarity\nsamnum\nsamuntum\n\n9\ntišīt\ntišītum\ntiše\ntišûm\nGender polarity\ntešûm\ntešūtum\n\n10\neš(e)ret\nešertum\nešer\neš(e)rum\nGender polarity\nešrum\nešurtum\n\n11\ništēššeret\ništēššer\nGender polarity\ništēššerûm\ništēššerītum\n\n12\nšinšeret\nšinšer\nGender polarity\nšinšerûm\nšinšerītum\n\n13\nšalāššeret\nšalāššer\nGender polarity\nšalāššerûm\nšalāššerītum\n\n14\nerbēšeret\nerbēšer\nGender polarity\nerbēšerûm\nerbēšerītum\n\n15\nḫamiššeret\nḫamiššer\nGender polarity\nḫamiššerûm\nḫamiššerītum\n\n16\nšeššeret?\nšeššer?\nGender polarity\nšeššerûm?\nšeššerītum?\n\n17\nsebēšeret\nsebēšer\nGender polarity\nsebēšerûm\nsebēšerītum\n\n18\nsamāššeret\nsamāššer\nGender polarity\nsamāššerûm\nsamāššerītum\n\n19\ntišēšeret\ntišēšer\nGender polarity\ntišēšerûm\ntišēšerītum\n\n20\nešrā\nNo gender distinction\nešrûm\nešrītum?\n\n30\nšalāšā\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n40\nerbeā, erbâ\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n50\nḫamšā\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n60\nabsolute šūš(i), free šūšum\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n100\nabsolute sg. meat, pl. meât[55] (free meatum)\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n600\nabsolute nēr, free nērum\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n1000\nabsolute līm(i), free līmum\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\n3600\nabsolute šār, free šārum\nNo gender distinction\n(as with 20?)\n\nExamples: erbē aššātum (four wives) (masculine numeral), meat ālānū (100 towns).\n\nSyntax\n\nNominal phrases\n\nAdjectives, relative clauses and appositions follow the noun.\nNumerals precede the counted noun.\nIn the following table the nominal phrase erbēt šarrū dannūtum ša ālam īpušū abūya 'the four strong kings who built the city are my fathers' is analyzed:\n\nWord\n\nMeaning\n\nAnalysis\n\nPart of the nominal phrase\n\nerbēt\nfour\nmasculine (gender polarity)\nNumeral\n\nšarr-ū\nking\nnominative plural\nNoun (subject)\n\ndann-ūtum\nstrong\nnominative masculine plural\nAdjective\n\nša\nwhich\nrelative pronoun\nRelative clause\n\nāl-am\ncity\naccusative singular\n\nīpuš-ū\nbuilt\n3rd person masculine plural\n\nab-ū-ya\nmy fathers\nmasculine plural + possessive pronoun\nApposition\n\nSentence syntax\n\nAkkadian sentence order was subject-object-verb (SOV), which sets it apart from most other ancient Semitic languages such as Arabic and Biblical Hebrew, which typically have a verb-subject-object (VSO) word order. Modern South Semitic languages in Ethiopia also have SOV order, but these developed within historical times from the classical verb-subject-object (VSO) language Ge'ez. It has been hypothesized that this word order was a result of influence from the Sumerian language, which was also SOV. There is evidence that native speakers of both languages were in intimate language contact, forming a single society for at least 500 years, so it is entirely likely that a sprachbund could have formed.[56] Further evidence of an original VSO or SVO ordering can be found in the fact that direct and indirect object pronouns are suffixed to the verb. Word order seems to have shifted to SVO/VSO late in the 1st millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD, possibly under the influence of Aramaic.\n\nVocabulary\n\nThe Akkadian vocabulary is mostly of Semitic origin. Although classified as East Semitic, many elements of its basic vocabulary find no evident parallels in related Semitic languages: mārum 'son' (Semitic *bn), qātum 'hand' (Semitic *yd), šēpum 'foot' (Semitic *rgl), qabûm 'say' (Semitic *qwl), izuzzum 'stand' (Semitic *qwm), ana 'to, for' (Semitic *li).\n\nDue to extensive contact with Sumerian and Aramaic, the Akkadian vocabulary contains many loan words from these languages. Aramaic loan words were limited to the 1st centuries of the 1st millennium BC and primarily in the north and middle parts of Mesopotamia. Sumerian loanwords were spread in the whole linguistic area. Beside the previous languages, some nouns were borrowed from Hurrian, Kassite, Ugaritic and other ancient languages.\n\nSince Sumerian and Hurrian, two non-Semitic languages, differ from Akkadian in word structure, only nouns and some adjectives (not many verbs) were borrowed from these languages. Some verbs were borrowed, along with many nouns, from Aramaic and Ugaritic, both of which are Semitic languages.\n\nThe following table contains examples of loan words in Akkadian:\n\nAkkadian\n\nMeaning\n\nSource\n\nWord in the language of origin\n\ndûm\nhill\nSumerian\ndu\n\nerēqum\nflee\nAramaic\nʿRQ (root)\n\ngadalûm\ndressed in linen\nSumerian\ngada lá\n\nisinnum\nfirmly\nSumerian\nezen\n\nkasulatḫum\na device of copper\nHurrian\nkasulatḫ-\n\nkisallum\ncourt\nSumerian\nkisal\n\nlaqāḫum\ntake\nUgaritic\nLQḤ (root)\n\nparaššannum\npart of horse riding gear\nHurrian\nparaššann-\n\npurkullum\nstone cutter\nSumerian\nbur-gul\n\nqaṭālum\nkill\nAramaic\nQṬL (root)\n\nuriḫullum\nconventional penalty\nHurrian\nuriḫull-\n\nAkkadian was also a source of borrowing to other Semitic languages such as biṣru \"onion\" (into Arabic: بَصَل, romanized: baṣal and Hebrew: בצל, romanized: batsal), āsu \"myrtle\" (آس ās) and so on,[57] above all Sumerian with examples: Sumerian da-ri ('lastingly', from Akkadian dārum), Sumerian ra gaba ('riders, messenger', from Akkadian rākibum).\n\nIn 2011, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago completed a 21-volume dictionary, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, of the Akkadian language. The dictionary took 90 years to develop, beginning in 1921, with the first volume published in 1956. The completion of this work was hailed as a significant milestone for the study of the language by prominent academic Irving Finkel of the British Museum.[58][59]\n\nSample text\n\nThe following is the 7th section of the Hammurabi law code, written in the mid-18th century BC:\n\nšumma\n\nif\n\nawīl-um\n\nman-NOM\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nkasp-am\n\nsilver-ACC\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nḫurāṣ-am\n\ngold-ACC\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nward-am\n\nslave-M.ACC\n\nlū\n\nor\n\namt-am\n\nslave-F.ACC\n\nšumma awīl-um lū kasp-am lū ḫurāṣ-am lū ward-am lū amt-am\n\nif man-NOM or silver-ACC or gold-ACC or slave-M.ACC or slave-F.ACC\n\nIf a man has bought silver or gold, a male or a female slave,\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nalp-am\n\ncattle/oxen-ACC\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nimmer-am\n\nsheep-ACC\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nimēr-am\n\ndonkey-ACC\n\nū\n\nand\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nmimma šumšu\n\nsomething\n\nina\n\nfrom\n\nlū alp-am lū immer-am lū imēr-am ū lū {mimma šumšu} ina\n\nor cattle/oxen-ACC or sheep-ACC or donkey-ACC and or something from\n\nan ox, a sheep, or a donkey-or anything for that matter-\n\nqāt\n\nhand-CONST\n\nmār\n\nson-CONST\n\nawīl-im\n\nman-GEN\n\nū\n\nand\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nwarad\n\nslave-CONST\n\nawīl-im\n\nman-GEN\n\nbalum\n\nwithout\n\nšīb-ī\n\nwitnesses-GEN\n\nu\n\nand\n\nqāt mār awīl-im ū lū warad awīl-im balum šīb-ī u\n\nhand-CONST son-CONST man-GEN and or slave-CONST man-GEN without witnesses-GEN and\n\nfrom another man or from another man's slave without witnesses or contract,\n\nriks-ātim\n\ncontracts-GEN\n\ni-štām-∅\n\nbought-3.SG.PERF\n\nū\n\nand\n\nlū\n\nor\n\nana\n\nfor\n\nmaṣṣārūt-im\n\nsafekeeping-GEN\n\ni-mḫur-∅\n\nreceived-3.SG.PRET\n\nriks-ātim i-štām-∅ ū lū ana maṣṣārūt-im i-mḫur-∅\n\ncontracts-GEN bought-3.SG.PERF and or for safekeeping-GEN received-3.SG.PRET\n\nor if he accepted something for safekeeping without same,\n\nawīl-um\n\nman-NOM\n\nšū\n\nhe-3.M.SG\n\nšarrāq\n\nstealer-ABS\n\ni-ddāk\n\nis_killed-3.SG.PASS-PRS\n\nawīl-um šū šarrāq i-ddāk\n\nman-NOM he-3.M.SG stealer-ABS is_killed-3.SG.PASS-PRS\n\nthen this man is a thief and hence to be killed.\n\nAkkadian literature\n\nAtrahasis Epic (early 2nd millennium BC)\n\nEnûma Elish (c. 18th century BC)\n\nAmarna letters (14th century BC)\n\nEpic of Gilgamesh (Sin-liqe-unninni', Standard Babylonian version, 13th to 11th century BC)\n\nLudlul Bel Nemeqi\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Neo-Assyrian\". Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 5 March 2024.\n\n^ \"Akkadian\".\n\n^ I.J. Gelb. \"Old Akkadian writing and grammar\" (PDF). uchicago.edu. Retrieved 25 June 2023.\n\n^ \"Babylonian dialect | Akkadian dialect | Britannica\".\n\n^ Shlomo Izre'el (2007). \"Canaano-Akkadian\" (PDF). tau.ac.il. Retrieved 25 June 2023.\n\n^ von Dassow, Eva, \"Canaanite in Cuneiform\", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 124, no. 4, pp. 641-74, 2004\n\n^ Black, Jeremy A.; George, Andrew; Postgate, J. N. (1 January 2000). A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 10. ISBN 978-3-447-04264-2. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2020.\n\n^ a b c d e f John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, \"Akkadian and Eblaite\", The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280\n\n^ Huehnergard 2011: xxiii\n\n^ George (2007: 31)\n\n^ Woodard, Roger D. (10 April 2008). The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-521-68497-2.\n\n^ Hasselbach-Andee, Rebecca (2020). A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-119-19380-7.\n\n^ Deutscher, Guy (2007). Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation. Oxford University Press US. pp. 20-21. ISBN 978-0-19-953222-3.\n\n^ George (2007: 37)\n\n^ Huehnergard, John (2011). A Grammar of Akkadian, 3rd edition. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-941-8.\n\n^ Geller, Markham Judah (1997). \"The Last Wedge\". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie. 87 (1): 43-95. doi:10.1515/zava.1997.87.1.43. S2CID 161968187.\n\n^ Müller-Kessler, Christa (20 July 2009). \"Mandaeans v. Mandaic Language\". Encyclopædia Iranica (online 2012 ed.).\nZeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasitische Archäologie 86 (1997): 43-95.\n\n^ E. Bilgic and S. Bayram. Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri II. Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1995. ISBN 975-16-0246-7\n\n^ Watkins, Calvert. \"Hittite\". In: The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Edited by Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge University Press. 2008. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-511-39353-2\n\n^ Krejci, Jaroslav (1990). Before the European Challenge: The Great Civilizations of Asia and the Middle East. SUNY Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7914-0168-2. Archived from the original on 9 March 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2020.\n\n^ Mémoires. Mission archéologique en Iran. 1900. p. 53.\n\n^ Caplice, p.5 (1980)\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2003). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-019-518364-1. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 16 May 2015.\n\n^ a b K. R. Veenhof, Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri V, Turk Tarih Kurumu, 2010, ISBN 978-975-16-2235-8\n\n^ Vita, Juan-Pablo (1 January 2020). \"Akkadian as a Lingua Franca\". R. Hasselbach-Andee (Ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Hoboken 2020, 357-372.: 358-359.\n\n^ Vita, Juan-Pablo (1 January 2020). \"Akkadian as a Lingua Franca\". R. Hasselbach-Andee (Ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Hoboken 2020, 357-372.: 360.\n\n^ Kouwenberg, Bert (2019). \"A Descriptive Middle Assyrian Grammar, by J. J. De Ridder, Leipziger Altorientalistische Studien 8 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018). Pp. 628. $133.00 (Cloth)\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 78 (2): 348-351. doi:10.1086/704717.\n\n^ Bae, Chul-hyun (2004). \"Aramaic as a Lingua Franca During the Persian Empire (538-333 B.C.E.)\". Journal of Universal Language. 5: 1-20. doi:10.22425/jul.2004.5.1.1. Archived from the original on 21 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 317.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 321.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 318.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 314.\n\n^ John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, 2004 \"Akkadian and Eblaite\", The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, pg. 218.\n\n^ Hunger, Hermann; de Jong, Teije (30 January 2014). \"Almanac W22340a From Uruk: The Latest Datable Cuneiform Tablet\". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. 104 (2). doi:10.1515/za-2014-0015. S2CID 163700758.\n\n^ Walker, C. B. F. (1987). Cuneiform. Reading the Past. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-520-06115-6. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2020.\n\n^ Gutherz, Gai; Gordin, Shai; Sáenz, Luis; Levy, Omer; Berant, Jonathan (2 May 2023). Kearns, Michael (ed.). \"Translating Akkadian to English with neural machine translation\". PNAS Nexus. 2 (5) pgad096. doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad096. ISSN 2752-6542. PMC 10153418. PMID 37143863.\n\n^ Gordon, Cyrus H. (1938). \"The Dialect of the Nuzu Tablets\". Orientalia. 7: 32-63. JSTOR 43581190.\n\n^ Kogan, L., Krebernik, M. 2021: A history of the Akkadian lexicon. In: J.-P. Vita (ed.), History of the Akkadian Language. Vol. I. Leiden-Boston, 366-476. P. 418-419.\n\n^ Jagersma, Bram. (2010, 4 November). A descriptive grammar of Sumerian. Leiden University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/16107 . P. 35.\n\n^ THUREAU-DANGIN, F. (1911). \"Notes Assyriologiques\". Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 8 (3): 138-141. ISSN 0373-6032. JSTOR 23284567.\n\n^ \"Site officiel du musée du Louvre\". cartelfr.louvre.fr. Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.\n\n^ Hetzron, Robert. The Semitic Languages.\n\n^ Kogan, Leonid (2011). \"Proto-Semitic Phonetics and Phonology\". In Semitic languages: an international handbook, Stefan Weninger, ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 68.\n\n^ Jagersma, Abraham Hendrik (2010). A descriptive grammar of Sumerian (Doctoral thesis). Universiteit Leiden. p. 46. Archived from the original on 16 October 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2015.\n\n^ Sabatino Moscati et al. \"An Introduction to Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages Phonology and Morphology\". (section on vowels and semi-vowels)\n\n^ Huehnergard & Woods. \"Akkadian and Eblaite\". www.academia.edu: 233. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 19 November 2015.\n\n^ a b c d e Helle, Sophus. Rhythm and Expression in Akkadian Poetry. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 2014; 104(1): 56-73. P. 58. Online\n\n^ Huehnergard, John (2005). A Grammar of Akkadian (2nd ed.). Eisenbrauns. pp. 3-4. ISBN 1-57506-922-9.\n\n^ Haubold, Johannes (2013). Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature. Cambridge University Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-107-01076-5. Archived from the original on 17 March 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. (2013). Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-107-24456-6. Archived from the original on 10 March 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n\n^ \"Antiochus cylinder\". British Museum. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2019.\n\n^ Wallis Budge, Ernest Alfred (1884). Babylonian Life and History. Religious Tract Society. p. 94.\n\n^ Huehnergard, 3rd ed., §19.2\n\n^ Huehnergard, 3rd ed., §23.2\n\n^ E.g. šalāš meât '300'\n\n^ Deutscher 2000, p. 21.\n\n^ Levey, Martin (1973). Early Arabic pharmacology: An introduction based on ancient and medieval sources. Leiden: Brill. pp. 64-5. ISBN 90-04-03796-9.\n\n^ Hebblethwaite, Cordelia (14 June 2011). \"Dictionary 90 years in the making\". BBC News. Archived from the original on 29 October 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.\n\n^ Wilford, John Noble (6 June 2011). \"After 90 Years, a Dictionary of an Ancient World\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 1 May 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2021.\n\nSources\n\nAro, Jussi (1957). Studien zur mittelbabylonischen Grammatik. Studia Orientalia 22. Helsinki: Societas Orientalis Fennica.\n\nBuccellati, Giorgio (1996). A Structural Grammar of Babylonian. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.\n\nBuccellati, Giorgio (1997). \"Akkadian\", The Semitic Languages. Ed. Robert Hetzron. New York: Routledge. Pages 69-99.\n\nBussmann, Hadumod (1996). Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20319-8\n\nCaplice, Richard (1980). Introduction to Akkadian. Rome: Biblical Institute Press. (1983: ISBN 88-7653-440-7; 1988, 2002: ISBN 88-7653-566-7) (The 1980 edition is partly available online Archived 2006-05-07 at the Wayback Machine.)\n\nDolgopolsky, Aron (1999). From Proto-Semitic to Hebrew. Milan: Centro Studi Camito-Semitici di Milano.\n\nDeutscher, G. (2000). Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-154483-5. Archived from the original on 16 March 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2018.\n\nGelb, I.J. (1961). Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar. Second edition. Materials for the Assyrian Dictionary 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.\n\nGeorge, A. (2007). \"Babylonian and Assyrian: A History of Akkadian\". In: Postgate, J. N., (ed.), Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, p. 37. Online Archived 2020-07-31 at the Wayback Machine\n\nHuehnergard, John (2005). A Grammar of Akkadian (Second Edition). Eisenbrauns. ISBN 1-57506-922-9\n\nLuukko, Mikko; Van Buylaere, Greta (2017). \"Languages and Writing Systems in Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nMarcus, David (1978). A Manual of Akkadian. University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-0608-9\n\nMercer, Samuel A B (1961). Introductory Assyrian Grammar. New York: F Ungar. ISBN 0-486-42815-X\n\nSabatino Moscati (1980). An Introduction to Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages Phonology and Morphology. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-00689-7.\n\nSoden, Wolfram von (1952). Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik. Analecta Orientalia 33. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. (3rd ed., 1995: ISBN 88-7653-258-7)\n\nWoodard, Roger D. The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-68497-2\n\nFurther reading\n\nGeneral description and grammar\n\nGelb, I. J. (1961). Old Akkadian writing and grammar. Materials for the Assyrian dictionary, no. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-62304-1\n\nHasselbach, Rebecca. Sargonic Akkadian: A Historical and Comparative Study of the Syllabic Texts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag 2005. ISBN 978-3-447-05172-9\n\nHuehnergard, J. A Grammar of Akkadian (3rd ed. 2011.) Harvard Semitic Museum Studies 45. ISBN 978-1-57506-922-7\n\nHuehnergard, J. (2005). A Key to A Grammar of Akkadian. Harvard Semitic Studies. Eisenbrauns.\n\nSoden, Wolfram von: Grundriß der Akkadischen Grammatik. Analecta Orientalia. Bd 33. Rom 1995. ISBN 88-7653-258-7\n\nStreck, Michael P. Sprachen des Alten Orients. Wiss. Buchges., Darmstadt 2005. ISBN 3-534-17996-X\n\nArthur Ungnad: Grammatik des Akkadischen. Neubearbeitung durch L. Matouš, München 1969, 1979 (5. Aufl.). ISBN 3-406-02890-X\n\nWoodard, Roger D. The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-68497-2\n\nIkeda, Jun. Early Japanese and Early Akkadian Writing Systems. University of Tsukuba. 2007 [1]\n\nTextbooks\n\nBasics of Akkadian: A Grammar Workbook and Glossary, By Gordon P. Hugenberg with Nancy L. Erickson, 2022.\n\nRykle Borger: Babylonisch-assyrische Lesestücke. Rom 1963.(3., revidierte Auflage, 2006 Teil. I-II)\n\nPart I: Elemente der Grammatik und der Schrift. Übungsbeispiele. Glossar.\n\nPart II: Die Texte in Umschrift.\n\nPart III: Kommentar. Die Texte in Keilschrift.\n\nRichard Caplice: Introduction to Akkadian. Biblical Institute Press, Rome 1988, 2002 (4.Aufl.). ISBN 88-7653-566-7\n\nKaspar K. Riemschneider: Lehrbuch des Akkadischen. Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig 1969, Langenscheidt Verlag Enzyklopädie, Leipzig 1992 (6. Aufl.). ISBN 3-324-00364-4\n\nMartin Worthington: \"Complete Babylonian: Teach Yourself\" London 2010 ISBN 0-340-98388-4\n\nDictionaries\n\nJeremy G. Black, Andrew George, Nicholas Postgate: A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian. Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2000. ISBN 3-447-04264-8\n\nWolfram von Soden: Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. 3 Bde. Wiesbaden 1958-1981. ISBN 3-447-02187-X\n\nMartha T. Roth, ed.: The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 21 vols. in 26. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago 1956-2010. (available free online Archived 18 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine)\n\nAkkadian cuneiform\n\nCherry, A. (2003). A basic neo-Assyrian cuneiform syllabary. Toronto, Ont: Ashur Cherry, York University.\n\nCherry, A. (2003). Basic individual logograms (Akkadian). Toronto, Ont: Ashur Cherry, York University.\n\nRykle Borger: Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon. Alter Orient und Altes Testament (AOAT). Bd 305. Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2004. ISBN 3-927120-82-0\n\nRené Labat: Manuel d'Épigraphie Akkadienne. Paul Geuthner, Paris 1976, 1995 (6.Aufl.). ISBN 2-7053-3583-8\n\nTranslations\n\nShin Shifra, Jacob Klein (1996). In Those Far Days. Tel Aviv, Am Oved and The Israeli Center for Libraries' project for translating Exemplary Literature to Hebrew. This is an anthology of Sumerian and Akkadian poetry, translated into Hebrew.\n\nTechnical literature on specific subjects\n\nIgnace J. Gelb: Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar. Materials for the Assyrian dictionary. Bd 2. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1952, 1961, 1973. ISBN 0-226-62304-1 ISSN 0076-518X\n\n[2] Gutherz, Gai, et al. \"Translating Akkadian to English with neural machine translation.\" PNAS nexus 2.5, 2023\n\nMarkus Hilgert: Akkadisch in der Ur III-Zeit. Rhema-Verlag, Münster 2002. ISBN 3-930454-32-7\n\nWalter Sommerfeld: Bemerkungen zur Dialektgliederung Altakkadisch, Assyrisch und Babylonisch. In: Alter Orient und Altes Testament (AOAT). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 274.2003. ISSN 0931-4296\n\nExternal links\n\nIntroduction to Cuneiform Script and the Akkadian language on The Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (Oracc)\n\nelectronic Babylonian Library: includes a dictionary and a corpus of Akkadian texts with translations\n\nAkkadian cuneiform on Omniglot (Writing Systems and Languages of the World)\n\nAssyrian grammar with chrestomathy and glossary (1921) by Samuel A B Mercer\n\nAkkadian-English-French Online Dictionary\n\nOld Babylonian Text Corpus (includes dictionary)\n\nThe Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD)\n\nOld Akkadian Writing and Grammar, by I. J. Gelb, 2nd Ed. (1961)\n\nGlossary of Old Akkadian, by I. J. Gelb (1957)\n\nList of 1280 Akkadian roots, with a representative verb form for each Archived 11 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine\n\nUnicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts and Akkadian font for Ubuntu Linux-based operating system (ttf-ancient-fonts)\n\nThe Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD)\n\nAkkadian in the wiki Glossing Ancient Languages (recommendations for the Interlinear Morphemic Glossing of Akkadian texts)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-akkadian-language"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 10343}, {"slug": "reference-cuneiform", "title": "Cuneiform", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Cuneiform[note 1] is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the ancient Near East.[3] The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the 1st century BC.[4] Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin:...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Cuneiform\n\nA trilingual cuneiform inscription of Xerxes I at Van Fortress in Turkey, an Achaemenid royal inscription written in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian forms of cuneiform\n\nScript type Logographic\n and syllabary\n\nPeriodc. 2900 BC - c. 100 AD\n\nDirectionLeft-to-right\n\nRegionSumer\n\nLanguagesSumerian, Akkadian, Amorite, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Hurrian, Kalašma, Kaskian (possibly), Luwian, Urartian, Palaic, Ugaritic, Old Persian\n\nRelated scripts\n\nParent systemsProto-cuneiform (Proto-writing)\nCuneiform\n\nChild systemsNone; influenced the shape of Ugaritic and Old Persian glyphs\n\nISO 15924\n\nISO 15924Xsux (020), ​Cuneiform, Sumero-Akkadian\n\nUnicode\n\nUnicode aliasCuneiform\n\nUnicode range\n\nU+12000 to U+123FF Cuneiform\n\nU+12400 to U+1247F Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation\n\nU+12480 to U+1254F Early Dynastic Cuneiform\n\nU+12550 to U+1268F Archaic Cuneiform Numerals\n\nCuneiform[note 1] is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the ancient Near East.[3] The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the 1st century BC.[4] Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: cuneus) which form their signs. Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system[5][6] and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq).\n\nOver the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record.[4][7] Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early 2nd millennium BC.[4][8] The other languages with significant cuneiform corpora are Eblaite, Elamite, Hurrian, Luwian, and Urartian. The Old Persian alphabet features cuneiform-style signs. Most recently, links between Safaitic [[\nAbecedarium|abecedaries]], the Amorite language, the Ugaritic alphabet and Akkadian syllabic cuneiform have been found.[9] The extended use of the Safaitic script also coincided with the period in which the latest known cuneiform tablet to have been written, an astronomical almanac from Uruk, was dated (AD 79/80).[10]\n\nCuneiform was rediscovered in modern times in the early 17th century with the publication of the trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions at Persepolis; these were first deciphered in the early 19th century. The modern study of cuneiform belongs to the ambiguously named field of Assyriology, as the earliest excavations of cuneiform libraries during the mid-19th century were in the area of ancient Assyria.[5] An estimated half a million tablets are held in museums across the world, but comparatively few of these are published. The largest collections belong to the British Museum (approximately 130,000 tablets), the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, the Louvre, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, the National Museum of Iraq, the Yale Babylonian Collection (approximately 40,000 tablets), and the Penn Museum.[11][12]\n\nHistory\n\nAccounting tokensClay bulla and tokens, 4000-3100 BC, SusaNumerical tablet, 3500-3350 BC (Uruk V phase), KhafajahPre-cuneiform tags, with drawing of goat or sheep and number (probably \"10\"), Al-Hasakah, 3300-3100 BC, Uruk culture[13][5]\n\nWriting began after pottery was invented, during the Neolithic when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities.[14] These tokens were initially impressed on the surface of round clay envelopes (clay bullae) and then stored in them.[14] The tokens were then progressively replaced by flat tablets, on which signs were recorded with a stylus. Writing is first recorded in Uruk, at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and soon after in various parts of the Near-East.[14]\n\nAn ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing:\n\nBecause the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat [the message], the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay.\n\n- Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, c. 1800 BC[5]\n\nThe cuneiform writing system was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD.[15] The latest firmly dateable tablet, from Uruk, dates to 79/80 AD.[10] Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing, in the general sense, in the course of the Roman era, and there are no cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as a completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology. It was successfully deciphered by 1857.\n\nThe cuneiform script changed considerably over more than 2,000 years. The image below shows the development of the sign SAĜ \"head\" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 𒊕).\n\nStages:\n\nshows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC\n\nshows the rotated pictogram as written from c. 2800-2600 BC\n\nshows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from c. 2600 BC\n\nis the sign as written in clay, contemporary with stage 3\n\nrepresents the late 3rd millennium BC\n\nrepresents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium BC, as adopted into Hittite\n\nis the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium BC and until the script's extinction.\n\nA contrarian view has arisen on the tokens being the precursor of writing.[16]\n\nProto-cuneiform (c. 3300 BC)\n\nThe cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from the Near Eastern token system that was used for accounting. The meaning and usage of these tokens is still a matter of debate.[17] These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use into the late 2nd millennium BC.[18] Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in Tell Brak, and date to the mid-4th millennium BC.[19] It has been suggested that the token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs.[20]\n\nMesopotamia's \"proto-literate\" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from c. 3300 BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, Jemdet Nasr, Early Dynastic I Ur and Susa (in Proto-Elamite) dating to the period until c. 2900 BC.[19]\n\nOriginally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes.[19] Most Proto-Cuneiform records from this period were of an accounting nature.[21] The proto-cuneiform sign list has grown, as new texts are discovered, and shrunk, as variant signs are combined. The current sign list is 705 elements long with 42 being numeric and four considered pre-proto-Elamite.[22][23][24]\n\nCertain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely \"logographic\" fashion.\n\nArchaic cuneiform (c. 2900 BC)\n\nThe first inscribed tablets were purely pictographic, which makes it technically difficult to determine which language they represent. Different languages have been proposed, though usually Sumerian is assumed.[25] Later tablets dating after c. 2900 BC start to use syllabic elements, which clearly show a language structure typical of the agglutinative Sumerian language.[19] The first tablets using syllabic elements date to the Early Dynastic I-II periods c. 2800 BC, and they are agreed to be clearly in Sumerian.[19]\n\nAbout 2800 BC some pictographic elements started to be used for their phonetic syllabic value,[19] permitting the recording of abstract ideas and personal names.[19] Many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about this time, which historians label the Early Bronze Age II epoch.\n\nThe earliest known Sumerian king whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. c. 2600 BC).[19] Surviving records became less fragmentary for following reigns, and by the arrival of Sargon it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names, commemorating the exploits of its king.\n\n A proto-cuneiform tablet, end of the 4th millennium BC\n\n A proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c. 3100-2900 BC\n\n A proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c. 3100-2900 BC. A dog on a leash is visible in the background of the lower panel.[26]\n\n The Blau Monuments combine proto-cuneiform characters and illustrations, 3100-2700 BC. British Museum. \n\nCuneiforms and hieroglyphs\n\nGeoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs \"came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably, [were] invented under the influence of the latter\",[5] and that it is \"probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia\".[5][27] There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter.[28] Given the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, \"no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt\".[5]\n\nEarly Dynastic cuneiform (c. 2500 BC)\n\nEarly cuneiform inscriptions were made by using a pointed stylus, sometimes called \"linear cuneiform\".[5] Many of the early dynastic inscriptions, particularly those made on stone, continued to use the linear style as late as c. 2000 BC.[5]\n\nIn the mid-3rd millennium BC, a new wedge-tipped stylus was introduced which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped cuneiform. This development made writing quicker and easier, especially when writing on soft clay. By adjusting the relative position of the stylus to the tablet, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. For numbers, a round-tipped stylus was initially used, until the wedge-tipped stylus was generalized. The direction of writing was from top-to-bottom and right-to-left. Cuneiform clay tablets could be fired in kilns to bake them hard, and so provide a permanent record, or they could be left moist and recycled if permanence was not needed. Most surviving cuneiform tablets were of the latter kind, accidentally preserved when fires destroyed the tablets' storage place and effectively baked them, unintentionally ensuring their longevity.[5]\n\nFrom linear to angularWedge-tipped stylus for cuneiform writing on clay tabletsThe regnal name \"Lugal-dalu\" in archaic linear script c. 2500 BC, and the same name stylized with standard Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform (𒈗𒁕𒇻)\n\nThe script was widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honor the monument had been erected. The spoken language included many homophones and near-homophones, and in the beginning, similar-sounding words such as \"life\" [til] and \"arrow\" [ti] were written with the same symbol (𒋾). As a result, many signs gradually changed from being logograms to also functioning as syllabograms, so that for example, the sign for the word \"arrow\" would become the sign for the sound \"ti\".[29]\n\nSyllabograms were used in Sumerian writing especially to express grammatical elements, and their use was further developed and modified in the writing of the Akkadian language to express its sounds.[29] Often, words that had a similar meaning but very different sounds were written with the same symbol. For instance the Sumerian words 'tooth' [zu], 'mouth' [ka] and 'voice' [gu] were all written with the original pictogram for mouth (𒅗).\n\nWords that sounded alike would have different signs; for instance, the syllable [ɡu] had fourteen different symbols.\n\nThe inventory of signs was expanded by the combination of existing signs into compound signs. They could either derive their meaning from a combination of the meanings of both original signs (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' and 𒀀 a 'water' were combined to form the sign for 𒅘 nag̃ 'drink', formally KA×A; cf. \nChinese compound ideographs), or one sign could suggest the meaning and the other the pronunciation (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' was combined with the sign 𒉣 nun 'prince' to express the word 𒅻 nundum, meaning 'lip', formally KA×NUN; cf. \nChinese phono-semantic compounds).[29]\n\nAnother way of expressing words that had no sign of their own was by so-called 'Diri compounds' - sign sequences that have, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example, the compound IGI.A (𒅆𒀀) - \"eye\" + \"water\" - has the reading imhur, meaning \"foam\").[29]\n\nSeveral symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of a symbol. For instance, the word 'raven' (UGA) had the same logogram (𒉀) as the word 'soap' (NAGA), the name of a city (EREŠ), and the patron goddess of Eresh (NISABA). To disambiguate and identify the word more precisely, two phonetic complements were added - Ú (𒌑) for the syllable [u] in front of the symbol and GA (𒂵) for the syllable [ga] behind. Finally, the symbol for 'bird', MUŠEN (𒄷) was added to ensure proper interpretation. As a result, the whole word could be spelt 𒌑𒉀𒂵𒄷, i.e. Ú.NAGA.GAmušen (among the many variant spellings that the word could have).\n\nFor unknown reasons, cuneiform pictographs, until then written vertically, were rotated 90° counterclockwise, in effect putting them on their side. This change first occurred slightly before the Akkadian period, at the time of the Uruk ruler Lugalzagesi (r. c. 2294-2270 BC).[19][5] The vertical style remained for monumental purposes on stone stelas until the middle of the 2nd millennium.[5]\n\nWritten Sumerian was used as a scribal language until the 1st century AD. The spoken language died out between c. 2100 and 1700 BC.\n\nSumero-Akkadian cuneiform\n\nSumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary\n(c. 2200 BC)Left: Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary, used by early Akkadian rulers.[5] Right: Seal of Naram-Sin of Akkad (reversed for readability), c. 2250 BC. The name of Naram-Sin (Akkadian: 𒀭𒈾𒊏𒄠𒀭𒂗𒍪: DNa-ra-am DSîn, Sîn being written 𒂗𒍪 EN.ZU), appears vertically in the right column.[30] British Museum. These are some of the more important signs: the complete Sumero-Akkadian list of characters actually numbers about 600, with many more \"values\", or pronunciation possibilities.[19]\n\nThe archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from the 24th century BC. The Akkadian language being East Semitic, its structure was completely different from Sumerian.[19] The Akkadians found a practical solution in writing their language phonetically, using the corresponding Sumerian phonetic signs.[19] Still, many of the Sumerian characters were retained for their logographic value as well: for example the character for \"sheep\" was retained, but was now pronounced immerum, rather than the Sumerian udu.[19] Such retained individual signs or, sometimes, entire sign combinations with logographic value are known as Sumerograms, a type of heterogram.\n\nThe East Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by the Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers.[19] From the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), the script evolved to accommodate the various dialects of Akkadian: Old Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian.[19] At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are:\n\nAŠ (B001, U+12038) 𒀸: horizontal;\n\nDIŠ (B748, U+12079) 𒁹: vertical;\n\nGE23, DIŠ tenû (B575, U+12039) 𒀹: downward diagonal;\n\nGE22 (B647, U+1203A) 𒀺: upward diagonal;\n\nU (B661, U+1230B) 𒌋: the Winkelhaken.\n\n2nd-millennium BC cuneiformsThe Babylonian king Hammurabi still used vertical cuneiform c. 1750 BC.Babylonian tablets of the time of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC).Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, either in inscriptions or on clay tablets, continued to be in use throughout the 2nd millennium BC.\n\nExcept for the Winkelhaken, which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition.\n\nSigns tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this is called gunû or \"gunification\"; if signs are cross-hatched with additional Winkelhaken, they are called šešig; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu.\n\n\"Typical\" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more, although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs. The ligature KAxGUR7 consists of 31 strokes.\n\nMost later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to Old Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters.\n\nThis \"mixed\" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when \"purism\" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing.\n\nA number of tablets include \"check marks\" either incised in the wet clay (PAP-marks for example) or after the clay is dry using ink as was seen in tablets from Mari.[31]\n\nCuneiform tablets were sometimes encased in sealed clay envelopes to be opened\nby the receiver of the text. They included legal and administrative texts, and letters. Use began in\nthe Early Dynastic IIIb period (c. 2500-2340 BC) and continued until cuneiform tablets fell out of use. Geographical\nextent appears to be restricted to Mesopotamia though broken envelope fragments were not always\nrecorded in excavations so that is uncertain. The envelopes typically were marked with the name of the receiver and the seal of the sender (example - \"To Ennum-Aššur, son of Šalim-Aššur. Seal of Anna-anna). A number of still encased tablets have been found and in the early days some of the envelopes were broken open. Now coaxial tomography is\nused to read the text.[32]\n\nElamite cuneiform\n\nElamite cuneiform was a simplified form of the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, used to write the Elamite language in the area that corresponds to modern Iran between the 3rd millennium and 4th century BC. Elamite cuneiform at times competed with other local scripts, Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite. The earliest known Elamite cuneiform text is a treaty between Akkadians and the Elamites that dates back to 2200 BC.[33] Some believe it might have been in use since 2500 BC.[34] The tablets are poorly preserved, so only limited parts can be read, but it is understood that the text is a treaty between the Akkad king Nāramsîn and Elamite ruler Hita, as indicated by frequent references like \"Nāramsîn's friend is my friend, Nāramsîn's enemy is my enemy\".[33]\n\nThe most famous Elamite scriptures and the ones that ultimately led to its decipherment are the ones found in the trilingual Behistun inscriptions, commissioned by the Achaemenid kings. The inscriptions, similar to that of the Rosetta Stone's, were written in three different writing systems. The first was Old Persian, which was deciphered in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend. The second, Babylonian cuneiform, was deciphered shortly after the Old Persian text. Because Elamite is unlike its neighboring Semitic languages, the script's decipherment was delayed until the 1840s.[33]\n\nElamite cuneiform appears to have used far fewer signs than its Akkadian prototype and initially relied primarily on syllabograms, but logograms became more common in later texts. Many signs soon acquired highly distinctive local shape variants that are often difficult to recognise as related to their Akkadian prototypes.[35]\n\nHittite cuneiform\n\nHittite cuneiform is an adaptation of Old Assyrian cuneiform to write the Hittite language that emerged c. 1800 BC and was used between the 17th-13th centuries BC. More or less the same Assyrian system was used by the scribes of the Hittite Empire for two other Anatolian languages (a now extinct branch of Indo-European), namely Luwian (alongside the native Anatolian hieroglyphics) and Palaic, as well as for the language isolate Hattic language. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings, also known as Akkadograms, was added to the script, in addition to the Sumerian logograms, or Sumerograms, which were already inherent in the Akkadian writing system and which Hittite also kept. Thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown.\n\nHurrian and Urartian cuneiform\n\nThe Hurrian language (attested 2300-1000 BC) and Urartian language (attested in the 9th-6th centuries BC) were also written in adapted versions of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. Although the two languages are related, their writing systems seem to have been developed separately. For Hurrian, there were even different systems in different polities (in Mitanni, in Mari, in the Hittite Empire). The Hurrian orthographies were generally characterised by more extensive use of syllabograms and more limited use of logograms than Akkadian. Urartian, in comparison, retained a more significant role for logograms.[35]\n\nNeo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian cuneiform\n\nNeo-Assyrian cuneiform syllabary\n(c. 650 BC)Left: Simplified cuneiform syllabary, in use during the Neo-Assyrian period.[5] The \"C\" before and after vowels stands for \"Consonant\". Right: Mesopotamian palace paving slab, c. 600 BC\n\nIn the Iron Age (c. 10th-6th centuries BC) during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. Babylonian cuneiform was simplified along similar lines during that period, albeit to a lesser extent and in a slightly different way. The characters remained the same as those of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiforms, but the graphic design of each character relied more heavily on wedges and square angles, making them significantly more abstract:\n\n \"Assurbanipal King of Assyria\"\nAššur-bani-habal šar mat Aššur KI\nSame characters, in the classical Sumero-Akkadian script of c. 2000 BC (top), and in the Neo-Assyrian script of the Rassam cylinder, 643 BC (bottom).[36]\n\n The Rassam cylinder with translation of a segment about the Assyrian conquest of Egypt by Ashurbanipal against \"Black Pharaoh\" Taharqa, 643 BC\n\nFinal period of use\n\nBeginning in the later half of the 1st millennium BC cuneiform rapidly fell into dis-use. In part this was due to the slow replacement of the Akkadian language by the Aramaic, written in the Aramaic alphabet, in Mesopotamia and the growing influence of the Persian\nand Greek languages in the region. There is one example of Eastern Aramaic being written in syllabic cuneiform, the \"Uruk incantation\" (c. 300 BC), now in the Louvre museum.[37] Most exemplars of this period come from Babylon, primarily the Esangil temple area. Many of these were the result of early looting and their exact aracheological context is unknown. Notably there are the Astronomical Diaries (c 650-60 BC),\nthe late Babylonian Temple Rituals, and late Babylonian Priestly Literature. From the earliest part of the period there\nare a number of texts from the Ebabbar temple in Sippar and the Eanna temple in Uruk.[38][39][40][41] The Graeco-Babyloniaca tablets, dated to the Parthian period (141 BC to 224 AD) show that both Sumerian (largely in the Emesal dialect) and Akkadian were understood in the 1st century BC or later. There are 17 tablets many heavily damaged with unknown findspots but from a school context. Most of the tablets bear Sumerian and/or Akkadian language cuneiform on one face and a Greek transliteration on the other. The latest tablet, an astronomical text, dates to 75 AD.[42][43]\n\nThe last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 79/80 AD.[10]. The philosopher Iamblichus reportedly had a teacher captured in 116 AD during Trajan's Parthian campaign who had \"barbarian learning\" which is generally taken as meaning he could write in cuneiform.[44]\n\nDerived scripts\n\nOld Persian cuneiform (5th century BC)\n\nOld Persian cuneiform syllabary\n(c. 500 BC)Old Persian cuneiform syllabary (left), and the DNa inscription (part II) of Darius the Great (c. 490 BC), in the newly created Old Persian cuneiform.\n\nThe complexity of cuneiforms prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian cuneiform was developed with an independent and unrelated set of simple cuneiform characters, by Darius the Great in the 5th century BC. Most scholars consider the cuneiform to be independent of other writing systems at the time, such as Elamite, Akkadian, Hurrian, and Hittite cuneiforms.[45]\n\nIt formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like \"god\" (𐏎), \"king\" (𐏋) or \"country\" (𐏌). This almost purely alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by the early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC down to the 4th century BC.[46]\n\nBecause of its simplicity and logical structure, the Old Persian cuneiform script was the first to be deciphered by modern scholars, starting with the accomplishments of Georg Friedrich Grotefend in 1802. Various ancient bilingual or trilingual inscriptions then permitted to decipher the other, much more complicated and more ancient scripts, as far back as to the 3rd millennium Sumerian script.\n\nUgaritic\n\nUgaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method.\n\nArchaeology\n\nBetween 500,000[11] and 2 million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000[47]-100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest collection (approx. 130,000 tablets), followed by the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, the Louvre, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, the National Museum of Iraq, the Yale Babylonian Collection (approx. 40,000), and Penn Museum. Most of these have \"lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published\",[11] as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world.[47]\n\nDecipherment\n\nGarcía de Silva Figueroa (1620)Pietro Della Valle (1621)The first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times, both copied from Achaemenid royal inscriptions in Persepolis in the early 17th century. Pietro Della Valle's inscription, today known as XPb, is from the Palace of Xerxes.[5]\n\nThe decipherment of cuneiform began with the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836.\n\nThe first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times were copied from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions in the ruins of Persepolis, with the first complete and accurate copy being published in 1778 by Carsten Niebuhr. Niebuhr's publication was used by Grotefend in 1802 to make the first breakthrough - the realization that Niebuhr had published three different languages side by side and the recognition of the word \"king\".[48]\n\nThe rediscovery and publication of cuneiform took place in the early 17th century, and early conclusions were drawn such as the writing direction and that the Achaemenid royal inscriptions are three different languages, with two different scripts. In 1620, García de Silva Figueroa dated the inscriptions of Persepolis to the Achaemenid period, identified them as Old Persian, and concluded that the ruins were the ancient residence of Persepolis. In 1621, Pietro Della Valle specified the direction of writing from left to right.\n\nIn 1762, Jean-Jacques Barthélemy found that an inscription in Persepolis resembled that found on a brick in Babylon. Carsten Niebuhr made the first copies of the inscriptions of Persepolis in 1778 and settled on three different types of writing, which subsequently became known as Niebuhr I, II and III. He was the first to discover the sign for a word division in one of the inscriptions. Oluf Gerhard Tychsen was the first to list 24 phonetic or alphabetic values for the characters in 1798.\n\nActual decipherment did not take place until the beginning of the 19th century, initiated by Georg Friedrich Grotefend in his study of Old Persian cuneiform. He was followed by Antoine-Jean Saint-Martin in 1822 and Rasmus Christian Rask in 1823, who was the first to decipher the name Achaemenides and the consonants m and n. Eugène Burnouf identified the names of various satrapies and the consonants k and z in 1833-1835. Christian Lassen contributed significantly to the grammatical understanding of the Old Persian language and the use of vowels. The decipherers used the short trilingual inscriptions from Persepolis and the inscriptions from Ganjnāme for their work.\n\n Niebuhr inscription 1, with the suggested words for \"King\" (𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹) highlighted, repeated three times. Inscription now known to mean \"Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, who built this Palace\".[5] Today known as DPa, from the Palace of Darius in Persepolis, above figures of the king and attendants[49]\n\n Niebuhr inscription 2, with the suggested words for \"King\" (𐎧𐏁𐎠𐎹𐎰𐎡𐎹) highlighted, repeated four times. Inscription now known to mean \"Xerxes the Great King, King of Kings, son of Darius the King, an Achaemenian\".[5] Today known as XPe, the text of fourteen inscriptions in three languages (Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian) from the Palace of Xerxes in Persepolis.[50]\n\nIn a final step, the decipherment of the trilingual Behistun Inscription was completed by Henry Rawlinson and Edward Hincks. Edward Hincks discovered that Old Persian is partly a syllabary.\n\nTransliteration\n\nCylinder of Antiochus I\nc. 250 BCThe Antiochus cylinder, written by Antiochus I Soter as great king of kings of Babylon, restorer of the temples E-sagila and E-zida, c. 250 BC. Written in traditional Akkadian (with the same text in Babylonian and Assyrian given here for comparison).[5][52][53]Antiochus I Soter with titles in Akkadian on the cylinder of Antiochus:\n \"Antiochus, King, Great King, King of multitudes, King of Babylon, King of countries\". \n Note that while the images above transcribe the Akkadian pronunciation of the text, the actual spelling is highly logographic and would be strictly transliterated as follows, with the logograms (Sumerograms) capitalised and the syllabograms (phonetic signs) italicised:\n 1. DIŠan-ti-ʾu-ku-us LUGAL GAL-ú \n 2. LUGAL dan-nu LUGAL ŠÁR LUGAL E.KI LUGAL KUR-KUR \n 3. za-ni-in É.SAG.ÍL ù É.ZI.DA[54]\nIn Unicode:\n 1. 𒁹𒀭𒋾𒀪𒆪𒊻𒈗𒃲𒌑\n 2. 𒈗𒆗𒉡𒈗𒎗𒈗𒂊𒆠𒈗𒆳𒆳\n 3. 𒍝𒉌𒅔𒂍𒊕𒅍𒅇𒂍𒍣𒁕 \n\nCuneiform has a specific format for transliteration.[55] Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration requires certain choices of the transliterating scholar, who must decide in the case of each sign which of its several possible meanings is intended in the original document. For example, the sign dingir (𒀭) in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'god' or the determinative for a deity. In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context.[56]\n\nTherefore, a text containing DINGIR (𒀭) and A (𒀀) in succession could be construed to represent the Akkadian words \"ana\", \"ila\", god + \"a\" (the accusative case ending), god + water, or a divine name \"A\" or Water. Someone transcribing the signs would make the decision how the signs should be read and assemble the signs as \"ana\", \"ila\", \"Ila\" (\"god\"+accusative case), etc. A transliteration of these signs would separate the signs with dashes \"il-a\", \"an-a\", \"DINGIR-a\" or \"Da\". This is still easier to read than the original cuneiform, but now the reader is able to trace the sounds back to the original signs and determine if the correct decision was made on how to read them. A transliterated document thus presents the reading preferred by the transliterating scholar as well as an opportunity to reconstruct the original text.\n\nThere are differing conventions for transliterating different languages written with Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. The following conventions see wide use across the different fields:\n\nTo disambiguate between homophones, i.e. between signs pronounced identically, the letters that express the pronunciation of a sign are supplemented with subscript numbers. For example, u1 stands for the glyph 𒌋, u2 stands for 𒌑, and u3 stands for 𒅇, all thought to have been pronounced /u/. No. 1 is usually treated as the default interpretation and not indicated explicitly, so u is equivalent to u1. For the numbers 2 and 3, accent diacritics are often used as well: an acute accent stands for no. 2 and a grave accent for no. 3. Thus, u is equivalent to u1 (𒌋), ú is equivalent to u2 (𒌑) and ù to u3 (𒅇). The sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and a consequence of the history of decipherment.\n\nAs shown above, signs as such are represented in capital letters. The specific reading selected in the transliteration is represented in small letters. Thus, capital letters can be used to indicate a so-called Diri compound, in which a sequence of signs does not stand for a combination of their usual readings, as in the spelling 𒅆𒀀 IGI.A for the word imhur 'foam' given above. Capital letters may also be used to indicate a Sumerogram, for example, KÙ.BABBAR 𒆬𒌓 - Sumerian for \"silver\" - being used with the intended Akkadian reading kaspum, \"silver\", or simply a sign sequence of whose reading the editor is uncertain. Naturally, the \"real\" reading, if it is clear, will be presented in small letters in the transliteration: IGI.A will be rendered as imhur4. An Akkadogram in Hittite is indicated by capital letters as well, but they are italicised: e.g. ME-E transcribes the sign sequence 𒈨𒂊 when the intended reading is Hittite wātar \"water\", based on Akkadian mê \"water (accusative-genitive case)\".\n\nAnother convention is that determinatives are written in superscript: thus, the sequence 𒀕𒆠 (the name of the city Uruk) is transliterated as unugki to show that the second sign, KI, meaning \"earth\", isn't intended to be pronounced, but only specifies the type of meaning the former sign has. In this case, that it is a place name. A few common determinatives are transliterated with abbreviations: for example, d represents the sign 𒀭 DINGIR when it serves as an indicator that one or more following signs form the name of a deity, as seen in the transliteration of 𒀭𒂗𒆤 as den-líl \"Enlil\". 𒁹 DIŠ 'one' and 𒊩 MUNUS 'woman' as prefixed determinatives for male and female personal names, uncommon in Sumerian, but subsequently used for some other languages, are often rendered with the abbreviations m and f for \"masculine\" and \"feminine\".\n\nIn Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign ('×') is used to indicate typographic ligatures. For example, the sign 𒅻 NUNDUM, which stands for the word nundum \"lip\", can also be designated as KA×NUN, which indicates that it is a compound of the signs 𒅗 KA \"mouth\" and 𒉣 NUN \"prince\".\n\nSince the Sumerian language has only been widely known and studied by scholars for approximately a century, changes in the accepted reading of Sumerian names have occurred from time to time. Thus the name of a king of Ur, 𒌨𒀭𒇉, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for Lugal-zage-si (𒈗𒍠𒄀𒋛), a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read Ungal-zaggisi; and so forth. With some names of the older period, there was often uncertainty whether their bearers were Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names could be assumed to be read as Sumerian. If they were Semites, the signs for writing their names were probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents. Though occasionally, Semites might be encountered bearing genuine Sumerian names.\n\nThere was doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or a logographic compound. Thus, e.g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written 𒌷𒈬𒍑, Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered, that name was first taken to be logographic because uru mu-ush could be read as \"he founded a city\" in Sumerian, and scholars accordingly retranslated it back to the original Semitic as Alu-usharshid. It was later recognized that the URU sign (𒌷) can also be read as rí and that the name is that of the Akkadian king Rimush.\n\nSign inventories\n\nThe Sumerian cuneiform script had on the order of 1,000 distinct signs, or about 1,500 if variants are included. This number was reduced to about 600 by the 24th century BC and the beginning of Akkadian records. Not all Sumerian signs are used in Akkadian texts, and not all Akkadian signs are used in Hittite.\n\nA. Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the earliest period, late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries. (See #Bibliography for the works mentioned in this paragraph.) With an emphasis on Sumerian forms, Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic II period (28th century, Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen or \"LAK\") and for the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century, Šumerisches Lexikon or \"ŠL\").\n\nRosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash. Mittermayer and Attinger (2006, Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der Sumerisch-Literarischen Texte or \"aBZL\") list 480 Sumerian forms, written in Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian times. Regarding Akkadian forms, the standard handbook for many years was Borger (1981, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste or \"ABZ\") with 598 signs used in Assyrian and Babylonian writing, recently superseded by Borger (2004, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon or \"MesZL\") with an expansion to 907 signs, an extension of their Sumerian readings and a new numbering scheme. The introduction of a cursive script in the Old Babylonian period coincided with the expansion of literacy beyond institutional settings, leading to greater variation in writing styles. This shift may have influenced the increasing number of documented signs, as reflected in later sign lists. As writing adapted to new contexts-whether for administrative, literary, or private use-the need for expanded and specialized sign inventories became more apparent.[57]\n\nSigns used in Hittite cuneiform are listed by Forrer (1922), Friedrich (1960) and Rüster and Neu (1989, Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon or \"HZL\"). The HZL lists a total of 375 signs, many with variants (for example, 12 variants are given for number 123 EGIR).\n\nSyllabary\n\nThe tables below contain the transliteration schemes of Sumero-Akkadian syllabograms.\n\nAkkadian V and VV syllabic glyphs[58]\n\nVa\nVe\nVi\nVu\n\naV\neV\niV\nuV\n\na = 𒀀\n\ná (a₂) = 𒀉\n\nà (a₃) = 𒉿\n\na₄ = 𒀀𒀭\n\na₅ = 𒀝\n\na₆ = 𒌋\n\na₇ = 𒄩\n\na₈ = 𒌨\n\na₉ = 𒆹\n\na₁₀ = 𒊷\n\na₁₁ = 𒀭\n\na₁₂ = 𒌓\n\na₁₃ = 𒌗\n\na₁₄ = 𒂍\n\ne = 𒂊\n\né (e₂) = 𒂍\n\nè (e₃) = 𒌓𒁺\n\ne₄ = 𒀀\n\ne₅ = 𒊩𒌆\n\ne₆ = 𒋣\n\ne₇ = 𒅗\n\ne₈ = 𒌓\n\ne₁₀ = 𒉄\n\ne₁₁ = 𒇯𒁺\n\ne₁₂ = 𒇯𒁽\n\ne₁₃ = 𒊩𒆪\n\ni = 𒄿\n\ní (i₂) = 𒐊\n\nì (i₃) = 𒉌\n\ni₄ = 𒉌𒌓\n\ni₅ = 𒅗\n\ni₆ = 𒆪\n\ni₇ = 𒀀𒇉\n\ni₈ = 𒇉\n\ni₉ = 𒋖𒄑𒆪\n\ni₁₀ = 𒌓𒁺\n\ni₁₁ = 𒄭\n\ni₁₄ = 𒈬\n\ni₁₅ = 𒂊\n\ni₁₆ = 𒉿\n\nu = 𒌋\n\nú (u₂) = 𒌑\n\nù (u₃) = 𒅇\n\nu₄ = 𒌓\n\nu₅ = 𒄷𒋛\n\nu₆ = 𒅆𒂍\n\nu₇ = 𒆠𒈫\n\nu₈ = 𒇇\n\nu₉ = 𒂦\n\nu₁₀ = 𒁱\n\nu₁₁ = 𒄷\n\nu₁₂ = 𒌦\n\nu₁₃ = 𒄴\n\nu₁₄ = 𒌋𒂵\n\nu₁₆ = 𒌝\n\nu₁₇ = 𒉿\n\nu₁₈ = 𒍇\n\nu₁₉ = 𒌷\n\nu₂₀ = 𒊺\n\nu₂₁ = 𒊌\n\nu₂₂ = 𒌗\n\nu₂₃ = 𒉡\n\na = 𒀀\n\ná (a₂) = 𒀉\n\nà (a₃) = 𒉿\n\na₄ = 𒀀𒀭\n\na₅ = 𒀝\n\na₆ = 𒌋\n\na₇ = 𒄩\n\na₈ = 𒌨\n\na₉ = 𒆹\n\na₁₀ = 𒊷\n\na₁₁ = 𒀭\n\na₁₂ = 𒌓\n\na₁₃ = 𒌗\n\na₁₄ = 𒂍\n\ne = 𒂊\n\né (e₂) = 𒂍\n\nè (e₃) = 𒌓𒁺\n\ne₄ = 𒀀\n\ne₅ = 𒊩𒌆\n\ne₆ = 𒋣\n\ne₇ = 𒅗\n\ne₈ = 𒌓\n\ne₁₀ = 𒉄\n\ne₁₁ = 𒇯𒁺\n\ne₁₂ = 𒇯𒁽\n\ne₁₃ = 𒊩𒆪\n\ni = 𒄿\n\ní (i₂) = 𒐊\n\nì (i₃) = 𒉌\n\ni₄ = 𒉌𒌓\n\ni₅ = 𒅗\n\ni₆ = 𒆪\n\ni₇ = 𒀀𒇉\n\ni₈ = 𒇉\n\ni₉ = 𒋖𒄑𒆪\n\ni₁₀ = 𒌓𒁺\n\ni₁₁ = 𒄭\n\ni₁₄ = 𒈬\n\ni₁₅ = 𒂊\n\ni₁₆ = 𒉿\n\nu = 𒌋\n\nú (u₂) = 𒌑\n\nù (u₃) = 𒅇\n\nu₄ = 𒌓\n\nu₅ = 𒄷𒋛\n\nu₆ = 𒅆𒂍\n\nu₇ = 𒆠𒈫\n\nu₈ = 𒇇\n\nu₉ = 𒂦\n\nu₁₀ = 𒁱\n\nu₁₁ = 𒄷\n\nu₁₂ = 𒌦\n\nu₁₃ = 𒄴\n\nu₁₄ = 𒌋𒂵\n\nu₁₆ = 𒌝\n\nu₁₇ = 𒉿\n\nu₁₈ = 𒍇\n\nu₁₉ = 𒌷\n\nu₂₀ = 𒊺\n\nu₂₁ = 𒊌\n\nu₂₂ = 𒌗\n\nu₂₃ = 𒉡\n\na-\n\nai = 𒀀𒀀\n\nea = 𒀀\n\nia = 𒅀\n\niá (ia₂) = 𒐊\n\nià (ia₃) = 𒉌\n\nia₄ = 𒉌𒌓\n\nia₅ = 𒈬\n\nia₇ = 𒐃\n\nia₈ = 𒉿\n\nia₉ = 𒀼𒋰\n\nia₁₀ = 𒀀\n\nua = 𒇇\n\nuá (ua₂) = 𒁱\n\nua₄ = 𒁦\n\n-a\n\ne-\n\nea = 𒀀\n\nie = 𒅀\n\n-e\n\ni-\n\nia = 𒅀\n\niá (ia₂) = 𒐊\n\nià (ia₃) = 𒉌\n\nia₄ = 𒉌𒌓\n\nia₅ = 𒈬\n\nia₇ = 𒐃\n\nia₈ = 𒉿\n\nia₉ = 𒀼𒋰\n\nia₁₀ = 𒀀\n\nie = 𒅀\n\nii = 𒅀\n\niì (ii₃) = 𒂊\n\niu = 𒅀\n\niú (iu₂) = 𒉿\n\nai = 𒀀𒀀\n\nii = 𒅀\n\niì (ii₃) = 𒂊\n\n-i\n\nu-\n\nua = 𒇇\n\nuá (ua₂) = 𒁱\n\nua₄ = 𒁦\n\niu = 𒅀\n\niú (iu₂) = 𒉿\n\n-u\n\nAkkadian CV and VC syllabic glyphs[58]\n\nCa\nCe\nCi\nCu\n\naC\neC\niC\nuC\n\nʾ-\n\nʾa = 𒀪\n\nʾá (ʾa₂) = 𒄴\n\nʾà (ʾa₃) = 𒂍\n\nʾa₄ = 𒄩\n\nʾa₅ = 𒉌\n\nʾe = 𒀪\n\nʾé (ʾe₂) = 𒄴\n\nʾi = 𒀪\n\nʾí (ʾi₂) = 𒄴\n\nʾì (ʾi₃) = 𒄭\n\nʾu = 𒀪\n\nʾú (ʾu₂) = 𒄴\n\nʾù (ʾu₃) = 𒇇\n\nʾu₄ = 𒀀\n\nʾu₅ = 𒄷\n\naʾ = 𒀪\n\náʾ (aʾ₂) = 𒄴\n\nàʾ (aʾ₃) = 𒂍\n\neʾ = 𒀪\n\néʾ (eʾ₂) = 𒄴\n\nèʾ (eʾ₃) = 𒂍\n\niʾ = 𒀪\n\níʾ (iʾ₂) = 𒄴\n\nuʾ = 𒀪\n\núʾ (uʾ₂) = 𒄴\n\nùʾ (uʾ₃) = 𒇇\n\nu₄ʾ = 𒌔\n\n-ʾ\n\nb-\n\nba = 𒁀\n\nbá (ba₂) = 𒉺\n\nbà (ba₃) = 𒌍\n\nba₄ = 𒂷\n\nba₅ = 𒅮\n\nba₆ = 𒌑\n\nba₇ = 𒈦\n\nba₈ = 𒂦\n\nba₉ = 𒁁\n\nba₁₀ = 𒉼\n\nba₁₁ = 𒅤\n\nba₁₃ = 𒈨\n\nba₁₄ = 𒉽\n\nba₁₅ = 𒁇\n\nbe = 𒁁\n\nbé (be₂) = 𒁉\n\nbè (be₃) = 𒉌\n\nbe₄ = 𒁀\n\nbe₅ = 𒆪\n\nbe₆ = 𒉿\n\nbe₇ = 𒉈\n\nbi = 𒁉\n\nbí (bi₂) = 𒉈\n\nbì (bi₃) = 𒉿\n\nbi₄ = 𒁁𒁁\n\nbi₅ = 𒉋\n\nbi₆ = 𒁀\n\nbi₇ = 𒆪\n\nbi₉ = 𒄴\n\nbu = 𒁍\n\nbú (bu₂) = 𒆜\n\nbù (bu₃) = 𒅤\n\nbu₄ = 𒇥\n\nbu₅ = 𒇧, 𒇥\n\nbu₇ = 𒆪\n\nbu₈ = 𒁔\n\nbu₉ = 𒁑\n\nbu₁₀ = 𒉽𒉽\n\nbu₁₁ = 𒌑\n\nbu₁₂ = 𒌋\n\nbu₁₃ = 𒅮\n\nbu₁₄ = 𒇡\n\nbu₁₅ = 𒉻\n\nbu₁₆ = 𒉌\n\nbu₁₇ = 𒅗\n\nab = 𒀊\n\náb (ab₂) = 𒀖\n\nàb (ab₃) = 𒀜\n\nab₄ = 𒀔\n\neb = 𒅁\n\néb (eb₂) = 𒌈\n\nib = 𒅁\n\níb (ib₂) = 𒌈\n\nub = 𒌒\n\núb (ub₂) = 𒂠\n\nùb (ub₃) = 𒀚\n\nub₄ = 𒇥\n\nub₅ = 𒀛, 𒀚\n\nub₆ = 𒀙\n\n-b\n\nd-\n\nda = 𒁕\n\ndá (da₂) = 𒋫\n\ndà (da₃) = 𒆕\n\nda₄ = 𒁮\n\nda₅ = 𒍏\n\nda₆ = 𒋳\n\nda₇ = 𒌓\n\nda₈ = 𒁖\n\nda₉ = 𒌣\n\nda₁₀ = 𒄭\n\nda₁₁ = 𒅅\n\nda₁₂ = 𒅗\n\nda₁₃ = 𒋺\n\nde = 𒁲\n\ndé (de₂) = 𒌣\n\ndè (de₃) = 𒉈\n\nde₄ = 𒋼\n\nde₅ = 𒊑\n\nde₆ = 𒁺\n\nde₈ = 𒊹\n\nde₉ = 𒋾\n\ndi = 𒁲\n\ndí (di₂) = 𒊹\n\ndì (di₃) = 𒋾\n\ndi₄ = 𒌉\n\ndi₅ = 𒊑\n\ndi₆ = 𒁺\n\ndi₇ = 𒉈\n\ndi₈ = 𒌣\n\ndi₁₁ = 𒁴\n\ndi₁₂ = 𒋼\n\ndu = 𒁺\n\ndú (du₂) = 𒌅\n\ndù (du₃) = 𒆕\n\ndu₄ = 𒌈\n\ndu₅ = 𒂅\n\ndu₆ = 𒇯\n\ndu₇ = 𒌌\n\ndu₈ = 𒃮/𒂃\n\ndu₉ = 𒁔\n\ndu₁₀ = 𒄭\n\ndu₁₁ = 𒅗\n\ndu₁₂ = 𒌇\n\ndu₁₃ = 𒌉\n\ndu₁₄ = 𒇽𒉈, 𒈌\n\ndu₁₅ = 𒄭𒁁, 𒄰\n\ndu₁₆ = 𒌚\n\ndu₁₇ = 𒉈\n\ndu₁₉ = 𒌣\n\ndu₂₀ = 𒁕\n\ndu₂₄ = 𒂄\n\ndu₂₅ = 𒀲𒀴\n\ndu₂₆ = 𒋛𒀀\n\nad = 𒀜\n\nád (ad₂) = 𒄉\n\nàd (ad₃) = 𒇼\n\nad₄ = 𒍞\n\nad₅ = 𒌑𒄉\n\nad₆ = 𒇽𒁁, 𒇿, 𒈕\n\ned = 𒀉\n\néd (ed₂) = 𒌓𒁺\n\nèd (ed₃) = 𒇯𒁺\n\ned₄ = 𒇯𒁽\n\nid = 𒀉\n\níd (id₂) = 𒀀𒇉\n\nìd (id₃) = 𒇉\n\nid₄ = 𒌓𒀭𒋀𒆠\n\nid₅ = 𒀀\n\nid₆ = 𒀀𒇉𒃲\n\nid₇ = 𒀀𒇉𒁲\n\nid₈ = 𒌗\n\nid₉ = 𒌗𒀭𒋀𒆠\n\nud = 𒌓\n\núd (ud₂) = 𒀾\n\nud₄ = 𒋸\n\nud₅ = 𒍚\n\nud₆ = 𒌋𒂵\n\n-d\n\ng-\n\nga = 𒂵\n\ngá (ga₂) = 𒂷\n\ngà (ga₃) = 𒃷\n\nga₄ = 𒃻\n\nga₅ = 𒋡\n\nga₆ = 𒅍\n\nga₇ = 𒅅\n\nga₈ = 𒄄\n\nga₁₁ = 𒄯\n\nga₁₂ = 𒈪\n\nga₁₄ = 𒅗\n\nga₁₅ = 𒃮\n\nge = 𒄀\n\ngé (ge₂) = 𒆤\n\ngè (ge₃) = 𒁹\n\nge₄ = 𒄄\n\nge₅ = 𒆠\n\nge₆ = 𒈪\n\nge₇ = 𒂠\n\nge₉ = 𒉈\n\nge₁₀ = 𒉋\n\nge₁₁ = 𒂅\n\nge₁₂ = 𒊩𒆳\n\nge₁₃ = 𒁺\n\nge₁₄ = 𒌋\n\nge₁₅ = 𒀸\n\nge₁₆ = 𒄃\n\nge₁₇ = 𒈪𒉭\n\nge₁₈ = 𒁶\n\nge₁₉ = 𒋝𒋙𒁷, 𒉾\n\nge₂₀ = 𒂵\n\nge₂₁ = 𒆳\n\nge₂₂ = 𒍻\n\nge₂₃ = 𒀹\n\nge₂₄ = 𒀵\n\nge₂₆ = 𒂷\n\nge₂₈ = 𒁨\n\ngi = 𒄀\n\ngí (gi₂) = 𒆤\n\ngì (gi₃) = 𒁹\n\ngi₄ = 𒄄\n\ngi₅ = 𒆠\n\ngi₆ = 𒈪\n\ngi₇ = 𒂠\n\ngi₈ = 𒅆\n\ngi₉ = 𒉈\n\ngi₁₀ = 𒉋\n\ngi₁₁ = 𒂅\n\ngi₁₂ = 𒊩𒆳\n\ngi₁₆ = 𒄃\n\ngi₁₇ = 𒈪𒉭\n\ngi₁₈ = 𒁶\n\ngi₂₅ = 𒂂\n\ngi₂₇ = 𒁍\n\ngu = 𒄖\n\ngú (gu₂) = 𒄘\n\ngù (gu₃) = 𒅗\n\ngu₄ = 𒄞\n\ngu₅ = 𒆪\n\ngu₆ = 𒅘\n\ngu₇ = 𒅥\n\ngu₈ = 𒄣\n\ngu₉ = 𒆰\n\ngu₁₀ = 𒈬\n\ngu₁₁ = 𒂵\n\ngu₁₃ = 𒄯\n\ngu₁₄ = 𒆠\n\ngu₁₅ = 𒈝\n\ngu₁₆ = 𒆍\n\nag = 𒀝\n\nág (ag₂) = 𒉘\n\nàg (ag₃) = 𒋃\n\neg = 𒅅\n\nég (eg₂) = 𒂊\n\nèb (eg₃) = 𒉘\n\nig = 𒅅\n\níg (ig₂) = 𒂊\n\nìg (ig₃) = 𒉘\n\nug = 𒊌\n\núg (ug₂) = 𒄊, 𒊊\n\nùg (ug₃) = 𒌦\n\nug₄ = 𒌓\n\nug₅ = 𒂦\n\nug₇ = 𒁁\n\nug₈ = 𒈕\n\n-g\n\nḫ-\n\nḫa = 𒄩\n\nḫá (ḫa₂) = 𒄭𒀀\n\nḫà (ḫa₃) = 𒌋\n\nḫa₄ = 𒄭\n\nḫa₅ = 𒌓\n\nḫa₆ = 𒄫\n\nḫa₈ = 𒋖𒄑\n\nḫe = 𒄭\n\nḫé (ḫe₂) = 𒃶\n\nḫi = 𒄭\n\nḫí (ḫi₂) = 𒃶\n\nḫu = 𒄷\n\nḫú (ḫu₂) = 𒆭\n\nḫù (ḫu₃) = 𒌋\n\nḫu₄ = 𒄯\n\nḫu₅ = 𒈝\n\naḫ = 𒄴\n\náḫ (aḫ₂) = 𒋀\n\nàḫ (aḫ₃) = 𒌓\n\naḫ₄ = 𒀪\n\naḫ₅ = 𒀉\n\naḫ₆ = 𒌔\n\neḫ = 𒄴\n\néḫ (eḫ₂) = 𒀪\n\nèḫ (eḫ₃) = 𒆪𒆪\n\niḫ = 𒄴\n\níḫ (iḫ₂) = 𒀪\n\nuḫ = 𒄴\n\núḫ (uḫ₂) = 𒌔\n\nùḫ (uḫ₃) = 𒆵\n\nuḫ₄ = 𒅜\n\nuḫ₅ = 𒀪\n\nuḫ₆ = 𒅎𒋙\n\nuḫ₇ = 𒌋𒆕\n\n-ḫ\n\nk-\n\nka = 𒅗\n\nká (ka₂) = 𒆍\n\nkà (ka₃) = 𒂵\n\nka₄ = 𒋡\n\nka₅ = 𒈜\n\nka₆ = 𒋝𒋙𒁷, 𒉾\n\nka₇ = 𒁽\n\nka₈ = 𒁉\n\nka₉ = 𒋃\n\nka₁₀ = 𒈜𒀀\n\nka₁₁ = 𒋼𒀀\n\nka₁₃ = 𒄰, 𒄰\n\nka₁₄ = 𒍪\n\nka₁₅ = 𒆕\n\nka₁₆ = 𒃶\n\nke = 𒆠\n\nké (ke₂) = 𒄀\n\nkè (ke₃) = 𒀝\n\nke = 𒆤\n\nki = 𒆠\n\nkí (ki₂) = 𒄀\n\nkì (ki₃) = 𒀝\n\nki₄ = 𒆤\n\nki₆ = 𒍪\n\nki₇ = 𒆕\n\nki₈ = 𒄄\n\nku = 𒆪\n\nkú (ku₂) = 𒅥\n\nkù (ku₃) = 𒆬\n\nku₄ = 𒆭\n\nku₅ = 𒋻\n\nku₆ = 𒄩\n\nku₇ = 𒆯\n\nku₈ = 𒄖\n\nku₉ = 𒆰\n\nku₁₀ = 𒈪\n\nku₁₁ = 𒆠\n\nku₁₃ = 𒄣\n\nku₁₄ = 𒆲\n\nku₁₅ = 𒄞\n\nku₁₆ = 𒉈\n\nku₁₇ = 𒄫\n\nak = 𒀝\n\nàk (ak₃) = 𒋃\n\nek = 𒅅\n\nik = 𒅅\n\nuk = 𒊌\n\n-k\n\nl-\n\nla = 𒆷\n\nlá (la₂) = 𒇲\n\nlà (la₃) = 𒉡\n\nla₄ = 𒁺𒁺\n\nla₅ = 𒇳\n\nla₆ = 𒆗\n\nla₇ = 𒌓\n\nla₈ = 𒂔\n\nla₁₀ = 𒋃\n\nla₁₂ = 𒇴\n\nle = 𒇷\n\nlé (le₂) = 𒉌\n\nlè (le₃) = 𒅆\n\nle₄ = 𒀭\n\nle₈ = 𒀖\n\nle₉ = 𒉈\n\nle₁₀ = 𒁕\n\nli = 𒇷\n\nlí (li₂) = 𒉌\n\nlì (li₃) = 𒅆\n\nli₅ = 𒊭\n\nli₆ = 𒃶\n\nli₇ = 𒌨\n\nli₈ = 𒀖\n\nli₉ = 𒉈\n\nli₁₁ = 𒉣\n\nli₁₂ = 𒇺\n\nli₁₃ = 𒉋\n\nlu = 𒇻\n\nlú (lu₂) = 𒇽\n\nlù (lu₃) = 𒈖\n\nlu₄ = 𒈝\n\nlu₅ = 𒈜\n\nlu₆ = 𒌨\n\nlu₇ = 𒍇\n\nlu₈ = 𒌷\n\nlu₉ = 𒉺\n\nal = 𒀠\n\nál (al₂) = 𒀩\n\nàl (al₃) = 𒃷\n\nal₅ = 𒌓\n\nal₆ = 𒈤\n\nal₈ = 𒌷\n\nal₉ = 𒅋\n\nel = 𒂖\n\nél (el₂) = 𒅋\n\nèl (el₃) = 𒀭\n\nel = 𒅌\n\nil = 𒅋\n\níl (il₂) = 𒅍\n\nìl (il₃) = 𒀭\n\nil₄ = 𒁹\n\nil₅ = 𒂖\n\nil₆ = 𒀧\n\nil₈ = 𒅌\n\nil₉ = 𒇸\n\nil₁₀ = 𒀠, 𒅋\n\nul = 𒌌\n\núl (ul₂) = 𒉡\n\nùl (ul₃) = 𒁉𒑖\n\nul₄ = 𒄉\n\nul₅ = 𒂬\n\nul₆ = 𒌓\n\nul₇ = 𒋗𒁍\n\nul₈ = 𒃷\n\n-l\n\nm-\n\nma = 𒈠\n\nmá (ma₂) = 𒈣\n\nmà (ma₃) = 𒂷\n\nma₄ = 𒊬\n\nma₅ = 𒅡\n\nma₆ = 𒈨\n\nma₇ = 𒈦\n\nma₈ = 𒅿\n\nma₉ = 𒉿\n\nma₁₀ = 𒎙\n\nme = 𒈨\n\nmé (me₂) = 𒈪\n\nmè (me₃) = 𒅠, 𒀞\n\nme₄ = 𒁁\n\nme₅ = 𒀀\n\nme₆ = 𒀝\n\nme₇ = 𒃙\n\nme₈ = 𒉿\n\nme₉ = 𒇞\n\nme₁₀ = 𒅎\n\nme₁₁ = 𒀟\n\nmi = 𒈪\n\nmí (mi₂) = 𒊩\n\nmì (mi₃) = 𒈨\n\nmi₄ = 𒃞\n\nmi₅ = 𒉿\n\nmu = 𒈬\n\nmú (mu₂) = 𒊬\n\nmù (mu₃) = 𒅡\n\nmu₄ = 𒌆\n\nmu₅ = 𒉌\n\nmu₆ = 𒉺\n\nmu₇ = 𒅲\n\nmu₈ = 𒃻\n\nmu₉ = 𒄑\n\nmu₁₀ = 𒊩\n\nmu₁₁ = 𒅿\n\nmu₁₂ = 𒄷𒄭\n\nmu₁₃ = 𒆀\n\nmu₁₄ = 𒀀\n\nam = 𒄠\n\nám (am₂) = 𒉘\n\nàm (am₃) = 𒀀𒀭\n\nam₄ = 𒃘\n\nam₅ = 𒃣\n\nam₆ = 𒀭\n\nam₇ = 𒉿\n\nem = 𒅎\n\nèm (em₃) = 𒉘\n\nem₄ = 𒅴\n\nim = 𒅎\n\ním (im₂) = 𒁽\n\nìm (im₃) = 𒉘\n\nim₅ = 𒁼\n\nim₆ = 𒁺\n\nim₇ = 𒅖𒀀𒋤\n\num = 𒌝\n\núm (um₂) = 𒌓\n\n-m\n\nn-\n\nna = 𒈾\n\nná (na₂) = 𒈿\n\nnà (na₃) = 𒀝\n\nna₄ = 𒉌𒌓\n\nna₅ = 𒊭\n\nna₆ = 𒇽\n\nna₇ = 𒉆\n\nna₈ = 𒅘\n\nne = 𒉈\n\nné (ne₂) = 𒉌\n\nnè (ne₃) = 𒄊/𒊊\n\nne₄ = 𒋙𒉈\n\nne₅ = 𒆠𒉈\n\nne₆ = 𒈾\n\nne₇ = 𒈿\n\nne₈ = 𒉋\n\nni = 𒉌\n\nní (ni₂) = 𒅎\n\nnì (ni₃) = 𒃻\n\nni₄ = 𒊩𒌆\n\nni₅ = 𒉈\n\nni₆ = 𒆸𒆸\n\nni₇ = 𒉏\n\nni₈ = 𒇷\n\nni₉ = 𒌋𒌓𒆤\n\nni₁₀ = 𒆸\n\nnu = 𒉡\n\nnú (nu₂) = 𒈿\n\nnù (nu₃) = 𒉏\n\nnu₄ = 𒈝\n\nnu₅ = 𒆰\n\nnu₆ = 𒉣\n\nnu₇ = 𒀕\n\nnu₈ = 𒈾\n\nnu₉ = 𒇷\n\nnu₁₀ = 𒆪\n\nnu₁₁ = 𒋓\n\nnu₁₂ = 𒇻/𒁳\n\nnu₁₃ = 𒄴\n\nan = 𒀭\n\nán (an₂) = 𒄒\n\nen = 𒂗\n\nén (en₂) = 𒋙𒀭, 𒌋𒀭\n\nèn (en₃) = 𒇷\n\nen₄ = 𒅗\n\nen₅ = 𒉺𒋼\n\nen₆ = 𒅔\n\nen₇ = 𒍠\n\nen₈ = 𒊭\n\nin = 𒅔\n\nin₄ = 𒂗\n\nin₅ = 𒊩𒌆\n\nin₆ = 𒀸\n\nun = 𒌦\n\nún (un₂) = 𒌋\n\nùn (un₃) = 𒂦\n\nun₄ = 𒂬\n\nun₅ = 𒌓\n\n-n\n\np-\n\npa = 𒉺\n\npá (pa₂) = 𒁀\n\npà (pa₃) = 𒅆𒊒\n\npa₄ = 𒉽\n\npa₅ = 𒉽𒂊\n\npa₆ = 𒉽𒅖\n\npa₇ = 𒄷\n\npa₈ = 𒋃\n\npa₉ = 𒊷\n\npa₁₀ = 𒅆\n\npa₁₁ = 𒃶\n\npa₁₂ = 𒉿\n\npe = 𒉿\n\npé (pe₂) = 𒁉\n\npè (pe₃) = 𒁁\n\npe₄ = 𒅗\n\npe₅ = 𒉈\n\npi = 𒉿\n\npí (pi₂) = 𒁉\n\npì (pi₃) = 𒁁\n\npi₄ = 𒅗\n\npi₅ = 𒉈\n\npi₆ = 𒉋\n\npi₇ = 𒂺\n\npi₈ = 𒁍\n\npu = 𒁍\n\npú (pu₂) = 𒇥\n\npù (pu₃) = 𒅤\n\npu₄ = 𒅤\n\npu₆ = 𒇀\n\npu₁₁ = 𒌑\n\nap = 𒀊\n\náp (ap₂) = 𒀖\n\nàp (ap₃) = 𒀜\n\nep = 𒅁\n\nép (ep₂) = 𒌈\n\nip = 𒅁\n\níp (ip₂) = 𒌈\n\nup = 𒌒\n\núp (up₂) = 𒂠\n\n-p\n\nq-\n\nqa = 𒋡\n\nqá (qa₂) = 𒂵\n\nqà (qa₃) = 𒅗\n\nqa₄ = 𒋗𒈫\n\nqa₆ = 𒆕\n\nqe = 𒆥\n\nqé (qe₂) = 𒆠\n\nqè (qe₃) = 𒄀\n\nqe₄ = 𒄄\n\nqi = 𒆥\n\nqí (qi₂) = 𒆠\n\nqì (qi₃) = 𒄀\n\nqi₄ = 𒄄\n\nqi₅ = 𒆤\n\nqi₆ = 𒆕\n\nqu = 𒄣\n\nqú (₂) = 𒆪\n\nqù (₃) = 𒄖\n\nqu₅ = 𒆬\n\nqu₆ = 𒄘\n\nqu₇ = 𒄞\n\naq = 𒀝\n\neq = 𒅅\n\niq = 𒅅\n\nuq = 𒊌\n\nuq₅ = 𒂦\n\n-q\n\nr-\n\nra = 𒊏\n\nrá (ra₂) = 𒁺\n\nrà (ra₃) = 𒌓\n\nra₄ = 𒋥\n\nra₅ = 𒁍\n\nra₆ = 𒀝\n\nre = 𒊑\n\nré (re₂) = 𒌷\n\nrè (re₃) = 𒆸\n\nre₆ = 𒁺\n\nre₇ = 𒁻\n\nre₁₂ = 𒆕\n\nri = 𒊑\n\nrí (ri₂) = 𒌷\n\nrì (ri₃) = 𒆸\n\nri₄ = 𒍮\n\nri₅ = 𒉪\n\nri₆ = 𒁺\n\nri₈ = 𒈶\n\nri₉ = 𒈕, 𒈗𒆚\n\nri₁₀ = 𒂔\n\nri₁₂ = 𒆕\n\nru = 𒊒\n\nrú (ru₂) = 𒆕\n\nrù (ru₃) = 𒀸\n\nru₄ = 𒍍\n\nru₅ = 𒌌\n\nru₆ = 𒂔\n\nru₇ = 𒌨\n\nru₈ = 𒋭\n\nru₉ = 𒌷\n\nru₁₀ = 𒋽\n\nru₁₁ = 𒌾\n\nru₁₂ = 𒂗\n\nru₁₃ = 𒂘\n\nar = 𒅈\n\nár (ar₂) = 𒌒\n\nàr (ar₃) = 𒄯\n\nar₅ = 𒃵\n\ner = 𒅕\n\nér (er₂) = 𒀀𒅆\n\nèr (er₃) = 𒀴\n\ner₄ = 𒌷\n\ner₆ = 𒀅\n\ner₁₀ = 𒁺\n\ner₁₃ = 𒈁\n\nir = 𒅕\n\nír (ir₂) = 𒀀𒅆\n\nìr (ir₃) = 𒀴\n\nir₄ = 𒌷\n\nir₅ = 𒄯\n\nir₆ = 𒀅\n\nir₇ = 𒆜\n\nir₉ = 𒄊\n\nir₁₀ = 𒁺\n\nir₁₁ = 𒀵\n\nir₁₃ = 𒅕\n\nir₁₇ = 𒂆\n\nur = 𒌨\n\núr (ur₂) = 𒌫\n\nùr (ur₃) = 𒃡\n\nur₄ = 𒌴\n\nur₅ = 𒄯\n\nur₆ = 𒌌\n\nur₇ = 𒉞\n\nur₉ = 𒌲\n\nur₁₀ = 𒌵\n\nur₁₁ = 𒀳\n\nur₁₂ = 𒋽\n\nur₁₃ = 𒊐𒃲\n\nur₁₄ = 𒃣\n\n-r\n\ns-\n\nsa = 𒊓\n\nsá (sa₂) = 𒁲\n\nsà (sa₃) = 𒍝\n\nsa₄ = 𒄷𒈿, 𒄷𒄭𒈿\n\nsa₅ = 𒋛𒀀\n\nsa₆ = 𒊷\n\nsa₇ = 𒅊\n\nsa₈ = 𒀭\n\nsa₉ = 𒈦\n\nsa₁₀ = 𒉛\n\nsa₁₁ = 𒋜\n\nsa₁₂ = 𒊕\n\nsa₁₃ = 𒅆𒂟\n\nsa₁₄ = 𒆗\n\nsa₁₅ = 𒃻\n\nsa₁₆ = 𒌓\n\nsa₁₇ = 𒋙𒉀\n\nsa₁₈ = 𒁉\n\nsa₁₉ = 𒊮\n\nsa₂₀ = 𒊭\n\nsa₂₁ = 𒊾\n\nse = 𒋛\n\nsé (se₂) = 𒍣\n\nsè (se₃) = 𒋧\n\nse₉ = 𒈻\n\nse₁₀ = 𒍝𒈹𒁲\n\nse₁₁ = 𒋝\n\nse₁₂ = 𒅊\n\nse₂₀ = 𒍢\n\nse₂₄ = 𒈺, 𒀀𒈹\n\nse₂₅ = 𒈹𒁲\n\nse₂₆ = 𒀀𒈹𒁲\n\nse₂₇ = 𒈹\n\nse₂₈ = 𒈽\n\nsi = 𒋛\n\nsí (si₂) = 𒍣\n\nsì (si₃) = 𒋧\n\nsi₄ = 𒋜\n\nsi₅ = 𒅆𒂠\n\nsi₆ = 𒇻\n\nsi₇ = 𒌣\n\nsi₈ = 𒁲\n\nsi₁₁ = 𒋝\n\nsi₁₂ = 𒅊\n\nsi₁₃ = 𒉆\n\nsi₁₄ = 𒂁\n\nsi₁₅ = 𒊬\n\nsi₁₆ = 𒋝\n\nsi₁₇ = 𒅆\n\nsi₁₈ = 𒅲, 𒅝\n\nsi₁₉ = 𒆉\n\nsi₂₀ = 𒍢\n\nsi₂₁ = 𒆗\n\nsi₂₂ = 𒄀, 𒆬\n\nsi₂₃ = 𒄢\n\nsu = 𒋢\n\nsú (su₂) = 𒍪\n\nsù (su₃) = 𒋤\n\nsu₄ = 𒋜\n\nsu₅ = 𒆪\n\nsu₆ = 𒅾\n\nsu₇ = 𒇭\n\nsu₈ = 𒁻\n\nsu₉ = 𒋜𒀀\n\nsu₁₀ = 𒈽\n\nsu₁₁ = 𒅗\n\nsu₁₂ = 𒋧, 𒋛\n\nsu₁₃ = 𒁍\n\nsu₁₄ = 𒍮\n\nsu₁₅ = 𒁉\n\nsu₁₆ = 𒁔\n\nsu₁₇ = 𒂄\n\nsu₁₈ = 𒂅\n\nsu₁₉ = 𒁺𒁺\n\nsu₂₀ = 𒋆\n\nas = 𒊍\n\nás (as₂) = 𒀾\n\nàs (as₃) = 𒀸\n\nas₄ = 𒆹\n\nas₅ = 𒋓\n\nas₆ = 𒄱\n\nes = 𒄑\n\nés (es₂) = 𒌍\n\nès (es₃) = 𒀊\n\nes = 𒅖\n\nis = 𒄑\n\nís (is₂) = 𒅖\n\nìs (is₃) = 𒀊\n\nis₅ = 𒌍\n\nus = 𒊻\n\nús (us₂) = 𒍑\n\nùs (us₃) = 𒍚\n\nus₄ = 𒊍\n\nus₅ = 𒇇\n\n-s\n\nṣ-\n\nṣa = 𒍝\n\nṣà (ṣa₃) = 𒀭\n\nṣe = 𒍢\n\nṣé (ṣe₂) = 𒍣\n\nṣi = 𒍢\n\nṣí (ṣi₂) = 𒍣\n\nṣì (ṣi₃) = 𒋛\n\nṣi₄ = 𒂠\n\nṣu = 𒍮\n\nṣú (ṣu₂) = 𒍪\n\naṣ = 𒊍\n\náṣ (aṣ₂) = 𒀾\n\nàṣ (aṣ₃) = 𒀸\n\neṣ = 𒄑\n\nèṣ (eṣ₃) = 𒀊\n\niṣ = 𒄑\n\níṣ (iṣ₂) = 𒅖\n\nìṣ (iṣ₃) = 𒀊\n\nuṣ = 𒊻\n\núṣ (uṣ₂) = 𒍑\n\nuṣ₄ = 𒊍\n\n-ṣ\n\nś-\n\nśa = 𒊓\n\nśá (śa₂) = 𒁲\n\nśe = 𒋛\n\nśé (śe₂) = 𒋝\n\nśi = 𒋛\n\nśí (śi) = 𒋜\n\nśì (śi) = 𒋝\n\nśu = 𒋢\n\nśú (śu₂) = 𒋜\n\nśù (śu₃) = 𒋤\n\naś = 𒀾\n\niś = 𒅖\n\niś₇ = 𒀊\n\nuś = 𒍑\n\n-ś\n\nš-\n\nša = 𒊭\n\nšá (ša₂) = 𒃻\n\nšà (ša₃) = 𒊮\n\nša₄ = 𒁺\n\nša₅ = 𒀝\n\nša₆ = 𒊷\n\nša₇ = 𒊑\n\nša₈ = 𒊬\n\nša₉ = 𒄣\n\nša₁₀ = 𒊓\n\nša₁₁ = 𒇽\n\nša₁₂ = 𒊩\n\nša₁₃ = 𒊹\n\nša₁₄ = 𒂷\n\nša₁₅ = 𒅆𒂟\n\nša₁₆ = 𒂠\n\nša₁₇ = 𒅇\n\nša₂₁ = 𒁉\n\nša₂₂ = 𒄷𒈿, 𒄷𒄭𒈿\n\nša₂₃ = 𒁈\n\nša₂₄ = 𒊕\n\nša₂₅ = 𒌑\n\nše = 𒊺\n\nšé (še₂) = 𒋛\n\nšè (še₃) = 𒂠\n\nše₄ = 𒈻\n\nše₅ = 𒍝𒈹𒁲\n\nše₆ = 𒉈\n\nše₇ = 𒀀𒀭\n\nše₈ = 𒋁\n\nše₉ = 𒋙𒀭, 𒌋𒀭, 𒁇𒀭\n\nše₁₀ = 𒆪\n\nše₁₁ = 𒈜\n\nše₁₂ = 𒈺, 𒀀𒈹\n\nše₁₃ = 𒁺\n\nše₁₄ = 𒋃\n\nše₁₅ = 𒌁\n\nše₁₆ = 𒋀\n\nše₁₇ = 𒈹𒁲\n\nše₁₈ = 𒀀𒈹𒁲\n\nše₁₉ = 𒋧\n\nše₂₀ = 𒅆, 𒂠\n\nše₂₁ = 𒄷𒈿\n\nše₂₂ = 𒂞\n\nše₂₃ = 𒈹\n\nše₂₄ = 𒈽\n\nše₂₅ = 𒆂\n\nše₂₆ = 𒅝\n\nše₂₇ = 𒋞\n\nše₂₈ = 𒅗\n\nše₂₉ = 𒈂, 𒇽𒃸\n\nši = 𒅆\n\nší (ši₂) = 𒋛\n\nšì (ši₃) = 𒋝\n\nši₄ = 𒂠\n\nši₅ = 𒆪\n\nši₆ = 𒋆\n\nši₇ = 𒅊\n\nšu = 𒋗\n\nšú (šu₂) = 𒋙\n\nšù (šu₃) = 𒂠\n\nšu₄ = 𒌋\n\nšu₅ = 𒇟\n\nšu₆ = 𒇠\n\nšu₇ = 𒃻\n\nšu₁₀ = 𒈬\n\nšu₁₁ = 𒋢\n\nšu₁₂ = 𒆃\n\nšu₁₃ = 𒁉\n\nšu₁₄ = 𒋳\n\nšu₁₅ = 𒍮\n\nšu₁₆ = 𒌋𒌓\n\naš = 𒀸\n\náš (aš₂) = 𒀾\n\nàš (aš₃) = 𒐋\n\naš₄ = 𒐄\n\naš₅ = 𒋁𒋦\n\naš₆ = 𒋁, 𒀊\n\naš₇ = 𒋓\n\naš₈ = 𒄱\n\naš₉ = 𒑀\n\naš₁₀ = 𒁹\n\naš₁₁ = 𒀹\n\neš = 𒌍\n\néš (eš₂) = 𒂠\n\nèš (eš₃) = 𒀊\n\neš₄ = 𒁹\n\neš₅ = 𒐈\n\neš₆ = 𒐁\n\neš₇ = 𒑘\n\neš₈ = 𒆜\n\neš₉ = 𒀀𒅆\n\neš₁₀ = 𒀀\n\neš₁₁ = 𒊑\n\neš₁₂ = 𒉊\n\neš₁₃ = 𒉉\n\neš₁₅ = 𒅖\n\neš₁₆ = 𒐺\n\neš₁₇ = 𒈨𒌍\n\neš₁₈ = 𒀹\n\neš₁₉ = 𒄑\n\neš₂₀ = 𒀸\n\neš₂₁ = 𒐻\n\neš₂₂ = 𒇵\n\neš₂₃ = 𒀼\n\niš = 𒅖\n\níš (iš₂) = 𒆜\n\nìš (iš₃) = 𒌍𒌍\n\niš₄ = 𒁹\n\niš₅ = 𒅗\n\niš₆ = 𒄑\n\niš₇ = 𒀊\n\niš₈ = 𒀹\n\niš₉ = 𒂠\n\niš₁₀ = 𒍑\n\niš₁₁ = 𒇵\n\niš₁₂ = 𒇴\n\nuš = 𒍑\n\núš (uš₂) = 𒁁\n\nùš (uš₃) = 𒃣\n\nuš₄ = 𒌆\n\nuš₅ = 𒉦\n\nuš₆ = 𒉥\n\nuš₇ = 𒅲\n\nuš₈ = 𒀳\n\nuš₁₀ = 𒊻\n\nuš₁₁ = 𒅜\n\nuš₁₅ = 𒅜\n\nuš₁₆ = 𒋛𒀀\n\nuš₁₇ = 𒄮\n\nuš₁₈ = 𒌍\n\nuš₁₉ = 𒄑\n\n-š\n\nt-\n\nta = 𒋫\n\ntá (ta₂) = 𒁕\n\ntà (ta₃) = 𒋳\n\nta₄ = 𒁮\n\nta₅ = 𒌓\n\nta₆ = 𒋺\n\nta₇ = 𒉿\n\nta₈ = 𒄭\n\nte = 𒋼\n\nté (te₂) = 𒊹\n\ntè (te₃) = 𒉁\n\nte₄ = 𒉈\n\nte₅ = 𒌆\n\nte₆ = 𒋃\n\nte₈ = 𒀉\n\nte₉ = 𒋾\n\nte₁₀ = 𒁲\n\nte₁₁ = 𒉿\n\nti = 𒋾\n\ntí (ti₂) = 𒊹\n\ntì (ti₃) = 𒁴\n\nti₄ = 𒁲\n\nti₅ = 𒁁\n\nti₇ = 𒋼\n\nti₈ = 𒀉\n\nti₉ = 𒉈\n\nti₁₀ = 𒌗\n\ntu = 𒌅\n\ntú (tu₂) = 𒌓\n\ntù (tu₃) = 𒁺\n\ntu₄ = 𒌈\n\ntu₅ = 𒋗𒉀\n\ntu₆ = 𒅲\n\ntu₇ = 𒄰, 𒄰\n\ntu₈ = 𒉏\n\ntu₉ = 𒌆\n\ntu₁₀ = 𒄽\n\ntu₁₁ = 𒄸\n\ntu₁₂ = 𒌇\n\ntu₁₃ = 𒇧\n\ntu₁₄ = 𒋃\n\ntu₁₅ = 𒅎\n\ntu₁₆ = 𒂀\n\ntu₁₇ = 𒀀𒋗𒉀\n\ntu₁₈ = 𒂅\n\ntu₁₉ = 𒌉\n\ntu₂₀ = 𒆕\n\ntu₂₁ = 𒇯\n\ntu₂₂ = 𒉀\n\ntu₂₃ = 𒉂\n\ntu₂₄ = 𒂃, 𒃮\n\ntu₂₅ = 𒉐\n\nat = 𒀜\n\nát (at₂) = 𒄉\n\nat₆ = 𒇽𒁁, 𒇿\n\net = 𒀉\n\nit = 𒀉\n\nít (it₂) = 𒀀𒇉\n\nit₄ = 𒌓𒀭𒋀𒆠\n\nit₉ = 𒌗𒀭𒋀𒆠\n\nut = 𒌓\n\nút (ut₂) = 𒀾\n\nut₄ = 𒋸, 𒋳𒌆\n\nut₅ = 𒍚\n\nut₆ = 𒌋𒂵\n\n-t\n\nṭ-\n\nṭa = 𒁕\n\nṭá (ṭa₂) = 𒋫\n\nṭà (ṭa₃) = 𒄭\n\nṭa₄ = 𒁮\n\nṭe = 𒁲\n\nṭé (ṭe₂) = 𒊹\n\nṭè (ṭe₃) = 𒉈\n\nṭe₄ = 𒋼\n\nṭe₅ = 𒌣\n\nṭe₆ = 𒋾\n\nṭi = 𒁲\n\nṭí (ṭi₂) = 𒊹\n\nṭì (ṭi₃) = 𒋾\n\nṭi₄ = 𒋼\n\nṭi₅ = 𒉈\n\nṭi₆ = 𒉿\n\nṭu = 𒂅\n\nṭú (ṭu₂) = 𒌅\n\nṭù (ṭu₃) = 𒁺\n\nṭu₄ = 𒌈\n\nṭu₅ = 𒂃\n\nṭu₆ = 𒅗\n\naṭ = 𒀜\n\náṭ (aṭ₂) = 𒄉\n\neṭ = 𒀉\n\niṭ = 𒀉\n\nuṭ = 𒌓\n\n-ṭ\n\nw-\n\nwa = 𒉿\n\nwá (wa₂) = 𒁀\n\nwà (wa₃) = 𒌑\n\nwa₄ = 𒊀\n\nwa₆ = 𒈠\n\nwe = 𒉿\n\nwé (we₂) = 𒊄\n\nwi = 𒉿\n\nwí (wi₂) = 𒊅\n\nwi₄ = 𒈪\n\nwi₅ = 𒃾\n\nwu = 𒉿\n\nwú (wu₂) = 𒊇\n\nwù (wu₃) = 𒊈\n\nwu₄ = 𒈬\n\naw = 𒉿\n\new = 𒉿\n\niw = 𒉿\n\nuw = 𒉿\n\n-w\n\ny- (j-)\n\nya / ja = 𒉿\n\nye / je = 𒉿\n\nyi / ji = 𒉿\n\nyí / jí (yi₂ / ji₂) = 𒅀\n\nyì / jì (yi₃ / ji₃) = 𒂊\n\nyu / ju = 𒉿\n\nay / aj = 𒀀𒀀\n\n-y (-j)\n\nz-\n\nza = 𒍝\n\nzá (za₂) = 𒉌𒌓\n\nzà (za₃) = 𒍠\n\nza₄ = 𒉣\n\nza₅ = 𒀭\n\nze = 𒍣\n\nzé (ze₂) = 𒍢\n\nzè (ze₃) = 𒂠\n\nzi = 𒍣\n\nzí (zi₂) = 𒍢\n\nzì (zi₃) = 𒂠\n\nzi₄ = 𒀓\n\nzi₇ = 𒆠𒉈\n\nzi₈ = 𒆗\n\nzu = 𒍪\n\nzú (zu₂) = 𒅗\n\nzù (zu₃) = 𒍮\n\nzu₄ = 𒁁\n\nzu₅ = 𒉙\n\nzu₆ = 𒋤\n\nzu₇ = 𒂄\n\nzu₈ = 𒆛\n\nzu₉ = 𒆉\n\naz = 𒊍\n\náz (az₂) = 𒀾\n\nàz (az₃) = 𒀸\n\nez = 𒄑\n\néz (ez₂) = 𒌍\n\nèz (ez₃) = v\n\nez₅ = 𒅖\n\niz = 𒄑\n\níz (iz₂) = 𒅖\n\nìz (iz₃) = 𒀊\n\nuz = 𒊻\n\núz (uz₂) = 𒍑\n\nùz (uz₃) = 𒍚\n\nuz₄ = 𒊍\n\nuz₅ = 𒇇\n\nuz₆ = 𒍚\n\nuz₇ = 𒌍\n\n-z\n\nAkkadian VCV syllabic glyphs[58]\n\naCV\neCV\niCV\nuCV\n\n-ʾ-\n\nàʾa = 𒆹\n\nuʾa = 𒇇𒀀\n\neʾi = 𒂍𒀀\n\nuʾi = 𒇇𒀀\n\neʾu = 𒂍𒀀\n\nuʾu = 𒇇𒀀\n\n-b-\n\naba = 𒀊\n\nàba (aba₃) = 𒀜\n\naba₄ = 𒀔\n\núba (uba₂) = 𒂠\n\nùba (uba₃) = 𒀚\n\nuba₅ = 𒀛, 𒀚\n\nubi = 𒃴\n\núbi (ubi₂) = 𒋦\n\nubu = 𒀹\n\núbu (ubu₂) = 𒌒\n\n-d-\n\nedi = 𒃄\n\nidi = 𒃟\n\nudu = 𒇻\n\núdu (udu₂) = 𒋗𒁁\n\n-g-\n\naga = 𒂆\n\nága (aga₂) = 𒉘\n\nàga (aga₃) = 𒂅\n\nega = 𒀀𒈪𒀀\n\néga (ega₂) = 𒉧\n\niga = 𒅅\n\nuga = 𒌑𒉀𒂵\n\núga (uga₂) = 𒀀𒅗\n\nege = 𒂠\n\nége (ege₂) = 𒊩𒂠\n\negi = 𒂠\n\négi (egi₂) = 𒊩𒂠\n\nigi = 𒅆\n\nígi (igi₂) = 𒅊\n\nìgi (igi₃) = 𒆠𒊕\n\nagu = 𒂆\n\negu = 𒀀𒆪\n\nigu = 𒅆\n\nugu = 𒌋𒅗\n\núgu (uga₂) = 𒀀𒅗\n\nùgu (ug₃) = 𒀀𒊕\n\nugu₄ = 𒆪\n\nugu₅ = 𒊨\n\n-ḫ-\n\naḫa = 𒄴\n\náḫa (aḫa₂) = 𒋀\n\nàḫa (aḫa₃) = 𒉽\n\neḫe = 𒀉𒌓𒁺\n\naḫi = 𒋀\n\náḫi (aḫi₂) = 𒀉\n\neḫi = 𒀉𒌓𒁺\n\nuḫu = 𒄴\n\núḫu (uḫu₂) = 𒌔\n\n-i-\n\naia = 𒀀𒀀\n\náia (aia₂) = 𒀀\n\nàia (aia₃) = 𒌨\n\naia₄ = 𒆹\n\nuia = 𒌋𒐊\n\n-k-\n\naka = 𒀝\n\náka (aka₂) = 𒉘\n\nàka (aka₃) = 𒋃\n\naka₄ = 𒆍\n\neki = 𒂊\n\niku = 𒃷\n\nuku = 𒂆\n\núku (uku₂) = 𒇳𒁺\n\nùku (uku₃) = 𒌦\n\nuku₄ = 𒊌\n\nuku₅ = 𒇳𒁺𒁺\n\n-l-\n\nala = 𒌷\n\nála (ala₂) = 𒌷𒈨𒌍\n\nàla (ala₃) = 𒀠\n\nela = 𒀀𒆗\n\nila = 𒀭\n\níla (ila₂) = 𒅍\n\nula = 𒌌\n\núla (ula₂) = 𒃪\n\nale = 𒌷\n\nele = 𒌋𒅗\n\néle (ele₂) = 𒂖\n\nali = 𒌷\n\nili = 𒀭\n\níli (ili₂) = 𒅍\n\nili₅ = 𒂖\n\nili₆ = 𒁹\n\nili₇ = 𒀭𒈨𒌍\n\nuli = 𒅴\n\nalu / ālu = 𒌷\n\nilu = 𒀭\n\nulu = 𒌌\n\núlu (ulu₂) = 𒄴𒈨𒌋\n\nùlu (ulu₃) = 𒍇\n\nulu₄ = 𒌷\n\n-m-\n\nama = 𒂼\n\náma (ama₂) = 𒄠\n\nàma (ama₃) = 𒄀𒇻\n\nama₄ = 𒃘\n\nama₅ = 𒃣\n\nama₆ = 𒆾\n\numa = 𒍻\n\name = 𒂼\n\náme (ame₂) = 𒃣\n\neme = 𒅴\n\néme (eme₂) = 𒎘\n\nème (eme₃) = 𒊩𒀲\n\neme₄ = 𒂼\n\neme₅ = 𒊩𒄸\n\neme₆ = 𒀲𒊩\n\neme₇ = 𒊩𒀠\n\neme₈ = 𒃣\n\nimi = 𒅎\n\ními (imi₂) = 𒂼\n\numu = 𒌝\n\n-n-\n\nana = 𒁹\n\nána (ana₂) = 𒀭\n\nàna (ana₃) = 𒀸\n\nina = 𒀸\n\nína (ina₂) = 𒅆\n\neni = 𒂗\n\nini = 𒅔\n\níni (ini₂) = 𒅆\n\nini₄ = 𒅆𒈫\n\nanu = 𒀭\n\nenu = 𒂗\n\nēnu = 𒅆\n\nīnu = 𒅆, 𒅆\n\nīnuᴵᴵ = 𒅆, 𒅆𒈫\n\nínu (inu₂) = 𒅆\n\nunu = 𒀔\n\núnu (unu₂) = 𒋼𒀕\n\nùnu (unu₃) = 𒀖𒆪\n\nunu₄ = 𒌦\n\nunu₅ = 𒀊\n\nunu₆ = 𒋼𒀊\n\nunu₇ = 𒋽𒀕\n\nunu₈ = 𒍑\n\nunu₉ = 𒆒𒋙 / 𒆓\n\nunu₁₀ = 𒄃\n\nunu₁₁ = 𒍝𒈽𒀕\n\nunu₁₂ = 𒁐\n\n-q-\n\naqa = 𒀝\n\n-r-\n\nara = 𒊭\n\nára (ara₂) = 𒌒\n\nàra (ara₃) = 𒄯\n\nara₄ = 𒌓𒁺\n\nara₅ = 𒄯𒄯\n\nara₆ = 𒁺\n\nara₇ = 𒌓\n\nara₈ = 𒅈\n\nera = 𒀴𒊏\n\néra (era₂) = 𒀀𒅆\n\nèra (era₃) = 𒃞\n\nera₄ = 𒃢\n\níra = 𒀀𒅆\n\nura₁₅ = 𒋀𒀕\n\nura₁₆ = 𒋀𒀊\n\nari = 𒌵\n\nári (ari₂) = 𒁁\n\nàri (ari₃) = 𒉺\n\nari₅ = 𒉺𒈨𒌍\n\nari₆ = 𒋧\n\neri = 𒌷\n\neri₄ = 𒌷 ?\n\neri₁₁ = 𒀔\n\neri₁₂ = 𒀊\n\neri₁₃ = 𒈁\n\neri₁₄ = 𒅕\n\neri₁₅ = 𒃞\n\neri₁₆ = 𒃢\n\niri = 𒌷\n\niri₈ = 𒁁\n\niri₁₁ = 𒀕\n\niri₁₂ = 𒀊\n\niri₁₄ = 𒅕\n\nuri = 𒌵\n\núri (uri₂) = 𒋀𒀕\n\nùri (uri₃) = 𒋀\n\nuri₄ = 𒁁\n\nuri₅ = 𒋀𒀊\n\naru = 𒉺\n\neru = 𒀴\n\néru (eru₂) = 𒊕𒊩\n\nèru (eru₃) = 𒊟\n\neru₄ = 𒀀𒂔\n\neru₅ = 𒂔\n\nuru = 𒌷\n\núru (uru₂) = 𒍍\n\nùru (uru₃) = 𒋀\n\nuru₄ = 𒀳\n\nuru₅ = 𒋽\n\nuru₆ = 𒉞\n\nuru₇ = 𒌲\n\nuru₈ = 𒌫\n\nuru₉ = 𒋞𒁁\n\nuru₁₀ = 𒊠\n\nuru₁₁ = 𒌾\n\nuru₁₂ = 𒃡\n\nuru₁₃ = 𒌨\n\nuru₁₄ = 𒋀𒀕\n\nuru₁₅ = 𒋀𒀊\n\nuru₁₆ = 𒂗\n\nuru₁₇ = 𒍇\n\nuru₁₈ = 𒌸\n\nuru₁₉ = 𒌵\n\n-s-\n\nasa = 𒊍\n\nusa = 𒐍, 𒑄\n\nasi = 𒀀𒌁\n\nesi = 𒆗\n\nisi = 𒅖\n\nusi = 𒃥\n\nusu = 𒀉𒆗\n\núsu (usu₂) = 𒍑\n\n-š-\n\naša = 𒀸\n\náša (aša₂) = 𒀾\n\nàša (aša₃) = 𒐋\n\naša₅ = 𒃷\n\neša = 𒀀𒌁\n\néša (eša₂) = 𒌍\n\neše = 𒌍\n\néše (eše₂) = 𒂠\n\nèše (eše₃) = 𒑘\n\neše₄ = 𒀀𒌁\n\niši = 𒅖\n\níši (iši₂) = 𒋙𒀯\n\nušu = 𒁔\n\núšu (ušu₂) = 𒌋𒌓\n\nùšu (ušu₃) = 𒌍\n\n-t-\n\nita₄ = 𒀭𒀀𒇉\n\nita₅ = 𒀀𒇉\n\nuta = 𒌓\n\niti = 𒌗\n\níti (iti₂) = 𒌛\n\nìti (iti₃) = 𒆜𒌗\n\niti₄ = 𒀭𒀀𒇉\n\niti₅ = 𒀀𒇉\n\niti₆ = 𒌓𒀭𒋀𒆠\n\niti₇ = 𒌗𒀭𒋀𒆠\n\nitu = 𒌗\n\nítu (itu₂) = 𒌛\n\nitu₄ = 𒀭𒀀𒇉\n\nitu₅ = 𒀀𒇉\n\nutu = 𒌓\n\nútu (utu₂) = 𒌋𒂵\n\nùtu (utu₃) = 𒌋𒌋\n\nutu₄ = 𒆠𒆠\n\nutu₅ = 𒀾\n\n-y- (-i̭- / -j-)\n\naya / ai̭a / aja = 𒀀𒀀\n\niya / ija = 𒀀𒀀\n\naye / ai̭e / aje = 𒀀𒀀\n\niye / ije = 𒀀𒀀\n\nayi / ai̭i / aji = 𒀀𒀀\n\niyi / iji = 𒀀𒀀\n\nayu / ai̭u / aju = 𒀀𒀀\n\niyu / iju = 𒀀𒀀\n\n-z-\n\naza = 𒊍\n\nùza (uza₃) = 𒍚\n\nizi = 𒉈\n\nízi (izi₂) = 𒆠𒉈\n\nazu = 𒉙\n\nizu = 𒉈\n\nuzu = 𒍜\n\núzu (uzu₂) = 𒉙\n\nùzu (uzu₃) = 𒊻\n\nuzu₅ = 𒌋𒌓\n\nAkkadian CVV and CVC syllabic glyphs[58]\n\nCaV/CaC\nCeV/CeC\nCiV/CiC\nCuV/CuC\n\nb-\n\nbaʾ = 𒁁\n\nbab = 𒉽\n\nbáb (bab₂) = 𒌓\n\nbad = 𒁁\n\nbàd (bad₃) = 𒂦\n\nbad₄ = 𒆠𒆗\n\nbad₅ = 𒅆\n\nbid = 𒂍\n\nbíd (bid₂) = 𒁁\n\nbìd (bid₃) = 𒆪\n\nbag = 𒄷\n\nbig = 𒋝\n\nbug = 𒈮\n\nbaḫ = 𒄷\n\nbàḫ (baḫ₃) = 𒈜\n\nbuḫ = 𒈜\n\nbak = 𒄷\n\nbik = 𒋝\n\nbuk = 𒈮\n\nbal = 𒁄\n\nbál (bal₂) = 𒁔\n\nbàl (bal₃) = 𒀡\n\nbal₄ = 𒀦\n\nbel = 𒉈\n\nbél (bel₂) = 𒉋\n\nbil = 𒉈\n\nbíl (bil₂) = 𒉋\n\nbìl (bil₃) = 𒄑𒉋\n\nbil₄ = 𒄑𒉈\n\nbul = 𒇧\n\nbúl (bul₂) = 𒁔\n\nbùl (bul₃) = 𒁄\n\nbul₄ = 𒅮\n\nbul₅ = 𒇡\n\nbum = 𒅤\n\nbúm (bum₂) = 𒁆, 𒂀\n\nbùm (bum₃) = 𒅗\n\nban = 𒉼\n\nbán (ban₂) = 𒑏\n\nbàn (ban₃) = 𒌉\n\nban₄ = 𒆕\n\nbin = 𒀳\n\nbun = 𒇌\n\nbún (bun₂) = 𒅮\n\nbap = 𒉽\n\nbaq = 𒄷\n\nbiq = 𒋝\n\nbar = 𒁇\n\nbár (bar₂) = 𒁈\n\nbàr (bar₃) = 𒁖\n\nbar₄ = 𒉌𒂟\n\nbar₅ = 𒋞\n\nbar₆ = 𒌓\n\nbar₇ = 𒉈\n\nbar₈ = 𒂙\n\nber = 𒄵\n\nbér (ber₂) = 𒌓\n\nber₇ = 𒊯\n\nbir = 𒄵\n\nbír (bir₂) = 𒌓\n\nbìr (bir₃) = 𒂟\n\nbir₄ = 𒂔\n\nbir₅ = 𒉆, 𒉅\n\nbir₆ = 𒊶\n\nbir₇ = 𒊯\n\nbir₈ = 𒀀𒋤\n\nbir₉ = 𒉈\n\nbir₁₀ = 𒄊\n\nbur = 𒁓\n\nbúr (bur₂) = 𒁔\n\nbùr (bur₃) = 𒌋\n\nbur₄ = 𒋓𒁓\n\nbur₅ = 𒉅\n\nbur₆ = 𒆤, 𒆦\n\nbur₈ = 𒄬\n\nbur₁₀ = 𒇧\n\nbur₁₁ = 𒆠𒂗𒆕\n\nbur₁₂ = 𒁍\n\nbur₁₃ = 𒉽𒉽\n\nbur₁₄ = 𒂙\n\nbís (bis₂) = 𒄫\n\nbaš = 𒈦\n\nbeš₁₂ = 𒌓\n\nbiš = 𒄫\n\nbuš = 𒆜\n\nbúš (buš₂) = 𒄫\n\nbat = 𒁁\n\nbat (bát₂) = 𒉻\n\nbat (bàt₃) = 𒂦\n\nbat₅ = 𒅆\n\nbet = 𒂍\n\nbit = 𒂍\n\nbít (bit₂) = 𒁁\n\nbaṭ = 𒁁\n\nbiṭ = 𒂍\n\nbiz = 𒁉\n\nd-\n\ndab = 𒁳\n\ndáb (dab₂) = 𒋰\n\ndàb (dab₃) = 𒄭\n\ndab₄ = 𒁾\n\ndab₅ = 𒆪\n\ndab₆ = 𒍏\n\ndib = 𒁳\n\ndíb (dib₂) = 𒆪\n\ndub = 𒁾\n\ndúb (dub₂) = 𒂀\n\ndùb (dub₃) = 𒄭\n\ndad = 𒋺\n\ndid = 𒅎\n\ndud = 𒉺𒍜\n\ndag = 𒁖\n\ndág (dag₂) = 𒌓\n\ndàg (dag₃) = 𒉌𒂟\n\ndag₄ = 𒆦\n\ndag₅ = 𒅗\n\ndag₆ = 𒋳\n\ndig = 𒉌\n\ndug = 𒂁\n\ndúg (dug₂) = 𒌇\n\ndùg (dug₃) = 𒄭\n\ndug₄ = 𒅗\n\ndug₅ = 𒂅\n\ndaḫ = 𒈭\n\ndeḫ = 𒁾\n\ndéḫ (deḫ₂) = 𒌝\n\ndèḫ (deḫ₃) = 𒉏\n\ndiḫ = 𒁾\n\ndíḫ (diḫ₂) = 𒌝\n\ndìḫ (diḫ₃) = 𒉏\n\nduḫ = 𒂃\n\ndak = 𒁖\n\ndàk (dak₃) = 𒉌𒂟\n\ndik = 𒉌\n\nduk = 𒂁\n\ndúk (duk₂) = 𒌇\n\ndal = 𒊑\n\ndál (dal₂) = 𒈦𒄘𒃼\n\ndàl (dal₃) = 𒀸\n\ndel = 𒀸\n\ndél (del₂) = 𒇺\n\ndil = 𒀸\n\ndul = 𒌋𒌆\n\ndúl (dul₂) = 𒇥\n\ndùl (dul₃) = 𒊨\n\ndul₄ = 𒂈\n\ndul₅ = 𒌆\n\ndul₆ = 𒇯\n\ndul₇ = 𒊕\n\ndul₈ = 𒁳\n\ndul₉ = 𒌪\n\ndul₁₀ = 𒁍\n\ndam = 𒁮\n\ndám (dam₂) = 𒌓\n\ndàm (dam₃) = 𒌈\n\ndém = 𒁶\n\ndim = 𒁴\n\ndím (dim₂) = 𒁶\n\ndìm (dim₃) = 𒊐𒃵, 𒈕\n\ndim₄ = 𒉽𒉽\n\ndim₅ = 𒂀\n\ndum = 𒌈\n\ndùm (dum₃) = 𒁮\n\ndum₄ = 𒁴\n\ndan = 𒆗\n\ndán (dan₂) = 𒃞\n\ndàn (dan₃) = 𒃩\n\ndan₄ = 𒃋\n\ndan₅ = 𒁷\n\ndan₆ = 𒍕\n\ndan₇ = 𒃃\n\nden = 𒁷\n\ndin = 𒁷\n\ndín (din₂) = 𒆗\n\ndìn (din₃) = 𒁶\n\ndun = 𒂄\n\ndùn (dun₃) = 𒂅\n\ndun₄ = 𒂈\n\ndun₅ = 𒁔\n\ndun₆ = 𒆗\n\ndap = 𒁳\n\ndáp (dap₂) = 𒋰\n\ndip = 𒁳\n\ndup = 𒁾\n\ndúp (dup₂) = 𒂀\n\ndaq = 𒁖\n\ndàq (daq₃) = 𒉌𒂟\n\ndaq₁₀ = 𒋳\n\ndiq = 𒉌\n\nduq = 𒂁\n\ndar = 𒁯\n\ndár (dar₂) = 𒅁\n\ndàr (dar₃) = 𒁰\n\ndar₄ = 𒁱\n\ndar₆ = 𒋻\n\nder = 𒋛𒀀\n\ndir = 𒋛𒀀\n\ndír (dir₂) = 𒁯\n\ndìr (dir₃) = 𒀭\n\ndir₄ = 𒌁\n\ndur = 𒄙\n\ndúr (dur₂) = 𒂉, 𒆪\n\ndùr (dur₃) = 𒀲𒀴\n\ndur₄ = 𒁉𒑖\n\ndur₅ = 𒀀\n\ndur₇ = 𒁍\n\ndur₈ = 𒂦\n\ndur₉ = 𒂄\n\ndur₁₀ = 𒊿\n\ndur₁₁ = 𒌅\n\ndas = 𒌨\n\ndaš = 𒌨\n\ndáš (daš₂) = 𒁹\n\ndàš (daš₃) = 𒀾\n\ndaš₄ = 𒁯\n\ndeš = 𒁹\n\ndéš (deš₂) = 𒀸\n\ndèš (deš₃) = 𒌨\n\ndeš₄ = 𒈨\n\ndeš₅ = 𒀹\n\ndiš = 𒁹\n\ndíš (diš₂) = 𒀸\n\ndiš₅ = 𒀹\n\nduš = 𒆪\n\ndúš (duš₂) = 𒁹\n\ndat = 𒋺\n\ng-\n\ngab = 𒃮\n\ngáb (gab₂) = 𒆏\n\ngàb (gab₃) = 𒅘\n\ngib = 𒄃\n\ngíb (gib₂) = 𒁉𒑖\n\ngìb (gib₃) = 𒈪𒉭\n\ngub = 𒁺\n\ngúb (gub₂) = 𒇷\n\ngùb (gub₃) = 𒆏\n\ngub₄ = 𒉌\n\ngub₅ = 𒀜𒆤\n\ngad = 𒃰\n\ngid = 𒆤\n\ngíd (gid₂) = 𒁍\n\ngìd (gid₃) = 𒊓\n\ngid₄ = 𒃰\n\ngid₆ = 𒋺\n\ngud = 𒄞\n\ngúd (gud₂) = 𒊥\n\ngùd (gud₃) = 𒌑𒆠𒋧𒂵\n\ngud₄ = 𒋻\n\ngud₅ = 𒃴\n\ngud₆ = 𒈝\n\ngud₇ = 𒆪\n\ngud₈ = 𒆸\n\ngud₉ = 𒋃\n\ngud₁₀ = 𒁆, 𒂀\n\ngag = 𒆕\n\ngig = 𒈪𒉭\n\ngíg (gig₂) = 𒈪\n\ngìg (gig₃) = 𒄃\n\ngig₄ = 𒂅\n\ngug = 𒍝𒄢\n\ngúg (gug₂) = 𒈖\n\ngùg (gug₃) = 𒃻𒈖\n\ngug₄ = 𒍤𒆸\n\ngug₅ = 𒈙\n\ngug₆ = 𒅗𒆕\n\ngak = 𒆕\n\ngik = 𒈪𒉭\n\ngúk (guk₂) = 𒈖\n\ngal = 𒃲\n\ngál (gal₂) = 𒅅\n\ngàl (gal₃) = 𒍇\n\ngal₄ = 𒊩\n\ngal₅ = 𒋼\n\ngal₈ = 𒌓\n\ngal₉ = 𒆗\n\ngal₁₀ = 𒇽𒁹\n\ngel = 𒄃\n\ngél (gel₂) = 𒆸\n\ngil = 𒄃\n\ngíl (gil₂) = 𒆸\n\ngìl (gil₃) = 𒅍\n\ngul = 𒄢\n\ngúl (gul₂) = 𒆰\n\ngùl (gul₃) = 𒋼\n\ngam = 𒃵\n\ngám (gam₂) = 𒄰\n\ngàm (gam₃) = 𒆛\n\ngam₄ = 𒃶\n\ngem = 𒁶\n\ngèm (gem₃) = 𒊩𒆳\n\ngim = 𒁶\n\ngím (gim₂) = 𒂅\n\ngìm (gim₃) = 𒊩𒆳\n\ngim₄ = 𒁽\n\ngim₅ = 𒁼\n\ngim₆ = 𒁺\n\ngim₇ = 𒁍\n\ngim₈ = 𒃰𒋺𒄑\n\ngum = 𒄣\n\ngúm (gum₂) = 𒈝\n\ngùm (gum₃) = 𒉈\n\ngum₄ = 𒃵\n\ngan = 𒃶\n\ngán (gan₂) = 𒃷\n\ngàn (gan₃) = 𒁽\n\ngan₇ = 𒃵\n\ngen = 𒁺\n\ngèn (gen₃) = 𒆳\n\ngen₇ = 𒁶\n\ngin = 𒁺\n\ngín (gin₂) = 𒂅\n\ngìn (gin₃) = 𒆳\n\ngin₄ = 𒍤𒆸\n\ngin₆ = 𒄀\n\ngin₇ = 𒁶\n\ngin₈ = 𒄯\n\ngun = 𒄘𒌦\n\ngún (gun₂) = 𒄘\n\ngùn (gun₃) = 𒁯\n\ngun₄ = 𒀕\n\ngun₅ = 𒈝\n\ngap = 𒃮\n\ngáp (gap₂) = 𒆏\n\ngíp (gip₂) = 𒄒\n\ngup = 𒁺\n\ngúp (gup₂) = 𒇷\n\ngiq = 𒈪𒉭\n\nguq = 𒍝𒄢\n\ngar = 𒃻\n\ngár (gar₂) = 𒂶\n\ngàr (gar₃) = 𒃼\n\ngar₄ = 𒄞𒄞\n\ngar₅ = 𒈖\n\ngar₆ = 𒉣\n\ngar₇ = 𒈥\n\ngar₈ = 𒋞\n\ngar₉ = 𒂵\n\ngar₁₀ = 𒂶\n\ngar₁₁ = 𒂶\n\ngar₁₂ = 𒂶\n\ngar₁₃ = 𒋽\n\ngar₁₄ = 𒋼𒀀\n\ngar₁₉ = 𒃸\n\nger = 𒄫\n\ngér (ger₂) = 𒄈\n\ngèr (ger₃) = 𒁺\n\nger₁₅ = 𒂠\n\ngir = 𒄫\n\ngír (gir₂) = 𒄈\n\ngìr (gir₃) = 𒄊\n\ngir₄ = 𒌋𒀜\n\ngir₅ = 𒁽\n\ngir₆ = 𒁼\n\ngir₇ = 𒁺\n\ngir₈ = 𒆸\n\ngir₉ = 𒀚\n\ngir₁₀ = 𒉈\n\ngir₁₁ = 𒂡\n\ngir₁₂ = 𒅔\n\ngir₁₃ = 𒋃\n\ngir₁₄ = 𒄩\n\ngir₁₅ = 𒂠\n\ngir₁₆ = 𒄌\n\ngir₁₇ = 𒅗\n\ngur = 𒄥\n\ngúr (gur₂) = 𒑲\n\ngùr (gur₃) = 𒅍\n\ngur₄ = 𒆸\n\ngur₅ = 𒍀, 𒅫\n\ngur₆ = 𒃸\n\ngur₇ = 𒄦\n\ngur₈ = 𒋽\n\ngur₉ = 𒉒\n\ngur₁₀ = 𒆥\n\ngur₁₁ = 𒂵\n\ngur₁₂ = 𒉽\n\ngur₁₃ = 𒉌\n\ngur₁₄ = 𒄯\n\ngur₁₅ = 𒌴\n\ngur₁₆ = 𒆳\n\ngur₁₇ = 𒄕\n\ngur₁₈ = 𒅗\n\ngur₁₉ = 𒉣𒆠\n\ngur₂₂ = 𒇉\n\ngas = 𒄤\n\ngás (gas₂) = 𒄣\n\ngis = 𒄑\n\ngaṣ = 𒄤\n\ngiṣ = 𒄑\n\ngaš = 𒁉\n\ngeš = 𒄑\n\ngéš (geš₂) = 𒁹\n\ngèš (geš₃) = 𒍑\n\ngeš₄ = 𒀸\n\ngiš = 𒄑\n\ngíš (giš₂) = 𒁹\n\ngìš (giš₃) = 𒍑\n\nguš = 𒋢\n\ngat = 𒃰\n\ngát (gat₂) = 𒆐\n\ngàt (gat₃) = 𒆑\n\ngit = 𒆤\n\ngít (git₂) = 𒁍\n\ngíṭ (giṭ₂) = 𒁍\n\ngaz = 𒄤\n\ngáz (gaz₂) = 𒄣\n\ngàz (gaz₃) = \n\ngez = 𒄑\n\ngiz = 𒄑\n\nguz = 𒈝\n\ngúz (guz₂) = 𒁍\n\ngùz (guz₃) = 𒆪\n\nḫ-\n\nḫab = 𒆸\n\nḫáb (ḫab₂) = 𒇥\n\nḫub = 𒄽\n\nḫúb (ḫub₂) = 𒄸\n\nḫad = 𒉺\n\nḫád (ḫad₂) = 𒌓\n\nḫad (ḫad₃) = 𒊷\n\nḫad₄ = 𒆒, 𒆓\n\nḫud = 𒉺\n\nḫúd (ḫud₂) = 𒌓\n\nḫùd (ḫud₃) = 𒄰\n\nḫud₄ = 𒊷\n\nḫug = 𒂠\n\nḫal = 𒄬\n\nḫál (ḫal₂) = 𒍮\n\nḫul = 𒅆𒌨\n\nḫúl (ḫul₂) = 𒄾\n\nḫùl (ḫul₃) = 𒄒\n\nḫul₄ = 𒅆𒌪\n\nḫum = 𒈝\n\nḫun = 𒂠\n\nḫap = 𒆸\n\nḫup = 𒄽\n\nḫúp (ḫup₂) = 𒄸\n\nḫar = 𒄯\n\nḫár (ḫar₂) = 𒄞\n\nḫàr (ḫar₃) = 𒇽𒆸, 𒈊\n\nḫar₄ = 𒁚\n\nḫer = 𒂡\n\nḫir = 𒂡\n\nḫír (ḫir₂) = 𒄯\n\nḫur = 𒄯\n\nḫas = 𒋻\n\nḫás (ḫas₂) = 𒉺\n\nḫàs (ḫas₃) = 𒍨\n\nḫus = 𒈝\n\nḫús (ḫus₂) = 𒋻\n\nḫaṣ = 𒋻\n\nḫáṣ (ḫaṣ₂) = 𒉺\n\nḫaš = 𒋻\n\nḫáš (ḫaš₂) = 𒍨\n\nḫàš (ḫaš₃) = 𒌓\n\nḫaš₄ = 𒍮\n\nḫeš = 𒌓\n\nḫéš (ḫeš₂) = 𒍨\n\nḫeš₅ = 𒇽𒃷, 𒈂\n\nḫiš = 𒌓\n\nḫiš (ḫíš₂) = 𒍨\n\nḫiš (ḫìš₃) = 𒂟\n\nḫiš₄ = 𒄭𒄊\n\nḫuš = 𒄭𒄊\n\nḫúš (ḫuš₂) = 𒄊\n\nḫat = 𒉺\n\nḫaṭ = 𒉺\n\nḫaz = 𒋻\n\nḫáz (ḫaz₂) = 𒉺\n\nḫuz = 𒈝\n\nk-\n\nkua = 𒄩\n\nkua (kuá₂) = 𒌔\n\nkab = 𒆏\n\nkáb (kab₂) = 𒅘\n\nkib = 𒄒\n\nkub = 𒁺\n\nkùb (kub₃) = 𒄸\n\nkub₄ = 𒆤\n\nkad = 𒃰\n\nkád (kad₂) = 𒆐\n\nkàd (kad₃) = 𒆑\n\nkad₄ = 𒆒\n\nkad₅ = 𒆓\n\nkad₆ = 𒍦\n\nkad₈ = 𒀽\n\nkid = 𒆤\n\nkíd (kid₂) = 𒋺\n\nkìd (kid₃) = 𒀝\n\nkid₄ = 𒋃\n\nkid₅ = 𒆒\n\nkid₆ = 𒆓\n\nkid₇ = 𒅎𒋺, 𒅏\n\nkid₈ = 𒊩𒋺\n\nkid₉ = 𒃰\n\nkid₁₀ = 𒁍\n\nkud = 𒋻\n\nkùd (kud₃) = 𒆪\n\nkud₆ = 𒆑\n\nkag = 𒆕\n\nkág (kag₂) = 𒅗\n\nkíg (kig₂) = 𒆥\n\nkug = 𒆬\n\nkak = 𒆕\n\nkik = 𒈪𒉭\n\nkuk = 𒆬\n\nkúk (kuk₂) = 𒈖\n\nkal = 𒆗\n\nkál (kal₂) = 𒃲\n\nkàl (kal₃) = 𒆕\n\nkal₄ = 𒊩\n\nkel = 𒆸\n\nkèl (kel₃) = 𒇔\n\nkil = 𒆸\n\nkíl (kil₂) = 𒄃\n\nkìl (kil₃) = 𒇔\n\nkil₄ = 𒃰𒋺\n\nkul = 𒆰\n\nkúl (kul₂) = 𒄢\n\nkam = 𒄰\n\nkám (kam₂) = 𒃶\n\nkàm (kam₃) = 𒆒, 𒆓\n\nkam₄ = 𒆛\n\nkem = 𒁶\n\nkim = 𒁶\n\nkím (kim₂) = 𒆒, 𒆓\n\nkìm (kim₃) = 𒁍\n\nkim₄ = 𒁽\n\nkim₅ = 𒁼\n\nkim₆ = 𒁺\n\nkum = 𒄣\n\nkúm (kum₂) = 𒉈\n\nkùm (kum₃) = 𒉽𒅊𒉣𒈨𒂬\n\nkum₄ = 𒌓\n\nkum₅ = 𒅖\n\nkan = 𒃶\n\nkán (kan₂) = 𒃷\n\nkàm (kan₃) = 𒊝\n\nkan₄ = 𒆍\n\nkan₅ = 𒅸\n\nkan₆ = 𒅤\n\nkèn (ken₃) = 𒆳\n\nkin = 𒆥\n\nkín (kin₂) = 𒄯\n\nkìn (kin₃) = 𒆳\n\nkin₄ = 𒆸𒆸\n\nkin₅ = 𒌺\n\nkin₇ = 𒁺\n\nkin₈ = 𒁶\n\nkun = 𒆲\n\nkún (kun₂) = 𒉺\n\nkùn (kun₃) = 𒄣\n\nkun₄ = 𒄿𒇻 / 𒄿𒁳\n\nkun₅ = 𒌉𒂠\n\nkun₈ = 𒈧\n\nkun₉ = 𒉈\n\nkun₁₀ = 𒆥\n\nkap = 𒆏\n\nkàp (kap₃) = 𒃮\n\nkep = 𒄒\n\nkip = 𒄒\n\nkup = 𒁺\n\nkùp (kup₃) = 𒄸\n\nkup₄ = 𒆤\n\nkaq = 𒆕\n\nkar = 𒋼𒀀\n\nkár (kar₂) = 𒃸\n\nkàr (kar₃) = 𒃼\n\nkar₄ = 𒄫\n\nkar₅ = 𒃻\n\nker = 𒄫\n\nker₆ = 𒀘\n\nker₇ = 𒉑\n\nkir = 𒄫\n\nkír (kir₂) = 𒀚\n\nkìr (kir₃) = 𒆸\n\nkir₄ = 𒅗\n\nkir₅ = 𒁁\n\nkir₆ = 𒀘\n\nkir₇ = 𒉑\n\nkir₈ = 𒋼𒀀\n\nkir₉ = 𒄩\n\nkir₁₀ = 𒄊\n\nkir₁₁ = 𒊩𒃢\n\nkir₁₂ = 𒌋𒂘\n\nkir₁₃ = 𒌋𒀜\n\nkir₁₄ = 𒅯\n\nkir₁₅ = 𒋃\n\nkir₁₆ = 𒃼\n\nkir₁₇ = 𒉐\n\nkur = 𒆳\n\nkúr (kur₂) = 𒉽\n\nkùr (kur₃) = 𒄥\n\nkur₄ = 𒆸\n\nkur₅ = 𒋻\n\nkur₆ = 𒉻\n\nkur₇ = 𒅆𒂟\n\nkur₇ = 𒅆𒃻 (old)\n\nkur₈ = 𒅥\n\nkur₉ = 𒆭, 𒋽\n\nkur₁₁ = 𒉣𒆠\n\nkur₁₂ = 𒍀\n\nkur₁₅ = 𒂵\n\nkas = 𒆜\n\nkás (kas₂) = 𒁉\n\nkàs (kas₃) = 𒄤\n\nkas₄ = 𒁽\n\nkas₅ = 𒁼\n\nkas₆ = 𒄣\n\nkas₇ = 𒋃\n\nkis = 𒆧\n\nkís (kis₂) = 𒄑\n\nkus = 𒋢\n\nkús (kus₂) = 𒈝\n\nkaṣ = 𒆜\n\nkáṣ (kaṣ₂) = 𒁉\n\nkàṣ (kaṣ₃) = 𒄤\n\nkiṣ = 𒆧\n\nkúṣ (kuṣ₂) = 𒈝\n\nkaš = 𒁉\n\nkáš (kaš₂) = 𒆜\n\nkàš (kaš₃) = 𒍒\n\nkaš₄ = 𒁽\n\nkaš₅ = 𒁺\n\nkaš₆ = 𒄤\n\nkeš = 𒆧\n\nkéš (keš₂) = 𒂡\n\nkèš (keš₃) = 𒋙𒀭𒄲\n\nkeš₄ = 𒊔\n\nkeš₇ = 𒁝\n\nkeš₈ = 𒁞\n\nkeš₉ = 𒁬\n\nkeš₁₈ = 𒌔\n\nkiš = 𒆧\n\nkíš (kiš₂) = 𒂡\n\nkiš₅ = 𒋝𒋙𒁷, 𒉾\n\nkiš₈ = 𒁞\n\nkiš₉ = 𒁬\n\nkiš₁₆ = 𒌑𒄉\n\nkiš₁₇ = 𒄉\n\nkuš = 𒋢\n\nkúš (kuš₂) = 𒊨\n\nkùš (kuš₃) = 𒌑\n\nkuš₄ = 𒉺𒀭\n\nkuš₅ = 𒌋𒄊\n\nkuš₆ = 𒆯\n\nkuš₇ = 𒅖\n\nkuš₈ = 𒄾\n\nkuš₉ = 𒆵\n\nkuš₁₀ = 𒋝𒋙𒁷, 𒉾\n\nkat = 𒃰\n\nkát (kat₂) = 𒆐\n\nkàt (kat₃) = 𒆑\n\nkat₄ = 𒆒\n\nkat₅ = 𒆓\n\nkat₇ = 𒋗\n\nket = 𒆤\n\nkit = 𒆤\n\nkít (kit₂) = 𒋺\n\nkit₉ = 𒃰\n\nkit₁₆ = 𒁍\n\nkut = 𒋻\n\nkút (kut₂) = 𒃰\n\nkiṭ = 𒆤\n\nkaz₈ = 𒄮\n\nkaz₉ = 𒌓𒄯\n\nkuz = 𒋢\n\nkùz (kuz₃) = 𒆪\n\nl-\n\nlab = 𒆗\n\nláb (lab₂) = 𒈜\n\nleb = 𒈜\n\nlib = 𒈜\n\nlíb (lib₂) = 𒆗\n\nlìb (lib₃) = 𒊮\n\nlib₄ = 𒅆\n\nlib₅ = 𒊠\n\nlub = 𒈜\n\nlad = 𒆳\n\nlid = 𒀖\n\nlíd (lid₂) = 𒉌\n\nlud = 𒂁\n\nlag = 𒋃\n\nlig = 𒌨\n\nlug = 𒇻\n\nlúg (lug₂) = 𒉺\n\nlaḫ = 𒌓\n\nláḫ (laḫ₂) = 𒂟\n\nlàḫ (laḫ₃) = 𒈛\n\nlaḫ₄ = 𒁻\n\nlaḫ₅ = 𒁺𒁺\n\nlaḫ₆ = 𒁺\n\nlaḫ₇ = 𒁽\n\nliḫ = 𒌓\n\nlíḫ (liḫ₂) = 𒂟\n\nlìḫ (liḫ₃) = 𒈛\n\nliḫ₄ = 𒇺\n\nluḫ = 𒈛\n\nlak = 𒋃\n\nlik = 𒌨\n\nlík (lik₂) = 𒋃\n\nlal = 𒇲\n\nlál (lal₂) = 𒇳\n\nlàl (lal₃) = 𒋭\n\nlal₄ = 𒇸\n\nlal₅ = 𒋙𒌍\n\nlal₆ = 𒋙𒉈\n\nlél (lel₂) = 𒆤\n\nlel₄ = 𒆦\n\nlil = 𒇸\n\nlíl (lil₂) = 𒆤\n\nlìl (lil₃) = 𒋙𒌍\n\nlil₅ = 𒋙𒉈\n\nlil₆ = 𒄘\n\nlil₇ = 𒂁𒋡𒁓\n\nlil₈ = 𒈑\n\nlul = 𒈜\n\nlam = 𒇴\n\nlám (lam₂) = 𒉈\n\nlàm (lam₃) = 𒁮\n\nlam₄ = 𒐂\n\nlam₅ = 𒅆\n\nlam₆ = 𒉆\n\nlam₇ = 𒇶\n\nlem = 𒅆\n\nlem₄ = 𒉈\n\nlim = 𒅆\n\nlím (lim₂) = 𒐂\n\nlìm (lim₃) = 𒇴\n\nlum = 𒈝\n\nlúm (lum₂) = 𒅆\n\nlùm (lum₃) = 𒂁\n\nlum₄ = 𒇴\n\nlan = 𒉺\n\nlap = 𒆗\n\nlép (₂) = 𒆗\n\nlip = 𒈜\n\nlíp (lip₂) = 𒆗\n\nlìp (lip₃) = 𒊮\n\nlup = 𒈜\n\nlaq = 𒋃\n\nleq = 𒌨\n\nliq = 𒌨\n\nlíq (liq₂) = 𒋃\n\nlìq (liq₃) = 𒀀𒄷𒋛\n\nlar = 𒉺\n\nlir = 𒉪\n\nlis = 𒇺\n\nliš = 𒇺\n\nlat = 𒆳\n\nlit = 𒀖\n\nlut = 𒂁\n\nliṭ = 𒀖\n\nlíṭ (liṭ₂) = 𒂁\n\nliz = 𒇺\n\nm-\n\nmua = 𒉺\n\nmaʾ = 𒈣\n\nmad = 𒆳\n\nmid = 𒁁\n\nmud = 𒄷𒄭\n\nmúd (mud₂) = 𒁁\n\nmùd (mud₃) = 𒉸\n\nmud₄ = 𒆸𒌋𒆕\n\nmud₅ = 𒋆\n\nmud₆ = 𒊬\n\nmud₇ = 𒍤𒆸\n\nmud₈ = 𒉳\n\nmug = 𒈮\n\nmúg (mug₂) = 𒊩𒆷\n\nmaḫ = 𒈤\n\nmáḫ (maḫ₂) = 𒀠\n\nmàḫ (maḫ₃) = 𒌋𒅗\n\nmeḫ = 𒈤\n\nmiḫ = 𒈤\n\nmuḫ = 𒌋𒅗\n\nmúḫ (muḫ₂) = 𒊚\n\nmuḫ₄ = 𒊨\n\nmuk = 𒈮\n\nmal = 𒂷\n\nmál (mal₂) = 𒋛𒀀\n\nmal₄ = 𒇺\n\nmel = 𒅖\n\nmèl (mel₃) = 𒆠𒉈\n\nmil = 𒅖\n\nmul = 𒀯\n\nmúl (mul₂) = 𒋼\n\nmùl (mul₃) = 𒄮\n\nmul₄ = 𒌌\n\nmul₅ = 𒃷\n\nmam = 𒌋𒌋\n\nmám (mam₂) = 𒊩\n\nmàm (mam₃) = 𒊩𒈠\n\nmim = 𒈫\n\nmím (mim₂) = 𒈹\n\nmìm (mim₃) = 𒌋𒌋\n\nmim₄ = 𒊩𒈠\n\nmum = 𒌣\n\nman = 𒌋𒌋\n\nmàn (man₃) = 𒐀\n\nmen = 𒃞\n\nmén (men₂) = 𒈨\n\nmèn (men₃) = 𒁺\n\nmen₄ = 𒇙\n\nmen₅ = 𒌋𒌋\n\nmin = 𒈫\n\nmín (min₂) = 𒊩\n\nmìn (min₃) = 𒌋𒌋\n\nmin₄ = 𒊩𒌆\n\nmin₅ = 𒐀\n\nmin₆ = 𒋰\n\nmin₇ = 𒃞\n\nmin₈ = 𒑊\n\nmun = 𒁵\n\nmún (mun₂) = 𒌣\n\nmun₄ = 𒋀\n\nmun₅ = 𒌋𒁵\n\nmun₆ = 𒌋𒁴\n\nmuq = 𒈮\n\nmar = 𒈥\n\nmár (mar₂) = 𒀫\n\nmàr (mar₃) = 𒃻\n\nmar₅ = 𒌉\n\nmar₆ = 𒄯\n\nmer = 𒂆\n\nmér (mer₂) = 𒅎\n\nmèr (mer₃) = 𒄈\n\nmer₄ = 𒋃\n\nmir = 𒂆\n\nmír (mir₂) = 𒅎\n\nmir₅ = 𒂧\n\nmur = 𒄯\n\nmúr (mur₂) = 𒌘\n\nmùr (mur₃) = 𒅎\n\nmur₆ = 𒆠𒂗𒆕\n\nmur₇ = 𒋞\n\nmur₈ = 𒈱\n\nmur₁₀ = 𒌆\n\nmas = 𒈦\n\nmes = 𒈩\n\nmés (mes₂) = 𒁾\n\nmès (mes₃) = 𒈨𒌍\n\nmis = 𒈩\n\nmus = 𒈲\n\nmaṣ = 𒈦\n\nmeṣ = 𒈩\n\nmiṣ = 𒈩\n\nmaś = 𒈦\n\nmaš = 𒈦\n\nmáš (maš₂) = 𒈧\n\nmàš (maš₃) = 𒈦𒉺\n\nmaš₄ = 𒉺\n\nmeš = 𒈨𒌍\n\nméš (meš₂) = 𒈨\n\nmèš (meš₃) = 𒈩\n\nmiš = 𒈩\n\nmíš (miš₂) = 𒈨𒌍\n\nmìš (miš₃) = 𒄑\n\nmuš = 𒈲\n\nmúš (muš₂) = 𒈽\n\nmùš (muš₃) = 𒈹\n\nmuš₄ = 𒄮\n\nmuš₅ = 𒋀\n\nmuš₆ = 𒁑\n\nmuš₇ = 𒁹\n\nmuš₈ = 𒄷\n\nmuš₉ = 𒈪\n\nmat = 𒆳\n\nmát (mat₂) = 𒁁\n\nmàt (mat₃) = 𒄷𒄭\n\nmet = 𒁁\n\nmit = 𒁁\n\nmut = 𒄷𒄭\n\nmút (mut₂) = 𒁁\n\nmaṭ = 𒆳\n\nmeṭ = 𒁁\n\nmiṭ = 𒁁\n\nmuṭ = 𒄷𒄭\n\nn-\n\nnab = 𒀮\n\nnáb (nab₂) = 𒀯\n\nnàb (nab₃) = 𒀭𒀭\n\nnab₄ = 𒅊\n\nnib = 𒊋\n\nníb (nib₂) = 𒀮\n\nnad = 𒆳\n\nnàd (nad₃) = 𒈿\n\nnid = 𒍑\n\nnud = 𒈿\n\nnag = 𒅘\n\nnág (nag₂) = 𒉀\n\nnig = 𒊩𒌨\n\nníg (nig₂) = 𒃻\n\nnig₆ = 𒌋𒌓𒆤\n\nnug = 𒋐\n\nnúg (nug₂) = 𒋊\n\nnáḫ (naḫ₂) = 𒂠\n\nnak = 𒅘\n\nnák (nak₂) = 𒉀\n\nnàk (nak₃) = 𒊩𒌨\n\nnék (nek₂) = 𒃻\n\nnik = 𒊩𒌨\n\nník (nik₂) = 𒃻\n\nnik₅ = 𒅘\n\nnam = 𒉆\n\nnám (nam₂) = 𒌆\n\nnàm (nam₃) = 𒉏\n\nnam₄ = 𒅊\n\nnem = 𒉏\n\nném (nem₂) = 𒊩𒌆\n\nnim = 𒉏\n\nním (nim₂) = 𒊩𒌆\n\nnìm (nim₃) = 𒌋𒌓\n\nnim₄ = 𒈝\n\nnim₅ = 𒃻\n\nnum = 𒉏\n\nnúm (num₂) = 𒈝\n\nnan = 𒋀\n\nnán (nan₂) = 𒋀𒆠\n\nnàn (nan₃) = 𒌍\n\nnen = 𒊩𒌆\n\nnen₉ = 𒊩𒆪\n\nnin = 𒊩𒌆\n\nnín (nin₂) = 𒈹\n\nnìn (nin₃) = 𒆸𒆸\n\nnin₄ = 𒆸\n\nnin₅ = 𒐏\n\nnin₆ = 𒃻\n\nnin₇ = 𒇧𒇧\n\nnin₉ = 𒊩𒆪\n\nnin₁₀ = 𒊩𒋠\n\nnun = 𒉣\n\nnūn = 𒄩\n\nnún (nun₂) = 𒀀𒄩𒋻𒁺\n\nnùn (nun₃) = 𒁍\n\nnap = 𒀮\n\nnáp (nap₂) = 𒀯\n\nníp (nip₂) = 𒀮\n\nnaq = 𒅘\n\nniq = 𒊩𒌨\n\nníq (niq₂) = 𒃻\n\nnar = 𒈜\n\nnàr (nar₃) = 𒉪\n\nner = 𒉪\n\nnir = 𒉪\n\nnír (nir₂) = 𒍝𒂅\n\nnìr (nir₃) = 𒍝𒉏\n\nnir₄ = 𒍝𒋢\n\nnir₅ = 𒍝𒅁\n\nnir₆ = 𒆗\n\nnir₇ = 𒍝𒂆\n\nnur = 𒉪\n\nnes = 𒌋𒌋\n\nnis = 𒌋𒌋\n\nnís (nis₂) = 𒄑\n\nnus = 𒉭\n\nnaš = 𒌋𒌋\n\nneš = 𒌋𒌋\n\nnéš (neš₂) = 𒄑\n\nniš = 𒌋𒌋\n\nníš (niš₂) = 𒄑\n\nnat = 𒆳\n\nnát (nat₂) = 𒄿\n\nnit = 𒍑\n\nneṭ = 𒍑\n\nniṭ = 𒍑\n\nnuz = 𒉭\n\np-\n\npab = 𒉽\n\npad = 𒉻\n\npád (pad₂) = 𒁁\n\npàd (pad₃) = 𒅆𒊒\n\npad₄ = 𒅆\n\npad₅ = 𒉽𒂊\n\npad₆ = 𒉽𒅖\n\npid = 𒂍\n\npíd (pid₂) = 𒁁\n\npag = 𒄷\n\npig = 𒋝\n\npug = 𒈮\n\npaḫ = 𒈜\n\npàḫ (paḫ₃) = 𒄷\n\npiḫ = 𒈜\n\npuḫ = 𒈜\n\npak = 𒄷\n\npik = 𒋝\n\npuk = 𒈮\n\npal = 𒁄\n\npel = 𒉈\n\npél (pel₂) = 𒉋\n\npel₅ = 𒉭\n\npil = 𒉈\n\npíl (pil₂) = 𒉋\n\npìl (pil₃) = 𒄑𒉋\n\npil₄ = 𒄑𒉈\n\npil₅ = 𒉋\n\npil₆ = 𒋓\n\npil₇ = 𒄊 / 𒊊\n\npul = 𒇧\n\npúl (pul₂) = 𒁔\n\npùl (pul₃) = 𒁄\n\npum = 𒅤\n\npan = 𒉼\n\npán (pan₂) = 𒈜\n\npàn (pan₃) = 𒅆\n\npin = 𒀳\n\npap = 𒄷\n\npaq = 𒄷\n\npiq = 𒋝\n\npúq (puq₂) = 𒄷\n\npar = 𒌓\n\npár (par₂) = 𒁇\n\npàr (par₃) = 𒁖\n\npar₄ = 𒆦\n\npar₅ = 𒂟\n\npar₆ = 𒁈\n\npar₇ = 𒉌𒂟\n\nper = 𒌓\n\npér (per₂) = 𒂟\n\npèr (per₃) = 𒄵\n\npir = 𒌓\n\npír (pir₂) = 𒂟\n\npìr (pir₃) = 𒄵\n\npir₆ = 𒉆\n\npur = 𒁓\n\npur₁₃ = 𒉽𒉽\n\npis = 𒄫\n\npus = 𒄫\n\npaš = 𒄫\n\npeš = 𒄫\n\npéš (peš₂) = 𒋝𒋙𒁷, 𒉾\n\npèš (peš₃) = 𒈠\n\npeš₄ = 𒊯\n\npeš₅ = 𒆒\n\npeš₆ = 𒆓\n\npeš₇ = 𒌉\n\npeš₈ = 𒋗𒃶\n\npeš₉ = 𒌓𒀀\n\npeš₁₀ = 𒆠𒀀\n\npeš₁₁ = 𒄩\n\npeš₁₂ = 𒌓\n\npeš₁₃ = 𒊴\n\npiš = 𒄫\n\npíš (piš₂) = 𒋝𒋙𒁷, 𒉾\n\npiš₄ = 𒊯\n\npiš₅ = 𒆒\n\npiš₆ = 𒆓\n\npiš₁₀ = 𒆠𒀀\n\npúš (puš₂) = 𒉽𒄬\n\npùš (puš₃) = 𒄫\n\npuš₄ = 𒂅\n\npat = 𒉻\n\npát (pat₂) = 𒁁\n\npet = 𒂍\n\npét (pet₂) = 𒁁\n\npit = 𒂍\n\npít (pit₂) = 𒁁\n\npaṭ = 𒉻\n\npáṭ (pat₂) = 𒁁\n\npiṭ = 𒂍\n\nq-\n\nqab = 𒃮\n\nqáb (qab₂) = 𒆏\n\nqàb (qab₃) = 𒁕\n\nqeb = 𒄒\n\nqib = 𒄒\n\nqub = 𒁺\n\nqad = 𒋗\n\nqád (qad₂) = 𒋗𒈫\n\nqàd (qad₃) = 𒃰\n\nqad₄ = 𒈨\n\nqad₆ = 𒆐\n\nqid = 𒆤\n\nqíd (qid₂) = 𒁍\n\nqid₄ = 𒃰\n\nqud = 𒋻\n\nqal = 𒃲\n\nqàl (qal₃) = 𒍇\n\nqal₄ = 𒆗\n\nqel = 𒆸\n\nqil = 𒆸\n\nqíl (qil₂) = 𒄃\n\nqul = 𒆰\n\nqúl (qul₂) = 𒄢\n\nqam = 𒑲\n\nqám (qam₂) = 𒄰\n\nqim = 𒁶\n\nqum = 𒄣\n\nqúm (qum₂) = 𒉈\n\nqùm (qum₃) = 𒈝\n\nqan = 𒃶\n\nqán (qan₂) = 𒄀\n\nqin = 𒆥\n\nqun = 𒆲\n\nqap = 𒃮\n\nqáp (qap₂) = 𒆏\n\nqip = 𒄒\n\nqup = 𒁺\n\nqúp (qup₂) = 𒄽\n\nqaq = 𒆕\n\nqiq = 𒈪𒉭\n\nqar = 𒃼\n\nqár (qar₂) = 𒋼𒀀\n\nqàr (qar₃) = 𒃻\n\nqar₄ = 𒂶\n\nqar₅ = 𒄫\n\nqer = 𒄫\n\nqèr (qer₃) = 𒆸\n\nqer₅ = 𒃼\n\nqer₁₀ = 𒄩\n\nqir = 𒄫\n\nqír (qir₂) = 𒉐\n\nqìr (qir₃) = 𒆸\n\nqir₆ = 𒀘\n\nqir₇ = 𒄊\n\nqir₈ = 𒄌\n\nqir₉ = 𒋃\n\nqir₁₀ = 𒄩\n\nqur = 𒄥\n\nqúr (qur₂) = 𒆳\n\nqùr (qur₃) = 𒑲\n\nqur₄ = 𒉽\n\nqis = 𒆧\n\nqiš = 𒆧\n\nqat = 𒋗\n\nqát (qat₂) = 𒋗𒈫\n\nqàt (qat₃) = 𒃰\n\nqat₅ = 𒆒\n\nqat₆ = 𒆐\n\nqat₇ = 𒆑\n\nqat₈ = 𒆓\n\nqet = 𒆤\n\nqit = 𒆤\n\nqít (qit₂) = 𒁍\n\nqìt (qit₃) = 𒁁\n\nqut = 𒋻\n\nr-\n\nrab = 𒊐\n\nráb (rab₂) = 𒃲\n\nràb (rab₃) = 𒈗\n\nrab₄ = 𒆗\n\nreb = 𒆗\n\nrib = 𒆗\n\nrub = 𒆗\n\nrad = 𒋥\n\nrád (rad₂) = 𒅐\n\nred = 𒈩\n\nrid = 𒈩\n\nrud = 𒋥\n\nrag = 𒊩\n\nrig = 𒋆\n\nríg (rig₂) = 𒍮\n\nrìg (rig₃) = 𒋖𒄑\n\nrig₅ = 𒊑\n\nrig₆ = 𒊪\n\nrig₇ = 𒉺𒄸𒁺\n\nrig₈ = 𒉺𒄸\n\nrig₉ = 𒄸𒁺\n\nrig₁₀ = 𒉺𒁣\n\nrig₁₁ = 𒈩𒊒\n\nrig₁₃ = 𒈲\n\nrug = 𒊿\n\nrúg (rug₂) = 𒉆𒋢\n\nraḫ = 𒈛\n\nráḫ (raḫ₂) = 𒊏\n\nriḫ = 𒈛\n\nruḫ = 𒈛\n\nrak = 𒊩\n\nrik = 𒋆\n\nrík (rik₂) = wikt:\n\nrik₄ = 𒊿\n\nrik₁₃ = 𒈲\n\nruk = 𒊿\n\nram = 𒉘\n\nrám (ram₂) = 𒀸\n\nrem = 𒆸\n\nrém (rem₂) = 𒀖\n\nrim = 𒆸\n\nrím (rim₂) = 𒀖\n\nrìm (rim₃) = 𒉈𒊒\n\nrim₄ = 𒁽\n\nrim₅ = 𒀸\n\nrum = 𒀸\n\nrúm (rum₂) = 𒉈𒊒\n\nrùm (rum₃) = 𒉏\n\nrin = 𒆸\n\nrín (rin₂) = 𒂟\n\nrìn (rin₃) = 𒇔\n\nrin₄ = 𒈸\n\nrin₅ = 𒈕, 𒈕\n\nrin₆ = 𒆜\n\nrap = 𒊐\n\nrip = 𒆗\n\nraq = 𒊩\n\nreq = 𒋆\n\nriq = 𒋆\n\nríq (riq₂) = 𒍮\n\nruq = 𒊿\n\nras = 𒆜\n\nres = 𒊕\n\nris = 𒊕\n\nraš = 𒆜\n\nráš (raš₂) = 𒌇\n\nreš = 𒊕\n\nriš = 𒊕\n\nruš = 𒄭𒄊\n\nrat = 𒋥\n\nrit = 𒈩\n\nrít (rit₂) = 𒋥\n\nraṭ = 𒋥\n\nriṭ = 𒈩\n\nruṭ = 𒋥\n\ns-\n\nsiu = 𒌣\n\nsab = 𒉺𒅁\n\nsib = 𒈨\n\nsíb (sib₂) = 𒉺𒇻\n\nsìb (sib₃) = 𒍦\n\nsub = 𒅢\n\nsúb (sub₂) = 𒁻\n\nsùb (sub₃) = 𒄛\n\nsub₄ = 𒅡\n\nsub₅ = 𒈰\n\nsub₆ = 𒋳\n\nsub₇ = 𒊒\n\nsad = 𒆳\n\nsád (sad₂) = 𒃪\n\nsàd (sad₃) = 𒂿\n\nsad₄ = 𒃖\n\nsed = 𒈻\n\nséd (sed₂) = 𒋃\n\nsèd (sed₃) = 𒈺, 𒀀𒈹\n\nsed₄ = 𒈹𒁲\n\nsed₅ = 𒀀𒈹𒁲\n\nsed₆ = 𒈹\n\nsed₇ = 𒈽\n\nsed₈ = 𒍝𒈹𒁲\n\nsid = 𒈻\n\nsíd (sid₂) = 𒋃\n\nsud = 𒋤\n\nsúd (sud₂) = 𒋥\n\nsùd (sud₃) = 𒋢𒆳𒊒\n\nsud₄ = 𒁍\n\nsud₅ = 𒂬\n\nsag = 𒊕\n\nság (sag₂) = 𒉺𒃶\n\nsàg (sag₃) = 𒉺\n\nsag₄ = 𒈗\n\nsag₅ = 𒋃\n\nsag₆ = 𒍠\n\nsag₇ = 𒃶\n\nsag₈ = 𒆗\n\nsag₉ = 𒊷\n\nsag₁₀ = 𒅆𒂟\n\nsag₁₁ = 𒆥\n\nseg = 𒋝\n\nsig = 𒋝\n\nsíg (sig₂) = 𒋠\n\nsìg (sig₃) = 𒉺\n\nsig₄ = 𒋞\n\nsig₅ = 𒅆𒂟\n\nsig₆ = 𒊷\n\nsig₇ = 𒅊\n\nsig₈ = 𒃰𒋺𒄑\n\nsig₉ = 𒋛\n\nsig₁₀ = 𒋧\n\nsig₁₁ = 𒉺𒃶\n\nsig₁₂ = 𒈬\n\nsig₁₄ = 𒊾, 𒅲, 𒅝\n\nsig₁₅ = 𒆗\n\nsig₁₆ = 𒃶\n\nsig₁₇ = 𒄀\n\nsig₁₈ = 𒆥\n\nsug = 𒆹\n\nsúg (sug₂) = 𒁻\n\nsùg (sug₃) = 𒍇\n\nsug₄ = 𒋤\n\nsug₅ = 𒂅\n\nsug₆ = 𒋢\n\nsug₇ = 𒅲\n\nsug₈ = 𒇭\n\nsug₉ = 𒉭\n\nsug₁₀ = 𒁺𒁺\n\nsaḫ = 𒆤\n\nsáḫ (saḫ₂) = 𒋚\n\nsàḫ (saḫ₃) = 𒂄\n\nsaḫ₄ = 𒄗\n\nsaḫ₆ = 𒄩𒀀\n\nsaḫ₇ = 𒀄\n\nseḫ = 𒋚\n\nséḫ (seḫ₂) = 𒆤\n\nsiḫ = 𒋚\n\nsíḫ (siḫ₃) = 𒆤\n\nsiḫ₄ = 𒈹\n\nsiḫ₅ = 𒄗\n\nsuḫ = 𒈽\n\nsúḫ (suḫ₂) = 𒋦\n\nsùḫ (suḫ₃) = 𒄗, 𒋦\n\nsuḫ₄ = 𒆤\n\nsuḫ₅ = 𒆪\n\nsuḫ₆ = 𒁼\n\nsuḫ₇ = 𒈬\n\nsuḫ₁₀ = 𒈹\n\nsak = 𒊕\n\nsàk (sak₃) = 𒉺\n\nsak₆ = 𒍠\n\nsik = 𒋝\n\nsík (sik₂) = 𒋠\n\nsuk = 𒆹\n\nsùk (suk₃) = 𒍇\n\nsuk₅ = 𒂅\n\nsal = 𒊩\n\nsál (sal₂) = 𒁲\n\nsàl (sal₃) = 𒉌\n\nsal₄ = 𒋡\n\nsil = 𒋻\n\nsíl (sil₂) = 𒉣\n\nsìl (sil₃) = 𒋡\n\nsil₅ = 𒂬\n\nsil₆ = 𒂢\n\nsil₇ = 𒂣\n\nsil₈ = 𒋓\n\nsil₉ = 𒂤\n\nsil₁₀ = 𒂴\n\nsul = 𒂄\n\nsúl (sul₂) = 𒉌\n\nsùl (sul₃) = 𒅾\n\nsul₄ = 𒇭\n\nsam = 𒌑\n\nsám (sam₂) = \n\nsim = 𒉆\n\nsím (sim₂) = 𒋧\n\nsìm (sim₃) = 𒁲\n\nsim₄ = 𒆸\n\nsim₅ = 𒍮\n\nsum = 𒋧\n\nsúm (sum₂) = 𒍮\n\nsùm (sum₃) = 𒋢\n\nsum₄ = 𒅾\n\nsum₅ = 𒍦\n\nsum₆ = 𒋳\n\nsan = 𒊕\n\nsán (san₂) = 𒊿\n\nsàn (san₃) = 𒉓\n\nsan₄ = \n\nsin = 𒌍\n\nsín (sin₂) = 𒉆\n\nsìn (sin₃) = 𒋃, 𒂗𒍪\n\nsun = 𒁁\n\nsún (sun₂) = 𒄢\n\nsùn (sun₃) = 𒋧\n\nsun₄ = 𒅾\n\nsun₅ = 𒁔\n\nsun₆ = 𒊿\n\nsun₇ = 𒆗\n\nsap = 𒉺𒅁\n\nsáp (sap₂) = 𒂟\n\nsàp (sap₃) = 𒉺𒇻\n\nsip = 𒈨\n\nsíp (sip₂) = 𒉺𒇻\n\nsìp (sip₃) = 𒍦\n\nsip₄ = 𒉺𒅁\n\nsúp (sup₂) = 𒁻\n\nsaq = 𒊕\n\nsiq = 𒋝\n\nsuq = 𒆹\n\nsar = 𒊬\n\nsár (sar₂) = 𒊹\n\nsàr (sar₃) = 𒉌\n\nsar₄ = 𒋤\n\nsar₅ = 𒈹\n\nsar₆ = 𒇡\n\nsar₇ = 𒈜\n\nsar₈ = 𒋧\n\nser = 𒋤\n\nsèr (ser₃) = 𒂡\n\nsir = 𒋤\n\nsír (sir₂) = 𒁍\n\nsìr (sir₃) = 𒂡\n\nsir₄ = 𒋓\n\nsir₅ = 𒉡\n\nsur = 𒋩\n\nsúr (sur₂) = 𒊨\n\nsùr (sur₃) = 𒄮\n\nsur₄ = 𒊯\n\nsur₅ = 𒇲\n\nsur₆ = 𒆠𒃲\n\nsur₇ = 𒆠𒆕\n\nsur₈ = 𒇡\n\nsur₉ = 𒋪\n\nsur₁₀ = 𒈣𒅊\n\nsur₁₁ = 𒆪\n\nsur₁₂ = 𒇭\n\nsur₁₄ = 𒊕\n\nsas = 𒆠𒆗\n\nses = 𒋀\n\nsis = 𒋀\n\nsus = 𒈽\n\nsús (sus₂) = 𒈹\n\nsiš = 𒋀\n\nsuš = 𒆪\n\nsúš (suš₂) = 𒉌\n\nsùš (suš₃) = 𒁍\n\nsat = 𒆳\n\nsít (sit₂) = 𒋃\n\nṣ-\n\nṣab = 𒂟\n\nṣib = 𒍦\n\nṣíb (ṣib₂) = 𒍨\n\nṣaḫ = 𒉈\n\nṣeḫ = 𒋚\n\nṣéḫ (ṣeḫ₂) = 𒉈\n\nṣiḫ = 𒋚\n\nṣíḫ (ṣiḫ₂) = 𒉈\n\nṣak = 𒍠\n\nṣal = 𒉌\n\nṣil = 𒉣\n\nṣíl (ṣil₂) = 𒈪\n\nṣìl (ṣil₃) = 𒀭𒊨\n\nṣil₄ = 𒄑𒈪\n\nṣim = 𒍮\n\nṣum = 𒍮\n\nṣin = 𒌍\n\nṣap = 𒂟\n\nṣip = 𒍦\n\nṣar = 𒇡\n\nṣár (ṣar₂) = 𒀫\n\nṣàr (ṣar₃) = 𒈲\n\nṣer = 𒈲\n\nṣir = 𒈲\n\nṣur = 𒀫\n\nṣúr (ṣur₂) = 𒈲\n\nṣiṣ = 𒁁\n\nś-\n\nśig = 𒋠\n\nśik = 𒋠\n\nśal = 𒊩\n\nśim = 𒋆\n\nśím (śim₂) = 𒉆\n\nśum = 𒋳\n\nśúm (śum₂) = 𒋧\n\nśín (śin₂) = 𒉆\n\nśar = 𒊬\n\nśár (śar₂) = 𒊹\n\nśàr (śar₃) = 𒈗\n\nśur = 𒋩\n\nśúr (śur₂) = 𒊨\n\nš-\n\nšab = 𒉺𒅁\n\nšab₄ = 𒈨\n\nšab₅ = 𒉺𒇻\n\nšeb = 𒈨\n\nšéb (šeb₂) = 𒊒\n\nšib = 𒈨\n\nšíb (šib₂) = 𒊒\n\nšìb (šib₃) = 𒉺𒅁\n\nšub = 𒊒\n\nšùb (šub₃) = 𒉺𒅁\n\nšub₄ = 𒈰\n\nšub₅ = 𒍤𒆸\n\nšub₆ = 𒋃\n\nšub₇ = 𒍝𒈽\n\nšub₈ = 𒍝𒈹\n\nšad = 𒆳\n\nšád (šad₂) = 𒈬\n\nšàd (šad₃) = 𒃻\n\nšed = 𒋃\n\nšèd (šed₃) = 𒉫\n\nšed₄ = 𒆑\n\nšed₅ = 𒆒 / 𒆓\n\nšed₆ = 𒆪\n\nšed₇ = 𒈻\n\nšed₈ = 𒍝𒈹𒁲\n\nšed₉ = 𒈺\n\nšed₁₀ = 𒈹𒁲\n\nšed₁₁ = 𒀀𒈹𒁲\n\nšed₁₂ = 𒈹\n\nšed₁₃ = 𒈽\n\nšed₁₄ = 𒆂\n\nšed₁₅ = 𒅝\n\nšed₁₆ = 𒋞\n\nšed₁₇ = 𒅗\n\nšid = 𒋃\n\nšíd (šid₂) = 𒆐\n\nšìd (šid₃) = 𒋺\n\nšud = 𒋤\n\nšud (šud₂) = 𒁍\n\nšud (šud₃) = 𒆃\n\nšud₄ = 𒋃\n\nšag = 𒊕\n\nšàg (šag₃) = 𒉺\n\nšag₄ = 𒊮\n\nšag₅ = 𒊷\n\nšag₆ = 𒋝\n\nšèg (šeg₃) = 𒀀𒀭\n\nšeg₄ = 𒀀𒋙𒉀\n\nšeg₅ = 𒍋, 𒎆\n\nšeg₆ = 𒉈\n\nšeg₇ = 𒅎\n\nšeg₈ = 𒋙𒉀\n\nšeg₉ = 𒊾\n\nšeg₁₀ = 𒆂\n\nšeg₁₁ = 𒅝\n\nšeg₁₂ = 𒋞\n\nšeg₁₃ = 𒅗\n\nšeg₁₄ = 𒅎𒀀𒀭\n\nšig = 𒋝\n\nšíg (šig₂) = 𒋠\n\nšig₅ = 𒍋, 𒎆\n\nšig₆ = 𒋞\n\nšug = 𒉻\n\nšaḫ = 𒋚\n\nšáḫ (šaḫ₂) = 𒂄\n\nšàḫ (šaḫ₃) = 𒆤\n\nšeḫ = 𒋚\n\nšiḫ = 𒋚\n\nšíḫ (šiḫ₂) = 𒆤\n\nšuḫ = 𒈽\n\nšúḫ (šuḫ₂) = 𒋚\n\nšak = 𒊕\n\nšak₆ = 𒋝\n\nšék (šek₂) = 𒋠\n\nšik = 𒋝\n\nšík (šik₂) = 𒋠\n\nšik₆ = 𒋞\n\nšuk = 𒉻\n\nšúk (šuk₂) = 𒈮\n\nšùk (šuk₃) = 𒆹\n\nšal = 𒊩\n\nšál (šal₂) = 𒋡\n\nšàl (šal₃) = 𒉌\n\nšal₅ = 𒁲\n\nšel = 𒋻\n\nšel₄ = 𒊩\n\nšil = 𒋻\n\nšìl (šil₃) = 𒌋\n\nšil₄ = 𒇺\n\nšul = 𒂄\n\nšùl (šul₂) = 𒁲\n\nšam = 𒌑\n\nšám (šam₂) = \n\nšàm (šam₃) = 𒉓\n\nšam₄ = 𒉆\n\nšem = 𒋆\n\nšèm (šem₃) = 𒀚\n\nšem₄ = 𒀙\n\nšem₅ = 𒀘\n\nšem₆ = 𒀖𒋺, 𒀛\n\nšem₇ = 𒅖𒍏\n\nšim = 𒋆\n\nším (šim₂) = 𒉆\n\nšum = 𒋳\n\nšum (šum₂) = 𒋧\n\nšum (šum₃) = 𒈬\n\nšúm₄ = 𒁁\n\nšùm₅ = 𒁔\n\nšan = 𒉓\n\nšán (šan₂) = 𒋳\n\nšàn (šan₃) = 𒊿\n\nšen = 𒊿\n\nšén (šen₂) = 𒍏\n\nšèn (šen₃) = 𒉆\n\nšen₄ = 𒁾\n\nšen₅ = 𒅖𒍏\n\nšen₆ = 𒅖\n\nšin = 𒊿\n\nšín (šin₂) = 𒈫\n\nšun = 𒊿𒊿\n\nšún (šun₂) = 𒀯\n\nšùn (šun₃) = 𒄢\n\nšun₄ = 𒋧\n\nšap = 𒉺𒅁\n\nšap₅ = 𒉺𒇻\n\nšip = 𒈨\n\nšìp (šip₃) = 𒉺𒅁\n\nšup = 𒊒\n\nšúp (šup₂) = 𒀸\n\nšùp (šup₃) = 𒉺𒅁\n\nšaq = 𒊕\n\nšéq (šeq₂) = 𒋠\n\nšiq = 𒋝\n\nšíq (šiq₂) = 𒋠\n\nšiq₄ = 𒆂\n\nšuq = 𒉻\n\nšar = 𒊬\n\nšár (šar₂) = 𒊹\n\nšàr (šar₃) = 𒈗\n\nšar₄ = 𒌋𒌋\n\nšar₅ = 𒅎\n\nšar₆ = 𒁈\n\nšar₇ = 𒋻\n\nšar₈ = 𒉌\n\nšer = 𒋓\n\nšér (šer₂) = 𒁍\n\nšèr (šer₃) = 𒂡\n\nšer₄ = 𒍜\n\nšer₇ = 𒉪\n\nšer₉ = 𒊬\n\nšer₁₁ = 𒄊𒁇\n\nšir = 𒋓\n\nšír (šir₂) = 𒁍\n\nšìr (šir₃) = 𒂡\n\nšir₄ = 𒍜\n\nšir₅ = 𒉡\n\nšir₆ = 𒌉\n\nšir₈ = 𒋤\n\nšir₉ = 𒊬\n\nšir₁₀ = 𒈲\n\nšur = 𒋩\n\nšúr (šur₂) = 𒊨\n\nšùr (šur₃) = 𒋓\n\nšur₄ = 𒇳𒊬\n\nšur₅ = 𒇲𒆸\n\nšur₆ = 𒇳𒆸\n\nšas = 𒋀\n\nšaṣ = 𒋀\n\nšeṣ = 𒋀\n\nšiṣ = 𒋀\n\nšaš = 𒋀\n\nšeš = 𒋀\n\nšéš (šeš₂) = 𒋁\n\nšèš (šeš₃) = 𒀅\n\nšeš₄ = 𒂞\n\nšiš = 𒋀\n\nšíš (šiš₂) = 𒋁\n\nšuš = 𒌋\n\nšúš (šuš₂) = 𒋙\n\nšùš (šuš₃) = 𒅖\n\nšuš₄ = 𒋳\n\nšuš₅ = 𒇟\n\nšuš₆ = 𒇠\n\nšat = 𒆳\n\nšàt (šat₃) = 𒃻\n\nšet = 𒋃\n\nšit = 𒋃\n\nšut = 𒋤\n\nšaṭ = 𒆳\n\nšiṭ = 𒋃\n\nšuṭ = 𒋤\n\nšiz = 𒋀\n\nšuz = 𒋤\n\nt-\n\ntab = 𒋰\n\ntáb (tab₂) = 𒄉\n\ntab₄ = 𒋰\n\ntab₅ = 𒍏\n\nteb = 𒁳\n\ntib = 𒁳\n\ntub = 𒁾\n\ntúb (tub₂) = 𒂀\n\ntad = 𒋺\n\ntid = 𒅎\n\ntud = 𒌅\n\ntúd (tud₂) = 𒉺𒍜\n\ntag = 𒋳\n\ntág (tag₂) = 𒁖\n\ntàg (tag₃) = 𒉌𒂟\n\ntag₄ = 𒋺\n\ntèg (teg₃) = 𒋼\n\ntig = 𒄘\n\ntíg (tig₂) = 𒉌\n\ntig₄ = 𒋾\n\ntug = 𒌇\n\ntúg (tug₂) = 𒌆\n\ntùg (tug₃) = 𒂁𒂁\n\ntug₄ = 𒇧\n\ntug₇ = 𒅎𒋺, 𒅏\n\ntug₈ = 𒂅\n\ntaḫ = 𒈭\n\ntáḫ (taḫ₂) = 𒂃 / 𒃮\n\ntàḫ (taḫ₃) = 𒈬\n\ntuḫ = 𒃮 / 𒂃\n\ntúḫ (tuḫ₂) = 𒈭\n\ntùḫ (tuḫ₃) = 𒈬\n\ntak = 𒋳\n\nták (tak₂) = 𒁖\n\ntàk (tak₃) = 𒉌𒂟\n\ntak₄ = 𒋺\n\ntik = 𒄘\n\ntík (tik₂) = 𒉌\n\ntuk = 𒌇\n\ntúk (tuk₂) = 𒌆\n\ntùk (tuk₃) = 𒂁\n\ntuk₄ = 𒇧\n\ntuk₇ = 𒅎𒋺, 𒅏\n\ntal = 𒊑\n\ntál (tal₂) = 𒉿\n\ntàl (tal₃) = 𒀸\n\ntal₄ = 𒁹\n\ntal₅ = 𒆒𒆒, 𒆓𒆓\n\ntel = 𒁁\n\ntil = 𒁁\n\ntíl (til₂) = 𒇯\n\ntìl (til₃) = 𒋾\n\ntil₄ = 𒀸\n\ntil₅ = 𒁹\n\ntil₆ = 𒆒𒆒, 𒆓𒆓\n\ntil₇ = 𒉿\n\ntil₉ = 𒈦\n\ntul = 𒌋𒌆\n\ntúl (tul₂) = 𒇥\n\ntul₄ = 𒌉\n\ntul₅ = 𒇯\n\ntul₆ = 𒂈\n\ntul₇ = 𒌪\n\ntul₈ = 𒇀\n\ntam = 𒌓\n\ntám (tam₂) = 𒁮\n\ntàm (tam₃) = 𒁴\n\ntam₄ = 𒌈\n\ntem = 𒁴\n\ntim = 𒁴\n\ntím (tim₂) = 𒌈\n\ntìm (tim₃) = 𒁷\n\ntum = 𒌈\n\ntúm (tum₂) = 𒁺\n\ntùm (tum₃) = 𒉐\n\ntum₄ = 𒉏\n\ntum₅ = 𒆪\n\ntum₈ = 𒁴\n\ntum₉ = 𒅎\n\ntum₁₀ = 𒁮\n\ntum₁₁ = 𒉑\n\ntum₁₂ = 𒌅\n\ntan = 𒆗\n\ntán (tan₂) = 𒃞\n\ntàn (tan₃) = 𒃩, 𒌨\n\ntan₄ = 𒃋\n\ntan₆ = 𒍕\n\ntan₇ = 𒃃\n\nten = 𒋼\n\ntén (ten₂) = 𒁷\n\ntèn (ten₃) = 𒂆\n\ntin = 𒁷\n\ntìn (tin₃) = 𒂆\n\ntun = 𒄽\n\ntún (tun₂) = 𒄸\n\ntùn (tun₃) = 𒂅\n\ntun₄ = 𒂄\n\ntap = 𒋰\n\ntep = 𒁳\n\ntip = 𒁳\n\ntup = 𒁾\n\ntúp (tup₂) = 𒂀\n\ntaq = 𒋳\n\ntáq (taq₂) = 𒁖\n\ntàq (taq₃) = 𒉌𒂟\n\ntiq = 𒄘\n\ntíq (tiq₂) = 𒉌\n\ntuq = 𒌇\n\ntùq (tuq₃) = 𒂁\n\ntar = 𒋻\n\ntár (tar₂) = 𒁯\n\ntàr (tar₃) = 𒁰\n\ntar₅ = 𒄀\n\nter = 𒌁\n\ntér (ter₂) = 𒋻\n\ntèr (ter₃) = 𒁯\n\nter₄ = 𒋛𒀀\n\nter₅ = 𒉼\n\ntir = 𒌁\n\ntír (tir₂) = 𒋻\n\ntìr (tir₃) = 𒁯\n\ntir₄ = 𒋛𒀀\n\ntir₅ = 𒉼\n\ntur = 𒌉\n\ntúr (tur₂) = 𒄙\n\ntùr (tur₃) = 𒉣𒇬\n\ntur₄ = 𒄒\n\ntur₅ = 𒌅\n\ntur₆ = 𒆸\n\ntur₇ = 𒆪\n\ntur₈ = 𒁍\n\ntas = 𒌨\n\ntés (tes₂) = 𒌨\n\ntis = 𒁹\n\ntís (tis₂) = 𒌨\n\ntaṣ = 𒌨\n\ntéṣ (tes₂) = 𒌨\n\ntíṣ (tis₂) = 𒌨\n\ntaš = 𒌨\n\ntáš (taš₂) = 𒁹\n\ntàš (taš₃) = 𒀾\n\ntéš (teš₂) = 𒌨\n\ntiš = 𒁹\n\ntíš (tiš₂) = 𒌨\n\ntuš = 𒆪\n\ntat = 𒋺\n\ntaz = 𒌨\n\ntiz = 𒁹\n\ntíz (tiz₂) = 𒌨\n\nṭ-\n\nṭab = 𒋰\n\nṭàb (ṭab₃) = 𒁳\n\nṭab₄ = 𒍏\n\nṭab₆ = 𒄭\n\nṭib = 𒁳\n\nṭíb (ṭib₂) = 𒄭\n\nṭub = 𒁾\n\nṭúb (ṭub₂) = 𒂀\n\nṭad = 𒋺\n\nṭaḫ = 𒈭\n\nṭáḫ (ṭaḫ₂) = 𒂃 / 𒃮\n\nṭuḫ = 𒂃 / 𒃮\n\nṭak = 𒁖\n\nṭug = 𒂁\n\nṭuk = 𒂁\n\nṭal = 𒊑\n\nṭil = 𒀸\n\nṭíl (ṭil₂) = 𒁁\n\nṭul = 𒇥\n\nṭùl (ṭul₃) = 𒇯\n\nṭam = 𒁮\n\nṭám (ṭam₂) = 𒌓\n\nṭém (ṭem₂) = 𒁶\n\nṭim = 𒁴\n\nṭím (ṭim₂) = 𒁶\n\nṭum = 𒌈\n\nṭan = 𒆗\n\nṭin = 𒁷\n\nṭap = 𒋰\n\nṭep = 𒁳\n\nṭip = 𒁳\n\nṭup = 𒁾\n\nṭúp (ṭup₂) = 𒂀\n\nṭar = 𒋻\n\nṭár (ṭar₂) = 𒁯\n\nṭàr (ṭar₃) = 𒁰\n\nṭer = 𒋛𒀀\n\nṭer₅ = 𒌁\n\nṭir = 𒋛𒀀\n\nṭír (ṭir₂) = 𒋻\n\nṭìr (ṭir₃) = 𒋩\n\nṭir₄ = 𒁯\n\nṭir₅ = 𒌁\n\nṭur = 𒄙\n\nṭúr (ṭur₂) = 𒆪\n\nṭùr (ṭur₃) = 𒌉\n\nṭur₄ = 𒄒\n\nṭur₅ = 𒀀\n\nṭiš = 𒁹\n\nṭaṭ = 𒋺\n\nw-\n\nwuk = 𒈮\n\nwil = 𒅖\n\nwan = 𒌋𒌋\n\nwar = 𒁇\n\nwár (war₂) = 𒈥\n\nwàr (war₃) = 𒀴\n\nwir = 𒄊|\n\nwaš = 𒈦\n\nwiš = 𒈨𒌍\n\nwuš = 𒈲\n\nz-\n\nzab = 𒂟\n\nzeb = 𒍦\n\nzib = 𒍦\n\nzíb (zib₂) = 𒍨\n\nzìb (zib₃) = 𒄞\n\nzib₄ = 𒅗\n\nzub = 𒆛\n\nzúb (zub₂) = 𒍦\n\nzid = 𒍣\n\nzíd (zid₂) = 𒂠\n\nzag = 𒍠\n\nzág (zag₂) = 𒉺\n\nzàg (zag₃) = 𒋃\n\nzig = 𒍨\n\nzíg (zig₂) = 𒋝\n\nzìg (zig₃) = 𒍣\n\nzug = 𒆹\n\nzúg (zug₂) = 𒅗\n\nzùg (zug₃) = 𒊢\n\nzug₄ = 𒅲\n\nzaḫ = 𒉈\n\nzáḫ (zaḫ₂) = 𒄩𒀀\n\nzàḫ (zaḫ₃) = 𒀄\n\nziḫ = 𒄗\n\nzuḫ = 𒅗\n\nzak = 𒍠\n\nzák (zak₂) = 𒉺\n\nzek = 𒍨\n\nzik = 𒍨\n\nzík (zik₂) = 𒋝\n\nzuk = 𒆹\n\nzal = 𒉌\n\nzál (zal₂) = 𒇡\n\nzel = 𒉣\n\nzil = 𒉣\n\nzíl (zil₂) = 𒋳\n\nzul = 𒂄\n\nzum = 𒍮\n\nzúm (zum₂) = 𒊪\n\nzap = 𒂟\n\nzáp (zap₂) = 𒆪\n\nzip = 𒍦\n\nzaq = 𒍠\n\nzáq (zaq₂) = 𒉺\n\nzaq₄ = 𒍨\n\nziq = 𒍨\n\nzíq (ziq₂) = 𒋝\n\nzuq = 𒆹\n\nzar = 𒇡\n\nzár (zar₂) = 𒉌\n\nzàr (zar₃) = 𒋧\n\nzar₄ = 𒆰\n\nzar₅ = 𒁁\n\nzar₆ = 𒁁𒀸\n\nzer = 𒆰\n\nzèr (zer₃) = 𒈲\n\nzir = 𒆰\n\nzír (zir₂) = 𒂠𒅗\n\nzìr (zir₃) = 𒈲\n\nzur = 𒀫\n\nzúr (zur₂) = 𒋪\n\nzùr (zur₃) = 𒈣𒅊\n\nzur₄ = 𒇡\n\nzur₅ = 𒇲\n\nzur₈ = 𒊭\n\nzis = 𒁁\n\nzaz = 𒁁\n\nzez = 𒁁\n\nziz = 𒁁\n\nzíz (ziz₂) = 𒀾\n\nzìz (ziz₃) = 𒄮\n\nziz₄ = 𒄓\n\nziz₅ = 𒋳\n\nNumerals\n\nThe Sumerians used a base-60 numerical system. A number, such as \"70\", would be represented with the digit for \"60\" (𒁹) and the digit for \"10\" (𒌋): 𒁹𒌋. It's important to mention that the number for \"60\" is the same as the number for \"1\";[5] the reason this number isn't read as \"11\" is because of the order of the numbers: 60 then 10, not 10 then 60.\n\nUsage\n\nAn example: King Shulgi foundation tablet\n(c. 2094-2047 BC)𒀭 𒐏𒋰𒁀\n𒎏𒀀𒉌\n𒂄𒄀\n𒍑𒆗𒂵\n𒈗 𒋀𒀊𒆠𒈠\n𒈗𒆠𒂗\n𒄀𒆠𒌵𒆤\n𒂍𒀀𒉌\n𒈬𒈾𒆕\n\nDNimintabba\n\"For Nimintabba\"\n\nNIN-a-ni\n\"his Lady\"\n\nSHUL-GI\n\"Shulgi\"\n\nNITAH KALAG-ga\n\"the mighty man\"\n\nLUGAL URIMKI-ma\n\"King of Ur\"\n\nGAL ki-en-\n\"King of Sum-\"\n\n -gi ki-URI-ke\n\"-er and Akkad\"\n\nÉ-a-ni\n\"her Temple\"\n\nmu-na-DU\n\"he built\"[5]\n\nFoundation tablet of king Shulgi (c. 2094-2047 BC), for the Temple of Nimintabba in Ur. ME 118560 British Museum.[13][5] Inscription \"For his Lady Nimintabba, Shulgi the mighty man, King of Ur and King of Sumer and Akkad, has built her Temple\":[5] Traditional cuneiforms were written vertically, but modern transcription is based on the \"rotated\" script adopted in the 2nd millennium BC.\n\nCuneiform script was used in many ways in ancient Mesopotamia. Besides the well-known clay tablets and stone inscriptions, cuneiform was also written on wax boards.[59] One example from the 8th century BC was found at Nimrud. The wax contained toxic amounts of arsenic.[60] It was used to record laws, like the Code of Hammurabi. It was also used for recording maps, compiling medical manuals, and documenting religious stories and beliefs, among other uses. In particular it is thought to have been used to prepare surveying data and draft inscriptions for Kassite stone kudurru.[61][62] Studies by researcher such as Claus Wilcke[63] and Dominique Charpin[64] suggest that cuneiform literacy was not reserved solely for the elite but was common for average citizens.[65]\n\nAccording to Niek Veldhuis,[66] cuneiform script was used at a variety of literacy levels: average citizens needed only a basic, functional knowledge of cuneiform script to write personal letters and business documents. Citizens with a higher degree of literacy put the script to more technical use, listing medicines and diagnoses and writing mathematical equations. Scholars held the highest literacy level of cuneiform and mostly focused on writing as a complex skill and an art form.\n\nModern usage\n\nCuneiform is occasionally used nowadays as inspiration for logos.\n\n Cuneiform ama-gi, literally \"return to the mother\", loosely translated as \"liberty\", is the logo of Liberty Fund.[67]\n\n The central element of the GigaMesh Software Framework logo is the sign 𒆜 (kaskal) meaning \"street\" or \"road junction\".\n\nUnicode\n\nAs of version 18.0, the following ranges are assigned to the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script in the Unicode Standard:\n\nU+12000-U+123FF (922 assigned characters) Cuneiform\n\nU+12400-U+1247F (116 assigned characters) Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation\n\nU+12480-U+1254F (196 assigned characters) Early Dynastic Cuneiform\n\nU+12550-U+1268F (311 assigned characters) Archaic Cuneiform Numerals\n\nThe final proposal for Unicode encoding of the script was submitted by two cuneiform scholars working with an experienced Unicode proposal writer in June 2004.[68] The base character inventory is derived from the list of Ur III signs compiled by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative of UCLA based on the inventories of Miguel Civil, Rykle Borger (2003) and Robert Englund. Rather than opting for a direct ordering by glyph shape and complexity, according to the numbering of an existing catalog, the Unicode order of glyphs was based on the Latin alphabetic order of their \"last\" Sumerian transliteration as a practical approximation. Once in Unicode, glyphs can be automatically processed into segmented transliterations.[69]\n\nCorpus\n\nNumerous efforts have been made since the 19th century to create a corpus of known cuneiform inscriptions. In the 21st century, the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus are two of the most significant projects.\n\nList of major cuneiform tablet discoveries\n\nLocation\n\nNumber of tablets\n\nLanguage\n\nNineveh\n\n20,000-24,000[70]\n\nAkkadian\n\nNippur\n\n60,000[70]\n\nGirsu\n\n40,000-50,000[70]\n\nDūr-Katlimmu\n\n500[70]\n\nSippar\n\n60,000-70,000[71][70]\n\nBabylonian\n\nAmarna\n\n382\n\nCanaano-Akkadian\n\nNuzi\n\n10,000-20,000[70]\n\nAkkadian, Hurro-Akkadian\n\nAssur\n\n16,000[72]\n\nAkkadian\n\nHattusa\n\n30,000[73]\n\nHittite, Hurrian\n\nDrehem\n\n100,000[70]\n\nSumerian\n\nKanesh\n\n23,000[74]\n\nAkkadian\n\nUgarit\n\n1,500\n\nUgaritic, Hurrian\n\nPersepolis\n\n15,000-18,000[75]\n\nElamite, Old Persian\n\nMari\n\n20,000-25,000[70]\n\nAkkadian\n\nAlalakh\n\n300[76]\n\nAkkadian, Hurro-Akkadian\n\nAbu Salabikh\n\n500[70]\n\nSumerian, Akkadian\n\nEbla\n\napprox. 5,000[77]\n\nSumerian, Eblaite\n\nNimrud\n\n244\n\nNeo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian\n\nSee also\n\nHieratic\n\nElamite cuneiform\n\nHittite cuneiform\n\nJournal of Cuneiform Studies\n\nList of cuneiform signs\n\nList of museums of ancient Near Eastern art\n\nOld Persian cuneiform\n\nUgaritic alphabet\n\nUrartian cuneiform\n\nBabylonokia: a 21st-century cuneiform artwork\n\nNotes\n\n^ /kjuːˈniː.ɪfɔːrm/ kew-NEE-ih-form, /kjuːˈneɪ.ɪfɔːrm/[1][2] kew-NAY-ih-form, or /ˈkjuːnɪfɔːrm/[1] KEW-nih-form\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"cuneiform\". Oxford Dictionaries.\n\n^ Cuneiform: Irving Finkel & Jonathan Taylor bring ancient inscriptions to life. The British Museum. June 4, 2014.\n\n^ Jagersma, Abraham Hendrik (2010). A descriptive grammar of Sumerian (PDF) (Thesis). Faculty of the Humanities, Leiden University. p. 15. In its fully developed form, the Sumerian script is based on a mixture of logographic and phonographic writing. There are basically two types of signs: word signs, or logograms, and sound signs, or phonograms.\n\n^ a b c Kimball, Sara E.; Slocum, Jonathan. \"Hittite Online\". The University of Texas at Austin Linguistics Research Center. Early Indo-European OnLine. 2 The Cuneiform Syllabary. Hittite is written in a form of the cuneiform syllabary, a writing system in use in Sumerian city-states in Mesopotamia by roughly 3100 BC and used to write a number of languages in the ancient Near East until the first century BC\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Olson, David R.; Torrance, Nancy (2009). The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-86220-2.\n\n^ \"The origins of writing\". The British Museum. Archived from the original on March 11, 2022. Retrieved May 10, 2022.\n\n^ Huehnergard, John (2004). \"Akkadian and Eblaite\". Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-521-56256-0. Connected Akkadian texts appear c. 2350 and continue more or less uninterrupted for the next two and a half millennia...\n\n^ Archi, Alfonso (2015). \"How the Anitta text reached Hattusa\". Saeculum: Gedenkschrift für Heinrich Otten anlässlich seines 100. Geburtstags. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-10365-7. The existence of the Anitta text demonstrates that there was not a sudden and total interruption in writing but a phase of adaptation to a new writing.\n\n^ Cartwright, Hugo. \"Permutation Space Closeness of Ordered Sets\".\n\n^ a b c Hunger, Hermann, and Teije de Jong, \"Almanac W22340a from Uruk: The latest datable cuneiform tablet.\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 104.2, pp. 182-194, 2014\n\n^ a b c \"Cuneiform Tablets: Who's Got What?\", Biblical Archaeology Review, 31 (2), 2005, archived from the original on July 15, 2014\n\n^ Streck, Michael P. (2010). \"Großes Fach Altorientalistik. Der Umfang des keilschriftlichen Textkorpus\". Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orientgesellschaft 142 (PDF) (in German). pp. 57-58.\n\n^ a b \"Image gallery: tablet / cast\". British Museum.\n\n^ a b c W. W. Hallo and W. K. Simpson, \"The Ancient Near East: A History\", New York: Harcourt Brace, 1971 ISBN 9780155027558\n\n^ Adkins 2003, p. 47.\n\n^ [1] Bennison-Chapman, Lucy E. \"Reconsidering 'Tokens': The Neolithic Origins of Accounting or Multifunctional, Utilitarian Tools?.\" Cambridge Archaeological Journal 29.2 (2019): 233-259.\n\n^ Overmann, Karenleigh A. The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Piscataway, New Jersey, US: Gorgias Press, 2019\n\n^ Denise Schmandt-Besserat, \"An Archaic Recording System and the Origin of Writing.\" Syro Mesopotamian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-32, 1977\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Walker, C. (1987). Reading The Past Cuneiform. British Museum. pp. 7.\n\n^ Denise Schmandt-Besserat, An Archaic Recording System in the Uruk-Jemdet Nasr Period, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 83, no. 1, pp. 19-48, (Jan. 1979)\n\n^ [2] Robert K. Englund, \"Proto-Cuneiform Account-Books and Journals\", in Michael\nHudson and Cornelia Wunsch, eds., Creating Economic Order: Record-keeping,\nStandardization and the Development of Accounting in the Ancient Near East (CDL\nPress: Bethesda, Maryland, USA) pp. 23-46, 2004\n\n^ Green, M. and H. J. Nissen (1987). Zeichenliste der Archaischen Texte aus Uruk. ATU 2. Berlin\n\n^ Englund, R. K. (1998). \"Texts from the Late Uruk Period\". In: Mesopotamien: Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdy-\nnastische Zeit (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/1). Ed. by P. Attinger and M. Wäfler. Fribourg, Switzerland / Göttingen, 15-217\n\n^ [3] Born, L., & Kelley, K. (2021). A Quantitative Analysis of Proto-Cuneiform Sign Use in Archaic Tribute. Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin, 006\n\n^ Monaco, Salvatore F., \"Proto-cuneiform And Sumerians\", Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, vol. 87, no. 1/4, pp. 277-282, 2014\n\n^ \"Proto-cuneiform tablet\". www.metmuseum.org.\n\n^ Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, et al., The Cambridge Ancient History (3rd ed. 1970) pp. 43-44.\n\n^ Barraclough, Geoffrey; Stone, Norman (1989). The Times Atlas of World History. Hammond. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-7230-0304-5.\n\n^ a b c d Foxvog, Daniel A. Introduction to Sumerian grammar (PDF). p. 12. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 3, 2017\n\n^ Mémoires (in French). Mission archéologique en Iran. 1900. p. 53.\n\n^ Taylor, Jon, \"Temporality on Clay Tablets: When the Component Parts of a Cuneiform Document Were Committed to Clay\", Erasing and Rewriting in Manuscript Cultures: Practices of Text Obliteration and Manuscript Reuse in a Global Perspective, edited by Michele Cammarosano, De Gruyter, pp. 115-160, 2026\n\n^ [4] Michel, Cécile, et al., \"Deciphering 4000-year-old cuneiform letters hidden in clay envelopes using a mobile X-ray computed tomography scanner\", npj Heritage Science, 2026\n\n^ a b c Khačikjan, Margaret. The Elamite language (1998). p. 1.\n\n^ Daniels, Peter; Bright, William (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.\n\n^ a b Козлова, Н. В.; Касьян, А. С.; Коряков, Ю. Б. (2010). \"Клинопись\". Языки мира: Древние реликтовые языки Передней Азии (in Russian): 197-222.\n\n^ For the original inscription: Rawlinson, H. C. Cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia (PDF). p. 3, column 2, line 98. For the transliteration in Sumerian an-szar2-du3-a man kur_ an-szar2{ki}: \"CDLI-Archival View\". cdli.ucla.edu. For the translation: Luckenbill, David. Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume II (PDF). p. 297. For the Assyrian pronunciation: Quentin, A. (1895). \"Inscription Inédite du Roi Assurbanipal: Copiée Au Musée Britannique le 24 Avril 1886\". Revue Biblique (1892-1940). 4 (4): 554. ISSN 1240-3032. JSTOR 44100170.\n\n^ Beyer, K, \"Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer samt den Inschriften aus Palästina, dem Testament Levis aus der Kairoer Genisa, der Fastenrolle und den alten talmu - dischen Zitaten\", Göttingen, 1984\n\n^ Riva, Rocío Da, and Gianluca Galetti, \"Two Temple Rituals from Babylon\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 70.1, pp. 189-227, 2018\n\n^ Da Riva, Rocío, \"In and around the Court of Bēl and the Cultic Topography of the Esagil according to Late Babylonian Ritual Texts\", Individuals and Institutions in the Ancient Near East: A Tribute to Ran Zadok 27, pp. 179-214, 2021\n\n^ [5]Debourse, Céline, and Michael Jursa, \"Conceptualizing a Priestly World: Past, Present, and Future in Hellenistic Babylon\", Religions 16.6, pp. 731, 2025\n\n^ [6]Alstola, Tero, et al., \"Sources at the End of the Cuneiform Era\", Studia Orientalia Electronica 11.2, pp. 5-29, 2023\n\n^ [7]Lang, Martin, \"Construction of Identities and Late Mesopotamian Archives as Found in the Fragments of the ‘Graeco-Babyloniaca’\", Studia Orientalia 11.2, pp. 130-137, 2023\n\n^ Sollberger, Edmond, \"Graeco-babyloniaca\", Iraq 24.1, pp. 63-72, 1962\n\n^ Geller, M. J., \"The last wedge\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 87/1, pp. 43-95, 2009\n\n^ Windfuhr, G. L.: \"Notes on the old Persian signs\", page 1. Indo-Iranian Journal, 1970.\n\n^ Schmitt, R. (2008), \"Old Persian\", in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas (illustrated ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 77, ISBN 978-0-521-68494-1\n\n^ a b Watkins, Lee; Snyder, Dean (2003), The Digital Hammurabi Project (PDF), The Johns Hopkins University, archived (PDF) from the original on July 14, 2014\n\n^ [8]Sayce, Rev. A. H., \"The Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions\", Second Edition-revised, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, Brighton, New York, 1908 (Reprint - ISBN 978-1-108-08239-6)\n\n^ \"DPa\". Livius. April 16, 2020. Retrieved March 19, 2023.\n\n^ \"XPe\". Livius. September 24, 2020. Retrieved March 19, 2023.\n\n^ \"Site officiel du musée du Louvre\". cartelfr.louvre.fr.\n\n^ \"Antiochus cylinder\". British Museum.\n\n^ Wallis Budge, Ernest Alfred (1884). Babylonian Life and History. Religious Tract Society. p. 94.\n\n^ Cf. The Cylinder of Antiochus I from the Ezida temple in Borsippa (BM 36277), p.4 by M. Stol and R.J. van der Spek and Antiochus I 01 by The Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online (RIBo) Project.\n The transliteration here differs slightly from these sources by rendering the determinative for male personal names 𒁹 with the Sumerian reading of the sign DIŠ, whereas it is more commonly transcribed with the conventional letter M today. The spellings 𒂍𒊕𒅍 (É.SAG.ÍL) and 𒂍𒍣𒁕 (É.ZI.DA) can also be read phonetically in Akkadian (as they are in the second source), because the names themselves have been borrowed into Akkadian with their Sumerian pronunciations. Conversely, the sign 𒆗, which may have the phonetic value dan in Akkadian, was nevertheless originally a Sumerian logogram KAL 'strong'. Finally, 𒅇 (ù) was the word for 'and' not only in Akkadian, but also in Sumerian.\n\n^ Robin Leroy, \"Unicode Technical Report #56\", 2025-10-29\n\n^ Kudrinski, Maksim. \"Hittite heterographic writings and their interpretation\" Indogermanische Forschungen, vol. 121, no. 1, pp. 159-176, 2016\n\n^ Veldhuis, Niek (September 22, 2011), \"Levels of Literacy\", in Radner, Karen; Robson, Eleanor (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, Oxford University Press, pp. 68-89, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199557301.013.0004, ISBN 978-0-19-955730-1, retrieved March 4, 2025\n\n^ a b c d Borger 2004, pp. 245-539.\n\n^ Zimmermann, Lynn-Salammbô (2023), \"Knocking on Wood: Writing Boards in the Kassite Administration\", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 177-237\n\n^ Cammarosano, Michele, Katja Weirauch, Feline Maruhn, Gert Jendritzki, and Patrick L. Kohl (2019), \"They Wrote on Wax. Wax Boards in the Ancient Near East\", Mesopotamia, vol. 54, pp. 121-180\n\n^ Zimmermann, Lynn-Salammbô (2022), \"Wooden Wax-Covered Writing Boards as Vorlage for kudurru Inscriptions in the Middle Babylonian Period\", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, pp. 53-106\n\n^ \"The World's Oldest Writing\". Archaeology. 69 (3). May 2016. Archived from the original on April 27, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2016 - via Virtual Library of Virginia.\n\n^ Wilcke, Claus (2000). Wer las und schrieb in Babylonien und Assyrien (in German). Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. ISBN 978-3-7696-1612-5.\n\n^ [9]Charpin, Dominique, \"Lire et écrire en Mésopotamie: une affaire de spécialistes?\", Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 148.1, pp. 481-508, 2004\n\n^ [10]Dominique Charpin, \"Literacy in the Old Babylonian Period\", Ed: Susanne Paulus, Back to School in Babylonia, ISAC Museum Publications 1, Chicago: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, pp. 59-66, 2023 ISBN 978-1-61491-098-5\n\n^ Veldhuis, Niek (2011). Radner, Karen; Robson, Eleanor (eds.). \"Levels of Literacy\". The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199557301.001.0001. hdl:10261/126580. ISBN 978-0-19-955730-1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ \"Our Logo\". libertyfund.org. Liberty Fund. Retrieved May 14, 2020. The cuneiform inscription that serves as Liberty Fund's logo and as a design element in our books is the earliest-known written appearance of the word 'freedom' (amagi), or 'liberty'. It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.\n\n^ Everson, Michael; Feuerherm, Karljürgen; Tinney, Steve (June 8, 2004). \"Final proposal to encode the Cuneiform script in the SMP of the UCS\".\n\n^ Gordin S, Gutherz G, Elazary A, Romach A, Jiménez E, Berant J, et al. (2020) \"Reading Akkadian cuneiform using natural language processing\". PLoS ONE 15(10): e0240511. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240511\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\n^ Pinches, T. G.; Finkel, I. L. (1984). \"Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Economic Texts from the Sippar Collection of the British Museum\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 104 (4). American Oriental Society: 745-752. doi:10.2307/601904. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 601904.\n\n^ Ellermeier, Friedrich., and Margret. Studt. Sumerisches Glossar. Vol. 3, T. 6, Handbuch Assur / Friedrich Ellmermeier; Margret Studt. Hardegsen bei Göttingen: Selbstverl. Ellermeier, 2003. Print. Theologische und orientalistische Arbeiten aus Göttingen, 4.\n\n^ \"The Hittite cuneiform tablets from Bogazköy\". UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Retrieved August 21, 2025.\n\n^ Michel, Cecile, Old Assyrian Bibliography, 2001.\n\n^ \"Persepolis Fortification Archive\". The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Archived from the original on September 29, 2016. Retrieved September 18, 2016.\n\n^ Lauinger, Jacob (January 1, 2007). Archival practices at Old Babylonian/Middle Bronze Age Alalakh (Level VII) (Thesis). University of Chicago. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014.\n\n^ Moorey, P. R. S. (1992). A Century of Biblical Archaeology. Westminster Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-25392-9.\n\nBibliography\n\nAdkins, Lesley, Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon, New York, St. Martin's Press (2003) ISBN 978-0-312-33002-6\n\nBogacz, Bartosz; Mara, Hubert (June 30, 2022). \"Digital Assyriology-Advances in Visual Cuneiform Analysis\". Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage. 15 (2): 1-22. doi:10.1145/3491239. S2CID 248843112.\n\nR. Borger, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste, 2nd ed., Neukirchen-Vluyn (1981)\n\nBurnouf, E. (1836). \"Mémoire sur deux Inscriptions Cunéiformes trouvées près d'Hamadan et qui font partie des papiers du Dr Schulz\", [Memoir on two cuneiform inscriptions [that were] found near Hamadan and that form part of the papers of Dr. Schulz], Imprimerie Royale, Paris.\n\nCammarosano, M. (2017-2018) \"Cuneiform Writing Techniques\", cuneiform.neocities.org (with further bibliography)\n\nMichel, Cécile, \"Identifying Missing Evidence in an Abundant Cuneiform Corpus\", Missing Evidence in the Study of Ancient Cultures: Methodological Reflections and Case Studies on Fragmentary Sources, edited by Cécile Michel, Michael Friedrich and Jorrit Kelder, De Gruyter, pp. 119-146, 2026\n\nCharvát, Petr. \"Cherchez la femme: The SAL Sign in Proto-Cuneiform Writing\". La famille dans le Proche-Orient ancien: réalités, symbolismes et images: Proceedings of the 55e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Paris, edited by Lionel Marti, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2021, pp. 169-182\n\nDahl, J. L., \"The early development of the cuneiform writing system, and its regional adaptation\", in National Museum of World Writing Academic Series, National Museum of World Writing, pp. 285-318, 2025\n\nA. Deimel (1922), Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen (\"LAK\"), WVDOG 40, Berlin.\n\nA. Deimel (1925-1950), Šumerisches Lexikon, Pontificum Institutum Biblicum.\n\nBorger, Rykle (2004). Dietrich, Manfried [in German]; Loretz, Oswald [in German] (eds.). Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon [Mesopotamian Signs' List]. Alter Orient und Altes Testament (in German). Vol. 305. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3-927120-82-2.\n\nF. Ellermeier, M. Studt, Sumerisches Glossar\n\nvol. 1: 1979-1980, ISBN 978-3-921747-08-7, ISBN 978-3-921747-10-0\n\nvol. 3.2: 1998-2005, A-B ISBN 978-3-921747-24-7, D-E ISBN 978-3-921747-25-4, G ISBN 978-3-921747-29-2\n\nvol. 3.3: ISBN 978-3-921747-22-3 (font CD ISBN 978-3-921747-23-0)\n\nvol. 3.5: ISBN 978-3-921747-26-1\n\nvol 3.6: 2003, Handbuch Assur ISBN 978-3-921747-28-5\n\nRobert K. Englund and Rainer M.Boehmer, \"Archaic Administrative Texts from Uruk - The Early Campaigns\", (ATU Bd. 5), Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag 1994 ISBN 978-3786117452\n\nRobert K. Englund, Roger J. Matthews, \"Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Diverse Collections\", Berlin: Gebr. Mann 1996 ISBN 978-3786118756\n\nA. Falkenstein, Archaische Texte aus Uruk, Berlin-Leipzig (1936)\n\nE. Forrer, Die Keilschrift von Boghazköi, Leipzig (1922)\n\nFinkel, Irving; Taylor, Jonathan (2015). Cuneiform. Londres: The British Museum Press..\n\nJ. Friedrich, Hethitisches Keilschrift-Lesebuch, Heidelberg (1960)\n\nJean-Jacques Glassner, The Invention of Cuneiform, English translation, Johns Hopkins University Press (2003), ISBN 978-0-8018-7389-8.\n\nHayes, John L. (2000). A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts. Aids and Research Tools in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Vol. 5 (2d ed.). Malibu: Undena Publications. ISBN 978-0-89003-197-1.\n\nHeeren (1815) \"Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vornehmsten Volker der alten Welt\", vol. i. pp. 563 seq., translated into English in 1833\n\nDSpace Hershkovitz, Yehonatan, \"The Adaptation Process of Cuneiform in the Old Babylonian Period\", Dissertation, Harvard University, 2023\n\nKramer, Samuel Noah (1981). \"Appendix B: The Origin of the Cuneiform Writing System\". History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History (3d revised ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 381-383. ISBN 978-0-8122-7812-5.\n\nRené Labat, Manuel d'epigraphie Akkadienne, Geuthner, Paris (1959); 6th ed., extended by Florence Malbran-Labat (1999), ISBN 978-2-7053-3583-0\n\nLassen, Christian (1836) Die Altpersischen Keil-Inschriften von Persepolis. Entzifferung des Alphabets und Erklärung des Inhalts. [The Old-Persian cuneiform inscriptions of Persepolis. Decipherment of the alphabet and explanation of its content.] Eduard Weber, Bonn, (Germany)\n\n[11] Lewenstein, Or, et al, \"A Large-Scale Dataset of Annotated Cuneiform Sign Images for Digital Palaeography\", Journal of Open Humanities Data 12.1, 2026\n\nMittermayer, Catherine; Attinger, Pascal (2006). Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der Sumerisch-Literarischen Texte. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis. Vol. Special Edition. Academic Press Fribourg. ISBN 978-3-7278-1551-5.\n\nO. Neugebauer, A. Sachs (eds.), Mathematical Cuneiform Texts, New Haven (1945)\n\n[12] Ouyang, Xiaoli, and Christine Proust, \"Place-Value Notations in the Ur III Period: Marginal Numbers in Administrative Texts\", Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World: Numbers, Measurements, and Operations in Documents from Mesopotamia, China and South Asia. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 267-356, 2023\n\nPatri, Sylvain, \"La perception des consonnes hittites dans les langues étrangères au XIIIe siècle.\" Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, 99(1): 87-126, 2009 doi:10.1515/ZA.2009.003.\n\nPrichard, James Cowles (1844). \"Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind\", 3rd ed., vol IV, Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, London\n\nPhilippe Quenet, \"The Diffusion of the Cuneiform Writing System in Northern Mesopotamia: The Earliest Archaeological Evidence\", Iraq, vol. 67, no. 2, pp. 31-40, 2005\n\nRattenborg, Rune, Smidt, Gustav Ryberg, Johansson, Carolin, Melin-Kronsell, Nils and Nett, Seraina, \"The Archaeological Distribution of the Cuneiform Corpus: A Provisional Quantitative and Geospatial Survey\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 178-205, 2003\n\nRawlinson, Henry (1847) \"The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, decyphered and translated; with a Memoir on Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions in general, and on that of Behistun in Particular\", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. X. JSTOR 25581217\n\n[13] Smidt, Gustav Ryberg, Carolin Johansson, Nils Melin-Kronsell, Seraina Nett, and Rune Rattenborg, \"CIGS-AE: A Quantitative Index of Cuneiform Inscriptions\", Cuneiform Digital Library Notes 2024 (2), 2024\n\nY. Rosengarten, Répertoire commenté des signes présargoniques sumériens de Lagash, Paris (1967)\n\nChr. Rüster, E. Neu, Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon (HZL), Wiesbaden (1989)\n\nRonald Herbert Sack, Cuneiform Documents from the Chaldean and Persian Periods, (1994) ISBN 978-0-945636-67-0\n\nNikolaus Schneider, Die Keilschriftzeichen der Wirtschaftsurkunden von Ur III nebst ihren charakteristischsten Schreibvarianten, Keilschrift-Paläographie; Heft 2, Rom: Päpstliches Bibelinstitut (1935)\n\nWolfgang Schramm, Akkadische Logogramme, Goettinger Arbeitshefte zur Altorientalischen Literatur (GAAL) Heft 4, Goettingen (2003), ISBN 978-3-936297-01-0\n\nF. Thureau-Dangin, Recherches sur l'origine de l'écriture cunéiforme, Paris (1898)\n\nVeldhuis, Niek (2012). \"Cuneiform: Changes and Developments\". In Stephen D. Houston (ed.). The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change. Santa-Fe: School of Advanced Research Press. pp. 3-23.\n\n[14]Wang, Zhaohui Geoffrey, \"TabletCraft: Bridging a 4,000-Year Cultural Gap with Bidirectional Akkadian NMT and Cuneiform Rendering\", Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Cross-Cultural Considerations in NLP (C3NLP 2026), pp. 132-136, 2026\n\nWoods, Christopher (2020). \"The Emergence of Cuneiform Writing\". In R. Hasselbach-Andee (ed.). A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern languages. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 27-46.\n\nExternal links\n\nCuneiform Digital Library Initiative \n\nTablet Collections, Cornell University\n\nFinding aid to the Columbia University Cuneiform Collection at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library\n\nThe Cuneiform Wide Web: From Card Catalogues to Digital Assyriology - Shai Gordin and Avital Romach - ANE Today - Oct 2022 Archived November 11, 2022, at the Wayback Machine\n\nA sign list by Assyriologist Kateřina Šašková, featuring Ur III and Neo-Assyrian cuneiform shapes, their composition and pronunciations"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-cuneiform"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 18281}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-language", "title": "Syriac language", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Syriac language (/ˈsɪr.i.æk/, SIRR-ee-ak; Classical Syriac: ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, romanized: Leššānā Suryāyā),[a] also known natively in its spoken form in early Syriac literature as Edessan (Urhāyā), the Mesopotamian language (Nahrāyā) and Aramaic (Aramāyā), is an Eastern Middle Aramaic dialect based on the Aramaic dialect of Edessa.[5][6][7] Classical Syriac...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac\n\nClassical Syriac\nEdessan Aramaic\n\nܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ\n\nLeššānā Suryāyā in written Syriac (Estrangela script)\n\nPronunciation[lɛʃˈʃɑːnɑː surˈjɑːjɑː]\n\nNative toUpper Mesopotamia (Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran)\n\nRegionFertile Crescent (northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, Syria, southeastern Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Sinai), Eastern Arabia (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar)[1][2]\n\nEra1st century AD; declined as a vernacular language after the 13th century; still in liturgical use[3]\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nWest Semitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern Aramaic\nSyriac\n\nEarly formsProto-Afroasiatic\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nOld Aramaic\n\nMiddle Aramaic\n\nEastern Middle Aramaic\n\nDialects\n\nWest-Syriac\n\nEast-Syriac\n\nWriting systemSyriac alphabet\n\nOfficial status\n\nOfficial language inNineveh Plains\n\nRecognised minority\nlanguage inSyria\nTurkey[4]\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-2syc\n\nISO 639-3syc\n\nGlottologclas1252\n\nThe Syriac language (/ˈsɪr.i.æk/, SIRR-ee-ak; Classical Syriac: ܠܫܢܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, romanized: Leššānā Suryāyā),[a] also known natively in its spoken form in early Syriac literature as Edessan (Urhāyā), the Mesopotamian language (Nahrāyā) and Aramaic (Aramāyā), is an Eastern Middle Aramaic dialect based on the Aramaic dialect of Edessa.[5][6][7] Classical Syriac is the academic term used to refer to the dialect's literary usage and standardization, distinguishing it from other Aramaic dialects also known as 'Syriac', 'Assyrian', or 'Syrian'.[8] In its West-Syriac tradition, Classical Syriac is often known as leššōnō kṯoḇonōyō (lit. 'the written language or the book language') or simply kṯoḇonōyō, or kṯowonōyō,[9] while in its East-Syriac tradition, it is known as leššānā ʔatīqā (lit. 'the old language') or saprāyā (lit. 'scribal or literary').[10]\n\nIt emerged during the first century AD from a local Eastern Aramaic dialect that was spoken in the ancient Neo-Assyrian kingdom and region of Osroene, centered in the city of Edessa (Urhai). During the Early Christian period, it became the main literary language of various Aramaic-speaking Christian communities in the historical regions of Ancient Syria, Assyria and throughout the Near East. As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, it gained a prominent role among Eastern Christian communities that used both Eastern Syriac and Western Syriac rites. Following the spread of Syriac Christianity, it also became a liturgical language of eastern Christian communities as far as India and China. It flourished from the 4th to the 8th century, and continued to have an important role during the next centuries, but by the end of the Middle Ages it was gradually reduced to liturgical use, since the role of vernacular language among its native largely Assyrian and Aramean speakers was overtaken by several Neo-Aramaic languages.[11][12][13][14][15]\n\nClassical Syriac is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. The language is preserved in a large body of Syriac literature, which comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature.[16] Along with Greek and Latin, Syriac became one of the three most important languages of Early Christianity.[17] Already from the first and second centuries AD, the mostly Assyrian inhabitants of the region of Osroene began to embrace Christianity, and by the third and fourth centuries, local Edessan Aramaic language became the vehicle of the specific Christian culture that came to be known as Syriac Christianity. Because of theological differences, Syriac-speaking Christians diverged during the 5th century into the Church of the East that followed the East Syriac Rite under Persian rule, and the Syriac Orthodox Church that followed the West Syriac Rite under Byzantine rule.[18]\n\nAs a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, Classical Syriac spread throughout Asia as far as the Southwestern India (Malabar Coast),[19] and Eastern China,[20] and became the medium of communication and cultural dissemination for the later Arabs, and (to a lesser extent) the other peoples of Parthian and Sasanian empires. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic,[21] which largely replaced it during the later medieval period.[22]\n\nSyriac remains the sacred language of Syriac Christianity to this day.[23] It is used as the liturgical language of several denominations, like those who follow the East Syriac Rite, including the Assyrian Church of the East and its offshoots, the Ancient Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, and also those who follow the West Syriac Rite, including: Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Classical Syriac was originally the liturgical language of the Syriac Melkites within the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in Antioch and parts of ancient Syria. The Syriac Melkites changed their church's West Syriac Rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, necessitating new translations of all their Syriac liturgical books.[24][25][26][27]\n\nName\n\nEtymologically, the Name of Syria is originally an Iron Age derivation of Assyria and until the Seleucid Empire it referred solely to the historical Assyria which encompassed modern Northern Iraq, Northeast Syria and the area of Southeast Turkey north of these areas. In the English language, the term \"Syriac\" is used as a glottonym (language name) designating a specific variant of the Aramaic language in relation to its regional origin in northeastern parts of Ancient Syria, around Edessa, which lay outside of the provincial borders of Roman Syria. Since Aramaic was used by various Middle Eastern peoples such as Assyrians, Mandaeans, Arameans and Judeans, having several variants (dialects), this specific dialect that originated in northeastern Syria became known under its regional (Syrian/Syriac) designation (Suryaya).[28]\n\nIn English scholarly literature, the term \"Syriac\" is preferred over the alternative form \"Syrian\", since the latter is much more polysemic and commonly relates to Syria in general.[29] That distinction is used in English as a convention and does not exist on the ancient endonymic level.[30] Several compound terms like \"Syriac Aramaic\", \"Syrian Aramaic\" or \"Syro-Aramaic\" are also used, thus emphasizing both the Aramaic nature of the language and its Syrian/Syriac regional origin.\n\nEndonyms and exonyms\n\nEarly native speakers and writers used several endonymic terms as designations for their language. In addition to common endonym (native name) for the Aramaic language (Aramaya), another endonymic term was also used, designating more specifically the local Edessan dialect, known as Urhaya, a term derived directly from the native Assyrian name for the city of Edessa (Urhay).[31][32][12][33] Among similar endonymic names with regional connotations, term Nahraya was also used. It was derived from choronym (regional name) Bet-Nahrain, an Aramaic name for Mesopotamia.[12][33]\n\nOriginal endonymic (native) designations, for Aramaic more broadly (Aramaya), and Edessan Aramaic in particular (Urhaya), were later (starting from the 5th century) accompanied by another term, exonymic (foreign) in origin: Suryaya (Syrian/Syriac), adopted under the influence of a long-standing Greek custom of referring to speakers of Aramaic, be they Assyrian or Aramean as Syrians. Among ancient Greeks, term \"Syrian language\" was used as a common designation for Aramaic language, and such usage was also reflected in Aramaic, by subsequent (acquired) use of the term \"Suryaya\" as the most preferred synonym for \"Aramaya\" (Aramaic).[32][34][35][12][33][36]\n\nPractice of interchangeable naming (Aramaya, Urhaya, Nahraya, and Suryaya) persisted for centuries, in common use and also in works of various prominent writers. One of those who used various terms was theologian Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), who was referring to the language as \"Syrian or Aramaic\" (Suryāyā awkēt Ārāmāyā), and also as Urhāyā, when referring to Edessan Aramaic, or Naḥrāyā when pointing to the region of Bet-Nahrain (Aramaic term for Mesopotamia).[37][38][39][40]\n\nPlurality of terms among native speakers (ārāmāyā, urhāyā, naḥrāyā, and suryāyā)[12][33] was not reflected in Greek and Latin terminology, which preferred the Syrian/Syriac designation, and the same preference was adopted by later scholars, with one important distinction: in western scholarly use, Syrian/Syriac label was subsequently reduced from the original Greek designation for the Aramaic language to a more specific (narrower) designation for Edessan Aramaic language, that in its literary and liturgical form came to be known as Classical Syriac.[41] That reduction resulted in the creation of a specific field of Syriac studies, within Aramaic studies.\n\nPreference of early scholars towards the use of the Syrian/Syriac label was also relied upon its notable use as an alternative designation for Aramaic language in the \"Cave of Treasures\",[42] long held to be the 4th century work of an authoritative writer and revered Christian saint Ephrem of Edessa (d. 373), who was thus believed to be proponent of various linguistic notions and tendencies expressed in the mentioned work.[43] Since modern scholarly analyses have shown that the work in question was written much later (c. 600) by an unknown author,[44][45] several questions had to be reexamined. In regard to the scope and usage of Syrian/Syriac labels in linguistic terminology, some modern scholars have noted that diversity of Aramaic dialects in the wider historical region of Syria should not be overlooked by improper and unspecific use of Syrian/Syriac labels.[46][47]\n\nDiversity of Aramaic dialects was recorded by Theodoret of Cyrus (d. c. 466), who accepted Syrian/Syriac labels as common Greek designations for the Aramaic language, stating that \"the Osroënians, the Syrians, the people of the Euphrates, the Palestinians, and the Phoenicians all speak Syriac, but with many differences in pronunciation\".[48] Theodoret's regional (provincial) differentiation of Aramaic dialects included an explicit distinction between the \"Syrians\" (as Aramaic speakers of Syria proper, western of Euphrates), and the \"Osroenians\" as Aramaic speakers of Osroene (eastern region, centered in Edessa), thus showing that dialect of the \"Syrians\" (Aramaic speakers of proper Syria) was known to be different from that of the \"Osroenians\" (speakers of Edessan Aramaic).[49][50]\n\nNative (endonymic) use of the term Aramaic language (Aramaya/Oromoyo) among its speakers has continued throughout the medieval period, as attested by the works of prominent writers, including the Oriental Orthodox Patriarch Michael of Antioch (d. 1199).[51]\n\nWider and narrower meanings\n\nSince the proper dating of the Cave of Treasures,[52] modern scholars were left with no indications of native Aramaic adoption of Syrian/Syriac labels before the 5th century. In the same time, a growing body of later sources showed that both in Greek, and in native literature, those labels were most commonly used as designations for the Aramaic language, including its various dialects (both eastern and western),[53] thus challenging the conventional scholarly reduction of the term \"Syriac language\" to a specific designation for Edessan Aramaic. Such use, which excludes non-Edessan dialects, and particularly those of Western Aramaic provenience,[54][55] persist as an accepted convention, but at the same time stands in contradiction both with original Greek, and later native (acquired) uses of Syrian/Syriac labels as common designations for the Aramaic language.\n\nThose problems were addressed by prominent scholars, including Theodor Nöldeke (d. 1930) who noted on several occasions that the term \"Syriac language\" has come to have two distinctive meanings, wider and narrower, with the first (historical and wider) serving as a common synonym for the Aramaic language as a whole, while other (conventional and narrower) designations only refer to Edessan Aramaic, also referred to more specifically as \"Classical Syriac\".[56][57]\n\nNoting the problem, scholars have tried to resolve the issue by being more consistent in their use of the term \"Classical Syriac\" as a strict and clear scientific designation for the old literary and liturgical language, but the consistency of such use was never achieved within the field.[58][59][41][60][61]\n\nInconsistent use of \"Syrian/Syriac\" labels in scholarly literature has led some researchers to raise additional questions, related not only to terminological issues but also to some more fundamental (methodological) problems, that were undermining the integrity of the field.[62] Attempts to resolve those issues were unsuccessful, and in many scholarly works, related to the old literary and liturgical language, reduction of the term \"Classical Syriac\" to \"Syriac\" (only) remained a manner of convenience, even in titles of works, including encyclopedic entries, thus creating a large body of unspecific references, that became a base for the emergence of several new classes of terminological problems at the advent of the informational era. Those problems culminated during the process of international standardization of the terms \"Syriac\" and \"Classical Syriac\" within the ISO 639 and MARC systems.\n\nThe term \"Classical Syriac\" was accepted in 2007 and codified (ISO code: syc) as a designation for the old literary and liturgical language, thus confirming the proper use of the term.[63] In the same time, within the MARC standard, code syc was accepted as designation for Classical Syriac, but under the name \"Syriac\", while the existing general code syr, that was until then named \"Syriac\", was renamed to \"Syriac, Modern\".[64] Within ISO 639 system, large body of unspecific references related to various linguistic uses of the term \"Syriac\" remained related to the original ISO 639-2 code syr (Syriac),[65] but its scope is defined within the ISO 639-3 standard as a macrolanguage that currently includes only some of the Neo-Aramaic languages.[66] Such differences in classification, both terminological and substantial, within systems and between systems (ISO and MARC), led to the creation of several additional problems, that remain unresolved.[67]\n\nWithin linguistics, mosaic of terminological ambiguities related to Syrian/Syriac labels was additionally enriched by introduction of the term \"Palaeo-Syrian language\" as a variant designation for the ancient Eblaite language from the third millennium BC,[68][69] that is unrelated to the much later Edessan Aramaic, and its early phases, that were commonly labeled as Old/Proto- or even Paleo/Palaeo-Syrian/Syriac in scholarly literature. Newest addition to the terminological mosaic occurred c. 2014, when it was proposed, also by a scholar, that one of regional dialects of the Old Aramaic language from the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC should be called \"Central Syrian Aramaic\",[70][71] thus introducing another ambiguous term, that can be used, in its generic meaning, to any local variant of Aramaic that occurred in central regions of Syria during any period in history.\n\nAfter more than five centuries of Syriac studies, which were founded by western scholars at the end of the 15th century,[72][73] main terminological issues related to the name and classification of the language known as Edessan Aramaic, and also referred to by several other names combined of Syrian/Syriac labels, remain opened and unsolved. Some of those issues have special sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic significance for the remaining Neo-Aramaic speaking communities.[74]\n\nSince the occurrence of major political changes in the Near East (2003), those issues have acquired additional complexity, related to legal recognition of the language and its name.[75] In the Constitution of Iraq (Article 4), adopted in 2005, and also in subsequent legislation, term \"Syriac\" (Arabic: السريانية, romanized: as-suryāniyya) is used as official designation for the language of Neo-Aramaic-speaking communities,[76][77] thus opening additional questions related to linguistic and cultural identity of those communities. Legal and other practical (educational and informational) aspects of the linguistic self-identification also arose throughout Syriac-speaking diaspora, particularly in European countries (Germany, Sweden, Netherlands).[78]\n\nGeographic distribution\n\nSyriac was the local dialect of Aramaic in Edessa, and evolved under the influence of the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church into its current form. Before Arabic became the dominant language, Syriac was a major language among Christian communities in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Malabar Coast in India,[19] and remains so among the Syriac Christians to this day. It has been found as far afield as Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain, with inscriptions written by Aramaic-speaking soldiers of the Roman Empire.[79]\n\nHistory\n\nThe history of the Syriac language is divided into several successive periods, defined primarily by linguistic, and also by cultural criteria. Some terminological and chronological distinctions exist between different classifications, that were proposed among scholars.[80][81]\n\n\"Old Syriac\" (Old-Edessan Aramaic), represents the earliest stage in development of the language, that emerged by the beginning of the first century AD as the main Aramaic dialect in the region of Osroene, centered in Edessa, and continued to develop during the next two or three centuries, gradually gaining wider regional significance.[82][83][84]\n\n\"Middle Syriac\" (Middle-Edessan Aramaic), most commonly known as \"Classical Syriac\" or \"Literary Syriac\" (ܟܬܒܢܝܐ Kṯāḇānāyā), represents the most important period in the history of the language, marked by notable literary, liturgical and cultural development and expansion, from the third to the thirteenth century. The period is further subdivided into three stages:\n\nEarly Classical Syriac (Pre-Classical Syriac), represents the earliest stage in development of Classical Syriac during the third and fourth century, preceding the later linguistic standardization.[85]\n\nClassical Syriac (in the narrower sense of the term), represents the main, standardized stage in development of Classical Syriac, from the fourth century up to the eighth century.[86]\n\nLate Classical Syriac (Post-Classical Syriac), represents the later, somewhat declining stage in development of Classical Syriac, from the eighth century up to the twelfth or thirteenth century.[87]\n\n\"Modern Syriac\" (Neo-Syriac Aramaic) represents modern Neo-Aramaic languages.[88][89] Neo-Syriac languages did not develop directly from Classical Syriac, but rather from closely related dialects, usually belonging to the same branch of Aramaic. Those dialects have long co-existed with Classical Syriac as a liturgical and literary language, and were significantly influenced by it during the late medieval and early modern period.[90] Modern Syriac is divided into:\n\nModern Eastern Syriac (Northeastern Neo-Aramaic), including primarily Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic. The term is usually not used in reference to Neo-Mandaic, another variety of Eastern Aramaic spoken by the Mandaeans.\n\nModern Western Syriac (Central Neo-Aramaic), including (Turoyo and Mlahsô).[88]\n\nModern Maaloulian Syriac (Western Neo-Aramaic), particularly the dialect of Maaloula is rarely referred to as \"Modern Syriac\" today, though it was historically described as \"Syriac\" or \"Neo-Syriac\" by some observers, likely due to its endonym Siryon.[91]\n\nOrigins\n\nDuring the first three centuries of the Common Era, a local Aramaic dialect spoken in the Kingdom of Osroene, centered in Edessa, to the east of the Euphrates, started to gain prominence and regional significance. There are about eighty extant early inscriptions, written in Old-Edessan Aramaic, dated to the first three centuries AD, with the earliest inscription being dated to the 6th year AD, and the earliest parchment to 243 AD. All of these early examples of the language are non-Christian.[82][83][92][93]\n\nAs a language of public life and administration in the region of Osroene, Edessan Aramaic was gradually given a relatively coherent form, style and grammar that is lacking in other Aramaic dialects of the same period. Since Old-Edessan Aramaic later developed into Classical Syriac, it was retroactively labeled by western scholars as \"Old Syrian/Syriac\" or \"Proto-Syrian/Syriac\", although the linguistic homeland of the language in the region of Osroene, was never part of contemporary (Roman) Syria.[82][83][92][93]\n\nLiterary Syriac\n\nIn the 3rd century, churches in Edessa began to use local Aramaic dialect as the language of worship. Early literary efforts were focused on creation of an authoritative Aramaic translation of the Bible, the Peshitta (ܦܫܝܛܬܐ Pšīṭtā).[94] At the same time, Ephrem the Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry and theology in the Edessan Aramaic language, that later became known as Syriac.\n\nIn 489, many Syriac-speaking Christians living in the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire fled to the Sasanian Empire to escape persecution and growing animosity with Greek-speaking Christians. The Christological differences with the Church of the East led to the bitter Nestorian Schism in the Syriac-speaking world. As a result, Syriac developed distinctive western and eastern varieties. Although remaining a single language with a high level of comprehension between the varieties, the two employ distinctive variations in pronunciation and writing system, and, to a lesser degree, in vocabulary.\n\nThe Syriac language later split into a western variety, used mainly by the Syriac Orthodox Church in upper Mesopotamia and Syria proper, and an eastern variety used mainly by the Church of the East in central and northeastern Mesopotamia. Religious divisions were also reflected in linguistic differences between the Western Syriac Rite and the Eastern Syriac Rite. During the 5th and the 6th century, Syriac reached its height as the lingua franca of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. It existed in literary (liturgical) form, as well as in vernacular forms, as the native language of Syriac-speaking populations. \n\nFollowing the Arab conquest in the 7th century, vernacular forms of Syriac were gradually replaced during the next centuries by the advancing Arabic language.[21] Having an Aramaic (Syriac) substratum, the regional Arabic dialect (Mesopotamian Arabic) developed under the strong influence of local Aramaic (Syriac) dialects, sharing significant similarities in language structure, as well as having evident and stark influences from previous (ancient) languages of the region.[95][96]\nSyriac-influenced Arabic dialects developed among Iraqi Muslims, as well as Iraqi Christians, most of whom descend from native Syriac speakers.\n\nWestern Syriac is the official language of the West Syriac Rite, practiced by the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and some Parishes in the Syro-Malabar Knanaya Archeparchy of Kottayam.\n\nEastern Syriac is the liturgical language of the East Syriac Rite, practised in modern times by the ethnic Assyrian followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, as well as the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India.\n\nSyriac literature is by far the most prodigious of the various Aramaic languages. Its corpus covers poetry, prose, theology, liturgy, hymnody, history, philosophy, science, medicine and natural history. We also have examples of Syriac translations of documentary sources, like the portion of the Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus.[97][98] Much of this wealth remains unavailable in critical editions or modern translation.\n\n 12th-13th century quadrilingual tarsh printed amulet about the seven sleepers with a Syriac border on the bottom. One of the earliest examples of Syriac printing.\n\nFrom the 7th century onwards, Syriac gradually gave way to Arabic as the spoken language of much of the region, excepting northern Iraq and Mount Lebanon. The Mongol invasions and conquests of the 13th century, and the religiously motivated massacres of Syriac Christians by Timur further contributed to the rapid decline of the language. In many places outside of Upper Mesopotamia and Mount Lebanon, even in liturgy, it was replaced by Arabic.\n\nCurrent status\n\nRevivals of literary Syriac in recent times have led to some success with the creation of newspapers in written Syriac (ܟܬܒܢܝܐ Kṯāḇānāyā),[99] similar to the use of Modern Standard Arabic has been employed since the early decades of the 20th century. Modern forms of literary Syriac have also been used not only in religious literature but also in secular genres, often with Assyrian nationalistic themes.[100]\n\nSyriac is spoken as the liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as by some of its adherents.[101] Syriac has been recognised as an official minority language in Iraq.[102] It is also taught in some public schools in Iraq, Syria, Palestine,[103] Israel, Sweden,[104][105] Augsburg (Germany) and Kerala (India).\n\nIn 2014, an Assyrian nursery school could finally be opened in Yeşilköy, Istanbul,[106] after waging a lawsuit against the Ministry of National Education which had denied it permission, but was required to respect non-Muslim minority rights as specified in the Treaty of Lausanne.[107]\n\nIn August 2016, the Ourhi Centre was founded by the Assyrian community in the city of Qamishli, to educate teachers in order to make Syriac an additional language to be taught in public schools in the Jazira Region of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria,[108] which then started with the 2016/17 academic year.[109]\n\nIn April 2023, a team of AI researchers completed the first AI translation model and website for classical Syriac.[110]\n\nGrammar\n\nMany Syriac words, like those in other Semitic languages, belong to triconsonantal roots, collations of three Syriac consonants. New words are built from these three consonants with variable vowel and consonant sets. For example, the following words belong to the root ܫܩܠ (ŠQL), to which a basic meaning of taking can be assigned:\n\nܫܩܠ - šqal: \"he has taken\"\n\nܢܫܩܘܠ - nešqol: \"he will take, ... let him take, ... so that he might take.\"\n\nܫܩܘܠ - šqol: \"take! (masculine singular)\"\n\nܫܩܠ - šāqel: \"he takes, he is taking, the one (masculine) who takes\"\n\nܫܩܠ - šaqqel: \"he has lifted/raised\"\n\nܐܫܩܠ - ʾašqel: \"he has set out\"\n\nܫܩܠܐ - šqālā: \"a taking, burden, recension, portion or syllable\"\n\nܫܩ̈ܠܐ - šeqlē: \"takings, profits, taxes\"\n\nܫܩܠܘܬܐ - šaqluṯā: \"a beast of burden\"\n\nܫܘܩܠܐ - šuqqālā: \"arrogance\"\n\nNouns\n\nMost Syriac nouns are built from triliteral roots. Nouns carry grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), they can be either singular or plural in number (a very few can be dual) and can exist in one of three grammatical states. These states should not be confused with grammatical cases in other languages.\n\nThe absolute state is the basic form of the noun - ܫܩ̈ܠܝܢ, šeqlin, \"taxes\".\n\nThe emphatic state usually represents a definite noun - ܫܩ̈ܠܐ, šeqlē, \"the taxes\".\n\nThe construct state marks a noun in relationship to another noun - ܫܩ̈ܠܝ, šeqlay, \"taxes of...\".\n\nHowever, very quickly in the development of Classical Syriac, the emphatic state became the ordinary form of the noun, and the absolute and construct states were relegated to certain stock phrases (for example, ܒܪ ܐܢܫܐ/ܒܪܢܫܐ, bar nāšā, \"man, person\", literally \"son of man\").\n\nIn Old and early Classical Syriac, most genitive noun relationships are built using the construct state, but contrary to the genitive case, it is the head-noun which is marked by the construct state. Thus, ܫܩ̈ܠܝ ܡܠܟܘܬܐ, šeqlay malkuṯā, means \"the taxes of the kingdom\". Quickly, the construct relationship was abandoned and replaced by the use of the relative particle ܕ, d-, da-. Thus, the same noun phrase becomes ܫܩ̈ܠܐ ܕܡܠܟܘܬܐ, šeqlē d-malkuṯā, where both nouns are in the emphatic state. Very closely related nouns can be drawn into a closer grammatical relationship by the addition of a pronominal suffix. Thus, the phrase can be written as ܫܩ̈ܠܝܗ ܕܡܠܟܘܬܐ, šeqlêh d-malkuṯā. In this case, both nouns continue to be in the emphatic state, but the first has the suffix that makes it literally read \"her taxes\" (\"kingdom\" is feminine), and thus is \"her taxes, [those] of the kingdom\".\n\nAdjectives always agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify. Adjectives are in the absolute state if they are predicative, but agree with the state of their noun if attributive. Thus, ܒܝܫܝ̈ܢ ܫܩ̈ܠܐ, bišin šeqlē, means \"the taxes are evil\", whereas ܫܩ̈ܠܐ ܒܝ̈ܫܐ, šeqlē ḇišē, means \"evil taxes\".\n\nVerbs\n\nMost Syriac verbs are built on triliteral roots as well. Finite verbs carry person, gender (except in the first person) and number, as well as tense and conjugation. The non-finite verb forms are the infinitive and the active and passive participles.\n\nSyriac has only two true morphological tenses: perfect and imperfect. Whereas these tenses were originally aspectual in Aramaic, they have become a truly temporal past and future tenses respectively. The present tense is usually marked with the participle followed by the subject pronoun. Such pronouns are usually omitted in the case of the third person. This use of the participle to mark the present tense is the most common of a number of compound tenses that can be used to express varying senses of tense and aspect.\n\nSyriac also employs derived verb stems such as are present in other Semitic languages. These are regular modifications of the verb's root to express other changes in meaning. The first stem is the ground state, or Pəʿal (this name models the shape of the root) form of the verb, which carries the usual meaning of the word. The next is the intensive stem, or Paʿʿel, form of the verb, which usually carries an intensified meaning. The third is the extensive stem, or ʾAp̄ʿel, form of the verb, which is often causative in meaning. Each of these stems has its parallel passive conjugation: the ʾEṯpəʿel, ʾEṯpaʿʿal and ʾEttap̄ʿal respectively. To these six cardinal stems are added a few irregular stems, like the Šap̄ʿel and ʾEštap̄ʿal, which generally have an extensive meaning.\n\nThe basic G-stem or \"Peal\" conjugation of \"to write\" in the perfect and imperfect is as follows:[111]\n\nPerfect\n\nImperfect\n\nsingular\nplural\n\nsingular\nplural\n\n1st person\n\nܟܬܒܬ keṯḇeṯ\n\nܟܬܒܢ kəṯaḇn\n\nܐܟܬܘܒ eḵtoḇ\n\nܢܟܬܘܒ neḵtoḇ\n\n2nd person\n\nm.\n\nܟܬܒܬ kəṯaḇt\n\nܟܬܒܬܘܢ kəṯaḇtûn\n\nܬܟܬܘܒ teḵtoḇ\n\nܬܟܬܒܘܢ teḵtəḇûn\n\nf.\n\nܟܬܒܬܝ kəṯaḇt\n\nܟܬܒ̈ܬܝܢ kəṯaḇtên\n\nܬܟܬܒܝܢ teḵtəḇîn\n\nܬܟܬܒ̈ܢ teḵtəḇān\n\n3rd person\n\nm.\n\nܟܬܒ kəṯaḇ\n\nܟܬܒܘ kəṯaḇ\n\nܢܟܬܘܒ neḵtoḇ\n\nܢܟܬܒܘܢ neḵtəḇûn\n\nf.\n\nܟܬܒܬ keṯbaṯ\n\nܟܬܒ kəṯaḇ\n\nܬܟܬܘܒ teḵtoḇ\n\nܢܟܬܒ̈ܢ neḵtəḇān\n\nPhonology\n\nPhonologically, like the other Northwest Semitic languages, Syriac has 22 consonants. The consonantal phonemes are:\n\ntransliteration\n\nʾ\n\nb\n\ng\n\nd\n\nh\n\nw\n\nz\n\nḥ\n\nṭ\n\ny\n\nk\n\nl\n\nm\n\nn\n\ns\n\nʿ\n\np\n\nṣ\n\nq\n\nr\n\nš\n\nt\n\nletter\n\nܐ\n\nܒ\n\nܓ\n\nܕ\n\nܗ\n\nܘ\n\nܙ\n\nܚ\n\nܛ\n\nܝ\n\nܟ\n\nܠ\n\nܡ\n\nܢ\n\nܣ\n\nܥ\n\nܦ\n\nܨ\n\nܩ\n\nܪ\n\nܫ\n\nܬ\n\npronunciation\n\n[ʔ]\n\n[b], [v]\n\n[g], [ɣ]\n\n[d], [ð]\n\n[h]\n\n[w]\n\n[z]\n\n[ħ]\n\n[tˤ]\n\n[j]\n\n[k], [x]\n\n[l]\n\n[m]\n\n[n]\n\n[s]\n\n[ʕ]\n\n[p], [f]\n\n[sˤ]\n\n[q]\n\n[r]\n\n[ʃ]\n\n[t], [θ]\n\nPhonetically, there is some variation in the pronunciation of Syriac in its various forms. The various Modern Eastern Aramaic vernaculars have quite different pronunciations, and these sometimes influence how the classical language is pronounced, for example, in public prayer. Classical Syriac has two major streams of pronunciation: western and eastern.\n\nConsonants\n\nSyriac shares with Aramaic a set of lightly contrasted stop/fricative pairs. In different variations of a certain lexical root, a root consonant might exist in stop form in one variation and fricative form in another. In the Syriac alphabet, a single letter is used for each pair. Sometimes a dot is placed above the letter (quššāyā \"strengthening\"; equivalent to a dagesh in Hebrew) to mark that the stop pronunciation is required, and a dot is placed below the letter (rukkāḵā \"softening\") to mark that the fricative pronunciation is required. The pairs are:\n\nVoiced labial pair - /b/ and /v/\n\nVoiced velar pair - /ɡ/ and /ɣ/\n\nVoiced dental pair - /d/ and /ð/\n\nVoiceless labial pair - /p/ and /f/\n\nVoiceless velar pair - /k/ and /x/\n\nVoiceless dental pair - /t/ and /θ/\n\nLike some Semitic languages, Syriac too has emphatic consonants, and it has three of them, /q/ being a historically emphatic variant of /k/. These are consonants that have a coarticulation in the pharynx or slightly higher. There are two pharyngeal fricatives, another class of consonants typically found in Semitic languages. Syriac also has a rich array of sibilants:\n\nTable of Syriac consonants\n\nBilabial\n\nLabio-\ndental\n\nDental\n\nAlveolar\n\nPost-\nalveolar\n\nPalatal\n\nVelar\n\nUvular\n\nPharyn-\ngeal\n\nGlottal\n\nplain\nemphatic\n\nNasal\n\nm\n\nn\n\nStop\n\np\nb\n\nt\nd\n\ntˤ\n\nk\nɡ\n\nq\n\nʔ\n\nFricative\n\nf\nv\n\nθ\nð\n\ns\nz\n\nsˤ\n\nʃ\n\nx\nɣ\n\nħ\nʕ\n\nh\n\nApproximant\n\nw\n\nl\n\nj\n\nTrill\n\nr\n\nVowels\n\nAs with most Semitic languages, the vowels of Syriac are mostly subordinated to consonants. Especially in the presence of an emphatic consonant, vowels tend to become mid-centralised.\n\nClassical Syriac had the following distinguishable vowels:\n\nVowel phonemes in Classical Syriac\n\nFront\n\nBack\n\nunrounded\n\nrounded\n\nClose\n\ni\n\nu\n\nClose-mid\n\ne\n\no\n\nOpen-mid\n\nɛ\n\nOpen\n\na\n\nɑ\n\nIn the western dialect, /ɑ/ has become [ɔ], and the original /o/ has merged with /u/. In eastern dialects, there is more fluidity in the pronunciation of front vowels, with some speakers distinguishing five qualities of such vowels, and others only distinguishing three. Vowel length is generally not important: close vowels tend to be longer than open vowels.\n\nThe open vowels form diphthongs with the approximants /j/ and /w/. In almost all dialects, the full sets of possible diphthongs collapses into two or three actual pronunciations:\n\n/ɑj/ usually becomes /aj/, but the western dialect has /oj/\n\n/aj/, further, sometimes monophthongized to /e/\n\n/aw/ usually becomes /ɑw/\n\n/ɑw/, further, sometimes monophthongized to /o/\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac sacral music\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyriac studies\n\nAramaic studies\n\nBible translations into Syriac\n\nBible translations into Aramaic\n\nNeo-Aramaic languages\n\nList of loanwords in Classical Syriac\n\nCorpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium\n\nNotes\n\n^ Classical, unvocalized spelling; with Eastern Syriac vowels: ܠܸܫܵܢܵܐ ܣܘܼܪܝܵܝܵܐ; with Western Syriac vowels: ܠܶܫܳ݁ܢܳܐ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܳܐ.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Mario Kozah; Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn; Saif Shaheen Al-Murikhi; Haya Al Thani (9 December 2014). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century. Gorgias Press. p. 298. ISBN 9781463236649. The Syriac writers of Qatar themselves produced some of the best and most sophisticated writing to be found in all Syriac literature of the seventh century, but they have not received the scholarly attention that they deserve in the last half century. This volume seeks to redress this underdevelopment by setting the standard for further research in the sub-field of Beth Qatraye studies.\n\n^ Ross, Israel J. (1979). \"Ritual and Music in South India: Syrian Christian Liturgical Music in Kerala\". Asian Music. 11 (1): 80-98. doi:10.2307/833968. JSTOR 833968.\n\n^ Healey 2012, p. 637, 649.\n\n^ Akbulut, Olgun (19 October 2023). \"For Centenary of the Lausanne Treaty: Re-Interpretation and Re-Implementation of Linguistic Minority Rights of Lausanne\". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. -1 (aop): 1-24. doi:10.1163/15718115-bja10134. ISSN 1385-4879. S2CID 264412993.\n\n^ Religious Origins of Nations?. BRILL. 2010. p. 106. ISBN 9789004173750. In the grammar of Jacob of Edessa, the Syriac language is in fact called mamllā Urhāyā (2a9) or leššānā Urhāyā (2b, 12-13), mamllā Nahrāyā (2b, 19-20), the Edessan or Mesopotamian tongue or language.\n\n^ Chatonnet, Francoise Briquel; Debie, Muriel (20 June 2023). The Syriac World. Yale University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780300271256. The fact that the Syriac language can be known as suryāyā (the adjectival form of \"Syrian\" in the old sense), aramāyā (formed from \"Aramean\"), or urhāyā (formed from the Aramaic name Edessa, Urhay) shows the complexity of identity and self-definition within this culture.\n\n^ Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism. Brill. 4 October 2022. p. 226. ISBN 9789004509139. Syriac is nothing other than a literary dialect of Aramaic which possesses its own distinctive script. Early Syriac writers use a variety of terms to refer to the language, but besides the more general terms \"Aramaya\" (Aramaic) and \"Suryaya\" (Syriac), a third term stands out, \"Urhaya,\" the dialect of Urhay/Edessa, or \"Edessene (Aramaic)\". The existence of this term must indicate that Syriac, which came to be adopted as the literary and cultural language of Aramaic-speaking Christians throughout the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and over the border in the Sassanid Empire, started out as the local Aramaic dialect of Edessa.\n\n^ Chatonnet, Francoise Briquel; Debie, Muriel (20 June 2023). The Semitic Languages. Yale University Press. p. 638. ISBN 9780300271256. This chapter summarizes linguistic data on Classical Syriac, one of the best attested of the literary dialects of Aramaic (alongside Jewish Aramaic and Mandaic). Classical Syriac survives in restricted ecclesiastical and literary use.\n\n^ Kiraz, George A. (4 March 2020). \"Kthobonoyo Syriac: Some Observations and Remarks\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (1): 113-124. doi:10.31826/hug-2011-100113. S2CID 188192926.\n\n^ Shabo Talay (2008). Die neuaramäischen Dialekte der Khabur-Assyrer in Nordostsyrien (in German). Harrassowitz. pp. 8-9. ISBN 9783447057028.\n\n^ Brock 1998, p. 708-719.\n\n^ a b c d e Butts 2011, p. 390-391.\n\n^ Healey 2012, p. 637-652.\n\n^ Butts 2018, p. 137-165.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 222-242.\n\n^ Brock 1989a, p. 11-23. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrock1989a (help)\n\n^ Brock 2005, p. 5-20.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 44.\n\n^ a b Neill 2004, p. 38.\n\n^ Briquel-Chatonnet 2012, p. 652-659.\n\n^ a b Weninger 2012, p. 747-755.\n\n^ Healey 2012, p. 643.\n\n^ Brock 1992b. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrock1992b (help)\n\n^ CLASSICAL SYRIAC. Gorgias Handbooks. p. 14. In contrast to \"Nestorians\" and \"Jacobites\", a small group of Syriacs accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon. Non-Chalcedonian Syriacs called them \"Melkites\" (from Aramaic malka \"king\"), thereby connecting them to the Byzantine Emperor's denomination. Melkite Syriacs were mostly concentrated around Antioch and adjacent regions of northern Syria and used Syriac as their literary and liturgical language. The Melkite community also included the Aramaic-speaking Jewish converts to Christianity in Palestine and the Orthodox Christians of Transjordan. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary work (mainly translation) in Palestinian Christian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect, using a script closely resembling the Estrangela cursive of Osrhoene.\n\n^ \"JACOB BARCLAY, Melkite Orthodox Syro-Byzantine Manuscripts in Syriac and Palestinian Aramaic\" quote from the German book Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete, p. 291\n\n^ \"The west Syriac tradition covers the Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, and Melkite churches, though the Melkites changed their Church's rite to that of Constantinople in the 9th-11th centuries, which required new translations of all its liturgical books.\", quote from the book The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, p.917\n\n^ Arman Akopian (11 December 2017). \"Other branches of Syriac Christianity: Melkites and Maronites\". Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Gorgias Press. p. 573. ISBN 9781463238933. The main center of Aramaic-speaking Melkites was Palestine. During the 5th-6th centuries, they were engaged in literary, mainly translation work in the local Western Aramaic dialect, known as \"Palestinian Christian Aramaic\", using a script closely resembling the cursive Estrangela of Osrhoene. Palestinian Melkites were mostly Jewish converts to Christianity, who had a long tradition of using Palestinian Aramaic dialects as literary languages. Closely associated with the Palestinian Melkites were the Melkites of Transjordan, who also used Palestinian Christian Aramaic. Another community of Aramaic-speaking Melkites existed in the vicinity of Antioch and parts of Syria. These Melkites used Classical Syriac as a written language, the common literary language of the overwhelming majority of Christian Arameans.\n\n^ Robinson & Coakley 2013, p. 1-2.\n\n^ Robinson & Coakley 2013, p. 1, note 1.\n\n^ Millar 2006, p. 107-109.\n\n^ Brock 1992a, p. 16. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrock1992a (help)\n\n^ a b Brock 1992c, p. 226. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrock1992c (help)\n\n^ a b c d Butts 2019, p. 222.\n\n^ Brock & Taylor 2001, p. 8.\n\n^ Brock & Coakley 2011, p. 30-31.\n\n^ Minov 2020, p. 256-257.\n\n^ Rompay 2000, p. 78.\n\n^ Debié 2009, p. 106. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDebié2009 (help)\n\n^ Brock 2010, p. 7.\n\n^ Farina 2018, p. 182-183.\n\n^ a b Healey 2012, p. 638.\n\n^ Ruzer 2014, p. 196-197.\n\n^ Rubin 1998, p. 322-323.\n\n^ Toepel 2013, p. 531-584.\n\n^ Minov 2017, p. 129-229.\n\n^ Taylor 2002, p. 303.\n\n^ Shepardson 2019, p. 140.\n\n^ Petruccione & Hill, p. 343. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPetruccioneHill (help)\n\n^ Brock 1994, p. 149.\n\n^ Taylor 2002, p. 302.\n\n^ Weltecke 2009, p. 115-125.\n\n^ Toepel 2013, p. 531-539.\n\n^ Millar 2013, p. 49.\n\n^ Rompay 2008, p. 366.\n\n^ Brock 2011, p. 96-97.\n\n^ Nöldeke 1886, p. 649.\n\n^ Nöldeke 1904, p. XXXI.\n\n^ Brock 1989b, p. 363-375. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrock1989b (help)\n\n^ Rompay 1994, p. 72.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 367.\n\n^ Gzella 2019, p. 205-207.\n\n^ Ishow 1978, p. 359-365.\n\n^ \"ISO 639-2 Registration Authority: Change History (syc)\". Library of Congress. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Additions to MARC Code List for Languages\". Library of Congress. 22 October 2007. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"ISO 639-2 Registration Authority: Change History (syr)\". Library of Congress. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"639 Identifier Documentation: syr\". SIL.org. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Language and Script Identifiers\". Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ Garbini 1981, p. 81.\n\n^ Lipiński 2001, p. 51-52.\n\n^ Gzella 2014, p. 73.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 11, 67-87.\n\n^ Burnett 2005, p. 421-436.\n\n^ Wilkinson 2019, p. 751-769.\n\n^ Heinrichs 1990.\n\n^ Naby 2004, p. 197-203.\n\n^ \"Constitution of the Republic of Iraq\" (PDF). Official Gazette of Iraq (in Arabic). Vol. 4012. 28 December 2005. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Constitution\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2011. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Surayt-Aramaic Online Project (SAOP)\". Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ Healey 2009, p. 13.\n\n^ Kim 2008, p. 506-509.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 225-231.\n\n^ a b c Healey 2007, p. 115-127.\n\n^ a b c Healey 2008, p. 221-229.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 225-227.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 227-230.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 230-231.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 231.\n\n^ a b Lipiński 2001, p. 70.\n\n^ Kim 2008, p. 505-531.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 2008, pp. 335-352.\n\n^ Jules Ferrette (1863). On a Neo-Syriac language still spoken in the Anti-Lebanon. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain. p. 433. I then requested them to translate for me the Lord's Prayer into Ma'lulan Syriac for me; but a universal outcry was raised from every side as to the exorbitant nature of my demand. Some of the priests affirmed, ex cathedra, that not only had the Lord's Prayer never been uttered in modern Syriac, but that to translate it would be a mere impossibility.\n\n^ a b Healey 2012, p. 641-642.\n\n^ a b Butts 2019, p. 225-247.\n\n^ Peursen, 2008 & 231-256. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPeursen2008231-256 (help)\n\n^ Khan 2007, p. 95-114.\n\n^ Río Sánchez 2013, p. 129-136.\n\n^ Millar F (2011). \"The Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus (449)\". In Whitby M, Price R (eds.). Chalcedon in Context: Church Councils 400-700. Liverpool University Press. pp. 45-69.\n\n^ Fafinski, Mateusz (2 September 2025). \"A Restless City: Edessa and Urban Actors in the Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus\". Al-Masāq. 37 (3). Routledge: 336-360. doi:10.1080/09503110.2024.2331915. ISSN 0950-3110.\n\n^ \"Syriac Press Day: Honoring 175 years of Syriac journalism and cultural preservation\". Syriac Press. 1 November 2024. Retrieved 3 September 2025.\n\n^ Kiraz 2007, p. 129-142.\n\n^ Watt 2009, p. 58.\n\n^ Anbori, Abbas. \"The Comprehensive Policy to Manage the Ethnic Languages in Iraq\" (PDF). pp. 4-5. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ Farhoud, Amira (28 March 2017). \"Syriacs: Still Going Strong\". Bethlehem Bible College. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ Dorit, Shilo (1 April 2010). \"The Ben Yehudas of Aramaic\". Haaretz. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Syriac... a language struggling to survive\". Voices of Iraq. 28 December 2007. Archived from the original on 30 March 2012. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Assyrian School Welcomes Students in Istanbul, Marking a New Beginning\". Assyrian International News Agency. 10 September 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Turkey Denies Request to Open Assyrian-Language Kindergarten\". Archived from the original on 4 November 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Syriac Christians revive ancient language despite war\". ARA News. 17 August 2016. Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ al-Wasl, Zaman (3 October 2016). \"Hassakeh: Syriac Language to Be Taught in PYD-controlled Schools\". The Syrian Observer. Retrieved 21 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Syriac.IO - Translator\". www.syriac.io. Retrieved 8 May 2023.\n\n^ Robinson and Coakley, 2013 p.36, p. 60.\n\nSources\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2013). Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107244566.\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2011). \"Framing the Syrian of Late Antiquity: Engagements with Hellenism\". Journal of Modern Hellenism. 28 (2010-2011): 1-46.\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2014). \"Assyrians, Syrians and the Greek Language in the late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 73 (2): 299-317. doi:10.1086/677249. S2CID 163755644.\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2019). \"Syriac and Syrians in the Later Roman Empire: Questions of identity\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 157-174. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, Françoise (2012). \"Syriac as the Language of Eastern Christianity\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 652-659. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, Françoise (2019). \"Writing Syriac: Manuscripts and Inscriptions\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 243-265. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1983). \"Towards a History of Syriac Translation Technique\". III Symposium Syriacum 1980. Roma: Pontificium institutum studiorum orientalium. pp. 1-14.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1984). Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity. London: Variorum Reprints. ISBN 9780860781479.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Some Observations on the Use of Classical Syriac in the Late Twentieth Century\". Journal of Semitic Studies. 34 (2): 363-375. doi:10.1093/jss/XXXIV.2.363.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992) [1985]. The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (2nd revised ed.). Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications. ISBN 9780879075248.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). \"Eusebius and Syriac Christianity\". Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. pp. 212-234. ISBN 0814323618.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1994). \"Greek and Syriac in Late Antique Syria\". Literacy and Power in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 149-160, 234-235. ISBN 9780521587365.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1998). \"Syriac Culture, 337-425\". The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 708-719. ISBN 9780521302005.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions Between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780860788003.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"St. Ephrem in the Eyes of Later Syriac Liturgical Tradition\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 2 (1): 5-25. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-020103. S2CID 212688898.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Taylor, David G. K., eds. (2001). The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Vol. 1. Rome: Trans World Film Italia.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2004). \"The Earliest Syriac Literature\". The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 161-172. ISBN 9780521460835.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2005). \"The Syriac Orient: A Third 'Lung' for the Church?\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 71: 5-20.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2007). \"Early Dated Manuscripts of the Church of the East, 7th-13th Century\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 21 (2): 8-34. Archived from the original on 6 October 2008.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2008) [1979]. The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition (3rd ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781593338442.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2010). \"Jacob the Annotator: Jacob's Annotations to His Revised Translation of Severus' Cathedral Homilies\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 1-13. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-002. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011). \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 96-97.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M. (2011). \"Syriac Conferences\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 389-390.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Coakley, James F. (2011). \"Arameans\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 30-31.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2017). An Introduction to Syriac Studies. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781463207137.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2017). \"Scribal Tradition and the Transmission of Syriac Literature in Late Antiquity and Early Islam\". Scribal Practices and the Social Construction of Knowledge in Antiquity. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 61-68. ISBN 9789042933149.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2019). The People and the Peoples: Syriac Dialogue Poems from Late Antiquity. Oxford: Journal of Jewish Studies. ISBN 9780957522817.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2019). \"Later Syriac Poetry\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 327-338. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nBrockelmann, Carl (1895). Lexicon Syriacum (1st ed.). Berlin: Reuther & Reichard.\n\nBurnett, Stephen G. (2005). \"Christian Aramaism: The Birth and Growth of Aramaic Scholarship in the Sixteenth Century\" (PDF). Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. pp. 421-436. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 August 2021. Retrieved 28 November 2020.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2011). \"Syriac Language\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 390-391.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2016). Language Change in the Wake of Empire: Syriac in its Greco-Roman Context. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9781575064215.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2018). \"The Greco-Roman Context of the Syriac Language\". Les auteurs syriaques et leur langue. Paris: Geuthner. pp. 137-165.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2019). \"The Classical Syriac Language\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 222-242. doi:10.4324/9781315708195-15. ISBN 978-1-315-70819-5.\n\nCarlson, Thomas A. (2019). \"Syriac in a Diverse Middle East: From the Mongol Ilkhanate to Ottoman Dominance, 1286-1517\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 718-730. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G. (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748686056.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G. (2017). \"Neither Syriac-speaking nor Syrian Orthodox Christians: Harput Assyrians in the United States as a Model for Ethnic Self-Categorization and Expression\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 359-369. ISBN 9789042931640.\n\nDrijvers, Hendrik J. W. (1980). Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004060502.\n\nFarina, Margherita (2018). \"La linguistique syriaque selon Jacques d'Édesse\". Lesauteurs syriaques etleurlangue. Paris: Geuthner. pp. 167-187.\n\nGarbini, Giovanni (1981). \"Considerations on the Language of Ebla\". La Lingua Di Ebla: Atti Del Convegno Internazionale (1st ed.). Napoli: Istituto universitario orientale, Seminario di studi asiatici. pp. 75-82.\n\nGzella, Holger (2014). \"Language and Script\". The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria. Leiden: Brill. pp. 71-107. ISBN 9789004229433.\n\nGzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004285101.\n\nGzella, Holger (2019). \"The Syriac Language in the Context of the Semitic Languages\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 205-221. doi:10.4324/9781315708195-14. ISBN 978-1-315-70819-5.\n\nHealey, John F. (1980). First Studies in Syriac. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. ISBN 9780704403901.\n\nHealey, John F. (2007). \"The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 115-127.\n\nHealey, John F. (2009). Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199252565.\n\nHealey, John F. (2012). \"Syriac\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 637-652. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nHealey, John F. (2008). \"Variety in Early Syriac: The Context in Contemporary Aramaic\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 221-229. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nHealey, John F. (2019). \"The Pre-Christian Religions of the Syriac-Speaking Regions\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 47-67. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart, ed. (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nHerman, Geoffrey (2019). \"The Syriac World in the Persian Empire\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 134-145. doi:10.4324/9781315708195-9. ISBN 978-1-315-70819-5.\n\nIshow, Habib (1978). \"Faut-il remplacer le terme syriaque par le terme araméen?\". Symposium Syriacum 1976. Roma: Pontificium institutum studiorum orientalium. pp. 359-365.\n\nJoseph, John B. (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004116419.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2007). \"Aramaic in the Medieval and Modern Periods\" (PDF). Languages of Iraq: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq. pp. 95-114.\n\nKim, Ronald (2008). \"Stammbaum or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 505-531.\n\nKiraz, George A. (2007). \"Kthobonoyo Syriac: Some Observations and Remarks\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 129-142.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2001) [1997]. Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar (2nd ed.). Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908154.\n\nMaclean, Arthur J. (1895). Grammar of the Dialects of Vernacular Syriac: As Spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, North-West Persia and the Plain of Mosul, with Notices of the Vernacular of the Jews of Azerbijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107648128. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nMesso, Johny (2011). \"The Origin of the Terms Syria(n) and Suryoyo: Once Again\". Parole de l'Orient. 36: 111-125.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408-450). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520253919.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2008). \"Community, Religion and Language in the Middle-Euphrates Zone in Late Antiquity\". Scripta Classica Israelica. 27: 67-93. doi:10.71043/sci.v27i.3273.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2011). \"Greek and Syriac in Edessa: From Ephrem to Rabbula (CE 363-435)\". Semitica et Classica. 4: 99-114. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.102508.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2012). \"Greek and Syriac in Fifth-Century Edessa: The Case of Bishop Hibas\". Semitica et Classica. 5: 151-165. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.103053.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2013). \"The Evolution of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Pre-Islamic Period: From Greek to Syriac?\" (PDF). Journal of Early Christian Studies. 21 (1): 43-92. doi:10.1353/earl.2013.0002. S2CID 170436440.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2017). \"Date and Provenance of the Syriac Cave of Treasures: A Reappraisal\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 20 (1): 129-229. doi:10.31826/hug-2018-200105. S2CID 212688445.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004445512.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Churchof the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-352. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nNaby, Eden (2004). \"From Lingua Franca to Endangered Language: The Legal Aspects of the Preservation of Aramaic in Iraq\". On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights. Bath: Foundation for Endangered Languages. pp. 197-203. ISBN 9780953824861.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2004) [1984]. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521548854.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1886). \"Semitic Languages\". The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 21 (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 641-656.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1904). Compendious Syriac Grammar (1st English ed.). London: Williams & Norgate.\n\nPat-El, Na‘ama (2019). Syriac (2nd ed.). John Huehnergard and Na‘ama Pat-El (eds.), The Semitic Languages: London & New York: Routledge. pp. 653-678.\n\nPetruccione, John F.; Hill, Robert C., eds. (2007). Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch. Vol. 2. Washington: COA Press. ISBN 9780813214993.\n\nPeursen, Wido van (2008). \"Language Variation, Language Development, and the Textual History of the Peshitta\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 231-256. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nRío Sánchez, Francisco del (2013). \"Influences of Aramaic on dialectal Arabic\". Archaism and Innovation in the Semitic Languages: Selected papers. Cordoba: Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit. pp. 129-136.\n\nRobinson, Theodore H.; Coakley, James F. (2013) [1915]. Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (6th revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199687176.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (1994). \"Some Preliminary Remarks on the Origins of Classical Syriac as a Standard Language: The Syriac Version of Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History\". Semitic and Cushitic studies. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 70-89. ISBN 9783447034470.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2000). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-103. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. S2CID 212688244.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2008). \"The East: Syria and Mesopotamia\". The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 365-386. ISBN 9780199271566.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2011). \"Aramaic\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 28-30.\n\nRubin, Milka (1998). \"The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity\". Journal of Jewish Studies. 49 (2): 306-333. doi:10.18647/2120/JJS-1998.\n\nRudder, Joshua. Learn to Write Aramaic: A Step-by-Step Approach to the Historical & Modern Scripts. n.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. 220 pp. ISBN 978-1461021421 Includes the Estrangela (pp. 59-113), Madnhaya (pp. 191-206), and the Western Serto (pp. 173-190) scripts.\n\nRuzer, Serge (2014). \"Hebrew versus Aramaic as Jesus' Language: Notes on Early Opinions by Syriac Authors\". The Language Environment of First Century Judaea. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 182-205. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nShepardson, Christine (2019). Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversyd. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520303379.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2002). \"Bilingualism and Diglossia in Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia\". Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 298-331. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2011). \"Syriac Lexicography\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 391-393.\n\nToepel, Alexander (2013). \"The Cave of Treasures: A new Translation and Introduction\". Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 531-584. ISBN 9780802827395.\n\nWatt, John W. (2009). \"Aramaic and Syriac\". Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 56-59. ISBN 9780080877754.\n\nWeninger, Stefan (2012). \"Aramaic-Arabic Language Contact\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 747-755. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2009). \"Michael the Syrian and Syriac Orthodox Identity\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 115-125. doi:10.1163/187124109X408023.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea; Younansardaroud, Helen (2019). \"The Renaissance of Syriac Literature in the Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 698-717. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWilkinson, Robert J. (2019). \"The Early Study of Syriac in Europe\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 751-769. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2019). \"The Church of the East in the 'Abbasid Era\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 189-201. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWood, Philip (2019). \"Historiography in the Syriac-Speaking World, 300-1000\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 405-421. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nExternal links\n\nA Coursebook of Classical Syriac Freie Universität Berlin Repository\n\nYouTube video: Associate professor Svante Lundgren explains the history and origin of the term \"Syriac\" (Suryoyo/Suroyo)\n\nSyriac traditional pronunciation\n\nAramaic Dictionary (lexicon and concordance)\n\nSyriac at ScriptSource.com\n\nThe Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon\n\nSyriac Studies Reference Library, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University\n\n\"Syriac Language\" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.\n\nLeshono Suryoyo - Die traditionelle Aussprache des Westsyrischen - The traditional pronunciation of Western Syriac\n\n\"City Youth Learn Dying Language, Preserve It\". The New Indian Express. 9 May 2016. Archived from the original on 9 May 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2016.\n\n\"Minorities of Iraq: EU Research Service\" (PDF).\n\nWhat is Syriac and what is Aramaic according to Syriac grammarians on History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences\n\nGorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage\n\nSyriac Language at Encyclopaedia Iranica\n\nSyriac Language in the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia\n\nSyriac Language at the Department of Syriac Studies"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-language"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9553}, {"slug": "reference-suret-language", "title": "Suret language", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Suret (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܬ, pronounced [ˈsuːrɪtʰ], [ˈsuːrɪθ]), also known as Assyrian,[6] is any of several varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by the modern Assyrian people.[7][8][9] The various NENA dialects descend from Old Aramaic, the lingua franca in the later phase of the Assyrian Empire, which slowly displaced and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Suret\n\nAssyrian Neo-Aramaic\nChaldean Neo-Aramaic\nChaldo-Assyrian Neo-Aramaic\n\nܣܘܪܝܬ Sūret\n\nSūret written in Swāḏāyā (vernacular Eastern) Syriac\n\nPronunciation[ˈsuːrɪtʰ], [ˈsuːrɪθ]\n\nNative toIran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey\n\nRegionAssyrian heartland (northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria, eastern & southern Turkey), Lebanon, Armenia, Georgia[1] global diaspora\n\nEthnicityAssyrians\n\nNative speakers940,000 (2024)[2]\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern\nNortheastern\nSuret\n\nEarly formsProto-Afroasiatic\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nOld Aramaic\n\nMiddle Aramaic\n\nEastern Middle Aramaic\n\nNortheastern Neo-Aramaic\n\nDialects\n\nChristian Urmi Neo-Aramaic, including Urban Koine; Nōčiyay; Hakkari groups (Barwari, Jilu, Tyari); Southern (Arbela, Nineveh); others\n\nWriting system\n\nSwāḏāyā (vernacular Eastern) Syriac\n\nOfficial status\n\nRecognised minority\nlanguage in Armenia (Assyrian, specifically the Suret dialect, is recognized as a minority language in Armenia, meaning it is acknowledged and can be taught as a mother tongue)[3]\n\n Iraq (recognized language and a constitutional right to educate in the mother tongue)[4][5]\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3syr - inclusive code\nIndividual codes:\naii - Assyrian Neo-Aramaic\ncld - Chaldean Neo-Aramaic\n\nGlottologassy1241  Assyrian Neo-Aramaic\nchal1275  Chaldean Neo-Aramaic\n\nELPAširat Northeastern Neo-Aramaic\n\nSuret is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)\n\nSuret (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܬ, pronounced [ˈsuːrɪtʰ], [ˈsuːrɪθ]), also known as Assyrian,[6] is any of several varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by the modern Assyrian people.[7][8][9] The various NENA dialects descend from Old Aramaic, the lingua franca in the later phase of the Assyrian Empire, which slowly displaced and was influenced by the East Semitic Akkadian language beginning around the 10th century BC.[10][11] They have been further heavily influenced by Classical Syriac, the Middle Aramaic dialect of Edessa, after its adoption as an official liturgical language of the Syriac churches, but Suret is not a direct descendant of Classical Syriac.[12]\n\nSuret-speaking Assyrians are indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia, northwestern Iran, southeastern Anatolia and the northeastern Levant, which is a region encompassing the plain of Urmia in northwestern Iran through to the Nineveh Plains, Erbil, Kirkuk and Duhok regions in northern Iraq, together with the northeastern regions of Syria and to south-central and southeastern Turkey.[13] Instability throughout the Middle East since the 20th century has led to a worldwide diaspora of Suret speakers, with most speakers now living abroad in such places as North America, Australia, western Europe, and Russia.[14] Speakers of Suret and Turoyo (Surayt) are ethnic Assyrians and are the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia.[15][16][17]\n\nSIL distinguishes between 'Chaldean' and 'Assyrian' as varieties of Suret on non-linguistic grounds.[18] Suret is mutually intelligible with some NENA dialects spoken by Jews, especially in the western part of its historical extent.[19] Its mutual intelligibility with Turoyo is partial and asymmetrical, but more significant in written form.[20][21]\n\nSuret is a moderately-inflected, fusional language with a two-gender noun system and rather flexible word order.[21] There is some Akkadian influence on the language and its grammar.[22] In its native region, speakers may use Iranian, Turkic and Arabic loanwords, while diaspora communities may use loanwords borrowed from the languages of their respective countries. Suret is written from right-to-left and it uses the Madnḥāyā version of the Syriac alphabet.[23][24] Suret, alongside other modern Aramaic languages, is now considered endangered, as newer generations of Assyrians tend to not acquire the full language, mainly due to emigration and acculturation into their new resident countries.[25] However, emigration has also had another effect: the language has gained more global attention, with several initiatives to digitize and preserve it, and the number of people learning Suret is considerably higher than before.[26]\n\nHistory\n\nAkkadian and Aramaic have been in extensive contact since their old periods. Local unwritten Aramaic dialects emerged from Imperial Aramaic in Assyria. In around 700 BCE, Aramaic slowly started to replace Akkadian in Assyria, Babylonia and the Levant. Widespread bilingualism among Assyrian nationals was already present prior to the fall of the empire.[28] The language transition was achievable because the two languages featured similarities in grammar and vocabulary, and because the 22-lettered Aramaic alphabet was simpler to learn than the Akkadian cuneiform which had over 600 signs.[29] The converging process that took place between Assyrian Akkadian and Aramaic across all aspects of both languages and societies is known as Aramaic-Assyrian symbiosis.[30]\n\nIntroduced as the official language of the Assyrian Empire by Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BCE), it became the language of commerce and trade, the vernacular language of Assyria in the late Iron Age and classical antiquity,[31][32][33] and the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BCE), Neo-Babylonian Empire (605-539 BCE), the Achaemenid Empire (539-323 BCE), the Parthian Empire (247 BCE - 224 AD) and the Sasanian Empire (224-651 AD). Following the Achaemenid conquest of Assyria under Darius I, the Aramaic language was adopted as the \"vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages\". After the conquest of Assyria by the Seleucid Empire in the late 4th century BCE, Imperial Aramaic gradually lost its status as an imperial language, but continued to flourish alongside Ancient Greek.[34]\n\nBy the 1st century AD, Akkadian was extinct, though vocabulary and grammatical features still survive in modern NENA dialects.[35] The Neo-Aramaic languages evolved from Middle Syriac-Aramaic by the 13th century.[36][37] There is evidence that the drive for the adoption of Syriac was led by missionaries. Much literary effort was put into the production of an authoritative translation of the Bible into Syriac, the Peshitta (ܦܫܝܛܬܐ, Pšīṭtā). At the same time, Ephrem the Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry and theology in the Classical Syriac language.\n\nBy the 3rd century AD, churches in Urhay in the kingdom of Osroene began to use Classical Syriac as the language of worship and it became the literary and liturgical language of many churches in the Fertile Crescent. Syriac was the common tongue of the region, where it was the native language of the Fertile Crescent, surrounding areas, as well as in parts of Eastern Arabia. It was the dominant language until 900 AD, till it was supplanted by Greek and later Arabic in a centuries-long process having begun in the Arab conquests.[38]\n\nThe differences with the Church of the East led to the bitter Nestorian schism in the Syriac-speaking world. As a result of the schism as well as being split between living in the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Sasanian Empire in the east, Syrian-Aramaic developed distinctive Western and Eastern varieties. Although remaining a single language with a high level of comprehension between the varieties, the two employ distinctive variations in pronunciation and writing systems and, to a lesser degree, in vocabulary and grammar. During the course of the third and fourth centuries, the inhabitants of the region began to embrace Christianity. Because of theological differences, Syriac-speaking Christians bifurcated during the fifth century into the Church of the East, or East Syriac Rite, under the Sasanian Empire, and the Syriac Orthodox, or West Syriac Rite, under the Byzantine Empire. After this separation, the two groups developed distinct dialects differing primarily in the pronunciation and written symbolisation of vowels.[10][11]\n\nThe Mongol invasions of the Levant in the 13th century and the religiously motivated massacres of Assyrians by Timur further contributed to the rapid decline of the language. In many places outside of northern Mesopotamia, even in liturgy, the language was replaced by Arabic.[39] \"Modern Syriac-Aramaic\" is a term occasionally used to refer to the modern Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Christians, including Suret. Even if they cannot be positively identified as the direct descendants of attested Middle Syriac, they must have developed from closely related dialects belonging to the same branch of Aramaic, and the varieties spoken in Christian communities have long co-existed with and been influenced by Middle Syriac as a liturgical and literary language. Moreover, the name \"Syriac\", when used with no qualification, generally refers to one specific dialect of Middle Aramaic but not to Old Aramaic or to the various present-day Eastern and Central Neo-Aramaic languages descended from it or from close relatives.[40]\n\nIn 2004, the Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region recognized Syriac in article 7, section four, stating, \"Syriac shall be the language of education and culture for those who speak it in addition to the Kurdish language.\"[41] In 2005, the Constitution of Iraq recognised it as one of the \"official languages in the administrative units in which they constitute density of population\" in article 4, section four.[5][4]\n\nScript\n\nHistory\n\nThe original Mesopotamian writing system, believed to be the world's oldest, was derived around 3600 BC from this method of keeping accounts. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, the Mesopotamians were using a triangular-shaped stylus made from a reed pressed into soft clay to record numbers.[42] Around 2700 BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian, a language isolate genetically unrelated to the Semitic and Indo-Iranian languages that it neighboured. About that time, Mesopotamian cuneiform became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables and numbers. This script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, the East Semitic Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) around 2600 BC.\n\nWith the adoption of Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC), Old Aramaic was also adapted to Mesopotamian cuneiform. The last cuneiform scripts in Akkadian discovered thus far date from the 1st century AD.[43] Various bronze lion-weights found in Nineveh featured both the Akkadian and Aramaic text etched on them, bearing the names of Assyrian kings, such as Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C), King Sargon (721-705 B.C) and Sennacherib (704-681 B.C). Indication of contemporaneous existence of the two languages in 4th century B.C. is present in an Aramaic document from Uruk written in cuneiform. In Babylon, Akkadian writing vanished by 140 B.C, with the exclusion of a few priests who used it for religious matters. Though it still continued to be employed for astronomical texts up until the common era.[44]\n\nThe Syriac script is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from the 1st century AD.[45] It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic and the traditional Mongolian alphabets. The alphabet consists of 22 letters, all of which are consonants. It is a cursive script where some, but not all, letters connect within a word.[46] Aramaic writing has been found as far north as Hadrian's Wall in Prehistoric Britain, in the form of inscriptions in Aramaic, made by Assyrian soldiers serving in the Roman Legions in northern England during the 2nd century AD.[47]\n\nModern development\n\nThe oldest and classical form of the alphabet is ʾEsṭrangēlā (ܐܣܛܪܢܓܠܐ); the name is thought to derive from the Greek adjective στρογγύλη (strongúlē) 'round'.[48][49] Although ʾEsṭrangēlā is no longer used as the main script for writing Syriac, it has undergone some revival since the 10th century.\n\nWhen Arabic gradually began to be the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent after the 7th century AD, texts were often written in Arabic with the Syriac script. Malayalam was also written with Syriac script and was called Suriyani Malayalam. Such non-Syriac languages written in Syriac script are called Garshuni or Karshuni.\n\nThe Madnhāyā, or 'eastern', version formed as a form of shorthand developed from ʾEsṭrangēlā and progressed further as handwriting patterns changed. The Madnhāyā version also possesses optional vowel markings to help pronounce Syriac. Other names for the script include Swāḏāyā, 'conversational', often translated as \"contemporary\", reflecting its use in writing modern Neo-Aramaic.\n\nLetters\n\nSyriac alphabet\n(200 BCE-present)\n\nܐ    ܒ    ܓ    ܕ    ܗ    ܘ\n\nܙ    ܚ    ܛ    ܝ    ܟܟ    ܠ\n\nܡܡ    ܢܢ    ܣ    ܥ    ܦ\n\nܨ    ܩ    ܪ    ܫ    ܬ\n\nThree letters act as matres lectionis: rather than being a consonant, they indicate a vowel. ʾĀlep̄ (ܐ), the first letter, represents a glottal stop, but it can also indicate the presence of certain vowels (typically at the beginning or the end of a word, but also in the middle). The letter Waw (ܘ) is the consonant w, but can also represent the vowels o and u. Likewise, the letter Yōḏ (ܝ) represents the consonant y, but it also stands for the vowels i and e. In addition to foreign sounds, a marking system is used to distinguish qūššāyā ('hard' letters) from rūkkāḵā ('soft' letters). The letters Bēṯ, Gāmal, Dālaṯ, Kāp̄, Pē and Taw, all plosives ('hard'), are able to be spirantised into fricatives ('soft').\n\nThe system involves placing a single dot underneath the letter to give its 'soft' variant and a dot above the letter to give its 'hard' variant (though, in modern usage, no mark at all is usually used to indicate the 'hard' value).\n\nLatin alphabet\n\nIn the late 1920s, a Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.).[50][51] Though this specific script was removed from use in favor of a Latin script in around 1930 (which too was abolished in 1938), the Latin script in general is preferred by most Assyrians for practical reasons and its convenience, especially in social media, where it is used to communicate. Although the Syriac latin alphabet contains diacritics, most Assyrians rarely utilise the modified letters and would conveniently rely on the basic Latin alphabet. The Latin alphabet is also a useful tool to present Assyrian terminology to anyone who is not familiar with the Syriac script. A precise transcription may not be necessary for native Suret speakers, as they would be able to pronounce words correctly, but it can be very helpful for those not quite familiar with Syriac and more informed with the Latin script.[52]\n\nPhonology\n\nConsonants\n\nConsonant inventory[53][54][55]\n\nLabial\n\nDental/\nAlveolar\n\nPalatal\n\nVelar\n\nUvular\n\nPharyn-\ngeal\n\nGlottal\n\nplain\n\nemp.\n\nNasal\n\nm\n\nn\n\nStop\n\nplain\n\np\nb\n\nt\nd\n\ntˤ\n\n(c\nɟ)\n\nk\nɡ\n\nq\n\nʔ\n\naspirated\n\npʰ\nbʱ\n\ntʰ\ndʱ\n\n(cʰ\nɟʱ)\n\nkʰ\nɡʱ\n\nAffricate\n\nplain\n\ntʃ\ndʒ\n\naspirated\n\ntʃʰ\ndʒʱ\n\nFricative\n\nsibilant\n\ns\nz\n\nsˤ\n\nʃ\nʒ\n\nnon-sibilant\n\nf\nv\n\nθ\nð\n\nx\nɣ\n\nħ\n\nʕ\n\nh\n\nApproximant\n\nw\n\nl\n\nj\n\nTrill/Tap\n\nɾ~r\n\nNotes:\n\nIn all NENA dialects, voiced, voiceless, aspirated and emphatic consonants are recognised as distinct phonemes, though there can be an overlap between plain voiceless and voiceless emphatic in sound quality.[56][57][58][55][59]\n\nIn Iraqi Koine and many Urmian & Northern dialects, the palatals [c], [ɟ] and aspirate [cʰ], [ɟʱ] are considered the predominant realisation of /k/, /ɡ/ and aspirate /kʰ/, /ɡʱ/.[55][60][57]\n\nIn the Koine and Urmi dialects, velar fricatives /x ɣ/ are typically uvular as [χ ʁ].[55][61]\n\nThe phoneme /ħ/ is in most dialects realised as [x]. The one exception to this is the dialect of Hértevin, which merged the two historical phonemes into [ħ], thus lacking [x] instead.[62]\n\nThe pharyngeal /ʕ/, represented by the letter 'e, is a marginal phoneme that is generally upheld in formal or religious speech. Among the majority of Suret speakers, 'e would be realised as [aɪ̯], [eɪ̯], [ɛ], [j], deleted, or even geminating the previous consonant, depending on the dialect and phonological context.\n\n/r/ may also be heard as a tap sound [ɾ].[55]\n\n/f/ is a phoneme heard in the Tyari, Barwari and Chaldean dialects. In most of the other varieties, it merges with /p/,[63] though [f] is found in loanwords.\n\nThe phonemes /t/ and /d/ have allophonic realisations of [θ] and [ð] (respectively) in most Lower Tyari, Barwari and Chaldean dialects, which is a carryover of begadkefat from the Ancient Aramaic period.\n\nIn the Upper Tyari dialects, /θ/ is realised as [ʃ] or [t]; in the Marga dialect, the /t/ may at times be replaced with [s].\n\nIn the Urmian dialect, /w/ has a widespread allophone [ʋ] (it may vacillate to [v] for some speakers).[64]\n\nIn the Jilu dialect, /q/ is uttered as a tense [k]. This can also occur in other dialects.[58][57]\n\nIn the Iraqi Koine dialect, a labial-palatal approximant sound [ɥ] is also heard.[65][55]\n\n/ɡ/ is affricated, thus pronounced as [d͡ʒ] in some Urmian, Tyari and Nochiya dialects.[66] /k/ would be affricated to [t͡ʃ] in the same process.\n\n/ɣ/ is a marginal phoneme that occurs across all dialects. Either a result of the historic splitting of /g/, through loanwords, or by contact of [x] with a voiced consonant.\n\n/ʒ/ is found predominately from loanwords, but, in some dialects, also from the voicing of /ʃ/[58] (e.g. ḥašbunā /xaʒbuːnaː/, \"counting\", from the root ḥ-š-b, \"to count\") as in the Jilu dialect.\n\n/n/ can be pronounced [ŋ] before velar consonants, [x] and [ɣ], and as [ɴ] before [q], and as [m] before labial consonants.[54]\n\nIn some speakers, a dental click (English \"tsk\") may be used para-linguistically as a negative response to a \"yes or no\" question. This feature is more common among those who still live in the homeland or in the Middle East, than those living in the diaspora.\n\nVowels\n\nAccording to linguist Edward Odisho, there are six vowel phonemes in Iraqi Koine.[67] They are as follows:\n\nFront\n\nCentral\n\nBack\n\nClose\n\n/i/\n\n/u/\n\nHalf-close\n\n/ɪ/\n\nHalf-open\n\n/e/\n\n/o/\n\nOpen\n\n/a/\n\n/a/, as commonly uttered in words like naša (\"man; human\"), is central [ä] for many speakers. It is usually [a] in the Urmian and Nochiya dialects. For some Urmian and Jilu speakers, [æ] may be used instead. In those having a more pronounced Jilu dialect, this vowel is mostly fronted and raised to [ɛ]. In the Tyari and Barwari dialects, it is usually more back [ɑ].[56]\n\n/ɑ/, a long vowel, as heard in raba (\"much; many\"), may also be realised as [ɒ], depending on the speaker. It is more rounded and higher in the Urmian dialect, where it is realised as [ɔ].\n\n/e/, heard in beta (\"house\") is generally diphthongised to [eɪ̯] in the Halmon dialect (a Lower Tyari tribe). To note, the [aj] diphthong is a vestigial trait of classical Syriac and thereby may be used in formal speech as well, such as in liturgy and hymns.[68]\n\n/ɪ/, uttered in words like dədwa (\"housefly\"), is sometimes realised as [ə] (a schwa).\n\nThe mid vowels, preserved in Tyari, Barwari, Baz and Chaldean dialects, are sometimes raised and merged with close vowels in Urmian and some other dialects:\n\n/o/, as in gora (\"big\"), is raised to [u]. The Urmian dialect may diphthongise it to [ʊj].\n\n/e/, as in kepa (\"rock\"), is raised to [i].\n\n/o/, as in tora (\"bull\") may be diphthongised to [ɑw] in some Tyari, Barwari, Chaldean and Jilu dialects.\n\nAcross many dialects, close and close-mid vowels are lax when they occur in a closed syllable:\n\n/u/ or /o/ is usually realised as [ʊ];\n\n/i/ or /e/ is usually realised as [ɪ].\n\nEast Syriac dialects may recognize half-close sounds as [ɛ] and also recognize the back vowel [ɒ] as a long form of /a/.[69]\n\nPhonology of Chaldean-Neo-Aramaic\n\nConsonants\n\nTable of Chaldean Neo-Aramaic consonant phonemes\n\nLabial\n\nDental/\nAlveolar\n\nPalatal\n\nVelar\n\nUvular\n\nPharyngeal\n\nGlottal\n\nplain\nemph.\n\nNasal\n\nm\n\nn\n\nPlosive\n\np\n\nb\n\nt\nd\n\ntˤ\n\nk\nɡ\n\nq\n\nʔ\n\nAffricate\n\ntʃ\ndʒ\n\nFricative\n\nsibilant\n\ns\nz\n\nsˤ\n\nʃ\nʒ\n\nnon-sibilant\n\nf\nv\n\nθ\nð\n\nðˤ\n\nx\nɣ\n\nħ\nʕ\n\nh\n\nApproximant\n\nw\n\nl\n\nɫ\n\nj\n\nRhotic\n\nr\n\nrˤ\n\nThe Chaldean dialects are generally characterised by the presence of the fricatives /θ/ (th) and /ð/ (dh) which correspond to /t/ and /d/, respectively, in other Assyrian dialects (excluding the Tyari dialect).\n\nIn some Chaldean dialects /r/ is realized as [ɹ]. In others, it is either a tap [ɾ] or a trill [r].\n\nUnlike in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, the guttural sounds of [ʕ] and [ħ] are used predominantly in Chaldean varieties; this is a feature also seen in other Northeastern Neo-Aramaic languages.[70][71]\n\nVowels\n\nFront\n\nCentral\n\nBack\n\nClose\n\ni\n\nɨ\n\nu\n\nMid\n\ne\n\no\n\nOpen\n\na\n\nGrammar\n\nNENA is a pro-drop, null-subject language with both ergative morphology and a nominative-accusative system.[72]\n\nDue to language contact, Suret may share similar grammatical features with Persian and Kurdish in the way they employ the negative copula in its full form before the verbal constituent and also with the negated forms of the present perfect.[73]\n\nVerbal stems[74]\n\nAspect\nStem\n\nImperative\nptux (\"open!\")\n\nIndicative\npatx- ( + k- / ki- present, bit- future, qam- past, transitive, definite object) (\"opens\")\n\nPerfect\nptix- (perfect participle, f. ptixta, m. ptixa, pl. ptixe) (\"opened\")\n\nGerund\n(bi-)ptaxa (\"opening\")\n\nSuffixes\n\nSuret uses verbal inflections marking person and number. The suffix \"-e\" indicates a (usually masculine) plural (i.e. warda, \"flower\", becomes warde, \"flowers\"). Enclitic forms of personal pronouns are affixed to various parts of speech. As with the object pronoun, possessive pronouns are suffixes that are attached to the end of nouns to express possession similar to the English pronouns my, your, his, her, etc., which reflects the gender and plurality of the person or persons.[75] This is a synthetic feature found in other Semitic languages and also in unrelated languages such as Finnish (Uralic), Persian (Indo-European) and Turkish (Turkic).\n\nMoreover, unlike many other languages, Suret has virtually no means of deriving words by adding prefixes or suffixes to words. Instead, they are formed according to a limited number of templates applied to roots.[76] Modern Assyrian, like Akkadian but unlike Arabic, has only \"sound\" plurals formed by means of a plural ending (i.e. no broken plurals formed by changing the word stem). As in all Semitic languages, some masculine nouns take the prototypically feminine plural ending (-tā).\n\nPossessive suffixes\n\nIraqi Koine possessive suffixes\n\nsingular\n\nplural\n\n1st person\n\nbetī (my house)\n\nbetan (our house)\n\n2nd person\n\nmasc.\n\nbetux (your house)\n\nbetōxun (your house)\n\nfem.\n\nbetax (your house)\n\n3rd person\n\nmasc.\n\nbetū (his house)\n\nbetéh (their house)\n\nfem.\n\nbetō (her house)\n\nAlthough possessive suffixes are more convenient and common, they can be optional for some people and seldom used, especially among those with the Tyari and Barwari dialects, which take a more analytic approach regarding possession, just like English possessive determiners. The following are periphrastic ways to express possession, using the word betā (\"house\") as a base (in Urmian/Iraqi Koine):\n\nmy house: betā-it dīyī (\"house-of mine\")\n\nyour (masc., sing.) house: betā-it dīyux (\"house-of yours\")\n\nyour (fem., sing.) house: betā-it dīyax (\"house-of yours\")\n\nyour (plural) house: betā-it dīyōxun (\"house-of yours\")\n\n3rd person (masc., sing.): betā-it dīyū (\"house-of his\")\n\n3rd person (fem., sing.): betā-it dīyō (\"house-of hers\")\n\n3rd person (plural): betā-it dīyéh (\"house-of theirs\")\n\nStress\n\nHakkari dialects are generally stress-timed, whereas the Urmian and Iraqi Koine dialects may be more syllable-timed:\n\nAn example of stress timing is noticeable in the word \"qat\", an adverb clause conjunction which translates to \"so that\" - The 'a' sound in \"qat\" is unstressed and thus would turn into a schwa if one would place the stress in the next word of the sentence, so; \"mīri qat āzekh\" becomes \"mīri qət āzekh\" (\"I said that we go\").\n\nAnother example is observed in teen numerical range (13-19); In some dialects (particularly those of Hakkari), the words \"īštāser\" (sixteen) or \"arbāser\" (fourteen), among other teen numbers, the typically stressed vowel in the middle (long A) is reduced to a schwa, hence \"īštəser\" and \"arbəser\", respectively.\n\nAlthough Suret, like all Semitic languages, is not a tonal language, a tonal stress is made on a plural possessive suffix -éh (i.e. dīyéh; \"their\") in the final vowel to tonally differentiate it from an unstressed -eh (i.e. dīyeh; \"his\"), which is a masculine singular possessive, with a standard stress pattern falling on the penult. The -eh used to denote a singular third person masculine possessive (e.g. bābeh, \"his father\"; aqleh, \"his leg\") is present in most of the traditional dialects in Hakkari and Nineveh Plains, but not for Urmian and some Iraqi Koine speakers, who instead use -ū for possessive \"his\" (e.g. bābū, \"his father\"; aqlū, \"his leg\"), whilst retaining the stress in -éh for \"their\".[76]\n\nThis phenomenon however may not always be present, as some Hakkari speakers, especially those from Tyari and Barwar, would use analytic speech to denote possession. So, for instance, bābeh (literally, \"father-his\") would be uttered as bābā-id dīyeh (literally, \"father-of his\"). In Iraqi Koine and Urmian, the plural form and the third person plural possessive suffix of many words, such as wardeh and biyyeh (\"flowers\"/\"eggs\" and \"their flower(s)\"/\"their eggs\", respectively), would be homophones were it not for the varying, distinctive stress on the penult or ultima.[77]\n\nDeterminative\n\nWhen it comes to a determinative (like in English this, a, the, few, any, which, etc.), Suret generally has an absence of an article (English \"the\"), unlike other Semitic languages such as Arabic, which does use a definite article (Arabic: ال, al-). Demonstratives (āhā, āy/āw and ayyāhā/awwāhā translating to \"this\", \"that\" and \"that one over there\", respectively, demonstrating proximal, medial and distal deixis) are commonly utilised instead (e.g. āhā betā, \"this house\"), which can have the sense of \"the\". An indefinite article (\"a(n)\") can mark definiteness if the word is a direct object (but not a subject) by using the prepositional prefix \"l-\" paired with the proper suffix (e.g. šāqil qālāmā, \"he takes a pen\" vs. šāqil-lāh qālāmā, \"he takes the pen\"). Partitive articles may be used in some speech (e.g. bayyīton xačča miyyā?, which translates to \"do you [pl.] want some water?\").[78]\n\nIn place of a definite article, Ancient Aramaic used the emphatic state, formed by the addition of the suffix: \"-ā\" for generally masculine words and \"-t(h)ā\" (if the word already ends in -ā) for feminine. The definite forms were pallāxā for \"the (male) worker\" and pallāxtā for \"the (female) worker\". Beginning even in the Classical Syriac era, when the prefixed preposition \"d-\" came into more popular use and replaced state Morphology for marking possession, the emphatic (definite) form of the word became dominant and the definite sense of the word merged with the indefinite sense so that pālāxā became \"a/the (male) worker\" and pālaxtā became \"a/the (female) worker.\"\n\nConsonantal root\n\nMost NENA nouns and verbs are built from triconsonantal roots, which are a form of word formation in which the root is modified and which does not involve stringing morphemes together sequentially. Unlike Arabic, broken plurals are not present. Semitic languages typically utilise triconsonantal roots, forming a \"grid\" into which vowels may be inserted without affecting the basic root.[79]\n\nThe root š-q-l (ܫ-ܩ-ܠ) has the basic meaning of \"taking\", and the following are some words that can be formed from this root:\n\nšqil-leh (ܫܩܝܼܠ ܠܹܗ): \"he has taken\" (literally \"taken-by him\")\n\nšāqil (ܫܵܩܸܠ): \"he takes\"\n\nšāqlā (ܫܵܩܠܵܐ): \"she takes\"\n\nšqul (ܫܩܘܿܠ): \"take!\"\n\nšqālā (ܫܩܵܠܵܐ): \"taking\"\n\nšqīlā (ܫܩܝܼܠܵܐ): \"taken\"\n\nTenses\n\nSuret has lost the perfect and imperfect morphological tenses common in other Semitic languages. The present tense is usually marked with the subject pronoun followed by the participle; however, such pronouns are usually omitted in the case of the third person. This use of the participle to mark the present tense is the most common of a number of compound tenses that can be used to express varying senses of tense and aspect.[80] Suret's new system of inflection is claimed to resemble that of the Indo-European languages, namely the Iranian languages. This assertion is founded on\nthe utilisation of an active participle concerted with a copula and a passive participle with a genitive/dative element which is present in Old Persian and in Neo-Aramaic.[81]\n\nBoth Modern Persian and Suret build the present perfect tense around the past/resultative participle in conjunct with the copula (though the placing and form of the copula unveil crucial differences). The more conservative Suret dialects lay the copula in its full shape before the verbal constituent. In the Iraqi and Iranian dialects, the previous construction is addressable with different types of the copula (e.g. deictic) but with the elemental copula only the cliticised form is permitted. Among conservative Urmian speakers, only the construction with the enclitic ordered after the verbal constituent is allowed. Due to language contact, the similarities between Kurdish and Modern Persian and the Urmian dialects become even more evident with their negated forms of present perfect, where they display close similarities.[82]\n\nA recent feature of Suret is the usage of the infinitive instead of the present base for the expression of the present progressive, which is also united with the copula. Although the language has some other varieties of the copula precedent to the verbal constituent, the common construction is with the infinitive and the basic copula cliticised to it. In the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia, the symmetrical order of the constituents is with the present perfect tense. This structure of the NENA dialects is to be compared with the present progressive in Kurdish and Turkish as well, where the enclitic follows the infinitive. Such construction is present in Kurdish, where it is frequently combined with the locative element \"in, with\", which is akin to the preposition bi- preceding the infinitive in Suret (as in \"bi-ktawen\" meaning 'I'm writing'). The similarities of the constituents and their alignment in the present progressive construction in Suret is clearly attributed to influence from the neighbouring languages, such as the use of the infinitive for this construction and the employment of the enclitic copula after the verbal base in all verbal constructions, which is due to the impinging of the Kurdish and Turkish speech.[83]\n\nThe morphology and the valency of the verb, and the arrangement of the grammatical roles should be noticed when it comes to the similarities with Kurdish. Unlike Old Persian, Modern Persian made no distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, where it unspecialised the absolutive type of inflection. Different handling of inflection with transitive and intransitive verbs is also nonexistent in the NENA dialects. In contrast with Persian though, it was the ergative type that was generalised in NENA.[84][85]\n\nPersian and Suret verb tense comparison\n\nLanguage\nTransitive verb\nIntransitive verb\n\nModern Persian\n\nkošte-am\n\nkill.PP-COP.1SG\n\nkošte-am\n\nkill.PP-COP.1SG\n\n'I killed'\n\nāmade-am\n\narrive.PP-COP.1SG\n\nāmade-am\n\narrive.PP-COP.1SG\n\n'I arrived'\n\nSuret\n\nqṭǝl-li\n\nkill.PP-1SG.OBL\n\nqṭǝl-li\n\nkill.PP-1SG.OBL\n\n'I killed'\n\ndmǝx-li\n\nsleep.PP-1SG.OBL\n\ndmǝx-li\n\nsleep.PP-1SG.OBL\n\n'I went to sleep'\n\nErgativity\n\nAlthough Aramaic has been a nominative-accusative language historically, split ergativity in Christian and Jewish Neo-Aramaic languages developed through interaction with ergative Iranian languages, such as Kurdish, which is spoken by the Muslim population of the region.[86] Ergativity formed in the perfective aspect only (the imperfective aspect is nominative-accusative), whereas the subject, the original agent construction of the passive participle, was expressed as an oblique with dative case, and is presented by verb-agreement rather than case. The absolutive argument in transitive clauses is the syntactic object.[87][88] The dialects of Kurdish make a concordant distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs by using a tense-split ergative pattern, which is present in the tense system of some NENA dialects; The nominative accusative type is made use of in the present for all the verbs and also for intransitive verbs in past tense and the ergative type is used instead for transitive verbs.[89]\n\nUnique among the Semitic languages, the development of ergativity in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects involved the departure of original Aramaic tensed finite verbal forms.[90] Thereafter, the active participle became the root of the Suret imperfective, while the passive participle evolved into the Suret perfective.[91] The Extended-Ergative dialects, which include Iraqi Koine, Hakkari and Christian Urmian dialects, show the lowest state of ergativity and would mark unaccusative subjects and intransitive verbs in an ergative pattern.[92]\n\nErgativity patterns\n\nPerfective stem\n\nSplit-S \n (Jewish Sulemaniyya)\n\nDynamic-Stative \n(Jewish Urmi)\n\nExtended-Erg \n(Christian Hakkari dialects)\n\nhe opened it\n\npləx-∅-le\n\nopen-ABS-ERG\n\npləx-∅-le\n\nopen-ABS-ERG\n\npləx-∅-le\n\nopen-ABS-ERG\n\npləx-∅-le\n\nopen-ABS-ERG\n\nptíx-∅-le\n\nopen-MASC-ERG\n\nptíx-∅-le\n\nopen-MASC-ERG\n\nit opened\n\nplix-∅\n\nopen-ABS\n\nplix-∅\n\nopen-ABS\n\npləx-le\n\nopen-ERG\n\npləx-le\n\nopen-ERG\n\nptíx-le\n\nopen-ERG\n\nptíx-le\n\nopen-ERG\n\nit got cut\n\nqəṭe-∅\n\ncut-ABS\n\nqəṭe-∅\n\ncut-ABS\n\nqṭe-le\n\ncut-ERG\n\nqṭe-le\n\ncut-ERG\n\nqṭí-le\n\ncut-ERG\n\nqṭí-le\n\ncut-ERG\n\nit was ruined\n\nxrəw-∅-le\n\nruin-ABS-ERG\n\nxrəw-∅-le\n\nruin-ABS-ERG\n\nməxrəw-le-le\n\nruin-ERG-ACC\n\nməxrəw-le-le\n\nruin-ERG-ACC\n\nxríw-∅-le\n\nruin-ABS-ERG\n\nxríw-∅-le\n\nruin-ABS-ERG\n\nVocabulary\n\nOne online Suret dictionary, Sureth Dictionary, lists a total 40,642 words-half of which are root words.[93] Due to geographical proximity,[94] Suret has an extensive number of Iranian loanwords-namely Persian and Kurdish-incorporated in its vocabulary, as well as some Arabic, Russian, Azeri and Ottoman Turkish and, increasingly within the last century, English loanwords.\n\nSuret has numerous words borrowed into its vocabulary directly from Akkadian, some of them also being borrowed into neighbouring Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. Several of these words are not attested in Classical Edessan Syriac, many of them being agricultural terms, being more likely to survive by being spoken in agrarian rural communities rather than the urban centres like Edessa.[22] A few deviations in pronunciation between the Akkadian and the Assyrian Aramaic words are probably due to mistranslations of cuneiform signs which can have several readings. While Akkadian nouns generally end in \"-u\" in the nominative case, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic words nouns end with the vowel \"-a\" in their lemma form.[95]\n\nAkkadian and Suret vocabulary[N 1]\n\nAkkadian\nSuret\nModern meaning\n\nNotes\n\nCuneiform\n\nTransliteration\n\n𒌉𒌉𒇲\n\ndaqqu\n\ndaiqa\n\nvery small, tiny\n\nCompare Arabic daqīq (دَقِيق) \"fine, thin, little\"\n\n𒂊𒄈𒌅\n\negirtu\n\niggarṯa\n\nletter, epistle\n\nAlso borrowed into Hebrew ʾiggéreṯ (אִגֶּרֶת), Turoyo/Surayt egarṯo. Compare Classical Mandaic engirta (ࡏࡍࡂࡉࡓࡕࡀ).\n\nelulu\n\nullul\n\nup, upwards\n\nClassical Syriac lʕel, Western Neo-Aramaic elʕel, Turoyo/Surayt lalʕal.\n\n𒋓\n\nišku\n\niškā\n\ntesticle\n\nCognate with Hebrew ʾéšeḵ (אֶשֶׁךְ).\n\n𒀉\n\ngappu\n\ngulpa\n\nwing\n\nCognate with Hebrew ʾagaph (אֲגַף), Classical Syriac geppā, Turoyo/Surayt gefo.\n\ngir-ba-an-nu\n\nqurbana\n\noffering, sacrifice\n\nCognate with Arabic qurbān (قُرْبَان), borrowed into Hebrew as: qorban (קָרְבָּן).\n\n𒄀𒅆𒅕𒊑\n\ngišru\n\ngišra\n\nbridge\n\nborrowed into Classical Syriac gešrā (ܓܫܪܐ),\n\nArabic ǧisr (جِسْر), Hebrew géšer (גֶּשֶׁר), Western Neo-Aramaic ġešra, Turoyo/Surayt gešro.\n\nhadutu\n\nḥḏuṯa\n\njoy, happiness\n\nWestern Neo-Aramaic ḥḏawṯa.\n\nittimalu\n\ntimmal\n\nyesterday\n\nborrowed into Hebrew as: etmol (אֶתְמוֹל), Turoyo/Surayt aṯmel.\n\n𒌆𒁇𒌆\n\nkusītu\n\nkosiṯa\n\nhat, headgear\n\nCompare Arabic kuswa (كُسْوَة), borrowed into Hebrew as: ksut - a garment; a cover (כְּסוּת) & ksayah (כְּסָיָה) - a covering\n\nkutallu\n\nqḏala\n\nneck\n\nArabic qaḏāl (قَذَال) \"occiput\", Western Neo-Aramaic qḏola, Turoyo/Surayt qḏolo.\n\n𒈛\n\nmassu'u, mesû\n\nmsaya\n\nto clean, wash clothes\n\nClassical Syriac mšiġ, Western Neo-Aramaic imšiġ, Turoyo/Surayt mašeġ.\n\n𒆳\n\nmātu\n\nmaṯa\n\nvillage; homeland\n\nBorrowed into Turoyo/Surayt as moṯo (homeland).\n\nmigru\n\nmyuqra\n\nfavourite, honourable\n\nBorrowed into Turoyo/Surayt as miaqro.\n\n𒈦𒂗𒆕\n\nmuškēnu\n\nmiskena\n\npoor, impoverished\n\nArabic miskīn (مِسْكِين), borrowed into Hebrew as: (מִסְכֵּן), Western Neo-Aramaic miskina.\n\n𒇽𒉽נׇפׇּח\n\nnakru\n\nnaḵraya\n\nforeign(er), outlandish\n\nCompare Arabic nakira (نَكِرَة) \"unknown\", Classical Syriac nūḵrāyā (ܢܘܟܪܝܐ), Hebrew noḵrî (נָכְרִי), Western Neo-Aramaic nuḵray, Turoyo/Surayt nuḵroyo. Compare Classical Mandaic nukraia (ࡍࡅࡊࡓࡀࡉࡀ).\n\nnapahu\n\nnpaḥa\n\nblow, exhale\n\nArabic nafaḵ (نَفَخ), Hebrew napah (נׇפׇּח), Classical Syriac nfaḥ, Western Neo-Aramaic infaḥ, Turoyo/Surayt nfoḥo.\n\n𒉈𒋢𒌒\n\nnašāgu\n\nnšaqa\n\nto kiss\n\nArabic našaq (نَشَق) \"to snuff\", Hebrew nšiquah (נְשִׁיקָה), Classical Syriac nšaq, Western Neo-Aramaic inšaq, Turoyo/Surayt nošaq.\n\n𒄩\n\nnunu\n\nnuna\n\nfish\n\nArabic nūn (نُون), Turoyo/Surayt nuno. Compare Classical Mandaic nuna (ࡍࡅࡍࡀ).\n\nparaku\n\npraḥa\n\nto fly, glide\n\nArabic farḵ (فَرْخ) \"chick\", Hebrew parah (פָּרַח), Turoyo/Surayt foraš.\n\n𒋻\n\nparāsu\n\npraša\n\nto separate, part\n\nArabic faraš (فَرَش), Hebrew parash (פָּרַשׁ), Turoyo/Surayt fošar.\n\n𒀭𒁇\n\nparzillu\n\nprezla\n\niron, metal\n\nHebrew barzel (בַּרְזֶל)\n\n𒁔\n\npašāru\n\npšara\n\nto melt, dissolve\n\nHebrew hafšara (הַפְשָׁרָה)\n\nqurbu\n\nqurba\n\nnearby\n\nArabic qurb (قُرْب), Hebrew qirvah; qeruv & qarov, Western Neo-Aramaic qura, Turoyo/Surayt qariwo.\n\n𒃲\n\nrabû\n\nra(b)ba\n\nlarge, great (in quality or quantity)\n\nHebrew rav; rabu & harbeh, Western Neo-Aramaic rappa, Turoyo/Surayt rabo. Compare Mandaic rabbā (Classical Mandaic: ࡓࡁࡀ, romanized: rba).\n\n𒋤\n\nrêqu\n\nreḥqa\n\nfar, distant\n\nHebrew raḥoq (רָחוֹק),\n\nTuroyo/Surayt raḥuqo.\n\nsananu\n\nsanyana\n\nhater, rival\n\nHebrew soneh (שׂוֹנֵא), Western Neo-Aramaic sanyona.\n\n𒄑𒃴\n\nsimmiltu\n\nsi(m)malta, si(m)manta\n\nladder\n\nBorrowed into Classical Syriac as sebbelṯā (ܣܒܠܬܐ), Western Neo-Aramaic semla.\n\n𒀲𒆳𒊏\n\nsīsû\n\nsusa\n\nhorse\n\nCompare Arabic sīsī (سيسي) \"pony\", Hebrew sûs (סוּס), Western Neo-Aramaic susya, Turoyo/Surayt susyo.\n\n𒊭𒁀𒁉𒅎\n\nša bābi\n\nšḇaḇa\n\nneighbour\n\nWestern Neo-Aramaic šboba.\n\n𒂄\n\nšahānu\n\nšḥana\n\nto warm, heat up\n\nArabic sāḵin (ساخِن), Hebrew šahun (שָׁחוּן), Classical Syriac šḥen, Western Neo-Aramaic: išḥen, Turoyo/Surayt šoḥan.\n\n𒇽𒁁\n\nšalamtu\n\nšla(d)da\n\nbody, corpse\n\nHebrew šeled (שֶׁלֶד), Turoyo/Surayt šlado (corpse).\n\n𒌑\n\nšammu\n\nsamma\n\ndrug, poison\n\nArabic summ (سُمّ), Hebrew sam (סַם), Western Neo-Aramaic samma, Turoyo/Surayt samo.\n\nšuptu\n\nšopa\n\nplace, spot\n\n𒄭\n\nṭābu\n\nṭaḇa\n\ngood, pleasant\n\nArabic ṭāb (طَابَ), Hebrew ṭovah (טוֹבָה), Western Neo-Aramaic ṭoba, Turoyo/Surayt ṭowo. Compare Classical Mandaic ṭaba (ࡈࡀࡁࡀ).\n\ntapahu\n\ntpaḥa\n\nto pour out, spill\n\nArabic fāḵ (فَاخَ), compare the Hebrew cognate: to rise (e.g. rising flour) taphaḥ (תָּפַח)\n\ntayartu\n\ndyara\n\nto return, come back\n\nArabic dār (دَار), compare the Hebrew cognate: a tourist tayar (תַּיָּר), Turoyo/Surayt doʕar.\n\ntemuru\n\nṭmara\n\nto bury\n\n𒂡\n\nzamāru\n\nzmara\n\nto sing\n\nArabic zammar (زَمَّر), Hebrew: a tune; a singing zimrah (זִמְרָה), Turoyo/Surayt zomar.\n\n𒍪𒊻\n\nzuzu\n\nzuze\n\nmoney\n\nAlso borrowed into Hebrew zûz (זוּז) via Aramaic.\n\nDialects\n\nSIL Ethnologue distinguishes five dialect groups: Urmian, Northern, Central, Western and Sapna, each with sub-dialects. Mutual intelligibility between the Suret dialects is as high as 80%-90%. The Urmia dialect has become the prestige dialect of Suret after 1836, when that dialect was chosen by Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary, for the creation of a standard literary dialect. A second standard dialect derived from General Urmian known as \"Iraqi Koine\", developed in the 20th century.[96]\n\nIn 1852, Perkins's translation of the Bible into General Urmian was published by the American Bible Society with a parallel text of the Classical Syriac Peshitta.[97][98] Iraqi Koine is a compromise between the rural Ashiret accents of Hakkari and Nineveh Plains (listed above) and the former prestigious dialect in Urmia. Iraqi Koine does not really constitute a new dialect, but an incomplete merger of dialects, with some speakers sounding more Urmian, such as those from Habbaniyah, and others more Hakkarian, such as those who immigrated from northern Iraq. Koine is more analogous or similar to Urmian in terms of manner of articulation, place of articulation and its consonant cluster formations than it is to the Hakkari dialects, though it just lacks the regional Persian influence in some consonants and vowels.[99][67]\n\nGrouping\n\nIranian group:\n\nUrmia (west of Lake Urmia) (Christian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia)\n\nSopurghan (north of Urmia)\n\nNaghadeh (south of Lake Urmia)\n\nSalmas (north west of Lake Urmia)\n\nSanandaj (Iranian Kurdistan) (Senaya dialect)\n\nTurkey group:\n\nNochiya\n\nJilu (west of Gavar and south of Qudshanis)\n\nGawar (between Salmas and Van)\n\nDiza\n\nBaz\n\n Lower Tyari - Dialects of the Tyari group share features with both the Chaldean Neo-Aramaic dialects in Northern Iraq (below) and Urmian (above).\n\nAshita\n\nZawita\n\nHalmon/Geramon\n\nMangesh\n\nUpper Tyari\n\nWalto\n\nUpper Barwari\n\nQudshanis (just south of Lake Van)\n\nTkhuma\n\nTal\n\nLewin\n\nBohtan (Neo-Aramaic dialect of Bohtan)\n\nNorthern Iraq (Nineveh Plains): \n\nTel Keppe\n\nAlqosh\n\nBatnaya\n\nQaraqosh\n\nTesqopa\n\nZakho\n\nAraden\n\nLower Barwari - The dialect within this group has more in common with Tyari than with Upper Barwari dialect\n\nDooreh\n\nHayes\n\nDialect continuum\n\nNeo-Aramaic has a rather slightly defined dialect continuum, starting from the Assyrians in northern Iraq (e.g. Alqosh, Batnaya) and ending with those in Western Iran (Urmia). The dialects in Northern Iraq, such as those of Alqosh and Batnaya, would be minimally unintelligible to those in Western Iran.[99]\n\nNearing the Iraqi-Turkey border, the Barwari and Tyari dialects are more \"traditionally Assyrian\" and would sound like those in the Hakkari province in Turkey. Furthermore, the Barwar and Tyari dialects are \"transitional\", acquiring both Assyrian and Chaldean phonetic features (though they do not use /ħ/). Gawar, Diz and Jilu are in the \"centre\" of the spectrum, which lie halfway between Tyari and Urmia, having features of both respective dialects, though still being distinct in their own manner.[67]\n\nIn Hakkari, going east (towards Iran), the Nochiya dialect would begin to sound distinct to the Tyari/Barwar dialects and more like the Urmian dialect in Urmia, West Azerbaijan province, containing a few Urmian features. The Urmian dialect, alongside Iraqi Koine, are considered to be \"Standard Assyrian\", though Iraqi Koine is more widespread and has thus become the more common standard dialect in recent times. Both Koine and Urmian share phonetic characteristics with the Nochiya dialect to some degree.[96]\n\nLiterature\n\nEarly Syriac texts still date to the 2nd century, notably the Syriac Bible and the Diatesseron Gospel harmony. The bulk of Syriac literary production dates to between the 4th and 8th centuries.\nClassical Syriac literacy survives into the 9th century, though Syriac Christian authors in this period increasingly wrote in Arabic. The emergence of spoken Neo-Aramaic is conventionally dated to the 13th century, but a number of authors continued producing literary works in Syriac in the later medieval period.[101]\n\nBecause Assyrian, alongside Turoyo, is the most widely spoken variety of Syriac today, modern Syriac literature would therefore usually be written in those varieties.[102] The conversion of the Mongols to Islam began a period of retreat and hardship for Syriac Christianity and its adherents, although there still has been a continuous stream of Syriac literature in Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant from the 14th century through to the present day. This has included the flourishing of literature from the various colloquial Eastern Aramaic Neo-Aramaic languages still spoken by Assyrians.\n\nThis Neo-Syriac literature bears a dual tradition: it continues the traditions of the Syriac literature of the past and it incorporates a converging stream of the less homogeneous spoken language. The first such flourishing of Neo-Syriac was the seventeenth century literature of the School of Alqosh, in northern Iraq.[103] This literature led to the establishment of Assyrian Aramaic as written literary languages.\n\nIn the nineteenth century, printing presses were established in Urmia, in northern Iran. This led to the establishment of the 'General Urmian' dialect of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as the standard in much Neo-Syriac Assyrian literature up until the 20th century. The Urmia Bible, published in 1852 by Justin Perkins was based on the Peshitta, where it included a parallel translation in the Urmian dialect. The comparative ease of modern publishing methods has encouraged other colloquial Neo-Aramaic languages, like Turoyo, to begin to produce literature.[104][105]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian people\n\nAramaic\n\nSyriac alphabet\n\nSyriac language\n\nMandaic\n\nNotes\n\n^ Many Akkadian and Aramaic words share the same Semitic root and have cognates in Arabic and Hebrew as well. Therefore, the list below focuses on words that are direct loanwords (not cognates) from Akkadian into Suret. Other Semitic languages that have borrowed the word from Akkadian may be noted as well.\n\nReferences\n\n^ UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger\n\n^ Suret language at Ethnologue (28th ed., 2025) \n\n^ 5.2. 2011թ. հոկտեմբերի 12-21-ը Հայաստանի Հանրապետությունում անցկացված մարդահամարի արդյունքները (PDF). armstat.am (in Armenian). Retrieved 18 February 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Iraq's Constitution of 2005\" (PDF). constituteproject.org. 1 February 2019. Retrieved 16 July 2019.\n\n^ a b The Comprehensive Policy to Manage the Ethnic Languages in Iraq (CPMEL)\n\n^ McClure, Erica (2001). \"Oral and written Assyrian-English codeswitching\". Codeswitching Worldwide. De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-3-11-080874-2.\n\n^ Talay, Shabo (2009). \"Bridging the Tigris: Common features in Turoyo and North-eastern Neo-Aramaic\". Suryoye l-Suryoye. Gorgias Press. pp. 161-176. doi:10.31826/9781463216603-012. ISBN 978-1-4632-1660-3. the majority of the Christian NENA speakers belong to the Eastern Syriac Churches, who are called Assyrians and Chaldeans.\n\n^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). \"Northeastern Neo-Aramaic\". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.\n\n^ Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List\n\n^ a b Beyer 1986, p. 44.\n\n^ a b Bae, C. Aramaic as a Lingua Franca During the Persian Empire (538-333 BCE). Journal of Universal Language. March 2004, 1-20.\n\n^ Fox, Samuel Ethan (1994). \"The Relationships of the Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 114 (2): 154-162. doi:10.2307/605827. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 605827.\n\n^ Maclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the dialects of vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge University Press, London.\n\n^ Assyrians After Assyria, Parpola\n\n^ The Fihrist (Catalog): A Tench Century Survey of Islamic Culture. Abu 'l Faraj Muhammad ibn Ishaq al Nadim. Great Books of the Islamic World, Kazi Publications. Translator: Bayard Dodge.\n\n^ From a lecture by J. A. Brinkman: \"There is no reason to believe that there would be no racial or cultural continuity in Assyria, since there is no evidence that the population of Assyria was removed.\" Quoted in Efrem Yildiz's \"The Assyrians\" Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, 13.1, pp. 22, ref 24\n\n^ Biggs, Robert D. (2005). \"My Career in Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 19 (1): 1-23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2008. p. 10: Especially in view of the very early establishment of Christianity in Assyria and its continuity to the present and the continuity of the population, I think there is every likelihood that ancient Assyrians are among the ancestors of modern Assyrians of the area.\n\n^ Salminen, Tapani (2010). \"Europe and the Caucasus\". In Moseley, Christopher (ed.). Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. p. 41. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2. . . . Suret (divided by SIL on non-linguistic grounds into Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic) . . .\n\n^ Kim, Ronald (2008). \"\"Stammbaum\" or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 525. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 25608409.\n\n^ Tezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: with special reference to homonyms, related words and borrowings with cultural signification. Uppsala Universitet. ISBN 91-554-5555-7.\n\n^ a b Khan 2008, pp. 6\n\n^ a b Khan, Geoffrey (2007). Postgate, J.N. (ed.). \"Aramaic, Medieval and Modern\" (PDF). British School of Archaeology in Iraq (Languages of Iraq: Ancient and Modern). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 110. ISBN 978-0-903472-21-0.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ The Nestorians and their Rituals; George Percy Badger.\n\n^ A Short History of Syriac Christianity; W. Stewart McCullough.\n\n^ Naby, Eden. \"From Lingua Franca to Endangered Language\". Assyrian International News Agency.\n\n^ \"An Introduction to the History of Syriac Digital Humanities\". The Digital Orientalist. 30 January 2020.\n\n^ Manishtusu Obelisk, Louvre\n\n^ Parpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2). JAAS. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 July 2011.\n\n^ Multiple sources: \n\nSabar, Yona (1975). \"The impact of Israeli Hebrew on the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Kurdish Jews of Zakho: a case of language shift\". Hebrew Union College Annual (46): 489-508.\n\nSabar, Yona (2002). A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary. Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-04557-5.\n\n^ Gzella, Holger; Folmer, M. L. (2008). Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-05787-5. OCLC 938036352.\n\n^ Magiera, Janet M. (April 2006). \"A Brief History of the Aramaic Language\". Aramaic Peshitta New Testament Translation (PDF). LWM Publications. Archived from the original on 2 December 2008. Retrieved 16 November 2008 - via Light of the World Ministry.\n\n^ Frye, Richard N. (December 1955). \"Review: Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. by G. R. Driver\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 18 (3/4). Harvard Yenching Institute: 456-461. doi:10.2307/2718444. JSTOR 2718444.\n\n^ British Society for International Understanding (1968). The British Survey. p. 3.\n\n^ Drijvers, H. J. W. (1980). Cults and beliefs at Edessa. Brill Archive. p. 1. ISBN 978-90-04-06050-0.\n\n^ Kaufman, Stephen A. (1974). The Akkadian influences on Aramaic. University of Chicago Press.\n\n^ Shaked, Saul (1987). \"Aramaic\". Encyclopedia Iranica. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 251.\n\n^ Frye, Richard N.; Driver, G. R. (1955). \"Review of G. R. Driver's 'Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C.'\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 18 (3/4): 457. doi:10.2307/2718444. JSTOR 2718444.\n\n^ Krotkoff, Georg; Afsaruddin, Asma; Zahniser, A. H. Mathias, eds. (1997). Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-508-3. OCLC 747412055.\n\n^ Bird, Isabella (1891). Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, including a summer in the Upper Karun region and a visit to the Nestorian rayahs. Vol. ii. London: J. Murray. pp. 282, 306.\n\n^ Lipiński, Edward (2001). Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. Peeters. p. 70. ISBN 978-90-429-0815-4.\n\n^ \"Kurdistan: Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region\". 2 November 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2019.\n\n^ Odisho, Edward Y. (2001). \"ADM's educational policy: A serious project of Assyrian language maintenance and revitalization \", Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Xv/1:3-31.\n\n^ The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing, Samuel Noah Kramer, Thirty Nine Firsts in Recorded History pp. 381-383\n\n^ \"State Archives of Assyria, Volume III: Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea\", by Alasdair Livingstone, Helsinki University Press.\n\n^ \"Syriac alphabet\". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 16 June 2012.\n\n^ Pennacchietti, Fabrizio A. (1997). \"On the etymology of the Neo-Aramaic particle qam/kim; in Hebrew\", M. Bar-Aher (ed.): Gideon Goldenberg Festschrift, Massorot, Stud\n\n^ Higgins, Charlotte (13 October 2009). \"When Syrians, Algerians and Iraqis patrolled Hadrian's Wall | Charlotte Higgins\". The Guardian.\n\n^ Hatch, William (1946). An album of dated Syriac manuscripts. Boston: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, reprinted in 2002 by Gorgias Press. p. 24. ISBN 1-931956-53-7.\n\n^ Nestle, Eberhard (1888). Syrische Grammatik mit Litteratur, Chrestomathie und Glossar. Berlin: H. Reuther's Verlagsbuchhandlung. [translated to English as Syriac grammar with bibliography, chrestomathy and glossary, by R. S. Kennedy. London: Williams & Norgate 1889. p. 5].\n\n^ Syriac Romanization Table\n\n^ Brock 1989, p. 11-23.\n\n^ Polotsky, Hans Jakob (1961). \"Studies in Modern Syriac\". Journal of Semitic Studies. 6 (1): 1-32. doi:10.1093/jss/6.1.1.\n\n^ Hertzron, Robert (1997). The Semitic Languages. Routledge. pp. 348-352.\n\n^ a b Khan, Geoffrey (2016). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Assyrian Christians of Urmi. Brill. p. 107.\n\n^ a b c d e f Odisho, Edward Y (1988). The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Harrassowitz.\n\n^ a b Khan, Geoffrey (2008). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar. Brill. p. 29.\n\n^ a b c Khan, Geoffrey (2016). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Assyrian Christians of Urmi. Brill. p. 93.\n\n^ a b c Fox, Samuel Ethan (1997). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Jilu. Harrassowitz. p. 8.\n\n^ Mutzafi, Hezy (2004). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Koy Sanjaq (Iraqi Kurdistan). Harrassowitz.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2008). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar. Brill. p. 30.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2016). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Assyrian Christians of Urmi. p. 48.\n\n^ The Semitic Languages. Routledge. 1997. ISBN 0-415-05767-1.\n\n^ Rudder, Joshua. Learn to Write Aramaic: A Step-by-Step Approach to the Historical & Modern Scripts. n.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. 220 pp. ISBN 978-1-4610-2142-1 Includes the Estrangela (pp. 59-113), Madnhaya (pp. 191-206), and the Western Serto (pp. 173-190) scripts.\n\n^ \"Aramaic\". The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: William B Eerdmans. 1975. ISBN 0-8028-2402-1.\n\n^ Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.\n\n^ Tsereteli, Konstantin G. (1990). \"The velar spirant 0 in modern East Aramaic Dialects\", W. Heinrichs (ed.): Studies in Neo-Aramaic (Harvard Semitic Studies 36), Atlanta, 35-42.\n\n^ a b c Odisho, Edward: The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic) - Weisbaden, Harrassowitz, 1988\n\n^ Tsereteli, Konstantin G. (1972). \"The Aramaic dialects of Iraq\", Annali dell'Istituto Ori-entale di Napoli 32 (n. s. 22):245-250.\n\n^ Kaye, Alan S.; Daniels, Peter T. (1997). Phonologies of Asia and Africa; Volume 2. Eisenbrauns. pp. 127-140.\n\n^ *Beyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic language: its distribution and subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. ISBN 3-525-53573-2.\n\n^ Sara (1974).\n\n^ The Debate on Ergativity in Neo-Aramaic EDIT DORON & GEOFFREY KHAN (2010). The Hebrew University of Jerusalem & University of Cambridge\n\n^ 8 Cf. M. Tomal, Studies in Neo-Aramaic Tenses, Kraków 2008, pp. 108 and 120.\n\n^ Goldenberg, G. 2002 'Early Neo-Aramaic and Present-day dialectal diversity'. Journal of Semitic Studies XLV: 69-89.\n\n^ Zwicky, Arnold M. \"Clitics and Particles.\" Language 61.2 (1985): 283-305. Print.\n\n^ a b Solomon, Zomaya S. (1994). Basic sentence structure in Assyrian Aramaic, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, VIII/1:83-107\n\n^ Fox, S. E., 1997, The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Jilu, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz\n\n^ Solomon, Zomaya S. (1997). Functional and other exotic sentences in Assyrian Aramaic, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, XI/2:44-69.\n\n^ Haspelmath, Martin (2002). Understanding Morphology. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-340-76026-5.\n\n^ Comrie, Bernard, Tense, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985.\n\n^ E. Kutscher, Two \"Passive\" Constructions in Aramaic in the Light of Persian, in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Semitic Studies held in Jerusalem, 19-23 July 1965, The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1969, pp. 132-151\n\n^ Cf. M. Tomal, Studies in Neo-Aramaic Tenses, Kraków 2008, pp. 108 and 120.\n\n^ E. McCarus, op. cit., p. 619, Kapeliuk gives further examples, see O. Kapeliuk, The gerund and gerundial participle in Eastern Neo-Aramaic, in: \"Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung\" 1996, Vol. 51, p. 286.\n\n^ O. Kapeliuk, Is Modern Hebrew the Only \"Indo-Europeanized\" Semitic Language? And What About Neo-Aramaic?, \"Israel Oriental Studies\" 1996, Vol. 16, pp. 59-70\n\n^ M. Chyet, Neo Aramaic and Kurdish. An Interdisciplinary Consideration of their Influence on Each Other, \"Israel Oriental Studies\" 1997, Vol. 15, pp. 219-252.\n\n^ Cf. G. Khan, Ergativity in North Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects in: Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Studies in Semitics and General Linguistics Honor of Gideon Goldenberg, (334) 2007, pp. 147-157.\n\n^ Ura, Hiroyuki. 2006. A Parametric Syntax of Aspectually Conditioned Split-ergativity. In Alana Johns, Diane Massam, and Juvenal Ndayiragije (eds.) Ergativity: Emerging issues. Dordrecht: Springer. 111-141.\n\n^ A. Mengozzi, Neo-Aramaic and the So-called Decay of Ergativity in Kurdish, in: Proceedings of the 10th Meeting of Hamito-Semitic (Afroasiatic) Linguistics (Florence, 18-20 April 2005), Dipartamento di Linguistica Università di Firenze 2005, pp. 239-256.\n\n^ W. Thackston, op. cit. and E. McCarus, Kurdish Morphology, in: A. Kaye (ed.) Morphologies of Asia and Africa (Including the Caucasus)\n\n^ Nash, Lea. 1996. The Internal Ergative Subject Hypothesis. Proceedings of NELS 26: 195-210.\n\n^ Alexiadou, Artemis. 2001. Functional Structure in Nominals: Nominalization and Ergativity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.\n\n^ Hoberman, Robert. 1989. The Syntax and Semantics of Verb Morphology in Modern Aramaic: A Jewish Dialect of Iraqi Kurdistan. New Haven: American Oriental Society.\n\n^ Sureth dictionary by Association Assyrophile de France\n\n^ Younansardaroud, Helen, Synharmonism in the Särdä:rïd Dialect, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 12:1 (1998): 77-82.\n\n^ Samuel A.B. Mercer, \"Assyrian Grammar with Chrestomathy and Glossary\" Frederick Ungar Publishing, New York, 1961\n\n^ a b Perkins, Justin (1843). A residence of eight years in Persia among the Nestorian Christians. New York. p. 304.\n\n^ Wilmshurst, David (2000). The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. p. 278.\n\n^ Odisho, Edward, 1988\n\n^ a b Beth-Zay'ā, Esha'yā Shamāshā Dāwīd, Tash'īthā d-Beth-Nahreyn, Tehran: Assyrian Youth Cultural Society Press, 1963, p. 895\n\n^ Yildiz 2000a, p. 42.\n\n^ Brock 1996.\n\n^ Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron Michael Butts, George Anton Kiraz & Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Piscataway (NJ), Gorgias Press, 2011\n\n^ William Wright: A Short History of Syriac Literature, 1894, 1974 (reprint)\n\n^ Brock 1992.\n\n^ Brock 2006.\n\nSources\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-53573-8.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 978-0-86078-305-3.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-5908-2.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart, ed. (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ISBN 978-1-55540-430-7.\n\nRemarks on the Historical Background of the Modern Assyrian Language, Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge\n\nMaclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the dialects of vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge University Press, London.\n\nSara, Solomon I. (1974). A Description of Modern Chaldean. Mouton & Co.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (1999). \"The Assyrians: A Historical and Current Reality\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 15-30.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000a). \"The Aramaic Language and Its Classification\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 14 (1): 23-44.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000b). \"Los Asirio-Caldeos, Cristianos orientales arameoparlantes\" (PDF). Dialogo Ecumenico. 35 (112): 263-282.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2012). \"The Assyrian Linguistic Heritage and its Survival in Diaspora\". The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. pp. 201-220.\n\nFurther reading\n\nN.V.Yushmanov, \"Assyrian Language and its Writing System\" In: \"Письменность и революция\". Сб. 1, 1933, p. 112\n\nContains information about peculiarities of Assyrian in early Soviet Union\n\nExternal links\n\nLatin Alphabet on Wikiversity\n\nAssyrian Neo-Aramaic alphabets at Omniglot\n\nSemitisches Tonarchiv: Dokumentgruppe \"Aramäisch/Neuostaramäisch (christl.)\". (in German)\n\nSyriac-English dictionary & French"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-suret-language"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9491}, {"slug": "reference-turoyo-language", "title": "Turoyo language", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Turoyo (Turoyo: ܛܘܪܝܐ), also referred to as Surayt (Turoyo: ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo (Turoyo: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken by the Syriac Christian community in the Tur Abdin region located in southeastern Turkey and in northeastern Syria.[5] Turoyo speakers are mostly adherents of the Syriac...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Turoyo\n\nSurayt\nSuryoyo\n\nܣܘܪܝܬ (Surayt)\nܛܘܪܝܐ (Turoyo)\n\nSurayt written in West Syriac \"Serṭā\" script\n\nPronunciation[tˤuˈrɔjɔ]\n\nNative toTurkey, Syria\n\nRegionMardin Province of southeastern Turkey; Al-Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria\n\nEthnicityAssyrians\n\nNative speakers100,000 (2019-2023)[1]\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern Aramaic\nCentral Neo-Aramaic\nTuroyo\n\nWriting systemSyriac alphabet (West Syriac Serṭo)\nLatin alphabet (Turoyo alphabet)\n\nOfficial status\n\nRecognised minority\nlanguage in\n Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria[a][2]\n\n Turkey[3][4]\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3tru\n\nGlottologturo1239\n\nELPTuroyo\n\nSurayt is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)\n\nTuroyo (Turoyo: ܛܘܪܝܐ), also referred to as Surayt (Turoyo: ܣܘܪܝܬ), or modern Suryoyo (Turoyo: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ), is a Central Neo-Aramaic language traditionally spoken by the Syriac Christian community in the Tur Abdin region located in southeastern Turkey and in northeastern Syria.[5] Turoyo speakers are mostly adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[6] Originally spoken and exclusive to Tur Abdin, it is now majority spoken in the diaspora.[7] It is classified as a vulnerable language.[8][9] Most speakers use the Classical Syriac language for literature and worship.[10] Its closest relatives are Mlaḥsô and western varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic like Suret.[11] Turoyo is not mutually intelligible with Western Neo-Aramaic, having been separated for over a thousand years.[12]\n\nEtymology\n\nTerm Ṭuroyo comes from the word ṭuro, meaning 'mountain', thus designating a specific Neo-Aramaic language of the mountain region of Tur Abdin in southeastern part of modern Turkey (hence Turabdinian Aramaic). Other, more general names for the language are Surayt or Suryoyo.[13][14]\n\nThe term Surayt is commonly used by its speakers, as a general designation for their language, modern or historical. It is also used by the recent EU funded programme to revitalize the language, in preference to Ṭuroyo, since Surayt is a historical name for the language used by its speakers, while Turoyo is a more academic name for the language used to distinguish it from other Neo-Aramaic languages, and Classical Syriac. However, especially in the diaspora, the language is frequently called Surayt, Suryoyo (or Surayt, Sŭryoyo or Süryoyo depending on dialect), meaning \"Syriac\" in general. Since it has developed as one of western variants of the Syriac language, Turoyo is sometimes also referred to as Western Neo-Syriac.[15]\n\nHistory\n\nTuroyo has evolved from the Eastern Aramaic colloquial varieties that have been spoken in Tur Abdin and the surrounding plain for more than a thousand years since the initial introduction of Aramaic to the region. However, it has also been influenced by Classical Syriac, which itself was the variety of the Eastern Middle Aramaic spoken farther west, in the city of Edessa, today known as Urfa. Due to the proximity of Tur Abdin to Edessa, and the closeness of their parent languages, meant that Turoyo bears a greater similarity to Classical Syriac than do Northeastern Neo-Aramaic varieties.\n\nThe homeland of Turoyo is the Tur Abdin region in southeastern Turkey.[16] This region is a traditional stronghold of Syriac Orthodox Christians.[17][18] The Turoyo-speaking population prior to the Sayfo largely adhered to the Syriac Orthodox Church.[16] In 1970, it was estimated that there were 20,000 Turoyo-speakers still living in the area, however, they gradually migrated to Western Europe and elsewhere in the world.[16] The Turoyo-speaking diaspora is now estimated at 100,000.[19] In the diaspora communities, Turoyo is usually a second language which is supplemented by more mainstream languages.[7] The language is considered endangered by UNESCO, but efforts are still made by Turoyo-speaking communities to sustain the language through use in homelife, school programs to teach Turoyo on the weekends, and summer day camps.[7][20]\n\nUntil recently, Turoyo was a spoken vernacular and was never written down: Kthobonoyo (Classical Syriac) was the written language. In the 1880s, various attempts were made, with the encouragement of western missionaries, to write Turoyo in the Syriac alphabet, in the Serto and in Estrangelo script used for West-Syriac Kthobhonoyo. One of the first comprehensive studies of the language was published in 1881, by orientalists Eugen Prym and Albert Socin, who classified it as a Neo-Aramaic dialect.[21]\n\nHowever, with upheaval in their homeland through the twentieth century, many Turoyo speakers have emigrated around the world (particularly to Syria, Lebanon, Sweden and Germany). The Swedish government's education policy, that every child be educated in his or her first language, led to the commissioning of teaching materials in Turoyo. Yusuf Ishaq thus developed an alphabet for Turoyo based on the Latin script. Silas Üzel also created a separate Latin alphabet for Turoyo in Germany.\n\nA series of reading books and workbooks that introduce Ishaq's alphabet are called Toxu Qorena!, or \"Come, Let's Read!\" This project has also produced a Swedish-Turoyo dictionary of 4500 entries: the Svensk-turabdinskt Lexikon: Leksiqon Swedoyo-Suryoyo. Another old teacher, writer and translator of Turoyo is Yuhanun Üzel (1934-2023) who in 2009 finished the translation of the Peshitta Bible in Turoyo, with Benjamin Bar Shabo and Yakup Bilgic, in Serto (West-Syriac) and Latin script, a foundation for the \"Aramaic-Syriac language\". A team of AI researchers completed the first translation model for Turoyo in 2023.[22]\n\nDialects\n\nTuroyo has borrowed some words from Arabic,[23] Kurdish, Armenian, and Ottoman Turkish. The main dialect of Turoyo is that of Midyat (Mëḏyoyo), in the east of Turkey's Mardin Province. Every village have distinctive dialects (Midwoyo, Kfarzoyo, `Iwarnoyo, Nihloyo, and Izloyo, respectively). All Turoyo dialects are mutually intelligible with each other. There is a dialectal split between the town of Midyat and the villages, with only slight differences between the individual villages.[16] A closely related language or dialect, Mlaḥsô, spoken in two villages in Diyarbakır, is now deemed extinct.[16]\n\nAlphabet\n\nTuroyo is written both in Latin and Syriac (Serto) characters. The orthography below was the outcome of the International Surayt Conference held at the University of Cambridge (27-30 August 2015).[14][24]\n\nConsonants\n\nLatin letter\n\n'\n\nB b\n\nV v\n\nG g\n\nĠ ġ\n\nJ j\n\nD d\n\nḎ ḏ\n\nH h\n\nW w\n\nZ z\n\nŽ ž\n\nḤ ḥ\n\nṬ ṭ\n\nḌ ḍ\n\nY y\n\nSyriac letter\n\nܐ‎\n\nܒ‎\n\nܒ݂‎\n\nܓ‎\n\nܓ݂‎\n\nܔ‎\n\nܕ‎\n\nܕ݂‎\n\nܗ‎\n\nܘ‎\n\nܙ‎\n\nܙ݅‎\n\nܚ‎\n\nܛ‎\n\nܜ‎\n\nܝ‎\n\nPronunciation\n\n[ʔ], ∅\n\n[b]\n\n[v]\n\n[g]\n\n[ɣ]\n\n[dʒ]\n\n[d]\n\n[ð]\n\n[h]\n\n[w]\n\n[z]\n\n[ʒ]\n\n[ħ]\n\n[tˤ]\n\n[dˤ]\n\n[j]\n\nLatin letter\n\nK k\n\nX x\n\nL l\n\nM m\n\nN n\n\nS s\n\nC c\n\nP p\n\nF f\n\nṢ ṣ\n\nQ q\n\nR r\n\nŠ š\n\nČ č\n\nT t\n\nṮ ṯ\n\nSyriac letter\n\nܟ‎\n\nܟ݂‎\n\nܠ‎\n\nܡ‎\n\nܢ‎\n\nܣ‎\n\nܥ‎\n\nܦ‎\n\nܦ݂‎\n\nܨ‎\n\nܩ‎\n\nܪ‎\n\nܫ‎\n\nܫ݂‎\n\nܬ‎\n\nܬ݂‎\n\nPronunciation\n\n[k]\n\n[x]\n\n[l]\n\n[m]\n\n[n]\n\n[s]\n\n[ʕ]\n\n[p]\n\n[f]\n\n[sˤ]\n\n[q]\n\n[r]\n\n[ʃ]\n\n[tʃ]\n\n[t]\n\n[θ]\n\nVowels\n\nLatin letter\n\nA a\n\nÄ ä\n\nE e\n\nË ë\n\nO o\n\nY/I y/i\n\nW/U w/u\n\nSyriac vowel mark \n(or mater lectionis)\n\nܰ‎\n\nܱ‎\n\nܶ‎\n\nܷ‎\n\nܳ‎\n\nܝ‎\n\nܘ‎\n\nPronunciation\n\n[a]\n\n[ă]\n\n[e]\n\n[ə]\n\n[o]\n\n[j]/[i]\n\n[w]/[u]\n\nAttempts to write down Turoyo have begun since the 16th century, with Jewish Neo-Aramaic adaptions and translations of Biblical texts, commentaries, as well as hagiographic stories, books, and folktales in Christian dialects. The East Syriac Bishop Mar Yohannan working with American missionary Rev. Justin Perkins also tried to write the vernacular version of religious texts, culminating in the production of school-cards in 1836.[25]\n\nIn 1970s Germany, members of the Aramean evangelical movement (Aramäische Freie Christengemeinde) used Turoyo to write short texts and songs.[26] The Syriac evangelical movement has also published over 300 Turoyo hymns in a compedium named Kole Ruhonoye in 2012, as well as translating the four gospels with Mark and John being published so far.[26]\n\nIn the 1970s, educator Yusuf Ishaq attempted to systematically incorporate the Turoyo language into a Latin orthography, which resulted in a series of reading books, entitled [toxu qorena].[7] Although this system is not used outside of Sweden, other Turoyo speakers have developed their own non-standardized Latin script to use the language on digital platforms.\n\nThe Swedish government's \"mother-tongue education\" project treated Turoyo as an immigrant language, like Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, and began to teach the language in schools.[26] The staff of the National Swedish Institute for Teaching Material produced a Latin letter-based alphabet, grammar, dictionary, school books, and instructional material. Due to religious and political objections, the project was halted.[26]\n\nThere are other efforts to translate famous works of literature, including The Aramaic Students Association's translation of The Little Prince, the Nisbin Foundation's translation of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood.[26]\n\nPhonology\n\nPhonetically, Turoyo is very similar to Classical Syriac. The additional phonemes /d͡ʒ/ (as in judge), /t͡ʃ/ (as in church) /ʒ/ (as in azure) and a few instances of /ðˤ/ (the Arabic ẓāʾ) mostly only appear in loanwords from other languages.\n\nThe most distinctive feature of Turoyo phonology is its use of reduced vowels in closed syllables. The phonetic value of such reduced vowels differs depending both on the value of original vowel and the dialect spoken. The Miḏyoyo dialect also reduces vowels in pre-stress open syllables. That has the effect of producing a syllabic schwa in most dialects (in Classical Syriac, the schwa is not syllabic).\n\nConsonants\n\nLabial\n\nDental/Alveolar\n\nPalato-\nalveolar\n\nPalatal\n\nVelar\n\nUvular\n\nPharyn-\ngeal\n\nGlottal\n\nplain\nemphatic\n\nNasal\n\nm\n\nn\n\n(nˤ)\n\nPlosive\n\np\nb\n\nt\nd\n\ntˤ\ndˤ\n\nk\nɡ\n\nq\n\nʔ\n\nAffricate\n\ntʃ\ndʒ\n\nFricative\n\nf\nv\n\nθ\nð\n\ns\nz\n\nsˤ\nðˤ\n\nʃ\nʒ\n\nx\nɣ\n\nħ\nʕ\n\nh\n\nApproximant\n\nw\n\nl\n\n(lˤ)\n\nj\n\nTrill\n\nr\n\n(rˤ)\n\nVowels\n\nTuroyo has the following set of vowels:[27]\n\nFront\n\nCentral\n\nBack\n\nClose\n\ni\n\nu\n\nMid\n\ne\n\no\n\nOpen\n\na\n\nLax vowels\n\nCentral\n\nBack\n\nClose\n\nŭ\n\nMid\n\nə\n\nOpen\n\nă\n\nMorphology\n\nThe verbal system of Turoyo is similar to that used in other Neo-Aramaic languages. In Classical Syriac, the ancient perfect and imperfect tenses had started to become preterite and future tenses respectively, and other tenses were formed by using the participles with pronominal clitics or shortened forms of the verb hwā ('to become'). Most modern Aramaic languages have completely abandoned the old tenses and form all tenses from stems based around the old participles. The classical clitics have become incorporated fully into the verb form, and can be considered more like inflections.\n\nTuroyo has also developed the use of the demonstrative pronouns much more than any other Aramaic language. In Turoyo, they have become definite articles:\n\nmasculine singular: u malko (the king)\n\nfeminine singular: i malëkṯo (the queen)\n\nplural common: am malke (the kings), am malkoṯe (the queens).\n\nThe other Central Neo-Aramaic dialect, of Mlahsô and Ansha villages in Diyarbakır Province is somewhat different from Turoyo. It is virtually extinct; its last few speakers live in Qamishli in northeastern Syria and in the diaspora.[27]\n\nSyntax\n\nTuroyo has three sets of particles that take the place of the copula in nominal clauses: enclitic copula, independent copula, and emphatic independent copula. In Turoyo, the non-enclitic copula (or the existential particle) is articulated with the use of two sets of particles: kal and kit.[25]\n\nTuroyoHertevin dialectQaraqoshBohtanMlaḥsôAlqoshBarzaniInter-ZabBetanureZakhoTrans-ZabBarwarKoy Sanjaq (Christian, Jewish)Urmia (Christian, Jewish)Sanandaj (Christian, Jewish) Red markers represent Christian Neo-Aramaic varieties while blue represents Jewish ones and purple represents both spoken in the same town.\n\nSee also\n\nAramaic language\n\nNeo-Aramaic languages\n\nCentral Neo-Aramaic languages\n\nAramaic studies\n\nBible translations into Aramaic\n\nBible translations into Syriac\n\nSyriac language\n\nSyriac alphabet\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac studies\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nRomanization of Syriac\n\nNotes\n\n^ The right to get an education in one's native tongue has been established as a legal guarantee.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Turoyo at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) \n\n^ Elissa, Jalinos (23 September 2021). \"Breakthrough in Syriac school crisis in Zalin (Qamishli) in North and East Syria, Olaf Taw Association explains to SuroyoTV\". SuroyoTV (Interview). Interviewed by Jacob Mirza. Zalin, Syria: SyriacPress. Retrieved 14 April 2022.\n\n^ Akbulut, Olgun (2023-10-19). \"For Centenary of the Lausanne Treaty: Re-Interpretation and Re-Implementation of Linguistic Minority Rights of Lausanne\". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. -1 (aop): 1-24. doi:10.1163/15718115-bja10134. ISSN 1385-4879.\n\n^ Erdem, Fazıl Hüsnü; Öngüç, Bahar (2021-06-30). \"SÜRYANİCE ANADİLİNDE EĞİTİM HAKKI: SORUNLAR VE ÇÖZÜM ÖNERİLERİ\". Dicle Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi (in Turkish). 26 (44): 3-35. ISSN 1300-2929.\n\n^ Ritter, Hellmut (1979). Turoyo: Die Volkssprache der Syrischen Christen des Tur 'Abdin, B: Wörterbuch [Vol. 1]. Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Beirut: Orient-Institut der DMG / Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 2.\n\n^ Weaver & Kiraz 2016.\n\n^ a b c d Weaver & Kiraz 2016, p. 19-36.\n\n^ \"Turoyo\". Endangered Languages. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. 2022. Retrieved 30 April 2017.\n\n^ Saouk 2015, p. 361-377.\n\n^ Brock 1989b, p. 363-375.\n\n^ Kim, Ronald (2008). \"\"Stammbaum\" or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 505-531. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 25608409.\n\n^ Owens 2007, p. 268.\n\n^ Awde, Nicholas; Lamassu, Nineb; Al-Jeloo, Nicholas (2007). Modern Aramaic-English/English-Aramaic: Dictionary and Phrasebook. New York City, NY: Hippocrene. ISBN 9780781810876. Retrieved 17 August 2012.\n\n^ a b Talay 2017.\n\n^ Tezel 2003.\n\n^ a b c d e Jastrow 2011, p. 697.\n\n^ Palmer 1990.\n\n^ Barsoum 2008.\n\n^ \"Turoyo | Ethnologue\". Archived from the original on 2013-06-07. Retrieved 2025-08-29.\n\n^ Sibille, Jean (2011). \"Turoyo\". Sorosoro. Retrieved 30 July 2022.\n\n^ Prym & Socin 1881.\n\n^ \"Syriac.IO - Translator\". www.syriac.io. Retrieved 2023-05-06.\n\n^ Tezel 2015a, p. 554-568.\n\n^ \"Did you know\". Surayt-Aramaic Online Project. Free University of Berlin.\n\n^ a b Tomal 2015, p. 29-52.\n\n^ a b c d e Talay, Shabo (2015). \"Turoyo, the Aramaic language of Turabdin and the translation of Alice\". In Lindseth, Jon A.; Tannenbaum, Alan (eds.). Alice in a World of Wonderlands: The Translations of Lewis Carroll's Masterpiece. Vol. I: Essays. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll. ISBN 9781584563310.\n\n^ a b Jastrow 2011, p. 697-707.\n\nBibliography\n\nBooks\n\nBarsoum, Ignatius Aphram (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781593337155.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1993) [1967]. Laut- und Formenlehre des neuaramäischen Dialekts von Mīdin im Ṭūr ʻAbdīn. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447033343.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2002) [1992]. Lehrbuch der Ṭuroyo-Sprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447032131.\n\nPalmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Ṭur 'Abdin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521360265.\n\nPrym, Eugen; Socin, Albert (1881). Der neu-aramaeische Dialekt des Ṭûr 'Abdîn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Verlag.\n\nTalay, Shabo, ed. (2017). Šlomo Surayt: An Introductory Course in Surayt Aramaic (Turoyo). Glane: Bar Hebraeus Verlag. ISBN 9789050470667.\n\nTezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: With Special Reference to Homonyms, Related Words and Borrowings with Cultural Signification. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library. ISBN 9789155455552.\n\nTezel, Sina (2011). Arabic Borrowings in Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo within the Framework of Phonological Correspondences in Comparison with Other Semitic Languages. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. ISBN 9789155480585.\n\nWaltisberg, Michael (2016). Syntax des Ṭuroyo. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447107310.\n\nBook chapters\n\nBednarowicz, Sebastian (2018). \"Neues Alphabet, neue Sprache, neue Kultur: Was kann die Adaptation der lateinischen Schrift für das Turoyo implizieren?\". Neue Aramäische Studien: Geschichte und Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. pp. 203-214. ISBN 9783631731314.\n\nBilgic, Zeki (2018). \"Aramäisch des Tur Abdin schreiben und lesen: Überlegungen, warum die Sprechergemeinschaft des Tur Abdin das Neu-Aramäische nicht als Schriftsprache anerkennt\". Neue Aramäische Studien: Geschichte und Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. pp. 215-250. ISBN 9783631731314.\n\nBirol, Simon (2018). \"Forgotten Witnesses: Remembering and Interpreting the Sayfo in the Manuscripts of Tur 'Abdin\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 327-346. ISBN 9781463207304.\n\nBorbone, Pier Giorgio (2017). \"From Tur 'Abdin to Rome: The Syro-Orthodox Presence in Sixteenth-Century Rome\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 277-287. ISBN 9789042931640.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart (1990). \"Written Turoyo\". Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 181-188. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nIshaq, Yusuf M. (1990). \"Turoyo - from Spoken to Written Language\". Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 189-199. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1990). \"Personal and Demonstrative Pronouns in Central Neo-Aramaic: A Comparative and Diachronic Discussion Based on Ṭūrōyo and the Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Hertevin\". Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 89-103. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2011). \"Ṭuroyo and Mlaḥsô\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 697-707. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2019a). \"The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of Eastern Anatolia and Northwestern Iran\". The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: An Areal Perspective. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 190-236. ISBN 9783110421743.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2019b). \"The Neo-Aramaic Dialects and Their Historical Background\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 266-289. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nKrotkoff, Georg (1990). \"An Annotated Bibliography of Neo-Aramaic\". Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 3-26. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nOwens, Jonathan (2007). \"Endangered Languages of the Middle East\". Language Diversity Endangered. Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 263-277. ISBN 9783110170504.\n\nSaadi, Abdul-Massih (2018). \"Interdependence of Classical Syriac and Suryoyo of Tur Abdin (STA): Orthography for the STA\". Neue Aramäische Studien: Geschichte und Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. pp. 169-192. ISBN 9783631731314.\n\nSabar, Yona (2003). \"Aramaic, once an International Language, now on the Verge of Expiration: Are the Days of its Last Vestiges Numbered?\". When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. pp. 222-234. ISBN 9780814209134.\n\nTezel, Sina (2015a). \"Arabic or Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo\". Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized: A Festschrift for Jan Retsö. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 554-568.\n\nTezel, Sina (2015b). \"Neologisms in Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo\". Neo-Aramaic in Its Linguistic Context. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 100-109.\n\nTezel, Aziz (2015). \"The Turkish Lexical Influence on Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo: A Preliminary Selection of Examples\". Neo-Aramaic and its Linguistic Context. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 69-99. doi:10.31826/9781463236489-006. ISBN 9781463236489.\n\nTomal, Maciej (2015). \"Towards a Description of Written Ṣurayt/Ṭuroyo: Some Syntactic Functions of the Particle kal\". Neo-Aramaic and its Linguistic Context. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 29-52.\n\nJournal articles\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989a). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989b). \"Some Observations on the Use of Classical Syriac in the Late Twentieth Century\". Journal of Semitic Studies. 34 (2): 363-375. doi:10.1093/jss/XXXIV.2.363.\n\nComfort, Anthony (2017). \"Fortresses of the Tur Abdin and the Confrontation between Rome and Persia\". Anatolian Studies. 67: 181-229. doi:10.1017/S0066154617000047. JSTOR 26571543. S2CID 164455185.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1987). \"The Tûrôyo Language Today\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 1: 7-16. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-15.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1996). \"Passive Formation in Ṭuroyo and Mlaḥsô\". Israel Oriental Studies. 16: 49-57. ISBN 9004106464.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nMacuch, Rudolf (1990). \"Recent Studies in Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 53 (2): 214-223. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00026045. S2CID 162559782.\n\nMengozzi, Alessandro (2011). \"Neo-Aramaic Studies: A Survey of Recent Publications\". Folia Orientalia. 48: 233-265.\n\nSaouk, Joseph (2015). \"Quo vadis Turoyo? A Description of the Situation and the Needs of the Neo-Aramaic of Tur-Abdin (Turkey)\". Parole de l'Orient. 40: 361-377.\n\nWeaver, Christina Michelle; Kiraz, George A. (2016). \"Turoyo Neo-Aramaic in Northern New Jersey\" (PDF). International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 237: 19-36.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000). \"The Aramaic Language and its Classification\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 14 (1): 23-44.\n\nExternal links\n\nTuroyo alphabets and pronunciation at Omniglot\n\nThe Turoyo language today Archived 2007-09-25 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSyriac Turoyo-Bible\n\nTuroyo is studied and taught at the HSE Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-turoyo-language"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3214}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-alphabet", "title": "Syriac alphabet", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Syriac alphabet (ܐܠܦ ܒܝܬ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ʾālep̄ bêṯ Sūryāyā[a]) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century.[1] It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet,[2] and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac alphabet\n\nEstrangela-styled alphabet\n\nScript type Impure abjad\n\nPeriodc. 1st century CE - present\n\nDirectionRight-to-left script\n\nLanguagesAramaic (Classical Syriac, Western Neo-Aramaic, Sureth, Turoyo, Christian Palestinian Aramaic), Arabic (Garshuni), Malayalam (Karshoni), Sogdian\n\nRelated scripts\n\nParent systemsEgyptian\nProto-Sinaitic\nPhoenician\nAramaic\nPalmyrene\nSyriac alphabet\n\nChild systems\n\nSogdian\n\nOld Turkic\n\nOld Hungarian\n\nOld Uyghur\n\nMongolian\n\nISO 15924\n\nISO 15924Syrc (135), ​Syriac \n Syre, 138 (ʾEsṭrangēlā variant)\n\n Syrj, 137 (Western variant)\n\n Syrn, 136 (Eastern variant)\n\nUnicode\n\nUnicode aliasSyriac\n\nUnicode range\nU+0700-U+074F Syriac\n\nU+0860-U+086F Syriac Supplement\n\nThe Syriac alphabet (ܐܠܦ ܒܝܬ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ʾālep̄ bêṯ Sūryāyā[a]) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century.[1] It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet,[2] and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic and Sogdian, the precursor and a direct ancestor of the traditional Mongolian scripts.\n\nSyriac is written from right to left in horizontal lines. It is a cursive script where most-but not all-letters connect within a word. There is no letter case distinction between upper and lower case letters, though some letters change their form depending on their position within a word. Spaces separate individual words.\n\nAll 22 letters are consonants (called ܐܵܬܘܼܬܵܐ‎, ˀātūṯā). There are optional diacritic marks (called ܢܘܼܩܙܵܐ‎, nuqzā) to indicate vowels (ܙܵܘܥܵܐ‎, zāwˁā) and other features. In addition to the sounds of the language, the letters of the Syriac alphabet can be used to represent numbers in a system similar to Hebrew and Greek numerals.\n\nApart from Classical Syriac Aramaic, the alphabet has been used to write other dialects and languages. Several Christian Neo-Aramaic languages, from Turoyo to the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic language of Suret, once vernaculars, primarily began to be written in the 19th century. The Serṭā variant has explicitly been adapted to write Western Neo-Aramaic, previously written in the square Maalouli script, developed by George Rizkalla (Rezkallah), based on the Hebrew alphabet.[3][4] Besides Aramaic, when Arabic began to be the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent after the Islamic conquest, texts were often written in Arabic using the Syriac script as knowledge of the Arabic alphabet was not yet widespread; such writings are usually called Karshuni or Garshuni (ܓܪܫܘܢܝ‎). In addition to Semitic languages, Sogdian was also written with Syriac script, as well as Malayalam, which form was called Suriyani Malayalam.\n\nAlphabet forms\n\nThere are three major variants of the Syriac alphabet: ʾEsṭrangēlā, Maḏnḥāyā and Serṭā.\n\n Classical ʾEsṭrangēlā\n\nThe oldest and classical form of the alphabet is ʾEsṭrangēlā[b] (ܐܣܛܪܢܓܠܐ‎). The name of the script is thought to derive from the Greek adjective strongýlē (στρογγύλη, 'rounded'),[5] though it has also been suggested to derive from serṭā ʾewwangēlāyā (ܣܪܛܐ ܐܘܢܓܠܝܐ‎, 'gospel character').[6] Although ʾEsṭrangēlā is no longer used as the main script for writing Syriac, it has received some revival since the 10th century. It is often used in scholarly publications (such as the Leiden University version of the Peshitta), in titles, and in inscriptions. In some older manuscripts and inscriptions, it is possible for any letter to join to the left, and older Aramaic letter forms (especially of ḥeṯ and the lunate mem) are found. Vowel marks are usually not used with ʾEsṭrangēlā, because it is the oldest form of the script and arose before specialized diacritics were developed.\n\n East Syriac Maḏnḥāyā\n\nThe East Syriac dialect is usually written in the Maḏnḥāyā (ܡܲܕ݂ܢܚܵܝܵܐ‎, 'Eastern') form of the alphabet. Other names for the script include Swāḏāyā (ܣܘܵܕ݂ܵܝܵܐ‎, 'conversational' or 'vernacular', often translated as 'contemporary', reflecting its use in writing modern Neo-Aramaic), ʾĀṯōrāyā (ܐܵܬ݂ܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ‎, 'Assyrian', not to be confused with the traditional name for the Hebrew alphabet), Kaldāyā (ܟܲܠܕܵܝܵܐ‎, 'Chaldean'), and, inaccurately, \"Nestorian\" (a term that was originally used to refer to the Church of the East in the Sasanian Empire). The Eastern script resembles ʾEsṭrangēlā somewhat more closely than the Western script.\n\nVowels\n\nThe Eastern script uses a system of dots above and/or below letters, based on an older system, to indicate vowel sounds not found in the script:\n\n() A dot above and a dot below a letter represent [a], transliterated as a or ă (called ܦܬ݂ܵܚܵܐ‎, pṯāḥā), (sometimes a dot above only)\n\n() Two diagonally-placed dots above a letter represent [ɑ], transliterated as ā or â or å (called ܙܩܵܦ݂ܵܐ‎, zqāp̄ā),\n\n() Two horizontally-placed dots below a letter represent [ɛ], transliterated as e or ĕ (called ܪܒ݂ܵܨܵܐ ܐܲܪܝܼܟ݂ܵܐ‎, rḇāṣā ʾărīḵā or ܙܠܵܡܵܐ ܦܫܝܼܩܵܐ‎, zlāmā pšīqā; often pronounced [ɪ] and transliterated as i in the East Syriac dialect),\n\n() Two diagonally-placed dots below a letter represent [e], transliterated as ē (called ܪܒ݂ܵܨܵܐ ܟܲܪܝܵܐ‎, rḇāṣā karyā or ܙܠܵܡܵܐ ܩܲܫܝܵܐ‎, zlāmā qašyā),\n\n(ܘܼ‎) The letter waw with a dot below it represents [u], transliterated as ū or u (called ܥܨܵܨܵܐ ܐܲܠܝܼܨܵܐ‎, ʿṣāṣā ʾălīṣā or ܪܒ݂ܵܨܵܐ‎, rḇāṣā),\n\n(ܘܿ‎) The letter waw with a dot above it represents [o], transliterated as ō or o (called ܥܨܵܨܵܐ ܪܘܝܼܚܵܐ‎, ʿṣāṣā rwīḥā or ܪܘܵܚܵܐ‎, rwāḥā),\n\n(ܝܼ‎) The letter yōḏ with a dot beneath it represents [i], transliterated as ī or i (called ܚܒ݂ܵܨܵܐ‎, ḥḇāṣā),\n\n() A combination of rḇāṣā karyā (usually) followed by a letter yōḏ represents [e] (possibly *[e̝] in Proto-Syriac), transliterated as ē or ê (called ܐܲܣܵܩܵܐ‎, ʾăsāqā).\n\nIt is thought that the Eastern method for representing vowels influenced the development of the niqqud markings used for writing Hebrew.\n\nIn addition to the above vowel marks, transliteration of Syriac sometimes includes ə, e̊ or superscript e (or often nothing at all) to represent an original Aramaic schwa that became lost later on at some point in the development of Syriac. Some transliteration schemes find its inclusion necessary for showing spirantization or for historical reasons. Whether because its distribution is mostly predictable (usually inside a syllable-initial two-consonant cluster) or because its pronunciation was lost, both the East and the West variants of the alphabet traditionally have no sign to represent the schwa.\n\n West Syriac Serṭā\n\nThe West Syriac dialect is usually written in the Serṭā or Serṭo (ܣܶܪܛܳܐ‎, 'line') form of the alphabet, also known as the Pšīṭā (ܦܫܺܝܛܳܐ‎, 'simple'), 'Maronite'. Most of the letters are clearly derived from ʾEsṭrangēlā, but are simplified, flowing lines. A cursive chancery hand is evidenced in the earliest Syriac manuscripts, but important works were written in ʾEsṭrangēlā. From the 8th century, the simpler Serṭā style came into fashion, perhaps because of its more economical use of parchment.\n\nVowels\n\nThe Western script is usually vowel-pointed, with miniature Greek vowel letters above or below the letter which they follow:\n\n() Capital alpha (Α) represents [a], transliterated as a or ă (ܦܬ݂ܳܚܳܐ‎, pṯāḥā),\n\n() Lowercase alpha (α) represents [ɑ], transliterated as ā or â or å (ܙܩܳܦ݂ܳܐ‎, zqāp̄ā; pronounced as [o] and transliterated as o in the West Syriac dialect),\n\n() Lowercase epsilon (ε) represents both [ɛ], transliterated as e or ĕ, and [e], transliterated as ē (ܪܒ݂ܳܨܳܐ‎, rḇāṣā),\n\n() Capital eta (Η) represents [i], transliterated as ī (ܚܒ݂ܳܨܳܐ‎, ḥḇāṣā),\n\n() A combined symbol of capital upsilon (Υ) and lowercase omicron (ο) represents [u], transliterated as ū or u (ܥܨܳܨܳܐ‎, ʿṣāṣā),\n\nLowercase omega (ω), used only in the vocative interjection ʾō (ܐܘّ‎, 'O!').\n\nSummary table\n\nThe Syriac alphabet consists of the following letters, shown in their isolated (non-connected) forms. When isolated, the letters kāp̄, mīm, and nūn are usually shown with their initial form connected to their final form (see below). The letters ʾālep̄, dālaṯ, hē, waw, zayn, ṣāḏē, rēš and taw (and, in early ʾEsṭrangēlā manuscripts, the letter semkaṯ[7]) do not connect to a following letter within a word; these are marked with an asterisk (*).\n\nLetter\n\nSound Value\n(Classical Syriac)\n\nNumerical\nValue\n\nPhoenician\nEquivalent\n\nImperial Aramaic\nEquivalent\n\nHebrew\nEquivalent\n\nArabic\n\nEquivalent\n\nName\n\nTranslit.\n\nʾEsṭrangēlā\n(classical)\n\nMaḏnḥāyā\n(eastern)\n\nSerṭā\n(western)\n\nLatin\n\n(1930)\n\nCyrillic\n\n(pre-1929, 1938)\n\nUnicode\n(typing)\n\nTransliteration\n\nIPA\n\n*ܐܠܦ\n\nʾĀlep̄*[c]\n\na, ə\n\nə, a\n\nܐ\n\nʾ or null \nmater lectionis: ā\n\n[ʔ] or ∅ \nmater lectionis: [ɑ]\n\n1\n\n𐤀‎\n\n𐡀‎\n\nא\n\nا\n\nܒܝܬ\n\nBēṯ\n\nb, v\n\nб, в\n\nܒ\n\nhard: b\nsoft: ḇ (also bh, v or ꞵ)\n\nhard: [b]\nsoft: [v] or [w]\n\n2\n\n𐤁‎\n\n𐡁‎\n\nב\n\nب\n\nܓܡܠ\n\nGāmal\n\ng, x/h, ç\n\nг, h, dж\n\nܓ\n\nhard: g\nsoft: ḡ (also g̱, gh, ġ or γ)\n\nhard: [ɡ]\nsoft: [ɣ]\n\n3\n\n𐤂‎\n\n𐡂‎\n\nג\n\nج\n\n*ܕܠܬ\n\nDālaṯ*\n\nd\n\nd\n\nܕ\n\nhard: d\nsoft: ḏ (also dh, ð or ẟ)\n\nhard: [d]\nsoft: [ð]\n\n4\n\n𐤃‎\n\n𐡃‎\n\nד\n\nد / ذ\n\n*ܗܐ\n\nHē*\n\nh\n\nh\n\nܗ\n\nh\nmater lectionis: ē (or e)\n\n[h] \nmater lectionis: [e]\n\n5\n\n𐤄‎\n\n𐡄‎\n\nה\n\nه\n\n*ܘܘ\n\nWaw*\n\nv, o, u\n\nв, o, у\n\nܘ\n\nconsonant: w\nmater lectionis: ū or ō\n(also u or o)\n\nconsonant: [w]\nmater lectionis: [u] or [o]\n\n6\n\n𐤅‎\n\n𐡅‎\n\nו\n\nو\n\n*ܙܝܢ\n\nZayn*\n\nz\n\nз\n\nܙ\n\nz\n\n[z]\n\n7\n\n𐤆‎\n\n𐡆‎\n\nז\n\nز\n\nܚܝܬ\n\nḤēṯ\n\nx\n\nx\n\nܚ\n\nḥ (also H, kh, x or ħ)\n\n[ħ], [x] or [χ]\n\n8\n\n𐤇‎\n\n𐡇‎\n\nח\n\nح / خ\n\nܛܝܬ\n\nṬēṯ\n\nţ\n\nt\n\nܛ\n\nṭ (also T or ţ)\n\n[tˤ]\n\n9\n\n𐤈‎\n\n𐡈‎\n\nט\n\nظ / ط\n\nܝܘܕ\n\nYōḏ\n\nj, ij/ьj\n\nj, иj/ыj\n\nܝ\n\nconsonant: y\nmater lectionis: ī (also i)\n\nconsonant: [j]\nmater lectionis: [i] or [ɪ]\n\n10\n\n𐤉‎\n\n𐡉‎\n\nי\n\nي\n\nܟܦ\n\nKāp̄\n\nk, x, c\n\nq, x, ч\n\nܟ\n\nhard: k\nsoft: ḵ (also kh or x)\n\nhard: [k]\nsoft: [x]\n\n20\n\n𐤊‎\n\n𐡊‎\n\nכ ך\n\nك\n\nܠܡܕ\n\nLāmaḏ\n\nl\n\nl\n\nܠ\n\nl\n\n[l]\n\n30\n\n𐤋‎\n\n𐡋‎\n\nל\n\nل\n\nܡܝܡ\n\nMīm\n\nm\n\nм\n\nܡ\n\nm\n\n[m]\n\n40\n\n𐤌‎\n\n𐡌‎\n\nמ ם\n\nم\n\nܢܘܢ\n\nNūn\n\nn\n\nн\n\nܢܢ\n\nn\n\n[n]\n\n50\n\n𐤍‎\n\n𐡍‎\n\nנ ן\n\nن\n\nܣܡܟܬ\n\nSemkaṯ\n\ns\n\nc\n\nܣ\n\ns\n\n[s]\n\n60\n\n𐤎‎\n\n𐡎‎\n\nס\n\nس\n\nܥܐ\n\nʿĒ\n\na\n\nə\n\nܥ\n\nʿ\n\n[ʕ][d]\n\n70\n\n𐤏‎\n\n𐡏‎\n\nע\n\nع / غ\n\nܦܐ\n\nPē\n\np, f\n\nп, ф\n\nܦ\n\nhard: p\nsoft: p̄ (also p̱, ᵽ, ph or f)\n\nhard: [p]\nsoft: [f] or [w]\n\n80\n\n𐤐‎\n\n𐡐‎\n\nפ ף\n\nف\n\n*ܨܕܐ\n\nṢāḏē*\n\ns\n\nc\n\nܨ\n\nṣ (also S or ş)\n\n[sˤ]\n\n90\n\n𐤑‎\n\n𐡑‎\n\nצ ץ\n\nض / ص\n\nܩܘܦ\n\nQōp̄\n\nq\n\nк\n\nܩ\n\nq (also ḳ)\n\n[q]\n\n100\n\n𐤒‎\n\n𐡒‎\n\nק\n\nق\n\n*ܪܝܫ\n\nRēš*\n\nr\n\np\n\nܪ\n\nr\n\n[r]\n\n200\n\n𐤓‎\n\n𐡓‎\n\nר\n\nر\n\nܫܝܢ\n\nŠīn\n\nş, ƶ\n\nш, ж\n\nܫ\n\nš (also sh)\n\n[ʃ]\n\n300\n\n𐤔‎\n\n𐡔‎\n\nש\n\nش\n\n*ܬܘ\n\nTaw*\n\nt\n\nт\n\nܬ\n\nhard: t\nsoft: ṯ (also th or θ)\n\nhard: [t]\nsoft: [θ]\n\n400\n\n𐤕‎\n\n𐡕‎\n\nת\n\nت / ث\n\nContextual forms of letters\n\nLetter\n\nname\n\nʾEsṭrangēlā (classical)\n\nMaḏnḥāyā (eastern)\n\nUnconnected\n\nfinal\n\nConnected\n\nfinal\n\nInitial or\n\nunconnected\n\nmedial\n\nUnconnected\n\nfinal\n\nConnected\n\nfinal\n\nInitial or\n\nunconnected\n\nmedial\n\nʾĀlep̄\n\n[e]\n\nBēṯ\n\nGāmal\n\nDālaṯ\n\nHē\n\nWaw\n\nZayn\n\nḤēṯ\n\nṬēṯ\n\nYōḏ\n\nKāp̄\n\nLāmaḏ\n\nMīm\n\nNūn\n\nSemkaṯ\n\n / \n\nʿĒ\n\nPē\n\nṢāḏē\n\nQōp̄\n\nRēš\n\nŠīn\n\nTaw\n\nLigatures\n\nLetter\n\nname\n\nʾEsṭrangēlā (classical)\n\nMaḏnḥāyā (eastern)\nUnicode\ncharacter(s)\nDescription\n\nUnconnected\n\nfinal\n\nConnected\n\nfinal\n\nInitial or\n\nunconnected\n\nmedial\n\nUnconnected\n\nfinal\n\nConnected\n\nfinal\n\nInitial or\n\nunconnected\n\nmedial\n\nLāmaḏ-ʾĀlep̄\n\nܠܐ\nLāmaḏ and ʾĀlep̄ combined\nat the end of a word\n\nTaw-ʾĀlep̄\n\n / \n\nܬܐ\nTaw and ʾĀlep̄ combined\nat the end of a word\n\nHē-Yōḏ\n\nܗܝ\nHē and Yōḏ combined\nat the end of a word\n\nTaw-Yōḏ\n\nܬܝ\nTaw and Yōḏ combined\nat the end of a word\n\nLetter alterations\n\nMatres lectionis\n\nThree letters act as matres lectionis: rather than being a consonant, they indicate a vowel. ʾālep̄ (ܐ), the first letter, represents a glottal stop, but it can also indicate a vowel, especially at the beginning or the end of a word. The letter waw (ܘ) is the consonant w, but can also represent the vowels o and u. Likewise, the letter yōḏ (ܝ) represents the consonant y, but it also stands for the vowels i and e.\n\nMajlīyānā\n\nIn modern usage, some alterations can be made to represent phonemes not represented in classical phonology. A mark similar in appearance to a tilde (~), called majlīyānā (ܡܲܓ̰ܠܝܼܵܢܵܐ‎), is placed above or below a letter in the Maḏnḥāyā variant of the alphabet to change its phonetic value (see also: Geresh):\n\nAdded below gāmal: [ɡ] to [d͡ʒ] (voiced palato-alveolar affricate)\n\nAdded below kāp̄: [k] to [t͡ʃ] (voiceless palato-alveolar affricate)\n\nAdded above or below zayn: [z] to [ʒ] (voiced palato-alveolar sibilant)\n\nAdded above šīn: [ʃ] to [ʒ]\n\nRūkkāḵā and qūššāyā\n\nIn addition to foreign sounds, a marking system is used to distinguish qūššāyā (ܩܘܫܝܐ, 'hard' letters) from rūkkāḵā (ܪܘܟܟܐ, 'soft' letters). The letters bēṯ, gāmal, dālaṯ, kāp̄, pē, and taw, all stop consonants ('hard') are able to be 'spirantized' (lenited) into fricative consonants ('soft'). The system involves placing a single dot underneath the letter to give its 'soft' variant and a dot above the letter to give its 'hard' variant (though, in modern usage, no mark at all is usually used to indicate the 'hard' value):\n\nName\n\nStop\n\nTranslit.\n\nIPA\n\nName\n\nFricative\n\nTranslit.\n\nIPA\n\nNotes\n\nBēṯ (qšīṯā)\n\nܒ݁\n\nb\n\n[b]\n\nBēṯ rakkīḵtā\n\nܒ݂\n\nḇ\n\n[v] or [w]\n\n[v] has become [w] in most modern dialects.\n\nGāmal (qšīṯā)\n\nܓ݁\n\ng\n\n[ɡ]\n\nGāmal rakkīḵtā\n\nܓ݂\n\nḡ\n\n[ɣ]\n\nUsually becomes [j], [ʔ], or is not pronounced in modern Eastern dialects.\n\nDālaṯ (qšīṯā)\n\nܕ݁\n\nd\n\n[d]\n\nDālaṯ rakkīḵtā\n\nܕ݂\n\nḏ\n\n[ð]\n\n[d] is left unspirantized in some modern Eastern dialects.\n\nKāp̄ (qšīṯā)\n\nܟ݁\n\nk\n\n[k]\n\nKāp̄ rakkīḵtā\n\nܟ݂\n\nḵ\n\n[x]\n\nPē (qšīṯā)\n\nܦ݁\n\np\n\n[p]\n\nPē rakkīḵtā\n\nܦ݂ or ܦ̮\n\np̄\n\n[f] or [w]\n\n[f] is not found in most modern Eastern dialects. Instead, it either is left unspirantized or sometimes appears as [w]. Pē is the only letter in the Eastern variant of the alphabet that is spirantized by the addition of a semicircle instead of a single dot.\n\nTaw (qšīṯā)\n\nܬ݁\n\nt\n\n[t]\n\nTaw rakkīḵtā\n\nܬ݂\n\nṯ\n\n[θ]\n\n[t] is left unspirantized in some modern Eastern dialects.\n\nThe mnemonic bḡaḏkp̄āṯ (ܒܓܕܟܦܬ) is often used to remember the six letters that are able to be spirantized (see also: Begadkepat).\n\nIn the East Syriac variant of the alphabet, spirantization marks are usually omitted when they interfere with vowel marks. The degree to which letters can be spirantized varies from dialect to dialect as some dialects have lost the ability for certain letters to be spirantized. For native words, spirantization depends on the letter's position within a word or syllable, location relative to other consonants and vowels, gemination, etymology, and other factors. Foreign words do not always follow the rules for spirantization.\n\nSyāmē\n\nSyriac uses two (usually) horizontal dots[f] above a letter within a word, similar in appearance to diaeresis, called syāmē (ܣܝ̈ܡܐ, literally 'placings', also known in some grammars by the Hebrew name ribbuy [רִבּוּי], 'plural'), to indicate that the word is plural.[8] These dots, having no sound value in themselves, arose before both eastern and western vowel systems as it became necessary to mark plural forms of words, which are indistinguishable from their singular counterparts in regularly-inflected nouns. For instance, the word malkā (ܡܠܟܐ, 'king') is consonantally identical to its plural malkē (ܡܠܟ̈ܐ, 'kings'); the syāmē above the word malkē (ܡܠܟ̈ܐ) clarifies its grammatical number and pronunciation. Irregular plurals also receive syāmē even though their forms are clearly plural: e.g. baytā (ܒܝܬܐ, 'house') and its irregular plural bāttē (ܒ̈ܬܐ, 'houses'). Because of redundancy, some modern usage forgoes syāmē points when vowel markings are present.\n\nThere are no firm rules for which letter receives syāmē; the writer has full discretion to place them over any letter. Typically, if a word has at least one rēš, then syāmē are placed over the rēš that is nearest the end of a word (and also replace the single dot above it: ܪ̈). Other letters that often receive syāmē are low-rising letters-such as yōḏ and nūn-or letters that appear near the middle or end of a word.\n\nBesides plural nouns, syāmē are also placed on:\n\nplural adjectives, including participles (except masculine plural adjectives/participles in the absolute state);\n\nthe cardinal numbers 'two' and the feminine forms of 11-19, though inconsistently;\n\nand certain feminine plural verbs: the 3rd person feminine plural perfect and the 2nd and 3rd person feminine plural imperfect.\n\nMṭalqānā\n\nSyriac uses a diacritic line, called mṭalqānā (ܡܛܠܩܢܐ, literally 'concealer', also known by the Latin term linea occultans in some grammars), to indicate a silent letter that can occur at the beginning or middle of a word.[9] In Eastern Syriac, this line is diagonal and only occurs above the silent letter (e.g. ܡܕ݂ܝܼܢ݇ܬܵܐ‎, 'city', pronounced mḏīttā, not *mḏīntā, with the mṭalqānā over the nūn, assimilating with the taw). The line can only occur above a letter ʾālep̄, hē, waw, yōḏ, lāmaḏ, mīm, nūn, ʿē or rēš (which comprise the mnemonic ܥܡ̈ܠܝ ܢܘܗܪܐ ʿamlay nūhrā, 'the works of light'). In Western Syriac, this line is horizontal and can be placed above or below the letter (e.g. ܡܕ݂ܺܝܢ̄ܬܳܐ‎, 'city', pronounced mḏīto, not *mḏīnto).\n\nClassically, mṭalqānā was not used for silent letters that occurred at the end of a word (e.g. ܡܪܝ mār[ī], '[my] lord'). In modern Turoyo, however, this is not always the case (e.g. ܡܳܪܝ̱‎ mor[ī], '[my] lord').\n\nLatin alphabet and romanization\n\nIn the late 1920s to late 1930s, both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets for Syriac (specifically for the C. Urmi dialect) were developed in the USSR with some material promulgated.[10] Although they did not supplant the Syriac script, the usage of the Latin script in the Syriac community has still become widespread because most of the Assyrian diaspora is in Europe and the Anglosphere, where the Latin alphabet is predominant.\n\nIn Syriac romanization, some letters are altered and would feature diacritics and macrons to indicate long vowels, schwas and diphthongs. The letters with diacritics and macrons are mostly upheld in educational or formal writing.[11]\n\nSoviet Latin alphabet[12][13]\n\nA\nB\nC\nÇ\nD\n\nE\n\nƏ\nF\nG\nH\nI\n\nJ\nK\nL\nM\nN\n\nO\nP\nQ\nR\nS\n\nŞ\nT\n\nŢ\nU\nV\n\nX\nZ\nƵ\nЬ\nIJ/ЬJ (digraph)\n\nSoviet Cyrillic alphabet (some Latin letters are used)[14][15]\n\nA\nƏ\nБ\nВ\nГ\nҺ\nD\n\nE\n\nЖ\nЗ\nИ\nJ\n\nК\nQ\nL\nМ\nН\n\nO\nП\nР\nС\n\nТ\nt\n\nУ\nФ\nХ\n\nШ\nЧ\nЫ\nDЖ (digraph)\n\nThe Latin letters below are commonly used when it comes to transliteration from the Syriac script to Latin:[16]\n\nTransliterated Syriac-Latin alphabet[17]\n\nA\nĀ\nB\n\nḆ\nC\nD\n\nḎ\nE\nĒ\n\nĔ\nF\n\nG\nH\nḤ\nI\nJ\n\nK\n\nḴ\nL\nM\nN\nO\n\nŌ\nP\nQ\nR\nS\nŠ\n\nṢ\nT\nṬ\n\nṮ\nU\nŪ\n\nV\nW\nX\nY\nZ\n\nĀ is used to denote a long \"a\" sound or [ɑː] as heard in \"car\".\n\nḎ is used to represent a voiced dental fricative [ð], the \"th\" sound as heard in \"that\".\n\nĒ is used to denote a long close-mid unrounded vowel, [eː].\n\nĔ is to represent an \"eh\" sound or [ɛ], as heard in Ninwĕ\n\nḤ represents a voiceless pharyngeal fricative ([ħ]), only upheld by Turoyo and Chaldean speakers.\n\nŌ represents a long \"o\" sound or [ɔː].\n\nŠ is a voiceless postalveolar fricative ([ʃ]), the English digraph \"sh\".\n\nṢ denotes an emphatic \"s\" or \"thick s\", [sˤ].\n\nṬ is an emphatic \"t\", [tˤ], as heard in the Urmi/Nochiya-Assyrian word ṭla (\"three\").\n\nŪ is used to represent an \"oo\" sound or the close back rounded vowel [uː].\n\nSometimes additional letters may be used and they tend to be:\n\nḆ may be used in the transliteration of biblical Aramaic to show the voiced bilabial fricative allophone value (\"v\") of the letter Bēṯ.\n\nĪ denotes a schwa sound, usually when transliterating biblical Aramaic.\n\nḴ is utilized for the voiceless velar fricative, [x], or the \"kh\" sound.\n\nṮ is used to denote the \"th\" sound or the voiceless dental fricative, [θ].\n\nUnicode\n\nThe Syriac alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0.\nAdditional letters for Suriyani Malayalam were added in June, 2017 with the release of version 10.0.\n\nBlocks\n\nThe Unicode block for Syriac is U+0700-U+074F:\n\nSyriac[1][2]\nOfficial Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)\n\n0\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\nA\nB\nC\nD\nE\nF\n\nU+070x\n\n܀\n\n܁\n\n܂\n\n܃\n\n܄\n\n܅\n\n܆\n\n܇\n\n܈\n\n܉\n\n܊\n\n܋\n\n܌\n\n܍\n\nSAM\n\nU+071x\n\nܐ\n\nܑ\n\nܒ\n\nܓ\n\nܔ\n\nܕ\n\nܖ\n\nܗ\n\nܘ\n\nܙ\n\nܚ\n\nܛ\n\nܜ\n\nܝ\n\nܞ\n\nܟ\n\nU+072x\n\nܠ\n\nܡ\n\nܢ\n\nܣ\n\nܤ\n\nܥ\n\nܦ\n\nܧ\n\nܨ\n\nܩ\n\nܪ\n\nܫ\n\nܬ\n\nܭ\n\nܮ\n\nܯ\n\nU+073x\n\nܰ\n\nܱ\n\nܲ\n\nܳ\n\nܴ\n\nܵ\n\nܶ\n\nܷ\n\nܸ\n\nܹ\n\nܺ\n\nܻ\n\nܼ\n\nܽ\n\nܾ\n\nܿ\n\nU+074x\n\n݀\n\n݁\n\n݂\n\n݃\n\n݄\n\n݅\n\n݆\n\n݇\n\n݈\n\n݉\n\n݊\n\nݍ\n\nݎ\n\nݏ\n\nNotes\n\n1.^As of Unicode version 18.0\n\n2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points\n\nThe Syriac Abbreviation (a type of overline) can be represented with a special control character called the Syriac Abbreviation Mark (U+070F).\n\nThe Unicode block for Suriyani Malayalam specific letters is called the Syriac Supplement block and is U+0860-U+086F:\n\nSyriac Supplement[1][2]\nOfficial Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)\n\n0\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\nA\nB\nC\nD\nE\nF\n\nU+086x\n\nࡠ\n\nࡡ\n\nࡢ\n\nࡣ\n\nࡤ\n\nࡥ\n\nࡦ\n\nࡧ\n\nࡨ\n\nࡩ\n\nࡪ\n\nNotes\n\n1.^As of Unicode version 18.0\n\n2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points\n\nHTML code table\n\nNote: HTML numeric character references can be in decimal format (&#DDDD;) or hexadecimal format (&#xHHHH;). For example, &#1813; and &#x0715; (1813 in decimal) both represent U+0715 SYRIAC LETTER DALATH.\n\nĀlep̄ bēṯ\n\nܕ\nܓ\nܒ\nܐ\n\n&#1813;\n&#1811;\n&#1810;\n&#1808;\n\nܚ\nܙ\nܘ\nܗ\n\n&#1818;\n&#1817;\n&#1816;\n&#1815;\n\nܠ\nܟܟ\nܝ\nܛ\n\n&#1824;\n&#1823;\n&#1821;\n&#1819;\n\nܥ\nܣ\nܢܢ\nܡܡ\n\n&#1829;\n&#1828;\n&#1826;\n&#1825;\n\nܪ\nܩ\nܨ\nܦ\n\n&#1834;\n&#1833;\n&#1832;\n&#1830;\n\nܬ\nܫ\n\n&#1836;\n&#1835;\n\nVowels and unique characters\n\nܲ\nܵ\n\n&#1842;\n&#1845;\n\nܸ\nܹ\n\n&#1848;\n&#1849;\n\nܼ\nܿ\n\n&#1852;\n&#1855;\n\n̈\n̰\n\n&#776;\n&#816;\n\n݁\n݂\n\n&#1857;\n&#1858;\n\n܀\n܂\n\n&#1792;\n&#1794;\n\n܄\n݇\n\n&#1796;\n&#1863;\n\nComparison of scripts\n\nMatthew 5:8 (sixth beatitude), using the Urmi dialect:\n\nSyriac script\n\nLatin script\n\n(1930)\n\nCyrillic script\n\n(before 1929, after 1938)\n\nTranslation\n\nܛܘܼܒ̣ܵܐ ܠܐܵܢܝܼ ܕܝܼܢܵܐ ܕܸܟ̣ܝܹ̈ܐ ܒܠܸܒܵܐ: ܣܵܒܵܒ ܕܐܵܢܝܼ ܒܸܬ ܚܵܙܝܼ ܠܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ.\n\nŢuva l'ənij d'inə dixji b'liввə: səвəв d'ənij вit xəzij l'Ələhə.\n\nTyвə l'aниj d'инa dиxjи б'lиббa: caбaб d'aниj бит xaзиj l'Alaha.\n\nBlessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.\n\nSee also\n\nAbjad\n\nAlphabet\n\nAramaic alphabet\n\nMandaic alphabet\n\nMongolian script\n\nSogdian alphabet\n\nSyriac language\n\nSyriac Malayalam\n\nOld Uyghur alphabet\n\nHistory of the alphabet\n\nList of writing systems\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also ܐܒܓܕ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ʾabgad Sūryāyā.\n\n^ Also pronounced/transliterated Estrangelo in Western Syriac.\n\n^ Also pronounced ʾĀlap̄ or ʾOlaf (ܐܳܠܰܦ‎) in Western Syriac.\n\n^ Among most Assyrian Neo-Aramaic speakers, the pharyngeal sound of ʿĒ (/ʕ/) is not pronounced as such; rather, it typically merges into the plain sound of ʾĀlep̄ ([ʔ] or ∅) or geminates a previous consonant.\n\n^ In the final position following Dālaṯ or Rēš, ʾĀlep̄ takes the normal form rather than the final form in the Maḏnḥāyā variant of the alphabet.\n\n^ In some Serṭā usages, the syāmē dots are placed diagonally when they appear above the letter Lāmaḏ.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Syriac alphabet\". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved June 16, 2012.\n\n^ P. R. Ackroyd, C. F. Evans (1975). The Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome. Cambridge University Press. p. 26. ISBN 9780521099738.\n\n^ Maissun Melhem (21 January 2010). \"Schriftenstreit in Syrien\" (in German). Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 15 November 2023. Several years ago, the political leadership in Syria decided to establish an institute where Aramaic could be learned. Rizkalla was tasked with writing a textbook, primarily drawing upon his native language proficiency. For the script, he chose Hebrew letters.\n\n^ Oriens Christianus (in German). 2003. p. 77. As the villages are very small, located close to each other, and the three dialects are mutually intelligible, there has never been the creation of a script or a standard language. Aramaic is the unwritten village dialect...\n\n^ Hatch, William (1946). An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts. Boston: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, reprinted in 2002 by Gorgias Press. p. 24. ISBN 1-931956-53-7.\n\n^ Nestle, Eberhard (1888). Syrische Grammatik mit Litteratur, Chrestomathie und Glossar. Berlin: H. Reuther's Verlagsbuchhandlung. [translated to English as Syriac grammar with bibliography, chrestomathy and glossary, by R. S. Kennedy. London: Williams & Norgate 1889. p. 5].\n\n^ Coakley, J. F. (2002). Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (5th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-19-926129-1.\n\n^ Nöldeke, Theodor and Julius Euting (1880). Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik. Leipzig: T.O. Weigel. [translated to English as Compendious Syriac Grammar, by James A. Crichton. London: Williams & Norgate 1904. 2003 edition. pp. 10-11. ISBN 1-57506-050-7]\n\n^ Nöldeke, Theodor and Julius Euting (1880). Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik. Leipzig: T.O. Weigel. [translated to English as Compendious Syriac Grammar, by James A. Crichton. London: Williams & Norgate 1904. 2003 edition. pp. 11-12. ISBN 1-57506-050-7]\n\n^ Moscati, Sabatino, et al. The Comparative Grammar of Semitic Languages.\nHarrassowitz, Wiesbaden, Germany, 1980.\n\n^ S. P. Brock, \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic literature\", in Aram,1:1 (1989)\n\n^ Friedrich, Johannes (1959). \"Neusyrisches in Lateinschrift aus der Sowjetunion\". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (in German) (109): 50-81.\n\n^ Polotsky, Hans Jakob (1961). \"Studies in Modern Syriac\". Journal of Semitic Studies. 6 (1): 1-32. doi:10.1093/jss/6.1.1.\n\n^ Письменность и революция. Сб. 1, 1933, p. 120\n\n^ [:File:Aysor cyrillic alphabet, USSR, 1930.jpg Aysor Cyrillic alphabet, from М. Бит Ләзер, В. Скоробогатов. Qтава d'аllаббит. Урха хаdта ка маdраса d'шита камета. М.: Пиjшеlи бусмина басмәхәнә кинtрунета d'әlмә d'СССР, 1930]\n\n^ \"Syriac Romanization Table\" (PDF). Library of Congress.\n\n^ Nicholas Awde; Nineb Lamassu; Nicholas Al-Jeloo (2007). Aramaic (Assyrian/Syriac) Dictionary & Phrasebook: Swadaya-English, Turoyo-English, English-Swadaya-Turoyo. Hippocrene Books. ISBN 978-0-7818-1087-6.\n\nSources\n\nCoakley, J. F. (2002). Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (5th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-926129-1.\n\nHatch, William (1946). An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts. Boston: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, reprinted in 2002 by Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-931956-53-7.\n\nKiraz, George (2015). The Syriac Dot: a Short History. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0425-9.\n\nMichaelis, Ioannis Davidis (1784). Grammatica Syriaca.\n\nNestle, Eberhard (1888). Syrische Grammatik mit Litteratur, Chrestomathie und Glossar. Berlin: H. Reuther's Verlagsbuchhandlung. [translated to English as Syriac grammar with bibliography, chrestomathy and glossary, by R. S. Kennedy. London: Williams & Norgate 1889].\n\nNöldeke, Theodor and Julius Euting (1880). Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik. Leipzig: T.O. Weigel. [translated to English as Compendious Syriac Grammar, by James A. Crichton. London: Williams & Norgate 1904. 2003 edition: ISBN 1-57506-050-7].\n\nPhillips, George (1866). A Syriac Grammar. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co.; London: Bell & Daldy.\n\nRobinson, Theodore Henry (1915). Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926129-6.\n\nRudder, Joshua. Learn to Write Aramaic: A Step-by-Step Approach to the Historical & Modern Scripts. n.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. 220 pp. ISBN 978-1461021421 Includes the Estrangela (pp. 59-113), Madnhaya (pp. 191-206), and the Western Serto (pp. 173-190) scripts.\n\nSegal, J. B. (1953). The Diacritical Point and the Accents in Syriac. Oxford University Press, reprinted in 2003 by Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-032-4.\n\nThackston, Wheeler M. (1999). Introduction to Syriac. Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-936347-98-8.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Syriac alphabet at Omniglot.com\n\nThe Syriac alphabet at Ancientscripts.com\n\nUnicode Entity Codes for the Syriac Script\n\nMeltho Fonts for Syriac\n\nHow to write Aramaic - learn the Syriac cursive scripts\n\nAramaic and Syriac handwriting Archived 2018-07-23 at the Wayback Machine ʾEsṭrangēlā (classical)\n\nLearn Assyrian (Syriac-Aramaic) OnLine Maḏnḥāyā (eastern)\n\nGNU FreeFont Unicode font family with Syriac range in its sans-serif face.\n\nLearn Syriac Latin Alphabet on Wikiversity"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-alphabet"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4608}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-literature", "title": "Syriac literature", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Syriac literature is the body of writing in Syriac, a literary dialect of Aramaic that developed around Edessa in northern Mesopotamia. In its narrower sense, the term refers to literature in Classical Syriac, the learned and liturgical language of several eastern Christian traditions. In a broader sense, it...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac literature is the body of writing in Syriac, a literary dialect of Aramaic that developed around Edessa in northern Mesopotamia. In its narrower sense, the term refers to literature in Classical Syriac, the learned and liturgical language of several eastern Christian traditions. In a broader sense, it can also include modern writing in Neo-Aramaic varieties associated with Syriac Christian communities. Syriac literature is especially associated with Syriac Christianity, but it was shaped by contact with Greek, Jewish, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Arabic, Armenian, and other literary cultures.[1][2] Among its greatest authors include Ephrem the Syrian, Aphrahat, Jacob of Serugh, Narsai, and Barhebraeus.\n\nThe surviving corpus includes biblical translations, hymns, verse homilies, prose commentaries, hagiography, apocrypha, apocalypse, historiography, theology, canon law, grammar, philosophy, medicine, and scientific translation. It flourished from the \"Syriac Golden Age\" in late antiquity, through the medieval period in the Byzantine, Sasanian, and Islamic Near East. A massive revival of this literature in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries is known as the Syriac Renaissance. Syriac literature continues to be used today as a liturgical and literary language among the Church of the East, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Maronite Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Saint Thomas Christians of India.[1][3]\n\nTerminology and scope\n\n\"Syriac\" originally designated the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, called Urhay in Syriac. The dialect is attested in inscriptions from the early first century AD and became a Christian literary language through the prestige of Edessa and its traditions about King Abgar V and the apostle Addai of Edessa. By the fourth century a relatively stable Classical Syriac had emerged, and this language remained the main medium of Syriac learned and liturgical writing for centuries.[4][1]\n\nThe term \"Syriac literature\" is therefore not exactly equivalent to the literature of one state, ethnicity, or church. Syriac was never the official language of a single empire, and its writers belonged to communities spread across the Roman and Sasanian empires and, later, the Islamic caliphates and Mongol-ruled Middle East. Scholars often describe Syriac culture as a culture of contact: it arose in a Semitic language environment, absorbed Greek Christian and philosophical learning, developed inside Iranian and Arabic-speaking political worlds, and would go on to play a major role in the transmission of Greek scholarship into Arabic.[2][5]\n\nA wide range of terms are used nowadays to refer to Syriac. For some authors, the term \"Syriac\" is used only for Classical Syriac, and it is used alongside other terminology like \"Neo-Syriac\", \"Modern Syriac\", \"Assyrian Neo-Aramaic\", \"Chaldean Neo-Aramaic\", and related terms for modern vernaculars and literary standards. Nineteenth-century Literary Urmia Aramaic, for example, was based on the Neo-Aramaic dialect of the Urmia region rather than on Classical Syriac, though it was written within communities whose older learned language was Syriac.[6][7]\n\nPeriodization\n\nSebastian Brock divides Syriac literature into three broad periods. The first is the \"golden age\" of Syriac literature, which extends to the seventh century and includes the most creative phase of classical Syriac writing.[8]\n\nThe second is the \"Arab period\", from the seventh century to about 1300. Brock describes this era, which ended around the time of the Mongols' conversion to Islam, as one of consolidation and compilation. It saw the growth of encyclopaedic forms of Syriac learning and culminated in the work of the thirteenth-century polymath Bar Hebraeus.[8]\n\nThe third period runs from about 1300 to the present. Although its beginning was difficult for Middle Eastern Christian communities, classical Syriac continued to be used as a literary language, while modern Syriac writing emerged more visibly in seventeenth-century poetry from the Alqosh school in northern Iraq and expanded in the nineteenth century with the Syriac press at Urmia.[8][9]\n\nLanguage, scripts, and manuscripts\n\nSyriac belongs to the Aramaic branch of the Semitic languages. Its earliest inscriptions are close to other late antique Aramaic scripts, while the formal book hand that came to dominate early manuscripts is known as Estrangela. Later manuscript traditions developed distinct West Syriac and East Syriac scripts, commonly called Serto and the East Syriac script. These scripts were used for biblical, liturgical, monastic, scholarly, and documentary texts.[4]\n\nThe manuscript tradition is central to the history of Syriac literature. Many works survive in relatively late copies, while others are preserved only in fragments, quotations, translations, or palimpsests. Syriac manuscript culture was also geographically mobile. Manuscripts copied in Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, India, and later Europe preserve texts from different ecclesiastical traditions and often bear witness to multilingual settings in which Syriac stood beside Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Persian, and other languages.[11]\n\nThe early modern European study of Syriac depended heavily on eastern Christian manuscripts and scholars, especially Maronite scholars who worked in Rome and Paris. The complete Syriac Bible first appeared in print in the Paris Polyglot, and Syriac grammars, lexica, biblical editions, and typefaces became part of early modern oriental scholarship.[12]\n\nHistorical development\n\nBeginnings to the third century\n\nThe earliest Syriac Christian literature developed in a religiously diverse northern Mesopotamian environment. Early texts include the Odes of Solomon, the Acts of Thomas, the Book of the Laws of Countries associated with the school of Bardaisan, early gospel traditions such as the Diatessaron, and the first stages of Syriac biblical translation. These works show a mixture of poetry, narrative, apologetic, ascetic, philosophical, and biblical interests.[13][14]\n\nThe Syriac Bible played an unusually formative role. The Old Testament Peshitta was translated from Hebrew, probably no later than about 200 CE, and became the basis of a large exegetical and liturgical \n\nculture. Syriac gospel traditions included the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac Gospels, and later the Peshitta New Testament, followed by more learned revisions such as the Philoxenian, Harqlean, and Syro-Hexapla versions.[15][16][14]\n\nFourth century\n\nThe fourth century is treated as a major transitional moment in the creation and prominence of Syriac literature. Aphrahat, writing in the Sasanian Empire, composed the Demonstrations, a series of prose works on faith, asceticism, covenant, prayer, persecution, and relations with Judaism. Ephrem the Syrian, active in Nisibis and Edessa, became the most influential Syriac poet and theologian. His verse homilies (memre) and lyric hymns (madrashe) used biblical allusion, typology, paradox, and symbolic language to address doctrinal disputes, biblical interpretation, liturgical formation, and Christian devotion.[17][18]\n\nEphrem's poetry also illustrates the overlap between literary, liturgical, and pedagogical settings. Madrashe could be sung, studied, and reused in worship, while memre served both exegetical and homiletic purposes. Syriac Christianity used poetry for both its aesthetic purpose and its theological vividness.[19][20]\n\nFourth-century and early fifth-century Syriac works also include the Book of Steps, martyr acts connected with Sasanian persecutions, and ascetic writings that reflect the prominence of renunciation in early Syriac Christian life. Early Syriac asceticism was not always separated from ordinary Christian society; some ascetics lived in households or small communities, and the category later associated with monks could overlap with broader ideals of covenant, celibacy, service, and prayer.[21][22]\n\nFifth to seventh centuries\n\nFrom the fifth to the seventh centuries, Syriac literary production expanded across several ecclesiastical traditions. The period saw the growth of separate East Syriac and West Syriac literary worlds, connected respectively with the Church of the East and the Miaphysite or Syrian Orthodox tradition, while Chalcedonian Syriac Christians also produced and transmitted texts. The major literary centers for the production of Syriac literature in this era were Edessa, Nisibis, Amid, Serugh, Mabbug, Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Beth Lapat, Qenneshre, and monasteries in Tur Abdin and northern Mesopotamia came to be associated with scholarship, translation, biblical study, monastic writing, and poetry.[1][23]\n\nThe School of Nisibis was especially important for East Syriac scholarly culture. Its curriculum, rules, commentaries, and institutional memory helped shape a learned class of teachers, exegetes, bishops, and monks, and it stood behind later East Syriac biblical and theological traditions.[24]\n\nIn the West Syriac world, Greek learning entered Syriac through translation, bilingual scholarship, and monastic schools. The monastery of Qenneshre on the Euphrates became a major center for Greek study and Aristotelian learning. Figures such as Sergius of Reshaina, Athanasius of Balad, Jacob of Edessa, and the scholars associated with Qenneshre helped create the Syriac philosophical and scientific vocabulary that later fed into Arabic translation movements.[25][26]\n\nMajor authors of this period include Narsai, Jacob of Serugh, Philoxenus of Mabbug, Babai the Great, Isaac of Nineveh, Sahdona, Jacob of Edessa, and John of Ephesus. Their works include metrical homilies, anti-heretical treatises, commentaries, monastic instructions, ecclesiastical histories, letters, and biographies of holy men and women.[27][28][29]\n\nSyriac under Islamic rule\n\nThe Arab conquests placed most Syriac-speaking Christian communities under Muslim rule. Syriac continued to function as a major ecclesiastical language, but Arabic gradually became the primary medium for the major uses of writing among local communities. From the eighth to the eleventh centuries, Syriac Christians increasingly articulated their theology in Arabic while preserving Syriac as a scriptural, liturgical, monastic, and learned language.[30]\n\nIn this time, Syriac Christians were central to the translation of Greek philosophy, medicine, and science into Syriac and Arabic. The work of Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Ishaq ibn Hunayn, and other translators in Abbasid Baghdad was made possible by earlier eras of Syriac engagement with Greek literature. Syriac medicine and philosophy were therefore both continuations of late antique Greek learning and contributors to the intellectual culture of the Islamic world.[5][31]\n\nSyriac literary activity did not end during this time. Instead, authors wrote commentaries, chronicles, lexica, grammars, canon-law collections, theological syntheses, hagiography, and poetry. At the same time, the growth of Christian Arabic literature altered the linguistic ecology of Syriac communities, especially in urban centers such as Baghdad, Mosul, Damascus, and later Aleppo.[32][33]\n\nThe Syriac Renaissance\n\nThe term \"Syriac Renaissance\" is commonly used for the revival or intensification of Syriac writing in roughly the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. The label was popularized by Anton Baumstark, though modern scholars use it cautiously because the period varied by region, genre, and church tradition. The Renaissance is associated with renewed poetry, grammar, historiography, philosophy, theology, manuscript production, and artistic patronage.[34][35]\n\nOne of the most characteristic features of the period was the interaction between Syriac and Arabic learned culture. East Syriac authors had long been active in Arabic-speaking centers, while West Syriac writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries increasingly engaged Arabic philosophy, science, historiography, and literary forms. Bar Hebraeus wrote in Syriac and Arabic, adapted Arabic sources for Syriac readers, and produced works in history, grammar, theology, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and poetry. Abdisho bar Brikha composed catalogues, legal and theological works, and elaborate poetry, including the Paradise of Eden.[36][37]\n\nThe poetry of the later period shows formal changes. Rhyme, more systematic stanzaic structures, complex acrostics, and learned wordplay became more common, partly under Arabic influence. Authors such as Barhebraeus, Abdisho bar Berika, Giwargis Warda, and Khamis bar Qardahe demonstrate the continued prestige of Syriac as a poetic and scholarly language even in a predominantely Arabic-speaking environment.[37]\n\nLate medieval, early modern, and modern periods\n\nAfter the collapse of Mongol power in the Middle East, the volume of new Syriac writing declined in many regions, though manuscript copying, liturgical use, poetry, chronicles, and local scholarly traditions continued. Syriac-speaking Christians remained dispersed across the Middle East, India, Central Asia, Cyprus, and diaspora settings, and their literary production increasingly took place in multilingual environments.[38]\n\nModern Syriac and Neo-Aramaic literature developed in several centers. In northern Iraq, Neo-Aramaic poetry is attested from at least the sixteenth century, especially around Alqosh. In nineteenth-century Urmia, American Presbyterian missionaries, working with local Assyrian Christians, helped shape the spoken Neo-Aramaic vernacular of the Urmia region into Literary Urmia Aramaic. Printing, Bible translation, schools, newspapers, and mission presses gave this literary standard a wide role before the disruptions of the First World War.[39][9]\n\nModern Syriac writing has continued in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Europe, the Americas, and Australia, often in conditions of displacement. It includes education, journalism, religious and ecclesial writing, linguistic scholarship, historical memory, and communal identity formation.[40]\n\nGenres\n\nBiblical translation and interpretation\n\nThe Bible is the foundation of much Syriac literature. Syriac biblical translation began early, and the Peshitta became the dominant biblical version for Syriac churches. Later revisions and translations, including the Philoxenian, Harklean, and Syro-Hexapla, show how Syriac scholars interacted with Greek textual traditions.[41][14]\n\nSyriac biblical interpretation took many forms. Prose commentaries explained biblical books section by section; verse homilies retold or interpreted scriptural passages; dialogue poems dramatized biblical scenes; liturgical commentaries connected Scripture to ritual practice; and hagiography embedded saints inside biblical typologies. Ephrem's poetry is the best-known example of a Syriac literary world saturated with biblical allusion, but the same habit of scriptural reuse characterizes many later authors.[14][42][43]\n\nPoetry and hymnography\n\nPoetry is one of the most distinctive features of Syriac literature. Two major forms are the madrasha, a stanzaic hymn often associated with melodies and refrains, and the memra, a verse homily often composed in couplets. These forms allowed Syriac writers to combine exegesis, doctrinal argument, narrative, and praise.[44][20]\n\nEphrem gave the madrasha and memra exceptional literary authority, but later poets developed the tradition in new directions. Jacob of Serugh became famous for expansive verse homilies; Narsai was a major East Syriac poet and theologian; and later medieval poets used rhyme, acrostics, and elaborate rhetorical structures for didactic, devotional, and scholarly purposes.[45]\n\nHagiography, martyrdom, and foundation legends\n\nSyriac hagiography includes lives of saints, martyr acts, miracle stories, apostolic legends, monastic biographies, and missionary narratives. A large Syriac hagiographic corpus survives, including original compositions and translations from Greek and other languages. These texts were not simply biographies; they shaped communal memory, liturgical devotion, local geography, and claims about orthodoxy and apostolic origins.[46]\n\nMissionary stories were especially important for explaining the origins of Syriac churches. Texts such as the Acts of Thomas, the Teaching of Addai, and the Acts of Mari linked Edessa, India, Mesopotamia, and Persia to apostolic founders. Later lives of Simeon of Beth Arsham, Jacob Baradaeus, and Ahudemmeh used similar missionary patterns to articulate the identity of emerging Syriac ecclesiastical communities.[47]\n\nMartyr literature likewise served both devotional and historical purposes. Persian martyr acts represented Christian endurance under Sasanian rule, while later hagiography recorded ascetics, bishops, missionaries, women saints, and monastic communities. John of Ephesus's Lives of the Eastern Saints is a major example of sixth-century Syriac hagiography rooted in ascetic society and Miaphysite crisis.[46][29]\n\nHistoriography\n\nSyriac historiography includes chronicles, ecclesiastical histories, local histories, dynastic narratives, and universal histories. Early and medieval works include the Chronicle of Edessa, the Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, the histories associated with John of Ephesus and Pseudo-Zachariah, the Chronicle of Zuqnin, the lost work of Theophilus of Edessa, the chronicle of Dionysius of Tel Mahre, the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, and the historical works of Barhebraeus.[48][49]\n\nThese texts do not form a single continuous tradition. Some were local records; some were ecclesiastical histories modelled on Greek precedents; some drew on archives, oral memory, hagiography, and apocalyptic expectation; and others integrated Roman, Persian, Arab, and biblical history into universal chronologies.[28]\n\nTheology, asceticism, and mysticism\n\nSyriac theology often took poetic, exegetical, and ascetic forms rather than the scholastic genres familiar from Greek and Latin Christianity. Authors addressed Christology, the Trinity, the sacraments, biblical interpretation, prayer, monastic discipline, and spiritual progress through hymns, homilies, letters, commentaries, and monastic treatises.[27][21]\n\nAscetic and mystical literature is especially prominent. The Book of Steps reflects a community organized around degrees of Christian perfection; Isaac of Nineveh became one of the most widely read Syriac mystical authors; and East Syriac authors such as John of Dalyatha and Joseph Hazzaya developed sophisticated accounts of prayer, contemplation, and spiritual perception.[21][50]\n\nPhilosophy, medicine, and science\n\nFrom late antiquity into the Abbasid period, Syriac scholars translated, summarized, commented on, and taught Greek philosophy, medicine, logic, astronomy, and natural science. Sergius of Reshaina connected Aristotelian philosophy, medicine, and Christian theology; Qenneshre (the large West Syriac monastery) helped transmit Greek philosophical learning in Syriac; and Syriac translations and scholars later formed part of the intellectual background of Arabic philosophy.[51]\n\nMedicine was another important field of Syriac scholarly writing. Syriac medical texts include translations of Galen, pharmacological works, diagnostic and therapeutic writings, and references to medical knowledge in hagiography, poetry, exegesis, and monastic writing. Syriac Christian physicians and translators contributed to the movement of Greek medical learning into Arabic and, through eastern Christian networks, into wider Asian contexts.[52]\n\nLiterary centers and institutions\n\nSyriac literature was produced in cities, schools, monasteries, courts, and village churches. Edessa was the symbolic center of early Syriac Christianity and the source of many origin legends. Edessa, Nisibis, Amid, Serugh, Mabbug, Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Beth Lapat, Qenneshre, and monasteries in Egypt and the Levant all played roles in the copying, teaching, translation, and composition of Syriac works.[1][53][54][25]\n\nSchools and monasteries shaped the genres of Syriac writing. The School of Nisibis supported biblical commentary, grammar, disputation, and theological training in the Church of the East. Qenneshre supported Greek and Syriac bilingual learning. Monastic environments preserved ascetic writing, copied manuscripts, produced hagiography, and maintained liturgical poetry.[24][25][29]\n\nLegacy\n\nSyriac literature is significant for several fields of study. For late antique Christianity, it preserves traditions from regions often marginal in Greek and Latin narratives. For biblical studies, it supplies early versions and interpretations of the Bible. For Islamic intellectual history, it documents the Christian Syriac contribution to Greek-Arabic translation and scientific learning. For the history of the Middle East, it provides chronicles, saints' lives, legal texts, letters, colophons, and liturgical works that illuminate communities living between empires and languages.[55][14][5][31]\n\nThe literature also remains a living heritage. Classical Syriac is still used in worship and scholarship, while modern Neo-Aramaic literatures continue among Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, and related communities in the Middle East and diaspora.[56][39][40]\n\nSelected works\n\nThe following works are commonly treated in scholarship as representative or especially influential examples of Syriac literary production across genres and periods:\n\nPeshitta - the standard Syriac biblical version, whose Old Testament was translated from Hebrew and whose later New Testament form became central to Syriac churches, exegesis, and liturgy.[41][14]\n\nActs of Thomas - a third-century Syriac apocryphal narrative about the apostle Thomas and India, notable for its apostolic legend, liturgical scenes, and embedded poems.[57][53]\n\nDemonstrations of Aphrahat - fourth-century prose treatises from the Sasanian Empire on Christian life, asceticism, faith, covenant, persecution, and Judaism.[58][59]\n\nHymns on Paradise of Ephrem the Syrian - a major example of Ephrem's symbolic and biblical poetry, representing the central role of hymnography in classical Syriac theology.[60][18]\n\nBook of Steps - an anonymous late fourth- or early fifth-century ascetic work organized around stages of Christian perfection and renunciation.[61][21]\n\nCave of Treasures - a sixth-century retelling of the biblical narrative, beginning with the creation of the world and ending at Pentecost[62]\n\nHomilies of Narsai - East Syriac verse homilies associated with the school tradition of Edessa and Nisibis, especially important for biblical interpretation, liturgy, and theology in the Church of the East.[63][20]\n\nHomilies of Jacob of Serugh - West Syriac verse homilies that became one of the largest and most influential bodies of Syriac poetic preaching.[64][20]\n\nLives of the Eastern Saints of John of Ephesus - a sixth-century Syriac hagiographic collection preserving ascetic biographies and Miaphysite communal memory.[29][46]\n\nChronicon Syriacum of Bar Hebraeus - a thirteenth-century universal chronicle by the leading polymath of the Syriac Renaissance, reflecting the encyclopaedic and historical interests of later Syriac scholarship.[65][49]\n\nSee also\n\nPeshitta\n\nChristian literature\n\nChurch of the East\n\nEphrem the Syrian\n\nNeo-Aramaic languages\n\nSchool of Nisibis\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyriac language\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nʿeltā\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e Brock 1997, pp. 7-10.\n\n^ a b Briquel-Chatonnet & Debie 2023, pp. ix-xi.\n\n^ Griffith 2008, pp. 10-14.\n\n^ a b Brock 2017, pp. 19-24.\n\n^ a b c Watt 2019, pp. 1-5.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 1999, pp. 1-5.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 1999, pp. 349-350.\n\n^ a b c Brock 2017, pp. 13-14.\n\n^ a b Murre-van den Berg 1999, pp. 1-5, 349-350.\n\n^ This manuscript was previously misidentified as a translation of John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Gospel of John. It has subsequently been identified as missing pages from a Syriac witness to the Asceticon. See J. Edward Walters, \"Schøyen MS 574: Missing Pages From a Syriac Witness of the Asceticon of Abba Isaiah of Scete,\" Le Muséon 124 (1-2), 2011: 1-10.\n\n^ Briquel-Chatonnet 2019, pp. 251-262.\n\n^ Wilkinson 2019, pp. 756-760.\n\n^ Possekel 2019, pp. 309-314.\n\n^ a b c d e f Loopstra 2019, pp. 293-298.\n\n^ Weitzman 1999, pp. 1-2.\n\n^ Brock 2006, pp. 42-44.\n\n^ Possekel 2019, pp. 314-322.\n\n^ a b Wickes 2019, pp. 1-2, 11-14.\n\n^ Wickes 2019, pp. 22-23.\n\n^ a b c d Brock 2019, pp. 327-330.\n\n^ a b c d Murray 2006, pp. 14-16.\n\n^ Harvey 1990, pp. 1-10.\n\n^ Becker 2006, pp. 3-5.\n\n^ a b Becker 2006, pp. 3-5, 77-81.\n\n^ a b c Watt 2019, pp. 4-9, 47-56.\n\n^ Watt 2019, pp. 231-249.\n\n^ a b Brock 1997, pp. 31-52.\n\n^ a b Wood 2019, pp. 405-414.\n\n^ a b c d Harvey 1990, pp. 28-41.\n\n^ Griffith 2008, pp. 4-5, 10-14.\n\n^ a b Kessel 2019, pp. 438-453.\n\n^ Griffith 2008, pp. 4-5.\n\n^ Teule 2010, pp. 5-10.\n\n^ Teule 2010, pp. 1-10.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 698-717.\n\n^ Teule 2010, pp. 5-10, 15-24.\n\n^ a b Brock 2019, pp. 330-335.\n\n^ Carlson 2019, pp. 721-727.\n\n^ a b Butts 2019, p. 231.\n\n^ a b Murre-van den Berg 2019, pp. 770-782.\n\n^ a b Weitzman 1999, pp. xiii-xiv, 1-2.\n\n^ Wickes 2019, pp. 1-2, 22-23.\n\n^ Saint-Laurent 2015, pp. 4-6.\n\n^ Wickes 2019, pp. 11-14, 22-23.\n\n^ Brock 2019, pp. 327-335.\n\n^ a b c Saint-Laurent 2019, pp. 339-343.\n\n^ Saint-Laurent 2015, pp. 1-6, 12-13.\n\n^ Wood 2019, pp. 405-421.\n\n^ a b Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 708-710.\n\n^ Pirtea 2019, pp. 355-376.\n\n^ Watt 2019, pp. 1-9, 47-56, 231-249.\n\n^ Kessel 2019, pp. 438-459, 449-453.\n\n^ a b Saint-Laurent 2015, pp. 1-6.\n\n^ Becker 2006, pp. 77-81.\n\n^ King 2019, pp. 1-3.\n\n^ Brock 2017, pp. 1-2.\n\n^ Brock 1997, pp. 24-25.\n\n^ Brock 1997, pp. 30-32.\n\n^ Possekel 2019, pp. 314-317.\n\n^ Brock 1997, pp. 33-39.\n\n^ Brock 1997, pp. 42-43.\n\n^ Minov 2020, p. 1. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFMinov2020 (help)\n\n^ Brock 1997, pp. 47-49.\n\n^ Brock 1997, pp. 50-52.\n\n^ Teule 2010, pp. 15-24.\n\nSources\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2006). Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, Francoise; Debie, Muriel (2023). The Syriac World: In Search of a Forgotten Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, Francoise (2019). \"Writing Syriac: Manuscripts and inscriptions\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 243-265.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). The Bible in the Syriac Tradition (2nd rev. ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2017). An Introduction to Syriac Studies (3rd ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2019). \"Later Syriac poetry\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 327-338.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2019). \"The Classical Syriac Language\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 222-242. doi:10.4324/9781315708195-15. ISBN 978-1-315-70819-5.\n\nCarlson, Thomas A. (2019). \"Syriac in a diverse Middle East, 1300-1500\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 718-730.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2008). The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.\n\nHarvey, Susan Ashbrook (1990). Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints. Berkeley: University of California Press.\n\nKessel, Grigory (2019). \"Syriac medicine\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 438-459.\n\nKing, Daniel (2019). \"Introduction\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 1-6.\n\nLoopstra, Jonathan A. (2019). \"The Syriac Bible and its interpretation\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 293-308.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Brill.\n\nMurre-van den Berg, Heleen L. (1999). From a Spoken to a Written Language: The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten.\n\nMurre-van den Berg, Heleen L. (2019). \"Syriac identity in the modern era\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 770-782.\n\nMurray, Robert (2006). Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (2nd ed.). London: T&T Clark.\n\nPirtea, Adrian (2019). \"Mysticism in the Church of the East\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 355-376.\n\nPossekel, Ute (2019). \"The Emergence of Syriac Literature to AD 400\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 309-326. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nSaint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon (2015). Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches. Oakland: University of California Press.\n\nSaint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole (2019). \"Syriac Hagiographic Literature\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 339-354. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nTeule, Herman (2010). \"The Syriac Renaissance\". In Teule, Herman; Tauwinkl, Carmen Fotescu; ter Haar Romeny, Bas; van Ginkel, Jan (eds.). The Syriac Renaissance. Leuven: Peeters. pp. 1-29.\n\nWatt, John W. (2019). The Aristotelian Tradition in Syriac. London: Routledge.\n\nWeitzman, Michael P. (1999). The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea; Younansardaroud, Helen (2019). \"The Renaissance of Syriac Literature in the Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 698-717. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWickes, Jeffrey (2019). Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem's Hymns on Faith. Oakland: University of California Press.\n\nWilkinson, Robert J. (2019). \"The early study of Syriac in Europe\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 746-762.\n\nWood, Philip (2019). \"Historiography in the Syriac-Speaking World, 300-1000\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 405-421. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBarsoum, Ignatius Aphram (2000). The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Pueblo, CO: Passeggiata Press. ISBN 9781578891030.\n\nBaumstark, Anton (1922). Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte. Bonn: A. Marcus und E. Weber Verlag. ISBN 9783110821253. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBettiolo, Paolo (2006). \"Syriac Literature\". Patrology V: The Eastern Fathers from the Council of Chalcedon (451) to John of Damascus (†750). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 407-490. ISBN 9780227679791.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1980). \"Syriac Historical Writing: A Survey of the Main Sources\" (PDF). Journal of the Iraq Academy: Syriac Corporation. 5 (1979-1980): 1-30, (326-297).\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2004a). \"The Earliest Syriac Literature\". The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 161-172. ISBN 9780521460835.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2004b). \"Ephrem and the Syriac Tradition\". The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 362-372. ISBN 9780521460835.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006a). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006b). \"Syriac Literature: A Crossroads of Cultures\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 31: 17-35.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011). \"Melkite literature in Syriac\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 285-286.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2015a). \"The Syriac Language and its Place within Aramaic\" (PDF). Hekamtho: Syrian Orthodox Theological Journal. 1 (1): 7-19.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2015b). \"Charting the Hellenization of a Literary Culture: The Case of Syriac\". Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. 3 (1-2): 98-124. doi:10.1163/2212943X-00301005.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2017b). \"Scribal Tradition and the Transmission of Syriac Literature in Late Antiquity and Early Islam\". Scribal Practices and the Social Construction of Knowledge in Antiquity. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 61-68. ISBN 9789042933149.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2011). \"Syriac Language\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 390-391.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2000). \"Record Keeping and Chronicle Writing in Antioch and Edessa\". ARAM Periodical. 12 (1-2): 409-417. doi:10.2143/ARAM.12.0.504478.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 93-114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2010). \"Writing History as Histoires: The Biographical Dimension of East Syriac Historiography\". Writing True Stories: Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East. Turnhout: Brepols. pp. 43-75. ISBN 9782503527864.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2010). \"Les apocryphes et l'histoire en syriaque\". Sur les pas des Araméens chrétiens: Mélanges offerts à Alain Desreumaux. Paris: Geuthner. pp. 63-76.\n\nDebié, Muriel; Taylor, David G. K. (2012). \"Syriac and Syro-Arabic Historical Writing, c. 500-c. 1400\". The Oxford History of Historical Writing. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 155-179. ISBN 9780199236428.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2015). \"Theophanes' Oriental Source: What Can We Learn from Syriac Historiography?\". Travaux et Mémoires. 19: 365-382.\n\nDuval, Rubens (1907) [1899]. La Littérature Syriaque (3rd ed.). Paris: Lecoffre.\n\nDuval, Rubens (2013) [1907]. Syriac Literature: An English Translation of La Littérature Syriaque. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781611439625.\n\nEbied, Rifaat (1972). \"Some Syriac Manuscripts from the Collection of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge\". Symposium Syriacum, 1972. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. pp. 509-539.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2003). \"Patriarchal Funerary Inscriptions in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd: Types, Literary Origins, and Purpose\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 6 (2): 235-264.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2011). \"Chronicles, Syriac\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 98-99.\n\nHeal, Kristian S. (2015). \"Five Kinds of Rewriting: Appropriation, Influence and the Manuscript History of Early Syriac Literature\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 15: 51-65. doi:10.31826/9781463236915-006. ISBN 9781463236915.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nHealey, John F. (2012). \"Syriac\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 637-652. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nKannengiesser, Charles (2004). \"Syriac Christian Literature\". Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity. Vol. 2. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 1377-1446. ISBN 9789004137349.\n\nMacomber, William F. (1969). \"A Funeral Madraša on the Assassination of Mar Hnanišo\". Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (1898-1968). Louvain: Imprimerie orientaliste. pp. 263-273.\n\nMcCollum, Adam C. (2015). \"Greek Literature in the Christian East: Translations into Syriac, Georgian, and Armenian\". Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. 3 (1-2): 15-65. doi:10.1163/2212943X-00301003.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). Rome, the Greek World, and the East: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East. Vol. 3. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807876657.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004445512.\n\nMoss, Cyril (1962). Catalogue of Syriac Printed Books and Related Literature in the British Museum. London: Trustees of the British Museum.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999). From a Spoken to a Written Language: The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. ISBN 9789062589814.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2006). \"A Neo-Aramaic Gospel Lectionary Translation by Israel of Alqosh\". Loquentes linguis: Linguistic and Oriental Studies in Honour of Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 523-533. ISBN 9783447054843.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (1993). \"The Beginnings of Syriac Apologetic Literature in Response to Islam\". Oriens Christianus. 77: 165-187.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2000). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-103. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. S2CID 212688244.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2011). \"Syriac Lexicography\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 391-393.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (1986). \"Chronicles of Edessa\". Orientalia Suecana. 33-35 (1984-1986): 487-498.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2000). \"The Chronicle of Eusebius: Its Type and Continuation in Syriac Historiography\". ARAM Periodical. 12 (1-2): 419-437. doi:10.2143/ARAM.12.0.504479.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2007). \"Syriac Historiographical Sources\". Byzantines and Crusaders in Non-Greek Sources, 1025-1204. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 253-282.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2011). \"Historiography, Syriac\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 199-203.\n\nWright, William (1894). A Short History of Syriac Literature. London: Adam and Charles Black.\n\nExternal links\n\nHUGOYE: Journal of Syriac Studies Archived 2015-05-16 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSyriac Literature\n\nBeth Mardutho: The Syriac Computing Institute\n\nHerbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"Syriac Language and Literature\" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal\n\nGorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-literature"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5406}, {"slug": "reference-peshitta", "title": "Peshitta", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Peshitta (Classical Syriac: ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ pšīṭta) is the standard Syriac edition of the Bible for the Syriac churches and traditions that follow the liturgy of the Syriac rites. It is considered one of the most well-known creations in Syriac literature.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Peshitta\n\n9th-century manuscript\n\nFull nameܡܦܩܬܐ ܦܫܝܛܬܐ mappaqtâ pšîṭtâ\n\nOther namesPeshitta, Peshittâ, Pshitta, Pšittâ, Pshitto, Fshitto\n\nOT published2nd century\n\nNT published3rd-5th century [1]\n\nTranslation typeSyriac language\n\nReligious affiliationSyriac Christianity\n\nGenesis 1:1-3\nܒܪܵܫܝܼܬܼ ܒ̣ܪܵܐ ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ ܝܵܬ݂ ܫܡܲܝܵܐ ܘܝܵܬ݂ ܐܲܪܥܵܐ ܘܐܲܪܥܵܐ ܗ̣ܘܵܬ݂ ܬܘܿܗ ܘܒ݂ܘܿܗ ܘܚܸܫܘܿܟ݂ܵܐ ܥܲܠ ܐܲܦܲܝ̈ ܬܗܘܿܡܵܐ ܘܪܘܼܚܹܗ ܕܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ ܡܪܲܚܦܵܐ ܥܲܠ ܐܲܦܲܝ̈ ܡܲܝ̈ܵܐ ܘܐܸܡ̣ܲܪ݂ ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ: ܢܸܗ̣ܘܸܐ ܢܘܼܗܪܵܐ ܘܲܗ̣ܘܵܐ ܢܘܼܗܪܵܐ\n John 3:16\nܗܵܟ݂ܲܢܵܐ ܓܹܝܪ ܐܲܚܸܒ݂ ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ ܠܥܵܠܡܵܐ ܐܲܝܟܲܢܵܐ ܕܠܲܒ݂ܪܸܗ ܝܼܚܝܼܕ݂ܵܝܵܐ ܢܸܬܸܠ ܕܟ݂ܿܠ ܡ̇ܲܢ ܕܲܡܗܲܝܡܸܢ ܒܸܗ ܠܵܐ ܢܹܐܒ݂ܲܕ݂ ܐܸܠܵܐ ܢܸܗܘܘܼܢ ܠܸܗ ܚܲܝܹ̈ܐ ܕܲܠܥܵܠܲܡ\n\nThe Peshitta (Classical Syriac: ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ pšīṭta) is the standard Syriac edition of the Bible for the Syriac churches and traditions that follow the liturgy of the Syriac rites. It is considered one of the most well-known creations in Syriac literature.\n\nThe Peshitta is originally and traditionally written in the Classical Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language, although editions of the Peshitta can be translated and/or written in different languages.\n\nThe general consensus within Peshitta scholarship is that the Old Testament was translated into Syriac, largely from Hebrew with some supplementation from the Septuagint and Targums, by Jews (at least the Torah, Chronicles and Proverbs) and Jewish-Christians conversant with Jewish exegetical traditions, by or before the 2nd century CE, and the New Testament was translated from Koine Greek, probably in the early 5th century.[2][3] This New Testament excludes certain books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation) and had become standard by the early 5th century. The New Testament of the Peshitta often reflects the Byzantine text-type, although with some variations.[4][5]\n\nEtymology\n\nPeshitta is derived from the Syriac mappaqtâ pšîṭtâ (ܡܦܩܬܐ ܦܫܝܛܬܐ), literally meaning \"simple version\". However, it is also possible to translate pšîṭtâ as \"common\" (that is, for all people), or \"straight\", as well as the usual translation as \"simple\".\n\nSyriac is a dialect, or group of dialects, of Eastern Aramaic, originating around Edessa, and is written in its own alphabet. This is transliterated into the Latin script in a number of ways, generating different spellings of the name: Peshitta, Peshittâ, Pshitta, Pšittâ, Pshitto, Fshitto. All of these are acceptable, but Peshitta is the most conventional spelling in English.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Peshitta had from the 5th century onward a wide circulation in Asia, and was accepted and honored by the whole diversity of sects of Syriac Christianity. It had a great missionary influence: the Armenian and Georgian versions, as well as the Arabic and the Persian, owe much to the Syriac. The Nestorian tablet of Chang'an shows the presence of the Syriac scriptures in China in the 8th century.\n\nThe Peshitta was first brought to Europe by Moses of Mardin, a noted Syrian ecclesiastic who unsuccessfully sought a patron for the work of printing it in Rome and Venice. However, he was successful in finding such a patron in the Imperial Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire at Vienna in 1555-Albert Widmanstadt. He undertook the printing of the New Testament, and the emperor bore the cost of the special types which had to be cast for its issue in Syriac. Immanuel Tremellius, the converted Jew whose scholarship was so valuable to the English reformers and divines, made use of it, and in 1569 issued a Syriac New Testament in Hebrew script. In 1645, the editio princeps of the Old Testament was published by Gabriel Sionita for the Paris Polyglot, and in 1657 the whole Peshitta was included in Walton's London Polyglot. An edition of the Peshitta was that of John Leusden and Karl Schaaf, and it is still quoted under the symbol \"Syrschaaf\", or \"SyrSch\".\n\nNew Testament\n\nThis Peshitta New Testament excluding certain books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation) had become standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books are present in the Harklean Version (616 CE) of Thomas of Harqel.[6][7][8] The New Testament of the Peshitta often reflects the Byzantine text-type, although with some variations.[4][5]\n\nIn a detailed examination of Matthew 1-14, George Gwilliam found that where texts differ, the Peshitta agrees with the Textus Receptus only 108 times and with the Codex Vaticanus 65 times. Meanwhile, in 137 instances it differs from both, usually with the support of the Old Syriac and the Old Latin, and in 31 instances it stands alone.[9]\n\nA statement by the Church Father Eusebius that Hegesippus \"made some quotations from the Gospel according to the Hebrews and from the Syriac Gospel\", means we should have a reference to a Syriac New Testament as early as 160-180 CE, the time of that Hebrew Christian writer. The translation of the New Testament has been admired by Syriac scholars, who have deemed it \"careful, faithful, and literal\" with it sometimes being referred to as the \"Queen of the versions\".[10]\n\nCritical edition of the New Testament\n\nThe standard United Bible Societies 1905 edition of the New Testament of the Peshitta was based on editions prepared by Syriacists Philip E. Pusey (d. 1880), Gwilliam (d. 1914) and John Gwynn.[11] These editions comprised Gwilliam & Pusey's 1901 critical edition of the gospels, Gwilliam's critical edition of Acts, Gwilliam & Pinkerton's critical edition of Paul's Epistles and John Gwynn's critical edition of the General Epistles and later Revelation. This critical Peshitta text is based on a collation of more than seventy Peshitta and a few other Aramaic manuscripts. All 27 books of the common Western Canon of the New Testament are included in this British & Foreign Bible Society's 1905 Peshitta edition, as is the adultery pericope (John 7:53-8:11). The 1979 Syriac Bible, United Bible Society, uses the same text for its New Testament. The Online Bible reproduces the 1905 Syriac Peshitta NT in Hebrew characters.\n\nTranslations\n\nEnglish\n\nJohn Wesley Etheridge - A Literal Translation of the Four Gospels From the Peschito, or Ancient Syriac and The Apostolical Acts and Epistles From the Peschito, or Ancient Syriac: To Which Are Added, the Remaining Epistles and The Book of Revelation, After a Later Syriac Text (1849).\n\nJames Murdock - The New Testament, Or, The Book of the Holy Gospel of Our Lord and God, Jesus the Messiah (1851).\n\nGeorge M. Lamsa - The Holy Bible From the Ancient Eastern Text (1933) - Contains both the Old and New Testaments according to the Peshitta text. This translation is better known as the Lamsa Bible. He also wrote several other books on the Peshitta and Aramaic primacy such as Gospel Light, New Testament Origin, and Idioms of the Bible, along with a New Testament commentary. To this end, several well-known Evangelical Protestant preachers have used or endorsed the Lamsa Bible, such as Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, and William M. Branham.\n\nJanet Magiera - Aramaic Peshitta New Testament Translation, Aramaic Peshitta New Testament Translation - Messianic Version, and Aramaic Peshitta New Testament Vertical Interlinear (in three volumes) (2006). Magiera is connected to George Lamsa.\n\nThe Way International - Aramaic-English Interlinear New Testament\n\nWilliam Norton - A Translation, in English Daily Used, of the Peshito-Syriac Text, and of the Received Greek Text, of Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 1 John: With An Introduction On the Peshito-Syriac Text, and the Received Greek Text of 1881 and A Translation in English Daily Used: of the Seventeen Letters Forming Part of the Peshito-Syriac Books. William Norton was a Peshitta primacist, as shown in the introduction to his translation of Hebrews, James, I Peter, and I John.\n\nGorgias Press - Antioch Bible, a Peshitta text and translation of the Old Testament (including deuterocanon) and New Testament. 35 volumes.\n\nAndrew Gabriel Roth - Aramaic English New Testament (2008).\n\nGlenn David Bauscher - Aramaic-English Interlinear New Testament (2018)\n\nMalayalam\n\nAndumalil Mani Kathanar - Vishudha Grantham. New Testament translation in Malayalam.\n\nMathew Uppani C. M. I - Peshitta Bible. Translation (including Old and New Testaments) in Malayalam (1997).\n\nArch-corepiscopos Curien Kaniamparambil - Vishudhagrandham. Translation (including Old and New Testaments) in Malayalam.\n\nManuscripts\n\nAlthough physical evidence has yet to be found, 18th-century Maronite Orientalist Giuseppe Assemani[12] stated in his Bibliotheca Orientalis that a Syriac Gospel dated 78 CE was found in Mesopotamia.[13][14][15]\n\nThe following manuscripts are in the British Archives:\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14470 - complete text of 22 books of the New Testament, from the 5th/6th-century\n\nRabbula Gospels - a 6th-century illuminated Syriac Gospel Book[16]\n\nKhaboris Codex - a 10th-century complete Peshitta New Testament[17]\n\nCodex Phillipps 1388 - a Syriac manuscript on parchment containing text of the four Gospels dated Palaeographically to the 5th/6th centuries[18]\n\nBritish Library, Add. 12140 - a 6th-century manuscript on parchment containing text from the four Gospels[19]\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14479 - a 534 CE manuscript containing the 14 Pauline Epistles with some lacunae, dated by a colophon[20]\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14455 - a 6th-century heavily damaged manuscript containing parts of the four Gospels[21]\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14466 - a 10th/11th-century manuscript containing fragments of the gospels of Mark and Luke\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14467 - a 10th-century manuscript containing fragments of Matthew and John in Syriac and Arabic\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14669 - a 6th-century manuscript containing fragments of Luke and Mark.[22]\n\nSee also\n\nBible translations into Aramaic\n\nTargum\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ \"Peshitta | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-02-23.\n\n^ Brock, S. P. (2006). The Bible in the Syriac tradition (2nd rev. ed., pp. 17-22). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.\n\n^ Metzger, Bruce M. (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations. Oxford University Press. p. 57-58. The hypothesis that the Peshitta version of the New Testament was made by or for Rabbula, bishop of Edessa, probably in the early years of his episcopate, which extended from A.D. 411 to 435 ... The hypothesis of the Rabbulan authorship of the Peshitta New Testament soon came to be adopted by almost all scholars, being persuaded perhaps more by the confidence with which Burkitt propounded it than by any proof other than circumstantial evidence.\n\n^ a b Metzger, Bruce Manning (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations. New York; Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 61. ISBN 0-19-826170-5.\n\n^ a b Pickering, Wilbur N. (2012-04-16). Identity of the New Testament Text III. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-62032-097-6.\n\n^ Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1995). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: Q-Z. Wm. B. Eerdmans. p. 976. ISBN 0-8028-3784-0. Printed editions of the Peshitta frequently contain these books in order to fill the gaps. D. Harklean Version. The Harklean version is connected with the labors of Thomas of Harqel. When thousands were fleeing Khosrou's invading armies ...\n\n^ Kiraz, George Anton (2002) [1996]. Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels: Aligning the Old Syriac Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshitta and Harklean Versions (2nd ed.). Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.\n\n^ Kiraz, George Anton (2004) [1996]. Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels: Aligning the Old Syriac Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshitta and Harklean Versions (3rd ed.). Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.\n\n^ Metzger, Bruce M. (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations. Oxford University Press. p. 50.\n\n^ Nicol, Thomas. \"Syriac Versions of the Bible\". www.bible-researcher.com. Retrieved 2019-11-11.\n\n^ Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Subsidia. Catholic University of America. 1987. p. 37 ff.The project was founded by Philip E. Pusey who started the collation work in 1872. However, he could not see it to completion since he died in 1880. Gwilliam,\n\n^ \"Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn / De Scriptoribus Syris Monophysitis\". digitale-sammlungen.ulb.uni-bonn.de. Retrieved 2019-11-12.\n\n^ Michaelis, Johann David (1793). Introduction to the New Testament, tr., and augmented with notes (and a Dissertation on the origin and composition of the three first gospels) by H. Marsh. 4 vols. [in 6 pt.].\n\n^ Norton, William (1889). A Translation, in English Daily Used, of the Peshito-Syriac Text, and of the Received Greek Text, of Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 1 John: With an Introduction on the Peshito-Syriac Text, and the Revised Greek Text of 1881. W.K. Bloom. This sacred book was finished on Wed., the 18th day of the month Conun, in the year 389.\n\n^ Taylor, Robert; Smith, John Pye (1828). Syntagma of the evidences of the Christian religion. Being a vindication of the Manifesto of the Christian evidence society, against the assaults of the Christian instruction society through their deputy J.P.S. [in An answer to a printed paper entitled Manifesto &c.]. Repr. p. 32. This sacred book was finished on Wed., the 18th day of the month Conun, in the year 389.\n\n^ Peers, Glenn, Review of Bernabò\n\n^ Crawford, Gerrit (15 June 2012). \"PhD\". Why Again. Retrieved 15 May 2022.\n\n^ Metzger, Bruce M. (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations. Oxford University Press. p. 50.\n\n^ Wright (2002), William (1870). Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum. p. 49.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Metzger, Bruce M. (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations. Oxford University Press. p. 51.\n\n^ Wright (2002), William (1870). Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum. p. 45.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Wright (2002), William (1870). Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum. p. 67.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\nSources\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). The Bible in the Syriac Tradition: English Version. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1-59333-300-5.\n\nDirksen, P. B. (1993). La Peshitta dell'Antico Testamento. Brescia: Paideia. ISBN 88-394-0494-5.\n\nFlesher, P. V. M., ed. (2000) [1998]. \"Targum Studies Volume Two: Targum and Peshitta\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 120 (4): 644. doi:10.2307/606632. JSTOR 606632.\n\nLamsa, George M. (1985) [1933]. The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts. ISBN 0-06-064923-2.\n\nPinkerton, J.; Kilgour, R. (1920). The New Testament in Syriac. London: British and Foreign Bible Society, Oxford University Press.\n\nPusey, Philip E.; Gwilliam, G. H. (1901). Tetraevangelium Sanctum iuxta simplicem Syrorum versionem. Oxford University Press.\n\nWeitzman, M. P. (1999). The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63288-9.\n\nWilliams, Peter (2025). \"Following the Footnotes: The Syriac Bible\". Tyndale House. Cambridge.\n\nAttribution\n\n This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Nicol, Thomas. \"Syriac Versions\" in (1915) International Standard Bible Encyclopedia\n\nExternal links\n\nMalayalam Peshitta Bible (Malayalam Peshitta Bible)\n\nPeshitta New Testament (Dukhrana Biblical Research)\n\nOT Peshitta (Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon))\n\nSyriac Peshitta Syriac Peshitta Bible\n\nInterlinear Aramaic/English New Testament also trilinear Old Testament (Hebrew/Aramaic/English)\n\nThe Complete Peshitta on GitHub (Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer)\n\nThe Complete Peshitta and many other resources on Syriac language and literature (Department of Syriac Studies)\n\nPeshitta Online (Brill)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-peshitta"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2503}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-culture", "title": "Assyrian culture", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Assyrian culture is not only distinct in that it is different from the neighboring ethnic groups of the Assyrian homeland, but that many of its unique traits trace back to their ancient heritage in Mesopotamia. Many Assyrians (estimates of fluent speakers range from 500,000) still speak, read and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian culture is not only distinct in that it is different from the neighboring ethnic groups of the Assyrian homeland, but that many of its unique traits trace back to their ancient heritage in Mesopotamia. Many Assyrians (estimates of fluent speakers range from 500,000) still speak, read and write various Akkadian-influenced dialects of Eastern Aramaic, labelled by linguists as Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and Central Neo-Aramaic. \n\nA defining trait of modern Assyrian culture is the predominance of several denominations of Syriac Christianity,[1] notably the Ancient Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as other churches.\n\nAnnual celebrations\n\nAssyrians celebrate many different kinds of traditions within their communities, with the majority of Assyrian traditions being tied to Christianity. A number include feast days (Syriac: hareh) for different patron saints, the Rogation of the Ninevites (Syriac: ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝ̈ܐ, romanized: Baʿuṯa d-Ninwaye), Ascension Day (Kalo d-Sulaqa), Hano Qritho (Syriac: ܚܢܘ ܩܪܝܬܐ) and the most popular, the Kha b-Nisan (Syriac: ܚܕ ܒܢܝܣܢ, lit. '\"First of April\"'). Some of these traditions have been practised by the Assyrians for well over 1,500 years.\n\nAssyrian Martyr's Day\n\nThe Simele massacre (ܦܪܡܬܐ ܕܣܡܠܐ, Pramta d-Simmele) was the first of many massacres committed by the Iraqi government during the systematic targeting of the Assyrians of northern Iraq in August 1933. The killing spree that continued among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Nineveh districts led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 Assyrians.[2][3]\n\nAugust 7 became known as Martyrs Day (ܝܘܡܐ ܕܣܗܕ̈ܐ, Yawma d-Sahdhe) or National Day of Mourning by the Assyrian community in memory of the Simele massacre as it was declared by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1970. In 2004, the Syrian government banned the Assyrian political organization and the Assyrian community of Syria from commemorating the event, and threatened arrests if any were to break the ban.[4]\n\nResha d-Nisan ('Start of Spring' or 'Assyrian New Year')\n\nThe Assyrian new year festival, known as Resha d-Nisan (literally 'Head of April'), is celebrated on the first day of spring and continues for 12 days.\n\nCelebrations involve holding parades and parties, gathering in clubs and social institutions and listening to poets reciting \"the Story of Creation.\" The men and women wear traditional clothes and dance in parks for hours.\n\nAfter the formation of the Turkish state in the 1920s, Resha d-Nisan along with the Kurdish Nowruz were banned from being celebrated in public. Assyrians in Turkey were first allowed to publicly celebrate Resha d-Nisan in 2006, after organisers received permission from the government to stage the event, in light of democratic reforms adopted in support of Turkey's EU membership bid.[5]\n\nKalo d-Sulaqa ('Bride of the Ascension')\n\nThe legend of Kalo d-Sulaqa tells of a young Malik Shalita, governor of the Assyrian homeland's capital Mosul, who was first noticed by Tamerlane after he had successfully fought and defeated his initial attack on the city. The battle is then described as freedom fighters, both Christian and Muslim, defended against the Mongol attack.\n\nIt was during this time that, according to legend, Malik Shalita's wife organised Assyrian women dressed in white, and was given the responsibility to collect provisions from the nearby towns in order to feed the men fighting at the front. Having heard the fate that had befallen their countrymen in Tikrit and Mardin, they knew very well the fate in store for them if they were to lose this battle. Instead of running and hiding, the women prepared for the battle and joined the ranks of the defenders against unfavourable odds.\n\nThe historical account is in keeping with the legend, as both describe a brutal battle of attrition, in which both men and women joined and defended themselves against Tamerlane's attack. Malik Shalita and his wife-according to the legend dressed in white-are recorded as having been killed in this battle.\n\nThe Assyrian historian Arsanous states that the young boys and girls represent the dead young men and women who ascended to heaven because they died for the cause of Christianity and in defence of their homeland. The tragic nature of the 1401 event had left such an indelible impression on the minds of the survivors that they remembered the final battle and have honoured the memory of the fallen by re-enacting the camaraderie of the Assyrian men and women who died defending their homeland. However, those who managed to survive the massacres also in Baghdad were forced to flee into the Zagros Mountains.[6][7]\n\nThere are many traditional practises that Assyrians observe when celebrating Kalo d-Sulaqa (Ascension Day). Most commonly, in Hakkari, prior to the First World War, girls in each village would gather and choose the prettiest one among them to be the Kalo d-Sulaqa ('the Bride of the Ascension') for that year. She would be dressed in a traditional Assyrian wedding costume and then paraded around the village singing and asking for walnuts and raisins, which they would then share amongst themselves in a feast held afterwards in honour of the 'bride.'\n\nAssyrians would celebrate this day like any other feast, with music, dancing, food and drink, but also with a few differences. Apart from the little girls dressed as brides, there was also a custom practised by Assyrians living in Hakkari, where ropes were tied to strong branches of large trees. After this was done, all those present would attempt to climb one, and any not doing so would mean bad luck for them, while anyone reaching the end of the rope and the branch would have the best of luck for the coming year. This was done to represent the Ascension of Jesus and the eventual resurrection of the dead and final judgement. This custom is seldom practised today apart from certain areas in the northernmost extremities of Iraq.\n\nIn Urmi, on the other hand, it was customary for the little girls in the villages to dress as brides and when doing their rounds of their villages would also ask for pennies or trinkets. This is a reflection of the generally greater wealth of the Assyrians in the plains of that region.\n\nIt is also said that the very same custom was used during fierce battles. Young girls, dressed as brides, were ordered to take provisions to the men fighting on the battlefield. Their mothers, knowing that they may never return, used this custom to instill courage in their young daughters.\n\nIn Syria, young girls and boys would join and form a couple, dressed as bride and groom, and then go from door to door, singing. They were usually rewarded, not with money or candy, but with wheat, rice, fruits, and so on. At the end of the day, the children would go out to a field to cook and eat what they had collected.\n\nThis custom, particular to members of the Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church, survives in these communities worldwide and is marked by a party, often women only. It is also a new custom to hold a mock wedding reception complete with khigga, slow dance, dinner, and cake, the only difference being that the bride, groom, best man and maid of honour are all young girls.[8]\n\nBaʿuṯa d-Ninwaye ('Fast of Nineveh')\n\nThe Fast of Nineveh (ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝ̈ܐ, Baʿuṯa d-Ninwaye, literally 'Rogation of the Ninevites') is a three-day celebration that is composed of prayers and fasting that Assyrians of the Ancient Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Syriac Catholic Church (as well as The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in India) consider sacred. The word baʿuṯa (ܒܥܘܬܐ) is a Syriac word for 'pleading,' and from this meaning we receive the title of this commemoration.[9][10][11]\n\nThis annual observance occurs exactly three weeks before the start of Lent. This tradition has been practised by the Syriac Christians since the 6th century.[12]\n\nAccording to legend, in the 6th century, a plague inflicted the Nineveh Plains (in modern-day northern Iraq). The plague was devastating the city and the villages surrounding it, and out of desperation the people ran to their bishop to find a solution. The bishop sought help through the scriptures and came upon the story of Jonah in the Old Testament.[13]\n\nIn the Old Testament, God sent the prophet Jonah to warn the city of Nineveh of great destruction unless they repent for their sins: \"the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amathi, saying: Arise and go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up before me.\" Jonah did not wish for Nineveh to be saved since they (the people of Nineveh) were the enemies of Israel and preferred Nineveh to be destroyed. Instead of listening to God, Jonah fled to Tarshish, across the Mediterranean Sea. During his voyage, a violent storm occurred. The other sailors feared the boat would be completely destroyed and kill everyone if they did not get rid of Jonah, so they decided to throw Jonah overboard. As soon as Jonah hit the water, a giant fish swallowed Jonah whole. Jonah found himself in the dark stomach of the fish. Jonah began to pray earnestly for God to save him and, for three days and nights, Jonah prayed and asked for forgiveness for his disobedience.\n\nOn the third night the fish became violently ill and swam near to the seashore where it vomited Jonah onto the beach. Jonah, thankful that he had been spared, started on the journey to Nineveh. Reaching the walls of Nineveh, he began preaching to people as he walked through its streets, \"In forty days God will destroy this city because of your great sins.\" The king of Assyria became disturbed at the message that Jonah preached. He called his people together and commanded them to wear sackcloth clothing and to let neither man nor animals eat as the people prayed and repented of their wicked ways. All of the people of the city cried and prayed and asked God to forgive them for their sins. The city then was not destroyed.\n\nTo this day, Assyrians of all three denominations-Catholic, Orthodox and Church of the East-still observe the fast for three days each year. Additionally, this fast has, in recent years, been adopted by sister churches to the Syriac Orthodox Church of the Oriental Orthodox communion, namely the Coptic, Armenian, Malankara, and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches.[14][15][16]\n\nMarriage rituals\n\nAssyrians have various marriage rituals that are often practiced traditionally and have carried over to diaspora communities. Some examples of traditions include the 'Showering of the groom'[17] (Syriac: ܚܸܒ݂ܛܵܐ ܕܚܸܬܢܵܐ, romanized: Khypta d’ketna) and the Burakha (Syriac: ܒܘܼܪܵܟ݂ܵܐ).[18] Assyrian weddings are typically massive events that not only express the marriage of a new couple, but act as a way to express Assyrian identity within a communal space.\n\nFuneral rituals\n\nTraditional\n\nThe burial rituals of the Assyrians is described by Surma D'Bait Mar Shimun and the manner by which Assyrians of the highland cared for their dead relatives resemble what Olmsted wrote about how the ancient Assyrian cared for theirs. Surma wrote: \"In some districts-as in Tkhuma for instance-food is also placed on the graves and in this valley the graves are often made with a little niche in the side of them both for this purpose and for the putting of the light.\"[19] About the burial customs of the ancient Assyrians, Olmsted writes: \"always the lamp was left in a niche, and even the smoke can still be seen. A large water jar, a jug, and several dishes formed the remainder of the equipment needed for the after-life ...\"[20] Surma further adds; On the morning of the resurrection day before day light Assyrians in the highland visited the graves of their loved ones and lighted tapers on their resting site. The usual greeting at this time was \"light to your departed\".[19]\n\nContemporary\n\nIn the modern tradition, the mourning family host guests in an open house-style just after a loved one passes away. Only bitter coffee and tea are served, showcasing the sorrowful state of the family. Symbolically, some will not drink the coffee in front of them at all. On the funeral day, a memorial mass is held in the church. At the graveyard, the people gather and burn incense around the grave as clergy chant hymns in the Syriac language. The closest female relatives traditionally bewail or lament (bilyaya) in a public display of grief, with some beating their chest, as the casket descends. Other women may sing a dirge or a sentimental threnody (jnana, which are short, rhymed chants) to passionately heighten the mood of the mourning at the cemetery, similar to an Indian oppari. Zurna and dola may be played if the departed is a young, unmarried male.[21]\n\nDuring all these occasions, everyone is expected to dress in complete black, passively informing the community that they have recently buried a loved one. Following the burial, everyone would return to the church hall for afternoon lunch and eulogy. At the hall, the closest relatives sit on a long table facing the guests (akin to a bridegroom's table at a wedding) as many people walk by before leaving shaking hands, offering their condolences. At the hall, dates and halva may served to offer some \"sweetness\" in the bitter grieving period. On the third day, mourners would customarily visit the grave site with a pastor to burn incense, symbolising Jesus' triumph over death on the third day, and 40 days after the funeral (representing Jesus ascending to heaven), and in conclusion one year to the date. Mourners also wear only black until the 40 day mark, with no jewellery and would typically not dance or celebrate any major events for one year.[22]\n\nAssyrian cuisine\n\nAssyrian cuisine is primarily identical to Iraqi/Mesopotamian cuisine,[23] as well as being very similar to other Middle Eastern and Caucasian cuisines, as well as Greek cuisine, Levantine cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Iranian cuisine, Israeli cuisine, and Armenian cuisine, with most dishes being similar to the cuisines of the area in which those Assyrians live/originate from.[24] It is rich in grains such as barley, meat, tomato, herbs, spices, cheese, and potato as well as fermented dairy products and pickles.[25]\n\nSee also\n\nChristian culture\n\nReferences\n\n^ Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 206. ISBN 9780313321092. The Assyrians, although closely assiociated with their Christian religion, are divided among a number of Christian sects. The largest denominations are the Chaldean Catholic Church with about 45% of the Assyrian population, the Syriac Orthodox with 26%, the Assyrian Church of the East with 19%, the free Orthodox Church of Antioch or Syriac Catholic Church with 4%, and various Protestant sects with a combined 6%.\n\n^ International Federation for Human Rights - \"Displaced persons in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraqi refugees in Iran\", 2003.\n\n^ The Origins and Developments of Assyrian Nationalism.\n\n^ Good Morning Assyria, Zinda Magazine.\n\n^ Assyrians Celebrate New Year for First Time in Turkey (SETimes.com)\n\n^ \"Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?\". The New York Times. 22 July 2015.\n\n^ \"Is Christianity Doomed in the Middle East?\". The New Republic. 31 January 2015.\n\n^ Aljeloo, Nicholas (May 2001). \"Kalu Sulaqa - Customs and Traditions\" (PDF). Nakosha: The Assyrian-Australian Youth Publication. p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 15, 2004.\n\n^ \"The Fast of Nineveh\". soc-wus.org. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"Three day fast of Nineveh\". syriacorthodoxresources.org. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"The Rogation of the Ninevites - National Council of Churches in Australia\". www.ncca.org.au. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"The Fast of Nineveh\". S I L O U A N. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"The Rogation of the Ninevites - National Council of Churches in Australia\". www.ncca.org.au. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"The Fast of Nineveh\". soc-wus.org. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"The Fast of Nineveh (Jonah's Fast) - Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church Sunday School Department - Mahibere Kidusan\". Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ \"Nineveh Fast\". St. Gregorios Malankara Orthodox Cathedral. 2017-02-06. Retrieved 2025-06-28.\n\n^ Gawo, Sarah. \"Assyrian Wedding Traditions\". Assyrian Cultural Foundation. Retrieved 2025-04-21.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Wedding, Chicago, IL\". triptych.brynmawr.edu. 1992.\n\n^ a b S urma D 'beit-mar Shimoun, \"Assyrian Church Customs and the Murder of Mar Shimoun\", Mar Shimoun Memorial Fund 1983 p.40\n\n^ A.T. Olsmtead, \"History of Assyria\" The University of Chicago Press 1968 third edition p.625\n\n^ Assyrian Rituals of Life-Cycle Events by Yoab Benjamin\n\n^ Troop, Sarah. “The Hungry Mourner.” Modern Loss, 22 Jul 2014. Web. 24 Jan 2016.\n\n^ Levitt, Aimee. \"Enemy Kitchen, a food truck and public art project, serves up hospitality in place of hostility\". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ Mandel, Pam (2017-12-05). \"An Ancient Empire Gets New Life - on a Food Truck\". Jewish in Seattle Magazine. Archived from the original on 2019-06-03. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ Edelstein, Sari, ed. (2011). Food, Cuisine, and Cultural Competency for Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professionals. Boston, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning. pp. 545-552. ISBN 978-0763759650.\n\nFurther reading\n\nИстребитель колючек. Сказки, легенды и притчи современных ассирийцев [Fairy Tales, Legends and Parables from the Modern Assyrians]. Сост., перев. с ассир. и европ. яз. К. П. Матвеева. Отв. ред. М. С. Лазарев. Мoskva: Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1974.\n\nHarper, Prudence O.; et al. (1995). Assyrian origins: discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0870997432.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2016). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Assyrian Christians of Urmi (in 4 vols). Vol. 4: Folktales. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004313934."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-culture"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2949}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-folk-dance", "title": "Assyrian folk dance", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Assyrian folk dances are sets of dances that are performed throughout the world by Assyrians, mostly on occasions such as weddings, community parties and other jubilant events.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian folk dances are sets of dances that are performed throughout the world by Assyrians, mostly on occasions such as weddings, community parties and other jubilant events.[1]\n\nAssyrian folk dances are mainly made up of circle dances like ballet that are performed in a line, which may be straight, curved, or both. Most of the dances allow unlimited number of participants, with the exception of the Sabre Dance, which require three at most. Assyrian dances would vary from weak to strong, depending on the mood and tempo of a song.\n\nAssyrian folk dances belong to five metric groups: 2\n4 (10 dances), 4\n4 (6 dances), 6\n8 (13 dances), 9\n8 (1 dance), 10\n8 (1 dance). The tempo would usually range from slow (70 beats per minute) to very fast (140 beats).[2]\n\nHistory\n\nLily Oraham Taimoorazy, sometimes considered to be the mother of Assyrian folk dancing, founded a dance group called the Shamiram Folkloric Group in Tehran in 1957.[3] The group performed at several different events in Iran and Europe, including the coronation of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, until its disbandment in 1980.[3] In the years leading up to her leaving Iran, she allowed American folk dance researcher Rickey Holden to publish booklets and phonographic records detailing Assyrian folk dances.[4] The research done by Holden through his collaboration with the Shamiram Folkloric Group was the publication of two books, carefully noting the steps of the dances, as well as LPs and an article for Viltis translating and transliterating two Assyrian folk songs.[5]\n\nTechnique\n\nAll Assyrian dances, with the exception of the Sabre Dance, are done in a connected circle. Most Assyrian circle dances are lateral, vining and open-ended, where more and more participants can join the dance. In an open floor space, the lines assume open circular shapes where they tend to curve and acquire spiral shapes as determined by floor space availability.[6]\n\nThere are only five ways of moving the body; Step, leap, run, hop and jump. The legs are also used to stamp, stomp and kick. The arms are used predominantly and they'd usually move independently of the legs. Arm gestures include bouncing, swinging forward and back, moving side-to-side, lifting above the head and clapping.\n\nIn many dances, the torso, along with the shoulders and arms, bounce up and down rhythmically. Stomps and stamps are also executed in Assyrian folk dances. Knee bends, deep squats and leg extensions are a regular occurrence in Assyrian dance.[7]\n\nThe connections include, hand-to-hand, hand to shoulder, and hand to hip, with hand-to-hand being the most popular. The hand-to-hand type has three connections; The \"W\", the \"V\" and the \"T\". The \"W\" arm hold is the most common where the arms are raised into the \"W\" position (or, at least, it appears to look like the letter W). The \"T\" dance is where hands are placed on other participants's shoulders. This is the least common dance of the three.[8]\n\nDances\n\nFast pace\n\nSiskany: The Siskany dance involves the participants briskly shaking their shoulders where they move their limbs energetically, with an emphasis on their feet in a zippy manner. It is usually classified as a form of khigga, but due to its fast performance and style, it is also considered its own dance. Sometimes the khigga beat is geared up to this to indicate a climactic end. The pulsating tempo is consanguineous to the electronic dance music and dance-pop found in western music. The dance technique is virtually like the khigga one, albeit it is in a faster fashion and with more emphasis placed on the feet. Alternatively, a simpler form involves the dancers plainly going forwards and backwards to the beat with stomps, as if they are rocking or swinging. The dance goes by the time signature of 4\n4 and the tempo is around 120-135bpm.\n\nGubbare: Mostly danced at the end of a party. The music is fast, lively and upbeat, akin to a jig. The music accompanying the dance is typically in the major key. Pinkies interlock, dancers repeatedly go forward and back in motion in the circle. People start by taking one step with their right, than one step to the left, and one step right again. During these steps, the arms are lifted and swung side to side in the same motion as the steps. Afterwards, dancers take their left foot and kick it into the air, than the right foot, than the left foot again before moving to the left while crossing their legs and swinging their arms down. The process than repeats all over again until the end of the song. Gubareh is in 4\n4 and its tempo is around 125-135bpm.\n\nBablaka: Fervently danced, with pinkies interlocking, where they (hands and arms too) move up and down energetically and perennially.[9] But unlike gubareh, the participant is more stable where they will not prance forward and backwards in the dance floor. Motion is intemperately focused on arms, shoulders and hands in bablaka. Dancers may also rhythmically bend knees. The beat is virtually homogeneous to gubareh. It also danced at the end of parties. The meter is 4\n4 and tempo is around 125-130bpm.\n\nBelaty: The dance is accompanied by a moderately fast-paced Arabic rhythm (similar to belly dancing music). Dancers would connect hand-to-hand in the circle, lift legs to the beat whilst making a slight leap and kick their legs to the sides in the air (this would repeat). An example of a notable song with a belaty beat is Ahela Yoni by Ashur Bet Sargis. Becoming somewhat rare recently, songs traditionally in its rhythm are now played and danced to in the Bagiyeh or Peda beat. The beat is 125-135bpm. 4\n4.\n\nTolama: Lively and energetic dance where the participants constantly jump and kick legs in the air repeatedly (similar in fashion to belaty and gubareh), whilst also moving their torso forward and backwards. It also danced at the end of parties after Gubbareh, but it is not as commonly practiced as Gubbareh. Assyrians have two varieties of the dance that involve either one or two legs, but both variants have participants continuously crossing their legs over one another. A notable song in this beat is Shoshonla by Shamiram Urshan. The time signature is 2\n4 and temp is 125-140bpm.\n\nSabre dance: A solo dance that usually involves one to three participants. As the dance starts, the sword bearer dances by himself, waving his sword and holding his shield (a shield is optional, though). The dance represents the symbolic surrender of the bride to the groom and his family. In weddings, it is performed by the closest male relatives of the couple. The rhythm is a 6\n8 duple meter, and this gives a \"springy\" feeling to the dance.[10]\n\nModerate pace\n\nKhigga: The simplest and most common dance beat in Assyrian music. Individuals hold hands with the line or circle following around the dance floor where they gently move one leg forward, backward and repeat with the next leg while shifting to the right. Its music is the first beat that is played when welcoming the bride and groom to the reception hall. A notable song with this beat is Moralon by Evin Agassi. Furthermore, the term khigga is also occasionally used to denote all the Assyrian folk circle dances, i.e. \"Khigga'd belaty\" (\"khigga of belaty\"), \"khigga'd gubareh\", etc. It is generally danced from right to left by Iraqi and Iranian Assyrians. Khigga goes by the time signature of 4\n4 with moderate tempo between 105-115bpm. Rhythm is similar to that of a shuffle beat.\n\nHeavy Khigga (Khigga Yaqoora): Virtually the same dance as above, except the tempo is 'heavier' where the participants would make more ardent and exaggerated moves, as its name suggests, namely knee bending. It is not to be confused with Siskani, as that dance beat is faster and has distinguishing techniques. It is danced from right to left by Assyrians from Iraq and Iran, and left to right by Assyrians from Syria. Connection is always made by hands. Examples of songs having this beat is Zayno Mala by David Simon. Heavy khigga goes by the time signature of 4\n4 with tempo between 115-120bpm.\n\nKhigga'd Suria (Syrian Khigga) or Beriyeh: Danced by Assyrians from Syria, it is a standard khigga that is generally accompanied by a faster beat, usually at around 110-120bpm. Dancers connect by pinkies, where they repeatedly wave their connected pinkies whilst taking a few steps forwards and one step backwards. It is generally danced from left to right. The dance technique is similar to gubareh, but it lacks the fast-paced multiple forward-steps and leg kicking. It is danced during the entrance of the bride and groom at weddings.\n\nTanzara: A folk dance native to the Armenian highlands, legend has it that the dance was brought to Anatolia by the ancient Assyrians during their conquest of the region in the Assyrian empire in commemoration to the god of food and vegetation. Dancers connect by holding hands in the circle or line, go forwards and backwards by making a little knee bending. Uncommon than above dances, and nowadays is most often performed by Armenians and Azeris. The time signature is 2\n4 and tempo is 115-125bpm.\n\nKochari: The notable attribute of this dance is that the participants are connected by arms-on-arms (akin to dabke). Each leg makes a kick in a repetitive manner. Common among Assyrians in Syria. Very rare among other Assyrians. 2\n4, 110-120bpm\n\nSlow pace\n\nSheikhani: One of the older dances, Sheikhani is laid-back, albeit bouncy, and slightly slower than khigga. The main movement is two-step. The two-step begins with the right foot (right-left-right) and is then repeated with the left foot (left-right-left). Hands are interlocked, left arm is bent at the elbow and pressed against the back, right arm held forward against the back of the dancer in front. The dancers go forward a couple steps in, with their arms at their sides and at the same time, kick into the center. After that, they immediately step back out. A notable song with a sheikhani beat is Wye Wye Minakh by Sargon Gabriel. Sheykhani is 4\n4 in time signature and is 90-105bpm. Rhythm is similar to a dembow.\n\nBagiye (Sheikhani Yaqoora): Evolved from Sheikhani, Bagiyeh (also known as Sheikhani Yaqoora) has a move where the dancers slowly turn to face the back of the dancer in front or side of them, leisurely kick both legs in the air, then brusquely raise hands into air whilst making a sharp rotation. The dancers would turn to the right; their hands are hooked to one another by the fingers, the right arm is bent in front of the body, and the left arm is bent in behind the back. Although similar, bagiye is more sluggish and elaborate than sheikhany. Certain villages, such as Alqosh in the Nineveh Plains, will remove the “two step” move (the two extra kicks) making the sequences shorter. It's possible to see variations of the dance performed in the Assyrian diaspora. There is a homogeneous variant of this dance called Peda with particularised sets of songs, popularised by singer-songwriter Adwar Mousa in Syria. The dance beat has gotten popular in the late 2000s and 2010s, with songs traditionally in the belaty rhythm being incorporated into this beat. Notable song with a bagiyeh beat is Yalekhta by Linda George. Notable song affiliated with peda is Narineh by Sargon Gabriel. Bagiyeh is 4\n4 in time signature and is 80-95bpm.\n\nGeorgina: A Kurdish-inspired dance that's slow-paced and usually accompanied by sentimental ballads (one popular song being Zereneh by Janan Sawa). The music tends have a Turkish and Kurdish flavour. Dancers hold the pinkie or little finger and move them rhythmically (akin to bablaka, albeit gently). It is more common among Chaldean Assyrians. The tempo is around 70bpm-80bpm. 3\n4.\n\nChobi: A modern circle dance found in Iraqi music. It is also practiced by Iraqi Assyrians. The dance is similar to khigga, but it would have more pronounced leg elevation and swaying. Each leg swiftly kicks to the air and repeats. Arms sway forwards and backwards. Songs may usually be in Iraqi Arabic, but a few Assyrian songs such as Teela Teela by Evin Agassi would have this rhythm. The tempo is around 95bpm-100bpm.[11]\n\nArabanoo: A slow circle dance where dancers interconnect with pinkies and sway tardily around in a circle. Mostly practiced among Urmian Assyrians. It is not to confused with Georgina as this dance is slower and more serene in comparison. Aywateh by Evin Agassi utilizes this beat. Uncommon. 6\n8, 52-66bpm\n\nAzia Tamma: Similar to sheikhani in terms of pace, but with more steps that go forward and backwards (or reverse) a notch. Not common. 2\n4, 82-88bpm\n\nOther dances\n\nThese Assyrian folk dances are rarely danced, but they're still practiced within some tribes and/or special events:\n\nAkmale\n\nAzrabukeh: 6\n8, 116-126bpm\n\nBet-Karkhan\n\nBeriyo\n\nChalakhan: 6\n8, 126-132bpm\n\nDemale: 4\n4, 63-69bpm\n\nDimdimma: 2\n4 or 6\n8, 72-76 (2\n4), 118-122bpm (6\n8)\n\nHareigooleh: 6\n8, 116-124bpm\n\nHoberban: 6\n8, 130-134bpm\n\nJaniman: 10\n8, 60-66bpm\n\nMamer: 2\n4, 122-130bpm\n\nJaniman: 10\n8, 60-66bpm\n\nHoberban: 6\n8, 130-134bpm\n\nMamyana: 2\n4, 68-74bpm\n\nShapshapa\n\nShara: 6\n8, 92-100bpm\n\nSinjiyeh\n\nZingirta: 2\n4, 120-150bpm\n\nSee also\n\nMiddle Eastern dance\n\nSirto\n\nHoron\n\nBar\n\nAn dro\n\nMusic of Iraq\n\nExternal links\n\nLily Oraham Taimoorazy on Qeenatha\n\n30 Assyrian Folk Dances by Peter Pnuel BetBasoo\n\nReferences\n\n^ Andrae, W. Farbige kemik aus Assur, Fig. 29, s.24\n\n^ Stauder, W. Harfen Und Leiern Vorderasiens im Babylonischer under Assyrischer Zeit, s. 51-55, 36-38\n\n^ a b Lang, Esther (8 March 2022). \"Lily Oraham Taimoorazy\". auaf.us. Assyrian Cultural Foundation. Retrieved 2025-06-27.\n\n^ \"Lili Taymourazi\". www.sfdh.us. The Society of Folk Dance Historians (SFDH). Retrieved 2025-06-27.\n\n^ Moradkhan, Madlaine Davis (1993). \"Prof. Lilli Oraham Tamraz (Teymourazi): Author - Educator - Mother of Assyrian Folk Dancing 1900-1992\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 16, no. 4. Berkeley, California. pp. 22-25. Retrieved 27 June 2025.\n\n^ Engel, Carl. The Musik of the most ancient nation, London, 1864.\n\n^ Anca Giurchescu, Sunni Bloland; Romanian Traditional Dance; Wild Flower Press; Mill Valley, California; 1995\n\n^ Subhi Anwar Rashid, Mesopotamien, Abb 137\n\n^ Rudolf Laban, The Mastery of Movement; Boston: Plays; 1950.\n\n^ Subhi Anwar Rashid, Mesopotamien (Musikgeschichte in Bildern, Leipzig 1984, S. 130 Abb 147\n\n^ Subhi Anwar Rashid, The History of Musical Instruments in Old Iraq, Fig. 41 (In Arabic)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-folk-dance"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2407}, {"slug": "reference-khigga", "title": "Khigga", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Khigga is a style of Assyrian folk dance in which multiple dancers hold each other's hands and form a semi-circle or a curved line. There are multiple foot patterns that dancers perform. Its thought to have been danced for thousands of years. It is one of the most...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Khigga is a style of Assyrian folk dance in which multiple dancers hold each other's hands and form a semi-circle or a curved line. There are multiple foot patterns that dancers perform. Its thought to have been danced for thousands of years. It is one of the most common and simplest Assyrian folk dances, generally performed at weddings, baptisms, confirmations and other joyous occasions. Set in common time, khigga is accompanied by a moderate dance beat and is usually performed to Assyrian folk and pop music. \n\nTo note, the term Khigga is occasionally used to denote all the Assyrian folk circle dances, i.e. \"Khigga'd Belaty\" (\"Khigga of Belaty\"), \"Khigga'd Gubareh\", etc.[1]\n\nBackground\n\nThe word 'khigga' comes from Classical Syriac ܚܳܓ (ḥāgg, “to go around”) and is a cognate of Arabic haj (حج). \n\nKhigga is traditionally danced with music played on the zurna, supported by a davul, but in recent years, both acoustic and electronic instruments have started to replace them. The khigga has spread from Anatolia to many other regions, such as Armenia and the Balkans. The khigga is a group of traditional hand-holding dances similar to those from the Balkans and Eastern European countries, with a single or a couple of figure dancers often added to the geometrical centre of the dancing circle. \n\nIn Assyrian weddings, as well as parties and other various social gatherings, people may dance khigga for hours. Every region has its own style and forms. Khigga is simple to dance and it is the first beat that is played in welcoming the bride and groom to the reception hall.\n\nTechnique\n\nAs with most Assyrian folk dances, khigga assumes an open circular shape and is open-ended, where more and more participants can join throughout the dance session. In a restricted floor space (e.g. a lot of tables), the dance would tend to vine around the room and assume spiral, circular and curvy shapes. Arms are predominantly used which usually move independently of the legs. Arm motions include bouncing, swinging forward and back, moving side-to-side. The torso, along with the shoulders and arms, bounces up and down rhythmically, often independently of the legs. Stomps and stamps are also present. Khigga goes by the time signature of 4\n4 and tempo between 100 and 115.[1] \n\nConnection can also be made by pinkies, such as in the variant danced by Assyrians from Syria (\"khigga'd suria\" or \"beriye\"), which is accompanied by a faster beat, usually at around 115-120bpm, where the dancers wave their connected pinkies whilst taking a few steps forward and one step backwards in a brisk manner. This Syrian khigga form is generally danced from left to right and it also is the first beat danced in a Syrian-Assyrian wedding when the married couple are welcomed in the reception. \n\nKhigga has other varieties such as \"Heavy Khigga\" or \"Normal/Standard Khigga\". With Heavy Khigga (or \"Khigga Yaqoora\" in Assyrian), the tempo is 'heavier', as its title suggests, where the participants would make more ardent and exaggerated moves, such as knee bending and rhythmical shoulder motions. It is not to be confused with Siskani, as that dance beat is faster and has distinguishing techniques. The Siskany dance, which may be deemed a khigga variant, is a much faster paced form of khigga where the dancers bend their knees and briskly shake their shoulders in a zippy manner, or just move forwards and backwards. Sometimes the khigga beat is geared up to this to indicate a climactic end.\n\nThe head of the khigga line, referred to as \"Resha d'khigga\" (ܪܝܫܐ ܕܚܓܐ), usually dances with a Yalekhta (ܝܠܚܬܐ), or a handkerchief with beads and bells added to the sides so it jingles when shaken. A Yalekhta can have many different designs on the piece of cloth. A \"copala\" (ܟܘܦܠܐ), or decorated cane, is also used at many Assyrian weddings. Among Iraqi Assyrians, khigga goes from right to left, whereas Assyrians from Syria generally dance the khigga from left to right.\n\nSee also\n\nTovlama, another Assyrian dance\n\nKochari\n\nDabke\n\nTamzara\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b THIRTY ASSYRIAN FOLK DANCES by Pete Pnuel Bet Basoo from AINA"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-khigga"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 688}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-music", "title": "Assyrian music", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Assyrian music may refer to: Music of Mesopotamia, is a music in ancient Assyria Assyrian folk/pop music Syriac sacral music, sacral music in Syriac Christianity See also Syriac music (disambiguation)", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian music may refer to:\n\nMusic of Mesopotamia, is a music in ancient Assyria\n\nAssyrian folk/pop music\n\nSyriac sacral music, sacral music in Syriac Christianity\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac music (disambiguation)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-music"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 31}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-cuisine", "title": "Assyrian cuisine", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Assyrian cuisine is the cuisine of the indigenous Assyrian people, Eastern Aramaic-speaking Syriac Christians of Iraq,[1] northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey. Assyrian cuisine is primarily identical to Iraqi/Mesopotamian cuisine, as well as being very similar to other Middle Eastern and Caucasian cuisines, as well as Greek...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian cuisine is the cuisine of the indigenous Assyrian people, Eastern Aramaic-speaking Syriac Christians of Iraq,[1] northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey. Assyrian cuisine is primarily identical to Iraqi/Mesopotamian cuisine, as well as being very similar to other Middle Eastern and Caucasian cuisines, as well as Greek cuisine, Levantine cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Iranian cuisine, Palestinian cuisine, and Armenian cuisine, with most dishes being similar to the cuisines of the area in which those Assyrians live/originate from.[2] It is rich in grains such as barley, meat, tomato, herbs, spices, and potato as well as fermented dairy products, and pickles.[3]\n\nLunch and dinner\n\nThere is no difference between lunch and dinner to Assyrians as there are with some other cultures. They are referred to as kawitrā w kharamsha, or ˁurāytā w ḥšāmtā (ܚܕܝܐ ܘ ܥܫܝܐ). Lunch and dinner typically consist of basmati rice, which can be prepared either plain, red (smooqah), yellow (shaootah), or plain with fried miniature noodles called sha'riya. Alternatively, there is also green rice (reza qeena), which is flavoured and seasoned with lima beans and dill, which give it a green colour. In place of rice, gurgur (burghul or \"perda\" in Assyrian) can be prepared in the same way as rice. Beef and chicken kebab, grilled on skewers or a spit, are also commonly eaten at mealtime.\n\nBiryani is an Assyrian rice dish with sha'riya made of green peas, fried cubed potatoes, almonds, raisins, sliced hard boiled eggs, and chicken. Rezza smooqah (red rice) is often made with chicken or meat. Rice is usually accompanied with a stew, called shirwah(sometimes also called shorba), with a broth basis (prepared with tomato paste, water, and spices) and a main vegetable ingredient (potatoes, beans, okra, string beans, spinach, cauliflower, or zucchini). Beef, chicken, or ox tails can be added according to taste and availability. During Lent, meat is omitted for religious reasons. A traditional Assyrian salad is cubed tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and red onions made with a homemade dressing of lemon, vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil.\n\nOther various types of Assyrian special dishes include thlokheh (lentils cooked with curry and sha'riya), kofta (kipteh, ground beef meatballs flavored with parsley, rice, onion, and spices in a tomato based stew),[4] kuba hammouth (ground beef long meatballs with an outer cracked wheat shell, much similar to Syrian and Lebanese fried kibbeh), and girdo (or bushala) is a porridge made of rice and sour yoghurt, served with date or fig syrup.[3][5][6]\n\nOther traditional Assyrian specialities include tepsi (a casserole made in layers of fried potato, fried eggplant, fried green peppers, fried onions, meat, and tomatoes drenched in a tomato sauce and baked in the oven, not unlike the Levantine version of moussaka), shamakhshi (fried rolled eggplant stuffed with ground beef in tomato sauce), dolma (rice and tomato sauce stuffed in grape leaves, cabbage, various peppers, zucchini, and eggplant), masgouf (fish spiced with olive oil, salt, and turmeric, topped with tomatoes, potatoes, and onions, then oven-baked) and lahmacun (flatbread topped with ground beef, tomato paste, spices, and onions).\n\nSesame seeds are important to the cuisine and used to make tahini; an Assyrian folk tale tells of the gods drinking sesame wine on the night before they created the earth.[7]\n\nSoups and stews\n\nBoushala (or bushala) is one of the oldest known dishes; it is a yoghurt-based soup with assorted greens such as Swiss chard or spinach and bulgur wheat.[3] This soup can be served hot or cold.[3] Dikhwah (or dokhwa) is a dried yoghurt-based heavy stew with barley and meat.[6]\n\nHarissa (or hareesa) is a porridge made with hulled wheat berries, deboned chicken or beef, and broth, sometimes eaten with butter or cinnamon.[3]\n\nTashrib (or tashreeb) is a soup made of chickpeas, onions, and chicken or lamb meat, often served on top of bread at breakfast.[8][9] Tashrib is similar to a Syrian dish called fatta and an Iraqi dish called tashghib. There are variations of the dish that may include more toppings like lentils, noodles, and pomegranate.[9]\n\nPacha, similar to Armenian and Turkish dishes, is a heavy stew consisting of lamb stomach stuffed with rice, brain, tongue, liver, or offal.[10]\n\nDesserts\n\nThere are several different types of desserts such as cakes and cookies, which include baklava, kulecheh, kadeh, nazoochi, and others. Due to the influence from the post-Ottoman occupation of Iraq and Syria by the British and French many customs were picked up from the colonial administrators, tea and biscuits are often eaten as snacks.\n\nKadeh looks like a thick yellowish flat bread though it contains plenty of butter, eggs, and sugar which renders it a very sweet pastry. Kadeh are usually prepared alongside kulecheh and are served during Christmas.[3] Nazoochi is similar to kadeh but sweeter and cut into a triangle shape; it is served during tea time or during social events.[3]\n\nBeverages\n\nAlcoholic beverages are consumed at different rates in the Assyrian community depending on geography.[3] Arak is one of the most popular alcoholic beverages and can be distilled from grapes or dates.[3] It is a strong alcohol so it is often served with food; it tastes like black liquorice and is clear until mixed with water, which then becomes milky-white. Assyrian rural communities have often traditionally brewed their own organic wheat beer and produced their own wine.\n\nDaweh is a popular yogurt drink made with yogurt, water, salt, and sometimes mint. It is consumed during the summer when it is hot.[3]\n\nBlack tea is almost always drunk in the morning with Assyrian breakfast. Assyrian tea is drunk with sugar and evaporated milk, as opposed to regular milk or cream. Dried lime tea, or chai noomi basra, an Arab herbal tea, may be consumed to treat upset stomachs and indigestion.\n\nTraditional Assyrian coffee is made in a large bronze jezve (which is covered with Assyrian imagery) and is served sweetened, similar to Turkish coffee.[11] Turkish coffee, which is a hold-over from Ottoman times, is often prepared the same way.\n\nGallery\n\n Bushala\n\n Typical kubba\n\n Kipteh\n\n Okra stew\n\n Pacha\n\n Dolma\n\n Tepsi\n\n Biryani\n\n Tlokheh (lentil soup)\n\n Kouba stew\n\n Kleicha\n\n Hareesa (wheat porridge)\n\n Dekhwa (barley soup)\n\n Gerdoo\n\n Green rice\n\nSee also\n\nArab cuisine\n\nBerber cuisine\n\nJewish cuisine\n\nKurdish cuisine\n\nSyrian cuisine\n\nReferences\n\n^ Levitt, Aimee. \"Enemy Kitchen, a food truck and public art project, serves up hospitality in place of hostility\". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ Mandel, Pam (2017-12-05). \"An Ancient Empire Gets New Life - on a Food Truck\". Jewish in Seattle Magazine. Archived from the original on 2019-06-03. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j Edelstein, Sari, ed. (2011). Food, Cuisine, and Cultural Competency for Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professionals. Boston, Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Learning. pp. 545-552. ISBN 978-0763759650.\n\n^ Edelstein, Sari (2010). Food, Cuisine, and Cultural Competency for Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professionals. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. p. 594. ISBN 9781449618117.\n\n^ Peggie Jacob. \"Peggie's Mediterranean Cookbook\" Morris Press\n\n^ a b Conway, Sarah (2017-03-24). \"Why You Should Eat Like the Ancient Assyrians Ate\". Assyrian International News Agency (AINA). Archived from the original on 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ \"Why Sesame is an Incredible Ingredient to Use in Different Cuisines\". NDTV Food. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ \"10 Iraqi Foods That Will Acquaint You to the Primitive Flavors of Mesopotamia\". Flavorverse. 2018-01-06. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ a b Davidson, Alan (2014). The Oxford Companion to Food. United Kingdom: Oxford. p. 415. ISBN 978-0191040726.\n\n^ \"AAA of Modesto Assyrian Food (Patcha)\". 2005-12-18. Archived from the original on 2005-12-18. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\n^ \"Just Don't Call it Turkish Coffee - Roads & Kingdoms\". Roads & Kingdoms. 2014-04-17. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2018-03-21.\n\nExternal links\n\nAAA of Modesto - Assyrian Recipes (archived 15 December 2005)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-cuisine"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1298}, {"slug": "reference-kha-b-nisan", "title": "Kha b-Nisan", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Kha b-Nisan, Ha b-Nisin,[1] or Ha b-Nison (Syriac: ܚܕ ܒܢܝܣܢ, \"First of April\"), also known as Resha d-Sheta (Syriac: ܪܫܐ ܕܫܢܬܐ, \"Head of the year\"), Akitu (ܐܟܝܬܘ), or Assyrian New Year,[2] is the spring festival among the indigenous Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Kha b' Nisan\n\nKha b' Nisan celebration in Nahla region\n\nOfficial nameSyriac: ܚܕ ܒܢܝܣܢ\n\nObserved byAssyrian people\n\nTypeCultural\n\nSignificanceNew Year holiday\n\nDate1 April\n\nNext time1 April 2027 (2027-04-01)\n\nRelated toAkitu, Seharane, Noruz\n\nKha b-Nisan, Ha b-Nisin,[1] or Ha b-Nison (Syriac: ܚܕ ܒܢܝܣܢ, \"First of April\"), also known as Resha d-Sheta (Syriac: ܪܫܐ ܕܫܢܬܐ, \"Head of the year\"), Akitu (ܐܟܝܬܘ), or Assyrian New Year,[2] is the spring festival among the indigenous Assyrians of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran,[3] celebrated on the first day of April.\n\nThe festival has its roots in the ancient Mesopotamian religion and its festival of Akitu, which were practiced by Assyrians until the faith's gradual demise in the face of Syriac Christianity between the 1st and 4th centuries AD. Today, Assyrians are predominantly Christian,[4] with most being adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church. \n\nCelebrations involve parades and parties. Some Assyrians wear traditional costumes and dance for hours. Celebrations take place throughout Assyria and other areas in the Middle East, along with some in the United States, Europe, Australia, Canada and the Caucasus among Assyrian diaspora communities.[5][6] There are often parties with food, music and dancing.[7]\n\nHistory\n\nThe month of Nisan was around the time of the vernal equinox, which is around March 21. (In the Hebrew calendar, Nisan may start a couple of weeks before the equinox.) Now the name \"Nisan\" is used for April, so the first of Nisan is April 1. The Vernal equinox is celebrated throughout Greater Iran as Noruz (meaning \"New Day\") on 21 March. However, in the ancient Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian traditions, the spring festival was celebrated in the first days of the month known as \"Nisan\"[8] and the calendar adopted by the ancient Assyrians had the month \"Nisan\" at the beginning of the calendar[9] lending to the term \"Kha b-Nisan\", or the \"first of Nisan\".\n\nThe modern observance of Akitu began in the 1960s during the Assyrian intellectual renaissance.[10] Due to political oppression, however, the celebrations were largely private until the 1990s.[10]\n\nThe event is largely celebrated by Assyrians residing in Syria. Although the Syrian government does not acknowledge the festival, Assyrians still continue with the celebration.[11] In 2002, Assyrians in Syria celebrated the event with a mass wedding of 16 couples and over 25,000 attendees.[12] After the formation of Turkey, Kha b-Nisan along with Nowruz were banned from public celebration. Assyrians in Turkey were first allowed to publicly celebrate Kha b-Nisan in 2005, after organizers received permission from the government to stage the event, in light of democratic reforms adopted in support of Turkey's EU membership bid.[13][14] Around 5,000 people \"including large groups of visiting ethnic Assyrians from Europe, Syria and Iraq\" took part in the Kha b-Nisan celebrations.[15]\n\nOne of the largest Assyrian New Year celebrations took place in Iraq in 2008. Public celebrations were not allowed by Saddam Hussein's regime prior to the start of the Iraq war. The event was organized by the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa) and between 45,000 and 65,000 people took part in the parade.[16][17]\n\nIn 2004, Hon. George Radanovich of the California State Assembly recognized the Assyrian New Year and extended his wishes to the Assyrian community in California.[18] This was later followed by a letter from the California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the Assyrian community in California, congratulating them on the annual celebration.[19]\n\nIn 2020 festivities were cancelled in northeastern Syria due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[20]\n\nCelebration\n\nAssyrians celebrate Kha b-Nisan by holding social events including parades and parties.[21][22] They also gather in clubs and social institutions and listen to the poets who recite the story of creation. Those celebrating wear traditional clothes and poppies.[21][22][10] Some people will dress up as ancient Assyrian royalty.[5][10] People greet each other by saying Reesh Shato Brikhto, Reesha D’Sheeta Brikhta or Akitu Breekha.[10]\n\nDue to its modern alignment with April Fool's Day, the festival is often more lighthearted than its historical counterpart.[10]\n\nIt is a tradition in Assyrian villages for girls to gather flowers and herbs which are then suspended under the house's roof or made into a garland for a home's front door.[10] The bunches are referred to as \"Deqna d-Nisan\"[23] (ܕܩܢܐ ܕܢܝܣܢ), meaning \"the beard of April/Spring\".\n\nNewer traditions have also arisen in diaspora communities. The Assyrian community in Yonkers, New York has a tradition of raising the Assyrian flag in front of City Hall on April 1.[24] In Chicago, Illinois, it has also become tradition to hold a parade down King Sargon Boulevard.[25]\n\nImage gallery\n\n Chaldean Church float in Assyrian New Year parade in Chicago, IL\n\n Assyrian New Year in Nohadra (Duhok), Iraq in 2008\n\n Assyrian Americans marching in solidarity with Jews in the Assyrian New Year Parade, Chicago, 2025\n\nSee also\n\nAssyria\n\nAkitu\n\nNowruz\n\nNusardil\n\nSham el-Nessim\n\nReferences\n\n^ AUA Release 26 March 2006. Archived 20 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Michael Chammas. \"Assyrian new year\". Fairfield Champion. 26 March 2008. Archived 6 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Laing-Marshall 2005, p. 149-150.\n\n^ For Assyrians as a Christian people, see\n\nJoel J. Elias, The Genetics of Modern Assyrians and their Relationship to Other People of the Middle East \n\nSteven L. Danver, Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues, p. 517\n\n^ a b Emmanuel, Ninos (23 March 2022). \"Assyrian New Year Celebrations in Sydney\". SBS Language. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\n^ Aredas, Alysson (2 April 2017). \"Celebrating the Assyrian New Year in California\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\n^ Aimie Rivera. \"Assyrians celebrate new year\". The Signal. 3/19/08. Archived 8 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ E. Elochukwu Uzukwu. Worship as Body Language: Introduction to Christian Worship : an African. Published by Liturgical Press, 1997.\n\n^ William Ricketts Cooper. \"An Archaic Dictionary: biographical, historical and mythological: from the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan monuments\". Published by S. Bagster and Sons, 1876.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Shams, Alex (6 April 2017). \"The Joys of Akitu, the Assyrian New Year\". Ajam Media Collective. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\n^ \"Assyrians Celebrate New Year\". Institute for War and Peace Reporting. 11 April 2008. Archived from the original on 7 October 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2023 - via UNHCR Refworld.\n\n^ Abraham, Salim (1 April 2002). \"Assyrians Celebrated their New Year with Mass Wedding\". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 19 April 2002. Retrieved 20 February 2023 - via Yahoo News.\n\n^ Assyrians Celebrate New Year for First Time in Turkey (SETimes.com)\n\n^ Erkan's field diary: Archived 1 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ NYT (4 April 2005)[1]\n\n^ \"HELEN TALIA - Community\". Archived from the original on 12 February 2010. Retrieved 27 February 2009.\n\n^ \"Zinda 31 March 2008\". www.zindamagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2 April 2009.\n\n^ Congressional Records - Extensions of Remarks\n\n^ Governor's letter to Assyrian community Archived 8 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ al-Ahmde, Rana (3 April 2020). \"Assyrian new year canceled in Syria amid fear of coronavirus outbreak\". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\n^ a b Nhili, Kurmanj (2 April 2022). \"Assyrians in Duhok have a cheerful Akitu celebration\". Kurdistan 24. Retrieved 31 December 2022.\n\n^ a b Bechocha, Julian (1 April 2022). \"Top Kurdish officials send celebratory Akitu messages\". Rudaw. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\n^ Ashor Giwargis. Al-Nahar Newspaper. Beirut, Lebanon. 14 April 2002.\n\n^ Ishaya, Maryam (19 April 2022). \"Assyrians Celebrate Traditional Flag Raising At Yonkers City Hall\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\n^ \"Chicago celebrates Assyrian New Year with North Side parade\". ABC7 Chicago. 31 March 2019. Retrieved 1 January 2023.\n\nSources\n\nLaing-Marshall, Andrea (2005). \"Assyrians\". Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Vol. 1. New York-London: Routledge. pp. 149-150. ISBN 9781135193881.\n\nExternal links\n\nAkitu and Newruz (aina.org)\n\nKurd's - Persian New Year; its Assyrian - Babylonian origin Archived 6 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine (christiansofiraq.com)\n\nAssyrian NewYear 6758 Ceremony In Tehran (brasheet.com)\n\nAssyrian NewYear 6758 Ceremony In Urmia (brasheet.com)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kha-b-nisan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1362}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-flag", "title": "Assyrian flag", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The Assyrian flag (Syriac: ܐܬܐ ܕܐܬܘܪܝܐ ;ܐܬܐ ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ) is the ethnic flag of the Assyrian people. The flag was first designed by George Bit Atanous in 1968,[1] and was adopted in 1971 during a gathering of Assyrian organizations. The Assyrian Universal Alliance, Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, Assyrian Democratic Organization,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyria\n\nUseEthnic flag\n\nAdopted1971 (1971)\n\nDesignWhite field with a golden circle at the center, surrounded by a four-pointed star in blue.\nFour triple-colored (red-white-blue), widening, wavy stripes connect the center to the four corners of the flag.\n\nDesigned byGeorge Bet Atanous\n\nThe Assyrian flag (Syriac: ܐܬܐ ܕܐܬܘܪܝܐ ;ܐܬܐ ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ) is the ethnic flag of the Assyrian people. The flag was first designed by George Bit Atanous in 1968,[1] and was adopted in 1971 during a gathering of Assyrian organizations. The Assyrian Universal Alliance, Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, Assyrian Democratic Organization, and all participants at the Assyrian Universal Alliance World Congress are believed to be some of the first organizations to have adopted the modern Assyrian flag.\n\nThe flag has a white background with a golden circle at the center, surrounded by a four-pointed star in blue, representing the ancient sun god Shamash. Four triple-colored (red-white-blue), widening, wavy stripes connect the center to the four corners of the flag. The figure of pre-Christian Assyrian God Ashur, known from Iron Age iconography, features above the center.\n\nSymbolism\n\nThe golden circle at the center represents the sun, which, by its exploding and leaping flames, generates heat and light to sustain the earth and all its living things. The four-pointed star surrounding the sun symbolizes the land, its light blue color symbolizing tranquility. Together, they form the main star present on the flag which represents the sun deity Shamash, also known as Utu. He was worshipped in the ancient Mesopotamian region, and was apparently the deity who provided leaders like Hammurabi, Ur-Nammu, and Gudea with divine laws.\n\nThe wavy stripes extending from the center to the four corners of the flag represent the three major rivers of the Assyrian homeland: the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Great Zab. The lines are small at the center and become wider as they spread out from the circle. The dark blue stripes stands for plenitude, and represents the Euphrates. The red stripes, whose blood-red hue stands for courage, glory, and pride, represent the Tigris. The white lines in between the two great rivers symbolize the Great Zab; its white color stands for tranquility and peace. Some interpret the red, white, and blue will gather all the Assyrians back to their homeland to stand strong and fight for what they want and what they have gained.\n\nThe archer figure above the star of Shamash symbolizes the ancient Assyrian god Ashur, shown in a battle stance with a bow and arrow.[2] The original version of the flag adopted by the Assyrian Universal Alliance had the Shamash in bronze, blue, and white coloring that represented the engravings of Ashur found at the British Museum.[3] Other variations of the flag show the Ashur symbol in all red or gold, or just leave it out altogether.\n\nHistory\n\nGroup picture with the old Assyrian flag (Sons of Assyria)An advert for the Assyro-Chaldean delegation of the Paris Peace Conference\n\nPrior to World War I, Assyrians from the Tur Abdin region designed a flag consisting of three horizontal tricolor stripes colored purple, white, and red, with three white stars at the upper hoist.[1] The purple, white, and red bars represented the loyalty, purity, and determination of the Assyrian people, and the three white stars represent the three names or components of the Assyrian nation; Assyrians, Syriacs, and Chaldeans.[4][5] This flag was used during delegation meetings with Assyrian politicians and Western powers post World War I, including the Assyro-Chaldean delegation of the Paris Peace Conference. Alternative variations of the flag exist with a salmon stripe instead of a purple one.\n\nDuring the First World War, the Assyrian volunteers commanded by Agha Petros used a red flag with a white cross. Agha Petros' personal standard was the flag of the Volunteers but made of silk, with a golden fringe added, and the words \"Trust God and follow the Cross\" written in Assyrian above and around the cross.[6][7] Malik Qambar, a Chaldean Catholic Assyrian, created his own flag in a style reminiscent of the French flag, with a multi-cone star in the center and three stripes on the top.[8]\n\nThe three stripe flag was also in use by the Assyrian National Federation, later renamed the Assyrian American Federation and the Assyrian American National Federation, from its founding in 1933 until 1975 when they adopted the current Assyrian flag.[4][5] Syriac Orthodox Assyrians in Worcester, Massachusetts had also used the flag near their churches before the advent of the modern naming dispute.[9]\n\nModern flag\n\nFollowing the founding of the Assyrian Universal Alliance, the organization set out to create a brand new Assyrian flag. In 1968, they launched a contest that called for Assyrian artists to envision a new Assyrian flag that would be used to represent the people and their heritage.[10] The early inspirations of the design for the flag came from Vladimir Beit David, an Assyrian originally from Iran who incorporated the modern symbolism such as the star of Ishtar into Assyrian associations and activities in Tehran.[11] This star design would over time be incorporated into greater use across Assyrian organizations.\n\nThe modern design of the flag is credited to George Bit-Atanous, a seismic engineer from Russia whose family was originally from Urmia.[12] As he continued to engage in personal studies, Atanous was actively involved in several Assyrian organizations, and personally studied Assyriology, taking inspiration from the field to incorporate ancient Assyrian iconography into modern designs and symbols. He presented his design for the modern flag at the 3rd annual AUA congress, which was unanimously accepted.\n\nThe design of the flag was decided on during the 6th annual AUA congress in Yonkers, New York.[2] Throughout the 1970s leading into the 1980s, the modern design of the flag would be used more frequently, replacing the former three stripe design.[11]\n\nAlternate variations\n\nIn 1980, the journal Bahro Suryoyo of the Syriac Federation of Sweden (Swedish: Syrianska Riksförbundet i Sverige) created a new flag in the wake of the Swedish naming conflict between Assyrian and Aramean. The flag features a red background and a yellow eagle design based on the excavations at Tell Halaf in the 20th century. A flame was added later on to represent the Holy Spirit, but is said to have originated from Assyrian symbolism that was used by organizations in Lebanon and the diaspora before the advent of the modern naming dispute.[13]\n\nSometime between the 1990s and 2000s, a new flag was created that aimed to represent the Chaldean Catholic part of the Assyrian community.[14] The Chaldean flag bears a white background with two blue stripes on the left and right-hand sides, with a combination of the stars of Shamash and Ishtar in the middle. However, the flag has received criticism for its association with the Assyrian naming dispute and larger sectarianism in the Assyrian community, as well as a copyright[15] in place by the creator and a lawsuit involving Chaldean Catholic bishop Sarhad Yawsip Jammo.[16]\n\nIn 2017, the Syriac Union Party (Syria) and Syriac Military Council began using a new tri-colored flag to represent Assyrians in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.[17] However, the flag is considered unofficial and has rarely seen use outside of the party or Syria altogether.\n\nGallery\n\nVariants\n\n The Assyrian flag with the image of Assur in red\n\n The Assyrian flag with the image of Assur in shades of gold and blue, adopted by the Assyrian Universal Alliance[2]\n\n The Assyrian flag with the image of Assur in gold[18]\n\n The Assyrian flag without the image of Assur, used by the Nineveh Plain Protection Units[19]\n\nOlder flags\n\n Assyrian flag designed before World War I and used until 1975\n\n The flag used by the Assyrian volunteers during World War I\n\nAlternative flags\n\n Aramean flag, developed in 1980 by Bahro Suryoyo\n\n Chaldean flag, adopted in late 1999\n\n Tricolor used by the Syriac Union Party and Syriac Military Council claims for itself representing Assyrian-Syriac people in SDF-controlled Northern Syria\n\nSee also\n\nRoomrama\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"The History and Meaning Behind the Assyrian Flag\". Assyrian Cultural Foundation. March 27, 2017. Retrieved June 27, 2020.\n\n^ a b c Ashurian, Homer (March 1999). \"Assyrian Flag\". Assyrian Universal Alliance. Retrieved October 11, 2026.\n\n^ Samuel, Ramina; Ganjeh, Carlo; Bit-Dzhamo, Dalilya. \"Real Assyrian Flag\". RAF. Retrieved April 2, 2025.\n\n^ a b \"The Old Assyrian Flag\". Chaldeans On Line. Archived from the original on January 5, 2006. Retrieved June 21, 2019.\n\n^ a b AANF. \"HISTORY\". Assyrian American National Federation. Archived from the original on February 7, 2005. Retrieved June 21, 2019.\n\n^ Lindenmayer, Sarah (2018). Debt of Honour: How an Anzac saved the Assyrian people from Genocide. Australian Self Publishing Group. p. 21. ISBN 9780648317722. Retrieved June 21, 2019.\n\n^ S.G. SAVIGE. D.S.O., M.C. (1920). STALKY'S FORLORN HOPE. McCubbin.\n\n^ Shoumanov, Vasili (2021). \"Assyrian Yellow Pages by Vasili Shoumanov.pdf\". assyrianyp.com. Retrieved April 6, 2025.\n\n^ Joseph, Max J. (April 24, 2020). \"On \"National Sanctity\": A Letter from Abraham K.\" Medium. Retrieved April 6, 2025.\n\n^ \"Le drapeau assyro-chaldéen: CRÉATION ET SIGNIFICATION\". ninwaymag.com (in French). Ninway Magazine. July 19, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Evolution\". RAF. Retrieved April 6, 2025.\n\n^ \"The Assyrian Flag and Its Designer\". www.aina.org. Retrieved April 6, 2025.\n\n^ Hajjar, Hanna. \"The origin of the Aramean eagle and flag | Assyrians [Syriacs]\". assyrians.n.nu. Retrieved April 6, 2025.\n\n^ \"Chaldean Flag\".\n\n^ Amer Hanna Fatuhi. \"Letter of Authorization\". Retrieved April 24, 2024.\n\n^ Amer Shendaj v. Chaldean Federation of America and Sarhad Jammo (United States District Court, Southern Division for Eastern District of Michigan January 3, 2002), Text\n\n^ \"الرايات السريانية تزين مدينة الحسكة\". SUTORO (in Arabic). 2017. Retrieved April 2, 2025.\n\n^ Kiwarkis, Gaby (April 23, 2010). \"Assyrians Honor New Zealand War Hero, Dedicate Genocide Plaque\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved March 29, 2019.\n\n^ \"NPU raised the Iraqi, Assyrian & NPU flags in Baghdedeh\". Youtube. October 28, 2016. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2018.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian flag at Flags of the World\n\nAssyrian International News Agency (AINA)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-flag"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1680}, {"slug": "reference-lamassu", "title": "Lamassu", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Lama, Lamma, or Lamassu (Cuneiform: 𒀭𒆗, an.kal; Sumerian: dlammař; later in Akkadian: lamassu; sometimes called a lamassuse)[1][2] is a Mesopotamian protective deity.[3]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Lama, Lamma, or Lamassu (Cuneiform: 𒀭𒆗, an.kal; Sumerian: dlammař; later in Akkadian: lamassu; sometimes called a lamassuse)[1][2] is a Mesopotamian protective deity.[3]\n\nInitially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called Lamma, it was later depicted from Assyrian times as a hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion-specifically having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings, under the name Lamassu.[3][4] In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a goddess.[5] A less frequently used name is shedu (Cuneiform: 𒀭𒆘, an.kal×bad; Sumerian: dalad; Akkadian, šēdu), which refers to the male counterpart of a lamassu.[6] Lamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations.[7][8]\n\nGoddess Lama\n\nThe goddess Lama appears initially as a mediating goddess who precedes the orans and presents them to the deities.[3] The protective deity is clearly labelled as Lam(m)a in a Kassite stele unearthed at Uruk, in the temple of Ishtar, goddess to which she had been dedicated by king Nazi-Maruttash (1307-1282 BC).[9] It is a goddess wearing a ruffled dress and wearing a horned tiara symbolizing the deity, with two hands raised, in a sign of prayer. Agnès Spycket proposed that similar female figures appearing in particular in glyptics and statuary from the Akkadian period, and in particular in the presentation scenes (common especially in the Paleo-Babylonian era) were to be considered as Lam(m)a.[10] This opinion is commonly followed and in artistic terminology these female figures are generally referred to as Lam(m)a.[3] From Assyrian times, Lamma becomes a hybrid deity, half-animal, half-human.[3]\n\n Lamma, protective winged deity, Sumerian Isin-Larsa period (2000-1800 BC)\n\n Lamassu, Neo-Assyrian Empire, c. 721-705 BC. Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago\n\n Statuette of the goddess Lama, probably made in a workshop on the outskirts of Mesopotamia. Isin-Larsa period (2000-1800 BC). Royal Museums of Art and History\n\n Cylinder seal showing the representation of a devotee (center) by goddess Lamma (left), to Ishtar (right). Babylonian, c. 18th-17th century BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art\n\n Stele with inscription showing the protective deity Lam(m)a, dedicated by king Nazi-Maruttash to goddess Ishtar, from Uruk (1307-1282 BC). Metropolitan Museum of Art\n\nIconography\n\nFrom Assyrian times, lamassu were depicted as hybrids, with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males.[3] The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BC. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power.[11][12]\n\nAssyrian sculpture typically placed prominent pairs of lamassu at entrances in palaces, facing the street and also internal courtyards. They were represented as \"double-aspect\" figures on corners, in high relief. From the front, they appear to stand, and from the side, they walk. In earlier versions, they have five legs, as is apparent when viewed obliquely. Lamassu do not generally appear as large figures in the low-relief schemes running round palace rooms, where winged genie figures are common, but they sometimes appear within narrative reliefs, apparently protecting the Assyrians.[13]\n\nThe colossal entrance figures were often followed by a hero grasping a wriggling lion, also colossal in scale and in high relief. In the palace of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukin, a group of at least seven lamassu and two such heroes with lions surrounded the entrance to the \"throne room\", \"a concentration of figures which produced an overwhelming impression of power\".[13] They also appear on cylinder seals. Notable examples include those at the Gate of All Nations at Persepolis in Iran, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Several examples left in situ in northern Iraq were destroyed in the 2010s by the Islamic State when they occupied the area, as were those in the Mosul Museum.\n\nTerminology\n\nLamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations.[7][8] They are depicted as protective deities because they encompass all life within them. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, they are depicted as physical deities as well, which is where the lamassu iconography originates, physical representations or embodiments of divine higher principles associated with specific celestial origins. Although lamassu had a different iconography and portrayal in the culture of Sumer, the terms \"lamassu\", \"alad\", and \"shedu\" evolved throughout the Assyro-Akkadian culture from the Sumerian culture to denote the Assyrian-winged-man-bull symbol and statues during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Eventually, female lamassu were identified as \"apsasû\".[4]\n\nThe motif of the Assyrian-winged-man-bull called Aladlammu and Lamassu interchangeably is not the lamassu or alad of Sumerian origin, which were depicted with different iconography. These monumental statues were called aladlammû or lamassu which meant \"protective spirit\".[4] In Hittite, the Sumerian form dlamma is used both as a name for the so-called \"tutelary deity\", identified in certain later texts with the goddess Inara, and a title given to similar protective deities.[14]\n\nMythology\n\nThe lamassu is a celestial being from ancient Mesopotamian religion bearing a human head, symbolising intelligence; a bull's body, symbolizing strength; and an eagle's wings, symbolizing freedom. Sometimes it had the horns and the ears of a bull. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Assyrian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, and were placed as sentinels at entrances.[15] The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal with a lamassu and the god Išum with shedu.\n\nTo protect houses, the lamassu were engraved in clay tablets, which were then buried under the door's threshold. They were often placed as a pair at the entrance of palaces. At the entrance of cities, they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking toward one of the cardinal points.\n\nIn modern culture\n\nThe lamassu is also often used by the modern Assyrian people as a representation of their shared identity and ancient ancestry.[16]\n\nArtist Michael Rakowitz was commissioned to recreate the lamassu of Nineveh, dated to 700 BC, that was destroyed by IS in 2015. Rakowitz's sculpture was displayed in London's Trafalgar Square from 2018 to 2020.[17]\n\nThe lamassu has been used in the iconography of several military and police forces, including the British 10th Army, the United States Forces - Iraq, and the SAVAK of Iran.\n\nGallery\n\n The British Museum - human-headed winged lions and reliefs from Nimrud with the Balawat Gates\n\n The British Museum - human-headed winged bulls from Dur-Sharrukin\n\n The British Museum - human-headed winged lion and bull from Nimrud, companion pieces in Metropolitan Museum of Art\n\n Louvre - human-headed winged bulls from Dur-Sharrukin\n\n Louvre - human-headed winged bulls, sculpture and reliefs from Dur-Sharrukin\n\n Louvre - human-headed winged bulls and reliefs from Dur-Sharrukin, in their wider setting of reliefs\n\n Louvre - human-headed winged bulls and reliefs from Dur-Sharrukin\n\n The Metropolitan Museum of Art - human-headed winged lion and bull from Nimrud, companion pieces to those in the British Museum, London\n\n Detail, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Possibly gypsum, Dur-Sharrukin, entrance to the throne room, c. 721-705 BC\n\n Cuneiform script on the back of a lamassu in the University of Chicago Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures\n\n Modern impression of Achaemenid cylinder seal, fifth century BC. A winged solar disc legitimises the Achaemenid emperor, who subdues two rampant Mesopotamian lamassu figures\n\n The entrance of a fire temple in Fort Mumbai displaying a lamassu\n\n Head of lamassu. Marble, eighth century BC, from Assur. Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul\n\n Head of a lamassu from the palace of Esarhaddon, from Nimrud, seventh century BC, the British Museum\n\n Lamassu from the Throne Room (Room B) of the North-West Palace at Nimrud, ninth century BC, the British Museum\n\n Lamassu on an Assyrian Genocide memorial in Yerevan\n\nSee also\n\nMythological hybrid\n\nList of hybrid creatures in mythology\n\nAnzû (older reading: Zû), Mesopotamian monster\n\nApis, Ancient Egyptian religion deity anthropomorphic bull\n\nBuraq, Islamic mythological human torso-equine body hybrid\n\nCentaur, Greek mythological human torso-equine body hybrid\n\nCherubim, Abrahamic religious celestial human-winged hybrid\n\nChimera, Greek mythological hybrid monster\n\nEnlil, ancient Mesopotamian deity: patriarch deity of supreme universal strength\n\nGriffin or griffon, lion-bird hybrid\n\nHarpy, Greek mythological hybrid human torso-bird body hybrid\n\nJinn, pre-Islamic Arabian celestial beings, human-winged hybrid\n\nKamadhenu, Hindu bovine goddess\n\nLakhmu, Akkadian deity also known as Lammasu\n\nLamashtu, ancient Mesopotamian female demons\n\nManticore, Persian sphinx-like creature\n\nMermaid, European, Asian, and African folklore, female human torso-fish tail hybrid\n\nMinotaur, Greek mythology: bull-man hybrid\n\nMušḫuššu, Mesopotamian dragon\n\nPamola, the Abenaki-origin indigenous American \"winged-moose\" spirit protecting Mount Katahdin\n\nPegasus, winged stallion in Greek mythology\n\nSharabha, Hindu mythology: lion-bird hybrid\n\nSimurgh, Iranian mythical flying creature\n\nSphinx, mythical creature with a lion's body and human head\n\nThunderbird, mythological bird-like spirit in North American indigenous peoples' mythology\n\nYali, Hindu mythological lion-elephant-horse hybrid\n\nZiz, giant griffin-like bird in Jewish mythology\n\nCitations\n\n^ Kriwaczek, Paul (2010). Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-250-05416-6.\n\n^ \"Kaskal: Rivista di storia, ambiente e culture del vicino oriente antico. Volume 6, 2009\". LoGisma editore. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2015.\n\n^ a b c d e f Leick, Gwendolyn (2002). A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. Routledge. pp. 109-110. ISBN 978-1-134-64102-4.\n\n^ a b c \"Lamassu\". Livius.org. Archived from the original on 1 June 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2020.\n\n^ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2003). The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period. Brill. p. 137. ISBN 978-90-04-13024-1.\n\n^ Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (2003). An Illustrated Dictionary: Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. The British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-1705-8.\n\n^ a b Hewitt, J.F. (1901). History and Chronology of the Myth-Making Age. James Parker and Company. p. 85.\n\n^ a b King, Leonard W. (1902). Enuma Elish Vol 1 & 2: The Seven Tablets of Creation; The Babylonian and Assyrian Legends Concerning the Creation of the World and of Mankind. Luzac and Co. p. 78.\n\n^ Collon, Dominique (1975). The Seal Impressions from Tell Atchana/Alalakh. Butzon & Bercker. p. 181. ISBN 978-3-7887-0469-8. The deity which we have here called the Babylonian Goddess has been identified as the goddess Lama thanks to an inscription found at Uruk. Agnes Spycket has discussed the textual references to this interceding deity, and the way she is represented in art.\n\n^ Spycket, Agnès (1960). \"La Déesse Lama\". Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 54 (2): 73-84. ISSN 0373-6032. JSTOR 23294909.\n\n^ \"History - Mesopotamia\". BBC. Archived from the original on 13 July 2007. Retrieved 22 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Lamassu\". ancientneareast.net. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. Retrieved 17 July 2010.\n\n^ a b Frankfort 1970, pp. 147-148. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFrankfort1970 (help)\n\n^ McMahon, John Gregory (1991). The Hittite State Cult of the Tutelary Deities. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 978-0-918986-69-6.\n\n^ Castor, Marie-José. \"Winged Human-Headed Bull\". Louvre.fr. Archived from the original on 28 January 2017. Retrieved 19 February 2017.\n\n^ \"Lamassu Project\". Ramsen Shamon. 26 February 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2025.\n\n^ \"The Lamassu, Resurrected\". Northwestern University. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2017.\n\nExternal links\n\nWebpage about the Šêdu in the Louvre Museum (in French)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-lamassu"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1887}, {"slug": "reference-kleicha", "title": "Kleicha", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Kleicha (Persian: کلوچه, romanized: koluche; North Mesopotamian Arabic: كليچة, romanized: klēči, Mesopotamian Arabic: كليچة, romanized: kilēča; Najdi Arabic: كليجة, romanized: k(i)lēja; Syriac: ܟܠܫ̮ܵܐ, romanized: kleča;[2] Kurmanji Kurdish: kade; Sorani Kurdish: کادە, romanized: kāda; Turkish: kiliçe) is a type of Middle Eastern cookie.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Kleicha (ܟܠܫ̮ܵܐ، كليجة، کادە، کلوچه، کولیچە)\nIraqi kleicha\n\nTypeCookie\n\nPlace of origin Iraq (Iraq)[1]\n\nRegion or stateIraq, Saudi Arabia, Najd\n\nCreated bySumerians\n\nMain ingredientsDough, nuts, dates, and sesame seeds\n\nVariationsSaudi Kleicha, Koloocheh\n\n  Media: Kleicha (ܟܠܫ̮ܵܐ، كليجة، کادە، کلوچه، کولیچە)\n\nKleicha (Persian: کلوچه, romanized: koluche; North Mesopotamian Arabic: كليچة, romanized: klēči, Mesopotamian Arabic: كليچة, romanized: kilēča; Najdi Arabic: كليجة, romanized: k(i)lēja; Syriac: ܟܠܫ̮ܵܐ, romanized: kleča;[2] Kurmanji Kurdish: kade; Sorani Kurdish: کادە, romanized: kāda; Turkish: kiliçe) is a type of Middle Eastern cookie.\n\nKleicha comes in several traditional shapes and fillings. The most popular are the ones filled with dates (kleichat tamur). There are also sweet discs (khfefiyyat), as well as half moons filled with nuts, sugar and/or desiccated coconut (kleichat joz). They are usually flavoured with cardamom and sometimes rose water, and glazed with egg wash, which may sometimes be scented and coloured with saffron.[3] Unlike ma'amoul, kleicha typically does not contain semolina.[4]\n\nMuslims make kleicha for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha and also for their celebrations, weddings or special ceremonies and they are stuffed with many different fillings like dates, pistachios, walnuts, coconuts, dried figs, sesame seeds or Turkish delight. While Iraqi Jews make it for Hanukkah.[5]\n\nAssyrians bake kilecheh on Eeda Gura, Easter, and Eeda Sura, Christmas, on which they are usually stuffed with dates and served with tea.[6]\n\nEtymology\n\nFrom Middle Persian (kwlʾck' /kulāčag/, lit. 'small, round bun').[7] Historically, kleicha may be traced back to the ancient Sumerian ‘qullupu'.[1]\n\nOrigin\n\nThe origins of kleicha can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia, where Sumerians would prepare this cookie to celebrate the New Year and Ishtar, one of the more prominent goddesses in ancient Sumerian mythology. Spring represented rebirth and renewal, which coincided with Ishtar's power of fertility. To honor the goddess, ancient Sumerians would bake qullupu, the kleicha's ancestor. These cookies were shaped to resemble a full or crescent moon that symbolized the arrival of Spring, which was often marked by the first full moon in late March or early April.[1][8]\n\nA recipe for kleija cookies can be found in a 13-Century Arabic cookbook by Ibn al-Adim.[9]\n\nVarieties\n\nSyria\n\nSpiced variations of kleija with different fillings are made in some Syrian cities, like Deir ez-Zor and Al-Hasakah.[10][11][12]\n\nSaudi Arabia\n\nAlthough the name is somewhat similar, Klēja in the Najd region of Saudi Arabia (Qassim and Haʼil provinces) differs in taste, shape and ingredients from Iraqi kleicha. It is made with yeasted dough that has been enriched with spices, such as cardamom and cinnamon, and filled with a mixture of either date, sugar, or honey molasses and spices, typically cardamom, but also black dried lime, cinnamon, and ginger.[13]\n\nKleija was featured in the 2024 edition of \"Breads of the Creative Cities\", a project by UNESCO's Creative Cities Network.[14][15]\n\nSee also\n\nMakroudh\n\nMa'amoul\n\nMooncake\n\nMesopotamian cuisine\n\nBakpia pathok\n\nBundevara\n\nBirnbrot\n\nKahk\n\nKnish\n\nKlobásník\n\nKoloocheh\n\nKolompeh\n\nKulich (bread)\n\nFig roll\n\nAnpan\n\nHwangnam-ppang\n\nSaudi Arabian cuisine\n\nEgg yolk pastry\n\nDutch letter\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Nasrallah, Nawal. \"The Iraqi Cookie, Kleicha, and the Search for Identity\".\n\n^ Rink, Friedrich Theodor; Vater, Johann Severin (1802). Arabisches Sprisches und Chaldäisches Lesebuch: #b das arabische grösstentheils nach bisher ungedruckten Stücken mit Verweisungen auf die Grammatik und mit erklärenden Wortregistern herausgegeben (in German). Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius. p. 35.\n\n^ \"Delights from the Garden of Eden: An Iraqi Cookbook\". Archived from the original on 2008-05-13. Retrieved 2007-12-15.\n\n^ \"How to make sweet date cookies from Iraq\". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 29 September 2025.\n\n^ \"THE HIRSHON IRAQI (SUMERIAN) DATE AND WALNUT KLEICHA COOKIES\". The Food Dictator.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Voice Library - Kileche\". Retrieved 2013-06-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ Mackenzie, D. N. (2014). A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. p. 52. doi:10.4324/9780203462515. ISBN 9781136613968.\n\n^ Lozano, Gabriella. \"Kleicha: History and Culture\".\n\n^ Nasrallah, Nawal (31 December 2007). Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq's Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook. BRILL. p. 563. ISBN 978-90-474-2305-8. Retrieved 20 September 2025.\n\n^ \"ديرية، لأ حسكاوية... حروب المطبخ السوري من الكليجة للمليحي\" [\"Deriyah, No...Haskawiyya\"... The wars of Syrian cuisine from the Kalija to the Malihi]. Raseef22 (in Arabic). 12 November 2022. Retrieved 25 December 2025.\n\n^ \"الكليجة.. حلوى الديرية في العيد\" [Kleija...Deiri sweets in Eid]. Enab Baladi (in Arabic). 5 June 2025. Retrieved 25 December 2025.\n\n^ \"\"الكليجة\".. حلوى العيد وموروث الأجيال بالحسكة\" [\"Kleija\"... Eid sweets and the heritage of generations in Al-Hasakah]. Enab Baladi (in Arabic). 7 April 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Kleja\".\n\n^ \"Saudi Arabia's 3 traditional breads among UNESCO's Breads of Creative Cities\". The Times of India. 27 July 2024. Retrieved 31 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Saudi Arabia's Culinary Heritage Shines: Traditional Breads Join UNESCO's Breads of the Creative Cities\". Hospitality Lexis. 26 July 2024. Retrieved 31 August 2025."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kleicha"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 795}, {"slug": "reference-church-of-the-east", "title": "Church of the East", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Church of the East (Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā) or the East Syriac Church,[13] (also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon,[14] the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church,[12][15][16] or the Nestorian Church[note 2]) is one of three major branches of Eastern Nicene Christianity that arose...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Church of the East\n\nܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ‎\n\nEast Syriac ceramic epitaph with Syriac and Uyghur writing.\n\nClassificationEastern Christian\n\nOrientationSyriac[1]\n\nTheologyEast Syriac theology\n\nPolityEpiscopal\n\nHeadCatholicos-Patriarch of the East\n\nRegionMiddle East, Central Asia, Far East, India[2]\n\nLiturgyEast Syriac Rite\n(Liturgy of Addai and Mari)\n\nHeadquartersBeith Kokhe, Seleucia-Ctesiphon (410-775)[3]\n Monastery of the Catholicos, Baghdad (775-1317)[4]\nRabban Hormizd Monastery, Alqosh[5]\n\nFounderJesus Christ (by sacred tradition)\nThomas the Apostle\n\nOriginApostolic Age, by its tradition \nEdessa,[6][7]\nMesopotamia[1][note 1]\n\nSeparationsIts schism of 1552 divided it originally into two patriarchates, and later four, but by 1830 it returned to two, one of which is now the Chaldean Catholic Church, while the other sect split further in 1968 into the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East.\n\nOther namesNestorian Church, Persian Church, East Syrian Church, Chaldean Church, Assyrian Church, Babylonian Church[12]\n\nThe Church of the East (Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā) or the East Syriac Church,[13] (also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon,[14] the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church,[12][15][16] or the Nestorian Church[note 2]) is one of three major branches of Eastern Nicene Christianity that arose from the Christological controversies in the 5th century and the 6th century, alongside that of Miaphysitism (which came to be known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches) and Chalcedonian Christianity (from which Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism would arise). \n\nHaving its origins in Mesopotamia during the time of the Parthian Empire, the Church of the East developed its own unique form of Christian theology and liturgy. During the early modern period, a series of schisms gave rise to rival patriarchates, sometimes two, sometimes three.[17] In the latter half of the 20th century, the traditionalist patriarchate of the church underwent a split into two rival patriarchates, namely the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which continue to follow the traditional theology and liturgy of the mother church. The Chaldean Catholic Church based in Iraq and the Syro-Malabar Church in India are two Eastern Catholic churches which also claim the heritage of the Church of the East.[2]\n\nBackground\n\nThe Church of the East organized itself initially in the year 410 as the national church of the Sasanian Empire through the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.[18] In 424, it declared itself independent of the state church of the Roman Empire, which it calls the 'Church of the West'. The Church of the East was headed by the Catholicos-Patriarch of the East seated originally in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, continuing a line that, according to its tradition, stretched back to Thomas the Apostle in the first century. Its liturgical rite is the East Syrian rite that employs the Liturgy of Addai and Mari.\n\nThe Church of the East, which was part of the Great Church, shared communion with those in the Roman Empire until the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorius in 431.[1] The Church of the East refused to condemn Nestorius and was therefore called the \"Nestorian Church\" by those of the Roman church.[19][20][21] More recently, the \"Nestorian\" appellation has been called \"a lamentable misnomer\",[22][23] and theologically incorrect by scholars.[16][24][25][26][6]\n\nThe Church of the East's declaration in 424 of the independence of its head, the Patriarch of the East, preceded by seven years the 431 Council of Ephesus, which condemned Nestorius and declared that Mary, mother of Jesus, can be described as Theotokos, literally \" God-bearer,\" a title Nestorius approved, but also \"Mother of God,\" a title to which Nestorius objected as going too far. Two of the generally accepted ecumenical councils were held earlier: the First Council of Nicaea, in which an Assyrian bishop took part, in 325, and the First Council of Constantinople in 381. The Church of the East accepted the teaching of these two councils but ignored the 431 Council and those that followed, seeing them as concerning only the patriarchates of the Roman Empire (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem), all of which were for it \"Western Christianity.\"[27]\n\nMajor denominational families in Christianity:\n\nThis box: \nview\n\ntalk\n\nedit\n\nWestern Christianity\nEastern Christianity\nProtestantism\nAnabaptism\nAnglicanism\nLutheranism\nReformed\n(Latin Church)\nCatholic Church\n(Eastern Catholic Churches)\nEastern Orthodox Church\nOriental Orthodox Churches\nChurch of the East\nSchism (1552)\nAssyrian Church of the East\nAncient Church of the East\nProtestant Reformation\n(16th century)\nGreat Schism (1054)\nNestorian Schism (431)\nChalcedonian Schism (451)\nEarly Christianity\nGreat Church\n(Full communion)\n\n(Not shown are ante-Nicene, nontrinitarian, and restorationist denominations.)\n\nTheologically, the Church of the East adopted the dyophysite doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia[28] that emphasised the \"distinctiveness\" of the divine and the human natures of Jesus; this doctrine was misleadingly labelled as 'Nestorian' by its theological opponents.[28]\n\nContinuing as a dhimmi community under the Rashidun Caliphate after the Muslim conquest of Persia (633-654), the Church of the East and its largely Assyrian members played a major role in the history of Christianity in Asia. Between the 9th and 14th centuries, it represented the world's largest Christian denomination in terms of geographical extent, and in the Middle Ages was one of the three major Christian powerhouses of Eurasia alongside Latin Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy.[29] It established dioceses and communities stretching from the Mediterranean Sea and today's Iraq and Iran, to India, the Mongol kingdoms and Turkic tribes in Central Asia, and China during the Tang dynasty (7th-9th centuries). In the 13th and 14th centuries, the church experienced a final period of expansion under the Mongol Empire, where influential Church of the East clergy sat in the Mongol court.\n\nEven before the Church of the East underwent a rapid decline in its field of expansion in Central Asia in the 14th century, it had already lost ground in its home territory. The decline is indicated by the shrinking list of active dioceses from over sixty in the early 11th century to only seven in the 14th century.[30] In the aftermath of the division of the Mongol Empire, the rising Buddhist and Islamic Mongol leaderships pushed out the Church of the East and its followers in Central Asia. The Chinese Ming dynasty overthrew the Mongols (1368) and ejected Christians and other foreign influences from China, and many Mongols in Central Asia converted to Islam. The Muslim Turco-Mongol leader Timur (1336-1405) nearly eradicated the hitherto large Christian communities in the Middle East. Church of the East Christianity remained largely confined to ethnic Assyrian communities in Upper Mesopotamia, Southeast Anatolia, Northwest Persia and Northeast Levant, and the Saint Thomas Syrian Christians of the Malabar Coast in the Indian subcontinent.\n\nThe church faced a major schism in 1552 following the consecration of monk Yohannan Sulaqa by Pope Julius III in opposition to the reigning Catholicos-Patriarch Shimun VII, leading to the formation of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Divisions occurred within the two factions, but by 1830 two unified patriarchates and distinct churches remained: the traditionalist Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church. The Ancient Church of the East split from the traditionalist patriarchate in 1968. In 2017, the Chaldean Catholic Church had approximately 628,405 members[31] and the Assyrian Church of the East had 323,300 to 380,000,[32][33] while the Ancient Church of the East had 100,000.\n\nDescription as Nestorian\n\nNestorianism is a Christological doctrine that emphasises the distinction between the human and divine natures of Jesus. It was attributed to Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, whose doctrine represented the culmination of a philosophical current developed by scholars at the School of Antioch, most notably Nestorius's mentor Theodore of Mopsuestia, and stirred controversy when Nestorius publicly challenged the use of the title Theotokos (literally, \"God bearer\") for Mary, mother of Jesus,[34] suggesting that the title denied Christ's full humanity. He argued that Jesus had two loosely joined natures, the divine Logos and the human Jesus, and proposed Christotokos (literally, \"Bearer of the Christ\") as a more suitable alternative title. His statements drew criticism from other prominent churchmen, particularly from Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who had a leading part in the Council of Ephesus of 431, which condemned Nestorius for heresy and deposed him as patriarch.[35]\n\nAfter 431, state authorities in the Roman Empire suppressed Nestorianism, a reason for Christians under Persian rule to favour it and so allay suspicion that their loyalty lay with the hostile Christian-ruled empire.[36][37]\n\nIt was in the aftermath of the slightly later Council of Chalcedon (451) that the Church of the East formulated a distinctive theology. The first such formulation was adopted at the Synod of Beth Lapat in 484. This was developed further in the early seventh century, when in an at first successful war against the Byzantine Empire the Sasanid Persian Empire incorporated broad territories populated by West Syrians (some being Arameans and others Assyrians), many of whom were supporters of the Miaphysite theology of Oriental Orthodoxy which its opponents term \"Monophysitism\" (Eutychianism), the theological view most opposed to Nestorianism. They received support from Khosrow II, influenced by his wife Shirin. Shirin was a member of the Church of the East, but later joined the Miaphysite church of Antioch.\n\nDrawing inspiration from Theodore of Mopsuestia, the Assyrian bishop Babai the Great (551-628) expounded, especially in his Book of Union, what became the normative Christology of the Church of the East. He affirmed that the two qnome (a Syriac term, plural of qnoma, not corresponding precisely to Greek φύσις or οὐσία or ὑπόστασις)[38] of Christ are unmixed but eternally united in his single parsopa (from Greek πρόσωπον prosopon \"mask, character, person\"). As happened also with the Greek terms φύσις (physis) and ὐπόστασις (hypostasis), these Syriac words were sometimes taken to mean something other than what was intended; in particular \"two qnome\" was interpreted as \"two individuals\".[39][40][41][42] Previously, the Church of the East accepted a certain fluidity of expressions, always within a dyophysite theology, but with Babai's assembly of 612, which canonically sanctioned the \"two qnome in Christ\" formula, a final christological distinction was created between the Church of the East and the \"western\" Chalcedonian churches.[43][44][45]\n\nThe justice of imputing Nestorianism to Nestorius, whom the Church of the East venerated as a saint, is disputed.[46][22][47] David Wilmshurst states that for centuries \"the word 'Nestorian' was used both as a term of abuse by those who disapproved of the traditional East Syriac theology, as a term of pride by many of its defenders [...] and as a neutral and convenient descriptive term by others. Nowadays it is generally felt that the term carries a stigma\".[48] Sebastian P. Brock says: \"The association between the Church of the East and Nestorius is of a very tenuous nature, and to continue to call that church 'Nestorian' is, from a historical point of view, totally misleading and incorrect - quite apart from being highly offensive and a breach of ecumenical good manners\".[49]\n\nApart from its religious meaning, the word \"Nestorian\" has also been used in an ethnic sense, as shown by the phrase \"Catholic Nestorians\".[50][51][52][53]\n\nIn his 1996 article, \"The 'Nestorian' Church: a lamentable misnomer\", published in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Sebastian Brock, a Fellow of the British Academy, lamented the fact that \"the term 'Nestorian Church' has become the standard designation for the ancient oriental church which in the past called itself 'The Church of the East', but which today prefers a fuller title 'The Assyrian Church of the East'. Such a designation is not only discourteous to modern members of this venerable church, but also - as this paper aims to show - both inappropriate and misleading\".[22]\n\nOrganisation and structure\n\nAt the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410,[18] the Church of the East was declared to have at its head the bishop of the Persian capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon, who in the acts of the council was referred to as the Grand or Major Metropolitan, and who soon afterward was called the Catholicos of the East. Later, the title of patriarch was used.\n\nThe Church of the East had, like other churches, an ordained clergy in the three traditional orders of bishop, priest (or presbyter), and deacon. Also like other churches, it had an episcopal polity: organisation by dioceses, each headed by a bishop and made up of several individual parish communities overseen by priests. Dioceses were organised into provinces under the authority of a metropolitan bishop. The office of metropolitan bishop was an important one, coming with additional duties and powers; canonically, only metropolitans could consecrate a patriarch.[54] The patriarch also has the charge of the Province of the Patriarch.\n\nFor most of its history the church had six or so Interior Provinces. In 410, these were listed in the hierarchical order of: Seleucia-Ctesiphon (central Iraq), Beth Lapat (western Iran), Nisibis (on the border between Turkey and Iraq), Prat de Maishan (Basra, southern Iraq), Arbela (Erbil, North Iraq), and Karka de Beth Slokh (Kirkuk, northeastern Iraq). In addition it had an increasing number of Exterior Provinces further afield within the Sasanian Empire and soon also beyond the empire's borders. By the 10th century, the church had between 20[36] and 30 metropolitan provinces.[48] According to John Foster, in the 9th century there were 25 metropolitans[55] including those in China and India. The Chinese provinces were lost in the 11th century, and in the subsequent centuries other exterior provinces went into decline as well. However, in the 13th century, during the Mongol Empire, the church added two new metropolitan provinces in North China, one being Tangut, the other Katai and Ong.[48]\n\nScriptures\n\nThe Peshitta, in some cases lightly revised and with missing books added, is the standard Syriac Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition: the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Maronites, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.\n\nThe Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated from Hebrew, although the date and circumstances of this are not entirely clear. The translators may have been Syriac-speaking Jews or early Jewish converts to Christianity. The translation may have been done separately for different texts, and the whole work was probably done by the second century. Most of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament are found in the Syriac, and the Wisdom of Sirach is held to have been translated from the Hebrew and not from the Septuagint.[56]\n\nThe New Testament of the Peshitta, which originally excluded certain disputed books (Second Epistle of Peter, Second Epistle of John, Third Epistle of John, Epistle of Jude, Book of Revelation), had become the standard by the early 5th century.\n\nIconography\n\nIt was often said in the 19th century that the Church of the East was opposed to religious images of any kind. The use of the images was never as strong in the Syriac Churches as it was in the Byzantine Church, but they were indeed present in the tradition of the Church of the East.[57] Opposition to religious images eventually became the norm due to the rise of Islam in the region, which forbade any type of depictions of Saints and biblical prophets.[58] As such, the Church was forced to get rid of icons.[58][59]\n\nThere is both literary and archaeological evidence for the presence of images in the church. Writing in 1248 from Samarkand, an Armenian official records visiting a local church and seeing an image of Christ and the Magi. John of Cora (Giovanni di Cori), Latin bishop of Sultaniya in Persia, writing about 1330 of the East Syrians in Khanbaliq says that they had 'very beautiful and orderly churches with crosses and images in honour of God and of the saints'.[57] Apart from the references, a painting of a Christian figure discovered by Aurel Stein at the Library Cave of the Mogao Caves in 1908 is probably a representation of Jesus Christ.[60]\n\nAn illustrated 13th-century Nestorian Peshitta Gospel book written in Estrangela from northern Mesopotamia or Tur Abdin, currently in the State Library of Berlin, proves that in the 13th century the Church of the East was not yet aniconic.[61] The Nestorian Evangelion preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France contains an illustration depicting Jesus Christ in the circle of a ringed cross surrounded by four angels.[62] Three Syriac manuscripts from early 19th century or earlier - they were published in a compilation titled The Book of Protection by Hermann Gollancz in 1912 - contain some illustrations of no great artistic worth that show that use of images continued.\n\nA life-size male stucco figure discovered in a late-6th-century Nestorian church in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, beneath which were found the remains of an earlier church, also shows that the Church of the East used figurative representations.[61]\n\n Palm Sunday procession of Nestorian clergy in a 7th- or 8th-century wall painting from the Nestorian church at Karakhoja, Chinese Turkestan.\n\n Mogao Christian painting, a late-9th-century silk painting preserved in the British Museum.\n\n Feast of the Discovery of the Cross, from a 13th-century Nestorian Peshitta Gospel book written in Estrangela, preserved in the SBB.\n\n An angel announces the resurrection of Christ to Mary and Mary Magdalene, from the Nestorian Peshitta Gospel.\n\n The Twelve Apostles are gathered around Peter at Pentecost, from the Nestorian Peshitta Gospel.\n\n Illustration from the Nestorian Evangelion, a Syriac gospel manuscript preserved in the BnF.\n\n Portraits of the Four Evangelists, from a gospel lectionary according to the Nestorian use. Mosul, Timurid Empire, 1499.\n\n Drawing of a rider (Entry into Jerusalem), a lost wall painting from the Nestorian church at Karakhoja, 9th century.\n\n Mural fragment of a rider with a circled cross on his head, discovered at a ruined East Syriac church at Tangchaodun, Xinjiang. 8th-9th century.\n\n Anikova Plate, showing the Siege of Jericho. It was probably made in and for a Sogdian Nestorian Christian community located in Semirechye. 9th-10th century.\n\n The Grigorovskoye Plate: Paten with biblical scenes in medallions, counterclockwise from bottom left: women at the empty tomb, the crucifixion, and the Ascension. Semirechye, 9th-10th century.[63]\n\n Detail of the rubbing of the Nestorian pillar of Luoyang, discovered in Luoyang. 9th century.\n\n Detail of the rubbing of the Nestorian pillar of Luoyang, discovered in Luoyang. 9th century.\n\nEarly history\n\nAlthough the East Syriac Christian community traced their history to the 1st century AD, the Church of the East first achieved official state recognition from the Sasanian Empire in the 4th century with the accession of Yazdegerd I (reigned 399-420) to the throne of the Sasanian Empire. The policies of the Sasanian Empire, which encouraged syncretic forms of Christianity, greatly influenced the Church of the East.[64]\n\nThe early church had branches that took inspiration from Neo-Platonism,[65][66] other Near Eastern religions[67][64] like Judaism,[68] and other forms of Christianity.[64]\n\nIn 410, the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, held at the Sasanian capital, allowed the church's leading bishops to elect a formal Catholicos (leader). Catholicos Isaac was required both to lead the Assyrian Christian community and to answer on its behalf to the Sasanian emperor.[69][70]\n\nUnder pressure from the Sasanian Emperor, the Church of the East sought to increasingly distance itself from the Pentarchy (at the time being known as the church of the Eastern Roman Empire). Therefore, in 424, the bishops of the Sasanian Empire met in council under the leadership of Catholicos Dadishoʿ (421-456) and determined that they would not, henceforth, refer disciplinary or theological problems to any external power, and especially not to any bishop or church council in the Roman Empire.[71]\n\nThus, the Mesopotamian churches did not send representatives to the various church councils attended by representatives of the \"Western Church\". Accordingly, the leaders of the Church of the East did not feel bound by any decisions of what came to be regarded as Roman imperial councils. Despite this, the creed and canons of the First Council of Nicaea of 325, affirming the full divinity of Christ, were formally accepted at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410.[72] The church's understanding of the term hypostasis differs from the definition of the term offered at the Council of Chalcedon of 451. For this reason, the Assyrian Church has never approved the Chalcedonian definition.[72]\n\nThe theological controversy that followed the Council of Ephesus in 431 proved a turning point in the Christian Church's history. The Council condemned as heretical the Christology of Nestorius, whose reluctance to accord the Virgin Mary the title Theotokos \"God-bearer, Mother of God\" was taken as evidence that he believed two separate persons (as opposed to two united natures) to be present within Christ.\n\nThe Sasanian Emperor, hostile to the Byzantines, saw the opportunity to ensure the loyalty of his Christian subjects and lent support to the Nestorian Schism. The Emperor took steps to cement the primacy of the Nestorian party within the Assyrian Church of the East, granting its members his protection,[73] and executing the pro-Roman Catholicos Babowai in 484, replacing him with the Nestorian Bishop of Nisibis, Barsauma. The Catholicos-Patriarch Babai (497-503) confirmed the association of the Assyrian Church with Nestorianism.\n\nParthian and Sasanian periods\n\nChristians were already forming communities in Mesopotamia as early as the 1st century under the Parthian Empire. In 266, the area was annexed by the Sasanian Empire (becoming the province of Asōristān), and there were significant Christian communities in Upper Mesopotamia, Elam, and Fars.[74] The Church of the East traced its origins ultimately to the evangelical activity of Thaddeus of Edessa, Mari and Thomas the Apostle. Leadership and structure remained disorganised until 315 when Papa bar Aggai (310-329), bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, imposed the primacy of his see over the other Mesopotamian and Persian bishoprics which were grouped together under the Catholicate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon; Papa took the title of Catholicos, or universal leader.[75] This position received an additional title in 410, becoming Catholicos and Patriarch of the East.[76][77]\n\nThese early Christian communities in Mesopotamia, Elam, and Fars were reinforced in the 4th and 5th centuries by large-scale deportations of Christians from the eastern Roman Empire.[78] However, the Persian Church faced several severe persecutions, notably during the reign of Shapur II (339-379), from the Zoroastrian majority who accused it of Roman leanings.[79] Shapur II attempted to dismantle the catholicate's structure and put to death some of the clergy including the catholicoi Simeon bar Sabba'e (341),[80] Shahdost (342), and Barba'shmin (346).[81] Afterward, the office of Catholicos lay vacant nearly 20 years (346-363).[82] In 363, under the terms of a peace treaty, Nisibis was ceded to the Persians, causing Ephrem the Syrian, accompanied by a number of teachers, to leave the School of Nisibis for Edessa still in Roman territory.[83] The church grew considerably during the Sasanian period,[36] but the pressure of persecution led the Catholicos, Dadisho I, in 424 to convene the Council of Markabta of the Arabs and declare the Catholicate independent from \"the western Fathers\".[84] Many persecutions took place over the centuries, and the martyrs of these persecutions were commemorated in a collection of texts called the Persian martyr acts.\n\nMeanwhile, in the Roman Empire, the Nestorian Schism had led many of Nestorius' supporters to relocate to the Sasanian Empire, mainly around the theological School of Nisibis. The Persian Church increasingly aligned itself with the Dyophisites, a measure encouraged by the Zoroastrian ruling class. The church became increasingly Dyophisite in doctrine over the next decades, furthering the divide between Roman and Persian Christianity. In 484, the Metropolitan of Nisibis, Barsauma, convened the Synod of Beth Lapat where he publicly accepted Nestorius' mentor, Theodore of Mopsuestia, as a spiritual authority.[44] In 489, when the School of Edessa in Mesopotamia was closed by Byzantine Emperor Zeno for its Nestorian teachings, the school relocated to its original home of Nisibis, becoming again the School of Nisibis, leading to a wave of Nestorian immigration into the Sasanian Empire.[85][86] The Patriarch of the East Mar Babai I (497-502) reiterated and expanded upon his predecessors' esteem for Theodore, solidifying the church's adoption of Dyophisitism.[36]\n\nNow firmly established in the Persian Empire, with centres in Nisibis, Ctesiphon, and Gundeshapur, and several metropolitan sees, the Church of the East began to branch out beyond the Sasanian Empire. However, through the 6th century the church was frequently beset with internal strife and persecution from the Zoroastrians. The infighting led to a schism, which lasted from 521 until around 539, when the issues were resolved. However, immediately afterward Byzantine-Persian conflict led to a renewed persecution of the church by the Sasanian emperor Khosrau I; this ended in 545. The church survived these trials under the guidance of Patriarch Aba I, who had converted to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.[36]\n\nBy the end of the 5th century and the middle of the 6th, the area occupied by the Church of the East included \"all the countries to the east and those immediately to the west of the Euphrates\", including the Sasanian Empire, the Arabian Peninsula, with minor presence in the Horn of Africa, Socotra, Mesopotamia, Media, Bactria, Hyrcania, and India; and possibly also to places called Calliana, Male, and Sielediva (Ceylon).[87] Beneath the Patriarch in the hierarchy were nine metropolitans, and clergy were recorded among the Huns, in Persarmenia, Media, and the island of Dioscoris in the Indian Ocean.[88]\n\nThe Church of the East also flourished in the kingdom of the Lakhmids until the Islamic conquest, particularly after the ruler al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir officially converted in c. 592.\n\nIslamic rule\n\nAfter the Sasanian Empire was conquered by Muslim Arabs in 644, the newly established Rashidun Caliphate designated the Church of the East as an official dhimmi minority group headed by the Patriarch of the East. As with all other Christian and Jewish groups given the same status, the church was restricted within the Caliphate, but also given a degree of protection. In order to resist the growing competition from Muslim courts, patriarchs and bishops of the Church of the East developed canon law and adapted the procedures used in the episcopal courts.[89] Nestorians were not permitted to proselytise or attempt to convert Muslims, but their missionaries were otherwise given a free hand, and they increased missionary efforts farther afield. Missionaries established dioceses in India (the Saint Thomas Christians). They made some advances in Egypt, despite the strong Miaphysite presence there, and they entered Central Asia, where they had significant success converting local Tartars. Nestorian missionaries were firmly established in China during the early part of the Tang dynasty (618-907); the Chinese source known as the Nestorian Stele describes a mission under a proselyte named Alopen as introducing Nestorian Christianity to China in 635. In the 7th century, the church had grown to have two Nestorian archbishops, and over 20 bishops east of the Iranian border of the Oxus River.[90]\n\nPatriarch Timothy I (780-823), a contemporary of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, took a particularly keen interest in the missionary expansion of the Church of the East. He is known to have consecrated metropolitans for Damascus, for Armenia, for Dailam and Gilan in Azerbaijan, for Rai in Tabaristan, for Sarbaz in Segestan, for the Turks of Central Asia, for China, and possibly also for Tibet. He also detached India from the metropolitan province of Fars and made it a separate metropolitan province, known as India.[91] By the 10th century the Church of the East had a number of dioceses stretching from across the Caliphate's territories to India and China.[36]\n\nNestorian Christians made substantial contributions to the Islamic Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, particularly in translating the works of the ancient Greek philosophers to Syriac and Arabic.[92][93] Nestorians made their own contributions to philosophy, science (such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Qusta ibn Luqa, Masawaiyh, Patriarch Eutychius, Jabril ibn Bukhtishu) and theology (such as Tatian, Bar Daisan, Babai the Great, Nestorius, Toma bar Yacoub). The personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrian Christians such as the long serving Bukhtishu dynasty.[94][95]\n\nExpansion\n\nAfter the split with the Western World and synthesis with Nestorianism, the Church of the East expanded rapidly due to missionary works during the medieval period.[96] During the period between 500 and 1400 the geographical horizon of the Church of the East extended well beyond its heartland in present-day northern Iraq, north eastern Syria and south eastern Turkey. Communities sprang up throughout Central Asia, and missionaries from Assyria and Mesopotamia took the Christian faith as far as China, with a primary indicator of their missionary work being the Nestorian Stele, a Christian tablet written in Chinese found in China dating to 781 AD. Their most important conversion, however, was of the Saint Thomas Christians of the Malabar Coast in India, who alone escaped the destruction of the church by Timur at the end of the 14th century, and the majority of whom today constitute the largest group who now use the liturgy of the Church of the East, with around 4 million followers in their homeland, in spite of the 17th-century defection to the West Syriac Rite of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[97] The St Thomas Christians were believed by tradition to have been converted by St Thomas, and were in communion with the Church of the East until the end of the medieval period.[98]\n\nIndia\n\nThe Saint Thomas Christian community of Kerala, India, who according to tradition trace their origins to the evangelizing efforts of Thomas the Apostle, had a long association with the Church of the East. The earliest known organised Christian presence in Kerala dates to 295/300 when Christian settlers and missionaries from Persia headed by Bishop David of Basra settled in the region.[103] The Saint Thomas Christians traditionally credit the mission of Thomas of Cana, a Nestorian from the Middle East, with the further expansion of their community.[104] From at least the early 4th century, the Patriarch of the Church of the East provided the Saint Thomas Christians with clergy, holy texts, and ecclesiastical infrastructure. And around 650 Patriarch Ishoyahb III solidified the church's jurisdiction in India.[105] In the 8th century Patriarch Timothy I organised the community as the Ecclesiastical Province of India, one of the church's Provinces of the Exterior. After this point the province of India was headed by a metropolitan bishop, provided from Persia, who oversaw a varying number of bishops as well as a native Archdeacon, who had authority over the clergy and also wielded a great amount of secular power. The metropolitan see was probably in Cranganore, or (perhaps nominally) in Mylapore, where the Shrine of Thomas was located.[104]\n\nIn the 12th century, Indian Nestorianism engaged the Western imagination in the figure of Prester John, supposedly a Nestorian ruler of India who held the offices of both king and priest. The geographically remote Malabar Church survived the decay of the Nestorian hierarchy elsewhere, enduring until the 16th century when the Portuguese arrived in India. With the establishment of Portuguese power in parts of India, the clergy of that empire, in particular members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), determined to actively bring the Saint Thomas Christians into full communion with Rome under the Latin Church and its Latin liturgical rites. After the Synod of Diamper in 1599, they installed Padroado Portuguese bishops over the local sees and made liturgical changes to accord with the Latin practice and this led to a revolt among the Saint Thomas Christians.[106] The majority of them broke with the Catholic Church and vowed never to submit to the Portuguese in the Coonan Cross Oath of 1653. In 1661, Pope Alexander VII responded by sending a delegations of Carmelites headed by two Italians, one Fleming and one German priests to reconcile the Saint Thomas Christians to Catholic fold.[107] These priests had two advantages - they were not Portuguese and they were not Jesuits.[107] By the next year, 84 of the 116 Saint Thomas Christian churches had returned, forming the Syrian Catholic Church (modern day Syro-Malabar Catholic Church). The rest, which became known as the Malankara Church, soon entered into communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church. The Malankara Church also produced the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.\n\nSri Lanka\n\nNestorian Christianity is said to have thrived in Sri Lanka with the patronage of King Dathusena during the 5th century. There are mentions of involvement of Persian Christians with the Sri Lankan royal family during the Sigiriya Period. Over seventy-five ships carrying Murundi soldiers from Mangalore are said to have arrived in the Sri Lankan town of Chilaw most of whom were Christians. King Dathusena's daughter was married to his nephew Migara who is also said to have been a Nestorian Christian, and a commander of the Sinhalese army. Maga Brahmana, a Christian priest of Persian origin is said to have provided advice to King Dathusena on establishing his palace on the Sigiriya Rock.[108]\n\nThe Anuradhapura Cross discovered in 1912 is also considered to be an indication of a strong Nestorian Christian presence in Sri Lanka between the 3rd and 10th century in the then capitol of Anuradhapura of Sri Lanka.[108][109][110][111]\n\nChina\n\nChristianity reached China by 635, and its relics can still be seen in Chinese cities such as Xi'an. The Nestorian Stele, set up on 7 January 781 at the then-capital of Chang'an, attributes the introduction of Christianity to a mission under a Persian cleric named Alopen in 635, in the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang during the Tang dynasty.[112][113] The inscription on the Nestorian Stele, whose dating formula mentions the patriarch Hnanisho II (773-780), gives the names of several prominent Christians in China, including Metropolitan Adam, Bishop Yohannan, 'country-bishops' Yazdbuzid and Sargis and Archdeacons Gigoi of Khumdan (Chang'an) and Gabriel of Sarag (Luoyang). The names of around seventy monks are also listed.[114]\n\nNestorian Christianity thrived in China for approximately 200 years, but then faced persecution from Emperor Wuzong of Tang (reigned 840-846). He suppressed all foreign religions, including Buddhism and Christianity, causing the church to decline sharply in China. A Syrian monk visiting China a few decades later described many churches in ruin. The church disappeared from China in the early 10th century, coinciding with the collapse of the Tang dynasty and the tumult of the next years (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period).[115]\n\nChristianity in China experienced a significant revival during the Mongol-created Yuan dynasty, established after the Mongols had conquered China in the 13th century. Marco Polo in the 13th century and other medieval Western writers described many Nestorian communities remaining in China and Mongolia; however, they clearly were not as active as they had been during Tang times.\n\nMongolia and Central Asia\n\nThe Church of the East enjoyed a final period of expansion under the Mongols. Several Mongol tribes had already been converted by Nestorian missionaries in the 7th century, and Christianity was therefore a major influence in the Mongol Empire.[116] Genghis Khan was a shamanist, but his sons took Christian wives from the powerful Kerait clan, as did their sons in turn. During the rule of Genghis's grandson, the Great Khan Mongke, Nestorian Christianity was the primary religious influence in the Empire, and this also carried over to Mongol-controlled China, during the Yuan dynasty. It was at this point, in the late 13th century, that the Church of the East reached its greatest geographical reach. But Mongol power was already waning as the Empire dissolved into civil war; and it reached a turning point in 1295, when Ghazan, the Mongol ruler of the Ilkhanate, made a formal conversion to Islam when he took the throne.\n\nJerusalem and Cyprus\n\nRabban Bar Sauma had initially conceived of his journey to the West as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, so it is possible that there was a Nestorian presence in the city ca.1300. There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate.[117] At Famagusta, Cyprus, a Nestorian community was established just before 1300, and a church was built for them c. 1339.[118][119]\n\nDecline\n\nThe expansion was followed by a decline. There were 68 cities with resident Church of the East bishops in the year 1000; in 1238 there were only 24, and at the death of Timur in 1405, only seven. The result of some 20 years under Öljaitü, ruler of the Ilkhanate from 1304 to 1316, and to a lesser extent under his predecessor, was that the overall number of the dioceses and parishes was further reduced.[120]\n\nWhen Timur, the Turco-Mongol leader of the Timurid Empire, known also as Tamerlane, came to power in 1370, he set out to cleanse his dominions of non-Muslims. He annihilated Christianity in Central Asia.[121] The Church of the East \"lived on only in the mountains of Kurdistan and in India\".[122] Thus, except for the Saint Thomas Christians on the Malabar Coast, the Church of the East was confined to the area in and around the rough triangle formed by Mosul and Lakes Van and Urmia, including Amid (modern Diyarbakır), Mêrdîn (modern Mardin) and Edessa to the west, Salmas to the east, Hakkari and Harran to the north, and Mosul, Kirkuk, and Arbela (modern Erbil) to the south - a region comprising, in modern maps, northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and the northwestern fringe of Iran. Small Nestorian communities were located further west, notably in Jerusalem and Cyprus, but the Malabar Christians of India represented the only significant survival of the once-thriving exterior provinces of the Church of the East.[123] The complete disappearance of the Nestorian dioceses in Central Asia probably stemmed from a combination of persecution, disease, and isolation: \"what survived the Mongols did not survive the Black Death of the fourteenth century.\"[121] In many parts of Central Asia, Christianity had died out decades before Timur's campaigns. The surviving evidence from Central Asia, including a large number of dated graves, indicates that the crisis for the Church of the East occurred in the 1340s rather than the 1390s. Several contemporary observers, including the Papal Envoy Giovanni de' Marignolli, mention the murder of a Latin bishop in 1339 or 1340 by a Muslim mob in Almaliq, the chief city of Tangut, and the forcible conversion of the city's Christians to Islam. Tombstones in two East Syriac cemeteries in Mongolia have been dated from 1342, some commemorating deaths during a Black Death outbreak in 1338. In China, the last references to Nestorian and Latin Christians date from the 1350s, shortly before the replacement in 1368 of the Mongol Yuan dynasty with the xenophobic Ming dynasty and the consequential self-imposed isolation of China from foreign influence including Christianity.[124] Socotra became islamised after the Mahra Sultanate retook the island from the Portuguese in 1511.[125]\n\nSchisms\n\nFrom the middle of the 16th century, and throughout following two centuries, the Church of the East was affected by several internal schisms. Some of those schisms were caused by individuals or groups who chose to accept union with the Catholic Church. Other schisms were provoked by rivalry between various fractions within the Church of the East. Lack of internal unity and frequent change of allegiances led to the creation and continuation of separate patriarchal lines. In spite of many internal challenges, and external difficulties (political oppression by Ottoman authorities and frequent persecutions by local non-Christians), the traditional branches of the Church of the East managed to survive that tumultuous period and eventually consolidate during the 19th century in the form of the Assyrian Church of the East. At the same time, after many similar difficulties, groups united with the Catholic Church were finally consolidated into the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nSchism of 1552\n\nAround the middle of the fifteenth century Patriarch Shemʿon IV Basidi made the patriarchal succession hereditary - normally from uncle to nephew. This practice, which resulted in a shortage of eligible heirs, eventually led to a schism in the Church of the East, creating a temporarily Catholic offshoot known as the Shimun line.[126] The Patriarch Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb (1539-58) caused great turmoil at the beginning of his reign by designating his twelve-year-old nephew Khnanishoʿ as his successor, presumably because no older relatives were available.[127] Several years later, probably because Khnanishoʿ had died in the interim, he designated as successor his fifteen-year-old brother Eliya, the future Patriarch Eliya VI (1558-91).[54] These appointments, combined with other accusations of impropriety, caused discontent throughout the church, and by 1552 Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb had become so unpopular that a group of bishops, principally from the Amid, Sirt, and Salmas districts in northern Mesopotamia, chose a new patriarch. They elected a monk named Yohannan Sulaqa, the former superior of Rabban Hormizd Monastery near Alqosh, which was the seat of the incumbent patriarchs;[128] however, no bishop of metropolitan rank was available to consecrate him, as canonically required. Franciscan missionaries were already at work among the Nestorians,[129] and, using them as intermediaries,[130] Sulaqa's supporters sought to legitimise their position by seeking their candidate's consecration by Pope Julius III (1550-55).[131][54]\n\nSulaqa went to Rome, arriving on 18 November 1552, and presented a letter, drafted by his supporters in Mosul, setting out his claim and asking that the Pope consecrate him as Patriarch. On 15 February 1553 he made a twice-revised profession of faith judged to be satisfactory, and by the bull Divina Disponente Clementia of 20 February 1553 was appointed \"Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria\"[132] or \"Patriarch of the Church of the Chaldeans of Mosul\" (Chaldaeorum ecclesiae Musal Patriarcha).[133] He was consecrated bishop in St. Peter's Basilica on 9 April. On 28 April Pope Julius III gave him the pallium conferring patriarchal rank, confirmed with the bull Cum Nos Nuper. These events, in which Rome was led to believe that Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb was dead, created within the Church of the East a lasting schism between the Eliya line of Patriarchs at Alqosh and the new line originating from Sulaqa. The latter was for half a century recognised by Rome as being in communion, but that reverted to both hereditary succession and Nestorianism and has continued in the Patriarchs of the Assyrian Church of the East.[131][134]\n\nSulaqa left Rome in early July and in Constantinople applied for civil recognition. After his return to Mesopotamia, he received from the Ottoman authorities in December 1553 recognition as head of \"the Chaldean nation after the example of all the Patriarchs\". In the following year, during a five-month stay in Amid (Diyarbakır), he consecrated two metropolitans and three other bishops[130] (for Gazarta, Hesna d'Kifa, Amid, Mardin and Seert). For his part, Shemʿon VII Ishoʿyahb of the Alqosh line consecrated two more underage members of his patriarchal family as metropolitans (for Nisibis and Gazarta). He also won over the governor of ʿAmadiya, who invited Sulaqa to ʿAmadiya, imprisoned him for four months, and put him to death in January 1555.[128][134]\n\nThe Eliya and Shimun lines\n\nThis new Catholic line founded by Sulaqa maintained its seat at Amid and is known as the \"Shimun\" line. Wilmshurst suggests that their adoption of the name Shimun (after Simon Peter) was meant to point to the legitimacy of their Catholic line.[135] Sulaqa's successor, Abdisho IV Maron (1555-1570) visited Rome and his Patriarchal title was confirmed by the Pope in 1562.[136] At some point, he moved to Seert.\n\nThe Eliya-line Patriarch Shemon VII Ishoyahb (1539-58), who resided in the Rabban Hormizd Monastery near Alqosh, continued to actively oppose union with Rome, and was succeeded by his nephew Eliya (designated as Eliya \"VII\" in older historiography,[137][138] but renumbered as Eliya \"VI\" in recent scholarly works).[139][140][141] During his Patriarchal tenure, from 1558 to 1591, the Church of the East preserved its traditional christology and full ecclesiastical independence.[142]\n\nThe next Shimun Patriarch was likely Yahballaha IV, who was elected in 1577 or 1578 and died within two years before seeking or obtaining confirmation from Rome.[135] According to Tisserant, problems posed by the \"Nestorian\" traditionalists and the Ottoman authorities prevented any earlier election of a successor to Abdisho.[143] David Wilmshurst and Heleen Murre believe that, in the period between 1570 and the patriarchal election of Yahballaha, he or another of the same name was looked on as Patriarch.[144] Yahballaha's successor, Shimun IX Dinkha (1580-1600), who moved away from Turkish rule to Salmas on Lake Urmia in Persia,[145] was officially confirmed by the Pope in 1584.[146] There are theories that he appointed his nephew, Shimun X Eliyah (1600-38) as his successor, but others argue that his election was independent of any such designation.[144] Regardless, from then until the 21st century the Shimun line employed a hereditary system of succession - the rejection of which was part of the reason for the creation of that line in the first place.\n\nTwo Nestorian patriarchs\n\nThe next Eliya Patriarch, Eliya VII (VIII) (1591-1617), negotiated on several occasions with the Catholic Church, in 1605, 1610 and 1615-16, but without final resolution.[147] This likely alarmed Shimun X, who in 1616 sent to Rome a profession of faith that Rome found unsatisfactory, and another in 1619, which also failed to win him official recognition.[147] Wilmshurst says it was this Shimun Patriarch who reverted to the \"old faith\" of Nestorianism,[144][148] leading to a shift in allegiances that won for the Eliya line control of the lowlands and of the highlands for the Shimun line. Further negotiations between the Eliya line and the Catholic Church were cancelled during the Patriarchal tenure of Eliya VIII (IX) (1617-60).[149]\n\nThe next two Shimun patriarchs, Shimun XI Eshuyow (1638-56) and Shimun XII Yoalaha (1656-62), wrote to the Pope in 1653 and 1658, according to Wilmshurst, while Heleen Murre speaks only of 1648 and 1653. Wilmshurst says Shimun XI was sent the pallium, though Heleen Murre argues official recognition was given to neither. A letter suggests that one of the two was removed from office (presumably by Nestorian traditionalists) for pro-Catholic leanings: Shimun XI according to Heleen Murre, probably Shimun XII according to Wilmshurst.[150][144]\n\nEliya IX (X) (1660-1700) was a \"vigorous defender of the traditional [Nestorian] faith\",[150] and simultaneously the next Shimun patriarch, Shimun XIII Dinkha (1662-1700), definitively broke with the Catholic Church. In 1670, he gave a traditionalist reply to an approach that was made from Rome, and by 1672 all connections with the Pope were ended.[151][152] There were then two traditionalist patriarchal lines, the senior Eliya line in Alqosh, and the junior Shimun line in Qochanis.[153]\n\nThe Josephite line\n\nAs the Shimun line \"gradually returned to the traditional worship of the Church of the East, thereby losing the allegiance of the western regions\",[154] it moved from Turkish-controlled territory to Urmia in Persia. The bishopric of Amid (Diyarbakır), the original headquarters of Shimun Sulaqa, became subject to the Alqosh patriarch. In 1667 or 1668, Bishop Joseph of that see converted to the Catholic faith. In 1677, he obtained from the Turkish authorities recognition as holding independent power in Amid and Mardin, and in 1681 he was recognised by Rome as \"Patriarch of the Chaldean nation deprived of its Patriarch\" (Amid patriarchate). Thus was instituted the Josephite line, a third line of patriarchs and the sole Catholic one at the time.[155] All Joseph I's successors took the name \"Joseph\". The life of this patriarchate was difficult: the leadership was continually vexed by traditionalists, while the community struggled under the tax burden imposed by the Ottoman authorities.\n\nIn 1771, Eliya XI (XII) and his designated successor (the future Eliya XII (XIII) Ishoʿyahb) made a profession of faith that was accepted by Rome, thus establishing communion. By then, acceptance of the Catholic position was general in the Mosul area. When Eliya XI (XII) died in 1778, Eliya XII (XIII) made a renewed profession of Catholic faith and was recognised by Rome as Patriarch of Mosul, but in May 1779 renounced that profession in favour of the traditional faith. His younger cousin Yohannan Hormizd was locally elected to replace him in 1780, but for various reasons was recognised by Rome only as Metropolitan of Mosul and Administrator of the Catholics of the Alqosh party, having the powers of a patriarch but not the title or insignia. When Joseph IV of the Amid Patriarchate resigned in 1780, Rome likewise made his nephew, Augustine Hindi, whom he wished to be his successor, not patriarch but administrator. No one held the title of Chaldean Catholic patriarch for the next 47 years.\n\nConsolidation of patriarchal lines\n\nWhen Eliya XII (XIII) died in 1804, the Nestorian branch of the Eliya line died with him.[156][141] With most of his subjects won over to union with Rome by Hormizd, they did not elect a new traditionalist Patriarch. In 1830, Hormizd was finally recognized as the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon, marking the last remnant of the hereditary system within the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nThis also ended the rivalry between the senior Eliya line and the junior Shimun line, as Shimun XVI Yohannan (1780-1820) became the sole primate of the traditionalist Church of the East, \"the legal successor of the initially Uniate patriarchate of the [Shimun] line\".[157][158] In 1976, it adopted the name Assyrian Church of the East,[159][16][160] and its patriarchate remained hereditary until the death in 1975 of Shimun XXI Eshai.\n\nAccordingly, Joachim Jakob remarks that the original Patriarchate of the Church of the East (the Eliya line) entered into union with Rome and continues down to today in the form of the Chaldean [Catholic] Church,[161] while the original Patriarchate of the Chaldean Catholic Church (the Shimun line) continues today in the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nChaldean Syrian Church\n\nSaint Thomas Christians\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nChristianity in Eastern Arabia\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East after 1552\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East to 1318\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East, 1318-1552\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nPatriarch of the Church of the East\n\nSchism of the Three Chapters\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyro-Malabar Church\n\nExplanatory notes\n\n^ Traditional Western historiography of the Church dated its foundation to the Council of Ephesus of 431 and the ensuing \"Nestorian Schism\". However, the Church of the East already existed as a separate organisation in 431, and the name of Nestorius is not mentioned in any of the acts of the Church's synods up to the 7th century.[8] Christian communities isolated from the church in the Roman Empire likely already existed in Persia from the 2nd century.[9] The independent ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Church developed over the course of the 4th century,[10] and it attained its full institutional identity with its establishment as the officially recognized Christian church in Persia by Shah Yazdegerd I in 410.[11]\n\n^ The \"Nestorian\" label is popular, but it has been contentious, derogatory, and considered a misnomer. See the § Description as Nestorian section for the naming issue and alternate designations for the church.\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b c Wilken, Robert Louis (2013). \"Syriac-Speaking Christians: The Church of the East\". The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 222-228. ISBN 978-0-300-11884-1. JSTOR j.ctt32bd7m.28. LCCN 2012021755. S2CID 160590164.\n\n^ a b Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 2.\n\n^ Stewart 1928, p. 15.\n\n^ Vine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches. London: Independent Press. p. 104.\n\n^ Amir Harrak. \"Patriarchal Funerary Inscriptions in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. Archived from the original on 17 June 2010. Retrieved 15 November 2009..\n\n^ a b Meyendorff 1989, pp. 287-289.\n\n^ Broadhead, Edwin K. (2010). Jewish Ways of Following Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. p. 123. ISBN 9783161503047.\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 8.\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 11.\n\n^ Lange 2012, pp. 477-479.\n\n^ Payne 2015, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Paul, J.; Pallath, P. (1996). Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church in India. Mar Thoma Yogam publications. Centre for Indian Christian Archaeological Research. p. 5. Retrieved 17 June 2022. Authors are using different names to designate the same Church : the Church of Seleucia - Ctesiphon, the Church of the East, the Babylonian Church, the Assyrian Church, or the Persian Church.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 3,4.\n\n^ Orientalia Christiana Analecta. Pont. institutum studiorum orientalium. 1971. p. 2. Retrieved 17 June 2022. The Church of Seleucia - Ctesiphon was called the East Syrian Church or the Church of the East.\n\n^ Fiey 1994, pp. 97-107.\n\n^ a b c Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 4.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 112-123.\n\n^ a b Curtin, D. P. (2021). Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon: Under Mar Isaac. Dalcassian Publishing Company. ISBN 9781088234327.\n\n^ Procopius, Wars, I.7.1-2\n* Greatrex-Lieu (2002), II, 62\n\n^ Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle, XLIII\n* Greatrex-Lieu (2002), II, 62\n\n^ Procopius, Wars, I.9.24\n* Greatrex-Lieu (2002), II, 77\n\n^ a b c Brock 1996, pp. 23-35.\n\n^ Brock 2006, pp. 1-14.\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 42.\n\n^ Wood 2013, p. 140.\n\n^ Moffett, Samuel H. (1992). A History of Christianity in Asia. Vol. I: Beginnings to 1500. HarperCollins. p. 219.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 3, 30.\n\n^ a b Brock, Sebastian P; Coakley, James F. \"Church of the East\". e-GEDSH:Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Retrieved 27 June 2022. The Church of the East follows the strictly dyophysite ('two-nature') christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, as a result of which it was misleadingly labelled as 'Nestorian' by its theological opponents.\n\n^ Winkler, Dietmar (2009). Hidden Treasures And Intercultural Encounters: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China And Central Asia. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-643-50045-8.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 84-89.\n\n^ The Eastern Catholic Churches 2017 Archived 2018-10-24 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved December 2010. Information sourced from Annuario Pontificio 2017 edition.\n\n^ \"Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East - World Council of Churches\". oikoumene.org. January 1948.\n\n^ Rassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 166. ISBN 9780852446331. The number of the faithful at the beginning of the twenty-first century belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East under Mar Dinkha was estimated to be around 385,000, and the number belonging to the Ancient Church of the East under Mar Addia to be 50,000-70,000.\n\n^ Foltz 1999, p. 63.\n\n^ Seleznyov 2010, pp. 165-190.\n\n^ a b c d e f \"Nestorian\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 28, 2010.\n\n^ \"Nestorius\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 November 2018.\n\n^ Kuhn 2019, p. 130.\n\n^ Brock 1999, pp. 286-287.\n\n^ Wood 2013, p. 136.\n\n^ Alfeyev, Hilarion (2016). The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian. Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-87907-724-2.\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 174.\n\n^ Meyendorff 1989.\n\n^ a b Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 28-29.\n\n^ Payne 2009, pp. 398-399.\n\n^ Bethune-Baker 1908, pp. 82-100.\n\n^ Winkler 2003.\n\n^ a b c Wilmshurst 2000, p. 4.\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 14.\n\n^ Joost Jongerden, Jelle Verheij, Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915 (Brill 2012), p. 21\n\n^ Gertrude Lowthian Bell, Amurath to Amurath (Heinemann 1911), p. 281\n\n^ Oussani, Gabriel (1901). \"The Modern Chaldeans and Nestorians, and the Study of Syriac among Them\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 22: 81. doi:10.2307/592420. JSTOR 592420.\n\n^ Albrecht Classen (editor), East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (Walter de Gruyter 2013), p. 704\n\n^ a b c Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 21-22.\n\n^ Foster 1939, p. 34.\n\n^ Syriac Versions of the Bible by Thomas Nicol\n\n^ a b Parry, Ken (1996). \"Images in the Church of the East: The Evidence from Central Asia and China\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 143-162. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2018.\n\n^ a b Baumer 2006, p. 168.\n\n^ \"The Shadow of Nestorius\".\n\n^ Kung, Tien Min (1960). 唐朝基督教之研究 [Christianity in the T'ang Dynasty] (PDF) (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). Hong Kong: The Council on Christian Literature for Overseas Chinese. p. 7 (PDF page). 佐伯博士主張此像乃景敎的耶穌像\n\n^ a b Baumer 2006, pp. 75, 94.\n\n^ Drège 1992, pp. 43, 187.\n\n^ O'Daly, Briton (Yale University) (2021). \"An Israel of the Seven Rivers\" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers: 10-12.\n\n^ a b c Houston, G. W. (1980). \"An Overview of Nestorians in Inner Asia\". Central Asiatic Journal. 24 (1/2). Wiesbaden, Germany: 60-68. ISSN 0008-9192. JSTOR 41927279.\n\n^ Krausmuller, Dirk (16 November 2015). \"Christian Platonism and the Debate about Afterlife: John of Scythopolis and Maximus the Confessor on the Inactivity of the Disembodied Soul\". Scrinium. 11 (1). Brill: 246. doi:10.1163/18177565-00111p21. ISSN 1817-7530. S2CID 170249994.\n\n^ Khoury, George (22 January 1997). \"Eastern Christianity on the Eve of Islam\". EWTN. Retrieved 1 March 2023.\n\n^ Chua, Amy (2007). Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance-and Why They Fall (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-385-51284-8. OCLC 123079516.\n\n^ Rouwhorst, Gerard (March 1997). \"Jewish Liturgical Traditions in Early Syriac Christianity\". Vigiliae Christianae. 51 (1): 72-93. doi:10.2307/1584359. ISSN 0042-6032. JSTOR 1584359.\n\n^ Fiey, Jean Maurice (1970). Jalons pour une histoire de l'Église en Iraq. Louvain: Secretariat du CSCO.\n\n^ Chaumont 1988.\n\n^ Hill 1988, p. 105.\n\n^ a b Cross & Livingstone 2005, p. 354.\n\n^ Outerbridge 1952.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 1.\n\n^ Ilaria Ramelli, \"Papa bar Aggai\", in Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity, 2nd edn., 3 vols., ed. Angelo Di Berardino (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 3:47.\n\n^ Fiey 1967, pp. 3-22.\n\n^ Roberson 1999, p. 15.\n\n^ Daniel & Mahdi 2006, p. 61.\n\n^ Foster 1939, pp. 26-27.\n\n^ Burgess & Mercier 1999, pp. 9-66.\n\n^ Donald Attwater & Catherine Rachel John, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints, 3rd edn. (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 116, 245.\n\n^ Tajadod 1993, pp. 110-133.\n\n^ Labourt 1909.\n\n^ Jugie 1935, pp. 5-25.\n\n^ Reinink 1995, pp. 77-89.\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 73.\n\n^ Stewart 1928, pp. 13-14.\n\n^ Stewart 1928, p. 14.\n\n^ Tillier, Mathieu (2019), \"Chapitre 5. La justice des non-musulmans dans le Proche-Orient islamique\", L'invention du cadi : La justice des musulmans, des juifs et des chrétiens aux premiers siècles de l'Islam, Bibliothèque historique des pays d’Islam, Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, pp. 455-533, ISBN 979-10-351-0102-2\n\n^ Foster 1939, p. 33.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 47 (Armenia), 72 (Damascus), 74 (Dailam and Gilan), 94-96 (India), 105 (China), 124 (Rai), 128-129 (Sarbaz), 128 (Samarqand and Beth Turkaye), 139 (Tibet).\n\n^ Hill 1993, pp. 4-5, 12.\n\n^ Brague, Rémi (2009). The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. University of Chicago Press. p. 164. ISBN 9780226070803. Neither were there any Muslims among the Ninth-Century translators. Almost all of them were Christians of various Eastern denominations: Jacobites, Melchites, and, above all, Nestorians.\n\n^ Rémi Brague, Assyrians contributions to the Islamic civilization Archived 2013-09-27 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Britannica, Nestorian\n\n^ Jarrett, Jonathan (24 June 2019). \"When is a Nestorian not a Nestorian? Mostly, that's when\". A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe. Retrieved 1 March 2023.\n\n^ Ronald G. Roberson, \"The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church\"\n\n^ \"NSC Network - Early references about the Apostolate of Saint Thomas in India, Records about the Indian tradition, Saint Thomas Christians & Statements by Indian Statesmen\". Nasrani.net. 16 February 2007. Archived from the original on 3 April 2010. Retrieved 31 March 2010.\n\n^ Liščák, Vladimír (2017). \"Mapa mondi (Catalan Atlas of 1375), Majorcan cartographic school, and 14th century Asia\" (PDF). International Cartographic Association. 1: 4-5. Bibcode:2018PrICA...1...69L. doi:10.5194/ica-proc-1-69-2018.\n\n^ Massing, Jean Michel; Albuquerque, Luís de; Brown, Jonathan; González, J. J. Martín (1991). Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-05167-4.\n\n^ Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic-Islamic World, 1100-1500: Divergent Traditions. Brill. 2021. p. 176. ISBN 978-90-04-44603-8.\n\n^ Liščák, Vladimír (2017). \"Mapa mondi (Catalan Atlas of 1375), Majorcan cartographic school, and 14th century Asia\" (PDF). International Cartographic Association. 1: 5. Bibcode:2018PrICA...1...69L. doi:10.5194/ica-proc-1-69-2018.\n\n^ Frykenberg 2008, pp. 102-107, 115.\n\n^ a b Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 52.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 53.\n\n^ \"Synod of Diamper\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 July 2022. The local patriarch - representing the Assyrian Church of the East, to which ancient Christians in India had looked for ecclesiastical authority - was then removed from jurisdiction in India and replaced by a Portuguese bishop; the East Syrian liturgy of Addai and Mari was \"purified from error\"; and Latin vestments, rituals, and customs were introduced to replace the ancient traditions.\n\n^ a b Neil, Stephen (1984). A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge University Press. p. 322. ISBN 0521243513. Then the pope decided to throw one more stone into the pool. Apparently following a suggestion made by some among the cattanars, he sent to India four discalced Carmelites - two Italians, one Fleming and one German. These Fathers had two advantages - they were not Portuguese and they were not Jesuits. The head of the mission was given the title of apostolic commissary, and was specially charged with the duty of restoring peace in the Serra.\n\n^ a b Pinto, Leonard (2015). Being a Christian in Sri Lanka: Historical, Political, Social, and Religious Considerations. Balboa Publishers. pp. 55-57. ISBN 978-1452528632.\n\n^ \"Mar Aprem Metropolitan Visits Ancient Anuradhapura Cross in Official Trip to Sri Lanka\". Assyrian Church News. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 6 August 2013.\n\n^ Weerakoon, Rajitha (26 June 2011). \"Did Christianity exist in ancient Sri Lanka?\". Sunday Times. Retrieved 2 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Main interest\". Daily News. New York, NY. 22 April 2011. Archived from the original on 29 March 2015. Retrieved 2 August 2021 - via HighBeam Research.\n\n^ Ding 2006, pp. 149-162.\n\n^ Stewart 1928, p. 169.\n\n^ Stewart 1928, p. 183.\n\n^ Moffett 1999, pp. 14-15.\n\n^ Jackson 2014, p. 97.\n\n^ Luke 1924, pp. 46-56.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 71.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 66.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 16-19.\n\n^ a b Peter C. Phan, Christianities in Asia (John Wiley & Sons, 2011), p. 243\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 105.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 345-347.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 104.\n\n^ McLaughlin, Daniel (2007). Yemen. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 225. ISBN 978-1-84162-212-5.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 19.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 21.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst 2000, p. 22.\n\n^ Lemmens 1926, pp. 17-28.\n\n^ a b Fernando Filoni, The Church in Iraq CUA Press 2017), pp. 35-36\n\n^ a b Habbi 1966, pp. 99-132.\n\n^ Patriarcha de Mozal in Syria orientali (Anton Baumstark (editor), Oriens Christianus, IV:1, Rome and Leipzig 2004, p. 277)\n\n^ Assemani 1725, p. 661.\n\n^ a b Wilkinson 2007, pp. 86-88.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst 2000, p. 23.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 22-23.\n\n^ Tisserant 1931, pp. 261-263.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 37.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 1999, pp. 243-244.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 116, 174.\n\n^ a b Hage 2007, p. 473.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 22, 42 194, 260, 355.\n\n^ Tisserant 1931, p. 230.\n\n^ a b c d Murre van den Berg 1999, pp. 252-253.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 114.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 23-24.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst 2000, p. 24.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 352.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 24-25.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst 2000, p. 25.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 25, 316.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 114, 118, 174-175.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 1999, pp. 235-264.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 24, 352.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 119, 174.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 263.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 118, 120, 175.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 316-319, 356.\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 1.\n\n^ Fred Aprim, \"Assyria and Assyrians Since the 2003 US Occupation of Iraq\"\n\n^ Jakob 2014, pp. 100-101.\n\nGeneral and cited references\n\nAboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst: Cambria Press. ISBN 9781604975833.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Simone (1719). Bibliotheca orientalis clementino-vaticana. Vol. 1. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Simone (1721). Bibliotheca orientalis clementino-vaticana. Vol. 2. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Simone (1725). Bibliotheca orientalis clementino-vaticana. Vol. 3. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Simone (1728). Bibliotheca orientalis clementino-vaticana. Vol. 3. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Luigi (1775). De catholicis seu patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum commentarius historico-chronologicus. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Luigi (2004). History of the Chaldean and Nestorian patriarchs. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 1. London: Joseph Masters.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 2. London: Joseph Masters. ISBN 9780790544823. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London & New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nBecchetti, Filippo Angelico (1796). Istoria degli ultimi quattro secoli della Chiesa. Vol. 10. Roma.\n\nBeltrami, Giuseppe (1933). La Chiesa Caldea nel secolo dell'Unione. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. ISBN 9788872102626. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBethune-Baker, James F. (1908). Nestorius and His Teaching: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107432987. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBevan, George A. (2009). \"The Last Days of Nestorius in the Syriac Sources\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 7 (2007): 39-54. doi:10.31826/9781463216153-004. ISBN 9781463216153.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nBevan, George A. (2013). \"Interpolations in the Syriac Translation of Nestorius' Liber Heraclidis\". Studia Patristica. 68: 31-39.\n\nBinns, John (2002). An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521667388.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). \"The 'Nestorian' Church: A Lamentable Misnomer\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 23-35. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 March 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2020.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials\". Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. New York and London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281-298. ISBN 9780815330714.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2007). \"Early Dated Manuscripts of the Church of the East, 7th-13th Century\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 21 (2): 8-34. Archived from the original on 6 October 2008.\n\nBurgess, Stanley M. (1989). The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 9780913573815.\n\nBurgess, Richard W.; Mercier, Raymond (1999). \"The Dates of the Martyrdom of Simeon bar Sabba'e and the 'Great Massacre'\". Analecta Bollandiana. 117 (1-2): 9-66. doi:10.1484/J.ABOL.4.01773.\n\nBurleson, Samuel; Rompay, Lucas van (2011). \"List of Patriarchs of the Main Syriac Churches in the Middle East\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 481-491.\n\nCarlson, Thomas A. (2017). \"Syriac Christology and Christian Community in the Fifteenth-Century Church of the East\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 265-276. ISBN 9789042931640.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nChapman, John (1911). \"Nestorius and Nestorianism\". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nChaumont, Marie-Louise (1964). \"Les Sassanides et la christianisation de l'Empire iranien au IIIe siècle de notre ère\". Revue de l'histoire des religions. 165 (2): 165-202. doi:10.3406/rhr.1964.8015.\n\nChaumont, Marie-Louise (1988). La Christianisation de l'Empire Iranien: Des origines aux grandes persécutions du ive siècle. Louvain: Peeters. ISBN 9789042905405.\n\nChesnut, Roberta C. (1978). \"The Two Prosopa in Nestorius' Bazaar of Heracleides\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 29 (29): 392-409. doi:10.1093/jts/XXIX.2.392. JSTOR 23958267.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1992). The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198267447.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 12 August 2017.\n\nCoakley, James F. (2001). Mar Elia Aboona und the history of the East Syrian patriarchate. Vol. 85. Harrassowitz. pp. 119-138. ISBN 9783447042871.\n\nCross, Frank L.; Livingstone, Elizabeth A., eds. (2005). Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192802903.\n\nDaniel, Elton L.; Mahdi, Ali Akbar (2006). Culture and customs of Iran. Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313320538.\n\nDing, Wang (2006). \"Remnants of Christianity from Chinese Central Asia in Medieval Ages\". In Malek, Roman; Hofrichter, Peter L. (eds.). Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia. Institut Monumenta Serica. pp. 149-162. ISBN 9783805005340.\n\nDrège, Jean-Pierre (1992) [1989]. Marco Polo y la Ruta de la Seda. Collection «Aguilar Universal●Historia» (nº 31) (in Spanish). Translated by López Carmona, Mari Pepa. Madrid: Aguilar, S. A. de Ediciones. pp. 43 & 187. ISBN 978-84-0360-187-1. OCLC 1024004171.\n\nEbeid, Bishara (2016). \"The Christology of the Church of the East: An Analysis of Christological Statements and Professions of Faith of the Official Synods of the Church of the East before A. D. 612\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 82 (2): 353-402.\n\nEbeid, Bishara (2017). \"Christology and Deification in the Church of the East: Mar Gewargis I, His Synod and His Letter to Mina as a Polemic against Martyrius-Sahdona\". Cristianesimo Nella Storia. 38 (3): 729-784.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1967). \"Les étapes de la prise de conscience de son identité patriarcale par l'Église syrienne orientale\". L'Orient Syrien. 12: 3-22.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1970a). Jalons pour une histoire de l'Église en Iraq. Louvain: Secretariat du CSCO.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1970b). \"L'Élam, la première des métropoles ecclésiastiques syriennes orientales\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 1 (1): 123-153. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2018.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1970c). \"Médie chrétienne\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 1 (2): 357-384. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2018.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1979) [1963]. Communautés syriaques en Iran et Irak des origines à 1552. London: Variorum Reprints. ISBN 9780860780519.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 9783515057189.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1994). \"The Spread of the Persian Church\". Syriac Dialogue: First Non-Official Consultation on Dialogue within the Syriac Tradition. Vienna: Pro Oriente. pp. 97-107. ISBN 9783515057189.\n\nFiloni, Fernando (2017). The Church in Iraq. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 9780813229652.\n\nFoltz, Richard (1999). Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780312233389.\n\nFoster, John (1939). The Church of the T'ang Dynasty. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007.\n\nFrykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198263777.\n\nGiamil, Samuel (1902). Genuinae relationes inter Sedem Apostolicam et Assyriorum orientalium seu Chaldaeorum ecclesiam. Roma: Ermanno Loescher.\n\nGrillmeier, Aloys; Hainthaler, Theresia (2013). Christ in Christian Tradition: The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch from 451 to 600. Vol. 2/3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199212880.\n\nGulik, Wilhelm van (1904). \"Die Konsistorialakten über die Begründung des uniert-chaldäischen Patriarchates von Mosul unter Papst Julius III\" (PDF). Oriens Christianus. 4: 261-277.\n\nГумилёв, Лев Николаевич (1970). Поиски вымышленного царства: Легенда о государстве пресвитера Иоанна [Searching for an Imaginary Kingdom: The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John] (in Russian). Москва: Наука.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1966). \"Signification de l'union chaldéenne de Mar Sulaqa avec Rome en 1553\". L'Orient Syrien. 11: 99-132, 199-230.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1971a). \"L'unification de la hiérarchie chaldéenne dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 2 (1): 121-143. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2017.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1971b). \"L'unification de la hiérarchie chaldéenne dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle (Suite)\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 2 (2): 305-327. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2021. Retrieved 14 August 2017.\n\nHage, Wolfgang (2007). Das orientalische Christentum. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 9783170176683.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2003). \"Patriarchal Funerary Inscriptions in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd: Types, Literary Origins, and Purpose\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 6 (2): 235-264.\n\nHauser, Stefan R. (2019). \"The Church of the East until the Eighth Century\". The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 431-450. ISBN 9780199369041.\n\nHerman, Geoffrey (2019). \"The Syriac World in the Persian Empire\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 134-145. doi:10.4324/9781315708195-9. ISBN 978-1-315-70819-5.\n\nHill, Donald (1993). Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748604555.\n\nHill, Henry, ed. (1988). Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre. ISBN 9780919891906.\n\nHodgson, Leonard; Driver, Godfrey R., eds. (1925). Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9781725202399. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nHunter, Erica (1996). \"The church of the East in central Asia\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 129-142. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.10. S2CID 161756931. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 23 August 2017.\n\nJackson, Peter (2014) [2005]. The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781317878995.\n\nJakob, Joachim (2014). Ostsyrische Christen und Kurden im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Münster: LIT Verlag. ISBN 9783643506160.\n\nJenkins, Philip (2008). The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia - and How It Died. San Francisco: HarperOne. ISBN 9780061472800.\n\nJoseph, John B. (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004116419.\n\nJugie, Martin (1935). \"L'ecclésiologie des Nestoriens\". Échos d'Orient. 34 (177): 5-25. doi:10.3406/rebyz.1935.2817.\n\nKitchen, Robert A. (2012). \"The Syriac Tradition\". The Orthodox Christian World. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 66-77. ISBN 9781136314841.\n\nKlein, Wassilios (2000). Das nestorianische Christentum an den Handelswegen durch Kyrgyzstan bis zum 14. Jh. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. ISBN 9782503510354.\n\nKuhn, Michael F. (2019). God is One: A Christian Defence of Divine Unity in the Muslim Golden Age. Carlisle: Langham Publishing. ISBN 9781783685776.\n\nLabourt, Jérôme (1908). \"Note sur les schismes de l'Église nestorienne, du XVIe au XIXe siècle\". Journal Asiatique. 11: 227-235.\n\nLabourt, Jérôme (1909). \"St. Ephraem\". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nLampart, Albert (1966). Ein Märtyrer der Union mit Rom: Joseph I. 1681-1696, Patriarch der Chaldäer. Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag.\n\nLange, Christian (2012). Mia energeia: Untersuchungen zur Einigungspolitik des Kaisers Heraclius und des Patriarchen Sergius von Constantinopel. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 9783161509674.\n\nLemmens, Leonhard (1926). \"Relationes nationem Chaldaeorum inter et Custodiam Terrae Sanctae (1551-1629)\". Archivum Franciscanum Historicum. 19: 17-28.\n\nLuke, Harry Charles (1924). \"The Christian Communities in the Holy Sepulchre\" (PDF). In Ashbee, Charles Robert (ed.). Jerusalem 1920-1922: Being the Records of the Pro-Jerusalem Council during the First Two Years of the Civil Administratio. London: John Murray. pp. 46-56.\n\nMarthaler, Berard L., ed. (2003). \"Chaldean Catholic Church (Eastern Catholic)\". The New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. Thompson-Gale. pp. 366-369.\n\nMenze, Volker L. (2019). \"The Establishment of the Syriac Churches\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 105-118. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88-141056-3.\n\nMoffett, Samuel Hugh (1999). \"Alopen\". Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 14-15. ISBN 9780802846808.\n\nMooken, Aprem (1976). The Nestorian Fathers. Trichur: Mar Narsai Press.\n\nMooken, Aprem (1976). Nestorian Missions. Trichur: Mar Narsai Press.\n\nMorgan, David (1986). The Mongols. Basil Blackwell. ISBN 9780631135562.\n\nMoule, Arthur C. (1930). Christians in China before the year 1550. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999). \"The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 2 (2): 235-264. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-020119.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-352. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2005). \"The Church of the East in the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century: World Church or Ethnic Community?\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 301-320. ISBN 9789042914186.\n\nNichols, Aidan (2010) [1992]. Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism (2nd revised ed.). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 9781586172824.\n\nO'Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". In Angold, Michael (ed.). The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 9780521811132.\n\nOuterbridge, Leonard M. (1952). The Lost Churches of China. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.\n\nPayne, Richard E. (2009). \"Persecuting Heresy in Early Islamic Iraq: The Catholicos Ishoyahb III and the Elites of Nisibis\". The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity. Farnham: Ashgate. pp. 397-409. ISBN 9780754667254.\n\nPayne, Richard E. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520292451.\n\nPenn, Michael Philip (2019). \"Early Syriac Reactions to the Rise of Islam\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 175-188. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nPirtea, Adrian C. (2019). \"The Mysticism of the Church of the East\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 355-376. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (1995). \"Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth: The School of Nisibis at the Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century\". Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East. Leiden: Brill. pp. 77-89. ISBN 9004101934.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (2009). \"Tradition and the Formation of the 'Nestorian' Identity in Sixth- to Seventh-Century Iraq\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 217-250. doi:10.1163/187124109X407916. JSTOR 23932289.\n\nRoberson, Ronald (1999) [1986]. The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey (6th ed.). Roma: Orientalia Christiana. ISBN 9788872103210.\n\nRossabi, Morris (1992). Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West. Kodansha International. ISBN 9784770016508.\n\nRücker, Adolf (1920). \"Über einige nestorianische Liederhandschriften, vornehmlich der griech. Patriarchatsbibliothek in Jerusalem\" (PDF). Oriens Christianus. 9: 107-123.\n\nSaeki, Peter Yoshiro (1937). The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China. Tokyo: Academy of oriental culture.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2008). \"The Church of the East & Its Theology: History of Studies\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 74 (1): 115-131.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\nSilverberg, Robert (1972). The Realm of Prester John. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.\n\nSpuler, Bertold (1961). \"Die Nestorianische Kirche\". Religionsgeschichte des Orients in der Zeit der Weltreligionen. Leiden: Brill. pp. 120-169. ISBN 9789004293816. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nStewart, John (1928). Nestorian Missionary Enterprise: A Church on Fire. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.\n\nTajadod, Nahal (1993). Les Porteurs de lumière: Péripéties de l'Eglise chrétienne de Perse, IIIe-VIIe siècle. Paris: Plon.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2019). \"The Coming of Christianity to Mesopotamia\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 68-87. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nTfinkdji, Joseph (1914). \"L' église chaldéenne catholique autrefois et aujourd'hui\". Annuaire Pontifical Catholique. 17: 449-525.\n\nTisserant, Eugène (1931). \"L'Église nestorienne\". Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Vol. 11. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. pp. 157-323.\n\nVine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches. London: Independent Press. ISBN 9780404161880. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1925). \"Missio duorum fratrum Melitensium O. P. in Orientem saec. XVI et relatio, nunc primum edita, eorum quae in istis regionibus gesserunt\". Analecta Ordinis Praedicatorum. 33 (4): 261-278.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1928). \"Catalogue de la bibliothèque syro-chaldéenne du couvent de Notre-Dame des Semences près d'Alqoš (Iraq)\". Angelicum. 5: 3-36, 161-194, 325-358, 481-498.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1930). \"Les inscriptions de Rabban Hormizd et de N.-D. des Semences près d'Alqoš (Iraq)\". Le Muséon. 43: 263-316.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1931). \"Mar Iohannan Soulaqa, premier Patriarche des Chaldéens, martyr de l'union avec Rome (†1555)\". Angelicum. 8: 187-234.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1910). An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church or The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire 100-640 A.D. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. ISBN 9780837080789. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1929). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. London: G. Bell & Sons.\n\nWilliams, Daniel H. (2013). \"The Evolution of Pro-Nicene Theology in the Church of the East\". From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 387-395. ISBN 9783643903297.\n\nWilkinson, Robert J. (2007). Orientalism, Aramaic, and Kabbalah in the Catholic Reformation: The First Printing of the Syriac New Testament. Leiden & Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004162501.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781907318047.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2019a). \"The Church of the East in the 'Abbasid Era\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 189-201. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2019b). \"The patriarchs of the Church of the East\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 799-805. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2003). Ostsyrisches Christentum: Untersuchungen zu Christologie, Ekklesiologie und zu den ökumenischen Beziehungen der Assyrischen Kirche des Ostens. Münster: LIT. ISBN 382586796X.\n\nWood, Philip (2013). The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199670673.\n\nExternal links"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-church-of-the-east"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 13507}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-church-of-the-east", "title": "Assyrian Church of the East", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Assyrian Church of the East[e] (ACOE), sometimes called the Church of the East[20][21] and officially known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East,[20][22][f] is an East Syriac Christian church that follows and descends from the theology and ecclesiology of the historic Church of the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East\n\nܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܖ̈ܝܐ\n\nThe Patriarchal See of the Assyrian Church of the East in Kurdistan Region, Iraq\n\nAbbreviationACOE\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientationSyriac\n\nTheologyEast Syriac theology[d]\n\nCatholicos-PatriarchAwa III[16]\n\nRegionCentral Middle East, India; diaspora\n\nLanguageSyriac,[17] Aramaic, Suret\n\nLiturgyEast Syriac Rite\n\nHeadquartersAnkawa, Erbil, Iraq\n\nFounder\nJesus Christ\n\nThomas the Apostle\n (sacred tradition)\n\nAbsorbedChaldean Syrian Church (1999)\n\nSeparationsAncient Church of the East (1968)\n\nMembers413,000 - 500,000+[18]\n\nOfficial websiteOfficial website\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East[e] (ACOE), sometimes called the Church of the East[20][21] and officially known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East,[20][22][f] is an East Syriac Christian church that follows and descends from the theology and ecclesiology of the historic Church of the East.[24] It follows the eastern rite of Syriac Christianity, and employs the Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari. Its main liturgical language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic. \n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East has a traditional episcopal structure, headed by the catholicos-patriarch headquartered in Erbil, Iraq. The current catholicos-patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Awa III, was consecrated in September 2021. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout West Asia, India, North America, Australia, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[25]\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East is one the major splinter branches descended from the historic Church of the East, and is not in communion with the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, or Eastern Orthodox churches.[g] The current Assyrian Church of the East split in 1672 from the Chaldean Catholic Church, a faction of the Church of the East that had come into full communion with the Holy See and whose members were also mostly ethnic Assyrians. \n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East has a characteristic Christology that was formulated by Babai the Great. It has historically been identified by Chalcedonian churches as Nestorian, but it has clarified that it does not maintain the Christological doctrines that this label refers to, despite its veneration of Nestorius as a saint and Church Father.[26] After the Common Christological Declaration in 1994 between the Church of the East and the Catholic Church, and a 2001 theological dialogue between the churches, guidelines for the faithful to receive mutual admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East were established in particular circumstances.\n\nThe Assyrians Church of East differs from the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches in that it uses a unique form of the biblical canon, known as the Syriac Peshitta. Originally written in the Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language, It includes the traditional 46-book Old Testament, including the deuterocanon, but only uses 22 books in the New Testament. The Assyrian Church rejects as canonical the books of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation, though some Peshitta Bibles still include the books as a matter of convenience.[27]\n\nOfficially known as the Church of the East until 1976, it was then renamed the Assyrian Church of the East.[28][29] It continued the 14th-century practice of a hereditary succession from uncle to nephew to the patriarchate until 1975, with the murder of Shimun XXI Eshai in San Jose, California. As of 2020, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Edinburgh University Press, the Assyrian Church of the East has an estimated 413,000 members.[30][31]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East considers itself as the continuation of the Church of the East, a church that originally developed among the Assyrians during the first century AD in Assyria, Upper Mesopotamia and northwestern Persia, east of the Byzantine Empire. It is an apostolic church established by Thomas the Apostle, Addai of Edessa, and Bartholomew the Apostle.\n\nThe distinction between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church resulted from the series of complex processes and events that occurred within the Church of the East during the transitional period that started in the middle of the 16th century, and lasted until the beginning of the 19th century.[32] That turbulent period was marked by several consequent splits and mergers, resulting in the creation of separate branches and rival patriarchal lines. During the entire period, one of the main questions of dispute was the union with the Catholic Church. Ultimately, the pro-Catholic branches were consolidated as the Chaldean Catholic Church, while the traditional branches were consolidated as the Assyrian Church of the East.[33]\n\nSchisms and branches\n\nDuring the patriarchal tenure of Shemon VII Ishoyahb (1539-1558), who resided in the ancient Rabban Hormizd Monastery near Alqosh, an internal dissent occurred over several issues, including the question of hereditary succession to the patriarchal throne, and the question of union with the Catholic Church. By that time, Franciscan missionaries had already gained some influence over several local communities,[34] and they took an active role in organizing the opposition to the patriarch at that time. By the end of 1552, a pro-Catholic party had been organized in Mosul under the leadership of the priest Yohannan Sulaqa,[35] who decided to legitimize his position by traveling to Rome and seeking confirmation by Pope Julius III (1550-1555).[36]\n\nReceiving support from the Franciscan missionaries, he arrived in Rome and entered into full communion with the Catholic Church in February 1553. At that point, officials of the Roman Curia were given incorrect information that the elderly Patriarch Shemon VII had actually died. After some deliberation, the Roman pope decided to appoint Yohannan Sulaqa as \"Patriarch of Babylon\" and named the breakaway church as 'The Church of Assyria and Mosul\" in April 1553.[37]\n\nUpon consecration, Yohannan Sulaqa took the name Shimun and by the end of the year he returned to his homeland. He started to organize the pro-Catholic party by appointing several metropolitans and bishops.[36]\n\nThe senior Eliya line of Alqosh\n\nUnion with Rome was actively opposed by Patriarch Shemon VII Ishoyahb, who continued to reside in the Rabban Hormizd Monastery near the ancient Assyrian town of Alqosh. He was succeeded by his nephew Eliya (1558-1591), who was designated as Eliya \"VII\" in older historiography,[38][39] but renumbered as Eliya \"VI\" in recent scholarly works.[40][41][42] The same renumbering was applied to his successors, who all took the same name thus creating the Eliya line. During his patriarchal rule, the Eliya line preserved its traditional christology and full ecclesiastical independence.[43] His successor was Patriarch Eliya VII (VIII) (1591-1617), who negotiated on several occasions with the Catholic Church, in 1605 and 1610, and again in 1615-1616, but without any conclusion.[44] Further negotiations were abandoned by the next Patriarch Eliya VIII (IX) (1617-1660).[45] David Wilmshurst noted that his successor, Patriarch Eliya IX (X) (1660-1700) also was a \"vigorous defender of the traditional faith\".[46]\n\nThe Eliya line of traditionalist patriarchs continued throughout the entire 18th century, residing in the ancient Monastery of Rabban Hormizd, which was eventually attacked and looted by muslim Turks in 1743, at the beginning of the Ottoman-Persian War (1743-1746).[47] Faced with a centuries-old rivalry and frequent conflicts between two mighty Islamic empires (Ottoman and Persian), all Christian communities in the bordering regions were constantly exposed to danger - and not only in the times of war, since local, mainly Kurdish, warlords were accustomed to attacking Assyrian and Armenian Christian communities and monasteries and taking their land, often with Ottoman support. Patriarchs Eliya X (XI) (1700-1722) and Eliya XI (XII) (1722-1778) tried to improve the increasingly worsening position of their Christian flock by staying loyal to Ottoman authorities, but the local administration was frequently unable to provide effective\n\nprotection.[48] The Eliya line of traditionalist patriarchs ended in 1804 with the death of Eliya XII (XIII) (1778-1804).[49][42]\n\nThe junior Shimun line of Qochanis\n\nDuring the second half of the 16th century, traditionalist patriarchs of the Eliya line were faced with the continuous presence of the pro-Catholic movement, led by successors of Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa. After his death in 1555, the newly established line of patriarchs who were united with the Catholic Church was continued by Abdisho IV Maron (1555-1570), who remained in full communion with the Catholic Church. He visited Rome and was officially confirmed by the Pope of Rome in 1562.[50] Soon after his death, connections with Rome were weakened for the first time during the tenure of Patriarch Yahballaha IV who did not seek confirmation from the pope.[51] That interlude was ended by his successor Shimun IX Dinkha (1580-1600) who restored full communion with the Catholic Church, and was officially confirmed by the Pope of Rome in 1584.[52]\n\nAfter his death, the patriarchal office was made hereditary, and patriarchs of this line continued to use the name Shimun, thus creating the Shimun line. Hereditary succession was not acceptable to Rome, and during the tenure of the next Patriarch Shimun X Eliyah (1600-1638) ties with the Catholic Church were loosened again. In 1616, Shimun X signed a traditional profession of faith that was not accepted by the Roman pope, leaving the patriarch without Rome's confirmation.[53] His successor Shimun XI Eshuyow (1638-1656) restored communion with the Catholic Church as late as 1653, eventually receiving confirmation from the pope.[46] By that time, the movement towards full commitment to the traditional faith was constantly growing stronger within the Shimun line. When the next Patriarch Shimun XII Yoalaha decided to send his profession of faith to the pope, he was deposed by his bishops because of his pro-Catholic attitude. The pope tried to intervene on his behalf, but without success.[46]\n\nFinal resolution of conflicts within the Shimun line occurred under the next Patriarch Shimun XIII Dinkha (1662-1700), who definitively broke communion with the Catholic Church. In 1670, he gave a traditionalist reply to an approach that was made from the Roman pope, and by 1672 all connections with the Catholic Church were terminated.[54][55] At the same time, Patriarch Shimun XIII moved his seat from Amid to Qochanis. After the final return to the traditional faith, patriarchs of the Shimun line decided to keep their independence and after that time there were two independent lines of traditional patriarchs: the senior Eliya line in Alqosh and the junior Shimun line in Qochanis.[56]\n\nSuch division was additionally caused by the complex structure of local Assyrian communities, traditionally organized as tribal confederations with each tribe being headed by a local lord (malik), while each malik was ultimately subject to the patriarch, who mediated between Christian Assyrians and the Ottoman authorities.[57]\n\nConsolidation of remaining branches\n\nIn 1780, at the beginning of the patriarchal tenure of Eliya XII (XIII) (1778-1804), a group seceded from the Eliya line in Alqosh and elected Yohannan Hormizd, who entered full communion with the Catholic Church and was officially appointed Archbishop of Mosul and patriarchal administrator of the Chaldean Catholic Church, in 1783. Only after the death in 1827 of the last representative of the Josephite line, Joseph V Augustine Hindi, was Yohannan recognized as the Chaldean Catholic patriarch by the pope, in 1830. By this official appointment, the final merger of various factions committed to the union with the Catholic Church was achieved, thus forming the modern Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nAt the same time, the long coexistence and rivalry between two traditionalist patriarchal branches - the senior Eliya line of Alqosh and the junior Shimun line of Qochanis - ended in 1804 when the last primate of the Eliya line, Patriarch Eliya XII (XIII) died and was buried in the ancient Rabban Hormizd Monastery. His branch decided not to elect a new patriarch, thus enabling the remaining patriarch Shimun XVI Yohannan (1780-1820) of the Shimun line to become the sole primate of both Assyrian traditionalist branches.[58][59][56] Consolidated after 1804, the reunited traditionalist church led by patriarchs of the Shimun line became widely known as the \"Assyrian Church of the East\". Still based in Qodchanis, Assyrian Patriarch Shimun XVI Yohannan was not able to secure control over the traditional seat of the former Eliya line in the ancient Rabban Hormizd Monastery; and around 1808 that venerated monastic institution passed to the Chaldean Catholics.[60]\n\nThe next Assyrian Patriarch Shimun XVII Abraham (1820-1861) also governed his church from Qodshanis. During years marked by political turbulence, he tried to maintain good relations with the local Ottoman authorities. In 1843, he was faced with renewed hostilities from Kurdish warlords, who attacked and looted many Christian villages, killing 10,000 Christian men and taking away women and children as captives. The patriarch himself was forced to take temporary refuge in Mosul.[61] He was succeeded by Patriarch Shimun XVIII Rubil (1861-1903) who also resided in Qodshanis. In 1869, he received an open invitation from the Vatican to visit Rome to attend the First Vatican Council as an observer, but he did not accept the invitation,[62] In following years, he also rejected other initiatives for union with the Catholic Church.[63]\n\nBy the end of the 19th century, the Assyrian Church of the East consolidated itself as the sole representative of all traditionalist Assyrians. It also managed to secure a certain level of autonomy within the highly complex system of Ottoman local governance in the bordering regions.[64] On several occasions, Assyrian patriarchs refused to enter communion with the Catholic Church or merge with the Chaldean Catholic Church.[56] On the other hand, by the end of the 19th century some of its communities were converted to Protestantism by various western missionaries,[65] while other communities were drawn to Eastern Orthodoxy. That movement was led by Assyrian Bishop Mar Yonan of Supurghan in the region of Urmia who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1898, through the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia.[66]\n\n20th and 21st centuries\n\nAmong all the tragedies and schisms which thinned the church out, no other was as severe as the Assyrian genocide. At that point the Assyrian Church of the East was based in the mountains of Hakkari, as it had been since 1681. In 1915, The Young Turks invaded the region-despite the Assyrians' plea of neutrality during the Caucasus campaign by Russia and their Armenian allies-out of fear of an Assyrian independence movement. In response to this, Assyrians of all denominations (the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church and Assyrian Protestants) entered into a war of independence and allied themselves with the United Kingdom, the Russian Empire and the Armenians against the Ottomans and their Islamic Kurdish, Iranian and Arab allies.[67]\n\nDespite the odds, the Assyrians fought successfully against the Ottomans and their allies for three years throughout southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria. Eventually, however, they were abandoned by their allies, the Russian Empire and the First Republic of Armenia, due to the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Armenian defense, leaving the Assyrians vastly outnumbered, surrounded, and cut off from supplies of ammunition and food. During this period, their See at Qodchanis was completely destroyed and the Turks and their Islamic allies massacred all of the Assyrians in the Hakkari Mountains.[68]\n\nThose who survived fled into Iran with what remained of the Assyrian defense under Agha Petros, but they were pursued into Iranian territory despite the fact they were fleeing. Later, in 1918, after the murder of their de facto leader and Patriarch Shimun XIX Benyamin and 150 of his followers during a negotiation, fearing further massacres at the hands of the Turks and Kurds, most of the survivors fled by train from Iran into what was to become Iraq. They sought protection under the British mandate there, and joined the already existing indigenous Assyrian communities of both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic rites in the north, where they formed communities in Baghdad, Basra, and other areas.[68]\n\nPatriarch Shimun XXI Eshai\n\nIn the aftermath of World War I, the British-educated Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai, born into the line of patriarchs at Qodchanis, had agitated for an independent Assyrian state. Following the end of the British mandate in 1933[68] and a massacre of Assyrian civilians at Simele by the Iraqi Army, the patriarch was forced to take refuge in Cyprus.[69] There, Shimun petitioned the League of Nations regarding his people's fate, but to little avail, and he was consequently barred from entering Syria and Iraq. He traveled through Europe before moving to Chicago in 1940 to join the growing Assyrian diaspora community there.[69]\n\nDue to the church's and the general Assyrian community's disorganized state as a result of the conflicts of the 20th century, Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai was forced to reorganize the church's structure in the United States. He transferred his residence to San Francisco in 1954, and was able to travel to Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, and India, where he worked to strengthen the church.[70]\n\nIn 1964, the patriarch decreed a number of changes to the church, including liturgical reform, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, and the shortening of Lent. These changes, combined with Shimun's long absence from Iraq, caused a rift in the community there, which led to another schism. In 1968, traditionalists within the church elected Thoma Darmo as a rival patriarch to Shimun XXI Eshai, forming the independent Ancient Church of the East, based in Baghdad, Iraq.[71]\n\nIn 1972, Shimun decided to step down as patriarch, and the following year he got married, in contravention to longstanding church custom. This led to a synod in 1973 in which further reforms were introduced, the most significant of which included the permanent abolition of hereditary succession - a practice introduced in the middle of the fifteenth century by Patriarch Shemon IV Basidi (who had died in 1497) - and it was also decided that Shimun should be reinstated. The second matter was supposed to be settled at another synod in 1975; however, Shimun was assassinated in November 1975 by an estranged relative before this could take place.[72]\n\nPatriarch Dinkha IV\n\nAlmost a year after the death of Shimun, Mar Khnanya Dinkha, Metropolitan of Tehran, convened a synod of seven Assyrian bishops which took place at St Paul's Abbey, Alton, in England, from 12 to 17 October 1976. They were joined by two Church of England bishops, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, and elected Dinkha as the 120th Catholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East. On 17 October he was consecrated as Dinkha IV at St Barnabas Church, Ealing, in an area where many Assyrians lived.[73]\n\nDinkha, who was then aged 33, operated his see at Tehran until the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, when he went into exile in the United States and transferred the Patriarchal See to Chicago.[74] Much of his patriarchate had been concerned with tending to the Assyrian diaspora community and with ecumenical efforts to strengthen relations with other churches.[74] On 26 March 2015, Dinkha IV died in the United States, leaving the Assyrian Church of the East in a period of sede vacante until 18 September 2015. During that time, Aprem Mooken served as the custodian of the Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.[75][76]\n\nPatriarch Gewargis III\n\nOn 18 September 2015, the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East elected the Metropolitan of Iraq, Jordan, and Russia, Warda Sliwa, to succeed the late Dinkha IV as Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. On 27 September 2015, he was consecrated as Catholicos-Patriarch in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Baptist, in Erbil, Iraq. Upon his consecration, he assumed the ecclesiastical name Gewargis III.\n\nChurch leaders proposed moving the Patriarchal See from Chicago back to Erbil.[77]\n\nThere have also been talks of reunification. In the Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East in 1994, the two churches recognized the legitimacy and rightness of each other's titles for Mary.[78]\n\nIn 2005, the Assyrian Church of the East had about 380,000 members,[79] mostly living in the United States, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.[80][81]\n\nPatriarch Awa III\n\nOn 6 September 2021, Mar Gewargis III formally stepped down as Catholicos-Patriarch during an Extraordinary Session of the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East, leaving the Patriarchal See vacant. On 8 September 2021, the Holy Synod elected Mar Awa Royel, Bishop of California and Secretary of the Holy Synod, to succeed Mar Gewargis III as the 122nd Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.[82][83]\n\nDoctrine\n\nFollowing doctrinal traditions of the ancient Church of the East, the modern Assyrian Church of the East recognizes the first two ecumenical councils: the First Council of Nicaea (325), and the First Council of Constantinople (381). The Assyrian Church follows trinitarian doctrines, expressed in the Nicene Creed, and professes the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father.[84]\n\nChristology\n\nTheologically, the Assyrian Church of the East does not accept doctrinal definitions that were adopted at the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Council of Chalcedon (451), and still adheres to the Church of the East's traditional Christology, that is often labeled as Nestorian. The use and exact meaning of that term has been the subject of many debates, not only throughout history but also in modern times, since the Assyrian Church of the East has distinctive views on several Christological questions and claims that its theological doctrines and traditions are essentially Orthodox, while admitting the need for further inter-Christian dialogue that would resolve various questions in the field of comparative Christological terminology.[85]\n\nThe Nestorian nature of Assyrian Christianity remains a matter of contention. Elements of Nestorian doctrine were explicitly repudiated by Patriarch Dinkha IV on the occasion of his accession in 1976.[86]\n\nThe Christology of the Church of the East has its roots in the Antiochene theological tradition of the early church. The founders of Assyrian theology are Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, both of whom taught at Antioch. \"Antiochene\" is a modern designation given to the style of theology associated with the early church at Antioch, as contrasted with the theology of the Church of Alexandria.[87]\n\nAntiochene theology emphasizes Christ's humanity and the reality of the moral choices he faced. In order to preserve the impassibility of Christ's Divine Nature, the unity of his person is defined in a looser fashion than in the Alexandrian tradition.[87] The normative Christology of the Church of the East was written by Babai the Great (d. 628) during the controversy that followed the 431 Council of Ephesus. Babai held that within Christ there exist two qnome (Syriac: ܩܢܘܡܐ / qnômâ, a complex term, equivalent for Greek term hypostasis), unmingled, but everlastingly united in the one prosopon (person) of Christ.\n\nThe precise Christological teachings of Nestorius are shrouded in obscurity. Wary of Monophysitism, Nestorius rejected Cyril's theory of a hypostatic union, adhering instead a much looser concept of prosopic union. Nestorianism came to mean radical Dyophysitism,[88] in which Christ's two natures are eternally separate, though it is doubtful whether Nestorius ever taught such a doctrine. Nestorius' dispreference of the term Theotokos ('God-bearer', or 'Mother of God') has traditionally been held as evidence that he asserted the existence of two persons (dyoprosopism) - not merely two natures - in Jesus Christ, but there exists no evidence that Nestorius denied Christ's oneness.[89] In the controversy that followed the Council of Ephesus, the term \"Nestorian\" was applied to all doctrine upholding a strictly Antiochene Christology. In consequence, the Church of the East was labelled Nestorian, though its official Christology was in fact defined by Babai the Great, at the council that was held in 612.[85]\n\nLiturgy\n\nThe church employs the Syriac dialect of Eastern Aramaic in its liturgy, the East Syriac Rite, which includes three anaphoras, attributed to Addai of Edessa and Mari, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and later also Nestorius.[68]\n\nBiblical canon\n\nThe Assyrians Church of East differs from the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches in that it uses a unique form of the biblical canon, known as the Syriac Peshitta. Originally written in the Syriac dialect of the Aramaic language, It includes the traditional 46-book Old Testament, including the deuterocanon, but only uses 22 books in the New Testament. The Assyrian Church rejects as canonical the books of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation, though some Peshitta Bibles still include the books as a matter of convenience.[90]\n\nIconography\n\nIn their homes, Christians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East hang a Christian cross (without the corpus) on the eastern wall of the main room.[91]\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East does not make use of icons, and the interiors of its houses of worship are simple.[92] Iconography has been present in the Church of the East's history; opposition to religious images eventually became the norm due to the spread of Islam in the region, which forbade any type of depictions of saints and biblical prophets. Thus, the church was forced to get rid of her icons.[93][92]\n\nA Nestorian Peshitta Gospel book written in Estrangela, from the 13th century, resides at the State Library of Berlin. This illustrated manuscript from Upper Mesopotamia or Tur Abdin proves that in the 13th century the church was not yet aniconic.[94] The Nestorian Evangelion preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France contains an illustration depicting Jesus Christ (not a crucifix) in the circle of a ringed cross (in the form of Celtic cross) surrounded by four angels.[95]\n\nThree Syriac manuscripts from the early 19th century and earlier-they were edited into a compilation titled The Book of Protection by Hermann Gollancz-contain a number of illustrations which are more or less crude. These manuscripts prove the continuous use of images. Moreover, a life-size male stucco figure was discovered in a church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon from the late 6th century. Beneath this church were found the remains of an earlier church. Although it cannot be determined which Nestorian Church was involved, the discovery nevertheless proves that the Church of the East also used figurative representations.[94]\n\nOrganization\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East is governed by an episcopal polity, the same as other apostolic churches. The church maintains a system of geographical parishes organized into dioceses and archdioceses. The Catholicos-Patriarch is the head of the church. Its synod is composed of bishops who oversee individual dioceses and metropolitans who oversee episcopal dioceses in their territorial jurisdiction.\n\nThe Chaldean Syrian Church, which encompasses India and the Persian Gulf, is the largest diocese of the church. Its history goes back to the Church of the East that established a presence in Kerala, but the two communities maintained only a sporadic connection for several centuries, and consistent relations were only established with the arrival of the Portuguese in India around 1500. The church is represented by the Assyrian Church of the East and is in communion with it.\n\nMembership is estimated to 385,000 adherents,[79] although some sources say as high as 500,000.[96] According to scholar James Minahan around 19% of the Assyrian people belong to the Assyrian Church of the East.[97] In its own 2018 Report on Religious Freedom, the United States Department of State put the Assyrian Church of the East adherents at approximately 20% of the Christians in Iraq.[98]\n\nHierarchy\n\nDue to the unstable political, religious and economic situation in the church's historical homeland of the Middle East, many of the church members now reside in Western countries. Churches and dioceses have been established throughout Europe, America, and Oceania.[25]\n\nArchdioceses\n\nArchdiocese of Australia, New Zealand and Lebanon - established in October 1984.\n\nArchdiocese of Syria - jurisdiction lies throughout all Syria, particularly in the al-Hasakah Governorate, where most of the community resides in al-Hasakah, Qamishli and the 35 villages along the Khabur River. There are also small communities in Damascus and Aleppo.\n\nArchdiocese of India - the archdiocese's territory includes the city of Thrissur and surrounding, mostly in the state of Kerala.\n\nDioceses\n\nDiocese of Iran - territory includes the capital Tehran, the Urmia and Salmas plains.\n\nDiocese of Nohadra and Nineveh - established in 1999 with jurisdiction includes the indigenous communities of Dohuk and Nineveh.\n\nDiocese of Baghdad, Russia and Georgia.\n\nDiocese of Scandinavia and Germany - territory lies in western Europe and includes Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Norway.\n\nDiocese of Eastern USA - formerly the patriarchal archdiocese from 1994 until 2012. The territory includes the large Chicago, Illinois community, along with smaller parishes in Michigan, New England and New York.\n\nDiocese of California - jurisdiction includes parishes in Western US and northern California. Some of the parishes are San Francisco, San Jose, Modesto, Turlock, Ceres, Seattle, and Sacramento.\n\nDiocese of Western United States - jurisdiction includes parishes in Arizona and southern California (Los Angeles).\n\nDiocese of Canada - includes the territory of Toronto, Windsor, Hamilton and all Canada.\n\nDiocese of Victoria and New Zealand - includes Melbourne and New Zealand.\n\nDiocese of Western Europe - territory lies in Western Europe and includes the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, the Netherlands and Greece.\n\nMembers of the Holy Synod\n\nAs of May 2024\n\nMar Awa III: 122nd Catholicos-Patriarch\n\nMeelis Zaia: Metropolitan of Australia, New Zealand and Lebanon and Patriarchal Vicar General\n\nAfram Athneil: Metropolitan of Syria\n\nAwgin Kuriakose: Metropolitan of India and the Gulf Countries\n\nOdisho Awraham: Bishop of Scandinavia and Germany\n\nNarsai Benyamin: Bishop of Iran\n\nPaulus Benjamin: Bishop of the Eastern United States\n\nAbris Youkhannan: Bishop of Dohuk and Nineveh\n\nBenyamin Elya: Bishop of Victoria and New Zealand and Secretary of the Holy Synod\n\nAwraham Youkhanis:[99] Bishop of Western Europe\n\nElia Tamras:[100] Bishop of Baghdad, Ukraine and Georgia.\n\nRetired:\n\nSargis Yosip: Bishop Emeritus of Baghdad\n\nAprim Khamis: Bishop Emeritus of the Western United States\n\nEmmanuel Yosip: Bishop Emeritus of Canada\n\nDemography\n\nStatistics of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1850, according to George Percy Badger.[101]\n\nPopulation of the Assyrian Church of the East, 1850\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Families\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Families\n\nPatriarch's\n100\n75\n62\n2,778\n\nJilu\n18\n14\n10\n1,168\n\n'Aqra\n15\n13\n9\n249\n\nLewun & Norduz\n15\n9\n7\n222\n\nBerwari\n27\n20\n18\n348\n\nShemsdin & Urmi\n-\n38\n34\n4,500\n\nGawar\n45\n34\n18\n1,082\n\nTotal\n-\n249\n188\n11,378\n\nGazarta\n23\n23\n16\n220\n\nStatistics of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1877, according to Edward Cutts.[101]\n\nPopulation of the Assyrian Church of the East, 1877\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Families\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Families\n\nPatriarch's\n96\n88\n81\n2,274\n\nJilu\n21\n38\n37\n1,650\n\nAnzel\n34\n23\n22\n972\n\nShemsdin\n54\n43\n36\n1,067\n\nArdishai\n90\n40\n28\n2,888\n\nSupurghan\n3\n2\n1\n290\n\nGawar\n74\n56\n43\n1,497\n\nTotal\n375\n290\n248\n10,638\n\nEcumenical relations\n\nOn November 11, 1994, a historic meeting between Patriarch Dinkha IV and Pope John Paul II took place in Rome. Both signed a document titled \"Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". One side effect of this meeting was that the Assyrian Church of the East's relationship with the fellow Chaldean Catholic Church began to improve.[102]\n\nΤhe Assyrian Church of the East was never admitted a full member of the Middle East Council of Churches, due to the Coptic Orthodox Church accusing the Assyrian Church of the East to be Nestorian, and thus, heretical.[21]\n\nThe lack of a coherent institution narrative in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, which dates to apostolic times, has caused many Western Christians, and especially Roman Catholics, to doubt the validity of this anaphora, used extensively by the Assyrian Church of the East, as a prayer of consecration of the eucharistic elements. In 2001, after a study of this issue, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, promulgated a declaration approved by Pope John Paul II stating that this is a valid anaphora. This declaration opened the door to a joint synodal decree officially implementing the present Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East.[103]\n\nSee also\n\nAbda of Hira\n\nChaldean Syrian Church in India (also known as Assyrian Church of the East in India)\n\nChurch of the East in China\n\nCommon Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East to 1318\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East, 1318-1552\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East after 1552\n\nList of patriarchs of the East\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nList of Assyrian tribes\n\nNotes\n\n^ Distinguished from Chalcedonian Dyophysitism.[2][3]\n\n^ The justice of imputing Nestorianism to Nestorius, whom the Assyrian Church of the East venerated as a saint, is disputed.[4][5] David Wilmshurst states that for centuries \"the word 'Nestorian' was used both as a term of abuse by those who disapproved of the traditional East Syrian theology, as a term of pride by many of its defenders [...] and as a neutral and convenient descriptive term by others. Nowadays it is generally felt that the term carries a stigma\".[6] Sebastian P. Brock says: \"The association between the Church of the East and Nestorius is of a very tenuous nature, and to continue to call that Church 'Nestorian' is, from a historical point of view, totally misleading and incorrect - quite apart from being highly offensive and a breach of ecumenical good manners\".[7] Apart from its religious meaning, the word \"Nestorian\" has also been used in an ethnic sense, as shown by the phrase \"Catholic Nestorians\".[8][9][10]\n\nIn light of the persistently misused 'Nestorian' term, Sebastian Brock, a Fellow of the British Academy, in his 1996 article titled: \"The 'Nestorian' Church: a lamentable misnomer\", called the designation for the Church of the East as the \"'Nestorian Church'\" as \"both inappropriate and misleading\", quoted in the larger context: \"...the term 'Nestorian Church' has become the standard designation for the ancient oriental church which in the past called itself 'The Church of the East', but which today prefers the fuller title 'The Assyrian Church of the East'. Such a designation is not only discourteous to modern members of this venerable church, but also - as this paper aims to show - both inappropriate and misleading.\"[11]\n\n^ In 1994, the Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East marked the resolution of a dispute between those two Churches that had existed since the Council of Ephesus. They expressed their common understanding of doctrine concerning the divinity and humanity of Christ, and recognized the legitimacy and rightness of their respective descriptions of Mary as, on the Assyrian side, \"the Mother of Christ our God and Saviour\", and, on the Catholic side, as \"the Mother of God\" and also as \"the Mother of Christ\".[12][13][14][15]\n\n^ Dyophysite doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia[1][a][b][c]\n\n^ Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܖ̈ܝܐ, romanized: ʿĒḏtā ḏ-Maḏnḥā ḏ-ʾĀṯūrāyē;[19] Arabic: كنيسة المشرق الآشورية[19]\n\n^ Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܩܕܝܫܬܐ ܘܫܠܝܚܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ ܕܐܬܘܪ̈ܝܐ, romanized: ʿĒḏtā Qaddīštā wa-Šlīḥāytā Qāṯōlīqī ḏ-Maḏnḥā ḏ-ʾĀṯūrāyē; Arabic: كنيسة المشرق الآشورية الرسولية الجاثلقية المقدسة[23]\n\n^ The Assyrian Church of the East allows open communion with all baptised Christians, regardless of their denomination or church. However, this open communion is not mutual with the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox churches.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P; Coakley, James F. \"Church of the East\". e-GEDSH:Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Retrieved 27 June 2022. The Church of the East follows the strictly dyophysite ('two-nature') christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, as a result of which it was misleadingly labelled as 'Nestorian' by its theological opponents.\n\n^ Michael Philip Penn; Scott Fitzgerald Johnson; Christine Shepardson; Charles M. Stang, eds. (22 February 2022). Invitation to Syriac Christianity: An Anthology (22-Feb-2022 ed.). Univ of California Press. p. 409. ISBN 9780520299191.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P; Coakley, James F. \"Church of the East\". e-GEDSH:Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Retrieved 27 June 2022.\n\n^ Bethune-Baker 1908, p. 82-100.\n\n^ Bühlmann, Walbert (17 April 1987). Dreaming about the Church: Acts of the Apostles of the 20th Century. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781556120619. Retrieved 17 April 2023 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 4. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 14.\n\n^ Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (3 August 2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. BRILL. ISBN 978-9004225183. Retrieved 17 April 2023 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Gertrude Lowthian Bell, Amurath to Amurath (Heinemann 1911), p. 281\n\n^ Gabriel Oussani, \"The Modern Chaldeans and Nestorians, and the Study of Syriac among them\" in Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 22 (1901), p. 81; cf. Albrecht Classen (editor), East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (Walter de Gruyter 2013), p. 704\n\n^ Brock 1996, p. 23-35.\n\n^ \"Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". Archived from the original on 4 January 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2023.\n\n^ Joshua Castellino (25 April 2013). Minority Rights in the Middle East. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0191668883. Most Assyrians are affiliated to one of four Churches: the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church (Catholic), and the Assyrian Church of the East (Nestorian)\n\n^ Tang, Li; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2013). From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 9783643903297. The so-called Nestorian Church is also known as the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\n^ Lee Samuel (October 2009). Understanding Japan Through the Eyes of Christian Faith Third Edition. Lulu.com. ISBN 9789490179014. Nestorian missionaries who represented the Assyrian Church of the East\n\n^ \"Interview with Mar Awa Royel, the newly elected patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East\". YouTube. 8 September 2021.\n\n^ Holy Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East Official News Website\n\n^ \"The Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East: 30th Anniversary of the Common Christological Declaration\". Collana Ut Unum Sint (8). Libreria Editrice Vaticana: 11-12. 2024.\n\n^ a b \"Østens Assyriske Kirke i Danmark\". assyrianchurch.dk. Archived from the original on 2 July 2020. Retrieved 2 July 2020.\n\n^ a b Parry, Ken; Melling, David J.; Brady, Dimitri; Griffith, Sidney H.; Healey, John F., eds. (1 September 2017) [1999]. \"Church of the East\". The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 122. doi:10.1002/9781405166584. ISBN 978-1-4051-6658-4.\n\n^ a b Parry, Ken; Melling, David J.; Brady, Dimitri; Griffith, Sidney H.; Healey, John F., eds. (1 September 2017) [1999]. \"Middle East Council of Churches\". The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 317. doi:10.1002/9781405166584. ISBN 978-1-4051-6658-4.\n\n^ Binns 2002, p. 28.\n\n^ \"اخبار كنيسة المشرق الاشورية\". اخبار كنيسة المشرق الاشورية (in Arabic). Retrieved 2 July 2020.\n\n^ Hunter 2014, p. 601-620.\n\n^ a b Hunter 2014, p. 614-615.\n\n^ \"Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". Vatican.va. Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 26 July 2010.\n\n^ Bewer, Julius August (1900). The history of the New Testament canon in the Syrian church. University of California Libraries. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. pp. 67-69.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 1.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 4.\n\n^ Johnson, Todd M.; Zurlo, Gina A. (2020). World Christian encyclopedia (3rd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh university press. p. 935. ISBN 978-1-4744-0323-8.\n\n^ \"World Christian Database | Brill\". www.worldchristiandatabase.org. Retrieved 16 August 2026.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003.\n\n^ Lemmens 1926, p. 17-28.\n\n^ Habbi 1966, p. 99-132.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst 2000, p. 22. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Gulik 1904, p. 261-277.\n\n^ Tisserant 1931, p. 261-263.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 37.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 1999a, p. 243-244.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 116, 174.\n\n^ a b Hage 2007, p. 473.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 22, 42 194, 260, 355. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 24. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 24-25. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ a b c Wilmshurst 2000, p. 25. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 205, 263. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 28, 195, 242, 250-251, 355. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 263. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 22-23. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 23. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 23-24. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 24, 315. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 25, 316. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 114, 118, 174-175.\n\n^ a b c Murre van den Berg 1999a, p. 235-264.\n\n^ Wigram 1914.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 120, 175.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 316-319, 356. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 125, 263-264. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 33, 212. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 129-130.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 35-36. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 275-276. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 324. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 36, 281, 314. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFWilmshurst2000 (help)\n\n^ Yakoub 2020.\n\n^ a b c d Cross & Livingstone 2005, p. 354.\n\n^ a b Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 144.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 147-148.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 148-149.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 149.\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 252.\n\n^ a b Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 150-155.\n\n^ \"Holy Synod Announcement - Passing of Catholicos-Patriarch\". Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East. Archived from the original on 8 October 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.\n\n^ \"Notice from the Locum Tenens\". Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East. Archived from the original on 24 May 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.\n\n^ Nagl, Kurt (26 September 2015). \"Assyrian Church of the East elects new leader\". Rudaw Media Network.\n\n^ \"Common Christological declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". The Holy See. 11 November 1994. Archived from the original on 4 January 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2010.\n\n^ a b Rassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 166. ISBN 9780852446331. The number of the faithful at the beginning of the twenty - first century belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East under Mar Dinkha was estimated to be around 385,000, and the number belonging to the Ancient Church of the East under Mar Addia to be 50,000-70,000.\n\n^ \"Nestorian\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 19, 2010.\n\n^ Eduardo Campo, Juan (2009). Encyclopedia of Islam. Infobase Publishing. p. 142. ISBN 9781438126968. the Assyrian Church of the East (found mainly in northern Iraq, southern Turkey, Iran, southwest India, and now the United States).\n\n^ \"His Beatitude Mar Meelis Zaia Remarks on the Election of the New Patriarch\". Youtube. Assyrian Church of the East. 8 September 2021. Archived from the original on 12 December 2021. Retrieved 9 September 2021.\n\n^ Sirwan, Dilan (9 September 2021). \"The Assyrian Church of the East elects new patriarch in Erbil\". Rudaw Media Network. Retrieved 9 September 2021.\n\n^ Brock 1999, p. 293.\n\n^ a b Brock 2006.\n\n^ Hill 1988, p. 107.\n\n^ a b Cross & Livingstone 2005, p. 79.\n\n^ Burgess 1989, p. 90, 229, 231.\n\n^ Cross & Livingstone 2005, p. 339.\n\n^ Bewer, Julius August (1900). The history of the New Testament canon in the Syrian church. University of California Libraries. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. pp. 67-69.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ \"Sign of the Cross\". Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East - Archdiocese of Australia, New Zealand and Lebanon. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2020. Inside their homes, a cross is placed on the eastern wall of the first room. If one sees a cross in a house and do not find a crucifix or pictures, it is almost certain that the particular family belongs to the Church of the East.\n\n^ a b Horner, Norman A. (1989). A Guide to Christian Churches in the Middle East: Present-day Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa. Mission Focus. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-877736-00-1. The Assyrian Church of the East uses neither images nor icons. A stand, holding a copy of the Gospels and covered with a cloth, bears a simple cross that is venerated with the kiss of peace that people in other Eastern churches accord to their icons. The simplicity of their church interiors may reflect a concession to the Islamic objection to religious pictures in places of worship, or it may merely attest to the poverty of an isolated Christian people.\n\n^ Tighe, William J. \"The Shadow of Nestorius by William J. Tighe\". Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. Retrieved 17 April 2023.\n\n^ a b Baumer, Christoph (2016). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity (New ed.). London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 75 and 94. ISBN 978-1-78453-683-1.\n\n^ Drège, Jean-Pierre (1992) [1989]. Marco Polo y la Ruta de la Seda. Collection \"Aguilar Universal\" (in Spanish). Vol. 31. Translated by López Carmona, Mari Pepa. Madrid: Aguilar, S. A. de Ediciones. pp. 43 & 187. ISBN 978-84-0360-187-1. OCLC 1024004171. Doctrinas persas\n\n^ \"The Church of the East - Mark Dickens\". The American Foundation for Syriac Studies. 5 October 2012. Retrieved 25 December 2012.\n\n^ Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 206. ISBN 9780313321092. The Assyrians, although closely assiociated with their Christian religion, are divided among a number of Christian sects. The largest denominations are the Chaldean Catholic Church with about 45% of the Assyrian population, the Syriac Orthodox with 26%, the Assyrian Church of the East with 19%, the free Orthodox Church of Antioch or Syriac Catholic Church with 4%, and various Protestant sects with a combined 6%.\n\n^ Iraq 2018 International Religious Freedom Report (PDF) (Report). United States Department of State. p. 3. Retrieved 17 April 2023.\n\n^ \"Our Churches\".\n\n^ \"Elia Isaac Tamrs - Names - Orthodoxia\".\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organization of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Louvain: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. p. 368. ISBN 90-429-0876-9.\n\n^ Mooken 2003, p. 18.\n\n^ \"Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". vatican.va. Archived from the original on 23 December 2001.\n\nSources\n\nAboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst: Cambria Press. ISBN 9781604975833.\n\nAbramtsov, David (1960). \"The Assyrians of Persia and the Russian Orthodox Church\". One Church. 14: 155-169.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Simone (1719). Bibliotheca orientalis clementino-vaticana. Vol. 1. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Luigi (1775). De catholicis seu patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum commentarius historico-chronologicus. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Luigi (2004). History of the Chaldean and Nestorian patriarchs. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 1. London: Joseph Masters.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 2. London: Joseph Masters. ISBN 9780790544823. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nBecchetti, Filippo Angelico (1796). Istoria degli ultimi quattro secoli della Chiesa. Vol. 10. Roma.\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2015). Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226145310.\n\nBenjamin, Daniel D. (2008). The Patriarchs of the Church of the East. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781463211059.\n\nBethune-Baker, James F. (1908). Nestorius and His Teaching: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107432987. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBinns, John (2002). An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521667388.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). \"The 'Nestorian' Church: A Lamentable Misnomer\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 23-35. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.3.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials\". Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. New York and London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281-298. ISBN 9780815330714.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nBurleson, Samuel; Rompay, Lucas van (2011). \"List of Patriarchs of the Main Syriac Churches in the Middle East\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 481-491.\n\nBurgess, Stanley M. (1989). The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 9780913573815.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2017). \"Assyrian Christians\". In Frahm, Eckart (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Malden: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 599-612. doi:10.1002/9781118325216. ISBN 9781118325216.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1992). The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198267447.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1999). \"The Patriarchal List of the Church of the East\". After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 65-84. ISBN 9789042907355.\n\nCoakley, James F. (2001). \"Mar Elia Aboona and the history of the East Syrian patriarchate\". Oriens Christianus. 85: 119-138. ISBN 9783447043809.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nCross, Frank L.; Livingstone, Elizabeth A., eds. (2005). Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192802903.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 9783515057189.\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007.\n\nGulik, Wilhelm van (1904). \"Die Konsistorialakten über die Begründung des uniert-chaldäischen Patriarchates von Mosul unter Papst Julius III\" (PDF). Oriens Christianus. 4: 261-277.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1966). \"Signification de l'union chaldéenne de Mar Sulaqa avec Rome en 1553\". L'Orient Syrien. 11: 99-132, 199-230.\n\nHage, Wolfgang (2007). Das orientalische Christentum. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 9783170176683.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart (1993). \"The Modern Assyrians - Name and Nation\". Semitica: Serta philologica Constantino Tsereteli dicata. Torino: Zamorani. pp. 99-114. ISBN 9788871580241.\n\nHartmann, Klaus-Peter (1980). Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeographie christlicher Minderheiten im Vorderen Orient. Wiesbaden: Reichert. ISBN 9783882260809.\n\nHill, Henry, ed. (1988). Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre. ISBN 9780919891906.\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (1996). \"The church of the East in central Asia\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 129-142. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.10. S2CID 161756931.\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (2014). \"The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East\". Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 601-620. ISBN 9781317818663.\n\nJakob, Joachim (2014). Ostsyrische Christen und Kurden im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Münster: LIT Verlag. ISBN 9783643506160.\n\nJenkins, Philip (2008). The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia - and How It Died. San Francisco: HarperOne. ISBN 9780061472800.\n\nJoseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian missions, archaeologists, and colonial power. Leiden: Brill Studies in Christian Mission. ISBN 978-9004116412.\n\nKitchen, Robert A. (2012). \"The Assyrian Church of the East\". The Orthodox Christian World. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 78-88. ISBN 9780415455169.\n\nLampart, Albert (1966). Ein Märtyrer der Union mit Rom: Joseph I. 1681-1696, Patriarch der Chaldäer. Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag.\n\nLemmens, Leonhard (1926). \"Relationes nationem Chaldaeorum inter et Custodiam Terrae Sanctae (1551-1629)\". Archivum Franciscanum Historicum. 19: 17-28.\n\nLundgren, Svante (2016). The Assyrians: From Nineveh to Södertälje. Södertälje: Tigris Press. ISBN 9789198344127.\n\nO'Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 9780521811132.\n\nMooken, Aprem (2003). The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.\n\nMooken, Aprem (2004). Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV: The Man and His Message. Trichur: Mar Narsai Press. ISBN 9788190220507.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999a). \"The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 2 (2): 235-264. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-020119. S2CID 212688640.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999b). From a Spoken to a Written Language: The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. ISBN 9789062589814.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2006). \"A Neo-Aramaic Gospel Lectionary Translation by Israel of Alqosh\". Loquentes linguis: Linguistic and Oriental Studies in Honour of Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 523-533. ISBN 9783447054843.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-352. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2009). \"Chaldeans and Assyrians: The Church of the East in the Ottoman Period\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 146-164. ISBN 9781607241119.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2011) [2009]. \"Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East\". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Vol. 1. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 154-159.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2013). \"Light from the East(1948-1954) and the De-Territorialization of the Assyrian Church of the East\". Religion Beyond its Private Role in Modern Society. Leiden: Brill. pp. 115-134. ISBN 9789004257856.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2015). Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500-1850). Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042930797.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2015). \"Classical Syriac and the Syriac Churches: A Twentieth-Century History\". Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 119-148. ISBN 9789042930469.\n\nMutlu-Numansen, Sofia; Ossewaarde, Marinus (2019). \"A Struggle for Genocide Recognition: How the Aramean, Assyrian, and Chaldean Diasporas Link Past and Present\" (PDF). Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 33 (3): 412-428. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcz045.\n\nNichols, Aidan (2010) [1992]. Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism (2nd revised ed.). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 9781586172824.\n\nСадо, Стефан (1996). \"Российская православная миссия в Урмии (1898-1918)\" (PDF). Христианское чтение. 13: 73-112. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 20 August 2017.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\nSpuler, Bertold (1961). \"Die Nestorianische Kirche\". Religionsgeschichte des Orients in der Zeit der Weltreligionen. Leiden: Brill. pp. 120-169. ISBN 9789004293816. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nTisserant, Eugène (1931). \"L'Église nestorienne\". Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Vol. 11. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. pp. 157-323.\n\nVine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches. London: Independent Press.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1925). \"Missio duorum fratrum Melitensium O. P. in Orientem saec. XVI et relatio, nunc primum edita, eorum quae in istis regionibus gesserunt\". Analecta Ordinis Praedicatorum. 33 (4): 261-278.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1931). \"Mar Iohannan Soulaqa, premier Patriarche des Chaldéens, martyr de l'union avec Rome (†1555)\". Angelicum. 8: 187-234.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1914). The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan (PDF). London: Adam and Charles Black.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1929). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. London: G. Bell & Sons.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781907318047.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2019). \"The Patriarchs of the Church of the East\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 799-805. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2003). Ostsyrisches Christentum. Untersuchungen zu Christologie, Ekklesiologie und zu den ökumenischen Beziehungen der Assyrischen Kirche des Ostens [Eastern Syriac Christianity. Studies on Christology, Ecclesiology and the Ecumenical Relations of the Assyrian Church of the East]. Münster: Lit. ISBN 3-8258-6796-X.\n\nYakoub, Afram (2020). The Path to Assyria: A Call for National Revival. Södertälje: Tigris Press. ISBN 9789198154160.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (1999). \"The Assyrians: A Historical and Current Reality\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 15-30.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000b). \"Los Asirio-Caldeos, Cristianos orientales arameoparlantes\" (PDF). Dialogo Ecumenico. 35 (112): 263-282.\n\nExternal links"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-church-of-the-east"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9469}, {"slug": "reference-ancient-church-of-the-east", "title": "Ancient Church of the East", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Ancient Church of the East (ACE) is an East Syriac Christian denomination based in Baghdad and is composed largely of ethnic Assyrians. It separated from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964 to establish an independent ecclesial communion, and is one of the churches that descend...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ancient Church of the East\n\nCathedral of the Virgin Mary\n Baghdad, Iraq\n\nAbbreviationACE\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientationSyriac\n\nCatholicos-PatriarchGewargis III Younan\n\nLanguageSyriac\n\nLiturgyEast Syriac Rite\n\nHeadquartersBaghdad, Iraq\n\nSeparated fromAssyrian Church of the East\n\nMembersapprox. 75,000, of which 45,000 are in Iraq and 20,000 in India (1999)[1]\n\nThe Ancient Church of the East (ACE) is an East Syriac Christian denomination based in Baghdad and is composed largely of ethnic Assyrians. It separated from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964 to establish an independent ecclesial communion, and is one of the churches that descend from historic Church of the East, alongside the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. In 1999, the church reported 75,000 members.[1] As of 2020, according to the World Christian Database, the online version of the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Edinburgh University Press, the Ancient Church of the East has approximately 11,890 members.[2]\n\nHistory\n\nIn 1964, a decision by Patriarch Mar Shimun XXIII Eshai of the Assyrian Church of the East to switch over from the traditional Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar led part of the Church of the East, to split off in a schism. The breakaway group called itself the Ancient Church of the East and in 1968 consecrated their own patriarch, Mar Toma Darmo, who strongly opposed the system of hereditary succession of the position of patriarch of the Church of the East, as well as its adoption of the Gregorian calendar \"and other modernizing measures\". Mar Darmo was also joined by \"various other groups opposed to Mar Shimun.\"[1]\n\nMar Yacob III Daniel was elected as new patriarch in June 2022.[3] However, he abdicated two months later in August 2022,[4] and on 12 November 2022 the Holy Synod elected Mar Gewargis Younan to take his place. The consecration of the patriarch-elect was scheduled to take place in Baghdad in June 2023,[5] and on 9 June, Mar Gewargis III Younan was consecrated as the 110th Patriarch of the Ancient Church of The East.\n\nOrganisation\n\nHoly Synod\n\nThe Holy Synod is listed as follow:\n\nMar Gewargis III Younan, Catholicos-Patriarch (seat in Baghdad, Iraq)\n\nMar Yacob Daniel, Metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Baghdad and Basra (seat in Baghdad and Basra)\n\nMar Zaia Khoshaba, Metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Canada and the United States (seat in Toronto, Canada)\n\nMar Toma Aramia, Metropolitan who resides in Canada (seat in Toronto, Canada)\n\nMar Shimun Daniel Alkhoury,[6] Bishop of Iraq and the Middle East.\n\nList of catholicos-patriarchs\n\nPrior to 1964\n\nSince 1968\n\nThoma Darmo (1968-1969)\n\nAddai II Giwargis (1972-2022)\n\nYacob III Daniel (June - August 2022)\n\nGewargis III Younan (9 June 2023[7] - present)\n\nRelationship with the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nUnder the tenure of Addai II, the Ancient Church of the East has made several gestures towards reunification with the Assyrian Church of the East. The most prominent of these is the declaration made in June 2010 stating that the Ancient Church of the East would now celebrate Christmas in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. Previously, the church used the traditional Julian date for the Christmas Day (25 December of the Julian calendar currently corresponds to 7 January of the Gregorian Calendar), as the Church of the East had throughout its history. The decision was to be implemented later that year, on 25 December 2010.[8]\n\nDialogue for reunification\n\nFollowing the death (March 2015) of Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East,[9] dialogue of unification continued between the churches.\n\nOn 22 May 2015, a meeting involving prelates of both Holy Councils took place in Chicago, Illinois, in the library of St. Andrew's Assyrian Church of the East. Present were Yacoub Daniel, Zaia Khoshaba, and Gewargis Younan representing the Ancient Church of the East, and Gewargis Sliwa, Awa Royel, and Iskhaq Yousif representing the Assyrian Church of the East. Archdeacon William Toma served as the meeting's common secretary. Yacoub Daniel flew in from Australia for the meeting, and Zaia traveled from Canada.[10]\n\nOn 1 June 2015, the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East met in Erbil, Iraq, to discuss the future of the church. The date had previously been arranged for the election of the new Catholicos-Patriarch. Awa Royel issued a statement on the same day, notifying the public that a response to the Ancient Church of the East's recommendations for reunification had been delivered to their prelates. The letter requested a prompt response to the terms, and the election of the new Patriarch was suspended until the following week, on 8 June 2015.[11]\n\nOn 5 June 2015, Aprem Mooken issued a formal statement announcing that the election of the next Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East was suspended until September (2015), pending the unification of the churches.[12]\n\nIt turned out that unification was not achievable. On 18 September, Assyrian Church of the East elected Gewargis III as the new head of the Church, and he was consecrated and enthroned as Catholicos-Patriarch on 27 September 2015.[13]\n\nIn spite of the fact that unification was not achieved, leaders of both Churches have continued to promote various forms of mutual cooperation.[14]\n\nAfter the death of Mar Addai II, reunification failed in May 2022 and the election of a new patriarch was therefore launched.[15][16]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian people\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nChaldean Syrian Church\n\nChurch of the East\n\nEast Syrian Rite\n\nOld Calendarists\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Parry, Ken; Melling, David J.; Brady, Dimitri; Griffith, Sidney H.; Healey, John F., eds. (1 September 2017) [1999]. \"Church of the East\". The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp. 122-3. doi:10.1002/9781405166584. ISBN 978-1-4051-6658-4.\n\n^ \"World Christian Database | Brill\". www.worldchristiandatabase.org. Retrieved 16 August 2026.\n\n^ Fides, Agenzia. \"ASIA/IRAQ - Mar Yakoob III Danil elected new Patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East - Agenzia Fides\". www.fides.org. Retrieved 18 December 2022.\n\n^ SyriacPress (15 August 2022). \"Patriarch of Ancient Church of the East Mar Yakoob III Danil abdicates two months after election\". SyriacPress. Retrieved 11 February 2023.\n\n^ SyriacPress (15 November 2022). \"Mor Gorgis Younan elected as new Patriarch of Ancient Church of the East\". SyriacPress. Retrieved 11 February 2023.\n\n^ \"رئيس الديوان يحضر مراسيم تكريس الاب دانيال الخوري طيماثيوس أسقفا على ايبارشية العراق للكنيسة الشرقية القديمة\". www.cese.iq. Retrieved 13 January 2022.\n\n^ \"New era for the Ancient Church of the East: The inauguration of His Grace Mar Gewargis Younan\".\n\n^ The Assyrian: Ancient Church of the East moves to change calendar Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Decree of the Holy Synod\". Assyrian Church News. 14 April 2015. Archived from the original on 16 January 2017. Retrieved 13 January 2022.\n\n^ \"PRESS RELEASE\". Assyrian Church News. Retrieved 13 January 2022.\n\n^ \"Press Release from the holy Council of Bishops of the Assyrian Church of the East\". Assyrian Church News. Retrieved 13 January 2022.\n\n^ \"Statement of the Council of Hierarchs of the Assyrian Church of the East (2015)\" (PDF). Retrieved 18 December 2022.\n\n^ Royel, Mar Awa. \"Biography of His Holiness Mar Gewargis III\". Holy Catholic Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East Official News Website. Assyrian Church of the East. Archived from the original on 2 October 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015.\n\n^ \"Chicago Commemorates the 100th Martyrdom Anniversary of Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI\". Assyrian Church News. Retrieved 13 January 2022.\n\n^ \"Ancient Church of the East picks new patriarch, puts brakes on reunification\". AsiaNews. 4 June 2022.\n\n^ \"New patriarch elected for the Ancient Church of the East\". SyriacPress. 4 June 2022. Retrieved 4 June 2022.\n\nFurther reading\n\nMooken, Aprem (2003). The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.\n\nHage, Wolfgang (2007). Das orientalische Christentum. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 9783170176683.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14.\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ancient-church-of-the-east"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1366}, {"slug": "reference-chaldean-catholic-church", "title": "Chaldean Catholic Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Chaldean Catholic Church (Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܟܠܕܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ, ʿĒdtā Kalḏāytā Qāṯōlīqāytā; Arabic: الكنيسة الكلدانية, al-Kanīsa al-Kaldāniyya; Latin: Ecclesia Chaldaeorum Catholica) is an Eastern Catholic particular church (sui iuris) descended from the historic Church of the East. It is in full communion with the Holy See and the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Chaldean Catholic Church\n\nClassical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܟܠܕܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ\n\nInterior of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows in Baghdad, Iraq\n\nTypeParticular church (sui iuris)\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientation\nEastern Catholic\n\nSyriac\n\nScripturePeshitta[1]\n\nTheologyCatholic theology\n\nGovernanceHoly Synod of the Chaldean Church[2]\n\nPopeLeo XIV\n\nPatriarchPaul III Nona\n\nRegionIraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon; diaspora in North America, Europe, and Australia\n\nLanguageLiturgical: Syriac[3]\n\nLiturgyEast Syriac Rite\n\nHeadquartersCathedral of St. Joseph, Baghdad, Iraq\n\nFounderTraditionally traced to Thomas the Apostle via Addai and Mari; established in 1552 under Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa\n\nOrigin1552 \nOttoman Iraq\n\nSeparated fromChurch of the East\n\nSeparationsAssyrian Church of the East\n\nMembers616,639 (2018)[4]\n\nOther nameChaldean Patriarchate\n\nOfficial websitechaldeanpatriarchate.com\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church (Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܟܠܕܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ, ʿĒdtā Kalḏāytā Qāṯōlīqāytā; Arabic: الكنيسة الكلدانية, al-Kanīsa al-Kaldāniyya; Latin: Ecclesia Chaldaeorum Catholica) is an Eastern Catholic particular church (sui iuris) descended from the historic Church of the East. It is in full communion with the Holy See and the worldwide Catholic Church.[5] It uses the East Syriac Rite in the Syriac language.\n\nThe church is headed by the Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldeans (until 2022, patriarch of Babylon), currently Paul III Nona, seated in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Baghdad, Iraq. As of 2018, it counted approximately 616,639 members globally, with most residing in Iraq and significant diasporic communities in North America, Canada, Australia, and Europe.[4][6]\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church emerged in the Schism of 1552, when a faction of the Church of the East sought to restore full communion with the Catholic Church. This occurred amidst internal crises in the Church of the East largely concerning the practice of hereditary succession to the patriarchate (from uncle to nephew) that had begun in the 14th century. In 1830, the traditional patriarchal line was united to, and has since led, the Chaldean Catholic Church. \n\nDemographics\n\nAccording to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, citing the Iraqi Christian Foundation, around 80% of Iraqi Christians are Chaldean Catholics.[7] A 2018 report by the U.S. Department of State estimated that 67% of Christians in Iraq belonged to the Chaldean Catholic Church.[8] The European Union Agency for Asylum cited similar figures in its 2019 country guidance.[9]\n\nThe majority of adherents are ethnic Assyrians, also referred to as Chaldo-Assyrians.[10] Chaldean communities are primarily located in northern Iraq, especially in towns such as Alqosh, Ankawa, Araden, Tel Keppe, and Shaqlawa, as well as among diaspora populations.\n\nTerminology\n\nNeither before nor after the 15th century did the term \"Chaldean\" indicate a supposed ethnic connection of the Church of the East with ancient south Babylonian Chaldea and its inhabitants, which emerged during the 9th century BC after Chaldean tribes migrated from the Levant region of Urfa in Upper Mesopotamia to southeast Mesopotamia, and disappeared from history during the 6th century BC:[11] it referred instead to the use by Christians of that church of the Syriac language, a form of the biblical Aramaic language, which was then and indeed until the 19th century generally called Chaldean.[12][13][14][15]\n\nOutside of Catholic Church usage, the term \"Chaldean\" continued to apply to all associated with the Church of the East tradition, whether they were in communion with Rome or not. It indicated not race or nationality, but only language or religion. Throughout the 19th century, it continued to be used of East Syriac Christians, whether \"Nestorian\" or Catholic,[16][17][18][19][20] and this usage continued into the 20th century.[21]\n\nHistorical usage\n\n4th century\n\nFor many centuries, from at least the time of Jerome (c. 347 - 420),[12] the term \"Chaldean\" was a misnomer that indicated the Biblical Aramaic language[22] and was still the normal name in the nineteenth century. Jerome did know that Aramaic was in the Bible, where he designated the biblical Aramaic by the term \"Chaldean\". Jerome implied that one reason the books of Tobit and Judith are undeserving of inclusion within the biblical canon is because they were written in Chaldean. Because he translated the Hebrew Bible, he would naturally recognize each time which language would be much more difficult for him when the passages changed from Hebrew to Chaldean.[13][14][15]\n\nIn Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles, quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea in Praeparatio Evangelica, from the early 4th century AD, the term \"Chaldean\" was mentioned as a synonym for \"Assyrian\": \"The discovery was ascribed by the god to Egyptians, Phoenicians, Chaldeans (for these are the Assyrians), Lydians, and Hebrews.\"[23]\n\n15th-16th centuries\n\nOnly in 1445 did it begin to be used to mean Aramaic speakers in communion with the Catholic Church, on the basis of a decree of the Council of Florence,[24] which accepted the profession of faith that Timothy, metropolitan of the Aramaic speakers in Cyprus, made in Aramaic, and which decreed that \"nobody shall in future dare to call [...] Chaldeans, Nestorians\".[25][26][27] \n\nIn the 16th century, Spanish cleric Francis Xavier used the term \"Chaldean\" for the Syriac language in this statement: \"Not even the Caciz themselves understand the prayers which they recite: which are in a foreign language (I think Chaldean). They render special honours to the Apostle St. Thomas, claiming to be descendants of the Christians begotten to Jesus Christ by that Apostle in these countries.\"[28]\n\n19th century\n\nA letter from November 14, 1838, states: “The so-called “Chaldeans\" of Mesopotamia received that title, as you know, from the pope, on their becoming Catholics.\"[29] Previously, when there were as yet no Catholic Aramaic speakers of Mesopotamian origin, the term \"Chaldean\" was applied with explicit reference to their \"Nestorian\" religion. Thus Jacques de Vitry wrote of them in 1220/1 that \"they denied that Mary was the Mother of God and claimed that Christ existed in two persons. They consecrated leavened bread and used the 'Chaldean' (Syriac) language\".[30] The decree of the Council of Florence was directed against use of \"Chaldean\" to signify \"non-Catholic.\"\n\nIn 1852 George Percy Badger distinguished those whom he called Chaldeans from those whom he called Nestorians, but by religion alone, never by language, race or nationality.[31]\n\nThe Assyrian ethnicity of Chaldean Catholics is also attested by Assyriology. In 1881, archeologist and author Hormuzd Rassam stated: “The inhabitants of Assyria consist now of mixed races, Arabs, Turkomans, Koords, Yezeedees, Jews, and Christians called Chaldeans and Syrians. The last two-named denominations doubtless belong to one nationality, the Assyrian, and they were only distinguished by these two names when they separated consequent upon the theological dispute of the age, namely, Monophisites or Jacobites, and Nestorians.\"[32] \n\nContemporary\n\nIn 1920, Herbert Henry Austin stated: “It may not be out of place, therefore, to point out that there were exceedingly few Roman Catholic Assyrians or “Chaldeans\" as they are generally termed when they embrace Rome, amongst the refugees at Baqubah. The very large majority of the Roman Catholic Assyrians in the Mosul vilayet did not join the mountaineers and fight against the Turks and in consequence were permitted by the Turks to continue to dwell practically unmolested in their homes about Mosul.\"[33][34]\n\nPatriarch Raphael I Bidawid of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1989-2003), who accepted the term Assyrian as descriptive of his nationality and ethnicity, commented: \"When a portion of the Church of the East became Catholic in the 17th Century, the name given to the church was 'Chaldean' based on the Magi kings who were believed by some to have come from what once had been the land of the Chaldean, to Bethlehem. The name 'Chaldean' does not represent an ethnicity, just a church [...] We have to separate what is ethnicity and what is religion [...] I myself, my sect is Chaldean, but ethnically, I am Assyrian.\"[35] Earlier, he said: \"Before I became a priest I was an Assyrian, before I became a bishop I was an Assyrian, I am an Assyrian today, tomorrow, forever, and I am proud of it.\"[36]\n\nChaldean Catholic Archbishop of Urmia, Mar Toma Audo (1854-1918), considered the most elegant Syriac writer of his time,[37] also stressed the remnants of the ancient Assyrians were the East Syrians (Suryāyē Madənkhāyē). Commenting in his Syriac work The Selected Readings, published in 1906, he wrote: \"We too, the East Syrians, descend from the aforementioned Assyrians, we are children of the Assyrians or Ashur son of Shem and on account of this we are also Semites. We have preserved until today the language of our ancestors with of course some changes which have entered it.\" He then continues and explains how \"Syrian\" (Surāyā) is simply a shortened abbreviation of \"Assyrian,\" and notes that some scholars contemporary to him thought that the Assyrians adopted the name \"Syrian\" after converting to Christianity.[38]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Church of the East\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church traces its beginnings to the Church of the East,[5] which was founded in the Parthian Empire. The Acts of the Apostles mentions Parthians as among those to whom the apostles preached on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:9). Thomas the Apostle, Thaddeus of Edessa, and Bartholomew the Apostle are reputed to be its founders. One of the modern Churches that boast descent from it says it is \"the Church in Babylon\" spoken of in 1 Peter 5:13 and that he visited it.[39]\n\nUnder the rule of the Sasanian Empire, which overthrew the Parthians in 224, the Church of the East continued to develop its distinctive identity by use of the Syriac language and Syriac script. One \"Persian\" bishop was at the First Council of Nicaea (325).[40] There is no mention of Persian participation in the First Council of Constantinople (381), in which also the Western part of the Roman Empire was not involved.\n\nThe Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon of 410, held in the Sasanian capital, recognized the city's bishop Isaac as Catholicos, with authority throughout the Church of the East. The persistent military conflicts between the Sasanians and the by then Christianized Roman Empire made the Persians suspect the Church of the East of sympathizing with the enemy. This in turn induced the Church of the East to distance itself increasingly from that in the Roman Empire. Although in a time of peace their 420 council explicitly accepted the decrees of some \"western\" councils, including that of Nicaea, in 424 they determined that thenceforth they would refer disciplinary or theological problems to no external power, especially not to any \"western\" bishop or council.[41][42]\n\nThe theological controversy that followed the Council of Ephesus in 431 was a turning point in the history of the Church of the East. The Council condemned as heretical the Christology of Nestorius, whose reluctance to accord the Virgin Mary the title Theotokos \"God-bearer, Mother of God\" was taken as evidence that he believed two separate persons (as opposed to two united natures) to be present within Christ. The Sasanian Emperor provided refuge for those who in the Nestorian schism rejected the decrees of the Council of Ephesus enforced in the Byzantine Empire.[43] In 484 he executed the pro-Roman Catholicos Babowai. Under the influence of Barsauma, Bishop of Nisibis, the Church of the East officially accepted as normative the teaching not of Nestorius himself, but of his teacher Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose writings the 553 Second Council of Constantinople condemned as Nestorian but some modern scholars view them as orthodox.[44] The position thus assigned to Theodore in the Church of the East was reinforced in several subsequent synods in spite of the opposing teaching of Henana of Adiabeme.[45]\n\nAfter its split with the West and its adoption of a theology that some called Nestorianism, the Church of the East expanded rapidly in the medieval period due to missionary work. Between 500 and 1400, its geographical horizon extended well beyond its heartland in present-day northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey, setting up communities throughout Central Asia and as far as China-as witnessed by the Xi'an Stele, a Tang dynasty tablet in Chinese script dating to 781 that documented 150 years of Christian history in China.[46] Their most lasting addition was of the Saint Thomas Christians of the Malabar Coast in India, where they had around 10 million followers.[47]\n\nHowever, a decline had already set in at the time of Yahballaha III (1281-1317), when the Church of the East reached its greatest geographical extent, it had in south and central Iraq and in south, central and east Persia only four dioceses, where at the end of the ninth century it had at least 54.[48]\n\nAround 1400, the Turco-Mongol nomadic conqueror Timur arose out of the Eurasian Steppe to lead military campaigns all across Western, Southern and Central Asia, ultimately seizing much of the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the declining Delhi Sultanate. Timur's conquests devastated most Assyrian bishoprics and destroyed the 4000-year-old cultural and religious capital of Assur. After the destruction brought on by Timur, the massive and organized Church of the East structure was largely reduced to its region of origin, with the exception of the Saint Thomas Christians in India.\n\n1552 schism\n\nThe Church of the East has seen many disputes about the position of Catholicos. A synod in 539 decided that neither of the two claimants, Elisha and Narsai, who had been elected by rival groups of bishops in 524, was legitimate.[49] Similar conflicts occurred between Barsauma and Acacius of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and between Hnanisho I and Yohannan the Leper. The 1552 conflict was not merely between two individuals but extended to two rival lines of patriarchs, like the 1964 schism between what are now called the Assyrian and the Ancient Church of the East.\n\nDissent over the practice of hereditary succession to the Patriarchate, usually from uncle to nephew, led to the action in 1552 by a group of Assyrian bishops who elected as a rival Patriarch the abbot of Rabban Hormizd Monastery (the patriarch's residence), Yohannan Sulaqa.[50] To strengthen the position of their candidate, the bishops sent him to Rome to negotiate a new union with the pope.[50][51] By tradition, a patriarch could be ordained only by someone of archiepiscopal (metropolitan) rank, a rank to which only members of that one family were promoted. Sulaqa thus travelled to Rome, where, presented as the new patriarch-elect, he entered communion with the Catholic Church on February 20, 1553, was ordained by Pope Julius III and was recognized as patriarch on April 9.[50][52]\n\nThe title or description under which Sulaqa was recognized as patriarch is given variously as \"Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria\";[53] \"Patriarch of the Church of the Chaldeans of Mosul\";[54] \"Patriarch of the Chaldeans\";[51][55][56][57] \"Patriarch of Mosul\";[52][58][59] or \"Patriarch of the Eastern Assyrians\", this last being the version given by Pietro Strozzi on the second-last unnumbered page before page 1 of his De Dogmatibus Chaldaeorum,[60] of which an English translation is given in Adrian Fortescue's Lesser Eastern Churches.[61][62] The \"Eastern Assyrians\", who, if not Catholic, were presumed to be Nestorians, were distinguished from the \"Western Assyrians\" (those west of the Tigris River), who were looked on as Jacobites.[63][64][65] It was as Patriarch of the \"Eastern Assyrians\" that Sulaqa's successor, Abdisho IV Maron, was accredited for participation in the Council of Trent.[66]\n\nThe names already in use (except that of \"Nestorian\") were thus applied to the existing church (not a new one) for which the request to consecrate its patriarch was made by emissaries who gave the impression that the patriarchal see was vacant.[58][56][67]\n\nSulaqa returned home in the same year and, unable to take possession of the traditional patriarchal seat near Alqosh, resided in Amid. Before being put to death at the instigation of partisans supporting the patriarch from whom he had broken away, Shemon VII Ishoyahb, he ordained two metropolitans and three other bishops.[56][58][52] This initiated a new ecclesiastical hierarchy under what is known as the \"Shimun line\" of patriarchs, who soon moved from Amid eastward, settling, after many intervening places, in the isolated village of Qudshanis under Persian rule. Ishoyahb, meanwhile, was succeeded by his nephew Eliya VI, in what became known as the \"Eliya Line\".\n\nSuccessive leaders of those in communion with Rome\n\nSulaqa's earliest successors entered into communion with the Catholic Church, but in the course of over a century, their link with Rome grew weak. The last to request and obtain formal papal recognition died in 1600. They adopted hereditary succession to the patriarchate, opposition to which had caused the 1552 schism. In 1672, Shimun XIII Dinkha formally broke communion with Rome, adopting a profession of faith that contradicted that of Rome, while he maintained his independence from the Alqosh-based \"Eliya line\" of patriarchs. The \"Shimun line\" eventually became the patriarchal line of what since 1976 is officially called the Assyrian Church of the East.[50][68][69][70][71]\n\nLeadership of those who wished to be in communion with Rome then passed to Archbishop Joseph I of Amid. In 1677 his leadership was recognized first by the Turkish civil authorities, and then in 1681 by Rome. (Until then, the authority of the Alqosh patriarch over Amid, which had been Sulaqa's residence but which his successors abandoned on having to move eastward into Safavid Iran, had been accepted by the Turkish authorities.)\n\nAll the (non-hereditary) successors in Amid of Joseph I, who in 1696 resigned for health reasons and lived on in Rome until 1707, took the name Joseph: Joseph II (1696-1713), Joseph III (1713-1757), Joseph IV (1757-1781). For that reason, they are known as the \"Josephite line\". Joseph IV presented his resignation in 1780 and it was accepted in 1781, after which he handed over the administration of the patriarchate to his nephew, not yet a bishop, and retired to Rome, where he lived until 1791.[72]\n\nAppointment of the nephew as patriarch would look like acceptance of the principle of hereditary succession. In addition, the Alqosh \"Eliya line\" was drawing closer to Rome, and the pro-Catholic faction within its followers was becoming predominant. For various reasons, including the ecclesiastical as well as political turbulence in Europe after the French Revolution, Rome was long unable to choose between two rival claimants to headship of the Chaldean Catholics.\n\nThe 1672 adoption by the \"Shimun line\" of patriarchs of Nestorian doctrine had been followed in some areas by widespread adoption of the opposing Christology upheld in Rome. This occurred not only in the Amid-Mardin area for which by Turkish decree Joseph I was patriarch, but also in the city of Mosul, where by 1700 nearly all the East Syrians were Catholics.[73] The Rabban Hormizd Monastery, which was the seat of the \"Eliya line\" of patriarchs is 2 km from the village of Alqosh and about 45 km north of the city of Mosul.\n\nIn view of this situation, Patriarch Eliya XI wrote to Pope Clement XII and his successor Benedict XIV in 1735, 1749 and 1756, asking for union. Then, in 1771, both he and his designated successor Ishoyabb made a profession of faith that Pope Clement XIV accepted, thus establishing communion in principle. When Eliya XI died in 1778, the metropolitans recognized as his successor Ishoyabb, who accordingly took the Eliya name (Eliya XII). To win support, Eliya made profession of the Catholic faith, but almost immediately renounced it and declared his support of the traditionalist (Nestorian) view.\n\nYohannan Hormizd, a member of the \"Eliya line\" family, opposed Eliya XII (1778-1804), the last of that line to be elected in the normal way as patriarch. In 1780 Yohannan was irregularly elected patriarch, as Sulaqa had been in 1552. He won over to communion with Rome most followers of the \"Eliyya line\". The Holy See did not recognize him as patriarch, but in 1791 Pope Pius VI appointed him archbishop of Amid and administrator of the Catholic patriarchate. The violent protests of Joseph IV's nephew, who was then in Rome, and suspicions raised by others about the sincerity of Yohannan's conversion prevented this being put into effect.[73]\n\nIn 1793 it was agreed that Yohannan should withdraw from Amid to Mosul, the metropolitan see that he already held, but that the post of patriarch would not be conferred on his rival, Joseph IV's nephew. In 1802 the latter was appointed metropolitan of Amid and administrator of the patriarchate, but not patriarch. Nonetheless, he became commonly known as Joseph V. He died in 1828. Yohannan's rival for the Alqosh title of patriarch had died in 1804, with his followers so reduced in number that they did not elect any successor for him, thus bringing the Alqosh or Eliya line to an end.[73]\n\nFinally then, in 1830, a century and a half after the Holy See had conferred headship of the Chaldean Catholics on Joseph I of Amid, Pope Pius VIII granted recognition as Patriarch to Yohannan, whose (non-hereditary) patriarchal succession has since then lasted unbroken in the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nLater history of the Chaldean Church\n\nIn 1838, the Kurds of Soran attacked the Rabban Hormizd Monastery and Alqosh, apparently thinking the villagers were Yazidis responsible for the murder of a Kurdish chieftain, and killed over 300 Chaldean Catholics, including Gabriel Dambo, the refounder of the monastery, and other monks.[74]\n\nIn 1846, the Ottoman Empire, which had previously classified as Nestorians those who called themselves Chaldeans, granted them recognition as a distinct millet.[75][76]\n\nThe most famous patriarch of the Chaldean Church in the 19th century was Joseph VI Audo who is remembered also for his clashes with Pope Pius IX mainly about his attempts to extend the Chaldean jurisdiction over the Malabar Catholics. This was a period of expansion for the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nThe activity of the Turkish army and their Kurdish and Arab allies, partly in response to armed support for Russia in the territory of the Qochanis patriarchate, brought ruin also to the Chaldean dioceses of Amid, Siirt and Gazarta and the metropolitans Addai Scher of Siirt and Philippe-Jacques Abraham of Gazarta were killed in 1915.[77]\n\nIn the 21st century, Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni, the pastor of the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul, who graduated from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome in 2003 with a licentiate in ecumenical theology, was killed on June 3, 2007, in Mosul alongside the subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed, after he celebrated Mass.[78][79] Ganni has since been declared a Servant of God.[80]\n\nChaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho and three companions were abducted on February 29, 2008, in Mosul, and murdered a few days later.[81]\n\nIn 2024, Patriarch Louis Raphaël Sako, then head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, dedicated the three-day Nineveh Fast for peace and stability in Iraq, the Holy Land, Ukraine, and the rest of the world, calling on the faithful to \"fervently pray to God Almighty to inspire world leaders to seek peace and not war... and to achieve fruitful progress towards reconciliation, fraternal relations, love, and tolerance for the good of humanity\".[82]\n\nIn March 2026, Sako formally submitted his resignation as patriarch to Pope Leo XIV, emphasizing that his decision was entirely his own and not influenced by external pressure.[83][84]\n\nHistoric membership censuses\n\nDespite the internal discords of the reigns of Yohannan Hormizd (1830-1838), Nicholas I Zaya (1839-1847) and Joseph VI Audo (1847-1878), the 19th century was a period of considerable growth for the Chaldean church, in which its territorial jurisdiction was extended, its hierarchy strengthened and its membership nearly doubled. In 1850, the Anglican missionary George Percy Badger recorded the population of the Chaldean Catholic Church as 2,743 Chaldean families, or just under 20,000 persons.[85]\n\nBadger's figures cannot be squared with the figure of just over 4,000 Chaldean families recorded by Fulgence de Sainte Marie in 1796 nor with slightly later figures provided by Paulin Martin in 1867. Badger is known to have classified as Nestorian a considerable number of villages in the Aqra district which were Chaldean at this period, and he also failed to include several important Chaldean villages in other dioceses. His estimate is almost certainly far too low.[85]\n\nTable 3: Population of the Chaldean Catholic Church, 1850\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Families\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Families\n\nMosul\n9\n15\n20\n1,160\n\nSeert\n11\n12\n9\n300\n\nBaghdad\n1\n1\n2\n60\n\nGazarta\n7\n6\n5\n179\n\nAmadiya\n16\n14\n8\n466\n\nKirkuk\n7\n8\n9\n218\n\nAmid\n2\n2\n4\n150\n\nSalmas\n1\n2\n3\n150\n\nMardin\n1\n1\n4\n60\n\nTotal\n55\n61\n64\n2,743\n\nPaulin Martin's statistical survey in 1867, after the creation of the dioceses of Aqra, Zakho, Basra and Sehna by Joseph Audo, recorded a total church membership of 70,268, more than three times higher than Badger's estimate. Most of the population figures in these statistics have been rounded up to the nearest thousand, and they may also have been exaggerated slightly, but the membership of the Chaldean Catholic Church at this period was certainly closer to 70,000 than to Badger's 20,000.[86]\n\nTable 4: Population of the Chaldean Catholic Church, 1867\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Believers\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Believers\n\nMosul\n9\n40\n23,030\n\nMardin\n2\n2\n1,000\n\nAqra\n19\n17\n2,718\n\nSeert\n35\n20\n11,000\n\nAmadiya\n26\n10\n6,020\n\nSalmas\n20\n10\n8,000\n\nBasra\n-\n-\n1,500\n\nSehna\n22\n1\n1,000\n\nAmid\n2\n6\n2,000\n\nZakho\n15\n-\n3,000\n\nGazarta\n20\n15\n7,000\n\nKirkuk\n10\n10\n4,000\n\nTotal\n160\n131\n70,268\n\nA statistical survey of the Chaldean Catholic Church made in 1896 by J. B. Chabot included, for the first time, details of several patriarchal vicariates established in the second half of the 19th century for the small Chaldean communities in Adana, Aleppo, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Edessa, Kermanshah and Teheran; for the mission stations established in the 1890s in several towns and villages in the Qudshanis patriarchate; and for the newly created Chaldean diocese of Urmi. According to Chabot, there were mission stations in the town of Serai d’Mahmideh in Taimar and in the Hakkari villages of Mar Behısho, Sat, Zarne and 'Salamakka' (Ragula d'Salabakkan).[87]\n\nTable 5: Population of the Chaldean Catholic Church, 1896\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Believers\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Believers\n\nBaghdad\n1\n3\n3,000\n\nAmadiya\n16\n13\n3,000\n\nMosul\n31\n71\n23,700\n\nAqra\n12\n8\n1,000\n\nBasra\n2\n3\n3,000\n\nSalmas\n12\n10\n10,000\n\nAmid\n4\n7\n3,000\n\nUrmi\n18\n40\n6,000\n\nKirkuk\n16\n22\n7,000\n\nSehna\n2\n2\n700\n\nMardin\n1\n3\n850\n\nVicariates\n3\n6\n2,060\n\nGazarta\n17\n14\n5,200\n\nMissions\n1\n14\n1,780\n\nSeert\n21\n17\n5,000\n\nZakho\n20\n15\n3,500\n\nTotal\n177\n248\n78,790\n\nThe last survey of the Chaldean Catholic Church before the First World War was made in 1913 by the Chaldean priest Joseph Tfinkdji, after a period of steady growth since 1896. It then consisted of the patriarchal archdiocese of Mosul and Baghdad, four other archdioceses (Amid, Kirkuk, Seert and Urmi), and eight dioceses (Aqra, Amadiya, Gazarta, Mardin, Salmas, Sehna, Zakho and the newly created diocese of Van). Five more patriarchal vicariates had been established since 1896 (Ahwaz, Constantinople, Basra, Ashshar and Deir al-Zor), giving a total of twelve vicariates.[88][89]\n\nTfinkdji's grand total of 101,610 Catholics in 199 villages is slightly exaggerated, as his figures included 2,310 nominal Catholics in twenty-one 'newly converted' or 'semi-Nestorian' villages in the dioceses of Amid, Seert and Aqra, but it is clear that the Chaldean Catholic Church had grown significantly since 1896. With around 100,000 believers in 1913, the membership of the Chaldean church was only slightly smaller than that of the Qudshanis patriarchate (probably 120,000 East Syriac Christians at most, including the population of the nominally Russian Orthodox villages in the Urmi district). Its congregations were concentrated in far fewer villages than those of the Qudshanis patriarchate, and with 296 priests, a ratio of roughly three priests for every thousand believers, it was rather more effectively served by its clergy. Only about a dozen Chaldean villages, mainly in the Seert and Aqra districts, did not have their own priests in 1913.\n\nTable 6: Population of the Chaldean Church, 1913\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Believers\n\nDiocese\nNo. of Villages\nNo. of Churches\nNo. of Priests\nNo. of Believers\n\nMosul\n13\n22\n56\n39,460\n\nAmadiya\n17\n10\n19\n4,970\n\nBaghdad\n3\n1\n11\n7,260\n\nGazarta\n17\n11\n17\n6,400\n\nVicariates\n13\n4\n15\n3,430\n\nMardin\n6\n1\n6\n1,670\n\nAmid\n9\n5\n12\n4,180\n\nSalmas\n12\n12\n24\n10,460\n\nKirkuk\n9\n9\n19\n5,840\n\nSehna\n1\n2\n3\n900\n\nSeert\n37\n31\n21\n5,380\n\nVan\n10\n6\n32\n3,850\n\nUrmi\n21\n13\n43\n7,800\n\nZakho\n15\n17\n13\n4,880\n\nAqra\n19\n10\n16\n2,390\n\nTotal\n199\n153\n296\n101,610\n\nTfinkdji's statistics also highlight the effect on the Chaldean Catholic Church of the educational reforms of the patriarch Joseph VI Audo. The Chaldean Catholic Church on the eve of the First World War was becoming less dependent on the monastery of Rabban Hormizd and the College of the Propaganda for the education of its bishops. Seventeen Chaldean bishops were consecrated between 1879 and 1913, of whom only one (Stephen Yohannan Qaynaya) was entirely educated in the monastery of Rabban Hormizd. Six bishops were educated at the College of the Propaganda (Joseph Gabriel Adamo, Toma Audo, Jeremy Timothy Maqdasi, Isaac Khudabakhash, Theodore Msayeh and Peter Aziz).[90]\n\nThe future patriarch Yousef VI Emmanuel II Thomas was trained in the seminary of Ghazir near Beirut. Of the other nine bishops, two (Addai Sher and Francis David) were trained in the Syro-Chaldean seminary in Mosul, and seven (Philip Yaqob Abraham, Yaqob Yohannan Sahhar, Eliya Joseph Khayyat, Shlemun Sabbagh, Yaqob Awgin Manna, Hormizd Stephen Jibri and Israel Audo) in the patriarchal seminary in Mosul.[90]\n\nTable 1: Population of the Chaldean Catholic Church, 1928\n\nDiocese\n\nNo. of Villages\n\nNo. of Priests\n\nNo. of Believers\n\nMosul and Baghdad\n\n10\n\n50\n\n18,350\n\nAmadiya\n\n18\n\n22\n\n3,765\n\nAmid\n\n1\n\n3\n\n500\n\nKirkuk\n\n7\n\n18\n\n4,800\n\nSeert\n\n-\n\n-\n\n1,600\n\nUrmi\n\n10\n\n10\n\n2,500\n\nAqra\n\n-\n\n-\n\n1,000\n\nDiocese\n\nNo. of Villages\n\nNo. of Churches\n\nNo. of Believers\n\nGazarta\n\n-\n\n-\n\n1,600\n\nMardin\n\n1\n\n2\n\n400\n\nSalmas\n\n1\n\n1\n\n400\n\nSehna\n\n3\n\n5\n\n894\n\nVan\n\n-\n\n-\n\n-\n\nZakho\n\n16\n\n18\n\n8,000\n\nTotal\n\n137\n\n129\n\n43,809\n\nTable 2: Population of the Chaldean Catholic Church, 1937\n\nDiocese\n\nNo. of Churches\n\nNo. of Priests\n\nNo. of Believers\n\nBaghdad and Basra\n\n6\n\n13\n\n29,578\n\nMosul\n\n24\n\n40\n\n44,314\n\nKirkuk\n\n8\n\n18\n\n7,620\n\nZakho\n\n16\n\n18\n\n10,852\n\nAmadiya\n\n16\n\n17\n\n5,457\n\nAqra\n\n13\n\n5\n\n2,779\n\nUrmi\n\n-\n\n-\n\n6,000\n\nSalmas\n\n-\n\n4\n\n3,350\n\nDiocese\n\nNo. of Churches\n\nNo. of Priests\n\nNo. of Believers\n\nAmid\n\n1\n\n1\n\n315\n\nMardin\n\n1\n\n1\n\n400\n\nSeert\n\n0\n\n0\n\n3,500\n\nGazarta\n\n1\n\n1\n\n2,250\n\nSyria and Lebanon\n\n2\n\n11\n\n3,107\n\nVicariates\n\n8\n\n14\n\n9,177\n\nEmigration\n\n0\n\n4\n\n9,889\n\nSehna\n\n2\n\n5\n\n1,932\n\nTotal\n\n98\n\n163\n\n140,720\n\nContemporary organization\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church has the following dioceses:\n\nPatriarchate of Baghdad[5]\n\nMetropolitan Archdioceses of Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tehran, Urmia-Salmas\n\nArcheparchies of Ahwaz, Basra, Diyarbakir, Arbil, Mosul\n\nEparchies of Aleppo, Alqosh, Beirut, Cairo, San Diego, Detroit, Toronto, Sydney, Amidyah-Zakho\n\nTerritories dependent on the Patriarch: Jerusalem, Jordan\n\nThe Latin name of the church is Ecclesia Chaldaeorum Catholica.\n\nHierarchy\n\nThe current Patriarch is Paul III Nona. The seat became vacant after the resignation of Louis Raphaël I Sako in March 2026. In October 2007, his predecessor, Emmanuel III Delly became the first Chaldean Catholic patriarch to be elevated to the rank of Cardinal within the Catholic Church.[91]\n\nThe present Chaldean episcopate (23 hierarchs as of 17 October 2026) is as follows:[92][93]\n\nPatriarch\n\nPaul III Nona, Patriarch of Baghdad (since 12 April 2026)\n\nEparchial hierarchs\n\nBashar Warda CSsR, Archbishop of Abril (since July 2010)\n\nHabib Al-Naufali, Archbishop of Basra (since 2014) and Apostolic Visitor of Chaldean Catholic Church in Europe (since 2025)\n\nYousif Thomas Mirkis OP, Archbishop of Kirkuk-Sulaimaniya (since 2014)\n\nNajib Mikhael Moussa OP, Archbishop of Mosul-Aqrā (since 2018)\n\nImad Khoshaba Gargees, Archbishop of Tehran (since 2023)\n\nAntoine Audo SJ, Bishop of Aleppo (since January 1992)\n\nMichel Kassarji, Bishop of Beirut (since 2001)\n\nFrancis Kalabat, Bishop of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Detroit (since June 2014)\n\nSaad Felix Shabi, Bishop of Zakho (since 2020)\n\nRobert Jarjis, Bishop of Mar Addai of Toronto (since 2021)\n\nAzad Sabri Shaba, Bishop of Duhok (since 2022)\n\nSaad Sirop, Bishop, Apostolic Administrator of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego (since 2026)\n\nAuxiliary Bishop\n\nBasel Yaldo, Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad and Titular Bishop of BethZabda (since 2015)\n\nRetired hierarchs\n\nCardinal Louis Raphaël I Sako, Patriarch emeritus of Baghdad (since March 2026)\n\nRamzi Garmou Ist. del Prado, Archbishop emeritus of Diarbikir (Amida) (1999-2023), Administrator of Ahvaz (since 2011)\n\nThomas Meram, Archbishop emeritus of Urmia and Salmas (since 2024)\n\nJibrail Kassab, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Sydney (2006-2015)\n\nIbrahim Namo Ibrahim, Bishop emeritus of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Detroit (since 2014)\n\nBawai Soro, Bishop emeritus of Mar Addai of Toronto (since 2021)\n\nEmanuel Hana Shaleta, Bishop emeritus of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego (since March 2026)\n\nShlemon Warduni, Auxiliary Bishop emeritus of Baghdad (since 2021)\n\nMikha Pola Maqdassi, Auxiliary Bishop emeritus of Baghdad (since 2024)\n\nSeveral sees are vacant: Archeparchy of Ahwaz, Archeparchy of Urmia, Eparchy of Cairo and Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Sydney\n\nReligious order\n\nThe Daughters of Mary Immaculate (or Chaldean Sisters) is a Chaldean Catholic apostolic order with patriarchal rights, established in Baghdad on August 7, 1922, during the reign of Patriarch Mar Youssef Emmanuel II Thomas.[94] This order of Chaldean Sisters was founded by Father Anton Zebouni, born on January 17, 1883, in Mosul, Iraq. Zebouni was ordained a priest on May 15, 1907, by Patriarch Emmanuel II Toma. In the aftermath of World War I, many in Iraq faced poverty and hardship. Father Zebouni, moved by the difficult conditions, sought to create a congregation for women to support the Chaldean community. With permission from the Patriarch, the congregation was established and dedicated to Mary Immaculate.[95] The order's mission includes a life of contemplative unity with God. The sisters engage in apostolic work and prayer, seeking to discover and follow God's will for the salvation of souls.[94]\n\nThe Chaldean Sisters initially aimed to address the crisis of homeless Chaldean youth. In 1927, they founded an orphanage in Baghdad, which was later relocated because of security issues. The orphanage eventually settled in Alqosh. Over the years, the congregation has grown to nearly 100 sisters serving in various locations, including Iraq, Lebanon, Rome, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Detroit, Chicago, Arizona, Turlock, and San Diego.[96]\n\nThe Chaldean Sisters have been instrumental in various educational and social services, including running schools, orphanages, and retirement homes. Their commitment to education and social service has had a significant impact on the communities they serve. In 2022, the Chaldean Sisters celebrated their 100th anniversary with a fundraiser event to support their education expenses and the formation and novitiate home in Farmington Hills, Michigan.[97]\n\nThe order is known for its dedication to prayer, community life, and service, guided by its motto, \"With Mary to the Highest\", emphasizing humility and dedication in their service.[98] The Chaldean Sisters continue to be a vital part of the Chaldean Catholic community, contributing to the spiritual and social well-being of the people they serve.\n\nLiturgy\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church uses the East Syriac Rite. A slight reform of the liturgy was effective since January 6, 2007, and it aimed to unify the many different uses of each parish, to remove centuries-old additions that merely imitated the Roman Rite, and for pastoral reasons. The main elements of the reform were the Anaphora being said aloud by the priest, the return to the ancient architecture of the churches, and the restoration of the ancient practice whereby the bread and wine are readied before a service begins.[99]\n\nInternational diaspora\n\nThere are many Chaldean Assyrians in diaspora in the Western world, primarily in the American states of Michigan, Illinois and California.[100]\n\nIn 2006, the Eparchy of Oceania, with the title of 'St Thomas the Apostle of Sydney of the Chaldeans' was set up with jurisdiction including the Chaldean Catholic communities of Australia and New Zealand.[101] Its first Bishop, named by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21, 2006, was Archbishop Djibrail (Jibrail) Kassab, until this date, Archbishop of Bassorah in Iraq.[102]\n\nThere has been a large immigration to the United States particularly to West Bloomfield and Oakland County in Southeast Michigan.[101] Although the largest population resides in Southeast Michigan,[5] there are populations in parts of California and Arizona as well, which all fall under the Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Detroit. In addition, Canada in recent years has shown growing communities in provinces such as Ontario.\n\nIn 2008, Bawai Soro of the Assyrian Church of the East and 1,000 Assyrian families were received into full communion with the Chaldean Catholic Church.[103]\n\nOn Friday, June 10, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI erected a new Chaldean Catholic eparchy in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and named Archbishop Yohannan Zora, who has worked alongside four priests with Catholics in Toronto (the largest community of Chaldeans) for nearly 20 years and who was previously an ad hominem Archbishop (he will retain this rank as head of the eparchy) and the Archbishop of the Archdiocese (Archeparchy) of Ahvaz (since 1974). The new eparchy, or diocese, will be known as the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Mar Addai. There are 38,000 Chaldean Catholics in Canada. Archbishop Zora was born in Batnaya, Iraq, on March 15, 1939. He was ordained in 1962 and worked in Iraqi parishes before being transferred to Iran in 1969.[104]\n\nThe 2006 Australian census counted a total of 4,498 Chaldean Catholics in Australia.[105]\n\nEcumenical relations\n\nThe Church's relations with its fellow Assyrians in the Assyrian Church of the East have improved in recent years. In 1994, Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East signed a Common Christological Declaration.[50][106] On July 20, 2001, the Holy See issued a document, in agreement with the Assyrian Church of the East, named Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, which confirmed also the validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari.[107]\n\nIn 2015, while the patriarchate of the Assyrian Church of the East was vacant following the death of Dinkha IV, the Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako proposed unifying the three modern patriarchates into a re-established Church of the East with a single Patriarch in full communion with the Pope.[108] The Assyrian Church of the East respectfully declined this proposal citing \"ecclesiological divergences still remaining\"[109] and proceeded with its election of a new patriarch.\n\nAdherents today\n\nFollowers of the Chaldean Catholic Church often identify and are identified as \"Chaldean\" but, like adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East who also live in or originate from Upper Mesopotamia, they are ethnic Assyrians and call themselves Suraye (Syriac: ܣܘܼܖ̈ܵܝܹܐ) in Neo-Aramaic. The Chaldean Catholics originated from ancient communities living in and indigenous to the northern Iraq/Mesopotamia, once known as Assyria (from the 25th century BC until the 7th century AD).[110][36][111] Chaldean Catholics largely bear the same family and personal names, share the same genetic profile, hail from the same villages, towns and cities in northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran, as their neighbours of other religious denominations.[11] The Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Surayt/Turoyo languages do not run parallel to the often associated religious denominations (Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church).\n\nIn 1908, before the Assyrian genocide, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of new states in the Middle East such as Iraq, an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia states: \"Strictly, the name of Chaldeans is no longer correct; in Chaldea proper, apart from Baghdad, there are now very few adherents of this rite, most of the Chaldean population being found in the cities of Kirkuk, Erbil, and Mosul, in the heart of the Tigris valley, in the valley of the Zab, and in the mountains of Kurdistan. It is in the former ecclesiastical province of Ator (Assyria) that are now found the most flourishing of the Catholic Chaldean communities. The native population accepts the name of Atoraya-Kaldaya (Assyro-Chaldeans), while in the neo-Syriac vernacular Christians generally are known as Syrians.\"[112] The subsequent upheaval produced both an exodus, in particular but not only from what is now Turkey to other countries, and a more urbanized Chaldean Church within Iraq.[113][114]\n\nWhile the Chaldean Catholic Church is predominantly Assyrian, the church has taken a stance of separating its adherents from Assyrian identity in the past. Such stances have often been detrimental to the political situation of Chaldean Catholics living in Iraq, and have threatened previous actions such as the Common Christological Declaration.[106] In 2017, the Chaldean Catholic Church issued an official statement of its Synod of Bishops, the body that is exclusively competent to make laws for the entire church and that is its tribunal[115] that it sets store on the distinct Chaldean identity, which is recognized in the Constitution of Iraq. It also declared:\n\n\"As a genuine Chaldean people, we officially reject the labels that distort our Chaldean identity, such as the composite name “Chaldean Syriac Assyrian” used in the Kurdistan Region, contrary to the name established in the Iraqi constitution.[116] We call upon our daughters and sons to reject these labels, to adhere to their Chaldean identity without fanaticism, and to respect the other names such as ‘Assyrians’, ‘Syriacs’, and ‘Arameans’. We call upon the authorities in the region to respect them, and we encourage our Chaldeans to cooperate with everyone for the common good and not to split into unidentified groups or follow illusory projects that harm Christians. We also encourage them to engage in public affairs and in the political process as genuine partners of this blessed land, and to play their role alongside their fellow citizens in building a modern and strong civil country that befits their country's civilization and glory, a country that respects the rights and equality of all. We also express our support for the Chaldean League which seeks to establish links between the Chaldeans around the world.\"[117]\n\nMany Chaldean Catholic Assyrians have since migrated to Western countries, where they form a large diaspora community. The most recent reasons for migration are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, poor economic conditions during the sanctions against Iraq, and poor security conditions after the 2003 invasion.[50] At least 20,000 of them fled through Lebanon to seek resettlement in Europe and the United States.[118] As political changes sweep through many Arab nations, Assyrians have expressed concern about the developments and their future in the region.[119]\n\nInternal scandals in the Church\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church is experiencing a profound leadership crisis, highlighted by recent events in July 2024. Five bishops, led by Archbishop Bashar Warda, boycotted the mandatory Chaldean Church Synod. This act of defiance was followed by their withdrawal from an August spiritual retreat and the removal of their students from the Chaldean Seminary. Cardinal Louis Sako, deeply concerned about the integrity of the Church, viewed these actions as a \"serious breach\" of ecclesial unity. In an effort to restore harmony, Cardinal Sako issued an ultimatum on August 28, 2024, requesting a public apology from the dissenting bishops by September 5 that year. However, Archbishop Warda and his allies remained defiant, refusing to apologize and criticizing Sako's leadership. Faced with this continued resistance, Cardinal Sako has considered canonical sanctions, including the possibility of excommunication, to safeguard the Church's unity.[120] In September 2024, Sako reported the five bishops, including Warda, directly to Pope Francis.[121]\n\nThe bitter feud between Cardinal Louis Sako and Archbishop Bashar Warda has escalated into a personal vendetta, with Sako accusing Warda of scheming to seize control of the patriarchate. Sako perceives Warda as a conniving opportunist, manoeuvring to position himself as the next patriarch. This perception of Warda's ruthless power play has forced Sako to abandon his retirement plans and protect the Chaldean Catholic Church, despite his previous commitment to step down at 75.[122]\n\nLouis Sako, Head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, asserts that the current Archbishop of Erbil, Bashar Warda, is conspired with Rayan al-Kildani, leader of the notorious Babylon Movement, in an attempt to subvert his power and encourage his removal from his position. In addition, Warda is criticized for supporting al-Kildani despite the severe human rights abuses committed by his movement, including looting homes, land seizures, intimidation, extortion, abuse of women, persecution of minorities, and torture of detainees. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on al-Kildani due to these abuses, including penalizing entities that engage with him. Sako has referred to Warda as the Godfather of the Babylon Movement, while Warda places his benefits from al-Kildani above the church's interests and needs.[123][124]\n\nLouis Sako, along with Christian members of the Iraqi Parliament, has declared that the Iranian-backed Babylon Movement is not genuinely Christian but rather using the label for political gain. Despite claiming to represent Christians, the majority of its members and voters are Shia Muslims. However, Archbishop Bashar Warda still promotes their influence.[125][126]\n\nSee also\n\nCatholic University in Erbil\n\nEastern Catholic Churches\n\nList of Chaldean Catholic patriarchs of Baghdad\n\nLiturgy of Addai and Mari\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyro-Malabar Church\n\nThe Last Assyrians - 2004 French documentary film about Chaldean Catholic Christians\n\nReferences\n\n^ Thomas, Robert (2017). Introduction to Bibliology. WestBow Press. p. 249. ISBN 9781512778228. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)\n\n^ \"Synod of the Chaldean Church\". GCatholic.org. Retrieved July 22, 2025.\n\n^ \"The Chaldean Catholic Church\". CNEWA. Retrieved July 22, 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Eastern Catholic Churches Worldwide 2018\" (PDF). USCCB. Retrieved July 22, 2025.\n\n^ a b c d \"About the Chaldean Church\". Chaldean Diocese of St. Thomas the Apostle U.S.A. Retrieved April 3, 2026.\n\n^ Pascal Meguesyan: Mar Yousef (St Joseph) cathedral in Baghdad. Mesopotamia Heritage, März 2018.\n\n^ \"Brief Summary on Iraqi Christians\" (PDF). USCIRF. March 2019. Retrieved July 22, 2025.\n\n^ \"Iraq 2018 International Religious Freedom Report\" (PDF). U.S. Department of State. Retrieved July 22, 2025.\n\n^ \"Country Guidance: Iraq (June 2019)\" (PDF). EUAA. p. 70. Retrieved July 22, 2025.\n\n^ Hanish, Shak (2008). \"The Chaldean Assyrian Syriac People of Iraq: An Ethnic Identity Problem\". Digest of Middle East Studies. 17 (1): 32-47. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.2008.tb00145.x.\n\n^ a b Travis 2010.\n\n^ a b Gallagher, Edmon Louis (March 23, 2012). Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text. BRILL. pp. 123, 124, 126, 127, 139. ISBN 978-90-04-22802-3.\n\n^ a b Julius Fürst (1867). A Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament: With an Introduction Giving a Short History of Hebrew Lexicography. Tauchnitz.\n\n^ a b Wilhelm Gesenius; Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1859). Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures. Bagster.\n\n^ a b Benjamin Davies (1876). A Compendious and Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, Chiefly Founded on the Works of Gesenius and Fürst ... A. Cohn.\n\n^ Ainsworth, William (1841). \"An Account of a Visit to the Chaldeans, Inhabiting Central Kurdistán; and of an Ascent of the Peak of Rowándiz (Ṭúr Sheïkhíwá) in Summer in 1840\". The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 11. e.g. p. 36. doi:10.2307/1797632. JSTOR 1797632.\n\n^ William F. Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Armenia (London 1842), vol. II, p. 272, cited in John Joseph, The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East (BRILL 2000), pp. 2 and 4\n\n^ Layard, Austen Henry (July 3, 1850). Nineveh and its remains: an enquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient assyrians. Murray. p. 260 - via Internet Archive. Chaldaeans Nestorians.\n\n^ Simon (oratorien), Richard (July 3, 1684). \"Histoire critique de la creance et des coûtumes des nations du Levant\". Chez Frederic Arnaud - via Google Books.\n\n^ Newman, John Philip (1876). The Thrones and Palaces of Babylon and Nineveh from Sea to Sea: A Thousand Miles on Horseback. 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The chosen church which is at Babylon, and Mark, my son, salute you' (I Peter 5:13).\n\n^ David M. Gwynn (November 20, 2014). Christianity in the Later Roman Empire: A Sourcebook. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-4411-3735-7.\n\n^ Hill 1988, p. 105.\n\n^ Cross, F.L. & Livingstone E.A. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 351\n\n^ Outerbridge 1952.\n\n^ Georgetown University, Mesopotamian Scholasticism: A History of the Christian Theological School in the Syrian Orient: Introduction to Junillus's Instituta Regularia\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 37.\n\n^ Hill 1988, p. 108-109.\n\n^ K. C. Zachariah (November 1, 2001). \"The Syrian Christians of Kerala: A Narsai (Nestorian patriarch)Demographic and Socioeconomic Transition in the Twentieth Century\" (PDF). www.cds.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 28, 2019. 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SAGE; March 20, 2008. ISBN 978-1-4129-2694-2. p. 160.\n\n^ Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 110; English translation\n\n^ \"Iraq's Constitution of 2005, article 125\" (PDF). Retrieved September 10, 2020.\n\n^ [Statement of the Synod of the Chaldean Church Bishops held in Rome 4-8 October 2017, published on the website of the Catholic Patriarchate of Babylon]\n\n^ Martin Chulov (2010) \"Christian exodus from Iraq gathers pace\"The Guardian. Retrieved June 12, 2012\n\n^ R. Thelen (2008) Daily Star, Lebanon retrieved June 12, 2012\n\n^ \"At deadline, Chaldean bishops not planning apology\". pillarcatholic.com. September 5, 2024. Retrieved February 17, 2025.\n\n^ \"Baghdad patriarch reports five bishops to the Pope\". The Tablet. Retrieved February 17, 2025.\n\n^ \"Iraq's feuding bishops\". pillarcatholic.com. August 30, 2024. Retrieved February 17, 2025.\n\n^ Flynn, J. D. \"Iraq's feuding bishops\". The Pillar. Retrieved April 15, 2025.\n\n^ \"Iran-linked militia leader wresting control of Iraq's Ninevah Plains after IS defeat\". Voice of America. September 3, 2024. Retrieved April 15, 2025.\n\n^ \"New threats for Iraqi Christians as Iranian-backed militias gain power in Nineveh\". Medya News. August 23, 2024. Retrieved April 15, 2025.\n\n^ \"Sako appeals for Church unity to save Iraq's Christian population\". The Tablet. Retrieved April 15, 2025.\n\nSources\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Simone (1719). Bibliotheca orientalis clementino-vaticana. Vol. 1. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Luigi (1775). De catholicis seu patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum commentarius historico-chronologicus. Roma.\n\nAssemani, Giuseppe Luigi (2004). History of the Chaldean and Nestorian patriarchs. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.\n\nBecchetti, Filippo Angelico (1796). Istoria degli ultimi quattro secoli della Chiesa. Vol. 10. Roma.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 1. London: Joseph Masters.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 2. London: Joseph Masters. ISBN 9780790544823. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nBecchetti, Filippo Angelico (1796). Istoria degli ultimi quattro secoli della Chiesa. Vol. 10. Roma.\n\nBeltrami, Giuseppe (1933). La Chiesa Caldea nel secolo dell'Unione. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. ISBN 9788872102626. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBorbone, Pier Giorgio (2014). \"The Chaldean Business: The Beginnings of East Syriac Typography and the Profession of Faith of Patriarch Elias\". Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae. 20: 211-258.\n\nBurleson, Samuel; Rompay, Lucas van (2011). \"List of Patriarchs of the Main Syriac Churches in the Middle East\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 481-491.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1896). \"Éttat religieux des diocèses formant le patriarcat chaldéen de Babylone\". Revue de l'Orient chrétien. 1: 433-453.\n\nChaumont, Marie-Louise (1988). La Christianisation de l'Empire Iranien: Des origines aux grandes persécutions du ive siècle. Louvain: Peeters. ISBN 9789042905405.\n\n\"The Eastern Catholic Churches 2016. Source: Annuario Pontificio\" (PDF). CNEWA. 2016. pp. 3-4.\n\nRobson, Laura (May 18, 2016). Minorities and the Modern Arab World: New Perspectives. Syracuse University Press. pp. 266-. ISBN 978-0-8156-5355-4.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1967). \"Les étapes de la prise de conscience de son identité patriarcale par l'Église syrienne orientale\". L'Orient Syrien. 12: 3-22.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1970). Jalons pour une histoire de l'Église en Iraq. Louvain: Secretariat du CSCO.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1979) [1963]. Communautés syriaques en Iran et Irak des origines à 1552. London: Variorum Reprints. ISBN 9780860780519.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 9783515057189.\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007.\n\nGiamil, Samuel (1902). Genuinae relationes inter Sedem Apostolicam et Assyriorum orientalium seu Chaldaeorum ecclesiam. Roma: Ermanno Loescher.\n\nGulik, Wilhelm van (1904). \"Die Konsistorialakten über die Begründung des uniert-chaldäischen Patriarchates von Mosul unter Papst Julius III\" (PDF). Oriens Christianus. 4: 261-277.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1966). \"Signification de l'union chaldéenne de Mar Sulaqa avec Rome en 1553\". L'Orient Syrien. 11: 99-132, 199-230.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1971a). \"L'unification de la hiérarchie chaldéenne dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 2 (1): 121-143. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2021. Retrieved August 14, 2017.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1971b). \"L'unification de la hiérarchie chaldéenne dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle (Suite)\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 2 (2): 305-327. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2021. Retrieved August 14, 2017.\n\nHage, Wolfgang (2007). Das orientalische Christentum. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag. ISBN 9783170176683.\n\nHartmann, Klaus-Peter (1980). Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeographie christlicher Minderheiten im Vorderen Orient. Wiesbaden: Reichert. ISBN 9783882260809.\n\nHill, Henry, ed. (1988). Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre. ISBN 9780919891906.\n\nJakob, Joachim (2014). Ostsyrische Christen und Kurden im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Münster: LIT Verlag. ISBN 9783643506160.\n\nJoseph, John B. (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004116419.\n\nLabourt, Jérôme (1908). \"Note sur les schismes de l'Église nestorienne, du XVIe au XIXe siècle\". Journal Asiatique. 11: 227-235.\n\nLampart, Albert (1966). Ein Märtyrer der Union mit Rom: Joseph I. 1681-1696, Patriarch der Chaldäer. Einsiedeln: Benziger Verlag.\n\nLemmens, Leonhard (1926). \"Relationes nationem Chaldaeorum inter et Custodiam Terrae Sanctae (1551-1629)\". Archivum Franciscanum Historicum. 19: 17-28.\n\nMarthaler, Berard L., ed. (2003). \"Chaldean Catholic Church (Eastern Catholic)\". The New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. Thompson-Gale. pp. 366-369.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999). \"The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 2 (2): 235-264. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-020119. S2CID 212688640.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-352. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nNichols, Aidan (2010) [1992]. Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism (2nd revised ed.). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 9781586172824.\n\nNisan, M. (2002). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle for Self Expression. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.\n\nO’Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". In Angold, Michael (ed.). The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 9780521811132.\n\nOuterbridge, Leonard M. (1952). The lost churches of China. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.\n\nRoberson, Ronald (1999) [1986]. The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey (6th ed.). Roma: Orientalia Christiana. ISBN 9788872103210.\n\nTfinkdji, Joseph (1914). \"L' église chaldéenne catholique autrefois et aujourd'hui\". Annuaire Pontifical Catholique. 17: 449-525.\n\nTisserant, Eugène (1931). \"Église nestorienne\". Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Vol. 11. pp. 157-323.\n\nTravis, Hannibal (2010) [2007]. Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. pp. 237-77, 293-294. ISBN 9781594604362.\n\nVine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches. London: Independent Press.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1925). \"Missio duorum fratrum Melitensium O. P. in Orientem saec. XVI et relatio, nunc primum edita, eorum quae in istis regionibus gesserunt\". Analecta Ordinis Praedicatorum. 33 (4): 261-278.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1928). \"Catalogue de la bibliothèque syro-chaldéenne du couvent de Notre-Dame des Semences près d'Alqoš (Iraq)\". Angelicum. 5: 3-36, 161-194, 325-358, 481-498.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1930). \"Les inscriptions de Rabban Hormizd et de N.-D. des Semences près d'Alqoš (Iraq)\". Le Muséon. 43: 263-316.\n\nVosté, Jacques Marie (1931). \"Mar Iohannan Soulaqa, premier Patriarche des Chaldéens, martyr de l'union avec Rome (†1555)\". Angelicum. 8: 187-234.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1929). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. London: G. Bell & Sons.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781907318047.\n\nZora, Subhi (1994). \"Some Outstanding Events in the History of the Chaldean Christians of the East (1551-1992)\". VI Symposium Syriacum 1992. Roma: Pontificium institutum studiorum orientalium. pp. 347-359. ISBN 9788872103050.\n\nLukitz, Liora (2005). Iraq: The Search for National Identity. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-77821-7.\n\nFurther reading\n\nNatalie Henrich; Joseph Patrick Henrich (2007). Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-531423-6.\n\nOussani, G., 1901. \"The modern Chaldeans and Nestorians, and the study of Syriac among them\". Journal of the American Oriental Society, 22, pp. 79-96.\n\nHanoosh, Y.S., 2008. The politics of minority Chaldeans between Iraq and America. University of Michigan.\n\nLundgren, Svante (2016). The Assyrians - From Nineveh to Södertälje. Enschede, The Netherlands: Nineveh Press. ISBN 978-9198344127.\n\nMary C. Sengstock (1999). Chaldean Americans: Changing Conceptions of Ethnic Identity. Center for Migration Studies. ISBN 978-1-57703-013-3.\n\nMary C. Sengstock (2005). Chaldeans in Michigan. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87013-742-6.\n\nJacob Bacall (2014). Chaldeans in Detroit. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4671-1255-0.\n\nSuha Rassam (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Gracewing Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85244-633-1.\n\nAlichoran, J., 1994. \"Assyro-Chaldeans in the 20th Century: From Genocide to Diaspora\". Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society, 8, pp. 45-79.\n\nYakoub, Afram (2020). The Path to Assyria: A call for national revival. Sweden: Tigris Press. ISBN 978-91-981541-6-0.\n\nExternal links\n\nChaldean Catholic Church Mass Times\n\nThe Assyria Post (news coverage)\n\nYouTube video: Associate professor Svante Lundgren explains the history & origin of the term \"Suraye\"\n\nArticle on the Chaldean Catholic Church by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA web site\n\nChaldean Catholic Diocese of Saint Peter\n\nEast Syriac Rite (Catholic Encyclopedia)\n\nDaughters of the Immaculate Conception, a congregation located in Michigan Archived December 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine\n\nGuidelines for Chaldean Catholics receiving the Eucharist in Assyrian Churches\n\nHistory of the Chaldean Church\n\nQambel Maran- Syriac chants from South India- a review and liturgical music tradition of Syriac Christians revisited\n\n[1] Archived December 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine\n\n[2]\n\n[3] Archived July 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine\n\nHomepage of Fr. Damian Hungs (in German)\n\nDaughters of Mary Immaculate\n\nDaughters of Mary Immaculate - St Thomas Chaldean Catholic Church\n\n\"Who are the Chaldean Christians?\". BBC News. March 13, 2008. Retrieved March 26, 2010.\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church Archived November 28, 2012, at the Wayback Machine\n\nIraq: Chaldean Christians UNHCR\n\nChaldean Christians in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908)\n\n This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"Chaldean Christians\". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-chaldean-catholic-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 11515}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-orthodox-church", "title": "Syriac Orthodox Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Syriac Orthodox Church[a] (Classical Syriac: ܥܺܕܬܳܐ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܬܳܐ ܬܪܺܝܨܰܬ݂ ܫܽܘܒܚܳܐ, romanized: ʿIdto Sūryoyto Trīṣāth Šubḥō),[17] also informally known as the Jacobite Church,[18] is an Oriental Orthodox church that traces back to the ancient Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 1.5 million followers worldwide.[10][11][12][13] The church upholds...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nܥܺܕܬܳܐ ܣܽܘ̣ܪܝܳܝܬܳܐ ܗܰܝܡܳܢܽܘܬܳܐ ܬܪܺܝܨܰܬ ܫܽܘ̣ܒ̣ܚܳܐ (Classical Syriac)\n\nCathedral of Saint George, Damascus, Syria\n\nTypeAutocephaly\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientation\nOriental Orthodox\n\nSyriac\n\nScripturePeshitta\n\nTheologyOriental Orthodox theology\n\nPolityEpiscopal\n\nStructureCommunion\n\nPatriarchIgnatius Aphrem II\n\nRegionMiddle East, India, and diaspora\n\nLanguageClassical Syriac\n\nLiturgyWest Syriac: Liturgy of Saint James\n\nHeadquartersCathedral of St. George, Damascus, Syria (since 1959)\n\nFounderApostles Peter and Paul\n\nOrigin1st century[1][2][3] \nAntioch, Roman Empire[4][5]\n\nIndependence512[6][7][8]\n\nBranched fromChurch of Antioch[9]\n\nMembersApproximately 1.5 million (including 1.2 million members of the Syriac Orthodox in India)[10][11][12][13]\n\nAid organizationEPDC St. Ephrem Patriarchal Development Committee[14]\n\nOther namesArabic: الكنيسة السريانية الأرثوذكسية\n Malayalam: സുറിയാനി ഓർത്തഡോക്സ് സഭ, romanized: Suriyāni ōrtḥdōx Sabḥa[15]\n\nSpanish: Iglesia católica apostólica siro-ortodoxa de Antioquía\n\nOfficial websiteSyriac Orthodox Patriarchate\n\nDigital LibraryDepartment of Syriac Studies\n\n*Origin is according to Sacred tradition. \n\nWest Syriac Cross Unicode (U+2670) : ♰\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church[a] (Classical Syriac: ܥܺܕܬܳܐ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܬܳܐ ܬܪܺܝܨܰܬ݂ ܫܽܘܒܚܳܐ, romanized: ʿIdto Sūryoyto Trīṣāth Šubḥō),[17] also informally known as the Jacobite Church,[18] is an Oriental Orthodox church that traces back to the ancient Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 1.5 million followers worldwide.[10][11][12][13] The church upholds the Miaphysite doctrine in Christology and employs the Liturgy of Saint James, associated with James the Just. Classical Syriac is the official and liturgical language of the church.\n\nThe supreme head of the Syriac Orthodox Church is the patriarch of Antioch, a bishop who, according to sacred tradition, continues the leadership passed down from Saint Peter. Since 2014, Ignatius Aphrem II has served as the Syriac Orthodox Antiochian patriarch. The Great Church of Antioch was the patriarchal seat and the headquarters of the church until c. 518, after which Severus of Antioch had to flee to Alexandria, Egypt.[19] After the death of Severus, the patriarchal seat moved from Egypt to different monasteries like the Mor Bar Sauma Monastery; some patriarchs also set up headquarters in Antioch temporarily.[20][21] Later, Mor Hananyo Monastery was declared as the patriarchal seat and the headquarters of the church from c. 1160 until 1932. In 1959, the patriarchal seat and headquarters were relocated to the Cathedral of Saint George in Bab Tuma, Damascus, Syria, due to conflicts in the region.[22][23]\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church comprises 26 archdioceses and 13 patriarchal vicariates. It also has an autonomous maphrianate based in India, the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church became distinct in 512 when Severus, a leader who opposed the Council of Chalcedon, was chosen as patriarch after a synod was held at Laodicea, Syria. This happened after Emperor Anastasius I removed the previous patriarch, Flavian II, who supported Chalcedon. Severus's later removal in 518 was not recognized by majority of the Syriac speakers in and out of Antioch,[24][25] and this led to the establishment of an independent Miaphysite patriarchate headed by Severus. In the 6th century, a bishop named Jacob Baradaeus helped strengthen this Miaphysite patriarchate. Meanwhile, those who supported Council of Chalcedon formed what later became the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Maronite Church.\n\nName and identity\n\nMeaning of \"Syriac\"\n\nSyriac-speaking Christians refer to their church, their language, and themselves via the native endonym Sūryōyō.[26] This term, derived from the region of Syria (itself derived from Assyria, initially referring to both Mesopotamia and the Levant), was coined as a self-designation by Christians in Edessa in at least the fifth century AD, quickly gaining widespread usage in both what would come to be called the West and East Syriac traditions.[27] In Arabic (the official language of Syria), the church is known as the \"Kenissa Suryaniya\", and the term Sūryānī identifies the Syriac language and people. Chalcedonians refer to the church as \"Jacobite\" (after Jacob Baradaeus) since the schism that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.[28] English-speaking historians identified the church as the \"Syrian Church\". The English term \"Syrian\" was first used to translate Sūryōyō, derived from Latin Syrus.[29] The Syriac term Trīṣāth Šubḥō, attested in Classical Syriac texts and literally means \"righteous glory\", is translated to English as \"orthodox\" (from Ancient Greek: ὀρθοδοξία, romanized: orthodoxía, lit. 'correct opinion'), which is a term used to identify churches that practiced the set of doctrines believed by early Christians. Since 1922, the term \"Syrian\" started being used for things named after the Syrian Federation; hence, in 2000, the Holy Synod ruled that the church be named as \"Syriac Orthodox Church\" to avoid confusion.[30]\n\nAside from \"Syriac\" and \"Syrian\", the endonym Sūryōyō has also commonly been identified as Assyrian and Aramean,[31][32][33][34][35] with many Syriac Orthodox Church Fathers preserving auxiliary traditions of the Assyrian Empire and Aramean kingdoms.[36][37][38] In the chronicle of Patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo, the origin of the word \"Syria\" was attributed to a legendary king named Syrus, who ruled a kingdom west of the Euphrates, which he expanded east of the Euphrates. He declared on a geographic basis that \"proper Syrians\" were the inhabitants west of the Euphrates who lived in geographical Syria, the core of Syrus's kingdom, with those living east of it being \"metaphorical Syrians\", who-although not \"Syrian\" geographically-did speak the Syriac language, with the foundation for the Syriac language being east of the Euphrates in Edessa. Patriarch Michael the Syrian interpreted the Syrians west of the Euphrates geographically as \"Arameans\" and the Syrians east of the Euphrates as \"Assyrians\", while also elsewhere identifying \"Syrian\", \"Aramean\", \"Chaldean\", and \"Assyrian\" with each other.[39]\n\nTranslation dispute\n\nPrior to the 19th century, it was most common for Sūryōyō to be translated as \"Syrus\", \"Syrien\", or \"Syrian\" in Latin, French and English, respectively, as in \"Ephrem the Syrian\". During the visit of Patriarch Peter III/IV to London, the initial translation employed in English was \"Syrian\".[29] In the United States, where the early community, largely of ethnically Assyrian-though Armenian-speaking- migrants from Harput and Diyarbakır came to unite under the name \"Assyrian Orthodox\" or \"Assyrian Apostolic\", likely owing both to the usage of \"Asouri\" to translate Sūryōyō in their native Armenian tongue, and also to distinguish themselves from Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox migrants that arrived from Ottoman Syria, who already began referring to their parishes as \"Syrian Orthodox\".[29] These migrants established the Assyrian Orthodox parishes of Worcester and West New York. Another wave of migrants from Midyat established the Assyrian Orthodox parish of Central Falls. While these were native Aramaic speakers, they adopted the common name already used by the Armenian speakers. Internally, within the Assyrian Orthodox community, there was no translation dispute, which would only start to become a major issue in the 1950s with the movement to create an Archdiocese of North America, especially as a new wave of native Arabic- and Aramaic-speaking migrants from Palestine would establish new parishes under the name \"Syrian Orthodox\".\n\nAlthough soon-to-be-patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I, then-Archbishop Severus Aphram Barsoum, used \"Assyrian\" in the Paris Peace Conference when supporting the Assyrian independence movement,[40][37][41] he preferred to translate the church's name in English as \"Syrian\", with the English term Assyrian implying Ōthūrōyō in Syriac rather than Sūryōyō (which was mostly translated as \"Syrian\"), insisting it should be used in his 1927 visit to the United States, to which parishes expressed disapproval.[42] A few decades later, the issue was brought up again under the now-patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I and Mor Athanasius Yeshue, then-Archbishop of Jerusalem and Patriarchal Vicar to North America and soon-to-be Archbishop of the United States and Canada, specifically amidst the arrival of fellow Arabic-speaking Syriac Orthodox faithful from Palestine who were more familiar with the name \"Syrian\". Mor Athanasius would use the name \"Assyrian\" to denote his standing in the United States, while using \"Syrian\" to refer to the church. Parishes established after this period would use the name \"Syrian Orthodox\" unlike the earlier established parishes that went by \"Assyrian Orthodox\". Thus, Ignatius Aphrem I wrote the 1952 publication The Syrian Church of Antioch: It's [sic] Name and History, insisting that the use of the English term \"Assyrian\" for the church contradicts \"1. the historical truth, 2. ancient tradition, 3. the identity of our nation in all countries, and 4. the consensus of Western scholars: French, English, German, Italian, and American\", favoring the name \"Syrian\" or even \"Syrian-Aramean\", though only \"Syrian\" would see any official usage.[43][44][42][45][46]\n\nAll new parishes established after 1950 already agreed on the \"Syrian\" name by 14 May 1953, alongside the older Assyrian Orthodox Church in Central Falls, which-although bearing the Assyrian name-was established by immigrants from Midyat and not Harput/Diyarbakır as the others were. Around this same time, legal rights to the name \"Syrian Orthodox\" in the United States were won from the Greek Orthodox, and a corporation was established in the name of the Archdiocese of Antioch in order to lobby for an Archdiocese of North America. The parishes of Worcester and West New York were the only ones that continued to put up resistance. This dispute would continue for the remainder of Ignatius Aphrem I's patriarchate, but a compromise was often reached using \"Suryani Orthodox Church\".[47] George Kiraz mentions that some of the elderly remember a more fierce denial of the \"Assyrian\" name by Mor Athanasius and Mor Aphrem Barsoum during his visit to North America, stating that there is likely a large oral component to the early dispute, but noting from letters such as that of Charles Manoog to Mor Athanasius that \"no member of the diocesan committee or our archbishop has ever asked these two churches to change their name from Assyrian to Syrian. It is some members of these churches who insist that the diocese name and the name of our patriarchate and our religion be changed to Assyrian instead of Syrian\".[48][49]\n\nThe formation of the archdiocese under Patriarch Ignatius Ya'qub III led to an establishment of the Archdiocese of North America with full patriarchal support, with the patriarch soon conducting an official visit in 1960. The parishes of Worcester and West New York insisted on remaining under the Archdiocese of Antioch as late as 1959, and even planned to write to the patriarch prior to his visit. During his visit, they presented their demand which the patriarch rejected, soon preparing for a legal battle if it would come to it. Ultimately, they came to an agreement in October 1960, explicitly being allowed to retain their names, although being required to be subject to the newly established archdiocese at the threat of excommunication.[49][50][51][52] The switch from \"Assyrian\" to \"Syrian\" would also occur in Mor Athanasius's other archdiocese, Jerusalem, where \"Assyrian\" and \"Syrian\" were previously used interchangeably.[53] Church gatherings in Los Angeles have also taken place at the Assyrian Hall in the 1960s.[54] Later on, the parish in Worcester was also renamed to \"Syrian\", leaving the Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Paramus, New Jersey (formerly in West New York) to be the only parish that still bears the name \"Assyrian Orthodox Church\".[55][56] \n\nThe \"Aramean\" name would seldom play a role in the early translation dispute, though Ignatius Aphrem I initially cited \"Aramean\" or \"Syrian-Aramean\" as accurate ways to translate Sūryōyō.[57] Early Syriac Orthodox writers in North America, such as Naum Faiq, writing in Syriac and Arabic, used the words \"Assyrian\", \"Syrian\", and \"Aramean\" interchangeably,[58] a trend that was also seen in the works of the archbishop of Mardin, Philoxenos Yuhanon Dolabani,[59] and even Patriarch Ignatius Ya'qub III himself, then-archbishop of Lebanon and Damascus, stating, \"We are the Assyrians and Arameans who during the early ages were the forerunners of the civilized nations who gave humanity education and knowledge\".[60] It was in Europe following the rise of secular \"Assyrian\" and \"Aramean\" associations where the translation dispute rose, with many clergymen like Julius Yeshu Çiçek supporting a strictly Aramean identity. To clarify the church's identity amidst this dispute, the Holy Synod under Ignatius Zakka I stated that since St. Peter, \"head of the Apostles, established its See in Antioch-Syria until this day\", the church is known as the \"Syrian Orthodox Church\" (ʿIdto Suryoyto Orthodoxoytho), its language the \"Syriac language\" (Leshono Suryoyo), and its people the \"Syrian people\" (ʿAmo Suryoyo). While the Synod did not explicitly condemn the usage of such names, Ignatius Zakka I and the Syrian Orthodox Church's board in Sweden would take a strict stance against both secular \"Assyrian\" and \"Aramean\" associations, viewing them as sources of division.[61][62] Following a dispute among the Syriac Orthodox community of Los Angeles made up of Arabic-speaking immigrants from Palestine (who preferred \"Aramaic\") and from Syria (who preferred \"Syrian\"), a compromise was made where the signage on the church building would read \"Syrian Orthodox Church according to the Aramaic rite\".[63]\n\nUnder the current leadership of Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II, the naming dispute within the church has largely toned down, with the patriarch insisting on using the label Sūryōyō to unite the community.[64] In 2017, he addressed a letter to the World Council of Arameans in which he criticized the organization for attempting to examine the convictions of the church in regards to the dispute, seeking to rename the church to the \"Syriac-Aramean Orthodox Church\", and issued statements indicating that the church did not take a clear stance on Aramean identity.[65]\n\nHistory\n\nA Syriac Orthodox icon of Jesus Christ, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul.Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saints Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem\n\nEarly history\n\nThe church claims apostolic succession through the pre-Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Antioch to the early Christian communities from Jerusalem led by Saint Barnabas and Saint Paul in Antioch, during the Apostolic era, as described in the Acts of the Apostles; \"The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch\" (Acts 11:26). Saint Peter was selected by Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18) and is venerated as the first bishop of Antioch in c. 37 AD after the Incident at Antioch.[66][67]\n\nSaint Evodius was the second bishop of Antioch until 66 AD and was succeeded by Saint Ignatius of Antioch.[68] The earliest recorded use of the term \"Christianity\" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[69] In A.D 169, Theophilus of Antioch wrote three apologetic tracts to Autolycus.[70] Patriarch Babylas of Antioch was considered the first saint recorded as having had his remains moved (or \"translated\") for religious purposes, a practice that was to become extremely common in later centuries.[71] Eustathius of Antioch joined Athanasius of Alexandria in opposing the followers of the condemned doctrine of Arius during the Arian controversy at the First Council of Nicaea.[72] During the time of Meletius of Antioch, the church split due to his being deposed for Homoiousian leanings which became known as the Meletian Schism, and saw several groups and claimants to the See of Antioch.[73][74][75]\n\nPatriarchate of Antioch\n\nGiven the antiquity of the bishopric of Antioch and the importance of the Christian community in the city of Antioch, a commercially significant city in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, the First Council of Nicaea recognized the bishopric as one of the main regional primacies in Christendom, with jurisdiction over the administrative Diocese of the Orient, thus laying the foundation for the creation of the \"Patriarchate of Antioch and All of the East\".[76][77] Because of the significance attributed to Ignatius of Antioch in the church, most of the Syriac Orthodox patriarchs since 1293 have used the name of Ignatius in the title of the patriarch preceding their own patriarchal name.[78]\n\nChristological controversies that followed the Council of Chalcedon did not result in the development of a separate community for those who became Miaphysites, though it became the catalyst for the development of a unique Syriac Orthodox identity.[79][80] It later resulted in a long struggle for the patriarchate between those who accepted and those who rejected the council.[81] In 512, pro-Chalcedonian patriarch Flavian II of Antioch was deposed by Emperor Anastasius I,[82] and on 6 November 512, at the synod of Laodicea in Syria, Severus of Antioch, a notable Miapyhsite theologian, was elected and later consecrated on 16 November at the Great Church of Antioch.[82][83][84] In 518, he was exiled from Antioch[85] by the new emperor, Justin I, who tried to enforce a uniform Chalcedonian doctrine throughout the empire.[86][87][88][89] Those who belonged to the pro-Chalcedonian party accepted newly appointed patriarch Paul the Jew. The Miaphysite patriarchate was thus forced to leave Antioch, with Severus the Great taking refuge in Alexandria. The non-Chalcedonian community was divided between \"Severians\" (followers of Severus), and Julianists (followers of Julian of Halicarnassus), a division that remained unresolved until 527.[90] Severians continued to recognize Severus as the legitimate Miaphysite Patriarch of Antioch until his death in 538, and then proceeded to follow his successors.[91][92]\n\nJacob Baradaeus, bishop of Edessa, is credited for ordaining most of the Miaphysite hierarchy while facing heavy persecution in the sixth century.[93][94][95] In 544, Baradaeus ordained Sergius of Tella, continuing the non-Chalcedonian succession of patriarchs of the Church of Antioch.[96] This was done in opposition to the Byzantine-backed patriarchate of Antioch held by the pro-Chalcedonian believers, leading to the Syriac Orthodox Church becoming popularly known as the Jacobite Church, while the Chalcedonian believers were known popularly as Melkites, derived from the Syriac word for king, malka (an implication of the Chalcedonian Church's relationship to the Roman emperor, later taken up by the Melkite Greek Catholic Church as an official name).[97] Due to numerous historical upheavals and hardships, the patriarchate of the Syriac Orthodox Church was relocated to various monasteries in Mesopotamia for centuries.[98] John III of the Sedre was elected and consecrated Patriarch after the death of Athanasius I Gammolo in 631 AD, followed by the fall of Roman Syria and the Muslim conquest of the Levant. John and several bishops were summoned before Emir Umayr ibn Sad al-Ansari of Hims to engage in an open debate regarding Christianity and represent the entire Christian community, including non-Syriac Orthodox communities, such as Greek Orthodox Syrians.[99] The rise of Islam did not change the position of clergy in leading the church, and they acted as the leaders of their community.[100]\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nBy the seventh century AD, the Syriac Orthodox identity began to see the adoption of Edessan Aramaic become one of its strongest features.[101][b] The eighth-century hagiography Life of Jacob Baradaeus provides evidence of a definite denominational and social differentiation between the Chalcedonians and Miaphysites (Syriac Orthodox).[102] The longer hagiography indicates that the Syriac Orthodox, referred to as Suryoye Yaquboye (Syriac Jacobites), in the work, identified more closely with Jacob's story than with those of other saints.[103] The Coptic historian and Miaphysite bishop Severus ibn al-Muqaffa discusses the origins of the Jacobites and their veneration of Jacob Baradaeus. He asserted that, unlike the Chalcedonian Christians (referred to as \"Melkites\"), Miaphysite Jacobites never compromised their orthodoxy to win the favor of the Byzantine emperors, as the Melkites had done.[104][105][106]\n\nIn the tenth century, after the Byzantine reconquest of Cappadocia, Cilicia and Syria, the Byzantine emperor encouraged Syriac settlement of these newly conquered frontier lands, leading to a period of economic and intellectual flourishing for Syriac Orthodox communities from 950 to 1020.[107][108] The 65th patriarch John VII Sarigta and his two successors resided at the Monastery of Bārid, close to Melitene, one of many newly founded monasteries at the time, and Syriac Orthodox Christians were granted access to imperial positions.[109] The wealth and influence of the Syriac Orthodox communities then sparked conflicts with the Byzantine Church, which began to persecute Syriac Orthodox Christians, forcing Patriarch Dionysius IV to relocate the seat to Amida.[110]\n\nBefore the advent of the Crusades in the eleventh century, the Syriacs occupied much of the hill country of Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia)[111] and lived under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate.[112] In Antioch, after the eleventh-century persecutions by the Byzantines, the Syriac Orthodox population was almost extinguished. Only one Jacobite church is recorded in Antioch in the first half of the twelfth century, leading Dorothea Weltecke to conclude that the Syriac Orthodox population was very low in this period in Antioch and its surroundings.[113]\n\nThis changed during the twelfth century when the Crusader states were established. Scholars agree generally that relations between the Syriac Orthodox and Latins in Outremer were positive.[114] The Syriac population in the Principality of Antioch grew, partly due to the influx of refugees, which was also reflected in the construction of two additional churches.[113] During this period, several Syriac Orthodox patriarchs visited Antioch, with some even establishing temporary residences there, and the Syriac Orthodox hierarchy in Antioch was open to accepting Latin supervision.[115] Nevertheless, they stayed officially independent, though they also engaged in ecumenical dialogue with the Byzantines and Latins regarding church union.[116][114][117]\n\nIn 1293, the patriarchal seat was moved from the Mor Bar Sauma Monastery, where the patriarchs had resided since 1166,[119] to the Mor Hananyo Monastery (Deyrulzafaran)[120] in southeastern Anatolia near Mardin, where it remained until 1933 before it was re-established in Homs, Syria, due to the adverse political situation in the new Turkish Republic. As the Mongols took control of Baghdad in 1258, and declared Islam the state religion in 1294, continuous persecution was rampant against the Christian populations of cities such as Mosul and Erbil.[121] The effect that these persecutions made it difficult to enforce ecclesiastical laws amongst church hierarchy, and made communal division more frequent among church adherents.[122]\n\n16th-17th centuries\n\n16th century\n\nIn November 1517, the Ottoman Empire issued a firman (decree) to the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, stating that the churches, monasteries, and other institutions of the Syriac Orthodox Church were to be under their formal control, alongside those of the Ethiopian and Coptic churches.[123][124] Other documents suggest that these churches were together under the authority of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (Rum millet), which would become a frequent source of conflict.[123]\n\nAmong the notable churchmen of the period, Moses of Mardin (fl. 1549; d. 1592) was a diplomat who represented the Syriac Orthodox Church in Rome during the 16th century.[125]\n\n17th century\n\nBy the early 1660s, 75% of the 5,000 Syriac Orthodox people of Aleppo had converted to Catholicism after the arrival of mendicant missionaries.[126] The Catholic missionaries sought to install a Catholic patriarch among the Jacobites and consecrated Andrew Akijan as the patriarch of the newly founded Syriac Catholic Church.[126] The Propaganda Fide and foreign diplomats pushed for Akijan to be recognized as the Jacobite patriarch. The Porte consented and warned the Syriac Orthodox that they would be considered enemies if they refused to recognize him.[127] Despite warnings and gifts to priests, frequent conflicts and violent disputes continued between the Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs.[127]\n\nIn 1662, the vacant Syriac Patriarchate aligned with the Catholic Church, but after Gregory Peter VI's death in 1702, the Catholic patriarchal line temporarily lapsed. It resumed in 1782 with Michael III Jarweh, leading to the formal establishment of the Syriac Catholic Church, while the non-Catholic faction maintained its separate patriarchate.[128]\n\nAround 1665, many Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala, India, committed themselves in allegiance to the Syriac Orthodox Church, which established the Malankara Syrian Church. The Malankara Church, consolidated under Mar Thoma I, welcomed Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, who regularized the canonical ordination of Mar Thoma I as a native, democratically elected bishop of the Malabar Syriac Christians.[129]\n\nEarly 19th - mid-20th centuries\n\nIn 1836, the reformation faction of the Saint Thomas Christians in India split from the Syriac Orthodox Church and formed the Mar Thoma Syrian Church.[130] During this period, the positions of patriarch of Tur Abdin and maphrian (the latter revived in the 1960s) had come to an end following different synods.[120]\n\nIn the middle of the century, missionary efforts began with Syriac Orthodox communities in Tur Abdin, although they were not as popular as in Urmia.[131] Students from Harput were also attracted to the schools, and influenced the community in Tur Abdin.\n\nIn the 19th century, the various Syriac Christian denominations did not view themselves as part of a single ethnic group,[132] though intercommunity bonds within the church were strong.[120] The church was previously under the jurisdiction of the Armenians in the Millet system of the Ottoman Empire due to both churches being non-Chalcedonian. However, following various inner church conflicts, namely a crisis in Jerusalem,[133] a series of petitions (often numbering into the thousands) would be made by the Syriac Orthodox under Ignatius Peter IV and its dioceses for a separate millet.[134] During the Tanzimat reforms (1839-78), the Syriac Orthodox Church was granted independent status by gaining recognition as their own millet in 1873, apart from Armenians and Greeks.[135] However, conflicts with the Armenian millet would continue after the Syriac Orthodox Church was granted recognition.\n\nIn the late 19th century, the Syriac Orthodox community of the Middle East, primarily from the cities of Adana and Harput, formed some of the earliest modern communities in the western world, with the United States being one of their first destinations in the 1890s.[136] Later, the first Syriac Orthodox church in the United States was built in Worcester, Massachusetts.[137][45]\n\nThe 1895-96 massacres in Turkey affected the Armenian and Syriac Orthodox communities when an estimated 105,000 Christians were killed.[138] By the end of the 19th century, 200,000 Syriac Orthodox Christians remained in the Middle East, primarily concentrated around Mor Hananyo Monastery, the patriarchal seat.[139]\n\nIn 1870, there were 22 Syriac Orthodox settlements in the vicinity of Diyarbakır.[140] In the 1870-71 Diyarbakır salnames, there were 1,434 Orthodox Syriacs in that city.[141][142] Internal rivalry within the Syriac Orthodox Church in Tur Abdin resulted in many conversions to its Uniate branch, the Syriac Catholic Church.[143]\n\nOn 10 December 1876, Ignatius Peter IV consecrated Geevarghese Gregorios of Parumala as metropolitan.[144] He had also worked to reform the Indian church after a long period of neglect, convening a synod in 1876 that reorganized communities into seven dioceses and establishing two councils.[145] Under Peter IV's patriarchate, Jules Ferrette of the Ancient British Church was allegedly consecrated into the episcopacy for establishing an Oriental Orthodox mission in the West.[146][147][148]: 45-52  Joseph Rene Vilatte was also apparently consecrated as a bishop through the Malankara Church, presumably with Peter IV's blessing.[149][148]: 31-44 \n\nGenocide (1914-1918)\n\nThe Ottoman authorities killed and deported Orthodox Syriacs, then looted and seized their properties.[150] Between 1915 and 1916, the Orthodox Syriac population in Diyarbakır province declined by 72%, and in the Mardin province by 58%.[151] Although they weren't as targeted as the Armenians, many were often killed indiscriminately, and among Syriac Christians, the Syriac Orthodox were hit the hardest by the genocide.[152] An estimated 90,000 were killed in the massacres and ensuing deportations.[153]\n\nInterwar period\n\nIn 1924, the patriarchate of the church was relocated to Homs after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk expelled the Syriac Orthodox patriarch, who relocated the library of Mor Hananyo and settled in Damascus.[154][155] The Syriac Orthodox villages in Tur Abdin suffered from the 1925-26 Kurdish rebellions and massive exodus to Lebanon, northern Iraq and especially Syria ensued.[156][157][153]\n\nIn the early 1920s, the city of Qamishli was built mainly by Syriac Orthodox refugees fleeing Sayfo/the Assyrian genocide.[158] The remaining Syriac Orthodox community in Tur Abdin did not press for minority rights by the Turkish state under the leadership of Ignatius Elias III, but in 1924/1925 he was forced to leave the country.[159]\n\nMid 20th - early 21st centuries\n\n1945-2000\n\nFollowing Elias III's leadership, Ignatius Aphrem I ascended to the patriarchate. Under his patriarchal administration, he repudiated the clergy that claimed holy orders and apostolic succession through Ferrette and Vilatte.[160] These clergy would later repudiate Aphrem I's notice, and form the Catholicate of the West which was dissolved and continued as the British Orthodox Church.[161][160]\n\nIn 1959, the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church was transferred to Damascus in Syria.[154][153] By the 1960s, Syriac Orthodox followers began to emigrate to Sweden, with the majority of whom being from Tur Abdin.[37] In the mid-1970s, the estimate of Syriac Orthodox living in Syria was 82,000.[162] In 1977, the number of Syriac Orthodox followers in European dioceses was 9,700 in the Diocese of Middle Europe and 10,750 in the Diocese of Sweden and surrounding countries.[163] Immigration to Europe increased following violence from the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, increasing the strength of Syriac Orthodox communities in their dioceses.[164]\n\nOn 20 October 1987, Geevarghese Mar Gregorios of Parumala was declared a saint by Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, allowing additions to the diptychs.[165][166]\n\nIn 2000, a synod was convened and the church officially began to use \"Syriac\" in its name in English, reflecting the official language of the church and to disassociate from the Syrian republic, as in English, citizens of Syria are called as Syrians.[167] The church began the process of establishing parish councils within each diocese, and by-laws enacted by the synod at Mor Mattai Monastery were updated.\n\nSyrian Civil War\n\nDuring the Syrian Civil War, in 2012, sources within the church reported of an \"ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians\" being carried out by the Free Syrian Army. Multiple Christians claimed to have been forced out of their homes; however, one Syriac leader clarified that the reports were unconfirmed.[168]\n\nIn another incident, Al-Arabiya reported that Assad's government forces attacked and raided the historic Syriac Orthodox Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt in Homs;[169] however, official church sources within Syria maintained that it was the anti-government militias that used the church as a shield and later damaged its contents on purpose.[170][171] Al-Arabiya reports in 2012 stated that the Syrian government has been persecuting Christian community leaders by various means. In one instance, a Christian activist sympathetic to the opposition told the newspaper that one priest had been killed by regime forces, but later, state TV blamed the rebels for his death.[172]\n\nIn April 2013, the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox archbishops of Aleppo, Paul Yazigi and Yohanna Ibrahim, respectively, were reportedly kidnapped near Aleppo by an armed Chechen group.[173] Throughout the war, churches have been demolished by Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria fighters.[174]\n\nLeadership\n\nPatriarch\n\nThe supreme head of the Syriac Orthodox Church is titled the patriarch of Antioch, in reference to his titular claim to one of the five patriarchates of the pentarchy of Byzantine Christianity.[30][175] He possesses apostolic succession through Saint Peter according to sacred tradition.[176][177][178] Considered the \"father of fathers\", he must be an ordained bishop. He is the general administrator to Holy Synod and supervises the spiritual, administrative, and financial matters of the church.[30] The patriarch oversees the church's external relations with other churches and signs documents related to church affairs such as agreements, treaties, contracts, and pastoral communiques like encyclicals (also known as bulls) and pastoral letters.[179]\n\nMaphrian or Catholicos of India\n\nThe word maphrian comes from the Syriac word mafriano, meaning \"one who fructifies\".[180] The maphrian or Catholicos of India is the second-highest rank in the Syriac Orthodox Church after the patriarch.[30][181] He is an important functionary in guiding the church when the patriarchate falls vacant after the death of a patriarch, overseeing the election of the next patriarch and leading the ceremony for the ordination of the patriarch.[182] Their see is in India, serving as the head of the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church, and remains under the authority of the patriarch. In joint councils, he is seated on the right side of the patriarch and heads the church's regional synod in India with the patriarch's sanction.[30]\n\nArchbishops and bishops\n\nThe title bishop comes from the Greek word episkopos, meaning \"the one who oversees\".[183] A bishop is a spiritual leader in the church and holds different ranks. In the Syriac Orthodox Church, the hierarchy includes metropolitan bishops (or archbishops), with auxiliary bishops serving under them. The local head of an archdiocese is an archbishop. He is under the jurisdiction of the patriarch and is accountable to the Holy Synod.[184]\n\nCorepiscopos and priests\n\nThe priest (Kasheesho) is the one duly appointed to administer the sacraments. Unlike in the Catholic Church, Syriac deacons may marry before being ordained as priests; they cannot marry after ordained as priests.[185]\n\nCorepiscopi (or archpriests) are the highest honorary rank given to married priests.[186] A corespiscopos has the privileges of being the \"first among the priests\". The ranks above the corepiscopos are unmarried.[187] The title of \"reesh-corepiscopos\" (arch-corepiscopos) is rare and has been awarded only to Curien Kaniamparambil.[188]\n\nDeacons\n\nIn the Syriac Orthodox tradition, different ranks among the deacons are specifically assigned with particular duties. The seven ranks of the diaconate are:[189][186]\n\nUlmoyo (Faithful)\n\nMawdyono (Confessor of faith)\n\nMzamrono (Singer)\n\nQuroyo or Korooyo (Reader or Lector)\n\nAfudyaqno (Subdeacon)\n\nMshamshono (Full or evangelical deacon)\n\nArkhedyaqno (Archdeacon)\n\nThe subdeacon ensures only the baptized remain in the church from the chanting of the Nicene Creed until Communion. Historically, catechumens attended the sermon but left before the Creed. The subdeacon maintains this practice and church discipline.[190]\n\nOnly a full deacon may take the censer during the Divine Liturgy to assist the priest, but in the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, because of the lack of deacons, altar assistants who do not have a rank of the diaconate may assist the priest.[190] Each archdiocese may have one archdeacon who is referred to as \"the right hand of the bishop\". Only qualified and learned deacons are elevated to this office.[189] Historically, in the Malankara Church, the local chief was called an archdeacon, who was the ecclesiastical authority of the Saint Thomas Christians in the Malabar region of India.[191]\n\nDeaconess\n\nAn ordained deaconess is entitled to enter the sanctuary only for cleaning, lighting the lamps and is limited to give Holy Communion to women and children who are under the age of five.[192][193] She can read Scripture, including the Gospels, in a public gatherings. The title of deaconess can also be given to a choirgirl.[194] Ordained deaconesses may sing in the choir.[195] The ministry of the deaconess assists the priest and deacon outside the altar including in the service of baptizing women and anointing them with holy chrism.[196]\n\nWorship\n\nBible\n\nSyriac Orthodox churches uses the Peshitta (Syriac: ܡܦܩܬܐ ܦܫܝܛܬܐ, lit. 'simple, common') as its official Bible. The New Testament books of this Bible are estimated to have been translated from Koine Greek to Syriac between the late first century to the early third century AD. The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated from Hebrew, probably in the second century. The New Testament of the Peshitta, which originally excluded certain disputed books, had become the standard by the early fifth century, replacing two early Syriac versions of the gospels.[197]\n\nIn the Syriac Orthodox Church's biblical interpretation, the School of Edessa was divided over whether to accept the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia.[198] Over the centuries, divisions among Miaphysites, Chalcedonians and other Dyophysites became more pronounced, influencing Syriac literature and leading to the compilation of new works by figures such as Dionysius bar Salibi and Bar Hebraeus.[199]\n\nDoctrine\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church theology is based on the Nicene Creed. The Syriac Orthodox Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission,[200] that its metropolitans are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the patriarch is the successor to Saint Peter on whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. The church accepted the first three synods held at Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), and Ephesus (431), shaping the formulation and early interpretation of Christian doctrines.[201][202] The Syriac Orthodox Church is part of Oriental Orthodoxy, a distinct communion of churches claiming to continue the patristic and apostolic Christology before the schism following the Council of Chalcedon in 451.[203] In terms of Christology, the Oriental Orthodox (non-Chalcedonian) understanding is that Christ is of \"one nature-the Logos Incarnate, of the full humanity and full divinity\". Just as humans are of their mothers and fathers and not in their mothers and fathers, so too is the nature of Christ according to Oriental Orthodoxy. The Chalcedonian understanding is that Christ is \"in two natures, full humanity and full divinity\". This is the doctrinal difference that separated the Oriental Orthodox and the Imperial Church. The church believes in the mystery of Incarnation and venerates the Virgin Mary as Theotokos or Yoldath Aloho, meaning God-bearer.[204][205]\n\nThe Fathers of the Syriac Orthodox Church gave a theological interpretation to the primacy of Saint Peter.[206] They were fully convinced of the unique office of Peter in the early Christian community. Ephrem, Aphrahat, and Maruthas unequivocally acknowledged the office of Peter. The different orders of liturgies used for sanctification of church buildings, marriages, ordinations etc., reveal that the primacy of Peter is a part of faith of the church. The church does not believe in papal primacy as understood by the Roman See; rather, Petrine primacy according to the ancient Syriac tradition.[207] The church uses both the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar based on their regions and traditions they adapted.\n\nBar Hebraeus wrote a Nomocanon with 40 chapters detailing the rules and canons of the church, some of which were derived from other schools of thought. These writings served as a basis for the leadership of the church and were mostly unchanged for 330 years.[208]\n\nLanguage\n\nSyriac, as the most notable variant of Aramaic language in the Christian era, is used by the Syriac Orthodox Church in two basic forms: classical Syriac is traditionally employed as the main liturgical and literary language, while the neo-Aramaic (Neo-Syriac) dialect known as Turoyo is spoken as the most common vernacular language.[209][210] Other communities, such as those in Bartella, speak a different dialect of Syriac.\n\nArabic had become the dominant language of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt by the 11th century.[211] Syriac Orthodox clergy wrote in Arabic using Garshūni, a Syriac script in the 15th century and later adopted the Arabic script.[211] An English missionary in the 1840s noted that the Arabic speech of the Syriacs was intermixed with Syriac vocabulary.[211] They chose Arabic and Muslim-sounding names, while women had Biblical names.[211]\n\nGreek language was historically used (along with Syriac) in the earliest periods, during and after the separation (5th-6th centuries), but its use gradually declined.[212]\n\nEnglish is used globally alongside Syriac.\n\nMalayalam, Tamil, Kannada are presently used in India with Syriac.[213]\n\nSuriyani Malayalam, also known as Karshoni or Syriac Malayalam, is a dialect of Malayalam written in a variant form of the Syriac alphabet which was popular among the Saint Thomas Christians (also known as Syrian Christians or Nasranis) of Kerala in India.[214][215][216][217] It uses Malayalam grammar, the Maḏnḥāyā or \"Eastern\" Syriac script with special orthographic features, and vocabulary from Malayalam and East Syriac. This originated in the South Indian region of the Malabar Coast (modern-day Kerala). Until the 19th century, the script was widely used by Syrian Christians in Kerala.\n\nSpanish and some Mayan languages are presently in used along with Syriac in Guatemala and Central America[218][219]\n\nSwedish, German, Dutch, Turkish, and Portuguese are used in their regions along with Syriac.[220]\n\nLiturgy\n\nThe liturgical service is called Holy Qurobo, meaning Eucharist, in the Syriac language. The Liturgy of Saint James is celebrated on Sundays and special occasions.[221] The Holy Eucharist consists reading of the Gospel, Bible readings, prayers, and hymns.[222] The recitation of the liturgy is performed according to with specific parts chanted by the presider, the lectors, the choir, and the congregated faithful, at certain times in unison. Apart from certain readings, prayers are sung in the form of chants and melodies. Hundreds of melodies remain preserved in the book known as Beth Gazo, the key reference to Syriac Orthodox Church music.[21]\n\nIn 1983, the French ethnomusicologist Christian Poché produced audio recordings of the liturgical music of the Syriac Orthodox Church. In his liner notes for the UNESCO Anthology of Traditional Music, he described the liturgical music of communities in Antioch, Tur Abdin, Urfa, Mardin in modern Turkey, as well as in Aleppo and Qamishli in modern Syria.[223]\n\nPrayer\n\nSyriac Orthodox clergy and laity follow a regimen of seven prayers a day at fixed prayer times, in accordance with Psalm 119 (cf. Shehimo).[224][225] According to the Syriac tradition, an ecclesiastical day starts at sunset and the canonical hours are based on West Syriac Rite:[226][227][228]\n\nEvening or Ramsho prayer (Vespers)\n\nNight prayer or Sootoro prayer (Compline)\n\nMidnight or Lilyo prayer (Matins)\n\nMorning or Saphro prayer (Prime or Lauds, 6 a.m.)\n\nThird Hour or Tloth sho'in prayer (Terce, 9 a.m.)\n\nSixth Hour or sheth sho'in prayer (Sext, noon)\n\nNinth Hour or Tsha' sho'in prayer (None, 3 p.m.)\n\nSacraments\n\nThe seven sacraments of the church are:[229]\n\nChrismation (Anointing of Holy Muron)\n\nBaptism\n\nConfession\n\nHoly Communion (Queen of the Sacraments)[230]\n\nMarriage\n\nUnction (Anointing of the Sick)\n\nOrdination[231]\n\nVestments\n\nThe clergy of the Syriac Orthodox Church wear unique liturgical vestments according to their order in the priesthood, with certain elements overlapping and building upon one another.[232]\n\nNon-ceremonial\n\nA priest's usual dress, worn when not performing sacraments, is a black robe. In India, due to the hot weather, priests usually wear white robes except during prayers in the church, where they wear a black robe over the white one. A priest also wears a phiro (black skullcap), which he must wear for the public prayers.[233] A corepiscopos is given a chain with a cross and are also required to wear a black cassock and a traditional violet zoonoro (girdle) made of cloth.[184][234] A ramban (monk) wears a masnapso (hood).[235] Bishops usually wear a black or red robe along with a red belt. They also wear a qawugh (black shaped turban) and an episcopal cross on the chest.[236][233]\n\nCeremonial\n\nA mawdyono deacon wears a white robe called kutino, symbolizing purity. Mzamrono and ascending ranks of deacons wear the kutino and a uroro (orarion) in their respective shapes. The deaconess wears a uroro hanging down from the shoulder in the manner of an archdeacon.[237]\n\nPriests wear ceremonial shoes called msone. Without wearing these shoes, a priest cannot distribute the eucharist to the faithful. The priest also wears the hamniko or stole which is worn over the white robe. Then he wears a girdle called zoonoro, and zende, meaning sleeves. A cope called phayno is worn over these vestments.[233]\n\nIf the celebrant is a bishop, he wears a veil-mitre over the masnapso. Batrashil, or pallium, is worn over the phayno by bishops and corepiscopas wear a half cope over the phayno, like the hamnikho worn by priests.[238] They carry a crosier stylized with serpents representing the staff of Moses during liturgy and in public.[233] They also carry a cross and scarf along with the crosier.[232]\n\nDemography\n\nThe patriarchate was originally established in Antioch (in present-day Syria, Turkey, and Iraq)[239] but later relocated due to persecutions by the Romans,[240] followed by Muslim Arab rule. It was based at Mor Hananyo Monastery, Mardin, within the Ottoman Empire from 1160 to 1933,[241] then moved to Homs from 1933 to 1959, and has been seated in Damascus, Syria, since 1959.[242][243] A diaspora has also spread from the Levant, Iraq,[244] and Turkey[245] throughout the world, notably in Sweden,[246] Germany, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Austria, France, United States, Canada, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.[247][248][78]\n\nIt is estimated that the church has 600,000 Syriac adherents, in addition to 483,000 members of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church and their own ethnic diaspora in India.[249][250][251] There is also a large Syriac community among Mayan converts in Guatemala and South America numbering up to 500,000.[252] According to scholar James Minahan, around 26% of the Assyrian people belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church.[253] Although the population of Syriac Orthodox in Tur Abdin still remains in the low thousands (2,000 as of 2011),[254] the Syriac population in Turkey is growing due to refugees from Syria and Iraq fleeing ISIS, as well as members of the diaspora returning to rebuild their homes after leaving during the Turkey-PKK conflict (1978). The village of Elbeğendi in Midyat has been repopulated by Syriacs from Germany and Switzerland.[255][256]\n\nThere are approximately 250,000 members in the United States, 120,000 in Sweden, 120,000 in Germany,[257] 15,000 in the Netherlands and 200,000 members in Brazil, Switzerland and Austria.[258]\n\nJurisdiction of the patriarchate\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch originally covered the whole region of the Middle East and India. In recent centuries, its parishioners started to emigrate to other countries all over the world. Today, the Syriac Orthodox Church has several archdioceses and patriarchal vicariates (exarchates) in many countries, covering six continents. The church's members are divided into 26 archdioceses and 13 patriarchal vicariates.[259]\n\nAmericas\n\nThe presence of the Syrian Orthodox faithful in the Americas dates back to the late 19th century.[31][260]\n\nNorth America\n\nIn 1952, the Patriarchal Vicariate for the U.S. and Canada was created, and in 1995, it was divided into three regional vicariates: Eastern America, Western America and Canada.[261] In 1993, Ignatius Zakka I formed the Malankara Archdiocese of North America for the Indian adherents living in North America.[262] The archdiocese is under the jurisdiction of the patriarchal see.[263]\n\nThere are approximately 250,000 members of the three vicariates and more than 1,000,000 members in the Malankara Archdiocese as of 2002.[258]\n\nRegion\n\nDiocese or Vicariate\n\nMetropolitan\n\nUnited States\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Eastern United States\n\nDionysius Jean Kawak[264][265]\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Western United States\n\nClemis Eugene Kaplan[22]\n\nCanada\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Canada\n\nAthanasius Elia Bahi[23]\n\nUnited States and Canada\n\nMalankara Archdiocese of North America\n\nTitus Yeldho[263]\n\nCentral America\n\nIn Guatemala, a Charismatic movement emerged in 2003 and was excommunicated in 2006 by the Roman Catholic Church. They later joined the Syriac Orthodox Church in 2013 as the Syriac Orthodox Church in Guatemala. Members of this archdiocese are generally Mayan in origin and most live in rural areas.[218] They number around 500,000 based on church estimations.[266] In 2013, the Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox churches stated that the church received into communion 600,000-800,000 members from an independent Roman Catholic body.[267] This archdiocese is known as the Archdiocese of Central America, the Caribbean Islands and Venezuela.[268][269][270]\n\nSouth America\n\nRegion\n\nVicariate\n\nMetropolitan\n\nArgentina\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Argentina\n\nChrysostomos John Ghassali[271][272]\n\nBrazil\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Brazil\n\nSeverius Malke Mourad[273][274]\n\nMiddle East\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church in the Middle East and diaspora communities originating from there, numbering between 150,000 and 200,000 people, reside in their indigenous area of habitation in Syria, Iraq and Turkey according to estimates.[275] The community formed and developed in the Middle Ages. The Syriac Orthodox Christians of the Middle East speak Aramaic. The Syriac Orthodox Church has numerous monasteries in the region.\n\nRegion\n\nDiocese or vicariate\n\nMetropolitan\n\nIraq\n\nArchdiocese of Baghdad and Basra[276]\n\nSeverius Hawa[277]\n\nArchdiocese of Mar Matta[276]\n\nTimotheos Mousa A. Shamani[278]\n\nArchdiocese of Mosul and Environs[276]\n\nNicodemus Daoud Sharaf[279][280]\n\nJerusalem and Jordan\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Jerusalem and Jordan\n\nRaban Gabriel Dahho[281]\n\nLebanon\n\nArchdiocese of Beirut\n\nClemis Daniel Malak Kourieh[282]\n\nArchdiocese of Mount Lebanon\n\nTheophilus Georges Saliba[283]\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Zahle\n\nJustinos Boulos Safar[283]\n\nSyria\n\nArchdiocese of Aleppo\n\nGregorios Yohanna Ibrahim[284]\n\nArchdiocese of Homs & Hama\n\nTimotheos Matta Al-Khoury[285]\n\nArchdiocese of Jazireh & Euphrates\n\nMaurice Amish[286]\n\nTurkey\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Istanbul & Ankara\n\nFilüksinos Yusuf Çetin[287]\n\nArchdiocese of Mardin\n\nFilüksinos Saliba Özmen[288]\n\nArchdiocese of Turabdin\n\nTimotheus Samuel Aktaş[289]\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Adiyaman\n\nGregorius Melki Ürek[290]\n\nArabian Gulf and Emirates\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Arabian Gulf\n\nBarthelmaus Nathanael Youssef[291]\n\n Mor Gabriel Monastery, Tur Abdin, Turkey\n\n St. Mary Church, Diyarbakır, Turkey \n\n Mor Mattai Monastery, Iraq\n\n Church of Saint Thomas, Mosul, Iraq\n\n Monastery of Saint Mark, Jerusalem\n\n Saint George the Martyr's Church, Aleppo, Syria \n\nIndia\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nThe Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, a maphrianate, is one of the Saint Thomas Christian churches in India. It is an integral part of the Syriac Orthodox Church, with the patriarch of Antioch serving as its supreme head.[292][293] The local head of the church in Malankara (Kerala) is Baselios Joseph, ordained by Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II in March 2025.[294][295] The headquarters of the church in India is at Puthencruz, Ernakulam, Kerala in South India. Simhasana churches and the Honavar Mission is under the direct control of the patriarch.[296]\n\nHistorically, the St. Thomas Christians were part of the Church of the East, based in Persia which was under the patriarch of Antioch. After the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which formalized the schism between the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church, the faithful in India received both Miaphysite and Nestorian bishops from different time periods until they formally came into full communion with Syriac Orthodox Church on 1652.[297] Syriac bishops like Mar Sabor and Mar Proth arrived at Malankara between the eighth and ninth centuries from Persia.[298] They established churches in Quilon, Kadamattom, Kayamkulam, Udayamperoor, and Akaparambu.[299]\n\nKnanaya Archdiocese\n\nThe Knanaya Archdiocese, in full communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church, exists as an archdiocese for the ethnic Knanaya community in Kerala who practice strict endogamy. It was due to this they were given a separate archdiocese. They are under the guidance and direction of Archbishop Mor Severious Kuriakose. They migrated to Kerala under the leadership of the Syriac merchant Knāy Thoma (Thomas of Cana) who arrived in Kerala in the year 345 AD with a bishop from Edessa,[300] while another legend traces their origin to Jews in the Middle East.[301][302][303]\n\nEvangelistic Association of the East\n\nThe E.A.E. Archdiocese is the missionary association of the Syriac Orthodox Church, founded in 1924 by Geevarghese Athunkal Cor-Episcopa at Perumbavoor.[304] This archdiocese is under the direct control of the patriarch under the guidance of Chrysostomos Markose.[305] It is an organization with churches, educational institutions, orphanages, nursing homes, convents, publications, mission centers, gospel teams, care missions and a missionary training institute. It is registered in 1949 under the Indian Societies Registration Act. XXI of 1860 (Reg. No. S.8/1949ESTD 1924).[306][307] Honnavar Mission is a spiritual and charitable organization based in Honnavar, Karnataka, The mission serves under the guidance of Metropolitan Anthonios Yaqu'b.[308]\n\nSeperations\n\nMalankara Marthoma Syrian Church\n\nThe Malankara Marthoma Syrian Church is an independent Oriental Protestant church that was excommunicated from the Syriac Orthodox Church by Patriarch Mor Ignatius Peter IV due to their Eastern Protestant practices. Their first reforming metropolitan, Mathews Athanasius, was ordained by Ignatius Elias II in 1842.[309]\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nThe Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church’s 1934 Constitution recognizes the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch as its primate.[310] However, the church maintains that this authority is primarily historical and honorific, operating under the full administrative and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of its own Catholicos and Holy Synod.[311]\n\nDisagreements over patriarchal authority led to significant factional divisions within the Malankara Church in India.[311][312] The Holy Universal Synod of the Syriac Orthodox Church issued a decree of excommunication against the faction aligned with autocephaly in 1975, a position reaffirmed in subsequent synods, notably by the Malankara Synod in 2017 and the Universal Synod in 2025, which was recognized by the Coptic and Armenian Apostolic churches.[311][313] Conversely, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church considers these excommunications ecclesiastically invalid, asserting its self-governing (autocephalous) status as upheld by multiple rulings of the Supreme Court of India.[312]\n\nEurope\n\nEarlier in the 20th century, many Syriacs emigrated to Western Europe, settling in countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and other countries for economic and political reasons.[314][59] The Mor Ephrem Monastery in the Netherlands is the first Syriac Orthodox monastery in Europe, established in 1981.[315] The Mor Awgen Monastery in Arth, Switzerland and Mor Jacob of Serugh Monastery in Warburg, Germany are the other monasteries located in Europe. The most recent Syriac Orthodox monastery in Europe is the Holy Cross Monastery in Sweden.[316]\n\nRegion\n\nDiocese or vicariate\n\nMetropolitan\n\nBelgium\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Belgium, France and Luxembourg\n\nGeorge Kourieh[317]\n\nGermany\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Germany\n\nPhiloxenus Mattias Nayis[318]\n\nEcumenical Movement in Germany\n\nJulius Hanna Aydın[319]\n\nNetherlands\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of the Netherlands\n\nPolycarpus Augin (Eugene) Aydın[319]\n\nSpain\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Spain\n\nNicolaos Matti Abd Alahad[319]\n\nSweden\n\nArchbishopric of Sweden and Scandinavia\n\nYuhanon Lahdo[320]\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Sweden\n\nDioskoros Benyamen Atas[321]\n\nSwitzerland\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Switzerland and Austria\n\nDionysius Isa Gürbüz[322]\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of United Kingdom\n\nAthanasius Toma Dawod[323]\n\n St. Jacob of Sarug Monastery Warburg, Germany\n\n Church of Our Lady, Amsterdam, Netherlands\n\n St. Avgin Monastery, Arth, Switzerland\n\n St. Aphrem Cathedral, Södertälje, Sweden\n\nOceania\n\nThe Patriarchal Vicariate of Australia and New Zealand was founded under the patriarch's authority, and is currently led by Archbishop Malatius Malki Malki.[324][325][326] The vicariate is headquartered in the Saint Ephraim Syriac Orthodox church.[327]\n\nInstitutions\n\nThe church has various seminaries, colleges, and other institutions.[328] Patriarch Aphrem I Barsoum established St. Aphrem's Clerical School in the year 1934 in Zahlé, Lebanon.[329] In 1946, the school was moved to Mosul, Iraq.[329][330] It provided the church with a selection of graduates, the first among them being Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas and many other church leaders.[331]\n\nIn 1990, the Order of St. Jacob Baradaeus was established for nuns.[332][333] Seminaries have been instituted in Sweden and in Salzburg, Austria for the study of Syriac theology, history, language, and culture.[334][335] The church has an international Christian education center for religious education.[336] The Antioch Syrian University was established on 8 September 2018 in Maarat Saidnaya, near Damascus.[337] The university offers engineering, management and economics courses.[338] The Happy Child House project inaugurated in 2022 provides childcare services in Damascus, Syria.[339]\n\nEcumenical relations\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church is active in ecumenical dialogues with various churches,[340][341] including the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox churches, Anglican Communion, Church of the East, and other Christian denominations. The church is an active member of the World Council of Churches since 1960 and Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas was one of the former presidents of the WCC.[342][343][30] It has also been involved in the Middle East Council of Churches since 1974.[344][30] Since 1998, representatives of Syriac Orthodox Church, together with representatives of other Oriental Orthodox churches, participate in ecumenical dialogue and also in various forms of interfaith dialogue.[78][340][341]\n\nCatholic Church\n\nThere are some common Christological and pastoral agreements with the Catholic Church. By the 20th century as the Chalcedonian schism was not seen with the same relevance, and from several meetings between the authorities of the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox, reconciling declarations emerged in the common statements of the Patriarch Ignatius Jacob III and Pope Paul VI in 1971,[345] Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas and Pope John Paul II in 1984 issued a common statement:\n\nThe confusions and schisms that occurred between their Churches in the later centuries, they realise today, in no way affect or touch the substance of their faith, since these arose only because of differences in terminology and culture and in the various formulae adopted by different theological schools to express the same matter. Accordingly, we find today no real basis for the sad divisions and schisms that subsequently arose between us concerning the doctrine of Incarnation. In words and life, we confess the true doctrine concerning Christ our Lord, notwithstanding the differences in interpretation of such a doctrine which arose at the time of the Council of Chalcedon.[346]\n\nThe precise differences in theology that caused the Chalcedonian controversy is said to have arisen \"only because of differences in terminology and culture and in the various formulae adopted by different theological schools to express the same matter\", according to a common declaration statement between Patriarch Ignatius Jacob III and Pope Paul VI on Wednesday 27 October 1971.[345]\n\nIn 2015, Pope Francis addressed the Syriac Orthodox Church as \"a church of Martyrs\", welcoming the visit of Ignatius Aphrem II to the Holy See.[347]\n\nRussian Orthodox Church\n\nIn 2015, Ignatius Aphrem II visited Patriarch Kirill of Moscow of the Russian Orthodox Church and discussed prospects of bilateral and theological dialogue existing since the late 1980s.[348] The two leaders discussed various contemporary issues, including the situation of Christians in the Middle East and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in addressing these concerns at international forums. They also explored ways to strengthen relations between their respective churches and coordinate their positions on matters related to conflict and violence.[349]\n\nSee also\n\nDioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nSyriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East\n\nList of Syriac Orthodox Patriarchs of Antioch\n\nNaheere\n\nThe Ascetical Homilies of Isaac the Syrian\n\nOriental Orthodoxy\n\nMiaphysitism, Cyril of Alexandria's Christology\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nCatholicos of India\n\nMaphrian\n\nList of Maphrians\n\nNotes\n\n^ Officially known as the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East[16]\n\n^ The use of Edessan Aramaic, however, was not an indication of defining themselves with the ancient Arameans.[33]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Chaillot 1998, pp. 21-22.\n\n^ Beggiani, Seely J. (2014). Early Syriac Theology. CUA Press. ISBN 978-0-8132-2701-6. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 24 October 2020.\n\n^ Simon, Thomas Collins (1862). The Mission and Martyrdom of St. Peter: Or, Did St. Peter Ever Leave the East? Containing the Original Text of All the Passages in Ancient Writers Supposed to Imply a Journey Into Europe, with Translations and Roman-catholic Comments ... by Thomas Collyns Simon. Rivingtons. p. 70.\n\n^ \"Cave Church of St. Peter - Antioch, Turkey\". www.sacred-destinations.com. Archived from the original on 20 May 2018. Retrieved 22 March 2018.\n\n^ \"BBC - Religions - Christianity: Eastern Orthodox Church\". www.bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 16 December 2018.\n\n^ Bowersock, Glen Warren (1999). Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. Harvard University Press. p. 587. ISBN 978-0-674-51173-6.\n\n^ Rassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Gracewing Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85244-633-1. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 24 October 2020.\n\n^ Jeppesen, Knud; Nielsen, Kirsten; Rosendal, Bent (1994). In the Last Days: On Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic and Its Period. Aarhus University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-87-7288-471-4.\n\n^ \"Catholic Encyclopedia: Church of Antioch\". www.newadvent.org. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 16 December 2018.\n\n^ a b Tesch, Noah (5 January 2025). \"Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East-Britannica\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 26 November 2025. In the first decade of the 21st century, the church claimed more than 1.4 million members.\n\n^ a b Kiraz, George A. (2011). \"Syriac Orthodox Church\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 26 November 2025. There are 400,000 to 500,000 adherents dispersed in the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, and Australia, in addition to ca. one million in India.\n\n^ a b Murre-van den Berg, Heleen (25 November 2011). \"Syriac Orthodox Church\". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi:10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc1344. ISBN 978-1-4051-5762-9. The Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East has almost one and a half million adherents. Of these, roughly two-thirds (one million) live in India, somewhat more than one-sixth (260,000) in the Middle East, whereas the remaining sixth is divided over Europe (100,000, mostly in Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands), North and South America (up to 40,000, most of these in the US and Canada), and Australia (a few thousand).\n\n^ a b Penn, Michael (12 December 2018). \"Early Syriac Reactions to the Rise of Islam\". In King, David (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 185, 192. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ \"St. Ephrem Patriarchal Development Committee\". Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust. 17 February 2023. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 27 October 2019.\n\n^ السريانية الأرثوذكسية. Reverso Context. Archived from the original on 15 October 2023. Retrieved 29 November 2020.\n\n^ \"Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East\". World Council of Churches. January 1960. Archived from the original on 6 February 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2021.\n\n^ \"Sfar Mele - Deutsch Aramäisch Online Wörterbuch Übersetzer - Targmono\". sfarmele.de. Archived from the original on 12 February 2023. Retrieved 12 February 2023.\n\n^ Seleznyov 2013, pp. 382-398.\n\n^ Wace, Henry. \"Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies\". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 10 June 2025.\n\n^ Bismarji, Emmanuel. \"The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch At A Glance: Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, 1983\". Syriac Orthodox Resources. Retrieved 10 June 2025.\n\n^ a b Graffin, René (1926). Patrologia syriaca. Firmin-Didot et socii. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 17 September 2020.\n\n^ a b \"Archbishop Clemis Eugene Kaplan, Member of the Suryoyo Hall of the Shame\". www.bethsuryoyo.com. Archived from the original on 14 August 2011. Retrieved 7 April 2019.\n\n^ a b \"Our church worldwide\". St. Barsaumo Syriac Orthodox Church. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2019.\n\n^ \"Universal Syriac Church\". St George Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church Birmingham. Retrieved 7 June 2025.\n\n^ \"The Christology of St Severus of Antioch (I) | Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles\". www.lacopts.org. Retrieved 7 June 2025.\n\n^ Minahan 2002, pp. 205-209.\n\n^ Tannous, Jack (2025). \"What is Syriac? Explorations in the History of a Name\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 28 (1): 94.\n\n^ Grabar et al. 2001, p. 227.\n\n^ a b c Kiraz 2019, p. 191.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"The Syriac Orthodox Church: A Brief Overview\". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch Archdiocese for the Eastern United States. 2020. Archived from the original on 5 May 2025. Retrieved 27 January 2025.\n\n^ a b Kiraz 2019.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 90.\n\n^ a b Haar Romeny 2012, p. 247.\n\n^ Wozniak 2015, p. 6.\n\n^ Hämmerli & Mayer 2016, \"Suryoye as a Social Category in the Homeland\".\n\n^ Haar Romeny, Bas ter; Atto, Naures; Ginkel, Jan J. van; Immerzeel, Mat; Snelders, Bas (2009). \"The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and Conclusions of the Leiden Project\". Brill. Church History and Religious Culture. 89: 1-52. doi:10.1163/187124109X407989. Retrieved 26 November 2025 - via JSTOR. Therefore their identity was not just religiously motivated- although that element was always dominant-but also included the cultural traditions of pagan empires such as those of the Assyrians and the Aramean kingdoms. As is the case with other examples of ethnogenesis, this core of traditions is not a given, but something that crystallized out of the available stories and customs and only slowly came into existence. It is not unchangeable, but is continuously reinterpreted, added to, and detracted from. However, the Syriac Orthodox were by the twelfth century aware of having such a core.\n\n^ a b c Wozniak 2015, p. 5.\n\n^ Haar Romeny 2012, p. 244.\n\n^ Weltecke 2009.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 80.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, pp. 33-34.\n\n^ a b Kiraz 2019, pp. 194-195.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg 2019, p. 777.\n\n^ Mar Ignatius Ephrem 1 (1983). The Syrian Church of Antioch: It's Name and History. Syrian Organisations in Middle Europe and Sweden.\n\n^ a b Donabed & Donabed 2006, pp. 77-78.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 81.\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. 204.\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. 198.\n\n^ a b Kiraz 2019, pp. 203-204.\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. 221.\n\n^ Donabed 2015, p. 232: \"By the early 1960s, all the Jacobite churches in the United States, previously bearing the official name 'Assyrian Apostolic Church of Antioch', had changed their names to 'Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch'\"\n\n^ Donabed 2015, p. 3: \"the Syrian Orthodox Church (referred to as Jacobite and originally in English as Assyrian Apostolic)\"\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. xxiv.\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. 227.\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. xxv.\n\n^ \"History and Importance of Assyrian Orthodox Church of The Virgin Mary\". virginmarynj.org. 7 March 2018. Archived from the original on 6 May 2025. Retrieved 6 May 2025.\n\n^ Mar Ignatius Ephrem 1 1983.\n\n^ Kiraz 2019, p. xxvi.\n\n^ a b Atto 2011.\n\n^ Severius Yacoub (1983). 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Retrieved 23 February 2018.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2013). \"The Evolution of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Pre-Islamic Period: From Greek to Syriac?\" (PDF). Journal of Early Christian Studies. 21 (1): 43-92. doi:10.1353/earl.2013.0002. S2CID 170436440. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.\n\nMinahan, J. (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-32109-2. Retrieved 1 November 2019.\n\nMoolayil, Kuriakose Corepiscopa (2011). A Guide to the Altar Assistants with Syriac Orthodox Lectionary Notes. pp. 14-17.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2011) [2009]. \"Syriac Orthodox Church\". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Vol. 4. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 2304-2309. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nMurre-van den Berg, Heleen (2013). \"A Center of Transnational Syriac Orthodoxy: St. Mark's Convent in Jerusalem\". Journal of Levantine Studies. 3 (1): 61-83. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2015). \"Classical Syriac and the Syriac Churches: A Twentieth-Century History\". Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 119-148. ISBN 978-90-429-3046-9. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2020.\n\nMurre-van den Berg, Heleen (2019). \"Syriac Identity in the Modern Era\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 770-782. ISBN 978-1-138-89901-8. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2004) [1984]. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54885-4. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2002) [1985]. A History of Christianity in India: 1707-1858. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89332-9. Archived from the original on 29 July 2023. Retrieved 17 September 2020.\n\nNieper, Jens (2012). \"The Syrian Orthodox Church: The Aramean Community as an Ecumenical Entity in a Transnational Dimension\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 57-62. ISBN 978-3-643-90268-9. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nÖktem, Kerem (2015). \"Incorporating the time and space of the ethnic other: Nationalism and space in Southeast Turkey in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries\". Nations and Nationalism. 10 (4): 559-578. doi:10.1111/j.1354-5078.2004.00182.x.\n\nO'Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 978-0-521-81113-2. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2019.\n\nÖzcoşar, Ibrahim (2014). \"Separation and Conflict: Syriac Jacobites and Syriac Catholics in Mardin in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries\". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 38 (2): 201-217. doi:10.1179/0307013114Z.00000000045. S2CID 162368464. Archived from the original on 8 July 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nPalmer, Andrew (1991). \"The History of the Syrian Orthodox in Jerusalem\". Oriens Christianus. 75: 16-43. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nParry, Ken (2010). The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-3361-9. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2019.\n\nPerczel, István (2019). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 978-1-138-89901-8. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nSaint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon (2015). Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches. University of California Press. pp. 94-. ISBN 978-0-520-96058-9. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2019.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2013). \"Jacobs and Jacobites: The Syrian Origins of the Name and its Egyptian Arabic Interpretations\". Scrinium: Journal of Patrology, Critical Hagiographyand Ecclesiastical History. 9: 382-398. Archived from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2021.\n\nSchmoller, Andreas (2020). \"The Syriac Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox Churches in Austria: Inter-Church Relations and State Recognition\". Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration. 8 (1). Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies: 76-102. ISSN 2169-4435.\n\nSmith, W. (1863). A Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising Its Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and Natural History. A Dictionary of the Bible: Comprising Its Antiquities, Biography, and Natural History. J. Murray. p. 73. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nSnelders, Bas (2010). Identity and Christian-Muslim Interaction: Medieval Art of the Syrian Orthodox from the Mosul Area. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-2386-7. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2021.\n\nSommer, Renate (2012). \"The Role of Religious Freedom in the Context of the Accession Negotiations between the European Union and Turkey - The Example of the Arameans\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 157-170. ISBN 978-3-643-90268-9. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nSwiderski, Richard Michael (1988). \"Northists and Southists: A Folklore of Kerala Christians\". Asian Folklore Studies. 47 (1). Nanzan University: 73-92. doi:10.2307/1178253. JSTOR 1178253.\n\nTaylor, William (2013). Narratives of Identity: The Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of England 1895-1914. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-6946-1.\n\nThe Oxford selection of Psalms and hymns, for the use of parish churches. 1857. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nThomas, D.R. (2001). Syrian Christians Under Islam: The First Thousand Years. Biblical Studies and Religious Studies. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12055-6. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nTrimingham, John Spencer (1979). Christianity Among the Arabs in pre-Islamic Times. London: Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-78081-1. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2021.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2006b). \"On the Syriac Orthodox in the Principality of Antioch during the Crusader Period\" (PDF). East and West in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean I: Antioch from the Byzantine Reconquest until the End of the Crusader Principality. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 95-124. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 26 January 2021.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2009). \"Michael the Syrian and Syriac Orthodox Identity\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 115-125. doi:10.1163/187124109X408023. Archived from the original on 11 September 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2020.\n\nWhitehouse, T. (1873). Lingerings of light in a dark land: researches into the Syrian church of Malabar. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nWozniak, Marta (2015). From religious to ethno-religious: Identity change among Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden (PDF). Joint Sessions of Workshops organized by the European Consortium for Political Research. ECPR. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2019.\n\nFurther reading\n\nEcumenical relations with the Catholic Church\n\nPope Benedict XIV, Allatae Sunt (On the observance of Oriental Rites), Encyclical, 1755\n\nAddresses of Pope Paul VI and His Holiness Mar Ignatius Jacob III, 1971\n\nCommon Declaration of Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, 1984\n\nAddress of John Paul II on Occasion of the Visit to the Catholicos of the Malankarese Syrian Orthodox Church, 1986\n\nAddress of His Holiness Pope Francis to His Holiness Mor Ignatius Aphrem II Syriac orthodox patriarch of Antioch and all the East, 19 June 2015\n\nExternal links\n\nSyriac Orthodox Patriarchate (Official website)\n\nJacobite Syrian Church (Malankara Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church)\n\nSyriac Orthodox Patriarchate (Union between Christians)\n\nDepartment of Syriac Studies\n\nOur Saints (Saints of Syriac Orthodox church)\n\nAcademic Resources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London & New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 978-1-134-43019-2. Archived from the original on 9 July 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 978-0-86078-305-3. Archived from the original on 1 August 2023. Retrieved 13 March 2018.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 13 March 2018.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 13 March 2018.\n\nBrock, S.P.; Taylor, D.G.K. (2001). The Hidden Pearl: At the turn of the third millennium; the Syrian Orthodox witness. The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and Its Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Trans World Film Italia. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-5908-2. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 6 August 2017.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2010). \"The Syrian Orthodox Church in the Modern Middle East\". Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 13-24. ISBN 978-1-135-19371-3. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2019.\n\nCurta, F.; Holt, A. (2016). Great Events in Religion: An Encyclopedia of Pivotal Events in Religious History [3 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-566-4. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 93-114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014. Archived from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nFischbach, Ingrid (2012). \"Persecution of Christians in Turkey\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 171-177. ISBN 978-3-643-90268-9. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nGabriyel Akyüz (2001). Osmanlı Devleti'nde Süryani Kilisesi: Osmanlı padişahları tarafından Süryani Kilisesi'nin ruhani liderlerine gönderilen fermanlar (in Turkish). Mardin Kırklar Kilisesi. ISBN 978-975-8233-09-0. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2019.\n\nGaunt, David (2012). \"Relations between Kurds and Syriacs and Assyrians in Late Ottoman Diyarbekir\". Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 241-266. ISBN 978-90-04-22518-3. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2005). \"History and Community: Jacob of Edessa and the West Syrian Identity\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 67-75. ISBN 978-90-429-1418-6. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2021.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2006). \"The Perception and Presentation of the Arab Conquest in Syriac Historiography: How Did the Changing Social Position of the Syrian Orthodox Community Influence the Account of Their Historiographers?\". The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 171-184. ISBN 90-04-14938-4. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2021.\n\nGrillmeier, Aloys; Hainthaler, Theresia (2013). Christ in Christian Tradition: The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch from 451 to 600. Vol. 2/3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-921288-0. Archived from the original on 2 August 2023. Retrieved 11 November 2020.\n\nHengel, M. (2004). Studies in Early Christology. Academic Paperback Series. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-567-04280-4. Retrieved 1 November 2019.\n\nÖzcoşar, Ibrahim (2017). \"Community, Power, Identity: Identity Crisis of the Ottoman Süryanis\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 327-335. ISBN 978-90-429-3164-0. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nSato, Noriko (2005). \"Selective Amnesia: Memory and History of the Urfalli Syrian Orthodox Christians\". Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. 12 (3): 315-333. doi:10.1080/10702890500202803. S2CID 144800560.\n\nTrigona-Harany, Benjamin (2013). The Ottoman Süryânî from 1908 to 1914. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-60724-069-3. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2006a). \"Contacts between Syriac Orthodox and Latin Military Orders\". East and West in the Crusader States: Context, Contacts, Confrontations. Vol. 3. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 53-77. ISBN 978-90-429-1287-8.\n\nYakup Bilge (1991). Süryanilerin kökeni ve Türkiyeli Süryaniler (in Turkish). Y. Bilge. ISBN 978-975-95384-0-8. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2019.\n\nMedia\n\nSyriac religious TV channel of Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch\n\nSyriac Liturgy Archived 22 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine description and photos\n\nSyriac Music\n\nYouTube video of a Palm Sunday Mass\n\nYouTube video: Associate professor Svante Lundgren explains the history and origin of the term \"Syriac\" (Suryoyo/Suroyo)\n\nRelating to Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nMargonitho: Syriac Orthodox Resources\n\nRelating to Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church\n\nJacobite Syrian Church (Malankara Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church)\n\nMalankara Vision: TV of Jacobite Syrian Church"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-orthodox-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 19937}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-catholic-church", "title": "Syriac Catholic Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Syriac Catholic Church[a] is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris (self-governing) particular church that is in full communion with the Holy See and with the entirety of the Catholic Church.[5] Originating in the Levant, it uses the West Syriac Rite liturgy and has many practices and rites in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac Catholic Church\n\nܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ\n\nSyriac Catholic Cathedral of Saint Paul, Damascus, Syria\n\nTypeParticular church (sui iuris)\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientation\nEastern Catholic\n\nSyriac\n\nScripturePeshitta[1]\n\nPolityEpiscopal\n\nPopeLeo XIV\n\nPatriarchIgnatius Joseph III Yonan\n\nRegionNear-East;\nLebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey\n with communities in United States, Canada, France, Sweden, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Australia\n\nLanguageSyriac, Aramaic\n\nLiturgyWest Syriac Rite\n\nHeadquartersBeirut, Lebanon[2]\n\nFounderTraces ultimate origins to Apostles St. Paul and St. Peter Through Patriarchs Ignatius Andrew Akijan (1662) and Ignatius Michael III Jarweh (1782)\n\nBranched fromChurch of Antioch[3]\n\nMembers153,415 (2018)[4]\n\nOfficial websitesyr-cath.org (in Arabic)\n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church[a] is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris (self-governing) particular church that is in full communion with the Holy See and with the entirety of the Catholic Church.[5] Originating in the Levant, it uses the West Syriac Rite liturgy and has many practices and rites in common with the Syriac Orthodox Church. The Syriac language, a dialect of Aramaic, is the liturgical language used by the church.[6] There are about 160,000 Syriac Catholics, with the majority in Syria and Iraq, along with a smaller community in Lebanon and an overseas diaspora. It is one of the smaller Eastern Catholic churches based in the Middle East.[7] \n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church traces its history and traditions to the Church of Antioch established by Saint Peter. The Diocese of the East under the Patriarch of Antioch included the western Middle East along the Mediterranean.[6] The Church of Antioch was split following the Council of Chalcedon in 451 over disagreements on Christology, with the Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian churches becoming part of Oriental Orthodoxy after rejecting the outcome of the council.[8] A decree of unity between the Syriac Orthodox Church and Rome was made at the Council of Florence in 1444 but it was quickly annulled by the Syriac hierarchy. After missionary work led to conversions to Catholicism among Syriac Christians in the 17th century, one of them, Andrew Akijan, was elected as the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch in 1662. After his death in 1677, rival Catholic and Orthodox Syriac patriarchs were elected between then and 1702. The current line of Syriac Catholic patriarchs of Antioch began in 1782, when Michael Jarweh declared himself in communion with the pope of Rome after being elected by the Syriac Orthodox Holy Synod.[9]\n\nThe church is headed by Mor Ignatius Joseph III Younan, who has been the patriarch since 2009. Its patriarch of Antioch has the title of Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syriacs and resides in Beirut, Lebanon.[b] The seat of the Syriac Catholic patriarch was moved several times due to persecution of the church. Michael Jarweh established the monastery of Our Lady in Sharfeh, Lebanon, which is also currently the site of the seminary and printing house of the Syriac Catholic Church.[9]\n\nName\n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church (Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ, romanized: ʿĪṯo Suryoyṯo Qaṯolīqayṯo) is sometimes also called the Syrian Catholic Church. Furthermore, it is sometimes referred by its patriarchate, the Syriac Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch. See also: Syriac Catholic Patriarchs of Antioch.\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Crusades period\n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church claims its origin through Saint Peter prior to his departure to Rome, and extends its roots back to the origins of Christianity in the Orient; in the Acts of the Apostles we are told that it is in Antioch where the followers of Jesus for the first time were called \"Christians\" (Acts 11:26).\n\nIn the time of the first ecumenical councils, the Patriarch of Antioch held the ecclesiastical authority over the Diocese of the Orient, which was to be extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. Its scholarly mission in both languages, Greek and Syriac, was to provide the world and the Universal Church with eminent saints, scholars, hermits, martyrs and pastors. Among these great people are Saint Ephrem (373), Doctor of the Church, and Saint Jacob of Sarug (521).\n\nDuring the Crusades\n\nDuring the Crusades there were many examples of warm relations between Catholic and Syriac Orthodox bishops. Some of these bishops favored union with Rome, but there was no push to unify until a decree of union between the Syriac Orthodox and Rome was signed at the Council of Florence September 30, 1444 - but the effects of this decree were rapidly annulled by opponents of it in the Syriac Church's hierarchy.\n\nSplit with the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nA Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries evangelizing in Aleppo caused some local Syriac Orthodox faithful to form a pro-catholic movement within the Syriac Orthodox Church. In 1667, Andrew Akijan, a supporter of union with the Catholic Church, was elected as patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[10] This provoked a split in the community, and after Akijan's death in 1677, two opposing patriarchs were elected, with the pro-Catholic one being the uncle of Andrew Akijan. However, when the Catholic patriarch died in 1702, the Ottoman government supported the Syriac Orthodoxy's agitation against the Syriac Catholics, and throughout the 18th century the Syriac Catholics underwent suffering and much persecution. Due to this, there were long periods when no Syriac Catholic bishops were functioning, so a patriarch could not be elected, and the community was forced to go entirely underground. However, in 1782, the Syriac Orthodox Holy Synod elected Metropolitan Michael Jarweh of Aleppo as patriarch. Shortly after he was enthroned, he declared himself Catholic and in unity with the pope of Rome. After this declaration, Jarweh took refuge in Lebanon and built the still-extant monastery of Our Lady at Sharfeh, and by that act became the patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church. Since Jarweh, there has been an unbroken succession of Syriac Catholic patriarchs, which is known as the Ignatius line.[11]\n\nAfter the split up until modern times\n\nIn 1829 the Ottoman government granted legal recognition to the Armenian Catholic Church, and in 1845 the Syriac Catholic Church was also granted its own civil emancipation. Meanwhile, the residence of the patriarch was shifted to Aleppo in 1831. However, after the Massacre of Aleppo in 1850, the patriarchal see was shifted to Mardin in 1854.\n\nAfter becoming officially recognized by the Ottoman government in 1845, the Syriac Catholic Church expanded rapidly. However, the expansion was ended by the persecutions and massacres that took place during the Sayfo of World War I. After that, the Syriac Catholic patriarchal see was moved to Beirut away from Mardin, to which many Ottoman Christians had fled the genocide. In addition to its see in Beirut, the patriarchal seminary and printing house are located at Sharfeh Monastery in Sharfeh, Lebanon.\n\nThe church established a presence in Australia in August 1985, when Monsignor Michael Berbari, a priest who arrived from Egypt and later held the rank of chorbishop, celebrated the first Mass in the Syriac Catholic rite in Australia, in Sydney.[12] Berbari, who served as Patriarchal Vicar of Australia and New Zealand,[9] established the community's first church, Our Lady of Mercy in Concord, opened in 1994.[13] The Sydney parish grew substantially with the arrival of Iraqi refugees following the rise of ISIS, and in 2024 the foundation stone was laid for a new church at Kemps Creek in the presence of Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Yonan.[12][14]\n\nOrganization\n\nLeadership\n\nAs of 2013, the patriarch of Antioch (an ancient major see, where several Catholic and Orthodox patriarchates nominally reside) was Moran Mor Ignatius Joseph III Younan, resident in Beirut, Lebanon. The Syriac Catholic patriarch always takes the name \"Ignatius\" in addition to another name.\n\nIn modern history the leaders of the Syriac Catholic Church have been: Patriarch Michael III Jarweh, Archbishop Clemens Daoud, Patriarch Ephrem Rahmani, Vicomte de Tarrazi, Monsignor Ishac Armaleh, Ignatius Gabriel I Tappouni, Chorbishop Gabriel Khoury-Sarkis, Ignatius Antony II Hayyek, Ignatius Moses I Daoud, Ignatius Peter VIII Abdalahad, and Ignatius Joseph III Yonan.\nEminent Syriac saints, scholars, hermits, martyrs and pastors since 1100 also include Dionysius Bar Salibi (1171), Gregorius X Bar Hebraeus (1286) and more recently Bishop Mor Flavianus Michael Malke.\n\nThe Syriac Church leadership has produced a variety of scholarly writings in a variety of topics. For example, Patriarch Ephrem Rahmani was widely praised for his work in Syriac and is responsible for Pope Benedict XV recognising Saint Ephrem as a Doctor of the Catholic Church.[15] Likewise Patriarch Ignatius Behnam II Beni is known for imploring Eastern theology to defend the primacy of Rome.[16]\n\nThe patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syriacs presides upon the Patriarchal Eparchy of Beirut and leads spiritually all the Syriac Catholic community around the world.\n\nThe community includes two archdioceses in Iraq, four in Syria, one in Egypt and Sudan, a patriarchal vicariate in Palestine, a patriarchal vicariate in Turkey and the Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance in the United States and Canada.\n\nCurrent jurisdictions\n\nMiddle East diocesan jurisdictions\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarchal Eparchy of Beirut, Lebanon\n\nMetropolitan Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Damascus, Syria (without suffragan)\n\nMetropolitan Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Homs, Syria (without suffragan; titular sees of Hama and Nabk are united with it)\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Aleppo, Syria\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Hassaké-Nisibi, Syria\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Mossul, Iraq\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Baghdad, Iraq\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Hadiab-Erbil, Iraq\n\nSyriac Catholic Eparchy of Cairo, Egypt\n\nSyriac Catholic Eparchy of Adiabene, Iraq\n\nOld World missionary jurisdictions\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Basra, Iraq and the Gulf\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Jerusalem (Palestine and Jordan)\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Turkey\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarchal Dependency of Sudan and South Sudan (formerly 'of Sudan')\n\nOverseas diaspora\n\nSyriac Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance in the United States\n\nSyriac Catholic Apostolic Exarchate for Canada (6 parishes)\n\nSyriac Catholic Apostolic Exarchate for Venezuela\n\nSyriac Catholic mission in Australia and New Zealand, under an Apostolic Visitation, with parishes in Sydney and Canberra[13]\n\nFormer jurisdictions\n\nTitular sees\n\nMetropolitan : Amida of the Syriacs, Apamea in Syria of the Syriacs, Edessa in Osrhoëne of the Syriacs, Tagritum of the Syriacs\n\nArchiepiscopal : Chalcedon of the Syriacs\n\nEpiscopal : Anastasiopolis of the Syriacs, Arethusa of the Syriacs, Batnæ of the Syriacs, Dara Syrorum of the Syriacs, Hama of the Syriacs (united with Homs), Hierapolis in Syria of the Syriacs, Ioppe of the Syriacs, Mardin of the Syriacs, Martyropolis of the Syriacs, Nabk of the Syriacs (united with Homs), Phoba of the Syriacs, Tripolis in Libanum of the Syriacs\n\nOther suppressed jurisdictions\n\nSyriac Catholic Eparchy of Gazireh, Turkey\n\nSyriac Catholic Eparchy of Mardin and Amida, Turkey\n\nSyriac Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Lebanon\n\nCurrent hierarchy\n\nThe present Syriac Catholic episcopate (20 hierarchs as per 30 July 2026) is as follows:[17][18]\n\nPatriarch:\n\nIgnatius Joseph III Yonan, Patriarch of Antioch (since 20 January 2009)\n\nEparchial hierarchs:\n\nDenys Antoine Chahda, Archbishop of Aleppo (since 2001)\n\nYousif Abba, Archbishop of Baghdad (since 2011)\n\nYouhanna Battah, Archbishop of Damascus (since 2019)\n\nNathanael Semaan, Archbishop-bishop of Adiabene (since 2019)\n\nYacoub Joseph Chami, Archbishop of Hasakah-Nisibis (since 2022)\n\nYounan Hano, Archbishop of Mosul (since 2023)\n\nJulian Yacoub Mourad, Archbishop of Homs (since 2023)\n\nYousif Benham Habash, Bishop of Our Lady of Deliverance in the United States (since 2010)\n\nAntoine Nassif, Bishop, Apostolic Exarch of Canada (since 2016)\n\nYaacoub Semaan, Bishop, Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem (since 2020)\n\nAthanasius Firas Dardar, Bishop, Patriarchal Exarch of Basra and the Gulf (since 2020)\n\nEphrem Warde, Bishop of Cairo and Patriarchal Vicar of Sudan and South Sudan (since 2022)\n\nAuxiliary and Curial Bishops:\n\nBasile Georges Casmoussa, Curial Archbishop of Antioch and Apostolic Visitor of Syriac Catholic in Australia (since 2017)\n\nMatthias Mrad, Curial Bishop of Antioch (since 2018)\n\nFlaviano Al-Kabalan, Curial Bishop of Antioch and Apostolic Visitor of Syriac Catholic in Western Europe (since 2020)\n\nJules Boutros, Curial Bishop of Antioch (since 2022)\n\nRetired hierarchs:\n\nRaboula Antoine Beylouni, retired Curial Archbishop of Antioch (since 2011)\n\nYohanna Petros Mouche, retired Archbishop of Mosul (since 2021)\n\nGrégoire Pierre Melki, retired Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem (since 2019)\n\nAs of 2010 the church was estimated to have 159,000 faithful, 10 bishoprics, 85 parishes, 106 secular priests, 12 religious-order priests, 102 men and women in religious orders, 11 permanent deacons and 31 seminarians.[19]\n\nLiturgy\n\nThe West Syriac Rite is rooted in the old tradition of both the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch and has ties with the ancient Jewish Berakah.\n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church follows a similar tradition to other Eastern Catholic Churches who use the West Syriac Rite, such as the Maronites and Syro-Malankara Christians. This rite is clearly distinct from the Greek Byzantine rite of Antioch of the Melkite Catholics and their Orthodox counterparts. Syriac Catholic priests were traditionally bound to celibacy by the Syriac Catholic local Synod of Sharfeh in 1888, but there are now a number of married priests.\n\nThe liturgy of the Syriac Catholic Church is very similar to that of the Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nLiturgical paraphernalia\n\nFans\n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church uses fans with bells on them and engraved with seraphim during the Qurbono. Usually someone in the minor orders would shake these fans behind a bishop to symbolise the seraphim. They are also used during the consecration where two men would shake them over the altar during moments in the epliclesis and words of institution when the priest says \"he took and broke\" and \"this is my body/blood\".\n\nThurible\n\nThe thurible of the Syriac Catholic Church consists of nine bells, representing the nine choirs of angels.\n\nLiturgy of the Hours\n\nThe Liturgy of the Hours is exactly the same as in the Syriac Orthodox. There are two versions of this: the Phenqitho and the Shhimo. The former is the more complicated seven-volume version. While the latter is the simple version.\n\nLiturgical ranking\n\nLikewise the ranking of clerics in the Syriac Catholic Church is extremely similar to that of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The most notable differences are:\n\nNot all celibate priests take on monastic vows. In the Syriac Orthodox Church all celibate priests are monks.\n\nThere is a solid distinction between the major orders and minor orders in the Syriac Catholic Church:\n\nA man is tonsured as soon as he receives his first minor order of Mzamrono (Cantor).\n\nMajor orders\n\nBishop\n\nKahno (Priest)\n\nMshamshono (Deacon)\n\nMinor orders\n\nAfudyaqno (Sub-deacon)\n\nQuroyo (Lector)\n\nMzamrono (Cantor)\n\nLanguages\n\nThe liturgical language of the Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac, is a dialect of Aramaic. The Qurbono Qadisho (literally: Holy Mass or Holy Offering/Sacrifice) of the Syriac Church uses a variety of Anaphoras, with the Anaphora of the 12 Apostles being the one mostly in use with the Liturgy of St James the Just.\n\nTheir ancient semitic language is known as Aramaic (or \"Syriac\" after the time of Christ since the majority of people who spoke this language belonged to the province of \"Syria\"). It is the language spoken by Jesus, Mary and the Apostles. Many of the ancient hymns of the church are still maintained in this native tongue although several have been translated into Arabic, English, French and other languages.\n\nSyriac is still spoken in some few communities in eastern Syria and northern Iraq, but for most Arabic is the vernacular language.\n\nMartyrs\n\nThroughout the history of the Syriac Church there have been many martyrs. A recent example is Flavianus Michael Malke during the 1915 Sayfo.\n\nSyriac Catholics in Iraq\n\nOn 31 October 2010, 58 Iraqi Syriac Catholics were killed by Muslim extremists while attending Sunday Divine Liturgy; 78 others were wounded. The attack by Iraqi ISIS on the congregation of Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Church was the bloodiest single attack on an Iraqi Christian church in recent history.[20]\n\nTwo priests, Fathers Saad Abdallah Tha'ir and Waseem Tabeeh, were killed.[21] Another, Father Qatin, was seriously wounded but recovered.[22][23]\n\nSee also\n\nChristianity in Turkey\n\nDioceses of the Syriac Catholic Church\n\nList of Syriac Catholic Patriarchs of Antioch\n\nNotes\n\n^ Classical Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ, romanized: ʿĪṯo Suryayṯo Qaṯolīqayṯo, Arabic: الكنيسة السريانية الكاثوليكية; Latin: Antiochenus Syrorum\n\n^ The title of Patriarch of Antioch is also used by four other churches: one Eastern Orthodox, one Oriental Orthodox, and two other Eastern Catholic; the Latin titular patriarchate was abolished in 1964.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Studia Humana Volume 2:3 (2013), pp. 53-55\n\n^ \"Syriac Patriarchal See of Antioch\". GCatholic.org. Retrieved 17 February 2022.\n\n^ \"CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Church of Antioch\". www.newadvent.org.\n\n^ Eastern Catholic Churches Worldwide 2018\n\n^ \"Eastern Rite Sui iuris Catholic Churches\". Catholic News Agency. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2024.\n\n^ a b \"Diocese of Our Lady of Deliverance | Syriac Catholic Church in the United States of America\". Retrieved 17 March 2024.\n\n^ \"Bishop discusses situation of the Syriac Catholic Church in Lebanon\". Aid to the Church in Need. 24 August 2022.\n\n^ \"General History\". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, Archdiocese for the Eastern United States. Retrieved 5 May 2025.\n\n^ a b c Roberson, Ronald (26 October 2021). \"The Syrian Catholic Church\". Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Retrieved 29 April 2025.\n\n^ lexicorient.com/e.o/syr_cath.htm\n\n^ Joseph, John (1 June 1984). Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-600-0.\n\n^ a b Fisher, Anthony (15 October 2024). \"Short remarks at the laying of the foundation stone for the Syriac Catholic Church\". Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.\n\n^ a b \"About Us\". Syriac Catholic Church of Sydney. Retrieved 12 June 2026.\n\n^ \"Plans unveiled for Syriac Catholic church in Sydney's south west\". The Catholic Weekly. 12 April 2023.\n\n^ \"Principi Apostolorum Petro (October 5, 1920) - BENEDICT XV\". Retrieved 5 September 2016.\n\n^ Benni, Cyril Benham; Gagliardi, Joseph (1 January 1871). \"The tradition of the Syriac Church of Antioch : concerning the primacy and the prerogatives of St. Peter and of his successors the Roman pontiffs\". London : Burns, Oates. Retrieved 5 September 2016 - via Internet Archive.\n\n^ \"Syrian Catholic Church: Living Bishops\". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. Retrieved 14 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Syriac Church: Living Catholic Bishops\". GCatholic.org. Retrieved 14 April 2026.\n\n^ Ronald Roberson (source: Annuario Pontificio) (22 August 2010). \"The Eastern Catholic Churches 2010\" (PDF). Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 March 2012.\n\n^ Leland, John (31 October 2010). \"Iraqi Forces Storm a Church With Hostages in a Day of Bloodshed\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 January 2020.\n\n^ article at undergroundfr.org Archived 29 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine, 2010-11-03 (in French), Retrieved on 2010-11-04. \"Trois prêtres (Saad Abdallah Tha'ir, Waseem Tabeeh et Raphael Qatin) et des dizaines de chrétiens ont été tués.\"\n\n^ \"erratum: le père Raphael Qatin n’est pas décédé\" Archived 2010-11-07 at the Wayback Machine aed-france.org\n2010-11-05 (in French). Retrieved 8 November 2010.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians Hold Mass In Assaulted Church\" NPR.org, 2010-11-07. Retrieved 8 November 2010.\n\nBibliography\n\nClaude Sélis, Les Syriens orthodoxes et catholiques, Brepols (col. Fils d'Abraham), Bruxelles, 1988, OCLC 20711473\n\nJean-Pierre Valognes, Vie et mort des Chrétiens d'Orient, Fayard, Paris, 1994, ISBN 2-213-03064-2\n\nR Janin, \"Le rite syrien et les Églises syriennes\" in Revue des études byzantines (1919), pp. 321-341\n\nAfram Yakoub: The Path to Assyria - A Call For National Renewal. Tigris Press, Södertälje 2020, ISBN 978-91-981541-6-0\n\nExternal links\n\nWebsite of the Syriac Catholic Patriarchate (in Arabic)\n\nYouTube video: Associate professor Svante Lundgren explains the history & origin of the term \"Suraye\"\n\nGCatholic linking overview of jurisdictions\n\nArticle on the Syriac Catholic Church by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA web site\n\nGCatholic.org page on the Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch\n\nOpus Libani site: Syriac Catholic Church in Lebanon (in French)\n\nEncyclopaedia of the Orient - Syriac Catholic Church Archived 20 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\nCatholic Churches (in German)\n\nSyriac religious relations and the Catholic Church\n\nPope Benedict XIV, Allatae Sunt (On the observance of Oriental Rites), Encyclical, 1755\n\nAddresses of Pope Paul VI and His Holiness Mar Ignatius Jacob III, 1971\n\nCommon Declaration of Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, 1984\n\nAddress of John Paul II on Occasion of the Visit to the Catholicos of the Malankarese Syrian Orthodox Church, 1986\n\nEparchies, churches and monasteries\n\nMass times and information of Syriac Catholic churches\n\nArchdioceses of Syriac Catholics, Iraq\n\nMar Yousif Syriac Catholic Diocese (Al Mansour, Baghdad, Iraq)\n\nEparchy Our Lady of Deliverance North America\n\nSt. Ephrem Syriac Catholic Church (Jacksonville, Florida)\n\nSt. Joseph Syriac Catholic Church (Toronto, Canada) Archived 25 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine\n\nMar Touma Syriac Catholic Church, Michigan Archived 5 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSyriac Catholic Archbishopric (Aleppo, Syria)\n\nSyriac Catholic Monastery of Mar Musa, Syria\n\nSt. Jan Apostel van Syrische Katholieken, Netherlands"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-catholic-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3417}, {"slug": "reference-east-syriac-rite", "title": "East Syriac Rite", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The East Syriac Rite, or East Syrian Rite (also called the Edessan Rite, Assyrian Rite, Persian Rite, Chaldean Rite, Nestorian Rite, Babylonian Rite or Syro-Oriental Rite), is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari and utilizes the East Syriac dialect...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The East Syriac Rite, or East Syrian Rite (also called the Edessan Rite, Assyrian Rite, Persian Rite, Chaldean Rite, Nestorian Rite, Babylonian Rite or Syro-Oriental Rite), is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari and utilizes the East Syriac dialect as its liturgical language. It is one of the two main liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity, along with the West Syriac Rite (Syro-Antiochene Rite).[1][2][3]\n\nThe East Syriac Rite originated in Edessa, Mesopotamia, and was historically used in the Church of the East, the largest branch of Christianity operating primarily east of the Roman Empire: there are groups of adherents as far as South India, Central and Inner Asia, and a strong presence in the Sasanian (Persian) Empire. The Church of the East traces its origins to the 1st century, when Saint Thomas the Apostle and his disciples Saint Addai and Saint Mari brought the faith to ancient Mesopotamia (today's modern Iraq, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran-Iraq borders).[4] According to traditional accounts, Thomas the Apostle is believed to have traveled as far as the Malabar coast of southwestern India.[5][6][7][8] This account is not yet confirmed, as the earliest-record for an organised Christian presence in India is from the 6th century account of Alexandrian traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes.[9][10][11][12]\n\nThe East Syriac rite remains in use within churches descended from the Church of the East, namely the Assyrian Church of the East of Iraq (including its archdiocese, the Chaldean Syrian Church of India) and the Ancient Church of the East, as well as in two Eastern Catholic churches, the Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq and the Syro-Malabar Church of India, which are both now in full communion with the See of Rome. The words of Institution are missing in the original version of the Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari. However, the Eastern Catholic churches have added-in the words of Institution in their version of the liturgy.\n\nAlthough Nestorius was condemned in 431 AD through the Council of Ephesus (resulting in a schism with the Catholic Church), the Assyrian Church Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV and Pope John Paul II signed a common declaration at the Vatican in 1994; the Common Christological Declaration (1994) document asserted that the split that occurred due to the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD was \"due in large part to misunderstandings,\" affirmed for both that \"Christ is true God and true man,\" recognized \"each other as sister Churches\" and vowed to resolve remaining differences. In 2001, the committee, established from the 1994 dialogue, drew-up guidelines for mutual admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, overcoming all other issues.[13][14]\n\nUsage\n\nVersions of the East Syriac Rite are currently used by Churches descended from the erstwhile Church of the East:\n\nAssyrian/Chaldean Rite:\n\nHoly Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East based in Iraq.\n\nChaldean Syrian Church of India based in India, an archbishopric of the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nAncient Church of the East based in Iraq, an autocephalous Eastern church, that separated from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964.\n\nChaldean Catholic Church an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, based in Bagdad, Iraq\n\nSyro-Malabaric Rite\n\nSyro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, based in India.\n\nThe variety of terms used as designations for the rite reflects its complex history and consequent denominational diversity. The common term East Syriac Rite is based on the liturgical use of East Syriac dialect, and other terms reflect particular historical and denominational characteristics.\n\nThe Syrian and Mesopotamian Eastern Catholics were commonly called Chaldeans (or Assyro-Chaldeans[15]). The term Chaldean, which in Syriac generally meant magician or astrologer, denoted in Latin and other European languages (Greater) Syrian nationality, and the Syriac or Aramaic language. For Aramaic, the designation \"Chaldean\" especially refers to the form that is found in certain chapters of Daniel. The broader usage of the term continued until the Latin missionaries at Mosul in the 17th century adopted \"Chaldean\" to distinguish the Catholics of the East Syriac Rite from those of the West Syriac Rite, which they called \"Syrians\". It was also used to distinguish from the Assyrian Church of the East, some of whom called themselves Suraye or even only \"Christians\", not with repudiating the theological name \"Nestorian\". Modern members of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East distinguish themselves from the rest of Christendom as the \"Church of the East\" or \"Easterns\" as opposed to \"Westerns\" by which they denote Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox or Latin Catholics.[16]\n\nIn recent times they have been called, chiefly by the Anglicans, the \"Assyrian Church\", a name which can be defended on archaeological grounds. Brightman, in his \"Liturgies Eastern and Western\", includes Chaldean and Malabar Catholics and Assyrians under \"Persian Rite\".[16]\n\nThe catalogue of liturgies in the British Museum has adopted the usual Roman Catholic nomenclature:\n\nChaldean Rite : that of the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nMalabar Rite (southern India) : Syro-Malabar Catholic Church\n\nSyriac Rite : Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic Church\n\nMost printed liturgies of those rites are Eastern Rite Catholic.[16]\n\nThe language of all three forms of the East Syriac Rite is the Eastern dialect of Syriac, a modern form of which is still spoken by the Assyrian Church of the East,[16] the Ancient Church of the East (which broke away from the Assyrian Church of the East in the 1960s due to a dispute involving changes to the liturgical calendar, but is now in the process of reunification),[17] and the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Chaldean rite originally grew out of the liturgy of the Church in Edessa. The tradition, resting on the legend of Abgar and of his correspondence with Christ, which has been shown to be apocryphal - is to the effect that St. Thomas the Apostle, on his way to India, established Christianity in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Persia, and left Thaddeus of Edessa (or Addai), \"one of the Seventy\", and Saint Mari in charge there. The liturgy of the Church of the East is attributed to these two, but it is said to have been revised by the Patriarch Yeshuyab III in about 650. Some, however, consider this liturgy to be a development of the Antiochian.[16]\n\nAfter the First Council of Ephesus (431) - the third Ecumenical Council - the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, which had hitherto been governed by a catholicos, refused to condemn Nestorius. Therefore, as part of the Nestorian Schism, the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon cut itself off from Western Christianity. In 498 the Catholicos assumed the title of \"Patriarch of the East\", and up until the 1400s the Church of the East spread throughout Persia, Tartary, Mongolia, China, and India due to the efforts of Missionaries.[16]\n\nHowever, at the end of the fourteenth century due to the conquests of Tamerlane and his destruction of Christian settlements across Asia, in addition to other factors such as anti-Christian and Buddhist oppression during the Ming Dynasty,[18] the large Church of the East structure was all but destroyed- reducing it to a few small communities in Persia, their homeland in Mesopotamia, Cyprus, the Malabar Coast of India, and the Island of Socotra. These remaining communities were later whittled away at in other events. The Church of the East in Cyprus united themselves to Rome in 1445, there was a Schism in 1552 between the patriarchates of Eliya line and Shimun line which weakened the Church, and the Christians of Socotra were Islamized in the 16th century. The Church in India was divided and cut off from their hierarchy due to the Portuguese support for Synod of Diamper in 1599. Due to these events, the diaspora of the Church of the East diminished. The Elia line eventually developed into the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East was turned into a small community of around 50,000 people in the Hakkari Mountains under the headship of the Shimun line. A small group of Indians eventually rejoined the Assyrian Church of the East, forming the Chaldean Syrian Church in the 1900s, although the main body of the Malabar Christians remained as the Syro-Malabar Church. A large group under the leadership of Mar Thoma joined the Oriental Orthodox West Syriac rite churches in their own set of schisms. Additionally, the secession of a large number to the Russian Church due to the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia, a Kurdish massacre in 1843, and an attempt to form an Independent Catholic Chaldean Church on the model of the Old Catholics all resulted in more Eastern rite Assyrians separating.\n\nThe Eucharistic service\n\nThere are three Anaphorae; those of the Holy Apostles (Saints Addai and Mari), Mar Nestorius, and Mar Theodore the Interpreter. The first is the most popularly and extensively used. The second was traditionally used on the Epiphany and the feasts of St. John the Baptist and of the Greek Doctors, both of which occur in Epiphany-tide on the Wednesday of the Rogation of the Ninevites, and on Maundy Thursday. The third is used (except when the second is ordered) from Advent to Palm Sunday. The same pro-anaphoral part serves for all three.[16]\n\nThe Eucharistic Liturgy is preceded by a preparation, or \"Office of the Prothesis\", which includes the solemn kneading and baking of the loaves. These were traditionally leavened, the flour being mixed with a little oil and the holy leaven (malka), which, according to tradition, \"was given and handed down to us by our holy fathers Mar Addai and Mar Mari and Mar Toma\", and of which and of the holy oil a very strange story is told. The real leavening, however, is done by means of fermented dough (khmira) from the preparation of the last Eucharistic Liturgy. The Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Catholics now use unleavened bread.[16]\n\nThe Liturgy itself is introduced by the first verse of the Gloria in Excelsis and the Lord's prayer, with \"farcings\" (giyura), consisting of a form of the Sanctus. Then follow:[16]\n\nThe Introit Psalm (variable), called Marmitha, with a preliminary prayer, varying for Sundays and greater feasts and for \"Memorials\" and ferias. In the Malabar Rite, Pss. xiv, cl, and cxvi are said in alternate verses by priests and deacons.\n\nThe \"Antiphon of the Sanctuary\" (Unitha d' qanki), variable, with a similarly varying prayer.\n\nThe Lakhumara, an antiphon beginning \"To Thee, Lord\", which occurs in other services also preceded by a similarly varying prayer.\n\nThe Trisagion. Incense is used before this. In the Eastern Rite at low Mass the elements are put on the altar before the incensing.\n\nThere are four or five Lections: (a) the Law and (b) the Prophecy, from the Old Testament, (c) the Lection from the Acts, (d) the Epistle, always from St. Paul, (e) the Gospel.\nSome days have all five lections, some four, some only three. All have an Epistle and a Gospel, but, generally, when there is a Lection from Law there is none from the Acts, and vice versa. Sometimes there is none from either Law or Acts. The first three are called Qiryani (Lections), the third Shlikha (Apostle). Before the Epistle and Gospel, hymns called Turgama (interpretation) are, or should be, said; that before the Epistle is invariable, that of the Gospel varies with the day. They answer to the Greek prokeimena. The Turgama of the Epistle is preceded by proper psalm verses called Shuraya (beginning), and that of the Gospel by other proper psalm verses called Zumara (song). The latter includes Alleluia between the verses.[16]\n\nThe Deacon's Litany, or Eklene, called Karazutha (proclamation), resembles the \"Great Synapte\" of the Greeks. During it the proper \"Antiphon [Unitha] of the Gospel\" is sung by the people.[16]\n\nThe Offertory\n\nThe deacons proclaim the expulsion of the unbaptized, and set the \"hearers\" to watch the doors. The priest places the bread and wine on the altar, with words (in the Church of the East, but not in the Chaldean Catholic Rite) which seem as if they were already consecrated. He sets aside a \"memorial of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ\" (Chaldean; usual Malabar Rite, \"Mother of God\"; but according to Raulin's Latin of the Malabar Rite, \"Mother of God Himself and of the Lord Jesus Christ\"), and of the patron of the Church (in the Malabar Rite, \"of St.Thomas\"). Then follows the proper \"Antiphon of the Mysteries\" (Unitha d' razi), answering to the offertory.[16]\n\nThe Creed\n\nThis is a variant of the Nicene Creed. It is possible that the order or words \"and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and was made man, and was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary\", may enshrine a Nestorian idea, but the Chaldean Catholics do not seem to have noticed it, their only alteration being the addition of the Filioque. The Malabar Book has an exact translation of Latin. In Neale's translation of the Malabar Rite the Karazutha, the Offertory, and the Expulsion of the Unbaptized come before the Lections and the Creed follows immediately on the Gospel, but in the Propaganda edition of 1774 the Offertory follows the Creed, which follows the Gospel.[16]\n\nThe first Lavabo, followed by a Kushapa (\"beseeching\", i.e., prayer said in kneeling) and a form of the \"Orate fratres\", with its response. Then the variations of the three Anaphora begin.[16]\n\nThe Kiss of Peace, preceded by a G'hantha, i.e., a prayer said with bowed head.[16]\n\nThe prayer of Memorial (Dukhrana) of the Living and the Dead, and the Diptychs; the latter is now obsolete in the Church of the East.[16]\n\nThe Anaphora\n\nAs in all liturgies this begins with a form of a Sursum corda, but the East Syriac form is more elaborate than any other, especially in the Anaphora of Theodore. Then follows the Preface of the usual type ending with the Sanctus.[16]\n\nThe Post-Sanctus (to use the Hispanico-Gallican term) is an amplification-similar in idea and often in phraseology to those in all liturgies except the Roman-of the idea of the Sanctus into a recital of the work of Redemption, extending to some length and ending, in the Anaphorae of Nestorius and Theodore, with the recital of the Institution. In the Anaphora of the Apostles the recital of the Institution is wanting, though it has been supplied in the Anglican edition of the Church of the East book. Hammond (Liturgies Eastern and Western, p. lix) and most other writers hold that the Words of Institution belong to this Liturgy and should be supplied somewhere; Hammond (loc.cit) suggests many arguments for their former presence. The reason of their absence is uncertain. While some hold that this essential passage dropped out in times of ignorance, others say it never was there at all, being unnecessary, since the consecration was held to be effected by the subsequent Epiklesis alone. Another theory, evidently of Western origin and not quite consistent with the general Eastern theory of consecration by an Epiklesis following Christ's words, is that, being the formula of consecration, it was held too sacred to be written down. It does not seem to be quite certain whether Church of the East priests did or did not insert the Words of Institution in old times, but it seems that many of them do not do so now.[16]\n\nThe Prayer of the Great Oblation with a second memorial of the Living and the Dead, a Kushapa.[16]\n\nThe G'hantha of the Epiklesis, or Invocation of Holy Spirit. The Epiklesis itself is called Nithi Mar (May He come, O Lord) from its opening words. The Liturgy of the Apostles is so vague as to the purpose of the Invocation that, when the words of Institution are not said, it would be difficult to imagine this formula to be sufficient on any hypothesis, Eastern or Western. The Anaphorae of Nestorius and Theodore, besides having the Words of Institution, have definite Invocations, evidently copied from Antiochean or Byzantine forms. The older Chaldean and the Malabar Catholic books have inserted the Words of Institution with an Elevation, after the Epiklesis. But the 1901 Mosul edition puts the Words of Institution first.[16]\n\nHere follow a Prayer for Peace, a second Lavabo and a censing.[16]\n\nThe Fraction, Consignation, Conjunction, and Commixture\n\nThe Host is broken in two, and the sign of the Cross is made in the Chalice with one half, after which the other with the half that has been dipped in the chalice. The two halves are then reunited on the Paten. Then a cleft is made in the Host \"qua parte intincta est in Sanguine\" (Renaudot's tr.), and a particle is put in the chalice, after some intricate arranging on the paten.[16]\n\nCommunion\n\nThe veil is thrown open, the deacon exhorts the communicants to draw near, the priests breaks up the Host for distribution. Then follows the Lord's Prayer, with Introduction and Embolism, and the Sancta Sanctis, and then the \"Antiphon of the Bema\" (Communion) is sung. The Communion is in both species separately, the priest giving the Host and the deacon the Chalice. Then follows a variable antiphon of thanksgiving, a post-communion, and a dismissal. Afterwards the Mkaprana, an unconsecrated portion of the holy loaf, is distributed to the communicants, but not, as in the case of the Greek antidoron, and as the name of the latter implies, to non-communicants. The Chaldean Catholics are communicated with the Host dipped in the Chalice. They reserve what is left of the Holy Gifts, while the Church of the East priests consume all before leaving the church.[16]\n\nProperly, and according to their own canons, the Church of the East ought to say Mass on every Sunday and Friday, on every festival, and daily during the first, middle, and last week of Lent and the octave of Easter. In practice it is only said on Sundays and greater festivals, at the best, and in many churches not so often, a sort of \"dry Mass\" being used instead. The Chaldean Catholic priests say Mass daily, and where there are many priests there will be many Masses in the same Church in one day, which is contrary to the Church of the East canons. The Anglican editions of the liturgies omit the names of the authors and call the Anaphorae of Nestorius and Theodore the \"Second Hallowing\" and \"Third Hallowing\". Otherwise there are no alterations except the addition of Words of Institution to the first Anaphorae. The recent Catholic edition has made the same alterations and substituted \"Mother of God\" for \"Mother of Christ\". In each edition the added Words of Institution follow the form of the rite of the edition. The prayers of the Mass, like those of the Orthodox Eastern Church, are generally long and diffuse. Frequently they end with a sort of doxology called Qanuna which is said aloud, the rest being recited in a low tone. The Qanuna in form and usage resembles the Greek ekphonesis.[16]\n\nThe vestments used by the priest at Mass are the Sudhra, a girded alb with three crosses in red or black on the shoulder, the Urara (orarion) or stole worn crossed by priests, but not by bishops (as in the West), and the Ma'apra, a sort of linen cope. The deacon wears the sudhra, with a urara over the left shoulder.[16]\n\nDivine Office\n\nThe nucleus of this is, as it is usual, the recitation of the Psalter. There are only three regular hours of service (Evening, Midnight, and Morning) with a rarely used compline. In practice only Morning and Evening are commonly used, but these are extremely well attended daily by laity as well as clergy. When the Church of the East had monasteries (which is no longer the case) seven hours of prayer were the custom in them, and three hulali of the Psalter were recited at each. This would mean a daily recitation of the whole Psalter. The present arrangement provides for seven hulali at each ferial night service, ten on Sundays, three on \"Memorials\", and the whole Psalter on feasts of Our Lord.[16]\n\nAt the evening service there is a selection of from four to seven psalms, varying with the day of the week, and also a Shuraya, or short psalm, with generally a portion of Ps. cxviii, varying with the day of the fortnight.[16]\n\nAt the morning service the invariable psalms are cix, xc, ciii (1-6), cxii, xcii, cxlviii, cl, cxvi. On ferias and \"Memorials\" Ps. cxlvi is said after Ps. cxlviii, and on ferias Ps. 1, 1-18, comes at the end of the psalms. The rest of the services consist of prayers, antiphons, litanies, and verses (giyura) inserted, like the Greek stichera, but more extensively, between verses of psalms. On Sundays the Gloria in Excelsis and Benedicte are said instead of Ps. cxlvi.[16]\n\nBoth morning and evening services end with several prayers, a blessing, (Khuthama, \"Sealing\" ), the kiss of peace, and the Creed. The variables, besides the psalms, are those of the feast or day, which are very few, and those of the day of the fortnight. These fortnights consist of weeks called \"Before\" (Qdham) and \"After\" (Wathar), according to which of the two choirs begins the service. Hence the book of the Divine Office is called Qdham u wathar, or at full length Kthawa daqdham wadhwathar, the \"Book of Before and After\".[16]\n\nLiturgical calendars\n\nThe year is divided into periods of about seven weeks each, called Shawu'i; these are Advent (called Subara, \"Annunciation\"), Ephiphany, Lent, Easter, the Apostles, Summer, \"Elias and the Cross\", \"Moses\", and the \"Dedication\" (Qudash idta). \"Moses\" and the \"Dedication\" have only four weeks each. The Sundays are generally named after the Shawu'a in which they occur, \"Fourth Sunday of Epiphany\", \"Second Sunday of the Annunciation \", etc., though sometimes the name changes in the middle of a Shawu'a. Most of the \"Memorials\" (dukhrani), or saints' days, which have special lections, occur on the Fridays between Christmas and Lent, and are therefore movable. Feasts, such as Christmas, Ephiphany, the Assumption, and about thirty smaller days without proper lections are on fixed days. There are four shorter fasting periods besides the Great Fast (Lent); these are:[16]\n\nthe Fast of Mar Zaya, the three days after the second Sunday of the Nativity;\n\nthe Fast of the Virgins, after the first Sunday of the Epiphany;\n\nthe Rogation of the Ninevites, seventy days before Easter;\n\nthe Fast of Mart Mariam (Our Lady), from the first to the fourteenth of August.\n\nThe Fast of the Ninevites commemorates the repentance of Nineveh at the preaching of Jonas, and is carefully kept. Those of Mar Zaya and the Virgins are nearly obsolete. As compared with the Latin and Greek Calendars, that of the Chaldeans, whether Catholic or Assyrian, is very meagre. The Malabar Rite has largely adopted the Roman Calendar, and several Roman days have been added to that of the Chaldean Catholics. The Chaldean Easter coincides with that of the Roman Catholic Church.[16]\n\nOther sacraments and occasional services\n\nThe other Sacraments in use in the Church of the East are Baptism, with which is always associated an anointing, which as in other eastern rites answers to Confirmation, Holy Order and Matrimony, but not Penance or Unction of the sick. The Chaldean Catholics now have a form not unlike the Byzantine and West Syriac. The nearest approach to Penance among the Nestorians is a form, counted as a sacrament, for the reconciliation of apostates and excommunicated persons, prayers from which are occasionally used in cases of other penitents. Assemani's arguments (ibid., cclxxxvi-viii) for a belief in Penance as a Sacrament among the ancient Nestorians or for the practice of auricular confession among the Malabar Nestorians are not conclusive. The Chaldeans have a similar form to that of the Roman Rite. The Assyrian Church of the East omits Matrimony from the list, and make up the number of the mysteries to seven by including the Holy Leaven and the Sign of the Cross, but they are now rather vague about the definition or numeration.[19]\n\nThe only other rite of any interest is the consecration of churches. Oil, but not chrism, plays a considerable part in these rites, being used in Baptism, possibly in Confirmation, in the reconciliation of apostates, etc., in the consecration of churches, and the making of bread for the Eucharist. It is not used in ordination or for the sick. There are two sorts of oil; the one is ordinary olive oil, blessed or not blessed for the occasion, the other is the oil of the Holy Horn. The last, which, though really only plain oil, represents the chrism (or myron) of other rites, is believed to have been handed down from the Apostles with the Holy Leaven. The legend is that the Baptist caught the water which fell from the body of Christ at His baptism and preserved it. He gave it to St. John the Evangelist, who added to it some of the water which fell from the pierced side. At the Last Supper Jesus gave two loaves to St. John, bidding him keep one for the Holy Leaven. With this St. John mingled some of the Blood from the side of Christ. After Pentecost the Apostles mixed oil with the sacred water, and each took a horn of it, and the loaf they ground to pieces and mixed it with flour and salt to be the Holy Leaven. The Holy Horn is constantly renewed by the addition of oil blessed by a bishop on Maundy Thursday.[16]\n\nThe baptismal service is modeled on the Eucharistic. The Mass of the Catechumens is almost identical, with of course appropriate Collects, psalms, Litanies, and Lections. After the introductory Gloria, Lord's Prayer, Marmitha (in this case Psalm 88) and its Collect, follow the imposition of hands and the signing with oil, after which follow an Antiphon of the Sanctuary and Ps. xliv, cix, cxxxi, with giyuri, Litanies, and Collects, then the lakhumara, Trisagion, and Lections (Epistle and Gospel ), and the Karazutha, after which the priest says the prayer of the imposition of hands, and the unbaptized are dismissed. An antiphon answering to that \"of the mysteries\" follows, and then the Creed is said. The bringing forward of the Holy Horn and the blessing of the oil take the place of the Offertory. The Anaphora is paralleled by Sursum corda, Preface, and Sanctus, a Nithi Mar, or Epiklesis, upon the oil, a commixture of the new oil with that of the Holy Horn, and the Lord's Prayer. Then the font is blessed and signed with the holy oil, and in the place of the Communion comes the Baptism itself. The children are signed with the oil on the breast and then anointed all over, and are dipped thrice in the font. The formula is: \"N., be thou baptized in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Ghost. Amen.\" Then follows the post-baptismal thanksgiving. Confirmation follows immediately. There are two prayers of Confirmation and a signing between the eyes with the formula: \"N., is baptized and perfected in the name, etc.\" It is not quite clear whether oil should be used with this signing or not. Then any oil that remains over is poured into the Holy Horn, held over the font, and the water in the font is loosed from its former consecration with rather curious ceremonies. The Chaldean Catholics have added the renunciations, profession of faith, and answers of the sponsors from the Roman Ritual, and anoint with chrism.[16]\n\nThe marriage service (Burakha, 'Blessing\") is very similar to that of the Byzantine Rite, and to some extent the Jewish rite.[16] The Mystery of Crowning, while not viewed as a sacrament in much of East Syriac Christianity, features several rituals, including the crowning of the couple and, within the Assyrian Church of the East, the consumption of hanānā-a mixture made with the dust of a martyr's tomb-by the betrothed.[20]\n\nThe orders of the Church of the East are those of reader (Qaruya), subdeacon (Hiupathiaqna), deacon (Mshamshana), presbyter (Qashisha), archdeacon (Arkidhyaquna) and bishop (Apisqupa). The degree of archdeacon, though has an ordination service of its own, is only counted as a degree of the presbyterate, and is by some held to be the same as that of chorepiscopus (Kurapisqupa), which never involved episcopal ordination in the Church of the East. When a priest is engaged in sacerdotal functions, he is called Kahna (i.e., lereus; sacerdos) and a bishop is similarly Rab kahni (Chief of the Priests, archiereus, pontifex). Quashisha and Apisqupa only denote the degree. Kahnutha, priesthood, is used of the three degrees of deacon, priest, and bishop. The ordination formula is: \"N. has been set apart, consecrated, and perfected to the work of the diaconate [or of the presbyterate] to the Levitical and stephanite Office [or for the office of the Aaronic priesthood], in the Name, etc., In the case of a bishop it is : \"to the great work of the episcopate of the city of ...\" A similar formula is used for archdeacons and metropolitans.[16]\n\nThe Consecration of churches (Siamidha or Qudash Madhbkha) consists largely of unctions. The altar is anointed all over, and there are four consecration crosses on the four interior walls of the sanctuary, and these and the lintel of the door and various other places are anointed. The oil is not that of the Holy Horn, but fresh olive oil consecrated by the bishop.[16]\n\nManuscripts and editions\n\nFew of the manuscripts, except some lectionaries in the British Museum, were written before the 15th century, and most, whether Chaldean or Nestorian, are of the 17th and 18th. The books in use are:[16]\n\nṬakhsā, a priest's book, containing the Eucharistic service (Qūrbānā or Qūdāšā) in its three forms, with the administration of other sacraments, and various occasional prayers and blessings. It is nearly the Euchologion of the Greeks (see Rite of Constantinople).\n\nKṯāḇdā da-qḏam waḏ-wāṯar, \"Book of the Before and After\", contains the Ordinary of the Divine Office except the Psalter, arranged for two weeks.\n\nMazmorē d-Dāwīḏ (David), the Psalter, divided into Hūlālē, which answer more or less to the kathismata of the Greeks. It includes the collects of the Hūlālē.\n\nQiryānā, Šlīḥā w-Īwangālīyo, lections, epistles, and gospels, sometimes together, sometimes in separate books.\n\nTūrgāmā, explanatory hymns sung before the Epistle and Gospel.\n\nḤūḏrā, containing the variables for Sundays, Lent and the Rogation of the Ninevites, and other holy days.\n\nKaškūl, a selection from the Ḥūḏrā for weekdays.\n\nGazzā, containing variables for festivals except Sundays.\n\nAbukhalima, a collectary, so called from its compiler, Elias III, Abu Khalim ibn alKhaditha, Metropolitan of Nisibis, and patriarch (1175-99).\n\nBā'ūtha d-Nīnwāyē, rhythmical prayers attributed to Saint Ephraem, used during the Fast of the Ninevites.\n\nTakhsa d'amadha, the office of baptism.\n\nBurakha, the marriage service.\n\nKathnita, the burial service for priests.\n\nAnidha, the burial service for lay people.\n\nTakhsa d'siamidha, the ordination services.\n\nTakhsa d'husaya, the \"Office of Pardon\", or reconciliation of penitents.\n\nThese last six are excerpts from the Takhsa.\n\nOf the above the following have been printed in Syriac:[16]\nFor the Church of the East:[16]\n\nThe Takhsa, in two parts, by Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission (Urmi, 1890-92) The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has published an English translation of the first part of the Takhsa, both parts \"unmodified except by the omission of the heretical names\" (Brightman);\n\nDhaqdham wadhwathar, by the same (Urmi, 1894); Dawidha, by the same (Urmi, 1891).\n\nKhudra, in three volumes, by Mar Narsai Press (Trichur, 1960; reprint 1993).\n\nFor the Chaldean Catholics:[16]\n\nMissale Chaldaicum, containing the Liturgy of the Apostles in Syriac and Epistles and Gospels in Syriac with an Arabic translation, in Garshuni (Propaganda Press fol., Rome, 1767). A new and revised edition, containing the three liturgies and the lections, epistles, and gospels was published by the Dominicans at Mosul in 1901. The Order of the Church Services of Common Days, etc., from Kthawa dhaqdham wadhwathar (octavo, Mosul, 1866).\n\n\"Breviarium Chaldaicum in usum Nationis Chaldaicae a Josepho Guriel secundo editum\" (16mo, Propaganda Press, Rome, 1865).\n\n\"Breviarium Chaldaicum\", etc., [8vo, Paris (printed at Leipzig, 1886]. Translation of ca. 70% in English available at: www.syriac-treasury.work\n\nFor the Syro-Malabar Catholics:[16]\n\n\"Ordo Chaldaicus Missae Beatorum Apostolorum, juxta ritum Ecclesiae Malabaricae\" (fol., Propaganda Press, Rome, 1774).\n\n\"Ordo Chaldaicus Rituum et Lectionum\", etc., (fol., Rome, 1775).\n\n\"Ordo Chaldaicus ministerii Sacramentorum Sanctorum\", etc., (fol., Rome, 1775).\n\nThese three, which together form a Takhsa and Lectionary, are commonly found bound together. The Propaganda reprinted the third part in 1845.\n\n\"Ordo Baptismi adultorum juxta ritum Ecclesiae Malabaricae Chaldaeorum\" (octavo, Propaganda Press, Rome, 1859), a Syriac translation of the Roman Order.\n\nThe Malabar Rite was revised in a Roman direction by Aleixo de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, and the revision was authorized by the controversial Synod of Diamper in 1599. So effectively was the original Malabar Rite abolished by the Synod in favour of this revision, and by the schismatics (when in 1649, being cut off from their own patriarch by the Spaniards and Portuguese, they put themselves under the Syriac Orthodox patriarch of Antioch) in favour of the West Syriac Liturgy, that no copy is known to exist, but it is evident from the revised form that it could not have differed materially from the existing East Syriac Rite.[16]\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nWest Syriac Rite\n\nReferences\n\n^ Encyclopædia Britannica: \"Antiochene Rite\"\n\n^ The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation\n\n^ Johnson, Maxwell E. (26 September 2018). The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation. Liturgical Press. ISBN 9780814662151 - via Google Books.\n\n^ \"Ancient History in depth: Mesopotamia\". BBC History. Retrieved 2017-07-21.\n\n^ Fahlbusch et al. 2008, p. 285.\n\n^ Slapak 1995, p. 27.\n\n^ Medlycott 1905.\n\n^ Puthiakunnel 1973.\n\n^ Frykenberg, pp. 102-107; 115.\n\n^ Mihindukulasuriya, Prabo. \"Persian Christians in the Anuradhapura Period\". Academia.edu. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ \"St. Gregorios Malankara (Indian) Orthodox Church of Washington, DC : Indian Orthodox Calendar\". Stgregorioschurchdc.org. Archived from the original on 21 January 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ \"Mar Aprem Metropolitan Visits Ancient Anuradhapura Cross in Official Trip to Sri Lanka\". Assyrian Church News. 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". Vatican.va. Archived from the original on 2015-11-03. Retrieved 2010-07-26.\n\n^ \"ASSYRIAN CHURCH FINDS HOME IN THE CITY\". Chicago Tribune. 8 September 1995. Retrieved 2019-10-01.\n\n^ Labourt, Jérôme (1908). \"Chaldean Christians\". In Herbermann, Charles G. (eds.). The Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 3). New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap  Jenner, Henry (1913). \"East Syrian Rite\". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n^ \"Ancient church of the east moves to change calendar\". Retrieved 2013-07-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ Donald Daniel Leslie (1998), \"The Integration of Religious Minorities in China: The Case of Chinese Muslims\" (PDF). The Fifty-ninth George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology. p. 15.\n\n^ \"Sacraments\".\n\n^ Kochuparampil, Jose (2007). \"Theology of 'Rāzē: The Mysteries of the Church in the East Syriac Tradition\". In Maniyattu, Pauly (ed.). East Syriac Theology: An Introduction (PDF). MP, India: Ephrem's Publications. pp. 264, 267. Retrieved 5 October 2022 - via Malankara Library.\n\nSources\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nFahlbusch, Erwin; Bromiley, Geoffrey William; Lochman, Jan Milic; Mbiti, John; Pelikan, Jaroslav (2008). The Encyclodedia of Christianity. Vol. 5. Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2.\n\nMedlycott, Adolphus E. (1905). India and the Apostle Thomas: An Inquiry, with a Critical Analysis of the Acta Thomae. London: David Nutt.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nPuthiakunnel, Thomas (1973). \"Jewish colonies of India paved the way for St. Thomas\". In Menachery, George (ed.). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India. Vol. 2. Trichur. OCLC 1237836.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\nSlapak, Orpa, ed. (1995). The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities. Muzeon Yisrael. ISBN 978-965-278-179-6 - via University Press of New England.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to East Syriac Rite at Wikimedia Commons\n\nThe Center for the Study of Christianity: A Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity Archived 2021-10-24 at the Wayback Machine\n\n This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"East Syrian Rite\". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-east-syriac-rite"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6251}, {"slug": "reference-west-syriac-rite", "title": "West Syriac Rite", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The West Syriac Rite, also called the Syriac-Antiochian Rite and the West Syrian Rite,[1] is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Divine Liturgy of Saint James in the West Syriac dialect. It is practiced in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church and the Malankara...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The West Syriac Rite, also called the Syriac-Antiochian Rite and the West Syrian Rite,[1] is an Eastern Christian liturgical rite that employs the Divine Liturgy of Saint James in the West Syriac dialect. It is practiced in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church and the Malankara churches of India. The Maronite Church also uses the rite but in a very distinct way. It is one of two main liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity, the other being the East Syriac Rite.[2][3] It originated in the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch. It has more anaphora than any other rite.[4][5]\n\nAlthough the West Syriac liturgical tradition had always included many texts translated from Greek, this new influx of materials of Greek origin led to the emergence of two slightly different Syriac Orthodox traditions, that of Antioch, incorporating these new elements, and that of Tikrit, which did not incorporate it. It was essentially the Tikrit rite that was introduced into South India in the 18th and 19th centuries.[6]\n\nUsage\n\nVersions of the West Syriac Rite are currently used by multiple different ecclesiastical bodies\n\nEastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See of Rome:\n\nSyriac Catholic Church based in Lebanon.\n\nMaronite Church, sometimes identified with a particularly distinct use of the rite, based in Lebanon.\n\nMalankara Syrian Catholic Church based in India.\n\nOriental Orthodox Churches:\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, based in Syria.\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church, an autonomous church based in India, in full communion with the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and other Oriental Orthodox churches.\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church, based in India; an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church.\n\nIndependent Oriental Orthodox Church:\n\nMalabar Independent Syrian Church of India. Independent Oriental Orthodox church not part of the Oriental Orthodox communion.\n\nOriental Protestant Churches:\n\nMalankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church (uses a Reformation variant of this rite omitting intercession to saints and prayers for departed. In full communion with the Anglican Communion and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church).[7][8] It has peculiarities not found in the other churches.\n\n Holy Qurobo in the Maronite Church\n\n A West Syriac Rite Holy Qurbono of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church holding paterissa (crozier)\n\n A West Syriac Rite Holy Qurbono of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\n Holy Qurobo in the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church\n\n Holy Qurobo in Mar Thoma Syrian Church\n\nHistory\n\nThe oldest known form of the Antiochene Rite is in Greek which is apparently its original language. The many Greek terms that remain in the Syriac form suggest that this is derived from Greek. The version must have been made early, evidently before the schism occasioned by the Council of Chalcedon, before the influence of Constantinople had begun. No doubt as soon as Christian communities arose in the rural areas of Roman Syria, the prayers which in the cities (Antioch, Jerusalem, etc.) were said in Greek, were, as a matter of course, translated into the local vernacular for the people's use.[1]\n\nEarly sources, such as Peregrinatio Silviae describe the services at Jerusalem as being in Greek; but the lessons, first read in Greek, are then translated into Syriac. As long as all Western Syria was one communion, the country dioceses followed the rite of the patriarch at Antioch, only changing the language. Modifications adopted at Antioch in Greek were copied in Syriac by those who said their prayers in the national tongue. This point is important because the Syriac Liturgy (in its fundamental form) already contains all the changes brought to Antioch from Jerusalem. It is not the older pure Antiochene Rite, but the later Rite of Jerusalem-Antioch. The Liturgy of St. James, for example, prays first not for the Church of Antioch, but \"for the holy Sion, the mother of all churches\", that is, Jerusalem. (Brightman, pp. 89-90). The fact that both the Syriac and the Byzantine Orthodox Churches have the Jerusalem-Antiochene Liturgy is the chief proof that this had supplanted the older Antiochene use before the schism of the 5th century.[1]\n\nThe earliest extant Syriac documents come from about the end of the 5th century.[9] They contain valuable information about local forms of the Rite of Antioch-Jerusalem. The Syriac Orthodox Church kept a version of this rite which is obviously a local variant. Its \n\nscheme and most of its prayers correspond to those of the Greek St. James; but it has amplifications and omissions such as is found in all local forms of early rites. It seems too that the Syriac Church made some modifications after the schism. This is certainly the case at one point, that of the Trisagion.[1]\n\nOne Syriac writer is James of Edessa (d. 708), who wrote a letter to a priest Thomas comparing the Syriac Liturgy with that of Egypt. This letter is an exceedingly valuable and really critical discussion of the rite. A number of later Syriac writers followed James of Edessa. On the whole this church produced the first scientific students of liturgy. Benjamin of Edessa (period unknown), Lazarus bar Sabhetha of Baghdad (ninth century), Moses bar Kephas of Mosul (d. 903), Dionysius bar Salibi of Amida (d. 1171) wrote valuable commentaries on this Rite. In the eighth and ninth centuries a controversy concerning the prayer at the Fraction produced much liturgical literature. The chronicle of a Syriac prelate, Patriarch Michael the Great, (d. 1199) discusses the question and supplies valuable contemporary documents.[1]\n\nThe oldest West Syriac liturgy extant is the one ascribed, as in its Greek form, to Saint James, \"the brother of the Lord\". It is in the dialect of Edessa. The proanaphoral part of this is the Ordo communis to which the other later Anaphoras are joined.[1]\n\nThis follows the Greek St. James with these differences:[1]\n\nAll the vesting prayers and preparation of the offering (Proskomide) are considerably expanded, and the prayers differ. This part of the Liturgy is most subject to modification; it began as private prayer only.\n\nThe Monogenes comes later;\n\nthe litany before the lessons is missing;\n\nthe incensing is expanded into a more elaborate rite.\n\nThe Trisagion comes after the lessons from the Old Testament; it contains the addition: \"who wast crucified for us\". This is the most famous characteristic of the Oriental Orthodox iteration of the rite. The clause was added by Peter the Dyer (Fullo), miaphysite Patriarch of Antioch (d. 488), was believed to imply miaphysitism and caused much controversy during these times, eventually becoming a kind of watchword to the Syriac Oriental Orthodox.[10]\n\nThe litany between the lessons is represented by the phrase Kyrie eleison said thrice.\n\nThere is no chant at the Great Entrance (a Byzantine addition in the Greek Rite).\n\nThe long Offertory prayers of the Greek Rite do not occur.\n\nThe Epiklesis and Intercession are much the same as in Greek.\n\nThe Our Father follows the Fraction.\n\nAt the Communion-litany the answer is Halleluiah instead of Kyrie eleison.\n\nIn this Syriac Liturgy many Greek forms remain, e.g. Stomen kalos, Kyrie eleison, Sophia, Proschomen. Renaudot gives also a second form of the Ordo communis (II, 12-28) with many variants.[1]\n\nTo the Ordo communis, the Syriac Church has added a very great number of alternative Anaphoras, many of which have not been published. These Anaphoras are ascribed to all manner of people; they were composed at very different periods. One explanation of their attribution to various saints is that they were originally used on their feasts.[1]\n\nEusèbe Renaudot translated and published 39 of these. After that, the Liturgy of St. James follows (in his work) a shortened form of the same. This is the one commonly used today. Then:[1] \n\nXystus, which is placed first in the Maronite books;\n\nof St Peter;\n\nanother of St. Peter;\n\nof St John the Evangelist;\n\nof the Twelve Apostles;\n\nof St Mark;\n\nof St Clement of Rome;\n\nof St Dionysius;\n\nof St Ignatius;\n\nof St Julius of Rome;\n\nof St Eustathius;\n\nof St John Chrysostom;\n\nof St Chrysostom (from Chaldaean sources);\n\nof St Maruta;\n\nof St Cyril;\n\nof Dioscoros;\n\nof Philoxenus of Hierapolis;\n\na second Liturgy also ascribed to him;\n\nof Severus of Antioch;\n\nof James Baradaeus;\n\nof Mathew the Shepherd;\n\nof St James of Botnan and Serug;\n\nof James of Edessa, the Interpreter;\n\nof Thomas of Heraclea;\n\nof Moses bar Kephas;\n\nof Philoxenus aka Lazarus bar Saptha of Baghdad;\n\nof the Doctors, arranged by John the Great, Patriarch (Compilation from the Fathers);\n\nof John of Basra;\n\nof Michael of Antioch;\n\nof Dionysius Bar-Salibi;\n\nof Gregory Bar-Hebraeus;\n\nof St John the Patriarch, called Acoemetus (Akoimetos);\n\nof St Dioscor of Kardu;\n\nJohn, Patriarch of Antioch;\n\nof Ignatius of Antioch (Joseph Ibn Wahib);\n\nof St Basil (another version, by Masius).\n\nBrightman (pp. lviii-lix) mentions 64 liturgies as known, at least by name. Notes of this many of anaphoras will be found after each in Renaudot. In most cases all he can say is that he knows nothing of the real author; often the names affixed are otherwise unknown. Many anaphoras are obviously quite late, inflated with long prayers and rhetorical, expressions, many contain miaphysite ideas, some are insufficient at the consecration so as to be invalid. Baumstark (Die Messe im Morgenland, 44-46) thinks the Anaphora of St Ignatius most important, as containing parts of the old pure Antiochene Rite. He considers that many attributions to later miaphysite authors may be correct, that the Liturgy of Ignatius of Antioch (Joseph Ibn Wahib; d. 1304) is the latest. Most of these anaphoras have now fallen into disuse.[1]\n\nThere is an Armenian version (shortened) of the Syriac St James. The liturgy is said in Syriac with (since the 15th century) many Arabic substitutions in the lessons and proanaphoral prayers. The lectionary and diaconicum have not been published and are poorly known. The vestments correspond almost exactly to those of the Byzantine Orthodox, except that the bishop wears a Latinized mitre. The calendar has few feasts. It follows in its main lines the older form of Antioch, observed also by the Church of the East, which is the basis of the Byzantine Calendar. Feasts are divided into three classes of dignity. Wednesday and Friday are fast-days. The Divine Office consists of Vespers, Compline, Nocturns, Lauds, Terce, Sext, and None, or rather of hours that correspond to these among Latins. Vespers always belongs to the following day. The great part of this consists of long poems composed for the purpose, like the Byzantine odes. Baptism is performed by immersion; the priest confirms at once with chrism blessed by the patriarch. Communion is administered under both kinds; the sick are anointed with oil blessed by a priest - the ideal is to have seven priests to administer it. The orders are bishop, priest, deacon, subdeacon, lector, and singer. There are many chorepiscopi, not ordained bishop. It will be seen, then, that the relatively small Syriac Church has followed much the same line of development in its rites as its Byzantine neighbours.[1]\n\nThe Syriac Catholics, that is, those in communion with Rome, use the same rite as the Syriac Orthodox, but perhaps in a more organized manner. There is not much that can be called Romanizing in their books; but they have the advantage of well-arranged, well-edited, and well-printed books. The most prominent early modern and modern students of the West Syriac Rite (the Assemani, Renaudot, etc.) have been Catholic. Their knowledge and Western standards of scholarship in general are advantages from which the Syriac Catholics profit. Of the manifold Syriac Anaphoras, the Catholics use seven only - those of St James, St John, St Peter, St Chrysostom, St Xystus, St Matthew, and St Basil. That of St Xystus is attached to the Ordo communis in their official book; that of St John is said on the chief feasts. The lessons only are in Arabic. It was inevitable that the Syriac Liturgies, coming from miaphysite sources, should be examined at Rome before they are allowed to Syriac Catholics, but the revisers made very few changes. Out of the mass of anaphoras they chose those believed to be the oldest and purest, leaving out the long series of later ones that they regarded as unorthodox, or even invalid. In the seven kept for Syriac Catholic use what alterations have been made are chiefly the omission of redundant prayers, and the simplication of confused parts in which the Diaconicum and the Euchologion had become mixed together. The only substantive change is the omission of the clause: \"Who was crucified for us\" in the Trisagion. There is no suspicion of modifying in the direction of the Roman Rite. The other books of the Catholics - Diaconicum, officebook, and ritual - are edited at Rome, Beirut, and the Patriarchal press Sharfé; they are considerably the most accessible, the best-arranged books in which to study this rite.[1]\n\nThe Saint Thomas Christian community of India, who originally belonged to the Province of India of the Church of the Eastand they were following the East Syriac Rite till the sixteenth century, when the interventions of the Portuguese Padroado missionaries led to a schism among them. Following the schism in 1665, one of the two factions that emerged (the Puthenkoor) made contact with the Syriac Orthodox Church through Archbishop Gregorios Abdal Jaleel. Links with the Syriac Orthodox Church were further strengthened in the course of time, as other Syriac Orthodox prelates continued to work among them and to replace their original liturgical rite. Maphrian Baselios Yaldo and Baselios Shakrallah were prominent among them. In this way the West Syriac liturgical tradition was gradually introduced to them, and thus the descendants of the Puthenkoor, which includes the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Malankara Marthoma Syrian Church, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and Malabar Independent Church, currently employ the West Syriac Rite.[11]\n\nSee also\n\nHoly Qurobo\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nSyriac Catholic Church\n\nMaronite Church\n\nMiaphysitism\n\nEast Syriac Rite\n\nMalankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nMalankara Marthoma Syrian Church\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Fortescue, Adrian (1912). \"West Syrian Rite\". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n^ Encyclopædia Britannica: \"Antiochene Rite\"\n\n^ The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation\n\n^ The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church: West Syrian Worship\n\n^ New Catholic Encyclopedia: Syrian Liturgy\n\n^ Sebastian P. Brock, “Liturgy” in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition\n\n^ Leustean, Lucian N. (30 May 2014). Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge. p. 568. ISBN 978-1-317-81866-3. The Syrian Orthodox also became the target of Anglican missionary activity, as a result of which the Mar Thoma Church separated from the Orthodox in 1874, adopting the Anglican confession of faith and a reformed Syrian liturgy conforming to Protestant principles.\n\n^ Office, Anglican Communion. \"Anglican Communion: Churches in Communion\". Anglican Communion Website.\n\n^ Testamentum Domini, ed. by Ephrem Rahmani, Life of Severus of Antioch, sixth century.\n\n^ see Zacharias Rhetor, \"Hist. eccl. \", Patrologia Graeca 85, 1165.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2011a). \"Thomas Christians\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nSources\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Center for the Study of Christianity: A Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-west-syriac-rite"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2646}, {"slug": "reference-ephrem-the-syrian", "title": "Ephrem the Syrian", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Ephrem the Syrian[a] (/ˈiːfrəm, ˈɛfrəm/; c. 306 - 373), also known as Ephraem the Deacon, Ephrem of Edessa or Aprem of Nisibis (Syriac: ܡܪܳܝ ܐܰܦܪܶܝܡ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܳܐ, romanized: Mār Aphrêm Suryāyā or Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܪܒܐ, romanized: Mār Aphrêm Rabbā) was a prominent Christian theologian and writer who is...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nEphrem the Syrian\n\nSyriac Orthodox icon of Saint Ephrem the Syrian\n\nHarp of the Spirit, Deacon, Confessor and Doctor of the Church; Venerable Father\n\nHymn Writer, Teacher of the Faith\n\nBornc. 306\nNisibis, Syria, Roman Empire\n\nDied373\nEdessa, Osroene, Roman Empire\n\nVenerated in\nCatholic Church\n\nEastern Orthodox Church\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nOriental Orthodox Churches\n\nAnglican Communion\n\nFeast\nList\n\nJanuary 28 (Maronite Church, Byzantine Christianity)\n\n7th Saturday before Easter (Syriac Orthodox Church)\n\nFirst Saturday of Great Lent (7th Saturday before Qyamtho Easter) (Indian Orthodox Church)\n\nየካቲት 4 (Ethiopian Christianity) (translocation of relics)\n\nJune 9 (Assyrian Church of the East, Catholic Church, Church of England)\n\nJune 18 (pre-1969 Roman Calendar)\n\nሐምሌ 15 (Ethiopian Christianity)\n\nEpip 15 (Coptic Christianity)\n\nAttributesVine and scroll, deacon's vestments and thurible; with Saint Basil the Great; composing hymns with a lyre\n\nPatronageSpiritual directors and spiritual leaders\n\nEphrem the Syrian[a] (/ˈiːfrəm, ˈɛfrəm/; c. 306 - 373), also known as Ephraem the Deacon, Ephrem of Edessa or Aprem of Nisibis (Syriac: ܡܪܳܝ ܐܰܦܪܶܝܡ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܳܐ, romanized: Mār Aphrêm Suryāyā or Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܪܒܐ, romanized: Mār Aphrêm Rabbā) was a prominent Christian theologian and writer who is revered as one of the most notable hymnographers and authors of Syriac literature in Eastern Christianity. He was born in Nisibis, served as a deacon and later lived in Edessa.[1][2]\n\nEphrem is venerated as a saint by all traditional Churches. He is especially revered in Syriac Christianity, both in East Syriac tradition and West Syriac tradition, and also counted as a Holy and Venerable Father (i.e., a sainted monk) in the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially in the Slovak tradition. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in the Catholic Church in 1920. Ephrem is also credited as the founder of the School of Nisibis, which in later centuries was the center of learning for the Church of the East.\n\nEphrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as prose exegesis. These were works of practical theology for the edification of the Church in troubled times. His performance practice of all-women choirs singing his madrāšê (teaching hymns) was particularly notable, and from it emerged the Syriac Christian tradition of \"deaconess\" choir members. Ephrem's works were so popular that, for centuries after his death, Christian authors wrote hundreds of pseudepigraphal works in his name. He has been called the most significant of all the fathers of the Syriac-speaking church tradition, the next most famous after him being Jacob of Serugh and Narsai.[3][4]\n\nLife\n\nEphrem was born around the year 306 in the city of Nisibis (modern Nusaybin, Turkey), in the Roman province of Mesopotamia, that was recently acquired by the Roman Empire.[5][6][7][8] Internal evidence from Ephrem's hymnody suggests that both his parents were part of the growing Christian community in the city, although later hagiographers wrote that his father was a pagan priest.[9] In those days, religious culture in the region of Nisibis included local polytheism, Judaism and several varieties of the Early Christianity. Most of the population spoke the Aramaic language, while Greek and Latin were languages of administration. The city had a complex ethnic composition, consisting of \"Arameans, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, Parthians, Romans, and Iranians.\"[10] Ephrem, being a speaker of Syriac, an Eastern Aramaic dialect, and the community to which he and the Christians of Nisibis belonged, were most likely part of the Aramean population.[11]\n\nJacob, the second bishop of Nisibis,[12] was appointed in 308, and Ephrem grew up under his leadership of the community. Jacob of Nisibis is recorded as a signatory at the First Council of Nicea in 325. Ephrem was baptized as a youth and almost certainly became a son of the covenant, an unusual form of syriac proto-monasticism. Jacob appointed Ephrem as a teacher (Syriac malp̄ānâ, a title that still carries great respect for Syriac Christians). He was ordained as a deacon either at his baptism or later.[13] He began to compose hymns and write biblical commentaries as part of his educational office. In his hymns, he sometimes refers to himself as a \"herdsman\" (ܥܠܢܐ, 'allānâ), to his bishop as the \"shepherd\" (ܪܥܝܐ, rā'yâ), and to his community as a 'fold' (ܕܝܪܐ, dayrâ). Ephrem is popularly credited as the founder of the School of Nisibis, which, in later centuries, was the center of learning of the Church of the East.[14]\n\nIn 337, Emperor Constantine I, who had legalized and promoted the practice of Christianity in the Roman Empire, died. Seizing on this opportunity, Shapur II of Persia began a series of attacks into Roman North Mesopotamia. Nisibis was besieged in 338, 346 and 350. During the first siege, Ephrem credits Bishop Jacob as defending the city with his prayers. In the third siege, of 350, Shapur rerouted the River Mygdonius to undermine the walls of Nisibis. The Nisibenes quickly repaired the walls while the Persian elephant cavalry became bogged down in the wet ground. Ephrem celebrated what he saw as the miraculous salvation of the city in a hymn that portrayed Nisibis as being like Noah's Ark, floating to safety on the flood.\n\nOne important physical link to Ephrem's lifetime is the baptistery of Nisibis. The inscription tells that it was constructed under Bishop Vologeses in 359. In that year, Shapur attacked again. The cities around Nisibis were destroyed one by one, and their citizens killed or deported. Constantius II was unable to respond; the campaign of Julian in 363 ended with his death in battle. His army elected Jovian as the new emperor, and to rescue his army, he was forced to surrender Nisibis to Persia (also in 363) and to permit the expulsion of the entire Christian population.[15] Ephrem declined being ordained a bishop by feigning madness, because he regarded himself unworthy for it.[16][17][18]\n\nEphrem, with the others, went first to Amida (Diyarbakır), eventually settling in Edessa (Urhay, in Aramaic) in 363.[19] Ephrem, in his late fifties, applied himself to ministry in his new church and seems to have continued his work as a teacher, perhaps in the School of Edessa. Edessa had been an important center of the Aramaic-speaking world, and the birthplace of a specific Middle Aramaic dialect that came to be known as the Syriac language.[20] The city was rich with rivaling philosophies and religions. Ephrem comments that orthodox Nicene Christians were simply called \"Palutians\" in Edessa, after a former bishop. Arians, Marcionites, Manichees, Bardaisanites and various gnostic sects proclaimed themselves as the true church. In this confusion, Ephrem wrote a great number of hymns defending Nicene orthodoxy. A later Syriac writer, Jacob of Serugh, wrote that Ephrem rehearsed all-female choirs to sing his hymns set to Syriac folk tunes in the forum of Edessa. In 370 he visited Basil the Great at Caesarea, and then journeyed to the monks of Egypt. As he preached a panegyric on St. Basil, who died in 379, his own death must be placed at a later date. After a ten-year residency in Edessa, in his sixties, Ephrem succumbed to the plague as he ministered to its victims. He died in 373.[21][22]\n\nWritings and authorship\n\nEphrem wrote exclusively in his native Aramaic language, using the local Edessan (Urhoyo) dialect, which later came to be known as Classical Syriac.[9][23] In his works, Ephrem repeatedly refers endonymically to his language as Aramaic, his homeland as \"the land of Aram,\" and his people as the Arameans.[24][25][26][27][28][29] He is therefore known as \"the authentic voice of Aramaic Christianity.\"[30]\n\nIn the early stages of modern scholarly studies, it was believed that some examples of the long-standing Greek practice of labeling Aramaic as \"Syriac,\" found in the Cave of Treasures,[31][32] could be attributed to Ephrem, but later scholarly analyzes have shown that the work in question was written much later (c. 600) by an unknown author, thus showing that Ephrem's original works still belonged to a tradition unaffected by exonymic (foreign) labeling.[33][34][35][36] \n\nOne of the early admirers of Ephrem's works, theologian Jacob of Serugh (d. 521), who already belonged to the generation that accepted the custom of a double naming of their language, not only as Aramaic (Ōrōmōyō / ܐܳܪܳܡܳܝܳܐ) but also as \"Syriac\" (Suryōyō / ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܳܐ),[37][38][39][40] wrote a homily (memrō) dedicated to Ephrem, praising him as the crown or wreath of the Arameans (Classical Syriac: ܐܳܪܳܡܳܝܽܘܬ݂ܳܐ), and the same praise was repeated in early liturgical texts.[41][42] \n\nOnly later, under the Greek influence already prevalent in the works of the mid-fifth-century author Theodoret of Cyrus,[43] did it become customary to associate Ephrem with a Syriac identity and to label him only as \"the Syrian\" (Koine Greek: Ἐφραίμ ὁ Σῦρος). Theodoret described him as a poet who \"daily waters the ethnos of Syrians with streams of grace,\" and Sozomen similarly claimed that Ephrem, \"who wrote in the language of the Syrians, surpassed the Greeks in wisdom.\"[44] In turn, over a century later, Jacob of Serugh explicitly vaunted Ephrem as the poet of a Syrian people, and he seems to have framed this Syrian people as descended from Aram.[45] Such portrayals show how Ephrem, who in his own writings identified with Aram and the Arameans,[26] was gradually reframed in both Syriac and Greek traditions as not only an Aramean (Ōrōmōyō) but also as a representative of the Syrians (Suryōyē).[46][47]\n\nSome of these problems persisted into recent times, even in scholarly literature, as a consequence of several methodological issues within the field of source editing. During the process of critical editing and translation of sources within Syriac studies, some scholars have practiced various forms of arbitrary (and often unexplained) interventions, including the occasional disregard for the importance of original terms used as endonymic (native) designations for Arameans and their language. Such disregard was manifested primarily in translations and commentaries, by the replacement of authentic terms with polysemic Syrian/Syriac labels. In the previously mentioned memrā dedicated to Ephrem, one of the terms for the Aramean people was published correctly in the original script of the source,[48] but at the same time it was translated into English as \"Syriac nation,\"[49] and then enlisted among quotations related to \"Syrian/Syriac\" identity,[50] without any mention of the Aramean-related terms in the source. Even when noticed and corrected by some scholars,[51][52][53] such replacements of terms continue to create problems for others.[54][55][56]\n\nSeveral translations of his writings exist in Classical Armenian, Coptic, Old Georgian, Koine Greek, and other languages. Some of his works are extant only in translation (particularly in Armenian).[57]\n\nManuscripts\n\nAccording to the Catalogues of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Library published by Forshall & Rosen (1839) and Wright (1870-72), there are \"ninety or so manuscripts which contain works by or attributed to Ephraem.\"[58]\n\nBritish Library manuscripts (mss.) containing works by or attributed to Ephrem the Syrian[58]\n\n5th century\n\n6th century\n\n7th century\n\n8th century\n\n9th century\n\n10th century\n\n11th century\n\n12th century\n\n13th century\n\n6 mss.\n\n14 mss.\n\n4 mss.\n\n11 mss.\n\n19 mss.\n\n7 mss.\n\n12 mss.\n\n8 mss.\n\n11 mss.\n\nHymns\n\nOver four hundred hymns attributed to Ephrem still exist. [59] Granted that some have been lost, Ephrem's productivity is not in doubt. The church historian Sozomen credits Ephrem with having written three million verses.[58] Ephrem combines in his writing a threefold heritage: he draws on the models and methods of early Rabbinic Judaism, he engages skillfully with Greek science and philosophy, and he delights in the Mesopotamian/Persian tradition of mystery symbolism.[60]\n\nThe most important of his works are his lyric, teaching hymns (ܡܕܖ̈ܫܐ, madrāšê). These hymns are full of rich, poetic imagery drawn from biblical sources, folk tradition, and other religions and philosophies. The madrāšê are written in stanzas of syllabic verse and employ over fifty different metrical schemes. The form is defined by an antiphon, or congregational refrain (ܥܘܢܝܬܐ, 'ûnîṯâ), between each independent strophe (or verse), and the refrain's melody mimics that of the opening half of the strophe.[61] Each madrāšâ had its qālâ (ܩܠܐ), a traditional tune identified by its opening line. All of these qālê are now lost. It seems that Bardaisan and Mani composed madrāšê, and Ephrem felt that the medium was a suitable tool to use against their claims.[61]\n\nThe madrāšê are gathered into various hymn cycles. In the CSCO critical edition of Beck et al. (1955-1975), these have been given standardised names and abbreviations.[62] By the year 2000, English translations had been published for the following:[63]\n\n52 hymns On Virginity[63]\n\n28 hymns On the Nativity[63]\n\n15 hymns On Paradise[63]\n\n4 hymns Against [Emperor Caesar] Julian[63]\n\nCarmina Nisibena or On Nisibis[63]\n\nOn the Church[63]\n\nOn Lent[63]\n\nOn the Paschal Season[63]\n\nAgainst Heresies[63]\n\nSome of these titles do not do justice to the entirety of the collection (for instance, only the first half of the Carmina Nisibena is about Nisibis). Bates (2000) remarked: \"[Various] collections of Ephrem's hymns [...] appear to be randomly assembled by later editors and named for the subject of the first hymn in the collection only\".[63]\n\nParticularly influential were his Hymns Against Heresies.[64] Ephrem used these to warn his flock of the heresies that threatened to divide the early church. He lamented that the faithful were \"tossed to and fro and carried around with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness and deceitful wiles\" (Eph 4:14).[65] He devised hymns laden with doctrinal details to inoculate right-thinking Christians against heresies such as docetism. The Hymns Against Heresies employ colorful metaphors to describe the Incarnation of Christ as fully human and divine. Ephrem asserts that Christ's unity of humanity and divinity represents peace, perfection and salvation; in contrast, docetism and other heresies sought to divide or reduce Christ's nature and, in doing so, rend and devalue Christ's followers with their false teachings.\n\nAuthenticity of hymns On Epiphany\n\nThe most complete, critical text of writings attributed to Ephrem was compiled between 1955 and 1979 by Dom Edmund Beck, OSB, as part of the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO).[66] Beck's 1959 critical edition of the madrashe (hymns) and mêmrê (homilies) attributed to Ephrem led to much scholarly debate on the authenticity of the madrashe known as On Epiphany, as Ephrem was certainly not familiar with Epiphany as a feast celebrating Jesus' baptism on January 6.[66] Unlike in Europe, where the Nativity of Jesus was celebrated on December 25, but the baptism of Jesus would evolve into a separate feast called \"Epiphany\" on January 6, there was only one Christian feast celebrated in winter in the time and place where Ephrem lived, namely the Nativity on January 6, when baptism was also performed.[67] A 1956 paper written by Beck himself therefore warned researchers not to base their reconstructions of Ephrem's baptismal theology on the contents of these madrashe, given the fact that many of the hymns presuppose that Epiphany and Nativity were two separate feasts celebrated two weeks apart, thereby challenging Ephrem's authorship.[68] While the oldest surviving manuscripts of Ephrem's hymns date to the 6th century and contain hymns on the Nativity that Beck thought were certainly authentic, the contested hymns On Epiphany are missing from them.[67] They do not appear in manuscripts until much later, in the 9th century, suggesting that they were interpolated.[67] Scholars have largely accepted Beck's arguments that the collection as a whole was established after the 4th century, and that some hymns in them were not written by Ephrem, or at least not in the form that they have been preserved in, but that other hymns should nevertheless be considered authentic.[69]\n\nPerformance practices and gender\n\nThe relationship between Ephrem's compositions and femininity is shown again in documentation suggesting that the madrāšê were sung by all-women choirs with an accompanying lyre. These women's choirs were composed of members of the Daughters of the Covenant, an important institution in historical Syriac Christianity, but they weren't always labeled as such.[70] Ephrem, like many Syriac liturgical poets, believed that women's voices were important to hear in the church as they were modeled after Mary, mother of Jesus, whose acceptance of God's call led to salvation for all through the birth of Jesus.[71] One variety of the madrāšê, the soghyatha, was sung in a conversational style between male and female choirs.[71] The women's choir would sing the role of biblical women, and the men's choir would sing the male role. Through the role of singing Ephrem's madrāšê, women's choirs were granted a role in worship.[70]\n\nFurther writings\n\nEphrem also wrote verse homilies (ܡܐܡܖ̈ܐ, mêmrê). These sermons in poetry are far fewer in number than the madrāšê. The mêmrê were written in heptasyllabic verses (lines of seven syllables each) and couplets.[72][73]\n\nThe third category of Ephrem's writings is his prose work. He wrote a biblical commentary on the Diatessaron (the single gospel harmony of the early Syriac church), the Syriac original of which was found in 1957. His Commentary on Genesis and Exodus is an exegesis of Genesis and Exodus. Some fragments exist in Armenian of his commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and Pauline Epistles.\n\nHe also wrote refutations against Bardaisan, Mani, Marcion and others.[74][75]\n\nSymbols and metaphors\n\nEphrem's writings contain a rich variety of symbols and metaphors. Christopher Buck gives a summary of analysis of a selection of six key scenarios (the way, robe of glory, sons and daughters of the Covenant, wedding feast, harrowing of hell, Noah's Ark/Mariner) and six root metaphors (physician, medicine of life, mirror, pearl, Tree of life, paradise).[76]\n\nSelected works\n\nBoasting an extensive corpus, Ephrem's poems, hymns, prayers and prose has been incorporated deeply into every facet of the Syriac tradition, from the Liturgy of the Hours (Shehimo) to Divine Liturgy. The following is a bedtime prayer, found in the Compline of the Shehimo for some weekdays.\n\nLord have mercy upon us, kindly accept our service\n\nSending from Thy treasu-ry, kindness, mercy - and pardon.\n\nGrant me Oh Lord, while I stand, keeping vigil before Thee\n\nShould I fall to slumber’s hand, guard thou me from - sinful sleep.\n\nIf I trespass while awake, by thy grace absolve me Lord\n\nIf I transgress - in my sleep, pardon with Thy - compa-ssion\n\nBy the Cross ( +) of Thy meekness, grant me, Lord, a restful sleep\n\nDeliver me from - evil dreams, and from sinful thoughts, Oh Lord!\n\nThrough the night govern me, Lord Grant to me a - peaceful sleep;\n\nLet not Evil- and his thoughts, should have domain - over me.\n\nGrant to me Thy bright Angel, that he may guard - all my limbs;\n\nSave me from un-holy lust, by Thy Body - that I ate.\n\nWhile I lie and sleep in calm, may Thy blood be - my guardian;\n\nGranting freedom - to my soul, which is but Thy - own image.\n\nThy hand shaped me, Oh my Lord, shadow me with - Thy right hand,\n\nThy mercy be a for-tress, shielding me Lord - all around.\n\nWhile my body rests and sleeps, may Thy power - keep vigil;\n\nLet my sleep in - Thy presence, pleasing like a sweet incense.\n\nLet not evil touch my bed, by Thy mother’s prayer for me;\n\nBy Thy pleasing sacrifice, keep Satan from - hurting me.\n\nFulfill Thy word with me, Lord, and guard my life by Thy Cross ( + );\n\nWaking I shall - praise Thy name, for Thou loved me - in weakness.\n\nGrant Oh Lord, by Thy mercy, that I hear and - do Thy will;\n\nGrant me an eve - full of peace, and a night of- righteous-ness.\n\nOh our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is indeed the true light;\n\nThy honor stays - in the light, worshipped by all - sons of light.\n\nJesus, Savior of the world, who stays and lives - in the light;\n\nto Thee praise, on - us mercy, in this world and - that to come.\n\nPraise to Thee Lord, praise to Thee, praise a thousand thousand fold;\n\nTens of thousands - we praise Thee, to Thee praise on - us mercy.\n\nPraise to whom Watchers adore; and heavenly Angels serve\n\nLord of Watchers and Angels; accept our supplications\n\nPraise to the One who is three; and to the three who are One.\n\nFather, Son and Holy Ghost; who is the One and true God.[77]\n\nPseudepigraphy and misattributions\n\nEphrem's meditations on the symbols of Christian faith and his stand against heresy made him a popular source of inspiration throughout the church. There is a huge corpus of Ephrem pseudepigraphy and legendary hagiography in many languages. Some of these compositions are in verse, often mimicking Ephrem's heptasyllabic couplets. Syriac churches still use many of Ephrem's hymns as part of the annual cycle of worship. However, most of these liturgical hymns are edited and conflated versions of the originals. Another one of the works attributed to Ephrem was the Cave of Treasures, written in Syriac, but by a much later, unknown author, who lived at the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century.[78]\n\nGreek Ephrem\n\n\"It is a mark of Ephraem's enormous reputation that such an extensive corpus of works in Greek was gathered under his name. Where no Syriac original has survived, the question of authenticity arises. (...) The Greek works may not be so much translations as adaptations in the spirit of Ephraem using his favourite images. A widely held judgment is that the corpus is 'sporadically authentic'.\"\n\n- T.S. Pattie (1990)[79]\n\nThere is a very large number of works by \"Ephrem\" extant in Greek. In the literature this material is often referred to as \"Greek Ephrem\", or Ephraem Graecus (\"Ephrem the Greek\", as opposed to the real Ephrem the Syrian), as if it was by a single author. This is not the case, but the term is used for convenience. Some texts are in fact Greek translations of genuine works by Ephrem, but most are not.[79] Ephrem is attributed with writing hagiographies such as The Life of Saint Mary the Harlot (extant in Greek and Latin), though this credit is called into question.[80] The best known of these writings is the Prayer of Saint Ephrem, which is recited at every service during Great Lent and other fasting periods in Eastern Christianity.[81][82]\n\nThere has been very little critical examination of any of these works. They were edited uncritically by Assemani, and there is also a modern Greek edition by Phrantzolas.[83] Amongst scholars, there is a broad consensus that the Greek corpus attributed to Ephrem is only 'sporadically authentic'.[79]\n\nLatin Ephrem and other languages\n\nThere are also works by \"Ephrem\" in Latin, Slavonic and Arabic. \"Ephrem Latinus\" is the term given to Latin translations of \"Ephrem Graecus\". None is by Ephrem the Syrian. \"Pseudo-Ephrem Latinus\" is the name given to Latin works under the name of Ephrem which are imitations of the style of Ephrem Latinus. One example is the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem, extant in one Latin and one Syriac version. Also attributed to Ephrem are the Parenesis or \"precepts\", found in the 10th-century Rila fragments and the early 13th-century Kyiv Caves Patericon, translated into Old Church Slavonic.\n\nVeneration as a saint\n\nSoon after Ephrem's death, legendary accounts of his life began to circulate. One of the earlier \"modifications\" is the statement that Ephrem's father was a pagan priest of Abnil or Abizal. However, internal evidence from his authentic writings suggest that he was raised by Christian parents.[84]\n\nEphrem is venerated as an example of monastic discipline in Eastern Christianity. In the Eastern Orthodox scheme of hagiography, Ephrem is counted as a Venerable Father (i.e., a sainted monk). His feast day is celebrated on January 28 and on the Saturday of the Venerable Fathers (Cheesefare Saturday), which is the Saturday before the beginning of Great Lent.[85]\n\nOn October 5, 1920, Pope Benedict XV proclaimed Ephrem a Doctor of the Church (\"Doctor of the Syrians\").[86]\n\nThe most popular title for Ephrem is Harp of the Spirit (Syriac: ܟܢܪܐ ܕܪܘܚܐ, romanized: Kenārâ d-Rûḥâ). He is also referred to as the Deacon of Edessa, the Sun of the Syrians and a Pillar of the Church.[87]\n\nHis Roman Catholic feast day of June 9 conforms to his date of death. For 48 years (1920-1969), it was on June 18, and this date is still observed in the Extraordinary Form.[88]\n\nEphrem is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on June 10.[89]\n\nEphrem is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on June 9.[90]\n\nTranslations\n\nSancti Patris Nostri Ephraem Syri opera omnia quae exstant (3 vol), by Peter Ambarach Rome, 1737-1743.\n\nE. Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymen De Nativitate (Epiphania), CSCO 186/187, Leuven 1959, 144-191 (131-177). (in German).\n\nFrench translation based on the edition of Beck: Ephrem le Syrien. Hymnes sur l'Êpiphanie. Hymnes baptismales de l'Orient syrien. Introduction, traduction du texte syriaque, notes et index par François Cassingena, o.s.b ., Spiritualité orientale, no 70, Abbaye de Bellefontaine, Bégrolles-en-Mauges 1997.\n\nEphrem the Syrian Hymns, introduced by John Meyendorff, translated by Kathleen E. McVey. (New York: Paulist Press, 1989) ISBN 0-8091-3093-9\n\nSt. Ephrem Hymns on Paradise, translated by Sebastian Brock (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1990). ISBN 0-88141-076-4\n\nSaint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes, translated by Carmel McCarthy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).\n\nSt. Ephrem the Syrian Commentary on Genesis, Commentary on Exodus, Homily on our Lord, Letter to Publius, translated by Edward G. Mathews Jr., and Joseph P. Amar. Ed. by Kathleen McVey. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994). ISBN 978-0-8132-1421-4\n\nSt. Ephrem the Syrian The Hymns on Faith, translated by Jeffrey Wickes. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015). ISBN 978-0-8132-2735-1\n\nSan Efrén de Nísibis Himnos de Navidad y Epifanía, by Efrem Yildiz Sadak Madrid, 2016 (in Spanish). ISBN 978-84-285-5235-6\n\nSaint Ephraim the Syrian Eschatological Hymns and Homilies, translated by M.F. Toal and Henry Burgess, amended. (Florence, AZ: SAGOM Press, 2019). ISBN 978-1-9456-9907-8\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac language\n\nSyria (region)\n\nPrayer of Saint Ephrem\n\nCodex Ephraemi Rescriptus\n\nLight of Christ\n\nChurch of Saint Jacob of Nisibis\n\nNarsai\n\nJacob of Serugh\n\nNotes\n\n^ Classical Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, romanized: Mār ʾAp̄rêm Sūryāyā, Classical Syriac pronunciation: [mɑr ʔafˈrem surˈjɑjɑ]; Koine Greek: Ἐφραὶμ ὁ Σύρος, romanized: Efrém o Sýros; Latin: Ephraem Syrus; Ge'ez: ቅዱስ ኤፍሬም ሶርያዊ\n\nReferences\n\n^ Brock 1992a.\n\n^ Brock 1999a.\n\n^ Parry 1999, p. 180.\n\n^ Brock 2009, p. 21.\n\n^ Karim 2004, p. 3.\n\n^ Possekel 1999, p. 1.\n\n^ Lipiński 2000, p. 11.\n\n^ Russell 2005, p. 179-235.\n\n^ a b Brock 1992a, p. 16.\n\n^ McVey 1989, p. 5.\n\n^ Ephraem (Syrus), Saint (1989). Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns. Paulist Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-8091-3093-1.\n\n^ Russell 2005, p. 220-222.\n\n^ Parry 1999, p. 180-181.\n\n^ \"Monastic Life in the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". July 28, 2011. Archived from the original on July 28, 2011. Retrieved May 12, 2025.\n\n^ Russell 2005, p. 215, 217, 223.\n\n^ \"Saint Ephrem\". June 9, 2022. p. Franciscan Media. Retrieved August 17, 2023.\n\n^ \"Venerable Ephraim the Syrian\". p. The Orthodox Church in America. Retrieved August 17, 2023.\n\n^ \"Harp of the Holy Spirit: St. Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor of the Church\". p. The Divine Mercy. Retrieved August 17, 2023.\n\n^ Russell 2005, p. 195-196.\n\n^ Healey 2007, p. 115-127.\n\n^ Schaff, Philip (2007). Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series Volume IV Anthanasius. Cosimo, Inc. ISBN 978-1-60206-514-7.\n\n^ Darcy, Peter (February 27, 2021). \"St. Ephrem's Marvelous Sermon on the Cross of Christ\". Sacred Windows. Retrieved June 14, 2024.\n\n^ Brock 1999a, p. 105.\n\n^ Griffith 2002, p. 15, 20.\n\n^ Palmer 2003, p. 3.\n\n^ a b Griffith 2006, p. 447.\n\n^ Debié 2009, p. 103.\n\n^ Messo 2011, p. 119.\n\n^ Romeny, R. B. ter Haar (2010). Religious Origins of Nations?: The Christian Communities of the Middle East. BRILL. p. 103. ISBN 978-90-04-17375-0.\n\n^ Simmons 1959, p. 13.\n\n^ Toepel 2013, p. 540-584.\n\n^ Wood 2007, p. 131-140.\n\n^ Rubin 1998, p. 322-323.\n\n^ Toepel 2013, p. 531-539.\n\n^ Minov 2013, p. 157-165.\n\n^ Ruzer 2014, p. 196-197.\n\n^ Brock 1992c, p. 226.\n\n^ Rompay 2000, p. 78.\n\n^ Butts 2011, p. 390-391.\n\n^ Butts 2019, p. 222.\n\n^ Amar 1995, p. 64-65.\n\n^ Brock 1999b, p. 14-15.\n\n^ Azéma 1965, p. 190-191.\n\n^ King, Daniel (December 12, 2018). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 165-166. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ King, Daniel (December 12, 2018). The Syriac World. Routledge. p. 166. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ King, Daniel (December 12, 2018). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 166-167. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ Minets, Yuliya (2022). \"The Primordial Language in Ephrem the Syrian\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 25.2 (2022): 313-363.\n\n^ Amar 1995, p. 64.\n\n^ Amar 1995, p. 65.\n\n^ Amar 1995, p. 21.\n\n^ Brock 1999b, p. 15.\n\n^ Rompay 2004, p. 99.\n\n^ Minov 2020, p. 304.\n\n^ Wood 2012, p. 186.\n\n^ Minov 2013, p. 160.\n\n^ \"Sergey Minov, Cult of Saints, E02531\".\n\n^ \"St. Ephraim the Syrian\". St. Ephraim Antiochian Orthodox Church. March 1, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2025.\n\n^ a b c Pattie 1990, p. 174.\n\n^ Bates 2000, p. 170.\n\n^ \"St. Ephrem - The Deacon\". www.the-deacon.com. Retrieved January 1, 2025.\n\n^ a b Bates 2000, p. 184.\n\n^ McVey 1989, p. 49.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k Bates 2000, p. 189.\n\n^ Griffith 1999, p. 97-114.\n\n^ Mourachian 2007, p. 30-31.\n\n^ a b Rouwhorst 2012, pp. 139-140.\n\n^ a b c Rouwhorst 2012, p. 141.\n\n^ Rouwhorst 2012, pp. 140-141.\n\n^ Rouwhorst 2012, pp. 141-142.\n\n^ a b Ashbrook Harvey, Susan (June 28, 2018). \"Revisiting the Daughters of the Covenant: Women's Choirs and Sacred Song in Ancient Syriac Christianity\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 8 (2).\n\n^ a b Ashbrook Harvey, Susan (2010). \"Singing women's stories in Syriac tradition\". Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift. 100 (3): 171-183.\n\n^ \"St Ephrem the Syrian\". Syriac Heritage Project. Retrieved May 21, 2026.\n\n^ \"Mor Ephrem the Syrian\". Saints of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Retrieved May 21, 2026.\n\n^ Mitchell 1912.\n\n^ Mitchell, Bevan & Burkitt 1921.\n\n^ Buck 1999, p. 77-109.\n\n^ jesse.scaria (March 28, 2020). \"Hymn of Mor Ephrem - Sunday School Resources\". Retrieved May 17, 2025.\n\n^ Toepel 2013, pp. 531-584.\n\n^ a b c Pattie 1990, p. 175.\n\n^ Brock & Harvey 1998.\n\n^ Hostetler, Bob (January 25, 2023). \"Pray the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem\". Guideposts. Retrieved December 14, 2024.\n\n^ Passage, The Inside (February 14, 2020). \"Meditating on the prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian during Lent\". The Inside Passage. Retrieved December 14, 2024.\n\n^ A list of works with links to the Greek text can be found online here.\n\n^ \"Venerable Ephraim the Syrian\". www.oca.org. Retrieved September 18, 2020.\n\n^ \"ЕФРЕМ СИРИН\". www.pravenc.ru. Retrieved August 17, 2022.\n\n^ PRINCIPI APOSTOLORUM PETRO at Vatican.va\n\n^ New Advent at newadvent.org\n\n^ \"Ephrem\". santosepulcro.co.il. Retrieved October 13, 2021.\n\n^ Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018. Church Publishing. 2018. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-64065-235-4. Retrieved May 8, 2022.\n\n^ \"The Calendar\". The Church of England. Retrieved March 27, 2021.\n\nSources\n\nAmar, Joseph Phillip (1995). \"A Metrical Homily on Holy Mar Ephrem by Mar Jacob of Sarug: Critical Edition of the Syriac Text, Translation and Introduction\". Patrologia Orientalis. 47 (1): 1-76.\n\nAzéma, Yvan, ed. (1965). Théodoret de Cyr: Correspondance. Vol. 3. Paris: Editions du Cerf.\n\nBates, J. Barrington (June 2000). \"Songs and Prayers Like Incense: The Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian\". Anglican and Episcopal History. 69 (2): 170-192. JSTOR 42612097.\n\nBiesen, Kees den (2006). Simple and bold : Ephrem's art of symbolic thought (1st ed.). Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-397-8.\n\nBou Mansour, Tanios (1988). La pensée symbolique de saint Ephrem le Syrien. Kaslik, Lebanon: Bibliothèque de l'Université Saint Esprit XVI.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992a) [1985]. The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (2nd revised ed.). Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications. ISBN 9780879075248.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992b). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992c). \"Eusebius and Syriac Christianity\". Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. pp. 212-234. ISBN 0814323618.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). \"The Transmission of Ephrem's madrashe in the Syriac Liturgical Tradition\". Studia Patristica. 33: 490-505. ISBN 9789068318685.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999a). From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions Between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780860788003.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999b). \"St. Ephrem in the Eyes of Later Syriac Liturgical Tradition\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 2 (1): 5-25. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-020103. S2CID 212688898.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2000). \"Greek Words in Ephrem and Narsai: A Comparative Sampling\". ARAM Periodical. 12 (1-2): 439-449. doi:10.2143/ARAM.12.0.504480.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2003). \"The Changing Faces of St Ephrem as Read in the West\". Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West. Crestwood: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 65-80. ISBN 9780881412482.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2004). \"Ephrem and the Syriac Tradition\". The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 362-372. ISBN 9780521460835.\n\nBrock, Sebastian (2009). \"A Guide to Narsai's Homilies\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 12 (1): 21-40.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2017). \"The Armenian Translation of the Syriac Life of St Ephrem and Its Syriac Source\". Reflections on Armenia and the Christian Orient. Yerevan: Ankyunacar. pp. 119-130. ISBN 9789939850306.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Harvey, Susan A. (1998) [1987]. Holy Women of the Syrian Orient. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520213661.\n\nBuck, Christopher G. (1999). Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha'i Faith (PDF). New York: State University of New York Press.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2011). \"Syriac Language\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 390-391.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2019). \"The Classical Syriac Language\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 222-242.\n\nChatonnet, Françoise Briquel; Debié, Muriel (2023). The Syriac World: In Search of a Forgotten Christianity. Yale University Press.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 93-114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1986). \"Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire\". Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer. Washington: CUA Press. pp. 25-52. ISBN 9780813205960.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1987). \"Ephraem the Syrian's Hymns Against Julian: Meditations on History and Imperial Power\". Vigiliae Christianae. 41 (3): 238-266. doi:10.2307/1583993. JSTOR 1583993.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1990). \"Images of Ephraem: The Syrian Holy Man and His Church\". Traditio. 45: 7-33. doi:10.1017/S0362152900012666. JSTOR 27831238. S2CID 151782759.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1997). Faith Adoring the Mystery: Reading the Bible with St. Ephraem the Syrian. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. ISBN 9780874625776.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1998). \"A Spiritual Father for the Whole Church: The Universal Appeal of St. Ephraem the Syrian\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 1 (2): 197-220. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-010113. S2CID 212688360.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1999). \"Setting Right the Church of Syria: Saint Ephraem's Hymns against Heresies\". The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 97-114. ISBN 0472109979.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2002). \"Christianity in Edessa and the Syriac-Speaking World: Mani, Bar Daysan, and Ephraem, the Struggle for Allegiance on the Aramean Frontier\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 2: 5-20. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-020104. S2CID 166480216. Archived from the original on December 11, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2020.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2006). \"St. Ephraem, Bar Daysān and the Clash of Madrāshê in Aram: Readings in St. Ephraem's Hymni contra Haereses\". The Harp: A Review of Syriac and Oriental Studies. 21: 447-472. doi:10.31826/9781463233105-026.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2020). \"Denominationalism in Fourth-Century Syria: Readings in Saint Ephraem's Hymns against Heresies, Madrāshê 22-24\". The Garb of Being: Embodiment and the Pursuit of Holiness in Late Ancient Christianity. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 79-100. ISBN 9780823287024.\n\nHansbury, Mary (trans.) (2006). Hymns of St. Ephrem the Syrian (1. ed.). Oxford: SLG Press.\n\nHealey, John F. (2007). \"The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 115-127.\n\nHorn, Cornelia (2015). \"Ancient Syriac Sources on Mary's Role as Intercessor\". Presbeia Theothokou: The Intercessory Role of Mary across Times and Places in Byzantium (4th-9th Century) (1 ed.). Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 153-176. ISBN 978-3-7001-7602-2. JSTOR j.ctv8pzdqp.13. Retrieved December 11, 2024.\n\nKarim, Cyril Aphrem (2004). Symbols of the Cross in the Writings of the Early Syriac Fathers. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781593332303.\n\nKoonammakkal, Thomas (1991). The Theology of Divine Names in the Genuine Works of Ephrem. University of Oxford. ASIN B001OIJ75Q.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908598.\n\nMcVey, Kathleen E., ed. (1989). Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809130931.\n\nMesso, Johny (2011). \"The Origin of the Terms Syria(n) and Suryoyo: Once Again\". Parole de l'Orient. 36: 111-125. Archived from the original on October 5, 2021. Retrieved November 26, 2020.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2011). \"Greek and Syriac in Edessa: From Ephrem to Rabbula (CE 363-435)\". Semitica et Classica. 4: 99-114. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.102508.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2013). \"The Cave of Treasures and the Formation of Syriac Christian Identity in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Between Tradition and Innovation\". Between Personal and Institutional Religion: Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity. Brepols: Turnhout. pp. 155-194.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004445512.\n\nMourachian, Mark (2007). \"Hymns Against Heresies: Comments on St. Ephrem the Syrian\". Sophia. 37 (2).\n\nMitchell, Charles W., ed. (1912). S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan. Vol. 1. London: Text and Translation Society.\n\nMitchell, Charles W.; Bevan, Anthony A.; Burkitt, Francis C., eds. (1921). S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan. Vol. 2. London: Text and Translation Society.\n\nPalmer, Andrew N. (2003). \"Paradise Restored\". Oriens Christianus. 87: 1-46.\n\nParry, Ken, ed. (1999). The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. doi:10.1002/9781405166584. ISBN 9781405166584.\n\nPattie, T. S. (1990). \"Ephraem's 'On Repentance' and the Translation of the Greek Text into Other Languages\". The British Library Journal. 16 (2). British Library: 174-186. ISSN 0305-5167. JSTOR 42554306. Retrieved December 11, 2024.\n\nPossekel, Ute (1999). Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042907591.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2000). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-103. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. S2CID 212688244.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2004). \"Mallpânâ dilan Suryâyâ Ephrem in the Works of Philoxenus of Mabbog: Respect and Distance\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 7 (1): 83-105. doi:10.31826/hug-2011-070107. S2CID 212688667.\n\nRouwhorst, Gerard (2012). \"Le Noyau le Plus Ancien des Hymnes de la Collection 'Sur L'Epiphanie' et la Question de Leur Authenticité\". Vigiliae Christianae. 66 (2). BRILL: 139-159. doi:10.1163/157007211X586106. ISSN 0042-6032. JSTOR 41480525. Retrieved December 11, 2024.\n\nRubin, Milka (1998). \"The Language of Creation or the Primordial Language: A Case of Cultural Polemics in Antiquity\". Journal of Jewish Studies. 49 (2): 306-333. doi:10.18647/2120/JJS-1998.\n\nRussell, Paul S. (2005). \"Nisibis as the Background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 8 (2): 179-235. doi:10.31826/hug-2011-080113. S2CID 212688633.\n\nRuzer, Serge (2014). \"Hebrew versus Aramaic as Jesus' Language: Notes on Early Opinions by Syriac Authors\". The Language Environment of First Century Judaea. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 182-205. ISBN 9789004264410.\n\nSimmons, Ernest (1959). The Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.\n\nToepel, Alexander (2013). \"The Cave of Treasures: A new Translation and Introduction\". Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 531-584. ISBN 9780802827395.\n\nWickes, Jeffrey (2015). \"Mapping the Literary Landscape of Ephrem's Theology of Divine Names\". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 69: 1-14. JSTOR 26497707.\n\nWood, Philip (2007). Panicker, Geevarghese; Thekeparampil, Rev. Jacob; Kalakudi, Abraham (eds.). \"Syrian Identity in the Cave of Treasures\". The Harp. 22: 131-140. doi:10.31826/9781463233112-010. ISBN 9781463233112.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nWood, Philip (2012). \"Syriac and the Syrians\". The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 170-194. ISBN 9780190277536.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Ephrem the Syrian at Wikimedia Commons\n\nWorks by or about Ephraem Syrus at Wikisource\n\nMargonitho: Mor Ephrem the Syrian\n\nAnastasis article\n\nHugoye: Influence of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, part 1\n\nHugoye: Influence of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, part 2\n\n\"St. Ephraem 'Faith Adoring the Mystery'\". Archived from the original on June 13, 2008.\n\nBenedict XVI on St. Ephrem and his role in history\n\nLewis E 235b Grammatical treatise (Ad correctionem eorum qui virtuose vivunt) at OPenn"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ephrem-the-syrian"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6789}, {"slug": "reference-isaac-the-syrian", "title": "Isaac the Syrian", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Isḥaq of Nineveh (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܝܣܚܩ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ, romanized: mār isḥāq d-ninwē; Arabic: إسحاق النينوي Ishaq an-Naynuwī; c. 613 - c. 700), also remembered as Saint Isaac the Syrian (Ancient Greek: Ἰσαὰκ ὁ Σύρος),[4][5] Isaac of Nineveh, Abba Isaac, Isaac Syrus and Isaac of Qatar,[6] was a 7th-century Syriac...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nIsaac the Syrian\n\nBishop, Hieromonk, Ascetic\n\nBornc. 613[1]\nBeth Qatraye,[1][2][3] Eastern Arabia\n\nDiedc. 700 (age c. 87)\nNineveh, Umayyad Caliphate\n\nVenerated inChurch of the East\nCatholic Church \nEastern Orthodox Church\n\nMajor shrineRabban Hormizd Monastery\n\nFeastJanuary 28 (Church of the East)\n\nMay 14 (Syriac Orthodox)\n\nAttributesTurban, cape, scrolls, writing tools\n\nIsḥaq of Nineveh (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܝܣܚܩ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ, romanized: mār isḥāq d-ninwē; Arabic: إسحاق النينوي Ishaq an-Naynuwī; c. 613 - c. 700), also remembered as Saint Isaac the Syrian (Ancient Greek: Ἰσαὰκ ὁ Σύρος),[4][5] Isaac of Nineveh, Abba Isaac, Isaac Syrus and Isaac of Qatar,[6] was a 7th-century Syriac Christian bishop of the Church of the East, and theologian best remembered for his written works on Christian asceticism.[7] He is regarded as a saint in the Church of the East, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox[note 1] churches. His feast day falls, together with 4th-century theologian and hymnographer St. Ephrem the Syrian, on January 28. In the Syriac Orthodox Church, his feast day falls on May 14.[8]\n\nLife\n\nIsaac was born in the region of Beth Qatraye in Eastern Arabia, a mixed Syriac- and Arabic-speaking region encompassing the south east of Mesopotamia and the north-eastern Arabian Peninsula.[1][2][3] When the Catholicos Giwargis I of the Church of the East (661-680), visited Beth Qatraye in 676 to attend a synod, he ordained Isaac bishop of Nineveh far to the north in Assyria.[9]\n\nAccording to Isho'dnah's Book of Chastity, Isaac was Bishop of Nineveh only for a brief period before abdicating for an unknown reason. Isho'dnah continues that Isaac retired first to Mount Matuot in Beth Huzaye, then to the monastery of Rabban Shabur (located near Shushtar in present-day Khuzestan, Iran),[10][11][12] where he died and was buried.[13] At the time of his death, Isho'dnah reports that he was nearly blind due to his devotion to study.[14]\n\nWritings\n\nOverview\n\nAbdisho bar Brikha claims that Isaac wrote seven volumes.[15] Isaac's known writings comprise a 'First Part', 'Second Part', and 'Third Part'.[16] Passages of a supposed 'Fifth Part' have also been discovered, but there is no academic consensus about whether they are authentic.[17] The 'First Part' alone was translated into Greek in antiquity, and from Greek into various other languages, such as Slavonic.[18][19] The 'Second Part' was rediscovered in the 1980s, and the 'Third Part' in the 1990s.[20] Isaac's writings survive in Syriac manuscripts, and in later translations into languages including Greek, Arabic, Georgian, and Sogdian.[21][22]\n\nIsaac's main influences include Evagrius Ponticus, Pseudo-Dionysius, John the Solitary, Ephrem the Syrian, Narsai, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. In turn, Isaac influenced later Syriac writers such as John of Dalyatha and Joseph Hazzaya.[23]\n\nSebastian Brock has provided a summary as of 2024 of all editions and translations of each of the three known 'Parts' of Isaac's writings.[16] Brock, Mary Hansbury, and the Holy Transfiguration Monastery have been Isaac's primary translators into English, and Sabino Chialà into Italian.\n\nFirst Part\n\nThe 'First Part' is the most widely known part. Arent Jan Wensinck produced an English translation of the original Syriac text in 1923.[24] In 1983 the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline published an English translation based primarily on the ancient Greek translation of the First Part, though with reference to the original Syriac text.[25] A revised second edition of this translation was published in 2011, with a third printing in 2020.[26] The number and order of homilies in the First Part can vary greatly depending on the manuscript or edition.[27]\n\nSecond Part\n\nThe 'Second Part' contains 41 chapters, of which Chapter 3 is by far the longest. Chapter 3, also known as the 'Headings on Spiritual Knowledge', contains roughly 400 chapters of various lengths, arranged in four centuries.[28] Recently, parts of these headings (i.e., Chapter 3 of the 'Second Part') have been identified in Sogdian fragments from Turfan.[29][30]\n\nThe Second Part was discovered in April 1983 at the Bodleian Library by Sebastian Brock, who found that MS syr. e. 7, originally donated by the Assyrian priest Yaroo Michael Neesan (1853-1937) to the Bodleian Library on 29 June 1898, in fact contained writings of Isaac the Syrian that were hitherto unknown to Western scholars, even though they were regularly read by Syriac readers.[31] Bodleian MS syr. e. 7 is a parchment manuscript written in small East Syrian Estrangela script and is 195-200 mm long by 145-150 mm wide with 190 folios. There are about 26 lines per page, with about 23 lines near the beginning. It was copied during the 10th or 11th century in the Monastery of Mar ‘Abdisho‘ of Kom by the scribe Marqos for Rabban Isho‘ of the village of Beth B‘DY.[32]\n\nAfter 1983, incomplete manuscripts of Part 2 have been discovered in Cambridge MS Or. 1144, which is a part of Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS syr. 298 (c. 11th-13th century).[33] Chapters 1-3 have been translated into English by Brock (2022)[28] (with Chapters 1-2 previously published in Brock (1997) as well[34]), while an English translation of chapters 4-41, along with the original Syriac text, can be found in Brock (1995).[31] A complete French translation was published by André Louf (2003),[35] and a partial Greek translation was published by Kavvadas (2006).[36] Selections from Part 2 have been translated into Italian by Bettiolo (1985)[37] and into Catalan by Nin (2005).[38]\n\nList of manuscripts containing the 'Second Part':[31]\n\nOxford, Bodleian Library, MS syr. e.7 (10th/11th century) (complete manuscript)\n\nTehran, Mar Issayi Collection, MS 4 (copied from MS syr. e.7) (1895)\n\nParis MS syr. 298 (11th/12th century)\n\nHarvard University, Houghton Library, MS syr. 57 (13th/14th century)\n\nBaghdad, Chaldean Monastery, MS syr. 680 (olim Alqosh 237) (for chs. 7, 9, 15.1-6, 11, 18.18-22, 32, 34-36) (1288/9)\n\nMingana syr. 601 (copied from Baghdad MS syr. 680) (1932)\n\nMingana syr. 86 (for chs. 24.11-13, 20.25, 25) (c. 1300)\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14632 (for chs. 16-17) (10th century)\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14633 (for chs. 16-17) (c. 11th century)\n\nTehran, Mar Issayi Collection, MS 5 (for ch. 25) (1900)\n\nPaul Bedjan's edition of ch. 54-55 of Part I (= chs. 16-17 of Part II) (based on ms of 1235)\n\nPaul Bedjan's edition of lost Urmiah manuscript (for chs. 5.5,22-26,29-30; and ch. 11); the original manuscript is presumed to have been lost during World War I, although Bedjan's transcription has been published.\n\nThird Part\n\nThe 'Third Part' has been translated into English by Mary Hansbury (2016),[39] into French by André Louf (2009),[40] and into Italian by Sabino Chialà (2004, 2011).[41][42][43] It is based on Issayi MS 5, held in Tehran, Iran. The manuscript is a 1903 copy of a 14th-century original manuscript that has now been lost. It was discovered by Monsignor Yuhannan Samaan Issayi, the Chaldean archbishop of Tehran, at an antiquarian Jewish bookshop and was kept in his private library. After his death in 1999, Belgian scholar Michel van Esbroek found the manuscript in Issayi's library in Tehran and announced its discovery to the international scholars.[44] Issayi MS 5 has 133 folios, with 111 folios containing 17 homilies that can be attributed to Isaac. There are 14 homilies not found in other texts that are numbered as 1-13 and 16 within Part 3. The other three texts in Issayi MS 5 can also be found in extant Part 1 and Part 2 manuscripts.[39]\n\nFifth Part\n\nSupposed portions of the 'Fifth Part'[45] have been discovered in MS Rahmani 80 (in Sharfet), MS Dawra sir. 694 and MS Dawra sir. 938 (both held in Baghdad), and Vatican MS sir. 592. Hansbury (2016) contains English translations of two discourses from the Fifth Part.[39] There is currently no consensus among scholars about the authenticity of any of these supposed fragments of the 'Fifth Part'.[17]\n\nViews on universal reconciliation\n\nScholars have noted that Isaac advocates strongly for universal salvation in the 'Second Part'.[46][47][48] In Chapter 39 of the 'Second Part', Isaac writes, \"It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them, and whom nonetheless He created.\"[49] Likewise, in Chapter 5 of the 'Third Part', Isaac explains, \"This is the mystery: that all creation by means of One, has been brought near to God in a mystery; then it is transmitted to all; thus all is united to Him...This action was performed for all of creation; there will, indeed, be a time when no part will fall short of the whole.\"[50]\n\nIn Isaac's 'First Part' some have also seen evidence for universalist sympathies,[51] as illustrated by the following: \"God will not abandon anyone.\"[52] \"There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist.\"[53] \"As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God; as a fountain that flows abundantly is not dammed by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of the creatures... If He is compassionate here, we believe that there will be no change in Him; far be it from us that we should wickedly think that God could not possibly be compassionate; God's properties are not liable to variations as those of mortals... What is hell as compared with the grace of resurrection? Come and let us wonder at the grace of our Creator.\"[54] Other passages throughout the corpus of Isaac's writings have been cited in demonstration of his belief in eventual universal salvation.[55]\n\nVeneration and legacy\n\nIsaac is widely regarded as a saint in several Christian traditions, including the Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. His feast day is observed in many Eastern Christian calendars on January 28, often together with the feast of the 4th-century theologian and hymnographer Ephrem the Syrian, reflecting long-standing liturgical commemoration across different churches.[56] In the Syriac Orthodox tradition, his feast is celebrated on May 14.\n\nIn November 2024, Pope Francis announced the inclusion of Isaac of Nineveh in the Roman Martyrology,[57] the official liturgical list of saints venerated by the Latin Church, following discussions with ecclesiastical leaders of the Assyrian Church of the East. This decision was explained as a recognition of his enduring spiritual legacy and of holiness extending beyond historical ecclesial divisions.[58]\n\nIsaac’s writings, particularly his ascetical and mystical discourses emphasizing prayer, divine mercy, and inner stillness, have had a lasting impact on Christian monasticism. These writings remain popular in monastic communities such as those on Mount Athos, and have influenced later revivals of monastic life, including within the Coptic Orthodox Church in the late 20th century.[59]\n\nTranslations\n\nPart of Isaac's writings\n\nDetails of translation\n\nTranslation language\n\nNotes\n\nFirst Part, entire text\n\nMystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh, ed. by A. J. Wensinck, 1923 (reprinted Gorgias Press, 2011)\n\nEnglish\n\nMade from the original Syriac text\n\nFirst Part, entire text\n\nThe Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, ed. by Dana Miller, Rev. 2nd ed (The Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2020)\n\nEnglish\n\nMade primarily from the ancient Greek translation\n\nSecond Part, Chapters 1-3\n\nSaint Isaac of Nineveh: Headings on Spiritual Knowledge (The Second Part, Chapters 1-3), ed. by Sebastian P. Brock, Popular Patristics, 63 (Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2022).\n\nEnglish\n\nSecond Part, Chapters 4-41\n\nIsaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian): ‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI, ed. by Sebastian P. Brock, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium: Scriptores Syri, 224-225 (Peeters, 1995)\n\nEnglish\n\nThird Part, entire text\n\nIsaac the Syrian’s Spiritual Works, ed. by Mary Hansbury (Gorgias Press, 2016).\n\nEnglish\n\nSee also\n\nThe Ascetical Homilies of Isaac the Syrian\n\nAnthony the Great\n\nApocatastasis\n\nArab Christians\n\nAsceticism\n\nChristian Universalism\n\nChurch Fathers\n\nChurch of the East\n\nDadisho Qatraya\n\nEast Syriac Rite\n\nEphrem the Syrian\n\nJohn of the Ladder\n\nMonastic silence\n\nPhilokalia\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nNotes\n\n^ According to K. Mani Rajan of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church[8]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Markose, Biji (2004). Prayers and Fasts According to Bar Ebroyo (AD 1225/6-1286): A Study on the Prayers and Fasts of the Oriental Churches. LIT Verlag. p. 32. ISBN 9783825867959.\n\n^ a b Kurian, George (2010). The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, Volume 2. Scarecrow Press. p. 385. ISBN 978-0810869875.\n\n^ a b Johnston, William M. (2000). Encyclopedia of Monasticism: A-L. Taylor & Francis. p. 665. ISBN 1579580904.\n\n^ Great Synaxaristes: (in Greek) Ὁ Ὅσιος Ἰσαὰκ ὁ Σύρος Ἐπίσκοπος Νινευΐ. 28 Ιανουαρίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.\n\n^ St Isaac the Syrian the Bishop of Nineveh. OCA - Lives of the Saints.\n\n^ Fromherz, Allen (2012). Qatar: A Modern History. I. B. Tauris. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-58901-910-2.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. \"Ishaq of Nineveh\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage.\n\n^ a b Rajan, Kannanayakal Mani (2017). Martyrs, Saints & Prelates of the Syriac Orthodox Church: One Volume (PDF). J.S.C. Publications. pp. 214-216.\n\n^ Kozah, Mario; Abu-Husayn, Abdulrahim; Al-Murikhi, Saif Shaheen; Al-Thani, Haya (2014). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century (print ed.). Gorgias Press LLC. p. 263. ISBN 978-1463203559.\n\n^ Jullien, Florence (2024-10-21). \"Rabban Šāpur\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 2025-07-05.\n\n^ \"Rabban Shabur\". Syriaca.org. 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2025-07-05.\n\n^ \"Shemʿon d-Ṭaybutheh\". Beth Mardutho, The Syriac Institute/Gorgias Press. Retrieved 2025-07-05.\n\n^ Duca, Valentina (2022). 'Exploring Finitude' Weakness and Integrity in Isaac of Nineveh. Peeters Publishers. p. 3. doi:10.2307/jj.6988023. ISBN 978-90-429-4259-2.\n\n^ Isho'dnah (1896) [ca. 860]. Le livre de la chasteté. Translated by Chabot, Jean-Baptiste. Rome: École française de Rome. pp. 53-54.\n\n^ Stadel, Seth M. (2025). The Catalogue of Books of ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha. Brill. p. 145.\n\n^ a b Brock, Sebastian (2024). The Prayers of Saint Isaac of Nineveh: Translated with an Introduction by Sebastian Brock. SLG Press. pp. 59-61.\n\n^ a b Chialà, Sabino (2014). \"'Two Discourses of the \"Fifth Part\" of Isaac the Syrian's Writings: Prolegomena for Apokatastasis?'\". In Kozah, Mario (ed.). The Syriac Writers of Qatar in the Seventh Century. Gorgias Press. pp. 123-132.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian. \"'From Qatar to Tokyo, By Way of Mar Saba: The Translations of Isaac of Beth Qatraye (Isaac the Syrian)'\". Aram. 11-12: 475-484.\n\n^ \"Commentary on Song of Songs; Letter on the Soul; Letter on Ascesis and the Monastic Life\". World Digital Library. Retrieved 7 March 2013.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian, ed. (2022). Saint Isaac of Nineveh: Headings on Spiritual Knowledge (The Second Part, Chapters 1-3). Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 11-12.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian (2001). \"Syriac into Greek at Mar Saba: The Translation of St. Isaac the Syrian\". In Patrich, Joseph (ed.). The Sabaite Heritage in the Orthodox Church from the Fifth Century to the Present. Louvain: Peeters. pp. 201-208. ISBN 9042909765.\n\n^ Pirtea, Adrian (2019-12-19), \"St. Isaac of Nineveh's Gnostic Chapters in Sogdian: The Identification of an Anonymous Text from Bulayïq (Turfan)\", in Toca, Madalina; Batovici, Dan (eds.), Caught in Translation: Studies on Versions of Late-Antique Christian Literature, BRILL, pp. 85-103, doi:10.1163/9789004417182_006, ISBN 978-90-04-41718-2, retrieved 2025-12-13\n\n^ Scully, Jason (2017). Isaac of Nineveh's Ascetical Eschatology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-880358-4.\n\n^ Wensinck, A. J. (November 2011). Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-61719-502-0.\n\n^ The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian. Holy Transfiguration Monastery. 1984. ISBN 9780913026557.\n\n^ Holy Transfiguration Monastery (2020). The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (Revised 2nd ed.). Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Transfiguration Monastery Publications. ISBN 9780943405162.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2006). The Wisdom of St. Isaac of Nineveh. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. p. viii. ISBN 1-59333-335-8.\n\n^ a b Headings on Spiritual Knowledge: the Second Part, Chapters 1-3. Translated by Brock, Sebastian. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. 2022. ISBN 978-0-88141-702-9.\n\n^ Pirtea, Adrian (2019). \"Isaac of Nineveh, Gnostic Chapters,\" in Nicholas Sims-Williams, From Liturgy to Pharmacology: Christian Sogdian Texts from the Turfan Collection. Berliner Turfantexte 45. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 117-44. (K4.39 mid to 46 beginning; parts of ch. 1.84-85, K1.16, 19)\n\n^ Sims-Williams, Nicholas (2017). An Ascetic Miscellany: The Christian Sogdian Manuscript E28. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 19-43.\n\n^ a b c Brock, Sebastian (translator). 1995. Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian): The Second Part, Chapters 4-41. ISBN 9789068317091.\n\n^ \"Bodleian Library MS. Syriac e. 7\". Digital Bodleian. Retrieved 2024-08-18.\n\n^ Kessel, Grigory (2013). New Manuscript Witnesses to the ‘Second Part’ of Isaac of Nineveh. Studia Patristica LXIV, 245-257. Leuven: Peeters.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (1997). \"St Isaac the Syrian, Two Unpublished Texts.\" Sobornost/Eastern Christian Review 19 (1997): 7-33.\n\n^ Louf, André. (2003). Œuvres spirituelles, II. 41 Discours récemment découverts. Spiritualité Orientale 81. Bégrolles-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine.\n\n^ Kavvadas, Nestor (trans.). (2005-6). Isaak tou Syrou: Asketika. Tomos B1: 1-3; B2: 3-11; B3: 12-41. Thēra: Thesbitēs.\n\n^ Bettiolo, Paolo (trans.). Isacco di Ninive. Discorsi spirituali e altri opuscoli. Magnano: Qiqajon, 1985; 2nd edition, 1990. [Chapters 1-5, 32, 35, and 39]\n\n^ Nin, Manel (2005). Isaac de Ninive, Centuries sobre el coneixement. Barcelona: Proa. [Chapters 1-5]\n\n^ a b c Hansbury, Mary T. (2016). Isaac the Syrian's Spiritual Works. Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0593-5.\n\n^ Louf, André (2009). Œuvres spirituelles, III: D’après un manuscrit récemment découvert. Spiritualité orientale 88. Bégrolles-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine.\n\n^ Chialà, Sabino (trans.) (2004). Isacco di Ninive: Discorsi ascetici: terza collezione. Magnano: Comunità di Bose.\n\n^ Chialà, Sabino (ed.) (2011a). Isacco di Ninive: Terza Collezione. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 637; Scriptores Syri 246. Leuven: Peeters.\n\n^ Chialà, Sabino (trans.) (2011b). Isacco di Ninive: Terza Collezione. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 638; Scriptores Syri 247. Leuven: Peeters.\n\n^ Mayes, Andrew D. (2021-07-20). Diving for Pearls. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-87907-563-7.\n\n^ Chialà, Sabino (2013). \"Due discorsi ritrovati della Quinta parte di Isacco di Ninive?\" Orientalia Christiana Periodica 79, 61-112.\n\n^ Ramelli, Ilaria (2013). The Christian doctrine of Apokatastasis: a critical assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae. Leiden; Boston: Brill. pp. 759 ff. ISBN 978-90-04-24509-9.\n\n^ Hagman, Patrik (2010). The Asceticism of Isaac of Nineveh. Oxford early Christian studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 197 ff. ISBN 978-0-19-959319-4.\n\n^ Hryniewicz, Wacław, 'Universalism of Salvation: St. Isaac the Syrian', in Die Wurzel Aller Theologie: Sentirecum Ecclesia. Festschrift Zum 60. Geburtstag von Urs von Arx (Stämpfli, 2003), pp. 139-50.\n\n^ The Second Part, 39.6 (Tr. Brock, p. 165)\n\n^ Isaac, The Third Part, 5. Translated from Syriac by Mary T. Hansbury, Isaac the Syrian's Spiritual Works, 84.\n\n^ Ramelli, A Larger Hope: Universal Salvation From Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich (Vol. 1), 186-187.\n\n^ The First Part, Ch. 5.\n\n^ The First Part, Ch. 26.\n\n^ The First Part, Ch. 50.\n\n^ For instance, see The First Part 19, 27, 43, 65, 74; The Second Part 3.1.62, 3.2.30, 3.3.70-73, 3.3.81-82, 3.3.94, 5.29-32, 38-40; The Third Part 5.9-14, 6.59-63, 11.24-30.\n\n^ Team, OurSaints org Jacobite Online. \"St. Isaac of Nineveh - Mystic of Divine Mercy - Saints of the Syriac Orthodox Church | OurSaints.org\". www.oursaints.org. Retrieved 2026-02-10.\n\n^ \"Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity: Inclusion of Isaac of Nineveh in the Roman Martyrology\". press.vatican.va. Retrieved 2026-02-10.\n\n^ \"Pope includes St. Isaac the Syrian in Roman martyrology\". Aleteia - Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture. Retrieved 2026-02-10.\n\n^ \"Isaac of Nineveh | Eastern Orthodox, Mysticism, Asceticism | Britannica\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2025-11-22. Retrieved 2026-02-10.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBeulay, Robert. La Lumière sans forme: Introduction à l'étude de la mystique chrétienne syro-orientale. Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1987. (in French)\n\nChiala, Sabino. Dall’ascesi eremitica alia Misericordta infinita: Ricerche su Isacco di Ninive e la sua fortuna. Firenze: Olschki, 2002. (in Italian) [Comprehensive bibliography of Isaac's writings on pp. 325-64.]\n\nHagman, Patrik. The Asceticism of Isaac of Nineveh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.\n\nKawadas, Nestor. Isaak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika: Die Pneumatologie und ihr Kontext. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 128. Leiden: Brill, 2015. (in German)\n\nMaroki, Sameer. Les trois étapes de la vie spirituelle chez les Pères syriaques: Jean le Solitaire, Isaac de Ninive, et Joseph Harem. Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 2014. (in French)\n\nScully, Jason. Isaac of Nineveh's Ascetical Eschatology. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2017.\n\nVesa, Valentin. Doing Ecumenical Theology from a Spiritual Perspective: The Case of St Isaac of Nineveh and St Thérèse de Lisieux. Saabrucken: Brill Academic Publishing, 2016.\n\nVesa, Valentin. Knowledge and Experience in the Writings of St Isaac of Nineveh. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2018.\n\nExternal links\n\nWorks by Isaac the Syrian at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) \n\nSt Isaac of Nineveh Orthodox Icon and Synaxarion\n\nA collection of resources on St. Isaac\n\nHerbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"Isaac of Nineveh\" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nOnline edition of the Ascetical Homilies\n\nSaint Isaac of Nineveh Facebook Page, featuring new translations from Syriac and Arabic\n\nEncyclopædia Britannica's article on Isaac of Nineveh\n\nEncyclopædia Britannica's article on Isaac of Nineveh"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-isaac-the-syrian"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3474}, {"slug": "reference-aphrahat", "title": "Aphrahat", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Aphrahat (c. 280-c. 345; Syriac: ܐܦܪܗܛ, Ap̄rahaṭ, Persian: فرهاد, Arabic: أفراهاط الحكيم, Ancient Greek: Ἀφραάτης, and Latin Aphraates), venerated as Saint Aphrahat the Persian, was a third-century Syriac Christian author of Iranian descent from the Sasanian Empire, who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nAphrahat the Persian\n\nAphrahat depicted in Les Vies des Pères des déserts d'Orient : leur doctrine spirituelle et leur discipline monastique (1886)\n\nChurch Father \n Bishop, Abbot\n\nBornc. 280[1]\n\nDiedc. 345\n\nVenerated inCatholic Church[2]\n Eastern Orthodox Church\n Oriental Orthodox Church\n Church of the East\n\nCanonizedPre-congregation\n\nMajor shrineMar Mattai Monastery\n\nFeast29 January (Roman Catholic,[2] Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox)\n20 Tobi (Coptic Orthodox)\n\nAttributesShemagh, habit\n\nPatronageErbil, Mosul\n\nAphrahat (c. 280-c. 345; Syriac: ܐܦܪܗܛ, Ap̄rahaṭ, Persian: فرهاد, Arabic: أفراهاط الحكيم, Ancient Greek: Ἀφραάτης, and Latin Aphraates), venerated as Saint Aphrahat the Persian, was a third-century Syriac Christian author of Iranian descent from the Sasanian Empire, who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points of Christian doctrine and practice.[3] All his known works, the Demonstrations, come from later on in his life. He was an ascetic and celibate, and was almost definitely a son of the covenant (an early Syriac form of communal monasticism). He may have been a bishop, and later Syriac tradition places him at the head of Mar Mattai Monastery near Mosul in what is now northern Iraq.[4] He was a near contemporary to the slightly younger Ephrem the Syrian, but the latter lived within the sphere of the Roman Empire. Called the Persian Sage (Syriac: ܚܟܝܡܐ ܦܪܣܝܐ, Ḥakkimā Pārsāyā), Aphrahat witnessed to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire.\n\nLife, history and identity\n\nAphrahat was born near the border of Roman Syria and Sasanian Iran around 280, during the rule of Shapur II.[1]\n\nThe name Aphrahat is the Syriac version of the Persian name Frahāt, which is the modern Persian Farhād (فرهاد). He might have had Persian Jewish ancestors.[5] The author, who was known as \"the Persian sage\", came from a Zoroastrian[6] family and may have himself been a convert from Zoroastrianism, though this appears to be later speculation. An early tradition, found in the colophon to a manuscript dated to 510, instead ascribes to him the name Jacob, which may have been his baptismal name.[7] Hence he was already confused with Jacob of Nisibis,[8] by the time of Gennadius of Massilia (before 496), and the ancient Armenian version of nineteen of The Demonstrations has been published under this latter name. Thorough study of the Demonstrations makes identification with Jacob of Nisibis impossible. Aphrahat, being a Persian subject, cannot have lived at Nisibis, which became Persian only by Emperor Jovian's treaty of 363.[3]\n\nFurthermore, Jacob of Nisibis, who attended the First Council of Nicaea, died in 338, and from the internal evidence of Aphrahat's works he must have witnessed the beginning of the persecution of Christians in the early 340s by Shapur II. The persecutions arose out of political tensions between Rome and Persia, particularly the declaration of Constantine the Great that Rome should be a Christian empire. Shapur perhaps grew anxious that the largely Syriac and Armenian Christians within his Empire might secretly support Rome. There are elements in Aphrahat's writing that show great pastoral concern for his harried flock, caught in the midst of all this turmoil.\n\nIt is understood that his name was Aphrahat from comparatively late writers, such as Bar Bahlul (10th century), Elias of Nisibis (11th), Bar Hebraeus and Abdisho bar Berika. He appears to have been quite prominent in the Christian Church of the Persian Empire during the first half of the fourth century.[9] George, bishop of the Arabs, writing in 714 to a friend who had sent him a series of questions about the \"Persian sage\", confesses ignorance of his name, home and rank, but gathers from his works that he was a monk, and of high esteem in the clergy. The fact that in 344 he was selected to draw up a circular letter from a council of bishops and other clergy to the churches of Ctesiphon and Seleucia[8] and elsewhere (later to become Demonstration 14) is held by William Wright and others to prove that he was a bishop. According to a marginal note in a 14th-century manuscript (B.M. Orient. 1017), he was \"bishop of Mar Mattai,\" a famous monastery near Mosul, but it is unlikely that this institution existed so early.[3]\n\nAbout \"The Demonstrations\"\n\nAphrahat's works are collectively called the Demonstrations, from the identical first word in each of their titles (Syriac: ܬܚܘܝܬܐ, taḥwîṯâ). They are sometimes also known as \"the homilies\". There are twenty-three Demonstrations in all.[1] Each work deals with a different item of faith or practice, and is a pastoral homily or exposition. According to Francis Crawford Burkitt, they are intended to form \"a full and ordered exposition of the Christian faith.\" The standpoint is that of the Syriac-speaking church, before it was touched by the Arian controversy. Beginning with faith as the foundation, the writer proceeds to build up the structure of doctrine and duty.[3]\n\nThe Demonstrations are works of prose, but frequently, Aphrahat employs a poetic rhythm and imagery to his writing. Each of the first twenty-two Demonstrations begins with each successive letter of the Syriac alphabet (of which there are twenty-two). The Demonstrations were not composed all at one time, but in three distinct periods. The first ten, composed in 337, concern themselves with Christian life and church order, and predate the persecutions. Demonstrations 11-22 were composed at the height of the persecution, in 344. Some of this group deal with matters as before, others focus on apocalyptic themes. However, four Demonstrations are concerned with Judaism. It appears that there was a movement within the Persian church by some either to become Jews or return to Judaism, or to incorporate Jewish elements into Christianity. Aphrahat makes his stand by explaining the meaning of the symbols of circumcision, Passover and Shabbat. The twenty-third Demonstration falls outside of the alphabetic system of the early works, and appears to be slightly later, perhaps near the end of Aphrahat's life. The twenty-third piece takes the symbolism of the grape, drawn from Isaiah chapter 65 and elsewhere, as its cue. It deals with the fulfillment of Messianic promise from Adam to Christ.[8] Aphrahat never strays too far from the Bible in the Demonstrations: he is not given to philosophizing. All of his gospel quotations seem to be drawn from the Diatessaron, the gospel harmony that served the church at his time. Aphrahat's mode of biblical interpretation is strikingly similar to that of the Babylonian rabbinic academies of his day. His position within the church is indicated in Demonstration 14, in which Aphrahat appears to be writing a letter on behalf of his synod to the clergy of Persian capital, Ctesiphon-Seleucia on the Tigris.\n\nIn Demonstrations 5, Aphrahat dealt with eschatology. Concerning the beasts of Daniel 7, he identified the first beast as Babylon; the second, Media and Persia; the third, Alexander's Macedonian empire. The four heads of the leopard were the four successors of Alexander. The fourth beast appeared to include both the Macedonian successors of Alexander and the Roman emperors. Its horns he applied to the Seleucid kings down to Antiochus, whom he identified as the Little Horn.[10]\n\nA portion of ‘’Demonstration 11’’ is selected in the Liturgy of the Hours III, Lenten Season and Easter Season for Wednesday during the first week of Lent. The selection explains the theology of the ‘circumcision of the heart’ as the final covenant and inheritance of Christians.\n\nTranslations\n\nThe Demonstrations were originally composed in the Syriac language, but were quickly translated into other languages. The Armenian version, published by Antonelli in 1756 and containing only 19 homilies, circulated mistakenly under the name Jacob of Nisibis. Important versions in Georgian and Ge'ez exist. A few of the Demonstrations were translated into Arabic, but wrongly attributed to Ephrem the Syrian.\n\nOrder and subjects of The Demonstrations\n\nDemonstration on faith - Demonstrations 1-10 were probably written 336-7\n\nDemonstration on charity\n\nDemonstration on fasting\n\nDemonstration on prayer\n\nDemonstration on wars\n\nDemonstration on members of the covenant\n\nDemonstration on penitents\n\nDemonstration on resurrection\n\nDemonstration on humility\n\nDemonstration on pastors\n\nDemonstration on circumcision - Demonstrations 11-22 were probably written 344\n\nDemonstration on the Passover\n\nDemonstration on the Sabbath\n\nDemonstration on preaching\n\nDemonstration on various foods\n\nDemonstration on the call of the Gentiles\n\nDemonstration on Jesus the Messiah\n\nDemonstration on virginity\n\nDemonstration on the dispersion of Israel\n\nDemonstration on almsgiving\n\nDemonstration on persecution\n\nDemonstration on death and the last days\n\nDemonstration concerning the grape - Demonstration 23 was probably written in the winter of 344-5\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b c Kalariparampil, Joseph. \"Aphrahat the Persian Sage\", Dukhrana, August 1, 2014\n\n^ a b Martyrologium Romanum (2004), entry for January 29th\n\n^ a b c d One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: McLean, Norman (1911). \"Aphraates\". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 165-166.\n\n^ McLean 1911, p. 165.\n\n^ DeConik, April (22 September 2011). Holy Misogyny Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 9781441196026.\n\n^ \"Aphrahat\". syriaca.org. Retrieved 2023-09-11.\n\n^ Lehto, Adam (2010). The Demonstrations of Aphrahat, the Persian Sage. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-768-1.\n\n^ a b c Schaff, Philip. \"Aphrahat\", Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. XIII, T&T Clark, Edinburgh\n\n^ Pierre, M.-J., \"Aphraate le sage persan: Les Exposés\", Source Chrétiennes 349 (Paris:1988)\n\n^ Froom 1950, pp. 403-404\n\nReferences\n\nReferences noted in McLean 1911\n\nEditions by W. Wright (London, 1869), and J. Parisot (with Latin translation, Paris, 1894); the ancient Armenian version of 19 homilies edited, translated into Latin, and annotated by Antonelli (Rome, 1756).\n\nTranslations of particular homilies by Gustav Bickell and E. W. Budge; the whole have been translated by G. Bert (Leipzig, 1888).\n\nC. J. F. Sasse, Proleg. in Aphr. Sapientis Persae sermones homileticos (Leipzig, 1879)\n\nJ. Forget, De Vita et Scriptis Aphraatis (Louvain, 1882)\n\nF. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (London, 1904)\n\nJ. Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l'empire perse (Paris, 1904)\n\nFroom, Le Roy Edwin (1950). The prophetic faith of our fathers : the historical development of prophetic interpretation (PDF). Vol. I. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald. ISBN 9780828024563. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nTheodor Zahn, Forschungen I.\n\n\"Aphraates and the Diatessaron,\" vol. ii. pp. 180-186 of Burkitt's Evangelion Da-Mepharreshe (Cambridge, 1904)\n\nArticles on \"Aphraates and Monasticism,\" by R. H. Connolly and Burkitt in Journal of Theological Studies (1905) pp. 522-539, (1906) pp. 10-15\n\nOther sources\n\nM. Lattke, \"„Taufe“ und „untertauchen“ in Aphrahats ܬܚܘܝܬܐ (taḥwyāṯā)\", in Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity = Waschungen, Initiation und Taufe: Spätantike, Frühes Judentum und Frühes Christentum, ed. David Hellholm, Tor Vegge, Øyvind Norderval, Christer Hellholm (BZNW 176/I-III; Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2011) 1115-38.\n\nUrdang, Laurence. Holidays and Anniversaries of the World. Detroit:Gale Research Company, 1985. ISBN 0-8103-1546-7\n\nExternal links\n\nDemonstrations in Syriac with Latin translation.\n\nLexicon and index to Demonstrations.\n\nEnglish Translations of Demonstrations 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 17, 21 and 22\n\nDemonstrations 2 and 7 translated (scroll down)\n\nAudience of Pope Benedict XVI on 21 November 2007"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-aphrahat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1842}, {"slug": "reference-jacob-of-serugh", "title": "Jacob of Serugh", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Jacob of Serugh (Syriac: ܝܥܩܘܒ ܕܣܪܘܓ, romanized: Yaʿquḇ daSruḡ, Classical Syriac pronunciation: [ˌjaˤˈquβ das'ruɣ]; Latin: Iacobus Sarugiensis; c. 452-521), also called Jacob of Sarug or Mar Jacob (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܝܥܩܘܒ, romanized: Mār Yaʿquḇ),[1] was one of the foremost poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition and authors...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nJacob of Serugh\n\nSyriac depiction of Jacob of Serugh, from ancient manuscript\n\nDeacon, Priest, Bishop\n\nBornc. 451 AD\nKurtam on the Euphrates (near Harran)\n\nDied(521-11-29)29 November 521 AD\nBatnan daSrugh, Byzantine Empire\n(modern-day Suruç, Urfa, Turkey)\n\nVenerated inCatholic Church\nOriental Orthodox Church\n\nCanonizedPre-congregation\n\nMajor shrineSt. Mary Church, Diyarbakır\n\nFeast29 November (Roman Catholic, Oriental Orthodox)\n3 Koiak (Coptic calendar)\n\nAttributesStaff, pointed hood, flute\n\nJacob of Serugh (Syriac: ܝܥܩܘܒ ܕܣܪܘܓ, romanized: Yaʿquḇ daSruḡ, Classical Syriac pronunciation: [ˌjaˤˈquβ das'ruɣ]; Latin: Iacobus Sarugiensis; c. 452-521), also called Jacob of Sarug or Mar Jacob (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܝܥܩܘܒ, romanized: Mār Yaʿquḇ),[1] was one of the foremost poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition and authors of Syriac literature, second only to Ephrem the Syrian and equal to Narsai. He lived most of his life as an ecclesiastical official in Suruç, in modern-day Turkey. He became a bishop (of Batnan) near the end of his life in 519.[2] He was a Miaphysite (Oriental Orthodox Non-Chalcedonian Christianity), albeit moderate compared to his contemporaries.[3]\n\nJacob is best known for the homilies he wrote in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. He wrote in prose, as well as in 12-syllable (dodecasyllabic) meter, which he invented, and he was known for his eloquence.[4][5] According to Jacob of Edessa, he composed 763 works during his lifetime. Around 400 survive, and over 200 of those have been published. The longest is about 1,400 verses.[2] By the time of his death, he had a great reputation. His works were so popular that of any author from late antiquity, only the writings of Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom survive in a greater number of manuscripts than Jacob's.[6]\n\nHis work earned him many nicknames, including \"Flute of the Holy Spirit\" (which also belonged to his predecessor Ephrem the Syrian), and \"Lyre of the Believing Church\" (in Antiochene Syriac Orthodox Christianity).[7] Both Non Chalcedonian and Chalcedonian traditions of Christianity now take him as a saint.\n\nLife\n\nJacob was born around the middle of the fifth century in the village of Kurtam (ܟܘܪܬܘܡ) on the Euphrates in the ancient region of Serugh, which stood as the eastern part of the province of Commagene (corresponding to the modern districts of Suruç and Birecik). He was educated in the famous School of Edessa and became chorepiscopus back in the Serugh area, serving rural churches of Haura (ܚܘܪܐ, Ḥaurâ). His tenure of this office extended over a time of great trouble to the Christian population of Mesopotamia, due to the fierce war carried on by the Sasanian emperor Kavadh I within the Roman borders.[8]\n\nIn 519 and at the age of 67, Jacob was elected bishop of the main city of the area, called in Syriac Baṭnān d-Sruḡ (ܒܛܢܢ ܕܣܪܘܓ). As Jacob was born in the same year as the controversial Council of Chalcedon, he lived through the intense rifts that split Eastern Christianity, which led to most Syriac speakers being separated from Chalcedonian Christianity. Even though imperial persecution of anti-Chalcedonians became increasingly brutal towards the end of Jacob's life, he remained surprisingly quiet on such divisive theological and political issues. However, when pressed in correspondence by Paul, bishop of Edessa, he openly expressed dissatisfaction with the proceedings of Chalcedon and overall Dyophysite Christology.[9]\n\nLittle more is known about the life of Jacob, as Jacob's biography was not documented in detail. One contemporary account of his life, the Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, focuses on his vast literary output and its wide distribution:[10]\n\nThe honored Jacob, the periodeutes by whom many homilies were composed on sections of the scriptures and songs and canticles constructed for the time of the locusts, also did not turn away in this time from what was appropriate for him. Rather he wrote admonitory letters to all the cities, making them trust in the salvation of God and encouraging them not to flee.\n\nOne manuscript written two years after his death calls him the \"bishop of Batnae\".[11] Some information about Jacob's life can also be gleaned from his writings. For example, he writes in his correspondence with monastery of Mar Bassus:[12]\n\nForty-five years ago, I was dwelling in the city of Edessa in the study of the divine scriptures, at the time when the writings of the wicked Diodoros were being translated from Greek into Syriac. In the city there was a school of the Persians that adhered to the thought of the foolish Diodoros with much affection, and the whole East was corrupted by that school.\n\nLiterary activity\n\nJacob's style was to write in the genres of metrical homily (mimre) and madroshe (narrative or verse poems without strophies), sugyoto (dialogue poems with an acrostic), and turgome (prose homilies for liturgical feasts).[2]\n\nJacob's literary activity was unceasing. According to Bar Hebraeus (Chron. Eccles. i. 191) he employed 70 amanuenses and wrote in all 760 metrical homilies, besides expositions, letters and hymns of different sorts. Jacob's style was to write in dodecasyllabic metre, dealing mainly with biblical themes, but also on the deaths of Christian martyrs, the fall of the idols and the First Council of Nicaea.[13]\n\nOf Jacob's prose works, which are not nearly so numerous, the most interesting are his letters, which throw light upon some of the events of his time and reveal his attachment to Miaphysitism, which was then struggling for supremacy in the Syriac churches, and particularly at Edessa, over the opposite teaching of Nestorius.[13]\n\nThe Hexaemeron of Jacob of Serugh was the first Hexaemeral work (dedicated commentary to the Genesis creation narrative) to be composed in Syriac.[14] He was followed by other authors, such as Jacob of Edessa's own Hexaemeron.[15]\n\nChristology\n\nJacob of Serugh held a Miaphysite doctrine. Although he was reluctant to directly engage in the controversies over Christology in his time, his homilies contain some apparent criticisms of Chalcedonian Christianity (that is, the group that accepts the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon) and Jacob accepted reconciliation between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian positions in Zeno's Henotikon. Despite his ultimately non-Chalcedonian views, his work was nevertheless widely received across Christological confessions, including among Chalcedonian, Maronite, and Church of the East communities, especially given his homilies general avoidance of overtly polemical terminology, and his use of his vehicles as a vehicle for disseminating complex and technical contemporary debates on Christology to wider audiences in simple terms.[16]\n\nA recurring feature of Jacob's Christological language is the pairing of Christ's \"miracles and sufferings\", a phrase that had become important in post-Chalcedonian controversy through texts such as Leo's Tome and the emperor Zeno's Henotikon. Jacob used this pairing to affirm that the same Christ performed divine acts and underwent human sufferings, while rejecting interpretations that he regarded as dividing Christ into two. Forness identifies four homilies in particular as especially important in showing how Jacob incorporated post-Chalcedonian Christological debate into biblical exposition and catechetical preaching: the Homily on the Council of Chalcedon, the Homily on the Faith, the Homily on \"The Lord will Raise a Prophet\", and the Homily on the Revelation that Simon Received.[17]\n\nPolitical affairs\n\nTowards the end of his life, the fate of Miaphysite leaders such as himself took a turn for the worse with the accession of Justin I (r. 518-527) to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. In response to these affairs, Jacob composed two letters and they were composed in the following context. First, on March 28, 519, Justin adopted a pro-Chalcedonian text known as the Formula of Faith which had been written by Pope Hormisdas a few years beforehand, in 515. However, Paul of Edessa, the bishop of Edessa, refused to sign the text, which led Justin to lay siege to the city in November. Paul was exiled, but after forty days was allowed to be let back into the city in December. Immediately thereafter, Jacob wrote his Letter 32 to Paul. In it, he called Paul a \"confessor\", a title reserved for those who were persecuted but not killed for their faith. Jacob believed that Paul's refusal to sign the text was correct. After a military leader named Patricius invaded Edessa to, Jacob then composed his Letter 35 to the military leader of the city, Bessas. Bessas is praised for his faith which has helped to exalt the city. Jacob recognizes the suffering Bessas had endured for his faith as well and compares him with Abgar of Edessa, the man credited with introducing Christianity to Edessa.[18] To some surprise, aside from praising these two, Jacob also praised the faith of Justin in his letter to Paul: for allowing Paul to return to the city, by comparing him to Abgar, by describing his crown which displays features of the cross of Jesus, and more.[18]\n\nAnother affair that Jacob became somewhat involved in was during the persecutions of the Christian community of Najran under the Jewish Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, which had caused widespread reactions in the world of Syriac Christianity. Between 518 and 521, Jacob composed his Letter to the Himyarites to help extol them for their faith and their endurance. This text is also the only extant literary composition that was sent into pre-Islamic Arabia.[19][20]\n\nReception and memory\n\nSa'id bar Sabuni (d. 1095) wrote an 1106-line metrical homily in his honor, called The Vita of Jacob of Serugh, performed in order to commemorate the day of his death on November 29. Many more lives/Vitas were written for Jacob's memory, like Habib of Edessa's On Jacob of Serugh.[21]\n\nJacob's reputation as an author and composer also led many to write new works in his name, a famous example being the Song of Alexander.[22][23]\n\nQuranic studies\n\nHistorians have long observed that the Quran presents versions of biblical and biblically related stories that differ from, or even do not appear in, the Bible. In recent years, Syriac Christianity has been identified as key intermediary and link, showing that the differences between the two texts slowly emerged during Late Antiquity, especially within circles of Syriac Christians.[24][25] The homilies of Jacob of Serugh, in specific, typically contain some of the closest versions of ideas and narratives compared with those in the Quran, the scripture of Islam, which has made them an increasingly important primary source in field of Quranic studies.[26] Key examples include narrative[27] and eschatology and apocalypse.[28]\n\nWorks\n\nJacob is famous for his metrical homilies, written in 12-syllable (dodecasyllabic) verse. According to Bar Hebraeus, Jacob composed over 760 homilies. About 400 have survived, and almost all have appeared in critical editions, primarily in the 6-volume Bedjan-Brock edition (1905-10, 2006) and the 2-volume Akhrass-Syryany edition (2017). A complete numbered list of Jacob's extant homilies was published in Akhrass 2015.[29] As of 2018, 20% of the homilies in the Bedjan-Brock edition have been translated. An ongoing translation project by Gorgias Press aims to bring his entire corpus into English.[30]\n\nJacob also wrote outside of the genre of metrical homily. Jacob wrote stanzaic poetry (with 25 translated to date),[31] prose homily (8 extant),[32] and other prose works like letters.\n\nManuscripts\n\nJacob's homilies are found in a substantial number of surviving manuscripts. The earliest are from the sixth and seventh centuries, and massive manuscripts have also been recovered produced in the eleventh-thirteenth centuries containing up to two hundred of Jacob's homilies.[33][34] A distinct transmission of manuscripts of Jacob's writings also permeated monastic circles.[35]\n\nCritical editions\n\nPoetry\n\nAll ~400 of the poems of Jacob of Serugh have, today, appeared in published critical editions.\nPaul Bedjan and Sebastian Brock have, together, published critical editions of 211 of Jacob's homilies across six volumes of work.\n\nVolume 1: Homilies 1-32 (Bedjan)\n\nVolume 2: Homilies 33-70 (Bedjan)\n\nVolume 3: Homilies 71-107 (Bedjan)\n\nVolume 4: Homilies 108-146 (Bedjan)\n\nVolume 5: Homilies 147-195 (Bedjan)\n\nVolume 6: Homilies 196-206 (Bedjan), 207-211 (Brock)\n\nThe first five volumes were produced by Bedjan between 1905-1910. In 2006, Brock collected critical editions by Bedjan of a few scattered remaining homilies, and added some of his own, to produce the sixth volume. All six volumes can now be accessed in a single six-volume set by Gorgias Press.[36]\n\nMar Jacobus Sarugensis (1905). Paulus Bedjan (ed.). Homilae selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis (in Syriac and French). Paris: Otto Harrassowitz.\n\nHomilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug (6-volume set)\n\nMiscellaneous contributions by other authors over the years (including Albert, Stothman, Mouterde, Alwan, and others) raised the total to 243 homilies with critical editions.\n\nIn 2017, critical editions were published for Jacob's remaining 160 homilies by Roger Akhrass and Imad Syryany.[37][38]\n\nRoger Akhrass and Imad Syryany, 160 Unpublished Homilies of Jacob of Serugh, 2 vols., Damascus: Department of Syriac Studies\n\nProse\n\nIn total, Jacob is known to have written 43 letters (prose works). A critical edition of all letters was published in 1952 by Gunnar Olinder.\n\nIacobus Sarugensis (1952). G Olinder (ed.). Iacobi Sarugensis epistulae quotquot supersunt. Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Scriptores Syri, v. 57. Louvain.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nTranslations\n\nManuscripts of Jacob's homilies are also found in multiple languages beyond Syriac to which they were translated, including Coptic,[39] Georgian, Armenian, Arabic,[40][41] and Ethiopic.[42] The number of Jacob's works translated into Arabic number over one hundred,[40] and there are over two hundred Armenian manuscripts of them that date from the twelfth to twentieth centuries.[43]\n\nIn modern-times, Behnam Sony has composed a five-volume translation of Jacob's writings into Arabic.[44]\n\nIn European languages, Jacob's writings have been widely translated into English, German, French, and Italian.[45]\n\nFrom the eighteenth century onwards, new discoveries of manuscripts of Jacob's works have sparked no less than three debates over his Christology.[46]\n\nList of translations\n\nHomilies on specific figures\n\nMary, mother of Jesus - Jacob of Serug (1998). Mary Hansbury (ed.). On the Mother of God. Crestwood, New York, US: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 0-88141-184-1. Also - Giacomo de Sarug (1953). Constantino Vona (ed.). Omelie mariologiche. Lateranum: nova ser., an. 19, n. 1-4 (in Italian). Rome: Facultas Theologica Pontificii Athenaei Lateranensis.\n\nWomen whom Jesus met - Susan Ashbrook Harvey; Sebastian P. Brock; Reyhan Durmaz; Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos; Michael Payne; Daniel Picus, eds. (2016). Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the Women whom Jesus Met. Texts from Christian Late Antiquity. Vol. 44. Piscataway, N. J.: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0580-5.\n\nVeil of Moses - Brock, Sebastian Paul (1981). \"Jacob of Serugh on the Veil of Moses\". Sobornost'/Eastern Churches Review. 3 (1): 70-85.\n\nEphrem the Syrian - Jacob of Sarug (1995). Joseph P Amar (ed.). A metrical homily on holy Mar Ephrem. Patrologia Orientalis; t. 47, fasc. 1. Turnhout: Brepols.\n\nSimeon Stylites - Harvey, Susan Ashbrook (1990). \"Memra on Simeon the Stylite\". In Vincent L Wimbush (ed.). Ascetic behavior in Greco-Roman antiquity: a sourcebook. Minneapolis: Fortress. pp. 15-28. ISBN 0-8006-3105-6.\n\nThomas the Apostle - Jakob von Sarug (1976). Werner Strothmann (ed.). Drei Gedichte über den Apostel Thomas in Indien. Göttinger Orientforschungen I Reihe, Syriaca; Bd 12. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-01720-1.\n\nMelchizedek - Thokeparampil, J (1993). \"Memra on Melkizedek\". The Harp. 6: 53-64.\n\nLetters - Bou Mansour, Tanios (1993). La théologie de Jacques de Saroug (in French). Kaslik: Université Saint Esprit.\n\nThomas the Apostle in India - Jacob of Serug (2007). D.P. Curtin (ed.). The Palace built by Thomas the Apostle in India. Philadelphia: Dalcassian. ISBN 9798869093387.\n\nAaron the High Priest - Heal, Kristian (2022). Jacob of Sarug's Homily on Aaron the Priest. Gorgias Press.\n\nAbgar and Addai - Gibson, Kelli (2022). Jacob of Sarug's Homilies on Abgar and Addai. Gorgias Press.\n\nSamson - Miller, Dana (2021). Jacob of Sarug's Homily on Samson. Gorgias Press.\n\nPaul - Hansbury, Mary; Parakkott, Raja (2021). Jacob of Sarug's Homilies on Paul. Gorgias Press.\n\nJonah and the Ninevites - Translation of a partial Armenian translation of a now-lost fuller homily by Jacob. Hilkens, Andy (2024). \"An Armenian Invocational Prayer of a Now Lost Homily of Jacob of Serugh on Jonah and the Ninevites\". Journal of Theological Studies. doi:10.1093/jts/flae003.\n\nHomilies on creation\n\nFour homilies on creation. Jaques de Saroug (1989). Khalil Alwan (ed.). Quatre homélies métriques sur la création. Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Scriptores Syri. 0070-0452; t.214, 215 (in French). Leuven: Peeters.\n\nHomily on the seven days of creation translated by Edward G. Mathews Jr.:\n\nFirst day: Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The first day. Gorgias Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1607243236.\n\nSecond day of creation. Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The second day. Gorgias Press. 2016.\n\nThird day. Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The third day. Gorgias Press. 2016.\n\nFourth day. Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The fourth day. Gorgias Press. 2018.\n\nFifth day. Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The fifth day. Gorgias Press. 2019.\n\nSixth day. Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The sixth day. Gorgias Press. 2020.\n\nSeventh day. Jacob of Sarug's homilies on the six days of creation. The seventh day. Gorgias Press. 2021.\n\nJacob of Serugh's Hexaemeron. Muraoka, T (2018). Jacob of Serugh's Hexaemeron. Peeters.\n\nOther homilies\n\nProse homilies (turgame) - Jacques de Saroug (1986). Frédéric Rilliet (ed.). Six homélies festales en prose. Patrologia Orientalis; t. 43, fasc. 4 (in French). Turnhout: Brepols.\n\nStanzaic poetry - Brock, Sebastian (2022). The Stanzaic Poems of Jacob of Serugh: A Collection of His Madroshe and Sughyotho. Gorgias Press.\n\nPrayers - Hansbury, Mary (2015). The Prayers of Jacob of Serugh. SLG Press.\n\nSeven homilies against the Jews, of which the sixth takes the form of a dispute (ܣܓܝܬܐ sāḡiṯâ) between personifications of the Synagogue and the Church - Jacques de Saroug (1976). Micheline Albert (ed.). Homélies contre les Juifs. Patrologia Orientalis; t. 38, fasc. 1 (in French). Turnhout: Brepols.\n\nOn the dominical feasts - Jacob of Serugh (1997). Thomas Kollamparampil (ed.). Select festal homilies. Bangalore and Rome: Dharmaram and Centre for Indian and Inter-Religious Studies.\n\nConcerning the red heifer - Alibertis, Demetrios (2022). Jacob of Sarug's Homily Concerning the Red Heifer and the Crucifixion of our Lord. Gorgias Press.\n\nGod's love towards humanity and the just - Sirgy, Dominique (2022). Jacob of Sarug's Homily on the Love of God towards Humanity and of the Just towards God. Gorgias Press.\n\nSeeking above outer darkness - Sirgy, Dominique (2022). Jacob of Sarug's Homily on Paul's Word to Seek What is Above and on Outer Darkness. Gorgias Press.\n\nEdessa and Jerusalem - Loopstra, Jonathan (2021). Jacob of Sarug's Homily on Edessa and Jerusalem. Gorgias Press.\n\nList of homilies\n\nHomilies of Jacob of Serugh (numbering of Akhrass 2015[47])\n\nNumber\nName\n\n1\nAdmonition\n\n2\nOn Sinai\n\n3\nConsecration of Church and Moses\n\n4\nBronze serpent\n\n5\nAaron\n\n6\nStar of Magi, Innocents\n\n7\nThree Baptisms\n\n8\nBaptism of Christ\n\n9\nBaptism\n\n10\nLord’s prayer\n\n11\nMatthew 19: 16\n\n12\nProdigal son\n\n13\nPharisee and Publican\n\n14\nWorkers in Vineyard\n\n15\nZacchaeus\n\n16\nDives and Lazarus\n\n17\nCanaanite woman\n\n18\nPalm Sunday\n\n19\n“Who do people say I am?”\n\n20\nGet thee behind me, Satan\n\n21\nDenial of Peter\n\n22\nDeparted\n\n23\nFast, 1\n\n24\nFast, 2\n\n25\nFast, 3\n\n26\nLove\n\n27\nAdmonition\n\n28\nRepentance\n\n29\nRepentance and admonition\n\n30\nMatthew 16: 26\n\n31\nEnd\n\n32\nEnd and Judgement\n\n33\nTower of Babel\n\n34\nDavid and Goliath\n\n35\nElisha’s bones\n\n36\nDaniel 2, Daniel and Companions\n\n37\nAnnunciation to Zechariah\n\n38\nJohn 1:1\n\n39\nOnly-Begotten Word\n\n40\nEmmanuel\n\n41\nPsalm 110: 4\n\n42\nReception of Mysteries\n\n43\nChrist as food and drink\n\n44\nLeper\n\n45\nHealing of centurion’s son\n\n46\nSamaritan woman\n\n47\nMan who fell among thieves\n\n48\nThree dead persons raised by our Lord\n\n49\nTransfiguration\n\n50\nTen virgins\n\n51\nSinful woman whose sins were forgiven\n\n52\nThief on right hand\n\n53\nCrucifixion\n\n54\nResurrection\n\n55\nResurrection\n\n56\nMartyrs\n\n57\nNew Sunday and Thomas\n\n58\nPentecost\n\n59\nMatthew 19: 27\n\n60\nJohn the Evangelist\n\n61\nPaul, 1\n\n62\nPaul, 2\n\n63\nLove of God\n\n64\nPride\n\n65\nHaughtiness\n\n66\nLove of poor\n\n67\nEnd\n\n68\nEnd and judgment\n\n69\nDeparted, 6\n\n70\nConsolation for priests\n\n71\nCreation\n\n72\nCreation of Adam\n\n73\nBlessings of Isaac\n\n74\nJacob at Bethel\n\n75\nOn our Lord and Jacob, and on Rachel and the Church, and on Leah and the Synagogue\n\n76\nTwo sparrows\n\n77\nRed Heifer\n\n78\nTwo Goats\n\n79\nVeil of Moses\n\n80\nSymbols of Christ\n\n81\nChrist’s 30 years\n\n82\nOur Lord and Satan\n\n83\nBeatitudes\n\n84\nDo not swear\n\n85\n‘Foxes have their holes…’\n\n86\nKingdom as leaven\n\n87\nFive loaves and two fishes\n\n88\nBlind Timaeus\n\n89\nWidow’s mites\n\n90\nProdigal son\n\n91\nJairus’ daughter\n\n92\nWidow of Nain’s son resuscitated\n\n93\nRaising of Lazarus\n\n94\nFaith\n\n95\nReception of Mysteries\n\n96\nBeheading of John the Baptist\n\n97\nJohn the Baptist\n\n98\nStephen\n\n99\nThomas\n\n100\nThomas’ castle in India\n\n101\nFall of idols\n\n102\nAgainst drunkenness\n\n103\nLove of money\n\n104\nVanity of vanities\n\n105\nCol 3:1-2\n\n106\nPsalm 148\n\n107\nMorning and evening praise\n\n108\nFlood\n\n109\nAbraham and his types\n\n110\n‘The Lord will raise up a prophet…’\n\n111\nJudgement of Solomon\n\n112\nElijah, 2 (Elijah’s flight from Jezebel)\n\n113\nElijah, 3 (Naboth)\n\n114\nElijah, 4\n\n115\nAscension of Elijah\n\n116\nElisha, 1\n\n117\nElisha, 2\n\n118\nElisha, 3 (Elisha and Shunamite)\n\n119\nElisha, 4\n\n120\nElisha, 5\n\n121\nElisha, 6\n\n122\nJonah\n\n123\nDaniel 1, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar\n\n124\nDaniel, 3\n\n125\nOn the Chariot that Ezekiel saw\n\n126\nTemptation of Christ\n\n127\nKingdom as mustard seed\n\n128\nCamel and needle’s eye\n\n129\nMiracles of our Lord\n\n130\nMan with legion of demons\n\n131\nParalytic aged 38\n\n132\nCursed fig tree\n\n133\nParable of Vineyard\n\n134\nConsecration of Church\n\n135\nAssembly of bishops\n\n136\nSingle Lawgiver of OT and NT\n\n137\nSolitaries, 1\n\n138\nSolitaries, 2\n\n139\nPraise at table, 1\n\n140\nPraise at table, 2\n\n141\nPraise at table, 3\n\n142\nPraise at table, 4\n\n143\nPraise at table, 5\n\n144\nPraise at table, 6\n\n145\nPraise at table, 7\n\n146\nPraise at table, 8\n\n147\nCain and Abel, 1\n\n148\nCain and Abel, 2\n\n149\nCain and Abel, 3\n\n150\nCain and Abel, 4\n\n151\nSodom, 1\n\n152\nSodom, 2\n\n153\nSodom, 3\n\n154\nSodom, 4\n\n155\nMelkizedek and symbols of our Lord\n\n156\nJob 7:7\n\n157\nJob\n\n158\nMoses’ extended hands\n\n159\nJephtha’s daughter\n\n160\nSamson, 1\n\n161\nSamson, 2\n\n162\nKing David and Uriah\n\n163\nKing Uzziah and Isaiah\n\n164\nEzekiel and torrent\n\n165\nPresentation in Temple\n\n166\nLuke 2: 34\n\n167\nMiracle at Cana\n\n168\nTreasure in field\n\n169\nLuke 13:11\n\n170\nSick woman\n\n171\nMatthew 22:2\n\n172\nWoman with seven husbands\n\n173\nFive talents\n\n174\nEntry of Jerusalem\n\n175\nPassover in the Law\n\n176\nDeath and Satan\n\n177\nCherub and Thief\n\n178\nThird appearance of Christ\n\n179\nLame man healed by Simon and John\n\n180\nEdessa and Jerusalem\n\n181\nGeorge\n\n182\nAdmonition\n\n183\nDeparted, 2\n\n184\nDeparted\n\n185\nConsolation for the departed (Departed, 7)\n\n186\nConsolation for the departed (Departed, 3)\n\n187\nDeparted, 5\n\n188\nDeparted, 8\n\n189\nDeparted children\n\n190\nDeparted\n\n191\nDeparted Daughter of Covenant\n\n192\nEnd, 1\n\n193\nEnd, 2\n\n194\nEnd, 4\n\n195\nEnd, 5\n\n196\nMary\n\n197\nAnnunciation\n\n198\nVisitation\n\n199\nMary’s virginity\n\n200\nDeath of Virgin\n\n201\nNativity\n\n202\nNativity, 2\n\n203\nNativity\n\n204\nAscension\n\n205\nVirginity\n\n206\nCouncil of Nicaea\n\n207\nThamar\n\n208\nConversion of Antioch\n\n209\nConstantine\n\n210\nSleepers of Ephesus\n\n211\nChalcedon\n\n212\nMary and Golgotha\n\n213\nStrangers\n\n214\nSpectacles of the Theatre\n\n215\nProphet Hosea\n\n216\nThomas, 2\n\n217\nThomas, 3\n\n218\nAgainst Jews, 1\n\n219\nAgainst Jews, 2\n\n220\nAgainst Jews, 3\n\n221\nAgainst Jews, 4\n\n222\nAgainst Jews, 5\n\n223\nAgainst Jews, 6\n\n224\nAgainst Jews, 7\n\n225\nPriesthood and altar\n\n226\nAlexander\n\n227\nGen. 1:26 and Nativity\n\n228\nAdam created mortal or immortal\n\n229\nAdam’s expulsion from Paradise\n\n230\nBody and soul\n\n231\nEdessa\n\n232\n[Fragment]\n\n233\nSharbel\n\n234\nShmona and Gurya\n\n235\nHabib\n\n236\nEphrem\n\n237\nSymeon the Stylite\n\n238\nSergius and Bacchus\n\n239\nForty Martyrs of Sebaste\n\n240\nDeparted\n\n241\nAnnunciation\n\n242\nElijah, 1\n\n243\nMyron\n\n244\nOn Isaiah 9: 6\n\n245\nChrist’s incomprehensibility and against Diphysites\n\n246\nNativity\n\n247\nNativity\n\n248\nMartyrion of St Stephen made into a fire shrine when they entered Amid\n\n249\n‘Are you the one who comes…?’\n\n250\nJuliana Saba\n\n251\nRepentance, 3\n\n252\nPeter’s coin from the fish\n\n253\nChrist walking on water\n\n254\nOn the deaf, blind and possessed\n\n255\nPalm Sunday\n\n256\nSymbols of our Lord in OT\n\n257\nCrucifixion\n\n258\nCrucifixion\n\n259\nOn Matthew 12: 43\n\n260\nCrucifixion, 4\n\n261\nCrucifixion, 2\n\n262\nChurch and Crucifixion\n\n263\nCrucifixion, 6\n\n264\nThe two thieves\n\n265\nCrucifixion, 7 (Burial of Christ)\n\n266\nChrist’s Descent to Sheol\n\n267\nMoses’ extended hands\n\n268\nFinding of the Cross\n\n269\nResurrection of our Lord\n\n270\nGuard of soldiers and resurrection\n\n271\nAnanias and Sapphira\n\n272\nAbgar\n\n273\nAddai and Abgar\n\n274\nApostles\n\n275\nConversion of Rome by Peter\n\n276\nMartyrs (in general)\n\n277\nZacchaeus, apostle and bishop of Myra\n\n278\nAbhai\n\n279\nDimet\n\n280\nLaurentios, Agrippas and their 12000 companions\n\n281\nOn Barsauma\n\n282\nPatron saint\n\n283\nMaccabean Martyrs\n\n284\nThomas, 7:7\n\n285\nBurial of Moses\n\n286\nBurial of priests\n\n287\nDeparted, 1\n\n288\nDeparted, 4\n\n289\nDeparted, 9\n\n290\nThe End, 1 and on Ezekiel’s vision\n\n291\nThe End, 7\n\n292\nThe End, 9\n\n293\nThe End, 10 (Antichrist)\n\n294\nEnd, 10\n\n295\nKingdom and Gehenna\n\n296\nPraise at table, 9\n\n297\nAdmonition and plague of locusts\n\n298\nEvening praise\n\n299\nNight praise\n\n300\nMorning praise, 1\n\n301\nMorning praise, 2\n\n302\nPraise with the lamp’s light\n\n303\nPraise with the incense smoke\n\n304\nBetrothal of Rebecca\n\n305\nJacob’s rods\n\n306\nJoseph, 1\n\n307\nJoseph, 2\n\n308\nJoseph, 3\n\n309\nJoseph, 4\n\n310\nJoseph, 5\n\n311\nJoseph, 6\n\n312\nJoseph, 7\n\n313\nJoseph, 8\n\n314\nJoseph, 9\n\n315\nJoseph, 10\n\n316\nMoses, 1\n\n317\nMoses, 2 (Moses and Burning Bush)\n\n318\nMoses, 3\n\n319\nMoses, 4 (Moses and Exodus)\n\n320\nMoses, 5 (Moses and water of Marah)\n\n321\nMoses, 6 (Moses and manna and the rock)\n\n322\nMoses, 9 (Adultery of Synagogue)\n\n323\nSacrifices\n\n324\nSeparation of foods\n\n325\nBalaam and Balak\n\n326\nOn the blessed Phinehas who prayed and kept back the plague\n\n327\nJoshua and on the Mysteries of our Lord and his Church\n\n328\nOn Rahab the harlot\n\n329\nOn Achan son of Carmi\n\n330\nOn Gideon\n\n331\nOn the Ark of the Covenant, when the Philistines took it (1 Samuel 4-7)\n\n332\nOn Uzzah when he stayed the ark of God\n\n333\nDavid and Uriah\n\n334\nDavid, 3 (On that which is said: “And the anger of the Lord was against Israel and he incited David”, 2 Samuel 24:1)\n\n335\nKing Asa\n\n336\nDaniel 4, Daniel and Belshazzar\n\n337\nDaniel 5, Daniel in the lions’ den\n\n338\nFaith, 2\n\n339\nFaith, 4\n\n340\nFaith, 6\n\n341\nFaith, 7 (Body of Christ passible before resurrection)\n\n342\nFaith, 8\n\n343\nFaith, 10\n\n344\nParable of ten coins and hundred sheep\n\n345\nAdmonition, against blasphemers\n\n346\nThe complaint of the poor\n\n347\nReprimand\n\n348\n1 Timothy 2: 5\n\n349\nGa 6: 14\n\n350\nDay and night, work and rest\n\n351\nDestruction of Amid\n\n352\nDestruction of Jerusalem\n\n353\n[Untitled]\n\n354\nSupplication while he was still young\n\n355\nOn Joseph\n\n356\nGeneral eulogy\n\n357\nBeginning of Lent\n\n358\nOn Sabbat\n\n359\nCanaanite woman\n\n360\nOn the boat\n\n361\nOn the man who had a withered hand\n\n362\nCrucifixion\n\n363\nPassion of our Lord\n\n364\nCrucifixion\n\n365\nSaturday of Annunciation\n\n366\nSunday of resurrection\n\n367\nFor the fourth Sunday after resurrection\n\n368\nFor the fifth Sunday after resurrection\n\n369\nFor the seventh Sunday after resurrection\n\n370\nFor the eighth Sunday after resurrection\n\n371\nOn Holy Mary, Mother of God\n\n372\nOn Repentance\n\n373\nTheodore\n\n374\nOn saints\n\n375\nOn Friday of confessors and martyrs\n\n376\nOn priests\n\n377\nOn deacons\n\n378\nOn strangers\n\n379\nOn the resurrection of the repentants\n\n380\nOn Women\n\n381\nConsolation for departed\n\n382\nHour of death\n\n383\nPetition on the crucifixion of our Lord\n\n384\nMeeting of the apostles at the departure of their Lord’s Mother\n\n385\nVirgin Mary\n\n386\n[Fragment]\n\n387\n[Fragment]\n\n388\nLove of world and faith\n\n389\nSatan\n\n390\nOn excommunication\n\n391\nAgainst Nestorius\n\n392\nBehnam I\n\n393\nBehnam II\n\n394\nOrthodox faith\n\n395\nDispensation of the Word\n\n396\nMorning hymn (heptasyllabic)\n\n397\nMt 13, 47\n\n398\nOn the Bell Clapper, Concerning the Admonition to Prayer\n\n399\nOn lack of rain\n\n400\nFragment of an unidentified mimro\n\n401\nOn admonition\n\n402\nFinding of Cross\n\n403\nRepentance and blame of soul and body\n\n404\nAdmonition (Prose Homily)\n\n405\nAdmonition (Prose Homily)\n\n406\nOn humility\n\n407\nOn the soul of man\n\n408\nSacrifices of Jews and Armenians\n\nSee also\n\nEastern Christianity\n\nLetter to the Himyarites\n\nOriental Orthodoxy\n\nRomanos the Melodist\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian (2011). \"Yaʿqub of Serugh\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition.\n\n^ a b c Chatonnet & Debié 2023, p. 150-151.\n\n^ Forness 2022, p. 156.\n\n^ Hilkens 2020, p. 65.\n\n^ Dinno 2010.\n\n^ Forness 2022, p. 156-157.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian (2011). \"Yaʿqub of Serugh\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition.\n\n^ McLean 1911, pp. 114-115.\n\n^ Menze, Volker L. (2023). Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria: The Last Pharaoh and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Later Roman Empire (PDF). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192871336.\n\n^ Forness 2019, p. 4.\n\n^ Forness 2019, p. 8.\n\n^ Forness 2019, p. 5.\n\n^ a b McLean 1911, p. 115.\n\n^ Tumara 2024, p. 170.\n\n^ Romeny 2008, pp. 146-147.\n\n^ Forness 2018, pp. 10-18. sfn error: no target: CITEREFForness2018 (help)\n\n^ Forness 2018. sfn error: no target: CITEREFForness2018 (help)\n\n^ a b Forness 2022.\n\n^ Forness 2019, p. 115-131.\n\n^ Durmaz 2022, p. 75.\n\n^ Kitchen 2023, p. 81.\n\n^ Reinink, Gerrit J. (2003). \"Alexander the Great in Seventh-Century Syriac 'Apocalyptic' Texts\". Byzantinorossica. 2: 150-178.\n\n^ Tesei 2023, p. 22.\n\n^ Witzum 2009. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWitzum2009 (help)\n\n^ Reynolds 2010.\n\n^ Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie d. Wissenschaften (9 March 2022). Echoes of Jacob of Serugh in the Qur'ān and Late Antique Reading Culture. Retrieved 14 January 2026 - via YouTube.\n\n^ Reynolds 2018, p. 451-458.\n\n^ Sinai 2017.\n\n^ Akhrass 2015, p. 133.\n\n^ Gorgias Press (28 June 2018). \"Jacob of Sarug in English Translation\".\n\n^ Brock 2022.\n\n^ Forness 2020b, p. 97n22.\n\n^ Butts 2020, p. 91.\n\n^ Forness 2020, p. 55-58, 77-79.\n\n^ Forness 2020.\n\n^ \"Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug / Homiliae Selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis (6-volume set)\". Gorgias Press LLC. Retrieved 22 April 2025.\n\n^ Akhrass 2015, p. 87.\n\n^ McConaughy 2024, p. 2.\n\n^ Suciu 2015.\n\n^ a b Butts 2020, p. 91-92.\n\n^ Hilkens 2020.\n\n^ Witold Witakowski, “Jacob of Serug,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Volume 3: HE-N, ed. Siegbert Uhlig (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 262-63.\n\n^ Hilkens 2020, p. 73.\n\n^ Behnam Sony, Tarǧama min al-suryāniyya ilā l-ʿarabiyya wa-dirāsa ʿalā mayāmir al-malfān mār Yaʿqūb al-sarūǧī, 5 vols., Baghdad, [s.n.], 2003.\n\n^ Forness 2020, p. 52-53.\n\n^ Forness 2022b.\n\n^ Akhrass 2015.\n\nSources\n\nAkhrass, Roger (2015). \"A list of Homilies of Mor Jacob of Serugh\". Syriac Patriarchal Orthodox Journal. 53: 87-161.\n\nButts, Aaron Michael (2020). \"Diversity in the Christian Arabic Reception of Jacob of Serugh (d. 521)\". In Roggema, Barbara; Treiger, Alexander (eds.). Patristic Literature in Arabic Translations. Brill. pp. 89-128.\n\nChatonnet, Françoise Briquel; Debié, Muriel (2023). The Syriac World: In Search of a Forgotten Christianity. Yale University Press.\n\nDinno, Khalid (2010). \"Jacob of Serugh, the Man Behind the Mimre\". In Kiraz, George (ed.). Jacob of Serugh and His Times: Studies in Sixth-Century Syriac Christianity. De Gruyter. pp. 51-69.\n\nDurmaz, Reyhan (2022). Stories Between Christianity and Islam: Saints, Memory, and Cultural Exchange in Late Antiquity and Beyond. University of California Press.\n\nForness, Michael (2019). Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh. Oxford University Press.\n\nForness, Philip Michael (2020). \"New Textual Evidence for Jacob of Serugh's Letters: An Analysis and Collation of Five Monastic Miscellanies\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 20 (1): 51-128.\n\nForness, Michael (2020b). \"The Construction of Metrical Poetry in the Homilies of Narsai of Nisibis and Jacob of Serugh\". In Butts, Aaron; Heal, Kristian; Kitchen, Robert (eds.). Narsai: Rethinking his Work and World. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 93-116.\n\nForness, Philip Michael (2022). \"Faithful Rulers and Theological Deviance: Ephrem the Syrian and Jacob of Serugh on the Roman Emperor\". In Forness, Philip Michael; Hasse-Ungeheuer, Alexandra; Leppin, Hartmut (eds.). The Good Christian Ruler in the First Millennium. pp. 141-167.\n\nForness, Philip Michael (2022b). \"Manuscript Discoveries and Debates over Orthodoxy in Early Christian Studies: The Case of the Syriac Poet-Theologian Jacob of Serugh\". Harvard Theological Review. 115 (3): 416-440.\n\nHilkens, Andy (2020). \"The Armenian Reception of the Homilies of Jacob of Serugh: New Findings\". In Toca, Madalina; Batovici, Dan (eds.). Caught in Translation: Studies on Versions of Late-Antique Christian Literature. Brill. pp. 64-84.\n\nKitchen, Robert (2023). \"Teaching Lions to Fast: Jacob of Serugh on Daniel 6\". In Klein, Elizabeth; De Cock, Miriam (eds.). Patristic Exegesis in Context Exploring the Genres of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation. Catholic University of America Press. pp. 76-98.\n\nMcConaughy, Daniel (2024). Jacob of Sarug's Homily on the Entrance of Our Lord into Sheol. Gorgias Press.\n\nReynolds, Gabriel Said (2010). The Qur'an and its Biblical Subtext. Routledge.\n\nReynolds, Gabriel Said (2018). The Qur'an and the Bible: Text and Commentary. Yale University Press.\n\nRomeny, Bas Ter Haar (2008). \"Jacob of Edessa on Genesis: His Quotations of the Peshitta and his Revision of the Text\". In Romeny, Bas Ter Haar (ed.). Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day. Brill. pp. 145-158.\n\nSinai, Nicolai (2017). \"The Eschatological Kerygma of the Early Qur'an\" (PDF). In Amirav, Hagit; Grypeou, Emmanouela; Strousma, Guy (eds.). Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity: Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th-8th Centuries. Peeters. pp. 219-266.\n\nSuciu, Alin (2015). \"The Sahidic Version of Jacob of Serugh's Memrā on the Ascension of Christ\". Le Muséon. 128 (1-2): 49-83.\n\nTesei, Tommaso (2023). The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate. Oxford University Press.\n\nTumara, Nebojsa (2024). \"Creation in Syriac Christianity\". In Goroncy, Jason (ed.). T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 164-175.\n\nWitzum, Joseph (2011). The Syriac Milieu of the Quran.\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: McLean, Norman (1911). \"Jacob of Sĕrūgh\". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 114-115.\n\nFurther reading\n\nKiraz, George (ed). Jacob of Serugh and His Times: Studies in Sixth-Century Syriac Christianity. Gorgias Press, 2010.\n\nForness, Philip Michael. Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh. Oxford University Press, 2019.\n\nExternal links\n\nArabic translations of Jacob's sermons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jacob-of-serugh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5753}, {"slug": "reference-barhebraeus", "title": "Barhebraeus", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Gregory Barhebraeus or Bar Hebraeus (Syriac: ܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ, romanised: Grīgōrīyōs bar ʿEbrāyā; 1226 - 30 July 1286), also known as Abu al-Faraj and in Latin, Abulpharagius, was the maphrian Catholicos of the East (regional primate) of the Catholicate of the East under the Syriac Orthodox Church from...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mār\nGregory Barhebraeus\n\nܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ\n\nBarhebraeus absorbed in study\n\nBorn1226 (1226)\nʿEbra, near Malatya, Sultanate of Rûm (modern-day Malatya, Turkey)\n\nDied30 July, 1286 (aged 59-60)\nMaragha, Persia\n\nPhilosophical work\n\nEraMedieval era\n\nRegionChristian theology, Western philosophy\n\nSchoolSyriac Christianity\n\nMain interestsChristian theology, logic, metaphysics, medicine, history\n\nMaphrian (Catholicos of the East)\n\nChurchSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nDioceseTagrit\n\nSeeAntioch\n\nIn office1264-1286\n\nPredecessorIgnatius Sleeba III\n\nSuccessorGregory Barsauma\n\nOrders\n\nOrdination1264\nby Ignatius IV Yeshu\n\nRankMaphrian\n\nPersonal details\n\nBorn1226 (1226)\nMelitene, Sultanate of Rûm\n\nDied30 July 1286(1286-07-30) (aged 59-60)\nMaragha, Persia\n\nSainthood\n\nFeast day30 July\n\nVenerated inOriental Orthodox Church, especially Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nShrinesMor Mattai Monastery\n\nGregory Barhebraeus or Bar Hebraeus (Syriac: ܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ, romanised: Grīgōrīyōs bar ʿEbrāyā; 1226 - 30 July 1286), also known as Abu al-Faraj and in Latin, Abulpharagius, was the maphrian Catholicos of the East (regional primate) of the Catholicate of the East under the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1264 until his death in 1286. He is recognised as one of the most accomplished and multifaceted academics of the medieval Syriac Christian world, with important contributions to the fields of theology, philosophy, history, linguistics, medicine, and the natural sciences.\n\nBarhebraeus was born in Melitene (modern-day Malatya) during the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. He experienced the shifting borders of the early Mongol era, Ayyubid rule, and Crusader dominions. Barhebraeus's early education in medicine and logic was influenced by his father Aaron's experience serving in the upper echelons of the Mongol armies as a physician and deacon. Later in life, he was ordained bishop and soon elevated to maphrian, under which he travelled across the Middle East, engaged in scholarship, and sought to support his community through the difficult 13th-century period.\n\nThe monumental chronicle, a universal history written in Syriac and translated into Arabic under the title Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, was part of Barhebraeus's vast body of work. In addition, he produced important theological and ascetic treatises, medical books, grammars, and encyclopaedic works like the \"Cream of Wisdom\" (Hewath Hekhemtho). Barhebraeus's writings were read by a wide range of intellectual circles outside of his Syriac Orthodox community, including Christians of different denominations, Muslim scholars, Latin orientalists, and later found in academic archives in Europe.\n\nThe immense scholarship brought forth by Barhebraeus revitalised Syriac literature at a time when it was in decline and bridged Christian, Islamic, and classical traditions, which earned him epithets such as the \"Ocean of Wisdom\", \"Light of East and West\", and \"King of Learned Men\". He is commemorated with great honour as a saint in the Oriental Orthodox Churches and especially in the Syriac Orthodox tradition where his feast is celebrated on 30 July, the date of his repose, and his relics at Mor Mattai Monastery remain a popular pilgrimage site.\n\nName\n\nThe name Barhebraeus (Syriac: ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ‎, romanised: Bar ʿEbrāyā) literally means 'Son of the Hebrew', and although the phrase might suggest Jewish ancestry, this interpretation is almost unanimously rejected by modern scholars.[1] There is no evidence of Jewish elements in his writings and his family background was Christian, noble, and clerical; his father, Aaron, was a deacon-whose name, despite its Hebrew origin, was common among Christians of the region and period.[2][3]\n\nBarhebraeus himself addressed the misunderstanding in a short epigram:\n\nIf the Lord called himself a Samaritan, do not be ashamed when they call you Bar ʿEbrāyā. For the name has to do with the Euphrates and with the river, not with the false religion or with the language.[4]\n\nPatriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum interpreted the epithet as originating from the circumstances of his birth, that his mother gave birth to him while crossing the Euphrates, the Syriac word ʿbar also meaning 'crossing'. Modern scholars, however, associate it with a village named ʿEbra (modern-day Elazığ) near Melitene, situated on the banks of the Euphrates River.[1][5]\n\nHis Arabic name Abu'l-Faraj appears in his own usage for the first time on the eve of his episcopal ordination, which means that Gregory (Grigorios) was his episcopal name, while Abu'l-Faraj was his earlier personal designation.[6]\n\nE. W. Budge states that Barhebraeus was given the baptismal name John (Syriac: ܝܘܚܢܢ, romanised: Yōḥanān),[3] but modern scholarship suggests that this might be the result of confusion with Gregory John of Bartelli. Still, the inscription on his grave at Mor Mattai Monastery reads: \"This is the grave of Mar Gregory John, and of Mar Bar Sawma, his brother, the children of the Hebrew [plural of Bar ʿEbrāyā] on Mount Elpeph\".[7][8]\n\nLife\n\nEarly life\n\nBarhebraeus was born in 1225 or 1226 AD under the rule of the Rum Seljuks and lived through a succession of regimes including the Crusaders, the Ayyubids, and later the Mongols. He was a native of Melitene (modern-day Malatya), then a major metropolitan and cultural centre of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[9]\n\nHis father, Aaron (Arabic: هارون بن توما الملطي, romanised: Hārūn bin Tūmā al-Malaṭī)[10] was both a deacon and a renowned physician, known to have treated the Mongol general Yasaʾur during the siege of Melitene. This profession placed the family among the patrician class, to which his mother also belonged.[11] He had at least one brother Safi (often called Barsauma) and probably three more named Michael, Muwaffaq, and Quphar. Barsauma's monastic name was later changed to Gregory upon ordination.[12] \n\nThe family remained in Melitene until 1242-1243. After Aaron's medical service to Yasaʾur, they moved to Antioch, where Barhebraeus continued his studies, and at around seventeen years of age, he became a monk and began to live as a hermit upon ordination by Patriarch Ignatius III David.[6][13] Influenced by his father, Barhebraeus left Antioch and travelled to Tripoli, a Crusader state at the time, to begin his study of medicine[14] alongside Saliba bar Jacob Wajih of Edessa-the future Maphrian Ignatius IV (1253-1258).[15] His expertise eventually secured him the position of personal physician to Hulagu Khan, which was a remarkable achievement.[16] He later undertook practical training in Damascus under Jamal al-Din ibn al-Rahbi al-Dimashqi at the Nur al-Din Hospital.[17]\n\nEpiscopate\n\nBarhebraeus was first ordained bishop of Gubbos by Patriarch Ignatius David III,[13] and soon after transferred to Laqabin, both near Melitene,[18] where he was ordained maphrian.[19] He supported Dionysius VII ʿAngur (r. 1252-1261) in his conflict with John XIII bar Maʿdani (r. maphrian 1232-1252; r. patriarch 1252-1263). As a reward, Dionysius appointed him bishop of Aleppo.[20] His tenure was short-lived, however, as his former colleague Saliba bar Jacob Wajih (now Maphrian Ignatius IV) sided with John bar Maʿdani and succeeded in having him expelled. Barhebraeus briefly resided with his father in Aleppo, then moved to Mar Barsawma Monastery, where Dionysius resided.[21] In 1258 he travelled to Damascus to secure reinstatement for himself and Dionysius, aided by the Melitene-born physician Qir Michael bar Gabras. He was present in Aleppo in January 1260 when the Mongols invaded; his attempt to spare his people, in vain, led to temporary detainment in Qalʿat al-Najm. He was eventually released and reconciled with John bar Maʿdani.[21]\n\nUnlike earlier maphrians who had resided in the Levant to escape persecution, thereby neglecting their home dioceses, Barhebraeus chose to live among his flock in Tagrit and at times in the nearby Monastery of Mor Mattai, even amidst the violent persecutions under the Mongols and Mamluks in the thirteenth century.[22]\n\nFrom 1260 to 1264 Barhebraeus served at the Mongol court as personal physician to Hulagu Khan before being elected maphrian by Ignatius IV at Sis in Cilicia on 19/20 January 1264.[23] The ceremony was grand, attended by King Hethum II, his brothers and sons, Armenian high priests, and dignitaries from many nations and faiths, along with a large assembly of Syriac Orthodox bishops and laymen.[3] Afterwards, he travelled widely throughout Mesopotamia and Iranian Azerbaijan, particularly between Nineveh (where he probably stayed at Mor Mattai Monastery) and the cities of Tabriz and Maragha, centres of the Ilkhanid court and learning.[24]\n\nDeath\n\nBarhebraeus wrote in one poem: \"O' net of the world, in 1226 your trap caught me, and I think in 1286 I will not be in you\". In 1286, he travelled to Tabriz and completed an Arabic translation of the Syriac work The Political History of the World within thirty days.[3]\n\nSoon after, in Maragha, he fell ill with a fever two days before his death and, as he predicted, died on the night of Tuesday, 30 July, 1286, in the presence of his brother Barsauma and many others. A grand funeral was held in Maragha, and Catholicos Yahballaha III (1282-1317) of the Church of the East declared a public day of mourning attended by Christians of various denominations. His remains were interred beneath an altar in the Maragha church and later translated to Mor Mattai Monastery, where they are kept today alongside his brother's.[3][25][26]\n\nLegacy\n\nHe was ordained monk in 1244, bishop in 1246 (taking the name Gregory), and maphrian on 19 January 1264. He founded two churches, two monasteries, two episcopal residences, and a guesthouse for travellers.[27] During his tenure, he consecrated twelve bishops, including his biographer and disciple Dioscorus of Gozarto and Philoxenus I Nemrud (later Patriarch, 1283-1292), respectively.[26]\n\nOne of the most distinguished holders of the title of Maphrian was Barhebraeus. He spent most of his life, including all his later years, within Mongol territory until his death in 1286. While based mainly in Nineveh and the environs of Mosul and Mor Mattai Monastery, he maintained friendships with scholars of diverse faiths and frequently travelled to major learning centres, most importantly Maragha in Iranian Azerbaijan, then-capital of the Mongol khanate. His close ties with Mongols and other communities enabled him to provide detailed first-hand accounts, which is why the events of the 13th century are so well documented in both his secular and ecclesiastical chronicles.[28]\n\nBarhebraeus also highlights the crucial part Syriac scholars played in bringing Greek philosophy to the Arab world in his reflections on intellectual history. He places Syriac scholarship as an important bridge in the larger evolution of medieval intellectual culture, attributing the medieval Arab interest in philosophy and the sciences to the translation efforts of earlier Syriac writers.[29]\n\nWritings\n\nBarhebraeus was among the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages, with his surviving corpus being vast and diverse, spanning theology, philosophy, history, medicine, grammar, astronomy, and the natural sciences. His brother Barsauma reports a total of 31 works by him, though his disciple Dioscorus of Gozarto and various manuscripts have variations on this total.[30] His writings were so extensive and refined that J. S. Assemani called them \"easily the chief of the writings of the Jacobites\" and J. P. Martin described him as \"one of the most prolific writers to have ever emerged\". Jean Maurice Fiey said that while Barhebraeus was \"often just a populariser\", he was a \"genius populariser, and one can only admire the amount of work he has produced, especially when considering the often difficult circumstances in which he had to operate\".[31]\n\nBarhebraeus's corpus reflects the full breadth of intellectual traditions available in his time. Göttsberger compared him with Ephrem the Syrian and Jacob of Edessa as the third great pillar of Syriac intellectual history-Ephrem representing pure Syriac thought, Jacob Greek influence, and Barhebraeus the synthesis of Arabic and Islamic science and philosophy.[32] His works display familiarity with Islamic scholarship by drawing from Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, and al-Abhari.[33]\n\nBarhebraeus's writings circulated widely. They were found in virtually every Syriac-speaking region to the extent that any single library might contain up to 10 per cent of its manuscripts authored by him. His writings were translated into Arabic and cited as a major authority. They were read across confessional line by the Church of the East, the Maronites, the Coptic Orthodox, and the Melkites; they were read even by Muslims, especially his medical works.[34] His texts also reached Europe where early Orientalists and Syriacists studied them extensively.[35]\n\nBarhebraeus's works largely consist of compendia that synthesise material from older Syriac and more recent Arabo-Persian literature. He was previously castigated as a skilful but unoriginal compiler of earlier works, but that judgement is misplaced, as his originality lies in his choice of sources and his openness to knowledge found in Islamic and non-Orthodox texts. His writings remained standard across Syriac Christianity including its Eastern, Western and Maronite branches. They were translated into Arabic mainly by Daniel of Mardin (1326/27 - after 1382) and Grigorios Yuhanna bin al-Ghurayr al-Zurbabi (bishop of Damascus, 1668-1684).[26]\n\nChronicle\n\nBarhebraeus's most celebrated work is his chronicle (Syriac: ܡܟܬܒܢܘܬ ܙܒܢܐ, romanised: Maḫṯabānuṯ Zabnê, lit. 'History of Times'), the largest piece of classical Syriac historiography ever written, no later work surpassing it in scale.[36] The chronicle consists of two complementary parts, a Universal History and an Ecclesiastical History. The Universal History (also known as the Chronicon Syriacum) covers world events from Creation to Barhebraeus's own era and was translated into Arabic as Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, adapted for a Muslim audience.[37] His brother Barsauma addended it to 1297, while priest Addai of Basibrina continued the Ecclesiastical History to 1496.[36] It runs from Creation to his death in 1286. Though intended to instruct \"his people\" (the Syriac Orthodox), Barhebraeus knew it would reach a wide readership, which is why he supplemented the work with material of general interest while retaining scholarly sense for specialists.[38]\n\nThe chronicle is divided into eleven dynastic sections (yubbālē), following the model of the Book of Daniel, with the final section devoted to the contemporary Mongols (whom Barhebraeus calls 'Huns'). The second part was translated into Latin in 1789 by Paul Jakob Bruns and Georg Wilhelm Kirsch, and a superior edition was produced by Paul Bedjan in 1890 from the Syriac. Budge published an English translation in 1932 based on Bedjan's French with a facsimile of the Syriac original from the Bodleian Library. Although the secular sections were extensively used by medieval historians, neither part has been the subject of major analysis.[36]\n\nIt treats history, religion, language, and the customs of peoples; includes biographies of notable warriors and physicians; describes battles, sieges and the capture of cities; records comets and other unusual celestial phenomena; and notes earthquakes, famines, heavy snowfall, and the freezing of the Tigris and Euphrates, with the associated food prices in times of scarcity. He also recounts court scandals, repeats various rumours, and relates 'laughable stories'.[39]\n\nStructurally, Barhebraeus adopts and innovates upon the chronological tables of earlier historians like Eusebius of Caesarea and Michael the Syrian, replacing them with successions of rulers and patriarchs, with expansions to incorporate Muslim, Persian and Armenian sources while diminishing the Byzantine focus and reflecting the multicultural milieu of the thirteenth century.[40] This arrangement separated secular and ecclesiastical history, preventing the reader from easily associating secular events with their corresponding ecclesiastical ones and forcing them to cross-reference manually or rely on memory.[41] Early sections begin with \"After such-and-such, another such-and-such\",[42] but it later changes, becoming \"After the persecution of the orthodox [i.e., Miaphysites] of the East, Ahudhemmeh became the Metropolitan of the East\".[43]\n\nWithin the ecclesiastical portion, the lemmata for Jewish hierarchs begin with Aaron (not Moses, since Aaron was the true priest), followed by his son Phinehas, and continue through to Caiaphas and Annas. After this, the old high-priesthood 'disappeared' and was superseded by Jesus Christ's, with Peter as the new hierarch. Afterwards, he traces the patriarchs of Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Ephesus, and Antioch, and then continues only as Antioch, since his \"eastern lands are subject to the authority of the throne of Antioch\".[44]\n\nBarhebraeus records various Church Fathers, such as Athanasius of Alexandria and Ephrem the Syrian, in addition to heretical figures in his Church, like Arius and Apollinaris. He discusses the Chalcedonian schism, noting that Justin deposed Severus of Antioch using military force and that his successor, the 'excellent' Sergius of Tella, was ordained by John of Anazarbus (in fact, Jacob Baradeus performed the ordination). He mentions Jacob Baradeus's efforts across the East to preserve the Syriac Orthodox hierarchy by ordaining many bishops, which led to the Church bearing his name. The list of patriarchs continues to Barhebraeus's time with addenda by anonymous authors.[45]\n\nThe apostolic foundation by Thomas, Addai, Aggai, Mari, and Abrosius is described in the Ecclesiastical History's 'Eastern' section, where the evangelism of Thomas, the 'high priest of the East', and the translation of his relics to Edessa, are described. Barhebraeus then discusses the line of Church of the East patriarchs with notable ecumenical sympathy;[46] still, he views the maphrianate of the Syriac Orthodox in the East as the rightful continuation of the ancient see of Seleucia-Ctesiphon,[47] where the ecclesiastical succession of that see, following Isho'yabh, continues through Syriac Orthodox maphrians, culminating with Barhebraeus himself. The lineage extends through his brother, Barsauma, whose pontificate was documented by an anonymous author writing after his time.[43]\n\nArabic version\n\nBarhebraeus's Chronicon Syriacum was purposefully modified for Arabic in Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal to suit his target audience. For instance, he omitted accounts of Arab persecutions, softened Christian-Mongol connections, used the Hijri calendar exclusively, and replaced overtly Christian expressions with inclusive wording. Both the Syriac and Arabic versions exhibit linguistic and ideological variations that signify Barhebraeus's purpose to tailor the work for different audiences, as the Arabic version carefully adjusts the text to accommodate Muslim ears.\n\nA more accurate translation of the Arabic recension would be \"The Abridged Histories of the States or Empires\", although many contemporary scholars have translated this as \"The Abridged History of the Dynasties\". This is because the Arabic word al-duwal (plural of dawla) literally means 'states' or 'political powers', while Barhebraeus frequently used ansāb to refer to 'dynasties'. An 18th-century Latin translation that used the word dynastiarum to convey the idea of political succession is probably what gave rise to the popular translation 'dynasties'.[48]\n\nThough their emphases differ, the sources underpinning both texts are essentially the same. The chronicle of Michael the Syrian, East-Syriac historical writings, various Arabic and Persian material-particularly Juvayni's Tārīkh-i Jahāngushāy, which Barhebraeus probably encountered while at Maragha-and potential Armenian sources constitute the primary sources of inspiration.[49]\n\nIn descriptions of the terminology employed, the Syriac edition applies the title 'Caliph' to multiple Muslim rulers, including the Fatimids, while the Arabic work reserves this title exclusively for the Abbasid Caliph, aligning with mainstream Islamic convention of Barhebraeus's time and region.[50] Omitted are accounts describing the persecution of Christians at Tagrit by Arab forces and details regarding Christians taking refuge in a church before their liberation by two Armenians.[51] Additionally omitted is the use of explicitly Christian formulations like referring to Hulagu's wife as \"the believing queen and lover of Christ\", and all uses of the Greek calendar.[52]\n\nFurther on, the Arabic chronicle also shortens or softens depictions of Muslim aggression toward Christians, such as by condensing passages describing the plundering of the Monastery of the Sisters of Beth Kūdida, the months-long siege of Mor Mattai Monastery by Kurds with looting of the monastery's valuables by them and their altercations with the monks, the murder of Christians at the Habsusyotho monastery, and the killing of ʿAlam al-Din Sanjar and his Kurdish allies.[53]\n\nBoth versions praise Hulagu's successor Kublai Khan, but the Arabic version omits the phrase \"lover of Christians\" in favour of \"lover of all religious people from all confessions and nations\", with various descriptions admiring the Mongol rulers.[54] Additionally, in further demonstration of the good relations between Christians and Mongols, the Arabic text excises a passage about a Syriac priest rising to a high-ranking position as a physician in Hulagu's palace.[55]\n\nWhile both recount stories of Crusaders in the Middle East, the Arabic version specifies the Crusaders as \"Franks\", while the Syriac version refers to everyone as \"Christians\" regardless of denomination or political position.[56]\n\nTheology\n\nBarhebraeus remained steadfast in his adherence to Miaphysite Christology even as he adopted an approach characterised by intellectual openness and ecumenical awareness. In his large theological summa, he devotes several sections to Christology. He offers an explanation and a refutation of the Dyophysite doctrine and its arguments, but does not mention the Crusaders in that context. In some passages, he treats these theological differences as substantive rather than merely semantic; for example, he reproaches a bishop who dismissed a Nestorian's theological objections as sophistry and supplies the responses the bishop should have given. The book ends with a list of thirty heresies, most of which are Christological in nature, but it noticeably leaves out the Chalcedonians (including the Latins) and Nestorians, categorising their differences as mainly terminological rather than substantive. This contrasts with the preceding chapter where Miaphysitism is strongly affirmed, but aligns with his other works that display an open ecumenical attitude, including those that place less emphasis on dogma and more on spiritual matters.[57]\n\nAmong Barhebraeus's theological works are the \"Book of the Dove\", which emphasises ascetic living, and the Ethikon, which provides monks, priests and laypeople with moral and spiritual guidance. In the Ethikon, he cautions against disputation as verbal cunning intended to subdue an adversary lest it causes one to sin, and counsels ascetics to abstain from speculative discussions about \"natures and persons\", referring to Christological debates.[58]\n\nBarhebraeus has been described as a \"supporter of the validity of a certain theological pluralism\".[59] Using the framework of Greek patristic and philosophical thought, Barhebraeus discussed traditional Christological issues in his theological correspondence with Catholicos Denha I. Notwithstanding their differences in doctrine, Barhebraeus urged Denha to look beyond the rifts that had long divided their churches as a result of the disputes between Nestorius and Cyril. His historical writings draw heavily on the East-Syrian Chronicle tradition, which demonstrates his willingness to engage with traditions outside his own communion and his scholarly respect for them.[60]\n\nScholars differ in interpreting the motivation behind Barhebraeus's ecumenical outlook. Herman Teule considers it a sincere expression of theological fraternity and genuine openness toward other Christian denominations; on the other hand, Hidemi Takahashi sees it as pragmatic to a degree and meant to improve the Christian community's social and political standing during Mongol rule-though not devoid of genuine elements of goodwill and conciliation.[61]\n\nBarhebraeus's works, while rooted in the Syriac literary and poetic tradition, also show a significant interest in Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle's ideas. This synthesis is most clearly reflected in his encyclopaedic work \"The Cream of Wisdom\" (Hewath Hekhmetho).[62]\n\nMedicine\n\nBarhebraeus's initial path in life appears to have been set toward medicine rather than theology. He was remembered as first \"the father of physicians\" and then \"the glory of pastors\" in a manuscript colophon, showing the dual nature of his vocation but emphasising his role as a healer.[63] The fact that his father was a Mongol general's personal physician probably contributed to his early academic direction. Barhebraeus himself pursued formal studies in 'medicine and logic' under a Nestorian teacher in Tripoli, and later worked with the physician Jamal al-Din in Damascus. By 1263, records place him working within Mongol military camps alongside other physicians. Barhebraeus remained steadfast in his commitment to the medical sciences even after being promoted to the high ecclesiastical office of maphrian, in an effort to pass on medical knowledge to future generations.[64]\n\nEight works on medicine and pharmacology are known to be by him. These treatises, which avoid the elaborate or poetic style that permeates much of his literary output, have simple, descriptive titles, in contrast with many of his other works with more ornate titles. Four of these works were written in Arabic and the rest in Syriac.[65]\n\nBarhebraeus held that the medical profession offered Christians a means of attaining influence and respect within the largely Muslim society of his day, and perhaps this motivated him to compose and disseminate his medical works among Syriac Christians.[66] Nevertheless, his writings were not intended solely for that community; Barhebraeus records using the Hijri dating system himself and composed some works in Arabic at the request of Muslims (ṭayyāyē) in Maragha, while his openings include an Islamic basmala with references to Christian Apostles phrased so as to suit a Muslim audience. Thus, Barhebraeus's works transcend the needs of a single religious community in favour of the greater good.[67]\n\nAstronomy\n\nBesides his knowledge of history and theology, Barhebraeus was also a skilled mathematician and astronomer. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and other researchers at the Maragha Observatory had a major influence on his primary scientific work, \"Ascent of the Mind\" (Sullaqā Hawnānāyā), which he wrote in 1279 and used as a textbook of mathematics and astronomy. It was partially based on al-Tusi's Tadhkira fī ʿIlm al-Hayʾa, but it also included Syriac scientific traditions, especially those of Severus Sebokht, whom Barhebraeus specifically mentions. Barhebraeus's command of Arabo-Persian astronomical literature is evident in other related works such as \"On Creation\" and \"Candelabrum of the Sanctuary\" (Mnārath Qudshē), which also reference al-Biruni's Kitāb al-Tafhīm li-Awāʾil Ṣināʿat al-Tanjīm.[68]\n\nIdentity and geography\n\nThe identity and language of the Syriac Orthodox and other Syriac-speaking communities took shape largely in contrast with the Greek and Arab populations, and were increasingly influenced by contact with the Latin West where notions of national identity were already established. Such awareness was reinforced by the composition of Syriac-language chronicles that went beyond mere record-keeping to include reflection on communal origins and identity,[69] such as Michael the Great's Chronicle.[70]\n\nBarhebraeus, along with the Syriac Orthodox people of his time, did not identify as 'Arameans' and rejected the term as a self-designation,[70] even entirely omitting it from the genealogy of Noah's sons.[71] He instead speaks of \"ancient Syrians\" (Syriac: ‏ܣܘܖ̈ܝܝܐ ܥܬܝܩ̈ܐ, romanised: Sūryōyē ʿatīqē), a term collectively used for all ancient Aramaic speakers i.e., the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Arameans.[72] Among intellectual Assyrians as Barhebraeus, the usage of 'Assyria' did not disappear after Islamic conquests, and he frequently mentioned Assyria (Syriac: ܐܬܘܪ, romanised: Āṯōr) as a contemporary geopolitical designation, clearly differentiating it from Syria (a distinction also observed by the anonymous author known as pseudo-Barhebraeus), which indicates that the names 'Assyria' and 'Assyrian' remained active designations for Syriac-speaking Mesopotamians and their homeland.[73] He used 'Chaldeans' as an umbrella term for the Assyrians and Babylonians whom he equated with the ancient Syrians,[70] and also described the kings of ancient Mesopotamia as \"All these are Chaldeans; that is, Syrians (Suryāyē)\".[74] Nevertheless, he denounced 'Chaldeanhood' (Kaldōyūtō) as \"barbaric\".[75] \n\nGenerally, 'Syrian' is used inclusively for all Aramaic-speaking Christians, including those in Mount Lebanon,[76] regardless of precise ethnic origin, although occasional distinctions are made.[77]\n\nGeographically, since Barhebraeus and his audience were mainly located in the east, his preference for Tagrit over Edessa becomes evident. Edessa, while still honoured, appears far less frequently in his writings than Baghdad and Mosul; Tagrit, however, held supreme importance for him-it was the first city mentioned in his Chronicon.[78] When recounting the missionary route of Thomas the Apostle, he lists Tagrit, then India, and only afterwards does he return to Edessa and its king Abgar, which highlights the spiritual significance of Tagrit.[79] He saw Thomas as linked to Tagrit, which he hailed as the defender of orthodoxy during the spread of Nestorianism in the East. Tagrit and Tur ‘Abdin, he wrote, remained steadfast against the persecutions initiated by Barsauma of Nisibis.[79] Consequently, Barhebraeus portrayed Tagrit as the true successor to the See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, in contrast to the Church of the East whose catholicos had been allowed by the caliphs to move to Baghdad, whereas the Tagritian maphrian was not. Thus, Tagrit came to surpass even Edessa and Baghdad in honour.[80]\n\nBarhebraeus rarely used the term 'Jacobite' (after Jacob Baradaeus) except when quoting adversaries who used it, or when referring to certain localised, Arabised communities of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[81] Instead, he preferred expressions such as \"our people\", \"the faithful\", and \"the orthodox\" to denote his own religious community in opposition to the Chalcedonian Greeks and the Nestorians. The broader term \"Christians\" he reserved for Christendom as a whole going beyond denominational divisions.[82]\n\nDespite his insistence on Miaphysitism and his position as the heir of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, he maintained cordial, fraternal relations with the Church of the East and its patriarch.[83] He deliberately used the term \"Easterners\" for Christians in both the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Church of the East, adopting a single self-designation for both milieus and emphasising the shared heritage of the East.[72]\n\nRelations\n\nLike the Syriac Orthodox Church in general, Barhebraeus maintained good relations with diverse religious and intellectual communities, such as the Crusaders. He probably encountered the Latins during his residence in Antioch and Tripoli (both under Crusader rule) and later continued his visits to the \"quasi-Crusader\" state of Cilicia after the Crusaders' influence waned.[84] His familiarity with Latin circles led some scholars to suggest that his thought may have been subtly influenced by Roman Catholic scholasticism, but this influence was never dominant.[85] Other scholars do not consider him to be aware of these Latin works despite spending time in Crusader-held Antioch, Tripoli and Cilicia.[86]\n\nDisillusioned by the Arabs and their conduct, Barhebraeus may have viewed the Mongols as liberators from oppressive Islamic forces, his writings suggesting a pragmatic appreciation of the Mongols' relative tolerance towards Christianity. In this interpretation, he perceived Hulagu as a kind of new Cyrus, freeing God's people from \"Babylon\", or as a new Constantine through likening Hulagu's Christian mother, Sorghoqtani, to Empress Helena. The Mongol rulers' comparative tolerance towards Christians inspired hopes that a Christian polity might arise under their protection with Syriac as its language.[87]\n\nWithin the broader intellectual sphere, Barhebraeus has frequently been paralleled with major European thinkers of the Greek and Latin traditions, described as the Eastern/Syriac counterpart to figures such as the near-contemporary Thomas Aquinas-his Candelabrum of the Sanctuary likened to Aquinas's Summa Theologica. Other comparisons were made to Albertus Magnus, Pico della Mirandola, Isidore of Seville, and Cicero.[88]\n\nThroughout his life, Barhebraeus maintained genial relations with the Church of the East. While sometimes described as an ecumenist, this is an overstatement, as he remained a firm Miaphysite and did not advocate doctrinal union.[89] Nevertheless, he expressed fraternal sentiments towards East Syrians and hoped for the restoration of a unified Syriac Church rooted in the ancient Edessan tradition. His familiarity with East Syrian scholars and contact with Latin Christians (who at the time had achieved communion with the Maronites) may have influenced this outlook. He corresponded courteously with Catholicoi Makkika II (1257-1265) and Denha I (1265-1281), criticising their Christological formulations but emphasising shared Nicene faith. He even cited Church of the East commentaries as authoritative in his Nomocanon, and clergy from the Church of the East attended his consecration of the chrism in Baghdad in 1265. His belief that disputes were merely terminological rather than doctrinal has served as a model for the current ecumenical dialogue between churches today. Upon his death, Catholicos Yahbalaha III (1282-1317) declared a public day of mourning in Maragha attended by \"Nestorians, Armenians, and Greeks\".[89]\n\nBarhebraeus's intellectual vision embraced both the East and West Syriac traditions which he distinguished as \"two illustrious traditions\". His writings display a strong familiarity with East-Syriac vocalisation and pronunciation systems, and he frequently cited Church Fathers of the Church of the East such as Narsai and Theodore of Mopsuestia, whom his own Church formally regards as heretical. Overall, his attitude towards these figures and their traditions was one of generous appreciation and respect.[90] Barhebraeus also saw that unity among Syriac Christians was critical to gaining the favour of the Mongols, who were already inclined towards Christianity.[91]\n\nLinguistics\n\nApart from his native Syriac, Barhebraeus was proficient in Armenian, Arabic and Persian.[92] While some scholars have hypothesised the possibility of Turkic or Mongolian fluency, and have even mentioned that he probably understood something of these languages, he was scarcely proficient in either and wrote in neither.[93] The notion of slight understanding of Greek has been suggested, but it seems unlikely, as by Barhebraeus's time, Greek was in disuse in nearby regions and the liturgy was already wholly conducted in Arabic among the Melkites. Moreover, his writings bear no trace of Greek linguistic influence, for extant Syriac translations of Greek works such as Aristotle and the Septuagint had sufficed.[94]\n\nBarhebraeus considered the Edessan dialect (today termed 'Classical Syriac') the most eloquent of the Aramaic varieties,[95] while he disapproved of the dialect of the \"Easterners\" found in the Aramaic-language Talmud (the Targum), features of which persist in modern Neo-Aramaic dialects.[96] He regarded the Aramaic of the Kashkar region (i.e., Nabatean in Babylonia), on the shore of the Tigris in southern Iraq, as the worst of all.[97] Like most early and medieval Christians of the time, Barhebraeus believed that Syriac Aramaic was the original tongue of mankind, the very language God spoke to Adam.[71][98]\n\nWorks\n\nIn addition to being a scholar, historian, and physician, Barhebraeus was also a mathematician, astronomer, and lecturer. He authored numerous books on intricate subjects like philosophy, religion, and grammar, presenting them in an easily understandable manner.[38]\n\nThe following is a list of only some of his works, a few of which are lost, others unpublished:[99][100][101]\n\n\"Storehouse of Secrets\" (Awṣar Roze) - A large biblical commentary (philological, literal, and spiritual) drawing on multiple biblical versions, citing authoritative Church Fathers such as Dionysius the Areopagite, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Jacob of Edessa, Michael the Syrian, and many others\n\n\"The Lamp of the Sanctuaries\" (Mnorath Qudshe) - A theological and apologetic work defending Christianity against various heresies in Barhebraeus's time\n\n\"The Book of Rays\" (Kthobo d-Zalgē) - A compendium of The Lamp of the Sanctuaries, encompassing doctrines of creation, incarnation, angelology, ecclesiology, sacramentology, eschatology, and the afterlife, drawing upon numerous Church Fathers, both orthodox and otherwise\n\nNomocanon or \"Book of Directions\" (Kthobo d-Hudoye) - A vast canonical collection in forty parts, treating subjects such as ecclesiology, sacramentology, economics, law, and ethics. It draws heavily from the patristic corpus and served as an authoritative reference for resolving church disputes. It was later praised by European authorities\n\nThe Ethikon; \"Ethics\" (Ktābā d-īthīqōn) - Addresses spiritual and moral matters, providing guidance for both ascetics and laypeople\n\n\"The Book of the Dove\" (Kthobo d-Yawno) - Named after the Holy Spirit (the Dove), this treatise explores the life of asceticism and spiritual perfection\n\nVarious large volumes on prayer and spirituality - Some written in poetic form, focusing on moral and devotional themes\n\n\"The Cream of Wisdom\" (Hewath Hekhemtho) - His magnum opus in philosophy and the natural sciences, comprising multiple volumes and covering Aristotelian philosophy, mechanics, astronomy, meteorology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, astrology, theological anthropology, alchemy, theology, politics, economics, and ethics\n\n\"The Cream of Secrets\" (Kitab Zubdat al-Asrār) - A Syriac philosophical translation of Athir al-Din al-Abhari (d. 1266); now lost\n\n\"The Book of Tegrath Tegrotho\" (Mercatura Mercaturarum) - An abridgement of The Cream of Wisdom that deals with theology and dialectics\n\n\"Book of the Speech of Wisdom\" (Kthobo d-Swodh Sophia) - On dialectics, linguistics, and philosophy\n\n\"Book of the Pupils of the Eyes\" (Kthobo d-Bobotho) - A concise treatise on logic and philosophy\n\n\"On the Human Soul\" - Two Arabic treatises, the larger composed at the request of Dionysius ‘Anjur, Metropolitan of Melitene before 1252\n\n\"The Book of Indications and Prognostications\" (Kitab al-Isharāt wa al-Tanbihāt) - A Syriac translation of Ibn Sina, undertaken at the request of Simon Thomas the Easterner, chief physician of Hulegu\n\n\"Ascent of the Mind\" (Kthobo d-Ṣuloqo Hawnonoyo) - A scientific work on astronomy and cosmography with accompanying illustrations and diagrams\n\n\"On the Benefits of the Members of the Body\" - A medical work in Arabic, now lost\n\nCommentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates - Written in Arabic, showing Barhebraeus's medical and philosophical synthesis\n\nVarious commentaries and translations - Covering geometry, astronomy, medicine, and oneiromancy (dream interpretation)\n\n\"The Ecclesiastical History\" - A detailed account of the patriarchs of Antioch from Peter up to 1285, also including lists of the maphrians and Nestorian catholicoi\n\n\"Chronography\" (Makhthbonuth Zabne) - A universal chronicle beginning with creation and extending to 1285, regarded as his most significant historical work\n\nTarikh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal - The Arabic version of the Chronography, a compendium of world history with adaptations for Arabic-speaking audience\n\n\"The Book of Lights\" (Kthobo d-Ṣinḥe) - A Syriac grammar addressing both East and West Syriac traditions; two further related grammatical books were published\n\n\"Introduction to Grammar\" (Kthobo da-Gramatiki) - A grammatical introduction composed in heptasyllabic metre\n\n\"Book of the Sparks\" (Kthobo d-Balṣuṣitho) - A large grammar treatise, unfinished and now lost\n\n\"The Book of Humorous Stories\" - A collection of tales featuring people and animals, written in a lively narrative style\n\nLarge collections of poems, riddles, and Biblical exegesis\n\nVeneration and commemoration\n\nMor\nGregory Barhebraeus\nܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ\nGrīgōrīyōs bar ʿEbrōyō\n\nSaint\n\nBornJohn ܝܘܚܢܢ\n1226\n\nDied1286\n\nResting placeMor Mattai Monastery\n36°29′24″N 43°26′34″E / 36.49°N 43.442778°E / 36.49; 43.442778\n\nHonored inOriental Orthodox Church\n\nMajor shrineMor Mattai Monastery\n\nFeast30 July\n\nPatronageScholars, physicians, Archdiocese of Nineveh and Environs\n\nTradition or genreSyriac Christianity\n\n Barhebraeus stands as one of the most venerated saints of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and a towering figure of pride within the Syriac Orthodox Church. Renowned as both a blessed monastic saint and a genius polymath, he combined sanctity with scholarship and excelled in theology, philosophy, medicine, and the Syriac language. His intellectual output revived Syriac literature and learning in an age when it had declined, thus contributing to what has often been termed the Syriac Renaissance.[102][103]\n\nHis feast day in the Syriac Orthodox Church is observed on 30 July, the date of his death. His relics, interred at Mor Mattai Monastery, remain a major pilgrimage site for the faithful.[104]\n\nIn March 1986, Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas celebrated the \"700th anniversary of the passing of Maphrian Barhebraeus to the heavenly abode\", dedicating that year's patriarchal encyclical to him. The encyclical included a short biography and encouraged the faithful to emulate his life and teachings, in addition to invoking his intercession.[105] In February 2026, coinciding with the 800th anniversary of Barhebraeus's birth, Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II issued that year's Lent encyclical, urging the faithful to read the Bible, especially in times of need and danger, in line with Barhebraeus's life and teachings, which emphasised a steadfast dedication to the Gospels.[106]\n\nPatriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum devoted numerous pages of The Scattered Pearls to praising Barhebraeus, calling him one of the \"great philosophers and theologians of the Orient as well as the world\" and \"the most luminous star that ever shone on the firmament of the Syrian nations and his encyclopaedic knowledge makes him all the more unique and unequalled\".[107] He also used many laudatory titles such as \"Ocean of Wisdom\", \"Light of East and West\", \"King of Learned Men\", \"Greatest Sage\", \"Holy Father\", and \"The Most Learned Man Possessing Divine Knowledge\".[108] Barsoum further commended Barhebraeus's mastery of Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, and Persian, writing, \"His Syriac style is very powerful, lucid and attractive. Whenever his reader dives into his books he finds unique and precious pearls. He would end his reading by bowing his head in great reverence to the prince of writers, the king of learned men, and without exception, the most famous Syrian scholar\".[108]\n\nOther commendatory descriptions include the Syriacist Sebastian P. Brock's, who classed Barhebraeus \"alongside Ephrem, perhaps the most famous of all Syriac writers\" and described him as \"a polymath of extraordinarily wide learning in virtually every subject that was studied in his time\".[109] Lucas Van Rompay also called him \"a man of an exceptional breadth and open-mindedness\",[110] and Rev. Joseph Tarzi hailed him as \"the Church's greatest and boldest knight, never to be challenged or matched in all branches of learning-theological and otherwise\" and listed his many epithets: \"the sea of wisdom, the light of the East and West, king of the learned, the greatest of the wise men, the holy father, the father versed in theology, the adornment of composers, the crown of Maphrians, the crown of chiefs\".[3] Paul Bedjan further described his chronicle as \"one of the most interesting books that were produced in my country\".[111]\n\nIn modern commemoration, Barhebraeus continues to be honoured. In 2010, a symposium dedicated to him was organised in Aleppo, Syria by the previous archbishop of Aleppo, Yohanna Ibrahim.[112] Contemporary scholars frequently refer to Barhebraeus as the \"Encyclopaedia of the 13th century\", which entirely captures his unmatched knowledge and lasting influence throughout the Syriac, Arabic, and wider Eastern intellectual sphere.[3]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Takahashi 2013, pp. 7-10.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Tarzi 1996.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 8.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, pp. 463-464.\n\n^ a b Takahashi 2013, p. 14.\n\n^ Budge 1932a, pp. xvii-xviii.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 12, 15.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 1-2.\n\n^ Budge 1932a, p. XVI.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 3.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 11.\n\n^ a b Budge 1932a, p. XVII.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 47.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 16.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 53.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 17.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 18.\n\n^ Teule 2012, p. 589.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 18-19.\n\n^ a b Takahashi 2013, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, p. 319.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 20-21.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 22-23.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 26-27.\n\n^ a b c Takahashi 2011, p. 55.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 464.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, pp. 7, 18.\n\n^ Griggs 2022, p. 23.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 57-58.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 95-96.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 94.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 96-99.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 104-114.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 114.\n\n^ a b c Witakowski 2006, p. 62.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 12.\n\n^ a b Budge 1932a, p. vii.\n\n^ Budge 1932a, pp. v-vi.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, p. 307.\n\n^ Witakowski 2006, p. 66.\n\n^ Witakowski 2006, p. 65.\n\n^ a b Witakowski 2006, p. 71.\n\n^ Witakowski 2006, p. 67.\n\n^ Witakowski 2006, pp. 68-70.\n\n^ Witakowski 2006, pp. 70-71.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, pp. 308-309.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, pp. 207-208.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, pp. 220-224.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 218.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 218; Habbabé 2018, pp. 232-233.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 247.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 262.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 258.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 255.\n\n^ Habbabé 2018, p. 260.\n\n^ Teule 1999, pp. 20-21.\n\n^ Teule 1999, p. 21.\n\n^ Teule 1999, p. 22.\n\n^ Griggs 2022, p. 18.\n\n^ Griggs 2022, p. 21.\n\n^ Griggs 2022, pp. 21-22.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 54-55.\n\n^ Takahashi & Yaguchi 2017, pp. 253-255.\n\n^ Takahashi & Yaguchi 2017, p. 256.\n\n^ Takahashi & Yaguchi 2017, p. 275.\n\n^ Takahashi & Yaguchi 2017, p. 276.\n\n^ Takahashi 2007, pp. 94-95.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, p. 306.\n\n^ a b c Weltecke 2016, p. 303.\n\n^ a b Weltecke 2016, p. 312.\n\n^ a b Weltecke 2016, p. 323.\n\n^ Frye 2002, pp. 75-77.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 105.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, p. 321.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 110.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, p. 313.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, pp. 315-316.\n\n^ a b Weltecke 2016, p. 316.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, pp. 316-317.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, pp. 309-310.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, pp. 310-311.\n\n^ Weltecke 2016, p. 320.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 35-36.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 36.\n\n^ Griggs 2022, p. 8.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 102-103.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 103-104.\n\n^ a b Takahashi 2013, pp. 23-26.\n\n^ Rompay 2010, pp. 94-97.\n\n^ Griggs 2022, p. 17.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 27.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 30.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 32-33.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, pp. 77-78.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 77.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 84.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 75.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, pp. 465-481.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, pp. 59-94, Book II.\n\n^ Brock 2011, pp. 64-69.\n\n^ Teule 2003, p. 33.\n\n^ Takahashi 2013, p. 101.\n\n^ Rajan 2007, p. 101.\n\n^ Ignatius Zakka I Iwas 1986.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphrem II 2026.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 463.\n\n^ a b Barsoum 2003, p. 465.\n\n^ Brock 2011, pp. 64-65.\n\n^ Rompay 2010, p. 94.\n\n^ Dinno & Harrak 2009, p. 59.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 297.\n\nSources\n\nBarsoum, Ignatius Aphram (2003). 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The Chronography of Gregory Abû'l Faraj, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician, Commonly known as Bar Hebraeus. Vol. 2. London: Oxford University Press.\n\nConrad, Lawrence I. (1994). \"On the Arabic Chronicle of Bar Hebraeus: His Aims and Audience\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 19: 319-378. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2021.\n\nDinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis, Then Revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press, LLC. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1.\n\nDinno, Khalid; Harrak, Amir (2009). Harrak, Amir; Brock, Sebastian; Greatrex, Marina; Griffith, Sidney; Lehto, Adam; Rompay, Lucas van (eds.). \"Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies Volume 9 Issue 1\". De Gruyter Brill. Six Letters from Paul Bedjan to Aphram Barsoum, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Syria and Aleppo. 9 (1). Gorgias Press, LLC: 55-73. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-090106. 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Oeuvres grammaticales d'Abou'lfaradj dit Bar Hebreus. Vol. 1. Paris: Maisonneuve.\n\nMartin, Jean-Pierre-Paulin, ed. (1872b). Oeuvres grammaticales d'Abou'lfaradj dit Bar Hebreus. Vol. 2. Paris: Maisonneuve.\n\nMazzola, Marianna (2018). \"The Textual Tradition of Bar Ebroyo's Chronicle: A Preliminary Study\". Le Muséon. 131 (1-2): 73-100.\n\nMazzola, Marianna (2020). \"From High Priest to Patriarch: History and Authority in the Ecclesiastical History of Bar Ebroyo\". Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Subsidia. Louvain: Peeters Publishers.\n\nRompay, Lucas Van (1 March 2010). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-104. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. ISSN 1097-3702.\n\nSchmitt, Jens Ole (2020). \"Some Remarks on East Syrian Influences Found in Barhebraeus's Works\". Griechische Philosophie und Wissenschaft bei den Ostsyrern. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 157-175. ISBN 9783110667349.\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2013). Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781593331481.\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2007). \"Barhebraeus: Gregory Abū al-Faraj\". The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2011). Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron Michael; Kiraz, George A.; Rompay, Lucas Van (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Gorgias Press, LLC. ISBN 9781593337148.\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi; Yaguchi, Naohide (2017). \"On the Medical Works of Barhebraeus: With a Description of the Abridgement of Ḥunain's Medical Questions\". Aramaic Studies. 15 (2): 252-276. doi:10.1163/17455227-01501005. ISSN 1477-8351.\n\nTannous, Jack (2025). \"What Is Syriac? Explorations in the History of a Name\". Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute and Gorgias Press. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 28 (1): 65-153.\n\nTarzi, Joseph (31 October 1996). \"Maphryono Mar Gregorious Youhanon Bar Ebroyo\". Syriac Orthodox Resources.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2011a). \"Syriac Lexicography\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 391-393.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (1996). \"The Crusaders in Barhebraeus' Syriac and Arabic Secular Chronicles: A Different Approach\". East and West in the Crusader States: Context, Contacts, Confrontations. Vol. 1. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 39-49. ISBN 9789068317923.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (1999). \"It is Not Right to Call Ourselves Orthodox and the Other Heretics: Ecumenical Attitudes in the Jacobite Church in the Time of the Crusaders\". East and West in the Crusader States: Context, Contacts, Confrontations. Vol. 2. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 13-27. ISBN 9789042907867.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2003). \"Gregory Barhebraeus and his Time: The Syrian Renaissance\". 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ISBN 9783447068857.\n\nTodt, Susanne Regina (1988). \"Die Syrische und die Arabische Weltgeschichte des Bar Hebraeus - ein Vergleich\". Der Islam: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients. 65 (1): 60-80.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2016). \"Bar ʻEbroyo on Identity: Remarks on his Historical Writing\". De Gruyter Brill. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 19 (2): 303-332. doi:10.31826/hug-2018-190107.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea; Younansardaroud, Helen (2019). \"The Renaissance of Syriac Literature in the Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 698-717. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWilmshurst, David, ed. (2016). Bar Hebraeus: The Ecclesiastical Chronicle: An English Translation. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781463205355.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2006). Harrak, Amir; Brock, Sebastian; Greatrex, Marina; Griffith, Sidney; Lehto, Adam; Rompay, Lucas van (eds.). \"Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies Volume 6 Issue 1\". De Gruyter Brill. The Ecclesiastical Chronicle of Gregory Bar‘Ebroyo. 6 (1). Gorgias Press, LLC: 61-81. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-060108. Retrieved 23 October 2025.\n\nWright, William (1894). A Short History of Syriac Literature. London: Adam and Charles Black.\n\nExternal links\n\nGregorii Barhebraei Chronicon ecclesiasticum: quod e codice Musei britannici descriptum conjuncta opera ediderunt, Latinitate donarunt annotationibusque ...illustrarunt Jean Baptiste Abbeloos, Thomas Joseph Lamy Also at Archive.org here\n\nGregorii Bar-Hebraei Scholia in Psalmum LXVIII. e codicibus mss. syriacis Bibliothecae Florentinae et Clementino-Vaticanae et Bodleianae Oxoniensis primum edita et annotationibus illustrata, Vratislaviae 1852.\n\nThe Laughable Stories of Bar-Hebraeus, 1897 tr. by E.A.W. Budge, at sacred-texts\n\nWorks related to Barhebraeus (in Arabic) at the Department of Syriac Studies"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-barhebraeus"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 8554}, {"slug": "reference-assur", "title": "Assur", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Aššur,[a] also known as Ashur and Qal'at Sherqat, was the capital of the Middle Assyrian Empire for a time, of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC) and a semi-independent state during the Parthian Empire between the 2nd century BC and mid 3rd century AD. The remains of the city...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assur\n\nAššur \n ܐܫܘܪ \n آشور\n\nAshur\n\nLocation within IraqShow map of IraqLocation within Near EastShow map of Near East\n\n35°27′24″N 43°15′45″E / 35.45667°N 43.26250°E / 35.45667; 43.26250\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nPeriodsEarly Bronze Age to classical antiquity\n\nLocationSaladin Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nHistory\n\nBuiltEarly Dynastic Period\n\nAbandoned3rd century AD, fully abandoned 14th century AD \n\nSite notes\n\nExcavation dates1900-1914, 1988-1990, 2000-2001, 2023-present\n\nArchaeologistsFriedrich Delitzsch, Robert Koldewey, Walter Andrae, B. Hrouda, R. Dittmann, Peter A. Miglus\n\nUNESCO World Heritage Site\n\nOfficial nameAshur (Qal'at Sherqat)\n\nTypeCultural\n\nCriteriaiii, iv\n\nDesignated2003 (27th session)\n\nReference no.1130\n\nRegionArab States\n\nEndangered2003-present\n\nAššur,[a] also known as Ashur and Qal'at Sherqat, was the capital of the Middle Assyrian Empire for a time, of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC) and a semi-independent state during the Parthian Empire between the 2nd century BC and mid 3rd century AD. The remains of the city lie on the western bank of the Tigris River, north of the confluence with its tributary, the Little Zab, in what is now Iraq, more precisely in the al-Shirqat District of the Saladin Governorate. Assur lies 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of the site of Kalhu (the biblical Calah, Nimrud) and 100 km (60 mi) south of Nineveh.\n\nOccupation of the city itself continued for approximately 3,000 years,[2] from the Early Dynastic Period to the mid-3rd century AD, when the city was sacked by the Sasanian Empire, after which it was sparsely populated until the massacres of Assyrian Christians conducted by Tamurlane in the 14th century AD after which the remaining population relocated to the countryside. The site is a World Heritage Site and was added to that organization's list of sites in danger in 2003 as a result of a proposed dam, which would flood some of the site.\n\nThe city lies on a south facing mountain spur with a triangular layout. The northern, higher, area held public buildings including the palace and temples of Ashur, Anu, Adad, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar.[3]\n\nArchaeology\n\nAssur was briefly excavated by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam, in the 1800s while working at Nineveh. Rassam worked there in the 1850s and 1870s, though rarely present in person.[4] Regular exploration of Assur began in 1898 by German archaeologists. Excavations began in 1900 by Friedrich Delitzsch, and were continued in 1903-1914 by a team from the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft led initially by Robert Koldewey and later by Walter Andrae. Working 12 months a year, mainly in the northern public area, they excavated the Anu, Adad, Sin, Shamash, Ishtar, Nabu, and Assur temples along with the Assur/Enlil ziggurat and the Old Palace. Additionally, the city's double city was also cleared.[5][6][7][8][9] More than 16,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts were discovered and are held at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Several thousand shell, stone, glass and ceramic beads were encountered at a deep level with two of the beads being much later determined to be Baltic amber. About 700 worked and unworked bone and ivory objects also found.[10] These excavations were thinly published at the time due to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and later efforts have been made to correct that.[11][12][13][14][15][16]\n\nBecause of the large construction overburden from later periods a full stratigraphy was only possible at the site of the Ishtar temple in the Nabu district. Eight primary construction/occupation levels were determined for the Ishtar temple (A-H). The most recent layers (A-C), called \"later temples\", began with the oldest built by Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243-1207). The oldest levels (D-H) began with the earliest in the Early Dynastic period. The excavator believed that there was an occupational hiatus in level F during which no temple existed.[17]\n\nIraqi archaeologists worked at Assur intermittently after 1979, primarily doing restoration work and room clearing but some excavation activity continued. Parthian graves were excavated and an octagonal prism of Tiglath-pileser, and 52 Neo-Assyrian period tablets were found.[18][19][20]\n\nMore recently, Assur was excavated by Barthel Hrouda for LMU Munich and the Bavarian Ministry of Culture in 1990. The team worked in the west-central part of the site about 120 meters south of the Nabu Temple.[21][22][23] During the same period, in 1988 and 1989, the site was being worked by R. Dittmann on behalf of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.[24][25] In 2000-2001 the site was excavated by Peter A. Miglus.[26][27]\n\nExcavation at the site resumed in 2023 by the Assur Excavation Project led by Professor Karen Radner and a team of Iraqi and European colleagues. Work continued in 2024.[28][29][30] In 2023, after a drone survey, a caesium total field magnetometer survey of the mostly Parthian New Town area of Assur on the east side of the city. Data from a small, 2 hectare, magnetometry survey done in the central area of Assur was merged in. A trial electrical resistivity tomography test was conducted and also eight core samples were taken.[31]\n\nIn 2024 Iraqi and European archaeologists took four core samples in the deepest layers below the foundation of the Ishtar temple showing that it was built on a thick layer of pure sand, standard practice in Southern Mesopotamia but rare in later temples built at Assur. They retrieved one charcoal sample at the earliest point which was found to have a radiocarbon date of 2896-2702 BC (calibration method used IntCal20). The early excavators had dated the founding of the Ishtar temple to early in the 3rd millennium BC but later work had revised that to the Early Dynastic III period (2600-2350 BC).[32] Work continued in 2025 and finds\nincluded 8 fragments with cuneiform text.[33]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly Bronze Age\n\nEarly Dynastic I-III\n\nWhile there are no textual references to Assur in the Early Dynastic period a number of Early Dynastic III finds were made in the early excavations at the Ishtar temple, including a number of seated and standing female statues.[17] More recent work at the Ishtar Temple, including a radiocarbon date, suggests a foundation for the city by the Early Dynastic I period.[32]\n\nUr III period\n\nDuring the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-2004 BC), Assur was under the control of Ur. One of the governors of Assur, Zariqum, is known. From references in texts found at Drehem and Umma it is known that he was originally an Ur III official from Shulgi year 44 until year 47 (about 3.5 years) then from Shulgi year 48 until Amar-Sin year 5 (about 6 years) was governor of Assur. He then became governor of Susa from Amar-Sin year 5 until Shu-Sin year 4 (about 8 years). It is thought that at that time, Assur and Susa were under the control of a single governor. An inscription was found in the Ishtar temple where Zariqum recorded building a temple for Bēlat-ekallim (Ninegal), for the life of Amar-Sin.[34][35][36][37]\n\nMiddle Bronze\n\nIsin-Larsa period\n\nAround the end of the 21st century BC, the Ur III Empire collapsed at the hands of the Elamites, and the control of Assur shifted briefly to Eshnunna. A weight in the shape of a duck found at Assur read \"Dāduša, son of Ipiq-Adad, king of Eshnunna, to Inibšina, his daughter, he presented [this weight].\"[38]\n\nOld Assyrian period\n\nIn this period Assur was a central hub the \"karum\" trading network which stretched through Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia. Kültepe was another important\nlocation in this system. The city was ruled at this time by a city assembly which wielded\nlegislative and judicial power. A limum was a city official appointed yearly to head city finances. Transactions were dated by their names in Limmu (eponyms). An example is \"month: 'Bēlat-ekallim'; eponym: 'Qīš-Amurrim, son of Apapa'\". Excavations found several hundred Old Assyrian period inscriptions on tablets and bricks, many fragmentary.[39][40][41][42] A few cylinder seals from this period were found at Assur (one of a ruler, Irishum I), though only from their clay sealings.[43] Local rulers rarely and lightly affected Assur, mostly on matters of wide trading interest. An example would be Ilusumma where a text of his (BM 115690 found in the Istar temple at Assur) reads:\n\n\"The andurārum (debt relief) of the Akkadians and their children I established. I purified their copper. I established their andurārum from the border of the marshes(?) and Ur and Nippur, Awal, and Kismar, Der of the god Ishtaran, as far as Assur.\"[44][45]\n\nShamshi-Adad I Dynasty\n\nShamshi-Adad I's (1808-1775 BC), Amorite ruler of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, eventually conquered Assur and made it his religious capital (his primary capital being Ekallatum and later Shubat-Enlil). In this era, the Great Royal Palace was built, and the temple of Assur was expanded and enlarged with a ziggurat. However, this empire met its end when Hammurabi, the Amorite king of Babylon conquered and incorporated the city into the First Babylonian dynasty empire following the death of Ishme-Dagan I around 1756 BC, while the next three Assyrian kings were viewed as vassals of Babylon.[46]\n\nLate Bronze\n\nOne local ruler early in this period, Puzur-Ashur III, is known from inscriptions. Temples to the moon god Sin (Nanna) and the sun god Shamash were built and dedicated through the 15th century BC. The city was subsequently subjugated by the king of Mitanni, Shaushtatar in the late 15th century, taking the gold and silver doors of the temple to his capital, Waššukanni, as spoils.[46]\n\nAfter the Mitanni Empire was destroyed by the Hittites Ashur-uballit I annexed the\neastern portions of that empire forming the Middle Assyrian Empire (1353-1056 BC). The following centuries witnessed the restoration of the old temples and palaces of Assur, and the city once more became the throne of an empire from 1365 BC to 1050 BC. Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244-1208 BC) also constructed a new temple to the goddess Ishtar in the location of the original temple. The Anu-Adad temple was established later during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1075 BC). The walled area of the city in the Middle Assyrian period made up some 1.2 square kilometres (300 acres).\n\nIron Age\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nIn the Neo-Assyrian Empire (912-605 BC) the royal residence was transferred to other Assyrian cities. Ashurnasirpal II (884-859 BC) moved the capital from Assur to Kalhu (Calah/Nimrud). With the reign of Sargon II (722-705 BC), a new capital began to rise: Dur-Sharrukin (Fortress of Sargon). He died in battle and his son and successor Sennacherib (705-682 BC) abandoned the city, choosing to magnify Nineveh as his royal capital. The city of Assur remained the religious center of the empire due to its temple of the national god Ashur.[47]\n\nIn the reign of Sennacherib (705-682 BC), the House of the New Year, Akitu, was built, and the festivities celebrated in the city. Many of the kings were also buried beneath the Old Palace while some queens were buried in the other capitals such as the wife of Sargon, Ataliya. The city was sacked and largely destroyed during the decisive battle of Assur, a major confrontation between the Assyrian and Median and Babylonian armies.[47][48]\n\nAchaemenid Empire\n\nAfter the Babylonians and Medes were overthrown by the Persians as the dominant force in ancient Mesopotamia and Iran, Assyria was ruled by the Persian Achaemenid Empire (as Athura) from 549 BC to 330 BC (see Achaemenid Assyria). The Athura had been responsible for gold and glazing works of the palace and for providing Lebanese cedar timber, respectively. The city and region of Ashur had once more gained a degree of militaristic and economic strength. A revolt by the Assyrians took place in 520 BC but ultimately failed. Assyria seems to have recovered dramatically and flourished during this period. It became a major agricultural and administrative center of the Achaemenid Empire, and its soldiers were a mainstay of the Persian Army.[46]\n\nParthian Empire\n\nThe city revived during the Parthian Empire period, particularly between 150 BC and 257 AD, its population expanding and it becoming an administrative centre of Parthian-ruled Assuristan. Assyriologists Simo Parpola and Patricia Crone suggest Assur may have had outright independence in this period alongside other Assyrian polities such as Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra and Beth Garmai. New administrative buildings were erected to the north of the old city, and a palace to the south. The old temple dedicated to the god Ashur was rebuilt, as were temples to other Assyrian gods.\n\nEastern Aramaic inscriptions from the remains of Assur have yielded insight into the Parthian-era city with Assyria having its own Mesopotamian Aramaic Syriac script, which was the same in terms of grammar and syntax as that found at the Assyrian city of Edessa and elsewhere in the states of Osroene, Adiabene, Hatra and Nuhadra (modern Dohuk).\n\nGerman semiticist Klaus Beyer (1929-2014) published over 600 inscriptions from Mesopotamian towns and cities including Assur, Dura-Europos, Hatra, Gaddala, Tikrit and Tur Abdin.[49]\n\nThe Roman historian Festus wrote in about 370 that in AD 116 Trajan formed from his conquests east of the Euphrates the new Roman provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria. The existence of the latter Roman province is questioned by C.S. Lightfoot and F. Miller.[50][51] In any case, just two years after the province's supposed creation, Trajan's successor Hadrian restored Trajan's eastern conquests to the Parthians, preferring to live with him in peace and friendship.[52]\n\nThere were later Roman incursions into Mesopotamia under Lucius Verus and under Septimius Severus, who set up the Roman provinces of Mesopotamia and the kingdoms of Osroene and Adiabene.\n\nAssur was captured and sacked by Ardashir I of the Sasanian Empire c. 257 AD, whereafter the city was largely destroyed and much (though not all) of its population was dispersed, with a more sparse Assyrian population enduring until the massacres of Assyrian Christians by Tamurlane in the 14th century AD after which the remaining population spread into the countryside and the area saw an influx of Arabs and Kurds.\n[2]\n\nThreats to Assur\n\nThe site was put on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger in 2003, at which time the site was threatened by a looming large-scale dam project that would have submerged the ancient archaeological site.[53][54] The dam project was put on hold shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Makhoul Dam project has recently been revived.[55]\n\nThe territory around the ancient site was occupied by the Islamic State (IS) in 2015. Since IS had destroyed a number of ancient historical sites, including the cities of Hatra, Khorsabad, and Nimrud, fears rose that Assur would be destroyed too. According to some sources, the citadel of Assur was destroyed or badly damaged in May 2015 by members of IS using improvised explosive devices.[56] An AP report from December 2016 after the Iraqi forces had retaken the area, said that the militants tried to destroy the city's grand entrance arches, but they remained standing and a local historian described the damage as \"minor\".[57]\n\nSee also\n\nChronology of the ancient Near East\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nList of Mesopotamian deities\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nMesopotamian religion\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nNotes\n\n^ /ˈæʃʊər/; Sumerian: 𒀭𒊹𒆠 AN.ŠAR2KI, Assyrian cuneiform: Aš-šurKI, \"City of God Aššur\"; Also phonetically 𒀀𒇳𒊬 a-šur4\nor 𒀸𒋩 aš-šur[1] Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ Āšūr; Old Persian: 𐎠𐎰𐎢𐎼 Aθur, Persian: آشور Āšūr; Hebrew: אַשּׁוּר ʾAššūr, Arabic: اشور\n\nReferences\n\n^ Pongratz-Leisten, Beate (2015). Religion and Ideology in Assyria. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-61451-426-8.\n\n^ a b Karen Radner, \"Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction\", New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0\n\n^ [1] Novák, Mirko, \"From Ashur to Nineveh: The Assyrian town-planning programme\", Iraq 66, pp. 177-185, 2004\n\n^ [2] Rassam, H., \"Recent Assyrian and Babylonian research\", Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 14, pp. 182-225, 1881\n\n^ [3] Walter Andrae, \"Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur\", JC Hinrichs, 1909, (1984 reprint ISBN 3-7648-1805-0)\n\n^ [4] Walter Andrae, \"Die Stelenreihen in Assur\", JC Hinrichs, 1913, (1972 reprint ISBN 3-535-00587-6)\n\n^ [5] Walter Andrae, \"Die archaischen Ischtar-Tempel in Assur\", JC Hinrichs, 1922, (1970 reprint ISBN 3-7648-1806-9)\n\n^ Walter Andrae, \"Hethitische Inschriften auf Bleistreifen aus Assur\", JC Hinrichs, 1924\n\n^ [6] Walter Andrae, \"Das wiedererstandene Assur\", JC Hinrichs, 1938, (1977 reprint ISBN 3-406-02947-7)\n\n^ Wicke, Dirk, \"Bone and ivory working at Assur\", Levant. The Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 197-207, 2016\n\n^ Pedde, F., \"The Assur Project: The Middle and Neo-Assyrian Graves and Tombs\", Proceedings of the 7th ICAANE, London 1, pp. 93-108, 2010\n\n^ Zettler, Richard L., \"Der Sin-Samas-Tempel in Assur\", The Journal of the American Oriental Society 130.3, pp. 458-460, 2010\n\n^ Butcher, Kevin, \"From Achaemenids to the Arsacids\", in Regional History and the Coin Finds from Assur: From the Achaemenids to the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Kevin Butcher and Stefan Heidemann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz), pp. 7-48, 2017\n\n^ Friedhelm Pedde, \"The Assur-Project: A new Analysis of the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian Graves and Tombs\", in: P. Matthiae - F. Pinnock - L. Nigro - N. Marchetti (Ed.), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, May, 5th-10th 2008, Sapienza - Università di Roma. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden Vol. 1, 913-923, 2010\n\n^ Friedhelm Pedde, \"The Assur-Project. An old excavation newly analyzed\", in J.M. Córdoba et al. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Madrid, April 3-8, 2006. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Ediciones, Madrid, Vol. II, 743-752, 2008\n\n^ Steven Lundström, \"From six to seven Royal Tombs. The documentation of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft excavation at Assur (1903-1914) - Possibilities and limits of its reexamination\", in J.M. Córdoba et al. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Madrid, April 3-8, 2006. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Ediciones, Madrid, Vol. II, 445-463, 2008\n\n^ a b Jürgen Bär, \"Sumerians, Gutians and Hurrians at Ashur? A Re-Examination of Ishtar Temples G and F\", Iraq, vol. 65, pp. 143-60, 2003\n\n^ \"Excavations in Iraq, 1977-78\", Iraq, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 141-81, 1979\n\n^ \"Excavations in Iraq, 1979-80\", Iraq, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 167-98, 1981\n\n^ \"Excavations in Iraq, 1981-82\", Iraq, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 199-224, 1983\n\n^ Wright, G. R. H., \"Assur. An Unusual Parthian Grave Form in Its Context\", Archiv Für Orientforschung, vol. 52, pp. 186-198, 2011\n\n^ \"Excavations in Iraq 1989-1990\", Iraq, vol. 53, pp. 169-182, 1991\n\n^ B. Hrouda, \"Vorläufiger Bericht über die neuen Ausgrabungen in Assur, Frühjahr 1990\", in Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft (MDOG) 123, 1991\n\n^ R. Dittmann, \"Ausgrabungen der Freien Universitat Berlin in Ashur und Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta in den Jahren 1986-1989\", MDOG, vol. 122, pp. 157-171, 1990\n\n^ \"Excavations in Iraq 1987-88\", Iraq, vol. 51, pp. 249-65, 1989\n\n^ Miglus, Peter A., et al., \"Assur: Frühjahrskampagne 2000\", Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 132, pp. 13-54, 2000\n\n^ Miglus, Peter A., \"Assur. Herbstkampagne 2001\", Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 134, pp. 7-39, 2002\n\n^ Radner, Karen, and Andrea Squitieri, eds, \"Assur 2023: Excavations and other research in the New Town. Vol. 1\", PeWe-Verlag, 2024\n\n^ [7] Altaweel, Mark, \"Assur 2024: Continuing the excavations in the New Town and other research across the site. Exploring Assur, Vol. 2\", PeWe Verlag, 2025\n\n^ [8] Radner, Karen, Andrea Squitieri, and Florian Janoscha Kreppner, \"Die neuen Ausgrabungen in Assur: die Ergebnisse der Feldarbeiten und Analysen von 2024\", Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, pp. 151-179, 2025\n\n^ [9] Fassbinder, Jörg, et al., \"Magnetometer prospecting at Assur, 2023\", Assur 2023: Excavations and other research in the New Town 1, pp. 67-81, 2024\n\n^ a b Altaweel, Mark; Squitieri, Andrea; Eckmeier, Eileen; Garzanti, Eduardo; Radner, Karen, \"The sand deposit underneath the Ishtar Temple in Assur, Iraq: Origin and implications for the foundation of the goddess’s cult and sanctuary\", Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 69, Article 105574, 2026 10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105574\n\n^ [10]Tushingham, Poppy, and Jana Richter, \"Cuneiform finds from Assur, 2025\", Radner, Karen, Jana Richter, and Andrea Squitieri, Assur 2025. Further insights into life and death in the New Town. Exploring Assur, Vol. 3. Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, pp. 176-182, 2026\n\n^ Hallo, William W., \"Zāriqum\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 220-25, 1956\n\n^ R. Kutscher, \"A Note on the Early Careers of Zariqum and Samsi-illat\", RA 73, pp. 81-82, 1979\n\n^ Poebel, A., \"The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 247-306, 1942\n\n^ \"RIME 3/2.01.03.2001 Composite Artifact Entry\", (2012) 2024. Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI). September 22, 2024\n\n^ \"RIME 4.05.19.02 Composite Artifact Entry\", 2013. Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI). January 20, 2013\n\n^ Donbaz, Veysel., \"Four Old Assyrian Tablets from the City of Aššur\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 81-87, 1974\n\n^ Veenhof, Klaas R., \"Ancient Assur: The City, Its Traders, and Its Commercial Network\", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 53, no. 1/2, pp. 39-82, 2010\n\n^ \"JNES 16, 170 Artifact Entry.\" (2003) 2024. Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI). October 24, 2024\n\n^ [11] Veenhof, Klaas R., \"Accordance with the Words of the Stele: Evidence for Old Assyrian Legislation\", in Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 70, pp. 1717-1744, 1994\n\n^ Eppihimer, Melissa, \"Representing Ashur: The Old Assyrian Rulers’ Seals and Their Ur III Prototype\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72.1, pp. 35-49, 2013\n\n^ [12] Michel, Cécile, \"The Old Assyrian trade in the light of recent Kültepe archives\", Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 3, pp. 71-82, 2008\n\n^ Grayson, A. Kirk, \"Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millenia BC (to 1115 BC)\", University of Toronto Press, 2002\n\n^ a b c Parpola, Simo, \"Assyrians after Assyria\", Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 13.2, 1999\n\n^ a b Potts, D. T., \"A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East\", Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012 ISBN 9781405189880\n\n^ Lipschits, Oded, The fall and rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian rule\", Eisenbrauns, 2005\n\n^ Beyer, Klaus, \"Die aramäischen Inschriften aus Assur, Hatra und dem überigen Ostmesopotamien\", Göttingen, 1998\n\n^ Lightfoot, Christopher S., \"Trajan's Parthian War and the fourth-century perspective\", The Journal of Roman Studies 80, pp. 115-126, 1990\n\n^ Grote, Simon, \"Another look at the Breviarium of Festus\", The Classical Quarterly 61.2, pp. 704-721, 2011\n\n^ [13] Theodore Mommsen, \"Römische Geschichte: Die Provinzen von Caesar bis Diocletian\", vol. 5, Berlin, 1885\n\n^ UNESCO World Heritage in Danger 2003\n\n^ At the Iraqi Site of Assur, Ancient History Stands at Risk of Destruction - Smithsonian Magazine - January 2022\n\n^ [14] Abbas, Alice, \"Bidding Farewell to the Ancient City of Ashur: A Qualitative Case Study of the Social and Cultural Impacts of the Makhoul Dam in Iraq\", 2024\n\n^ Mezzofiore, Gianluca; Limam, Arij (28 May 2015). \"Iraq: Isis 'blows up Unesco world heritage Assyrian site of Ashur' near Tikrit\". International Business Times. Retrieved 24 August 2015.\n\n^ \"Iraq Assur | AP Archive\". www.aparchive.com. 2016-12-11. Retrieved 2019-03-25.\n\nFurther reading\n\n[15] Walter Andrae, \"Babylon. Die versunkene Weltstadt und ihr Ausgräber Robert Koldewey\", de Gruyter, Berlin 1952\n\nBeuger, Claudia, \"Die Keramik der älteren Ischtar-Tempel in Assur: von der zweiten Hälfte des 3. bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr\", Harrassowitz, 2013\n\nBeuger, Claudia, \"Short notes on Chalcolithic pottery research: The pottery sequences of Tell Nader (Erbil) and Ashur (Qal’at Shergat)\", The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Adjacent Regions, Archaeopress, Oxford, pp. 19-27, 2016\n\n[16] Beuger, Claudia, \"A short note on prehistoric Pottery from Ashur (Gal'at Sherqat)\", II Workshop on Late Neolithic Ceramics in Ancient Mesopotamia. Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura; Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya, 2018\n\nCancik-Kirschbaum, Eva, \"Ashur-The Making of an Imperial Capital in the fifteenth and fourteenth Century BC\", Mesopotamia 46, pp. 71-78, 2011\n\nCreamer, Petra. \"Assur's Newcomers: Evidence for the Maintenance of Population in the Imperial Assyrian Capitals Through Resettlement Events,\" American Journal of Archaeology 129, pp. 491-509, 2025\n\nDonbaz, Veysel and Grayson, A. Kirk, \"Royal Inscriptions on Clay Cones from Ashur now in Istanbul\", Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984\n\nDuri, Riad, \"Iraqi investigations in the public district of Ashur during the 2002 season\", New research on late Assyrian palaces, pp. 83-90, 2013\n\nFeller, B., \"Seal Images and Social Status: Sealings on Middle Assyrian Tablets from Ashur\", in Matthiae, P., Pinnock, F., Nigro, L., and Marchetti, N., eds. Near Eastern Archaeology in the Past, Present and Future. Heritage and Identity Ethnoarchaeological and Interdisciplinary Approach, Results and Perspectives Visual Expression and Craft Production in the Definition of Social Relations and Status, Vol. 1. Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 5-10 May 2009, Sapienza«, Universiti di Roma. Wiesbaden, pp. 721-729, 2010\n\nGries, H., \"Der Assur-Tempel in Assur\", Das assyrische Hauptheiligtum im Wandel der Zeit, Wissenschaft-liche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesell-schaft 149, Berlin, 2017\n\nHarper, Prudence Oliver, \"Assyrian origins: discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin\", Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995\n\nHawkins, John David, \"ASSUR letters\", Vol 1 Inscriptions of the Iron Age: Part 1: Text, Introduction, Karatepe, Karkamis, Tell Ahmar, Maras, Malatya, Commagene. Part 2: Text, Amuq, Aleppo, Hama, Tabal, Assur Letters, Miscellaneous, Seals, Indices. Part 3: Plates, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 533-555, 2000\n\n[17]Stefan Heidemann, \"Al-'Aqr, das islamische Assur. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Topographie Nordmesopotamiens\", in Karin Bartl and Stefan hauser et al. (eds.): Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient. Seminar fur Altorientalische Philologie und Seminar für Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde der Freien Universität Berlin, Fachbereich Altertumswissenschaften, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin, pp. 259-285, 1996\n\nEva Cancik-Kirschbaum, \"Die Assyrer. Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Kultur\", C.H.Beck Wissen, München 2003 ISBN 3-406-50828-6\n\nSusan L. Marchand, \"Down from Olympus. Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany 1750-1970\", Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996 ISBN 0-691-04393-0\n\nOlaf Matthes, \"Zur Vorgeschichte der Ausgrabungen in Assur 1898-1903/05\", MDOG Berlin 129, pp. 9-27, 1997 ISSN 0342-118X\n\nMiglus, P., \"Neue Forschungen in Assur\", in Marzahn, J., Salje, B. (Eds.), Wiedererstehendes Assur: 100 Jahre Deutsche Ausgrabungen in Assyrien, Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, pp. 183-189, 2003\n\nPeter A. Miglus, \"Das Wohngebiet von Assur, Stratigraphie und Architektur\", Berlin 1996 ISBN 3-7861-1731-4\n\n[18] Conrad Preusser, \"Die Paläste in Assur\", Gebr. Mann, Berlin, 1955 ISBN 3-7861-2004-8\n\nFriedhelm Pedde, \"The Assyrian heartland\", in D.T. Potts (Ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, Vol. II, 851-866, 2012\n\n[19] Radner, Karen, and Holger Gzella, \"Assur 2023: Die Schriftfunde\", Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, pp. 49-56, 2024\n\n[20]Radner, Karen, Jana Richter, and Andrea Squitieri, \"Assur 2025. Further insights into life and death in the New Town\", Exploring Assur, Vol. 3. Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, 2026\n\n[21] Radner, Karen, et al., \"Die Wiederaufnahme der Ausgrabungen in Assur 2023: erste Ergebnisse aus der Neustadt\", Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, oo, 19-47, 2024\n\nSchmitt, Aaron W., \"Die Jüngeren Ischtar-Tempel und der Nabû-Tempel in Assur\", Architektur, Stratigraphie und Funde, 2012\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian origins: discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Assur"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assur"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4475}, {"slug": "reference-nineveh", "title": "Nineveh", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Nineveh[a] was an ancient Near Eastern city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River and was the capital and largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and potentially the wealthiest city in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nineveh\n\nܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ\n\nThe reconstructed Mashki Gate of Nineveh (since destroyed by the Islamic State)\n\nLocation within IraqShow map of IraqLocation within Near EastShow map of Near East\n\n36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.35944°N 43.15278°E / 36.35944; 43.15278\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nLocationMosul, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nHistory\n\nBuiltc. 3000 BC\n\nAbandoned612 BC\n\nEventFall of Nineveh\n\nSite notes\n\nArea7.5 km2 (2.9 sq mi)\n\nExcavation dates1845-1852, 1873-1874, 1885-1891, 1904-1905, 1929-1932, 1951-1958, 1967-1971, 1987-1990, 2019-2023\n\nArchaeologistsAusten Henry Layard, Hormuzd Rassam, Leonard William King, Reginald Campbell Thompson, Mohammed Ali Mustafa, David Stronach\n\nNineveh[a] was an ancient Near Eastern city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River and was the capital and largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and potentially the wealthiest city in the ancient world.[1] Today, it is a common name for the half of Mosul that lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and the country's Nineveh Governorate takes its name from it.\n\nIt was the largest city in the world for approximately fifty years until the year 612 BC when, after a bitter period of civil war in Assyria, it was sacked by a coalition of its former subject peoples including the Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians. The city was never again a political or administrative centre, but by Late Antiquity it was the seat of a bishop of the Church of the East. It declined relative to Mosul during the Middle Ages and was mostly abandoned by the 14th century AD after the massacres and dispersal of Assyrian Christians by Timur.\n\nIts ruins lie across the river from the historical city center of Mosul. The two main tells, or mound-ruins, within the walls are Tell Kuyunjiq and Tell Nabī Yūnus, site of a shrine to Jonah. According to the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, Jonah was a prophet who preached to Nineveh.[2][3][4] Large numbers of Assyrian sculptures and other artifacts have been excavated from the ruins of Nineveh, and are now located in museums around the world.\n\nThe location of Nineveh was known, to some, continuously through the Middle Ages. Benjamin of Tudela visited it in 1170; Petachiah of Regensburg soon after.[5]\n\nName\n\nThe English placename Nineveh comes from the Latin Nīnevē and the Koine Greek Nineuḗ (Νινευή) under influence of the Biblical Hebrew Nīnəweh (נִינְוֶה),[6] from the Akkadian Ninua (var. Ninâ)[7] or Ninuwā.[6] The city was also known as Ninuwa in Mari;[7] Ninawa in Aramaic;[7] Ninwe (ܢܝܢܘܐ) in Syriac;[8] and Ninawa (نينوى) in Arabic.\n\nNabī Yūnus is the Arabic for \"Prophet Jonah\". Kuyunjiq was, according to Layard, a Turkish name; Layard used the form kouyunjik, the diminutive of koyun (\"sheep\") in Turkish. Kuyunjiq was also known as Armousheeah by the Arabs[9] and it is thought to have some connection with the Qara Qoyunlu dynasty.[10]\n\nGeography\n\nThe remains of ancient Nineveh, the areas of Kuyunjiq and Nabī Yūnus with their mounds, are located on a level part of the plain at the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within an area of 750 hectares (1,900 acres)[11] circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) fortification wall. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins, roughly a third of these overlaid by the Nebi Yunus suburbs of the city of eastern Mosul.[12]\n\nThe site of ancient Nineveh is bisected by the Khosr river. North of the Khosr, the site is called Kuyunjiq, including the acropolis of Tell Kuyunjiq; the illegal village of Rahmaniye lay in eastern Kuyunjiq. South of the Khosr, the urbanized area is called Nebi Yunus (also Ghazliya, Jezayr, Jammasa), including Tell Nebi Yunus, where are the mosque of the Prophet Jonah, and a palace of Esarhaddon/Ashurbanipal below it. South of the street Al-'Asady (made by Daesh by destroying swaths of the city walls) the area is called Junub Ninawah or Shara Pepsi.\n\nHistory\n\nNeolithic\n\nNineveh itself was founded as early as 6000 BC during the late Neolithic period. Deep sounding at Nineveh uncovered soil layers that have been dated to early in the era of the Hassuna archaeological culture.[13] The development and culture of Nineveh paralleled Tepe Gawra and Tell Arpachiyah a few kilometers to the northeast. Nineveh was a typical farming village in the Halaf Period.\n\nChalcolithic\n\nUbaid period\n\nIn 5000 BC, Nineveh transitioned from a Halaf village to an Ubaid village. During the Late Chalcolithic period Nineveh was one of the few Ubaid villages in Upper Mesopotamia which became a proto-city. Others include Ugarit, Brak, Hamoukar, Arbela, Alep, and regionally Susa, Eridu, Nippur. During the period between 4500 and 4000 BC it grew to 40 hectares in size.\n\nThe greater Nineveh area is notable in the diffusion of metal technology across the near east as the first location outside of Anatolia to smelt copper. Tell Arpachiyah has the oldest copper smelting remains, and Tepe Gawra has the oldest metal work. The copper came from the mines at Ergani.\n\nUruk period\n\nNineveh IV became a trade colony of Uruk during the Uruk Expansion because of its location as the highest navigable point on the Tigris. It was contemporary with, and had a similar function to, Habuba Kabira on the Euphrates. Finds included beveled rim bowls.[14][15]\n\nEarly Bronze Age\n\nNinevite 5 period\n\nFollowing the Late Uruk period, the regional influence of Nineveh became particularly pronounced. This period is known as Ninevite 5, or Ninevite V (3000/2900-2600/2500 BC) and is defined primarily by the characteristic pottery that is found widely throughout Upper Mesopotamia.[16] Also, for the Upper Mesopotamian region, the Early Jezirah chronology has been developed by archaeologists. According to this regional chronology, 'Ninevite 5' is equivalent to the Early Jezirah I-II period.[17]\n\nNinevite 5 pottery is roughly contemporary to the Early Transcaucasian culture ware, and the Jemdet Nasr period ware.[16] Iraqi Scarlet Ware culture also belongs to this period; this colourful painted pottery is somewhat similar to Jemdet Nasr ware. Scarlet Ware was first documented in the Diyala River basin in Iraq. Later, it was also found in the nearby Hamrin Basin, and in Luristan. It is also contemporary with the Proto-Elamite period in Susa.\n\nNinevite 5 can be subdivided into the Early Ninevite 5 (3000-2750 BC) characterized by painted pottery and Late Ninevite 5 (2750-2500 BC) with incised pottery. In southern Mesopotamia, the former is contemporary with ED I-II, while the latter mirrors ED II-IIIA.[18]\n\nStyles related to Nineveh 5\n\n Painted jar - Ninevite 5\n\n Painted bowl - Uruk-Nineveh 5 transition\n\n Jemdet Nasr ware\n\n Proto-Elamite ware 3100 BC\n\n Pottery jar, Tepeyatagi, Khudat district, Kura-Araxtes culture\n\nAkkadian period\n\nIn the late 3rd millennium BC Nineveh was part of the Akkadian Empire. While the site was occupied in that period, there was minimal official Akkadian presence there-unlike at Assur which had a much more notable presence. An Akkadian period bronze statue head found at Nineveh was later determined to be a 7th century addition.[19][20]\n\nMiddle Bronze\n\nIn the early 2nd millennium BC Nineveh became part of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia during the reign of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1809-1775 BC), Amorite ruler of Ekallatum.[21][22] It became a center of worship of Ishtar.[23][24][25]\n\nLate Bronze\n\nMitanni period\n\nThe goddess's statue was sent to Pharaoh Amenhotep III of Egypt in the 14th century BC, by orders of the king Tushratta of Mitanni. Nineveh became one of Mitanni's vassals for half a century until the early 14th century BC.\n\nMiddle Assyrian period\n\nThe Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I reclaimed it in 1365 BC while overthrowing the Mitanni Empire and creating the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1050 BC).[26]\n\nThere is a large body of evidence to show that Assyrian monarchs built extensively in Nineveh during the late 3rd and 2nd millennia BC; it appears to have been originally an \"Assyrian provincial town\". Later monarchs whose inscriptions have appeared on the high city include the Middle Assyrian Empire kings Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076 BC), both of whom were active builders in Assur (Ashur).\n\nIron Age\n\nNeo-Assyrian period\n\nDuring the Neo-Assyrian Empire, particularly from the time of Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883-859 BC) onward, there was considerable architectural expansion. Successive monarchs such as Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal maintained and founded new palaces, as well as temples to Sîn, Ashur, Nergal, Shamash, Ninurta, Ishtar, Tammuz, Nisroch and Nabu.\n\nSennacherib's development of Nineveh\n\nIt was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly influential city (c. 700 BC), as he laid out new streets and squares, and built within it the South West Palace, or \"palace without a rival\", the plan of which has been mostly recovered and has overall dimensions of about 503 by 242 metres (1,650 ft × 794 ft). It had at least 80 rooms, many of which were lined with sculpture. A large number of cuneiform tablets were found in the palace. The solid foundation was made out of limestone blocks and mud bricks; it was 22 metres (72 ft) tall. In total, the foundation is made of roughly 2,680,000 cubic metres (3,505,308 yd3) of brick (approximately 160 million bricks). The walls on top, made out of mud brick, were an additional 20 metres (66 ft) tall.\n\nSome of the principal doorways were flanked by colossal stone lamassu door figures weighing up to 30,000 kilograms (30 t); these were winged Mesopotamian lions[27] or bulls, with human heads. These were transported 50 kilometres (31 mi) from quarries at Balatai, and they had to be lifted up 20 metres (66 ft) once they arrived at the site, presumably by a ramp. There are also 3,000 metres (9,843 ft) of stone Assyrian palace reliefs, that include pictorial records documenting every construction step including carving the statues and transporting them on a barge. One picture shows 44 men towing a colossal statue. The carving shows three men directing the operation while standing on the Colossus. Once the statues arrived at their destination, the final carving was done. Most of the statues weigh between 9,000 and 27,000 kilograms (19,842 and 59,525 lb).[28]\n\nThe stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib's men parading the spoils of war before him. The inscriptions boasted of his conquests: he wrote of Babylon: \"Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city.\" A full and characteristic set shows the campaign leading up to the siege of Lachish in 701 BC; it is the \"finest\" from the reign of Sennacherib, and now in the British Museum.[29] He later wrote about a battle in Lachish: \"And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke ... him I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land.\"[30]\n\nAt this time, Nineveh comprised about 7 square kilometres (1,730 acres) of land, and fifteen great gates penetrated its walls. An elaborate system of eighteen canals brought water from the hills to Nineveh, and several sections of a magnificently constructed aqueduct erected by Sennacherib were discovered at Jerwan, about 65 kilometres (40 mi) distant.[31] The enclosed area had more than 100,000 inhabitants (maybe closer to 150,000), about twice as many as Babylon at the time, placing it among the largest settlements worldwide.\n\nSome scholars such as Stephanie Dalley at Oxford believe that the garden Sennacherib built next to his palace, with its associated irrigation works, was the original Hanging Gardens of Babylon; Dalley's argument is based on a disputation of the traditional placement of the Hanging Gardens attributed to Berossus, together with a combination of literary and archaeological evidence.[32]\n\nAfter Ashurbanipal\n\nThe greatness of Nineveh was short-lived. In around 627 BC, after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian Empire began to unravel through a series of bitter civil wars between rival claimants for the throne, and in 616 BC Assyria was attacked by its own former vassals, the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians. In about 616 BC Kalhu was sacked, the allied forces eventually reached Nineveh, besieging and sacking the city in 612 BC, following bitter house-to-house fighting, after which it was razed. Most of the people in the city who could not escape to the last Assyrian strongholds in the north and west were either massacred or deported out of the city and into the countryside where they founded new settlements. Many unburied skeletons were found by the archaeologists at the site. The Assyrian Empire then came to an end by 605 BC, the Medes and Babylonians dividing its colonies between themselves.\n\nIt is not clear whether Nineveh came under the rule of the Medes or the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 612. The Babylonian Chronicles concerning the Fall of Nineveh[34] record that Nineveh was \"turned into mounds and heaps\", but this is literary hyperbole. The complete destruction of Nineveh has traditionally been seen as confirmed by the Hebrew Book of Zephaniah and the Greek Retreat of the Ten Thousand of Xenophon (d. 354 BC).[35] There are no later cuneiform tablets in Akkadian from Nineveh. Although devastated in 612 BC, the city was not completely abandoned.[35] Yet, to the Greek historians Ctesias and Herodotus (c. 400 BC), Nineveh was a thing of the past; and when Xenophon passed the place in the 4th century BC he described it as abandoned.[36]\n\nPersian period\n\nThe earliest piece of written evidence for the persistence of Nineveh as a settlement is possibly the Cyrus Cylinder of 539/538 BC, but the reading of this is disputed. If correctly read as Nineveh, it indicates that Cyrus the Great restored the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh and probably encouraged resettlement. A number of cuneiform Elamite tablets have been found at Nineveh. They probably date from the time of the revival of Elam in the century following the collapse of Assyria.\n\nArchaeologically, there is evidence of repairs at the temple of Nabu after 612 BC and for the continued use of Sennacherib's palace. There is evidence of syncretic Hellenistic cults. A statue of Hermes has been found and a Greek inscription attached to a shrine of the Sebitti. A statue of Herakles Epitrapezios dated to the 2nd century AD has also been found.[35]\n\nClassical period\n\nThe city was actively resettled under the Seleucid Empire.[37] There is evidence of more changes in Sennacherib's palace under the Parthian Empire. The Parthians also established a municipal mint at Nineveh coining in bronze.[35] According to Tacitus, in AD 50 Meherdates, a claimant to the Parthian throne with Roman support, took Nineveh.[38]\n\nLate Antiquity\n\nBy Late Antiquity, Nineveh was restricted to the east bank of the Tigris and the west bank was uninhabited. Under the Sasanian Empire, Nineveh was not an administrative centre. By the 2nd century AD there were Christians present and by 554 it was a bishopric of the Church of the East. King Khosrow II (591-628) built a fortress on the west bank, and two Christian monasteries were constructed around 570 and 595. This growing settlement was not called Mosul until after the Arab conquests. It may have been called Hesnā ʿEbrāyē (Jews' Fort).[37]\n\nIn 627, the city was the site of the Battle of Nineveh between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanians. In 641, it was conquered by the Arabs, who built a mosque on the west bank and turned it into an administrative centre. Under the Umayyad dynasty, Mosul eclipsed Nineveh, which was reduced to a Christian suburb with limited new construction. By the 13th century, Nineveh was mostly ruins and was subsequently absorbed into Mosul. A church was converted into a Muslim shrine to the prophet Jonah, which continued to attract pilgrims until its destruction by ISIL in 2014.[37] In late Ottoman times, the ashlar masonry of the North Palace of Ashurbanipal was quarried to make for the pilons of the Old Bridge over the Tigris.[39] The modern city of Mosul is occasionally referred to as Nineveh, such as during the operation to retake Mosul in 2016-17.[40]\n\nBiblical Nineveh\n\nIn the Hebrew Bible, Nineveh is first mentioned in Genesis 10:11: \"Ashur left that land, and built Nineveh\". Some modern English translations interpret \"Ashur\" in the Hebrew of this verse as the country \"Assyria\" rather than a person, thus making Nimrod, rather than Ashur, the founder of Nineveh. The discovery of the fifteen Jubilees texts found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls has since shown that, according to the Jewish sects of Qumran, Genesis 10:11 affirms the apportionment of Nineveh to Ashur.[41]\n\nAccording to Isaiah 37:37-38 Nineveh was also the place where Sennacherib died at the hands of his two sons, who then fled to Ararat. The book of the minor prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against Nineveh. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold in Nahum 1:14 and Nahum 3:19. In Nahum 2:6-11 its end was fortold to be strange, sudden, and tragic. According to Isaiah 10:5-19 it was God's doing, his judgment on Assyria's pride. In fulfillment of prophecy, God made \"an utter end of the place\". It became a \"desolation\". In Zephaniah 2:13-15 the minor prophet Zephaniah also predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital. Nineveh is also the setting of the Book of Tobit.\n\nThe Book of Jonah (Jonah 3:3 and Jonah 4:11), set in the days of the Assyrian Empire, describes it as an \"exceedingly great city of three days' journey in breadth\", whose population at that time is given as \"more than 120,000\". Genesis 10:11-12 lists four cities \"Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen\", ambiguously stating that either Resen or Calah is \"the great city\". The ruins of Kuyunjiq, Nimrud, Karamlesh and Khorsabad form the four corners of an irregular quadrilateral. The ruins of the \"great city\" Nineveh, with the whole area included within the parallelogram they form by lines drawn from the one to the other, are generally regarded as consisting of these four sites. The description of Nineveh in Jonah likely was a reference to greater Nineveh, including the surrounding cities of Rehoboth, Calah and Resen[42] The Book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of destruction. God sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites of their coming destruction, and they fasted and repented because of this. As a result, God spared the city; when Jonah protests against this, God states he is showing mercy for the population who, according to Jonah 4:11), are ignorant of the difference between right and wrong (\"who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand\" and mercy for the beasts in the city.\n\nNineveh's repentance and salvation from evil can be found in the Hebrew Tanakh, also known as the Old Testament, and referred to in Matthew 12:41 and Luke 11:32 and the Muslim Qur'an. To this day, Syriac and Oriental Orthodox churches commemorate the three days Jonah spent inside the fish during the Fast of Nineveh. Some Christians observe this holiday fast by refraining from food and drink, with churches encouraging followers to refrain from dairy products, fish and other meats.\n\nArchaeology\n\nCarsten Niebuhr recorded its location during the 1761-1767 Danish expedition. Niebuhr wrote afterwards that \"I did not learn that I was at so remarkable a spot, till near the river. Then they showed me a village on a great hill, which they call Nunia, and a mosque, in which the prophet Jonah was buried. Another hill in this district is called Kalla Nunia, or the Castle of Nineveh. On that lies a village Koindsjug.\"[43] In 1820 the site was explored and described by archaeologist Claudius Rich.[44] In 1842, the French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta, began to search the vast mounds that lay along the opposite bank of the river. While at Tell Kuyunjiq he had little success, the locals whom he employed in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the ruins of a building at the 20 km far-away mound of Khorsabad, which, on further exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon II, in which large numbers of reliefs were found and recorded, though they had been damaged by fire and were mostly too fragile to remove.[45][46][47]\n\nIn 1847 the young British diplomat Austen Henry Layard explored the ruins.[48][49][50][51] Layard did not use modern archaeological methods; his stated goal was \"to obtain the largest possible number of well preserved objects of art at the least possible outlay of time and money\".[5] In the Kuyunjiq mound, Layard rediscovered in 1849 the lost palace of Sennacherib with its 71 rooms and colossal bas-reliefs.[52] He also unearthed the palace and famous library of Ashurbanipal with 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets.[53] Most of Layard's material was sent to the British Museum, but some was dispersed elsewhere: two large pieces were given to Lady Charlotte Guest and these eventually found their way to the Metropolitan Museum.[54]\n\nThe work of exploration was carried on by Hormuzd Rassam, George Smith and others, and a vast treasury of specimens of Assyria was incrementally exhumed for European museums. Palace after palace was discovered, with their decorations and their sculptured slabs, revealing the life and manners of this ancient people, their arts of war and peace, the forms of their religion, the style of their architecture, and the magnificence of their monarchs.[55][56]\n\nThe mound of Tell Kuyunjiq was excavated again by the archaeologists of the British Museum, led by Leonard William King, between 1902 and 1904. Their efforts concentrated on the site of the Temple of Nabu where another cuneiform library was supposed to exist. However, no such library was ever found: most likely, it had been destroyed by the activities of later residents.[57]\n\nThe excavations started again in 1927, under the direction of Campbell Thompson, who had taken part in King's expeditions.[58][59][60][61] Some works were carried out outside Kuyunjiq, for instance on the mound of Tell Nebi Yunus, which was the ancient arsenal of Nineveh, or along the outside walls. Here, near the northwestern corner of the walls, beyond the pavement of a later building, the archaeologists found almost 300 fragments of prisms recording the royal annals of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal, beside a prism of Esarhaddon which was almost perfect.[62]\n\nAfter the Second World War, several excavations were carried out by Iraqi archaeologists. From 1951 to 1958, Mohammed Ali Mustafa worked the site.[63][64] The work was continued from 1967 through 1971 by Tariq Madhloom.[65][66][67] Some additional excavation occurred by Manhal Jabur from the early 1970s to 1987. For the most part, these digs focused on Tell Nebi Yunus.\n\nThe British archaeologist and Assyriologist Professor David Stronach of the University of California, Berkeley conducted a series of surveys and digs at the site from 1987 to 1990, focusing his attentions on the several gates and the existent mudbrick walls, as well as the system that supplied water to the city in times of siege.[68] The excavation reports are in progress.[69][70]\n\nAfter Mosul’s liberation from the control of the Islamic State (IS), Peter A. Miglus, University of Heidelberg, established a rescue project in 2018, exploring and documenting the intrusive IS tunnels in the Assyrian Military Palace that is located below the destroyed Mosque of the prophet Jonah on Tell Nebi Yunus. Archaeological excavations have been conducted since 2019.[71][72] Subsequently, an extensive research project, first under the direction of Stefan M. Maul and now of Aaron Schmidt, University of Heidelberg, developed, focusing also on other areas of Nineveh. At Tell Kuyunjiq, activities started in 2021 with rescue and restoration measures for the destroyed reliefs in the throne room wing of the Southwest Palace. Excavations in the North Palace commenced in 2022. Since 2023, work has also been conducted at the Nergal Gate, which was bulldozed by IS. In the lower town, geophysical surveys were carried out north of Kuyunjiq in 2021 and 2023 in preparation of future research on residential areas.[73]\n\nAn Iraqi-Italian Archaeological Expedition by the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH), led by Nicolò Marchetti, began (with five campaigns having taken place between 2019 and 2023) a project aiming at the excavation, conservation and public presentation of the lower town of Nineveh. Work was carried out in nineteen excavation areas, from the Adad Gate - now completely repaired (after removing hundreds of tons of debris from ISIL's 2016 destructions), explored and protected with a new roof - deep into the Nebi Yunus town. In a few areas, a thick later stratigraphy was encountered, but the late 7th century BC stratum was reached everywhere (actually in two areas in the pre-Sennacherib lower town, the excavations already exposed older strata, up to the 11th century BC until now, aiming in the future at exploring the first settlement therein).[74][75] In October 2023 an archaeological park was inaugurated at the site.\n\nSince 2024, an expedition led by Tim Harrison of the ISAC at the University of Chicago has taken over from the University of Bologna the investigation of the eastern lower town at Nineveh.[76] Later in June 2026, a six-foot-tall marble stele next to one of the gates was discovered by a team of archaeologists. Although the cuneiform wasn't fully translated, it is thought to be detailing the building projects of Ashurbanipal.[77]\n\nArchaeological remains\n\nThe site is marked by two large mounds, Tell Kuyunjiq and Tell Nabī Yūnus \"Prophet Jonah\", and the remains of the city walls (about 12 kilometres (7 mi) in circumference), enclosing a vast lower town extensively encroached by modern buildings. The Neo-Assyrian levels of Kuyunjiq have been extensively explored. The other mound, Nabī Yūnus, has not been as extensively explored because there was an Arab Muslim shrine dedicated to that prophet on the site. On July 24, 2014, the Islamic State destroyed the shrine as part of a campaign to destroy religious sanctuaries it deemed \"un-Islamic\",[78] but also to loot that site through tunneling.\n\nThe ruin mound of Tell Kuyunjiq rises about 20 metres (66 ft) above the surrounding plain of the ancient city. It is quite broad, measuring about 800 by 500 metres (2,625 ft × 1,640 ft). Its upper layers have been extensively excavated, and several Neo-Assyrian palaces and temples have been found there. A deep sounding by Max Mallowan revealed evidence of habitation as early as the 6th millennium BC. Today, there is little evidence of these old excavations other than weathered pits and earth piles. In 1990, the only Assyrian remains visible were those of the entry court and the first few chambers of the Palace of Sennacherib. Since that time, the palace chambers have received significant damage by looters and by the removal of the protective roof. Portions of relief sculptures that were in the palace chambers in 1990 were seen on the antiquities market by 1996. Photographs of the chambers made in 2003 show that many of the fine relief sculptures there have been reduced to piles of rubble and a conservation effort ensued. In 2016 Sennacherib's throne room was bulldozed by Daesh and the sculpted fragments were left exposed until 2022.\n\nTell Nebi Yunus is located about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south of Kuyunjiq and is the secondary ruin mound at Nineveh. On the basis of texts of Sennacherib, the site has traditionally been identified as the \"armory\" of Nineveh, and a gate and pavements excavated by Iraqis in 1954 have been considered to be part of the \"armory\" complex. Excavations in 1990 revealed a monumental entryway consisting of a number of large inscribed orthostats and \"bull-man\" sculptures, some apparently unfinished. Following the liberation of Mosul, the tunnels under Tell Nebi Yunus were explored in 2018, in which a 3000-year-old palace was discovered, including a pair of reliefs, each showing a row of women, along with reliefs of lamassu.[79]\n\nThe ruins of Nineveh are surrounded by the remains of a massive stone and mudbrick wall dating from about 700 BC. About 12 km in length, the wall system consisted of an ashlar stone retaining wall about 6 metres (20 ft) high surmounted by a mudbrick wall about 10 metres (33 ft) high and 15 metres (49 ft) thick. The stone retaining wall had projecting stone towers spaced about every 18 metres (59 ft). The stone wall and towers were topped by three-step merlons.\n\nSix of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists (besides the possible Sin Gate at the north-west end of the site):\n\nMashki Gate [b] was perhaps used to take livestock to water from the Tigris which currently flows about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) to the west. It has been reconstructed in fortified mudbrick to the height of the top of the vaulted passageway. The Assyrian original may have been plastered and ornamented. It was bulldozed along with the Nergal and Adad Gates during IS occupation.[80] During the restoration project, seven damaged alabaster carvings from the time of Sennacherib were found at the gate in 2022.[82]\n\nNergal Gate: Named for the god Nergal, it may have been used for some ceremonial purpose, as it is the only known gate flanked by stone sculptures of winged bull-men (lamassu).: 30  The reconstruction is conjectural, as the gate was excavated by Layard in the mid-19th century and reconstructed in the mid-20th century. The lamassu on this gate were defaced with a jackhammer by IS forces and the gate was utterly destroyed.[83]\n\nAdad Gate: Named for the god Adad. A roofing above it was begun in the late 1960s by Iraqis but was not completed. The result was a mixture of concrete and eroding mudbrick, which nonetheless does give some idea of the original structure. The excavator left some features unexcavated, allowing a view of the original Assyrian construction. The original brickwork of the outer vaulted passageway was well exposed, as was the entrance of the vaulted stairway to the upper levels. The actions of Nineveh's last defenders could be seen in the hastily built mudbrick construction, which narrowed the passageway from 4 to 2 metres (13 to 7 ft). Around April 13, 2016, IS demolished both the gate and the adjacent wall by flattening them with a bulldozer.[84][80] It has been reexcavated (including a 7 m deep stair-well), conservated and presented to the public by the Iraqi-Italian expedition between 2019 and 2023.\n\nShamash Gate: Named for the sun god Shamash, it opens to the road to Erbil. It was excavated by Layard in the 19th century. The stone retaining wall and part of the mudbrick structure were reconstructed in the 1960s. The mudbrick reconstruction has deteriorated significantly. The stone wall projects outward about 20 metres (66 ft) from the line of main wall for a width of about 70 metres (230 ft). It is the only gate with such a significant projection. The mound of its remains towers above the surrounding terrain. Its size and design suggest it was the most important gate in Neo-Assyrian times. It is now being excavated by the University of Chicago expedition.\n\nHalzi Gate: Near the south end of the eastern city wall. Exploratory excavations were undertaken here by the University of California, Berkeley expedition of 1989-1990 and again in 2022 and 2023 by the Iraqi-Italian Expedition. There is an outward projection of the city wall, though not as pronounced as at the Shamash Gate. The entry passage had been narrowed with mudbrick to about 2 metres (7 ft) as at the Adad Gate. Human remains from the final battle of Nineveh were found in the passageway.[85] Located in the eastern wall, it is the southernmost and largest of all the remaining gates of ancient Nineveh.[81]\n\nA new gate was discovered in 2021 to the north of the Shamash Gate and south of the Khosr river (in the area labeled as N by the Iraqi-Italian expedition), next to a spectacular water tunnel running for 42 m under the 31m-thick city wall (area G, excavated in 2020 and 2021).\n\nThreats to the site\n\nThe site of Nineveh is exposed to decay of its reliefs by a lack of proper protective roofing, vandalism, and looting holes dug into chamber floors.[86] Future preservation is further compromised by the site's proximity to expanding suburbs.\n\nThe ailing Mosul Dam is a persistent threat to Nineveh as well as the city of Mosul. This is in no small part due to years of disrepair (in 2006, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited it as the most dangerous dam in the world), the cancellation of a second dam project in the 1980s to act as flood relief in case of failure, and occupation by ISIL in 2014 resulting in fleeing workers and stolen equipment. If the dam fails, the entire site could be under as much as 45 feet (14 m) of water.[87]\n\nA major threat to Nineveh has been deliberate human actions by ISIL or Daesh, which occupied the area between 2014 and 2017. In early 2015, they first announced their intention to destroy the walls of Nineveh if the Iraqis tried to liberate the city, and they also threatened the destruction of archaeological heritage and artifacts.[88] On February 26, 2015, video footage shows IS smashing statues and artifacts at the Mosul Museum.[88] They are believed to have plundered others to sell overseas. The items were mostly from the Assyrian exhibit, which Daesh declared blasphemous and idolatrous. There were 300 items remaining in the museum out of a total of 1,900, with the other 1,600 being taken to the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad for security reasons prior to the 2014 Fall of Mosul. Some of the artifacts sold and/or destroyed were from Nineveh.[89] Just a few days after the destruction of the museum pieces, Daesh terrorists demolished parts of three other major UNESCO world heritage sites, Khorsabad, Nimrud and Hatra. In 2016, Daesh effectively destroyed the Adad Gate (along with the adjoining northern city walls, now cleared by the Iraqi-Italian expedition thanks to the support of the Kaplan Fund), as well as the Mashki Gate (along with the eastern fortifications. The Mashki Gate is in the process of being restored).[90] Daesh also called for intensive new housing in the Kuyunjiq part and opened a large road across the southern part of the site (currently known as Al Asady Road).\n\nAfter the cultural destruction and between 2014-2019, international efforts by archeologists began recording, evaluating and monitoring the damage and destruction inflicted on sensitive archaeological contexts in Nineveh, using satellite-based remote sensing.[88] The results found that a few high-profile acts of deliberate vandalism were accompanied by much more extensive damage caused by construction and rubbish dumping extending across substantial parts of the site.[88]\n\nThanks to the activities of the Iraqi-Italian expedition, an archaeological park has been opened at Kuyunjiq since 2023: tourists enter from the Adad gate, subsequently visiting the small Neo-Assyrian palace where the cuneiform library was discovered in 2021, and may then relax in the VW Foundation-funded KALAM mudbrick information center nearby. The site is still endangered, however, with dumping of debris, illegal settlements and economic activities (such as illegal generators for electricity, pipe companies etc.) as the main threats.\n\nRogation of the Ninevites (Nineveh's Wish)\n\nMembers of the Ancient Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Saint Thomas Christians of the Syro-Malabar Church observe a fast called Ba'uta d-Ninwe (ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ) which means Nineveh's Prayer. Copts and Ethiopian Orthodox also maintain this fast.[91]\n\nIn popular culture\n\nEnglish Romantic poet Edwin Atherstone wrote an epic titled The Fall of Nineveh.[92] The work tells of an uprising against king Sardanapalus by all the nations that were dominated by the Assyrian Empire. He is a great criminal who had one hundred prisoners of war executed. After a long struggle, the town is conquered by Median and Babylonian troops, led by prince Arbaces and priest Belesis. The king then sets his own palace on fire and dies inside together with all his concubines.\n\nAtherstone's friend, artist John Martin, created a painting of the same name inspired by the poem. English poet John Masefield's well-known, fanciful 1903 poem Cargoes mentions Nineveh in its first line. Nineveh is also mentioned in Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem Recessional[93] and Arthur O'Shaughnessy's 1873 poem Ode.\n\nIn Warhammer 40,000, the perpetual Ollanius Persson is said to be born in Nineveh.[94]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nDestruction of cultural heritage by the Islamic State\n\nHistorical urban community sizes\n\nIsaac of Nineveh\n\nList of megalithic sites\n\nNanshe\n\nQurnah disaster\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nNotes\n\n^ /ˈnɪnɪvə/ NIN-iv-ə \nAkkadian: 𒌷𒉌𒉡𒀀, URUNI.NU.A, Ninua\n\nBiblical Hebrew: נִינְוֵה, Nīnəwē\n\nArabic: نِينَوَىٰ, Nīnawā\n\nSyriac: ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē\n\n^ Masqi Gate (Arabic: بوابة مسقي, derived from the passive participle of سَقَى, saqā, 'to give (sb) a drink, to water, to irrigate')[81]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Frahm, Eckart (2023). Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 194. ISBN 9781526623706.\n\n^ Kripke, Saul A. (1980) [1972], Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, p. 67, ISBN 0-674-59846-6\n\n^ Jenson, Philip Peter (2009). Obadiah, Jonah, Micah: A Theological Commentary. The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-567-44289-5. Retrieved 2023-02-10.\n\n^ Chisholm, Robert B. Jr. (2009). Handbook on the Prophets. Baker Publishing Group. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-58558-365-2. Retrieved 2023-02-10.\n\n^ a b Liverani, Mario (2016) [2013], Immaginare Babele [Imagining Babylon: The Modern Story of an Ancient City], translated by Campbell, Alisa, De Gruyter, ISBN 978-1-61451-602-6\n\n^ a b Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. \"Ninevite, n. and adj.\" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013.\n\n^ a b c \"Nineveh\". Encyclopaedia Judaica. Gale Group. 2008.\n\n^ \"Nineveh - ܢܝܢܘܐ\", https://syriaca.org/place/144\n\n^ Layard, 1849, p.xxi, \"...called Kuyunjiq by the Turks, and Armousheeah by the Arabs\"\n\n^ \"Koyundjik\", E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, p. 1083.\n\n^ Mieroop, Marc van de (1997). The Ancient Mesopotamian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780191588457.\n\n^ Geoffrey Turner, \"Tell Nebi Yūnus: The ekal māšarti of Nineveh\", Iraq, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 68-85, 1970\n\n^ Kuyunjiq / Tell Nebi Yunis (ancient: Nineveh) Archived 2020-11-05 at the Wayback Machine colostate.edu\n\n^ Gut, R.V., \"Das Prahistorische Ninive: zur Relativen Chronologie der Fruhen Perioden Nordmesopotamiens\", Mainz, 1995\n\n^ Gut, R.V., \"The signiicance of the Uruk sequence at Nineveh\", in J.N. Postgate, (ed.), Artefacts of Complexity. Tracking the Uruk in the Near East, Cambridge, Iraq Archaeological Reports 5, Oxford, pp. 17-48, 2002\n\n^ a b Ian Shaw, A Dictionary of Archaeology. John Wiley & Sons, 2002 ISBN 0631235833 p. 427\n\n^ Polish-Syrian Expedition to Tell Arbid 2015\n\n^ Charvát, Petr, \"The Backs of Some Sealings from Nineveh 5\", Iraq, vol. 67, no. 1, pp. 391-97, 2005\n\n^ M. E. L. Mallowan, \"The Bronze Head of the Akkadian Period from Nineveh\", Iraq Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 104-110, 1936\n\n^ Westenholz, Joan Goodnick, \"The Old Akkadian Presence in Nineveh: Fact or Fiction\", Iraq, vol. 66, pp. 7-18, 2004\n\n^ [1] Ziegler, Nele, and Adelheid Otto, \"Ekallatum, Samsi-Addu’s capital city, localised\", Entre les fleuves-III. On the Way in Upper Mesopotamia: Travels, Routes and Environment as Basis for the Reconstruction of Historical Geography 30, pp. 221-252, 2023\n\n^ Van de Mieroop, Marc, \"A history of the ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC\", John Wiley & Sons, 2024\n\n^ Reade, Julian, \"The Ishtar Temple at Nineveh\", Iraq, vol. 67, no. 1, pp. 347-90, 2005\n\n^ Porter, Barbara Nevling, \"Ishtar of Nineveh and Her Collaborator, Ishtar of Arbela, in the Reign of Assurbanipal\", Iraq, vol. 66, pp. 41-44, 2004\n\n^ Ziegler, Nele, \"The Conquest of the Holy City of Nineveh and the Kingdom of Nurrugum by Samsî-Addu\", Iraq, vol. 66, pp. 19-26, 2004\n\n^ Genesis 10:11 attributes the founding of Nineveh to an Asshur: \"Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh\".\n\n^ a b Ashrafian, H. (2011). \"An extinct Mesopotamian lion subspecies\". Veterinary Heritage. 34 (2): 47-49.\n\n^ \"The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World\" edited by Chris Scarre 1999 (Thames and Hudson)\n\n^ Reade, Julian, Assyrian Sculpture, pp. 56 (quoted), 65-71, 1998 (2nd ed.), The British Museum Press, ISBN 9780714121413\n\n^ Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings (1995)\n\n^ Thorkild Jacobsen and Seton Lloyd, \"Sennacherib's Aqueduct at Jerwan\", Oriental Institute Publication 24, University of Chicago Press, 1935\n\n^ Dalley, Stephanie (2013). The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: an elusive World Wonder traced. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5.\n\n^ \"Wall panel; relief British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\n^ The Babylonian Chronicles concerning the Fall of Nineveh.\n\n^ a b c d Stephanie Dalley (1993), \"Nineveh after 612 BC\", Altorientalische Forschungen 20(1): 134-147.\n\n^ Menko Vlaardingerbroek (2004), \"The Founding of Nineveh and Babylon in Greek Historiography\", Iraq, vol. 66, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One, pp. 233-241.\n\n^ a b c Peter Webb, \"Nineveh and Mosul\", in O. Nicholason (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2018), vol. 2, p. 1078.\n\n^ J. E. Reade (1998), \"Greco-Parthian Nineveh\", Iraq 60: 65-83.\n\n^ [2] Marchetti, Nicolò, et al, \"The Ottoman Bridge of Mosul: survey and history of an endangered heritage\", Ante Quem Srl and Department of History and Cultures-University of Bologna, 2023 ISBN 978-88-7849-192-2\n\n^ [3] Charlie Winter, \"How ISIS Is Spinning the Mosul Battle\", The Atlantic, 20 October 2016\n\n^ VanderKam, \"Jubilees, Book of\", in L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Oxford University Press (2000), Vol. I, p. 435.\n\n^ Barker, Kenneth L.; Burdick, Donald W., eds. (1995). The NIV Study Bible (10th anniversary ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. p. 1361. ISBN 0-310-92568-1. OCLC 33344874.\n\n^ [4] Pusey, Edward Bouverie, \"The Minor Prophets, with a Commentary, Explanatory and Practical, and Introductions to the Several Books\", Volume II, 1888\n\n^ [5] Claudius James Rich, \"Narrative of a residence in Koordistan, and on the site of ancient Nineveh : with journal of a voyage down the Tigris to Bagdad and an account of a visit to Shirauz and Persepolis - Volume 2\", London, 1836\n\n^ [6] Buckingham, James Silk, \"The buried city of the east, Nineveh : a narrative of the discoveries of Mr. Layard and M. Botta at Nimroud and Khorsabad; with descriptions of the exhumed sculptures, and particulars of the early history of the ancient Ninevite kingdom\", London, 1851\n\n^ [7] Paul Emile Botta, Julius Mohl, \"M. Botta's Letters on the Discoveries at Nineveh\", Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850\n\n^ [8] Bonomi, Joseph, \"Nineveh and its palaces. The discoveries of Botta and Layard, applied to the elucidation of Holy Writ\", London : H.G. Bohn, 1857\n\n^ [9] A. H. Layard, \"Nineveh and Its Remains\", John Murray, 1849\n\n^ [10] A. H. Layard, \"Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert: being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum\", John Murray, 1853\n\n^ [11] A. H. Layard, \"The Monuments of Nineveh; From Drawings Made on the Spot\", John Murray, 1849\n\n^ [12] A. H. Layard, \"A second series of the monuments of Nineveh\", John Murray, 1853\n\n^ Russell, John Malcolm, \"Layard’s Descriptions of Rooms in the Southwest Palace at Nineveh\", Iraq, vol. 57, pp. 71-85, 1995\n\n^ Turner, G., \"The British Museum’s Excavations at Nineveh, 1846-1855\", Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2020 ISBN 978-90-04-43536-0\n\n^ John Malcolm Russell, \"From Nineveh to New York: The Strange Story of the Assyrian Reliefs in the Metropolitan Museum & the Hidden Masterpiece at Canford School\", Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-300-06459-4\n\n^ [13] George Smith, \"Assyrian Discoveries: An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, During 1873 and 1874\", S. Low-Marston-Searle and Rivington, 1876\n\n^ [14] Hormuzd Rassam and Robert William Rogers, \"Asshur and the Land of Nimrod\", Curts & Jennings, 1897\n\n^ [15] Thompson, Reginald Campbell, and Richard Wyatt Hutchinson, \"A century of exploration at Nineveh\", Luzac, & Company, 1929\n\n^ R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hutchinson, \"The excavations on the temple of Nabu at Nineveh\", Archaeologia, vol. 79, pp. 103-148, 1929\n\n^ R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hutchinson, \"The site of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nineveh excavated in 1929-30\", Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 18, pp. 79-112, 1931\n\n^ R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hamilton, \"The British Museum excavations on the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh 1930-31\", Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 19, pp. 55-116, 1932\n\n^ R. Campbell Thompson and M. E. L. Mallowan, \"The British Museum excavations at Nineveh 1931-32\", Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 20, pp. 71-186, 1933\n\n^ [16] Reginald Campbell Thompson, \"The prisms of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal found at Nineveh, 1927-8\", Lomdon, 1931\n\n^ [17] Mohammed Ali Mustafa, \"The Assyrian palace at Nebi Unis\", Sumer, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 110-111, 1954\n\n^ [18] Muhammad Ali Mustafa, \"The discovery of a statue of Hermes at Nineveh\", Sumer 10 (2), Arabic section, pp. 280-283, 1954\n\n^ Tariq Madhloom, \"Excavations at Nineveh: A preliminary report\", Sumer, vol. 23, pp. 76-79, 1967\n\n^ Tariq Madhloom, \"Excavations at Nineveh: The 1967-68 Campaign\", Sumer, vol 24, pp. 45-51, 1968\n\n^ Tariq Madhloom, \"Excavations at Nineveh: The 1968-69 Campaign\", Sumer, vol. 25, pp. 43-49, 1969\n\n^ Scott, M. Louise, and John MacGinnis, \"Notes on Nineveh\", Iraq, vol. 52, pp. 63-73, 1990\n\n^ Wilkinson, Eleanor Barbanes, and Stephen Lumsden, \"Pottery from the University of California, Berkeley Excavations in the Area of the Maški Gate (MG22), Nineveh, 1989-1990\", Archaeopress, 2022 ISBN 9781803272153\n\n^ Stronach, David, and Stephen Lumsden, \"UC Berkeley's excavations at Nineveh\", The Biblical Archaeologist 55.4, pp. 227-233, 1992\n\n^ Maul, S. M.; Miglus, P. A.; et al. (2020). \"Die Erforschung des ekal māšarti auf Tell Nebi Yunus in Ninive 2018-2019\" [Research into the ekal māšarti on Tell Nebi Yunus in Nineveh 2018-2019]. Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie. 13 (published 2021): 128-213. ISBN 978-3-7861-2860-1. ISSN 1868-9078.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Maul, S. M.; Miglus, P. A.; al-Magasees, A. Q.; et al. (2022). \"في موقع تل النبي يونس - نينوى الأثرية ٢٠١٨-٢٠١٩ (ekal māšarti) تنقيبات البعثة الألمانية في القصر العسكري\" [Excavations of the German mission in the Military Palace (ekal māšarti) on Tell Nebi Yunus - Archaeological site of Nineveh 2018-2019]. Sumer. 68: 11-80.\n\n^ Maul, S., Miglus, P. and Schmitt, A., \"Excavations of the Royal Palaces on Tell Nebi Yunus and Tell Kuyunjik at Nineveh, Seasons 2021-2023\", Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie, 16(1), 2025 doi:10.34780/26h2-2x6e\n\n^ N. Marchetti, G. Marchesi, \"Nineveh: The Resumption of Archaeological Exploration in the Centre of the Empire\", in D. Morandi Bonacossi, F. Simi, L. Turri (eds), From the Core of the Empire. New Archaeological Discoveries of the University of Udine in Ancient Assyria, Udine, pp. 170-189, 2022\n\n^ MacGinnis, John, Danti, Michael and Juboori, Ali, \"A Lamaštu Plaque from the Mašqi Gate in Nineveh\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 115, no. 1, pp. 71-80, 2025\n\n^ CRANE Fieldwork in Northern Iraq: The Shamash Gate Project\n\n^ Saraceni, Jessica Esther (2026-06-29). \"News - Marble Stele Unearthed in Nineveh\". Archaeology Magazine. Retrieved 2026-07-03.\n\n^ \"Officials: ISIS blows up Jonah's tomb in Iraq\". CNN. 2014-07-24. Retrieved 2014-07-24.\n\n^ \"Explore the IS Tunnels\". BBC News. 22 November 2018.\n\n^ a b c Romey, Kristin (19 April 2016), \"Exclusive Photos Show Destruction of Nineveh Gates by ISIS\", National Geographic, The National Geographical Society\n\n^ a b \"Gates of Nineveh\". Madain Project. Retrieved 10 May 2019.\n\n^ Hadani Ditmars (25 October 2022). \"Archaeologists restoring monument damaged by Islamic State discover ancient stone carvings unseen for millennia\". The Art Newspaper.\n\n^ \"ISIS 'bulldozed' ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, Iraq says\". Rappler. March 5, 2015. Archived from the original on July 24, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Digital Investigation Team Confirms ISIS Destruction of Gate in Nineveh\". Bellingcat. August 29, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2016.\n\n^ Diana Pickworth, \"Excavations at Nineveh: The Halzi Gate, Iraq\", vol. 67, no. 1, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part Two, pp. 295-316, 2005\n\n^ \"Cultural Assessment of Iraq: The State of Sites and Museums in Northern Iraq - Nineveh\". National Geographic News. May 2003. Archived from the original on February 15, 2004.\n\n^ Borger, Julian (2 March 2016). \"Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1m people\". The Guardian. guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2016.\n\n^ a b c d [19] Campana, Stefano, et al., \"Remote sensing and ground survey of archaeological damage and destruction at Nineveh during the ISIS occupation\", Antiquity 96.386, pp. 436-454, 2022\n\n^ \"ISIL video shows destruction of 7th century artifacts\". america.aljazeera.com.\n\n^ Milligan, Mark (3 November 2022). \"Archaeologists uncover 2,700-year-old intricate rock carvings in ancient Nineveh\". Heritage Daily. Retrieved 18 January 2024.\n\n^ Warda, W, Christians of Iraq: Ba-oota d' Ninevayee or the Fast of the Ninevites, re-accessed 11 September 2016\n\n^ Herbert F. Tucker, Epic. Britain's Heroic Muse 1790-1910, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, pp. 256-261.\n\n^ \"Recessional by Rudyard Kipling\". 14 December 2022.\n\n^ Abnett, Dan (April). Unmarked. Black Library. ISBN 9781849704168. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)\n\nFurther reading\n\n This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). \"Nineveh\". Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.\n\nRussell, John Malcolm (1992), Sennacherib's \"Palace without Rival\" at Nineveh, University Of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-73175-8\n\nBarnett, Richard David (1976), Sculptures from the north palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C.), British Museum Publications Ltd, ISBN 0-7141-1046-9\n\nBezold, Carl, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum\n\nVolume I, 1889\n\nVolume II, Printed by order of the Trustees, 1891\n\nVolume III, 1893\n\nVolume IV, 1896\n\nVolume V, Printed by order of the Trustees, 1899\n\nCatalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, British Museum\n\nKing, W. L. (1914), Supplement I\n\nLambert, W. G. (1968), Supplement II\n\nLambert, W. G. (1992), Supplement III, Trustees of the British Museum, ISBN 0-7141-1131-7\n\nScott, M. Louise; MacGinnis, John (1990), Notes on Nineveh, Iraq, vol. 52, pp. 63-73\n\nTrümpler, C., ed. (2001), Agatha Christie and Archaeology, The British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0714111483 - Nineveh 5, Vessel Pottery 2900 BC\n\nLeick, Gwendolyn (2010), The A to Z of Mesopotamia, Scarecrow Press - Early worship of Ishtar, Early / Prehistoric Nineveh\n\nExternal links\n\nJoanne Farchakh-Bajjaly photos Archived 2012-10-09 at the Wayback Machine of Nineveh taken in May 2003 showing damage from looters\n\nJohn Malcolm Russell, \"Stolen stones: the modern sack of Nineveh\" in Archaeology; looting of sculptures in the 1990s\n\n[20] Nineveh at the British Museum's website. Includes photographs of items from their collection.\n\nUniversity of California Digital Nineveh Archives A teaching and research tool presenting a comprehensive picture of Nineveh within the history of archaeology in the Near East, including a searchable data repository for meaningful analysis of currently unlinked sets of data from different areas of the site and different episodes in the 160-year history of excavations\n\nCyArk Digital Nineveh Archives, publicly accessible, free depository of the data from the previously linked UC Berkeley Nineveh Archives project, fully linked and georeferenced in a UC Berkeley/CyArk research partnership to develop the archive for open web use. Includes creative commons-licensed media items.\n\nPhotos of Nineveh, 1989-1990\n\nNineveh & Record"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nineveh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 8605}, {"slug": "reference-nimrud", "title": "Nimrud", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Nimrud (/nɪmˈruːd/; Syriac: ܢܢܡܪܕ Arabic: النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalḫu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, 30 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city of Mosul, and 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of the village of Selamiyah (Arabic: السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nimrud\n\nCalah, Kalakh, Kalhu\n\nA lamassu at the North West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II before destruction in 2015.\n\nLocation within Near EastShow map of Near EastLocation within IraqShow map of Iraq\n\n36°05′53″N 43°19′44″E / 36.09806°N 43.32889°E / 36.09806; 43.32889\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nLocationNumaniyah, Al-Hamdaniya, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nSite notes\n\nArea3.6 km2 (1.4 sq mi)\n\nNimrud (/nɪmˈruːd/; Syriac: ܢܢܡܪܕ Arabic: النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalḫu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, 30 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city of Mosul, and 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of the village of Selamiyah (Arabic: السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a major Assyrian city between approximately 1350 BC and 610 BC. The city is located in a strategic position 10 kilometres (6 mi) north of where the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab.[1] The city covered an area of 360 hectares (890 acres).[2] The ruins of the city were found within one kilometre (1,100 yd) of the modern-day Assyrian village of Noomanea in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq.\n\nBy 800 BCE, the city of Nimrud had expanded to a population of approximately 75,000, establishing it as the most populous urban center in the world at that time.[3]\n\nThe name Nimrud was recorded as the local name by Carsten Niebuhr in the mid-18th century.[4][note 1] In the mid 19th century, biblical archaeologists proposed the Assyrian name Kalḫu (the Biblical Calah), based on a description of the travels of Nimrod in Genesis 10.[note 2]\n\nArchaeological excavations at the site began in 1845, and were conducted at intervals between then and 1879, and then from 1949 onwards. Many important pieces were discovered, with most being moved to museums in Iraq and abroad. In 2013, the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council funded the \"Nimrud Project\", directed by Eleanor Robson, whose aims were to write the history of the city in ancient and modern times, to identify and record the dispersal history of artefacts from Nimrud,[5] distributed amongst at least 76 museums worldwide (including 36 in the United States and 13 in the United Kingdom).[6]\n\nIn 2015, the terrorist organization Islamic State announced its intention to destroy the site because of its \"un-Islamic\" Assyrian nature. In March 2015, the Iraqi government reported that Islamic State had used bulldozers to destroy excavated remains of the city. Several videos released by ISIL showed the work in progress. In November 2016, Iraqi forces retook the site, and later visitors also confirmed that around 90% of the excavated portion of city had been completely destroyed. The ruins of Nimrud have remained guarded by Iraqi forces ever since.[7] Reconstruction work is in progress.\n\n History\n\n Situated on a major commercial path connecting Ashur and Nineveh, Calah (later called Nimrud) occupied a strategically advantageous position. Its origins were in a trading settlement established under Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BCE), but over time the site had fallen into disrepair. When Ashurnasirpal II selected it as his new capital, he cleared the accumulated ruins of its collapsed defenses and began building an entirely new city, including a royal palace designed to surpass all those of earlier Assyrian rulers.[9]\n\nCalah served as the imperial capital from 879 to 706 BCE, when Sargon II shifted the seat of government to his newly founded city, Dur-Sharrukin. While Assyrian kings continued to be buried in Ashur, their queens were interred at Calah. Excavations have revealed royal tombs belonging to the queens of Ashurnasirpal II, Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II, and others.[9]\n\nThe site became widely known as “Nimrud” after 19th- and early 20th-century archaeologists mistakenly identified it with the city associated with the biblical figure Nimrod in the Book of Genesis.[9]\n\nIn addition to enormous city walls 7.5 kilometers (4.6 miles) long, palaces, temples, royal offices and various residential buildings, Ashurnasirpal also established botanical gardens, filled with foreign plants brought back from his wide-ranging campaigns, and a zoo, perhaps the first large zoo ever constructed.[10] Ashurnasirpal's inscriptions offer no motive for changing the capital. Various explanations have been proposed by modern scholars, including that he might have gotten disenchanted with Assur since there was little room left in the ancient capital to leave a mark,[10] the important position of Nimrud in regard to local trade networks,[10] that Nimrud was more centrally located in the empire,[11] or that Ashurnasirpal hoped for greater independence from the influential great families of Assur.[11]\n\nA grand opening ceremony with festivities and an opulent banquet in 864 BC is described in an inscribed stele discovered during archeological excavations.[12] To celebrate the completion of his work in Nimrud in 864 BC, Ashurnasirpal hosted a grand celebration,[11] which some scholars have described as perhaps the greatest party in world history;[10] the event hosted 69,574 guests, including 16,000 citizens of the new capital and 5,000 foreign dignitaries, and lasted for ten days. Among the food and beverage used, Ashurnasirpal's inscriptions record 10,000 pigeons, 10,000 jugs of beer, and 10,000 skins of wine, among countless other items.[11]\n\nKing Ashurnasirpal's son Shalmaneser III (858-823 BC) continued where his father had left off. At Nimrud he built a palace that far surpassed his father's. It was twice the size and it covered an area of about 5 hectares (12 acres) and included more than 200 rooms.[13] He built the monument known as the Great Ziggurat, and an associated temple.\n\nNimrud remained the capital of the Assyrian Empire during the reigns of Shamshi-Adad V (822-811 BC), Adad-nirari III (810-782 BC), Queen Semiramis (810-806 BC), Adad-nirari III (806-782 BC), Shalmaneser IV (782-773 BC), Ashur-dan III (772-755 BC), Ashur-nirari V (754-746 BC), Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726-723 BC). Tiglath-Pileser III in particular, conducted major building works in the city, as well as introducing Eastern Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire, whose dialects still endure among the Christian Assyrians of the region today.\n\nHowever, in 706 BC Sargon II (722-705 BC) moved the capital of the empire to Dur Sharrukin, and after his death, Sennacherib (705-681 BC) moved it to Nineveh. It remained a major city and a royal residence until the city was largely destroyed during the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire (between 626 BC and 609 BC).\n\nLater geographical writings\n\nRuins of a similarly located Assyrian city named \"Larissa\" were described by Xenophon in his Anabasis in the 5th century BC.[14]\n\nA similar locality was described in the Middle Ages by a number of Arabic geographers including Yaqut al-Hamawi, Abu'l-Fida and Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, using the name \"Athur\" (meaning Assyria) near Selamiyah.[note 3]\n\nArchaeology\n\nEarly writings and debate over name\n\n1851 sketch of Layard's expedition removing a Lamassu1849 sketch of Layard's expedition transporting a LamassuMany of Nineveh's archeological remains were transported to the major museums of the 19th century, including the British Museum and the Louvre\n\nNimrud\n\nThe name Nimrud in connection with the site in Western writings was first used in the travelogue of Carsten Niebuhr, who was in Mosul in March 1760. Niebuhr [4]\n[note 1]\n\nIn 1830, traveller James Silk Buckingham wrote of \"two heaps called Nimrod-Tuppé and Shah-Tuppé... The Nimrod-Tuppé has a tradition attached to it, of a palace having been built there by Nimrod\".[15][16]\n\nHowever, the name became the cause of significant debate amongst Assyriologists in the mid-nineteenth century, with much of the discussion focusing on the identification of four Biblical cities mentioned in Genesis 10: \"From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, the city Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen\".[17]\n\nLarissa / Resen\n\nThe site was described in more detail by the British traveler Claudius James Rich in 1820, shortly before his death.[1] Rich identified the site with the city of Larissa in Xenophon, and noted that the locals \"generally believe this to have been Nimrod's own city; and one or two of the better informed with whom I conversed at Mousul said it was Al Athur or Ashur, from which the whole country was denominated.\"[note 4]\n\nThe site of Nimrud was visited by William Francis Ainsworth in 1837.[1] Ainsworth, like Rich, identified the site with Larissa (Λάρισσα) of Xenophon's Anabasis, concluding that Nimrud was the Biblical Resen on the basis of Bochart's identification of Larissa with Resen on etymological grounds.[note 2]\n\nRehoboth\n\nThe site was subsequently visited by James Phillips Fletcher in 1843. Fletcher instead identified the site with Rehoboth on the basis that the city of Birtha described by Ptolemy and Ammianus Marcellinus has the same etymological meaning as Rehoboth in Hebrew.[note 5]\n\nAshur\n\nSir Henry Rawlinson mentioned that the Arabic geographers referred to it as Athur. British traveler Claudius James Rich mentions, \"one or two of the better informed with whom I conversed at Mosul said it was Al Athur or Ashur, from which the whole country was denominated.\"[note 4]\n\nNineveh\n\nPrior to 1850, Layard believed that the site of \"Nimroud\" was part of the wider region of \"Nineveh\" (the debate as to which excavation site represented the city of Nineveh had yet to be resolved), which also included the two mounds today identified as Nineveh-proper, and his excavation publications were thus labeled.[note 6]\n\nCalah\n\nHenry Rawlinson identified the city with the Biblical Calah[18] on the basis of a cuneiform reading of \"Levekh\" which he connected to the city following Ainsworth and Rich's connection of Xenophon's Larissa to the site.[note 2][19]\n\nExcavations\n\nInitial excavations at Nimrud were conducted by Austen Henry Layard, working from 1845 to 1847 and from 1849 until 1851.[20] Following Layard's departure, the work was handed over to Hormuzd Rassam in 1853-54 and then William Loftus in 1854-55.[21]\n\nAfter George Smith briefly worked the site in 1873 and Rassam returned there from 1877 to 1879, Nimrud was left untouched for almost 60 years.[22]\n\nA British School of Archaeology in Iraq team led by Max Mallowan resumed digging at Nimrud in 1949; these excavations resulted in the discovery of the 244 Nimrud Letters. The work continued until 1963 with David Oates becoming director in 1958 followed by Julian Orchard in 1963.[23][24][25][26][27]\n\nSubsequent work was by the Directorate of Antiquities of the Republic of Iraq (1956, 1959-60, 1969-78 and 1982-92),[28] the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw directed by Janusz Meuszyński (1974-76),[29] Paolo Fiorina (1987-89) with the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino who concentrated mainly on Fort Shalmaneser, and John Curtis (1989).[28] In 1974 to his untimely death in 1976 Janusz Meuszyński, the director of the Polish project, with the permission of the Iraqi excavation team, had the whole site documented on film-in slide film and black-and-white print film. Every relief that remained in situ, as well as the fallen, broken pieces that were distributed in the rooms across the site were photographed. Meuszyński also arranged with the architect of his project, Richard P. Sobolewski, to survey the site and record it in plan and in elevation.[30] As a result, the entire relief compositions were reconstructed, taking into account the presumed location of the fragments that were scattered around the world.[29]\n\nExcavations revealed remarkable bas-reliefs, ivories, and sculptures. A statue of Ashurnasirpal II was found in an excellent state of preservation, as were colossal winged man-headed lions weighing 10 short tons (9.1 t) to 30 short tons (27 t)[31] each guarding the palace entrance. The large number of inscriptions dealing with king Ashurnasirpal II provide more details about him and his reign than are known for any other ruler of this epoch. The palaces of Ashurnasirpal II, Shalmaneser III, and Tiglath-Pileser III have been located. Portions of the site have been also been identified as temples to Ninurta and Enlil, a building assigned to Nabu, the god of writing and the arts, and as extensive fortifications.\n\nIn 1988, the Iraqi Department of Antiquities discovered four queens' tombs at the site.\n\nArtworks\n\nNimrud has been one of the main sources of Assyrian sculpture, including the famous palace reliefs. Layard discovered more than half a dozen pairs of colossal guardian figures guarding palace entrances and doorways. These are lamassu, statues with a male human head, the body of a lion or bull, and wings. They have heads carved in the round, but the body at the side is in relief.[32] They weigh up to 27 tonnes (30 short tons). In 1847 Layard brought two of the colossi weighing 9 tonnes (10 short tons) each including one lion and one bull to London. After 18 months and several near disasters he succeeded in bringing them to the British Museum. This involved loading them onto a wheeled cart. They were lowered with a complex system of pulleys and levers operated by dozens of men. The cart was towed by 300 men. He initially tried to hook up the cart to a team of buffalo and have them haul it. However the buffalo refused to move. Then they were loaded onto a barge which required 600 goatskins and sheepskins to keep it afloat. After arriving in London a ramp was built to haul them up the steps and into the museum on rollers.\n\nAdditional 27-tonne (30-short-ton) colossi were transported to Paris from Khorsabad by Paul Emile Botta in 1853. In 1928 Edward Chiera also transported a 36-tonne (40-short-ton) colossus from Khorsabad to Chicago.[31][33] The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has another pair.[34]\n\nThe Statue of Ashurnasirpal II, Stela of Shamshi-Adad V and Stela of Ashurnasirpal II are large sculptures with portraits of these monarchs, all secured for the British Museum by Layard and the British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam. Also in the British Museum is the famous Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, discovered by Layard in 1846. This stands six-and-a-half-feet tall and commemorates with inscriptions and 24 relief panels the king's victorious campaigns of 859-824 BC. It is shaped like a temple tower at the top, ending in three steps.[35]\n\nSeries of the distinctive Assyrian shallow reliefs were removed from the palaces and sections are now found in several museums (see gallery below), in particular the British Museum. These show scenes of hunting, warfare, ritual and processions.[36] The Nimrud Ivories are a large group of ivory carvings, probably mostly originally decorating furniture and other objects, that had been brought to Nimrud from several parts of the ancient Near East, and were in a palace storeroom and other locations. These are mainly in the British Museum and the National Museum of Iraq, as well as other museums.[37] Another storeroom held the Nimrud Bowls, about 120 large bronze bowls or plates, also imported.[38]\n\nThe \"Treasure of Nimrud\" unearthed in these excavations is a collection of 613 pieces of gold jewelry and precious stones. It has survived the confusions and looting after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in a bank vault, where it had been put away for 12 years and was \"rediscovered\" on June 5, 2003.[39]\n\nSignificant inscriptions\n\nOne panel of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III has an inscription which includes the name mIa-ú-a mar mHu-um-ri-i While Rawlinson originally translated this in 1850 as \"Yahua, son of Hubiri\", a year later Reverend Edward Hincks, suggested that it refers to King Jehu of Israel (2 Kings 9:2 ff. While other interpretations exist, the obelisk is widely viewed by biblical archaeologists as therefore including the earliest known dedication of an Israelite. Note: all the kings of Israel were called \"sons of Omri\" by the Assyrians (\"mar\" means \"son\").\n\nA number of other artifacts considered important to Biblical history were excavated from the site, such as the Nimrud Tablet K.3751 and the Nimrud Slab. The bilingual Assyrian lion weights were important to scholarly deduction of the history of the alphabet.\n\nDestruction\n\nNimrud's various monuments had faced threats from exposure to the harsh elements of the Iraqi climate. Lack of proper protective roofing meant that the ancient reliefs at the site were susceptible to erosion from wind-blown sand and strong seasonal rains.[41]\n\nIn mid-2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) occupied the area surrounding Nimrud. ISIL destroyed other holy sites, including the Mosque of the Prophet Jonah in Mosul. In early 2015, they announced their intention to destroy many ancient artifacts, which they deemed idolatrous or otherwise un-Islamic; they subsequently destroyed thousands of books and manuscripts in Mosul's libraries.[42] In February 2015, ISIL destroyed Akkadian monuments in the Mosul Museum, and on March 5, 2015, Iraq announced that ISIL militants had bulldozed Nimrud and its archaeological site on the basis that they were blasphemous.[43][44][45]\n\nA member of ISIL filmed the destruction, declaring, \"These ruins that are behind me, they are idols and statues that people in the past used to worship instead of Allah. The Prophet Muhammad took down idols with his bare hands when he went into Mecca. We were ordered by our prophet to take down idols and destroy them, and the companions of the prophet did this after this time, when they conquered countries.\"[46] ISIL declared an intention to destroy the restored city gates in Nineveh.[44] ISIL went on to do demolition work at the later Parthian ruined city of Hatra.[47][48] On April 12 2015, an online militant video purportedly showed ISIL militants hammering, bulldozing, and ultimately using explosives to blow up parts of Nimrud.[49][50]\n\nIrina Bokova, the director general of UNESCO, stated \"deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime\".[51] The president of the Syriac League in Lebanon compared the losses at the site to the destruction of culture by the Mongol Empire.[52] In November 2016, aerial photographs showed the systematic leveling of the Ziggurat by heavy machines.[53] On 13 November 2016, the Iraqi Army recaptured the city from ISIL. The Joint Operations Command stated that it had raised the Iraqi flag above its buildings and also captured the Assyrian village of Numaniya, on the edge of the town.[54] By the time Nimrud was retaken, around 90% of the excavated part of the city had been destroyed entirely. Every major structure had been damaged, the Ziggurat of Nimrud had been flattened, only a few scattered broken walls remained of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, the Lamassu that once guarded its gates had been smashed and scattered across the landscape.\n\nReconstruction of the site\n\nA renovation program started in July 2017 with the support of UNESCO. The first phase included conducting studies of the damage caused to the site, assembling an Iraqi maintenance and rehabilitation team, preservation and archiving of the city's cultural heritage in co-operation with the American Smithsonian Institution. Phase 2 was launched in October 2019 with the goal to restore the northern palace.[55]\n\nAs of 2020, archaeologists from the Nimrud Rescue Project have carried out two seasons of work at the site, training native Iraqi archaeologists on protecting heritage and helping preserve the remains. Plans for reconstruction and tourism are in the works but will likely not be implemented within the next decade.[56] The first major excavation works, launched in mid-October 2022 by an excavation team from the University of Pennsylvania, reported the discovery of a door sill slab with inscriptions in December.[57]\n\nPost-ISIL security\n\nFollowing the liberation from Islamic State, the security of the ancient city is run by the ethnic Assyrian security force Nineveh Plain Protection Units.[58]\n\nGallery\n\nItems excavated from Nimrud, located in museums around the world\n\n Nimrud ivory plaque, with original gold leaf and paint, depicting a lion killing a human (British Museum)\n\n Ashurnasirpal II (Louvre)\n\n Ashurnasirpal II (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)\n\n Assyrian lion hunt (Pergamon)\n\n Lamassu, Stelas, Statue, Relief Panels, including the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (British Museum)\n\n Lamassu of Tiglath-pileser III (British Museum)\n\n City under siege (British Museum)\n\n Cavalry battle (British Museum)\n\n Eagle-headed deity (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)\n\n Lamassu (Metropolitan Museum)\n\n Relief with Winged Genius (Walters Art Museum)\n\n Two Nimrud ivories made in Egypt (British Museum)\n\n Stela of Shamshi-Adad V, Height 195.2 cm, Width 92.5 cm, (British Museum)\n\n Two archers (Hermitage Museum)\n\n A human-headed and winged apkallu holding a pine cone and bucket for religious rituals (Museum of the Ancient Orient)\n\n Tree of life (Brooklyn Museum)\n\n The first publication of a Phoenician metal bowl, one of 16 metal bowls from Nimrud with a Phoenician inscription (see letters on top sketch of the side profile)\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nHatra\n\nIslamic Iconoclasm\n\nNimrud lens\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b Niebuhr wrote on p.355: [in original German]: \"Bei Nimrud, einem verfallenen Castell etwa 8 Stunden von Mosul, findet man ein merkwürdigeres Werk. Hier ist von beiden Ufern ein Damm in den Tiger gebaut, um so viel Wasser zurück zu halten, als nöthig ist, die benachbarten Ländereien zu wässern.\" / [translated]: At Nimrud, a dilapidated castle about 8 hours outside of Mosul, one finds a more remarkable work. Here are both banks of a dam built in the Tigris to hold back as much water as is necessary to water the neighbouring lands.\"\n\n^ a b c William Francis Ainsworth, who preferred the identification of Resen with Nimrud (on the basis of Bochart's identification of Resen with Xenophon's Larissa), summarised the debate in 1855 as follows: \"The learned Bochart first advanced the supposition that this Assyrian city was the same as the primeval city, called Resen in the Bible and that the Greeks having asked its name were answered, Al Resen, the article being prefixed, and from whence they made Larissa, in an easy transposition. I adopted this presumed identity as extremely probable, and Colonel Chesney (ii. 223) has done the same, not as an established fact, but as a presumed identity. ... In 1846, Colonel Rawlinson, speaking of Nimrud, noticed it as probably the Rehoboth of Scripture, but he added in a note, 'I have no reason for identifying it with Rehoboth, beyond its evident antiquity, and the attribution of Resen and Calah to other sites.' (Journal of Roy. Asiat. Soc. vol. x. p. 26.) At this time Colonel Rawlinson identified Calah with Holwan or Sir Pul-i-Zohab, and Resen, or Dasen, with Yasin Teppeh in the plain of Sharizur in Kurdistan. In 1849 (Journ. of Roy. Asiat. Soc. vol. xi. p. 10), Colonel Rawlinson said, 'The Arabic geographers always give the title of Athur to the great ruined capital near the mouth of the Upper Zab. The ruins are now usually known by the name of Nimrud. It would seem highly probable that they represent the Calah of Genesis, for the Samaritan Pentateuch names this city Lachisa, which is evidently the same title as the Λάρισσα of Xenophon, the Persian r being very usually replaced both in Median and Babylonian by a guttural.' In 1850 (Journ. of Roy. Asiat. Soc. vol. xii.). Colonel Rawlinson added the discovery of a cuneiform inscription bearing the title Levekh, which he reads Halukh. 'Nimrud', says the distinguished palaeographist, 'the great treasure-house which has furnished us with all the most remarkable specimens of Assyrian sculpture, although very probably forming one of that group of cities, which in the time of the prophet Jonas, were known by the common name of Nineveh, has no claim, itself, I think, to that particular appellation. The title by which it is designated on the bricks and slabs that form its buildings, I read doubtfully as Levekh, and I suspect this to be the original form of the name which appears as Calah in Genesis, and Halah in Kings and Chronicles, and which indeed, as the capital of Calachene, must needs have occupied some site in the Immediate vicinity.' Lastly, in 1853 (Journ. of Roy. Asiat. Soc. vol. xv. p. vi. et seq.), Colonel Rawlinson describes the remarkable cylinder before alluded to as found at Kilah Shirgat, which establishes that site to have been the most ancient capital of the Assyrian empire, and to have been called Assur as well as Nimrud and Nineveh Proper. This Assur, we have seen, he identifies with the Tel Assur of the Targums, which is used for the Mosaic Resen; and instead, therefore, of Resen being between Nineveh and Calah, It should be Calah, which was between Nineveh and Resen. But, notwithstanding such very high authority, the conclusion thus arrived at does not appear to be perfectly satisfactory.\"\n\n^ Layard (1849, p.194) noted the following in a footnote: \"Yakut, in his geographical work called the Moejem el Buldan, says, under the head of \"Athur,\" \"Mosul, before it received its present name, was called Athur, or sometimes Akur, with a kaf. It is said that this was anciently the name of el Jezireh (Mesopotamia), the province being so called from a city, of which the ruins are now to be seen near the gate of Selamiyah, a small town, about eight farsakhs east of Mosul; God, however, knows the truth.\" The same notice of the ruined city of Athur, or Akur, occurs under the head of \"Selamiyah.\" Abulfeda says, \" To the south of Mosul, the lesser (?) Zab flows into the Tigris, near the ruined city of Athur.\" In Reinaud's edition (vol. i. p. 289, note 11,) there is the following extract from Ibn Said: - \" The city of Athur, which is in ruins, is mentioned in the Taurat (Old Testament). There dwelt the Assyrian kings who destroyed Jerusalem.\"\"\n\n^ a b Rich (1836, p.129) described his interpretation as follows: \"I was curious to inspect the ruins of Nimrod, which I take to be the Larissa of Xenophon. They were sufficiently visible from the shore to enable me to sketch the principal mount. About a quarter of a mile [400 m] from the west face of the platform is the large village of Nimrod, sometimes called Deraweish. The Turks generally believe this to have been Nimrod's own city; and one or two of the better informed with whom I conversed at Mousul said it was Al Athur or Ashur, from which the whole country was denominated. It is curious that the villagers of Deraweish still consider Nimrod as their founder. The village story-tellers have a book they call the \"Kisseh Nimrod,\" or Tales of Nimrod, with which they entertain the peasants on a winter night. [Footnote: In the name of this obscure place seems to be preserved that of the first settler of the country, and from this spot, perhaps, that name extended over the whole vast region. See Gen. x. 11 . \"Out of that land went forth Ashur and builded Nineveh,\" &c.; or, as it has been rendered, \"Out of that land he went forth into Ashur,\"i.e. Assyria. The former translation seems the preferable one; and the position of this village is avourable to the supposition of its having received very early a name afterwards to become so celebrated.]\"\n\n^ Fletcher (1850, p.75-78) described his thesis as follows: \"The Tell of Nimroud and its lately discovered treasures have excited so much interest that I trust I may be pardoned if I interrupt the course of the narrative to bestow a few remarks on the identity of this site with that of the ancient city of Rehoboth, mentioned in Genesis x. 11. It is evident from the sculptures which have been discovered at Nimroud, that these mounds were in ancient days occupied by some large Assyrian city. Major Rawlinson, in his interesting paper on Assyrian Antiquities, quoted in the Athenceum of January 26, 1850, assumes that the ruins of Nimroud represent the old city of Calah, or Halah, while he places Nineveh at Nebbi Yunas. Yet it appears likely that the ancient Calah, or Halah, which was probably the capital of the district of Calachene, must have been nearer to the Kurdish Mountains. Ptolemy mentions the province of Calachene as bounded on the north by the Mountains of Armenia, and on the south by the district of Adiabene. [Ptolemy, lib. vi. cap. i.] Most writers place Ninus, or Nineveh, within the latter province. But if so, Adiabene would include also Nimroud, and, therefore, it is not probable that Halah, or Calah, could have occupied the site indicated by Major Rawlinson. St. Ephraim, himself a learned Syrian and well acquainted with the history and geography of the East, considers Calah to be the modern Hatareh, a large town inhabited chiefly by Yezidees, and situated N.N.W. of Nineveh. [Strabo, lib. 1G, mentions the plain in the vicinity of Nineveh, and seems to consider it as not belonging to the province of Adiabene. But his testimony, if taken, would also exclude that city, and the land to the southward of it, from the district of Calachene, as he enumerates that as a distinct part of Assyria immediately afterwards. In the arrangement of the dioceses recorded in Assemani, torn. iii. Athoor and Adiabene seem to be continually connected, while Calachene is spoken of as nearer the mountains.] Between Hatareh and the site of Nineveh we find a village bearing the name of Ras el Ain, which is evidently a corrupted form of the Resen of Genesis. It is worthy of remark that this theory confirms the statement made in Genesis x. 12, where Resen is represented as occupying a midway position between Calah and Nineveh. But assuming Major Rawlinson's hypothesis to be correct, it is clear that there would be no room for a large city between Nebbi Yunas and Nimroud, a distance of, at most, 40 kilometres (25 mi). Nor is it certain that the latter may be considered as the site of the Larissa of Xenophon. A considerable interval must have taken place between the passage of the river Zab by the Ten Thousand and their arrival at the Tigris. It is expressly mentioned that they forded a mountain stream, which seems to have been of some width, soon after they had passed over the Zab. But no vestige of any stream of this kind appears between Nimroud and the Tigris. It is probable, therefore, that the Χαραδρα of Xenophon was the Hazir, or Bumadas, after passing which, the Ten Thousand marched in a north-westerly direction past the modern village of Kermalis to the Tigris. At a short distance from the latter they encountered a ruined city, which Xenophon terms Larissa, and which occupied probably the site of the modern Ras el Ain. The village known by this name is about 19 kilometres (12 mi) from the Tigris, but the ancient city may have been much nearer. [Xenophon Anab. lib. iii. cap. iv.] Both Ptolemy and Ammianus Marcellinus mention a city situated at the mouth of the Zab, on precisely the same site as that occupied by the mounds of Nimroud, which they term Birtha, or Virtha. But Birtha, or Britha, in Chaldee, signifies the same as Rehoboth in Hebrew, namely, wide squares or streets, an identity in name which seems to imply also an identity in locality. It appears likely, therefore, that Nimroud is the same as Rehoboth, which it is said Asshur founded after his departure from the land of Shinar.\"\n\n^ Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, \"That the ruins at Nimroud were within the precincts of Nineveh, if they do not alone mark its site, appears to be proved by Strabo, and by Ptolemy's statement that the city was on the Lycus, corroborated by the tradition preserved by the earliest Arab geographers. Yakut, and others mention the ruins of Athur, near Selamiyah, which gave the name of Assyria to the province; and Ibn Said expressly states, that they were those of the city of the Assyrian kings who destroyed Jerusalem. They are still called, as it has been shown, both Athur and Nimroud. The evidence afforded by the examination of all the known ruins of Assyria, further identifies Nimroud with Nineveh. It would appear from existing monuments, that the city was originally founded on the site now occupied by these mounds. From its immediate vicinity to the place of junction of two large rivers, the Tigris and the Zab, no better position could have been chosen.\"\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b c Brill's Encyclopedia of Islam 1913-36, p.923\n\n^ Mieroop, Marc van de (1997). The Ancient Mesopotamian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780191588457.\n\n^ Morris, Ian (October 2010). Social Development. Stanford University. pp. 109, 115.\n\n^ a b Brill's Encyclopedia of Islam 1913-36, p.923, \"Nimrud\": \"At the present day the site is known only as Nimrud, which so far as I know first appears in Niebuhr (1778, p. 355, 368). When this, now the usual, name arose is unknown; I consider it to be of modern origin ... names like Nimrod, Tell Nimrod, etc. are not found in the geographical nomenclature of Mesopotamia and the Iraq in the Middle Ages, while they are several times met with at the present day.\"\n\n^ The Nimrud Project at Oracc.org\n\n^ The Nimrud Project at Oracc.org: Museums worldwide holding material from Nimrud; \"Material from Nimrud has been dispersed into museum collections across the world. This page currently lists 76 museums holding Nimrud objects, with links to online information where available. The Nimrud Project welcomes additions and amendments to the list\".\n\n^ \"Isis destroyed a 3,000-year-old city in minutes\". The Independent. 2017-01-06. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21. Retrieved 2017-04-13.\n\n^ Budge, Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis (1920). \"By Nile and Tigris: a narrative of journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia on behalf of the British Museum between the years 1886 and 1913\". John Murray: London. OCLC 558957855.\n\n^ a b c Mark, Joshua J. (2014-08-03). \"Kalhu / Nimrud\". World History Encyclopedia. World History Publishing. Retrieved 2025-02-12.\n\n^ a b c d Mark 2020. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMark2020 (help)\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017, p. 170.\n\n^ Frahm, Eckhart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca.1000-609 BCE)\", in A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley and Sons. p. 170.\n\n^ Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings. (1995) p. 100-1\n\n^ Xen. Anab. 3.4.7. The city had been reached after crossing the \"Zapatas\" river (Xen. Anab. 3.3.6) and then arriving at the Tigris ([Citation URI: http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg006.perseus-eng1:3.4.6 Xen. Anab. 3.4.6]).\n\n^ Buckingham, James Silk (1830). Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, Including a Journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the Ancient Ecbatani, Researches in Ispahan and the Ruins of Persepolis, and Journey from Thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the Sea-shore; Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz and Museat: Narrative of an Expedition Against the Pirates of the Persian Gulf, with Illustrations of the Voyage of Nearehus, and Passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay. H. Colburn. p. 54. Our course now lay nearly east, over a plain, which brought us in half an hour to the two heaps called Nimrod-Tuppé and Shah-Tuppé, between which we passed, without seeing any thing remarkable in them, more than common mounds of earth; though they probably might have shown vestiges of former buildings had they been carefully examined, a task which I could not now step aside from the road to execute. The Nimrod-Tuppé has a tradition attached to it, of a palace having been built there by Nimrod; and the Shah-Tuppé is said by some to have been a pleasure-house; by others, to be the grave of an Eastern monarch, coming on a pilgrimage to Mecca from India, who, being pleased with the beauty of the situation, halted here to take up his abode, and ended his days on the spot.\n\n^ \"Julius Weber (1838-1906) and the Swiss Excavations at Nimrud in c.1860 together with Records of. Other Nineteenth-Century Antiquarian Researches at the Site\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-01-10. Retrieved 2019-02-25.\n\n^ Genesis 10:11-10:12\n\n^ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 12, page 417, quote \"The title by which it is designated on the bricks and slabs that form its buildings, I read doubtfully as Levekh, and I suspect this to be the original form of the name which appears as Calah in Genesis, and Halah in Kings and Chronicles...\"\n\n^ The Conquest of Assyria, Mogens Trolle Larsen, 2014, Routledge, page 217, quote: \"Rawlinson explained to his audience that the large Assyrian ruin mounds could now be given their proper names: Nimrud was Calah...\"\n\n^ Layard, 1849\n\n^ Hormuzd Rassam and Robert William Rogers, Asshur and the land of Nimrod, Curts & Jennings, 1897\n\n^ George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries: An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh During 1873 to 1874, Schribner, 1875\n\n^ M. E. L. Mallowan, \"The Excavations at Nimrud. 1949 Season\", Sumer, vol. 6, no.1, pp. 101-102, 1950\n\n^ M. E. L. Mallowan, \"The Excavations at Nimrud (Kahlu), 1950\", Sumer, vol. 7, no.1, pp. 49-54, 1951\n\n^ M. E. L. Mallowan, Nimrud and its Remains, 3 vols, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1966\n\n^ Joan Oates and David Oates, Nimrud: An Imperial City Revealed, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2001, ISBN 0-903472-25-2\n\n^ D. Oates and J. H. Reid, The Burnt Palace and the Nabu Temple; Nimrud Excavations, 1955, Iraq, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 22-39, 1956\n\n^ a b Paolo Fiorina, Un braciere da Forte Salmanassar, Mesopotamia, vol. 33, pp. 167-188, 1998\n\n^ a b \"Nimrud\". pcma.uw.edu.pl. Retrieved 2020-07-08.\n\n^ Janusz Meuszynski, Neo-Assyrian Reliefs from the Central Area of Nimrud Citadel, Iraq, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 37-43, 1976\n\n^ a b Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings. (1995) p. 112-121\n\n^ Frankfort, 154\n\n^ Oliphant, Margaret The Atlas Of The Ancient World (1992) p. 32\n\n^ Human-headed winged lion (lamassu), 883-859 b.c.; Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Ashurnasirpal II\n\n^ Frankfort, 156-157, 167\n\n^ \"Assyria: Nimrud (Rooms 7-8)\", British Museum, accessed 6 March 2015;Frankfort, 156-164\n\n^ Frankfort, 310-322\n\n^ The Nimrud Bowls, British Museum, accessed 6 March 2015; Frankfort, 322-331\n\n^ \"Ancient Assyrian Treasures Found Intact in Baghdad\". National Geographic. Archived from the original on October 8, 2003. Retrieved 6 March 2015.\n\n^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: \"Iraq's Nimrud before it was destroyed by Isis | Guardian Wires\". YouTube. 6 March 2015.\n\n^ Jane Arraf (February 11, 2009). \"Iraq: No Haven for Ancient World's Landmarks\". The Christian Science Monitor.\n\n^ \"Isis destroys thousands of books and manuscripts in Mosul libraries\". The Guardian. 26 Feb 2015.\n\n^ Karim Abou Merhi (March 5, 2015). \"IS 'bulldozed' ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, Iraq says\". AFP. Retrieved March 5, 2015.\n\n^ a b \"Iraq: Isis militants pledge to destroy remaining archaeological treasures in Nimrud\". The Independent. 27 Feb 2015. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21.\n\n^ Al Jazeera: ISIL video shows destruction of 7th century artifacts (26 February 2015)\n\n^ Morgan Winsor (5 March 2015). \"ISIS Destroys Iraqi Archaeological Site Of Nimrud Near Mosul\". IBT. Retrieved 8 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Isis militants continue path of destruction in Hatra by 'demolishing 2,000 year-old ruins'\". The Independent. 7 March 2015. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21.\n\n^ \"Islamic State 'demolishes' ancient Hatra site in Iraq\". BBC. 7 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Islamic State video 'shows destruction of Nimrud'\". BBC. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2015.\n\n^ youtube ISIS destroys Nimrud\n\n^ \"Isis 'bulldozes' Nimrud: UNESCO condemns destruction of ancient Assyrian site as a 'war crime'\". The Independent. 6 Mar 2015. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21.\n\n^ Kareem Shaheen (7 March 2015). \"Outcry over Isis destruction of ancient Assyrian site of Nimrud\". The Guardian.\n\n^ \"Iconic Ancient Sites Ravaged in ISIS's Last Stand in Iraq. National geographic 10 november 2016\". Archived from the original on November 11, 2016.\n\n^ Williams, Sara Elizabeth (13 November 2016). \"Iraqi forces retake historical town of Nimrud\". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 November 2016.\n\n^ al-Taie, Khalid. \"Iraq begins phase 2 of Nimrud ancient city reconstruction\". Diyaruna. Retrieved 2023-01-03.\n\n^ Johnson, Jessica S.; Ghazi, Zaid; Hanson, Katharyn; Lione, Brian Michael; Severson, Kent (2020-08-31). \"The Nimrud Rescue Project\". Studies in Conservation. 65 (sup1): P160-P165. doi:10.1080/00393630.2020.1753357. ISSN 0039-3630. S2CID 219037067.\n\n^ \"First major dig in ancient Iraqi city since Isis destruction unearths 'significant' palace door sill\". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 2022-12-07. Retrieved 2023-01-03.\n\n^ Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\n\nGeneral references\n\nFrankfort, Henri, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, Pelican History of Art, 4th ed 1970, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), ISBN 0140561072\n\nA. H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, John Murray, 1849 (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2)\n\nFurther reading\n\nCrawford, Vaughn E.; et al. (1980). Assyrian reliefs and ivories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: palace reliefs of Assurnasirpal II and ivory carvings from Nimrud. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0870992605.\n\nRussell, John Malcolm (1998). \"The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art\". American Journal of Archaeology. 102 (4): 655-715. doi:10.2307/506096. ISSN 0002-9114. JSTOR 506096. S2CID 191618390.\n\nBarbara Parker, Seals and Seal Impressions from the Nimrud Excavations, Iraq, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 26-40 1962\n\nBarbara Parker, \"Nimrud Tablets, 1956: Economic and Legal Texts from the Nabu Temple\", Iraq, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 125-138, 1957\n\nD. J. Wiseman, \"The Nabu Temple Texts from Nimrud\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 248-250, 1968\n\nD. J. Wiseman, Fragments of Historical Texts from Nimrud, Iraq, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 118-124, 1964\n\nA. H. Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, John Murray, 1853\n\nA. H. Layard, The monuments of Nineveh; from drawings made on the spot, John Murray, 1849\n\nClaudius James Rich, Narrative of a residence in Koordistan, and on the site of ancient Nineveh. Ed. by his widow, 1836\n\nJames Phillips Fletcher, Narrative of a Two Years' Residence at Nineveh, Volume 2, 1850\n\nMuzahim Mahmoud Hussein, Nimrud: The Queens' Tombs. 2016\n\nExternal links\n\nMetropolitan Museum: Digital Reconstruction of the Northwest Palace, Nimrud, Assyria\n\nNimrud/Calah\n\nKalhu / Nimrud\n\nCentro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino excavation site\n\nArchaeological site photographs at Oriental Institute\n\nMore images from National Geographic\n\n\"Treasure of Nimrud rediscovered\", article from The Wall Street Journal posted to a message board\n\nThe Secret of Nimrud - Photographs by Noreen Feeney"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nimrud"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 7010}, {"slug": "reference-dur-sharrukin", "title": "Dur-Sharrukin", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Dur-Sharrukin (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒂦𒈗𒁺, romanized: Dūr Šarru-kīn, \"Fortress of Sargon\"; Arabic: دور شروكين, Syriac: ܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul. The great city was...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dur-Šarru-kīn\n\n𒂦𒈗𒁺 (Akkadian)\n\nKhorsabad\n\nA human-headed winged bull known as a lamassu from Dur-Sharrukin. Neo-Assyrian Period, c. 721-705 BC\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n36°30′34″N 43°13′46″E / 36.50944°N 43.22944°E / 36.50944; 43.22944\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nPeriodsNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nCulturesAssyrian\n\nLocationKhorsabad, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nHistory\n\nBuiltIn the decade preceding 706 BC\n\nAbandonedApproximately 605 BC\n\nSite notes\n\nLength1,760 m (5,770 ft)\n\nWidth1,635 m (5,364 ft)\n\nArea2.88 km2 (1.11 sq mi)\n\nExcavation dates1842-1844, 1852-1855 1928-1935, 1957\n\nArchaeologistsPaul-Émile Botta, Eugène Flandin, Victor Place, Edward Chiera, Gordon Loud, Hamilton Darby, Fuad Safar\n\nConditionSeverely Damaged\n\nPublic accessInaccessible\n\nDur-Sharrukin (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒂦𒈗𒁺, romanized: Dūr Šarru-kīn, \"Fortress of Sargon\"; Arabic: دور شروكين, Syriac: ܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was moved 20 km south to Nineveh.\n\nHistory\n\nSargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BC. The demands for timber and other materials and craftsmen, who came from as far as coastal Phoenicia, are documented in contemporary Assyrian letters. The debts of construction workers were nullified in order to attract a sufficient labour force. The land in the environs of the town was taken under cultivation, and olive groves were planted to increase Assyria's deficient oil-production. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC, when the court moved to Dur-Sharrukin, although it was not completely finished yet. Sargon was killed during a battle in 705. After his unexpected death his son and successor Sennacherib abandoned the project, and relocated the capital with its administration to the city of Nineveh, 20 km south. The city was never completed and it was finally abandoned a century later when the Assyrian empire fell.[1]\n\nDestruction by ISIL\n\nOn 8 March 2015 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reportedly started the plunder and demolition of Dur-Sharrukin, according to a Kurdish official from Mosul, Saeed Mamuzini.[2] The Iraqi Tourism and Antiquities Ministry launched the related investigation on the same day.[2] Only one looting tunnel has been found.[3]\n\nDescription\n\nThe town was of rectangular layout and measured 1758.6 by 1635 metres. The enclosed area comprised 3 square kilometres, or 288 hectares. The length of the walls was 16280 Assyrian units, which according to Sargon himself corresponded to the numerical value of his name.[4] The city walls were massive and 157 towers protected its sides. Seven gates entered the city from all directions. A walled terrace contained temples and the royal palace. The main temples were dedicated to the gods Nabu, Shamash and Sin, while Adad, Ningal and Ninurta had smaller shrines. A temple tower, ziggurat, was also constructed, which notably displays the only confirmed ziggurat with a helical ramp, rather than staircases directly up to the prominence. The palace complex was situated on the northern wall of the city. At the entrance of the palace were a ramp and a large doorway with the god-protector of the city Lamassu on one side.[5] The palace was adorned with sculptures and wall reliefs, and the gates were flanked with winged-bull shedu statues weighing up to 40 tons. Sargon supposedly lost at least one of these winged bulls in the river.\n\nIn the south-west corner of the city was located a secondary citadel, used as a control point against internal riots and foreign invasions.[5] In addition to the great city, there was a royal hunting park and a garden that included \"all the aromatic plants of Hatti[6] and the fruit-trees of every mountain\", a \"record of power and conquest\", as Robin Lane Fox has observed.[7] Surviving correspondence mentions the moving of thousands of young fruit trees, quinces, almonds, apples and medlars.[8]\n\nOn the central canal of Sargon's garden stood a pillared pleasure-pavilion which looked up to a great topographic creation: a man-made Garden Mound. This Mound was planted with cedars and cypresses and was modelled after a foreign landscape, the Amanus mountains in north Syria, which had so amazed the Assyrian kings. In their flat palace-gardens they built a replica of what they had encountered.[9]\n\nArchaeology\n\nDur-Sharrukin is roughly a square with a border marked by a city wall 24 meters thick with a stone foundation pierced\nby seven massive gates. A mound in the north-east section marks the location of the palace of Sargon II. At the time of its construction, the village on the site was named Maganuba.\n[10]\n\nEarly excavations\n\nWhile Dur-Sharrukin was abandoned in antiquity and thus did not attract the same level of attention as other ancient Assyrian sites, there was some awareness of the origins of the mound well before European excavation. For instance, the medieval Arab geographer Yaqut Al-Hamawi recorded that the site was called Saraoun or Saraghoun, which demonstrates the original Assyrian name was not completely forgotten before the city's rediscovery.[11] He also reported that shortly after the early Muslim conquests, \"considerable treasures were found amongst the ruins,\" though the extent of these early excavations are unknown.[12] It was during the medieval period as well that the village of Khorsabad was founded on the top of the mound.\n\nOnce the European presence in northern Iraq became more substantial in the mid-nineteenth century, archaeological exploration of the site of Dur-Sharrukin was neglected in favor of seemingly more promising sites such as Nineveh or Nimrud. This situation changed in April 1843, when the French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta, who had been excavating at Kuyunjik (the contemporary village atop the mound of Nineveh) without success, was approached by a resident of the village of Khorsabad.[13] The English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard recorded the event as follows:\n\n\"The small party employed by M. Botta were at work on Kouyunjik, when a peasant from a distant village chanced to visit the spot. Seeing that every fragment of brick and alabaster uncovered by the workmen was carefully preserved, he asked the reason of this, to him, strange proceeding. On being informed that they were in search of sculptured stones, he advised them to try the mound on which his village was built, and in which, he declared, many such things as they wanted had been exposed on digging for the foundations of new houses. M. Botta, having been frequently deceived by similar stories, was not at first inclined to follow the peasant's advice, but subsequently sent an agent and one or two workmen to the place. After a little opposition from the inhabitants, they were permitted to sink a well in the mound; and at a small distance from the surface they came to the top of a wall which, on digging deeper, they found to be built of sculptured slabs of gypsum. M. Botta, on receiving information of this discovery, went at once to the village, which was called Khorsabad. He directed a wider trench to be formed, and to be carried in the direction of the wall. He soon found that he had entered a chamber, connected with others, and surrounded by slabs of gypsum covered with sculptured representations of battles, sieges, and similar events. His wonder may easily be imagined. A new history had been suddenly opened to him-the records of an unknown people were before him.\" [14]\n\nThe interplay between local mediators and European archaeologists in Layard's account effectively captures the necessary cooperation which enabled these early discoveries. With this initial excavation, the archaeological investigation of ancient Mesopotamia began in earnest. Unlike Kuyunjik, the Assyrian ruins at Khorsabad were much closer to the surface of the mound, and therefore it was not long before Botta and his team reached the ancient palace, leading to the discovery of numerous reliefs and sculptures.\n\nUnfortunately, this excitement was somewhat dulled by the destruction of many of these early discoveries due to sudden exposure to the outside environment.[15] Botta's consular duties also took up a majority of his time, preventing him from organizing systematic excavations of the site, and local Ottoman authorities grew suspicious of the true intentions behind the excavations, which at this time were technically illegal, as Botta had yet to receive official permission from Constantinople for his work, a common situation with early European excavations.[16] These difficulties caused formal excavations to cease by October 1843. Still, Botta's initial reports back to France sparked considerable scholarly interest in the project, and eventually he received more funding and an artist, Eugène Flandin, from France.[17][18][19] By spring of 1844 then, Botta resumed further excavations of the site, which required him to purchase the village of Khorsabad itself and resettle it at the foot of the mound. However, this new site was in swampy terrain, and malaria and other diseases were a constant threat to the residents and workers.[20] The extensive finds convinced Botta that he had uncovered the true site of Nineveh, though this would be subsequently refuted by excavations at Kuyunjik by Layard and others.[21]\n\nBy October of that year, Botta had uncovered enough of the palace to cease further excavations and attempt to deliver some of the findings to France, which required an extensive operation of carts to transport the reliefs and sculptures to Mosul, which were then transported by raft and ship to Basra on the Persian Gulf and then to Paris, where they arrived in 1847.[22] These were the first major Assyrian finds to arrive in Europe, and they fuelled a growing fascination with the ancient civilization which would lead to further excavations.\n\nQurnah disaster\n\nBy 1852, excavations of the site had been resumed by the new French consul, Victor Place, and in 1855 another shipment of antiquities was ready to be sent back to Paris.[23][24] A cargo ship and four rafts were prepared to carry the artifacts, but even this substantial effort was over-whelmed by the sheer number of items to be transported. Additionally, shortly after the convoy reached Baghdad, Place was summoned to his new consular post in Moldavia due to the ongoing Crimean War, and had to leave the shipment in the hands of a French schoolteacher, M. Clement to finalise its return to Paris.[25][26]\n\nMore antiquities from Rawlinson's expedition to Kuyunjik and Fresnel's to Babylon were also added to the shipment.[27] The troubles began once the convoy left Baghdad in May 1855, as the banks of the river Tigris were controlled by local sheikhs who were hostile to the Ottoman authorities and frequently raided shipping sailing by.[28] During the journey, the convoy was boarded several times, forcing the crew to relinquish most of their money and supplies in order to be allowed further passage on the river.[25][27]\n\nOnce the convoy reached Al-Qurnah (Kurnah) it was assaulted by local pirates led by Sheikh Abu Saad, whose actions sank the main cargo ship and forced the four rafts aground shortly afterwards.[27] The entire shipment was almost completely lost, with only 28 of over 200 crates eventually making it to the Louvre in Paris.[29][30] Subsequent efforts to recover the lost antiquities, including a Japanese expedition in 1971-1972, have largely been unsuccessful.[27][31]\n\n20th century excavations\n\nThe site of Khorsabad was excavated between 1928-1935 by American archaeologists from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in Chicago. Work in the first season was led by Edward Chiera and concentrated on the palace area. A colossal lamassu estimated to weigh 40 tons was uncovered outside the throne room. It was found split into three large fragments. The torso alone weighed about 20 tons. This was shipped to Chicago. The remaining seasons were led by Gordon Loud and Hamilton Darby. Their work examined one of the city gates, continued work at the palace, and excavated extensively at the palace's temple complex.[32] Since Dur-Sharrukin was a single-period site that was evacuated in an orderly manner after the death of Sargon II, few individual objects were found. The primary discoveries from Khorsabad shed light on Assyrian art and architecture.\n\nIn 1957, archaeologists from the Iraqi Department Antiquities led by Fuad Safar excavated at the site, uncovering the Temple of Sibitti.[33]\n\n21st century excavations\n\nArcheologists returned to excavating in the area in 2023, after political conditions had limited their work in early 21st century, and unearthed in Dur-Sharrukin a massive sculpture of lamassu weighing almost 20 tons. It had been first documented in the 19th century, then partially excavated in the 1990s, and later reburied to safeguard it. The head of the statue was missing as it had been removed by looters decades ago. It had later been retrieved by Iraqi authorities, and is currently on display in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.[34]\n\nGallery\n\n Plan of Dur-Sharrukin, 1867\n\n The Timber Transportation relief at the Louvre\n\n Khorsabad brick, Assyria. Babylonian; Louvre Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection\n\n Palace of Dur-Sharrukin\n\n Dur-Sharrukin foundation cylinder\n\n Sargon II (left) faces a high-ranking official, possibly Sennacherib his son and crown prince. 710-705 BCE. From Khorsabad, Iraq. The British Museum, London\n\n Part of a door-sill from Khorsabad, describing the construction of Sargon II's palace, the British Museum\n\n Tributary scene from the Royal Palace at Khorsabad, Iraq. The Iraq Museum\n\n Assyrian attendants carrying the throne of Sargon II, part of a tributary scene from Khorsabad, Iraq. Iraq Museum\n\n Sargon II in his royal chariot, tramping a dead or dying enemy, part of a war scene from Khorsabad, Iraq. The Iraq Museum\n\n Assyrian human-headed protective spirit from Khorsabad, Iraq. The Iraq Museum\n\n A pair of horses and an Assyrian groom, from Khorsabad, Iraq. Iraq Museum\n\n Assyrian archers attacking a city. From Khorsabad, Iraq. The Iraq Museum\n\n 1853 excavation of the gate of Sargon's palace \n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nDestruction of cultural heritage by ISIL\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nList of megalithic sites\n\nNotes\n\n^ Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC, (Wiley-Blackwell) 2006, ISBN 1-4051-4911-6\n\n^ a b \"Ancient site Khorsabad attacked by Islamic State: reports\". Toronto Star. 8 March 2015. Archived from the original on 22 February 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2015.\n\n^ \"ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives مبادرات التراث الثقافي\". www.facebook.com. Archived from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2021-01-25.\n\n^ Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad, 42:65; 294f. See the discussion by Eckart Frahm, \"Observations on the Name and Age of Sargon II and on Some Patterns of Assyrian Royal Onomastics,\" NABU 2005-2.44 Archived 2016-05-10 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b Lewis, Leo Rich; Tenney, Charles R. (2010). The Compendium of Weapons, Armor & Castles. Nabu Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-1146066846.\n\n^ Hatti: in this context, all the areas to the west of the Euphrates controlled by Neo-Hittite kingdoms.\n\n^ D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol II:242, quoted in Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer 2008, pp26f.\n\n^ Lane Fox 2008:27; texts are in Luckenbill 1927:II.\n\n^ Lane Fox 2008:27, noting D. Stronach, \"The Garden as a political statement: some case-studies from the Near East in the first millennium BC\", Bulletin of the Asia Institute 4 (1990:171-80). The garden mount first documented at Dur-Sharrukin was to have a long career in the history of gardening.\n\n^ Cultraro M., Gabellone F., Scardozzi G, Integrated Methodologies and Technologies for the Reconstructive Study of Dur-Sharrukin (Iraq), XXI International CIPA Symposium, 2007\n\n^ Austen Henry Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, Vol. I, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1849), 149.\n\n^ Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, 149.\n\n^ Mogens Trolle Larsen, The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 12-3.\n\n^ Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, pp. 10-1.\n\n^ Larsen, Conquest of Assyria, 23-4.\n\n^ Zainab Bahrani, Zeynep Çelik, and Edhem Eldem, Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, 1753-1914, (Istanbul: SALT, 2011), 132-4.\n\n^ Paul Emile Botta and Eugene Flandin, Monument de Ninive, in 5 volumes, Imprimerie nationale, 1946-50\n\n^ E. Guralnick, New drawings of Khorsabad sculptures by Paul Émile Botta, Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale, vol. 95, pp. 23-56, 2002\n\n^ Larsen, Conquest of Assyria, 26-30\n\n^ During his visit several years later, Layard reports that \"the place is consequently very unhealthy, and the few squalid inhabitants who appeared, were almost speechless from ague. During M. Botta's excavations, the workmen suffered greatly from fever, and many fell victims to it.\" See Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, 148.\n\n^ Carine Harmand, \"Sparking the imagination: the rediscovery of Assyria's great lost city,\" (February 1, 2019), https://blog.britishmuseum.org/sparking-the-imagination-the-rediscovery-of-assyrias-great-lost-city/ Archived 2021-01-28 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Larsen, Conquest of Assyria, 32.\n\n^ Victor Place, Nineve et l'Assyie, in 3 volumes, Imprimerie impériale, 1867-1879\n\n^ Joseph Bonomi, Ninevah and Its Palaces: The Discoveries of Botta and Layard, Applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ, Bohn, 1957 (2003 Reprint, Gorgias Press LLC, ISBN 1-59333-067-7)\n\n^ a b Larsen, M.T. (1996). The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land (1st ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315862859 pp. 344-9\n\n^ Potts, D. T. \"Potts 2020. 'Un coup terrible de la fortune:' A. Clément and the Qurna disaster of 1855. Pp. 235-244 in Finkel, I.L. and Simpson, St J., eds. In Context: The Reade Festschrift. Oxford: Archaeopress\". Archived from the original on 2021-04-11. Retrieved 2021-04-11. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\n^ a b c d [1] Namio Egami, \"The Report of The Japan Mission For The Survey of Under-Water Antiquities At Qurnah: The First Season,\" (1971-72), 1-45\n\n^ Pillet, Maurice (1881-1964) Auteur du texte (1922). L'expédition scientifique et artistique de Mésopotamie et de Médie, 1851-1855 / Maurice Pillet,... Archived from the original on 2021-04-11. Retrieved 2021-04-11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Samuel D. Pfister, \"The Qurnah Disaster: Archaeology & Piracy in Mesopotamia,\" Bible History Daily, (January 20, 2021), https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/the-qurnah-disaster/ Archived 2021-03-02 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Robert William Rogers, A history of Babylonia and Assyria: Volume 1, Abingdon Press, 1915\n\n^ Genç, Bülent (October 2021). \"Memory of destroyed Khorsabad, Victor Place, and the story of a shipwreck\". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 31 (4): 759-774. doi:10.1017/S135618632100016X. ISSN 1356-1863.\n\n^ [2] Archived 2010-06-18 at the Wayback Machine OIC 16. Tell Asmar, Khafaje and Khorsabad: Second Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition, Henri Frankfort, 1933; [3] Archived 2010-06-18 at the Wayback Machine OIC 17. Iraq Excavations of the Oriental Institute 1932/33: Third Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition, Henri Frankfort, 1934; [4] Archived 2010-06-18 at the Wayback Machine Gordon Loud, Khorsabad, Part 1: Excavations in the Palace and at a City Gate, Oriental Institute Publications 38, University of Chicago Press, 1936; [5] Archived 2010-06-18 at the Wayback Machine Gordon Loud and Charles B. Altman, Khorsabad, Part 2: The Citadel and the Town, Oriental Institute Publications 40, University of Chicago Press, 1938\n\n^ F. Safar, \"The Temple of Sibitti at Khorsabad\", Sumer 13 (1957:219-21).\n\n^ \"Features - The Assyrian Renaissance - Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2024\". Archaeology Magazine. Retrieved 2024-08-09.\n\nReferences\n\nBahrani, Zainab, Zeynep Çelik, and Edhem Eldem. Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, 1753-1914. Istanbul: SALT, 2011.\n\n[6] Buckingham, James Silk, The buried city of the East, Nineveh: a narrative of the discoveries of Mr. Layard and M. Botta at Nimroud and Khorsabad, National Illustrated Library, 1851\n\nA. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad, Cuvillier, 1994, ISBN 3-930340-42-9\n\nA. Caubet, Khorsabad: le palais de Sargon II, roi d'Assyrie: Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Services culturel les 21 et 22 janvier 1994, La Documentation française, 1996, ISBN 2-11-003416-5\n\nGuralnick, Eleanor, \"The Palace at Khorsabad: A Storeroom Excavation Project.\" In D. Kertai and P. A. Miglus (eds.) New Research on Late Assyrian Palaces. Conference at Heidelberg January 22, 2011, 5-10. Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient 15. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 2013\n\nHarmand, Carine, \"Sparking the Imagination: The Rediscovery of Assyria's Great Lost City.\" British Museum Blog. (February 1, 2019). https://blog.britishmuseum.org/sparking-the-imagination-the-rediscovery-of-assyrias-great-lost-city/.\n\nLarsen, Mogens Trolle. The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land, 1840-1860. New York: Routledge, 1996.\n\nLayard, Austen Henry. Nineveh and Its Remains. Vol. I. 2nd ed. London: John Murray, 1849.\n\nPfister, Samuel D. \"The Qurnah Disaster: Archaeology & Piracy in Mesopotamia.\" Bible History Daily. (January 20, 2021). https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/the-qurnah-disaster/.\n\nArno Poebel, The Assyrian King-List from Khorsabad, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 247-306, 1942\n\nArno Poebel, The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad (Continued), Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 460-492, 1942\n\nPauline Albenda, The palace of Sargon, King of Assyria: Monumental wall reliefs at Dur-Sharrukin, from original drawings made at the time of their discovery in 1843-1844 by Botta and Flandin, Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, 1986, ISBN 2-86538-152-8\n\nExternal links\n\nKhorsabad Relief Project - Oriental Institute Archived 2014-02-14 at the Wayback Machine\n\nNew York Public Library"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dur-sharrukin"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3485}, {"slug": "reference-tur-abdin", "title": "Tur Abdin", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tur Abdin (Arabic: طور عبدين; Kurdish: Tor;[1] Latin: Turabdium; Syriac: ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn[2]) is a hilly region situated in southeastern Turkey, including the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria and famed since Late...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tur Abdin (Arabic: طور عبدين; Kurdish: Tor;[1] Latin: Turabdium; Syriac: ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn[2]) is a hilly region situated in southeastern Turkey, including the eastern half of Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria and famed since Late Antiquity for its Christian monasteries on the border of the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire. The area is a low plateau in the Anti-Taurus Mountains stretching from Mardin in the west to the Tigris in the east and delimited by the Mesopotamian plains to the south. The Tur Abdin is populated by more than 80 villages and nearly 70 monastery buildings and was mostly Syriac Orthodox with a Syriac Catholic minority until the early 20th century.[3] The earliest surviving Christian buildings date from the 6th century.[3]\n\nThe name \"Tur Abdin\" is Syriac: ܛܘܪ ܥܒܕܝܢ, lit. 'Mountain of the Servants [of God]'.[3][4]‌ Tur Abdin is of great importance to the Syriac Orthodox, for whom the region used to be a monastic and cultural heartland.[5] The Assyrian community of Tur Abdin natively refer to themselves as Sūryāyê/Sūryōyê or Sūrāyê/Sūrōyê (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ), and traditionally speak a central Neo-Aramaic dialect called Turoyo.[6][7]\n\nGeography\n\nTur Abdin is a mountain linked to the mountain of Izla that overlooks Nisibin. The region sharing its name is home to numerous monasteries and cells, as well as around fifty villages, both large and small. Two-thirds of the residents in these villages are Syriac Christians, while the remainder consists of Muslims and Yezidis. The capital of Tur Abdin is Midyat.[8]\n\nSettlements\n\nThe town of Midyat and the villages of Hah, Bequsyone, Dayro da-Slibo, Saleh (with the old monastery of Mor Yaqub), Iwardo (with Mor Huschabo), Anhel, Kafro, Arkah (Harabale, with Dayro Mor Malke), Beth Sbirino, Miden (Middo), Kerburan, Binkelbe with Mor Samun Zayte and Beth Zabday (Azech) were all important Syriac Orthodox settlements among with countless other villages. Hah, today called Anıtlı, has the ancient 'Idto d'Yoldath-Aloho, the Church of the Mother of God. Ignatius Aphrem I mentions the following settlements in his book: to the east of Tur Abdin are Anhil, Fifyath, and Qartmin; to the west are Bati, Habsnas, Salah, 'Urnus, 'Aynward, Kafra, Kafarze, Kafrsalta, Kafrshami, and Kandarib; to the north are Alin, Baqsyan, Hah, Hisn Kifa, Dayr Salib, Zaz, and Karburan; and to the south are Arbo, Badebe, Basibrina, Banim'im, Tamars, Hbob, Sari Awastir, 'Arban, and Meddo. The abandoned villages and those whose locations are unknown include Halih, Zabdiqa, Kafryab, and Kalasht.[8]\n\nHistory\n\nAntiquity\n\nTur Abdin was referred to as the \"Land of the Arameans\" in the inscriptions of Assur-Bel-Kala, indicating that some territories west and northwest of Assyria were considered to be inhabited by Arameans.[9]\n\nAssyrian king Adad-nirari II, who came to throne in the late 10th century BCE, removed the Arameans from political power in the Kashiari mountains (Tur Abdin).[10] In the 9th century BCE, Ashurnasirpal II described crossing the plateau of Tur Abdin (which he calls \"Kashyari\") on his way to attack the region of Nairi, more than once.[11][12] He erected a monument in Matiate, modern-day Midyat in Tur Abdin, which remains to be found.[13] His successor, Shalmaneser III, also crossed Tur Abdin,[14] whom the Arameans later would again rebel against at the end of his term.[15]\n\nMost ancient monuments in Tur Abdin are Christian, but as attested by Ashurnasirpal II, the area has a pre-Christian history. Older names of the area indicate that the people living here worshipped Assyrian deities.[16] Arches on the north side of the churches in Zaz and Saleh suggest pre-Christian buildings originally stood on the sites.[17] Ancient Assyro-Babylonian religion is believed to have survived in the region until as late as the 18th century.[18]\n\nIn 586 B.C. the prophet Ezekiel mentions the famed wine of Izlo, on the southern edge of the plateau of Tur Abdin, in his prophecy against Tyre.\n\nThe Mor Gabriel Monastery, one of the oldest Syriac Orthodox churches in the world, was founded in 397 by the ascetic Mor Shmu'el (Samuel) and his student Mor Shem'un (Simon). According to tradition, Shem'un had a vision in which an angel commanded him to build a House of Prayer at a location marked by three large stone blocks. When Shem'un awoke, he took his teacher to the site and discovered the stone that the angel had indicated. It was at this spot that Mor Gabriel Monastery was constructed.[19]\n\nIn Late Antiquity, the area was part of the Roman Empire's province of Mesopotamia and served as an important center of Roman Christianity, referred to in Latin as Mons Masius or Izla.[3] The region was fortified by Emperor Constantius II (r. 337-361), who built the fortress of Rhabdion to protect it during the Roman-Persian Wars.[3] After the failure of Julian's Persian War in 363, the Tur Abdin became part of the Sasanian Empire along with the remaining territory of the five Transtigritine provinces and the nearby strongholds of Nisibis and Bezabde.[3] The numerous monasteries of the Tur Abdin eventually became part of the Church of the East organized at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410. They mainly took the Miaphysite position of non-Chalcedonian Christianity after the Council of Chalcedon of 451. After a period of persecution by the Chalcedonian state church of the Roman Empire and during the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628, the monasteries of the Tur Abdin enjoyed a particular prosperity under Arab rule in the latter 7th century.[20]\n\nThe fortress of Rhabdion was mentioned by the 6th-century Greek historian Procopius, while the 6th-century Notitia Antiochena and the work of the 7th-century Greek geographer George of Cyprus both attest that Turabdium was an episcopal see.[3] The bishop of Turabdium's seat was probably the village of Hah, in which were, besides the functioning 6th-century monastery, several ruined churches including the cathedral.[3] Tur Abdin became part of the Rashidun Caliphate in 640, during the Muslim conquest of the Levant.[3] The Syriac Orthodox communities flourished under early Islamic rule; nearly 30 structures are known to have been wholly built or rebuilt in the following 150 years, during which most of the villages' churches were built.[3]\n\nAfter the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, a schism occurred between the two claimants of the See of Antioch: the Miaphysites (formally established as the Syriac Orthodox Church) and the Chalcedonians (formally established as the Greek Orthodox Church). The latter had the full support of imperial power, which then caused the Miaphysites to be \"severely persecuted as heretical Monophysites [sic] by the Byzantine Emperors\" according to William Dalrymple, which led the Syriac Orthodox Church hierarchy to retreat to the \"inaccessible shelter of the barren hills of the Tur Abdin.\"[21]\n\nModern\n\nBefore World War I, the Syriac Christian population of the Ottoman Empire has been estimated at around 619,000. Figures from the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople indicate that more than one fifth lived in the Armenian vilayets: about 60,000 in Diyarbakır, 25,000 in Sebastia, 18,000 in Van, 15,000 in Bitlis, and 5,000 in Kharberd.[22] Midyat, in Diyarbekir vilayet, was the only major town in the Ottoman Empire with an Assyrian majority, although this population was divided among Syriac Orthodox, Chaldean Catholics, and Protestants.[23] Syriac Orthodox Christians were concentrated in the hilly rural areas around Midyat, where they populated almost 100 villages and worked in agriculture or crafts.[23][24] Syriac Orthodox culture was centered in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin): Mor Gabriel and Deyrulzafaran.[25] Outside of the area of core Syriac settlement, there were also sizable populations in the towns of Diyarbakır, Urfa, Harput, and Adiyaman[26] as well as villages. Unlike the Assyrian population of Tur Abdin, many of these Assyrians spoke other languages besides Syriac.[27]\n\nDuring World War I, around 300,000 Assyrian Christians were killed in the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, known in Syriac as Sayfo, meaning 'the sword.' In the last few decades, caught between Turkish assimilation policies against Kurds and Kurdish resistance, many Assyrians have fled the region or been killed. Today, only about 5,000 Assyrians remain, which is a quarter of the Christian population from thirty years ago. Most have fled to Syria (where the city of Qamishli was established by them), Iraq (where significant Syriac Orthodox communities had existed in Mosul, Bartella, and Bashiqa), Europe (particularly Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands), Australia and the United States.[28] In the past few years, a few families have returned to Tur Abdin from the diaspora.[29]\n\nDue to migration, the Syriacs' main residential area in Turkey today is Istanbul, where around 20,000 lives there.[30]\n\nAs of 2019, an estimated between 2,000 and 3,000 of the country's 25,000 Assyrians live in Tur Abdin,[31] and they are spread among 30 villages, hamlets, and towns.[31] Some of these locations are dominated by Assyrians while others are dominated by the Kurds.[31] As part of a return movement, some Syriac Orthodox Christians returned to Tur Abdin villages from Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.[32][33][31] Some have also relocated to Tur Abdin from Syria and other parts of Turkey, due to the Islamic State and Kurdish-Turkish conflict, respectively.[34]\n\nThe late patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum, authored a detailed work on the history of Tur Abdin up to his time, titled Maktbonuto d-ʿal ʾatro d-Ṭur ʿabdin, with a posthumously-published Arabic translation by Boulos Behnam (1963) and an English translation entitled History of Tur Abdin by Matti Moosa (2009).[35] Due to his ecclesiastical position, Barsoum had great opportunities to gather significant and previously little-known information for these biographies from various Syriac prayer books, lectionaries, liturgical texts, and gospels in various churches throughout the East, particularly in Tur Abdin. He also discovered manuscripts that were unknown to other Orientalists, who had to rely on those available in Western libraries.[8]\n\nHistorians of Eastern Christianity have often overlooked Tur Abdin. In this region, Syriac liturgy is still celebrated in ancient churches by a community of Syriac Christian monks and villagers. Although the Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic populations have been severely reduced through migration, outside interest in the area's culture has grown in recent years. With improved accessibility and the greater political stability of southeastern Turkey, the region has also become an increasingly popular destination for tourists.[36]\n\nChristian resistance in Tur Abdin during WW1\n\nThe Assyrians of Diyarbekir Vilayet made significant resistance. Their strongest stand was at the villages of Azakh, Iwardo, and Basibrin. For months, Kurdish tribes and Turkish soldiers commanded by Ömer Naci Bey were unable to subdue the mostly Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic villagers who were joined by Armenian and other refugees from surrounding villages. The leaders of the Azakh fedayeen swore \n\n\"We all have to die sometime; do not die in shame and humiliation.\"\n\n and lived up to their fighting words.[37][38]\n\nRecent conflicts\n\nOn 10 February 2006 and the following day, large demonstrations took place in the city of Midyat in Tur Abdin. Muslims, enraged by the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, gathered in Estel, the new part of the city, and started marching towards the old part of Midyat (6 kilometers away), where the Assyrians live. The mob was stopped by the police before reaching old Midyat.\n\nIn 2008 a series of legal challenges were made against the monastery of Mor Gabriel. Some local Kurdish villages sought to claim land on which the monastery had paid taxes since the 1930s as belonging to the villages, and made other accusations against the monastery. This led to considerable diplomatic and human rights action throughout Europe and within Turkey.[39]\n\nMonasteries\n\nThe most important Syriac Orthodox center in Tur Abdin is the monastery of Dayro d-Mor Hananyo, located 6 km southeast of Mardin, in the western part of the region. Constructed from yellow rock, the monastery is affectionately known as Dayro d Kurkmo in Syriac, Dayr al-Zafaran in Arabic, and Deyrülzafarân in Turkish, translating to the \"Saffron Monastery\". Founded in 493 AD, it served as the residence of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch from 1160 until 1932. Although the patriarch now resides in Damascus, the monastery still houses the patriarchal throne and the tombs of seven patriarchs and metropolitans.\n\nToday, the monastery is overseen by a bishop, a monk, and several lay assistants, and it functions as a school for orphans. The bishop of Mor Hananyo also serves as the patriarchal vicar of Mardin, with a mission to rebuild the monastery and preserve the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The monastery of Saint Ananias is recognized as part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and has been visited by numerous notable figures, including the UK's King Charles III during his time as Prince of Wales.\n\nIn the centre of the Tur Abdin region, a few miles south of Midyat, is Dayro d-Mor Gabriel. Built in 397 AD, Mor Gabriel monastery is the second-oldest functioning Syriac Orthodox monastery in the world, behind Mor Mattai Monastery. It is currently the residence of the Metropolitan Bishop of Tur Abdin, seven nuns, four monks and a host of guests, assistants and students. The monastery is charged with keeping the flame of Syriac Orthodox faith alive in Tur Abdin, for which it is as much a fortress as a church.[40]\n\nThe Saffron and Mor Gabriel monasteries are the most important of the region, existing along with six or seven other active monasteries:\n\nThe Mor Augin Monastery, situated on the southern slope of Mt. Izla, has recently undergone revival. It holds significant historical importance for the region. A testament to this is the fact that a Syriac Orthodox bishop in the Netherlands, Polycarpus Augin Aydin, chose the name Augin in honor of the monastery's founder, Mar Awgin.\n\nThe Mor Abroham Monastery is located less than a mile east of Midyat and is known for its extensive farmland, some of which has been donated to house Syrian refugees. Directly adjacent to the monastery is the Turabdin Hotel and winery, which utilizes the monastery's vineyards to produce unique Syriac wines that are characteristic of the region.\n\nThe Meryemana (St. Mary) Monastery, located next to the village of Anıtlı, functions as the religious center for the remaining Christians of the village, and has a school for the local children.\n\nThe Monastery of St. Jacob the Recluse (Dayro d’Mor Ya’qub Hbishoyo) is situated next to the village of Baristepe and, like the St. Mary Monastery, serves as the religious center for the remaining Christians in the village. It was first mentioned in the tenth century and functioned as the seat of an anti-Patriarchate in opposition to the Patriarchate established in the Saffron Monastery from 1364 to 1839. The monastery was abandoned after the events of the Seyfo genocide of World War I but has been reoccupied by Christians since 1965.[41]\n\nA second Mor Yakup Monastery is located in the village of Dibek (Syriac: Badibe), having been rebuilt and occupied in 2013.[42]\n\nThe Mor Malke Monastery is located on the northern slope of Mount Izla and is a few miles south of the village of Üçköy; it is connected by road to the village. Mor Malke is one of the newer monasteries of the region in terms of architecture, as it was rebuilt in the 30s. The monastery has a school, a church, and some farmlands.[43]\n\nThe Mor Aho Monastery was abandoned during the 1900s, but was later turned into a small walled village, when two dozen or so Syriac villagers built houses in the courtyard of the Monastery because its high walls allowed for better security and defense than what their nearby village provided. The monastery has one nun, but as it has no monks or consistent liturgy held in its church, it is technically not a monastery.[44]\n\nThe remains of several other monasteries can be found in the region, including the Mor Loʿozor Monastery. However, these sites are uninhabited and largely neglected, primarily due to the decline of the Christian population in the area, as well as the expropriation and seizure of monasteries.[45]\n\nNotable people\n\nIbrahim Baylan (b. 1972), Swedish politician of Assyrian descent.\n\nShamoun Hanna Haydo (1870-1964), Assyrian leader and folk hero in the early 20th century.\n\nNuri Kino, Swedish-Assyrian descent journalist\n\nGallery\n\nSee also\n\nHakkari, another historical Syriac Christian region in Turkey\n\nPatriarchate of Tur Abdin\n\nReferences\n\n^ Aras, Ramazan (2020). The Wall: The Making and Unmaking of the Turkish-Syrian Border. Springer Nature. p. 16.\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ṭur ʿAbdin - ܛܘܪܥܒܕܝܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified 9 December 2016, http://syriaca.org/place/221.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), \"Tur 'Abdin\", in Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8, retrieved 28 November 2020\n\n^ James, Liz (29 January 2010). A Companion to Byzantium. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781444320022.\n\n^ Barsoum 2008.\n\n^ The Middle East, abstracts and index, Part 1. Library Information and Research Service. Northumberland Press, 2002. Page 491.\n\n^ Central Asia and the Caucasus: transnationalism and diaspora. Touraj Atabaki, Sanjyot Mehendale. Routledge, 2005. Page 228.\n\n^ a b c Barsoum, Ignatius Aphram; Moosa, Matti (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences (Second rev. ed.). Piscataway (N. J.): Gorgias Press. pp. xvi. ISBN 1-931956-04-9.\n\n^ Niehr, Herbert (13 January 2014). The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria. BRILL. p. 340. ISBN 978-90-04-22943-3.\n\n^ Roux, Georges (1992). Ancient Iraq (3rd ed.). Penguin. p. 283, ”…and dislodged from the Kashiari mountains (Tur ‘Abin)…“. ISBN 9780140125238.\n\n^ From Kibaki I set out and approached Matiate (Midyat). Matiate and its villages I overcame . . . For six days in the midst of the mighty mountain of Kashyari (Tur Abdin) - a difficult country . . . I worked that mountain with iron axes . . . Then I caused my chariots . . . to pass over it . . . I passed mount Kashyari and came a second time to the lands of Nairi.\n\n^ Radner (2006), pp. 287-299.\n\n^ Radner (2006), pp. 299.\n\n^ Radner (2006), pp. 288.\n\n^ Karen Radner (2006). \"How to Reach the Upper Tigris: The Route through the Ṭūr ʿAbdīn\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. XV: 273-305.\n\n^ Palmer (1990), pp. 28-29.\n\n^ Palmer (1990), pp. 29-30.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 21.\n\n^ \"turabdin.info\". ww38.turabdin.info. Archived from the original on 19 April 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2023.\n\n^ Mango, Marlia M. (2005) [1991], \"Tur ʿabdin\", in Kazhdan, Alexander P. (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195046526.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6, retrieved 15 December 2020\n\n^ Dalrymple, William. (1998). From the holy mountain : a journey in the shadow of Byzantium. London. p. 91. ISBN 0-00-654774-5. OCLC 43137270.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Akopian, Arman (2020). \"The Syriacs of Kharberd (Kharput) on the Eve of the 1915 Genocide\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 23 (2): 280. doi:10.31826/hor2020-23-2-285 (inactive 7 October 2025). Retrieved 23 August 2025.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2025 (link)\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, p. 87.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 13.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 15.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 19.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 57.\n\n^ Dinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the late Ottoman period and beyond: crisis then revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1.\n\n^ \"Tur Abdin: The lost land of the Arameans\". La Stampa. 17 December 2012.\n\n^ \"Event in Geneva on the Protection of the Aramean/Syriac Christians and of their Heritage in Turkey\". European Centre for Law and Justice. 26 January 2015.\n\n^ a b c d Giesel, Christoph (2017). Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom. Springer. p. 169. ISBN 9781137270269.\n\n^ Çaglar (2013), p. 122\n\n^ Güsten (2016), p. 11\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (1 January 2016). \"The Role of Pictures, the Veneration of Icons and the Representation of Christ in Two Oriental Orthodox Churches of the Coptic and Ethiopian Traditions\". Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: 131.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas; E. Fiano (2011). \"Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage\". Beth Mardutho. ISBN 9781593337148 - via Academia.edu.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Radner 2006, p. 275.\n\n^ Morris, Benny; Ze’evi, Dror (24 April 2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674916456.\n\n^ Gaunt, David; Bet̲-Şawoce, Jan (1 January 2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Gorgias Press LLC. p. 348. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\n^ \"ECHR: Turkey Illegally Expropriated a Monastery Built in the 4th Century\". European Centre for Law and Justice. 3 October 2023.\n\n^ Delcogliano, Mark. \"Syriac Monasticism in Tur Abdin: A Present-Day Account\". Academia.edu.\n\n^ DelCogliano 2006, pp. 332-334.\n\n^ \"Kirche unterwegs - Reiseblogs aus der Evangelischen Kirche von Westfalen\". 28 August 2024.\n\n^ \"Tur Abdin\". Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016.\n\n^ \"Aina website\". Archived from the original on 22 April 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2016.\n\n^ Keser-Kayaalp 2022, pp. 9-10.\n\nSources\n\nBarsoum, Ignatius Aphram (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781593337155.\n\nBilgic, Zeki (2018). \"Aramäisch des Tur Abdin schreiben und lesen: Überlegungen, warum die Sprechergemeinschaft des Tur Abdin das Neu-Aramäische nicht als Schriftsprache anerkennt\". Neue Aramäische Studien: Geschichte und Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. pp. 215-250. ISBN 9783631731314.\n\nBirol, Simon (2018). \"Forgotten Witnesses: Remembering and Interpreting the Sayfo in the Manuscripts of Tur 'Abdin\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 327-346. ISBN 9781463207304.\n\nBorbone, Pier Giorgio (2017). \"From Tur 'Abdin to Rome: The Syro-Orthodox Presence in Sixteenth-Century Rome\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 277-287. ISBN 9789042931640.\n\nComfort, Anthony (2017). \"Fortresses of the Tur Abdin and the Confrontation between Rome and Persia\". Anatolian Studies. 67: 181-229. doi:10.1017/S0066154617000047. JSTOR 26571543. S2CID 164455185.\n\nDelCogliano, Mark (2006). \"Syriac Monasticism in Tur Abdin: A Present-Day Account\". Cistercian Studies Quarterly. 41 (3). Retrieved 10 March 2025.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1993) [1967]. Laut- und Formenlehre des neuaramäischen Dialekts von Mīdin im Ṭūr ʻAbdīn. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447027441.\n\nGaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). \"Introduction: Contextualizing the Sayfo in the First World War\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 1-32. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nGaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 56-96. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\nKeser-Kayaalp, Elif (2019). \"Church Building in the Ṭur 'Abdin in the First Centuries of the Islamic Rule\". Authority and Control in the Countryside: From Antiquity to Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (Sixt-Tenth Century). Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 176-209. ISBN 9789004386549.\n\nKeser-Kayaalp, Elif, ed. (January 2022). Syriac Architectural Heritage at Risk in TurʿAbdin (PDF). Association for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. ISBN 978-605-06335-9-7. Retrieved 14 January 2025.\n\nPalmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Ṭur 'Abdin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521360265.\n\nParpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 5-22.\n\nPrym, Eugen; Socin, Albert (1881). Der neu-aramaeische Dialekt des Ṭûr 'Abdîn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Verlag.\n\nRadner, Karen (2006). \"How to reach the Upper Tigris: The route through the Tur Abdin\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 15: 273-305.\n\nSaadi, Abdul-Massih (2018). \"Interdependence of Classical Syriac and Suryoyo of Tur Abdin (STA): Orthography for the STA\". Neue Aramäische Studien: Geschichte und Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. pp. 169-192. ISBN 9783631731314.\n\nSommer, Renate (2012). \"The Role of Religious Freedom in the Context of the Accession Negotiations between the European Union and Turkey - The Example of the Arameans\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 157-170. ISBN 9783643902689.\n\nSaouk, Joseph (2015). \"Quo vadis Turoyo? A Description of the Situation and the Needs of the Neo-Aramaic of Tur-Abdin (Turkey)\". Parole de l'Orient. 40: 361-377.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Tur Abdin at Wikimedia Commons\n\nTur Abdin's History is as Rich as it's [sic] Landscape\n\nThe Diocese of Linz Eastern Christian Initiative and the Friends of Tur Abdin (in German)\n\nAssyrian Christians increasingly move back to Turkey after more than 40 years\n\nAssyrian Christians fear for their future in Turkey\n\nOld documentation about the Assyrians of Turabdin (Bam Teli)\n\n37°21′N 41°24′E / 37.35°N 41.40°E / 37.35; 41.40"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tur-abdin"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4173}, {"slug": "reference-urmia", "title": "Urmia", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Urmia (Persian: ارومیه; pronounced [oɾumiˈje] ⓘ)[a] is the largest city in West Azerbaijan Province of Iran. In the Central District of Urmia County, it is capital of the province, the county, and the district.[7] The city is situated near the borders of Iran with Turkey and Iraq.[8]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Urmia\n ارومیه (Persian)\n\nCity\n\nClockwise from top: Skyline of the city, Jameh Mosque of Urmia, St. Sarkis Church, St. Mary Church, Segonbad\n\nFlagSeal\n\nInteractive map of Urmia\n\nUrmiaLocation within Iran\n\nCoordinates: 37°32′38″N 45°03′53″E / 37.54389°N 45.06472°E / 37.54389; 45.06472[3][4]\n\nCountryIran\n\nRegion3\n\nProvinceWest Azerbaijan\n\nCountyUrmia\n\nBakhshCentral\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorHossein Mahdizadeh\n\n • ParliamentVahid Jalalzadeh, Salman Zaker & Ruhollah Hazratpour\n\nElevation1,332 m (4,370 ft)\n\nPopulation (2016 census)\n\n • Urban736,224[1]\n\n • Metro1,000,000[2]\n\n • Population Rank in Iran10th\n\nTime zoneUTC+3:30 (IRST)\n\nArea code044\n\nWebsiteurmia.city\n\nUrmia (Persian: ارومیه; pronounced [oɾumiˈje] ⓘ)[a] is the largest city in West Azerbaijan Province of Iran. In the Central District of Urmia County, it is capital of the province, the county, and the district.[7] The city is situated near the borders of Iran with Turkey and Iraq.[8]\n\nThe city lies at an elevation of 1,330 metres (4,360 ft) above sea level along the Shahar River on the Urmia Plain. Lake Urmia, one of the world's largest salt lakes, lies to the east of the city, and the border with Turkey lies to the west.\n\nThe city is the trading center for a fertile agricultural region where fruits (especially apples and grapes) and tobacco are grown. Among the villages in the Urmia region are Lajani and Mafaran. Even though the majority of the residents of Urmia are Muslims, the Christian history of Urmia is well preserved and is especially evident in the city's many churches and cathedrals.\n\nAn important town by the 9th century, the city has had a diverse population which has at times included Muslims (Shias and Sunnis), Christians (Catholics, Protestants, Nestorians, and Orthodox), Jews, Baháʼís and Sufis. Around 1900, Christians made up more than 40% of the city's population; however, in the next decades most of the Christians were either killed by the advancing Ottoman troops or in raids by Kurdish tribes[9][10] or fled shortly after the end of the war.[11][12][13]\n\nUrmia, Takab and Piranshahr respectively have the highest number of registered provincial sites in the list of national sites.[14]\n\nUrmia is a historically diverse city where Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Persians, Assyrians, and Armenians have long lived side by side. It has also been home to Jewish and Baháʼí communities, reflecting its longstanding multicultural and multireligious character.[15][16][17][18]\n\nEtymology\n\nRichard Nelson Frye suggested Urartian origin for the name,[19] while T. Burrow connected the origin of the name Urmia to Indo-Iranian urmi- \"wave\" and urmya- \"undulating, wavy\".[20]\n\nThe name could also derive from the combination of the Assyrian Aramaic words Ur (ܐܘܪ; a common name for cities around Mesopotamia, meaning \"city\") and Mia (Syriac: ܡܝܐ, lit. 'water'), \"City of Water\" referring to the great Lake Urmia nearby.[21] Compare Urhay, Ur of the Chaldees.\n\nVariants and alternatives\n\nAs of 1921, Urmia was also called, Urumia and Urmi.[22][23] During the Pahlavi era (1925-1979), the city was called Rezaiyeh (Persian: رضائیه)[b] after Reza Shah, the Pahlavi dynasty's founder, whose name ultimately derives from the Islamic concept of rida via the Eighth Imam in Twelver Shia Islam, Ali al-Ridha.\n\nIn his seyahatname, Evliya Çelebi referred to the city as Rûmiyye (Ottoman Turkish: رومیه), also mentioning that the Mongols called the city Urumiye (Ottoman Turkish: اورمیه), Persians Rûmiyye-i Kübrâ (Ottoman Turkish: رومیه كبری), and some historians Türkistân-ı İrân (Ottoman Turkish: تركستان ایران), which he justified by the considerable amount of Turkoman awliya in the city.[24]\n\nDue to the city's contact with many ethnic groups and cultures throughout its history, the name of the city has many linguistic variants:\n\nPersian: ارومیه, pronounced [oɾumiˈje] ⓘ[a]\n\nArmenian: Ուրմիա, romanized: Urmia[25]\n\nAzerbaijani: اورمیه, romanized: Urmiya, or اورمو, Urmu[26]\n\nKurmanji Kurdish: ئورمیە, romanized: Ûrmiye[27]\n\nSorani Kurdish: ورمێ, romanized: Wirmê[28]\n\nSyriac: ܐܘܪܡܝܐ, romanized: Urmia[29]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nAccording to Vladimir Minorsky, there were villages in the Urmia Plain as early as 2000 BC, with their civilization under the influence of the Kingdom of Van. Excavations of the ancient ruins near Urmia led to the discovery of utensils that date to the 20th century BC. In ancient times, the west bank of Urmia Lake was part of Gilzan, and in the 9th century BC an independent government ruled there, which later joined the Urartu or Manna empire; in the 8th century BC, the area was a vassal of the Asuzh government until it joined the Median kingdom.\n\nAssyrians who did survive the invasion of Baghdad by Timur fled through northern Iraq up into the Hakkari Mountains to the west of Lake Urmia and the area remained as their homeland until the 19th century.[30][31]\n\nDuring the Safavid era, the neighboring Ottoman Empire, who were the archrivals of the Safavids,[32] made several incursions into the city and captured it on more than one occasion, but the Safavids successfully regained control over the area. When in 1622, during the reign of the Safavid Shah Abbas the Great (r. 1588-1629), Qasem Sultan Afshar was appointed governor of Mosul,[33][34] he was forced to leave his office shortly afterwards due to the outbreak of a plague.[34] He moved to the western part of Azerbaijan, and became the founder of the Afshar community of Urmia.[34] The city was the capital of the Urmia Khanate from 1747 to 1865. The first monarch of Iran's Qajar dynasty, Agha Mohammad Khan, was crowned in Urmia in 1795.\n\n19th century\n\nDue to the presence of a substantial Christian minority at the end of the 19th century, Urmia was also chosen as the site of the first Christian missionaries from the United States in Iran in 1835 led by Justin Perkins (1805-1869) with Asahel Grant (1807-1844); and followed by Fidelia Fiske (1816-1864), Joseph Gallup Cochran (1817-1871), and Joseph Plumb Cochran (1855-1905).[35] Another mission was soon underway in nearby Tabriz as well. During World War I, the population was estimated by Dr. Caujole to be 30,000 people, a quarter of which (7,500) were Assyrians and 1,000 Jews.[13]\n\nDuring the 19th century, the region became the center of a short-lived Assyrian renaissance with many books and newspapers being published in Syriac. Urmia was also the seat of a Chaldean diocese.[36][37]\n\n20th century\n\nIn late 1914, Ottoman forces under the command of Enver Pasha stepped up clandestine activity in the region with the aim of committing the Ottoman Empire to war.[38] During World War I, the city changed hands several times between the Russians and the Ottoman troops and their Kurdish allies in the following two years.[39] In 1914, before the declaration of war against Russia, Ottoman forces crossed the border into Qajar Iran and destroyed Christian villages. Large-scale attacks in late September and October 1914 targeted many Assyrian villages, and the attackers neared Urmia.[40] Due to Ottoman attacks, thousands of Christians living along the border fled to Urmia.[41]\n\nMany Christians fled during the Russian withdrawal from Azerbaijan at the beginning of January 1915,[42] and 20,000 to 25,000 refugees were left stranded in Urmia.[43] Nearly 18,000 Christians sought shelter in the city's Presbyterian and Lazarist missions. Although there was reluctance to attack the missionary compounds, many died of disease.[44] Between February and May (when the Ottoman forces pulled out), there was a campaign of mass execution, looting, kidnapping, and extortion against Christians in Urmia.[43] More than 100 men were arrested at the Lazarist compound, and dozens (including Mar Dinkha, bishop of Tergawer) were executed on 23 and 24 February.[45]\n\nThe Russian army advanced later in 1915. After Russia's withdrawal as a result of the 1917 Russian Revolution,[46][47] about 5,000 Assyrian[48] and Armenian militia policed the area, but they frequently abused their power and killed Muslims without provocation.[49] \n\nFrom February to July 1918, the region was engulfed by ethnic violence.[50][51] On 22 February, local Muslims and the Iranian governor began an uprising against the Christian militias in Urmia. The better-organized Christians, led by Agha Petros, brutally crushed the uprising; hundreds (possibly thousands) were killed.[49] On 16 March, Mar Shimun and many of his bodyguards were killed by the Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak, probably at the instigation of Iranian officials fearing Assyrian separatism, after they met to discuss an alliance. Assyrians went on a killing and looting spree; unable to find Simko, they murdered Iranian officials and inhabitants.[52][53] The Kurds responded by massacring Christians, regardless of denomination or ethnicity.[51] Christians were massacred in Salmas in June and in Urmia in early July,[50] and many Assyrian women were abducted.[54]\n\nChristian militias in Azerbaijan were no match for the Ottoman army when it invaded in July 1918.[49] Tens of thousands of Ottoman and Iranian Assyrians fled south to Hamadan, where the British Dunsterforce was garrisoned, on 18 July to escape Ottoman forces approaching Urmia under Ali İhsan Sâbis.[55][56] The Ottoman invasion was followed by killings of Christians, including Chaldean archbishop Toma Audo, and the sacking of Urmia.[57][51]\n\n21st century\n\nOn 22 March 2025, large-scale demonstrations were held in the city. Slogans against Kurdistan were chanted during the demonstrations. Anadolu Agency reported that there was ethnic tension between Turks and Kurds in the city and that Turks were protesting the Nowruz celebrations held by Kurds living in the city a few days ago. Some protesters stated that the Iranian government was trying to change the demographics by bringing Kurds to the city. It was reported that those who participated in the demonstration chanted Turkish slogans such as \"Urumiyah is Turkish and will remain Turkish\" and \"Urumiyah's Turkish identity is not negotiable\". 2 days after the protest, 22 people were arrested.[58][59][60]\n\nDemographics\n\nEthnic composition\n\nThe city has been home to various ethnic groups during its history. In late 19th century, George Curzon reported a population of 30 to 40 thousand people, chiefly Afshars, Nestorians, Jews, and Armenians,[61] while other sources also referred to an additional Persian community.[62] At the beginning of the 20th century, the city had a significant Christian minority (Assyrians and Armenians).[11][63] According to Macuch, and Ishaya, the city was the spiritual capital of the Assyrians, who were influenced by four Christian missions that had been established in the city in the period from 1830 to the end of World War I.[64] A large number of the Assyrians and Armenians were killed in 1914 during the Armenian and Assyrian genocides,[65] which resulted in a change in the city's demographics.[64] In the fourteenth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica from 1929, the town's population was roughly estimated to be 45 thousand before the war, mainly being Turkish with Armenian and Nestorian minorities.[66] During the era of Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iranian Assyrians were invited to return to the region, and several thousand did return. There are around 5,000 Assyrians remaining in the city.[67]\n\nUntil the Iran crisis of 1946 and the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1947, several thousand Jews also lived Urmia, and their language (Lishán Didán) is still spoken by an ageing community in Israel.\n\nAccording to the Federal Research Division of Library of Congress, ethnic Azeris form around 40% of the population of Urmia region.[68] The majority of the city's residents are Azerbaijanis, with a large minority of Kurds, and a smaller number of Assyrians, and Armenians, as well as Persian-speakers who moved to the city mostly for employment.[69]\n\nThe majority of the population can speak the official language of Iran, Persian, in addition to their own native tongue.[70][71]\n\nReligion\n\nThe city is the archiepiscopal see of the Eastern Catholic Metropolitan Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Urmyā, which has a suffragan in Salmas. There are also Protestants, Church of the East adherents and Armenian Orthodox. There are four churches in the central part of the city, two being Assyrian Church of the East, one Armenian, and one Chaldean.[72][73]\n\nWhen 17th-century explorer Evliya Çelebi visited the region, the city's Muslim population was mostly Sunni and not yet converted to Shia Islam.[24] Around 1900, Christians made up more than 40% of the city's population; however, most of the Christians were either killed when the Ottoman Empire invaded Qajar Iran and committed genocide against Urmia's Assyrian and Armenian population[74][75] or fled shortly after the end of the war. Approximately 15,000 Assyrians reside in northern Iran, in Urmia and various Assyrian villages in the surrounding area.[76] The Christian history of Urmia is well preserved and is especially evident in the city's many churches and cathedrals.\n\nHistorical Population\nYearPop.±%\n\n1956 67,705-    \n\n1966 110,749+63.6%\n\n1976 164,419+48.5%\n\n1986 300,746+82.9%\n\n1991 357,399+18.8%\n\n1996 435,200+21.8%\n\n2006 577,307[78]+32.7%\n\n2011 667,499[79]+15.6%\n\n2016 736,224[1]+10.3%\n\nSource: [77]\n\nPopulation\n\nUrmia is the 10th-most populous city in Iran. At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 577,307 in 153,570 households.[78] The following census in 2011 counted 667,499 people in 197,749 households.[79] The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 736,224 people in 225,050 households.[1]\n\nParks and touristic centres\n\nThe tourist attractions in the city of Urmia include many parks and coastal villages located or near the shores of Lake Urmia. The oldest park in Urmia, called Park-e Saat, was established during the early Pahlavi era. Urmia's largest park is Ellar Bagi Park (Azerbaijani \"People's Garden\") along the Shahar Chayi, or the \"City River\".\n\nLakes and ponds\n\nUrmia Lake Natural Park\n\nHasanloo Lake\n\nMarmisho lake\n\nShahrchay ِDam\n\nUrmia Lake Islands\n\nLagoons\n\nHaft Abad\n\nSoole Dokel\n\nDana Boğan\n\nAli Pancesi\n\nIsti Sou\n\nParks\n\nPark-e Saat (Clock Park)\n\nPark-e Jangali (Jungle Park)\n\nEllar Bagi (People's Garden)\n\nPark-e Shahr (City Park)\n\nPark-e Saheli (Riverside Park)\n\nPark-e Shaghayegh\n\nAlghadir Park\n\nTokhmemorghi (Oval) Park\n\nGhaem Park\n\nScenic coastal villages:\n\nChichest\n\nBari\n\nFanoos\n\nSier\n\nBand\n\nKhoshako\n\nLandscape attractions:\n\nQasimlu Valley\n\nKazem Dashi Islet in Lake Urmia\n\nKashtiban Village\n\nImamzada Village\n\nSilvana Region\n\nRashekan to Dash Aghol\n\nNazloo\n\nDalamper\n\nKaboodan Island[80]\n\nClimate\n\nUrmia's climate is cold semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSk, Trewartha: BS), bordering on humid continental climate (Köppen: Dsa, Trewartha: Dc), with cold winters, mild springs, hot dry summers, and cool autumns. Precipitation is heavily concentrated in late autumn, winter (mostly in the form of snow), and especially spring, while precipitation is scarce in summer. Temperatures in Urmia are much colder than most of the remainder of Iran. The drought of Urmia Lake will have a negative impact on the climate of the region.\n\nBeing on the downwind and rain shadow side of the Zagros Mountains, its winters are relatively drier and less snowy than Hakkari's (to the west) in southeastern Turkey due to the foehn effect.[81]\n\nClimate data for Urmia (Orumiyeh) 1991-2020, extremes 1961-2020\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n16.4\n(61.5)\n\n19.8\n(67.6)\n\n26.0\n(78.8)\n\n30.8\n(87.4)\n\n32.0\n(89.6)\n\n37.0\n(98.6)\n\n39.9\n(103.8)\n\n39.2\n(102.6)\n\n36.2\n(97.2)\n\n30.0\n(86.0)\n\n22.8\n(73.0)\n\n21.4\n(70.5)\n\n39.9\n(103.8)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n3.6\n(38.5)\n\n6.6\n(43.9)\n\n12.0\n(53.6)\n\n17.7\n(63.9)\n\n22.8\n(73.0)\n\n28.4\n(83.1)\n\n31.5\n(88.7)\n\n31.4\n(88.5)\n\n27.3\n(81.1)\n\n20.5\n(68.9)\n\n12.0\n(53.6)\n\n5.8\n(42.4)\n\n18.3\n(64.9)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n-1.8\n(28.8)\n\n0.7\n(33.3)\n\n5.9\n(42.6)\n\n11.3\n(52.3)\n\n16.0\n(60.8)\n\n21.2\n(70.2)\n\n24.2\n(75.6)\n\n23.6\n(74.5)\n\n19.1\n(66.4)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\n5.6\n(42.1)\n\n0.3\n(32.5)\n\n11.6\n(52.8)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-6.4\n(20.5)\n\n-4.6\n(23.7)\n\n-0.2\n(31.6)\n\n4.4\n(39.9)\n\n8.4\n(47.1)\n\n12.5\n(54.5)\n\n15.8\n(60.4)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n10.4\n(50.7)\n\n5.7\n(42.3)\n\n0.3\n(32.5)\n\n-4.2\n(24.4)\n\n4.8\n(40.6)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-22.8\n(-9.0)\n\n-22\n(-8)\n\n-19\n(-2)\n\n-12\n(10)\n\n-1.8\n(28.8)\n\n3.9\n(39.0)\n\n8.4\n(47.1)\n\n7.8\n(46.0)\n\n2.2\n(36.0)\n\n-5\n(23)\n\n-13.4\n(7.9)\n\n-20\n(-4)\n\n-22.8\n(-9.0)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n27.4\n(1.08)\n\n28.6\n(1.13)\n\n44.2\n(1.74)\n\n59.4\n(2.34)\n\n38.8\n(1.53)\n\n9.0\n(0.35)\n\n5.1\n(0.20)\n\n2.6\n(0.10)\n\n4.4\n(0.17)\n\n24.3\n(0.96)\n\n40.5\n(1.59)\n\n28.5\n(1.12)\n\n312.8\n(12.31)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n4.8\n\n4.3\n\n6.1\n\n7.2\n\n6.8\n\n2.0\n\n0.7\n\n0.6\n\n1.0\n\n3.5\n\n5.3\n\n5.0\n\n47.3\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n8.5\n\n7.5\n\n3.7\n\n0.8\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.3\n\n1.5\n\n5.5\n\n27.8\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n74\n\n68\n\n59\n\n57\n\n56\n\n47\n\n46\n\n46\n\n48\n\n58\n\n70\n\n75\n\n58.7\n\nAverage dew point °C (°F)\n\n-6.1\n(21.0)\n\n-5.1\n(22.8)\n\n-2.3\n(27.9)\n\n2.0\n(35.6)\n\n6.1\n(43.0)\n\n8.3\n(46.9)\n\n10.8\n(51.4)\n\n10.1\n(50.2)\n\n6.7\n(44.1)\n\n3.9\n(39.0)\n\n0.0\n(32.0)\n\n-3.9\n(25.0)\n\n2.5\n(36.6)\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n142\n\n172\n\n203\n\n227\n\n285\n\n353\n\n369\n\n353\n\n306\n\n237\n\n175\n\n136\n\n2,958\n\nSource: NOAA[82] (snow days 1961-1990[83])(extremes from both)\n\nSport\n\nSports are an important part of Urmia's culture. The most popular sport in Urmia is volleyball. Urmia is considered Iran's volleyball capital, and that is because of the ranks that Shahrdari Urmia VC got in Iranian Volleyball Super League and for the great volleyball players who play on the Iran men's national volleyball team (such as Saed Marouf, Abdolreza Alizadeh, and Milad Ebadipour) and first-class coaches in Iran. Recently, Urmia has also been called \"the city of volleyball lovers\" by the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (International Volleyball Federation, FIVB) official website.\n\nThe 2010 Asian Men's Cup Volleyball Championship was held in Ghadir Arena in Urmia, 2012 WAFF Futsal Championship, and the 2012 Asian Junior Men's Volleyball Championship was also held in Urmia. It is also one of the venues of the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League.\n\nCulture\n\nAzerbaijanis hold festivals and ceremonies such as Nowruz and Eid al-Adha like other Iranian ethnic groups with small differences.[84] Ashik music is one of the features of the Turkish speaking people of the world. It has different versions in Iran. Meanwhile, as many experts of this art testify the Urmia Ashik, is the most original and oldest version in the world, which has preserved its origin until the present day. Ashik music has its unique styles. As a piece of the culture of Azerbaijan, Urmia Ashik music has been registered in Iran's national heritage.\n\nMuseums\n\nNatural History Museum - Displays the animals native to the vicinity of Urmia.\n\nUrmia Museum - Archaeological museum affiliated with the faculty of Shahid Beheshti University.\n\nUrmia Museum of Crafts and Classical Arts.\n\nUrmia Museum of َAnthropology.\n\nEducation\n\nThe first modern style school established in Urmia in 1834.[85]\n\nHigher education\n\nUrmia was an important centre for higher education approximately a century ago; indeed, the medical college of Urmia, which was built by Joseph Cochran and a team of American medical associates in 1878, is the first modern university of Iran. Unfortunately, the college was shut down even before the establishment of the first official University of Iran, University of Tehran. Today, Urmia has become an important centre of education, with several state and private universities and institutes, including those listed below.\n\nUniversities in Urmia:\n\nUniversity\n\nWeb Site\n\nUrmia University\n\n[2]\n\nMalek Ashtar University of Technology Urmia Branch\n\n[3]\n\nUrmia University of Medical Sciences\n\n[4] Archived 1 July 2004 at the Wayback Machine\n\nUrmia University of Technology\n\n[5]\n\nIslamic Azad University of Urmia\n\n[6] Archived 25 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine\n\nPayame Noor University of Urmia\n\n[7]\n\nElmi Karbordi University of Urmia\n\n[8]\n\nUniversity College of Saba\n\n[9]\n\nUniversity College of Azarabadegan\n\n[10]\n\nUniversity College of Elm O fan\n\n[11]\n\nUniversity College of Kamal\n\n[12]\n\nShahid Beheshti Technical School\n\n[13]\n\nGhazi Tabatabaee Technical School\n\n[14]\n\nThe Girls Technical School of Urmia\n\n[15]\n\nNajand Institute of Higher Education\n\n[16]\n\nUniversity College Afagh\n\n[17]\n\nLibraries\n\nAllame Tabatabayee Library\n\nCentral Library of Urmia\n\nLibrary of Ghaem\n\nLibrary of I.R. Iran Education Ministry\n\nLibrary of Imam Ali\n\nLibrary of kanoon parvaresh fekri\n\nLibrary of Khane-ye-Javan\n\nLibrary of Shahid Motahhari\n\nLibrary of Shahid Bahonar\n\nLibrary of Urmia Cultural and Artistical Center\n\nMedia\n\nTelevision\n\nUrmia has one state-owned television channel, Urmia TV, which broadcasts in both Azerbaijani, and Persian, and internationally through satellite Intelsat 902.[86]\n\nRadio\n\nUrmia has one radio channel broadcasting in Kurdish, Azerbaijani and Persian. The name of the local radio is Chichest.[86]\n\nPress\n\nAmong others, the city's print media include: \n\nOrumiye\n\nBarish news\n\nSedaye Urmia\n\nAmanat\n\nKoosha\n\nAraz\n\nInfrastructure\n\nTransportation\n\nMost of Urmia's residents travel by car through the system of roads and highways. Urmia is also served by taxis and public buses. There are also some private groups that provide services called \"Phone-taxi.\" Two Tram-lines for Urmia are Planned.\n\nUrmia is linked to Europe through Turkey's roads and Sero border crossing. Urmia Airport, which opened in 1964, was the first international airport in West Azerbaijan county, Iran. As of April 2015 it only has regularly scheduled domestic flights to Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, although there are plans to establish a direct flight between Urmia and Erbil, due to the large number of passengers travelling between the two cities.[87][88] The city is recently connected to Iran National Railways (IRIR, رجا).\n\nHealth systems\n\nThe Iranian government operates public hospitals in the Urmia metropolitan region. There are also a number of private hospitals and medical centers in the city. Hospitals include:\nHospitals:\n\n523 Artesh(Army) Hospital\n\nArefian Hospital[89]\n\nAzerbaijan Hospital[90]\n\nGholipour Children's Hospital\n\nImam Khomeini Hospital[91]\n\nImam Reza Hospital\n\nMilad international medical center[92]\n\nMotahari Hospital[93]\n\nOmid Hospital[94]\n\nRazi Psychiatry Hospital[95]\n\nTaleghani Hospital[96]\n\nSeyedoshohada Heart Hospital[97]\n\nShafa Hospital[98]\n\nShams Hospital[99]\n\nSolati Hospital[100]\n\nClinics:\n\nFatimiye Pro-Medical Clinic\n\nKosar Women's Pro-Medical Clinic\n\nConsulates\n\nThe Turkish government has a consulate on Beheshti Avenue.\n\nPeople\n\nDuring its history Urmia was the origin for many Iranian illumination and modernization movements. The city was the hometown of numerous figures including politicians, revolutionaries, artists, and military leaders. Following is a partial list of some of the people who was born or lived in Urmia.\n\nFor a complete list see: Category:People from Urmia\n\n Safi al-Din al-Urmawi, was a renowned musician and writer on the theory of music.\n\n Haydar Khan e Amo-oghli, was a leftist revolutionary during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and among the founders of the Communist Party of Iran.\n\n Fatma Mukhtarova, was a Soviet opera singer.\n\n Saeid Marouf, is an Iranian volleyball player who plays as a setter for the Iranian national team which he captains.\n\n Mehrsa Baradaran, an American law professor at the University of California, Irvine, was born in Urmia\n\n Davood Azad, is an Iranian classical and folk music singer.\n\n Oyan Nazariani, is an Azerbaijani Beach wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestler born in Urmia. He is the head coach of the Azerbaijani beach wrestling team.[101]\n\nTwin towns and sister cities\n\n Erzurum, Turkey (since 2015)[102]\n\n Trabzon, Turkey[103]\n\n Varna, Bulgaria[103]\n\nSee also\n\n64th Infantry Division of Urmia\n\nArk of Nuh or Noah\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nChristian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia\n\nEmirate of Bradost\n\nRussian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia\n\nTeppe Hasanlu\n\nUrmia Orthodokseta\n\n Iran portal\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b Also romanized as Orumiyeh,[5][6] Oroumieh, Oroumiyeh, Orūmīyeh and Urūmiyeh\n\n^ Also romanized as Rezaeyeh, Rezā’īyeh, and Rezâiyye\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1395 : استان آذربایجان غربی [General Population and Housing Census 2016: West Azerbaijan Province]. مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived from the original (Excel) on 30 August 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Statistical Centre of Iran\". Statistical Centre of Iran. Retrieved 12 May 2026.\n\n^ OpenStreetMap contributors (28 September 2024). \"Urmia, بخش مرکزی [Central District], Urumia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran\" (Map). OpenStreetMap. Retrieved 28 September 2024.\n\n^ \"G3V7+HV5 Urmia, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran\" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved 3 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Orūmīyeh | Iran | Britannica\".\n\n^ Urmia at GEOnet Names Server\n\n^ Habibi, Hassan (12 September 1990) [تاریخ تصویب (Approval date) 1369/06/21 (Iranian Jalali calendar)]. تصویب سازمان و سلسله تابعیت عناصر و واحدهای تقسیمات کشوری استان آذربایجان غربی به مرکزیت شهر ارومیه [‌Approval of the organization and chain of citizenship of the elements and units of the national divisions of West Azerbaijan province, centered in the city of Urmia]. لام تا کام [Lam ta Kam] (in Persian). ‌وزارت کشور [Ministry of the Interior]. کمیسیون سیاسی دفاعی هیأت دولت [Political Defense Commission of the Government Board]. شناسه [ID] D6D37EAB-50D7-43D6-B320-D774C01ADE50. شماره دوره [Course number] 69, شماره جلد [Volume number] 3. Archived from the original on 20 December 2023. Retrieved 29 September 2025.\n\n^ Channel, Aznews TV (18 September 2023). \"The Urmia Lake Crisis: Environmental Degradation, Ethnic Tensions, and Water Politics • Aznews TV\".\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier, Florence (2019). \"The Resistance of Urmia Assyrians to Violence at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Vol. 26 (1 ed.). Berghahn Books. pp. 71, 95, 96. doi:10.2307/j.ctvw049wf.8. ISBN 978-1-78533-498-6. JSTOR j.ctvw049wf.8.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2006). \"Playing with Fire: Occupied Urmia\". Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. pp. 81-120. doi:10.31826/9781463210816-009. ISBN 978-1-4632-1081-6.\n\n^ a b \"Urmia | Encyclopedia.com\".\n\n^ \"Assyrians in the History of Urmia, Iran\". Archived from the original on 12 October 2017. Retrieved 29 June 2025.\n\n^ a b E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936, M. Th Houtsma, p. 1035, 1987\n\n^ \"ثبت ۳۴۳۱ قلم اثر آذربایجان غربی در سامانه جامع میراث فرهنگی کشور\". 17 May 2022.\n\n^ \"Urmia; Historic UNESCO-registered Iranian city\". Mehr News Agency. 20 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Urmia Between Pluralism and Denial: The Struggle of Identities in the Public Sphere\". JINHAGENCY News.\n\n^ \"Kurds, Azerbaijanis in Iran's Urmia struggle for coexistence, contention for authority\". The New Region.\n\n^ \"About Urmia\". Archived from the original on 28 September 2023.\n\n^ Richard Nelson Frye, The history of ancient Iran, München (1984), 48-49\n\n^ The Proto-Indoaryans, by T. Burrow, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2 (1973), pp. 123-140, published by Cambridge University Press, see 139\n\n^ \"Search Entry\". assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 23 November 2020.\n\n^ Sykes, Percy (1921). A History of Persia. London: Macmillan and Company. p. 67.\n\n^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Urmia\" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 800.\n\n^ a b Dankoff, Robert; Kahraman, Seyit Ali; Dağlı, Yücel (eds.). Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: IV (in Ottoman Turkish). Yapı Kredi Yayınları. pp. 314-315. Retrieved 18 October 2022. Moğol kavmi bu kal'aya Urumiye derler. Kavm-i Acem Rûmiyye-i Kübrâ derler. Ba'zı müverrihân Türkistân-ı İrân derler. Zirâ evliyâ-yı Türkmanı gâyet çokdur.\n\n^ Hakobyan T. Kh., Melik-Bakhshyan St. T., Barseghyan H. Kh. Dictionary of Toponyms of Adjacent Regions of Armenia, vol. 5, Yerevan University Publishing House\", 2001, nayiri.com\n\n^ \"Urmu İranın havası çirkli olan 10 şəhəri siyahısında\". Gunaz.TV. Retrieved 13 July 2022.\n\n^ \"Parêzgarên Ûrmiyê û Colemêrgê liser pirsên ewlekariyê civîn encam dan\" [The governors of Urmia and Hakkari met on security issues] (in Kurdish). Kurdistan24. Retrieved 13 March 2020.\n\n^ \"بەندیخانەی ورمێ؛ بەندکراوێک بەگومانی تووشبوون بە بە ڤایرۆسی کرۆنا ڕەوانەی نەخۆشخانە کرا\" (in Kurdish). Retrieved 13 March 2020.\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson. \"Urmia - ܐܘܪܡܝܐ\". The Syriac Gazetteer.\n\n^ Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen; Kramers, Johannes Hendrik; Lewis, Bernard (1992). The Encyclopaedia of Islam= : New Edition Vol. 7 (Encyclopaedia of Islam New ed.). p. 1032.\n\n^ Carl Skutsch (2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1.\n\n^ Rothman 2015, p. 236.\n\n^ Nasiri & Floor 2008, p. 248.\n\n^ a b c Oberling 1984, pp. 582-586.\n\n^ Speer, Robert Elliott (1911). The Hakim Sahib, the Foreign Doctor: A Biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran, M. D., of Persia. Revell. pp. 11-12. ISBN 978-0-7950-1105-4. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ \"CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Urmiah\". www.newadvent.org.\n\n^ Naby, Eden (September 2007). \"Theater, Language and Inter-Ethnic Exchange: Assyrian Performance before World War I Eden Naby1\" (PDF). Iranian Studies. 40 (4): 501-510. doi:10.1080/00210860701476510. S2CID 161752252. Retrieved 30 September 2011.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. S2CID 129899863.\n\n^ Tejirian, Eleanor H.; Simon, Reeva S. (1 September 2012). Conflict, conquest, and conversion. Columbia University Press. pp. 350-351. ISBN 978-0-231-51109-4. Retrieved 7 April 2013.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 129.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, pp. 117, 125.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 120.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, p. 110.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 122.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2018, p. 126.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 94.\n\n^ Hellot 2003, p. 138.\n\n^ Koohi-Kamali 2003, p. 76.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt 2020, p. 78.\n\n^ a b Hellot 2003, pp. 138-139.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt 2020, p. 80.\n\n^ Koohi-Kamali 2003, pp. 76-77.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 79.\n\n^ Naby 2017, p. 167.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier 2020, 17.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 744.\n\n^ Koohi-Kamali 2003, p. 77.\n\n^ \"اعتراض شهروندان ارومیه‌ای در ایران به برخی ادعاهای تحریک‌آمیز\" [Residents of Urmia in Iran protest provocative claims]. TRT. 22 March 2025. Retrieved 23 March 2025.\n\n^ \"تجمع گسترده مردم ارومیه؛ \"ارومیه تُرک است و تُرک خواهد ماند\"\" [Large crowd in Urmia; \"Urumiya is Turkish and will remain Turkish\"]. Anadolu Agency. 22 March 2025. Retrieved 24 March 2025.\n\n^ \"دستگیری 22 نفر از شرکت‌کنندگان در تجمع اخیر مردم ارومیه\" [22 participants arrested in latest Urmia rally]. Anadolu Agency. 24 March 2025. Retrieved 24 March 2025.\n\n^ The Quarterly Review Volume 176. London: John Murray. 1893. p. 183. Retrieved 17 September 2022.\n\n^ Report of the Fifty-ninth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in September 1889. London: John Murray. 1890. p. 176. Retrieved 17 September 2022.\n\n^ Baker, Patricia L.; Smith, Hilary; Oleynik, Maria (2014). Iran. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN 9781841624020.\n\n^ a b Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. \"Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica\". iranicaonline.org.\n\n^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (31 December 2011). The Armenian Genocide. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 9781412835923.\n\n^ Hooper, Franklin Henry; Garvin, James Louis; Cox, Warren E. (1929). The Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia britannica Company, Limited. p. 899. Retrieved 17 September 2022.\n\n^ Al-Jeloo, Nicholas (2010). \"Evidence in Stone and Wood: The Assyrian/Syriac History and Heritage of the Urmia Region in Iran\". Parole de l'Orient. 35: 1-15.\n\n^ Curtis, Glenn E. (2008). Iran: A Country Study. Washington D.C.: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. pp. 97. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3.\n\n^ Sadeghi, Karim; Richards, Jack C. (18 May 2016). \"The idea of English in Iran: an example from Urmia\". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 37 (4): 420. doi:10.1080/01434632.2015.1080714. ISSN 0143-4632. S2CID 147225654.\n\n^ دكتر م پناهايان، مجموعه اي در چهار جلد به نام \" فرهنگ جغرافياي ملي تركان ايران زمين \" سال 1351 Dr. M. Panahian, a four-volume collection entitled \"National Geographical Culture of the Turks of Iran\" in 1351\n\n^ سيري در تاريخ زبان ولهجه هاي تركي , دكتر جواد هئيت- چاپ سوم , سال1380,ص 307 A Journey in the History of Turkish Language and Dialects, Dr. Javad Hayat - Third Edition, 2001, p. 307\n\n^ \"Location of Nestorian Churches\". Google Maps.\n\n^ \"Location of Armenian and Chaldean churches\". Google Maps.\n\n^ Hellot-Bellier, Florence (2019). \"The Resistance of Urmia Assyrians to Violence at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Vol. 26 (1 ed.). Berghahn Books. pp. 95-96. doi:10.2307/j.ctvw049wf.8. ISBN 978-1-78533-498-6. JSTOR j.ctvw049wf.8.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006.\n\n^ Hooglund (2008), pp. 100-101. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFHooglund2008 (help)\n\n^ \"Cities with a population of 100,000 and more (1956-2006 census)\" (XLS). irandataportal.syr.edu. Iran data portal. p. 1. Retrieved 1 June 2025.\n\n^ a b سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1385 : استان آذربایجان غربی [General Population and Housing Census 2006: West Azerbaijan Province]. مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived from the original (Excel) on 20 September 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2022.\n\n^ a b سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1390 : استان آذربایجان غربی [General Population and Housing Census 2011: West Azerbaijan Province]. Iran Data Portal-Syracuse University (in Persian). مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran]. Archived from the original (Excel) on 20 January 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ [1] \n\n^ Modeling the exceptional south Foehn event (Garmij) over the Alborz Mountains during the extreme forest fire of December 2005 February 2014, Natural Hazards, Abbas Mofidi, Iman Soltanzadeh, Yadollah Yousefi, Azar Zarrin, MohsenSoltani, Jafar Masoompour Samakosh, Ghasem Azizi, et al. Retrieved 27 May 2022.\n\n^ \"World Meteorological Organization climate normals for 1991-2020: Orumiyeh-40712\" (CSV). ncei.noaa.gov (Excel). National Oceanic and Atmosoheric Administration.\n\n^ \"Oroomieh Climate Normals 1961-1990\". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (FTP). Retrieved 27 December 2012. (To view documents see Help:FTP)\n\n^ \"Moosighi Asheghi Azarbaijan Sahrghi (Asheqi Music From East Azerbaijan) by Asheq Rasul Qorbani\". www.karoon.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2019. Retrieved 29 April 2019.\n\n^ \"معاون شهرسازی و معماری شهردار ارومیه خبر داد تخصیص بودجه 550 میلیارد تومانی شهرداری ارومیه\" [The Deputy Mayor of Urmia for Urban Planning and Architecture announced the allocation of a budget of 550 billion Tomans for the Municipality of Urmia]. خبرگزاری فارس (in Persian). 31 August 2013.\n\n^ a b \"پایگاه اطلاع رسانی صدا و سیمای مرکز آذربایجان غربی\" [West Azerbaijan Central Broadcasting Information Center] (in Persian). Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 25 July 2010.\n\n^ \"Urmia-Erbil direct flights to be established in near future\". Mehr News Agency. 21 April 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2019.\n\n^ \"Direct Flights to Start Between Urmia and Erbil: Iranian Official\". Basnews. 21 April 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2019.\n\n^ \"صفحه اصلی\". وبسایت بیمارستان شهید منصور عارفیان.\n\n^ \"Azerbaijan Hospital\". Archived from the original on 18 May 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2018.\n\n^ \"خانه\". imam.umsu.ac.ir. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2018.\n\n^ \"Milad hospital\". Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2013.\n\n^ \"خانه\". motahari.umsu.ac.ir. Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2018.\n\n^ \"Home\". omidcharity.com.\n\n^ \"خانه\". razi.umsu.ac.ir. Archived from the original on 26 August 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2018.\n\n^ \"خانه\". taleghani.umsu.ac.ir. Archived from the original on 8 July 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2018.\n\n^ \"مرکز آموزشی درمانی قلب حضرت سیدالشهداء (علیه السلام) | خانه\". Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2025.\n\n^ \"Shafa Hospital\".\n\n^ Bazzazzadeh, Reza. \"Shams||private hospital\". shamshospital.\n\n^ \"بیمارستان دکتر صولتی\". www.dr-soulatihosp.com.\n\n^ \"Azərbaycan Güləş Federasiyasının iclası keçirilib\". awf.az. 21 September 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Urmia, Erzurum sign sisterhood agreement\". Mehr News Agency. 7 April 2015.\n\n^ a b \"کدام شهرهای جهان با هم خواهر و برادرند؟\" (in Persian). Honar News. 25 January 2012. Archived from the original on 17 February 2014. Retrieved 4 October 2013.\n\nGaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 56-96. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\nHellot, Florence (2003). \"La fin d'un monde: les assyro-chaldéens et la première guerre mondiale\" [The end of a world: the Assyro-Chaldeans and the First World War]. Chrétiens du monde arabe: un archipel en terre d'Islam [Christians of the Arab world: an archipelago in the land of Islam] (in French). Autrement. pp. 127-145. ISBN 978-2-7467-0390-2.\n\nHellot-Bellier, Florence (2018). \"The Increasing Violence and the Resistance of Assyrians in Urmia and Hakkari (1900-1915)\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Gorgias Press. pp. 107-134. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4.\n\nHellot-Bellier, Florence (2020). \"Les relations ambiguës de la France et des Assyro-Chaldéens dans l'histoire. Les mirages de la \"protection\"\" [The ambiguous relations of France and the Assyro-Chaldeans in history. The mirages of \"protection\"]. Les Cahiers d'EMAM (in French) (32). doi:10.4000/emam.2912. ISSN 1969-248X.\n\nHooglund, Eric; Curtis, Glenn E. (2008). \"The Society and Its Environment\" (PDF). Iran: A Country Study. Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81-142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.\n\nKoohi-Kamali, Farideh (2003). The Political Development of the Kurds in Iran: Pastoral Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-0-230-53572-5.\n\nKévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85771-930-0.\n\nNaby, Eden (2017). \"Abduction, Rape and Genocide: Urmia's Assyrian Girls and Women\". The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. pp. 158-177. ISBN 978-1-138-28405-0.\n\nNasiri, Ali Naqi; Floor, Willem M. (2008). Titles and Emoluments in Safavid Iran: A Third Manual of Safavid Administration. Mage Publishers. p. 309. ISBN 978-1933823232.\n\nOberling, P. (1984). \"AFŠĀR\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 6. pp. 582-586. Archived from the original on 29 April 2011.\n\nRothman, E. Nathalie (2015). Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801463129.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Urmia at Wikimedia Commons\n\nUrmia Branch of Ministry of Internal Affairs"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-urmia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6261}, {"slug": "reference-edessa", "title": "Edessa", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Edessa (/əˈdɛsə/; Ancient Greek: Ἔδεσσα, romanized: Édessa) was an ancient city (polis) in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa or Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedonian general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305-281 BC), founder of the Seleucid Empire....", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Edessa (/əˈdɛsə/; Ancient Greek: Ἔδεσσα, romanized: Édessa) was an ancient city (polis) in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa or Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedonian general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305-281 BC), founder of the Seleucid Empire. He named it after an ancient Macedonian capital. The Greek name Ἔδεσσα (Édessa) means \"tower in the water\". It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, and continued as capital of the Roman province of Osroene. In Late Antiquity, it became a prominent center of Christian learning and seat of the Catechetical School of Edessa. During the Crusades, it was the capital of the County of Edessa.\n\nThe city was situated on the banks of the Daysan River (Ancient Greek: Σκίρτος; Latin: Scirtus; Turkish: Kara Koyun), a tributary of the Khabur, and was defended by Şanlıurfa Castle, the high central citadel.\n\nAncient Edessa is the predecessor of modern Urfa (Turkish: Şanlıurfa; Kurdish: Riha; Arabic: الرُّهَا, romanized: ar-Ruhā; Armenian: Ուռհա, romanized: Urha), in Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Modern names of the city are likely derived from Urhay or Orhay (Classical Syriac: ܐܘܪܗܝ, romanized: ʾŪrhāy / ʾŌrhāy), the site's Syriac name before the re-foundation of the settlement by Seleucus I Nicator. After the defeat of the Seleucids in the Seleucid-Parthian Wars, Edessa became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, with a mixed Syriac and Hellenistic culture. The origin of the name of Osroene itself is probably related to Orhay.[1][2]\n\nThe Roman Republic began exercising political influence over the Kingdom of Osroene and its capital Edessa from 69 BC. It became a Roman colonia in 212 or 213, though there continued to be local kings of Osroene until 243 or 248. In Late Antiquity, Edessa was an important city on the Roman-Persian frontier with the Sasanian Empire. It resisted the attack of Shapur I (r. 240-270) in his third invasion of Roman territory. The 260 Battle of Edessa saw Shapur defeat the Roman emperor Valerian (r. 253-260) and capture him alive, an unprecedented disaster for the Roman state. The Late Antique Laterculus Veronensis names Edessa as the capital of the Roman province of Osroene. The Roman soldier and Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus described the city's formidable fortifications and how in 359 it successfully resisted the attack of Shapur II (r. 309-379).[3]\n\nThe city was a centre of Greek and Syriac theological and philosophical thought, hosting the famed School of Edessa. Edessa remained in Roman hands until its capture by the Persians during the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628, an event recorded by the Greek Chronicon Paschale as occurring in 609. Roman control was restored by the 627 and 628 victories of Heraclius (r. 610-641) in the Byzantine-Sasanian War, but the city was lost by the Romans again in 638, to the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant. It did not return to the Romans' control until the Byzantine Empire temporarily recovered the city in the mid-10th century after a number of failed attempts.[3]\n\nThe Byzantine Empire regained control in 1031, though it did not remain under their rule for long and changed hands several times before the end of the century. The County of Edessa, one of the Crusader states set up after the success of the First Crusade, was centred on the city, the crusaders having seized the city from the Seljuks. The county survived until the 1144 Siege of Edessa, in which Imad al-Din Zengi, founder of the Zengid dynasty, captured the city and, according to Matthew of Edessa, killed many of the Edessenes. The Turkic Zengid dynasty's lands were eventually absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517 after the 1514 Battle of Chaldiran.\n\nNames\n\nThe earliest name of the city was Admaʾ(also written Adme, Admi, Admum; Imperial Aramaic: אדמא), recorded in Assyrian cuneiform in the Old Assyrian period.[4] It is recorded in Syriac as ܐܕܡܐ Adme.\n\nThe ancient town was refounded as a Hellenistic military settlement by Seleucus I Nicator in c. 303 BC, and named Edessa after the ancient capital of Macedonia, perhaps due to its abundant water, just like its Macedonian namesake.[5][6][7][8] It was later renamed Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe (Ancient Greek: Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Καλλιρρόης; Latin: Antiochia ad Callirhoem) in the 2nd century BC (found on Edessan coins struck by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, r. 175-164 BC).[9][6][7]\n\nAfter Antiochus IV's reign, the name of the city reverted to Edessa, in Greek,[6] and also appears in Armenian as Urha or Ourha (Ուռհա), in Aramaic (Syriac) as Urhay or Orhay (Classical Syriac: ܐܘܪܗܝ, romanized: ʾŪrhāy / ʾŌrhāy), in local Neo-Aramaic (Turoyo) as Urhoy, in Arabic as ar-Ruhā (الرُّهَا), in the Kurdish languages as Riha, Latinized as Rohais, and finally adopted into Turkish as Urfa or Şanlıurfa (\"Glorious Urfa\"), its present name.[1] This originally Aramaic and Syriac name for the city may have been derived from the Persian name Khosrow.[6]\n\nIt was re-named Justinopolis during the Byzantine period in the early 6th century. According to some Jewish and Muslim traditions, it is the location of Ur of the Chaldees, the birthplace of Abraham.\n\nGeography\n\nEdessa was situated on a ridge in the middle of a ring of hills surrounded by a fertile plain, and was therefore considered to be favourably situated.[6][7] The ridge in turn was an extension of Mount Masius, part of the Taurus Mountains of southern Asia Minor.[6] The city was located at a crossroads; the east-west highway from Zeugma on the Euphrates to the Tigris, and the north-south route from Samosata (modern-day Samsat) to the Euphrates via Carrhae (modern-day Harran) met at the ridge where Edessa was located.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nAntiquity\n\nIn the second half of the second century BC, as the Seleucid Empire disintegrated during wars with Parthia (145-129 BC), Edessa became the capital of the Abgarid dynasty, who founded the kingdom of Osroene (also known as Edessa). This kingdom was established by the nabateans and lasted nearly four centuries (c. 132 BC to A.D. 214), under twenty-eight rulers, who sometimes called themselves \"king\" on their coinage. Edessa was at first more or less under the protectorate of the Parthians, then of Tigranes of Armenia, Edessa was Armenian Mesopotamia's capital city, then from the time of Pompey under the Roman Empire. Following its capture and sack by Trajan, the Romans even occupied Edessa from 116 to 118, although its sympathies towards the Parthians led to Lucius Verus pillaging the city later in the 2nd century.\n\nChristianity is attested in Edessa in the 2nd century; the gnostic Bardaisan was a native of the city and a philosopher at its court.[3] From 212 to 214 the kingdom was a Roman province.\n\nThe Roman emperor Caracalla was assassinated on the road from Edessa to Carrhae (now Harran) by one of his guards in 217. Edessa became one of the frontier cities of the province of Osroene and lay close to the border of the Sasanian Empire. The Battle of Edessa took place between the Roman armies under the command of the emperor Valerian and the Sasanian forces under emperor Shapur I in 260.[6] The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Persian forces, including Valerian himself, an event which had never previously happened.\n\nThe literary language of the tribes that had founded this kingdom was Aramaic, from which Syriac developed.[10] Traces of Hellenistic culture were soon overwhelmed in Edessa, which employed Syriac legends on coinage, with the exception of the client king Abgar IX (179-214), and there is a corresponding lack of Greek public inscriptions.[11]\n\nLate Antiquity\n\nAccording to the Chronicle of Edessa, a Syriac chronicle written after 540, the cathedral church of Edessa was founded immediately after the end of the Diocletianic Persecution and the 313 Letter of Licinius, which ended the general persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. The cathedral church was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom. Around 23 different monasteries and churches are known to have existed in the city, with at least as many again just outside town; these attracted many pilgrims. Eusebius of Caesarea even claimed in his Church History that \"the whole city\" was \"devoted to the name of Christ\" in the early 4th century; in fact the city had at least some pagan inhabitants into the early 5th century, as well as Jewish ones.[3]\n\nEusebius also claimed to quote the Letter of Abgar to Jesus and the Letter of Jesus to Abgar in the state archives of Edessa, foundational texts of the Abgar Legend.[12][3]\n\nEgeria, a high-status Roman lady and author, visited Edessa in 384 on her way to Jerusalem; she saw a martyrium of Thomas the Apostle and the text of the Letter of Jesus inscribed on the city walls, said to protect the city.[3] She saw a longer version of the Letters than she was previously familiar with, and was assured that the holy words had repelled a Persian assault on the city.[12] According to the Chronicle of Edessa, in 394 the relics of Saint Thomas were translated into the great Church of St Thomas and in 442 they were encased in a silver casket. According to the late-6th-century Frankish hagiographer and bishop Gregory of Tours, the relics had themselves been brought from India, while in Edessa an annual fair (and alleviation of customs duties) was held at the church in July in the saint's honour (the feast of St Thomas was observed on 3 July) during which, Gregory alleged, water would appear in shallow wells and flies disappeared. According to Joshua the Stylite, a shrine to some martyred saints was built outside the city walls in 346 or 347.[3]\n\nA more elaborate version of the Abgar Legend is recorded in the early 5th-century Syriac Doctrine of Addai, purportedly based on the state archives of Edessa, and including both a pseudepigraphal letter from Abgar V to Tiberius (r. 14-37) and the emperor's supposed reply.[12] This text is the earliest to allege that a painting (or icon) of Jesus was enclosed with the reply to Abgar and that the city of Edessa was prophesied never to fall.[12] According to this text, Edessenes were early adopters of Christianity; the inhabitants of the neighbouring city of Carrhae (Harran), by contrast, were pagans. According to the Chronicle of Edessa, the early 5th-century theologian and bishop Rabbula built a church dedicated to Saint Stephen in a building that had been a synagogue.[3] The city was a site of major unrest in 449 due to an attempt to depose its bishop, Ibas.[13]\n\nWhen Nisibis (Nusaybin) was ceded to the Sasanian Empire along with Arzanene, Moxoene, Zabdicene, Rehimena and Corduene in 363,[14] Ephrem the Syrian left his native town for Edessa, where he founded the celebrated School of Edessa. This school, largely attended by the Christian youth of Persia, and closely watched by Rabbula, the friend of Cyril of Alexandria, on account of its Nestorian tendencies, reached its highest development under bishop Ibas, famous through the Three-Chapter Controversy, was temporarily closed in 457, and finally in 489, by command of Emperor Zeno and Bishop Cyrus, when the teachers and students of the School of Edessa repaired to Nisibis and became chief writers of the Church of the East.[15] Miaphysitism prospered at Edessa after the Arab conquest.\n\nUnder the Sassanian emperor Kavad I (r. 488-531), the Sasanids attacked Edessa. According to Joshua the Stylite the shrine outside the walls set up in the 340s was burnt by his troops.[3]\n\nEdessa was rebuilt by Justin I (r. 518-527), and renamed Justinopolis after him.[16] The Greek historian Procopius, in his Persian Wars, describes the inscription of the Letter of Jesus's text on the city gates of Edessa, which he stated made the defences impregnable.[12]\n\nAn unsuccessful Sasanian siege occurred in 544. The city was taken in 609 by the Sasanian Empire, and retaken by Heraclius, but lost to the Muslim army under the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 638.\n\nEarly Christian centre\n\nThe precise date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa is not known. However, there is no doubt that even before AD 190 Christianity had spread vigorously within Edessa and its surroundings and that shortly after the royal house joined the church.[17]\n\nAccording to a legend first reported by Eusebius in the fourth century, King Abgar V was converted by Thaddeus of Edessa (Addai),[18] who was one of the seventy-two disciples, sent to him by \"Judas, who is also called Thomas\".[19] However, various sources confirm that the Abgar who embraced the Christian faith was Abgar IX.[20][21][22] Under him Christianity became the official religion of the kingdom.[23]\n\nAddai was succeeded by Aggai, then by Saint Mari, who was ordained about 200 by Serapion of Antioch. Thence came to us in the second century the famous Peshitta, or Syriac translation of the Old Testament; also Tatian's Diatessaron, which was compiled about 172 and in common use until Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa (412-435), forbade its use. Among the illustrious disciples of the School of Edessa, Bardaisan (154-222), a schoolfellow of Abgar IX, deserves special mention for his role in creating Christian religious poetry, and whose teaching was continued by his son Harmonius and his disciples.\n\nA Christian council was held at Edessa as early as 197.[24] In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed.[25] In 232 the relics of the apostle Thomas were brought from Mylapore, India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written. Under Roman domination many martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sharbel and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Shâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian. In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa had evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, and established the first Churches in the Sasanian Empire. Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the First Council of Nicaea (325). The Peregrinatio Silviae (or Etheriae)[26] gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.\n\nAs metropolis of Osroene, Edessa had eleven suffragan sees.[27] Michel Le Quien mentions thirty-five bishops of Edessa, but his list is incomplete.[28]\n\nThe Eastern Orthodox episcopate seems to have disappeared after the 11th century. Of its Jacobite bishops, twenty-nine are mentioned by Le Quien (II, 1429 sqq.), many others in the Revue de l'Orient chrétien (VI, 195), some in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft (1899), 261 sqq. Moreover, Nestorian bishops are said to have resided at Edessa as early as the 6th century.\n\nIslamic rule\n\nThe Armenian chronicler Sebeos, bishop of Bagratid Armenia writing in the 660s, gives the earliest narrative accounts of Islam in any language today. Sebeos writes of a Jewish delegation going to an Arab city (possibly Medina) after the Byzantines conquered Edessa:\n\nTwelve peoples [representing] all the tribes of the Jews assembled at the city of Edessa. When they saw that the Iranian troops had departed ... Thus Heraclius, emperor of the Byzantines, gave the order to besiege it. (625) ... So they departed, taking the road through the desert to Tachkastan to the sons of Ishmael. [The Jews] called [the Arabs] to their aid and familiarized them with the relationship they had through the books of the [Old] Testament. Although [the Arabs] were convinced of their close relationship, they were unable to get a consensus from their multitude, for they were divided from each other by religion. In that period a certain one of them, a man of the sons of Ishmael named Mahmet, a merchant, became prominent. A sermon about the Way of Truth, supposedly at God's command, was revealed to them... he ordered them all to assemble together and to unite in faith... He said: \"God promised that country to Abraham and to his son after him, for eternity. And what had been promised was fulfilled during that time when [God] loved Israel. Now, however, you are the sons of Abraham, and God shall fulfill the promise made to Abraham and his son on you. Only love the God of Abraham, and go and take the country which God gave to your father, Abraham. No one can successfully resist you in war, since God is with you.\n\nMuslim tradition tells of a similar account, known as the second pledge at al-Aqabah. Sebeos' account suggests that Muhammad was actually leading a joint venture toward Palestine, instead of a Jewish-Arab alliance against the Meccan pagans toward the south.\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nThe Byzantine Empire often tried to retake Edessa, especially under Romanos I Lekapenos, who obtained from the inhabitants the \"Image of Edessa\", an ancient portrait of Christ, and solemnly transferred it to Constantinople, August 16, 944. This was the final great achievement of Romanus's reign. This venerable and famous image, which was certainly at Edessa in 544, and of which there is an ancient copy in the Vatican Library, was looted and brought to the West by the Republic of Venice in 1207 following the Fourth Crusade. The city was ruled shortly thereafter by Marwanids.\n\nIn 1031 Edessa was given up to the Byzantines under George Maniakes by its Arab governor. It was subsequently retaken by the Arabs, and then again by the Byzantines. Under Byzantine rule, Edessa remained an important centre for the production of textiles and was quite prosperous as indicated by the city's tax revenue, which was 50 pounds of gold per year. In the years 1071-1072, the city's population was around 35,000 residents, of whom 20,000 were Syrians, 8,000 were Armenians, 6,000 were Greeks and 1,000 were Latins.[29][30]\n\nFollowing the collapse of Byzantine control in Anatolia, the city would be controlled by the Seljuq dynasty (1087), an Armenian named Thoros who gained independence from the Turks (1094), and the Crusaders (1098), who established there the County of Edessa and kept the city until 1144, when it was captured and sacked by Imad ad-Din Zengi, and most of its inhabitants were allegedly slaughtered together with the Latin archbishop.[31] These events are known to us chiefly through the Armenian historian Matthew, who had been born at Edessa. In 1144 the city had an Armenian population of 47,000. In 1146, the city was briefly recaptured by the Crusaders and lost after a few days. In the words of Steven Runciman, \"the whole Christian population was driven into exile and the great city, which claimed to be the oldest Christian commonwealth in the world, was left empty and desolate, and has never recovered to this day.\"[32]\n\nThe Ayyubid Sultanate's leader Saladin acquired the town from the Zengids in 1182. During Ayyubid rule, Edessa had a population of approximately 24,000.[33] The Sultanate of Rûm took Edessa in June 1234, but sometime in late 1234 or 1235, the Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil re-acquired it. After Edessa had been recaptured, Al-Kamil ordered the destruction of its Citadel.[34] Not long after, the Mongols had made their presence known in Edessa in 1244. Later, the Ilkhanate sent troops to Edessa in 1260 at which point the town voluntarily submitted to them. The populace of Edessa were thus saved from being massacred by the Mongols. Edessa was also held by the Mamluk Sultanate, and the Aq Qoyunlu.\n\nSubsequent history\n\nEdessa was subsequently controlled by the Safavid Iran, and from 1517 to 1918 the Ottoman Empire.[35]\n\nUnder the Ottomans in 1518, the population of Edessa was estimated at a mere 5,500; likely due to the Ottoman-Persian Wars. By 1566, though, the population had risen to an estimated 14,000 citizens. In 1890, the population of Edessa consisted of 55,000, of which the Muslim population made up 40,835.[35]\n\nSyriac literature\n\nThe oldest known dated Syriac manuscripts (AD 411 and 462), containing Greek patristic texts, come from Edessa.\n\nFollowing are some of the famous individuals connected with Edessa:\n\nJacob Baradaeus, an ardent Miaphysite who preserved the (Oriental) Orthodox church after the persecution subsequent to the Chalcedonian controversy Jacobites\n\nJacob, Bishop of Edessa, a prolific writer (d. 708);\n\nTheophilus, an astronomer, who translated into Syriac verse Homer's Iliad and Odyssey;\n\nStephen Bar Sudaïli, monk and pantheist, to whom was owing, in Palestine, the last crisis of Origenism in the 6th century\n\nThe anonymous author of the Chronicon Edessenum (Chronicle of Edessa), compiled in 540\n\nThe anonymous writer of the story of \"The Man of God\", in the 5th century, which gave rise to the legend of St. Alexius, also known as Alexius of Rome (because exiled Eastern monks brought his cult and bones to Rome in the 10th century).\n\nBasil bar Shumna (d. c. 1170) bishop who wrote a chronicle of the city's history (now lost)\n\nCyrus of Edessa, 6th century Syriac Christian writer\n\nJohn bar Aphtonia, a key figure in the transmission of Greek thought and literary culture into a Syriac milieu\n\nThaddeus of Edessa, Christian saint and one of the seventy disciples of Jesus\n\nMaurelius of Voghenza, Syrian priest\n\nSee also\n\nList of ancient Greek cities\n\nImage of Edessa\n\nKnanaya\n\nList of bishops of Edessa\n\nMatthew of Edessa\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Harrak 1992, pp. 209-214.\n\n^ Keser-Kayaalp & Drijvers 2018, pp. 516-518.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Keser-Kayaalp & Drijvers 2018, p. 517.\n\n^ Harrak 1992, pp. 212-214.\n\n^ Harrak 1992, p. 209.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Lieu 1997, pp. 174-175.\n\n^ a b c Gray & Kuhrt 2012.\n\n^ Everett-Heath 2018.\n\n^ Harrak 1992, p. 211.\n\n^ Healey 2007, pp. 115-127.\n\n^ Bauer, Walter (1991) [1934]. \"1. Edessa\". Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. U Penn.\n\n^ a b c d e Desreumaux, Alain J. (2018), \"Abgar legend\", in Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8, retrieved 28 November 2020\n\n^ Fafinski, Mateusz (4 April 2024). \"A Restless City: Edessa and Urban Actors in the Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus\". Al-Masāq. 37 (3): 336-360. doi:10.1080/09503110.2024.2331915. ISSN 0950-3110.\n\n^ Curran 1998, p. 79.\n\n^ Labourt, Le christianisme dans l'empire perse, Paris, 1904, 130-41.\n\n^ Evagrius, Hist. Eccl., IV, viii\n\n^ von Harnack, Adolph (1905). The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. Williams & Norgate. p. 293. there is no doubt that even before AD 190 Christianity had spread vigorously within Edessa and its surroundings and that (shortly after 201 or even earlier?) the royal house joined the church\n\n^ Herbermann, Charles George (1913). The Catholic Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Press. p. 282.\n\n^ {Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine, Book 1 Chapter 13\nhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vi.xiii.html}\n\n^ Cheetham, Samuel (1905). A History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries. Macmillan and Company. p. 58.\n\n^ von Gutschmid, A. (July 1887). \"Untersuchungen über die Geschichte des Königliches Osroëne\" [Studies on the history of Royal Osroene]. Mémoires de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg (in German). 35. Saint Petersburg.\n\n^ Shahid, Irfan (1984). Rome and the Arabs. Dumbarton Oaks. pp. 109-12.\n\n^ Lockyer, Herbert (1988). All the Apostles of the Bible. Zondervan. p. 260. ISBN 0-310-28011-7.\n\n^ Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica, V, 23.\n\n^ Chronicon Edessenum, ad. an. 201.\n\n^ Ed. Gian Francesco Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.\n\n^ Échos d'Orient, 1907, 145.\n\n^ Oriens christianus II, 953 sqq.\n\n^ Sawiras ibn al-Mukaffa (1959, Cairo). History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church. A.S. Attiya, Y. Abd al-Masih. II, iii, p. 305\n\n^ Speros Vryonis, Jr. (1971). The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamisation from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. California University Press. p. 18\n\n^ El-Azhari 2016, p. 91.\n\n^ Steven Runciman (1951), A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187, Cambridge University Press, p. 240.\n\n^ Shatzmiller, Maya (31 December 1993). Labour in the Medieval Islamic World. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-09896-1.\n\n^ From Saladin to the Mongols: Women as Radicals and Conservators. SUNY Press. 30 June 1977. ISBN 978-1-4384-0727-2.\n\n^ a b al-Ruha, Suraiya Faroqhi, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. VIII, ed. C.E.Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, G. Lecomte, (Brill, 1995), 591-593.\n\nSources\n\nAdai, Jacob (2005). \"Edessa and the Syriac Language\". The Harp. 18: 331-336. doi:10.31826/9781463233068-030. ISBN 9781463233068.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nAdler, William (2013). \"The Kingdom of Edessa and the Creation of a Christian Aristocracy\". Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 43-62, 277-282. ISBN 9780812208573.\n\nBarnard, Leslie W. (1968). \"The Origins and Emergence of the Church in Edessa during the First Two Centuries A. D.\" (PDF). Vigiliae Christianae. 22 (3): 161-175. doi:10.1163/157007267X00438. S2CID 161640016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2020.\n\nWalter Bauer 1971. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, 1934, (in English 1971): Chapter 1 \"Edessa\" (On-line text)\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2005). \"The Theological Schools of Antioch, Edessa and Nisibis\". Christianity: A History in the Middle East. Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches. pp. 143-160. ISBN 9789953003436.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2009). \"Edessene Syriac Inscriptions in Late Antique Syria\". From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 289-302. ISBN 9780521875813.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2013). \"Manuscripts Copied in Edessa\". Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 109-128. ISBN 9783447068857.\n\nCurran, John (1998). \"From Jovian to Theodosius\". In Cameron, Averil; Garnsey, Peter (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425. Vol. XIII (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 78-110. ISBN 0-521-30200-5.\n\nDrijvers, Hendrik J. W. (1980). Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004060502.\n\nEl-Azhari, Taef (2016). Zengi and the Muslim Response to the Crusades: The Politics of Jihad. Routledge.\n\nEverett-Heath, John (2018). \"Şanlıurfa\". The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0191866326.\n\nFafinski, Mateusz (2024). \"A Restless City: Edessa and Urban Actors in the Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus\". Al-Masaq. 37 (3): 1-25. doi:10.1080/09503110.2024.2331915.\n\nFarina, Margherita (2018). \"La linguistique syriaque selon Jacques d'Édesse\". Lesauteurs syriaques etleurlangue. Paris: Geuthner. pp. 167-187.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1986). \"Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire\". Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer. Washington: CUA Press. pp. 25-52. ISBN 9780813205960.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2002). \"Christianity in Edessa and the Syriac-Speaking World: Mani, Bar Daysan, and Ephraem, the Struggle for Allegiance on the Aramean Frontier\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 2: 5-20. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-020104. S2CID 166480216. Archived from the original on 11 December 2018. Retrieved 16 December 2020.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2003). \"The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 6 (2): 269-292. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-060111. S2CID 212688514.\n\nA. von Gutschmid, Untersuchungen über die Geschichte des Königliches Osroëne, in series Mémoires de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg, series 7, vol. 35.1 (St. Petersburg, 1887)\n\nGray, Eric William; Kuhrt, Amélie (2012). \"Edessa\". The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.\n\nHarrak, Amir (1992). \"The Ancient Name of Edessa\" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (3): 209-214. doi:10.1086/373553. S2CID 162190342. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 August 2014.\n\nHealey, John F. (2007). \"The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 115-127.\n\nKeser-Kayaalp, Elif; Drijvers, Hendrik J. W. (2018). \"Edessa\". The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 516-518. ISBN 9780192562463.\n\nLieu, Samuel (1997). \"Edessa\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 8. pp. 174-175.\n\nMillar, Fergus (1967). The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 9780440017691.\n\nMillar, Fergus (1993). The Roman Near East, 31 BC - AD 337. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674778863.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2004). Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Government, Society and Culture in the Roman Empire. Vol. 2. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807855201.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). Rome, the Greek World, and the East: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East. Vol. 3. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807876657.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408-450). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520253919.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2011). \"Greek and Syriac in Edessa: From Ephrem to Rabbula (CE 363-435)\". Semitica et Classica. 4: 99-114. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.102508.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2012). \"Greek and Syriac in Fifth-Century Edessa: The Case of Bishop Hibas\". Semitica et Classica. 5: 151-165. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.103053.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (1995). \"Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth: The School of Nisibis at the Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century\". Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East. Leiden: Brill. pp. 77-89. ISBN 9004101934.\n\nRoss, Steven K. (2001). Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE. London-New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781134660636.\n\nSegal, Judah B. (1970). Edessa: The Blessed City. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198215455.\n\nExternal links\n\nOld and new Images from Edessa\n\nRichard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, 1976: \"Antioch by the Callirhoe, later Justinopolis (Edessa; Urfa) Turkey\"\n\nAndre Palmer, in e-journal Golden horn: Journal of Byzantium An essay on Egeria's escorted visit (April 384), and the bishop's tall tales\n\nChronicle of Edessa\n\nAncient Coins of Edessa at wildwinds.com\n\nLivius.org: Edessa Archived 24 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\n37°9′0″N 38°46′57″E / 37.15000°N 38.78250°E / 37.15000; 38.78250"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-edessa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4935}, {"slug": "reference-alqosh", "title": "Alqosh", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Alqosh (Syriac: ܐܲܠܩܘܿܫ,[4][5][6] Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אלקוש, Arabic: ألقوش,[1] alternatively spelled Alkosh, Alqoš, or Alqush) is a town in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, a sub-district of the Tel Keppe District situated 45 km north of the city of Mosul.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Alqosh\n ܐܲܠܩܘܿܫألقوش[1]\n\nTown\n\nEntry way sign, spelling \"I ♡ Alqosh\"\n\nAlqoshLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°43′56″N 43°5′43″E / 36.73222°N 43.09528°E / 36.73222; 43.09528\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh Governorate\n\nDistrictTel Keppe District[2]\n\nFounded1500 BC\n\nDe-facto control Kurdistan Region[3]\n\nPopulation\n\n • Totalc.4,600\n\nTime zoneGMT +3\n\n • Summer (DST)GMT +4\n\nAlqosh (Syriac: ܐܲܠܩܘܿܫ,[4][5][6] Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אלקוש, Arabic: ألقوش,[1] alternatively spelled Alkosh, Alqoš, or Alqush) is a town in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, a sub-district of the Tel Keppe District situated 45 km north of the city of Mosul.\n\nThe inhabitants of Alqosh are Assyrians who since the 18th century now mostly adhere to the Chaldean Catholic Church.[7][8] During the Iron Age, the Alqosh plain appears to have been home to the small regional kingdom of Qumāne, but was subsequently annexed by Assyria.[9]\n\nLandmarks\n\nThe town of Alqosh is set at the foot of a mountain known as ṭūrəd-‘Alquš meaning “the mountain of Alqosh”. In the vicinity, there are the kahfa/kāfa smōqa (the red cave), guppəd-naṭōpa (the cave of dripping), guppəd-māya (the cave of water), guppəd-saṭāna (the cave of Satan), guppa mgurəgma (the thundering cave), and a valley šwīṯəd-ganāwe (the bed of thieves) at the foot of Alqosh mountain.[10][11] \n\nBehind the mountain there is also the site of Bezqin, known in Classical Syriac sources as bizqīn (Syriac: ܒܙܩܝܢ[12]) and pronounced by modern Alqosh as bisqin, containing the remains of an orchard and a Syriac Orthodox monastery, which may have originally been part of the Church of the East, and containing springs. After the Simele Massacre this was left and came to be ruined by vandals, and most of the ancient trees cut down or burnt.[13][14][15][16]\n\nChristianity\n\nThe Assyrian people had gradually converted from Mesopotamian Religion to Eastern Rite Christianity between the 1st and 5th centuries AD. The importance of Alqosh for the Assyrian Church of the East arose from its proximity to the Rabban Hormizd Monastery, named after its seventh-century founder Rabban Hormizd (Rabban means \"monk\"), who is venerated as a saint in the churches descended from the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nThe monastery, built on the mountain slope, was originally built to defend the Assyrians against Muslim armies, and largely fortified over time.[17] It became a centre of learning for the Church of the East not far from another centre but of the Syriac Orthodox Church. It was the burial place of the patriarchs of the Church of the East from the late fifteenth century and was their seat from the time of Shimun VI (1503-1538) until the end of the series of patriarchs known as the Eliya line.[18] Isolated and cut off by snow from Alqosh in winter, it never became their permanent residence,[16] and its line of patriarchs is commonly described as the Mosul line or as resident in Alqosh.[19] Today, the monastery continues to be venerated as a symbol of Assyrian and Christian resistance against those who have tried to attack it, especially following the Fall of Mosul and the War in Iraq (2013-2017).[17]\n\nIn the schism of 1552, the abbot of the monastery, Yohannan Sulaqa, was elected irregularly to the post of patriarch by several bishops who were dissatisfied with the restriction of patriarchal succession to members of a single family. By tradition, a patriarch could be ordained only by someone of archiepiscopal (metropolitan) rank, a rank to which only members of that one family were promoted. For that reason, Sulaqa travelled to Rome, where, presented as the new patriarch-elect, he entered communion with the Catholic Church, was ordained by the Pope, and recognized as patriarch of the \"Church of Mosul and Athura\". He and his successors (who eventually formally broke communion with Rome) took up residence further east. This schism gave rise to the Chaldean Catholic Church, in opposition to what historians call the traditionalist wing of the Church of the East, that which officially adopted the name Assyrian Church of the East.[20][21]\n\nIn the 17th and 18th centuries, the \"legitimist\" Alqosh patriarchal line from which Sulaqa broke away in 1552, drew closer to Rome, especially during the 58-year reign of Eliya XI/XII Denkha (1722-1778), who sent several letters to Rome, some with professions of faith in line with Catholic teaching, but no formal papal recognition followed.[22][23] However, it was a member of the family from whom the \"legitimate\" traditionalist patriarchs were chosen, Yohannan Hormizd (1760-1838) who, having considered himself a Catholic since 1778, was chosen as patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1830.[24][23]\n\nAssociation with the Prophet Nahum\n\nAusten Henry Layard, who visited the area in 1847, reported that by \"a very ancient tradition\" the village contains the tomb of the prophet Nahum, whose Old Testament book begins with: \"An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.\"[25] While Jerome located the birthplace of Nahum in Galilee, Layard considered the Alqosh tradition had some weight in spite of the lack of inscriptions or ancient remains.[26] Iraqi Jews made pilgrimage to the site during Shavuot, and \"He who has not made the pilgrimage to Nahum's tomb has not yet known real pleasure\" was a common saying.[27] When Jews were expelled from Iraq or voluntarily emigrated to Israel in 1948, the Jewish custodian entrusted the care of the building to a local Chaldean Catholic.[28] A survey conducted in 2017 determined that the structure was in danger of collapse, and in the following year work began on stabilizing it.[29][30]\n\nAttacks\n\n1401 - the town was attacked and sacked by Timur (Tamerlane).[23]\n\n1508 - Alqosh was attacked by Pasha of Baghdad Bar Yak (Murad Bey).[23]\n\n1831 - the Soran Emirate attacked Alqosh, killing nearly 300 villagers.[31]\n\n1828 - Mosa Pasha, the governor of Amadiya, approached Alqosh and set fire to the Rabban Hormizd Monastery.[32]\n\n1832 - Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz attacked Alqosh, killing over 600 of its inhabitants.[32]\n\n1840 - Resoul Beck, Mira Koor's brother, repeated the attack.[32]\n\n1843 - the Rabban Hormizd Monastery was attacked by the Kurds, and 1000 manuscripts may have been destroyed.[31]\n\n2014 - The Islamic State came close to Alqosh, and almost all of the people fled; however, many men and youths did not leave Alqosh due to a desire to protect their town. ISIL failed to take the town after the intervention of the Peshmerga and local Assyrian militia known as Dwekh Nawsha.[33]\n\nDemographics\n\nAccording to a CAPNI Organization report in January 2023, the residents of the Alqosh town were all Assyrian Christians, whereas in the broader Alqosh subdistrict, Yazidis made up 80% of the population.[34] The town's residents abide by a rule where they are only allowed to sell their properties to other Assyrians originally from the village, which has managed to sustain their demographics up to now; typically, the men of the village are in charge of protecting it from outsiders.[35]\n\nIn March 2020, Shlama Foundation reported that the town had a population of 4,567: 1,015 families of Chaldean Catholic denomination, the remainder being Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox.[36]\n\nAccording to the Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization, most of the inhabitants are Assyrians, with a smaller percentage of Yazidis.[37] In 1913, the town of Alqosh, was according to Joseph Tfinkdji inhabited by 7,000 Chaldean Catholics.[38] Many have emigrated since the 1970s. It is estimated that at least 40,000 \"Alqushnaye\" immigrants and their 2nd and 3rd generation descendants now live in the cities of Detroit, Michigan, the western suburb of Fairfield in Sydney, Australia and San Diego, California.\n\nIn February 2010, the attacks against Assyrian people in northern Iraq forced 4,300 to flee from Mosul to the Nineveh Plains. A report by the United Nations stated that 504 Assyrians at once migrated to Alqosh. Many Assyrians of all denominations from Mosul and Baghdad since the post-2003 Iraq war have fled to Alqosh for safety. The town's population in 2020 is estimated to be roughly 4,600.[39]\n\nRelations with the Kurdish regional government\n\nIn 2014 the mayor of Alqosh, Faiz Jahwareh, was detained and replaced by Kurdistan Democratic Party member Lara Zara, only to be reinstated after protests by Alqosh residents.[40] Jahwareh was again detained and replaced by the Kurdish regional government in July 2017 on the basis of corruption charges that were dismissed by the Iraqi Federal Court.[40][41]\n\nClimate\n\nAlqosh has a semi-arid climate (BSh) with extremely hot and dry summers, and cool wet winters.\n\nClimate data for Alqosh\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n12\n(54)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n26\n(79)\n\n34\n(93)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n43\n(109)\n\n40\n(104)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n30\n(86)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n27\n(81)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n2\n(36)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n8\n(46)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n16\n(61)\n\n21\n(70)\n\n25\n(77)\n\n24\n(75)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n6\n(43)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n13\n(55)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n39\n(1.5)\n\n69\n(2.7)\n\n51\n(2.0)\n\n27\n(1.1)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n6\n(0.2)\n\n36\n(1.4)\n\n60\n(2.4)\n\n288\n(11.3)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n10\n\n10\n\n11\n\n9\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n5\n\n8\n\n12\n\n65\n\nSource: World Weather Online (2000-2012)[42]\n\nNotable people\n\nHirmis Aboona (1940-2009), historian\n\nJoseph VI Audo (1790-1878), Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1847-1878)\n\nToma Audo (1854-1918), Archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Urmia (1890-1918)\n\nPaul II Cheikho (1906-1989), Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1958-1989)\n\nYohannan Hormizd (1760-1838), Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1830-1838)\n\nEmil Shimoun Nona (1967-), Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (2026-)\n\nToma Tomas (1924-1996), Assyrian nationalist and communist guerilla fighter\n\nYousef VI Emmanuel II Thomas (1852-1947), Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1900-1947)\n\nLara Zara (1982-present), first female mayor of Alqosh and the first female mayor in the Nineveh Plains\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nDisputed territories of Northern Iraq\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b معاناة الكورد الايزديين فيá ظل الحكومات العراقية، 1921-2003. University of California, Berkeley, US. 2008.\n\n^ \"Al Qūsh, Tel Keppe District, Muḩāfaz̧at Nīnawá, Iraq\".\n\n^ \"An ancient monastery in Iraq is a symbol of Christian survival\". Reuters. 3 March 2021. Retrieved 2 April 2025.\n\n^ Maclean, Arthur John (1901). Dictionary of the Dialects of Vernacular Syriac. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 13b.\n\n^ Payne Smith, Robert (1879-1901). Thesaurus Syriacus (in Latin). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 221.\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson, “Alqosh - ܐܠܩܘܫ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified June 7, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/19.\n\n^ Hirmis, Aboona (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. United States: Cambria Press. p. 36.\n\n^ \"The Fate of Iraq's Indigenous Communities\". Fair Observer. 25 January 2017.\n\n^ K. Radner, \"Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Muṣaṣir, Kumme, Ukku and Šubria - the Buffer States between Assyria and Urarṭu,\" in: S. Kroll et al. (eds.), Biainili-Urartu. The Proceedings of the Symposium held in Munich 12-14 October 2007, Peeters 2012: 243-264: 245.\n\n^ Coghill, Eleanor (2003). The Neo-Aramaic dialect of Alqosh. p. 2. ISBN 9781607241744.\n\n^ \"عن القوش\". 6 July 2014. Archived from the original on 6 July 2014. Retrieved 22 September 2024.\n\n^ Margoliouth, Jesse Payne (1927). Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Gorgias Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-60724-795-1. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ \"خــوري ثـيـلـه بهار! (بالسريانية)// لطيف پولا\". www.tellskuf.com. Retrieved 22 September 2024.\n\n^ Pola, Latif (2 September 2015). \"بحث تصحيح الفاظ لبعض المواقع القديمة في القوش واخراج معانيها\". خورنة القوش (in Arabic). Retrieved 22 September 2024.\n\n^ \"نبيل يونس دمان\". www.al-nnas.com. Retrieved 22 September 2024.\n\n^ a b David Wilmshurst (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Peeters Publishers. p. 258. ISBN 978-9042908765.\n\n^ a b Davison, John (3 March 2021). \"An ancient monastery in Iraq is a symbol of Christian survival\". Reuters. p. Alqosh. Retrieved 23 March 2025.\n\n^ List of Patriarchs of the Church of the East#Patriarchal lines from the schism of 1552 until 1830\n\n^ F. Kristian Girling, \"The Chaldean Catholic Church: A study in modern history, ecclesiology and church-state relations (2003-2013)\" (Department of Theology, Heythrop College, University of London), p. 43\n\n^ Wilhelm Baum; Dietmar W. Winkler (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-1134430192.\n\n^ Eckart Frahm (2017). A Companion to Assyria. Wiley. p. 1132. ISBN 978-1118325230.\n\n^ Heleen Murre-van den Berg, \"The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries\" in Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies Volume 2 (1999 [2010), p. 247,\n\n^ a b c d David Wilmshurst (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (582nd ed.). Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9042908769.\n\n^ Frazee, Charles A. (2006). Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge University Press. p. 210. ISBN 978-0521027007.\n\n^ Nahum 1:1\n\n^ Austen Henry Layard (1849). Nineveh and Its Remains. J. Murray. p. 233.\n\n^ Neurink, Judit (5 July 2015). \"Kurdistan needs help to preserve its Jewish heritage\". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 6 July 2015.\n\n^ Hedow, Amer (3 August 2009). \"An AlQosh Man Struggles to Keep a Promise to an Old Friend\". chaldean.org. Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 29 June 2020.\n\n^ \"Progress made on saving Prophet Nahum's tomb in Iraq\". The Jerusalem Post. ISSN 0792-822X. Retrieved 23 April 2018.\n\n^ Neurink, Judit (21 March 2018). \"Hebrew prophet's tomb in Iraq saved from collapse\". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 23 April 2018.\n\n^ a b Wilmhurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organization of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. p. 205.\n\n^ a b c Geoff Hann; Karen Dabrowska; Tina Townsend-Greaves (2015). Iraq: The ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan. ISBN 978-1841624884.\n\n^ Costa-Roberts, Daniel (15 March 2015). \"8 things you didn't know about Assyrian Christians\". PBS. Retrieved 6 July 2015.\n\n^ CAPNI (6 January 2023). \"Sub-district Of Alqosh\". CAPNI. Retrieved 28 August 2023.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Alqosh, the last Christian town is here to stay\". Sight Magazine. World Watch Monitor. 8 November 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Population - Tel Keppe District - Google Drive\". docs.google.com.\n\n^ \"UNPO: Assyria: Crowds Gather to Protest Mayor's Unfounded Expulsion\". unpo.org. Retrieved 24 May 2020.\n\n^ Joseph Tfinkdji, \"L'Église Chaldéenne Catholique autrefois et aujourd'hui\", in Annuaire Pontifical Catholique 17 (1914). pp. 449-525.\n\n^ \"Population Project\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 24 May 2020.\n\n^ a b \"Iraqi Christians reject second mayor installed by pro-Kurd council\". World Watch Monitor. Retrieved 23 May 2020.\n\n^ \"Post - Assyrian Policy Institute\". assyrianpolicy. 17 July 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2019.\n\n^ \"Alqosh, Ninawa Monthly Climate Average, Iraq\". World Weather Online. Retrieved 22 January 2017.\n\nSources\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521027007.\n\nAddai Scher, Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques conservés dans la bibliothèque du couvent des Chaldéens de Notre-Dame-des-Semences, Journal Asiatique Sér. 10: 8, 9 (1906). This may be found online at Gallica by searching for \"Journal Asiatique\". An English translation of the first portion is at tertullian.org\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Alqosh at Wikimedia Commons\n\nalqosh.net\n\nalqush.com\n\nAlqosh: Vestiges Of Assyria (images of Alqosh)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-alqosh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2541}, {"slug": "reference-ankawa", "title": "Ankawa", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Ankawa (Arabic: عنكاوا, romanized: Ankāwā;[1] Kurdish: عەنکاوە, romanized: Enkawe,[2][3] Syriac: ܥܲܢܟܵܒ̣ܵܐ) is a suburb and neighborhood of Erbil in Kurdistan Region, Iraq.[4] It is located 8 kilometres (5 mi) northwest of downtown Erbil. The suburb is predominantly populated by Christian Assyrians, most of whom adhere to the Chaldean...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ankawa\n\nSuburb\n\nViews around the entrance to Ankawa at Ankawa Road and Hundred Meter Road.\n\nLocation within Iraqi KurdistanShow map of Iraqi KurdistanLocation within IraqShow map of Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°13′45″N 43°59′37″E / 36.22917°N 43.99361°E / 36.22917; 43.99361\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nRegion Kurdistan Region\n\nProvinceErbil Governorate\n\nMunicipalityAnkawa\n\nPopulation (2024 census)\n\n • Total40,708\n\nPostal code44003\n\nWebsitehttps://english.ankawa.com/\n\nAnkawa (Arabic: عنكاوا, romanized: Ankāwā;[1] Kurdish: عەنکاوە, romanized: Enkawe,[2][3] Syriac: ܥܲܢܟܵܒ̣ܵܐ) is a suburb and neighborhood of Erbil in Kurdistan Region, Iraq.[4] It is located 8 kilometres (5 mi) northwest of downtown Erbil. The suburb is predominantly populated by Christian Assyrians, most of whom adhere to the Chaldean Catholic Church.[5]\n\nHistory\n\nFinnish Assyriologist Simo Parpola has suggested that Ankawa corresponds to the Neo-Assyrian town of Milqia near Arbela, where the Akitu-house of the goddess Ishtar was located.[6] Milqia is often identified with Melqi, a town mentioned in the East Syriac hagiography \"History of Mar Qardagh\". In this text Melqi is the martyrdom site and burial place of the legendary Assyrian Saint Mar Qardagh, a Sasanian noble and warrior who converted from Zoroastrianism to Christianity. The hagiography describes Mar Qardagh as being \"from a great people from the stock of the kingdom of the Assyrians.\" Mar Qardagh is highly venerated in Ankawa and his story has remained popular among the local christian population.[7][8] \n\nAnkawa was originally called Beth Amka, which later morphed to Amku-Bad, Ankava, and finally Ankawa. The name of the town is mentioned in Bar Hebraeus's book entitled \"A Brief History of the Countries,\" where he states: \"Mongol troops attacked the area of Erbil on Sunday July 1285 and reached some villages ... including Ankawa.\" The shrine of Mary, also known as Mariamana, was built after the ancient Roman designs.[9] Tell Qasra, or Qasra Knoll, is an ancient archaeological site, a 6-meter high mound that was used as a palace in the center of Ankawa. The hill dates back to the Neo-Assyrian period. The city was formerly known as Arbela, which was the capital city of Adiabene and the seat of Inanna.[10]\n\nAnkawa has many archaeological sites, including \"The Hill,\" which was recorded as an archaeological site in Iraq in 1945. It is also home to Cathedral of Saint Joseph (Umra d'Mar Yosip), the seat of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Arbil.[11] Ankawa used to be a small village located northwest of Erbil, but has grown into a city in its own right.[12] The city has recently become a principal settlement for Christians in Iraq. One of the main reasons for the town's population rise is due to the ISIS takeover of the Nineveh Plains in 2014 after KRG security forces forcibly disarmed local populations in the Nineveh Plains,[13][14][15][16][17][18] asserting a full monopoly of arms and control over security,[19][20] while pledging to protect all, and then preemptively retreated from their posts as ISIS approached,[21] abandoning the local populations and exposing them to genocide,[22] all without informing locals that they were withdrawing at the last minute and without firing a single bullet.[23][24][17] This caused a fair amount of those who fled to come to Ankawa and other areas in Kurdistan Region.[25] The Assyrian Church of the East, which after several decades of being located in the United States, has decided to move their Patriarchal see to Ankawa.[11]\n\nAllegations of tax discrimination\n\nThe Assyrian Policy Institute (API) has accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of business and tax discrimination against the Assyrian residents of Ankawa on numerous occasions. One 2018 API report claimed that the KRG required all business owners from the city to renew their business licenses with the Erbil Center District for a fee. The alleged regulation applied exclusively to Ankawa, despite the fact that nine other districts were under the Erbil Center District's jurisdiction. There were also allegations that the renewal process was deliberately lengthy and expensive, and that KRG officials expected bribes in exchange for processing the renewals.[5] Many Assyrians viewed this as an attempt by the KRG to hurt their businesses and secure a monopoly on industries in their areas of control.[26] \n\nThe KRG released an official statement in which they denied these allegations and referred to them as “baseless.”[27][28][29]\n\nThe API responded to the KRG's denial of these claims in a later report. The API claimed that this latest denial of human rights abuses by the KRG is consistent with previous denials of accusations of wrongdoing. Examples of this that the API provided was the KRG's denial of accusations made by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the US Department of State Human Rights Report.[30] The report goes on to say that the reason that the API had originally made the claim about the KRG tax policy was due to an Ankawa-based activist group called Hand in Hand approaching them and explaining the situation to them.[30] The report also provided documentation of the ordinance in question that proved that a new tax policy specifically in Ankawa had been created by the KRG.[31] \n\nThe report then says that Assyrian business owners affected by the new tax policy as well as Assyrian parliamentarians in the Iraqi Parliament and the Kurdistan Region Parliament who corroborated these claims. Some business owners attempted to legally appeal the policy, but the government upheld its decision.[32]\n\nFurthermore, the report claimed that the Assyrian parliamentarians who were interviewed about the new tax policy claimed that they had inquired to the KRG Shura Council about the policy, and received a response saying:\n\n\"Not collecting this tax in some towns as a result of negligence or incompetence of the relevant KRG departments is no reason to refrain from collecting such a tax in said towns [Ankawa].\"[33]\n\nThe API stated that this was essentially a public admission by the KRG that the tax collection policy was arbitrary.\n\nThe report concluded that the tax rate was imposed on the city of Ankawa as an act of business discrimination against one of the only Assyrian-majority areas in KRG jurisdiction. They encouraged the KRG to formally accept their role in this policy, and claimed that they, “[stand] ready to meet with KRG officials both in Iraq and in the United States to address the many long-standing grievances of Ankawa residents, including the improper confiscation of lands belonging to Assyrians and KRG policies advancing demographic change in the area, as well as interference in local, regional, and federal elections for Assyrian representatives.”[30]\n\nToday\n\nWithin the last decade, Ankawa has developed rapidly educationally and technologically. Today, many tourists visit Ankawa from the capital Baghdad, and other cities across Iraq. The suburb has been through a long construction period, and there are international schools as well as restaurants available today inside. After the fall of Mosul to ISIL militants, many Christians who had been displaced came to Ankawa and have been provided with personal needs by the church and international organizations.[34]\n\nSee also\n\nCatholic University in Erbil\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nList of largest cities of Iraq\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"المدن العراقية بين الاسماء والمعاني!؟\" (in Arabic). 15 June 2018. Retrieved 22 February 2021.\n\n^ \"Serperiştê Teqandina Hewlêr û Enkawa hat kuştin\" (in Kurdish). Retrieved 21 December 2019.\n\n^ \"توركیا كردە تیرۆریستییەكەی ھەولێری سەرکۆنە كرد\". www.kdp.info. Retrieved 21 December 2019.\n\n^ Lucente, Adam (18 April 2019). \"Donald Trump to help Iraq Christians punish Islamic State\". www.apnews.com.\n\n^ a b \"KRG Imposes Discriminatory New Regulation on Assyrians in Ankawa\". July 14, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020. Ankawa, also known as Ainkawa, is a predominantly Chaldean-populated suburb of Erbil. Its population is now estimated to be approximately 60,000. Roughly 80% of the town's population is Christian; the majority of its Christian residents are adherents to the Chaldean Catholic Church. Located just outside Erbil, the town is considered to be the last Christian Assyrian stronghold in Kurdistan Region.\n\n^ \"The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630-627 BC), and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626-612 BC), Kings of Assyria, Part 2\" (PDF). oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-10-08. Retrieved 2026-04-10.\n\n^ Walker, Joel Thomas (2006). The legend of Mar Qardagh: narrative and Christian heroism in late antique Iraq. The transformation of the classical heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-93219-7.\n\n^ \"The Melammu Project\". www.melammu-project.eu. Retrieved 2026-04-10.\n\n^ Zebari, Aziz Emmanuel. \"Ankawa\". www.ishtartv.com.\n\n^ \"Mar Gewargis Church in Ankawa\".\n\n^ a b Richard Spencer, Iraq crisis: The streets of Erbil’s newly Christian suburb are now full of helpless people, The Daily Telegraph, August 08, 2014\n\n^ \"عنكاوا\". Ankawa.com (in Arabic).\n\n^ \"PeakD\". PeakD. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ \"Testimony for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Religious Minorities' Fight to Remain in Iraq - September 26, 2019\" (PDF).\n\n^ \"What Comes After the Defeat of ISIS in Mosul?\". Institute for Global Change. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ \"United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Wilting in the Kurdish sun the hopes and fears of religious minorities in northern Iraq\". Archived from the original on 2022-04-15. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ a b \"Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\". Assyrian Policy. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ \"KRG Disarmament Order Distributed to Villages in the Nineveh Plain in July 2014 (Arabic with translation)\" (PDF).\n\n^ Hanna, Reine; Barber, Matthew Travis (2017-01-01). \"Erasing Assyrians: How the KRG Abuses Human Rights, Undermines Democracy, and Conquers Minority Homelands\". Assyrian Confederation of Europe.\n\n^ \"Christian Minorities and the Struggle for Nineveh\" (PDF). VTechWorks. December 13, 2018. Retrieved October 28, 2022.\n\n^ Griswold, Eliza (2015-07-22). \"Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ \"The Nineveh Plains and the Future of Minorities in Iraq\". The Washington Institute. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ Rossomando, John. \"Advocates: Kurds Keeping Christians and Yazidis From Going Home\". The Investigative Project on Terrorism. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ Institute, Assyrian Policy (2018-08-13). \"Iraqi Prime Minister Orders Changes to Security in the Nineveh Plain\". Assyrian Policy. Retrieved 2022-04-15. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)\n\n^ \"Iraq's Assyrian Christians form militias amid sectarian tensions\". America Magazine. 2016-04-29. Retrieved 2022-04-15.\n\n^ \"Erbil's Christians decry 'discriminatory and exploitative' Kurdish business regulation\". The New Arab. August 2, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ Goran, Baxtiyar (July 4, 2018). \"KRG responds to 'baseless allegations' of discrimination by Assyrian Policy Institute\". Kurdistan 24. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG Statement on baseless allegations of discrimination against Christian citizens\". Kurdistan Regional Government Cabinet. July 2, 2020. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG Statement in response to an article by Assyrian Policy Institute\". 4 July 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ a b c \"API Response to KRG Statement Denying Unjust Tax Rates, Ordinances in Ankawa\". July 9, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"Jan. 2018 Ordinance Issued by the KRG's Erbil Center District\" (PDF). January 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"Dec. 2012 KRG Response\" (PDF). December 2012. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"Feb. 2018 KRG Shura Council Response to Official Inquiry into Unjust Ankawa Tax Rates by Two Assyrian Parliamentarians\" (PDF). February 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. \"Distinguished Lecture Series - Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, CSsR\". www.sandiego.edu.\n\nExternal links\n\nwww.ankawa.com - English webpage"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ankawa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1873}, {"slug": "reference-qaraqosh", "title": "Qaraqosh", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Qaraqosh (Syriac: ܩܪܩܘ݂ܫ, romanized: Qaraqoš; Arabic: بغديدا, romanized: Baḡdīda (official name), or Arabic: بخديدا, romanized: Baḵdīda, also known as al-Ḥamdāniyya or Qara-Qūš; a Turkic placename meaning \"Black Bird\") is a city in the Nineveh Governorate, of Iraq located about 32 kilometres (20 mi) southeast of the city of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Qaraqosh\n ܩܪܩܘ݂ܫ\n\nA view of Bakhdida\n\nQaraqoshLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°16′11″N 43°22′39″E / 36.26972°N 43.37750°E / 36.26972; 43.37750\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh\n\nMunicipalityAl-Hamdaniya District\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorIsam Behnam Da'aboul\n\nPopulation\n\n • Total35,000 (current)[1][2]\n\n 50,000 (prior to IS invasion)[3][2]\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time)\n\nQaraqosh (Syriac: ܩܪܩܘ݂ܫ, romanized: Qaraqoš; Arabic: بغديدا, romanized: Baḡdīda (official name), or Arabic: بخديدا, romanized: Baḵdīda, also known as al-Ḥamdāniyya or Qara-Qūš; a Turkic placename meaning \"Black Bird\") is a city in the Nineveh Governorate, of Iraq located about 32 kilometres (20 mi) southeast of the city of Mosul and 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Erbil amid agricultural lands, close to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities Kalhu and Nineveh. The city has an Assyrian Christian majority.[4]\n\nQaraqosh is connected to the main city of Mosul by two main roads. The first runs through the Assyrian towns of Bartella and Karamlesh, which connects to the city of Erbil as well. The second, which was gravel before being paved in the 1990s, is direct to Mosul. All of its Assyrian Christian citizens fled to the Kurdistan Region after the IS invasion on August 6, 2014. The town was under control of IS until October 19, 2016, when it was liberated as part of the Battle of Mosul after which residents have begun to return.[5] According to archbishop Nizar Semaan, by July 2024 about half of the city's original 50,000 residents had returned to Qaraqosh.[6]\n\nLocal Assyrians, who are ethnically distinct from Arabs and Kurds, speak the Qaraqosh dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe present name of the town, Qaraqosh, is first attested in a source from the sixteenth century. It is of Turkic origin, meaning 'Black Bird', and was introduced either by the Ottomans after their conquest of the area at the beginning of the sixteenth century or by the Turkoman rulers of the region in the fifteenth century. The local population, however, when speaking in their Aramaic dialect, still refer to the town by its former name.[7] The name Bakhdida (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܟܘܕܝܕܐ; Beth Khdeda), is of uncertain origin and when translated from the Syriac language it has two components Beth which means \"house\", and Khodida which could either mean \"Youths\" in Aramaic or actually \"Baghdadak\" a diminutive form of Baghdad, Old Persian meaning \"God's gift\". Some also think that Bakhdida comes from the Aramaic Beth Deta, meaning \"Land of the Kite\".[8]\n\nSecurity\n\nAs of October 2016, the city is under the control of the Nineveh Plain Protection Units.[9] On November 25, 2017; Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) celebrated the completion of its new military camp in Bakhdida, Nineveh Plain.[10]\n\nEducation\n\nStudents from the village were harassed in University of Mosul; many female students were forced to wear an Islamic dress for fear of being attacked.[11] On May 2, 2010, a convoy of buses carrying students from Bakhdida to the University of Mosul was the target of a coordinated attack, which killed and injured more than a hundred.[12][13]\n\nThe Iraqi Ministry of Education started the construction of a subsidiary of the University of Mosul which in 2014 became the University of AL-Hamdaniya, which is planned to serve the whole Nineveh Plains region.[14] The University of AL-Hamdaniya currently consists of two colleges: The college of Education and the college of Administration and Economics. The University is based at the Mosul-Erbil road, Al-Hamdaniya intersection.[15]\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Christian accounts\n\nIt is thought that the ancient city of Rasin mentioned in some texts, the second city built by the Assyrian king Nimrud, was in Bakhdida.[16]\n\nEarly Christian history\n\nThe Assyrians of Bakhdida became Christians during early Christianity. With the Christological disputes of the 4th century, they followed the Church of the East teachings, but switched to the Syriac Orthodox Church through the influence of Shapur of Baghdeda in the 7th century and the arrival of Assyrian refugees from Tikrit in the 11th century.[17]\n\nRaids of Persians and Kurds\n\nIn their literature and writings, the Assyrians of Bakhdida remember vividly the raids of the Persians and Kurds on their village and churches. In 1171, while the governors of Mosul and Damascus were fighting each other, the Kurds used the opportunity to attack the Mor Mattai Monastery.[18] According to the 13th-century writer Bar Hebraeus, in 1261 the Kurds came down to Mosul, killing many Christians who refused to follow Islam and looting their homes and churches. The Kurds then occupied the Monastery of Saint John of Dailam and killed many of its nuns and those who had sought refuge there. In 1288, a battle took place between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen near Baghdida. In 1324 Baghdida was attacked by the Kurds again, in which many homes and four churches were burned.[19]\n\nAfshar-Ottoman wars\n\nIn the early 18th century, Persians under the leadership of Nader Shah invaded the Mosul region and most of the inhabitants of Baghdida escaped to Mosul with all their valuables, in accordance with the governor's orders. Mosul was harassed and then besieged for months. However, the Christians defended it and after months of blockade, the Persians finally signed a peace agreement with Mosul's governor Hasan Pasha Al Jalili, and withdrew in 1743. To reward the Christians for their bravery, the Jalili governor permitted many churches in the Mosul region to be restored.[20]\n\nAfter the 2003 US invasion\n\nPolitics since 2005\n\nThe people of Bakhdida got the chance to vote for the first time on 30 January 2005. Ayad Allawi led the votes in the town.[21]\nHowever many Assyrians, Shabaks and Yazidis were not allowed to vote, which led to demonstrations against the results.[22]\n\nAyad Allawi Secular list\n\n3,080\n\n31%\n\nNahrain list (Assyrian list)\n\n2,664\n\n27%\n\nAssyrian Democratic Movement\n\n2,466\n\n25%\n\nKurdistan Alliance\n\n744\n\n7%\n\nThe next parliamentary elections on 7 March 2010, saw the rise of local candidates with the Assyrian Democratic Movement coming second. Only 52% of registered voters participated in this election.[23] Due to the rise of extremism in Iraq shortly after the US-led invasion, many of the villagers in Mosul and Baghdad were targeted for being Christians.[24]\n\nOn 22 November 2006 Yeshu' Hadaya, the leader of a National Syriac movement was assassinated in Bakhdida.[25]\n\nIS attacks and invasion\n\nAt the beginning of July 2014, IS forces attempted to occupy the city. The Kurdish Peshmerga and the Assyrian Qaraqosh Protection Committee successfully defended it, while elders, women, and children fled to neighboring towns, thus joining other Christian refugees from nearby Mosul that had previously escaped the city in fear of the extremists.[26] The Islamists proceeded to cut off the town's water supply. This, together with the rise in the price of oil following IS's invasion of nearby oil field and an embargo imposed by IS forcing nearby Muslim villages to stop trade with Bakhdida, rendered life difficult in the town also burdened with incoming refugees.[27] On August 6, 2014, the Kurdish troops withdrew from the city and the next day Islamists from IS invaded the city.[28] Much of the population, including recent arrivals, was left joining the 150,000 Assyrians fleeing, though they were forced to walk towards Erbil without their cars and possessions as Kurdish forces feared Islamist infiltration.[29]\n\nAll of its citizens fled to Kurdistan Region after the IS invasion on 6 August 2014. The town was under control of IS until 19 October 2016, when it was liberated as part of the Battle of Mosul.[5]\n\nPost-IS\n\nCurrently, the Nineveh Plain Protection Units run the security profile in the city and participated alongside the Iraqi Army in the liberation efforts of the city.[30]\n\nOn 26 September 2023, a fire broke out at the Al Haytham Wedding Hall during a Syriac Catholic wedding in the city, which killed at least 114 people, and injured 150.[31]\n\nGeography\n\nIt is 32 miles (51 km) southeast of Mosul.[32]\n\nClimate\n\nBakhdida has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa). Most rain falls in the winter. The average annual temperature in Bakhdida is 20.7 °C (69.3 °F). About 468 mm (18.43 in) of precipitation falls annually.\n\nClimate data for Bakhdida\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n12.6\n(54.7)\n\n14.9\n(58.8)\n\n18.6\n(65.5)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n32.1\n(89.8)\n\n38.8\n(101.8)\n\n42.7\n(108.9)\n\n42.5\n(108.5)\n\n38.2\n(100.8)\n\n30.8\n(87.4)\n\n21.9\n(71.4)\n\n14.7\n(58.5)\n\n27.7\n(81.9)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n2.1\n(35.8)\n\n3.6\n(38.5)\n\n6.3\n(43.3)\n\n10.6\n(51.1)\n\n15.8\n(60.4)\n\n20.0\n(68.0)\n\n23.4\n(74.1)\n\n22.5\n(72.5)\n\n17.9\n(64.2)\n\n12.6\n(54.7)\n\n8.3\n(46.9)\n\n3.5\n(38.3)\n\n12.2\n(54.0)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n78\n(3.1)\n\n79\n(3.1)\n\n88\n(3.5)\n\n64\n(2.5)\n\n25\n(1.0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n1\n(0.0)\n\n15\n(0.6)\n\n49\n(1.9)\n\n69\n(2.7)\n\n468\n(18.4)\n\nSource: Climate-Data.org, Climate data\n\nArchaeology\n\nSince the late 19th century, various locations on the outskirts of the town were excavated by Hormuzd Rassam. In Balawat (the ancient Assyrian city of Imgur-Enlil) a number of Assyrian artifacts have been excavated; they are currently displayed in the British Museum and Mosul Museum.[33] There is a lot of interest in the archaeology of Baghdida today. It has many Assyrian remains, like those of Tel Bashmoni (Beth Shmoni), Tel Muqortaya, Tel Karamles, Tel Mar Bihnam and others. These mounds were fortresses, temples or buildings that belonged to the Assyrian capital of Nimrud. Throughout 1922, 1927, and 1935, archaeologists found gold pieces and cylinder seals, as well as an Assyrian statue (now in Mosul museum) in a well in the church of Mar Zina. In 1942 an Assyrian bathroom and several graves were found near the church of Bashmoni. Furthermore, during the 1980s excavations in the grounds of the Church of Mar Youhanna (Saint John), archaeologists found human remains inside graves in the eastern side and at a depth of one and a half metres. These graves were built with typical Assyrian large rectangular bricks.\n\nReferences to Athur (Assyria) continued in texts from Bakhdida. Mapharian Athanasius Ibrahim II of Tur Abdin visited Tikrit, Baghdad, and Arbil to attend to his congregation. According to Afram Abdal al-Khouri and his book al-Lu'lu' al-Nadheed fi Tareekh Deir Mar Bihnam al-Shaheed(The Layers of Pearls in the History of the Monastery of Martyred Mar Bihnam), 1951, p. 219, Sony writes: \"in 1365 the Mapharian came to Athur or Mosul and was welcomed by Nour al-Din the Chief of Baghdeda … \" (Sony 1998, 699). Last but not least, Sony writes that in 1294-1295 (according to the Mar Bihnam monastery archives) a certain king \"came to Lower Athur, the city of Saint Mar Bihnam … \" (Sony 1998, 95).\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nBalawat\n\nBartella\n\nKaramlish\n\nList of largest cities in Iraq\n\nReferences\n\n^ Hanna, Reine (September 26, 2019). \"Testimony for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Religious Minorities' Fight to Remain in Iraq\" (PDF). United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Retrieved August 2, 2020. In the town of Bakhdida, for example, approximately 35,000 Christian Assyrian inhabitants have returned-70% of the town's original population\n\n^ a b Hanna, Reine (June 1, 2020). \"Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\" (PDF). Assyrian Policy Institute. p. 42. Retrieved June 27, 2020.\n\n^ Taylor, Alan (April 27, 2017). \"Iraqi Christians Slowly Return to War-Damaged Qaraqosh\". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 2, 2020.\n\n^ Castillo, Mariano (August 9, 2014). \"ISIS overtakes Iraq's largest Christian city\". CNN International. Retrieved August 2, 2020.\n\n^ a b Talat, Mahdi (October 30, 2016). \"In charred church near Mosul, Iraqi Christians pray once more\". Reuters. Retrieved October 31, 2016.\n\n^ d'Avillez, Filipe (July 5, 2024). \"Iraq: \"Christians are like olive trees. You can burn them, but they will still bear fruit\"\". ACN International. Retrieved August 14, 2025.\n\n^ \"NENA\".\n\n^ اصول أسماء القرى والمواقع التابعة لمنطقة بخديدا, بهنام عطاالله\n\n^ Stancati, Margherita (December 6, 2016). \"Iraq's Christians Turn to Militia for Protection\". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 2, 2020.\n\n^ \"Completion of the NPU Camp In Bakhdeda, Nineveh Plain\". Zowaa.org. December 5, 2017.\n\n^ \"Assyrian University Students Beaten By Iraqi Police\". Christiansofiraq.com. Archived from the original on November 20, 2010. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ Bombs Hit School Buses in North Iraq, SAM DAGHER, The New York Times\n\n^ \"IRAQ Car bomb targets Christian student's bus near Mosul - Asia News\". Asianews.it. November 14, 2009. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ Schmidinger, Thomas (2019). Die Welt hat uns vergessen. Mandelbaum Verlag. p. 67. ISBN 9783854765905.\n\n^ \"The University of Al-Hamdaniya official website\".\n\n^ George, Nashwan. Södertälje. Ankawa: Ishtar TV. p. 21.\n\n^ \"Baghdede\". Ishtar Broadcasting Corporation. December 16, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2020.\n\n^ The chronography of Gregory Abû'l Faraj, the son of Aaron, the Hebrew physician\n\n^ Bar Hebraius, Summary of the History of the lands, Arabic edition P. 492-497\n\n^ Ghassan Hanna. \"Bakhdida\". Chaldeansonline.org. Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ Ankawa.con. \"الاف الغديداي يتوجهون الى مراكز الاقتراع للاشتراك في الانتخابات وقائمة النهرين وطني تأتي في المرتبة الثانية\". Ankawa.com. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Christians of Iraq Wanted to Vote But Were Not Allowed\". Aina.org. February 27, 2005. Archived from the original on December 2, 2010. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ سير الأنتخابات في مراكز بغديدا وكرمليس, منظمة حمورابي لحقوق الأنسان\n\n^ \"New Archbishop of Mosul calls persecuted Iraqi Christians to hope :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)\". Catholic News Agency. January 27, 2010. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ \"مسيحيـــــو العـــــراق وتحديـــــات البقـــــاء\". Election.elmarada.org. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\n^ As reported by Frankfurter Allgemeine (in German language)\n\n^ [Iraq's Waterless Christians: The Campaign to Expel a Religion Business Week: Iraq's Waterless Christians: The Campaign to Expel a Religion]\n\n^ As reported by Le Figaro (in French language)\n\n^ As reported by Radio Vatican (in French language)\n\n^ \"Iraq: Looting, Destruction by Forces Fighting ISIS\". Human Rights Watch. February 16, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2020.\n\n^ \"At Least 100 Are Killed in Fire at Wedding Hall in Iraq\". The New York Times. September 26, 2023. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 27, 2023. Retrieved September 27, 2023.\n\n^ \"No Mass said in Mosul for first time in 1,600 years, says Archbishop\" (Archive). Christian Today. June 28, 2014. Retrieved on July 7, 2014.\n\n^ \"Balawat (ancient Imgur-Enlil, Iraq)\". British Museum. Retrieved December 1, 2010.\n\nExternal links\n\nhttp://www.ishtartv.com/en/viewarticle,35746.html-Service and Construction for the city - 2011-12-16"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-qaraqosh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2473}, {"slug": "reference-bartella", "title": "Bartella", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Bartella (Syriac: ܒܪܛܠܐ;[1] Arabic: برطلّة) is a town that is located in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, about 21 kilometres (13 miles) east of Mosul.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Bartella\n\nSaint George Church of Bartella\n\nBartellaLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°21′8″N 43°22′47″E / 36.35222°N 43.37972°E / 36.35222; 43.37972\n\nCountryIraq\n\nGovernorateNinawa\n\nMunicipalityAl-Hamdaniya District\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorNisan Karromi\n\nPopulation (2018)\n\n • Total15,000+\n\n 30,000 prior to ISIS invasion\n\nTime zoneGMT +3\n\nWebsitehttp://baretly.net/index.php\n\nBartella (Syriac: ܒܪܛܠܐ;[1] Arabic: برطلّة) is a town that is located in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, about 21 kilometres (13 miles) east of Mosul.\n\nBartella was liberated from ISIL control on October 20, 2016, by Iraqi Special Operations Forces[2] along with the Nineveh Plain Protection Units and PMF Brigade 30, who both currently control and run the city's security.[3][4]\n\nThe town is populated by Assyrian Christians and Shabaks.[5] The town had an Assyrian Christian majority prior to the Northern Iraq offensive of ISIL,[6] while the Shabak population has risen to at least 35% of the population[7][8] or a majority.[3]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nThe earliest known mention of Bartella was by Father Potrus Qasha in 1153, where he talked about Ignatius Elia'azar (1143-1164), the maphiryan of Ashur, making Bartella his home and see. Elia'azar reported directly to the Patriarch in Antioch, Syria. The congregation was upset with Elia'azar for changing the see location from the traditional Mor Mattai Monastery. An agreement was reached to return to Mar Mattai, with the tradition to visit Bartella regularly.[9] Other maphiryans who made their see Bartella include:\n\nDyonosius Saliba II (1222-1231)\n\nGregorius Barsuma (1288-1308)\n\nGregorius Mattai I (1317-1345)\n\nGregorius Bar Qeenaya (d. 1361)\n\nAthinasius Abraham II (1365-1379)\n\nCyril Joseph III (1458-1470)\n\nIn 1171, the Kurds attacked Bartella, as well as the Mor Mattai Monastery. When the people of Nineveh heard this, they joined forces to fight back and succeeded. However, the monks at the monastery learned of another encroaching attack and agreed to sign a peace treaty with the Kurds to avoid more bloodshed. They paid the Kurds 30 golden dinariis with the agreement. As soon as the Kurds received the gold, they gathered a larger army of 1,500 people and attacked the monastery, causing a crack in its wall. They entered and killed 15 monks, while the others escaped.[9]\n\nIn 1201, a Christian priest and Muslim cleric in Bartella had a quarrel. The people in the town complained to the mayor, who punished the Muslim cleric with a beating. The cleric went to Mosul and gathered a large crowd by the main mosque, and later marched toward Bartella to destroy it. When they reached the town, the gates were closed and they couldn't enter. On their way back to Mosul, the mob broke into a church called MarZena and took all the valuables. Today, this church is the al-Khallal mosque.[9]\n\nIn 1219, Sakhr Abu l-Barakat reportedly seized the Christian monastery (or monasteries) of Mar Yuhanan and Isho' Sabran, and it is claimed that all the monks within were massacred.\nIn 1222, the Mir of Daseni allegedly declared that \"if the Christians would put the sign of the cross on their foreheads, they would raise it over their heads,\"[10]\n\nBetween 1261 and 1369, the Mor Mattai Monastery was attacked by Kurds again, which impacted Bartella.[9]\n\nIn 1745, Nader Shah, a Turkmen, attacked Bartella, killed many men and took many young men, girls and women away.[9]\n\nFrom 1756 to 1758, Bartella experienced great famine, which promoted more travel of the people of the town to purchase their needs. They suffered many robberies and attacks during these travels.[9]\n\nIn 1789, Jolu Beg bin Bdagh, the Emir of Shikhan, exhausted Bartella of their goods while at war with the Arab Emir Mohammad bin Hasan al-Taa'i.[9]\n\nIn the 18th century, Catholicism entered the city when Latin and Dominican monks opened a center to offer educational and medical services. In 1778, the Assyrians of Bakhdida were leaning towards Catholicism, which influenced some family members of the Aal Makrooh family in Bartella to convert. In 1780, Father Zakariya Kindo converted along with 40 other families. While there were some quarrels about using the church in Bartella between the Catholic and Orthodox priests in, they came a common understanding and accepted each other's choice of denomination.[9]\n\nToday, about one third of the town is Catholic, while the other two-thirds remain Orthodox.[9]\n\nLatest events\n\nOn August 31, 2004, three girls from Bartella were slaughtered while returning home from their work at a hospital in Mosul where they worked.[11] On November 19, 2004, two brothers from Bartella were killed while at work when a mortar shell fell on the shop they worked at in Mosul market.[11]\n\nOn December 8, 2004, Dr. Ra'ad Augustine Qoryaqos, one of Bartella's notables and a successful surgeon who worked as a professor at the College of Medicine in University of Anbar, was murdered in Ramadi. A group of three terrorists stormed his clinic while he was checking on his patients, shot and left him bleeding. An operation later failed to save his life. Dr. Qoryaqos left behind his wife and two children.[11]\n\nOn August 10, 2009, a pair of large flatbed trucks packed with bombs exploded simultaneously shortly after dawn, destroying a Shabak village known as Khazna, about 16 km (10 mi) east of Mosul and a few kilometres away from Bartella. The blast shattered windows at many homes in Bartella.[12]\n\nOn March 28, 2013, and during the passion week of Easter, a car bomb parked downtown not far from street of Bartella went off in the early hours of that day killing one local resident.[13]\n\nOn August 3, 2014, many families from Bartella left the city to Erbil, Ankawa and Shekhan due to attacks by ISIL fighters. The Peshmerga forces were fighting them to retake ISIL-controlled Gogjali district west of Bartella.[14]\n\nOn August 6, 2014, Peshmerga forces guarding the city ordered the remaining residents to leave, and pulled back to Erbil at around 8:30 pm. Over the night, the city was almost completely empty of its predominately Christian Assyrian residents. At around 4:30 am on August 7, the whole city was totally taken by ISIL militants in a bullet-less fall. On August 8, they burned liquor stores, looted houses and food stores, hung their flags on the church walls, pulled down the crosses and demanded the few remaining Christian locals of either converting to Islam, staying in the city and paying a yearly tax of $200, or facing \"death by the sword\" if refused to convert or pay.[15]\n\nIn late August and early September 2014, it was reported that three residents of the few remaining Christian Assyrians, died. One was disabled, the other due to illness and old age and the third one was tortured then killed after he refused to convert to Islam.[16][17][18]\n\nIn mid-September 2014, the 12 remaining residents managed to escape by faking conversion.[19]\n\nOn October 20, 2016, as part of the Iraqi government offensive to retake Mosul, the Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units[5] and Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) liberated Bartella from ISIL control.\n[20]\n\nOn December 24, 2016, the first post-liberation Christmas Eve mass was held at Mart Shmony Church.[21]\n\nChurches of Bartella\n\nBartella and its vicinity has six churches, two partially demolished, one abandoned, one new, and two very old:\n\nMar Aho Dama Church[22]\n\nThis church was in existence in 1153 when was expanded by Maphrian Ignatius II La'Azer. It was in use till 1386. Excavation in its ruins found the remains of three bishops which were moved to Mart Shmony Church.\n\nMart Shmony Church[22][23]\n\nIt's unknown when this church was first built, however, it was reinvigorated for the first time in 1807, It was rebuilt again completely in 1869, and It was reinvigorated again in 1971.\n\nMar Giwargis Church[22][24]\n\nThere are two churches with this name. The first is in ruins (recently renovated and reused) and is believed to be a monastery for St. Jerjis who built it around 1701. The second church was completed in 1939.\n\nChurch of the Virgin[22][25]\n\nThis church was built in 1890 at the time of Qorlos Elias al-Mosuli who died in 1911. However, an inscription dating 16th century mentions the name of the Church of the Virgin which contradicts the date of 1890 and assumes that this church was standing at that time. The gate and part of the church were destroyed by ISIS sometime between August 2014 and October 2016.\n\nAl-Sayida Church[22]\n\nThe complete demolition of Al-Sayida Church came in 1934 as its bricks were used to build the new Mar Giwargis Church.\n\nBer Nagara Monastery[26]\n\nThis monastery is named after Yohanan bit Nagara (St John Bar Nagaré[26]) meaning \"Yohanan of the Carpenters\" since all his family were working as carpenters. It's believed that he used to worship pagans, and after converting to Christianity he was killed by his father and was buried in the village of Ba Agre. When this village was destroyed in 1282, his grave which was visited heavily by the locals was destroyed with it. That forced Maphrian Gregarious bin al-Ebry to build a temple for the martyr Yohanan in Bartella and was completed in 1285. On November 23, 1285, the remains of St. Yohanan, monks from Syria, and the 40 martyrs killed by the Persians were moved and reburied in this temple. Unfortunately, this monastery was destroyed in 1653 and again the remains were moved to St. Shmony church. Currently, all what exist of this monastery is a small room built recently as a reminder to its existence.\n\nThe Monastery of the Forty Martyrs[9]\n\nThis monastery is still frequented by parishioners, while a part of it is demolished. It dates back to 1269.\n\nMar Youhanna Monastery[9]\n\nThis monastery is ancient without a known date of construction. It sits on the side of the main road north of Bartella.\n\nMar Daniel Monastery[9]\n\nMar Daniel is on a small hill near Bartella. It is named after Mar Daniel the Hermit, who ventured to Nineveh from Diyar Bakir with Mar Mattai in the year 363. This monastery is also known locally as the \"Monastery of the Beetles\" due to the large numbers of small beetles that appeared during the three-day festival on October 20. Forty minutes by foot from the \"upper monastery\" is a \"lower monastery\", which is commonly where the monks lived. Arab historians have called it al-Khalidi, al-Shabishti and Yaqut.\n\nPopulation\n\nIn early August 2014, Bartella was overrun by ISIL Islamic extremists.[27] The Christian population of the town fled, mostly to Erbil, joining thousands of other Iraqi Christians fleeing ISIL terror.[27][28][29] Before the ISIL invasion, the population was around 30,000, with the majority being ethnic Assyrian Syriac Christians, including Syriac Catholics and Syriac Orthodox Christians. Bartella was Christianized in the 2nd century. With the emergence of the Christological controversies, the people and their church came under the dominion of the Church of the East (historically known as the Nestorian Church); however, it switched to the Syriac Orthodox Church (historically known as Jacobite) around 610. On November 23-24, 2013 during the 2-day \"Bartella Friends\" conference held in Erbil to discuss the demographic change due to the Shabak exodus fleeing Mosul and the surrounding villages towards Bartella from 2003. It was announced that the percentage of Christians has dropped dramatically from 99% to 40%.[30]\n\nIndustry\n\nBartella was known in Nineveh to have some of the best goldsmiths. Tahini is one of the main food products in the town. Weddings and festivals also inspire various craftsmanship in the town.[9]\n\nCulture\n\nEvery Sunday or festival day (holy feast days) between the engagement and the marriage, the groom's mother hosts the women and girls in her home, where they prepare trays of treats including seeds, sweets and dried fruit. The plates are covered with colorful fabric and taken to the bride's home to be presented to her. A few days prior to the wedding, the wall above the front of door of the couple's future home is painted with beautiful colors and decorated with various flowers. The walls of the couple's room are newly painted as well, since they typically became darkened with smoke from the indoor fires used for heat in the winter. Christian symbols were also painted on the walls to protect from bad spirits.[9]\n\nGallery\n\n Syriac Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary, pictured in December 2013\n\n Former Mar Giwargis Syriac Orthodox Church, pictured in December 2013\n\n Current Mar Giwargis Syriac Catholic Church, pictured in December 2013\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nBakhdida\n\nKaremlesh\n\nReferences\n\n^ برطلي في مرآة الزمان / Bartleh in History / ܒܪܛܠܐ ܒܡܚܙܝܬܐ ܕܙܒܢܐ. مطبعة توما: بيروت. 2003. Retrieved 19 December 2019.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ \"Video: Iraqi troops liberate Christian town of Bartella from IS group\". France 24. 23 October 2016. Retrieved June 27, 2020.\n\n^ a b \"How Iran-backed fighters are making life hell for Iraq's Christians\". America: The Jesuit Review. 27 February 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.\n\n^ Hanna, Reine (June 1, 2020). \"Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\" (PDF). Assyrian Policy Institute. Retrieved June 27, 2020.\n\n^ a b Bulos, Nabih (22 October 2016). \"'This is our land': Christians return to Iraqi town recaptured from Islamic State\". Los Angeles Times.\n\n^ \"Correction: Iraq-Christian Town story\". Associated Press. 13 February 2019.\n\n^ \"Part I: ISIS exploited the marginalized minority groups of Iraq\". Rudaw. 27 April 2017. Retrieved 10 May 2017.\n\n^ \"'Trust is gone': Iraqi Christians fear returning due to Shiite militia\". 12 February 2019. Archived from the original on 13 February 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2019.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Aprim, Fred (August 19, 2004). \"Bartella (Baritle) and its Neighboring Villages\". Atour.\n\n^ Açikyildiz, Birgül, ed. (2010). The Yezidis. I.B.Tauris. doi:10.5040/9780755624423. ISBN 978-1-78453-216-1.\n\n^ a b c \"Christen Assyrians face Oppression and Murder in Iraq with the Rise of Islamists and Kurdish Power\". nineveh.com. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Sectarian Bombings Pulverize a Village in Iraq\". The New York Times. 11 August 2009. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"عاجل ...عاجل . اصابة احد ابناء برطلة في انفجار سيارة في السوق الرئيسي داخل برطلة\". baretly.net. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"نزوح عدد من عائلات مدينة برطلة بسبب تحشيدات للبيشمركه في منطقة كوكجلي\". Archived from the original on 2014-08-08. Retrieved 2014-08-06.\n\n^ Castillo, Mariano (7 August 2014). \"ISIS overtakes Iraq's largest Christian city\". cnn.com. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"وفاة فتاة في برطلي من ابنائها المتبقين في البلدة\". baretly.net. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"وفاة رجل مسن من ابناء برطلي من المتبقين فيها\". baretly.net. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"دخول\". baretly.net. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"12 Assyrians Who Were Held By ISIS Escape By Faking Conversion\". aina.org. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Special Forces Join Mosul Offensive Against Isis\". Fox News. 20 October 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians, Pushed From Town by IS, Return for Christmas Eve Mass\". VOA.\n\n^ a b c d e \"Bartella\". www.ishtartv.com. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ \"Mart Shmouni Church in Bartella\". Mesopotamia. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ \"L'église Mar Guorguis de Bartella\". Mesopotamia. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ \"Mart Mariam Church in Bartella\". Mesopotamia. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ a b Chaillot, Christine (2016). The role of images and the veneration of icons in the oriental orthodox churches : Syrian orthodox, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian traditions. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 26. ISBN 978-3-643-90985-5. OCLC 1019723370.\n\n^ a b Nabih Bulos, Iraqi Christians displaced by Sunni militants seek to flee abroad, Los Angeles Times (September 18, 2014).\n\n^ Mariano Castillo, ISIS overtakes Iraq's largest Christian city, CNN (August 8, 2014).\n\n^ [1], NBC News (August 8, 2014).\n\n^ (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. \"\"برطلة\" المسيحية أصبحت شيعية بفضل القاعدة - مواضيع العراق اليوم - DW.COM - 29.11.2013\". dw.de. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\nExternal links\n\nbaretly.net"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-bartella"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2663}, {"slug": "reference-tel-keppe", "title": "Tel Keppe", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tel Keppe (Syriac: ܬܸܠ ܟܹܐܦܹܐ, Arabic: تل كيف, romanized: Tall Kayf, alternatively spelled Tel Kaif, Tilkepe, or Telkef) is a Chaldean Catholic Assyrian populated town in northern Iraq.[2][3][4][5] It is located in the Tel Keppe District of the Nineveh Governorate, less than 8 mi (13 km) northeast of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tel Keppe\n ܬܸܠ ܟܹܐܦܹܐ\n\nA photo of the Tel Keppe cemetery\n\nTel KeppeLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°29′22″N 43°7′9″E / 36.48944°N 43.11917°E / 36.48944; 43.11917\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh\n\nDistrictTel Kaif District\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorRaad Naser\n\nPopulation (2010)[1]\n\n • Total40,000\n\n Prior to ISIS, August 2014\n\nDemonymAssyrian:Tel-Kepnaya (m)/Tel-Kepnetha (f) Arabic:Tel-Kayfi (m)/Tel-Kayfiya (f)\n\nTel Keppe (Syriac: ܬܸܠ ܟܹܐܦܹܐ, Arabic: تل كيف, romanized: Tall Kayf, alternatively spelled Tel Kaif, Tilkepe, or Telkef) is a Chaldean Catholic Assyrian populated town in northern Iraq.[2][3][4][5] It is located in the Tel Keppe District of the Nineveh Governorate, less than 8 mi (13 km) northeast of Mosul.[6]\n\nThe people who descend from the village of Tel Keppe are ethnic Assyrians, who are indigenous to the village and the Nineveh Plains. The majority of Assyrians from the village adhere to the Chaldean Catholic Church, and due to its influences, many Telkepnayeh hold a strong Chaldean identity.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name Tel Keppe (Syriac: ܬܸܠ ܟܹܐܦܹܐ) is of Assyrian Aramaic origin and derives from the words til meaning \"hill of\", and kēpē meaning \"stones\". Therefore, the town's name translates to \"hill of stones\".[7][8][9][10]\n\nHistory\n\nThe first reliable reference to the town is written in the book The History of Mosul, by Abu Zakaria Azidi. The book was released in 945 AD and he wrote about the history of Mosul, in which he referenced the town of Tel Keppe. Zakaria also mentioned a different author from the year 749 AD, who also mentions the village Tel Keppe as one of the Mosul's many suburbs.\n\nIn 1508, Tel Keppe was sacked by Mongols. In 1743, Tel Keppe was looted and burned by the armies of the Persian leader Nader Shah. This event took place within the context of the siege of Mosul, in which the Persian army suffered heavy casualties and resorted to looting the surrounding towns to have some semblance of victory. In 1833, the town was once again sacked, this time by Mohammed Pasha the Kurdish governor of Rawandiz who also sacked the town of Alqosh.[6]\n\nAccording to Mary Sengstock, Tel Keppe became Chaldean Catholic around 1830 following a series of street brawls.[11] The brawls took place between those who wanted to become Roman Catholic and those who desired to remain part of the Church of the East. The conflicts ended as the entire village became Catholic.[11]\n\nOccupation by ISIS\n\nOn 6 August 2014, the town was captured by the Islamic State (ISIS), along with the nearby Assyrian towns of Bakhdida, Bartella and Karamlesh which were also overrun by ISIS militants during their August 2014 northern Iraq offensive.[12] Upon entering the town, ISIS looted the homes and removed the crosses and other religious objects from the churches. The cemetery in the town was also later destroyed.[13]\n\nSoon after the beginning of the Battle of Mosul, Iraqi troops advanced on Tel Keppe, but the fighting continued into 2017.[14][15] Iraqi forces recaptured the town from ISIS on 19 January 2017.[16]\n\nIn 2017, Salman Esso Habba of the \"Christian Mobilization\" militia - a part of the Popular Mobilization Forces - warned the Arabs to leave, claiming that Tel Keppe's homes belonged only to Assyrians in the town, MEMO reported Wednesday. He also said that Christians’ homes and rights could not be taken away.[17]\n\nRecent history\n\nFive years after the liberation of Tel Keppe and most of the indigenous Assyrian population is yet to return, mostly due to the presence of the non-local Babylon Brigades militia.[18][19] The majority of the towns inhabitants either fled to large cities, or fled Iraq as a whole.[20] Very few Assyrians returned or had any plans to return.[21][22]\n\nArabization\n\nTel Keppe has faced Arabization since the late 1970s under the rule of Saddam Hussein.[22][23] Arabs began moving to Tel Keppe, while Assyrians began moving to the larger cities in Iraq, mainly Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. The Northern Iraq Offensive by ISIS made things even worse for the Assyrians. After Tel Keppe was invaded, most Assyrians fled to Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region or fled Iraq entirely, causing more Arabs to settle in the town. The contested security between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Shia paramilitary force PMU and presence of Arab-dominated militias in the Nineveh Plains has prevented the return of thousands of Tel Keppe residents.[24] Tel Keppe has a majority Arab Muslim population as of 2021.[25]\n\nClimate\n\nTel Keppe has a semi-arid climate (BSh) with extremely hot summers and cool, damp winters, typical to the Nineveh Plains.\n\nClimate data for Tel Keppe\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n12\n(54)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n26\n(79)\n\n34\n(93)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n43\n(109)\n\n40\n(104)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n30\n(86)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n27\n(81)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n2\n(36)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n8\n(46)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n16\n(61)\n\n21\n(70)\n\n25\n(77)\n\n24\n(75)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n6\n(43)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n13\n(55)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n39\n(1.5)\n\n69\n(2.7)\n\n51\n(2.0)\n\n9\n(0.4)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n6\n(0.2)\n\n36\n(1.4)\n\n60\n(2.4)\n\n270\n(10.6)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n10\n\n10\n\n11\n\n9\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n5\n\n8\n\n12\n\n65\n\nSource: World Weather Online (2000-2012)[26]\n\nDemographics\n\nIn 1768, the town had a recorded population of 2,500. Due to plague and other disasters, the population was around 1,500 in 1882, rising to 2,500 again by 1891. In 1923, the population was recorded as 14,000. In 1933, the population numbered around 10,000. As a result of emigration from the town to Baghdad and the United States, the population shrunk to 7,108 by 1968.\n\nThe district of Tel Keppe was approximately 50% Christian in the mid 1900s, the town of Tel Keppe remaining almost exclusively Assyrian with a population of 6,600 inhabitants.[27] Throughout the late 20th century, the town experienced non-native population growth from the arrival of Arabs, who established residence throughout the town and became the majority after ISIS. By the turn of the century, the population had swelled to close to 30,000.[28]\n\nSome families who settled in Tel Keppe are:\n\nAsmar and Abso from Diyarbakır\n\nKarmo and Mengeshnayeh from Saart\n\nDinha/Joja, Shalal, and Abro from Ashitha (Tyari)\n\nMa’arouf and Qoryaqos from Tal Afar\n\nZooma, Khoshe, and Hnawa from Mardin\n\nJolagh from Alqosh\n\nNasfo from Aleppo\n\nSaba and Kharkhar from Iran\n\nTwaini from Amadiya\n\nOrou from Sanna, Iran\n\nJammo, Kassab, and Manni from Bashbetha\n\nJibaya and Kthawe from Turkey\n\nTalya from Lebanon\n\nQasha Giwargis from Quchanis, Turkey\n\nQarbo from Jazirat Ibn Omar\n\nBizzi from al-Karaj\n\nQashat from Sinjar[29]\n\nDiaspora\n\nStarting in the 1980s, and especially after the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 US invasion of Iraq, many Chaldean Catholics from Tel Keppe fled to other countries, primarily the United States. They set up their lives there with new churches and business for their families.[6] By 2001, many Tel-Kepnayeh had moved to major cities in Iraq such as Baghdad or Mosul.[30]\n\nMany Assyrians in the Metro Detroit area trace their origins to Tel Keppe. According to the estimates of a priest of Tel Keppe's Sacred Heart Chaldean Rite Catholic Church, there were 10,000 worshippers in the late 1950s, which later decreased to 2,000 around 2004. He said: \"Many people don’t want to go from here; they cry that they have to go… but you almost have to leave these days because your family probably already is in Detroit.\"[31]\n\nCulture\n\nTel Keppe was historically the center of the Chaldean Catholic community in Iraq. Each family residing in Tel Keppe had one or more plots of farming land located outside Tel Keppe. The land produced barley and wheat, and animals raised there included goats and sheep. Natalie Jill Smith, author of \"Ethnicity, Reciprocity, Reputation and Punishment: An Ethnoexperimental Study of Cooperation among the Chaldeans and Hmong of Detroit (Michigan)\", wrote that in the reports of the village \"everyone was related\" and that marriage tended to occur between two people from the same village.[28]\n\nNotable people\n\nMaria Theresa Asmar, author and explorer, born in 1806. Published her memoir \"Babylonian Princess\" in English in 1844\n\nTariq Aziz (1936-2015) Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein.\n\nEmmanuel III Delly: Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1927-2014)\n\nGeorge Garmo, Archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Mosul from 14 September 1980 until his death on 9 September 1999 and the Pastor of the Mother of God Parish in Southfield, MI.\n\nRamzi Garmou: Archbishop of Tehran - Iran for the Chaldean Catholic Church\n\nIbrahim Namo Ibrahim: Bishop Emeritus of the Chaldean Catholic Church for the Eastern United States\n\nYusuf Malek, Assyrian politician and author of \"The British Betrayal of the Assyrians\"[32]\n\nJoseph II Marouf: Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church (1667-1713)\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nNineveh Plains\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nIraqi conflict (2003-present)\n\nReferences\n\n^ هل كانت تلكيف بلدة آشورية قديمة؟ Archived 2012-03-17 at the Wayback Machine, فؤاد يوسف قزانجي\n\n^ \"Mayor of Tel Keppe Reinstated After Unlawful Dismissal by KDP\". Assyrian Policy Institute. 2018-08-09.\n\n^ McDonald, Shalle' (2016-03-31). \"Assyrian Christians' Mideast fate tied to world powers' agendas, expert says\". JNS.org. Retrieved 2022-04-20.\n\n^ Totiyapungprasert, Priscilla. \"'He was never afraid': Remembering the Gilbert liquor store owner who died of COVID-19\". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 2022-04-20.\n\n^ Poulson, Stephen C. (2017-01-01), \"Patterns of Violence Directed against Civilians in Small Ethnic Enclaves during War in Iraq (2003-2009)\", Non-State Violent Actors and Social Movement Organizations, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, vol. 41, Emerald Publishing Limited, p. 77, doi:10.1108/S0163-786X20170000041014, ISBN 978-1-78714-191-9\n\n^ a b c Welcome to Tel Keppe at ChaldeansOnline http://www.chaldeansonline.org/telkeppe/ Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Coghill, Eleanor. The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Telkepe. p. 235.\n\n^ Spurlock, Charles (2010). From the Tigris to the Rouge An Exploratory Study of Chaldean Gendered Ethnicity and Gender Transition. Michigan State University. Department of Sociology. p. 3.\n\n^ Zaken, Mordechai (2007). Jewish subjects and their tribal chieftains in Kurdistan: a study in survival. Jewish identities in a changing world. Leiden; Boston: Brill. p. 7. ISBN 978-90-474-2212-9. OCLC 646789877.\n\n^ Ibrahim, Raymond (2015-12-30). \"Muslims \"Have Nothing Whatsoever to do with Terrorism\"\". Gatestone Institute. Retrieved 2022-10-01.\n\n^ a b Sengstock 1982, p. 139.\n\n^ Barack Obama Approves Airstrikes on Iraq, Airdrops Aid\n\n^ \"Aiding the Assyrians Fight Against ISIS\". The Huffington Post. 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2016-05-02.\n\n^ Alkhshali, Hamdi; Smith-Spark, Laura; Lister, Tim (22 October 2016). \"ISIS kills hundreds in Mosul area, source says\". CNN. Retrieved 22 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi residents flee Islamic State-held town of Tel Keyf\". YouTube. Reuters. 10 January 2017. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 12 January 2017.\n\n^ Griffis, Margaret (19 January 2017). \"Militants Execute Civilians in Mosul; 101 Killed Across Iraq\". Antiwar.com. Retrieved 20 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Christian War on Muslims? Iraqi Christian Militia Leader Threatens Sunni Arabs, Asks Them to Leave Assyrian Town\". International Business Times. 10 February 2017.\n\n^ \"Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\". Assyrian Policy. Retrieved 2022-04-11.\n\n^ \"Mayor of Tel Keppe Reinstated After Unlawful Dismissal by KDP\". www.assyrianpolicy.org. 9 August 2018. Retrieved 2022-04-11.\n\n^ \"Fear and Renewal; A Town is Liberated from ISIS | Free Burma Rangers\". www.freeburmarangers.org. Retrieved 2022-04-11.\n\n^ \"Iraq's Stolen Election: How Assyrian Representation Became Assyrian...\" Assyrian Policy. Retrieved 2022-04-11.\n\n^ a b \"For Iraq's Christians, this year might be their last\". UnHerd. 2019-12-25. Retrieved 2022-04-20.\n\n^ Poulson, Stephen C. \"Patterns of violence direct against civilians in small ethnic enclaves during war in Iraq (2003-2009)\" (PDF).\n\n^ \"Mayor of Tel Keppe Reinstated After Unlawful Dismissal by KDP\". 9 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Death by Emigration: Two Years After ISIS, Catholics Are Still Fleeing Iraq\". 27 March 2020.\n\n^ \"Tel Kaif, Ninawa Monthly Climate Average, Iraq\". World Weather Online. Retrieved 22 January 2017.\n\n^ Khadduri, Majid (1956). Area Handbook on Iraq - Volume 58 of Human Relations Area Files. Johns Hopkins University. p. 76. Retrieved 21 October 2016.\n\n^ a b Smith, Natalie Jill. \"Ethnicity, Reciprocity, Reputation and Punishment: An Ethnoexperimental Study of Cooperation among the Chaldeans and Hmong of Detroit (Michigan)\" (PhD dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles, 2001. p. 61. UMI Number: 3024065.\n\n^ Aprim, Fred (19 August 2004). \"The Town of Tel-Kepe\". Atour.\n\n^ Smith, Natalie Jill. \"Ethnicity, Reciprocity, Reputation and Punishment: An Ethnoexperimental Study of Cooperation among the Chaldeans and Hmong of Detroit (Michigan)\" (PhD dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles, 2001. p. 62. UMI Number: 3024065.\n\n^ \"Arab, Chaldean, and Middle Eastern Children and Families in the Tri-County Area.\" (Archive) From a Child's Perspective: Detroit Metropolitan Census 2000 Fact Sheets Series. Wayne State University. Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2004. p. 2/32. Retrieved on November 8, 2013. \"Archived copy\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 26, 2010. Retrieved 2013-11-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ \"The British Betrayal of The Assyrians\" (PDF). aina.org Yusuf Malek. Retrieved 9 May 2024.\n\nExternal links\n\n9 Minute Neo-Aramaic Documentary\n\nBibliography\n\nSengstock, Mary (1982). Chaldean Americans: Changing Conceptions of Ethnic Identity (PDF) (1st ed.). Wayne State University: Center for Migration Studies."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tel-keppe"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2222}, {"slug": "reference-hakkari", "title": "Hakkari", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey Hakkâri Province, a province in southeast Turkey Hakkâri District, district in Hakkâri Province Hakkari (electoral district), an electoral district Grand...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: \n\nHakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq\n\nHakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey\n\nHakkâri Province, a province in southeast Turkey\n\nHakkâri District, district in Hakkâri Province\n\nHakkari (electoral district), an electoral district Grand National Assembly of Turkey\n\nEmirate of Hakkâri, a historical Kurdish emirate"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hakkari"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 59}, {"slug": "reference-midyat", "title": "Midyat", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Midyat (Syriac: ܡܕܝܕ, romanized: Mëḏyaḏ,[2] Kurdish: Midyad,[3] Arabic: مديات) is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[4] Its area is 1,241 km2,[5] and its population is 120,069 (2022).[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Midyat\n\nDistrict and municipality\n\nView of the old town of Midyat\n\nLogo\n\nMap showing Midyat District in Mardin Province\n\nMidyatLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°25′00″N 41°22′11″E / 37.41667°N 41.36972°E / 37.41667; 41.36972\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorVeysi Şahin (AKP)\n\nArea1,241 km2 (479 sq mi)\n\nElevation953 m (3,127 ft)\n\nPopulation (2022)[1]120,069\n\n • Density96.75/km2 (250.6/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nArea code0482\n\nWebsitewww.midyat.bel.tr\n\nMidyat (Syriac: ܡܕܝܕ, romanized: Mëḏyaḏ,[2] Kurdish: Midyad,[3] Arabic: مديات) is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[4] Its area is 1,241 km2,[5] and its population is 120,069 (2022).[1]\n\nThe town is populated by Kurds, Mhallami and Assyrians.[6][7] The old Estel neighborhood is about 80 to 85% Kurdish-populated.[8]\n\nMidyat was originally made up of mostly Syriac Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians. The spoken language of Midyat was until recently modern Aramaic (Surayt) and the town has throughout history been considered the capital of the Tur Abdin region, the heartland of Syriac Christianity.[9]\n\nHistory\n\nAssyrian tablets from 9th century BC refer to Midyat as Matiate. During a campaign in 879 BC, the Assyrian king Assurnasirpal II and his army marched through the city, staying for two nights. His successor, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III did the same in 845 BC. The tablets also described how Assurnasirpal II erected a monument in the city, which remains to be found.[10] The archaeological site Matiate is located below the town and is assumed to have been in use for about 1,900 years and at its peak been inhabited by up to 70,000 people.[11]\n\nThe leading Assyrian Syriac Orthodox family, the Safars, were highly placed in the Deksuri confederation, while other local Assyrians were aligned with the opposing, anti-government Heverkan confederation.[12] In mid-1915, Assyrian Christians in Midyat considered resistance after hearing about massacres elsewhere, but the local Syriac Orthodox community initially refused to support this.[13] Hanne Safar Pasha was persuaded to break with other Christian leaders who wanted to organize an uprising in Midyat. Shortly thereafter, Safar was killed after all male members of the pacifist Protestant Hermez family.[14] In late June, kaymakam Nuri Bey disappeared, likely executed by Mehmed Reshid after refusing to massacre local Christian Assyrians.[15] On 21 June, 100 Christian men (mostly Armenians and Assyrian Protestants) were arrested, tortured for confessions implicating others, and executed outside the city; this panicked the Assyrian population.[16][17] Local people refused to hand over their arms, attacked government offices, and cut telegraph lines; local Arab and Kurdish tribes were recruited by the Ottoman government to attack the Christians.[16] The town was pacified in early August after weeks of bloody urban warfare which killed hundreds of Christians (Assyrians and Armenians).[18][19] Survivors fled east to the more-defensible Iwardo, which held out successfully with the food aid of local Yazidis.[19][20]\n\nDemographics\n\nMidyat, in Diyarbekir vilayet, was the only town in the Ottoman Empire with an ethnic Assyrian majority, although denominationally divided among the Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, and Assyrian Protestants.[21]\n\nOn the eve of the First World War, various sources report a total population of about 8,000 people. Most of them being Syriac-Orthodox Christians, plus some Protestants, Syriac-Catholics, Chaldeans, Armenians, and Muslims (mostly Kurds). The Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate of Constantinople recorded 1,452 Armenians in the kaza of Midyat before the First World War.[22]\n\nMother tongue, Midyat District, 1927 Turkish census[23][24]\n\nTurkish\nArabic\nKurdish\nCircassian\nArmenian\nSyriac language\n\n834\n11,223\n15,078\n-\n-\n5,293\n\nReligion, Midyat District, 1927 Turkish census[23]\n\nMuslim\nChristian\nJewish\nUnknown or other religion\n\n25,358\n2,667\n8\n4,195\n\nMidyat is an historic centre of the Assyrians in Turkey, and as late as the Assyrian genocide in 1915 they constituted the majority of the city's population. During the early 20th century, the Assyrian population of the city started to gradually diminish due to emigration, but the community was still very large. The Assyrians of Tur Abdin were the only significant population of Christians outside of Istanbul, until 1979, when panic ensued over an act of war and an exodus of local Christians overtook the city as a result, because a mayor and major Assyrian figure in Turabdin of the city of Kerboran, now named Dargecit, was assassinated and replaced with a Kurdish representative against the peoples will. The Assyrians up until then had control over the local government, and could therefore unify to resist threats. Panic ensued as the local Muslim population made a symbolic declaration of war against the Assyrian people and soon after the takeover, local Mhallami and Kurdish inhabitants started immigrating into the traditionally Assyrian areas, causing a demographic shift which - along with the start of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict a few years later in 1984 - sounded a death toll to the community not only here, but in all of Tur Abdin. From a 1975 population of 50,000 comprising 10% of Mardin Province's demographic structure:[25] barely 2,000 were left by the end of the conflict in 1999.[26] Now only around 3-5,000 live in Tur Abdin, with the other 15-17,000 living in Istanbul and other still functioning Syriac Diocese like Adiyaman,[27] Harput, and Diyarbakir.\n\nThe churches and houses belonging to the Christians have been preserved although many of them are empty, with their owners living away in Europe. At present 500 Assyrian Christians live in Midyat, and they have been joined by 100-300 Syriac refugees fleeing the Syrian Civil War who have settled in the city and region according to different estimates,[28] and comprise less than 1% of the population of Midyat. There are five churches in the city, and all are Syriac.[29][30]\n\nComposition\n\nThere are 72 neighbourhoods in Midyat District.[31] Twelve of these (Akçakaya, Bağlar, Bahçelievler, Cumhuriyet, Gölcük, Işıklar, Ortaçarşı, Sanayi, Seyitler, Ulucamii, Yenimahalle and Yunus Emre) form the central town (merkez) of Midyat.[32]\n\nAcırlı (Derizbîn)\n\nAdaklı (Kefsura Dermemikan)\n\nAkçakaya\n\nAltıntaş (Kfarze, Kevirzê)\n\nAnıtlı (Hah)\n\nBağlar\n\nBağlarbaşı (Arnas)\n\nBahçelievler\n\nBardakçı (Batê)\n\nBarıştepe (Selhê)\n\nBaşyurt (Zaxuran)\n\nBethkustan\n\nBudaklı (Karşaf)\n\nÇaldere (Heverîn)\n\nÇalpınar (Sîta)\n\nÇamyurt (Mesken)\n\nÇandarlı (Dawrîk)\n\nÇavuşlu (Şorizbah)\n\nÇayırlı (Kefnas)\n\nCumhuriyet\n\nDanışman (Xerabê Reş)\n\nDoğançay (Mzizah, Mizîzex)\n\nDoğanyazı (Pîrkan)\n\nDolunay (Kefzenk)\n\nDüzgeçit (Zernoka)\n\nDüzoba (Riş)\n\nEğlence (Zinol)\n\nElbeğendi (Kafro)\n\nErişti (Tafo)\n\nGelinkaya (Kafarhuvar)\n\nGölcük\n\nGülgoze (Iwardo)\n\nGülveren (Behwar)\n\nGüngören (Keferb)\n\nGüven (Bacin)\n\nHanlar (Xanika)\n\nHarmanlı (Beydarmemo)\n\nİkizdere (Duben)\n\nIşıklar\n\nIzbırak (Zaz)\n\nKayabaşı (Şakolin)\n\nKayalar (Kafarzota)\n\nKayalıpınar (Mikrê)\n\nKutlubey (Tinat)\n\nMercimekli (Hapsenas)\n\nNarlı (Helax)\n\nOrtaca (Heşterek)\n\nOrtaçarşı\n\nOyuklu (Taqa)\n\nPelitli (Barbunus)\n\nSanayi\n\nSarıkaya (Haldeh)\n\nSarıköy (Sed)\n\nŞenköy (Epşê)\n\nSeyitler\n\nSivrice (Dalîn)\n\nSöğütlü (Kenderib)\n\nTaşlıburç (Kelehkê)\n\nTepeli (Suwayê)\n\nToptepe (Nibilê)\n\nTulgalı (Xirbê Xelîd)\n\nÜçağıl (Kozê)\n\nUlucamii\n\nYayvantepe (Qertmîn)\n\nYemişli (Anhel, Nehile)\n\nYenice (Xerabya)\n\nYenimahalle\n\nYeşilöz (Kemmê)\n\nYolbaşı (Kefferallab, Kefşerîn)\n\nYunus Emre\n\nYuvalı (Xerabê Hûriya)\n\nZiyaret\n\nIn the 19th and early 20th centuries, Midyat was divided into 12 districts (The number 12 was possibly an influence from the 12 tribes of Israel). 11 of which were Syriac districts and one Muslim. These names still exist in the old population registration.[33]\n\nGriğovat Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܓܪܝܓ݂ܘ\n\nKaşrovat Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܩܰܫܪܘ\n\nÇelme Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܬܫܰܠܡܰܐ\n\nBahdovat Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܒܰܚܕܝ\n\nSaidovat Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܣܰܥܝܕܘ\n\nMelke Mire Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܡܰܠܟܶܐ ܡܝܪܶܗ\n\nĞannovat Mahallesi ܫܰܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܓ݂ܰܢܢܘ\n\nBarlat Mahallesi ܒܰܪܠܰܐܛ\n\nZabok Mahallesi ܙܰܒܘܩ\n\nÇıfçaka Mahallesi ܬܫܷܦܬܫܰܩܰܐ\n\nProtestan Mahallesi ܦ݁ܪܘܛ (Hırmız)\n\nİslam Mahallesi ܛܰܝ̈ܶܐ (Nehroz, Mehmedo)\n\nNotable Syriac leaders in Midyat were:\nGalle Hermez (Hırmız) (1859-1915)\nHanne Safar (Sefer) (+1915)\nIsa Zatte Chalma (1875-1917)\nIbrahim Shabo (Şahho) (1904-1956)\n\nEconomy\n\nMidyat is the regional center of commerce for the district, and is one of the largest cities in Mardin Province. Similarly with Mardin, the city is known for its Syriac handicrafts such as carpets, towels and other cloth goods. More specific to the city is its Syriac silver crafts called telkari, which are handcrafted filigreed ornaments. To the east of the city there is a winery that makes traditional Syriac wine: a wine native to the region. Another staple in the Midyat market is its bulgur, which is a cereal food derived from wheat.[34]\n\nIn 1850, the Midyat Guest House was built at the highest point of the city, commissioned by the prominent Assyrian/Syriac Shabo family.[35] The Guest House consists of three stories, and the roof is also accessible to which a view of the city of Midyat can be seen.[36] The Guest House has since become a symbol of the city attracting domestic and foreign tourists.[35] The Guest House has been used as a filming location for a number of TV series, films, and television programs, such as Sıla and Hercai.[37] The building was eventually restored by the Municipality of Midyat to its original form.\n\nIn December 2023, the Midyat Telkâri Museum was opened, exhibiting a wide variety of works from the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire and the Republican periods.[38] The museum was established by the local municipality and is situated on top of a house built in 1850 by the Assyrian Gelle Hirmız family.[38]\n\nClimate\n\nMidyat, part of the province of Mardin, has a semi-arid climate with very hot and dry summers and cold, wet, and occasionally snowy winters. Temperatures in summer usually increase to 40-50 °C (104-122 °F) due to Mardin being situated right next to the border with Syria. Snowfall is quite common between the months of December and March, snowing for a week or two. Mardin has over 3,000 hours of sun per year. The highest recorded temperature is 48.8 °C.\n\nClimate data for Mardin, Midyat\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n6.1\n(43.0)\n\n7.5\n(45.5)\n\n12.0\n(53.6)\n\n17.7\n(63.9)\n\n24.2\n(75.6)\n\n30.9\n(87.6)\n\n35.3\n(95.5)\n\n34.9\n(94.8)\n\n30.4\n(86.7)\n\n23.1\n(73.6)\n\n14.4\n(57.9)\n\n8.2\n(46.8)\n\n20.4\n(68.7)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n3.1\n(37.6)\n\n4.1\n(39.4)\n\n8.2\n(46.8)\n\n13.7\n(56.7)\n\n19.7\n(67.5)\n\n25.8\n(78.4)\n\n30.0\n(86.0)\n\n29.6\n(85.3)\n\n25.2\n(77.4)\n\n18.5\n(65.3)\n\n10.7\n(51.3)\n\n5.2\n(41.4)\n\n16.1\n(61.1)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n0.6\n(33.1)\n\n1.3\n(34.3)\n\n4.7\n(40.5)\n\n9.9\n(49.8)\n\n15.1\n(59.2)\n\n20.2\n(68.4)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n20.6\n(69.1)\n\n14.6\n(58.3)\n\n7.7\n(45.9)\n\n2.7\n(36.9)\n\n12.2\n(54.0)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n99.8\n(3.93)\n\n110.7\n(4.36)\n\n94.6\n(3.72)\n\n75.5\n(2.97)\n\n37.7\n(1.48)\n\n8.3\n(0.33)\n\n3.3\n(0.13)\n\n1.2\n(0.05)\n\n4.1\n(0.16)\n\n33.3\n(1.31)\n\n68.7\n(2.70)\n\n104.2\n(4.10)\n\n641.4\n(25.24)\n\nAverage rainy days\n\n10.6\n\n10.6\n\n10.7\n\n9.9\n\n6.6\n\n1.7\n\n0.5\n\n0.2\n\n0.7\n\n5.3\n\n7.4\n\n10.2\n\n74.4\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n139.5\n\n142.8\n\n189.1\n\n222\n\n310\n\n375\n\n396.8\n\n368.9\n\n315\n\n238.7\n\n174\n\n136.4\n\n3,008.2\n\nSource: Devlet Meteoroloji İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü [1]\n\nGallery\n\n Courtyard of the Kasr-i Nehroz hotel\n\n A statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Kardeşlik Park\n\n Midyat (2013): A picture of the Assyrian old town, taken from a rooftop in the southeastern part of the old town facing north.\n\n A mosque in Midyat\n\n The Protestant Church of Midyat, located in old Midyat- pictured prior to its renovation in 2014/2015.\n\n Syriac Christian quarter in Midyat\n\n Syriac Christian quarter in Midyat\n\n The Midyat Guest House as pictured in 2005\n\n Panorama of the city of Midyat\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports\" (XLS). TÜİK. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Midyat - ܡܕܝܕ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified January 14, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/137.\n\n^ Avcıkıran, Adem (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî (in Kurdish and Turkish). p. 56.\n\n^ Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Leisse, Olaf (2017). Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom. Springer. p. 169. ISBN 9781137270269.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2011). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye & Aşiretler (in Turkish). Nûbihar. pp. 202, 206, 219.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2011). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye & Aşiretler (in Turkish). Nûbihar. p. 219.\n\n^ \"About Midyat / Shmayaa Hotel · Midyat / Mardin\". shmayaa.com. Archived from the original on 13 June 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2025.\n\n^ Radner (2006), pp. 287-299.\n\n^ \"Türkei: Archäologen entdecken riesige Untergrundstadt Matiate in Midyat\". Der Spiegel (in German). 2022-04-26. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 2022-04-30.\n\n^ Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. BRILL. pp. 260-262. ISBN 978-90-04-23227-3.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 332.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, pp. 189-190, 194.\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 194.\n\n^ a b Kaiser 2014, p. 333.\n\n^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 376.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, pp. 329-331, 333-334.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 85.\n\n^ Kaiser 2014, p. 334.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 87.\n\n^ \"Kaza Midyat / Mëḏyaḏ - ܡܕܝܕ\". Virtual Genocide Memorial. Retrieved 2023-09-18.\n\n^ a b \"Mardin population census Republic of Turkey by first results\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-06-26.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2011). Turabidin'den Berriyê'ye aşiretler, dinler, diller, kültürler. Nûbihar (in Turkish) (1. baskı ed.). Istanbul: Nûbihar Yayınları. p. 531. ISBN 978-9944-360-94-4.\n\n^ 530,000 people recorded in Mardin province census, 1975. Turabdin is mostly in Mardin province.\n\n^ \"Turkey Destroys Assyrian Villages\". Turkish Daily News. August 29, 1996. Retrieved January 4, 2018.\n\n^ \"Mor Malki Ürek\". soc-wus.org.\n\n^ \"Syria's Assyrian Christians Find Refuge With Turkish Neighbours\". Assyrian International News Agency. January 27, 2014. Retrieved January 4, 2018.\n\n^ Jimmy Jimmie (May 12, 2013). \"The search for the 5 churches of Midyat\". Traveling by default. Retrieved January 4, 2018.\n\n^ \"Most Recent Things to Do in Midyat\". March 28, 2013. Archived from the original on April 15, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2018.\n\n^ Mahalle, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Muhtarlıklar\" (in Turkish). Retrieved 3 October 2023.\n\n^ Fehmi Bargello, Min hemstad Midyat (My hometown Midyat), 2015\n\n^ \"Midyat\". Turkey from the Inside. Retrieved January 4, 2018.\n\n^ a b Parlak, Hasan (31 January 2025). \"Midyat Devlet Konukevi\". Yeni Mesaj. Retrieved 3 April 2025.\n\n^ \"MİDYAT DEVLET KONUKEVİ\". kulturportali.gov.tr. Kültür Portalı. Retrieved 2025-04-04.\n\n^ \"T.C. Midyat Kaymakamlığı - MİDYAT DEVLET KONUKEVİ\". midyat.gov.tr. 15 July 2021. Retrieved 2025-04-04.\n\n^ a b \"Dünyanın ilk Telkâri Müzesi Midyat'ta\". NTV (in Turkish). 10 December 2023. Retrieved 25 March 2024.\n\nSources\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\nGaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.\n\nGaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 56-96. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\nKaiser, Hilmar (2014). The Extermination of Armenians in the Diarbekir Region. İstanbul Bilgi University Press. ISBN 978-605-399-333-9.\n\nKévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85771-930-0.\n\nRadner, Karen (2006). \"How to reach the Upper Tigris: The route through the Tur Abdin\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 15: 273-305.\n\nExternal links\n\nStudy on the spoken Arabic of Midyat, in the Arabic language"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-midyat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2628}, {"slug": "reference-mardin", "title": "Mardin", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Mardin (Kurdish: مێردین, romanized: Mêrdîn;[2] Arabic: ماردين, romanized: Mārdīn; Syriac: ܡܪܕܝܢ, romanized: Mardīn;[3][4] Armenian: Մարդին) is a city and seat of the Artuklu District of Mardin Province in Turkey.[5] It is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on a rocky...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mardin\n\nMetropolitan municipality\n\nClockwise from top: view of the old city and citadel; Sultan Isa Medrese; Kasımiye Medrese; view from the top of the Mesopotamian plain from the city; Mor Behnam Church; houses of the old city; Mor Hananyo Monastery\n\nEmblem of Mardin Metropolitan Municipality\n\nMardinLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°18′47″N 40°44′06″E / 37.31306°N 40.73500°E / 37.31306; 40.73500\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorTuncay Akkoyun (acting)\n\nPopulation (2021)[1]\n\n • Total129,864\n\nTime zoneUTC+3:00 (Time in Turkey)\n\nWebsitewww.mardin.gov.tr\n\nMardin (Kurdish: مێردین, romanized: Mêrdîn;[2] Arabic: ماردين, romanized: Mārdīn; Syriac: ܡܪܕܝܢ, romanized: Mardīn;[3][4] Armenian: Մարդին) is a city and seat of the Artuklu District of Mardin Province in Turkey.[5] It is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on a rocky hill near the Tigris River.[6]\n\nIn February 2000, the Turkish Ministry of Culture placed Mardin and its surrounding cultural landscape on the country’s Tentative List for UNESCO World Heritage nomination.[7]\n\nThe city had a population of 129,864 in 2021.[1] The population is a mix of Kurds, Arabs, Mhallami, and Assyrians.[8]\n\nHistory\n\nAntiquity and etymology\n\nA legal document from the Neo-Assyrian period mentions a road to Mardiānê (commonly identified with modern Mardin), showing that the name was already in use at that time. Adad-nirari II campaigned just south of Mardin, and the Arameans offered strong resistance.[9] As Aramean settlement increased in and around the city, the older Akkadian name Mardiānê was dropped and fell out of use, giving rise to the Aramaic name Mardin.[10]\n\nThe city survived into the Syriac Christian period as the name of Mount Izla on which in the early 4th century stood the monastery of Nisibis, housing seventy monks.[11] In the Roman period, the city itself was known as Marida (Merida),[12] from a Syriac word translating to \"fortress\".[13][14]\n\nBetween c. 150 BC and c. AD 250, it was part of Osroene, which was ruled by the Abgarid dynasty.[15]\n\nMedieval history\n\nDuring the early Muslim conquests, the Byzantine city was captured in 640 by the Muslim commander Iyad ibn Ghanm.[16][17] In many periods control of the city changed hands frequently between different dynasties. Hamdan ibn Hamdun captured the city in 885 and it remained under intermittent Hamdanid control until the second half of the 10th century, at which point it became contested between the Marwanids and the Uqaylids, with the Marwanids probably holding the upper hand over this area.[16][17] Marwanid control in the region was ended by the arrival of the Great Seljuks under Malik-Shah I in 1085, which inaugurated an era of Turkish political domination and immigration in the region.[17]\n\nFrom 1103 onwards, Mardin served as the capital of one of the two main branches of the Artuqid dynasty, an Oghuz Turkish family who had earlier fought alongside the Seljuks.[18][17] Many of Mardin's major historic buildings were constructed under Artuqid control, including several mosques and madrasas, along with other types of Islamic architecture.[19] The lands of the Artukid dynasty fell to the Mongol invasion sometime between 1235 and 1243, but the Artuqids submitted to Mongol khan Hülegü and continued to govern as vassals of the Mongol Empire.[20][18]\n\nHayton of Corycus's 1307 chronicle notes that, unlike the rest of Mesopotamia's population, Kurds who dwelled in Mardin were skilled archers,[21] while the geographer al-'Umari, writing a few decades later (1340s), likewise confirms a Kurdish presence in al-Jazira and Mardin.[22]\n\nWhen Timur invaded the region in 1394, the local Artuqid ruler, 'Isā, submitted to Timurid suzerainty, but the region continued to be disputed between different powers.[16] The last Artuqid ruler, al-Salih, finally yielded the city to Qara Yusuf, the leader of Qara Qoyunlu, in 1408-9, and left for Mosul.[18][16] The city continued to be contested between the Qara Qoyunlu and their rivals, the Timurid-allied Aq Qoyunlu.[16] In 1451 the Qara Qoyunlu besieged the city after it had been captured by the Aq Qoyunlu, but failed to retake the stronghold. Aq Qoyunlu rule thus continued in the city for the rest of the 15th century.[17] Coins were struck here under the rule of Uzun Hasan and his son, Ya'qub.[16] After Ya'qub, Aq Qoyunlu rule began to fragment, but Mardin remained the center of an independent Aq Qoyunlu principality for many years, while the Safavids in the east grew stronger.[23] In 1507, the Safavid ruler Ismail I succeeded in capturing the city and the castle, expelling the local Aq Qoyunlu ruler.[24][16]\n\nDuring the medieval period, the town retained significant Syriac and Armenian populations and became the centre for episcopal sees of Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Church of the East, Syriac Catholic, churches, as well as a stronghold of the Syriac Orthodox Church, whose patriarchal see was headquartered in the nearby Saffron Monastery from 1034 to 1924.[25] A Venetian merchant who visited the town in 1507 wrote that there were still more Christian Armenians and Jews in the city than Muslims.[16]\n\nOttoman Empire\n\nAfter the Ottoman victory against their bitter rivals, the Safavids, at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, the balance of power in the region changed. The Safavid commander in the region, Ustajlu, was killed in the battle with the Ottomans and was replaced by his brother, Kara Khan (or Karahan). In 1515 Mardin briefly yielded to the Ottomans, but the castle remained under Safavid control and the Ottomans were forced to leave after a few days, leaving Kara Khan to re-occupy it.[17][16] The following year, the Ottoman commander, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, defeated Kara Khan and Safavid control in the region crumbled. The Ottomans besieged Mardin again, which resisted under the command of Kara Khan's brother, Sulayman Khan. After the Battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha returned with reinforcements from Syria and finally forced the city's surrender in late 1516 or early 1517.[17][16] After this, Mardin was administered by a governor directly appointed under the Ottoman Sultan's authority.\n\nThe city experienced a relatively tranquil period under Ottoman rule, without any significant conflicts or plights. European travelers who visited the city in the late 18th and early 19th centuries gave highly variable estimates of the population, but generally indicate that Muslims (or \"Turks\") were the largest group, with sizeable Armenian and Syriac communities and other minorities, while Arabic and Kurdish were the predominant languages.[16]\n\nThe period of peace was finally halted when the Ottoman Empire came into conflict with the Khedivate of Egypt. During this time the city came under the rule of insurgents associated with the Kurdish Milli clan. In 1835, the Milli tribe was subdued by the military troops of the Wāli of Diyarbekir Eyalet, Reşid Mehmed Pasha.[26] During the siege the city's Great Mosque was blown up.[16] Between 1847 and 1865 the city's population suffered from a notable cholera epidemic, with the exact number of fatalities not known.[24] During World War I Mardin was one of the sites of the Syriac and Armenian genocides. On the eve of World War I, Mardin was home to over 12,000 Syriacs and over 7,500 Armenians.[27] During the course of the war, many were sent to the Ras al-'Ayn Camps, though some managed to escape to the Sinjar Mountain with help from local Chechens.[28] Kurds and Arabs of Mardin typically refer to these events as \"fırman\" (government order), while the Syriac Christians call it \"Seyfo\" (sword).[29][30] After the Armistice of Mudros Mardin was one of the Turkish cities that was not occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers.\n\nModern history\n\nIn 1923, with the founding of the Republic of Turkey, Mardin was made the administrative capital of a province named after it. Many Syriac Christian survivors of the violence, later on, left Mardin for nearby Qamishli in the 1940s after their conscription in the Turkish Army became compulsory.[30] As the Turkish Government subdued the Kurdish Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925, the first and the fourteenth cavalry division were stationed in Mardin.[31]\n\nMardin industrialized significantly during the 1990s, when inhabitants moved in greater numbers to the modern parts of the city that were developing on lower ground at the foot of the old city hill.[32] Through a passed law in 2012 Mardin became a metropolitan municipality, which took office after the Turkish local elections in 2014.[33] The city has a significant Arab population.[34]\n\nGeography\n\nThe city is located near the Syrian border and is the center of Mardin province. The old city is built mostly on the southern slope of a long hill topped by a rocky ridge. The slope descends towards the Mesopotamian plain. The top of the ridge is occupied by the city's historic citadel.[19] The newer parts of the city are located on lower ground to the northwest and in the surrounding area and feature modern amenities and institutions.[32] Mardin Airport is located to the southwest, 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the old town.[35]\n\nPanorama of the old city of Mardin, with the Mesopotamian Plain opening to the rightCultivated plains south of Mardin\n\nNeighbourhoods\n\nThe city is divided into the following neighborhoods: 13. Mart, Cumhuriyet, Çabuk, Diyarbakırkapı, Eminettin, Ensar, Gül, Hamzabey, İstasyon, Kayacan, Kotek, Latifiye, Medrese, Necmettin, Nur, Ofis, Saraçoğlu, Savurkapı, Şar, Şehidiye, Teker, Yalım (Mansuriye), Ulucami, Yenıkapı and Yenişehir.[5]\n\nClimate\n\nMardin has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa, Trewartha: Cs) with very hot, dry summers and chilly, wet, and occasionally snowy winters. Mardin is very sunny, with over 3000 hours of sun per year. While temperatures in summer can easily reach 40 °C (104 °F), because of its continental nature, wintry weather is still somewhat common between the months of December and March, and it usually snows for a week or two. The highest recorded temperature is 42.5 °C (108.5 °F) on 31 July 2000, and the coldest recorded was -14.0 °C (6.8 °F) on 22 February 1985.[36]\n\nClimate data for Mardin (1991-2020 normals, extremes 1941-2023)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n19.4\n(66.9)\n\n19.5\n(67.1)\n\n27.5\n(81.5)\n\n33.6\n(92.5)\n\n36.1\n(97.0)\n\n40.0\n(104.0)\n\n42.5\n(108.5)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\n40.5\n(104.9)\n\n35.6\n(96.1)\n\n26.1\n(79.0)\n\n24.1\n(75.4)\n\n42.5\n(108.5)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n6.7\n(44.1)\n\n8.2\n(46.8)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\n18.2\n(64.8)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n31.6\n(88.9)\n\n35.9\n(96.6)\n\n35.5\n(95.9)\n\n30.7\n(87.3)\n\n23.9\n(75.0)\n\n14.9\n(58.8)\n\n8.8\n(47.8)\n\n21.0\n(69.8)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n3.7\n(38.7)\n\n4.7\n(40.5)\n\n8.8\n(47.8)\n\n14.0\n(57.2)\n\n19.9\n(67.8)\n\n26.1\n(79.0)\n\n30.3\n(86.5)\n\n30.2\n(86.4)\n\n25.6\n(78.1)\n\n19.3\n(66.7)\n\n11.2\n(52.2)\n\n5.8\n(42.4)\n\n16.6\n(61.9)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n1.3\n(34.3)\n\n1.8\n(35.2)\n\n5.5\n(41.9)\n\n10.2\n(50.4)\n\n15.4\n(59.7)\n\n20.9\n(69.6)\n\n25.2\n(77.4)\n\n25.5\n(77.9)\n\n21.3\n(70.3)\n\n15.5\n(59.9)\n\n8.1\n(46.6)\n\n3.4\n(38.1)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-13.4\n(7.9)\n\n-14.0\n(6.8)\n\n-11.7\n(10.9)\n\n-5.3\n(22.5)\n\n2.6\n(36.7)\n\n0.6\n(33.1)\n\n11.8\n(53.2)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\n8.0\n(46.4)\n\n-2.5\n(27.5)\n\n-9.5\n(14.9)\n\n-11.9\n(10.6)\n\n-14.0\n(6.8)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n95.4\n(3.76)\n\n92.2\n(3.63)\n\n83.5\n(3.29)\n\n66.8\n(2.63)\n\n51.7\n(2.04)\n\n8.8\n(0.35)\n\n4.8\n(0.19)\n\n4.2\n(0.17)\n\n5.4\n(0.21)\n\n31.7\n(1.25)\n\n64.6\n(2.54)\n\n101.0\n(3.98)\n\n610.1\n(24.02)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1 mm)\n\n9.5\n\n9.1\n\n9.0\n\n7.8\n\n6.0\n\n2.0\n\n1.4\n\n1.4\n\n1.4\n\n4.5\n\n6.0\n\n8.9\n\n67.0\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n3\n\n1.9\n\n1.2\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n1.4\n\n7.5\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n64.7\n\n62.1\n\n57.0\n\n51.9\n\n41.3\n\n30.5\n\n25.9\n\n26.9\n\n31.7\n\n42.6\n\n52.9\n\n62.7\n\n45.8\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n141.9\n\n144.3\n\n188.8\n\n228.7\n\n307.8\n\n368.0\n\n389.0\n\n354.5\n\n311.6\n\n236.2\n\n179.8\n\n134.4\n\n2,985\n\nSource 1: Turkish State Meteorological Service[37]\n\nSource 2: NOAA (precipitation days, humidity, sun 1991-2020),[38] Meteomanz (snow days 2013-2023)[39]\n\nDemographics\n\nThe English traveler Mark Sykes recorded Mardin as a city inhabited by Arabs, Armenians, and Jacobites in the early 20th century.[40] 12,609 Orthodox Syriacs and 7,692 Armenians (most of them Catholic) lived in the town, all of them Arabic-speaking. During the late Ottoman genocides, most of the Christians were killed, no matter their ethnicity.[41]\n\nMother tongue, Mardin District, 1927 Turkish census[42]\n\nTurkish\nArabic\nKurdish\nCircassian\nArmenian\nUnknown or other language\n\n5,820\n25,698\n15,640\n15\n5\n309\n\nReligion, Mardin District, 1927 Turkish census[42]\n\nMuslim\nChristian\nJewish\nUnknown or other religion\n\n41,675\n1,617\n2\n4,513\n\nToday, the city is predominantly Kurdish and Arab, with significant communities of Syriac Christians.[43][44][45] Official census data does not record the number and proportion of citizens from different ethnicities and religions, but a 2013 study estimated that around 49% of the population identified as Arab and around 49% identified as Kurdish.[43] The city can be divided into three parts: the Old Mardin (Eski Mardin) which is predominantly populated by Arabs with some Kurdish and Syriac families, the Slums (Gecekondu) which are mainly inhabited by Kurds who have escaped the Kurdish Turkish conflict in the 1980-1990s, and the New City (Yenişehir) where the wealthiest people live.[45] The civil servants are mostly Turks, which constitute a minority in the city.[46]\n\nEcclesiastical history\n\nA bishopric of the Assyrian Church of the East was centered on the town when it was part of the Roman province of Assyria. It was a suffragan see of Edessa, the provincial metropolitan see. It eventually became part of the Catholic Church in the late 17th century AD following a breakaway from the Assyrian Church, and is the (nominal) seat of three sees of the Catholic Church: the current Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Mardin and two (now) titular sees under the ancient name of the town:[47] former Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Mardin, now Titular see of Mardin only, and former Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Mardin and Amida, now titular see (initially as mere Eparchy).\n\nEconomy\n\nHistorically, Mardin produced sesame.[48] Mardin province continues to produce agricultural products including sesame, barley, wheat, corn, cotton, and others.[49][32] Angora goats are raised in the area and there is small industry that weaves cotton and wool.[49] Agricultural enterprises are often family-based, varying in size.[32] The city was also historically an important regional trading center on the routes between Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and northern Syria.[49] Nowadays, trade with Syria and Iraq depends on political circumstances.[32]\n\nArchitecture\n\nMardin’s architectural landscape reflects centuries of Artuqid, Syriac, and Ottoman influences. Its religious and residential landmarks embody a fusion of Islamic and Christian traditions, which were built almost entirely from beige-colored limestone quarried locally for centuries.[50][51]\n\nArtuqid architecture\n\nMardin came under the influence of various Turcoman dynasties beginning from the 12th century.[52] Under the Artuqid rule from the 12th century until the 15th century, Mardin became a prominent center of Islamic architecture through a blend of Anatolian Seljuk elements, such as monumental portals, muqarnas and stone carvings, and local influences, all adapted to the region’s limestone and sandstone materials.[53] Important monuments from this era include the Great Mosque (Ulu Cami) of Mardin and the Sultan İsa (or Zinciriye) Medrese.[50][53] Artuqid architecture in Mardin played a key role in shaping the city’s unique identity and contributed significantly to the development of early Turkish architecture.[54]\n\nMosques\n\nGreat Mosque of Mardin: The historic main congregational mosque of the city. According to the inscription dated 1176 on the minaret, the mosque, which has sixteen inscriptions, was built by the Artuqid ruler Kutbettin Ilgazi II. According to the inscription in the courtyard, it was built by Hüsameddin Yavlak Arslan, another Artuqid ruler, in 1186. The original structure, which reportedly featured two minarets, was damaged during the Timurid invasions and destroyed during the Battle of Mardin in 1833-1835.[55] It was rebuilt afterward, likely following the original layout. Today, only the north wall and the carved wooden minbar (pulpit) survive from the Artquid period.[19]\n\nŞehidiye Mosque: It was built by Melik Mansur Nasreddin Artuk Aslan, and later expanded during the Ottoman period. The structure, which presents a madrasa layout with a porticoed courtyard and iwans, with a two-aisled mosque on the south side, has undergone numerous alterations, repairs, and additions, leaving little of the madrasa's original state. Its minaret was rebuilt in 1916/17 by the Ottoman Armenian architect Sarkis Lole.[19][56]\n\nLatifiye Mosque: It was built in 1314 by Abdüllatif bin Abdullah, who served during the reign of the Artuqid sultans Melik Saleh and Melik Muzaffar. Its minaret was added in the 19th century by the Egyptian governor Muhammad Ziya Tayyar Pasha.[19]\n\nMelik Mahmut Mosque: According to the mosque's inscription found at Savur Gate, it was built between 1312-1362 by the Artuqid ruler Melik Salih. The mosque's name is derived from the fact that the tomb of the Artuqid ruler Melik Mahmut is located here. It is known for its richly carved entrance portal and central dome.[57]\n\nNecmeddin Mosque: It was built by Emineddin Sökmen, the son of Artuk Bey, and completed by his brother Necmeddin Ilgazi as part of the broader Emineddin Külliye, a social complex. Local tradition holds that Necmeddin Ilgazi himself was buried within the mosque, contributing to its identification as the \"Yellow Mosque\" after his tomb. Today, only portions of the original mosque survive, including the prayer hall and remains of the minaret and arcaded structures.[58]\n\nNizameddin Begaz Mosque: It was built under the patronage of Nizameddin Begaz, who served as vizier of Artuqid ruler Kutbettin Ilgazi II, at the Diyarbakır gate in 1186 AD.[59]\n\nSheikh Salih Mosque: It is not known when and by whom it was built, though it is accepted to belong to the late Artuqid period. A domed tomb (türbe) next to the mosque contains the burial of a person named Salih, and an additional tomb approximately 50 meters to the west holds the remains of someone named Şirin, both enclosed within chiseled stone sarcophagi.[60]\n\nKale Mosque: It is documented that the mosque underwent repairs in 1269, as indicated by an inscription attributed to Necmeddin İlgazi, an Artuqid ruler. However, the exact date of its initial construction remains unknown.[60]\n\nHamidiye Mosque: It was built in 1347 by Şeyh Zebuni, who himself is buried within the mosque. It features a single-domed, rectangular floor plan, and is complemented by two courtyards, one of which is arcaded. In the late 19th century, it underwent renovation by Hamit Pasha, at which point the mosque acquired its current name.[61]\n\nSuleyman Pasha Mosque: Built in 1195 by Kudbeddin ibn Emir Ali Sincari, the vizier of Artuqid ruler Melik Isa, the mosque retains its original Artuqid structure and continues to serve as a local place of worship.[60]\n\nŞeyh Çabuk Mosque: A mosque of uncertain date, though it is accepted to have been built no later than the 15th century, during the Akkoyonlu period. It is named after Abdullah bin Enes el-Cüheyni, known as \"Şeyh Çabuk\", a messenger of Prophet Mohammad, whose tomb lies adjacent to the mosque. It was restored in the 19th century, with the gate bearing an inscription dating to 1843, and the old minaret was rebuilt in 1969 by a philanthropist from Mardin named Haci Izzi Çaçan.[19][62]\n\nTekiye Mosque: Foundation records indicate that the mosque was built by Ibrahim Tekye in 1445, the nephew of the Akkoyunlu Kasim Bey, and that the madrasa building, the bulk of which has survived to this day, was commissioned by Ibrahim Tekye's wife, Şah Sultan Hatun.[60]\n\nZeynel Abidin Mosque Complex: It is an Islamic complex built in 1159, according to the inscription on the tomb of Molla Zeynel Abidin, a reputed 13th-generation descendant of Prophet Muhammad, and his sister Sitti Zeynep, within the mosque.[63]\n\nKızıltepe Ulu Mosque: Its construction began by Hüsâmeddin Yavlak Arslan (1184-1200) and was completed during the reign of his son Nasireddin Artuk Arslan (1200-1239). It repeats the plan of the Grand Mosque of Mardin with the mihrab section placed on the axis. The mosque underwent major restoration from 2015 to 2019.[64]\n\nReyhaniye Mosque: Mosque of uncertain date, probably of the Akkoyonlu or early Ottoman period (15th-16th centuries).[19]\n\nMedreses\n\nSultan İsa (or Zinciriye) Medrese: One of the most impressive Islamic monuments in the city, dated to 1385, during the reign of Artuqid sultan Al-Zahir Majd al-Din 'Isa (r. 1376-1407). Built as a madrasa, it also includes a mosque (prayer hall) and a mausoleum, arranged around two inner courtyards. The mausoleum was likely intended to be Sultan 'Isā's burial site, but he was never buried here after his death in battle. It has an imposing entrance portal carved with muqarnas, and two ribbed domes over the mausoleum and the mosque that are visible on the city's skyline.[19]\n\nKasım Pasha (or Kasımiye) Medrese: Another major Islamic monument begun by Sultan 'Isa but left unfinished upon his death in 1407. It was completed in 1445, under Akkoyonlu rule. It is located to the west, just outside of the town. It has a large central courtyard, a monumental portal, and three domes arranged near the front façade.[16]\n\nHatuniye Medrese or Sitt Ridwiyya Madrasa: Believed to have been built by the Artuqid sultan Qutb ad-Din Il-Ghazi II (r. 1175-1184), with a mausoleum that may have been intended for the sultan's mother, Sitt Ridwiyya (Sitti Radviyye). The building now serves as a mosque. Both the prayer hall and the mausoleum contain finely-decorated mihrabs.[19]\n\nCitadels\n\nMardin Castle: The citadel occupies a long ridge at the city's highest point. It was probably first built under the Hamdanids (10th century), but its present walls were likely rebuilt in the Akkoyonlu and Ottoman eras, possibly with some reuse of Artuqid materials. Up until the 19th century it was densely inhabited, but is now occupied by a military radar station. The interior includes the remains of a small mosque.[19]\n\nKülliyes\n\nEmineddin Külliyesi: A külliye (religious and charitable complex), believed to be the oldest Islamic monument in the city, founded by Emin ed-Din, the brother of Sultan Najm ad-Din Il-Ghazi (r. 1115-1122). Il-Ghazi may have finished the complex after his brother's death. The complex contains a mosque, a former madrasa, a fountain, and a hammam (bathhouse).[19]\n\nSyriac architecture\n\nMardin and its nearby cultural region Tur Abdin have been major centers of Syriac Christianity for over a millennium.[65] The city served as the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate from the 13th century until 1932, and remains home to important churches like the Church of Mor Behnam or Kırklar (Forty Martyrs).[66] Just outside the city lies the Mor Hananyo Monastery, founded in the 5th century on a former pagan site, which served as the patriarchal seat for centuries.[50] Syriac churches in Mardin are characterized by austere limestone façades, semi-circular apses, and finely carved inscriptions, reflecting a distinct Christian architectural tradition that developed alongside and in dialogue with Islamic forms.[67][65]\n\nChurches\n\nMeryem Ana (Virgin Mary) Church: A Syriac Catholic Church, built in 1895 as the Patriarchal Church,[68] as the Syriac Catholic see was in Mardin up until the Assyrian genocide.\n\nRed (Surp Kevork) Church: An Armenian Apostolic Church renovated in 2015[69][70]\n\nMor Yusuf (Surp Hovsep; St Joseph) Church: An Armenian Catholic Church[71]\n\nMor Behnam or Kırklar (Forty Martyrs) Church: A Syriac Orthodox Church with a niche containing the remains of Mar Behnam.[19] The building dates from the mid-6th century. In 1293 it became the Syriac Patriarchal Church. Residential annexes for the Patriarchate were expanded in the 19th and early 20th centuries.[72]\n\nMor Hirmiz Church: A Chaldean Catholic Church in Mardin. It was once the Metropolitan cathedral of the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Mardin, prior to it lapsing in 1941. Nevertheless, One Chaldean family remains to maintain it.[73] The building, or at least its overall design, may date from the 16th or 17th century.[19]\n\nMor Mihail Church: A Syriac Orthodox Church located on the southern edge of Mardin.\n\nMor Simuni Church: A Syriac Orthodox Church with a large courtyard. The building may date from the 12th century.[19]\n\nMor Petrus and Pavlus (SS. Peter and Paul) Church: A 160-year-old Syriac Orthodox Church, recently renovated.[74]\n\nMor Cercis Church\n\nDeyrü'z-Zafaran Monastery, or Monastery of St. Ananias, is 5 kilometers southeast of the city. The Syriac Orthodox Saffron Monastery was founded in 493 AD and is one of the oldest monasteries in the world and the largest in Southern Turkey, alongside Mor Gabriel Monastery. From 1160 until 1932, it was the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, until the Patriarchate relocated to the Syrian capital Damascus. The site of the monastery itself is said to have been used as a temple by sun worshipers as long ago as 2000 BC.[75][76]\n\nMuseums\n\nMardin Museum: an archeological museum dedicated to the city's history, opened in 2000, housed in the former Syriac Catholic Patriarchate building constructed in 1895, next to the Meryem Ana Church.[77][78]\n\nOttoman architecture\n\nBetween the late 19th and early 20th century, during a period of Western influences on Ottoman architecture, Ottoman Armenian architect Sarkis Lole, also known as the \"Mimar Sinan\" of Mardin, led an era of construction that blended European elements, such as Renaissance and Gothic motifs, with Mardin’s existing Islamic-Christian vernacular architecture.[79] He is credited with designing numerous private mansions, schools, churches, and civic buildings throughout the old city.[80] His work sought to preserve the harmony of Mardin’s stepped terraces, stone façades, and urban continuity while introducing refined Ottoman-era details like ornate cornices, arched windows, and richly decorated interiors.[79] Additionally, he oversaw restorations and additions to key Artuqid mosques and madrasas, including the Şehidiye Madrasa, where the 1916 spiral minaret, featuring vegetal bands and sunburst reliefs, is attributed to his design or supervision.[81]\n\nHouses in Mardin tend to have multiple levels and terraces to accommodate their sloping site, giving the old city its \"stepped\" appearance from afar.[82][19] They are typically centered around an internal courtyard, similar to other houses in the region. Larger houses, as well as other public buildings, tend to have stone-carved decoration around their windows.[19] The courtyard of larger houses is often on the lower level, while the upper levels \"step back\" from this courtyard, giving the house an appearance similar to a \"grand staircase\" when seen from the courtyard.[82]\n\nPolitics\n\nIn the 2014 local elections, Ahmet Türk of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP)[83] was elected mayor of Mardin. However, on 21 November 2016 he was detained on terror charges after being dismissed from his post by Turkish authorities. A trustee was appointed as mayor instead.[84] In the Municipal elections in March 2019 Türk was re-elected, but was dismissed from his post in August 2019, accused of supporting terrorism.[85] Mustafa Yaman, the governor of Mardin Province, was appointed as acting mayor.[86]\n\nNotable locals\n\nMasawaih al-Mardini, 10th-century physician\n\nNabia Abbott 1897-1981, scholar of early Islam, papyrologist and paleographer\n\nFebruniye Akyol, Syriac co-mayor of Mardin (2014-2016)\n\nKeki Abdi Pasha, Ottoman statesman\n\nMuammer Güler, governor\n\nMalak Karsh, photographer\n\nFeyyaz Duman, Turkish actor of Kurdish descent\n\nAgnes Fenenga (1874-1949), Dutch-born American missionary teacher in Mardin, 1901-1933\n\nYousuf Karsh, photographer\n\nSultan Kösen, the world's tallest living man since 2009.[87]\n\nIgnatius Maloyan (1869-1915), Armenian Catholic Archbishop, Christian martyr\n\nPervin Chakar, Kurdish opera singer\n\nSarkis Lole, Ottoman Armenian chief architect of Mardin\n\nMurathan Mungan, poet and writer\n\nMümtaz Tahincioğlu, head of TOMSFED\n\nBülent Tekin, poet and writer\n\nMasum Türker, former Minister of Finance\n\nMem Ararat, Kurdish singer\n\nInternational relations\n\nTwin towns-sister cities\n\nMardin is twinned with:\n\n Ljubljana, Slovenia, since 2003[88]\n\nSport in Mardin\n\nMardinspor\n\nMardin 1969 Spor\n\nSee also\n\nShamsīyah\n\nArmenians in Turkey\n\nSyriacs in Turkey\n\nKurds in Turkey\n\nYazidis in Turkey\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b \"31 ARALIK 2021 TARİHLİ ADRESE DAYALI NÜFUS KAYIT SİSTEMİ (ADNKS) SONUÇLARI\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\n^ Avcıkıran, Adem (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî (in Kurdish and Turkish). p. 55.\n\n^ Payne Smith, Robert (1879-1901). Thesaurus Syriacus (in Latin). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2219.\n\n^ \"Mardin\". syriaca.org. Archived from the original on 2021-04-11. Retrieved 2020-05-24.\n\n^ a b \"Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri\". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 6 July 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Turkey Guide - Rough Guides travel information\". Retrieved 2012-06-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Mardin Cultural Landscape\". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 2025-11-21.\n\n^ Coşkan, Canan (September 2022). \"\"Syrian\" Refugees at the Gaze of Kurds and Arabs in Mardin: Understanding Social Representations and Acculturation Expectations from a Decolonial Approach\". Examining Complex Intergroup Relations: Through the Lens of Turkey.\n\n^ Berlejung, Angelika; Streck, Michael P. (2003-01-01). Arameans, Chaldeans, and Arabs in Babylonia and Palestine in the First Millennium B.C. BoD - Books on Demand. p. 131. ISBN 978-3-447-06544-3.\n\n^ Radner, Karen (2006). \"How to reach the Upper Tigris: The route through the Tur Abdin\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 15: 291, 275, 276.\n\n^ Leitch, John (1859). \"Johann Elieser Theodor Wiltsch, trans. John Leitch, Handbook of the Geography and Statistics of the Church, Volume 1, Bosworth & Harrison, 1859, p. 232\". Archived from the original on 2021-12-05. Retrieved 2021-08-08.\n\n^ Fraternité Chrétienne Sarthe-Orient, \"Marida (Mardin)\" Archived 2014-01-25 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Lipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: their ancient history, culture, religion. Peeters Publishers. p. 146. ISBN 978-90-429-0859-8. Archived from the original on 2016-05-17. Retrieved 2015-12-12.\n\n^ Smith, of R. Payne Smith. Ed. by J. Payne (1998). A compendious Syriac dictionary : founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus (Repr. ed.). Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. p. 299. ISBN 978-1-57506-032-3. Archived from the original on 18 February 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2013. suggesting Mardin as a plural \"fortresses\".\n\n^ Amir Harrak. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (3): 209-214. 1992. doi:10.1086/373553. JSTOR 545546.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Minorsky, V. & Bosworth, C.E. (1991). \"Mārdīn\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VI: Mahk-Mid. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 539-542. ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Taştemir, Mehmet (2003). \"MARDİN\". TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (in Turkish). pp. 48-51 (in print edition). Retrieved 2022-12-19.\n\n^ a b c Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (2004). \"The Artuqids\". The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748696482.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Sinclair, Thomas Alan (1989). Eastern Turkey: an architectural and archaeological survey. Vol. III. The Pindar Press. ISBN 0907132340.\n\n^ Ed. Morris Rossabi. China among equals: the Middle Kingdom and its neighbors, 10th-14th centuries, p. 244\n\n^ Köhler, Charles (1906). La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient t (Tome II ed.). Paris: Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Documents Arméniens. pp. Book I, cp. XII.\n\n^ al-'Umari, Ibn Fadlallah. Masalik al-Abşar fi Mamalik al-Amşar. Abu Dhabi: Al Majma’ Al Thaqafi. al-Faṣl al-Awwal fī al-Akrād, vol. 3, p. 260.\n\n^ Minorsky, V. (1960). \"Aḳ Ḳoyunlu\". In Gibb, H. A. R.; Kramers, J. H.; Lévi-Provençal, E.; Schacht, J.; Lewis, B. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume I: A-B. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 311-312. OCLC 495469456.\n\n^ a b Mehmet Taştemir. \"MARDİN\" (in Turkish). İslam Ansiklopedisi [Islamic Encyclopedia]. p. 45. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.\n\n^ Cinti Migliarini, Anita. \"La chiesa siriaca di Antiochia\". Chiesa siro-ortodossa di Antiochia (in Italian). Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016.\n\n^ Aydın, Suavi; Verheij, Jelle (2012). Jorngerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (eds.). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. p. 31. ISBN 9789004225183.\n\n^ Kevorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History. London: Tauris. p. 371.\n\n^ Kevorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History. London: Tauris. pp. 375-376.\n\n^ Biner 2010, p. 73.\n\n^ a b Biner, Zerrin Özlem (Fall-Winter 2010). \"Acts of Defacement, Memory of Loss: Ghostly Effects of the \"Armenian Crisis\" in Mardin, Southeastern Turkey\" (PDF). History and Memory. 22 (2): 68. doi:10.2979/his.2010.22.2.68. S2CID 154257213. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-04-28. Retrieved 2021-08-08.\n\n^ Olson, Robert (1989). The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. University of Texas Press. pp. 102-104. ISBN 0292776195.\n\n^ a b c d e Costa, Elisabetta (2016). Social Media in Southeast Turkey: Love, Kinship and Politics. UCL Press. pp. 16-18. ISBN 978-1-910634-52-3.\n\n^ \"Kanun No. 6360\". resmigazete.gov.tr. Archived from the original on 15 August 2015. Retrieved 25 August 2014.\n\n^ Tocci, Nathalie (October 2001). \"Our future southeastern Turkish frontiers\" (PDF). Centre for European Policy Studies. Archived from the original on 2018-04-12. Retrieved 2021-01-10.\n\n^ Darke, Diana (2011). Bradt Travel Guide - Eastern Turkey. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN 978-1-84162-339-9.\n\n^ \"Resmi İstatistikler: İllerimize Ait Genel İstatistik Verileri\" (in Turkish). Turkish State Meteorological Service. Retrieved 15 July 2024.\n\n^ \"Resmi İstatistikler: İllerimize Ait Mevism Normalleri (1991-2020)\" (in Turkish). Turkish State Meteorological Service. Archived from the original on 26 June 2021. Retrieved 26 June 2021.\n\n^ \"Mardin Climate Normals 1991-2020\" (CSV). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 15 April 2024.\n\n^ \"Mardin - Weather data by months\". meteomanz. Retrieved 15 July 2024.\n\n^ Sykes, Mark (1904). Dar-ul-Islam: A Record of a Journey Through Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey. Bickers & Son. p. 264.\n\n^ \"Kaza Mardin / Marde / Merdo - ܡܪܕܝܢ\". Virtual Genocide Memorial. Retrieved 2023-09-18.\n\n^ a b \"Mardin population census Republic of Turkey by first results\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-06-26.\n\n^ a b Gűc-Işik, Ayşe (April 6, 2013). The intercultural engagement in Mardin: Religion, culture and identity (Thesis). ACU Research Bank. doi:10.4226/66/5A9752403BAA3. S2CID 152037258.\n\n^ Leisse, Olaf (2017). Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom. Springer. p. 169. ISBN 9781137270269.\n\n^ a b Costa, Elisabetta (2016). \"Introduction\" (PDF). Social Media in Southeast Turkey. Vol. 3. UCL Press. p. 8. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1g69z14.5. ISBN 9781910634530. JSTOR j.ctt1g69z14.5. Retrieved 2022-10-13 - via JSTOR.\n\n^ Costa, Elisabetta (2016), p. 11\n\n^ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 923\n\n^ Prothero, W.G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 62. Archived from the original on 2020-12-21. Retrieved 2013-09-16.\n\n^ a b c \"Mardin | Turkey | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-02-17.\n\n^ a b c Sinclair, Thomas A. (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural and Archaeological Survey, Volume III. Pindar Press.\n\n^ Hillenbrand, Robert (1994). Islamic Architecture: Form, Function, and Meaning. Columbia University Press.\n\n^ Finkel, Caroline (2006). Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books.\n\n^ a b Blair, Sheila S.; Bloom, Jonathan M. (1994). The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800. Yale University Press.\n\n^ Necipoğlu, Gülru (2005). The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.\n\n^ Şafak, Yeni (26 May 2018). \"Taş şehrin simgesi: Mardin Ulu Camii\". Yeni Şafak (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\n^ \"Kültür Envanteri - Şehidiye Camii\". kulturenvanteri.com (in Turkish). 16 May 2020.\n\n^ \"Mardin Büyükşehir Belediyesi - Camiler\". www.mardin.bel.tr.\n\n^ Açıkyıldız, Birgül (2018). \"Mardin Emineddin (Emînüddin) Külliyesi: Hami ve Mimari\". Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi: 14-18.\n\n^ \"Müzeler\". dhmi.gov.tr.\n\n^ a b c d \"T.R. MARDİN ARTUKLU UNIVERSITY - Mosques\". www.artuklu.edu.tr.\n\n^ \"Kültür Envanteri - Hamidiye Camii, Mardin\". kulturenvanteri.com. 18 February 2021.\n\n^ \"ŞEYH ÇABUK CAMİİ\". Kültür Portalı. Retrieved 2022-01-15.\n\n^ \"Kültür Envanteri - Zeynel Abidin Camii, Nusaybin\". kulturenvanteri.com. 31 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Kültür Envanteri - Kızıltepe Ulu Cami\". kulturenvanteri.com. 4 December 2019.\n\n^ a b Brock, Sebastian P.; Taylor, David G. K. (2001). The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and Its Ancient Aramaic Heritage, Vol. 2. Trans World Film Italia.\n\n^ Hollerweger, Hans (1999). Tur Abdin: Living Cultural Heritage. Linz.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ \"Late Antique and Medieval Churches and Monasteries of Midyat and Surrounding Area (Tur ʿAbdin)\". UNESCO World Heritage Convention.\n\n^ \"MERYEM ANA KİLİSESİ VE PATRİKHANESİ\". Kültür Portalı. Retrieved 2022-01-15.\n\n^ \"Mardin Surp Kevork Kilisesi için Kitap Kermesi ve Söyleşi\". Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016.\n\n^ Travel, Mardin. \"Surp Kevork Church | Mardin Travel\". Archived from the original on 2020-11-24. Retrieved 2021-04-06.\n\n^ \"Mardin - Duane Alexander Miller's Blog\". 8 June 2015. Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016.\n\n^ \"MOR BEHNAM (KIRKLAR) KİLİSESİ\". Kültür Portalı. Retrieved 2022-01-15.\n\n^ \"St Hirmiz Chaldean Church in Mardin, Turkey\". 2 June 2015. Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2016.\n\n^ \"T.C. MARDİN ARTUKLU ÜNİVERSİTESİ - Kiliseler\". www.artuklu.edu.tr. Retrieved 2025-06-12.\n\n^ SOR (2000-04-19). \"Dayro d-Mor Hananyo: Erstwhile seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch\". Sor.cua.edu. Archived from the original on 2012-07-16. Retrieved 2012-08-17.\n\n^ \"ARTS-CULTURE - Syriac monastery dated back to 4,000 years\". Hurriyetdailynews.com. 2010-01-03. Archived from the original on 2010-01-09. Retrieved 2012-08-17.\n\n^ \"MARDİN MUSEUM\". T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Retrieved 2022-01-15.\n\n^ \"MARDİN MÜZESİ\". Kültür Portalı. Retrieved 2022-01-15.\n\n^ a b Wharton, Alyson (2015). \"Identity and Style: Armenian-Ottoman Churches in the Nineteenth Century\". In Gharipour Mohammad (ed.). Sacred Precincts: The Religious Architecture of Non-Muslim Communities Across the Islamic World. Vol. 3. Brill. pp. 76-105. ISBN 978-90-04-28022-9.\n\n^ Biner, Zerrin Ö. (2020). Zerrin Özlem Biner, States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 37.\n\n^ Kızılelma, Sema (2022). \"Investigation of Periodic Architectural Changes in Mardin Ulu Mosque\". Euroasia Journal of Mathematics, Engineering, Natural & Medical Sciences International Indexed and Refereed. 9 (23): 1-18.\n\n^ a b Balamir, Aydan; Uraz, Türkan (2006). \"The Extrovert Courtyard House: an Urban Typology in Mardin. The Mungan House.\". The Mediterranean Medina: International Seminar (conference proceedings). Gangemi Editore spa. p. 128. ISBN 978-88-492-9013-4.\n\n^ \"The final nail in the coffin of peace process in Turkey\". Al-Monitor. 22 November 2016. Archived from the original on 30 November 2016. Retrieved 30 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Court arrests former Mardin mayor Ahmet Türk\". Hurriyet Daily News. 24 November 2016. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 30 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Three pro-Kurdish mayors replaced in southeastern Turkey\". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2019-08-19. Retrieved 2019-08-19.\n\n^ \"Trustee Appointed to Cizre Municipality in Şırnak\". Bianet. Archived from the original on 5 December 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2020.\n\n^ Satter, Raphael (16 September 2009). \"8'1\" Turk takes title of world's tallest man\". Archived from the original on 22 September 2009. Retrieved 17 September 2009.\n\n^ \"Medmestno in mednarodno sodelovanje\". Mestna občina Ljubljana (Ljubljana City) (in Slovenian). Archived from the original on 2013-06-26. Retrieved 2013-07-27.\n\nGeneral sources\n\nAyliffe, Rosie, et al. (2000). The Rough Guide to Turkey. London: Rough Guides.\n\nHerbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"Mardin\" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\ndella Valle, Pietro (1843), Viaggi, Brighton, I: 515\n\nGaunt, David: Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I, Gorgias Press, Piscataway (NJ) 2006 I\n\nGrigore, George (2007), L'arabe parlé à Mardin. Monographie d'un parler arabe périphérique. Bucharest: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, ISBN 978-973-737-249-9\n\nJastrow, Otto (1969), Arabische Textproben aus Mardin und Asex, in \"Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft\" (ZDMG) 119 : 29-59.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1992), Lehrbuch der Turoyo-Sprache in \"Semitica Viva - Series Didactica\", Wiesbaden : Otto Harrassowitz.\n\nMinorsky, V. (1991), Mārdīn, in \"The Encyclopaedia of Islam\". Leiden: E. J. Brill.\n\nNiebuhr, Carsten (1778), Reisebeschreibung, Copenhagen, II:391-8\n\nSasse, Hans-Jürgen (1971), Linguistische Analyse des Arabischen Dialekts der Mhallamīye in der Provinz Mardin (Südossttürkei), Berlin.\n\nShumaysani, Hasan (1987), Madinat Mardin min al-fath al-'arabi ila sanat 1515. Bayrūt: 'Ālam al-kutub.\n\nSocin, Albert (1904), Der Arabische Dialekt von Mōsul und Märdīn, Leipzig.\n\nTavernier, Jean-Baptiste (1692), Les six voyages, I:187\n\nWittich, Michaela (2001), Der arabische Dialekt von Azex, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.\n\nExternal links\n\nMardin guide and photo album\n\nMardin weather forecast information\n\nThe Spoken Arabic of Mardin\n\nFirst International Symposium of Mardin History\n\nGCatholic - former & defunct Catholic sees in present Turkey, each linking"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mardin"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6805}, {"slug": "reference-nusaybin", "title": "Nusaybin", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Nusaybin (pronounced [nuˈsajbin], Kurdish: Nisêbîn) is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[2] Its area is 1,079 km2,[3] and its population is 115,586 (2022).[1] The city is populated by Kurds of different tribal affiliation.[4]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nusaybin\n\nDistrict and municipality\n\nClockwise from top: Sakarya Caddesi and Barsı Parkı in central Nusaybin, Nusaybin city hall, the neighboring border zone to Syria, Church of Saint Jacob of Nisibis, Zeynel Abidin Mosque\n\nLogo\n\nMap showing Nusaybin District in Mardin Province\n\nNusaybinLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°04′30″N 41°12′55″E / 37.07500°N 41.21528°E / 37.07500; 41.21528\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nGovernment\n\n • KaymakamErcan Kayabaşı\n\nArea1,079 km2 (417 sq mi)\n\nPopulation (2022)[1]115,586\n\n • Density107.1/km2 (277.4/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nPostal code47300\n\nArea code0482\n\nWebsitewww.nusaybin.bel.tr\nwww.nusaybin.gov.tr\n\nNusaybin (pronounced [nuˈsajbin], Kurdish: Nisêbîn) is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[2] Its area is 1,079 km2,[3] and its population is 115,586 (2022).[1] The city is populated by Kurds of different tribal affiliation.[4]\n\nNusaybin is separated from the larger city of Qamishli by the Syria-Turkey border.[5][6]\n\nThe city is at the foot of the Mount Izla escarpment at the southern edge of the Tur Abdin hills, standing on the banks of the Jaghjagh River (Turkish: Çağçağ), the ancient Mygdonius (Ancient Greek: Μυγδόνιος).[7] The city existed in the Assyrian Empire and is recorded in Akkadian inscriptions as Naṣibīna.[7][8] Having been part of the Achaemenid Empire, in the Hellenistic period the settlement was re-founded as a polis named \"Antioch on the Mygdonius\" by the Seleucid dynasty after the conquests of Alexander the Great.[7] A part of first the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire, the city (Latin: Nisibis; Ancient Greek: Νίσιβις) was mainly Syriac-speaking, and control of it was contested between the Kingdom of Armenia, the Romans, and the Parthian Empire.[7] After a peace treaty contracted between the Sasanian Empire and the Romans in 298 and enduring until 337, Nisibis was capital of Roman Mesopotamia and the seat of its governor (Latin: dux mesopotamiae). Jacob of Nisibis, the city's first known bishop, constructed its first cathedral between 313 and 320.[7] Nisibis was a focus of international trade, and according to the Greek history of Peter the Patrician, the primary point of contact between Roman and Persian empires.[7]\n\nNisibis was besieged three times by the Sasanian army under Shapur II (r. 309-379) in the first half of the 4th century; each time, the city's fortifications held.[7] The Roman soldier and Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus described Nisibis, fortified with walls, towers, and a citadel, as \"the strongest bulwark of the Orient\".[7] After the defeat of the Romans in Julian's Persian War, Julian's successor Jovian (r. 363-364) was forced to cede the five Transtigritine provinces to the Persians, including Nisibis.[7] The city was evacuated and its citizens forced to migrate to Amida (Diyarbakır) - which was expanded to accommodate them - and to Edessa (Urfa). Nisibis remained a major entrepôt; one of only three such cities of commercial exchange allowed by Roman law promulgated in 408/9.[7] However, despite several Roman attempts to recapture Nisibis through the remainder of the Roman-Persian Wars and the construction of nearby Dara to defend against Persian attack, Nisibis was not returned to Roman control before it was conquered in 639 by the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant.[7]\n\nUnder Sasanian rule and after, Nisibis was a major centre of the Christian Church, and the bishop of Nisibis attended the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon convened in 410 by the emperor Yazdegerd I (r. 399-420).[7] As a result of this council, the Church of the East was established, and the bishop of Nisibis became the metropolitan bishop of the five erstwhile Transtigritine provinces.[7] Narsai, formerly a theologian at the School of Edessa, founded the famous School of Nisibis with the bishop, Barsauma, in the 470s.[7] When the Roman emperor Zeno (r. 474-491) closed the School of Edessa in 489, the scholars migrated to Nisibis's school and established the city as the foremost centre of Christian thought in the Church of the East.[7] According to the Damascene monk John Moschus, the city's cathedral had five doors in the 7th century, and the monastic and later bishop of Harran, Simeon of the Olives, was recorded as having renewed several ecclesiastical buildings in the early period of Arab rule.[7] The monasteries of the nearby Tur Abdin, led by the reforms of Abraham the Great of Kashkar, founder of the \"Great Monastery\" of Mount Izla, underwent substantial revival in the years after the Muslim conquest.[7] However, besides the baptistery known as the Church of Saint Jacob (Mar Ya‘qub) and built in 359 by bishop Vologeses, little remains of ancient Nisibis, probably because of ruinous earthquake in 717.[7] Archaeological excavations were conducted in the vicinity of the 4th-century baptistery in the early 21st century, revealing various buildings including the 4th-century cathedral.[7]\n\nHistory\n\nAntiquity\n\nFirst mentioned in 901 BCE, Naṣibīna was an Aramean kingdom captured by the Assyrian king Adad-Nirari II in 896.[9] By 852 BCE, Naṣibīna had been fully annexed to the Neo-Assyrian Empire and appeared in the Assyrian Eponym List as the seat of an Assyrian provincial governor named Shamash-Abua.[10]\n\nIt was under Babylonian control until 539 BCE, when it fell to the Achaemenid Persians, and remained so until taken by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE.\n\nHellenistic period\n\nThe Seleucids re-founded the city as Antiochia Mygdonia (Greek: Ἀντιόχεια τῆς Μυγδονίας), mentioned for the first time in Polybius' description of the march of Antiochus III the Great against Molon (Polybius, V, 51). The Greek historian Plutarch suggested that the city was populated by descendants of Spartans. Around the 1st century CE, Nisibis (Hebrew: נציבין, romanized: Netzivin) was the home of Judah ben Bethera, who founded a famous yeshiva there.[11]\n\nIn 67 BCE, during Rome's first war with Armenia, the Roman general Lucullus took Nisibis (Armenian: Մծբին, romanized: Mtsbin) from the brother of Tigranes.[12]\n\nLike many other cities in the marches where Roman and Parthian powers confronted one another, Nisibis was often taken and retaken. In 115 CE, it was captured by the Roman Emperor Trajan, for which he gained the name of Parthicus,[13] then lost to and regained from the Jews during the Diaspora Revolt. After the Romans again lost the city in 194, it was once more conquered by Septimius Severus, who made it his headquarters and re-established a colony there.[14] The last battle between Rome and Parthia was fought in the vicinity of the city in 217.[15]\n\nLate Antiquity\n\nWith the fresh energy of the new Sassanid dynasty, Shapur I conquered Nisibis, was driven out, and returned in the 260s. In 298, by a treaty with Narseh, the province of Nisibis was acquired by the Roman Empire.\n\nDuring the Roman-Persian Wars (337-363 CE) Nisibis was unsuccessfully besieged by the Sassanid Empire thrice, in 337, 346 and 350. According to the Expositio totius mundi et gentium bronze and iron were forbidden to be exported to the Persians, but for other goods, Nisibis was the site of substantial trade across the Roman-Persian frontier.[7]\n\nUpon the death of Constantine the Great in 337 CE, the Sassanid Shah Shapur II marched against Roman held Nisibis with a vast army composed of cavalry, infantry and elephants. His combat engineers raised siege works, including towers, so his archers could rain down arrows at the defenders. They also undermined the walls, dammed the Mygdonius River and constructed dikes to direct the river against the walls. On the seventieth day of the siege, the water was released and the torrent struck the walls; entire sections of the city walls collapsed. The water passed through the city and knocked down a section of the opposite wall as well. The Persians were unable to assault the city because the approaches to the breaches were impassable due to floodwater, mud and debris. The soldiers and citizens inside the city worked all night and by dawn the breaches were closed with makeshift barriers. Shapur's assault troops attacked the breaches, but their assault was repulsed. A few days later the Persian lifted the siege.[16]\n\nNisibis was besieged a second time in 346 CE. The details of the second siege have not survived. Shapur besieged the city for seventy-eight days and then lifted the siege.[17]\n\nIn 350 CE, while the Roman Emperor Constantius II was engaged in a civil war against the usurper Magnentius in the West, the Persians invaded and laid siege to Nisibis for the third time. The siege lasted between 100 and 160 days. The Persian engineers tried several innovative siege technics; using the River Mygdonius to bring down a section of the walls, and creating a lake around the city and using boats with siege engines to bring down another section. Unlike the first siege, as the walls fell, Persian assault troops immediately entered the breaches supported by war elephants. Despite all this they failed to break through the breaches and the attack stalled. The Romans, experts at close-quarter combat, and supported by arrows and bolts from the walls and towers checked the assault and a sortie from one of the gates forced the Persians to withdraw. Shortly after the Persian Army, suffering heavy casualties from combat and disease, lifted the siege and withdrew.[18]\n\nThe Syriac poet Ephrem the Syrian witnessed all three sieges, and praised Nisibis's successive bishops for their contributions to the defences in his Carmina Nisibena, 'song of Nisibis', while the Roman caesar Julian (r. 355-363) described the third siege in his panegyric to his senior co-emperor, the augustus Constantius II (r. 337-361).[7] The Roman historian of the 4th century, Ammianus Marcellinus, gained his first practical experience of warfare as a young man at Nisibis under the magister equitum, Ursicinus. From 360 to 363, Nisibis was the camp of Legio I Parthica. Because of its strategic importance on the Persian border, Nisibis was heavily fortified. Ammianus lovingly calls Nisibis the \"impregnable city\" (urbs inexpugnabilis) and \"bulwark of the provinces\" (murus provinciarum).\n\nSozomen writes that when the inhabitants of Nisibis asked for help because the Persians were about to invade the Roman territories and attack them, Emperor Julian refused to assist them because they were Christianized, and he told them that he would not help them if they did not return to paganism.[19]\n\nIn 363 Nisibis was ceded to the Sassanian Empire after the defeat of Julian. Before that time the population of the town was forced by the Roman authorities to leave Nisibis and move to Amida. Emperor Jovian allowed them only three days for the evacuation. Historian Ammianus Marcellinus was again an eyewitness and condemns Emperor Jovian for giving up the fortified town without a fight. Marcellinus' point-of-view is certainly in line with contemporary Roman public opinion. According to the Latin historian Eutropius, the cession of Nisibis was supposed to last 120 years.[7]\n\nAccording to Al-Tabari, some 12,000 Persians of good lineage from Istakhr, Isfahan, and other regions settled at Nisibis in the fourth century, and their descendants were still there at the beginning of the seventh century.[20]\n\nThe School of Nisibis, founded at the introduction of Christianity into the city by ethnic Assyrians of the Assyrian Church of the East,[21] was closed when the province was ceded to the Persians. Ephrem the Syriac, a Syriac Christian poet, commentator, preacher and defender of orthodoxy, joined the general exodus of Christians and re-established the school on more securely Roman soil at Edessa. In the fifth century, the school became a center of Nestorian Christianity, and was closed down by Archbishop Cyrus in 489. The expelled masters and pupils withdrew once more, back to Nisibis, under the care of Barsauma, who had been trained at Edessa, under the patronage of Narses, who established the statutes of the new school. Those that have been discovered and published belong to Osee, the successor of Barsauma in the See of Nisibis, and bear the date 496; they must be substantially the same as those of 489. In 590, they were again modified. The monastery school was under a superior called Rabban (\"master\"), a title also given to the instructors. The administration was confided to a major-domo, who was steward, prefect of discipline and librarian, but under the supervision of a council. Unlike the Jacobite schools, devoted chiefly to profane studies, the School of Nisibis was above all a school of theology. The two chief masters were the instructors in reading and in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, explained chiefly with the aid of Theodore of Mopsuestia. The free course of studies lasted three years, the students providing for their own support. During their sojourn at the university, masters and students led a monastic life under somewhat special conditions. The school had a tribunal and enjoyed the right of acquiring all sorts of property. Its rich library possessed a most beautiful collection of Nestorian works; from its remains Ebed-Jesus, Bishop of Nisibis in the 14th century, composed his celebrated catalogue of ecclesiastical writers. The disorders and dissensions, which arose in the sixth century in the school of Nisibis, favoured the development of its rivals, especially that of Seleucia; however, it did not really begin to decline until after the foundation of the School of Baghdad (832). Notable people associated with the school include its founder Narses; Abraham, his nephew and successor; Abraham of Kashgar, the restorer of monastic life; and Archbishop Elijah of Nisibis.\n\nAs a fortified frontier city, Nisibis played a major role in the Roman-Persian Wars. It became the capital of the newly created province of Mesopotamia after Diocletian's organization of the eastern Roman frontier. It became known as the \"Shield of the Empire\" after a successful resistance in 337-350. The city changed hands several times, and once in Sasanian hands, Nisibis was the base of operations against the Romans. The city was also one of the main crossing points for merchants, although elaborate counter-espionage safeguards were also in place.[22]\n\nMedieval period\n\nThe city was taken without resistance by the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar in 639 or 640. Under early Islamic rule, the city served as a local administrative centre. In 717, it was struck by an earthquake and in 927 it was raided by the Qarmatians. Nisibis was captured in 942 by the Byzantine Empire but was subsequently recaptured by the Hamdanid dynasty. It was attacked by the Byzantines once again in 972. Following the Hamdanids, the city was administered by the Marwanids and the Uqaylids. From the middle of the 11th century onwards, it was subjected to Turkish raids and being threatened by the County of Edessa, being attacked and damaged by Seljuq forces under Tughril in 1043. The city nevertheless remained an important centre of commerce and transport.[23]\n\nIn 1120, it was captured by the Artuqids under Necmeddin Ilgazi, followed by Nur al-Din Zengi in 1171, who demolished many of the city's churches, including the Church of Saint Jacob.[24] The city was later controlled by the Ayyubids. Nisibis was described as prosperous by the period's Arab geographers and historians, with imposing baths, walls, lavish houses, a bridge and a hospital. In 1230, the city was invaded by the Mongol Empire. Mongol sovereignty was followed by that of the Ag Qoyunlu, Kara Koyunlu and Safavids. In 1515, it was taken by the Ottoman Empire under Selim I.[23]\n\nModern history\n\nOn the eve of World War I, Nusaybin had a Christian community of 2000, along with a Jewish population of 600.[25] A massacre of Christians took place in August 1915, after which the Christian community of Nusaybin diminished to 1200. Syriac Jacobites, Chaldean Catholics, Protestants, and Armenians were targeted.[26][27][28][29]\n\nAs agreed upon by the governments of France and the new Republic of Turkey in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkey-Syria border would follow the line of the Baghdad Railway until Nusaybin, after which it would follow the path of a Roman road leading to Cizre.[30] After the establishment of the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, Nusaybin lost over 60% of its population to the settlements there, most prominently Qamishli.[31]\n\nNusaybin was a place on the transit routes of Syrian Jews leaving the country after the 1948 formation of Israel and the subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries. Upon reaching Turkey, after a route that took them through Aleppo and the Jazira sometimes with the help of Bedouin smugglers, most headed for Israel.[32] There had been a large Jewish community in Nisbis since antiquity, many of whom moved to Qamishli in the early 20th century for economic reasons. A synagogue in Jerusalem practises the Nisibis and Qamishli rites today.\n\n21st century\n\nNusaybin made headlines in 2006 when villagers near Kuru uncovered a mass grave, suspected of belonging to Ottoman Armenians and Assyrians killed during the Armenian and Assyrian genocides.[33] Swedish historian David Gaunt visited the site to investigate its origins, but left after finding evidence of tampering.[34][35][36] Gaunt, who has studied 150 massacres carried out in the summer of 1915 in Mardin, said that the Committee of Union and Progress's governor for Mardin, Halil Edip, had likely ordered the massacre on 14 June 1915, leaving 150 Armenians and 120 Assyrians dead. The settlement was then known as Dara (now Oğuz). Gaunt added that the death squad, named El-Hamşin (meaning \"fifty men\"), was headed by officer Refik Nizamettin Kaddur. The president of the Turkish Historical Society, Yusuf Halaçoğlu, following the Turkish government's policy of Armenian genocide denial, said that the remains dated back to Roman times.[37] Özgür Gündem reported that the Turkish military and police pressed the Turkish media not to report the discovery.[38]\n\nThe Turkish Interior Ministry looked into dissolving Nusaybin city council in 2012 after it decided to use Arabic, Armenian, Aramaic, and Kurmanji on signposts in the town, in addition to the Turkish language.[39]\n\nTensions and violence\n\nIn November 2013, Nusaybin's mayor, Ayşe Gökkan, commenced a hunger strike to protest against the construction of a wall between Nusaybin and the neighboring Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in Syria. Construction of the wall stopped as a result of this and other protests.[40]\n\nOn 13 November 2015, the town was placed under a curfew by the Turkish government, and Ali Atalan and Gülser Yıldırım, two elected members of the Grand National Assembly from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), began a hunger strike in protest. Two civilians and ten PKK fighters were killed by security forces in the ensuing unrest.[41] By March 2016, PKK forces controlled about half of Nusaybin according to Al-Masdar News[42] and the YPS controlled \"much\" of it, according to The Independent.[43] The Turkish state imposed eight successive curfews over several months and employed the use of heavy weapons in defeating the Kurdish militants, resulting in large swathes of Nusaybin being destroyed.[44] 61 members of the security forces had been killed by May 2016.[45] By 9 April, 60,000 residents of the city had been displaced, yet 30,000 civilians remained in the city, including in the six neighborhoods where fighting continued.[46] YPS reportedly had 700-800 militants in the city,[46] of which the Turkish army claimed that 325 were \"neutralised\" by 4 May.[47] A curfew was in place between 14 March and 25 July in the majority of the town.[48] After the fighting ended in a Turkish Army victory, in late September 2016 the Turkish government began demolishing a quarter of the city's residential buildings. This rendered 30,000 citizens homeless and caused a mass evacuation of tens of thousands of residents to neighboring towns and villages. Over 6,000 houses were bulldozed. After demolition was completed in March 2017, over one hundred apartment towers were built. The Turkish government offered to compensate homeowners at 12% of the value of their destroyed houses if they agreed to certain relocation conditions.[49]\n\nEconomy\n\nAs a result of Turkish government policy to close all border crossings with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the city's border with Syria (i.e. the large Syrian city of Qamishli) has been closed, with claims that the cessation in smuggling has led to a 90% rise in unemployment in the city.[50]\n\nTransportation\n\nNusaybin is served by the E90 roadway and other roads to surrounding towns. The Nusaybin Railway Station is served by two daily trains. The closest airport is Qamishli Airport five kilometers to the south, in Qamishli in Syria. The closest Turkish airport is Mardin Airport, 55 kilometers northwest of Nusaybin.\n\nGeography\n\nNusaybin is on the north side of the Syria-Turkey border, which divides it from the city of Qamishli. The Jaghjagh River flows through both cities. The Nusaybin side of the border has a minefield, with a total of some 600,000 landmines having been set by the Turkish Armed Forces since the 1950s. Located to the east is Mount Judi, which people (including Muslims) consider to be the place where the ark of Nuh or Noah (who is regarded as a Nabi or Prophet in Abrahamic religions) came to rest.\n\nComposition\n\nThere are 84 neighbourhoods in Nusaybin District.[51] Fifteen of these (8 Mart, Abdulkadirpaşa, Barış, Devrim, Dicle, Fırat, Gırnavas, İpekyolu, Kışla, Mor-Yakup, Selahattin Eyyübi, Yenişehir, Yenituran and Zeynelabidin) form the central town (merkez) of Nusaybin.[52]\n\n8. Mart\n\nAbdulkadirpaşa\n\nAcıkköy (Bamidê)\n\nAçıkyol (Aferî)\n\nAkağıl (Derzandik)\n\nAkarsu (Stîlîtê)\n\nAkçatarla (Dal)\n\nBahçebaşı (Bawernê)\n\nBakacık (Kinikê)\n\nBalaban (Birêgiriya)\n\nBarış\n\nBeylik (Bakisyan)\n\nBüyükkardeş (Cinata Miho)\n\nÇağlar (Şanîşê)\n\nÇalıköy (Çalê)\n\nÇatalözü (Gundikê Xêlid)\n\nÇiğdem (Giremara)\n\nÇilesiz (Mezra Mihoka)\n\nÇölova (Menderê)\n\nDağiçi (Harabemişke)\n\nDallıağaç (Herbê)\n\nDeğirmencik (Qolika)\n\nDemirtepe (Girhesin)\n\nDevrim\n\nDibek (Badip)\n\nDicle\n\nDirim (Şabanê)\n\nDoğanlı (Talat)\n\nDoğuş (Qûzo)\n\nDurakbaşı (Qesra)\n\nDuruca (Kertwin)\n\nDüzce (Sirinçk)\n\nEskihisar (Marinê)\n\nEskimağara (Zivingê)\n\nEskiyol (Cuva)\n\nFırat\n\nGirmeli (Girmira)\n\nGırnavas\n\nGörentepe (Bizgur)\n\nGünebakan (Zorava)\n\nGüneli (Geliyê Sora)\n\nGünyurdu (Marbobo), (Merbabê)\n\nGürün (Gurinê)\n\nGüvenli (Xirbeka)\n\nHasantepe (Tilhasan)\n\nHeybeyi (Dêrcemê)\n\nİkiztepe (Têzxerab)\n\nIlkadım (Habisê)\n\nİpekyolu\n\nKalecik (Kelehê, Keleha Bûnûsra)\n\nKaleli (Efşê)\n\nKantar (Qenter)\n\nKaracaköy (Xerabê Reşik)\n\nKayadibi (Mendikan)\n\nKışla\n\nKocadağ (Gelîye Pîra)\n\nKüçükkardeş (Cinata His)\n\nKuruköy (Xerabê Bava)\n\nKuyular (Cibilgrav)\n\nMor-Yakup\n\nNergizli (Nergizlokê)\n\nOdabaşı (Igunduke d-'ito), Gundik Şukrî)\n\nPazarköy (Bazar)\n\nSelahattin Eyyübi\n\nSınırtepe (Aznavur)\n\nSöğütlü (Girêbiya)\n\nTaşköy (ʼArboʼ)\n\nTekağaç (Mişavil)\n\nTepealtı (Tel Yaqub)\n\nTepeören (Xirbêzil)\n\nTepeüstü (Tilminar)\n\nTurgutköy (Kemina)\n\nÜçköy (Arkaḥ)\n\nÜçyol (Sederi)\n\nYandere (Hatxê)\n\nYavruköy (Kurke)\n\nYazyurdu (Qesra Belek)\n\nYenişehir\n\nYenituran\n\nYerköy (Binerdka)\n\nYeşilkent\n\nYolbilen (Erbet)\n\nYolindi (Cibiltînê)\n\nZeynelabidin\n\nClimate\n\nNusaybin has a semi-arid climate with extremely hot summers and cool winters. Rainfall is generally sparse.\n\nClimate data for Nusaybin\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n13\n(55)\n\n17\n(63)\n\n22\n(72)\n\n30\n(86)\n\n37\n(99)\n\n41\n(106)\n\n40\n(104)\n\n35\n(95)\n\n28\n(82)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n13\n(55)\n\n26\n(78)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n6\n(43)\n\n7\n(45)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n16\n(61)\n\n22\n(72)\n\n28\n(82)\n\n32\n(90)\n\n31\n(88)\n\n27\n(81)\n\n21\n(70)\n\n13\n(55)\n\n8\n(46)\n\n19\n(65)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n3\n(37)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n7\n(45)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n16\n(61)\n\n21\n(70)\n\n25\n(77)\n\n24\n(75)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n16\n(61)\n\n9\n(48)\n\n5\n(41)\n\n13\n(56)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n51\n(2.0)\n\n30\n(1.2)\n\n35\n(1.4)\n\n26\n(1.0)\n\n16\n(0.6)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n12\n(0.5)\n\n19\n(0.7)\n\n34\n(1.3)\n\n223\n(8.7)\n\nAverage rainy days\n\n8\n\n7\n\n7\n\n5\n\n2\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2\n\n4\n\n6\n\n41\n\nSource: Weather2[53]\n\nDemographics\n\nNusaybin is predominantly ethnically Kurdish. The city's people have historically close ties with those of neighboring Qamishli, and cross-border marriages are a common practice.[54][55] The city also contains a minority Arab population.[56]\n\nIn the early 20th century, Nusaybin was composed mostly of Arabs who came from Mardin, roughly 500 Jews, and some Assyrians, totaling to 2000 people. Likewise, Mark Sykes recorded Nusaybin as a town inhabited by Chaldeans, Arabs, and Jews.[57] The town was largely Arabic-speaking such that Kurdish families settling in the town eventually learned Arabic. The ethnic and linguistic demographics changed after mid-century. Jews migrated to Israel, and Assyrian population substantially decreased. After dense Kurdish migration in the late 20th century, Nusaybin became a largely Kurdish-speaking and Kurdish town.[58]\n\nMother tongue, Nusaybin District, 1927 Turkish census[59]\n\nTurkish\nArabic\nKurdish\nCircassian\nArmenian\nUnknown or other languages\n\n1,024\n1,109\n9,604\n-\n-\n536\n\nReligion, Nusaybin District, 1927 Turkish census[59]\n\nMuslim\nChristian\nJewish\nUnknown or other religion\n\n11,212\n385\n392\n282\n\nA very small Assyrian population remains in the city; what remained of the Assyrian population emigrated during the height of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1990s and as a result of the resumption of the conflict in 2016, only one Assyrian family reportedly remained in the city.[60][61] The Kurdish character of Nusaybin has been highlighted in recent scholarship: Kucukkirca (2025), in a study of homelessness and homemaking in the city, characterised Nusaybin as \"a Kurdish city in Turkey\" and noted that the Kurdish language is \"deeply tied to identity\" among its residents.[62] Sociolinguistic research has further documented high rates of Kurmanji use in the Mardin-Nusaybin area, reflecting the predominance of Northern Kurdish as a spoken vernacular.[63]\n\nChristianity\n\nNisibis (Syriac: ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, Nṣibin, later Syriac ܨܘܒܐ, Ṣōbā) had an Assyrian Christian bishop from 300, founded by Babu (died 309). Shapur II besieged the city in 338, 346, and 350, when St Jacob or James of Nisibis, Babu's successor, was its bishop. Nisibis was the home of Ephrem the Syrian, who remained until its surrender to the Sassanid Persians by Roman Emperor Jovian in 363. The bishop of Nisibis was the Metropolitan Archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Bit-Arbaye. By 410, it had six suffragan sees and as early as the middle of the 5th century was the most important episcopal see of the Church of the East after Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Many of its Nestorian or Assyrian Church of the East and Jacobite bishops were renowned for their writings, including Barsumas, Osee, Narses, Jesusyab and Ebed-Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church has defined titular archbishoprics of Nisibis, for various rites - one Latin and four Eastern Catholic for particular churches sui iuris, notably the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Maronite Catholic Church.[64]\n\nWhen the Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Hassaké was promoted to archiepiscopal rank, it added Nisibi to its name, becoming the Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Hassaké-Nisibi (not Metropolitan, directly dependent on the Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch).\n\nLatin titular see\n\nEstablished in the 18th century as Titular Archiepiscopal see of Nisibis (informally Nisibis of the Romans). It has been vacant for several decades, having previously had the following incumbents, all of the (intermediary) archiepiscopal rank:\n\nGiambattista Braschi (1724.12.20 - 1736.11.24)\n\nJosé Calzado López (Bolaños de Calatrava, 17/04/1680 - Madrid, 7/04/1761) Discalced Franciscans (O.F.M. Disc.) (1738.11.24 - 1761.04.07)\n\nCesare Brancadoro (1789.10.20 - 1800.08.11) (later Cardinal)*\n\nLorenzo Caleppi (1801.02.23 - 1816.03.08) (later Cardinal)*\n\nVincenzo Macchi (1818.10.02 - 1826.10.02)(later Cardinal)*\n\nCarlo Luigi Morichini (1845.04.21 - 1852.03.15) (later Cardinal)*\n\nVincenzo Tizzani, C.R.L. (1855.03.26 - 1886.01.15) (later Patriarch)*\n\nJohann Gabriel Léon Louis Meurin, Jesuits (S.J.) (1887.09.15 - 1887.09.27)\n\nGiuseppe Giusti (1891.12.14 - 1897.03.31)\n\nFederico Pizza (1897.04.19 - 1909.03.28)\n\nFrancis McCormack (1909.06.21 - 1909.11.14)\n\nJoseph Petrelli (1915.03.30 - 1962.04.29)\n\nJosé de la Cruz Turcios y Barahona, Salesians (S.D.B.) (1962.05.18 - 1968.07.18)\n\nArmenian Catholic titular see\n\nEstablished as Titular Archiepiscopal see of Nisibis (informally Nisibis of the Armenians) in circa 1910. It was suppressed in 1933, having had a single incumbent, of the (intermediary) archiepiscopal rank :\n\nGregorio Govrik, Mechitarists (C.A.M.) (1910.05.07 - 1931.01.26)\n\nChaldean Catholic titular see\n\nEstablished as Titular Archiepiscopal see of Nisibis (informally Nisibis of the Chaldeans) in the late 19th century, suppressed in 1927, restored in 1970. It has had the following incumbents, all of the (intermediary) archiepiscopal rank :\n\nGiuseppe Elis Khayatt (22 April 1895 - 13 April 1900)\n\nHormisdas Etienne Djibri (30 November 1902 - 31 August 1917)\n\nThomas Michel Bidawid (24 August 1970 - 20 March 1971)\n\nGabriel Koda (14 December 1977 - February 1992)\n\nJacques Ishaq (21 December 2005 - 22 June 2023), Curial Bishop emeritus of the Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate of Babylon\n\nGeorge Koovakad (25 October 2024 )[65]\n\nMaronite titular see\n\nEstablished as Titular Archiepiscopal see of Nisibis (informally Nisibis of the Maronites) in 1960. It has had two incumbents of the (intermediary) archiepiscopal rank:\n\nPietro Sfair (1960.03.11 - 1974.05.18)\n\nMichel Jalakh\n\nNotable people\n\nEphraim the Syrian (4th century), Christian Saint was native of Nisibis (modern Nusaybin)\n\nMusa Anter (1920-1992), Kurdish writer, journalist and intellectual\n\nGülser Yıldırım (1963*), Politician\n\nMithat Sancar (1963*), professor of public and constitutional law, columnist and translator\n\nSara Kaya (1970*), Politician\n\nFerhad Ayaz (1994*), Footballer\n\nSee also\n\nFebronia of Nisibis\n\nMor Yakup Church\n\nNisibis (East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province)\n\nThamanin\n\nZeynel Abidin Mosque Complex\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports\" (XLS). TÜİK. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). Pak Ajans Yayincilik Turizm Ve Diş Ticaret Limited şirketi. pp. 326-327, 341. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ \"Will Kurds find a ray of hope in 2020?\". Al-Monitor. 2020-01-02. Retrieved 2020-12-15.\n\n^ \"Qamishli Kurds commemorate 2004 uprising\". Syria Direct. 14 March 2016. Retrieved 2020-12-15.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), \"Nisibis\", in Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8, retrieved 2020-11-28\n\n^ Mechanisms of Communication in the Assyrian Empire. \"People, gods, & places.\" History Department, University College London, 2009. Accessed 18 Dec 2010.\n\n^ Lendering, Jona. \"Nisibis Archived 2016-04-30 at the Wayback Machine.\" Accessed 18 Dec 2010.\n\n^ Lendering, Jona. Assyrian Eponym List Archived 2016-12-27 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 18 Dec 2010.\n\n^ Talmud, Sanhedrin 32b\n\n^ Philip Matyszak, Mithridates the Great, Rome's Indomitable Enemy, p. 139; Lee Fratantuono, Lucullus, the Life and Campaigns of a Roman Conqueror, pp. 104-105; Dio Cassius, XXXVI, 6-7; Eutropius, Breviarium, 6.9.1.\n\n^ Dio Cassius, LXVIII, 23\n\n^ Dio Cassius, LXXV, 23\n\n^ Cowan, Ross (2009). \"The Battle of Nisibis, AD 217\". Ancient Warfare. 3 (5): 29-35. Archived from the original on 29 April 2016. Retrieved 1 April 2014.\n\n^ Harrel, John S. The Nisibis War, pp. 75-76.\n\n^ Harrel, John S. The Nisibis War, p. 82; Dodgeon and Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, pp. 191-192.\n\n^ Harrel, John S. The Nisibis War, pp 82-83; Dodgeon and Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, pp. 193-206.\n\n^ \"SOZOMENOS, ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, § 5.3\".\n\n^ Iranica: IRAQ i. IN THE LATE SASANID AND EARLY ISLAMIC ERAS\n\n^ Jonsson, David J. (2005). The Clash of Ideologies. Xulon Press. p. 181. ISBN 1-59781-039-8.\n\n^ Lieu, Samuel. \"Nisibis\" in Encyclopaedia Iranica\n\n^ a b Tuncel, Metin (2007). \"Nusaybin\". TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. 33 (Nesi̇h - Osmanlilar) (in Turkish). Istanbul: Presidency of Religious Affairs, Centre for Islamic Studies. pp. 269-270. ISBN 978-975-389-455-5.\n\n^ Vryonis, Speros (1971). The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamisation from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. Berkeley: California University Press. p. 157\n\n^ Kevorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History. London: Tauris. p. 378.\n\n^ Kieser, Hans Lukas; Plozzo, Elmar, eds. (2006). Der Völkermord an den Armeniern, die Türkei und Europa. Chronos Verlag. p. 82. ISBN 978-3-0340-0789-4.\n\n^ Üngör, Uğur (2005). A Reign of Terror (PDF). University of Amsterdam. p. 75.\n\n^ Rhétoré, Jacques (2005). Les chrétiens aux bêtes: souvenirs de la guerre sainte proclamée par les Turcs contre les chrétiens en 1915. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf. p. 129. ISBN 2204072435.\n\n^ \"The Extermination of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk Regime (1915-1916) | Sciences Po Mass Violence and Resistance - Research Network\". extermination-ottoman-armenians-young-turk-regime-1915-1916.html. 2016-01-25. Retrieved 2020-06-16.\n\n^ Altuğ, Seda and Benjamin Thomas White (Jul-Sep 2009). \"Frontières et pouvoir d'État: La frontière turco-syrienne dans les années 1920 et 1930\". Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire. doi:10.3917/ving.103.0091.\n\n^ Gibert, André; Févret, Maurice (1953). \"La Djezireh syrienne et son réveil économique\". Géocarrefour. 28 (1): 11. doi:10.3406/geoca.1953.1294 - via Persee.\n\n^ Simon, Reeva, Michael M. Laskier, and Sara Reguer (2003). The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 328. ISBN 9780231107976.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Oruc, Berguzar (2006-10-19). \"Ermeni köyu'nde toplu mezar\". Dicle Haber (in Turkish). Özgür Gündem. Retrieved 2008-09-23.\n\n^ Gunaysu, Ayse (2006-11-07). \"Toplu mezar Ermeni ve Süryanilere ait\". Özgür Gündem (in Turkish). Retrieved 2008-09-23.\n\n^ Belli, Onur Burcak (2007-04-27). \"Truth of mass grave eludes Swedish professor\". Turkish Daily News. Archived from the original on 2010-07-31. Retrieved 2008-09-23.\n\n^ \"Blogian (www.blogian.net) » Genocide Mass Grave Manipulated in Turkey\". Retrieved 2020-06-16.\n\n^ \"Toplu mezarla yüzleşme vakti\". Özgür Gündem (in Turkish). 2006-12-13. Retrieved 2008-09-23.\n\n^ Oruc, Berguzar (2006-10-22). \"Toplu mezar gizleniyor\". Dicle Haber. Özgür Gündem. Retrieved 2008-09-23.\n\n^ Gusten, Susanne (2012-03-21). \"Sensing a Siege, Kurds Hit Back in Turkey\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2015-10-16.\n\n^ \"Solidarity with Nusaybin Mayor Ayse Gokkan\". www.jadaliyya.com. Retrieved 2015-10-16.\n\n^ 2 HDP deputies go on hunger strike to end days-long Nusaybin curfew Archived 2015-11-20 at the Wayback Machine dated November 19, 2015, at todayszaman.com, accessed 21 November 2015.\n\n^ \"Kurds capture 50% of Turkish city on the border with Syria\". Al-Masdar News. 2016-03-23. Archived from the original on 2021-11-04. Retrieved 2016-03-24.\n\n^ \"Nusaybin, the Turkish city where war is now a way of life\". The Independent. 14 March 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.\n\n^ \"Images reveal devastating impact of Turkish military's offensive in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish city of Nusaybin - Nordic Monitor\". nordicmonitor.com. 3 January 2020.\n\n^ \"Nusaybin'den son görüntüler\" (in Turkish). NTV. Retrieved 1 May 2016.\n\n^ a b \"Vali devre dışı, Nusaybin'i asker yönetecek: 30 bin sivil...\" Cumhuriyet. Retrieved 5 May 2016.\n\n^ \"Nusaybin'de PKK'ya ağır darbe!\". Milliyet. 4 May 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2016.\n\n^ \"Nusaybin'de sokağa çıkma yasağı kaldırıldı\". Cumhuriyet. 25 July 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Managing Turkey's PKK Conflict: The Case of Nusaybin\". Crisis Group. May 2, 2017.\n\n^ \"Turkey, Syria and the Kurds: South by south-east\". The Economist. 20 October 2012.\n\n^ Mahalle, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Erkınay Tamtamış, H.K. (2022). \"Nusaybin Mahalle Adlarına Anlambilimsel Bir Bakış\". Mukaddime (in Turkish). 13 (1): 180.\n\n^ \"June Climate History for Nusaybin | Local | Turkey\".\n\n^ Zalewski, Piotr (5 April 2012). \"How Bashar Assad Has Come Between the Kurds of Turkey and Syria\". Time. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 5 May 2016.\n\n^ Yıldırım, Ayşe (2013), Devlet, Sınır, Aşiret: Nusaybin Örneği (PDF) (PhD thesis) (in Turkish), Hacettepe University, retrieved 6 May 2016\n\n^ Halifeoğlu, Fatma Meral (2006). \"SAVUR GELENEKSEL KENT DOKUSU İLE SOSYAL YAPI İLİŞKİSİ ÜZERİNE BİR İNCELEME\". Elektronik Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. 5 (17): 76-84. ISSN 1304-0278. Archived from the original on 2016-06-04. Retrieved 2016-05-05.\n\n^ Sykes, Mark (1904). Dar-ul-Islam: A Record of a Journey Through Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey. Bickers & Son. p. 264.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). Pak Ajans Yayincilik Turizm Ve Diş Ticaret Limited şirketi. p. 326. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ a b \"Mardin population census Republic of Turkey by first results\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-06-26.\n\n^ \"Son Süryaniler de göç yolunda\". Evrensel. Retrieved 5 May 2016.\n\n^ \"Nusaybin'in son Süryani ailesi: Terk etmeyeceğiz\". Evrensel. Retrieved 5 May 2016.\n\n^ Kucukkirca, Ilker Aytürk (2025). \"Homelessness and Homemaking at the Intersection of the Public and the Private in Nusaybin, 2016-2023\". Kurdish Studies Journal. Brill.\n\n^ Zeyneloğlu, Sinan; Sirkeci, Ibrahim; Civelek, Yusuf (2016). \"Kurdish identity, demographics and related issues\". Kurdish Studies. 4 (1): 37-60.\n\n^ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 941]\n\n^ \"Resignations and Appointments, 25.10.2024\" (Press release). Holy See Press Office. 25 October 2024. Retrieved 25 October 2024.\n\nSources and external links\n\nLieu, Samuel (2006). \"NISIBIS\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nNisibis, Catholic Encyclopedia\n\nGCatholic, Armenian Catholic titular see\n\nGCatholic, Chaldean Catholic titular see\n\nGCatholic, Latin Catholic titular see\n\nGCatholic, Maronite titular see\n\nTurkish News - Latest News from Turkey, Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review\n\nThe Battle of Nisibis, AD 217"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nusaybin"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6064}, {"slug": "reference-mor-gabriel-monastery", "title": "Mor Gabriel Monastery", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The Monastery of Saint Gabriel (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ; Dayro d-Mor Gabriel),[1] also known as Monastery of Qartmin, Deir el-ʿUmr,[2] Deyrulumur, and in Turkish, Mor Gabriel Manastırı, is a Syriac Orthodox monastery located near Midyat in the Tur Abdin region of southeastern Turkey. Founded in 397 AD by...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Monastery of St. Gabriel \n ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ\nTowers of the monastery's churches\n\nLocation within Turkey\n\nMonastery information\n\nOther namesDayro d-Mor Gabriel\nDeyrulumur\n\nOrderSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nEstablished397\n\nDedicationSaint Gabriel of Beth Qustan\n\nDioceseDiocese of Tur Abdin\n\nControlled churchesSaint Gabriel Church, Church of the Virgin Mary, Church of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste\n\nPeople\n\nFoundersMor Samuel and Mor Simon\n\nAbbotMor Timotheos Aktas\n\nSite\n\nCoordinates37°19′18.4″N 41°32′18.6″E / 37.321778°N 41.538500°E / 37.321778; 41.538500\n\nThe Monastery of Saint Gabriel (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ; Dayro d-Mor Gabriel),[1] also known as Monastery of Qartmin, Deir el-ʿUmr,[2] Deyrulumur, and in Turkish, Mor Gabriel Manastırı, is a Syriac Orthodox monastery located near Midyat in the Tur Abdin region of southeastern Turkey. Founded in 397 AD by the ascetics Mor Shmuel of Qartmin and Mor Shemʿun of Qartmin, it is one of the oldest surviving Assyrian monasteries in the world and one of the oldest continuously active Christian monasteries in existence.[3]\n\nThe monastery has elaborate decorations that have been added over the centuries, starting when the location served as a Zoroastrian temple and continuing to this day. It comprises several structures, including the main church, the Dome of Theodora, a mausoleum, and other buildings; it also houses the relics of its namesake, Gabriel of Beth Qustan. The monastery remains a popular pilgrimage site and functions as a religious and social centre for the remaining Christian Assyrians.\n\nThroughout its history, it has served for centuries as a major centre of Syriac monasticism, theology and cultural preservation for the Syriac-speaking Christian community. From Turco-Mongol raids, to Byzantine imperial persecution, to contemporary land and legal disputes with the Turkish state, it has endured many periods of conflict and persecution, yet survives today as a monastic centre; legal disputes brought by the Turkish state and local Kurdish authorities against the indigenous community, however, are ongoing. The monastery currently serves as the seat of the metropolitan of Tur Abdin.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Monastery of Mor Gabriel is situated in the heart of Tur Abdin, on a caldera formed by an ancient meteorite impact, evidenced by the presence of broken quartz fragments. Like many other monasteries in the region, it was constructed using stone blocks from a pre-Christian temple, with its eastern wall preserved from the original Zoroastrian sanctuary. Architectural slits in the one-metre-thick walls are aligned with the summer solstice, reflecting the solar cult practices of that earlier tradition.[4]\n\nAccording to the Life of Shmuel, the origins of the monastery date back to the late 4th century. Shmuel (Samuel), a disciple of the martyred Bishop Karpos who had been killed by Persian raiders, fled into the hills and came to the village of Qartmin. There he acquired a disciple, Shem‘un (Simon), and together they lived in a temple that is now identified with the \"Arches of Mor Gabriel\". Simon experienced a vision of an angel commanding him to build a Beth Slutho (open-air enclosure for prayer) further west, marked by three large stone blocks. When they located the spot, they began the foundation of what became the Monastery of Mor Gabriel. Around forty years later, in 397, the Roman emperor formally recognised and endowed the institution.[5]\n\nBy the 6th century the monastery's reputation had grown considerably, and its community swelled to over 1,000 monks, including both local Assyrians and Copts. Its fame was such that it attracted donations and benefactions from Eastern Roman emperors Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius II and Anastasius.[6] Toward the end of the century, Simeon of the Olives, a former monk of Mor Gabriel who later became bishop of Harran, renovated the monastery with funds discovered in a buried treasure.[7]\n\nFollowing the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the staunchly Miaphysite stronghold of Tur Abdin, including Mor Gabriel, rejected the council's decrees and forfeited the benefactions of Emperor Marcian, a determined supporter of Chalcedon. Later, Emperor Anastasius, who opposed the council, restored imperial patronage. He financed the construction of a new church with a large prayer hall that still functions as the monastery's main church today, and added the \"Dome of Theodora\", an octagonal structure originally built as a baptistery and later repurposed as a kitchen. Empress Theodora, revered as a saint in the Syriac Orthodox Church, maintained a close friendship with the monks and visited Qartmin, after which the dome was named in her honour following her visit.[5]\n\nEmperor Anastasius also supported the growth of the monastic community after hearing of its renown, which at the time numbered some 300 monks. He provided extensive resources for its expansion and renovation, including blacksmiths and building materials. Throughout its history, the monastery has been home to numerous high-ranking clerics and scholars, including four patriarchs, a maphrian, and 84 bishops. Among those who later studied at Mor Gabriel are four patriarchs of the Syriac Orthodox Church: Theodosius Roman, Dionysius III, Basilius V, and Ignatius Behnam of Hidl.[8]\n\nDuring the Islamic conquests, Bishop Gabriel of Beth Qustan, then overseeing two dioceses, negotiated a peace treaty with Arab forces that protected the rights of Christians in Tur Abdin. His reputation endured for generations, especially after a devastating plague in 774 killed 94 monks at Qartmin. The body of Gabriel was placed upright in the church as an intercessor, and his right arm was carried to Hah to end the outbreak there. From this point onward, it began to be called the Monastery of St. Gabriel.[5]\n\nDespite its prominence, the monastery endured repeated devastations. In 580 it was attacked and burned by Persian forces. In 1100 both the monastery and its neighboring village were pillaged by Turkish raiders, who massacred locals, destroyed manuscripts, and looted precious metals and furniture. Further destruction followed in 1296 at the hands of the Tatars. In the 14th century, Mongol forces invaded, killing 440 monks.[7] In 1394, the armies of Tamerlane besieged the monastery. Many clergy sought refuge in the Cave of Ibn Siqi, but Tamerlane set it aflame, killing over 500 people by suffocation. The monastery was later rebuilt in 1502 with assistance from the local community of Basibrina.[8]\n\nBy the 13th century, Eli of Qartmin had become the monastery's patron saint. Though little is known of his life, he is remembered as a monastic author who composed a metrical biography of Philoxenus of Mabbug.[5]\n\nThe monastery also became an important site of scholarship and manuscript preservation. Nearly 450 ancient manuscripts had been digitised from its collection at the beginning of the 21st century.[5] During recent renovations, relics were uncovered, including the remains of the martyred Bishop Karpos and a piece of the True Cross embedded in the altar.[9] The monastery was the heart of Syriac religion, culture, and education in seminaries.[10]\n\nModern history\n\nDuring the Assyrian genocide of 1915, the monastery of Mor Gabriel suffered severe losses when Kurdish tribes killed all the monks who lived there and occupied the monastery for four years. In 1919 the monastery was returned to the Syriac Orthodox Church, though the trauma of the events persisted in communal memory. A Kurdish family from a nearby village, whose members were directly involved in the massacres of the monastery inhabitants, had settled inside the monastery during this period. They were expelled in 1922 after a siege by the Assyrians, and in 1925 a new bishop was appointed. In 1936, under the new Republic of Turkey, the monastery was officially registered as a religious foundation.[4][11]\n\nThe monastery continued to face ongoing persecution long after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. In the late 1960s, a new wave of attacks and harassment by local Kurds began. The Assyrians filed numerous lawsuits in an attempt to mitigate the violence but later withdrew them when they realised that the attacks had behind-the-scenes support from the government. In 1978, the Turkish government attempted to close the monastery on accusations of sheltering members of ASALA, an Armenian militant group. Only protests from diaspora Assyrians prevented its closure. In the 1980s, similar accusations arose, this time alleging shelter for PKK militants. In 1997, the local governor ordered the closure of the monastery's school, claiming that religious education for Assyrians was illegal because the Syriac Orthodox were not recognised as a protected minority under the Treaty of Lausanne, unlike Armenians, Greeks, and Jews.[11]\n\nLegal pressures have continued into the 21st century. In 2010, the monastery faced five separate lawsuits contesting its right to retain land it had occupied for over a millennium. Church leaders attributed these disputes to bureaucratic stonewalling, while some of the claims came from neighboring Kurdish villages dominated by the Celebi tribe, which had participated in the genocides of 1915. Members of the tribe later provided recruits for the state-run \"village guard\" militia, which fought against PKK rebels.[12]\n\nFrom 1962 to 1971, the monastery underwent extensive renovation. A new road allowed vehicles access, a generator was installed to provide electricity, and a seminary for the formation of clergy was opened. Since 1971, the abbot has been Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktas, who has overseen major building projects. Today, the monastery has electricity, running water, and telephone connections, serving as a living centre of monasticism in Tur Abdin.[4]\n\nDespite the relocation of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate to Damascus, the monastery remains the centre of Syriac religious education and is regarded by the community as the cultural and linguistic heart of Syriac heritage. It is sometimes described as the \"second Jerusalem\" of the Syriac Orthodox. The monastery continues its centuries-old role in preserving the Syriac language, culture, and liturgy. Currently, it is inhabited by Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktash, three monks, eleven nuns, and thirty-five boys receiving education in the monastery's teachings, including the Syriac language.[13]\n\nMonastery architecture\n\nThe Monastery of Mor Gabriel is composed of two main parts, the lower historic section and the upper annexes constructed in the last century. Within the complex are several significant structures, including the House of Saints (Beth Qadishe), a burial chamber; the Church of the Mother of God; the House of Martyrs in the lowest part of the burial chamber; the House of the Apostles, a prayer hall; the Temple of the Forty Martyrs, a small chapel; the main church, completed under Emperor Anastasius I; and the Dome of Theodora.[14]\n\nMain church\n\nThe main church of the monastery, also known as the Anastasius Church, was begun in 397 by the founders, Mor Samuel and Mor Simon, as a modest house of prayer, and completed in 512 with the patronage of the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I.[15] Architecturally, the church is a barrel-vaulted structure oriented along a north-south axis. It is notable for its transverse style of construction, a departure from the more typical longitudinal basilica design, as well as for its mosaics. These mosaics are aniconic, containing no human or animal figures.[16] Where the mosaics have been lost, the missing areas are covered with white mortar.[17]\n\nAlso known as the Anasthasian church was begun in 397 by the founders of the monastery of Mor Samuel and Mor Simon(Mor Gabriel monastery) as a simple house of prayer and completed with the support of the Byzantine Emperor Anasthasius I in 512.[15] The main[15] church is a barrel-vaulted church with a north-south accent, also the church is well known for its transverse style of architecture and the mosaics in the sanctuary of the main church. the Mosaics are aniconic which means that there is no human or animal in the mosaics.[16] The missing parts of the mosaic are covered with white mortar.[17] The mosaics in Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai and those in Mor Gabriel are the only surviving 6th-century Byzantine mosaics located to the east of Constantinople.\n\nDome of Theodora\n\nThe Dome of Theodora, constructed in the early 6th century, rises to 17 metres and is composed of radially layered bricks supported by ashlar masonry and a mortar core. The dome is traditionally associated with Empress Theodora (497-548), wife of Emperor Justinian I, who was a Miaphysite and a supporter of the non-Chalcedonians. Records indicate that she visited the monastery of Qartmin and donated funds for the construction of the dome, despite Justinian's imperial policy favoring Chalcedon. The building, located at the northwestern corner of the main church, is thought originally to have functioned as a baptistery.[18]\n\nIts structure contains eight arches, a feature laden with symbolic meaning in Christian architecture. Ambrose of Milan wrote \"the number eight contains the integrity of rebirth\", as the number eight was a symbol of eternity and of the Resurrection.[19]\n\nVirgin Mary Church\n\nThe Church of the Virgin Mary was originally built in the 5th century, though it was destroyed and looted several times throughout its history. The church is reached by passing through a long abbara (vaulted passage) in front of the Dome of Theodora. Its design consists of three arches and three barrel-vaulted naves. The present altar was rebuilt in 1991. An inscription over the entrance records the visit of Patriarch Ignatius Yaqub III in 1965. At times when the greater church was closed, services were conducted in this smaller church.\n\nBeth Qadisheh\n\nBeth Qadisheh (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܩܕܝܫܗ, lit. 'House of Saints') serves as the monastery's burial chamber. Originally known as the House of Martyrs, it was first used for the interment of Christians martyred in the early centuries of the faith in the region, when Assyrians were adopting Christianity. Over time, it became the burial place of metropolitans, abbots, and priests. The tomb of St. Gabriel himself is located here.\n\nThe clergy were buried in a seated position, facing east, in anticipation of the Resurrection, which was believed to come from the east. The tombs are barrel-roofed, made of marble, with one side left open.[19] Tradition holds that as many as 12,000 relics of saints and martyrs are preserved in this chamber.[14]\n\nLegal disputes\n\nIn modern times, Mor Gabriel Monastery became the centre of a decades-long legal struggle over its very right to exist. The dispute, instigated largely by local Kurdish villagers in the surrounding area, revolved around the monastery's land and property rights. In 2008, one villager filed a complaint to the Midyat prosecutor accusing the bishop of being 'engaged in illegal religious and reactionary missionary activities', invoking the words of Mehmed the Conqueror: \"cut off the head of anybody who cuts down even a branch from my forest.\" The complaint targeted forested land near the monastery, which the villagers claimed did not belong to it. Soon after, state surveyors - using old maps and aerial photographs - were dispatched to redraw boundaries. They declared parts of the monastery's wall illegal and reassigned significant tracts of land to three nearby Muslim villages with whom the monastery had long-standing disputes: Yayvantepe, Çandarlı, and Eğlence. The monastery was established hundreds of years before these villages were founded.[20] Surveyors also redrew village borders, expanding the territory of three Muslim villages with which the monastery had long feuded.[21]\n\nAs land registration was being implemented in southeastern Turkey, the monastery reached an agreement with neighboring villages regarding its borders, but it remained in conflict with another village on the northwest border. The Kurds frequently changed the terms of the agreement by increasing the so-called \"charity\" fee they were supposed to receive from the Assyrians in exchange for the disputed land, which amounted to bribery for being left alone, in addition to the ongoing economic and psychological abuse that local Assyrians had to endure. The monastery soon faced escalating accusations beyond land ownership. Backed by local representatives of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), villagers submitted petitions alleging 'missionary activities', 'illegal education of children under the age of 12', 'sheltering unidentified people', and even 'attempts to destroy national unity by inciting revolt'. Another reason they gave was that the monastery has 'too much' land for prayer and that land is needed as a meadow for these villages.[20] These claims echoed older tropes of anti-Christian hostility, but prosecutors chose to pursue only the charge relating to the monastery wall.[22][11]\n\nAlthough official records had consistently confirmed the monastery's boundaries since 1938, and reaffirmed them in 1950, the cadastral officers succumbed to pressure from surrounding villages and moved the border. Villagers and Kurdish headmen disputed the monastery's ownership, even though the monks produced a signed 1937 agreement supporting their claim. Despite paying taxes on its property for 70 years, the monastery found its claims dismissed by local courts.[23][24]\n\nIn 2008, cadastral officers visited the land, and Kurdish men and children from nearby villages gathered with axes and knives to cut down trees on the disputed property. Witnesses from the villages arrived, with one side claiming that the monastery wall marked the border between their village and the monastery (Keferbe), while the Kurdish headman of Keferbe argued that the border was 5 kilometres away from the wall. Despite representatives from the monastery presenting a signed 1937 agreement from the villages supporting their claim, the cadastral officers registered the border 2 kilometres away from the wall. The Assyrians contested this decision in local courts, but their appeal was quickly rejected. The charges against the monastery spread panic in the Assyrian diaspora, prompting activists to launch the \"Action Mor Gabriel\" movement across European cities to highlight the plight of Assyrians in Turkey.[22]\n\nThe ultimate goal of the \"Action Mor Gabriel\" movement was not only to challenge the feudal system of the Kurdish aghas that the Assyrians had to endure, but also to enhance their rights in Turkey by being recognised as equal citizens with full agency and as a minority with special rights under the Lausanne Treaty. While the Lausanne Treaty would eventually come to include the Syriac/Assyrian people, they still do not enjoy full agency regarding their Turkish citizenship to this day.[11] Archbishop Samuel Aktas toured several local Assyrian villages urging residents to maintain peaceful relations with their Muslim neighbours to avoid further tensions.[25]\n\nBy 2009, the case had moved from local courts to municipal courts, and ultimately to the Turkish Supreme Court. At one point, the court ruled in favour of the villages, claiming the monastery land was state forest, and even claiming that the sanctuary was built over the ruins of a mosque - despite the fact that Mor Gabriel was founded in 397, nearly two centuries before the birth of Muhammad.[26][22]\n\nThe dispute, however, took on broader significance as Assyrians began to rebuild their homes in Tur Abdin after decades of diaspora caused by the Assyrian genocide of 1915. Assyrians have been returning to their homeland in southeastern Turkey from the diaspora, particularly to the Tur Abdin region, which includes the Mor Gabriel monastery. Kafro, a village bordering the monastery, had no Assyrian residents in 1994, but by 2023 it housed around 50 families who left established lives in Europe to resettle in this underdeveloped area of Turkey.[27] Several hundred Assyrians returned from exile in Western Europe and resettled in Tur Abdin, primarily around the Mor Gabriel monastery. The return migration further inflamed the current conflict, as while returnees spent decades trying to reclaim their abandoned homes and land, neighbouring Kurdish villagers had been grazing their livestock on those properties in the meantime.[28]\n\nConversely, the growing Assyrian presence in Europe gave the monastery's defenders international visibility, and politicians from Germany and Sweden publicly visited the site in solidarity. Assyrians aim to use the organisational capacity developed during decades in Europe, along with their educational and cultural experiences, to improve living conditions for Assyrians in their homeland and to strengthen prospects for future generations in the event of further return migration.[29] Kurdish villagers reacted with hostility, accusing the monks of 'secret gatherings' and 'illegal activities', and Ankara's leadership grew uneasy with the increased diaspora activism around the recognition of the 1915 massacres as genocide. Then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül, after meeting with Syriac representatives, criticised the diaspora for about the issue and hinted at continued altercations if genocide-recognition efforts do not stop: \"Your community abroad is talking,\" they complained to Mor Aktas.[22] The British government, through its embassy in Ankara, has been monitoring the issue after it was raised by Assyrian organisations.[30]\n\nErol Dora, the first Syriac Orthodox member of the Turkish parliament, was elected in Mardin in 2011 for the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). A former lawyer for minority foundations, he said: \"As the BDP and as the Assyrian people we will do all we can to support the monastery at the international level, because we believe that in this trial we have justice on our side.\"[31] The monastery eventually took its case to the European Court of Human Rights, transforming the issue from a local property dispute into an internationally discussed minority rights case. This compelled Erdoğan himself to intervene, lest the matter draw further international scrutiny. As part of his 2013 'democratization package', the government announced that the monastery's lands would be restored. In September 2013, the Assembly of Foundations, the top decision-making body of the General Directorate for Foundations, officially approved the return of the confiscated lands.[32][33] Although the government agreed to return 240,000 square metres of land to the Mor Gabriel monastery, approximately 270,000 square metres remain confiscated.[34]\n\nThe Mor Gabriel case has become a symbol of the difficult situation for Assyrians in southeastern Turkey, who are caught between conflicts with Kurdish villages and the government's long history of not recognising Assyrians as a separate minority under the Treaty of Lausanne. While the return of land was a significant win, it also showed the ongoing challenges that the Syriac Orthodox Church and its communities face in their ancestral homeland. Assyrian organisations in Western Europe have raised the issue with relevant political bodies in several countries, including submitting appeals to members of the European Parliament. Meanwhile, Turkey continues to receive more than €500 million for preparatory measures related to EU candidacy, while the Christian Assyrian minority continues to report harassment and distress.[20]\n\nThe issues extend beyond the monastery. Assyrians continue to face difficulties with property and land registration. Numerous court cases involving both individuals and religious institutions are ongoing. Similar tactics were used to expropriate other lands - often belonging to Assyrian owners living abroad and thus less able to contest the seizures - by Kurdish municipal authorities with backing from the AKP-controlled government.[35][36]\n\nModern-day significance\n\nMor Gabriel Monastery is the world's oldest continuously active Assyrian monastery and remains the residence and administrative centre of the Tur Abdin Metropolitan Bishop.[25] Long regarded by Assyrians as \"the sun of eastern monasteries\",[3] it helped give Tur Abdin the epithet \"the second Jerusalem\"[3] and \"the heartbeat of Assyrian Orthodoxy for the region\".[25] It serves as a religious and social centre for the remaining Christian Assyrians.[20]\n\nThe monastery receives tens of thousands of visitors annually (81,897 in 2013), the vast majority non-local given there were only about 4,000 Assyrians in Mardin that year.[3] It serves as both a religious and social hub for the remaining Christian Assyrians and has been described as a \"talisman for Assyrian Christians worldwide\".[34] Annual celebrations are held in honour of St. Gabriel. Pilgrims - many Syriac Orthodox - come to venerate St. Gabriel's relics and visit saints' tombs; a miracle is traditionally attributed to St. Gabriel in which three people were raised from the dead. Muslims and Yazidis also visit seeking cures for illnesses or problems.[3]\n\nLife at Mor Gabriel has preserved a remarkable continuity. The monastery is described as \"where for over a millennium and a half life has barely changed except that the bishop's secretary now types on a laptop\".[37] Visitors are often permitted to stay overnight; accommodation may consist of a simple camp bed on the terrace in summer, with a basic meal in the evening. The heavy steel gates of the fortress-like monastery are locked at sunset and only opened at dawn, except in life-or-death emergencies. At dawn, visitors are invited to attend the liturgy celebrated in the underground church beneath the belfry.[4] The monastery welcomes visitors from 09:00 to 11:30 in the morning and from 13:00 to 16:30 in the afternoon, where it closes at 16:00 in winter.[19]\n\nGallery\n\n Towers of the monastery near Midyat\n\n Portal inscription\n\n Staircase within the monastery with a Droste effect\n\n Interior of the Mor Gabriel Monastery\n\n Yard of the monastery\n\n Large metal gate at the entrance\n\n A star of Shamash on the floor of a large hall\n\n In the Virgin Mary Church\n\n Graveyard on the monastery's grounds\n\n Monks' cells\n\n Grape vines are common in Syriac art, representing the blood of Christ and His passion\n\n The Last Supper replica\n\nSee also\n\nOldest churches in the world\n\nMor Hananyo Monastery\n\nMount Izla\n\nAnti-Assyrian sentiment\n\nList of Syriac writers\n\nChristology\n\nReferences\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Mor Gabriel - ܕܝܪܐ ܕܩܪܛܡܝܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified February 6, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/226.\n\n^ Dinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the late Ottoman period and beyond: crisis then revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1. The Monastery of Mor Gabriel, historically known as the monastery of Qart-min and also as Deir el-ʿUmr (a shortened version of Dayro-d-Umro d-Mor Shemun Qartmoyo, the monastery of the abode of Mor Shamoun of Qartmin), is...\n\n^ a b c d e Toprak, Lokman (December 2014). \"Significance of Dayro D-Mor Hananyo and Mor Gabriel Monasteries within the scope of belief tourism\". European Journal of Science and Theology - via ResearchGate.\n\n^ a b c d \"Eglise syriaque orthodoxe d'Antioche\". cso-france.voila.net. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2025.\n\n^ a b c d e Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (2011). \"Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage\". Beth Mardutho. ISBN 9781593337148 - via Academia.edu.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ \"Mor Gabriel Monastery\". www.morgabriel.org.\n\n^ a b \"WSJ\" - via online.wsj.com.\n\n^ a b Ephrem I Barsoum (2008). Mor Cyril Aprhem Karim (ed.). The History of Tur Abdin. Translated by Matti Moosa (1st ed.). New Jersey: Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-59333-715-5.\n\n^ Johnson, Dale A. (2004). Monks of Mount Izla. ISBN 978-1-4116-1949-4.\n\n^ Üngör, Ugur Ümit (1 March 2012). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-164076-6.\n\n^ a b c d Gambetti, Zeynep; Jongerden, Joost, eds. (2015). The Kurdish issue in Turkey: a spatial perspective. Routledge studies in Middle Eastern politics. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-82415-7. OCLC 883648720.\n\n^ \"Wooing Christians\". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 25 August 2025.\n\n^ OCP (13 July 2012). \"Oldest Christian Monastery at Risk\". News | Orthodoxy Cognate PAGE. Retrieved 25 August 2025.\n\n^ a b \"The Monastery of Mor Gabriel\". Orígenes de Europa (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 June 2025.\n\n^ a b c \"Mor Gabriel\". www.eichinger.ch. Retrieved 15 June 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Viewing information about Kartmin, Monastery of Mar Gabriel (6AD) | Medieval Mosaics\". medievalmosaics.com. Retrieved 15 June 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Mosaic Decoration, Monastery of Mar Gabriel, Tur Abdin, Turkey\". The A. G. Leventis Foundation. Retrieved 15 June 2025.\n\n^ SyriacPress (27 May 2020). \"The 1600-Year History of the Monastery of Qartmin (Mor Gabriyel) - Andrew Palmer\". Syriac Press. Retrieved 15 June 2025.\n\n^ a b c tarafından, VoyageTurkey (21 September 2019). \"Mor Gabriel Monastery, Mardin, Turkey\". VoyageTurkey (in Turkish). Retrieved 15 June 2025.\n\n^ a b c d BarAbrahem, Abdulmesih (16 September 2008). \"Turkey Attempting to Confiscate Assyrian Monastery's Land\".\n\n^ Higgins, Andrew (7 March 2009). \"Turkey's Battle Over Christian Monastery Mor Gabriel\". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ a b c d \"An outpost of Aramaic speakers\". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Qantara.de - A Cold Wind Sweeping the Tur Abdin\". en.qantara.de. Archived from the original on 4 October 2009. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ DHA, M. Halis İŞ / (24 May 2009). \"Mor Gabriel Manastırı ilk davayı kazandı\". www.hurriyet.com.tr (in Turkish). Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ a b c Starr, Stephen (26 July 2017). \"How the world's oldest Assyrian monastery came under threat\". The Irish Times.\n\n^ OCP (13 July 2012). \"Oldest Christian Monastery at Risk\". News | Orthodoxy Cognate PAGE. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Christians increasingly move back to Turkey after more than 40 years\". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Monastery in Turkey: The endangered servants of God\". Assyrian Democratic Organization. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ ARIKAN, BURÇAK. \"ASSYRIAN TRANSNATIONAL POLITICS: ACTIVISM FROM EUROPE TOWARDS HOMELAND\" (PDF). The Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University.\n\n^ \"Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament\". questions-statements.parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"This Is Simply Our Home\". Православие.RU. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Syriacs to regain Mor Gabriel's land, no move on Halki Seminary in 'democratization package' - Türkiye News\". Hürriyet Daily News. 30 September 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Return of Mor Gabriel Monastery lands to Syriacs officially approved - Türkiye News\". Hürriyet Daily News. 8 October 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ a b \"In eastern Turkey, a rare renaissance for Middle East Christians\". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ intern (2 April 2020). \"Defending Human Rights in Turkey: Evgil Türker\". Netherlands Helsinki Committee. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Turkish Supreme Court Rules Against Assyrian Monastery\". www.aina.org. Archived from the original on 17 September 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2025.\n\n^ \"Qantara.de - A Cold Wind Sweeping the Tur Abdin\". en.qantara.de. Archived from the original on 4 October 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2025.\n\nSources\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2008). Moosa, Matti (trsl.) (ed.). The History of Tur Abdin. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-715-5. Retrieved 17 January 2025.\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website\n\nPresentation\n\nThe patriarch's official visit to Mor Gabriel on YouTube"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mor-gabriel-monastery"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4996}, {"slug": "reference-mor-mattai-monastery", "title": "Mor Mattai Monastery", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Dayro d-Mor Mattai (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܡܬܝ; Arabic: دير مار متى; The Monastery of St. Matthew or Dayro d-Mor Mattai)[1] is a Syriac Orthodox Church monastery on Mount Alfaf in northern Iraq. Located 20 kilometers northeast of the city of Mosul, it is recognized as one of the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Monastery of St. Matthew\nMor Mattai Monastery\n\nLocation within IraqShow map of IraqLocation within Near EastShow map of Near East\n\nMonastery information\n\nOther nameDayro d-Mor Mattai\n\nOrderSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nEstablished363 A.D.\n\nDedicationMor Mattai\n\nSite\n\nLocationnear Bartella, Nineveh\n\nCountryIraq\n\nCoordinates36°29′24″N 43°26′34″E / 36.49°N 43.442778°E / 36.49; 43.442778\n\nDayro d-Mor Mattai (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܡܬܝ; Arabic: دير مار متى; The Monastery of St. Matthew or Dayro d-Mor Mattai)[1] is a Syriac Orthodox Church monastery on Mount Alfaf in northern Iraq. Located 20 kilometers northeast of the city of Mosul, it is recognized as one of the oldest Christian monasteries in existence and the oldest Syriac Orthodox monastery in the world.\n\nThe monastery was famous for the number of monks and scholars it housed, and for its large library and considerable collection of Syriac Christian manuscripts.[2] Today, it is an archbishopric; the current archbishop is Mor Timothius Mousa Alshamany.\n\nHistory\n\nFounding\n\nThe monastery was founded in 363 AD by Mor Mattai the Hermit who fled persecution in Amid under the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate with 25 other monks and took residence in Mount Alfaf.[3] According to Syriac tradition, he converted Mor Behnam to Christianity and healed Behnam's sister, Sarah, whom he also converted. Their father, Sennacherib, was the Governor of the area of Nimrud, and appointed by the Persian King Shapur. He killed his son and daughter when he learned they became Christians, but he later recanted and built a church and a monastery on Mount Alfaf per Mor Mattai's request.[3]\n\nThe church and monastery were surrounded by a strong wall and contained water tanks. The monks that came with Mor Mattai lived in huts and caves around the monastery and on the mountain itself. Mor Mattai became the monastery superior and under his leadership the community developed a true monastic ethos. When Mor Mattai died, he was interred in the monastery.[3] He was succeeded by Mor Zakai, one of the monks who came with him from Amid.\n\n12th-16th centuries\n\nIn the 12th century, after storming a nunnery in Khudida, Kurds attacked the monastery for four months with 1,000 horsemen and foot soldiers. The monks burnt the ladders to prevent their entry. The Kurds rolled two large boulders against the walls from above, breaking a hole through which the Kurds tried to force entrance. The monks successfully fought back with stones and darts before repairing the walls. Abbot Abu Nser, the monastery superior, lost an eye in this battle. Eventually, the Kurds were bribed with gold and silver from the churches and retreated.[4]\n\nIn 1171, tribal Hadhabani Kurds led several attacks on the monastery and were repelled by a coalition of monks and local Christians. The Kurds promised the monks they would cease their attacks and paid them 30 dinars; believing their monastery would be safe, the monks sent the local Christians back to their villages. Later, a force of 1,500 Kurds pillaged the monastery and killed 15 monks who could not find refuge in the upper citadel. The monks who survived the attack abandoned the monastery and relocated to Mosul. Upon hearing of the attack, the governor of Mosul attacked the Kurds, killing many; in retaliation the Kurds destroyed nine Assyrian villages, killing their inhabitants and attacked the Monastery of Mar Sergius.[5]\n\nIn 1369, another attack by Kurds on the monastery damaged many manuscripts. During the 19th century, Kurds looted the monastery numerous times.[6]\n\n20th century-current\n\nThe monastery is the center of archdiocese of by the Syriac Orthodox Church that includes a number of villages below it and around it. Every year, Christians of various church denominations gather in the monastery on September 18 to commemorate the day of Mor Mattai's death.[7]\n\nCouncils\n\nA synod (or council) is a large church conference attended by many of the metropolitans and bishops of the church. It is usually headed by the Patriarch. There were three synods that convened in Mor Mattai Monastery throughout its history.\n\nFirst Synod (628 AD)\n\nThe first synod was held to renew the union between the Mor Mattai Monastery and the Syriac Orthodox Church. It was headed by Mor Mattai Monastery's Metropolitan Mar Christophorus and attended by John (secretary of the Patriarch Mar Athanasius I), Bishop Jirjis of Sinjar, Bishop Daniel of Banuhadra (modern Duhok), Bishop Gregroius of Baremman, and Bishop Yardafne of Shahrzoul. After long discussions, the attendees, along with other monks from the Monastery, traveled to Antioch to meet with the Patriarch Mar Athanasius to conclude the discussions of union and obtain his blessing to ordain three monks as bishops to fill some vacant dioceses in the east.[3]\n\nSecond Synod (628 AD)\n\nThe second synod was held in November 628 after returning from the trip to Antioch mentioned above. It was headed by Mar Christophorus I and attended by Mar Marutha (the newly ordained metropolitan of Takrit) and many of the other Eastern bishops. They organized the dioceses of the East into twelve bishoprics. By the authority of Christophorus I, the council issued twenty-four canons intended to enhance the position of the metropolitan of Mor Mattai Monastery while overlooking the interest of the metropolitan of Takrit.[3]\n\nThird Synod (1930)\n\nThe third synod was presided over by Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Mor Ignatius Elias III (1917-1933) and moderated by Mor Severus Aphrem Barsoum (1889-1957), then Archbishop of Syria and Lebanon (later Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum). The Synod discussed post-war challenges such as the huge numbers of refugees, issued new canon laws, and sought to organize church affairs. Particular challenges included managing properties and endowments in different emerging nation-states in the Middle East and the globally scattered diaspora. Special attention was given to the situation of the Syriac Orthodox Church in India. The Synod issued 41 resolutions and enacted general law for the denominational synods for the Syriac Orthodox church that had 32 articles.[3]\n\nManuscripts\n\nMor Mattai Monastery had rich libraries containing thousands of manuscripts throughout its long history. However, most manuscripts were lost during a huge fire in 480 AD and in many attacks from hostile enemies. Today, only 224 manuscripts remain in its library. The oldest manuscript is a copy of the New Testament which dates back to 1222 AD.[9]\n\nPatriarchs\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church had three patriarchs that studied and graduated from Mor Mattai Monastery:[3]\n\nIgnatius Jirjis II (1687-1708)\n\nIgnatius Ishaq (1709-1723)\n\nIgnatius Yacoub III (1958-1980)\n\nMaphrians\n\nThis is a list of all the maphrians that studied and graduated from Mor Mattai Monastery. \"Maphrian of the East\" is a church title that was bestowed as a position below the patriarch to manage the affairs of the eastern dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church. This position was created in the past because of the political divisions and wars between the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Persian Empire in the east. This office was abolished in 1860, by which time it had become a titular see, due to the decline in population of Syriac Orthodox Christians in the region.[3]\n\nMar Marutha (628-649)\n\nDenha I (649-659)\n\nJohn I Saba (686-688)\n\nJohn II Kionoyo (759-785)\n\nGregorius IV Matthew (1317-1345)\n\nBasil Matthew II (1713-1727)\n\nBasil Li’azar IV (1730-1759)\n\nMor Mattai Monastery metropolitans\n\nThis is a partial list of Mor Mattai Monastery's metropolitans. There are gaps in time where the monastery didn't have a residing metropolitan for various reasons, such as when the monastery was abandoned for long periods of time due to attacks from hostile armies.[3]\n\nBar Sohde (480)\n\nGarmay (544)\n\nTubana\n\nYeshu' Zkha\n\nSahda\n\nSimon\n\nChristophorus I (628)\n\nJohn I (686)\n\nAnonymous (686)\n\nJohn II (752)\n\nDaniel (817)\n\nQuryaqos (824)\n\nSarjis (Segius) Christophorus II (914)\n\nTimothy Soghde (1075-1120)\n\nBar Kotella (1132)\n\nAnonymous (1152)\n\nSaliba (1189-1212)\n\nSeverus Jacob I (1232-1241)\n\nGregorius John III (1242-?)\n\nIgnatius (1269)\n\nSawera (Severus) Yeshu' (1269-1272)\n\nBasilius Abrohom (1278)\n\nIyawannis (1290)\n\nJumu'a, son of Jubayr (1665)\n\nSeverus Ishaq (1684-1687)\n\nSeverus Malke (1694-1699)\n\nIyawannis Matta I (1701-1712)\n\nGregorius Li'azar (1728-1730)\n\nTimothy 'Isa (1737-1739)\n\nIyawannis John IV (1743-1746)\n\nCyril Rizq Allah (1760-1770)\n\nCyril Matta II (1770-1782)\n\nCyril 'Abd al-'Aziz (1782-1793)\n\nEustathius Musa (1793-1828)\n\nGregorius Elias I (1828-1838)\n\nCyril Matta III (1846-1858)\n\nCyril Denha (1858-1871)\n\nCyril Elias II (1872-1921)\n\nQlemis (Clement) V, John (1926-1930)\n\nDionysius John VI (1935-1942)\n\nTimothy Jacob II (1946-1966)\n\nSeverus Zakka Iwas (1966-1969) (later Ignatius Zakka I)\n\nDioscorus Luka Shaya (1980-2005)\n\nTimothy Mosa Alshamany (2006-present)\n\nMor Mattai Monastery superiors\n\nThe monastery superior is person who would manage the daily activities inside and outside the monastery. This person was usually a priest or a monk (Rabban). Some of them went on to be metropolitans or bishops in the Monastery or other Syriac Orthodox dioceses. This is a partial list.[3]\n\nMor Mattai\n\nMar Zakai (late 4th century - early 5th century)\n\nMar Abrohom\n\nAddai (628)\n\nHawran (914)\n\nBar Kotella (1130-1132)\n\nAnonymous (1174)\n\nHasan Bar Shamma' (1243-1253)\n\nRabban Abu Nasr (1261-1290)\n\nRabban Matta II, Bar Hanno (1317)\n\nRabban lshaq I (1675-1684)\n\nRabban Tuma I (1712-1721)\n\nRabban Li'azar (1727-1728)\n\nRabban Matta III (1831-1833)\n\nRabban Jacob (1917-1918, 1920-1921, and 1928-1929)\n\nThe Chorepiscopus Sulayman (1921-1923, and 1926-1928)\n\nRabban lshaq II (1929-1935)\n\nThe Chorepiscopus Elias Sha'ya i (1942-1943 and 1945)\n\nRabban Saliba (1943)\n\nPriest Tuma II (1945-1946)\n\nPriest Elias Bihnam (1964)\n\nRabban Hanna Daoud Al-Kass (1967-1970)\n\nRabban Ishaq III Saka (1970-1980)\n\nMetropolitan Dioscorus Luka Shaya (1980-2005)\n\nMetropolitan Timothy Mosa Al-Shamany (2015-Present)\n\nMetropolitans and bishops\n\nThis is a list of Syriac Orthodox church metropolitans and bishops who studied and graduated from Mor Mattai Monastery but served in different dioceses. The list also contains two brothers' names who were neither metropolitans nor bishops.[3]\n\nIth Alaha, bishop of Marga and Gomel (628)\n\nAha, bishop of Firshapur and al-Anbar (628)\n\nHananya, metropolitan of Mardin and Kafartut (793-816)\n\nShamu'il, metropolitan of Sijistan\n\nIshaq, bishop of Armenia\n\nTuma, metropolitan of Tiberias\n\nPhilotheous, metropolitan Afra-Khurasan\n\nAthanasius, bishop of Sadad\n\nAthanasius Behnam bar Sammana, bishop of Banuhdra (Duhuk in northern Iraq) (1265-1279)\n\nIyawannis Denha, bishop of Baghdad (1265)\n\nJohn Wahb, bishop of Jazirat ibn 'Umar (1265-1280)\n\nSawera Yeshu', bishop of Azerbayjan, Mor Mattai Monastery, and Tabriz (d. 1277)\n\nDionysius Joseph, bishop of Tabriz (1277)\n\nMikha'il Mukhlis, bishop of Baremman (1278)\n\nDenha John, bishop of the Mu'allaq Monastery (1278)\n\nIyawannis Ayyub Gob, bishop of Banuhadra (modern Duhok) (1284)\n\nDioscorus Gabriel of Bartulli, bishop of Jazirat ibn 'Umar (1284-1300)\n\nAbd Allah of Bartulli, metropolitan of Jazirat ibn 'Umar (1326)\n\nDioscorus Jirjis, metropolitan of Jazirat ibn 'Umar (1677)\n\nIshaq Saliba, metropolitan of the monastery of Mar Abai (1697)\n\nAthanasius Tuma, metropolitan of the Patriarchal Office and then of Jerusalem (1731-1748)\n\nDionysius Behnam Samarchi, metropolitan of Mosul (1867-1911)\n\nJulius Behnam of 'Aqra, metropolitan of the Jazira (1871-1927)\n\nGregorius Bulus Behnam, metropolitan of Mosul, then Baghdad (1952-1969)\n\nBurials\n\nThis is a list of Syriac Orthodox Church fathers and other clergy that are buried in Mor Mattai Monastery:[3]\n\nMor Mattai\n\nMar Zakai\n\nMar Abrohom\n\nBishop Mar Bar Sohde (d. 480)\n\nMaphryono John V, of Sarug\n\nMaphryono Gregorius Jacob of Melitene\n\nMaphryono Gregorius Bar Hebraeus\n\nMaphryono Gregorius Barsoum al-Safi\n\nMaphryono Gregorius I, Matta of Bartulli (1317-1345)\n\nMaphryono Basilius IV, Li'azar of Mosul (1730-1759)\n\nBishop Severns Jacob of Bartulli (1232-1241)\n\nBishop Athanasius Behnam bar Sammana, bishop of Banuhadra, Duhok (1265-1279)\n\nBishop Eustathius Musa Lashshi of Mosul (1793-1828)\n\nBishop Cyril III, Matta of Mosul (1846-1858)\n\nBishop Dionysius VI, John Mansurati (1935-1942)\n\nBishop Cyril Denha of Hbob (1858-1871)\n\nBishop Cyril II, Elias of Mosul (1872-1921)\n\nReferences\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Mor Matay - ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܡܬܝ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified June 30, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/227.\n\n^ Michael Goldfarb, Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005).\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l IGNATIUS YACOUB III, History of the Monastery of Saint Matthew in Mosul, Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey 2008\n\n^ Howorth, Henry (1888). History of the Mongols: From the 9th to the 19th century, Part III. New York: Burt Franklin. p. 180.\n\n^ Moosa, Matti (28 April 2012). \"The Christians Under Turkish Rule\".\n\n^ \"Monastère de Mor Mattai - Mossul - Irak\" (in French). Archived from the original on 3 March 2014.\n\n^ \"القديس مار متى الناسك والشهداء مار بهنام وسارة ورفاقهما الأربعين\". Archived from the original on 2018-12-26. Retrieved 2014-06-11.\n\n^ Eastmond, Antony (2017). Tamta's World: The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316711774. ISBN 9781316711774.\n\n^ Ghanim Al-Shamani, St. Matthew’s Monastery Manuscripts List. Oriental Cultural Center, Duhok, 2010\n\nSources\n\nYacoub, H. H. Mar Ignatius (2008). Karim, Mor Cyril Aprhem (ed.). History of the Monastery of Saint Matthew in Mosul. Translated by Moosa, Matti (1st ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, LLC. ISBN 978-1-59333-788-9."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mor-mattai-monastery"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2108}, {"slug": "reference-rabban-hormizd-monastery", "title": "Rabban Hormizd Monastery", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Rabban Hormizd Monastery (Syriac: ܪܒܢ ܗܘܪܡܝܙܕ ܥܓ̰ܡܝܐ)[1] is an important convent to the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church, founded about 640 AD by the Church of the East, carved out in the mountains about 2 miles from Alqosh, Iraq, 28 miles north of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Rabban Hormizd Monastery\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\nReligion\n\nAffiliationChurch of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church\n\nLocation\n\nLocationAlqosh, Nineveh, Iraq\n\nCoordinates36°44′57″N 43°06′52″E / 36.749167°N 43.114444°E / 36.749167; 43.114444\n\nArchitecture\n\nCompleted640 A.D.\n\nRabban Hormizd Monastery (Syriac: ܪܒܢ ܗܘܪܡܝܙܕ ܥܓ̰ܡܝܐ)[1] is an important convent to the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church, founded about 640 AD by the Church of the East, carved out in the mountains about 2 miles from Alqosh, Iraq, 28 miles north of Mosul. It was the official residence of the patriarchs of the Eliya line of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1551 to the 18th century, and after the union with Rome in the early 19th century, passed to becoming a prominent monastery of the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nThe convent is named after Rabban Hormizd (rabban is the Syriac for \"monk\") of the Church of the East, who founded it in the seventh century.[2]\n\nHistory of the monastery\n\nBecause of the fame of Rabban Hormizd, the monastery he founded became extremely important for the Church of the East. It flourished until the 10th century. Already, before the end of the 15th century, the Rabban Hormizd Monastery served as the patriarchal burial site. Yohannan Sulaqa was monk of the Rabban Hormizd Monastery before his travel to Rome to become the first Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nBetween 1551 and the 18th century, the convent became the official residence of the patriarchs of the Eliya line of the Church of the East, which was the oldest and largest patriarchal See of the Church of the East, the only one existing patriarchal line before the Sulaqa's 1553 split. Nine patriarchal graves, from 1497 to 1804, are still located in the corridor that leads to the cell of Rabban Hormizd.[3] In about 1743, due to pestilence and the attacks of the Kurds, at the beginning of the Ottoman-Persian War (1743-1746). During the war in 1743, the army of Nader Shah attacked the monastery during their march on Mosul.[4] After that, the monastery was left mainly unmanned.\n\nIn 1808, the Assyrian Gabriel Dambo (1775-1832) revived the abandoned monastery, rebuilt it, collected a number of pupils vowed to poverty and celibacy, and installed there a seminary. At first this initiative was opposed by Yohannan VIII Hormizd, then Archbishop of Mosul, even if it was supported by the patriarchal administrator Augustine Hindi. Patriarch Joseph Audo, before he was appointed the bishop of Mosul, was himself a monk of Rabban Hormizd monastery.\n\nGabriel Dambo was murdered in 1832 by the soldiers of Mohammed Pasha, the Kurdish emir of Rawandouz. Again in 1838, the monastery of Rabban Hormizd and the town of Alqosh were attacked by the Kurds of Soran and hundreds of Assyrian Chaldeans died[5]: 32  and in the 1843 the Kurds started to collect as much money as they could from Christian villages, killing those who refused: more than ten thousand Christians were killed and the icons of the Rabban Hormizd monastery defaced.[6]\n\nThe library of the convent of Rabban Hormizd was rich in Syriac manuscripts. In 1828, many of these manuscripts were looted and broken up by Moussa Pasha, who had imitated the emir of Rawandouz in revolting against the Turks. In 1868, 147 volumes, manuscripts and prints, suffered the same treatment from Ismael Pasha, the successor of Moussa Pasha. The monks went on anyway to buy and copy manuscripts, thus forming an important library.\n\nDescription of the monastery in 1890\n\nE. A. Wallis Budge, who visited Rabban Hormizd Monastery in 1890, describes the monastery with these words:[7]: XXI-XXII \n\nRabban Hormizd Monastery is built half about half way up the range of mountains which encloses the plain of Mosul on the north, and stands in a sort of amphitheatre, which is approached by a rocky path that leads through a narrow defile; this path has been paved by generations of monks. The church is of stone and is of a dusky red colour; it is built upon an enormous rock. In the hills round about the church and buildings of the monastery are rows of caves hewn out of the solid rock, in which the stern ascetics of former generations lived and died.\n\nThey have neither doors nor any protection from the inclemency of the weather, and the chill which they strike into the visitor gives an idea of what those who lived in them must have suffered from the frosts of winter and the drifting rain. Some of them have niches hewn in their sides or backs in which the monks probably slept, but many lack even these means of comfort. The cells are separate one from the other, and are approached by narrow terraces, but some of them are perched in almost inaccessible places, and, unless other means of entrance existed in former days, could only have been approached by the monks crawling down from the crest of the mountain and swinging themselves into them.\n\nI saw no marks of fire in any of the cells. Some cells have a second small cave hewn out behind the larger one which is entered through an opening just large enough for a man of average size to crawl through. The monks eat meat on Easter Day and Christmas Day only, and their usual food consists of boiled wheat and lentils, and dark coloured, heavy bread cakes. They drink neither wine nor spirits, and they have neither light nor fire. They drink rain water which they preserve in rock cisterns. \nThey are called to prayer by the ringing of a bell at sunset, midnight, day-break, and at certain times of the day. The number of the monks in 1820 was about fifty; in 1843 it was thirty-nine; in 1879-80 it was sixteen, and in 1890 it was about ten.\n\nThe new monastery\n\nThe monastery of Rabban Hormizd was too exposed to attack to remain a functioning monastery, and was also a symbol of a turbulent time. Patriarch Joseph Audo decided to replace it, and in 1859, with financial assistance from the Vatican, built a new Monastery of Our Lady of the Seeds in a safer plain site near Alqosh about one mile from the ancient monastery. The new monastery quickly replaced Rabban Hormizd as the principal monastery of the Chaldean Church, and most of the monks moved to the new location.\n\nNotes\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson, “Rabban Hormizd - ܪܒܢ ܗܘܪܡܝܙܕ ܥܓ̰ܡܝܐ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified December 9, 2016, http://syriaca.org/place/168.\n\n^ Leroy, Jules; Collin, Peter (2004). Monks and Monasteries of the Near East. Gorgias Press. pp. 166-167. ISBN 978-1-59333-276-1.\n\n^ Amir Harrak. \"Patriarchal Funerary Inscriptions in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. Archived from the original on 2010-06-17. Retrieved 2009-11-15..\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 205, 263.\n\n^ David Wilmshurst, The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Peeters Publishers, 2000 ISBN 90-429-0876-9\n\n^ Frazee, Charles A. (2006). Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge University Press. p. 298. ISBN 0-521-02700-4.\n\n^ Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis, ed. (1902). The histories of Rabban Hormizd the Persian and rabban Bar-Idta. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nSources\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nExternal links\n\nPhotos and Article about the Rabban Hormizd monastery - Kaldaya.net"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-rabban-hormizd-monastery"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1257}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians", "title": "Assyrians", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ, romanized: Sūrāyē / Sūrōyē) are a distinct ethnic group native to Mesopotamia with roots in ancient Assyria. They speak varieties of Neo-Aramaic, a branch of the Semitic language family, and largely adhere to Syriac Christianity. The Assyrian homeland lies in northern Mesopotamia, encompassing areas along...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ / ܣܘܪ̈ܝܝܐ / ܐܬܘܪܝܐ / ܐܫܘܪܝܐ\n\nTotal population\n\nc. 3-5 million[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\n Assyria:Numbers may vary\n\n Iraqc. 140,000-600,000[2][3]\n\n Syria400,000-877,000 (pre-Syrian civil war)[4][5][6][7]\n\n Iranc. 20,000-55,000[8][9]\n\n Turkey25,000-30,000\n\nDiaspora:Numbers may vary\n\n United States600,000[10][11][12]\n\n Sweden150,000-200,000[13][14]\n\n Germany100,000-180,000[15][16]\n\n Jordan30,000-150,000[17][18]\n\n Australia60,000-70,000[19][20]\n\n Lebanon50,000[21]\n\n Netherlands25,000-35,000[22]\n\n Canada31,800[23]\n\n France30,000[24]\n\n Greece6,000[25]\n\n Austria2,500-5,000[26][27]\n\n Russia4,421[28]\n\n United Kingdom3,000-4,000[29]\n\n Palestine1,500-5,000[30][31]\n\n Ukraine3,143[32]\n\n Italy3,000[33][34]\n\n Armenia2,755[35]\n\n Georgia2,377[36]\n\n New Zealand1,497[37]\n\n Israel1,000[38]\n\n Denmark700[39]\n\n Kazakhstan350[40]\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic (Suret · Turoyo) · \nLiturgical: Classical Syriac\n\nReligion\n\nPredominantly: Syriac Christianity\nMinorities: Protestantism\n\nAssyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ, romanized: Sūrāyē / Sūrōyē) are a distinct ethnic group native to Mesopotamia with roots in ancient Assyria. They speak varieties of Neo-Aramaic, a branch of the Semitic language family, and largely adhere to Syriac Christianity. The Assyrian homeland lies in northern Mesopotamia, encompassing areas along the Zab rivers and spanning parts of modern Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Over the past two centuries, large-scale displacement has led to a diaspora across North America, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, fueled by genocide, persecution, and regional conflicts. In the United States, Assyrians have preserved and adapted their cultural identity, with notable communities in the Midwest and California. Some members of the community identify alternatively as Chaldeans or Arameans, based on religious, regional, and historic traditions.[41][42][43]\n\nAssyrians have a continuous cultural and linguistic presence spanning over three millennia. Originally speaking Akkadian, they adopted Aramaic which became a regional lingua franca spoken by Jesus of Nazareth that influenced Hebrew and Arabic. Today, they speak modern Neo-Aramaic dialects with Akkadian roots (primarily Suret and Turoyo) and primarily practice Syriac Christianity across two rites. These include the Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, and the Ancient Church of the East in the East Syriac Rite, and the Syriac Catholic and Syriac Orthodox churches in the West Syriac Rite. Aramaic remains one of the oldest continuously used languages in West Asia.[44][45]\n\nThe Assyrians who previously followed the ancient religion of Ashurism, were among the first peoples to accept Christianity in the 1st century AD. They are traditionally held to have been evangelised by St. Thomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus Christ, and the disciples St. Addai and St. Mari.[46] By establishing the Church of the East and the distinct East Syriac Rite, they played a central role in spreading Christianity across Asia. Assyrians are broadly distinguished into three principal ecclesiastical traditions, divided by liturgy, dialect, theology, and historical development. Shared historical experiences, including early Christianisation and episodes of persecution, have fostered close ties with neighbouring Armenians.[47][48]\n\nEtymology\n\nLinguistically, the name Assyria is rooted in East Semitic nomenclature. Biblical traditions connect the name to Ashur, the son of Shem in the Book of Genesis, who was traditionally regarded as the eponymous patriarch of the Assyrian nation. The earliest attestations trace back to the early 3rd millennium BC, originating from the ancient city-state and capital of Assur (Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒆠, Aššūr). In international statecraft and neighboring languages, the designation evolved phonetically: in Old Persian inscriptions such as the Behistun Inscription, it is recorded as Aššura or Āthur, while in Babylonian and Elamite contexts it appeared as Aššuru and Aššura. Ancient Greek historians and geographers later Hellenized the term as Assyria (Ἀσσυρία), a convention subsequently adopted into Latin and modern European languages.\n\nModern Assyrians refer to themselves primarily as Āṯōrāyē (ܐܬܘܪ̈ܝܐ) or Sūrāyē/Suroye (ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ), a variant of Classical Syriac. This ethnonym is closely linked to the self-designations of Aramaic-speaking Christians in Mesopotamia. During the late antiquity period, these communities adopted the term Sūryoyo, an Aramaic adaptation of the Greek Súrios. This term gradually replaced the older Aramaic autonym Armāyā (\"Aramean\") in literary, liturgical, and vernacular contexts, though both names continued to be used side by side well into the medieval period.[49][50]\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Christian history\n\nAssyria is the homeland of the Assyrian people, located in the ancient Near East. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria belonged to the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the centre of the Hassuna culture, c. 6000 BC.\n\nThe history of Assyria begins with the formation of the city of Assur, perhaps as early as the 25th century BC.[51] The early Assyrians likely emerged from an ethnic blending of the Hurrians and Akkadians who inhabited Assur,[52][53][54][55] yet they largely retained the Semitic language, culture, and religious practices of their Akkadian ancestors.[56] The Hurrians however, still played an especially important role in the Assyrian formation of Mesopotamian civilization.[57] According to H. W. F. Saggs in The might that was Assyria, a strong Hurrian influx entered Assyria in the second millennium B.C., leaving a permanent mark on Assyrian culture, and less visibly, on their ethnic make-up.[58] \n\nDuring the early Bronze Age period, Sargon of Akkad united all the native Semitic-speaking peoples, including the Assyrians, and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire (2335-2154 BC). At this time, the city of Assur already existed and would later become the heart of the Assyrian Empire.[59]\nUnder Sennacherib, Nineveh became Assyria's capital and was extensively expanded, covering about 750 hectares-more than twice the size of Calah or Dur-Sharrukin-and emerging as the largest and potentially wealthiest city of the ancient world.[60] Some scholars suggest that the famed Hanging Gardens, often attributed to Babylon, may in fact have been located in Nineveh.[61]\nPrior to the rise of Nineveh, the Assyrian city of Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) emerged as the largest urban center in the world by around 800 BC.[62] The city was established as the royal seat and military capital by Ashurnasirpal II, whose extensive building programs on the Acropolis and outer town significantly expanded Kalhu and enhanced its political and cultural significance in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[63]\n\nIn their early stages, Assyrian cities such as Assur and Nineveh appear to have functioned as administrative centers under Sumerian control rather than as independent political entities. Over time, the Sumerian population was gradually absorbed into the broader Akkadian-speaking (Assyro-Babylonian) populace.[64] An Assyrian identity distinct from other neighboring groups appears to have formed during the Old Assyrian period, in the 21st or 20th century BC.[65]\n\nIn the traditions of the Assyrian Church of the East, they are descended from Abraham's grandson, Dedan son of Jokshan, progenitor of the ancient Assyrians.[66] However, there is no other historical basis for this assertion. The Hebrew Bible does not directly mention it, and there is no mention in Assyrian records, which date as far back as the 25th century BC. What is known is that Ashur-uballit I overthrew the Mitanni c. 1365 BC and the Assyrians benefited from this development by taking control of the eastern portion of Mitanni territory and later annexing Hittite, Babylonian, Amorite and Hurrian territories.[67] The rise and rule of the Middle Assyrian Empire (14th to 10th century BC) spread Assyrian culture, people and identity across northern Mesopotamia.[68]\n\nBy the late eighth century BC, Assyria had become the largest and most formidable empire yet established,[69][70] with the most powerful army assembled up to that time and pioneering military techniques-including cavalry and advanced siege equipment-that influenced warfare for more than two millennia. Its success relied not only on military strength but also on a highly efficient bureaucracy and a vast administrative and trade network stretching from the Persian Gulf to Egypt.[70]\n\nThe excessive expansion of the Assyrian Empire, combined with internal conflict during the reign of Ashurbanipal and the widespread resentment provoked by its oppressive rule, significantly undermined the state's stability and strength.[71] The Babylonians and Medes formed an alliance and captured Nineveh in 612 BC. After a final defeat at Harran in 609 BC, the empire fell.[72] Despite this, Assyria's culture and administrative practices influenced the subsequent Babylonian and Persian empires.[73]\n\nThe Assyrian people, after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC, were under the control of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and later, the Persian Empire, which consumed the entire Neo-Babylonian or \"Chaldean\" Empire in 539 BC. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian Empire under Xerxes I, playing a significant role in the Battle of Marathon under Darius I in 490 BC.[74] However, Herodotus, whose Histories are the primary source of information about that battle, makes no mention of Assyrians in connection with it.[75]\n\nDespite the influx of foreign elements, the presence of Assyrians is confirmed by the worship of the god Ashur. References to the name survive into the 3rd century AD.[76] The Greeks, Parthians, and Romans had a relatively low level of integration with the local population in Mesopotamia, which allowed their cultures to survive.[77] Semi-independent kingdoms influenced by Assyrian culture (Hatra, Adiabene, Osroene) and perhaps semi-autonomous Assyrian vassal states (Assur) sprung up in the east under Parthian rule, lasting until conquests by the Sasanian Empire in the region in the 3rd century AD.[78]\n\nLanguage\n\nModern Assyrian derives from ancient Aramaic, a Northwest Semitic languages.[79] Around 700 BC, Aramaic gradually replaced Akkadian, an East Semitic language, in the Near East; bilingualism was common among Assyrian nationals before the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the late seventh century BC.[78] The Aramaic currently spoken by Assyrians is the only variety that contains Assyrian-Akkadian loanwords, as opposed to Babylonian-Akkadian loanwords in Eastern Aramaic. Out of fourteen unique loanwords in Syriac, nine derive from ancient Assyrian-Akkadian.[80] Fricatives (θ/ð), guttural sounds (ħ and ʕ), and distinctive word-final vowels are among the retained archaic features. In his 1873 work Studien über indogermanisch-semitische Wurzelverwandtschaft, Friedrich Delitzsch characterized Assyrian as the most \"pure\" of the Semitic languages.[81][82]\n\nFrom 1700 BC and onward, the Sumerian language was preserved by the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians only as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic, and scholarly purposes.[83] The Akkadian language, whose main dialects, Assyrian and Babylonian, had served as the lingua franca of the Ancient Near East, became the dominant language of administration, literature, and diplomacy.\n\nFollowing their conquest by the Assyrians, numerous populations, including the Arameans, were forcibly relocated to the Assyrian heartland and other territories within the empire. The substantial presence of Aramaic-speaking communities facilitated the gradual Aramaization of Assyrian society, with Aramean scribes collaborating alongside Assyrian counterparts in administrative and literary activities.[84]\n\nIn classical antiquity, particularly under Tiglath-Pileser III, Akkadian was increasingly marginalized by Old Aramaic, which became the language of commerce, trade, administration, and vernacular use. Around a century after its initial adoption, the Aramaic script began replacing cuneiform for administrative and diplomatic purposes, although cuneiform continued to be used for royal and religious texts. By the Hellenistic period, Akkadian was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples, and by the 1st century AD it had become extinct, although its influence on contemporary Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Assyrians is significant, and some loaned vocabulary still survives in these languages to this day.[85][86][87][88][89][84]\n\nMany loanwords from the aforementioned languages exist in the Neo-Aramaic languages, with the Iranian languages and Turkish being the greatest influences overall. The Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, preserve some loanwords from the Hittite language. These are the earliest attestations of any Indo-European language, dated to the 20th century BC. Most of the archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but using both cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets have been recovered from the site.[90][91][92][93]\n\nEarly Christian period\n\nFrom the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Roman-Persian Wars. Much of the region would become the Roman province of Assyria from 116 AD to 118 AD following the conquests of Trajan. Still, after a Parthian-inspired Assyrian rebellion, the new emperor Hadrian withdrew from the short-lived province Assyria and its neighboring provinces in 118 AD.[94] Following a successful campaign in 197-198, Severus converted the kingdom of Osroene, centred on Edessa, into a frontier Roman province.[95]\n\nOsroëne and Adiabene were ancient kingdoms in northern Mesopotamia that played significant roles in the cultural and political landscape of the Near East from the Hellenistic period through late antiquity. Osroëne, centred around Edessa, was founded around 136 BC by Osroes, likely of Iranian origin, and controlled key trade routes while balancing alliances between Rome and Parthia. Edessa emerged as a cultural centre where the Syriac language and Christianity flourished,[96] and the kingdom retained some autonomy under Roman protection until its incorporation into the empire in 216 AD.[97] Adiabene was a small Parthian vassal kingdom centred at Arbela. In the 1st century AD, its royal family converted to Judaism; Queen Helena and her sons were buried in Jerusalem. Adiabene was frequently attacked by Roman forces during their campaigns against Parthia.[98] Both kingdoms are recognised as key centres of Assyrian heritage. Although Osroëne was ethnically mixed, with an Arab ruling dynasty, Greek urban culture, and an Aramean majority,[99] it is considered part of the historical and cultural identity of Assyrians. Adiabene, by contrast, was an Assyrian successor state: the temple of Ashur was restored, the city rebuilt, and an Assyrian identity persisted even under Parthian rule.[100]\n\nRoman influence in the region ended under Jovian in 363, who ceded it following a hasty peace with the Sassanians.[101] The Assyrians were Christianised between the first and third centuries in Roman Syria and Roman Assyria. The Sasanian province of Asoristan had a mixed population of Assyrians, Arameans, and Persians;[102] the Greek urban element, still prominent under the Parthians, ceased to be ethnically distinct in Sasanian times. Most inhabitants were Eastern Aramaic speakers, and much of the population was Christian,[103] though Isho'Yahb III suggests pagans may have outnumbered Christians in some areas, worshipping gods such as Tammuz, a Babylonian sea monster, and idols.[104] Together with the Arameans, Armenians, Greeks, and Nabataeans, the Assyrians were among the earliest peoples to adopt Christianity and spread Eastern Christianity to the Far East.\n\nWithin Sasanian Adiabene an examination of Syriac source work can infer that the majority of the population of Adiabene were Syriac speaking and of local Assyrian origin. At the same time, Adiabene's elites were integrated with values of Zoroastrian social life. It can be assumed that many local Semitic cults succumbed to state supported Zoroastrianism during this period. These trends can be seen in the Legend of Mar Qardagh, where the main protagonist is portrayed as being of Assyrian royal descent, yet of Zoroastrian creed prior to his conversion to Christianity.[105]\n\nDuring the reign of Yazdegerd I, Christians in Persia were viewed with suspicion as potential Roman subversives, resulting in persecution while at the same time promoting Nestorian Christianity as a buffer between the Churches of Rome and Persia. Persecutions and attempts to impose Zoroastrianism continued during the reign of Yazdegerd II.[106][107]\n\nIn 410, the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sasanian Empire,[108] organised the Christians within that Empire into what became known as the Church of the East. Its head was declared to be the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, who in the acts of the council was referred to as the Grand or Major Metropolitan and who soon afterward was called the Catholicos of the East. Later, the title of Patriarch was also used. Dioceses were organised into provinces, each of which was under the authority of a metropolitan bishop. Six such areas were instituted in 410.\n\nAnother council held in 424 declared that the Catholicos of the East was independent of \"Western\" ecclesiastical authorities (those of the Roman Empire).\n\nSoon afterward, Christians in the Roman Empire were divided by their attitude regarding the Council of Ephesus (431), which condemned Nestorianism, and the Council of Chalcedon (451), which condemned Monophysitism. Those who for any reason refused to accept one or other of these councils were called Nestorians or Monophysites, while those who accepted both councils, held under the auspices of the Roman emperors, were called Melkites (derived from Syriac malkā, king),[110] meaning royalists.\n\nAll three groups existed among the Syriac Christians, the East Syriacs being called Nestorians and the West Syriacs being divided between the Monophysites (today the Syriac Orthodox Church, also known as Jacobites, after Jacob Baradaeus) and those who accepted both councils, primarily today's Eastern Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Byzantine Rite in Greek, but also the Maronite Church, which kept its West Syriac Rite and was not as closely aligned with Constantinople.[111]\n\nRoman/Byzantine and Persian spheres of influence divided Syriac-speaking Christians into two groups: those who adhered to the Miaphysite Syriac Orthodox Church (the so-called Jacobite Church), or West Syrians, and those who adhered to the Church of the East, the so-called Nestorian Church. Following the split, they developed distinct dialects, mainly based on the pronunciation and written symbolization of vowels.[111] With the rise of Syriac Christianity, eastern Aramaic enjoyed a renaissance as a classical language in the 2nd to 8th centuries, and varieties of that form of Aramaic (Neo-Aramaic languages) are still spoken by a few small groups of Jacobite and Nestorian Christians in the Middle East.[112]\n\nTheodora, who lived from April 1, 527 A.D. to June 28, 548 A.D., was a notable empress of the Byzantine Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. Although her exact ethnic background is not definitively established, some sources suggest she was of Assyrian origin.[113] She played a significant role in advocating for women's rights and social reforms. Theodora is particularly remembered for her efforts to improve the status of women, including legislation against forced prostitution and support for widows and orphans. She was a key supporter of her husband's efforts to restore and expand the Byzantine Empire from their capital, Constantinople. Additionally, Theodora worked towards alleviating the persecution of Miaphysites, although full reconciliation with this Christian sect was not achieved during her lifetime.[114]\n\nArab conquest\n\nThe Assyrians initially experienced periods of religious and cultural freedom interspersed with periods of severe religious and ethnic persecution after the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia. Assyrians contributed to Islamic civilizations during the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterward to Arabic. They also excelled in philosophy, science (Masawaiyh,[117] Eutychius of Alexandria, and Jabril ibn Bukhtishu[118]) and theology (such as Tatian, Bardaisan, Babai the Great, Nestorius, and Thomas of Marga) and the personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrians, such as the long-serving Bukhtishu dynasty.[119] Many scholars of the House of Wisdom were of Assyrian Christian background.[120][121]\n\nIndigenous Assyrians became second-class citizens (dhimmi) in a greater Arab Islamic state. Those who resisted Arabization and conversion to Islam were subject to severe religious, ethnic, and cultural discrimination and had certain restrictions imposed upon them.[122] Assyrians were excluded from specific duties and occupations reserved for Muslims. They did not enjoy the same political rights as Muslims, and their word was not equal to that of a Muslim in legal and civil matters. As Christians, they were subject to payment of a special tax, the jizya.[123]\n\nThey were banned from spreading their religion further or building new churches in Muslim-ruled lands, but were expected to adhere to the same laws of property, contract, and obligation as the Muslim Arabs.[123] They could not seek the conversion of a Muslim, a non-Muslim man could not marry a Muslim woman, and the child of such a marriage would be considered a Muslim. They could not own an enslaved Muslim and had to wear different clothing from Muslims to be distinguishable. In addition to the jizya tax, they were required to pay the kharaj tax on their land, which was heavier than the jizya. However, they were protected, given religious freedom, and to govern themselves according to their own laws.[124]\n\nAs non-Islamic proselytising was punishable by death under Sharia, the Assyrians were forced into preaching in Transoxiana, Central Asia, India, Mongolia and China where they established numerous churches. The Church of the East was considered to be one of the major Christian powerhouses in the world, alongside Latin Christianity in Europe and the Byzantine Empire (Greek Orthodoxy).[125]\n\nFrom the 7th century AD onwards, Mesopotamia saw a steady influx of Arabs, Kurds and other Iranian peoples,[126] and later Turkic peoples. Assyrians were increasingly marginalized, persecuted and gradually became a minority in their homeland. Conversion to Islam was a result of heavy taxation, which also resulted in decreased revenue from their rulers. As a result, the new converts migrated to Muslim garrison towns nearby.\n\nDespite the influx of other peoples into the region, under the leadership of Mar Timothy I (780-823), the Church of the East reached a high point and Christians presumably constituted 40 percent of Mesopotamia's population.[127] During the early Islamic period, the majority of the population of countries under Arab Islamic rule remained Christian.[128] Prior to 850 AD, Muslims only made up 20 percent of the population of the Abbasid Caliphate, shifting to a majority after 950 AD.[129] The rise of a solid Muslim majority in Syria and Mesopotamia can be dated to the late 10th or 11th centuries. Large Christian minorities persisted into the 13th century, which saw a decisive move toward Muslim hegemony.[130]\n\nAssyrians remained dominant in Upper Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century, with Syriac being the primary language centuries after the Arab invasions.[131][132][133] and the city of Assur was still occupied by Assyrians during the Islamic period until the mid-14th century when the Muslim Turco-Mongol ruler Timur conducted a religiously motivated massacre against Assyrians. After, no records of Assyrians remained in Assur according to the archaeological and numismatic record. From this point, the Assyrian population was dramatically reduced in their homeland.[134]\n\nTurco-Mongol rule\n\nAfter initially falling under the control of the Seljuks and the Buyid dynasty, the region was conquered by the Mongol Empire after the fall of Baghdad in 1258; the Mongol khans were said to be more sympathetic with Christians. The will of Saliba (d. 1264), a Syriac Christian merchant and burgess of Acre, details extensive interactions with the Latin (Frankish) population in Crusader cities, including family networks, commercial activity, philanthropy, and religious engagement.[135]\n\nAccording to some Arab historians, Assyrians persisted in the regions of Hakkari and Assyria (Mosul), though during the Seljuk and subsequent Timurid invasions of Assyrian regions, Kurds joined Turco-Mongol forces in advancing on Mesopotamian cities such as Diyarbakir, Mosul and Baghdad. Population destruction transpired in the region such as the attacks led by Timur in the late 1300s.[136]\n\nThe 14th century massacres of Timur devastated the Assyrian people. The religiously motivated massacres and pillaging led to tens of thousands of Assyrians slaughtered across northwestern, central, and northern Iran.[137] At the end of the reign of Timur, the Assyrian population had almost been eradicated in many places. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Bar Hebraeus, the noted Assyrian scholar and hierarch, found \"much quietness\" in his diocese in Mesopotamia. Syria's diocese, he wrote, was \"wasted.\"[138] The region subsequently fell under the Iran-based Turkic confederations of the Aq Qoyunlu and Kara Koyunlu, before being incorporated into the Safavid Empire in 1501, along with the rest of the former Aq Qoyunlu territories.\n\nSafavid to Ottoman rule\n\nThe Ottomans secured their control over Mesopotamia and Syria in the first half of the 17th century following the Ottoman-Safavid War (1623-39) and the resulting Treaty of Zuhab. Non-Muslims were organised into millets. Syriac Christians, however, were often considered one millet alongside Armenians until the 19th century, when the orthodox East Syriac, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldeans gained that right as well.[139]\n\nThe Aramaic-speaking Mesopotamian Christians had long been divided between followers of the Church of the East, commonly referred to as \"Nestorians\", and followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church, commonly called Jacobites. The latter were organised by Marutha of Tikrit (565-649) as 17 dioceses under a \"Metropolitan of the East\" or \"Maphrian\", holding the highest rank in the Syriac Orthodox Church after that of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East. The Maphrian resided at Tikrit until 1089, when he moved to the city of Mosul for half a century, before settling in the nearby Monastery of Mar Mattai (still belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church) and thus not far from the residence of the Eliya line of Patriarchs of the Church of the East. From 1533, the holder of the office was known as the Maphrian of Mosul, to distinguish him from the Maphrian of the Patriarch of Tur Abdin.[140]\n\nIn 1552, a group of bishops of the Church of the East from the northern regions of Amid and Salmas, who were dissatisfied with reservation of patriarchal succession to members of a single family, even if the designated successor was little more than a child, elected as a rival patriarch the abbot of the Rabban Hormizd Monastery, Yohannan Sulaqa. This was by no means the first schism in the Church of the East. An example is the attempt to replace Timothy I (779-823) with Ephrem of Gandīsābur.[141]\n\nBy tradition, a patriarch could be ordained only by someone of archiepiscopal (metropolitan) rank, a rank to which only members of that one family were promoted. For that reason, Sulaqa travelled to Rome, where, presented as the new Patriarch elect, he entered communion with the Catholic Church and was ordained by the Pope and recognized as Patriarch. The title or description under which he was recognized as Patriarch is given variously as \"Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria\";[142] \"Patriarch of the Church of the Chaldeans of Mosul\";[143] \"Patriarch of the Chaldeans\";[144][145][146] \"Patriarch of Mosul\";[147][148][149] or \"Patriarch of the Eastern Assyrians\", this last being the version given by Pietro Strozzi on the second-last unnumbered page before page 1 of his De Dogmatibus Chaldaeorum,[150] of which an English translation is given in Adrian Fortescue's Lesser Eastern Churches.[151][152]\n\nMar Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa returned to northern Mesopotamia in the same year and fixed his seat in Amid. Before being imprisoned for four months and then in January 1555 put to death by the governor of Amadiya at the instigation of the rival Patriarch of Alqosh, of the Eliya line,[153] he ordained two metropolitans and three other bishops,[154] thus beginning a new ecclesiastical hierarchy: the patriarchal line known as the Shimun line. The area of influence of this patriarchate soon moved from Amid east, fixing the see, after many changes, in the isolated village of Qochanis.\n\nThe Shimun line eventually drifted away from Rome and in 1662 adopted a profession of faith incompatible with that of Rome. Leadership of those who wished communion with Rome passed to the Archbishop of Amid Joseph I, recognized first by the Turkish civil authorities (1677) and then by Rome itself (1681). A century and a half later, in 1830, headship of the Catholics (the Chaldean Catholic Church) was conferred on Yohannan Hormizd, a member of the family that for centuries had provided the patriarchs of the legitimist \"Eliya line\", who had won over most of the followers of that line. Thus the patriarchal line of those who in 1553 entered communion with Rome are now patriarchs of the \"traditionalist\" wing of the Church of the East, that which in 1976 officially adopted the name \"Assyrian Church of the East\".[155][156][157][158]\n\nThe 1840s-1850s were a volatile period of both intellectual growth and persecution. During the 19th century, Urmia region became the center of a short-lived Assyrian renaissance with many books and newspapers being published in Syriac.[159] In Urmia, literacy rates were remarkably high for the time (80%), and the first Bible in the Syriac language was printed. British-Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam discovered tablets that led to the recovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest notable literature. After the rise of Balkan nationalism, the Ottomans viewed Assyrians and other Christians as a potential threat. The Kurdish Emirs sought to consolidate their power by attacking well-established communities, and many Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains were massacred. The events reached the Western press and became a turning point for European politicians regarding the plight of Christians. By 1846, international powers forced the Ottomans to intervene. The ensuing conflict destroyed the Kurdish emirates and reasserted Ottoman power in the area; the massacres of Diyarbakır followed.[160][161][162][163]\n\nThe Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, who resided at the Church of Mār Shalīṭa in Qudshanis, exercised both spiritual and temporal authority over his followers. Because bishops were required to remain celibate, the patriarchal office was transmitted from uncle to nephew.[164] This system became known as Nāṭar Kursyā (ܢܛܪ ܟܘܪܣܝܐ, \"Guardian of the Throne\"), and by the 19th century it had been adopted in all the dioceses of Hakkari.[165] The Assyrians maintained complex alliances with neighbouring Kurdish tribes and their Ottoman overlords. Each Assyrian tribe was headed by a Malik (ܡܠܟ), who also served as its military commander in times of war.[166] The Tyari Assyrians inhabited 51 villages and numbered approximately 50,000 people, making them the most powerful of the semi-independent Assyrian tribes.[167]\n\nDuring the Second Bedirkhanis Revolt, A Kurdish Revolt which erupted during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), the Assyrians, under the leadership of Hanne Safar, supported the Ottoman Empire. Hanne Safar played a significant role in organizing Assyrian assistance to the Ottoman army throughout the Revolt. For his service and loyalty, he was later granted the title of Pasha and was presented with a sword blessed by the Sultan himself.[168][169]\n\nAnother major massacre of Assyrians (and Armenians) in the Ottoman Empire occurred between 1894 and 1897 by Turkish troops and their Kurdish allies during the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The motives for these massacres were an attempt to reassert Pan-Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, resentment at the comparative wealth of the ancient indigenous Christian communities, and a fear that they would attempt to secede from the tottering Ottoman Empire. Assyrians were massacred in Diyarbakir, Hasankeyef, Sivas and other parts of Anatolia, by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. These attacks caused the death of over thousands of Assyrians and the forced \"Ottomanisation\" of the inhabitants of 245 villages. The Turkish troops looted the remains of the Assyrian settlements and these were later stolen and occupied by Kurds. Unarmed Assyrian women and children were raped, tortured and murdered.[170][171]\n\nUnited States\n\nFollowing the outcome of the U.S Civil War, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions transferred control of its Persian stations to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and thousands of Assyrians who had been educated by these American missions moved to Chicago, Illinois. Aided by their Fourth Presbyterian Church, these Assyrians organized local Bible studies that founded the Carter Memorial Persian Assyrian Presbyterian Church. The Chicago settlement faced agricultural limitations, and around 1905, settlers from Urmia, led by Rev. Isaac Adams, helped establish a farming community in and around Turlock, California. By 1930, Turlock's Assyrian population was 20%; they were such a significant part of the population that the southern part of town became known as \"Little Urmia.\" That same decade, the city was cited by Ripley's Believe It or Not as having the most churches per capita in the US, partly due to the variety of ethnic churches serving the relatively small settler population.[172][173]\n\nAssyrian American National Federation (AANF) was initiated in West New York, New Jersey on October 19, 1933, and its constitution was formally adopted in New Britain, Connecticut a month later. Published by the AANF since January 1952 and founded by Joseph P. Durna, The Assyrian Star is the US's longest-running bilingual (English and Assyrian) magazine. They commenced the annual 5-day Labor Day weekend Assyrian Convention in 1933, rotating across major U.S. cities like Chicago, Las Vegas, San Diego, Detroit, and Phoenix.[174]\n\nIn 2021, President Biden formally recognized the genocide perpetrated by the Ottomans against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, fulfilling a step that the Obama administration had campaigned on in 2008 but ultimately declined to do upon election. During the 2024 presidential election, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris sought to engage the Assyrian electorate in swing states. Harris held discussions with members and leaders in the community, while following his electoral victory, Trump appointed an Assyrian to serve as his counselor.[175][176][177][178][179][180]\n\nAmericans of Assyrian descent maintain a degree of cultural autonomy and recognition, notably through the naming of Chaldean Town in Wayne County, Michigan. The city of Turlock hosts an annual Assyrian Festival at the Stanislaus County Fair featuring traditional food, music, and dance. Active lobbies in the U.S. include: Assyrian American Political Advocacy Committee (AAPAC), Assyrian American National Federation (AANF), Assyrian American National Coalition (AANC), Assyrian Policy Institute.\n\nWorld War I\n\nThe Assyrians suffered a number of religiously and ethnically motivated massacres throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,[183] culminating in the large-scale Hamidian massacres of unarmed men, women and children by Muslim Turks and Kurds in the late 19th century at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and its associated (largely Kurdish and Arab) militias, which further greatly reduced numbers, particularly in southeastern Turkey.\n\nThe most significant recent persecution against the Assyrian population was the Assyrian genocide which occurred during the First World War.[184] Between 250,000 and 275,000 Anatolian Assyrians[185] were estimated to have been slaughtered by the armies of the Ottoman Empire and their Kurdish allies between 1895 and 1919, totalling up to two-thirds of the entire Assyrian population of Turkey. This triggered large-scale emigration of Turkish-Assyrians into neighboring regions in the Middle East (where they faced further violence from Arab and Kurdish groups) and the Caucasus.[186][187][188][189]\n\nDuring World War I, the Assyrians suffered heavy losses due to deportations and mass killings organized by the Ottoman Turks. Several representatives of the Assyrian people participated in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, after the war had ended. These representatives aimed to establish an independent nation and sought to persuade the victorious powers to place it under a single mandatory authority. Although many sympathized with the Assyrians, none of their demands were implemented. Their efforts failed due to geographical and denominational divisions among themselves, as well as the fact that the major powers-Britain and France-had their own plans for the territories where the Assyrians lived.[190]\n\nResistance\n\nIn reaction to the Assyrian genocide and lured by British and Russian promises of an independent nation, the Assyrians led by Agha Petros and Malik Khoshaba of the Bit-Tyari tribe, fought alongside the Allies against Ottoman forces known as the Assyrian volunteers or Our Smallest Ally. Despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned the Assyrians fought successfully, scoring a number of victories over the Ottoman forces and its allies. This situation continued until their Russian allies withdrew following the 1917 Revolution, and Armenian resistance broke, leaving the Assyrians surrounded, isolated and cut off from lines of supply. The sizable Assyrian presence in south eastern Anatolia which had endured for over four millennia was thus reduced significantly by the end of World War I.[191][192]\n\nAssyrians in Azakh and Iwardo held defenses against Ottoman and Kurdish soldiers and succeeded in fending off the attacks. Ottoman authorities labeled these defenses as part of the larger Midyat rebellion, which they used to justify the planned sieges against them. The Turks did not consider the Assyrians to have a nationalistic agenda and understood that they did not engage in terrorism,[193] and it was known that their actions targeted populations that were not Armenian, as Assyrians had traditionally been divided by the millet system along religious lines. The defenses lasted for several months up to the end of 1915. For Assyrians who originate from Tur Abdin, the stories of the defenses remain integral to their identity and collective memory of Sayfo.\n\nThe Assyrian rebellion was an uprising by the Assyrians in Hakkari that began on 3 September 1924 and ended on 28 September. The Assyrians of Tyari and Tkhuma returned to their ancestral land in Hakkari in 1922, shortly after World War I without permission from the Turkish government. This led to clashes between the Assyrians and the Turkish army with their Kurdish allies that grew into a rebellion in 1924, it ended with the Assyrians being forced to retreat to Iraq.\n\nModern history\n\nThe majority of Assyrians living in what is today modern Turkey were forced to flee to either Syria or Iraq after the Turkish victory during the Turkish War of Independence. In 1932, Assyrians refused to become part of the newly formed state of Iraq and instead demanded their recognition as a nation within a nation. The Assyrian leader Shimun XXI Eshai asked the League of Nations to recognize the right of the Assyrians to govern the area known as the \"Assyrian triangle\" in northern Iraq. During the French mandate period, some Assyrians, fleeing ethnic cleansings in Iraq during the Simele massacre, established numerous villages along the Khabur River during the 1930s.\n\nThe Assyrian Levies were founded by the British in 1928, with ancient Assyrian military rankings such as Rab-shakeh, Rab-talia and Tartan, being revived for the first time in millennia for this force. The Assyrians were prized by the British rulers for their fighting qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline,[194] and were used to help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs and Kurds. During World War II, eleven Assyrian companies saw action in Palestine and another four served in Cyprus. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were involved in fighting in Albania, Italy and Greece. The Assyrian Levies played a major role in subduing the pro-Nazi Iraqi forces at the battle of Habbaniya in 1941.\n\nHowever, this cooperation with the British was viewed with suspicion by some leaders of the newly formed Kingdom of Iraq. The tension reached its peak shortly after the formal declaration of independence when hundreds of Assyrian civilians were slaughtered during the Simele massacre by the Iraqi Army in August 1933. The events lead to the expulsion of Shimun XXI Eshai the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East to the United States where he resided until his death in 1975.[195][196] The trauma of this event directly inspired legal scholar Raphael Lemkin to help coin the word and concept of \"genocide\".\n\nThe period from the 1940s through to 1963 saw a period of respite for the Assyrians. The regime of President Abd al-Karim Qasim in particular saw the Assyrians accepted into mainstream society. Many urban Assyrians became successful businessmen, others were well represented in politics and the military, their towns and villages flourished undisturbed, and Assyrians came to excel, and be over represented in sports.\n\nThe Ba'ath Party seized power in Iraq and Syria in 1963, introducing laws aimed at suppressing the Assyrian national identity via arabization policies.[197] The giving of traditional Assyrian names was banned and Assyrian schools, political parties, churches and literature were repressed.[197] Assyrians were heavily pressured into identifying as Iraqi Christians or Syrian Christians.[197] Assyrians were not recognized as an ethnic group by the governments and they fostered divisions among Assyrians along religious lines (e.g. Assyrian Church of the East vs. Chaldean Catholic Church vs Syriac Orthodox Church).[197]\n\nIn response to Baathist persecution, the Assyrians of the Zowaa movement within the Assyrian Democratic Movement took up armed struggle against the Iraqi government in 1982 under the leadership of Yonadam Kanna,[198] and then joined up with the Iraqi-Kurdistan Front in the early 1990s.[198] Yonadam Kanna in particular was a target of the Saddam Hussein Ba'ath government for many years.[198]\n\nThe Anfal campaign of 1986-1989 in Iraq, which was intended to target Kurdish opposition, resulted in 2,000 Assyrians being murdered through its gas campaigns. Over 31 towns and villages, 25 Assyrian monasteries and churches were razed to the ground. Some Assyrians were murdered, others were deported to large cities, and their lands and homes then being appropriated by Arabs and Kurds.[199][200]\n\nHowever, comparing to Syria, the Ba'athist government in Iraq was not as repressive as Syria. Saddam Hussein had an Assyrian Deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister, who was Tariq Aziz. There were also many Assyrians, who were offered high positions in the government.\n\nSocial unrest and chaos resulted in the unprovoked persecution of Assyrians in Iraq mostly by Islamic extremists (both Shia and Sunni) and Kurdish nationalists (e.g., the 2008 anti-Christian campaign in Mosul, and the 2011 Dohuk riots aimed at Assyrians & Yazidis). In places such as Dora, a neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, the majority of its Assyrian population has either fled abroad or to northern Iraq, or has been murdered.[201] Islamic resentment over the United States' occupation of Iraq, and incidents such as the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons and the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy, have resulted in Muslims attacking Assyrian communities. Since the start of the Iraq war, at least 46 churches and monasteries have been bombed.[202]\n\nIn recent years, the Assyrians in northern Iraq and northeast Syria have become the target of extreme unprovoked Islamic terrorism. As a result, Assyrians have taken up arms alongside other groups, such as the Kurds, Turcomans and Armenians, in response to unprovoked attacks by Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIL), Nusra Front and other terrorist Islamic Fundamentalist groups. In 2014 Islamic terrorists of ISIL attacked Assyrian towns and villages in the Assyrian Homeland of northern Iraq, together with cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk which have large Assyrian populations. There have been reports of atrocities committed by ISIL terrorists since, including; beheadings, crucifixions, child murders, rape, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, robbery, and extortion in the form of illegal taxes levied upon non-Muslims. Assyrians in Iraq have responded by forming armed militias to defend their territories.\n\nThe Islamic State was driven out from the Assyrian villages in the Khabour River Valley and the areas surrounding the city of Al-Hasakah in Syria by 2015, and from the Nineveh Plains in Iraq by 2017. In 2014, the Nineveh Plain Protection Units was formed and many Assyrians joined the force to defend themselves. The organization later became part of Iraqi Armed Forces and played a key role in liberating areas previously held by the Islamic State during the War in Iraq.[203] In northern Syria, Assyrian groups have been taking part both politically and militarily in the Kurdish-dominated but multiethnic Syrian Democratic Forces (see Khabour Guards and Sutoro) and Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.[204][205][206][207][208][209][210] Dwekh Nawsha and the Nineveh Plain Forces were eventually disbanded.[211]\n\nIn Syria, the Dawronoye modernization movement has influenced Assyrian identity in the region.[212] The largest proponent of the movement, the Syriac Union Party (SUP) has become a major political actor in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. In August 2016, the Ourhi Centre in the city of Zalin was started by the Assyrian community, to educate teachers to make Syriac an optional language of instruction in public schools,[213][214] which then started with the 2016/17 academic year.[215] With that academic year, states the Rojava Education Committee, \"three curriculums have replaced the old one, to include teaching in three languages: Kurdish, Arabic and Assyrian.\"[216] Associated with the SUP is the Syriac Military Council, an Assyrian militia operating in Syria, established in January 2013 to protect and stand up for the national rights of Assyrians in Syria as well as working together with the other communities in Syria to change the current government of Bashar al-Assad.[217] However, many Assyrians and the organizations that represent them, particularly those outside Syria, are critical of the Dawronoye movement.[218][219]\n\nA 2018 report stated that Kurdish authorities in Syria, in conjunction with Dawronoye officials, had shut down several Assyrian schools in Northern Syria and fired their administration. This was said to be because these schooled failed to register for a license and for rejecting the new curriculum approved by the Education Authority. Closure methods ranged from officially shutting down schools to having armed men enter the schools and shut them down forcefully. An Assyrian educator named Isa Rashid was later badly beaten outside his home for rejecting the Kurdish self-administration's curriculum.[219][218]\nThe Assyrian Policy Institute claimed that an Assyrian reporter named Souleman Yusph was arrested by Kurdish forces for his reports on the Dawronoye-related school closures in Syria. Specifically, he had shared numerous photographs on Facebook detailing the closures.[219]\n\nDemographics\n\nHomeland\n\nThe ancestral indigenous lands that form the Assyrian homeland are those of ancient Mesopotamia and the Zab rivers, a region currently divided between modern-day Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria.[42] This includes the cities of Nineveh (Mosul), Nuhadra (Dohuk), Arrapha/Beth Garmai (Kirkuk), Al Qosh, Tesqopa and Arbela (Erbil), Urmia, and Hakkari (a large region which comprises the modern towns of Yüksekova, Hakkâri, Çukurca, Şemdinli and Uludere), Edessa/Urhoy (Urfa), Harran, Amida (Diyarbakır) and Tur Abdin (Midyat and Kafro), among others.[220]\n\nSome of the cities are presently under Kurdish control and some still have an Assyrian presence, namely those in Iraq, as the Assyrian population in southeastern Turkey (such as those in Hakkari) was ethnically cleansed during the Assyrian genocide or Sayfo.[42] Those who survived fled to unaffected areas of Assyrian settlement in northern Iraq, with others settling in Iraqi cities to the south. Though many also settled quickly to neighbouring countries in and around the Caucasus and Middle East like Armenia, Syria, Georgia, southern Russia, Lebanon and Jordan.[221] Currently, there are more Assyrians in the diaspora as opposed to the homeland. These include North America, the Levant, Australia, Europe, Russia and the Caucasus. Emigration was triggered by Sayfo, as well as religious persecution. The most recent reasons for emigration are due to events such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, the Syrian civil war, and the emergence of the Islamic State. Of the one million or more Iraqis who have fled Iraq since the occupation, nearly 40% were indigenous Assyrians, even though Assyrians accounted for only around 3% of the pre-war Iraqi population.[222][223]\n\nIn ancient times, Akkadian-speaking Assyrians have existed in what is now Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, among other modern countries, due to the sprawl of the Neo-Assyrian empire in the region.[224] Though recent settlement of Christian Assyrians in Nisabina, Qamishli, Al-Hasakah, Al-Qahtaniyah, Al Darbasiyah, Al-Malikiyah, Amuda, Tel Tamer and a few other small towns in Al-Hasakah Governorate in Syria, occurred in the early 1930s,[225] when they fled from northern Iraq after they were targeted and slaughtered during the Simele massacre.[226] The Assyrians in Syria did not have Syrian citizenship and title to their established land until late the 1940s.[227]\n\nSizable Assyrian populations only remain in Syria, where an estimated 400,000 Assyrians live,[228] and in Iraq, where an estimated 300,000 Assyrians live.[229] This is a decline from an estimate of 1,100,000 Assyrians in the 1980s, following instability caused by the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.[230] In Iran and Turkey, only small populations remain, with only 20,000 Assyrians in Iran,[231][232] and a small but growing Assyrian population in Turkey, where 25,000 Assyrians live, mostly in the cities and not the ancient settlements.[233] This marks a significant decline from the 1980s, when Turkey had about 70,000 Assyrians and Iran had an estimated 50,000 living in Tehran alone in 1987.[234][235]\n\nIn Tur Abdin, a traditional centre of Assyrian culture, there are only 2,500 Assyrians left.[236] Down from 50,000 in the 1960 census, but up from 1,000 in 1992. This sharp decline is due to an intense conflict between Turkey and the PKK in the 1980s. However, there are an estimated 25,000 Assyrians in all of Turkey, with most living in Istanbul.[233] Most Assyrians currently reside in the West due to the centuries of persecution by the neighboring Muslims.[237] Prior to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in a 2013 report by a Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council official, it was estimated that 300,000 Assyrians remained in Iraq.[229] In 1823, reports by Georg Hassel found that Assyrians constituted at least 5% of the Ottoman Empire's Asian population.[238]\n\nSubgroups\n\nThere are predominantly three Christian Assyrian subgroups: Eastern, Western, Chaldean. These subdivisions are only partially overlapping linguistically, historically, culturally, and religiously.\n\nThe Eastern subgroup historically inhabited Hakkari in the northern Zagros Mountains, the Simele and Sapna valleys in Nuhadra, and parts of the Nineveh and Urmia Plains. They speak Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects and are religiously diverse, adhering to the East Syriac churches[239] and Protestantism.[240]\n\nThe Western subgroup, historically inhabited Tur Abdin.[241][242] They mainly speak the Central Neo-Aramaic language Surayt (also known as Turoyo).[243] Most adhere to the West Syriac churches,[239] such as the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Syriac Catholic Church. Today there are also evangelical groups that have founded their own churches in the diaspora. Historically, Syriac Orthodox culture was centred in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin), Mor Gabriel and Deyrulzafaran.[244] Historic Assyrian villages, some of which are still inhabited by Assyrians in Turabdin, include the following: Aynwardo, Anhil, Kafro, Miden, Arnas, Beth Debe, Beth Kustan, Beth Sbirino, Dayro da-Slibo, Hrabemishka, Qartmin, Arkah, Arbo, Mizizah, Kfraze, Hah, Marbobo, Salah, Sare and Hapsis. In addition, the cities of Midyat and Beth Zabday (Azech) were historically Assyrian cities with an Assyrian majority, this is no longer the case today. Outside the area of core Assyrian settlement in Tur Abdin, there were also sizable populations in the towns of Diyarbakır, Urfa, Harput, and Adiyaman[245] as well as some other villages.\n\nThe Chaldean subgroup is a subgroup of the Eastern one. The group is often equated with the adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church,[246] however not all Chaldean Catholics identify as strictly Chaldean.[247][248] They are traditionally speakers of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects, however there are some Turoyo speakers. In Iraq, Chaldean Catholics inhabit the western Nineveh Plains villages of Alqosh, Batnaya, Tel Keppe and Tesqopa, as well as the Nahla valley and Aqra. In Syria they live in Aleppo and the Al-Hasakah Governorate. In Turkey, they live scattered in Istanbul, Diyarbakir, Sirnak Province and Mardin Province.[249]\n\nAssyrian Jews are speakers of Judeo-Aramaic dialects closely shared with their Christian counterparts; these are considered nearly extinct, replaced by modern Hebrew in the next generation after immigration to Israel. Although often subsumed within broader studies of Iraqi or Mizrahi Jewry, the distinct history and cultural features of these communities from the Assyrian homeland have received limited scholarly attention.[250][251][252][253][254]\n\nDiaspora\n\nEvents following the Assyrian genocide, massacres of: Badr Khan, Diyarbakır, Adana, Simele, and the al-Anfal campaign have contributed to a western diaspora.[255] Today, more Assyrians reside outside their homeland than within it. The largest Assyrian diaspora communities are found in:\n\nUnited States (119,402-600,000)[256][257]\n\nGermany (100,000-180,000)[258][259][260]\n\nSweden (100,000-150,000)[261][13]\n\nAustralia (60,000)[262][263]\n\nCanada (31,800)[264]\n\nNetherlands (25,000-35,000)[265]\n\nBy ethnic percentage, the largest Assyrian diaspora communities are located in Södertälje in Stockholm County,[266] Sweden, and in Fairfield City in Sydney, Australia, where they are the leading ethnic group in the suburbs of Fairfield, Fairfield Heights, Prairiewood and Greenfield Park.[267][268][269] There is also a sizable Assyrian community in Melbourne, Australia (Broadmeadows, Meadow Heights and Craigieburn)[270] In the United States, Assyrians are mostly found in Chicago (Niles and Skokie), Detroit (Sterling Heights, and West Bloomfield Township), Phoenix, Modesto (Stanislaus County) and Turlock.[271]\n\nSmall Assyrian communities are found in San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno in the United States, Toronto in Canada and also in London, UK (London Borough of Ealing). In Germany, pocket-sized Assyrian communities are scattered throughout Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin and Wiesbaden. In Paris, France, the commune of Sarcelles has a small number of Assyrians. Assyrians in the Netherlands mainly live in the east of the country, in the province of Overijssel. In Russia, small groups of Assyrians mostly reside in Krasnodar Kray and Moscow.[272]\n\nTo note, the Assyrians residing in California and Russia tend to be from Iran, whilst those in Chicago and Sydney are predominantly Iraqi Assyrians. More recently, Syrian Assyrians are growing in size in Sydney after a huge influx of new arrivals in 2016, who were granted asylum under the federal government's special humanitarian intake.[273][274] The Assyrians in Detroit are primarily Chaldean speakers, who also originate from Iraq.[275] Assyrians in such European countries as Sweden and Germany would usually be Turoyo-speakers or Western Assyrians,[276] and tend to be originally from Turkey.[266] Only Turkey is reported to be experiencing a population increase of Assyrians in the four countries constituting their homeland, largely consisting of refugees from Syria and a smaller number from Europe.[277]\n\nBetween 1918 and 1919, nearly 50,000 Assyrians from Urmia, Salmas and Van settled to urban centers such as Baghdad, while others relocated to villages and regions within Iraq. These communities in Baghdad often maintained their native traditions and dialects even as they integrated into local Iraqi society.[278]\n\nIdentity\n\nIn the modern period, Assyrians use a variety of terms for self-identification, reflecting differing perspectives within their communities.[282] The Assyrian population is broadly divided into three major religious branches that differ in ecclesiastical, dialectal, and political outlook. In some cases, individuals otherwise considered Assyrian have rejected the designation entirely. Disputes among subgroups have increasingly taken on a global dimension due to the growth of diaspora communities and the spread of online forums and advocacy platforms, complicating collective efforts to promote shared national interests and at times being exploited by political opponents.[283]\n\nDuring the 19th century, English archaeologists Austen Henry Layard and William Ainger Wigram affirmed that Assyrians were descendants of their ancient counterparts, a view associated with Layard's excavations at Nineveh and later popularized through Wigram's writings and his involvement with the Church of the East.[284][285][286][287] In mid-twentieth-century American literature, Assyrians served as a less politically charged and more universal ethnic identity within the literary establishment. A notable example is Joseph Heller's debut novel, Catch-22 (1961), in which the protagonist's background was revised from Jewish to Assyrian-American to appeal to a broader audience. It went on to achieve significant commercial and critical success, becoming one of the most influential novels of its era.[288][289][290]\n\nIn contemporary contexts, Assyrian identity is often politically sensitive. Scholars note that governments in parts of the Middle East have traditionally regarded minority affairs as internal matters, sometimes rejecting claims of discrimination or the recognition of distinct minority groups, partly due to concerns that such claims could be used in international political disputes.[291] In countries of the diaspora, Assyrians are sometimes categorized simply as Christians, with little recognition of their ethnic identity.[228][283][45] Due to this lack of visibility, Assyrians, alongside other ethnic minorities in the region, have faced pressures of cultural assimilation, including Turkification, Kurdification, or Arabization.[292][293][294]\n\nSubdivisions\n\nBelow are terms used in modern times for self-identification among Syriac-speaking Christian communities. These terms are used by different communities within this broader ethnolinguistic group and reflect historical, ecclesiastical, and political perspectives:\n\nAssyrian, named after their ethnicity as the descendants of the ancient Assyrian people,[295] is advocated by followers from within all Middle Eastern based East and West Syriac Rite Churches.[282][296]\n\nChaldean is a term that was used for centuries by western writers and scholars as a designation for the Aramaic language. It was so used by Jerome,[297] and was still the normal terminology in the nineteenth century.[298][299][300] Only in 1445 did it begin to be used to designate Aramaic speakers who had entered communion with the Catholic Church. This happened at the Council of Florence,[301] which accepted the profession of faith that Timothy, metropolitan of the Aramaic speakers in Cyprus, made in Aramaic, and which decreed that \"nobody shall in future dare to call [...] Chaldeans, Nestorians\".[302][303][304] Previously, when there were as yet no Catholic Aramaic speakers of Mesopotamian origin, the term \"Chaldean\" was applied with explicit reference to their \"Nestorian\" religion. Thus Jacques de Vitry wrote of them in 1220/1 that \"they denied that Mary was the Mother of God and claimed that Christ existed in two persons. They consecrated leavened bread and used the 'Chaldean' (Syriac) language\".[305] Until the second half of the 19th century, the term \"Chaldean\" continued in general use for East Syriac Christians, whether \"Nestorian\" or Catholic.[306][307][308][309] In 1840, upon visiting Mesopotamia, Horatio Southgate reported that local Chaldeans consider themselves to be descended from ancient Assyrians,[310] and in some later works also noted the same origin of local Jacobites.[311][312]\n\nAramean, also known as Aramean (Syriac),[313][314] named after the ancient Aramean people, is advocated by some followers from within Middle Eastern based West Syriac Rite Churches.[315][316] Furthermore, Assyrians identifying as Aramean have obtained recognition from the Israeli government.[317][318] To note, ancient Arameans were a separate ethnic group that lived concurrently with the Assyrian empire in what is now Syria and parts of Lebanon, Israel the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.[319][85][320][87] In the Assyrian community, the label is most prominent within the Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nAssyrian vs. Syrian naming controversy\n\nAs early as the 8th century BC Luwian and Cilician subject rulers referred to their Assyrian overlords as Syrian, a western Indo-European corruption of the original term Assyrian. The Greeks used the terms \"Syrian\" and \"Assyrian\" interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans, Assyrians and other inhabitants of the Near East. Herodotus considered \"Syria\" west of the Euphrates. Starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the Seleucid ruler as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians.[321] The Seleucids designated the districts of Seleucis and Coele-Syria explicitly as Syria, and ruled the Syrians as indigenous populations residing west of the Euphrates, in contrast to Assyrians who had their native homeland in Mesopotamia east of the Euphrates.[322][323]\n\nThis version of the name took hold in the Hellenic lands to the west of the old Assyrian Empire, thus during Greek Seleucid rule from 323 BC the name Assyria was altered to Syria, and this term was also applied to areas west of Euphrates which had been an Assyrian colony, and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.[324][325]\n\nThe question of ethnic identity and self-designation is sometimes connected to the scholarly debate on the etymology of \"Syria\". The question has a long history of academic controversy, but majority mainstream opinion currently strongly favours that Syria is indeed ultimately derived from the Assyrian term Aššūrāyu.[326][327][328][329] Meanwhile, some scholars has disclaimed the theory of Syrian being derived from Assyrian as \"simply naive\", and detracted its importance to the naming conflict.[330]\n\nRudolf Macuch points out that the Eastern Neo-Aramaic press initially used the term \"Syrian\" (suryêta) and only much later, with the rise of nationalism, switched to \"Assyrian\" (atorêta).[331] According to Tsereteli, however, a Georgian equivalent of \"Assyrians\" appears in ancient Georgian, Armenian and Russian documents.[332] This correlates with the theory of the nations to the East of Mesopotamia knew the group as Assyrians, while to the West, beginning with Greek influence, the group was known as Syrians. Syria being a Greek corruption of Assyria. The debate appears to have been settled by the discovery of the Çineköy inscription in favour of Syria being derived from Assyria.\n\nThe Çineköy inscription is a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual, uncovered from Çineköy, Adana Province, Turkey (ancient Cilicia), dating to the 8th century BC. Originally published by Tekoglu and Lemaire (2000),[333] it was more recently the subject of a 2006 paper published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, in which the author, Robert Rollinger, lends support to the age-old debate of the name \"Syria\" being derived from \"Assyria\" (see Etymology of Syria).\n\nThe object on which the inscription is found is a monument belonging to Urikki, vassal king of Hiyawa (i.e., Cilicia), dating to the eighth century BC. In this monumental inscription, Urikki made reference to the relationship between his kingdom and his Assyrian overlords. The Luwian inscription reads \"Sura/i\" whereas the Phoenician translation reads 'ŠR or \"Ashur\" which, according to Rollinger (2006), \"settles the problem once and for all\".[329]\n\nThe modern terminological problem goes back to colonial times, but it became more acute in 1946, when with the independence of Syria, the adjective Syrian referred to an independent state. The controversy is not restricted to exonyms like English \"Assyrian\" vs. \"Aramaean\", but also applies to self-designation in Neo-Aramaic, the minority \"Aramaean\" faction endorses both Sūryāyē ܣܘܪܝܝܐ and Ārāmayē ܐܪܡܝܐ, while the majority \"Assyrian\" faction endorses Āṯūrāyē ܐܬܘܪܝܐ or Sūryāyē.\n\nCulture\n\nAssyrian culture is largely influenced by Christianity.[334] There are many Assyrian customs that are common in other Middle Eastern cultures. Main festivals occur during religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas. There are also secular holidays such as Kha b'Nissan (vernal equinox).[335]\n\nAssyrians are politically secular, left-leaning, and typically attach to their towns, villages, and church communities, expressed in the form of either regionalism or municipalism.[336] They are generally endogamous, marrying within their own ethnic group, although exogamous marriages within the Christian faith are not perceived as taboo. Assyrians and Armenians share common geographic origins and have both faced religious persecution as some of the first Christians; Assyrian-Armenian partners are common in both the homeland and the diaspora.[337][338]\n\nPeople often greet and bid relatives farewell with a kiss on each cheek and by saying \"ܫܠܡܐ ܥܠܝܟ\" Shlama/Shlomo lokh, which means: \"Peace be upon you\" in Neo-Aramaic. Others are greeted with a handshake with the right hand only; according to Middle Eastern customs, the left hand is associated with evil. Similarly, shoes may not be left facing up, one may not have their feet facing anyone directly, whistling at night is thought to waken evil spirits, etc.[339] A parent will often place an eye pendant on their baby to prevent \"an evil eye being cast upon it\".[340]\n\nAssyrian clothing varies from village to village. Clothing is usually blue, red, green, yellow, and purple; these colors are also used as embroidery on a white piece of clothing. Decoration is lavish in Assyrian costumes, and sometimes involves jewellery. The conical hats of traditional Assyrian dress have changed little over millennia from those worn in ancient Mesopotamia, and until the 19th and early 20th centuries the ancient Mesopotamian tradition of braiding or platting of hair, beards and moustaches was still commonplace.\n\nLanguage\n\nTo the native speaker, the language is usually called Surayt, Soureth, Suret or a similar regional variant. A wide variety of dialects exist, mainly Suret, and Surayt. These dialects are usually written using Syriac script, a derivative of the ancient Aramaic script. There is a considerable amount of mutual intelligibility between Suret dialects. Therefore, these \"languages\" would generally be considered to be dialects rather than separate languages. The Jewish Aramaic languages of Lishan Didan and Lishanid Noshan share intelligibility with these varieties, and Assyrian Jews in Israel have founded The Committee for the Revival of Aramit-Ashurit Language. The mutual intelligibility between Suret and Surayt/Turoyo is, depending on the dialect, limited to partial, and may be asymmetrical.[341][342][343][344]\n\nThe Assyrian language is classified as definitely endangered by UNESCO.[345] Being stateless, speakers are typically multilingual, knowing both their native language and those of the societies they reside in. Although many Assyrians have left their homeland,[346] the ones residing in Arab countries speak Arabic alongside their native tongue, and may bring their Arabic language to the diaspora.[347][348][349] The most commonly spoken languages by Assyrians in the diaspora include English, German and Swedish. Historically many Assyrians also spoke Turkish, Armenian, Azeri, Kurdish, and Persian and a smaller number of Assyrians that remain in Iran, Turkey (Istanbul and Tur Abdin) and Armenia still do today.[277]\n\nThe Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Assyrians, including Suret and Turoyo, descend from Late Old Eastern Aramaic, which served as a lingua franca during the later phase of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Ancient Assyrians originally spoke the East Semitic Akkadian language but gradually adopted Aramaic, which eventually replaced Akkadian and Sumerian in administration and everyday use. Aramaic, the language of the Arameans, remained the lingua franca of West Asia for centuries and influenced languages such as Hebrew, Sanna, Arabic, Mongolian, and Uighur. Both Aramaic and its Neo-Aramaic dialects are among the oldest continuously spoken and written languages in the Middle East, with a history spanning over 3,000 years. It was also spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, and Assyrians heard their language in the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.[44][350]\n\nScript\n\nAssyrians predominantly use the Syriac script, which is written from right to left. It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew and the Arabic alphabets.[351] It has 22 letters representing consonants, three of which can be also used to indicate vowels. The vowel sounds are supplied either by the reader's memory or by optional diacritic marks. Syriac is a cursive script where some, but not all, letters connect within a word. It was used to write the Syriac language from the 1st century AD.[352]\n\nThe oldest and classical form of the alphabet is the ʾEsṭrangēlā script.[353] Although ʾEsṭrangēlā is no longer used as the main script for writing Syriac, it has received some revival since the 10th century, and it has been added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999. The East Syriac dialect is usually written in the Maḏnḥāyā form of the alphabet, which is often translated as \"contemporary\", reflecting its use in writing modern Neo-Aramaic. The West Syriac dialect is usually written in the Serṭā form of the alphabet. Most of the letters are clearly derived from ʾEsṭrangēlā, but are simplified, flowing lines.[354]\n\nFurthermore, for practical reasons, Assyrian people sometimes use the Latin alphabet, especially in social media.\n\nReligion\n\nAssyrians are almost exclusively Christian,[355] with most adhering to the East and West Syriac Rites of Christianity; both use Classical Syriac as their liturgical language.[47][48] The churches of the East Syriac Rite include the Chaldean Catholic Church, with about 600,000 members,[356] the Assyrian Church of the East, with an estimated 400,000 members,[357] and the Ancient Church of the East, with some 100,000 members. The West Syriac Rite includes the Syriac Orthodox Church, which has over 1 million members worldwide, and the Syriac Catholic Church. The Syriac Orthodox Church traces its origins back to Acts 11:26 when Paul and Barnabas taught believers and called them Christians. The Assyrians were among the earliest Christians, and Syriac Christianity points its identity in both a Jewish-Christian heritage and the Hellenists of Antioch.[358]\n\nIn 1850, the Presbyterian Church opened its mission in Mosul.[359] A small minority of Assyrians accepted the Protestant Reformation and became Reform Orthodox in the 20th century, possibly due to British influences, and are now organised in the Assyrian Evangelical Church, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church and other Protestant/Reform Orthodox Assyrian groups. While there are some atheist Assyrians, they tend to still associate with some denomination.[283]\n\nAssyrian Jews are a Jewish minority of Assyrians who mostly reside in Israel following their recent emigration. Their origins can be linked to the Ten Lost Tribes exiled by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as well as to conversions in the kingdom of Adiabene.[360][361]\n\nMany members of the following churches consider themselves Assyrian. Ethnic identities are often deeply intertwined with religion, a legacy of the Ottoman Millet system. The group is traditionally characterized as adhering to various churches of Syriac Christianity and speaking Neo-Aramaic languages. It is subdivided into:\n\nadherents of the Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East following the East Syriac Rite, also known as Nestorians\n\nadherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church following the East Syriac Rite, also known as Chaldeans\n\nadherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church following the West Syriac Rite, also known as Jacobites\n\nadherents of the Syriac Catholic Church following the West Syriac Rite\n\nBaptism and First Communion are celebrated extensively, similar to a Brit Milah or Bar Mitzvah in Jewish communities. After a death, a gathering is held three days after burial to celebrate the ascension to heaven of the dead person, as of Jesus; after seven days another gathering commemorates their death. A close family member wears only black clothes for forty days and nights, or sometimes a year, as a sign of mourning.\n\nDuring the \"Seyfo\" genocide,[362] there were a number of Assyrians who were forced to convert to Islam.[363][364][365] They reside in Turkey, and practice Islam but still retain their identity.[366][367]\n\nHistorical religious sites\n\n Mor Hananyo Monastery: is an important Syriac Orthodox monastery in Tur Abdin, Turkey.\n\n Mar Assia al-Hakim Church: is a Syriac Catholic Church in Al-Jdayde quarter of Aleppo, Syria.[368]\n\n Rabban Hormizd Monastery: is an important monastery of the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Church of the East in Alqosh, Iraq.[369]\n\n Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows: is a Chaldean Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq\n\n Saint Mary Church: is an ancient Assyrian church located in the city of Urmia, Iran.\n\n St. Thomas Church, Balowlan, Urmia County, Iran.\n\nMusic\n\nAssyrian music is a combination of traditional folk music and western contemporary music genres, namely pop and soft rock, but also electronic dance music. Instruments traditionally used by Assyrians include the zurna and davula, but has expanded to include guitars, pianos, violins, synthesizers (keyboards and electronic drums), and other instruments.\n\nSome well known Assyrian singers in modern times are Fairuz, Ashur Bet Sargis, Sargon Gabriel, Evin Agassi, Janan Sawa, Juliana Jendo, and Linda George. Assyrian artists that traditionally sing in other languages include Melechesh, Timz and Aril Brikha. Assyrian-Australian band Azadoota performs its songs in the Assyrian language whilst using a western style of instrumentation.\n\nThe first international Aramaic Music Festival was held in Lebanon in August 2008 for Assyrian people internationally.[370]\n\nDance\n\nAssyrians have numerous traditional dances which are performed mostly for special occasions such as weddings. Assyrian dance is a blend of ancient indigenous and general Near Eastern elements. Assyrian folk dances are mainly made up of circle dances that are performed in a line, which may be straight, curved, or both. The most common form of Assyrian folk dance is khigga, which is routinely danced as the bride and groom are welcomed into the wedding reception. Most of the circle dances allow unlimited number of participants, with the exception of the Sabre Dance, which require three at most. Assyrian dances would vary from weak to strong, depending on the mood and tempo of a song.\n\nFestivals\n\nAssyrian festivals tend to be closely associated with their Christian faith, of which Easter is the most prominent of the celebrations. Members of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church and Syriac Catholic Church follow the Gregorian calendar and as a result celebrate Easter on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusively.[371]\n\nMembers of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Ancient Church of the East celebrate Easter on a Sunday between April 4 and May 8 inclusively on the Gregorian calendar, March 22 and April 25 on the Julian calendar. During Lent, Assyrians are encouraged to fast for 50 days from meat and any other foods which are animal based.\n\nAssyrians celebrate a number of festivals unique to their culture and traditions as well as religious ones:\n\nKha b-Nisan (Syriac: ܚܕ ܒܢܝܣܢ, \"First of April\"), the Assyrian New Year, traditionally on April 1. Assyrians usually wear traditional costumes and hold social events including parades and parties, dancing, and listening to poets telling the story of creation.[372]\n\nSauma d-Ba'utha (Classical Syriac: ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝ̈ܐ Bā'ūṯā ḏ-Ninwāyē, literally \"Petition of the Ninevites\"), the Nineveh fast, is a three-day period of fasting and prayer and commemorates the repentance of the Ninevites at the hands of Jonah.[373][374]\n\nSomikka (Syriac: ܣܘܿܡܝܟܵܐ), All Saints Day, is celebrated to motivate children to fast during Lent through use of frightening costumes. Men in costumes would knock on the doors of family's houses and scare the children into fasting for Lent until the parents would hand them money. The celebration was intended to help poor families afford the expenses incurred for Easter.[375]\n\nKalu d'Sulaqa (Syriac: ܟܵܠܘܿ ܕܣܘܼܠܵܩܵܐ), feast of the Bride of the Ascension, celebrates Assyrian resistance to the invasion of Assyria by Tamerlane. The feast commemorates the women who died in battle helping the Assyrian soldiers. In the villages, the girls would be dressed as brides and would parade around the village asking for goods and gifts.[375]\n\nHano Qritho (Syriac: ܚܢܐ ܩܪܝܬܐ), a tradition that is celebrated by Assyrians from Tur Abdin and its surrounding area, typically on the last Sunday before Great Lent. Rooted in local legend, it commemorates a girl named Hano, who was promised as a sacrifice by her father, a king, after his victorious battle. Children create a doll representing Hano, singing traditional songs, while visiting homes to collect food like bulgur, eggs and roasted meat.[376] The tradition is similar to Kalu d'Sulaqa.\n\nRozune (Syriac: ܪܙܘܢܐ), annual religious culinary tradition in the Syriac Orthodox Church commemorating the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. It is commemorated annually by Assyrians during Lent, and involves a piece of bread made into the shape of star with a coin hidden in it. The person who finds the coin is considered lucky for the year.[377]\n\nSuboro (Syriac: ܣܘܒܪܐ), annual tradition among Western Assyrians of the SOC, namely involving the making of wristbands using white/red yarn.[378] The wristbands represent the intertwined nature of the humanity (red) and the Resurrection of Jesus (white).[379]\n\nNusardil (Syriac: ܢܘܼܣܲܪܕܝܠ), commemorating the baptism of the Assyrians of Urmia by St. Thomas.[380] Before Christianity, an ancient folk story told of Ishtar and Tammuz led to the religious celebration \"Taklimtu\", where every July the citizens would be blessed with holy water. It occurs after the seventh day of the Pentecost, marking the first day of summer. Assyrians celebrate by pouring water on each other to denote baptism.[375][374]\n\nSharra d'Mart Maryam, usually on August 15, a festival and feast celebrating St. Mary with games, food, and celebration.[380] Other Sharras (special festivals) include: Sharra d'Mart Shmuni, Sharra d'Mar Shimon Bar-Sabbaye, Sharra d'Mar Mari, and Shara d'Mar Zaia, Mar Bishu, Mar Sawa, Mar Sliwa, Mar Odisho, and many more. Each town or city also have their own Sharras based on the patron saints of the churches, monasteries, or other holy sites in the settlement or nearby.\n\nYoma d'Sah'deh (Syriac: ܝܘܡܐ ܕܣܗܕ̈ܐ, lit. 'Day of Martyrs' (Day of Martyrs), commemorating the thousands massacred in the Simele massacre and the hundreds of thousands massacred in the Assyrian genocide. It is commemorated annually on August 7.\n\nAssyrians practice unique marriage ceremonies. The rituals performed during weddings are derived from many different elements from the past 3,000 years. An Assyrian wedding traditionally lasted a week. Today, weddings in the Assyrian homeland usually last 2-3 days. In the Assyrian diaspora they last 1-2 days.\n\nCuisine\n\nAssyrian cuisine is similar to other Middle Eastern cuisines, and is rich in grains, meat, potato, cheese, bread and tomatoes. Typically, rice is served with every meal, with a stew poured over it. Tea is a popular drink, and there are several dishes of desserts, snacks, and beverages. Alcoholic drinks such as wine and wheat beer are organically produced and drunk. Assyrian cuisine is primarily identical to Iraqi/Mesopotamian cuisine, as well as being very similar to other Middle Eastern and Caucasian cuisines, as well as Greek cuisine, Levantine cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Iranian cuisine, Israeli cuisine, and Armenian cuisine, with most dishes being similar to the cuisines of the area in which those Assyrians live/originate from.[381] It is rich in grains such as barley, meat, tomato, herbs, spices, cheese, and potato as well as herbs, fermented dairy products, and pickles.[382]\n\nLeadership\n\nLeadership is largely decentralized and shaped by diaspora conditions. It is exercised through a combination of church authorities, political organizations, and cultural institutions. Within the Assyrian Church of the East, the Catholicos Patriarch Mar Awa III serves as the highest spiritual authority, guiding religious practice and representing the church globally. Similarly, the Chaldean Catholic Church is led by Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, while the Syriac Orthodox Church is headed by Ignatius Aphrem II. Alongside religious leadership, secular advocacy groups and political parties such as the Assyrian Democratic Movement work to promote recognition, human rights, and autonomy for Assyrians, particularly in their historic homelands.\n\nContributions\n\nThe Assyrians are prominently featured in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament as a powerful and consequential people whose interactions with Israel and Judah shaped the region's history. Biblical narratives recount their military and administrative activity, describe the conquest and deportation of the northern Kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 17), and portray Nineveh as a major urban and religious center central to prophetic literature (notably Jonah's mission and Nahum's oracle.) Ancient Assyrian records are credited with providing the etymological origin for the biblical figure Ashkenaz. This historical term was later applied in medieval rabbinic literature to northern Europe, ultimately becoming the root designation for Ashkenazi Jews.[383]\n\nAdvancements under the Assyrian Empire include the development of military technologies and siegecraft (including iron weapons, organized standing forces, chariot tactics, and battering-ram techniques), refining of state administration through road networks, relay stations, and extensive record-keeping on clay tablets, and engineering of large-scale irrigation and canal systems that improved agricultural productivity. Assyrian artisans and architects produced monumental palaces, ziggurats, intricate relief sculpture, stone and ivory carving, and compiled libraries (notably at Nineveh) that preserved legal, literary, and astronomical texts. During the Middle Ages, the Church of the East reached its greatest geographic extent, with missionaries establishing monasteries, schools, and Christian communities along the Silk Road as far as China (attested by the Nestorian Stele) and the Malabar Coast, contributing to the spread of Christianity alongside literacy, medicine, and Greco-Persian scholarship. The School of Nisibis emerged as one of the medieval world's leading centers of theology, philosophy, biblical exegesis, and medicine, influencing later models of higher education. Assyrian scholars made significant scientific and intellectual contributions, including Severus Sebokht, who introduced the Indian numeral system to the Middle East and advanced astronomical studies. The Syriac patriarch Ignatius Ni'matallah participated in Pope Gregory XIII's commission on calendar reform, contributing to the development of the Gregorian calendar, while Joseph Simon Assemani preserved and catalogued Syriac literary and historical traditions through works such as Bibliotheca Orientalis, which became foundational references for the study of Eastern Christianity in Europe. Since the 17th century, Assyrians have maintained Syriac Christian traditions through liturgical practice, manuscript production, and theological scholarship, particularly in monastic centres such as Mosul, Urmia, Qudshanis, and Mount Lebanon. Clergy and scholars also contributed to Syriac, Arabic, and Persian printing, education, and historical and literary preservation, helping sustain communal identity under Ottoman rule. The Sayfo and the resulting diaspora led to transnational institutions that preserved language and cultural heritage; contemporary Assyrians have contributed to academia, medicine, the arts, journalism, and politics and have advanced language revitalization, publication of literature, and revival of traditional music, dance, and crafts.[1][384][161][160]\n\nGenetics\n\nLate-20th-century DNA analysis conducted by Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza, \"shows that Assyrians have a distinct genetic profile that distinguishes their population from any other population.\"[385] Genetic analyses of the Assyrians of Persia demonstrated that they were \"closed\" with little \"intermixture\" with the Muslim Persian population and that an individual Assyrian's genetic makeup is relatively close to that of the Assyrian population as a whole.[386][387] \"The genetic data are compatible with historical data that religion played a major role in maintaining the Assyrian population's separate identity during the Christian era\".[385]\n\nIn a 2006 study of the Y chromosome DNA of six regional Armenian populations, including, for comparison, Assyrians and Syrians, researchers found that, \"the Semitic populations (Assyrians and Syrians) are very distinct from each other according to both [comparative] axes. This difference is also supported by other methods of comparison points out the weak genetic affinity between the two populations with different historical destinies.\"[388] A 2008 study on the genetics of \"old ethnic groups in Mesopotamia\", including 340 subjects from seven ethnic communities (\"Assyrian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Armenian, Turkmen, the Arab peoples in Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait\") found that Assyrians were homogeneous with respect to all other ethnic groups sampled in the study, regardless of religious affiliation.[389] Anthropologists indicate a great affinity between Assyrians and Caucasian Jews of the Akhaltsikhe group.[390]\n\nIn a 2011 study focusing on the genetics of Marsh Arabs of Iraq, researchers identified Y chromosome haplotypes shared by Marsh Arabs, Iraqis, and Assyrians, \"supporting a common local background.\"[391] In a 2017 study focusing on the genetics of Northern Iraqi populations, it was found that Iraqi Assyrians and Iraqi Yazidis clustered together, but away from the other Northern Iraqi populations analyzed in the study, and largely in between the West Asian and Southeastern European populations. According to the study, \"contemporary Assyrians and Yazidis from northern Iraq may in fact have a stronger continuity with the original genetic stock of the Mesopotamian people, which possibly provided the basis for the ethnogenesis of various subsequent Near Eastern populations\".[392]\n\nA comprehensive study of the Assyrian diaspora in the United States sampled over 140 unrelated individuals tracing their ancestry back to historical villages across the Hakkari and Tur Abdin Mountains, the Mosul and Nineveh Plains, and the Urmia region. The project's outcomes demonstrated a powerful genetic continuity, showing that the majority of both maternal and paternal lineages originated squarely within ancient Mesopotamia and the South Caucasus. Notably, the study revealed that Assyrian maternal lineages completely lack sub-Saharan African, East Asian, and North Asian genetic markers. This distinguishes Assyrians from almost all other modern populations in the Near East, who typically possess these lineages at low frequencies due to later historical migrations. Furthermore, full sequencing of the participants' mitochondrial DNA successfully identified several entirely new maternal lineages previously unrecorded in global genetic literature, reinforcing the community's long-standing historical isolation.[393]\n\nHaplogroups\n\nY-DNA haplogroup J-M304 which originated from a geographical zone that includes northeastern Syria, northern Iraq and eastern Turkey from where it expanded to the rest of the Near East and North Africa[392] has been found at 11% among Assyrians of Iran.[394]\n\nHaplogroup T-M184 [reported as K*] has been measured at 15.09% among Assyrians in Armenia.[395] The haplogroup is frequent in Middle Eastern Jews, Georgians, Druze and Armenians. According to a 2011 study by Lashgary et al., R1b [reported as R*(xR1a)] has been measured at 40% among Assyrians in Iran, making it major haplogroup among Iranian Assyrians.[394] Yet another DNA test comprising 48 Assyrian male subjects from Iran the northern R-M269 was also frequent at 29.2%.[396] Lashgary et al. explain the presence of haplogroup R in Iranian Assyrians as well as in other Assyrian communities (~23%) as a consequence of mixing with Armenians and assimilation/integration of different peoples carrying haplogroup R, while explain its frequency as a result of genetic drift due to small population size and endogamy due to religious barriers.[394]\n\nHaplogroup J2 has been measured at 13.4%, which is commonly found in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Italy, coastal Mediterranean, and the Iranian plateau.[397][398]\n\nA broader evaluation of the pan-Assyrian genetic profile across various ancestral regions confirmed a highly distinct Mesopotamian character in paternal lineages. The cohort exhibited some of the highest frequencies ever reported in the Near East for Y-chromosome lines known as haplogroup T and the specific lineage J1xPage08.[393]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyria\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nAssyrian genocide (Sayfo)\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrian independence movement\n\nAssyrian Universal Alliance\n\nThe Last Assyrians\n\nList of Assyrians\n\nMandaeans\n\nMhallami\n\nNeo-Aramaic languages\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyriac language\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Assyrian | People, Religions, & Language | Britannica\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 23 November 2025. Retrieved 25 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Population Database\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 8 February 2026.\n\n^ Shlaymoon Toma, Dr. Shivan (2022). Identity, Nationality, Religion and Gender: The Different Experiences of Assyrian Women and Men in Duhok, Iraq (PDF). 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The largest denominations are the Chaldean Catholic Church with about 45% of the Assyrian population, the Syriac Orthodox with 26%, the Assyrian Church of the East with 19%, the free Orthodox Church of Antioch or Syriac Catholic Church with 4%, and various Protestant sects with a combined 6%.\n\n^ Baumer, Christoph (5 September 2016). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-83860-933-7.\n\n^ a b For Assyrians as a Christian people, see\n\nJoel J. Elias, The Genetics of Modern Assyrians and their Relationship to Other People of the Middle East Archived 13 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b Hanish 2015, p. 517.\n\n^ Fiey 1965.\n\n^ Contini, R. (1993). Semitica: Serta philologica Constantino Tsereteli dicata. Turin: Silvio Zamorani. pp. 99-114.\n\n^ Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 187\n\n^ Speiser, Ephraim A. (1930). Mesopotamian Origins: Basic Population Of The Near East. 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Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora: Identity Discourses Among the Assyrian/Syriac Elites in the European Diaspora. Leiden: Leiden University Press. ISBN 978-90-8728-148-9.\n\nBae, Chul-hyun (2004). \"Aramaic as a Lingua Franca During the Persian Empire (538-333 B.C.E.)\". Journal of Universal Language. 5: 1-20. doi:10.22425/jul.2004.5.1.1. Archived from the original on 26 March 2021. Retrieved 17 January 2021.\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 978-1-134-43019-2.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-115-1.\n\nBegiç, H. Nurgül (2025). Traditional Turkish Handmade Dolls. Akademi Kültür / Academy Culture. p. 464. ISBN 978-625-95832-2-8.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, Françoise (2019). \"Writing Syriac: Manuscripts and Inscriptions\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 243-265. ISBN 978-1-138-89901-8.\n\nBryce, Trevor R. (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. London-New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-15907-9.\n\nButts, Aaron M. (2017). \"Assyrian Christians\". A Companion to Assyria. Malden: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 599-612. doi:10.1002/9781118325216.CH32. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4. Archived from the original on 8 April 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2021.\n\nCoakley, James F. (2011a). \"Assyrians\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 45. Archived from the original on 17 April 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2021.\n\nCoakley, James F. (2011b). \"Chaldeans\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 93. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2021.\n\nCourtois, Sebastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, the Last Aramaeans. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-077-4.\n\nCrone, Patricia; Cook, Michael (1977). Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 61. ISBN 0521211336.\n\nDavies, Benjamin (1872). A Compendious and Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. London: Asher.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G.; Mako, Shamiran (2009). \"Ethno-cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians\" (PDF). Chronos: Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 19: 69-111. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 18 January 2021.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1965). \"Assyriens ou Araméens?\". L'Orient Syrien. 10: 141-160.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2023). Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781526623706.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1992). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (4): 281-285. doi:10.1086/373570. S2CID 161323237. Archived from the original on 5 February 2021. Retrieved 17 January 2021.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1997). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 11 (2): 30-36. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 July 2020.\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-02700-7. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 13 March 2018.\n\nFürst, Julius (1867). A Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament: With an Introduction Giving a Short History of Hebrew Lexicography. London: Williams & Norgate.\n\nGallagher, Edmon L. (2012). Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-22802-3.\n\nGaunt, David; Beṯ-Şawoce, Jan; Donef, Racho (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\nGaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). \"Introduction: Contextualizing the Sayfo in the First World War\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 1-32. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nGesenius, Wilhelm; Prideaux-Tregelles, Samuel (1859). Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures. London: Bagster.\n\nGzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-28510-1.\n\nHanish, Shak (2015). \"Assyrians\". Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues. London-New York: Routledge. p. 517. ISBN 978-1-317-46400-6.\n\nHealey, John F. (2010). \"The Church Across the Border: The Church of the East and its Chaldean Branch\". Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 41-55. ISBN 978-1-135-19371-3.\n\nHealy, Mark (2023). The Ancient Assyrians: Empire and Army, 883-612 BC. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781472848109.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart, ed. (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ISBN 978-1-55540-430-7.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart (1993). \"The Modern Assyrians - Name and Nation\". Semitica: Serta philologica Constantino Tsereteli dicata. Torino: Zamorani. pp. 99-114. ISBN 978-88-7158-024-1.\n\nJoseph, John B. (1997). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms?\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 11 (2): 37-43. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 July 2020.\n\nJoseph, John B. (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-11641-9.\n\nLaing-Marshall, Andrea (2005). \"Assyrians\". Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Vol. 1. New York-London: Routledge. pp. 149-150. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2015.\n\nLayard, Austen H. (1849a). Nineveh and its Remains: With an Account of a Visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdistan. Vol. 1. London: John Murray.\n\nLayard, Austen H. (1849b). Nineveh and its Remains: With an Account of a Visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdistan. Vol. 2. London: John Murray.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-0859-8.\n\nMacuch, Rudolf (1976). Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen Literatur. Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-005959-5.\n\nMillar, Fergus (1967). The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-440-01769-1.\n\nMooken, Aprem (2003). The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2015). \"Classical Syriac and the Syriac Churches: A Twentieth-Century History\". Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 119-148. ISBN 978-90-429-3046-9.\n\nNisan, Mordechai (2002). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-5133-3.\n\nO'Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 978-0-521-81113-2.\n\nParpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 5-22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 November 2007.\n\nRollinger, Robert (2006a). \"Assyrios, Syrios, Syros und Leukosyros\". Die Welt des Orients. 36: 72-82. JSTOR 25684050.\n\nRollinger, Robert (2006b). \"The Terms Assyria and Syria Again\" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 65 (4): 283-287. doi:10.1086/511103. S2CID 162760021. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 7 December 2008.\n\nSchniedewind, William M. (2002). \"The Rise of the Aramean States\". Mesopotamia and the Bible: Comparative Explorations. London: Sheffield Academic Press. pp. 276-287. ISBN 978-0-567-08231-2.\n\nSouthgate, Horatio (1840). Narrative of a Tour Through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia and Mesopotamia. Vol. 2. London: Tilt and Bogue.\n\nSouthgate, Horatio (1842). \"Report of a Visit of the Rev. H. Southgate to the Syrian Church of Mesopotamia, 1841\". The Spirit of Missions. 7: 163-174, 246-251, 276-280.\n\nSouthgate, Horatio (1844). Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian (Jacobite) Church of Mesopotamia. New York: Appleton.\n\nTekoğlu, Recai; Lemaire, André; İpek, İsmet; Tosun, Kazım (2000). \"La bilingue royale louvito-phénicienne de Çineköy\" (PDF). Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 144 (3): 961-1007.\n\nTezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: With Special Reference to Homonyms, Related Words and Borrowings with Cultural Signification. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library. ISBN 978-91-554-5555-2.\n\nTisserant, Eugène (1931). \"L'Église nestorienne\". Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Vol. 11. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. pp. 157-323.\n\nTravis, Hannibal (2010) [2007]. Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. pp. 237-77, 293-294. ISBN 978-1-59460-436-2.\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2019). \"The Syriac Church Denominations: An Overview\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 119-133. ISBN 978-1-138-89901-8.\n\nYacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide: A History. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-063346-2.\n\nYana, George V. (2008). Ancient and Modern Assyrians: A Scientific Analysis. Philadelphia: Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 978-1-4653-1629-5.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAbramtsov, David (1960). \"The Assyrians of Persia and the Russian Orthodox Church\". One Church. 14: 155-169.\n\nAinsworth, William F. (1842a). Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Armenia. Vol. 1. London: John W. Parker.\n\nAl-Jeloo, Nicholas (1999). \"Who are the Assyrians?\". The Assyrian Australian Academic Journal. 4. Archived from the original on 30 April 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2015.\n\nBagg, Ariel M. (2017). \"Assyria and the West: Syria and the Levant\". A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 268-274. doi:10.1002/9781118325216.CH13. Archived from the original on 17 April 2022. Retrieved 30 November 2020.\n\nBenjamin, Yoab. \"Assyrians in Middle America: A Historical and Demographic Study of the Chicago Assyrian Community\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 10 (2). Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 February 2008. Retrieved 12 February 2008.\n\nBetGivargis-McDaniel, Maegan (2007). Assyrians of New Britain. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-5012-1. OCLC 156908771.\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2008). \"The Ancient Near East in the Late Antique Near East: Syriac Christian Appropriation of the Biblical East\". Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 394-415. ISBN 978-3-16-149411-6.\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2015). Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-14531-0.\n\nBeitrag, Onders (2012). \"Minority Rights in Turkey: Quo Vadis, Assyrians?\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 99-120. ISBN 978-3-643-90268-9. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nBettany, George T. (1888). The World's Inhabitants. London-New York: Ward, Lock & Co.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1992). The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-826744-7.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2021.\n\nDemir, Sara (2017). \"The Atrocities against the Assyrians in 1915: A Legal Perspective\". The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Vol. 1. London: Routledge. pp. 106-136. ISBN 978-1-138-28405-0.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G.; Donabed, Ninos (2006). Assyrians of Eastern Massachusetts. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-4480-9.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G. (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G. (2017). \"Neither Syriac-speaking nor Syrian Orthodox Christians: Harput Assyrians in the United States as a Model for Ethnic Self-Categorization and Expression\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 359-369. ISBN 978-90-429-3164-0.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1999). \"Reply to John Joseph\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 69-70. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2020.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (2002). \"Mapping Assyria\". Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena. Milano: Università di Bologna. pp. 75-78. ISBN 978-88-8483-107-1.\n\nGewargis, Odisho Malko (2002). \"We Are Assyrians\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 16 (1): 77-95. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2003.\n\nHalo, Thea (2018). \"The Targeting of Assyrians during the Christian Holocaust in Ottoman Turkey\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 41-60. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4.\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (2014). \"The Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East\". In Leustean, Lucian N. (ed.). Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 601-620. ISBN 978-1-317-81866-3. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 24 August 2017.\n\nJakob, Joachim (2014). Ostsyrische Christen und Kurden im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Münster: LIT Verlag. ISBN 978-3-643-50616-0. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 1 February 2021.\n\nJoseph, John B. (1998). \"The Bible and the Assyrians: It Kept their Memory Alive\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 12 (1): 70-76. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 July 2020.\n\nKalpakian, Jack Vahram (2011). \"Assyrians\". Ethnic Groups of Africa and the Middle East: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. pp. 30-33. ISBN 978-1-59884-362-0.\n\nKitchen, Robert A. (2012). \"The Assyrian Church of the East\". In Casiday, Augustine M. (ed.). The Orthodox Christian World. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 78-88. ISBN 978-0-415-45516-9.\n\nLundgren, Svante (2016). The Assyrians: From Nineveh to Södertälje. Södertälje: Tigris Press. ISBN 978-91-983441-2-7.\n\nMacDonald, Kevin (29 July 2004). \"Socialization for Ingroup Identity among Assyrians in the United States\" (Abstract). Archived from the original on 10 June 2007.\n\nMakko, Aryo (2012). \"Living Between the Fronts: The Turkish-Kurdish Conflict and the Assyrians\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 63-71. ISBN 978-3-643-90268-9. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2021.\n\nMillard, Alan R. (1983). \"Assyrians and Arameans\". Iraq: British Institute for the Study of Iraq. 45 (1): 101-108. doi:10.2307/4200184. JSTOR 4200184. S2CID 192959948.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2009). \"Chaldeans and Assyrians: The Church of the East in the Ottoman Period\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 146-164. ISBN 978-1-60724-111-9. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 1 February 2021.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2011) [2009]. \"Syriac Orthodox Church\". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Vol. 4. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 2304-2309. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 28 February 2021.\n\nMutlu-Numansen, Sofia; Ossewaarde, Marinus (2019). \"A Struggle for Genocide Recognition: How the Aramean, Assyrian, and Chaldean Diasporas Link Past and Present\" (PDF). Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 33 (3): 412-428. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcz045.\n\nСадо, Стефан (1996). \"Российская православная миссия в Урмии (1898-1918)\" (PDF). Христианское Чтение. 13: 73-112. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2017.\n\nSato, Noriko (2018). \"The Memory of Sayfo and Its Relation to the Identity of Contemporary Assyrian/Aramean Christians in Syria\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 305-326. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4.\n\nWieviorka, Michel; Bataille, Philippe (2007). The lure of anti-Semitism: hatred of Jews in present-day France. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-16337-9.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1929). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. London: G. Bell & Sons.\n\nWolk, Daniel P. (2008). \"Assyrian Americans\". Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Vol. 1. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. pp. 107-109. ISBN 978-1-4129-2694-2.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (1999). \"The Assyrians: A Historical and Current Reality\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 15-30. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 25 November 2020.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000a). \"The Aramaic Language and Its Classification\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 14 (1): 23-44. Archived from the original on 5 September 2022. Retrieved 25 November 2020.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000b). \"Los Asirio-Caldeos, Cristianos orientales arameoparlantes\" (PDF). Dialogo Ecumenico. 35 (112): 263-282. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2020.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2012). \"The Assyrian Linguistic Heritage and its Survival in Diaspora\". The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. pp. 201-220. Archived from the original on 25 April 2022. Retrieved 25 November 2020.\n\nExternal links\n\nBetNahrain - Assyrian Center in Armenia\n\nYouTube-Video: Associate professor Svante Lundgren elaborates on the history and origin of the Assyrian people\n\nA virtual Assyria: Cyberland\n\nA virtual Assyria: Christians from the Middle East\n\nTraditional Assyrian Costumes\n\nAssyrian Iraqi Document Projects\n\nWho Are Assyrians?\n\nAssyrian History\n\nAramean History Archived 2018-03-18 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 24614}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-diaspora", "title": "Assyrian diaspora", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The Assyrian diaspora (Syriac: ܓܠܘܬܐ, romanized: Galuta, lit. 'exile') refers to ethnic Assyrians living in communities outside their ancestral homeland. The Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians claim descent from the ancient Assyrians and are one of the few ancient Semitic ethnicities in the Near East who resisted Arabization, Turkification, Persianization...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Assyrian diaspora (Syriac: ܓܠܘܬܐ, romanized: Galuta, lit. 'exile') refers to ethnic Assyrians living in communities outside their ancestral homeland. The Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians claim descent from the ancient Assyrians and are one of the few ancient Semitic ethnicities in the Near East who resisted Arabization, Turkification, Persianization and Islamization during and after the Muslim conquest of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.\n\nThe indigenous Assyrian homeland is within the borders of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria, a region roughly corresponding with Assyria from the 25th century BC to the 7th century AD.[1] Assyrians are predominantly Christians; most are members of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church and the Assyrian Evangelical Church.[2] The terms \"Syriac\", \"Chaldean\" and \"Chaldo-Assyrian\" can be used to describe ethnic Assyrians by their religious affiliation, and indeed the terms \"Syriac\" and \"Syrian\" are much later derivatives of the original \"Assyrian\", and historically, geographically and ethnically originally meant Assyrian (see Name of Syria).\n\nBefore the Assyrian genocide, the Assyrian people were largely unmoved from their native lands which they had occupied for about 5,000 years. Although a handful of Assyrians had migrated to the United Kingdom during the Victorian era, the Assyrian diaspora began in earnest during World War I (1914-1918) as the Ottoman Empire conducted both large scale genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Assyrian people with the aid of local Kurdish, Iranian and Arab tribes. This genocide was coordinated alongside the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide and Great Famine of Mount Lebanon.\n\nFurther atrocities such as the Simele massacres of the 1930s also stimulated emigration.\n\nAdditional emigration occurred in the 1980s, as Assyrian communities fled the violence of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. During the 1990s and 2000s, Assyrians left the Middle East to evade persecution in Ba'athist Iraq and from Muslim fundamentalists. The exodus continued into the mid-2010s, as Assyrians fled Iraq and northeastern Syria due to genocide by the Islamic State and other Sunni Islamist groups.[3]\n\nFormer USSR\n\nFrom 1937 to 1959, the Assyrian population in the Soviet Union grew by 587.3 percent.[4]\n\nFormer Soviet Union\n\nHistory\n\nAssyrians came to Russia and the Soviet Union in three large waves. The first wave was after the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, that delineated a border between Russia and Persia. The second was as a result of the Assyrian genocide during and after World War I; the third was after World War II, when the Soviet Union unsuccessfully tried to establish a satellite state in Iran.\n\nSoviet troops withdrew in 1946, and left the Assyrians (who supported the coup) exposed to retaliation identical to that received from the Turks 30 years earlier. Soviet authorities persecuted Assyrian religious and community leaders in the same way that they persecuted Russians who remained members of the Russian Orthodox Church.\n\nMost Assyrians are members of the Assyrian Church of the East; other churches include the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church.[5]\n\nUSSR census\n\n1897 census: 5,300 \"Assyrians\" (by language)[6]\n\n1919 refugee status:\n\n7,000-8,000 Assyrian refugees in Tbilisi[7]\n\n2,000 Assyrians in Yerevan[7]\n\n15,000 Assyrians from Hakkari, 10,000 from Urmia and Salmas in the Russian region of Rostov[8]\n\n1926 census: 9,808 Assyrians (Aisor)[7]\n\n1959 census: 21,083 Assyrians[9]\n\n1970 census: 24,294 Assyrians[10]\n\n1979 census: 25,170 Assyrians[11]\n\n1989 census: 26,289 Assyrians[9]\n\nRussia\n\n1989 census: 9,600 Assyrians, of whom 4,742 spoke the Syriac language; 1,738 in the Krasnodar region[5]\n\n2002 census: 13,649 Assyrians (ассирийцы)[12]\n\nArmenia\n\n1926 (Soviet) census:[10] 21,215 Assyrians\n\n1989 (Soviet) census:[13] 5,963 Assyrians\n\n2001 census:[14] 3,409 Assyrians (3rd minority ethnic group after Yazidis and Russians): 524 urban, 2,485 rural\n\n2011 census:[15] 2,769 Assyrians\n\nGeorgia\n\n1926 census: 2,904 Assyrians[10]\n\n1989 census: 6,206 Assyrians[16]\n\n2002 census: 3,299 Assyrians[16]\n\nUkraine\n\n2001 census: 3,143[17]\n\nKazakhstan\n\n2005 estimates: 540[18] (270 in Almaty)\n\nLebanon\n\nEstimates on December 31, 1944, by province (muhafazah)\n\nDenomination\n\nBeyrouth\n\nMount Lebanon\n\nNorth Lebanon\n\nSouth Lebanon\n\nBiqa'\n\nTotal\n\nSyriac Catholics\n\n4,089\n\n275\n\n169\n\n9\n\n442\n\n4,984\n\nSyriac Orthodox\n\n2,070\n\n209\n\n100\n\n22\n\n1,352\n\n3,753\n\nChaldean Catholic\n\n974\n\n120\n\n1\n\n10\n\n225\n\n1,330[19]\n\n1932 census and later estimates\n\nDenomination\n\n1932 census[20]\n\n1944 estimates[19]\n\n1954 estimates[20]\n\nSyriac Catholics\n\n2,675\n\n4,984\n\n-\n\nChaldean Catholics\n\n528\n\n1,330\n\n-\n\nSyriac Orthodox\n\n2,574\n\n3,753\n\n4,200\n\nChurch Of The East\n\n800\n\n1,200\n\n1,400\n\nNorth America\n\nCanada\n\n2001 Census: 6,980 Assyrians\n\n2006 Census: 8,650[21]\n\n2011 Census: 10,810[22]\n\nUnited States\n\n1990 census: 46,099 Assyrians[23]\n\n19,066 born in the U.S.\n\n16,783 arrived before 1980.\n\n10,250 from 1980 to 1990\n\n27,494 listed Syriac as the \"Language Spoken at Home\"[24]\n\nUnemployment: 9.1 Percent\n\n2000 census: 82,355 Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syrians[25]\n\n34,484 in Michigan:[26]\n\nSterling Heights: 5,515 (4.4 percent of the city)\n\nWest Bloomfield: 4,874 (7.5 percent)\n\nSouthfield: 3,684 (4.7 percent)\n\nWarren: 2,625 (1.9 percent)\n\nFarmington Hills 2,499 (3 percent)\n\nTroy: 2,047 (2.5 percent)\n\nDetroit, Michigan 1,963 (0.2 percent)\n\nOak Park 1,864 (6.3 percent)\n\nMadison Heights: 1,428 (4.6 percent)\n\nOrchard Lake Village: 241 (10.9 percent)\n\n22,671 in California:[27]\n\n15,685 in Illinois[28]\n\nChicago: 7,121 (0.2 percent)\n\nNiles, Illinois: 3,410 (3.3 percent)\n\nMaine Township, Park Ridge: 1,035 (0.8 percent)\n\nSyriac speakers: 46,932[29]\n\nSouth America\n\nArgentina\n\nIn Argentina the Syriac Orthodox Church counts with a Patriarchal Vicar.[30] However, the actual number of Assyrians is hard to know because the Argentine Census does not ask for ethnicity. Furthermore, their assimilation rate is very high, as it happens with other Middle Eastern communities settled in the country. There is an Assyrian presence in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Córdoba, Salta and Frías.[31][32] In the past, intellectuals like Farid Nuzha went into exile in Argentina. Although 2,000 Assyrians are listed in Argentina, the actual number may be lower.[33]\n\nEurope\n\nBelgium\n\nAssyrians arrived in Belgium primarily as refugees from the Turkish towns of Midyat and Mardin in Tur Abdin. Most belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church, but some belong to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church. Their three main settlements are in the Brussels municipalities of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (where their municipal councilman, Christian Democrat Ibrahim Erkan, is originally from Turkey) and Etterbeek, Liège and Mechelen.\n\nTwo more councilmen were elected in Etterbeek on October 8, 2006: the Liberal Sandrine Es (whose family is from Turkey) and the Christian Democrat Ibrahim Hanna (from Syria's Khabur region). Flemish author August Thiry wrote Mechelen aan de Tigris (Mechelen on the Tigris) about Assyrian refugees from Hassana in the southeastern Turkish district of Silopi. Municipal candidate Melikan Kucam is one of them. In the October 14, 2012 municipal elections, Kucam was elected in Mechelen as a member of the Flemisch nationalists N-VA.\n\nFrance\n\nAn estimated 20,000 Assyrians live in France, primarily concentrated in the northern French suburbs of Sarcelles (where several thousand Chaldean Catholics live) and in Gonesse and Villiers-le-Bel. They are from several villages in southeastern Turkey.[34][35]\n\nGermany\n\nThe number of Assyrians in Germany is estimated at 100,000.[36] Most Assyrian immigrants and their descendants in Germany live in Munich, Wiesbaden, Paderborn, Essen, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Ahlen, Göppingen, Köln, Hamburg, Berlin, Augsburg and Gütersloh.\n\nSince they were persecuted throughout the 20th century, many Assyrians arrived from Turkey seeking a better life. The first large wave arrived during the 1960s and 1970s as part of the gastarbeiter (guest worker) economic program. Germany was seeking immigrant workers (largely from Turkey) and many Assyrians, seeing opportunities for freedom and success, applied for visas. Assyrians began working in restaurants or in construction, and many began operating their own shops. The first Assyrian immigrants in Germany organized by forming culture clubs and building churches. The second wave came in the 1980s and 1990s as refugees from the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.\n\nGreece\n\nThe first Assyrian migrants arrived in Greece in 1934, and settled in Makronisos (today uninhabited), Keratsini, Pireus, Egaleo and Kalamata.[37] The vast majority of Assyrians (about 2,000) live in Peristeri, a suburb of Athens.[38] There are five Christian Assyrian marriages recorded at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Athens in 1924-25 (the transcripts can be viewed on St. Paul's Anglican Church website), indicating the arrival of refugees at that time.\n\nNetherlands\n\nThe first Assyrians came to the Netherlands in the 1970s, primarily from Turkey and observing the West Syriac Rite. The number of Assyrians in the country is estimated at 25,000 to 35,000. They primarily live in the eastern Netherlands, in Enschede, Hengelo, Oldenzaal and Borne in the province of Overijssel.\n\nSweden\n\nIn the late 1970s, about 12,000 Assyrians from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria emigrated to Sweden. Although they considered themselves persecuted for religious and ethnic reasons, they were not recognized as refugees. Those who had lived in Sweden for a longer period received residence permits for humanitarian reasons.[39]\n\nSödertälje is considered the unofficial Assyrian capital of Europe because of the city's high percentage of Assyrians. The Assyrian TV channels Suryoyo Sat and Suroyo TV are based in Södertälje. From 2005 to 2006 and since 2014, the Assyrian Ibrahim Baylan has been a minister in the Swedish government.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nAbout 8,000 Assyrians live in the United Kingdom, primarily in London and Manchester. The first Assyrians arrived during the 1850s, most immigration began in the 1950s.[34]\n\nPacific\n\nAustralia\n\nIn the 2016 census, 46,217 people identified themselves as having Assyrian ancestry, 0.13 percent of Australia's population.[40] Of the Assyrians in Australia, 21,000 are members of the Assyrian Church of the East and 9,000 are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The City of Fairfield, in Sydney, has the country's largest number of Assyrians.[41] In Sydney, Assyrians are the leading ethnic group in the Fairfield LGA suburbs of Fairfield, Fairfield Heights and Greenfield Park.[42]\n\nIn Melbourne, Assyrians live in the northwestern suburbs of Broadmeadows, Craigieburn, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park and Fawkner. In 2016, Melbourne had 13,812 people who claimed Assyrian ancestry.[42] The Assyrian community is growing, and there are new arrivals from Syria and Iraq, adding to those with origins in Iran, Jordan and the Caucasus. In May 2013, the New South Wales parliament formally recognised the Assyrian genocide.[43] Assyrians have been labelled as a successful minority group, and have established many churches, schools and community centres.\n\nNew Zealand\n\n1991 census: 315[44]\n\n1996 census: 807[44]\n\n2001 census: 1,176[44]\n\n465 in the Auckland region\n\n690 in the Wellington region\n\nHighest unemployment rate (40 percent)\n\nHighest-percentage-Christian ethnic group (99 percent)\n\nEnglish spoken: 774; no English: 348. Number of languages spoken: 1: 225; 2: 405; 3: 423; 4: 63; 5: 3\n\n2006 census: 1,683[45]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian continuity\n\nAssyrian culture\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrian independence movement\n\nAssyrians in Israel\n\nEastern Aramaic languages\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nName of Syria\n\nRefugees of Iraq\n\nTerms for Syriac Christians\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"The Chaldean Assyrian Syriac People of Iraq: An Ethnic Identity Problem - Shak Hanish\". The American Foundation for Syriac Studies. Archived from the original on 2020-09-01. Retrieved 2015-02-11.\n\n^ Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 206. ISBN 9780313321092. The Assyrians, although closely assiociated with their Christian religion, are divided among a number of Christian sects. The largest denominations are the Chaldean Catholic Church with about 45% of the Assyrian population, the Syriac Orthodox with 26%, the Assyrian Church of the East with 19%, the free Orthodox Church of Antioch or Syriac Catholic Church with 4%, and various Protestant sects with a combined 6%.\n\n^ Jacobson, Rodolfo (2001). Codeswitching Worldwide II. Walter de Gruyter. p. 159. ISBN 978-3-11-016768-9.\n\n^ Mastyugina, Tatiana; Perepelkin, Lev; Naumkin, Vitaliĭ Vi︠a︡cheslavovich; Zvi︠a︡gelʹskai︠a︡, Irina Donovna (1996). An Ethnic History of Russia Pre-revolutionary Times to the Present. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-313-29315-3.\n\n^ a b Assyrians Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Center for Russian Studies, NUPI - Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Archived 2006-02-10 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Youri Bromlei et al., Processus ethniques en U.R.S.S., Editions du Progrès, 1977\n\n^ a b c Eden Naby, \"Les Assyriens d'Union soviétique,\" Cahiers du Monde russe, 16/3-4. 1975\n\n^ A. Chatelet (Supérieur de la mission catholique de Téhéran), Question assyro-chaldéenne, Quartier général - Bureau de la Marine, Constantinople, 31 août 1919\n\n^ a b An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires, by James Stuart Olson, Lee Brigance Pappas, Nicholas Charles\n\n^ a b c Eden Naby 1975\n\n^ Annuaire démographique des Nations-Unies 1983, Département des affaires économiques et sociales internationales, New York, 1985\n\n^ \"2002 census\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-04. Retrieved 2006-02-17.\n\n^ \"Armenian Helsinki Committee - Reflections over Annual Report on International Religious Freedom: Armenia\". Archived from the original on 2007-02-13. Retrieved 2006-02-07.\n\n^ \"2001 Armenian Census - De Jure Population (Urban, Rural) by Age and Ethnicity\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2006-02-07.\n\n^ \"2011 Armenian Census - De Jure Population (Urban, Rural) by Age and Ethnicity\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2013-08-07.\n\n^ a b \"Eurominority - La solidarité avec le peuple palestinien\". Archived from the original on 19 December 2007. Retrieved 13 March 2017.\n\n^ \"All-Ukraine population census 2001\". Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-04-05.\n\n^ Assyrian cultural center in Kazakhstan\n\n^ a b Albert H. Hourani, Minorities in the Arab World, London: Oxford University Press, 1947\n\n^ a b Kenneth C. Bruss, \"Lebanon - Area and population,\" Encyclopædia Britannica, 1963\n\n^ Canada, Government of Canada, Statistics. \"Statistics Canada: Ethnocultural Portrait of Canada Highlight Tables, 2006 Census\". Archived from the original on 6 January 2019. Retrieved 13 March 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Canada, Government of Canada, Statistics (8 May 2013). \"2011 National Household Survey: Data tables - Ethnic Origin (264), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3), Generation Status (4), Age Groups (10) and Sex (3) for the Population in Private Households of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2011 National Household Survey\". Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"U.S. Bureau of the Census - Selected Characteristics for Persons of Assyrian Ancestry: 1990\". Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2017-12-07.\n\n^ U.S. Bureau of the Census, Language Spoken at Home for the Foreign-Born Population 5 Years and Over: 1980 and 1990 Archived 2018-07-19 at the Wayback Machine, Internet Release date: March 9, 1999\n\n^ US Census, QT-P13. Ancestry: 2000 Deprecated link archived February 10, 2020, at archive.today\n\n^ \"2000 Michigan Census\". Retrieved November 18, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"2000 California Census\". Retrieved November 18, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"2000 Illinois Census\". Retrieved November 18, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"U.S. Census 2000, Language Spoken at Home for the Foreign-Born Population 5 Years and Over: 1980 to 2000\". Archived from the original on 2017-07-23. Retrieved 2017-12-07.\n\n^ \"World\". November 22, 2014. Archived from the original on January 25, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2021.\n\n^ \"Argentina recibe al Patriarca de la Iglesia Siriana Ortodoxa\". www.diariosiriolibanes.com.ar. Archived from the original on 2020-09-04. Retrieved 2020-04-01.\n\n^ \"El líder de la Iglesia Siriano Ortodoxa de Antioquía llega a Argentina e inaugurará un monumento en La Plata\".\n\n^ \"State of Assyria\". www.atour.com. Archived from the original on 2020-02-19. Retrieved 2020-04-04.\n\n^ a b \"Brief History of Assyrians\". Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 13 March 2017.\n\n^ Gaunt, David, \"Cultural diversity, Multilingualism and Ethnic minorities in Sweden - Identity conflicts among Oriental Christian in Sweden\", s.10.\n\n^ \"Diskussion zum Thema 'Aaramäische Christen' im Kapitelshaus\" Borkener Zeitung (in German) (archived link, 8 October 2011)\n\n^ ZINDA. \"ZENDA - May 10, 1999\". Archived from the original on 28 August 2003. Retrieved 13 March 2017.\n\n^ \"Greece\". Archived from the original on 19 July 2013. Retrieved 13 March 2017.\n\n^ Swedish Minister for Development Co-operation, Migration and Asylum Policy, Migration 2002, June 2002 Archived September 26, 2006, at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Kinarah: Twentieth Anniversary of Assyrian Australian Association 1989, Assyrian Australian Association, Edensor Park.\n\n^ Community Relations Commission For a Multicultural NSW 2004, Cultural Harmony. The Next Decade 2002-2012 (White Paper), New South Wales Government, Sydney South.\n\n^ a b \"Ancestry | Australia | Community profile\". profile.id.com.au. Archived from the original on 2022-11-19. Retrieved 2021-10-28.\n\n^ McMah, Lauren (2013-05-14). \"NSW Parliament recognises Assyrian genocide\". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2020-10-26. Retrieved 2021-10-28.\n\n^ a b c \"Statistics New Zealand - 2001 Census of Population and Dwellings - Ethnic Groups\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-02-19. Retrieved 2006-02-05.\n\n^ \"Home\". Archived from the original on 26 February 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2017.\n\nBibliography\n\nEden Naby, \"Les Assyriens d'Union soviétique,\" Cahiers du Monde russe, 16/3-4. 1975\n\nEden Naby, The Iranian Frontier Nationalities: The Kurds, the Assyrians, the Baluch and the Turkmens, in: McCagg and Silver (eds) Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers, New York, Pergamon Press, 1979\n\nIraklii Chikhladze and Giga Chikhladze, \"The Yezidi Kurds and Assyrians of Georgia. The Problem of Diasporas and Integration into Contemporary Society,\" Journal of the Central Asia & the Caucasus (3 /21, 2003) Archived 2018-02-19 at the Wayback Machine\n\nAnna Saghabalian, Assyrians in Armenia, RFE/RL Armenian Service, Armenia Report, Thursday 13 August 1998\n\nOnnik Krikorian, The Assyrian Community in Armenia, The Armenian Weekly Archived 2006-01-15 at the Wayback Machine\n\nAssyrians in Armenia Archived 2019-11-12 at the Wayback Machine\n\nRobert Alaux, The Last Assyrians, documentary film, 2004\n\nFurther reading\n\nTalia, Peter. Assyrians in the West. Chicago: Nineveh Printing Co. [199-]. 106 p. Without ISBN"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-diaspora"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3003}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-iraq", "title": "Assyrians in Iraq", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Iraqi Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܥܝܪܐܩ, Arabic: آشوريو العراق, Kurdish: ئاشوورییەکانی عێراق) are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. They are defined as Assyrians residing in the country of Iraq, or members of the Assyrian diaspora who are of Iraqi-Assyrian heritage. They share a common...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Iraqi Assyrians\n\nThe Assyrian New Year, Akitu festival (2019) in Duhok (Nohaadra)\n\nTotal population\n\nc.500,000-600,000 (2022 est.)[1][2]\n300,000 - 400,000 (pre 2014 ISIS invasion)[3][4]\n800,000 - 1.8 million (pre-Assyrian exodus)[5][6][3]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nNineveh Plains, Dohuk Governorate, Erbil Governorate, Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, Habbaniya (pre-1990s), Assyrian diaspora\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic (Suret, specifically Iraqi Koine) \n Mesopotamian Arabic\nKurdish language\n\nReligion\n\nMainly Christianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nRelated ethnic groups\n\nIraqi Jews\n\nMandaeans\n\nArmenians\n\nIraqi Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܥܝܪܐܩ, Arabic: آشوريو العراق, Kurdish: ئاشوورییەکانی عێراق) are an ethnic and linguistic minority group, indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. They are defined as Assyrians residing in the country of Iraq, or members of the Assyrian diaspora who are of Iraqi-Assyrian heritage. They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iran, Turkey and Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora elsewhere.[7] A significant number have emigrated to the United States, notably to the Detroit[8] and Chicago; sizeable communities are also found in Sydney, Australia and Södertälje, Sweden.\n\nBackground\n\nAncient history\n\nThe Assyrians are typically Syriac-speaking Christians who claim descent from Ancient Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia.[9]\n\nScholars have said that Kurds also fought against the Assyrian Christians because they feared that Armenians or their European allies could take control of the area. Both Arabs and Kurds thought of the Assyrians as foreigners and as allies of colonial Britain.[10][11][12]\n\nPersecution of Assyrians has a long and bitter history. In 1895, in Diyarbakır, Kurdish and Turkish militia began attacking Christians, plundering Assyrian villages. In 1915, Kurds and Turks plundered villages, about 7000 Assyrians were killed. In 1915, Turkish troops \"with Kurdish detachments\" committed mass slaughters of Assyrians in Persia. In the Assyrian village of Haftvan almost 1000 people were beheaded.[13]\n\nIn 1894, the French diplomat Paul Cambon described the creation of Kurdish Hamidies regiments as \"the official organization for pillage at the expense of Armenian Christians\". In these places \"the system of persecutions and extorsions became intolerable to populations who had become accustomed to their slavery\". According to Cambon, the Porte refused reforms and persisted in \"maintaining a veritable regime of terror, arrests, assassinations and rape.\".[14] In 1924, the Muslim Kurds around Sheik Said \"rose in revolt against the \"atheist government of Ankara\" and demanded autonomy, the restoration of religious laws and of the sultanate\".[15] In 1932, Iraqi forces commanded by Kurdish general Bakr Sidki killed 600 Assyrians at Simel, near Mosul. Kurds committed the slaughter \"in which 65 Nestorian villages in northern Iraq were plundered and burned down, priests were tortured and Christians were forced to renounce their religion while others in Dohuk were deported and about a 100 were shot\".[16] In 1843, Nestorians in the Tauris region refused to pay Kurds the jizya, and \"by way of reprisal 4350 Nestroians were slaughtered, about 400 women and children were reduced to slavery and all their houses and churches destroyed\".[17] Historians have noted that in \"Kurdistan Jews, Nestorians and Armenians were subject to tallage and corvees at whim of authorities\".[18]\n\nHistorians have noted that Bedir Khan Beg (also known as Bedirhan) called the Kurdish Muslims to fight a sacred war against the Assyrians and Armenians, and ordered to massacre and annihilate them. Kurdish writers have recounted that \"the Kurdish troops attacked the Assyrians and started slaughters. Consequently, a few Assyrians were killed, their villages were destroyed and set into fire... For the second time, in 1846, the Assyrians residing at the Thuma region have been massacred....\" British writer William Eagleton said that \"in 1843 and 1846, Bedirhan started a massacre and booting campaign against the Christian Assyrians (Nestorians) he was anxious about whose getting stronger and independent through becoming able to rule themselves. It was intolerable for Bedirhan to see the Assyrians living on his own territories getting stronger. Thus he killed ten thousand Assyrians. Even though Bedirhan was a feudal tribal leader, he was expressing the aspirations of Kurdish nationalism.\" Kurdish and Arab attacks on Assyrians continued, culminating in the August 1933 Simele massacres. About 3000 Assyrians were killed in that single month alone.[19]\n\nBeginning in August 1933, Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish militia killed thousands of Assyrians in Simele (Iraq). The massacre had a big influence on Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who coined the word \"genocide.[20] The Simmele Massacre is also commemorated yearly with the official Assyrian Martyrs Day on 7 August. The massacre was carried out by the Iraqi Army, led by Kurdish General Bakir Sidqi, and Kurdish and Arab irregulars. There were about 3,000 victims of the massacre.[21]\n\nHistory\n\nBritish Mandate\n\nIndependent Kingdom of Iraq\n\nDuring July 1933, about 800 armed Assyrians headed for the Syrian border, where they were turned back by the French. While King Faisal had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the \"Assyrian problem\". This policy was implemented by an Iraqi-Kurd, General Bakr Sidqi. After engaging in several unsuccessful clashes with armed Assyrian tribesmen, on 11 August 1933, Sidqi permitted his men to attack and kill about 3,000 unarmed Assyrian civilian villagers, including women, children and the elderly, at the Assyrian villages of Sumail (Simele) district, and later at Suryia. Having scapegoated the Assyrians as dangerous national traitors, this massacre of unarmed civilians became a symbol of national pride, and enhanced Sidqi's prestige. The British, though represented by a powerful military presence as provided by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, failed to intervene or allow the well-disciplined Assyrian Levies under their command to do so, and indeed helped whitewash the event at the League of Nations.\n\nThe Assyrian repression marked the entrance of the military into Iraqi politics, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription.\n\nRepublic of Iraq\n\nIn the early 1970s, the secularist Ba'ath regime initially tried to change the suppression of Assyrians in Iraq through different laws that were passed. On 20 February 1972, the government passed the law to recognize the cultural rights of Assyrians by allowing Aramaic be taught schools in which the majority of pupils spoke that language in addition to Arabic. Aramaic was also to be taught at intermediate and secondary schools in which the majority of students spoke that language in addition to Arabic, but it never happened. Special Assyrian programs were to be broadcast on public radio and television and three Syriac-language magazines were planned to be published in the capital. An Association of Syriac-Speaking Authors and Writers had also been established.[22]\n\nThe bill turned out to be a failure. The radio stations created as the result of this decree were closed after a few months. While the two magazines were allowed to be published, only 10 percent of their material was in Aramaic. No school was allowed to teach in Aramaic either.[23]\n\nPre-invasion Iraq\n\nReports from various sources \"indicate a better human rights situation overall in the Kurdish-controlled areas of Northern Iraq than exists elsewhere in the country\" (AI 2000, 135; U.K. Immigration & Nationality Directorate Sept. 1999; USDOS 25 Feb. 2000)[24] Also, according to the reports, \"while freedom of speech, religion, movement, and press are strongly restricted throughout Iraq, these freedoms do exist to a certain extent in parts of the Kurd-controlled area \"(USDOS 25 Feb. 2000). However, reports regarding isolated human rights abuses continued in 1999. The US State government reported that in 1999 Assyrian Christian Helena Aloun Sawa was murdered, and according to AINA, \"the murder resembles a well-established pattern of complicity by Kurdish authorities in attacks against Assyrian Christians in the north\". The murder was investigated by a commission appointed by the KDP but no results of the investigation were reported by year's end.[25][24] There were also incidents of mob violence by Muslims against Christians in northern Iraq. Christian Assyrians were also targeted in a series of bombings in Erbil in 1998 to 1999, and Assyrian groups have criticized the KRG for the lack of investigation. According to the AINA, the KDP blockaded Assyrian villages in 1999 and \"later entered the villages and beat villagers\". However, after invervention by the International Committee of the Red Cross the KDP left the villages again.\n\nAccording to the UK Immigration & Nationality Directorate \"despite Tariq Aziz's lofty position in the Baghdad regime, Christians have little political influence in the Ba'ath government\" (Sept. 1999).[26]\n\nEducation in any language other than Arabic and Kurdish was prohibited by the government in Baghdad. Therefore, Assyrians were not permitted to attend classes in Syriac. In the Kurdish-controlled northern areas, classes in Syriac have been permitted since 1991. However, according to some Assyrian sources \"regional Kurdish authorities refused to allow the classes to begin.\" However, details of this practice were not available, and Kurdish authorities denied the accusations. In 1999, the Kurdistan Observer claimed that \"the Central Government had warned the administration in the Kurdish region against allowing Turkoman, Assyrian, or Yazidi minority schools.\"[26]\n\nAccording to the UK Immigration & Nationality Directorate, \"the Central Government has engaged various abuses against the Assyrian Christians, and has often suspected them of 'collaborating' with Kurds\" (Sept. 1999). According to a report by The World Directory of Minorities \"Assyrians were unable to avoid the Kurdish conflict. As with the Kurds, some supported the government, others allied themselves with the Kurdish nationalist movement\" (Minority Rights Group International 1997, 346).[26][27]\n\nPost-invasion Iraq\n\nAfter the 2003 Invasion of Iraq by US and its allies, the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded the Iraqi military, security, and intelligence infrastructure of former President Saddam Hussein and began a process of \"de-Baathification\".[28] This process became an object of controversy, cited by some critics as the biggest American mistake made in the immediate aftermath of the Invasion of Iraq, and as one of the main causes in the deteriorating security situation throughout Iraq.[29][30] Social unrest and chaos resulted in the unprovoked persecution of Assyrians in Iraq mostly by Islamic extremists (both Shia and Sunni) and Kurdish nationalists (ex. Dohuk Riots of 2011 aimed at Assyrians & Yazidis).\n\nIraqi Christians have been victims of executions, forced displacement campaigns, torture, violence and the target of Islamist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Since the 2003 Iraq War, Iraqi Christians have fled from the country and their population has collapsed under the Government of Iraq.[31][32]\n\nOn 1 August 2004 a series of car bomb attacks took place during the Sunday evening Mass in churches in Baghdad and Mosul, killing and wounding a large number of Christians. The Jordanian jihadist and 1st emir of Al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was blamed for the attacks.[33]\n\nIn 2006, an Orthodox priest, Boulos Iskander, was snatched off the streets of Mosul by a Sunni Arab group that demanded a ransom. His body was later found, with his arms and legs having been cut off.\n\nIn 2007, there were reports of a push to drive Christians out of the historically Christian suburb of Dora in southern Baghdad, with some Sunni extremists accusing the Christians of being allies of the Americans. A total number of 239 similar cases were registered by police between 2007 and 2009.[34]\n\nIn 2008, a priest called Ragheed Ganni, was shot dead in his church along with three of his companions. In the same year, there were reports that Christian students were being harassed.\n\nIn 2008, the charity Barnabas conducted research into 250 Iraqi Christian IDPs who had fled to the north of the country (Iraqi Kurdistan) to seek refugee status and found nearly half had witnessed attacks on churches or Christians, or been personally targeted by violence.\n\nIn 2009, the Kurdistan Regional Government reported that more than 40,000 Christians had moved from Baghdad, Basra and Mosul to the Iraqi Kurdistan cities. The reports also stated that the number of Christian families moving to Iraqi Kurdistan is growing and they were providing support and financial assistance for 11,000 of those families, and some are employed by the KRG.[35]\n\nIn 2010, Sunni Islamist groups attacked a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass on 31 October, killing more than 60 and wounding 78 Iraqi Christians.[36]\n\nIn 2011, Islamist extremists assassinated Christians randomly using sniper rifles. Two months before the incident, two Christians had been shot for unknown reasons in Baghdad and two other Christians had been shot by Jihadis in Mosul. Human rights organizations have recorded 66 assault cases on churches and monasteries until 2012, as well as about 200 kidnappings. On 30 May 2011, a Christian man was beheaded by a Salafi extremist in Mosul.[37]\n\nOn 2 August 2011 a Catholic church was bombed by Sunni extremists in the Turkmen area of Kirkuk, wounding more than 23 Christians.\n\nOn 15 August 2011 a church was bombed by al-Qaeda in the center of Kirkuk.[38]\n\nIn 2014, during the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) ordered all Christians in the area of its control, where the Iraqi Army had collapsed, to pay a special tax of approximately $470 per family, convert to Islam, or be killed. Many of them took refuge in nearby Kurdish-controlled regions of Iraq.\n\nAfter Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, the Assyrian Democratic Movement was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while armed members of the Assyrian Democratic Movement also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guiding Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.\n\nAssyrians in post-Saddam Iraq have faced a high rate of persecution by fundamentalist Islamists since the beginning of the Iraq War. By early August 2004 this persecution included church bombings, and fundamentalist groups' enforcement of Muslim codes of behavior upon Christians, e.g., banning alcohol, forcing women to wear hijab.[39] The violence against the community has led to the exodus of perhaps as much as half of the community. While Assyrians made up only just over 5% of the total Iraqi population before the war, according to the United Nations, Assyrians are over-represented among the Iraqi refugees (as much as 13%) who are stranded in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.[40][41][42]\n\nA large number of Assyrians have found refuge in ancient Assyrian Christian villages in Nineveh Plains and Kurdistan Region.[43][44] This led some Assyrians and Iraqi and foreign politicians to call for an Assyrian Christian autonomous region in those areas.[45]\n\nIn 2008 the Assyrians formed their own militia, the Qaraqosh Protection Committee[46] to protect Assyrian towns, villages and regions in the north. In 2008 the Assyrian Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul was assassinated by some Kurds while some have claimed assassins were hired by local Arab tribes. Rahho was a defender of Assyrian self-administration. Some observers have claimed that Kurdish KDP forces often used to practice their shooting on important Assyrian cultural heritage sites.[47]\n\nKurdish KDP security forces have been criticized for human rights abuses, abuses \"ranged from threats and intimidation to detention in undisclosed locations without due process.\" In 2015, the local KDP security forces arrested and detained political activist Kamal Said Kadir, for having written articles on the Internet critical of the KDP. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Some activists have claimed that membership in Kurdish parties is necessary to obtain \"employment and educational opportunities\" in Iraqi Kurdistan. The US State department report said that \"Kurdish authorities abused and discriminated against minorities in the North, including Turcomen, Arabs, Christians, and Shabak\", and that Kurdish authorities \"denied services to some villages, arrested minorities without due process and took them to undisclosed locations for detention, and pressured minority schools to teach in the Kurdish language\". Christian minorities in Kirkuk also \"charged that Kurdish security forces targeted Arabs and Turcomen\".[48]\n\nAssyrians have criticized the kurdification of the school curricula, and have complained about the confiscation and occupation of Assyrian lands, and \"that the Kurds invent new and impossible laws when the legitimate owners ask for their lands\".[49] Assyrians have criticized that while Kurds are very well funded, the Assyrian Christians receive almost no funding for their schools. Assyrians have also said that Kurds have modified and falsified school textbooks (kurdification) and changed traditional Christian names to Kurdish names. In textbooks it was even claimed that some biblical figures were Kurdish.[50] It was reported that the man accused of killing the Christian politician Francis Yousif Shabo in 1993 is \"allowed to walk around freely\" in Kurdistan. The impunity for those who attacked or killed Assyrians in the Kurdistan region was criticized.[51] Assyrian Christian David Jindo was one of many murdered Christian politicians. Other prominent Assyrian leaders who were killed by Kurdish nationalists include Patriarch Mar Shimun, Franso Hariri, Margaret George (one of the first female Peshmerga) and Francis Shabo. Many of these figures were killed \"in spite of their attempts to engage with, or work under, Kurds\".[52][53]\n\nThe US State government also reported that in Kurdish controlled areas Assyrian schools and classes in Syriac were not permitted or even prevented in some cases.[26][54] There were also incidents of mob violence by Kurdistan Workers party (KWP) against Christians in northern Iraq.[26][54] Christian Assyrians were also targeted in a series of bombings in Erbil in 1998 to 1999, and Assyrian groups have criticized the KRG for the lack of investigation.[26][54] According to the US Department of State the KDP blockaded Assyrian villages in 1999 and \"later entered the villages and beat villagers\". However, after invervention by the International Committee of the Red Cross the KDP left the villages again.[26]\n\nAn example of Kurdification is the attack on the Assyrian town Rabatki in 2013 by General Aref al-Zebari and his brother Habib al-Hares Zabari, reportedly by Kurdish peshmerga soldiers. It has been reported that many Assyrian girls are forced into prostitution by Kurdish criminal organizations, and the families of these girls have also been threatened.[47]\n\nIn an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, bishop Jules Boutros, of the Syriac Catholic Church, said most young Syriacs were trying to get out of Iraq. \"Most of our young people are trying to get out of Iraq and Syria. They find it difficult to stay in Iraq, because they have lost confidence in their government, they have faced so much persecution. More than 60,000 Syriacs were forced to leave the Nineveh Plain in one night. In total, more than 120,000 Christians were obliged to flee to Kurdistan, and from there they have been going to the west. A good number returned home, and that is a good sign, because we have a mission in this part of the Middle East. But many families are still trying to get out.\"[55]\n\nJyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons\n\nThe publication of satirical cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 led to an increase in violence against the Assyrian community. At first, the cartoons did not get much attention, but when the Egyptian media picked up on the publication in late December 2005, violence and protests erupted around the world.\n\nOn 29 January, six churches in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Kirkuk were targeted by car bombs, killing 13-year-old worshipper Fadi Raad Elias. No militants claimed to be retaliating for the pictures, nor was this the first time Iraqi churches have been bombed; but the bishop of the church stated \"The church blasts were a reaction to the cartoons published in European papers. But Christians are not responsible for what is published in Europe.\"[56]\nMany Assyrians in Iraq now feel like \"Westerners should not give wild statements [as] everyone can attack us [in response]\" and \"Today I'm afraid to walk the streets, because I'm Christian.\"[56]\n\nAlso on 29 January, a Muslim Cleric in the Iraqi city of Mosul issued a fatwa stating, \"Expel the (Assyrian) Crusaders and infidels from the streets, schools, and institutions because they have offended the person of the prophet.\"[57] It has been reported that Muslim students beat up a Christian student at Mosul University in response to the fatwa on the same day.[57]\n\nOn 6 February, leaflets were distributed in Ramadi, Iraq, by the militant group \"The Military Wing for the Army of Justice\" demanding that Christians \"halt their religious rituals in churches and other worship places because they insulted Islam and Muslims.\"[58][59]\n\nPope Benedict XVI Islam controversy\n\nThe Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy arose from a lecture delivered on 12 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Many Islamic politicians and religious leaders registered protest against what they said was an insulting mischaracterization of Islam,[60][61] contained in the quotation by the Pope of the following passage:\n\nShow me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.[61]\n\nAfter the Pope's comments were known throughout the Arab world, several churches were bombed by insurgent groups. A previously unknown Baghdad-based group, Kataab Ashbal Al-Islam Al-Salafi (Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions)[Note 1] threatened to kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize to Muhammad within three days.[62] Christian leaders in Iraq asked their parishioners not to leave their homes, after two Assyrians were stabbed and killed in Baghdad.[63]\n\nThere have been reports of writing on Assyrian church doors stating \"If the Pope does not apologise, we will bomb all churches, kill more Christians and steal their property and money.\"[64]\n\nThe Iraqi militia Jaish al-Mujahedin (Holy Warriors' Army) announced its intention to \"destroy their cross in the heart of Rome… and to hit the Vatican.\"[65]\n\nDespite the Pope's comments dying down in the media, attacks on Assyrian Christians continued and on 9 October Islamic extremist group kidnapped priest Paulos Iskander in Mosul. Iskander's church as well as several other churches placed 30 large posters around the city to distance themselves from the Pope's words.[66] The relatives of the Christian priest who was beheaded three days later in Mosul, have said that his Muslim captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a $350,000 ransom.[67]\n\nMassacres and harassment since 2003\n\nMassacres, ethnic cleansing, and harassment has increased since 2003, according to a 73-page report by the Assyrian International News Agency, released in summer 2007.[68][69][70] On 6 January 2008 (the Feast of Epiphany) five Assyrian churches, one Armenian church, and a monastery in Mosul and Baghdad were coordinately attacked with multiple car bombs.[71][72] Iraqi vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi expressed his \"closeness to Christians\", whom he called \"brothers\" in the face of this \"attack that changed their joy to sadness and anxiety\".[73] Two days later, on 8 January, two more churches were bombed in the city of Kirkuk; the Chaldean Cathedral of Kirkuk and the ACOE Maar Afram Church, wounding three bystanders.[74] Since the start of the Iraq War, there have been at least 46 churches and monasteries bombed.[75]\n\nThreats on population\n\nLeaders of Iraq's Christian community estimate that over two-thirds of the country's Christian population may have fled the country or been internally displaced since the US-led invasion in 2003. While exact numbers are unknown, reports suggest that whole neighborhoods of Christians have left the cities of Baghdad and Al-Basrah, and that both Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups and militias have threatened Christians.[77]\n\nReligious official targets\n\nYoussef Adel, a Syriac Orthodox priest with Saint Peter's Church in Baghdad's Karada neighbourhood, was killed by gunmen while travelling in a car on 5 April 2008.[78] On 11 April, President Bush was interviewed by Cliff Kincaid of the EWTN Global Catholic Network; after being informed about the deteriorating situation of the Assyrians; President Bush was quoted as saying \"This is a Muslim government that has failed to protect the Christians. In fact, it discriminates against them....It's time to order U.S. troops to protect Christian churches and believers.\"[79]\n\nStatistics\n\nA 1950 CIA numbers report on Iraq estimated 165,000 Assyrians, most of which were Chaldean Catholic with smaller numbers of the Church of the East and Syriac Catholic and Orthodox churches.[80]\n\nAccording to a report by the Assyrian Policy Institute Before the war in Iraq, the number of Christians in Iraq was estimated at over 1.5 million.[5]\n\nAccording to statistics gathered by the Roman Catholic Church when doing censuses of Chaldean Catholic diocese in Iraq in 2012 and 2013, Chaldo-Assyrians in Iraq numbered 230,071 people.[81]\n\nAccording to varied reports from the years 2015 to 2022, the Assyrian population is estimated to be anywhere between 500,000-600,000 in Iraq.[82][83]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian elections in Iraq\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nAssyrian independence movement\n\nChristianity in Iraq\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nList of Iraqi Assyrians\n\nMinorities in Iraq\n\nSimele massacre\n\nPersecution of Assyrians by the Islamic State\n\nNotes\n\n^ Ashbāl has been mistranslated in the media as Boy Scout. The Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic defines shibl (plural ashbāl اشبال) as meaning \"lion cub; a capable young man, brave youth, young athlete.\" Compare with Ashbal Saddam (Saddam's Lion Cubs).\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Minorities in Iraq - European Research Service\" (PDF).\n\n^ Shlaymoon Toma, Dr. Shivan (2022). Identity, Nationality, Religion and Gender: The Different Experiences of Assyrian Women and Men in Duhok, Iraq (PDF). Institute of Development Studies.\n\n^ a b \"The desperate plight of Iraq's Assyrians and other minorities | Mardean Isaac\". TheGuardian.com. 24 December 2011.\n\n^ Walter Russell Mead (15 May 2015). \"The Plight of the Middle East's Christians\". The Wall Street Journal.\n\n^ a b \"Assyria: Growing Number of Diaspora Reconnecting with Homeland\". Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 28 May 2019.\n\n^ Lewis, Jonathan Eric (June 2003). \"Iraqi Assyrians: Barometer of Pluralism\". Middle East Quarterly.\n\n^ Hooglund (2008), pp. 100-101.\n\n^ \"Arab, Chaldean, and Middle Eastern Children and Families in the Tri-County Area.\" (Archive) From a Child's Perspective: Detroit Metropolitan Census 2000 Fact Sheets Series. Wayne State University. Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2004. p. 2/32. Retrieved on November 8, 2013.\n\n^ A. Leo Oppenheim (1964). Ancient Mesopotamia (PDF). The University of Chicago Press.\n\n^ Margins of empire. S.l.: Stanford University Press., and https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline Archived 2017-01-05 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"\"\"\"THE SIMELE MASSACRE AS A CAUSE OF IRAQI NATIONALISM: HOW AN ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE CREATED IRAQI MARTIAL NATIONALISM \"\"\"\"\n\n^ Eric Davis, Memories of State (Los Angeles: University of California Press 2005): 62; Records of Iraq, v. 7, Consul Mon ypenny to Mr. Ogilvie- Forbes, 21 Aug. 1933, 580. Cited https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file Archived 1 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine? accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline \n\n^ The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies Richard G. Hovannisian (2011).\n\n^ Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. 116-18\n\n^ Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. 40\n\n^ Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. 188\n\n^ Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeʼor. see in hommaire de hell, voyage en turquie 2:22-24, where it is recounted\n\n^ Islam and Dhimmitude: where civilizations collide. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 2002. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-8386-3942-9.\n\n^ \"The Assyrians in the Christian Asia Minor Holocaust\". www.atour.com.\n\n^ \"The Assyrian Genocide, 1914 to 1923 and 1933 up to the present | Rutgers-Newark Colleges of Arts & Sciences\". Archived from the original on 7 February 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2016.\n\n^ \"The 1933 Massacre of Assyrians in Simmele, Iraq\".\n\n^ \"Twelfth periodic reports of States parties due in 1993: Iraq. 14/06/96, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Iraqi government's point of view)\". Unhchr.ch. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ David Nissman (22 February 1999). \"GOOD MORNING BET-NAHRAIN\". ZENDA. Retrieved 28 February 2007.\n\n^ a b Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. \"Refworld | Iraq: Chaldean Christians\". Refworld. Retrieved 8 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Iraq\". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 8 June 2017.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. \"Refworld | The Leader in Refugee Decision Support\". Refworld. Retrieved 8 June 2017.\n\n^ \"U.S. Department of State | Home Page\". state.gov. Retrieved 8 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Coalition Provisional Authority Order 1 De-ba'athification of Iraqi Society\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 10 February 2022.\n\n^ \"Mullen's Plain Talk About U.S. Mistakes in Iraq\". National Public Radio. 1 August 2007. Retrieved 24 September 2010.\n\n^ Henderson & Tucker, p. 19.\n\n^ \"On Vulnerable Ground\". Human Rights Watch. 10 November 2009. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraq\". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Leaders condemn Iraq church bombs\". 2 August 2004. Retrieved 8 June 2020.\n\n^ Barrett, Greg (2012). The Gospel of Rutba: War, Peace, and the Good Samaritan Story in Iraq (in Arabic). Orbis Books. ISBN 978-1-60833-113-0.\n\n^ \"The status of Christians in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 January 2017. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ Shadid, Anthony (1 November 2010). \"Baghdad Church Attack Hits Iraq's Core\". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 June 2017.\n\n^ Hani Nesira. \"Religious minorities in the Arab world between terrorism and crises of fragile States: Observation and Analysis\" (PDF). Geneva Center for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2017.\n\n^ Mohammed Tawfeeq. \"Iraq church bombing wounds at least 20\". Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Analysis: Iraq's Christians under attack\". BBC News. 2 August 2004. Retrieved 25 April 2010.\n\n^ Qais al-Bashir (25 December 2006). \"Iraqi Christians celebrate Christmas\". Yahoo! News. Associated Press. Retrieved 7 January 2007.\n\n^ \"Iraqis in Jordan\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 31 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic: A Field-Based Snapshot\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 January 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Worthy Christian News » Iraqi Christians speed exodus to Kurdistan\". Worthynews.com. 8 February 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ Rizan, Ahmed. \"Displaced Mosul Christians celebrate Easter in Nineveh Plain\". Archived from the original on 4 May 2011. Retrieved 5 June 2011.\n\n^ Timmerman, Kenneth (1 March 2011). \"TIMMERMAN: Iraqi Christians to Congress: Please help\". The Washington Times. Retrieved 5 June 2011.\n\n^ \"Christian Security Forces Growing Stronger In Iraq\". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ a b HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT ON ASSYRIANS IN IRAQ 2013, by Assyria Council of Europe and the Assyria Foundation\n\n^ Iraq report, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 2005. March 8, 2006. \"The Kurdish parties also control \"the pursuit of formal education and the granting of academic positions\". In 2015 Kurdish security forces in Bartalah reportedly broke up a peaceful demonstration by Shabak people, thereby assaulting several demonstrators. The US State department reported on allegations that the KRG discriminated against Christian minorities. Christians living in areas north of Mosul said that the KRG seized their property without compensation and that the KRG began building Kurdish settlements on their land. Assyrian Christians also said that the \"KDP-dominated judiciary routinely discriminated against non-Muslims and legal judgments in their favor were not enforced\". The Kurdish political parties \"encouraged and supported resettlement of Kurds in Kirkuk outside the framework of the IPCC\". However Arabs remained \"in antagonistic and extremely poor conditions, facing pressure from Kurdish authorities to leave the province\". In 2015 elections, many of the mostly Christian residents in the Nineveh Plain were unable to vote, \"polling places did not open, ballot boxes were not delivered, and incidents of voter fraud and intimidation occurred\". Kurdish militia refused to \"allow ballot boxes to pass to predominantly Christian villages\". The KRG also reportedly \"pressured NGOs into hiring only Kurds and dismissing non-Kurds on security grounds\".\"\n\n^ \"The Genocide of Assyrians -- then and Now\".\n\n^ \"Kurden und Christen: Ein Krieg um Schulbücher bestimmt Syriens Zukunft\". Die Welt. 20 May 2016.\n\n^ \"Murderers of Iraqi Kurdistan MP Francis Yousif Shabo lives in KDP controlled regions\". ekurd.net.\n\n^ \"Syria Comment » Archives \"The Assyrians of Syria: History and Prospets\" by Mardean Isaac - Syria Comment\". www.joshualandis.com. 21 December 2015. Archived from the original on 24 December 2015.\n\n^ \"PRESS RELEASE: To the General Public & Syriac-Assyrian-Chaldean People | Syriac International News AgencySyriac International News Agency\". Archived from the original on 20 March 2016.\n\n^ a b c \"2000 County Reports on Human Rights Practices\".\n\n^ ACN (18 August 2022). \"Hope for Syriac Catholics\". ACN International. Retrieved 17 November 2022.\n\n^ a b \"Iraq Christians on edge as cartoon row escalates\". Reuters UK. 3 February 2006.\n\n^ a b تفجيرات الكنائس العراقية على علاقة برسومات الدنمارك (in Arabic). Elaph.com. 29 January 2006.\n\n^ \"Sotaliraq.com - صوت العراق\". Archived from the original on 1 March 2006.\n\n^ \"Iraq Islamic Group Asks Christians to Stop Prayers in Churches\". Aina.org. 6 February 2006. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"BBC Article. In quotes: Muslim reaction to Pope last accessed September 17, 2006\". BBC News. 16 September 2006. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ a b \"Article:Pope sorry for offending Muslims, last accessed September 17, 2006\". BBC News. 17 September 2006. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Christian Killed in Iraq in Response to Pope's Speech: Islamic Website\". Assyrian International News Agency. 16 September 2006.\n\n^ \"Second Assyrian Christian Killed in Retaliation for Pope's Remarks\". Aina.org. 17 September 2006.\n\n^ \"Violence against Christians grows in Iraq, Ekklesia, 29 September 2006\". Ekklesia.co.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Vatikan verschärft Sicherheitsvorkehrungen\", Der Spiegel, 16 September 2006 (in German)\n\n^ \"Growing violence against Christians in Iraq\". Ianpaisley.org. 26 October 2006.\n\n^ \"2006 Iraq priest killed over pope speech\". Aljazeera.net. 12 October 2006. Archived from the original on 12 November 2006.\n\n^ \"Incipient Genocide\" (PDF). Aina.org.\n\n^ Bandow, Doug (2 July 2007). \"Thrown to the Lions\". Spectator.org. Archived from the original on 5 July 2007.\n\n^ Lattimer, Mark (6 October 2006). \"In 20 years, there will be no more Christians in Iraq\". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 April 2010.\n\n^ \"عاجل سلسلة تفجيرات تطال كنائس في بغداد والموصل\". www.ankawa.com. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2021.\n\n^ \"Churches, monastery bombed in Iraq: Police\". Business.maktoob.com. Archived from the original on 10 January 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"AKI - Adnkronos international Iraq: Vice-president condemns church attacks\". Adnkronos.com. 7 April 2003. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"AFP: Car bombings target churches in north Iraq\". 9 January 2008. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Church Bombings in Iraq Since 2004\". Aina.org. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ Arraf, Jane (31 March 2018). \"Iraq's Christians Remain Displaced This Easter\". NPR. Retrieved 18 May 2018.\n\n^ \"Population 'under attack', Radio Free Europe\". Rferl.org. Retrieved 18 June 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ Gamel, Kim (6 April 2008). \"Christian priest shot dead in Baghdad\". Boston.com.\n\n^ Cliff Kincaid (11 April 2008). \"Journalist Asks Bush to Protect Iraqi Christians\". Aim.org. Archived from the original on 7 February 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.\n\n^ \"National Intelligence Survey: Iraq: Section 43\" (PDF). CIA. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Current Chaldean Dioceses [Catholic-Hierarchy]\". www.catholic-hierarchy.org.\n\n^ \"Minorities in Iraq - European Research Service\" (PDF).\n\n^ Shlaymoon Toma, Dr. Shivan (2022). Identity, Nationality, Religion and Gender: The Different Experiences of Assyrian Women and Men in Duhok, Iraq (PDF). Institute of Development Studies.\n\nSources\n\nAboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst: Cambria Press. ISBN 978-1-60497-583-3.\n\nBaarda, Tijmen C. (2020). \"Arabic and the Syriac Christians in Iraq: Three Levels of Loyalty to the Arabist Project (1920-1950)\". Arabic and its Alternatives: Religious Minorities and their Languages in the Emerging Nation States of the Middle East (1920-1950). Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 143-170. doi:10.1163/9789004423220_007. ISBN 978-90-04-38269-5. S2CID 216310663.\n\nBarAbraham, Abdulmesih (2018). \"Safeguarding the Cross: Emergence of Christian Militias in Iraq and Syria\". Middle Eastern Christians and Europe: Historical Legacies and Present Challenges. Wien: LIT Verlag. pp. 217-238. ISBN 978-3-643-91023-3.\n\nBarber, Matthew (2016). \"They that Remain: Syrian and Iraqi Christian Communities amid the Syria Conflict and the Rise of the Islamic State\". Christianity and Freedom. Vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 453-488. ISBN 978-1-107-56188-5.\n\nDougherty, Beth K. (2019) [2004]. Historical Dictionary of Iraq (3rd ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-2005-7.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G. (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1998). \"Christians in Iraq\". Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 294-304. ISBN 978-0-19-829388-0.\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (2019). \"Changing Demography: Christians in Iraq since 1991\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 783-796. ISBN 978-1-138-89901-8.\n\nLalik, Krzysztof (2018). \"Ethnic and Religious Factors of Chaldo-Assyrian Identity in an Interface with the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan\". Rediscovering Kurdistan's Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket. Cham: Springer. pp. 213-257. ISBN 978-3-319-93088-6.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (1974). \"Religious Communities in Late Sasanian and Early Muslim Iraq\". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 17 (2): 113-135. doi:10.2307/3596328. JSTOR 3596328.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (1984). Iraq After the Muslim Conquest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-05395-0.\n\nMüller, Hannelore (2018). \"Assyrian Christians in Iraq, the League of Nations and Transnational Christian Advocacy (1920s-1940s)\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 253-304. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2009). \"Chaldeans and Assyrians: The Church of the East in the Ottoman Period\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 146-164. ISBN 978-1-60724-111-9.\n\nO'Mahony, Anthony (2009). \"Christianity in Iraq: Modern History, Theology, Dialogue and Politics (until 2003)\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 237-284. ISBN 978-1-60724-111-9.\n\nRassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Leominster: Gracewing Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85244-633-1.\n\nSalloum, Saad (2019). \"Minorities in Iraq: National Legal Framework, Political Participation, and the Future of Citizenship Given the Current Changes\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 11-32. ISBN 978-1-912997-15-2.\n\nSchmidinger, Thomas (2019). \"Christians in Iraq\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 113-124. ISBN 978-1-912997-15-2.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2009). \"The Christian Minorities in Iraq: The Question of Religious and Ethnic Identity\". In-Between Spaces: Christian and Muslim Minorities in Transition in Europe and the Middle East. Brussel: Peter Lang. pp. 45-57. ISBN 978-90-5201-565-1.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2012). \"Christians in Iraq: An Analysis of Some Recent Political Developments\" (PDF). Der Islam. 88 (1): 179-198. doi:10.1515/islam-2011-0010. hdl:2066/101464. S2CID 156389791.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2018). \"Christians in Iraq: The Transition from Religious to Secular Identity\". International Journal of Asian Christianity. 1: 11-24. doi:10.1163/25424246-00101002. S2CID 158309301.\n\nYoukhana, Emanuel (2019). \"Fleeing ISIS: Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Niniveh Plains after ISIS\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 125-150. ISBN 978-1-912997-15-2.\n\nHooglund, Eric (2008). \"The Society and Its Environment\" (PDF). In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran: A Country Study. Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81-142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Council of Europe Press Releases"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-iraq"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6642}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-iran", "title": "Assyrians in Iran", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Iran (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܝܼܪܵܢ; Persian: آشوریان ایران), or Iranian Assyrians, are an ethnic and linguistic minority in present-day Iran. The Assyrians of Iran speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, a neo-Aramaic language descended from the eastern dialects of the old Aramaic language with elements of Akkadian, and are Eastern...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Iran\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܝܼܪܵܢ\n\nآشوریان ایران\n\nIranian Assyrians from Urmia, Iran\n\nTotal population\n\n20,000-55,000[1][2]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nTehran, West Azerbaijan Province (Urmia, Salmas)\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic and Persian\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nAssyrians in Iran (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܝܼܪܵܢ; Persian: آشوریان ایران), or Iranian Assyrians, are an ethnic and linguistic minority in present-day Iran. The Assyrians of Iran speak Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, a neo-Aramaic language descended from the eastern dialects of the old Aramaic language with elements of Akkadian, and are Eastern Rite Christians belonging mostly to the Assyrian Church of the East and also to the Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church.[3]\n\nThey share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iraq, Assyrians in Turkey and Assyrians in Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora.[3]\n\nThe Assyrian community in Iran numbered approximately 200,000 prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.[4] In 1987, there were an estimated 50,000 Assyrians living in Tehran.[5] However, after the revolution many Assyrians left the country, primarily for the United States; the 1996 Iranian census counted only 32,000 Assyrians.[6] Current estimates of the Assyrian population in Iran consist of 7,000 combined members of the Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church in addition to less than 10,000 members of the Assyrian Evangelical Church.[7]\n\nThe Iranian capital, Tehran, is home to the majority of Iranian Assyrians; however, approximately 15,000 Assyrians reside in northern Iran, in Urmia and various Assyrian villages in the surrounding area.[3] To note among the Assyrian diaspora, the Assyrians residing in California and Russia tend to be originally from Iran.[8]\n\nThe Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ratified in 1979, recognizes Assyrians as a religious minority and ethnic minority and reserves for them one seat in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Iranian parliament.[9] As of 2004, the seat was occupied by Yonathan Betkolia, who was elected in 2000 and reelected in the 2004 legislative election.\n\nIn 2010, it was estimated that there were only around 5,000 Assyrians left in the historical center of the city of Urmia.[10]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Assyrian presence in Iran goes back 4,000 years to ancient times, and Assyria was involved in the history of Ancient Iran even before the arrival of the modern Iranian peoples to the region circa 1000 BC. During the Old Assyrian Empire (c.2025-1750 BC) and Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BC) the Assyrians ruled over parts of Pre-Iranic northern and western Iran. The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC) saw Assyria conquer the Iranic Persians, Medes and Parthians into their empire, together with the ancient pre-Iranic Elamites, Kassites, Manneans and Gutians, and also the Iranic Cimmerians of Asia Minor and Scythians of the Caucasus.[11] The home of the Assyrians in Iran has traditionally been along the western shore of Lake Urmia from the Salmas area to the Urmia plain.[12]\n\nAfter the fall of Assyria between 612 and 599 BC, after decades of civil war, followed by an attack by an alliance of former subject peoples; the Medes, Persians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Scythians and Cimmerians, its people became an integral part of the Achaemenid Empire (as did Assyria itself), holding important military, civic and economic positions, and the Achaemenid Persians, having spent centuries under Assyrian domination, were greatly influenced by Assyrian Art and Architecture, modelled their empire upon Assyrian lines, and saw themselves as the successors of the great Assyrian kings. Assyrians are still attested as being extant in the north west of the region during the Parthian Empire (160 BC-223 AD) and Sassanid Empire (224-650 AD), and throughout the Middle Ages, where the Bukhtishu family of physicians were held in great regard by the Persian kings.\n\nThere were about 200,000 Assyrians in Iran at the time of the 1976 census.[12] Many emigrated after the revolution in 1979, but at least 50,000 were estimated to be still in Iran in 1987.\n\nIn 1900, Assyrians numbered over 76,000 in northwestern Iran, constituting over a quarter of the Azerbaijan province's population and were the largest non-Muslim majority in Urmia. Of the 300 villages around Urmia, 60 were exclusively Assyrians and 60 were mixed villages with Assyrian, Armenian, and Azeri communities. Nevertheless, there were over 115 documented Assyrian villages to the west of Lake Urmia prior to 1918.[11]\n\nDuring the Assyrian genocide, which took place during World War I, the Ottoman Army together with allied Kurdish and Arab militias along the Persian-Turkish and Persian-Iraqi border carried out religiously and ethnically motivated massacres and deportations on unarmed Assyrian civilians (and Armenians) both in the mountains and on the rich plains, resulting in the death of at least 300,000 Assyrians.[13] This genocide that started in 1914 was said to be started with the Ottomans’ ‘Jihad’ declaration, apparently solely based on its ethnic and religious differences with the Assyrians because of their belief in Christianity, but actually there was an ambition to extend their ‘holy war’ beyond Assyrian territories to spread its Ottoman influences.[14]\n\nThe Ottomans already implemented massacres of several Assyrian tribes from 1843 to 1845, with the motive of taking over their ancestral lands and making them part of the Ottoman Empire. These tribes were particularly the Tiyari, Tkhuma, Jilu and Baz, who all refused Ottoman command. According to British councils, 10,000 Assyrians were massacred already during this time alone. Women and children were taken while Assyrian leaders were cast out from Ottoman forces. Assyrians felt forced to convert to for example Catholicism or Russian Orthodoxy to receive help from the Russian, French or British.[14]\n\nIn 1914 alone, they attacked dozens of villages and drove off all the inhabitants of the district of Gawar. The Assyrians defended themselves and for a time successfully repelled further attacks under the leadership of Agha Petros, seizing control of much of the Urmia region and defeating Ottoman forces and their Kurdish and Arab allies in the process. However, lack of ammunition and supplies, due mainly to the withdrawal of Russia from the war, and the collapse of allied Armenian forces led to their downfall. Massively outnumbered, surrounded, undersupplied and cut off, the Assyrians suffered terrible massacres. These included Assyrian deportations close to the Ottoman-Persian border in January 1915, as well as the invasion of several Assyrian tribes located in the Hakkari mountains. This area already suffered numerous massacres in the 1840s.[14]\n\nBy the summer of 1918 almost all surviving Assyrians had fled to Tehran or to existing Assyrian communities or refugee camps in Iraq such as Baqubah. Local Kurds and Arabs and took the opportunity of the last phases of World War I to rob Assyrian homes, murder civilians and leave those remaining destitute. The critical murder that sowed panic in the Assyrian community came when Kurdish militias, under Agha Ismail Simko, assassinated the Patriarch, Shimun XIX Benyamin, on March 3, 1918, under the pretext of inviting him to negotiations, although the Assyrian leader Malik Khoshaba exacted revenge upon Simko by attacking and sacking his citadel, forcing the Kurdish leader to flee for his life.[12]\n\nReligious communities\n\nMost Assyrians in Iran are followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, with a minority of 3,900 following the Chaldean Catholic Church.[15] Some also follow Protestant denominations such as the Assyrian Evangelical Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and possibly Russian Orthodoxy due to a Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia during the 1900s.\n\nDistribution\n\nUrmia (Syriac: ܐܘܪܡܝܐ):\n\nAbajalu, Abdulkandi, Adeh (ܥܕܐ), Aliabad, Aliawach, Alikumi, Alqayeh, Anhar, Ardishai, Armutaghaj, Babarud, Badelbu, Badiki, Balanush, Balu, Borashan, Chamaki, Chamashajan, Charagushi, Charbakhsh (چهاربخش (ارومیه)), Darbarut, Digala (دیگاله), Dizataka, Diszgeri, Gawilan, Geogtapa, Lower Gniza, Upper Gniza, Gulpashin/Gulpashan, Gowzgavand, Hesar Babaganja, Ikiaghaj, Iryawa, Jamlawa, Khanishan, Kosi, Lulpa, Mushawa, Nazlu, Piqabaklu, Qala, Qara-Aghaj, Qarajalu, Qaragoz, Qasemlu, Qezel Ashuq, Qurtapa, Saatlu, Sainabad, Sangar, Saralan, Sardarud, Shirabad (ܫܝܪܐܒܕ), Sir, Sopurghan, Taka, Tarmani, Tazakand, Urmia, Vazirabad, Yaghmiralu, Yengija, Zumalan (ܙܘܡܠܢ).\n\nMargawar:\n\nDiza, Gerdik, Gullistan, Nergi, Razhani.\n\nTargawar (Syriac: ܬܪܓܘܪ):\n\nAnbi, Balulan, Darband, Dastalan, Haki, Mavana (ܡܥܘܢܐ), Qurana, Salona, Shibani, Tuleki, Tulu.\n\nSumay Baradust:\n\nGangachin, Tazakand.\n\nSalmas (Syriac: ܣܵܠܵܡܵܣ)::\n\nAkhtekhana, Chara, Delemon (دیلمقان), Guliser, Khanaga, Khosrawa, Mahlam, Patamur, Qederabad, Sarna, Sawra, Ulah, Zewajik.[16]\n\nChurches\n\nUrmia\n\nChurch\nLocation\nDate\nDenomination\nLocation\nPhoto\n\nOld Mart Maryam (St. Mary)[17]\nUrmia\nEarly Christianity\nACOE/ROC\n🌐\n\nNew Mart Maryam (St. Mary)\nUrmia\n1964\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[18]\nUrmia\n1885/1954\nCCC\n🌐\n\nAssyrian Evangelical Church, Urmia\nUrmia\n1961\nAEC\n🌐\n\nMar Kuriakus (St. Cyriacus)[19][20]\nUrmia\n5th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[21][22]\nCharbakhsh(fa), Urmia\n7th c./1905\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[23][24]\nDigala(fa), Urmia\n19th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nSangar Borzu-Khan, Urmia\n1922/1993\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nAlvach\n\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[25]\nJanvislu\n\n🌐\n\nMar Sargis-Bacchus (Sts. Sergius and Bacchus)[26]\nSeir\n7th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Addai (St. Thaddeus)\nAlqian\n15th c.\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gabriel (Holy Gabriel)[27]\nOrdushahi\n1863\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nOrdushahi\n\n🌐\n\nMar Sargis (St. Sergius)\nTakyeh\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nTakyeh\n\n🌐\n\nMar T'oma (St. Thomas)[28]\nBabarud\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nBabarud\n\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nQurt Tappeh\n1889\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nChehreh Gosha\n19th c./2001\n\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[29]\nGok Tepe\n\n🌐\n\nMar Zayya (St. Zayya)\nGok Tepe\n16th c./1889/1957\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George) (fa)[30]\nGulpashan\n1869\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar Sehyon (Holy Zion)\nGulpashan\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Petros-Polos (Sts. Peter and Paul)[31]\nKelisakandi\n8th c.\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)[32][33]\nReyhanabad\n1914\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Abdishu (Odishu) (St. Abdishu)\nTarmani\n1929\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Qardagh (St. Qardagh)\nTarmani\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nVazirabad\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nYaghmur Ali\n20th c.\n\n🌐\n\nRabban Mar Hormizd (St. Hormizd)\nDizaj-e Takyeh\n9th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Shalita (St. Artemius)\nDizaj-e Takyeh\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nSaatlu\n18th c./1971\n\n🌐\n\nMar Yukhana (St. John)\nSaatlu\n\n🌐\n\nMart Shmoni (St. Solomonia)\nShams-e Hajjian\n\n🌐\n\nMar Sargis (St. Sergius)\nKukia\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nMahmudabad\n\n🌐\n\nMar Shalita (St. Artemius)\nnear Mahmudabad\n\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nNivlu\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nTazekand\n\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[34]\nAnhar\n1885\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Shalita (St. Artemius)\nQezel Asheq\n1967\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gabriel (Gavra) (Holy Gabriel)\nZeynalu\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nFaqibeyglu\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nFaqibeyglu\n\n🌐\n\nMart Khanna (St. Anne) (fa)[35]\nJamalabad\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Yukhana (St. John)[36]\nnear Gavelan\n5th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nGavelan\n1952\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nGavelan\n19th c.\nAEC\n🌐\n\nMar Daniel (Prophet Daniel)\nAdeh\n5th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Yukhana (St. John) (fa)[37][38]\nAdeh\n1901\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Yusep (St. Joseph)\nAdeh\n19th c.\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[39]\nChamaki\n1870\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Savrishu (St. Sabrisho)[40]\nMushabad\n1880/1914\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Nukha (Prophet Noah)\nnear Mushabad\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George) (fa)[41][42]\nSopurghan\n1873\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nYengejeh\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gabriel (Gavra) (Holy Gabriel)[43]\nArmudaghaj\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nJanizeh\n19th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nKavsi\n1909\n\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nNazlu\n19th c./2022\n\n🌐\n\nMar Behishu (St. Paisius)\nQaleh Esmail Aqa\n1965\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nAbdollahkandi, near Taltava\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nIkiaghaj, near Qelinjlu\n\n🌐\n\nMar Shalita (St. Artemius)[44]\nShirabad\n\n🌐\n\nMar Aprim (St. Ephrem)\nZonbalan\n1880/2005\n\n🌐\n\nMar Toma (St. Thomas)[45][46]\nBalowlan\n5th/7th c./1987\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)\nHaki\n\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary) (fa)[47]\nMavana\n1879\nCCC\n🌐\n\nRabban Mar Hormizd (St. Hormizd)\nDazgir\n\n🌐\n\nSalmas\n\nChurch\nLocation\nDate\nDenomination\nLocation\nPhoto\n\nMar Kuriakus (St. Cyriacus) (fa)\nKohneh Shahr\n12th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nVank (fa)\nKhosrowabad\n5th c.\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George) (fa)\nKhosrowabad\n11th/13th c.\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar Yukhana (St. John)\nPatavir\n\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Yaghou (St. James)\nPatavir\n1966\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nSavra\n\n🌐\n\nOther Cities\n\nChurch\nLocation\nDate\nDenomination\nLocation\nPhoto\n\nKhark Assyrian Monastery (fa)[48][49][50]\nKhark Island\n5th c.\n\n🌐\n\nMar Gevargis (St. George)[51]\nTehran\n1961\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)\nTehran\n1978\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMar Yusep (St. Joseph)[52][53]\nTehran\n1950\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary)[54]\nTehran\n1951\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar T'oma (St. Thomas)[55]\nTehran\n1967\nAEC\n🌐\n\nMar T'oma (St. Thomas)(fa)[56]\nTehran\n1959\nAPC\n🌐\n\nFardis\n2011\nACOE\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary) (fa)\nSenneh\n19th c.\nCCC\n🌐\n\nAssyrian Evangelical Church, Tabriz[57]\nTabriz\n1957\nAEC\n🌐\n\nAssyrian Pentecostal Church, Kermanshah\nKermanshah\n1955\nAPC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary) (fa)\nQazvin\n1915\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary) (fa)[58]\nHamadan\n19th c.\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMar Shimeon (St. Simeon)[59][60]\nAhwaz\n1964\nCCC\n🌐\n\nMart Maryam (St. Mary) demolished in 2007 (fa)[61]\nAndimeshk\n1954\nCCC\n🌐\n\nFamous Assyrians from Iran\n\nBukhtishu family, famous physicians in the Middle Ages\n\nNicholas I Zaya, patriarch of Chaldean Catholic Church\n\nHannibal Alkhas, poet and visual artist\n\nEvin Agassi, music artist\n\nRamona Amiri, Miss World Canada 2005\n\nAshurbanipal Babilla, actor, theatre director, playwright and visual artist\n\nSteven Beitashour, MLS player\n\nPatrick Bet-David, entrepreneur, author and YouTuber\n\nGeorge Bit Atanus, designed the current Assyrian flag in 1968.\n\nBeneil Dariush, MMA fighter\n\nJack Douglas, television personality\n\nEprime Eshag, Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford\n\nAlexander L. George, Graham H. Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University\n\nMar Youhannan Semaan Issayi, Archbishop of Assyro-Chaldean Metropolitan Tehran\n\nGeorge Malek-Yonan, procured a seat in the Iranian Parliament for Assyrians\n\nRosie Malek-Yonan, actress, author and activist\n\nYounan Nowzaradan, Assyrian-American physician and television personality (My 600-lb Life)\n\nAndrew David Urshan, evangelist and author\n\nSee also\n\nChristians in Iran\n\nEthnic minorities in Iran\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nReligious minorities in Iran\n\nRussian Ecclesiastical Mission in Urmia\n\nAssyrian Evangelical Church\n\nAssyrian Pentecostal Church\n\nDa'tid Bahrana\n\nUrmia Orthodokseta\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"Iran\". U.S. Department of State 2018 Report on International Religious Freedom: Iran.\n\n^ \"Woman demeans Christian Assyrian-American as 'Terrorist' for Speaking Jesus' Language\". Informed Comment. 2016-11-19. Retrieved 2025-04-27.\n\n^ a b c Hooglund (2008), pp. 100-101. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHooglund2008 (help)\n\n^ \"Iran: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Assyrian Policy Institute. Retrieved July 29, 2020.\n\n^ \"ASSYRIANS IN IRAN i. The Assyrian community ( - Encyclopaedia Iranica\". www.iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-05-20.\n\n^ Hooglund (2008), pp. 100-101, 295. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHooglund2008 (help)\n\n^ \"Iran\". United States Department of State. Retrieved 2020-05-20.\n\n^ Nisan, Mordechai (2015). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression, 2d ed. McFarland. p. 191. ISBN 9780786451333.\n\n^ Hooglund (2008), pp. 128-129. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHooglund2008 (help)\n\n^ Nicholas al-Jeloo, Evidence in Stone and Wood: The Assyrian/Syriac History and Heritage of the Urmia Region in Iran. Parole de l'Orient 35 (2010), pp. 1-15.\n\n^ a b \"Settling Into Diaspora: A History of Urmia Assyrians in the United States\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2015-01-07.\n\n^ a b c Iran A Country Study By Federal Research Division - Page 128\n\n^ David Gaunt, \"The Assyrian Genocide of 1915\", Assyrian Genocide Research Center, 2009\n\n^ a b c Travis, Hannibal (2011). \"The Assyrian Genocide, a Tale of Oblivion and Denial\". Forgotten Genocides: Oblivion, Denial and Memory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 125.\n\n^ As of 2014, when combining the populations of all the Iranian diocese together, there are 3,900 followers http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/rite/dch2.html\n\n^ Yonan, Gabriele. \"Assyrer_heute_Kultur_Sprache_Nationalbew\". Academia.edu (in German).\n\n^ \"Saint Mary Church (Naneh Maryam)\". churchesinthemiddleeast.site. Retrieved 2026-10-08.\n\n^ \"Cathedral of St. Mary the Mother of God, Urmia, Iran\". gcatholic.org. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"کلیساى مارقوریاقوس\". urmiatabligh.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"کلیسای مار قوریاقوس\". pinterest.com. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"کلیسای حضرت مریم\". tebyan.net. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"Mata d'Charbash, Urmia (Iran)\". hagyana-atouraya.com. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"دیگاله\". digale.blogfa.com. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"ثبت ملی كلیساهای مارگورگیز و ننه مریم دیگاله ارومیه\". www.irib-news.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-09.\n\n^ \"یکی از کوچکترین کلیسای جهان در ارومیه\". www.tasnimnews.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-11.\n\n^ \"Maar-Sargiz Historical Church\". itto.org. Retrieved 2026-10-08.\n\n^ \"کلیسای مارگاربریل اردوشاهی ارومیه\". www.academia.edu. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"تصاویری از چند کلیسای ارومیه\". adyannews.com. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"پروژه مرمت و احیای کلیسای گوی تپه ارومیه\". bankarc.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-11.\n\n^ \"کلیسای مارگیورکیس(گلپاشین)\". iranpedia.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"کلیسای پطروس پولس ارومیه\". www.eneshat.com. Retrieved 2026-10-08.\n\n^ \"کلیسای گورگیس ارومیه، یادگاری به جا مانده از دوران زندیه\". www.chtn.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-11.\n\n^ \"بازگشایی قدیمی‌ترین کلیسای روستای ریحان آباد ارومیه\". www.mizanonline.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-11.\n\n^ \"دستگیری حفاران محدوده کلیسای تاریخی انهر ارومیه\". www.kurdpress.com. Retrieved 2026-10-20.\n\n^ \"کلیسای مارخنه\". urmiatabligh.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-20.\n\n^ \"کلیسای ماریوحنا (ماریوخنه)\". parstoday.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-08.\n\n^ \"کلیسای آده ارومیه، یادگاری از دوران قاجار\". www.chtn.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"با کلیسای آشوری «آده» در ارومیه آشنا شوید\". ashnaie.com. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"ثبت ملی كلیسا چمكی ارومیه\". www.barishnews.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-21.\n\n^ \"مراسم تقدیس کلیسای مارسورشیو\". www.mehrnews.com. Retrieved 2026-10-21.\n\n^ \"Saint George Church, Spurghan\". churchesinthemiddleeast.site. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"بررسی قوس گهواره ای محراب در کلیسای مارگورگیس روستای سپورغان تلفیق معماری بومی ایران و سنت ارتدوکسی\". churchesinthemiddleeast.html. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"حفاری غیرمجاز در محدوده یک کلیسای تاریخی در روستای آرمود آغاج\". www.yjc.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-21.\n\n^ \"مستندنگاری و تحلیل معماری سازه ای کلیسای شرق آشوری مارشالیتا در روستای شیرآباد ارومیه\". civilica.com. Retrieved 2026-10-22.\n\n^ \"کلیسای مارتوما (بالولان)\". iranpedia.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-08.\n\n^ \"Saint Thomas Church, Balolan\". churchesinthemiddleeast.site. Retrieved 2026-10-08.\n\n^ \"Church of the Virgin Mary, Mawana\". churchesinthemiddleeast.site. Retrieved 2026-10-10.\n\n^ \"The Christian Monastery on the Island of Kharg\" (PDF). biblicalarchaeology.gospelstudies.org.uk. Retrieved 2026-10-23.\n\n^ \"کلیسای خارک\". www.tebyan.net. Retrieved 2026-10-23.\n\n^ \"کلیسای نسطوری جزیره خارگ پاکسازی شد\". www.yjc.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-23.\n\n^ \"کلیسای آشوری مارگیوگیز تهران\". boomilia.com. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"Cathedral of St. Joseph, Tehran, Iran\". gcatholic.org. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"کلیسا سنت جوزف؛ کلیسای آشوریان تهران\". pvtour.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"کلیسا در خیابان محبوب مجاز\". avval.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"کلیسای توما ( کلیسای انجیلی آشوریان تهران)\". boomilia.com. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"کلیسا در خیابان شهرآرا\". avval.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"کلیسای پروتستان (انجیلی) تبریز\". www.beytoote.com. Retrieved 2026-10-23.\n\n^ \"آشوریان ، جامعه ای کوچک و آرام در همدان\". www.irna.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-23.\n\n^ \"گزارشی از کلیسای مسیحیان کلدانی_ آشوری کاتولیک اهواز\". www.ilna.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"کلیسای مسیحیان کلدانی آشوری کاتولیک اهواز\". www.chtn.ir. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\n^ \"اقدام بی سابقه شورای خلیفه گری کاتولیک ها در ایران/فروش کلیساهای خوزستان برای تخریب\". www.magiran.com. Retrieved 2026-10-25.\n\nReferences\n\nYonan, Gabriele (1978). Assyrer heute: Kultur, Sprache, Nationalbewegung der aramäisch sprechenden Christen im Nahen Osten. Hamburg: Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker. p. 238. ISBN 3922197000.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2016). The Church of the East. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 342. ISBN 978 1 78453 683 1.\n\nJenkins, Philip (2008). The Lost History of Christianity. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 315. ISBN 978-0-06-171788-8.\n\nWaterfield, Robin E. (1973). Christians In Persia. London: Allen & Unwin. p. 192. ISBN 0 04 275001 6.\n\nVine, Aubrey R. (1937). The Nestorian Churches. London: Independent Press. p. 227.\n\nAl-Jeloo, Nicholas (2015). Le patrimoine architectural de l’Église orthodoxe d’Antioche. Koura: Université de Balamand. p. 207. ISBN 978-9953-452-98-2.\n\nՖրանգեան, Ե. (1905). Ատրպատական. Թիֆլիս: Հերմէս. p. 295.\n\nHooglund, Eric (2008). \"The Society and Its Environment\" (PDF). In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran: A Country Study. Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81-142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.\n\nHooglund, Eric (2008). \"The Society and Its Environment\" (PDF). In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran: A Country Study. Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81-142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.\n\nBibliography\n\nEden Naby, “The Assyrians of Iran: Reunification of a ‘Millat,’ 1906-1914\" International Journal of Middle East Studies, 8. (1977) pp. 237-249\n\nEden Naby, “The Iranian Frontier Nationalities: The Kurds, the Assyrians, the Baluch and the Turkmens,”Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers, ed.by McCagg and Silver (New York, Pergamon Press, 1979).\n\nEden Naby, “Christian Assyrian Architecture of Iran,” News - Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions (Spring 1998) vol. 5, no. 2, p. 7, 10.\n\nEden Naby, \"Ishtar: Documenting the Crisis in the Assyrian Iranian Community,\" MERIA 10/4 (2006)https://web.archive.org/web/20090124055153/http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2006/issue4/Naby.pdf"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-iran"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3338}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-syria", "title": "Assyrians in Syria", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Syria (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܝܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܐ, Arabic: الآشوريون في سوريا) are an ethnic and linguistic minority indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia, the north-eastern half of Syria. Syrian-Assyrians are people of Assyrian descent living in Syria, and those in the Assyrian diaspora who are of Syrian-Assyrian heritage.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Syria\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܝܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܐ (Syriac)\n\nAssyrian Christian baptism in Syria\n\nTotal population\n\n400,000-877,000 (2026 estimate)[1][2][3][4][5]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nAl-Hasakah Governorate, Damascus, Homs, Aleppo \n\nLanguages\n\nTuroyo, Sureth and North Mesopotamian Arabic\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n(Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church)[6]\n\nAssyrians in Syria (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܝܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܐ, Arabic: الآشوريون في سوريا) are an ethnic and linguistic minority indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia, the north-eastern half of Syria. Syrian-Assyrians are people of Assyrian descent living in Syria, and those in the Assyrian diaspora who are of Syrian-Assyrian heritage.\n\nThey live primarily in Al-Hasakah Governorate, with a significant presence in Hasakah city and the cities of Qamishli, Malikiyah, Ras al-Ayn, and Qahtaniyah, as well as in Tell Tamer and nearby villages. Some have migrated to Damascus and other western cities beyond the border of their indigenous Mesopotamia at the Euphrates River.[7][8] They share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Turkey, Assyrians in Iraq and Assyrians in Iran, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora.[9]\n\nHistory\n\nAncient history\n\nDuring the Old Assyrian Empire (2000-1750 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BC) and Neo Assyrian Empire (911-599 BC) much of, and often the entirety of the modern country of Syria, was under Assyrian rule, which founded in Northwestern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). The northeastern part of the land became an integral part of Assyria proper during the 2nd millennium BC. Thus the presence of originally Akkadian-speaking and later Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrians in the northeastern part of the modern country dates back over 4000 years, where they lived alongside a diverse set of other peoples such as Hittites, Hurrians and Amorites throughout the ages. Traces of the long era of Assyrian settlement can be seen at numerous archaeological sites across the region. Important Assyrian cities in the region in ancient times include Til-Barsip, Carchemish, Guzana, Shubat-Enlil and Dur-Katlimmu.\n\nThe northeast of modern-day Syria was a part of Achaemenid Assyria (Athura) which was a geographical area within the Achaemenid Empire in Mesopotamia between 546 and 332 BC, then Seleucid Syria (312-150 BC), when the name Syria which was originally a 9th-century BC Indo-European corruption of Assyria and had hitherto referred only to Assyria itself, also became applied to a region long known as Aramea/Eber Nari. During the Parthian Empire (150 BC-224 AD) and early Sassanid Empire (224 -650 AD) (when the land was renamed Assuristan) a number of Neo-Assyrian kingdoms arose, and parts of northeast Syria became a part of the Neo-Assyrian state of Osroene until the mid-3rd century AD. Christianity became established amongst the Assyrians as early as the 1st century AD, and the region of Athura became the birthplace of Eastern Christianity and Syriac literature, with the Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox Church being founded in the region.\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nAfter the Arab Islamic Conquest of the mid-7th century AD, Assyria/Athura/Assuristan was dissolved as a geo-political entity, and the region gradually saw an influx of Muslim Arab, Turkic and Iranic peoples. However, settlement in the northeastern areas often proved unsustainable in the long-term, leading to numerous episodes of population exodus. In addition to experiencing such destabilising factors such as climate shifts and over-cultivation of land, the area was also vulnerable to attack from nomadic peoples. Following the Mongol and Timurid invasions and subsequent massacre of Assyrians, it was left with only a scant permanent population. In the centuries that followed, a number of nomadic and semi-nomadic Arabic- and Kurdish-speaking tribes wandered the area with their livestock into the 20th century, when most of them were forced to settle by governmental policies.\n\nEarly modern period\n\nWhen the Ottoman Empire conducted ethnic cleansing against its Christian populations, Kurds were responsible for most of the atrocities against Assyrians.[10][11] At the onset of the 20th century, Kurdish tribes cooperated with the Ottoman authorities in the genocides against Armenian and Assyrian Christians in Upper Mesopotamia.[12] Many Assyrians from Hakkari settled in Syria after they were displaced and driven out by Ottoman Turks in the early 20th century.[13] During the 1930s and 1940s, many Assyrians resettled in northeastern Syrian villages, such as Tel Tamer, Al-Qahtaniyah, Al Darbasiyah, Al-Malikiyah, Qamishli and a few other small towns in Al-Hasakah Governorate.[14]\n\nModern history\n\nMost of the current population of Assyrians in Hasakah dates back to the French Mandate of Syria, when refugees from the now-Turkish areas north of present-day Syria (such as Tur Abdin) were settled together with displaced Armenians who had survived the Assyrian genocide and Armenian genocide in the area by the authorities as part of an effort to promote economic development. Given preferential treatment on the basis of their Christian religion by the French, they soon formed most of the new urban elite in the region. An additional influx of Eastern Assyrians began to resettle along the Khabur River in 1933 after the massacres of Assyrians in newly independent Iraq (see Simele massacre) forced the flight. These were refugees twice over-originally from the highlands of Hakkari, they had initially sought refuge amongst other Assyrians in Iraq in the face of the Assyrian genocide before the attacks.[15]\n\nIn 1936, religious and political leaders-mainly from the Assyrian and Armenian Christian and Kurdish communities, with a few Arab groups as well-pressured the French authorities to give autonomous status to the Syrian Al-Jazira province (nowadays the Al Hasakah) for its mixed-ethnic population, like in the Sanjak of Alexandretta, the Alawite State, or Jabal al-Druze. The push for autonomy was marked by civil strife and inter-communal violence in the province, and angry hostility on the part of the mainly Arab nationalists pushing for outright independence for Syria. Long having viewed the settlement of Assyrians and Armenians in the country as the product of French colonialism, they were further incensed by the arrival of additional Assyrian refugees on the Khabur, and mobilized support from many Arab tribes and some Kurdish groups to counter the autonomists. The French forcibly cracked down on both sides as they grew increasingly violent, and the movement for autonomy soon failed. Later on, in 1957, the Assyrian Democratic Organization was set up in Syria by center-left intellectuals.[16]\n\nThough officially and incorrectly designated as Arabs by the Syrian Arab Nationalist Baathist government, the Assyrians are a distinct pre-Arab ethnic group with a history in the region dating perhaps as far back as the 25th century BC. They are a Syriac speaking community that traditionally belong to the Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church.[6] The modern Assyrians are native to \"northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria\".[17]\n\nFirst settled by Assyrians fleeing the Assyrian genocide and then the Simele massacre, there are over 30 Assyrian villages on the Khabur river in Syria. According to a 1994 report they are: Tell Tawil, Tell Um Rafa, Tell Um Keff, Tell Kefdji, Tell Djemaa, Tell Tamer, Tell Nasri, Upper Tell Chamran, Lower Tell Chamran, Tell Chamran, Tell Hafian, Tell Talaa, Tell Maghas, Tell Massas, Abu Tine, Tel Goran, Fouedate, Dimchij, Kabar Chamie, Tell Balouet (Dezn), Tell Baz, Upper Tell Rouman, Lower Tell Rouman, El-Kharita, Tell Chame, Tell Wardiat, El-Makhada, Taal, Tell Sakra, El-Breij, Arbouche, and Tell Hormiz.[18] About 9,000 ethnic Assyrians moved from northern Iraq to join already extant Assyrian populations in northeastern Syria following the Simele massacre of 1933. They settled in the Jazirah near Tall Tamir on the upper Khabur River. The French established this Assyrian settlement with the assistance of the League of Nations, and in 1942 it became an integral part of Syria. The Assyrian settlement on the Khabur valley consists of about 20 villages, primarily agricultural. They have faced severe economic pressures over the years, despite owning their own irrigated lands, and some of them immigrated to the US, where there exists a large community.[6]\n\nIn an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, bishop Jules Boutros, of the Syriac Catholic Church, said most young Syriacs were trying to get out of Syria. \"Most of our young people are trying to get out of Iraq and Syria. (...) Things are worse in Syria, because the war is still going on. Military service is the biggest issue for our young men, because you have to serve for 9 or 10 years. After that time, if you return alive, you need to start from zero. This is in all of Syria. Things are worse in the Kurdish controlled area. Our young men have to serve with the Kurdish military, and then with the Syrian military. That is why in Syria it is so rare to find young men, they are all leaving. After five years abroad, if they pay US$8,000 dollars they can return without their military service. We are losing an entire generation.\"[7]\n\nCulture\n\nAssyrians celebrate religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas, as well as feasts of saints venerated in their respective churches.\n\nAll Assyrians celebrate Assyrian New Year, known as Ha b'Nison or Kha b'Nisan, on the 1st of April each year to celebrate the turn of the new year in the ancient Assyrian calendar. Assyrian New Year festivities have previously been outlawed in Syria.[19]\n\nReligion\n\nThe majority of Assyrians in Syria adhere to both the East and West Syriac Rite. These include the following churches:\n\nCatholic Assyrians\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nThe presence of the Chaldean Catholic Church dates back to the 16th century when Assyrians from Diyarbakir migrated to Aleppo.\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Aleppo, under the tenure of the Bishop of Aleppo, Mar Antony Audo, was established in 1957 and is divided into 14 parishes.\n\nSyriac Catholic Church\n\nThere are four dioceses of the Syriac Catholic Church in Syria including the:\n\nMetropolitan Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Damascus\n\nMetropolitan Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Homs (vacant since 2013)\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Aleppo\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Hassaké-Nisibi\n\nOrthodox Assyrians\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church's patriarchal seat is located in Damascus after being transferred in 1959.[20] The Syriac Orthodox Church in Syria is represented by the Patriarch, Ignatius Aphrem II, with three archbishopric's located across Syria in the following:\n\nPatriarchal Office Director in Damascus Archbishop Timotheus Matta Al-Khoury.\n\nArchbishopric of Jazirah and Euphrates under the spiritual guidance and direction of acting Archbishop Maurice Amsih.\n\nArchbishopric of Aleppo under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim.\n\nArchbishopric of Homs & Hama under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Selwanos Petros AL-Nemeh.\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate for the Archdiocese of Damascus under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Timothius Matta AlKhouri.\n\nIn the mid-1970s, it was estimated that 82,000 Syriac Orthodox lived in Syria.[21]\n\nDemographics\n\nIn 2018 Professor John Shoup stated that the Assyrian population in Syria formed 4% of the country's total population, making it the fourth largest ethnic group in the country.[5]\n\nPolitics\n\nAssyrian Democratic Organization\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO), more commonly known as \"Mtakasto\", was founded in 1957 and serves as the oldest Assyrian political party in Syria. The principles of the party are based around huyodo/khoyada, unity, and gained a foothold amongst western Assyrian youth.[22] Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh, the current leader of the party, was detained by the Syrian government and imprisoned for 2 years, until his release in June 2016.[23][24]\n\nAssyrian Democratic Party (Syria)\n\nSyriac Union Party (Syria)\n\nSyrian Civil War\n\nAssyrians have been caught between different political sides from the onset of the Syrian Civil War with some Assyrian groups allying with the Syrian Government and others with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.\n\nAssyrian militias\n\nWith the onset of the Syrian Civil War, Assyrians have formed numerous military forces in order to protect their communities. These range from military groups to police forces concentrated in the Al-Hasakah Governorate, mainly in Qamishli and Khabur. These militias include:\n\nGozarto Protection Force\n\nGozarto Protection Force (GPF), or Sootoro, are a light infantry militia formed in 2012 that are aligned to the Syrian Government. The militia is composed mainly of Assyrians, with a smaller number of Armenians in the group. GPF mainly clash with ISIL, although they have also been involved in clashes with Kurdish forces stationed nearby.\n\nSyriac Military Council\n\nThe Syriac Military Council (MFS) are a militia of the Dawronoye ideology that are a component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and under the Syriac Union Party. MFS have been involved in numerous offensives alongside the YPG, including some in northern Iraq (Nineveh & Sinjar). The Bethnahrain Women's Protection Forces are the female brigade of the MFS and assume guard roles in the Assyrian communities of northeast Syria.\n\nSutoro\n\nSutoro are the police wing of the Syriac Military Council and have been active in Syria from 2012 onwards. Sutoro police the Assyrian communities of northeast Syria, as well as working in concert with Asayish to safeguard the region.\n\nKhabour Guards\n\nKhabour Guards, as well as Nattoreh are a militia tied to the Assyrian Democratic Party and are active in the Khabur Valley of Syria. Founded in 2012, Khabour Guards have been involved in SDF campaigns and in 2019, merged with the Syriac Military Council to form the Syriac-Assyrian Military Council.\n\nClashes with Kurdish Forces\n\nThe main group aligned with the Assad-government are the Sootoro forces stationed in northeast Syria. In early 2016, Sootoro forces set up checkpoints in the Assyrian-controlled districts of Qamishli due to increasing terrorist attacks targeting Assyrians in the city. Members of Asayish, the security-wing of the YPG, approached the checkpoints and demanded they be dismantled. When Sootoro refused, Asayish fired at Sootoro soldiers, causing several casualties on both sides.[25][26]\n\nPersecution by ISIL\n\nThe Syrian Civil War initially put much strain on Assyrians in Syria. As of November 2014, due to occupation by the ISIL, only 23 Assyrian and Armenian families remain in the city of Raqqa. Christian bibles and holy books have reportedly been burned by ISIL militants.[27][28]\n\nAssyrians kidnapped\n\nOn 23 February 2015, ISIL abducted 232 Assyrians from villages near Tell Tamer in the Khabur valley.[29][30][31] According to US diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez, of the 232 of the Assyrians kidnapped in the ISIL attack on the Assyrian Christian farming villages on the banks of the Khabur River in Northeast Syria, 51 were children and 84 women. \"Most of them remain in captivity with one account claiming that ISIL is demanding $22 million (or roughly $100,000 per person) for their release.\"[32] On 8 October, ISIL released a video showing three of the Assyrian men kidnapped in Khabur being executed. It was reported that 202 of the 232 kidnapped Assyrians were still in captivity, each one with a demanded ransom of $100,000.[33] In early 2016, ISIL freed the remaining 42 hostages in exchange for an undisclosed ransom mediated by the Assyrian Church of the East.[34][35][36]\n\nWusta Bombings\n\nOn 30 December 2015, 16 people were killed and 30 wounded when three blasts struck restaurants in the Assyrian district of Wusta in Qamishli. An IS-linked news agency, Amaq, said the group carried out the bombings. This prompted the Gozarto Protection Forces to set up checkpoints in the district as the Syrian government, nor the Kurdish-led DFNS could guarantee their safety.[37][38][39]\n\nAutonomous Administration of North and East Syria\n\nThe decrease of political repression after government withdrawal and the inclusion of Assyrian political and military movements in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria has led to greater inclusion of Assyrians in the governance of the region. The Syriac Union Party (SUP), committed to the secular leftist \"Dawronoye\" ideology,[41] is a part of the governing Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) coalition. The Sutoro is an Assyrian police force, working in concert with the general Asayish police force with the mission to police ethnic Assyrian areas and neighbourhoods.\n\nWhile Syriac was an official language of the Jazira Region from the outset, in August 2016, the Ourhi Centre in the city of Qamishli was started by the Assyrian community, to educate teachers in order to make Syriac-Aramaic an additional language to be taught in public schools,[42][43] which then started with the 2016/17 academic year.[44] With that academic year, states the region's Education Committee, \"three curriculums have replaced the old one, to include teaching in three languages: Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac.\"[45]\n\nHuman rights violation claims\n\nThe region, however, has been accused of closing down 14 Assyrian schools that have refused to adhere to a curriculum produced by the Kurdish-led government. Many Assyrians have rejected the new curriculum, stating that the curriculum is not recognized or accredited elsewhere, while the Syrian government-led curriculum is.[46] There is also opposition by Assyrians against the curriculum produced by the region's administration, which some Assyrian leaders say has been an attempt to impose a Kurdish nationalist curriculum across the region.[47][48]\n\nIn April 2015, David Jendo, the leader of the Khabur Guards, was assassinated after being kidnapped alongside fellow commander, Elias Nasser. Both men were blindfolded and driven to a remote location, supposedly to have an urgent meeting with YPG leadership. Jendo and Nasser were then shot and David Jendo immediately died, while Elias Nasser was severely wounded. Jendo had publicly spoken against the YPG looting Assyrian homes in 2015. The attackers were allegedly arrested and tried in a regional court, resulting in 20 years prison for the two killers, 4 and 1 years respectively for the other two attackers.[49][50]\n\nIn November 2015, sixteen Assyrian and Armenian civic and church organizations issued a joint statement protesting Kurdish expropriation of private property. The statement accuses the PYD of human rights violations, expropriation of private property, illegal military conscription and interference in church school curricula.[51]\n\nKurds in Syria have been accused of silencing Assyrian critics of their administration, usually using Assyrian proxy forces such as Sutoro to intimidate these critics. On September 30, 2018, prominent Assyrian writer Souleman Yousph was arrested without being informed of charges, in what is alleged to be in response to an article published by Mr. Yousph in which he criticized the de facto Kurdish authorities for closing Assyrian schools, as well as the assault on Issa Rashid, a fellow Assyrian writer. One day after his arrest, Sutoro announced a statement saying that \"Action had to be taken against those spreading lies, that democracy has rules and limitations, and that defamation is punishable by law in Western countries\".[52][53]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nAssyria\n\nAssyrian people\n\nAssyrian continuity\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrian Democratic Organization\n\nSyriac Union Party (Syria)\n\nSyriac Military Council\n\nSutoro\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Prior to the start of the war in Syria, it is estimated that the country was home to approximately 200,000 ethnic Assyrians\" [1] at Syria: Assyrian Policy Institute\n\n^ \"The Assyrian population in Iraq, estimated at approximately 200,000, constitutes the largest remaining concentration of the ethnic group in the Middle East.\" [2] at Assyrian Policy Institute's Erasing the Legacy of the Khabour: Destruction of Assyrian Cultural Heritage in the Khabour Region of Syria\n\n^ \"Syria's Assyrians threatened by extremists\". Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2020.\n\n^ Turkey-Syria deal allows Syriacs to cross border for religious holidays \"An estimated 25,000 Syriacs live in Turkey, while Syria boasts some 877,000.\"\n\n^ a b Shoup, John A. (2018), \"Syria\", The History of Syria, ABC-CLIO, p. 6, ISBN 978-1440858352, Syria has several other ethnic groups, the Kurds... they make up an estimated 9 percent...Turkomen comprise around 4-5 percent. of the total population. The rest of the ethnic mix of Syria is made of Assyrians (about 4 percent), Armenians (about 2 percent), and Circassians (about 1 percent).\n\n^ a b c \"Syria - Christians, Armenians and Assyrians\". Minority Rights Group International. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2016.\n\n^ a b \"IS entführt mindestens 90 Christen in Syrien\". Die Welt (in German). 24 February 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2016.\n\n^ \"ISIS Attacks Assyrian Villages in Syria, 4 Killed, Dozens Captured, Churches Burned Posted\". Assyrian International News Agency. 23 February 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2016.\n\n^ Hooglund (2008), pp. 100-101.\n\n^ Joan A. Argenter, R. McKenna Brown 2004 199\" On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights, Foundation for Endangered Languages. Eds:Joan A. Argenter, R. McKenna Brown\n\n^ A brief history of the plight of the Christian Assyrians* in modern day Iraq Archived 2015-04-17 at the Wayback Machine. American Mespopotamian.\n\n^ R. S. Stafford (2006). The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press, LLC. pp. 24-25. ISBN 9781593334130.\n\n^ Betts, Robert Brenton, Christians in the Arab East (Atlanta, 1978)\n\n^ Dodge, Bayard, \"The Settlement of the Assyrians on the Khabur,\" Royal Central Asian Society Journal, July 1940, pp. 301-320.\n\n^ \"RIGHTS: Assyrians Face Escalating Abuses in \"New Iraq\" | Inter Press Service\". www.ipsnews.net. 3 May 2006.\n\n^ \"ADO World\". Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 24 July 2011.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (February 2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. ISBN 9780748686056. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ Alberto M. Fernandez. \"Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River\" (PDF). aina.org. Retrieved 17 April 2023.\n\n^ El-Deeb, Sarah (2 April 2018). \"Syria's tiny Assyrian community celebrates its survival\". AP. Retrieved 10 July 2019.\n\n^ Parry 2010, p. 259.\n\n^ Joseph 1983, p. 110.\n\n^ Travis, Hannibal (20 July 2017). The Assyrian genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge.\n\n^ \"Christians Under Threat in Syria\". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 10 July 2019.\n\n^ \"Assyrian faction linked to Syrian opposition meets with Kurdish TEV-DEM after office closure\". AraNews. 13 April 2017. Archived from the original on 4 May 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2019.\n\n^ Al Rifai, Diana. \"Assyrians and Kurds clash for first time in north Syria\". Al-Jazeera. Retrieved 21 June 2019.\n\n^ Isaac, Mardean (3 June 2016). \"Under Fire From All Sides: Syria's Assyrians\". NewsDeeply. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"23 Christian Families Trapped in ISIS Stronghold Raqqa Facing Violence, Forced Taxes\". Christian Post. 17 November 2014. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ \"Agenzia Fides News\". Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ \"Islamic State 'abducts dozens of Christians in Syria'\". BBC. 23 February 2015. Retrieved 23 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Islamic State: Fears grow as jihadists abduct 220 Assyrian Christians in north-eastern Syria\". ABC News. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Dozens of Christians abducted by ISIL in Syria\". Al-Jazeera. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ Fernandez, Alberto M. (16 June 2015). \"The \"Sayfo\" Continues Responding to Global Christian Persecution\". Berkeley Center Cornerstone. Georgetown University Religious Freedom Project. Retrieved 20 June 2015.\n\n^ \"Isis appears to have killed three Christian hostages in Syria\". The Guardian. 8 October 2015. Retrieved 13 November 2015.\n\n^ \"Islamic State 'releases Assyrian Christian hostages'\". BBC News. 22 February 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Islamic State gets millions in ransom money for kidnapped Christians\". Chicago Tribune. 22 February 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"IS releases last of kidnapped Assyrian Christians after ransom payment\". DW. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Syria conflict: 'At least 16 dead' in three restaurants blasts\". BBC News. 31 December 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ Loveluck, Louisa. \"More than 55,000 died in Syria in 2015 as Isil claims twin attacks in Syrian Christian neighbourhood\". The Telegraph. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"16 dead, 30 wounded in three blasts in northeast Syria: Monitor\". Hurriyet Daily News. 31 December 2015. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Syriac flags adorn the city of Hasaka\". Syriac Military Council. 20 March 2017.\n\n^ Carl Drott (25 May 2015). \"The Revolutionaries of Bethnahrin\". Warscapes. Retrieved 18 September 2016.\n\n^ \"Syriac Christians revive ancient language despite war\". ARA News. 19 August 2016. Archived from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2016.\n\n^ \"The Syriacs are taught their language for the first time\". Hawar News Agency. 24 September 2016. Archived from the original on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 24 September 2016.\n\n^ \"Hassakeh: Syriac Language to Be Taught in PYD-controlled Schools\". The Syrian Observer. 3 October 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Rojava administration launches new curriculum in Kurdish, Arabic and Assyrian\". ARA News. 7 October 2016. Archived from the original on 7 October 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2016.\n\n^ Souleiman, Delil. \"Syriacs protest Kurdish authorities over Syria school curriculum\". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 21 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Syria Protest PYD's Closure of Schools in Qamishli\". Assyrian Policy Institute. 28 August 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2019.\n\n^ Safi, Marlo (25 September 2018). \"Closure of Syrian Schools: Another Bleak Sign for Christians in Syria\". National Review. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Assyrians Under Kurdish Rule: The Situation in Northeastern Syria\" (PDF). Assyrian Confederation of Europe. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ \"TRIAL OF MARTYR DAWUD JENDO\". Twitter. Syriac Military Council. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Assyrians, Armenians in Syria Protest Kurdish Confiscation of Property\". AINA. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Prominent Syrian writer Yousph arrested in northeastern Syria, held for five days\". Committee to Protect Journalists. 9 October 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Syrien: christlicher Journalist Yusph freigelassen\". Vatican News. 11 October 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2019.\n\nSources\n\nHooglund, Eric (2008). \"The Society and Its Environment\" (PDF). In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran: A Country Study. Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81-142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.\n\nJoseph, John (1983). Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-600-0.\n\nParry, Ken (2010). The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-3361-9.\n\nExternal links\n\n\"The Syriacs are taught their language for the first time\" (Article and Videos, Hawar News Agency, September 2016)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-syria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4275}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-turkey", "title": "Assyrians in Turkey", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Süryanileri, Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܛܘܪܩܝܐ) or Turkish Assyrians are an indigenous Semitic-speaking ethnic group and a minority of Turkey, who are Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christians, with most being members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church, or Ancient...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Turkish Assyrians\nܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܛܘܪܩܝܐ (Syriac)\n\nTurkish Assyrian Christians in Cevizağacı, Beytüşşebap\n\nTotal population\n\n30,000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nIstanbul, parts of Midyat, Gercüş, Şırnak province \n Cities of Hakkâri, Mardin and Yüksekova \n Southeastern Anatolia Region (historically)\n\nLanguages\n\nSuret, Surayt, Turkish\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nAssyrians in Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Süryanileri, Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܛܘܪܩܝܐ) or Turkish Assyrians are an indigenous Semitic-speaking ethnic group and a minority of Turkey, who are Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christians, with most being members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church, or Ancient Church of the East.\n\nThey share a common history and ethnic identity, rooted in shared linguistic, cultural and religious traditions, with Assyrians in Iraq, Assyrians in Iran and Assyrians in Syria, as well as with the Assyrian diaspora.[2] Assyrians in such European countries as Sweden and Germany would usually be Turoyo-speakers or Western Assyrians,[3] and tend to be originally from Turkey.[4]\n\nThe Assyrians were once a large ethnic minority in the Ottoman Empire, living in the Hakkari, Sirnak and Mardin provinces, but, following the Sayfo (1915, also known as the Assyrian genocide), most were murdered or expelled to northern Iraq, northeast Syria, and northwest Iran, to join their fellow Assyrians. Most of those who survived the genocide and stayed in Turkey left the country for Western Europe in the 2nd half of the 20th century, due to conflicts between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish Land Forces. As of 2019, an estimated 18,000 of the country's 25,000 Assyrians live in Istanbul.[5] According to Yusuf Çetin, Spiritual Leader of the Syriac Orthodox Community, as of 2023, there are 25,000-30,000 Assyrians in Turkey, including 17,000 to 22,000 in Istanbul,[6] most of them in Yeşilköy, where the new Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church was inaugurated on 8 October 2023.[7]\n\nHistory\n\nOttoman era\n\nThe Ottoman Empire had an elaborate system of administering the non-Muslim \"People of the Book.\" That is, they made allowances for accepted monotheists with a scriptural tradition and distinguished them from people they defined as pagans. As People of the Book (or dhimmi), Jews, Christians and Mandaeans (in some cases Zoroastrians) received second-class treatment but were tolerated.\n\nIn the Ottoman Empire, this religious status became systematized as the \"millet\" administrative pattern. Each religious minority answered to the government through its chief religious representative. The Christians that the Ottomans conquered gradually but definitively with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 were already divided into many ethnic groups and denominations, usually organized into a hierarchy of bishops headed by a patriarch.[8][9]\n\nAs for the 5 Assyrian Tribes of Hakkari, The Shimun Patriarchate in Qodshanis, who the Tribes worshipped because it was the Assyrian Church of the East's Holy See: was directly subservient to the Sublime Porte, who the see paid the taxes to which they collected from the tribes.[10]\n\nThose who had converted to Protestantism did not want to pay an annual tribute to the older churches through local bishops who then passed some of it up to the Patriarch who then passed some of it to the Porte in the form of taxes. They wanted to deal directly with the Porte, across ethnic lines (even if through a Muslim administrator), in order to have their own voice and not be subjected to the rule of the Patriarchal system. This general Protestant charter was granted in 1850.[11]\n\nDuring the Second Bedirkhanis Revolt, a Kurdish revolt which erupted during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878, the Syriac-Assyrians under the leadership of Hanne Safar provided significant military support to the Ottoman Empire. For his assistance and loyalty throughout the revolt, Hanne Safar was later honored by the Sultan himself, Abdülhamid II, with the title of Pasha and was presented with a consecrated sword.[12][13] Despite the region around Midyat avoiding the Hamidian massacres, Assyrians of other areas such as Diyarbakir were less fortunate, which resulted in the death of approximately 25,000 Assyrians during the Massacres of Diyarbakir in 1895.[14]\n\nGaunt has estimated the Assyrian population at between 500,000 and 600,000 just before the outbreak of World War I, significantly higher than reported on Ottoman census figures. Midyat, in Diyarbekir vilayet, was the only town in the Ottoman Empire with an Assyrian majority, although divided between Syriac Orthodox, Chaldeans, and Protestants.[15] Syriac Orthodox Christians were concentrated in the hilly rural areas around Midyat, known as Tur Abdin, where they populated almost 100 villages and worked in agriculture or crafts.[15][16] Syriac Orthodox culture was centered in two monasteries near Mardin (west of Tur Abdin), Mor Gabriel and Deyrulzafaran.[17] Outside of the area of core Syriac settlement, there were also sizable populations in the towns of Diyarbakır, Urfa, Harput, and Adiyaman[18] as well as villages. Unlike the Syriac population of Tur Abdin, many of these Syriacs spoke other languages.[19]\n\nUnder the leadership of the Patriarch of the Church of the East, based in Qudshanis, Assyrian tribes ruled the Hakkari mountains (east of Tur Abdin, adjacent to the Ottoman-Persian border) with aşiret status-in theory granting them full autonomy-with subordinated farmers.[15] Hakkari is very mountainous with peaks reaching up to 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) separated by steep gorges, such that many areas could only be accessed by footpaths carved into the side of mountains.[20] The Assyrian tribes sometimes fought each other on behalf of their Kurdish allies.[21] Church of the East settlement began to the east on the western shore of Lake Urmia in Persia, in the town of Urmia and surrounding villages; just north, in Salamas, was a Chaldean enclave. There was a small Chaldean area around Siirt in Bitlis vilayet (northeast of Tur Abdin and northwest of Hakkari),[22] which was mountainous but less so than Hakkari,[20] but the bulk of Chaldeans lived farther south, in modern-day Iraq and outside of the zone that suffered genocide during World War I. Orthodox Christian Assyrians made up 99% of the Assyrians within the borders of modern-day Türkiye.[22]\n\nRepublic of Turkey\n\nAfter 1923, local politicians went on an anti-Christian campaign that negatively affected the Syriac communities (such as Adana, Urfa or Adiyaman) that had not been affected by the 1915 genocide. Many were forced to abandon their properties and flee to Syria, eventually settling in Aleppo, Qamishli, or the Khabur. The Syriac Orthodox patriarchate was expelled from Turkey in 1924, despite its declarations of loyalty to the new Turkish government.[23] Unlike Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, Assyrians were not recognized as a minority group in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[24] The remaining population lived in submission to Kurdish aghas, and were subjected to constant harassment and abuse which pushed them to emigrate.[25][24] Turkish laws denaturalized those who had fled and confiscated their property. Despite their actual citizenship rights, many Assyrians who remained in Turkey had to re-purchase their own properties from Kurdish aghas or risk losing their Turkish citizenship.[25] Some Assyrians continued to live in Tur Abdin until the 1980s; this was the last substantial Christian population in Turkey living rurally in its original homeland.[26] Some scholars have described ongoing exclusion and harassment of Syriacs in Turkey as a continuation of the Sayfo.[27]\n\nUnlike other persecuted Christian groups like the Greeks and Armenians, the Assyrian community of Turkey managed to sustain its numbers after the Assyrian Genocide but they had many hardships nevertheless. In the 1960s, it became increasingly unsafe for Assyrians/Syriacs in Midyat, the regional centre of Tur Abdin. Muslims incited violent anti-Christian protests as a response to events unfolding in Cyprus. This led to many Assyro-Syriacs not seeing a future for themselves in their ancestral homeland.[4] By the 1980s the Assyrian population of Turkey was around 70,000 people,[28] although down from the 300,000 or so in total who survived after the genocide. The currently diminished number of 28,000 Assyrians today was caused largely due to Kurdish insurgencies in the 1980s and the bad state of most of the Middle East, along with the forever looming issue of Turkish governmental discrimination.[29] By the end of the conflict in the late 1990s, less than 1,000 Assyrians were still in Tur Abdin or Hakkari, with the rest living in Istanbul.\n\nIn 2001, the Turkish government invited Assyrians/Syriacs to return to Turkey,[30] but some speculate that the offer was more of a publicity stunt, as a land law passed a short time before caused Assyrians who owned untilled farms or land with forests on them (which a large amount did, as those in diaspora could not till or maintain the properties they owned while living elsewhere) to have the land they owned confiscated by the state and sold to third parties. Another law made it illegal for non-Turkish nationals to purchase land in Mardin province, where most Assyrians would have immigrated to.[29] Regardless of those laws a few did come, such as those who still had their citizenship and could buy property and managed to avoid having their land taken - but many more who could have come back could not due to the laws passed.\n\nSome Assyrians who have fled from ISIL have found temporary homes in the city of Midyat. A refugee center is located near Midyat, but due to there being a small Assyrian community in Midyat, many of the Assyrian refugees at the camp went to Midyat hoping for better conditions than the refugee camp had. Many refugees were given help and accommodation by the local Assyrian community there, perhaps wishing that the refugees stay, as the community in Midyat is in need of more members.[31]\n\nIn 2013, Assyrians were allowed to open the first school operating in their mother tongue since 1928. The same year, 55 Syriac churches, monasteries, and cemeteries in Mardin Province confiscated by the Turkish state were returned to them. On 8 October 2023, the Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church opened, the first church built since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey.[32][33] As of 2023, the Syriac community owns 113 properties registered in the name of community foundations.[7]\n\nLanguage\n\nUnlike Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, Assyrians were not recognized as a minority group in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and could not open schools teaching their language.[34][35] The last Assyrian-language school was closed in 1928.[36][37]\n\nOn 18 June 2013, the Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court ruled in favor of Assyrians' right to use their mother tongue as stated in the Treaty of Lausanne.[38][39] The Ministry of Education accepted the decision and a first kindergarten opened in 2014.[40][41][42] In 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the opening of a new Assyrian school, funded by the government.[43]\n\nClassical Syriac and modern Surayt are taught are Mardin Artuklu University.[44]\n\nIn a 2017 survey, 64% of Assyrians in Istanbul declared \"Assyrian\" as their mother tongue, while 27% declared Turkish.[34]\n\nReligion\n\nThe Assyrians are an ethnic group divided into a variety of different Christian churches, and those churches vary dramatically in liturgy and structure, and even dictate identity (see Terms for Syriac Christians). The predominant Christian denomination among Assyrians in Turkey is the Syriac Orthodox Church, with their 15,000-20,000 followers being called Syriacs.[45] Due to migration, the Syriacs' main residential area in Turkey today is Istanbul, where between 12,000 and 18,000 live.[45] Between 2,000 and 3,000 Syriac Orthodoxs still live in Tur Abdin, and they are spread among 30 villages, hamlets, and towns.[45] Some of these locations are dominated by Syriacs while others are dominated by the Kurds.[45] Additionally, there are a few Syriac Orthodox Christian communities in İzmir, Ankara, İskenderun, Diyarbakir, Adıyaman, Malatya, Elazığ, and a few other places.[45] As part of the return movement some Syriac Orthodox returned to Tur Abdin villages from Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.[46][47][45]\n\nThe second largest denomination is the Chaldean Catholic Church in Turkey, which has around 7,000-8,000 members who live primarily in Diyarbakir, Mardin, Sirnak province, and Istanbul. In 2016 it was estimated that there were about 48,594 Chaldean Catholics in Turkey.[48] Diyarbakir was the city in which the Chaldean Catholic Church was founded when it separated in 1552 from the Assyrian Church of the East. Prior to the Sayfo there was also a large community of Nestorians, or followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, and Syriac Catholics. The Nestorian Tribes lived in the Hakkari mountains on the southeastern edge of Turkey's border, which is now part of the modern day Sirnak and Hakkari provinces.[45] Additionally, the Patriarch of the Nestorian church had his See until mid-1915 based in a village in that region known as Qodshanis after he and his followers settled there in the 1660s, making Turkey the center of their church structure.[49][50][51]\n\nThe Syriac Catholic Church had their See in Mardin during the 1800s after being driven out of Aleppo due to oppression by the Syriac Orthodox Church. A large community lived in the southeast in the Tur Abdin region until they were massacred and forced to flee during the Sayfo to Lebanon, where the See was reestablished. There is still a tiny Syriac Catholic community that lives in Mardin and Istanbul,[45] but most Syriac Catholics now live in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Syriac Protestant Churches exist in Turkey as well.[45]\n\n Syriac Orthodox Church and Cemetery in Istanbul\n\n Mar Pithyoun (St. Anthony) Chaldean Catholic Church in Diyarbakır\n\n Mor Gabriel Monastery in Tur Abdin\n\n St. Mary Church, Diyarbakır\n\n Syriac Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary, Istanbul\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nChristianity in Turkey\n\nMinorities in Turkey\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"2018 U.S. Department of State International Religious Freedom Report: Turkey\". Archived from the original on 2020-04-25. Retrieved 2020-05-20.\n\n^ Hooglund (2008), pp. 100-101.\n\n^ B. Furze, P. Savy, R. Brym, J. Lie, Sociology in Today's World, 2008, p. 349\n\n^ a b Lundgren, Svante (15 May 2019). The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Swedenq. Nineveh Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-91-984101-7-4.\n\n^ DHA, Daily Sabah with (2019-01-10). \"Assyrians community thrives again in southeastern Turkey\". Daily Sabah. Archived from the original on 2019-01-10. Retrieved 2020-05-20.\n\n^ \"Cumhuriyetin ilk kilisesi açılıyor… Süryani Ruhani Lideri'nin ilk röportajı CNN Türk'te\". www.hurriyet.com.tr (in Turkish). 2023-10-06. Retrieved 2023-10-07.\n\n^ a b \"President Erdoğan inaugurates Türkiye's 1st post-republic era church\". Daily Sabah. 2023-10-08. Retrieved 2023-10-09.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, pp. 18-19.\n\n^ Gaunt 2015, p. 86.\n\n^ Nisan 2002, p.188: \"The wild Christian tribes of Hakkari, whither no Government of any sort has ever extended, still pay tribute to their Patriarch for transmission to the Sultan; and not taxes through the tax collector.\"\n\n^ John Joseph, Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition, State Univ of New York Press, 1983, ISBN 0-87395-600-1\n\n^ Astourian, Stephan; Kévorkian, Raymond, eds. (November 2020). Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Order. Berghahn Books. p. 63. ISBN 9781789204513. Retrieved 2025-10-23.\n\n^ Gaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O., eds. (May 2017). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Aramean Christians. Berghahn Books. p. 60. ISBN 9781785334993. Retrieved 2025-10-23.\n\n^ Lyall, Jason (2020-02-11). Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War. Princeton University Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-691-19415-8.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt 2015, p. 87.\n\n^ Üngör 2011, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Üngör 2011, p. 15.\n\n^ Gaunt et al. 2017, p. 19.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 57.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2020, p. 58.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 59.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2015, pp. 86-87.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 88.\n\n^ a b Biner 2019, p. xv.\n\n^ a b Biner 2011, p. 371.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, p. 69.\n\n^ Biner 2019, pp. 14-15.\n\n^ \"The Assyrians of Turkey are a remnant population of the formerly large Assyrian Jacobite faction. They number about 70,000 souls.\" http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/assyrians-in-iran#pt3 Archived 2015-02-04 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b \"Turkey's Duplicitous Game With Assyrians\". aina.org. Archived from the original on 15 January 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2017.\n\n^ Gusten, Susanne (April 4, 2012). \"Hopes to Revive the Christian Area of Turkey\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. Retrieved February 28, 2017.\n\n^ \"Middle Eastern Christians Flee Violence for Ancient Homeland\". National Geographic. 29 December 2014. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 19 August 2017.\n\n^ \"'Syriac Orthodox church gives Istanbul new richness'\". aa.com.tr. Retrieved 2023-10-05.\n\n^ \"Türkiye's 1st Orthodox church built in post-republic era set to open\". Daily Sabah. 2023-10-04. Retrieved 2023-10-05.\n\n^ a b Arikan, Arda; Varli, Ozan; Kürüm, Eyüp Yaşar (2017-05-01). \"A Study of Assyrians' Language Use in Istanbul\". Sustainable Multilingualism. 10 (1): 56-74. doi:10.1515/sm-2017-0003.\n\n^ Sabah, Daily (2019-08-26). \"Last 17 years a golden era for minority communities, witnessing period of increased rights\". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 2023-10-21.\n\n^ \"Türkiye'de modern tarihin ilk Süryani Kilisesi için temel atıldı\". euronews (in Turkish). 2019-08-03. Retrieved 2023-10-21.\n\n^ \"'Syriac Orthodox church gives Istanbul new richness'\". www.aa.com.tr. Retrieved 2023-10-21.\n\n^ Akbulut, Olgun (2023-10-19). \"For Centenary of the Lausanne Treaty: Re-Interpretation and Re-Implementation of Linguistic Minority Rights of Lausanne\". International Journal on Minority and Group Rights. -1 (aop): 1-24. doi:10.1163/15718115-bja10134. ISSN 1385-4879.\n\n^ Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court, 18 June 2013 (E. 2012/1746, K. 2013/952).\n\n^ \"Government's Move Expected to Help Save Assyrian Language\". www.aina.org. Retrieved 2023-10-21.\n\n^ Köseoğlu, Ayman (2018-08-06). The Assyrian case: The impact of the European Union on Turkey's minority rights concept (masterThesis thesis). Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü.\n\n^ Erdem, Fazıl Hüsnü; Öngüç, Bahar (2021-06-30). \"SÜRYANİCE ANADİLİNDE EĞİTİM HAKKI: SORUNLAR VE ÇÖZÜM ÖNERİLERİ\". Dicle Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi (in Turkish). 26 (44): 3-35. ISSN 1300-2929.\n\n^ \"Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Nefret suçlarına göz yumanlar, farklı kültürlerin bir arada yaşama iradesini dinamitlemektedir\". www.aa.com.tr. Retrieved 2023-10-21.\n\n^ \"T.C. MARDİN ARTUKLU ÜNİVERSİTESİ - Süryanice\". www.artuklu.edu.tr. Retrieved 2023-10-21.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Giesel, Christoph (2017). Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom. Springer. p. 169. ISBN 9781137270269.\n\n^ Çaglar (2013), p. 122\n\n^ Güsten (2016), p. 11\n\n^ CNEWA 2016.\n\n^ Baum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London and New York: Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\n^ Joseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East. Leiden: Brill. p. 1. ISBN 9789004116412.\n\n^ Aprim, Frederick A. (7 March 2008). \"Assyria and Assyrians Since the 2003 US Occupation of Iraq\" (PDF). Fredaprim.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 August 2017. Retrieved 6 May 2020.\n\nSources\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). \"Introduction: Contextualizing the Sayfo in the First World War\". Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. pp. 1-32. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nHooglund, Eric (2008). \"The Society and Its Environment\" (PDF). In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran: A Country Study. Area Handbook Series. United States Library of Congress, Federal Research Division (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. pp. 81-142. ISBN 978-0-8444-1187-3. Retrieved 13 October 2013.\n\nGaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 56-96. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\nPolatel, Mehmet (2019). \"The State, Local Actors and Mass Violence in Bitlis Province\". The End of the Ottomans: The Genocide of 1915 and the Politics of Turkish Nationalism. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 119-140. ISBN 978-1-78831-241-7.\n\nBiner, Zerrin Özlem (2011). \"Multiple imaginations of the state: understanding a mobile conflict about justice and accountability from the perspective of Assyrian-Syriac communities\". Citizenship Studies. 15 (3-4): 367-379. doi:10.1080/13621025.2011.564789. S2CID 144086552.\n\nBiner, Zerrin Özlem (2019). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-9659-4.\n\nGaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.\n\n\"The Eastern Catholic Churches 2016. Source: Annuario Pontificio\" (PDF). CNEWA. 2016. pp. 3-4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-10-20. Retrieved 2022-03-23.\n\nExternal links\n\n\"İstanbul - Ankara Süryani Ortodoks Metropolitliği\". www.suryanikadim.org. Retrieved 2023-10-09."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-turkey"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3393}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-australians", "title": "Assyrian Australians", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrian Australians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܘܼܣܛܪܵܠܝܼܵܐ, romanized: Sūryāyē d-Ūstrāliyā) are ethnic Assyrians or people of Assyrian descent possessing Australian nationality. According to the most recent census, 40,218 persons are Assyrian, while 21,166 identified themselves as having Chaldean ancestry.[2] The majority of Assyrian Australians have immigrated from Iraq, Iran, Syria,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Australia\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܘܣܛܪܠܝܐ\n\nAssyrians standing next to the genocide monument in Western Sydney.\n\nTotal population\n\n61,000 ~ 70,000 (by ancestry, 2022)[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nSydney, Melbourne, Brisbane\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic, English\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Catholicism and Protestantism)\n\nRelated ethnic groups\n\nAssyrian Americans, British Assyrians, Assyrian Canadians \n\nAssyrian Australians (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܘܼܣܛܪܵܠܝܼܵܐ, romanized: Sūryāyē d-Ūstrāliyā) are ethnic Assyrians or people of Assyrian descent possessing Australian nationality. According to the most recent census, 40,218 persons are Assyrian, while 21,166 identified themselves as having Chaldean ancestry.[2] The majority of Assyrian Australians have immigrated from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan and the Caucasus. The first Assyrians arrived in Australia in the 1950s, to flee from the 1958 revolution in Iraq.\n\nOf the 61,400 Assyrians in Australia, 40,218 are members of the Assyrian Church of the East or Ancient Church of the East and 21,172 are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The City of Fairfield, in Sydney, has the most Assyrians in Australia, with 75% of Assyrians living in that area. 95% of Fairfield's Iraqi-born population are of Assyrian ancestry. Fairfield LGA has one of the most predominant Assyrian communities in the diaspora, where one in every ten person is Assyrian. In contrast to other migrants, Assyrians have the highest rate of acquiring the Australian citizenship.[3]\n\nIn the 1980s, the Iraq-Iran war resulted in significant numbers of Assyrians fleeing Iraq and applying for refugee status. In the early 2000s, 5% of Australia's humanitarian immigrants identified as being adherents of Syriac churches. In May 2013, the Assyrian genocide was recognised by the New South Wales state parliament.[4][5] Assyrian-Australians have established various clubs, social organisation, churches and language schools. In the 2021 census, 61,930 Australians reporting having Assyrian or Chaldean ancestry, representing 0.2% of the population.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly immigration (1950s-1970s)\n\nThe first Assyrian, named Brian Youkhana, arrived in Sydney in 1951, from Lebanon, where he was joined by his siblings four years later. In the late 1950s, another family settled in Perth.[7] By 1965, there were around five Assyrian families and a few individuals living in the eastern Sydney suburbs of Randwick, Paddington and Clovelly. Although around 80% of the arrivals lived in the suburbs of Fairfield LGA in Greater Western Sydney, some Assyrians settled in the eastern suburbs, a region on Sydney's coast. During that period 4,500 Assyrians came from Iraq, 2,500 from Iran and 1,000 from Syria and Lebanon. According to Dinkha Warda, Fairfield was the most popular settlement among Assyrians for reason as follows:[8][7]\n\nBack in 1966, a small meeting was held between the early settlers to decide the future of Assyrians in this country...In 1966, Fairfield's developed area went west up to the Cumberland Highway. The majority of those attending the meeting agreed to establish the Assyrian community in Fairfield. The reason was to centralise the development of all the Assyrian social, religious and sporting activities, allowing greater access and participation. If we remained in the Sydney city area, we would have scattered. And so, four or five families purchased fibro houses in Fairfield (including myself), and a few bought blocks of land.\n\nIn 1969, after the settlement of Assyrians in the Fairfield area, the Assyrian Australian Association (AAA) was established. The significance of the AAA is based primarily on the fact that it was the first registered Assyrian organisation in Australia. Prior to AAA, there had existed an unofficial club called the Assyrian Australian Club which was established in 1966 and initially based for the Assyrians residing in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney prior to the move to the Fairfield area. The Assyrian Australian Club was replaced with the Assyrian Sports and Cultural Club in 1972, the second official Assyrian secular organisation to be registered in NSW after the AAA. After a brief period of inactivity, the Assyrian Sports and Cultural Club was relocated to the Fairfield area after many Assyrians moved during the housing boom in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, where it has remained active since. In the 1970s, a few soccer clubs were established as the Assyrian community began to have a prominence. An Assyrian language school was formed in 1974, thanks to the AAA.[9]\n\nCommunity growth (1980s-2000s)\n\nIn 1980, the Nineveh Club, a prominent Assyrian club in Edensor Park, Sydney, was established. Built with artificial mud brick, the club was designed after Assyrian royal palace in Nineveh. The entryway features two winged bull statues containing the body of a lion, the head of an Assyrian king and wings of an eagle. In the late 1980s, the Church of the East was controversially split - The Church of the East in Australia from that time on now has two denominations; The 'old' (Ancient Church of the East) and the 'new' (Assyrian Church of the East).\n\nAs the Assyrian community grew in the late 1980s, the Assyrian Sports and Cultural Club leased its premises from 1990 onwards, in Fairfield Heights, Sydney and acquired liquor and gaming licenses. The club later purchased its current building in 1997, and it was officially opened in 2000. Currently, it is the only Assyrian club in operation after the closure of the Nineveh Club in 2008. The club co-hosted sports events such as The Assyrian Cup soccer tournaments and held functions and activities for the community. It has supported migrants, who arrived in the 1990s, settle in the country and it encouraged education by aiding achievers in the high school certificate. During the late 1990s, there was an increased level of Assyrian migration to Australia under the family reunion, refugee and humanitarian programs. Reportedly, around 903 Assyrian arrivals were allowed under the Australian Government's Special Humanitarian Program and the Family Reunion Program.[10]\n\nIn 1997, it was reported that, for the Assyrian youth, lack of English skills was the major impediment for gaining employment, school achievement and becoming socially manoeuvrable in the Australian society. For instance, some Fairfield High School Assyrians wanted to go to university but felt hopeless because of their poor English. As such, several Assyrian churches developed a number of youth programs. For Assyrians with a higher education, the problem was also language and unacceptability of overseas qualifications, which prevented them from pursuing their careers.[11]\n\nThe opening of St Hurmizd Assyrian Primary School in 2002, in Sydney, was the first school from the ACOE that was established in the international diaspora. In 2006, also in Sydney, St. Narsai Assyrian Christian College was established. It was the first ACOE high school to be built in the western world.\n\nPost-Iraqi war (2010s-present)\n\nIn August 2010, a memorial monument for the Assyrian genocide was erected in Bonnyrigg. The statue, 4.5 meters tall, is of a hand of a martyr draped in an Assyrian flag. The memorial is placed in a reserve, to be named the Garden of Nineveh. The statue and the name for the reserve were proposed in August 2009. After consultation with the community, Fairfield Council received more than 100 submissions, including some from overseas, and two petitions. The proposal was condemned by the Turkish community. Turkey's consul general to Sydney expressed resentment about the monument, while acknowledging that tragedies had occurred to Assyrians in the period, as well as to Turks.[12]\n\nIn August 2014, more than 6,000 Assyrians marched in Belmore Park in Sydney CBD to protest against the treatment of their Assyrian counterparts in Iraq and Syria by ISIL. Many wore T-shirts reading the hashtag #WeAreN, and chanted \"we want peace, we want justice\" and \"save our Christians\". They also waved posters, which read \"stop genocide against our Christians\" and \"stop crimes against humanity\". They marched in Elizabeth Street, through the city to Martin Place. Assyrian Community leaders made passionate speeches requesting that the Australian and other international governments help those being persecuted in the Middle East.[13]\n\nIn 2015, the Abbott government announced that 12,000 extra humanitarian visas would be given to persecuted groups in the war-torn Middle Eastern countries. The Department of Social Services confirmed that 11,400 Iraqi and Syrian refugees, many of whom being Assyrian, were admitted to Australia as part of its one-off humanitarian intake, where they would primarily settle in Fairfield and Liverpool. The Assyrians told SBS World News they were in a state of despair, as they hoped more of their kin from the Middle East were brought to Australia. Carmen Lazar, manager of the Assyrian Resource Centre, said, \"If they can just lend another hand, you know, give us another 12,000 intake, just to release that pressure from what's happening overseas\".[14]\n\nOn 15 April 2024, Assyrians were a target in a terrorist attack at a Wakeley church, where an Islamic extremist stabbed bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and five others. All survived.[15]\n\nDemographics\n\nDistribution\n\nSydney\n\nIn Sydney, Assyrians are the leading ethnic group in the Fairfield LGA suburbs of Fairfield, Fairfield Heights and Greenfield Park. Ample amount of Assyrians exist in other suburbs in the Fairfield LGA, such as, Bossley Park, Prairiewood, Wakeley, Wetherill Park, Abbotsbury, Smithfield, Fairfield West, Bonnyrigg Heights, Horsley Park and Cecil Park.[17] One in every ten people living in Fairfield City is of Assyrian heritage. Fairfield Public School and Fairfield High School have high a proportion of Assyrian students, and as well as Bossley Park High School.[7]\n\nIn City of Liverpool, a LGA that borders Fairfield City, they're found in Cecil Hills, Green Valley, Hoxton Park, Hinchinbrook and Middleton Grange. In the southern and eastern suburbs, they're mainly found in Hillsdale, Matraville, as well as Maroubra.\n\nSydney's local government areas with the most Assyrians, population and percentage-wise:[18]\n\nGreater Fairfield is home to over 20,000 Assyrians.\n\nFairfield City: 13,437 (5.7%)[19]\n\nLiverpool City: 2,451 (1.3%)\n\nBayside Council: 635 (1.22%)\n\nBlacktown City: 459 (0.15%)\n\nCanterbury-Bankstown: 202 (0.11%)\n\nMelbourne\n\nIn Melbourne, Assyrians tend to be found in the northwest region, in the suburbs of Broadmeadows, Craigieburn, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park and Fawkner. According to the 2016 census, Melbourne had around 13,000 citizens who claimed Assyrian ancestry.[20]\n\nThe population of Assyrians in the suburbs of Melbourne (2016 census):\n\nRoxburgh Park - 3,281\n\nCraigieburn - 2,573\n\nMeadow Heights - 1,334\n\nGreenvale - 571\n\nCoolaroo - 337\n\nGladstone Park, Victoria - 199\n\nBrisbane\n\nIn Brisbane, small Assyrian[21] communities are slowly growing around the Moreton Bay area such as Bracken Ridge and Strathpine including in Logan City such as Woodridge and Loganlea due to the recent Syrian and Iraqi refugees coming into Australia.\n\nAccording to the 2016 census, they are 311 Assyrians living in Brisbane which has almost doubled from the 2011 census.[22] 407 Iraqis according to the 2016 census in Brisbane identified as Christian.\n\nGeneral statistics\n\nIn the 1996 census, there were 9571 people who spoke Assyrian in the state of NSW, and 2191 in Victoria. 60% of these Assyrians were born in Iraq, 21% in Australia and 13% in Iran. Also in that time, 54% belong to the Assyrian Church of the East, 27% belonged to the Chaldean Catholic Church and 7% to the Orthodox church. In the 2001 census, 9,520 Fairfield LGA residents stated they were of Assyrian ancestry and 8,879 residents stated they spoke Assyrian at home. The Assyrian-speakers living in NSW were 13,241 at that time. In the 2011 Census, Sydney had 21,678 people of Assyrian descent,[23] and Melbourne had 8,057.[24] Assyrians are the third largest language-group residing in the Fairfield area behind the Arabic and Vietnamese-speakers, respectively.[25]\n\nAccording to the 2001 census, 29% of Assyrian migrants in Fairfield were usually made up of large families with five members or more. 13- to 24-year-olds made up 18% of the migrating population and 25-54 years were at 57%. 25% of them did not speak English well. 43% of the Assyrians in the Fairfield LGA owned their home, and they generally worked in manufacturing (39%), trade, accommodation, hospitality and transport industries (31%).[26]\n\nWhilst the new arrivals are settling in Fairfield CBD and Fairfield Heights, the pre-mid-1990s arrivals have purchased and/or rented houses in the more affluent suburbs of Fairfield City, such as, Bossley Park, Wetherill Park and Greenfield Park, which are around 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) west from Fairfield CBD. Furthermore, some of the recently arrived Assyrian children have had psychological trauma for the experiences in their countries of origin, which encroached their settlement in Australia.[27]\n\nCulture\n\nSydney has seven prominent Assyrian church buildings; St Mary's Church in Smithfield (established in 1975), St Thomas Church in Bossley Park, St Mary's Assumption Church in Fairfield, St Hurmiz Cathedral in Greenfield Park, St Malkeh Church in Greenacre, and St Zaia Cathedral in Middleton Grange.\n\nIn Melbourne, the churches are Our Lady Guardian of Plants Chaldean Catholic Church in Campbellfield, Victoria, St. George's Church of the East in Reservoir, Victoria,[28] Holy Spirit Syriac Catholic Church in Dallas and St Aphrem Syrian Orthodox Church, which also is in Reservoir, Victoria.\n\nAssyrians, depending on the village/town they belong to commemorate their specific patron saints and celebrate it usually with their families at picnics or halls. For example, the Assyrians from Batnaya commemorate Mar Oraha. The feast of Mar Oraha is partaken in an annual prayer and celebration. Celebrations include traditional Assyrian dancing with singers, food and people wearing traditional Assyrian clothing from Batnaya.\n\nAssyrians from the town of Alqosh commemorate Saint Hurmizd, a monk that established his monastery in Alqosh. Alqoshnaye celebrate the Feast of Saint Hurmizd, known as 'Shara'd Rabban Hurmizd' around the world. This event is celebrated through picnics or halls, like many other Shereh (Feasts). People from Alqosh, like many other Assyrian towns/villages wear their traditional clothing at these events which commemorate their patron saints and celebrate the history of their towns.\n\nSome ACOE adherents in Sydney annually commemorate Saint Zaia (Shara 'D Mar Zaia) at Blaxland Crossing Reserve in the suburb of Wallacia on September. Hundreds attend the occasion, including Assyrian singers who perform for the event. Visitors would generally picnic, barbecue or relax in the Australian bush, and they would usually participate in Assyrian folk dance. This is the second largest Assyrian social gathering in Sydney after the New Year celebration in Fairfield Showground.[29]\n\nFairfield's large Assyrian community has had the media describe the suburb as 'Little Iraq' or 'Little Assyria'. Assyrian businesses have opened in Fairfield, mostly in Ware Street and Smart Street, and in Fairfield Heights in The Boulevarde. These businesses include everything from jewellery shops to restaurants and convenient stores, making the area favourite entertainment and shopping hot spot for the Assyrian community.[30]\n\nEntertainment\n\nBoth Nineveh Club and Assyrian Sports and Cultural Club support and showcase local Assyrian talents, such as singers, actors, musicians, painters and sculptors. The clubs contain reception halls and they usually host singer concerts (including lounge singers), festive parties, weddings, theatrical plays and other forms of social entertainment for the Assyrians in Sydney.[31] Wardeh Deesheh, the first film in the Assyrian language to be shot in Australia, was released in 1991.[32]\n\nThe Assyrians in Sydney lavishly celebrate the Assyrian New Year annually on 1 April, in Fairfield Showground in Prairiewood. Thousands attend the New Year festival and it usually features music and theatrical performances, traditional dancers, food stalls and fireworks.[33] Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott[34] and other politicians such as Chris Bowen, Craig Kelly, Tanya Plibersek, Chris Hayes and former NSW premier Bob Carr have attended the festival and made a speech.[35]\n\nChurch split controversy\n\nIn 1989, there was a major church split in the Church of the East in Fairfield, which shook and divided the community. The notorious event resulted in legal proceedings over property rights and it even received national media coverage. After the Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled in favour of bishop Mar Meelis Zaia, the Assyrian Church of the East diocese of Australia and New Zealand, to take ownership of St Mary's Church, Assyrians of the Ancient Church of the East sect protested since they found the court's ruling highly objectionable and unjust, as their sect claimed the St Mary's Church beforehand. A few of them eventually got involved in a frantic brawl outside the courthouse with those part of the Assyrian Church of the East sect.\n\nRichard Carleton from 60 minutes covered the story in a studio that contained around 200 Assyrians who opposed the bishop. Carleton belligerently faced the few men who were involved in the brawl and asked if they were apologetic about their actions, which the men stated they were merely acting in \"self-defense\" and \"fighting for their rights\" (as the court neglected their perspective). The Bishop described the actions of his raucous opponents as \"primitive\". Author and journalist David Leser criticised the 60 Minutes portrayal of Assyrians in his book The Whites of Their Eyes, saying, \"12 minutes of prime-time baiting of a community that had been law-abiding and peaceful prior to and subsequent to that event. There was no one millisecond devoted to explaining the intricacies of the dispute\".[36]\n\nSport\n\nAssyrian Australians, like many other Assyrians from around the world, are mainly fond of soccer, and have established various football clubs in Australia. Fairfield Bulls Soccer Club, based in Sydney, is the most prominent soccer club in the country. It was established in 1971 and it has involved hundreds of children and teenagers in different age teams. Legislated by Football NSW, Fairfield Bulls became a standalone club in 2005. The Soccer Club was linked with Nineveh Sports and Community Club. Another conspicuous Assyrian soccer club in Sydney, established in the early 1970s, is the Fairfield Eagles, a club affiliated with the Assyrian Sports and Cultural Club.[37]\n\nIn Melbourne, two Assyrian soccer teams exist; Moreland United FC and Upfield FC. Many Assyrian people cheer for their teams, local and international. The teams include the Assyriska FF, as well as the Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian national teams. Sydney's Assyrian community assembled in Fairfield to celebrate Iraq qualifying for the Asian Football Cup finals in 2007. More than 7000 people, including Iraqi Arabs, joined in street celebrations around Fairfield on Sunday 29 July 2007 after Iraq won the Asian Cup finals.[38]\n\nMedia\n\nMost Assyrian-Australian media is aired on the radio. Assyrian radio has a variety of themes and topics which consist mainly of Assyrian music and interviews with prominent Assyrian individuals, and politics, current events, weather, sport and history. These subjects are usually affiliated with Assyrian people, their culture and homeland. In the late 90s through to 2004, channel 31, a community channel, broadcast in Assyrian one to three hours a week.\n\nRadio\n\nSBS Radio, which airs in Sydney and Melbourne, broadcasts in the Assyrian language every Saturday and Tuesday evenings from 8 pm to 9 pm.[39]\n\n2000FM, a Sydney radio station, airs in the Assyrian language every Monday mornings for three hours, on the frequency of 98.5 FM.[40]\n\n2GLF, a community radio station in Sydney's suburb of Liverpool, on the frequency of 89.3 FM, broadcasts a number of Assyrian shows. Nohadra Radio, established in 1998, is the most prominent Assyrian radio show on the station, which airs Sunday nights from 8 pm to 10 pm.[41]\n\nAssyrian Australians\n\nEmil Shimoun Nona - Current bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Australia & New Zealand.\n\nSham Khamis - Plays for Canberra United FC in the Australian W-League.[42]\n\nNinos Khoshaba - Politician and is a former member of Parliament of New South Wales.\n\nCindy Sargon - TV chef and business woman.\n\nMeelis Zaia - Assyrian Church of the East's metropolitan bishop of Australia, New Zealand and Lebanon.\n\nAndrew Rohan - A politician, who was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Smithfield for the Liberal Party of Australia from 2011 to 2015.[43]\n\nLeena Khamis - Plays for Sydney FC in the Australian W-League and the Matildas.[44]\n\nMario Shabow - Plays for Central Coast Mariners FC in the A-League.[45]\n\nSue Ismiel - Founder and owner of Nad's.\n\nMichael Denkha - Actor known for films such as The Combination and popular Australian TV show Here Come the Habibs\n\nAnwar Khoshaba - Former Mayor of Fairfield.\n\nRobin Zirwanda - Singer most known from his Assyrian Latin dance band Azadoota\n\nAshur Shimon - Australian comedian, TV personality and lead role on Fat Pizza\n\nJoseph Haweil - Mayor of Hume City Melbourne\n\nMar Mari Emmanuel - bishop, writer and influencer\n\nDanella Butrus - Australian soccer player, plays for Melbourne City in the A-League Women\n\nSee also\n\nIraqi Australians\n\nMandaean Australians\n\nLebanese Australians\n\nSyrian Australians\n\nGreek Australians\n\nJewish Australians\n\nArmenian Australians\n\nIranian Australians\n\nIsraeli Australians\n\nAustralian Jews\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN AUSTRALIA, 2016\". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 27 June 2017. Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 27 June 2017.\n\n^ Kinarah: Twentieth Anniversary of Assyrian Australian Association 1989, Assyrian Australian Association, Edensor Park.\n\n^ Community Relations Commission For a Multicultural NSW 2004, Cultural Harmony. The Next Decade 2002-2012 (White Paper), New South Wales Government, Sydney South.\n\n^ \"NSW Parliament formally recognises Assyrian genocide as Smithfield MP Andrew Rohan shares tale of parents' survival\". The Daily Telegraph. 14 May 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Genocide Monument Unveiled in Australia\". Assyrian International News Agency. 8 July 2010. Archived from the original on 2 September 2010. Retrieved 31 August 2010.\n\n^ \"Australia - Ancestry\". Profile.id.\n\n^ a b c ASSYRIAN COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IN FAIRFIELD CITY by Greg Gow with Ashur Isaac, Paul Gorgees, Marlin Babakhan and Kardonia Daawod. University of Western Sydney. Retrieved 26 December 2023.\n\n^ Assyrian Australian Association & Ettinger House 1997, Settlement Issues of the Assyrian Community, AAA, Sydney.\n\n^ James Jupp (October 2001). The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins. Cambridge University Press. pp. 175-. ISBN 978-0-521-80789-0.\n\n^ 2004, Australia's Support for Humanitarian Entrants 2003-04, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.\n\n^ \"Fairfield's Assyrian Resource Centre has secured $40,000 to fund its renovations\". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 31 January 2014.\n\n^ \"Turkey protests Assyrian 'genocide' monument\". Today's Zaman. Retrieved 26 February 2015.\n\n^ Barker, Anne (3 August 2014). \"Australian Iraqi Christians stage protest against religious persecution in their homeland by ISIS\". ABC News. Retrieved 25 July 2016.\n\n^ Dabbagh, Omar (15 May 2017). \"Assyrian Australians plead for second special refugee settlement deal\". Retrieved 22 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Man in custody, four people injured in alleged stabbing incident at Sydney church\". ABC News. 15 April 2024. Retrieved 15 April 2024.\n\n^ Rubin, M. 2003, 'Are Kurds a pariah minority?', Social Research, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 295-32\n\n^ Deniz, F. 2000, 'Maintenance and Transformation of Ethnic Identity: the Assyrian Case’, The Assyrian Australian Academic Journal\n\n^ Greater Sydney - Ancestry\n\n^ 2016 Census QuickStats - Fairfield City\n\n^ Stone, W. 2001, Measuring Social Capital: Towards a theoretically informed measurement framework for researching social capital in family and community life, Research Paper No. 24, February, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians living in Brisbane who made a mass exodus from Qaraqosh rejoice at liberation of their region\". 26 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Ancestry | Australia | Community profile\".\n\n^ Assyrians in Sydney\n\n^ Assyrians in Melbourne\n\n^ Fairfield City Council 2003, State of the Community Report, Fairfield City Council, Wakeley.\n\n^ Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs 2003, Report of the Review of Settlement Services for Migrants and Humanitarian Entrants, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.\n\n^ Newton, K. 1997, 'Social capital and democracy', American Behavioural Scientist, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 575-86\n\n^ -1993, Assyrians in Australia, AAA, Sydney\n\n^ Zinda Magazine\n\n^ \"World on a plate\". The Sydney Morning Herald. 13 November 2007.\n\n^ Gorgees, P. 2003, 'The Assyrian Community's Continued Needs in the Fairfield LGA', in Checking the Pulse of Fairfield-Conference Report, Fairfield Migrant Resource Centre, Cabramatta.\n\n^ Nardin Sarkees (8 May 2020). \"Wardeh Deesheh: a Thirty Year Retrospective\". Retrieved 30 March 2023.\n\n^ Rizk, Rita (29 March 2016). \"Thousands to attend Assyrian New Year festivities in Fairfield\". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 July 2016.\n\n^ McMah, Lauren. \"Thousands of people celebrate Assyrian New Year at Fairfield Showground\". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 July 2016.\n\n^ \"CELEBRATING THE ASSYRIAN NEW YEAR FESTIVAL 6766 IN SYDNEY\". Assyrian Universal Alliance. Retrieved 25 July 2016.\n\n^ The Whites of Their Eyes: Profiles by David Leser, published by Allen & Unwin, 1999\n\n^ Stewart Weeks, M. and Richardson, C. 1998, Social Capital Stories, Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney.\n\n^ Giorgas, D. 2000, 'Community Formation and Social Capital in Australia', paper delivered to the 7th Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, Darling Harbour, Sydney, 25 July.\n\n^ \"Ethnic radio takes to the air\". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 June 1975.\n\n^ \"The phenomenon known as 2000FM\". 2000FM. 2008. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2016.\n\n^ \"Liverpool Council on 2GLF\". Liverpool City Council. 21 June 2006. Archived from the original on 23 July 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2016.\n\n^ \"Sham Khamis\". Archived from the original on 21 December 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.\n\n^ Green, Antony (4 April 2011). \"Smithfield\". NSW Votes 2011. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 29 July 2016.\n\n^ \"Leena Khamis\". Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Mario Shabow\". Archived from the original on 8 December 2015.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Churches in Australia\n\nNohadra Radio\n\nSt. Narsai Assyrian College\n\nSt Hurmizd Assyrian Primary School\n\nAshurSat\n\nFairfield Bulls Soccer Club\n\nTony Abbott - Prime Minister of Australia speaks at Assyrian New Year 2015\n\nAssyrian Radio Schedule, 2GLF\n\nSt Thomas The Apostle Chaldean and Assyrian Catholic Diocese of Australia and New Zealand\n\nSt Zaia Cathedral, Sydney\n\nThe Ashurbanipal Library Collection - Assyrian Community - Australia"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-australians"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4231}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-sweden", "title": "Assyrians in Sweden", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Sweden (Swedish: Assyrier i Sverige), or Swedish Assyrians, are Assyrians or people of Assyrian descent living in Sweden. Between 2018 and 2020, it was estimated there were approximately 150,000 to 200,000 Assyrians living in Sweden.[3][4]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Sweden\nSwedish Assyrians in cultural clothing in 2024\n\nTotal population\n\n150,000-200,000[1][2]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nSödertälje, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Örebro, Västerås, Norrköping, Linköping, Skövde, Jönköping, Tibro\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic · Swedish\n\nReligion\n\nPredominantly Christianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nAssyrians in Sweden (Swedish: Assyrier i Sverige), or Swedish Assyrians, are Assyrians or people of Assyrian descent living in Sweden. Between 2018 and 2020, it was estimated there were approximately 150,000 to 200,000 Assyrians living in Sweden.[3][4]\n\nAssyrians first came to Sweden from Syria for work in the late 1960s when Europe needed laborers for its industries. However, with increased ethnic and religious persecution in their homeland, which is located in present-day southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria,[5] Assyrian immigration to Sweden increased. Those who had lived in Sweden for a longer period of time were granted residency for humanitarian reasons, given the conflicts in their place of origin.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly immigration (1960s-1970s)\n\nIn the 1960s, it became increasingly unsafe for Assyrians in Midyat, the regional centre of Tur Abdin. Muslims incited violent anti-Christian protests as a response to events unfolding in Cyprus. This led to many Assyro-Syriacs not seeing a future for themselves in their ancestral homeland.[7]\n\nOn Thursday 9 March 1967, 108 stateless Assyrians left Beirut airport in Lebanon en route to Sweden where they landed at Bulltofta airport outside of Malmö. After being bathed upon arrival, the Assyrians were transported by bus to a refugee housing complex in Alvesta in the province of Småland. Over a month later on Thursday, 13 April, a second group of 98 Assyrian refugees arrived from Beirut. The reason behind the initial immigration of Assyrians to Sweden was the introduction of a quota of 200 Christians from Lebanon that were to be accepted by the Swedish Public Employment Service after coordination with the World Council of Churches and the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees. A group of Swedish public officials visited Beirut where a selection of mostly young families from Turkey that were members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as Protestants and members of the Assyrian Church of the East were accepted to immigrate to Sweden.[8][9]\n\nAssyrians of Södertälje were involved in a riot on 19 June 1977, when raggare (greasers), mainly coming from nearby Stockholm attacked them at Restaurant Bristol in Södertälje, at the time the attack being believed that it was racially motivated. This was part of the raggare-scare that existed during those times. Mass media added fuel to the riots with headlines about \"race riots\" and \"Södertälje - a city gripped by fear\". It was said that the greasers' aversion towards the Assyrians was because the latter taking up too much space, talking loudly, walking around well-dressed and wearing gold chains. There were also rumours about the Assyrians taking over the city.[10]\n\nDemographics\n\nSödertälje is seen as the unofficial Assyrian capital of Europe due to the city's high percentage of Assyrians. According to Assyrian organization estimates, there are approximately 150,000 Assyrians in Sweden.[12] The Syriac Orthodox Christians number an estimated 30,000-40,000 people (2016), while higher estimations is 70-80,000, out of which an estimated 18,000 live in Södertälje.[13]\n\nAccording to Statistics Sweden, as of 2016, there 22,663 are citizens of Iraq (12,705 men, 9,958 women) and 116,384 citizens of Syria (70,060 men, 46,324 women) residing in Sweden.[14]\n\nCulture\n\nIdentity\n\nThere is an ideological division of this group in Sweden between[15]\n\nAssyrier: Mostly adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church and various Protestant churches, hailing from south eastern Turkey, north eastern Syria, northern Iraq, western Iran and Lebanon, who de-emphasize religious adherence in favour of ethnicity pre-Christian antiquity, who insist on the name Assyrier, with an Assyrian-Mesopotamian heritage and Assyrian identity for the group.\n\nSyrianer: Largely adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church hailing from Lebanon, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, who insist on the name Syrianer, and often an \"Aramean\" heritage for the group.\n\nTo account for this division, official Swedish sources refer to the group as \"Assyrier/Syrianer\",[16] with a slash (similar to the US census, which opted for \"Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac\").\n\nOrganisations\n\nWhen Assyrians immigrated to Sweden, they formed cultural organisations that would represent their people, as well as act as a centre for Assyrians in Sweden to meet. The Assyrian Federation of Sweden (AFS) was founded in 1977 as a nationwide umbrella organisation for the various local associations in Sweden. The formation took place on 15-17 April 1977, with twenty-one representatives from eleven associations present, unanimously deciding to unite into a national organisation. At the national assembly in 1983, 44 representatives from 21 associations were present. Initially, the Federation had 3,000 members which soon doubled by 1980. At first, the Federation's office was located in Norsborg, but soon moved to Södertälje in 1983.\n\nAside from the Assyrian Federation of Sweden, the Assyrian Youth Federation and Assyrian Women's Federation existed nationwide. The Youth Federation was formed in 1985 as the Assyrian Youth Committee within the AFS. In 1991, it was transformed into the Assyrian Youth Federation, and became more independent from the AFS.\n\nThe Syriac (Aramean) Federation of Sweden was founded in 1978. The federation is safeguarding the interest in the linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and social issues of the Aramean people. The federation has about 19.000 members and 34 sub-associations.[17] The federation is collaborating with numerous organizations in Sweden that provides assistants needed for the federation and its operations.[18]\n\nMedia\n\nPublications\n\nIn 1978, Hujådå, the first Assyrian magazine was published by the Assyrian Federation of Sweden. The etymology of the name has the meaning \"unity\" or \"union\" in the Aramaic language, with the intention to unite all Assyrians, regardless of church, and to pay homage to Naum Faiq's publication with the same name in the United States in the early 1920s. The first issue of Hujådå came out in spring of 1978 and was published by Gabriel Afram, the then chairman of AFS, and the editor in-chief, Johanon Kashisho. In the beginning, the magazine contained material in four languages: Aramaic, Arabic, Turkish and Swedish. Eventually, material was published in English. Currently, Hujådå only exists as a web publication.[19]\n\nThe second Aramean magazine was published by the Aramean Federation of Sweden called Bahro Suryoyo. It is published in five languages: Swedish, Aramaic, Arabic, English, and Turkish.[20][21] It is available as an online magazine since 2009 at bahro.nu.[22]\n\nTelevision\n\nIn the mid-2000s, Assyrian TV channels were formed in Södertälje. Suroyo TV is operated by the Dawronoye political movement, while the Syriacs identifying as \"Aramean\" created Suryoyo Sat. The AFS, Women's Federation and Youth Federation founded the Assyrian Media Institute (AMI) on 24 September 2011, in Norrköping. AMI owns and operates Assyria TV, a web TV channel, which broadcasts shows worldwide, commonly interviewing famous Assyrians, as well as famous Swedish politicians and scholars. Assyria TV has also played a role in exposing Kurdish acts of cruelty against Assyrians in Iraq and Syria.[23]\n\nReligion\n\nIn the 1990s, the Syriac Orthodox Church in Sweden fell into disunion with the church's board shutting the bishop out and demanding that the Patriarch in Damascus appoint a new bishop. In 1996, a new bishop was appointed, resulting in the Syriac Orthodox Church in Sweden being divided into two separate dioceses with their own bishops, both based in Södertälje. The diocese which does not reject the Assyrian name is led from St. Jacob of Nisibi's Cathedral in Hosvjö. The other diocese is led from St. Afrem's Church in Geneta.[24]\n\nSport\n\nAssyrians have a wide spanning history in relation to sports in Sweden, most notably in the football arena. In Qamishli and Tur Abdin, Assyrians had their own football clubs that played at a local or national level. This led to the formation of ethnic-based Assyrian clubs in Sweden who have enjoyed a high level of success relative to other ethnic groups. Currently, there are over 20 Assyrian ethnic-based clubs present across Sweden.\n\nOn 14 February 1974, Assyriska FF was established in Södertälje. In the year 2000, Assyriska FF joined the Superettan when it was founded and boast the most seasons in the competition at 15. In 2003, Assyriska FF qualified for the Swedish Cup Final, before falling short to Elfsborg 0-2 in the final. In 2005, Assyriska FF managed to reach the highest level of football in Sweden, the Allsvenskan, becoming the first ethnic club to reach the competition. Their first game of the season was played on 12 April at Råsunda Stadium against Hammarby where Assyrian-American singer Linda George performed in front of an audience of 15,000.\n\nIn 1977 the club Syrianska FC was also established in Södertalje. In 2010, after two years in Superettan, Syrianska was promoted to Allsvenskan (the highest tier in Swedish football) for the first time in club history. 3 years later in 1980 another club was found Arameisk-Syrianska IF playing in the third highest Swedish league, Division 1.\n\nNotable people\n\nAbgar Barsom, former footballer.[25]\n\nNuri Kino, journalist\n\nBishara Morad, known by the mononym Bishara, singer from Syria born 2003, took part in Melodifestivalen 2019.[26]\n\nDaniel Teymur, MMA fighter.[27]\n\nDavid Durmaz, footballer, family from southeastern Turkey.[28]\n\nIbrahim Baylan, politician, born and raised in Deir Salih, Tur Abdin, Turkey.[29]\n\nJimmy Durmaz, footballer,[30] father from Midyat in Turkey.[31]\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu, footballer,[32] family arrived in 1972 from Midyat.\n\nMikael Ishak, footballer, from Södertälje.[33]\n\nSharbel Touma, footballer, born in Lebanon.[34]\n\nSuleyman Sleyman, footballer.[35]\n\nYilmaz Kerimo, politician, born in Turkey.[36]\n\nAntonio Yakoub, Swedish-born footballer of Assyrian and Finnish descent\n\nSee also\n\nMandaeans in Sweden\n\nSwedish Iranians\n\nSwedish Iraqis\n\nKurds in Sweden\n\nLebanese people in Sweden\n\nSyrians in Sweden\n\nTurks in Sweden\n\nReferences\n\n^ Woźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2020). Modern Assyrian/Syriac Diaspora in Sweden. p. 119. ISBN 978-83-63547-11-0.\n\n^ SVT: Statministerns folkmordsbesked kan avgöra kommunvalet: ”Underskatta inte frågan” (in Swedish)\n\n^ SVT: Statministerns folkmordsbesked kan avgöra kommunvalet: ”Underskatta inte frågan” (in Swedish)\n\n^ Woźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2020). Modern Assyrian/Syriac Diaspora in Sweden. p. 119. ISBN 978-83-63547-11-0.\n\n^ Sargon Donabed (1 February 2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 18-. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6.\n\n^ Swedish Minister for Development Co-operation, Migration and Asylum Policy, Migration 2002, June 2002 Archived 26 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante (15 May 2019). The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Swedenq. Nineveh Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-91-984101-7-4.\n\n^ Tore Wizelius; Lars-Sune Hansson; Sweden. Referensgruppen för folkrörelsefrågor; Sweden. Statens invandrarverk (1984). Föreningar bland invandrare och minoriteter i Sverige. Statens invandrarverk. p. 53. ISBN 9789170164064.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante (15 May 2019). The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Sweden. Nineveh Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-91-984101-7-4.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante. The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Sweden. Nineveh Press. pp. 22-24.\n\n^ \"Foreign-born persons by country of birth, age, sex and year\". Statistics Sweden. Retrieved 29 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Brief History of Assyrians\".\n\n^ Prakash Shah; Marie-Claire Foblets (15 April 2016). Family, Religion and Law: Cultural Encounters in Europe. Routledge. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-317-13648-4. Syriac Orthodox\n\n^ \"Foreign citizens by country of citizenship, sex and year\". Statistics Sweden. Retrieved 15 November 2017.\n\n^ Lundberg, Dan (2010). \"Christians from the Middle East\". Svenskt visarkiv. Retrieved 11 July 2023.\n\n^ Riksdagens protokoll. Kungl. Boktr. 2001. assyrier/syrianer\n\n^ \"Syrianska riksförbundet\". www.sios.org (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 18 November 2008. Retrieved 20 June 2020.\n\n^ \"List of Co-Operative Organisations\".\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante. The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Sweden. Nineveh Press. pp. 91-92.\n\n^ Bahro Suryoyo\n\n^ \"Bahro suryoyo : månatlig kultur-, idrotts-, nyhets- och informationstidning\". Archived from the original on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2008.\n\n^ \"Om Bahro.nu\". Archived from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 16 May 2015.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante. The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Sweden. Nineveh Press. pp. 97-98.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante. The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Sweden. Nineveh Press. p. 64.\n\n^ \"Syrianske stjärnan Abgar Barsom tackar Syrianska folket\".; Grimlund, Lars (2004). \"Artisten Barsom vill vara perfekt\". DN.\n\n^ Johan M Söderlund and Torbjörn Ek (24 February 2019). \"Så drillades Bishara Morad av Laila Bagge\". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 February 2019.\n\n^ Moro, David (4 April 2017). \"UFC-fightern: \"Bältet är mitt mål\"\". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). SVT.\n\n^ \"David Durmaz om mötet med sin nya klubb\". Svenska fans.\n\n^ Hammargren, Bitte (7 November 2004). \"\"Baylan började hos mig när han var sju år\"\". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). SVD.\n\n^ Max Wiman (2011). \"Ur ilskan växte årets stora succé\" (in Swedish).\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz ska underlätta flytt - kan skaffa turkiskt pass\" (in Swedish). Fotbolltransfers.\n\n^ \"Zweedse Assyriër in Twente\" [Swedish-Assyrian in Twente]. De Pers (in Dutch). 9 March 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ \"Mikael Ishak\". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved 3 July 2011.\n\n^ \"Voormalig FC Twente-speler Touma keert terug naar jeugdliefde\". voetbalzone. 18 November 2010.; \"Touma kan ersätta Porokara\". na.se.\n\n^ Nicklasson, Jan (9 April 2009). \"Sleyman\". Svenska Dagbladet. SVD.\n\n^ \"yilmazkerimo\". socialdemokraterna.\n\nFurther reading\n\nSvenska kommunförbundet (1982). Assyrier/syrianer: tipskatalog : några fakta om gruppen och några exempel från kommunal verksamhet. Kommunförb.\n\nKnutsson, Bengt (1982). Assur eller Aram: språklig, religiös och nationell identifikation hos Sveriges assyrier och syrianer. Statens invandrarverk (SIV).\n\nKlich, I., and Ingvar Svanberg. \"Assyrier/syrianer\" i.\" Det mångkulturella Sverige (1988).\n\nYalcin, Zeki. \"Svenskar och assyrier/syrianer kring sekelskiftet 1900.\" Multiethnica. Meddelande från Centrum för multietnisk forskning, Uppsala universitet 29 (2003): 24-28.\n\nBjörklund, Ulf. North to another country: the formation of a Suryoyo community in Sweden. Vol. 9. Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, 1981.\n\nAtman, Sabri. Assyrier-Syrianer. Mesopotamien, 1996.\n\nBarsom, Gabriella. \"En studie om assyriska/syrianska ungdomars språkbruk och språkidentiteter.\" (2006).\n\nBerntson, Martin. \"Assyrier eller syrianer? Om fotboll, identitet och kyrkohistoria.\" rapport nr.: Humanistdag-boken 16 (2003)."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-sweden"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2274}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-germany", "title": "Assyrians in Germany", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Germany (German: Assyrer in Deutschland; Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܠܡܢ), also known as German Assyrians (German: Deutsch Assyrer), are Germans of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have German citizenship. The Assyrians in Germany mainly came from Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.[2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Germany\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܠܡܢ\n\nTotal population\n\nover 130,000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nNorth Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg\n\nLanguages\n\nGerman · Sureth · Surayt\n\nReligion\n\nMainly Christianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nAssyrians in Germany (German: Assyrer in Deutschland; Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܠܡܢ), also known as German Assyrians (German: Deutsch Assyrer), are Germans of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have German citizenship. The Assyrians in Germany mainly came from Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.[2] \n\nThe immigrant community of people of Assyrian descent in Germany is estimated at over 130,000 people.[1] They are known in German either as Assyrer (\"Assyrians\") or as Aramäer (\"Arameans\").[3]\n\nHistory\n\nBeing oppressed and persecuted throughout the 20th century for their religion, many arrived from Turkey only seeking a life. The first wave arrived in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the German economic plan of \"Gastarbeiter\". As Germany was seeking immigrant workers (largely from Turkey), many Assyrians saw an opportunity for freedom and success and applied for visas along with Turks. Assyrians started working in restaurants or as construction workers for companies and many began running their own shops. The first Assyrian immigrants in Germany started organizing themselves by forming culture clubs and building churches. The second wave came almost immediately after the first, as a result of two events.\n\nThe first event was when the Assyrian mayor of Dargeçit was assassinated in 1979 in what has been looked at as a takeover of the local government by Kurds of the Assyrian homeland in Turkey.[4] The new mayor was a Kurd, and that caused the local government to allow huge influxes of Kurds to start squatting on land and driving people off their land. The second event was when the Kurdish-Turkish conflict began in 1984. The area was effectively turned into a sectarian warzone between Turkey and the PKK with Assyrians caught in the middle. Nearly all Assyrians ended up fleeing the area, seeing as how both the Turks and Kurds were hostile, and they would be defenseless now that the local government is out of their hands. They continued to trickle out all the way until the late 90s when the conflict died down, by that time only around 1,000-2,000 people out of 70,000 prior to the conflict remained. Since the early 2000s some reverse migration back to Turkey has occurred now that the conflict is over, with now around 3,000 in the region. \n\nSee also\n\nSwedish Assyrians\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nAssyrians in Turkey\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Diskussion zum Thema 'Aramäische Christen' im Kapitelshaus\" Borkener Zeitung (in German) (archived link, 8 October 2011)\n\n^ Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century By Sargon Donabed\n\n^ Lembert, Christiane (2002): Migranten aus dem Tur Abdin: Suryoye in einer diaspora community. In: Martin Tamcke (ed.), Daheim und in der Fremde: Beiträge zur jüngeren Geschichte und Gegenwartslage der orientalischen Christen. Münster: LIT Verlag, p. 143-162.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante (15 May 2019). The Assyrians: Fifty Years in Swedenq. Nineveh Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-91-984101-7-4.\n\nExternal links\n\nSuryoyo Sat Germany\n\nFederation of the Arameans in Germany - FASD Archived 2008-10-26 at the Wayback Machine\n\nAssyrian Youth Federation Middle Europe\n\nMesopotamian Club Augsburg"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-germany"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 532}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-americans", "title": "Assyrian Americans", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrian Americans, (Syriac: ܣܘܼܖ̈ܵܝܹܐ ܐܲܡܪ̈ܝܼܟܵܝܹܐ) or otherwise known as Chaldean or Syriac Americans are individuals of ethnic Assyrian ancestry born or residing within the United States. Assyrians are an ethnic group native to Mesopotamia in West Asia who descend from their ancient counterparts, directly originating from the ancient...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac Americans\nTotal population\n\n94,000 (2022)[1]\n0.03% of the US population\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nGreater Phoenix, Arizona · East San Diego County, California · Greater Los Angeles (especially the San Fernando Valley, California · Chicagoland, Illinois · Metro Detroit, Michigan · Turlock-Modesto, California areas\n\nLanguages\n\nAssyrian/Aramaic, English, Arabic\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nAssyrian Americans, (Syriac: ܣܘܼܖ̈ܵܝܹܐ ܐܲܡܪ̈ܝܼܟܵܝܹܐ) or otherwise known as Chaldean or Syriac Americans are individuals of ethnic Assyrian ancestry born or residing within the United States. Assyrians are an ethnic group native to Mesopotamia in West Asia who descend from their ancient counterparts, directly originating from the ancient indigenous Mesopotamians of Akkad and Sumer who first developed the independent civilization in northern Mesopotamia that would become Assyria in 2600 BC. Modern Assyrians often culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious and tribal identification. The first significant wave of Assyrian immigration to the United States was due to the Sayfo genocide in the Assyrian homeland in 1914-1924.\n\nThe largest Assyrian diaspora in the United States is located in Metro Detroit, with a figure of 150,000.[2] High concentrations are also located in Phoenix, San Jose, Modesto, San Diego, Los Angeles, Turlock, and Chicago among others.[3][4][5]\n\nIn the 2020 U.S. census a total of 119,402 individuals identified as Assyrian, Chaldean or Syriac in the United States with full or partial ancestry.[6]\n\nAs of 2022 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are 94,532 people in the United States declaring Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac ancestry (with a margin of error ±7,255).[7]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nAssyrian immigration to the United States began in the late 19th century, with a notable presence developing in New England. Syriac Orthodox Assyrians from Harput were among the early settlers, establishing a community in Worcester, Massachusetts. Many later relocated to the Boston area. This community maintained close ties with other Syriac Orthodox Assyrians, particularly those from Mardin, who settled in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and from Diyarbakır, who established communities in New Jersey. The community in New Jersey founded several civic organizations outside the church, including the Assyrian Orphanage and School Association of America.[8]\n\nThe early Syriac Orthodox communities also developed relationships with other early Assyrian groups, such as Protestants and members of the Church of the East, who then primarily emigrated from Urmia (in northwestern Iran) and settled in New Britain, Connecticut.[9]\n\nSecond wave of immigration\n\nFollowing the turn of the century, Assyrian immigration to America mostly came to a halt due to the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively cut off any legal immigration to the United States for Assyrians and other non-Western European groups. The second large wave of immigration occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly from northern Iraq due to conflicts and persecution by the Ba'athist government of Iraq. Others arrived from Iran following the Iranian Revolution. Many Assyrians arrived during this period and took advantage of the ongoing White flight in Detroit.\n\nAs a result of the situation, Assyrians gained a monopoly over grocery stores and other small businesses, and in many cases used their finances and newfound wealth to benefit the Assyrian community there and take in Assyrian refugees from Iraq. More Assyrians arrived throughout the 1980s and 1990s for similar reasons, with newer residents moving out of Detroit into suburbs such as Royal Oak and Sterling Heights due to the crack epidemic in Detroit, while others began to move to San Diego, establishing a new Assyrian community there.\n\nIn 2005, the first Assyrian school in the United States, the Assyrian American Christian School, opened in Tarzana, Los Angeles.\n\nIn Michigan\n\nAssyrian immigration to cities in Michigan began in the early 20th century. The cities in the state include, but are not limited to, Detroit, Southfield, Sterling Heights, Oak Park, Troy, West Bloomfield, Walled Lake, Rochester Hills, Farmington Hills, Ferndale, Warren, Bloomfield Hills, and Ann Arbor. More and more Assyrians, as they establish themselves financially, quickly move out of Detroit and into the other locations, including San Diego and cities in Arizona.\n\nBefore the 1970s, Assyrians came to the United States in search of greater economic opportunities. After the 1970s, many Assyrians fled for political freedom, especially after the rise of Saddam Hussein and after the Gulf War. Some were drawn by the economic opportunities they had seen successfully affect their family members who had already immigrated.\n\nLess stringent immigration laws during the 1960s and 1970s facilitated increasing numbers, with the 1970s seeing the highest number of Assyrians coming to the United States. In 1962, the number of Assyrian owned grocery stores was 120, but grew to 278 in 1972. The main cause of this was the 1967 Detroit riots, after which Jewish grocery store owners left the area and left the opportunity open for Assyrians to take over. Often these Jews sold their old stores to Assyrians.[10]\n\nIraqi president Saddam Hussein donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Chaldean Catholic Churches in Detroit and received a key to the city in the 1980s on behalf of Mayor Coleman Young, when the Ba’ath regime was an ally of the United States government.[11]\n\nMost new Chaldean Catholic Assyrian immigrants and low-income senior citizens tend to reside in Detroit, on the 7 Mile Road between Woodward Avenue and John R Street. This area was officially named Chaldean Town in 1999.[12] There are eight Chaldean Catholic Churches in Metro Detroit, located in West Bloomfield, Troy (two), Oak Park, Southfield, Warren, Sterling Heights, and Detroit.\n\nIn California\n\nAfter World War II, several Assyrian men who had been educated in Iraq by American Jesuits traveled to the United States. They were to teach Arabic to U.S. officers at the Army Language School who were going to be stationed in the Middle East. The men started the San Diego-area Chaldean Catholic community. Yasmeen S. Hanoosh, author of The Politics of Minority Chaldeans Between Iraq and America, wrote that the Chaldean Catholic Church in San Diego \"continued to grow in relative isolation from the family-chain-migration based communities in and around Michigan.\"[13]\n\nTurlock is estimated to have approximately 20,000 residents of Assyrian descent, representing around one-quarter of the city's population. The community has deep historical roots in the area, dating back to the early 20th century, following persecution in the Ottoman Empire and later conflicts. The Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock serves as a cultural and community center, and the city hosts festivals and events celebrating Assyrian heritage, language, and traditions. KBDG-FM 90.9 is a 24/7 Assyrian-language radio station broadcasting news, music, and cultural programming to local residents.[14] El Cajon has a large Iraqi population, many of whom are Assyrian.\n\nOne of the few Assyrian churches in the Bay Area, and the only one in San Francisco, The Assyrian Church of the East (which also doubles as a day-care center) is located off Lawton Street and 46th Ave.[15] San Francisco has nearly 500 Assyrian-American residents, although the count is often lower than what the U.S. Census usually reports as many chose terms such as \"Iraqi American,\" \"Syrian American\", \"Iranian American\", or just simply \"Middle Eastern American\".[16]\n\nGeographic distribution\n\nIn the 2020 U.S. census a total of 119,402 individuals identified as Assyrian, Chaldean or Syriac in the United States with full or partial ancestry.[6]\n\nAccording to the 2022 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, 94,532 people in the United States are of Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac ancestry (with a margin of error ±7,255).[7] The Census Bureau lists all three groups as one option on forms.[17] Michigan, California, and Illinois account for 80% of the Assyrian population living in the US.[18]\n\nOther Estimates\n\nIn 2020 the Arizona State Legislature approved a resolution to recognize Sayfo, including a section which stated that 600,000 Assyrians live in the United States.[19][20]\n\nMichigan\n\nThere were 34,484 Assyrians living in Michigan according to the 2000 United States census.[21] The 2022 estimates put this number at 41,020, with the overwhelming majority of the population-95%-residing in the Metro Detroit area counties of Macomb County (23,707), Oakland County (14,535), and Wayne County (665).\n\nCalifornia\n\nThere were 22,671 Assyrians living in California according to the 2000 United States census. The 2022 estimates put this number at 24,748. The state's largest Assyrian American population lives in San Diego County (9,165), followed by Los Angeles County (3,642), Santa Clara County (2,919), and Orange County (1,816). The population in Southern California accounts for more than 60% of the state's total Assyrian population estimate.\n\nA little over 16% of the state's population of Assyrians (4,097) reside in the Central Valley and San Francisco Bay Area, places known for several Eastern Assyrian, Chaldean Catholic, and Syriac Orthodox churches.[22] These include:\n\nSanta Clara County (2,919)\n\nSacramento County (663)\n\nSan Francisco (201)\n\nContra Costa County (198)\n\nAlameda County (65)\n\nSan Mateo County (51)\n\nIllinois\n\nThere were 15,685 Assyrians living in Illinois according to the 2000 United States census.[23] As of the 2022 estimate, that number has held steady at 15,694, with over 89% of that population residing in Cook County (14,035). As of the 2023 American Community Survey five-year estimates, the largest populations reside in Chicago (3,099)[24] and the adjacent northern suburbs of Niles (1,113)[25] and Skokie (2,768).[26]\n\nDuPage County (241) and Lake County (213) have the second- and third-highest populations.\n\nAssyrian, Syrian, Syriac\n\nThe federal government of the United States took the word Syrian to mean Arabs from the Syrian Arab Republic and not as one of the terms to identify the ethnically distinct Assyrians, although the terms Syrian and Syriac are strongly accepted by mainstream majority academic opinion to be etymologically, historically, geographically, and ethnically derivative of the earlier term Assyrian,[27][28] and historically meant Assyrian (see name of Syria) and not Arab or Aramean. In addition, the Syrian Arab Republic is home to many ethnicities, including Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, and Turkmens, and is thus not an exclusively Arab nation.\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church was formerly known as the Syrian Orthodox Church until a Holy Synod in 2000 voted to change it to Syriac, thus distinguishing it from the Arabs. Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim wrote a letter to the Syriacs in 2000 urging them to register in the census as Syriac with a C, not Syrian with an N, to distinguish the group. He also urged them not to register as the country of origin.[29] The Church was previously known as the Assyrian Orthodox Church in America and Israel-Palestine, which can be seen in the name of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Paramus, New Jersey.[30]\n\nThe term Chaldean refers to ethnic Assyrians who are (traditionally) Eastern Catholic, having separated from the Assyrian Church in Upper Mesopotamia between the 17th and 19th centuries (see Schism of 1552). Chaldean is thus a religious term, not an ethnic term. The majority of Chaldean Catholics come from Iraq's Nineveh Plains region, which is located in Upper Mesopotamia (northern Iraq). The Chaldeans of antiquity lived in southeast Mesopotamia from the 9th century BC and disappeared from history in the 6th century BC.\n\nOn the U.S. census, there is a section for Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac, which is listed separately from Syrian, Syrian being a subcategory for Arab.[31]\n\nNotable people\n\nAwa III (born David Royel), the 122nd Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nIgnatius Aphrem II, 123rd Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\n\nBrian Awadis (FaZe Rug), YouTuber\n\nTerrence Malick, film director, screenwriter, and producer[32][33]\n\nAdam Benjamin Jr., former politician and a U.S. Representative from Indiana's 1st congressional district[34]\n\nRosie Malek-Yonan, actress, author, director, public figure, and activist[35][36][37][38]\n\nAnna Eshoo, former U.S. Representative for California's 18th congressional district[39][40]\n\nVictor Kamber, labor union activist and political consultant in the United States\n\nPatrick Bet-David, half Assyrian, half Armenian businessman and podcast host\n\nNarsai David, author, radio and television personality in the Bay Area\n\nScott Rumana, Assyrian-American Republican Party politician[41]\n\nJumana Hanna, imprisoned at the facility known as Al Kelab Al Sayba, or Loose Dogs, during the rule of Saddam Hussein[42]\n\nReine Hanna, director of the Assyrian Policy Institute[43]\n\nDiane Pathieu, television anchor\n\nChristopher A. Sarkiss, Assyrian-American neurosurgeon\n\nLarsa Pippen, reality television personality[44]\n\nJanan Sawa, Assyrian musician\n\nTimz, Assyrian American rapper\n\nJustin Meram, footballer[45][46]\n\nSargon Dadesho, campaigner, nationalist[47]\n\nMichael Shabaz, Assyrian American tennis player\n\nBeneil Dariush, Assyrian American professional mixed martial artist[48]\n\nDaniel Alaei, professional poker player\n\nJohn Batchelor, American author and host of The John Batchelor Show radio news magazine[49]\n\nBob Miner, former American businessman, co-founder of Oracle Corporation and the producer of Oracle's relational database management system.[50][51]\n\nJohn Joseph (historian), Assyrian-American educator and historian\n\nSteven Beitashour, international soccer player[52]\n\nJohn Nimrod, U.S. politician[53][54]\n\nAtour Sargon, Assyrian activist and politician[55]\n\nAndrew David Urshan, evangelist and author[56]\n\nJuliana Taimoorazy, activist, founder and current president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council[57]\n\nJacob David, pastor and relief worker\n\nDavid B. Perley, philosopher and nationalist\n\nWadie P. Deddeh, former California State Senator for the 40th district and California State Representative for the 77th and 80th district\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"People Reporting Ancestry\". U.S. Census. 2024. Retrieved 27 May 2024.\n\n^ \"Chaldean American History\". Chaldean Community Foundation. Retrieved 20 May 2020.\n\n^ Heinrich; Heinrich (2007). Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford University Press. pp. 81-82.\n\n^ Data Access and Dissemination Systems (DADS). \"American FactFinder - Results\". Retrieved 18 February 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Selected Population Profile in the United States : 2011 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates\". Factfinder2.census.gov. Retrieved 20 October 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ a b \"Detailed Races and Ethnicities in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2020 Census\". Census.gov. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 17 April 2025.\n\n^ a b \"HCR2006 - 542R - I Ver\".\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (2011). Harput, Turkey to Massachusetts: Immigration of Jacobite Christians. p. 22. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1895722.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (2011). Harput, Turkey to Massachusetts: Immigration of Jacobite Christians. p. 22. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1895722.\n\n^ Chafets, Ze'ev. Devils Night: and Other True Tales of Detroit. New York: Random House, 1990\n\n^ \"March 31, 2003\". Zindamagazine.com. Archived from the original on 18 October 2003. Retrieved 20 October 2013.\n\n^ Adrian Humphreys (2 September 2011). \"U.S. police foil Canada-to-Iraq luxury-car scheme\". National Post. Retrieved 4 October 2014.\n\n^ Hanoosh, p. 195.\n\n^ \"Long Persecuted, Assyrians Find Safe Haven in the Central Valley\". KQED. 3 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Church of the East\". ACOECalifornia.org. Retrieved 22 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Largest Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac communities in California\". ZipAtlas/U.S. Census Bureau.\n\n^ \"American FactFinder\". Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 20 October 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Explore Census Data\". data.census.gov. Retrieved 4 June 2024.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Genocide Resolution Read in Arizona Assembly\". www.aina.org. Retrieved 17 April 2025.\n\n^ \"HCR2006 - 542R - I Ver\". www.azleg.gov. Retrieved 17 April 2025.\n\n^ \"Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data: Michigan\". United States Census Bureau. December 2000. Retrieved 21 December 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Parish Directory\". acoecalifornia.org. Retrieved 4 June 2024.\n\n^ \"Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data: Illinois\". United States Census Bureau. December 2000. Retrieved 21 December 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"B04006 People Reporting Ancestry - Chicago, Illinois - 2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates\". U.S. Census Bureau. 1 July 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2024.\n\n^ \"B04006 People Reporting Ancestry - Niles, Illinois - 2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates\". U.S. Census Bureau. 1 July 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2024.\n\n^ \"B04006 People Reporting Ancestry - Skokie, Illinois - 2023 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates\". U.S. Census Bureau. 1 July 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2024.\n\n^ The Encyclopedia Americana, International ed. (c1986) Danbury, Conn.: Grolier\n\n^ Frye, R. N. (October 1992). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (4): 281-285. doi:10.1086/373570.\n\n^ \"Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". Syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Archived from the original on 28 November 2013. Retrieved 20 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary | Syriac Church\". 15 June 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2023.\n\n^ \"U.S. Census website\". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 20 October 2013.\n\n^ Michaels, Lloyd (2009). Terrence Malick (revised ed.). University of Illinois Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-252-07575-9.\n\n^ Tucker, Thomas Deane; Kendall, Stuart, eds. (2011). Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4411-4895-7.\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Middle America A Historical and Demographic Study of the Chicago Assyrian Community\" (PDF). jaas.org. Retrieved 26 August 2020.\n\n^ Committee on international relations (30 June 2006). \"The plight of religious minorities: Can religious pluralism survive? Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa, global human rights and international operations of the Committee on international relations\". United States House of Representatives, 109th United States Congress. p. 117. Retrieved 24 May 2015.\n\n^ \"Christian Minorities in the Islamic Middle East : Rosie Malek-Yonan on the Assyrians\". Radio National. 18 April 2006. Retrieved 19 April 2017.\n\n^ Kramer, Andrew E. (26 June 2008). \"For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival\". The New York Times. p. 1.\n\n^ Woźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2011). \"National and social identity construction among the modern Assyrians/Syrians\". Parole de l'Orient. 36: 547-561.\n\n^ Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and denial of her Assyrian background on YouTube\n\n^ \"Anna Eshoo: Biography\". Congresswoman Anna Eshoo - California's 18th Congressional District. 13 December 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2020. Rep. Eshoo was born in New Britain, Connecticut, of Assyrian and Armenian heritage. She is the proud mother of two children, Karen and Paul.\n\n^ Collins, Margaret K. (18 January 2006). \"Man on the Move\". The Record. Bergen County, NJ. Archived from the original on 25 February 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2015 - via HighBeam Research. His Assyrian grandfather was a tailor in Paterson and his boyhood pals on Wayne's Surrey Drive remember him more as an avid lacrosse player than a student of politics. But Rumana picked up the public-service bug from his godfather, Robert Roe, who was mayor of Wayne before serving as a 23-year Democratic congressman. It was interning for Roe in Washington, D.C., during the Iran-contra hearings in the summer of 1987 that turned Rumana into a visible and outspoken lover of all things government.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Woman Profits From False Testimony\". Voice of America. 28 October 2009. Retrieved 1 August 2020.\n\n^ \"We are pleased to announce the formation of the Assyrian Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.\" 14 May 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2020.\n\n^ Paul, Anna (13 July 2019). \"Who is Scottie Pippen's ex-wife, Larsa Pippen, what age is she and what did she say about Jordyn Woods and Tristan Thompson?\". Metro. Retrieved 25 August 2020. The 45-year-old Assyrian Lebanese model also had a stint on the Real Housewives of Miami.\n\n^ Ahmed, Shuaib B. (15 February 2016). \"Assyriska and What It Means to a Proud Community\". Footynions. Retrieved 20 August 2020. It is extremely important to represent my Assyrian background.\n\n^ Kay, Bryan (22 February 2016). \"'It was always my No1 choice': Justin Meram, the US-born Christian playing for Iraq\". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2020. Right now, he is the lone Christian in the ranks, flying the flag for Iraq's Chaldeans, an ancient Assyrian people who have called the region home since long before the time of Jesus.\n\n^ \"Dial Saddam for Murder\". SF Weekly. 4 March 1998. Retrieved 26 August 2020.\n\n^ Bullock, Clinton. \"Beneil Dariush Talks Michael Johnson, Conor McGregor and His Assyrian Heritage\". Bleacher Report. Retrieved 5 August 2020.\n\n^ \"John Batchelor, Novelist & Radio Talk Show Host\". Q&A.org. Retrieved 30 November 2014.\n\n^ Oakville Ranch Cellars - Napa Valley - Retrieved 7 November 2015\n\n^ Edward N. Miner - Retrieved 7 November 2015\n\n^ Marissa Silver (24 August 2011). \"Q&A: Getting to know Steven Beitashour; Beitashour sits down with SJEarthquakes.com to discuss the local scene, his heritage and more\". San Jose Earthquakes. Archived from the original on 9 October 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2012.\n\n^ \"Obituary: Senator John J. Nimrod\". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 2 August 2020.\n\n^ \"Obituary: Senator John J. Nimrod\". Archived from the original on 3 January 2010. Retrieved 2 August 2020.\n\n^ Snell, Joe (March 2019). \"Atour Sargon, longtime Lincolnwood resident, runs on ticket of transparency, diversity\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 19 August 2020.\n\n^ Schmidt, Stephen A. (2016). \"URSHAN, ANDREŌS BAR DĀWĪD\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.\n\n^ Snell, Joe (21 March 2018). \"Juliana Taimoorazy builds bridge between Assyrians, non-Assyrians\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 26 August 2020. In 1990, she immigrated to the U.S. with refugee status and earned her Master's degree from Northeastern Illinois University.\n\nFurther reading\n\nHanoosh, Yasmeen H. The Politics of Minority Chaldeans Between Iraq and America. ProQuest, 2008. ISBN 0549984755, 9780549984757.\n\nHenrich, Natalie and Joseph Henrich. Why Humans Cooperate : A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford University Press, 30 May 2007. ISBN 0198041179, 9780198041177.\n\nSengstock, Mary C., and Sanaa Taha Al Harahsheh. \"Chaldean Americans.\" Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 441-452. online\n\nSengstock, Mary C. Chaldean-Americans: Changing Conceptions of Ethnic Identity (Center for Migration Studies, 1999).\n\nSengstock, Mary C. Chaldeans in Michigan (Michigan State University Press, 2005).\n\nExternal links\n\nChaldean Cultural Center\n\nAssyrian-Americans\n\nAssyrian Americans reach out to relatives displaced by Iraq War"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-americans"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3589}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-canadians", "title": "Assyrian Canadians", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrian Canadians (French: Canadiens Assyriens) are Canadians of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have Canadian citizenship. According to the 2011 census, there were 10,810 Canadians who claimed Assyrian ancestry,[2] an increase compared to the 8,650 in the 2006 Census.[3]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Canada\nAssyrians\n\nTotal population\n\n31,800 (by ancestry, 2021 census)[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nmajor: Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa \n minor: Vancouver, Windsor, London\n\nLanguages\n\nEnglish · French · Assyrian Neo-Aramaic\n\nReligion\n\nMainly Christianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nAssyrian Canadians (French: Canadiens Assyriens) are Canadians of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have Canadian citizenship. According to the 2011 census, there were 10,810 Canadians who claimed Assyrian ancestry,[2] an increase compared to the 8,650 in the 2006 Census.[3]\n\nThey are the indigenous pre-Arab and pre-Turkic people of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northwest Iran, who speak dialects of Eastern Aramaic and are mainly Christian, although some are irreligious. Although most come from the aforementioned countries, many Assyrians have immigrated to Canada from Jordan, Georgia and Armenia as well.\n\nThe vast majority of Assyrian Canadians live in Ontario; 17,100 of the 20,000 while 1,000 live in Windsor.[4] Greater Toronto Area contains the bulk of Ontario's Assyrians, especially in the communities of Brampton and Mississauga.\n\nThere, however, are very few outside of Ontario within Canada. For instance, Quebec only has 900 Assyrians, only 0.01% of its population.\n\nHistory\n\nThe \"Presby-Assyrians\"\n\nBattleford's News-Optimist on June 22, 1979, noted that, \"The Canadian West has no greater settlement story than that of the Assyrians who landed on Canadian soil on January 1, 1903.\"[5][6]\n\nReverend Dr. Isaac Adams organized two groups of Assyrian immigrants from Urmia, one in 1903 and 1906. Unlike many other immigrant groups at the time, the settlers were composed of families and not just men. They were the first Presbyterians in the region.[6]\n\nThe Presbyterian Record, on January 1, 2008, the anniversary of the arrival of the Assyrian settlers, entitled their commemorative article: \"Presby-Assyrians: they escaped persecution to form a unique community in Saskatchewan\", connoting their religious and ethnic heritage.[7]\n\nReasons for immigrating\n\nMost Assyrians arrived in Canada due to both ethnic persecution and religious persecution, mainly from their ancient ancestral Assyrian homeland in northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwest Iran. The migration to Canada may be broken up into a number of distinct periods: early settlement and the subsequent waves of migration sparked by the Assyrian genocide in present-day Turkey and Iran, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and, more recently, the Iraq War and Syrian Civil War. The last 2006 Census Canada counted 8,650[3]\n\nThe first period of known mass-migration came just after the Assyrian genocide in the dying days of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The second and perhaps largest wave of migration into came during the Iran-Iraq War. Under the shadow of war, Saddam Hussein's al-Anfal Campaign constituted a major force for migration for Iraq's Assyrian population.\n\nActivism\n\nIn 2014 after the ISIS attacks on the Nineveh plains, a rally on behalf of Assyrian genocide recognition was organized in Windsor, Ontario, at the City Hall. Over 100 attendants, mostly Assyrian Christians, came out to rally the Canadian government to create an Assyrian State, through the UN. The rally received the support of Brian Masse of the NDP who spoke briefly, as well as a priest from the local Greek Orthodox Church.[8]\n\nAssyrian population in Canada by province and territory\n\nAccording to the 2021 Canadian Census a total of 27,690 individuals classified \"Aramaic languages\" as their mother tongue including 17,220 stating Assyrian, 8,860 stating Chaldean, and 1,600 simply stating Aramaic.[9]\n\nUnder the Ethnic or Cultural origin section, 19,685 identified as Assyrian and 12,115 as Chaldean for a total of 31,800.[9]\n\nProvinces and territories\n\n(2011)[10]\n\n Ontario\n9,420\n\n British Columbia\n444\n\n Alberta\n380\n\n Manitoba\n260\n\n Saskatchewan\n175\n\nProvinces and territories\n\n(2016)[11]\n\n Ontario\n12,075\n\n British Columbia\n545\n\n Alberta\n560\n\n Manitoba\n40\n\n Saskatchewan\n215\n\nSee also\n\nMiddle Eastern Canadians\n\nWest Asian Canadians\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nAssyrian Americans\n\nEthnic origins of people in Canada\n\nReferences\n\n^ Statistics Canada (2024). \"2011 National Household Survey: Data tables\".\n\n^ Statistics Canada (2013-05-08). \"2011 National Household Survey: Data tables\". Retrieved 11 February 2014.\n\n^ a b \"Ethnic Origin (247), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3) and Sex (3) for the Population of Canada\". Statistics Canada. 2006. Archived from the original on 2018-12-25. Retrieved 2010-06-17.\n\n^ \"Profile table, Census Profile, 2021\". Statistics Canada.\n\n^ \"The Assyrians of North Battleford, Canada, a Centennial Celebration\". zindamagazine.com. Retrieved 2019-11-01.\n\n^ a b \"New lamps for old: the Assyrians settled near the Battlefords more than 100 years ago\". Battlefords News-Optimist. Retrieved 2019-10-30.\n\n^ \"Presby-assyrians: they escaped persecution to form a unique community in Saskatchewan. - Free Online Library\". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 2019-10-30.\n\n^ \"Windsor rallies to raise awareness about Iraqi Christians\". Windsor Star. 2014-08-17. Retrieved 2019-08-24.\n\n^ a b Heritage, Canadian (2024-02-07). \"Statistics on official languages in Canada\". www.canada.ca. Retrieved 2025-04-27.\n\n^ \"2011 National Household Survey: Data tables\". Statistics of Canada. Statistics of Canada. Retrieved 19 January 2013.\n\n^ \"2016 National Household Survey: Data tables\". 2017-02-08."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-canadians"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 815}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-armenia", "title": "Assyrians in Armenia", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Armenia (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܪܡܢܝܐ, Armenian: Ասորիները Հայաստանում, romanized: Asorinery Hayastanum), or Armenian Assyrians, are Assyrian people or people of Assyrian descent living in Armenia. The origins of Armenia's Assyrian community traces back to the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) and the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, creating the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Armenia\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܪܡܢܝܐ\nԱսորիները Հայաստանում\n\nA picture of young kids holding the Armenian and Assyrian flags in Yerevan\n\nTotal population\n\n2,769 - 6,000[1][2]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nLanguages\n\nArmenian, Assyrian, Russian\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n(majority: Assyrian Church of the East, minority: Russian Orthodox Church, Armenian Apostolic Church)\n\nAssyrians in Armenia (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܐܪܡܢܝܐ, Armenian: Ասորիները Հայաստանում, romanized: Asorinery Hayastanum), or Armenian Assyrians, are Assyrian people or people of Assyrian descent living in Armenia. The origins of Armenia's Assyrian community traces back to the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) and the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, creating the first communities in the country as well as being the first instance of emigration creating an Assyrian diaspora. Assyrians also began to flee to Armenia following the Assyrian genocide.\n\nAccording to the 2022 Armenian census, there are 2,755 Assyrians living in Armenia.[3] They are predominantly present in the villages of Arzni, Dimitrov, Verin Dvin, and Nor Artagers, though some are also in the capital of Yerevan.\n\nHistory\n\nAncient history\n\nThe Assyrian-Armenian interrelations and interactions history numbers many centuries, both in pre-Christian and post-Christian era.[4] According to the legend, the Armenian patriarch Hayk defeated the evil Assyrian ruler Bel in an epic battle, in order to win his people's freedom. He named this territory Hayastan, and the Armenians are still using this name. This legend is a part of Armenia's rich and storied history, where Armenian heroes fought against evil invaders and conquerors for their freedom. There is also the story of the Armenian king Ara the Beautiful who refused Assyrian Queen Semiramis’s offer to a marriage and become king of the world.[5] Semiramis outraged by Ara's refusal, wages a war against Armenia and demands Ara's capture alive.\n\nPrior to their acceptance of Christianity, Armenians and Assyrians were considered to be bitter foes, engaging in conflict during the Urartu-Assyria War.[6] The conflict resulted in an Assyrian victory, and Urartu became a client state of ancient Assyria. Both states shared aspects of their culture, such as writing and artwork.[5] Armenians also had a prominent presence in Edessa and made contacts with Assyrians in areas where the Syriac Orthodox Church had episcopal sees such as Adana and Anazarbus.[7] Armenians traditionally called Assyrians \"Asori\" (Armenian: ասորի), and many Armenian Christian figures were of Assyrian origins.[4]\n\nModern history\n\nToday's Assyrian population in Armenia are mostly descendants of settlers who arrived in the early nineteenth century during the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), when thousands of refugees fled their homeland in the areas around Urmia in Persia.[8][9][10][11] Like with Assyrians in Azerbaijan, emigration was influenced by the Russian Empire after the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, when they annexed territories held by Qajar Iran.[12][13][14] A total of 20 families settled in the now-abandoned town of Gelaysor, marking the first instance of Assyrian emigration to the country as well as emigration creating an Assyrian diaspora.[15] Under Russian influence, Assyrian immigrants adopted Orthodox Christianity and had their last names Russified.[8][16][17]\n\nIn the beginning of the 20th century, a new wave of immigration occurred from what is today Southeastern Turkey, specifically the Hakkari region, due to the Assyrian genocide.[11] As many Armenians fled Anatolia for what is today Armenia, many Assyrians followed as well, citing it as the only \"Christian haven\" in the region (although many also fled to Georgia). There were seven Assyrian villages in the country during this time, and the population reached 2,500 before World War I.[14]\n\nIn the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, Assyrians were primarily educated in Russian language schools and their language was latinized.[18] Despite introduction of the language, Russification policies caused schools to be closed in the 1930s.[19] Gelaysor had been abandoned by the 1940s after Stalinist repression and Soviet deportations,[17] and some of the population had resettled in other villages.[20] Starting in the 1970s, the Armenian SSR began to reintroduce Assyrian language into village schools, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a linguistic and cultural revival began to take place as Assyrians wanted greater understanding of their roots.[21][19] Amid the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Assyrians in Azerbaijan would flee to Russia and Armenia, as well as the Republic of Artsakh.[22]\n\nOn the eve of the Eastern al-Hasakah offensive and attacks on Assyrian villages in Syria in 2015, Gagik Yeganyan of the Armenian State Migration Service stated that Armenia was willing to accept Assyrian refugees fleeing the country.[23]\n\nIn 2020, amid the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, many Assyrians from Armenia volunteered to fight or provide assistance to the Armed Forces of Armenia for the defense of Artsakh against Azerbaijan.[24] Five Assyrian soldiers had been killed by November 2020, with six additional servicemen wounded and two who were missing in action.[25] Anahit Khosroeva, a genocide scholar of Assyrian descent from Armenia, estimated that more than 100 Assyrians were fighting for Armenia. AssyriaTV, a station based in Europe, arrived to Armenia to report the war as well as talk to the Assyrian families who lost their sons in the war.[26] During the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the larger Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, member of parliament Zemfira Mirzoyeva testified how Artsakh's Assyrian community had been unable to leave the region due to the actions of the Azerbaijani government.[27]\n\nIn 2022, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East Awa III met with Karekin II of the Armenian Apostolic Church where both emphasized the positive relations between Assyrians and Armenians.[28] Awa III consecrated the Church of the Assyrian community of Armenia during his visit. In 2025, the Assyrian World Conference was held in Yerevan,[29] with Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan emphasizing the importance of Assyrians to Armenian society.[30]\n\nDiscrimination\n\nIn 2004, Assyrian residents of Dimitrov alleged that they were discriminated against due to their non-Armenian origin, as they had failed to receive local aid from government authorities.[31] The Armenian government was quick to deny the allegations, and Hranush Kharatyan stated that discontent with the Dimitrov village chief was high even among ethnic Armenians for the same reasons.[31]\n\nIn 2021, Assyrians in Armenia protested against a decision by the Armenian government to have their towns governed by one mayor.[32] Nikademus Youkhanaev, a priest of the Assyrian Church of the East in Armenia, stated that the decision would cause problems regarding the erosion of Assyrian culture and identity in Armenia.[32]\n\nThe Azerbaijani Center for International Relations Analysis states that from 2015-2018, no grants were given to the Assyrian community through the \"Support to National Minorities\" program, and that Assyrian schools are inadequate in teaching history and language; similar issues of teaching language have been previously discussed by community leaders such as Razmik Khosroev.[33][34] In 2019, a dispute broke out over the ownership of a church in Dimitrov, with attempts to solve the dispute by the village head being unsuccessful.[35] Irana Gasparyan, an Assyrian community leader in Armenia, alleges that Assyrians face invisible discrimination in preserving culture and the Armenian workforce.[36][37]\n\nCulture\n\nAssyrian genocide memorial in YerevanSt. Kirill Assyrian church in Dimitrov\n\nAssyrians in Armenia mostly work in the fields of gardening, agriculture[22][19] and viniculture. The Assyrian community in the country has mostly acclimated to the environment, siding with Armenian causes and are even married into mixed-Armenian families.[38][10] Generally, positive relations are maintained between the two groups in the country and in both the Armenian and Assyrian diasporas.[5]\n\nThe Assyrian community in Armenia has received an annual message of congratulations on the occasion of Kha b-Nisan (Assyrian New Year) on 1 April between the years of 2019-2025.[39][40][41][42] Other ACOE-specific holidays are also observed,[20] and general facets of Assyrian culture such as Khigga, cuisine, and music are also celebrated by the Assyrian community in Armenia.[20]\n\nIn the Armenian capital of Yerevan is the Assyrian Association, 'Atour', in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.[43] Assyrian culture has begun a revival process in the country, with greater language/culture education and religious initiatives taking place across Assyrian communities in the country.[22] The Armenian government offers finances and support to Assyrians in the country for programs related to the language, including radio hours.[44] However, according to Razmik Khosroev, the Armenian government is not doing a sufficient job in allocating cultural development programs for Assyrians as no sufficient policy exists for minorities in the state, and concerns of Armenianization/cultural preservation remain.[34]\n\nIn 2012, a memorial to the Assyrian genocide was enacted in Yerevan and unveiled in a ceremony with Armenian government representatives and Assyrians from the country.[45] The memorial contains inscriptions in Armenian, Assyrian, and Russian, and memorial ceremonies are commemorated annually on Assyrian Martyrs Day.[46] Three years later, the National Assembly of Armenia officially recognized the Assyrian genocide alongside the Greek genocide.[47] Annually on April 24, the Assyrian community commemorates Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex.[48][49]\n\nEducation\n\nEach village inhabited by Assyrians has instructions fully in the language, with additional lessons on culture and history at schools.[50] They are usually taught in a multilingual environment and can speak Armenian and Russian as well. Many Assyrians in Armenia desire Russian-language education after learning Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, with more stating fluency in Russian in the 2011 census.[51]\n\nReligion\n\nAssyrians in Armenia today mostly belong to Assyrian Church of the East, receiving their first ACOE priest in 2003, but may also attend the Russian Orthodox or Armenian Apostolic churches.[21] Most Assyrians living in Armenia are not cognizant of religious identity, however, and may accept any Christian religious belief irrespective of denomination.[52]\n\nA Russian Orthodox parish is present in Dimitrov, where the majority of attendees are Armenian or Assyrian.[53] Since the 2000s, an ACOE-parish has been present in Verin Dvin;[52] the town has a functioning church (Mar-Tuma) and the Marez Orthodox Chapel.[54][55]\n\nDemographics\n\nThere were 6,000 Assyrians in Armenia before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but because of Armenia's struggling economy during the 1990s, the population has since been cut by half, as many have emigrated to Russia or Ukraine.[17][55] Today, Assyrians are the third largest ethnic minority in Armenia after Yazidis and Russians.[56]\n\nThe Assyrian population in Armenia is mainly rural. Out of 3,409 Assyrians in Armenia in 2001, 2,885 (84.6%) lived in rural settlements while 524 (15.4%) were urban.[57] In the 2022 census, 347 Assyrians lived in cities while the remainder lived in villages.[3] According to the Council of Europe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, there were four rural settlements in the country with a significant Assyrian population:\n\nArzni in Kotayk Province[11] - Assyrians and Armenians\n\nVerin Dvin, Ararat Province[11] - Assyrians and Armenians. 80% of the town's population is ethnically Assyrian.\n\nDimitrov, Ararat Province - Assyrians and Armenians. 25% of the town's population is ethnically Assyrian.[44]\n\nNor Artagers in Armavir Province - Assyrians, Armenians and Yezidis. 256 Assyrians live in the village.[58]\n\nVerin Dvin has the largest Assyrian population anywhere in the country. Aside from rural settlements, Assyrians also live in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and formerly in the Republic of Artsakh.[50] During the 2015 census for the Republic of Artsakh, 16 Assyrians were recorded as having lived there, while the overwhelming majority of the population were ethnic Armenians.[59]\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±%\n\n19393,280-    \n\n19705,544+69.0%\n\n19796,183+11.5%\n\n19895,963-3.6%\n\n20013,409-42.8%\n\n20112,769-18.8%\n\n20222,755-0.5%\n\nSources: 1939,[60] 1970,[61] 1979,[62] 1989,[63] 2001,[64] 2011,[1] 2022[65]\n\nNotable people\n\nLina Yakubova (1976 - 2011), documentary film maker and producer[66]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nAssyrians in Azerbaijan\n\nAssyrians in Georgia\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"5.2. 2011թ. հոկտեմբերի 12-21-ը Հայաստանի Հանրապետությունում անցկացված մարդահամարի արդյունքները\" (PDF). armstat.am. Statistical Committee of Armenia. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Armenia wish to have own representative in Parliament\". news.am. Yerevan: News.am. 5 January 2013. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Chapter 5. Ethnic Structure, Fluency in Languages and Religious Belief of Permanent Population\". armstat.am. Statistical Committee of Armenia. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ a b Yakoubova, L. \"Assyrians and Armenians: The History of Interrelations and Interactions for Centuries\". www.atour.am. Archived from the original on 2007-03-14. Retrieved 2025-07-14.\n\n^ a b c Al-Jeloo, Nicholas (2010-04-21). \"Armenians and Assyrians: Shared Experiences though the Ages\". The Armenian Mirror-Spectator. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"The Ancient Armenian-Assyrian War\". www.ishtartv.com. Ishtar TV. 22 February 2013. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Van Rompay, Lucas. \"Armenian Christianity, Syriac contacts with\". bethmardutho.org. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ a b Edwards, Maxim (2019-03-29). \"Twice a Diaspora: Researching Armenia's Assyrians - CRRC\". CRRC Armenia. Archived from the original on 2022-05-18. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Armenia\". CIVILNET. Verin Dvin. 2019-04-22. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ a b Asatryan & Arakelova 2002, p. 6.\n\n^ a b c d Harutyunyan 2011, p. 47.\n\n^ Alaverdyan, Alice. \"\"Katyokhen Jens Ay Sluzbha, Soldat\" or Good Service, Soldier!\". hayzinvor.am. Yerevan: Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Armenia. Archived from the original on 3 January 2025. Retrieved 2 January 2025.\n\n^ Naby 2004, pp. 216-217.\n\n^ a b Sarkisov, Daniel (1999). Shabbas, Julius N. (ed.). \"Assyrian Settlements in Caucasia\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 22, no. 1-2. Berkeley, California. pp. 4-12. Retrieved 14 July 2025.\n\n^ Naby 2004, p. 217.\n\n^ Huseynova 2020, p. 1.\n\n^ a b c Edwards, Maxim (2015-09-02). \"Life and Exile at Assyrian Lake\". Roads & Kingdoms. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"Armenia is a Homeland for the Assyrians, Who Have No Homeland\". www.aina.org. 27 March 2009. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ a b c Dum-Tragut & Gyozalyan 2007.\n\n^ a b c Mkrtchyan, Gayane (2016-11-06). \"A minority in the majority - JAMnews\". Jamnews in English. Yerevan: JAMnews Armenia. Retrieved 2025-07-14.\n\n^ a b Evstratov 2022, p. 848.\n\n^ a b c Edwards, Maxim (17 April 2015). \"Assyrian stories from the Caucasus\". opendemocracy.net. Arzni: openDemocracy. Retrieved 2 January 2025.\n\n^ \"Armenia Ready to Receive Assyrian Refugees\". Asbarez.com. Asbarez. 2015-02-27. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Avagyan, Zhanna (October 5, 2020). \"Հայաստանի ասորական համայնքը՝ Արցախի կողքին\". CivilNet. Verin Dvin. Retrieved December 19, 2020.\n\n^ Snell, Joe (2020-11-02). \"In Artsakh, Assyrians of Armenia rise to country's defense\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"Live report from Armenia\". assyriatv.org. October 22, 2020. Retrieved December 19, 2020.\n\n^ \"Assyrians unable to return from blockaded Artsakh, MP calls on international community to sanction Azerbaijan\". armenpress.am. Yerevan: ArmenPress. 17 January 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2025.\n\n^ \"The Catholicos of All Armenians Hosted the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East and the delegation headed by him\". www.armenianchurch.org. Armenian Apostolic Church. 10 November 2022. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Ninos Emmanuel (11 March 2025). \"Assyrian World Conference 2025: Goals and significance\". SBS Assyrian (Podcast). SBS. Event occurs at 6:22 P.M. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ Badalian, Naira (28 April 2025). \"Armenia's premier hosts President of Assyrian World Conference\". arminfo.info. ArmInfo. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ a b Saghabalian, Anna (24 September 2004). \"Assyrian Villagers Allege Ethnic Discrimination\". «Ազատ Եվրոպա/Ազատություն» ռադիոկայան (in Armenian). Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ a b Ninos Emmanuel (26 September 2021). \"Dimitrov was and will stay an Assyrian Village\". SBS Assyrian (Podcast). SBS. Event occurs at 4:28 PM. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ Huseynova 2020, p. 3.\n\n^ a b Hovhannisyan, Hasmik (2007-10-29). \"The Three Essential Issues Facing the Assyrian Community in Armenia\". Hetq.am. Hetq. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Khulyan, Artak (2019-07-22). \"Базалика в селе Димитров стала причиной напряженности между армянами и ассирийцами\" [Basalica in the village of Dimitrov has caused tensions between Armenians and Assyrians]. Радио Свобода (in Russian). Dimitrov: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"И.Гаспарян рассказала о проблемах ассирийской общины в Армении, ее деятельности и инициативах\" [I. Gasparyan spoke about the problems of the Assyrian community in Armenia, its activities and initiatives]. www.panorama.am (in Russian). 3 July 2012. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Huseynova 2020, p. 4.\n\n^ Evstratov 2022, p. 846.\n\n^ \"Nikol Pashinyan congratulates Assyrian community on Kha b 'Nisan\". www.primeminister.am. Yerevan: Prime Minister of Armenia. 1 April 2019. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's congratulatory message to representatives of the Assyrian community of Armenia on the occasion of the New Year\". www.primeminister.am. Yerevan: Prime Minister of Armenia. 1 April 2023. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"Pashinyan: I am glad that the Assyrians of Armenia are preserving their national identity\". news.am. Yerevan: News.am. 1 April 2024. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Ghazanchyan, Siranush (1 April 2025). \"Armenian PM congratulates Assyrian community on Kha b-Nisan\". Public Radio of Armenia. Public Radio of Armenia. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Asatryan & Arakelova 2002, p. 7.\n\n^ a b \"Հայաստանաբնակ ասորիների էթնոմշակութային բնութագիրը | GEOPOLITICS.AM\" [Ethnocultural characteristics of Assyrians living in Armenia]. geopolitics.am (in Armenian). 27 July 2017. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Barsoumian, Nanore (2012-04-27). \"Assyrian Genocide Memorial Unveiled in Yerevan\". The Armenian Weekly. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Evstratov 2022, p. 850.\n\n^ Lazarian, Tatevik (2015-03-24). \"Armenia Recognizes Greek, Assyrian Genocides\". «Ազատ Եվրոպա/Ազատություն» ռադիոկայան (in Armenian). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ \"'We all are demanding' - Armenia's Assyrian community pays tribute to Armenian Genocide victims\". Armenpress. Yerevan. 2017-04-24. Retrieved 2025-07-13.\n\n^ Evstratov 2022, p. 851.\n\n^ a b \"Assyrians in Armenia wish to have own representative in Parliament\". news.am. Yerevan: News.am. 5 January 2013. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ Evstratov 2022, p. 847.\n\n^ a b Khachatryan 2010, p. 81.\n\n^ Khachatryan 2010, p. 80.\n\n^ Huseynova 2020, pp. 1-2.\n\n^ a b Hovhannisyan, Hasmik (2007-10-22). \"The Assyrian Community of Verin Dvin\". Hetq.am. Verin Dvin. Retrieved 2025-07-14.\n\n^ Harutyunyan 2011, p. 50.\n\n^ COE - Ethnic minorities in Armenia\n\n^ Huseynova 2020, p. 2.\n\n^ \"Население (городское, сельское) по национальности, полу и родному языку\" (PDF). stat-nkr.am (in Russian). Republic of Artsakh. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 July 2018. Retrieved 14 January 2025.\n\n^ \"Армянская ССР (1939)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Армянская ССР (1970)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Армянская ССР (1979)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Армянская ССР (1989)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Information from the 2001 Armenian National Census\" (PDF). armstat.am. Statistical Committee of Armenia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 January 2004. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ \"CHAPTER 5. ETHNIC STRUCTURE, FLUENCY IN LANGUAGES AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF PERMANENT POPULATION\". armstat.am. Statistical Committee of Armenia. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\n^ \"Lina Yakubova: Assyrian Documentary Film-maker\". www.aina.org. 2 July 2009. Retrieved 2025-11-10.\n\nBibliography\n\nAsatryan, Garnik; Arakelova, Victoria (2002). \"The Ethnic Minorities of Armenia\" (PDF). hra.am. Yerevan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2025.\n\nDum-Tragut, Jasmine; Gyozalyan, Lilia (2007). The \"Assyrians\" of Armenia (PDF). Conference on the Languages of the Caucasus. Leipzig, Germany: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.\n\nEvstratov, Anton G. (2022). \"Problems and Peculiarities of the Integration of Ethnic Minorities into the Armenian Society on the Example of the Assyrians\". History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Caucasus. 18 (3). Yerevan: 843-860. doi:10.32653/CH183843-860.\n\nHarutyunyan, Ashot (2011). \"Genetic Affinity of Assyrians living in Armenia to different ethnic groups of the Near East and South Caucasus\" (PDF). Biology Journal of Armenia. 4 (63). Armenian National Academy of Sciences: 46-50.\n\nHuseynova, Ilaha (15 October 2020), Analysis - Being Assyrian in Mono-ethnic Armenia (PDF), Baku: The Center for International Relations Analysis, p. 4, retrieved 13 July 2025\n\nKhachatryan, Hranush Shavarsh (25 July 2010). \"Religion and the Secular State in Armenia\". In Martínez-Torrón, Javier; Durham, W. Cole (eds.). Religion and the Secular State: National Reports (PDF). Brigham Young University: International Center for Law and Religion Studies. pp. 79-86. ISBN 978-1-934537-91-6.\n\nNaby, Eden (2004). \"The Assyrian diaspora: Cultural survival in the absence of state structure\". In Atabaki, Touraj; Mehendale, Sanjyot (eds.). Central Asia and the Caucasus: Transnationalism and diaspora. Routledge. pp. 214-230. ISBN 9781134319947.\n\nExternal links\n\nDocumentary on Assyrians in Armenia by Razmik Khosroev\n\nASSYRIANS OF ARMENIA - A day in the Assyrian village of Verin Dvin\n\nNineveh: Assyrian Woman in the Days of Mourning\n\nA Typology of Ethnic Minorities in Armenia\n\nRecherches anthropologiques sur les Aïssores ou Chaldéens émigrés en Arménie / par M. Ernest Chantre"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-armenia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3324}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-georgia", "title": "Assyrians in Georgia", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Georgia (Georgian: ასურელები) number 2,377 (as of 2014), and most arrived in the Southern Caucasus in early 20th century when their ancestors fled present-day Turkey and Iran during the Assyrian genocide.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Georgia\n\nAssyrian church in Dzveli Kanda village\n\nTotal population\n\n2,377[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nLanguages\n\nGeorgian, Russian, Assyrian\n\nReligion\n\nMainly Christianity\n(Georgian Orthodoxy and Syriac Christianity)\n\nAssyrians in Georgia (Georgian: ასურელები) number 2,377 (as of 2014), and most arrived in the Southern Caucasus in early 20th century when their ancestors fled present-day Turkey and Iran during the Assyrian genocide.\n\nHistory\n\nHistorically, the first Assyrians arrived in Georgia in the 6th century A.D. when 13 Assyrian monks (historically known to the Georgians as the thirteen holy Assyrian fathers) from the city of Edessa came to Georgia and established the Shio-Mgvime Monastery. Scholars have linked their contribution to the Christianization of Georgia, with Saint Nino leading the way of converts from paganism. Assyrians came in contact with Georgians once again in the 1760s. Assyrians under Ottoman rule were looking for some kind of protection from religious and ethnic persecution. Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East Shimun XV Maqdassi Mikhail requested of Georgian king Erekle II protection for Assyrians and the Yezidis of present-day Turkey. In April 1770, Georgian troops, under Russian command, headed towards the city of Akhaltsikhe. At the same time, Assyrian bishop Ishaya (Isaiah) left Tbilisi and carried letters to Assyrian and Yezidi leaders, whence the Georgian king invited them to fight together against the Ottomans. The Assyrians and Yezidis were prepared to move against the Ottomans, whenever the support from Erekle II arrived, but Russian General Totleben changed his mind and turned his detachment back to Kartli.\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±%\n\n19394,707-    \n\n19705,617+19.3%\n\n19795,286-5.9%\n\n19896,206+17.4%\n\n20023,299-46.8%\n\nSources:[2][3][4][5]\n\nThe plans for military cooperation failed, but during the war that ensued, an Assyrian community of several dozen families appeared in Georgia. They arrived in Makhani from Persia and the Ottoman Empire. The second wave of Assyrian immigrants arrived when Russia signed the Treaty of Turkmenchay with Persia in 1828, where Assyrians and Kurds from Iran arrived in Georgia as workers. They also arrived in the second half of the 19th century and settled in Tbilisi, becoming Russian and later Soviet citizens. By the end of the 19th century, there were over five thousand Assyrians living in Georgia. A fourth and largest wave came in between the years of 1915 and 1918, as Assyrians fled from the Assyrian genocide.\n\nToday's Assyrian community in Georgia\n\nOn May 15, 2005, United States President George W. Bush met with the leaders of Georgia's Assyrians.\nThe meeting was mostly about the situation of Assyrians in Iraq. Assyrian leaders also gave the American president a letter as well.[6]\nWhen asked by Edgar Bitbunov, the Member of Assyrian International Congress\n\"Nowadays American Georgian forces are on Assyrian soil in Iraq. Of course, we aren't indifferent to the fortune of assyrians in Iraq. What's their future like? What can you say about it?\" Bush answered: \"We consider that every nation is equally responsible to find its own way to develop and achieve its own object. Assyrians are equal in right to any other peoples living in Iraq these days. Assyrians other nations in Iraq first of all should change their way of thinking, should act more persistently, resolutely and bravery to achieve their own objects and principles all these are in their hands. The USA always stands for, defends and supports people fighting for justice, freedom, independence and democracy.\"\n\nAssyrian churches in Georgia\n\nMar Shimon Bar Sabbae Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church and Religious Cultural Center (2009), Tbilisi.\n\nChurch of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Georgian Orthodox Church in Dzveli Kanda.[7]\n\nChurch of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers, Georgian Orthodox Church in village Dzveli Kanda\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Armenia\n\nAssyrians in Azerbaijan\n\nAssyrians in Russia\n\nAssyrians in Turkey\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Ethnic composition of Georgia 2014\". Archived from the original on 20 December 2020. Retrieved 26 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Грузинская ССР (1939)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Грузинская ССР (1970)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Грузинская ССР (1979)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Грузинская ССР (1989)\". Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 11 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Letter to the president of the United States of America George Bush from the Assyrian International Congress of Georgia[link removed]\", 9 may 2005\n\n^ \"Minority languages in Georgia\" (PDF). coe.int. 2016. Retrieved 17 April 2023.\n\nFurther reading\n\nThe Yezidi Kurds and Assyrians of Georgia, Journal of the Central Asia & the Caucasus, Iraklii Chikhladze, Giga Chikhladze. (3/21/2003)\n\nThe Assyrians of Georgia: Ethnic Specifics Should be Reserved\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian National Congress of Georgia"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-georgia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 762}, {"slug": "reference-naum-faiq", "title": "Naum Faiq", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Naum Elias Yaqub Palakh (February 1868 - February 5, 1930), better known as Naum Faiq (Syriac: ܢܥܘܡ ܦܐܝܩ, Naˁum Fayëq), was an Assyrian poet, journalist, and teacher, remembered as one of the founding fathers of modern Assyrian nationalism during the early 20th century.[1][2] He was a teacher and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Naum Elias Yaqub Palakh\nܢܥܘܡ ܐܠܝܐܣ ܝܥܩܘܒ ܦܐܠܐܟ\n\nFaiq, c. 1920s\n\nBornFebruary 1868 (1868)\nDiyâr-ı Bekr, Ottoman Empire\n(now Diyarbakır, Turkey)\n\nDiedFebruary 5, 1930(1930-02-05) (aged 62-63)\nNew Jersey, United States\n\nOccupationspoet, journalist, teacher\n\nMovementAssyrian nationalism\n\nNaum Elias Yaqub Palakh (February 1868 - February 5, 1930), better known as Naum Faiq (Syriac: ܢܥܘܡ ܦܐܝܩ, Naˁum Fayëq), was an Assyrian poet, journalist, and teacher, remembered as one of the founding fathers of modern Assyrian nationalism during the early 20th century.[1][2] He was a teacher and writer throughout his life. As a Syriac Orthodox Christian,[3] he emphasized the importance of unity among Syriac Christians and encouraged his community to depart from \"tribal mentality\".[4]\n\nEarly life\n\nHe was born in Diyâr-ı Bekr (present-day Diyarbakır) in the Ottoman Empire and began his education there at the age of seven. After primary school, he attended the local high school that had been established by local \"Brotherhood of Ancient Syrians\". He spent 8 years at the school, where education was jointly in classical Syriac, Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. Naum also went on to learn several other languages, including Persian and basic French. After his parents died, he first lived with his older brother Thomas and then started teaching in a village near Diyarbakır in 1888. He also taught in Urfa, Adıyaman and Homs before returning to Diyarbakır.\n\nLiterary works\n\nNaum wrote numerous books concerning the Syriac language and people. After the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and the proclamation of the second Ottoman constitution, restrictions on freedom of speech were lifted. In 1910, Naum began publishing a newspaper for the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Syriac communities, entitled Kawkab Madnho (\"Star of the East\"). While written entirely in the Syriac alphabet, Star of the East was actually tri-lingual with articles in Ottoman Turkish, classical Syriac and Arabic. This newspaper, along with that of Ashur Yousif, signaled the emergence of Assyrian nationalism in the Syriac Christian communities of the Ottoman Empire.\n\nAfter the Ottoman Empire and Italy began to fight over the province of Libya in 1911, Naum like other Christians in the region felt a backlash from the Muslim community and in 1912, he fled to United States, where he began to write for the newspaper Intibah ܐܢܬܒܗ (Cirutho ܥܝܪܘܬܐ, in English: Awakening), published by Gabriel Boyaji from 1909-1915. He went on to establish various Assyrian newspapers including Beth-Nahrin in 1916 and became the head of the editorialship of Huyodo, a magazine that is still published today under the same name in by the Assyrian Federation in Sweden.\n\nDeath\n\nThe death of his wife in 1927 affected Naum very much. He died in New Jersey in 1930 due to lung disease.\n\"Naum Faiq\" day is celebrated yearly on February 5.[5] Ceremonies are usually held in Syria, United States, and in various European nations.\n\nPoems\n\nAwake, son of Assyria\n\nHis most famous poem is titled \"Awake, son of Assyria, awake!\"[6][7] (ܐܬܬܥܝܪ ܒܪ ܐܬܘܪ ܐܬܬܥܝܪ).\n\n:Awake, son of Assyria,\n\nAwake and see the world how enlightened.\n\nThe chance is fleeing from us\n\nAnd time is running out\n\nAwake son of Assyria, Awake!\n\nIn vengeance you will take refuge.\n\nRise up and band together to strengthen.\n\nAnd if one does not awake we have lost our chance\n\nWithout a purpose, misfortune will befall our land.\n\n- Naum Faiq[8]\n\nHomeland\n\n:Did our hearts become of stone\n\nDid our hearts become of iron\n\nOr did our eyes become blind\n\nLet our red blood flow\n\nLet our silent hearts whine\n\nLet the Assyrian youth always say\n\nOh, are there still any catastrophes which we haven't gone through yet\n\nFrom the moment that we came to this world\n\nFrom the womb till our grave we cannot keep our homeland out of our minds\n\nThe only thing I desire from the Lord\n\nIs that He will not take away my soul until I have seen you...homeland.\n\n- Naum Faiq[8]\n\nSee also\n\nFarid Nuzha\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nList of ethnic Assyrians\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"A Brief Study in the Palak Nationalism\", by Dr. David Barsoum Perley LL.B.\n\n^ In memory of Malfouno Naoum Fayiq, the master of the national unity, by Aprim Shapera.\n\n^ Yonan, Gabrielle (1985), Journalismus bei den Assyrern\n\n^ \"Neo-Assyrianism & the End of the Confounded Identity\". Zinda. 2006-07-06. Archived from the original on 2007-12-01. The fact remains that throughout the last seven years and the last 150 years for that matter the name Assyrian has always been attached to our political ambitions in the Middle East. Any time, any one of us from any of our church and tribal groups targets a political goal we present our case as Assyrians, Chaldean-Assyrians, or Syriac-Assyrians - making a connection to our \"Assyrian\" heritage. This is because our politics have always been Assyrian. Men like Naum Faiq and David Perley emerging from a \"Syriac\" or \"Jacobite\" background understood this as well as our Chaldean heroes, General Agha Petros d-Baz and the late Chaldean Patriarch Mar Raphael BiDawid.\n\n^ \"Ado Faiq\". ado-world.org. Archived from the original on 19 April 2009. Retrieved 8 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Archived copy\". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2009-04-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ \"TurkoAssyrian\". Archived from the original on 2007-10-29. Retrieved 2007-11-04.\n\n^ a b Naum Faiq (2005). \"Seyfo Commemoration and Demonstration in Brussels\". Zinda Magazine.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\nChuqqî, Murâd Fu'âd (1936). Na'ûm Fâ'iq. Dhikrâ wa-takhlîd al-adîb al-suryânî al-kabîr."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-naum-faiq"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 897}, {"slug": "reference-freydun-atturaya", "title": "Freydun Atturaya", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Freydun Bet-Abram[1][a] (Syriac: ܦ̮ܪܝܕܘܢ ܒܝܬ ܐܒܪܡ; 1891 - 2 October 1926), better known as Freydun Atturaya[b] (Syriac: ܦ̮ܪܝܕܘܢ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ), was an Assyrian national leader, politician, doctor and poet. Atturaya was one of the founders of the first Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party, and a prominent early...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Freydun Atturaya\n\nܦ̮ܪܝܕܘܢ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ\n\nPortrait photograph\n\nBornFreydun Bet-Abram\n1891\nCharbash, Urmia, Qajar Persia\n\nDied2 October 1926 (aged 35)\nTbilisi, Georgian SSR\n\nCause of deathExecution by shooting\n\nPolitical partyAssyrian Socialist Party\n\nSpouseSonia\n\nChildren\n\nSargon\n\nNelli\n\nParent(s)Yacob Bet-Abram\nInsoph Taimoorazy\n\nFreydun Bet-Abram[1][a] (Syriac: ܦ̮ܪܝܕܘܢ ܒܝܬ ܐܒܪܡ; 1891 - 2 October 1926), better known as Freydun Atturaya[b] (Syriac: ܦ̮ܪܝܕܘܢ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ), was an Assyrian national leader, politician, doctor and poet. Atturaya was one of the founders of the first Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party, and a prominent early advocate for Assyrian independence. He is remembered by Assyrians today as a romantic figure, considered by some to be a national hero and martyr.[3]\n\nBorn in the village of Charbash in Urmia, Persia, Atturaya grew up in Tbilisi in Georgia. He studied medicine at a Russian missionary school in Harpoot, graduating in 1915, and perhaps then went on to study in Russia itself. During World War I, he was recruited as a medical doctor into the Imperial Russian Army and he held various positions and offices, both medical and political, before returning to Urmia in 1916 as a political officer and the head of an army hospital. In Urmia, Atturaya organized the Assyrian National Committee of Urmia, which sent young Assyrians to study in Russia. Inspired by the February Revolution in Russia, Atturaya early in 1917, together with the other Assyrian activists Benjamin Arsanis and Baba Parhad founded the Assyrian Socialist Party, which prominently advocated for the creation of an independent Assyrian state in the Assyrian homeland, closely allied to the nascent Soviet Union. In April 1917 he published the Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria.\n\nAtturaya also partook in other Assyrian cultural efforts. He published articles in the prominent Assyrian magazine Kokhva (\"Star\") and for a time published his own Assyrian magazine, Nakusha. He also founded Assyrian libraries in both Tbilisi and Moscow and as a poet wrote numerous poems dedicated to the Assyrian cause and Assyrian culture. On Atturaya's initiative, the Assyrians of Tbilisi organized the National Council of Transcaucasia, an organization founded to help Assyrian refugees during the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide). He was also a prominent member of other Assyrian organizations; in 1921 he was elected as the chairman of the Assyrian People's Council, the executive committee of the Assyrian National Council of Georgia. Though Atturaya tried to align his efforts with the policies of the Soviet Union, the Soviets opposed his movements on account of his Assyrian nationalism and some of his other policies being opposed to what they viewed as the principles of communism. He was arrested twice by the Soviet authorities, first in 1924 and then in 1926. After his second arrest he was executed by shooting.[8]\n\nBackground and early life\n\nFreydun Bet-Abram was born in 1891[3][5] in the village of Charbash[11] in Urmia, Persia.[3][5] He was the son of Yacob Bet-Abram and Insoph Taimoorazy.[11] The name Atturaya was assumed later on during his activism and literally means \"the Assyrian\".[3] In 1902,[11] Atturaya and his family moved to Georgia and he grew up in Tbilisi.[3] Georgia was at the beginning of the 20th century one of the unofficial centers of the Assyrian elite; owing to the concentration of Assyrian refugees, vacancies for employment in the local competitive labor market and other factors, there was substantial Assyrian settlement in the country.[12]\n\nIn the early 1910s, Atturaya headed a theatrical troupe that acted in the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi.[9] The troupe, dubbed the \"Dramatic Society of Assyrians in Tbilisi\", often performed plays rooted in Assyrian culture and history. In 1911, they performed the play Grief, written by Atturaya, and in 1914 they performed the play Shamiram, which included characters such as Sargon, Sennacherib, Nimrod and Ninus. All the proceeds from this performance went to the publication of the Assyrian Kokhva (\"Star\") magazine.[13]\n\nAtturaya studied medicine at a Russian missionary school[5] in Harpoot, a prominent center of Armenian nationalism.[3] He graduated as a doctor[4] in 1915, the same year as the city's population was violently massacred by the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian genocide.[3] In Harpoot, Atturaya would have met Ashur Yousif, another prominent Assyrian activist, killed by the Ottomans in 1915.[3] Atturaya might also have studied in Russia,[3][5] perhaps attending the military academy at the Leningrad University.[11] After graduating, Atturaya was appointed as a medical doctor in the Imperial Russian Army. Atturaya was promoted to the head of a military hospital in Georgia during World War I and eventually attained the position of \"Chief Medical Officer for the Northern and Southern Caucasian Railways\".[11]\n\nActivism\n\nEarly activities\n\nUrmia became a prominent center for early Assyrian nationalism. Owing to ceaseless massacres, harassment and discrimination under the Ottoman Empire, the Assyrian elite in Urmia became convinced that there was nobody else protecting them and they had to organize themselves and fight for their freedom and autonomy on their own, seeking a \"rebirth of the nation\".[14] The \"mouthpiece\" of this movement was the Kokhva magazine, published in Urmia from 1906 to 1918 as the only independent Assyrian publication, without any foreign Christian support. Kokhva prominently supported unity among the Assyrians, despite denominational differences. Also in 1906, the Assyrians of Urmia succeeded in creating the Assyrian National Council, consisting of nine people and aiming to send representatives to the Iranian parliament. This organization was however dissolved after less than a year due to rivalry between the different Christian denominations.[15] A second iteration of the National Council was thereafter founded in Tbilisi, where it continued to function for some time.[9]\n\nAtturaya was early on an activist for Assyrian nationalism and independence. On 24 April 1911, at just twenty years old, Atturaya wrote an article in Kokhva titled \"Who are the Assyrians? How is Our Nation to Be Raised Up?\"[c] in which he stressed the ancient descent of the modern Assyrians and proclaimed them to be the \"children of Ashur or Ator, the second son of Shem\".[19] Throughout the following years, he continued to closely collaborate with Kokhva in promoting Assyrian nationalism.[5]\n\nDuring the war, Atturaya returned to Urmia as a part of a contingent of Russian soldiers.[19] He served there as a political officer and a medical professional at the 492nd Army Hospital in Khoy.[11] In 1916, he was one of two representatives, alongside a bishop, sent by the Assyrians of Khoy to be interviewed by the Russians concerning the organization of refugees of the Caucasian front of World War I.[20] In Urmia, Atturaya also organized the Assyrian National Committee of Urmia, which provided local Christians with the opportunity to study in Russia.[5] In total, about 250 young Assyrians studied in Russia with the help of this programme.[11]\n\nAtturaya presented himself as a serious thinker and a revolutionary. Unlike the then stereotypical image of Assyrians as mountain tribesmen, Atturaya's photographs showed him as a slender man with round wire-frame glasses, sometimes posing with his fist on his temple, the stereotypical pose of a \"thinker\".[19]\n\nAssyrian Socialist Party\n\nInspired by the February Revolution in Russia,[4] Atturaya early in 1917, together with the other Assyrian activists Benjamin Arsanis and Baba Parhad, founded the Assyrian Socialist Party.[4][3] The Assyrian Socialist Party, founded in Urmia,[21] was the first ever Assyrian political party[3] and prominently advocated for the creation of an independent Assyrian state in the Assyrian homeland, closely allied to the nascent Soviet Union.[5] Originally operating under the full name Assyrian Socialist Party of the Transcaucasus,[9] the Assyrian Socialist Party is today seen as the first step towards the many later Assyrian political organizations.[9] Although Arsanis headed the party's central committee,[21] Atturaya was so pivotal to the party's foundation that some historians list only Atturaya as founder.[2][9] Later in 1917, the party established cells in various villages in Urmia and Salmas, as well as throughout the Transcaucasus (including Tbilisi and Yerevan) and reached more than two hundred full members.[21]\n\nIn April 1917, having heard of the ongoing Sayfo (Assyrian genocide) in the Ottoman Empire, Atturaya published the Marxist-inspired Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria.[4][5] The Urmia manifesto, written in Aramaic, set out various goals of the Assyrian people, most prominently gaining peace, freedom and autonomy in their ancestral homeland. The manifesto called for the creation of an Assyrian state which included Urmia, Mosul, Nisibin, Tur Abdin, Jazira and Jularmeg and which was to be economically, militarily and industrially tied to Russia.[4] The Urmia Manifesto was notably secular in its content, advocating for Assyria led by intellectual and political leaders rather than the clergy. As this threatened the spiritual leadership of the Assyrian Church of the East over the people, both the manifesto and the Assyrian Socialist Party were condemned by Patriarch Shimun XIX Benyamin.[10]\n\nThe intent of the Assyrian Socialist Party was to establish cells within Russia, that together with the Soviet Union could eventually facilitate the return of the Assyrians to their homeland.[21] Upon the victory of the Russian Revolution in late 1918, the Assyrian National Council met the news with holding a meeting attended by many thousands, at which (among others) both Atturaya and Arsanis held speeches.[22] The Soviets were despite this opposed to the Assyrian movement on the grounds of its nationalism, which among other policies of the Assyrian Socialist Party was viewed as opposed to the principles of communism.[21]\n\nOther organizations and efforts\n\nDuring the Sayfo, the Assyrians of Tbilisi, aided by members of the local government, organized a committee to help Assyrian refugees from Turkey and Iran.[9][23] This committee, dubbed the National Council of Transcaucasia, was Atturaya's initiative. During the voting for leadership of the council on 3 January 1918, Atturaya was without much opposition elected chairman.[23] Atturaya personally met around 7,000 Assyrian refugees in Tbilisi.[6] The council swiftly began to also invest itself into military matters, overstepping its original mission and purpose. Atturaya kept up to date with developments on the Caucasian front of the war and corresponded with allied military officials concerning the equipment of Assyrian units in their armies, such as the British Assyrian volunteers. The council initially viewed the creation of such units as a possible step towards the army of a future independent Assyrian state. Owing to internal disagreements, the National Council of Transcaucasia collapsed during the spring of 1918 and by May, only three active members remained. At the council's final meeting on May 22, it was agreed to dissolve the organization.[7]\n\nThough internal disagreements led to the rise of various other Assyrian organizations, the most major Assyrian organization in Georgia, the remaining Assyrian National Council, reorganized itself formally as the Assyrian National Council of Georgia (ASSNARS) in 1921. In a meeting on 11 March 1921, the executive committee of this new body, dubbed the Assyrian People's Council, were elected; Atturaya was elected as chairman.[24] Also in 1921, Atturaya visited Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, to advocate for resettling Assyrian refugees in Urmia and elsewhere in Iran, but the meeting had little effect.[11]\n\nArrests and death\n\nTo combat nationalism within the Soviet Union, the Soviet authorities used political repression. Over the course of the 1920s, the majority of the members of the Assyrian cultural and political elite within the Soviet Union were persecuted with varying consequences and degrees of intensity. Many were arrested, some were sent to forced labor camps and a handful were killed.[25] In 1924, Atturaya was arrested by the Soviet authorities as a \"British spy\" and Assyrian nationalist.[5] Though he was eventually released, he was arrested again on 12 July 1926.[11]\n\nAtturaya's case was transferred to the People's Commissariat of Justice of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic for a public hearing, which worked little in his favor.[8] On 30 August, Atturaya sent a letter to the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union with the title \"my spy case, devised by my personal enemies\".[11] He was killed on 2 October[8] 1926.[3][5] Though the Soviets denied involvement in his death and claimed that he had hanged himself[11] and some later historians have stated that he was poisoned in prison,[3] Soviet documentation records that he was executed by shooting.[8]\n\nPersonal life\n\nIn 1922, Atturaya married his wife Sonia, with whom he had two children: the son Sargon (born in 1923) and the daughter Nelli (born in 1926).[11] Atturaya's son was one of the first contemporary Assyrians to be given the ancient name Sargon,[5][d] today a common name among Assyrians.[5] Sonia was pregnant with Nelli at the time of Atturaya's last arrest and he never saw his daughter.[11]\n\nLegacy\n\nAtturaya remains recognized as an important early Assyrian national leader[3][6] and is remembered as a romantic figure, seen by some Assyrians as a national hero and martyr.[3] Among Atturaya's other cultural efforts beyond his participation in Assyrian political organizations was the publication of his own Assyrian nationalist magazine, Nakusha, and the establishment of Assyrian libraries in both Tbilisi and Moscow.[11]\n\nAtturaya was a talented romantic poet, dedicating numerous poems to the Assyrian cause.[5] Though only a small number of his writings have survived owing to the destruction of both the archives of the Assyrian Socialist Party and his own personal archive,[11] some of his surviving poems have been turned into popular songs.[5] One of his poems, \"Oh Eagle of Tkhuma\"[19] (Ya Nishra Di Tkhumi),[11] has become almost akin to a national anthem for many Assyrians.[19] \"Oh Eagle of Tkhuma\" describes the flight of an eagle over the lands of ancient Assyria, focusing first on the mountains and then on the \"bold and warlike men\" who live there.[19]\n\nNotes\n\n^ Alternate transliterations include: Freydun Bit Abram,[2] Freydun Abraham,[3] Freydun Beth-Avraham,[4] Freydun Beth Abraham,[5] Fraidon Bet-Avraham[6] and Freydun Beat-Abramov.[7] In Russia he was known as Freydun Yakovlevich.[8]\n\n^ Literally meaning \"Freydun the Assyrian\".[3] Alternate transliterations include: Freydun Aturaya,[5] Freidun Aturaya,[9] Freydun Atoraya,[3] Freydun Aturāyā[10] and Fraidon Aturaya.[6]\n\n^ The predominant identity among modern Assyrians in their own language is suryāyā, suryāyē or sūrōyē,[16] sometimes translated as \"Syrian\".[17] It is not technically a different identity from \"Assyrian\" since the term derives from the ancient assūrāyu (\"Assyrian\"), which was sometimes even in ancient times rendered in the shorter form sūrāyu.[16][18] The translated English title of the article here uses \"Syrian\" since Atturaya prominently pointed this etymological connection out in the article.[19]\n\n^ Sargon was the name of three ancient Mesopotamian kings: Sargon of the Akkadian Empire and the two Assyrian kings Sargon I and Sargon II.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Donabed 2019, p. 122.\n\n^ a b Petrosian 2006, p. 138.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Becker 2015, p. 328.\n\n^ a b c d e f Woźniak-Bobińska 2020, p. 111.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Akopian 2017, p. 397.\n\n^ a b c d Donabed 2015, Chapter 2.\n\n^ a b Margulov 2021, p. 99.\n\n^ a b c d e Margulov 2021, p. 101.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Chikhladze & Chikhladze 2003.\n\n^ a b Travis 2017.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Baker 2003.\n\n^ Margulov 2021, p. 96.\n\n^ Becker 2015, p. 332.\n\n^ Woźniak-Bobińska 2020, p. 110.\n\n^ Akopian 2017, p. 396.\n\n^ a b Benjamen 2022, p. 2.\n\n^ Butts 2017, p. 601.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Becker 2015, p. 329.\n\n^ Margulov 2021, p. 97.\n\n^ a b c d e Margulov 2021, p. 98.\n\n^ Margulov 2021, p. 100.\n\n^ a b Margulov 2021, pp. 98-99.\n\n^ Margulov 2021, pp. 99-100.\n\n^ Margulov 2021, pp. 100-101.\n\nSources\n\nPrint\n\nAkopian, Arman (2017). Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1463238933.\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2015). Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226145280.\n\nBenjamen, Alda (2022). Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108838795.\n\nButts, Aaron Michael (2017). \"Assyrian Christians\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1118325247.\n\nChikhladze, Iraklii; Chikhladze, Giga (2003). \"The Yezidi Kurds and Assyrians of Georgia: The Problem of Diasporas and Integration into Contemporary Society\" (PDF). Journal of the Central Asia & the Caucasus. 21 (3).\n\nDonabed, Sargon George (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0748686025.\n\nDonabed, Sargon George (2019). \"Persistent perseverance: a trajectory of Assyrian history in the modern age\". In Rowe, Paul S. (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East. London. ISBN 978-1138649040.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nMargulov, Arthur (2021). \"Assyrian Elites of Georgia in the 1920s: Public Policy and National Cultural Identity\". Skhidnoievropeiskyi Istorychnyi Visnyk [East European Historical Bulletin]. 20: 93-103. doi:10.24919/2519-058X.20.240035. S2CID 244217977.\n\nParpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 5-22.\n\nPetrosian, Vahram (2006). \"Assyrians in Iraq\". Iran and the Caucasus. 10 (1): 138. doi:10.1163/157338406777979322. S2CID 154905506.\n\nTravis, Hannibal (2017). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. ISBN 978-1351980258.\n\nWoźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2020). Modern Assyrian/Syriac Diaspora in Sweden. Lodz: Department of Middle East and North Africa, University of Lodz. ISBN 978-8363547110.\n\nWeb\n\nBaker, Richard Walter (2003). \"Dr. Freydun Bit-Abram\". RootsWeb. Retrieved 6 February 2022."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-freydun-atturaya"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2974}, {"slug": "reference-ashur-yousif", "title": "Ashur Yousif", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Abraham Yousif, better known as Ashur Yousif (Yousef) or Ashur Yousif Afendi (Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ ܝܘܣܦ ܐܦܢܕܝ, romanized: Ašur Yousep Afendi) (1858 - June 23, 1915), was an Assyrian professor and intellectual prior to World War I and the Assyrian genocide. He was Protestant,[1][2][3] as was his wife Arshaluys...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashur Yousif Afendi\n\nܐܫܘܪ ܝܘܣܦ ܐܦܢܕܝ\n\nPortrait of Yousif in the 1910s\n\nBorn1858 (1858)\nElazığ, Ottoman Empire\n\nDiedJune 23, 1915(1915-06-23) (aged 56-57)\nDiyarbakır\n\nOccupationWriter\n\nKnown forAssyrian nationalism\n\nAbraham Yousif, better known as Ashur Yousif (Yousef) or Ashur Yousif Afendi (Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ ܝܘܣܦ ܐܦܢܕܝ, romanized: Ašur Yousep Afendi) (1858 - June 23, 1915), was an Assyrian professor and intellectual prior to World War I and the Assyrian genocide. He was Protestant,[1][2][3] as was his wife Arshaluys Oghkasian, the daughter of an Armenian Protestant minister.[4] \n\nYousif was one of the earliest casualties of the Assyrian genocide, when he and his brother Donabed were arrested alongside other Assyrian leaders and killed. He has since become known as one of the strongest and earliest advocates of Assyrian nationalism.\n\nEarly life and career\n\nYousif was born to a prosperous Syriac Orthodox family in 1858 in Elazığ (Harput).[5] He pursued education from an early age, and later moved to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) where he earned an advanced degree in education.[6]\n\nHe studied at (but did not graduate from) the Central Turkey College in Antep,[7] and later became a professor of Classical Armenian language at the Euphrates College in Harput.[8] It was at the college where he would later meet his future wife, Arshaluys Oghkasian.[4]\n\nYousif was one of the earliest advocates of Assyrian nationalism,[9] calling for national unity and expressing disdain towards sectarianism and exclusive identities.[10] In 1910, he published a bilingual Arabic-Syriac newspaper titled Murshid al-Athuriyyin (\"Advisor of the Assyrians\"), discussing literature, religion, history, etc.[6][11] In the magazine, Yousif expressed his concerns over the lack of educated Assyrian leaders and political organization, as well as many debilitating fights between various church organizations and religious divides, as partly the reason for the lack of nationalistic sentiment among Assyrians.[12][13] \n\nHis writings on Assyrian identity and independence intensified leading into the mid-1910s,[5] and he often decried the lack of political organization compared to the Armenian national movement.[14] In many of his writings, Yusuf criticized clergy of the church as a cause of the community's need for reflection on its failures.[15] He also criticized the dangers of a lack of awareness of Assyrian history, stating that knowing such history would foster questions of communal identity;[16] such writings often placed him at ends with the Syriac Orthodox Church, which took internal steps to control nationalist discourse.[17]\n\nAside from his work on Murshid al-Athuriyyin, Yousif also authored a two-volume manual on Classical Armenian and composed poems in Armenian and Turkish.[18]\n\nDeath\n\nYousif, along with other Assyrian leaders from the town of Harput, were arrested in 1915.[6][19] In a final letter that he wrote to his brother Hanna, Yousif described how much of his work was now left unfinished with the coming of his execution, but ended the letter on a hopeful note for defending Assyrians in front of God.[20] \n\nDiffering accounts exist for how Yousif was killed during the Assyrian genocide. In one account, he was tortured and then hanged in a prison in Diyarbakır, while a memorial from the Assyrian Five association published in 1919[18] stated he was driven out to a death march and massacred by a number of hired Kurds.[4] Additionally, accounts of his arrest date differ between April 19th and May 1st in the same year, and there are suggestions that the letter written to his brother was fake. He would later be executed in late June.[21] \n\nLegacy\n\nToday, Yousif is remembered as one of the strongest and earliest advocates of Assyrian nationalism and a unified Assyrian people that transcended denominational boundaries.[22] Much of Yousif's writings were destroyed during the Assyrian genocide,[7] but they would serve as inspiration for other Assyrians such as David Barsum Perley.[23] He would later be revered among Assyrians cross-denominationally and viewed as an icon by writers in Iraq and Iran,[8] as he was the first Assyrian journalist to have been martyred.[5]\n\nYousif was memorialized in a poem by Sanharib Baley, another Assyrian activist, after his death.[24] His wife Arshaluys would later found an orphanage and his family would settle between Armenia and the United States.[4] Many books have since been written about Yousif, especially by his descendants. In 1965, Yousif's daughter, Alice Nazarian, published a book in Armenian that describes the story of Yousif's life and that of his wife after his death.[22] The book was later translated into English by the Swedish-Assyrian publisher \"Nineveh Press\", with added materials and an updated genealogy of Yousif's descendants.[25]\n\nOn June 24, 2006, Ashur Yusef's great-grandson Tigran Hovsepyan gave an emotional speech at the \"Assyrian Society of UK\" regarding the Assyrian genocide and praised UK politicians Councillor Mike Elliot and Stephen Pound MP for their efforts on the issue.[26][27]\n\nQuotes\n\n\"The second reason for this backwardness is the internal sectarian disputes in the church. The hindrance to the development of the Assyrians was not so much the attacks from without as it was from within - the doctrinal and sectarian disputes and struggles, like monophysitism and dyophysitism. These caused divisions, spiritually and nationally, among the people who quarrelled among themselves even to the point of shedding blood, thus creating a permanent schism. These dissensions sapped the physical and moral energy of the people and destroyed the sources of light, namely, the promising educational institutions. The church and the people were split up for centuries and still remain Nestorians, Melekites, Maronites, Atigs (‘atiq ‘old’) and Jedids (‘new’). Today it is the same stupid phenomenon that is revealed in India as a result of the improvident attitude of the present Patriarch. \" [28]\n\n\"To attain cultural development and progress among the Assyrians, both as individuals and as a people, it is necessary to have the highest ideal in life and to seek to realize it. And to reach this goal, families also must bring forth children with a Christian and national character who will serve the nation; and schools must produce leaders. The church and the clergy should revive the pulpit, and with fiery language and divinely inspired message extol the life of the soul. And the wheels of the press should grind out newspapers and books to promote the intellectual, spiritual, and national life of the Assyrians. Let family, church, school, and press unite in this spirit, cooperate and render mutual assistance, for it is only then that this nation, which has embarked on the journey to self enlightenment, will attain the supreme ideal in life, which it must of necessity pursue.\"[29]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism Becker, Adam H. p. 328.\n\n^ Syriac Christians Of Kharberd Archived 2022-01-05 at the Wayback Machine Armenian-language Syriac Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 10 (2010) - Page 84.\n\n^ Assyria and the Paris Peace Conference Yoosuf, Abraham K. p. 33\n\n^ a b c d Haninke, Augin Kurt (2019-01-22). \"Ashur Yousufs familjs heroiska kamp i Seyfos kölvatten\". Huyada (in Swedish). Retrieved 2025-08-16.\n\n^ a b c \"Ashur Yousef: The Pioneer of Assyrian Journalism and Martyr of National Unity\". Syriac Press. 2025-06-29. Retrieved 2025-08-13.\n\n^ a b c \"Ashur Yousif Dekharbot\". Syriac Heritage Museum. 2022-11-12. Retrieved 2025-08-13.\n\n^ a b Donabed & Mako 2011, p. 25.\n\n^ a b Donabed, Sargon (20 September 2018). \"Persistent perseverance: A trajectory of Assyrian history in the modern age\". In Rowe, Paul S (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East. Routledge. p. 119. doi:10.4324/9781315626031-9. ISBN 9781317233794.\n\n^ DeKelaita, p. 19.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 26.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 188.\n\n^ Gaunt 2020, pp. 60-61.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 85.\n\n^ Sims 2023, pp. 88, 109.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 133.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 202.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 206.\n\n^ a b Akopian 2020, p. 86.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2011, p. 20.\n\n^ Yousouf, Ashur. \"From my cell to my beloved brother, Hanna Yousouf, in America\". www.bethsuryoyo.com. Retrieved 2025-08-13.\n\n^ \"Eine Biographie über Ashur Yousuf und seine Familie\". Bethnahrin (in German). 2019-02-03. Retrieved 2025-08-13.\n\n^ a b Lundgren, Svante (2019-01-29). \"Nazarian's New Book Clarifies the Life of Assyrian Nationalist Ashur Yousuf\". The Armenian Weekly. Retrieved 2025-08-16.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2011, p. 27.\n\n^ Sims 2023, p. 44.\n\n^ \"Books; Bloodied, But Unbowed: A Memoir of the Ashur and Arshaluys Yousuf Family\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 43, no. 1. Berkeley, California. Winter 2019. p. 14. Retrieved 16 August 2025.\n\n^ \"UK Assyrians Honour British MP\". www.aina.org. Assyrian International News Agency. 30 June 2006. Retrieved 2025-08-17.\n\n^ \"Our struggle for recognition continues\". SEYFO CENTER. 2012-07-03. Retrieved 2025-08-17.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2011, pp. 36-39.\n\n^ DeKelaita, pp. 19-20.\n\nBibliography\n\nAkopian, Arman (4 March 2020) [1 January 2010]. \"Babylon, an Armenian-language Syriac Periodical: Some remarks on Milieu, Structure and Language\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 10 (1). Yerevan State University: 83-98. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2010-100107. ISBN 9781463201388.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nDeKelaita, Robert. The Origins and Development of Assyrian Nationalism (PDF) (MA thesis). University of Chicago. Retrieved 16 August 2025.\n\nDonabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (27 July 2011). \"Harput, Turkey to Massachusetts: Immigration of Jacobite Christians\". Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 23: 19-42. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1895722. ISSN 1608-7526. SSRN 1895722.\n\nGaunt, David (1 November 2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and state violence in Turkey : the construction of a national identity from empire to nation-state. Berghahn Books. pp. 56-96. doi:10.2307/j.ctv29sfvw6.6. ISBN 9781789204513.\n\nSims, Michael (2023). ‘Without a Purpose, Misfortune Will Befall Our Land:’ Discourses of Nation in Late Ottoman Kurdistan (Thesis). University of Washington. Retrieved 22 August 2025.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Journalism Day lecture on Yousif in Nohadra\n\nAssyria TV Lecture\n\nInterview with Tigran Hovsepyan, Yousif's great grandson"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashur-yousif"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1616}, {"slug": "reference-farid-nuzha", "title": "Farid Nuzha", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Farid Elias Nuzha (Syriac: ܦܪܝܕ ܐܠܝܐܣ ܢܙܗܝ, pronounced [fɑriːd nɑzhe]; 1895 - 1971), also spelled Farid Nazha or Farid Nozha,[1] was an Assyrian nationalist and journalist. Born in Hama to a Syriac Orthodox family in 1895, he immigrated to Argentina due to religious conflicts in his hometown. While...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Farid Elias Nuzha\n\nܦܪܝܕ ܐܠܝܐܣ ܢܙܗܝ\n\nPhotograph of Nuzha, taken at an undisclosed date\n\nBorn1895\nHama, Ottoman Syria\n\nDied1971 (unconfirmed)\nArgentina\n\nOccupationJournalist\n\nMovementAssyrian nationalism\n\nFarid Elias Nuzha (Syriac: ܦܪܝܕ ܐܠܝܐܣ ܢܙܗܝ, pronounced [fɑriːd nɑzhe]; 1895 - 1971), also spelled Farid Nazha or Farid Nozha,[1] was an Assyrian nationalist and journalist. Born in Hama to a Syriac Orthodox family in 1895, he immigrated to Argentina due to religious conflicts in his hometown. While in Argentina, he helped establish a cultural club and a newspaper, Syriac University/Assyrian Association, which he subsequently wrote for throughout most of his life and career.\n\nIn his writings, Nuzha advocated for the preservation and promotion of Assyrian culture, identity and language. He also maintained a stance on unity within the Assyrian community and emphasized bringing together members of the various Syriac churches. Nuzha opposed the mixing of ethnic identity with religious affiliation and pushed forward an inclusive Assyrian belonging through his community advocacy. He also frequently criticized the clergymen of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Most notably, his criticism of and conflict with Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum led to his excommunication from the church, though it was later reversed. \n\nNuzha's writings through the Assyrian Association magazine would serve as an inspiration for Assyrian nationalists in the 1950s, including the formation of the Assyrian Democratic Organization in Syria. Today, he is remembered for his contributions to both Assyrian nationalism as well as Assyrian journalism, and is celebrated alongside other figures such as Naum Faiq and Freydun Atturaya.\n\nEarly life\n\nFarid Elias Nuzha was born in 1895 in Hama, Ottoman Syria to a Syriac Orthodox family. His grandparents were immigrants originally from Elazığ (Harpoot) in Turkey who migrated to Hama in 1760.[2][3] The name \"Nuzha\" descends from a great-grandmother who had the same name,[4] while his middle name \"Elias\" came from his father's name.[5] Nuzha would be educated in the Syriac Orthodox education system that was established by the church in the 1840s.[6]\n\nIn 1911, a number of Syriac Orthodox Assyrians converted to the Syriac Catholic Church, which initiated a bitter conflict in Hama's Assyrian community.[7] Nuzha's father decided to send him to Argentina, in order to prevent him from becoming involved in the conflict.[2][8] In August of that year, he arrived in Buenos Aires, where he studied Mathematics and Economy. In March 1920, he married an Argentine woman of Italian descent and moved to Santiago del Estero for work; he returned to Buenos Aires eleven years later.[7] During the last 9 years of this period, Nuzha received no new information on the developments of the Assyrian community abroad.[9]\n\nJournalistic work and activism\n\nInfluenced by Naum Faiq's writings, Nuzha co-founded a cultural club, the \"Assyrian Ephremic Center\" (Spanish: Centro Afrémico Asirio) in 1934.[10] Nazha would co-found another organization, \"Assyrian Unity\" with Abrohom Gabriel Zsaumo, which lasted from 1943 to 1959.[10] \n\n1939 facsimiles of Asociación Asiria in Spanish, Syriac and Arabic.\n\nThe Assyrian Emphremic Center published a newspaper, Syriac University/Assyrian Association,[a] which ran from September 1934 until 1959.[b] The newspaper was initially aimed towards Assyrian/Syriac immigrants in Argentina, but its popularity grew as Assyrian journalists from other parts of the world started to contribute to it. The magazine would later incorporate a correspondent, Yusuf Namek (originally from Urfa), who wrote under the pen-name \"Bar-Ashur\" (Syriac: ܒܪ ܐܫܘܪ, lit. 'Son of Assyria'), although many of his writings would later be altered to replace \"Assyrian\" with \"Aramean\" in the Middle East.[14] The magazine would arrive in Syria from overseas, and partly serve as inspiration for the establishment of the Assyrian Democratic Organization in the 1950s.[15][16]\n\nNuzha himself had a column in Assyrian Association, where he commented on various matters concerning the Assyrian populace during this time.[17] In his writings, he maintained an inclusive approach to denominational names used among the different Syriac churches and sought unity between them, while opposing the mixing of religious affiliation with ethnic identity.[7][18] Additionally, Nuzha advocated for the preservation of colloquial Assyrian-Aramaic (Sureth/Surayt), and believed that poor communication among the laymen was due to the existence of multiple dialects. He also criticized those who neglected to learn Assyrian-Aramaic in favor of other languages, including those who believed that it should remain a liturgical language.[7] Nozha wrote in both Arabic and Syriac; he wrote in Arabic in order for his messaging to get across to those who couldn't speak Syriac, which he mastered.[17]\n\nConflict with the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nIn 1939, Nuzha wrote an article in response to a Syriac Orthodox writer from Mosul in Iraq.[c] The writer urged Nuzha to remove \"Assyrian\" from the Spanish name of his magazine because of Iraqi government distaste for the name, and because of Nuzha's affiliation with the Syriac church.[21] Nuzha was displeased and strongly rejected the request. In his response to the writer, Nuzha accused them of ignorance for equating Assyrian identity with the Nestorian misnomer, and stated that the word \"Suryani\" was equivalent and originated from the word \"Assyrian\".[22][18][13]\n\nNuzha frequently clashed with Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I (Aphrem Barsoum), as a divide was growing between secularists and clergy after the Simele massacre.[23] In this period, Barsoum began a campaign of removing the Assyrian label from institutions affiliated with the SOC, combined with a push for a \"Syrian\" designation.[24] Both Barsoum and Nuzha had previously had a cordial friendship, and communicated with each other until 1921; additionally, when Barsoum ascended to the position of Patriarch, Nuzha sent him a letter of congratulations.[25] The relationship between the two would later become strained as Barsoum began to vehemently oppose Assyrian intellectuals.[26] Nuzha described Barsoum as \"the false Sheppard\" and \"conductor of plots,\" among other things.[2][13] The clash with the clergy reached its peak when Barsoum formally excommunicated Nuzha; he would be one of the Syriac Orthodox intellectuals excommunicated as the church began to crack down on Assyrian identity with increasing regularity.[27][21][2] According to a 20th anniversary issue written by Nuzha, his excommunication took place on Christmas Eve 1939 on the recommendation of SOC priests in Argentina, who believed Nuzha had gone too far with his criticisms.[28] Barsoum would prevent the \"Assyrian Association\" magazine from entering Syria with the help of security forces,[4][29] and attempted to undermine Nuzha by alleging he had converted to Catholicism.[30] \n\nThe conflict continued until Barsoum's passing in 1957.[4] Despite the conflict and excommunication, other figures in the church, namely Philoxenos Yuhanon Dolabani, continued to receive the magazine.[31] Additionally, Ignatius Ya'qub III, who was reported to have been good friends with Nuzha,[32] retracted his excommunication in the late 1950s.[4] In conversations with Patriarch Ya'qub III, Nuzha described Athanasius Yeshue Samuel as \"the bishop who lost his mind.\"[32] SOC priest Aziz Günel attempted to establish contact with Nuzha in 1969, stating that he was a secret admirer of his works.[33]\n\nDeath and legacy\n\nThe year which Nuzha passed away has never been confirmed, though most sources state that he died in 1971.[d] Alongside Faiq and Freydun Atturaya, he is remembered for his contributions to both Assyrian nationalism and the field of Assyrian journalism.[8][34] Assyrian activists have since elevated Nuzha, alongside these and other figures such as Ashur Yousif and Toma Audo, to the status of symbolizing the Assyrian nation by activists.[35] Nuzha is also remembered for his distinct position on secularism within the Assyrian community.[17]\n\nNuzha is more well known among Assyrians who still live in West Asia, likely because of his position within the small Syriac Orthodox Assyrian community in Argentina.[13] Annually on 1 November, Assyrians commemorate Nuzha's work, including \"The Assyrian Association,\" during Assyrian Journalism Day.[36] Nuzha's work would go on to inspire other Assyrian nationalist activists such as Ninos Aho.[37] In Buenos Aires, original copies of the Assyrian Association magazine were on display in an exhibit at the Museum of Immigrants until December 2025.[38] Philoxenos Yuhanon Dolabani had saved most issues of Nuzha's magazine, but by 2003, most of them had either disappeared or were destroyed.[4] Assyrian journalist Augin Kurt Haninke states that the loss of the issues may have been because they were \"dragged away and shoved in some corner.\"[4]\n\nNotes\n\n^ In Syriac, ܚܕܢܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ, (Ḥdonoyutho Suryoyṯo). In Arabic, الجامعة السريانية (al-Jam‘īah as-Siryanīyah). In Spanish, Asociación Asiria. Nuzha used \"Assyrian\" and the endonym \"Suryoye\" synonymously.[11][12]\n\n^ Sargon Donabed and Shamiran Mako state that the magazine ran until 1959,[2], whereas Aprem Shapera and the Assyrische Mesopotamische Vereniging Enschede state that it ran until Nuzha's passing.[7][13] Gabriele Younan adds that the magazine was republished briefly in 1969.[10]\n\n^ According to a correspondent interview with Naures Atto, the person who wrote the letter to Nuzha was Ne'mat-Allah Danno[19]. Journalist Augin Kurt Haninke was confirmed the same information[20].\n\n^ Some sources that cite 1971 as the year for Nuzha's death include Yonan[34], Atto[3], Donabed & Mako[2], Haninke[4], and Shapera[13].\n\nReferences\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 209, footnote 238.\n\n^ a b c d e f Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 104.\n\n^ a b Atto 2011, p. 282.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Haninke, Augin Kurt (16 February 2011). \"Farid Nazha tog vid där Naum Faiq slutade\" [Farid Nazha took over where Naum Faiq left off]. hujada.com. Archived from the original on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 209, footnote 237.\n\n^ Al-Jeloo 2019, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c d e \"Bethnahrin.nl - Farid Nazha\". www.bethnahrin.nl (in Dutch). Enschede, Netherlands: Assyrische Mesopotamische Vereniging Enschede (AMVE). Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\n^ a b Sastoque, Laurisa (17 May 2020). \"How long-distance nationalism kept a culture alive during the Assyrian Genocide\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 217.\n\n^ a b c Yonan 1978, p. 166.\n\n^ Atto 2011, p. 285.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 234.\n\n^ a b c d e Shapera, Aprim (12 August 2002). \"A Great Message From A Great Assyrian Man\". www.zindamagazine.com. United Kingdom: Zinda Magazine. Archived from the original on 26 June 2004. Retrieved 17 January 2026.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 105.\n\n^ \"An Interview with Bachir Saadi\". zindamagazine.com. 5 February 2005. Archived from the original on 13 February 2026. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\n^ Atto 2011, p. 294.\n\n^ a b c Haninke 2017, p. 232.\n\n^ a b Atto 2011, pp. 283-284.\n\n^ Atto 2011, p. 283, footnote 542.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 235.\n\n^ a b Donabed 2015, p. 232.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, pp. 77-79.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 77, footnote 8.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 80.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, pp. 215-217.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, pp. 218-219.\n\n^ Makko 2017, p. 247.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 211.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 223.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 212, 229.\n\n^ Atto 2011, p. 277, footnote 525.\n\n^ a b Haninke, Augin Kurt (17 April 2014). \"Big challenges await the new Syrian Orthodox Patriarch\". acsatv.com. Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Association. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\n^ Haninke 2017, p. 106.\n\n^ a b Yonan 1978, p. 110.\n\n^ Atto 2011, p. 310, footnote 601.\n\n^ Alkhas, Alfred (2 November 2005). \"The 156th Assyrian Press Day Anniversary\". www.zindamagazine.com. Archived from the original on 10 April 2026. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\n^ BarAbrahem, Abdulmesih (October 2002). \"The Calling of the New Assyrian - A Poetry Collection by Ninos Aho and Yousip Bet Yousip\". www.atour.com. Munich, Germany. Retrieved 16 January 2026. From his early youth on Ninos was interested and moved by the teachings of the Assyrian national leaders like Naum Faiq and Farid Nuzha.\n\n^ Albani, Leandro (27 April 2025). \"La desconocida historia de la inmigración asiria y siriana ortodoxa en Argentina\" [The little-known history of Assyrian and Syrian Orthodox immigration to Argentina] (in Spanish). Nueva Revolución. Retrieved 16 January 2026.\n\nBibliography\n\nAl-Jeloo, Nicholas (2019). \"Advances in Assyrian Language Development and Education in Iran and Ottoman Turkey (1835-1918)\". Kukhwa d Beth Nahrain (Star of Mesopotamia). Duhok: Assyrian Cultural Center Nohadra: 7.\n\nAtto, Naures (2011). Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora: Identity Discourses Among the Assyrian/Syriac Elites in the European Diaspora (PDF). Leiden University Press. Retrieved 11 November 2025.\n\nDonabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (1 September 2009). \"Ethno-Cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians\". Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. ISSN 1608-7526 - via SSRN.\n\nDonabed, Sargon (17 September 2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt14brxg2.\n\nHaninke, Augin Kurt (10 September 2017). The Heirs of Patriarch Shaker. Nineveh Press. ISBN 9789198410075.\n\nMakko, Aryo (19 July 2017). \"The Assyrian \"concept of unity\" after Seyfo\" (PDF). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies (1st ed.). London. pp. 239-253. doi:10.4324/9781315269832. ISBN 9781315269832.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nYonan, Gabriele (1978). Assyrer heute: Kultur, Sprache, Nationalbewegung der aramäisch sprechenden Christen im Nahen Osten : Verfolgung und Exil [Assyrians today: Culture, language, national movement of Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Middle East: Persecution and exile] (in German). Society for Threatened Peoples. ISBN 9783922197003.\n\nExternal links\n\nمرثية باللغة السريانية على روح عميد الصحافة الآشورية في المهجر المغفور له فريد الياس نزها - بوينس أيرس، الأرجنتين\n\nAssyrian Journalism Day Eskilstuna 2 Nov 2024\n\nThe role of Intellectual renaissance in our nation\n\nهوزايا, يونان. \"فريد نزها القومي الغيور والصحفي الجريء\". Zowaa. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2011."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-farid-nuzha"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2244}, {"slug": "reference-evin-agassi", "title": "Evin Agassi", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Evin Agassi[a] (25 September 1945 - 17 September 2024) was an Iranian-American Assyrian singer[1][2] who had a career that spanned for over 50 years.[3] Agassi produced over 40 albums[4] during his career, with a majority of them being released in the 1980s and 1990s.[5]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Evin Agassiܐܝܒ̣ܢ ܐܓܣܝ\n\nAgassi in 2018\n\nBackground information\n\nBorn(1945-09-25)25 September 1945\nKermanshah, Iran\n\nDied17 September 2024(2024-09-17) (aged 78)\nModesto, California, U.S.\n\nGenres\nAssyrian music\n\nfolk pop\n\nfolk dance\n\nOccupationSinger\n\nYears active1967-2024\n\nEvin Agassi[a] (25 September 1945 - 17 September 2024) was an Iranian-American Assyrian singer[1][2] who had a career that spanned for over 50 years.[3] Agassi produced over 40 albums[4] during his career, with a majority of them being released in the 1980s and 1990s.[5]\n\nPossessing spinto-tenor vocals, his work generally consisted of sophisticated ballads, love songs, nationalistic music and folk dance, with musical inspiration from Persian pop and, more recently, Latin pop genres, where he fused his art with cultural resistance.[6]\n\nOne of the better-known Assyrian singers, he generally toured Australia, Europe and West Asia. The majority of his songs were written by his brother, Givergiss Agassi, both in Persian and Assyrian.[1] His full name has also been spelled as Evan Aghassi.[b]\n\nCareer\n\n1960s-early 1970s: Radio work and breakthrough\n\nAgassi was born in Kermanshah, Iran to an Iranian Assyrian family. Although he began singing in gigs in the late 1950s, he was not yet an established professional singer. In the 1960s, he became involved in the Iranian national radio since his teen years where he recorded a number of records in Persian. He worked with many Iranian poets and composers and produced several popular songs, which were broadcast on the radio and TV stations, with several reaching the top ten records at the time. Other than singing, he played the classical guitar and piano keyboard.[2]\n\nOne notable Persian song from 1974 entitled Shahrzaad was loved by many Iranians and Assyrians all over the world. After his breakthrough from that song, Agassi was invited to the United States for some concerts in California and Chicago in 1976, which became a success. After returning to Iran, he produced songs based upon his pleasant experience in the United States.[7]\n\nLate 1970s-1980s: Political controversies and relocation to the US\n\nCourageously, Agassi made a few social political songs, forgetting the strong censorship in Iran. These songs, which were about humanity, equality, and freedom, were ultimately collected by the Iranian government and banned. Due to these distressing outcomes and also because of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Agassi relocated to the United States in the late 1970s for the social and political freedom there. He resided in Modesto, California.[2] \n\nAgassi's patriotic music inspired the Assyrians' nationalism in Iraq, where the Assyrians there established the Assyrian Democratic Movement in 1979. In the 1980s, the Iraqi government also became rather vehement towards his songs, as they emboldened the Assyrians of Iraq, who opted for peace, freedom and human rights. As such, a few of Agassi's songs were banned in the country and his name was registered on a blacklist by Saddam Hussein. Those caught listening to or distributing his music faced punishment.[6][7]\n\n1990s-early 2000s: Precarious visits to the Middle East\n\nIn August 1991, Agassi visited Al-Hasakah, Syria for the first time to perform for the Syrian Assyrians there. In April 1993, he had his maiden visit to Northern Iraq, where he performed in a festal and ceremonious concert.[1]\n\nIn the early 2000s, before the invasion of Iraq, the Assyrian Democratic Movement invited Agassi to perform at a concert in the no-fly zone of Iraq. His trip was under the supervision of the allied forces, which prompted the Iraqi government to create a power outage in Northern Iraq, and sent assassins for an attempt on his life. The Iraqi government bribed him into participating in a concert in Baghdad, in which he declined.[4]\n\nMid 2000s-2020s: Continued world tours and final years\n\nAgassi had since raised hundreds of thousand of dollars for Assyrian churches and the welfare organizations aiding the Assyrian people. In 2010, he again travelled to Syria, and in 2016 he has visited Iraqi Kurdistan, to perform at the concerts and parties there. One of Agassi's last albums, \"The Circle Of Life\", released in 2012, was one of his most anticipated albums, after a seven-year hiatus.[7]\n\nUp until the 2020s, he had concerts regularly in North America, West Asia, Europe and Australia, and had visited England, Germany, Canada, France, Austria, Netherlands, Russia, Syria, Iran and Northern Iraq. Agassi had produced just over 500 songs by the 2020s. Agassi's last public performance was at an annual Valentine's Day party in Chicago in February 2024, and his last overseas concert was in Sydney in August 2023.[1]\n\nIllness and death\n\nOn 12 July 2024, Agassi shared the news that he is diagnosed with glioblastoma in the left frontal lobe of the brain, which was described as an \"aggressive inoperable form of brain cancer\".[8] He was set to perform in California's Bay Area later in July before cancelling due to his condition.[5] Agassi was reportedly battling the disease for \"several years\", before his condition deteriorated in July.[8]\n\nFollowing a comprehensive treatment plan, Agassi's cancer did not respond to radiation and chemotherapy. On 17 September 2024 at 6:49 pm, Agassi succumbed to his illness and died peacefully at the age of 78, with his family by his side.[8] Agassi's funeral and interment were held at Turlock on 3 October.[9]\n\nReaction\n\nHis death left a significant impact on Assyrian communities worldwide, since his songs were a message for stateless Assyrians to conserve their identity and history.[10] On X, the Assyrian American National Federation stated Agassi's voice \"was not just a sound, but a powerful force that united generations, carried our culture across borders, and kept the spirit of our heritage alive in every corner of the globe\".[8]\n\nThe head of the Department of Ethnic and Religious Components at the Kurdistan Region Presidency, Florin G. Seudin, offered her grief and condolences, where she stated that \"we lost one of the greatest artists in the Assyrian nation\".[8]\n\nIn an SBS podcast by Ninos Emmanuel, his death was described as leaving \"an emotional void in the hearts of Assyrians across the world.\" Further adding, \"His music was not merely entertainment; it was a lifeline, a call to resilience and survival for his people. Each of his hundreds of songs carried a message of hope, perseverance, and deep connection to Assyrian identity. Before concluding, \"His voice now echoes in the soul of a nation, a beacon that will continue to inspire generations to come.\"[11]\n\nOn 22 September, more than 1,000 people attended the St. Hurmizd Assyrian Church of the East in Greenfield Park, Sydney, for a memorial mass to honor the late singer. Tributes were made by Agassi's dedicated fans, that included local poets, Assyrian singers and Bishop Mar Meelis Zaia.[10]\n\nDiscography\n\nAgassi produced over 40 albums in his 50-year career.[4][12] Here are his albums:\n\nRecords 1 (1967)[c]\n\nRecords 2 (1968)\n\nRecord 3 (1969)\n\nRecord 4 (1970)\n\nRecord 5 (1970)\n\nBakheelota (Enviousness) (1975)\n\nUmta Burbista (Dispersed Nation) (1975)\n\nShamiram (1980)\n\nHaft Sin (Persian album) (1981)\n\nDargooshta D Mardoota (Cradle of Civilization) (1982)\n\nWinter (1982)\n\nAlola (Alleyway) (1982)\n\nSayaada (Fisherman) (1983)\n\nCultivators (Khasade) (1983)\n\n9 Nostalgic Hits 1959 (1984)[d]\n\n7 Btabbakh (Seventh Storey) (1984)\n\nKhazadee (Cultivators) (1984)\n\nHabbania (1984)\n\nRed Zero (1985)\n\nTomorrow's Country (1985)\n\nStrength (Khela) (1986)\n\nMometa D-Ata (Flag's Promise) (1987)\n\nCamp (1989)\n\nAzaad (Free) (1989)\n\nOrzeh (Men) (1990)\n\nGareh (Rooftops) (1992)\n\nSama Khwara (Drugs)[e] (1992)\n\nSapar D Garbia (Flight To The Western World) (1993)\n\nUnited Nations (1994)\n\nYesterday (1994)\n\nSon of our Times (Bronet Zona) (1995)\n\nGuardian (1995)\n\nNew Generation (1996)\n\nParadise (1997)\n\nFisherman (1998)\n\nBroken Chain (1998)\n\nHappiness (1998)\n\nBaghdad (2000)\n\nLetter to God (2000)\n\nMemories (2005)\n\nHappiness II (2006)\n\nCircle of Life (2012)\n\n45 Years of Singing (2017)\n\nMadinkha (Eastern World) (2019)\n\nGhasreh (Castles) (2023)\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Abboud Zeitoune (30 April 2010). ܒܪ̈ܘܠܐ ܕܡܘܣܝܩܝ ܕܒܝܬ̣ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ. Assyrische Demokratische Organisation. ISBN 9783931358099.\n\n^ a b c Shabo Talay (2008). Die neuaramäischen Dialekte der Khabur-Assyrer in Nordostsyrien. Harrassowitz. ISBN 9783447057028.\n\n^ Evin Agassi Archived 16 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, AssyrianVoice.net\n\n^ a b c Evin Agassi by Moneer Cherie. Published by Qeenatha.com. Retrieved 19 September 2024.\n\n^ a b Yasmeen Altaji (16 July 2024). \"Evin Agassi diagnosed with 'malignant brain tumor'\". The Word. Retrieved 27 July 2024.\n\n^ a b \"Assyrian music icon Evin Agassi passes away at 79 due to illness\". Syriac Press. 18 September 2024. Retrieved 21 September 2024.\n\n^ a b c البير أبدل, لقاء مع الفنان الآشوري الكبير إيوان أغاسي Archived 12 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, هلمون نت\n\n^ a b c d e Wladimir van Wilgenburg (18 September 2024). \"Renowned Assyrian Singer Evin Agassi Passes Away\". Kurdistan Chronicle.\n\n^ \"Obituary for Evin Agassi\". Turlock Memorial Park & Funeral Home. Retrieved 12 October 2024.\n\n^ a b \"A voice for stateless Assyrians: Community mourns Evin Agassi\". SBS Australia. 23 September 2024. Retrieved 24 September 2024.\n\n^ \"His music was a lifeline: Tribute to Assyrian singing legend\". SBS Australia. 20 September 2024. Retrieved 24 September 2024.\n\n^ \"AssyrianMp3.com - Assyrian Music :: Evin Aghassi\". assyrianmp3.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.\n\nNotes\n\n^ His first name is generally pronounced Evan by Iranian Assyrians and Ewan by Iraqi and Syrian Assyrians, with an emphasis on the vowels. Though Agassi's preferred pronunciation was Evin.\n\n^ Many Assyrian speakers generally use the voiced velar fricative ('gh' sound) when uttering the first consonant in his surname.\n\n^ These 'record' titles are not albums, but A-side and B-side phonographs that feature two songs.\n\n^ Although the album was compiled in 1984, the songs were recorded between the 1960s and 1970s.\n\n^ 'Sama Khwara' literally translates to 'white poison', which is a term used for illicit drugs in Assyrian (specifically cocaine and heroin).\n\nExternal links\n\nEvin Agassi makes YouTube appeal to Assyrians, TheAssyrian\n\nProfile at Qeenatha\n\nEvin Agassi discography at Discogs as Evin Aghassi"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-evin-agassi"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1641}, {"slug": "reference-linda-george", "title": "Linda George", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Linda or Lynda George may refer to: Linda George (Australian singer), Australian pop singer popular in the 1970s Linda George (Assyrian singer), Assyrian-American pop singer popular in the 1980s-2010s Lynda Day George, American television actress popular in the 1960s and 1970s Linda K. George (born 1947), American sociologist...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Linda or Lynda George may refer to:\n\nLinda George (Australian singer), Australian pop singer popular in the 1970s\n\nLinda George (Assyrian singer), Assyrian-American pop singer popular in the 1980s-2010s\n\nLynda Day George, American television actress popular in the 1960s and 1970s\n\nLinda K. George (born 1947), American sociologist and gerontologist"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-linda-george"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 50}, {"slug": "reference-juliana-jendo", "title": "Juliana Jendo", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Juliana Jendo (Syriac: ܓܘܠܝܢܐ ܓܢܕܐ; born November 30, 1956, in Tel Tamer, Syria) is a Syrian Assyrian singer and actress who, unlike many other Assyrian Neo-Aramaic-speaking artists, has occasionally recorded songs in Surayt/Turoyo and Arabic.[1] She has mostly recorded folk dance music.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Juliana Jendo\n\nJendo performing at a convention, 2025\n\nBackground information\n\nBornJuliana Jendo\n (1956-11-30) November 30, 1956\nTel Tamer, Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria\n\nGenresAssyrian music, Pop, Folk pop, World music, Dance, Folk dance.\n\nOccupationsSinger and actress\n\nInstrumentvocals\n\nYears active1986-present\n\nJuliana Jendo (Syriac: ܓܘܠܝܢܐ ܓܢܕܐ; born November 30, 1956, in Tel Tamer, Syria) is a Syrian Assyrian singer and actress who, unlike many other Assyrian Neo-Aramaic-speaking artists, has occasionally recorded songs in Surayt/Turoyo and Arabic.[1] She has mostly recorded folk dance music.\n\nBiography\n\nBorn in Tel Tamer, Syria, she studied French literature at a university there. Her family was displaced from their homeland in Tur Abdin during Sayfo, and they were deported to Syria. In 1980, she and her family immigrated to the United States. She currently resides in Michigan and frequently visits Chicago, Illinois. Furthermore, she is an honorary chairwoman of the organization Nasraya Ad Dema that she founded.\n\n2024 arrest in Sweden\n\nOn 20 October 2024, Jendo was planned to perform at a party in Södertälje, Sweden but due to suspicion of tax fraud before the planned performance, it was cancelled.[2] The organizer of the event stated that there have previously been no issues in organizing performances with Assyrian artists. Much indicates that the organizer of the event had not provided all the necessesary paper-work before the planned event, which caused the event being cancelled. Jendo has performed in Sweden several times through the years, without any complications.[2]\n\nIn a statement on her social media later that day, it was announced that Juliana would later be released after efforts from Swedish Assyrian lawyers.[3]\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\nMardita (1987)\n\nKhater Aynatoukh (1988)\n\nLove & Dance (1990)\n\nWardeh Deesheh (1993)\n\nBeble D-Atour (The Flowers Of Assyria) (1994)\n\nQadri (Arabic) (1994)\n\nAthro Halyo (Turoyo) (1995)\n\nAsheq D-Matwatan (1998)\n\nMellati (2003)\n\nElemo Halyo (Turoyo) (2008)\n\nTel Keppe (Arabic, Turoyo) (2008)\n\nGolden Tunes (2010)\n\nSingles\n\n\"Talibootha\" (2015)\n\n\"Brekha Ethokhon\" (2018)\n\n\"Go Qaploukh Babi\" (2021)\n\n\"Mdalal Qalbi\" (2021)\n\n\"Aweleh\" (2022)\n\n\"Taloukh Baby\" feat. Kynexx Obimba (2022)\n\n\"Alqoshnaya\" (2023)\n\n\"Jwanqa Shetrana\" (2023)\n\n\"Aha Khouba\" (2024)\n\n\"A Tribute to Tel Keppe\" (2024)\n\n\"Laylee\" (2024)\n\n\"Kopala d'Jeelou (2025)\n\n\"Zyaptet Khetna\" (2025)\n\n\"Ankawa\" (2025)\n\nFilmography\n\n1988 - Semeleh (Silent short film)\n\n1991 - Wardeh Deesheh (Trampled Flowers) (Dual role: Nineveh and Nina)\n\n1994 - The Flowers of Assyria (eight music videos)\n\n2005 - The Cost of Happiness (Supporting role: Yimma \"Mother\")\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Juliana Jendo\". lastfm.com. lastfm. Retrieved 23 June 2015.\n\n^ a b Isa, Alexander; Oyal, Shamash (20 October 2024). \"Världsstjärna gripen i Södertälje\". telgenytt.se. Telgenytt. Retrieved 21 October 2024.\n\n^ Juliana Jendo on Facebook\n\nExternal links\n\nQeenatha music profile\n\nlastfm music profile"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-juliana-jendo"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 431}, {"slug": "reference-sargon-gabriel", "title": "Sargon Gabriel", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Sargon Gabriel (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܣܪܓܘܢ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ:born 1947) is an Assyrian musician whose music style usually involves traditional Assyrian folk-pop music with the instruments, zurna and dawoola.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sargon Gabrielܣܪܓܘܢ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ\n\nIn 2012\n\nBackground information\n\nBornSargon Gabriel\n1947 [1]\nHabbaniyah, Kingdom of Iraq[2]\n\nOrigin Habbaniyah, Iraq\n\nGenresAssyrian, folk dance\n\nYears active1963 - Present\n\nWebsitewww.sargongabriel.com\n\nSargon Gabriel (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܣܪܓܘܢ ܓܒܪܐܝܠ:born 1947) is an Assyrian musician whose music style usually involves traditional Assyrian folk-pop music with the instruments, zurna and dawoola.\n\nHistory\n\nSargon Gabriel began singing as a teenager and made his first appearance on live television at the age 17 in Baghdad, Iraq. He began singing backup on albums for another Assyrian singer, Albert Ruel Tamras, before starting his career as a solo singer and even did a cover of Albert Ruel Tamras's famous song, \"Asmar, Asmar\" in his 1987 album entitled Way Way Minnakh.\n\nSargon Gabriel has also been featured singing with other famous Assyrian singers including Linda George, and Janan Sawa; in fact, he helped bolster Linda George's singing career when he featured her in the track, \"Dalale\" in his album of the same name released in 1981. He has been singing for over thirty years and has released over twenty albums. His first album was released in 1973. His songs have become very popular in the Assyrian community upon the release of his first albums and his songs are often sung by other musicians at weddings, parties, and other social gatherings.\n\nPersonal life\n\nThe singer currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.[3]\n\nDiscography\n\nYimma Yimma (1973)\n\nAtouraya (1976)\n\nNineveh (1978) (1978)\n\nShlama Aturaya (1980)\n\nDalaleh (1981)\n\nGanta D-Perdeisa (1982)\n\nKhooyada D-Omta (1983)\n\nParzona (1984)\n\nSara (1985)\n\nWay Way Minnakh (1987)\n\nNeqda (1989)\n\nLeeshana D-Yimma (1991)\n\nKertey (1992)\n\nNineveh (1994) (1994)\n\nShooshla (1996)\n\nDarwid (1997)\n\nThe Greatest Songs (1998)\n\nThe Legend Continues (2002)\n\nPerdaisa (2004)\n\nLive In Sydney (2004)\n\nAl Balee (2006)\n\nBassy Bassy (2010)\n\nShoryen Zmara (2012)\n\nReferences\n\n^ https://www.assyrianplaymusic.com/sargongabriel\n\n^ https://www.assyrianplaymusic.com/sargongabriel\n\n^ \"Sargon Gabriel\". Assyrian Play Music. Retrieved 2026-06-12.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website \n\nQeenatha: Sargon Gabriel\n\nAssyrian Interview"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sargon-gabriel"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 321}, {"slug": "reference-ninos-aho", "title": "Ninos Aho", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Ninos Aho (Classical Syriac: ܢܝܢܘܣ ܐܚܐ; April 24, 1945 - July 15, 2013), was an Assyrian poet and activist. He is recognized one of the pioneers of the modern Assyrian nationalistic movement.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ninos Aho\n\nBorn(1945-04-24)April 24, 1945\nGerkeh-Shamo, Syria\n\nDiedJuly 15, 2013(2013-07-15) (aged 68)\nSan Pedro, Los Angeles\n\nOccupationsAssyrian Activist and Poet\n\nNinos Aho (Classical Syriac: ܢܝܢܘܣ ܐܚܐ; April 24, 1945 - July 15, 2013), was an Assyrian poet and activist. He is recognized one of the pioneers of the modern Assyrian nationalistic movement.\n\nBiography\n\nMalfono Ninos Aho was born to an Assyrian family in the small village of Gerkeh-Shamo in Syria. He moved to Qamishli and later to Damascus in order to continue his studies. In 1971, Aho emigrated to the United States. After residing in the United States for twenty years, Malfono Ninos returned to Syria with his wife, Ogareet, and their four children in order to authentically promote his belief in the Assyrian cause. In 2001, Aho and his family returned to the United States when Aho was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, he died due to complications on July 15, 2013, in San Pedro, CA.[1]\n\nWorks and activism\n\nMalfono Ninos Aho was involved in Assyrian nationalist activism at an early age. He joined the Assyrian Democratic Organization in 1961 during an underground assembly. In order to circumvent official crackdown on non-Arab nationalist sentiments he utilized his poems to be recited by local Syriac Orthodox church choirs in order to reach the public.[2] He gained wider popularity after emigrating to the United States and his poems were performed by prominent Middle Eastern musicians such as Ninib A. Lahdo and Wadi al-Safi.[3]\n\nMost of his poems like ''Grain of wheat (ܚܒܬܐ ܕܚܢܛܐ, Ḥabṯo D'Ḥeṭo) were written in Western Syriac vernacular, while others like New Assyrian (ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ܚܕܬܐ, Āturāyā Khātā) in the eastern vernacular.[4]\n\nReferences\n\n^ وداعا نينوس احو…ابن القامشلي البار .. يودع الحرف والقصيدة (in Arabic). Zahrira. 17 July 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.\n\n^ البرازي, فاروق (18 July 2013). رحيل الشاعر السرياني السوري نينوس آحو (in Arabic). Al-Mustaqbal. Retrieved 11 August 2013.\n\n^ \"Anthology of poems by Ninos Aho\". Beth Suryoyo. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2013.\n\n^ وفاة الشاعر الكبير والناشط السياسي نينوس احو (in Arabic). Ishtar TV. 17 July 2013. Retrieved 11 August 2013.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website\n\nThe Ninos Aho Assyrian Poetry Fund - Harvard University"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ninos-aho"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 366}, {"slug": "reference-hannibal-alkhas", "title": "Hannibal Alkhas", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Hannibal Alkhas (Persian: هانیبال الخاص; June 16, 1930 - September 13, 2010) [1] was an artist of Assyrian descent from Iran. Alkhas was among the contemporary Iranian modernist painters and pioneered figurative design in modernist painting, becoming one of the most influential painters and art instructors shaping the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hannibal Alkhas\n\nهانیبال الخاص\n\nBornJune 16, 1930\nKermanshah, Iran\n\nDiedSeptember 13, 2010 (aged 80)\nCalifornia\n\nEducation\nFirooz Bahram High School\n\nSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago\n\nOccupationsPainter, art critic and teacher, translator and writer\n\nPolitical partyTudeh Party of Iran\n\nHannibal Alkhas (Persian: هانیبال الخاص; June 16, 1930 - September 13, 2010) [1] was an artist of Assyrian descent from Iran. Alkhas was among the contemporary Iranian modernist painters and pioneered figurative design in modernist painting, becoming one of the most influential painters and art instructors shaping the course of contemporary Iranian painting. He was active in the teaching of art for thirty-five years.\n\nIn 1986, due to the persecution faced by intellectuals and artists in the 1980s, he left Iran and continued his life in the United States. In later years, he made extended visits to Iran, but did not permanently reside there again. He died in California.\n\nEarly life and background\n\nHannibal Alkhas was born in Kermanshah in 1930 to an Assyrian family; due to his father's job as a customs officer, they moved from one city to another every few years.[2] He completed his secondary education at Firooz Bahram High School.[3]\n\nHis father, Addai Alkhas, and uncle, John Alkhas, were both poets in the Assyrian (Suret) language. Together they founded the Assyrian literary magazine Gilgamesh, which was published from 1952 until 1961. Hannibal Alkhas was the brother of Marduk Al-Khas, a film director and screenwriter who died in 2008.[4]\n\nArtistic education\n\nAt the age of fourteen, he first encountered oil painting through a young man named Alexei Georgievich, who had learned painting in Russia. Hannibal eagerly visited him, cleaned his palette, arranged colors for him, and observed his paintings. According to him, \"Sometimes he would give me paper and colors and say, 'Paint'.\"[1]\n\nLater, he seriously pursued painting under the guidance of Professor Jafar Petgar. He spent two and a half years studying classical painting in Petgar's class before going to the United States. There, he initially enrolled in medical school but abandoned it to study philosophy and then painting. He obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in Illustration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1956 and 1958, respectively.[5]\n\nCareer\n\nOver his career, Alkhas produced hundreds of square meters of paintings on canvas, paper, and murals. He had more than 100 solo exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions in Iran, Europe, Canada, America, and Australia.[6] For more than thirty-five years he worked in art education and teaching. While heavily involved in art instruction, art criticism, and in artist organizations and promotion, his painting consistently cast its artistic shadow over his other endeavors. Besides his dedication to painting, Hannibal Alkhas had a love for poetry, writing and translating many works.\n\nTeaching\n\nAlkhas taught at the Boys' Art School, the School of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran, the Monticello School in Illinois, United States, and the Islamic Azad University. Hannibal Alkhas authored four books on art education and designed covers for dozens of books. He was an active member of various sessions of the two-year course, \"Contemporary Iranian Painting\" in the 50s and 60s.\nHis notable students include Bahram Dabiri and Mohammad Ali Baniasadi.\n\nArt scene\n\nAfter returning to Iran in his early 40s, he was introduced to the country's literary society, through Jalal Al-e Ahmad. He joined the active intellectuals of the country and maintained these relationships until the end of his life.\n\nHe managed the Gilgamesh Gallery for two years. For four years in the 1970s, he wrote art critiques for the Kayhan newspaper.\n\nAfter the revolution, he joined the Iranian Society of Artists and Writers, becoming a member of its executive board in 1979. Alongside other artists with a tendency towards the Tudeh Party, in 1985 he painted the walls of the United States Embassy in Tehran - at the time occupied by followers of Imam's Line - with anti-imperialist designs and images.\n\nWorks\n\nAlkhas has created thousands of paintings, including large and small canvases, 300 square meters of murals, and three 15-piece and four 8-piece curtains. One of his most important works is the 15-piece painting \"Creation.\" In 2002, at the age of 80, he celebrated 50 years of his paintings in the Azadi Museum.\n\nApart from painting, he was involved in literature. He wrote thousands of couplets, quatrains, haikus, odes, epics, and ghazals. He translated 150 ghazals of Hafez into Assyrian with rhyme, rhythm, meaning, and humor, accompanied by over 50 images of his works. He also translated works from Nima Youshij, Iraj Mirza, Mirzadeh Eshghi, and Parvin E'tesami into Assyrian. His letters from exile to the poet M. Azad (Mahmoud Mosharraf Azad Tehrani) were published in 1999, titled From Exile with Love.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"In Memory of Hannibal\". Jadid Online (in Persian). September 15, 2010. Archived from the original on September 19, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2010.\n\n^ \"هانیبال الخاص نقاش ایرانی درگذشت\" [Iranian painter Hannibal Alkhas dies]. BBC News: Persian (in Persian). September 15, 2010. Retrieved September 15, 2010.\n\n^ Mohammad Reza Niknejad (September 6, 2014). \"جورچین خوش آب و رنگ فرهنگی!\" [Colorful and beautiful culture!]. Shahrvand Newspaper (in Persian). No. 372. p. 20. Retrieved February 1, 2015. Firuz Bahram is a prominent and longstanding high school under the supervision of the Zoroastrian Association of Iran with more than 80 years of valuable efforts in the field of education in the country. Featuring the stars of Iraj Afshar, Parviz Shahriari, Ahmad Shamlou, Zabihollah Safa, and Hannibal Al-Khas ... [...] The current high school students are a mixture of Zoroastrian and Armenian compatriots. [Quoted text is a machine translation from the Persian] Direct article link.\n\n^ Safarian, Robert (July 6, 2013). \"آل احمد درباره ارامنه\" [Al-Ahmad on Armenians]. Reviews and Writings by Robert Safarian (in Persian).\n\n^ \"هانيبال الخاص درگذشت\" [Hannibal Alkhas dies]. Radio Zamaneh News (in Persian). September 15, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2010.\n\n^ \"هانیبال الخاص در 80 سالگی درگذشت\" [Hannibal El-Khas dies at 80]. Khabar Online (in Persian). September 15, 2010. Retrieved September 13, 2010.\n\nFurther reading\n\n\"Gilgamesh'. Volume IV: 54-70 (1957-1961)\". Nineveh Press. Current publishers' description of magazine founded by father and uncle of Alkhas\n\n\"The story of Badri by the late John Alkhas\". Mesopotamian Night. Translated by Arianne Ishaya. July 17, 2015. Archived from the original on September 24, 2023. Retrieved March 18, 2024.: Translation of the Tragedy of Badri (part 1), a 1953 work by Alkhas' uncle"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hannibal-alkhas"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1062}, {"slug": "reference-ashurbanipal", "title": "Ashurbanipal", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Ashurbanipal[a] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒆕𒀀, romanized: Aššur-bāni-apli,[12][b] meaning \"Ashur is the creator of the heir\")[3][14] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BC to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria.[8][15] Ashurbanipal inherited the throne as his father Esarhaddon‘s...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashurbanipal\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the Lands\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nAshurbanipal, closeup from the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign669-631 BC[1][2][3]\n\nPredecessorEsarhaddon\n\nSuccessorAshur-etil-ilani\n\nBornc. 685 BC[4]\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nDied631 BC[5] (aged c. 53/54)\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nSpouseLibbali-sharrat\n\nIssueAshur-etil-ilani\nSinsharishkun\nNinurta-sharru-usur\n\nAkkadianAššur-bāni-apli\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherEsarhaddon\n\nMotherEsharra-hammat (?)\n\nAshurbanipal[a] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒆕𒀀, romanized: Aššur-bāni-apli,[12][b] meaning \"Ashur is the creator of the heir\")[3][14] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BC to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria.[8][15] Ashurbanipal inherited the throne as his father Esarhaddon‘s favored heir; his 38-year reign was among the longest of any Assyrian king.[c] Though sometimes regarded as the apogee of ancient Assyria, his reign also marked the last time Assyrian armies waged war throughout the ancient Near East and the beginning of the end of Assyrian dominion over the region.\n\nEsarhaddon selected Ashurbanipal as heir c. 673. The selection of Ashurbanipal bypassed the elder son Shamash-shum-ukin. Perhaps in order to avoid future rivalry, Esarhaddon designated Shamash-shum-ukin as the heir to Babylonia. The two brothers jointly ascended to their respective thrones after Esarhaddon's death in 669, though Shamash-shum-ukin was relegated to being Ashurbanipal's closely monitored vassal. Much of the early years of Ashurbanipal's reign was spent fighting rebellions in Egypt, which had been conquered by his father. The most extensive campaigns of Ashurbanipal were those directed towards Elam, an ancient enemy of Assyria, and against Shamash-shum-ukin, who gradually began to resent the overbearing control that his younger brother held over him. Elam was defeated in a series of conflicts in 665, 653 and 647-646. Shamash-shum-ukin rebelled in 652 and assembled a coalition of Assyria's enemies but was defeated and died during Ashurbanipal's siege of Babylon in 648. On account of a lack of surviving records, much of Ashurbanipal's late reign is poorly known.\n\nAshurbanipal is chiefly remembered today for his cultural efforts. A patron of artwork and literature, Ashurbanipal was deeply interested in the ancient literary culture of Mesopotamia. Over the course of his long reign, Ashurbanipal utilized the massive resources at his disposal to construct the Library of Ashurbanipal, a collection of texts and documents of various different genres. Perhaps comprising over 100,000 texts at its height, the Library of Ashurbanipal was not surpassed until the construction of the Library of Alexandria, several centuries later. The more than 30,000 cuneiform texts that have survived from the library are a highly important source on ancient Mesopotamian language, religion, literature and science. Artwork produced under Ashurbanipal was innovative in style and motifs and is regarded to possess an \"epic quality\" otherwise absent from much of the art produced under previous kings.\n\nAshurbanipal is recognized as one of the most brutal Assyrian kings; he was one of the few rulers to boast of his gory massacres of rebellious civilians. His extensive destruction of Elam has been described as a genocide. The Assyrians won many battles under Ashurbanipal, campaigning further from the Assyrian heartland than ever before, but several of his campaigns achieved little strategic advantage. Ashurbanipal failed to maintain control of Egypt, and his wars in Arabia cost time and resources without establishing longterm Assyrian control. His extensive sack of Babylon after defeating Shamash-shum-ukin weakened the resources of the empire and fanned anti-Assyrian sentiment in southern Mesopotamia, perhaps contributing to the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire five years after Ashurbanipal's death. Whether Ashurbanipal's policies led to the fall of the Assyrian Empire only two decades after his death is disputed in modern Assyriology.\n\nA distorted legend of Ashurbanipal was remembered in Greco-Roman literary tradition under the name Sardanapalus, purportedly the effeminate and decadent last king of Assyria whose vices led to the fall of his empire.\n\nBackground and accession\n\nBecoming the heir to Assyria\n\nBorn c. 685 BC, Ashurbanipal succeeded his father Esarhaddon (r. 681-669).[4] Though Ashurbanipal's inscriptions suggest that he was divinely preordained to rule, his accession was far from straightforward, and its political complexities sowed the seeds for later civil war.[3] Ashurbanipal was probably Esarhaddon's fourth eldest son, younger than Esarhaddon's first crown prince Sin-nadin-apli and the other two sons Shamash-shum-ukin and Shamash-metu-uballit.[17] He also had an older sister, Serua-eterat, and several younger brothers.[18]\n\nThe Assyrian court was thrown into upheaval upon the unexpected death of Sin-nadin-apli in 674. Esarhaddon's own father Sennacherib had bypassed Esarhaddon's elder brother Arda-Mulissu for the crown, and the rejected heir had murdered Sennacherib, with Esarhaddon winning the ensuing civil war. After the death of his own heir, Esarhaddon quickly made new succession plans,[19] naming his younger son Ashurbanipal as primary heir and emperor of Assyria, and his eldest surviving son Shamash-shum-ukin as king of Babylon (southern Mesopotamia), with the two to rule as \"equal brothers\".[16] He entirely bypassed his third eldest son, Shamash-metu-uballit, older than Ashurbanipal, perhaps because of poor health.[20]\n\nScholars have speculated at Esarhaddon's reasons for the divided succession, which broke with the Assyrian tradition of unitary rule.[16][21] The arrangement might have been intended to assuage the elder Shamash-shum-ukin's jealousy toward his younger brother Ashurbanipal, avoiding future rivalry.[16][22] One hypothesis is that Ashurbanipal's mother was Assyrian while Shamash-shum-ukin's was Babylonian, which might have disfavored him for the Assyrian throne.[23] However, it is equally likely that the two heirs shared a mother, possibly Esharra-hammat (Esarhaddon's primary consort).[24][25]\n\nThe two princes arrived at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh together and partook in a celebration[26] in May 672[27] with foreign representatives, Assyrian nobles and military commanders.[26] Since the name Ashurbanipal (Aššur-bāni-apli) means \"Ashur is the creator of the heir\", it was likely bestowed at this time, while his previous name is unknown.[3] It was also perhaps around this time that Ashurbanipal married his future queen, Libbali-sharrat.[27]\n\nCrown prince and accession\n\nAshurbanipal entered the \"House of Succession\", the palace of the crown prince. He began training for his duties as ruler, learning hunting, riding, scholarship and wisdom, archery, chariotry, and other military arts.[28] Because his father Esarhaddon was constantly ill during his last few years, much of the administration of the empire fell upon Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin.[21] Letters between the two heirs from this time show that Ashurbanipal managed the empire's intelligence network, gathering strategic information from abroad and compiling reports for his father.[28]\n\nAshurbanipal became king of Assyria in late 669 following Esarhaddon's death, having been crown prince for only three years.[3][5] He mounted to what may have been the most powerful throne on Earth,[3] but his sovereignty may not have been secure. His grandmother Naqi'a wrote the Zakutu Treaty, which bound the royal family, aristocracy, and all Assyria to swear loyalty to Ashurbanipal.[29] There however appears to have been no strong opposition to Ashurbanipal's rise to power.[30] Shamash-shum-ukin was somewhat belatedly crowned king of Babylon in the spring of the next year. His coronation was marked by Ashurbanipal's gift of the sacred Statue of Marduk, stolen from Babylon by Sennacherib twenty years before. Shamash-shum-ukin would rule Babylon for sixteen years, apparently without open conflict with his younger brother, but there would be repeated disagreements on the extent of his independence.[5]\n\nEsarhaddon's succession decrees equivocated on the balance of power between the two heirs. Ashurbanipal was the primary heir to the empire, and Shamash-shum-ukin was to swear allegiance to him, but Ashurbanipal was not to interfere in Shamash-shum-ukin's affairs.[31] Ashurbanipal shifted the balance of power in his own favor, perhaps fearing that true independence would give his older brother the means to threaten his rule.[32]\n\nMilitary campaigns\n\nEgyptian campaigns\n\nIn 671 Ashurbanipal's father Esarhaddon conquered Egypt, defeating the Kushite Pharaoh Taharqa, the first time Egypt had been under Assyrian rule.[33] It was Esarhaddon's greatest triumph and brought the Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent.[34] Assyrian control of Egypt was weak, however, as Taharqa retreated south to Nubia and schemed to retake his lands. Esarhaddon sent troops to garrison Egyptian cities and appointed local Egyptian nobles as vassal rulers of the country.[33] In 669, Taharqa led Egypt in a revolt against Assyria,[33][35] and Esarhaddon left Nineveh to meet the threat, but fell ill and died on the way. The campaign lapsed while Ashurbanipal was succeeding to his father's throne, and many of the Egyptian vassal rulers joined the revolt to expel the foreign conquerors. After they massacred the Assyrian garrison in Memphis, Ashurbanipal sent an army against the rebels.[33]\n\nOn their way to Egypt, the Assyrian army collected tribute and military reinforcements from the various Levantine vassal states, including Manasseh of Judah and various rulers from Cyprus. The expeditionary forces fought their way through Egypt, winning a decisive battle at Kar-Banitu in Lower Egypt. According to Assyrian sources, Taharqa and his supporters fled from Memphis to Thebes, then escaped back to Nubia, and the Assyrian army re-occupied Memphis.[33] Some conspirators who had remained at Memphis, including the local vassal ruler Necho I, were taken back to Assyria, and after swearing new oaths of loyalty were unexpectedly allowed to return and resume their posts in Egypt.[37][38]\n\nAfter Taharqa's death in 664, his nephew Tantamani proclaimed himself pharaoh and invaded Egypt, swiftly gained control of Thebes, and marched on Memphis. Ashurbanipal once again sent the Assyrian army. By Ashurbanipal's account, Tantamani fled south as soon as the Assyrian army entered Egypt. In retaliation for the repeated rebellion, the Assyrians heavily plundered Thebes.[37] The sacking was the most serious calamity ever to befall the ancient city, one of the major political and religious centers in Egypt. The city might have been razed to the ground but for the skillful diplomacy of its governor Mentuemhat.[39] Tantamani was not pursued beyond the Egyptian border. Upon the return of the Assyrian army to Nineveh, spoils from Thebes were paraded through the streets and many treasures and obelisks were refashioned to incorporate into for Ashurbanipal's projects.[37]\n\nInitial Elamite conflicts\n\nIn 665, the Elamite king Urtak, who had kept peaceful relations with Esarhaddon, launched a surprise attack against Babylonia. Urtak was successfully driven back into Elam, dying shortly thereafter. He was succeeded as Elamite king by Teumman, who was unrelated to the previous monarch and had to stabilize his rule by killing his political rivals. Three of Urtak's sons, chief rival claimants to the Elamite throne, escaped to Assyria and were harbored by Ashurbanipal, despite Teumman demanding them to be returned to Elam.[40]\n\nFollowing the 665 victory over the Elamites, Ashurbanipal had to deal with a series of revolts within his own borders. Bel-iqisha, chieftain of the Gambulians (an Aramean tribe) in Babylonia, rebelled after he had been implicated as supporting the Elamite invasion and was forced to relinquish some of his authority. Little is known of this revolt, but there is a letter preserved in which Ashurbanipal orders the governor of Uruk, Nabu-usabsi,[d] to attack Bel-iqisha. Nabu-usabsi apparently claimed that Bel-iqisha was solely to blame for the Elamite invasion.[42] Bel-iqisha's revolt does not appear to have caused much damage and he was killed shortly after revolting by a boar. Shortly thereafter in 663, Bel-iqisha's son Dunanu also surrendered to Ashurbanipal.[43]\n\nAfter a long period of peace, Teumman attacked Babylonia in 653.[44] Because Ashurbanipal had not entrusted Shamash-shum-ukin with any substantial military forces, he was unable to defend Babylonia against the Elamite invasion and the latter had to rely on Ashurbanipal for military support.[45] Ashurbanipal's army first advanced south and secured the city of Der. Though Teumman marched to meet the Assyrians, he soon changed his mind and fell back to the Elamite capital of Susa. The final battle in the war with Teumman, the Battle of Ulai, took place near Susa and was a decisive Assyrian victory, partly due to defections in the Elamite army. Teumann was killed in the battle, as was one of his vassals, Shutruk-Nahhunte of Hidalu. In the aftermath of his victory, Ashurbanipal installed two of Urtak's sons as rulers, proclaiming Ummanigash as king at Madaktu and Susa and Tammaritu I as king at Hidalu.[44] This intervention into the Elamite succession weakened both Elamite opposition towards Assyria and Elamite royal authority.[46] In his inscriptions, Ashurbanipal described his victory at Ulai with the following account:\n\nLike the onset of a terrible hurricane I overwhelmed Elam in its entirety. I cut off the head of Teumann, their king, - the haughty one, who plotted evil. Countless of his warriors I slew. Alive, with my hands, I seized his fighters. With their corpses I filled the plain about Susa as with baltu and ashagu.[e] Their blood I let run down the Ulai; its water I dyed red like wool.[47]\n\nDunanu, who had joined the Elamites in the war, was captured alongside his family and executed. The Gambulians were attacked by Ashurbanipal's army and brutally punished, with their capital of Shapibel being flooded and many of its inhabitants slaughtered. In Dananu's stead, Ashurbanipal appointed a noble called Rimutu as the new Gambulian chieftain after he had agreed to pay a considerable sum in tribute to the Assyrian king.[43]\n\nDiplomacy and incursions into Assyria\n\nThe Cimmerians, a nomadic Indo-European people living in the southern Caucasus directly northeast of Assyria, had invaded Assyria during the reign of Ashurbanipal's father. After Esarhaddon defeated them, the Cimmerians turned to attack Lydia in western Anatolia, ruled by Gyges. After allegedly receiving advice from the Assyrian national deity Ashur in a dream, Gyges sent his diplomats to ask Ashurbanipal for assistance. The Assyrians did not even know that Lydia existed; after the two states successfully established communication with the help of interpreters, the Cimmerian invasion of Lydia was defeated c.  665. Two Cimmerian chiefs were imprisoned in Nineveh and large amounts of spoils were secured by Ashurbanipal's forces. The extent to which the Assyrian army was involved in the Lydian campaign is unknown, but it appears that Gyges was disappointed with the help since he just twelve years later broke his alliance with Ashurbanipal and allied with the increasingly independent Egypt instead. After this, Ashurbanipal cursed Gyges. When Lydia was overrun by its enemies c.  652-650 there was much rejoicing in Assyria.[48]\n\nWhile the Assyrian forces were on campaign in Elam, an alliance of Persians, Cimmerians and Medes marched on Nineveh and managed to reach the city's walls. To counteract this threat, Ashurbanipal called on Assyria´s longtime ally, the Indo-Aryan (Iranic) Scythian allies, and the Assyrians and Scythians successfully defeated the enemy army. The Median king, Phraortes, is generally held to have been killed in the fighting. This attack is poorly documented and it is possible that Phraortes was not present at all and his unfortunate death instead belongs to a Median campaign during the reign of one of Ashurbanipal's successors.[48]\n\nAfter his death c.  652, Gyges was succeeded by his son Ardys. Because the Scythians had driven the Cimmerians from their homes, the Cimmerians invaded Lydia again and successfully captured of the kingdom. As his father had before him, Ardys also sent for aid from Ashurbanipal, stating that \"You cursed my father and bad luck befell him; but bless me, your humble servant, and I will carry your yoke\". It is unknown if any Assyrian aid arrived, but Lydia was successfully freed from the Cimmerians. They would not be driven out of Lydia completely until the reign of Ardys's grandson Alyattes.[48]\n\nCivil war with Shamash-shum-ukin\n\nRising tensions and rebellion\n\nAlthough Esarhaddon's inscriptions suggest that Shamash-shum-ukin should have been granted the entirety of Babylonia to rule, contemporary records only definitely prove that Shamash-shum-ukin held Babylon itself and its vicinity. The governors of some Babylonian cities, such as Nippur, Uruk and Ur, and the rulers in the Sea Land, all ignored the existence of a king in Babylon and saw Ashurbanipal as their monarch.[43] Despite this, Shamash-shum-ukin had initially been positively inclined towards his brother, viewing him as his equal. In letters, Shamash-shum-ukin addressed Ashurbanipal simply as \"my brother\" (unlike how he addressed his father Esarhaddon, \"the king, my father\"). Although there are several letters preserved from Shamash-shum-ukin to Ashurbanipal, there are no known replies. It is possible that Ashurbanipal, on account of his network of informers, did not feel a need to write to his brother.[49] By the 650s, Shamash-shum-ukin's opinion of Ashurbanipal had significantly deteriorated, owing to the increasing intervention and involvement of Ashurbanipal in Babylonian affairs, Ashurbanipal often delaying when help was needed,[50] and growing dissatisfaction with his position relative to that of Ashurbanipal.[51] A letter written during this time by Zakir, a courtier at Shamash-shum-ukin's court, to Ashurbanipal described how visitors from the Sea Land had publicly criticized Ashurbanipal in front of Shamash-shum-ukin, using the phrase \"this is not the word of a king!\". Zakir reported that though Shamash-shum-ukin was angered, he and his governor of Babylon, Ubaru, chose to not take action against the visitors.[52]\n\nAspiring to become independent of Ashurbanipal and free Babylonia under his own rule,[50] Shamash-shum-ukin revolted in 652.[5][50] According to later Aramaic-language legends, Ashurbanipal's and Shamash-shum-ukin's sister Serua-eterat attempted to intervene and stop the two from fighting; after the war broke out the legends hold that she disappeared into self-imposed exile.[53][54] The war between the brothers lasted for three years.[5] In addition to resenting Ashurbanipal's overbearing control, Shamash-shum-ukin's revolt was also facilitated by the certainty of support in the south: the Babylonians constantly resented Assyrian control and the rulers of Elam were certain allies, always willing to join anyone who waged war against Assyria.[51] Inscription evidence suggests that Shamash-shum-ukin addressed the citizens of Babylon to join him in his revolt. In Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, Shamash-shum-ukin is quoted to have said \"Ashurbanipal will cover with shame the name of the Babylonians\", which Ashurbanipal refers to as \"wind\" and \"lies\". Soon after Shamash-shum-ukin began his revolt, the rest of southern Mesopotamia rose up against Ashurbanipal alongside him.[55] The beginning of Ashurbanipal's account of the conflict reads as follows:\n\nIn these days Shamash-shum-ukin, the faithless brother of mine, whom I had treated well and had set up as king of Babylon, - every imaginable thing that kingship calls for, I made and gave him; soldiers, horses, chariots, I equipped and put into his hands; cities, fields, plantations, together with the people who live therein, I gave him in larger numbers than my father had ordered. But he forgot this kindness I had shown him and planned evil. Outwardly, with his lips, he was speaking fair words while inwardly his heart was designing murder. The Babylonians, who had been loyal to Assyria and faithful vassals of mine, he deceived, speaking lies to them.[56]\n\nAccording to the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Shamash-shum-ukin was very successful in finding allies. Ashurbanipal identified three groups who aided his brother: first and foremost there were the Chaldeans, Arameans and the other peoples of Babylonia, then there were the Elamites, and lastly the kings of Gutium, Amurru and Meluhha. It has been theorized by scholars that \"Gutium\" refers to the Medes (as Gutium no longer existed at this point) but this is uncertain. Meluhha might have referred to Egypt, though the Egyptians are not documented for certain to have aided Shamash-shum-ukin in the war. Shamash-shum-ukin's ambassadors to the Elamites had offered gifts (called \"bribes\" by Ashurbanipal) and their king, Ummanigash, sent an army under the command of Undashe, the son of Teumman, to aid in the conflict.[57] For the first two years of the conflict, battles were fought all across Babylonia, some won by the Assyrians and some won by Shamash-shum-ukin and his allies. The war quickly turned chaotic; several minor players repeatedly changed sides and both Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin found it difficult to keep track of their allies. Among the most notorious double agents were Nabu-bel-shumati, a governor of the far south in Babylonia whose repeated betrayals enraged Ashurbanipal.[58]\n\nFall of Shamash-shum-ukin\n\nDespite this seemingly strong alliance of Assyrian enemies, Shamash-shum-ukin failed to halt Ashurbanipal's advance.[5][59] As the war progressed, his forces were slowly defeated, his allies diminished and his lands were lost.[50] By 650 the situation looked grim, with Ashurbanipal's forces having besieged Sippar, Borsippa, Kutha and Babylon itself.[5][59] During Ashurbanipal's siege of Babylon, the city entered into a period of famine. Ashurbanipal's account of the siege claimed that some of the citizens grew so hungry and desperate that they ate their own children.[60] Having endured both starvation and disease, Babylon fell in 648, after a siege lasting two years.[5][59] The city was extensively plundered by Ashurbanipal. According to his own inscriptions, Ashurbanipal initiated a bloodbath: \"their carved up bodies I fed to dogs, to pigs, to wolves, to eagles, to birds of the heavens, to fishes of the deep\".[60] At the time of the city's fall, a great fire also spread within Babylon.[50] Shamash-shum-ukin is traditionally believed to have committed suicide by stepping into the flames, or by setting himself and his family on fire in his palace.[5][59] Contemporary texts however only say that he \"met a cruel death\" and that the gods \"consigned him to a fire and destroyed his life\". In addition to suicide through self-immolation or other means, it is possible that he was executed, died accidentally or was killed in some other way.[61] If Shamash-shum-ukin was executed, it would be logical for the Assyrian scribes to leave this out of historical records since fratricide (killing a brother) was illegal and even if a soldier (and not Ashurbanipal) had carried it out, it would still constitute a murder of a member of the Assyrian royal family.[62]\n\nAfter Shamash-shum-ukin's defeat, Ashurbanipal appointed a new vassal king of Babylon, Kandalanu, of whom little is known. Kandalanu's realm was the same as Shamash-shum-ukin's with the exception of the city of Nippur, which Ashurbanipal converted into a powerful Assyrian fortress.[5] The authority of Kandalanu is likely to have been very limited and few records survive of his reign at Babylon. He might have been another one of Ashurbanipal's brothers or perhaps a Babylonian noble who had allied with Ashurbanipal in the civil war and had consequently been rewarded with the rank of king. Kandalanu probably lacked any true political and military power, which was instead firmly in the hands of Ashurbanipal.[63]\n\nDue to the defeat and death of a member of the Assyrian royal family,[62] the defeat of Shamash-shum-ukin was Ashurbanipal's most problematic victory.[64] The civil war also had significant broader consequences impacting Assyrian dominion. Though Babylonia slowly recovered after the war, the war exhausted economic resources and decreased the power and authority of the Assyrian Empire. Signs of decline had already been visible before the civil war but its conclusion is regarded by modern historians to mark the end of the height of Assyrian authority.[50] Ashurbanipal's sack of Babylon, the second extensive sack of the city in thirty years, also fanned anti-Assyrian sentiment in southern Babylonia and might thus have been a decisive factor in the Babylonian revolt by Nabopolassar a few years after Ashurbanipal's death, which led to the formation of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the fall of Assyria.[65]\n\nDestruction of Elam\n\nThe Elamite effort to support Shamash-shum-ukin in the civil war had largely come to an end with the early defeat of Ummanigash's army near the city of Der. As a result of Ummanigash's defeat, he was deposed in Elam by Tammaritu II, who then took the throne for himself. Ummanigash fled to the Assyrian court where he was granted asylum by Ashurbanipal. Tammaritu II's rule was brief and despite success in some battles against the Assyrians, alongside the rogue governor Nabu-bel-shumati (already notorious for his role in the war with Shamash-shum-ukin), he was deposed in another revolt in 649. The new king, Indabibi, had an extremely brief reign and was murdered after Ashurbanipal threatened to invade Elam again because of the kingdom's role in supporting Shamash-shum-ukin and his other enemies.[46]\n\nIn Indabibi's stead, Humban-haltash III became king in Elam. Nabu-bel-shumati continued fighting against Ashurbanipal from outposts within Elam and though Humban-haltash was in favor of giving up the Chaldean rebel, Nabu-bel-shumati had too many supporters in Elam in order for this to go through. Because Humban-haltash could thus not respond to Ashurbanipal's threats, the Assyrians invaded Elam again in 647. After the Elamite defense collapsed, Humban-haltash abandoned his seat at Madaktu and fled into the mountains.[46] He was briefly replaced as king by Tammaritu II, who regained his throne. After the Assyrians had plundered the region of Khuzestan they returned home, prompting Humban-haltash to reemerge from the mountains and retake the throne.[66]\n\nThe Assyrians returned to Elam in 646 and Humban-haltash again abandoned Madaktu, fleeing first to the city Dur-Untash and then into the mountains in eastern Elam. Ashurbanipal's forces pursued him, plundering and razing cities on their way. All major political centers in Elam were crushed and nearby chiefdoms and petty kingdoms who had previously paid tribute to the Elamite king began paying tribute to Ashurbanipal instead. Among these kingdoms was Parsua, possibly a predecessor of the empire that would be founded by the Achaemenids a century later.[66] Parsua's king, Cyrus (possibly the same person as Cyrus I, the grandfather of Cyrus the Great), had originally sided with the Elamites at the beginning of the campaign, and had thus been forced to supply his son Arukku as a hostage. Countries which had never previously had contact with the Assyrians, such as a kingdom ruled by a king called Ḫudimiri which \"extended beyond Elam\", also began paying tribute to the Assyrians for the first time.[48]\n\nOn their way back from their campaign, the Assyrian forces brutally plundered Susa. In Ashurbanipal's triumphant inscriptions detailing the sack it is described in great detail, recounting how the Assyrians desecrated the royal tombs, looted and razed temples, stole the statues of the Elamite gods and sowed salt in the ground.[66] The ancient Elamite capital was wiped off the face of the earth and Ashurbanipal then continued with the destruction of Elamite settlements on a massive scale.[67] In addition to the destruction of numerous cities, thousands of those Elamites who were not killed were deported away from their homeland.[60] Ashurbanipal's brutal suppression of Elam is sometimes considered a genocide.[68] The detail and length of Ashurbanipal's inscriptions concerning the destructions suggest that the events were meant to shock the world, signalling the defeat and eradication of the Elamites as a distinct cultural entity.[66]\n\nSusa, the great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered according to the word of Ashur and Ishtar. I entered its palaces, I dwelt there in rejoicing; I opened the treasures where silver and gold, goods and wealth were amassed [...] the treasures of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon that the ancient kings of Elam had looted and carried away [...]. I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa [...]; I smashed its shining copper horns. [In]shushinak, god of the oracles, who resides in secret places, where no man sees his divine nature [along with the gods that surround him], with their jewelry, their wealth, their furniture, with the priests, I brought as booty to the land of Ashur [...]. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their gods, their goddesses, I scattered to the winds. The secret groves where no outsider had ever penetrated, where no layman had ever trod, my soldiers entered, they saw their mysteries, they destroyed them by fire. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings who had not feared [the goddess] Ishtar, my lady, and who were the cause of torments to the kings, my fathers-those tombs I devastated, I destroyed, I exposed to the sun and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur. [...] I devastated the provinces of Elam and [on their lands] I spread salt [...].[69]\n\nDespite the thorough and brutal campaign, the Elamites endured as a political entity for some time.[70] Ashurbanipal did not annex Elam, instead leaving it to its own devices.[60] Humban-haltash returned to rule at Madaktu and (belatedly) sent Nabu-bel-shumati to Ashurbanipal, though the Chaldean committed suicide on his way to Nineveh. After Humban-haltash was deposed, captured and sent to the Assyrians in a revolt shortly thereafter, Assyrian records cease to speak of Elam.[70] Elam was ultimately unable to ever fully recover from Ashurbanipal's efforts in 646 and was left open to attack from tribes and kings in the surrounding lands, eventually disappearing altogether from the historical record.[60]\n\nArabian campaigns\n\nAssyrian interests in the Levant and other western territories were at times challenged on account of Arab tribal groups raiding Assyrian territories or disrupting trade. On occasion, the Assyrian army intervened, deposing and replacing problematic tribal rulers.[71] Ashurbanipal oversaw two campaigns against Arab tribes, though their chronology is somewhat uncertain and his narrative of these conflicts was altered over the course of his later reign. The Arabian campaigns have received relatively little attention from modern historians but they are the conflicts with the most lengthy and detailed accounts in Ashurbanipal's own writings.[72]\n\nAshurbanipal's first campaign against the Arabs was conducted some time before the war with Shamash-shum-ukin, primarily against the Qedarites.[71] Ashurbanipal's earliest account of his campaign against the Qedarites was created in 649 BC and describes how Yauta, son of Ḫazaʾil, king of the Qedarites, revolted against Ashurbanipal together with another Arab king, Ammuladdin, and plundered the western lands of the Assyrian Empire. According to Ashurbanipal's account, the Assyrian army, together with the army of Kamas-halta of Moab, defeated the rebel forces. Ammuladdin was captured and sent in chains to Assyria but Yauta escaped. In the place of Yauta a loyal Arabian warlord called Abiyate was granted kingship of the Qedarites. Ashurbanipal's account of this conflict is markedly different from the accounts of his other campaigns: the phrase \"in my nth campaign\" (otherwise always used) is missing, the defeat of the enemy is explicitly attributed to the army rather than to Ashurbanipal personally, and Yauta escapes rather than being captured and/or executed.[73] A second version of the narrative, composed a year later, also includes that Ashurbanipal defeated Adiya, a queen of the Arabs, and that Yauta fled to another chieftain, Natnu of the Nabayyate, who refused him and remained loyal to Ashurbanipal. Even later versions of the narrative also include mentions of how Yauta previously revolted against Esarhaddon, years prior. These later accounts also explicitly connect Yauta's rebellion to the revolt of Shamash-shum-ukin, placing it at the same time and suggesting that the western raids by the Arabs were prompted by the instability caused by the Assyrian civil war.[74] In both accounts, the Qedarite lands were thoroughly plundered at the conclusion of the war.[71]\n\nSome of the Arab tribal leaders joined Shamash-shum-ukin in the Assyrian civil war. Among them were Abiyate, made king by Ashurbanipal's forces, and his brother Aya-ammu, who sent soldiers to Babylonia. Because of Ashurbanipal's focus on Elam, they initially escaped retaliation and punishment. As the Elamite wars dragged on, several Arab rulers ceased to pay tribute to Ashurbanipal and began raiding nearby Assyrian settlements, severely disrupting trade. This development proved enough for Ashurbanipal's generals to organize a major campaign to restore order.[75] Ashurbanipal's account of this conflict largely concerns the movements of his army through Syria in search of Uiate (conflated with Yauta but possibly a different person) and his Arabian soldiers. According to the account, the Assyrian army marched from Syria to Damascus and then on to Hulhuliti, after which they captured Abiyate and defeated Uššo and Akko.[76] The Assyrians were reportedly faced with great difficulties during this war on account of the unfamiliar and hostile terrain.[75] The Nabayyate, who had aided Ashurbanipal in the previous campaign, are mentioned as being defeated in the second war against the Arabs, without any further information on what had led to the change in their relationship between the two campaigns.[76] The last known version of the Arabian narrative specifies the two campaigns as together composing Ashurbanipal's ninth campaign and further expands them with more details. In this version, Abiyate and Ammuladdin are specified to have joined Shamash-shum-ukin. Ashurbanipal is in this version also for the first time personally credited with the victories of the campaign. This later version also states that Uiate was captured and paraded in Nineveh together with prisoners captured during the wars in Elam,[77] that Uiate was hitched up to Ashurbanipal's chariot like a horse, and that Aya-ammu was flayed alive.[75]\n\nSupposedly spoils brought back from the Arabian campaigns were so extensive that they caused inflation in the Assyrian Empire and famine in Arabia.[77] Despite this, and despite being impressive in the sense that no previous Assyrian ruler had campaigned against the Arabs with the same vigor, Ashurbanipal's Arabian campaigns are sometimes assessed as a strategic blunder. The two wars were time-consuming, wasted valuable resources and failed to consolidate Assyrian rule over any of the lands they took place in.[65]\n\nLate reign and succession\n\nThe end of Ashurbanipal's reign and the beginning of the reign of his son and successor, Ashur-etil-ilani, is shrouded in mystery on account of a lack of available sources.[78] Events in Ashurbanipal's reign after 649 are relatively poorly recorded since the secure eponym canon (known Assyrian year names) ends in that year. After 639, only two inscriptions by Ashurbanipal are known, a sharp contrast to the abundant records known from previous years. This scarcity of documentation might reflect the beginning of a serious internal political crisis.[65] Ashurbanipal's late reign appears to have seen a growing disconnect between the king and the traditional elite of the empire. Ashurbanipal heavily promoted eunuchs to prominent positions, to the detriment of the nobility and aristocracy. At some point late in his reign, the chief singer, Bullutu, was made eponym, an unprecedented[65] and perhaps self-indulgent move.[79] Some Assyriologists, such as Eckart Frahm, have drawn parallels between the sparse evidence from Ashurbanipal's late reign and Sardanapalus, in Greco-Roman literary tradition the decadent last king of Assyria, based on Ashurbanipal.[65] Ashurbanipal himself recognized that he had failed to maintain the durability of the Assyrian Empire. In one of his final known inscriptions, saddened and faced with his own mortality due to illness, lamented the state of his empire.[80] This inscription reads:\n\nI cannot do away with the strife in my country and the dissensions in my family; disturbing scandals oppress me always. Illness of mind and flesh bow me down; with cries of woe I bring my days to an end. On the day of the city god, the day of the festival, I am wretched; death is seizing hold upon me, and bears me down...[80]\n\nIn addition to internal strife, it is clear that the hold of the Assyrian Empire on its peripheral regions had severely weakened by the end of Ashurbanipal's reign. Some peripheral lands had regained independence; there was for instance no longer an Assyrian presence in the southern Levant, where the Egyptians had instead become the hegemonic power.[81] Ashurbanipal's late reign may have also seen the beginning of rebellious movements in Babylonia (precursors of that of Nabopolassar). Egypt already regained independence in the middle of Ashurbanipal's reign.[80] Egypt appears to have been liberated peacefully and gradually under Necho I's son and successor Psamtik I, who had been educated at the Assyrian court. After becoming king in 664 as a loyal Assyrian vassal, Psamtik slowly extended his control across all of Egypt, unifying the country in 656 and initiating a period of renaissance and prosperity, eventually becoming fully independent of Ashurbanipal.[82] Psamtik remained an ally of Assyria; during the later Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire in the reign of Sinsharishkun (Ashur-etil-ilani's successor and another son of Ashurbanipal) both Psamtik and his son Necho II rushed to Assyria's aid, with Egyptian armies fighting alongside the Assyrians.[83]\n\nInscriptions by Ashur-etil-ilani suggest that his father died a natural death, but do not shed light on when or how this happened.[78] Though his final year is often erroneously given as 627 or even 626, this follows an estimate from an inscription written nearly a century later at Harran by Adad-guppi, the mother of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (r. 556-539).[84] The final contemporary evidence for Ashurbanipal being alive and reigning as king is a contract from Nippur made in 631.[84][81] If Ashurbanipal's reign had ended in 627 the inscriptions of his successors Ashur-etil-ilani and Sinsharishkun in Babylon (covering several years) would have been impossible, given that the city was seized by Nabopolassar in 626 and never again fell into Assyrian hands.[85] To get the attested lengths of the reigns of his successors to match, it is generally agreed that Ashurbanipal either died, abdicated or was deposed in 631 or 630.[79][81] 631 is typically favored as the year of his death.[5][81] Ashurbanipal was succeeded as king by Ashur-etil-ilani and he seems to have been inspired by the succession plans of his father, despite its consequences, given that Sinsharishkun was granted the fortress-city of Nippur and was designated to be the successor of Kandalanu in Babylon once Kandalanu died.[5]\n\nA handful of historians have attempted to justify a reign of Ashurbanipal extending to 627, though no such proposal is without problems. It is possible that the 42-year (rather than 38-year) error came about in later Mesopotamian historiography on account of the knowledge that Ashurbanipal ruled concurrently with Babylonian rulers Shamash-shum-ukin and Kandalanu, whose reigns together amount to 42 years, but Kandalanu survived Ashurbanipal by three years, actually dying in 627. One possible way to justify a 42-year reign of Ashurbanipal is by assuming there was a coregency between him and Ashur-etil-ilani, but there had never been a coregency in prior Assyrian history and the idea is explicitly contradicted by Ashur-etil-ilani's own inscriptions, which describe him as becoming king after the end of his father's reign.[86] Another once popular idea, for instance favored by Stefan Zawadzki, is that Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu were the same person, \"Kandalanu\" simply being the name the king used in Babylon. This idea is generally considered unlikely for several reasons, most notably that no previous Assyrian king is known to have used an alternate name in Babylon and that inscriptions from Babylonia show a difference in the lengths of the reigns of Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu (Ashurbanipal's reign is counted from his first full year as king, 668, and Kandalanu's is counted from his first full year as king, 647). All Assyrian kings who personally ruled Babylon used the title \"king of Babylon\" in their inscriptions, but that title is not used in any of Ashurbanipal's inscriptions, even those made after 648. Most importantly, Babylonian documents clearly treat Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu as two different people.[87]\n\nFamily and children\n\nNeo-Assyrian family tree\n\nKey (male • female • KING)\n\nADAD-NIRARI II (r. 911-891 BC)\n\nTUKULTI-NINURTA II (r. 890-884 BC)\n\nASHURNASIRPAL II (r. 883-859 BC), m. Mullissu-mukannishat-Ninua\n\nSHALMANESER III (r. 859-824 BC)\n\nAshur-danin-pal\n\nSHAMSHI-ADAD V (r. 824-811 BC), m. Shammuramat\n\nADAD-NIRARI III (r.811-783 BC)\n\nSHALMANESER IV (r. 783-773 BC), m. Hama\n\nASHUR-DAN III (r. 773-755 BC)\n\nASHUR-NIRARI V (r. 755-745 BC)\n\nTIGLATH-PILESER III (r. 745-727 BC), m. Yaba\n\nSHALMANESER V (r. 727-722 BC), m. Banitu\n\n(?) SARGON II (r. 722-705 BC), m. (1) Atalia, (2) Ra'ima\n\nSENNACHERIB (r. 705-681 BC), m. (1) Tashmetu-sharrat, (2) Naqi'a\n\nAshur-nadin-shumi\n\nAshur-ili-muballissu\n\nArda-mulissu\n\nAshur-shumu-ushabshi\n\nESARHADDON (r. 681-669 BC), m. Esharra-hammat\n\nSeru'a-etirat\n\nSin-nadin-apli\n\nShamash-shum-ukin\n\nASHURBANIPAL (r. 669-631 BC), m. Libbali-sharrat\n\nASHUR-ETIL-ILANI (r. 631-627 BC)\n\nSIN-SHAR-ISHKUN (r. 627-612 BC)\n\nASHUR-UBALLIT II (r. 612-609 BC)\n\n(among others)\n\nNergal-shumu-ibni\n\nNabu-shar-usur\n\nShadditu\n\nAhat-abisha\n\nSin-ahu-usur\n\nAshurbanipal was already married to his queen Libbāli-šarrat (Akkadian: 𒊩𒌷𒊮𒌷𒊬𒋥)[88] at the time of his accession to the throne, perhaps marrying her around the time of his proclamation as crown prince.[27] The marriage occurring around that time is supported by Libbali-sharrat's name, which she is attested under before the death of Esarhaddon. The name is unique, not known to have been borne by any other individual, and incorporates the element šarratum (\"queen\"), indicating that it was not her birth name but rather a name perhaps assumed upon her marriage to Ashurbanipal.[89] Libbali-sharrat is most famous for her appearance in the so-called \"Garden Party\" relief from Ashurbanipal's palace, which depicts her and Ashurbanipal dining together. The scene is noteworthy for being organized around Libbali-sharrat rather than Ashurbanipal[90] and for being the only known image from ancient Assyria depicting an individual other than the king effectively holding court (and even hosting the king).[91]\n\nThree of Ashurbanipal's children are known by name, all sons:\n\nAshur-etil-ilani (𒀸𒋩𒉪𒅅𒀭𒈨𒌍 Aššur-etil-ilāni),[92] who ruled as king 631-627,[2]\n\nSinsharishkun (𒁹𒀭𒌍𒌋𒌋𒃻𒌦 Sîn-šar-iškun), who ruled as king 627-612,[2]\n\nNinurta-sharru-usur (Ninurta-šarru-uṣur), who played no political role.[93]\n\nLibbali-sharrat was presumably the mother of Ashurbanipal's immediate successors, Ashur-etil-ilani and Sinsharishkun. Ninurtas-sharru-usur's less prominent role probably derived from him being the son of a lower wife.[93] Libbali-sharrat might have lived for some time after Ashurbanipal's death in 631 since there is a tablet dating to Ashur-etil-ilani's reign referencing the \"mother of the king\".[94] The inscriptions of Sinsharishkun which mention him being selected for the kingship \"from among his equals\" (i.e., brothers) suggest that Ashurbanipal had more sons in addition to the three known by name.[95] It is also known that Ashurbanipal had at least one daughter given that there are documents from his reign that reference a \"daughter of the king\".[96]\n\nAshurbanipal's lineage may have survived the fall of Assyria in 612-609. The mother of the last Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, Adad-guppi, was from Harran and had Assyrian ancestry. According to her own inscriptions, Adad-guppi was born in the 20th year of Ashurbanipal's reign (648, as years were counted from the king's first full year). British scholar Stephanie Dalley considers it \"almost certain\" that Adad-guppi was a daughter of Ashurbanipal on account of her own inscriptions claiming that Nabonidus was of Ashurbanipal's dynastic line.[97] American Professor of Biblical Studies Michael B. Dick has refuted this, pointing out that even though Nabonidus did go to some length to revive some old Assyrian symbols (such as wearing a wrapped cloak in his depictions, absent in those of other Neo-Babylonian kings but present in Assyrian art) and attempted to link himself to the Sargonid dynasty, there is \"no evidence whatsoever that Nabonidus was related to the Sargonid Dynasty\".[98]\n\nCharacter\n\nBrutality\n\nIn Assyrian royal ideology, the Assyrian king was the divinely appointed mortal representative of Ashur. The king was seen as having the moral, humane and necessary obligation to extend Assyria since lands outside Assyria were regarded to be uncivilized and a threat to the cosmic and divine order within the Assyrian Empire. Expansionism was cast as a moral duty to convert chaos to civilization, rather than exploitative imperialism.[99] Because of the Assyrian king's role as Ashur's representative, resistance or rebellion against Assyrian rule was seen as fighting against divine will, which deserved punishment. Assyrian royal ideology perceived rebels as criminals against the divine world order.[100] Though the royal ideology could thus be used to justify enacting brutal punishments against Assyria's enemies, levels of brutality and aggression varied considerably between kings and modern scholars do not view ancient Assyria as a whole as an unusually brutal civilization.[101] Sargon II, the founder of Ashurbanipal's dynasty, is for instance known for several times forgiving and sparing defeated enemies.[102] Most kings only enacted brutal acts against enemy soldiers or elites, not against civilians.[103]\n\nUnder Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian army campaigned further away from the Assyrian heartland than ever before.[104] Though Ashurbanipal, contrary to the image presented in some of his reliefs and sharply contrasting with his predecessors, probably only rarely (if at all) participated in the military campaigns during his reign,[28][65] he clearly stands out among the Assyrian kings for his exceptional brutality.[105] It is possible that Ashurbanipal's excessive brutality can be partially explained through religious zealotry; he is known to have rebuilt, repaired and expanded a majority of the major shrines throughout his empire and many of the actions he took during his reign were due to omen reports, something he was very interested in.[106] He also appointed two of his younger brothers, Ashur-mukin-paleya and Ashur-etel-shame-erseti-muballissu, as priests in the cities Assur and Harran respectively.[107]\n\nWhen taking all Neo-Assyrian reliefs depicting scenes of brutality together, the highest concentration of them are from Ashurbanipal's reign. Reliefs with brutality scenes from Ashurbanipal's time account for 35% of all known such depictions from the Neo-Assyrian period. Ashurbanipal is also the most brutal king in terms of the variety of different scenes depicted.[108] He is one of only four Neo-Assyrian kings (alongside Esarhaddon, Tiglath-Pileser III and Ashurnasirpal II) who in their inscriptions claimed to have killed civilians and the one with the most varied acts against them (including live flaying, dismemberment and impalement).[108] There are also several instances where he is recorded to have brought captive enemies to Nineveh to enthusiastically torture and humiliate them.[65] Women were rarely depicted being harmed in Assyrian artwork, but Ashurbanipal's reliefs include some prominent exceptions to this rule. One of the reliefs from Ashurbanipal's palace in Nineveh, given the modern designation BM 124927, includes both dead female bodies and direct attacks against women. The middle part of the relief includes the most brutal act against a woman ever recorded in an Assyrian relief: Assyrian soldiers ripping open a pregnant Arab woman.[109]\n\nCultural pursuits\n\nLibrary of Ashurbanipal\n\nAshurbanipal portrayed himself as powerful in both body and mind. Typically portraying himself as carrying both weapons and a stylus, Ashurbanipal's inscriptions make him out to be unlike the kings before him, exceptionally well-versed in literature, writing, mathematics and scholarship.[32] Deeply interested in the ancient literary culture of Mesopotamia, Ashurbanipal read complex texts in both Akkadian and Sumerian already in his youth.[65] After he became king, using the massive resources now at his disposal, created the world's first \"universal\" library in Nineveh.[65] The resulting Library of Ashurbanipal is regarded to have been by far the most extensive library in ancient Assyria[110] and the first systematically organized library in the world.[106] In total it encompassed perhaps more than 100,000 texts and it was not surpassed in size until the creation of the Library of Alexandria, centuries later. Around 30,000 of the documents in the library survived the destruction of Nineveh in 612 and have been excavated among the city's ruins.[111]The library was assembled at Ashurbanipal's command, with scribes being sent out throughout the empire to collect and copy texts of every type and genre from the libraries of the temples. Most of the collected texts were observations of events and omens, texts detailing the behavior of certain men and of animals, texts on the movements of celestial objects and so forth. Present in the library were also dictionaries for Sumerian, Akkadian and other languages and many religious texts, such as rituals, fables, prayers and incantations.[106] In addition, the tablets were organized by shape, such as four-sided tablets recorded financial transactions while round tablets recorded agricultural information. The tablets were separated by subject, identified by colored marks and written descriptions and placed in different rooms.[112] The library contained many tablets from Babylonia, both donated and taken as war booty.[65] Ashurbanipal's library probably represented a comprehensive and accurate picture of Mesopotamian learning up until his time.[113] Ashurbanipal himself considered the library to be the signature accomplishment of his reign.[114] In his inscriptions, he boasted of his own intelligence and the library's construction:[114]\n\nI, Ashurbanipal, king of the universe, on whom the gods have bestowed intelligence, who has acquired penetrating acumen for the most recondite details of scholarly erudition (none of my predecessors having any comprehension of such matters), I have placed these tablets for the future in the library at Nineveh for my life and for the well-being of my soul, to sustain the foundations of my royal name.[114]\n\nThe library was long remembered in Mesopotamia. As late as in the first century AD, scribes in Babylonia still referred to the long-lost library in some of their texts and letters.[65] Most of the traditional Mesopotamian stories and tales known today, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Enûma Eliš (the Babylonian creation myth), Erra, the Myth of Etana and the Epic of Anzu, only survived until the modern era because they were included in Ashurbanipal's library. The library covered the entire spectrum of Ashurbanipal's literary interests and also included folk tales (such as The Poor Man of Nippur, a predecessor of one of the tales in One Thousand and One Nights), handbooks and scientific texts.[106]\n\nThe library was excavated in Nineveh by Austen Henry Layard, his assistant Hormuzd Rassam, and W. K. Loftus in 1853.[112] The library tablets have been on display in the British Museum since their discovery and continue to this day, as of 2024.[115]\n\nArtwork\n\nRegarded as a patron of the arts, Ashurbanipal erected numerous sculptures and reliefs in his palaces in Nineveh, depicting the most important events from his long reign. Ashurbanipal's artwork was innovative in terms of Assyrian art history, often having an \"epic quality\" unlike much of the more static artwork produced under his predecessors.[106] A motif appearing in several of Ashurbanipal's art pieces, for instance the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, is the king killing lions, a propaganda image illustrating his glory and power, as well as his ability to safeguard the Assyrian people through slaying dangerous animals.[116]\n\nVarious new elements can be seen in artwork produced under Ashurbanipal. The regalia of the king changes from relief to relief depending on the scene depicted; informal events for instance typically depict Ashurbanipal with an open crown design different from the typical vaguely bucket-shaped Assyrian crown.[117] There are no known examples of art depicting Ashurbanipal seated on a throne or holding court, a common motif under previous kings, perhaps meaning that the symbol of the throne was losing its status in art, and possible also at court, during his reign.[118] Ashurbanipal's artwork is the only ancient Assyrian art that depicts non-Assyrian foreigners as physically different (not only in their equipment and outfits but also in their features) from Assyrians. Possibly influenced by Egyptian art, which did depict foreigners differently, Ashurbanipal's reliefs show Elamites and Urartians as stockier, Urartians with larger noses, and Arabs with long straight hair (in contrast to the curly hair of the Assyrians). Inscriptions and annals from Ashurbanipal's time however offer no evidence that foreigners were seen as racially or ethnically different in terms of biology or physiognomy, which means that this might only have been an artistic choice.[119]\n\nLegacy\n\nSardanapalus legend\n\nTales of Ashurbanipal survived in the cultural memory of the Near East for centuries after the decline of Assyrian power in the region. He is almost certainly identifiable with the figure \"Asnappar\", mentioned in the Biblical Book of Ezra (4:10).[64] It is also either Esarhaddon or Ashurbanipal who is the \"king of Assyria\" mentioned in the Book of 2 Chronicles (33:11).[120] Ashurbanipal has also been most commonly identified as the Assyrian king, \"Nebuchadnezzar\", in the Book of Judith.[121][122][123] Ashurbanipal and other ancient Assyrian kings and figures continued to appear in the folklore and literary tradition of northern Mesopotamia.[124] The most prominent later legend concerning Ashurbanipal was the long-lived Greco-Roman Sardanapalus legend. According to the Assyriologist Maria de Fátima Rosa, the Sardanapalus of legend was conceived as \"more effeminate than a woman, a lascivious and idle man, a governor who loathed all expressions of militarism and war\". This view stemmed from ancient Greek views on Mesopotamia in general; ancient Mesopotamian kings were typically seen by the Greeks as effeminate and dull despots incapable of securing the welfare for the people of their empires. The earliest known reference to Sardanapalus comes from the 5th-century BCE Histories of Herodotus, which includes a reference to the riches of Sardanapalus, king of Nineveh. Legendary tales in Aramaic, based on the civil war between Ashurbanipal (\"Sarbanabal\") and Shamash-shum-ukin (\"Sarmuge\"), are attested from the 3rd century BC.[125]\n\nThe most elaborate and lengthy ancient text concerning Sardanapalus comes from the 1st-century BCE Bibliotheca historica of Diodorus Siculus. Siculus's portrayal of Sardanapalus was endowed with ancient Greek orientalism; the king was stated to have lived among women, dressed like them, used a soft voice and engaged in other activities viewed as unnatural for Greek men. In Siculus's account, Sardanapalus's satrap of Media, Arbaces, saw him mingling with women in the palace and quickly revolted, assaulting Nineveh together with the Babylonian priest Belesys. After failing to urge his soldiers to defend the city, Sardanapalus locked himself in his palace chamber, with treasures and concubines, and lit up a pyre, burning down the entire capital city and ending the Assyrian Empire. It is clear from the narrative that Siculus's Sardanapalus is based not only on Ashurbanipal, but also on Shamash-shum-ukin and Sinsharishkun.[126]\n\nThe Greek account of ancient Assyria transformed historical perception of the ancient empire and set the image of it in Western Europe for centuries. Since concrete evidence of Assyria and Babylonia was lacking, authors and artists during the Renaissance and Enlightenment based their interpretations of ancient Mesopotamia on classical Greco-Roman writings. In late 17th-century Italy, the composer Domenico Freschi wrote and performed the opera Sardanapalo, a comedic tragedy wherein Sardanapalus was portrayed as a woman-like and sex-eager king. In the opera, Sardanapalus, after watching Nineveh crumble, decides to light fire to his palace so that the Assyrian Empire did not fall without a show. In 1821, Lord Byron launched the historical tragedy play Sardanapalus, which pairs Sardanapalus with the legendary character Myrrah, often Sardanapalus's counterpart in later tales as well. In Byron's story, Myrrah was a female Greek slave and loyal supporter of Sardanapalus, who lit the palace on fire after Sardanapalus gave his last words, \"Adieu, Assyria! I loved thee well!\". Many operas, inspired by Byron, included similar storylines. It was typical to portray the fall of Nineveh and Assyria as a consequence of Assyria's supposed lack of moral values, combined with its ostentation and pomp.[127]\n\nEven after archaeologists and historians began to uncover the true history of ancient Assyria in the 19th century, the perception rooted in Greco-Roman tradition proved to be enduring. When the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard found evidence of a major fire in the ruins of Nimrud (which he believed to be Nineveh) in 1845, his colleagues suggested that this was proof of the Sardanapalus legend. Even after discoveries made it clear that the Sardanapalus of legend was far from a perfect match of the Ashurbanipal of history, the legend was not forgotten. Instead, plays and films featuring Sardanapalus simply began to mix the legendary tale with historical details. Many plays began to incorporate Assyrian architectural details, such as lamassus. Two films based on the Sardanapalus legend have been produced in Italy; Giuseppe de Liguoro's Sardanapalo re dell'Assiria (1910) and Silvio Amadio's Le sette folgori di Assur (1962), both heavily influenced by Byron's play. Both follow Sardanapalus's relationship with Myrrah. In Amadio's film, the narrative is also inspired by Ashurbanipal's conflict with Shamash-shum-ukin, who appears in the film under the shortened name Shamash.[128]\n\nModern perception\n\nRediscoveries and assessments\n\nThe North Palace of Nineveh, constructed by Ashurbanipal, was rediscovered by the British-funded Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in December 1853.[129] Rassam's excavations were a somewhat strange episode in Assyriology, as his efforts were also marked by an intense rivalry with the French archaeologist Victor Place; despite agreements as to who should excavate where, Ashurbanipal's palace was found by Rassam during the night, when he sent out a team of excavators under the cover of darkness to dig in the French portion of the Nineveh excavation.[130] Excavations were conducted in the palace in 1853-1854. Among other discoveries, Rassam recovered the reliefs making up the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, which were taken from the palace and transported to the British Museum, reaching England in March 1856.[131] Because of scholarly disagreements and rivalries, as well as issues of funding, studies and publications of the finds from Ashurbanipal's palace were produced slowly, with the first detailed analyses and studies not being published until the 1930s and 1940s.[132]\n\nAshurbanipal's reign was the last time when Assyrian armies campaigned all across the Middle East.[15] He is consequently typically regarded to have been the \"last great king of Assyria\".[8][15] Ashurbanipal's reign is sometimes considered the apogee of the Neo-Assyrian Empire,[64] though many scholars instead consider the preceding reign of Esarhaddon as such.[34] Whether Ashurbanipal is to blame for the fall of the Assyrian Empire relatively quickly after his death is disputed. J. A. Delaunay, author of the Encyclopædia Iranica entry on Ashurbanipal, writes that the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Ashurbanipal had already begun \"exhibiting clear symptoms of impending dislocation and fall\",[48] while Donald John Wiseman, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Ashurbanipal, holds that \"It is no indictment of his rule that his empire fell within two decades after his death; this was due to external pressures rather than to internal strife\".[106] Gérard Chaliand holds that the fall of the Assyrian Empire should be blamed on Ashurbanipal's \"mediocre heirs\" rather than Ashurbanipal himself;[8] there is however no evidence that his heirs were incompetent rulers. Sinsharishkun, under whom the empire collapsed, was a militarily competent ruler, utilizing the same tactics as his predecessors.[133] Eckart Frahm believes the seeds of Assyria's fall were sown in Ashurbanipal's reign, in particular through the disconnect between the king and the traditional elite and through Ashurbanipal's sack of Babylon.[65]\n\nAshurbanipal in popular culture\n\nAshurbanipal has been the subject of numerous pieces of artwork created in modern times. In 1958, surrealist painter Leonora Carrington painted Assurbanipal Abluting Harpies, an oil on canvas at the Israel Museum depicting Ashurbanipal pouring a white substance onto the heads of pigeon-like creatures with human faces.[134] A statue of the king, called Ashurbanipal, was created by sculptor Fred Parhad in 1988 and placed on a street near the San Francisco City Hall. The statue cost $100,000 and was described as the \"first sizable bronze statue of Ashurbanipal\". It was presented to the City of San Francisco as a gift from the Assyrian people on May 29, 1988, Parhad being of Assyrian descent. Some local Assyrians expressed fears that the statue resembled the legendary Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh more than it resembled the actual Ashurbanipal. Parhad defended the statue as representing Ashurbanipal, though explained that he had taken some artistic liberties.[135]\n\nAshurbanipal has also made occasional appearances in popular culture in various media. Robert E. Howard wrote a short story entitled The Fire of Asshurbanipal, first published in the December 1936 issue of Weird Tales magazine, about an \"accursed jewel belonging to a king of long ago, whom the Grecians called Sardanapalus and the Semitic peoples Asshurbanipal\".[136] \"The Mesopotamians\", a 2007 song by They Might Be Giants, mentions Ashurbanipal alongside Sargon, Hammurabi, and Gilgamesh.[137] Ashurbanipal was used as the ruler of the Assyrians in the game Civilization V.[138]\n\nAshurbanipal once more entered the global spotlight and garnered increased fame in 2018, when reliefs from his reign were exhibited at the British Museum in the exhibition I am Ashurbanipal (8 November 2018 - 21 February 2019).[64] The exhibition was well received, particularly due to its use of inventive technology, such as using lights to illustrate how many of Ashurbanipal's reliefs would have been painted in his lifetime, and its acknowledgement of the colonialist history of the collection itself. There was however also substantial controversy associated with the exhibition due to its sponsorship by the oil and gas company BP, involved in Middle Eastern oil since the early 20th century. The opening of the exhibition in November 2018 was met with protests, with protesters chanting slogans relating to BP's exploitation of Iraqi natural resources and pretending to sip oil-contaminated champagne.[139]\n\nTitles\n\nIn an inscription on a cylinder dated to 648,[140] Ashurbanipal used the following titles:\n\nI am Ashurbanipal, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four regions of the world; offspring of the loins of Esarhaddon, king of the universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad; grandson of Sennacherib, king of the universe, king of Assyria.[140]\n\nA similar titulature is used on one of Ashurbanipal's many tablets:\n\nI, Ashurbanipal, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four regions of the world, son of Esarhaddon, king of the universe, king of Assyria, grandson of Sennacherib, king of the universe, king of Assyria, eternal seed of royalty ...[141]\n\nA longer variant is presented on one of Ashurbanipal's building inscriptions in Babylon:\n\nAshurbanipal, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four regions of the world, king of kings, unrivaled prince, who, from the Upper to the Lower Sea, holds sway and has brought in submission at his feet all rulers; son of Esarhaddon, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad; grandson of Sennacherib, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, am I.[142]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nNotes\n\n^ He is sometimes erroneously enumerated as Ashurbanipal II,[6][7] out of confusion with the earlier Ashurnasirpal II, or as Ashurbanipal III,[8] in succession to him (despite the two kings having different names). His name is also sometimes alternatively transliterated as Assurbanipal.[9] In Aramaic, Ashurbanipal was called Osnappar (Imperial Aramaic: אָסְנַפַּר, romanized: ’Āsnappar).[10][11]\n\n^ His name was sometimes transliterated as Aššur-bāni-habal or Aššur-bāni-pal (from which the modern rendition \"Ashurbanipal\" derives) in 19th-century works.[13]\n\n^ Only six Assyrian kings ruled longer than Ashurbanipal: the Early Assyrian kings Erishum I (40 years), Sargon I (40 years) and Naram-Sin (54/44 years) and the Middle Assyrian kings Ashur-dan I (46 years), Tiglath-Pileser I (39 years) and Ashur-rabi II (41 years).\n\n^ Nabu-usabsi was the uncle of the later Babylonian rebel Nabopolassar, who in the 610s BCE defeated and destroyed the Assyrian Empire.[41]\n\n^ Baltu and ashagu were probably varieties of thorny shrub.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ a b c Na'aman 1991, p. 243.\n\n^ a b c d e f Brereton 2018, p. 10.\n\n^ a b Finkel 2013, p. 123.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Ahmed 2018, p. 8.\n\n^ Cline & Graham 2011, p. 41.\n\n^ Scurlock 2013, p. 155.\n\n^ a b c d Chaliand 2014, p. 52.\n\n^ Russell 1991, p. 137.\n\n^ \"Ezra 4:10 Hebrew Text Analysis\".\n\n^ \"Osnappar - Encyclopedia of the Bible - Bible Gateway\".\n\n^ Hurowitz 2010, p. 96.\n\n^ Quentin 1895, p. 554.\n\n^ Tetlow 2004, p. 231.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 189.\n\n^ a b c d Brereton 2018, p. 15.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 168.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, pp. 168-173.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 63.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 170.\n\n^ a b Radner 2003, p. 170.\n\n^ Zaia 2019, p. 20.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 65-66.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 174-176.\n\n^ Leick 2002, Ashurbanipal and the fall of Nineveh.\n\n^ a b Ahmed 2018, p. 64.\n\n^ a b c Kertai 2013, p. 119.\n\n^ a b c Brereton 2018, p. 16.\n\n^ Teppo 2005, p. 38.\n\n^ Melville 2012.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 68.\n\n^ a b Brereton 2018, p. 17.\n\n^ a b c d e Novotny 2018, p. 199.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 187.\n\n^ Radner 2003, pp. 176-177.\n\n^ \"Rassam cylinder British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\n^ a b c Novotny 2018, p. 201.\n\n^ Lloyd 2001, pp. 504-505.\n\n^ Wallis Budge 2014, p. 38.\n\n^ Carter & Stolper 1984, pp. 49-50.\n\n^ Jursa 2007, p. 133.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 79.\n\n^ a b c Ahmed 2018, p. 80.\n\n^ a b Carter & Stolper 1984, p. 50.\n\n^ Brereton 2018, p. 18.\n\n^ a b c Carter & Stolper 1984, p. 51.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, pp. 299-300.\n\n^ a b c d e Delaunay 1987, pp. 805-806.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 87.\n\n^ a b c d e f Rosa 2019, p. 329.\n\n^ a b Ahmed 2018, p. 90.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 88.\n\n^ Teppo 2007, p. 395.\n\n^ Lipiński 2006, p. 183.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 91.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 301.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 93.\n\n^ Novotny 2018, p. 203.\n\n^ a b c d Johns 1913, pp. 124-125.\n\n^ a b c d e Bartlett 2015, Meltdown in Mesopotamia.\n\n^ Zaia 2019, p. 21.\n\n^ a b Zaia 2019, p. 36.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 254.\n\n^ a b c d Rosa 2019, p. 328.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Frahm 2017, p. 190.\n\n^ a b c d Carter & Stolper 1984, p. 52.\n\n^ Razmjou 2018, Background of the great battle and aftermath.\n\n^ Binetti 2016, p. 28.\n\n^ Stolper & André-Salvini 1992, pp. 270-271.\n\n^ a b Carter & Stolper 1984, pp. 52-53.\n\n^ a b c Novotny 2018, p. 206.\n\n^ Gerardi 1992, pp. 67-74, 89-94.\n\n^ Gerardi 1992, pp. 67-74.\n\n^ Gerardi 1992, pp. 79-81.\n\n^ a b c Novotny 2018, p. 207.\n\n^ a b Gerardi 1992, pp. 83-86.\n\n^ a b Gerardi 1992, pp. 89-94.\n\n^ a b Ahmed 2018, p. 121.\n\n^ a b Reade 1998, p. 263.\n\n^ a b c Simons 1996, p. 127.\n\n^ a b c d Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 285.\n\n^ Spalinger 1976, pp. 133-147.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 16.\n\n^ a b Reade 1970, p. 1.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 246.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 250.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, pp. 251-252.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 118.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 189.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 212.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 213.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 248.\n\n^ a b Frahm 1999, p. 322.\n\n^ Svärd 2015, p. 161.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 255.\n\n^ Teppo 2007, p. 388.\n\n^ Dalley 2003, p. 177.\n\n^ Dick 2004, p. 15.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 363-365.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, pp. 22, 29.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, pp. 63, 71.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 246-247.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, pp. 59, 71.\n\n^ Novotny 2018, p. 196.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, p. 60.\n\n^ a b c d e f Encyclopaedia Britannica.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 171.\n\n^ a b Bagg 2016, p. 63.\n\n^ Dubovský 2009, p. 394.\n\n^ Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 284.\n\n^ Gabriel 2012, Assyrian Medicine.\n\n^ a b Murray, Stuart (2009). The Library: An Illustrated History. Chicago: Skyhorse Publishing.\n\n^ Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 279.\n\n^ a b c Bauer 2007, p. 410.\n\n^ \"I am Ashurbanipal king of the world, king of Assyria | British Museum\". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2024-05-23.\n\n^ Evans 2018, Chapter 3.\n\n^ Albenda 2014, p. 153.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 215.\n\n^ Bahrani 2006, p. 57.\n\n^ \"King Manasseh: An Archaeological Biography\". 12 February 2021.\n\n^ \"Introduction to the Book of Judith by Jean-Baptiste Glaire, pages 954-956\".\n\n^ \"Douay-Rheims Bible Book of Judith Chapter 1\".\n\n^ Commentaire littéral sur tous les livres de l'ancien et du nouveau testament by Antoine Augustin Calmet - Sur Le Livre De Judith. Pierre Emery. 1712.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 5.\n\n^ Rosa 2019, pp. 328-330.\n\n^ Rosa 2019, pp. 330-331.\n\n^ Rosa 2019, pp. 328, 331-332.\n\n^ Rosa 2019, pp. 331-332.\n\n^ Reade 2018, p. 292.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 588-590.\n\n^ Reade 2018, p. 294.\n\n^ Reade 2018, p. 298.\n\n^ Melville 2011, pp. 21, 27.\n\n^ Assurbanipal Abluting Harpies.\n\n^ Fernandez 1987.\n\n^ Price 2001, pp. 99-118.\n\n^ Nardo 2012, p. 88.\n\n^ Pitts 2013.\n\n^ Bond 2018.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1927, p. 323.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 356.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 369.\n\nSources\n\nBibliography\n\nAhmed, Sami Said (2018). Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal. The Hague: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3111033587.\n\nAlbenda, Pauline (2014). \"Thoughts on some images of King Ashurbanipal\". Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (4): 153-154.\n\nBagg, Ariel (2016). \"Where is the Public? A New Look at the Brutality Scenes in Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and Art\". In Battini, Laura (ed.). Making Pictures of War: Realia et Imaginaria in the Iconology of the Ancient Near East. Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology. Oxford: Archaeopress. doi:10.2307/j.ctvxrq18w.12. ISBN 978-1784914035.\n\nBahrani, Zainab (2006). \"Race and Ethnicity in Mesopotamian Antiquity\". World Archaeology. 38 (1): 48-59. doi:10.1080/00438240500509843. JSTOR 40023594. S2CID 144093611.\n\nBartlett, W. B. (2015). The Story of the World: From Prehistory to the Present. Stroud: Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1445646992.\n\nBauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05974-8.\n\nBedford, Peter R. (2009). \"The Neo-Assyrian Empire\". In Morris, Ian; Scheidel, Walter (eds.). The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537158-1.\n\nBinetti, Christopher Ronald (2016). 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Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. 81 (1-2): 243-267. doi:10.1515/zava.1991.81.1-2.243. S2CID 159785150.\n\nNardo, Don (2012). Babylonian Mythology. Greenhaven Publishing. ASIN B00MMP7YC8.\n\nNovotny, Jamie; Singletary, Jennifer (2009). \"Family Ties: Assurbanipal's Family Revisited\". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 106: 167-177.\n\nNovotny, Jamie (2018). \"Ashurbanipal's campaigns\". In Brereton, Gareth (ed.). I am Ashurbanipal, king of the World, king of Assyria. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-48039-7.\n\nNovotny, Jamie; Jeffers, Joshua (2018). The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630-627 BC), and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626-612 BC), Kings of Assyria, Part 1 (PDF). Eisenbrauns. Archived from the original on 2026-03-13. Retrieved 2026-03-13.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\nNovotny, Jamie; Jeffers, Joshua (2023). The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630-627 BC), and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626-612 BC), Kings of Assyria, Part 2 (PDF). Eisenbrauns. Archived from the original on 2026-03-13. Retrieved 2026-03-13.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\nNovotny, Jamie; Jeffers, Joshua; Frame, Grant (2023). The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630-627 BC), and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626-612 BC), Kings of Assyria, Part 3. Eisenbrauns.\n\nParker, Bradley J. (2011). \"The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Journal of Anthropological Research. 67 (3): 357-386. doi:10.3998/jar.0521004.0067.303. JSTOR 41303323. S2CID 145597598.\n\nPrice, Robert M. (2001). Nameless Cults: The Cthulhu Mythos Fiction of Robert E. Howard. Ann Arbor: Chaosium. ISBN 978-1568821306.\n\nQuentin, A. (1895). \"INSCRIPTION INÉDITE DU ROI ASSURBANIPAL: COPIÉE AU MUSÉE BRITANNIQUE LE 24 AVRIL 1886\". Revue Biblique (in French). 4 (4): 553-562. JSTOR 44100170.\n\nRadner, Karen (2003). \"The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC\". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. 6. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: 165-183. doi:10.15366/isimu2003.6.009. hdl:10486/3476.\n\nRazmjou, Shahrokh (2018). \"Propaganda and symbolism: Representations of the Elamites at the time of Ashurbanipal\". In Álvarez-Mon, Javier; Basello, Pietro & Wicks, Yasmina (eds.). The Elamite World. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-99989-3.\n\nReade, J. E. (1970). \"The Accession of Sinsharishkun\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 23 (1): 1-9. doi:10.2307/1359277. JSTOR 1359277. S2CID 159764447.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998). \"Assyrian eponyms, kings and pretenders, 648-605 BC\". Orientalia (NOVA Series). 67 (2): 255-265. JSTOR 43076393.\n\nReade, J. E. (2018). \"Nineveh Rediscovered\". In Brereton, Gareth (ed.). I am Ashurbanipal, king of the World, king of Assyria. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-48039-7.\n\nRosa, Maria de Fátima (2019). \"The legend of Sardanapalus: From ancient Assyria to European stages and screens\". In Ming Kong, Mário S.; do Rosário Monteiro, Maria & Pereira Neto, Maria João (eds.). Intelligence, Creativity and Fantasy. London: CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-367-27719-2.\n\nRussell, John Malcolm (1991). Sennacherib's \"Palace Without Rival\" at Nineveh. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-73175-8.\n\nScurlock, JoAnn (2013). \"Images of Tammuz: The Intersection of Death, Divinity, and Royal Authority in Ancient Mesopotamia\". In Hill, Jane A.; Jones, Philip & Morales, Antonio J. (eds.). Experiencing Power, Generating Authority: Cosmos, Politics, and the Ideology of Kingship in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-1-934536-64-3.\n\nSimons, Geoff (1996). Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam (2nd ed.). New York: MacMillan Press. ISBN 978-0-333-65169-8.\n\nStolper, Matthew W. & André-Salvini, Béatrice (1992). \"The Written Record\". In O. Harper, Prudence; Aruz, Joan & Tallon, Françoise (eds.). The Royal City of Susa: Ancient Near Eastern Treasures in the Louvre. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0-87099-651-7.\n\nSpalinger, Anthony (1976). \"Psammetichus, King of Egypt: I\". Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. 13: 133-147. doi:10.2307/40001126. JSTOR 40001126.\n\nSvärd, Saana (2015). \"Changes in Neo-Assyrian Queenship\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. XXI: 157-171.\n\nTallqvist, Knut Leonard (1914). Assyrian Personal Names (PDF). Leipzig: August Pries. OCLC 6057301.\n\nTeppo, Saana (2005). Women and their Agency in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (PDF) (Thesis). University of Helsinki.\n\nTeppo, Saana (2007). \"Agency and the Neo-Assyrian Women of the Palace\". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 101: 381-420.\n\nTetlow, Elisabeth Meier (2004). Women, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society: Volume 1: The Ancient Near East. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-1628-4.\n\nTrolle Larsen, Mogens (2017). \"The Archaeological Exploration of Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1118325247.\n\nVan De Mieroop, Marc (2016). A History of the Ancient Near East (3rd ed.). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.\n\nWallis Budge, E. A. (2014) [1928]. A History of Ethiopia: Volume I: Nubia and Abyssinia. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-79155-8.\n\nZaia, Shana (2019). \"My Brother's Keeper: Assurbanipal versus Šamaš-šuma-ukīn\" (PDF). Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. 6 (1): 19-52. doi:10.1515/janeh-2018-2001. hdl:10138/303983. S2CID 165318561.\n\nWeb sources\n\n\"Ashurbanipal\". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 November 2019.\n\n\"Assurbanipal Abluting Harpies\". The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Retrieved 5 December 2019.\n\nBond, Sarah E. (5 December 2018). \"Stories of an Assyrian King and What Became of His Empire\". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 24 February 2022.\n\nFernandez, Elizabeth (31 December 1987). \"Statue of Assyrian king in skirt stirs controversy\". The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 December 2019.\n\nPitts, Russ (27 June 2013). \"Knowing history: Behind Civ 5's Brave New World\". Polygon. Retrieved 5 December 2019."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashurbanipal"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 13089}, {"slug": "reference-ashurnasirpal-ii", "title": "Ashurnasirpal II", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Ashur-nasir-pal II (transliteration: Aššur-nāṣir-apli, meaning \"Ashur is guardian of the heir\"[1]) was the third king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 883 to 859 BC. Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II. His son and successor was Shalmaneser III and his queen was Mullissu-mukannišat-Ninua.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashurnasirpal II\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nGlorious King of the Lands\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of All Peoples\n\nAshur-nasir-pal II (centre) meets a high official after a successful battle.\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign25 regnal years\n883-859 BC\n\nPredecessorTukulti-Ninurta II\n\nSuccessorShalmaneser III\n\nBorn910 BC\n\nDied859 BC\n\nSpouseMullissu-mukannishat-Ninua\n\nFatherTukulti-Ninurta II\n\nAshur-nasir-pal II (transliteration: Aššur-nāṣir-apli, meaning \"Ashur is guardian of the heir\"[1]) was the third king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 883 to 859 BC. Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II. His son and successor was Shalmaneser III and his queen was Mullissu-mukannišat-Ninua.\n\nReign\n\nDuring his reign he embarked on a vast program of expansion, first conquering the peoples to the north in Asia Minor as far as Nairi and exacting tribute from Phrygia, then invading Aram (modern Syria) conquering the Aramaeans and Neo-Hittites between the Khabur and the Euphrates Rivers. The palaces, temples and other buildings he raised bear witness to considerable development in wealth and art.[2] He installed Assyrian governors, rather than depending on local client rulers paying tribute.\n\nCruelty\n\nAshurnasirpal II was notorious for his brutality,[3][4] using enslaved captives to build a new Assyrian capital at Kalhu (Nimrud) in Mesopotamia. \n\nHis harshness prompted a revolt that he crushed decisively in a pitched, two-day battle. According to his monument inscription, while recalling this massacre he says:[5]\n\nTheir men young and old I took prisoners. Of some I cut off their feet and hands; of others I cut off the ears noses and lips; of the young men's ears I made a heap; of the old men's heads I made a minaret. I exposed their heads as a trophy in front of their city. The male children and the female children I burned in flames; the city I destroyed, and consumed with fire.\n\nFollowing this victory, he advanced without opposition as far as the Mediterranean and exacted tribute from Phoenicia. On his return home, he moved his capital to the city of Kalhu (Nimrud).\n\nCampaigns\n\nLike previous Assyrian monarchs, Ashurnasirpal campaigned along the Euphrates against Aramaeans and in the Diyala against Babylon. Ashurnasirpal II's brutal treatment of rebels ensured that even when his army was not present, there would not be further revolts. Further revolts saw the local monarch replaced with a governor, loyal only to the Assyrian monarchy. Leading his army, which was typically composed of infantry (including auxiliaries and foreigners), heavy cavalry, light cavalry and chariots, Ashurnasirpal conquered the Hittites and Aramaean states of northern Syria.[6]\n\nAshurnasirpal II did not destroy the Phoenician/Canaanite cities he conquered. He was unsuccessful in his siege of Tyre, which under Ittobaal settled Kition in Cyprus and opened up trade routes throughout the Aegean, at Rhodes and Miletus. Through tribute they became sources for the raw materials of his armies and his building programs. Iron was needed for weapons, Lebanese cedar for construction and gold and silver for the payment of troops.\n\nWhen considering the occupied citizens of his conquered territories, he wrote:[7]\n\nI resettled them in their abandoned towns and houses. I imposed more tribute and tax on them than ever before: horses, mules, oxen, sheep, wine and labor.\n\nBalawat Gates\n\nThe Balawat Gates, or the Balawat Bronze Bands are three sets of decorated bronze bands that had adorned the main doors of several buildings at Balawat (ancient Imgur-Enlil). Two of them date to the reign of Ashurnasirpal II. The third set of the Bronze Bands depicts the exploits of his son Shalmaneser III.[8][9]\n\nAfter the Neo-Assyrian Empire fell and Balawat was destroyed, the wooden elements of the gates decomposed. Most of the bronze bands survive, and can be found in museums. The gates were originally 6.8 metres high.[9]\n\nThe gates were first discovered by the Iraqi archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam on a British Museum expedition in 1878. They were found in the doorway of the king's palace. That set of the Balawat Bronze Bands is now on permanent display in London. The second set of the Bands was excavated by Sir Max Mallowan in 1956 in the Temple of Mamu, the Mesopotamian goddess associated with dreams. It was on display in the Mosul Museum in Iraq, but is now largely missing because of the looting in the wake of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The documentation of these Bands is available in a 2008 publication by the British Museum.[8] Destruction of Mosul Museum artifacts further occurred in 2015 because of a terrorist attack.\n\nThese sets include 32 bands of figurative scenes embossed on bronze, including cuneiform inscriptions. They provide a wealth of historical and art-historical information about the ninth century BC Assyria and surrounding region.[8]\n\nPalace of Kalhu\n\nAshurnasirpal II's palace in Kalhu (Nimrud, which is in modern-day Iraq slightly south of Mosul) probably began construction c.878 BC,[10] and is now generally accepted as having been completed after around 15 years alongside the near-total reconstruction of the Middle Assyrian city, c.864 BC.[11][12] An inscription describing its inauguration details a ten-day banquet which 69,574 people attended.[13][14] The palace walls were lined with reliefs carved in alabaster. These reliefs bore elaborate carvings, many portraying the king surrounded by winged protective spirits, or engaged in hunting or on campaign.\n\nEach relief had text inscribed in it. This text was the same or very similar on each relief and is therefore called the Standard Inscription. The Standard Inscription begins by tracing Ashur-nasir-pal II's lineage back three generations and recounts his military victories, defines the boundaries of his empire, tells how he founded Kalhu, and built the palace. Ashurnasirpal II also built a massive gateway at Nimrud.\n\nThe British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard excavated Kalhu in the 1840s, uncovering the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II. Today, many of the reliefs and sculptures from the excavations in Nimrud are displayed in the galleries of the British Museum, London, including the Statue of Ashurnasirpal II and the Black Obelisk by his son Shalmaneser III, with other reliefs on display in museums in Europe (e.g. Munich), Japan and the USA.\n\nNimrud reliefs\n\nAfter Assyria fell in 612 BC, the palace became overgrown and eventually completely buried, in which state it remained for nearly 2,500 years until rediscovered by the British-born Austen Henry Layard in 1845.[15] Layard oversaw the excavation of the palace during which time the reliefs that dominated the walls of the structure were removed from the site and sent to collections throughout Europe and North America, with the British Museum receiving the majority of these Nimrud reliefs. Despite excavating and removing many of these reliefs, a great number remained within the palace and were eventually reburied with time.[15]\n\nMax Mallowan re-excavated the site from 1947 until 1957, when the project was taken over by the Iraq Department of Antiques which still has legal authority over the site. The known area of the palace measures 200m from north to south and 120 meters from east to west. This is most likely only a portion of the original design, including the possibility of an upper level while no concrete evidence of this remains. All of the walls of the palace were lined with stone slabs of which a majority were decorated with relief images.[15]\n\nSymbolism and purpose\n\nAmong these relief images occurred a certain amount of standardization around 870 BC. Carved into each of the stone slabs, including the ones lacking relief, was what is referred to as the Standard Inscription. This text gave the various names and titles of the king, spoke of his relationship with the gods and summarized his military conquests. The text also goes on to describe the founding of Kalhu and speaks of the palace itself.[15] The slabs, which contain relief, consist of depictions of Assurnasirpal's royal ideology. This ideology can be categorized into four main ideas, the military success of the king, his service to the gods, which provided divine protection and Assyrian prosperity.[15]\n\nThere is a particular interest in the anatomy of both humans and animals within the depictions.[16] Royal hunting scenes are some of the most well known of the Nimrud reliefs particularly those showing Assurnasirpal II hunting lions. There is also a distinct interest in the relationship between man and animal in many of the scenes. In several depictions the king is shown with supernatural creatures of animal and human combination. All of the apotropaic portrayals, which would have decorated the doorways of the palace, were of these human and animal hybrids. Within the context of these apotropaic figures were three main types, a winged figure wearing the horned crown which symbolized divinity, a winged figure wearing a headband of rosettes and a winged human figure with the head of a bird.[15]\n\nRecurring subject matter\n\nOther popular themes in the Nimrud reliefs included military campaigns and victories garnered by the Assyrians. More specifically these were displays of the relationships between Assyrians and non-Assyrians.[17] The Assyrians were always shown in moments of glory while the non-Assyrians are in sprawled or contorted positions and most often naked. These illustrations represented violent death as punishment for violating Assyrian values, as well as merciless punishment for transgressions. Not only would this have served as a clear message for visiting dignitaries from other cultures but also the same message was innately obvious as a warning to the Assyrian elites as to what could happen if they decided to defy the king.[17]\n\nNon-elites were likely not viewing these reliefs, as they would not have often, if ever, been permitted into the palace. The elites would have typically only been present at the palace for rituals and other business with the king. Assyrian women tend to be absent from all of these relief sculptures. This is most likely due to the context of the reliefs, which were male dominated activities.[17] The only exception to women being absent from these scenes is non-Assyrian women who were captured as slaves during war. These were typically the elite women of other cultures, rather than the lower class. In contrast to the way in which male captives were portrayed, women were neither bound nor naked in their depictions. Women captives were most often shown in floor length outfits, with possibly one part of their body exposed in detail.[17]\n\nSite post-excavations\n\nNot all of the relief sculptures have been removed from the palace at Nimrud. Many of them are able to be viewed in their original context, although this is greatly limited. Many of the museums, which currently display the Nimrud reliefs, attempt to recreate the palace atmosphere by exhibiting them in a similar fashion to their original loci.\n\nDestruction by the ISIL\n\nIn November 2014, it was reported that ISIL, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, militants had looted many of Iraq's archaeological sites, including the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, and were selling artifacts on the black market. According to Aymen Jawad, executive director of Iraq Heritage (based in London), \"Tablets, manuscripts and cuneiforms are the most common artifacts being traded, and, unfortunately, this is being seen in Europe and America,” he said. “Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of irreplaceable pieces are being sold to fund terrorists.\"[18]\n\nOn 5 March 2015 ISIL reportedly started the demolition of Nimrud. The local palace was bulldozed. Lamassu statues at the gates of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II were smashed.[19]\n\nCurrent location of Nimrud reliefs\n\nUnited States\n\nCleveland Museum of Art, Ohio\n\nMinneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota - Winged Genius\n\nPrinceton University Art Museum, New Jersey - Winged Genius\n\nYale University Art Gallery, Connecticut - items of the collection\n\nUniversity of Chicago Oriental Institute, Chicago - relief\n\nMead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts\n\nWilliams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts\n\nMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts\n\nBrooklyn Museum, New York\n\nMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York - items of the collection\n\nHood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire\n\nWalters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland\n\nMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas\n\nKimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas\n\nSaint Louis Art Museum, Missouri\n\nNelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri\n\nFleming Museum of Art, Burlington, Vermont\n\nBowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine\n\nFine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Palace of the Legion of Honor\n\nLos Angeles County Museum of Art\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nAshmolean Museum, Oxford\n\nBritish Museum, London\n\nBristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol\n\nFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge\n\nNational Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh\n\nThe Burrell Collection, Glasgow\n\nEurope\n\nPergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany\n\nStaatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst, Munich, Germany\n\nSkulpturensammlung, Dresden, Germany\n\nCalouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal\n\nRoyal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, Belgium\n\nMiddle East\n\nBasra Museum, Iraq\n\nIraq Museum, Baghdad, Iraq\n\nMosul Museum, Iraq\n\nSulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq\n\nErbil Civilization Museum, Iraq\n\nBasra Museum, Iraq\n\nMuseum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul Archaeology Museums, Turkey\n\nSee also\n\nKurkh Monoliths\n\nLamassu\n\nReferences\n\n^ Roux, Georges (1992). Ancient Iraq (Third ed.). New York: Penguin Books. p. 288. ISBN 0-14-012523-X.\n\n^ \"The Neo-Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) built his magnificent Northwest Palace at Nimrud\". Britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 17 July 2026.\n\n^ \"Ashurnasirpal II\". Worldhistory.org.\n\n^ \"Ashurnasirpal II | king of Assyria | Britannica\". 27 August 2023.\n\n^ Clare, Israel; Tyler, Moses (1897). Library of Universal History Vol 1 - Ancient Oriental Nations. New York: R.S. Peale J.A. Hill. p. 151. Retrieved 22 February 2018.\n\n^ Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. p. 10.\n\n^ Radner, Karen. History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day. p. 51.\n\n^ a b c The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II. London, 2008. With R.D. Barnett, L.G. Davies, M.M. Howard and C.B.F. Walker, edited by J.E. Curtis and N. Tallis. British Museum Press. academia.edu\n\n^ a b The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II by J. E. Curtis; N. Tallis, Review by: Sarah C. Melville, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 129, No. 3 (July-September 2009), pp. 552-554, Published by: American Oriental Society - (text at www.researchgate.net)\n\n^ Van de Mieroop, Marc (2016). A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC (3 ed.). Wiley Blackwell. p. 246.\n\n^ Van de Mieroop, Marc (2016). A History of the Ancient Near East ca.3000-323 BC (3 ed.). Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. p. 250.\n\n^ Frahm, Eckhart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period ca.1000-609 BC\" in A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley and Sons. p. 170.\n\n^ Van de Mieroop, Marc (2016). A History of the Ancient Near East ca.3000-323 BC (3 ed.). John Wiley and Sons. p. 250.\n\n^ Vered, Ronit (23 June 2023). \"A Feast Fit for an Assyrian King (And 69,574 Guests)\". Haaretz. Retrieved 14 December 2025.\n\n^ a b c d e f Russell, John Malcolm (1998). \"The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art\". American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 102, no. 4. pp. 655-715.\n\n^ Ataç, Mehmet-Ali (2010). The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.\n\n^ a b c d Cirfarelli, Megan (1998). \"Gesture and Alterity in the Art of Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria\". The Art Bulletin. Vol. 80, no. 2. pp. 210-228.\n\n^ Janine Di Giovanni; Leah McGrath Goodman; Damien Sharkov (November 6, 2014). \"How Does ISIS Fund Its Reign of Terror?\". News Week. Retrieved January 21, 2015.\n\n^ \"ISIL fighters bulldoze ancient Assyrian palace in Iraq\". Al Jazeera. 5 March 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBrinkman, J.A. (1968). A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 BC. Rome: Pontilicium Institutum Biblicum.\n\nChow, C. T. (2020). \"Sword Carry in the Art of Ashurnasirpal Ii: Displays of Divine Authority\". Iraq. 82: 73-93. doi:10.1017/irq.2020.1. S2CID 225636027.\n\nCrawford, Vaughn E.; et al. (1980). Assyrian reliefs and ivories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: palace reliefs of Assurnasirpal II and ivory carvings from Nimrud. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0870992600.\n\nDewar, B. (2020). \"US AGAINST THEM: IDEOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ASHURNASIRPAL II'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST ASSYRIAN REBELS IN ḪALZILUḪA\". Iraq. 82: 111-124. doi:10.1017/irq.2020.4. S2CID 225382970.\n\nGrayson, A. K. (1972). From Tiglath-pileser I to Ashur-nasir-apli II. Assyrian Royal Inscriptions. Vol. 2. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.\n\nAlbert Kirk Grayson (1991). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC). University of Toronto Press.\n\nMallowan, M.E. L. (1966). Nimrud and Its Remains. London: Collins.\n\nOlmstead, A. T. (1918). \"The Calculated Frightfulness of Ashur Nasir Apal\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 38: 209-263. doi:10.2307/592609. hdl:2027/pst.000020023782. JSTOR 592609.\n\nReade, J.E. (1980) [1979]. \"Assyrian Architectural Decoration\". Baghdader Mitteilungen. 10/11: 71-87.\n\nStearns, J. B. (1961). Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II. Graz: Ernst F. Weidner.\n\nExternal links\n\nAshurnasirpal II // World History Encyclopedia\n\nRelief panel from the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II // The Metropolitan Museum of Art\n\nExternal videos\n\n Relief panel. Palace of Ashurnasirpal II. Neo-Assyrian, ca. 883-859 BCE, from Mesopotamia, Nimrud on YouTube // Archaeology News - 2023, July 3"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashurnasirpal-ii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2816}, {"slug": "reference-sargon-ii", "title": "Sargon II", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒈗𒁺, romanized: Šarru-kīn, meaning \"the faithful king\"[2] or \"the legitimate king\")[3] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Most likely the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727),[4] Sargon is generally believed to have become...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sargon II\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Babylon\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nAlabaster bas-relief depicting Sargon II, from his palace in Dur-Sharrukin\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign722-705 BC\n\nPredecessorShalmaneser V\n\nSuccessorSennacherib\n\nBornc. 770-760 BC[1]\n\nDied705 BC (aged c. 55-65)\nTabal\n(modern-day Turkey)\n\nSpouseRa'īmâ\nAtalia\n\nIssueSennacherib\nAhat-abisha\nAt least four others\n\nAkkadianŠarru-kīn\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherTiglath-Pileser III (?)\n\nMotherIaba (?)\n\nSargon II (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒈗𒁺, romanized: Šarru-kīn, meaning \"the faithful king\"[2] or \"the legitimate king\")[3] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Most likely the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727),[4] Sargon is generally believed to have become king after overthrowing Shalmaneser V (r. 727-722), most likely his brother.[5][6][7] He is typically considered the founder of a new dynastic line, the Sargonid dynasty.[8]\n\nModelling his reign on the legends of the ancient rulers Sargon of Akkad, from whom Sargon II likely took his regnal name,[9] and Gilgamesh,[10] Sargon aspired to conquer the known world, initiate a golden age and a new world order,[11] and be remembered and revered by future generations.[11] Over the course of his seventeen-year reign, Sargon substantially expanded Assyrian territory and enacted important political and military reforms.[12] An accomplished warrior-king and military strategist, Sargon personally led his troops into battle.[13] By the end of his reign, all of his major enemies and rivals had been either defeated or pacified. Among Sargon's greatest accomplishments were the continued Assyrian control over the Levant,[14] the weakening of the northern kingdom of Urartu,[15] and the reconquest of Babylonia.[16] From 717 to 707, Sargon constructed a new Assyrian capital named after himself, Dur-Sharrukin ('Fort Sargon'),[17] which he made his official residence in 706.[16]\n\nSargon considered himself divinely mandated to maintain justice.[18] Like other Assyrian kings, Sargon at times enacted brutal punishments against his enemies, but there are no known cases of atrocities against civilians from his reign.[19][20] He worked to assimilate and integrate conquered foreign peoples into the empire and to extend to them the same rights and obligations as native Assyrians.[21] He forgave defeated enemies on several occasions and maintained good relations with foreign kings and with the ruling classes of the lands he conquered.[12] Sargon also increased the influence and status of both women[22] and scribes[23] at the royal court.\n\nSargon embarked on his final campaign, against Tabal in Anatolia, in 705. He was killed in battle, and the Assyrian army was unable to retrieve his body, preventing a traditional burial.[16] According to ancient Mesopotamian religion, he was cursed to remain a restless ghost for eternity.[16] Sargon's fate was a major psychological blow for the Assyrians and damaged his legacy.[16] Sargon's son Sennacherib was deeply disturbed by his father's death and believed that he must have committed some grave sin. As a result, Sennacherib distanced himself from Sargon.[16] Sargon was barely mentioned in later ancient literature and nearly completely forgotten until the ruins of Dur-Sharrukin were discovered in the 19th century. He was not fully accepted in Assyriology as a real king until the 1860s.[24] Due to his conquests and reforms, Sargon is today considered one of the most important Assyrian kings.[12]\n\nBackground\n\nAncestry and rise to the throne\n\nNothing is known of Sargon II's life before he became king.[26] He was probably born c. 770 BC and cannot have been born later than c. 760 BC.[1][a] His reign was immediately preceded by those of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727) and Tiglath-Pileser's son, Shalmaneser V (r. 727-722).[28] Although Sargon is generally regarded as the founder of a new dynastic line, the Sargonid dynasty,[8] he was probably a scion of the incumbent Adaside dynasty.[5] Sargon grew up during the reigns of Ashur-dan III (r. 773-755) and Ashur-nirari V (r. 755-745), when rebellion and plague affected the Neo-Assyrian Empire; the prestige and power of Assyria dramatically declined. This trend reversed during the tenure of Tiglath-Pileser,[29] who reduced the influence of powerful officials,[30][31] reformed the army[32] and more than doubled the size of the empire.[33] In contrast to Tiglath-Pileser, little is recorded of Shalmaneser's brief reign.[28][34]\n\nWhereas kings typically elaborated on their origin in inscriptions, Sargon stated that the Assyrian national deity Ashur had called him to the throne.[6][35] Sargon mentioned his origin in just two known inscriptions, where he referred to himself as Tiglath-Pileser's son, and in the Borowski Stele, probably from Hama in Syria, which referenced his \"royal fathers\".[6] Most historians cautiously[4] accept that Sargon was Tiglath-Pileser's son but not the legitimate heir to the throne as the next-in-line after Shalmaneser.[7] If Sargon was Tiglath-Pileser's son, his mother might have been the queen Iaba.[36] Some Assyriologists, such as Natalie Naomi May, have suggested that Sargon was a member of a collateral branch of the Adaside dynasty from the western part of the empire.[6] In Babylonia, Sargon and his successors were considered part of the \"dynasty of Hanigalbat\" (a western territory), while earlier Assyrian kings were considered part of the \"dynasty of Baltil\" (Baltil being the name of the oldest portion of the ancient Assyrian capital of Assur). Perhaps Sargon was connected to a junior branch of the royal dynasty established at Hanigalbat centuries earlier.[37] Some Assyriologists, such as John Anthony Brinkman, believe that Sargon did not belong to the direct dynastic lineage.[38]\n\nThe Babylonian Chronicles report that Shalmaneser died in January 722 and was succeeded in the same month by Sargon,[28] who was between forty and fifty years old.[1] The exact events surrounding his accession are not clear.[39] Some historians such as Josette Elayi believe that Sargon legitimately inherited the throne.[6] Most scholars however believe him to have been a usurper;[5][7] one theory is that Sargon killed Shalmaneser and seized the throne in a palace coup.[6] Sargon rarely referenced his predecessors[6] and, upon accession, faced massive domestic opposition.[40] Shalmaneser probably had sons of his own who could have inherited the throne,[41] such as the palace official Ashur-dain-aplu, who retained a prominent position under the Sargonid kings.[42] Sargon's only known reference to Shalmaneser describes Ashur punishing him for his policies:[43]\n\nShalmaneser, who did not fear the king of the world, whose hands have brought sacrilege in this city (Assur), pu[t on...] on his people, [he] impo[sed] the compulsory work and a heavy corvée, paid them like a working class [...]. The Illil of the gods, in the wrath of his heart, overthrew [hi]s rule, and [appointed] me, Sargon, as king [of Assyria]. He raised my head; he let [me] take hold of the scepter, the throne (and) the tiara [...].[43]\n\nSargon did not otherwise hold Shalmaneser responsible for the policies placed on Assur, since he wrote elsewhere that most of these had been enacted in the distant past. Tiglath-Pileser, not Shalmaneser, imposed forced labor on the residents of Assur.[44] Several of Shalmaneser's policies and acts were revoked by Sargon. Hullî, a king in Tabal (a region in Anatolia) deported by Shalmaneser, was reinstalled and Sargon reversed Shalmaneser's attempt to decrease trade with Egypt.[45]\n\nName\n\nSargon II was the first king in more than a thousand years to bear the name Sargon.[10] There were two Mesopotamian kings of the same name before his reign: Sargon I, a minor Assyrian king of the 19th century BC (after whom Sargon II is enumerated by modern historians), and the far more prominent 24th-23rd century BC Sargon of Akkad, conqueror of large parts of Mesopotamia and the founder of the Akkadian Empire.[46] Sargon was probably an assumed regnal name.[47] Royal names in ancient Mesopotamia were deliberate choices,[18] setting the tone for a king's reign.[10] Sargon most likely chose the name due to its use by Sargon of Akkad. In late Assyrian texts, the names of Sargon II and Sargon of Akkad are written with the same spelling. Sargon II is sometimes explicitly called the \"second Sargon\" (Šarru-kīn arkû). Though the precise extent of the ancient Sargon's conquests had been forgotten, the legendary ruler was still remembered as a \"conqueror of the world\".[9] Sargon II also energetically pursued the expansion of his own empire.[10]\n\nIn addition to the name's historical connections, Sargon connected his regnal name to justice.[18] In several inscriptions, Sargon described his name as akin to a divine mandate to ensure that his people lived just lives, for instance in an inscription in which Sargon described how he reimbursed the owners of the land he chose to construct his new capital city of Dur-Sharrukin on:[18]\n\nIn accordance with the name which the great gods have given me - to maintain justice and right, to give guidance to those who are not strong, not to injure the weak - the price of the fields of that town [Khorsabad] I paid back to their owners ...[18]\n\nThe name was most commonly written Šarru-kīn, although Šarru-ukīn, is also attested. Sargon's name is commonly interpreted as \"the faithful king\" in the sense of righteousness and justice, from Akkadian šarru 'king'[48] and kēnu 'faithful, righteous, loyal'.[49] Another alternative is that Šarru-kīn is a phonetic reproduction of the contracted pronunciation of Šarru-ukīn to Šarrukīn, which means that it should be interpreted as \"the king has obtained/established order\", possibly referencing disorder either under his predecessor or caused by Sargon's usurpation.[50] Šarru-kīn can also be interpreted as \"the legitimate king\" or \"the true king\" (the Akkadian word kēnu also means 'true, legitimate'[49]) and it could have been chosen because Sargon was not the legitimate heir to the throne.[3][50] The ancient Sargon of Akkad also became king through usurpation.[50] The origin of the conventional modern version of the name, Sargon, is not entirely clear but it is probably based on the spelling in the Hebrew Bible (srgwn):[2] \"Sargon [‏סַרְגּוֹן‎] king of Assyria\" appears in Isaiah 20:1.[51]\n\nReign\n\nEarly reign and rebellions\n\nSargon's reign began with large-scale resistance against his rule in Assyria's heartland. Although quickly suppressed, this political instability led several peripheral regions to regain independence. In early 721, Marduk-apla-iddina II, a Chaldean warlord of the Bit-Yakin tribe, captured Babylon, restored Babylonian independence after eight years of Assyrian rule and allied with the eastern realm of Elam.[52] Though Sargon considered Marduk-apla-iddina's seizure of Babylonia to be unacceptable, an attempt to defeat him in battle near Der in 720 was unsuccessful.[53][54] At the same time, Yahu-Bihdi of Hama in Syria assembled a coalition of minor states in the northern Levant to oppose Assyrian dominion.[53]\n\nIn addition to these revolts, Sargon may have had to deal with unfinished conflicts from Shalmaneser's reign. At some point in the 720s, the Assyrians captured Samaria after a siege lasting several years and ended the Kingdom of Israel, with its territory becoming the new Assyrian province of Samerina. Sargon claimed to have conquered the city,[55] but it is more likely that Shalmaneser captured the city since both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible viewed the fall of Israel as the signature event of his reign.[56] Sargon's claim to conquering it may be related to the city being captured again after Yahu-Bihdi's revolt.[56][57] Either Shalmaneser or Sargon ordered the dispersal of the city of Samaria's population across the Assyrian Empire, following the standard resettlement policy. This specific resettlement resulted in the loss of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.[54] In his inscriptions, Sargon claimed to have resettled 27,280 Israelites.[57] Though likely emotionally damaging for the resettled populace, the Assyrians valued deportees for their labor and generally treated them well, transporting them in safety and comfort together with their families and belongings.[58][59][60]\n\nShortly after his failure to retake Babylonia from Marduk-apla-iddina in 720, Sargon campaigned against Yahu-Bihdi.[53] Among Yahu-Bihdi's supporters were the cities of Arpad, Damascus, Sumur and Samaria.[54] Three of the cities participating in the revolt (Arpad, Sumur and Damascus) were not vassal states; their lands had been converted into Assyrian provinces governed by royally appointed Assyrian governors.[61] The revolt threatened to undo the administrative system established in Syria by Sargon's predecessors[54] and the insurgents went on a killing spree, murdering all local Assyrians they could find.[54][62]\n\nSargon engaged Yahu-Bihdi and his coalition at Qarqar on the Orontes. Defeated, Yahu-Bihdi escaped into Qarqar, which Sargon besieged and captured. Sargon's army destroyed Qarqar and devastated the surrounding lands. Yahu-Bihdi was first deported to Assyria together with his family and then flayed alive. Hama and the other insurgent cities were annexed again. At the same time as large numbers of people from Syria were resettled in other parts of the empire, Sargon resettled some people to Syria, including 6,300 \"guilty Assyrians\", presumably Assyrians from the heartland who had fought against Sargon upon his accession but whose lives had been spared. Sargon described their resettlement as an act of mercy: \"their transgression I disregarded, I had mercy on them\".[63]\n\nAround the same time as Yahu-Bihdi, Hanunu of Gaza in the south also rebelled against Assyria. After Sargon had defeated Yahu-Bihdi, he marched south. After capturing some other cities on his way, probably including Ekron and Gibbethon, the Assyrians defeated Hanunu, whose army had been bolstered by allies from Egypt, at Rafah. Despite the transgression, Gaza was kept as a semi-autonomous vassal state and not outright annexed, perhaps because the location, on the border of Egypt, was of high strategic importance.[64]\n\nProxy wars and minor conflicts\n\nA pressing concern for Sargon was the kingdom of Urartu in the north.[65] Though no longer as powerful as it had been in the past, when it at times rivalled Assyria in strength and influence,[66] Urartu still remained an alternative suzerain for many smaller states in the north. In 718, Sargon intervened in Mannaea, one of these states. This campaign was as much a military effort as it was a diplomatic one; King Iranzu of Mannaea had been an Assyrian vassal for more than 25 years and had requested Sargon to aid him. A rebellion by the Urartu-aligned noble Mitatti occupied half of Iranzu's kingdom, but thanks to Sargon, Mitatti's uprising was suppressed. Shortly after the victory over the rebels, Iranzu died and Sargon intervened in the succession, supporting Iranzu's son Aza rise to the throne of Mannaea. Another son, Ullusunu, contested his brother's accession and was supported in his efforts against him by Rusa I of Urartu.[67]\n\nAnother of Sargon's prominent foreign enemies was the powerful and expansionist Midas of Phrygia in central Anatolia.[68] Sargon worried about a possible alliance between Phrygia and Urartu and Midas' use of proxy warfare by encouraging Assyrian vassal states to rebel. Sargon could not fight against Midas directly but had to deal with uprisings by his vassals among the Syro-Hittite states, most of them located in remote locations in the mountains of southern Anatolia. It was crucial to keep control over the regions of Tabal and Quwê to prevent communication between Midas and Rusa. Tabal-several minor states competing with each other, contested between Assyria, Phrygia and Urartu-was particularly important since it was rich in natural resources (including silver). Sargon campaigned against Tabal in 718, mostly against Kiakki of Shinuhtu, who withheld tribute and conspired with Midas. Sargon could not conquer Tabal because of its isolation and difficult terrain. Instead, Shinuhtu was given to a rival Tabalian ruler, Kurtî of Atunna. Kurtî conspired with Midas at some point between 718 and 713, but later maintained his allegiance to Sargon.[69]\n\nSargon returned to Syria in 717 to defeat an uprising led by Pisiri of Carchemish, who had supported Sargon during Yahu-Bihdi's revolt but was now plotting with Midas to overthrow Assyrian hegemony in the region. The uprising was defeated and the population of Carchemish was deported and replaced with Assyrians. The city and its surrounding lands were turned into an Assyrian province and an Assyrian palace was constructed.[70] The conquest might have inspired Sargon to build his own new capital city (Dur-Sharrukin),[70] a project which could be financed with the silver plundered from Carchemish.[54] Sargon took so much silver from Carchemish that silver began to replace copper as the currency of the empire.[54] Despite Sargon's repeated victories in the west, the Levant was not fully stabilized.[14]\n\nSargon established a new trading post near the border of Egypt in 716, staffed it with people deported from various conquered lands and placed it under the local Arab ruler Laban, an Assyrian vassal. In later writings, Sargon for unknown reasons falsely claimed that he in this year also subjugated the people of Egypt. In actuality, Sargon is recorded to have engaged in diplomacy with Pharaoh Osorkon IV, who gifted Sargon with twelve horses.[71]\n\nIn 716, Sargon campaigned between Urartu and Elam, perhaps part of a strategy to weaken these enemies. Passing through Mannaea, Sargon attacked Media, probably to establish control there and neutralize the region as a potential threat before confronting either Urartu or Elam. The local Medes were disunited and posed no serious threat to Assyria. After Sargon defeated them and established Assyrian provinces, he let the established local lords continue to rule their respective cities as vassals. Supplanting them and integrating the lands further into the imperial bureaucracy would have been costly and time-consuming due to their remoteness. As part of this eastern campaign, Sargon defeated some local rebels, including Bag-dati of Uishdish and Bel-sharru-usur of Kisheshim. In Mannaea, Ullusunu had succeeded in taking the throne from his brother Aza. Instead of deposing Ullusunu and proclaiming a new king, Sargon accepted Ullusunu's submission and endorsed him as king, forgiving his uprising and gaining his allegiance.[72]\n\nUrartu-Assyria War\n\nUrartu remained Sargon's main strategic rival in the north.[54] In 715, Urartu was severely weakened by an unsuccessful expedition against the Cimmerians, a nomadic people in the central Caucasus. The Cimmerians defeated the Urartian army and raided Urartian lands as far as immediately south-west of Lake Urmia. Ullusunu of Mannaea had switched by then his loyalty to Assyria.[73] Rusa seized some of Ullusunu's fortresses and replaced him with Daiukku as the new king. Months later, Sargon invaded Mannaea, recaptured Ullusunu's fortresses and restored him to the throne. Rusa attempted to drive Sargon back, but his army was defeated in the foothills of Sahand. Sargon also received the tribute of Ianzu, king of Nairi, another former Urartian vassal.[74] Preparing for a campaign against Rusa, Sargon defeated some minor rebels in Media. In Anatolia, Urik of Quwê, changed his allegiance from Sargon to Midas of Phrygia and began sending envoys to Rusa. To prevent the formation of a northern alliance, Sargon attacked Quwê, defeating Urik and recapturing some cities that had fallen to Midas. Quwê was abolished as a vassal kingdom and annexed.[75]\n\nSuspecting an Assyrian invasion, Rusa kept most of his army by Lake Urmia, close to the Assyrian border, which was already fortified against Assyrian invasion.[73] The shortest path from Assyria to the Urartian heartland went through the Kel-i-šin pass in the Taurus Mountains. One of the most important places in all of Urartu, the holy city Musasir, was located just west of this pass and was protected by fortifications. Rusa ordered the construction of the Gerdesorah, a new fortress strategically positioned on a hill.[76] The Gerdesorah was still under construction when the Assyrians invaded.[77]\n\nSargon left the Assyrian capital of Nimrud in July 714. Rejecting the shortest route through the Kel-i-šin pass, Sargon marched his army through the valleys of the Great and Little Zab for three days before halting near Mount Kullar (the location of which remains unidentified). There Sargon chose a longer route through Kermanshah, probably since he knew the Urartians anticipated him attacking through the pass.[78] The longer route delayed the Assyrians with mountains and greater distance.[78] The campaign had to be completed before October, when the mountain passes would become blocked by snow. This meant that conquest, if that had been the intention, would not be possible.[78]\n\nSargon reached Gilzanu, near Lake Urmia, and made camp. The Urartian forces regrouped and built new fortifications west and south of Lake Urmia.[79] Though Sargon's forces had been granted supplies and water by his vassals in Media, his troops were exhausted and nearly mutinous. When Rusa arrived, the Assyrian army refused to fight. Sargon assembled his bodyguards and led them in a near-suicidal charge against the nearest wing of the Urartian forces. Sargon's army defeated the Urartians at Mount Waush, and chased them west, far past Lake Urmia. Rusa abandoned his forces and fled into the mountains.[80]\n\nOn their way home, the Assyrians destroyed the Gerdesorah and captured and plundered Musasir[79] after the local governor, king Urzana, refused to welcome Sargon. An enormous quantity of spoils were carried back to Assyria. Urzana was forgiven and allowed to continue to govern Musasir as an Assyrian vassal. Though Urartu remained powerful and Rusa retook Musasir, the 714 campaign put an end to direct confrontations between Urartu and Assyria for the rest of Sargon's reign.[15] Sargon considered the campaign one of the major events of his reign. It was described in exceptional detail in his inscriptions and several of the reliefs in his palace were decorated with representations of the sack of Musasir.[81]\n\nConstruction of Dur-Sharrukin\n\nThe foundations of Dur-Sharrukin (\"fortress of Sargon\") were laid in 717. Dur-Sharrukin was built between the Husur river and Mount Musri, near the village of Magganabba, around 16 kilometres (10 miles) northeast of Nineveh. The new city could use water from Mount Musri[83] but the location otherwise lacked obvious practical or political merit.[84] In one of his inscriptions, Sargon alluded to fondness for the foothills of Mount Musri: \"following the prompting of my heart, I built a city at the foot of Mount Musri, in the plain of Nineveh, and named it Dur-Sharrukin\".[83] Since no buildings had ever been constructed at the chosen location, previous architecture did not have to be taken into account and he conceived the new city as an \"ideal city\", its proportions based on mathematical harmony.[54] There were various numerical and geometrical correspondences between different aspects of the city[85] and Dur-Sharrukin's city walls formed a nearly perfect square.[54]\n\nThe numerous surviving sources on the construction of the city include inscriptions carved on the walls of its buildings, reliefs depicting the process and over a hundred letters and other documents describing the work. The chief coordinator was Tab-shar-Ashur, Sargon's chief treasurer, but at least twenty-six governors from across the empire were also associated with the construction; Sargon made the project a collaborative effort by the whole empire. Sargon took an active personal interest in the progress and frequently intervened in nearly all aspects of the work, from commenting on architectural details to overseeing material transportation and the recruitment of labor. Sargon's frequent input and efforts to encourage more work is probably the main reason for how the city could be completed so fast and efficiently. Sargon's encouragement was at times lenient, particularly when dealing with grumbling among the workers, but at other times threatening.[86] One of his letters to the governor of Nimrud, requesting building materials, reads as follows:[87]\n\n700 bales of straw and 700 bundles of reeds, and each bundle no more than a donkey can carry, must be at hand in Dur-Sharrukin by the first day of Kislev. Should even one day pass by, you will die.[87]\n\nDur-Sharrukin reflected Sargon's self-image and how he wished the empire to see him. At about three square kilometers (1.2 square miles), the city was one of the largest in antiquity. The city's palace, which Sargon called a \"palace without rival\",[b] was built on a huge artificial platform on the northern side of the city astride the wall, as was typical of Neo-Assyrian palaces,[88] and was fortified with a wall of its own. At 100,000 square meters (10 hectares; 25 acres), it was the largest Assyrian palace ever built. The palace itself occupied three quarters of the citadel it was constructed on, while temples and the ziggurat were relegated to a single corner.[88] It was richly decorated with reliefs, statues, glazed bricks and stone lamassus (human-headed bulls). Other prominent structures in the city included temples, a building in the southwest called the arsenal (ekal mâšarti), and a great park, which included exotic plants from throughout the empire. The city's surrounding wall was 20 metres (66 ft) high and 14 metres (46 ft) thick, reinforced at 15-meter (49 ft) intervals with more than two hundred bastions. The internal wall was named Ashur, the external wall Ninurta, the city's seven gates Shamash, Adad, Enlil, Anu, Ishtar, Ea and Belet-ili after gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon.[85]\n\nFurther minor conflicts\n\nIn the years following the campaign against Urartu, Sargon worked to retain the loyalty of his northern vassals and to curb the influence of Elam; though Elam itself did not pose a threat towards Assyria, it would not be possible to reconquer Babylonia without first breaking Marduk-apla-iddina's alliance with the Elamites. In 713, Sargon campaigned in the Zagros Mountains again, defeating a revolt in the land of Karalla, meeting with Ullusunu of Mannaea and receiving some tribute. In the same year, Sargon sent his turtanu (commander-in-chief) to help Talta of Ellipi, an Assyrian vassal west of the Zagros Mountains. Sargon probably considered it important to keep good relations with Ellipi since it was a key buffer state between Assyria and Elam. Talta was threatened by a revolt, but after Assyrian intervention he retained his throne.[89]\n\nRusa still intended to extend Urartian influence into southern Anatolia despite Sargon's 714 victory. In 713 Sargon campaigned against Tabal in southern Anatolia again, trying to secure the kingdom's natural resources (mainly silver and wood, required for the construction of Dur-Sharrukin) and to prevent Urartu from establishing control and contacting Phrygia. Sargon used a divide and rule approach in Tabal; territory was distributed between the different Tabalian rulers to prevent any one of them from growing strong enough to present a problem. Sargon also encouraged the loose hegemony of the strongest Tabalian state, Bit-Purutash (sometimes called \"Tabal proper\" by modern historians), over the other Tabalian rulers. The king of Bit-Purutash, Ambaris, was granted Sargon's daughter Ahat-Abisha in marriage and some additional territory. This strategy was not successful; Ambaris began conspiring with the other rulers of Tabal and with Rusa and Midas. Sargon deposed Ambaris, deporting him to Assyria, and annexed Tabal.[90]\n\nThe Philistine city of Ashdod rebelled under its king Azuri in 713, and was crushed by Sargon or one of his generals. Azuri was replaced as king by Ahi-Miti. In 712 the vassal king Tarhunazi of Kammanu in northern Syria rebelled against Assyria, seeking to ally with Midas. Tarhunazi had been placed on his throne during Sargon's 720 campaign in the Levant. This revolt was dealt with by Sargon's turtanu; Tarhunazi was defeated and his lands were annexed. His capital, Melid, was given to Mutallu of Kummuh. Mutallu was a trusted ally since the kings of Kummuh had long maintained good relations with the Assyrian court. After the Assyrian army defeated a revolt by the kingdom of Gurgum in 711 and it was annexed, Sargon's control of southern Anatolia became relatively stable. Shortly after Sargon's victory, Ashdod revolted again. The locals deposed Ahi-Miti and in his stead proclaimed a noble named Yamani as king. In 712, Yamani approached Judah and Egypt for an alliance[91] but the Egyptians refused Yamani's offer, maintaining good relations with Sargon.[92] After the Assyrians defeated Yamani in 711 and Ashdod was destroyed, Yamani escaped to Egypt[93] and was extradited to Assyria by Pharaoh Shebitku in 707.[92]\n\nReconquest of Babylonia\n\nIn 710, Sargon decided to reconquer Babylonia. To justify the impending expedition, Sargon proclaimed that the Babylonian national deity Marduk had commanded him to liberate the south from the evil Marduk-apla-iddina.[93] Though Babylonia and Elam still maintained good relations, the military alliance between the two had disintegrated.[92] Sargon used diplomacy to convince cities and tribes within Babylonia to betray Marduk-apla-iddina. Through secret negotiations, several tribes and cities in northern Babylonia were won over, including the city of Sippar and the tribes Bit-Dakkuri and Bit-Amukkani.[94]\n\nSargon invaded Babylonia by marching alongside the eastern bank of the river Tigris until he reached the city of Dur-Athara, which had been fortified by Marduk-apla-iddina (moving also the entire Gambulu tribe, an Aramean people, into it), but was quickly defeated and renamed Dur-Nabu. Sargon created a new province surrounding the city, Gambulu.[95] Dur-Athara might have been seized specifically to prevent the Elamites from sending any significant aid to Marduk-apla-iddina.[96] Sargon spent some time at Dur-Athara, sending his soldiers on expeditions to the east and south to convince cities and tribes to submit to his rule. Sargon's forces defeated a contingent of Aramean and Elamite soldiers by a river referred to as the Uknu.[95] Once Sargon crossed the Tigris and one of the branches of the Euphrates and arrived at the city Dur-Ladinni, near Babylon, Marduk-apla-iddina became frightened. He may have had little support from the people and priesthood of Babylon or had lost most of his army at Dur-Athara.[95][96] Marduk-apla-iddina fled to Elam, where he unsuccessfully petitioned King Shutruk-Nahhunte II for aid.[96]\n\nAfter Marduk-apla-iddina's departure, Sargon met little opposition on his march south. The people of Babylon opened the gates with enthusiasm and he made a triumphal entry.[92][96] Elayi speculated in 2017 that Sargon may have made an agreement with the city's priests, who might have preferred Assyrian rule over a Chaldean king. After some ceremonies in the city, Sargon relocated with his army to Kish to continue the war and suppress remaining resistance.[96] Marduk-apla-iddina returned to Mesopotamia, taking up residence in his home city of Dur-Yakin and continuing to resist.[92]\n\nDur-Yakin was fortified, a great ditch was dug surrounding its walls, and the surrounding countryside was flooded through a canal dug from the Euphrates. Guarded by the flooded terrain, Marduk-apla-iddina set up his camp outside the city walls. His forces were defeated by Sargon's army, which had crossed through the flooded terrain unimpeded. Marduk-apla-iddina fled into the city as the Assyrians began collecting spoils of war from his fallen soldiers.[97] Sargon besieged Dur-Yakin but was unable to take the city. As the siege dragged on, negotiations were started and in 709 it was agreed that the city would surrender and tear down its exterior walls in exchange for Sargon sparing Marduk-apla-iddina's life.[98] Marduk-apla-iddina, along with his family and supporters, were granted passage to Elam to live in exile.[16]\n\nLast years\n\nAfter he took Babylon in 710, Sargon was proclaimed king of Babylon by the citizens of the city and spent the next three years in Babylon, in Marduk-apla-iddina's palace.[95] Affairs in Assyria were in these years overseen by Sargon's son Sennacherib. Sargon participated in the annual Babylonian Akitu (New Years) festival and received homage and gifts from rulers of lands as far away from the heartland of his empire as Bahrain and Cyprus.[16] Sargon engaged himself in various domestic affairs in Babylonia, digging a new canal from Borsippa to Babylon and defeating a people called the Hamaranaeans that had been plundering caravans near Sippar.[95] In Sargon's inscriptions from this time, he used some traditionally Babylonian elements in his royal titles and frequently mentioned deities popular in Babylonia rather than those popular in Assyria. Some Assyrians, even members of the royal family, disagreed with Sargon's pro-Babylonian attitude.[16][c]\n\nIn Sargon's absence, developments in the rest of the empire were dealt with by his officials and generals. Midas of Phrygia remained a threat to Assyrian interests; to ensure that communication and trade remained open to Assyrian vassals in Anatolia, the Assyrians carefully monitored him. In 709, the Assyrian governor of Quwê, Ashur-sharru-usur personally resolved to end the Phrygian threat. His raids into Phrygia and the capture of a mountain fortress, perhaps Hilakku, frightened Midas, who willingly became Sargon's vassal.[99]\n\nIn 709, Assyria sent an expedition to Cyprus.[100] This was the first time that the Assyrians gained detailed knowledge of the island.[101] Sargon did not personally participate in the campaign[100] and the Assyrians relied on their Levantine vassals for transportation.[102] Because Cyprus was far away, actually controlling the island would have been difficult, but the campaign resulted in several Cypriote rulers paying tribute to Sargon.[100] After the departure of the expedition, the Cypriotes, probably with the aid of an Assyrian stonemason sent by the royal court,[103] fashioned the Sargon Stele. The stele was an ideological marker indicating the boundary of the Assyrian king's sphere of influence and to mark the incorporation of Cyprus into the Assyrians' \"known world\". Since it had the king's image and words on it, it served as a representation of Sargon and a substitute for his presence.[101]\n\nIn 709, one of Sargon's officers besieged the Phoenician city of Tyre after its leader refused to ally with Assyria. It proved to be one of the few military blunders of Sargon's time; the city resisted the Assyrians for several years until Sargon's death, after which the Assyrian army left. In 708, Mutallu of Kummuh withheld his tribute to Assyria for unknown reasons and allied with the new Urartian king Argishti II. Sargon sent one of his officers to capture Kummuh. The Assyrians heavily plundered Kummuh and annexed its lands. Mutallu survived, probably escaping to Urartu.[104]\n\nMay the ruler, its builder, reach and attain the old age, and (abundant) posterity, may its founder live into the distant days (of the future) ... may he who dwells therein, make jubilation in health of body, joy of heart, well-being of soul; may he have abundance of luck.\n\n- Excerpt from inscription by Sargon after the foundation of Dur-Sharrukin illustrating his hope to reside in the city for a long time.[105]\n\nDur-Sharrukin was completed in 707 after a decade of construction.[106] Sargon returned to Assyria[16] to prepare the city's inauguration.[106] A year later, he moved the royal court to Dur-Sharrukin.[16] The inauguration began with Sargon \"inviting the gods\" to Dur-Sharrukin, placing statues of various gods in the city's temples. Sargon invited \"princes of (all) countries, the governors of my land, scribes and superintendents, nobles, officials and elders of Assyria\" to a great feast. The common people who had helped build the city were also invited to partake in the celebration, dining in the same hall as the king.[107] Already shortly after its inauguration, the new capital was densely populated.[82]\n\nFinal campaign and death\n\nFew sources survive describing Sargon's final campaign and death. Based on the Assyrian Eponym List and the Babylonian Chronicles, the most likely course of events is that Sargon embarked to campaign against Tabal, which had risen up against him, in the early summer of 705.[108] This campaign was the last of several attempts to bring Tabal under Assyrian control.[16] It is not clear why Sargon resolved to lead the expedition against Tabal in person, considering the large number of campaigns led by his officials and generals. Tabal was not a real threat against the Assyrian Empire. Elayi believes that the most likely explanation is that Sargon saw the expedition as an interesting diversion from the quiet court life of Dur-Sharrukin.[109]\n\nSargon's final campaign ended in disaster. Somewhere in Anatolia, Gurdî of Kulumma, an otherwise poorly attested figure, attacked the Assyrian camp.[16] Gurdî has variously been assumed to have been a local ruler in Anatolia or a tribal leader of the Cimmerians, during this time allied with the rebels in Tabal.[110] In the ensuing battle, Sargon was killed. The Assyrian soldiers fleeing from the attack were unable to recover the king's body.[16] Sargon died just over a year after the inauguration of Dur-Sharrukin.[111]\n\nFamily and children\n\nIn addition to Shalmaneser V probably being Sargon's brother, Sargon had a younger brother, Sin-ahu-usur (Sîn-aḫu-uṣur), who was by 714 the commander of Sargon's royal cavalry guard. After the inauguration of Dur-Sharrukin in 706, he was granted his own residence in the new capital.[112] He appears to have held the influential position of grand vizier.[54]\n\nTwo wives of Sargon are known: Ra'ima (Ra'īmâ) and Atalia (Ataliā).[29] Atalia was Sargon's queen; her tomb was discovered in Nimrud in 1989.[113] The general assumption among researchers is that Assyrian kings could have multiple wives, but only one woman at a time could be recognized as queen.[114][115] Sennacherib was once believed to have been Atalia's son, but he is now known to have been the son of Ra'ima, since a stele from Assur, translated in 2014, explicitly refers to Ra'ima as his mother.[116] There is no evidence that Ra'ima was ever Sargon's queen.[117] Atalia is believed to have outlived Sargon[118] and her remains found in 1989 indicate that she was aged approximately 30-35 at the time of death.[119] Ra'ima must have been significantly older than Atalia given that she gave birth to Sennacherib c. 745.[1] It is possible that Ra'ima also outlived Sargon since an inscription written by Sennacherib 692 BC references her,[116] though it might have been written after her death.[117]\n\nSargon had at least two sons before Sennacherib was born, though they died prior to Sennacherib's birth,[29] indicated by Sennacherib's name, Sîn-aḫḫē-erība in Akkadian, meaning \"[the god] Sîn has replaced the brothers\".[1][120][121] Like Sennacherib, the older sons were presumably sons of Ra'ima.[29] Sennacherib, who succeeded Sargon as king (r. 705-681),[29] was an adult at the time of Sargon's accession. He was named crown prince early in Sargon's reign and assisted his father in running the empire;[1] he helped collect and summarize intelligence reports from the Assyrian spy network.[122] Sargon had at least two children younger than Sennacherib, though their names are unknown.[29] Their existence is indicated by a letter from Sargon's reign mentioning \"Sennacherib, the crown prince ... [and all] the princes/children of the king (who are) [in] Assyria\".[121] Sargon's only known daughter was Ahat-Abisha (Aḫat-Abiša), who married Ambaris of Tabal.[123] When Ambaris was dethroned by Sargon in 713, Ahat-Abisha probably returned to Assyria.[124]\n\nCharacter\n\nWarrior-king\n\nSargon II was a warrior-king and conqueror who commanded his armies in person and dreamt of conquering the world like Sargon of Akkad. Sargon assumed traditional Mesopotamian titles relating to world domination, such as \"king of the universe\" and \"king of the four corners of the world\", and great power, including \"great king\" and \"mighty king\".[13] Although Neo-Assyrian kings' titles were formulaic, they typically used additional epithets to highlight their unique qualities and aspirations.[125] Sargon's epithets present him as if he were an invincible warlord, for example, \"mighty hero, clothed with terror, who sends forth his weapon to bring low the foe, brave warrior, since the day of whose (accession) to rulership, there has been no prince equal to him, who has been without conqueror or rival\".[126] Sargon wished to be seen as an omnipresent and eager warrior. Sargon is unlikely to have fought on the frontlines in all campaigns since this would greatly have jeopardized the empire, but it is clear that he was more interested in participating in war than his predecessors and successors and he did eventually die in battle.[126]\n\nSargon was a highly successful military strategist who employed an extensive spy network, useful for administration and military activities, and employed well-trained scouts for reconnaissance when on campaign. Even though the Assyrian Empire was vastly more powerful than any of its enemies, these enemies also surrounded the empire. Because only one target could be attacked at a time, they had to be picked wisely in order to avoid disaster. Sargon outwitted his enemies on multiple occasions, for instance through the unexpected route he took in the war with Urartu.[122] Sargon's ability to quickly react and adapt to setbacks distinguished him from his predecessors.[127] Sargon also strengthened the Assyrian army; he was the first Assyrian king to appreciate the war potential of cavalry and made various innovations, including picking certain breeds of horses, developing new methods of harnessing and recruiting mercenary cavalry.[128] Based on the contents of his letters, Sargon seems to have ensured discipline and obedience through fear rather than inspiration or adoration. When raising troops, he at times threatened them with the same type of punishments enacted against Assyria's worst enemies, should they disobey him.[129]\n\nThis is a royal order of great emergency! Assemble the commanders and the horsemen of your cavalry unit immediately! Whoever is late will be impaled in the middle of his own house, and his sons and daughters too will be slaughtered, which will then be the fault of his own! Don't delay! Drop everything and come straight away!\n\n- Excerpt from a letter sent by Sargon II summoning a cavalry regiment to participate in a campaign[130]\n\nUnlike the numerous records of such punishments against Assyrian enemies, there is no evidence that Sargon's threats were realized-it is unlikely that they ever were. Because the soldiers in many cases had themselves participated in punishments against their enemies, the threats themselves were probably sufficient. Despite this approach, Sargon was not unpopular with the military; there are no records of army uprisings against him, nor of any army officers engaging in conspiracies. It is also probable that the main motivating factor for Assyrians serving in the army was not being threatened by the king, but rather the frequent spoils of war that could be taken after victories.[130]\n\nQuest for renown\n\nNearly all Assyrian kings wished to outdo their predecessors and be remembered as glorious rulers.[131] Sargon aspired to surpass all previous kings, even Sargon of Akkad. He established and cultivated his own cult of personality, for instance through having stelae made with depictions of him as a formidable king and placing these across the empire, often in highly visible places such as frequented passageways. In his palace in Dur-Sharrukin, Sargon decorated the walls with reliefs depicting himself and his achievements. He hoped that future generations would regard him as one of the greatest kings.[126]\n\nSargon's aspiration for renown is also reflected in Dur-Sharrukin, which was likely founded mainly as an ideological statement given its location's lack of obvious merit.[84] Perhaps inspired by Sargon of Akkad being credited as the founder of the city of Akkad,[10] Sargon II built Dur-Sharrukin for his own glory and intended the city, and his various other building works, to preserve his memory for generations to come.[132] The inscriptions in Dur-Sharrukin evoke Sargon's desire to initiate a golden age and to mark the beginning of a new world order.[11] They also condemn those who would destroy Sargon's works and encourage future kings to honor his memory.[132]\n\nIn addition to Sargon of Akkad, another figure idolized by Sargon II was the ancient Sumerian ruler Gilgamesh, chiefly known in Sargon's time through the Epic of Gilgamesh.[10][133] In several surviving texts, Sargon II's feats were implicitly compared to the legend.[10] In Sargon's inscriptions, the campaign against Urartu includes portions where it seems that Sargon is fighting not only the Urartians but also the landscape itself. A section where the mountains are described as if they are rising up as swords and spears to oppose Sargon's advance would probably have reminded Assyrian readers of a similar section in the Epic of Gilgamesh, implying that Sargon faced dangers equal to those of the ancient hero.[133] A giant relief at Dur-Sharrukin depicts a muscular man holding a lion to his chest. Though the relief bears no inscription that proves its identity, scholars generally identify it as a depiction of Gilgamesh.[133] In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh, though failing to gain actual immortality, achieves a type of immortality through his creation of an impressive wall surrounding Uruk, a building work that will outlast him and perpetuate his memory.[134]\n\nGuardian of justice\n\nSargon titled himself a \"guardian of justice\"[135] and considered himself to be divinely mandated to \"maintain justice and right\", \"give guidance to those who are not strong\" and \"not to injure the weak\".[18] Sargon worked to ensure the protection and security of the people who lived under his rule.[136]\n\nUnder Tiglath-Pileser III, Assyrian efforts to assimilate and incorporate conquered foreign peoples had begun in earnest. Sargon continued and extended this policy, putting foreigners on the same footing as the original Assyrian population. Sargon's accounts of conquests explicitly mention that he placed the same taxes on the people of the new territories as he did on the people in the Assyrian heartland.[21] Sargon also encouraged assimilation, cultural mixture and the teaching, rather than forceful imposition, of Assyrian ways of life.[21][137] One of the passages in an account of Dur-Sharrukin's construction for instance reads:[137]\n\nSubjects of (all) four (parts of the world), of foreign tongues, with different languages without similarity, people from mountainous regions and plains, so many (different people) as the light of the gods,[d] lord above all, supervises, I let dwell inside [my new city] on the command of Ashur my lord [...]. Born Assyrians, experienced in all professions, I set above them as supervisors and guides to teach them how to work properly and respect the gods and the king.[137]\n\nThe power and influence of the women at the royal court was increased in Sargon's reign. He created new military units subservient to the queen,[138][22][139] which grew in size and diversity under Sargon's successors. These units were part of the military might of the empire and participated in campaigns.[138][22] Sargon's motivation is not known, but perhaps he wanted to reduce the influence of powerful officials by delegating authority and responsibilities to trusted relatives, including women.[22] The office of turtanu was split into two, one being assigned to the forces of the queen.[138]\n\nIn Assyrian royal ideology, the Assyrian king was the divinely appointed mortal representative of Ashur. The king was seen as having the moral, humane and necessary obligation to extend Assyria since lands outside Assyria were regarded to be uncivilized and a threat to the cosmic and divine order within the Assyrian Empire. Expansionism was thus cast as a moral duty to convert chaos to civilization.[140] Resistance against Assyrian rule was seen as fighting against divine will; rebels and enemies were criminals against the divine world order, deserving punishment.[141] Though some atrocities are recorded in Sargon's inscriptions, including \"filling the mountain valleys\" with the bodies of enemy soldiers[19] and gouging out the eyes of prisoners,[142] Sargon's inscriptions do not appear to contain much overt sadism (unlike the inscriptions of some other kings, such as Ashurnasirpal II).[19] Atrocities enacted by Assyrian kings were in most known cases directed only towards soldiers and elites; as of 2016 none of the known inscriptions or reliefs of Sargon mention or show harm being done to civilians.[20] Unlike virtually all other Assyrian kings, Sargon did not solely exert dominion through aggression, but maintained good relations with several foreign ruling classes and external kings, rewarded loyal vassals, worked to seal alliances, and several times spared and forgave repentant enemies.[12]\n\nSargon saw himself as exceptionally intelligent, more so than any of his predecessors.[13] It is probable that he received the usual education of the Assyrian upper class, learning both Akkadian and Sumerian, as well as some arithmetic. Sargon was perhaps also educated in art or literature; he built a library in his palace and covered the palace walls in artwork.[26] Sargon heavily promoted writing and scribal culture; court scholars became more prominent in Sargon's reign than both before and after. Over a thousand cuneiform letters are known from Sargon's time, more than from the reigns of his three successors combined.[23]\n\nLegacy\n\nSargon forgotten\n\nSargon's legacy in ancient Assyria was severely damaged by the manner of his death; in particular, the failure to recover his body was a major psychological blow for Assyria.[16] The shock and theological implications plagued the reigns of his successors for decades.[133] The ancient Assyrians believed that unburied dead became ghosts that could come back and haunt the living.[16][108] Sargon was believed to be doomed to a miserable afterlife; his ghost would wander the Earth, eternally restless and hungry.[10][133] Soon after the news of Sargon's death reached the Assyrian heartland, the influential advisor and scribe Nabu-zuqup-kena copied Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh.[16] This tablet contains a section eerily similar to Sargon's death, with the miserable implications described in detail,[e] which must have left the scribe stunned and distressed.[16] In the Levant, Sargon's hubris was mocked. It is believed that a foreign ruler chided in the Biblical Book of Isaiah is based on Sargon.[16]\n\nSennacherib was horrified by his father's death. The Assyriologist Eckart Frahm believes that Sennacherib was so deeply affected that he began suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.[118] Sennacherib was unable to acknowledge and mentally deal with what had transpired.[143] Sargon's dishonorable death in battle and his lack of a burial was seen as a sign that he must have committed some serious and unforgivable sin that made the gods completely abandon him.[144] Sennacherib concluded that Sargon had perhaps offended Babylon's gods by taking control of the city.[145]\n\nSennacherib did everything he could to distance himself from Sargon and never wrote or built anything to honor Sargon's memory.[16][108] One of his first building projects was restoring a temple dedicated to Nergal, god of the underworld, perhaps intended to pacify a deity possibly involved with Sargon's fate.[146] Sennacherib also moved the capital to Nineveh, despite the fact that Dur-Sharrukin was entirely new and built to house the royal court.[133] Given that Sargon modelled parts of his reign on Gilgamesh, Frahm believes that it is possible that Sennacherib abandoned Dur-Sharrukin on account of the Epic of Gilgamesh.[133] The furious and hungry spirit of a mighty king might have been feared to mean that Sennacherib would be unable to hold court there.[133] Sennacherib spent a lot of time and effort to rid the empire of Sargon's imagery and work. Images Sargon had created at the temple in Assur were made invisible through raising the level of the courtyard and Sargon's queen Atalia was buried hastily when she died, without regard to traditional burial practices and in the same coffin as another woman.[118] Despite this, Sennacherib attempted to avenge his father, sending an expedition to Tabal in 704 to kill Gurdî and perhaps retrieve Sargon's body; whether it was successful is not known.[118][147]\n\nAfter Sennacherib's reign, Sargon was sometimes mentioned as the ancestor of later kings.[f] Assyria fell in the late 7th century BC. Though the local population of northern Mesopotamia never forgot ancient Assyria, knowledge of Assyria in Western Europe throughout the centuries thereafter derived from the writings of classical authors and the Bible.[151] Due to the efforts of Sennacherib, Sargon was poorly remembered by the time these works were written. Sargon was obscure in Assyriology prior to the rediscovery of Dur-Sharrukin in the 19th century. His name appears once in the Bible (Isaiah 20.1).[152] Many Assyriological commentators were puzzled by the name's appearance in the Bible and believed that Sargon was merely an alias for one of the better-known kings, typically Shalmaneser, Sennacherib or Esarhaddon.[153]\n\nSargon rediscovered\n\nEuropean explorers and archaeologists first began excavations in northern Mesopotamia in the early 19th century.[154] Around this time some scholars placed Sargon as a distinct king between Shalmaneser and Sennacherib.[24] Dur-Sharrukin was found by chance; Paul-Émile Botta was conducting excavations at Nineveh when he heard about it from locals[155] in 1843. Under Botta and his assistant Victor Place, virtually the entire palace was excavated, as were portions of the surrounding town.[154] In 1847, the first-ever exhibition on Assyrian sculptures was held in the Louvre, composed of finds from Sargon's palace. Botta's report on his findings, published in 1849, garnered exceptional interest.[155] Though much of what was excavated at Dur-Sharrukin was left in situ, reliefs and other artifacts have been exhibited across the world, including the Louvre, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and the Iraq Museum.[154]\n\nIn 1845, Isidore Löwenstern was the first to suggest that Sargon was the builder of Dur-Sharrukin, although he based this identification on erroneous readings of cuneiform. After cuneiform was deciphered, archaeologist Adrien Prévost de Longpérier confirmed the king's name to be Sargon in 1847. Discussions and debate continued for several years and Sargon was not fully accepted by Assyriologists as a distinct king until the 1860s.[24] Through the large number of sources left behind from his time, Sargon is better known than many of his predecessors and successors, and than the ancient Sargon of Akkad.[156] Modern Assyriologists consider Sargon to have been one of the most important Assyrian kings given the substantial expansion of Assyrian territory undertaken in his reign and his political and military reforms. Sargon left a stable and strong empire, though it proved difficult to control by his successors. Sennacherib had to face several revolts against his rule, some of them motivated by the manner of Sargon's death, though they were all eventually defeated.[12] Elayi assessed Sargon in 2017 as \"the real founder of the empire\" and a man who \"succeeded in everything in his life, but completely failed in his death\".[157] Since the early 20th century, Sargon has also been a common name among modern Assyrian people.[158]\n\nTitles\n\nThe Sargon Stele from Cyprus gives Sargon the following titles:\n\nSargon, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world, favorite of the great gods, who go before me; Ashur, Nabu and Marduk have intrusted to me an unrivaled kingdom and have caused my gracious name to attain unto highest renown.[159]\n\nIn an account of restoration work done to Ashurnasirpal II's palace in Nimrud (written before Sargon's reconquest of Babylonia), Sargon used the following longer titulature:\n\nSargon, prefect of Enlil, priest of Ashur, elect of Anu and Enlil, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four corners of the world, favorite of the great gods, rightful ruler, whom Ashur and Marduk have called, and whose name they have caused to attain unto the highest renown; mighty hero, clothed with terror, who sends forth his weapon to bring low the foe; brave warrior, since the day of whose accession to rulership, there has been no prince equal to him, who has been without conqueror or rival; who has brought under his sway all lands from the rising to the setting sun and has assumed the rulership of the subjects of Enlil; warlike leader, to whom Nudimmud has granted the greatest might, whose hand has drawn a sword which cannot be withstood; exalted prince, who came face to face with Humban-nikash, king of Elam, in the outskirts of Der and defeated him; subduer of the land of Judah, which lies far away; who carried off the people of Hama, whose hands captured Yahu-Bihdi, their king; who repulsed the people of Kakmê, wicked enemies; who set in order the disordered Mannean tribes; who gladdened the heart of his land; who extended the border of Assyria; painstaking ruler; snare of the faithless; whose hand captured Pisiri, king of Hatti, and set his official over Carchemish, his capital; who carried off the people of Shinuhtu, belonging to Kiakki, king of Tabal, and brought them to Assur, his capital; who placed his yoke on the land of Muski; who conquered the Manneans, Karallu and Paddiri; who avenged his land; who overthrew the distant Medes as far as the rising sun.[160]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nSargon II's Prisms\n\nAnnals of Sargon II\n\nNotes\n\n^ Sargon's son and successor, Sennacherib (r. 705-681), had a son named Ashur-nadin-shumi, who was proclaimed vassal king of Babylon in 700. To be king, Ashur-nadin-shumi cannot have been younger than twenty. Because Assyrians tended to marry between the age of 26 and 32 (though royals might have married earlier), Sennacherib was probably born c. 745 (at the latest c. 740). Sennacherib was not Sargon's eldest son, which pushes Sargon's date of birth to c. 770 (at the latest c. 760).[27]\n\n^ The same name was later used by Sargon's son Sennacherib for a palace built in Nineveh.[82]\n\n^ In texts written by Sargon's grandson Esarhaddon, Sargon is for instance criticized for being excessively lenient and indulgent in Babylonia.[16]\n\n^ Referring to the sun god Shamash.[137]\n\n^ Tablet XII contains a section wherein Gilgamesh and his associate Enkidu discuss the fates of a \"man killed in battle\" (\"his father and mother hold up his head, his wife weeps for him\"), a \"man left unburied\" (\"his ghost has no rest in the underworld\") and a \"man who cannot be provided with funerary offerings\" (\"he heats scraps from the pot and breadcrumbs strewn in the streets\").[133]\n\n^ He is mentioned as such in the inscriptions of his grandson Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC),[148] his great-grandson Shamash-shum-ukin (r. 668-648 BC in Babylonia)[149] and his great-great-grandson Sinsharishkun (r. 627-612 BC).[150]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f Elayi 2017, p. 29.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Wilson 2017, p. 29.\n\n^ a b Chen 2020, p. 201.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 180.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Elayi 2017, p. 27.\n\n^ a b c Cogan 2017, p. 154.\n\n^ a b Livingstone 2017, p. 366.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, pp. 14-15.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Foster 2016, p. 278.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 207.\n\n^ a b c d e Elayi 2017, pp. 246-247.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 16.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 84.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 231.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Frahm 2017, p. 183.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 201-202.\n\n^ a b c d e f Elayi 2017, p. 12.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 18.\n\n^ a b Bagg 2016, pp. 59-60, 67.\n\n^ a b c Darling 2013, p. 27.\n\n^ a b c d Melville 2019, p. 691.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 249.\n\n^ a b c Holloway 2003, pp. 70-71.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 402-403.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 23.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 28-29.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 25.\n\n^ a b c d e f Melville 2016, p. 56.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 177.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 142.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, p. 153.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 178.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 405-406.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 365-367.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 28.\n\n^ Fales 2014, pp. 204, 227.\n\n^ Garelli 1991, p. 46.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 8, 26.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 32.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 423.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 426.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 26.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 26-27.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 30.\n\n^ Hurowitz 2010, p. 93.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 14, 28.\n\n^ \"Akkadian Dictionary: šarru\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 2026-01-26.\n\n^ a b \"Akkadian Dictionary: kēnu\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 2026-01-26.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, pp. 13-14.\n\n^ \"Isaiah 20:1 | Sefaria Library\". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2026-01-26.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 178, 180-181.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 45.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k Frahm 2017, p. 181.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 48.\n\n^ a b Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 408-409.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 50.\n\n^ Radner 2017, p. 210.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, p. 528.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 177-178.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 61.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 62.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 63-65.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 221-222.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 222.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 170-171.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 222-223.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 223, 236-237.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 223-224.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 224.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 226.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 226-227.\n\n^ a b Jakubiak 2004, p. 192.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 227-228, 230.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 228-229.\n\n^ Jakubiak 2004, p. 191.\n\n^ Jakubiak 2004, p. 194.\n\n^ a b c Jakubiak 2004, p. 197.\n\n^ a b Jakubiak 2004, p. 198.\n\n^ Bauer 2007, p. 377.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 229.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 206.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 202.\n\n^ a b Reade 2011, p. 118.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, pp. 205-206.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 202-204.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 204.\n\n^ a b Sasson, Jack M., ed. (1995). Civilizations of the ancient Near East. New York. ISBN 0-684-19279-9. OCLC 32013077.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 231-232.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 232-233.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 233-234.\n\n^ a b c d e Frahm 2017, p. 182.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 234.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 234-235.\n\n^ a b c d e Van Der Spek 1977, p. 57.\n\n^ a b c d e Elayi 2017, p. 235.\n\n^ Van Der Spek 1977, p. 60.\n\n^ Van Der Spek 1977, p. 62.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 236-237.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 237.\n\n^ a b Radner 2010, p. 440.\n\n^ Radner 2010, p. 438.\n\n^ Radner 2010, p. 432.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 237-238.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 209.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 201.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 205, 207, 209.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 213.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 240.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 212.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 210.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 27-28.\n\n^ Damerji 2008, p. 81.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 109.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 15.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Kertai 2013, p. 115.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2014, p. 203.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, pp. 114-115.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 12.\n\n^ a b Frame 2021, p. 23.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 19.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 102.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006b, pp. 141-142.\n\n^ Karlsson 2017, p. 13.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ Melville 2016, p. 193.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 251.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 20.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2017, p. 22.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Helle 2021, A Poem for the Ages.\n\n^ Kovacs 1989, p. xx.\n\n^ Darling 2013, p. 221.\n\n^ Darling 2013, p. 26.\n\n^ a b c d Novák 2016, p. 132.\n\n^ a b c Svärd 2015, pp. 163-166.\n\n^ Svärd 2016, p. 128.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 363-365.\n\n^ Bedford 2009, pp. 22, 29.\n\n^ Bagg 2016, p. 66.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 202.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 241.\n\n^ Brinkman 1973, p. 91.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 183-184.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 212.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, pp. 224-226.\n\n^ Karlsson 2017, p. 10.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 413.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 583-584.\n\n^ Holloway 2003, p. 68.\n\n^ Holloway 2003, pp. 69-70.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 7.\n\n^ a b Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 584-585.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 4.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 255.\n\n^ Akopian 2017, p. 397.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 101.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, pp. 71-72.\n\nSources\n\nAkopian, Arman (2017). Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0738-0.\n\nBagg, Ariel (2016). \"Where is the Public? A New Look at the Brutality Scenes in Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and Art\". In Battini, Laura (ed.). Making Pictures of War: Realia et Imaginaria in the Iconology of the Ancient Near East. Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology. Oxford: Archaeopress. doi:10.2307/j.ctvxrq18w.12. ISBN 978-1-78491-403-5.\n\nBauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05974-8.\n\nBedford, Peter R. (2009). \"The Neo-Assyrian Empire\". In Morris, Ian; Scheidel, Walter (eds.). The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537158-1.\n\nBrinkman, John Anthony (1973). \"Sennacherib's Babylonian Problem: An Interpretation\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 25 (2): 89-95. doi:10.2307/1359421. JSTOR 1359421. S2CID 163623620.\n\nChen, Fei (2020). \"A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-43091-4.\n\nCogan, Mordechai (2017). \"Restoring the Empire\". Israel Exploration Journal. 67 (2): 151-167. JSTOR 26740626.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2017). \"Assyrian Warfare\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-444-33593-4.\n\nDamerji, Muayyad Said (2008). An Introduction to the Nimrud Tombs. Nimrud Conference. Vol. New Light on Nimrud: Proceedings of the Nimrud Conference 11th-13th March 2002. pp. 81-82. ISBN 978-0-903472-24-1.\n\nDarling, Linda T. (2013). A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice From Mesopotamia to Globalization. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-50361-7.\n\nDubovský, Peter (2006). \"Tiglath-pileser III's Campaigns in 734-732 B.C.: Historical Background of Isa 7; 2 Kgs 15-16 and 2 Chr 27-28\". Biblica. 87 (2): 153-170. JSTOR 42614666.\n\nDubovský, Peter (2006). Hezekiah and the Assyrian Spies: Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Intelligence Services and Its Significance for 2 Kings 18-19. Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press. ISBN 978-88-7653-352-5.\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-47874-8.\n\nElayi, Josette (2017). Sargon II, King of Assyria. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press. ISBN 978-1-62837-177-2.\n\nElayi, Josette (2018). Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press. ISBN 978-0-88414-317-8.\n\nFales, Frederick Mario (2014). \"The Two Dynasties of Assyria\". In Gaspa, Salvatore; Greco, Alessandro; Morandi Bonacossi, Daniele; Ponchia, Simonetta & Rollinger, Robert (eds.). From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86835-101-9.\n\nFoster, Benjamin R. (2016). The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-90971-7.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2014). \"Family Matters: Psychohistorical Reflections on Sennacherib and His Times\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-26561-5.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-444-33593-4.\n\nFrame, Grant (2021). The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria (721-705 BC). Vol. 2. University Park: Eisenbrauns. doi:10.5325/j.ctv1g8092k. ISBN 978-1-64602-109-3. JSTOR 10.5325/j.ctv1g8092k.\n\nGarelli, Paul (1991). \"The Achievement of Tiglath-pileser III: Novelty or Continuity?\". In Cogan, M.; Eph'al, I. (eds.). Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor. Jerusalem: Magnes. OCLC 23965475.\n\nHelle, Sophus (2021). Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic. London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-25118-0.\n\nHolloway, Steven W. (2003). \"The Quest for Sargon, Pul and Tiglath-Pileser in the Nineteenth Century\". In Chavalas, Mark W.; Younger, K. Lawson Jr. (eds.). Mesopotamia and the Bible. Edinburgh: A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-84127-252-8.\n\nHurowitz, Victor Avigdor (2010). \"Name Midrashim and Word Plays on Names in Akkadian Historical Writings\". In Horowitz, Wayne; Gabbay, Uri; Vukosavovic, Filip (eds.). A Woman of Valor: Jerusalem Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Joan Goodnick Westenholz. Madrid: CSIC Press. ISBN 978-84-00-09182-8.\n\nJakubiak, Krzysztof (2004). \"Some remarks on Sargon II's eighth campaign of 714 BC\". Iranica Antiqua. 39: 191-202. doi:10.2143/IA.39.0.503895.\n\nKarlsson, Mattias (2017). \"Assyrian Royal Titulary in Babylonia\" (PDF). S2CID 6128352. \n\nKertai, David (2013). \"The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 40 (1): 108-124. doi:10.1524/aof.2013.0006. S2CID 163392326.\n\nKovacs, Maureen Gallery (1989). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1589-0.\n\nLivingstone, Alasdair (2017). \"Assyrian Literature\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-444-33593-4.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 179907647.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2016). The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721-705 B.C. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-5403-9.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2019). \"Neo-Assyrian Women Revisited\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 139 (3): 687-692. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.139.3.0687. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.139.3.0687. S2CID 211660781.\n\nNovák, Mirko (2016). \"Assyrians and Arameans: Modes of Cohabitation and Acculuration at Guzana (Tell Halaf)\". In Aruz, Joan; Seymour, Michael (eds.). Assyria to Iberia: Art and Culture in the Iron Age. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-606-8.\n\nParker, Bradley J. (2011). \"The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Journal of Anthropological Research. 67 (3): 357-386. doi:10.3998/jar.0521004.0067.303. JSTOR 41303323. S2CID 145597598.\n\nRadner, Karen (2010). \"The stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A focus for an emerging Cypriot identity?\". In Rollinger, Robert; Gufler, Birgit; Lang, Martin; Madreiter, Irene (eds.). Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts. Leipzig: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-06171-1.\n\nRadner, Karen (2017). \"Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Neo-Assyrian Period\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-444-33593-4.\n\nReade, Julian (2011). \"The Evolution of Assyrian Imperial Architecture: Political Implications and Uncertainties\". Mesopotamia. XLVI: 109-125. ISSN 0076-6615.\n\nSvärd, Saana (2015). \"Changes in Neo-Assyrian Queenship\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. XXI: 157-171. ISSN 1120-4699.\n\nSvärd, Saana (2016). \"Neo-Assyrian elite women\". In Budin, Stephanie Lynn & MacIntosh Turfa, Jean (eds.). Women in Antiquity: Real women across the Ancient World. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-80836-2.\n\nTrolle Larsen, Mogens (2017). \"The Archaeological Exploration of Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-444-33593-4.\n\nVan Der Spek, Robartus (1977). \"The struggle of king Sargon II of Assyria against the Chaldaean Merodach-Baladan (710-707 B.C.)\". JEOL. 25: 56-66.\n\nWilson, Ian D. (2017). Kingship and Memory in Ancient Judah. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-049990-7.\n\nYamada, Keiko & Yamada, Shiego (2017). \"Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited\". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel & Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.). \"Now It Happened in Those Days\": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-760-5."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sargon-ii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 11731}, {"slug": "reference-sennacherib", "title": "Sennacherib", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Sennacherib (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀭𒌍𒉽𒈨𒌍𒋢, romanized: Sîn-aḫḫī-erība[3] or Sîn-aḫḫē-erība,[4] meaning \"Sîn has replaced the brothers\")[5][6] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705 BC until his assassination in 681 BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sennacherib\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Babylon\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nCast of a rock relief of Sennacherib from the foot of Mount Judi, near Cizre\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign705-681 BC\n\nPredecessorSargon II\n\nSuccessorEsarhaddon\n\nBornc. 745 BC[1]\nNimrud[2] (?)\n\nDied20 October 681 BC (aged c. 63/64)\nNineveh\n\nSpouse\nTashmetu-sharrat\n\nNaqi'a\n\nIssue\namong others\nAshur-nadin-shumi\n\nArda-Mulissu\n\nEsarhaddon\n\nAkkadian\nSîn-ahhī-erība\n\nSîn-aḫḫē-erība\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherSargon II\n\nMotherRa'īmâ\n\nSennacherib (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀭𒌍𒉽𒈨𒌍𒋢, romanized: Sîn-aḫḫī-erība[3] or Sîn-aḫḫē-erība,[4] meaning \"Sîn has replaced the brothers\")[5][6] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705 BC until his assassination in 681 BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. Other events of his reign include his destruction of the city of Babylon in 689 BC and his renovation and expansion of the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh.\n\nAlthough Sennacherib was one of the most powerful and wide-ranging Assyrian kings, he faced considerable difficulty in controlling Babylonia, which formed the southern portion of his empire. Many of Sennacherib's Babylonian troubles stemmed from the Chaldean[7] tribal chief Marduk-apla-iddina II, who had been Babylon's king until Sennacherib's father defeated him. Shortly after Sennacherib inherited the throne in 705 BC, Marduk-apla-iddina retook Babylon and allied with the Elamites. Though Sennacherib reclaimed the south in 700 BC, Marduk-apla-iddina continued to trouble him, probably instigating Assyrian vassals in the Levant to rebel, leading to the Levantine War of 701 BC, and himself warring against Bel-ibni, Sennacherib's vassal king in Babylonia.\n\nAfter the Babylonians and Elamites captured and executed Sennacherib's eldest son Aššur-nādin-šumi, whom Sennacherib had proclaimed as his new vassal king in Babylon, Sennacherib campaigned in both regions, subduing Elam. Because Babylon, well within his own territory, had been the target of most of his military campaigns and had caused the death of his son, he destroyed the city in 689 BC.\n\nIn the Levantine War, the states in the southern Levant, especially the Kingdom of Judah under King Hezekiah, were not subdued as easily as those in the north. The Assyrians thus invaded Judah. Though the biblical narrative holds that divine intervention by an angel ended the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem by destroying the Assyrian army, an outright defeat is unlikely as Hezekiah submitted to Sennacherib at the end of the campaign.[8] Contemporary records, even those written by Assyria's enemies, do not mention the Assyrians being defeated at Jerusalem.[9] However, the siege remained at least inconclusive, and the Greek historian Herodotus stated that the Assyrians failed in this.\n\nSennacherib transferred the capital of Assyria to Nineveh, where he had spent most of his time as crown prince. To transform Nineveh into a capital worthy of his empire, he launched one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history. He expanded the size of the city and constructed great city walls, numerous temples and a royal garden. His most famous work in the city is the Southwest Palace, which Sennacherib named his \"Palace without Rival\".\n\nAfter the death of his eldest son and crown prince Aššur-nādin-šumi, Sennacherib originally designated his second son Arda-Mulissu heir. He later replaced him with a younger son, Esarhaddon, in 684 BC, for unknown reasons. Sennacherib ignored Arda-Mulissu's repeated appeals to be reinstated as heir, and in 681 BC, Arda-Mulissu and his brother Nabu-shar-usur murdered Sennacherib,[a] hoping to seize power for themselves. Babylonia and the Levant welcomed his death as divine punishment, while the Assyrian heartland probably reacted with resentment and horror. Arda-Mulissu's coronation was postponed, and Esarhaddon raised an army and seized Nineveh, installing himself as king as intended by Sennacherib.\n\nEarly life\n\nSennacherib was the son and successor of the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II, who had reigned as king of Assyria from 722 to 705 BC and as king of Babylon from 710 to 705 BC. The identity of Sennacherib's mother is uncertain. Historically, the most popular view has been that Sennacherib was the son of Sargon's wife Ataliya, although this is now considered unlikely. To have been Sennacherib's mother, Ataliya would have had to be born around the year 760 BC, at the latest, and lived to at least 692 BC,[14] as a \"queen mother\" is attested in that year,[15] but Ataliya's grave at Nimrud,[14] which was discovered in the 1980s,[16] indicates she was 35 years old at most when she died. The Assyriologist Josette Elayi considers it more plausible Sennacherib's mother was another of Sargon's wives, Ra'īmâ; a stele from Assur (once the capital of Assyria), discovered in 1913, specifically refers to her as the \"mother of Sennacherib\". Ra'īmâ's existence is a recent discovery, based on a 2014 reading of the inscription on the stele.[14] Sargon claimed he was himself the son of the earlier king Tiglath-Pileser III, but this is uncertain as Sargon usurped the throne from Tiglath-Pileser's other son Shalmaneser V.[17]\n\nSennacherib was probably born c.  745 BC in Nimrud. If Sargon was the son of Tiglath-Pileser and not a non-dynastic usurper, Sennacherib would have grown up in the royal palace at Nimrud and spent most of his youth there. Sargon continued to live in Nimrud long after he had become king, leaving the city in 710 BC to reside at Babylon, and later at his new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, in 706 BC. By the time Sargon moved to Babylon, Sennacherib, who served as the crown prince and designated heir, had already left Nimrud, living in a residence at Nineveh.[2] Nineveh had been the designated seat of the Assyrian crown prince since the reign of Tiglath-Pileser.[18] As crown prince, Sennacherib also owned an estate at Tarbiṣu. The royal educator, Hunnî, would have educated Sennacherib and his siblings. They probably received a scribal education, learning arithmetic and how to read and write in Sumerian and Akkadian.[2]\n\nSennacherib had several brothers and at least one sister. In addition to the older brothers who died before his birth, Sennacherib had a number of younger brothers, some of whom are mentioned as being alive as late as 670 BC, then in the service of Sennacherib's son and successor Esarhaddon. Sennacherib's only known sister, Ahat-abisha, was married off to Ambaris, the king of Tabal, but probably returned to Assyria after Sargon's first successful campaign against Tabal.[19]\n\nSennacherib's name, Sîn-aḫḫē-erība, means \"Sîn (the moon-god) has replaced the brothers\" in Akkadian. The name probably derives from Sennacherib not being Sargon's first son, but all his older brothers being dead by the time he was born. In Hebrew, his name was rendered as Snḥryb and in Aramaic it was Šnḥ’ryb.[6] According to a 670 BC document, it was illegal to give the name Sennacherib (then the former king) to a commoner in Assyria, as it was considered sacrilege.[14]\n\nAs crown prince\n\nAs crown prince, Sennacherib exercised royal power with his father, or alone as a substitute while Sargon was away campaigning. During Sargon's longer absences from the Assyrian heartland, Sennacherib's residence would have served as the center of government in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, with the crown prince taking on significant administrative and political responsibilities. The vast responsibilities entrusted to Sennacherib suggests a certain degree of trust between the king and the crown prince. In reliefs depicting both Sargon and Sennacherib, they are portrayed in discussion, appearing almost as equals. As regent, Sennacherib's primary duty was to maintain relations with Assyrian governors and generals and oversee the empire's vast military intelligence network. Sennacherib oversaw domestic affairs and often informed Sargon of the progress being made on building projects throughout the empire.[20] Sargon also assigned him to the reception and distribution of audience gifts and tribute. After distributing such financial resources, Sennacherib sent letters to his father to inform him of his decisions.[21]\n\nA letter to his father indicates that Sennacherib respected him and that they were on friendly terms. He never disobeyed his father, and his letters indicate he knew Sargon well and wanted to please him. For unknown reasons, Sargon never took him on his military campaigns. Elayi believes that Sennacherib may have resented his father for this as he missed out on the glory attached to military victories. In any event, Sennacherib never took action against Sargon or attempted to usurp the throne despite being more than old enough to become king himself.[22]\n\nAssyria and Babylonia\n\nBy the time Sennacherib became king, the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been the dominant power in the Near East for over thirty years, chiefly due to its well-trained and large army, superior to that of any other contemporary kingdom. Though Babylonia to the south had also once been a large kingdom, it was typically weaker than its northern neighbor during this period, due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. The population of Babylonia was divided into various ethnic groups with different priorities and ideals. Though old native Babylonians ruled most of the cities, such as Kish, Ur, Uruk, Borsippa, Nippur, and Babylon itself, Chaldean tribes led by chieftains who often squabbled with each other dominated most of the southernmost land.[23] The Arameans lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories. Because of the infighting of these three major groups, Babylonia often represented an appealing target for Assyrian campaigns.[24] The two kingdoms had competed since the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC, and in the 8th century BC, the Assyrians consistently gained the upper hand.[25] Babylon's internal and external weakness led to its conquest by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 729 BC.[24]\n\nDuring the expansion of Assyria into a major empire, the Assyrians had conquered various neighboring kingdoms, either annexing them as Assyrian provinces or turning them into vassal states. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union.[24] The relationship between Assyria and Babylonia was similar to the relationship between Greece and Rome in later centuries; much of Assyria's culture, texts and traditions had been imported from the south. Assyria and Babylonia also shared the same language (Akkadian).[26] The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical \"husband\" and Babylon its \"wife\". In the words of the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm, \"the Assyrians were in love with Babylon, but also wished to dominate her\". Though Babylon was respected as the well-spring of civilization, it was expected to remain passive in political matters, something that Assyria's \"Babylonian bride\" repeatedly refused to be.[27]\n\nReign\n\nDeath of Sargon II and succession\n\nIn 705 BC, Sargon, probably in his sixties, led the Assyrian army on a campaign against King Gurdî of Tabal in central Anatolia. The campaign was disastrous, resulting in the defeat of the Assyrian army and the death of Sargon, whose corpse the Anatolians carried off.[8][28] Sargon's death made the defeat significantly worse because the Assyrians believed the gods had punished him for some major past misdeed. In Mesopotamian mythology, the afterlife suffered by those who died in battle and were not buried was terrible, being doomed to suffer like beggars for eternity.[29] Sennacherib was about 35 years old when he ascended to the Assyrian throne in August of 705 BC.[30] He had a great deal of experience with how to rule the empire because of his long tenure as crown prince.[31] His reaction to his father's fate was to distance himself from Sargon.[32] Frahm characterized Sennacherib's reaction as \"one of almost complete denial\", writing that Sennacherib \"apparently felt unable to acknowledge and mentally deal with what had happened to Sargon\". Sennacherib immediately abandoned Sargon's great new capital city, Dur-Sharrukin, and moved the capital to Nineveh instead. One of Sennacherib's first actions as king was to rebuild a temple dedicated to the god Nergal, associated with death, disaster and war, at the city of Tarbiṣu.[29]\n\nEven with this public denial in mind, Sennacherib was superstitious and spent a great deal of time asking his diviners what sort of offense Sargon could have committed to suffer the fate that he had, perhaps considering the possibility that he had offended Babylon's deities by taking control of the city.[33] A text, though probably written after Sennacherib's death, says he proclaimed he was investigating the nature of a sin committed by his father.[34] A minor 704 BC[35] campaign (unmentioned in Sennacherib's later historical accounts), led by Sennacherib's magnates rather than the king himself, was sent against Gurdî in Tabal to avenge Sargon. Sennacherib spent much time and effort to rid the empire of Sargon's imagery. Raising the level of the courtyard made images that Sargon had created at the temple in Assur invisible. When Sargon's wife Ataliya died, she was buried hastily and in the same coffin as another woman, the queen of the previous king Tiglath-Pileser. Sargon is never mentioned in Sennacherib's inscriptions.[36]\n\nFirst Babylonian campaign\n\nSargon II's death in the battle and the disappearance of his body inspired rebellions across the Assyrian Empire.[8] Sargon had ruled Babylonia since 710 BC, when he defeated the Chaldean tribal chief Marduk-apla-iddina II, who had taken control of the south in the aftermath of the death of Sargon's predecessor Shalmaneser V in 722 BC.[7] Like his immediate predecessors, Sennacherib took the ruling titles of both Assyria and Babylonia when he became king, but his reign in Babylonia was less stable.[33] Unlike Sargon and previous Babylonian rulers, who had proclaimed themselves as shakkanakku (viceroys) of Babylon, in reverence for the city's deity Marduk (who was considered Babylon's formal \"king\"), Sennacherib explicitly proclaimed himself as Babylon's king. Furthermore, he did not \"take the hand\" of the Statue of Marduk, the physical representation of the deity, and thus did not honor the god by undergoing the traditional Babylonian coronation ritual.[37]\n\nIn angry response to this disrespect, revolts a month apart in 704[7] or 703 BC[33] overthrew Sennacherib's rule in the south. First, a Babylonian by the name of Marduk-zakir-shumi II took the throne, but Marduk-apla-iddina, the same Chaldean warlord who had seized control of the city once before and had warred against Sennacherib's father, deposed him after just two[33] or four weeks.[7] Marduk-apla-iddina rallied large portions of Babylonia's people to fight for him, both the urban Babylonians and the tribal Chaldeans, and he also enlisted troops from the neighboring civilization of Elam, in modern-day south-western Iran. Though assembling all these forces took time, Sennacherib reacted slowly to these developments, which allowed Marduk-apla-iddina to station large contingents at the cities of Kutha and Kish.[38]\n\nPortions of the Assyrian army were away in Tabal in 704 BC. Because Sennacherib might have considered a two-front war too risky, Marduk-apla-iddina was left unchallenged for several months. In 703 BC, after the Tabal expedition had been completed, Sennacherib gathered the Assyrian army at Assur, often used as a mustering spot for campaigns against the south.[35] The Assyrian army, led by Sennacherib's chief commander, launched an unsuccessful attack on the coalition forces near the city of Kish, bolstering the legitimacy of the coalition.[39] However, Sennacherib also realized that the anti-Assyrian forces were divided and led his entire army to engage and destroy the portion of the army encamped at Kutha. Thereafter, he moved to attack the contingent at Kish, winning this second battle as well. Fearing for his life, Marduk-apla-iddina had already fled the battlefield.[38] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that among the captives taken after the victory was a stepson of Marduk-apla-iddina and brother of an Arab queen, Yatie, who had joined the coalition.[40]\n\nSennacherib then marched on Babylon.[41] As the Assyrians appeared on the horizon, Babylon opened its gates to him, surrendering without a fight.[39] The city was reprimanded, suffering a minor sack,[39] though its citizens were unharmed.[42] After a brief period of rest in Babylon, Sennacherib and the Assyrian army then moved systematically through southern Babylonia, where there was still organized resistance, pacifying both the tribal areas and the major cities.[41] Sennacherib's inscriptions state that over two hundred thousand prisoners were taken.[40] Because his previous policy of reigning as king of both Assyria and Babylonia had evidently failed, Sennacherib attempted another method, appointing a native Babylonian who had grown up at the Assyrian court, Bel-ibni, as his vassal king of the south. Sennacherib described Bel-ibni as \"a native of Babylon who grew up in my palace like a young puppy\".[33]\n\nWar in the Levant\n\nScenes from Sennacherib's Lachish reliefsAssyrian siege engine attacking the city wall of LachishAssyrian soldier about to behead a prisoner from LachishJudean people being deported into exile after the fall of Lachish to the AssyriansSennacherib (enthroned at the far right) at Lachish, interacting with his officials and reviewing prisoners\n\nAfter the Babylonian war, Sennacherib's second campaign was in the Zagros Mountains. There, he subdued the Yasubigallians, a people from east of the Tigris river, and the Kassites, a people who had ruled Babylonia centuries before.[43][44] Sennacherib's third campaign, directed against the kingdoms and city-states in the Levant, is very well-documented compared to many other events in the ancient Near East and is the best-documented event in the history of Israel during the First Temple period.[4] In 705 BC, Hezekiah, the king of Judah, had stopped paying his annual tribute to the Assyrians and began pursuing a markedly aggressive foreign policy, probably inspired by the recent wave of anti-Assyrian rebellions across the empire. After conspiring with Egypt (then under Kushite rule) and Sidqia, an anti-Assyrian king of the city of Ashkelon, to garner support, Hezekiah attacked Philistine cities loyal to Assyria and captured the Assyrian vassal Padi, king of Ekron, and imprisoned him in his capital, Jerusalem.[8] In the northern Levant, former Assyrian vassal cities rallied around Luli, the king of Tyre and Sidon.[40] Sennacherib's arch-enemy Marduk-apla-iddina encouraged the anti-Assyrian sentiment among some of the empire's western vassals. He corresponded with and sent gifts to western rulers like Hezekiah, probably hoping to assemble a vast anti-Assyrian alliance.[33]\n\nIn 701 BC, Sennacherib first moved to attack the Neo-Hittite and Phoenician cities in the north. Like many rulers of these cities had done before and would do again, Luli fled rather than face the wrath of the Assyrians, escaping by boat until he was beyond Sennacherib's reach. In his stead, Sennacherib proclaimed a noble by the name Ethbaal as the new king of Sidon and his vassal and oversaw the submission of many of the surrounding cities to his rule. Faced with a massive Assyrian army nearby, many of the Levantine rulers, including Budu-ilu of Ammon, Kammusu-nadbi of Moab, Mitinti of Ashdod and Aya-ramu of Edom, quickly submitted to Sennacherib to avoid retribution.[45]\n\nThe resistance in the southern Levant was not as easily suppressed, forcing Sennacherib to invade the region. The Assyrians began by taking Ashkelon and defeating Sidqia. They then besieged and took numerous cities, including Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Banai-Barqa, and Azjuru.[46] As the Assyrians were preparing to retake Ekron, Hezekiah's ally, Egypt, intervened in the conflict. The Assyrians defeated the Egyptian expedition in a battle near the city of Eltekeh. They took the cities of Ekron and Timnah and Judah stood alone, with Sennacherib setting his sights on Jerusalem.[45] While a portion of Sennacherib's troops prepared to blockade Jerusalem, Sennacherib himself marched on the important Judean city of Lachish. Both the blockade of Jerusalem and the siege of Lachish probably prevented further Egyptian aid from reaching Hezekiah, and intimidated the kings of other smaller states in the region. The siege of Lachish, which ended in the city's destruction, was so lengthy that the defenders eventually began using arrowheads made of bone rather than metal, which had run out. To take the city, the Assyrians constructed a great siege mound, a ramp made of earth and stone, to reach the top of Lachish's walls. After they had destroyed the city, the Assyrians deported the survivors to the Assyrian Empire, forcing some of them to work on Sennacherib's building projects, and others to serve in the king's personal guard.[47]\n\nSennacherib at the gates of Jerusalem\n\nSennacherib's account of what happened at Jerusalem begins with \"As for Hezekiah ... like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city. I barricaded him with outposts, and exit from the gate of his city I made taboo for him.\" Thus, Jerusalem was blockaded in some capacity, though the lack of massive military activities and appropriate equipment meant that it was probably not a full siege.[48] According to the Biblical narrative, a senior Assyrian official with the title Rabshakeh stood in front of the city's walls and demanded its surrender, threatening that the Judeans would 'eat feces and drink urine' during the siege.[49] Although the Assyrian account of the operation may lead one to believe that Sennacherib was present in person, this is never explicitly stated and reliefs depicting the campaign show Sennacherib seated on a throne in Lachish instead of overseeing the preparations for an assault on Jerusalem. According to the biblical account, the Assyrian envoys to Hezekiah returned to Sennacherib to find him engaged in a struggle with the city of Libnah.[50]\n\nThe account of the blockade erected around Jerusalem is different from the sieges described in Sennacherib's annals and the massive reliefs in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, which depict the successful siege of Lachish rather than events at Jerusalem. Though the blockade of Jerusalem was not a proper siege, it is clear from all available sources that a massive Assyrian army was encamped in the city's vicinity, probably on its northern side.[51]\nThough it is clear that the blockade of Jerusalem ended without significant fighting, how it was resolved and what stopped Sennacherib's massive army from overwhelming the city is uncertain. The Biblical account of the end of Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem holds that though Hezekiah's soldiers manned the walls of the city, ready to defend it against the Assyrians, an entity referred to as the destroying angel, sent by Yahweh, annihilated Sennacherib's army, killing 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in front of Jerusalem's gates.[52] The ancient Greek historian Herodotus describes the operation as an Assyrian failure due to a \"multitude of field-mice\" descending upon the Assyrian camp, devouring crucial material such as quivers and bowstrings, leaving the Assyrians unarmed and causing them to flee.[50] It is possible that the story of the mice infestation is an allusion to some kind of disease striking the Assyrian camp, possibly the septicemic plague.[53] An alternative hypothesis, first advanced by journalist Henry T. Aubin in 2001, is that the blockade of Jerusalem was lifted through the intervention of a Kushite army from Egypt.[54] The battle with the Egyptians is considered unlikely to have been an outright Assyrian defeat, especially because contemporary Babylonian chronicles, otherwise eager to mention Assyrian failures, are silent on the matter.[9]\n\nDespite the seemingly inconclusive end to the blockade of Jerusalem, the Levantine campaign was largely an Assyrian victory. After the Assyrians had seized many of Judah's most important fortified cities and destroyed several towns and villages, Hezekiah realized that his anti-Assyrian activities had been disastrous military and political miscalculations and accordingly submitted to the Assyrians once more. He was forced to pay a heavier tribute than previously, probably along with a heavy penalty and the tribute that he had failed to send to Nineveh from 705 to 701 BC.[8] He was also forced to release the imprisoned king of Ekron, Padi,[55] and Sennacherib granted substantial portions of Judah's land to the neighboring kingdoms of Gaza, Ashdod and Ekron.[56]\n\nResolving the Babylonian problem\n\nBy 700 BC, the situation in Babylonia had once again deteriorated to such an extent that Sennacherib had to invade and reassert his control. Bel-ibni now faced the open revolts of two tribal leaders: Shuzubu (who later became Babylonian king under the name Mushezib-Marduk) and Marduk-apla-iddina, now an elderly man.[57] One of Sennacherib's first measures was to remove Bel-ibni from the Babylonian throne, either because of incompetence or complicity,[33] and he was brought back to Assyria, whereafter he is not heard of again in the sources.[58] The Assyrians searched the northern marshes of Babylonia in an attempt to find and capture Shuzubu, but they failed. Sennacherib then hunted for Marduk-apla-iddina, a hunt so intense the Chaldean escaped on boats with his people across the Persian Gulf, taking refuge in the Elamite city of Nagitu. Victorious, Sennacherib attempted yet another method to govern Babylonia and appointed his son Ashur-nadin-shumi to reign as Babylonian vassal king.[59]\n\nAshur-nadin-shumi was also titled māru rēštû, a title that could be interpreted either as the \"pre-eminent son\" or the \"firstborn son\". His appointment as king of Babylon and the new title suggests that Ashur-nadin-shumi was being groomed to succeed Sennacherib as the king of Assyria upon his death. If māru rēštû means \"pre-eminent\" such a title would befit only the crown prince, and if it means \"firstborn\", this also suggests that Ashur-nadin-shumi was the heir. In most cases the Assyrians followed the principle of primogeniture, wherein the oldest son inherits.[60] More evidence in favor of Ashur-nadin-shumi being the crown prince is Sennacherib's construction of a palace for him at the city of Assur,[61] something Sennacherib would also do for the later crown prince Esarhaddon. As an Assyrian king of Babylon, Ashur-nadin-shumi's position was politically important and highly delicate and would have granted him valuable experience as the intended heir to the entire Neo-Assyrian Empire.[62]\n\nIn the years that followed, Babylonia stayed relatively quiet, with no chronicles recording any significant activity.[58] In the meantime, Sennacherib campaigned elsewhere. His fifth campaign in 699 BC involved a series of raids against the villages around the foot of Mount Judi, located to the northeast of Nineveh. Sennacherib's generals led other small campaigns without the king present, including a 698 BC expedition against Kirua, an Assyrian governor revolting in Cilicia, and a 695 BC campaign against the city of Tegarama.[63] In 694 BC, Sennacherib invaded Elam, with the explicit goal of the campaign being to root out Marduk-apla-iddina and the other Chaldean refugees.[58]\n\nElamite campaign and revenge\n\nReliefs from Sennacherib's time depicting an Assyrian warship (top) and a number of his soldiers along with their prisoners and war trophies (bottom)\n\nIn preparation for his attack on Elam, Sennacherib assembled two great fleets on the Euphrates and the Tigris. The latter fleet was then used to transport the Assyrian army to the city of Opis, where the ships were then pulled ashore and transported overland to a canal that linked to the Euphrates. The two fleets then combined into one and continued down to the Persian Gulf. At the head of the Persian Gulf, a storm flooded the Assyrian camp and the Assyrian soldiers had to take refuge on their ships.[64] They then sailed across the Persian Gulf, a journey which Sennacherib's inscriptions indicate was difficult since repeated sacrifices were made to Ea, the god of the deep.[65]\n\nSuccessfully landing on the Elamite coast, the Assyrians then hunted and attacked the Chaldean refugees, something that both Babylonian and Assyrian sources hold went well for the Assyrians.[66] Sennacherib's account of the campaign describe the affair as a \"great victory\" and list several cities taken and sacked by the Assyrian army. Although Sennacherib at last got his revenge on Marduk-apla-iddina, his arch-enemy had not lived to see it, having died of natural causes before the Assyrians landed in Elam.[65] The war then took an unexpected turn as the king of Elam, Hallutash-Inshushinak I, took advantage of the Assyrian army being so far away from home to invade Babylonia. With the aid of surviving Chaldean troops, Hallutash-Inshushinak took the city of Sippar, where he also managed to capture Ashur-nadin-shumi and take him back to Elam.[66] Ashur-nadin-shumi was then never heard from again, probably having been executed.[67][68] In Ashur-nadin-shumi's place, a native Babylonian, Nergal-ushezib, became Babylon's king.[67] Babylonian records ascribe Nergal-ushezib's rise to power to being appointed by Hallutash-Inshushinak, whereas Assyrian records state that he was chosen by the Babylonians themselves.[66]\n\nThe Assyrian army, by now surrounded by the Elamites in southern Babylonia, managed to kill the son of Hallutash-Inshushinak in a skirmish but remained trapped for at least nine months. Wishing to consolidate his position as king, Nergal-ushezib took advantage of the situation and captured and plundered the city of Nippur. Some months later, the Assyrians attacked and captured the southern city of Uruk. Nergal-ushezib was frightened by this development and called on the Elamites for aid. Just seven days after taking Uruk, the Assyrians and Babylonians met in battle at Nippur, where the Assyrians won a decisive victory; routing the Elamite-Babylonian army and capturing Nergal-ushezib, finally free from their entrapped position in the south. Through some unknown means, Sennacherib had managed to slip by the Babylonian and Elamite forces undetected some months prior and was not present at the final battle, instead probably being on his way from Assyria with additional troops. Once he rejoined his southern army, the war with Babylonia was already won.[69]\n\nSoon thereafter, a revolt broke out in Elam which saw the deposition of Hallutash-Inshushinak and the rise of Kutur-Nahhunte to the throne. Determined to end the threat of Elam, Sennacherib retook the city of Der, occupied by Elam during the previous conflict, and advanced into northern Elam. Kutur-Nahhunte could not organize an efficient defense against the Assyrians and refused to fight them, instead fleeing to the mountain city of Haidalu. Shortly thereafter, the severe weather forced Sennacherib to retreat and return home.[70]\n\nDestruction of Babylon\n\nDespite the defeat of Nergal-ushezib and the flight of the Elamites, Babylonia did not surrender to Sennacherib. The rebel Shuzubu, hunted by Sennacherib in his 700 BC invasion of the south, had resurfaced under the name Mushezib-Marduk and, seemingly without foreign support, acceded to the throne of Babylon. As he was king by 692 BC, but not described in Assyrian sources as \"revolting\" until 691 BC, it is possible that his rule was initially accepted by Sennacherib. There was also a change in rulership in Elam, where Kutur-Nahhunte was deposed in favor of Humban-menanu, who began assembling the anti-Assyrian coalition once more. Mushezib-Marduk ensured Humban-menanu's support by bribing him.[71] The Assyrian records considered Humban-menanu's decision to support Babylonia to be unintelligent, describing him as a \"man without any sense or judgement\".[72]\n\nSennacherib met his enemies in battle near the city of Halule. Humban-menanu and his commander, Humban-undasha, led the Babylonian and Elamite forces. The outcome of the Battle of Halule is unclear since the records of both sides claim a great victory. Sennacherib claims in his annals that Humban-undasha was killed and that the enemy kings fled for their lives whereas the Babylonian chronicles claim that it was the Assyrians who retreated. If the battle was a southern victory, the setback faced by the Assyrians would have to have been minor as Babylon was under siege in the late summer of 690 BC (and had apparently been under siege for some time at that point). The Assyrians had not marched on Babylon immediately, however, as military actions are recorded elsewhere.[73] In 1973, the Assyriologist John A. Brinkman wrote that it was likely that the southerners won the battle, though probably suffering many casualties, since both of Sennacherib's enemies still remained on their respective thrones after the fighting.[74] In 1982, Assyriologist Louis D. Levine wrote that the battle was probably an Assyrian victory, though not a decisive one and that though the southerners had been defeated and fled, the Assyrian advance on Babylon itself was temporarily halted. The Assyrian army's diversion from its course could then be interpreted by the Babylonian chroniclers as an Assyrian retreat.[75]\n\nIn 690 BC, Humban-menanu suffered a stroke and his jaw became locked in a way that prevented him from speaking.[76] Taking advantage of the situation, Sennacherib embarked on his final campaign against Babylon.[76] Although the Babylonians were successful initially, that was short-lived, and in the same year, the siege of Babylon was already well underway.[74] It is likely Babylon would have been in a poor position once it fell to Sennacherib in 689 BC, having been besieged for over fifteen months.[77] Although Sennacherib had once anxiously considered the implications of Sargon's seizure of Babylon and the role that the city's offended gods may have played in his father's downfall, his attitude towards the city had shifted by 689 BC. Ultimately, Sennacherib decided to destroy Babylon. Brinkman believed that Sennacherib's change in attitude came from a will to avenge his son and tiring of a city well within the borders of his empire repeatedly rebelling against his rule. According to Brinkman, Sennacherib might have lost the affection he once had for Babylon's gods because they had inspired their people to attack him. Sennacherib's own account of the destruction reads:[77]\n\nInto my land I carried off alive Mušēzib-Marduk, king of Babylonia, together with his family and officials. I counted out the wealth of that city-silver, gold, precious stones, property and goods-into the hands of my people; and they took it as their own. The hands of my people laid hold of the gods dwelling there and smashed them; they took their property and goods.\nI destroyed the city and its houses, from foundation to parapet; I devastated and burned them. I razed the brick and earthenwork of the outer and inner wall of the city, of the temples, and of the ziggurat; and I dumped these into the Araḫtu canal. I dug canals through the midst of that city, I overwhelmed it with water, I made its very foundations disappear, and I destroyed it more completely than a devastating flood. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land.[77]\n\nAlthough Sennacherib destroyed the city, he appears to have still been somewhat fearful of Babylon's ancient gods. Earlier in his account of the campaign, he specifically mentions the sanctuaries of the Babylonian deities had provided financial support to his enemies. The passage describing the seizure of the property of the gods and the destruction of some of their statues is one of the few where Sennacherib uses \"my people\" rather than \"I\".[77] Brinkman interpreted this in 1973 as leaving the blame of the fate of the temples not personally on Sennacherib himself, but on the decisions made by the temple personnel and the actions of the Assyrian people.[78]\n\nDuring the destruction of the city, Sennacherib destroyed the temples and the images of the gods, except for that of Marduk, which he took to Assyria.[79] This caused consternation in Assyria itself, where Babylon and its gods were held in high esteem.[80] Sennacherib attempted justifying his actions to his own countrymen through a campaign of religious propaganda.[81] Among the elements of this campaign, he commissioned a myth in which Marduk was put on trial before Ashur, the god of Assyria. This text is fragmentary, but it seems Marduk is found guilty of some grave offense.[82] Sennacherib described his defeat of the Babylonian rebels in the language of the Babylonian creation myth, identifying Babylon with the evil demon-goddess Tiamat and himself with Marduk.[83] Ashur replaced Marduk in the New Year's festival, and in the temple of the festival he placed a symbolic pile of rubble from Babylon.[84] In Babylonia, Sennacherib's policy spawned a deep-seated hatred amongst much of the populace.[85]\n\nSennacherib's goal was the complete eradication of Babylonia as a political entity.[86] Though some northern Babylonian territories became Assyrian provinces, the Assyrians made no effort to rebuild Babylon itself, and southern chronicles from the time refer to the era as the \"kingless\" period when there was no king in the land.[78]\n\nRenovation of Nineveh\n\nAfter the final war with Babylon, Sennacherib dedicated his time to improving his new capital at Nineveh rather than embarking on large military campaigns.[76] Nineveh had been an important city in northern Mesopotamia for millennia. The oldest traces of human settlement at its location are from the 7th millennium BC, and from the 4th millennium BC and onward it formed an important administrative center in the north.[87] When Sennacherib made the city his new capital it experienced one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history, being completely transformed from the somewhat neglected state it had been in before his reign.[88] Whereas his father's new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, was more or less an imitation of the previous capital of Nimrud, Sennacherib intended to make Nineveh into a city whose magnificence and size astonished the civilized world.[89]\n\nThe earliest inscriptions discussing the building project at Nineveh date to 702 BC and concern the construction of the Southwest Palace, a large residence constructed in the southwestern part of the citadel.[32] Sennacherib called this palace the ekallu ša šānina la išu, the \"Palace without Rival\".[90] During the construction process, a smaller palace was torn down, a stream of water which had been eroding parts of the palace mound was redirected and a terrace which the new palace was to stand on was erected and raised to the height of 160 layers of brick. Though many of these early inscriptions talk about the palace as if it were already completed, this was the standard way of writing about building projects in ancient Assyria. The Nineveh described in Sennacherib's earliest accounts of its renovation was a city which at that point only existed in his imagination.[32]\n\nBy 700 BC the walls of the Southwest Palace's throne room were being constructed, followed shortly by the many reliefs to be displayed within it. The final step in the palace's construction was the erection of colossal statues depicting bulls and lions, characteristic of Late Assyrian architecture. Though such stone statues have been excavated at Nineveh, similar colossal statues mentioned in the inscriptions as being made of precious metals remain missing. The roof of the palace was constructed with cypress and cedar recovered from the mountains in the west, and the palace was illuminated through multiple windows and decorated with silver and bronze pegs on the inside and glazed bricks on the outside. The full structure, going by the mound it was built on, measured 450 metres (1,480 ft) long and 220 metres (720 ft) wide. An inscription on a stone lion in the quarter associated with Sennacherib's queen, Tashmetu-sharrat, contains hopes that the king and queen would both live healthily and long within the new palace.[91] The text of the inscription, written in an unusually intimate way, reads:[92]\n\nAnd for the queen Tashmetu-sharrat, my beloved wife, whose features Belet-ili has made more beautiful than all other women, I had a palace of love, joy and pleasure built. [...] By the order of Ashur, father of the gods, and heavenly queen Ishtar may we both live long in health and happiness in this palace and enjoy wellbeing to the full![92]\n\nCity plan of Nineveh (left) and a close-up of the Kuyunjik mound (right), where Sennacherib's palace was constructed. The northern palace depicted on the map was first built during the reign of Sennacherib's grandson Ashurbanipal.\n\nThough probably conceived as a structure like the palace Sargon built at Dur-Sharrukin, Sennacherib's palace, and especially the artwork featured within it, shows some differences. Though Sargon's reliefs usually show the king as close to other members of the Assyrian aristocracy, Sennacherib's art usually depicts the king towering above everyone else in his vicinity due to being mounted in a chariot. His reliefs show larger scenes, some almost from a bird's-eye point of view. There are also examples of a more naturalistic approach in the art; where colossal statues of bulls from Sargon's palace depict them with five legs so that four legs could be seen from either side and two from the front, Sennacherib's bulls all have four legs.[91] Sennacherib constructed beautiful gardens at his new palace, importing various plants and herbs from throughout his empire and beyond. Cotton plants may have been imported from as far away as India. Some suggest the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were actually these gardens in Nineveh. Eckhart Frahm considers this idea unlikely on account of the impressive royal gardens in Babylon itself.[93]\n\nBesides the palace, Sennacherib oversaw other building projects at Nineveh. He built a large second palace at the city's southern mound, which served as an arsenal to store military equipment and as permanent quarters for part of the Assyrian standing army. Numerous temples were built and restored, many of them on the Kuyunjik mound (where the Southwest Palace was located), including a temple dedicated to the god Sîn (invoked in the king's own name). Sennacherib also massively expanded the city to the south and erected enormous new city walls, surrounded by a moat, up to 25 metres (82 ft) high and 15 metres (49 ft) thick.[93]\n\nConspiracy, murder and succession\n\nWhen his eldest son and original crown prince, Ashur-nadin-shumi, disappeared, presumably executed, Sennacherib selected his eldest surviving son, Arda-Mulissu, as the new crown prince. Arda-Mulissu held the position of the heir apparent for several years until 684 BC when Sennacherib suddenly replaced him with his younger brother Esarhaddon. The reason for Arda-Mulissu's sudden dismissal is unknown, but it is clear from contemporary inscriptions that he was very disappointed.[94] Esarhaddon's influential mother, Naqi'a, may have played a role in convincing Sennacherib to choose Esarhaddon as heir.[95] Despite his dismissal, Arda-Mulissu remained a popular figure, and some vassals secretly supported him as the heir to the throne.[96]\n\nSennacherib forced Arda-Mulissu to swear loyalty to Esarhaddon, but Arda-Mulissu made many appeals to his father to reinstate him as heir.[94] Sennacherib noted the increasing popularity of Arda-Mulissu and came to fear for his designated successor, so he sent Esarhaddon to the western provinces. Esarhaddon's exile put Arda-Mulissu in a difficult position as he had reached the height of his popularity but was powerless to do anything to his brother. To take advantage of the opportunity, Arda-Mulissu decided he needed to act quickly and take the throne by force.[96] He concluded a \"treaty of rebellion\" with another of his younger brothers, Nabu-shar-usur, and on 20 October 681 BC, they attacked and killed their father in one of Nineveh's temples,[94] possibly the one dedicated to Sîn.[93]\n\nThe murder of Sennacherib, ruler of one of the world's strongest empires at the time, shocked his contemporaries. People throughout the Near East received the news with strong emotions and mixed feelings. The denizens of the Levant and Babylonia celebrated the news and proclaimed the act as divine punishment because of Sennacherib's brutal campaigns against them; 'in Assyria, the reaction must have been overwhelmingly horror and resentment.'[96]\n\nDespite the success of their conspiracy, Arda-Mulissu could not seize the throne. The murder of the king caused some resentment against him by his own supporters which delayed his potential coronation, and in the meantime, Esarhaddon had raised an army. The army raised by Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-shar-usur met Esarhaddon's forces in Hanigalbat, a region in the western parts of the empire. There, most of their soldiers deserted and joined Esarhaddon, who then marched on Nineveh without opposition, becoming the new king of Assyria. Shortly after taking the throne, Esarhaddon executed all of the conspirators and political enemies within his reach, including his brothers' families. Every servant involved with the security of the royal palace at Nineveh was executed. Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-shar-usur survived this purge, escaping as exiles to the northern kingdom of Urartu.[94][97]\n\nFamily and children\n\nAs was traditional for Assyrian kings, Sennacherib had a harem of many women. Two of his wives are known by name-Tashmetu-sharrat (Tašmetu-šarrat)[98] and Naqi'a (Naqiʾā). Whether both held the position of queen is uncertain, but contemporary sources suggest that though the king's family included multiple women, only one at a time would be recognized as queen and primary consort. For most of Sennacherib's reign, the queen was Tashmetu-sharrat, whose name literally means \"Tashmetum is queen\".[19] Inscriptions suggest that Sennacherib and Tashmetu-sharrat had a loving relationship, with the king referring to her as \"my beloved wife\" and publicly praising her beauty.[98]\n\nWhether Naqi'a ever held the title of queen is unclear. She was referred to as the \"queen mother\" during Esarhaddon's reign, but as she was Esarhaddon's mother, the title may have been bestowed upon her either late in Sennacherib's reign or by Esarhaddon.[19] Though Tashmetu-sharrat was the primary consort for longer, Naqi'a is more well-known today for her role during Esarhaddon's reign. When she became one of Sennacherib's wives, she took the Akkadian name Zakûtu (Naqi'a being an Aramaic name). Having two names could point to Naqi'a being born outside Assyria proper-possibly in Babylonia or in the Levant-but there is no substantial evidence for any theory regarding her origin.[95]\n\nSennacherib had at least seven sons and one daughter. Except for Esarhaddon, who is known to be Naqi'a's son, which of Sennacherib's wives were his children's mothers is unknown. Tashmetu-sharrat is likely to have been the mother of at least some of them.[99] Their names were:\n\nAshur-nadin-shumi (Aššur-nādin-šumi)[60] - probably Sennacherib's eldest son. Appointed king of Babylon and crown prince in 700 BC, he served as both until his capture and execution by the Elamites in 694 BC.[100]\n\nAshur-ili-muballissu (Aššur-ili-muballissu)[98] - probably Sennacherib's second eldest son (he is called māru terdennu, meaning \"second son\"). He is mentioned as being \"begotten at the feet of Ashur\", suggesting that he held some role in the priesthood.[98] His father gave him a house at Assur, probably at some point before 700 BC, and a precious vase later excavated at Nineveh.[101]\n\nArda-Mulissu (Arda-Mulišši)[102] - Sennacherib's eldest living son by the time of Ashur-nadin-shumi's death in 694 BC, he served as his crown prince from 694 BC until 684 BC, when for unknown reasons he was replaced as heir by Esarhaddon. He orchestrated the 681 BC conspiracy which ended in Sennacherib's death in hopes of taking the throne for himself.[94] After his troops were defeated by Esarhaddon, he escaped to Urartu.[94]\n\nAshur-shumu-ushabshi (Aššur-šumu-ušabši) - a son whose place in Sennacherib's sequence of children is unknown. Sennacherib gave him a house in Nineveh. Bricks bearing inscriptions discussing the construction of this house were later excavated at Nineveh, possibly indicating that Ashur-shumu-ushabshi had died before the house was completed.[101]\n\nEsarhaddon (Aššur-aḫa-iddina)[103] - a younger son who served as Sennacherib's crown prince 684-681 BC and succeeded him as the king of Assyria, reigning from 681 to 669 BC.[94]\n\nNergal-shumu-ibni (Nergal-šumu-ibni)[101] - the reconstructed name (the full name of the prince is missing in the inscriptions) of another son of Sennacherib. He is mentioned as having employed a large staff, including a personal horse raiser called Sama. He might be the same person as an information officer mentioned in 683 BC. His name might alternatively be reconstructed as Nergal-shumu-usur.[101] Nergal-shumu-ibni might have served as crown prince alongside Arda-Mulissu, possibly as the intended heir to Babylonia, but the evidence is inconclusive.[104]\n\nNabu-shar-usur (Nabû-šarru-uṣur)[105] - a younger son who joined Arda-Mulissu in his plot to murder Sennacherib and seize power. He escaped with Arda-Mulissu to Urartu.[94]\n\nShadditu (Šadditu)[101] - The only one of Sennacherib's daughters known by name, Shadditu appears in land sale documents and protective rituals were conducted on her behalf. She was probably a daughter of Naqi'a as she retained a place in the royal family during Esarhaddon's reign. She or another daughter was married to an Egyptian noble named Shushanqu sometime before 692 BC.[99][106]\n\nA small tablet excavated at Nineveh lists the names of mythological Mesopotamian heroes, such as Gilgamesh, and some personal names. As the name Ashur-ili-muballissu appears in the list of personal names, alongside fragmentary names that could possibly be reconstructed as Ashur-nadin-shumi (or Ashur-shumu-ushabshi) and Esarhaddon, it is also possible that the other personal names were names of further sons of Sennacherib. These names include Ile''e-bullutu-Aššur, Aššur-mukkaniš-ilija, Ana-Aššur-taklak, Aššur-bani-beli, Samaš-andullašu (or Samaš-salamšu) and Aššur-šakin-liti.[101]\n\nCharacter\n\nSennacherib shown enthroned in the Lachish reliefs, which depict his war in the Levant. Detailed drawing from the 1887 book A Dictionary of the Bible by Philip Schaff on the right.\n\nThe main sources that can be used to deduce Sennacherib's personality are his royal inscriptions. These inscriptions were not written by the king, but by his royal scribes. They often served as propaganda meant to portray the king as better than all other rulers, both contemporary and ancient.[107] Furthermore, Assyrian royal inscriptions often describe only military and construction matters and were highly formulaic, differing little from king to king.[108] By examining the inscriptions and comparing them to those of other kings and non-royal inscriptions, it is possible to infer some aspects of Sennacherib's character. Like the inscriptions of other Assyrian kings, his show pride and high self-esteem, for instance in the passage: \"Ashur, father of the gods, looked steadfastly upon me among all the rulers and he made my weapons greater than (those of) all who sit on (royal) daises.\" In several places, Sennacherib's great intelligence is emphasized, for instance in the passage, \"the god Ninshiku gave me wide understanding equal to (that of) the sage Adapu (and) endowed me with broad knowledge\". Several inscriptions call him \"foremost of all rulers\" (ašared kal malkī) and a \"perfect man\" (eṭlu gitmālu).[105][107] Sennacherib's decision to keep his birth name when he became king rather than assuming a throne name, something at least 19 of his 21 immediate predecessors had done, suggests self-confidence. Sennacherib assumed several new epithets never used by Assyrian kings, such as \"guardian of the right\" and \"lover of justice\", suggesting a desire to leave a personal mark on a new era beginning with his reign.[31]\n\nWhen Sennacherib became king, he was already an adult and had served as Sargon's crown prince for over 15 years and understood the empire's administration. Unlike many preceding and later Assyrian kings (including his father), Sennacherib did not portray himself as a conqueror or express much desire to conquer the world. Instead, his inscriptions often portrayed the most important parts of his reign as his large-scale building projects. Most of Sennacherib's campaigns were not aimed at conquest, but at suppressing revolts against his rule, restoring lost territories and securing treasure to finance his building projects.[109] That his generals led several of the campaigns, rather than Sennacherib himself, shows he was not as interested in campaigning as his predecessors had been.[110] The brutal retribution and punishment served to Assyria's enemies described in Sennacherib's accounts do not necessarily reflect the truth. They also served as intimidating tools for propaganda and psychological warfare.[111]\n\nDespite the apparent lack of interest in world domination, Sennacherib assumed the traditional Mesopotamian titles that designated rule of the entire world; \"king of the universe\" and \"king of the four corners of the world\". Other titles, such as \"strong king\" and \"mighty king\", emphasized his power and greatness, along with epithets such as \"virile warrior\" (zikaru qardu) and \"fierce wild bull\" (rīmu ekdu). Sennacherib described all of his campaigns, even the unsuccessful ones, as victories in his own accounts. This was not necessarily because of personal pride; his subjects would have viewed a failed campaign as a sign that the gods no longer favored his rule.[109] Sennacherib was fully convinced that the gods supported him and saw all his wars as just for this reason.[110]\n\nFrahm believes that it is possible that Sennacherib suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder because of the catastrophic fate of his father. From the sources, it appears that bad news easily enraged Sennacherib and that he developed serious psychological problems. His son and successor Esarhaddon mentions in his inscriptions that the \"alû demon\" afflicted Sennacherib and that none of his diviners initially dared to tell the king they had observed signs pointing to the demon.[36] What the alû demon was is not entirely understood, but the typical symptoms described in contemporary documents include the afflicted not knowing who they are, their pupils constricting, their limbs being tense, being incapable of speech and their ears roaring.[31]\n\nFrahm and the Assyriologist Julian E. Reade have pondered the idea that Sennacherib could be classified as a feminist. Female members of the court were more prominent and enjoyed greater privileges under Sennacherib's reign than under the reigns of previous Assyrian kings. The reasons for his policy towards his female relatives are unknown. He might have wanted to shift power away from powerful generals and magnates to his own family, having encountered powerful Arab queens who made their own decisions and led armies. He may have been compensating for the way he treated his father's memory. Evidence of the increased standing of the royal women includes the larger number of texts referencing Assyrian queens from Sennacherib's reign compared to queens of earlier times, and evidence that Sennacherib's queens had their own standing military units, just like the king. Mirroring the increased standing of the women of the royal family, during Sennacherib's time female deities were depicted more frequently. For example, the god Ashur is portrayed frequently with a female companion, probably the goddess Mullissu.[112]\n\nDespite Sennacherib's superstition in regards to the fate of his father and his conviction of divine support,[33][110] Reade believes that the king to some degree was skeptical of religion. Sennacherib's ultimate treatment of Babylon, destroying the city and its temples, was sacrilege and the king appears to have neglected the temples in Assyria until he carried out a renovation of the temple of Ashur in Assur late in his reign.[113]\n\nLegacy\n\nIn popular memory\n\nThroughout the millennia following Sennacherib's death, the popular image of the king has been mainly negative. The first reason for this is Sennacherib's negative portrayal in the Bible as the evil conqueror who attempted to take Jerusalem; the second is his destruction of Babylon, one of the most prominent cities in the ancient world. This negative view of Sennacherib endured until modern times. Sennacherib is presented as akin to a ruthless predator, attacking Judah as a \"wolf on the fold\" in the 1815 poem The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron:[114]\n\nThe Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,\nAnd his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;\nAnd the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,\nWhen the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.\n\n- Lord Byron (1815), The Destruction of Sennacherib, first stanza.[114]\n\nBiblical archaeologist Isaac Kalimi and historian Seth Richardson described Sennacherib's 701 BC attack against Jerusalem as a \"world event\" in 2014, noting that it drew together the fates of numerous otherwise disparate groups. According to Kalimi, the event and its aftermath affected and had consequences for not only the Assyrians and the Israelites, but also the Babylonians, Egyptians, Nubians, Neo-Hittites and Anatolian peoples. The siege is discussed not only in contemporary sources, but in later folklore and traditions, such as Aramaic folklore, in later Greco-Roman histories of the Near East and in the tales of medieval Syriac Christians and Arabs.[115] Sennacherib's Levantine campaign is a significant event in the Bible, being brought up and discussed in many places, notably 2 Kings 18:13-19:37, 20:6 and 2 Chronicles 32:1-23.[116] A vast majority of the Biblical accounts of King Hezekiah's reign in 2 Kings is dedicated to Sennacherib's campaign, cementing it as the most important event of Hezekiah's time.[117] In Chronicles, Sennacherib's failure and Hezekiah's success is emphasized. The Assyrian campaign (described as an act of aggression rather than as a response to Hezekiah's rebellious activities) is seen as doomed to fail from the start. According to the narrative, no enemy, not even the powerful king of Assyria, would have been able to triumph over Hezekiah as the Judean king had God on his side.[118] The conflict is presented as something akin to a holy war: God's war against the pagan Sennacherib.[119]\n\nThough Assyria had more than a hundred kings throughout its long history, Sennacherib (along with his son Esarhaddon and grandsons Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin) is one of the few kings who was remembered and figured in Aramaic and Syriac folklore long after the kingdom had fallen. The ancient Aramaic story of Ahikar portrays Sennacherib as a benevolent patron of the titular character Ahikar, with Esarhaddon portrayed more negatively. Medieval Syriac tales characterize Sennacherib as an archetypical pagan king assassinated as part of a family feud, whose children convert to Christianity.[120] The legend of the 4th-century Saints Behnam and Sarah casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father. After Behnam converts to Christianity, Sinharib orders his execution, but is later struck by a dangerous disease that is cured through being baptized by Saint Matthew in Assur. Thankful, Sinharib then converts to Christianity and founds an important monastery near Mosul, called Deir Mar Mattai.[121]\n\nSennacherib also occupied various roles in later Jewish tradition. In Midrash, examinations of the Old Testament and later stories, the events of 701 BC are often explored in detail; many times featuring massive armies deployed by Sennacherib and pointing out how he repeatedly consulted astrologers on his campaign, delaying his actions. In the stories, Sennacherib's armies are destroyed when Hezekiah recites Hallel psalms on the eve of Passover. The event is often portrayed as an apocalyptic scenario, with Hezekiah portrayed as a messianic figure and Sennacherib and his armies being personifications of Gog and Magog.[122] Sennacherib, due to the role he plays in the Bible, remains one of the most famous Assyrian kings to this day.[123] \n\nSennacherib appears in Dante's Divine Comedy, in the Purgatorio, as an exemplar of pride: \"Now was shown how his sons fell upon Sennacherib inside the temple, and how, slain, they left him there\".[124]\n\nArchaeological discoveries\n\nThe discovery of Sennacherib's own inscriptions in the 19th century, in which brutal and cruel acts such as ordering the throats of his Elamite enemies to be slit, and their hands and lips cut off, amplified his already ferocious reputation. Today, many such inscriptions are known, most of them housed in the collections of the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London, though many are located throughout the world in other institutions and private collections. Some large objects with Sennacherib's inscriptions remain at Nineveh, where some have even been reburied.[125] Sennacherib's own accounts of his building projects and military campaigns, typically referred to as his \"annals\", were often copied several times and spread throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire during his reign. For the first six years of his reign, they were written on clay cylinders, but he later began using clay prisms, probably because they provided a greater surface area.[30]\n\nLetters associated with Sennacherib are fewer in number than those known from his father and the time of his son Esarhaddon; most of them are from Sennacherib's tenure as crown prince. Other types of non-royal inscriptions from Sennacherib's reign, such as administrative documents, economic documents and chronicles, are more numerous.[126] In addition to written sources, many pieces of artwork have also survived from Sennacherib's time, notably the king's reliefs from his palace at Nineveh. They typically depict his conquests, sometimes with short pieces of text explaining the scene shown. First discovered and excavated from 1847 to 1851 by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, the discovery of reliefs depicting Sennacherib's siege of Lachish in the Southwest Palace was the first archaeological confirmation of an event described in the Bible.[90]\n\nThe Assyriologists Hormuzd Rassam and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson from 1852 to 1854, William Kennett Loftus from 1854 to 1855 and George Smith from 1873 to 1874 led further excavations of the Southwest Palace.[90] Among the many inscriptions found at the site, Smith discovered a fragmentary account of a flood, which generated much excitement both among scholars and the public. Since Smith, the site has experienced several periods of intense excavation and study; Rassam returned from 1878 to 1882, the Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge oversaw excavations from 1889 to 1891, the Assyriologist Leonard William King from 1903 to 1904 and the Assyriologist Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1905 and from 1931 to 1932. The Iraqi Department of Antiquities under the Assyriologist Tariq Madhloom conducted the most recent expeditions from 1965 to 1968. Many of Sennacherib's reliefs are exhibited today at the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the British Museum, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris.[127]\n\nThe traditional negative assessment of Sennacherib as a ruthless conqueror has faded away in modern scholarship. Writing in 1978, Reade assessed Sennacherib as a king who stands out among Assyrian rulers as open-minded and far-sighted and that he was a man \"who not only coped effectively with ordinary crises but even turned them to advantage as he created, or attempted to create, a stable imperial structure immune from traditional problems\". Reade believes that the collapse of the Assyrian Empire within seventy years of Sennacherib's death can be partly attributed to later kings ignoring Sennacherib's policies and reforms.[113] Elayi, writing in 2018, concluded that Sennacherib was different both from the traditional negative image of him and from the perfect image the king wanted to convey himself through his inscriptions, but that elements of both were true. According to Elayi, Sennacherib was \"certainly intelligent, skillful, with an ability of adaptation\", but \"his sense of piety was contradictory, as, on the one hand, he impiously destroyed the statues of gods and temples of Babylon while, on the other hand, he used to consult the gods before acting and prayed to them\". Elayi believes Sennacherib's greatest flaw was \"his irascible, vindictive and impatient character\" and that he, when emotional, could be pushed to make irrational decisions.[128]\n\nIn 2011, a huge slope was discovered in Qasr Shemamok (Kilizu) in Erbil governorate, with a multi-step staircase of very low height, the steps are built of proud bricks, and a cuneiform text was found on one of the proud bricks with which the stairs were built bearing the name of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. During the French excavations, many cuneiform inscriptions were found, most of which bear a text mentioning one of the king's titles, mentioning the construction of wall and a palace in the city.[129][130][131]\n\nTitles\n\nThe following titulature is used by Sennacherib in early accounts of his 703 BC Babylonian campaign:[132]\n\nSennacherib, great king, mighty king, king of Assyria, king without rival, righteous shepherd, favorite of the great gods, prayerful shepherd, who fears the great gods, protector of righteousness, lover of justice, who lends support, who comes to the aid of the cripple and aims to do good deeds, perfect hero, mighty man, first among all kings, neckstock that bends the insubmissive, who strikes the enemy like a thunderbolt, Ashur, the great mountain, has bestowed upon me an unrivalled kingship and has made my weapons mightier than the weapons of all other rulers sitting on daises.[132]\n\nThis variant of the titulature is used in an inscription from the Southwest Palace at Nineveh written after Sennacherib's 700 BC Babylonian campaign:[133]\n\nSennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters (of the world); favorite of the great gods; the wise and crafty one; strong hero, first among all princes; the flame that consumes the insubmissive, who strikes the wicked with the thunderbolt. Assur, the great god, has intrusted to me an unrivaled kingship, and has made powerful my weapons above (all) those who dwell in palaces. From the upper sea of the setting sun to the lower sea of the rising sun, all princes of the four quarters (of the world) he has brought in submission to my feet.[133]\n\nSee also\n\nAzekah Inscription\n\nHalamata Cave\n\nLachish reliefs\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nList of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nSinharib\n\nSennacherib's Annals\n\nNotes\n\n^ The overwhelming majority of scholars accept Arad-Mulissu's guilt as a matter of fact.[10] Other hypotheses have at time been proposed, such as that the crime was committed by some unknown Babylonian sympathizer or even by Esarhaddon himself.[11] In 2020, Andrew Knapp suggested that Esarhaddon might actually have been behind the murder, citing alleged inconsistencies in the account of Arad-Mulissu's guilt, that Esarhaddon might also had a difficult relationship with Sennacherib, the speed in which Esarhaddon assembled an army and defeated his brothers, and other circumstantial evidence.[12] However, Christopher W. Jones reviewed the question in 2023 and concluded that the evidence supported the conventional view that Arda-Mulissu orchestrated Sennacherib's murder.[13]\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 29.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2018, p. 18.\n\n^ Harmanşah 2013, p. 120.\n\n^ a b Kalimi 2014, p. 11.\n\n^ \"Sin-ahhe-eriba [SENNACHERIB, KING OF ASSYRIA] (RN)\". Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 25 July 2022.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 12.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2003, p. 129.\n\n^ a b c d e Kalimi 2014, p. 20.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1924, p. 13.\n\n^ Knapp 2020, p. 166.\n\n^ Knapp 2020, p. 165.\n\n^ Knapp 2020, pp. 167-181.\n\n^ Jones 2023, pp. 296ff.\n\n^ a b c d Elayi 2018, p. 13.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 115.\n\n^ Melville 2016, p. 56.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 27.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 30.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2018, p. 15.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, pp. 30-31.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 38.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, pp. 40, 204.\n\n^ Brinkman 1973, p. 89.\n\n^ a b c Brinkman 1973, p. 90.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 209.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 208.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 212.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 201.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2014, p. 202.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 3.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2014, p. 204.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2008, p. 15.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Brinkman 1973, p. 91.\n\n^ Frahm 2002, p. 1113.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2003, p. 130.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2014, p. 203.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1924, p. 9.\n\n^ a b Levine 1982, p. 36.\n\n^ a b c Bauer 2007, p. 384.\n\n^ a b c Luckenbill 1924, p. 10.\n\n^ a b Levine 1982, p. 37.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, p. 106.\n\n^ Levine 1973, p. 313.\n\n^ Matty 2016, p. 26.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1924, p. 11.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1924, p. 31 [33].\n\n^ Barnett 1958, pp. 161-164.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 38.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, pp. 25, 40.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1924, p. 12.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, pp. 39-40.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 19.\n\n^ Caesar 2017, p. 224.\n\n^ Ogden Bellis 2020, p. 4.\n\n^ James 2005, p. 92.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 48.\n\n^ Levine 1982, p. 40.\n\n^ a b c Levine 1982, p. 41.\n\n^ Levine 1982, pp. 40-41.\n\n^ a b Porter 1993, p. 14.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 15.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 16.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1924, p. 14.\n\n^ Levine 1982, pp. 42-43.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1924, p. 15.\n\n^ a b c Levine 1982, p. 43.\n\n^ a b Brinkman 1973, p. 92.\n\n^ Bertman 2005, p. 79.\n\n^ Levine 1982, pp. 43-45.\n\n^ Levine 1982, p. 45.\n\n^ Levine 1982, pp. 40, 47-49.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1924, p. 16.\n\n^ Levine 1982, pp. 49-50.\n\n^ a b Brinkman 1973, p. 93.\n\n^ Levine 1982, p. 50.\n\n^ a b c Luckenbill 1924, p. 17.\n\n^ a b c d Brinkman 1973, p. 94.\n\n^ a b Brinkman 1973, p. 95.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, p. 118.\n\n^ Leick 2009, p. 156.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, pp. 118-119.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, p. 119.\n\n^ McCormick 2002, pp. 156, 158.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, p. 116.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, p. 109.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 210.\n\n^ Frahm 2008, p. 13.\n\n^ Frahm 2008, p. 14.\n\n^ Reade 1978, pp. 47, 50.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2018, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2008, p. 16.\n\n^ a b Kertai 2013, p. 116.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2008, p. 17.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Radner 2003, p. 166.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 16.\n\n^ a b c Parpola 1980.\n\n^ Encyclopaedia Britannica.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2002, p. 1114.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 17.\n\n^ Porter 1993, pp. 14-16.\n\n^ a b c d e f Frahm 2002, p. 1115.\n\n^ Baker 2016, p. 272.\n\n^ Postgate 2014, p. 250.\n\n^ Šašková 2010, p. 152.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2014, p. 193.\n\n^ ORACC\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 19.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 171.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 20.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2018, p. 21.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 22.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, pp. 213-217.\n\n^ a b Reade 1978, p. 47.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 1.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 1.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 12.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 15.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 21.\n\n^ Kalimi 2014, p. 37.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 5.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 7.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 6.\n\n^ Mark 2014.\n\n^ Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, tr. Robert and Jean Hollander, Doubleday, 2003\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 2.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 4.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 6.\n\n^ Elayi 2018, p. 203.\n\n^ https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/14022526/Archaeological%20Projects%20in%20the%20Kurdistan%20Region%202015_0.pdf?sequence=1 . p54\n\n^ Furlani, Giuseppe (1934). \"Kakzu-Qaṣr Šemāmok\". Rivista degli studi orientali. 15 (2/3): 119-142. ISSN 0392-4866. JSTOR 41864549.\n\n^ Masetti-Rouault M. G. «Late Bronze and Iron Age Levels from Qasr Shemamok. A First Evaluation of the Impact of the Assyrian Presence in the Region East of Calah», Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, p.253-264.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2003, p. 141.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1927, p. 140.\n\nSources\n\nPrint\n\nBaker, Robin (2016). Hollow Men, Strange Women: Riddles, Codes and Otherness in the Book of Judges. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-9-004-32267-7.\n\nBarnett, R. D. (1958). \"The Siege of Lachish\". Israel Exploration Journal. 8 (3): 161-164. JSTOR 27924740.\n\nBauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05974-8.\n\nBertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\nBrinkman, J. A. (1973). \"Sennacherib's Babylonian Problem: An Interpretation\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 25 (2): 89-95. doi:10.2307/1359421. JSTOR 1359421. S2CID 163623620.\n\nCaesar, Stephen W. (2017). \"The Annihilation of Sennacherib's Army: A Case of Septicemic Plague\" (PDF). Jewish Bible Quarterly. 45 (4): 222-228.\n\nElayi, Josette (2017). Sargon II, King of Assyria. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 978-1-62837-177-2.\n\nElayi, Josette (2018). Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 978-0-88414-317-8.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2002). \"Sîn-ahhe-eriba\". In Baker, Heather D. (ed.). The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Vol. 3, Part. I: P-S. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2003). \"New sources for Sennacherib's \"first campaign\"\". Isimu. 6: 129-164. doi:10.15366/isimu2003.6.008. hdl:10486/3462.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2008). \"The Great City: Nineveh in the Age of Sennacherib\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies. 3: 13-20.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2014). \"Family Matters: Psychohistorical Reflections on Sennacherib and His Times\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nGrayson, A.K. (2003) [1991]. \"Assyria: Sennacherib and Essarhaddon\". In Boardman, John; Edwards, I. E. S. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume III Part II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22717-9.\n\nHarmanşah, Ömür (2013). Cities and the Shaping of Memory in the Ancient Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-53374-5.\n\nJames, Peter (2005). \"The Date of the Ekron Temple Inscription: A Note\". Israel Exploration Journal. 55 (1): 90-93. JSTOR 27927090.\n\nJones, Christopher W. (2023). \"Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon's Struggle for the Throne, 681-680 B.C.\" Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. 10 (2): 293-369. doi:10.1515/janeh-2022-0013. ISSN 2328-9562.\n\nKalimi, Isaac (2014). \"Sennacherib's Campaign to Judah: The Chronicler's View Compared with his \"Biblical\" Sources\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nKalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (2014). \"Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography: An Introduction\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nKertai, David (2013). \"The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 40 (1): 108-124. doi:10.1524/aof.2013.0006. S2CID 163392326.\n\nKnapp, Andrew (2020). \"The Murderer of Sennacherib, yet Again: The Case against Esarhaddon\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 140 (1): 165-181. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0165. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0165. S2CID 219084248.\n\nKirk Grayson, A.; Novotny, Jamie (2012). The royal inscriptions of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (704-681 BC). Part 1. Eisenbrauns.\n\nKirk Grayson, A.; Novotny, Jamie (2014). The royal inscriptions of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (704-681 BC). Part 2. Eisenbrauns.\n\nLeick, Gwendolyn (2009). Historical Dictionary of Mesopotamia. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6324-8.\n\nLevine, Louis D. (1973). \"The Second Campaign of Sennacherib\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 32 (3): 312-317. doi:10.1086/372271. JSTOR 543858. S2CID 162360102.\n\nLevine, Louis D. (1982). \"Sennacherib's Southern Front: 704-689 B.C.\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 34 (1/2): 28-58. doi:10.2307/1359991. JSTOR 1359991. S2CID 163170919.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1924). The Annals of Sennacherib. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 506728.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 926853184.\n\nMatty, Nazek Khalid (2016). Sennacherib's Campaign Against Judah and Jerusalem in 701 B.C.: A Historical Reconstruction. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-044788-0.\n\nMcCormick, Clifford Mark (2002). Palace and Temple: A Study of Architectural and Verbal Icons. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-017277-5.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2016). The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721-705 B.C. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-5403-9.\n\nOgden Bellis, Alice (2020). \"Introduction\". In Ogden Bellis, Alice (ed.). Jerusalem's Survival, Sennacherib's Departure, and the Kushite Role in 701 BCE: An Examination of Henry Aubin's Rescue of Jerusalem. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-4156-8. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2020.\n\nPorter, Barbara N. (1993). Images, Power, and Politics: Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 978-0-87169-208-5.\n\nPostgate, Nicholas (2014). Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-04375-6.\n\nRadner, Karen (2003). \"The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC\". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. 6: 165-183. doi:10.15366/isimu2003.6.009. hdl:10486/3476.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.\n\nReade, Julian E. (1978). \"Studies in Assyrian Geography: Part I: Sennacherib and the Waters of Nineveh\". Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 72 (1): 47-72. JSTOR 23282290.\n\nŠašková, Kateřina (2010). \"Esarhaddon's accession to the Assyrian throne\". In Šašková, Kateřina; Pecha, Lukáš; Charvát, Petr (eds.). Shepherds of the Black-headed People: The Royal Office vis-à-vis godhead in ancient Mesopotamia. Západočeská univerzita v Plzni. ISBN 978-8-070-43969-2.\n\nWeb\n\n\"Esarhaddon\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 November 2019.\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2014). \"Sennacherib\". World History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\nParpola, Simo (1980). \"The Murderer of Sennacherib\". Gateways to Babylon. Archived from the original on 18 February 2020. Retrieved 14 December 2019.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Sennacherib at Wikimedia Commons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sennacherib"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12635}, {"slug": "reference-esarhaddon", "title": "Esarhaddon", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon,[5] Assarhaddon[6] and Ashurhaddon[7] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀭𒊹𒉽𒀸, also 𒀭𒊹𒉽𒋧𒈾 Aššur-aḫa-iddina,[8][9] meaning \"Ashur has given me a brother\";[5] Biblical Hebrew: אֵסַר־חַדֹּן ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the Sargonid dynasty, Esarhaddon is most famous for...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Esarhaddon\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Babylon\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the kings of Egypt and Kush\n\nKing of the Four Corners\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nEsarhaddon, closeup from his victory stele, now housed in the Pergamon Museum\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign12 regnal years\n681 BC (accession)\n680-669 BC (reign)\n\nPredecessorSennacherib\n\nSuccessorAshurbanipal\n(King of Assyria)\nŠamaš-šuma-ukin\n(King of Babylon)\n\nBornc. 713 BC[1]\n\nDied1 November 669 BC[2]\nHarran\n(now Şanlıurfa, Turkey)\n\nSpouseEšarra-ḫammat\nOther wives\n\nIssue\nAmong\nothersŠērūʾa-ēṭirat\nAshurbanipal\nŠamaš-šuma-ukin\n\nAkkadianAššur-aḫa-iddina\nAššur-etel-ilani-mukinni[a]\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherSennacherib\n\nMotherNaqiʾa\n\nEsarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon,[5] Assarhaddon[6] and Ashurhaddon[7] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀭𒊹𒉽𒀸, also 𒀭𒊹𒉽𒋧𒈾 Aššur-aḫa-iddina,[8][9] meaning \"Ashur has given me a brother\";[5] Biblical Hebrew: אֵסַר־חַדֹּן ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the Sargonid dynasty, Esarhaddon is most famous for his conquest of Egypt in 671 BC,[5] which made his empire the largest the world had ever seen, and for his reconstruction of Babylon, which had been destroyed by his father.[10]\n\nAfter Sennacherib's eldest son and heir Aššur-nādin-šumi had been captured and presumably executed in 694, the new heir had originally been the second eldest son, Arda-Mulissu, but in 684, Esarhaddon, a younger son, was appointed instead. Angered by this decision, Arda-Mulissu and another brother, Nabû-šarru-uṣur, murdered their father in 681 and planned to seize the Neo-Assyrian throne.[b] The murder, and Arda-Mulissu's aspirations of becoming king himself, made Esarhaddon's rise to the throne difficult, and he first had to defeat his brothers in a six-week-long civil war.\n\nHis brothers' attempted coup had been unexpected and troublesome for Esarhaddon, and he would be plagued by paranoia and mistrust for his officials, governors and male family members until the end of his reign. As a result of this paranoia, most of the palaces used by Esarhaddon were high-security fortifications located outside of the major population centers of the cities. Also perhaps resulting from his mistrust for his male relatives, Esarhaddon's female relatives, such as his mother Naqiʾa and his daughter Šērūʾa-ēṭirat, were allowed to wield considerably more influence and political power during his reign than women had been allowed in any previous period of Assyrian history, with the possible exception of Sammuramat in the 9th century BC.\n\nDespite a relatively short and difficult reign, and being plagued by paranoia, depression and constant illness, Esarhaddon remains recognized as one of the greatest and most successful Assyrian kings. He quickly defeated his brothers in 681, completed ambitious and large-scale building projects in both Assyria and Babylonia, successfully campaigned in Media, Persia, Elam, the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Levant, defeated the Kushite Empire and conquered Egypt and Libya, enforced a vassal treaty upon the Medes and Persians and ensured a peaceful transition of power to his two sons and heirs Ashurbanipal as ruler of the empire and Šamaš-šuma-ukin as king of Babylonia after his death.\n\nEarly life\n\nSennacherib's first choice as successor had been his eldest son, Aššur-nādin-šumi, who he had appointed as the ruler of Babylon in about 700 BC.[10] Shortly thereafter, Sennacherib attacked the land of Elam (modern day southern Iran) to defeat the Elamites and some Chaldean rebels which had fled there. In response to this attack, the Elamites invaded Babylonia from another route in the south of Sennacherib's empire and, in 694, successfully captured Ashur-nadin-shumi at the city of Sippar. The prince was taken back to Elam and probably executed, causing Sennacherib to wreak savage revenge on the Elamites, Chaldeans, and Babylonians.[14]\n\nAppointed Crown-Prince\n\nAfter Aššur-nādin-šumi's presumed death, Sennacherib elevated his second eldest surviving son, Arda-Mulissu, as crown prince. After several years as crown prince, Arda-Mulissu was replaced as heir by Esarhaddon in 684. The reason for Arda-Mulissu's sudden dismissal from the prominent position is unknown, but it is clear that he was very disappointed.[15] Esarhaddon described the reaction of his brothers to his appointment as heir in a later inscription:\n\nOf my older brothers, the younger brother was I. But by decree of [the gods] Ashur and Shamash, Bel and Nabu, my father exalted me, amid a gathering of my brothers he asked Shamash, \"is this my heir?\" and the gods answered, \"he is your second self\".\nAnd then my brothers went mad. They drew their swords, godlessly, in the middle of Nineveh. But Ashur, Shamash, Bel, Nabu, Ishtar, all the gods looked with wrath on the deeds of these scoundrels, brought their strength to weakness and humbled them beneath me.[10]\n\nArda-Mulissu was forced to swear loyalty to Esarhaddon by his father, but repeatedly appealed to Sennacherib to again accept him as heir instead. These appeals were not successful, and Sennacherib came to realize that the situation was tense, so he sent Esarhaddon into exile in the western provinces for his own protection.[15] Esarhaddon was unhappy with his exile and blamed his brothers for it,[16] describing it with the following words:\n\nMalicious gossip, slander and falsehood they [i.e. Esarhaddon's brothers] wove around me in a godless way, lies and insincerity. They plotted evil behind my back. Against the will of the gods, they alienated my father's well-disposed heart from me, though in secret his heart was affected with compassion, and he still intended me to exercise kingship.[16]\n\nAccession\n\nAround 20 October 681 BCE, the assassination of Sennacherib by princes Arda-Mulissu and Nabu-Sarru-usur led to a six-week-long war of succession before Esarhaddon could ascend the throne.\n\nAlthough Esarhaddon had been the crown prince of Assyria for three years and the designated heir of King Sennacherib, with the entire empire having taken oaths to support him, it was only with great difficulty that he successfully ascended the Assyrian throne.[15]\n\nWar of Succession\n\nThough Sennacherib had foreseen the danger of keeping Esarhaddon near his ambitious brothers, he had not foreseen the dangers to his own life. On 20 October 681, Arda-Mulissu and another of Sennacherib's sons, Nabû-šarru-uṣur, attacked and killed their father in one of Nineveh's temples.[b] However, Arda-Mulissu's dreams of claiming the throne would be crushed. The murder of Sennacherib had caused some friction between Arda-Mulissu and his supporters, which delayed a potential coronation, and in the meantime, Esarhaddon had raised an army.[15] With this army at his back, he met an army raised by his brothers at Hanigalbat, a region in the western parts of the empire, where most of the soldiers deserted his brothers to join him, and the enemy generals fled. He then marched on Nineveh without opposition.[5][17]\n\nSix weeks after his father's death, he was accepted and recognized as the new Assyrian king at Nineveh. Shortly after taking the throne, Esarhaddon made sure to execute all conspirators and political enemies he could get his hands on, including the families of his brothers. All servants involved with the security of the royal palace at Nineveh were \"dismissed\" (i.e. executed). Arda-Mulissu and Nabû-šarru-uṣur survived this purge as they had escaped as exiles to the northern kingdom of Urartu, a vassal state of the Assyrian Empire in Anatolia.[10][15] The frequent mentions of Arda-Mulissu and Esarhaddon's other brothers in his inscriptions indicates that he was surprised and bothered by their actions.[18] Esarhaddon's own inscription chronicling his entry into Nineveh and his purge of those in support of the conspiracy reads as follows:\n\nI entered into Nineveh, my royal city, joyfully, and took my seat upon the throne of my father in safety. The south wind blew, the breath of Ea, the wind whose blowing is favourable for exercising kingship. There awaited me favourable signs in heaven and on earth, a message of the soothsayers, tidings from the gods and goddesses. Continually [missing portion] and gave my heart courage.\nThe soldiers, the rebels who had fomented the plot to seize the rulership of Assyria for my brothers, their ranks I examined to the last man and I laid a heavy penalty upon them, I destroyed their seed.[19]\n\nReign\n\nOn 1 Nisannu (Mar/Apr, 680 BCE), Esarhaddon celebrated the New Year and the start of his regnal Year 1, the formal beginning of his reign following the accession year (last year of the regnal year of Sennacherib).\n\nParanoia\n\nAs a result of his tumultuous rise to the throne, Esarhaddon was distrustful of his servants, vassals and family members. He frequently sought the advice of oracles and priests on whether any of his relatives or officials wished to harm him.[15] Although highly distrustful of his male relatives, Esarhaddon seems to not have been paranoid in regards to his female relatives. During his reign, his wife Ešarra-ḫammat, his mother Naqiʾa and his daughter Šērūʾa-ēṭirat all wielded considerably more influence and political power than women during earlier parts of Assyrian history.[20]\n\nEsarhaddon's paranoia was also reflected in where he chose to live. One of his main residences was a palace in the city of Nimrud originally constructed as an armoury by his predecessor Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC) almost two hundred years earlier. Rather than occupying a central and visible spot within the cultic and administrative center of the city, this palace was located on the outskirts of the city on a separate mound, which made it well-protected. Between 676 and 672, the palace was strengthened with its gateways being modified into impregnable fortifications, which could seal the entire building off completely from the city. If these entrances were sealed, the only way into the palace would be through a steep and narrow path protected by several strong doors. A similar palace, also located on a separate mound far from the city center, was built at Nineveh.[20]\n\nAll Assyrian kings are known to have sought the guidance of the sun-god Shamash (which was obtained through interpreting what was perceived as signs from the gods) for advice in political and military matters, such as whom to appoint to a certain position or if a planned military campaign would be successful. Queries concerning the possibility of betrayal are known only from Esarhaddon's reign.[21]\n\nMost scholars have classified Esarhaddon as paranoid,[22] some going as far as suggesting that he developed paranoid personality disorder after the murder of his father.[23] Other scholars have refrained from using this label, instead simply characterizing him as \"mistrustful\" and noting that paranoia is \"by definition delusional and irrational\" while Esarhaddon is likely to have had many real opponents and enemies.[24]\n\nReconstruction of Babylon\n\nEsarhaddon wished to ensure the support of the inhabitants of Babylonia, the southern part of his empire. To this end, the king sponsored building and restoration projects throughout the south to a far greater extent than any of his predecessors had. Babylonia had only become an inner part of the Assyrian Empire relatively recently, having been ruled by native kings as vassals of the Assyrians until its conquest and annexation by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in the previous century. Through his building program, Esarhaddon likely hoped to show the benefits of continuing Assyrian rule over the region and that he meant to rule Babylon with the same care and generosity as a native Babylonian king. [26]\n\nThe city of Babylon, which gave its name to Babylonia, had been the political centre of southern Mesopotamia for more than a thousand years. In an effort to quell Babylonian aspirations of independence, the city had been razed by Esarhaddon's father in 689 BC, and the statue of Bel (also known as Marduk), the patron deity of the city, had been carried off deep into Assyrian territory. The restoration of the city, announced by Esarhaddon in 680,[27] became one of his most important projects. [28][26]\n\nThroughout Esarhaddon's reign, reports from the officials the king appointed to oversee the reconstruction speak of the great scope of the building project. [28] The ambitious restoration of the city involved removing the large amount of debris left since Sennacherib's destruction of the city; resettlement of the many Babylonians who by this point were either enslaved or scattered across the empire; the reconstruction of most of the buildings; the restoration of the great temple complex dedicated to Bel, known as the Esagila, and the enormous ziggurat complex called Etemenanki; as well as the restoration of the two inner walls of the city.[29] The project was not only important because it illustrated goodwill towards the Babylonian people but also because it allowed Esarhaddon to assume one of the essential characteristics the Babylonians invested in kingship. While the king of Assyria was generally supposed to be a military figure, the king of Babylon was ideally a builder and restorer, particularly of temples. [30] Careful to not associate himself with the city's destruction, he only refers to himself as a king \"ordained by the gods\" in his inscriptions in Babylon, only mentioning Sennacherib in his inscriptions in the north and blaming the city's destruction not on his father but on Babylon \"offending its gods.\" [10] Writing of his reconstruction of Babylon, Esarhaddon states the following:\n\nGreat king, mighty monarch, lord of all, king of the land of Assur, ruler of Babylon, faithful shepherd, beloved of Marduk, lord of lords, dutiful leader, loved by Marduk's Consort Zurpanitum, humble, obedient, full of praise for their strength and awestruck from his earliest days in the presence of their divine greatness. [am I, Esarhaddon]. When in the reign of an earlier king there were ill omens, the city offended its gods and was destroyed at their command. It was I, Esarhaddon, whom they chose to restore everything to its rightful place, to calm their anger, and to assuage their wrath. You, Marduk, entrusted the protection of the land of Assur to me. The Gods of Babylon, meanwhile, told me to rebuild their shrines and renew the proper religious observances of their palace, Esagila. I called up all my workmen and conscripted all the people of Babylonia. I set them to work, digging up the ground and carrying the earth away in baskets. [10]\n\nEsarhaddon successfully rebuilt the city gates, battlements, drains, courtyards, shrines, and various other buildings and structures. Great care was taken during the rebuilding of the Esagila, depositing precious stones, scented oils, and perfumes into its foundations. Precious metals were chosen to cover the doors of the temple, and the pedestal that was to house the statue of Bel was constructed in gold. [28] A report from the governor Esarhaddon installed in Babylon confirms that the reconstruction was very well received by the Babylonians:\n\nI have entered Babylon. The Babylonians have received me kindly, and daily they bless the king, saying, \"What was taken and plundered from Babylon, he has returned,\" and from Sippar to Bab-marrat the chiefs of the Chaldeans bless the king, saying, \"(It is he) who resettled (the people) of Babylon.\" [31]\n\nThe rebuilding of the city was not completed during Esarhaddon's lifetime, and much work was also done during the reign of his successors. Exactly how much of the reconstruction was done during the reign of Esarhaddon is uncertain, but stones with his inscriptions are found in the ruins of the city's temples, suggesting that a substantial amount of work had been completed. [32] Esarhaddon likely fulfilled most of his restoration goals, including the near-complete restoration of Esagila and Etemenanki, with the possible exception of the city walls, which were likely fully restored by his successor. [33]\n\nEsarhaddon also sponsored restoration programs in other southern cities. In his first regnal year, Esarhaddon returned the statues of various southern gods that had been captured in wars and held in Assyria. During the time since Sennacherib's destruction of the city, the statue of Bel had, along with statues of several other traditional Babylonian deities, been kept at the town of Issete in the northeastern parts of Assyria. [28] Although the statue of Bel remained in Assyria, statues of other gods were returned to the cities of Der, Humhumia, and Sippar-aruru.[34] In the years to follow, statues were also returned to the cities of Larsa and Uruk. As he had in Babylon, Esarhaddon also cleared away debris in Uruk and repaired the city's Eanna temple, dedicated to the goddess Ishtar.[35] Similar small-scale restoration projects were undertaken in the cities of Nippur, Borsippa and Akkad.[36]\n\nBecause of Esarhaddon's extensive building projects in the south and his efforts to link himself to the Babylonian royal tradition, some scholars have described him as the \"Babylonian king of Assyria,\" but such a view might misrepresent the actual efforts of the king. Esarhaddon was king of both Assyria and Babylonia, and his military and political base remained in the north, much like his predecessors. While his southern building projects were impressive, ambitious, and unprecedented, he completed projects in the Assyrian heartland as well, although they were not as civically oriented as those in Babylonia. In Assyria, Esarhaddon constructed and restored temples but also worked on palaces and military fortifications.[37]\n\nPossibly to reassure the Assyrian people that his projects in the south would be matched with projects of equal proportion in the north, Esarhaddon ensured that repairs were made to the temple of Ešarra in Assur, one of the chief temples of northern Mesopotamia.[27] Similar projects were conducted for temples in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh and in the city of Arbela.[38] Though the temple-building projects conducted in the south were matched with temple-building projects in the north, Esarhaddon's prioritizing of Assyria over Babylonia is apparent from the various administrative and military building projects undertaken in the north and the complete lack of such projects in the south. [39]\n\nMilitary campaigns\n\nVassals who had hoped to use the unstable political climate in Assyria to free themselves, perhaps believing that the new king hadn't yet consolidated his position well enough to stop them, and foreign powers eager to expand their territory soon realized that (despite Esarhaddon's distrust) the governors and soldiers of Assyria fully supported the new king.[20] Two of the principal threats to Assyria were the Kingdom of Urartu under King Rusa II in the north, a sworn enemy of Assyria that still sheltered his brothers, and the Cimmerians, an iranic nomadic tribe that was harassing his western borders.[10]\n\nEsarhaddon allied with the nomadic Scythians, famous for their cavalry, to dissuade the Cimmerians from attacking, but it didn't appear to have helped. In 679 BC, the Cimmerians invaded the westernmost provinces of the empire, and by 676 they had penetrated further into Esarhaddon's empire, destroying temples and cities on the way. To stop this invasion, Esarhaddon personally led his soldiers in battle in Cilicia and successfully repelled the Cimmerians. In his inscriptions, Esarhaddon claims to personally have killed the Cimmerian king Teušpa.[10]\n\nWhile the Cimmerian invasion was underway, one of Esarhaddon's vassals in the Levant, the Phoenician city-state of Sidon, rebelled against his rule.[10][20] Sidon had only recently been conquered by Assyria, having been made a vassal by Esarhaddon's father in 701.[40] Esarhaddon marched his army down along the Mediterranean coast and captured the rebellious city in 677, but its king, Abdi-Milkutti, escaped by boat.[40][10] He was captured and executed a year later, the same year that Esarhaddon decisively defeated the Cimmerians. Another rebellious vassal king, Sanduarri of \"Kundu and Sissu\" (likely locations in Cilicia), was also defeated and executed. To celebrate his victory, Esarhaddon had the heads of the two vassal kings hung around the necks of their nobles, who were paraded around Nineveh.[40] Sidon was reduced to an Assyrian province, and two cities that had been under the Sidonian king's control were gifted to another vassal king, Baal of Tyre.[40][20] Esarhaddon discusses his victory over Sidon in a contemporary inscription:\n\nAbdi-milkutti, king of Sidon, who did not fear my majesty, did not heed the word of my lips, who trusted in the fearful sea and cast off my yoke-Sidon, his garrison city, which lies in the midst of the sea [missing portion]\nLike a fish I caught him up out of the sea and cut off his head. His wife, his sons, the people of his palace, property and goods, precious stones, garments of coloured wool and linen, maple and boxwood, and all kinds of treasures of his palace, in great abundance, I carried off. His widespread people-there was no numbering them, cattle, sheep and asses, in great number-I transported to Assyria.[41]\n\nAfter dealing with the problems in Sidon and Cilicia, Esarhaddon turned his attention to Urartu. At first, he struck at the Mannaeans, a people allied with Urartu, but by 673 he was openly at war with the kingdom of Urartu itself.[10] As part of this war, Esarhaddon attacked and conquered the kingdom of Shupria, a vassal kingdom to Urartu whose capital Ubumu was located on the shores of Lake Van.[42] The king's casus belli for this invasion was the king of Shupria's refusal to hand over political refugees from Assyria (possibly some of the conspirators behind Sennacherib's death), and though the Shuprian king had agreed to give up the refugees after a long series of letters, Esarhaddon considered it took him too long to relent. The Assyrians seized and plundered the city after the defenders had attempted to burn down the Assyrian siege weapons and the fires had instead spread into Ubumu. The political refugees were captured and executed. Some criminals from Urartu, whom the Shuprian king had similarly refused to give up to the king of Urartu, were seized and sent to Urartu, perhaps to improve relations. Ubumu was repaired, renamed, and annexed, with two eunuchs being appointed as its governors.[43]\n\nIn 675, the Elamites invaded Babylonia and captured the city of Sippar. The Assyrian army had been away at the time, campaigning in Anatolia, and was forced to abandon this campaign to defend the southern provinces. Little is recorded of this conflict, and as the fall of Sippar was an embarrassment, it is not mentioned by Esarhaddon in any of his inscriptions. Shortly after seizing Sippar, the Elamite king Khumban-khaltash II died, which left the new Elamite king, Urtak, in a bad position. To repair relations with Assyria and avoid further conflict, Urtak abandoned the invasion and returned some statues of gods which the Elamites had stolen. The two monarchs allied and exchanged children to be raised at each other's courts.[44]\n\nNear the end of Esarhaddon's seventh year on the throne, in the winter of 673, the king invaded Egypt. This invasion, which only a few Assyrian sources discuss, ended in what some scholars have assumed was possibly one of Assyria's worst defeats.[45] The Egyptians had for years sponsored rebels and dissenters in Assyria, and Esarhaddon had hoped to storm Egypt and take this rival out in one fell swoop. Because Esarhaddon had marched his army at great speed, the Assyrians were exhausted once they arrived outside the Egyptian-controlled city of Ashkelon, where they were defeated by the Kushite Pharaoh Taharqa. Following this defeat, Esarhaddon abandoned his plan to conquer Egypt for the moment and withdrew back to Nineveh.[10]\n\nDeteriorating health and depression\n\nBy the time of Esarhaddon's first failed invasion of Egypt in 673 BC, it had become apparent that the king's health was deteriorating.[46] This presented a problem since one of the chief requirements of being the Assyrian king was that one had perfect mental and physical health.[15] The king was constantly suffering from some illness and would often spend days in his sleeping quarters without food, drink and human contact. The death of Esharra-hammat, his beloved wife, in February 672 BC is unlikely to have improved his condition.[46] Surviving court documents overwhelmingly point to Esarhaddon often being sad. The deaths of his wife and their recently born infant child made Esarhaddon depressed. This can clearly be seen in letters written by the king's chief exorcist Adad-shumu-usur, the man who was chiefly responsible for Esarhaddon's well-being.[21] One such letter reads:\n\nAs to what the king, my lord, wrote to me: \"I am feeling very sad; how did we act that I have become so depressed for this little one of mine?\" Had it been curable, you would have given away half your kingdom to have it cured! But what can we do? O king, my lord, it is something that cannot be done.[21]\n\nNotes and letters preserved from those at the royal court, including Esarhaddon's physicians, describe his condition in some detail, discussing violent vomiting, constant fever, nosebleeds, dizziness, painful earaches, diarrhea and depression. The king often feared that his death was near, and his condition would have been apparent to anyone who saw him, as he was affected by a permanent skin rash which covered most of his body, including his face. The physicians, likely the best in Assyria, were perplexed and eventually had to confess that they were powerless to aid him.[46] This is clearly expressed in their letters, such as the following:\n\nMy lord, the king, keeps telling me: \"Why do you not identify the nature of my disease and find a cure?\" As I told the king already in person, his symptoms cannot be classified.[46]\n\nBecause the Assyrians saw illness as divine punishment, a king who was ill would have been seen as an indication that the gods were not supportive of him. Because of this, Esarhaddon's poor health had to be hidden from his subjects at all costs.[46] That his subjects remained unaware was ensured through the ancient royal Assyrian tradition that anyone who approached the king had to be both on their knees and veiled.[47]\n\nPlanning the succession\n\nIn 672 BC, Esarhaddon appointed his eldest living son Shamash-shum-ukin (left, from a stone monument now housed in the British Museum) as the heir to Babylon and the younger son Ashurbanipal (right, from the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal) as the heir to Assyria.\n\nSeeing as he himself had only acquired the Assyrian throne with great difficulty, Esarhaddon took several steps to ensure that the transition of power following his own death would be a smooth and peaceful one. A treaty concluded between Esarhaddon and his vassal Ramataia, the ruler of a Median kingdom in the east called Urakazabarna in c.  672 BC makes it clear that all of Esarhaddon's sons were still minors at the time, which was problematic. The same treaty also shows that Esarhaddon was worried that there might be several factions who might oppose his successor's rise to the throne after his death, listing potential opposing forces as his successor's brothers, uncles and cousins and even \"descendants of former royalty\" and \"one of the chiefs or governors of Assyria\".[48]\n\nThis indicates that at least some of Esarhaddon's brothers were still alive at this point and that they or their children could possibly represent threats to his own children.[48] The mention of \"descendants of former royalty\" might allude to the fact that Esarhaddon's grandfather Sargon II had acquired the Assyrian throne through usurpation and may not have been related to any earlier Assyrian king. Descendants of earlier kings may still have been alive and in a position to press their claims on the Assyrian throne.[49]\n\nTo avoid a civil war upon his death, Esarhaddon appointed his eldest son Sin-nadin-apli as crown prince in 674, but he died just two years later, again threatening a succession crisis. This time, Esarhaddon appointed two crown princes; his eldest living son Shamash-shum-ukin was selected as the heir to Babylon, whilst a younger son, Ashurbanipal, was selected as the heir to Assyria.[49] The two princes arrived at the capital of Nineveh together and partook in a celebration with foreign representatives, Assyrian nobles, and soldiers.[50] Promoting one of his sons as the heir to Assyria and another as the heir to Babylon was a new idea, for in the past decades the Assyrian king had simultaneously been the King of Babylon.[47]\n\nThe choice to name a younger son as the crown prince of Assyria, which was clearly Esarhaddon's primary title, and an older son as the crown prince of Babylon, might be explained by the mothers of the two sons. While Ashurbanipal's mother was likely Assyrian in origin, Shamash-shum-ukin was the son of a woman from Babylon (though this is uncertain, Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin may have shared the same mother which would probably have had problematic consequences if Shamash-shum-ukin was to ascend to the Assyrian throne). Since Ashurbanipal was the next oldest son, he was the superior candidate for the throne. Esarhaddon probably surmised that the Babylonians would be content with someone of Babylonian heritage as their king and, as such, set Shamash-shum-ukin to inherit Babylon and the southern parts of his empire instead.[51] Treaties drawn up by Esarhaddon are somewhat unclear as to the relationship he intended his two sons to have. It is clear that Ashurbanipal was the primary heir to the empire and that Shamash-shum-ukin was to swear him an oath of allegiance, but other parts also specify that Ashurbanipal was not to interfere in Shamash-shum-ukin's affairs, which indicates a more equal standing.[52] The two crown princes soon became heavily involved with Assyrian politics, which lifted some of the burden from the shoulders of their sickly father.[47]\n\nEsarhaddon's mother Naqiʾa ensured that any potential enemies and claimants took an oath to support Ashurbanipal's rise to the Assyrian throne, another step to avoid the bloodshed which had begun Esarhaddon's own reign.[47] To ensure the succession of Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin, Esarhaddon himself also concluded succession treaties with at least six independent rulers in the east and with several of his own governors outside the Assyrian heartland in 672.[53] Perhaps the main motivating factor to create these treaties was the possibility that his brothers, particularly Arda-Mulissu, were still alive and sought to claim the Assyrian throne. Some inscriptions suggest that they were alive and free as late as 673.[54]\n\nConquest of Egypt and substitute kings\n\nVictory stele of EsarhaddonThe Victory SteleTranslationThe Victory stele of Esarhaddon (now in the Pergamon Museum) was created following the king's victory in Egypt and depicts Esarhaddon in a majestic pose with a war mace in his hand and a vassal king kneeling before him. Also present is the son of Taharqa, the defeated pharaoh, kneeling and with a rope around his neck.\n\nIn the early months of 671 BC, Esarhaddon again marched against Egypt.[55] The army assembled for this second Egyptian campaign was considerably larger than the one Esarhaddon had used in 673 and he marched at a much slower speed to avoid the problems that had plagued his previous attempt.[10] On his way he passed through Harran, one of the major cities in the western parts of his empire. Here, a prophecy was revealed to the king, which predicted that Esarhaddon's conquest of Egypt would be a successful one.[55] According to a letter sent to Ashurbanipal after Esarhaddon's death, the prophecy was the following:\n\nWhen Esarhaddon marched to Egypt, a temple of cedar wood was erected at Harran. There, the god Sin was enthroned on a wooden column, two crowns on his head, and standing in front of him was the god Nuska. Esarhaddon entered and placed the crowns onto his head, and the following was proclaimed: 'You shall go forth and conquer the world!' And he went and conquered Egypt.[55]\n\nThree months after having received this prophecy, Esarhaddon's forces were victorious in their first battle with the Egyptians. Despite the prophecy and initial success, Esarhaddon was not convinced of his own safety. Just eleven days after he had defeated the Egyptians, he performed the substitute king ritual, an ancient Assyrian method intended to protect and shield the king from imminent danger announced by some sort of omen. Esarhaddon had performed the ritual earlier in his reign, but this time it left him unable to command his invasion of Egypt.[56]\n\nThe \"substitute king\" ritual involved the Assyrian monarch going into hiding for a hundred days, during which a substitute (preferably one with mental deficiencies) took the king's place by sleeping in the royal bed, wearing the crown and the royal garbs and eating the king's food. During these hundred days, the actual king remained hidden and was known only under the alias \"the farmer\". The goal of the ritual was that any evil intended for the king would instead be focused on the substitute king, who was killed regardless of if anything had happened at the end of the hundred days, keeping the real monarch safe.[56]\n\nWhatever omen Esarhaddon was fearing, he survived 671 and would perform the ritual twice during the two years that followed, which left him unable to fulfill his duties as the Assyrian king for a total of almost a year. During this time, most of the civil administration of his empire was overseen by his crown princes and the army in Egypt was likely commanded by his chief eunuch, Ashur-nasir. The Assyrian army defeated the Egyptians in two additional battles and successfully seized and plundered the Egyptian capital of Memphis.[56] The Assyrian army was also forced to fight some of their vassals in the Levant, such as Baal of Tyre, who had allied with the Egyptians against Esarhaddon.[57]\n\nAlthough the Pharaoh Taharqa had escaped, Esarhaddon captured the Pharaoh's family, including his son and wife, and most of the royal court, which were sent back to Assyria as hostages. Governors loyal to the Assyrian king were placed in charge of the conquered territories. In his victory stele, erected to commemorate the defeat of Egypt, Esarhaddon is depicted in a majestic pose with a war mace in his hand and a vassal king kneeling before him. Also present is the son of the defeated pharaoh, kneeling and with a rope around his neck.[10] The conquest resulted in the relocation of a large number of Egyptians to the Assyrian heartland.[58] In an excerpt from the text inscribed on his victory stele, Esarhaddon describes the conquest with the following words:\n\nI slew multitudes of his [e.g. Taharqa's] men and I smote him five times with the point of my javelin, with wounds from which there was no recovery. Memphis, his royal city, in half a day, with mines, tunnels, assaults, I besieged, I captured, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire. His queen, his harem, Ushanahuru, his heir, and the rest of his sons and daughters, his property and his goods, his horses, his cattle, his sheep, in countless numbers, I carried off to Assyria. The root of Kush I tore up out of Egypt, and not one therein escaped to submit to me. Over all of Egypt, I appointed kings, viceroys, governors, commandants, overseers and scribes. Offerings and fixed dues I established for Assur and the great gods for all time; my royal tribute and tax, yearly without ceasing, I imposed upon them.\nI had a stele made with my name inscribed thereon and on it I caused it to be written the glory and valor of Assur, my lord, my mighty deeds, how I went to and from the protection of Assur, my lord, and the might of my conquering hand. For the gaze of all my foes, to the end of days, I set it up.[59]\n\nConspiracy of 671-670 BC\n\nShortly following Esarhaddon's victory in Egypt, news spread throughout his empire of a new prophecy at Harran. Since Esarhaddon had conquered Egypt and proven the previous prophecy from the city right, the oracles of Harran were seen as trustworthy.[60] The prophecy, spoken by an ecstatic woman (the oracle of Nusku),[60] was the following:\n\nThis is the word of the god Nusku: Kingship belongs to Sasî. I shall destroy the name and the seed of Sennacherib![60]\n\nThe meaning of the prophecy was clear: it provided a possible religious foundation for a revolt against Esarhaddon's rule by declaring all of Sennacherib's descendants as usurpers.[60] It is possible that Esarhaddon's skin condition would have become apparent during his visit to Harran, which might be the reason for declaring him illegitimate. The identity of the Sasî who was proclaimed as the rightful king is unknown, but he might have been connected to previous Assyrian royalty in some manner to give him a claim to the throne. It is possible that he was a descendant of Esarhaddon's grandfather Sargon II. Sasî managed to rally a large amount of support throughout the empire quickly, perhaps even rallying Esarhaddon's chief eunuch Ashur-nasir to his side.[61]\n\nIt did not take long for Esarhaddon to learn of the conspiracy. Because of his paranoia, Esarhaddon had a vast information network of servants throughout the empire, sworn to report to him once they heard of any planned actions against him. Through these reports, Esarhaddon was made aware that conspirators were active not only in Harran, but also in Babylon and in the Assyrian heartland. For a while, Esarhaddon simply gathered information on the activities of the conspirators and fearing for his life, performed the \"substitute king\" ritual for a second time in 671 BC, just three months after he had previously completed it.[62]\n\nAs soon as the ritual was complete, Esarhaddon emerged from hiding and brutally massacred the conspirators, the second such purge during his reign. The fate of Sasî and the woman who had proclaimed him king is unknown, but it is likely that they were captured and executed. Because of the extent of the officials killed, the administrative structure of Assyria suffered more than it had in many years. For the first few months of 670, no official was chosen to select the name of the year, something which was extremely rare in Assyrian history. Remains of several buildings in various cities, believed to have been the homes of supporters of Sasî, have been dated as having been destroyed in 670. The aftermath of the conspiracy saw Esarhaddon tighten security considerably. He introduced two new ranks into the court hierarchy to make it more difficult to meet him, which also limited the number of officials who controlled the access to his palaces.[63]\n\nDeath\n\nAlthough he had successfully survived the conspiracy, Esarhaddon remained diseased and paranoid. Just a year later, in 669 BC, he once more performed the \"substitute king\" ritual. Around this time, the defeated Pharaoh Taharqa appeared from the south and, perhaps combined with the chaotic political situation within Assyria, inspired Egypt to attempt to free itself from Esarhaddon's control.[5][64]\n\nEsarhaddon received word of this rebellion and learnt that even some of his own governors who he had appointed in Egypt had ceased to pay tribute to him and joined the rebels.[10] After emerging from his hundred days of hiding, apparently relatively healthy by his standards, Esarhaddon left to campaign against Egypt for the third time. The king died at Harran[65] on 10 Araḫsamn 669 BC (approximately November 1 in the proleptic Julian calendar),[2] before reaching the Egyptian border. The absence of evidence to the contrary suggests that his death was natural and unexpected.[64]\n\nAfter Esarhaddon's death, his sons Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin successfully ascended the thrones of Assyria and Babylonia without political turmoil and bloodshed, meaning that Esarhaddon's succession plans were a success, at least initially.[64]\n\nDiplomacy\n\nDiplomacy with the Arabs\n\nThe support of the Arabic and other tribes of the Sinai Peninsula had been crucial in Esarhaddon's 671 BC Egyptian campaign. Esarhaddon was also determined to retain the loyalty of the Arabic tribes who had been subjugated by his father in the Arabian Peninsula, particularly around the city of Adummatu. The king of Adummatu, Hazael, paid tribute to Esarhaddon and sent him several presents, which were reciprocated by Esarhaddon through returning the statues of Hazael's gods which had been seized by Sennacherib years earlier. When Hazael died and was succeeded by his son Yauta, Yauta's position as king was recognized by Esarhaddon, who also aided the new king in defeating a rebellion against his rule. Shortly thereafter, Yauta rebelled against Esarhaddon, and though he was defeated by the Assyrian army and fled from his throne, during the reign of Ashurbanipal, he came back to power after being forgiven by the latter. Despite this, Yauta eventually tried to ditch his connections with the Neo-Assyrian Empire again, which prompted Ashurbanipal to invade his territory, capture him and take him to Nineveh where he was publicly shamed.\n\nEsarhaddon also successfully appointed a woman who had been raised at the Assyrian royal palace, Tabua, as \"queen of the Arabs\" and allowed her to return to and govern her people. In another episode, Esarhaddon invaded the country of \"Bazza\" in 676 (assumed to be located in the east of the Arabian Peninsula) after being petitioned for aid by a local king of a city called Yadi. The campaign apparently saw the Assyrians defeating eight kings of this region and granting their conquests to the king of Yadi.[57]\n\nDiplomacy with the Medes\n\nThe reign of Esarhaddon saw many of the Medes and Persians becoming or remaining Assyrian vassals. Esarhaddon's armies had proven to the Medes that Assyria was a great power to be feared when the Assyrians defeated the Median kings Eparna and Shidirparna near Mount Bikni (the location of which is unknown beyond being located somewhere in central Media) at some point before 676 BC. As a result of this victory, many of the Medes willingly swore allegiance to Assyria and brought gifts to Nineveh and allowed Esarhaddon to appoint Assyrian governors to their lands.[42]\n\nWhen Esarhaddon made his subjects swear to uphold his wishes regarding the succession of Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin, some of the vassals made to swear allegiance to his successors were rulers and princes from Media. Esarhaddon's relations with the Medes weren't always peaceful, as there are records of Median raids against Assyria as late as 672, and the Medes are constantly mentioned in Esarhaddon's requests to his oracle as potential enemies of Assyria. Among the chief rivals of Esarhaddon in Media was a figure the Assyrians called Kaštaritu, who raided Assyrian territory. This king is perhaps identical with Phraortes, the second king of the Median Empire.[42]\n\nFamily\n\nWives\n\nFrom inscriptions, it can be ascertained that Esarhaddon had multiple wives, as his succession treaties differentiate between \"sons born by Ashurbanipal's mother\" and \"the rest of the sons engendered by Esarhaddon\". Only the name of one of these wives, Esarhaddon's queen Esharra-hammat (Ešarra-ḫammat)[67] is known. [67] Esharra-hammat is chiefly known from sources after her death, especially regarding a mausoleum Esarhaddon constructed for her. It is uncertain which of Esarhaddon's many children were hers. [68]\n\nChildren\n\nEsarhaddon had at least 18 children. Some of these children suffered from constant illness, similar to Esarhaddon, and required permanent and constant medical attention by the court physicians.[47] Contemporary letters by Esarhaddon's subjects discussing the king's \"numerous children\" confirm that his family was viewed as large by ancient Assyrian standards.[69] Those of Esarhaddon's children known by name are the following:\n\nSerua-eterat (𒊩𒀭𒂔𒂊𒉈𒋥 Šeruʾa-eṭirat)[70][67] - the eldest of Esarhaddon's daughters and the only one known by name, Serua-eterat was older than Ashurbanipal and might have been the eldest of all of Esarhaddon's children. She held a position of importance in Esarhaddon's court and in the later court of Ashurbanipal, as attested by numerous inscriptions. [71]\n\nSin-nadin-apli (𒌍𒋧𒈾𒌉𒍑 or 𒁹𒀭𒌍𒋧𒈾𒀀 Sîn-nadin-apli)[72][67] - Esarhaddon's eldest son and crown prince from 674 BC until his unexpected death in 672.[49][67]\n\nShamash-shum-ukin (𒌋𒌋𒈬𒁺 Šamaš-šumu-ukin)[67] - Esarhaddon's second eldest son,[67] crown prince and heir to Babylon 672-669 and King of Babylon thereafter.[49]\n\nShamash-metu-uballit (𒁹𒀭𒄑𒋓𒂦𒂵𒋾𒆷 Šamaš-metu-uballiṭ)[73][67] - possibly Esarhaddon's third eldest son.[67] His name, which means \"Shamash has brought to life the dead\", suggests that he suffered from poor health or had a difficult birth. He was still alive by 672, and his health might be the reason why he was overlooked in favour of his younger brother as heir. It is possible that Shamash-metu-uballit did not accept the succession of Ashurbanipal and paid for it with his life.[74]\n\nAshurbanipal (𒀸𒋩𒆕𒀀 Aššur-bāni-apli)[75]) - possibly Essarhadon's fourth eldest son,[67] crown prince and heir to Assyria 672-669 and King of Assyria thereafter.[49]\n\nAshur-taqisha-liblut (Aššur-taqiša-libluṭ)[67] - possibly Esarhaddon's fifth eldest son.[74] Thought to have been a sickly child, possibly dead before 672.[76]\n\nAshur-mukin-paleya (𒁹𒀭𒊹𒈬𒆥𒁄𒈨𒌍𒐊 Aššur-mukin-paleʾa)[77][67] - possibly Esarhaddon's sixth eldest son.[74] Probably born after Esarhaddon was already king. Was made a priest in Assur during the reign of Ashurbanipal.[76]\n\nAshur-etel-shame-erseti-muballissu (𒁹𒀸𒋩𒈗𒀭𒆠𒋾𒁉 Aššur-etel-šamê-erṣeti-muballissu)[78][67] - possibly Esarhaddon's seventh eldest son.[74] Probably born after Esarhaddon was already king. Was made a priest in Harran during the reign of Ashurbanipal.[76]\n\nAshur-sarrani-muballissu (𒁹𒀸𒋩𒈗𒀀𒉌𒋾𒆷𒁉 Aššur-šarrani-muballissu)[79][80] - attested only in a single letter, it is possible that Ashur-sarrani-muballissu is identical to Ashur-etel-shame-erseti-muballissu.[80]\n\nSin-Peru-ukin (𒁹𒀭𒌍𒉭𒁺𒅔 Sîn-perʾu-ukin[81])[80] - known from a letter inquiring as to when it was appropriate to visit the king and another letter in which he is described as healthy.[80]\n\nLegacy\n\nAssyria after Esarhaddon's death\n\nAfter Esarhaddon's death, his son Ashurbanipal became the king of Assyria. After attending his brother's coronation, Shamash-shum-ukin returned the stolen statue of Bel to Babylon and became the king of Babylon.[82] At Babylon, Ashurbanipal sponsored a lavish coronation festival for his brother.[83] Despite his royal title, Shamash-shum-ukin was a vassal to Ashurbanipal; Ashurbanipal continued to offer the royal sacrifices in Babylon (traditionally offered by the Babylonian monarch) and the governors in the south were Assyrians. The army and guards present in the south were also Assyrians. Most of Shamash-shum-ukin's early reign in Babylon was spent peacefully, restoring fortifications and temples.[82]\n\nAfter he and his brother had been properly inaugurated as monarchs, Ashurbanipal left in 667 BC to complete Esarhaddon's unfinished final campaign against Egypt. In his 667 campaign, Ashurbanipal marched as far south as Thebes, plundering on his way, and upon his victory, he left the joint Pharaohs Psamtik I (who had been educated at Esarhaddon's court) and Necho I as vassal rulers. In 666-665, Ashurbanipal defeated an attempt by Tantamani, nephew of Pharaoh Taharqa, to retake Egypt.[83]\n\nAs Shamash-shum-ukin grew stronger, he became increasingly interested in becoming independent of his brother. In 652[84] Shamash-shum-ukin allied with a coalition of Assyria's enemies, including Elam, Kush and the Chaldeans, and forbade Ashurbanipal from any further sacrifices in any southern city. This led to a civil war that dragged on for four years. By 650, Shamash-shum-ukin's situation looked grim, with Ashubanipal's forces having besieged Sippar, Borsippa, Kutha and Babylon itself. Babylon finally fell in 648 and was plundered by Ashurbanipal. Shamash-shum-ukin died, possibly committing suicide.[85]\n\nThroughout his long reign, Ashurbanipal would campaign against all of Assyria's enemies and rivals.[83] After Ashurbanipal's death, his sons Ashuretillilani and Sinsharishkun retained control of his empire for a time,[85] but during their reigns many of Assyria's vassals seized the opportunity to declare themselves independent. From 627 to 612, the Assyrian Empire effectively disintegrated, and a coalition of Assyrian enemies, chiefly led by the Median Empire and the newly independent Neo-Babylonian Empire, pushed into the Assyrian heartland. In 612, Nineveh itself was plundered and razed.[83] Assyria fell with the defeat of its final king, Ashuruballit II, at Harran in 609.[86]\n\nAssessment by historians\n\nEsarhaddon, his predecessor Sennacherib and his successor Ashurbanipal are recognized as three of the greatest Assyrian kings.[87] He is typically characterized as gentler and milder than his predecessor, taking greater efforts to pacify and integrate the peoples he conquered.[88] The king has been described as one of the most successful of the Neo-Assyrian rulers on account of his many achievements, including the subjugation of Egypt, the successful and peaceful control of the notoriously rebellious Babylonia and his ambitious construction projects.[89] According to Assyriologist Karen Radner, Esarhaddon emerges more clearly as an individual from available sources than all other Assyrian kings.[90] Most Assyrian kings are known only from their royal inscriptions, but the decade of Esarhaddon's rule is exceptionally well documented because many other documents dating to his reign, such as court correspondence, have survived as well.[91]\n\nAshurbanipal, who would famously gather ancient Mesopotamian literary works for his famous library, had already begun collecting such works during the reign of Esarhaddon. It is possible that Esarhaddon is to be credited with encouraging Ashurbanipal's collection and education.[22]\n\nTitles\n\nIn an inscription describing his appointment as crown prince and his rise to power, Esarhaddon uses the following royal titles:\n\nEsarhaddon, the great king, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four regions of the earth, favourite of the great gods, his lords. Whom Assur, Marduk and Nabu, Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar of Arbela, [missing portion] and whose name they named for the kingship. [92]\n\nIn another inscription, the titles of Esarhaddon read as follows:\n\nEsarhaddon, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, son of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria, grandson of Sargon, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria; who under the protection of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, the great gods, his lords, made his way from the rising to the setting sun, having no rival. [93]\n\nA longer version of Esarhaddon's royal titles, and an accompanying boast of his gifts from the gods, preserved in another of his inscriptions, reads:\n\nI am Esarhaddon, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, mighty warrior, first among all princes, son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, grandson of Sargon, king of the universe, king of Assyria. Creature of Assur and Ninlil, beloved of Sin and Shamash, favorite of Nabu and Marduk, object of Queen Ishtar's affection, heart's desire of the great gods; the powerful, the wise, thoughtful and knowing, whom the great gods have called to kingship for the restoration of the images of the great gods, and the complete rebuilding of the shrines of every metropolis. Builder of the temple of Assur, restorer of Esagila and Babylon, who restored the images of the gods and goddesses dwelling therein, who returned the captive gods of the lands from Assur to their places and caused them to dwell in peaceful habitations, until he had completely restored all the temples and settled the gods in their shrines, to dwell there eternally.\nIt was I who marched triumphantly, relying on their might, from the rising to the setting sun, and had no rival, who brought in submission at my feet the princes of the four-quarters of the world. Against every land that had rebelled against Assur, they sent me. Assur, father of the gods, commissioned me to cause men to settle down and live in peace, to extend the borders of Assyria. Sin, lord of the tiara - power, manhood, bravery - he made my lot. Shamash, light of the gods, - to my honoured name he brought the highest renown. Marduk, king of the gods, - he made the fear of my rule overwhelm the lands of the four-quarters of the world like a mighty hurricane. Nergal, the almighty among the gods, - fear, terror, awe-inspiring splendour, he granted me as a gift. Ishtar, queen of battle and warfare, - a mighty bow, a monstrous javelin, she gave me as a gift.[94]\n\nSee also\n\nEsarhaddon's Treaty with Ba'al of Tyre (K 3500 + K 4444 + K 10235)\n\nEsarhaddon's Succession Treaty or Vassal Treaty with Ramataia of Urakazabarna (BM 132548)\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nList of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources\n\nPalace of Esarhaddon discovered at Mosul (Nineveh) in 2017 under Tomb of Jonah (Yunus) destroyed by ISIL in 2014\n\nSha-Nabu-shu\n\nNotes\n\n^ Aššur-etel-ilani-mukinni was a more formal \"court name\" of Esarhaddon. It would only have been used by those at the royal court.[3] It translates to \"Ashur, the lord of the gods, has established me\".[4]\n\n^ a b The overwhelming majority of scholars accept Arda-Mulissu's guilt as a matter of fact.[11] Other hypotheses have at times been proposed, such as that the crime was committed by some unknown Babylonian sympathizer or even by Esarhaddon himself.[12] In 2020, Andrew Knapp suggested that Esarhaddon might actually have been behind the murder, citing inconsistencies in the account of Arda-Mulissu's guilt, that Esarhaddon might also have had a difficult relationship with Sennacherib, the speed at which Esarhaddon assembled an army and defeated his brothers, and other circumstantial evidence.[13]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Widmer 2019, footnote 53.\n\n^ a b Fales 2012, p. 135.\n\n^ Halton & Svärd 2017, p. 150.\n\n^ Tallqvist 1914, p. 39.\n\n^ a b c d e Encyclopaedia Britannica.\n\n^ Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\n^ Cunliffe 2015, p. 514.\n\n^ \"CDLI-Archival View\". cdli.ucla.edu.\n\n^ Postgate 2014, p. 250.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Mark 2014.\n\n^ Knapp 2020, p. 166.\n\n^ Knapp 2020, p. 165.\n\n^ Knapp 2020, pp. 167-181.\n\n^ Bertman 2005, p. 79.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Radner 2003, p. 166.\n\n^ a b Jong 2007, p. 251.\n\n^ Nissinen 2003, pp. 139-141.\n\n^ Barcina Pérez 2016, p. 12.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 202-203.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2003, p. 168.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2015, p. 50.\n\n^ a b Damrosch 2007, p. 181.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 221.\n\n^ Knapp 2015, p. 325.\n\n^ \"Monument British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\n^ a b Porter 1993, p. 41.\n\n^ a b Porter 1993, p. 67.\n\n^ a b c d Cole & Machinist 1998, p. 11-13.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 43.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 44.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 47.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 52.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 56.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 60.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 61.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 62-63.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 66.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 68.\n\n^ Porter 1993, p. 71.\n\n^ a b c d Grayson 1970, p. 125.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 205.\n\n^ a b c Grayson 1970, p. 129.\n\n^ Grayson 1970, p. 130.\n\n^ Grayson 1970, p. 131-132.\n\n^ Ephʿal 2005, p. 99.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2003, p. 169.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2003, p. 170.\n\n^ a b Ahmed 2018, p. 62.\n\n^ a b c d e Ahmed 2018, p. 63.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 64.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 65-66.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 68.\n\n^ Barcina Pérez 2016, p. 5.\n\n^ Barcina Pérez 2016, p. 9-10.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2003, p. 171.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2003, p. 171-172.\n\n^ a b Grayson 1970, p. 126.\n\n^ Radner 2012, p. 471.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 227.\n\n^ a b c d Radner 2003, p. 172.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 173.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 174.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 174-176.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2003, p. 176-177.\n\n^ David 2002, p. 23.\n\n^ Local notice for stelae 16 and 17\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 168.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 174-176.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 167.\n\n^ \"Šeruʾa-eṭerat [1] (PN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 172-173.\n\n^ \"Sin-nadin-apli [1] (PN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu.\n\n^ \"Šamaš-metu-uballiṭ [1] (PN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 14 September 2021. Retrieved 14 September 2021.\n\n^ a b c d Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 170.\n\n^ Miller & Shipp 1996, p. 46.\n\n^ a b c Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 171.\n\n^ \"Aššur-mukin-paleʾa [SON OF ESARHADDON, BROTHER OF ASHURBANIPAL] (RN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 14 September 2021. Retrieved 14 September 2021.\n\n^ \"Aššur-etel-šame-erṣeti-muballissu [1] (PN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 21 September 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2021.\n\n^ \"Aššur-šarrani-muballissu [1] (PN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 14 September 2021. Retrieved 14 September 2021.\n\n^ a b c d Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 173.\n\n^ \"Sin-perʾu-ukin [1] (PN)\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu.\n\n^ a b Johns 1913, p. 124.\n\n^ a b c d Mark 2009.\n\n^ MacGinnis 1988, p. 38.\n\n^ a b Johns 1913, p. 124-125.\n\n^ The British Museum.\n\n^ Budge 1880, p. xii.\n\n^ Budge 1880, p. viii.\n\n^ Porter 1987, p. 1-2.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 45.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 47.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 199-200.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 211.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 203-204.\n\nBibliography\n\nAhmed, Sami Said (2018). Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3111033587.\n\nBarcina Pérez, Cristina (2016). \"Display Practices in the Neo-Assyrian Period\". Universiteit Leiden - Research Master in Assyriology.\n\nBertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press USA. ISBN 978-0195183641.\n\nBudge, Ernest A. (2007) [1880]. The History of Esarhaddon. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136373213. 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Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Brill. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nKnapp, Andrew (2015). Royal Apologetic in the Ancient Near East. SBL Press. ISBN 978-0884140740.\n\nKnapp, Andrew (2020). \"The Murderer of Sennacherib, yet Again: The Case against Esarhaddon\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 140 (1): 165-181. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0165. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0165. S2CID 219084248.\n\nLeichty, Erle (2011). The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680-669 BC) (PDF). Eisenbrauns. Archived from the original on 13 March 2026. Retrieved 13 March 2026.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End. University of Chicago Press.\n\nMacGinnis, J. D. A. (1988). \"Ctesias and the Fall of Nineveh\" (PDF). Illinois Classical Studies. 13 (1). University of Illinois Press: 37-42. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 August 2017. Retrieved 24 November 2019.\n\nMcConville, J. G. (1985). Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0664245832.\n\nMiller, Douglas B.; Shipp, R. Mark (1996). An Akkadian Handbook: Paradigms, Helps, Glossary, Logograms, and Sign List. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 0931464862.\n\nNissinen, Martti (2003). Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12691-6.\n\nNovotny, Jamie; Singletary, Jennifer (2009). \"Family Ties: Assurbanipal's Family Revisited\". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 106: 167-177.\n\nPorter, Barbara N. (1987). Symbols of Power: Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy (681-669 BC). University of Pennsylvania. pp. 1-434.\n\nPorter, Barbara N. (1993). Images, Power, and Politics: Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy. American Philosophical Society. ISBN 9780871692085.\n\nPostgate, Nicholas (2014). Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107043756.\n\nRadner, Karen (2003). \"The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC\". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. 6. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: 165-183. doi:10.15366/isimu2003.6.009. hdl:10486/3476.\n\nRadner, Karen (2012). \"After Eltekeh: Royal Hostages from Egypt at the Assyrian Court\". Stories of long ago. Festschrift für Michael D. Roaf. Ugarit-Verlag: 471-479.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.\n\nTallqvist, Knut Leonard (1914). Assyrian Personal Names (PDF). Leipzig: August Pries.\n\nWidmer, Marie (2019). \"Translating the Seleucid βασίλισσα. Notes on the titulature of Stratonice in the Borsippa cylinder\". Greece & Rome. 66 (2). Cambridge University Press: 264-279. doi:10.1017/S001738351900007X. S2CID 199880564.\n\n.\n\nWeb sources\n\n\"Esarhaddon\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 November 2019.\n\n\"Assarhaddon\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 23 November 2019.\n\n\"Cuneiform tablet with part of the Babylonian Chronicle (616-609 BC)\". The British Museum. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2009). \"Ashurbanipal\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 24 November 2019.\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2014). \"Esarhaddon\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 November 2019.\n\nExternal links\n\nDaniel David Luckenbill's Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End, containing translations of a large number of Esarhaddon's inscriptions."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-esarhaddon"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 10165}, {"slug": "reference-tiglath-pileser-iii", "title": "Tiglath-Pileser III", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Tiglath-Pileser III[b] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏, romanized: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra,[4] meaning \"my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra\",[2][c] Biblical Hebrew: תִּגְלַת פִּלְאֶסֶר, romanized: Tiglaṯ Pilʾeser, Old Aramaic: 𐤕𐤂𐤋𐤕𐤐𐤋𐤉𐤎𐤓, romanized: tgltplysr), sometimes called Pulu or Pul (see below), was the Neo-Assyrian emperor from 745 BC to his death in 727. One...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tiglath-Pileser III\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Babylon\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nTiglath-Pileser III as depicted on a stele from the walls of his royal palace\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign745-727 BC\n\nPredecessorAshur-nirari V\n\nSuccessorShalmaneser V\n\nBornc. 795 BC[a] (?)\n\nDied727 BC (aged c. 68)\n\nSpouseIaba\n\nIssueShalmaneser V\nSargon II (?)\nSin-ahu-usur (?)\n\nAkkadianTukultī-apil-Ešarra\n\nDynastyAdaside dynasty\n\nFatherAdad-nirari III or Ashur-nirari V\n\nTiglath-Pileser III[b] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏, romanized: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra,[4] meaning \"my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra\",[2][c] Biblical Hebrew: תִּגְלַת פִּלְאֶסֶר, romanized: Tiglaṯ Pilʾeser, Old Aramaic: 𐤕𐤂𐤋𐤕𐤐𐤋𐤉𐤎𐤓, romanized: tgltplysr), sometimes called Pulu or Pul (see below), was the Neo-Assyrian emperor from 745 BC to his death in 727. One of the most prominent and historically significant Assyrian rulers, Tiglath-Pileser ended a period of Assyrian stagnation, introduced numerous political and military reforms, and doubled the lands under Assyrian control. Through the use of extraordinarily brutal and ruthless methods including impaling and mass dislocation. Because of the massive expansion and centralization of Assyrian territory and the establishment of a standing army, some researchers consider Tiglath-Pileser's reign to mark the actual transition of Assyria into an empire. The reforms and methods of control introduced under Tiglath-Pileser laid the groundwork for policies enacted not only by later Assyrian kings but also by later empires for millennia after his death.\n\nThe circumstances of Tiglath-Pileser's rise to the throne are not clear. Because ancient Assyrian sources give conflicting accounts concerning Tiglath-Pileser's lineage and there are records of a revolt around the time of his accession, many historians have concluded that Tiglath-Pileser was a usurper, who seized the throne from his predecessor Ashur-nirari V, who was either his brother or his father. Other historians postulate that the evidence could just as easily be interpreted as Tiglath-Pileser inheriting the throne through legitimate means, and the debate remains unresolved.\n\nTiglath-Pileser increased royal power and authority by curbing the influence of prominent officials and generals. After securing some minor victories in 744 and 743, he defeated the Urartian king Sarduri II in battle near Arpad in 743. This victory was significant since Urartu had briefly equalled Assyria in power; Sarduri had defeated Tiglath-Pileser's predecessor Ashur-nirari eleven years earlier.\n\nAfter defeating Sarduri, Tiglath-Pileser turned his attention to the Levant. Over several years, he conquered most of the Levant, defeating and then either annexing or subjugating previously influential kingdoms, notably ending the kingdom of Aram-Damascus. Tiglath-Pileser's activities in the Levant were recorded in the Hebrew Bible. After a few years of conflict, Tiglath-Pileser conquered Babylonia in 729, becoming the first king to rule as sovereign of both Assyria and Babylonia.\n\nBackground\n\nAncestry and rise to the throne\n\nThere is not enough surviving evidence to conclude how Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne[5] and the nature of his accession is thus unclear and disputed.[6] Several pieces of evidence indicate that he might have been a usurper. Pointing to this are the facts that there was a revolt in Nimrud, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, in 746/745[6][7] and that numerous officials and governors were replaced after 745.[2] Ancient Assyrian sources give conflicting information in regards to Tiglath-Pileser's lineage. Tiglath-Pileser in inscriptions attributed his rise to the throne solely to divine selection, rather than the more typical practice of Assyrian kings ascribing their rise to both divine selection and his royal ancestry.[6] The Assyrian King List, an ancient Assyrian document listing the kings of Assyria, states that Tiglath-Pileser's father was his immediate predecessor Ashur-nirari V. Tiglath-Pileser in his own inscriptions claimed that he was the son of Adad-nirari III, making him Ashur-nirari's brother.[8]\n\nAssyriologists and other historians have overwhelmingly concluded that Tiglath-Pileser was a usurper.[6][7][9][10][11] The Assyriologist Bradley J. Parker went as far as suggesting that he was not part of the previous royal dynasty at all,[12] but per the Assyriologist Karen Radner, his claims of royal descent were probably true, meaning that while he did usurp the throne, he was a legitimate contender for it, having been victorious in an intra-dynastic civil war.[7] Tiglath-Pileser faced no known resistance or rebellions against his rule after taking the throne.[7]\n\nIf accepted as a royal dynast, uncertainties still exist in whether Tiglath-Pileser was the son of Adad-nirari or Ashur-nirari. The Assyriologists Fei Chen, Albert Kirk Grayson and Shiego Yamada consider it more likely that he was Adad-nirari's son,[6][8][13] with the Assyrian King List's identification of him as the son of Ashur-nirari possibly being a scribal error.[6] The Assyriologist Paul Garelli considers this unlikely, given that 38 years separate the reign of Adad-nirari from that of Tiglath-Pileser, writing that the possibility of him being Ashur-nirari's son cannot be fully ruled out.[14] \n\nThe historian Tracy Davenport holds that \"we may never know\" whether Tiglath-Pileser was Ashur-nirari's son or brother.[15] There are ways to explain Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions proclaiming him as the son of Adad-nirari despite the 38 years between their two reigns. It is possible that \"son\" in this context meant \"grandson\", meaning that Tiglath-Pileser would have been the son of Ashur-nirari or another of Adad-nirari's sons, or that Tiglath-Pileser actually was Adad-nirari's son, but came to the throne when he was already relatively old, possibly aged about 50.[1]\n\nThe Eponym Chronicle, a list of eponyms, names for the years, typically taken from influential officials, of Assyria confirms there was a revolt in Nimrud the year before Tiglath-Pileser became king. According to the historian Stefan Zawadzki, writing in 1994, the eponyms also provide insight into how the transition from Ashur-nirari to Tiglath-Pileser might have happened. That Tiglath-Pileser took the throne the year after the uprising was interpreted by Zawadzki, and others, as firmly indicating that he took the throne as the result of a coup d'etat. Zawadzki believes the Eponym Chronicle further suggests that the rebellion, while not necessarily led by Tiglath-Pileser himself, was started with his knowledge and consent. The chief piece of evidence Zawadzki presents for this is that the revolt of 746 began in Nimrud and the first official appointed as eponym holder by Tiglath-Pileser (in 744) was Bel-dan, the governor of Nimrud.[16] \n\nGarelli believes the revolt in 746 was instigated by Shamshi-ilu, a prominent official throughout the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser's predecessors, and that the uprising was crushed by Tiglath-Pileser after he legitimately inherited the throne.[17] Zawadzki believes Shamshi-ilu may have revolted, as he is no longer recorded in Tiglath-Pileser's reign, but that the uprising in Nimrud was a separate revolt from Shamshu-ilu's supposed uprising and that Tiglath-Pileser or his supporters would have fought both Shamshu-ilu and Ashur-nirari.[16]\n\nIn her 2016 PhD thesis, the historian Tracy Davenport advanced the theory that Tiglath-Pileser might have been entirely legitimate and that he could even have co-ruled with Ashur-nirari for some time. Supporting Garelli's idea that Tiglath-Pileser was not responsible for any rebellion and the idea that he was a member of the royal dynasty, Davenport examined the Eponym Chronicle. Notably, the eponyms for Tiglath-Pileser's early reign do not follow the traditional sequence used for Assyrian eponym holders. Typically, the king was eponym holder in his second regnal year, followed by important magnates and then provincial governors.[18]\n\nIf Tiglath-Pileser became king in 745, the eponym holder of his second regnal year was Bel-dan, not the king himself, who was the eponym holder in 743, his third regnal year. This could be explained by Tiglath-Pileser not having become the sole ruler of Assyria until 744. There are some strange features of the Eponym Chronicle that suggest that Ashur-nirari ruled until 744, together with Tiglath-Pileser 745-744. There are two horizontal lines in this part of the list, one beneath 746, possibly marking Tiglath-Pileser's rise to the throne, and one beneath 744, possibly marking Ashur-nirari's death.[18] \n\nIt is unlikely that the second line is an error, since it occurs right after a note that records the end of Ashur-nirari's reign and its length. Both the Eponym Chronicle and the Assyrian King List gives Ashur-nirari a reign length of 10 years, only possible if he ruled until 744, and not 745. If Ashur-nirari did rule until 744, it is unlikely that there was a civil war, since Tiglath-Pileser is recorded to have gone on campaigns against Assyria's foreign enemies in this time, not possible if he was simultaneously involved in internal conflict.[18]\n\nName\n\nAssyria was known for centuries primarily through its appearances in the Hebrew Bible. Mesopotamian rulers mentioned in the Bible are thus known today by the Biblical forms of their names.[2] The modern name Tiglath-Pileser therefore derives from the Hebrew version of the name,[19] which is a corrupted form of the original form, Tukultī-apil-Ešarra.[2][4][19] Presumably a regnal name, adopted upon his accession to the throne,[2] Tukultī-apil-Ešarra means \"my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra.\" The Ešarra was a temple dedicated to the god Ninurta (who was thus the \"son of Ešarra\"). By the time of Tiglath-Pileser's reign, Ninurta was viewed as the son of the Assyrian national deity Ashur.[2]\n\nIn some non-contemporary sources, such as the Canon of Kings, the Babylonian King List, the Bible and the works of later Babylonian and Greco-Roman historians, Tiglath-Pileser is recorded under the name Pul or Pulu (Pūlu, 𒁍𒇻),[20][21] the etymology of which is uncertain.[22] Though sometimes interpreted as a second regnal name, there are no contemporary Assyrian or Babylonian sources that refer to Tiglath-Pileser by this name and there is no evidence that it was ever used officially.[20] No evidence exists of any Assyrian king ever using more than one regnal name in their lifetime.[23]\n\nIn 2007, the trilingual Incirli inscription[24] was published, providing contemporary confirmation that Pul (Pulu) and Tiglath-Pileser III were the same individual. Only the Phoenician language part of the inscription has been published so far because of the monument's poor state of preservation. Still, the identification of Tiglath-Pileser III as Pul is reasonably sure because this phrase is repeated more than once in the text.[25] The Phoenician spelling of this name is Puwal.\n\nTiglath-pileser III is also referred to as Puˀ/wal [Puwal] with an intervocalic glide, spelled פאל quite clearly in at least one place (and probably the others) in contrast to biblical פול, vocalized Pûl. If it were pronounced according to the latter then one would expect פל in the Phoenician orthography.\"[26]\n\nThe Phoenician inscription is narrated in the first person by king Awarikus (Awarikku, Warika, Urikki) of Quwê, who is known from other ancient inscriptions. His stele was erected to mark the land given to Awariku by Tiglath-Pileser III. He is also known as the King of the Danaans, or the \"Danunean king\". He also describes himself as 'the King of the dynasty of Mopsos'.\n\nSome Assyriologists, such as Eckart Frahm and Paul-Alain Beaulieu, have speculated that Pulu was Tiglath-Pileser's original name before he became king and assumed his regnal name[27][28] or perhaps a nickname.[28]\n\nAccording to Gerard Gertoux, Tiglath-Pileser III was the son of Adad-nīrārī III and used the name Pulu as a young co-regent under previous kings. When he won the kingship of Babylon, for the last two years of his life, this again became his official name in Babylon. Gertoux explains the derivation of this name as a hypocoristic use of the word aplu “the heir”.[29]\n\nAssyria before Tiglath-Pileser\n\nAssyria first rose as a prominent state under the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC, previously only having been a city-state centered on the city of Assur.[30] From the 12th century BC onwards, the Middle Assyrian Empire entered into a period of decline, becoming increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland itself.[31] Though the decline was at times halted by energetic warrior-kings, reconquests were not lasting until the time of Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BC), who campaigned in the northeast and northwest.[32] The accession of Ashur-dan's son Adad-nirari II (r. 911-891 BC) traditionally marks the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[33] \n\nUnder the early Neo-Assyrian kings, there was a gradual reconquest of former Assyrian lands.[32] The success of this project was an extraordinary achievement given that the kings essentially had to rebuild the Assyrian Empire from scratch.[34] Under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC) the Neo-Assyrian Empire rose to become the dominant political power in the ancient Near East.[35] Ashurnasirpal's son Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC) further expanded Assyrian territory but his enlarged domain proved difficult to stabilize and his last few years initiated a renewed period of stagnation and decline, marked by both external and internal conflict.[36]\n\nThe most important problems facing Shalmaneser late in his reign were the rise of the kingdom of Urartu in the north and the increasing political authority and influence of the \"magnates\", a set of influential Assyrian courtiers and officials.[36] The rise of Urartu threatened Assyrian hegemony since submission to Urartu was viewed by many vassal states as a realistic alternative to Assyria.[2] The Urartian administration, culture, writing system and religion closely followed those of Assyria. The Urartian kings were also autocrats highly similar to the Assyrian kings. The imperialist expansionism undertaken by the kings of both Urartu and Assyria led to frequent military clashes between the two, despite being separated by the Taurus Mountains.[37] \n\nFor a brief time, the Urartian army equalled that of Assyria;[2] though the Assyrians scored many victories against Urartu, notably plundering Urartu's heartland late in Shalmaneser's reign,[38] the Urartians scored victories of their own. In 754, the Urartian king Sarduri II defeated the Assyrian army under Ashur-nirari V at Arpad, an event that may have led to the Assyrian army not campaigning for several years.[2] The Assyrian kings were unable to deal with external threats since the magnates had gradually become the dominant political actors and central authority had become very weak.[39] \n\nThe reigns of Tiglath-Pileser's three predecessors Shalmaneser IV (r. 783-773 BC), Ashur-dan III (r. 773-755 BC) and Ashur-nirari V was the low point of Assyrian royal power. In Shalmaneser IV's reign, the turtanu (commander-in-chief) Shamshi-ilu was bold enough to credit military victories to himself rather than the king.[40] Ashur-nirari V appears to have been relatively idle as a ruler. He campaigned only three times, staying in Assyria throughout the majority of his reign, and he is not known to have conducted any building projects.[41]\n\nReign\n\nReforms and policies\n\nOne of Tiglath-Pileser's important early reforms was reducing the influence of the magnates, thus increasing the king's authority. The division of the large provinces previously governed by the magnates into smaller units, placed under royally appointed provincial governors, reduced the wealth and power of the magnates. The right to commission inscriptions concerning military and building activities was withdrawn from officials and henceforth restricted to the king. Some historically prominent officials, such as the turtanu Shamshi-ilu, were subjected to damnatio memoriae, with their names being deliberately erased from inscriptions and documents.[42] With these reforms, the power of the magnates to challenge the king was virtually eliminated.[43]\n\nTiglath-Pileser revitalized the Assyrian army, transforming it from a seasonally active army, only assembled in the summer months, consisting only of conscripts, into a professional army. Under Tiglath-Pileser, these conscripts were largely replaced with trained, specialized soldiers.[2] He introduced new and superior weapons, technologies and logistics. Among his major innovations were new forms of siege engines.[44] The central standing army introduced under Tiglath-Pileser was dubbed the kiṣir šarri (\"king's unit\").[45] \n\nThe size of the army was further increased throughout Tiglath-Pileser's reign through the recruitment of soldiers from the various lands the Assyrians conquered and through the recruitment of mercenaries from Babylonia, the Zagros Mountains and Anatolia. Though Tiglath-Pileser's conquests generated massive revenue, he appears to have invested little of it into the Assyrian heartland itself; the only known building work he conducted was a new palace in Nimrud. Instead, most of the money probably went into establishing the new army and into projects in the provinces.[2]\n\nTiglath-Pileser's conquests were marked by brutality to emphasize the king's strength and power.[46] Resettlements of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people were also a common practice. Though previous kings had resettled people, Tiglath-Pileser's reign saw the beginning of frequent mass deportations, a policy which continued under his successors. There were two intended goals of this policy: firstly to reduce the local identities in conquered regions, to counteract the risk of revolt, and secondly to recruit and move laborers to where the Assyrian kings needed them, such as underdeveloped and underutilized provinces.[42] Though the Assyrian resettlements were probably devastating both for the resettled people and the regions they came from,[47][48] resettled people were not harmed or killed.[47] Deportees were highly valued for their labor and abilities. Their journeys and new settlements were designed to be as safe and comfortable as possible.[49]\n\nWars and conquests\n\nEarly campaigns\n\nIn addition to his reforms, Tiglath-Pileser's reign is marked by a series of large-scale military campaigns in all directions.[42] Though Tiglath-Pileser recorded his military exploits in great detail in his \"annals\", written on sculpted stone slabs decorating his palace in Nimrud, these are poorly preserved,[27] meaning that for several of his campaigns it is only possible to produce a broad outline.[50] Tiglath-Pileser's first campaign was conducted already in 744, when he assaulted Babylonian lands on the east side of the Tigris river.[42] This conflict was resolved swiftly, with the Assyro-Babylonian border shifted in Tiglath-Pileser's favor.[2] In 743, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned in the region around the Zagros Mountains, where he created the two new provinces Bit-Ḫamban and Parsua.[42] The new Zagros provinces were founded along a highly important trade route, the predecessor of the later Silk Road.[2]\n\nThe Assyrian successes in 744 and 743 demonstrated to the empire's neighbors that the time of Assyrian stagnation was over.[2] Tiglath-Pileser's success inspired Iranzu, king of the Mannaeans, a people who lived in northwestern Iran, to personally meet with Tiglath-Pileser in 744 and forge an alliance. Iranzu's predecessors had usually maintained their kingdom's independence through changing allegiance between Urartu and Assyria, but Iranzu made a firm choice to side with Assyria and Tiglath-Pileser eagerly accepted the alliance since Iranzu's realm was ideally placed to protect Assyria from Urartian raids.[51]\n\nThese developments worried Sarduri II of Urartu, who intensified his efforts to oppose and overtake Assyrian hegemony. Later in 743, Sarduri arrived at the Euphrates river border of Assyria with his army,[2] his forces bolstered by troops sent by various kingdoms and states in Syria.[52] In the same year, Tiglath-Pileser engaged Sarduri in battle near Arpad. Unlike the Assyrian defeat by Arpad eleven years earlier, Tiglath-Pileser won the battle,[2][42] one of the greatest triumphs of his reign.[42] Sarduri was forced to flee the battle and was pursued back to the Urartian capital of Tushpa.[2]\n\nConquest of the Levant\n\nIn the period from 743 to 732, Tiglath-Pileser led several campaigns in the Levant, which led to a great annexation of territory and the loss of independence of numerous ancient states in the region.[52] After defeating Sarduri, Tiglath-Pileser resolved to conquer Arpad itself, both because of the city's strategic value[42] and in order to punish the city for providing Sarduri access to the Assyrian frontier.[2] After three campaigns over the course of three years and a lengthy siege, Arpad was captured in 740.[2][42] \n\nDuring the fighting, Arpad was assisted by both Urartian troops and by troops sent by other cities and minor states in Syria. After the city was captured, the Assyrian army did not simply plunder it and then leave, as they had dealt with cities in Syria in previous times. Instead, the lands controlled by Arpad were converted into two provinces and annexed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[2] After his victory at Arpad, Tiglath-Pileser received tribute from the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of Gurgum and Kummuh, Carchemish and Quwê, some of which had previously sent forces to aid Sarduri, as well as from the Phoenician city of Tyre and the Aramean kingdom of Aram-Damascus.[52]\n\nThe annexation of Arpad put rulers throughout the Levant on the alert.[52] In the period of Assyrian stagnation, many of the Levantine states had aspired to expand and become large kingdoms in their own right, something the Assyrians might have perceived as an anti-Assyrian activity.[53] In 738, Tiglath-Pileser continued his efforts in Syria, conquering some lands to the south of Arpad and establishing the three new provinces of Kullania, Ḫatarikka, and Ṣimirra. These lands had been under the rule of the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Hama, which he accused of plotting against him.[52] \n\nThe strategy employed by Tiglath-Pileser in his successful conquest of the Levant was carefully thought out and prepared. Instead of attacking the strongholds of the larger states, he first subdued smaller kingdoms through fast and wide-ranging attacks. The early conquests brought coastal and flat lands under his rule, which meant that Assyrian troops in the later campaigns could march through the region fast and efficiently.[54] During the campaign against Hama, Tiglath-Pileser conquered and annexed the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Pattin.[2] Hama was spared full annexation, with the kingdom being allowed to remain somewhat independent as a vassal state. The victory inspired more states in the region to pay tribute to the Assyrians, including the Phoenician city of Byblos, the Kingdom of Israel and various states in eastern Anatolia and some Arab tribes.[52] Israel and Damascus had sent aid to Hama during the conflict.[2]\n\nThe Anatolian realms who began paying tribute to Assyria, five kingdoms in total, probably did so not out of fear of Assyrian conquest but rather in the hope of Assyrian aid against the expansionist kingdom of Phrygia, which threatened their existence. The Anatolians at times tried to play Assyria and Phrygia against each other, with disastrous consequences. In 730, Tiglath-Pileser attacked and removed king Wasusarma of Tabal from power after he stopped paying tribute, writing in his annals that Wasusarma \"acted as if he were the equal of Assyria\".[55]\n\nTiglath-Pileser marched on the Levant for the fifth time in 734, reaching as far south as the border of Egypt.[42][52] This campaign resulted in the conquest of Gaza and the submission of numerous states, effectively bringing the entire Levant under direct or indirect Assyrian rule;[56] Assyria and Egypt shared a border for the first time in history.[57] Asqaluna, Judah, Edom, Moab and Ammon, and the Mu’na Arab tribe, all began paying tribute to Tiglath-Pileser.[42][52] By extending his control throughout the Levant, Tiglath-Pileser formed a semi-circle of control around Israel and Aram-Damascus and cut them off from Egypt, which had at times offered support to the Levantine states. The Assyrian efforts resulted in Aram-Damascus becoming both geopolitically isolated and without a large enough food supply to feed its people.[58]\n\nIn 733, Tiglath-Pileser resolved to cement his conquest. In this year, he again campaigned against Aram-Damascus, still the strongest remaining native state in the region, which was supported by the Assyrian tributaries Tyre and Asqaluna, as well as Israel. In 732, Damascus fell and Tiglath-Pileser annexed the lands of Aram-Damascus.[42][52] In the same conflict, Tiglath-Pileser also captured Tyre[59] and defeated Israel, which he divided in half, annexing the northern portion of the kingdom as the province Megiddo and subjugating the southern portion as a vassal kingdom.[2] The weakening and enormous reduction in size of Israel was seen by the Israelites as vindicating predictions of impending doom made by the prophet Amos a few decades prior.[42]\n\nThe massive western expansion of Assyria brought Tiglath-Pileser and his armies into direct contact with Arab tribes, several of whom began paying tribute. In 733, Tiglath-Pileser campaigned against the Qedarites to the south of Damascus, hoping to consolidate his control of southern Syria.[60] The surprise attack caught the Qedarite queen Šamši off-guard and the Qedarites were easily defeated.[61] Though Tiglath-Pileser was victorious, he realized that he would not be able to govern the territories ruled by the Qedarites effectively and thus allowed Šamši to remain in control of her domain, though under the supervision of an Assyrian official to guide her political actions.[60]\n\nConquest of Babylonia\n\nIn his late reign, Tiglath-Pileser increasingly focused on Babylonia in the south.[63] Babylonia had once been a large and hugely influential kingdom, competing with Assyria for centuries,[64] but during the Neo-Assyrian period it was typically weaker than its northern neighbor.[65] Babylonia suffered from both the lack of a well-organized army and from internal ethno-cultural divisions. Babylonians governed most of the prominent southern cities, such as Babylon, Kish, Ur, Uruk, Borsippa and Nippur, but were not the only prominent group in the region. Chaldean tribes, led by chieftains who often squabbled with each other, dominated most of the southernmost land. Arameans also lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories.[63][66] Through his agents, Tiglath-Pileser throughout his reign kept tabs on events in the south.[63]\n\nIn 731, the Chaldean chieftain Nabu-mukin-zeri, of the Bit-Amukkani tribe, seized power in Babylon as king.[2][67] Tiglath-Pileser saw the accession of Nabu-mukin-zeri, who aspired to heal the divides in Babylonia,[2] as a provocation and threat to Assyrian interests and hegemony.[2][63] Tiglath-Pileser thus dedicated the next several years to defeating Nabu-mukin-zeri and his supporters. First, Assyrian armies blockaded Babylonia's eastern border to ensure that Nabu-mukin-zeri would not receive any support from Elam, which was often opposed to Assyrian interests. Then, Tiglath-Pileser defeated and subdued a number of Aramean clans and Chaldean tribes, including the Bit-Shilani and the Bit-Sha'alli.[67]\n\nThe struggle for control of Babylonia began in earnest in 730. In this year, Assyrian envoys are recorded travelling to Babylon and urging the inhabitants to open their gates and surrender to Tiglath-Pileser, stating that the king would grant them amnesty and tax privileges. The Babylonians refused the offer. Nabu-mukin-zeri was not in Babylon at this time and was instead probably directing the Babylonian war effort from his ancestral home city of Sapia.[68] In 729, Tiglath-Pileser captured Babylon and proclaimed himself as both king of Assyria and king of Babylon,[63] the first Assyrian king to be recognized as such by the Babylonians.[28] \n\nNabu-mukin-zeri lost Sapia in the same year but appears to have continued to resist Tiglath-Pileser until 728 since there are some documents ascribed to his fourth regnal year. As the new king, Tiglath-Pileser received tribute from the most powerful Chaldean tribes, the Bit-Dakkuri and Bit-Yakin. The Bit-Yakin at this time was under the leadership of Marduk-apla-iddina II, who in the years following Tiglath-Pileser's reign would emerge as a staunch adversary of Assyria.[28]\n\nUnlike many other Assyrian conquests, Babylonia was not divided into provinces but kept as a full kingdom, in personal union with Assyria. This was chiefly because the Assyrians greatly respected Babylonian culture and religion.[69] Because of this respect and because Babylonia was showing signs of the beginning of an economic recovery, Tiglath-Pileser worked to conciliate the populace to the idea of Assyrian overlordship. He twice participated in the religiously important New Years' Akitu festival, which required the presence of the king, and also led campaigns against remaining Chaldean strongholds in the far south who resisted his rule.[63]\n\nFamily and succession\n\nTiglath-Pileser's queen was named Iaba (Iabâ), a name clearly not of Akkadian origin.[70] Possible roots and etymologies of the name include yph (\"beautiful\"), nby (\"to name\") and yhb (\"to give\");[70] Iaba might have been of Arab[70] or West Semitic (Levantine[71] or Aramean) descent.[72] In 1998, Stephanie Dalley proposed that Iaba was of Hebrew origin[70] and speculated that she might have been a princess from the Kingdom of Judah.[73] She based this argument on the name Atalia, a later queen speculated to have been related to Iaba, being similar to the name Athaliah, borne by a Judean queen who ruled about a century earlier, and that the ending of the name Atalia (i-a or ia-a) could represent a theophoric element deriving from Yahweh. Dalley's arguments have met with both support and opposition. The idea that the names Iaba and Atalia were Hebrew has also been independently forwarded by Simo Parpola.[70] \n\nIn 2002, K. Lawson Younger pointed out that it was far from certain that i-a or ia-a actually corresponded to Yahweh since there are few analogues in other Neo-Assyrian names and inscriptions.[74] The identification of Atalia as a Hebrew name was also doubted by Nicholas Postgate in 2008, and in that year Ran Zadok alternatively suggested that Atalia was an Arabic name.[70] Iaba's tomb was discovered at Nimrud in 1989.[75]\n\nTiglath-Pileser is believed to have died peacefully of old age. He was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser V.[2] In Tiglath-Pileser's reign, Shalmaneser was known by his birth name Ululayu, \"Shalmaneser\" being a regnal name he assumed upon his accession to the throne in 727. Shalmaneser likely participated in some of his father's campaigns and several letters are known from him to his father, many of them reports on the status of the lands he governed.[76] Shalmaneser was replaced as king after only a few years by Sargon II, probably through being deposed and assassinated. Though Assyrian king lists connected Sargon to previous kings through claiming that he was the son of Tiglath-Pileser, this claim does not appear in most of his inscriptions, which instead stress that he was called upon and appointed as king by Ashur.[77] \n\nMany historians accept Ashur’s claim to have been a son of Tiglath-Pileser, but do not believe him to have been the legitimate heir to the throne as the second-in-line after the end of Iaba’s reign, i.e. assuming Shalmaneser had children.[78] Even then, his claim to have been Tiglath-Pileser's son is generally treated with more caution than Tiglath-Pileser's own claims of royal ancestry.[79] Some Assyriologists, such as J. A. Brinkman, believe that Sargon, at the very least, did not belong to the direct dynastic lineage.[14] If Tiglath-Pileser was Sargon's father, he also had a third son, Sin-ahu-usur. Sin-ahu-usur is attested as the younger brother of Sargon, in 714 granted the command of Sargon's royal cavalry guard.[80]\n\nLegacy\n\nThe Assyriologist Hayim Tadmor referred to Tiglath-Pileser's reign as a \"watershed\" in the history of the Middle East.[44] Tiglath-Pileser left a legacy of enormous historical significance. His reign is generally seen as marking the beginning of an entirely new age of Assyrian imperialism.[27][44] As the earliest Assyrian king to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and in the Babylonian Chronicles, Tiglath-Pileser is the first Assyrian king for whom there exist outside perspectives and accounts of his reign.[42] All Mesopotamian history prior to Tiglath-Pileser is ignored in the Hebrew Bible.[63] The Bible records both Tiglath-Pileser's impact on the Kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 15:29-31) and the events of his reign from the perspective of the southern Kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 15:32-16, 20, 2 Chronicles 27:1-28, Isaiah 7:1-25).[81]\n\nTiglath-Pileser greatly expanded Assyrian territory.[2] By the time of his death, Tiglath-Pileser had more than doubled the amount of land ruled by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[63] His method of introducing direct Assyrian rule to foreign lands, dividing them into Assyrian provinces rather than creating vassal kingdoms, significantly altered the economy of the Assyrian state. Whereas the Assyrians had previously relied on tribute from vassals, from Tiglath-Pileser's time they became increasingly dependent on taxes collected by provincial governors. This approach increased administrative costs but also reduced the risk of uprisings against Assyrian rule and reduced the need for military intervention.[63]\n\nSeveral Assyriologists consider Assyria to only truly have transitioned into an \"empire\" in a strict sense during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser,[28][63][82][83] owing to its unprecedented size, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual character and the new mechanisms of economic and political control.[63] The supremacy attained by Assyria under Tiglath-Pileser is frequently seen as turning the Neo-Assyrian Empire into the first world empire in history;[83][84][85][86][87] i.e. an imperial state without any competitors,[34] ruling most of the world as known to the Assyrians themselves.[85] \n\nThe Assyrian Empire served as the model for later empires in the Middle East and elsewhere, chiefly because of the imperial innovations of Tiglath-Pileser.[63] Through the concept of translatio imperii (transfer of empire) the claim to world domination forwarded by the Neo-Assyrian kings gave rise to similar claims in later Middle Eastern empires, notably the Achaemenid Empire, which facilitated the rise of aspirations for universal rule in numerous later kingdoms and empires.[88] \n\nThe Assyrian resettlement policy which intensified under Tiglath-Pileser and continued under his successors had large-scale consequences. First and foremost, it led to significant improvements in irrigation in the provinces, owing to deportees being tasked to introduce Assyrian-developed agricultural techniques to their new communities, and to an increase in prosperity across the empire.[49] In the long term, the movement of peoples from across the empire changed the cultural and ethnic makeup of the Middle East forever and in time led to the rise of Aramaic as the region's lingua franca,[47] a position the language retained until the 14th century AD.[89] \n\nAramaic was the most widely spoken and mutually understandable of the empire's Semitic languages, the group to which many of the languages in the empire belonged.[90] Already in Tiglath-Pileser's reign, Aramaic became an official language in the empire, indicated by reliefs from his time depicting the king using both Aramaic and Akkadian scribes to record messages.[91][92]\n\nTitles\n\nIn an inscription from Nimrud recounting some of the activities of his reign, Tiglath-Pileser claimed the following titles:[93]\n\nTiglath-Pileser, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world; who is attentive to the lifting of the eyes of Enlil, the king who from the rising sun to the setting thereof has scattered all of his foes to the wind(s) and has maintained (his) sway; who subdues the peoples of the upper and lower land(s), who ousts their rulers and installs his (own) officials.[93]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nIran Stele\n\nNotes\n\n^ This estimate assumes Tiglath-Pileser was Adad-nirari III's son.[1]\n\n^ Sometimes alternatively spelled Tiglatpileser III.[2] A handful of older sources erroneously number him as Tiglath-Pileser IV.[3]\n\n^ Ešarra was a temple; the \"son of Ešarra\" refers to the god Ninurta, at this point viewed as the son of the Assyrian national deity Ashur.[2]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 390.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae Radner 2012.\n\n^ Albright 1949, p. 163.\n\n^ a b Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 391.\n\n^ Zawadzki 1994, p. 53.\n\n^ a b c d e f Davenport 2016, p. 36.\n\n^ a b c d Radner 2016, p. 47.\n\n^ a b Chen 2020, pp. 200-201.\n\n^ Brinkman 1968, p. 406.\n\n^ Grayson 1981, p. 73.\n\n^ Zawadzki 1994, p. 54.\n\n^ Parker 2011, p. 367.\n\n^ Yamada 2003, p. 270.\n\n^ a b Garelli 1991, p. 46.\n\n^ Davenport 2016, p. 41.\n\n^ a b Zawadzki 1994, p. 55.\n\n^ Garelli 1991, p. 48.\n\n^ a b c Davenport 2016, pp. 37-41.\n\n^ a b Jacobs & Price 1906, p. 145.\n\n^ a b Frame 1992, pp. 303-304.\n\n^ Bertin 1891, p. 49.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 388.\n\n^ Frame 1992, p. 194.\n\n^ (2018) İncirli Stele. hittitemonuments.com\n\n^ Kaufman, Steve (2007). \"The Phoenician Inscription of the Incirli Trilingual: A Tentative Reconstruction and Translation\". MAARAV. 14 (2): 7-26. doi:10.1086/MAR200714202. S2CID 257837087.\n\n^ (2009) Short version of the Incirli Trilingual text. balshanut.wordpress.com\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, p. 176.\n\n^ a b c d e Beaulieu 2018, p. 197.\n\n^ https://hal.science/hal-03207471v2/document. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 43.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 46.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 167.\n\n^ Merrill, Rooker & Grisanti 2011, p. 30.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 144.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 167, 169.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 172.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, pp. 170-171.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 171.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 173.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 175.\n\n^ Grayson 1982, pp. 277-278.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Frahm 2017, p. 177.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 142.\n\n^ a b c Dubovský 2006, p. 153.\n\n^ Dalley 2017, pp. 526, 528.\n\n^ Davenport, T.L. (August 1, 2014). \"Situation and Organisation: The Empire Building of Tiglath-pileser III (745-728 BC)\". The University of Sydney: 126. S2CID 159717852.\n\n^ a b c Frahm 2017, pp. 177-178.\n\n^ Radner 2017, p. 212.\n\n^ a b Radner 2017, p. 210.\n\n^ Oded 1974, p. 42.\n\n^ Fuchs 2017b, p. 262.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Bagg 2017, p. 270.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, pp. 154-155.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, pp. 161-162.\n\n^ Fuchs 2017, p. 254.\n\n^ Bagg 2017, pp. 270-271.\n\n^ Elat 1978, p. 20.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, pp. 162-163.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, p. 163.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017b, pp. 300-301.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, p. 162.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 179.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Frahm 2017, p. 178.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 209.\n\n^ Brinkman 1973, p. 89.\n\n^ Brinkman 1973, pp. 89-90.\n\n^ a b Beaulieu 2018, p. 196.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2018, pp. 196-197.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2018, p. 198.\n\n^ a b c d e f Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 393.\n\n^ Collon 2010, p. 149.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 114.\n\n^ Lawson Younger 2002, p. 207.\n\n^ Lawson Younger 2002, pp. 217-218.\n\n^ Damerji 2008, p. 81.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 397-400.\n\n^ Parker 2011, pp. 365-367.\n\n^ Cogan 2017, p. 154.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 201.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 28.\n\n^ Dubovský 2006, p. 154.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 137.\n\n^ a b Oded 1974, p. 38.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 133.\n\n^ a b Liverani 2017, p. 536.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 161.\n\n^ Elayi 2017, p. 2.\n\n^ Liverani 2017, pp. 534-535.\n\n^ Filoni 2017, p. 37.\n\n^ Radner 2021, p. 147.\n\n^ Radner 2021, p. 149.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 319.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1926, p. 280.\n\nBibliography\n\nAlbright, W. 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S2CID 145597598.\n\nRadner, Karen (2012). \"Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria (744-727 BC)\". Assyrian empire builders. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2022.\n\nRadner, Karen (2016). \"Revolts in the Assyrian Empire: Succession Wars, Rebellions Against a False King and Independence Movements\". In Collins, John J.; Manning, J. G. (eds.). Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East: In the Crucible of Empire. BRILL. ISBN 978-9004330184.\n\nRadner, Karen (2017). \"Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Neo-Assyrian Period\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 209-228. ISBN 978-1118325247.\n\nRadner, Karen (2021). \"Diglossia and the Neo-Assyrian Empire's Akkadian and Aramaic Text Production\". In Jonker, Louis C.; Berlejung, Angelika & Cornelius, Izak (eds.). Multilingualism in Ancient Contexts: Perspectives from Ancient Near Eastern and Early Christian Contexts. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media. ISBN 978-1991201164.\n\nTadmor, Hayim; Yamada, Shigeo (2011). The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King Of Assyria (744-727 BC) And Shalmaneser V (726-722 BC), Kings of Assyria (PDF). Eisenbrauns.\n\nYamada, Shiego (2003). \"Notes on the Genealogical Data of the Assyrian King List\". Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies. 27: 265-275. JSTOR 23629886.\n\nYamada, Keiko; Yamada, Shiego (2017). \"Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited\". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.). \"Now It Happened in Those Days\": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575067612.\n\nZawadzki, Stefan (1994). \"The Revolt of 746 B.C and the Coming of Tiglath-pileser III to the Throne\" (PDF). State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 8: 53-54. Archived from the original on 2015-11-06. Retrieved 2026-03-12.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tiglath-pileser-iii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 7604}, {"slug": "reference-shammuramat", "title": "Shammuramat", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Shammuramat (Akkadian: Sammu-rāmat or Sammu-ramāt),[4][c] also known as Sammuramat or Shamiram and Semiramis,[5] was a powerful queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Beginning her career as the primary queen consort[d] of the king Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824-811 BC), Shammuramat reached an unusually prominent position in the reign of her...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shammuramat\n\nWoman of the Palace[a]\n\nInscription on a stele erected in Assur by Shammuramat[b]\n\nBornc. 850 BC\n\nDiedc. 798 BC (aged c. 52)\n\nSpouseShamshi-Adad V\n\nIssueAdad-nirari III\n\nAkkadianSammu-rāmat or Sammu-ramāt\n\nShammuramat (Akkadian: Sammu-rāmat or Sammu-ramāt),[4][c] also known as Sammuramat or Shamiram and Semiramis,[5] was a powerful queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Beginning her career as the primary queen consort[d] of the king Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824-811 BC), Shammuramat reached an unusually prominent position in the reign of her son Adad-nirari III (r. 811-783 BC). Though there is dispute in regard to Shammuramat's formal status and position, and if she should be considered a coregent, it is clear that she was among the most powerful and influential women of the ancient Near East and the Iron Age in general; she is the only known Assyrian queen to have retained her status as queen after the death of her husband and the only known woman from Mesopotamia to have partaken in, and perhaps even led, a military campaign.\n\nShammuramat's origin is unclear; her name could equally well be of West or East Semitic origin. Proposed regions of origin include the Akkadian-speaking Assyria itself, the ethnolinguistically indistinguishable Babylonia (which spoke the Babylonian variety of Akkadian), Levant and Phoenicia. If originating from abroad, she is typically assumed to have been a princess. Nothing is known of her life or relative influence and power in the reign of her husband. Under Adad-nirari, her role was exceptionally prominent for a woman of the time. Per the Pazarcık Stele, she accompanied her son on a campaign against the Hittites Kummuh in Hittite and both she and Adad-nirari are credited with expanding the borders of the empire in all directions into the Levant, Anatolia and Persia. In some inscriptions, local governors made dedications not only to the king (as was customary) but also to Shammuramat. All evidence suggests that Shammuramat was among the most renowned figures of her time.[7]\n\nShammuramat was immortalized in later Persian, Levantine and Greco-Roman literary tradition as the legendary Assyrian warrior-queen and heroine Semiramis, a half-divine daughter of the North Syrian goddess Atargatis and the wife of the fictional Ninus, the legendary and mythical founder of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. Among the legendary feats ascribed to Semiramis were securing victory during a siege of Bactra, the foundation of Babylon, and the invention of a type of pants/trousers later popular among the Medes, Persians and Parthians. Numerous parallels can be drawn between the historical Shammuramat and the legendary Semiramis, whose feats are mythical rather than historical. Semiramis and Shammuramat are both still used as popular given names for girls among the Assyrian people today.\n\nBackground\n\nName\n\nShammuramat's name, spelt mí.sa-am-mu-ra-mat in Assyrian inscriptions (transliterated as Sammu-rāmat, Sammu-ramāt[8] or Šammu-ramat),[9] is of either West Semitic or East Semitic Akkadian origin. In West Semitic it would likely have been rendered as šmyrm or šmrmt. The most likely etymology of the name is that it follows a common name archetype in both West Semitic and Akkadian, on the form dn-rāmu/rāmat (\"dn is exalted\") in West Semitic or dn-ramāt (\"dn is beloved\") in Akkadian, where dn is a theophoric (name of a god) element. Sammu, rendered as dsa(-a)-mu (meaning \"red\"), was the name of an otherwise poorly attested deity in the Neo-Assyrian period.[8]\n\nVarious alternate etymologies have also been proposed. In Classical Greek sources, Shammuramat's name appears in the forms Σεμιραμις (Semiramis) and Σεμυραμις (Semeramis). According to the 1st-century BC Classical Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the name ultimately derived from the Assyrian/Akkadian/Babylonian word for \"dove\", an etymology probably based on equating Σεμι- (Semi-) with the Akkadian summatu or summu (meaning dove). The 7th-century Jewish midrash Leviticus Rabbah traces the etymology of the name to the West Semitic šmy rʻm (\"thunder of heaven\"), relating it to a legend that she was born in thunder. In 1991, Moshe Weinfeld suggested that the name derived from the Phoenician šmm rmm (\"high heavens\").[8]\n\nOrigin\n\nShammuramat was born c. 850 BC.[10] Nothing is known of Shammuramat's origins from contemporary sources. In later classical tradition, Shammuramat was variously described as being of Levantine or native Assyrian/Mesopotamian origin. Various alternate origins have also been suggested by modern historians, though all such proposals are mere speculation. In 1910, Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt suggested that she was a Mesopotamian Babylonian princess, though there is no evidence for such an idea. Wilhelm Eilers proposed in 1971 that she might have been a princess from Urartu[11] and in 1991, Weinfeld suggested that she was a princess from Ashkelon. Ashkelon seems an unlikely place of origin because the city was situated far beyond the Assyrian imperial ambitions of the time and since it would be unlikely for an Assyrian king to marry someone from a city of such little diplomatic weight.[12] In 2001, Jamie Novotny proposed that she could have been an Assyrian or Aramean princess from Syria, perhaps from either Carchemish, Gurgum, Namri, Que, Patina, Subria, Bit Adini or Samʼal.[11]\n\nStatus and activities\n\nReign of Shamshi-Adad V\n\nStelae of Shammuramat's husband Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824-811 BC; left) and their son Adad-nirari III (r. 811-783 BC; right)\n\nShammuramat was the wife and queen of the Neo-Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad V (r. 824-811 BC). The surviving source material concerning Shammuramat is relatively limited. In known material from her husband's reign, she is only mentioned in a single eye bead inscribed with her name.[13] Her role and influence at the court of her husband is as such largely unknown.[9] The inscription on the eye bead reads:[14]\n\nTo Ishtar, her lady, Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad, king of Assyria, dedicated (this) for her well-being.[14]\n\nReign of Adad-nirari III\n\nShammuramat is more prominently attested in the reign of her son Adad-nirari III (r. 811-783 BC),[15] when she reached an unusually prominent position.[16] Though Adad-nirari was probably not a minor upon his accession to the throne,[17] he is generally assumed to have been quite young, which might partly explain why Shammuramat was allowed to take such a prominent role.[15][18] Because of the limited source material, her exact role and position remains disputed,[19] though it is clear that she was among the most renowned figures of her time.[7]\n\nIn 2013, David Kertai suggested that Shammuramat's continued use of the title \"queen\" in her son's reign, the only certain Assyrian example of this,[e] could indicate that she for a time was queen regnant.[15] In 2004, Sarah C. Melville wrote that Shammuramat was \"probably not\" co-regent with her son[17] but in 2014, she wrote that Shammuramat \"possibly even acted as regent during the early years of her son's reign\".[18] Writing in 2013, Stephanie Dalley did not believe that Shammuramat was co-regent with Adad-nirari.[21] Several recent researchers, such as Saana Svärd and Sebastian Fink, in their writings simply mention that whether she could be considered a co-regent is still a matter of debate.[22][23] In 2012, Svärd wrote that regardless of her formal position, Shammuramat was clearly an authoritative female figure who played an important role in running the empire, perhaps acting as a sort of pater familias after the death of Shamshi-Adad while her son was young.[24] Shammuramat does not appear in later Assyrian accounts,[f] perhaps, per Svärd, due to Assyrian royal ideology finding it difficult to \"accommodate the presence of an authoritative female figure\".[24]\n\nThe most serious indicator of Shammuramat's exceptional power and influence,[18][21] and the main evidence used by scholars who support her being a co-regent,[23] is a boundary stele (marker of the border) erected by Adad-nirari near modern-day Pazarcık in Turkey.[18][21] Variations in the often formulaic Assyrian royal inscriptions were typically historically and ideologically important.[24] The Pazarcık Stele establishes that Shammuramat accompanied her son on a military campaign against the Kingdom of Kummuh in Syria; she is the only known ancient Assyrian woman to take part in a campaign.[18] In 2020, Sebastian Fink suggested that the fact that she was mentioned as prominently as she was in the text might indicate that the campaign was in fact led by Shammuramat and that Adad-nirari was not present.[23] The inscription on the stele ascribes the fighting activities themselves solely to Adad-nirari, anything else would not have been possible in Assyrian ideology, but the important activity of extending Assyrian territory and setting up the stele, otherwise a traditional privilege only of the king, is attributed to both Adad-nirari and Shammuramat, as indicated by a plural \"they\".[18] It is furthermore significant that the stele outlines Adad-nirari's descent from both Shamshi-Adad and Shammuramat, given that kings usually only mentioned their paternal lineage.[23] In full, the inscription on the boundary stele reads:[18]\n\nBoundary stone of Adad-nirari, king of Assyria, son of Shamshi-Adad, king of Assyria (and of) Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad, king of Assyria, mother of Adad-nirari, mighty king, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser, king of the Four Corners. When Ušpilulume, king of Kummuh, caused Adad-nirari, king of Assyria (and) Shammuramat, queen, to cross the Euphrates river; I smashed Attar-šumkī, son of Abī-rāmi, of the city Arpad, together with eight kings, who were with him at the city Paqarḫubunu, their boundary and land. I deprived them of their camp. In order to save their lives, they went up (the mountains). In that year they put up this boundary stone between Ušpilulume, king of Kummuh and Qalparuda, son of Palalam, king of Gurgum. Whoever takes it away from the possession of Ušpilulume, his sons, his grandsons, may the gods Ashur, Marduk, Adad, Sîn, (and) Shamash not support his lawsuit. Prohibition of Ashur, my god, (and) Sîn, who dwells in Harran.[26]\nPhotograph and drawing of Shammuramat's stele from Assur\n\nShammuramat was a famous figure already in her lifetime. Among the so-called stelenreihen, a set of steles erected centrally in Assur, the religious and ceremonial heart of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, there are innumerable steles erected by kings and influential male officials and generals, but only three erected by women (the other two women being Libbāli-šarrat, the queen of Ashurbanipal, and an unknown wife of Sennacherib).[21][3] Though the function and purpose of these stelae remains unknown, it is obvious that only exceptional women were able to erect their own stelae among the others. Shammuramat's stele at Assur gives her the same titles as in the Pazarcık boundary stele.[3]\n\nShammuramat is mentioned in inscriptions on two identical statues from Kalhu, the Assyrian capital.[11] These inscriptions record that the statues were dedicated to the god Nabu by Bel-tarṣi-ilumma, governor of Kalhu, who set them up in the god's temple in the city. After a passage praising Nabu, both inscriptions record that Bel-tarṣi-ilumma had the status made and dedicated \"for the life of\" Adad-nirari, king of Assyria, and Shammuramat, queen.[11] Typically, only the king was mentioned.[11][21]\n\nA previously accepted chief piece of evidence for Shammuramat having ruled the empire was the Saba'a Stele, erected by Adad-nirari in 806 BC. Older translations of the stele, such as a 1927 translation by Daniel David Luckenbill, suggested that Shammuramat ruled the empire for five years, from the death of her husband until 806 BC, as the text of the stele was interpreted as Adad-nirari stating that he \"sat himself on the royal throne\" and marched to Aramea only in 806 BC. However, the relevant term in this case, rabîš ašābu, interpreted by Luckenbill as \"to become of age\" or \"to ascend the throne\" more probably means something akin to \"gloriously\" or \"magnificently\" per other known uses of it in inscriptions.[27]\n\nIt is possible that Shammuramat after a period of political prominence resigned and became a temple woman at one of the prominent temples in the empire, perhaps the Nabu temple in Kalhu where statues had previously been dedicated to her.[12] Shammuramat probably died around c. 798 BC.[28]\n\nSemiramis legend\n\nShammuramat has long been recognized as the primary inspiration behind the legendary Assyrian warrior-queen and heroine Semiramis,[10][11][18][22][24][29] though the Semiramis tradition likely also draws some inspiration from several other real and mythological figures of the ancient Near East,[11] such as the later Assyrian consorts Atalia (wife of Sargon II) and Naqi'a (wife of Sennacherib).[30] Though no cuneiform writings concerning the legend of Semiramis survive or have yet been discovered, it is believed to have originated as a native Assyrian Mesopotamian legend, only later finding its way into first Persian and then Greco-Roman literature.[31] The legend is chiefly known today through the writings of Diodorus Siculus[32] and the 5th-century BC historian Ctesias.[29]\n\nAccording to Ctesias, Semiramis was born in Ashkelon as the daughter of a Levantine mortal and the Greek goddess Derceto. Supposedly Derceto had been cursed to fall in love with the ordinary Levantine man as a result of angering Aphrodite. Though she gave birth to a daughter, Derceto was later ashamed of sleeping with the man and thus killed him and abandoned her daughter, throwing herself into a lake. This led her to transform into a mermaid-like creature. According to Ctesias, the inhabitants of Ashkelon and the rest of the Levant thereafter no longer ate fish, instead honoring them as gods. The baby Semiramis was kept alive through the aid of doves, who kept her warm with their wings and fed her until she was eventually found and adopted by a shepherd named Simmas.[33] The connection of Semiramis to Ashkelon and the cult of fish is a perplexing one. In ancient Mesopotamia, the god Nabu was sometimes connected to fish and mermen and mermaids frequently figured as statues in his temples and as part of his iconography. Given that the temple dedication by Bel-tarṣi-ilumma which mentioned Shammuramat was concerning a temple of Nabu, a spurious connection could perhaps be drawn to the historical queen. It is possible that there was a cult of Nebo (the West Semitic version of the Assyrian-Babylonian Nabu) at Ashkelon but no evidence for this exists.[34] Another inspiration for the tale, in particular Semiramis's connection to doves and Semiramis and her mother killing their lovers, could be Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war.[35] The Assyrian and Babylonian queens were strongly connected to Ishtar in iconography.[36] If Shammuramat resigned and became a temple woman it is also possible that this was the inspiration for later traditions designating her as a divine figure.[12]\n\nIn almost all legends, Semiramis becomes the wife of Ninus (a purely legendary figure), a legendary founder of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire and a figure who in virtually all stories he appeared in was overshadowed by his wife.[37] Ctesias dated the time of Semiramis and the foundation of the Assyrian Empire to 2166 BC.[29] In Ctesias's account, young Semiramis was first married to the Assyrian general Onnes, with whom she had two children. Onnes is described as fighting alongside Ninus in an attempt to capture the city of Bactra. When the siege drags on, he sends for his wife, who he misses dearly, a message Semiramis interprets as a call for military assistance. Thus, she equips herself for war and, using clothes and armor, masks her identity as a woman.[38] As part of her equipment, Semiramis invented long-sleeved pants that intentionally masked the gender of the bearer, according to Ctesias the precursor of later pants popular among the Medes and Persians.[5] Upon her arrival in Bactra, Semiramis proves to be a skilled warrior and succeeds in capturing the city, securing the admiration and attraction of Ninus. When Ninus threatens to blind Onnes due to Onnes refusing to relinquish his wife to him, Onnes hangs himself. After this, Semiramis becomes Ninus's wife.[38] A king stealing a general's wife has parallels in Assyrian history; a letter of unknown date relates that an official revolted against the king due to the official's wife being taken into the royal harem.[39]\n\nThough described as fierce women evoking ancient Ishtar in Ctesias's account, both Semiramis and Dercerto were sometimes in later works transformed into almost unrecognizable figures. In the 1st-century BC Ninus Romance, Ninus and Semiramis are described as two star-crossed lovers who meet at a time when they are too young to marry. In this tale, Derceto, now called Derceia, is a caring mother who wishes to smooth the way for the romance and Semiramis is a tongue-tied, shy and weeping teenager.[40]\n\nIn the accounts of Ctesias and Diodorus Siculus, Ninus is old at the time of their marriage and dies soon after the birth of their son Ninyas. The death of Ninus while Ninyas is still young leaves Semiramis to rule the empire. Semiramis erects a huge mound over Ninus's grave, using his bones to embellish Nineveh and turning his grave into a monument of her own strength and power. Later on, she constructs several more mounds to house the remains of generals, officials and her former lovers, sometimes buried alive. To rival Nineveh, founded by her husband, Semiramis is then credited with founding Babylon. Ctesias credits Semiramis with creating the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, though Diodorus Siculus attributes them a later king.[41] Other than the baseless speculation that Shammuramat was of Babylonian origin,[11] there is no evidence for any historical connection between Shammuramat and Babylon, nor of any building works being conducted in the city under Adad-nirari (who did not control Babylonia).[12]\n\nThe Semiramis of legend is also described as leading military campaigns, for instance against both Armenia and India.[42] The tale of Semiramis's conflict with Armenia could perhaps derive from remembrance of the campaigns of Adad-nirari, some of which were directed against Urartu (a precursor of Armenia). One of Adad-nirari's frequent foes was the Urartian king Argishti I, whose father Menua, a contemporary of Shammuramat, constructed a great canal which later on curiously at some point was named after Shammuramat as the Shamiram Canal.[32] The Indian campaign, perhaps parallelling the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, is described by Ctesias as Semiramis's only failure when she is forced to turn back after twice being injured by the Indian king. In several of the legends, including that of Ctesias, Semiramis's life comes to an end when she is killed by her son Ninyas, who is described as a weak man who avoided other men and warlike activities.[43] According to the 2nd-century AD historian Justin, Ninyas killed Semiramis because she attempted to have sexual relations with him; accusations of sexual voracity were often flung in history on warrior women, due to their unusual position, and on widows. Some other late traditions accused Semiramis of having sex with a horse and committing suicide by burning herself alive. These negative portrayals have little to do with the more ancient versions of the legend, such as that of Ctesias, wherein Semiramis kills her lovers and never remarries out of fear of losing the throne.[44]\n\nNotes\n\n^ Though usually used by historians today,[1] the title of \"queen\" as such did not exist in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The feminine version of the word for king (šarrum) was šarratum, but this was reserved for goddesses and foreign queens who ruled in their own right. Because the consorts of the kings did not rule themselves, they were not regarded as their equals and as such not called šarratum. Instead, the term reserved for the primary consort was MUNUS É.GAL (woman of the palace).[2] In Assyrian, this term was rendered issi ekalli, later abbreviated to sēgallu.[1]\n\n^ The text reads \"stele of Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, mother of Adad-nirari, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser, king of the Four Corners\".[3]\n\n^ For alternate transliterations and the etymology of the name, see the \"name\" section\n\n^ Assyrian kings at times had multiple wives at the same time, but not all were recognized as queens (or \"women of the palace\"). Though it has been disputed in the past,[1][6] it appears that only one woman bore the title at any given time, as the term typically appears without qualifiers (indicating a lack of ambiguity).[1]\n\n^ The only other queen who has been suggested to have retained her status in this way is the earlier Mulissu-mukannishat-Ninua, queen of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC), whose funerary inscription records her as \"queen of Ashurnasirpal and Shalmaneser\"; the evidence is in her case not conclusive and several alternate explanations have been proposed. From the time of Sennacherib (r. 705-681) onwards, former queens could in the reign of their sons be titled ummi šari (\"Mother of the King\").[20]\n\n^ She is for instance not included in the Assyrian King List.[25]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Kertai 2013, p. 109.\n\n^ Spurrier 2017, p. 173.\n\n^ a b c Melville 2014, p. 233.\n\n^ Novotny 2004, p. 1083.\n\n^ a b Mayor 2014, p. 193.\n\n^ Spurrier 2017, p. 166.\n\n^ a b Melville 2004, p. 53.\n\n^ a b c Novotny 2004, pp. 1083-1084.\n\n^ a b Melville 2004, p. 44.\n\n^ a b Dalley 2005, p. 11.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Novotny 2004, p. 1084.\n\n^ a b c d Dalley 2005, p. 14.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, pp. 112-113.\n\n^ a b Melville 2014, p. 234.\n\n^ a b c Kertai 2013, p. 113.\n\n^ Melville 2004, p. 57.\n\n^ a b Melville 2004, p. 45.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Melville 2014, p. 228.\n\n^ Melville 2014, p. 236.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, pp. 111-112.\n\n^ a b c d e Dalley 2013, p. 118.\n\n^ a b Svärd 2016, p. 130.\n\n^ a b c d Fink 2020.\n\n^ a b c d CDLI.\n\n^ Gera 1997, p. 69.\n\n^ Melville 2014, pp. 228-229.\n\n^ Tadmor 1973, p. 147.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 174.\n\n^ a b c Gera 1997, p. 68.\n\n^ Dalley 2005, p. 15.\n\n^ Gera 1997, p. 67.\n\n^ a b Dalley 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 70-71.\n\n^ Dalley 2005, pp. 13-14.\n\n^ Gera 1997, p. 72.\n\n^ Gansell 2018, p. 159.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 73-74.\n\n^ a b Gera 1997, pp. 74-75.\n\n^ Gera 1997, p. 75.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 72-73.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 77-78.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 80-81.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 81-82.\n\n^ Gera 1997, pp. 82-83.\n\nSources\n\nClancier, Philippe (2014). \"Warlike men and invisible women: how scribes in the Ancient Near East represented warfare\". Clio: Women, Gender, History. 39 (39): 17-34. doi:10.4000/cliowgh.440. ISSN 2554-3822. S2CID 159469407.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2005). \"Semiramis in History and Legend: a Case Study in Interpretation of an Assyrian Historical Tradition, with Observations on Archetypes in Ancient Historiography, on Euhemerism before Euhemerus, and on the So-called Greek Ethnographie Style\". In S. Gruen, Erich (ed.). Cultural Borrowings and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 3-515-08735-4.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2013). \"The Greek Novel Ninus and Semiramis: Its Background in Assyrian and Seleucid History and Monuments\". In Whitmarsh, Tim & Thomson, Stuart (eds.). The Romance between Greece and the East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-03824-0.\n\nFink, Sebastian (2020). \"Invisible Mesopotamian royal women?\". In Carney, Elizabeth D. & Müller, Sabine (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World. London: Routledge. pp. 137-148. doi:10.4324/9780429434105-15. ISBN 978-0429434105. S2CID 224979097.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1118325247.\n\nGansell, Amy Rebecca (2018). \"In Pursuit of Neo-Assyrian Queens: An Interdisciplinary Methodology for Researching Ancient Women and Engendering Ancient History\". In Svärd, Saana; Garcia-Ventura, Agnès (eds.). Studying Gender in the Ancient Near East. University Park, Pennsylvania: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575067704.\n\nGera, Deborah (1997). Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus De Mulieribus. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 90-04-10665-0.\n\nKertai, David (2013). \"The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 40 (1): 108-124. doi:10.1524/aof.2013.0006. S2CID 163392326.\n\nMayor, Adrienne (2014). The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17027-5.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2004). \"Neo-Assyrian Royal Women and Male Identity: Status as a Social Tool\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 124 (1): 37-57. doi:10.2307/4132152. JSTOR 4132152.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2014). \"Women in Neo-Assyrian texts\". In Chavalas, Mark W. (ed.). Women in the Ancient Near East: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-44855-0.\n\nNovotny, Jamie (2004). \"Sammu-rāmat or Sammu-ramāt\" (PDF). In Baker, Heather D. (ed.). Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire 3/1. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. pp. 1083-1084. ISBN 951-45-9056-2.\n\n\"Sammu-rāmat\". Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. 23 October 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2022.\n\nSpurrier, Tracy L. (2017). \"Finding Hama: On the Identification of a Forgotten Queen Buried in the Nimrud Tombs\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 76 (1): 149-174. doi:10.1086/690911. S2CID 164734557.\n\nSvärd, Saana (2016). \"Neo-Assyrian Elite Women\". In Budin, Stephanie Lynn & Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (eds.). Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-80836-2.\n\nTadmor, Hayim (1973). \"The Historical Inscriptions of Adad-Nirari III\". IRAQ. 35 (2): 141-150. doi:10.2307/4199961. JSTOR 4199961. S2CID 163268792."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shammuramat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4173}, {"slug": "reference-sargon-of-akkad", "title": "Sargon of Akkad", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Sargon of Akkad (/ˈsɑːrɡɒn/; Akkadian: 𒊬𒊒𒄀, romanized: Šarrugi; died c. 2279 BC), also known as Sargon the Great,[3] was the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, known for his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BC.[2] He is sometimes identified as the first...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sargon of Akkad\n𒊬𒊒𒄀\n\nKing of Sumer\n\nKing of the Universe[1]\n\nSargon of Akkad on his victory stele, with inscription \"King Sargon\" (𒊬𒊒𒄀 𒈗 Šar-ru-gi lugal) vertically inscribed in front of him (see later image for detail)\n\nKing of Akkad\n\nReignc. 2334 - c. 2279 BC[2]\n\nPredecessorMonarchy established\n\nSuccessorRimush\n\nDiedc. 2279 BC\nAkkadian Empire\n\nSpouseTashlultum\n\nIssue\n\nManishtushu\n\nRimush\n\nEnheduanna\n\nShu-Enlil\n\nAbaish-Takal\n\nDynastyAkkadian (Sargonic)\n\nFatherPossibly La'ibum\n\nSargon of Akkad (/ˈsɑːrɡɒn/; Akkadian: 𒊬𒊒𒄀, romanized: Šarrugi; died c. 2279 BC), also known as Sargon the Great,[3] was the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, known for his conquests of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th to 23rd centuries BC.[2] He is sometimes identified as the first person in recorded history to rule over an empire.\n\nHe was the founder of the \"Sargonic\" or \"Old Akkadian\" dynasty, which ruled for about a century after his death until the Gutian conquest of Sumer.[4]\nThe Sumerian King List makes him the cup-bearer to King Ur-Zababa of Kish before becoming king himself.[5]\n\nHis empire, which he ruled from his archaeologically as-yet-unidentified capital, Akkad, is thought to have included most of Mesopotamia and parts of the Levant, Hurrian and Elamite territory.\n\nSargon appears as a legendary figure in Neo-Assyrian literature of the 8th to 7th centuries BC. Tablets with fragments of a Sargon Birth Legend were found in the Library of Ashurbanipal.[6][7]\n\nName\n\nThe Akkadian name is normalized as either Šarru-ukīn or Šarru-kēn. The name's cuneiform spelling is variously LUGAL-ú-kin, \nšar-ru-gen6, šar-ru-ki-in, šar-ru-um-ki-in.[11] \nIn Old Babylonian tablets relating the legends of Sargon, his name is transcribed as 𒊬𒊒𒌝𒄀𒅔 (Šar-ru-um-ki-in).[12]\nIn Late Assyrian references, the name is mostly spelled as LUGAL-GI.NA or LUGAL-GIN, i.e. identical to the name of the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II.[13]\nThe spelling Sargon is derived from the single mention of the name (in reference to Sargon II) in the Hebrew Bible, as סַרְגוֹן, in Isaiah 20:1.[14]\n\nThe first element in the name is šarru, the Akkadian (East Semitic) for \"king\"[15] (cf. Hebrew śar שַׂר). The second element is derived either from the verb kânu \"to confirm, establish\"[16] (cognate to Hebrew kūn כּוּן),[17] or from the related adjective kēnu \"authentic, legitimate\".[18]\n\nA possible interpretation of the reading Šarru-ukīn is \"the king has established (stability)\" or \"he [the god] has established the king\". Such a name would however be unusual; other names in -ukīn always include both a subject and an object, as in Šamaš-šuma-ukīn \"Shamash has established an heir\".[13]\nThere is some debate over whether the name was an adopted regnal name or a birth name.[19][20] \nThe reading Šarru-kēn has been interpreted adjectivally, as \"the king is established; legitimate\", expanded as a phrase šarrum ki(e)num.[21]\n\nThe terms \"Pre-Sargonic\" and \"Post-Sargonic\" were used in Assyriology based on the chronologies of Nabonidus before the historical existence of Sargon of Akkad was confirmed. \nThe form Šarru-ukīn was known from the Assyrian Sargon Legend discovered in 1867 in Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh.\nA contemporary reference to Sargon thought to have been found on the cylinder seal of Ibni-sharru, a high-ranking official serving under Sargon. Joachim Menant published a description of this seal in 1877, reading the king's name as Shegani-shar-lukh, and did not yet identify it with \"Sargon the Elder\" (who was identified with the Old Assyrian king Sargon I).[22]\nIn 1883, the British Museum acquired the \"mace-head of Shar-Gani-sharri\", a votive gift deposited at the temple of Shamash in Sippar. This \"Shar-Gani\" was identified with the Sargon of Agade of Assyrian legend.[23]\nThe identification of \"Shar-Gani-sharri\" with Sargon was recognised as mistaken in the 1910s. Shar-Gani-sharri (Shar-Kali-Sharri) is, in fact, Sargon's great-grandson, the successor of Naram-Sin.[24]\n\nIt is not entirely clear whether the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II was directly named for Sargon of Akkad, as there is some uncertainty whether his name should be rendered Šarru-ukīn or as Šarru-kēn(u).[25]\n\nChronology\n\nPrimary sources pertaining to Sargon are sparse; the main near-contemporary reference is that in the various versions of the Sumerian King List.\nHere, Sargon is mentioned as the son of a gardener, former cup-bearer of Ur-Zababa of Kish. He usurped the kingship from Lugal-zage-si of Uruk and took it to his own city of Akkad. The later (early 2nd millennium BC) Weidner chronicle has Sargon ruling directly after Ur-Zababa and does not mention Lugal-zage-si.[26] Various copies of the king list give the duration of his reign as either 40 or 54-56 years.[27] Only a few contemporary inscriptions relating to Sargon exist, though there are a number of Old Babylonian period texts that purport to be copies of earlier inscriptions of Sargon.[28]\n\nIn absolute years, his reign would correspond to c. 2334-2279,[29] 2324-2285,[30] or 2316-2277[31] in the middle chronology.\n\nIt is unknown at what point in his reign the events mentioned in the king's inscriptions took place, notably his victory against Lugal-zage-si, which is a pivotal moment.[29]\n\nFoster (1982) argued that the reading of 55 years as the duration of Sargon's reign was, in fact, a corruption of an original interpretation of 37 years. An older version of the king list gives Sargon's reign as lasting for 40 years.[32]\n\nThorkild Jacobsen marked the clause about Sargon's father being a gardener as a lacuna, indicating his uncertainty about its meaning.[33]\n\nThe claim that Sargon was the original founder of Akkad has been called into question with the discovery of an inscription mentioning the place and dated to the first year of Enshakushanna, who almost certainly preceded him.[34] The Weidner Chronicle (ABC 19:51) states that it was Sargon who \"built Babylon in front of Akkad\".[35] The Chronicle of Early Kings (ABC 20:18-19) likewise states that late in his reign, Sargon \"dug up the soil of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Agade\".[36] Van de Mieroop suggested that those two chronicles may refer to the much later Assyrian king, Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, rather than to Sargon of Akkad.[37]\n\nYear names\n\nWhile various copies of the Sumerian king list and later Babylonian chronicles credit Sargon with a reign length ranging from 34 to 56 years, dated documents have been found for only four different year-names of his actual reign. The names of these four years describe his campaigns against Elam, Mari, Simurrum, and Uru'a/Arawa (in western Elam).[38]\n\nYear in which Sargon went to Simurrum\n\nYear in which Sargon destroyed Uru'a/Arawa (in westernmost portion of Elam)\n\nYear in which Sargon destroyed Elam\n\nYear in which Mari was destroyed\n\n- Known regnal year names of Sargon.[39][40]\n\nFamily\n\nThe name of Sargon's main wife, Queen Tashlultum, those of a number of his children, and of a likely brother, called Ūbil-Aštar or Ubil-Eshtar, are known to us.[41][42][43] His daughter Enheduanna was a high priestess of the moon God in Ur who composed ritual hymns.[44] Many of her works, including her Exaltation of Inanna, were in use for centuries thereafter.[45][46] Sargon was succeeded by his son Rimush; after Rimush's death another son, Manishtushu, became king. Manishtushu would be succeeded by his own son, Naram-Sin. Two other sons, Shu-Enlil (Ibarum) and Ilaba'is-takal (Abaish-Takal), are known.[47]\n\nHistoriography\n\nVictory stele of SargonThe stele, with Sargon leading a procession\"King Sargon\"Fragment of the Victory Stele of Sargon, showing Sargon with a royal hair bun, holding a mace and wearing a kaunakes flounced royal coat on his left shoulder with a large belt (left), followed by an attendant holding a royal umbrella (center) and a procession of dignitaries holding weapons.[9][48] The name of Sargon in cuneiform (Akkadian: 𒊬𒊒𒄀 𒈗 Šar-ru-gi lugal \"King Sargon\")[49] appears faintly in front of his face.[9][10] Clothing is comparable to those seen on the cylinder seal of Kalki, in which appears the likely brother of Sargon.[10] Circa 2300 BC. Louvre Museum.\n Many inscriptions relating to Sargon’s reign are known. Some are contemporary though others date to later periods.[28]\n\nNippur inscription\n\nAmong the most important sources for Sargon's reign is a tablet, in two fragments, of the Old Babylonian period recovered at Nippur in the University of Pennsylvania expedition in the 1890s. The tablet is a copy of the inscriptions on the pedestal of a statue erected by Sargon in the temple of Enlil. Fragment one (CBS 13972) was edited by Arno Poebel and fragment two (Ni 3200) by Leon Legrain.[53][54][55]\n\nConquest of Sumer\n\nIn the inscription, Sargon styles himself \"Sargon, king of Akkad, overseer (mashkim) of Inanna, king of Kish, anointed (guda) of Anu, king of the land [Mesopotamia], governor (ensi) of Enlil\". \n\nIt celebrates the conquest of Uruk and the defeat of Lugalzagesi, whom Sargon brought \"in a collar to the gate of Enlil\":[56][57]\n[58]\n\nSargon, king of Akkad, overseer of Inanna, king of Kish, anointed of Anu, king of the land, governor of Enlil: he defeated the city of Uruk and tore down its walls, in the battle of Uruk he won, took Lugalzagesi king of Uruk in the course of the battle, and led him in a collar to the gate of Enlil.\n\n- Inscription of Sargon (Old Babylonian copy from Nippur).[59]\n\nSargon then conquered Ur and E-Ninmar and \"laid waste\" the territory from Lagash to the sea, and from there went on to conquer and destroy Umma:[60]\n\nSargon, king of Agade, was victorious over Ur in battle, conquered the city and destroyed its wall. He conquered Eninmar, destroyed its walls, and conquered its district and Lagash as far as the sea. He washed his weapons in the sea. He was victorious over Umma in battle, [conquered the city, and destroyed its walls]. [To Sargon], lo[rd] of the land the god Enlil [gave no] ri[val]. The god Enlil gave to him [the Upper Sea and] the [Low]er (Sea).\n\n- Inscription of Sargon. E2.1.1.1[60]\n\nConquest of Upper Mesopotamia, as far as the Mediterranean Sea\n\nSubmitting himself to the (Levantine god) Dagan, Sargon conquered territories of Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, including Mari, Yarmuti (Jarmuth?) and Ibla \"up to the Cedar Forest (the Amanus) and up to the Silver Mountain (Aladagh?)\", ruling from the \"upper sea\" (Mediterranean) to the \"lower sea\" (Persian Gulf).[61][60]\n\nSargon the King bowed down to Dagan in Tuttul. He (Dagan) gave to him (Sargon) the Upper Land: Mari, Iarmuti, and Ebla, as far as the Cedar Forest and the Silver Mountains\n\n- Nippur inscription of Sargon.[62]\n\nConquests of Elam and Marhashi\n\nSargon also claims in his inscriptions that he is \"Sargon, king of the world, conqueror of Elam and Parahshum\", the two major polities to the east of Sumer.[60] He also names various rulers of the east whom he vanquished, such as \"Luh-uh-ish-an, son of Hishibrasini, king of Elam, king of Elam\" or \"Sidga'u, general of Parahshum\", who later also appears in an inscription by Rimush.[60]\n\nSargon triumphed over 34 cities in total. Ships from Meluhha, Magan and Dilmun, rode at anchor in his capital of Akkad.[63]\n\nHe entertained a court or standing army of 5,400 men who \"ate bread daily before him\".[56]\n\nLater literary composition on Sargon\n\nSargon Epos\n\nA group of four Babylonian texts, summarized as \"Sargon Epos\" or Res Gestae Sargonis, shows Sargon as a military commander asking the advice of many subordinates before going on campaigns. \nThe narrative of Sargon, the Conquering Hero, is set at Sargon's court, in a situation of crisis. Sargon addresses his warriors, praising the virtue of heroism, and a lecture by a courtier on the glory achieved by a champion of the army, a narrative relating a campaign of Sargon's into the far land of Uta-raspashtim, including an account of a \"darkening of the Sun\" and the conquest of the land of Simurrum, \nand a concluding oration by Sargon listing his conquests.[65]\n\nThe narrative of King of Battle relates Sargon's campaign against the Anatolian city of Purushanda in order to protect his merchants.\nVersions of this narrative in both Hittite and Akkadian have been found. \nThe Hittite version is extant in six fragments, the Akkadian version is known from several manuscripts \nfound at Amarna, Assur, and Nineveh.[65]\nThe narrative is anachronistic, portraying Sargon in a 19th-century milieu.[66] The same text mentions that Sargon crossed the Sea of the West (Mediterranean Sea) and ended up in Kuppara, which some authors have interpreted as the Akkadian word for Keftiu, an ancient locale usually associated with Crete or Cyprus.[67][68]\n\nFamine and war threatened Sargon's empire during the latter years of his reign. The Chronicle of Early Kings reports that revolts broke out throughout the area under the last years of his overlordship:\n\nAfterward in his [Sargon's] old age all the lands revolted against him, and they besieged him in Akkad; and Sargon went onward to battle and defeated them; he accomplished their overthrow, and their widespreading host he destroyed. Afterward he attacked the land of Subartu in his might, and they submitted to his arms, and Sargon settled that revolt, and defeated them; he accomplished their overthrow, and their widespreading host he destroyed, and he brought their possessions into Akkad. The soil from the trenches of Babylon he removed, and the boundaries of Akkad he made like those of Babylon. But because of the evil which he had committed, the great lord Marduk was angry, and he destroyed his people by famine. From the rising of the sun unto the setting of the sun they opposed him and gave him no rest.[69]\n\nA. Leo Oppenheim translates the last sentence as \"From the East to the West he [i.e. Marduk] alienated (them) from him and inflicted upon (him as punishment) that he could not rest (in his grave).\"[70]\n\nChronicle of Early Kings\n\nShortly after securing Sumer, Sargon embarked on a series of campaigns to subjugate the entire Fertile Crescent. According to the Chronicle of Early Kings, a later Babylonian historiographical text:\n\n[Sargon] had neither rival nor equal. His splendor, over the lands it diffused. He crossed the sea in the east. In the eleventh year he conquered the western land to its farthest point. He brought it under one authority. He set up his statues there and ferried the west's booty across on barges. He stationed his court officials at intervals of five double hours and ruled in unity the tribes of the lands. He marched to Kazallu and turned Kazallu into a ruin heap, so that there was not even a perch for a bird left.[71] and [72]\n\nIn the east, Sargon defeated four leaders of Elam, led by the king of Awan. Their cities were sacked; the governors, viceroys, and kings of Susa, Waraḫše, and neighboring districts became vassals of Akkad.[73]\n\nOrigin legends\n\nSargon became the subject of legendary narratives describing his rise to power from humble origins and his conquest of Mesopotamia in later Assyrian and Babylonian literature. Apart from these secondary, and partly legendary, accounts, there are many inscriptions due to Sargon himself, although the majority of these are known only from much later copies.[74] The Louvre has fragments of two Sargonic victory steles recovered from Susa (where\nthey were presumably transported from Mesopotamia in the 12th century BC).[75]\n\nSumerian legend\n\nThe Sumerian-language Sargon legend contains a legendary account of Sargon's rise to power. It is an older version of the previously known Assyrian legend, discovered in 1974 in Nippur and first edited in 1983.[12] Subsequent scholarship questioned if the two fragments were actually a join, or were even from two different texts. The initial translation has also been questioned.[76]\n\nThe extant versions are incomplete, but the surviving two fragments name Sargon's father as La'ibum. After a lacuna, the text skips to Ur-Zababa, king of Kish, who awakens after a dream, the contents of which are not revealed on the surviving portion of the tablet. For unknown reasons, Ur-Zababa appoints Sargon as his cup-bearer. Soon after this, Ur-Zababa invites Sargon to his chambers to discuss a dream of Sargon's, involving the favor of the goddess Inanna and the drowning of Ur-Zababa by the goddess in a river of blood.[77] Deeply frightened, Ur-Zababa orders Sargon murdered by the hands of Beliš-tikal, the chief smith, but Inanna prevents it, demanding that Sargon stop at the gates because of his being \"polluted with blood\". When Sargon returns to Ur-Zababa, the king becomes frightened again and decides to send Sargon to king Lugal-zage-si of Uruk with a message on a clay tablet asking him to slay Sargon.[78] The legend breaks off at this point; presumably, the missing sections described how Sargon becomes king.[79]\n\nThe part of the interpretation of the king's dream has parallels to the biblical story of Joseph, the part about the letter with the carrier's death sentence has similarities to the Greek story of Bellerophon and the biblical story of Uriah.[80]\n\nBirth legend\n\nA Neo-Assyrian text from the 7th century BC purporting to be Sargon's autobiography asserts that the great king was the illegitimate son of a priestess. \nOnly the beginning of the text (the first two columns) is known, from the fragments of three manuscripts. \nThe first fragments were discovered as early as 1850.[65]\nSargon's birth and his early childhood are described thus: \n\nMy mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and ... years I exercised kingship.\n\nSimilarities between the Sargon Birth Legend and other infant birth exposures in ancient literature, including Moses, Karna, and Oedipus, were noted by psychoanalyst Otto Rank in his 1909 book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.[81] The legend was also studied in detail by Brian Lewis, and compared with many different examples of the infant birth exposure motif found in Eurasian folktales. He discusses a possible archetype form, giving particular attention to the Sargon legend and the account of the birth of Moses.[6] Joseph Campbell has also made such comparisons.[82]\n\nSargon is also one of the many suggestions for the identity or inspiration for the biblical Nimrod. Ewing William (1910) suggested Sargon based on his unification of the Babylonians and the Neo-Assyrian birth legend.[83] Yigal Levin (2002) suggested that Nimrod was a recollection of Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin, with the name \"Nimrod\" derived from the latter.[84]\n\nA model king\n\nSargon was regarded as a model by Mesopotamian kings for some two millennia after his death. The Assyrian and Babylonian kings who based their empires in Mesopotamia saw themselves as the heirs of Sargon's empire. \nSargon may indeed have introduced the notion of \"empire\" as understood in the later Assyrian period; the Neo-Assyrian Sargon Text, written in the first person, has Sargon challenging later rulers to \"govern the black-headed people\" (i.e. the indigenous population of Mesopotamia) as he did.[85] An important source for \"Sargonic heroes\" in oral tradition in the later Bronze Age is a Middle Hittite (15th century BC) record of a Hurro-Hittite song, which calls upon Sargon and his immediate successors as \"deified kings\" (dšarrena).[86]\n\nNeo-Babylonian king Nabonidus showed great interest in the history of the Sargonid dynasty and even conducted excavations of Sargon's palaces and those of his successors.[87]\n\nIn popular culture\n\nThe fanciful adventure film The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior (2008) imagines Sargon of Akkad as a murderous army commander wielding black magic. He is the film's main villain, portrayed by Randy Couture.[88]\n\nThe twentieth episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Original Series, \"Return to Tomorrow\", features an ancient, telepathic alien named Sargon who once ruled a mighty empire.\n\nAmerican Rock Group They Might Be Giants refer to Sargon of Akkad in the track \"The Mesopotamians\" on their 2007 album The Else, along with Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal and Gilgamesh.\n\nCarl Benjamin, British right-wing YouTuber and political commentator, goes by the online pseudonym \"Sargon of Akkad\" on his YouTube channel.\n\nThe Return of Rome expansion pack for the video game Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition features a campaign called \"Sargon of Akkad\", which depicts his conquest of Sumer and the rise of the Akkadian Empire.\n\nSee also\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nList of kings of Akkad\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"King of Akkad, Kish, and Sumer\" is a translation of the Akkadian phrase \"LUGAL Ag-ga-dèKI, LUGAL KIŠ, LUGAL KALAM.MAKI\". See Peter Panitschek, Lugal - šarru - βασιλεύς: Formen der Monarchie im Alten Vorderasien von der Uruk-Zeik bis zum Hellenismus (2008), p. 138. KALAM.MA, meaning \"land, country\", is the old Sumerian name of the cultivated part of Mesopotamia (Sumer). See Esther Flückiger-Hawker, Urnamma of Ur in Sumerian Literary Tradition (1999), p. 138.\n\n^ a b The date of the reign of Sargon is highly uncertain, depending entirely on the (conflicting) regnal years given in the various copies of the Sumerian King List, specifically the uncertain duration of the Gutian dynasty. The added regnal years of the Sargonic and the Gutian dynasties have to be subtracted from the accession of Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which is variously dated to either 2047 BC (Short Chronology) or 2112 BC (Middle Chronology). An accession date of Sargon of 2334 BC assumes: (1) a Sargonic dynasty of 180 years (fall of Akkad 2154 BC), (2) a Gutian interregnum of 42 years and (3) the Middle Chronology accession year of Ur-Nammu (2112 BC).\n\n^ also \"Sargon the Elder\", and in older literature Shargani-shar-ali and Shargina-Sharrukin. Gaston Maspero (ed. A. H. Sayce, trans. M. L. McClure), History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria (1906?), p. 90.\n\n^ Van de Mieroop, Marc. A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000-323 BC. Blackwell, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4051-4911-2. p. 63.\n\n^ Bauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393070897 - via Google Książki.\n\n^ a b Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (January 1984). \"Review of The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero Who Was Exposed at Birth. By Brian Lewis\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 43 (1): 73-79. doi:10.1086/373065. JSTOR 545065.\n\n^ King, L. W. (1907). Chronicles concerning early Babylonian kings. London, Luzac and co. pp. 87-96.\n\n^ \"RIME 2.01.01.10, ex. 01 (P215559)\". CDLI. Retrieved 27 July 2026.\n\n^ a b c Foster, Benjamin R. (2015). The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 978-1317415527.\n\n^ a b c d Nigro, Lorenzo (1998). \"The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief\". Iraq. 60. British Institute for the Study of Iraq: 93-94. doi:10.2307/4200454. hdl:11573/109737. JSTOR 4200454. S2CID 193050892.\n\n^ \"ETCSLsearch\". etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk.\n\n^ a b c Cooper, Jerrold S. and Wolfgang Heimpel, \"The Sumerian Sargon Legend\", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 103, no. 1, pp. 67-82, January-March 1983\n\n^ a b Eckart Frahm. \"Observations on the Name and Age of Sargon II and on Some Patterns of Assyrian Royal Onomastics\" (PDF). University College London. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Isaiah 20:1 | Sefaria Library\". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 26 January 2026.\n\n^ \"Akkadian Dictionary: šarru\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 26 January 2026.\n\n^ \"Akkadian Dictionary: kânu\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 27 January 2026.\n\n^ Strong's Concordance H3559 \"to be erect (i.e. stand perpendicular); hence (causatively) to set up, in a great variety of applications, whether literal (establish, fix, prepare, apply), or figurative (appoint, render sure, proper or prosperous)\"\n\n^ \"Akkadian Dictionary: kēnu\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 26 January 2026.\n\n^ Lewis 1984: 277-292\n\n^ Sallaberger & Westenholz 1999: 34\n\n^ Peter Panitschek\n, Lugal - šarru - βασιλεύς (2008), p. 51.\n\n^ \nLouis de Clercq, Catalogue méthodique et raisonné. Antiquités assyriennes, cylindres orientaux, cachets, briques, bronzes, bas-reliefs, etc., vol. I, Cylindres orientaux, avec la collaboration de Joachim Menant, E. Leroux, Paris, 1888, no. 46.\n\n^ Leonard William King, A History of Sumer and Akkad (1910), 216-218.\n\n^ \"But it is now evident that Sharganisharri was 'not confused with Shargani or Sargon' in the 'tradition' (p. 133), but only by the moderns who insisted on connecting the Sharganisharri of contemporary documents with the Sargon of the Legend\" D. D. Luckenbill, Review of: The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria by Morris Jastrow, Jr., The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Vol. 33, No. 3 (Apr. 1917), pp. 252-254.\n\n^ References to Sargon II are mostly spelled logographically, as LUGAL-GI.NA or LUGAL-GIN, but occasional phonetic spelling in ''ú-kin appears to support the form Šarru-ukīn over Šarru-kēn(u) (based on a single spelling in -ke-e-nu found in Khorsabad).\nThe name of the Old Assyrian king Sargon I is spelled as LUGAL-ke-en or LUGAL-ki-in in king lists.\nIn addition to the Biblical form (סרגון), the Hebrew spelling סרגן has been found in an inscription in Khorsabad, suggesting that the name in the Neo-Assyrian period might have been pronounced Sar(ru)gīn, the voicing representing a regular development in Neo-Assyrian. (Frahm 2005)\n\n^ Drews, Robert. “Sargon, Cyrus and Mesopotamian Folk History.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 33, no. 4, 1974, pp. 387-93\n\n^ 266-296: \"In Agade, Sargon, whose father was a gardener, the cupbearer of Ur-Zababa, became king, the king of Agade, {who built Agade} {L1+N1: under whom Agade was built}; he ruled for {WB:56; L1+N1: 55; TL: 54} years. Rīmuš, the son of Sargon, ruled for {WB: 9} {IB: 7, L1+N1: 15} years. Man-ištiššu, the older brother of Rīmuš, the son of Sargon, ruled for {WB: 15} {L1+N1: 7} years. Narām-Suen, the son of Man-ištiššu, ruled for {L1+N1, P3+BT14: 56} years. Šar-kali-šarrī, the son of Narām-Suen, ruled for {L1+N1, Su+Su4: 25; P3+BT14: 24} years. {P3+BT14: 157 are the years of the dynasty of Sargon.}\" mss. are referred to by the sigla used by Vincente 1995. Electronic Text Corpus of the Sumerian Language\n\n^ a b \"CDLI-Found Texts\". cdli.earth.\n\n^ a b Frayne 1993, p. 7.\n\n^ Lafont 2017, p. 166.\n\n^ Schrakamp 2020, p. 615.\n\n^ Rebecca Hasselbach, Sargonic Akkadian: A Historical and Comparative Study of the Syllabic Texts (2005), p. 5 (fn 28).\n\n^ Jacobsen 1939: 111\n\n^ [1] Van de Mieroop, Marc., \"Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History\", Routledge, 1999 ISBN 978-0415195331\n\n^ Grayson 1975: 19:51\n\n^ Grayson 1975: 20:18-19\n\n^ Stephanie Dalley (18 July 2005). \"Babylon as a Name for Other Cities Including Nineveh\" (PDF). The University of Oxford. 62: 25-33. ISBN 978-1-885923-54-7. ISSN 0081-7554. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2026.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale\n\n^ Year Names of Sargon of Akkad\n\n^ \"Year Names of Sargon\". cdli.ox.ac.uk.\n\n^ Potts, D. T. (2016). The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge University Press. pp. 92-93. ISBN 978-1-107-09469-7.\n\n^ Tetlow, Elisabeth Meier (2004). Women, Crime, and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society: The ancient Near East. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-1628-5. Retrieved 29 July 2011.\n\n^ \nMichael Roaf (1992). Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. Stonehenge Press. ISBN 978-0-86706-681-4.\n\n^ a b Nigro, Lorenzo (1998). \"The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief\". Iraq. 60. British Institute for the Study of Iraq: 85-102. doi:10.2307/4200454. hdl:11573/109737. JSTOR 4200454. S2CID 193050892.\n\n^ Schomp 2005: 81\n\n^ Kramer 1981: 351\n\n^ Hallo, W. and J. J. A. Van Dijk, \"The Exaltation of Inanna\", Yale University Press, 1968\n\n^ \"CDLI Seals 001436 (physical) (P217331)\". CDLI. Retrieved 27 July 2026.\n\n^ Nigro, Lorenzo (1998). \"The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief\". Iraq. 60. British Institute for the Study of Iraq: 92. doi:10.2307/4200454. hdl:11573/109737. JSTOR 4200454. S2CID 193050892.\n\n^ \"Victory stele of Sargon\". cdli.ucla.edu.\n\n^ Potts, D. T. (1999). The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0521564960.\n\n^ McKeon, John F. X. (1970). \"An Akkadian Victory Stele\". Boston Museum Bulletin. 68 (354): 235. ISSN 0006-7997. JSTOR 4171539.\n\n^ Nigro, Lorenzo (1998). \"The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief\". Iraq. 60. British Institute for the Study of Iraq: 85-102. doi:10.2307/4200454. hdl:11573/109737. JSTOR 4200454. S2CID 193050892.\n\n^ L. Legrain, \"Royal Inscriptions and Fragments from Nippur and Babylon\", Philadelphia, 1926\n\n^ [2] A. Poebel,\"Historical Texts\" Philadelphia, 1914\n\n^ [3] A. Poebel, \"Historical and Grammatical Texts\", Philadelphia, 1914\n\n^ a b Mario Liverani, \"The Ancient Near East: History\", Routledge (2013), p. 143\n\n^ Kramer 1963 p. 324\n\n^ Amélie, Kuhrt (1996). The Ancient Near East: c. 3000-330 B.C. Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-415-16763-5.\n\n^ Liverani, Mario (2013). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.\n\n^ a b c d e [4] Douglas R. Frayne, \"Akkad\", The Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2334-2113), University of Toronto Press, pp. 5-218, 1993 ISBN 0-8020-0593-4\n\n^ \nA.H.Sayce, review of G. Contenau, \"Les Tablettes de Kerkouk (1926)\", Antiquity, 1.4, (December 1927), 503ff. \"Yarmuti is probably the Yarimuta of the Tel el-Amarna letters, the name of which seems to be preserved in that of Armuthia south of Killiz. [...] the Silver mountains must be the Ala-Dagh, where at Bereketli Maden there are extensive remains of ancient silver mines\"; \ncf. W.F. Albright, \"The Origin of the Name Cilicia\", American Journal of Philology 43.2 (1922), 166f.\n\"Another, much more portentous mistake of the same kind (loc. cit. [ Jour. Eg. Arch., VI, 296]) is Sayce's statement that Yarmuti is \"classical\" Armuthia. The source of this is Tompkins, Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., IX, 242, ad 218 (of the Tuthmosis list): \"Mauti. Perhaps the Yari-muta of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, now (I think) Armūthia, south of Killis.\" This is the modern village of Armûdja, a hamlet some three miles south of Killis, not on the coast at all, but in the heart of Syria, and with no known classical background.\"\nSee also\nM. C. Astour in Eblaitica vol. 4, Eisenbrauns (1987), 68f.\n\n^ Buck, Mary E. (2019). The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit: Historical Implications of Linguistic and Archaeological Parallels. Brill. p. 169. ISBN 978-90-04-41511-9.\n\n^ \"MS 2814 - The Schoyen Collection\". www.schoyencollection.com.\n\n^ \"CDLI Seals 001415 (physical) (P216421)\". CDLI. Retrieved 27 July 2026.\n\n^ a b c [5] Joan Goodnick Westenholz, \"Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts\", Eisenbrauns, 1997\n\n^ Studevent-Hickman, Benjamin; Morgan, Christopher (2006). \"Old Akkadian Period Texts\". In Chavalas, Mark William (ed.). The ancient Near East: historical sources in translation. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 24-27. ISBN 978-0-631-23580-4.\n\n^ \nWainright, G.A., \"Asiatic Keftiu\", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 196-212, (October 1952)\n\n^ Vandersleyen, Claude, \"Keftiu: A Cautionary Note\", Oxford Journal of Archaeology, vol. 22, iss. 2, pp. 209-212, 2003\n\n^ Botsforth 1912: 27-28\n\n^ Oppenheim, A. Leo (translator). Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. James B. Pritchard, ed. Princeton: University Press, 1969, p. 266.\n\n^ Grayson 1975\n\n^ Glassner 2004\n\n^ Gershevitch, I. (1985). The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-521-20091-2.\n\n^ Gwendolyn Leick, Who's Who in the Ancient Near East, Routledge (2002), p. 141.\n\n^ Lorenzo Nigro, \"The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief\" Iraq LX (1998); Louvre Sb1 \n(Stèle de victoire de Sargon, roi d'Akkad, Apportée à Suse, Iran, en butin de guerre au XIIe siècle avant J.-C. Fouilles J. de Morgan).\n\n^ Alster, Bendt, \"A Note on the Uriah Letter in the Sumerian Sargon Legend\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 77, no. 2, pp. 169-173, 1987\n\n^ \"Sargon and Ur-Zababa\". ETCSL.\n\n^ \"The Sargon Legend.\" The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Oxford University, 2006\n\n^ Cooper & Heimpel 1983: 67-82\n\n^ Cynthia C. Polsley, \"Views of Epic Transmission in Sargonic Tradition and the Bellerophon Saga\" (2012).\nBendt Alster, \"A Note on the Uriah Letter in the Sumerian Sargon Legend\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 77.2 (1987).\nStephanie Dalley, Sargon of Agade in literature:\n\"The episode of dreams which Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh in Genesis 37 bears a notable resemblance to Sargon's interpretation of the dreams of the king of Kish in the Sumerian Legend of Sargon, the same legend contains the motif of the messenger who carries a letter which orders his own death, comparable to the story of Uriah in 2 Samuel 11 (and of Bellerophon in Iliad 6). The episode in the Akkadian Legend of Sargon's Birth, in which Sargon as an infant was concealed and abandoned in a boat, resembles the story of the baby Moses in Exodus 2. The Sumerian story was popular in the early second millennium, and the Akkadian legend may originally have introduced it. Cuneiform scribes were trained with such works for many centuries. They enjoyed new popularity in the late eighth century when Sargon II of Assyria sought to associate himself with his famous namesake.\"\n\n^ Otto Rank (1914). The myth of the birth of the hero: a psychological interpretation of mythology. English translation by Drs. F. Robbins and Smith Ely Jelliffe. New York : The Journal of nervous and mental disease publishing company.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ Campbell, Joseph (1964). The Masks of God, Vol. 3: Occidental Mythology. p. 127.\n\n^ Ewing, William (1910). The Temple Dictionary of the Bible. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton. p. 514.\n\n^ Levin, Yigal (2002). \"Nimrod the Mighty, King of Kish, King of Sumer and Akkad\". Vetus Testamentum. 52 (3): 350-356. doi:10.1163/156853302760197494.\n\n^ \n\"The black-headed peoples I ruled, I governed; mighty mountains with axes of bronze I destroyed. I ascended the upper mountains; I burst through the lower mountains. The country of the sea I besieged three times; Dilmun I captured. Unto the great Dur-ilu I went up, I ... I altered ... Whatsoever king shall be exalted after me, ... Let him rule, let him govern the black-headed peoples; mighty mountains with axes of bronze let him destroy; let him ascend the upper mountains, let him break through the lower mountains; the country of the sea let him besiege three times; Dilmun let him capture; To great Dur-ilu let him go up.\" Barton 310, as modernized by J. S. Arkenberg\n\n^ Bachvarova (2016:182).\n\n^ Oates, John. Babylon. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979, p. 162.\n\n^ \"The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior synopsis\". The Scorpion King. Archived from the original on 3 September 2004. Retrieved 27 July 2009.\n\n^ McKeon, John F. X. (1970). \"An Akkadian Victory Stele\". Boston Museum Bulletin. 68 (354): 237. ISSN 0006-7997. JSTOR 4171539.\n\nReferences\n\nAlbright, W. F., \"A Babylonian Geographical Treatise on Sargon of Akkad's Empire\", Journal of the American Oriental Society, pp. 193-245, 1925\n\nBachvarova, Mary R., \"Sargon the Great: from history to myth\", in From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic, pp. 166-198, Cambridge University Press, 2016 ISBN 9780521509794\n\nBeaulieu, Paul-Alain, et al., \"A Companion to the Ancient near East\", Blackwell, 2005 ISBN 9780631232933\n\nBotsforth, George W., \"The Reign of Sargon\", \"A Source-Book of Ancient History\", New York: Macmillan, 1912\n\nFoster, Benjamin R., \"The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia\", Routledge, 2016 ISBN 9781138909755\n\nGlassner, Jean-Jacques, \"Mesopotamian Chronicles\", Society of Biblical Literature, 2004 ISBN 1-58983-090-3\n\nGrayson, Albert Kirk, \"Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles\", J. J. Augustin, 1975; Eisenbrauns, 2000\n\n[6]Jacobsen, Thorkild, \"The Sumerian King List\", Assyriological Studies, AS 11, Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1939\n\n[7]King, L. W., \"Chronicles Concerning Early Babylonian Kings\", II, London, pp. 87-96, 1907\n\nKramer, S. Noah, \"The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character\", Chicago, 1963\n\nKramer, S. Noah, \"History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine \"Firsts\" in Recorded History\", Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1981\n\nLewis, Brian, \"The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero Who Was Exposed at Birth\", American Schools of Oriental Research Dissertation Series, no. 4, Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1984\n\nLuckenbill, D. D., \"On the Opening Lines of the Legend of Sargon\", The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, pp. 145-46, 1917\n\nPostgate, Nicholas. \"Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History\", Routledge, 1994\n\nRoux, G., \"Ancient Iraq\", London, 1980\n\nSallaberger, Walter, \"Mesopotamien. Akkade-Zeit und Ur III-Zeit\", Annäherungen 3. OBO 160/3. Freiburg, Schweiz/Göttingen, 1999 ISBN 978-3-525-53325-3\n\nSchomp, Virginia, \"Ancient Mesopotamia\", Franklin Watts, 2005 ISBN 0-531-16741-0\n\nVan de Mieroop, Marc, \"A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000-323 BC\", Blackwell, 2006 ISBN 978-1-4051-4911-2\n\nFurther reading\n\nFrayne, Douglas R. (1993). The Sargonic and Gutian Periods (2334-2113). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.\n\nWestenholz, Joan Goodnick (1997). Legends of the Kings of Akkade. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.\n\nFoster, Benjamin R. (2016). The Age of Agade: Inventing empire in ancient Mesopotamia. Londres and New York: Routledge / Taylor & Francis Group.\n\nLafont, Bertrand (2017). \"Akkad, l'empire charismatique (2330-2100)\". Mésopotamie: De Gilgamesh à Artaban (3300-120 av. J.-C.). Mondes anciens (in French). Paris: Belin. pp. 165-199.\n\nMcMahon, Augusta (2012). \"The Akkadian Period: Empire, Environment, and Imagination\". In Daniel T. Potts (ed.). A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Blackwell companions to the ancient world. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. pp. 649-667.\n\nMichalowski, Piotr (2020). \"The Kingdom of Akkad in Contact with the World\". In Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller and Daniel T. Potts (ed.). The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, Volume 2: From the End of the Third Millennium bc to the Fall of Babylon. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 686-764.\n\nSchrakamp, Ingo (2020). \"The Kingdom of Akkad: A View from Within\". In Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller and Daniel T. Potts (ed.). The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, Volume 2: From the End of the Third Millennium bc to the Fall of Babylon. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 612-685.\n\nWestenholz, Aage (1999). \"The Old Akkadian Period: History and Culture\". Mesopotamien: Akkade-Zeit und Ur III-Zeit. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis. Freiburg and Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 17-118.\n\nSteinkeller, Piotr (2021). \"The Sargonic and Ur III Empires\". In Peter Fibiger Bang, C.A. Bayly and Walter Scheidel (ed.). The Oxford World History of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 43-72.\n\nExternal links\n\nTexts attributed to Sargon of Akkad’s reign on CDLI"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sargon-of-akkad"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6459}, {"slug": "reference-history-of-the-assyrians", "title": "History of the Assyrians", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The history of the Assyrians encompasses nearly five millennia, covering the history of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Assyria, including its territory, culture and people, as well as the later history of the Assyrian people after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC.[a] For purposes of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The history of the Assyrians encompasses nearly five millennia, covering the history of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Assyria, including its territory, culture and people, as well as the later history of the Assyrian people after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC.[a] For purposes of historiography, ancient Assyrian history is often divided by modern researchers, based on political events and gradual changes in language, into the Early Assyrian (c. 2600-2025 BC), Old Assyrian (c. 2025-1364 BC), Middle Assyrian (c. 1363-912 BC), Neo-Assyrian (911-609 BC) and post-imperial (609 BC-c. AD 240) periods,[10][11] Sassanid era Asoristan from 240 AD until 637 AD and the post Islamic conquest period until the present day.\n\nAssyria gets its name from the ancient city of Assur, founded c. 2600 BC. During much of its early history, Assur was dominated by foreign states and polities from southern Mesopotamia, for instance falling under the hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish, being incorporated into the ethnically same Akkadian Empire and falling under the rule of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The city and its surrounds became an independent city-state under its own line of rulers during the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, achieving independence under Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC. Puzur-Ashur's dynasty continued to govern Assur which became a regional power with colonies in Anatolia and influence over South Mesopotamia until the throne was usurped by the Amorite conqueror Shamshi-Adad I c. 1808 BC. This period is sometimes known as the Old Assyrian Empire and latterly the 'Empire of Shamshi Adad'. After a few decades of Babylonian domination in the mid 18th century BC, Assyria was restored as an independent state, perhaps by the king Puzur-Sin or his successor Adasi, both of whom defeated the Babylonians and Amorites. In the 15th century BC, Assyria briefly fell under the suzerainty of the Mitanni kingdom. After wars between Mitanni and the Hittites, Assur broke free, and under Ashur-uballit I (r. c. 1363-1328 BC) destroyed the Hurri-Mitanni Empire and annexed much of the territory of the Hittite Empire and transitioned to a powerful territorial state governing an increasingly large stretch of territory in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant, forming the Middle Assyrian Empire.\n\nUnder the 14th and 13th-century BC warrior-kings Adad-nirari I, Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I, the Middle Assyrian Empire became one of the great powers of the ancient Near East, for a time even occupying Babylonia in the south. After the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1056 BC, Assyria experienced a long period of decline, sometimes interrupted by energetic warrior-kings, which restricted Assyria to little more than the Assyrian heartland and surrounding territories, though Assyrian military prowess remained the best in the world. New efforts by the Assyrian kings of the 10th and 9th centuries BC reversed this decline and saw a renewed period of expansion. Under Ashurnasirpal II in the early 9th century BC, Assyria (now the Neo-Assyrian Empire) once more became the dominant political and military power of the Near East. Assyrian expansionism and power reached its peak under Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BC and the subsequent Sargonid dynasty of kings, under whom the Neo-Assyrian Empire stretched from Egypt, Libya and Arabian Peninsula the south to the Caucasus in the north, and Persia in the east to Cyprus in the west. Babylonia was recaptured and Assyrian campaigns were conducted into both Anatolia and modern-day Armenia. The empire, and Assyria as a state, came to an end in the late 7th century BC as a result of the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire after a draining civil war among rival claimants to the Assyrian throne had gravely weakened it.\n\nAfter the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian people continued to survive northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia and Assyrian cultural traditions were kept alive. Though the Babylonians and Medes had extensively devastated Assyrian cities, the region was soon significantly rebuilt and revived under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Parthian empires, from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD. Assur itself flourished in the late post-imperial period, perhaps once more under its own line of rulers as a semi-autonomous city-state. During the Parthian Empire a number of Neo Assyrian states emerged from the 2nd century BC to mid 3rd century AD, including Assur, Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai and the partly Assyrian Hatra. However these states were conquered by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240. Starting from the 1st century AD onwards, the Assyrians were Christianized, though holdouts of the old ancient Mesopotamian religion continued to survive for many centuries, into the Late Middle Ages in some regions. The Assyrians continued to constitute a significant if not majority portion of the population in northern Mesopotamia, Northeast Syria and Southeast Anatolia until suppression and massacres under the Ilkhanate and the Timurid Empire in the 14th century. These atrocities relegated the Assyrians to a local indigenous ethnic, linguistic and religious minority. The late 19th century and early 20th century were marked by further persecution and massacres, most notably the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide) of the Ottoman Empire in the 1910s, which resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 Assyrians.[b] This time of atrocities was also marked by an increasing Assyrian cultural consciousness; the first Assyrian newspaper, Zahrirē d-Bahra (\"Rays of Light\"), began publishing in 1848 and the earliest Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party, was founded in 1917. Throughout the 20th century and still today, many unsuccessful proposals have been made by the Assyrians for autonomy or independence. Further massacres and persecutions, enacted both by governments and by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State have resulted in most of the Assyrian people living in diaspora.\n\nAncient Assyria (2600 BC-AD 240)\n\nEarly Assyrian period (2600-2025 BC)\n\nAgricultural villages in the region that would later become Assyria are known to have existed by the time of the Hassuna culture,[13] c. 6300-5800 BC.[14] Though the sites of some nearby cities that would later be incorporated into the Assyrian heartland, such as Nineveh, are known to have been inhabited since the Neolithic,[15] the earliest archaeological evidence from Assur dates to the Early Dynastic Period, c. 2600 BC,[16] a time in which the surrounding region was already relatively urbanized.[13] It is possible that the city was founded earlier;[17][15] much of the early historical remains of Assur may have been destroyed during the extensive construction projects of later Assyrian kings, who worked to create level foundations for the buildings they erected in the city.[18] There is no evidence that early Assur was an independent settlement,[17] and it might not have been called Assur at all initially, but rather Baltil or Baltila, used in later times to refer to the city's oldest portion.[19] The name \"Assur\" is first attested for the site in documents of the Akkadian period in the 24th century BC.[20]\n\nEarly Assur was probably a local religious and tribal center and must have been a town of some size since it had monumental temples.[21][22][23] It was located in a highly strategic location, on a hill overlooking the Tigris river, protected by a river on one side and a canal on another.[17] Surviving archaeological and literary evidence has been suggested by some historians that Assur in its earliest history may have been inhabited by Hurrians as well as Semitic ancestors of the Assyrians, although others reject this hypothesis. [13][24] Assur was the site of a fertility cult devoted to the Assyrian-Akkadian goddess Ishtar.[25] The earliest known archaeological finds at the site are Early Dynastic-age temples dedicated to Ishtar. These temples and the artifacts within them also show considerable similarities to temples and artifacts from Sumer in southern Mesopotamia, which might suggest that there was also a group of Sumerians living in the city,[26] that it at some point was conquered by an unknown Sumerian ruler or simply be an example of the melding of Sumerian and Akkadian speaking culture in Mesopotamia.[27] The East Semitic-speaking ancestors of the later Assyrians settled in Mesopotamia at some point during the 35th and 31st century BC, either assimilating[13] or displacing the previous population. The earliest Assyrian king named Tudia appears to have lived in the mid 25th century BC.[24]\n\nDuring much of the early Assyrian period, Assur was dominated by states and polities from southern Mesopotamia.[28] Early on, Assur for a time fell under the loose hegemony of the Sumerian city of Kish[22] and it was later occupied by both the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur.[17] The Akkadian Empire probably conquered Assur in the time of its first ruler, Sargon (c. 2334-2279 BC),[22] and is known to have controlled the city at least from the reign of Manishtushu (c. 2270-2255 BC) onwards since contemporary inscriptions dedicated to Manishtushu have been recovered from the city.[29] The earliest historically attested rulers[c] of Assur were local governors under the Akkadian kings, including figures such as Ititi[33] and Azazu,[34] who bore the title Išši'ak Aššur (governor of Assur).[29][34] Assur was strongly influenced both culturally and linguistically by the period under Akkadian rule (the Akkadians and Assyrians being ethno-linguistically the same people) and the period would be regarded as a golden age by later Assyrian kings, who often sought to emulate the Akkadian rulers who they viewed as their ancestors.[35]\n\nAssur was largely destroyed in the late Akkadian period, possibly by the Lullubi,[36] but was rebuilt and later conquered by the Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd or early 21st century BC. Under the rulers of Ur, Assur became a peripheral city state under its own governors, such as Zariqum, who paid tribute to the southern kings.[37] This period of Sumerian dominance over the city came to an end as the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Ibbi-Sin (c. 2028-2004 BC) lost his administrative grip on the peripheral regions of his empire and Assur became an independent city-state controlling areas of northern Mesopotamia under its own rulers, beginning with Puzur-Ashur I c. 2025 BC, although it appears kings such as Ushpia c. 2080 BC were also independent.[36]\n\nOld Assyrian period (2025-1364 BC)\n\nPuzur-Ashur I and the succeeding kings of his dynasty, the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, did not technically claim the dignity of \"king\" (šar) for themselves, but continued to use the style rulers of Assur had used while the city was under foreign rule, Išši'ak (\"governor\"). The use of this style asserted that the actual king of the city was the Assyrian national deity Ashur and that the Assyrian ruler was merely his representative on Earth.[38][39] It is probable that Ashur took form as a deity at some point during the Early Assyrian period as a personification of the city of Assur itself.[40] During the rule of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, Assur was home to less than 10,000 people and the military power of the city is likely to have been limited to local regions; no sources describe any military conquests whatsoever and no surrounding cities appear to have been subjected to the rule of the Assyrian kings.[41] The earliest known surviving inscription by an Assyrian king was written by Puzur-Ashur I's son and successor Shalim-ahum, and records the king having built a temple dedicated to Ashur \"for his own life and the life of his city\".[38] The fourth king of the dynasty, Erishum I (r. c. 1974-1934 BC), is the earliest king whose length of reign is recorded in the Assyrian King List, a later document recording the kings of Assyria and their reigns.[31] Erishum is noteworthy for being the earliest known ruler in world history to experiment with free trade, leaving the initiative for trade and large-scale foreign transactions entirely to his populace. Though large institutions, such as the temples and the king himself, did take part in trade, the financing itself was provided by private bankers, who in turn bore nearly all the risk (but also earned nearly all the profits) of the trading ventures. The king earned a portion of the profit through imposing tolls and the money gained was used to expand Assur and its institutions.[42] Through Erishum's efforts, Assur quickly established itself as a prominent trading state in northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia.[43]\n\nIt is clear that an extensive long-distance Assyrian trade network was established relatively quickly,[44] the first notable impression Assyria left in the historical record.[28] Notable collections of Old Assyrian cuneiform tablets have been found in trading colonies established by the Assyrians in their trade network. The most notable locality excavated is Kültepe, near the modern city of Kayseri in Turkey. At this time, Kültepe was also a city-state ruled by its own line of kings.[45] Over 22,000 Assyrian cuneiform clay tablets have been found at the site.[44] In some way, Assur was able to maintain its central position in its trade network despite being small and having no known history of military activity, though it may be that military activity did in fact play a part. Assur's importance as a trading center declined in the 19th century BC, perhaps chiefly because of increasing conflict between states and rulers of the ancient Near East leading to a general decrease in trade.[46] From this time to the end of the Old Assyrian period, Assur frequently fell into conflict with larger foreign states and empires.[47] In particular, the nearby centers of Eshnunna and Ekallatum threatened the continued existence of the Assur city-state. However Assyrian records during the reigns of Ilu-shuma, Erishum I and Sargon I show signs of intervention in southern Mesopotamia, which was under pressure from Elamites to the east and Amorites to the west. It is unclear whether this was military intervention in support of their fellow Akkadian speakers, favourable trading terms or both. The original city-state came to an end c. 1808 BC when it was conquered by the Amorite ruler of Ekallatum, Shamshi-Adad I,[48] who deposed Erishum II, the last king of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty after having been repelled by his predecessor,[49][50] and took the city for himself.[46]\n\nShamshi-Adad's extensive conquests in northern Mesopotamia eventually made him the ruler of the entire region,[46] founding what some scholars have termed the \"Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia\".[51] To rule his realm, Shamshi-Adad established his capital at the city of Shubat-Enlil.[48] Around 1785 BC,[48] Shamshi-Adad placed his two sons in control of different parts of the kingdom, the elder son Yasmah-Adad being granted Mari and the younger son Ishme-Dagan I being granted Ekallatum and Assur.[46] Though the locals in Assur considered Shamshi-Adad and his family to be foreign conquerors,[52] Shamshi-Adad did have certain respect for Assur and sometimes stayed in the city and partook in its religious ceremonies. Shamshi-Adad also oversaw the renovation of the city, the rebuilding of the temple of Ashur and the addition of a sanctuary dedicated to the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon, Enlil.[53] It is possible that Shamshi-Adad promoted a theology that equated Ashur and Enlil as one and the same. In that case, his theology was hugely influential as Assyrians in later times attributed the role of \"king of the gods\" to Ashur, a role otherwise typically attributed to Enlil.[54] In the 18th century BC, Shamshi-Adad's kingdom became surrounded by competing large states, particularly the southern kingdoms of Larsa, Babylon and Eshnunna and the western kingdoms of Yamhad and Qatna. The success and survival of his own realm chiefly relied on his personal strength and charisma. Shamshi-Adad's death in c. 1776 BC led to the collapse of the kingdom.[55] His principal successor, Ishme-Dagan I, ruled from Ekallatum[56] and retained control only of that city and of Assur.[57]\n\nThe time between the collapse of Shamshi-Adad's kingdom in the 18th century BC and the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC is often regarded by modern scholars as an Assyrian \"Dark Age\" due to the lack of sufficient historical evidence to clearly establish events during this time.[57] It is clear from surviving records that the geopolitical situation in northern Mesopotamia was highly volatile, with frequent shifts in power. In c. 1772 BC Ibal-pi-el II of Eshnunna invaded and conquered Ishme-Dagan's kingdom,[53] though he returned to power not long thereafter. A few years later, an army from Elam invaded northern Mesopotamia and seized a few cities.[58][59] In c. 1761 BC, Assur, perhaps only briefly, fell under the control of the Old Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi.[58][59] At some point, Assur returned to being an independent city-state.[57] There was during this time also significant infighting within the government of Assur itself, as members of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty fought with native Assyrians and Hurrians for control of the city.[60] Eventually, the Shamshi-Adad dynasty's rule over Assur came to an end through the Assyrian usurper Puzur-Sin re-establishing native rule.[61][62] The defeat of the Babylonians and Amorites did not mean an end to the troubles, as there was a time of non-dynastic kings and further infighting before the rise of Bel-bani c. 1700 BC.[50][63] Bel-bani founded the Adaside dynasty, which after his reign ruled Assyria for about a thousand years.[64]\n\nIn large parts, the invasion or raid of southern Mesopotamia by the Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1595 BC was critical to Assyria's later development. This invasion destroyed the then dominant power in southern Mesopotamia, the Old Babylonian Empire, which created a vacuum of power that led to the formation of the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia in the south[65] and the Hurrian[60] Mitanni state to the north of Assyria.[65] Assyrian rulers from c. 1520 to c. 1430 were more politically assertive than their predecessors, both regionally and internationally. Puzur-Ashur III (r. c. 1521-1498 BC) is the earliest Assyrian king to appear in the Synchronistic History, a later text concerning border disputes between Assyria and Babylonia, suggesting that Assyria first entered into diplomacy and conflict with Babylonia at this time[66] and that Assur at this time ruled a small stretch of territory beyond the city itself.[67] Around c. 1430 BC, Assur was subjugated by Mitanni and forced to become a vassal, an arrangement that lasted for about 70 years, until c. 1360 BC.[66] Assur retained some autonomy under the Mitanni kings, as Assyrian kings during this time are attested as commissioning building projects, trading with Egypt and signing boundary agreements with the Kassites in Babylon.[68] Another Hittite invasion, by Šuppiluliuma I in the early 14th century BC, effectively crippled the Mitanni kingdom. After his invasion, Assyria succeeded in freeing itself from its suzerain, achieving independence once more in the early 14th century BC, and under Ashur-uballit I (r. c. 1363-1328 BC), whose rise to power and conquests at the expense of the Mitanni and Babylonians traditionally marks the transition between the Old and Middle Assyrian periods.[69]\n\nMiddle Assyrian period (1363-912 BC)\n\nRise of Assyria\n\nAshur-uballit I was the first native Assyrian ruler to claim the royal title šar (\"king\").[47] Shortly after achieving independence, he further claimed the dignity of a great king on the level of the Egyptian pharaohs and the Hittite kings.[69] Ashur-uballit's claim to be a great king meant that he also embedded himself in the ideological implications of that role; a great king was expected to expand the borders of his realm to incorporate \"uncivilized\" territories, ideally eventually ruling the entire world.[70] Ashur-uballit's reign was often regarded by later generations of Assyrians as the true birth of Assyria.[70] The term \"land of Ashur\" (māt Aššur), i.e. designating Assyria as comprising a larger kingdom, is first attested as being used in his time.[71] Assyria's rise was intertwined with the decline and fall of the Mitanni kingdom, its former suzerain, which allowed the early Middle Assyrian kings to expand and consolidate territories in northern Mesopotamia.[72] Ashur-uballit mainly warred against small states in the southern vicinity of the Assyrian heartland. He engaged in diplomacy with both Babylonia, ruled by Burnaburiash II,[73] and Egypt, ruled by Akhenaten.[74] Ashur-uballit's successors Enlil-nirari (r. c. 1327-1318 BC) and Arik-den-ili (r. c. 1317-1306 BC) were less successful than Ashur-uballit in expanding and consolidating Assyrian power, and as such the new empire developed somewhat haltingly and remained fragile.[75] Enlil-nirari's reign was the beginning of the historical enmity between Assyria and Babylonia after Kurigalzu II, a king the Assyrians had helped gain the Babylonian throne, attacked Assyria. Kurigalzu's betrayal resulted in deep trauma and was still referenced in Assyrian writings concerning Babylonia more than a century later.[76]\n\nUnder the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305-1274 BC), Shalmaneser I (r. c. 1273-1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243-1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming a significant regional power.[77] Adad-nirari was the first Assyrian king to march against the remnants of the Mitanni kingdom[77] and the first Assyrian king to include lengthy narratives of his campaigns in his royal inscriptions.[78] Adad-nirari early in his reign defeated Shattuara I of Mitanni and forced him to pay tribute to Assyria as a vassal ruler.[78] After a revolt by Shattuara's son Wasashatta Adad-niari annexed some Mitanni lands and constructed a royal palace for himself at Taite, a former Mitanni capital.[78] Adad-nirari also fought with Babylonia, defeating the Babylonian king Nazi-Maruttash at the Battle of Kār Ištar c. 1280 BC and redrawing the border between the two kingdoms in Assyria's favor.[79]\n\nAssyrian campaigns and conquests intensified under Shalmaneser I.[81] Shalmaneser's most significant wars were those directed towards the west and north. After the Mitanni king Shattuara II rebelled against Assyrian authority,[81] Shalmaneser campaigned against him to suppress the resistance.[77] As a result of Shalmaneser's victory in the campaign, the Mitanni capital of Washukanni was sacked[81] and the Mitanni lands were formally annexed into the Assyrian Empire.[77] Shalmaneser's reign also saw worsening relations with the Hittites,[79] who had supported Shattuara II's revolt.[81] Shalmaneser warred several times against Hittite vassals in the Levant.[82] Conflict with the Hittites continued in the reign of Shalmaneser's son Tukulti-Ninurta I until the Assyrian victory at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC, which marked the beginning of the end of Hittite influence in northern Mesopotamia and the annexation of formerly Hittite territories in the Levant and Anatolia.[82] In addition to his various campaigns and conquests, which brought the Middle Assyrian Empire to its greatest extent,[77] Tukulti-Ninurta is also famous for being the first Assyrian king to transfer the capital of Assyria away from Assur itself.[83] In his eleventh year as king (c. 1233 BC),[84] Tukulti-Ninurta inaugurated the new capital city Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta,[83] named after himself (the name meaning \"fortress of Tukulti-Ninurta\").[84] The city only served as the capital during Tukulti-Ninurta's reign, with later kings returning to ruling from Assur.[83]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta's main goal was Babylonia in the south; he intentionally escalated conflict with the Babylonian king Kashtiliash IV through claiming \"traditionally Assyrian\" lands along the eastern Tigris river.[82] Shortly thereafter, he invaded Babylonia in an unprovoked attack.[85] After capturing cities such as Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu and defeating Kashtiliash in battle, Tukulti-Ninurta eventually succeeded in conquering Babylonia c. 1225 BC.[86][87] He was the first Assyrian king to assume the traditionally southern Mesopotamian title \"king of Sumer and Akkad\" and the first native Mesopotamian to be crowned king of Babylon, its previous rulers having all been Amorites and Kassites.[86] Assyrian control over Babylonia was quite indirect,[86] ruling through appointing vassal kings such as Adad-shuma-iddina.[88] After putting down a Babylonian uprising, Tukulti-Ninurta added to his title the style šamšu kiššat niše (\"sun[god] of all people\"),[89] a highly unusual style since the Assyrian king was typically regarded to be the representative of a god and not divine himself.[90] Eventually Babylonia fell out of Tukulti-Ninurta's grasp. An uprising led by Adad-shuma-usur, perhaps a son of Kashtiliash IV,[e] drove the Assyrians out of Babylonia[92] c. 1216 BC.[93] The loss of Babylonia increased growing dissatisfaction with Tukulti-Ninurta's rule.[94] His long and prosperous reign ended with his assassination, which in turn was followed by inter-dynastic conflict and a significant drop in Assyrian power.[95]\n\nTroubles and decline\n\nThe successors of Tukulti-Ninurta were unable to maintain Assyrian power and the empire became increasingly restricted to just the Assyrian heartland.[95] The decline of the Middle Assyrian Empire broadly coincided with the latter period of the Late Bronze Age collapse, a time when the ancient Near East, North Africa, Caucasus and Southeast Europe experienced monumental geopolitical changes; within a single generation, the Hittite Empire and the Kassite dynasty of Babylon had fallen, and Egypt had been severely weakened through losing its lands in the Levant.[95] Modern researchers tend to varyingly ascribe the Bronze Age collapse to large-scale migrations, invasions by the mysterious Sea Peoples, new warfare technology and its effects, starvation, epidemics, climate change and an unsustainable exploitation of the working population.[96] Tukulti-Ninurta's direct dynastic line came to an end c. 1192 BC,[93] when the grand vizier Ninurta-apal-Ekur, a descendant of Adad-nirari I,[97] took the throne for himself. Ninurta-apal-Ekur and his immediate successors were no more able than Tukulti-Ninurta's descendants to halt the decline of the empire.[98]\n\nNinurta-apal-Ekur's son Ashur-dan I (r. c. 1178-1133 BC),[93] improved the situation somewhat, campaigning against the Babylonian king Zababa-shuma-iddin,[98] but his two sons Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku struggled for power with each other after his death. Though Mutakkil-Nusku emerged victorious,[98] he ruled for less than a year.[93] Mutakkil-Nusku warred against the Babylonian king[98] Itti-Marduk-balatu,[99] a conflict which continued in the reign of his son Ashur-resh-ishi I (r. 1132-1115 BC). In the Synchronistic History (a later Assyrian document), Ashur-resh-ishi is cast as a savior of the Assyrian Empire, defeating the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I in several battles. In some of his inscriptions, Ashur-resh-ishi claimed the epithet \"avenger of Assyria\" (mutēr gimilli māt Aššur).[100]\n\nDue to Ashur-resh-ishi's victories over Babylonia, his son Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BC) could focus his attention on other territories without worrying about southern attacks. Texts written already during his first few regnal years demonstrate that Tiglath-Pileser ruled with more confidence than his immediate predecessors, using titles such as \"unrivalled king of the universe, king of the four quarters, king of all princes, lord of lords\" and epithets such as \"splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm\". Tiglath-Pileser went on significant campaigns to the west and north, incorporating both territories lost after Tukulti-Ninurta's reign and territories that had never before been under Assyrian rule.[101] Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions are the first Assyrian inscriptions to describe punitive measures against rebelling cities and regions in any detail. He also increased the size of the Assyrian cavalry and introducing war chariots on a grander scale than previous kings.[102] Though one of the most successful Middle Assyrian kings, Some of Tiglath-Pileser's conquests were not long-lasting and several territories, especially in the west, were likely lost again before or just after his death. Assyria became overstretched and Tiglath-Pileser's successors were forced to adapt to be on the defensive. An increasing problem from the late reign of Ashur-bel-kala onwards were the Aramean tribes in the west. Due to the Aramean tactics of avoiding open battle and instead attacking the Assyrians in numerous minor skirmishes, the Assyrian army could in conflict with them not take advantage of their combat, technical and numerical superiority.[103]\n\nFrom the time of Eriba-Adad II (r. 1056-1054 BC) onwards, the kings were unable to maintain the achievements of their predecessors. This period of renewed decline was not reversed until the middle of the 10th century BC.[104] Though this period is poorly documented,[f] it is clear that Assyria underwent a major crisis.[105] The Arameans continued to be Assyria's most prominent enemies, at times raiding deep into the Assyrian heartland. Their attacks were uncoordinated raids carried out by individual groups, which meant that even though the Assyrians defeated several Aramean groups in battle, their guerrilla tactics and ability to withdraw into difficult terrain quickly prevented the Assyrians from ever achieving a lasting victory.[106] Though control was lost over most of the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian heartland remained safe and intact, protected by its geographical remoteness and the military capabilities of its army.[107] Assyria was not the only realm fragmented during this period, which meant that the fragmented territories now surrounding the Assyrian heartland in time proved to be easy conquests for the Assyrian army. Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BC) reversed Assyrian decline, campaigning in the peripheries of the Assyrian heartland, primarily in the northeast and northwest. His campaigns paved the way for grander efforts to restore and expand Assyrian power under his successors, and the end of his reign marks the transition to the Neo-Assyrian period.[108]\n\nNeo-Assyrian period (911-609 BC)\n\nRevitalization, expansion and dominance\n\nAssyrian borders and campaigns from Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BC) to Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC)\nThrough decades of military conquests, the early Neo-Assyrian kings worked to retake the former lands of their empire[109] and re-establish the position of Assyria as it was at the height of the Middle Assyrian Empire.[110] The reigns of Adad-nirari II (r. 911-891 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta II (r. 890-884 BC) saw the slow beginning of this project.[111] Since the reconquista had to begun nearly from scratch, its eventual success was an extraordinary achievement.[112] Adad-nirari's most important conquest was the reincorporation of the city of Arrapha (modern-day Kirkuk) into Assyria, which in later times served as the launching point of innumerable Assyrian campaigns to the east. Adad-nirari also managed to secure a border agreement with the Babylonian king Nabu-shuma-ukin I, a clear indicator that Assyrian power was on the rise.[113] The second and more substantial phase of early Neo-Assyrian expansion began under Tukulti-Ninurta's son Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC), whose conquests made the Neo-Assyrian Empire the dominant political power in the Near East.[114]\n\nOne of Ashurnasirpal's most persistent enemies was the Aramean king Ahuni of Bit Adini. Ahuni's forces broke through across the Khabur and Euphrates several times and it was only after years of war that he at last accepted Ashurnasirpal as his suzerain. Ahuni's defeat was highly important since it marked the first time since Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1073-1056 BC), two centuries prior, that Assyrian forces had the opportunity to campaign further west than the Euphrates.[115] Making use of this opportunity, Ashurnasirpal in his ninth campaign marched to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, collecting tribute from various Phoenician, Aramean, Cilician, and Neo-Hittite kingdoms on the way.[115] A significant development during Ashurnasirpal's reign was the second transfer of the Assyrian capital away from Assur. Ashurnasirpal restored the ancient and ruined town of Kalhu (the biblical Calah and Medieval Nimrud) also located in the Assyrian heartland, and in 879 BC designated that city as the new capital of the empire, employing thousands of workers to construct new fortifications, palaces and temples in the city.[115] Though no longer the political capital, Assur remained the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria.[116]\n\nThe reign of Ashurnasirpal's son Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC) also saw a considerable expansion of Assyrian territory. Lands conquered under Ashurnasirpal were consolidated and divided into further provinces and Shalmaneser's campaigns were also more wide-ranging than those of his predecessors. The most powerful and threatening enemy of Assyria at this point was the Hurro-Urartian speaking kingdom of Urartu in the north; following in the footsteps of the Assyrians, the Urartian administration, culture, writing system and religion closely followed those of Assyria. The Urartian kings were also autocrats very similar to the Assyrian kings.[116] The imperialist expansionism of both states often led to military clashes, despite being separated by the Taurus Mountains. Shalmaneser for a time neutralized the Urartian threat after he in an ambitious campaign in 856 BC sacked the Urartian capital of Arzashkun and devastated the heartland of the kingdom.[117] In 853 BC, Shalmaneser was forced to fight against a large coalition of western states assembled at Tell Qarqur in Syria, led by the Aramean Hadadezer, the king of Aram-Damascus. Though Shalmaneser fought them at the Battle of Qarqar in the same year, the battle appears to have been indecisive. After Qarqar, Shalmaneser focused on the south. He allied with the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I, aiding his southern neighbor in both defeating the usurper Marduk-bel-ushati and in fighting against the migrating Chaldeans in the far south of Mesopotamia. After the death of Hadadezer in 841 BC, Shalmaneser managed to incorporate some further western territories.[117] In the 830s, his armies reached into Cilicia and Cappadocia in Anatolia and in 836, Shalmaneser reached Ḫubušna (near modern-day Ereğli), one of the westernmost places ever reached by Assyrian forces.[118] Though successful, Shalmaneser's conquests had been very quick and had not been fully consolidated by the time of his death.[118]\n\nFrom the late reign of Shalmaneser III onwards, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered into what scholars call the \"age of the magnates\", when powerful officials and generals were the principal wielders of political power, rather than the king.[119] The last few campaigns of Shalmaneser's reign were not led by the king, probably on account of old age, but rather by the capable turtanu (commander-in-chief) Dayyan-Assur. Shalmaneser's final years became preoccupied by an internal crisis when one of his sons, Ashur-danin-pal, rebelled in an attempt to seize the throne, possibly because the younger son Shamshi-Adad had been designated as heir instead of himself.[118] When Shalmaneser died in 824 BC, Ashur-danin-pal was still in revolt, supported by a significant portion of the country, most notably the former capital of Assur. Shamshi-Adad acceded to the throne as Shamshi-Adad V, perhaps initially still a minor and a puppet of Dayyan-Assur. Though Dayyan-Assur died during the early stages of the civil war, Shamshi-Adad was eventually victorious, apparently due to help from the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi or his successor Marduk-balassu-iqbi.[119] The age of the magnates is typically characterized as a period of decline,[120] with little to no further territorial expansion and weak central power.[119] This does not mean that there were no successes in this time. In 812 BC, Shamshi-Adad managed to termporarily conquer large portions of Babylonia[121] and numerous campaigns were conducted under his son Adad-nirari III (r. 811-783 BC) which resulted in new territory both in the west and east.[122] Early in Adad-nirari's reign, Adad-nirari and his mother Shammuramat (the inspiration for the mythical Assyrian queen Semiramis) expanded Assyrian control in Syria and Ancient Iran.[121] The low point of the age of the magnates were the reigns of Adad-nirari's sons Shalmaneser IV (r. 783-773 BC), Ashur-dan III (r. 773-755 BC) and Ashur-nirari V (r. 755-745 BC), from which very few royal documents are known and officials grew even more bold, in some cases no longer even crediting the kings for their achievements.[122]\n\nAshur-nirari V was succeeded by Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BC), probably his brother and generally assumed to have usurped the throne.[123][124] Tiglath-Pileser's accession ushered in a new age of the Neo-Assyrian Empire;[125] while the conquests of earlier kings were impressive, they contributed little to Assyria's full rise as a consolidated empire.[126] Through campaigns aimed at outright conquest and not just extraction of seasonal tribute, as well as reforms meant to efficiently organize the army and centralize the realm, Tiglath-Pileser is by some regarded as the first true initiator of Assyria's \"imperial\" phase.[109][127] Tiglath-Pileser is the earliest Assyrian king mentioned in the Babylonian Chronicles and in the Hebrew Bible and thus the earliest king for which there exists important outside perspectives on his reign.[128] Early on, Tiglath-Pileser reduced the influence of the powerful magnates.[128] Tiglath-Pileser campaigned in all directions with resounding success. His most impressive achievements were the conquest and vassalization of the entirety of the Levant all the way to the Sinai and Egyptian border, his domination of the Persians and Medes to the east, the Arabs to the south of Babylonia, and the 729 conquest of Babylonia, after which he and later Assyrian kings often ruled as both \"king of Assyria\" and \"king of Babylon\". By the time of his death in 727 BC, Tiglath-Pileser had more than doubled the territory of the empire. His policy of direct rule rather than rule through vassal states brought important changes to the Assyrian state and its economy; rather than tribute, the empire grew more reliant on taxes collected by provincial governors, a development which increased administrative costs but also reduced the need for military intervention. Also noteworthy was the large scale in which Tiglath-Pileser undertook resettlement policies, settling tens, if not hundreds, of thousand foreigners in both the Assyrian heartland and in far-away underdeveloped provinces.[129]\n\nSargonid dynasty\n\nSargon II\n(r. 722-705 BC)Sennacherib\n(r. 705-681 BC)Esarhaddon\n(r. 681-669 BC)Ashurbanipal\n(r. 669-631 BC)\n\nTiglath-Pileser's son Shalmaneser V (r. 727-722 BC) was after only a brief reign usurped by Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC), either his brother or a non-dynastic usurper.[130][131] Sargon founded the Sargonid dynasty, which would rule until the fall of the Assyrian Empire. Sargon's accession, possible marking the end of the nearly thousand-year long Adaside dynasty, was met with considerable internal unrest. In his own inscriptions Sargon claims to have deported 6,300 \"guilty Assyrians\", probably Assyrians from the heartland who opposed his accession. Several peripheral regions of the empire also revolted and regained their independence.[132] The most significant of the revolts was the successful uprising of the Chaldean warlord Marduk-apla-iddina II, who took control of Babylon, restoring Babylonian independence, and allied with the Elamite king Ḫuban-nikaš I.[133] While Sargon was campaigning in the east in 720 BC, his generals also put down a major revolt in the western provinces, led by Yau-bi'di of Hamath.[133]\n\nAfter securing the silver treasury of the city of Carchemish in 717 BC, Sargon began construction of another new imperial capital. The new city was named Dur-Sharrukin (\"Fort Sargon\") after himself. Unlike Ashurnasirpal's project at Nimrud, Sargon was not simply expanding an existing, albeit ruined, site but building a new settlement from scratch.[133] Sargon was militarily successful and frequently went to war. Between just 716 and 713, Sargon fought against Urartu, the Medes, Arab tribes, and Ionian pirates in the eastern Mediterranean. In 710 BC, Sargon retook Babylon, driving Marduk-apla-iddina into exile in Elam.[132] Between 710 and 707 BC, Sargon resided in Babylon, receiving foreign delegations there and participating in local traditions, such as the Akitu festival. In 707 BC, Sargon returned to Nimrud and in 706 BC, Dur-Sharrukin was inaugurated as the empire's new capital. Sargon did not get to enjoy his new city for long; in 705 BC he embarked on his final campaign, directed against Tabal, and died in battle in Anatolia.[134]\n\nSargon's son Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BC) moved the capital to Nineveh,[135] which was extensively renovated in his reign.[136] Sargon's battlefield death had theological implications and some of the conquered regions of the empire once again began to assert their right to independence. Most prominently, the vassal states in the Levant stopped paying tribute to Sennacherib and Marduk-apla-iddina retook Babylon with the aid of the Elamites. It took several years for Sennacherib to defeat all of his enemies. Towards the end of 704 BC, Sennacherib retook Babylonia, though Marduk-apla-iddina escaped to Elam again. The Babylonian noble Bel-ibni, raised at the Assyrian court was appointed as vassal ruler of Babylon. In 701 BC, Sennacherib invaded the Levant, the most famous campaign of his reign. Bel-ibni's tenure as Babylonian vassal ruler did not last long and he was continually opposed by Marduk-apla-iddina and another Chaldean warlord, Mushezib-Marduk, who hoped to seize power for themselves. In 700 BC, Sennacherib invaded Babylonia again and drove Marduk-apla-iddina and Mushezib-Marduk away. Needing a vassal ruler with stronger authority, he placed his eldest son Ashur-nadin-shumi on the Babylonian throne.[137]\n\nIn 694 BC, Sennacherib invaded Elam[136] with the explicit goal to root out Marduk-apla-iddina and his supporters.[138] Sennacherib sailed across the Persian Gulf with a fleet built by Phoenician and Greek shipwrights[136] and captured and sacked countless Elamite cities. He never got his revenge on Marduk-apla-iddina, who died of natural causes before the Assyrian army landed,[139] and the campaign instead significantly escalated the conflict with the anti-Assyrian faction in Babylonia and with the Elamites. The Elamite king Hallushu-Inshushinak took revenge on Sennacherib by marching on Babylonia while the Assyrians were busy in his lands and captured Ashur-nadin-shumi, who was taken to Elam and probably executed. In his place, the Elamites and Babylonians crowned the Babylonian noble Nergal-ushezib as king of Babylon.[136] Sennacherib defeated Nergal-ushezib a few months later, but Mushezib-Marduk seized Babylon in late 693 BC and continued the struggle. In 689 BC, Sennacherib defeated Mushezib-Marduk and nearly completely destroyed Babylon. Sennacherib's reign came to an end in 684 BC, murdered by his eldest surviving son Arda-Mulissu due to having made the younger son Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC) heir.[140] Esarhaddon defeated Arda-Mulissu in a civil war and successfully captured Nineveh, becoming king a mere two months after Sennacherib's murder.[140][141]\n\nEsarhaddon was deeply troubled, distrustful of his officials and family members owing to his tumultuous rise to the throne. His paranoia had the side-effect of leading to an increased standing of the royal women; his mother Naqi'a, queen Esharra-hammat and daughter Serua-eterat were all more powerful and prominent than most women in earlier Assyrian history.[142] Despite his paranoia, and despite suffering from both disease and depression,[143] Esarhaddon was one of Assyria's most successful kings. He rebuilt Babylon[144] and led several successful military campaigns. Many of his campaigns were farther from the Assyrian heartland than those of any previous king. In the east, he in one campaign reached as far into modern-day Iran as Dasht-e Kavir.[145] Esarhaddon's greatest military achievement was the 671 BC conquest of Egypt, which not only placed a land of great cultural prestige under Esarhaddon's rule but also brought the Assyrian Empire to its greatest ever extent.[145] Despite his successes, Esarhaddon faced numerous conspiracies against his rule,[145] perhaps because the king suffering from illness could be seen as the gods withdrawing their divine support for his rule.[143] Through a well-developed network of spies and informants, Esarhaddon uncovered all of these coup attempts and in 670 BC had a large number of high-ranking officials put to death.[146] In 672 BC, Esarhaddon decreed that his younger son Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC) would succeed him in Assyria and that the older son Shamash-shum-ukin would rule Babylon.[147] To ensure that the succession to the throne after his own death would go more smoothly than his own accession, Esarhaddon forced everyone in the empire, not only the prominent officials but also far-away vassal rulers and members of the royal family, to swear oaths of allegiance to the successors and respect the arrangement.[148]\n\nAshurbanipal is often regarded to have been the last great king of Assyria. His reign saw the last time Assyrian troops marched in all directions of the Near East.[149] One of the issues of Ashurbanipal's early reign were disagreements between Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin.[150] While Esarhaddon's documents suggest that Shamash-shum-ukin was intended to inherit all of Babylonia, it appears that he only controlled the immediate vicinity of Babylon itself since numerous other Babylonian cities apparently ignored him and considered Ashurbanipal to be their king.[151] Over time, it seems that Shamash-shum-ukin grew to resent his brother's overbearing control[152] and he revolted in 652 BC, aided by several Elamite kings. Ashurbanipal defeated his brother in 648 BC and Shamash-shum-ukin might have died by setting himself on fire in his palace. As vassal king of Babylon he was replaced by the puppet ruler Kandalanu. After his victory in Babylonia, Ashurbanipal marched on Elam. The Elamite capital of Susa was captured and devastated and large numbers of Elamite prisoners were brought to Nineveh, tortured and humiliated.[153]\n\nThough Ashurbanipal's inscriptions present Assyria as an uncontested and divinely supported hegemon of the entire world, cracks were starting to form in the empire during his reign. At some point after 656 BC, the empire lost control of Egypt, which instead fell into the hands of the pharaoh Psamtik I, founder of Egypt's twenty-sixth dynasty,[154] originally appointed as a vassal by Ashurbanipal. Assyrian control faded from Egypt only gradually, without the need for revolt.[155] Ashurbanipal went on numerous campaigns against various Arab tribes which failed to consolidate rule over their lands and instead wasted Assyrian resources. Perhaps most importantly, his devastation of Babylon after defeating Shamash-shum-ukin fanned anti-Assyrian sentiments in southern Mesopotamia, which soon after his death would have disastrous consequences. Ashurbanipal's reign also appears to have seen a growing disconnect between the king and the traditional elite of the empire; eunuchs grew unprecedently powerful in his time, being granted large tracts of lands and numerous tax exemptions.[154] After Ashurbanipal's death in 631 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire quickly collapsed. His son and successor Ashur-etil-ilani ruled only briefly before another son of Ashurbanipal, Sinsharishkun, became king in 627 BC.[156] In 626 BC Babylonia revolted again, this time led by Nabopolassar,[64] probably a member of a prominent political family in Uruk.[157] Though Nabopolassar was more successful than previous Babylonian rebels, it is unlikely that he would have been victorious in the end had the Medes under Cyaxares not entered the conflict in 615/614 BC.[158] In 614 BC, the Medes and Babylonians sacked and destroyed Assur and in 612 BC, they captured and plundered Nineveh, Sinsharishkun dying in the capital's defense.[159] Though the prince Ashur-uballit II, possibly Sinsharishkun's son, attempted to lead the resistance against the Medes and Babylonians from Harran in the west,[160] he was defeated in 609 BC, marking the end of the ancient line of Assyrian kings and of Assyria as a state.[161][158]\n\nPost-imperial period (609 BC-AD 240)\n\nThe fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after its final war with the Babylonians and Medes had dramatic consequences for the geopolitics of the ancient Near East: Babylonia, now the heart of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, experienced an unprecedented time of prosperity and growth, trade routes were redrawn and the economical organization and political power of the entire region was restructured.[11] Archaeological surveys of the Assyrian heartland have consistently shown that there was a dramatic decrease in the size and number of inhabited sites in Assyria during the Neo-Babylonian period, suggesting a significant societal breakdown in the region. Archaeological evidence suggests that the former Assyrian capital cities, such as Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh, were initially nearly completely abandoned.[162] The breakdown in society does not necessarily reflect an enormous drop in population; it is clear that the region became less rich and less densely populated, but it is also clear that Assyria was not entirely uninhabited, nor poor in any real sense. It is possible that large portions of the remaining Assyrian populace might have turned to nomadism due to the collapse of the local settlements and economy.[163] Throughout the time of the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid Empire, Assyria was a marginal and sparsely populated region,[164] perhaps chiefly due to the limited interest of the Neo-Babylonian kings to invest resources into its economic and societal development.[165] Individuals with Assyrian names are attested at multiple sites in Babylonia during the Neo-Babylonian Empire, including Babylon itself, Nippur, Uruk, Sippar, Dilbat and Borsippa. The Assyrians in Uruk apparently continued to exist as a community until the reign of the Achaemenid king Cambyses II (r. 530-522 BC) and were closely linked to a local cult dedicated to Ashur.[166] Towards the end of the 6th century BC, the Assyrian dialect of the Akkadian language went extinct, having towards the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire already largely been replaced by Aramaic as a vernacular language.[167]\n\nAfter the Achaemenid conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, Assyria was incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire, organized into the province[g] Athura (Aθūrā).[168] Some former Assyrian territory was also incorporated into the satrapy of Media (Mada).[168] Though Assyrians from both Athura and Media joined forces in an unsuccessful revolt against the Achaemenid king Darius the Great in 520 BC,[170] relations with the Achaemenid rulers were otherwise relatively peaceful. The Achaemenid kings interfered little with the internal affairs of their individual provinces as long as tribute and taxes were continuously provided, which allowed Assyrian culture and customs to survive under Persian rule.[168] After the Achaemenid conquest of Babylon, the remaining inhabitants of Assur received the permission of Cyrus the Great to rebuild the city's ancient temple dedicated to Ashur[171] and Cyrus even returned Ashur's cult statue from Babylon.[172] The organization of Assyria into the single administrative unit Athura effectively kept the region on the map as a distinct political entity throughout the time of Achaemenid rule.[173] In the aftermath of the Achaemenid Empire's conquest by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, Assyria and much of the rest of the former Achaemenid lands came under the control of the Seleucid Empire, founded by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander's generals.[164] Though Assyria was centrally located within this empire, and must thus have been a significant base of power,[164][174] the region is rarely mentioned in textual sources from the period,[164] perhaps because the significant centers of the Seleucid Empire was in the south in Babylon and Seleucia and in the west in Antioch.[164] There were however significant developments in Assyria during this time.[175] Archaeological finds such as coins and pottery from prominent Assyrian sites indicate that cities such as Assur, Nimrud and perhaps Nineveh were resettled under the Seleucids, as were a large number of villages.[175]\n\nThe most significant phase of ancient Assyrian history following the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire transpired after the region was conquered by the Parthian Empire in the 2nd century BC. Under Parthian rule, the slow recovery of Assyria initiated under the Seleucids continued. This process eventually resulted in an unprecedented return to prosperity and revival in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The Parthians oversaw an intense resettlement and rebuilding of the region. In this time, the archaeological evidence shows that the population and settlement density of the region reached heights not seen since the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[175] Under Parthian suzerainty, several small and semi-independent kingdoms of Assyrian character and large Assyrian populations cropped up in the former Assyrian heartland, including Osroene, Adiabene and Hatra. These kingdoms lasted until the 3rd or 4th centuries AD, though they were mostly ruled by dynasties of Iranian or Arab, not Assyrian, descent and culture.[177][178] Aspects of old Assyrian culture endured in these new kingdoms, despite their foreign rulers. For instance, the main god worshipped at Hatra was the old Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash.[179] Assur itself flourished under Parthian rule, with a large amount of buildings being either repaired or constructed from scratch.[177][180] From around or shortly after the end of the 2nd century BC,[181] the city may have become the capital of its own small semi-autonomous realm,[177] either under the suzerainty of Hatra,[182] or under direct Parthian suzerainty.[180] Stelae erected by the local rulers of Assur in this time resemble the stelae erected by the Neo-Assyrian kings,[177] the rulers appearing to have viewed themselves as continuing the old Assyrian royal tradition.[183] The ancient temple dedicated to Ashur was restored for a second time in the 2nd century AD.[177][180] Ancient Assyria's last golden age came to an end with the sack of Assur by the Sasanian Empire c. 240.[184] During the sack, the Ashur temple was destroyed again and the city's population was dispersed.[182]\n\nLate antiquity and Middle Ages (240-1552)\n\nAssyria under the Sasanian Empire (240-637)\n\nChristianization\n\nThough tradition holds that Christianity was first spread to Mesopotamia by Thomas the Apostle,[185] the exact timespan when the Assyrians were first Christianized is unknown. The city of Arbela was an important early Christian center. According to the later Chronicle of Arbela, Arbela became the seat of a bishop already in AD 100, but the reliability of this document is questioned among scholars. It is known that both Arbela and Kirkuk later served as important Assyrian Christian centers in the Sasanian and later Islamic periods.[179] According to some traditions, Christianity took hold in Assyria when Saint Thaddeus of Edessa converted King Abgar V of Osroene in the mid-1st century AD.[186] From the 3rd century AD onwards, it is clear that Christianity was becoming the major religion of the region,[187] with the Christian god replacing the old Mesopotamian deities.[9] Assyrians had by this time already intellectually contributed to Christian thought; in the 1st century AD, the Christian Assyrian writer Tatian composed the influential Diatessaron, a synoptic rendition of the gospels.[186]\n\nAssyrian Christians were periodically persecuted in the Sasanian Empire until 422, when the Roman Empire instituted tolerance for Zoroastrianism (the official Persian religion in ancient times) and the Sasanians in turn officially allowed Christianity.[188] The Assyrian churches became separate from those of the wider Christian world in the aftermath of the 451 Council of Chalcedon, which was rejected by the groups that would later be known as the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church. The followers of the Church of the East where often pejoratively referred to as \"Nestorians\" by foreigners in later times, after Nestorius (c. 386-450), an Archbishop of Constantinople whose teachings, including denying the hypostatic union (that Jesus was both fully God and fully man), were condemned at Chalcedon. The followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church were often called \"Jacobites\", after Jacob Baradaeus, an anti-Chalcedon bishop of Edessa.[189] The Sasanians, who geopolitically opposed the Romans and often found themselves at war with them, deliberately cultivated and supported the now schismatic Church of the East.[190] In 421, the Synod of Markabta decided that the head of the church, now styled as the Patriarch of the Church of the East, was declared answerable only to Christ himself, in effect declaring the Church of the East independent.[191] The church's independence was upheld under the authority of the Sasanian King of Kings Jamasp, who in 497 authorized a synod which also declared it independent and abolished the rule of celibacy for the clergy.[192]\n\nHistories and folklore\n\nThough once more without any real political power, the population of northern Mesopotamia (called Asoristan by the Sassanids) continued to keep the memory of their ancient civilization alive and positively connected with the Assyrian Empire in local histories written during the Sasanian period.[9] There continued to be important continuities between ancient and contemporary Mesopotamia in terms of religion, literary culture and settlement[193] and Christians in northern Mesopotamia during the Sasanian period and later times connected themselves to the ancient Assyrian civilization.[194][h] Figures like Sargon II,[196] Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin long figured in local folklore and literary tradition.[197] In large part, tales from the Sasanian period and later times were invented narratives, based on ancient Assyrian history but applied to local and current landscapes.[198] Medieval tales written in Aramaic (or Syriac) for instance by and large characterize Sennacherib as an archetypical pagan king assassinated as part of a family feud, whose children convert to Christianity.[197] The legend of the Saints Behnam and Sarah, set in the 4th century but written long thereafter, casts Sennacherib, under the name Sinharib, as their royal father. After Behnam converts to Christianity, Sinharib orders his execution, but is later struck by a dangerous disease that is cured through being baptized by Saint Matthew in Assur. Thankful, Sinharib then converts to Christianity and founds an important monastery near Mosul, called Deir Mar Mattai.[184]\n\nThe 7th-century Assyrian History of Mar Qardagh made the titular saint, Mar Qardagh, out to be a descendant of the legendary Biblical Mesopotamian king Nimrod and the historical Sennacherib, with his illustrious descent manifesting in Mar Qardagh's mastery of archery, hunting and polo.[199] A sanctuary constructed for Mar Qardagh during this time was built directly on top of the ruins of a Neo-Assyrian temple.[193] Though some historians have argued that these tales were based only on the Bible, and not actual remembrance of ancient Assyria,[193] some figures who appear in them, such as Esarhaddon and Sargon II, are only briefly mentioned in the Bible. The texts are also very much a local Assyrian phenomenon, as their historical accounts are at odds with those of other historical writings of the Sasanian Empire.[200] The legendary figure Nimrod, otherwise viewed as simply Mesopotamian, is explicitly referred to as Assyrian in many of the Sasanian-period texts and is inserted into the line of Assyrian kings.[196] Nimrod, as well as other legendary Mesopotamian (though explicitly Assyrian in the texts) rulers, such as Belus and Ninus, sometimes play significant roles in the writings.[201] Certain Christian texts considered the Biblical figure Balaam to have prophesied the Star of Bethlehem; a local Assyrian version of this narrative appears in some Syriac-language writings from the Sasanian period, which allege that Balaam's prophecy was remembered only through being transmitted through the ancient Assyrian kings.[202] In some stories, explicit claims of descent are made. According to the 6th-century History of Karka, twelve of the noble families of Karka (ancient Arrapha) were descendants of ancient Assyrian nobility who lived in the city during the time of Sargon II.[203]\n\nĀsōristān, Atūria and Nōdšīragān\n\nThe Sasanian Empire confusingly[i] applied the name Āsōristān (\"land of the Assyrians\") to a province corresponding roughly to the borders of ancient Babylonia, thus excluding the historical Assyria in northern Mesopotamia. The population of Southern Mesopotamia was however during this time also largely made up of Aramaic-speaking Christians.[204] The reason for naming Babylonia Āsōristān is not clear; perhaps the name originated during a time when northern Mesopotamia was occupied by the Roman Empire (and thus designated the remaining part of Mesopotamia under Sasanian control) or perhaps the name derived from the Sasanians also making the connection between the present Aramaic-speaking Christians of the regions and the ancient Assyrians.[8]\n\nSyriac-language sources continued to connect the term \"land of the Assyrians\" not to the Sasanian province in the south, but to the ancient Assyrian heartland in the north.[8] Armenian historians, such as Anania Shirakatsi, also continued to identify Assyria as northern Mesopotamia; Shirakatsi referred to Aruastan as a region bordering Armenia and including Nineveh.[205] The Sasanians divided northern Mesopotamia into Arbāyistān in the west and Nōdšīragān in the east. Nōdšīragān was the Sasanian name for Adiabene, which included much of the old Assyrian lands and continued to function as a vassal kingdom under Sasanian rule as well, perhaps (at least at times) ruled by Sasanian princes.[206] A handful of Sasanian sources made the connection between northern Mesopotamia and Assyria as well, despite Āsōristān being used for the south. The province of Nōdšīragān is in some records alternatively referred to as Atūria or Āthōr (i.e. Assyria). Records from a 585 synod also testify to the existence of a metropolitan bishop of the Āṯōrayē (Assyrians), who was from northern Mesopotamia.[207]\n\nThe Adiabene vassal kingdom was abolished c. 379, with Adiabene thereafter being governed by royally appointed governors.[208] Because of the size and wealth of the region, these governors, though not kings, could still be influential. In the 6th-century, one such governor, Denḥa bar Šemraita, is referred to as \"grand prince of all the region of Adiabene\".[209]\n\nMuslim conquest (637-1096)\n\nWith the fall of Ctesiphon in 637, the Sasanian Empire lost control of its political heartland in Mesopotamia, which instead fell under the rule of the Rashidun Caliphate. Due to missionary work by the Church of the East, a significant share of the population in Mesopotamia and Persia were Christian by the time of the Muslim conquests. Episcopal sees had been established as far from Mesopotamia as Uzbekistan, India and China.[210] Though the new caliphate did not officially persecute its Christian subjects, and even offered freedom of worship and a certain extent of self-administration, there were many local Muslim administrators who acted against the Christians, and as non-Muslims conquered through jihad, Christians such as the Assyrians had a choice between conversion to Islam, death, slavery or relegation to dhimmi, paying a special tax (jizya) to live under protected status.[211] Some local Christians fled from the conquered territories into the lands under Roman rule[212] and some, probably few in number, chose to convert to Islam for economic or political reasons.[211][212] Certain Syriac Christian authors viewed the Muslim Conquest as a positive development and as a part of the struggle between the eastern churches and the Chalcedonians. The Muslim Conquest also strengthened local identities, such as that of the Assyrians, through to a large extent shattering the communications between local Christians and those in the Roman Empire.[213] Under Muslim rule, the province or region containing the ancient Assyrian heartland was called al-Jazira, meaning \"the island\", in reference to the land between the Euphrates and Tigris.[214]\n\nChristian communities were thus not thrown into total upheaval[211] and most Christians remained where they were and did not convert.[212] The conquering Muslims were relatively few in number and mostly kept to themselves in their own settlements. At first, the Muslim conquerors discouraged conversions to Islam as they depended on the taxes collected from Christians and Jews. Discrimination against Christians was considerably milder than discrimination against Zoroastrians given that the Muslims saw Christianity as a forerunner of their own religion; in most respects the situation of the Christians under the early Muslim rulers differed little from their status under the Sasanians. Over time however, the growth of the Church of the East declined and eventually gradually reversed due to emigrations and conversions. Because Christians were barred from converting Muslims, the decline could not be stopped.[215] In addition to repression, additional measures were also implemented from the time of the earliest Muslim rulers to harass and humiliate Christians. For instance, Christians were not allowed to build new churches (but were allowed to conduct repairs on current ones), they had to wear a distinct turban and belt, they were forbidden to disturb Muslims by ringing church bells and praying, and they were forbidden from riding horses and carrying weapons.[216] These measures were however only rarely enforced and could in most cases be avoided through bribery. Additionally, contacts between Christians and Muslims were probably very infrequent under the Rashidun (637-661) and succeeding Umayyad Caliphate (661-750); many Christians lived in rural communities run administratively by village headmen (dihqans) and country squires (shaharija), positions occupied by other Christians. A large number of Christians under Rashidun and Umayyad rule likely lived their entire lives without once seeing a Muslim.[217] \n\nThere were a number of positions available largely only to Christians under the Umayyad caliphs. The Academy of Gondishapur in southern Mesopotamia, founded by Assyrians from Nisibis in the north, continued to operate and produce skilled Christian physicians under Muslim rule, many of whom were employed by the caliphs. There were also many Christians who rose to other high offices as scribes, accountants and teachers.[217] The cultural and scientific flourishing in the Islamic Golden Age (8th to 14th century) was in large part possible through ancient Greek works previously having been copied and translated by Syriac Christian authors, which profoundly influenced science and philosophy in the Islamic world.[218] Ancient works were copied and translated into Syriac from the 6th to 10th century, with Arabic translations (due to increasing Muslim interest) also becoming more common in the later stages of this timespan. Through the translation and copying of ancient works, the early medieval Syriac-language authors not only contributed to mainstream intellectual history, but also left a significant mark on the local Christian denominations.[218] Among the most famous Syriac-language translators and scholars of this period were Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809-873) and Theophilus of Edessa (695-785), both of whom translated the works of ancient authors such as Aristotle and also wrote their own scholarly works.[219]\n\nThe fall of the Umayyad Caliphate and the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate in its place in 750 was viewed positively by many Christians under Muslim rule, as the Abbasids were considered to be even more positively inclined towards Christians. In terms of church affairs, the Assyrians benefitted especially much from the regime change since the Abbasids ruled from Baghdad in Mesopotamia, and the Patriarchs of the Church of the East were thus closer to the seat of power than they had been under the Umayyads (who ruled from Damascus). Their influence increased under Abbasid rule, since the patriarchs were placed on the council of state of the caliphs. Under the Abbasids, Baghdad was transformed into a great center of learning, and debates were often held among intellectuals, regardless of their religion. At the same time as this more lenient approach, pressures on Christians gradually increased due to the Abbasids wishing to spread Islam. While converting influential Christians was often approached through polite conversation, Christians of lower classes were pressured through measures such as increasing the jizya tax. Through these policies, it was chiefly under the Abbasids that the Christian churches of Mesopotamia began their long period of decline. Though there were some influential patriarchs of the Church of the East under the Abbasids, such as Timothy I (780-823), they were considerably weaker than patriarchs such as Ishoyahb III (649-659) had been under the Umayyads.[220] In the tenth century, there was a decisive religious shift in the religion among the populations under Muslim rule; before 850, Muslims had often been an elite minority, making up on average less than 20% of the population, but after 950 they were the majority and accounted for more than 60%. Emigrations and conversions continued to happen and many of the remaining Christians banded together for safety; adherents of the Church of the East migrated from southern Mesopotamia and Persia to northern Mesopotamia, where they still remained in substantial numbers.[221]\n\nUnder the Seljuk Empire, which conquered much of the Middle East in the 11th century, the number of Christians in Mesopotamia and elsewhere continued to fall. Under the Seljuks, conversions were motivated not only by political and economic reasons but also by fear. In the face of the Crusades, Muslim attitudes towards Christians grew more hostile. The church officials of the Church of the East meanwhile grew rich and corrupt, something admitted even by several contemporary Christian writers, and spent most of their time in squabbles against officials from rival churches, such as the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. They continued to enjoy institutional relationships with the Abbasid caliphs, who held a mainly ceremonial role under the Seljuks.[221]\n\nCrusaders, Mongols and Timurids (1096-1552)\n\nLiterary renaissance and changes in fortune\n\nIn the 10th-13th centuries, Syriac-language literature experienced something of a renaissance,[218][222][223] indicated by the production of several significant pieces of literature, including the Chronicle of Michael the Great, written by Michael the Syrian, patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as the theological works of Dionysius bar Salibi and Abdisho bar Berika, and the scientific writings of Bar Hebraeus. This short heyday came to an end with persecutions in the 13th and 14th centuries.[222][223] Records of personal names from this time demonstrate that the names of some Assyrians continued to be connected to ancient Mesopotamia even at this late time; an Arabic-language manuscript created 1272-1275 at Rumkale, a fortress on the Euphrates, records that a son of a physician and priest named Simeon was named Nebuchadnezzar (rendered Bukthanaṣar in the Arabic text). Simeon and Nebuchadnezzar were members of a prominent ecclesiastical family which also included Philoxenus Nemrud (a name deriving from Nimrud or Nimrod), a Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[224]\n\nIn the 11th century, substantial populations of Armenians and Syriac Christians lived in Cilicia in southern Anatolia and in northern Syria, referenced in, among other sources, accounts written by the Crusaders of the First Crusade.[225] For propaganda purposes, the Crusaders typically described the Christians under Turkish rule as oppressed and in need of liberation, though it is clear from surviving accounts that the views of the Armenians and Assyrians themselves were more complex.[226] Though it was the local Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians who opened the gates to the Crusaders at the Siege of Antioch in 1098, allowing them to capture the city, many indigenous Christians also collaborated with the Turks against the Crusaders. Sources written by the Crusaders describe difficulties in distinguishing Turks from local Christians, suggesting that the two groups had somewhat assimilated with each other despite the then short period of Turkish rule. This issue several times led to persecutions and massacres directed at the Turkish inhabitants of the captured cities also strongly affecting the local Christians. It is probable that large segments of the Christian population, Assyrians and the other groups, preferred the Turks rule over the Crusaders due to the Crusaders tending to be significantly more violent than the Seljuk Turks. Also affecting perceptions of Crusaders negatively was the large crusading armies exhausting the finances and food of any region they passed through, leading to famine. Some local Christians, more knowledgeable of the area than the Crusaders, are attested as selling food to crusading forces for enormously inflated prices in times of famine, profiting at the expense of the invading armies.[227]\n\nThe Assyrians experienced their first major post-Muslim conquest change in fortune when the Mongol Empire conquered central Asia and the Middle East in the early 13th century. Though the Mongols followed tengrism and shamanism, their public policy in the vast regions they conquered was consistently to support religious freedom. Because several of the Mongol tribes that had followed Genghis Khan, the founder of the empire, were predominantly Christian and many tribal leaders had Christian wives or mothers, Christianity received special respect by the Mongol Khagans. Many among the Church of the East hoped that one of the Khagans might in time themselves convert to Christianity and declare the Mongol Empire a Christian Empire, like how Constantine the Great made the Roman Empire Christian.[228] Hopes for a Mongol conversion to Christianity reached their zenith in the 1250s, when Hulagu Khan, ruler of the Ilkhanate (at this time the semi-autonomous Middle Eastern part of the Mongol Empire, later an independent state), drove the Seljuk Turks from Persia and Assyria, conquering cities like Baghdad and Mosul and reaching as far west as Damascus. Because many of the Mongol generals were Christians, Christians in conquered cities were often spared violence whereas Muslims were slaughtered. After his conquests, Hulagu further lifted restrictions imposed on the Christians, a move which was celebrated by the Christian population. When the Muslims retook Damascus shortly thereafter, the Christians were heavily persecuted as vengeance for their arrogance against the Muslims while the city was under Mongol rule.[229]\n\nPersecution under the Ilkhanate and Timurids\n\nThe period of freedom experienced by the Assyrians and other Christians came to an end when the Ilkhan Ghazan (r. 1295-1304) converted to Islam in 1295 and as one of his first acts as ruler ordered that all Buddhist temples, Jewish synagogues and Christian churches in his domain were to be destroyed. After the Muslims under his rule were inspired by the decree to direct violence towards the Christians, Ghazan intervened and somewhat reduced the severity of his decree, but some violence continued throughout his reign. The situation for the Assyrians and other Christians deteriorated even further under Ghazan's brother and successor, Öljaitü (r. 1304-1316).[230] In 1310, the Assyrians and other Christians of Erbil (ancient Arbela) tried to escape persecution and captured the city's citadel. Despite the efforts of the Patriarch of the East, Yahballaha III, to calm the situation down, the insurrection was violently suppressed by the Kurds and the local Mongol governor, who captured the citadel on 1 July 1310 and massacred all the defenders, as well as all of the Christian inhabitants of the lower town in the city.[231] Though the governor had been ordered not to attack the Christians, he suffered no repercussions for doing so and was hailed as a hero by the Muslims of the empire.[232] After twenty years of persecution under Ghazan and Öljaitü, the internal structure and hierarchy of the Church of the East had been more or less destroyed and most of its church buildings were gone. The final general gathering of leaders of the church in Iran took place at a synod in 1318.[233]\n\nSome small communities of Assyrians thrived outside of Mongol control. In the early 14th century there was a thriving small Assyrian community in the Kingdom of Cyprus. The Assyrians of Cyprus, concentrated in Famagusta, had been relocated there from Tyre at some point after the Crusaders captured the city in 1187. Though they were few in number they were able to maintain trade connections with cities in Egypt, such as Damietta and Alexandria. Among the prominent members of this community were the metropolitan Eliya and the two traders Francis and Nicholas Lakhas. The Lakhas brothers were noted as extremely wealthy, often providing gifts to King Peter I of Cyprus and his court, though they fell into poverty after the Republic of Genoa invaded the island in 1373.[234]\n\nThough already violently suppressed under the late Ilkhans, the Assyrians faced their worst persecution yet after the remnants of the Ilkhanate were conquered in 1370 by the Muslim Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire. With the express goal of cleansing his domain of Christians and other \"infidels,\" Timur oversaw the persecution and execution of an enormous number of Christians. Timur's efforts were so relentless that some among the Muslims doubted that he was Muslim at all since mercy is one of the major Muslim virtues. By the time of Timur's death in 1405, the Assyrians and other Christians of his empire had been almost exterminated, mostly due to Timur's actions[233] but also because of factors such as famine and the Black Death.[235] Timur's persecution campaigns are the chief reason why Christians, such as the Assyrians, still in modern times have only a minuscule presence in the Middle East. By 1410, there were only seven bishops in the Church of the East, a number down from the 24 bishops in 1238 and the 68 bishops in 1000.[233] In effect, the persecutions reduced the once widespread church to little more than an ethno-religious group, closely tied only to the Assyrian people.[236] In the mid-15th century, Patriarch Shemon IV made the office of patriarch hereditary, passing from uncle to nephew, a move motivated either by fearing interference in the election by Muslim authorities[237] or by there being so few bishops left that a vote was meaningless.[233]\n\nModern history (1552-present)\n\nSchism and Ottoman rule (1552-1843)\n\nOver the centuries since the collapse of the Assyrian Empire, the populace of different parts of former Assyria diverged somewhat in culture and beliefs as they were exposed to different neighbors and cultural influences. Generally, the Assyrians in the former Assyrian heartland were often exposed to cultural influences from Iran, whereas the Assyrians in the west, often today self-identifying as Syriacs, have been exposed to cultural influences from Greece.[238] The ancient church of the Assyrians, the Church of the East, was divided in the 16th century, when some members formed a Catholic offshoot, the Chaldean Catholic Church. The followers of this church are generally called Chaldeans, which is still the common identity among Assyrians originating from central Assyria.[186][j] The division of the Assyrian churches, often referred to as the schism of 1552, was chiefly the result of objections towards the perceived nepotism within the Church of the East.[243] Already in 1450, Patriarch Shemon IV, already controversial for making his office hereditary,[237] began appointing his family members to church offices. In the mid-16th century, the widely unpopular Patriarch Shemon VII Ishoyahb, who had succeeded his brother Shemon VI, appointed two of his nephews, both of whom were minors, as metropolitan bishops. Such actions were so unpopular that a gathering of bishops in 1552 refused Shemon VII's authority and elected a patriarch of their own, Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa. Sulaqa quickly made his way to Rome, where he submitted to Pope Julius III and was duly recognized as the new patriarch,[243] styled by the Pope as the \"Patriarch of Mosul and Assyria\".[237] This title was centuries later (1828)[242] changed to \"Patriarch of the Chaldeans\".[237]\n\nThe Ottoman Empire captured northern Mesopotamia from Safavid Iran during the early 16th century, Mosul being conquered by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538.[244] One of the first notable acts by the Ottomans in regards to the Assyrians was the arrest, torture and killing of the schismatic Sulaqu in 1555, an act instigated by Shermon VII. Still opposed to Shemon, the bishops ordained under Sulaqu then elected a successor, Abdisho IV Maron, who was recognized by Pope Pius IV in 1562.[245] When Shemon VII died, his remaining followers refused to recognize the authority of Abdisho IV and instead recognized Eliya VI, Shemon VII's nephew, as the new patriarch.[243] The division of the Church of the East led to each branch seeking closer relation with other Christian denominations, to the detriment of the other branch.[243] The Chaldean Catholic Church began discussions with the Roman Catholic Church in 1552/1553, but only achieved full communion in 1830.[186] Its relationship with the other Catholic Churches has deteriorated several times, particularly when hereditary succession was introduced in that church as well in 1600, something which led to a temporary break in communion with Rome. Eliya VIII of the Assyrian Church of the East during this time attempted to exploit the fall from grace of his rival to himself establish closer relations with Rome.[246]\n\nThe religious divide within the Assyrian community has been among their greatest hindrances in modern history. In the Ottoman Empire, the populace was organized into various ethno-religious groupings, called millets, with their own autonomy and sets of laws. Whereas some other groups, such as the Armenians, were organized into a single millet despite internal religious differences, the Ottomans separated the Süryani (Syriac Orthodox) and Keldani (Chaldean) groups into two different millets through official recognition of the Chaldeans in 1831. The followers of the Assyrian Church of the East were never officially recognized as a distinct grouping,[186] instead placed in the Armenian millet, formally under the authority of the Catholicos of All Armenians. The Armenian church however rarely interfered in their affairs.[247] The centuries of Ottoman rule over the Assyrians were largely peaceful before the 19th century;[248][249][250] as long as religious and ethnic minority communities paid their taxes and acknowledged the political dominion of the Ottoman sultans they were largely free to manage their own affairs, not only religiously and culturally but also legally and economically.[248] Despite the atrocities that would be committed by the increasingly nationalist Turkish collapsing Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries, the early centuries of Ottoman rule thus provided opportunities for cultural flourishing and political influence.[251] From the late 15th century onwards, Assyrian literary production increased once more, much of which was concerned with copying earlier texts for preservation purposes.[223]\n\nStruggles, persecution and genocide (1843-1919)\n\nColonialism by western powers in the latter half of the 19th century led to the Assyrian people being caught between powerful colonizers on one hand and local nationalists and religious zealots on the other. Colonizations of the Assyrian homeland by the Ottoman, British and various local powers led to several massacres and deportations, particularly around the time of World War I.[252] Most frequent and wide-ranging were persecutions by the Ottoman Empire and by various Kurdish groups.[k] In 1843 and 1846, the Assyrians of Hakkari were massacred by the Kurdish emir of Bohtan and Hakkari, Bedir Khan Beg, and regional Ottoman forces. More than 10,000 were killed and thousands were captured.[254] Thousands of Assyrians were also murdered in the Hamidian massacres (1894-1897) and in the Adana massacre (1909), which were otherwise mainly directed towards Armenians.[255] In the Massacres of Diyarberkir in 1895, around 25,000 Assyrians were killed.[256] Millennia of being an ethnic minority, combined with the many persecutions in the Middle Ages and early Modern period, reduced the number of Assyrians from as many as 20 million in ancient times[238] to only about 500,000-600,000 people at the beginning of the 20th century.[12]\n\nDespite the suffering of the Assyrian people, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were also a time that saw major Assyrian cultural developments: the first Assyrian newspaper, Zahrirē d-Bahra (\"Rays of Light\") began publishing in Urmia in 1848, aided by American missionaries,[252] and the first Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party, was founded in 1917.[257] The Assyrian Socialist Party prominently advocated for Assyrian independence; one of its co-founders, Freydun Atturaya, published the Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria in 1917, which called for a free and united Assyria, with economic ties to Russia and stretching from Tur Abdin and Nusaybin (ancient Nisibis) to Urmia and Hakkari.[258] Because of his Assyrian nationalist organizing, the authorities of the Soviet Union arrested Atturaya in 1924 and he was killed in 1926. He remains seen as a national hero and martyr by many Assyrians today.[259]\n\nAmong the most famous victims of the Sayfo, or Assyrian genocide, were the patriarch Shimun XIX Benyamin (left, killed in 1918) and the philosopher and author Ashur Yousif (right, killed in 1915)[252]\n\nIn the Sayfo of the 1910s (mainly 1915), also known as the Assyrian genocide, part of a series of genocides imposed by the collapsing Ottoman Empire on its Christian minorities (alongside the Armenian and Greek genocides), perhaps as many as 250,000[b] Assyrians were killed and thousands more were forcibly converted to Islam.[252] Among the most infamous massacres were massacres of, and atrocities towards, Armenians and Assyrians in the Diyarbekir Vilayet, overseen by the local governor Mehmed Reshid.[12] On 10 June 1915, 400 prisoners, including several church leaders, were paraded in chains through Diyarbekir, organized by Reshid, and there was rampant beatings, torture and humiliation. Many Assyrian women testified that they had been raped or otherwise sexually abused.[260] On 2 July 600 Assyrians were slaughtered outside the city walls.[261] The Assyrians of Urmia in Iran refer to this time as Raqa raqa (\"the Escape\") due to 30,000 men, women and children fleeing from their homes in Urmia and Hakkari, travelling upwards of 600 kilometers to a refugee camp at Baqubah, near Baghdad. Almost a third of the refugees died along the way, murdered by bandits or due to exposure to the elements. Large segments of the Assyrian population in the Tur Abdin region fled across the Izla ridge into the plains surrounding Nusaybin, where many settled in what would later become the city of Qamishli in northern Syria,[252] founded in 1926.[262] The genocide led to an irrevocable loss in trust not only for the Turkish government, but also for the Kurdish people, who participated in the atrocities.[250] Several Kurdish tribes assaulted and massacred Assyrian refugee caravans.[261] On 1 July 1915, the village of Tell-Ermen, with a substantial Assyrian population, was invaded by Kurdish tribesmen. The local Assyrians sought refuge in the church, to no avail. Victims, regardless of age or gender, were decapitated, hacked to death and drawn and quartered. Afterwards, Kurdish women entered the church and stabbed any survivors to death. The bodies were disposed of by being burnt or thrown into wells.[263]\n\nAn Assyrian independence movement took root as a result of these atrocities. In an effort to safeguard his people, Shimun XIX Benyamin, the Patriarch of the Church of the East, plead with the Allies of World War I for assistance and sought the aid of the Russian Empire.[252] Under Shimun's spiritual leadership, the Assyrians took up arms against the Ottoman government and joined the side of the British in the war as the Assyrian volunteers.[264] Shimun was assassinated on 3 March 1918 by the Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak under a truce flag.[252] The murder of Shimun did not put an end to the Assyrian defense force, which then came under the command of Agha Petros, who had been made a general by the French. Petros led the Assyrian forces for two years and dreamt of retaking abandoned Christian villages and founding an Assyrian state. Despite his charisma and dedication, Petros's conflict with the patriarchal family and the intrigues of the French and British in the region hindered him from becoming a recognized national leader and he was eventually exiled by the British to France, where he died in 1932.[265] Other important figures of the independence movement included further military leaders who fought against the Ottomans and Kurds, such as Raphael Khan and Malik Khoshaba, as well as philosophers and authors, such as Ashur Yousif, author of the periodical Murshid Athiriyon (\"Assyrian guide\"), and Qasha Baba Nwiya-d-Wazirabad, founder of the independent Assyrian publication Kokhva (\"The Star\"). Yousif was hanged by the Ottomans alongside other intellectuals in 1915. In Iran, the press of the Zahrirē d-Bahra, which had published continuously since 1848, was destroyed in 1918.[252] Many Assyrians fled from the Middle East entirely, with large numbers emigrating to the United States and South America. In the Assyrian diaspora, the first earnest Assyrian associations and organizations were created, including the Taw Mim Semkath (or Assyrian National School Association), founded in Stirling, New Jersey in 1899. This organization succeeded in opening an Assyrian school in Adana in 1919 to care for the orphans of the genocide, though it was forced to close in 1921 and relocated to Beirut in Lebanon.[266]\n\nFurther calls for autonomy (1919-1957)\n\nWith the collapse and breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the Qajar dynasty in Iran and the rise of new nation states in their place, many of the minorities of the Middle East began asserting their rights to self-determination and sovereignty, including the Assyrians. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, after World War I, an unprecedented gathering of four Assyrian groups; from Iran and the Caucasus, Iraq, the United States, and Syria, presented a manifesto and championed the creation of an independent Assyrian state.[267] The gathering is especially noteworthy for all groups, even those who otherwise identified as Chaldeans and Syriacs, coming together to present a united front as the descendants of \"the ancient Assyrian nation\", a term used by Ignatius Aphrem I of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[268] The manifesto, later published under the title The Claims of the Assyrians as Presented to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, defined the Assyrian people as being constituted by the \"Nestorians\", Chaldeans, Syriacs, Maronites, Persian Assyrians, Russian Assyrians and \"Muslim Assyrians\" (a group in which the delegation included the Yazidis and Shekaks).[267] Due to the opposition of Great Britain,[267] despite many British officials previously having promised support to the Assyrian volunteers in creating an Assyrian state,[269] the Assyrians were left out of the treaties that divided the Ottoman Empire, with only a small mention being made of the need to \"protect the Assyro-Chaldeans and other ethnic and religious minorities in the region\".[268] Though little came of their efforts on a geopolitical level, the delegation ensured that new lines of communication developed between the otherwise rival groups, long divided by religion and political borders.[267]\n\nAfter the establishment of British and French colonial rule in the Ottoman Empire's old lands in the Syria and Iraq, many Assyrians were enlisted by the British as soldiers in local colonial militias, perhaps a reason for later anti-Assyrian sentiment in the region. This anti-Assyrian sentiment was somewhat misguided as the British also enlisted large units of Arabs and Kurds. In 1921, Faisal I was granted a ruling hand of Mandatory Iraq as its king.[266] Under the British mandate, the Assyrians significantly grew in number in northern Mesopotamia again.[268] Though often barred from formal military and political service by the Iraqi authorities, there were many prominent politically active Assyrians. Piotr Vasili, an Assyrian born in Georgia, became the father of communism in Iraq as the mentor of Yusuf Salman Yusuf, also an Assyrian, who served as the first secretary of the Iraqi Communist Party.[270] The Iraqi Communist Party has historically been popular among Assyrians owing to its opposition to the Iraqi government.[271] Assyrian calls for independence and autonomy continued through the later 20th century. In 1932, Patriarch Shimun XXIII Eshai and other prominent Assyrians sent a petition to Great Britain and the League of Nations to recognize the Assyrians as a nation that has constantly lived in Iraq, not only a religious minority, and to work for further Assyrian autonomy.[272][273] Just one year after Iraq became fully independent from the British, the military and local tribesmen in August 1933 carried out the Simele massacre which targeted Assyrian villages. Assyrian estimates place the death toll as high as 3,000 victims.[270] August 7, which saw the most bloodshed, is still commemorated as the \"Day of the Assyrian Martyrs\".[274]\n\nIn the wake of the Simele massacre, the League of Nations proposed an Assyrian settlement in 1935, though little came of it.[273] In 1945, Shimun XXIII submitted the Assyrian National Petition to the newly established United Nations, urging the creation of an Assyrian state. Three years later in 1948, Shimun XXIII however urged the Assyrian people to reconcile with the Iraqi authorities and live as \"loyal citizens\",[275] hoping that the Assyrians might eventually achieve autonomy instead of outright independence.[276] It was in the aftermath of the Simele massacre and the previous atrocities committed against the Assyrian people that the distinct Assyrian church communities (i.e. the Syriacs and Chaldeans) began to truly advocate for separate identities; though not distinct ethnic groups in the normal sense, differences in customs and religious beliefs had by this point become palpable. This development probably coincided with the foundation of the secular Assyrian Democratic Organization in Syria in 1957.[257]\n\nContemporary Assyria (1957-present)\n\nPolitical and cultural movements\n\nIn the aftermath of the continued division of the Assyrian community, contributed to by both internal and external factors, many of the remaining Assyrians in Turkey and elsewhere became politically involved in left-wing movements, though they were mostly consumed by the more numerous and powerful Kurdish political movements, such as the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Due to continued Turkish annexation of Assyrian villages and imposing of Turkish names for them, many Assyrians fled Turkey, emigrating to countries such as Sweden, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In Iran, Assyrians continued to remain as a small, albeit influential, minority until the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when many fled the country. Among the Assyrian developments in Iran prior to 1979 were the foundation in Tehran of the Assyrian Youth Cultural Society on 21 February 1950, an organization that formed the basis of the later Assyrian Universal Alliance, founded in France in 1968. After the Iranian Revolution, new religious pressures were imposed by the government, which among other things led to Assyrian schools being forced to change to using Iranian names.[257]\n\nEven after the Simele massacre the Iraqi government continued to impose policies in an effort to curb Assyrian culture. In the 1960s, 70 towns and villages in northern Iraq were destroyed, many were forcibly abandoned and more than 76 sites of religious or cultural significance were destroyed. In the \"border clearings\" of 1974-1978, many northern villages were destroyed, with thousands of families relocated in a forced urbanization campaign. In the Anfal campaign, primarily a massacre of the Kurds, the Iraqi government killed around 2,000 Assyrians and destroyed over fifty historical and cultural sites. Though the population of Assyrians in Iraq had risen to as many as over 1 million since the Sayfo, estimates suggest that it again fell to 300,000-400,000 between 1961 and 1991 as the result of mass emigrations. The Assyrians were not idle in the face of continued measures against them.[277] Some, such as Margaret George Shello,[278] joined the Kurdish cause against the Iraqi government, despite the historically poor relations between the two groups.[271][277] Shello joined the Peshmerga in 1963, at the age of 20, as the organization's first female fighter[278][279] and commanded the Kurdish forces at the Battle of Zawita Valley before her death in 1969, most likely assassinated by the Iraqi government or by a rival Kurdish faction.[278] Since her death, Shello has become an icon among the female warriors of the Peshmerga.[279]\n\nAssyrian flags adopted in the 20th century: flag used by the Assyrian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (left) and the most common modern flag, designed in 1968 and nearly universally adopted in 1971 (right).[280]\n\nThe Iraqi government considered the sudden political unity between many of the Assyrians and Kurds to be a threat and made many unsuccessful attempts to divide the groups. In 1973, President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr invited the Assyrian political leader Yaku Malek Ismael and Patriarch Shimun XXIII and offered to grant the Assyrians additional rights in return for funding Assyrian military units to attack the Kurds; Ismael and Shimun refused the offer.[281] Assyrians in Iraq during this time also funded books and magazines (including the magazine Mordinna Atouraya, published in both Assyrian and Aramaic) and founded numerous organizations, such as Assyrian Unity and Freedom, the Assyrian Cultural Club and the Assyrian Sports Club. Other Assyrians became politically active and championed the cause for Assyrian autonomy. In the 1960s and 1970s, Hurmiz Malik Chikko led an unsuccessful struggle for autonomy. The most prominent Assyrian political party in Iraq, the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), was founded in 1979.[271][257] The ADM was established chiefly in response to the Iraqi government in its 1977 census refusing to acknowledge the existence of the Assyrian people, forcing Assyrians to register as either Arabs or Kurds.[269]\n\nThough some continued hostility between Assyrians and Kurds have been recorded since the late 20th century, the Assyrians have prominently participated in the political scene of the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq since its autonomy in 1992. Assyrian political parties partook in the first 1992 Kurdistan Region parliamentary election, wherein some seats had been reserved for the Assyrian community. In the face of such collaboration, the Iraqi government changed tactics from persuasion to intimidation, pressuring Assyrian political leaders. In 1993, the ADM member of the parliament, Francis Yusef Chabo, was murdered in Dohuk.[282] Though the position of the Assyrians in the rest of Iraq has mostly deteriorated, and despite their historical enmity, the Assyrians in the Kurdistan Region have mostly flourished, with their political, cultural and educational rights guaranteed. Since 1991, they have been able to publish newspapers and broadcast television in their own language; more than 30 Assyrian language schools have been created with government funding and more than 20 churches have been renovated and restored.[283]\n\n21st century\n\nToday, the Assyrians mostly live in diaspora and continue to be divided into rival political factions and Christian denominations.[238] In modern times there have been several unsuccessful efforts to reunify the Assyrian people under one common identity. In 22-24 October 2003, religious leaders of the various communities, politicians and civic club members met at the Ishtar Hotel in Baghdad in an effort to settle on a unified nomenclature. Among others presided over by Yonadam Kanna, secretary general of the ADM, the meeting settled on referring to the people as \"Chaldo-Assyrian\" and the language as \"Syriac\".[284] Though the term \"Chaldo-Assyrian\" met with some initial acknowledgement, it also received much backlash,[285][284] especially in the diaspora.[285] Though some disagreement exists within the Chaldean community,[239] both Assyrians and Chaldeans have for the most part agreed that it is an indisputable fact that they are the same people. Each side however retains its own opinion on what \"same people\" actually means.[240] An uncontroversial unifying term sometimes used in certain contexts is the Arabic designation Masīḥī (meaning Christian).[284] Some organizations use \"Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac\".[239] At the same time as efforts to unify the Assyrians failed, the Assyrians in Turkey experienced a resurgence as families formerly emigrated to France began to return to the region around Tur Abdin and Bohtan and rebuild. Though opposed by the Turkish government and local Kurdish groups, the local Assyrians continue to operate the major monasteries in the region, including the Mor Hananyo Monastery and the Mor Gabriel Monastery.[284]\n\nTo counterweight the Kurdish political power in northern Iraq, some Assyrians advocating for autonomy have favored closer relations and unity with the other minorities of the region: the Yazidis and Iraqi Turkmen. Some Assyrians and Yazidis have advocated the idea that they are the same people, separated only by religion and culture, and have championed the inclusion of the Yazidis in the \"Assyrian nation\". In 2004, the Assyrian activist Hanna Hajjar championed the idea that an independent Assyria could be built together with the Turkmen as equal partners.[286]\n\nAmong numerous other sites of historical and cultural value, ancient Assyrian ruins, such as those of Nineveh, suffered extensive destruction of cultural heritage by the Islamic State. Among the other prominent structures of the site, the Mashki Gate (left) was destroyed in 2016. The current destroyed archaeological site (right) is mostly occupied by squatters.\n\nThe Assyrians suffered persecution and genocide again in the power vacuum left in the aftermath of the Iraq War, as the Islamic State (ISIL) terrorist group swept over northern Iraq in 2014. ISIL commenced a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Christian minorities. After the Fall of Mosul in June 2014, the Christian inhabitants of the city were given the choice of leaving, converting or being killed. On 23 February 2015, ISIL fighters combed the region along the Khabur river in north-eastern Syria, imprisoning locals, destroying shrines, churches and monasteries and plundering and razing villages. In total, about 300 people were kidnapped and 3,000 were displaced. Many Assyrians were also executed during the time of ISIL control. ISIL threatened not only the lives of the Assyrian people but also their cultural heritage. Also in February 2015, claiming the ancient Mesopotamian artefacts and ruins represented \"elements of idolatry from the age of ignorance\", ISIL destroyed hundreds of ancient artefacts from Mosul and bulldozed large portions of the ruins of the ancient cities of Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, Hatra and Assur.[287]\n\nThough northern Mesopotamia was liberated from ISIL control in 2017-2019, the future of the Assyrian people and their ancient homeland remains uncertain. Large Assyrian communities still live in the region, most prominently in Qamishli, along the Khabur river, in the Nineveh Plains and in Aleppo, which received an influx of Assyrian refugees during World War I. Though several Assyrian military units were formed in response to the ISIL incursion, including the Khabour Guards, Sootoro and the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, they remain smaller than many other units in the region, such as the mainly-Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) and Peshmerga.[288] The conflicts also led to tensions within the Assyrian community, as armed groups like the Khabour Guards and Nattoreh occasionally clashed with pro-YPG Assyrians like the Syriac Military Council. Despite these issues, local Assyrian self-defense groups were able to assert some limited self-governance; for instance, the Assyrian Democratic Party made a deal in 2017 which led to the withdrawal of the YPG from the Khabur valley, with it passing under control of the Khabour Guards and Nattoreh.[289] Due to its central position in the Middle East, the Assyrian homeland and its remaining Assyrian population are threatened in the event of renewed intense conflict in the region.[288] Among the diaspora, the continued persecutions and atrocities committed against the Assyrians that still live in the Assyrian homeland have led to fears that they will never be able to return, which has made \"permanent emigration\" a key part of their identity.[250]\n\nDespite the turmoil of the last 20 years, however, there are growing hopes in the Assyrian diaspora of a return to the Assyrian homeland, with slow moves back choosing to settle in Ankawa to preserve Assyrian identity and heritage.[290]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian cuisine\n\nAssyrian culture\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrian music\n\nAssyrian struggle for independence\n\nHistory of Syriac Christianity\n\nList of Assyrians\n\nName of Syria\n\nNames of Syriac Christians\n\nNotes\n\n^ The modern Christian Assyrian people have historically appeared in western sources under many names, including the ethnic term Assyrians and its derivatives (Syriacs, East Syrians, the term Syria being etymologically derived from and originally meaning Assyrian) and the religiously denominational terms Nestorians, Chaldeans/Chaldean Catholics/Chaldo-Assyrians, Syriac Christians and Jacobites. In their own language, their historical self-designation has typically (but see also terms for Syriac Christians) been Assurayu, Asoraye, Sūrāyē or Sūrōyē.[1] This self-designation is generally accepted by modern scholars to be derived from the ancient Akkadian Assūrāyu (\"Assyrian\"), which was sometimes later rendered in the shorter form Sūrāyu.[1][2] This article follows the generally scholarly accepted[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] idea of Assyrian continuity, that the modern Assyrians are descended from the ancient people of Assyria.[1] Assyrian continuity is strongly supported by both historical[9] archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence.[5]\n\n^ a b The precise number is far from certain since the massacres were poorly documented by the Ottoman government. The Assyrian population prior to the genocide amounted to about 500,000-600,000 people and the generally accepted estimate is that about 50 % of the Assyrian people were killed.[12]\n\n^ The later Assyrian King List lists upwards of thirty names in this period but the majority are not attested elsewhere and thus not historically verified.[30][31][32] The earliest kings in the list are described as \"kings who lived in tents\", i.e. probably semi nomadic Assyrian rulers,[17] which fits poorly with the archaeological evidence of Assur and surrounding sites being urbanized from an early point in time.[13]\n\n^ The absence of a royal crown in this image is due to the king being depicted in a religious/cultic context.[80]\n\n^ Adad-shuma-usur is designated as Kashtiliash's son in later Babylonian texts. He himself claimed to be the son of Kashtiliash only in a handful of inscriptions; it is possible that he only claimed to be Kashtiliash's son to further his claim to the Babylonian throne. Records from Elam, though they were written centuries later, designate Adad-shuma-usur as an unrelated usurper, son of a man named Dunna-Sah from the \"middle Euphrates river\" region.[91]\n\n^ Though less in number than in preceding and succeeding times, a number of royal inscriptions are known from this period of Middle Assyrian decline, particularly from the reign of Ashurnasirpal I (r. 1049-1031 BC).[105]\n\n^ Though often referred to as a satrapy by modern historians,[168] Assyria appears in Achaemenid royal inscriptions as a dahyu; a term of uncertain implications used to refer to both peoples and geographical locations (not necessarily synonymous with the formal satrapies of the empire).[169]\n\n^ How terms such as \"Assyrian\" were used varied considerably between authors, however. Some Christians used \"Assyrian\" (aturaya) and \"Assyria\" (atur) only in a geographical, and not necessarily ethnic, sense.[194] Though evidence of Christians in the Sasanian period self-identifying as \"Assyrians\" is generally scarcer than in earlier times, it is not wholly absent and it is clear that the Assyrians continued to survive as a group.[8] The 2nd-century Christian writer Tatian is expressly identified as self-identifying as \"Assyrian\" in the surviving sources. There also exists several known references to the \"land of the Assyrians\", in Aramaic referring to the region of ancient Assyria.[8] The later 12th-century Michael the Syrian, also expressly used Suryayē (i.e. Assyrians) as a name for the people.[195]\n\n^ The name Āsōristān for the land covering southern Mesopotamia has not only confused several modern scholars, but was already confusing to scholars in ancient times; in the writings of the 4th-century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, Āsōristān is confused with ancient Assyria.[204]\n\n^ Though some in the Chaldean community, such as the Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly in 2009, have in present times advocated for recognition of the Chaldeans as a separate nation[239] and Chaldeans often associate with the ancient Babylonians in the same way modern Assyrians associate with their ancient predecessors,[240] most Assyrians and Chaldeans today agree that they are the same ethnic group (though disagree on the terminology),[240] a stance also taken by most non-Assyrian international organizations and foreign nations.[241] In modern times, several Chaldean church leaders and patriarchs have maintained that \"Chaldean\" is a religious identity and that they are ethnically Assyrian.[242]\n\n^ Though they inhabit much of the same lands, Assyrians and Kurds have, with some exceptions, coexisted peacefully for most of their history. Since 1843, relations have often been hostile however, owing to repeated atrocities. Kurdish hatred and distrust for the Assyrians stemmed from the many visits and promises by western missionaries to the Assyrians in the 19th century making the Kurds nervous. Some missionaries encouraged anti-Assyrian attitudes among the Kurds as it was believed that the Christian Assyrians would be more susceptible if they believed themselves to be threatened. Relations between the Assyrians and Kurds worsened further in the later 19th century, as the borders of proposed Assyrian and Kurdish states often overlapped and each group thus saw the independence movement of the other as a threat to their own efforts.[253]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Benjamen 2022, p. 2.\n\n^ a b Parpola 2004, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ Saggs 1984, p. 290.\n\n^ Biggs 2005, p. 10.\n\n^ a b Travis 2010, p. 149.\n\n^ Novák 2016, p. 132.\n\n^ Jupp 2001, p. 175.\n\n^ a b c d e Odisho 1988, p. 10.\n\n^ a b c Hauser 2017, p. 241.\n\n^ Frahm 2017a, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Hauser 2017, p. 229.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt, Atto & Barthoma 2017, p. 10.\n\n^ a b c d e Liverani 2014, p. 208.\n\n^ Liverani 2014, p. 48.\n\n^ a b Garfinkle 2007, p. 61.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, pp. 729-730.\n\n^ a b c d e Roux 1992, p. 187.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 729.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 731.\n\n^ Lewy 1971, p. 745.\n\n^ Mallowan 1971, p. 298.\n\n^ a b c Foster 2016, chapter 3.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 30.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1971, p. 733.\n\n^ Mallowan 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ISBN 978-0748686025.\n\nDonabed, Sargon George (2019). \"Persistent Perseverance: A Trajectory of Assyrian History in the Modern Age\". In Rowe, Paul S. (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East. London. ISBN 978-1138649040.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nvan Driel, G. (1969). The Cult of Aššur. Assen: Koninklije Van Gorcum. OCLC 71504.\n\nDrower, Margaret Stephana; Gray, Eric William; Sherwin-White, Susan Mary (2012). \"Osroëne\". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108478748.\n\nElayi, Josette (2017). Sargon II, King of Assyria. SBL Press. ISBN 978-1628371772.\n\nEr, Saliba (2022). \"The Syriac Orthodox Church\". In Ramelli, Ilaria L. E.; McGuckin, J. A.; Ashwin-Siejkowski, Piotr (eds.). T&T Clark Handbook of the Early Church. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0567680389.\n\nFales, Frederick Mario (2014). \"The Two Dynasties of Assyria\". In Gaspa, Salvatore; Greco, Alessandro; Morandi Bonacossi, Daniele; Ponchia, Simonetta; Rollinger, Robert (eds.). From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3868351019.\n\nFiloni, Fernando (2017). The Church in Iraq. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 978-0813229652.\n\nFoster, Benjamin R. (2016). The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1315686561.\n\nFrahm, Eckart, ed. (2017). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 978-1118325247.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017a). Introduction. In Frahm (2017).\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017b). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\". In Frahm (2017).\n\nGalter, Hannes D. (2007). \"Looking down the Tigris: the interrelations between Assyria and Babylonia\". In Leick, Gwendolyn (ed.). The Babylonian World. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35346-5.\n\nGarfinkle, Steven J. (2007). \"The Assyrians: A New Look at an Ancient Power\". In Rubio, Gonzalo; Garfinkle, Steven J.; Beckman, Gary; Snell, Daniel C.; Chavalas, Mark W. (eds.). Current Issues and the Study of the Ancient Near East. Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians. Claremont: Regina Books. ISBN 978-1930053465.\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1593333010.\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Berghahn. ISBN 978-1785334986.\n\nGerster, Georg (2005). The Past from Above: Aerial Photographs of Archaeological Sites. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. ISBN 978-0892368174.\n\nvan Ginkel, Jan J. (2006). \"The Perception and Presentation of the Arab Conquest in Syriac Historiography: How did the Changing Social Position of the Syriac Orthodox Community Influence the Account of their Historiographers?\". In Grypeou, Emmanouela; Swanson, Mark; Thomas, David (eds.). The Encounter of Eastern Christianity With Early Islam. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 90-04-14938-4.\n\nGrayson, A. Kirk (1972). Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: From the beginning to Ashur-resha-ishi I. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 9783447013826. OCLC 584578.\n\nGrayson, A. Kirk (2002) [1996]. Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC: II (858-745 BC). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0886-0.\n\nHanoosh, Yasmeen (2019). The Chaldeans: Politics and Identity in Iraq and the American Diaspora. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1788313698.\n\nHarper, Prudence O.; Klengel-Brandt, Evelyn; Aruz, Joan; Benzel, Kim (1995). Assyrian Origins: Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: Antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0-87099-743-2.\n\nHauser, Stefan R. \"Post-Imperial Assyria\". In Frahm (2017).\n\nJacobsen, Douglas (2021). The World's Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 978-1119626107.\n\nJoseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Power. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 90-04-11641-9.\n\nJackson, Cailah (2020). Islamic Manuscripts of Late Medieval Rum, 1270s-1370s: Production, Patronage and the Arts of the Book. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1474451505.\n\nJakob, Stefan. \"The Middle Assyrian Period (14th to 11th Century BCE)\". In Frahm (2017).\n\nJupp, James (2001). Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80789-1.\n\nJursa, Michael (2007). \"Die Söhne Kudurrus und die Herkunft der neubabylonischen Dynastie\" [The Sons of Kudurru and the Origins of the New Babylonian Dynasty]. Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale (in German). 101 (1): 125-136. doi:10.3917/assy.101.0125.\n\nKalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (2014). \"Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography: An Introduction\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nKertai, David (2020). \"Libbali-sharrat in the Garden: An Assyrian Queen Holding Court\". Source: Notes in the History of Art. 39 (4): 209-218. doi:10.1086/709188. S2CID 225090268.\n\nLambert, W. G. (1983). \"The God Aššur\". Iraq. 45 (1): 82-86. doi:10.2307/4200181. JSTOR 4200181. S2CID 163337976.\n\nLendering, Jona (2006). \"The Assyrian King List\". Livius. 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Vol. II/8. pp. 785-786.\n\nWood, Philip (2018). \"Historiography in the Syriac-Speaking World, 300-1000\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1315708195.\n\nYamada, Shiego. \"The Transition Period (17th to 15th century BCE)\". In Frahm (2017).\n\nYapp, Malcolm (1988). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0582493803.\n\nZawadzki, Stefan (1994). \"The Revolt of 746 B.C and the Coming of Tiglath-pileser III to the Throne\" (PDF). State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 8: 53-54. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 May 2013."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-history-of-the-assyrians"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 21560}, {"slug": "reference-tukulti-ninurta-ii", "title": "Tukulti-Ninurta II", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tukulti-Ninurta II (meaning: \"my trust is in [the warrior god] Ninurta\") was King of Assyria from 890 BCE to 884 BCE. He was the second king of the Neo Assyrian Empire.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tukulti-Ninurta II\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nAnnals of Tukulti-Ninurta II\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign7 regnal years\n890-884 BCE\n\nPredecessorAdad-Nirari II\n\nSuccessorAshurnasirpal II\n\nBorn10th century BCE\n\nDied884 BCE\n\nIssueAshurnasirpal II\n\nFatherAdad-Nirari II\n\nMotherBabylonian princess, daughter of Nabu-shuma-ukin I (?)[1]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta II (meaning: \"my trust is in [the warrior god] Ninurta\") was King of Assyria from 890 BCE to 884 BCE. He was the second king of the Neo Assyrian Empire.\n\nHistory\n\nHis father was Adad-nirari II, the first king of the Neo-Assyrian period. Tukulti-Ninurta consolidated the gains made by his father over the Neo-Hittites, Babylonians and Arameans, and successfully campaigned in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, subjugating the newly arrived Iranian peoples of the area, the Persians and Medes, during his brief reign.[2] \n\nTukulti-Ninurta II was victorious over Ammi-Ba'al, the king of Bit-Zamani, and then entered into a treaty with him (which included prohibitions against selling horses to Assyria's foes), as a result of which Bit-Zamani became an ally, and in fact a vassal of Assyria. Ammi-Ba'al remained in power, but from that moment on, he had to support Tukulti-Ninurta II during his military expeditions to the Upper Tigris against the Hurrians and Urartians in Nairi.[3]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta II developed both Nineveh and Assur, in which he improved the city walls, built palaces and temples and decorated the gardens with scenes of his military achievements.[4]\n\nHis son, Ashurnasirpal II, succeeded him.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Brill. p. 89. ISBN 9789004430921.\n\n^ George V. Yana (2008). \"Ancient and Modern Assyrians: A Scientific Analysis\". Xlibris Corporation. p. 149. ISBN 9781465316295.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Edward Lipiński (2000). \"The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion\". Peeters Publishers. p. 517. ISBN 9789042908598.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ John Malcolm Russell (1999). \"The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions\". Eisenbrauns. p. 222. ISBN 9780931464959.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nFurther reading\n\nAlbert Kirk Grayson (1991). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC). University of Toronto Press."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tukulti-ninurta-ii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 364}, {"slug": "reference-shalmaneser-iii", "title": "Shalmaneser III", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Shalmaneser III (Šulmānu-ašarēdu, \"the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent\") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC.[2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shalmaneser III\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nGlorious King of the Lands\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of All Peoples\n\nShalmaneser III, on the Throne Dais of Shalmaneser III at the Iraq Museum.\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign35 regnal years\n859-824 BC\n858-823 BCE[1]\n\nPredecessorAshurnasirpal II\n\nSuccessorShamshi-Adad V\n\nBorn893-891 BC\n\nDiedc. 824 BC\n\nFatherAshurnasirpal II\n\nMotherMullissu-mukannishat-Ninua (?)\n\nShalmaneser III (Šulmānu-ašarēdu, \"the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent\") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC.[2]\n\nHis long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia, Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu. His armies penetrated to Lake Van and the Taurus Mountains; the Neo-Hittites of Carchemish were compelled to pay tribute, and the kingdoms of Hamath and Aram Damascus were subdued. It is in the annals of Shalmaneser III from the 850s BC that the Arabs and Chaldeans first appear in recorded history.\n\nReign\n\nAccession\n\nOn 1 Nisan 859 BC, Ashurnasirpal II entered his final 25th regnal year (April 859/858 BC). During this year, he died and was succeeded by Shalmaneser III who began his accession year (Year 0) and conducted his 1st military campaign. On 1 Nisan 858 BC, the Akītu festival (Assyrian New Year) was held and marked the formal beginning of regnal Year 1.\n\nCampaigns\n\nShalmaneser began a campaign against Urartu and reported that in 858 BCE, he destroyed the city of Sugunia, and then in 853 BCE Araškun. Both cities are assumed to have been capitals of Urartu before Tushpa became a center for the Urartians.[3]\n\nIn 853 BC, a coalition was formed by eleven states, mainly by Hadadezer, King of Aram-Damascus; Irhuleni, king of Hamath; Ahab, king of Northern Israel; Gindibu, king of the Arabs; and some other rulers who fought the Assyrian king at the Battle of Qarqar. The result of the battle was not decisive, and Shalmaneser III had to fight his enemies several times again in the coming years, which eventually resulted in the occupation of the Levant, Jordan, and the Syrian Desert by the Assyrian Empire.\n\nIn 851 BC, following a rebellion in Babylon, Shalmaneser led a campaign against Marduk-bēl-ušate, younger brother of the king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I, who was an ally of Shalmaneser.[4] In the second year of the campaign, Marduk-bēl-ušate was forced to retreat and was killed. A record of these events was made on the Black Obelisk:\n\nIn the eighth year of my reign, Marduk-bêl-usâte, the younger brother, revolted against Marduk-zâkir-šumi, king of Karduniaš, and they divided the land in its entirety. In order to avenge Marduk-zâkir-šumi, I marched out and captured Mê-Turnat. In the ninth year of my reign, I marched against Akkad a second time. I besieged Ganannate. As for Marduk-bêl-usâte, the terrifying splendor of Assur and Marduk overcame him and he went up into the mountains to save his life. I pursued him. I cut down with the sword Marduk-bêl-usâte and the rebel army officers who were with him.\n\n- Shalmaneser III, Black Obelisk[i 1]\n\nAgainst Israel\n\nIn 841 BC, Shalmaneser campaigned against Hadadezer's successor Hazael, forcing him to take refuge within the walls of his capital.[7] While Shalmaneser was unable to capture Damascus, he devastated its territory, and Jehu of Israel (whose ambassadors are represented on the Black Obelisk now in the British Museum), together with the Phoenician cities, prudently sent tribute to him in perhaps 841 BC.[8] Babylonia had already been conquered, including the areas occupied by migrant Chaldaean, Sutean and Aramean tribes, and the Babylonian king had been put to death.[9]\n\nAgainst Tibareni\n\nIn 836 BC, Shalmaneser sent an expedition against the Tibareni (Tabal) which was followed by one against Cappadocia, and in 832 BC came another campaign against Urartu.[10] In the following year, age required the king to hand over the command of his armies to the Tartan (turtānu commander-in-chief) Dayyan-Assur, and six years later, Nineveh and other cities revolted against him under his rebel son Assur-danin-pal. Civil war continued for two years; but the rebellion was at last crushed by Shamshi-Adad V, another son of Shalmaneser. Shalmaneser died soon afterwards.\n\nLater campaigns\n\nDespite the rebellion later in his reign, Shalmanesar had proven capable of expanding the frontiers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, stabilising its hold over the Khabur and mountainous frontier region of the Zagros, contested with Urartu.\n\nLast regnal year\n\nOn 1 Nisan 824 BC, Shalmaneser III entered his final 35th regnal year (824/823 BC), during which time he died and was succeeded by Shamshi-Adad V. This was the limmu year of \"Bêl-bunaya, the palace herald\" during which time there was a \"revolt\". The revolt had begun in Year 32 (827/826 BC) and was not suppressed until Year 3 of Shamshi-Adad V (821/820 BC).\n\nIn Biblical studies\n\nHis reign is significant to Biblical studies because two of his monuments name rulers from the Hebrew Bible.[11] The Black Obelisk names Jehu son of Omri (although Jehu was misidentified as a son of Omri).[11] The Kurkh Monolith names king Ahab, in reference to the Battle of Qarqar.\n\nConstruction and the Black Obelisk\n\nHe had built a palace at Kalhu (Biblical Calah, modern Nimrud), and left several editions of the royal annals recording his military campaigns, the last of which is engraved on the Black Obelisk from Calah.\n\nThe Black Obelisk is a significant artifact from his reign. It is a black limestone, bas-relief sculpture from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq. It is the most complete Assyrian obelisk yet discovered, and is historically significant because it displays the earliest ancient depiction of an Israelite. On the top and the bottom of the reliefs there is a long cuneiform inscription recording the annals of Shalmaneser III. It lists the military campaigns which the king and his commander-in-chief headed every year, until the thirty-first year of reign. Some features might suggest that the work had been commissioned by the commander-in-chief, Dayyan-Assur.\n\nThe second register from the top includes the earliest surviving picture of an Israelite: the Biblical Jehu, king of Israel.[12] Jehu severed Israel's alliances with Phoenicia and Judah, and became subject to Assyria. It describes how Jehu brought or sent his tribute in or around 841 BC.[5][11] The caption above the scene, written in Assyrian cuneiform, can be translated:\n\n\"The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri: I received from him silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king [and] spears.\"[11]\n\nIt was erected as a public monument in 825 BC at a time of civil war. It was discovered by archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1846.\n\nGallery\n\n Statue of Shalmaneser III at Istanbul Archaeological Museums\n\n Statue of Shalmaneser III from Nimrud, Iraq Museum\n\n Kurba'il Statue of Shalmaneser III from Fort Shalmaneser, Iraq Museum\n\n Shalmaneser III, detail of glazed wall panel from Fort Shalmaneser, Iraq Museum\n\n Throne dais of Shalmaneser III from Fort Shalmaneser, Iraq Museum\n\n Unfinished basalt statue of Shalmaneser III, from Assur, Iraq. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul\n\n The upper end of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, from Nimrud, the British Museum\n\n Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the British Museum\n\n Throne dais of Shalmaneser III, Royal reception\n\n Throne dais of Shalmaneser III, procession\n\n Statue of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad\n\n Shalmaneser III, detail, North Face, East End, Throne Dais of Shalmaneser III from Nimrud, Iraq\n\n Shalmaneser III, detail, south face, west end, Throne Dais of Shalmaneser III from Nimrud, Iraq\n\n Kurba'il Statue of Shalmaneser III at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad\n\n Shulmano Osser the third, the great king The strong king, king of the world, king of the country Assyria Son of the Ashour Nassir Abli (the second), king of the country Assyria Son of Toklty Ninorta (the second) king of the world king of the country Assyria Building a Ziqqurat King of kilkho city ... cuneiform writings on the bricks of King Shalmaneser III in Erbil Civilization Museum\n\nSee also\n\nList of artifacts significant to the Bible\n\nBlack Obelisk of Shalmaneser III\n\nNotes\n\n^ Black Obelisk, BM WAA 118885, crafted c. 827 BC, lines 73-84\n\nReferences\n\n^ His accession year was the remaining of 859/858 BC (Year 0), while his 35 regnal years started on April 858/857 (Year 1, 1 Nisan) into April 824/823 BCE (Year 35). The Battle of Qarqar in Year 5 (854/853 BC). Assyrians started their regnal year on 1 Nisan with the Akitu Spring Festival (new year) in April.\n\n^ \"Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser II\". Mcadams.posc.mu.edu. Retrieved 26 October 2012.\n\n^ Çiftçi, Ali (2017). The Socio-Economic Organisation of the Urartian Kingdom. Brill. p. 190. ISBN 9789004347588.\n\n^ Jean Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, Atlanta 2004,\n\n^ a b Kuan, Jeffrey Kah-Jin (2016). Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine: Israelite/Judean-Tyrian-Damascene Political and Commercial Relations in the Ninth-Eighth Centuries BCE. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 64-66. ISBN 978-1-4982-8143-0.\n\n^ Cohen, Ada; Kangas, Steven E. (2010). Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography. UPNE. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-58465-817-7.\n\n^ Trevor Bryce (6 March 2014). Ancient Syria: A Three Thousand Year History. OUP Oxford. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-19-100293-9.\n\n^ On the year that Jehu sent tribute, see David T. Lamb (22 November 2007). Righteous Jehu and His Evil Heirs: The Deuteronomist's Negative Perspective on Dynastic Succession. OUP Oxford. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-19-923147-8.\n\n^ Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq\n\n^ \"In 836 Shalmaneser made an expedition against the Tibareni (Tabal) which was followed by one against Cappadocia\" in Chisholm, Hugh; Garvin, James Louis (1926). The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature & General Information. Encyclopædia Britannica Company, Limited. p. 798.\n\n^ a b c d Cohen, Ada; Kangas, Steven E. (2010). Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography. UPNE. pp. 127-128. ISBN 978-1-58465-817-7.\n\n^ This is \"the only portrayal we have in ancient Near Eastern art of an Israelite or Judaean monarch\"in Cohen, Ada; Kangas, Steven E. (2010). Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography. UPNE. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-58465-817-7.\n\nSources\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Shalmaneser\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.\n\nFurther reading\n\nKirk Grayson, A. (1996). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (858-754 BC). University of Toronto press.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Shalmaneser III at Wikimedia Commons\n\nGates of Shalmanser III and Assurnasirpal. Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser King of Assyria \n\nBlack Obelisk of Shalmaneser III Babylonian and Assyrian Literature.\n\nBlack Obelisk of Shalmaneser III"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shalmaneser-iii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1760}, {"slug": "reference-syrianska-fc", "title": "Syrianska FC", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Syrianska Football Club, also known as Syrianska FC or simply Syrianska,[2] is a Swedish professional football club based in Södertälje in Stockholm County. The club was founded by Syriac-Aramean immigrants in 1977 as Suryoyo Sportklubb, or Suryoyo SK. In 1986, its name was changed to Syrianska SK. The...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syrianska\n\nFull nameSyrianska Football Club (SFC)\n\nNicknameSuryoye[1]\n\nFounded1 July 1977 (1977-07-01) as Suryoyo SK\n\nGroundSödertälje Fotbollsarena, Södertälje\n\nCapacity6,100\n\nChairmanKaram Chamoun\n\nManagerÖzcan Melkemichel\n\nLeagueDivision 2\n\n2025Division 2 Södra Svealand, 10th of 14\n\nWebsitehttp://www.syrianskafc.com/\n\nSyrianska Football Club, also known as Syrianska FC or simply Syrianska,[2] is a Swedish professional football club based in Södertälje in Stockholm County. The club was founded by Syriac-Aramean immigrants in 1977 as Suryoyo Sportklubb, or Suryoyo SK. In 1986, its name was changed to Syrianska SK. The club adopted its present name as it grew and advanced through the league system. In 2010, after two years in Superettan, Syrianska was promoted to Allsvenskan (the highest tier in Swedish football) for the first time in club history.[3] This made Syrianska FC the 61st team to play in Allsvenskan.[4][5] Since the Syriac people do not have an official national team, Syrianska is often seen as a substitute.[6]\n\nSyrianska FC has a worldwide fan base.[7][8][9] Their promotion to Allsvenskan received extensive coverage on Swedish TV sports programs and in documentaries and domestic and foreign magazines.[10][11][12]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Syriac Federation, based in Södertälje, founded the Suryoyo Sportklubb in 1977.[13] The club was given a spot in Division 7 East. Six years later, it advanced from Division 7 to Division 6. In 1985, Suryoyo won the division and were promoted to Division 5. In 1986, the club changed its name to Syrianska SK. Two years later, Syrianska FC won Division 5 and advanced to Division 4 (where they played until 1990, when they advanced to Division 3).\n\nSyrianska won the league as newcomers, and advanced to Division 2 (the third tier of Swedish football at the time) in 1993. In 1995, Syrianska FC was relegated to Division 3 for the first time in club history. The following year, its board set a goal of \"Division 1 in 2001.\" In 1999, Syrianska was again promoted to Division 2. In 2000, Syrianska finished in third place after a strong season as newcomers and began investing in youth activities. The following year, they won Division 2 with 53 points and 65 goals. Syrianska attained their goal of winning the series, but did not advance to Superettan after their qualifier against Åtvidabergs FF. The series was played in two matches, the home match before a crowd of 6,435.\n\nIn 2003, Syrianska set a new goal of reaching Superettan by 2006. The following year, Syrianska had a mid-table position in Division 1 and again missed promotion in a Superettan qualifier. Syrianska lost at home against Qviding FIF 0-2, and won the away match 2-1. In 2006, with Özcan Melkemichel as coach, the club had their best season start and the new stadium in Södertälje became their home. After an injury-filled 2007 season, Syrianska defeated Assyriska 2-1 in a derby match before 7,146 fans. In the second match, Syrianska again defeated Assyriska 1-0 on a goal by Robert Massi in front of 6,313 spectators. The club would have won the division, but a points deduction derailed them to fourth place.\n\nBefore the series started in 2008, Syrianska played at home in the Svenska Cupen against Hammarby IF (a club from the Allsvenskan league) in a game broadcast by TV4. Hammarby led 4-0 into halftime, when Syrianska made a comeback. Goals from a Rabi Elias penalty, Mattias Metes' double and a Semir Metes one-strike tied the score at 4-4. Hammarby eventually scored two quick goals to win, 6-4.\n\nSyrianska ensured a league victory with two rounds remaining, and finished with 59 points. In 2009, they played their first season in Superettan (Sweden's second-highest division). The club finished in fourth place, one point behind the third-place team. Syrianska won the Superettan league in 2010, with TV4 broadcasting nine of their matches. They ended the season with 56 points and 46 goals. Peter Ijeh led the team scoring with 17 goals, and for the first time in club history Syrianska was promoted to the Allsvenskan.[14]\n\nIn 2012 Syrianska played their second season in Allsvenskan, finishing in 13th place with 34 points and 35 goals. They remained in Allsvenskan for the following season, when they finished last and were relegated to Superettan. In 2014 the club finished in tenth place with 10 wins, 4 draws and 11 losses, earning them a stay in the Superettan. In 2015, Syrianska finished the Superettan season in seventh place with 43 points. The following year they finished in 13th place, and survived a relegation playoff for a fourth straight season in the Superettan. In 2017, however, Syrianska finished fifteenth (next to last) and were relegated to Division 1.\n\nIn 2019 Syrianska finished in last place in Superettan and where relegated to Division 1. However, on the 28 of February 2020 the SvFF announced that Syrianska would be relegated a further division, into Division 2. The reason for this was that the club had not made the correct employer payments.\n\nColours and badge\n\nThe club's badge was created when it changed its name to Syrianska FC. The winged torch and colours are taken from the Aramean-Syriac flag, which represents the Aramean-Syriac people. The Aramaic inscription reads, ܚܘܕܪܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܒܣܘܕܪܬܠܝܐ (Hudro Suryoyo b-Södertälje; Syriac Sports Club in Södertälje).[15][16]\n\nStadium\n\nSyrianska FC's current home is the Södertälje Fotbollsarena in Södertälje, which is also the home of local rival Assyriska Föreningen. The stadium holds 6,700 people, and is expandable for larger games. In 2009, Syrianska FC played a derby against Assyriska; with a large crowd expected, the stadium increased its capacity to 9,500 people and 8,453 people watched the match. The stadium was built in 2005 for €12 million, and was funded by the Södertälje Municipality. The pitch measures 105 x 68 metres, with an artificial turf surface.\n\nThe stadium is also known as Jallavallen, from the Syriac word jalla (\"hurry\"). Locally coined by Telgerevyn, it later became widespread.[17]\n\nSupporters\n\nGefe Fans, the Syrianska FC fan club, was founded in 2002 by a group of supporters in Södertälje.[18][19][20] Gefe means \"wings\", and refers to the wings in the flag of the Syriac-Aramean people.[21] The club has fans worldwide, since it is considered the national team of the Syriac-Aramean people.[22][23] The fan club, known for its tifos,[9][24] takes responsibility for supporters around the arena and community efforts.[7] Ultras 77 is a group of about 30 supporters who work with all tifo events during Syrianska FC games. During Gefe Fans' early years it was responsible for tifo events, but Ultras 77 was created when the supporter club merged with the football club.[25]\n\nRetired numbers\n\n12 - Club Supporters (the 12th Man)\n\nYouth\n\nYouth activities at Syrianska FC have expanded, and interest in playing for the club is increasing. Syrianska is the club for over 500 children, youths in a number of age groups, and about 65 leaders. One of the club's goals is to have several teams in each age group and build a strong platform for social activities in the younger age groups. The club also aims to establish activities for the elderly. Regardless of skill, all are welcome to play.[26]\n\nHonours\n\nLeague\n\nSuperettan\n\nWinners (1): 2010\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\nWinners (1): 2008\n\nSeason to season\n\nSeason\n\nLevel\n\nDivision\n\nSection\n\nPosition\n\nMovements\n\n2000\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\nWest\n\n3rd\n\n2001\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\nWest\n\n1st\n\nLost play-off\n\n2002\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\nWest\n\n4th\n\n2003\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\nEast\n\n9th\n\n2004\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\nEast\n\n5th\n\n2005\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\nEast\n\n1st\n\nLost play-off\n\n2006\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 2\n\n6th\n\n2007\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorth\n\n4th\n\n2008\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 1\n\nNorth\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2009\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n4th\n\n2010\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2011\n\nTier 1\n\n Allsvenskan \n\n14th\n\nWon play-off\n\n2012\n\nTier 1\n\n Allsvenskan \n\n13th\n\n2013\n\nTier 1\n\n Allsvenskan \n\n16th\n\nRelegated\n\n2014\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n10th\n\n2015\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n7th\n\n2016\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n13th\n\nWon play-off\n\n2017\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n15th\n\nRelegated\n\n2018\n\nTier 3\n\n Division 1\n\nNorth\n\n2nd\n\nPromoted\n\n2019\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n16th\n\nRelegated 2 divisions\n\n2020\n\nTier 4\n\n Division 2\n\nÖstra Götaland\n\n3rd\n\n2021\n\nTier 4\n\n Division 2\n\nSödra Götaland\n\n6th\n\n2022\n\nTier 4\n\n Division 2\n\nSödra Götaland\n\n3rd\n\n2023\n\nTier 4\n\n Division 2\n\nSödra Götaland\n\n7th\n\n2024\n\nTier 4\n\n Division 2\n\nSödra Götaland\n\n6th\n\n2025\n\nTier 4\n\n Division 2\n\nSödra Götaland\n\n10th\n\nManagers/coaches\n\n Özcan Melkemichel (Jan 2005-2013)\n\n Carlos Roberto Cabral (Jan 2014)\n\n Nemanja Miljanović (1 January 2015 - 31 December 2015)\n\n Valeri Bondarenko (26 Jan 2011 - 7 Dec 2011)\n\n Klebér Saarenpää (21 March 2012 - 2013)\n\nSee also\n\nArameisk-Syrianska IF\n\nAssyriska FF\n\nValsta Syrianska IK\n\nList of Assyrian football teams in Sweden\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Aktuellt\". Syrianska FC. 8 February 2010. Archived from the original on 4 June 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Syrianska FC > Aktuellt\". Archived from the original on 4 June 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Historia\". Syrianskafc.com. 8 February 2010. Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"> Splash\". Syrianska FC. 8 February 2010. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ Kyringer, Anna (23 October 2010). \"Syrianska klart för allsvenskan\". Dagens Nyheter. Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"På lördag kan Syrianska FC bli historiskt. Minst en poäng mot Väsby och det syrianska landslaget tar sig för första gången upp i allsvenskan\" (in Swedish). City. Archived from the original on 31 October 2010. Retrieved 31 October 2010.\n\n^ a b \"> Supporter\". Syrianska FC. 8 February 2010. Archived from the original on 3 November 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Historisk premiär imorgon (läs idag)\". bahro.nu. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ a b \"Ett fel har inträffat - NWT\". Retrieved 3 July 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ / TT. \"Syrianska till allsvenskan - Fotboll\" (in Swedish). gp.se. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ Foto: Joel Marklund. \"Ijeh sköt Syrianska mot allsvenskan - FotbollsExpressen - Senaste nytt | Expressen - Allsvenskan, Premier League och Serie A\". Fotboll.expressen.se. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Syrianska till allsvenskan - Sport\" (in Swedish). lt.se. 15 February 2011. Archived from the original on 6 October 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Syrianska Riksförbundet | Forum för levande historia\". Levandehistoria.se. 11 August 2010. Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"History\", syrianskafc.com, webpage:SK Archived 3 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.In 2011, Syrianska managed to stay in Allsvenskan after winning two qualifying games against Ängelholms IF.\n\n^ flag of Syriac-Aramiac People) flags Archived 18 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Syriac-Aramaic People (Syria) Archived 4 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Syrianerna - En nation i förskringring, Assad Sauma Assad, 2005\n\n^ \"Matchinformation: Assyriska FF - Syrianska FC -\". Svenskfotboll.se. 31 May 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Västra Sidan: Bortaguiden :: Fotboll :: Syrianska FC\". Retrieved 3 July 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"SvenskaFans\".\n\n^ \"Syrianska FC:s officiella supporterklubb\". Gefe Fans. Archived from the original on 25 February 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Syrianska - en stark nykomling - GIF Sundsvall - www.st.nu\". Archived from the original on 5 April 2009. Retrieved 3 July 2009.\n\n^ - Wednesday (25 May 2010). \"The strangest football derby in the world - The National\". Thenational.ae. Archived from the original on 25 September 2010. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Bildextra: Syrianskas fans firade derbyvinsten - Superettan - allt om superettan i fotboll\". fotbollskanalen.se. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ Hans Jansson hans.jansson@dn.se (31 May 2009). \"Syrianska vinnare i hett derby\". Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"Syrianska FC:s officiella supporterklubb\". Gefe Fans. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\n^ \"> Ungdom\". Syrianska FC. 8 February 2010. Retrieved 19 October 2011.\n\nExternal links\n\nSyrianska FC - official website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syrianska-fc"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1964}, {"slug": "reference-jacob-of-edessa", "title": "Jacob of Edessa", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Jacob of Edessa or James of Edessa (Syriac: ܝܰܥܩܽܘܒ ܐܽܘܪܗܰܝܳܐ, romanized: Yaʿqub Urhāyā; c. 640 - 5 June 708) was a Syriac Orthodox bishop of Edessa, scholar, and translator. Renowned for his multilingual mastery,[1] he made lasting contributions to biblical revision, canon law, grammar and liturgy,[2] and played...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mār\nJacob of Edessa\n\nSaint\n\nA Syriac icon of St. Jacob absorbed in study\n\nNative nameܝܰܥܩܽܘܒ ܐܽܘܪܗܰܝܳܐ\n\nChurchSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nDioceseEdessa\n\nSeeAntioch\n\nPersonal details\n\nBornYa'qub\nc. 640 AD\nAindaba\n\nDied708 AD\nEdessa\n(modern-day Şanlıurfa, Turkey)\n\nSainthood\n\nFeast dayJune 5\n\nVenerated inOriental Orthodox Church, especially Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nJacob of Edessa or James of Edessa (Syriac: ܝܰܥܩܽܘܒ ܐܽܘܪܗܰܝܳܐ, romanized: Yaʿqub Urhāyā; c. 640 - 5 June 708) was a Syriac Orthodox bishop of Edessa, scholar, and translator. Renowned for his multilingual mastery,[1] he made lasting contributions to biblical revision, canon law, grammar and liturgy,[2] and played a key role in standardizing theological terminology. His synthesis of Greek and Syriac traditions shaped the development of Syriac Christianity and facilitated the transmission of Hellenistic thought into the Islamic world.\n\nMor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, the late Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, ranked Jacob among the greatest Syriac Orthodox Fathers, alongside Ephrem the Syrian, Jacob Baradaeus, Philoxenus of Mabbug, Severus of Antioch, and Michael the Syrian.[3]\n\nLife\n\nJacob of Edessa was born in Aindaba (Syriac: ܥܝܢܕܐܒܐ; Arabic: عين دابا;[4] lit. 'Well of the Wolf'), about 50 km west of Aleppo, in the district of Gumah near Antioch. His life is mostly known from the account by Gregory Bar Hebraeus.[5]\n\nJacob received his early education at the Monastery of Aphthonia (Qenneshre, also called Qenneshrin) on the left bank of the Euphrates, where he studied under the famous scholar Severus Sebokht. At Qenneshre he mastered both Greek and Syriac, laying the foundation for his later work in biblical translation and textual revision. He later traveled to Alexandria to continue his studies before returning to Syria.[6]\n\nUpon his return, Jacob entered monastic life at Edessa, where he soon gained a reputation for learning. In 672 or 684, he was ordained a priest and consecrated metropolitan (bishop) of Edessa by Athanasius II of Balad, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. His episcopacy lasted only three or four years. Jacob strictly enforced the canons of the Church, which brought him into conflict with clergy there. When Athanasius died, his successor Julian II did not support him, and in response to Julian’s suggestion that he soften his stance, Jacob publicly burned a copy of the neglected canons outside the patriarch’s residence. He then resigned and retired to the convent of Mar Jacob of Kaisumn near Samosata, accompanied by two disciples, Daniel and Constantine.[7][8]\n\nJacob was later invited to the Monastery of Eusebona, where he remained for eleven years teaching Greek, instructing students in the Psalms, and training them in the reading of the Scriptures in Greek. His tenure there ended after opposition from monks who disliked Greek learning. He then moved with seven of his students to the Great Convent of Tel ʿAde, one of several Syriac Orthodox monasteries on the so-called \"mountain of Edessa\" (possibly modern-day Tell Hadidi, northwest of Aleppo). There he spent nine years revising and amending the Peshitta version of the Old Testament with reference to various Greek versions.[9]\n\nJacob played a leading role at the synod convened by Patriarch Julian II in 706.[10] Two years later, in 708, he was recalled to the see of Edessa, but died only four months after his reinstatement.[10][9]\n\nDoctrinal allegiance\n\nJacob of Edessa was a prominent bishop and scholar of the Syriac Orthodox Church, firmly aligned with the Miaphysite Christological position upheld by the Oriental Orthodox tradition. His writings consistently reflect this theological stance, affirming the unity of Christ’s human and divine natures into one composite nature without denying the reality of His humanity and divinity.[10] In Syriac literature, Jacob holds a place comparable to that of St. Jerome in the Latin tradition for his linguistic scholarship and his biblical work.[11]\n\nIn earlier scholarship, Giuseppe Simone Assemani attempted to present Jacob as theologically compatible with Chalcedonian Christianity per the Bibliotheca Orientalis, but later revised his view after reading Jacob’s biography by Bar Hebraeus, which makes his Miaphysite position explicit.[12] Modern assessments of Jacob’s theology are aided by critical editions such as Das Buch der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit oder der Ursache aller Ursachen (Leipzig, 1889), with a posthumous German translation published in Strasbourg in 1893.\n\nLanguage\n\nJacob was renowned for his mastery of Classical Syriac, Greek, and to a lesser degree, Hebrew. He wrote primarily in Classical Syriac, a literary and liturgical variety of Aramaic that originated in the kingdom of Osroene, centered in Edessa, and flourished from the 3rd to 8th centuries as the standardized language of Syriac Christianity.[13][14]\n\nIn his writings, Jacob used several terms for his native tongue. Besides the common contemporary and regional designations Sūryāyā (\"Syriac\") and Aramāyā (\"Aramaic\"),[15] he emphasized the distinctive features of the Edessan dialect, which had become the basis of Classical Syriac. He sometimes referred to it as Nahrāyā (\"Mesopotamian language\"), derived from Bet-Nahrayn (Syriac for \"Mesopotamia\"), and more specifically as Urhāyā (\"Edessan language\"), after Edessa (Urhoy in Syriac).[16][17][18][19]\n\nJacob’s deep knowledge of both Greek and Syriac allowed him to become one of the most important translators and terminologists of his time. Working in a culturally Hellenized milieu, he did not merely borrow Greek words but integrated Greek as a \"graphic instrument\" within Syriac writing.[20] His translations from Greek into Syriac, along with his creation of new terms and refinement of existing ones, had a lasting impact on the development of Syriac vocabulary, especially in theological discourse. This was especially significant during the Christological controversies of the 5th and 6th centuries, when many non-Chalcedonian Christians from the Levant and Asia Minor were expelled eastward to Mesopotamia. They brought their Greek and Antiochian traditions and praxes with them, necessitating translations of their theological works into Syriac. Jacob played a major role in standardizing Greek theological terminology in Syriac and revising earlier translations for greater accuracy and clarity.[21]\n\nAlthough Syriac was his primary medium, Jacob also demonstrated some knowledge of Hebrew. He identified Hebrew - not Aramaic, as was commonly perceived at the time - as the original language of humanity spoken by Adam.[22] He took pride in the kinship between the Hebrews and his own people, as well as the linguistic similarities of their languages. Jacob often expressed regret for not having mastered Hebrew more fully.[23]\n\nWritings\n\nJacob of Edessa was a prolific and versatile writer whose surviving corpus, though only partially published, spans theology, biblical studies, canon law, liturgy, philosophy, grammar, history, and translation. Many of his works are preserved only in later quotations by authors such as Gregory Bar Hebraeus and Michael the Syrian. Early bibliographic accounts, such as Giuseppe Simone Assemani's Bibliotheca Orientalis and William Wright's Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (1911), are significant sources for identifying his extant writings.[9]\n\nBiblical works and commentaries\n\nJacob undertook a revision of the Bible based on the Peshitta, producing what Wright described as \"a curious eclectic or patchwork text.\" Five volumes of this revision survive in Europe, and it represents the last attempt at an Old Testament revision within the Syriac Orthodox Church. As the principal founder of the Syriac Massorah, Jacob oversaw careful preservation of the biblical text, such as MS Vatican Syriac 153. He wrote extensive biblical commentaries and scholia, frequently cited by later exegetes who hailed him as \"the Interpreter of the Scriptures.\"[9]\n\nJacob translated the apocryphal History of the Rechabites composed by Zosimus from Greek into Syriac. He also wrote a treatise on the six days of creation, in the genre of the Hexaemeral literature. Manuscripts of this exist at Leiden and at Lyon. It was his last work, and being left incomplete was finished by his friend George, bishop of the Arabs.[9]\n\nCanons and liturgy\n\nJacob compiled a collection of ecclesiastical canons. In his letter to the priest Addai, a set of canons is presented as responses to Addai's inquiries. This collection was edited by Lagarde in Reliquiae juris eccl. syriace and by Thomas Joseph Lamy in his dissertation. Additional canons were included in Wright's Notulae syriacae. All of these were translated and explained by Carl Kayser in Die Canones Jacobs von Edessa (Leipzig, 1886).[9]\n\nJacob also made significant contributions to Syriac liturgy, both through original compositions and translations from Greek. As a liturgical author, he created an anaphora, revised the Liturgy of St. James. He also composed orders for baptism, the blessing of waters on the eve of Epiphany, and the celebration of matrimony. Additionally, he translated many of Severus of Antioch's works into Syriac one of which is the order of baptism.[10]\n\nPhilosophy\n\nJacob’s principal philosophical work was the Enchiridion or Manual, a tract on philosophical terminology. While some translations of Aristotle were attributed to him, some may be the work of others; for instance, the De causa omnium causarum, once linked to Jacob, has been shown to be of later origin by another bishop of Edessa.[9]\n\nHistory\n\nJacob authored a Chronicon (Chronicle) that serves as a continuation of the Chronicon of Eusebius.This work is referenced and quoted by Michael the Syrian in book 7 of his own Chronicle. John of Litharb later wrote a continuation of Jacob's Chronicle, extending it to the year 726, which is also mentioned by Michael.\n\nHowever, the original text of Jacob's continuation has largely been lost, with only 23 leaves surviving in a manuscript housed in the British Library. A detailed account of these leaves can be found in Wright's Catalogue (1062), and an edition of this material has been published in the CSCO by E.W. Brooks.\n\nGrammar\n\nJacob made significant contributions to the Syriac language and script, particularly the West Syriac (Serṭā) tradition. Early Syriac lacked a consistent system for marking vowels, relying on sporadic dot notation. Jacob introduced five vowel signs adapted from Greek, written above the line as miniature symbols. This innovation remains a hallmark of West Syriac writing of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, and Maronite Church. He also refined the use of consonants as vowel indicators and attempted, unsuccessfully, to introduce the Greek practice of writing vowels on the same line as consonants. His Letter to George, bishop of Serugh, on orthography is ans important testimony to his insistence on scribal precision, and sets forth the importance of fidelity by scribes in the copying of minutiae of spelling.[9]\n\nIdentity\n\nFor Jacob, a person was counted as Syrian, that is roughly, Aramean, by virtue of speaking Aramaic. He treats \"Syrian\" and \"Aramean\" as synonyms, and he says the Greeks referred to the Arameans as \"Syrians\" while noting that \"Syrian\" could also be applied to Greeks who lived within the borders of Roman Syria and bore the regional name; any inhabitant of the province could be called a Syrian, which is the only reason the Greeks were so described. To prevent confusion, he distinguishes between the Greeks who translated Scripture and the other Syrians, that is, the Arameans who received those translations; for the Arameans in Syria, the term emphasized their descent from Aram, who also spoke Syriac, and settled in the region west of the Euphrates. Thus, two terms for \"Syrian\" emerge: those who are regionally Syrian regardless of ethnic or linguistic background such as Greeks, and those who are ancestrally Aramean within the region of Syria.[24]\n\nRegarding the Arameans, Jacob believed they were the ancestors of the Assyrians,[25] and he further held that the Assyrian kings, whom he calls Chaldean, belonged to the heritage of the Syrians as their supposed ancestors because they used \"our Aramaic tongue and script\" and \"belonged to our tongue.\"[26]\n\nOther Works and translations\n\nJacob’s greatest translation achievement was his Syriac version of the Homiliae Cathedrales of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch. He also revised Paul of Edessa's translation of the hymns of John Psaltes. This important collection is partially known through E.W. Brooks's edition and translation of the sixth book of selected epistles of Severus, which is based on another Syriac version created by Athanasius of Nisibis in 669.[9]\n\nJacob lists numerous Greek Fathers, including Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Severus of Antioch, alongside Syriac Fathers such as Ephrem the Syrian, Philoxenus of Mabbug, and Jacob of Serugh, calling them \"God-clad men\" and \"tried teachers.\" This synthesis of Greek and Syriac authorities is indicative of his deep engagement with both traditions.[27]\n\nIslam and cultural exchange\n\nThough he spent much of his life in monastic seclusion, Jacob addressed issues relating to Islam in his letters. He commented on the Muslim views of the Virgin Mary, described the qibla, and offered guidance on Christian-Muslim relations, particularly regarding converts to and from Islam.[27] He issued what is considered the first Syriac juristic opinion permitting Christian clergy to teach advanced subjects to Muslim children.[28]\n\nJacob played a significant role in the cross-cultural transmission of knowledge. His translations and revisions, alongside those of other Syriac scholars, served as an intellectual bridge that facilitated the flow of Greek philosophy into the Islamic Caliphates, thereby influencing the translation movement in 9th-century Baghdad. This exchange among Syriac, Arabic, and Greek aided in the reintroduction of Aristotle to medieval Europe through Latin translations of Arabic texts.[29]\n\nHistorical perspective\n\nDubbed \"one of the most philhellenic of all Syriac authors\" and said to be the Syriac version of the Latin Jerome[30] of late antiquity, Jacob saw the Byzantine Empire in its Christian phase under Constantine the Great as heir to all previous kingdoms. He viewed his native Edessa as embodying a \"Syro-Macedonian\" heritage, tracing the Abgarid dynasty to Alexander the Great's companions; a claim supported by the alternative name of Edessa itself (Urhoy in Syriac). While his writings might initially suggest that he viewed the Byzantine Empire as the only legitimate state, this was not the case. Following the Council of Chalcedon, Jacob and subsequent Syriac writers rejected the legitimacy of all existing political powers - whether Byzantine, Frankish, or Muslim - and instead maintained that the true authority of the Syriac Orthodox Church was \"not of this world\".[31]\n\nVeneration and legacy\n\nJacob of Edessa is venerated as a saint in the Oriental Orthodox communion, particularly within the Syriac Orthodox Church, where his feast day is celebrated on June 5.[32] In 2008, the Patriarchate of Antioch proclaimed the year as the \"Year of St. Jacob of Edessa\" for the entire Syriac Orthodox Church,[33] and he is considered to be one of the most significant scholars of the Christian-Aramean tradition.[34] A church dedicated to St. Jacob of Edessa is located in Florida, USA.[35]\n\nSymposium\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church organized an international symposium in Aleppo, Syria from June 9 to 12, 2008, to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of Jacob’s passing. Scholars and clergy from across the globe gathered to examine Mor Jacob’s contributions as a chronicler, grammarian, exegete, theologian, liturgist, and canonist. The symposium opened with an address by Mor Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, Metropolitan of Aleppo, followed by a keynote lecture from Syriac studies scholar Sebastian Brock.[30]\n\nThe program included visits to notable Syriac Christian heritage sites, including Monastery of Tell‘Ada (where Jacob spent his final decade and was buried), Monastery of St. Simeon the Stylite, Monastery of Qenneshrin, and city of Mabbug (Manbij) - birthplace of the Orthodox saint Empress Theodora and historical see of Philoxenus of Mabbug.[30]\n\nDue to the success of the symposium, it was decided to hold a similar Aleppo Syriac Colloquium (A.S.C.) every two years. The next event, planned for 2010, focused on Gregory Bar Hebraeus, another pivotal Father and saint of the Syriac Orthodox Church. However, the ongoing Syrian Civil War forced the cancellation of the 2012 meeting, and the series has since been suspended,[3] especially after the abduction of Metropolitans Yohanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi by Islamist militants, whose fate remains unknown.[36]\n\nSee also\n\nChristology\n\nNon-Chalcedonian Christianity\n\nList of Syriac writers\n\nSyriac alphabet\n\nJacob of Serugh\n\nJacob Baradaeus\n\nPhiloxenus of Mabbug\n\nReferences\n\n^ Salvesen 2008, p. 1-10.\n\n^ Talmon 2008, p. 159-187.\n\n^ a b Dinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the late Ottoman period and beyond: crisis then revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press. pp. 296-297. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1.\n\n^ \"ʿAyn Dābā\". syriaca.org (in English, Arabic, and Aramaic).\n\n^ Haar Romeny, Robert Barend ter (2008). Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day. Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Ser (1st ed.). Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-474-2693-6.\n\n^ Haar Romeny 2008, p. 1.\n\n^ Haar Romeny 2008, p. 2.\n\n^ McLean 1911, pp. 113-114.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i McLean 1911, p. 114.\n\n^ a b c d Gigot 1910, p. 277-278.\n\n^ Ibrahim & Kiraz 2010, p. 28.\n\n^ \"CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: James of Edessa\". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 13 August 2025.\n\n^ Rompay 2000, p. 76.\n\n^ Rompay 2008, p. 203.\n\n^ Farina 2018, p. 186.\n\n^ Rompay 2000, p. 77-78.\n\n^ Debié 2009, p. 106.\n\n^ Brock 2010, p. 7.\n\n^ Farina 2018, p. 185-186.\n\n^ Farina, Margherita (17 May 2019). \"Les auteurs syriaques et leur langue\". Études Syriaques. 15: 1-8 - via HAL Science.\n\n^ Haar Romeny 2008, p. 241.\n\n^ Rompay, Lucas Van (1 March 2010). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-104. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. ISSN 1097-3702.\n\n^ Ibrahim & Kiraz 2010, p. 104.\n\n^ King, Daniel (12 December 2018). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 157-158. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ Weltecke, Dorothea 1967- (2009). Michael the Syrian and Syriac Orthodox Identity. Konstanz: Bibliothek der Universität Konstanz. p. 119.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Debié, Muriel. \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture: 104.\n\n^ a b Rompay, Lucas Van (1 March 2010). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-104. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. ISSN 1097-3702.\n\n^ Moosa, Matti I. (1968). \"Studies in Syriac Literature Syriac Literature of the Christian Era\" (PDF). The Muslim World. 58 (3): 194-217. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1968.tb02984.x. ISSN 1478-1913. Archived from the original on 24 June 2011.\n\n^ Bunnin, Nicholas; Yu, Jiyuan, eds. (1 January 2004). The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. Malden, MA, USA: BLACKWELL PUBLISHING. p. 470. doi:10.1002/9780470996379. ISBN 978-0-470-99637-9.\n\n^ a b c Ibrahim, Gregorios Yohanna; Kiraz, George Anton (2010). Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies (1st ed.). Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-60724-997-9. ISSN 1539-1507.\n\n^ Debié 2009.\n\n^ \"Jacob of Edessa | Monophysite, Syriac Scholar, Exegete | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 13 August 2025. He is considered a saint in the Syriac Orthodox Church and is commemorated on June 5.\n\n^ \"St. Jacob (James) of Edessa (+ June 5th, 708)\". soc-wus.org. Retrieved 13 August 2025.\n\n^ Witakowski 2008, p. 25.\n\n^ Urhoy, St Jacob of. \"St. Jacob of Urhoy Syriac Orthodox Church\". St. Jacob of Urhoy Syriac Orthodox Church. Retrieved 13 August 2025.\n\n^ Mattingly, Terry (11 July 2023). \"Ten years later, The Shepherds of Aleppo are still missing\". standard-journal.com.\n\nSources\n\nBrière, Maurice, ed. (1960). Les Homiliae Cathedrales de Sévère d'Antioche: Traduction syriaque de Jacques d'Édesse (suite): Introduction générale à toutes les homélies: Homélies CXX à CXXV. Patrologia Orientalis. Vol. 29. Paris: Firmin-Didot.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1970). \"A Calendar Attributed to Jacob of Edessa\". Parole de l'Orient. 1 (2): 415-429.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1979). \"Jacob of Edessa's Discourse on the Myron\". Oriens Christianus. 63: 20-36.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2010). \"Jacob the Annotator: Jacob's Annotations to His Revised Translation of Severus' Cathedral Homilies\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 1-13. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-002. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2019). \"Jacob of Edessa's Letter to Addai on the Blessing of the Epiphany Water\". Parole de l'Orient. 45: 119-132.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 93-114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014.\n\nDinno, Khalid (2010). \"The Physical World in Jacob of Edessa's Hexaemeron\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 15-26. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-003. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nFarina, Margherita (2018). \"La linguistique syriaque selon Jacques d'Édesse\". Les auteurs syriaques et leur langue. Paris: Geuthner. pp. 167-187.\n\nGigot, Francis (1910). \"James of Edessa\". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company. pp. 277-278.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2002). \"Jakob von Edessa in der Chronographie des Michael Syrus\". Syriaca: Zur Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen. Vol. 2. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 115-124. ISBN 9783825858001.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2005). \"History and Community: Jacob of Edessa and the West Syrian Identity\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 67-75. ISBN 9789042914186.\n\nHainthaler, Theresia (2010). \"Jacob of Edessa and his Enchiridion: Some Remarks\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 27-42. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-004. ISBN 978-1-4632-1663-4.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2010). \"Jacob of Edessa as a Chronicler\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 43-64. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-005. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nJuckel, Andreas K. (2010). \"Did Jacob of Edessa Revise the New Testament Peshitta?\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 65-80. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-006. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nKruisheer, Dirk; Rompay, Lucas van (1998). \"A Bibliographical Clavis to the Works of Jacob of Edessa\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 1 (1): 35-56. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-010105. S2CID 212689087.\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: McLean, Norman (1911). \"Jacob of Edessa\". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 113-114.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004445512.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (2005). \"History and Identity in the Syrian Churches\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 1-33. ISBN 9789042914186.\n\nNestle, Eberhard (1878). \"Jakob von Edessa über den Schem hammephorasch und andere Gottesnamen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Tetragrammaton\". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. 32: 465-508, 735-736.\n\nPhillips, George (1864). Scholia on Passages of the Old Testament, by Mar Jacob, Bishop of Edessa. London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate.\n\nPhillips, George (1869). A Letter by Mār Jacob, Bishop of Edessa, on Syriac Orthography, also a Tract by the Same Author, and a Discourse by Gregory Bar Hebraeus on Syriac Accents. London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate.\n\nPrice, Richard M. (2010). \"The Christological Controversies of the Age of Jacob of Edessa\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 81-92. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-007. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (1999). \"Jacob of Edessa and the Early History of Edessa\". After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 269-285. ISBN 9789042907355.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2000). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 71-103. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. S2CID 212688244.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2008). \"Jacob of Edessa and the Sixth-Century Syriac Translator of Severus of Antioch's Cathedral Homilies\". Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 189-204. ISBN 978-9004173477.\n\nSalvesen, Alison (2008). \"Jacob of Edessa's Life and Work: A Biographical Sketch\". Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 1-10. ISBN 978-9004173477.\n\nSalvesen, Alison (2010). \"Was Jacob Trilingual? Jacob of Edessa's Knowledge of Hebrew Revisited\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 93-105. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-008. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nShemunkasho, Aho (2010). \"A Verse-Homily Attributed to Jacob of Edessa: On Faith and Contra Nestorius\". Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 107-141. doi:10.31826/9781463216634-009. ISBN 9781463216634.\n\nTalmon, Rafi (2008). \"Jacob of Edessa the Grammarian\". Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 159-187. ISBN 978-9004173477.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2009). \"Jacob of Edessa\". Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 1. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 226-233. ISBN 9789004169753.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2008). \"The Chronicle of Jacob of Edessa\". Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 25-47. ISBN 978-9004173477.\n\nWright, William (1867). \"Two Epistles of Mār Jacob, Bishop of Edessa\". Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record. New Series. 10: 430-460.\n\nWright, William (1871). Fragments of the Turrāṣ mamllā nahrāyā or Syriac Grammar of Jacob of Edessa. London: Gilbert and Rivington."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jacob-of-edessa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4043}, {"slug": "reference-ninos-khoshaba", "title": "Ninos Khoshaba", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Ninos Khoshaba (born March 24, 1970) is an Australian politician of Assyrian descent, and is a former member of Parliament of New South Wales. He was a member of Parliament from 24 March 2007 until 26 March 2011, when he lost his seat to Andrew Rohan of the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "CouncillorNinos Khoshaba\n\nMember of the New South Wales Parliament\nfor Smithfield\n\nIn office\n24 March 2007 - 26 March 2011\n\nPreceded byCarl Scully\n\nSucceeded byAndrew Rohan\n\nPersonal details\n\nBorn (1970-03-24) 24 March 1970\nIraq\n\nPartyLabor\n\nChildren3\n\nNinos Khoshaba (born March 24, 1970) is an Australian politician of Assyrian descent, and is a former member of Parliament of New South Wales. He was a member of Parliament from 24 March 2007 until 26 March 2011, when he lost his seat to Andrew Rohan of the Liberal Party. Khoshaba currently serves as a member of Fairfield City Council, and has represented the ward of Parks since his election in 2012. He previously served in this capacity from 2004 until resigning in 2008 following his election to parliament.[1]\n\nEarly life\n\nBorn in Iraq on 24 March 1970, Khoshaba is the eldest of three children to parents Anwar Khoshaba and Athour Khoshaba. He migrated from Iraq to Australia in 1970 when only four months old. His father worked as a bulldozer driver and in 1991 his father was elected as a councillor on Fairfield City Council. His father eventually became the Mayor of Fairfield and was the first mayor of Assyrian background in Australia. His father was awarded the Order of Australia medal in 2000.[2]\n\nHe attended Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School in Fairfield and St Johns Park High School.\n\nPolitical career\n\nIn March 2004, he was elected as a councillor on Fairfield City Council, following his father's footsteps. In October 2004, he became an electorate officer working for the federal member for Prospect Chris Bowen.\n\nHe was elected to the New South Wales Parliament in the 2007 New South Wales state election for the seat of Smithfield. He was Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Public Works and a member of the Public Accounts Committee.[3] In the 2011 New South Wales state election, Khoshaba lost his seat to Andrew Rohan after suffering a 19.9% swing.[4]\n\nPersonal\n\nKhoshaba is married and has three children\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Councillor Ninos Khoshaba\". Fairfield City Council. Government of New South Wales. Retrieved 13 November 2020.\n\n^ \"Inaugural Speech of the Member for Smithfield - 30/05/2007 - NSW Parliament\". www.parliament.nsw.gov.au. Archived from the original on 26 February 2011.\n\n^ \"Mr Ninos Khoshaba\". Former members of the Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 16 June 2019.\n\n^ \"State Electoral District of Smithfield - 2011\". Electoral Commission of NSW. Government of New South Wales. Retrieved 13 November 2020."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ninos-khoshaba"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 413}, {"slug": "reference-school-of-nisibis", "title": "School of Nisibis", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The School of Nisibis (Syriac: ܐܣܟܘܠܐ ܕܢܨܝܒܝܢ, for a time absorbed into the School of Edessa) was an educational establishment in Nisibis (now Nusaybin, Turkey). It was an important spiritual centre of the early Church of the East, and like the Academy of Gondishapur, it is sometimes referred...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The School of Nisibis (Syriac: ܐܣܟܘܠܐ ܕܢܨܝܒܝܢ, for a time absorbed into the School of Edessa) was an educational establishment in Nisibis (now Nusaybin, Turkey). It was an important spiritual centre of the early Church of the East, and like the Academy of Gondishapur, it is sometimes referred to as the world's first university.[1][2][3] The school had three primary departments teaching: theology, philosophy and medicine. Its most famous teacher was Narsai, formerly head of the School of Edessa.[4][5]\n\nThe school was founded in 350 in Nisibis. In 363, when Nisibis fell to the Persians, St. Ephrem the Syrian, accompanied by a number of teachers, left the school. They went to the School of Edessa, where Ephrem took over the directorship of the school there. It had been founded as long ago as the 2nd century by the kings of the Abgar dynasty. When Ephrem took over the school, its importance grew still further.[3] After the Nestorian Schism, when the Byzantine emperor Zeno ordered the school closed for its teachings of Nestorian doctrine, deemed heretical by Chalcedonian Christianity, the School moved back to Nisibis.[6]\n\nEarly history\n\nThe school was founded around 350 by Jacob of Nisibis (Mar Yaqub). Its model was the school of Diodorus of Tarsus in Antioch. It was an ideal location for a Syriac school: in the centre of the Syriac-speaking world but still in the Roman Empire, which had just embraced Christianity. Most of Mesopotamia was under Sassanid Persian rule, which had the ancient Zoroastrian religion as its official state-religion.\n\nExile to Edessa\n\nThe Persians soon gained Nisibis, in 363, and the school was moved westward to an existing school in Edessa, Mesopotamia, where it was known as the 'School of the Persians' (Eskuli d-Forsoye/Eskuli d-Parsaye in Edessan Aramaic/Syriac). There, under the leadership of Ephrem, it gained fame well beyond the borders of the Syriac speaking world.\n\nMeanwhile, in Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia had taken over the school of Diodorus, and his writings soon became the foundation of Syriac theology. Even during his lifetime, they were translated into Syriac and gradually replaced the work of Ephrem. One of his most famous students was Nestorius, who became Patriarch of Constantinople, but the doctrine he was preaching made him run afoul of Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril sought to brand Nestorius as a heretic, and at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, he had Nestorius formally censured.\n\nThe resulting conflict led to the Nestorian Schism, which separated the Church of the East from the Western Byzantine form of Christianity. The opponents of Nestorius attacked Theodore's School of Diodorus as well, and the Syrians answered by giving protection to the followers of Nestorius. In 489, the Byzantine emperor, Zeno, ordered the school closed for its Nestorian tendencies, and it returned to Nisibis.[7]\n\nCentre of Syriac theology\n\nBack in Nisibis, the school became even more famous. It attracted students from all the Syriac churches, many of its students embodied important church offices, and its teaching was normative. The exegetical methods of the school followed the tradition of Antioch: strictly literal, controlled by pure grammatical-historical analysis. The work of Theodore was central to the theological teaching, and men like Abraham of Beth Rabban, who headed the school during the middle of the 6th century, spent great effort to make his work as accessible as possible. The writings of Nestorius himself were added to the curriculum only about 530.\n\nAt the end of the 6th century, the school went through a theological crisis, when its director Henana of Adiabene attempted to revise the official exegetical tradition derived from Theodore of Mopsuestia. The controversy over Henana divided the Church of the East, and led to the departure of many of the school's members,[8] probably including Babai the Great. A focus of the controversy was the debate between supporters of a one-qnoma (roughly \"hypostasis\") and of a two-qnome Christology,[9] and the divide was worsened by interventions on the part of West Syriac miaphysites.[10] Babai's attacks on Henana's one-qnoma theology came to be generally accepted by the Church of the East, though Henana remained a significant influence in the Church's subsequent tradition of interpretation.[11]\n\nThe controversy over Henana and the monastic revival initiated by Abraham of Kashkar,[12] supported by Babai, diminished the school's influence, and the spread of other schools founded on its model throughout the Sassanid Empire also reduced its centrality.[13] In the first half of the 7th century, after the death of Henana in c. 610, the school seems to have entered terminal decline.[14]\n\nInfluence on the West\n\nThe fame of this theological seminary was so great that Pope Agapetus I and Cassiodorus wished to found one in Italy of a similar kind. The troubled times prevented their wishes from being realized, but Cassiodorus's monastery at Vivarium was inspired by the example of Nisibis that he had learned from the Quaestor Junillus during his time in Constantinople.[15]\n\nSources and evidence\n\nBarhadbshabba of Hulwan's The Cause of the Foundation of Schools was delivered as a part of the curriculum of the new, incoming students of the School of Nisibis. It also narrates the founding of the school, its headmasters, and how its semester system originated. This makes the text an important source for understanding the history of the School of Nisibis.[16][17]\n\nNotable students and teachers\n\nPatriarch Aba I, student and teacher\n\nAbraham of Beth Rabban, director 530-569\n\nBabai the Great, student\n\nBarhadbshabba Arbaya, teacher\n\nBarhadbshabba of Hulwan, student\n\nBarsauma of Nisibis, teacher\n\nCyrus of Edessa, student\n\nDadisho of Mount Izla, student\n\nElishaʿ bar Quzbaye, director ?520s\n\nʿEnanishoʿ, student\n\nEphrem the Syrian, teacher\n\nGabriel of Qatar, student (possibly)\n\nGregory of Kashkar, student\n\nHenana of Adiabene, director 571-610\n\nPatriarch Ishoyahb II, student\n\nJoseph Huzaya, teacher\n\nPaul the Persian, student and teacher\n\nPatriarch Sabrisho I, student\n\nSeverus Sebokht, teacher\n\nThomas of Edessa, student and teacher\n\nSee also\n\nSchool of Edessa\n\nSchool of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nAcademy of Gondishapur\n\nSyriac literature\n\nNizamiyya\n\nSarouyeh\n\nReferences\n\n^ Jonsson, David J. (2002). The Clash of Ideologies. Xulon Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-59781-039-5.\n\n^ Spencer, Robert (2005). The politically incorrect guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Regnery Publishing. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-89526-013-0.\n\n^ a b \"Monastic Life in the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch\". Archived from the original on 2011-07-28.\n\n^ \"Publication Preview - Narsai: Selection Sermons\". Ancient Jew Review. 17 December 2024. Retrieved 21 May 2026.\n\n^ \"Our Patron Saint: St Narsai\". St Narsai Assyrian Christian College. Retrieved 21 May 2026.\n\n^ \"School of Nisibis - School\". RouteYou. Retrieved 2023-08-21.\n\n^ Foster, John (1939). The Church of the T'ang Dynasty. Great Britain: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. p. 31. The school was twice closed, in 431 and 489\n\n^ Becker, Adam H. (2013). Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 2.\n\n^ Bevan, George (2015). \"Nestorius of Constantinople\". In Parry, Ken (ed.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Patristics. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. p. 206.\n\n^ Reinink, Gerrit J. (2010). \"Tradition and the Formation of the 'Nestorian' Identity in Sixth- to Seventh-Century Iraq\". In ter Haar Romeny, R. Bas (ed.). Religious Origins of Nations?: The Christian Communities of the Middle East. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill. pp. 230-232.\n\n^ Childers, Jeff W. (2011). \"Ḥenana\". In Brock, Sebastian P.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 11 June 2019.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. p. 77.\n\n^ Becker, Adam H. (2011). \"Nisibis, School of\". In Brock, Sebastian P.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 11 June 2019.\n\n^ Becker, Adam H. (2008). Sources for the History of the School of Nisibis. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 10.\n\n^ M.L.W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe: A.D. 500 to 900 second edition (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1957), p. 96\n\n^ Becker 2008, p. 86. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBecker2008 (help)\n\n^ Becker 2006, p. 99-100.\n\nBibliography\n\nBecker, Adam (2006). \"The Scholastic Genre: The Cause of the Foundation of the Schools\". Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia. Pennsylvania University Press. pp. 98-112.\n\nBecker, Adam (2008). Sources for the History of the School of Nisibis. Liverpool University Press.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2005). \"The Theological Schools of Antioch, Edessa and Nisibis\". Christianity: A History in the Middle East. Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches. pp. 143-160. ISBN 9789953003436.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (1995). \"Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth: The School of Nisibis at the Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century\". Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East. Leiden: Brill. pp. 77-89. ISBN 9004101934.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\n37°4′0″N 41°12′55″E / 37.06667°N 41.21528°E / 37.06667; 41.21528"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-school-of-nisibis"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1540}, {"slug": "reference-adana-massacre", "title": "Adana massacre", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Adana massacre (Armenian: Ադանայի կոտորած; Turkish: Adana Katliamı) occurred in the Adana vilayet of the Ottoman Empire in April 1909. Many Armenians were slain by Ottoman Muslims in the city of Adana as the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 triggered a series of pogroms throughout the province.[4] Between...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Adana massacres\n\nPart of the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides; the late Ottoman genocides\n\nLocationAdana Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey)\n\nDateApril 1909\n\nTargetMostly Armenians, but also Greeks and Assyrians[1]\n\nAttack typePogrom,\ngenocidal massacre, ethnic cleansing\n\nDeaths20,000-30,000[2][3]\n\nInjuredUnknown\n\nPerpetratorsFactions of the Committee of Union and Progress, Ottoman Turkish civilians\n\nMotiveAnti-Christian sentiment, ethnic cleansing, Turkification, forced acquisition of property, business, and agricultural resources\n\nThe Adana massacre (Armenian: Ադանայի կոտորած; Turkish: Adana Katliamı) occurred in the Adana vilayet of the Ottoman Empire in April 1909. Many Armenians were slain by Ottoman Muslims in the city of Adana as the Ottoman countercoup of 1909 triggered a series of pogroms throughout the province.[4] Between 20,000 and 30,000 ethnic Armenians,[5][3] 1,300 Assyrians[6] and 1,250 Greeks[7] were killed and tortured in Adana and the surrounding towns. Unlike the previous Hamidian massacres, the events were not officially organized by the central government, but culturally instigated via local officials, Islamic clerics, and supporters of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).[8]\n\nAfter revolutionary groups had secured the deposition of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the restoration of the Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire) in 1908, a military revolt directed against the Committee of Union and Progress seized Constantinople. While the revolt lasted only ten days, it reignited anti-Armenian sentiment in the region and precipitated the mass destruction of Armenian businesses and farms, public hangings, sexual violence, and executions rooted in political, economic, and religious prejudice. These massacres continued for more than one month.[9]\n\nIn July 1909, the Young Turk government announced the trials of various government and military officials, for being implicated in the massacres, but they did not convict the perpetrators, causing them to go unpunished and Turkish nationalism becoming stronger.[10] The modern Turkish government and certain Turkish nationalists, deny the massacre happened.[11]\n\nBackground\n\nAfter the Hamidian massacres, the Great Powers (Britain, France, Russia) forced Abdul Hamid II to sign a new reform package designed to curtail the powers of the Hamidiye in October 1895 which, like the Berlin treaty, was never implemented. On 1 October 1895, two thousand Armenians assembled in Constantinople (Istanbul) to petition for the implementation of the reforms, but Ottoman police units converged on the rally and violently broke it up.[12] Upon receiving the reform package, the sultan remarked, \"This business will end in blood.\"[13]\n\nIn 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress came to power in the Young Turk Revolution. Within a year, the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population, empowered by the dismissal of Abdul Hamid II, began organizing politically in support of the new government, which promised to place them on equal legal footing with their Muslim counterparts.[14]\n\nHaving long endured so-called dhimmi status, and having suffered the brutality and oppression of Hamidian leadership since 1876, the Armenians in Cilicia welcomed the liberal reforms proposed by the nascent Young Turk government. With Christians now being granted the right to arm themselves and form politically significant groups, it was not long before Abdul Hamid loyalists, themselves acculturated into the system that had perpetrated the Hamidian massacres of the 1890s, came to view the empowerment of the Christians as coming at their expense.\n\nThe countercoup of 1909 wrested control of the government from the secularist Young Turks, and Abdul Hamid II briefly recovered his dictatorial powers. Appealing to the reactionary Muslim population with populist rhetoric calling for the re-institution of Islamic law under the banner of a pan-Islamic caliphate, the Sultan mobilized popular support against the Young Turks by identifying himself with the historically Islamic character of the state.[15]\n\nMany of the Christian Armenians were hopeful of more equality after the coup against Sultan Abdul Hamid II, which removed the Islamic head of state from power. However, the rise of Turkish nationalism and a popular perception of the Armenians as a separatist, European-controlled entity contributed to the malevolence of their attackers.[16]\n\nCauses\n\nWhen news of a mutiny in Constantinople (now Istanbul) arrived in Adana, speculation circulated among the Muslim population of an imminent Armenian insurrection. By April 14 the Armenian quarter was attacked by a Muslim mob, and many thousands of Armenians were killed in the ensuing weeks.[17]\n\nOther reports emphasize that a \"skirmish between Armenians and Turks on April 13 set off a riot that resulted in the pillaging of the bazaars and attacks upon the Armenian quarters.\" Two days later, more than 2,000 Armenians had been killed.[18]\n\nIn his August 1909 report on the massacre, Charles Doughty-Wylie asserts that \"The theory of an armed revolution on the part of the Armenians is now generally discredited with the more intelligent people.\" Doughty-Wylie explained that an uprising could not be said to be taking place without some concentration of forces, or without any effort to make use of the various available strongholds, and in any case the number of Armenians would be \"an easy match for the regular Ottoman army. ...They would not have left their sons and brothers scattered widely through the province for harvest without arms, without any hope of escape.\"[19]\n\nDuring the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Armenians were targeted owing to their relative wealth, and their quarrels with imperial taxation under the millet system.[9]\n\nA report by the Acting British Vice-Consul at Konieh and Mersina,[20] Major Charles Doughty-Wylie considers \"The Causes of the Massacre\". From this document the historian Vahakn Dadrian culls the text:\n\nThe Turks, masters for centuries, found their great stumbling block in equality with the Christians... Among the fiercer professors of Islam resentment grew. Were God's adversaries to be the equals of Islam? In every cafe the heathen were speaking great mouthing words of some godless and detested change...[21]\n\nAbdul Hamid became celebrated, in this context, according to Doughty-Wylie, because he \"had set the fashion of massacres\". \n\nStephan Astourian has meanwhile highlighted other causes, including growing resentment among Muslims as a result of increasing Armenian Christian immigration into Adana, Armenian landholders' introduction of new technological machinery that would displace a great many Turkish artisans and craftsmen, and a popular rumor that a well-known Armenian landowner was to be crowned the ruler of an Armenian kingdom of Cilicia.[22]\n\nBloodshed\n\nNearly 4,437 Armenian dwellings were torched which meant nearly half the town was razed, which led in turn to descriptions of the incidents as a \"holocaust\".[23] The tension erupted into riots on April 1, 1909, which soon escalated into organized violence against the Armenian population of Adana and in several surrounding cities. By April 18, over 1,000 people were reported dead at Adana alone, with additional unknown casualties in Tarsus and Alexandretta.[24] Thousands of refugees filled the American embassy in Alexandretta, and a British warship was dispatched to its shores; three French warships were dispatched to Mersin, where the situation was \"desperate\", and many Western consulates were overwhelmed by Armenian refugees.[24]\n\nSimilar violence consumed Marash and Hadjin, and the estimates of the death toll soon grew to exceed 5,000.[25] Rose Lambert, an American missionary at Hadjin, wrote in her book how many sought refuge in the missionary compound for safety.[26] The British cruiser HMS Diana was hoped would provide a \"tranquilizing\" effect at the port of Alexandretta, where violence still raged.[25] Reports surfaced that imperial \"authorities are either indifferent or conniving in the slaughter.\"[25] The Armenian quarter of Adana was described as the \"richest and most prosperous\"; the violence included destruction of \"tractors and other kinds of mechanized equipment.\"[16]\n\nSome order was restored by April 20, as the disturbance in Mersina had abated, and the British cruiser HMS Swiftsure was able to deliver \"provisions and medicines intended for Adana.\"[28] A \"threatening\" report from Hadjin indicated that well-armed Armenians were held up in the town, \"beleaguered by Moslem tribesmen who are only awaiting sufficient numerical strength to rush the improvised defenses erected by the Armenians.\"[28] 8,000 refugees filled the missions of Tarsus, where order had been restored under martial law, the dead numbering approximately 50.[28]\n\nAn April 22 message from an American missionary in Hadjin indicated that the town was taking fire intermittently, that surrounding Armenian properties had been burned, and that siege was inevitable. The entirety of the Armenian population of Kırıkhan was reported to have been \"slaughtered\"; the Armenian village of Dörtyol was burning and surrounded; additional bloodshed flared up in Tarsus; massacres were reported in Antioch, and rioting in Birejik.[29] At least one report praised the \"Turkish Government officials at Mersina\" for doing \"everything possible to check the trouble\", though \"the result of their efforts has been very limited\".[29] As Ottoman authorities worked to contain violence directed at the Christians of the Empire, the Armenian population \"look(ed) to the Young Turks for future protection.\"[29]\n\nAn American missionary stationed in Tarsus but visiting Adana during the period, Reverend Herbert Adams Gibbons of Hartford, described the scene in the days leading up to the 27th of April:[30]\n\nAdana is in a pitiable condition. The town has been pillaged and destroyed ... It is impossible to estimate the number of killed. The corpses lie scattered through the streets. Friday, when I went out, I had to pick my way between the dead to avoid stepping on them. Saturday morning I counted a dozen cartloads of Armenian bodies in one-half hour being carried to the river and thrown into the water. In the Turkish cemeteries, graves are being dug wholesale.\n... On Friday afternoon 250 so-called Turkish reserves, without officers, seized a train at Adana and compelled the engineer to convey them to Tarsus, where they took part in the complete destruction of the Armenian quarter of that town, which is the best part of Tarsus. Their work of looting was thorough and rapid.\n\nThe Ottoman government sent in the Army to keep peace, but it was alleged to have either tolerated the violence or participated in it. An unsigned newspaper report of 3 May 1909 indicated that Ottoman soldiery had arrived, but did not seem intent upon effecting a peace:\n\nAdana is terrorized by 4,000 soldiers, who are looting, shooting, and burning. No respect is paid to foreign properties. Both French schools have been destroyed, and it is feared that the American school, commercial, and missionary interests in Adana are totally ruined.\nThe new Governor has not as yet inspired confidence. There is reason to believe that the authorities still intend to permit the extermination of all Christians.[31]\n\nAftermath\n\nAccording to the official Ottoman data, there were a total of 3,521 casualties in Adana city. Of these, 2,093 were Armenians, 782 Muslims, 613 Assyrians and 33 Greeks.[32] Government figures are based on records of the registry office, and lists compiled by Mukhtars and priests of certain localities.\n\nGrand Vizier Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha indicated that the massacre was a \"political, not a religious question ... Before the Armenian political committees began to organize in Asia Minor there was peace. I will leave you to judge the cause of the bloodshed.\"[33] While conceding that his predecessor, Abdul Hamid II, had ordered the \"extermination of the Armenians\", he did articulate his confidence that \"there will never be another massacre.\"[33]\n\nIn July 1909, the Young Turk government announced the trials of various government and military officials, for \"being implicated in the Armenian massacres\".[34][35] In the ensuing courts-martial, 124 Muslims and seven Armenians were executed for their involvement in the violence.[16]\n\nIn response to the counterrevolution and the Armenian massacres in Adana, the CUP and Dashnak concluded an agreement in September 1909 whereby they promised to \"work together for progress, the Constitution, and unity.\" Both parties declared that rumor of Armenian efforts toward independence were false. The Unionists took care to have an Armenian minister present in the governments formed after 6 August 1909, which could also be interpreted as an attempt to demonstrate the CUP's distance from the Adana events.[16]\n\nThe government of Turkey, as well as some Turkish writers and nationalists, deny the massacre happened, claiming that the events of April 1909 were in fact an Armenian \"rampage of pillaging and death\"[11] targeting the Muslim population that \"ended up with about 17,000 Armenian and 1,850 Turkish deaths.\"[11] Historians question the factuality of the Turkish claims of an \"Armenian rampage\" due to the simple fact that if the Armenians had been the aggressors, significantly higher number of Turks would have been killed. In contrast to Turkey's official position, foreign eyewitnesses clearly stated that Armenians were the victims.\n\nThe Sublime Porte claimed that the loss of the Muslims was greater than the loss of Armenians, 1,900 Muslims as compared to 1,500 Armenians.[36]\n\nAnother Ottoman commission was composed of Faik Bey, Mosdijian Efendi and Esad Rauf Bey, the Governor of Mersin. Using local registers, they calculated the number of deaths as at least 4,196 non-Muslims and 1,487 Muslims, including gendarmes and soldiers,[37] and proposed the total figure of 15,000 when accounting for non-registered and migrant workers, including Muslims.[38]\n\nOttoman authorities denied responsibility in the shooting deaths of two American missionaries in the city of Adana, indicating instead that \"the Armenians\" killed Protestant missionaries D.M. Rogers and Henry Maurer while they \"were helping to put out a fire in the house of a Turkish widow.\"[25] The Ottoman account of the killings was later contradicted by an eyewitness, American priest Stephen Trowbridge of Brooklyn.[40] Trowbridge indicated that the men were killed by \"Moslems\" as they attempted to extinguish a fire that threatened to consume their mission.[40]\n\n Firing and fighting began April 14 between Moslems and Armenians, which resulted in a number of casualties on both sides... the next morning April 15, a fresh outburst of smoke near the girls' school showed that we were threatened by fire...Mr. Maurer and I took a crowbar and an axe to the destroy the wooden porches, shutters and stairways of the houses between the fires and the girls' school...When I first climbed to the roofs near the flames armed Moslems appeared...When they understood that I was not firing on them, but had come to work against the flames, they lowered their rifles and assured me with many pledges that I might go unmolested...we repeatedly begged some Armenian young men who were lurking around the street corners shielded from the Moslem fire to put away their arms and come and save the school building... we came back to the school and asked for volunteers, Mr. Rogers came at once... We had thus worked a considerable time without being harmed by the Moslems when the Armenians on the other end of the street commenced firing on the houses where the looters were at work. Suddenly two shots rang out not more than eight yards from where we were working. Mr. Rogers...was mortally wounded...The other bullet hit Mr. Maurer...Immediately after these two shots several other bullets from the Moslems, who had fired them, whizzed past me...Both men passed peacefully away. They died as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.[40]\n\nThe missionaries found themselves pinned down in their school amidst the pogrom. According to Elizabeth S. Webb, a missionary attached to the school, \"It was a terrible situation, women and girls practically alone in the building, a murderous bloodthirsty mob outside, with knife and bullet for the Armenians and the torch for their homes.\"[41]\n\nMr. Trowbridge returned from the school to say that the only hope for safety to any Americans seemed to be to return to the school, staying there alone, separated from the Armenians. He declared that we were powerless to save the Armenians. It seems that after we left the school, Miss Wallace, Mr. Chambers, and a young Armenian preacher attempted to cross the street from Miss Wallace's to the school. Just at this time a mob rushed around the corner. The infuriated Turks recognized the preacher as an Armenian, and although Mr. Chambers threw his arms about him and did all in his power to save the man's life, they shot him dead. Not a single Armenian would they leave alive, the assassins shouted, as Mr. Chambers dragged the murdered preacher into the building.[41]\n\nBritish war correspondent Francis McCullagh wrote a year later in his book on the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II that 20,000 Armenians in Adana had been \"massacred amid circumstances of such unspeakable brutality that the whole world was shocked.\"[2] The British Vice-Consul, Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie, is recorded in many sources as having worked strenuously to stop the massacres, at great personal risk. He was shot in the arm during the conflagration.[41]\n\nThree orphanages were built after the massacres; in Adana, Hadjin and Dörtyol. Adana Dârüleytâm accommodated around 500 orphans.[42]\n\nSee also\n\nList of massacres of Armenians\n\nList of conflicts in the Middle East\n\nList of massacres in Turkey\n\nReferences\n\n^ Nazan Maksudyan (2014). Women and the City, Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective on Ottoman Urban History. Berghahn Books. p. 122.\n\n^ a b McCullagh, Francis (1910). The Fall of Abd-ul-Hamid. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. p. 138.\n\n^ a b Butt, Ahsan I. (2017), \"The Ottoman Empire's Escalation from Reforms to the Armenian Genocide, 1908-1915\", Secession and Security, Cornell University Press, p. 137, doi:10.7591/9781501713958-007, ISBN 978-1-5017-1395-8\n\n^ Raymond H. Kévorkian, \"The Cilician Massacres, April 1909\" in Armenian Cilicia, eds. Richard G. Hovannisian and Simon Payaslian. UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, 7. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2008, pp. 339-369.\n\n^ Suny 2015, p. 171.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2009). \"The Assyrian Genocide of 1915\". Assyrian Genocide Research Center.\n\n^ Kévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-84885-561-8.\n\n^ Suny 2015, pp. 172-173.\n\n^ a b \"Armenian Wealth Caused Massacres\". The New York Times. 25 April 1909.\n\n^ Johanson, Paula (2017). The Armenian Genocide. Greenhaven Publishing LLC. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-5345-0120-1.\n\n^ a b c Öztuna, Yilmaz. \"The Political Milieu of the Armenian Question\" (PDF). Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi. p. 59. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 June 2007.\n\n^ Balakian, Peter (2003). The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 57-58. ISBN 0-06-055870-9.\n\n^ Salt, Jeremy (1993). Imperialism, evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians : 1878-1896. London u.a.: Cass. p. 88. ISBN 0714634484.\n\n^ Quataert, Donald (July 1979). \"The 1908 Young Turk Revolution: Old and New Approaches\". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 13 (1): 22-29. doi:10.1017/S002631840000691X. JSTOR 41890046. S2CID 157617325.\n\n^ \"Islam vs. Liberalism\". The New York Times. 15 April 1909.\n\n^ a b c d Akcam, Taner. A Shameful Act. 2006, pp. 69-70: \"fifteen to twenty thousand Armenians were killed\"\n\n^ Mantran, Robert (editor); Histoire de l'empire ottoman (1989), ch. 14.\n\n^ AG Chapter 3 - The Young Turks in Power Archived June 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"1909-08-08-GB-001\". www.armenocide.net. Retrieved 23 August 2018.\n\n^ \"No. 28263\". The London Gazette (Supplement). 22 June 1909. p. 4856.\n\n^ Dadrian, Vahakn N. Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict, pp. 71-72.\n\n^ Stephan H. Astourian (2011), \"The Silence of the Land: Agrarian Relations, Ethnicity, and Power,\" in A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Ottoman muslims at the End of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Norman Naimark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 78.\n\n^ Charney, Israel (1999). Encyclopedia of Genocide: A - H., Volume 1. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 47. ISBN 9780874369281.\n\n^ a b \"Constantinople, April 19\". The New York Times. 19 April 1909.\n\n^ a b c d \"MOSLEM MASSACRES TAKE 5,000 LIVES\". The New York Times. 21 April 1909.\n\n^ Lambert, Rose (1911). Hadjin and the Armenian Massacres. Revell.\n\n^ Woods, H. Charles (1911). \"The Armenian Massacres of April, 1909\". The Danger Zone of Europe: Changes and Problems in the Near East. Boston: Little, Brown. p. 127.\n\n^ a b c \"Foreign Cruisers at Mersina\". The New York Times. 23 April 1909.\n\n^ a b c \"AMERICAN WOMEN IN PERIL AT HADJIN\". The New York Times. 23 April 1909.\n\n^ \"DAYS OF HORROR DESCRIBED; American Missionary an Eyewitness of Murder and Rapine\". The New York Times. 28 April 1909.\n\n^ \"MASSACRES CONTINUE ADANA TERRORIZED\". The New York Times. 5 May 1909.\n\n^ (in French)Les massacres de Cilicie d'avril 1909\n\n^ a b Creelman, James (1 August 1909). \"THE VIZIER AT CLOSE RANGE\". The New York Times.\n\n^ \"ADANA OFFICIALS TO BE TRIED\". The New York Times. 14 July 1909.\n\n^ \"SINCERITY OF THE YOUNG TURKS\". The New York Times. 29 July 1909.\n\n^ Kévorkian, \"The Cilician Massacres, April 1909,\" pp. 351-53.\n\n^ Dündar, Fuat (2010). Crime of numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918). Transaction Publishers. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-4128-4341-6.\n\n^ Dündar, Fuat (2010). Crime of numbers: The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918). Transaction Publishers. p. 145. ISBN 978-1-4128-4341-6.\n\n^ Mikaberidze, Alexander (2013). Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia. p. 2. Ruins of a street in the Christian section of Adana, Turkey, following the Adana Massacre in April, 1909. Ottoman government forces, under the leadership of the Young Turks, fired upon Christian residents from the minaret at center. (Library of Congress)\n\n^ a b c \"BROOKLYN MAN SAW MISSIONARIES SHOT\". The New York Times. 2 May 1909.\n\n^ a b c \"WOMAN DESCRIBES RIOT AT ADANA\". The New York Times. 3 May 1909.\n\n^ \"2009 Emirgan'ından 1909 Adana'sına: Sis'e, Darson'a, Haçin'e Bakmak - Aslı Odman\".\n\nSources\n\nSuny, Ronald Grigor (2015). \"They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else\": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Human rights and crimes against humanity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.\n\nLay summary in: Ronald Grigor Suny (26 May 2015). \"Armenian Genocide\". 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Red Rugs Of Tarsus - A Woman's Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909\n\nAdana Massacre"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-adana-massacre"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3637}, {"slug": "reference-christianity-in-turkey", "title": "Christianity in Turkey", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Christianity in Turkey has a long history, dating back to the early origins of Christianity in Asia Minor and the Middle East during the 1st century AD.[3] In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20 to 25% in 1914, to about 2% in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Turkish Christians\nTürk Hristiyanlar\n\nChrist Pantocrator, detail of the Deesis mosaic in the former Basilica of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul\n\nTotal population\n\nEst. 403,500-570,000+[1][2][3][4]\n\nReligions\n\nChristianity (mostly Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Roman Catholic)\n\nLanguages\n\nArabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Ecclesiastical Latin, English, Georgian, Greek (Liturgical), Korean, Persian, Russian, Syriac, Turkish, Ukrainian\n\nChristianity in Turkey has a long history, dating back to the early origins of Christianity in Asia Minor and the Middle East during the 1st century AD.[3] In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20 to 25% in 1914, to about 2% in 1927, to 0.5-0.6% today.[5][6][7][8] Sources estimate that the Christian population in Turkey ranges between 403,500 and more than 570,000.[1][3][4][9] However, the exact number remains unclear due to the absence of a religious census in the country.[10] The percentage of Christians in Turkey fell mainly as a result of the late Ottoman genocides:[19] the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide,[20] the population exchange between Greece and Turkey,[11][17][21] the emigration of Christians that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century,[17][22] and due to events such as the 1942 Varlık Vergisi tax levied on non-Muslim citizens in Turkey and the 1955 Istanbul pogrom against Greek and Armenian Christians.[17] Exact numbers are difficult to estimate,[10][23] as many Turkish former Muslim converts to Christianity often hide their Christian faith for fear of familial pressure, religious discrimination, and persecution.[11][24][25][26]\n\nThis was due to events which had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the First World War,[27] the anti-Christian genocides of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians perpetrated by Turkish Muslims,[28] and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey,[11][29] and the emigration of persecuted Christians (such as Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) to foreign countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially during World War I.[17][18][30] Signed after the First World War, the Treaty of Lausanne explicitly guarantees the security and protection of both Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christian minorities. Their religious institutions are recognized officially by the Republic of Turkey.[31][32]\n\nIn 2011 according to the Pew Research Center, there were more than 200,000-370,000 people of different Christian denominations in Turkey,[33] representing roughly 0.3-0.4 percent of Turkey's population,[5] including an estimated 80,000 population of Oriental Orthodox Christians,[34] 47,000 Turkish Orthodox Christians,[35][36] 35,000 Roman Catholic Christians,[37] 18,000 Antiochian Greeks,[38] 5,000 Greek Orthodox Christians,[34] 8,000 Protestant Christians, 4,994 Jehovah's Witnesses,[39] and 512 Mormons.[40] There is also a small group of ethnic Orthodox-Christian Turks (mostly living in Istanbul and İzmir) who follow the Greek Orthodox, Turkish Orthodox, or Syriac Orthodox churches, and additionally Protestant Turks who still face difficulties regarding social acceptance, and also historic claims to churches or property in the country because they are former Muslim converts to Christianity from Turkish-Muslim background, rather than ethnic minorities.[24] Ethnically Turkish Protestants number around 7,000-8,000.[41][42] In 2009, there were 236 Christian churches open for worship in Turkey.[43] The Eastern Orthodox Church has been headquartered in Constantinople since the 4th century AD.[44][45][24]\n\nIn 2020 the Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency of the Turkish government, claimed that the number of Christians in Turkey was 480,854, which corresponds to 0.5% of the population.[46] In a 2022 report of the U.S. Department of State, Christians were seen as being 0.2% of the population.[47] The estimated number of adherents mainly refers to Armenian Orthodox Christians, Armenian Catholics, Chaldean Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, Protestants, and Syriac Orthodox Christians, as well as smaller groups.[47] It was noted that the number of Eastern Orthodox Christians had risen sharply, mainly due to refugees from Russia and Ukraine.[47] In 2024, Freedom House rated the country 2 out of 4 for religious freedom; this was mainly due to disputes over land.[48] The Mor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox church, opened in October 2023, was the first church built since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey.[49]\n\nHistorical background\n\nEarly Christianity\n\nThe Christianization of ancient Assyrians and Armenians most likely began around the 1st century AD.[3] The spread of Christianity beyond Jerusalem is discussed in the Book of Acts.[50]\n\nThe Cappadocian Fathers produced some of the earliest hagiographies in the region. In addition to writings about feminine virtue by Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzos; later texts about Nicholas of Sion and Theodore of Sykeon described miracles and rural life.[51]\n\nThe historical region of Syria became one of the main centers of miaphisite Christianity, embodied in the Oriental Orthodoxy, which had accepted only the first three ecumenical councils: Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381) and Ephesus (431). Miaphisite Christians were strongly opposed to Chalcedonian Creed that had been established by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Syriac Orthodox Church that originated in Antioch continued to fracture into multiple denominations.[52] Some Armenian miaphysite Christians sought to reunite with Rome in later centuries, but their efforts were unsuccessful.[50]\n\nConstantinople is generally considered to be the center and the \"cradle of Orthodox Christian civilization\".[53][54] From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.[55] The city became famous for its architectural masterpieces, such as Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the sacred Imperial Palace where the Emperors lived, the Hippodrome, the Golden Gate of the Land Walls, and opulent aristocratic palaces. The University of Constantinople was founded in the fifth century and contained artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and 1453,[56] including its vast Imperial Library which contained the remnants of the Library of Alexandria and had 100,000 volumes.[57] The city was the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and guardian of Christendom's holiest relics such as the Crown of thorns and the True Cross. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe.[58] The imperial role in the affairs of the Church never developed into a fixed, legally defined system.[59] Additionally, due to the decline of Rome and internal dissension in the other Eastern Patriarchates, the Church of Constantinople became, between the 6th and 11th centuries, the richest and most influential centre of Christendom.[60]\n\nThe Eastern Orthodox Church split from Rome during the Great Schism of 1054. With the arrival of the crusaders many Orthodox bishops, particularly in Antioch, were replaced by Latin prelates. After the Mongols defeated the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, the Armenians and Nestorians had decent relations with the conquering Il-khans for a time, but by the end of the 14th-century many Syrian Orthodox and Nestorian churches were destroyed when the Turco-Mongolian ruler Temür raided West Asia.[50]\n\nTwo out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy are in Turkey: Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch (Antakya). Antioch was also the place where the followers of Jesus were called \"Christians\" for the first time in history, as well as being the site of one of the earliest and oldest surviving churches, established by Saint Peter himself. For a thousand years, the Hagia Sophia was the largest church in the world.\n\nTurkey is also home to the Seven Churches of Asia, where the Revelation to John was sent. Apostle John is reputed to have taken Virgin Mary to Ephesus in western Turkey, where she spent the last days of her life in a small house, known as the House of the Virgin Mary, which still survives today and has been recognized as a holy site for pilgrimage by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as being a Muslim shrine. The cave of the Seven Sleepers is also located in Ephesus.\n\nThe death of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (modern day Sivas) is recorded as 320 AD during a persecution by Emperor Licinius. They are mentioned by Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian and John Chrysostom.[61]\n\nOttoman Empire\n\nIn accordance with the traditional custom of the time, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II allowed his troops and his entourage three full days of unbridled pillage and looting in the Christian city of Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire since its foundation by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD, shortly after it was captured in 1453. Once the three days passed, he would then claim its remaining contents for himself.[62][63] However, by the end of the first day, he proclaimed that the looting should cease as he felt profound sadness when he toured the looted and enslaved city.[64][62] The cathedral of Hagia Sophia was not exempted from the pillage and looting and specifically became its focal point, as the Ottoman Turks believed it to contain the greatest treasures and valuables of the city.[65] Shortly after the defence of the Walls of Constantinople, the city collapsed and the Ottoman troops entered victoriously; the pillagers and looters made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors before storming in.[66]\n\nThroughout the period of the siege of Constantinople, the trapped Christian worshippers of the city participated in the Divine Liturgy and the Prayer of the Hours at the Hagia Sophia and the church formed a safe-haven and a refuge for many of those who were unable to contribute to the city's defence, which comprised women, children, elderly, the sick, and the wounded.[67][68] Being trapped in the church, the many congregants and yet more refugees inside became spoils-of-war to be divided amongst the Ottoman invaders. The building was desecrated and looted, with the helpless occupants who sought shelter within the church being enslaved.[65] While most of the elderly, the infirm/wounded, and sick were killed, and the remainder (mainly teenage males and young boys) were chained up and sold into slavery.[66]\n\nThe women of Constantinople also suffered from rape and sexual violence at the hands of Ottoman forces.[69] According to historian Barbaro, \"all through the day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the city\". According to historian Philip Mansel, widespread persecution of the city's civilian inhabitants took place, resulting in thousands of murders and rapes, and 30,000 civilians being enslaved or forcibly deported.[70][71][72][73] George Sphrantzes says that people of both sexes were raped inside the church of Hagia Sophia.\n\nThe first capitulation concluded between the Ottoman Empire and a foreign state was that of 1535, granted to the Kingdom of France.[74] The Ottoman Empire was then at the height its power, and the French king Francis I had shortly before sustained a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Pavia. His only hope of assistance lay in the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I. The appeal to Suleiman on the ground of the common interest of the Kingdom of France and the Ottoman Empire in overcoming the power of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V overweening power was successful; thus was established the Franco-Ottoman alliance, and in 1536 the capitulations were signed.[74] They amounted to a treaty of commerce and a treaty allowing the establishment of Christian Frenchmen in Ottoman Turkey and fixing the jurisdiction to be exercised over them: individual and religious liberty was guaranteed to them, the King of France was empowered to appoint consuls in Ottoman Turkey, the consuls were recognized as competent to judge the civil and criminal affairs of French subjects in Ottoman Turkey according to French law, and the consuls may appeal to the officers of the sultan for their aid in the execution of their sentences.[74] This, the first of the capitulations, can be seen as the prototype of its successors.[74]\n\nAnglican, American Presbyterian, and German Lutheran missionaries arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.[50] During the same period, there were nationalistic campaigns against Assyrians which often had the assistance of Kurdish paramilitary support. In 1915, Turks and Kurds massacred tens of thousands Assyrians in Siirt. Assyrians were attacked in the Hakkari mountains by the Turkish army with the help of Kurdish tribes, and many Christians were deported and about a quarter million Assyrians were murdered or died due to persecution. This number doubles if the killings during the 1890s are included.[75] Kurds saw the Assyrians as dangerous foreigners and enforcers of the British colonizers, which made it justifiable to them to commit ethnic cleansing. The Kurds fought the Assyrians also due to fears that the Armenians, or European colonial powers backing them, would assume control in Anatolia.[76] Kurdish military plundered Armenian and other Christian villages.[76]\n\nIn the 1890s the Hamidiye (Kurdish paramilitary units) attacked Armenians in a series of clashes that culminated in the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1896 and the Adana massacre in 1909. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 300,000 Armenians were killed during these pre-War massacres.[3][77][78][79] Into the 19th century, the Christians of Istanbul tended to be either Greek Orthodox, members of the Armenian Apostolic Church or Catholic Levantines.[80]\n\nFirst World War\n\nDuring the tumultuous period of the First World War, up to 3 million indigenous Christians are alleged to have been killed. Prior to this time, the Christian population stood at around 20% -25% of the total. According to professor Martin van Bruinessen, relations between Christians and Kurdish and other Muslim peoples were often bitter and during World War I \"Christians of Tur Abdin (in Turkey) for instance have been subjected to brutal treatment by Kurdish tribes, who took their land and even their daughters\".[83]\n\nKurdish-dominated Hamidiye slaughtered Christian Armenians in Tur Abdin region in 1915.[84] It is estimated that ten thousand Assyrians were killed, and reportedly \"the skulls of small children were smashed with rocks, the bodies of girls and women who resisted rape were chopped into pieces live, men were mostly beheaded, and the clergy skinned or burnt alive....\"[84] In 1915, Turks and Kurds plundered the Assyrian village of Mar-Zaya in Jelu and slaughtered the population, it is estimated that 7,000 Assyrians were slaughtered during this period. In September 1914 more than 30 Armenian and Assyrian villages were burnt by Kurdish and Turkish mobs in the Urmia region.[84] After the Russian army retreated, Turkish troops with Kurdish detachments organized mass slaughters of Assyrians, in the Assyrian village of Haftvan 750 men were beheaded and 5,000 Assyrian women were taken to Kurdish harems.[84] Turks and Kurds also slaughtered Christians in Diarbekir. There was a policy during the Hamidian era to use Kurdish tribes as irregulars (Hamidiye units) against the Armenians.[84][85][86][87]\n\nTreaty of Lausanne\n\nThe Greek forces who occupied Smyrna in the post-war period were defeated in the Turkish War of Independence which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. Under the terms of the peace treaty, 1.3 million Christian residents of Turkey were relocated to Greece and around 400,000 Muslims were likewise moved from Greece to Turkey. When the Turkish state was founded in 1923, the remaining Greek population was estimated to be around 111,000; the Greek Orthodox communities in Istanbul, Gökçeada, and Bozcaada numbering 270,000 were exempted. Other terms of the treaty included various provisions to protect the rights of religious minorities and a concession by the Turks to allow the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to remain in Istanbul.[88]\n\nRepublic of Turkey (1923-present)\n\nThe British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported in 2014 that the Christian population of Turkey had declined from 20% to 0.2% since 1914.[89]\n\nThe U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) designated Turkey a \"Country of Particular Concern\" for religious freedom, noting \"systematic limitations on the freedom of religion or belief\" with respect to access to places of worship, religious education, and right to train clergy. The report does note some areas of improvement such as better protection of the property rights of Non-Muslims.[90]\n\nIn the pre-war period, Protestant Christian missionaries from North America had been actively involved in the Ottoman education system. Many of the schools were closed down and suffered under stringent regulations and burdensome taxes during the secularization of Turkey. Historically, these schools had worked with the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire, and were regarded with suspicion by the fledgling republic.[91]\n\nIn 2001, Turkey's National Security Council (MGK) reported that it considers Protestant Christian missionaries the third largest threat to Turkey's national security, surpassed only by Islamic fundamentalism and the Kurdish separatist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). A 2004 report by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) similarly recommended implementing new laws to curb Christian missionary activities in the country. According to the Turkish Evangelical Churches movement, Turkish Protestant churches had only 3,000 members in 2009-about half of these were former Muslim converts to Christianity, while the others were Christian converts from Armenian Orthodox and Syriac Christian churches.[92] Since Turkish nationality was often perceived exclusively as a Muslim identity after the Balkan Wars, the influence of Protestant Christian missionaries on Turkey's Alevi population has been a concern since the era of Committee of Union and Progress rule.[92][93] In 2016, the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey released a report warning of an increase in anti-Christian hate speech.[94]\n\nHistorically, the Christian population of Turkey has been largely peaceful and non-disruptive, with the notable exception of one former Muslim convert to Christianity who hijacked the Turkish Airlines Flight 1476 in 2006 with the stated intent of flying it to the Vatican to meet the Pope and ask for his help to avoid serving in the Turkish Armed Forces, which he referred to as a \"Muslim army\".[95]\n\nIn 2013, the Washington Post reported that members of the ruling Justice and Development Party had expressed their desires to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Hagia Sophia, which is called ayasofya in Turkish, is an ancient Christian church dating to 360 AD that was converted into a mosque after Mehmed II invaded Constantinople in 1453. It has been a museum since 1935. Patriarch Bartholomew objected to the government's rhetoric, saying \"If it is to reopen as a house of worship, then it should open as a Christian church.\"[96] Also in 2013, the government announced that the 5th-century Monastery of Stoudios, located in Istanbul's Samatya neighborhood, would be converted into a mosque. The monastery, one of Byzantium's most important, was sacked during the Crusades and later served as a mosque for a time, until it was converted to a museum during the 20th century.[97][98][99]\n\nToday, the Christian population of Turkey is estimated at 203,500-370,000 Christians.[2][3][4][34][100] 35,000 Catholics of varying ethnicities, 25,000 ethnic \"Assyrians\" (Turkish: Süryaniler), (mostly followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, the Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church),[101] 3,000-4,000 Greek Orthodox,[100] 15,000-18,000 Antiochian Greeks[102] and smaller numbers of Bulgarians, Georgians, and Protestant Christians of various ethnicities. Moreover, there is an ethnic Turkish Protestant Christian community in Turkey which number about 7,000-8,000 adherents;[42][41] most of these Christian converts are from Turkish-Muslim background.[103][104][105] In 2003, the mainstream Turkish newspaper Milliyet reported that 35,000 Turkish former Muslims had converted to Christianity.[23] According to Bekir Bozdağ, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, there were 349 active churches in Turkey in October 2012: 140 Greek, 58 Assyrian, and 52 Armenian.[106] In 2015, the Turkish government gave permission for the Christian channel SAT-7 to broadcast on the government-regulated Türksat satellite.[107]\n\nSince the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923, a number of high-profile incidents targeting Non-Muslims, including Christians, have occurred.[3] This includes the Istanbul pogrom of 1955, where non-Muslims were attacked and killed, as well as more recent attacks, such as the assassination of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, the torture and murder of one German Protestant and two Turkish converts to Christianity in what Turkish media dubbed \"the missionary massacres\" in the same year,[108][109] and the killings of Italian Catholic priests, including Andrea Santoro, in 2006 and 2007. In January 2024, two gunmen fatally shot a man during a church service in Istanbul in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (Daesh).[110]\n\nChristian communities\n\nThe largest Christian population in Turkey is located in Istanbul, which has a large community of Armenians and Greeks. Istanbul is also where the Patriarchate of Greek Orthodox Christianity is located. Antioch, located in Turkey's Hatay province, is the original seat of the namesake Antiochian Orthodox Church, but is now the titular see. The area, known for having ethnic diversity and large Christian community, has 7,000 Christians and 14 active churches. The city has one of the oldest churches in the world as well, called the Church of St Peter, which is said to have been founded by the Saint himself.[111]\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church has a strong presence in Mardin; many Assyrian Christians left during the late Ottoman genocides in 1915.[112] Tur Abdin is a large area with a multitude of mostly Syriac Orthodox churches, monasteries, and ruins. Settlements in Tur Abdin include Midyat. The Christian community in Midyat is supplemented by a refugee community from Syria and has four operating churches.[113] Some of the most significant Syriac churches and monasteries in existence are in or near Midyat including Mor Gabriel Monastery and the Saffron Monastery.\n\nBy the 21st century, Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey had declined to only around 2,000-3,000.[88] There are between 40,000 and 70,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians in Turkey.[3] By some estimates, in the early 2000s there were between 10,000 and 20,000 Catholics and Protestants in Turkey.[114] Since the 1960s, a growing number of Turkish former Muslims are converting to Christianity;[23] estimates range from 4,000 to 35,000 by various sources.[23][115][116][117]\n\nMartin Kmetec, a Conventual Franciscan friar and current Archbishop of İzmir, stated in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need that ecumenical relations between Christians are generally good in the country: \"In general, our relations with other Christian churches are good. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, for example, has a good relationship with the Focolare Movement and the new Apostolic Vicar of Istanbul, Bishop Massimiliano Palinuro. Likewise, here in İzmir we get together with the Orthodox Christians, but also with the Anglicans, on various Christian feast days. Armenian priests recently celebrated an Armenian liturgy at our Catholic Church of St. Polycarp because they do not have their own church in İzmir. We also worked together with the Armenians in İzmir to open a small book shop for the Bible Society. These are promising signs of an ecumenical dialogue.\"[118]\n\nChurches in Turkey\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church\n\nThe Armenian Apostolic Church traces its origins to St. Gregory the Illuminator who is credited with having introduced the Armenian king Tiridates III to Christianity. It is one of the most ancient churches established in the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia.[3] Historically, the Armenian Church accepted only the first three Ecumenical Councils, rejecting the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD; its Christology is sometimes described as \"non-Chalcedonian\" for this reason. The Bible was first translated into the Armenian language by Mesrop Mashtots.[119][114] The Armenian Christian community in Turkey is led by the Armenian Patriarchates of Istanbul and Jerusalem. As of 2008 estimates of Turkey's Armenian Orthodox population range from between 50,000 and 70,000.[114]\n\nThere are 35 churches maintained by the religious foundation in Istanbul and its surrounding areas. Besides Surp Asdvadzadzin Patriarchal Church (translation: the Holy Mother-of-God Armenian Patriarchal Church) in Kumkapi, Istanbul, there are tens of Armenian Apostolic churches. There are other churches in Kayseri, Diyarbakır, Derik, İskenderun, and Vakifli Koyu that are claimed by foundations as well. Around 1,000 Armenian churches throughout Turkey sit on public or privately owned land as well, with them all either being re-purposed or abandoned and/or in ruins.\n\nArmenian Catholic Church - There are several Armenian Catholic churches in Istanbul, including a large cemetery. In Mardin one remains as a Museum and occasional religious center.\n\nArmenian Evangelical Church - The Armenian Protestants have three churches in Istanbul from the 19th century.[120]\n\nAutocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate\n\nThe Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (Turkish: Bağımsız Türk Ortodoks Patrikhanesi), also referred to as the Turkish Orthodox Church, is an unrecognized Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination based in Turkey. It was founded in Kayseri by Pavlos Karahisarithis, a supporter of the General Congregation of the Anatolian Turkish Orthodox (Turkish: Umum Anadolu Türk Ortodoksları Cemaatleri), in 1922.[121] Pavlos Karahisarithis became the Patriarch of this new Orthodox church, and took the name of Papa Eftim I. He was supported by 72 other Turkish Orthodox clerics.[122]\n\nThe start of the Patriarchate can be traced to the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). In 1922 a pro-Turkish Eastern Orthodox group, the General Congregation of the Anatolian Turkish Orthodox, was set up with the support from the Orthodox bishop of Havza, as well as a number of other congregations[123] representing a genuine movement among the Turkish-speaking, Orthodox Christian population of Anatolia[121] who wished to remain both Orthodox and Turkish.[124] There were calls to establish a new Patriarchate with Turkish as the preferred language of Christian worship.[125]\n\nIn 1924, Karahisarithis started to conduct the Christian liturgy in Turkish, and quickly won support from the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey, formed after the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908-1922).[126] He claimed that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople was ethnically centered and favored the Greek population. Being excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church for claiming to be a bishop while still having a wife and due to the fact that married bishops are not allowed in Eastern Orthodoxy, Karahisarithis, who later changed his name into Zeki Erenerol, called a Turkish ecclesiastical congress, which elected him Patriarch in 1924.\n\nGreek Orthodox Church\n\nConstantinople was dedicated as the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD, and served as the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire from the empire's definitive division in 395 until 1453. The city's see was elevated in the ecclesiastical hierarchy by the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which decreed in its third canon that the Bishop of Constantinople should have the \"prerogative of honor\" after the Bishop of Rome because the city was the \"New Rome\". The traditional apostolic origin of the Patriarchate is traced to St. Andrew, a claim that gained prominence in later centuries. The first historically attested bishops who oversaw the see's rise to prominence were Metrophanes and Alexander of Constantinople, who held the office before and during the city's imperial refoundation.\n\nAt the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Constantinople's status was expanded. Canon 28 granted it jurisdiction over several metropolitan sees and \"equal privileges\" to Old Rome, a canon the papacy did not accept. Following the council's condemnation of Monophysitism, the popes in Rome and the patriarchs of Constantinople were often aligned in the ensuing theological disputes with the Patriarchate of Alexandria, a major center of Monophysite belief. The doctrine of the Pentarchy, which conceived of the universal church as governed by the five patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, was first given legal expression in the 6th-century legislation of Emperor Justinian I. This concept, which formalized the existing administrative structure of the church, was later used as an ecclesiological model in opposition to Roman claims of universal jurisdiction.[127]\n\nDuring the 8th and 9th centuries, the Byzantine Empire experienced the Iconoclastic Controversy, a prolonged theological conflict over the veneration of religious images.[128] The 9th century also saw the Photian schism, a conflict that began with a dispute over the patriarchal see between Ignatios and Photios I but expanded to include major canonical and theological issues, including papal jurisdictional claims in the Balkans and the Western addition of the Filioque clause to the Nicene Creed.[129][130]\n\nThe primary Eucharistic service of the Byzantine Rite is the Divine Liturgy. The rite also includes a cycle of daily non-Eucharistic services known as the Daily Office or Horologion, analogous to the Divine Office in the Latin Rite.[131] The Byzantine Rite is used for the administration of the Holy Mysteries (sacraments), which include Baptism, Chrismation, Holy Communion (the Eucharist, understood as the most direct union with Christ), confession, unction, matrimony, and ordination. Other rites, such as blessings and exorcisms, are also performed.[132] The two primary Eucharistic liturgies are the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, so named because their central anaphoras are attributed to these saints.[132] A third service, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, is a vesperal service celebrated on weekdays during Great Lent; it is not a full Divine Liturgy as it lacks an anaphora and distributes communion from elements consecrated at a previous liturgy.\n\nRoman Catholic Church\n\nThe Catholic Church in Turkey is composed of jurisdictions of the Latin, Armenian, Chaldean, and Byzantine rites. The schism between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the churches of Rome and Byzantium developed gradually after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD over Christological disputes, with the separation being formalized in the 6th century. Over subsequent centuries, a number of Armenian Christians entered into communion with the Catholic Church, forming the Armenian Catholic Church. In 1829, Sultan Mahmud II formally recognized the Armenian Catholics as a distinct millet, granting them civil and legal autonomy from the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate. This act allowed for the establishment of a separate ecclesiastical administration in Constantinople, which officially became the see of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate in 1866.[133][134]\n\nLatin rite:\n\nVicariate Apostolic of Istanbul, with seat in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, Istanbul. Basilica: St. Anthony of Padua Church in Istanbul, Istanbul. Jurisdiction: Immediately subjected to the Holy See\n\nVicariate Apostolic of Anatolia, with seat in the Cathedral of the Annunciation, İskenderun, and Co-Cathedral of St. Anthony of Padua, Mersin. Jurisdiction: Immediately subjected to the Holy See\n\nRoman Catholic Archdiocese of İzmir, with seat in the St. John's Cathedral, İzmir.\n\nArmenian rite: Armenian Catholic Archdiocese of Istanbul. Cathedral: Holy Mother of God Armenian Cathedral Church, Istanbul. Jurisdiction: Immediately subjected to the Holy See.\n\nByzantine Rite: Greek Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Istanbul. Cathedral: Holy Trinity Greek Catholic Cathedral, Istanbul (Ayatriada Rum Katoliki Kilise). Jurisdiction: Immediately subjected to the Holy See.\n\nSyriac Rite: Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Turkey, with seat in Istanbul. Jurisdiction: Subject to the Syriac Catholic Church.\n\nChaldaean Rite: Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Diarbekir. Cathedral: St. Mary's Cathedral, Diyarbakır, but with seat in Beyoğlu, Istanbul. Jurisdiction: Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church, that follows the West Syriac Rite, was present in various southeastern regions of modern Turkey since the early medieval times. Since the 12th century, the patriarchal seat itself was transferred to Mor Hananyo Monastery (Deir al-Za`faran), in southeastern Anatolia near Mardin (modern Turkey), where it remained until 1924. In modern times, active churches are located in Istanbul, Diyarbakır, Adıyaman, and Elazığ.[135] There are many both active and inactive churches in the traditionally Assyrian area of Tur Abdin, which is a region centered in the western area of Mardin Province, and has areas that go into Şırnak, and Batman Province. Up until the 1980s the Syriac population was concentrated there as well, but a large amount of the population has fled the region to Istanbul or abroad due to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. The Church structure is still organized however, with 12 reverends stationed in churches and monasteries there.[136] Churches were also in several other provinces as well, but during the Seyfo the churches in those churches were destroyed or left ruined.\n\nIn modern times, Syriac Orthodox Church hase these provinces in Turkey:[137]\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Istanbul and Ankara under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Filüksinos Yusuf Çetin.\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Mardin under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Filüksinos Saliba Özmen.\n\nPatriarchal Vicariate of Turabdin under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Timotheus Samuel Aktaş.\n\nArchbishopric of Adıyaman under the spiritual guidance and direction of Archbishop Gregorius Melki Ürek.\n\nChurch of the East\n\nHistorical Church of the East, that followed the East Syriac Rite, was present in various southeastern regions of modern Turkey throughout medieval and early modern times, and the continuation of that presence is embodied in the modern Assyrian Church of the East, and the Ancient Church of the East. Ecclesiastical structure of East Syriac Christianity in the region was almost completely wiped out in the Assyrian genocide. Originally, one of its main centers was in the region of Hakkari, in the village of Qodchanis, that was the seat of Shimun-line patriarchs from the 17th century up to the advent of modern times. Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East visited Turkey in 2012.[138]\n\nProtestant churches\n\nArmenian Protestants own 3 churches in Istanbul since the 19th century.[139] There is an Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey.[140] There are Protestant churches for foreigners in compounds and resorts, although they are not counted in lists of churches as they are used only by tourists and expatriates.\n\nChurch of England\n\nAnglicans in Turkey form part of the Eastern Archdeaconry of the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. In 2008 the Anglican bishop of Europe, Geoffrey Rowell, caused controversy by ordaining a local man to minister to Turkish-speaking Anglicans in Istanbul.[141]\n\nEvangelical churches\n\nThe Armenian Evangelical Church was founded in 1846, after Patriarch Matteos Chouhajian excommunicated members of the \"Pietisical Union\" who had started to raise questions about a possible conflicts between the Biblical scriptures and Sacred traditions.[133] The new church was recognized by the Ottoman government in 1850 after encouragement from the British Ambassador Henry Wellesley Cowley.[142] There were reportedly 15 Turkish converts in Constantinople in 1864. One church minister said \"We wanted the Turks first to become Armenian\". Hagop A. Chakmakjian commented that \"the implication was that to be Christian meant to be identified with the Armenian people\".[143]\n\nThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\n\nRecognizing that present-day Ephesus of the New Testament endowed Turkey with historical importance, early leaders of the LDS Church preached in Ottoman Turkey in 1850, and-with the help of British LDS soldiers-organized a congregation in Istanbul in 1854.[144] In 1979, another local community of LDS adherents was organized in Ankara.[144]\n\nList of church buildings in Turkey\n\nChurches of the Armenian rite\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nChurch of the Apparition of the Holy Cross (Kuruçeşme, Istanbul)\nYerevman Surp Haç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Archangels Armenian Church (Balat, Istanbul)\nSurp Hıreşdagabed Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Cross Armenian Church (Kartal, Istanbul)\nSurp Nişan Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Cross Armenian Church (Üskudar, Istanbul)\nSurp Haç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Hripsimiants Virgins Armenian Church (Büyükdere, Istanbul)\nSurp Hripsimyants Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Mother-of-God Armenian Apostolic Church (Bakırköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Asdvadzadzin Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Mother-of-God Armenian Church (Beşiktaş, Istanbul)\nSurp Asdvadzadzin Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Mother-of-God Armenian Church (Eyüp, Istanbul)\nSurp Asdvadzadzin Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Mother-of-God Armenian Church (Ortaköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Asdvadzadzin Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Mother-of-God Armenian Church (Yeniköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Asdvadzadzin Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Resurrection Armenian Church (Kumkapı, Istanbul)\nSurp Harutyun Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Resurrection Armenian Church (Taksim, Istanbul)\nSurp Harutyun Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Three Youths Armenian Church (Boyacıköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Yerits Mangants Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Trinity Armenian Church (Galatasaray, Istanbul)\nSurp Yerrortutyun Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nNarlıkapı Armenian Apostolic Church (Narlıkapı, Istanbul)\nSurp Hovhannes Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Elijah The Prophet Armenian Church (Eyüp, Istanbul)\nSurp Yeğya Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Garabed Armenian Church (Üsküdar, Istanbul)\nSurp Garabet Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. John The Evangelist Armenian Church (Gedikpaşa, Istanbul)\nSurp Hovhannes Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Gregory The Enlightener Armenian Church (Galata, Istanbul)\n\nactive\n\nSt. Gregory The Enlightener Armenian Church (Kuzguncuk, Istanbul)\nSurp Krikor Lusaroviç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Gregory The Enlightener Armenian Church (Karaköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Krikor Lusavoriç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Gregory The Enlightener Armenian Church (Kınalıada, Istanbul)\nSurp Krikor Lusavoriç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. James Armenian Church (Altımermer, Istanbul)\nSurp Hagop Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Nicholas Armenian Church (Beykoz, Istanbul)\nSurp Nigoğayos Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Nicholas Armenian Church (Topkapı, Istanbul)\nSurp Nigoğayos Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Santoukht Armenian Church (Rumelihisarı, Istanbul)\nSurp Santuht Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Saviour Armenian Chapel (Yedikule, Istanbul)\nSurp Pırgiç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Sergius Armenian Chapel (Balıklı, Istanbul)\nSurp Sarkis Anıt Mezar Şapeli\n\nactive\n\nSt. Stephen Armenian Church (Karaköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Istepanos Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Stephen Armenian Church (Yeşilköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Istepanos Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Takavor Armenian Apostolic Church (Kadıkoy, Istanbul)\nSurp Takavor Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSaints Thaddeus and Barholomew Armenian Church (Yenikapı, Istanbul)\nSurp Tateos Partoğomeos Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Vartanants Armenian Church (Feriköy, Istanbul)\nSurp Vartanants Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nThe Twelve Holy Apostles Armenian Church (Kandilli, Istanbul)\nSurp Yergodasan Arakelots Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nHoly Forty Martyrs of Sebastea Armenian Church (Iskenderun, Hatay)\nSurp Karasun Manuk Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. George Armenian Church (Derik, Mardin)\nSurp Kevork Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Gregory The Enlightener Armenian Church (Kayseri)\nSurp Krikor Lusavoriç Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Gregory The Enligtener Armenian Church (Kırıkhan, Hatay)\nSurp Krikor Lusavoriç Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nChurch of St. George of Samatya (Samatya, Istanbul)\nSurp Kevork Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nSt. Giragos Armenian Church (Diyarbakır)\nSurp Giragos Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nVakıflı Church\nVakıflıköy Ermeni Kilisesi\n\nactive\n\nCathedral of Kars\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nNarekavank\n\ndestroyed, mosque built on the site\n\nCathedral of Ani\n\nUNESCO World Heritage Site\n\nVirgin Mary Church, Kayseri\n\nmuseum (converted into a library)\n\nSt. John the Baptist Armenian Church (Uskudar)\n\nunknown\n\nKtuts Monastery\n\nabandoned\n\nCathedral of Mren\n\nruins\n\nHoly Apostles Monastery\n\nruins\n\nHoromos\n\nruins\n\nKarmravank\n\nruins\n\nKaymaklı Monastery\n\nruins\n\nKhtzkonk Monastery\n\nruins\n\nVaragavank\n\nruins\n\nSaint Bartholomew Monastery\n\nruins\n\nSt. Marineh Church, Mush\n\nruins\n\nSaint Karapet Monastery\n\ndestroyed, village built on the site\n\nSt. Stepanos Church\n\ndestroyed\n\nTekor Basilica\n\ndestroyed\n\nVank Church in Şenkaya\n\ndestroyed by treasure hunters in 2021[145]\n\nChurches of the Byzantine and Greek Orthodox rite\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nChurch of St. George, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nChurch of St. Mary of Blachernae (Istanbul)\n\nactive\n\nChurch of St. Mary of the Mongols\n\nactive\n\nİskenderun St. Nicholas Church[146]\n\ndamaged due to 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake\n\nMersin Orthodox Church\n\nactive\n\nChurch of St. Kyriaki, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nMeryem Ana Church\n\nactive\n\nBulgarian St. Stephen Church\n\nactive\n\nSt. Demetrius Church in Feriköy, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nHagia Triada Greek Orthodox Church in Beyoğlu, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nPanayia Evangelistria in Beyoğlu, Istanbul\n\nactive. Built in 1893.[147]\n\nSaint Andrew in Krisei\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChora Church\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Christ Pantokrator (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into the Zeyrek Mosque\n\nChurch of Christ Pantepoptes (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nMonastery of Gastria\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nHagia Sophia\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of the Holy Apostles\n\ndemolished, Fatih Mosque built on top\n\nChurch of Saint John the Baptist at Lips (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nMonastery of Stoudios\n\nto be converted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Saint John the Baptist en to Trullo (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nMyrelaion\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Saint Nicholas of the Caffariotes (Istanbul)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nPammakaristos Church\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Sergius and Bacchus\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nSaint Irene church\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Vefa\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nHoly Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora, and Nymphodora\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Hagia Thekla tu Palatiu ton Blakhernon\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Hagios Theodoros (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Hagias Theodosias en tois Dexiokratus\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Saint Thomas\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of the Theotokos Kyriotissa (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nNakip Mosque\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nHagios Eugenios Church\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nPanagia Chrysokephalos Church\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nVirgin Mary Church\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nHagia Sophia, Trabzon\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nHagia Sophia, İznik\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of Christ and Saint Stephen\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nToklu Dede Mosque\n\nconverted into a mosque (before was a church of unknown dedication)\n\nAlâeddin Mosque\n\nconverted into a mosque (before was a basilica of unknown dedication)\n\nSaint Paul Cathedral\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nAya Panagia Greek Church (Yaman Dede Mosque), Talas, Kayseri\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nSt. Gregory of Nazianzos Church, (Kilise Camii), Güzelyurt, Aksaray.\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nSaint Nicholas church in Helvadere, now Yeni Cami\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nHagia Irene\n\nmuseum\n\nSümela Monastery\n\nmuseum\n\nSaint Efstathios church in Cappadocia\n\nmuseum. Built in 1836 in Kayseri.[148]\n\nVirgin Mary Monastery\n\nmuseum\n\nHouse of the Virgin Mary\n\nmuseum\n\nChurch of St Nicholas of Myra(Santa Claus) (Demre)\n\nruins, museum\n\nTaşbaşı Church, Ordu province\n\nmuseum\n\nSaint John's Church, Gülşehir\n\nmuseum\n\nSaint Michael Church in Akçaabat\n\nnow used for social and cultural activities and museum by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, built in 1332[149]\n\nSaint Voukolos Church\n\nnow used for social and cultural activities\n\nKuruköprü Monumental Church\n\nmuseum\n\nSaint Paul's Church, Tarsus\n\nmuseum\n\nSaint George Church, Isparta\n\nIt was built between 1857 and 1860. Now a library and an endemic plants research center.[150]\n\nAya Baniya Church, Isparta\n\nIt was built around the 1750s. Now the Misparta Fragrance Civilization Museum.[150]\n\nAyazma Church (Faneromeni Church) in Ayvalık\n\nAfter Greeks left in 1925 due to the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey, it turned into an olive oil factory, for a period, and because of that the interior of the building changed. There are plans to be turned into a museum.\n\nChurch of St. Polyeuctus\n\narchaeological site\n\nChurch of St. George between Güzelöz and Başköy in Yeşilhisar\n\narchaeological site.[151]\n\nAya Maryeros Underground Monastery in Derinkuyu District\n\narchaeological site.\n\n4th century monastery.[152]\n\nZelve Monastery\n\narchaeological site.\n\nBalatlar Church\n\narchaeological site\n\nOriginally built as a Roman Imperial bath in the 2nd century, was converted into a church in the late 4th or early 5th century.[153]\n\nChurch of the ancient city of Lystra\n\narchaeological site.\n\nArchaeologists have unearthed the main church of the ancient city of Lystra during excavations.[154]\n\nUnknown church in İnkaya, Kulp\n\narchaeological site.\n\nIn 2025, archaeologists uncovered a church which is believed to date back to the reign of Roman Emperor Constantius II. Excavations, which began in 2021, have revealed numerous graves and artifacts. The discoveries confirm that the Byzantine Empire maintained a strong and lasting presence beyond the Euphrates and that Christianity had taken root in the area much earlier than previously believed. Researchers expect further discoveries that could push the church's history even further back.[155]\n\nMonastery complex in Aksu district\n\narchaeological site.\n\nRuins of a large monastery complex in front of Zindan Cave. In the complex, there is a basilica-style structure dating back to the late 5th century A.D. Despite damage from a fire, the site was never fully abandoned, a smaller chapel was later built inside the original church. Traces of late-period frescoes suggest continued sacred use over time.[156]\n\nChurch of St. Jean at Ayasuluk Hill\n\narchaeological site.\n\nThe current building dates back to the Emperor Justinian I, but there was a church building even before that.[157]\n\nChurch of the Apostles at Anazarbus\n\narchaeological site.[158]\n\nChurches of Göreme\n\narchaeological sites. In Göreme at Cappadocia there are a lot of old Greek churches.\n\nBasilica of St. John\n\narchaeological site\n\nÇanlı Kilise\n\narchaeological site\n\nCave monastery of İnceğiz\n\narchaeological site\n\nGümüşler Monastery\n\narchaeological site\n\nEskigümüş Monastery\n\narchaeological site\n\n35 churches and chapels in caves at the Ayazini\n\narchaeological site[159]\n\nChurch on the Küçük Tavşan Adası\n\narchaeological site. A church of the 6th century.[160][161]\n\nSelime Cathedral at the Ihlara Valley in Cappadocia\n\narchaeological site[162]\n\nVirgin Mary Church at the Ihlara Valley in Cappadocia\n\narchaeological site[163]\n\nChurch in the Lake Sapanca\n\narchaeological site. A Late Antique chapel or church. The building lies underwater and is visible only when the lake’s water level drops.[164]\n\nChapel at Bağcılar\n\narchaeological site. In 2023, a Greek chapel has been discovered at Bağcılar in Istanbul.[165]\n\nUnderwater basilica in Iznik Lake\n\narchaeological site. It was built sometime after 390 AD and destroyed in a big earthquake in 1065.[166]\n\nSaint George Church at Diyarbakır\n\nbuilt around 200 AD, now an art gallery[167]\n\nBodrum Aya Nikola Church\n\nmuseum\n\nSaint Analipsis Church (Yüksek Kilise), Aksaray\n\nmuseum\n\nNiğde Prodromos Church\n\nmuseum\n\nSt. Theodore Church (Üzümlü Kilise), Derinkuyu\n\nmuseum\n\nPanagia Theoskepastos Monastery, Trabzon\n\narchaeological site.\n\nSaint Anne Church, Trabzon\n\nmuseum\n\nJason Church\n\nmuseum\n\nVazelon Monastery\n\narchaeological site.\n\nMeryem Ana Monastery\n\narchaeological site.\n\nSinope Koimesis Church\n\narchaeological site.\n\nÇakırkaya Monastery, Gümüşhane[168]\n\nmuseum.[169]\n\nÜzümlü Church\n\nmuseum.\n\nChurch within Kaymakli/Anakou Underground City\n\nmuseum.\n\nHagia Triada Church, Ayvalık\n\nongoing restoration.\n\nChurch of St. John, Tirilye\n\ntransferred to private property after the Greek population was expelled in 1923 and now is a residence\n\nSt. Basil's Church, Tirilye\n\nbecame a Stone School (being used for the workshops for carpentry and iron works) and the \"Dündar House\" (used as a mess house)\n\nPalace of Antiochos\n\na hotel is on top of the ruins but some traces of the palace can be seen under a glass floor at the dining hall.\n\nNiğde Küçükköy Church\n\nabandoned\n\nSaint Mary of Constantinople\n\nruins, converted into a mosque in 1640\n\nChurch of the Virgin of the Pharos\n\nruins\n\nChurch of Saint Nicholas on Ayanikola Island in Ordu Province\n\nruins. The church was built around 1700.[170]\n\nChurchs on Gemiler Island\n\nruins. The churches on the island date back to the 5th-7th centuries.[171]\n\nSt. Paul's Church, Antakya\n\nruins, due to the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes.\n\nOriginally built in 1830, the church was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1872. It was later reconstructed and resumed religious services in the 1900s.[172] Plans are currently in place to rebuild it.[173]\n\nKuştul Monastery\n\nruins\n\nGöreği Monastery, Fatsa district\n\nruins\n\nPavrezi Chapel, Gümüşhane[168]\n\nruins\n\nHagios Georgios Monastery, Gümüşhane[168]\n\nruins\n\nPanagia Monastery, Gümüşhane[168]\n\nruins\n\nSeven or more ruined churches in Santa[174]\n\nruins\n\nKamışlı Kilisesi/Çakrak Church, Alucra district\n\nruins\n\nÜçayak Byzantine Church\n\nruins\n\nHasanaliler Church\n\nruins\n\nHodegon Monastery\n\nruins\n\nPelekete Monastery\n\nruins\n\nMedikion Monastery\n\nruins\n\nBatheos Rhyakos Monastery\n\nruins, some buildings are used as animal shelters\n\nKaman Demirli Church (Kilise Kalıntıları), Kaman\n\nruins of unknown dedication.\n\nSaint Demetrius Monastery on Cunda Island\n\nruins, built in 1766 destroyed by treasure hunters in 2020[175]\n\nSaint Georgios Church in Nilüfer, Bursa\n\nruins, built in 1896 and fell down in 2020, because it was neglected[176]\n\nHutura Hagios Monastery Church in Gümüşhane\n\nruins, built in the 14th century, it is often plundered by treasure hunters. The library of the monastery is also destroyed.[177]\n\nSt. Yuannis Church (Aziz Yuannis Kilisesi) or St. John the Russian Church, Ürgüp\n\nruins\n\nSt. Spyridon Church (Kizil Kilise), Güzelyurt.\n\nruins\n\nSaint George Kyparissiotes Monastery\n\nruins\n\nChapel at Fethiye Castle\n\nunearthed during the excavations at Fethiye Castle. Dates back to the Middle Byzantine period. Excavations conducted within and around the chapel uncovered multiple graves dating back to the Byzantine era.[178]\n\nSaint Gregory of Nyssa Church, Trabzon\n\ndestroyed\n\nHeliou Bomon monastery\n\ndestroyed\n\nCatholic churches\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nChurch of Santa Maria, Trabzon\n\nactive\n\nVirgin Mary Latin Catholic Church (Tubini Şapeli), Kadıköy\n\nactive\n\nCathedral of the Holy Spirit, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nSt. Anthony of Padua Church in Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nCathedral of the Annunciation, İskenderun\n\ndamaged due to 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake\n\nChurch of St. Anthony, Mersin\n\nactive\n\nSt. John's Cathedral, İzmir\n\nactive\n\nChurch of SS Peter and Paul, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nChurch of Saint Benoit, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nChurch of St. Mary Draperis, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nSaint Paul Church, Adana\n\nactive\n\nSt. Mary's Church, İzmir\n\nactive\n\nSt. Térèse Church, Ankara\n\nactive\n\nSt. George's Catholic Church\n\nactive[179]\n\nNotre-Dame de L'Assomption, İstanbul\n\nactive\n\nChurch of San Domenico (Constantinople)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nChurch of St Peter\n\nmuseum\n\n[180]\n\nChurches of the Georgian rite\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nOur Lady of Lourdes Church, Istanbul (Bomonti Gürcü Katolik Kilisesi)\n\nactive\n\nKhakhuli Monastery (Haho/Bağbaşı)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nDoliskana (Dolishane/Hamamlıköy)\n\nconverted into a mosque\n\nIshkhani (İşhan)\n\nprotected\n\n(since 1987)[181]\n\nParkhali (Barhal/Altıparmak)\n\nprotected[182]\n\nOshki (Öşki Manastırı/Öşk Vank/Çamlıyamaç)\n\nprotected\n\nOtkhta Eklesia (Dörtkilise)\n\nabandoned\n\nKhandzta\n\nruins\n\nEkeki\n\nruins\n\nParekhi\n\nruins\n\nMakriali St. George church, Kemalpaşa, Artvin\n\nruins\n\nSt. Barlaam Monastery (Barlaham Manastırı), Yayladağı\n\nruins\n\nAncha monastery\n\nruins\n\nOkhvame, Ardeşen\n\nruins\n\nTskarostavi monastery\n\nruins\n\nBana cathedral (Penek)\n\nruins\n\nTbeti Monastery (Cevizli)\n\nruins\n\nold Georgian Church, Ani\n\nruins\n\nOpiza\n\nruins\n\nProtestant churches\n\nAnglican churches\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nChrist Church, Istanbul\n\nactive\n\nSt. John the Evangelist's Anglican Church, İzmir\n\nactive\n\nOther churches\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nBuca Protestant Baptist Church[TR]\n\nactive\n\nKreuzkirche, İstanbul[DE]\n\nactive\n\nSamsun Protestant Church\n\nactive\n\nChurch of the Resurrection, İzmir\n\nactive\n\nAll Saints' Church, Moda\n\nactive\n\nChurches of the Syriac rite\n\nChurch name\nPicture\nStatus\n\nMor Sharbel Syriac Orthodox church in Midyat\n\nactive\n\nMor Gabriel Monastery\n\nactive\n\nMor Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Church, Yeşilköy, Istanbul\n\nactive[183]\n\nMor Hananyo Monastery\n\nactive\n\nMor Kuryakos Church in Bağlarbaşı, Midyat\n\nactive[184]\n\nMor Yuhanna Monastery in Eğil\n\nmuseum[185]\n\nZuqnin Monastery\n\nMor Kiryakus Monastery in Beşiri District\n\nmuseum[186]\n\nReji Church in Sanlıurfa\n\nSocial centre.[187][188]\n\nList of settlements\n\nIstanbul\n\nSignificant Christian population\n\nBalat, Fatih\n\nFener, Fatih\n\nModa, Kadıköy\n\nHatay\n\nMajority Christian population\n\nVakıflı, Samandağ\n\nMardin\n\nMajority Christian population\n\nAnıtlı, Midyat\n\nBeth Kustan, Midyat\n\nElbeğendi, Midyat\n\nGülgöze, Midyat\n\nTaşköy, Nusaybin\n\nÜçköy, Nusaybin\n\nÜçyol, Nusaybin\n\nDağiçi, Nusaybin\n\nBülbül, Yeşilli\n\nDereiçi, Savur\n\nÇatalçam, Dargeçit\n\nSignificant Christian population\n\nAltıntaş, Midyat\n\nBardakçı, Midyat\n\nBarıştepe, Midyat\n\nBudaklı, Midyat\n\nDoğançay\n\nGüngören, Midyat\n\nİzbırak, Midyat\n\nNarlı, Midyat\n\nMercimekli, Midyat\n\nOrtaca, Midyat\n\nYemişli, Midyat\n\nDibek, Nusaybin\n\nOdabaşı, Nusaybin\n\nGirmeli, Nusaybin\n\nGünyurdu, Nusaybin\n\nŞırnak\n\nMajority Christian population\n\nÖğündük, İdil\n\nHaberli, İdil\n\nKösreli, Silopi\n\nAksu, Silopi\n\nCevizağacı, Beytüşşebap\n\nRize\n\nÇamlıhemşin\n\nÇayeli\n\nArtvin\n\nHopa\n\nTrabzon\n\nAraklı\n\nAntalya\n\nMuğla\n\nSee also\n\nCatholic Church in Turkey\n\nChristianity and Islam\n\nChristianity in Cyprus\n\nChristianity in the Ottoman Empire\n\nEastern Orthodoxy in Turkey\n\nDestroyed Armenian churches in Turkey\n\nFreedom of religion in Turkey\n\nHuman rights in the Middle East\n\nHuman rights in Muslim-majority countries#Turkey\n\nHuman rights in Turkey#Freedom of religion\n\nIrreligion in Turkey\n\nIslam and other religions\n\nIslam in Turkey\n\nKaramanlides, a Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox community\n\nAutocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate\n\nNestorian rebellion\n\nPersecution of Christians in the Muslim world\n\nProtestantism in Turkey\n\nReligion in the Middle East\n\nReligion in Turkey\n\nReligious minorities in Turkey\n\nArmenians in Turkey\n\nAssyrians in Turkey\n\nGreeks in Turkey\n\nJews in Turkey\n\nKurds in Turkey\n\nYazidis in Turkey\n\nSecularism in Turkey\n\nXenophobia and discrimination in Turkey\n\nXenophobia and racism in the Middle East\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Religious Composition by Country, 2010-2050\". December 21, 2022.\n\n^ a b \"The Global Religious Landscape\". Archived from the original on September 28, 2018.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Bardakçı, Mehmet; Freyberg-Inan, Annette; Giesel, Christoph; Leisse, Olaf (2017). \"The Ambivalent Situation of Turkey's Armenians: Between Collective Historical Trauma and Psychological Repression, Loyal Citizenship and Minority Status, Social Integration and Discrimination, Assimilation and Self-assertion\". Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 133-154. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-27026-9_5. ISBN 978-1-137-27026-9. LCCN 2016961241.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Erol, Su (2015). \"The Syriacs of Turkey: A Religious Community on the Path of Recognition\". Archives de sciences sociales des religions (171). Paris, France: Éditions de l'EHESS: 59-80. doi:10.4000/assr.27027. ISBN 9782713224706. ISSN 1777-5825. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ a b \"The Global Religious Landscape\". ResearchGate. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved February 8, 2019.\n\n^ \"National Profiles | World Religion\". www.thearda.com. Retrieved August 23, 2024.\n\n^ \"Türkiye'de Hristiyan nüfusu ve kilise sayısı - Demokrat Gündem - Haberler - Son Dakika Haberleri\". demokratgundem.com (in Turkish). June 19, 2023. Retrieved August 23, 2024.\n\n^ \"28 Teşri̇ni̇evvel 1927 Umumî Nüfus Tahri̇rî\" (PDF). cdn.teyit.org.\n\n^ \"Türkiye farklı inançlara sağlanan ibadet yeri sayısında Batı'nın 5 kat önünde\". www.aa.com.tr. Retrieved August 23, 2024.\n\n^ a b \"Turkey (Türkiye)\". www.state.gov. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State. 2023. Archived from the original on January 18, 2025. Retrieved January 21, 2025.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Bulut, Uzay (August 30, 2024). \"Turkey: Ongoing Violations against Greek Christians\". The European Conservative. Budapest, Brussels, Rome, Vienna: Center for European Renewal. ISSN 2590-2008. Archived from the original on August 30, 2024. Retrieved August 30, 2024.\n\n^ a b c d e Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (November 4, 2021). \"Then Came the Chance the Turks Have Been Waiting For: To Get Rid of Christians Once and for All\". Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Archived from the original on November 4, 2021. Retrieved November 5, 2021.\n\n^ a b c d Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 3-5. ISBN 978-0-674-24008-7.\n\n^ a b c d e Gutman, David (2019). \"The thirty year genocide: Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894-1924\". Turkish Studies. 21 (1). London and New York: Routledge on behalf of the Global Research in International Affairs Center: 1-3. doi:10.1080/14683849.2019.1644170. eISSN 1743-9663. ISSN 1468-3849. S2CID 201424062.\n\n^ a b c d e Smith, Roger W. (Spring 2015). \"Introduction: The Ottoman Genocides of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1). Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 1-9. doi:10.3138/GSI.9.1.01. ISSN 2291-1855. JSTOR 26986011. S2CID 154145301.\n\n^ a b c d e Roshwald, Aviel (2013). \"Part II. The Emergence of Nationalism: Politics and Power - Nationalism in the Middle East, 1876-1945\". In Breuilly, John (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 220-241. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199209194.013.0011. ISBN 9780191750304. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2023.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Üngör, Uğur Ümit (June 2008). \"Seeing like a nation-state: Young Turk social engineering in Eastern Turkey, 1913-50\". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (1). London and New York: Routledge: 15-39. doi:10.1080/14623520701850278. ISSN 1469-9494. OCLC 260038904. S2CID 71551858.\n\n^ a b c d e f İçduygu, Ahmet; Toktaş, Şule; Ali Soner, B. (February 2008). \"The politics of population in a nation-building process: Emigration of non-Muslims from Turkey\". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 31 (2). London and New York: Routledge: 358-389. doi:10.1080/01419870701491937. hdl:11729/308. ISSN 1466-4356. OCLC 40348219. S2CID 143541451. Archived from the original on March 25, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2020 - via Academia.edu.\n\n^ [3][4][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]\n\n^ [3][4][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]\n\n^ Chapter: The refugees question in Greece (1821-1930) in \"Θέματα Νεοελληνικής Ιστορίας\", ΟΕΔΒ (\"Topics from Modern Greek History\"). 8th edition (PDF), Nikolaos Andriotis, 2008\n\n^ Quarterly, Middle East (2001). \"Editors' Introduction: Why a Special Issue?: Disappearing Christians of the Middle East\" (PDF). Middle East Quarterly. Archived from the original on May 11, 2013. 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Retrieved May 4, 2021.\n\n^ a b c d One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911b). \"Capitulations\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 283-284.\n\n^ Hannibal Travis, \"The Assyrian Genocide, a Tale of Oblivion and Denial,\" Forgotten Genocides, Oblivion, Denial, and Memory, ed. René Lemarchand (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).\"; and https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline Archived January 5, 2017, at the Wayback Machine \"The Simele Massacre as a Cause of Iraqi Nationalism: How an Assyrian Genocide Created Iraqi Martial Nationalism\"\n\n^ a b Klein, The Margins of Empire, and https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline Archived January 5, 2017, at the Wayback Machine \"The Simele Massacre as a Cause of Iraqi Nationalism: How an Assyrian Genocide Created Iraqi Martial Nationalism\"\n\n^ The Hamidiye frequently attacked Christian Armenians. Alan Palmer: Verfall und Untergang des Osmanischen Reiches. Heyne, München 1994, ISBN 3-453-11768-9. (engl. Original: London 1992). The Hamidiye also played an infamous role in the massacres against Armenians in 1894-96. Martin van Bruinessen: Agha, Scheich und Staat - Politik und Gesellschaft Kurdistans. Ed. Parabolis, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88402-259-8. Martin van Bruinessen: Agha, Shaikh and state.\n\n^ After Armenians revolted against an oppressing tax system that favoured the Kurds, the Hamidiye suppressed the revolts with massacres, which the British blamed on the Ottoman regime (even though the initiative came from local militia). (SeS) Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw: History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Volume 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808-1975. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1977. Alan Palmer: Verfall und Untergang des Osmanischen Reiches. Heyne, München 1994, ISBN 3-453-11768-9. (engl. Original: London 1992)\n\n^ In 1895, \"the massacres of the Assyrians, genocidal by nature were continuing\"... where mass slaughters reached unprecedented levels. \"The Assyrian villages and towns were sacked by organized mobs or by Kurdish bands. Tens of thousands were driven from their homes. About 100 thousand Assyrian population of 245 villages forcibly converted to Islam. Their property was plundered. Thousands of Assyrian women and girls were forced into Turkish and Kurdish harems. The massacres were perpetrated as barbarously as possible.\" [1] Archived October 8, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Sargizov Lev, Druzhba idushchaya iz glubini vekov (Assiriytsi v Armenii) [A Friendship Coming from the Ancient Times (The Assyrians in Armenia)] (Atra, # 4, St. Petersburg, 1992, 71).\n\n^ Çelik 1993, p. 38\n\n^ Morgenthau, Henry (1918). Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.\n\n^ [3][4][11][12][14][15][16][17][18]\n\n^ \"Religion in Kurdistan\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 9, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013.\n\n^ a b c d e The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, Richard G. Hovannisian, Transaction Publishers\n\n^ In 1915, large numbers of Armenians were massacred by Kurdish militia and Turkish soldiers. Martin van Bruinessen: Agha, Shaikh and state, page 25, 271\n\n^ On October 3, 1914, Russian vice-Consul in Urmia Vedenski visited Assyrian villages which were already ruined by Kurds and Turks. He wrote: \"The consequences of jihad are everywhere. In one village I saw burnt corpses of Assyrians with big sharp stakes in their bellies. The Assyrian houses are burnt and destroyed. The fire is still burning in the neighboring villages\". [2] Archived October 8, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Sargizov Lev, Assiriytsi stran Blizhnego i Srednego Vostoka [The Assyrians of the Near and Middle East] (Yerevan, 1979), p. 25-26. The retreat of the Russian army from Urmia in January 1915 had tragic consequences for Assyrians. Turkish troops along with Kurdish detachments organized mass slaughter of the Assyrian population. Only 25,000 people managed to escape death. [3] Yohannan Abraham, The Death of a Nation (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1916), p. 120.\n\n^ Reports reaching Washington indicate that \"about 500,000 Armenians have been slaughtered or lost their lives... During the exodus of Armenians across the deserts they have been fallen upon by Kurds and slaughtered, but some of the Armenian women and girls, in considerable numbers, have been carried off into captivity by the Kurds. [4] Archived September 13, 2018, at the Wayback Machine The New York Times (September 24, 1915)\n\n^ a b Arat, Zehra F. Kabasakal (January 1, 2011). \"4. The Human Rights Condition of the Orthodox Rum\". Human Rights in Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-0114-7. Archived from the original on July 25, 2018. Retrieved July 25, 2018.\n\n^ \"Turkey's declining Christianity\". BBC News. Archived from the original on July 25, 2018. Retrieved July 24, 2018.\n\n^ \"Turkey, key U.S. ally, cited for religious freedom woes\". Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 25, 2018. 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(2012). \"The Monastery of Mor Gabriel: A Historical Overview and Its Wider Significance Today\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 181-200. ISBN 9783643902689. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 25, 2021.\n\nÇelik, Zeynep (1993). The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-08239-7.\n\nFischbach, Ingrid (2012). \"Persecution of Christians in Turkey\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 171-177. ISBN 9783643902689. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 25, 2021.\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved December 26, 2020.\n\nJakob, Joachim (2014). Ostsyrische Christen und Kurden im Osmanischen Reich des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Münster: LIT Verlag. ISBN 9783643506160. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved December 26, 2020.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2009). \"Chaldeans and Assyrians: The Church of the East in the Ottoman Period\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 146-164. ISBN 9781607241119. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved December 26, 2020.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2015). Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500-1850). Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042930797. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved December 26, 2020.\n\nNieper, Jens (2012). \"The Syrian Orthodox Church: The Aramean Community as an Ecumenical Entity in a Transnational Dimension\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 57-62. ISBN 9783643902689. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 25, 2021.\n\nSommer, Renate (2012). \"The Role of Religious Freedom in the Context of the Accession Negotiations between the European Union and Turkey - The Example of the Arameans\". The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 157-170. ISBN 9783643902689. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 25, 2021.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1982). The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church. Yonkers: St Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-913836-90-3.\n\nFurther reading\n\nHofmann, Tessa. \"The Invisibles: Hidden Christian Nation (s) in 20th-Century Türkiye.\" Armenological Issues 2.1 (29) (2025): 19-46.\n\nBenny Morris; Dror Ze'evi (April 24, 2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-91645-6.\n\n\"Christians have lived in Turkey for two millennia - but their future is uncertain\". Ramazan Kılınç. The Conversation. November 21, 2019.\n\n\"Persecution of Christians in Turkey\" (PDF). Armenian National Committee of America.\n\n\"The 30-year genocide of Christians in Turkey\". Sakis Ioannidis. ekathimrini.com.\n\nDe Lange, M., Lamprecht, B. (2012). The Edge of Paradise: Turkey Is Beautiful. But for Christians There Is Always a Price. United Kingdom: Monarch.\n\nExternal links\n\nArestakes Simavoryan, CHRISTIANS IN TODAY’S TURKEY (Protestants and Catholics)\n\nTurkish Christians Network"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christianity-in-turkey"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 14445}, {"slug": "reference-nuzi", "title": "Nuzi", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Nuzi (Hurrian Nuzi/Nuzu; Akkadian Gasur) at modern Yorghan Tepe (also Yorgan Tepa and Jorgan Tepe), Iraq was an ancient Mesopotamian city 12 kilometers southwest of the city of Arrapha (modern Kirkuk) and 70 kilometers southwest of Sātu Qala, located near the Tigris river. It was occupied from the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nuzi\n\nYorghan Tepe\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n35°22′11.9″N 44°15′17.7″E / 35.369972°N 44.254917°E / 35.369972; 44.254917\n\nTypetell\n\nLocationKirkuk Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nSite notes\n\nExcavation dates1925-1931\n\nArchaeologistsEdward Chiera, Robert Pfeiffer, Richard Starr\n\nNuzi (Hurrian Nuzi/Nuzu; Akkadian Gasur) at modern Yorghan Tepe (also Yorgan Tepa and Jorgan Tepe), Iraq was an ancient Mesopotamian city 12 kilometers southwest of the city of Arrapha (modern Kirkuk) and 70 kilometers southwest of Sātu Qala, located near the Tigris river. It was occupied from\nthe Ubaid period in the 5th millennium BC until late in the 2nd millennium BC then, after\na period of abandonment, in the Parthian era. It reached major importance in the Akkadian Empire period when it was known as Gasur and again in the Mitanni period when its name was Nuzi.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nThe site has about 15 occupational layers with 12 major strata several of which have subdivisions. The majority of excavation work at the site was on the Late Bronze Age levels with only some soundings to the older strata. Traces of Parthian era occupation were found on the surface.[2]\n\nLate Chalcolithic\n\nPottery sherds were found from the Halaf/Ubaid periods. In the Uruk period levels\nmudbrick construction occurred and finds included spouted vessels, bevel-rimmed bowls, a small copper animal figurine and a cache of drilled marble stamp and cylinder seals.[3][1]\n\nEarly Bronze\n\nEarly dynastic pottery was found in one pit, from pavements and graves, with no interruption with the following Akkadian Empire occupation.[1]\n\nAkkadian Period\n\nDuring the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BC), the city was probably known as Gasur. There is some debate about whether the city name was Ga-surki or Ga-sagki.[4][5][6] It was a provincial seat of a governor known from a clay sealing reading: \"Itbe-labba, govern[or] of Gasur\" found at Tell Brak in modern Syria.[7] 222 Akkadian Empire period (c. 2334-2154 BC) cuneiform tablets were found at the site. They are primarily dated to the time of rulers Naram-Sin and Shar-kali-sharri and written in Old Akkadian. A school tablet mentioned Tuṭṭanabšum, daughter of Naram-Sin.[8][9][10] Finds at\nthis level included stone figurines, a copper axe and copper daggers, a shell seal\nmounted on a copper pin, and 5 cylinder seals.[1] Gasur had strong\ntrading contacts with a number of cities including Assur, Sabum, Susa, and the city of\nAkkad.[11]\n\nThe most famous item found at this level is the Nuzi map, the oldest known map discovered. Although the majority of the tablet is preserved, it is unknown exactly what the Nuzi map shows. The Nuzi map is actually one of the so-called Gasur texts, and predates destruction\nby fire of the city at this end of the Early Bronze Age.[4] Gasur was a thriving commercial center, and the texts reveal a diverse business community with far-reaching commercial activities. It is possible that Ebla was a trading partner, and that the tablet, rather than a record of land-holdings, might indeed be a road map.[12] The tablet, which is approximately 6 centimeters by 6.5 centimeters, is inscribed only on the obverse. It shows the city of Maskan-dur-ebla in the lower left corner, as well as a canal/river and two mountain ranges.[12] The area\nbelow the Rahium river is labeled \"20(bur) - 1(eše) of irrigated gardens, belonging to Azala\".[13]\n\nUr III Period\n\nA stone plaque, of uncertain original provenance, was found at the temple of Istar at Assur reading \"Ititi, the ruler, son of Ininlaba, dedicated (this object) from the booty of Gasur to the goddess Istar\". Alternative reading of the inscription has Inanna vs Istar. The city name is written as Ga-sagki vs the Ga-surki found at Gasur.[14][15] The father's name means \"Innin is a lion\" (Innin is another name of Inanna) and is known from a text found at Yorghan Tepe.[16] The name of Ititi is also found in 5 Yorghan Tepe texts. The city of Assur is also mentioned in those texts, once in the same form as the Ititi inscription. The sign forms have been dated to either the Akkadian period or shortly thereafter.[17] An Ititi was appointed as governor of the northern province at Kazallu by Ur III ruler Shulgi (c. 2094-2046 BC). With the\nuncertainty on the degree of overlap between the Ur III empire and Akkadian Empire\nit is unclear if this is the same person.[18]\n\nMiddle Bronze\n\nThe site was occupied to a lesser extent in the Ur III, Isin-Larsa, and Old Babylonian periods following a sack of the city. The relevant deposits were thick\nbut without architectural remains. A few cuneiform tablets from this era were found.[3]\n\nLate Bronze\n\nMitanni Period\n\nIn the middle of the second millennium the Hurrians gained control of the town and renamed it Nuzi. The history of the site during the intervening period is unclear, though the presence of a few cuneiform tablets from Assyria indicates that trade with nearby Assur was taking place.\n\nAfter the fall of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni Nuzi went into gradual decline. Note that while the Hurrian period is well known from full excavation of those strata, the earlier history is not as reliable because of less substantive digging.[19] The history of Nuzi is closely interrelated with that of the nearby towns of Eshnunna and Khafajah.\n\nNuzi, a provincial town in the 14th century BC\n\nThe best-known period in the history of Yorghan Tepe is by far one of the city of Nuzi in the 15th-14th centuries BC. At this time the central complex contained two temples (to Šawuška/Ištar and Teššub) and a palace.[20] The tablets of this period indicate that Nuzi was a small provincial town of northern Mesopotamia at this time in an area populated mostly by Hurrians. Despite the presence of two temples most votive activity\nat Nuzi in this period is that of household religions with elements of ancestor\nworship where the eldest son inherits the family cult statue.[21] Usually the tablets of Yorghan Tepe, Kirkuk, and Tell al-Faḫḫar are grouped together under banner of Nuzi tablets.[22] Only 0.18% of tablets contained a date formula\nof any kind, generally local. They can, however, be chronologically ordered by internal\nclues such as the names of officials and prosopographical data.[23][24]\n\nAdministration\n\nNuzi was a provincial town of Arrapha. It was administered by a governor (šaknu) from the palace. The tripartite palace, situated in the center of the mound, had many rooms arranged around a central courtyard. The functions of some of those rooms have been identified: reception areas, apartments, offices, kitchens, stores. The walls were painted, as was seen in fragments unearthed in the ruins of the building.[25]\n\nArchives that have been exhumed tell us about the royal family, as well as the organization of the internal administration of the palace and its dependencies, and the payments various workers received. Junior officers of the royal administration had such titles as sukkallu (often translated as \"vizier\", the second governor), \"district manager\" (halṣuhlu), and \"mayor\" (hazannu). Justice was rendered by these officers, but also by judges (dayānu) installed in the districts. Free subjects of the state were liable to a conscription, the Ilku, which consisted of a requirement to perform various types of military and civilian services, such as working the land.\n\nArchaeology\n\nThe site has a roughly square 200 meter by 200 meter main mound which was protected\nby a city wall. Only a small portion of the wall was excavated but gates are apparent\nby deep wadis in the northeast, southwest, and southeast. The city's main road, well\ndrained, ran from the northeast gate to the southwest gate, separating the central\ntemples and palace. A secondary road led from the southeast gate to join the main road.\nA number of private homes were excavated 200 meters north of the main mound on two small rises. Originally thought to be extramural residences it is now believed, partly on textual evidence, that there was an outer town with its own wall, now destroyed by modern agriculture.[26]\n\nThe excavators defined a number of occupation strata. The Nuzi occupation\nlasted several centuries and its chronology is slightly disputed. The\nexcavators dated Stratum II, the destruction of the city, at c. 1500 BC. Later\nwork has proposed a more recent date of c. 1430-1330 BC.[3][27][28] The stratigraphy is complicated\nbecause the excavators defined these main strata, \"pavements\", from a few deep soundings while\nspecifying levels A through G for the temple and a different strata I-VIII for the northwest ridge and the southeast edge of the mound. The only correlation given was Temple A equals sounding Stratum I and \"edge\" Stratum II.[1]\n\nStratum I - Nuzi Post-Destruction level\n\nStratum II - Nuzi Destruction level\n\nStratum III - IV - Nuzi\n\nStratum V - VII - Gasur/Nuzi transition, Lagash II to Old Babylonian\n\nStratum VIII - IX - Gasur, Akkadian Empire, c. 2334-2154 BC\n\nStratum X - XII - Prehistoric\n\nWhile tablets from Yorghan Tepe began appearing back as far as 1896, the first serious archaeological efforts began in 1925 after Gertrude Bell noticed tablets appearing in the markets of Baghdad.[29] The dig was mainly worked by Edward Chiera, Robert Pfeiffer, and Richard Starr under the auspices of the Iraq Museum and the Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research and later the Harvard University and Fogg Art Museum.[30][3][31][32][33]\n[34][35][36][37] Excavations continued through 1931 with the site showing 15 occupation levels. A number of soundings were conducted at the prehistoric site of\nKudis Sagïr about five kilometers to the south. The hundreds of tablets and other finds recovered were published in a series of volumes[38][39] with ongoing publications.[40]\n\nTo date, around 5,000 tablets are known, mostly held at the Oriental Institute, the Harvard Semitic Museum and the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. Those from Gasur are written in the Akkadian language while\nthough from Nuzi are in a Hurrian influenced dialect of Akkadian.[41][42] Many are routine legal and business documents with about one quarter concerning the business transactions of a single family, found the homes of Tehip-tilla and Surki-tilla on the northwest rise.[43] The vast majority of finds come from the Hurrian period during the second millennium BC with the remainder dating back to the town's founding during the Akkadian Empire. A discovered sealing read \"Saustatar, son of Parsatatar (Baratarna), king of Mitani\" (the Mitanni Empire).[44][45] An archive contemporary with the Hurrian archive at Nuzi has been excavated from the \"Green Palace\" at the site of Tell al-Fakhar, 35 kilometres (22 mi) southwest of Nuzi.[46]\n\nThe temple area had seven occupation levels, Temple G (Gasur), Temple F (Gasur/Nuzi transition), and Temples A-E (Nuzi). Temple G was a single shrine which in Temple\nF was transformed into a double shrine.[26] Temple A was contemporary with the Stratum II destruction level. All were of the \"bent-axis\" type.[3] In the temple area a number of bronze objects were found, including a statue carved in the round, 9 sickles, 2 sun-discs, 2 crescents, 6 pins, 1 bell, 2 bracelets, and hundreds of small beads. One sickle was inscribed with \"An. Ud. Za.\" and the sun-discs were 12 centimeters in\ndiameter with \"a circular depression(about 4 cm. across) surrounded by a circle of raised dots; around this center is a six-pointed star\".[2]\n\nNuzi ware\n\nIn 1948, archaeologist Max Mallowan called attention to the unusual pottery he found at Nuzi, associated with the Mitanni period. This became known as the Nuzi ware. Subsequently, this highly artistic pottery was identified all over in the Upper Mesopotamia.[47]\n\nSee also\n\nList of cities of the ancient Near East\n\nNuzi texts\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e \"NU\", Band 9 Nab - Nuzi, edited by A. Bramanti, J. Fechner, M. Greiner, S. Heigl, N. Morello, Erich Ebeling, Bruno Meissner and Michael P. Streck, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 606-647, 2001\n\n^ a b Pfeiffer, Robert H., \"The Excavations at Nuzi: Preliminary Report of the Fourth Campaign\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 42, pp. 1-7, 1931\n\n^ a b c d e [1] Richard F. S. Starr, \"Nuzi: report on the excavation at Yorgan Tepa near Kirkuk, Iraq, conducted by Harvard university in conjunction with the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University museum of Philadelphia, 1927-1931\", v. 1: text, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939\n\n^ a b Meek, Theophile James, \"Some Gleanings from the Last Excavations at Nuzi\", The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, vol. 13, pp. 1-12, 1931\n\n^ Foster, B.R., \"Administration of State Land at Sargonic Gasur\", OrAn 21, pp. 39-48, 1982\n\n^ B. R. Foster, \"Land and Produce at Sargonic Gasur\", in (ed.) D. L Owen/M. Morri-son, SCCNH 2, pp. 89-107, 1987\n\n^ Lewy, Julius, \"Notes on Pre-Ḫurrian Texts from Nuzi\", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 450-61, 1938\n\n^ Kraus, Nicholas Larry, \"Tuṭṭanabšum: Princess, Priestess, Goddess\", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 85-99, 2020\n\n^ Kraus, N. L., \"When the King Came Down to Sumer: The Royal Sojourn of Sar-kali-sarrē and the Court of Akkad\", Iraq 81, pp. 207-220, 2019\n\n^ Visicato, Giuseppe, \"The Journey of the Sargonic Kings to Assur and Gasur\", in Historiography in the Cuneiform World, edited by Tzvi Abusch, Paul-Alain Beaulieu, John Huehnergard, Peter Machinist and Piotr Steinkeller, Proceedings of the XLVe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, pp. 467-472. Bethesda: CDL Pres, 2001\n\n^ Foster, Benjamin R., \"Commercial Activity in Sargonic Mesopotamia\", Iraq, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 31-43, 1977\n\n^ a b Freedman, Nadezhda (1977). \"The Nuzi Ebla\". The Biblical Archaeologist. 40 (1): 32-33. doi:10.2307/3209575. ISSN 0006-0895. JSTOR 3209575. S2CID 186746259.\n\n^ Robson, Eleanor, \"The Later Third Millennium\", Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 54-84, 2009\n\n^ Grayson, A. Kirk, \"Ititi\", Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millenia BC (To 1115 BC), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 7-7, 1987\n\n^ Meek, Theophile James, \"The Akkadian and Cappadocian Texts from Nuzi\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 48, pp. 2-5, 1932\n\n^ Lambert, W. G., \"Ištar of Nineveh\", Iraq, vol. 66, pp. 35-39, 2004\n\n^ Poebel, A., \"The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 247-306, 1942\n\n^ Allred, Lance, \"The Tenure of Provincial Governors: Some Observations\", From the 21st Century B.C. to the 21st Century A.D.: Proceedings of the International Conference on Neo-Sumerian Studies Held in Madrid, 22-24 July 2010, edited by Steven J. Garfinkle and Manuel Molina, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 115-124, 2013\n\n^ Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 9. 9 (in German). Berlin: De Gruyter. 2001. ISBN 978-3-11-017296-6. OCLC 614578502.\n\n^ [2] Simona Bracci, \"Classification of Knowledge, an Archaeological Approach: The Case of Nuz\", in Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18-22, 2005 Robert D. Biggs, Jennie Myers, and Martha T. Roth, eds., Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 62, Chicago: The Oriental Institute, pp. 371-381, 2008 ISBN 978-1-885923-54-7\n\n^ van der Toorn, Karel, \"Gods and Ancestors in Emar and Nuzi\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 38-59, 1994\n\n^ Scafa, Paola Negri, \"Continuity and Discontinuity in a Nuzi Scribal Family\", Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique International at Rome, 4-8 July 2011, edited by Alfonso Archi, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 345-354, 2015\n\n^ [3] Paola Negri Scafa, \"The Scribes of Nuzi: Date Formulae and Their Use in the Nuzi Corpus\", in Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18-22, 2005 Robert D. Biggs, Jennie Myers, and Martha T. Roth, eds., Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 62, Chicago: The Oriental Institute,, pp. 119-126, 2008 ISBN 978-1-885923-54-7\n\n^ Scafa, P. Negri, \"“Internal” and “External” Evidence for a Reconstruction of Nuzi Chronology\", Time and History in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Barcelona, July 26th-30th, 2010, edited by Lluis Feliu, J. Llop, A. Millet Albà and Joaquin Sanmartín, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 253-264, 2013\n\n^ Kertai, David, \"Organising the Interaction Between People: a New Look at the Elite Houses of Nuzi\", Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg 20-25 Jul, edited by Gernot Wilhelm, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 519-530, 2012\n\n^ a b [4] Novák, Mirko, \"The Architecture of Nuzi and its Significance in the Architectural History of Mesopotamia\", in David I. Owen, Gernot Wilhelm (Hg.), Nuzi at Seventy-five (Studies in the history and culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 10), Bethesda, Md, pp. 123-140, 1999\n\n^ Stein, Diana L., \"A Reappraisal of the ' Saustatar Letter' from Nuzi\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 79.2, pp. 36-60, 1989\n\n^ Friedman, A.H., \"Toward a Relative Chronology at Nuzi\", SCCNH 2, 109-129, 1987\n\n^ [5] Justel, Josué J., \"Where is thy Home, Zike s. Šurki-Tilla? On the Original Distribution of the Findings of Nuzi Texts before 1925\", Aula Orientalis 38/2, pp. 263-302, 2019\n\n^ Lyon, David G. (1928-04-01). \"The Joint Expedition of Harvard University and the Baghdad School at Yargon Tepa near Kirkuk\". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 30 (30): 1-6. doi:10.2307/1354846. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1354846. S2CID 163178475.\n\n^ [6] Richard F. S. Starr, \"Nuzi: Report on the Excavation at Yorgan Tepa near Kirkuk, Iraq, Conducted by Harvard University in Conjunction with the American Schools of Oriental Research and the University museum of Philadelphia 1927-1931, Volume 2: Plates and Plans\", Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937\n\n^ [7] Edward Chiera, \"Excavations at Nuzi: Vol. I. Texts of varied content, selected and copied\", Harvard University Press, 1929\n\n^ [8] Robert H. Pfeiffer, \"Excavations at Nuzi: Volume II, The Archives of Shilwateshub Son of the King\", Harvard University Press, 1932\n\n^ [9] T.J. Meek, \"Excavations at Nuzi III: Old Akkadian, Sumerian, and Cappadocian Texts from Nuzi\", Harvard University Press, 1935\n\n^ [10] Robert H. Pfeiffer and Ernest R. Lacheman, \"Excavations at Nuzi: Volume IV Miscellaneous Texts From Nuzi Part I\", Harvard University Press, 1942\n\n^ E.R. Lacheman, \"Excavations at Nuzi V: Miscellaneous Texts from Nuzi, Part 2: The Palace and Temple Archives\", Harvard University Press, 1950\n\n^ E.R. Lacheman, \"Excavations at Nuzi VI: The Administrative Archives\", Harvard University Press, 1955\n\n^ [11] E.R. Lacheman, \"Excavations at Nuzi VII: Economic and Social Documents\", Harvard University Press, 1958\n\n^ [12] Ernest R. Lacheman,\" Excavations at Nuzi Volume VIII: Family Law Documents\", Harvard University Press, 1962\n\n^ Maidman, M. P. (2003). Joint expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi VIII : the remaining major texts in the Oriental Institute of the U. of Chicago. David I. Owen, Gernot Wilhelm, Matḥaf al-ʻIrāqī., University of Chicago. Oriental Institute. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press. ISBN 1-883053-80-3. OCLC 51898595.\n\n^ [13] Berkooz, Moshé, \"The Nuzi dialect of Akkadian: orthography and phonology\", Language 13.1, pp. 5-64, 1937\n\n^ Markina, E., \"Observations on Gasur Akkadian\", in Akkade is King. A collection of papers by friends and colleagues presented to Aage Westenholz on the occasion of his 70th birthday 15th of May 2009, hrsg. v. Gojko Barjamovic (Uitgaven van het Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten te Leiden 118), pp. 201-216, 2011\n\n^ Maidman, Maynard Paul (1976). \"The Teḫip-tilla Family of Nuzi: A Genealogical Reconstruction\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 28 (3): 127-155. doi:10.2307/1359758. ISSN 0022-0256. JSTOR 1359758. S2CID 163837436.\n\n^ Maidman, M., \"Appendix: Royal Inscriptions from Nuzi\", Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millenia BC (To 1115 BC), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 331-336, 1987\n\n^ Stein, Diana L., \"A Reappraisal of the \"Saustatar Letter\" from Nuzi\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 79, no. 2, pp. 36-60, 1989\n\n^ al-Khalesi, Y.M. (1970). \"Tell al-Fakhar. Report on the First Season's Excavations\". Sumer. 26: 109-126. ISSN 0081-9271.\n\n^ Abdullah Bakr Othman, \"The Distribution of the Nuzi ware in Northern Iraq and Syria\", Polytechnic Journal, vol.8 no. 2, pp: 347-371, May 2018\n\nFurther reading\n\n[14] Chiera, Edward, \"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi. Vol 1 : Inheritance Texts\", 1927\n\n[15] Chiera, Edward, \"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi. Vol 2 : Declarations in court\", 1930\n\n[16] Chiera, Edward, \"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi. Vol 3 : Exchange and security documents\", 1931\n\nChiera, Edward, \"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi. Vol 4 : Proceedings in court\", 1934\n\nChiera, Edward, \"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi. Vol 5 : Mixed Texts\", 1934\n\nChiera, Edward, \"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi. Vol 6 : Miscellaneous texts\", 1939\n\nG. R. Driver and J. Miles, \"Ordeal by Oath at Nuzi, Iraq\", vol. 7, pp. 132, 1940\n\n[17] Ignace J. Gelb et al., \"Nuzi Personal Names\", Oriental Institute Publications 57, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1943\n\nErnest R. Lacheman and Maynard P. Maidman,\"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 3 - Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi VII - Miscellaneous Texts\", 1989, ISBN 978-0-931464-45-4\n\nErnest R. Lacheman et al., \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 4 - The Eastern Archives of Nuzi and Excavations at Nuzi 9/2\", Eisenbrauns, 1993, ISBN 0-931464-64-1\n\nBrigitte Lion and Diana L. Stein, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 11 - The Pula-Hali Family Archives\", CDL Press, 2001, ISBN 1-883053-56-0\n\nLöhnert, Anne, \"Aspects of Royal Authority and Local Competence: A Perspective from Nuzi\", Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique International at Rome, 4-8 July 2011, edited by Alfonso Archi, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 335-344, 2015\n\nMaidman, M. P., \"Two Hundred Nuzi Texts from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Part I\", SCCNH 6, Bethesda: CDL Press, 1994\n\nMaynard P. Maidman, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 6 - Two Hundred Nuzi Texts from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago\", CDL Press, 1994, ISBN 978-1-883053-05-5\n\nMartha A. Morrison and David I. Owen, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 1 - In Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, April 29, 1981\", 1981, ISBN 978-0-931464-08-9\n\nDavid I. Owen and Ernest R. Lacheman, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 5 - General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 9/3\", Eisenbrauns, 1995, ISBN 0-931464-67-6\n\nDavid I. Owen and Martha A. Morrison, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 2 - General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 9/1\", 1987, ISBN 978-0-931464-37-9\n\nDavid I. Owen and Gernot Wilhelm, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 7 - Edith Porada Memorial Volume\", CDL Press, 1995, ISBN 1-883053-07-2\n\nDavid I. Owen and Gernot Wilhelm, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 8 - Richard F.S. Starr Memorial Volume\", CDL Press, 1997, ISBN 1-883053-10-2\n\nDavid I. Owen and Gernot Wilhelm, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 9 - General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi\", CDL Press, 1998, ISBN 1-883053-26-9\n\nDavid I. Owen and Gernot Wilhelm, \"Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: Volume 10 - Nuzi at seventy-five\", Bethesda, Md. : CDL Press, 1999, ISBN 9781883053505\n\nJ. Paradise, \"A Daughter and Her Father's Property at Nuzi\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 32, pp. 189-207, 1980\n\nPorada, Edith, \"Seal Impressions of Nuzi\", The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, vol. 24, pp. 1-138, 1944\n\nExternal links\n\nInscriptions found at Gasur/Nuzi - CDLI\n\nHistory of the Baghdad School of ASOR 1923-1969\n\nB. Lion, « Nuzi, une ville du monde hourrite » 1998"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nuzi"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3971}, {"slug": "reference-holy-qurbana", "title": "Holy Qurbana", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Holy Qurbana (Syriac: ܩܘܼܪܒܵܢܵܐ ܩܲܕܝܼܫܵܐ, Qurbānā Qaddišā in Eastern Syriac or Qurbānā Qandišā in the Indian variant of Eastern Syriac, the \"Holy Offering\" or \"Holy Sacrifice\" in English), or the Holy Raza, refers to the Eucharistic liturgy as celebrated in Syriac Christianity and the liturgical books containing...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Holy Qurbana (Syriac: ܩܘܼܪܒܵܢܵܐ ܩܲܕܝܼܫܵܐ, Qurbānā Qaddišā in Eastern Syriac or Qurbānā Qandišā in the Indian variant of Eastern Syriac, the \"Holy Offering\" or \"Holy Sacrifice\" in English), or the Holy Raza, refers to the Eucharistic liturgy as celebrated in Syriac Christianity and the liturgical books containing the rubrics for its celebration. Churches that celebrate this liturgy include various descendants of the Church of the East. East Syriac Christianity consists of an Edessan liturgical rite called the East Syriac Rite (also known as the Edessan Rite, Assyrian Rite, Babylonian Rite, Chaldean Rite or Persian Rite). The major anaphora of the East Syriac tradition is the Holy Qurbana of Saints Addai and Mari; Addai being a disciple of Thomas the Apostle and Mari being Addai's disciple. These churches are primarily based in the Middle East and India, with diasporic communities settled in the western world.\n\nThe East Syriac Rite is employed by the Assyrian Church of the East based in Iraq (including its archdiocese the Chaldean Syrian Church of India) and the Ancient Church of the East based in Iraq. Additionally, the rite is employed by the Syro-Malabar Church based in India and the Chaldean Catholic Church based in Iraq, both of which are sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe East Syriac word Qurbana is derived from the Syriac word qurbānā (ܩܘܪܒܢܐ‎), which, along with its meaning of Eucharist, may also mean offering, sacrifice, or gift. It is from the root Q-R-B, related to approaching. It is a cognate with Hebrew itself a Syriac word קרבן qorbān and Arabic قربان qurbān.\n\nWhen the Temple stood in Jerusalem, and sacrifices were offered, \"qorban\" was a technical Hebrew term for some of the offerings that were brought there. It comes from a Hebrew root, \"qarab\", meaning \"to draw close or 'near'\". A required korban was offered morning and evening daily and on holidays (at certain times, additional korbanot were offered), in addition to which individuals could bring an optional personal Korban.\n\nThe Holy Qurbana is referred to as \"complete\" worship, since it is performed for the benefit of all members of the Church. The other sacraments are celebrated for individual members. Thus, the Holy Qurbana is believed to be the sacrament that completes all the others. Hence it is called the \"sacrament of perfection\" or the \"queen of sacraments\".\n\nUsage\n\nThe East Syriac or Chaldean rite was associated with the historical Church of the East, centered in the Persian capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Today, the Liturgy of Mar Addai and Mari is used in the Ancient Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, as well as the Syro-Malabar Church and the Chaldean Syrian Church based in Kerala, India.\n\nEdessan Liturgical Rite\n\nThe Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari belongs to the Edessan Rite (East Syriac), the anaphora or Eucharistic Prayer that is part of this liturgy, possibly dating back to 3rd-century Edessa,[1] and is the oldest in Christianity. This liturgy is traditionally attributed to Saint Addai (disciple of Saint Thomas the Apostle) and Saint Mari (a disciple of Saint Addai). In the form given in the oldest manuscripts, all of the High Middle Ages, this anaphora does not include the Words of Institution, a matter that raised ecumenical concerns.\n\nQudasha of Saints Addai and Mari\n\nThe Qudasha or Eucharistic Prayer that is part of the East Syriac Rite is of particular interest, being one of the oldest in Christianity, possibly dating back to 3rd-century Edessa,[1] even if the outline of the current form can only be traced as far back as the time of the Patriarch Ishoyahb III in the 7th century. In the form given in the oldest manuscripts, this anaphora does not include the Words of Institution. The Eastern Catholic churches employing this liturgy have the Words of Institution included.\n\nOther Qudashe\n\nQudasha of Mar Theodore\n\nThe Qudasha of Theodore of Mopsuestia is one of three Eucharistic liturgies used in the East Syriac Rite. It is currently employed by Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, the Syro-Malabar Church and to a lesser extend in the Chaldean Catholic Church, which are descendants of the erstwhile Church of the East. It is attributed to Theodore of Mopsuestia and is considered to be his genuine work. It is used from Advent until the Sunday of the Hossanas.[2]\n\nQudasha of Mar Nestorius\n\nThe Qudasha of Nestorius is one of the Eucharistic liturgies used by the erstwhile Church of the East. It is currently employed in the Holy Qurbana of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, and the Syro-Malabar Church, which are descendants of the Church of the East. It is a part of the East Syriac Rite, formally attributed to Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople and is traditionally celebrated for the Feast of the Epiphany, Commemoration of St. John the Baptist, Commemoration of the Greek Teachers: Mar Diodore, Mar Theodore the interpreter and Mar Nestorius, and also for the Wednesday liturgy of the Rogation of the Ninevites, and the Feast of the Passover (Holy Thursday).[2]\n\nHoly Malka\n\nTraditionally the East Syriac Churches use leavened bread for the Eucharist, like most churches of Eastern Christianity, but they are the only churches to include the additional ingredient of Holy Malka (or Holy Leaven). Holy Leaven is a powder added to sacramental bread before it is baked.[3] Despite the name, Holy Leaven does not actually contain a leavening agent.[3] Instead, hmira, fermented dough from previously used sacramental bread, is added and acts as leaven.[4]\nWhat the Holy Leaven does contain is remainder from the original Holy Leaven, renewed annually by mixing it with common ingredients.[3]\n\nSee also\n\nHoly Qurobo\n\nMass in the Catholic Church\n\nDivine Liturgy\n\nHoly Leaven\n\nMystery of Crowning\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Addai and Mari, Liturgy of. Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. 2005\n\n^ a b Dr. Mar Aprem Metropolitan. \"Assyrian Church of the East in India\". Trichur, Kerala, India: nestorian.org. Archived from the original on 15 May 2011. Retrieved 2 October 2010.\n\n^ a b c Spinks 2011, p. 63.\n\n^ Jenner, Henry (1912). \"East Syrian Rite\". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company. OCLC 36291432. Retrieved 21 July 2016 - via New Advent.\n\nWorks cited\n\nSpinks, Bryan D. (2011). \"The Mystery of the Holy Leaven (Malka) in the East Syrian Tradition\". In Johnson, Maxwell E. (ed.). Issues in Eucharistic Praying in East and West: Essays in Liturgical and Theological Analysis. Collegeville: Liturgical Press. pp. 63-70. ISBN 978-0-8146-6248-9.\n\nFurther reading\n\nExplanation about the Holy Qurbana - St. Mary's Malankara Orthodox Cathedral of Philadelphia"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-holy-qurbana"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1123}, {"slug": "reference-hirmis-aboona", "title": "Hirmis Aboona", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Hirmis Aboona (c.1940 - 27 April 2009) was an Assyrian historian who was known for his publications concerning the history of the Assyrians in northern Iraq.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hirmis Aboona\nܗܪܡܙܕ ܐܒܘܢܐ\n\nBorn1940\nAlqosh, Iraq\n\nDied27 April 2009 (aged 69)\nToronto, Canada\n\nOccupationHistorian\n\nKnown forWriting The Assyrian After the Fall of Nineveh\n\nHirmis Aboona (c.1940 - 27 April 2009) was an Assyrian historian who was known for his publications concerning the history of the Assyrians in northern Iraq.\n\nBiography\n\nHirmis Aboona was born in 1940 in Alqosh to Mushe Aboona and Meryam Asmar. After finishing his elementary school in his home town, his family moved to Baghdad in 1952, there he graduated from the law faculty at the University of Baghdad in 1963.[1]\nHe worked at a number of governmental institutions in Baghdad and married Nani Isa Rashshoo where they had 4 children together.\nHe moved with his family to London in 1982 where he pursued higher education at the University of Exeter obtaining his history Ph.D. for his thesis The Assyrian independent tribes in Tyari and Hakkari and their relationship with the Kurds and Turks.[1][2]\n\nIn 1988 Aboona and his family emigrated to Toronto, Canada where he resided until his death due to a heart attack on 27 April 2009.[3]\n\nWorks\n\nHirmis Aboona dedicated a number of years writing his Book of 12 volumes The Assyrian After the Fall of Nineveh. He also participated in a number of Assyrian conferences in North America, Europe and Australia.[1] He also lectured at a number of universities, including the University of Sydney, University of Cambridge, as well as various universities in Syria and Lebanon.\n\nThe Assyrians After the Fall of Nineveh\n\nHis most renowned work covers the political and religious history of the Assyrian people from the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC until the beginning of the 21st century. The book is written in 12 volumes some of which are not published. These volumes are:\n\nI. From the Fall of Nineveh to the Arrival of Christianity\n\nII. The Assyrians and Christianity\n\nIII. The Assyrians During the Arab Islamic Rule\n\nIV. Part 1 - The Assyrians Under the Mongol Rule\n\nPart 2 - The History of the Kurdish Settlement in Assyria\n\nV. Independent Assyrian Tribes in Tiyare and Hakkari and the Surrounding Assyrian Regions\n\nVI. The Massacres of Bedr Khan Beg in Tiyare and Hakkari 1843-1846\n\nVII. Persecution of the Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs in the 19th Century\n\nVIII. Uncovered Pages in the History of the Chaldean Church\n\nIX. Assyrians Before and After WWI\n\nX. Assyrians and the Mosul Problem\n\nXI. Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs, \"One Nation with Multiple Names\"\n\nXII. Assyrians and the Contemporary Political Movement\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Lema Yousif, The Life of the Assyrian Scholar: Dr. Hirmis Aboona Archived 31 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union of Canada\n\n^ Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire By Hirmis Aboona, Cambria\n\n^ \"Rabi Hirmis Aboona Passes Away\". Assyrian Democratic Organization. Retrieved 23 March 2026."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hirmis-aboona"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 480}, {"slug": "reference-anna-eshoo", "title": "Anna Eshoo", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Anna A. Eshoo (/ˈɛʃuː/ EH-shoo; née Georges; born December 13, 1942)[1] is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for California's 16th congressional district from 1993 to 2025. She is a member of the Democratic Party.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Anna Eshoo\n\nOfficial portrait, 2013\n\nMember of the U.S. House of Representatives\nfrom California\n\nIn office\nJanuary 3, 1993 - January 3, 2025\n\nPreceded byTom Campbell (redistricted)\n\nSucceeded bySam Liccardo\n\nConstituency14th district (1993-2013)\n18th district (2013-2023)\n16th district (2023-2025)\n\nPersonal details\n\nBornAnna Georges\n (1942-12-13) December 13, 1942\nNew Britain, Connecticut, U.S.\n\nPartyDemocratic\n\nSpouse\nGeorge Eshoo ​(divorced)​\n\nChildren2\n\nEducationCañada College (AA)\n\nAnna A. Eshoo (/ˈɛʃuː/ EH-shoo; née Georges; born December 13, 1942)[1] is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for California's 16th congressional district from 1993 to 2025. She is a member of the Democratic Party.\n\nThe district, numbered as the 14th district from 1993 to 2013 and the 18th district from 2013 to 2023, is based in Silicon Valley, including the cities of Redwood City, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto, as well as a sliver of San Jose. Eshoo was the only Assyrian-American in Congress and the only Armenian American woman in Congress during her tenure in office. On November 21, 2023, she announced she would not seek re-election in 2024.[2]\n\nEarly life and education\n\nAnna Eshoo was born in New Britain, Connecticut, of Assyrian and Armenian heritage.[3] Her mother had fled from Armenia to Iraq, and subsequently to the United States. Her father, Fred Georges, a jeweler and watchmaker, was a Chaldean Christian.[4]\n\nEshoo graduated from New Britain High School in 1960, and later moved to California. She received an Associate of Arts degree in English from Cañada College in 1975.[5]\n\nEarly political career\n\nEshoo was Chair of the San Mateo Democratic Party from 1978 to 1982. She was also a member of the Democratic National Committee in the 1980s. She was chief of staff to Speaker pro tempore Leo McCarthy of the California State Assembly in 1981-82. Eshoo was elected to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in 1982 and served until 1992. She was president of the board in 1986.\n\nU.S. House of Representatives\n\nElections\n\n1988\n\nIn the middle of Eshoo's second term on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, she ran for Congress in California's 12th congressional district. She won the Democratic primary with a plurality of 43%,[6] but lost the general election to Republican Stanford law professor Tom Campbell, 51-46%.[7]\n\n1992\n\nCampbell gave up his congressional seat to make an unsuccessful bid for the United States Senate, and Eshoo entered the Democratic primary for the open seat, which had been renumbered as the 14th district. She won the seven-way primary with a plurality of 40%.[8]\n\nIn the general election, she defeated the Republican nominee, San Mateo County Supervisor Tom Huening, 57%-39%.[9]\n\n1994\n\nShe survived the Republican Revolution, winning reelection with 61% of the vote.[10]\n\n2008\n\nShe won reelection against Republican Ronny Santana, 70-22%.[11]\n\n2010\n\nShe won reelection against Republican Dave Chapman, 69-28%.[12]\n\n2012\n\nAfter redistricting, Eshoo ran for and won reelection in California's 18th congressional district based in San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties.[13]\n\n2014\n\nAfter a bitter race that brought to the fore some dissatisfaction over party leadership, regarded as a proxy battle between Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi, Eshoo lost a party vote to Frank Pallone for ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.[14] Nancy Pelosi had said Eshoo's elevation to the top Democratic spot on that committee would be important for the Democrats, allowing Eshoo \"to tap into lucrative fundraising interests in Silicon Valley and elsewhere that the committee has jurisdiction.\"[15]\n\n2016\n\n2018\n\n2020\n\nEshoo beat challenger Rishi Kumar in the Democratic primary and was reelected in the general election.\n\n2022\n\nEshoo beat challenger Rishi Kumar in a rematch.\n\nTenure\n\nIn 2003, Eshoo was elected by her Democratic colleagues in the 108th Congress as an At-Large Democratic Whip, and she has served in that position to the present.\n\nOn January 30, 2008, Eshoo formally endorsed U.S. Senator Barack Obama for president.[16]\n\nEshoo voted with President Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time in the 117th Congress, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis. This results in a Biden Plus/Minus score of +0.4.[17]\n\nAbortion\n\nEshoo opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade.[18] In 2024, she signed an amicus brief to the consolidated cases of Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States urging the Supreme Court to uphold the right to medical abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).\n\nBiodefense\n\nOn July 16, 2018, Eshoo introduced H.R. 6378, the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (PAHPA), along with Representative Susan Brooks, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, and Ranking Member Frank Pallone. The September 11 attacks and the deadly anthrax attacks that followed motivated Eshoo and former Representative Richard Burr to create the original PAHPA law, which coordinated responses to public health emergencies and developed medical countermeasures.[19]\n\nH.R. 6378 improves preparedness nationwide and response for public health emergencies by speeding up research and development on medical countermeasures. The bill also focuses on the needs of special populations such as seniors, the disabled, and children.[19]\n\nIn March 2018, Eshoo and Brooks launched the Congressional Biodefense Caucus. Within a week, 21 members of Congress had joined. The caucus is \"dedicated to strengthening our nation's biodefense enterprise and national security.\" It will focus on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats and pandemic outbreaks.[20]\n\nCampaign finance reform\n\nEshoo's bill to require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to publicly disclose their last 10 federal tax returns was included in the For the People Act. She has said, \"The For the People Act is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore the faith and function of American democracy\".[21]\n\nEnergy policy\n\nEshoo has voted in favor of bills that expand the creation of jobs in renewable energy.[22] She has also supported energy tax credits for companies that use alternative, non-carbon fuel sources.[23] More recently, she has expressed support for the continued funding of research into fusion power.[24] She is also a supporter of Green New Deal policies[25] and is a co-sponsor of the House resolutions calling for Green New Deal legislation as an effort to combat climate change.[26][27]\n\nIn February 2023, Eshoo, along with Representatives Randy Weber (R-TX 14th), Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX 07th), Nancy Mace (R-SC 01st), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA 07th), and Don Davis (D-NC 01st), introduced the Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems Act, which aims to share federal offshore wind power revenue with states for coastal protection and restoration work. The bill was also introduced in the Senate.[28][29]\n\nHealth care\n\nEshoo worked on the Affordable Care Act and was present during its signing.[30] She believes in adding a public option to the Act to achieve universal health insurance.[31]\n\nHuman rights\n\nEshoo is a strong supporter of the gay rights movement. In 1992, when a gay-bashing mailer was directed at Supervisor Tom Nolan (the first openly gay supervisor in San Mateo and her opponent for her congressional seat), Eshoo stood fast in defending him, his record and years of service. She opposed the Marriage Protection Amendment and the Marriage Protection Act. Her website called the bill \"discriminatory, singling out for the first time a minority to prevent their interests from being considered by the highest courts in the land.\"[32]\n\nAs one of just two Assyrian members of Congress, Eshoo has worked hard to protect indigenous Assyrian Christians in Iraq from continuing religious persecution and political exclusion. She authored an amendment to H.R. 2601, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, stating that \"special attention should be paid to the welfare of Chaldo-Assyrians and other indigenous Christians in Iraq.\"[33]\n\nEshoo has been a strong supporter of the congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. She also supports closer ties between Armenia and the U.S.\n\nEshoo has fought strongly against certain provisions of the Patriot Act, particularly Section 215 (Access to Business Records), which gives federal investigators the right to obtain any tangible business record without a subpoena.[34]\n\nEshoo also introduced \"Kevin's law\", which would have given the U.S. Department of Agriculture the power to close down plants that produce contaminated meat.\n\nAs an Assyrian and Armenian American, Eshoo was co-chair and co-founder of the Religious Minorities in the Middle East Caucus. She also serves on the Board of Advisors of The Institute on Religion and Public Policy, a freedom of religion organization.\n\nIn August 2024, Eshoo called on the Food and Drug Administration to scrutinize clinical trials conducted in the People's Republic of China for threats to intellectual property and forced participation using the Uyghur people.[35]\n\nImmigration\n\nEshoo has worked to create a legal \"pathway to citizenship\" for foreign workers of all kinds, from doctors and computer programmers to migrant farm workers. She has voted to increase the annual cap on H-1B visas to allow more temporary foreign professionals to work in the United States (especially those with Master's Degrees or higher).\n\nIn California, where as much as 90% of the agricultural workforce is composed of undocumented immigrants,[36] Eshoo cosponsored H.R. 371, the Agricultural Jobs Act, which would confer blue-card status on undocumented immigrants who had worked an agricultural job in the United States for 150 days or more. This bill never became law.\n\nInfrastructure\n\nEshoo has expressed support for President Biden's American Jobs Plan, calling it \"a visionary proposal to create millions of good-paying jobs while revitalizing America's infrastructure\" that \"will bring the U.S. into the 21st century\".[37]\n\nEshoo has long advocated for public transportation, particularly Caltrain, a commitment that Caltrain honored with the first dedicated trainset of the 2024 Stadler KISS fleet.[38]\n\nIsrael-Palestine\n\nOn May 24, 2023, Eshoo expressed support for the wave of peaceful pro-democracy activism in Israel against the judicial overhaul legislation proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.[39]\n\nIn November 2023, amid the Gaza War, Eshoo declined to sign the Ceasefire Now Resolution where she contended that it allowed impunity for Hamas. Later that month, in Palo Alto, demonstrators gathered at the congressional offices in the Bay Area demanded Eshoo to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, to which she responded, \"...While I have consistently pressed the IDF to take precautions to protect civilians, I have not called for a permanent ceasefire because I believe Hamas must be removed from power in Gaza...because they have no regard for the welfare of the Palestinians they claim to represent.\"[40] Furthermore, Eshoo had called on Israel to implement a humanitarian pause in Gaza and for Israel to show some restraint.[41]\n\nTaxes\n\nEshoo voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and has expressed support for repealing the SALT deduction cap, which she views as an unfair burden on the middle class.[42]\n\nNational security\n\nOn July 29, 2015, Eshoo co-introduced H.R. 3299, the Strengthening Public Health Emergency Response Act of 2015, which would streamline government decisions and provide incentives for vaccines and treatment of dangerous pathogens and diseases.[43] Eshoo co-sponsored the legislation with lead sponsor Rep. Susan Brooks in response to an October 2015 report by the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense.[44]\n\nOther legislation includes:\n\nH.R. 1275, American Dream Act, cosponsor - Allows states to provide tuition to students that are illegal immigrants, provided they meet certain criteria.\n\nH.R. 1379, Citizen Promotion Act, cosponsor - Assists lawfully admitted aliens in becoming permanent citizens of the United States.\n\nH.R. 2221, Uniting American Families Act, cosponsor - Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to include \"or permanent partner\" where spouse occurs.\n\nTechnology\n\nEshoo authored two bills authorizing electronic signatures that became law, The Government Paperwork Elimination Act of 1998 (GPEA) and ESIGN.[45] She also introduced controversial legislation to alleviate the proliferation of unsolicited email, known as spam. The U.S. House of Representatives passed The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (S. 877), which authorizes a \"Do Not Spam\" list, regulates commercial email, and imposes fines on spammers. Eshoo authored the Consumer Internet Privacy Enhancement Act of 2001 (H.R. 237), created a program to provide discounts to schools and libraries for Internet access, and authored the Computer Donation Incentive Act.\n\nEshoo introduced HR 2428, the Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2009.[46] The bill would require new federal road projects to include plastic conduits buried along the side of the roadway, and enough of them to \"accommodate multiple broadband providers\".[47] \"According to industry experts, more than half of the cost of new broadband deployment is attributable to the expense of tearing up and repaving roads\", Eshoo said. \"By putting the broadband conduit in place while the ground beneath the roadways is exposed, we will enable any authorized communications provider to come in later and install fiber-optic cable at far less cost.\"[46] The bill is supported by Google.[48][49]\n\nTogether with Rep. Ed Markey, Eshoo introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009,[50] which would make net neutrality the law.[51]\n\nEshoo is co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus, a bipartisan group of over 150 members of the House and Senate working to educate their colleagues about the promise and potential of the Internet.[52]\n\nEshoo supported the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2013 (H.R. 3675; 113th Congress), a bill that would make a number of changes to procedures that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follows in its rulemaking processes.[53] The FCC would have to act more transparently as a result of this bill, forced to accept public input about regulations.[54] Eshoo expected Senate support for the bill, saying that they \"shouldn't find it menacing\" and arguing that the bill was \"about the functioning of the FCC in the 21st century.\"[55]\n\nIn 2022, Eshoo, Representative Jan Schakowsky, and Senator Cory Booker[56] introduced the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act (BSAA).[57][58][59][60] Frank Maggio, CEO and founder of React LLC, called the BSAA \"rife with loopholes\".[61] The act was tabled.[61] According to PC Magazine, some browsers with some extensions can block some surveillance and some advertising.[62]\n\nCommittee assignments\n\nFor the 118th Congress:[63]\n\nCommittee on Energy and Commerce\n\nSubcommittee on Communications and Technology\n\nSubcommittee on Health (Ranking Member)\n\nCaucus memberships\n\nCongressional E-911 Caucus, Co-Chair[64]\n\nArthritis Caucus, Co-Chair[65]\n\nCaucus on Religious Minorities in the Middle East, Co-Chair and Founding Member\n\nCancer Care Working Group, Co-Chair\n\nHouse 21st Century Health Care Caucus, Vice Chair\n\nHouse Information Technology Working Group, Co-Chair\n\nCongressional Internet Caucus, Founding Member and Co-Chair\n\nHouse Medical Technology Caucus, Co-Chair\n\nAhmadiyya Muslim Caucus\n\nBipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease\n\nCalifornia Democratic Congressional Delegation\n\nArmenian Caucus\n\nCoalition for Autism Research and Education (CARE)\n\nCongressional Biomedical Research Caucus\n\nCongressional Caucus for Women's Issues\n\nCongressional Caucus on Armenian Issues\n\nCongressional Diabetes Caucus\n\nCongressional Equality Caucus[66]\n\nCongressional Food Safety Caucus\n\nCongressional Kidney Caucus\n\nCongressional Organic Caucus\n\nCongressional Prevention Coalition\n\nCongressional Shipbuilding Caucus\n\nCongressional Taiwan Caucus[67]\n\nCongressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus[68]\n\nHouse Biotechnology Caucus\n\nHouse Cancer Caucus\n\nHouse National Marine Sanctuary Caucus\n\nHouse Oceans Caucus\n\nHouse Recycling Caucus\n\nLong-Term Care Caucus\n\nUnited States-Philippines Friendship Caucus\n\nCongressional Arts Caucus[69]\n\nCongressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus[70]\n\nClimate Solutions Caucus[71]\n\nCongressional Coalition on Adoption[72]\n\nRare Disease Caucus[73]\n\nPersonal life\n\nEshoo was married to attorney George Eshoo, with whom she has two children, Karen and Paul. Anna Eshoo and George Eshoo are divorced.[74] She resides in Menlo Park, California.[75] She is a Chaldean Catholic. She attends Sacred Heart-Oakwood Catholic Church.[76]\n\nIn 2010, Eshoo was named one of the \"50 Most Beautiful People\" on Capitol Hill by The Hill.[76]\n\nElectoral history\n\nOrganizations\n\nChair, San Mateo County General Hospital Board of Directors, 1984-1992\n\nMember, American Association of University Women\n\nFormer Chair, Bay Area Air Quality Management District\n\nFormer Member, Bay Conservation and Development Commission\n\nDemocratic Activists for Women Now\n\nJunior League of Palo Alto\n\nLeague of Conservation Voters\n\nMember, League of Women Voters\n\nCo Founder, San Mateo Women's Hall of Fame.\n\nAwards and honors\n\n1989 Legislator of the Year Award from the California's Governor's Committee on the Employing of the Disabled \n\n1991 Margaret Sanger Community Service Award from San Mateo County Planned Parenthood \n\n1990 Friend of BAYMEC Award \n\n1989 Public Official of the Year by the State Commission on Aging \n\n1987 Humanitarian of the Year by Easter Seal \n\nFirst woman to join her local chapter of Kiwanis International.\n\nHonorary doctorate, Humane Letters, Menlo College \n\nSee also\n\nWomen in the United States House of Representatives\n\nList of Arab and Middle Eastern Americans in the United States Congress\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"FamilySearch.org\". FamilySearch.\n\n^ Irwin, Lauren (November 21, 2023). \"Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo to retire at end of term\". The Hill. Retrieved November 21, 2023.\n\n^ Kreitman, Keith (October 27, 2006). \"Anna Eshoo has come a long way in Congress\". Daily Journal. San Mateo County, Calif. Archived from the original on November 15, 2006.\n\n^ Allen-Ebrahimian, Bethany (July 22, 2015). \"The Real War on Christianity\". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2016.\n\n^ McCarthy, Cynthia (February 13, 2024). \"From Cañada College to Congress: Rep. Anna Eshoo (Government & Politics: How to contact your elected officials)\". Archived from the original on October 1, 2023. Retrieved March 13, 2024. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, Cañada College, class of '75, now represents the area where she lives and attended college. She earned an Associate of Arts in English from Cañada College within a decade of the college's official opening. Later she served as a San Mateo County Supervisor for ten years.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA District 12 - D Primary Race - Jun 07, 1988\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA District 12 Race - Nov 08, 1988\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA District 14 - D Primary Race - Jun 02, 1992\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA District 14 Race - Nov 03, 1992\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA District 14 Race - Nov 08, 1994\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA - District 14 Race - Nov 04, 2008\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Our Campaigns - CA - District 14 Race - Nov 02, 2010\". Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Anna Eshoo for Congress\". Archived from the original on September 3, 2008. Retrieved November 19, 2014.\n\n^ \"Dem Frenemies: Pelosi, Hoyer Again on Opposite Sides of a Leadership Debate\". Time.\n\n^ \"Pelosi ally Anna Eshoo loses party vote for key committee post\". Los Angeles Times. November 19, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.\n\n^ Bay Area News Group (January 30, 2008). \"Anna Eshoo endorses Obama - Political Blotter - Politics in the Bay Area and beyond\". ibabuzz.com. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved September 5, 2015.\n\n^ Bycoffe, Aaron; Wiederkehr, Anna (April 22, 2021). \"Does Your Member Of Congress Vote With Or Against Biden?\". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on April 23, 2021. Retrieved November 15, 2023.\n\n^ Eshoo, Anna (June 24, 2022). \"Today, for the first time in history, the Supreme Court eliminated a constitutional right. With Roe gone, Republicans will now charge full speed ahead with their plans to ban abortion nationwide, arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, and criminalize contraception\". Twitter. Retrieved June 27, 2022.\n\n^ a b \"Eshoo, Brooks Introduce Legislation to Combat Biodefense Threats\". Retrieved November 30, 2018.\n\n^ \"New Congressional Biodefense Caucus launched\". Congresswoman Susan W. Brooks. March 5, 2018. Retrieved November 30, 2018.\n\n^ \"Anna's Weekly Update\". Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. March 8, 2019.\n\n^ King, Katie (September 25, 2020). \"South Bay legislators split on clean energy legislation\". San Jose Spotlight. Retrieved September 27, 2021.\n\n^ Fein, Geoff S. (May 30, 2001). \"Eshoo says energy tax credits a better idea\". Palo Alto Weekly. Retrieved September 27, 2021.\n\n^ Irfan, Umair (January 29, 2014). \"E&E - Light at the end of the tunnel for fusion energy research? Not while the government is dark\". Anna Eshoo. Retrieved September 27, 2021.\n\n^ King, Katie (October 22, 2020). \"Exclusive Q&A: U.S. House District 18 candidate Rep. Anna Eshoo\". San Jose Spotlight. Retrieved September 27, 2021.\n\n^ \"H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal\". United States Congress. February 7, 2019. Retrieved September 27, 2021.\n\n^ \"H.Res.332 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal\". United States Congress. April 20, 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2021.\n\n^ \"Cassidy, Whitehouse Reintroduce Bill to Strengthen Revenue Sharing Program\" (Press release). February 9, 2024.\n\n^ \"Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher Reintroduces Bipartisan Legislation To Strengthen Coastal Revenue Sharing Program\" (Press release). February 9, 2024.\n\n^ \"President Obama Signs Health Reform Into Law\". March 23, 2010. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021 - via www.youtube.com.\n\n^ \"Join the Conversation with Congresswoman Eshoo -\". vekeo.com.\n\n^ Anna Eshoo's stance on civil rights\n\n^ \"Amendment 483 to Hr. 2601\". Archived from the original on December 24, 2010.\n\n^ Farrier, Jasmine (January 2007). \"The Patriot Act's Institutional Story: More Evidence of Congressional Ambivalence\". PS: Political Science & Politics. 40 (1): 93-97. doi:10.1017/s1049096507070151. ISSN 1049-0965. S2CID 154282713.\n\n^ \"US lawmakers ask government to consider curbs on biotech exports to China's military\". Reuters. January 10, 2025. Retrieved January 11, 2025.\n\n^ Study by the Department of Labor\n\n^ \"Rep. Eshoo Applauds President Biden's American Jobs Plan, Calls It a \"Modern Solution to Modern Challenges\"\". Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. March 31, 2021.\n\n^ Caltrain (September 19, 2024). \"Caltrain Names Train in Honor of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo | Caltrain\". www.caltrain.com. Caltrain. Retrieved September 25, 2026.\n\n^ \"Reps. Raskin, Eshoo Lead 46 Members in Supporting Israeli Pro-Democracy Protesters\". raskin.house.gov. May 24, 2023.\n\n^ Jesse Gary (November 29, 2023). \"Demonstrators pressure congressional reps over continued aid to Israel\". KTVU. Retrieved May 27, 2025.\n\n^ LaMonica Peters (January 4, 2024). \"Silicon Valley residents hold town hall calling on Rep. Anna Eshoo to support Gaza ceasefire\". KTVU. Retrieved May 27, 2025.\n\n^ staff, Sierra Lopez Daily Journal (April 6, 2021). \"Speier, Eshoo address SALT deduction cap\". San Mateo Daily Journal.\n\n^ \"Health Subcommittee holds markup on the Strengthening Public Health Emergency Response Act\". Homeland Preparedness News. June 8, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016.\n\n^ Memo to Members of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health from the Majority Committee staff. U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. docs.house.gov. May 17, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016.\n\n^ \"Summary: Digital Signatures Bills: HR 2991 and S 2107\". www.techlawjournal.com. Retrieved June 3, 2016.\n\n^ a b Anna Eshoo. \"Rep. Eshoo Introduces Broadband Conduit Legislation\".\n\n^ Nate Anderson (May 20, 2009). \"New bill wants fiber conduit built into every road project\". arstechnica.\n\n^ Richard Whitt (June 8, 2009). \"Google submits initial comments supporting a National Broadband Plan\".\n\n^ Richard Whitt (June 8, 2009). \"Submit your ideas for a National Broadband Plan\". Archived from the original on July 28, 2009. Retrieved October 29, 2017.\n\n^ Anna Eshoo (n.d.). \"Reps. Eshoo and Markey Introduce Bill to Preserve Free and Open Internet\".\n\n^ Free Press (August 3, 2009). \"Two Million for Internet Freedom\". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021.\n\n^ Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (January 11, 2011). \"U.S. Congressional Internet Caucus: Membership in the 112th Congress\".\n\n^ \"H.R. 3675 - CBO\". Congressional Budget Office. January 29, 2014. Retrieved March 10, 2014.\n\n^ Kasperowicz, Pete (March 11, 2014). \"House votes for more transparency at the FCC\". The Hill. Retrieved March 12, 2014.\n\n^ Bachman, Katy (December 11, 2013). \"Bipartisan FCC Process Reform Bill Gains Momentum\". Ad Week. Retrieved March 12, 2014.\n\n^ Condon, Stephanie (January 18, 2022). \"Democrats propose a law to ban \"surveillance advertising\"\". ZDNET. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ Cox, Joseph (January 18, 2022). \"Lawmakers Plan Legislation to 'Ban Surveillance Advertising'\". vice.com. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ Edelman, Gilad (March 2, 2022). \"Biden Puts Big Tech's Favorite Business Model on Notice\". Wired. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ Lammi, Glenn (February 7, 2022). \"Proponents of Regulating \"Surveillance Advertising\" Cannot Ignore the First Amendment\". Washington Legal Foundation. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ Davis, Wendy (January 18, 2022). \"New Bill Would Outlaw Most Forms Of Behavioral Targeting\". MediaPost. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ a b Maggio, Frank (April 12, 2022). \"Want To Solve Surveillance Advertising? Invite Consumers to the Table\". Spiceworks. Ziff Davis. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ Pegoraro, Rob (January 19, 2022). \"RIP Online Ads? Proposed Bill Would Ban 'Surveillance Advertising'\". PC Magazine. Retrieved October 9, 2022.\n\n^ \"Anna G. Eshoo\". Clerk of the United States House of Representatives. Retrieved April 24, 2023.\n\n^ \"Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus\". nena.org. National Emergency Number Association. Retrieved October 27, 2018.\n\n^ \"Arthritis Caucus Members\". www.arthritis.org. Retrieved October 27, 2018.\n\n^ \"About the CEC\". CEC. Retrieved August 28, 2025.\n\n^ \"Congressional Taiwan Caucus\". Congressman Brad Sherman. Retrieved August 11, 2025.\n\n^ \"Strengthening Conservation Advocacy: Congressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus Expansion & Reconstitution\". National Wildlife Refuge Association. December 15, 2023. Retrieved January 27, 2025.\n\n^ \"Membership\". Congressional Arts Caucus. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved March 13, 2018.\n\n^ \"Members\". Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2018.\n\n^ \"90 Current Climate Solutions Caucus Members\". Citizen´s Climate Lobby. Retrieved October 20, 2018.\n\n^ \"Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute\".\n\n^ \"Rare Disease Congressional Caucus\". Every Life Foundation for Rare Diseases. Retrieved March 18, 2025.\n\n^ \"Eshoo, Anna\". Person Record. San Mateo County History Museum. Retrieved November 21, 2020.\n\n^ Sheyner, Gennady (August 29, 2011). \"Anna Eshoo to seek another term\". Palo Alto Weekly. Retrieved July 27, 2020.\n\n^ a b Beria, Elyas (July 28, 2010). \"50 Most Beautiful People 2010 HTML Page 3\". TheHill. Retrieved November 21, 2020.\n\nExternal links\n\nCongresswoman Anna G. Eshoo official U.S. House website\n\nAnna Eshoo for Congress campaign website\n\nAppearances on C-SPAN\n\nBiography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress\n\nFinancial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission\n\nLegislation sponsored at the Library of Congress\n\nProfile at Vote Smart"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-anna-eshoo"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4250}, {"slug": "reference-biryani", "title": "Biryani", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Biryani is a mixed rice dish traditionally made with spiced meat, seafood, or vegetables. It was present in Mughal-era India, though whether it was created there is debated.[1] It is thought to derive from a Persian rice dish, either pilau or birinj biryan.[1][2][3] The dish makes use of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Biryani\nHyderabad-style biryani\n\nCourseMain dish\n\nRegion or stateSouth Asia\n\nServing temperatureHot\n\nMain ingredients\n\nMeat\n\nRice\n\nSpices\n\nYoghurt (curd)\n\n Cookbook: Biryani\n\n  Media: Biryani\n\nBiryani is a mixed rice dish traditionally made with spiced meat, seafood, or vegetables. It was present in Mughal-era India, though whether it was created there is debated.[1] It is thought to derive from a Persian rice dish, either pilau or birinj biryan.[1][2][3] The dish makes use of slow-cooking as in Persian pilau, combined with Persian-style yoghurt-marinated meat and a spicy Indian style of cooking; it was likely developed in the Mughal court kitchens.[1] It is also possible that biryani was brought to South India before the Mughal era, or that pilau was brought to India and biryani was developed from it before being adopted by the Mughals. \n\nBiryani is one of the most popular dishes in South Asia and among the South Asian diaspora. The dish is often associated with the region's Muslim population in particular,[4] but is nevertheless a mainstream culinary staple embraced by every demographic. Similar dishes are prepared in many other countries, often with local variations, and often brought there by South Asian diaspora populations. Biryani is the most-ordered dish on Indian online food ordering and delivery services, is used in weddings and celebrations throughout the region, and has been described as the most popular dish in India.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe word biryani (Hindi: बिरयानी, Urdu: بریانی) is derived from biryan or beriyan (Persian: بریان), which means \"to fry\" or \"to roast\", said by Merriam-Webster probably to be related to Sanskrit: भृज्जति bhṛjjati, with the same meaning.[5][6][7][8] The usage is from the Persian phrase birinj biryan (with Persian: برنج birinj, \"rice\"), meaning \"fried rice\".[3][9]\n\nOrigin\n\nHistorical sources\n\nThe Mughal text Ain-i-Akbari (written 1589-1596[10]), from the time of the emperor Akbar, mentions two rice dishes, pilau and biryani, listing ingredients with required quantities for each:[11]\n\nSecondly, [dishes] in which meat and rice, &c., are used ... 2. Duzdbiryán. 10 s[eer] rice, 3½ s. g'hí; 10 s. meat; ½ s. salt: this gives five dishes. 3. Qimah Paláo. Rice and meat as in the preceding; 4 s. g'hí; 1 s. peeled gram; 2 s. onions; ½ s. salt; ¼ s. fresh ginger, and pepper; cuminseed, cardamums and cloves, 1 d[han]. of each: this gives five dishes.[a][11]\n\nThe Ain-i-Akbari further names a dish of spiced mutton as a biryani, this time without mentioning rice: \n\nThirdly, meats with spices... Biryán. For a whole Dashmandi sheep, take 2 s[eer] salt; 1 s[eer] g'hí; 2 m[āshā] saffron, cloves, pepper, cuminseed: it is made in various ways.\"[a][11]\n\nMughal biryani timeline\n\nPeriod/Emperor\n\nDates\n\nEvent\n\n(Timur)\n(1370-1405)\n(No record of it in Central Asia at that time)[12]\n\nAkbar\n1556-1605\nMention of recipes in Ain-i-Akbari (1589-1596)[11]\n\nShah Jahan\n1628-1658\nBrief description by Sebastien Manrique in 1641[13]\n\nAurangzeb\n1658-1707\nMention in letters to his son, Bahadur Shah I[14]\n\nBahadur Shah Zafar\n1837-1857\nRecipe[15]\n\nKey: () and red background: Unrecorded\n\nThe Portuguese priest Sebastien Manrique described rice dishes on sale in the tent-city of the next Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as he travelled to Lahore in 1641. Manrique distinguished \"Persian\" pilau from \"Mogol\" biryani: \n\nAmong these dishes the principal and most substantial were the rich and aromatic Mogol Bringes [biryanis][b] and Persian pilaos of different hues\".[13]\n\nThe dish is mentioned, too, in letters of the emperor Aurangzeb to his son.[14] For example:\n\nExalted son, I remember the savour of your 'khichidi' and 'biryani' during the winter. Truly the 'kabuli' cooked by Islam Khan does not surpass them (in point of relish and savour). I wanted to have from you (in my service) Saliman, who cooks 'biryani'; but you did not allow him to serve as my cook. If you happen to find a pupil of his, skilful in the art of cookery, you will send him to me.[16][17]\n\nAccording to the historian Rana Safvi, the earliest actual recipe is from the later Mughal period, from Bahadur Shah Zafar's time.[15]\n\nAnalysis\n\nThe historian of food Lizzie Collingham writes that the modern biryani developed in India (Hindustan) in the royal kitchens of the Mughal Empire, specifically during the rule of the emperor Akbar (1556-1605), and is a mix of the native spicy rice dishes of South Asia, Persian yoghurt-marinated meat, and the Persian pilau style of garnished rice.[1] Collingham writes that \"in the kitchens [of the Mughal court]... the delicately flavoured Persian pilau met the pungent and spicy rice dishes of Hindustan to create the classic Mughlai dish, biryani\".[1] \n\nThe cookery writer Pratibha Karan states that biryani is of Indian origin, derived from pilau which Muslim traders and invaders brought with them. She speculates that pilau was an army dish in medieval India. Armies would prepare a one-pot dish of rice with any available red meat. Over time, the dish became biryani due to different methods of cooking.[9][12]\n\nIn the view of the historian of Islamic cuisine Salma Hussein[3] and others, biryani came to South Asia from Persia before the Mughal era,[12] most probably arriving in South India's Deccan region, brought by travelling soldier-statesmen and pilgrims.[3] It has also been suggested that the dish was introduced from Persia by the Mughals.[18] Another variant theory, that biryani came to India with Timur's invasion, appears to be incorrect because there is no record of biryani having existed in his native region of Central Asia during that period.[12]\n\nThe historian of food K. T. Achaya states that pilau is \"of older usage in India\" than biryani, indicating that it could have been a precursor of biryani.[2] Achaya notes that ancient and early medieval Indian texts such as the Mahabharata described rice cooked with meat.[19] He further references early Tamil literature from the Sangam era (c. 300 BCE-300 CE), describing rice cooked with \"fatted meat\" or ghee.[20] However, according to Ashis Nandy, Colleen Taylor Sen, and Charles Perry, despite having similar names, these dishes referenced in ancient Indian texts were distinct from both pulao and biryani.[21][22][23] Later, K.T. Achaya himself conceded that, despite the linguistic similarity, these dishes referenced in ancient Indian texts were not the same as the medieval pulao.[24]\n\nIngredients\n\nIngredients for biryani vary according to the region and the type of meat and vegetables used. Meat (chicken, goat, beef[25]) is the prime ingredient with rice. Seafood (fish, prawns) and vegetables are sometimes added. Navratan biryani tends to use sweeter, richer ingredients such as cashews, sultanas (kishmish), and fruits such as apple and pineapple.[26]\n\nThe spices and condiments used in biryani may include fennel seeds, ghee (clarified butter), nutmeg, mace,[27]black pepper, cloves,[27] green cardamom, black cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, coriander, mint, ginger, onions, tomatoes, red chillies,[25] star anise, turmeric, coriander, cumin, milk, yoghurt and garlic. The premium varieties include saffron.[27] Some commercial recipes for biryani include aromatic essences such as mitha attar, kewra and rose water. Dried sour prunes (alu bukhara) may be added. In nasi briyani and other variants made in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, local spices and aromatics such as pandan leaf may be added.[28]\n\nBiryani may be served with side dishes such as raita (yoghurt with cucumber, tomato, etc), fried or curried aubergine (brinjal), salad, or a curried side such as ande ka salan (with boiled eggs)[29] or mirchi ka salan (with chili peppers).[30]\n\nDietary variations include adding eggs, potatoes, and substituting meat with paneer, soyabean or vegetables, especially in Hindu or non-religious vegetarian variants.[31] Kolkata biryani, invented by Wajid Ali Shah in the 1850s, includes potato.[32]\n\nPreparation styles\n\nPakki and kacchi biryani\n\nBiryani can be cooked using one of two techniques, pakki (\"cooked\") and kacchi (\"raw\").[33] In a pakki biryani, the ingredients are cooked separately (at least in part) and then arranged in layers. The different layers can be individually coloured and flavoured with a brightly-coloured spice such as turmeric or saffron.[33] In a kacchi biryani, layers are arranged in a pot which is then sealed and cooked slowly (Dum cooking) for the food to steam in its own liquid.[33]\n\nDifference between biryani and pilau\n\nPilau is a mixed rice dish popular in the South Asian, Central Asian, and Middle Eastern cuisine. Opinions differ on the differences between the dishes, if any.[34][35] \n\nThe British-era author Abdul Halim Sharar mentions that biryani has a stronger curried taste due to a greater amount of spices.[34][36] According to Delhi-based historian Sohail Hashmi, pilau tends to be plainer than biryani, and consists of meat or vegetables cooked with rice with the bottom layered with potatoes or onions. Biryani contains more gravy, and is often cooked longer, leaving the meat (and vegetables, if present) more tender, and the rice more flavoured. Biryani is cooked with additional dressings and often has a light layer of scorched rice at the bottom.[26]\n\nThe cookery author Pratibha Karan states that while the terms are often applied arbitrarily, the main distinction is that a biryani consists of two layers of rice with a layer of meat (and vegetables, if present) in the middle, while the pilau is not layered. Further, in modern usage, biryani is the primary dish in a meal, while pilau is usually a secondary accompaniment to a larger meal; and biryanis have more complex and stronger spices than pilaus.[12]\n\nThe translator and cookery author Colleen Taylor Sen notes that the difference has been extensively debated, that the dishes are both of long-grained rice with meat or vegetables, and are sometimes \"almost impossible to tell apart\". However, pilau is usually a side dish, biryani a \"centre piece\" with its own sides; and pilau is a one-pot dish, while biryani's rice and meat can be cooked separately.[37]\n\nVarieties\n\nIn the Indian subcontinent\n\nThere are many types of biryani in the Indian subcontinent. Biryani is the single most-ordered dish in Indian online food ordering and delivery services, and has been described as the most popular dish in India.[38][39] The names of variants are often based on their region or city of origin. Some have taken the name of the shop that sells it, as in Fakhruddin Biriyani in Dhaka,[40][41] Students biryani in Karachi, Lucky biryani in Bandra, Mumbai and Baghdadi biryani in Colaba, Mumbai.[26] Biryanis are often specific to the Muslim communities where they originate; they are usually the defining dishes of those communities.[42][38] In 2009, the Deccani Biryani Makers Association submitted 'Hyderabadi Biryani' for a geographical indication, but the attempt failed as they were unable to provide documentary evidence of its historical origin.[43]\n\nOutside the Indian subcontinent\n\nVarieties of biryani have arisen in many countries,[44] and was often spread to such places by South Asian diaspora populations.[45] For example in Myanmar, danpauk (ဒံပေါက်) is a mainstay at festive events such as weddings.[46][47] On the Persian Gulf, biryani (Persian: برياني) is usually saffron-based with chicken,[48] while in Indonesia nasi kebuli is an spicy steamed rice dish[49] cooked in goat meat broth, milk and ghee.[50] In Thailand the dish is known as khao mhok (Thai: ข้าวหมก), using chicken, beef or fish, topped with fried garlic and served with a green sour sauce.[51]\n\nIn culture\n\nBiryani forms \"the centrepiece of countless Indian holidays and weddings\".[52] In Bangladesh, kacchi biryani with mutton has been described as \"the quintessential wedding dish\"[53] of Old Dhaka, largely replacing the murg (chicken) pulao that was favoured in the 20th century[53] for special occasions across the subcontinent.[1] The Muslim festival of Bakr Eid is marked by biryani at dinner, using the mutton from goats slaughtered in memory of the prophet Abraham, who had shown he was willing to sacrifice his own son.[52] \n\nBiryani is used across the Indian Subcontinent in celebrations. Annual biryani festivals have been held in cities such as Ambur,[54] Islamabad[55] and Karachi.[56] South Asian diaspora populations have held their own festivals, for example by the North American Indian Muslim Association in North America.[57] Biryani festivals have been held more widely in places such as Singapore[58] and Qatar.[59][60]\n\nSee also\n\nList of rice dishes\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b A seer was a measure of weight, varying by region, but around 1 kg; a māshā was around 2 grams; and a dhan was around 50 milligrams (the weight of one wheat berry).\n\n^ See 'Etymology' above on birinj.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j Collingham, Lizzie (6 February 2006). Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors. Oxford University Press. pp. 25-29. ISBN 978-0-19-988381-3.\n\n^ a b c Padmanabhan, Mukund; Jeyan, Subash; Wilson, Subajayanthi (26 May 2012). \"Food Safari: In search of Ambur biryani\". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 18 October 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2018.\n\n^ a b c d e \"From Iran to India: The journey and evolution of biriyani\". BBC News. 15 July 2016.\n\n^ Ramnath, Nandini (5 July 2025). \"'Exoticised, alienised, villainised': A book looks at how Muslims have been portrayed in Hindi films\". Scroll.in. Retrieved 30 April 2026.\n\n^ Cannon, Garland Hampton; Kaye, Alan S. (2001). The Persian Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 71. ISBN 978-3-44704-503-2.\n\n^ Vishal, Anoothi (14 May 2011). \"When rice met meat\". Business Standard. Retrieved 6 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Definition of 'biryani'\". Oxford Dictionary. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2016.\n\n^ \"Biriyani\". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 3 December 2025.\n\n^ a b c d Karan, Pratibha (2009). Biryani. Random House India. pp. 1-12, 45. ISBN 978-81-8400-254-6.\n\n^ \"Ain-I-Akbari.Vol.1\". University of Exeter. Retrieved 7 January 2026.\n\n^ a b c d 'Allami, Abul Fazl; Blochmann, Heinrich (trans.) (1873). The Ain i Akbari. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal. pp. 59-60. Archived from the original on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 7 January 2026.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\n^ a b c d e f Sanghvi, Vir. \"Biryani Nation\". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 17 August 2014. Retrieved 24 August 2014.\n\n^ a b Collingham, Lizzie (6 February 2006). Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors. Oxford University Press. pp. 14, 38. ISBN 978-0-19-988381-3.\n\n^ a b Antani, Vishu; Mahapatra, Santosh (2022). \"Evolution of Indian cuisine: a socio-historical review\" (PDF). Journal of Ethnic Foods. 9 (15) 15. doi:10.1186/s42779-022-00129-4.\n\n^ a b \"Rude Food by vir Sanghvi: The people's biryani\". Hindustan Times. 25 July 2021.\n\n^ Narayanan, Divya (2015). Cultures of Food and Gastronomy in Mughal and post-Mughal India. University of Heidelberg (PhD thesis). pp. 70-71. doi:10.11588/heidok.00019906.\n\n^ Bilimoria, Jamshid (trans.) (1908). Rukaʿat-i Alamgiri or Letters of Aurangzeb. Bombay: Luzac & Co. p. 12.\n\n^ a b Dhillon, Kris (2013). The New Curry Secret. Little, Brown and Company. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-7160-2352-4.\n\n^ Achaya, K. T. (1994). Indian Food: A Historical Companion. Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0195634488.\n\n^ Achaya, K. T. (1994). Indian Food: A Historical Companion. Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0195634488.\n\n^ Nandy, Ashis (2004). \"The Changing Popular Culture of Indian Food: Preliminary Notes\". South Asia Research. 24: 9-19. doi:10.1177/0262728004042760.\n\n^ Perry, Charles (15 December 1994). \"Annual Cookbook Issue : BOOK REVIEW : An Armchair Guide to the Indian Table : INDIAN FOOD: A Historical Companion By K. T. Achaya (Oxford University Press: 1994; $35; 290 pp.)\". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 April 2026.\n\n^ Sen, Colleen Taylor (15 November 2014). Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-78023-391-8.\n\n^ Sanghvi, Vir. \"Biryani was always meant for the masses and not the kings\". www.virsanghvi.com. Retrieved 25 September 2026.\n\n^ a b Makhijani, Pooja (22 June 2017). \"A Beginner's Guide to Biryani, the Ultimate Rice Dish\". Saveur. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ a b c Ravish Kumar interviews historian Sohali Hashmi (9 September 2016). प्राइम टाइम : क्या-क्या अलग करेंगे बिरयानी से? [Prime Time: What will separate from Biryani?] (Television production) (in Hindi). Old Delhi: NDTV. Retrieved 19 October 2016.\n\n^ a b c Brown, Ruth (16 August 2011). \"The Melting Pot - A Local Prep Kitchen Incubates Portland's Next Generation of Food Businesses\". Willamette Week. Vol. 37, no. 41.\n\n^ \"Nasi Biryani Recipe\". The New York Times Cooking. Retrieved 2 May 2024.\n\n^ \"Side Dishes to Enjoy with Biryani\". The Times of India. Retrieved 4 December 2025.\n\n^ Kapoor, Sanjeev (2 August 2016). \"Mirchi Ka Salan\". Sanjeev Kapoor. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ Bhandari, Kabir Singh (21 April 2020). \"The curious case of potato in Kolkata biryani and how the British fed us a lie\". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 19 August 2020.\n\n^ Saha, Somdatta (4 August 2023). \"The Fascinating Story Of Aloo In Kolkata Biryani: All You Need To Know!\". NDTV Food. Archived from the original on 11 November 2025. Retrieved 9 February 2026.\n\n^ a b c Dey, Shuvra (16 November 2022). \"The origin of Biryani - how a Mughal delicacy invaded Bengal\". GetBengal. Retrieved 18 November 2022.\n\n^ a b Shaffer, Holly (2012). \"6: Dum Pukht\". In Ray, Krishnendu; Srinivas, Tulasi (eds.). Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia. University of California Press. pp. 124-125. ISBN 978-0-520-27011-4.\n\n^ \"What is the Difference Between Biryani and Pulao\". Mynt Orlando. 23 June 2023.\n\n^ Sharar, ʻAbdulḥalīm (1989) [1913]. Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture (Hindustan Men Mashriqi Tamaddun ka Akhri Namuna). Translated by E.S. Harcourt; Fakhir Hussain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-562364-2.\n\n^ Taylor Sen, Colleen (2014). Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India. Reaktion Books. pp. 194-195. ISBN 978-1780233918.\n\n^ a b Daniyal, Shoaib (7 February 2020). \"Biryani is India's most popular dish - so why does the BJP hate it so much?\". Scroll.in. Retrieved 17 December 2021.\n\n^ Tandon, Suneera (16 December 2020). \"Jubilant FoodWorks forays into biryani business with 'Ekdum'\". Mint. Retrieved 15 November 2021.\n\n^ \"Dhaka's Biryani - A Taste of Aristocracy\". NIBiz Soft. 23 May 2015. Retrieved 6 August 2018.\n\n^ Bipul, Hassan (28 March 2016). \"Dhaka's biryani can be UNESCO world heritage, says food critic Matt Preston\". Bdnews24.com. Retrieved 17 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Where does biryani come from?\". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 24 June 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Famous Delicacy 'Hyderabadi Biryani' Fails To Prove Its Origins\". NDTV. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 7 January 2026.\n\n^ Wallis, Bruce (12 April 2017). \"Eat My Words: A taste of Iraqi Kurdistan\". Duluth News Tribune. Archived from the original on 5 October 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2018.\n\n^ \"Iconic Dishes: A Guide to Rice Dishes in Malaysia and Where to Find Them\". Michelin Guide. Retrieved 30 May 2025.\n\n^ \"Biryani trade takes on a new flavour\". The Myanmar Times. 20 March 2015. Archived from the original on 27 July 2020. Retrieved 25 April 2020.\n\n^ \"Mouth-watering Thingyan food and delicacies\". The Myanmar Times. 6 April 2018. Archived from the original on 12 November 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2020.\n\n^ Ganapti, Priya (9 April 2004). \"Of biryani, history, and entrepreneurship\". Rediff.com. Retrieved 27 August 2014.\n\n^ \"Nasi Kebuli Gaya Betawi\" [Betawi Style Kebuli Rice]. Kompas (in Indonesian). 21 February 2009. Retrieved 30 January 2015.\n\n^ Dharmaputra, T. S. (2015). Kumpulan Masakan Favorit Sepanjang Masa (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Puspa Swara. ISBN 978-602-213-036-9. Retrieved 5 June 2017.\n\n^ Ismael, Furqan (11 February 2022). \"ข้าวหมกไก่มาจากไหน ทำไมถึงกลายมาเป็นอาหารอิสลามในประเทศไทย\" [Where did Khao Mok Gai come from? Why did it become an Islamic food in Thailand?]. Halal Life Magazine (in Thai). Retrieved 22 September 2025.\n\n^ a b Haq, Husna (7 October 2016). \"India's biryani wars\". BBC Travel. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Old Dhaka Weddings: Of flavours and traditions\". The Daily Star. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Beef banned from menu at Tamil Nadu biryani festival, authorities asked to reconsider decision\". India Today. 12 May 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Back Biryani Festival and Presenting of REAP Journal Ceremony\". High Commission of Malaysia, Islamabad. 4 December 2023. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Biryani Festival 2024\". Morocco Consulate Karachi. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Biryani Fest\". North American Indian Muslim Association. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Savour the Flavours at Singapore's Only Biryani Festival 2.0\". In Diplomacy. 23 July 2025. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Thousands throng first-ever Biryani Festival\". The Peninsula. 11 February 2018. Retrieved 9 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Biryani Festival launched\". Gulf Times. 8 February 2018. Retrieved 9 December 2025."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-biryani"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3392}, {"slug": "reference-diyarbakr", "title": "Diyarbakır", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Diyarbakır[a] is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey.[8] It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. It is considered one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, having been continually inhabited since c. 8,000 BCE.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Diyarbakır\n\nMetropolitan municipality\n\nClockwise from top: A pond park in Diyarbakir, Hasan Pasha Han, historic city walls, Gazi Pavilion, A park in Diyarbakir, Ongözlü Bridge (The Dicle Bridge), Great Mosque of Diyarbakır.\n\nEmblem of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality\n\nDiyarbakırLocation within TurkeyShow map of TurkeyDiyarbakırLocation within EarthShow map of Earth\n\nCoordinates: 37°55′N 40°14′E / 37.91°N 40.24°E / 37.91; 40.24\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nRegionSoutheastern Anatolia\n\nProvinceDiyarbakır\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorAyşe Serra Bucak Küçük (DEM Party)\n\nArea\n\n • Metropolitan municipality15,058 km2 (5,814 sq mi)\n\n • Urban2,410 km2 (930 sq mi)\n\n • Metro2,410 km2 (930 sq mi)\n\nElevation675 m (2,215 ft)\n\nPopulation (2024)[1]\n\n • Metropolitan municipality1,833,684\n\n • Density121.77/km2 (315.40/sq mi)\n\n • Urban1,164,940\n\n • Urban density483/km2 (1,250/sq mi)\n\nGDP[2]\n\n • Metropolitan municipalityTRY 62.494 billion\nUS$ 6.959 billion (2021)\n\n • Per capitaTRY 34,964\nUS$ 3,893 (2021)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nPostal code21x xx\n\nArea code412\n\nLicence plate21\n\nWebsitehttps://www.diyarbakir.bel.tr/en/\n\nDiyarbakır[a] is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey.[8] It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. It is considered one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, having been continually inhabited since c. 8,000 BCE.\n\nSituated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province of southeastern Turkey. It is the second-largest city in the Southeastern Anatolia Region. As of December 2024, the Metropolitan Province population was 1,833,684, of whom 1,164,940 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of the four urban districts (Bağlar, Kayapınar, Sur and Yenişehir).\n\nDiyarbakır has been a main focal point of the conflict between the Turkish state and various Kurdish separatist groups, and is seen by many Kurds as the informal capital of Kurdistan.[9][10] The city was intended to become the capital of an independent Kurdistan following the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, but this was disregarded following subsequent political developments.[11][12][13]\n\nOn 6 February 2023 Diyarbakır was affected by the twin Turkey-Syria earthquakes, which inflicted some damage on its city walls.[14]\n\nNames and etymology\n\nIn ancient times the city was known as Amida, a name which could derive from an older Assyrian toponym Amedi.[15] The name Āmid was also used in Arabic.[16][17] The name Amit is found in official documents of the Empire of Trebizond from 1358.[18]\n\nAfter the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, the city became known as Diyar Bakr (Arabic: ديار بكر, romanized: Diyār Bakr, lit. 'the abode of [the tribe of] Bakr'), in reference to the territory of the Banu Bakr tribe, the Diyar Bakr.[17][19][20] That tribe had already settled in northern Mesopotomia during the pre-Islamic period. In the 7th century, during the caliphate of Uthman and under the regional governorship of Mu'awiya, a portion of the tribe was ordered to settle further north in the lands near the city.[17] The city was later also known in Turkish as Kara Âmid (\"Black Amid\"), on account of its black basalt walls.[21]\n\nIn November 1937, Turkish President Atatürk visited the city and after expressing uncertainty on the exact etymology of the city's name, \"Diyarbekir\", in December of the same year ordered that it be renamed \"Diyarbakır\", which means \"land of copper\" in Turkish after the abundant resources of copper around the city.[22] This was one of the early examples of the Turkification process of non-Turkish place names, in which non-Turkish (Greek, Kurdish, Armenian, Arabic and other) geographical names were changed to Turkish alternatives.[23][24]\n\nThe Armenian name of the city is Tigranakert/Dikranagerd (Տիգրանակերտ), in reference to the ancient capital of Tigranocerta founded by Tigranes the Great nearby.[25][26] It is known as Amed in Kurdish[27] and in Syriac as ܐܡܝܕ (Āmīd).[28]\n\nHistory\n\nAntiquity\n\nPeople have inhabited the area around Diyarbakır since the Stone Age. The first major civilization to establish itself in the region of Diyarbakır was the Hurrian kingdom of the Mitanni. It was then ruled by a succession of nearly every polity that controlled Upper Mesopotamia, including the Arameans, Assyrians, Urartu, Armenians, Achaemenid Persians, Medes, Seleucids, and Parthians.[29] The Roman Republic gained control of the city in 66 BC, by which stage it was named \"Amida\".[30] In 359, Shapur II of Persia captured Amida after a siege of 73 days.[31][32]\n\nAccording to the Synecdemus of Hierocles, as Amida, Diyarbakır was the major city of the Roman province of Mesopotamia.[33] It was the episcopal see of the Christian diocese of Mesopotamia.[33] Ancient texts record that ancient Amida had an amphitheatre, thermae (public baths), warehouses, a tetrapylon monument, and Roman aqueducts supplying and distributing water.[34] The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus was serving in the late Roman army during the Siege of Amida by the Sasanian Empire under Shapur II (r. 309-379), and described the successful siege in detail.[34] Amida was then enlarged by refugees from ancient Nisibis (Nusaybin), which the emperor Jovian (r. 363-364) was forced to evacuate and cede to Shapur's Persians after the defeat of his predecessor Julian's Persian War, becoming the main Roman stronghold in the region.[34] The chronicle attributed to Joshua the Stylite describes the capture of Amida by the Persians under Kavad I (r. 488-531) in the second Siege of Amida in 502-503, part of the Anastasian War.[34]\n\nEither the emperor Anastasius Dicorus (r. 491-518) or the emperor Justinian the Great (r. 527-565) rebuilt the walls of Amida, a feat of defensive architecture praised by the Greek historian Procopius.[34] As recorded by the works of John of Ephesus, Zacharias Rhetor, and Procopius, the Romans and Persians continued to contest the area, and in the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628 Amida was captured and held by the Persians for twenty-six years, being recovered in 628 for the Romans by the emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641), who also founded a church in the city on his return to Constantinople (Istanbul) from Persia the following year.[33][34]\n\nEcclesiastical history\n\nSyriac Christianity took hold in the region between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, particularly amongst the Assyrians of the city. The Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II (408-450) divided the Roman province of Mesopotamia into two, and made Amida the capital of Mesopotamia Prima, and thereby also the metropolitan see for all the province's bishoprics.[35]\n\nAt some stage, Amida became a see of the Armenian Church. The bishops who held the see in 1650 and 1681 were in full communion with the Holy See, and in 1727 Peter Derboghossian sent his profession of faith to Rome. He was succeeded by two more bishops of the Armenian Catholic Church, Eugenius and Ioannes of Smyrna, the latter of whom died in Constantinople in 1785. After a long vacancy, three more bishops followed.[36][37][38][39][40] The diocese had some 5,000 Armenian Catholics in 1903,[41] but it lost most of its population in the 1915 Armenian genocide. The last diocesan bishop of the see, Andreas Elias Celebian, was killed with some 600 of his flock in the summer of 1915.[36][37][38][39]\n\nAn eparchy for the local members of the Syriac Catholic Church was established in 1862. Persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War brought an end to the existence of both these Syrian residential sees.[36][37][42][43]\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nIn 639, as part of the Muslim conquest of the Levant during the early Arab-Byzantine wars, Amida fell to the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate led by Iyad ibn Ghanm, and the Great Mosque of Amida was constructed afterwards in the city's centre, possibly on the site of the Heraclian Church of Saint Thomas.[33][34][32] There were as many as five Christian monasteries in the city, including the Zuqnin Monastery and several ancient churches mentioned by John of Ephesus.[34] One of these, the Church of the Virgin Mary, remains the city's cathedral and the see of the bishop of Diyarbakır in the Syriac Orthodox Church.[34] Another ancient church, the Church of Mar Cosmas, was seen by the British explorer Gertrude Bell in 1911 but was destroyed in 1930, while the former Church of Saint George, in the walled citadel, may originally have been built for Muslim use or for the Church of the East.[34]\n\nThe city was part of the Umayyad Caliphate and then the Abbasid Caliphate, but then came under more local rule until its recovery in 899 by forces loyal to the caliph al-Mu'tadid (r. 892-902) before falling under the sway of first the Hamdanid dynasty and then the Buyid dynasty, followed by a period of control by the Marwanids.\n\nFrom 983 to 1085, the Diyar Bakr region, including the city of Amida, was ruled by the Marwanid dynasty, a Kurdish dynasty, between 990 and 1085.[44] The dynasty's foundation was laid by a chief from the Bohtan (Botkhti) tribe named Badh ibn Dustak, who captured Mayyafariqin (modern Silvan) and later Amida. After Badh was killed in 990, he was succeeded by his nephew, al-Hasan ibn Marwan, the son of his sister and a man named Marwan. Al-Hasan is considered the true founder of the dynasty that bears his father's name.[45] The Marwanid emirate reached its apogee under the 50-year reign of Nasr al-Dawla Ahmad (1011-1061). This period is remembered as one of peace, prosperity, and cultural flourishing. Nasr al-Dawla was a skilled diplomat, balancing relations with the era's great powers; the Buyid Emirs, the Fatimid Caliphs, and the Byzantine Empire, all of whom sent envoys and recognized his rule. The Marwanid court, based primarily in Mayyafariqin and Amida, fostered a \"pluralistic political rhetoric\" that allowed for the coexistence of different ethnic and religious groups, attracting migration from surrounding regions. This period saw extensive public works, and Nasr al-Dawla left monumental inscriptions, still visible, on the Roman walls of Amida. \n\nThe city was taken by the Seljuks in 1085 and by the Ayyubids in 1183. Ayyubid control lasted until the Mongol invasions of Anatolia, with its last Ayyubid ruler Al-Kamil Muhammad. The Mongols of Hulagu captured of the city in 1260 (Siege of Mayyāfāriqīn), following a long siege with a small Mongol force and a much larger Georgian and Armenian force under the Georgian leader Hasan Brosh.[46] Between the Mongol occupation and conquest by the Safavid dynasty of Iran, the Kara Koyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu - two Turkoman confederations - were in control of the city in succession. Diyarbakır was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1514 by Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, in the reign of the sultan Selim I (r. 1512-1520). Mohammad Khan Ustajlu, the Safavid governor of Diyarbakir, was evicted from the city and killed in the following Battle of Chaldiran in 1514.[47][48] \n\nSafavids and Ottomans\n\nThe Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire saw it expand into Western Armenia and all but the eastern regions of Kurdistan at the expense of the Safavids. From the early 16th century, the city and the wider region was the source of intrigue between the Safavids and the Ottoman Empire, both of whom sought the support of the Kurdish chieftains around Idris Bitlisi.[47] It was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1514 in the campaigns of Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, under the rule of Sultan Selim I. Mohammad Khan Ustajlu, the Safavid Governor of Diyarbakir, was evicted from the city and killed in the following Battle of Chaldiran in 1514.[47]\n\nFollowing their victory, the Ottomans established the Diyarbekir Eyalet with its administrative centre in Diyarbakır. The Eyalet of Diyarbakır corresponded to today's Turkish Kurdistan, a rectangular area between the Lake Urmia to Palu and from the southern shores of Lake Van to Cizre and the beginnings of the Syrian Desert, although its borders saw some changes over time. The city was an important military base for controlling the region and at the same time a thriving city noted for its craftsmen, producing glass and metalwork. For example, the doors of Rumi's tomb in Konya were made in Diyarbakır, as were the gold and silver decorated doors of the tomb of Ebu Hanife in Baghdad. Ottoman rule was confirmed by the 1555 Peace of Amasya which followed the Ottoman-Safavid War (1532-1555).\n\nConcerned with independent-mindedness of the Kurdish principalities, the Ottomans sought to curb their influence and bring them under the control of the central government in Constantinople. However, removal from power of these hereditary principalities led to more instability in the region from the 1840s onwards. In their place, sufi sheiks and religious orders rose to prominence and spread their influence throughout the region. One of the prominent Sufi leaders was Shaikh Ubaidalla Nahri, who began a revolt in the region between Lakes Van and Urmia. The area under his control covered both Ottoman and Qajar territories. Shaikh Ubaidalla is regarded as one of the earliest proponents of Kurdish nationalism. In a letter to a British Vice-Consul, he declared: \"The Kurdish nation is a people apart... we want our affairs to be in our hands.\"\n\nIn 1895 an estimated 25,000 Armenians and Assyrians were massacred in Diyarbekir Vilayet, including in the city.[49] At the turn of the 19th century, the Christian population of the city was mainly made up of Armenians and Syriac Orthodox Christians.[50] The city was also a site of ethnic cleansing during the 1915 Armenian and Assyrian genocide (see: 1915 genocide in Diyarbekir); nearly 150,000 were expelled from the city to the death marches in the Syrian Desert.[51]\n\nRepublic of Turkey\n\nIn January 1928, Diyarbakır became the center of the First Inspectorate-General, a regional subdivision for an area containing the provinces of Hakkari, Van, Şırnak, Mardin, Siirt, Bitlis and Şanlıurfa. In a reorganization of the provinces in 1952, Diyarbakır city was made the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province. In 1993, Diyarbakir was established as a Metropolitan Municipality.[52] Its districts are Bağlar, Bismil, Ergani, Hazro, Kayapinar, Çermik, Çinar, Eğil, Dicle, Kulp, Kocaköy, Lice, Silvan, Sur, Yenişehir, Hani and Çüngüş.[53]\n\nThe American-Turkish Pirinçlik Air Force Base near Diyarbakır was operational from 1956 to 1997.\n\nDiyarbakır has seen much violence in recent years, involving Turkish security forces, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[54][55][56] Between 8 November 2015 and 15 May 2016 large parts of Sur were destroyed in fighting between the Turkish military and the PKK.[57] In early November 2015, Kurdish lawyer and human rights activist Tahir Elçi was killed in the Sur district during a press statement in which he had been calling for a de-escalation in violence between the PKK and the Turkish state.[58]\n\nA 2018 report by Arkeologlar Derneği İstanbul found that, since 2015, 72% of the city's historic Sur district had been destroyed through demolition and redevelopment, and that laws designed to protect historic monuments had been ignored. They found that the city's \"urban regeneration\" policy was one of demolition and redevelopment rather than one of repairing cultural assets damaged during the recent civil conflict, and because of that many registered historic buildings had been completely destroyed. The extent of the loss of non-registered historic structures is unknown because any historic building fragments revealed during the demolition of modern structures were also demolished.[59] As of 2021, large parts of the city and district were restored and government officials were looking towards tourism again.[60][61][62][32]\n\nMany residences and buildings collapsed or suffered substantial damage in the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes around 200 miles (300 km) from the epicentre.[63][64][65] A Turkish professor and former journalist from the country commented, \"It is like having an epicenter of an earthquake in Harrisburg and buildings in New York City are collapsing.\"[66]\n\nSports\n\nThe most notable football clubs of the city are Diyarbakırspor (established 1968) and Amed S.F.K. (established 1990),[67] with Deniz Naki being one of the most notable footballers from the city. The women's football team Amed S.K. were promoted at the end of the 2016-17 Turkish Women's Second Football League season to the Women's First League.[68] Diyarbakırspor competed in the Süper Lig for 11 seasons, and Amed S.F.K. tried to repeat this success by advancing to the TFF 1. Lig in the 2023-24 season.\n\nPolitics\n\nIn the 2014 local elections, Gültan Kışanak and Fırat Anlı of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were elected co-mayors of Diyarbakır. However, on 25 October 2016, both were detained by Turkish authorities \"on thinly supported charges of being a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)\".[69] The Turkish government ordered a general internet blackout after the arrest.[70] Nevertheless, on 26 October, several thousand demonstrators at Diyarbakir city hall demanded the mayors' release.[69] Some days later, the Turkish government appointed an unelected state trustee as the mayor.[71] In November, public prosecutors demanded a 230-year prison sentence for Kışanak.[72]\n\nIn January 2017, the un-elected state trustee appointed by the Turkish government ordered the removal of the Assyrian sculpture of a mythological winged bull from the town hall, which had been erected by the BDP mayors to commemorate the Assyrian history of the town and its still resident Assyrian minority. All Kurdish language street signs were also removed, alongside the shutting down of organisations concerned with Kurdish language and culture, removal of Kurdish names from public parks, and removal of Kurdish cultural monuments and linguistic symbols.[73][74]\n\nIn the 2019 municipal elections, Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı of the HDP party was elected mayor of Diyarbakir.[75] In August 2019 he was dismissed and subsequently sentenced to 9 years and 4 months imprisonment accused of supporting terrorism as part of a government crackdown against politicians of the Kurdish HDP party; the Turkish state appointed Münir Karaloğlu in his place.[76] Other Kurdish mayors in Kurdish cities across the region also suffered a similar fate, with Turkish President Erdoğan vowing to remove any future Kurdish mayors too.[77][78] Protests against the decision arose which were suppressed by the Turkish police with the use of water cannons; some protestors were killed.[79][80][81] Diyarbakır's prison has become home to many political prisoners, mainly Kurdish activists and politicians accused of terrorism charges by the Turkish state. Inmates have been subject to torture, rape, humiliation, beating, murder and other abuses.[82]\n\nEconomy\n\nHistorically, Diyarbakır produced wheat and sesame.[83][84] They would preserve the wheat in warehouses, with coverings of straw and twigs from licorice trees. This system would allow the wheat to be preserved for up to ten years.[83][32] In the late 19th and early 20th century, Diyarbakır exported raisins, almonds, and apricots to Europe.[84] Angora goats were raised, and wool and mohair was exported from Diyarbakır. Merchants would also come from Egypt, Istanbul, and Syria, to purchase goats and sheep.[85] Honey was also produced, but not so much exported, but used by locals. Sericulture was observed in the area, too.[86]\n\nPrior to World War I, Diyarbakır had an active copper industry, with six mines. Three were active, with two being owned by locals and the third being owned by the Turkish government. Tenorite was the primary type of copper mined. It was mined by hand by Kurds. A large portion of the ore was exported to England. The region also produced iron, gypsum, coal, chalk, lime, jet, and quartz, but primarily for local use.[87]\n\nThe city is served by Diyarbakır Airport and Diyarbakır railway station. In 1935 the railway between Elazığ and Diyarbakır was inaugurated.[88]\n\nN City AVM, a shopping mall opened in 2010, ceased operating in February 2026 and is being converted into a furniture retail center.[89]\n\nDemographics\n\nAt the turn of the 19th century, the Christian population of the city was mainly made up of Armenians and Assyrians.[50] The Assyrian and Armenian presence dates to antiquity.[90] There was also a small Jewish community in the city.[91] All Christians spoke Armenian and Kurdish. Notables spoke Turkish. In the streets, the language was Kurdish.[92] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica from 1911, the population numbered 38 thousand, almost half being Christian and consisting of \"Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Turkomans, Armenians, Chaldeans, Jacobites, and a few Greeks\".[93] During the Governorship of Mehmed Reshid in the Vilayet of Diyarbakır, the Armenian population of Diyarbakir was resettled and exterminated.[94]\n\nAfter World War II, as the Kurdish population moved from the villages and mountains to urban centres, Diyarbakir's Kurdish population continued to grow.[95] Diyarbakır grew from a population of 30,000 in the 1930s to 65,000 by 1956, to 140,000 by 1970, to 400,000 by 1990,[96] and eventually swelled to about 1.5 million by 1997.[97] During the 1990s, the city grew dramatically due to the immigrant population from thousands of Kurdish villages depopulated by Turkey during the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.[98]\n\nAccording to a November 2006 survey by the Sûr Municipality, 72% of the inhabitants of the municipality use Kurdish most often in their daily speech due to the overwhelming Kurdish majority in the city, followed by minorities of Assyrian, Armenian and Turkish.[99]\n\nThere are some Alevi Turkmen villages around Diyarbakır's old city, but there are no official reports about their population numbers.[91][100]\n\nThere have been attempts by Turkish lawmakers to deny Diyarbakır's Kurdish majority identity,[101] with Turkey's Education Ministry releasing a school book named \"Our City, Diyarbakir\" (\"Şehrimiz Diyarbakır\" in Turkish) on Diyarbakir Province in which it claims that a Turkish similar to that spoken in Baku is spoken in the city along with regional languages like Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Turkmen and Caucasian languages.[102][99][103][104] Critics link this to a general trend towards anti-Kurdish sentiment in Turkey.[101]\n\nCulture\n\nThere is local jewelry making and other craftwork in the area. Folk dancing to the drum and zurna (pipe) are a part of weddings and celebrations in the area. The Diyarbakir Municipality Theatre was founded in 1990, and had to close its doors in 1995.[105] It was re-opened in 1999,[105] under Mayor Osman Baydemir. It was closed down in 2016 after the dismissal of the mayor in 2016.[106][107] The Municipality City Theatre also performed plays in the Kurdish language.[106][108]\n\nOne of the other common celebrations in Turkey is Nowruz. This celebration is done on the pretext of the beginning of spring and the beginning of the new year. The establishment of Nowruz has a long history, so much so that it has been celebrated in different parts of Asia for the past three thousand years, especially in the Middle East. In different parts of Turkey, especially the Kurdish regions of this country, Nowruz is considered one of the most important cultural and historical traditions of these regions. Lighting a fire, wearing new clothes, holding a dance ceremony, and giving gifts to each other are some of the activities that are done in this celebration.[32][109][110][111][112]\n\nCuisine\n\nDiyarbakır's cuisine includes lamb dishes which use spices such as black pepper, sumac and coriander; rice, bulgur and butter. Local dishes include Meftune, lamb meat and vegetables with garlic and sumac, and Kaburga Dolması, baked lamb's ribs stuffed with rice, almonds and spices.[113] Watermelons are grown locally and there is an annual Watermelon Festival.[114]\n\nMain sights\n\nThe core of Diyarbakır is surrounded by an almost intact set of high walls of black basalt forming a 5.5 km (3.4 mi) circle around the old city. There are four gates into the old city and 82 watch-towers on the walls, which were built in antiquity and restored and extended by the Roman emperor Constantius II in 349. The area inside the walls is known as the Sur district; before its recent demolition and redevelopment this district had 599 registered historical buildings.[59] Nearby is Karaca Dağ.\n\nMedieval mosques and medreses\n\nGreat Mosque of Diyarbakır built by the Seljuk Turkish Sultan Malik Shah in the 11th century. The mosque, one of the oldest in Turkey, is constructed in alternating bands of black basalt and white limestone (The same patterning is used in the 16th century Deliler Han Madrassah, which is now a hotel). The adjoining Mesudiye Medresesi/Medreseya Mesûdiyeyê was built at the same time, as was another prayer-school in the city, Zinciriye Medresesi/Medreseya Zincîriyeyê.\n\nBehram Pasha Mosque (Beharampaşa Camii/Mizgefta Behram Paşa) - an Ottoman mosque built in 1572 by the governor of Diyarbakır, Behram Pasha, noted for the well-constructed arches at the entrance.\n\nSheikh Matar Mosque with Dört Ayaklı Minare/Mizgefta Çarling (the Four-legged Minaret) - built by Kasim Khan of the Aq Qoyunlu.\n\nFatihpaşa Camii/Mizgefta Fetih Paşa - built in 1520 by Diyarbakır's first Ottoman governor, Bıyıklı Mehmet Paşa (\"the moustachioed Mehmet pasha\"). The city's earliest Ottoman building, it is decorated with fine tilework.\n\nHazreti Süleyman Mosque/Mizgefta Hezretî Silêman (1155-1169) Süleyman son of Halid Bin Velid, who died capturing the city from the Arabs, is buried here along with his companions.\n\nHüsrevpaşa Camii/Mizgefta Husrev Paşa - the mosque of the second Ottoman governor, 1512-1528. Originally the building was intended to be a school (medrese)\n\nİskender Paşa Camii/Mizgefta Îskender Paşa - a mosque of an Ottoman governor, in black and white stone, built in 1551.\n\nMelek Ahmet Camii/Melek Ahmed Paşa a 16th-century mosque with tiled prayer-niche and for the double stairway up the minaret.\n\nNebii Camii/Mizgefta Pêxember - an Aq Qoyunlu mosque, a single-domed stone construction from the 16th century. Nebi Camii means \"the mosque of the prophet\" and is named for the inscriptions in honour of the prophet on its minaret.\n\nSafa Camii/Mizgefta Palo - built in the middle of the 15th century under Uzun Hasan, ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep Turkomans) tribe[117] and restored in Ottoman time in 1532.\n\nChurches\n\nSt. Giragos Armenian Church - first built in 1519, the current structure is from 1883, and was recently restored after a long period of disuse.[118]\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church of Our Lady (Syriac: ܐ ܕܝܠܕܬ ܐܠܗܐ `Idto d-Yoldat Aloho, Turkish: Meryemana kilisesi), was first constructed as a pagan temple in the 1st century BC. The current construction dates back to the 3rd century, has been restored many times, and is still in use as a place of worship today.[119]\n\nMar Petyun (St. Anthony) Chaldean Catholic Church, built in 1681.[118]\n\nSurp Sarkis Chaldean Church[120]\n\nSt. Mary's Cathedral\n\nSt. George's Church\n\nMuseums\n\nThe Archaeological Museum contains artifacts from the Neolithic period, through the Early Bronze Age, Assyrian, Urartu, Roman, Byzantine, Artuqids, Seljuk Turk, Aq Qoyunlu, and Ottoman Empire periods.[32][121]\n\nCahit Sıtkı Tarancı Museum - the home of the late poet and a classic example of a traditional Diyarbakır home.\n\nZiya Gökalp Museum - the birthplace of poet Ziya Gökalp, preserved as a museum to his life and works.\n\nAhmet Arif Literature Museum Library\n\nOther historical buildings\n\nThe Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape, named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015.[122][123]\n\nHasan Pasha Han, a large 16th-century Ottoman caravanserai, now hosting shops and cafés.[124][125]\n\nDelliler Han, a caravanserai built in 1527, now used as a five-star hotel.[124][125]\n\nSülüklü Han, built circa 1680, now a popular café and meeting spot.[125]\n\nThe Dicle Bridge, an 11th-century bridge with ten arches.\n\nUrfa Kapi, Urfa Kapi (Urfa Gate) is one of the four main gates built in the 4th century Byzantine era city walls of Diyarbakir that leads the road from the west to the town of Urfa.[126]\n\nClimate\n\nDiyarbakır has a Mediterranean (Köppen climate classification: Csa) or an anomalously warm, hot-summer oceanic climate (Trewartha climate classification: Doa). Summers are very hot and very dry, due to its location on the Mesopotamian plain which is subject to hot air masses from the deserts of Syria and Iraq to the south. The highest recorded temperature was 46.2 °C (112.64 °F) on 21 July 1937. Winters are chilly with moderate precipitation and frosty nights. Snowfall is quite common between the months of December and March, snowing for a week or two. The lowest recorded temperature was -24.2 °C (-10.12 °F) on 11 January 1933. Highest recorded snow depth was 65 cm (25.6 inches) on 16 January 1971.\n\nClimate data for Diyarbakır (1991-2020, extremes 1929-2023)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n16.9\n(62.4)\n\n21.8\n(71.2)\n\n28.3\n(82.9)\n\n35.3\n(95.5)\n\n39.8\n(103.6)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\n46.2\n(115.2)\n\n45.9\n(114.6)\n\n42.2\n(108.0)\n\n35.7\n(96.3)\n\n28.4\n(83.1)\n\n22.5\n(72.5)\n\n46.2\n(115.2)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n7.3\n(45.1)\n\n9.6\n(49.3)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n20.5\n(68.9)\n\n26.8\n(80.2)\n\n34.4\n(93.9)\n\n38.9\n(102.0)\n\n38.7\n(101.7)\n\n33.4\n(92.1)\n\n25.7\n(78.3)\n\n16.3\n(61.3)\n\n9.2\n(48.6)\n\n23.0\n(73.4)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n2.1\n(35.8)\n\n3.8\n(38.8)\n\n8.7\n(47.7)\n\n13.5\n(56.3)\n\n18.9\n(66.0)\n\n26.3\n(79.3)\n\n31.0\n(87.8)\n\n30.5\n(86.9)\n\n25.0\n(77.0)\n\n17.8\n(64.0)\n\n9.3\n(48.7)\n\n3.8\n(38.8)\n\n15.9\n(60.6)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-2.0\n(28.4)\n\n-1.1\n(30.0)\n\n2.6\n(36.7)\n\n6.6\n(43.9)\n\n10.9\n(51.6)\n\n16.8\n(62.2)\n\n21.7\n(71.1)\n\n21.2\n(70.2)\n\n15.9\n(60.6)\n\n10.4\n(50.7)\n\n3.8\n(38.8)\n\n-0.5\n(31.1)\n\n8.9\n(48.0)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-24.2\n(-11.6)\n\n-21.0\n(-5.8)\n\n-14.0\n(6.8)\n\n-6.1\n(21.0)\n\n0.8\n(33.4)\n\n1.8\n(35.2)\n\n9.9\n(49.8)\n\n11.4\n(52.5)\n\n4.0\n(39.2)\n\n-1.8\n(28.8)\n\n-12.9\n(8.8)\n\n-23.4\n(-10.1)\n\n-24.2\n(-11.6)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n63.6\n(2.50)\n\n66.8\n(2.63)\n\n67.5\n(2.66)\n\n63.1\n(2.48)\n\n50.0\n(1.97)\n\n10.8\n(0.43)\n\n1.0\n(0.04)\n\n0.4\n(0.02)\n\n8.4\n(0.33)\n\n37.3\n(1.47)\n\n54.3\n(2.14)\n\n75.3\n(2.96)\n\n498.5\n(19.63)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n10.93\n\n11.27\n\n11.13\n\n11.6\n\n9.47\n\n2.9\n\n0.4\n\n0.23\n\n1.37\n\n5.83\n\n7.43\n\n11.33\n\n83.9\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n4.5\n\n3.2\n\n1.1\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0.4\n\n1.6\n\n10.8\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n76.4\n\n71.8\n\n66.4\n\n65.1\n\n57.3\n\n34.4\n\n25.2\n\n24.7\n\n30.6\n\n47.7\n\n64.7\n\n76.5\n\n53.3\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n124.0\n\n135.6\n\n173.6\n\n210.0\n\n282.1\n\n348.0\n\n362.7\n\n341.0\n\n279.0\n\n220.1\n\n165.0\n\n114.7\n\n2,755.8\n\nMean daily sunshine hours\n\n4.0\n\n4.8\n\n5.6\n\n7.0\n\n9.1\n\n11.6\n\n11.7\n\n11.0\n\n9.3\n\n7.1\n\n5.5\n\n3.7\n\n7.5\n\nSource 1: Turkish State Meteorological Service[127]\n\nSource 2: NOAA (humidity, 1991-2020),[128] Meteomanz(snow days 2000-2023)[129]\n\nNotable people\n\nSee Category:People from Diyarbakır\n\nAëtius of Amida, (5th century to mid-6th century) a Greek medical writer and court physician at Constantinople.[130][131][132]\n\nAyşe Şan, one of the most legendary voices in contemporary Kurdish music[133][134][135]\n\nHakki Akdeniz, american restaurateur\n\nAbdülkadir Aksu, former interior minister\n\nAhmed Arif, poet\n\nPınar Ayhan, singer, Turkish representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2000\n\nMucahit Bilici, american Muslim sociologist,\n\nGamze Cizreli, Turkish entrepreneur and businessperson\n\nAziz Yıldırım, old President of Fenerbahçe S.K. sports club\n\nCahit Sıtkı Tarancı, poet\n\nCihan Haspolatlı, footballer for Galatasaray S.K.\n\nEphraim of Amida, Chalcedonian Christian theologian, comes orientis (523-524; 526) and patriarch of Antioch (527-545).[136]\n\nGazi Yaşargil, medical scientist and neurosurgeon\n\nHesenê Metê, writer\n\nHovsep Pushman, Armenian-American painter\n\nHikmet Çetin, former foreign minister and former NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan\n\nAzad Zal poet, writer, journalist, translator and linguist of Kurdish origin.\n\nLeyla Zana, politician\n\nYekta Uzunoglu,[137] writer, physician, human rights fighter, translator and entrepreneur.\n\nLokman Polat, writer\n\nAgop Handanyan, physician and writer\n\nMehmed Emin Bozarslan, writer\n\nKevork Malikyan, actor\n\nNaum Faiq, Assyrian writer and founding father of modern Assyrian nationalism\n\nOsman Baydemir: Kurdish politician\n\nRupen Zartarian, Armenian writer\n\nRojen Barnas, writer\n\nSongül Öden, actress\n\nSüleyman Nazif, poet\n\nZiya Gökalp, sociologist and writer (the Ziyagökalp neighborhood of the city is named after him, as well as many streets and schools)\n\nMıgırdiç Margosyan, writer\n\nCoşkun Sabah, musician\n\nSayf al-Din al-Amidi, Islamic theologian and legal scholar of the Shafi'i school\n\nZabelle C. Boyajian, Armenian painter and writer\n\nÇiğdem Toker, Turkish investigative journalist\n\nSee also\n\nDiyarbakır (electoral district)\n\nKitab-i Diyarbakriyya\n\nBozulus\n\nAnother Look at East and Southeast Turkey\n\nNowruz\n\nTurkish Kurdistan\n\nNotes\n\n^ Arabic: ديار بكر, romanized: Diyār Bakr, Kurdish: Amed,[3] Zaza: Diyarbekir,[4] Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: Amedi or Amedu,[5] Armenian: Տիգրանակերտ, romanized: Tigranakert;[6] Syriac: ܐܡܝܕ, romanized: Āmīd.[7]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Turkey: Administrative Division (Provinces and Districts) - Population Statistics, Charts and Map\". www.citypopulation.de.\n\n^ \"Statistics by Theme > National Accounts > Regional Accounts\". www.turkstat.gov.tr. Retrieved 11 May 2023.\n\n^ Avcýkýran, Dr. Adem (ed.). \"Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî\" (PDF). Tirsik. p. 55. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 January 2020. Retrieved 17 December 2019.\n\n^ Zazaca -Türkçe Sözlük, R. Hayıg-B. Werner\n\n^ Bryce, Trevor (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia (PDF). Routledge. p. 38.\n\n^ Western Armenian pronunciation: Dikranagerd; Hovannisian, Richard G. (2006). Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-56859-153-7. The city that later generations of Armenians would call Dikranagerd was actually ancient Amid or Amida (now Diyarbekir or Diyarbakır), a great walled city with seventy-two towers...\n\n^ Payne Smith (Mrs. Margoliouth), J. (1903). A Compendious Syriac dictionary, founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith, D.D. Clarendon Press. p. 19.\n\n^ Bois, Th; Minorsky, V.; MacKenzie, D. N. (24 April 2012). \"Kurds, Kurdistān\". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.\n\n^ \"Tensions increase as already fragile Kurdish peace process faulters in Turkey\". Middle East Eye.\n\n^ Nordland, Rod (24 December 2016). \"An Aleppo-like Landscape in a Kurdish Redoubt of Turkey\". The New York Times.\n\n^ Kubilay, Arin (26 March 2015). \"Turkey and the Kurds - From War to Reconciliation?\".\n\n^ Köksal, Yonca (2005). \"Hakan Özoğlu. Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries\". New Perspectives on Turkey. 32: 227-230. doi:10.1017/s0896634600004180. ISSN 0896-6346. S2CID 148060175.\n\n^ Şerif Paşa. Memorandum on the claims of the Kurd people. OCLC 42520854.\n\n^ \"Earthquakes batter Turkey, Syria's historical monuments\". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.\n\n^ Comfort, Anthony; Marciak, Michał (2018). How did the Persian King of Kings Get His Wine? The upper Tigris in antiquity (c. 700 BCE to 636 CE). Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. pp. 123-124. ISBN 978-1-78491-957-3.\n\n^ Sinclair, T. A. (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume III. Pindar Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-907132-34-9.\n\n^ a b c Canard, M.; Cahen, Cl.; Yinanç, Mükrimin H. & Sourdel-Thomine, J. (1965). \"Diyār Bakr\". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C-G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 343-347. OCLC 495469475.\n\n^ Zehiroglu, Ahmet M.; \"Trabzon Imparatorlugu\" 2016 (ISBN 978-605-4567-52-2); p. 223\n\n^ Suwaed, Muhammad (2015). Historical Dictionary of the Bedouins. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-4422-5451-0.\n\n^ M. Bloom, Jonathan; S. Blair, Sheila, eds. (2009). \"Diyarbakır\". The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530991-1.\n\n^ Lipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Peeters Publishers. p. 136. ISBN 978-90-429-0859-8.\n\n^ See Üngör, Uğur (2011), The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 244. ISBN 0-19-960360-X.\n\n^ Nişanyan, Sevan (2010). Adını unutan ülke: Türkiye'de adı değiştirilen yerler sözlüğü (1. basım ed.). İstanbul: Everest Yayınları. ISBN 978-975-289-730-4. OCLC 670108399.\n\n^ Joost Jongerden; Jelle Verheij, eds. (2012). Social relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-23227-3. OCLC 808419956.\n\n^ Western Armenian pronunciation: Dikranagerd; Hovannisian, Richard G. (2006). Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-56859-153-7. The city that later generations of Armenians would call Dikranagerd was actually ancient Amid or Amida (now Diyarbekir or Diyarbakır), a great walled city with seventy-two towers...\n\n^ Yeranyan, Gor (2021). \"Ամիդը Տիգրանակերտ կոչելու հայկական ավանդույթը [The Armenian Tradition of Calling Amid Tigranakert]\". Banber Matenadarani (in Armenian). 32: 52-66. ISSN 1829-054X.\n\n^ Adem Avcıkıran (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez Anamneza bi Kurmancî (in Turkish and Kurdish). p. 55.\n\n^ Smith, J. Payne. \"ܐܡܝܕ\". Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1903.\n\n^ Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites, 1999 p. 137\n\n^ Theodor Mommsen History of Rome, The Establishment of the Military Monarchy. Italian.classic-literature.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-05-13.\n\n^ The Eye of Command, Kimberly Kagan, p. 23\n\n^ a b c d e f Ahmady, Kameel 2009: Another Look at East and Southeast Turkey. GABB Publication, Diyarbakır. p. 200.\n\n^ a b c d Nicholson, Oliver (2018). Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). \"Mesopotamia, Roman\". The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8. Retrieved 28 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018). Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). \"Amida\". The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8. Retrieved 28 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Edwards, Robert W. (2016). \"Diyarbakır\". In Paul Corby Finney (ed.). The Eerdmans Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8028-9016-0.\n\n^ a b c Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 456\n\n^ a b c Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Complementi, Leipzig 1931, p. 93\n\n^ a b F. Tournebize, v. Amid ou Amida, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XII, Paris 1953, coll. 1246-1247\n\n^ a b Hovhannes J. Tcholakian, L'église arménienne catholique en Turquie, 1998\n\n^ Arango, Tim (23 April 2015). \"Hidden Armenians of Turkey Seek to Reclaim Their Erased Identities\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ Annuaire Pontifical Catholique, 1903, p. 173.\n\n^ S. Vailhé, Antioche. Patriarcat syrien-catholique, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Vol. I, Paris 1903, coll. 1433\n\n^ O. Werner, Orbis terrarum catholicus, Freiburg 1890, p. 164\n\n^ Hillenbrand, Carole (1991). \"Marwānids\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VI: Mahk-Mid. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 626. ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.\n\n^ Blaum, Paul A. (1993). \"A History of the Kurdish Marwanid Dynasty, A.D. 983-1085, Part II\". The International Journal of Kurdish Studies. 6 (1/2): 40-D - via ProQuest.\n\n^ Sicker, Martin (2000). The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-313-00111-6.\n\n^ a b c Özoğlu, Hakan (2004). Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries. SUNY Press. pp. 47-49. ISBN 978-0-7914-5993-5.\n\n^ \"Battle of Chaldiran | Summary | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 16 August 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ Gunter, Michael (1999). The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq: A Political Analysis. St. Martin's Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-312-21896-6.\n\n^ a b Joost Jongerden; Jelle Verheij (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. p. 20. ISBN 978-90-04-22518-3.\n\n^ Dumper, Michael (2007). Cities of The Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-57607-919-5.\n\n^ \"504 Sayılı Kanun Hükmünde Kararname | Kanunlar\". 3 February 2014. Archived from the original on 3 February 2014. Retrieved 10 November 2019.\n\n^ \"Diyarbakır Seçim Sonuçları - 31 Mart 2019 Yerel Seçimleri\". sabah.com.tr. Retrieved 10 November 2019.\n\n^ \"Death toll in HDP Diyarbakır rally rises to three - Turkey News\". Hürriyet Daily News. 10 June 2015. 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Etap projesi başladı yaklaşık 14 milyon liraya mal olacak olan restorasyon çalışmalarının 500 gün süreceği öğrenildi - Diyarbakır Haberleri\". 17 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Teröristlerin yıktığı Sur'u devlet ayağa kaldırdı\". 18 March 2021.\n\n^ Robles, Pablo; Chang, Agnes; Holder, Josh; Leatherby, Lauren; Reinhard, Scott; Wu, Ashley (6 February 2023). \"Mapping the Damage From the Earthquake in Turkey and Syria\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 February 2023.\n\n^ \"The earthquake's widespread destruction, in photos, maps and videos\". Washington Post. 6 February 2023. Retrieved 14 February 2023.\n\n^ Ozdal, Umit (6 February 2023). \"After huge Turkey quake, Diyarbakir residents pray for missing families\". Reuters. Retrieved 14 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Lebanon County professor reacts to deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria\". fox43.com. 7 February 2023. Retrieved 14 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Turkish court acquits German footballer Naki in Kurdish case\". BBC. 8 November 2016.\n\n^ \"are-your-ancesters-from-dikrranagerr\". westarmgen. 4 September 2018. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2018.\n\n^ a b \"Fury erupts after mayors detained in Turkey's Kurdish southeast\". Al-Monitor. 26 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Slowdown in access to social media in Turkey a 'security measure,' says PM\". Hurriyet Daily News. 4 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Turkey appoints trustee as Diyarbakir mayor after arrests\". France24. 1 November 2016. Archived from the original on 30 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Prosecutors demand 230 years prison sentences for ousted Diyarbakır Co-Mayor Kışanak\". Hurriyet Daily News. 29 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Turkey remove Assyrian sculpture from front of local city hall\". Almasdar News. 17 January 2017. Archived from the original on 14 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Kurdish language signs removed from Diyarbakır streets\". Ahval. Retrieved 20 February 2021.\n\n^ \"Diyarbakır Seçim Sonuçları - 31 Mart Diyarbakır Yerel Seçim Sonuçları\". secim.haberler.com (in Turkish). Retrieved 20 May 2019.\n\n^ \"Three pro-Kurdish mayors replaced in southeastern Turkey\". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 19 August 2019.\n\n^ \"Turkey: Kurdish Mayors' Removal Violates Voters' Rights\". Human Rights Watch. 7 February 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2021.\n\n^ \"Erdogan vows re-seizure of Kurdish municipalities should HDP win local elections\". www.kurdistan24.net. Retrieved 2 April 2021.\n\n^ \"Turkey: Police and militias killing of Kurdish protesters must be investigated and prosecuted\". Brill: Human Rights Documents online. doi:10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-0035-2014132.\n\n^ Gunes, Cengiz (1 January 2014). \"Kurdish Political Activism in Turkey: An Overview\". Singapore Middle East Papers. doi:10.23976/smep.2014008.\n\n^ \"Three pro-Kurdish mayors replaced in southeastern Turkey\". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 2 April 2021.\n\n^ Hakyemez, Serra (2017). \"Margins of the Archive: Torture, Heroism, and the Ordinary in Prison No. 5, Turkey\". Anthropological Quarterly. 90 (1): 107-138. doi:10.1353/anq.2017.0004. ISSN 1534-1518. S2CID 152237485.\n\n^ a b Prothero, W.G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 60.\n\n^ a b Prothero, W.G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 62.\n\n^ Prothero, W.G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 63.\n\n^ Prothero, W.G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 64.\n\n^ Prothero, W.G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 70.\n\n^ Kezer, Zeynep (2014). \"Spatializing Difference: The Making of an Internal Border in Early Republican Elazığ, Turkey\". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 73 (4): 516. doi:10.1525/jsah.2014.73.4.507. ISSN 0037-9808. JSTOR 10.1525/jsah.2014.73.4.507.\n\n^ \"Diyarbakır'ın en gözde AVM'lerinden biriydi: Kapandı\". Diyarbakir.Net (in Turkish). 25 February 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.\n\n^ Goodspeed, George (1902). A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, Volume 6.\n\n^ a b [1] Konu: Diyarbakır Tarihi ve Demografik Yapısı\n\n^ \"Kaza Diyarbekir / Diyarbakır / Āmīd / Omīd ܐܡܝܕ\". Virtual Genocide Memorial. Retrieved 18 September 2023.\n\n^ Maunsell, Francis Richard (1911). \"Diarbekr\" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 167.\n\n^ Üngör, Ugur Ümit (2012). \"Rethinking the Violence of Pacification: State Formation and Bandits in Turkey, 1914-1937\". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 54 (4): 754. doi:10.1017/S0010417512000400. ISSN 0010-4175. JSTOR 23274550. S2CID 147038615.\n\n^ Metin Heper; Sabri Sayari (7 May 2013). The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey. Routledge. p. 247. ISBN 978-1-136-30964-9. It was thus only in recent times that Diyarbakır, the unofficial capital of Turkey's Kurdish area, became a predominantly Kurdish town.\n\n^ McDowall, David (2004). A Modern History of the Kurds. IB Tauris. p. 403. ISBN 978-1-85043-416-0.\n\n^ Kirişci, Kemal (June 1998). \"Turkey\". In Janie Hampton (ed.). Internally Displaced People: A Global Survey. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd. pp. 198, 199.\n\n^ Houston, Christopher (2005), \"Creating a Diaspora within a Country: Kurds in Turkey\", in Ember, Melvin; Ember, Carol R.; Skoggard, Ian (eds.), Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World, Boston, MA: Springer US, pp. 403-414, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-29904-4_40, ISBN 978-0-387-29904-4\n\n^ a b \"Belediye Diyarbakırlıyı tanıdı: Kürtçe konuşuyor\". Radikal (in Turkish). Dogan News Agency. 24 November 2006. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 6 August 2008.\n\n^ [2] Archived 21 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine Diyarbakır Alevi-Türkmen köyleri\n\n^ a b Yeğen, Mesut (April 1996). \"The Turkish state discourse and the exclusion of Kurdish identity\". Middle Eastern Studies. 32 (2): 216-229. doi:10.1080/00263209608701112. ISSN 0026-3206.\n\n^ Gazetesi, Evrensel. \"MEB'e göre Diyarbakır'da Kürtçe değil, Azericeye benzeyen bir Türkçe konuşuluyor\". Evrensel.net (in Turkish). Retrieved 23 March 2021.\n\n^ \"'Baku Turkish' spoken in Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır, according to Ministry\". Bianet - Bagimsiz Iletisim Agi. Retrieved 19 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Şehrimiz Diyarbakır\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 February 2021.\n\n^ a b Çelik, Duygu (2020). \"The Impact of the Dengbêjî Tradition on Kurdish Theater in Turkey\". Kurdish Art and Identity. De Gruyter. pp. 106-107. doi:10.1515/9783110599626-005. ISBN 978-3-11-059962-6. S2CID 241540342.\n\n^ a b Tzabiras, Marianna (5 January 2017). \"Turkey's state of emergency puts Kurdish theatre in a chokehold\". IFEX. Retrieved 16 August 2022.\n\n^ Çelik, Duygu Ç (7 September 2020). \"The Impact of the Dengbêjî Tradition on Kurdish Theater in Turkey\". Kurdish Art and Identity. De Gruyter. pp. 96-118. doi:10.1515/9783110599626-005. ISBN 978-3-11-059962-6. S2CID 241540342.\n\n^ Verstraete, Peter. \"'Acting' under Turkey's State of Emergency\" (PDF). University of Groningen. p. 64.\n\n^ Wilks, Andrew (29 March 2022). \"Possible closure of political party dampens Nowruz for Turkey's Kurds\". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ \"english.alarabiya.net/perspective/Nowruz-celebrations-in-Turkey\".\n\n^ United Nations. \"International Nowruz Day\". United Nations. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ \"Kurdish Activists Arrested in Turkey Ahead of Nowruz Celebrations\". VOA. 20 March 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ \"Selim Amca'nın Sofra Salonu\". Lonely Planet.\n\n^ \"Diyarbakır Culture and Watermelon Festival\". arastirma.tarimorman.gov.tr. Retrieved 9 September 2019.\n\n^ Sinclair, Thomas Alan (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural and Archaeological Survey, Volume III. The Pindar Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-1-904597-76-6.\n\n^ Eastmond, Antony (20 April 2017). Tamta's World. Cambridge University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-107-16756-8.\n\n^ Tile Revetments from the 15th Century in Eastern Anatolia : A Problem of Attribution, Khalida Mahi [Ancient Cities], 2011, [3]\n\n^ a b \"Diyarbakir - Other monuments\". romeartlover.tripod.com.\n\n^ \"To the caravanserai\". The Oldie. Retrieved 22 June 2021.\n\n^ \"Churches of Diyarbakir also expropriated\". Agos. 28 March 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2019.\n\n^ \"Historical Places in Diyarbakır | Diyarbakır Valiliği Kültür Turizm Proje Birimi\". www.diyarbakirkulturturizm.org. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ \"Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape\". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 9 September 2019.\n\n^ \"Historical Places to See in Diyarbakır\". flyista.com. Retrieved 6 October 2023.\n\n^ a b Bloom, Jonathan; Blair, Sheila (2009). Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art & Architecture: Three-Volume Set. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-19-530991-1.\n\n^ a b c \"The stop for tourist 'caravans': Hasan Paşa Hanı\". Dıyarbakir's Memory. 19 March 2020. Retrieved 8 May 2023.\n\n^ Parla, Canan (17 October 2019). \"Diyarbakır Artuklu Dönemi Urfa Kapısı'nın Figürlü Kabartmalarına İkonografik Yaklaşım\". Journal of Turkish Studies (in Turkish). 10 (6): 763-788. doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.8365.\n\n^ \n\"Resmi İstatistikler: İllerimize Ait Mevism Normalleri (1991-2020)\" (in Turkish). Turkish State Meteorological Service. Retrieved 28 June 2021.\n\n^ \"World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020: Diyarbakir-17280\" (CSV). National Centers for Environmental Information. Retrieved 2 August 2023.\n\n^ \"Diyarbakir - Weather data by months\". meteomanz. Retrieved 15 July 2024.\n\n^ Plant, Ian Michael (2004). Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-8061-3621-9. Aetius: A Greek from Amida (in Mesopotamia), who wrote on philosophy in the mid- sixth century AD in Alexandria.\n\n^ Meade, Richard Hardaway (1968). An introduction to the history of general surgery. Saunders. p. 108. OCLC 438114. Aetius of Amida, who lived in the sixth century A.D. and was the first Greek physician who was a Christian, had a chapter on aneurysms in his book on surgery.\n\n^ Pormann, Peter E. (2018). Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). \"Aëtius of Amida\". The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8. Retrieved 15 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Akyol, Hîlmî (2008). Çar gulên Amedê (in Kurdish). Turkey: Weşanên Do. p. 184. ISBN 978-994-41-0842-3.\n\n^ Gazetesi, Evrensel (18 December 2016). \"'Taçsız kraliçe': Ayşe Şan\". Evrensel.net (in Turkish). Retrieved 1 September 2021.\n\n^ Diken, Şeyhmus (2007). Amidalılar: sürgündeki Diyarbekirliler (in Turkish). Istanbul: İletişim. p. 165. ISBN 978-975-05-0493-8.\n\n^ Mellon Saint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole (2018). Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). \"Ephrem of Amida\". The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8. Retrieved 15 December 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ \"home\". Yekta Uzunoglu. Retrieved 10 August 2018.\n\nSources\n\nFaroqhi, Suraiya (2009). Frisch, Shelley (ed.). The Ottoman Empire: A Short History. Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55876-449-1.\n\nAhmady, Kameel (2009). Lim, Richard (ed.). Another Look at East and Southeast Turkey (in Turkish and English). Diyarbakir: GABB Publication. ISBN 978-605-60513-0-2.\n\nFurther reading\n\nCanard, M.; Cahen, Cl.; Yinanç, Mükrimin H. & Sourdel-Thomine, J. (1965). \"Diyār Bakr\". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C-G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. OCLC 495469475.\n\nVali, Vahab (2018). \"Diyār Bakr\". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica Online. Brill Online. ISSN 1875-9831.\n\nExternal links\n\n(in Turkish) Governorship of Diyarbakır\n\n(in Turkish) Diyarbakırspor funs, news, informarmation\n\n(in Turkish) Information on Diyarbakır\n\nOver 1000 well-organized pictures of major sights\n\n37°55′N 40°14′E / 37.91°N 40.24°E / 37.91; 40.24"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-diyarbakr"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 8444}, {"slug": "reference-dabke", "title": "Dabke", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Dabke (Arabic: دبكة also spelled dabka, dabki, dubki, dabkeh, plural dabkaat)[1] is a Levantine folk dance,[2][3] particularly popular among Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, and Syrian communities.[4] Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line forms from right to...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dabke\nدبكة\n\nPalestinian girls dancing traditional dabke\n\nMediumCircle dance and line dancing\n\nTypesVariations\n\nOriginating cultureLevantine\n\nDabke (Arabic: دبكة also spelled dabka, dabki, dubki, dabkeh, plural dabkaat)[1] is a Levantine folk dance,[2][3] particularly popular among Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, and Syrian communities.[4] Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line forms from right to left and the leader of the dabke heads the line, alternating between facing the audience and the other dancers.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe etymology of 'dabke' is uncertain but is thought to be derived from the Levantine Arabic word dabaka (Arabic: دبكة) meaning \"stamping of the feet\"[5] or \"to make a noise\".[6]\n\nHistory\n\nDepictions of Phoenicians dancing in a circular fashion have been found in Cyprus with images of a double-pipe aerophone and frame drum being present.[7]\n\nAccording to Youssef Ibrahim Yazbec, a Lebanese historian, journalist, and politician,[8] the dabke descends from Phoenician dances thousands of years old.[9] According to Palestinian folklorists Abdul-Latif Barghouthi and Awwad Sa'ud al-'Awwad, the dabke jumps may have originated in ancient Canaanite fertility rituals related to agriculture, chasing off evil spirits and protecting young plants.[10]\n\nAnother theory is that the stomping part of dabke started out as a way of solidifying roofs made of mud. People would stomp on the rooftops of houses together to help compress the material to compact it to prevent cracks from forming. This eventually evolved into the dancing form of dabke that is known today.[11]\n\nVariations\n\nDabke is popular across the Levant,[12] Each type of dabke dance has its own corresponding set of songs, the theme of which is often love [13] there are six main types of dabke:\n\nAl-Shamaliyya in Palestine (الشمالية): It consists of a lawweeḥ (لويح) at the head of a group of men holding hands and formed in a semicircle. The lawweeh is expected to be particularly skilled in accuracy, ability to improvise, and quickness (generally light on his feet). Typically, the dabke begins with a musician playing a solo on the mijwiz or yarghoul of a Dal Ouna piece, often with two singers accompanying his music. The dancers develop a synchronized movement and step and when the singers finish their song, the lawweeh breaks from the semicircle to dance on his own. When the leader of the dabke sees that the men's steps are one, in sync, he instructs the dancers to slow down and begin a movement crossing their right foot in front of the opposite one (their left foot). The lawweeh continues to inform the dancers of their basic rhythms, and at this point other guests at the wedding or event occurring will join in the dabke line. This is the most popular and familiar form of dabke danced for happy family celebrations, such as weddings, circumcisions, the return of travelers, release of prisoners, and also for national holidays, in which dabke becomes a demonstration of national personality.[14] It has six measure phrases.\n\nAl-Sha’rawiyya (الشعراوية): is limited to men and is characterized by strong steps or stomps. It is one of the simplest types of dabke and very close to the normal one. The lawweeh is the most important element in this type of dabke.[14] It has six measure phrases.\n\nAl-Karaadiyya (الكرادية) also known as Al-Ṭaiyyara (الطيارة): is characterized by a lack of a lawweeh and slow movement with an azif (عازف) (flute player) in the middle of the circle.[14] In Palestine, it is characterized by its fast rhythm in an open circle, and it is performed from left to right. It has square phrases (of four or eight measures).\n\nAl-Farah (الفره): is one of the most active types of dabke and therefore requires a high degree of physical fitness.[14]\n\nAl-Ghazal (الغزل): is characterized by three strong stomps of the right foot, and is usually tiring for those dancing.[14]\n\nRegional varieties\n\nThere are about twenty types of dabke, including but not limited to:[15]\n\nHabel Mwadea’ (حبل مودع): is the Jordanian dabke of any type performed by men and women jointly.[15]\n\nAl-Tas’awiyya (التسعاوية) also known as Al-Ma’aniyya (المعانية): It Is performed in Ma'an city in South Jordan.\n\nAl-Darrazi (الدرازي): It is played on Mijwiz, widely famous in Jordan and Palestine.\n\nAl-’Askariyya (العسكرية):\n\nAl-Joufiyya (الجوفية): it consists of two groups stand in opposition to each other: the first group sings and the second responses with Jordanian folkloric songs.\n\nAl-Ghawarneh (الغوارنة) also known as Deir ’Ala (دير علا): performed in Jordan Valley, and it's one of the fastest types of dabke.\n\nAbu ’Alanda (أبو علنده)\n\nAl-Aqabawiyya (العقباوية): It is performed in Aqaba in South Jordan.\n\nAl-Ramthawiyya (الرمثاوية): It is performed in Ar-Ramtha in North Jordan.\n\nAl-Sahja (السحجة): is a popular Palestinian and Jordanian dance. Al-Saḥja belongs mostly to northern and central Palestine, and in the south has two kinds: As-Samir (السامر) and Al-Dahiyya (الدحية). As-Samir's form involves 2 rows of men on opposite walls, competing with folk poetry, sometimes improvised and even exchanging insults, competing in cleverness of retorts. Al-Daḥiyya is a Bedouin version of the same kind in which there is a professional dancer that dances between the two opposing walls of men who are competing for her attention, and at times give her money. Al-Sahja usually occurs the night before the wedding party of the groom (zafat al-'arees), with most of the men in the village participating, especially those who will be attending or are directly involved in the other wedding festivities.\n\nAl-Daḥiyya (الدحية) limited to men: It is close to Al-sahja dance. It's performed by southern Palestinians and Southern Jordanians.\n\nAl-Ḥashi (الحاشي) limited to women\n\nAl-Farradiyya (الفرّادية) limited to women\n\nAl-Jamma’iyya (الجمّاعية) also limited to women\n\nAl-’Adiyya (العادية) also known as Al-Dalo’una (دبكة الدلعونا) is a type of dabke danced in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.[15]\n\nDabke niswaniyyah, danced specifically by women in Palestine.\n\nSong genres\n\nThere are numerous kinds of songs that are sung during and specifically for dabke, by both men and women respectively, depending on the occasion, song, and audience. Some of the most popular of these songs, such as Dal Ouna (دلعونا), Al Jafra (الجفرا), Al Daḥiyya (الدحية), and Ẓareef il-Ṭool (ظريف الطول), are actually entire genres in themselves, in the sense that lyrics can vary significantly in each performance but the basic rhythm of the music is consistent and recognizable. This variation can be seen in the hundreds of lyrical variations heard and recorded of these songs which regardless of specific lyrics, are recognized by their rhythm and at times, a single phrase, as in Ala Dal Ouna, Jafra, and others. For example, even though one might have heard Ala Dal Ouna sung previously telling a different story in this famous love song, people will still call another song ascribing to the same rhythm and theme as Dal Ouna.[16]\n\nThe majority of dabke music, being folk songs, is on maqam Bayati musical mode.\n\nInstruments\n\nThe Oud (عود), from which the English word \"lute\" comes, is shaped like half a pear with a short non-fretted neck. It has six courses of two strings and played with a plectrum, usually a trimmed eagle's feather. This instrument creates a deep and mellow sound.\n\nThe mijwiz (مجوز), which means \"double\" in Arabic, is very popular in Levantine music. It is a type of reed clarinet that is played by breathing smoothly through a circular aperture at the end and by moving the fingers over the holes down the front of the tube in order to create the different notes. The minjjayrah is similar to the mijwiz, an open ended reed flute played in the same style.\n\nThe ṭablah (طبلة) is a small hand-drum also known as the durbakke. Most tablahs are beautifully decorated, some with wood, tile or bone inlay, etched metal, or paintings in designs typical of the Near East. One of the most commonly played of the percussion instruments; the tablah is a membranophone of goat or fish skin stretched over a vase-shaped drum with a wide neck. Usually made of earthenware or metal, it is placed either under the left arm or between the legs and struck in the middle for the strong beats and on the edge for the sharp in-between beats. Though today fishskin heads are rarely used due to the climate. When the fishskin becomes loose, the drum head is heated to retighten the membrane, retune the instrument, and thus restore its correct sound. The membrane or head of the drum is now made out of plastic. The most commonly produced heads are from Alexandria, Egypt.\n\nThe daff (دف), also known as the Riq (رق), is similar to the tambourine. It consists of a round frame, covered on one side with goat or fish skin. Pairs of metal discs are set into the frame to produce the jingle when struck by the hand. The sounds of this percussion instrument set the rhythm of much Arab music, particularly in the performances of classical pieces.[17]\n\nThe arghul (يرغول), also known as the yarghoul, is commonly used in solos, often accompanied by singers, that begin dabke performances. Unlike the mijwiz, it only has finger holes in one of its pipes/reeds. (see Al-Shamaliyya, under Types).\n\nThe Shubabeh (شبابة) is a woodwind instrument traditionally made from reed cane. It differs from the Mijwiz and Arghul in that it does not have a reed, instead the musician blows against the side of the instrument at an angle to produce the tone. The Shubabeh is traditionally played by herders in the wilderness.\n\nCompetitions and performances\n\nDabke competitions or shows often consist of different cultural dances and various troupes performing dabke.\n\nMany universities host events called Arab Night or a title to that effect. When these shows occur, dabke is either performed on stage (inside or outside), in a hall on the floor, or outside on the floor. There are different steps that comprise the Dabke dance: the belbel, the inzel, shemmel and taxi; a combination of each of these steps as well as the occasional jump and turn make the dance complete.[18]\n\nIn America, the tradition has persisted and is held in the same kind of communal spaces as it would in the Levant. Dance music is also commonly played in America at Arab-community cultural centers and conventions such as Lebanese American festivals around the country and the annual convention hosted by the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine.[19]\n\nIn her study titled Syrian Radical Dabka, ethnomusicologist Shayna Silverstein described the changes in social interpretations and performances of dabke as performed in Syria. In the 20th century and beyond, dabke has both been interpreted as an element of nationalist ideologies or as a modern and aesthetic form of folk dance, performed by academically trained dancers from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts. To reinforce these interpretations and the continuation of dabke in rural as well as in urban settings, performances have been promoted countrywide by government-sponsored folk dance ensembles as well as in educational programs disseminated by the Ministry of Culture. Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, dabke performances as a manifestation of community gatherings have further accompanied protest meetings and demonstrations against the ruling government of Syria.[20]\n\nWorld records\n\nIn August 2011, a group in a Lebanese village Dhour El Choueir, Lebanon set a new world record. Organized by Dhour El Choueir Summer Festival, a human chain of 5,050 was made and currently holds the world record.[21] This event broke the record set by Tollab, the Lebanese Student Federation in Montreal, with the participation of \"La Troupe Folklorique Les Chevaliers du Liban\" that had made a human chain of 4,475 people dancing the dabke for more than five minutes straight at Montreal's Marcelin Wilson Park.[22][23] Tollab had itself broken a record of 2,743 set by a group of Israeli Arabs in Acre, Israel. An earlier record of 1,700 had been set in Toronto.[24]\n\nSee also\n\nHalay\n\nHora (dance)\n\nMiddle Eastern dance\n\nSirtaki\n\nSyrtos\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Stomps. Stciks . Spins : ARAB FOLK DANCE with KARIM NAGI : Dabke . Saidi . Sufi\". Karimnagi.com. Archived from the original on 2019-03-07. Retrieved 2017-01-07.\n\n^ *Veal, Michael E.; Kim, E. Tammy (2016). Punk Ethnography: Artists & Scholars Listen to Sublime Frequencies. Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819576545.\n\nKabir, Nahid (2012). Young American Muslims: Dynamics of Identity. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748669967.\n\nYork, Museum of the City of New (2002). A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815607397.\n\nStanton, Andrea L. (2012). Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia. SAGE. ISBN 9781412981767.\n\nArmstrong, Marian, ed. (2006). Peoples of Western Asia. Marshall Cavendish. p. 282. ISBN 9780761476771.\n\n\"Dabke\". Canadian Palestinian Association in Manitoba. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-06-29.\n\n^ Cohen, Dalia; Katz, Ruth (2006-01-16). Palestinian Arab Music: A Maqam Tradition in Practice. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-11298-5.\n\n^ Kassis, Reem (2023). We Are Palestinian: A Celebration of Culture and Tradition. Studio Press. ISBN 978-1800783287.\n\n^ Cohen, Dalia; Katz, Ruth (2006). Palestinian Arab Music: A Maqam Tradition in Practice. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226112985.\n\n^ The Arab World, Volume 8. Arab Information Center. 1962. But what is dabke and to which period can it be traced? According to Lebanese historian Youssef Ibrahim Yazbec, who is working on a book on folklore, the dabke comes from the Arabic dabaka meaning to make a noise. ... His theory is that the Phoenicians were the first teachers of the dance in the world, and the dabke is a representative descendant of the Phoenician dances left to us.\n\n^ \"The Dance: Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D.\" www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2023-05-30.\n\n^ Volk, Lucia (2010-10-21). Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-00492-5.\n\n^ The Arab World, Volume 8. Arab Information Center. 1962. But what is dabke and to which period can it be traced? According to Lebanese historian Youssef Ibrahim Yazbec, who is working on a book on folklore, the dabke comes from the Arabic dabaka meaning to make a noise. ... His theory is that the Phoenicians were the first teachers of the dance in the world, and the dabke is a representative descendant of the Phoenician dances left to us.\n\n^ Kaschl, Elke (2003). Dance and Authenticity in Israel and Palestine: Performing the Nation. Brill. p. 82. ISBN 9789004132382.\n\n^ Amawi, Sarah (2020-06-09). \"Dabke : from Social Dance to Political Stance\". Patrimoine d'Orient.\n\n^ Morris, Gay; Giersdorf, Jens Richard (n.d.). Choreographies of 21st Century Wars. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-020166-1 - via Google Books. Dabke is a folk dance \"made up of intricate steps and stomps\" (Rowe 2011, 364) performed by both men and women that is popular in areas such as Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. The dance is often performed at weddings and celebrations; however, it is also performed in theatrical or contemporary modes.\n\n^ Cohen, Katz, 2006, pp. 271-274.\n\n^ a b c d e (هشام عارف الموعد ومأمون احمد الموعد. فوكلور العرس و الغناء الشعبي: ليلة الحنا>.سلسلة التراث الشفوي الفلسطيني الجزء الأول.\n\n^ a b c \"كل الاردن\". Allofjo.net. Retrieved 2017-01-07.\n\n^ وليد ربيع, عبد العزيز ابوهذبا, عمر حمدان, محمد علي احمد. قرية ترمسعيا. \"الفصل العشرون - الاغاني\".\n\n^ Badley, Bill and Zein al Jundi. \"Europe Meets Asia\". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 391-395. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0\n\n^ \"Dabke appeals to Westerners, Arabs alike\". Arabamericannews.com. 10 January 2009. Retrieved 2017-01-07.\n\n^ \"American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine Home Page\". www.afrp.org. Archived from the original on 29 May 1997. Retrieved 15 January 2022.\n\n^ Silverstein, Shayna (2012). \"Syria's Radical Dabke\". Middle East Report (263, Summer 2012) - via www.academia.edu.\n\n^ \"Shweir\". Shweir.com. 2013-12-07. Retrieved 2017-01-07.\n\n^ \"Naharnet - Lebanon's leading news destination\". Naharnet.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.\n\n^ \"Les Chevaliers du Liban\". chevaliersduliban.com. Archived from the original on 25 June 2009. Retrieved 15 January 2022.\n\n^ \"Israeli Arabs smash world record for largest 'Debke' folk dance - Haaretz - Israel News\". www.haaretz.com. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2022.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAdra, Najwa. \"Middle East\" The International Encyclopedia of Dance. Ed. Selma Jeanne Cohen and the Dance Perspectives Foundation. Oxford University Press, 2003. Georgetown University. 3 December 2010\n\nCohen, Dalia; Katz, Ruth (2006). Palestinian Arab music: a Maqām tradition in practice (Illustrated, annotated ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-11299-2.\n\nJargy, Simon (1978). \"The Folk Music of Syria and Lebanon\". The World of Music. 20 (1): 79-93. ISSN 0043-8774.\n\nKaschl, Elke. Dance and Authenticity in Israel and Palestine: Performing the Nation. Leiden & Boston, MA: Brill; 2003.\n\nLadkani, Jennifer. \"Dabke Music and Dance and the Palestinian Refugee Experience: On the Outside looking in.\" Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 2001.\n\nMcDonald, David A. \"Poetics and the Performance of Violence in Israel/Palestine.\" Ethnomusicology. 53:1, Winter 2009.\n\nRowe, Nicholas. \"Dance and Political Credibility: The Appropriation of Dabkeh by Zionism, Pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism.\" Middle East Journal, 65.3 (2011): 363-80. Summer 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. Print.\n\nRowe, Nicholas. \"Raising Dust: a Cultural History of Dance in Palestine.\" Publisher London; New York, NY: I.B. Tauris; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.\n\nHandelsman, JoEllen. 3, Dance Styles of the Middle East. \"Near and Middle Eastern Dance Workbook.\" 2nd ed. Tucson: Premium Source, 2012. 7. Print.\n\nExternal links\n\nA variety of The Jordanian Dabke performed by Al Yarmouk University Folk Troupe.\n\nJordanian Dabkeh Performed By Al-Ramth Youth Folk Troupe\n\nJordanian Dabke (Tas'awiya) - Ma'an 1975\n\nEl-Arish Dabka\n\nPalestinian Dabkeh performed in London\n\nAl-Juthoor Dabkeh Group\n\nAl-Juthoor performs in the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Archived 2007-12-09 at the Wayback Machine\n\nEl-Funoon Dabkeh Group"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dabke"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2957}, {"slug": "reference-eugenia-of-rome", "title": "Eugenia of Rome", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Eugenia of Rome (died c AD 258) was an early Christian Roman martyr whose feast day is celebrated on December 25 in the Roman Catholic Church, on December 24 (January 6, New Style) in the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodox Church, and on January 23 in the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nEugenia of Rome\n\nVirgin martyr\n\nDied258 AD\nRome\n\nVenerated inCatholic Church\nEastern Orthodox Church\nOriental Orthodox Church\n\nFeastDecember 25 (Roman Catholic Church)\nDecember 24 (Eastern Orthodox Church)\nDecember 27 (medieval Hispanic liturgy, as attested by calendars of the time, such as that in the Antiphonary of Leon, for example)\nJanuary 23 (Armenian Apostolic Church)\n\nAttributescross, scroll\n\nEugenia of Rome (died c AD 258) was an early Christian Roman martyr whose feast day is celebrated on December 25 in the Roman Catholic Church, on December 24 (January 6, New Style) in the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodox Church, and on January 23 in the Armenian Apostolic Church.[1]\n\nLegend\n\nShe was said to have been the daughter of Philip, a \"vir illustris\" sent to govern Egypt by Commodus in his seventh consulate (192).[a] Philip thus left Rome with his wife Claudia and his children Sergius, Avitus and Eugenia and set up a home in Alexandria. Eugenia was beautiful, virtuous and studious, and when she was sixteen she studied Greek and Latin literature and gained philosophers' admiration for her gravity.[4] Her father wished her to marry and provided several handsome candidates, but she forcefully rejected them, thinking good morals superior to high birth.\n\nBy luck she was given copies of \"the letter of Paul\" (the title of which is not specified) and the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which she read keenly. She then gained her parents' permission to go out in a covered litter on their country estate and during the journey discussed the two books with her eunuchs, Protus and Hyacinth (who grew up with her and shared her pagan background). She argued that all pagan religious writings were ridiculous and hollow compared to the two books and - as they continued their discussion - they heard Christians led by Helenus, bishop of Heliopolis, singing \"All the gods of the nations are demons\" (Psalm 96:5). She saw this as the answer to her questions and decided to go back the next day to see the Christians, but only after the eunuchs had cut her hair and disguised her in men's clothing (much as the character Thecla does in the abovementioned text).\n\nThe eunuchs accompanied her to see the Christians, who this time were singing the words of Isaiah 26:7, which were also relevant to her own situation. Helenus then accepted her and the eunuchs' request to be baptised and did not question Eugenia's disguise despite seeing through it. All three of them then became monks, with Eugenia taking the male name Eugene. She gained great renown among the monks for her piety and healing abilities. Two years after becoming a monk, when the abbot died, her community unanimously voted her to be his successor, but she obstinately refused the honour until a random 'opening of the book' led her to Matthew 20:25-27.\n\nA rich and noble matron named Melanthia then came to the abbey to be healed, which Eugenia accomplished by making the sign of the cross. Melanthia continued to return to the monastery under the guise of piety, but, in fact, had fallen in love with her healer, failing to notice Eugenia's male disguise. After Eugenia refused her proposal of marriage, Melanthia pretended to be sick again so that they might be left alone together. The matron then made indecent proposals, which Eugenia rejected in horror. Melanthia then returned to Alexandria and accused 'Eugene' of trying to rape her, leading Philip to arrest Eugenia, not realizing she was his own daughter.\n\nEugene/Eugenia appeared before Philip's tribunal in the city's amphitheater and dropped her disguise by tearing her tunic and showing her breast, revealing her real name and her relationship to Philip. All four of her brothers rushed to hug her, soon joined by their mother.[5] The crowd was converted to Christianity, while fire descended from heaven to consume Melanthia and all her household, and the church in Alexandria was closed for eight years. Multitudes of pagans were baptised, and soon everyone in Alexandria had converted to Christianity. After Helenus' death, Philip was unanimously chosen to be his successor as bishop, though he also remained prefect for a time. By Philip's efforts almost all of Egypt was converted to Christianity before he was martyred fifteen months after the tribunal, stabbed in his church while saying the Lord's Prayer by pagans paid by the new prefect Perennius,[b] who replaced Philip following his conversion.\n\nFifty years later, after Christian persecution was reinstated by Emperor Valerian, Eugenia was 70 or 80 years old, living in Rome and converting maidens, who were soon martyred. She was arrested and condemned to death by Gallienus (who reigned alongside Valerian in 253-260 and then alone in 260-268), who was angry with her for converting his niece Basilla to Christianity. He ordered Eugenia to make a sacrifice to the pagan goddess Diana, but when she entered Diana's temple and prayed before the cult image, it crumbled to dust. She was thus tied to a block of stone and thrown into the river Tiber, but the block floated and she was only submerged up to her knees.\n\nThe emperor then tried to scald her to death in the hot rooms of the \"Severan\" (i.e. Caracallan) baths, but the furnaces miraculously went out as soon as she arrived. Next, he enclosed Eugenia in a cave without food or water, but she was kept alive by Jesus, who came to her in a brilliant light.\n\nHer former eunuchs, Protus and Hyacinth, were beheaded by the sword on September 11, 258, and Eugenia followed suit the same year after Christ appeared to her in a dream and told her that she would die on the Feast of the Nativity. After her death, she appeared to her mother, who had come weeping to her tomb. Eugenia told her that she, too, would soon die, and entreated her to convert to Christianity. Claudia died that Sunday and her sons, Avitus and Sergius, buried her. They went on to evangelise the Romans and also died as saints.\n\nSources\n\nThe earliest source on the saint is a Life in Latin (BHL 2667), surviving under the title Passion of the Martyr Saints Protus and Hyacinth. Novel-like in composition, it was edited in Italy between 450 and 499.[6] It belongs to the genres of 'hagiographic novels of recognition',[7] and 'stories of women disguised as monks',[8][9][10][11] the latter recently renamed 'transgender stories'[12] The text was translated into Greek several times around the 7th century (BHG 607 w, x, y, z), retranslated into elegant Greek by Symeon the Metaphrast in the 10th century (BHG 608), and also into Syriac (BHO 282), Armenian (BHO 281) and Ethiopic (BHO 283 and 284).\n\nIn the meantime her cult had spread and she appeared in 5th century mosaics at the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna and 6th century ones at the Eufrasiana in Parenzo, along with being mentioned and celebrated by Avitus of Vienne[13] and Venantius Fortunatus.[14] Her life also appeared in the Golden Legend in the 13th century. An edition of the Life was published in Milan just before 1478 by Boninus Mombritius, in his Sanctuarium seu vitae sanctorum, later republished with improvements by the monks at Solesmes Abbey.[15]\n\nHistoricity\n\nUnlike Basilla or Protus and Hyacinth (three martyrs buried in the same catacomb on the via Salaria vetus), Eugenia does not appear in the earliest catalogue of martyrs venerated in Rome, known as the Depositio martyrum included in the Chronograph of 354. This argues against her historicity, as does her absence from Pope Damasus I's 'Epigrams and Prudentius's martyrographic works. It seems Eugenia originated simply as the name of a hypothetical and obscure martyr or a pious and generous woman of Rome and was then - according to fabulous methods of hagiography detailed in Hippolyte Delehaye's work, especially Les légendes hagiographiques[16] - applied to a real saint more or less 'retouched'. The name Eugenia (well-born in Greek) could have been taken from a tomb. Her hagiography's rich intertextuality has been treated by Eric Gordon Whatley[17]\n\nThe stories attached to this Eugenia appealed to a wide variety of audiences from readers of Virgil and secular novels to pious Christians (especially women), monks and nuns[18] looking for edifying tales. She takes on a multitude of roles - a learned, distinguished and beautiful noblewoman, a converted teenager fleeing her family, a new Thecla, a valiant Romano-Alexandrine athlete straddling two worlds (the prestige marytrdom-site of Rome and the exoticism of Egypt), heroine of chastity accompanied by two eunuchs, an innocent victim of calumny reminiscent of Phaedra, Potiphar's wife and the earliest Greek female doctor Agnodice,[c] and enactor of a daring anagnorisis. All these roles are stereotypes from 'epic passion narratives'.[19] The work also has erotic undertones in her showing her beautiful breasts before a large crowd (repeated in the Life of Saint Apolinaria[20][21]) and also potential lesbianism in the relationship desired by Melanthia. These undercurrents also left traces in later hagiography, at least in the eastern church, where the Coptic Legend of Hilaria (BHO 279) omits the showing of the breasts but includes a suspicion of incest between the saint and her sister.[22]\n\nThe story was then anchored in history by making her father Philip and linking it to certain emperors, buildings in Rome and real saints about whose lives little was known. One of these was Basilla, a real Christian in whose cemetery Protus and Hyacinth had been buried, into Gallienus' niece and a convert of Eugenia's. Two more are Protus and Hyacinth, converted not only into pseudo-brothers of Eugenia but also into eunuchs, the perfect companions for a champion of chastity.[d][24]\n\nVeneration\n\nThere is a small village in the north of Portugal with the name of Santa Eugenia that contains a church with a painting of Saint Eugenia dressed as a boy in Roman-era attire. A local legend states that Eugenia passed through this area on a nearby Roman road and through Moure, which lies at a major intersection of ancient Roman roads.\n\nThere is also a tomb dating from about 1000 AD in the city of Barcelos, high on a hill that reads \"tomb of Saint Eugenia.\" It is possible that this tomb is the tomb of Eugenia of Rome. During the Middle Ages, some saints were moved from Rome to the outer parts of Europe by monks. Patrick J. Geary, in his work Furta Sacra, states that \"on April 5, 838, a monk named Felix appeared at Fulda with the remains of Eugenia of Rome along with those of Saints Cornelius, Callistus, Agapitus, Georgius, Vincentius, Maximus, Cecilia, Digna, Emerita, and Columbana.\"[25]\n\nSt Eugenia / Eugenious is referenced with much veneration within the Trans Saints Zine, created by LGBTQ+ academics, researchers & artists. The sections about them are written by Orlen Crawford & Isabella Lewis, with an illustration by Carmen Walker-Vasquez.\n\nNotes\n\n^ Marta Sordi has tried to prove that Philip was a historical figure by arguing he was Gnaeus Domitius Philippus, who served prefect of the vigiles then \"dux\" of Egypt.[2][3]\n\n^ Gnaeus Domitius Philippus's successor was in fact Aurelius Bassus, in post from 242 to 245, but Perennius or Perennis is often used in hagiographies for high-level officials among persecutors, such as the real praetorian prefect Tigidius Perennis in the Acts of Apollonius Sacceas (BHG 1489), 45.\n\n^ Caius Julius Hyginus gives her probably fictitious life story (Fabulae, 274, 10-13), in which she also disguises herself as a man, is unjustly accused of rape and is found innocent in front of a tribunal\n\n^ A similar transformation was made to Nereus and Achilleus, turned anachronistically into Flavia Domitilla's servants.[23]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Commemoration of the Virgin Eugine, her father - Philippus, her mother Klothia and her two servants\". Araratian Patriarchal Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Retrieved 4 January 2014.\n\n^ (in Italian) \"Un martire romano della persecuzione di Valeriano : il prefetto Cn. Domizio Filippo\" (1979)\n\n^ (in Italian) \"Ancora su Cn. Domitius Philippus, praefectus vigilum a Roma e dux in Egitto\" (1981)\n\n^ Passio sanctorum Proti et Hyacinthi martyrum, éd. Mombritius, II (1978), p. 397, 37-38.\n\n^ (in French) P. Boulhol, Anagnorismos (1996), p. 28-30, 60 and 62.\n\n^ (in French) C. Lanéry, \"Hagiographie d'Italie (300-550), I : Les Passions latines composées en Italie\" (2010), p. 126-138.\n\n^ (in French) P. Boulhol, Anagnorismos (1996).\n\n^ (in French) Marie Delcourt, \"Le complexe de Diane dans l'hagiographie chrétienne\", dans RHR, 153 (1958), p. 1-33\n\n^ John Anson, \"The female transvestite in early monasticism : the origin and development of a motif\", in Viator, 5 (1974), p. 1-32\n\n^ (in French) Évelyne Patlagean, \"L'histoire de la femme déguisée en moine et l'évolution de la sainteté féminine à Byzance\", in Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 17 (1976), p. 597-623\n\n^ Stephen Davis, \"Crossed texts, cossed sex : intertextuality and gender in early christian legends of holy women disguised as men\", in JECS, 10/1 (2002), p. 1-36; etc.\n\n^ (in French) Clovis Maillet, \"Eugène-Eugénie, être transgenre au Moyen Âge\", L'Histoire n°476, October 2020, p. 64-67.\n\n^ MGH, Auct. Antiq., VI, p. 289.\n\n^ Miscellanea, VIII, 8, in PL, LXXXVIII, coll. 271-272.\n\n^ (in French) Paris, Fontemoing, 1910, vol. II, p. 391-397\n\n^ (in French) Les légendes hagiographiques (3e édition, Bruxelles, 1927, p. 26-28 and 59\n\n^ E.G. Whatley, \"More than a Female Joseph\" (2012).\n\n^ (in French) A.-M. Helvétius, \"Les femmes dans la littérature martyriale\" (2018), p. 78\n\n^ (in French) H. Delehaye, Les Passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires (1966), chapter III : \"Les Passions épiques\" (p. 171-226).\n\n^ Life of Saint Apollinaria BHG 148, published in James Drescher, Three Coptic Legends. Hilaria - Archelites - The Seven Sleepers. Cairo, 1947, p. 152-161\n\n^ (in French) P. Boulhol, Anagnorismos (1996), p. 169-170, n° 2.\n\n^ Coptic text in J. Drescher, Three Coptic Legends (1947), p. 1-13. Voir P. Boulhol, Anagnorismos (1996), p. 176, n° 7.\n\n^ (in French) P. Boulhol & I. Cochelin, \"La réhabilitation de l'eunuque\" (1992), p. 62-63 and 67-68.\n\n^ K. Ringrose, The Perfect Servant. Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium. Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press, 2003.\n\n^ Patrick J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 48.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Life and Martyrdom of St. Eugenia, Virgin and Martyr of the Christian Church\n\nSt. Eugenia of Rome Archived 2021-03-09 at the Wayback Machine (St Luke's Orthodox Church)\n\nIcon of Saint Eugenia Archived 2022-02-23 at the Wayback Machine\n\nCatholic Online\n\nCatholic Forum: Saint Eugenia\n\nHere Begin the Lives of SS. Prothus, Jacinctus, and Eugenia from Caxton's translation of the Golden Legend\n\nSaint Eugenia at the Christian Iconography web site\n\nAlbani, Jenny P. Beyond the Borders of Femininity: St. Eugenia and St. Athanasia in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 9. Ed: A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. Lomonosov Moscow State University / St. Petersburg: NP-Print, 2019, pp. 306-317. ISSN 2312-2129."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-eugenia-of-rome"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2478}, {"slug": "reference-sadad-syria", "title": "Sadad, Syria", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Sadad (Arabic: صدد / ALA-LC: Ṣadad) is a town in Syria, 60 kilometers (37 mi) south of Homs, and 101 kilometers (63 mi) northeast of Damascus, in the eastern part of the Qalamoun Mountains. It had over 3,500 inhabitants in the 2004 census, the majority of whom belonged...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sadad\n ܣܕܕصدد\n\nTown\n\nSadadLocation in Syria\n\nCoordinates: 34°18′46″N 36°55′33″E / 34.31278°N 36.92583°E / 34.31278; 36.92583\n\nCountry Syria\n\nGovernorateHoms\n\nDistrictHoms\n\nSubdistrictSadad\n\nPopulation (2004 census)\n\n • Total3,503\n\nSadad (Arabic: صدد / ALA-LC: Ṣadad) is a town in Syria, 60 kilometers (37 mi) south of Homs, and 101 kilometers (63 mi) northeast of Damascus, in the eastern part of the Qalamoun Mountains. It had over 3,500 inhabitants in the 2004 census, the majority of whom belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nSadad is an ancient village; it is thought to be the \"Zedad\" (Hebrew: צְדָד / Tzedad; translated as \"Sedada\" in the Vulgate) mentioned in the Old Testament (Book of Numbers, 34:8; Book of Ezekiel, 47:15),[1] on the northeastern boundary of the biblical land of Canaan, the land promised to the Israelites.\n\nIsolated on the edge of the desert, the community has remained predominantly Syriac Orthodox, even after the Muslim conquest of Syria in the mid-7th century. The village originally spoke a Western Aramaic dialect, similar to the dialect of Maaloula (53 km (33 mi) south of Sadad), which persisted until the 1830s when it was displaced as the mother tongue by Arabic.[2] Traces of Aramaic in the Arabic dialect of Sadad were studied by Fadel M. Mubaraka in 2010.[3] Therefore, Aramaic is spoken only as a second language by some people in the village.[4] Sadad had been an important bishopric in the past. There was a close connection between Sadad and the Monastery of St. Moses the Abyssinian; according to Istifan al-Duwayhi, some of the monks of that monastery came from Sadad.[5]\n\nModern era\n\nIn 1838, its inhabitants were noted as being predominantly Syriac Christians.[6]\n\nIn a report of 1881, a French military attaché described the state of insecurity of Sadad, whose inhabitants seemed to suffer attacks from the Bedouins. Despite the tax its inhabitants regularly paid to the tribes that camped in the region, Sadad remained in constant risk of raiding. The inhabitants had therefore created adobe barricades around the village and its surrounding gardens, thus preventing anyone on horseback to enter without dismounting, which an isolated Bedouin rarely did in enemy territory.[7]\n\nAnthropologist Sulayman Jabbur, writing in the 1980s, noted that most of Sadad's working inhabitants made their income in the textile industry, primarily weaving abayas (robes) and woolen mats for the Bedouin tribesmen of the vicinity.[8] The Bedouin usually acquired their clothing from villages along the desert fringes, such as Sadad, and the latter's inhabitants sold their products either directly to the Bedouin or indirectly via local merchants.[8] According to Jabbur, the craft of weaving abayas was an ancient tradition passed down by generation to Sadad's inhabitants.[8] Sadad was the most important market town for the Bedouin of the region, where they came to purchase clothing, tent equipment, saddles, coffee beans, tea and other supplies.[9]\n\nDuring the Syrian Civil War, on 21 October 2013, the town was captured by Islamist militants reportedly belonging to the al-Nusra Front, who set up loudspeakers in the main square, calling for residents to return to their houses. At least nine people were reported killed, as Syrian Army forces were sent in on 22 October to try and retake the town, sparking fierce resistance from the militants. Locals were unsure as to the reason behind the attack, though medical supplies within the town's hospital were a possibility, as well as the presence of a military depot nearby.[10] By 28 October, the Syrian Arab Army had taken back control of Sadad. Visiting church leaders and returning villagers found two mass graves of civilians, including women and children, containing 30 bodies. They were suspected of being massacred by al-Nusra Front militants.[11] Forty-five Christians were killed during the rebel occupation, and several churches were also looted.[12][13]\n\nDemographics\n\nThe majority of the inhabitants are Christians belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church.[14] According to the Syriac Orthodox patriarch, Mor Ignatius Aphrem Karim II, Sadad had a population of 15,000 in the summer of 2015, but following the advance of ISIL forces in the area in the fall, about 2,000 inhabitants remained.[15]\n\nMain sights\n\nThe town is well known for its several churches, in particular, the church of Mar Sarkis and the church of Saint Theodore, both of which have elaborate, ancient frescoes; it is indeed unusual to find paintings on the walls of Syrian churches.[5]\n\nNotable people\n\nBarsum Hilal of Sadad, priest and calligrapher in the 16th century.[16]\n\nAbu Firas al-Hamdani, Baghdadi prince and poet buried at Sadad.\n\nIgnatius Abded Aloho II, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Jullien, p. 194; Walvoord & Zuck (ed.), p. 1315; Rogers & Woods, p. 384.\n\n^ Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen an der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin (in German). p. 145. Nach der Versicherung älterer glaubwürdiger Personen wäre es noch in den sechziger Jahren in dem nahen Ain il tine (syrisch: 'ain tenča), in den dreissigern noch in Der Atije und Sadad, nach A. von Kremer selbst noch 1850 in Karjetén gesprochen worden.\n\n^ Fadel M. Mubaraka. The Aramaic influence in the vernacular of Sadad (in English and Arabic). Gorgias Press, LLC. ISBN 9781607242505.\n\n^ El Guindi, p. 176.\n\n^ a b Dodd.\n\n^ Smith, in Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 174\n\n^ De Courtois, p. 17.\n\n^ a b c Jabbur 1995, pp. 336-337.\n\n^ Jabbur 1995, p. 249.\n\n^ \"Islamist rebels fight army for Christian town in Syria\". Reuters. 22 October 2013. Archived from the original on 25 October 2014. Retrieved 23 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Christians in Syria feel forgotten as mass graves found in Sadad\". Morning Star News. November 5, 2013.\n\n^ \"Syria: Bodies of massacred Christians found in mass grave\". Independent Catholic News. 4 November 2013.\n\n^ Ibrahim, Raymond (2013-11-22). \"'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria' Ignored\". Human Events. The Human Events Group. Archived from the original on 2019-06-24. Retrieved 2013-11-26.\n\n^ Mounes, Maher Al (2015-12-24). \"Fearful Christmas for Syrian Christian town threatened by IS\". Agence France-Presse. Yahoo News. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2016-05-05.\n\n^ Moore, Jack (2015-11-10). \"Hundreds of Christian Fighters Scramble to Defend Syrian Town as ISIS Advance\". Newsweek. Retrieved 2016-05-05.\n\n^ Barsum, p. 547.\n\nBibliography\n\nBarsum, Ignatius Afram I (2003). Moosa, Matti (ed.). The Scattered Pearls: a History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Gorgias Press.\n\nDe Courtois, Sébastien (2002). Le Génocide oublié : Chrétiens d'Orient, les derniers Araméens (in French). Ellipses. ISBN 978-2729812300.\n\nDodd, Erica (2001). The Frescoes of Mar Musa al-Habashi: a Study in Medieval Painting in Syria. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. ISBN 978-0888441393.\n\nEl Guindi, Fadwa (2008). By Noon Prayer: the Rhythm of Islam. Berg. ISBN 978-1845200978.\n\nJabbur, Jibrail S. (1995). Jabbur, Suhayl J.; Conrad, Lawrence I. (eds.). The Bedouin and the Desert: Aspects of Nomadic Life in the Arab East. Albany: State University of New York Press.\n\nJullien, Michel (1893). Sinaï et Syrie : souvenirs bibliques et chrétiens (in French). Société Saint-Augustin, Desclée de Brouwer et Cie.\n\nRobinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.\n\nRogers, Justin M.; Woods, Clyde M. (2006). Leviticus-Numbers. College Press. ISBN 978-0899008783.\n\nWalvoord, John F.; Zuck, Roy B., eds. (1985). The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament. Victor Books. ISBN 978-0882078137.\n\nSee also\n\nFairouzeh\n\nZaidal\n\nMaskanah\n\nAl-Qaryatayn\n\n Al-Hafar\n\nExternal links\n\nSyriac-Aramean villages of Homs\n\n34°18′46″N 36°55′33″E / 34.31278°N 36.92583°E / 34.31278; 36.92583"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sadad-syria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1247}, {"slug": "reference-libbali-sarrat", "title": "Libbāli-šarrat", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Libbāli-šarrat (Akkadian: Libbāli-šarrat,[3][b] meaning \"the inner city [=Ishtar?] is queen\")[5] was a queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the primary consort[c] of Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC). Libbāli-šarrat married Ashurbanipal before he became king, probably in 672 BC, and may have lived beyond her husband's death, as documents from...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Libbāli-šarrat\n\nWoman of the Palace[a]\n\nRelief of Libbāli-šarrat from Nineveh, depicted dining\n\nDiedAfter 631 BC\n\nSpouseAshurbanipal\n\nIssueAshur-etil-ilani\nSinsharishkun\n\nAkkadianLibbāli-šarrat\n\nLibbāli-šarrat (Akkadian: Libbāli-šarrat,[3][b] meaning \"the inner city [=Ishtar?] is queen\")[5] was a queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the primary consort[c] of Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC). Libbāli-šarrat married Ashurbanipal before he became king, probably in 672 BC, and may have lived beyond her husband's death, as documents from the reign of her probable son, Ashur-etil-ilani (r. 631-627 BC) reference the \"mother of the king\". Libbāli-šarrat enjoys the distinction of being the only known individual from ancient Assyria who was not a king to be depicted holding court since she is depicted in one of Ashurbanipal's reliefs as hosting him at dinner in the palace garden, surrounded by her own female servants.\n\nLife\n\nWife of the crown prince\n\nIt is not clear when Libbāli-šarrat married Ashurbanipal. The queen of Ashurbanipal's father Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC), Ešarra-ḫammat, died in February 672 BC. Contemporary documents recording Ešarra-ḫammat's funeral arrangements record the presence of the queen's daughter and daughter-in-law. Presumably, the daughter was the eldest daughter, Šērūʾa-ēṭirat, and the daughter-in-law might have been Libbāli-šarrat. In that case, Libbāli-šarrat's marriage to Ashurbanipal took place before Ešarra-ḫammat's death, but the daughter-in-law mentioned could also be the wife of another of Ashurbanipal's sons. The Assyriologist Simo Parpola believes that Libbāli-šarrat did not marry Ashurbanipal until around the time he became crown prince, in May 672 BC.[7]\n\nThe name Libbāli-šarrat is unique and not known to have been borne by any other individual. Because it also incorporates the element šarratum (\"queen\") it might not be her birth name, but rather a name she assumed upon her marriage to Ashurbanipal or when he was designated as crown prince and heir by Esarhaddon. Translated literally, Libbāli-šarrat means \"the inner city is queen\". \"The inner city\" might be a term for the goddess Ishtar. Alternatively, the name should perhaps be interpreted as \"[in] the inner city, [the goddess] is queen\".[5] Libbāli was also the name of the ancient temple quarter at Assur, Assyria's religious center.[8]\n\nThere may have existed some tension between Libbāli-šarrat and Ashurbanipal's sister Šērūʾa-ēṭirat.[9] In c.  670 BC, near the end of Esarhaddon's reign, Šērūʾa-ēṭirat wrote a letter to Libbāli-šarrat in which she reprimanded the future queen for not studying and informed her that while Libbāli-šarrat would one day become queen, Šērūʾa-ēṭirat still outranked her as she was the king's daughter.[10][11][12] An alternative reading of the letter is that it was a somewhat brusque attempt at trying to help Libbāli-šarrat adjust to royal life, not an attempt to put her in her place.[13] Šērūʾa-ēṭirat's letter suggested that Libbāli-šarrat may not have been able to read and write at this time, and that shame would be brought on the royal family if she would be unable to do so after becoming queen.[14] Although Libbāli-šarrat, as the wife of a member of the Assyrian royal family, would have long been groomed for her role, the letter illustrates that becoming the wife of the crown prince still required big adjustments at even a quite late stage.[13] As can be inferred from later documents, Libbāli-šarrat did learn to read and write properly and in time began to share the scholarly and literary interests of her husband, who is famous for assembling the Library of Ashurbanipal.[15]\n\nQueen of Assyria\n\nBeginning under reforms initiated by Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC), the queens of the Sargonid dynasty of Assyrian kings had their own military units sworn directly to them.[16] Among the military staff of Libbāli-šarrat was the chariot driver Marduk-šarru-uṣur, who distinguished himself in the 652-648 civil war against Ashurbanipal's brother Shamash-shum-ukin.[3]\n\nLibbāli-šarrat is famously depicted along with Ashurbanipal in Ashurbanipal's \"Garden Party\" relief, wherein the two are depicted as dining, surrounded by Libbāli-šarrat's female servants, with Libbāli-šarrat herself sitting opposite her husband in a high-backed chair. Ashurbanipal meanwhile is depicted reclining on a couch. The royal couple are in the relief raising their cups up in celebration over Ashurbanipal's 653 BC victory over Elam,[17][18] with the head of the Elamite king Teumman hanging from one of the trees. Libbāli-šarrat's high status as consort is illustrate in the relief by how close she is to the king as well as her jewelry and dress. Ashurbanipal is shown to have greater power still, as he is depicted slightly larger and higher up in the image.[18] A striking detail with the \"Garden Party\" relief, however, is that while Ashurbanipal does not wear his crown, Libbāli-šarrat does. The fact that she is seated while Ashurbanipal is reclining is also significant, since sitting on a throne was a divine and royal privilege.[d] This means that the entire scene is actually organized around Libbāli-šarrat, rather than Ashurbanipal.[20] The relief is the only known surviving image from ancient Assyria depicting an individual other than the king not only effectively holding court but also hosting the king.[21][e]\n\nIn addition to the \"Garden Party\" relief, another contemporary depiction of Libbāli-šarrat, on a stele, is known. This portrait shows the queen in a formal pose making some form of ritualistic gesture with a plant.[22] Noblewomen in Assyria, including queens, regularly made donations to temples and dedications to the gods as a way to garner divine favor and support.[23] One such dedication written by Libbāli-šarrat is known, which reads:[24]\n\nFor the goddess [...], great [Lady], her Lady. [Libbāli-šarrat, consort of Ashurb]anipal, king of the world, king of Assyria, she has made it [...] of red gold [for the life and health of] Ashurbanipal, her beloved, (for) his length of days, the longevity of his throne and for herself, for her life, her length of days, and the well-being of her dynasty. May (the goddess) make her words pleasing to the king, her husband, and may she (the goddess) make them grow old together. (Thus) she has made (it) stand and donated (it).[24]\n\nLibbāli-šarrat was presumably the mother of Ashurbanipal's immediate successors, Aššur-etil-ilāni (r. 669-631 BC) and Sîn-šar-iškun (r. 669-631 BC), given that sons born of Ashurbanipal's lower-ranking wives, such as a son by the name of Ninurta-sharru-usur, appear to not have played any political roles.[25] Libbāli-šarrat might have lived for some time after Ashurbanipal's death in 631 BC, as there is a tablet dating to Ashur-etil-ilani's reign referencing the \"mother of the king\".[26]\n\nNotes\n\n^ Though usually used by historians today,[1] the title of \"queen\" as such did not exist in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The feminine version of the word for king (šarrum) was šarratum, but this was reserved for goddesses and foreign queens who ruled in their own right. Because the consorts of the kings did not rule themselves, they were not regarded as their equals and as such not called šarratum. Instead, the term reserved for the primary consort was MUNUS É.GAL (woman of the palace).[2] In Assyrian, this term was rendered issi ekalli, later abbreviated to sēgallu.[1]\n\n^ Libbāli-šarrat's name is in older scholarship sometimes wrongly transcribed as Aššur-šarrat).[4]\n\n^ Assyrian kings at times had multiple wives at the same time, but not all were recognized as queens (or \"women of the palace\"). Though it has been disputed in the past,[1][6] it appears that only one woman bore the title at any given time, as the term typically appears without qualifiers (indicating a lack of ambiguity).[1]\n\n^ Perhaps showing Ashurbanipal reclining was a compromise between showing him standing (impossible as it would depict him as subordinate to his sitting wife) and sitting in his own throne (inappropriate since in artwork there usually was only one throne depicted at any one given time).[19]\n\n^ There are actually no known images of Ashurbanipal seated on a throne or holding court, perhaps meaning that the symbol of the throne was losing its status in art, and possible also at court, during his reign.[19]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Kertai 2013, p. 109.\n\n^ Spurrier 2017, p. 173.\n\n^ a b Svärd 2015, p. 164.\n\n^ Álvarez-Mon 2009, p. 147.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2014, p. 189.\n\n^ Spurrier 2017, p. 166.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 119.\n\n^ Radner 2015, pp. 18-19.\n\n^ Teppo 2007, p. 395.\n\n^ Teppo 2007, p. 394.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, pp. 172-173.\n\n^ Melville 2004, p. 42.\n\n^ a b Chavalas 2014, p. 214.\n\n^ Novotny & Singletary 2009, p. 168.\n\n^ Frahm 2004, p. 45.\n\n^ Svärd 2015, p. 163.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 209.\n\n^ a b Gansell 2018, p. 163.\n\n^ a b Kertai 2020, p. 215.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 212.\n\n^ Kertai 2020, p. 213.\n\n^ Chavalas 2014, p. 233.\n\n^ Chavalas 2014, p. 234.\n\n^ a b Chavalas 2014, p. 235.\n\n^ Frahm 1999, p. 322.\n\n^ Svärd 2015, p. 161.\n\nBibliography\n\nÁlvarez-Mon, Javier (2009). \"Ashurbanipal's Feast: a View from Elam\". Iranica Antiqua. 44: 131-180. doi:10.2143/IA.44.0.2034378.\n\nChavalas, Mark (2014). Women in the Ancient Near East: a Sourcebook. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415448550.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (1999). \"Kabale und Liebe: Die königliche Familie am Hof zu Ninive\". Von Babylon bis Jerusalem: Die Welt der altorientalischen Königsstädte (in German). Reiss-Museum Mannheim.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2004). \"Royal Hermeneutics: Observations on the Commentaries from Ashurbanipal's Libraries at Nineveh\". Iraq. 66: 45-50. doi:10.2307/4200557. JSTOR 4200557.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2014). \"Family Matters: Psychohistorical Reflections on Sennacherib and His Times\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nGansell, Amy Rebecca (2018). \"In Pursuit of Neo-Assyrian Queens: An Interdisciplinary Model for Researching Ancient Women and Engendering Ancient History\". In Svärd, Saana; Agnès, Garcia-Ventura (eds.). Studying Gender in the Ancient Near East. University Park: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575067704.\n\nKertai, David (2013). \"The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 40 (1): 108-124. doi:10.1524/aof.2013.0006. S2CID 163392326.\n\nKertai, David (2020). \"Libbali-sharrat in the Garden: An Assyrian Queen Holding Court\". Source: Notes in the History of Art. 39 (4): 209-218. doi:10.1086/709188.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2004). \"Neo-Assyrian Royal Women and Male Identity: Status as a Social Tool\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 124 (1): 37-57. doi:10.2307/4132152. JSTOR 4132152.\n\nNovotny, Jamie; Singletary, Jennifer (2009). \"Family Ties: Assurbanipal's Family Revisited\". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 106: 167-177.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198715900.\n\nSpurrier, Tracy L. (2017). \"Finding Hama: On the Identification of a Forgotten Queen Buried in the Nimrud Tombs\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 76 (1): 149-174. doi:10.1086/690911.\n\nSvärd, Saana (2015). \"Changes in Neo-Assyrian Queenship\". State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. XXI: 157-171.\n\nTeppo, Saana (2007). \"Agency and the Neo-Assyrian Women of the Palace\". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 101: 381-420."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-libbali-sarrat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1777}, {"slug": "reference-kultepe", "title": "Kültepe", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Kültepe (Turkish: lit. 'ash-hill'), ancient name Kaneš (Kanesh, also Kaniš/Kanish) or Neša (Nesha), was a Bronze Age (broadly, 3300-1200 BC) settlement and trading center on the Central Anatolian plateau in modern Turkey. It was a major settlement in the early 3rd millennium, and is particularly renowned for its...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Kültepe\n\nHittite palace at Kültepe\n\nLocation within Turkey\n\n38°51′N 35°38′E / 38.850°N 35.633°E / 38.850; 35.633\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nCulturesHittite \n Assyrian\n\nLocationKayseri Province, Turkey\n\nRegionAnatolia\n\nSite notes\n\nExcavation dates1906, 1925, 1948-2013\n\nArchaeologistsHugo Grothe, Bedřich Hrozný, Tahsin Özgüç, Fikri Kulakoğlu\n\nConditionIn ruins\n\nKültepe (Turkish: lit. 'ash-hill'), ancient name Kaneš (Kanesh, also Kaniš/Kanish) or Neša (Nesha), was a Bronze Age (broadly, 3300-1200 BC) settlement and trading center on the Central Anatolian plateau in modern Turkey. It was a major settlement in the early 3rd millennium, and is particularly renowned for its regional importance in the early 2nd millennium.[1] The archaeological site consists of a large mound (also known as höyük, tepe or tell), and a lower city, where a kārum (the Assyrian word for trading district[2]) was established in the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The over 23,000 cuneiform tablets recovered from residences at Kültepe constitute the largest collection of texts found in non-administrative locales of the ancient Near East.[3] In 2014, the archaeological site was inscribed in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey.[3]\n\nHistory\n\nKültepe is located about 20 km northeast from the modern city Kayseri. Its ancient name is recorded in Assyrian and Hittite sources. In Assyrian inscriptions from the 20th and the 19th century BC, the city was mentioned as Kaneš (also transcribed as Kanesh); in later Hittite inscriptions, the city was mentioned as Neša (sometimes transcribed as Nesha, Nessa or Nesa. Neša derives from [Ka]neša).\n\nThe site is divided into two main areas: the circular mound (tepe, höyük) and the lower town to its northeast. The mound was inhabited (with discontinuity) from the Early Bronze Age through the Roman Empire, while the lower town was occupied only from the last decades of the third millennium to the early sixteenth century BCE.[4] The lower town displays four levels of occupation, with only levels II (approximately 1945-1835 BCE) and Ib (approximately 1832-1700 BCE)-which roughly correspond to the Middle Bronze Age-yielding significant written records, totaling around 22,200 and 560 tablets, respectively. In contrast, only forty scattered tablets were found on the mound, where palaces and temples were uncovered, indicating that there are no surviving archives from the local authorities, if such archives ever existed.[4] This kārum appears to have served as \"the administrative and distribution centre of the entire Assyrian colony network in Anatolia\".[5] A late record, from circa 1400 BC, recounts the story of a king of Kaneš called Zipani, with seventeen local city-kings who rose up against Naram-Sin of Akkad, who ruled circa 2254-2218 BC.[6]\n\nDuring the kārum period, and before the conquest of Pitḫana, these local kings reigned in Kaneš: \n\nḪurmili (before 1790 BC)\n\nPaḫanu (a short time in 1790 BC)\n\nInar (c. 1790-1775 BC), then\n\nWaršama (c. 1775-1750 BC)[7]\n\nThe king of Zalpuwa, Uḫna, raided Kaneš, after which the Zalpuwans carried off the city's Šiuš idol. Pitḫana, the king of Kuššara, conquered Neša \"in the night, by force\", but \"did not do evil to anyone in it\".[8] Neša revolted against the rule of Pitḫana's son, Anitta, but Anitta quashed the revolt and made Neša his capital. Anitta further invaded Zalpuwa, captured its king Huzziya, and recovered the Šiuš idol for Neša.[9]\n\nIn the 17th century BC, Anitta's descendants moved their capital to Hattusa, which Anitta had cursed, thus founding the line of Hittite kings. The inhabitants thus referred to the Hittite language as Nešili 'the Neša tongue'.\n\nArchaeology\n\nBy 1880, cuneiform tablets said to be from Kara Eyuk ('black village') or Gyul Tepé ('burnt mound') near Kaisariyeh, had begun to appear on the market, some being thus bought by the British Museum.[10] In response the site was worked by Ernest Chantre for two seasons, beginning in 1893.[11]\nHugo Grothe dug a small soundage in 1906.[12]\nIn 1925, Bedřich Hrozný excavated Kültepe and found over 1000 cuneiform tablets, some of which ended up in Prague and in Istanbul.[13][14][15] In 1929 the site was visited\nand photographed by James Henry Breasted of the Oriental Institute of Chicago. There had been much digging for fertilizer, which had destroyed a quarter of the mound.[16]\n\nModern archaeological work began in 1948, when Kültepe was excavated by a team from the Turkish Historical Society and the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums. The team was led by Tahsin Özgüç until his death, in 2005.[17][18] After 2005 the excavation was directed by Fikri Kulakoğlu.[19][20]\n\nLevel IV-III. Little excavation has been done for these levels, which represent the kārum's first habitation.[21] No writing is attested, and archaeologists assume that both levels' inhabitants were illiterate.\n\nLevel II, 1974-1836 BC (Mesopotamian middle chronology according to Veenhof). Craftsmen of this time and place specialised in animal-shaped earthen drinking vessels, which were often used for religious rituals. Assyrian merchants then established the kārum of the city: \"Kaneš\". Bullae of Naram-Sin of Eshnunna have been found toward the end of this level, which was burned to the ground.[22]\n\nLevel Ib, 1798-1740 BC. After an abandoned period, the city was rebuilt over the ruins of the old and again became a prosperous trade center. The trade was under the control of Ishme-Dagan I, who was put in control of Assur when his father, Shamshi-Adad I, conquered Ekallatum and Assur. However, the colony was again destroyed by fire. During excavations in 2001 140 cuneiform tablets were found in this level of the karum including a new rendition of the Kültepe eponym list.[23]\n\nLevel Ia. The city was reinhabited, but the Assyrian colony was no longer inhabited. The culture was early Hittite. Its name in Hittite acquired an extra sound as \"Kaneša\", which was more commonly contracted to \"Neša\".\n\nSome attribute Level II's burning to the conquest of the city of Assur by the kings of Eshnunna, but Bryce blames it on the raid of Uhna. Some attribute Level Ib's burning to the fall of Assur, other nearby kings and eventually to Hammurabi of Babylon.\n\nTo date, over 22,000 cuneiform tablets have been recovered from the site, mainly from the kārum, with only 40 found in the Upper city.[24][25][26]\n\nSubsequent excavations attested the following stratigraphy of Kültepe:[27]\n\nUpper Town Level\nLower Town Level\nPeriod\nName, Importance\n\n18\n-\nEarly Bronze Age I\n\n17-14\n-\nEarly Bronze Age II\n\n13-11\n-\nEarly Bronze Age III\n2500-2100 BC[28]\nKaneš; first written as Ga-ni-šu ki[29]\nLevel 12 temple (megaron) and Level 11b building with pilasters[30]\n\n10\nIV\nMiddle Bronze Age\n2100-2000 BC\nBeginning of urban development\n\n9\nIII\nMiddle Bronze Age\n2000-1970 BC\n\n8\nII\nkārum-period\n1974/1927-1836 BC\nKaniš; Anatolian center of Assyrian trade\n\n7\nIb\nkārum-period\n1832/1800-1719 BC\nKaniš; Assyrian trading center\n\n6\nIa\nOld Hittite period\nNeša; the place no longer has a central function\n\nSettlement gap\n\n5-4\n-\nIron Age\n9/8 century BC\nimportant central location in the Neo-Hittite state Tabal\n\nSettlement gap\n\n3\nGraves\nHellenistic Age\nAnisa; Polis; Coin finds from 323 BC\n\n2-1\nGraves\nRoman Age\ninsignificant settlement; Coin finds up to 180 AD\n\nRecently, in \"a small cell-plan structure cutting the walls of the monumental building [o]f Kültepe [Level 13], dated to the second half of the 3rd Millennium BC, statuettes made of alabaster with various attributes and ritual vessels in unprecedented forms were found in situ,\" and inside a \"monumental building [d]iscovered in 2018 [which] contains a room called the 'idol room,' [a] collection of the largest number of idols and statuettes ever discovered in the ancient Near East [was found].\"[31]\n\nKārum Kaneš\n\nThe quarter of the city that most interests historians is the kārum, a portion of the city that was set aside by local officials for the early Assyrian merchants to use without paying taxes as long as the goods remained inside the kārum. The term kārum means \"port\" in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the time, but its meaning was later extended to refer to any trading colony whether or not it bordered water.\n\nSeveral other cities in Anatolia also had a kārum, but the largest was Kaneš, whose important kārum was inhabited by soldiers and merchants from Assyria for hundreds of years. They traded local tin and wool for luxury items, foodstuffs, spices and woven fabrics from the Assyrian homeland and Elam.\n\nThe remains of the kārum form a large circular mound 500 m in diameter and about 20 m above the plain (a tell). The kārum settlement is the result of several superimposed stratigraphic periods. New buildings were constructed on top of the remains of the earlier periods so there is a deep stratigraphy from prehistoric times to the early Hittite period.\n\nThe kārum was destroyed by fire at the end of levels II and Ib. The inhabitants left most of their possessions behind, as found by modern archaeologists.\n\nThe findings have included numerous baked-clay tablets, some of which were enclosed in clay envelopes stamped with cylinder seals.[32] The documents record common activities, such as trade between the Assyrian colony and the city-state of Assur and between Assyrian merchants and local people. The trade was run by families rather than the state. The Kültepe texts are the oldest documents from Anatolia. Although they are written in Old Assyrian, the Hittite loanwords and names in the texts are the oldest record of any Indo-European language.[33] Most of the archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use of both cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence.\n\nDating of Waršama Sarayi\n\nAt Level II, the destruction was so total that no wood survived for dendrochronological studies. In 2003, researchers from Cornell University dated wood in level Ib from the rest of the city, built centuries earlier. The dendrochronologists date the bulk of the wood from buildings of the Waršama Sarayi to 1832 BC, with further refurbishments up to 1779 BC.[34]\nIn 2016 new research using radiocarbon dating and dendrology on timber used in this site and the palace in Acemhöyük show the likely earliest use of the palace as not before 1851-1842 BC (68.2% hpd) or 1855-1839 BC (95.4% hpd).[35] In combination with the many Assyrian objects found here, this dating shows that only middle or low-middle chronology are the only remaining possible chronologies that fit these new data.\n\nWomen at Kaneš\n\nThe cuneiform archives provide an extraordinary amount of information about daily life for women at Kaneš, including Assyrian women living in the city. Using this data, scholars have developed biographies for several of the women who either lived in the city or who had relatives in the city.\n\nZizizi\n\nZizizi was an Assyrian businesswoman at Kaneš, wife of an Assyrian merchant, and known for expressive letters delivered on ancient clay tablets written in cuneiform.[36] Her journey started around 1860 B.C., when she followed her first husband to the Anatolian city of Kaneš.[37] He later died and she remarried a local. Her father Imdi-ilum and mother Ishtar-bashti responded to her leaving home by stating \"we are not important in your eyes\".[38] In Kaneš, Zizizi became a successful moneylender, providing support for the conclusion that \"the tablets women wrote indicate that they served crucial roles in trading networks, managed finances and workers, and pushed against societal expectations...\"[39] An archived tablet found at Kaneš holds a letter from Zizizi to her parents which was written during an outbreak of disease, and shows her expressing anguish during that time. The tablet copy 688 found in a private archive at the city displays Zizizi expressing her emotional circumstances by stating \"I can’t manage anymore.\"[40]\n\nTaram-Kubi\n\nTaram-Kubi was an Assyrian businesswoman of the 19th c. BCE. She was married to Innaya, had a son, Ikuppiya, and had two siblings;[36] her brother, Imdī-ilum, and a sister, Simat-Assur.[41] Taram-Kubi lived in Assur while her husband lived and worked in Kaneš. Taram-Kubi was business partners with Innaya, and they communicated through cuneiform clay tablets transported by caravans between Assur and Kaneš.[42] Taram-Kubi crafted textiles that were highly sought after, which were then sent to Innaya in Kaneš, where he would sell them and send silver back. Taram-Kubi was wealthy, having enough funds to lend silver to her brother for purchasing a house.[43] She also covered a debt her husband had to city administration in Assur, which she then demanded he repay afterward. She also worked with authorities to resolve a lawsuit her husband had been involved in regarding suspicious sales of lapis lazuli.[44] Although Tarem-Kubi was an independent woman and had arguments with and placed demands on her husband from their business dealings, she still missed him and in her letters requested he return to Assur to be by her side.[45] One example of their quarrels included Innaya emptying their house of barley before he left for Kaneš, and then a famine coming, leaving Taram-Kubi with no food for her and their child.[46] Her letters on the clay tablets showcased a more emotional side of communication, whereas the male counterpart's tablet communications were often more business-oriented.[39]\n\nSee also\n\nHittite sites\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nList of archaeologically attested women from the ancient Mediterranean region\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nTahsin Özgüç\n\nOld Assyrian Period\n\nReferences\n\n^ Fikri Kulakoğlu; Elif Genç; Güzel Öztürk; Yılmaz Rıdvanoğulları (2023). \"Yeni Dönem Kazı Sonuçları Işığında MÖ 3. Binyıl Sonu-2. Binyıl Başında Kültepe-Kaniş\". Höyük (in Turkish) (12): 39-55. doi:10.37879/hoyuk.2023.2.039. Wikidata Q130241031. Retrieved 2024-09-05. {{Cite Q}}: Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Fikri Kulakoğlu , Elif Genç, Güzel Öztürk, Yılmaz Rıdvanoğulları (help) \n\n^ How to translate the term kārum is debated. Cécile Michel has argued against the translation 'colony' or 'trade diaspora'. She notes: \"The word kārum is often translated as 'colony' or 'trading colony' by scholars; however this term is not satisfactory since it often evokes some kind of domination of a state over a foreign territory (Michel 2014). In the Old Assyrian texts, the kārum refers both to the part of the town where merchants were established and the institution represented by the assembly of the merchants who administered that center, and which had an office and officials. There is no word or expression in English that fits this definition, unlike the French expression comptoir commercial. Thus, [...] the expression 'commercial settlement' [could be] used when referring to the area where merchants were established and carried out their activities.Michel, Cécile (2020). Women of Assur and Kanesh: Texts from the Archives of Assyrian Merchants. p. xviii. ISBN 978-0-88414-455-7. LCCN 2020012833. Wikidata Q130241124.\n\n^ a b \"Archaeological Site of Kültepe-Kanesh\". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014. Retrieved 19 June 2018.\n\n^ a b Michel, Cécile (2020). Women of Assur and Kanesh: Texts from the Archives of Assyrian Merchants. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-88414-455-7. LCCN 2020012833. Wikidata Q130241124. Retrieved 2024-09-05.\n\n^ Bryce 2005, p. 37.\n\n^ Bryce 2005, p. 10.\n\n^ Kloekhorst, Alwin, (2021). \"A new interpretation of the Old Hittite Zalpa-text (CTH 3.1): Nēša as the capital under Ḫuzzii̯a I, Labarna I, and Ḫattušili I\" Archived 2021-10-07 at the Wayback Machine, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.141, No. 3, p. 564.\n\n^ Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). The Ancient Near East, Volume I. London and New York: Routledge. p. 226. ISBN 0-415-16763-9.\n\n^ \"The Proclamation of Anittas (Old Hittite)\". Archived from the original on 2014-03-03. Retrieved 2006-07-03.\n\n^ [1] A. H. Sayce, The Museum Collection Of Cappadocian Tablets, The Museum Journal, vol. IX, no. 2, pp. 148-150, Penn Museum, June 1918\n\n^ Ernest Chantre, Recherches archéologiques dans l'Asie occidentale : mission en Cappadoce, 1893-1894, 1898\n\n^ Hugo Grothe, Meine Vorderasienexpedilion 1906 und 1907, I (Leipzig, 1911)\n\n^ Frédéric Hrozný, \"Rapport Preliminaire Sur Les Fouilles Tchécoslovaques Du Kultépé (1925)\", Syria, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-12, 1927\n\n^ Julius Lewy, Die altassyrischen Texte vom Kültepe bei Kaisarije, Konstantinopel, 1926\n\n^ Veysel Donbaz, Keilschrifttexte in den Antiken-Museen zu Stambul 2, Freiburger Altorientalische Studien, 1989\n\n^ [2] James Henry Breasted, EXPLORATIONS IN HITTITE ASIA MINOR-1929, ORIENTAL INSTITUTE COMMUNICATIONS, no. 8, Oriental Institute of Chicago, 1929\n\n^ [3] Özgüç, Tahsin, \"Kültepe (Karahöyük) Hafriyatı 1950\", Belleten 17.66, pp. 251-268, 1953\n\n^ Tahsin Özgüç, The Palaces and Temples of Kultepe-Kanis/Nesa, Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1999, ISBN 975-16-1066-4\n\n^ Üstündağ, Handan \"Human remains from Kültepe-Kanesh: preliminary results of the old Assyrian burials from the 2005-2008 excavations\", Current research at Kültepe-Kanesh. An interdisciplinary and integrative approach to trade networks, internationalism, and identity. Lockwood, Atlanta, pp. 157-176, 2014\n\n^ [4] Archived 2024-06-21 at the Wayback MachineCécile Michel, \"Miscellaneous tablets and fragments found at Kültepe in 2012 and 2013\", W. Tyborowski. Awilum sa la mase - man who cannot be forgotten. Studies in Honor of Prof. Stefan Zawadzki presented on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday, pp.153-164, 2018\n\n^ (Mellaart, 1957)\n\n^ (Ozkan, 1993)\n\n^ Günbatti, Cahit, \"An Eponym List (KEL G) from Kültepe\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 103-132, 2009\n\n^ E. Bilgic and S Bayram, Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri II, Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1995, ISBN 975-16-0246-7\n\n^ K. R. Veenhof, Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri V, Turk Tarih Kurumu, 2010, ISBN 978-975-16-2235-8\n\n^ Michel, Cécile. \"The Alāhum and Aur-taklāku archives found in 1993 at Kültepe Kani\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 53-67, 2009\n\n^ Gojko Barjamovic: A Historical Geography of Anatolia in the Old Assyrian Colony Period; Copenhagen 2011. ISBN 978-87-635-3645-5, S. 231.\n\n^ Kulakoğlu, Fikri, & Güzel Öztürk, (February 2015). New evidence for international trade in Bronze Age central Anatolia: recently discovered bullae at Kültepe-Kanesh, in: Antiquity, Issue 343, Volume 89: \"Two monumental structures, a building and a temple, were unearthed in Levels 12 and 11b of EBA III (c. 2400-2100 BC).\"\n\n^ Powell et al. 2023, Introduction: \"The late part of the Early Bronze Age at Kültepe is represented by three phases, the last of which consists of two secondary sub-phases (EBA III = Kültepe Levels 13-11a-b) [...] The name Kaneš for the site is first attested during this period (wr. Ga-ni-šu ki, cf. Archi, 2017)\".\n\n^ Kulakoğlu, Fikri, & Güzel Öztürk, (February 2015). New evidence for international trade in Bronze Age central Anatolia: recently discovered bullae at Kültepe-Kanesh, in: Antiquity, Issue 343, Volume 89: \"[T]he Kültepe Level 12 temple, which is called a megaron with its rectangular plan and which contains a long hall andÖztür a porch in front, approaches that of the largest and best-known megaron of Troy II in western Anatolia [...] The so-called 'building with pilasters' (Özgüç 1986: 34) is dated to Level 11b.\"\n\n^ Öztürk, Güzel, and Fikri Kulakoglu, (2023). \"New Discoveries on Alabaster Idols and Statuettes of the 3rd Millennium BC at Kültepe: A Comparative Analysis to Understand the Typology, Context And Meanings of Ritual Objects\", in: 2023 ASOR Abstract Booklet, pp. 76-77.\n\n^ Strupler, Néhémie (2021). \"An Overview of Sealing Practices at Kültepe\" (PDF). Cultural Exchange and Current Research in Kültepe and its Surroundings Kültepe. Turnhout: Brepols. pp. 181-196. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-09-11. Retrieved 2024-09-05.\n\n^ Watkins, Calvert. \"Hittite\". In: The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Edited by Roger D. Woodard. Cambridge University Press. 2008. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-511-39353-2\n\n^ \"Archived copy\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2006-07-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ Manning, Sturt W.; Griggs, Carol B.; Lorentzen, Brita; Barjamovic, Gojko; Ramsey, Christopher Bronk; Kromer, Bernd; Wild, Eva Maria (2016). \"Integrated Tree-Ring-Radiocarbon High-Resolution Timeframe to Resolve Earlier Second Millennium BCE Mesopotamian Chronology\". PLOS ONE. 11 (7) e0157144. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1157144M. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157144. PMC 4943651. PMID 27409585.\n\n^ a b Bouscaren, Durrie. \"Assyrian Women of Letters.\" Archaeology, November-December 2023: 40-45.\n\n^ Michel 2020, page 1 of introduction.\n\n^ Archived tablet 9233, Bouscaren 2023, 41.\n\n^ a b Bouscaren 2023, 42.\n\n^ Tablet copy 688 found in private archive at Kanesh, Bouscaren 2023, 45\n\n^ Simat-Assur was assumed to be a sister of Taram-Kubi & Imdi-ilum. This is mentioned in a tablet recognized by Michel on page 372.\n\n^ Bouscaren 2023, 41.\n\n^ Michel 2020, 274-275.\n\n^ Michel 2020, 309.\n\n^ Bouscaren 2023, 45.\n\n^ Michel 2020, 216-217.\n\nSources\n\nAlbayrak, Irfan, \"The Toponym Balīhum in the Kültepe Texts\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 28-34, 2009\n\nAkurgal, Ekrem (2001). The Hattian and Hittite Civilizations. Ankara: Ministry of Culture. ISBN 978-975-17-2756-5.\n\nBachvarova, Mary R. (2010). \"Manly Deeds: Hittite Admonitory History and Eastern Mediterranean Didactic Epic\". Epic and History. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 66-85. ISBN 978-1-4443-1564-6.\n\nBarjamovic, Gojko (2011). A Historical Geography of Anatolia in the Old Assyrian Colony Period. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-87-635-3645-5.\n\nBryce, Trevor R. (2002). Life and Society in the Hittite World. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924170-5.\n\nBryce, Trevor R. (2005) [1998]. The Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd revised ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927908-1.\n\nBryce, Trevor R. (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. London-New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-15907-9.\n\nBryce, Trevor R. (2014). \"Hittites and Anatolian Ethnic Diversity\". A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 127-141. ISBN 978-1-4443-3734-1.\n\nBurney, Charles A. (2004). Historical Dictionary of the Hittites. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6564-8.\n\nGilan, Amir (2010). \"Epic and History in Hittite Anatolia: In Search of a Local Hero\". Epic and History. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 51-65. ISBN 978-1-4443-1564-6.\n\nGilan, Amir (2018). \"In Search of a Distant Past: Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia\" (PDF). Anadolu. 44: 1-23. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-03-09. Retrieved 2021-01-05.\n\nGlatz, Claudia (2020). The Making of Empire in Bronze Age Anatolia: Hittite Sovereign Practice, Resistance, and Negotiation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-49110-5.\n\nGoodnick-Westenholz, Joan (1997). Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-0-931464-85-0.\n\nGoodnick-Westenholz, Joan (2010). \"Historical Events and the Process of Their Transformation in Akkadian Heroic Traditions\". Epic and History. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 26-50. ISBN 978-1-4443-1564-6.\n\nMellaart, J., Anatolian Chronology in the Early and Middle Bronze Age, 1957, Anatolian Studies, vol.7, pp. 55-88\n\nMichel, Cécile (2014). \"Considerations on the Assyrian settlement at Kanesh\". Current Research at Kültepe-Kanesh: An Interdisciplinary and Integrative Approach to Trade Networks, Internationalism, and Identity (in undetermined language). pp. 69-84. doi:10.5913/2014192.ch04. Wikidata Q130245408.\n\nMichel, Cécile (2020). Women of Assur and Kanesh: Texts from the Archives of Assyrian Merchants. ISBN 978-0-88414-455-7. LCCN 2020012833. Wikidata Q130241124.\n\nStrupler, Néhémie (2021). \"An Overview of Sealing Practices at Kültepe\" (PDF). Cultural Exchange and Current Research in Kültepe and its Surroundings Kültepe. Turnhout: Brepols. pp. 181-196.\n\nTahsin Özgüç, Kültepe, Yapi Kredi, 2005, ISBN 975-08-0960-2\n\nPowell, W.; et al. (December 20, 2023). \"Tin isotopes reveal changing patterns of tin trade, connectivity and consumption from Anatolia and Central Asia at Kültepe\". Journal of Archaeological Science. 162 105917. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2023.105917. Archived from the original on December 28, 2023. Retrieved December 28, 2023.\n\nVeenhof, K. R., Kanesh: an Old Assyrian colony in Anatolia, in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East ed. by J. Sasson, Scribners, 1995\n\nVeenhof, Klaas R.. \"Some displaced Tablets from Kārum Kanesh (Kültepe)\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 10-27, 2009\n\nExternal links\n\nCuneiform tablet case - Metropolitan Museum of Art"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kultepe"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3842}, {"slug": "reference-abdisho-bar-berika", "title": "Abdisho bar Berika", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Abdisho bar Berika or Ebedjesu (Classical Syriac: ܥܒܕܝܫܘܥ ܕܨܘܒܐ) (died 1318), also known as Mar Odisho or St. Odisho in English, was a Syriac writer.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Abdisho bar Berika or Ebedjesu (Classical Syriac: ܥܒܕܝܫܘܥ ܕܨܘܒܐ) (died 1318), also known as Mar Odisho or St. Odisho in English, was a Syriac writer.[1]\n\nAccording to some scholars, Abdisho was born in Nusaybin and became a monk in the monastery of Mar Aḥa and Mar John - however, this might be a confusion with Abdisho IV Maron.[2] Abdisho bar Berika became bishop of Shiggar (Sinjar) and the province of Bet 'Arbaye (Arbayestan) and later metropolitan of Nisibis and Armenia. For these offices, dates are given in parts of the literature (bishop of Sinjar in 1285, metropolitan of Nisibis in 1291), but these are likely based on ambiguous contemporary sources and are therefore unreliable.[3]\n\nHe was the author of the Marganitha (The Book of the Jewel), one of the most important ecclesiastical texts of the Assyrian Church of the East, a kind of theological encyclopaedia.\n\nHe wrote biblical commentaries in Syriac, as well as polemical treatises against heresy and dogmatic and legal writings.[4] His legal works are the Nomokanon, which is largely based on the predecessor by Gabriel of Basra, and the Regulation of Ecclesiastical Judgements and Laws (often cited with a Latin translation of the title, as ordo iudiciorum ecclesiasticorum).[5] He also wrote texts in metrical form including an author catalogue, which played an important role in Syrian literary history.[6]\n\nTranslations\n\nThe Catalogue of Books of ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha: Translated with an Introduction and Notes. Translated by Stadel, Seth. Brill. 2025.\n\nList of works\n\nThe \"book of the jewel\" or Marganitha (1298)\n\nCatalogue of biblical and ecclesiastical books.\n\nParadise of Eden.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Zammit, Martin. 'Enbe men Karmo Suryoyo (Bunches of Grapes from the Syriac Vineyard).\n\n^ Kaufhold 2019, p. 1*.\n\n^ Kaufhold 2019, p. 1*-2*.\n\n^ Lavenant, René (1919). Abdīšō Berika bar. Vol. 3.\n\n^ Kaufhold 2019, pp. 10*-14*.\n\n^ Baumstark, Anton (1922). History of Syriac literature with exclusion of the Palestinian Christian texts. p. 632.\n\nBibliography\n\nKaufhold, Hubert (2019). Ebedjesus von Nisibis, „Ordo iudiciorum ecclesiasticorum“. Eine Zusammenstellung der kirchlichen Rechtsbestimmungen der ostsyrischen Kirche im 14. Jahrhundert [Abdisho of Nisibis, \"Ordo iudiciorum ecclesiasticorum\". A compilation of the ecclesiastical legal regulations of the East Syrian Church in the 14th century]. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-11294-9.\n\nBenjamin, Yoab (1994). \"A comparative Study of ‛Abdīshō's Paradise of Eden and the Maḳāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī\". Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society. 8 (1). Assyrian Academic Society: 51-82."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-abdisho-bar-berika"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 394}, {"slug": "reference-beth-gazo", "title": "Beth Gazo", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Beth Gazo (ܒܶܝܬ̥ ܓܰܙܳܐ‎ [bɛθ ɡɐːzo]; literary \"the house of treasure\") is a Syriac liturgical book that contains a collection of Syriac chants and melodies. The book is considered a reference of Syriac Hymnody and without it clerics belonging to the West Syriac Tradition cannot perform their liturgical...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Beth Gazo (ܒܶܝܬ̥ ܓܰܙܳܐ‎ [bɛθ ɡɐːzo]; literary \"the house of treasure\") is a Syriac liturgical book that contains a collection of Syriac chants and melodies. The book is considered a reference of Syriac Hymnody and without it clerics belonging to the West Syriac Tradition cannot perform their liturgical duty. There exist modern varieties of this book with different names such as: beṯ gázo dqinóṯo (ܒܝܬ ܓܙܐ ܕܩܝܢ̈ܬܐ‎), beṯ gázo dzimróṯo (ܒܝܬ ܓܙܐ ܕܙܡܪ̈ܬܐ‎) and beṯ gázo dneʻmóṯo (ܒܝܬ ܓܙܐ ܕܢܥܡ̈ܬܐ‎).\n\nHistory\n\nThe origin of Beth Gazo can be traced back to the early centuries of Christianity going as far as Bardaisan (154-222 CE).[1] However, the bulk of the hymns is attributed to Ephrem the Syrian (306 - 373 CE).\n\nThere are two main traditions in chanting: western based on the School of Mardin and eastern in Tikrit formerly. There is a daily breviary found in the Syriac Orthodox Church called \"Shehimo: Book of Common Prayer\" where the West Syriac style of chants and melodies from Beth Gazo are followed.\n\nContents\n\nThe abridged version of Beth Gazo contain the following hymns:\n\nQole shahroye (ܩܠܐ ܫܗܪܝܐ) \"vigils\". These were sung by those belonging to the order of shahroye \"vigilants\". they are dedicated to the Virgin, the saints, to penitence and the departed.\n\nGushmo (ܓܫܡܐ‎) \"body\". Each of which consists of eight modes. These are recited during the daily offices known as šḥimo (ܫܚܝܡܐ).\n\nSebeltho d'madroshe (ܣܒܠܬܐ ܕܡܕܪܫܐ‎) \"ladder of hymns\". It is this category that seems to have mostly inherited Ephrem's.\n\nFardo (ܦܪܕܐ‎) \"single\". These are short hymns divided into eight collections corresponding to the eight Syriac maqams.\n\nQonuno yawnoyo (ܩܢܘܢܐ ܝܘܢܝܐ‎) \"Greek canon\". Divided into eight collections.\n\nMawrbo (ܡܘܪܒܐ‎) \"magnificat\". Dedicated to the Virgin Mary.\n\nQole ghnize (ܩܠܐ ܓܢܝܙܐ‎) \"mystic hymns\". Those were lost.\n\nTakheshphotho rabuloyotho (ܬܟܫܦܬܐ ܪܒܘܠܐܬܐ‎) \"litanies of Rabula\". Attributed to Rabbula bishop of Edessa.\n\nTborto (ܬܒܝܪܬܐ‎) \"broken\". They fall into three categories: those attributed to St. Jacob of Serug, St. Ephrem the Syrian and of St. Balai of Qenneshrin.\n\nQuqlion (ܩܘܩܠܝܘܢ‎) \"cycles\". These are cycles from the Psalms.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Edessian Preservation Initiative, lostorigins\n\nExternal links\n\nGregorios Y. IBRAHIM, Ephrem's Madroshe and the Syrian Orthodox Beth Gazo: A Loose, But Fascinating, Affinity, Hugoye\n\nThe Treasury of Chants, Hugoye\n\nHistory of The Syriac Music Church, Abrohom Lahdo and Elias Zazi"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-beth-gazo"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 386}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-sacral-music", "title": "Syriac sacral music", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Syriac sacral music is music in the Syriac language as used in the liturgy of Syriac Christianity. Historically it is best known from and important for its part in the development of Christian sacred music", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac sacral music is music in the Syriac language as used in the liturgy of Syriac Christianity.\nHistorically it is best known from and important for its part in the development of Christian sacred music \n\nsince Antiquity.\n\nThe Syriac churches have a musical system based on ancient principles today known as maqam. There are eight maqams used in the church and these are known as qadmoyo (maqam bayati, maqam ussak), trayono (maqam huseini), tlithoyo (maqam segah, maqam nahawand, maqam kurd), rbi'oyo (maqam rast), hmishoyo (maqam huzam), shtithoyo (maqam ajam), shbi'oyo (maqam saba) and tminoyo (maqam hijaz) (in order from one to eight). The predominant works of the Syriac Church's music were collected in an anthology called Beth Gazo (Psalms of the Treasury of Maqams). There are also musical psalms other than this repertoire of 700 psalms, among them are the Fenqitho of the Syriac Orthodox and Maronite Churches, as well as the Khudra of the Church of the East.\n\nSyrian hymnody\n\nTo the general considerations of hymnody and hymnology must be added some bearing particularly on the structure and liturgical use of hymns (madrashe), exclusive of poetical homilies or discourses (mimre), which belong to the narrative and epic class, while the hymns are lyrical.\n\nThe chief basis of Syriac metre is fixed number of syllables of the verses, without distinction of long and short syllables, as in several modern languages. Verses of all lengths from two to twelve are known, but the metres most used in hymnody are dodecasyllabic verses of twelve syllables formed of three equal measures (4+4+4), heptasyllabic verses of seven syllables formed of two measures (4+3 or 3+4), and pentasyllabic verses of five syllables also formed of two measures (2+3 or 3+2). These verses may be employed alone or grouped in strophes, the latter form being most frequent in hymns composed of verses of five and seven syllables. A strophe is generally composed of equal verses, but it sometimes happens that the first of the last verse is in a different measure from the other verses of the strophe. All the strophes of a hymn are usually of the same construction.\n\nBesides variety of metre and division into strophes, the Syrians prior to the ninth century knew no other artifice than the arrangement of acrostic poems. The acrostic played an important part, in Syriac hymnody and its use, especially the alphabetic acrostic, seems to have been introduced in imitation of the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremias. Sometimes the acrostic is linear, simple when each verse begins successively with one of the twenty-two letters of the Syriac alphabet, multiple, when two, three, or more verses begin with the same letter without, forming strophes; sometimes it is strophic, when each strophe is marked by a letter of the alphabet. This letter may be only at the beginning of the first verse or it may be repeated at the beginning of each verse of the strophe. introduced in imitation of the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremias. There may be two or more successive strophes beginning with the same letter, each letter regularly marking the same number of strophes throughout the poem, which thus consists of forty-four strophes, of sixty-six, or of any other multiple of twenty-two.\nThe verbal acrostic is more rare. The name of Jesus Christ, of Mary, or the saint in whose honour the hymn is composed serves to form linear or strophic acrostics. St. Ephraem signed some of his poems with his acrostic.\n\nFrom the ninth century the influence of Arabic poetry made itself felt in Syriac hymnody, especially by the introduction of rhyme, this manner of marking the final stroke of a verse had been hitherto unknown, the rare examples held to have been discovered among older authors being merely voluntary or fortuitous assonances. But the Syrians made varied use of rhyme. There are poems in which all the verses have the same rhyme as in the \"Kasida\" of the Arabs. In others, and these are more numerous, the verses of each strophe have a single rhyme that is not the same for all the strophes. In others the verses of a strophe rhyme among themselves, with the exception of the last, which repeats the rhyme of the first strophe like a refrain. In acrostic poems the rhyme is sometimes supplied by the corresponding letter of the alphabet; thus the first strophe rhymes with a, the second with b, etc. There may also be a different rhyme for the first two measures and for the last. These are the most frequent combinations, but there are others.\n\nMost ancient Syriac hymns, e.g., those of St. Ephraem, Narses and Balai, although composed for one or two choirs, were not originally intended for liturgical use properly so called but addressed as much to the laity as to clerics, and date from a period when the codification of harmony was not yet regularly established.\n\nThe result of adapting these hymns to liturgical offices was that they underwent various modifications: \n\nIn the assignment of authorship-the Syrian Jacobites and the Maronites in adopting those of Nestorian origin either suppressed the name of the author or substituted the name of one whom they considered orthodox, most frequently St. Ephraem\n\nIn revision, those too long were shortened and heterodox expressions were modified-thus the term \"Mother of Christ\" was replaced by \"Mother of God\", etc.\n\nIn general arrangement, especially by the addition of a refrain when there was none in the original.\n\nThus a hymn by St. Ephraem, the acrostic of which forms the name \"Jesus Christ\", begins with the strophe:\n\nJesus Our Lord the Christ\nHas appeared to us from the bosom of His Father;\nHe has come to deliver us from darkness,\nAnd to illumine us with his resplendent light.\n\nIt was preceded by the following distich, which forms the refrain:\n\nLight is arisen upon the just\nAnd joy for those who are broken-hearted. \n\nLikewise a hymn of Narses on the Epiphany begins: \n\nError like darkness,\nWas stretched over creatures;\nThe light of Christ is arisen\nAnd the world possesses knowledge.\nIts refrain is the following distich:\nThe light of the appearing of Christ\nHas rejoiced the earth and the heavens.\n\nSyriac Hymns do not occur only in the Office that correspond to the Roman Breviary; the Syrians also made use of them in various liturgical functions, such as funeral and marriage celebrations.\n\nSimple hymns without refrain are called teshbuhte (glorifications); the name cala (voice) is given to the hymns in which each is preceded by a sentence (metrical or not) expressing a thought in conformity with that of the strophe. It is in a manner an invitation from the first choir to which the second replies by strophe, e.g.:\n\nFirst choir: Open to me the gates of justice. \nSecond choir: Open to us, Lord, the great treasure, (strophe of four verses). \nFirst choir: And I will enter to praise the Lord. \nSecond choir: At the gate of thy mercies (etc., strophe of four verses). \nSometimes the strophes are interspersed with versicles from the Psalms.\n\nThe hymns in the Syriac Office, which conclude the part known as sedra and replace the short prayers of the Nestorian Office, are called ba'utha (prayer, request). Most hymns of this class are in pentasyllabic verses and are the work of the poet Balai (d. about 450). They show great simplicity of thought and language and consist of two strophes, generally of six verses each, sometimes of four, as for example:\n\nDuring forty days\nMoses fasted on the mountain:\nAnd with the splendor of its light\nHis countenance shone.\nDuring forty days\nNinive fasted:\nAnd the Lord was appeased,\nAnd annulled the sentence.\n\nInstead of the ba'utha occasionally occurs a metrical composition called seblata (stairs), which are factitious arrangements of verses borrowed from various sources and arbitrarily arranged by those who co-ordinated or revised the offices, and are of no assistance in the study of Syriac hymnody. The sagitha is less frequently replaced by the augitha, a canticle in the form of a dialogue that recalls the \"Victimae paschali\" of the Roman Missal. All the poems of this kind known to us are of Nestorian origin, and are probably the work of Narses. They are uniformly constructed with an introduction and a dialogue; the introduction is composed of from five to ten strophes of four heptasyllabic verses; the dialogue between two persons or two groups of persons contains forty four strophes (twenty-two for each interlocutor) similar to those in the prologue and forming an alphabetic acrostic. These compositions of rather lively measure are stamped by a certain grace. The subject is adapted to the liturgical feast of the day; thus in the canticle for Christmas, the dialogue is between the Blessed Virgin and the Magi; for the Annunciation, between Gabriel and Mary; for the feast of Syrian Doctors, between Cyril and Nestorius, etc. These three kinds of hymns correspond to the three subjects that form their usual theme, praise, prayer, and instruction, but as has been said the last-named was chiefly imparted by the mimre.\n\nExtensive study of Syriac hymnody would show whether there is any relationship between it and Byzantine hymnody, which hypothesis has had as many opponents as defenders; but this study is an undertaking fraught with difficulties, owing to the small number of documents published in satisfactory condition. Indeed, the knowledge of hymns supplied by editions of the liturgical books of Catholic Chaldeans, Syrians, or Maronites is inadequate for the reasons indicated above. The works of St. Ephraem, which contain a large number of them (authentic or apocryphal), have not been critically edited. The Nestorian Breviaries, which have most faithfully preserved the ancient texts, have never been printed and manuscripts are rare, while the collections of hymns apart from liturgical books are few and have not been sufficiently studied.\n\nLegacy\n\nMelodies that originated in East-Syriac Rite and West-Syriac Rite rites in the Middle East have survived in Kerala.\n\nSee also\n\nBeth Gazo\n\nSyrian Chant\n\nReferences\n\n This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"Syriac Hymnody\". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nLiturgical Music-MOSC\n\nHome page of the Christian Musicological Society of India"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-sacral-music"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1706}, {"slug": "reference-babai-the-great", "title": "Babai the Great", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Babai the Great (ܒܵܒܲܝ ܪܲܒܵܐ bābay rabbā,[1] c. 551 - 628) was an early church father of the Church of the East. He set several of the foundational pillars of the Church, revived the monastic movement, and formulated its Christology in a systematic way. He served as a...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mar\nBabai the Great\n\nAbbot of Abraham's Monastery\n\nBornc. 551\nBeth Ainata in Beth Zabdai\n\nDiedc. 628\nAbraham's Monastery on Mt. Izla, Nisibis\n\nVenerated inChurch of the East\n\nControversyChristology\n\nBabai the Great (ܒܵܒܲܝ ܪܲܒܵܐ bābay rabbā,[1] c. 551 - 628) was an early church father of the Church of the East. He set several of the foundational pillars of the Church, revived the monastic movement, and formulated its Christology in a systematic way. He served as a monastic visitor and coadjutor with Mar Aba as unofficial heads of the Church of the East (formerly referred to as the \"Nestorian Church\")[2] after Catholicos Gregory until 628 AD, leaving a legacy of strong discipline and deep religious Orthodoxy. He is revered in the modern Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East.\n\nBiography\n\nBabai the Great (not to be confused with Mar Babai I, the first autonomous leader of the Church of the East) was born in the town of Beth Ainata in Beth Zabdai, on the west bank of the Tigris, near Nisibis.[3] He was born to a family of humble means, and studied at the Christian School of Nisibis[4] under the directorship of Abraham of Beth Rabban. Sometime around 571 A.D., when the Origenist Henana of Adiabene became the new headmaster, Babai's teacher, Abraham the Great of Kashkar, founded a new monastery on Mt. Izla above Nisibis. Babai taught for a while at the Xenodocheio of Nisibis. After that he joined the newly founded monastery of Abraham on Mt. Izla. When Abraham died in 588, Babai left and founded a new monastery and school in his home country Beth Zabdai.\nIn 604 Babai became the third abbot of Abraham's monastery on Mt. Izla.\n\nAbraham the Great had started a monastic reform movement which Babai and other disciples carried through. Since Bar Sauma and the Synod of Beth Lapat, monks and nuns had been encouraged to marry. When Babai returned to Mt. Izla in 604, he expelled monks that lived with women on the fringes of the monastery, and enforced strict discipline, emphasizing a deep life of prayer and solitude. The result was a mass exodus, not only of the married monks.[3]\n\nBut the Church of the East was with Babai. In 604, the Catholicos Mar Sabrisho I died and a new Catholicos had to be elected. The choice fell between two men named Gregory: Bishop Gregory of Nisibis and Professor Gregory of Seleucia. King Khosrau II, ruler of the Sassanid Empire, stated only that his preferred candidate was Gregory, possibly meaning the bishop. The king's influential wife Shirin, however, disliked Gregory of Nisibis and preferred Gregory of Seleucia, who had once been her steward. The Synod (council) rejected the king's initial candidate, taking advantage of the ambiguity of name, and chose Gregory of Seleucia. The king was accordingly displeased, and reluctantly supported the elected candidate (after applying a hefty fine to him), and said, \"Patriarch he is and patriarch he shall be - but never again do I allow another election.\"[5]\n\nWhen the Catholicos Gregorius died a few years later in 608, the bishops made the usual request to the king to allow them to elect a new Catholicos, but Khosrau had not forgotten the events of the previous election and refused them permission to do so. The royal physician Gabriel of Shiggar, a staunch Miaphysite, suggested to make Henana of Adiabene or one of his students Catholicos, and also used his influence with the king to prevent an election.\n\nFrom 610 to 628 the last and most devastating wars between Byzantium and Persia took place. First Persia conquered parts of Byzantium, which were populated mostly by Miaphysite and Chalcedonian Christians. To be popular in the newly gained provinces, King Khosrau II did not want to favor the Church of the East anymore. During the successful Byzantine counterattack 622-628, Chalcedonians and especially Miaphysites were on the advance in Persia, and several sees and villages were lost by the Church of the East. The king successfully blocked an election in the church,[3] preventing the church from having any figure who could allow new bishops and metropolitans to be consecrated.\n\nDuring the decades of this vacancy, the Church of the East required a sort of authority. Because the king remained staunch in his policy, the church chose to separate itself from the king's royal proscription. Two vekils (regents) were selected as a stop-gap measure: Archdeacon Mar Aba, who handled matters in the South. In the North, Babai the Great was chosen to lead, who at the time was abbot of a monastery on Mt. Izla. He was nominated inspector-general or visitor of the monasteries of the three northern provinces by the Metropolitans of Nisibis, B. Garmai, and Adiabene.[6] Therefore, Babai, even though not yet a bishop, acted as patriarch in all ecclesiastical matters, though he could not ordain or consecrate. He was appointed 'visitor of the monasteries' of the North and administered the church in collaboration with Archdeacon Mar Aba. In particular, this new position allowed Babai to investigate the orthodoxy of the monasteries and monks of northern Mesopotamia, and to enforce discipline throughout the monasteries of northern Mesopotamia, even against occasional resistance.\n\nBabai the Great and Mar Aba administered the Church of the East for 17 years. Attempts were made during that time to ask the king to change his mind and allow an election, but influences in the court, such as Gabriel of Shiggar, and the king's wife Shirin, both miaphysite, blocked the requests. Gabriel was seeking to maneuver things such that the decision of Catholicos would have been in his own hands, an option completely unacceptable to the bishops.[7]\n\nThe king defended this policy until his death in 628. The situation, and vacancy, endured until Khosrau II was murdered in 628. After this, Babai was promptly, and unanimously, elected Catholicos, but he declined. Soon afterward, he died in the cell of his monastery on Mt. Izla,[6] being 75 or 77 years old.\n\nBabai's teaching\n\nBesides bringing discipline to the monasteries and administering the church, Babai is mainly known for his orthodox teaching.\n\nBabai's writing\n\nTo defend and clarify the East Syriac tradition and theology against Henana's Origenism and the advancing Monophysites, Babai the Great produced some 83 or 84 volumes of writing. He developed a systematic Christology, which is vital in the Assyrian Church of the East until today.[8] Of his extensive exegetical works on all of Scripture nothing survived. What remains are two hagiographies (of Christina and George of Izla), his principal work on the foundations of ascetic life 'On the Life of Excellency', and commentaries on mystical themes.\n\nFrom what has been preserved it appears that his main authority was Theodore of Mopsuestia,[9] though in general he used few citations from the Fathers. There is no evidence that he could read Greek, and Babai must have relied on translations.\n\nHe mainly fought against the ideas of the Monophysites and of the Origenist Henana. They were the inner enemies. He also wrote against the doctrines of Mani, Gnostic doctrines of Marcion, of Bar Daisan, of the Messalians and the general loss of discipline in monasteries in Beth Lapat.\n\nThe Book of Union is Babai's most systematic surviving Christological treatise, divided into seven memre that cover more than 200 folios. The 'Tractatus Vaticanus' is another manuscript that deals with the, \"impossibility of the hypostatic union and natural union, the possibility of the parsopic union, and the significance of the expression hypostatic union among the fathers of the antiquity\".\n\nAn important source on the position of Babai the Great against Origen and his follower Henana of Adiabene is his commentary on Evagrius Ponticus. It also shows his opposition to Messalianism. An 8th-century manuscript has been preserved that contains Evagrius' text together with Babai's commentary on it. This commentary is an abridged version of a larger one which Babai had written earlier and which is lost.\n\nThe writings of Evagrius were important to the current mystical revival among Greek and Syrian monks. For the monks of Mt. Izla, Evagrius was the pillar of mystical theology. The Greek text was condemned already in 553 for its Origenist heresies.\n\nBut unlike the Greek, the 'Common Syriac Version', a translation of the Gnostic chapters of Evagrius by the Miaphysite Philoxenus, was void of the specific Origenist-Evagrian Christology. For example, it omits the 'nous-Christos' Christology where the God-logos and the flesh are united in the nous, Jesus Christ, the subject of incarnation. Babai tried to eliminate the Origenist ideas even further and presented Evagrius as opposed to Origen and his follower Henana by pointing out apparent contradictions between them.\n\n\"The Devil is telling the people that some of Evagrius' statements are similar to heresies. Some even tried to translate directly from the Greek to show the heresy of Evagrius. They translated according to their foolishness, but can be refuted by other writings of Evagrius. The cursed Origen and his disciple, the fool Apollinaris, they teach completely different from Evagrius on the renewal of the soul after death\".\n\nTo show this further, Babai tells the vita of Evagrius and enumerates his sources: Basilius, Gregorius, and Nectarius.\n\nBabai's Christology\n\nThe main theological authorities of Babai were Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tarsus. He also relied on John Chrysostomos, the Cappadocian fathers and on Ephrem the Syrian, which were also accepted in the West. In his exegetical methods he synthesized between the rational Theodore and mystical writers like Evagrius.\n\nAnd most important, instead of breaking with Theodore because of some extreme interpretations of his teachings, like others did, Babai clarified his position to the point that differences with western Christology became superficial and mostly an issue of terminology. His Christology is far less dualistic than the one Nestorius seems to have presented.\n\nBabai in the 'Book of Union' teaches two qnome ('nature, essence', the miaphysite West Syriac Church uses the word to mean 'hypostasis'), which are unmingled but everlastingly united in one parsopa (from Greek prosopon, 'person, character, identity'). It is essential to use the Syrian terms here and not any translations, because the same words mean different things to different people, and the words must be accepted in the particular sense of each. In Greek Christology, hypostasis is used specifically to refer to what would correspond to Babai's parsopa, and ousion would correspond to qnome. In the period in which Babai and others formulated their respective Christological models, words such as hypostasis and ousion had less specifically fixed definitions. Thus, it was possible for two individuals to honestly use a single term to mean two distinctly different things. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, \"Syriac was a richer and more complex language than either Greek or Arabic, and it allowed for more precise distinction\".[11]\n\nTo Babai, Christ is both God and man. But he could not tolerate any form of Theopaschism (the belief that God suffered), be it the divinity itself, the Trinity, or one of the hypostases of the Trinity. According to Babai, Cyril of Alexandria stood at the root of simple Theopaschism as professed by the Miaphysites, and the Emperor Justinian I at the root of composite Theopaschism. The Church of the East could accept expressions like 'Christ died', 'the Son died', but not 'the Word died', even not 'the Word died in the flesh'.\n\nIn the sixth century AD, Mar Babai wrote the Teshbokhta or (Hymn of Praise) explaining the theology of the Church of the East He writes:\n\nOne is Christ the Son of God,\n\nWorshiped by all in two natures;\n\nIn His Godhead begotten of the Father,\n\nWithout beginning before all time;\n\nIn His humanity born of Mary,\n\nIn the fullness of time, in a body united;\n\nNeither His Godhead is of the nature of the mother,\n\nNor His humanity of the nature of the Father;\n\nThe natures are preserved in their Qnumas (substance),\n\nIn one person of one Sonship.\n\nAnd as the Godhead is three substances in one nature,\n\nLikewise the Sonship of the Son is in two natures, one person.\n\nSo the Holy Church has taught.[12]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Walters, James E.; et al. (et al.) (2016-08-17). Michelson, David A.; Gibson, Nathan P. (eds.). \"Babai the Great\". Qadishe: A Guide to the Syriac Saints. The Syriac Biographical Dictionary vol. 1. Retrieved 2021-02-12. \nFor the vowels of the name, this webpage cites: bar Brikha, ʿAbdishoʿ (1924). Ktābā d-metqre margānitā d-ʿal šrārā da-kresṭyānutā (2nd ed.). Mosul: Mṭabbaʿtā ātoraytā d-ʿēdtā ʿattiqtā d-madnḥā. p. 71.\n\n^ Brock 1996, p. 23-35.\n\n^ a b c Kitchen, Robert A., \"Babai the Great\", The Orthodox Christian World, (Augustine Casiday, ed.), Chap. 21, Routledge, 2012 ISBN 9780415455169\n\n^ Bundy, David and Norris, Frederick w. Norris. \"Babai the Great\", Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Volume 1, (Everett Ferguson, Michael P. McHugh, Frederick W. Norris, ed.), Taylor & Francis, 1998 ISBN 9780815333197\n\n^ Wigram, p. 247\n\n^ a b Wood 2013, p. 159.\n\n^ Wigram, p. 255\n\n^ Winkler 2023, p. 29-49.\n\n^ Phan, Peter C., Christianities in Asia, John Wiley & Sons, 2011 ISBN 9781444392609\n\n^ Winkler 2012, p. 148-165.\n\n^ Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volume 2: \"The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700)\", p.44, University of Chicago Press, 1977 ISBN 9780226653730\n\n^ Nestorian.org\n\nSources\n\nBabai Magnus, Liber de Unione, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, tomi 79/80, syri 34/35, Louvain 1915. (The first figures correspond to the Syriac edition, the second to a Latin translation).\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). \"The 'Nestorian' Church: A Lamentable Misnomer\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 23-35. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.3.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials\". Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. New York and London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281-298. ISBN 9780815330714.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nToepel, Alexander (2014). \"Zur Bedeutung der Begriffe Hypostase und Prosopon bei Babai dem Großen\". Georgian Christian Thought and Its Cultural Context. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2014. pp. 151-171. ISBN 9789004264274.\n\nWigram, W. A. (1910). An introduction to the history of the Assyrian Church, or, The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire, 100-640 A.D. Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-103-7. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2012). \"Nestorius\". Arbeitsbuch Theologiegeschichte. Diskurse. Akteure. Wissensformen. Vol. 1: 2. Bis 15. Jahrhundert. Ed. Gregor M. Hoff and Ulrich H.J. Körtner Stuttgart. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. pp. 148-165. ISBN 9783170191143.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2023). \"Some Remarks on the Christology of Babai the Great (+ 628) in its Historical Context\". The Harp. Journal of Syriac, Oriental and Ecumenical Studies. 39: 29-49.\n\nWood, Philip (2013). The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199670673."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-babai-the-great"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2472}, {"slug": "reference-kashk", "title": "Kashk", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Kashk, kishk, (Persian: کشک kašk, Turkish: keş, Sorani Kurdish: کەشک keşk) qurut, qurt, kurut, kurt (Tuvan and Kyrgyz: курут kurut, Kazakh: құрт qūrt, Turkish: kurut, Turkmen: gurt, Azerbaijani, Tajik and Uzbek: қурут qurut, Persian: قروت), jameed (Arabic: جميد), shilanch (Balochi: شیلانچ), chortan (Armenian: չորթան chort’an), aaruul or khuruud...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Kashk\nBalls of jameed sold at the souq in Jerusalem\n\nAlternative namesdried yogurt, qurut, kurut, khuruud, Aaruul, chortan, jameed, shilanch, kishk, qqet\n\nTypeCheese\n\nRegion or stateCaucasus, Central Asia, Middle East\n\nMain ingredientsYogurt, salt\n\nOther information21.60-39.31 %water, 4.5-23.5% fat, 31.22-50.68% protein, 2.84-13.19% salt[1]\n\n  Media: Kashk\n\nKashk, kishk, (Persian: کشک kašk, Turkish: keş, Sorani Kurdish: کەشک keşk) qurut, qurt, kurut, kurt (Tuvan and Kyrgyz: курут kurut, Kazakh: құрт qūrt, Turkish: kurut, Turkmen: gurt, Azerbaijani, Tajik and Uzbek: қурут qurut, Persian: قروت), jameed (Arabic: جميد), shilanch (Balochi: شیلانچ), chortan (Armenian: չորթան chort’an), aaruul or khuruud (Mongolian: ааруул or хурууд) is a range of dairy products popular in Iranian cuisine, Caucasian cuisine, and Central Asian cuisine. Kashk is made from strained yogurt, drained buttermilk (in particular, drained qatiq) or drained sour milk by shaping it and letting it dry. It can be made in a variety of forms: rolled into balls, sliced into strips, and formed into chunks.\n\nThere are three main kinds of food products with this name: foods based on curdled milk products like yogurt or cheese; foods based on barley broth, bread, or flour; and foods based on cereals combined with curdled milk.\n\nEtymology\n\nFrom Middle Persian (kšk' / kašk), thought to have came from (hwš- / hōš-, \"dry\") in reference to the fermentation process which involves drying under the sun,[2][3] The term was loaned to numerous languages including Arabic, Syriac, Turkish, Azerbaijani and many others.[4]\n\nIn Turkic languages, it is known as qurut/kurut. Qurut derives from the Turkic verb quru-t ('to make dry').\n\nIn Armenian - chortan (chor means \"dry\", while tan is buttermilk, the leftover liquid from making butter).\n\nBackground\n\nThe ancient form of kashk is a porridge of grains fermented with whey and dried in the sun.[5] The long shelf-life and nutritional value of kashk made it a useful item for peasants during the winter months, as well as soldiers and travelers.[6] Kashk is the origin of tarhana found in the moderns cuisines of Turkey and Greece, where it is called trachanas (τραχανάς).[6]\n\nModern kashk is usually a dish of dried buttermilk that can be crumbled and turned into a paste with water.[7][8] This coarse powder can be used to thicken soups and stews and improve their flavor, or as an ingredient in various meat, rice or vegetable dishes.[9][10] Drying allows a longer shelf life for the product.[11]\n\nKashk is also central to the staple Iranian eggplant dish known as kashk-e bademjan.[12]\n\nKashk in different languages and cultures\n\nKashk dairy products can be found in the cuisines of Iran, Tajikistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, the Caucasus.[3][13][14] In some languages it is called kashk or kishkh, (Persian: کشک, Tajik: қурут, Arabic: كشك, Kurdish: keşk, Turkish: keş peyniri), qurut in others (Tajik: қурут,Kazakh: құрт, Turkish: kurut, Turkmen: gurt, Uzbek: qurt, Kyrgyz: курут, Pashto: قروت/توروې, Shor: қурут, Khakas: хурут). There are many varied names for this class of dishes including jameed (Arabic: جميد), chortan (Armenian: չորթան) and aaruul, khuruud (Mongolian: ааруул, хурууд). Chortan is mentioned in the 19th century Armenian epic poem Daredevils of Sassoun, said to be based on an 8th-century oral tradition.[15][16] \n\nAccording to Francoise Aubaile-Sallenave, the first known literary use of the term comes from the Armenian historian Yeghishe.[17] The word Kashk is also mentioned in the Middle Persian text Xusraw ud rēdag in adjectival form: ārd ī kaškēn.[18] the 10th-century Persian Shahnameh (\"Book of Kings\") by Firdausi the term is used in the sense of \"barley flour\", but it is also used for a mixture of cracked wheat and cracked barley.[10] Aubaile-Sallenave argues that the original Persian kashk known from early Persian literature was made with barley that contained either a mix of leaven with water or some fermented milk. To answer questions about the modern meaning in Iran for a dried dairy dish, she argued, \"Iranian speaking pastorialists, for whom dried sour milk was a staple, and who had no easy access to barley, applied the word kashk by analogy to dry sour milk\". Charles Perry offers an alternate explanation based on the 13th century Arabic cookbook Wasf al-Atimah al-Mutadah which says dried yogurt was a Turkomen-style kashk.[19]\n\nA 10th-century Arabic cookbook describes two types of kashk, one made of wheat and leaven and another of sour milk. By the Middle Ages the word had two meanings, one referring to barley flour or a mix of barley and cracked wheat, and another to mean a meat or fowl dish cooked overnight (kashak or kashk).[20]\n\nPreparation\n\nTo make the dried yogurt qurut a traditional or modern method can be used. For the modern method, sour yogurt is blended until smooth, then boiled and strained. It is left to ferment in a warm oven for several days, then the moisture is strained and blended with salt to make the kashk. The drained liquid can be used to make qaraqurut (\"dried black whey\").[21]\n\nFor traditionally prepared qurut water is added to full fat yogurt and poured into a goatskin \"churn\" - a sack hung from a tripod that is swung back and forth until the milk separates into a type of butter and buttermilk. The buttermilk is boiled and drained to obtain curd which is dried in the sun over a period of weeks to make qurut.[21] While traveling in the Baluchistan English explorer Ernest Ayscoghe Floyer encountered this form of kashk:[22]\n\n...from the butter manufacture is left the buttermilk called \"dōgh.\" This is boiled, and the remainder is \"luch\"; this is pressed and dried, and becomes \"shilanch\", or in Persian, \"kashk,\" a hard, white biscuit of very sour cheese. This is powdered, and, boiled with savory herbs, is very palatable.\n\nWhen kashk is made with grain in the Armenian, Arab and Turkish cuisines strained yogurt is added to grain and stored until it begins to ferment. After being left to dry in the sun for over a week it is turned into a coarse powder by rubbing and sifting.[9][10]\n\nRegional cuisines\n\nCaucasus\n\nMatzoon in Armenia and mats'oni in Georgia, is a commonly used ingredient in Caucasian cuisine. One of the ways matzoon is used is for the production of butter. When matsun is churned it separates from the buttermilk. By boiling and churning the buttermilk one obtains ricotta cheese. The product obtained by drying the ricotta clots is called chortan;[23] chor means \"dry\" and tan means \"buttermilk\" in the Armenian language.[24]\n\nIn Azerbaijan, qurut is made in a similar way from strained yogurt. Yogurt (qatiq) is made from fresh milk and strained to make suzma qatiq. When the buttermilk \"whey\" has been separated from the butter using traditional methods the buttermilk curds are formed into small balls and dried in the sun.[9] In western parts of Azerbaijan boiled flat dough is layered with a qurut white sauce and chicken to make Azerbaijani xəngəl.\n\nCentral Asia\n\nQurut dissolved in water is a primary ingredient of qurutob, which is thought of by some as the national dish of Tajikistan.[25] One of the main dishes in Afghanistan is kichree qurut, made with mung beans, rice and qurut dissolved in water. It is sometimes salted, and in Mongolia, aaruul can be flavoured as well as having many different shapes, sizes and textures (soft to rock-hard).\nIt can be generally categorized into sweetened or unsweetened aaruul. It can also be categorized by its shape and size, by its hardness and its origin.[26]\n\nIran\n\nKashk has been a staple in the Iranian diet for thousands of years.[27] In modern Iran, kashk is a thick whitish liquid similar to whey or sour cream, used in traditional Persian and Kurdish cuisine, like ash reshteh, kashk e badamjan, kale joush. It is available as a liquid or in a dried form, which needs to be soaked and softened before it can be used in cooking. Kashk was traditionally produced from the leftovers of cheese-making (more specifically, the milk used to make it). The procedure is, subtracting butter from milk, the remainder is doogh which can be used as the base for kashk. The water is subtracted from this whitish beverage and what remains is kashk which can be dried. Iranian kashk has made an appearance in US markets in the past half-century by several Iranian grocers starting with Kashk Hendessi.\n\nTurkey\n\nIn Turkey, kashk is a dried yogurt product also known as keş peyniri, kurut, taş yoğurt, kuru yoğurt, or katık keşi.[28] Its contents and production vary by region. In western and northern Turkey, especially in Bolu, the product is categorized as a cheese owing to its shape and white color. In eastern Turkey, especially Erzincan, Erzurum, and Kars, kurut is produced from skimmed yogurt made from the whey left over from production of butter by the yayık method,[29] and then crushed or rolled. In parts of southeastern Turkey with a significant Kurdish population, it is called keşk. All versions of this dairy product are salty. It is used as an ingredient in soups. There is also a closely related dried food product called tarhana which is based on a fermented mixture of grain and yogurt or fermented milk.\n\nLevant and Arabian Peninsula\n\nIn Lebanon, Jordan, Arabian Peninsula, and Syria, kishk is a powdery cereal of burghul (cracked wheat) fermented with milk and laban (yogurt), usually from goat milk. It is easily stored and is valuable to the winter diet of isolated villagers or country people. Kishk is prepared in early autumn following the preparation of burghul. Milk, laban, and burghul are mixed well together and allowed to ferment for nine days. In Lebanon, the mix is salted and traditionally set to ferment in large clay jars for up to three weeks, during which it is regularly kneaded.[9][30] Each morning the mixture is thoroughly kneaded with the hands. When fermentation is complete the kishk is spread on a clean cloth to dry, notably on the rooftops of rural dwellings.[31] Finally it is rubbed well between the hands until it is reduced to a powder, sieved, and then stored in a dry place.\n\nIn Lebanese cuisine, kishk is commonly used to this day, mixed with tomato paste, as a topping for manakish, a sort of flatbread cooked in an open oven and eaten for breakfast or a lunch. Traditionally, it would also be served with eggs, as a kibbeh stuffing, or in a soup, possibly with lamb meat fried in its own fat (awarma).[32] \n\nIn Jordan a dried yogurt similar to kashk called jameed is commonly used. Elsewhere in the Levant, similar products are referred to as drained labneh (labneh malboudeh).\n\nA 10th-century recipe for kishk recorded in the Kitab al-Tabikh was made by par-boiling dehulled wheat, milling it, and blending it with chickpea flour. Yeast, salt and water were added to make a dough from the flour, which was left in the sun for around two weeks, and re-moistened with sour yogurt (or sour grape juice) as needed. After 15 days the dough would be seasoned with mint, purslane, cilantro, rue, parsley, garlic and the leafy tops of leeks, shaped into disks, and allowed to dry in the sun.[33]\n\nEgypt\n\nKeshk (Egyptian Arabic: كشك), also called labba (لبة) in parts of Egypt, is a traditional part of Egyptian cuisine, combining grains and dairy. In Egypt, multiple forms of keshk exist, including keshk sa‘idi (كشك صعيدي), prominent in Upper Egypt, keshk siyami (كشك صيامي), a fasting variation made by Coptic Christians who abstain from animal products, and keshk matrouhi (كشك مطروحي), originating from the coastal Marsa Matrouh region.[34]\n\nKeshk siyami, consumed by Coptic Christians during fasting periods, replaces milk with fermented squash. Keshk matrouhi, from Marsa Matrouh, substitutes cow or water buffalo milk with goat's milk and replaces wheat with barley, adapting to the region’s reliance on rain-fed agriculture. The integration of fig and olive trees with barley cultivation and goat herding supports sustainable production in the area.[34]\n\nThe preparation of keshk sa‘idi involves multiple fermentation stages. Fresh milk is placed in a goat pelt called kerba (قربة), where it is churned to separate butter from buttermilk, laban kerba (لبن قربة) or laban khad (لبن خض). The butter is further processed into ghee, while the buttermilk is transferred to an earthenware container called zeer (زير) for fermentation, producing laban zeer (لبن زير). In the next stage, wheat is added, changing the mixture’s color and texture while increasing its probiotic content. The softened wheat forms a porridge-like consistency, which is then dried, crushed, and reintroduced to the fermentation process before being shaped into pieces and sun-dried on reed mats or inside clay rooms.[34]\n\nSee also\n\nIranian cuisine\n\nBocconcini\n\nFrumenty\n\nGachas, a Lathyrus gruel consumed since ancient times in parts of the Iberian Peninsula\n\nKasha\n\nKeşkek, a related meat-and-grain stew in Iranian, Turkish and Greek cuisines\n\nList of yogurt-based dishes and beverages\n\nReferences\n\n^ Z. Tarakçı, M. Dervişoğlu, H. Temiz, O. Aydemir, F. Yazıcı. Review on Kes Cheese. GIDA (2010) 35 (4) 283-288\n\n^ MacKenzie, D. N. (2014). A concise Pahlavi dictionary. Oxfordshire, England. pp. 44, 50. ISBN 978-0-203-46251-5. OCLC 893676744.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ a b Mahmoudi, Sepideh (20 December 2022). \"Comparison of traditional Doogh (yogurt drinking) and Kashk characteristics (Two traditional Iranian dairy products)\" (PDF). Pelegia Research Library.\n\n^ Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. \"Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica\". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 21 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Food facts: A conversation with Gil Marks\". Times of Israel. 4 November 2010.\n\n^ a b Lewicka, Paulina (2011). Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean. Brill. p. 230. ISBN 9789004194724.\n\n^ \"Ferment to be: Yotam Ottolenghi's kashk recipes\". The Guardian. 19 July 2013.\n\n^ Iranmanesh, Mahdieh (2018). \"SPME/GC-MS characterization of volatile compounds of Iranian traditional dried Kashk\". International Journal of Food Properties. 21 (1): 1067-1079. doi:10.1080/10942912.2018.1466323.\n\n^ a b c d Ottolenghi, Yotam (19 July 2013). Ferment to be: Yotam Ottolenghi's kashk recipes. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)\n\n^ a b c Davidson, Alan (21 August 2014). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. p. 441. ISBN 9780191040726.\n\n^ Shiroodi, Setareh Ghorban; Mohammadifar, Mohammad Amin; Gorji, Elham Ghorbani; Ezzatpanah, Hamid; Zohouri, Nilofar (2012). \"Influence of gum tragacanth on the physiochemical and rheological properties of kashk\"\". Journal of Dairy Research. 79 (1): 93-101. doi:10.1017/S0022029911000872. PMID 23171586. S2CID 43020826.\n\n^ Moraba, Kareh (2016). \"The Story of Kashk\". Gastronomica. 16 (4): 97-100. doi:10.1525/gfc.2016.16.4.97. JSTOR 26362399.\n\n^ Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. \"Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica\". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 21 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Kashk goosfandi - Arca del Gusto\". Slow Food Foundation. Retrieved 21 December 2022.\n\n^ Давид и сборщики дани. Давид Сасунский (in Russian). Archived from the original on 24 January 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2019.\n\n^ Haroutyunian, S. B. (1990). \"OA Portal in Armenia\" Գարեգին Սրվանձտյանցը և հայկական հերոսավեպը (Գ. Սրվանձտյանցի ծննդյան 150-ամյակի առթիվ) [Garegin Srvandztiants and the Armenian Heroic Epic (on the 150th anniversary of his birth)]. Patma-Banasirakan Handes (in Armenian) (1): 3-9. Archived from the original on 21 March 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2019.\n\n^ Gueriguian, John L (2005). \"Foods and Drinks in Fifteenth Century Anatolia, as Recorded by Amirdovlat Amasiasti\". Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. 14: 155-166.\n\n^ Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. \"Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica\". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 21 December 2022.\n\n^ Walker, Harlan (1999). Milk-- Beyond the Dairy: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Oxford Symposium. p. 312. ISBN 9781903018064.\n\n^ Cooper, John (1993). Eat and be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food. Jason Aronson. p. 44. ISBN 9780876683163.\n\n^ a b Walker, Harlan (1999). Milk-- beyond the dairy : proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Oxford Symposium. p. 70. ISBN 9781903018064.\n\n^ Floyer, Ernest Ayscoghe (1882). Unexplored Baluchistan: a Survey, with Observations Astronomical, Geographical, Botanical, Etc. Of a Route Through Mekran, Bashkurd, Persia, Kurdistan and Turkey. p. 265.\n\n^ \"Gardens of Biodiversity. Conservation of genetic resources and their use in traditional food production systems by small farmers of the Southern Caucasus\". Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.\n\n^ \"Объяснения некоторых имён и слов\". Давид Сасунский (in Russian). Archived from the original on 24 January 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2019.\n\n^ Jacob, Jeanne; Ashkenazi, Michael (15 January 2014). The World Cookbook: The Greatest Recipes from Around the Globe, 2nd Edition [4 Volumes]: The Greatest Recipes from Around the Globe. ABC-CLIO. p. 1342. ISBN 9781610694698.\n\n^ Unknown (1 December 2015). \"Ааруул: Ааруул гэж юу вэ?\" (PDF). Ааруул. Retrieved 19 September 2024.\n\n^ Moraba, Kareh (2016). \"The Story of Kashk\". Gastronomica. 16 (4): 97-100. doi:10.1525/gfc.2016.16.4.97. JSTOR 26362399.\n\n^ Yurdakök, Murat (2013). \"Yoğurdun öyküsü, probiyotiklerin tarihi\" (PDF). Çocuk Sağlığı ve Hastalıkları Dergisi. Turkish National Pediatric Society: 46. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 December 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2014./\n\n^ Karabulut I, Hayaloğlu AA, Yıldırım H. 2007. Thinlayer drying characteristics of kurut, a Turkish dried dairy by-product. Int J Food Sci Technol, 42, 1080-1086.\n\n^ Kanafani-Zahar, Aida (1994). Mūne: la conservation alimentaire traditionnelle au Liban. Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme. ISBN 2-7351-0539-3. OCLC 35808135.\n\n^ Uvezian, Sonia (2012). Recipes and remembrances from an eastern Mediterranean kitchen: a culinary journey through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Northbrook, IL. ISBN 978-0-9709716-9-2. OCLC 1103919360.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Kanafani-Zahar, Aida (1994). Mūne : la conservation alimentaire traditionnelle au Liban. Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme. ISBN 2-7351-0539-3. OCLC 35808135.\n\n^ Nasrallah, Nawal (2007). Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens. Brill. pp. 209-210.\n\n^ a b c \"The Story of Egyptian Kishk\". Rawi Publishing. Retrieved 17 March 2025.\n\nBibliography\n\nKarabulut I., Hayaloğlu A. A., Yıldırım H. Thinlayer drying characteristics of kurut, a Turkish dried dairy by-product. Int J Food Sci Technol, 42 (2007), 1080-1086.\n\nFrançoise Aubaile-Sallenave, Al-Kishk: the past and present of a complex culinary practice, in Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper, A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, London and New York, 1994 and 2000, ISBN 1-86064-603-4.\n\nLiu W J, Sun Z H, Zhang Y B, Zhang C L, Menghebilige, Yang M, Sun T S, Bao Q H, Chen W, Zhang H P. A survey of the bacterial composition of kurut from Tibet using a culture-independent approach. J Dairy Sci. 2012 Mar, 95(3), 1064-72. doi:10.3168/jds.2010-4119."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kashk"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3052}, {"slug": "reference-sarsing", "title": "Sarsing", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Sarsing (Kurdish: سەرسنک, romanized: Sersink,[2][3] Syriac: ܣܪܣܢܓ)[4] is a town and sub-district in the Dohuk Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It is located in the Sapna valley in the Amedi District.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sarsing\n\nTown\n\nSarsing in Dohuk Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nLocation in IraqShow map of IraqSarsing (Iraqi Kurdistan)Show map of Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nRegion Kurdistan Region\n\nGovernorateDohuk Governorate\n\nDistrictAmedi District\n\nSub-districtSarsing\n\nPopulation (2014)[1]\n\n • Urban16,766\n\n • Rural6,795\n\nSarsing (Kurdish: سەرسنک, romanized: Sersink,[2][3] Syriac: ܣܪܣܢܓ)[4] is a town and sub-district in the Dohuk Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It is located in the Sapna valley in the Amedi District.\n\nIn the town, there is a church of Mar Mattai.[5] There was previously a shrine of Mar Giwargis.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nIn 1922, Sarsing was settled by Assyrian refugees of the Tyari clan from Hakkari atop the ruins of an old Assyrian village.[7] Upon its resettlement, the population consisted of 100 Assyrian families in 40 households, all adherents of the Church of the East, who had survived the Assyrian genocide in Turkey.[8] The population shrank to roughly 150 people in 1933 amidst the Simele massacre, but recovered to 301 people in 55 families by 1938.[8]\n\nA royal palace was constructed at Sarsing by Crown Prince 'Abd al-Ilah, regent to King Faisal II of Iraq, and was often visited by both regent and king in the summer.[6] King Faisal II had a shrine of Mar Giwargis built in the place of a ruined monastery of Mar Giwargis in the early 1950s and a church of Mar Mattai was also constructed in 1955 on the ruins of a monastery of Mar Mattai.[9]\n\nAt the onset of the First Iraqi-Kurdish War in 1961, the population had grown to 700 people in 150 families and 80 households.[8] By the early 1960s, Sarsing had become a key tourist attraction and a hotel, cinema, and restaurants were established.[6] However, after the war, most of the Assyrians' land to the north and west of Sarsing were seized and settled by Kurds from the villages of Araden Islam and Kani Janarki under instruction from the Kurdish military leader Mustafa Barzani in 1972-1973.[9]\n\nThe shrine of Mar Giwargis was demolished in 1977 and replaced by a hotel that burnt down in the mid-1980s.[6] In the aftermath of the Al-Anfal campaign and establishment of the Iraqi no-fly zones, displaced Kurds from the village of Jia in Erbil Governorate were resettled in 1993 by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani in lands to the east of Sarsing seized from Assyrians, until which point Sarsing had been exclusively populated by Assyrians.[10]\n\nOn 22 July 1998, it was reported that Assyrian houses at Sarsing were attacked by Kurds and some were injured by gun fire, including a fourteen-year-old child.[11] Reports of damages to crops and vineyards and theft of crops belonging to Assyrians at Sarsing have also been documented since 2002.[12] In early 2009, 113 displaced Assyrians with 35 families resided at Sarsing,[13] and 1000 Assyrians, all of whom were adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, are estimated to have inhabited the town in 2012.[14] The Assyrian population has thus declined due to threats and attacks from Kurds from over 300 households in 2014, to 118 households in 2016, and then to 92 households in 2019, by which time the Kurdish population had grown to over 2000 households.[8][15] As of 2021, 325 Assyrians in 93 families inhabit Sarsing.[16]\n\nGallery\n\n Entrance to Sarsing\n\n Inscription at the Church of Mar Mattai\n\n Church of Mar Mattai\n\nReferences\n\n^ Ali Sindi; Ramanathan Balakrishnan; Gerard Waite (July 2018). \"Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Demographic Survey\" (PDF). ReliefWeb. International Organization for Migration. p. 72. Retrieved 5 September 2021.\n\n^ \"سەرسنك\". Official Site of General Board of Tourism of Kurdistan - Iraq (in Kurdish). Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Kurdistan24 rêjeya beşdariyê di dengdanê de belav dike\". Kurdistan24 (in Kurdish). 30 September 2018. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Sarsink\". Ishtar TV. 2 July 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Mar Matte church - Sarsnk\". Ishtar TV. 12 December 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ a b c d Eshoo (2004), p. 6.\n\n^ Eshoo (2004), p. 6; Donabed (2015), p. 279.\n\n^ a b c d Donabed (2015), pp. 279-280.\n\n^ a b Eshoo (2004), p. 6; Donabed (2015), pp. 279-280.\n\n^ Eshoo (2004), p. 6; Hanna & Barber (2017), p. 45.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Update to Response to Information Request IRQ25099.E of 17 October 1996 on the treatment of Assyrian Christians in Iraqi Kurdistan, i.e., the safe haven, where Saddam's forces have been forbidden to enter by the United Nations\". Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. 1 September 1998. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ \"The Struggle to Exist Part I: An Introduction to the Assyrians and their Human Rights Situation in the New Iraq\" (PDF). Assyria Council of Europe. February 2010. p. 115. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ \"The Struggle to Exist Part I: An Introduction to the Assyrians and their Human Rights Situation in the New Iraq\" (PDF). Assyria Council of Europe. February 2010. p. 33. Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Christian Communities in the Kurdistan Region\". Iraqi Kurdistan Christianity Project. 2012. Archived from the original on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 14 August 2021.\n\n^ Reine Hanna (25 December 2019). \"For Iraq's Christians, this year might be their last\". UnHerd. Retrieved 1 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Population Project\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 19 August 2021.\n\nBibliography\n\nDonabed, Sargon George (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press.\n\nEshoo, Majed (2004). The Fate Of Assyrian Villages Annexed To Today's Dohuk Governorate In Iraq And The Conditions In These Villages Following The Establishment Of The Iraqi State In 1921 (PDF). Translated by Mary Challita. Retrieved 30 July 2020.\n\nHanna, Reine; Barber, Matthew (2017). Erasing Assyrians: How the KRG Abuses Human Rights, Undermines Democracy, and Conquers Minority Homelands. Assyrian Confederation of Europe. Retrieved 11 August 2021."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sarsing"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 962}, {"slug": "reference-shamshi-adad-i", "title": "Shamshi-Adad I", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Shamshi-Adad I (Akkadian: Šamši-Adad; Amorite: Shamshi-Addu; died c. 1776 BC, ruled c. 1809-1776 BC) was an Amorite ruler of Ekallatum and conqueror who had conquered lands across much of Syria, Anatolia, and Upper Mesopotamia creating the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia.[2] His capital was originally at Ekallatum and later...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shamshi-Adad I\n\nLine-drawing of an incomplete seal of Shamshi-Adad I (𒀭𒌓𒅆𒀭𒅎 - dUTU.ši-dIM)\n\nKing of Upper Mesopotamia\n\nReignc. 1809 - c. 1776 BC[1]\n\nSuccessorIshme-Dagan I (Assur and Ekallatum)\nYasmah-Adad (Mari)\n\nDiedc. 1776 BC\n\nIssue\n\nIshme-Dagan I\n\nYasmah-Adad\n\nShibti\n\nAkkadianŠamši-Adad\n\nAmoriteShamshi-Addu\n\nFatherIla-kabkabu\n\nShamshi-Adad I (Akkadian: Šamši-Adad; Amorite: Shamshi-Addu; died c. 1776 BC, ruled c. 1809-1776 BC) was an Amorite ruler of Ekallatum and conqueror who had conquered lands across much of Syria, Anatolia, and Upper Mesopotamia\ncreating the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia.[2] His capital was originally at Ekallatum and later moved to Šubat-Enlil.[3]\n\nEarly life\n\nShamshi-Adad I inherited the throne in Ekallatum from Ila-kabkabu (fl. c. 1836 BC - c. 1833 BC). Ila-kabkabu is mentioned as the father of Shamshi-Adad I in the much later \"Assyrian King List\" (AKL);[4] a similar name (not necessarily the same figure) is listed in the preceding section of the AKL among the “kings whose fathers are known”.[4] Ila-kabkabu had been an Amorite king not of Ekallatum. According to the Mari Eponyms Chronicle, Ila-kabkabu seized Shuprum (c. 1790 BC), then Shamshi-Adad I “entered his father's house” (Shamshi-Adad I succeeded Ila-kabkabu as the king of Ekallatum, in the following year.)[4]:163 Shamshi-Adad I had been forced to flee to Babylon (c. 1823 BC) while Naram-Sin of Eshnunna had attacked Ekallatum. Shamshi-Adad I had remained in exile until the death of Naram-Sin around 1809 BC. The AKL records that Shamshi-Adad I \"went away to Babylonia in the time of Naram-Sin\". Shamshi-Adad I did not return until retaking Ekallatum, pausing for some time, and then overthrowing King Erishum II of Assyria. Shamshi-Adad I conquered Assur and emerged as the first Amorite king of Assyria around 1809 BC.[5]\n\nAlthough regarded as an Amorite by later Assyrian tradition, earlier archaeologists mistakenly assumed that Shamshi-Adad I had indeed been a native Assyrian.[6] Apiashal was a monarch of the Early Period of Assyria, according to the AKL.[4]\n\nIn the city-state Assur, Shamshi-Adad I held the title \"Governor of Assur\". Stone tablets with Akkadian inscriptions (formatted in three columns and one hundred and thirty-five lines, from Shamshi-Adad I) have been found near the temple of the god Assur. Many bricks and objects inside the temple have the inscription \"Shamshi-Adad I, Builder of the Temple of Assur\" carved into them. In this inscription he claimed to have been \"King of the Universe\" and \"Unifier of the Land Between Tigris and Euphrates\". He asserted that the king of the Upper Land had paid tribute to him and that he had built the temple of Enlil. He outlined the market prices of that time as being one shekel of silver being worth two kor(gur-cube)s of barley, fifteen minas of wool, or two seahs of oil.\n\nFamily\n\nChildren\n\nWhile Shamshi-Adad I's son Ishme-Dagan I was probably a competent ruler, his son Yasmah-Adad appears to have been a man of weak character; something Shamshi-Adad I was not above mentioning:\n\n\"Are you a child, not a man, have you no beard on your chin?\"\n\nShamshi-Adad I wrote in another letter:\n\n\"While here your brother is victorious, down there you lie about among the women.\"\n\nShamshi-Adad I clearly kept a firm control on the actions of his sons, as shown in his many letters to them. At one point he arranged a political marriage between Yasmah-Adad to Beltum, the princess of his ally in Qatna. Yasmah-Adad already had a leading wife and had put Beltum in a secondary position of power. Shamshi-Adad I did not approve and forced his son to keep Beltum in the palace in a leading position.[5]\n\nShamshi-Adad I sent a letter on a tablet to Ishi-Addu (Beltum's father, the King of Qatna) in which he discussed their alliance, the attacks of their enemies, and the successful marriage between their children. In it Shamshi-Adad I wrote:\n\n\"I heard that you gladly dispatched my daughter-in-law on a safe way back to me, that you treated my servants when they stayed with you well, and that they were not hindered at all. My heart is very happy.\"[7]\n\nReign\n\nShamshi-Adad I was a great organizer and he kept firm controls on all matters of state, from high policy down to the appointing of officials and the dispatching of provisions. Spies and propaganda were often used to win over rival cities. He allowed conquered territories to maintain some of their earlier practices. In Nineveh he used state resources to rebuild the Ishtar temple. The local rulers of the city Qattara maintained authority (but became vassals) when they were incorporated into the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia. Use of these Eponym dating system was enforced throughout Assyria in cities such as: Mari, Tuttul, Terqa, and the capital city Šubat-Enlil.[5]\n\nConquests\n\nShamshi-Adad I took over the long-abandoned town of Shekhna (today known as Tell Leilan), converted it into the capital city of Assyria, and then renamed it Šubat-Enlil (meaning \"the residence of the god Enlil\" in Akkadian)[8] c. 1808 BC.[9] During his reign, the Kingdom of Assyria competed for power in Lower Mesopotamia against: King Naram-Sin of Eshnunna, Naram-Sin's successors, and Yahdun-Lim of Mari.[10] A main target for expansion was the city of Mari, which controlled the caravan route between Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Yahdun-Lim was assassinated by his own servants (possibly on Shamshi-Adad I's orders.) The heir to the throne of Mari, Zimri-Lim, was forced to flee to Yamhad. Shamshi-Adad I seized the opportunity and occupied Mari around 1796 BC. He placed his sons (Ishme-Dagan I and Yasmah-Adad) in key geographical locations and gave them responsibility to look over those areas. Shamshi-Adad I put his eldest son (Ishme-Dagan I) on the throne of Ekallatum, while Shamshi-Adad I remained in Šubat-Enlil. Shamshi-Adad I put his second son, Yasmah-Adad, on the throne in Mari.[5] With the annexation of Mari, Shamshi-Adad I had carved out a large kingdom[2] encompassing much of Syria, Anatolia, and the whole of Upper Mesopotamia (this kingdom often referred to as either the \"Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia\" or the \"Upper Mesopotamian Empire\".) Shamshi-Adad I proclaimed himself as \"King of the Universe\" (the title had been used by Sargon of Akkad.)\n\nEshnunna (Kingdom)\n\nShamshi-Adad I was both allied to and enemy of the Kingdom of Eshnunna.\n\nAround 1781 BC, King Dadusha of Eshnunna made an alliance with Shamshi-Adad I to conquer the area between the two Zab Rivers. This military campaign of joint forces was commemorated on a victory stele which states that Dadusha gave the lands to Shamshi-Adad I.\n\nShamshi-Adad I later turned against Dadusha by attacking cities including Shaduppum, Nerebtum, and Andarig. On inscriptions, Shamshi-Adad I boasts of erecting triumphal stelae on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, but these probably represent short expeditions rather than any attempts at conquest. His campaigns were meticulously planned, and his army knew all the classic methods of siegecraft, such as encircling ramparts and battering rams.\n\nContemporary rulers of Eshnunna:\n\nDadusha of Eshnunna\n\nUntil Year-Name 5 of Ibal-pi-el II of Eshnunna\n\nFall\n\nShamshi-Adad I continued to expand and strengthen his kingdom throughout his life. As the kingdom grew and he got older, the state became more vulnerable and the neighboring great powers Yamhad and Eshnunna began attacking. The kingdom lacked cohesion and was in a vulnerable geographical position. Naturally, Shamshi-Adad I's rise to glory earned him the envy of neighboring kings and tribes, and throughout his reign, he and his sons faced several threats to their control.\n\nDeath\n\nShamshi-Adad I died around 1776 BC, Year 18 of Hammrabi of Babylon.[11] The death is also known from Year-Name 5 of Ibal-pi-el II of Eshnunna.[12][13]\n\nAftermath\n\nAfter the death of Shamshi-Adad I around 1776 BC, Eshnunna captured cities around Assur.[5] His old rivals set out to topple his sons from the throne. Yasmah-Adad was soon expelled from Mari by Zimri-Lim and the rest of the kingdom was eventually lost during the reigns of Ishme-Dagan I, first to a coalition of Mari, Andarig, and Eshnunna, then to another Amorite ruler, Hammurabi of Babylon.[14]\n\nSee also\n\nChronology of the ancient Near East\n\nList of Mesopotamian deities\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nReferences\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). \"Appendix I: A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004430914.\n\n^ a b Some of the Mari letters addressed to Shamsi-Adad by his son can be found in the Mari Letters section of Shaika Haya Ali Al Khalifa and Michael Rice (1986). Bahrain through the Ages. KPI. ISBN 0-7103-0112-X.\n\n^ [1]Ziegler, Nele, and Adelheid Otto, \"Ekallatum, Samsi-Addu’s capital city, localised\", Entre les fleuves-III. On the Way in Upper Mesopotamia: Travels, Routes and Environment as Basis for the Reconstruction of Historical Geography 30, pp. 221-252, 2023\n\n^ a b c d Glassner, Jean-Jacques (2004). Mesopotamian Chronicles. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 137. ISBN 1589830903.\n\n^ a b c d e Van De Mieroop, Marc (2004). A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC (2nd ed.). Blackwell Publishing. p. 107. ISBN 9781405149112.\n\n^ Roux, Georges (March 1993). Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books Limited (published Aug 27, 1992). ISBN 978-0140125238.\n\n^ Chavalas, Mark W. (2006). The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 114-115. ISBN 0631235817.\n\n^ Harvey Weiss, Tell Leilan and Shubat Enlil, Mari, Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires, vol. 4, pp. 269-92, 1985\n\n^ Leilan.yale.edu, Harvey Weiss et al., The genesis and collapse of Third Millennium north Mesopotamian Civilization, Science, vol. 291, pp. 995-1088, 1993\n\n^ Chavalas, Mark W. (2006). The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 95. ISBN 0-631-23581-7.\n\n^ Manning et al. 2016\n\n^ Year Names of Ibal-pi-el II at CDLI\n\n^ [2] Yigal Bloch, \"The Conquest Eponyms of Šamšī-Adad I and the Kaneš Eponym List\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 73(2), pp. 191-210, Oct 2014\n\n^ Lewy, Hildegard. “The Historical Background of the Correspondence of Baḫdi-Lim.” Orientalia, vol. 25, no. 4, 1956, pp. 324-52.\n\nSources\n\nOBO (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis) 160/4\n\nNelson, Glueck (1959). Rivers in the Desert. HUC.\n\nMcNeil, William H.; Jean W. Sedlar (1962). The Ancient Near East. OUP.\n\nGeorge, Andrew (2000). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin. No14-044721-0.\n\nPritchard, James B. (1968). The Ancient Near East. OUP. ISBN 0-691-03532-6.\n\nAl Khalifa, Shaika Haya Ali; Michael Rice (1986). Bahrain through the Ages. KPI. ISBN 0-7103-0112-X.\n\nNayeem, Muhammed Abdul (1990). Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula. Hyderabad.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nRoaf, Michael (1990). Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. Equinox. ISBN 0-8160-2218-6.\n\nAwde, Nicholas; Putros Samano (1986). The Arabic Alphabet. Billing & Sons Ltd. ISBN 0-86356-035-0.\n\nHerm, Gerard (1975). The Phoenicians. William Morrow & Co. Inc. ISBN 0-688-02908-6.\n\nPedersén, Olof (1998). Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East: 1500-300 B.C. Bethesda: CDL Press.\n\nShiloh, Y. (1980). \"The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas and Population Density\". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (239): 25-35. doi:10.2307/1356754. JSTOR 1356754. S2CID 163824693.\n\nVan De Mieroop, Marc (2004). A History of the Ancient Near East ca 3000-323 BC (2nd ed.). Malden: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 89, 99, 104, 106-11. ISBN 9781405149112.\n\nChavalas, Mark W. (2006). The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 93, 95-6, 103, 116, 102-3, 115-6, 118-20, 370. ISBN 0631235817.\n\nP. Villard, \"Shamshi-Adad and Sons: The Rise of an Upper Mesopotamian Kingdom\", in J. M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. II, Scribner, New York, 1995, p. 873-883"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shamshi-adad-i"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1906}, {"slug": "reference-kennedy-bakircioglu", "title": "Kennedy Bakircioglu", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "He is best remembered for his time with Hammarby, with whom he won the 2001 Allsvenskan and 2014 Superettan titles. He also represented Assyriska, Iraklis, Twente, Ajax and Racing de Santander, in a 22-year career.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Kennedy Bakircioglu\n\nBakircioglu with Hammarby in 2013\n\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nKennedy Bakircioglu[1]\n\nDate of birth\n (1980-11-02) 2 November 1980[1]\n\nPlace of birth\nSödertälje, Sweden[1]\n\nHeight\n1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)[1]\n\nPosition\nMidfielder\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n1996-1998\nAssyriska\n34\n(10)\n\n1999-2003\nHammarby\n127\n(38)\n\n2003-2005\nIraklis\n24\n(4)\n\n2005-2007\nTwente\n66\n(23)\n\n2007-2010\nAjax\n35\n(6)\n\n2010-2012\nRacing Santander\n39\n(6)\n\n2012-2018\nHammarby\n142\n(41)\n\nTotal\n\n467\n(128)\n\nInternational career\n\n1996\nSweden U17\n6\n(0)\n\n1998-1999\nSweden U19\n22\n(5)\n\n1999-2001\nSweden U21\n14\n(1)\n\n2001-2008\nSweden\n14\n(0)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu (born 2 November 1980) is a Swedish former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.\n\nHe is best remembered for his time with Hammarby, with whom he won the 2001 Allsvenskan and 2014 Superettan titles. He also represented Assyriska, Iraklis, Twente, Ajax and Racing de Santander, in a 22-year career.\n\nA full international between 2001 and 2008, Bakircioglu won 14 caps for the Sweden national team.\n\nEarly life\n\nBakircioglu's family are ethnic Assyrians, followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[2] The family arrived in Sweden in 1972 from Midyat, Turkey.[3]\n\nBorn in Södertälje, Bakircioglu was named after the former United States president John F. Kennedy.[4] His father Benjamin was one of the first to play for newly founded Assyriska FF, a club established by the Assyrian diaspora,[5] going on to become its record goal scorer.[6]\n\nClub career\n\nAssyriska\n\nBakircioglu started his professional career with Assyriska, making his senior debut in 1996 at age 15. He would soon establish himself as a regular starter in Division 1, by then in the Swedish second tier, despite his young age.[3]\n\nIn 1998, Bakircioglu saw a major breakthrough in his senior career and scored nine goals whilst also providing eight assists, in 25 league games. He had a trial with Manchester United during the winter of that year, but did not impress enough to secure a contract with the English team.[7]\n\nHammarby\n\nBefore the start of 1999, Bakircioglu transferred to Hammarby in Allsvenskan. He scored his first competitive goal for the Stockholm-based side on 1 July the same year, in a 3-0 home win against IFK Norrköping.[8] He quickly became a fan favourite at his new club,[9] and ended the season playing 25 league matches, scoring twice.[8]\n\nOn 4 July 1999, Bakircioglu made his continental debut in the second round of the UEFA Intertoto Cup, a 4-0 home victory over Gomel.[10] In the away leg, he scored a brace to help to a 2-2 draw and subsequent qualification.[8] At the end of the year, he was voted \"Allsvenskan newcomer of the year\".[4]\n\nDuring the 2000 campaign, Bakircioglu was a key player in manager Sören Cratz's squad, playing as attacking midfielder behind the strikers.[11] He made 26 league appearances and netted five times, but the side finished eighth.[12]\n\nIn 2001, Bakircioglu scored eight goals in 26 games to lead the team to their first-ever national championship.[13] He also provided seven assists throughout the domestic tournament,[14] and was praised by pundits as player of the season at Hammarby.[15] He scored in the title-deciding fixture against Örgryte IS on 21 October, a 3-2 home win.[16]\n\nBakircioglu continued 2002 in similar fashion, and netted 11 goals from 26 appearances.[14] His team, however, suffered a tough year in the table and failed to produce any sort of challenge, eventually ending in ninth position.[17] As reigning Swedish champions, they took part in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League where they faced the Serbian SuperLiga's Partizan, with the player being featured in both legs of the 5-1 aggregate loss.[18] He reportedly attracted interest from Beşiktaş from Turkey during the season, but the deal fell through in the last minute.[19]\n\nIn the 2003 campaign, Bakircioglu scored six goals in the league's first seven rounds - in an eventual total of 12[14]- as Hammarby went on an unbeaten streak.[20] In September, the club's board of directors suspended both him and Mikael Andersson because the parties could not agree to extend their outgoing contracts. The decision was, however, revoked after only a few days,[21] roughly at the same time as the team was surpassed by city rivals Djurgårdens at the top of table and eventually finished second.[22]\n\nBakircioglu left on a free transfer at the end of the year.[23] A year after his departure, he was voted the club's fourth greatest player of all time.[24]\n\nIraklis\n\nOn 12 January 2004, Bakircioglu moved to the Super League Greece with Iraklis. He signed a two-and-a-half-year contract, linking up with compatriot Mats Jingblad who held the managerial position at his new club.[23]\n\nBakircioglu was sparingly used in his only full campaign in Thessaloniki.\n\nTwente\n\nBakircioglu moved teams and countries again in the 2005 off-season, joining Twente in the Netherlands and impressing manager Fred Rutten straight away to become a first-team regular. In 2006-07, he scored 15 goals in the Eredivisie as the Enschede side finished fourth and qualified for the UEFA Cup.[25]\n\nAjax\n\nOn 5 May 2007, newspaper De Telegraaf announced that Bakircioglu had reached an agreement with fellow league club Ajax.[26] He was officially signed ten days later,[25] and scored on his official debut, an 8-1 away rout of De Graafschap.[27][28]\n\nIn August 2008, new manager Marco van Basten deemed Bakircioglu surplus to requirements,[29] but the latter decided to stay,[30] being restricted to only 17 league games over two seasons. He did manage, however, a crucial goal for the Amsterdam team, in the 2008-09 UEFA Cup, in a 1-0 away win against Fiorentina in the round of 32 (2-1 aggregate victory).[31][32]\n\nRacing Santander\n\nBakircioglu left Ajax in June 2010, signing for Spain's Racing de Santander early in the following month.[33][34] He started in all but two matches he appeared in his first season, as the Cantabrians retained their La Liga status. Three of his league goals came in the last month of competition, against Mallorca (2-0 home win),[35] Atlético Madrid (2-1, home)[36] and Athletic Bilbao (1-2 loss also at the Campos de Sport de El Sardinero).[37]\n\nBakircioglu spent the vast majority of 2011-12 nursing an achilles tendon injury,[38] and Racing would also return to Segunda División after one full decade in the top flight.\n\nReturn to Hammarby\n\nAt the end of August 2012, Bakircioglu returned to Hammarby, now in the Superettan.[39] On 23 June 2013, they faced Ängelholms FF in the last football game at the Söderstadion, which had been the club's home ground since 1967; the game ended 1-1, with his team securing a late draw when he scored from a free kick.[40]\n\nBakircioglu led all scorers with 17 goals and contributed seven decisive passes in the 2014 campaign, helping to a return to the top division whilst also acting as captain.[41] A regular in both 2015 and 2016, with the team finishing eleventh on both occasions, the 36-year-old signed a new one-year contract in December 2016.[42]\n\nIn his later years, Bakircioglu repositioned himself as a central midfielder, dictating the game as a playmaker.[43] He agreed to a new one-year deal on 22 October 2017, and simultaneously announced that he would retire from football when it expired.[44] On 1 October 2018, at the end of his last season, he scored from a spectacular free kick to make it 3-0 in the league fixture against IFK Göteborg, and proceeded to celebrate the goal in front of the home fans by catching and drinking from a cup of beer that was thrown towards him from the stands.[45]\n\nInternational career\n\nBakircioglu made over 40 appearances for Sweden at under-17, under-19 and under-21 levels, before making his full debut on 20 November 2003 in a friendly against the Czech Republic.[14] He appeared in three UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying games in 2007, but did not make the squad for the final tournament.[14]\n\nBakircioglu played his 14th and last international match on 26 May 2008, in a friendly with Slovenia.[14]\n\nIn popular culture\n\nBakircioglu gained fame and cult status early in his career thanks to the computer game Championship Manager: Season 01/02, where he was considered one of the greatest \"hidden gem\" players of all time.[46][47]\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\nAppearances and goals by club, season and competition[48][1]\n\nClub\n\nSeason\n\nLeague\n\nCup\n\nEurope\n\nOther\n\nTotal\n\nDivision\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\n\nAssyriska\n\n1996\n\nDivision 2 Västra Svealand\n\n1\n0\n\n-\n-\n1\n0\n\n1997\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\n8\n1\n\n-\n-\n8\n1\n\n1998\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\n25\n9\n\n-\n-\n25\n9\n\nTotal\n\n34\n10\n\n-\n-\n34\n10\n\nHammarby\n\n1999\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n25\n2\n\n1\n0\n-\n26\n2\n\n2000\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n26\n5\n\n-\n-\n26\n5\n\n2001\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n26\n8\n\n-\n-\n26\n8\n\n2002\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n25\n11\n\n2\n0\n-\n25\n11\n\n2003\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n25\n12\n\n-\n-\n25\n12\n\nTotal\n\n127\n38\n\n3\n0\n-\n130\n38\n\nIraklis\n\n2003-04\n\nAlpha Ethniki\n\n7\n2\n0\n0\n-\n-\n7\n2\n\n2004-05\n\nAlpha Ethniki\n\n17\n2\n2\n0\n-\n-\n19\n2\n\nTotal\n\n24\n4\n2\n0\n-\n-\n26\n4\n\nTwente\n\n2005-06\n\nEredivisie\n\n32\n8\n\n-\n-\n32\n8\n\n2006-07\n\nEredivisie\n\n34\n15\n\n4\n0\n-\n38\n15\n\nTotal\n\n66\n23\n\n4\n0\n-\n70\n23\n\nAjax\n\n2007-08\n\nEredivisie\n\n18\n3\n2\n0\n5\n0\n1\n0\n26\n3\n\n2008-09\n\nEredivisie\n\n8\n1\n1\n0\n3\n1\n-\n12\n2\n\n2009-10\n\nEredivisie\n\n9\n2\n3\n2\n3\n1\n-\n15\n5\n\nTotal\n\n35\n6\n6\n2\n11\n2\n1\n0\n63\n10\n\nRacing Santander\n\n2010-11\n\nLa Liga\n\n32\n6\n2\n1\n-\n-\n34\n7\n\n2011-12\n\nLa Liga\n\n7\n0\n3\n0\n-\n-\n10\n0\n\nTotal\n\n39\n6\n5\n1\n-\n-\n44\n7\n\nHammarby\n\n2012\n\nSuperettan\n\n9\n5\n-\n-\n-\n9\n5\n\n2013\n\nSuperettan\n\n23\n7\n3\n0\n-\n-\n26\n7\n\n2014\n\nSuperettan\n\n28\n17\n4\n1\n-\n-\n32\n18\n\n2015\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n22\n4\n-\n-\n-\n22\n4\n\n2016\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n27\n6\n6\n3\n-\n-\n33\n9\n\n2017\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n21\n1\n4\n1\n-\n-\n25\n2\n\n2018\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n12\n1\n3\n1\n-\n-\n15\n2\n\nTotal\n\n142\n41\n20\n6\n-\n-\n161\n47\n\nCareer total\n\n467\n128\n31\n9\n18\n2\n1\n0\n517\n139\n\nInternational\n\nAppearances and goals by national team and year[14]\n\nNational team\nYear\nApps\nGoals\n\nSweden\n\n2001\n1\n0\n\n2002\n1\n0\n\n2003\n3\n0\n\n2004\n0\n0\n\n2005\n0\n0\n\n2006\n2\n0\n\n2007\n5\n0\n\n2008\n2\n0\n\nTotal\n14\n0\n\nHonours\n\nHammarby\n\nAllsvenskan: 2001\n\nSuperettan: 2014\n\nAjax\n\nKNVB Cup: 2009-10\n\nJohan Cruyff Shield: 2007\n\nIndividual\n\nAllsvenskan Newcomer of the Year: 1999[4]\n\nSuperettan top scorer: 2014\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e Kennedy Bakircioglu at WorldFootball.net\n\n^ Gunter, Jeroen (9 March 2007). \"Zweedse Assyriër in Twente\" [Swedish-Assyrian in Twente]. De Pers (in Dutch). Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ a b Tennisberg, Robert (18 December 2015). \"Kennedy om karriären och framtiden\" [Kennedy about his career and the future]. Länstidningen (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 23 March 2017. Retrieved 25 October 2017.\n\n^ a b c Giertta, Lovisa; Hedberg, Martin (28 August 2012). \"Mittfältare: Kennedy Bakircioglü - karriär\" [Midfielder: Kennedy Bakircioglü - career] (in Swedish). Sveriges Radio. Retrieved 31 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Kennedy Bakırcıoğlu'dan cevap geldi\" [Kennedy Bakırcıoğlu replied] (in Turkish). Fenerbahçe S.K. 13 January 2004. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 24 July 2007.\n\n^ Mardo, Rodi (23 May 2014). \"Assyriska FF 40 år med Benjamin \"Muller\" Bakircioglu\" [Assyriska FF 40 years with Benjamin \"Muller\" Bakircioglu] (in Swedish). Assyriska FF. Retrieved 25 October 2017.\n\n^ Brunzell, Nicklas (8 December 1998). \"Svensk 18-åring till Manchester United\" [18-year-old Swede to Manchester United]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 25 October 2017.\n\n^ a b c \"År 1999\" [Year 1999] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 25 October 2017.\n\n^ Bank, Simon (2 April 2001). \"Flickornas favorit\" [The girls' favourite]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ \"Kennedy Bakircioglü\". UEFA. Archived from the original on 19 July 2010. Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ Holm, Stefan (7 April 2000). \"\"Jag spelar\"\" [\"I will play\"]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ \"År 2000\" [Year 2000] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ \"År 2001\" [Year 2001] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"Kennedy Bakircioglu\" (in Swedish). Swedish Football Association. Retrieved 9 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Fakta: Svenska mästare på 2000-talet\" [Facts: Swedish champions during the 2000s] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. 30 October 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ Svärdkrona, Zendry (21 October 2001). \"Guldmatchen minut för minut\" [The title-winning match minute by minute]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 30 October 2017.\n\n^ \"År 2002\" [Year 2002] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Partizan hammer Hammarby\". UEFA. 7 August 2002. Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ Svensson, Joakim (7 January 2004). \"Kennedy: \"Det har känts förnedrande\"\" [Kennedy: \"It felt degrading\"]. Expressen (in Swedish). Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ Bjäreborn, Christoffer (20 May 2003). \"President Kennedy\". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ Wikström, Peter (19 September 2003). \"Kennedy och Mikael Andersson får spela\" [Kennedy and Mikael Andersson are allowed to play]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ \"År 2003\" [Year 2003] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ a b \"Kennedy Bakircioglü till Grekland\" [Kennedy Bakircioglü to Greece]. Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 12 January 2004. Retrieved 1 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Historik\" [History] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Archived from the original on 26 March 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2017.\n\n^ a b \"Ajax legt Bakircioglu vast\" [Ajax capture Bakircioglu] (in Dutch). NU.nl. 15 May 2007. Retrieved 8 May 2018.\n\n^ \"Bakircioglu kiest Ajax\" [Bakircioglu chooses Ajax]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). 5 May 2007. Archived from the original on 13 September 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ \"De Graafschap 1-8 Ajax Amsterdam\". ESPN Soccernet. 19 August 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"De Graafschap 1-8 Ajax\" (in Dutch). De Graafschap Doetinchem. 19 August 2011. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2015.\n\n^ \"Bakirçioglu ziet geen toekomst meer bij Ajax\" [Bakirçioglu sees no future at Ajax] (in Dutch). Goal. 31 October 2008. Retrieved 28 December 2015.\n\n^ \"Van Basten verrast met Bakircioglu\" [Van Basten surprised at Bakircioglu]. De Telegraaf (in Dutch). 15 February 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2015.\n\n^ \"Bakircioglü wins it for Ajax in Florence\". UEFA. 19 February 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2015.\n\n^ \"Mythe Van Basten leeft voort in Italië\" [Van Basten myth lives on in Italy]. NRC (in Dutch). 20 February 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2015.\n\n^ \"Bakircioglü naar Racing Santander\" [Bakircioglü to Racing Santander] (in Dutch). Nederlandse Omroep Stichting. 6 July 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ \"El internacional sueco Kennedy Bakircioglü, tercer fichaje del Racing 2010/11\" [Swedish international Kennedy Bakircioglü, third Racing signing for 2010/11] (in Spanish). Racing Santander. 5 July 2010. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ \"Santander bank on safety\". ESPN Soccernet. 1 May 2011. Archived from the original on 9 May 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ \"Racing secure survival\". ESPN Soccernet. 10 May 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Bilbao end on a high\". ESPN Soccernet. 21 May 2011. Archived from the original on 25 May 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ Fernández, Pedro (20 October 2011). \"Kennedy pone fin a los rumores sobre su lesión\" [Kennedy ends rumours about his injury]. Marca (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ Jönsson, Fredrik; Månsson, Oskar (28 August 2012). \"Den som inte spelat här vet inte vad det innebär\" [Those who haven't played here do not know what it means]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 9 February 2013.\n\n^ Karlsson, Erik (23 June 2013). \"Kennedy sista målskytten på Söderstadion\" [Kennedy scored the last goal at Söderstadion]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 12 May 2021.\n\n^ Jönsson, Fredrik; Bohman, Per; Jonasson, Jonatan (2 November 2014). \"Kennedy sköt upp Bajen till allsvenskan\" [A Kennedy strike promoted Bajen to Allsvenskan]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 28 December 2015.\n\n^ Pershagen, Axel (14 December 2016). \"Kennedy förlänger kontraktet - \"Längtar till nästa säsong\"\" [Kennedy extends contract - \"Looking forward to the next season\"] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 9 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Kennedy drar sig tillbaka - på planen\" [Kennedy retracts - on the field]. Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). 4 April 2016. Retrieved 31 January 2017.\n\n^ Pershagen, Axel (22 October 2017). \"Kennedy förlänger med Hammarby - \"Det känns otroligt skönt\"\" [Kennedy extends at Hammarby - \"It feels incredibly nice\"] (in Swedish). Hammarby IF. Retrieved 12 May 2021.\n\n^ Rosenlund, Alexander (2 October 2018). \"Han kastade in ölen till Kennedy - av misstag: \"Blev ännu mer hysterisk\"\" [He threw the beer to Kennedy - by mistake: \"Got even more hysterical\"] (in Swedish). Fotbollskanalen Europa. Retrieved 2 October 2018.\n\n^ \"Kennedy Bakircioglu - Football Manager cult players XI\". The Daily Telegraph. 20 October 2011. Retrieved 10 April 2018.\n\n^ Beresford, Jack (19 December 2019). \"Kennedy Bakircioglu: The true story of the Champ Man icon & Man Utd trialist\". Planet Football. Retrieved 29 June 2022.\n\n^ Kennedy Bakircioglu at Soccerway\n\nExternal links\n\nStats at Voetbal International (in Dutch)\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu at BDFutbol\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu at National-Football-Teams.com\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu - FIFA competition record (archived)\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu - UEFA competition record (archive)\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu at EU-Football.info (archived)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kennedy-bakircioglu"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2837}, {"slug": "reference-zakho", "title": "Zakho", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Zakho, also spelled Zaxo (Kurdish: زاخۆ, romanized: Zaxo or Zaco,[3][4] Syriac: ܙܵܟ݂ܘܿ, romanized: Zāḵō,[5] Armenian: Զախո,[6] Arabic: زاخو,[7] Lishanid Noshan: זאכו, romanized: Zāxo[8]) is a city in Kurdistan Region, Iraq, at the centre of the Zakho District of the Dohuk Governorate, located a few kilometers from the Ibrahim...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Zakho\n زاخۆZaxo\n\nCity\n\nThe Little Khabur flowing through Zakho\n\nZakhoLocation in IraqShow map of IraqZakhoZakho (Iraqi Kurdistan)Show map of Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nCoordinates: 37°08′37.00″N 42°40′54.88″E / 37.1436111°N 42.6819111°E / 37.1436111; 42.6819111\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nRegion Kurdistan Region\n\nGovernorateDuhok Governorate\n\nDistrictZakho District\n\nArea[2]\n\n • Total837 km2 (323 sq mi)\n\nElevation440 m (1,440 ft)\n\nPopulation (2026)\n\n • Total800,000[1]\n\nTime zoneUTC+3\n\n • Summer (DST)not observed\n\nZakho, also spelled Zaxo (Kurdish: زاخۆ, romanized: Zaxo or Zaco,[3][4] Syriac: ܙܵܟ݂ܘܿ, romanized: Zāḵō,[5] Armenian: Զախո,[6] Arabic: زاخو,[7] Lishanid Noshan: זאכו, romanized: Zāxo[8]) is a city in Kurdistan Region, Iraq, at the centre of the Zakho District of the Dohuk Governorate, located a few kilometers from the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing. Zakho is known for its celebrations of Newroz. The Zakho Military College is located in the urban centre of the city.\n\nThe original settlement may have been on a small island in the Little Khabur river, which flows west through the modern city to form the border between Iraq and Turkey, continuing into the Tigris. Other important rivers in the area are the Zeriza and the Seerkotik.[9]\n\nHistory\n\nGertrude Bell, the renowned British archaeologist and Arabist who advised British governors in the region in the closing years of the British Mandate, was convinced that Zakho was the same place as the ancient town of Hasaniyeh. She also reported that one of the first Christian missionaries to the region, the Dominican friar Poldo Soldini, was buried there in 1779. His grave was still a pilgrimage destination in the 1950s.[10][11]\n\nThe town is also the site of Zakho castle, of which today only the tower remains, and of Qubad Pasha castle, a hexagonal structure in Zakho cemetery.\n\nAccording to an oral tradition transmitted by a Jewish informant from Zakho, Me'allim Levi, Zakho was established in 1568 by Slivani tribesmen, whose territory was stretched south of the location of the town. The family of Shamdin Agha came originally from the Slivani tribe, settled in Zakho, and became the most prominent family in Zakho. From the late 19th century onwards, the family of Shamdin Agha ruled \"all the Muslims, Jews and Christians of Zakho and its surroundings.\"[12] Zakho was known to the ancient Greeks. In 1844, the traveller William Francis Ainsworth commented: \"The appearance of Zakho in the present day coincides in a remarkable manner with what it was described to be in the time of Xenophon.\"\n\nMedieval history\n\nIn Islamic history it is perhaps best remembered as the location of the Battle of the Zab between the Umayyads and the Abbasids.\n\nZakho is a major marketplace with its goods and merchandise serving the Kurdish-controlled area and most of north and central Iraq. Writing in 1818, Campanile described the town as a great trading centre, famous for its gallnuts as well as rice, oil, sesame, wax, lentils and many fruits.[11]\n\nDuring the Crimean War, the strain on Ottoman military resources allowed Yezdanshir Beg, nephew of the Kurdish ruler Bedirkhan Beg, to launch a major rebellion in the region. In November 1854, he seized Jezira b. Omar, killed local Ottoman administrators, and extended his control toward Zakho. In early 1855, the Ottoman commander Helmy Pasha organized a relief force that included 2,000 Yazidi horsemen under the Mir Hussein Beg of the Sheikhan principality, who according to Hormuzd Rassam recognized Yezdanshir as a more dangerous enemy than the Ottoman governor who had recently deposed him. Yezdanshir was known for his openly hostile views toward Yazidis; the American missionary Henry Lobdell recorded hearing him declare that he wished to drink the blood of every Yazidi, Jew, and Christian he encountered. At Redwan, a British vice-consular source reported an eyewitness account of Yezdanshir personally killing between twenty-five and thirty Yazidis, having offered a bounty for live Yazidis to execute.[13]\n\nHussein Beg led his forces against the rebels outside Zakho, defeated them, and entered the town without resistance, formally capturing it \"in the name of His Majesty the Sultan\". For this service, Hussein Beg was received in audience by the sultan and awarded the title of kapi çuhadari (keeper of the official gate).[13]\n\nModern history\n\nThe population of the town rose from about 30,000 in 1950 to 350,000 in 1992 due to Kurds fleeing from other areas of the country.[14]\n\nDuring the 1991 uprisings in Iraq following the Gulf War, people in the Zakho district of the Duhok Governorate attacked the military bases, stormed government buildings and took control of the town on 13 March. However, the victory came at a cost, as civilians were killed by forces of Saddam Hussein’s regime during clashes at certain military and intelligence sites in the city.[15] The town was recaptured by government forces on 1 April.\n\nIn 1991, Zakho was occupied by the British and the Americans during the Gulf War in \"Operation Provide Comfort\", to provide support to the Kurdish rebellion against the Iraqi government. Most of the inhabitants of the city had fled to the mountains. In the following years, the city came under the control of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region and many of its Kurdish citizens began to return to the city.[16]\n\nThe 27 February 1995 Zakho bombing killed over 50 people. When the U.S. Army closed its military base in Zakho in 1996, they evacuated several thousand Kurds who had connections to the base and who feared reprisals. Many of them were given asylum in the USA. According to David McDowall, this constituted a sudden brain drain, with Zakho losing many of its most educated citizens.[17]\n\nDue to its strategic location and the abundance of job opportunities, Zakho has attracted many workers and job seekers from different parts of Iraq and even from Syria and Turkey. Trade with Turkey is now the major element of the economy.[18] Oil drilling began in 2005.[19]\n\nIn 2008 it was reported that the Turkish Armed Forces maintained four bases in Zakho District, under an agreement concluded with the Iraqi government in the 1990s.[20]\n\nThe 2011 Dohuk riots, which targeted Yazidi- and Assyrian-owned businesses, were sparked by Kurdish Muslim clerics in the town.[21]\n\nClimate\n\nZakho has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa in the Köppen climate classification) with very hot, dry summers, and cool wet winters.\n\nClimate data for Zakho\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n10.2\n(50.4)\n\n12.2\n(54.0)\n\n16.5\n(61.7)\n\n21.8\n(71.2)\n\n29.1\n(84.4)\n\n36.2\n(97.2)\n\n40.4\n(104.7)\n\n40.0\n(104.0)\n\n35.7\n(96.3)\n\n27.9\n(82.2)\n\n19.4\n(66.9)\n\n12.3\n(54.1)\n\n25.1\n(77.3)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n1.9\n(35.4)\n\n3.1\n(37.6)\n\n6.1\n(43.0)\n\n10.1\n(50.2)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n20.1\n(68.2)\n\n23.7\n(74.7)\n\n23.2\n(73.8)\n\n19.2\n(66.6)\n\n13.7\n(56.7)\n\n8.4\n(47.1)\n\n3.9\n(39.0)\n\n12.4\n(54.3)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n144\n(5.7)\n\n136\n(5.4)\n\n129\n(5.1)\n\n109\n(4.3)\n\n43\n(1.7)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n1\n(0.0)\n\n27\n(1.1)\n\n83\n(3.3)\n\n127\n(5.0)\n\n799\n(31.6)\n\nSource: [22]\n\nLandmarks\n\nOne of Zakho's famous landmarks is the Delal Bridge, made of stone.\n\nZakho Castle lies in the city centre on the western bank of the Khabur. It served as the governor's house in the reign of the Badinan Emirate and was enlarged by Prince Ali Khan. It was built on the ruins of an older castle. Today, only the castle's tower remains.\n\nThe Qubad Pasha Castle, in Zakho's cemetery, is hexagonal, with six windows and an entrance gate.[23]\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n\nThe city was the center of a large Chaldean Catholic diocese up until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was divided into three dioceses: Amadia, Zakho, and Akra-Zehbar. The Armenians of Zakho established their community after the Armenian genocide, with the first Armenian church in the city being established in 1923.[24]\n\nJudaism\n\nZakho was formerly known for its synagogues and a large, ancient Jewish community. In the middle of the 19th century, Zakho became the chief spiritual center for the Jews of Kurdistan, and many sources refer to it as yerušalayim de-kurdistan 'the Jerusalem of Kurdistan.'[25][26][27]\n\nThe banks of the nearby Khabur River are mentioned in the Bible as one of the places to which the Israelites were exiled (1 Chronicles, 5:26,[28] 2 Kings 17:6,[29] 2 Kings 18:11[30]).\n\nThe Jews spoke the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho and were also fluent in Kurmanji, the language spoken by non-Jewish Kurds.[31]\n\nKurdish society was primarily a tribal one. The Jews of Zakho bore arms like Kurdish Muslims.[32] There was an attack on the Jews in 1891, when one of the synagogues was burnt down. The troubles intensified in 1892.\n\nMost of the Jews relocated to Israel in the 1950s.[33] While the Jews of Zakho were among the least literate in the diaspora, they had a unique and rich oral tradition, known for its legends, epics and ballads, whose heroes came from both Jewish and Muslim traditions.[34]\n\nPopulation displacements\n\nIn 2007, the UNHCR reported that there were still 10,000 internally displaced persons in the Zakho district as a result of the Iraq War.[35]\n\nSports\n\nZakho Football Club (Zakho FC) was founded in 1987. The sports club plays in the Iraq Stars League, where only the top 20 Iraqi football clubs play. Zakho FC has its own stadium with a capacity of 20,000 seats.\n\nZakho Basketball Club (Zakho SC) won the Kurdistan Basketball Super Cup and beat Duhok SC in Erbil.[36]\n\nNotable people\n\nSaleh Yousefi (1918-1981), poet and politician\n\nYona Sabar (b. 1938), Jewish scholar\n\nYitzhak Mordechai (b. 1944), Israeli former general and politician\n\nLouis Raphaël I Sako (b. 1948), Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon\n\nAndraos Abouna (1949-2010), Chaldean Catholic bishop\n\nWalid Yunis Ahmad (?), television journalist\n\nErdewan Zaxoyî (1957-1986), Kurdish singer\n\nAbu Abdullah al-Shafi'i, islamist militant\n\nEyaz Zaxoyî (1960-1986), Kurdish singer\n\nChiya Hamid Sharif (b. 1975), politician\n\nShirin Hassani Ramazan (b. 1980), politician\n\nBarzan Tilli-Choli (b. 1982) Iraqi-Kurdish gangster\n\nKassem Taher Saleh (b. 1993), politician\n\nMerchas Doski (b.1999), kurdish footballer\n\nDadvan Yousuf (b. 2000), Kurdish entrepreture\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nList of largest cities in Iraq\n\nZakho (Chaldean Diocese)\n\nZambil Frosh\n\nYazidis in Iraq\n\nZakho resort attack\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Zakho City :: University of Zakho - Zakho City\". web.uoz.edu.krd. Retrieved 31 August 2025.\n\n^ \"الوحدات الإدارية ومساحتها كما في 2009\". Archived from the original on 22 August 2017. Retrieved 11 September 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\n^ \"زاخۆ\" (in Kurdish). Retrieved 18 December 2019.\n\n^ Celilê Celil, Dzhalile Dzhalil (1985). Jiyana rewşenbîrî û sîyasî ya Kurdan: di dawîya sedsala 19'a û destpêka sedsala 20'a da (in Kurdish). p. 154.\n\n^ \"List of all entries\". Assyrian Languages. Retrieved 10 March 2020.\n\n^ \"ԻՐԱՔՅԱՆ ՔՈՒՐԴԻՍՏԱՆ\". Արեւմտահայաստանի եւ Արեւմտահայութեան Հարցերու Ուսումնասիրութեան Կեդրոն (in Armenian). 19 October 2010. Retrieved 19 December 2019.\n\n^ \"زاخو | كوردستان المدهشة - الموقع الرسمي للسياحة في كوردستان\". bot.gov.krd. Archived from the original on 4 April 2022. Retrieved 17 June 2021.\n\n^ Yona Sabar (2002). A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary: Dialects of Amidya, Dihok, Nerwa and Zakho. p. 156.\n\n^ http://www.zaxo.at/index.php?page=32 Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 15 May 2011\n\n^ Bell, Gertrude Lothian (1924). Amurath to Amurath. Macmillan. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ a b Campanile, Giuseppe (1953). \"Histoire du Kurdistan\" (PDF). Le Kréyé. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ Mordcechai Zaken, Jewish Subjects and their Tribal Vhieftains in Kurdistan, 2007: 33-35.\n\n^ a b Guest, John S. (27 January 2023). The Yezidis: A Study in Survival. Taylor & Francis. pp. 112-114, 116. ISBN 978-1-000-81750-8.\n\n^ Sabar, Y. \"Zāk̲h̲ū\". Encyclopedia of Islam. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8099.\n\n^ Sorani, Basnews (5 March 1991). \"Today Marks 32nd Anniversary of Kurdish Uprising against Baath Regime\". basnews.com. Retrieved 17 April 2025.\n\n^ Cavanaugh, John P. (1992). \"Operation Provide Comfort: a model for future operations\" (PDF). School of advanced military studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ McDowall, David (2004). A modern history of the Kurds. Tauris. ISBN 9781850434160. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ \"KDP Flexes Muscles in Dohuk\". Institute for War and Peace Reporting. 21 July 2009. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ \"Foreign oil deal renews debate on Kurd autonomy\". USA Today. 9 December 2005. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Kurdish Paper Says Turkish Military Bases Inside Kurdistan Region\". iStockAnalyst. 1 August 2008. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ Tawfeeq, Mohammed (3 December 2011). \"Kurdish leader: Clerics 'instigated ... acts of sabotage,' wounding 25\". CNN. Retrieved 4 December 2011.\n\n^ \"CLIMATE: ZAKHO\". Climate-Data. Retrieved 21 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Zaxo\". Kurdawary. 2004. Archived from the original on 25 October 2009. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ \"Maryam Alazra church -Zakho - Kesta\". www.ishtartv.com.\n\n^ Aloni, Oz (2022). The Neo-Aramaic Oral Heritage of the Jews of Zakho. Open Book Publishers. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-80064-304-8.\n\n^ Sabar, Yona. \"\"Zakho,\"\". In Norman A. Stillman, Ed., Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Vol. 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 659-661: 660. Travelers and local rabbis referred to Zakho as the 'Jerusalem of Kurdistan.'\n\n^ Gavish, Haya (2010). Unwitting Zionists: The Jewish Community of Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan. Wayne State University Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8143-3366-2. In many sources, Zakho is called \"Jerusalem of Kurdistan,\" and in one of them even \"Jerusalem of the Diaspora.\" According to Rabbi Haviv 'Alwan, Zakho was called \"Jerusalem of Kurdistan\" because Jews living in villages at a walking distance of three or four days from the city had to come there to be ordained as a rabbi, a shohet (ritual slaughterer), or a mohel (a person authorized to perform a circumcision).\n\n^ \"BibleHub | I Chronicles 5:26\". BibleHub.com. Retrieved 20 July 2023.\n\n^ \"II Kings 17:6\". Biblehub.com. Retrieved 20 July 2023.\n\n^ \"II Kings 18:11\". Biblehub.com. Retrieved 20 July 2023.\n\n^ Gavish, Haya (2009). \"Unwitting Zionists: The Jewish Community of Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan p.48\". Wayne State University Press. Archived from the original on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ Gavish, Haya (2009). \"Unwitting Zionists: The Jewish Community of Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan p.28\". Wayne State University Press. Archived from the original on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ Gavish, Haya (2009). \"Unwitting Zionists: The Jewish Community of Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan\". Wayne State University Press. Archived from the original on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ Shai, Donna (9 October 2008). \"Changes in the oral tradition among the jews of kurdistan\". Contemporary Jewry. 5. Contemporary Jewry - Springer Netherlands: 2-10. doi:10.1007/BF02965657. S2CID 143952535. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ \"GOVERNORATE ASSESSMENT REPORT: DAHUK GOVERNORATE\" (PDF). UNHCR. September 2007. Retrieved 6 September 2009.\n\n^ \"Zakho wins Kurdistan basketball Super Cup Archived 2014-03-07 at the Wayback Machine,\" Kurdish Globe, retrieved 2014-01-30\n\nSources\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nFurther reading\n\nRASOOL TAY, NIL ABDULKAREEM (2024). Zaho folkloru (müslüman, hiristiyan ve yezidiler) [Zakho folklore (muslim, christian and yazidis)] (Masters) (in Turkish). Gaziantepe Üniverstesi.\n\nExternal links\n\nIraq Image - Zakho Satellite Observation[link removed]\n\n37°09′N 42°41′E / 37.150°N 42.683°E / 37.150; 42.683"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-zakho"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2583}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-sculpture", "title": "Assyrian sculpture", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia. It forms a phase of the art of Mesopotamia, differing in particular because of its much greater use of stone and gypsum alabaster for large sculpture.\n\nMuch the best-known works are the huge lamassu guarding entrance ways, and Assyrian palace reliefs on thin slabs of alabaster, which were originally painted, at least in part, and fixed on the wall all round the main rooms of palaces. Most of these are in museums in Europe or America, following a hectic period of excavations from 1842 to 1855,[1] which took Assyrian art from being almost completely unknown to being the subject of several best-selling books, and imitated in political cartoons.[2]\n\nThe palace reliefs contain scenes in low relief which glorify the king, showing him at war, hunting, and fulfilling other kingly roles. Many works left in situ, or in museums local to their findspots,[3] have been deliberately destroyed in the recent occupation of the area by ISIS, the pace of destruction reportedly increasing in late 2016, with the Mosul offensive.[4]\n\nOther surviving types of art include many cylinder seals,[5] a few rock reliefs, reliefs and statues from temples, bronze relief strips used on large doors,[6] and small quantities of metalwork.[7] A group of sixteen bronze weights shaped as lions with bilingual inscriptions in both cuneiform and Phoenician characters, were discovered at Nimrud.[8]\nThe Nimrud ivories, an important group of small plaques which decorated furniture, were found in a palace storeroom near reliefs, but they came from around the Mediterranean, with relatively few made locally in an Assyrian style.[9]\n\nPalace reliefs\n\nThe palace reliefs were fixed to the walls of royal palaces forming continuous strips along the walls of large halls. The style apparently began after about 879 BC, when Ashurnasirpal II moved the capital to Nimrud, near modern Mosul in northern Iraq.[10] Thereafter, new royal palaces, of which there was typically one per reign, were extensively decorated in this way for the roughly 250 years until the end of the Assyrian Empire.[11] There was subtle stylistic development, but a very large degree of continuity in subjects and treatment.[12]\n\nCompositions are arranged on slabs, or orthostats, typically about 7 feet high, using between one and three horizontal registers of images, with scenes generally reading from left to right. The sculptures are often accompanied with inscriptions in cuneiform script, explaining the action or giving the name and extravagant titles of the king.[13] Heads and legs are shown in profile, but torsos in a front or three-quarters view, as in earlier Mesopotamian art.[14] Eyes are also largely shown frontally. Some panels show only a few figures at close to life-size, such scenes usually including the king and other courtiers,[15] but depictions of military campaigns include dozens of small figures, as well as many animals and attempts at showing landscape settings.\n\nCampaigns focus on the progress of the army, including the fording of rivers, and usually culminates in the siege of a city, followed by the surrender and paying of tribute, and the return of the army home. A full and characteristic set shows the campaign leading up to the siege of Lachish in 701; it is the \"finest\" from the reign of Sennacherib, from his palace at Nineveh and now in the British Museum.[16] Ernst Gombrich observed that none of the many casualties ever come from the Assyrian side.[17] Another famous sequence there shows the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, in fact the staged and ritualized killing by King Ashurbanipal of lions already captured and released into an arena, from the North Palace at Nineveh. The realism of the lions has always been praised, and the scenes are often regarded as \"the supreme masterpieces of Assyrian art\", although the pathos modern viewers tend to feel was perhaps not part of the Assyrian response.[18]\n\nThere are many reliefs of minor supernatural beings, called by such terms as \"winged genie\", but the major Assyrian deities are only represented by symbols. The \"genies\" often perform a gesture of purification, fertilization or blessing with a bucket and cone; the meaning of this remains unclear.,[19] Especially on larger figures, details and patterns on areas such as costumes, hair and beards, tree trunks and leaves, and the like, are very meticulously carved. More important figures are often shown larger than others, and in landscapes more distant elements are shown higher up, but not smaller than, those in the foreground, though some scenes have been interpreted as using scale to indicate distance. Other scenes seem to repeat a figure in a succession of different moments, performing the same action, most famously a charging lion. But these were apparently experiments that remain unusual.[20]\n\nThe king is often shown in narrative scenes, and also as a large standing figure in a few prominent places, generally attended by winged genies. A composition repeated twice in what is traditionally called the \"throne-room\" (though perhaps it was not) of Ashurbanipal's palace at Nimrud shows a \"Sacred Tree\" or \"Tree of Life\" flanked by two figures of the king, with winged genies using the bucket and cone behind him. Above the tree one of the major gods, perhaps Ashur the chief god, leans out of a winged disc, relatively small in scale. Such scenes are shown elsewhere on the robe of the king, no doubt reflecting embroidery on the real costumes, and the major gods are normally shown in discs or purely as symbols hovering in the air. Elsewhere the tree is often attended to by genies.[21]\n\nWomen are relatively rarely shown, and then usually as prisoners or refugees; an exception is a \"picnic\" scene showing Ashurbanipal with his queen.[22] The many beardless royal attendants can probably be assumed to be eunuchs, who ran much of the administration of the empire, unless they also have the shaved heads and very tall hats of priests.[23] Kings are often accompanied by several courtiers, the closest to the king probably often being the appointed heir, who was not necessarily the oldest son.[24]\n\nThe enormous scales of the palace schemes allowed narratives to be shown at an unprecedentedly expansive pace, making the sequence of events clear and allowing richly detailed depictions of the activities of large numbers of figures, not to be paralleled until the Roman narrative column reliefs of the Column of Trajan and Column of Marcus Aurelius.[25]\n\n Dying lion, Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, North Palace, Nineveh\n\n Prisoners and cavalry, Lachish relief\n\n Sargon II (right), probably facing his heir Sennacherib, Khorsabad \n\n Eunuch attendants carry furniture and a bowl\n\nLamassu\n\nLamassu were protective minor deities or spirits, the Assyrian version of the \"human-headed bull\" figure that had long figured in Mesopotamian mythology and art. Lamassu have wings, a male human head with the elaborate headgear of a divinity, and the elaborately braided hair and beards shared with royalty. The body is that of either a bull or a lion, the form of the feet being the main difference. Prominent pairs of lamassu were typically placed at entrances in palaces, facing the street and also internal courtyards. They were \"double-aspect\" figures on corners, in high relief, a type earlier found in Hittite art. From the front they appear to stand, and from the side, walk, and in earlier versions have five legs, as is apparent when viewed obliquely. Lamassu do not generally appear as large figures in the low-relief schemes running round palace rooms, where winged genie figures are common, but they sometimes appear within narrative reliefs, apparently protecting the Assyrians.[26]\n\nThe colossal entrance way figures were often followed by a hero grasping a wriggling lion, also colossal and in high relief; these and some genies beside lamassu are generally the only other types of high relief in Assyrian sculpture. The heroes continue the Master of Animals tradition in Mesopotamian art, and may represent Enkidu, a central figure in the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad, a group of at least seven lamassu and two such heroes with lions surrounded the entrance to the \"throne room\", \"a concentration of figures which produced an overwhelming impression of power\".[27] The arrangement was repeated in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, with a total of ten lamassu.[28] Other accompanying figures for colossal lamassu are winged genies with the bucket and cone, thought to be the equipment for a protective or purifying ritual.[29]\n\nLamassu also appear on cylinder seals. Several examples left in situ in northern Iraq have been destroyed in the 2010s by ISIL when they occupied the area. Colossal lamassu also guarded the start of the large canals built by the Assyrian kings.[30] In the case of temples, pairs of colossal lions guarding the entrances have been found.[31]\n\nConstruction\n\nThere are outcrops of the \"Mosul marble\" gypsum rock normally used at several places in the Assyrian realm, though not especially close to the capitals. The rock is very soft and slightly soluble in water, and exposed faces degraded, and needed to be cut into before usable stone was reached. There are reliefs showing quarrying for Sennacherib's new palace at Nineveh, though concentrating on the production of large lamassu. Blocks were extracted, using prisoners of war, and sawed into slabs with long iron saws. This may have happened at the palace site, which is certainly where the carving of orthostats was done, after the slabs had been fixed into place as a facing to a mud-brick wall, using lead dowels and clamps, with the bottoms resting on a bed of bitumen.[32] For some reliefs an \"attractive fossiliferous limestone\" is used, as in several rooms in the South-West Palace at Nineveh.[33] In contrast to the orthostats, the lamassu were carved, or at least partly so, at the quarry, no doubt to reduce their enormous weight.[34]\n\nThe alabaster stone is soft but not brittle, and very suitable for detailed carving with early Iron Age tools. There can be considerable differences in style, and quality, between adjacent panels, suggesting that different master carvers were allocated these. Probably the master drew or incised the design on the slab before a team of carvers laboriously cut away the background areas and finished carving the figures. Scribes then set out any inscriptions for cutters to follow, after which the slab was polished smooth, and any paint added.[35] Scribes are shown directing carvers in another relief (on the Balawat Gates) showing the creation of a rock relief; presumably they ensured that the depiction of royal and religious aspects of the subjects was as it should be.[36]\n\nThe reliefs only covered the lower parts of the walls of rooms in the palaces, and higher areas were often painted, at least in patterns, and at least sometimes with other figures. Brightly coloured carpets on the floor completed what was probably a striking decor, largely in primary colours. None of these have survived, but we have some door-sills carved with repeated geometric motifs, presumed to imitate the carpets.[37]\n\nAfter the palaces were abandoned and lost their wooden roofs, the unbaked mud-brick walls gradually collapsed, covering the space in front of the reliefs, and largely protecting them from further damage from the weather. Relatively few traces of paint remain, and these are often on heads and faces - hair and beards were black, and at least the whites of eyes white. Possibly metal leaf was used on some elements, such as small scenes shown decorating textiles. Julian Reade concludes that \"It is nonetheless puzzling that more traces of painting [on sculpture] have not been recorded\".[38]\n\nOther narrative reliefs\n\nApart from the alabaster wall reliefs, all found in palaces, other objects carrying relatively large reliefs are bronze strips used to reinforce and decorate large gates. Parts of three sets have survived, all from the 9th century BC and the relatively minor city of Imgur-Enlil, modern Balawat. The Balawat Gates were all double gates about 20 foot high, with both the front and back sides decorated with eight bronze repoussé strips, each carrying two registers of narrative reliefs some five inches high. There were presumably equivalents at other Assyrian sites, but at the collapse of the empire the buildings at Balawat caught fire \"before they had been efficiently looted\" by the enemy, and remained hidden in the ashes and rubble;[39] gypsum slabs were not worth the trouble of looting, unlike bronze. The subjects were similar to the wall reliefs, but on a smaller scale; a typical band is 27 centimetres high, 1.8 metres wide, and only a millimetre thick.[40]\n\nIn stone there are reliefs of a similar size on some stelae, most notably two in rectangular obelisk form, both with stepped tops like ziggurats. These are the early 11th-century White Obelisk of Ashurnasirpal I and the 9th century Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, both in the British Museum, which also has the fragmentary \"Broken Obelisk\" and \"Rassam Obelisk\". Both have reliefs on all four sides in eight and five registers respectively, and long inscriptions describing the events. The Black and Rassam Obelisks were both set up in what seems to have been the central square in the citadel of Nimrud, presumably a very public space, and the White in Nineveh. All record much the same types of scenes as the narrative sections of wall-relief, and the gates. The Black Obelisk concentrates on scenes of the bringing of tribute from conquered kingdoms, including Israel, while the White also has scenes of war, hunting, and religious figures. The White Obelisk, from 1049-1031, and the \"Broken Obelisk\" from 1074-1056, predate the earliest known wall-reliefs by 160 years or more, but are respectively in worn and fragmentary condition.[41]\n\nThe Black Obelisk is of special interest as the lengthy inscriptions, with names of places and rulers that could be related to other sources, were of importance in the decipherment of cuneiform script.[42] The Obelisk contains the earliest writing mentioning both the Persian and Jewish peoples, and confirmed some of the events described in the Bible, which in the 19th century was regarded as timely support for texts whose historical accuracy was under increasing attack.[43] Other, much smaller pieces with helpful inscriptions were a set of sixteen weight measures in the form of lions.[44]\n\nStatues and portrait stelae\n\nThere are very few large free-standing Assyrian statues and, with one possible exception (below), none have been found of the major divinities in their temples. Possibly others existed; any in precious metals would have been looted as the empire fell. Two statues of kings are similar to the portraits in palace reliefs, though seen frontally. They came from temples, where they showed the king's devotion to the deity. The Statue of Ashurnasirpal II is in the British Museum, and that of Shalmaneser III in Istanbul.[45]\n\nThere is a unique female nude statue in the British Museum, missing its extremities, which was found in the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh. The pubic hair is carefully represented. It carries an inscription on the back that King Ashur-bel-kala erected it for the \"titilation\" or enjoyment of the people. It might represent Ishtar, goddess of love among other things,[46] in which case it would be the only known Assyrian statue of a major divinity. All these have standing poses, though seated statues were already known in Mesopotamian art, for example about a dozen statues of Gudea, who ruled Lagash c. 2144 - 2124 BC.[47]\n\nLike other Near-Eastern cultures, the Assyrians erected stelae for various purposes, including marking boundaries. Many just carry inscriptions, but there are some with significant relief sculpture, mostly a large standing portrait of the king of the day, pointing at symbols of the gods, similar in pose to those in palace reliefs, surrounded by a round-topped frame.[48]\n\nSimilar figures of kings are shown in rock reliefs, mostly around the edges of the empire. Those shown being made on the Balawat Gates are presumably the ones surviving in poor condition near the Tigris Tunnel. The Assyrians probably took the form from the Hittites; the sites chosen for their 49 recorded reliefs often also make little sense if \"signalling\" to the general population was the intent, being high and remote, but often near water. The Neo-Assyrians recorded in other places, including metal reliefs on the Balawat Gates showing them being made, the carving of rock reliefs, and it has been suggested that the main intended audience was the gods, the reliefs and the inscriptions that often accompany them being almost of the nature of a \"business report\" submitted by the ruler.[49] A canal system built by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (reigned 704-681 BC) to supply water to Nineveh was marked by a number of reliefs showing the king with gods.[50]\n\nOther reliefs at the Tigris tunnel, a cave in modern Turkey believed to be the source of the river Tigris, are \"almost inaccessible and invisible for humans\".[51] Probably built by Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon, Shikaft-e Gulgul is a late example in modern Iran, apparently related to a military campaign.[52] The Assyrians added to the Commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb in modern Lebanon, where Ramses II, Pharaoh of Egypt, had rather optimistically commemorated the boundary of his empire many centuries earlier; many later rulers added to the collection.[53] The Assyrian examples were perhaps significant in suggesting the style of the much more ambitious Persian tradition, beginning with the Behistun relief and inscription, made around 500 BC for Darius the Great, on a far grander scale, reflecting and proclaiming the power of the Achaemenid Empire.\n\n High relief hero clutching lion, from the entrance to the throne room at Khorsabad \n\n Group displayed in the British Museum, including a lion from a temple entrance, and the Black and White Obelisks\n\n The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III in the British Museum, the White Obelisk of Ashurnasirpal I just behind\n\n Shalmaneser III receives tribute from Sua, king of Gilzanu, on the Black Obelisk\n\n Unique Assyrian female nude statue from the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh\n\n Stela of Shamshi-Adad V\n\n Three royal stelae at the British Museum\n\n Lion weight; 6th-4th century BC; bronze; height: 29.5 cm, width: 24.8 cm; Louvre\n\nExcavations\n\nIraq was part of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century, and the government was content to allow foreign excavations and the removal of finds with little hindrance. Even in the 1870s excavators were often only regulated by a regime intended for mining operations, and had to pay a tax based on a proportion of the value of material removed.[54]\n\nThe character of the palace reliefs made excavation relatively straightforward, if the right site was chosen. Assyrian palaces were built on high mud-brick platforms. Test trenches were started in various directions, and once one of them had hit sculpture, the trenches had only to follow the lines of the wall, often through a whole suite of rooms. Most trenches could be open to the sky, but at Nimrud, where one palace overlay another, tunnels were necessary in places.[55] Layard estimated \"that he had exposed nearly two miles of sculptured walls in Sennacherib's palace alone\", not to mention the Library of Ashurbanipal he found there.[56] His excavation practices left a lot to be desired by modern standards; the centres of rooms were not only not excavated, but the material removed from the trench in one room might be deposited in another, compromising later excavations.[57] Typically the slabs were sawn to roughly a third of their original depth, to save weight in carrying them back to Europe,[58] which was typically more complicated and difficult than digging them up.[59]\n\nBotta\n\nThe first hint of future discoveries came in 1820 when Claudius Rich, British Resident (a sort of local ambassador or consul) in Baghdad, and an early scholar of the ancient Near East, went to Mosul and the site of ancient Nineveh, where he was told of a large relief panel that had been found and soon broken up. His account was published in 1836; he also brought back two small fragments.[60] In 1842 the French consul in Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta, hired men to dig at Kuyunjik, the largest mound at Nineveh. Little was found until a local farmer suggested they try Khorsabad (ancient Dur-Sharrukin) nearby, where \"a short trial was dramatically successful\", as a palace of Sargon II was found a few feet below the surface, with plentiful reliefs, although they had been burned and disintegrated easily.[61]\n\nPress reports of Botta's finds, from May 1843, interested the French government, who sent him funds and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres sent him Eugène Flandin (1809-1889), an artist who had already made careful archaeological drawings of Persian antiquities in a long trip beginning in 1839. Botta decided there was no more to find at the site in October 1844, and concentrated on the difficult task of getting his finds back to Paris, where the first large consignments did not arrive until December 1846. Botta left the two huge lamassu now in the British Museum as too large to transport; Henry Rawlinson, by now British Resident in Baghdhad, sawed them into several pieces for transport in 1849.[62] In 1849 Monument de Ninive was published, a sumptuously illustrated and exemplary monograph in 4 volumes by Botta and Flandin.\n\nLayard and Rassam\n\nAusten Henry Layard (1817-1894) was in the early 1840s \"a roving agent attached to the embassy at Constantinople\", who had already visited Nimrud in 1840. In 1845 he persuaded Sir Stratford Canning, the ambassador in Constantinople, to personally fund an expedition to excavate there. On his first day digging at Nimrud, with only six workers in November 1845, slabs were found, initially only with inscriptions, but soon with reliefs. He continued to dig until June 1847, with the British government, through the British Museum, taking over the funding from Canning in late 1846, repaying his expenditure. The volume of finds was such that getting them back to Britain was a major task, and many pieces either were reburied, or reached other countries. Layard had recruited the 20-year old Hormuzd Rassam in Mosul, where his brother was British Vice-consul, to handle the pay and supervision of the diggers, and encouraged the development of his career as a diplomat and archaeologist.[63]\n\nLayard returned to England in June 1847, also taking Rassam, who he had arranged to study at Cambridge. He left a few workers, mainly to keep other diggers off the sites, as the French were digging again. His finds were arriving in London, to great public interest, which he greatly increased by publishing a string of books, especially Nineveh and its Remains in 1849. The mistaken title arose because Henry Rawlinson had at that point become convinced that the Nimrud site was actually the ancient Nineveh, though he changed his mind soon after.[64] By October 1849 Layard was back in Mosul, accompanied by the artist Frederick Cooper, and continued to dig until April 1851, after which Rassam took charge of the excavations.[65] By this stage, thanks to Rawlinson and other linguists working on the tablets and inscriptions brought back and other material, the Assyrian cuneiform was at the least becoming partly understood,[66] a task that progressed well over the next decade.\n\nInitially Rassam's finds dwindled, in terms of large objects, and the British even agreed to cede the rights to half the Kuyunjik mound to the French, whose new consul, Victor Place, had resumed digging at Khorsabad. The British funds were running out by December 1853, when Rassam hit upon the palace of Ashurbanipal, which was \"in some respects the finest sculptured palace of all\", in the new French area of Kuyunjik. Fortunately, Place had not started digging there, and according to Rassam \"it was an established rule that whenever one discovered a new palace, no one else could meddle with it, and thus,... I had secured it for England\".[67] The new palace took until 1855 to clear, being finished by the Assyrian Exploration Fund, established in 1853 to dig for the benefit of British collections.[68]\n\nAlthough it was not yet realized, by \"the close of excavations in 1855, the hectic Heroic Age of Assyrian archaeology ended\", with the great majority of surviving Assyrian sculpture found. Work has continued up to the present day, but no new palaces have been found at the capitals, and finds have mostly been isolated pieces, such as Rassam's discovery in 1878 of two of the Balawat Gates. Many of the pieces reburied have been re-excavated, some very quickly by art dealers, and others by the Iraqi government in the 1960s, leaving them on display in situ for visitors, after the sites were configured as museums. These were already damaged in wars in the 1990s,[69] and have probably been systematically destroyed by Daesh in the 2010s.[70]\n\nCollections\n\nAs a result of the history of excavations, much the best single collection is in the British Museum, followed by the site museums and other collections in Iraq, which in the 20th century were the largest holdings when taken together,[71] though after the wars of the 21st century their current holdings are uncertain. The fate of the considerable number of pieces that have been found and then reburied is also uncertain. At the peak of excavations, the volume found was too large for the British and French to manage, and many pieces either were diverted at some point on their journey to Europe, or were given away by the museums. Other pieces were excavated by diggers working for dealers. As a result, there are significant groups of large lamassu corner figures and palace relief panels in Paris, Berlin, New York, and Chicago.[72] Many other museums have panels, especially a group of college museums in New England, with the museum at Dartmouth College having seven panels.[73] Altogether there are some 75 pieces in the United States.[74]\n\nApart from the British Museum, in the United Kingdom, the Ashmolean Museum has 10 reliefs (2 large, 8 small)[75]Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery has 3 large reliefs,[76] and the National Museum of Scotland (2.4 x 2.2 m),[77] and Victoria and Albert Museum one relief each.[78]\n\nNotes\n\n^ Reade, 5-17; see Larsen in further reading\n\n^ Oates, 6-8; Hoving, 40\n\n^ Reade, 5\n\n^ In November 2016 the situation remains unclear. Browne, Gareth, \"Isis flattened ancient capital after shipping out its treasures\" in The Times (London), 19 November 2016 says that the most serious damage to Nimrud was done in late 2016, as the allied forces moved to retake Mosul, where the museum also had an important collection.\n\n^ Frankfort, 198-199\n\n^ Frankfort, 164-167\n\n^ Frankfort, 194-196\n\n^ British Museum Collection\n\n^ Frankfort, 313-315, 319-322 (and see index); Honour & Fleming, 77; Nimrud ivories press release, British Museum\n\n^ Reade, 25\n\n^ Reade, 56-60, on the latest reliefs\n\n^ Grove\n\n^ Frankfort, 157\n\n^ Grove\n\n^ Reade, 42-43\n\n^ Reade, 56 (quoted), 65-71\n\n^ The Story of Art (in its chronological place; there are too many editions to give a page number)\n\n^ Honour & Fleming, 76-77; Reade, 72-79, 73 quoted; Frankfort, 186-192; Hoving, 40-41\n\n^ Frankfort, 146-148\n\n^ Honour & Fleming, 75-77\n\n^ Reade, 36-38\n\n^ Reade, 47; image\n\n^ Reade, 43-44\n\n^ 42-43\n\n^ Frankfort, 168; Honour & Fleming, 73, 75-77\n\n^ Frankfort, 147-148, 154; Reade, 28-29\n\n^ Frankfort, 147-148, 148 quoted; Reade, 29\n\n^ Grove\n\n^ Reade, 38\n\n^ Reade, 50\n\n^ Reade, 23-24 (British Museum example illustrated below)\n\n^ Reade, 25-26\n\n^ Grove\n\n^ Oates, 52\n\n^ Reade, 27\n\n^ Reade, 21\n\n^ Reade, 29-31\n\n^ Reade, 7, 29-30, 30 quoted\n\n^ Reade, 32, quoted; Frankfort, 164-167\n\n^ British Museum collection database; Frankfort, 164\n\n^ Reade, 32, 35, 63-64; Frankfort, 167; White, British Museum page\n\n^ Reade, 12\n\n^ Reade, 62-71\n\n^ British Museum collection database\n\n^ Reade, 22-23\n\n^ British Museum\n\n^ Frankfort, 93-98\n\n^ Reade, 20-22\n\n^ Kreppner, throughout; 368 for 49 reliefs\n\n^ Kreppner, 371; Malko, Helen, \"Neo-Assyrian Rock Reliefs: Ideology and Landscapes of an Empire\", Metropolitan Museum, accessed 28 November 2015\n\n^ Kreppner, 374-375\n\n^ Kreppner, 369-370; Van der Spek, R.J., \"The Assyrian Royal Rock Inscription from Shikaft-i Gulgul\", Iranica Antiqua, vol XII, 1977\n\n^ Reade, 22; Grove\n\n^ Reade, 11\n\n^ Reade, 9-12\n\n^ Reade, 14\n\n^ Oates, 5\n\n^ Cohen & Kangas, 5\n\n^ Reade, 11, 15-16\n\n^ Reade, 6; Oates, 1-2\n\n^ Reade, 7; Oates, 3\n\n^ Reade, 7\n\n^ Reade, 9-12; Oates, 2-6\n\n^ Oates, 6-8; Reade, 12\n\n^ Reade, 12-14\n\n^ Hoving, 40\n\n^ Reade, 14-15\n\n^ Reade, 14-15\n\n^ Reade, 16-17, 16 quoted\n\n^ Iconic Ancient Assyrian Sites Ravaged in ISIS's Last Stand in Iraq, by Kristin Romey, AINA repeating National Geographic\n\n^ Reade, 5; Grove\n\n^ Reade, 5; Grove\n\n^ Hood Museum of Art, collection search on \"Assyrian\"\n\n^ Hoving, 40\n\n^ Ashmolean page\n\n^ Bristol page\n\n^ \"Edinburgh, Assyrian Relief Fact File\". Archived from the original on 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2017-08-09.\n\n^ Assyrian Relief at V&A\n\nReferences\n\nExternal videos\n\n Assyrian Art: Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions, Smarthistory\n\nCohen, Ada, Kangas, Stephen E., Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, 2010, University Press of New England, ISBN 9781584658177\n\nFrankfort, Henri, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, Pelican History of Art, 4th ed 1970, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), ISBN 0140561072\n\n\"Grove\": Russell, John M., Section 6. \"c 1000-539 BC., (i) Neo-Assyrian.\" in Dominique Collon, et al. \"Mesopotamia, §III: Sculpture.\" Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 19 November 2016, subscription required\n\nHugh Honour and John Fleming, A World History of Art, 1st edn. 1982 (many later editions), Macmillan, London, page refs to 1984 Macmillan 1st edn. paperback. ISBN 0333371852\n\nHoving, Thomas. Greatest Works of Western Civilization, 1997, Artisan, New York, ISBN 9781885183538\n\nKreppner, Florian Janoscha, \"Public Space in Nature: The Case of Neo-Assyrian Rock-Reliefs\", Altorientalische Forschungen, 29/2 (2002): 367-383, online at Academia.edu\n\nOates, D. and J. Oates, Nimrud, An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed, 2001, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, full PDF (332 pages) Archived 2022-09-23 at the Wayback Machine ISBN 978-0903472258\n\nReade, Julian, Assyrian Sculpture, 1998 (2nd edn.), The British Museum Press, ISBN 9780714121413\n\nFurther reading\n\nCollins, Paul, Assyrian Palace Sculptures, 2008, British Museum, ISBN 0714111678, 9780714111674\n\nCrawford, Vaughn Emerson, Harper, Prudence Oliver, Pittman, Holly, Assyrian Reliefs and Ivories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Palace Reliefs of Assurnasirpal II and Ivory Carvings from Nimrud, 1980, Metropolitan Museum of Art, ISBN 0870992600, 9780870992605\n\nKertai, David, The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces, 2015, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198723180, 9780198723189\n\nLarsen, Mogens Trolle, The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land, 1840-1860, 1996, Psychology Press, ISBN 041514356X, 9780415143561\n\nOrnan, Tallay, The Triumph of the Symbol: Pictorial Representation of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Biblical Image Ban, 2005, Saint-Paul, ISBN 3525530072, 9783525530078, google books\n\nRussell, John M., Sennacherib's ‘Palace without Rival’ at Nineveh, 1991, Chicago"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-sculpture"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5142}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-renaissance", "title": "Syriac Renaissance", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Syriac Renaissance is a modern scholarly term for a revival of Syriac literary, scholarly, artistic, and ecclesiastical culture, usually dated from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. It's breadth resembles an earlier era of Syriac literature, the \"Syriac Golden Age\", which took place in the 3rd-7th centuries....", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Syriac Renaissance is a modern scholarly term for a revival of Syriac literary, scholarly, artistic, and ecclesiastical culture, usually dated from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. It's breadth resembles an earlier era of Syriac literature, the \"Syriac Golden Age\", which took place in the 3rd-7th centuries. This Renaissance (not to be confused with the European Renaissance) is often associated with the learned culture of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Church of the East under Islamic and Mongol rule, especially in northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and adjoining regions. The period is noted for renewed work in Classical Syriac, the compilation and reworking of older traditions, the production of grammars, lexica, major works of historiography, theological and legal treatises, poetry, and the Syriac reception of Arabic and Persian learning.[1][2]\n\nThe term was introduced by Anton Baumstark in his 1922 history of Syriac literature and has remained common, though scholars use it with caution. It is not equivalent to the concept of the European Renaissance, and it does not denote the return to the expression of Syriac literature in late antiquity.[3][2]\n\nTerminology and chronology\n\nThe expression \"Syriac Renaissance\" belongs to a wider early twentieth-century habit of using renaissance for medieval cultural revivals, including Charles Homer Haskins's \"renaissance of the twelfth century\" in the Latin West and Adam Mez's \"renaissance of Islam\". In Syriac studies, Baumstark applied the idea to the flourishing of Syriac writing in the later Middle Ages. It has also been compared to revivals in other languages such across the Eastern Christian cultures.[4][3]\n\nThe period is normally placed between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, with the twelfth and thirteenth centuries forming its strongest phase. It came after the increasing dominance of Arabic in the Middle East, but before the sharp contraction of many Syriac institutions after the Islamization of the Mongol Ilkhanate and the political disruptions of the fourteenth century. The chronological limits are therefore approximate: some authors include eleventh-century figures such as Eliya of Nisibis, while others focus on the era of Michael the Great, Dionysius bar Salibi, Jacob bar Shakko, Bar Hebraeus, and Abdisho bar Brikha.[5][6]\n\nHistorical setting\n\nThe Syriac Renaissance developed in a politically fragmented but culturally connected medieval Middle East. Syriac Christian communities lived under a huge diversity of political leaderships depending on the region (including Seljuk, Artuqid, Zengid, Ayyubid, Crusader, Armenian, and Mongol) and they interacted with the literary traditions of many other languages (including Arabic, Armenian, Greek, and Persian).[7][8][9]\n\nLanguage and identity\n\nA central feature of the period was renewed attention to the Syriac language itself. As a valued sacred, ecclesiastical, and literary language, many writers[9] treated Syriac as an important marker of Suryoye identity while in the context of interactions with a more prevalent Arabic culture. Bar Hebraeus, for example, wrote mainly in Syriac but also composed works in Arabic and translated Arabic philosophical material into Syriac.[8][10]\n\nIntellectual culture\n\nSyriac writers of the period were active in grammar, logic, natural philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and theology. Some of this work preserved older Greek learning through Syriac channels, while other works drew on Arabic philosophy, especially the traditions associated with Avicenna, al-Ghazali, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.[11][12]\n\nJacob bar Shakko's Book of Dialogues and Bar Hebraeus's Cream of Wisdom are major examples of the encyclopedic and pedagogical tendencies of the period. Both authors adapted the Aristotelian curriculum for a Syriac audience and ultimately played the role of serving Syriac as a language of advanced scholarship in a world where Arabic enjoyed high prestige.[11]\n\nBar Hebraeus is often seen as an emblematic figure of the Syriac Renaissance. He wrote in Syriac and Arabic, used Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and possibly Armenian materials, and consulted books in the library of Maragha under the Mongol Ilkhanids. His writings cover theology, exegesis, grammar, philosophy, medicine, law, history, poetry, ethics, and ascetic literature.[13][14][15]\n\nLiterature\n\nThe literature produced during the Syriac Renaissance included both poetry and prose and covered many genres. These genres included biblical commentaries, doctrinal treatises and explanations of church teaching, liturgical texts, ascetic literature, and more.[16][17] Some of the most famous liturgical poets of the period included Gewargis Warda and Khamis bar Qardahe became important liturgical poets. The Paradise of Eden of Abdisho bar Brikha inccorporated poetic techniques adopted from Arabic maqama. Bar Hebraeus also composed secular and religious poetry,[18] with his Laughable Stories creatively adapting Arabic adab literature.[19]\n\nHistoriography\n\nThe Syriac Renaissance produced many monumental works of historiography. The three most famous are the chronicle of Michael the Syrian, the anonymous Chronicle of 1234, and the Chronicle of Bar Hebraeus. Through these three writings, many more otherwise lost works have also reached the present day.[20][21]\n\nThe Church of the East also produced historical and bibliographical works. The History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, written in the early fourteenth century, preserves the story of two East Syriac monks from China and the diplomatic journey of Rabban Sauma to the West. Furthermore, Abdisho bar Brikha wrote a metrical catalogue of ecclesiastical books, which went on tpo become the first major history of Syriac literature which contains to be an important source for modern scholarship.[22]\n\nLaw\n\nDuring the Syriac Renaissance, the jurists of the Syriac Orthodox and East Syriac worlds wrote numerous canons, legal collections, and law books. These works touched on all areas of society: ecclesiastical affairs, family law, inheritance, property, clergy, monasteries, schools, and relations with other legal authorities. Bar Hebraeus's Nomocanon is the main surviving Syriac Orthodox legal collection of the period. In the Church of the East, normative trends have been set by the legal literature of Abdisho bar Brikha.[23][24]\n\nMajor figures\n\nMajor figures associated with the Syriac Renaissance include:\n\nEliya of Nisibis (975-1046), bishop, theologian, historian, grammarian, and lexicographer of the Church of the East.[25]\n\nMichael the Great (1126-1199), Syriac Orthodox patriarch and author of a major universal chronicle.[26]\n\nDionysius bar Salibi (d. 1171), Syriac Orthodox bishop, commentator, theologian, and polemicist.[6][27]\n\nJacob bar Shakko (d. 1241), Syriac Orthodox scholar of grammar, philosophy, theology, and encyclopedic learning.[8][11]\n\nBar Hebraeus (1225/6-1286), Syriac Orthodox maphrian, polymath, historian, philosopher, grammarian, physician, theologian, poet, and legal writer.[13][28]\n\nGewargis Warda (13th century), East Syriac liturgical poet.[29]\n\nKhamis bar Qardahe (13th century), East Syriac priest and poet known especially for liturgical poetry.[29]\n\nAbdisho bar Brikha (d. 1318), East Syriac metropolitan, poet, theologian, canonist, and author of a catalogue of Syriac writers.[3][30]\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nChristian literature\n\nBar Hebraeus\n\nMichael the Syrian\n\nAbdisho bar Brikha\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 698-710.\n\n^ a b Weltecke 2020, pp. 251-253.\n\n^ a b c Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 698-699.\n\n^ Weltecke 2020, pp. 251-252.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 698-700.\n\n^ a b Teule 2009, pp. 179-181.\n\n^ Weltecke 2020, pp. 252-254.\n\n^ a b c Teule 2009, pp. 181-184.\n\n^ a b Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 699-701.\n\n^ Teule 2003, pp. 22-24.\n\n^ a b c Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 700-702.\n\n^ Teule 2003, pp. 25-31.\n\n^ a b Teule 2003, pp. 21-24.\n\n^ Teule 2003, pp. 31-40.\n\n^ Takahashi 2005, pp. 57-104.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 702-706.\n\n^ Takahashi 2005, pp. 147-222.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 702-705.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 702-703.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 707-710.\n\n^ Weltecke 2020, pp. 267-268.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 710-711.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 706-707.\n\n^ Weltecke 2020, pp. 269-274.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 700-703.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 707-709.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 701-706.\n\n^ Takahashi 2005, pp. 1-104.\n\n^ a b Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 703-704.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, pp. 704-711.\n\nSources\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2005). Barhebraeus: A Bio-Bibliography. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.\n\nTeule, Herman (2003). \"Gregory Barhebraeus and His Time: The Syrian Renaissance\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 3: 21-43.\n\nTeule, Herman (2009). \"Reflections on Identity: The Suryoye of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Bar Salibi, Bar Shakko, and Barhebraeus\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 179-189. doi:10.1163/187124109X407899. JSTOR 23932287.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2020). \"On Sources for the Social and Cultural History of Christians during the Syriac Renaissance\". In Butts, Aaron Michael; Young, Robin Darling (eds.). Syriac Christian Culture: Beginnings to Renaissance. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. pp. 251-275.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea; Younansardaroud, Helen (2019). \"The Renaissance of Syriac Literature in the Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 698-717."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-renaissance"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1401}, {"slug": "reference-sanharib-malki", "title": "Sanharib Malki", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Sanharib Malki Sabah (Syriac: ܣܢܚܪܝܒ ܡܠܟܝ; Arabic: سنحاريب ملكي صباح; born 1 March 1984) is a Syrian former professional footballer who played as a forward.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sanharib Malki\n\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nSanharib Malki Sabah\n\nDate of birth\n (1984-03-01) 1 March 1984\n\nPlace of birth\nQamishli, Syria\n\nHeight\n1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)\n\nPosition\nForward\n\nYouth career\n\n1999-2002\nRSD Jette\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n2002-2005\nUnion SG\n100\n(45)\n\n2006-2007\nRoeselare\n28\n(7)\n\n2007-2009\nGerminal Beerschot\n69\n(23)\n\n2009-2011\nLokeren\n31\n(3)\n\n2011\n→ Panthrakikos (loan)\n13\n(1)\n\n2011-2013\nRoda JC\n65\n(42)\n\n2013-2016\nKasımpaşa\n61\n(11)\n\n2017\nAl-Wakrah\n3\n(0)\n\n2018\nFatih Karagümrük\n6\n(0)\n\n2020\nRSD Jette\n\nInternational career\n\n2008-2016\nSyria\n28\n(7)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals\n\nSanharib Malki Sabah (Syriac: ܣܢܚܪܝܒ ܡܠܟܝ; Arabic: سنحاريب ملكي صباح; born 1 March 1984) is a Syrian former professional footballer who played as a forward.\n\nClub career\n\nFor K.S.V. Roeselare, his previous club, he scored their first European goal in the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup 2006-07 against FK Vardar from Macedonia.\n\nInternational career\n\nMalki received his first cap in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification tournament for Syria against Kuwait on 8 June 2008, thereby eliminating the possibility of playing for Belgium ever again although just one month earlier he was on a training camp with the Belgium national football team under 23s.[1]\n\nPersonal life\n\nMalki is of Aramean ethnicity.[2] Besides his Syrian nationality, he also holds Belgian and Turkish passports.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nScores and results table. Syria's goal tally first:[3]\n\nSanharib Malki: International goals\n\nNo.\n\nDate\n\nVenue\n\nOpponent\n\nScore\n\nResult\n\nCompetition\n\n1\n22 June 2008\nTahnoun bin Mohammed Stadium, Al-Ain, UAE\n United Arab Emirates\n3-1\n3-1\n2010 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\n2\n15 November 2013\nShahid Dastgerdi Stadium, Tehran, Iran\n Singapore\n1-0\n4-0\n2015 AFC Asian Cup qualification\n\n3\n12 November 2014\nKuala Lumpur, Malaysia\n Malaysia\n2-0\n3-0\nInternational Friendly\n\n4\n15 November 2014\nJakarta, Indonesia\n Indonesia\n1-0\n2-0\nInternational Friendly\n\n5\n11 June 2015\nMashhad, Iran\n Afghanistan\n5-0\n6-0\n2018 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\n6\n8 September 2015\nPhnom Penh, Cambodia\n Cambodia\n2-0\n6-0\n2018 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\n7\n24 March 2016\nSeeb, Oman\n Cambodia\n6-0\n6-0\n2018 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Malki: \"In Syria they respect me\"\" (in Dutch). sporza.be. 26 May 2008. Archived from the original on 27 May 2008.\n\n^ Saman Javadi. \"The Syrian pride and their 2018 Russian World Cup attempt\". Mondo Futbol.\n\n^ \"Malki, Sanharib Salem\". National Football Teams. Retrieved 25 February 2017.\n\nExternal links\n\nSanharib Malki at National-Football-Teams.com\n\nCareer stats at sporting.be[link removed]"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sanharib-malki"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 411}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-international-news-agency", "title": "Assyrian International News Agency", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The Assyrian International News Agency is a privately funded, independent news agency which provides news and analysis on Assyrian and Assyrian-related issues. It was founded by Peter BetBasoo and Firas Jatou in 1995.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Assyrian International News Agency is a privately funded, independent news agency which provides news and analysis on Assyrian and Assyrian-related issues. It was founded by Peter BetBasoo and Firas Jatou in 1995.[1]\n\nBackground\n\nThe website is registered to an address in Chicago, Illinois, belonging to Nineveh Software Corporation.[2]\n\nAINA articles have been cited by:\n\nThe Wall Street Journal[3]\n\nInternational Business Times[4]\n\nThe New York Times[5][6]\n\nCNN[7]\n\nUSA Today[8]\n\nFox News[9][10][11]\n\nThe Christian Post[12]\n\nCrosswalk.com[13]\n\nUnited Press International[14]\n\nReferences\n\n^ BetBasoo, Peter. \"About AINA\". AINA. Retrieved 9 October 2011.\n\n^ Whois aina.org search\n\n^ Ballout, Dana (21 August 2015). \"Islamic State Destroys Assyrian Christian Monastery in Syria\". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2023-02-22.\n\n^ Assyrian Safe Haven In Nineveh: Resolution To Protect Iraqi Minorities From ISIS Approved In EU\n\n^ Zraick, Karen (25 February 2015). \"Besieged Assyrians Have Deep Roots in Middle East (Published 2015)\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2023-03-13.\n\n^ Barnard, Anne (26 February 2015). \"ISIS Onslaught Engulfs Assyrian Christians as Militants Destroy Ancient Art (Published 2015)\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2023-05-14.\n\n^ \"ISIS must be stopped\". CNN. 2014-08-06. Archived from the original on 2022-10-02.\n\n^ Report: Saudis sent death-row inmates to fight Syria\n\n^ \"Report: Egyptian Muslims Torch 8 Christian Homes on Rumor of Church Construction\". Archived from the original on 2011-08-28. Retrieved 2011-10-07.\n\n^ Purged by ISIS, Iraq's Christians appeal to world for help\n\n^ Turkey's Assyrians fear annihilation after government seizes church properties\n\n^ Assyrian Christians Raise Alarm Over Iraq Elections - UNPO\n\n^ Egyptian Court Acquits Muslims Who Beheaded a Christian\n\n^ Sunni group warns Assyrians in Mosul\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-international-news-agency"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 282}, {"slug": "reference-joseph-yacoub", "title": "Joseph Yacoub", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Joseph Yacoub (born 1944 in Hassaké or Al-Hasakah, Syria) is a historian and political scientist of Assyrian origin. His family moved from Salmas-Urmia, district in Iranian Azerbaijan and took refuge in Georgia (country of Caucasus area) during the First World War. From Tiflis/Tbilissi his family migrated to Syria...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Emeritus ProfessorJoseph Yacoub\n\nBorn(1944-07-02)July 2, 1944\nAl-Hasakah, Syria\n\nEducationCatholic University of Lyon\n\nScientific career\n\nThesis The Assyro-Chaldean Question - The Western Powers and the League of Nations, from 1908-1938  (1985)\n\nJoseph Yacoub (born 1944 in Hassaké or Al-Hasakah, Syria) is a historian and political scientist of Assyrian origin. His family moved from Salmas-Urmia, district in Iranian Azerbaijan and took refuge in Georgia (country of Caucasus area) during the First World War. From Tiflis/Tbilissi his family migrated to Syria which was during this time under French Mandate. His mother tongue is Aramaic (or Syriac) and his first environment language is Arabic. His working language is mostly French.\n\nBiography\n\nFollowing French secondary schools in Lebanon and after completing his course of learning at Lyon's University (France), where he achieved two Doctorates in the field of contemporary history (the second on Assyro-Chaldean Question[1] between the two World wars: 1908-1938[2]), he has been teaching Political Science and International Relations at Catholic University of Lyon, from July 1975 to October 2011, mainly at the Institute of Human Rights, who is one of the founders.\n\nHe was Holder of the UNESCO Chair: ”Memory, Cultures and Interculturality” of the mentioned University and Editor-in-chief of its Academic review: “Etudes interculturelles” (Intercultural Studies) from 2007 to 2011.[3] He continues to be member of its orientation committee and its editorial review.\n\nHe was granted rewards, amongst them the Cross of the Assyrian Church of the East by the late Mar Denkha IV. Since April 2006, his name is mentioned on the Wall Fresco of Lyon’s people as writer.\n\nSpecialist on ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic minorities, Indigenous peoples, Human Rights and Christians of Middle East,[4] he is translated into several languages.\n\nActively involved in the commemoration of the centennial of the Assyrian genocide in France,[5] Europe and abroad (Lebanon, Armenia, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, United-States, Canada ... ), Joseph Yacoub has published his first articles on Assyrian genocide on the beginning of 1984.[6]\n\nHe took part to numerous colloquia and international conferences over the world in order to make known Assyrians, to promote understanding among peoples, Intercultural and Interreligious dialogue on international scale.[7] His books are regularly reviewed and submitted to analysis.[8] Historian David Gaunt states that Yacoub's book Year of the Sword is a valuable source of primary accounts but that Yacoub's limited source base and lack of source criticism preclude him from understanding why the Sayfo happened.[9]\n\nBibliography\n\nBooks\n\nThe Assyrian Question, Alpha Graphic, Chicago, 1986, republished with additional elements in 2003, translated into Arabic and Turkish.\n\nLes minorités. Quelle protection? Editions Desclée de Brouwer (DDB),[10] Paris, 1995.\n\nBabylone chrétienne. Géopolitique de l'Eglise de Mésopotamie,Editions Desclée de Brouwer (DDB), Paris, 1996.\n\nRéécrire la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme, Editions Desclée de Brouwer (DDB), Paris, 1998; published and updated in 2008.\n\nLes minorités dans le monde. Faits et analyses, Editions Desclée de Brouwer (DDB), Paris, 1998.\n\nAu-delà des minorités. Une alternative à la prolifération des Etats, Ed. de l'Atelier,[11] Paris, 2000, translated into Arabic.\n\nAu nom de Dieu ! Les guerres de religion d’aujourd’hui et de demain, Editions Jean Claude Lattès, février 2002, Paris, translated into Czech.\n\nMenaces sur les chrétiens d’Irak, Editions CLD, Chambray-lès-Tours, mars 2003; translated into Italian : I Cristiani d’Iraq, Ed. Jaca Book,[12] Milano, 2006.\n\nA l'épreuve des civilisations et des cultures, repenser les droits de l'homme. Une approche critique, in: L'Odyssée des droits de l'homme, t.III, \"Enjeux et perspectives des droits de l'homme\", J. Ferrand et H. Petit (Eds.), L'Harmattan, Paris, 2003, p. 183-200.\n\nLes droits de l’homme sont-ils exportables ? Géopolitique d’un universalisme, Editions Ellipses,[13] Paris, 2004.\n\nMinorities and religions in Europe. Case-study: The Assyro-Chaldeans of Turkey, 2006, in European Yearbook of Minority issues, European Center of Minority issues (ECMI), Flensburg, Allemagne, vol. 4, 2004/5, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, p. 29-49.\n\nLe minoranze cristiane in Siria, Siria dalle Antiche citta-stato alla primavera interrotta di Damasco, A cura di Mattia Guidetti, Ed. Jaca Book, 2006, Milano, p. 155-164.\n\nLa démocratie occidentale est-elle transposable ? Démocratie et fondamentalisme religieux dans les pays arabes, Annuaire international des droits de l’homme, vol. II, 2007, Editions Bruylant and Sakkoulas, p. 297-326.\n\nFièvre démocratique et ferveur fondamentaliste. Dominantes du XXIè siècle, Editions du Cerf, Paris, 2008.\n\nLa dignité dans la pensée mésopotamienne et ses implications en Irak aujourd’hui, in La dignité humaine. Perspectives transculturelles, Jacques Poulain, Hans Jörg Sandkühler, Fathi Triki, Philosophie et transculturalité, vol. 7, Peter Lang, 2009, Frankfurt am Main, p. 63-98.\n\nL’Humanisme réinventé, Editions du Cerf, Paris, 2012.\n\nDiversité culturelle et universalité des droits de l’homme, in : Les droits de l’homme. Défis et mutations, ouvrage collectif, edited by André S. Dizdarevic et Roger Koussetogue Koudé, L’Harmattan, 2013, Paris, p. 19-34.\n\nLa reconnaissance internationale de la diversité culturelle et des minorités. Leur statut dans le monde arabe, in : Minorities in Iraq. Memory, identity and challenges, edited by Sa’ad Salloum, Masarat for cultural and Media development, Bagdad-Beyrouth, 2013, (in French, Arabic and English languages).\n\nMulticulturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World, edited by Will Kymlicka and Eva Pföstl, communication entitled : « How does the Arab World perceive Multiculturalism and treat its minorities ? The Assyro-Chaldeans of Iraq as a case study », Oxford University Press (OUP), Oxford, 2014, p. 250-277.\n\nQui s’en souviendra ? 1915 : le génocide assyro-chaldéen-syriaque, Editions du Cerf, Paris, octobre 2014.\n\nOubliés de tous. Les Assyro-Chaldéens du Caucase. with his wife Claire Weibel Yacoub, Editions du Cerf, Paris, 2015, Academic Price of Oeuvre d'Orient, 2016.\n\nYear of the Sword. The Assyrian Christian Genocide. A History, (Qui s'en souviendra? 1915: le génocide assyro-chaldéen-syriaque) translated by James Ferguson from French into English, Hurst Publishers, London, August 2016.[14]\n\nArticles\n\nJoseph Yacoub published several hundreds articles in worldwide newspapers (Le Monde, Le Figaro, La Croix, (French daily newspapers)...,[15] Avvenire (Italian daily newspaper), L’Orient-Le Jour (Lebanese daily newspaper), la Libre Belgique (Belgian daily newspaper), Le Devoir (Newspaper, Quebec, Canada), Al-Hayat, Al-Quds Al-Arabi ...\n\nHe produced contributions in Academic reviews, among them : Diogenes (Diogène),[16]Vita e Pensiero,[17] Revue trimestrielle des droits de l'homme (RTDH),[18] le Monde diplomatique, Confluence Méditerranée,[19] Proche Orient Chrétien (POC),[20] Les Annales de l'autre Islam ...\n\nThe Assyrian question: publications\n\nLes Réfugiés assyro-chaldéens de Turquie, CEDRI, Forcalquier, 1986.\n\nThe Assyrian Question, Alpha Graphic, Chicago, 1986. Second edition 1993.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens d’aujourd’hui, in: L’Afrique et l‘Asie modernes, CHEAM, Paris, 1986-1987, p. 28-44.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens. Un peuple oublié de l’histoire, Groupement pour les droits des minorités (GDM), Paris, 1987.\n\nLa question assyro-chaldéenne, les Puissances européennes et la Société des Nations, in: Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains, Revue trimestrielle d'histoire, PUF, n° 151, Paris, 1988, p. 103-120.\n\nDiasporas et Développement, in: Histoires de développement (revue), Catholic University of Lyon, n° 6, juin 1989.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens, une minorité en voie d'émergence?, Centre québécois de relations internationales, Canada, Québec, Université Laval, juin 1990, p. 341-373.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens, translated into Japonese language in: Minorities in the World and the legal system, Buraku Liberation Research Institute, Osaka, 1991, p. 226-246.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens, une minorité dispersée, in: Hommes et Migrations, numéro spécial consacré au sujet « Minorités au Proche-Orient », janvier-février 1994, Paris, p. 37-41.\n\nDe Babylone à Paris : la diaspora assyro-chaldéenne, in L’Espace géographique, numéro consacré aux diasporas, Michel Bruneau coordinateur, Doin éditeurs - Paris, Reclus-Montpellier, tome XXIII, n° 1, 1994, p. 29-37.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens originaires de Turquie : une communauté en situation migratoire, in Les Annales de l’autre Islam, INALCO-ERISM, 1995, n° 3, Paris, p. 451-466.\n\nMinorities and religions in Europe. Case-study: The Assyro-Chaldeans of Turkey, in: European Yearbook of Minority issues, European Center of Minority issues (ECMI), Flensburg, Allemagne, vol. 4, 2004/5, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.\n\nParticipation to the documentary film realized and produced by Robert Alaux, \"The Last Assyrians\", Paris, Lieurac production, 2005.\n\nLes Assyro-Chaldéens du Caucase. Une trajectoire migratoire méconnue, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon, 5 December 2014.\n\nParticipation to the documentary film produced by Robert Alaux and Nahro Beth-Kinné, Seyfo l'élimination. Centenaire d'un génocide 1915-2015.\n\nLa diaspora assyro-chaldéenne. Entre identité et intégration, in : La vocation des Chrétiens d’Orient. Défis actuels et enjeux d’avenir dans leurs rapports à l’Islam, Ed. Karthala, Paris, 2015, p. 189-206.\n\nLes chrétiens d’Orient en France. Capacité d’adaptation et attachement à leur identité. Etude de cas : Les Assyro-Chaldéens de France, in: L'unité des chrétiens. Pourquoi? Pour qui? sous la direction de Michel Mallèvre, Editions du Cerf, Paris, April 2016, p. 55-75.\n\nReferences\n\n^ See: Paul Gravillon,\"Un universitaire lyonnais présente une thèse sur un génicide méconnu: celui du peuple assyro-chaldéen\", Le Progrès (French regional newspaper), 17 January 1985.\n\n^ See: Tony Fienga, \"Joseph Yacoub, Assyro-Chaldéen fait l'histoire de son peuple\", Libération (French daily newspaper), 29 October 1986.\n\n^ \"Chaire UNESCO\".\n\n^ See: Jérôme Cordelier, En Irak, les chrétiens sont menacés d'extinction. \"Entretien avec Joseph Yacoub\", Le Point (French Magazine), 31 juillet 2014.\n\n^ See: Alexis Lacroix, \"Enquête sur un génocide oublié\", Marianne (French Magazine), 28 November 2014. https://www.marianne.net \n\n^ See: Pierre Hycques, \"Le Génocide ignoré. Peuple martyre, les Assyro-Chaldéens demandent la reconnaissance de leurs droits culturels\", La Croix (French daily newspaper), 1985.\n\n^ See colloquia: Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Lyon, mercredi 10-12 octobre 2012. Communication sur : « Les Syriaques, traducteurs et médiateurs entre les peuples »; Séminaire universitaire sur le Caucase, Les Assyro-Chaldéens du Caucase. Passé et présent, Centre d’études des mondes russe, caucasien et centre européen, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris, 31 janvier 2013; Les Assyro-Chaldéens du Moyen-Orient. Statut, revendications, avenir », dans le cadre du séminaire sur les minorités, Université Rennes 2, 16 mai 2014; Seminario, Cristiani in Iraq (1915-2015), Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, 19 marzo 2015; Sayfo 1915, An international Conference on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War, Freie Universität Berlin, 24-28 June 2015; Presentazione del libro La Chiesa in Iraq di sua Eminenza card. Fernando Filoni, Relazione, Prof. Joseph Yacoub, Pontificia Universita Urbaniana, 28 ottobre 2015; Colloque international, Les Droits de l'Homme: un défi permanent, Chaire Unesco, Catholic university of Lyon, 5-6 février 2016; International Conference,Education and Cultural Diversity in Central Asia, Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Bishkek, 28-29 March 2016; Minorities in the Middle East: Issues of Tolerance and Challenges of Citizenship (in Arabic language), Research Center on Minorities in the Middle East, RCMME, Holy Sprit University of Kaslik, Lebanon, 7-8 April 2016.\n\n^ See: Olivier Mongin, Les droits de l'homme sont-ils exportables?, Esprit (Periodical, https://www.esprit.presse.fr), February 2005; Nicolas Kazarian, L'Humanisme réinventé, IRIS (The French Institut for international and strategic Affairs, https://www.iris-france.org), 2015; Pierre Blanc, L'Humanisme réinventé, Confluences Méditerranée, n°95, Fall 2015; Jean Duporté, Oubliés de tous, les Assyro-Chaldéens du Caucase, Etudes (Periodical, https://www.revue-etudes.com), December 2015.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2019). \"Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History . By Joseph Yacoub\". Journal of Social History. 52 (3): 960-962. doi:10.1093/jsh/shx073.\n\n^ \"Desclée de Brouwer\".\n\n^ \"L'Atelier\".\n\n^ \"Jaca Book\". Archived from the original on 2021-02-25.\n\n^ \"Ellipses\".\n\n^ Ibrahim, Raymond (Fall 2017). \"Year of the Sword (book review)\". Middle East Quarterly. Retrieved 3 September 2017.\n\n^ See for example: Comment envisager l’avenir des chrétiens d’Orient en France ? (La Croix, 8/2/2013).Pourquoi l’Occident est-il si frileux pour les chrétiens d’Orient? (La Croix, 22/11/2013).Pour la reconnaissance du génocide des Assyro-Chaldéens (Le Monde.fr, 23.04.2015).L’avenir du Moyen-Orient et ses minorités : Un Sykes-Picot II ? Démocratie ? (Le Monde.fr, 25.01.2016).Le Calvaire des Assyro-Chaldéens (Le Figaro, 6/3/2015).Les Assyro-Chaldéens, oubliés de tous? (Le Figaro,23/4/2015).L'Islam politique se doit de se réformer (Le Figaro, 26/12/2015).De 1915 à 2015: la tragédie des chrétiens d'Orient continue (Atlantico, 25/12/2015); Les cloches des églises sonneront-elles toujours en Irak en 2016? (Atlantico, 3/01/2016)\n\n^ See: \"La dignité des personnes et des peuples. Apport mésopotamien et syriaque\", in Diogène, UNESCO, n° 215, juillet-septembre 2006, p.18-37, translated into English and Portuguese: \"A dignidade das pessoas et dos povos : contribuiçao Mesopotamia et Siriaca\", in Tempo Brasileiro, n° 168, janvier-mars 2007, Rio de Janeiro, p. 91-114; \"The dignity of the individual and of peoples : the contribution of Mesopotamia and of Syriac heritage\", Diogenes, Number 215, Issue 3, Vol. 54, 2007, London, Sage Publications; \"Pour un élargissement des droits de l'homme\", in Diogène, revue de philosophie et de sciences humaines, UNESCO, PUF, Paris, n° 206, avril-juin 2004; translated into English : \"For an enlargement of Human Rights\", Diogenes, Number 206, Vol. 52, 2005, London, Sage Publications.\n\nhttps://www.cairn.info/revue-diogene.htm\n\n^ See: \"La febbre democratica e il fervore fondamentalista\", in Vita e Pensiero, novembre-décembre 2006, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, p.38-44.https://www.vitaepensiero.it\n\n^ See: \"Les droits de l’homme : une œuvre collective de l’humanité\", in Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme, n° 78, avril 2009, éditions Bruylant, Belgique, p.375-401.https://www.rtdh.eu\n\n^ \"Confluences Méditerranée\".\n\n^ \"Proche Orient Chrétien\". Archived from the original on 2016-08-17.\n\nExternal links\n\nBibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) http://catalogue.bnf.fr/changerPage.do?motRecherche=&index=AUT3&numNotice=12097784&nbResultParPage=10&afficheRegroup=false&affinageActif=false&pageEnCours=1&nbPage=2&trouveDansFiltre=NoticePUB&triResultParPage=0\n\nLibrary of Congress https://www.loc.gov/books/?q=joseph+yacoub&all=true\n\nDeutsche Nationale Bibliothek http://d-nb.info/gnd/1074684834\n\nWorldCat http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=joseph+yacoub&fq=&dblist=638&start=11&qt=next_page"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-joseph-yacoub"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2230}, {"slug": "reference-syro-malankara-catholic-church", "title": "Syro-Malankara Catholic Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, also known as the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church that employs the West Syriac Rite and is in full communion with the worldwide Catholic Church, possessing self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. It...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syro-Malankara Catholic Church\n\nമലങ്കര സുറിയാനി കത്തോലിക്ക സഭ\nܥܕܬܐ ܣܝܪܝܢܝܬܐ ܡܠܢܟܪܝܬܐ ܟܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ\n\nOld image of St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Trivandrum\n\nTypeParticular church (sui iuris)\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientation\nEastern Catholic\n\nSyriac\n\nScripturePeshitta[1]\n\nTheologyCatholic theology\n\nPolityEpiscopal polity\n\nPopeLeo XIV\n\nMajor ArchbishopBaselios Cleemis\n\nParishes1096\n\nLiturgy\nWest Syriac Rite\n\n(Malankara Rite)\n\nHeadquartersSt. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Kerala, India\n\nFounder\na. Jesus according to Catholic sacred tradition\n\nb. Apostle Thomas through apostolic succession, by tradition\n\nc. Geevarghese Ivanios (1930)\n\nOrigin1930-1932[2]\n\nSeparated fromMalankara Jacobite Syrian Church and Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nBranched fromSaint Thomas Christians\n\nMembers458,015[3]\n\nOther names\nMalankara Syrian Catholic Church\n\nSyro-Malankara Rite Catholic Church\n\nOfficial websitemalankaracatholicchurch.in \n\nThe Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, also known as the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church that employs the West Syriac Rite and is in full communion with the worldwide Catholic Church, possessing self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. It is one of the major archiepiscopal churches of the Catholic Church and is headed by Major Archbishop Mor Baselios Cardinal Cleemis Catholicos of the Major Archdiocese of Trivandrum based in Kerala, India. With more than 1096 parishes, it is one of India's largest Christian groupings.\n\nThe Syro-Malankara Church traces its origins to the missions of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.[4][5][6][7] After the Coonan Cross Oath in 1653, the Puthenkūttukār (Malankara Faction) split from communion with the Catholic Church, and supported Archdeacon Thoma I in resisting the authority of the Latin Catholic Portuguese Padroado. The Puthenkūttukār entered into communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church and Thoma I was consecrated as bishop by Gregorios Abdul Jaleel. After this, the Malankara Church began to gradually adopt the West Syriac Rite liturgy from the Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nGeevarghese Ivanios, a bishop of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, began a movement in the Malankara Church to reunite with Rome in the 1920s. Ivanios started negotiations with the Holy See in 1926 and two bishops including Ivanios, a priest, a deacon and a layman were received into the Catholic Church together in 1930.\n\nThe Malankara Syrian Catholic Church was formed on 20 September 1930 under the leadership of Ivanios, the first Archbishop of the church.\n\nBy 1950, there were some 65,588 faithful, and in 1970, 183,490. There are now over 400,000 faithful in over 12 dioceses in India and across the world.[8]\n\nThe Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is one of two Eastern Catholic Churches in India, the other being the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, which represents the faction of Pazhayakuttukar, which remained in full communion with Rome after the Coonan Cross Oath and employs the East Syriac Rite.\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Coonan Cross Oath\n\nThe St. Thomas Christians, also known as Nasranis, are an ancient Christian community in India with origins traditionally traced to the evangelistic activities of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century AD. Situated primarily in the southwestern state of Kerala, the St. Thomas Christians developed a unique identity blending elements of Indian and Syriac Christian traditions. They maintained a hierarchical ecclesiastical structure, often aligning with the East Syriac Church (under the Church of the East) and later the Chaldean Catholic Church. The community largely followed Eastern Christian liturgy, practiced Syriac liturgical traditions, and were in communion with the Patriarch of the East based in Persia.\n\nThe arrival of Portuguese explorers in India in the late 15th century marked the beginning of significant European influence on the St. Thomas Christians. The Portuguese sought to bring the Indian Christians into conformity with the Latin Church and asserted their religious and administrative control through the establishment of the Diocese of Goa. This led to tensions, as the Portuguese pressured the community to abandon Eastern practices and adopt Latinized customs, culminating in the Synod of Diamper in 1599, which formally placed the St. Thomas Christians under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Archbishopric of Goa and imposed Latin rites and customs. These measures sparked resistance among the St. Thomas Christians, who sought to preserve their traditions and ecclesiastical autonomy. By the mid-17th century, these grievances intensified, setting the stage for the historic Coonan Cross Oath.\n\nCoonan Cross Oath\n\nA protest took place in 1653 with the Coonan Cross Oath (Oath of the bent cross). Under the leadership of Archdeacon Thomas, the Thomas Christians publicly took an oath stating that they would not obey the Jesuit Bishops.[9]\n\nRome sent Carmelites in two groups from the Propagation of the Faith to Malabar headed by Fr. Sebastiani and Fr. Hyacinth. Fr. Sebastiani arrived first in 1655 and began to speak directly with the archdeacon, Thoma I. Fr. Sebastiani, with the help of Portuguese, gained the support of many, especially with the support of Palliveettil Chandy, Kadavil Chandy Kathanar and Vengoor Geevarghese Kathanar. These were the three of the four counselors of Thoma I, who along with Thoma I, had defected with Francisco Garcia Mendes, Archbishop of Cranganore, before the arrival of Sebastaini, according to Jesuit reports.[9]\n\nBetween 1661 and 1662, out of the 116 churches, the Carmelites claimed eighty-four churches, leaving the native Thoma I with thirty-two churches. The eighty-four churches and their congregations were the body from which the Syro Malabar Church and Chaldean Syrian Church have descended. The other thirty-two churches and their congregations represented the nucleus from which the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church (Thozhiyur Church), Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and Syro-Malankara Catholic Church have originated.[10]\n\nIn 1665, Mor Gregorios Abdul Jaleel, a bishop sent by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, arrived in India. The independent group under the leadership of the archdeacon welcomed him.[11] Though most of the St. Thomas Christians gradually relented in their strong opposition to the Western control, the arrival of Bishop Gregorios of the Syriac Orthodox Church in 1665 marked the beginning of a formal schism among the St. Thomas Christians. Those who accepted the West Syriac liturgical tradition of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch of Gregorios became known as the Puthenkoor. Those who were in the communion of Rome after the Synod of Damper and those who rejoined the Catholic communion from the Puthenkoor church during the Carmelite period, came to be known as the Pazhayakoor.[12][13][14][15]\n\nBoth factions continued to use the name \"Malankara\", the real name of the St. Thomas Christian community for the church.\n\nThe remaining Pazhayakoor Christians who remained in communion with Rome came to be known as the Syro-Malabar Church from the 1890s.[11]\n\nPost-Coonan Cross Oath\n\nThe 118th Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Abded Aloho II, travelled to Malankara in 1911 and excommunicated Geevarghese Dionysius of Vattasseril. To limit the Patriarch’s involvement in the administration of the Church’s temporal affairs, Fr. P.T. Geevarghese (Ivanios before his consecration as bishop), with the blessing of Dionysius contacted Ignatius Abdul Masih II, the 117th Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, who had been excommunicated by the Ottoman government in 1906, and invited him to visit Malankara and to establish an independent Catholicate. Hence, Ignatius Abdul Masih II went to Malankara in 1912 and established the Catholicate in Malankara. This created a split in the church:\n\nthe faction resisting the Patriarch's administrative interference became the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, an autocephalous Church under Malankara Metropolitan and the Catholicos;\n\nthe faction supporting the Patriarch's administration became the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church (known today as the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church).\n\nBaselios Paulose I (1912-1913), the first Catholicos, died after a short period of five months on 13 May 1913; the See remained vacant until 1925.\n\nPre-ecclesial communion\n\nFr. P.T. Geevarghese established the Bethany Ashram on land donated by his friend E. John Vakeel in Mundanmala, Ranni-Perunadu[16] on 15 August 1919. It served as a centre for spiritual renewal and monastic life, with an additional outreach for orphan care. In 1925, he also established the Bethany Madhom, a convent for women religious, inspired by the Epiphany Sisters of England.\n\nGeevarghese was consecrated as a bishop in the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church by Catholicos Baselios Geevarghese I on 1 May 1925, taking the name Geevarghese Ivanios.[17] He later advocated for reunification with the Catholic Church.\n\nEcclesial communion and establishment of Syro-Malankara hierarchy\n\nOn 20 September 1930, Ivanios, Bishop Jacob Theophilos, Fr. John Kuzhinapurath OIC, Dn. Alexander OIC, and Chacko Kilileth, a lay man, entered into communion with the Catholic Church. They were received by Bishop Aloysius Maria Benziger, bishop of Quilon, whom Ivanios approached for help and who was deputed by the Holy See to perform the reception. The reception took place in the Quilon bishop’s chapel.\n\nPope Pius XI, through the Apostolic Constitution Christo Pastorum Principi of 11 June 1932, established the Syro-Malankara Catholic hierarchy for the reunited community and erected the Archeparchy of Thiruvananthapuram with the Eparchy of Tiruvalla as its suffragan. \n\nIn 1937, Joseph Severios of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and in 1939, Thomas Dioscoros, the metropolitan of the Knanaya Jacobite Church, joined the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. \n\nIn 1938, the missionary congregation of the Daughters of Mary was founded at Marthandom in Kanyakumari District. \n\nIvanios consecrated Benedict Gregorios as his auxiliary bishop in 1953. \n\nThe Eparchy of Tiruvalla was led by Jacob Theophilos and Joseph Severios. Severios was the administrator of the eparchy until 1950 due to the ill health of Theophilos. In 1950, he was appointed as the archbishop of Tiruvalla. He died on 18 January 1955.\n\nThe Holy See appointed Zacharias Athanasios as successor to Severios; his consecration took place in 1954. \n\nIn 1955, after the death of Ivanios, Benedict Gregorios was enthroned as the metropolitan archbishop of Thiruvananthapuram and the head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.[18]\n\nFurther Ecclesiastical developments\n\nFrancis Acharya, a Cistercian monk, came to the Eparchy of Tiruvalla. In 1957, he founded the Kristiya Sanyasa Samaj, Kurisumala Ashram in Vagamon.\n\nIn 1958, the territorial boundary of the Eparchy of Tiruvalla was extended north to include the Malabar region of Kerala, the civil districts of Coimbatore and Nilgiris and Karoor Taluk in Tiruchirappally District of Tamil Nadu and districts of Mysore, Mandya, Coorg, Hasan, Chickamangalore, Shimoga and South Kanara of Karnataka State.\n\nPaulos Philoxenos, the metropolitan of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, was received into the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church on 28 August 1977.\n\nIn 1978, through the decree of the Holy See, Isaac Yoohanon was appointed as Bishop of Tiruvalla and the Eparchy of Bathery was erected with Cyril Baselios appointed as its first bishop. In 1979, the Eparchial contemplative monastery, Dhyana Ashram, was founded in the Eparchy of Bathery by Fr. Silvester Kozhimannil.\n\nSyro-Malankara Catholics within India but outside the canonical territorial boundaries of the Church were first organized as Malankara Catholic Associations, and were erected as personal parish communities. A coordinator was appointed to oversee them, in the Council of Hierarchs of the Malankara Catholic Church.\n\nSt. Mary’s Malankara Major Seminary, the first local seminary, was inaugurated at Pattom in 1983 and the new building at Nalanchira, Thiruvananthapuram was blessed in 1989.\n\nOn 8 February 1986, Pope John Paul II visited St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram.\n\nGeevarghese Timotheos succeeded Yoohanon as the bishop of Tiruvalla. He was consecrated bishop in 1988.\n\nBenedict Gregorios died in 1994 and was succeeded by Cyril Baselios, the bishop of Bathery, on 14 December 1995. Geevarghese Divannasios was consecrated Bishop of Bathery in the place of Cyril Baselios on 5 February 1997.\n\nOn the request of Cyril Baselios, by an Apostolic Bull dated 16 December 1996, Pope John Paul II erected the Eparchy of Marthandom bifurcating the Metropolitan Eparchy of Thiruvananthapuram. Lawrence Ephrem was appointed as its first bishop. He died after a few months of his enthronement as Bishop of Marthandom, on 8 April 1997.\n\nThomas Koorilos, was consecrated auxiliary bishop of Tiruvella on 17 July 1997. On 29 June 1998, Yoohanon Chrysostom was consecrated as the bishop of Marthandom and Joshua Ignathios as the auxiliary bishop for the Metropolitan Eparchy of Thiruvananthapuram.\n\nModern era\n\nIn the 1990s, parishes for the faithful of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in the United States of America were being established. Hence, on 18 June 2001, Pope John Paul II nominated the Proto-Syncellus of Bathery, Isaac Thottunkal, auxiliary bishop of Thiruvananthapuram and apostolic visitor for the Syro-Malankara faithful residing in North America and Europe. He was consecrated on 15 August 2001 at Tirumoolapuram, Tiruvalla, and assumed the name Isaac Cleemis.\n\nBifurcating the Eparchy of Tiruvalla, the Eparchy of Muvattupuzha was erected on 15 January 2003 and Thomas Koorilos was appointed as its first bishop.\n\nOn 29 March 2003, Timotheos resigned due to his age, and the Holy See appointed Isaac Cleemis, as the bishop of Tiruvalla. On 5 January 2005, Joseph Thomas was appointed as the auxiliary bishop of Thiruvananthapuram and apostolic visitor to North America and Europe.\n\nBy the decree of Baselios, on 1 January 2007, the new Eparchy of Mavelikara was erected and Joshua Ignathios, the auxiliary bishop and protosyncellus of the Major Archdiocese of Thiruvananthapuram, was appointed as its first bishop.\n\nThe Second Ordinary Holy Episcopal Synod was convoked on 6-7 December 2006 and it was decided to revive monastic consecration according to the tradition of the Antiochene Church, called Ramban; and Corepiscopo, to honour a number of priests for their meritorious service in the Church.\n\nOn 10 February 2005, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church was raised to the status of a major archiepiscopal Church.\n\nOn 18 January 2007, Cyril Baselios died, and was entombed by the side of his predecessors at St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram on 20 January 2007.\n\nIsaac Cleemis was elected the Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church through the first Episcopal Synod of election of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church held on 7-10 February 2007 at the Catholicate Centre, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram. Pope Benedict XVI confirmed the election on 9 February and it was announced on 10 February at St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram. Baselios Cleemis was enthroned as the Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church on 5 March 2007 at St. Mary's Cathedral.\n\nOn 7 February 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Fr. Chacko Aerath OIC as the Apostolic Visitor with Episcopal status for the Malankara Catholic faithful residing in the Extraterritorial Regions of the Church within India.\n\nIn March 2007, Thomas Koorilos was appointed the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archieparchy of Tiruvalla. His installation ceremony was held in May 2007 at St. John's Cathedral, Tiruvalla. Cleemis was the main celebrant.\n\nBaselios Cleemis visited Pope Benedict XVI on 28 May 2007 at the Vatican and exchanged ecclesiastical Communion.\n\nIn July 2007 Baselios Cleemis declared Ivanios a Servant of God.\n\nIn accordance with the provisions of CCEO can. 1063, the Ordinary Tribunal of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church was constituted on 15 November 2007.\n\nAbraham Julios, was consecrated Bishop of the Eparchy of Muvattupuzha by Baselios Cleemis on 9 February 2008.\n\nLeonardo Sandri, Cardinal Prefect of Congregation for the Oriental Churches, visited the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church on 10 November 2008 and celebrated the Holy Qurbono. Cardinal Sandri also recognized St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral at Palayam, Thiruvananthapuram, as a Basilica. Cleemis dedicated St. Mary, Queen of Peace Basilica on 7 December 2008.\n\nCleemis erected the Eparchies of Pathanamthitta in Kerala and Puthur in the State of Karnataka.\n\nThomas Naickamparampil was appointed as the first exarch of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Exarchate in the United States by Pope Benedict XVI, with consultation by Cleemis and the Holy Synod of Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, on 14 July 2010. He was ordained bishop and received the name Thomas Eusebius on 21 September 2010 at St. Mary's Malankara Syrian Catholic Cathedral, Thiruvananthapuram. His installation ceremony was on 3 October 2010 at Kellenberg Memorial High School, Uniondale, New York.\n\nBaselios Cleemis was elevated to the College of Cardinals of the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI at the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican on 24 November 2012.[19] As Cardinal-Priest he was assigned the titular church of San Gregorio VII. He is the first bishop of the Syro-Malankara church to become cardinal.\n\n The latest image of St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram\n\n Syro-Malankara Catholics in Ireland with Dr. Joshua Ignathius. (Mavelikara Diocese Bishop)\n\nElevation to Major Archiepiscopal Church\n\nOn 10 February 2005, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church was raised to the status of a major archiepiscopal Church by the papal document Ab ipso Sancto Thoma, and as such possesses a high level of autonomy under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. Pedro López Quintana, the Apostolic Nuncio in India, read the official declaration at St. Mary's Cathedral, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram. The Hierarchical Head of the Church became a Major Archbishop who exercises patriarchal powers and governs the Church assisted by the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Church.\n\nOn 11 April 2005, the Faculty of Theology of St. Mary’s Malankara Major Seminary became affiliated to the Pontifical Urban University Rome.\n\nThe enthronement of the major archbishop as the head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church took place on 14 May 2005. The Malankara Major Archiepiscopal Curia started functioning at the St. Mary's Campus, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram. On 20 May 2005, Cyril Baselios blessed the Curia building. \n\nBaselios constituted the first synod of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, convened from 16 to 18 August 2005 at the Major Archiepiscopal Curia, Thiruvananthapuram. It constituted the Permanent Synod and the various Synodal Commissions headed by bishops to take care of various apostolates of the Church. The official bulletin, Malankara, is published from the Major Archiepiscopal Curia, to communicate the Synodal acts of the Syro-Malankara Church.\n\nLiturgy\n\nThe liturgy of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church is of the Antiochene Rite, West Syriac in character. The liturgy today is celebrated mostly in vernacular Malayalam, Syriac (liturgically), English, Tamil, and Hindi. The church uses one of several Bible translations into Malayalam.\n\nJurisdictions\n\nProper Ecclesiastical provinces\n\nMetropolitan Major Archeparchy of Thiruvananthapuram\n\nEparchy of Marthandom\n\nEparchy of Mavelikara\n\nEparchy of Parassala\n\nEparchy of Pathanamthitta\n\nEparchy of St. Ephrem of Khadki\n\nMetropolitan Archeparchy of Tiruvalla\n\nEparchy of Bathery\n\nEparchy of Muvattupuzha\n\nEparchy of Puthur\n\nPersonal Jurisdiction directly under the Holy See\n\nEparchy of St. John Chrysostom of Gurgaon\n\nEparchy of St. Mary, Queen of Peace of the United States of America and Canada\n\nApostolic Visitation\n\nApostolic Visitation of Europe, based in Coventry, UK\n\nApostolic Visitation of Oceania, based in Adelaide, Australia\n\nTitular See\n\nTitular Episcopal See of Chayal\n\nStatistics\n\nAccording to the Pontifical yearbook Annuario Pontificio for 2012, the Syro-Malankara Church had approximately 436,870 members.[20][21]\n\nDioceses\n\nMembers\n\nBishops\n\nParishes\n\nDiocesan Priests\n\nReligious Priests\n\nMen Religious\n\nWomen Religious\n\nSeminarians\n\nArcheparchy of Thiruvananthapuram\n\n219,437\n\n2\n\n184\n\n131\n\n24\n\n97\n\n578\n\n100\n\nEparchy of Parassala\n\n22,000\n\n1\n\n104\n\n31\n\n4\n\nEparchy of Pathanamthitta\n\n37,500\n\n2\n\n99\n\n64\n\n6\n\n6\n\n110\n\n26\n\nEparchy of Marthandom\n\n65,715\n\n1\n\n85\n\n40\n\n7\n\n14\n\n178\n\n21\n\nEparchy of Mavelikara\n\n24,083\n\n1\n\n93\n\n56\n\n7\n\n9\n\n145\n\n23\n\nArcheparchy of Tiruvalla\n\n75,000\n\n1\n\n122\n\n112\n\n25\n\n54\n\n285\n\n37\n\nEparchy of Bathery\n\n25,000\n\n1\n\n101\n\n77\n\n8\n\n8\n\n274\n\n25\n\nEparchy of Muvattupuzha\n\n12,435\n\n2\n\n69\n\n41\n\n8\n\n24\n\n82\n\n13\n\nEparchy of Puttur\n\n2,700\n\n1\n\n32\n\n14\n\n7\n\n8\n\n20\n\n3\n\nEparchy of the United States and Canada[22]\n\n10,000\n\n1\n\n19\n\n11\n\n1\n\n1\n\n16\n\n4\n\nEparchy of Gurgaon\n\n10,000\n\n1\n\n34\n\n26\n\n15\n\nEparchy of Khadki\n\n10,000\n\n1\n\n29\n\n27\n\n10\n\nTOTAL\n\n436,870\n\n14\n\n692\n\n546\n\n93\n\n221\n\n1688\n\n252\n\nPrevious metropolitans\n\nTitle\n\nName\n\nNotes\n\nArchbishop\n\nGeevarghese Ivanios\n\nSplit from Malankara Orthodox Church\n\n1st Metropolitan of Tiruvalla\n\nJacob Theophilos\n\nSplit from Malankara Orthodox Church\n\n2nd Metropolitan of Tiruvalla\n\nJoseph Severios\n\nLeft Malankara Orthodox Church\n\nBishop of Thirumoolapuram\n\nThomas Dioscoros\n\nLeft Knanaya Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nArchbishop\n\nBenedict Gregorios\n\nLeft Malankara Orthodox Church\n\n3rd Metropolitan of Tiruvalla\n\nZacharias Athanasios\n\nLeft Orthodox Church\n\nTitular Bishop of Chayal\n\nPaulos Philoxenos\n\nLeft Malabar Independent Syrian Church\n\n4th Metropolitan of Tiruvalla\n\nIsaac Yoohanon\n\nMajor Arch Bishop-Catholicos\n\nCyril Baselios\n\n1st Metropolitan of Marthandom\n\nLawrence Ephrem\n\n1st Metropolitan of Puttur\n\nGeevarghese Divannasios\n\n5th Metropolitan & 1st Bishop Emeritus of Tiruvalla\n\nGeevarghese Timotheos\n\nLeft Malankara Orthodox Church\n\n1st Metropolitan of Gurgaon\n\nJacob Barnabas\n\nIn the Indian diaspora\n\nThere are 39 Syro-Malankara communities in North India, including churches at Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad.\nOn 26 March 2015, Cleemis and the Holy Synod in consultation with Pope Francis erected two Eparchies to cover all of India. Bishop Barnabas Jacob was appointed bishop of the Delhi-based Eparchy of St. John Chrysostom of Gurgaon. Bishop Anthonios Thomas heads the Apostolic Exarchate of St. Ephrem of Khadki.[23]\n\nAround the world\n\nNorth America\n\nThe eparchy of the United States of America and Canada was initially established as an apostolic exarchate by Pope Benedict XVI in July 2010. Father Thomas Naickamparampil, then serving as secretary general of the Major Archiepiscopate of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, was appointed the first apostolic exarch. He was consecrated as bishop on 21 September 2010 at St. Mary's Malankara Syrian Catholic Cathedral in Pattom, adopting the episcopal name Aboon Thomas Eusebius. His enthronement took place on 3 October 2010 at Kellenberg High School in Uniondale, New York.[24][25]\n\nOn 4 January 2016, Pope Francis elevated the exarchate to the status of an eparchy, expanding its jurisdiction to include Canada.[26][27] Subsequently, Bishop Philippos Mar Stephanos was appointed as the eparchy's second bishop on 5 August 2017, succeeding Bishop Thomas Mar Eusebius.[28][29] Bishop Mar Stephanos was installed on 28 October 2017.[30]\n\nAs of now, the eparchy oversees 19 parishes and missions, with 14 located in the United States and five in Canada.[31]\n\nEurope and Oceania\n\nIn 2017, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Yoohanon Mar Theodosius as Apostolic Visitor for Syro-Malankara Catholics residing in Europe and Oceania. This appointment was in addition to his role as Bishop of the Major Archiepiscopal Curia of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.[32][28] The Syro-Malankara communities in these regions are present in several countries, including Germany, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.\n\nMiddle East\n\nThe Syro-Malankara Catholic Church has a presence in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, with a total of thirteen communities. These communities do not have an organized ecclesiastical jurisdiction and remain under the supervision of the Latin Church's Apostolic Vicariate's of Northern Arabia and Southern Arabia.[33] Qatar is the only country in the region with an officially organized Syro-Malankara parish.\n\nThe Syro-Malankara faithful in the Gulf region have been proactive in their online engagement, with early websites being launched to connect the community before the establishment of official church platforms. Currently, most communities in the region maintain their own websites to support pastoral activities.\n\nInstitutions and organizations\n\nDaughters of Mary\n\nThe Congregation of the Daughters of Mary is a missionary organization within the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Established in 1938 at Marthandam, in the Kanyakumari district, the congregation was founded by Joseph Kuzhinjalil under the guidance of Geevarghese Ivanios. Its mission focuses on evangelization and serving the poor and marginalized.[34]\n\nIn 1988, the congregation was granted pontifical right status, signifying its recognition by the Holy See. Today, the Daughters of Mary operates six provinces, serving six eparchies of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and 20 dioceses worldwide. The congregation was initially supported by the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, which contributed religious women to assist in its establishment. The founder, Joseph Kuzhinjalil, was originally a member of the Syro-Malabar Church.\n\nOther religious orders and ashrams\n\nOrder of the Imitation of Christ, Bethany Ashram\n\nOrder of the Friars Minor Capuchin\n\nKristiya Sanyasa Samaj, Kurisumala Ashram\n\nFranciscan Missionary Brothers\n\nMalabar Missionary Brothers\n\nDisciples of Divine Saviour\n\nDhyana Ashram\n\nChyalpadi Ashram\n\nSanthi Ashram\n\nSisters of the Imitation of Christ, Bethany Madhom\n\nHoly Spirit Sisters\n\nCongregation of the Sacred Heart\n\nDina Sevana Sabha\n\nSisters of the Charity of St. Vincent de Paul\n\nSnehagiri Missionary Sisters\n\nLittle Sisters of Jesus\n\nSisters of John the Baptist\n\nSalesian Sisters\n\nBasilian sisters\n\nFranciscan Missionaries of Mary\n\nAdoration monastery of Mount Thabor\n\nGathsemene Samarpitha Satsangham\n\nLittle Servants of Divine Providence\n\nSisters of Charity\n\nFervent Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus\n\nSeminaries\n\nMajor seminary\n\nSt. Mary’s Malankara Major Seminary, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nMinor seminaries\n\nBethany Vedavijnana Peetham, Pune\n\nSt. Aloysius Seminary, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nInfant Mary's Minor Seminary, Thiruvalla\n\nSt. Thomas Minor Seminary, Gurukulam, Bathery\n\nSt. Ephraem's Minor Seminary, Marthandom\n\nGurusannidhi Minor Seminary, Muvattupuzha\n\nIvanios Minor Seminary, Mavelikkara\n\nGregorios Malankara Syrian Catholic Seminary, New York\n\nSt. Thomas Minor Seminary, Pathanamthitta\n\nGirideepam Minor Seminary, Diocese of St. John Chrysostom, Gurgaon, New Delhi\n\nNirmal Hriday Minor Seminary, Pune\n\nEducational institutions\n\nThe Malankara Catholic Educational Society manages various ecclesiastical, charitable, and educational institutions. Baselios Cleemis is the president and Samuel Irenios the vice-chairman of Malankara Catholic Educational Society.\n\nColleges\n\nKerala\n\nIvanios College, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nSt. John's College, Anchal\n\nMar Theophilos Training College\n\nPazhassi Raja College, Pulpally, Bathery\n\nMar Severios College of Teacher Education, Chengaroor, Thiruvalla\n\nSt. Joseph's College of Information Technology and Management, Thiruvalla\n\nSt. John's Parallel College, Thiruvalla\n\nMar Baselios College of Education, Bathery\n\nMar Ivanios College of Education, Kunthoor, Karnataka\n\nGirideepam Institute of Advanced Learning, Kottayam\n\nBethany Junior College, Noojibalthila, Bathery\n\nTamil Nadu\n\nMar Gregorios College of Arts and Science, Chennai\n\nMalankara Catholic College, Mariagiri, Marthandom\n\nBethany College, Nalanchira, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nBethany Navajeevan College of Education, Vencode, Marthandom\n\nMar Chrysostom College of Education, Kirathur, Marthandom\n\nKanyakumari Community College, Mariagiri, Marthandom\n\nOther Indian states\n\nJnanodaya Bethany PU Science College, Nellyadi\n\nNirmal Bathany Junior College, Kalewadi, Pune\n\nProfessional and technical institutes\n\nMedical and health sciences\n\nPushpagiri Medical College, Thiruvalla\n\nPushpagiri College of Pharmacy, Thiruvalla\n\nPushpagiri College of Nursing, Thiruvalla\n\nPushpagiri College of Dental Sciences, Thiruvalla\n\nBethany Navajeevan College of Nursing, Borsi, Durg, Bhilai\n\nSt.Joseph's College of Nursing, Anchal\n\nBethany Navajeevan College of Physiotherapy, Nalanchira, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nEngineering and technology\n\nMar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nMar Baselios Institute of Technology, Anchal\n\nMar Ephraem College of Engineering, Marthandom\n\nAdvanced studies and research\n\nSt. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, Kottayam\n\nMar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies, Tiruvalla\n\nYouth and lay organizations\n\nMalankara Catholic Youth Movement\n\nThe Malankara Catholic Youth Movement (MCYM) is the official youth organization of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. It originated in Kerala during the late 1960s. While individual youth groups existed at the parish level earlier, the development of a unified diocesan structure occurred later.\n\nThe movement aims to foster spiritual growth, leadership, and community engagement among young members of the Church. MCYM has expanded its presence across Kerala, other Indian states, and internationally.\n\nMCYM branches in Kerala include the Major Archieparchy of Thiruvananthapuram, the Archieparchy of Thiruvalla, and the Eparchies of Bathery, Muvattupuzha, Mavelikkara, and Pathanamthitta. In Tamil Nadu, the movement serves the Eparchy of Marthandam, while in Karnataka, it operates within the Eparchy of Puttur. In North India, it functions under the Apostolic Visitation for Malankara Syrian Catholic Churches (MCCETR - New Delhi). Internationally, MCYM serves the Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy of the United States and Canada, headquartered in Elmont, New York, through the Malankara Catholic Youth Movement of North America (MCYM-NA).[35]\n\nMalankara Catholic Association\n\nFounded in 1989, the Malankara Catholic Association is the official organization for the lay faithful of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Its activities are aimed at fostering lay participation in the Church's mission and supporting the spiritual and social needs of the community.\n\nThe association functions across several dioceses, including the Thiruvananthapuram, Thiruvalla, Bathery, Muvattupuzha, and Marthandam eparchies, as well as in the United States and Canada. Baselios Cleemis serves as its patron.\n\nNotable people\n\nOfficial name\n\nThe official name of the church is \"Syro-Malankara Catholic Church\". The name of the church as translated from Malayalam/Syriac is Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, and this is the name used colloquially in India.[36] It should also be noted that this name is largely due to Latin influence (similar to Syro-Malabar), with the Latin Church even referring to the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church as the \"Syro-Malankara Orthodox Church\".[37]\n\nSee also\n\nAll India Catholic Union\n\nChurches of Kerala\n\nList of Major Archbishops of Trivandrum\n\nSacred Heart Catholic Church, Mylapra, Pathanamthitta\n\nSaint Thomas Anglicans\n\nSt. Mary's Higher Secondary School, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram\n\nList of Syro-Malankara Catholics\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Metzger, Bruce M. (2001). The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions. Baker Academic. ISBN 9780801022821.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). \"The Ancient Oriental Churches\". In Wainwright, Geoffrey; Westerfield Tucker, Karen B. (eds.). The Oxford History of Christian Worship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-19-513886-3.\n\n^ \"The Eastern Catholic Churches 2017\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2019.\n\n^ \"The Syro-Malabar Church Today: An Overview::The St. Thomas Christians::East Syrian (Chaldean)::Syro-Malabar Major Archiepiscopal Church\". www.syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 11 August 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2020.\n\n^ George Menachery (1973) The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India, Ed. George Menachery, B.N.K. Press, vol. 2, ISBN 81-87132-06-X, Lib. Cong. Cat. Card. No. 73-905568; B.N.K. Press - (has some 70 lengthy articles by different experts on the origins, development, history, culture... of these Christians, with some 300 odd photographs).\n\n^ Leslie Brown, (1956) The Indian Christians of St. Thomas. An Account of the Ancient Syriac Church of Malabar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1956, 1982 (repr.)\n\n^ Thomas Puthiakunnel, (1973) \"Jewish colonies of India paved the way for St. Thomas\", The Saint Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India, ed. George Menachery, Vol. II., Trichur.\n\n^ Roberson, Ronald. \"The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church\". E Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Retrieved 2 August 2018.\n\n^ a b Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, \"Eastern Christianity in India\"\n\n^ Catholic Encyclopedia profile of \"St. Thomas Christians\" - The Carmelite Period\n\n^ a b Thekkedath, History of Christianity in India\"\n\n^ Vadakkekara, p. 84; 86.\n\n^ Frykenberg, p. 361.\n\n^ Fernando, p. 79.\n\n^ Chaput, pp. 7-8.\n\n^ Fr. Thomas Inchakkalody, Archbishop Mar Ivanios (Vol.1), pp. 152-171\n\n^ Rajan, Matthew (2004). \"H.H. Baselios Geevarghese I - Second Catholicose\". The Christian Light of Life. 3 (12): 221-225.\n\n^ \"Archbishop Benedict Varghese Gregorios Thangalathil [Catholic-Hierarchy]\". www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Retrieved 28 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Annuncio di Concistoro per la Creazione di Sei Nuovi Cardinali\" (in Italian). Holy See Press Office. 24 October 2012. Archived from the original on 23 February 2013.\n\n^ \"Population Statistics\". 13 February 2007., Syro Malankara Church.\n\n^ Ronald Roberson. \"The Eastern Catholic Churches 2012\" (PDF). Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 April 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2012. Information sourced from Annuario Pontificio 2012 edition.\n\n^ \"The Statutes from St. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada website\". Archived from the original on 12 January 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2017., Syro Malankara Church.\n\n^ Bollettino vatican.va Archived 28 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"New Apostolic Exarchate for Syro-Malankara Church\". ZENIT News Agency. 14 July 2010. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011.\n\n^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: \"Malankara Catholic Exarchate in USA Inauguration\". YouTube. 17 September 2011.\n\n^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: \"Announcement of New Syro-Malankara Eparchy in USA & Canada\". YouTube. 6 January 2016.\n\n^ \"His Holiness Pope Francis Erects Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada | St. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada\".\n\n^ a b \"Resignations and Appointments\". press.vatican.va. Retrieved 21 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Most Rev. Dr. Philipos Mar Stephanos | St. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada\".\n\n^ \"Bishop Philipos Mar Stephanos installed as the second bishop of the Eparchy | St. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada\".\n\n^ \"Parishes and Missions | St. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada\".\n\n^ \"From the Oriental Churches\". press.vatican.va. Retrieved 21 January 2024.\n\n^ \"St. Mary's Malankara Catholic Church (Doha, Qatar)\". Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2010.\n\n^ Tubach, Jürgen (April 2011). \"Malankara Church / Syro-Malankara Church\". Religion Past and Present. doi:10.1163/1877-5888_rpp_sim_13461. Retrieved 9 February 2021.\n\n^ \"Youth Apostolate - Malankara Catholic Youth Movement (MCYM) | St. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada\".\n\n^ Jose, Jibin (10 May 2025). \"An Interview with a Malankara Catholic\". The Simple Catholic. Retrieved 7 April 2026.\n\n^ Catholic Church and Syro Malankara Orthodox Church continue to forge closer ties. Rome Reports TV News Agency. 12 September 2023. Retrieved 7 April 2026 - via YouTube.\n\nAdditional sources\n\nThe Syro-Malankara Catholic Major Archiepiscopal Church Directory, Thiruvananthapuram, 2006.\n\nRonald Roberson, CSP; The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey (6th Edition); Edizioni Orientalia Christiana, Pontifico Instituto Orientale; Rome, Italy; 1999; ISBN 88-7210-321-5\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial websites\n\nMajor Archdiocese of Trivandrum\n\nMajor Archdiocese of Tiruvalla\n\nEparchy of Pathanamthitta\n\nSt. Mary, Queen of Peace Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy in USA and Canada\n\nOther\n\nArticle on the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA website."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syro-malankara-catholic-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5418}, {"slug": "reference-qusta-ibn-luqa", "title": "Qusta ibn Luqa", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Qusta ibn Luqa (قسطا ابن لوقا, \"Costas son of Luke\"), also known as Costa ben Luca or Constabulus[1] (820-912) was a Melkite Christian physician, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and translator.[2][3] He was born in Baalbek. Travelling to parts of the Byzantine Empire, he brought back Greek texts and translated...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Qusṭā ibn Lūqā al-Baʿlabakkī \n قُسطا ابن لُوقا البعلبکی\n\nBorn820\nBaalbek, Abbasid Caliphate, now Baalbek District, Beqaa Governorate, Lebanon\n\nDied912 (aged 92)\nArmenia\n\nOccupationsPhysician, scientist, translator\n\nWriting career\n\nYears active840-912\n\nPeriodAbbasid period\n\nNotable worksRisalah fī Auja Al Niqris,\nRislah fī al Nabidh,\nKitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-kura al-nujūmiyya,\nHayʾat al-aflāk,\nKitāb al-Madkhal ilā ʿilm al-nujūm,\nKitāb al-Madkhal ilā al-hayʾa wa-ḥarakāt al-aflāk wa-ʾl-kawākib,\nKitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-asṭurlāb al-kurī,\nKitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-kura dhāt al-kursī,\n\nQusta ibn Luqa (قسطا ابن لوقا, \"Costas son of Luke\"), also known as Costa ben Luca or Constabulus[1] (820-912) was a Melkite Christian physician, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and translator.[2][3] He was born in Baalbek. Travelling to parts of the Byzantine Empire, he brought back Greek texts and translated them into Arabic.\n\nPersonal life\n\nQusta ibn Luqa al-Ba'albakki originated from Baalbek (or Heliopolis), now in Lebanon. A Melkite Christian, he was born in 820 and flourished in Baghdad. He was a philosopher, physician, mathematician and astronomer. He died in Armenia, likely circa 912.[4]\n\nTranslations\n\nQusta ibn Luqa produced, personally revised, or supervised the translations of a number of works. These include works by Diophantus, Theodosius of Bithynia's Spherics, On Days and Nights, and On the places of habitation, Autolycus's On the moving sphere and On Risings and Settings, Hypsicles's On Ascensions, works by Aristarchus, Theophrastus’s Meteora, Galen’s catalogue of his books, Hero of Alexandria's Mechanics, and works by John Philoponus.\n\nHe wrote commentaries on Euclid and a treatise on the armillary sphere. He was a prominent figure in the Graeco-Arabic translation movement that reached its peak in the 9th century. At the request of wealthy and influential commissioners, Qusta translated works on astronomy, mathematics, mechanics and natural science from Greek into Arabic.\n\nOriginal works\n\nMore than 60 treatises are attributed to Qusta. He wrote mainly on medical subjects, but also on mathematics and astronomy. Only a small number of his works have been published. The extant editions of medical works show that he was thoroughly acquainted with Hippocratic-Galenic humoral medicine-the theoretical system that constituted the basis of formal medicine in Islam.\n\nQusta's works, many listed in the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim, dealt with contemporary science, medicine, astronomy and philosophy. A Latin translation of his work De Differentia Spiritus et Animae was one of the few works not attributed to Aristotle that was included in a list of ‘books to be read by the Masters of the Faculty of Arts, at Paris in 1254, as part of their study of Natural Philosophy.[5] The work was translated by John of Seville (fl. 1140). He wrote a treatise on Nabidh. His Medical Regime for the Pilgrims to Mecca: The Risālā Fī Tadbīr Safar Al-ḥa is available in translation.[6]\n\nDiscoveries\n\nResearch in 2021 traces the discovery of pulmonary circulation to Qusta's book A Treatise on the Difference Between Spirit and Soul (Arabic: رسالة في الفرق بين الروح والنفس).[7]\n\nTestimonials\n\nOf him Ibn al-Nadim says: \"He is an excellent translator; he knew well Greek, Syriac, and Arabic; he translated texts and corrected many translations. Many are his medical writings.\"[8] Qusta was with Hunayn ibn Ishaq the author who best served Greek culture in the Arab civilization.\n\nInvolvement with peers\n\nHe was also involved, with his fellow Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq, in an epistolary exchange with the Muslim astronomer, Abu Isa Yahya ibn al-Munajjim, who had invited them to embrace Islam. Both refused, and provided their reasons for rejecting al-Munajjim's Islamic faith.[9]\n\nWritings\n\nRisalah fī Auja Al Niqris رسالة في اوجاع النقرس by Qusta Ibn Luqa. A work on Gout. Edited with translation and commentary by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences, Aligarh, 2007 (ISBN 978-81-901362-8-0).\n\nRislah fī al Nabidh (رسالة في النبيذ Arabic translation of Qusta ibn Luqa by Rufus. Edited with translation and commentary by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences, Aligarh, 2007 (ISBN 978-81-901362-7-3).\n\nRîsâlah-i Nabîdh of Qustâ bin Lûqâ by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, A Persian translation of the previous work. Supplement to 'Studies in the History of Medicine and Science' (SHMS), Jamia Hamdard, Vol. IX(1985), pp. 185-201.\n\nKitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-kura al-nujūmiyya (كتاب في العمل بالكرة النجومية On the use of the celestial globe; with some variations as to title), which contains 65 chapters and was widely disseminated through at least two Arabic recensions as well as Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, and Italian translations. The Latin translation is edited by R. Lorch - J. Martínez: Qusta ben Lucae De sphera uolubili, in Suhayl, vol. 5 [1]\n\nthe extant astronomical work, Hayʾat al-aflāk (هيئة الافلاك On the configuration of celestial bodies; Bodleian Library MS Arabic 879, Uri, p. 190), which is one of the earliest compositions in theoretical (hayʾa) astronomy\n\nKitāb al-Madkhal ilā ʿilm al-nujūm (كتاب المدخل الى علم النجوم Introduction to the science of astronomy - astrology)\n\nKitāb al-Madkhal ilā al-hayʾa wa-ḥarakāt al-aflāk wa-ʾl-kawākib (كتاب المدخل الى الهيئة و حركة الافلاك و الكواكب Introduction to the configuration and movements of celestial bodies and stars)\n\nKitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-asṭurlāb al-kurī (كتاب في العمل بالاسطرلاب الكري On the use of the spherical astrolabe; Leiden University Library MS Or. 51.2: Handlist, p. 12)\n\nKitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-kura dhāt al-kursī (كتاب في العمل بالكرة دات الكرسي On the use of the mounted celestial sphere). It is identical to Kitāb fī al-ʿamal bi-ʾl-kura al-nujūmiyya mentioned above.\n\nThe Introduction to Geometry. Translation and Commentary by Jan P. Hogendijk in Suhayl, vol. 8 [2]\n\nInfluence\n\nHe was named (as Kusta Ben Luka) by the poet W. B. Yeats as a source for the ideas in the poet's philosophical treatise, A Vision.\n\nSee also\n\nLatin translations of the 12th century\n\nToledo School of Translators\n\n10th century in Lebanon\n\nNotes\n\n^ Nancy G. Siraisi, Medicine and the Italian Universities, 1250-1600 (Brill Academic Publishers, 2001), p 134.\n\n^ Worrell, W. H. (1944). \"Qusta Ibn Luqa on the Use of the Celestial Globe\". Isis. 35 (4): 285-293. doi:10.1086/358720. JSTOR 330840. S2CID 143503145.\n\n^ N. Swanson, Mark (2010-03-24), \"Qusṭā ibn Lūqā\", Christian-Muslim Relations 600 - 1500, Brill, retrieved 2024-02-07\n\n^ \"Qusta ibn Luqa al-Balabakki\".\n\n^ J. A Burns, article on ‘The Faculty of Arts’ in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, [NY: Robert Appleton, 1907], 758.\n\n^ Lūqā, Qusṭā ibn; Bos, Gerrit (1992). Qusṭā Ibn Lūqā's Medical Regime for the Pilgrims to Mecca: The Risālā Fī Tadbīr Safar Al-ḥajj. BRILL. ISBN 9789004095410. Retrieved 29 September 2012.\n\n^ Mahlooji, Kamran; Abdoli, Mahsima; Tekiner, Halil; Zargaran, Arman (2021-03-23). \"A new evidence on pulmonary circulation discovery: A text of Ibn Luqa (860-912 AD)\". European Heart Journal. 42 (26): 2522-2523. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehab039. ISSN 1522-9645. PMID 33755117.\n\n^ see Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, ed. Fugel, p. 234.\n\n^ Sydney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 86; Samir Khalil Samir and Paul Nwyia, Une correspondance islamo-chrétienne entre ibn al-Munaggim, Hunaym ibn Ishaq et Qusta ibn Luqa, Patrologia Orientalis, 40:4, no. 185 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981).\n\nReferences\n\nKheirandish, Elaheh (2007). \"Qusṭā ibn Lūqā al-Baʿlabakkī\". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 948-9. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)\n\nLes Arabes et les Arméniens à l'époque médiévale\n\nHarvey, L. Ruth (2008) [1970-80]. \"Qusṭā Ibn Lūqā Al-BaʿLabakkī\". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-qusta-ibn-luqa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1224}, {"slug": "reference-tesqopa", "title": "Tesqopa", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tesqopa (Syriac: ܬܠܐ ܙܩܝܦܐ, Arabic: تسقوبا) or Tel Skuf (Arabic: تللسقف, Kurdish: Tilesqof[3]), also Tel Eskof or Tall Asqaf[4] is a town in northern Iraq located approximately 19 miles (about 28 kilometres) north of Mosul. The town is populated by Assyrians and they are members of the Chaldean...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tesqopa\n ܬܠܐ ܙܩܝܦܐ\nتسقوبا\n\nTesqopaLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°35′50.72″N 43°6′13.40″E / 36.5974222°N 43.1037222°E / 36.5974222; 43.1037222\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nFederal region Kurdistan Region (de facto)[1]\n\nGovernorateNineveh\n\nDistrictTel Kaif\n\nPopulation (2020)[2]\n\n • Total4,185\n\nTime zoneGMT +3\n\nTesqopa (Syriac: ܬܠܐ ܙܩܝܦܐ, Arabic: تسقوبا) or Tel Skuf (Arabic: تللسقف, Kurdish: Tilesqof[3]), also Tel Eskof or Tall Asqaf[4] is a town in northern Iraq located approximately 19 miles (about 28 kilometres) north of Mosul. The town is populated by Assyrians and they are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church.[5]\n\nThe town was captured by ISIS briefly in August 2014 but was recaptured by Kurdish Peshmerga in August 2016.[6] Many of the residents of the town returned with aid from Hungary,[7] while a large portion has migrated to Europe.[5]\n\nName\n\nThe name of the town is originally Tilla Zqīpā (Classical Syriac: ܬܸܠܵܐ ܙܩܝܼܦܵܐ), meaning “The high hill,” which later developed into Tisqōpa (Syriac: ܬܸܣܩܘܿܦܵܐ), the name used today.\n\nEarly history\n\nTesqopa is not mentioned in Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors (c. 840) or any of the other early monastic histories of the Church of the East, and may well have been founded as late as the Seljuq period, perhaps in the eleventh century. It is first mentioned as a Christian village in a thirteenth-century poem by the Assyrian writer Giwargis Warda. This poem describes its sack by a raiding band of Mongols in November 1235 and the destruction of its church of Mar Yaʿqōḇ (Jacob/James) the Recluse.[8]\n\nTesqopa was subject to many attacks by the Mongols, the worst among them was the massacre of 1436 by the Qara Qoyunlus under Jahan Shah when they attacked the town, killing thousands of its Assyrian inhabitants and burning its crops and churches, ultimately forcing the rest of the inhabitants to flee to the mountains. In 1508, Tesqopa was attacked again this time by the Safavids under Ismail I, just as they attacked Tel Keppe, Alqosh and the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd. Tesqopa was also attacked by the army of Nader Shah in 1743 during his march on Mosul following his declaration of war against the Ottoman Empire.\n\nModern history\n\nThe town received many Assyrian Christian refugees from Baghdad and Mosul in the wake of the sectarian violence in the 2000s. On 23 April 2007 a car bomb that targeted the village resulted in more than 25 deaths, mostly civilian Assyrian Christians and Yazidis. Later, the insurgent group Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the bombing and uploaded a video of the operation.[9]\n\nIn early August 2014, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants captured Tesqopa after heavy fighting. But on 17 August 2014 the Kurdish Peshmerga retook Tesqopa.[6] After this, the local Christian Assyrians were then able to restore the crosses atop their vandalized churches.[10] ISIS militants overran the town at dawn on 3 May 2016; however, they were driven out by Peshmerga fighters later that day.[11]\n\nThe village was liberated after combat operations from the Iraqi Ground Forces, the Peshmerga, the US coalition in Iraq, and the Nineveh Plain Protection Units.[12]\n\nPost-ISIS\n\nBy 2017, several hundred families had returned to the town and the parish church was functioning again. The Hungarian government assisted in rebuilding the destroyed homes of 991 Christian families.[13] In the years since, only 20% of Tesqopa's original Assyrian population have returned.[12]\n\nIn September 2020, a news release from the Assyrian Policy Institute revealed that the government of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq had been blocking access to a route connecting Tesqopa and Batnaya since March, purportedly to slow the spread of COVID-19. The road was previously closed by KRG forces following the 2017 Kurdistan Region independence referendum, but was reopened the following year due to pressure from US officials.[14]\n\nNotable people\n\nRaad Salam Naaman (born 1959), Iraqi-born Spanish author, translator and academic.[15]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Anfragebeantwortung zum Irak: Sicherheitslage für Christ·innen in den chaldäisch-katholischen Siedlungsgebieten\" [Response to inquiry regarding Iraq: Security situation for Christians in the Chaldean Catholic settlement areas]. ecoi.net. 30 June 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2026. [Over three-quarters of the former inhabitants of Baqoufa and Telskuf, two Assyrian cities controlled by the Peshmerga, have not returned.]\n\n^ \"The Struggle to Exist: An Introduction to the Assyrians and their Human Rights Situation in the New Iraq\" (PDF). www.atour.com. Assyria Council of Europe.\n\n^ Şerên Pêşmerge û Daişê li Tilesqof (in Kurdish). 2016-05-03. Retrieved 2026-04-17 - via www.dengeamerika.com.\n\n^ \"تللسقف) تسقوبا)\". Ishar TV (in Arabic). Retrieved 8 November 2020.\n\n^ a b \"Region in focus - Iraqi ghost town used as base to fight ISIL\". Ishtar TV. 6 November 2015. Retrieved 8 November 2020.\n\n^ a b Abdullah, Dalshad (18 August 2014). \"Peshmerga retake Mosul Dam: spokesmen\". Asharq al-Awsat. Retrieved 30 October 2022.\n\n^ \"Teleskuf, the rebirth of an Iraqi village\". Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. 2018-07-13. Archived from the original on 2022-03-18. Retrieved 2019-07-17.\n\n^ Wilmshurst, EOCE, 202 and 234\n\n^ استشهاد أكثر من خمس وعشرين شخصا في انفجار تللسقف. Zahrira (in Arabic). 23 April 2012. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2012.\n\n^ \"Pictures Show Aftermath of ISIS Looting, Plundering Assyrian Town\". AINA News. 21 August 2014. Retrieved 30 October 2022.\n\n^ \"US Navy Seal killed in Iraq as IS breaches Peshmerga lines\". BBC News. BBC. 4 May 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2022.\n\n^ a b Snell, Joe (26 October 2025). \"What just happened to the Nineveh Plain Protection Units?\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 2026-07-30.\n\n^ Ádám, Forisek (29 July 2018). \"Már számadatok is bizonyítják: Nyugat-Európát nem érdeklik az üldözött keresztények\". 888.hu. Retrieved 30 October 2022.\n\n^ \"Access route in the Nineveh Plain blocked by KRG security forces\". Assyrian Policy Institute. 9 September 2020. Retrieved 2026-07-30.\n\n^ \"Biografía\". Raad Salam Naaman (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 September 2026."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tesqopa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 983}, {"slug": "reference-book-of-the-bee", "title": "Book of the Bee", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Book of the Bee (Syriac: ܟܬܒܐ ܕܕܒܘܪܝܬܐ, romanized: Kṯāḇā ḏ-debboriṯā) is a historiographic and theological compilation, containing numerous biblical stories. It was written around 1222, by Solomon of Akhlat, who was Bishop of Basra, within the Church of the East. It is written in the Syriac language.[1][2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Book of the Bee (Syriac: ܟܬܒܐ ܕܕܒܘܪܝܬܐ, romanized: Kṯāḇā ḏ-debboriṯā) is a historiographic and theological compilation, containing numerous biblical stories. It was written around 1222, by Solomon of Akhlat, who was Bishop of Basra, within the Church of the East. It is written in the Syriac language.[1][2]\n\nThe book is a collection of theological and historical texts and consists of 55 chapters discussing various topics including the creation, heaven and earth, the angels, darkness, paradise, Old Testament patriarchs, New Testament events, lists of kings and patriarchs, and the final day of resurrection. The book was very popular among local Christian communities, and it was transmitted up to the 19th century.[3][4]\n\nThe author, Solomon of Akhlat,[5] was a bishop of the Church of the East during the first half of the 13th century. He was a diocesan bishop of Basra, now in Iraq, and was present at the consecration of the Patriarch of the Church of the East, Sabrisho IV, in 1222.[6] He dedicated the book to his friend, bishop Narsai of Beth Waziq.[7]\n\nThe book was written in Syriac, a literary form of Eastern Middle Aramaic, and it was also translated into Arabic. The author held his native Syriac language in high regard and adopted the notion of some older authors that it was the oldest language.[8]\n\nThe book was translated into Latin and published in 1866, by Joseph Schönfelder (d. 1913).[9] In 1886, Syriac text was published with English translation, by British orientalist Ernest A. Wallis Budge (d. 1934).[10]\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nReferences\n\n^ Budge 1886, p. III-X.\n\n^ Teule 2012, p. 193-195.\n\n^ Baumstark 1922, p. 309.\n\n^ Weltecke & Younansardaroud 2019, p. 705.\n\n^ Loopstra 2011, p. 378.\n\n^ Wright 1894, p. 282.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 68.\n\n^ Budge 1886, p. 36, 39, 42.\n\n^ Schönfelder 1866.\n\n^ Budge 1886.\n\nSources\n\nBaumstark, Anton (1922). Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, mit Ausschluss der christlich-palästinensischen Texte. Bonn: A. Marcus und E. Weber Verlag. ISBN 9783110821253. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBudge, Ernest A. Wallis, ed. (1886). The Book of the Bee: The Syriac Text Edited from the Manuscripts in London, Oxford, and Munich with an English Translation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 9783515057189.\n\nLoopstra, Jonathan A. (2011). \"Shlemon of Baṣra\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 378.\n\nSchönfelder, Joseph M., ed. (1866). Salomonis episcopi Bassorensis liber Apis: Syriacum Arabicumque textum Latine vertit notis illustravit. Bamberg: Reindl.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2012). \"Solomon of Basra\". Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 4. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 193-195. ISBN 978-9004228542.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea; Younansardaroud, Helen (2019). \"The Renaissance of Syriac Literature in the Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 698-717. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWright, William (1894). A Short History of Syriac Literature. London: Adam and Charles Black.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Book of the Bee, translated by E. A. Wallis Budge (1886)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-book-of-the-bee"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 511}, {"slug": "reference-john-of-dalyatha", "title": "John of Dalyatha", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "John of Dalyatha (c. 690 - c. 780), commonly known as John Saba (\"the Elder\") and in Syriac Yoḥannan, was a monk and mystic of the Church of the East. He spent his entire life in Upper Mesopotamia, alternating between coenobitic (community-based) and eremitic (solitary) monasticism, with a...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "John of Dalyatha (c. 690 - c. 780), commonly known as John Saba (\"the Elder\") and in Syriac Yoḥannan, was a monk and mystic of the Church of the East. He spent his entire life in Upper Mesopotamia, alternating between coenobitic (community-based) and eremitic (solitary) monasticism, with a preference for the latter. At the time of his death, he was serving as the abbot of a community of monks.\n\nJohn was a prolific writer in Syriac. A great number of his sermons, treatises, maxims and letters have survived. Translated into several languages in the centuries after his death, they were rarely read within the Church of the East (even being banned between the 780s and the 820s) but circulated widely in other Christian traditions throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.\n\nLife\n\nThe 14th-century Syriac writer ʿAbdishoʿ bar Brikha, in his Catalogue of Books, mistakenly dated John of Dalyatha's life to the first half of the 6th century.[1] This was widely accepted into the 20th century, when it was finally demonstrated that John in fact belongs to the 8th century.[1]\n\nJohn was born around 690 in the village of Ardamut, northeast of Mosul in the Syriac-speaking region of Beth Nuhadra, part of the Syrian province of the Umayyad Caliphate.[2][3] As a child, he studied the Bible, liturgy and patristics in the local church in preparation for a priestly or monastic vocation.[3] As a youth, he paid regular visits to the monastery of Mar Aphnimaran to read ascetic literature, and he practised fasting and keeping vigils.[2] When he was old enough he entered the coenobitic monastery of Mar Yozadaq in the mountains of Beth Qardu.[2] He may have been drawn to this monastery because it had been that of the Syriac writer Narsai over a century earlier.[3] As a novice he was under the instruction of a certain Blessed Stephen, himself a disciple of Mar Yozadaq.[3]\n\nAfter seven years living in the community of Mar Yozadaq, John received permission to live as a hermit.[3] He retreated north to the mountains of Beth Dalyatham-the \"house of the vine-branches\"[2] or \"vine-shoots\"[4]-at an elevation of 3,000 metres (9,800 ft).[2][3][5] In his writings, John mentions his mountainous surrounding only once, in Letter 37.[3] Because he spent most of his life in solitude and is not known to have ever visited a town, he probably never met a Muslim nor heard the Muslim call to prayer, the adhān.[6]\n\nIn his old age, when he was too weak to continue on his own, John returned to Beth Qardu.[3] A community of monks gathered around him and elected him their abbot or superior.[2][3][5] As abbot he created a new rule for novices.[6] He served as abbot until his death[2] around 780.[3]\n\nBecause John belonged to a monastic circle accused, probably incorrectly, of the heresies of Messalianism and Sabellianism,[7] his works were banned after his death by the Patriarch Timothy I at a synod held in 786/787 or 790.[2][5][6] Joseph Hazzaya was condemned at the same synod.[6] John was later rehabilitated by the Patriarch Ishoʿbar Nun (governed 823-828).[6]\n\nWritings\n\nJohn left behind 25 sermons (or discourses) and 51 letters,[4] as well as a set of maxims (kephalaia) called the Ru'us al-Ma'rifah, variously translated Chapters of Understanding,[8] Chapters of Wisdom[5] or Kephalaia on Knowledge.[7]\n\nProbably because of the condemnation of Timothy I, his writings survive in their original language (Syriac) only in manuscripts of the Syriac Orthodox tradition opposed to the Church of the East.[2] They largely circulated anonymously, attributed only to the \"spiritual elder\",[2] \"divine elder\" or just \"elder\", although there are some attributed to \"Mar John the Elder\", mar being a Syriac honorific meaning saint or reverend.[3] Only in the 15th century did scholars begin to identify the author of the works as either John of Dalyatha or John bar Penkaye.[3] Modern scholars are in general agreement that the first identification is correct, although Brian Colless has suggested that the two Johns are one and the same person.[3]\n\nMany of John's works were translated into Arabic, Ethiopic (Ge'ez) and Greek.[2] Four of his sermons falsely attributed to Isaac of Nineveh and his Letter 15 falsely attributed to Dorotheus of Gaza were translated into Greek,[7] and thence into Latin and other European languages during the Middle Ages.[2]\n\nJohn's works were all written for the benefit of ascetics. They discuss monastic living and the glory and beauty of God.[6] He had a strong perfectionist streak.[2] His recommended path took a devotee through repentance, ascetic exercises, purity, serenity and finally perfection,[2]\nrelying heavily on Matthew 5:48 (\"Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect\") and Matthew 5:8 (\"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God\"). Ever the mystic, he clarifies that the pure shall see God only \"in their heart\".[2]\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst 2011, pp. 273-74.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Colless 2011.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hansbury 2006, pp. vii-viii.\n\n^ a b Albert 2005.\n\n^ a b c d Pinggéra 2018.\n\n^ a b c d e f Wilmshurst 2011, p. 137.\n\n^ a b c Cross & Livingstone 2009.\n\n^ Frederick 1991.\n\nSources\n\nAlbert, Micheline (2005) [2002]. \"John of Dalyatha or John Sabas\". In André Vauchez (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. James Clarke & Co.\n\nBeulay, Robert (1977-78). \"Précisions touchant l'identité et la biographie de Jean Saba de Dalyatha\". Parole de l'Orient. 8: 103-116.\n\nColless, Brian Edric (1969). The Mysticism of John Saba (PhD thesis). University of Melbourne.\n\nColless, Brian Edric (1972). \"The Biographies of John Saba\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 3 (1): 45-63.\n\nColless, Brian Edric (1973). \"The Mysticism of John Saba\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 39 (1): 83-102.\n\nColless, Brian Edric (2011). \"Yoḥannan of Dalyatha\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 13 August 2019.\n\nCross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (2009) [2005]. \"John of Dalyatha\". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd rev. ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3.\n\nFrederick, Vincent (1991). \"John Sabas\". In Aziz Suryal Atiya (ed.). The Coptic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Macmillan Publishers. p. 1369a.\n\nHansbury, Mary T., ed. (2006). The Letters of John of Dalyatha. Gorgias Press.\n\nPinggéra, Karl (2018). \"John of Dalyatha\". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, Volume 2: J-Z. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 827-28. ISBN 978-0-19-881625-6.\n\nSeppälä, Serafim (2003). \"In Speechless Ecstacy: Expression and Interpretation of Mystical Experience in Classical Syriac and Sufi Literature\". Studia Orientalia. 98 (Back Issue).\n\nTreiger, Alexander (2009). \"Could Christ's Humanity See His Divinity? An Eighth-Century Controversy between John of Dalyatha and Timothy I, Catholicos of the Church of the East\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 9: 3-21. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-090103. S2CID 212688240.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. East and West Publishing."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-john-of-dalyatha"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1204}, {"slug": "reference-kibbeh", "title": "Kibbeh", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Kibbeh (/ˈkɪbi/, also kubba and other spellings; Arabic: كبّة, romanized: kibba; Egyptian Arabic: كبيبة, romanized: kobeba) is a popular dish in the Arab world and the Levant in particular, made of spiced lean ground meat and bulgur wheat. Kibbeh is considered to be a national dish of Lebanon...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Kibbeh\nFried kibbeh raas (nabulsi kibbeh)\n\nCourseMeze\n\nPlace of originSyria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Armenia, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Turkey\n\nRegion or stateLevant, Mesopotamia, Caucasus, East Mediterranean\n\nServing temperatureHot (or raw as kibbeh nayyeh)\n\nMain ingredientsFinely ground meat, cracked wheat (bulgur), and Levantine spices\n\n Cookbook: Kibbeh\n\n  Media: Kibbeh\n\nKibbeh (/ˈkɪbi/, also kubba and other spellings; Arabic: كبّة, romanized: kibba; Egyptian Arabic: كبيبة, romanized: kobeba) is a popular dish in the Arab world and the Levant in particular, made of spiced lean ground meat and bulgur wheat. Kibbeh is considered to be a national dish of Lebanon and Syria.[1][2][3][4][5][6]\n\nIn Levantine cuisine, kibbeh is made by pounding bulgur wheat together with meat into a fine paste and forming it into ovoid shapes, with toasted pine nuts and spices. It may also be layered and cooked on a tray, deep-fried, grilled, or served raw.[7] The Syrian city of Aleppo can lay claim to at least 17 types of kibbeh.[8] In Mesopotamian cuisine, versions with rice or farina are found.[9]\n\nOutside of Lebanon and Syria,[1] versions are found in Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, the Persian Gulf, Armenia, and Turkey,[4] and among Assyrian people.[10] It is also found throughout Latin American countries that received substantial numbers of immigrants from the Levant during the late 19th and early 20th centuries,[11] as well as parts of North America.[12]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe modern word kibbeh (كبة) is derived from the Arabic root k-b-b (ك-ب-ب).[13][14][15]\n\nThe use of kubbeh to designate stuffed food may have also been derived from the Akkadian language kubbu.[15]\n\nThe 10th century cookbook by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq referred to meatballs as kubab (singular kubba).[15]\n\nHistory\n\nAs noted by food historian Nawal Nasrallah, the earliest mention of modern kibbeh, made with a filled shell of ground meat and grains, is in the 18th century work Taj al-'Arus min Jawahir al-Qamus. The text describes it as a disk of ground meat and rice flour made by the people of \"al-Sham\" (the Levant).[15]\n\nAmerican Methodist missionary William McClure Thomson noted in his memoirs during his 1847 visit to Lebanon that kibbeh, then made by crushing wheat in mortar and pestle, was very popular.[16] He described it as \"the national dish of the Arabs\", despite its association with the Levant.[17][16] Swedish Orientalist Jacob Berggren described 8 types of kibbeh in his 1844 dictionary, and also mentioned a proverb about its social importance: \"[...], without our koubbé, we would all have died\".[18]\n\nThe 1885 Beirut cookbook Ustadh al-Tabbakhin by author Khalil Khattar Sarkis provided 15 kibbeh recipes, including recipes for kibbeh labaniyyeh, kiyyeh bil siniyyeh, kibbeh mashwiyyeh, among others.[16] The Comparative Encyclopedia of Aleppo by Syrian author Khayr al-Din al-Asadi (completed in 1971, published posthumously in 1981) described 58 different kinds of kibbeh.[19]\n\nVariations\n\nLevant\n\nKibbeh nayyeh is a raw dish made from a mixture of bulgur, very finely minced lamb or beef similar to steak tartare, and Levantine spices, served on a platter, frequently as part of a meze in Lebanon and Syria, garnished with mint leaves and olive oil, and served with green onions or scallions, green hot peppers, and pita or markouk bread.[3] Because kibbeh nayyeh is raw, it requires high-quality meat to prepare and has been seen as a traditional way to honor guests.[4]\n\nKibbeh labaniyeh (Arabic: كبة لبنية) is a variant of kibbeh cooked in a yoghurt sauce and served over rice. It is popular in Lebanon and Syria.[20][21] kibbeh mishwiyyeh (Arabic: كبة مشوية) is kibbeh that is grilled rather than fried.[22][16]\n\nKibbeh bil siniyeh (Levantine Arabic: كبة بالصينية) is a variation of kibbeh in which the meat stuffing is sandwiched between two layers of kibbeh dough and then baked; it is popular in Lebanon and Syria.[23][24][25]\n\nLebanon\n\nIn Lebanon, meatless versions of kibbeh exist, and are sometimes called \"poor man's kibbe\". The stuffing is made with onions, walnuts, and wheat.[26][27][23][25] Kibbet samak, made using fish, is popular among Sunni Muslims in North Lebanon.[6]\n\nPotato kibbeh is a variation of kibbeh in which potato is mixed with the bulgur. It is often assembled in three layers: a potato layer, followed by the meat filling, then another potato layer on top. Author Claudia Roden describes it as an \"oriental shepherd's pie.\"[28][23] It is especially popular in Lebanon.[29]\n\nSyria\n\nThe city of Aleppo, Syria, is known for its many varieties of kibbe.[30] These include kibbeh prepared with sumac (kibbe sumāqiyye),[31] yogurt (kibbe labaniyye), quince (kibbe safarjaliyye),[32] lemon juice (kibbe ḥāmḍa),[23] pomegranate sauce (kibbeh rummaniyeh),[33] cherry sauce, and other varieties, such as \"disk\" kibbeh (kibbe arāṣ), \"plate\" kibbeh (kibbe biṣfīḥa or kibbe bṣēniyye) and raw kibbeh (kibbeh nayyeh).[34] Kibbeh sajiyeh (Arabic: كبة صاجية) is kibbeh shaped into a thin disk with a meat filling that is traditionally dipped in a yogurt sauce.[24][35]\n\nA Syrian soup known as kubbi kishk consists of kubbi (\"torpedoes\" or \"footballs\") in a yogurt (kishk) and butter broth with stewed cabbage leaves. Another soup, known as kibbeh hamda, consists of chicken stock with vegetables (usually leeks, celery, turnips and courgettes), lemon juice and garlic, with small kibbeh made with ground rice as dumplings.[33][36] In the Syrian Jewish diaspora this dish is popular both for Pesach and as the pre-fast meal on the day before Yom Kippur.[37]\n\nIraq\n\nKubba Mosul from Iraq is flat and round like a disc, named after the city of Mosul.[4] Kubba Halab is an Iraqi version of kibbeh created with a rice and potato crust and named after the largest city in Syria, Aleppo.[38][39] Kubbat shorba is an Iraqi and Kurdish version prepared as a stew, commonly made with turnips and chard in a tomato-based stew. It is often served with arak and various salads.[40]\n\nAmong Kurdish Jews, there is a kubba soup flavored with aromatic thyme leaves during winter.[41]\n\nIsrael\n\nWhen Jews fled Iraq in the 1940s, 90 percent went to Israel, bringing traditional dishes with them. As a result, kubbeh is now a strong part of Israeli cuisine. Sometimes it is fried, and sometimes it is cooked in a soup.[42]\n\nTurkey\n\nIn Turkey, kibbeh is called içli köfte.[3] The outside shell can be made without[43] or with tomato paste[44] in different recipes.\n\nSeveral variants of içli köfte are protected as geographical indications by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office:\n\nThe Adana variety of içli köfte.[45][46] It is a grilled, skewer-cooked form of içli köfte.[45][47][48]\n\nMalatya içli köftesi is a bulgur meatball that is boiled rather than fried.[49][50]\n\nPolat içli köftesi is a boiled bulgur meatball with beef and onion filling.[51][52]\n\nEgypt\n\nIn Egypt, kibbeh is referred to as kobeba (Egyptian Arabic: كبيبة).[53] Seafood variations of kobeba exist, such as shrimp kobeba, popular in Port Said.[54][55]\n\nLatin America\n\nBrazil\n\nBrazilian quibe is sometimes stuffed with Catupiry or another variety of requeijão, a sauce resembling ricotta and cream cheese. Most Brazilian quibe uses only ground beef, but other variations use tahini, carne de soja (texturized soy protein), seitan (Japanese wheat gluten-based meat substitute) or tofu (soybean curd) as stuffing.[56]\n\nIn the Brazilian state of Acre, a variation of quibe called quibe de arroz (rice kibbeh) is made with a rice flour breading. It was created by Arab immigrants to Brazil who had no access to wheat in the remote Amazon region of Brazil.[57]\n\nColombia\n\nOn Colombia's Caribbean coast, most local variations of the dish use ground beef instead of lamb, but the original recipe, or one with a mixture of beef and lamb, can be found served by the large Lebanese and Syrian population of the area.[58] The dish has acquired almost vernacular presence and is frequently served in social occasions at both Arab and non-Arab households. When served as an adopted local dish, it is offered often as a starter along with other regional specialties, including empanadas, deditos and carimañolas.[59]\n\nDominican Republic\n\nThe Dominican version was brought to the Dominican Republic by Lebanese immigrants.[60]\n\nMexico\n\nSome regional Syrian and Lebanese dishes combine kibbeh with elements taken from Latin American cuisine; for example, it is typical of Syrian Mexicans to eat traditional kibbeh with salsa verde.[61]\n\nCulture\n\nKibbeh is considered by many to be a difficult dish to prepare, and as such, the quality of kibbeh is considered to be a benchmark for the skill of a cook in Iraq and the Levant.[3][15][62] Numerous mentions of kibbeh can be found in Aleppo Arabic folk proverbs.[19]\n\nSee also\n\nFalafel\n\nList of deep-fried foods\n\nList of Middle Eastern dishes\n\nList of stuffed dishes\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Top 10 National Dishes\". National Geographic. 13 September 2011. Archived from the original on 14 October 2016. Retrieved 8 August 2020.\n\n^ George, Maria (2019). Mediterranean Cuisine: Flavors for a Healthier You. Meadville: Christian Faith Publishing. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-64515-991-9.\n\n^ a b c d Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6.\n\n^ a b c d Davidson, Alan (2014). Jaine, Tom (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 244, 444-445. ISBN 9780191040726.\n\n^ Howell, Sally (2000). Abraham, Nabeel; Shryock, Andrew (eds.). Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814328125.\n\n^ a b Helou, Anissa (2018). Feast: Food of the Islamic World. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781526605566.\n\n^ Perry, Charles (2006). \"kibbeh\". In Davidson, Alan; Jaine, Tom (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Food (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280681-9. Archived from the original on 28 November 2022.\n\n^ Khalaf, Hala (9 August 2018). \"A guide to kibbeh\". The National. Archived from the original on 19 February 2026. Retrieved 24 April 2024.\n\n^ Ciezadlo, Annia (2012). Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War. Free Press. p. 361. ISBN 978-1-4391-5753-4.\n\n^ van der Velde, Jeannette (2010). \"Persia (Iran)\". In Edelstein, Sari (ed.). Food, Cuisine, and Cultural Competency for Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professionals. Jones and Bartlett. p. 594. ISBN 9781449618117.\n\n^ Brown, Ellen (2020). Meatballs: The Ultimate Cookbook. Appleseed Press Book Publishers. ISBN 978-1-64643-014-7.\n\n^ Nelson, Davia; Silva, Nikki (31 January 2008). \"Kibbe at the Crossroads: A Lebanese Kitchen Story\". NPR. Archived from the original on 29 October 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2017.\n\n^ \"تعريف و معنى كبة في معجم المعاني الجامع - معجم عربي عربي\". Almaany (in Arabic). 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The Land and the Book; Or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land. Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 129 - via Google Books. He is braying wheat with a pestle in a mortar, to make kibby, the national dish of the Arabs, and a very good one it is. Every family has one or more of these large stone mortars, and you may hear the sound of the \"braying\" at all hours as you walk the streets of the city.\n\n^ \nBerggren, Jakob (1844). Guide Français-Arabe Vulgaire des Voyageurs et des Francs en Syrie et en Égypte [A French-Arabic Guide for Travelers and Franks in Syria and Egypt] (in French). Leffler et Sebell. pp. 267-268. Retrieved 24 January 2026 - via Google Books.\n\n^ a b \nal-Asadi, Khayr al-Din (1981). موسوعة حلب المقارنة [Comparative Encyclopedia of Aleppo] (in Arabic). pp. 2460-2465. Retrieved 20 December 2025 - via Internet Archive.\n\n^ Vartanian Datian, Christine (5 December 2024). \"Recipe Corner: Lebanese & Syrian Meat and Bulgur Balls in Yoghurt (Kibbeh Labaniyya)\". The Armenian Mirror-Spectator. Archived from the original on 1 September 2025. Retrieved 14 August 2025.\n\n^ Fox, Tessa (1 January 2024). \"Kibbeh labaniyeh: Lebanese meatballs to start a new year\". BBC. Archived from the original on 25 July 2025. Retrieved 14 August 2025.\n\n^ Shamsi-Basha, Karim (26 March 2025). \"Eid al-Fitr conjures up my fondest childhood memories\". NJ.com. Advance Local. Archived from the original on 22 December 2025. Retrieved 8 December 2025.\n\n^ a b c d Roden, Claudia (2018). A New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-1-4059-3778-8. Archived from the original on 20 August 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ a b Burum, Linda (19 August 2013). \"Aleppo's Kitchen: For rarely found Syrian specialties\". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 14 November 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ a b Sortun, Ana (17 December 2020). \"Kibbeh Bil Sanieh\". Food & Wine. People Inc. Archived from the original on 21 October 2024. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ \"أطباق رمضان بما تيسّر...\" [Ramadan dishes made with whatever is available...]. Sawt Beirut (in Arabic). 3 April 2023. Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ Hallak, Michel (25 October 2015). \"تعرّف إلى كبّة \"أبو آمنة\" أو \"كبّة الفقير\" في عكار\" [Discover \"Abu Amneh's\" or \"poor man's\" kibbeh in Akkar]. An-Nahar (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ \"كبّة البطاطا... ابتكار لا يّقاوم\" [Potato kibbeh... an irresistible innovation]. An-Nahar (in Arabic). 3 July 2022. Archived from the original on 29 December 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ Al-Hallak, Nadia (10 April 2019). \"المطبخ اللبناني.. أكلات شهية \"تغذي\" ترتيبه عالميًا (تقرير)\" [Lebanese cuisine: Delicious dishes that \"feed\" its global ranking (report)]. Anadolu Agency (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 22 November 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ Amos, Deborah (5 January 2010). \"Food Lovers Discover The Joys Of Aleppo\". NPR. Archived from the original on 18 January 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2018.\n\n^ Salama, Heba (6 June 2021). \"طريقة عمل السماقية الفلسطينية والحلبية بخطوات بسيطة\" [How to make Palestinian and Aleppo sumakiyya in simple steps]. E7kky.com (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 5 October 2025.\n\n^ Al-Bashir, Abdullah (5 May 2021). \"\"وجبات حلب العريقة\" على موائد المحتاجين\" [\"Aleppo's traditional meals\" on the tables of the needy]. The New Arab (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 20 December 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ a b Qaddoura, Kamal (25 November 2018). \"تعرف على أنواع الكبة الحلبية\" [Learn about the different types of Aleppo kibbeh]. Asharq Al-Awsat (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 17 November 2025.\n\n^ Ezzat, Lama (11 July 2014). \"الشيف محمد أورفه لي يستذكر رمضان وأكلاته في حلب\" [Chef Mohammed Orfali reminisces about Ramadan and its dishes in Aleppo]. Zahrat al Khaleej (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 2 October 2025. Retrieved 21 September 2025.\n\n^ \"كبة صاجية على الطريقة السورية\" [Syrian-style kibbeh sajiah]. Al-Wasat (in Arabic). 27 July 2015. Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ Roden, Claudia (1974). A Book of Middle Eastern Food. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 232-233. ISBN 0-394-71948-4. OCLC 622578 - via Internet Archive.\n\n^ Dweck, Poopa (2007). Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews. HarperCollins. p. 97. ISBN 9780062042644.\n\n^ Azzam, Iman (27 November 2019). \"كبة او كبيبة الارز والبطاطس العراقية بالفيديو\" [Iraqi rice and potato kibbeh (video)]. Al Gomhuria (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ \"كبة حلب العراقية.. هناك أسباب وراء تسميتها\" [Iraqi Aleppo kibbeh... there are reasons behind its name]. Ultrasawt (in Arabic). 27 May 2024. Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 28 October 2025.\n\n^ Ferst, Devra (10 August 2017). \"An Iraqi-Kurdish-Israeli Dumpling Soup Makes Its Way To America\". NPR. Archived from the original on 22 August 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2020.\n\n^ \"אדוני רוצה עוד קובה? הצצה למטבח הכורדי\". Ynet (in Hebrew). 8 February 2017. Archived from the original on 2 January 2024. Retrieved 2 January 2024.\n\n^ Martinelli, Katherine (14 December 2010). \"Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage, One Kubbeh at a Time\". Forward.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)\n\n^ \"Haşlama içli köfte tarifi\" [Recipe for boiled stuffed meatballs]. Hürriyet (in Turkish). 28 April 2026. Archived from the original on 29 April 2026. Retrieved 6 May 2026.\n\n^ \"Kızartma İçli Köfte\" [Kızartma İçli Köfte]. Nefis Yemek Tarifleri (in Turkish). 25 September 2019. Archived from the original on 19 May 2026. Retrieved 6 May 2026.\n\n^ a b Bozkurt, Eren (12 June 2021). \"Mangal ateşi Adana'nın tescilli içli köftesine lezzet kattı\" [The charcoal grill added flavor to Adana's registered stuffed meatballs]. Anadolu Agency (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 25 December 2025. Retrieved 8 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Adana İçli Köfte\" [Adana Stuffed Meatballs]. Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 21 December 2025. Retrieved 8 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Ağız sulandıran lezzet 'mangalda içli köfte' yoğun ilgi görüyor\" [The mouthwatering delicacy 'grilled stuffed meatballs' is attracting great interest]. CNN Türk (in Turkish). 25 June 2019. Archived from the original on 6 January 2026. Retrieved 8 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Mangalda içli köfte ilgi görüyor\" [Grilled stuffed meatballs are attracting attention]. Yeni Şafak (in Turkish). Albayrak Medya. 25 June 2019. Archived from the original on 22 December 2025. Retrieved 8 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Tescilli Malatya İçli Köftesi Türkiye'nin dört bir yanına ulaştırılacak\" [The registered Malatya Stuffed Meatball will be delivered to all corners of Türkiye]. TRT Haber (in Turkish). 14 September 2021. Archived from the original on 13 December 2025. Retrieved 13 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Malatya İçli Köftesi\" [Malatya Stuffed Meatballs]. Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 3 February 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Polat İçli Köftesi / Polat Köftesi\" [Polat Stuffed Meatballs / Polat Meatballs]. Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 20 December 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Polat İçli Köftesi Tescil Edildi\" [Polat Stuffed Meatballs Registered as a Copyrighted Product]. Malatya Gazeteciler Cemiyeti (in Turkish). 19 January 2023. Archived from the original on 13 December 2025. Retrieved 13 December 2025.\n\n^ Nahas, Angela (14 June 2018). \"Beef and cracked wheat slice (kobeba)\". SBS Food. Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ \"\"كبيبة الجمبري\".. أسرار أشهر الأكلات البورسعيدية- صور\" [\"Shrimp Kibbeh\": The Secrets of Port Said's Most Famous Dishes - Photos]. Masrawy (in Arabic). 16 December 2022. Archived from the original on 29 December 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ Sabih, Heba (9 July 2021). \"طريقة عمل كبيبة الجمبري.. أشهى الأكلات البورسعيدية\" [How to make shrimp kibbeh... one of the most delicious dishes from Port Said]. El Watan News (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 21 November 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Lebanese Brazilian Food: Fried Kibbeh\". Texas de Brazil. 19 July 2022. Archived from the original on 13 August 2022.\n\n^ Menezes, Gabrielli (14 June 2021). \"Culinária do Acre esbanja identidade e orgulho em cada prato; conheça\" [Acre's cuisine exudes identity and pride in every dish; discover it]. Nossa UOL (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2024.\n\n^ Hourani, Albert; Shehadi, Nadim, eds. (1992). The Lebanese and the World: A Century of Emigration. I.B. Tauris. p. 365. ISBN 9781850433033.\n\n^ Cepeda, María Elena (2010). Musical ImagiNation: U.S-Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-7290-4. OCLC 967261642 - via JSTOR.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)\n\n^ Janer, Zilkia; Smith, Andrew F. (2013). \"Dominican American Food\". In Smith, Andrew F. (ed.). Food and Drink in American History: A \"Full Course\" Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61069-233-5.\n\n^ Kershenovich Schuster, Paulette (2019). \"Diffused Palates: Evolution of Culinary Tastes in Jewish Mexicans\". In Ayora-Diaz, Steffan Igor (ed.). Taste, Politics, and Identities in Mexican Food. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-350-06668-7.\n\n^ Ottolenghi, Yotam (20 January 2023). \"This Soup Is Yotam Ottolenghi's Comfort Food\". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2025."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kibbeh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3372}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-democratic-organization", "title": "Assyrian Democratic Organization", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO; Syriac: ܡܛܟܣܬܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܬܐ ܕܝܡܩܪܛܝܬܐ; Arabic: المنظمة الآثورية الديمقراطية), also known as \"Mtakasta/Mtakasto\", is an Assyrian political party based in Syria. Founded in 1957, it is the oldest Assyrian political party in Syria, and was established as a national, political and democratic movement with...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian Democratic Organization ܡܛܟܣܬܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܬܐ ܕܝܡܩܪܛܝܬܐ\nالمنظمة الآثورية الديمقراطية\n\nLogo of Mtakasto\n\nLeaderGabriel Moushe Gawrieh\n\nVice presidentBashir Isshaq Sa'di[1]\n\nFounded1957\n\nHeadquartersQamishli, Syria\n\nIdeologyAssyrian minority politics\nMinority rights\n\nNational affiliationSyrian National Coalition\n\nColoursLight blue\n\nPeople's Assembly1 / 210\n\nWebsite\n\nhttps://ado-world.com/en/\n\nPolitics of Syria\n\nPolitical parties\n\nElections\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO; Syriac: ܡܛܟܣܬܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܬܐ ܕܝܡܩܪܛܝܬܐ; Arabic: المنظمة الآثورية الديمقراطية), also known as \"Mtakasta/Mtakasto\", is an Assyrian political party based in Syria. Founded in 1957, it is the oldest Assyrian political party in Syria, and was established as a national, political and democratic movement with the objectives of safeguarding the existence of the Assyrian people, as well as the realization of their legitimate national aspirations (political, cultural, administrative) in their historic homeland.[2][3]\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Organization faced many upheavals under the Assad family of Ba'athist Syria, including bans on its activity.[4] The party is currently based in Qamishli as part of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and has been part of the Syrian National Coalition since October 2011.[5] Currently, the ADO has around 5000 members, advocates for the formation of civil, secular Syrian state, and enjoys good relations with Western countries such as the United States.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nFounded in 1957 in the town of Qabre Ḥewore by university students and other intellectuals, the Assyrian Democratic Organization was founded with the hopes of having Assyrians federally recognized as a group under the Syrian government, as well as stressing unity of Assyrians across all denominations.[7] The party was formed as a response to the developments of pan-Arabism in Syria, and increased pressure for Assyrians under Arabization campaigns and the formation of the United Arab Republic. The party espoused an ideology of secularism, and the origins of the party's thought can be linked to other prominent Assyrian nationalists such as Naum Faiq, Freydun Atturaya, Farid Nuzha, and Ashur Yousif.[8] The party initially began as an underground movement amongst Assyrian communities, but over time, activities and celebrations became much more public.[9] ADO utilized symbolism of the ancient Assyrians to stress continuity in Beth Nahrain, and aims to see an Assyrian homeland in the Middle East; the party's founding in Syria meant that greater room was given to promote Assyrian nationalism than under the Turkish government in Mardin and Tur Abdin.[10]\n\nThe party's activities would eventually cause strain in politics and the Assyrian diaspora, which lead into a split between the names Assyrier and Syrianer in Sweden. In 1978, the party split into the Assyrian Democratic Party, led by Adam Homeh and stressed sectarianism through the belief of superiority of Eastern Assyrians over Western, who lead much of the ADO.[11] The Aramean movement can be partially considered a reaction to ADO's secular ideology by the Syriac Orthodox Church, who stressed ties to religion as part of Syriac identity.[7] Although the name debate began in 1975, the conflict was amplified by the 1980's with the death of Aslan Noyan; Noyan had allegedly planned to leak negative information on ADO to Swedish authorities, and many held the party accountable for his death.[9] Eventually, the Swedish government would declare ADO a terrorist organization, and the party's leadership faced challenges with the ADP's pro-Ba'ath stance and candidates.\n\nIn 1998, ADO met with Vartan Oskanian, former Foreign Minister of Armenia, and the two parties met to discuss Armenian-Assyrian relations across history and the awareness of ADO among officials in the Armenian government.[12] In the same month, the party condemned the French government and prime minister Lionel Jospin for avoiding the use of the word genocide in context of the Armenian genocide.\n\nIn 2005, ADO opposed the creation of the Constitution of Iraq following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The opposition came as a result of the division of Assyrians into two distinct groups, namely \"Assyrians\" and \"Chaldeans\". In a statement released on August 31, ADO called for Assyrian organizations in the Assyrian homeland and diaspora to appeal to authorities in Iraq to undo the division and declare Assyrians as one sole ethnic group.[13]\n\nIn 2010, ADO was stopped by Syrian security and prevented from holding a ceremony commemorating its anniversary.[14]\n\nSyrian civil war and ISIS\n\nAfter the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, the ADO under the leadership of Gawrieh took a neutral stance on the conflict, calling for a peaceful resolution.[15] Gawrieh had previously been one of the leading secular figures of the Damascus Declaration, he however refused to join the leftist National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.[16] ADO's involvement in the Syrian Civil War mediation talks set it apart from other parties due to its position as a minority political party, and its representation of Christian Assyrians in the Syrian landscape. However, in its course, the ADO began to take a stand against the Syrian regime and a routine of neighborhood watches, arming young Assyrians with weapons for protection. In The National News, Akkad Abdul Ahad, who ran the party's newsletter, stated \"We are against the regime, but many Christians are afraid of change, of what comes after the regime, of who will rule Syria.\"[5] ADO joined the Syrian National Council upon its founding in October 2011, being part of other opposition groups based in Istanbul.[17][18]\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Organization has been in opposition to the Sutoro police force during the fight against ISIS, as it is affiliated with the Asayish and the Syriac Union Party.[1] The party was also subject to arbitrary arrest and detention by Syrian forces on more than one occasion; on May 20, 2011, the party's headquarters in Qamishly were raided, and 13 members were arrested after participating in a peaceful demonstration the previous day. A similar raid occurred two years later in 2013 by several militias aligned with the Syrian government.[19]\n\nOn December 19, 2013, Gawrieh was arrested by Syrian authorities in Qamishli. His arrest was condemned by Assyrian organizations, human rights organizations, as well as other countries such as the United States.[20][21] Hadi al-Bahra, then president of the coalition, condemned his arrest, stating that it would prevent any long-lasting political solutions to the Syrian Civil War.[22] He was eventually released three years later, in June 2016.\n\nIn March 2017, two ADO offices in Qamishli and al-Malikiyah were shut down by Rojavan authorities due to a lack of a permit. On 12 April, an official in the governing Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) met with Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh, head of the ADO, and discussed the incident and the \"need to respect the laws of the administration\". It was the first time TEV-DEM officials met with the ADO.[23][24] Basheer al Saady, a member of the party, had previously discussed how continuous persecution had pressured Assyrians to leave Syria, stating how they had lost hope for a brighter future, especially after ISIS.[25]\n\nModern activity\n\nIn July 2020, the ADO joined an alliance of political parties called the Syrian Front for Peace and Freedom, which also included the Kurdish National Council, Syria's Tomorrow Movement, and the Arab Council in al-Jazeera and the Euphrates.[26][27] In December of that year, ADO condemned a speech made by Bashar al-Assad at Al-Othman Mosque that espoused Arab nationalist sentiments. The ADO accused Assad of aiming to cause discord amongst Syria's ethnic and religious components, and put Assyrians at risk of further violence.[4][28]\n\nIn 2021, Gawrieh, than the leader of ADO, was prevented from entering Iraqi Kurdistan by the AANES. Gawrieh had previously been banned from entering the region in July of that year, and he was scheduled to meet with the German consulate in Erbil. Despite the AANES aiming to push blame on the Kurdish Regional Government, the ADO condemned AANES for the dispute and called on authorities to reverse the ban and uphold the ideals of the administration.[29]\n\nIn 2022, on the eve of Akitu, the ADO and the Syriac Union Party signed a Document of Political Understanding, which aimed to bolster mutual cooperation through recognizing the situation of Assyrians in Syria and the various names in use (Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac). The agreement followed discussions between the two parties under US mediation, and was hailed as significant for preserving Assyrian communities in Syria despite threats of Kurdish reproachment.[30][31] Gawrieh stated that the Document was a message to the Assyrian homeland and diaspora, and was commended by himself as well as Bashir Isshaq Sa'di and Sara Barsom of the Assyrian Women's Office.[32][33]\n\nIn 2024, ADO participated in a webinar hosted by the Syrians for Truth and Justice Organization (STJ), in which Gawrieh condemned Turkish airstrikes on AANES and discussed the state of Assyrians in Syria due to the airstrikes, and how it impacted their presence in the country.[34] Gawrieh had previously indicated fears that Turkish airstrikes could permanently alter demographics in the northeastern part of the country, and could create greater issues regarding property rights post-conflict.[35]\n\nIn regards to the 2024 Syrian Parliamentary elections, the Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO) have strongly rejected the elections given tensions surrounding President Bashar al-Assad. Gawrieh issued a statement arguing that \"the holding of the general elections is not only against the constitution issued by the Syrian regime in 2011, but also to send a message to the international community and spread its legitimacy among the Syrian people. The demonstrations in Sweden and other areas are real proof of their rejection of the current regime in Damascus.\"[36]\n\nPost-Ba'athist rule\n\nFollowing the Fall of the Assad regime in 2024, ADO made public postings on their social media accounts to mark the occasion. A video posted to their accounts showed Assyrians waving the Assyrian flag and the flag of the Syrian opposition, and emphasized their hope for a better future for Assyrians and all people in Syria. Gawrieh voiced confidence in what he saw as a turning point for the Syrian people and country.[37]\n\nEarly into 2025, ADO issued a joint statement alongside the Syriac Union Party outlining their shared vision for the future of Syria, calling for a peaceful transition with a non-sectarian government as well as constitutional recognition of the Assyrian community, cultural and linguistic rights, and proper representation and restoration of Assyrian villages.[38] However, on the occasion of Kha b'Nissan celebrations in Qamishli, the ADO lamented that results have so far been disappointing across the transitional period.[39]\n\nOn 1 July 2026, Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh was appointed as a member of the People's Assembly by Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa.[40]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Rojava - a \"protection zone\" for religious and ethnic minorities in Syria?\" (PDF). Society for Threatened Peoples. June 2016.\n\n^ About ADO Archived 2011-07-24 at the Wayback Machine, ADO world\n\n^ The Assyrian Democratic Organization Rejects Iraq's Constitution\n\n^ a b \"Assyrian Democratic Organization: al-Assad's speech puts the Syriac-Assyrian component in danger\". syriacpress.com. Syriac Press. 14 December 2020.\n\n^ a b Szlanko, Balint (20 February 2014). \"Instead of fleeing, some of Syria's Christians will stand their ground\". The National. Retrieved 2015-02-16. Other Christian groups, such as the Assyrian Democratic Organisation (ADO), oppose the government, too, and have joined the Syrian National Coalition, the opposition umbrella group.\n\n^ Manhal Barash (21 June 2024). Politics in Syria: Mapping Active Political Parties and Movements (PDF) (Report). Impact Research. pp. 18-19. Retrieved 29 September 2024.\n\n^ a b Woźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2020). Modern Assyrian/Syriac Diaspora in Sweden. Łódź, Poland: Department of Middle East and North Africa, University of Lodz. p. 115. ISBN 978-83-8142-360-1.\n\n^ BarAbrahem, Abdulmesih (15 July 1997). \"A National School\". Augsburg, Germany: Mtakasto. Retrieved 29 September 2024.\n\n^ a b Mack, Jennifer (11 October 2017). The Construction of Equality: Syriac Immigration and the Swedish City. University of Minnesota. p. 49. ISBN 9781452958774.\n\n^ Deniz, Fuat (1999). En minoritets odyssé. Sweden: Örebro University. p. 188.\n\n^ Mardean Isaac. \"The Assyrians of Syria: History and Prospects\". Syria Comment. Archived from the original on 24 December 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2024.\n\n^ \"First Official Talks between ADO and Armenian Government Officials\". Augsburg, Germany: Mtakasto. 5 May 1998. Retrieved 29 September 2024.\n\n^ \"The Assyrian Democratic Organization Rejects Iraq's Constitution\". Assyrian International News Agency. 4 September 2005. Retrieved 29 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrian security forces stopped the celebrations of the Assyrian Democratic Organization on the occasion of its anniversary\". english.ankawa.com. Ankawa.com. 16 July 2010.\n\n^ \"عنكاوا كوم\" تحاور كبرئيل موشي كورية مسؤول المكتب السياسي للمنظمة الآثورية الديمقراطية وعضو الأمانة العامة لإعلان دمشق\" (in Arabic). ADO. Archived from the original on 10 March 2014. Retrieved 10 March 2014.\n\n^ \"Who's who: Gabriel Moshe Kourieh\". Syrian Observer. 29 Jan 2014. Archived from the original on 22 March 2014. Retrieved 21 March 2014.\n\n^ \"Syrian National Council Information\". Syrian National Council. Retrieved 12 November 2024.\n\n^ Syria’s Political Opposition (PDF) (Report). Institute for the Study of War. April 2012. p. 10. Retrieved 12 November 2024.\n\n^ Assyrians for existence and freedom (PDF) (Report). Assyrian Human Rights Network. 2014. pp. 1-2. Retrieved 30 September 2024.\n\n^ Psaki, Jen (3 March 2014). \"Christians Under Threat in Syria\". US Department of State. Retrieved 10 March 2014.\n\n^ \"السلطات السورية تحتجز السيد كبرئيل موشي كورية مسؤول المكتب السياسي للمنظمة الآثورية الديمقراطية\" (in Arabic). Committee for the Defence of Democracy Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria. 19 December 2013. Retrieved 10 March 2014.\n\n^ \"Bahra: Assad's Arrest of Koriya Thwarts any Political Solutions\". National Coalition of Syria. 21 December 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2024.\n\n^ Wladimir van Wilgenburg (13 April 2017). \"Assyrian faction linked to Syrian opposition meets with Kurdish TEV-DEM after office closure\". ARA News. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 13 April 2017.\n\n^ Kinan Sultan (17 March 2017). \"\"PYD\" Closes Headquarters Of Anti-Assad Assyrian Party\". Baladi News.\n\n^ \"AN EXODUS OF SYRIAN CHRISTIANS\". SBS Assyrian (Podcast). SBS. 17 January 2017. Retrieved 30 September 2024.\n\n^ Louay Rhebani (1 October 2020). \"Will al-Jarba's visit to Moscow achieve any geopolitical gains?\". english.enabbaladi.com. Enab Baladi.\n\n^ \"ASIA/SYRIA - Christian groups join the \"Front for peace and freedom\" in north-east Syria\". fides.org. Agenzia Fides. 31 July 2020.\n\n^ \"ADO Press release regarding Assad's recent statements: \"Incitement and stirring up conflict between the original people of Syria.\"\". ado-world.com. Mtakasto. 13 December 2020.\n\n^ \"Gabriel Moshe Banned from Traveling to Kurdistan Region of Iraq KRI\". en.yekiti-media.org. Yekiti Media. 31 August 2021.\n\n^ Ma'o, Khalaf (26 May 2021). \"Two Syriac/Assyrian parties in Qamishli are discuss political agreement under US auspices\". npasyria.com. Qamishli: North Press Agency.\n\n^ Garcia, Alison (1 May 2021). \"Assyrian Christians Seek Unity in Syria\". persecution.org. al-Hasakah: International Christian Concern.\n\n^ \"Syriac Union Party and Assyrian Democratic Organization sign political understanding document in North and East Syria\". syriacpress.com. Syriac Press. 1 April 2022.\n\n^ \"BETH ZALIN: Assyrian Democratic Organization officials commend the signing of Document of Political Understanding with the Syriac Union Party in Syria\". syriacpress.com. Syriac Press. 3 April 2022.\n\n^ \"Northeastern Syria: The Deliberate Targeting of Infrastructure Exacerbates the Risk of Forced Displacement\". hevdesti.org/. Synergy Hevdesti. 20 February 2024.\n\n^ Mauvais, Lyse; Muhammed Amin, Solin (21 March 2023). \"'Strangers in our own homes': A waning Assyrian community holds on in northeastern Syria\". syriadirect.org. Syria Direct. Some, like Gabriel Moushe, the head of the Assyrian Democratic Organization Party, expressed \"serious fears that this situation will lead to permanent demographic change.\"\n\n^ \"Syrian Parliamentary Elections: A Stalemate for Change\". kurdistan24.net. Kurdistan24. 14 July 2024.\n\n^ Burger, John (17 December 2024). \"Christian Syrian opposition leader voices confidence\". Aleteia - Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture. Retrieved 2025-04-05.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Democratic Organization and Syriac Union Party outline vision for inclusive post-Assad Syria\". Syriac Press. 2025-01-08. Retrieved 2025-04-05.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Democratic Organization: Marginalizing Political Forces and Ethnic Components Yields No Results\". welattv.com. Retrieved 2025-04-05.\n\n^ \"لجنة الانتخابات تعلن أسماء أعضاء مجلس الشعب\" (in Arabic). 2026-07-01. Retrieved 2026-07-02.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-democratic-organization"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2621}, {"slug": "reference-amedi", "title": "Amedi", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Amedi or Amadiye (Kurdish: ئامێدی, romanized: Amêdî;[1][2] Arabic: العمادية; Lishanid Noshan: עמידיא, romanized: ʿAmədya[3]) is a town in the Duhok Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq.[4] It is built on a mesa in the broader Great Zab river valley.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Amedi\n ئامێدیAmêdî\n\nTown\n\nBird's eye view of Amêdî\n\nAmediLocation within IraqShow map of IraqAmediLocation within Iraqi KurdistanShow map of Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nCoordinates: 37°05′33″N 43°29′14″E / 37.09250°N 43.48722°E / 37.09250; 43.48722\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nFederal region Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nGovernorateDuhok\n\nDistrictAmedi\n\nFoundedBefore 3000 B.C.\n\nGovernment\n\n • TypeMayor\n\nElevation3,900 ft (1,200 m)\n\nPopulation\n\n • Total11,000\n\nTime zoneGMT +3\n\nPostcode42008\n\nAmedi or Amadiye (Kurdish: ئامێدی, romanized: Amêdî;[1][2] Arabic: العمادية; Lishanid Noshan: עמידיא, romanized: ʿAmədya[3]) is a town in the Duhok Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq.[4] It is built on a mesa in the broader Great Zab river valley.\n\nEtymology\n\nAccording to ibn al-Athir, the Arabic name \"ʿAmadiyya\" is eponymous to Imad al-Din Zengi, who built a Citadel in 1142 on the site of an earlier fortification called āšib.[5] Another theory is that the name derives from Imad al-Dawla, but this theory is less likely.[4]\n\nAccording to Professor Jeffrey Szuchman, Amedi is of Hurrian or Urartian origin.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nFrom the Early Bronze Age until it came under the control of the Mitanni in the 16th century BC, Amedi region was part of Kurda and it was entirely inhabited by Subartu, which did not speak a Semitic language.[7][8] During the rule of the Mittani, the inhabitants of this region were known as Zubarians.[9][10][11][12]\n\nAfter the fall of the Mittani, Amedi was conquered by Ashurnasirpal I of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 11th century BC after he fought a vicious campaign against the Mittani Empire.[13]\n\nAfter the fall of the Assyrian Empire, the Amedi region came under the rule of the Medes. When Xenophon passed through the region in the 4th century BC, he referred to its inhabitants as the Medes and identified the sparsely inhabited area as “ruined Median cities“.[14] Later Amedi area was incorporated into the Achaemenid Empire under the name of Media Magna. Under the rule of the Parthian Empire Amedi region was part of the Barchan (Barzan) district.[15] Eventually it became an integral part of the Sasanian Empire in the district of Adiabene until it was conquered by the Muslims in 640s, after they defeated the Kurds in Tikrit, Mosul and Saharzor.[16]\n\nThen, for several centuries, after the Abbasid Revolution in the seventh century, it was ruled by an amir from the royal Abbasid dynasty, reputed to be one of the richest families in the region.[17]\n\nAmedi was the birthplace of the messiah claimant David Alroy (fl. 1160). In 1163, according to Joseph ha-Kohen's Emeq ha-Baka, the Jewish population numbered about a thousand families and traded in gall-nuts. Alroy led a revolt against the city but was defeated and killed in the process.[18] The Spanish Jewish historian Solomon ibn Verga (1450-1525) portrayed the Jewish community of Amedi at the time of Alroy as wealthy and contented.[19]\n\nAmedi was the seat of the semi-autonomous Bahdinan, which lasted from 1376 to 1843. There are ruins of the Qubahan School in Amedi which was founded during the region of Sultan Hussein Wali of Bahdinan (1534-1576) AD for the study of Islamic Sciences.[20][21] There are also ruins of a synagogue and a tomb attributed to Ezekiel a church in the small town. One of the icons of the city is the Great Mosque of Amedi, which dates back to the 12th century and the oldest and largest in the region.[22]\n\nIn 1760, the Dominican Leopoldo Soldini founded a mission for Kurdistan in Amedi, with his colleague Maurizio Garzoni.[23] Garzoni lived there for fourteen years and composed a 4,600 word Italian-Kurdish dictionary and grammar. The dictionary is a key work because it represents the first study of the Kurdish grammar and language; for this reason, Garzoni is often called the “father of Kurdology”.[23][24][25] In 1907, the population numbered 6,000, of whom 2,500 were Kurds, 1,900 Jews and 1,600 Chaldean Catholic Assyrians.[26]\n\nGeography\n\nClimate\n\nAmedi has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa) with hot summers and cool, wet winters. Being the most northerly city in Iraq, it is the mildest major city in the country. Snow falls occasionally in the winter.\n\nClimate data for Amadiya\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\n7.8\n(46.0)\n\n12.1\n(53.8)\n\n17.8\n(64.0)\n\n25.1\n(77.2)\n\n31.9\n(89.4)\n\n36.3\n(97.3)\n\n36.2\n(97.2)\n\n32.2\n(90.0)\n\n24.4\n(75.9)\n\n15.4\n(59.7)\n\n8.4\n(47.1)\n\n21.2\n(70.2)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n1.9\n(35.4)\n\n3.2\n(37.8)\n\n7.2\n(45.0)\n\n12.5\n(54.5)\n\n18.8\n(65.8)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n28.8\n(83.8)\n\n28.5\n(83.3)\n\n24.5\n(76.1)\n\n17.6\n(63.7)\n\n10.2\n(50.4)\n\n4.2\n(39.6)\n\n15.2\n(59.4)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-2.4\n(27.7)\n\n-1.3\n(29.7)\n\n2.4\n(36.3)\n\n7.2\n(45.0)\n\n12.5\n(54.5)\n\n17.4\n(63.3)\n\n21.4\n(70.5)\n\n20.9\n(69.6)\n\n16.8\n(62.2)\n\n10.9\n(51.6)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n0.0\n(32.0)\n\n9.2\n(48.6)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n126\n(5.0)\n\n176\n(6.9)\n\n156\n(6.1)\n\n128\n(5.0)\n\n56\n(2.2)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n1\n(0.0)\n\n32\n(1.3)\n\n96\n(3.8)\n\n126\n(5.0)\n\n897\n(35.3)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n7\n\n6\n\n10\n\n8\n\n4\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n1\n\n7\n\n7\n\n10\n\n60\n\nSource 1: World Weather Online (precipitation days)[27]\n\nSource 2: Climate-Data (temperatures and rainfall amount)[28]\n\nGallery\n\n Citadel of Amedi\n\n The Badinan Gate, and the entrance to the Citadel\n\n Great Mosque of Amedi\n\n Amedi Gate (1994)\n\n View of Amedi City, Duhok\n\n Panoramic view from the Badinan Gate\n\nNotable people\n\nDavid Alroy (12th century), Jewish messiah claimant\n\nSayf ad-Din Mashtub (1130-1192) Kurdish Emir and military commandeur of the Ayyubid Sultanate\n\nAli Kurdi Maqtul (died 1519) sufi shaykh and alim\n\nIsmat T. Kittani (1929-2001), politician\n\nTahsin Taha (1941-1995), singer\n\nAli Tatar (born 1968), politician\n\nNizar Amidi (born 1968), politician and President of Iraq\n\nSee also\n\nSiege of Amadiya\n\nBahdinan\n\nKurds in Iraq\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Li sînorê Gare 12 gund ji ber bombebaranên Tirkiyê hatine valakirin\". Rûdaw (in Kurdish). Retrieved 18 December 2019.\n\n^ \"ئامێدی | كوردستانی سەرسوڕهێنەر- وێبسایتی فەرمی دەستەی گشتی گەشت و گوزار\". bot.gov.krd. Retrieved 18 December 2019.\n\n^ Greenblatt, Jared (2010). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Amədya. BRILL. p. 56. ISBN 978-90-04-19230-0.\n\n^ a b Streck, M. (1965). \"ʿAmādiya\". Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. Second Edition. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_0575.\n\n^ Brown, Michael G. (2018-01-01). \"Two Parthian Rock-Reliefs from Amādiya in Iraqi-Kurdistan\". Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie.\n\n^ Szuchman, Jeffrey (2009-11-01). \"Bit Zamani and Assyria\". Syria. Archéologie, art et histoire (86): 55-65. doi:10.4000/syria.511. ISSN 0039-7946.\n\n^ Mieroop, Marc Van De (2008). King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography. John Wiley & Sons. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-470-69534-0. King of Elam to King of Kurda in 1770s BCE: Keep Subartu under your control and don't give troops to the prince of Babylon. Send a message to Zimri-Lim of Mari that also he should give none to the prince of Babylon.\n\n^ Michael C. Astour. (1987). History of Ebla, in \"Eblaitica\". Eisenbrauns. p. 98. ISBN 9781575060606. According to the renowned Assyriologists Charpin & Durand: for the Old Babylonian kings, Subartu is neither Assur nor Ekallatum but the agglomeration of the little city-kingdoms.\n\n^ Samuel Alfred Browne Mercer & Frank Hudson Hallock. The Tell El-Amarna Tablets. (AMS Press, 1983), V.1. p. 341.\n\n^ Gadd, C. J. (1940). \"Tablets from Chagar Bazar and Tall Brak, 1937-38\". Iraq. 7: 22-66. doi:10.2307/4241663. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4241663. S2CID 162237376.\n\n^ Mallowan, M. E. L. (1937). \"The Excavations at Tall Chagar Bazar and an Archaeological Survey of the Habur Region. Second Campaign, 1936\". Iraq. 4 (2): 91-177. doi:10.2307/4241610. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4241610. S2CID 130109390.\n\n^ Kazanjian, Garabet, \"The Hurrians in the Ancient Near East\", Dept. of History and Archaeology, A.U.B, 1969. Zubari undoubtedly means Mitanni, Subartu, or Hurri\n\n^ Luckenbill, Daniel David (1989). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, Volume I: Historical Records Of Assyria From The Earliest Times To Sargon. Histories & Mysteries of Man. pp. 140, 141, 184. against the Nairi lands I marched. The city of Barzani their property, their goods, their oxen, their sheep (to tells and) ruins I turned. The head(s) of their fighters (I smashed), of the Nairi lands; horses, donkeys.. Barzani I burned with fire, I devastated, I destroyed, to mounds and ruins [I turned it]... From the pass of the mountain of Amadani I went forth unto the city of Barzanishtun. Unto the city of Damdammusa, the stronghold of Hani of Zamani, I drew nigh. I stormed the city; my warriors flew like birds against them. 600 of their fighting men I struck down with the sword, I cut off their heads. 400 men I took alive, 3,000 prisoners I brought out. That city I took for my own possession. The living men and the heads I carried to Amedi, his royal city, I made a pillar of heads in front of his city gate, the living men I impaled on stakes round about his city. I fought a battle within his city gate, I cut down his orchards. From the city of Amedi I departed. I entered the pass of the mountain of Kashiari (and) of the city of Ahabr &, wherein none among the kings, my fathers, had set foot, or had made an expedition thereto.\n\n^ Joseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. BRILL. p. 8. ISBN 978-90-04-11641-2.\n\n^ Mclachlan, Keith (2016-11-10). The Boundaries of Modern Iran. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-39936-2.\n\n^ Houtsma, M. Th (1993). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. BRILL. p. 1136. ISBN 978-90-04-09790-2.\n\n^ Wright, George Newenham (1834). A New and Comprehensive gazetteer, Volume 1. T. Kelly. Retrieved 2009-09-12.\n\n^ \"Jewish Encyclopedia\". 1906. Retrieved 2009-09-12.\n\n^ Lenowitz, Harris (1906). The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights. ISBN 9780195348941. Retrieved 2009-09-12. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ \"the Ancient Qobahan School | General Directorate of Tourism / Duhok\". duhoktourism.org. Retrieved 2021-02-06.\n\n^ Alnumman, Raeed. (2017). \"ROOTING OF QUBAHAN SCHOOL AN ANALYTICAL STUDY TO ARCHITECTURAL ITEMS (SPATIAL CONFIGURATION AND FORMALITY ELEMENT OF INTERIOR FACADES OF QUBAHAN SCHOOL)\". The Journal of the University of Duhok. 20. 26-41. 10.26682/Sjuod.2017.20.1.4.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ “ذو الكفل” يجمع المسلمين والمسيحيين واليهود في العمادية العراقية Archived 2021-03-08 at the Wayback Machine. Kitabat. Retrieved January 11, 2018.\n\n^ a b Filoni, Fernando (2017). The Church in Iraq. CUA Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-8132-2965-2.\n\n^ Borbone, Pier Giorgio; Mengozzi, Alessandro; Tosco, Mauro (2006). Linguistic and oriental studies in honour of Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 293. ISBN 978-3-447-05484-3.\n\n^ Bois, Thomas (1966). The Kurds. Khayats. p. 79.\n\n^ \"Catholic Encyclopaedia\". Appleton. 1907. Retrieved 2009-09-12.\n\n^ \"Weather averages for Amadiya\". World Weather Online. Retrieved September 6, 2014.\n\n^ \"Weather averages for Amadiya\". Climate-Data. Retrieved 21 January 2017.\n\nExternal links\n\n Amedi travel guide from Wikivoyage"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-amedi"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1875}, {"slug": "reference-dionysius-bar-salibi", "title": "Dionysius bar Salibi", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Dionysius bar Salibi (died 1171) was a Syriac Orthodox writer and bishop, who served as metropolitan of Amid, in Upper Mesopotamia, from 1166 to 1171.[1] He was one of the most prominent and prolific writers within the Syriac Orthodox Church during the twelfth century.[2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dionysius bar Salibi (died 1171) was a Syriac Orthodox writer and bishop, who served as metropolitan of Amid, in Upper Mesopotamia, from 1166 to 1171.[1] He was one of the most prominent and prolific writers within the Syriac Orthodox Church during the twelfth century.[2]\n\nHe was a native of Melitene, on the upper Euphrates. His baptismal name was Jacob. He assumed name 'Dionysius' upon consecration to the episcopate. In 1154, he was ordained bishop of Marash by the patriarch Athanasius VII bar Qatra;[3] a year later the diocese of Mabbug was added to his charge.[4] In 1166, new patriarch Michael the Great, the successor of Athanasius, transferred him to the metropolitan see of Amid in Mesopotamia, and there he remained until his death in 1171.[1][5]\n\nOf his writings probably the most important are his exhaustive commentaries on the text of the Old and New Testaments, in which he skillfully interwove and summarized the interpretations of previous writers such as Ephrem the Syrian, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Moses Bar-Kepha and John of Dara, whom he mentions together in the preface to his commentary on St Matthew. Among his other main works are a treatise against heretics, containing inter alia a polemic against the Jews and the Muslims; liturgical treatises, epistles and homilies.[1]\n\nHis polemical works also include treatises on Melkites,[6] and Armenians.[7]\n\nTranslations\n\nDionysius Bar Ṣalībī: A Response to the Arabs, translated by Joseph P. Amar (CSCO, Vol. 615; Louvain: Peeters, 2005). ISBN 978-90-429-1568-8.\n\nThe Work of Dionysius Bar Salībi Against the Armenians, edited and translated by Alphonse Mingana (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2009).\n\nThe Commentary of Dionysius Bar Salibi on the Eucharist, translated and annotated by Baby Varghese (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2011). ISBN 978-1-61719-404-7.\n\nDionysius Bar Salibi: Commentary on Myron and Baptism, translated with introduction by Baby Varghese (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2012).\n\nDionysius Bar Ṣalībī’s Treatise Against the Jews: Edited and Translated with Notes and Commentary, edited by Rifaat Ebied, Malki Malki, and Lionel R. Wickham (Leiden: Brill, 2020). ISBN 978-90-04-39147-5.\n\nSee also\n\nAlogi\n\nSyriac literature\n\nDioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c McLean 1911.\n\n^ Bundy 1993, p. 244-252.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 232-233.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 229-230.\n\n^ Fiey 1993, p. 162-163.\n\n^ Mingana & Harris 1927, p. 110-117.\n\n^ Mingana 1931, p. 489-558.\n\nSources\n\nMcLean, Norman (1911). \"Bar-Ṣalībī, Jacob\" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 446. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBundy, David (1993). \"The Genesis Commentary of Dionysius Bar Salibi\". Studia Patristica. 25: 244-252. ISBN 978-90-6831-519-6.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nEbied, Rifaat Y.; Malki, Malatius M.; Wickham, Lionel R., eds. (2020). Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī's Treatise Against the Jews: Edited and Translated with Notes and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-39147-5.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 978-3-515-05718-9.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1987). \"Dionysius bar Salibi on the Muslims\". IV Symposium Syriacum 1984. Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium. pp. 353-365.\n\nMingana, Alphonse; Harris, James Rendel (1927). \"Woodbrooke Studies: Editions and Translations of Christian Documents in Syriac and Garshūni\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 11 (1): 110-231. doi:10.7227/BJRL.11.1.8.\n\nMingana, Alphonse (1931). \"Woodbrooke Studies: Christian Documents in Syriac, Arabic, and Garshūni, Edited and Translated with a Critical Apparatus\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 15 (2): 489-600. doi:10.7227/BJRL.15.2.9.\n\nRabo, Gabriel (2015). \"Dionysius Jacob Bar Ṣalibi's Confession of the Syrian Orthodox Faith\" (PDF). Hekamtho: Syrian Orthodox Theological Journal. 1 (1): 20-39.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2009). \"Reflections on Identity: The Suryoye of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Bar Salibi, Bar Shakko, and Barhebraeus\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 179-189. doi:10.1163/187124109X407899.\n\nExternal links\n\nDionysius bar Salibi, In Apocalypsim, Actus et Epistulas Catholicas, trans. I. Sedlacek, Romae : Karolus de Luigi (1909).\n\nDionysius bar Salibi: Commentary on the Apocalypse\n\nDionysius Syrus (=Dionysius Bar Salibi): Commentary on Revelation (extracts). Hermathena, vol. 6 (1888) pp. 397-418, vol. 7 (1890) pp. 137-150; The Expositor 7th series, vol. 1 (1906), pp. 481-495."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dionysius-bar-salibi"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 707}, {"slug": "reference-theodore-bar-konai", "title": "Theodore bar Konai", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Theodore Bar Konai (Syriac: ܬܐܕܘܪܘܣ ܒܪ ܟܘܢܝ) was a distinguished Syriac exegete and apologist of the Church of the East who seems to have flourished at the end of the eighth century. His most famous work was a book of scholia on the Old and New Testaments.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Theodore Bar Konai (Syriac: ܬܐܕܘܪܘܣ ܒܪ ܟܘܢܝ) was a distinguished Syriac exegete and apologist of the Church of the East who seems to have flourished at the end of the eighth century. His most famous work was a book of scholia on the Old and New Testaments.\n\nLife and works\n\nBar Konai appears to have lived during the reign of Timothy I (780-823), Patriarch of the Church of the East, though some scholars have placed him a century later. Assemani identified him with a bishop named Theodore, the nephew of the patriarch Yohannan IV (900-5), who was appointed to the diocese of Lashom in Beth Garmaï in 893, and his dating was followed by Wright.[1] Chabot and Baum and Winkler, however, both place him at the end of the eighth century.[2]\n\nBook of the Scholion\n\nTheodore was the author of the Scholion (Kṯāḇā d-ʾeskoliyon), a set of scholia on both the Old and New Testaments (edited between 1908 and 1912 by the celebrated scholar Addai Scher), believed to have been written circa 792. The Scholia offer an apologetic presentation in nine chapters, similar to a catechism, of East Syrian Christianity, and contain a valuable overview, in a tenth and eleventh chapter, of heretical doctrines and non-Christian religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Mandaeism, and Islam, with which Theodore sharply disagreed.[3]\n\nTheodore, c. 792 in the Book of the Scholion, mentions the Mandaean uthras Abatur (Abitur) and Ptahil (Ptaḥil) (cf. Right Ginza 15.13; 18), Hamgai and Hamgagai (cf. Right Ginza 15.5), as well as Dinanukht (\"Dinanus\" or Dynnws) and Diṣā (cf. Right Ginza 6). He considers the founder of Mandaeism to be a man called Ado from Adiabene. Ado's brothers are named as Šilmai, Nidbai, Bar-Ḥayye, Abi-zkā, Kušṭai, and Sethel (Štʾyl).[4]: 125  Theodore writes that the followers of Ado's religion are known as Mandaeans or Mašknaeans in Meshan (around present-day Basra), and as Nāṣrāye, Adonaeans (or Adoites), and Dostaeans in Bet Arāmāye (i.e., Asoristan, around Ctesiphon in central Mesopotamia).[4]: 22 \n\nOther works\n\nTheodore was also the author of an ecclesiastical history, a treatise against Monophysitism, a treatise against the Arianism, a colloquy between a pagan and a Christian, and a treatise on heresies.[5] His Church History contains some interesting details of the lives of the Patriarchs of the Church of the East.[3] He is the latest author to mention Gilgamesh before his rediscovery in the 19th century.[6] He lists him twice in somewhat garbled forms, as tenth and twelfth in a list of twelve kings who reigned between Peleg and Abraham.[7]\n\nNotes\n\n^ Assemani, BO, ii. 440 and iii. 1, 198, Wright, Syriac Literature, 222\n\n^ Chabot, Syriac Language and Literature; Baum and Winkler, Church of the East, 63\n\n^ a b Baum and Winkler, Church of the East, 63\n\n^ a b van Bladel, Kevin (2017). From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004339460. ISBN 978-90-04-33943-9.\n\n^ Chabot, Syriac Language and Literature\n\n^ Jean Bottéro, L'Epopée de Gilgamesh, Le grand homme qui ne voulait pas mourir (L'aube des Peuples, Gallimard, 1992).\n\n^ Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 61.\n\nReferences\n\nAssemani, J. S., Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana (4 vols, Rome, 1719-28)\n\nChabot, J. B., 'Syriac Language and Literature', Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1912)\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nWright, W., A Short History of Syriac Literature (London, 1894)\n\nExternal links\n\nLiber scholiorum/Ketba Deskolion, edited by Addai Scher, full text online\n\nTheodore bar Koni"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-theodore-bar-konai"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 601}, {"slug": "reference-saz", "title": "Saz", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Saz or SAZ may refer to: People Alberto del Saz Ismael Saz, Spanish historian Juan Alvarado y del Saz Leyla Saz (1850-1936), Turkish composer, poet and writer SAZ, or Sameh Zakout, Palestinian rap artist Places Saz, Iran, a village in Kermanshah Province, Iran Saz, Kaynaşlı Other Saz style,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saz or SAZ may refer to:\n\nPeople\n\nAlberto del Saz\n\nIsmael Saz, Spanish historian\n\nJuan Alvarado y del Saz\n\nLeyla Saz (1850-1936), Turkish composer, poet and writer\n\nSAZ, or Sameh Zakout, Palestinian rap artist\n\nPlaces\n\nSaz, Iran, a village in Kermanshah Province, Iran\n\nSaz, Kaynaşlı\n\nOther\n\nSaz style, a serrated leaf pattern used in Ottoman art and pottery\n\nSaurashtra language (ISO 639-3: saz)\n\nSozialistische Arbeiter-Zeitung (SAZ), newspaper published in Germany\n\nSaz or bağlama, family of musical instruments\n\nSee also\n\nAll pages with titles containing Saz\n\nSaaz (disambiguation)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-saz"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 87}, {"slug": "reference-batnaya", "title": "Batnaya", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Batnaya (Arabic: باطنايا, Syriac: ܒܛܢܝܐ)[1] is a village in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. It is located in the Tel Kaif District in the Nineveh Plains.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Batnaya\n\nVillage\n\nChristmas at Batnaya\n\nBatnayaLocation in Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°32′15″N 43°7′24″E / 36.53750°N 43.12333°E / 36.53750; 43.12333\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh Governorate\n\nDistrictTel Kaif District\n\nBatnaya (Arabic: باطنايا, Syriac: ܒܛܢܝܐ)[1] is a village in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. It is located in the Tel Kaif District in the Nineveh Plains.\n\nIn the village, there are Chaldean Catholic churches of Mar Quriaqos and Mart Maryam.[2] The Mar Oraha Monastery is also located near the village.\n\nEtymology\n\nSeveral theories have been put forward for the origin of the name of the village as local traditions suggest it may derive from \"beth\" (\"place\" in Syriac) and \"ṭeṭnāyé\" (\"clouded corneas\" in Syriac), thus translating to \"the place of those who have clouded corneas\", which is believed to allude to eye diseases caused by plaiting reeds, or could be a combination of \"beth\" and \"ṭnānā\" (\"zeal\" in Syriac) and translate to \"place of zeal\".[3] The village's original name, Beṯ Maḏāye, is argued by the French Syriacist Jean Maurice Fiey to derive from \"beth\" and \"Madaye\" (\"Medes\" in Syriac) and thus translates to \"place of the Medes\".[3]\n\nHistory\n\nBatnaya is first attested with the name Beṯ Maḏāye in the History of Beṯ Qōqā in the seventh century AD, at which time the village is believed to have been converted to Christianity by Mar Oraha (Saint Abraham the Mede).[2][4] Jean Maurice Fiey argues that the name Beṯ Maḏāye suggests that the village was inhabited by Yazidis prior to their conversion.[3] Batnaya is also identified as the Beṯ Maḏāye mentioned in a letter of Catholicos Ishoyahb II (r. 628-645).[3] The church of Mar Quriaqos, which is believed to have originally been a monastery,[2] is mentioned in 1474, in which year a manuscript was copied there by the priest Īshō, son of Isaac, of Hakkari.[5]\n\nThe village was populated by adherents of the Church of the East until a number of people adopted Chaldean Catholicism at some point in the early 18th century before 1729.[5] The village and its church was plundered by the forces of Shahanshah Nader Shah in 1743 amidst the Ottoman-Persian War of 1743-1746 and the church was restored in the following year.[2] By 1767, the village's entire population of 200 families had joined the Chaldean Catholic Church.[5] When visited by the English missionary George Percy Badger in 1852, 60 families resided at Batnaya and William Francis Ainsworth counted 50 houses in the village in 1857.[6] The church of Mart Maryam (Arabic: al-Tahira, \"all pure\") was constructed in 1866.[2][7] The population grew to 900 people by 1867 and then to 1000 people in 1891.[2]\nIn 1913, Batnaya was inhabited by 2,500 Chaldean Catholics with three priests.[8] The church of Mar Quriaqos was rebuilt in 1944.[6] \n\nBy 1961, the population of Batnaya had reached 3104 people.[9] Batnaya was abandoned on 6 August 2014 as its population fled the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) offensive in Northern Iraq,[2] prior to which the village was inhabited by around 5000 people.[10] The Peshmerga seized control of Batnaya from ISIL on 20 October 2016 after a battle against over 100 ISIL fighters amidst the battle of Mosul.[10] In the battle, the village was mostly destroyed and 60 ISIL fighters and 8 Peshmerga soldiers were killed.[10] ISIL fighters had inflicted significant damage to the village as the church of Mart Maryam, which had been used as a weapons dump,[10] was blown up whilst the church of Mar Quriaqos was ransacked,[2] and only 1% of the village's 997 houses was still intact.[11]\n\nIn cooperation with Canadian, French, and American teams, the Peshmerga subsequently set about clearing the village of mines and bombs planted by ISIL fighters.[10] Batnaya hence came under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government, which, however, is disputed by the Iraqi government.[11] In November 2018, half of the village's population still resided at a refugee camp at Tesqopa.[12] The village has since undergone reconstruction as the United Nations Development Programme restored 400 houses, and the first 10 families returned to Batnaya in May 2019.[13] Eventually, 300 people had returned by February 2020,[11] and the village's population grew to 720 people by the following year.[14]\n\nNotable people\n\nShlemon Warduni (b. 1943), Chaldean Catholic bishop\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"باطنايا\". Ishtar TV (in Arabic). Retrieved 11 August 2021.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h \"The Mar Qouryakos Church in Batnaya\". Mesopotamia Heritage. Retrieved 14 August 2021.\n\n^ a b c d Fiey (1975), p. 377.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), pp. 232-233.\n\n^ a b c Wilmshurst (2000), p. 232.\n\n^ a b Fiey (1975), p. 378.\n\n^ Fiey (1975), p. 379.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 199.\n\n^ Fiey (1975), p. 376.\n\n^ a b c d e Billy Briggs (13 April 2017). \"Iraq War: The destruction and liberation of Batnaya\". The Ferret. Retrieved 18 August 2021.\n\n^ a b c John Pontifex (25 February 2020). \"Iraq: ACN helps rebuild flattened Christian village\". Independent Catholic News. Retrieved 18 August 2021.\n\n^ \"80-year-old dreams of the day her village will recover from ISIS war\". Rudaw Media Network. 30 November 2018. Retrieved 18 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Restored houses bring families back home to Batnaya\". United Nations Development Programme. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 18 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Population Project\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 19 August 2021.\n\nBibliography\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1975). Assyrie Chrétienne (in French). Vol. 2. Imprimerie Catholique de Beyrouth. Retrieved 15 August 2021.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Peeters Publishers.\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-batnaya"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 944}, {"slug": "reference-davul", "title": "Davul", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The Tabl, tapan, atabal or davul is a large double-headed drum that is played with mallets. It has many names depending on the country and region. These drums are commonly used in the music of West Asia and the Balkans. These drums have both a deep bass sound...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tabl\n\nPercussion instrument\n\nOther namesTabl, tapan, davul\n\nClassification\nPercussion instrument (membranophone)\n\nPlaying range\n\nRope tensioned\n\nSound sample\n\nDavul drum\nfile\n\nhelp\n\nThe Tabl, tapan, atabal or davul is a large double-headed drum that is played with mallets. It has many names depending on the country and region. These drums are commonly used in the music of West Asia and the Balkans. These drums have both a deep bass sound and a thin treble sound due to their construction and playing style, where different heads and sticks are used to produce different sounds on the same drum.\n\nNames\n\nSome names of davuls include:\n\ndhol (Armenian: դհոլ)\n\ndawola/tabla (Syriac: ܛܲܒܼܠܵܐ)\n\ndohol (Persian: دهل dohol)\n\ndoli (Georgian: დოლი doli)\n\ndavul (Turkish: davul, lit. 'drum')\n\ndahol (Kurdish: dahol, Southern Kurdish: Dîweł)\n\ndavil (Tamil: davil)\n\ndavula (Sinhala: දවුල)\n\ntupan (Goranian: tupan)\n\ndaul, tǎpan, tupan (Bulgarian: тъпан, тупан)\n\ngoč, tapan, tupan (Serbian: гоч, тапан, тупан)\n\ntapan, tupan (Macedonian: тапан, тупан)\n\ntobă/dobă (Romanian: tobă)\n\ntabl (Arabic: tabl or tabl baladi)\n\ntof (Hebrew: tof תוף)\n\ntaoul(in) (Pontic: ταούλ(ιν), lit. 'drum')\n\nlodra, tupana, daulle, taborre (Albanian: lodra)\n\nmoldvai dob, tapan (Hungarian: moldvai dob, tapan)\n\nOther Greek names for this drum include Davouli, Argano, Toskani, Tsokani, Toubi, Toubaki, Kiossi, Tavouli, Pavouli, Toubano, and Toubaneli. Additionally, other names for the daouli, depending on the area, include toumpano, tymbano, or toumbi, which stem from the Ancient Greek: τύμπανον (týmpanon); this word exists in English in the word tympani for the drum section in the modern classical orchestra and the tympanic membrane for the eardrum.\n\nTraditional uses\n\nIn the southern Balkans, the rhythm of the tapan is complex and utilizes many accents in numerous traditional time signatures. In Macedonia, tapans are most often used to accompany other instruments such as the zurna and gaida, while in Bulgaria they usually accompany gaida and gadulka. They are also played solo in some Albanian, Bulgarian and Macedonian folk dances and songs. For centuries the tapan is irreplaceable at Bulgarian village festivities such as weddings and celebrations of patron saints of homes and villages. In Romania and Moldova the toba is sometimes used to accompany dances. Its use in Hungarian folk music is particularly popular among ethnic Hungarians in the historical region of Moldavia. In Moldavia, Maramures and Bihor there are also some varieties with a small cymbal mounted on top. They are generally struck with a wooden mallet on one skin and with a thinner stick on the rim or cymbal.\n\nIn Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan, the dhol/davul is most commonly played with the zurna, a wind instrument, although it can be played with other instruments and in ensembles as well. It has also traditionally been used for communication and for Turkish mehter, or janissary music. In The Levant, it is predominantly used for Dabke(traditional Levantine dance)accompanied by the Mijwiz, Minjayra(Lebanese and Syrian traditional flute known as Shubabeh in Palestine and Jordan)and for a Zaffe (Levantine celbratory wedding entrance) accompanied by the Mizmar, Minjayra or Mijwiz and for a Arada (Levantine celbratory entrance for the groom) accompanied by Mizmar, Derbake (Arab goblet drum) and other Levantine instruments. In Iraq it is used for Assyrian folk dance and Assyrian folk/pop music, among Assyrian people, which are mostly accompanied by a zurna. In Armenia, the dhol does not have as large of a circumference and is usually played with the hands, although a wooden, spoon-shaped drumstick is also used sometimes. It is frequently heard in Armenian folk music, usually along with other drums such as the dap, the dmblak, and native woodwinds such as the tsiranapogh, the sring, the shvi, the blul, the parkapzuk (Armenian bagpipe), and some stringed instruments like the tavigh, the pandir, the jnar and some of foreign origin, like the Iranian kamancha and the Arabic oud. Not only is it in folk music but also in modern music as well, even having solos in many prominent songs.[1]\n\nConstruction\n\nThe drum shell is made of hard wood, perhaps walnut or chestnut, though many woods may be in use depending on the region where the drum is made. To make the shell, the wood is boiled in water to make it bendable, and then it is bent into a cylindrical shape and fastened together. The heads are usually goat skin, and they are shaped into circles by wooden frames. However, one head may be goat skin to provide a higher tone, while the other head can be sheepskin, calfskin, or even donkey-skin to provide a lower tone. Some say that wolf skin and even dog skin are preferred.[2] Rope threaded back and forth across the shell of the drum, from head to head in a zigzag pattern, holds the heads on the drum and provides tension for tuning the drum. Sometimes metal rings or leather straps join neighboring strands of the rope in order to allow for further tuning. Two rings are sometimes attached to the main rope where a belt-like rope is threaded through to hold the drum.\n\nIn the former Yugoslavian republics and Bulgaria, the tapan is made in two dimensions, Bulgarian: golem, at about 50 - 55 cm diameter, and Bulgarian: mal or tapanche, at about 30 - 35 cm diameter.\n\nIn Turkey, davuls typically range in size from 60 cm to 90 cm in diameter. Cow hide is used for the bass pitch drum head side, while goat skin is used for the thin, high pitched side.\n\nIn Greece, daouli can be 12 to 14 inches for the toumbi up to 3 to 4 feet for daouli. Commonly the drum is about 20 to 30 inches.[2]\n\nPlaying style\n\nPlayers often use a rope hooked to the drum to hold the drum sideways, so that one head is accessible with the left hand and one with the right. Each hand is usually dedicated to playing one side of the drum exclusively, though this can vary by local style and tradition.\n\nDrummers of this drum typically uses two kinds of sticks. The drummer plays the accented beats with the dominant hand on the side of the drum with the thicker skin, using a special stick known as the Bulgarian: kukuda or ukanj, Turkish: tokmak, or Greek: daouloxylo (daouli stick).[2] This stick is a thick pipe-like stick about 440 mm long, which is often made with walnut. Its thick shape as well as the thickness of the head give the accented beats a low, full sound. Sometimes the drumhead played with the thick stick is also muted with a cloth to enhance the fundamental low note of the drum. Unaccented beats are played by the nondominant hand on the side of the drum having the thin skin, using a thin stick or switch called Bulgarian: pracka, Turkish: çubuk, or Greek: daouloverga (daouli switch).[2] This thin stick is often held cross-grip, and the drummer can quickly hit thin accent strokes by gently twisting the wrist. These thin sticks are often made from soft wood such as willow or cornel.\n\nThe Balkan school of tapan playing presumes the playing (not the accompaniment) of a melody, where the non-dominant hand is used to express all that the player wishes to say, while the dominant hand is only used to accentuate certain moments in the melody.\n\nSee also\n\nBendir\n\nDaf\n\nDhol\n\nMazhar\n\nNagara (drum)\n\nRiq\n\nTar (drum)\n\nTimpani\n\nReferences\n\n^ Dauli - Davul of Turkey. Archived 2014-09-30 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b c d \"Greek Musical Instruments\". John Pappas. Retrieved 2008-01-09.\n\nExternal links\n\nDiscover Turkey information page on davul with sound clips\n\nHistory of the Davul, from ancient times until the 18th century; in German: Janissary instruments and Europe\n\nGreek musical instruments\n\nSerbian musical instruments\n\nPontic Daouli"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-davul"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1285}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-studies", "title": "Syriac studies", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Syriac studies is the study of the Syriac language and Syriac Christianity.[1] A specialist in Syriac studies is known as a Syriacist. Specifically, British, French, and German scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries who were involved in the study of Syriac/Aramaic language and literature were commonly known...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac studies is the study of the Syriac language and Syriac Christianity.[1] A specialist in Syriac studies is known as a Syriacist. Specifically, British, French, and German scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries who were involved in the study of Syriac/Aramaic language and literature were commonly known by this designation, at a time when the Syriac language was little understood outside Assyrian and Maronite Christian communities, as well as larger communities adhering to Syriac Christianity. In Germany the field of study is distinguished between Aramaistik (Aramaic studies) and Neuaramaistik (Neo-Aramaic (Syriac) studies).\n\nAt universities, Syriac studies are mostly incorporated into a more 'general' field of studies, such as Eastern Christianity at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Aramaic studies at the University of Oxford and University of Leiden, Eastern Christianity at Duke University,[2] or Semitic studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Most students learn the Syriac language within a biblical studies program.[3] Conferences for Syriac studies include the Symposium Syriacum,[4] the Section \"Bible and Syriac Studies in Context\" at the International Meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature,[5] and the Section \"Syriac Literature and Interpretations of Sacred Texts\" at the Annual Meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature.[5]\n\nSyriac academic journals include the annual Oriens Christianus (Wiesbaden) and Syriac Studies Today.[6] Syriaca.org is a centralized academic portal for Syriac studies.[7]\n\nThe field of Syriac studies has been shaped by a series of fifteenth to nineteenth-century Orientalist biases that prioritized the purity of ancient origins over the complexity of later medieval authorship.[8] Early scholars, often operating within imperial or missionary frameworks, tended to view the Syriac tradition not as an autonomous intellectual force, but as a secondary bridge between the classical Greek past and the Islamic future.[9] This perspective reduced the millennia-long literary culture to a stagnant footnote, stripping Syriac authors of their agency and framing their most sophisticated works as mere acts of preservation rather than creative adaptation.[10]\n\nContemporary Syriacists and Orientalists\n\nThe history of the Syriac studies and the Syriac heritage has been documented and analyzed by a diverse range of historians across centuries. Their work have provided invaluable insights into their language, heritage, religion, and interactions with dominant empires and surrounding cultures. Below is a list of a few of them \n\n15th to 18th Centuries\n\nTeseo Ambrogio degli Albonesi (1469-1540) was an early Italian humanist who introduced Syriac and other Oriental languages to European scholarship, notably through his Introductio in Chaldaicam linguam, Syriacam, atque Armenicam, et decem alias linguas (1539).\n\nGuillaume Postel (1510-1581), a French scholar also made significant contributions, recognizing the relationship between various Semitic languages and acquiring numerous Eastern manuscripts.\n\nSebastian Münster (1488-1552), a German Hebraist who extended his work to Aramaic (then often termed \"Chaldaic\"), publishing a Grammatica Chaldaica (1527) and a Dictionarium Chaldaicum (1527).\n\nEdmund Castell (1606-1685), an English scholar, produced the Lexicon Heptaglotton (1669), a seven-language dictionary including comprehensive sections on Syriac and Aramaic (\"Chaldaicum\"), which remained a standard reference for centuries.\n\nThe Assemani Family (primarily 18th century, but with lasting influence): Though their primary work predates the 19th century, Giuseppe Simone Assemani (1687-1768) and his nephew Stefano Evodio Assemani (1707-1782) laid indispensable groundwork. Their Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino Vaticana was a cornerstone for Syriac scholarship for generations, heavily influencing 19th-century research.\n\n19th Century\n\nRobert Payne Smith (1818-1895): He compiled the monumental Thesaurus Syriacus (1868-1901), a comprehensive dictionary of the Syriac language.\n\nJessie Payne Smith (Margoliouth) (1856-1933): Daughter of Robert Payne made this vast work more accessible by producing A Compendious Syriac Dictionary in 1903.\n\nErnest Renan (1823-1892): The French scholar, in his broad work on the history of religions and Semitic languages, also contributed to the understanding of Aramean and early Syriac history.\n\nWilliam Wright (1830-1889): His cataloging of Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum, Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in The British Museum acquired since the year 1838 (1870) and editions of historical texts made primary sources accessible to a wider scholarly audience.\n\nWilliam Cureton (1808-1864): An English Orientalist, Cureton is renowned for his discovery and publication of important Syriac manuscripts, including the Curetonian Gospels, an early recension of the Syriac Gospels.\n\nJohn Gwynn (1827-1917): An Irish Syriacist whose work bridged the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is noted for his editions of Syriac New Testament texts, including a critical edition of the Apocalypse.\n\n20th Century and later years\n\nThis list includes the scholars that their major works published in the 20th century and later\n\nE. R. Hayes: A French scholar who contributed to the field of Syriac studies, and he is known for his work on the Syriac versions of early Christian texts. His contributions aided in understanding the transmission and development of biblical and theological literature in Syriac. He published his book, Ecole d'Édesse, about the School of Edessa in 1930\n\nE. W. Brooks (1884-1957): A scholar of Byzantine and Syriac studies and he was primarily known for his critical editions and translations of Greek and Syriac historical texts. His meticulous work on these primary sources significantly advanced the study of early Christian and Byzantine history.\n\nFrançois Nau (1864-1931): A French Orientalist, specializing in Syriac and Armenian studies. He made significant contributions to the publication and translation of early Christian texts from these traditions and his work provided valuable insights into the history of Christian thought and communities in the Near East.\n\nC. Anton Baumstark (1872-1948): A German Catholic priest and prominent scholar of comparative liturgy and Oriental Christianity. He developed the \"Baumstark's Law,\" which describes the tendency for liturgical developments to spread from older to newer centers and his extensive research documented the diverse liturgical traditions of the Eastern Christian churches.\n\nTheodor Nöldeke (1836-1930): A foundational figure in Semitic philology, Nöldeke's work on Syriac grammar and literature inherently touched upon historical contexts, and he wrote influential studies on the ancient Semitic world, including Arameans.\n\nEduard Sachau (1845-1930): A German Orientalist, Sachau made significant contributions through his expeditions to the Middle East and his meticulous work on Syriac manuscripts. His Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the Royal Library of Berlin (1899) remains a vital resource.\n\nJames Rendel Harris (1852-1941): An English biblical scholar and manuscript curator. He played a key role in uncovering Syriac Scriptures and early documents. Harris notably discovered the Syriac text of the Apology of Aristides. He was a prolific writer on biblical and patristic history.\n\nJean-Baptiste Chabot (1860-1948): A French Syriac scholar who edited and translated numerous important Syriac historical texts, including the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian and the Chronicle of Edessa.\n\nRubens Duval (1839-1911): A French Orientalist, Duval published important works on Syriac literature and grammar, including his Traité de grammaire syriaque (1881) and editions of various Syriac texts, contributing to the linguistic tools available to scholars.\n\nPaul Peeters (1870-1950): A Belgian Bollandist, Peeters made significant contributions to Syriac hagiography, notably through his work on the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis, an essential catalog of saints' lives in Eastern Christian traditions.\n\nCarl Brockelmann (1868-1956): While his major works, particularly the Lexicon Syriacum (1928) and Syrische Grammatik (1924), were published in the 20th century, Brockelmann's formative period and early contributions began in the late 19th century. His comprehensive lexicographical and grammatical work has been indispensable for generations of Syriacists.\n\nArthur Vööbus (1909-1988): An Estonian-American scholar, Vööbus made monumental contributions to the study of Syriac ecclesiastical history, monasticism, and literature, particularly through his discovery and publication of manuscripts.\n\nJean-Maurice Fiey (1914-1995): A Dominican scholar who made monumental contributions to the historical geography and ecclesiastical history of Syriac Christianity, particularly the Church of the East, with works like Assyrie Chrétienne.\n\nPatriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum (1887-1957): A Syriac Orthodox Patriarch and scholar, his The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences provides an invaluable insider's historical account of Syriac intellectual and cultural heritage.\n\nKlaus Beyer (1929-2014): A German Semitist, Beyer was renowned for his monumental work Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (1984, with a supplement in 1994, and an Ergänzungsband in 2004), which provided an exhaustive grammar and lexicon of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls. He also published extensively on other Aramaic dialects.\n\nSebastian P. Brock (born 1938): A leading contemporary Syriac scholar, Brock has profoundly influenced the field with his extensive writings on all aspects of Syriac history, literature, and theology, emphasizing the richness and diversity of Syriac Christianity.\n\nDavid G.K. Taylor: A prominent British Syriacist, Taylor has contributed significantly to the understanding of Syriac history, particularly in relation to biblical versions and the broader cultural context of Syriac Christianity.\n\nAndrew Palmer: Known for his work on Syriac chronicles and the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church, particularly through his annotated translation of the Chronicle of Zuqnin and Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier\n\nDaniel King: A scholar focusing on Syriac philosophy and the transmission of Greek thought into Syriac. He is also known for his editorial work, including The Syriac World, a comprehensive overview of the field.\n\nAmir Harrak: Known for his work on Syriac chronicles and inscriptions, including the Chronicle of Zuqnin.\n\nFrançoise Briquel-Chatonnet: A French scholar specializing in Semitic studies, including the history and epigraphy of Aramean and Syriac cultures.\n\nMuriel Debié: A historian focusing on Syriac historiography and the cultural interactions between Syriac Christians and the surrounding societies in late antiquity and the early Islamic period.\n\nSusan Ashbrook Harvey: A scholar of late antique and Byzantine Christianity, with a particular focus on Syriac studies. Her scholarly work has made significant contributions to understanding the social aspects of early Christianity, especially issues concerning women and gender in the Syriac Orient, asceticism, and the cult of saints.\n\nFr. Dr. Iskandar Bcheiry: Is a scholar and church historian with many published books and academic papers. His scholarly work is focused on the Syriac Orthodox Church history, Syriac Orthodox Church theology, and studying and editing Syriac manuscripts from Late Antiquities and Medieval periods.\n\nMarianna Mazzola: A Syriac scholar who work on the cultural and social history of the Medieval Middle East, 7th -13th centuries with a focus on Syriac Christianity and its relation with Byzantium and Islam, Syriac historiography and codicology, including excerpt collections in transcultural comparison. Published the book: From High Priest to Patriarch: History and Authority in the Ecclesiastical History of Bar 'Ebroyo\n\nSee also\n\nAramaic studies\n\nAssyriology\n\nChristian studies\n\nCorpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium\n\nDepartment of Syriac Studies\n\nMandaean studies\n\nTerms for Syriac Christians\n\nPeshitta\n\nSyriac chant\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac sacral music\n\nBeth Mardutho\n\nGorgias Press\n\nSyriaca.org\n\nReferences\n\n^ An Introduction to Syriac Studies Sebastian P. Brock - second edition 2006\n\n^ Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy - Page 391 Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala - 2007 \"Not because this list would be very long, but since Syriac Studies are mostly incorporated into a more general field of studies, e.g. Aramaic studies (as is the case, e.g. at the Universities of Oxford or Leiden), or Eastern Christianity, as in Duke, ...\"\n\n^ Orientalia christiana periodica - Volume 74 - Page 564 Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum - 2008 \"(a question those of us in Syriac studies are too often asked). Then, posing the question, why study Syriac, he situates the field within the broader academy. While most students learn Syriac within a biblical studies program, Syriac also impacts ...\"\n\n^ VI Symposium Syriacum 1992: University of Cambridge 1994 Page 14 \"René Lavenant, Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum - 1994 \"must have felt in 1892: Syriac studies were very much alive then - however restricted the number of scholars working in the field at the time; Syriac studies are even more alive today - as the large registration at this conference ...\"\n\n^ a b \"SBL Meetings and Events\". www.sbl-site.org.\n\n^ Eastern churches review - Volume 1 - Page 370 1966 \"... assisted by periodicals devoted to Christian oriental studies; the most important for Syriac studies are the annual Oriens Christianus (Wiesbaden) and 370 Syriac Studies Today by Robert Murray, SJ.\"\n\n^ King, Daniel; Michelson, David A. (12 December 2018). \"Online Resources for the Study of the Syriac World\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London and New York: Routledge. p. 815. ISBN 9781317482116.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Lebanon: Parole de l'Orient. p. 22.\n\n^ Becker, Adam H. (2006). Fear of God and the beginning of wisdom: the School of Nisibis and Christian scholastic culture in late antique Mesopotamia. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 10. ISBN 9780812239348.\n\n^ Watt, John W. (2019). The Aristotelian Tradition in Syriac. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group. p. 15. ISBN 9780367661229.\n\nExternal links\n\nSebastian P. Brock, The Contribution of Departed Syriacists, 1997-2006† , HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-studies"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2089}, {"slug": "reference-battle-of-qarqar", "title": "Battle of Qarqar", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Battle of Qarqar (or Ḳarḳar) was fought in 853 BC when the army of the Neo-Assyrian Empire led by Emperor Shalmaneser III encountered an allied army of eleven kings at Qarqar led by Hadadezer, called in Assyrian Adad-idir and possibly to be identified with King Benhadad II...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Battle of Qarqar\n\nPart of the Assyrian conquest of Aram\n\nKurkh stele of Shalmaneser depicting the battle\n\nDateYear 5 of Shalmaneser III (April 854-853 BC)\n\nLocationQarqur\n\nResult\n\nInconclusive \n\nAssyrian tactical victory in battle\n\nAssyrian advance temporarily halted, strategic defeat\n\nBelligerents\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n12 Kings alliance:\nHama\nIsrael\nAram-Damascus\nAmmon\nArab\nArwad\nQuwê\nIrqanata\nShianu\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\nShalmaneser III\nIrhuleni of Hama\nAhab of Israel\nHadadezer of Aram-Damascus\nBaʻsa of Ammon\nGindibu of Qedar\nMatinu Baal of Arwad\nKate of Quwê\nAdunu Baal of Shianu\n\nStrength\n\n35,000, including:[1]\n20,000 infantry,\n12,000 cavalry,\n1,200 chariots[2]\n53,000-63,000 infantry,\n4,000 chariots,\n2,000 cavalry,\n1,000 camel cavalry\n\nCasualties and losses\n\nUnknown\nUnknown\n\nThe Battle of Qarqar (or Ḳarḳar) was fought in 853 BC when the army of the Neo-Assyrian Empire led by Emperor Shalmaneser III encountered an allied army of eleven kings at Qarqar led by Hadadezer, called in Assyrian Adad-idir and possibly to be identified with King Benhadad II of Aram-Damascus; and Ahab, king of Israel.[3] This battle, fought during the 854-846 BC Assyrian conquest of Aram, is notable for having a larger number of combatants than any previous battle, and for being the first instance in which some peoples enter recorded history, such as the Arabs. The battle is recorded on the Kurkh Monoliths. Using a different rescension of the Assyrian Eponym List would put the battle's date at 854 BC.[4]\n\nThe ancient town of Qarqar at which the battle took place has generally been identified with the modern-day archaeological site of Tell Qarqur near the village of Qarqur in Hama Governorate, northwestern Syria.\n\nAccording to an inscription later erected by Shalmaneser, he had started his annual campaign, leaving Nineveh on the 14th day of Iyar. He crossed both the Tigris and Euphrates without incident, receiving the submission and tribute of several cities along the way, including Aleppo. Once past Aleppo he encountered his first resistance from troops of Irhuleni, king of the Luwian state of Ḥamā (called in Hebrew Ḥamāth), whom he defeated; in retribution, he plundered both the palaces and the cities of Irhuleni's kingdom. Continuing his march after having sacked Qarqar, he encountered the allied forces near the Orontes River.[5]\n\nTwelve kings\n\nTwelve Kings is an Akkadian term meant to symbolize any kind of alliance.[6] The most famous example is in the Kurkh Monoliths, where an alliance of 11 kings are listed as 12 in the Assyrian document as fighting against Assyrian King Shalmaneser III in the battle of Qarqar.[7] Shalmaneser's inscription describes the forces of his opponent Hadadezer in considerable detail as follows:[8]\n\nKing Hadadezer himself commanded 1,200 chariots, 1,200 horsemen and 20,000 soldiers;\n\nKing Irhuleni of Hamath commanded 700 chariots, 700 horsemen and 10,000 soldiers;\n\nKing Ahab of Israel sent 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers;\n\nThe Kingdom of KUR Gu-a-a identified as Quwê-Cilicia sent 500 soldiers;\n\nThe land of KUR Mu-us-ra-[a] identified as Masura, which is the outlet of the Düden River, sent 1,000 soldiers;\n\nThe land of Irqanata (Tell Arqa) sent 10 chariots and 10,000 soldiers;\n\nKing Matinu Baal of Arwad sent 200 soldiers;\n\nThe land of Usannata[b] (in the Mount Lebanon region) sent 200 soldiers;\n\nKing Adunu Baal of Ušnatu (in the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range)[9] - figures lost;\n\nKing Gindibu of Arabia sent 1,000 camel cavalry;\n\nKing Ba'asa, son of Ruhubi, of the land of Ammon sent 100 soldiers.\n\nThe number of forces sent in by Ahab is a subject of controversy among scholars, since it seems unlikely that the Kingdom of Israel could possess an army superior to that of the Kingdom of Aram-Damascus. The number of chariots in Ahab's forces was probably closer to a number in the hundreds (based upon archaeological excavations of the area and the foundations of stables that have been found). Although some scholars have argued that Israel under king Ahab would not have been able to muster a force of 2,000 chariots, there is some archeological evidence that supports the biblical account. Archeological excavations conducted by The Oriental Institute at Tel Meggido uncovered a large complex of stables. Some scholars suggest that these were not actually stables, but scholars such as Yadin, Finkelstein, and Ussishkin, say that they are indeed stables. The stables they uncovered housed 150 chariots and were dated to the 9th century BC, which would align with the reign of King Ahab. If Ahab had stables of this size throughout his kingdom, it would suggest that he would be able to raise a substantial force. A building complex similar to the one at Megiddo was also uncovered at the city of Be’er Sheva.[10] Archaeologist Nadav Na'aman believes it to be a scribal error in regard to the size of Ahab's army and suggested that he sent 200 instead of 2,000 chariots. Another possible explanation is that the forces attributed to Ahab include those belonging to his allies, such as the Kingdom of Judah, the Kingdom of Tyre and the Kingdom of Moab, although those kingdoms are not named in the monolith.\n\nBattle\n\nThe Battle according to Shalmaneser:\n\nWith the supreme forces which Aššur, my lord, had given me and with the mighty weapons which the divine standard, which goes before me, had granted me, I fought with them. I decisively defeated them from the city of Qarqar to the city of Gilzau. I felt with the sword 14,000 troops, their fighting men. Like Adad, I rained down upon them a devastating flood. I spread out their corpses and I filled the plain. I felled with the sword their extensive troops. I made their blood flow in the wadis. The field was too small for laying flat their bodies; the broad countryside had been consumed in burying them. I blocked the Orontes river with their corpses as with a causeway. In the midst of the battle I took away from them chariots, cavalry, and teams of horses.[11]\n\nHowever, the royal inscriptions from this period are notoriously unreliable. They never directly acknowledge defeats and sometimes claim victories that were actually won by ancestors or predecessors. If Shalmaneser had won a clear victory at Qarqar, it did not immediately lead to further Assyrian conquests in Syria.[12] Assyrian records make it clear that he campaigned in the region several more times in the following decade, engaging Hadadezer six times, who was supported by Irhuleni of Hama at least twice. Shalmaneser's opponents held on to their thrones after this battle: though Ahab of Israel died shortly afterwards in an unrelated battle, Hadadezer was king of Damascus until at least 841 BC.\n\nNotes\n\n^ a: Mu-us-ra- is sometimes identified with Egypt, but lay possibly somewhere near Quwê. Another thesis identifies Mu-us-ra- with Phoenician Sumur, in Syria.[13]\n\n^ b: Also spelled as \"Usanta\".\n\nReferences\n\n^ Gabriel, Richard A. (2002). The Great Armies of Antiquity. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-275-97809-9.\n\n^ Gabriel, Richard A. (2003). The Military History of Ancient Israel. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-275-97798-6.\n\n^ \"Battle of Qarqar\". Biblical Archaeology - Maps and Findings. Retrieved 3 July 2024.\n\n^ Shea, William H. \"A Note on the Date of the Battle of Qarqar.\" Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 29, no. 4, 1977, pp. 240-242\n\n^ \"\"Qarqar and Current Events\", Lofquist, L\". Archived from the original on 27 August 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2009.\n\n^ Berlyn, Patricia (2013). \"A Lost Battle of King Ahab Rediscovered\" (PDF). Jewish Bible Quarterly. 41 (1). Jewish Bible Association: 5.\n\n^ אולשניצקי), Haggai Olshanetsky (חגי (1 January 2020). \"The Twelve Make a Stand: The Kingdom of Israel's Chariot Force and the Battle of Qarqar\". Ancient Warfare.\n\n^ Bunnens, Guy; Hawkins, J.D.; Leirens, I. (2006). Tell Ahmar II. A New Luwian Stele and the Cult of the Storm-God at Til Barsib-Masuwari. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 90/1. ISBN 978-90-429-1817-7.\n\n^ \"سيانو\".. المملكة التي يعود نسل أهلها إلى سابع أبناء كنعان. esyria.sy (in Arabic). 4 October 2009.\n\n^ Coogan 2009, p. 243.\n\n^ \"Qarqar (853 BCE) - Livius\". www.livius.org. Retrieved 18 May 2024.\n\n^ Malamat, Abraham (1976). A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-39731-6.\n\n^ Edward Lipiński (2006). On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age: Historical and Topographical Researches. Peeters Publishers. p. 132. ISBN 9789042917989.\n\nSources\n\nCoogan, Michael David (2009). A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context. Oxford: University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533272-8.\n\n35°44′34″N 36°19′50″E / 35.742646°N 36.330543°E / 35.742646; 36.330543"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-battle-of-qarqar"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1420}, {"slug": "reference-baklava", "title": "Baklava", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Baklava (/bɑːkləˈvɑː, ˈbɑːkləvɑː/ ⓘ,[1] or /bəˈklɑːvə/[2]) is a layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with either syrup or honey.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Baklava\nPistachio baklava from Gaziantep, Turkey\n\nCourseDessert\n\nRegion or stateSoutheast Europe, North Africa, West Asia and Central Asia\n\nServing temperatureCold, room temperature or re-warmed\n\nMain ingredientsFilo pastry, nuts, syrup\n\nVariationsMultiple\n\n Cookbook: Baklava\n\n  Media: Baklava\n\nBaklava (/bɑːkləˈvɑː, ˈbɑːkləvɑː/ ⓘ,[1] or /bəˈklɑːvə/[2]) is a layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with either syrup or honey.\n\nThere are several theories for the origin of this pastry, but it is considered a traditional dessert among the cuisines of countries in West Asia, Southeast Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe word baklava is first attested in English in 1650,[3] a borrowing from Ottoman Turkish: باقلاوه /bɑːklɑvɑː/.[4][5] The name baklava is used in many languages with minor phonetic and spelling variations. The earliest known reference to baklava is in a poem by the 15th century mystic Kaygusuz Abdal.[6]\n\nThe historian Paul D. Buell argues that the word baklava may come from the Mongolian root baγla- 'to tie, wrap up, pile up' composed with the Turkic verbal ending -v;[7] baγla- itself in Mongolian is a Turkic loanword.[8] The lexicographer Sevan Nişanyan considers its oldest known forms (pre-1500) to be baklağı and baklağu, and labels it as being of Proto-Turkic origin.[9] Another form of the word is also recorded in Persian, باقلبا (bāqlabā).[10] Though the suffix -vā might suggest a Persian origin,[11][12] the baqla- part does not appear to be Persian and remains of unknown origin.[13] The linguist Tuncer Gülensoy states that the origin of baklava is bakl-ı (feed) in proto-Turkish and suffixes -la-ğı are added. The word changes as bakılağı > bakılavı > baklava.[14] The Arabic name بقلاوة baqlāwa originates from Turkish.[15]\n\nHistory\n\nThe modern form of baklava was developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace of modern-day Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire.[16][17][18][19] The American food historian and writer Gil Marks points to a Persian and Turkish origin for the dish.[20][21] \n\nThe early history of baklava remains contested.[16] There are several proposals for the original roots of baklava like the Greek placenta cake,[22][23] the medieval Arabic confection lauzinaj,[24][25] and the Central Asian tradition of layered yufka.[18]\n\nThere are also some similarities between baklava and the Ancient Greek desserts gastris (γάστρις),[26] kopte sesamis (κοπτὴ σησαμίς), and kopton (κοπτόν) found in book XIV of the Deipnosophistae.[27][28] The recipe for gastris in Book XIV of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae describes a mixture of nuts, poppy seeds, honey, and pepper, shaped into a square. It then instructs the cook to prepare white sesame with boiled honey and to stretch out two lagania (λαγάνιον, i.e. a thin broad cake [29]), placing one underneath the filling and the other on top.[30]\n\nAnother recipe for a similar dessert is güllaç, a dessert found in Turkish cuisine and considered by a small minority as the origin of baklava.[31] It consists of layers of filo dough that are put one by one in warmed up milk with sugar. It is served with walnut and fresh pomegranate and generally eaten during Ramadan. The first known documentation of güllaç is attested in Yinshan Zhengyao, a food and health manual that documents foods of the Mongol Empire, written in 1330 by Hu Sihui, an ethnic Mongol court dietitian of China's Yuan dynasty.[7][32]\n\nThe Ottoman Sultan presented trays of baklava to the Janissaries every 15th of the month of Ramadan in a ceremonial procession called the Baklava Alayı.[25][33]\n\nPlacenta cake\n\nMany claim that the placenta cake, and therefore baklava, derived from a recipe from Ancient Greece.[34] Homer's Odyssey, written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.[34] In the fifth century BC, Philoxenos states in his poem \"Dinner\" that, in the final drinking course of a meal, hosts would prepare and serve cheesecake made with milk and honey that was baked into a pie.[35]\n\nThe word \"placenta\" originally comes from the Greek language plakous (πλακοῦς), which means something \"flat and broad\".[36][37] An early Greek language mention of plakous as a dessert (or second table delicacy) comes from the poems of Archestratos from the 5th century BC. He describes plakous as served with nuts or dried fruits and commends the honey-drenched Athenian version of plakous.[38][39] The earliest known detailed recipe for placenta, from the 2nd century BC, is a honey-covered baked layered-dough dessert which food historian Patrick Faas identifies as the origin of baklava.[23][40]\n\nIn the Byzantine Empire, the traditional placenta cake (known as \"koptoplakous\", κοπτοπλακοῦς), a dish similar to baklava, was consumed.[41][42][43] \n\nAccording to a number of scholars, koptoplakous (κοπτοπλακοῦς) was a precursor to the modern baklava.[23][44][45] Historian Speros Vryonis describes koptoplakous as a \"Byzantine favorite\" and \"the same as the Turkish baklava\",[46] as do other writers.[36] The name plakous (Greek: πλακοῦς) is used today on the island of Lesbos for thin layered pastry leaves with crushed nuts, baked, and covered in syrup.[47][48]\n\nLauzinaj\n\nBaklava is a common dessert in modern Arab cuisines, but the Arabic language cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh, compiled by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq in the 10th century, does not contain any recipe for baklava.[49] Its recipe for lauzinaj refers to small pieces of almond paste wrapped in very thin pastry (\"as thin as grasshoppers' wings\") and drenched in syrup.[50] Some writers say that this is the dessert that most closely resembles the modern baklava.[51] Charles Perry, however, has written that \"it was not much like baklava\".[52]\n\nThere are similar recipes for lauzinaj in the 13th-century Kitab al-Tabikh by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi. Written in 1226 in today's Iraq, the cookbook was based on an earlier collection of 9th century Persian-inspired recipes.[20] According to Gil Marks, Middle Eastern pastry makers later developed the process of layering the ingredients.[20]\n\nPreparation\n\nBaklava is prepared in large pans of various shapes. Multiple layers of filo dough [53] are separated from each other by melted butter and starch that gives baklava its unique texture. During the layering process, finely chopped nuts-typically walnuts or pistachios, occasionally hazelnuts and almonds-are added partway through the layers. Most recipes have multiple layers of filo and nuts, though some have the pastry only at the top and the bottom.\n\nBefore baking, the dough is cut into regular pieces, often parallelograms (lozenge-shaped), triangles, diamonds or rectangles. After baking, a syrup, which may include honey, rosewater, or orange flower water, is poured over the cooked baklava and allowed to soak. The parallelograms are separated into individual pastries after baking.[54] \n\nBaklava is usually served at room temperature, and is often garnished with nuts that have been ground up.\n\nRegional variations\n\nArmenia\n\nArmenian baklava, (Armenian: Փախլավա, romanized: pakhlava) is made of layers of filo dough, a filling of cinnamon-spiced chopped walnuts, and a syrup made from cloves, cinnamon, lemon juice, sugar and water.[55][56] It is diamond-shaped and often has either one hazelnut, almond, or half a walnut placed on each piece.[57] It is often served at special occasions like Armenian Christmas or Armenian Easter.[58][59]\n\nArmenian baklava has some variations on how many filo layers are supposed to be used. One variation uses 40 sheets of dough to align with the 40 days of Lent that Jesus spent in the desert where he fasted.[60][61][62] Another variation is similar to the Greek style of baklava, which is supposed to be made with 33 dough layers, referring to the years of Jesus's life.[63]\n\nThe city of Gavar makes its own version of baklava. It is made with 25 dough layers, has a filling of cleaned and dried chopped walnuts and sugar, and a syrup that is poured over the finished baklava consisting of honey and flowers.[64][65] This type of baklava used to be prepared in the then-Armenian city of Bayazet, but the people living there immigrated to Gavar and surrounding regions in 1830.[66]\n\nThe tradition of pakhlava preparation in Kyavar (Gavar) is included in the intangible cultural heritage list of Armenia.[67]\n\nGreece\n\nGreek baklava (Greek: Μπακλαβάς) comes in many regional guises, with different names such as samousades, zournadakia, and masourakia. In Greek cuisine, walnuts are more common than pistachios and the dessert is flavored with cinnamon. Generally speaking, in southern Greece baklava is mostly made with chopped almonds and in the north with walnuts. Some recipes use hazelnuts, sesame, or even raisins.[68] The syrup is made of sugar, honey, water, cinnamon, and orange or lemon zest and juice.[69][70] Greek baklava is supposed to be made with 33 filo dough layers, referring to the years of Jesus's life.[63]\n\nOn the island of Lesbos in Greece, a type of baklava is still known as plakous (Greek: πλακοῦς), which is the name of an Ancient Greek pastry that is seen as the predecessor of baklava. The latter is a baked dessert with very thinly made pastry layers and chopped nuts. The base for this modern placenta is made with leaves of filo dough, and nuts stacked upon each other. After baking, it is soaked in simple syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon.[71][72][73]\n\nIran\n\nIranian baklava (Persian: باقلوا) is less crisp and uses less syrup than other baklava variations.[74] The cities of Yazd, Tabriz, Qazvin, Kashan, and the Gilan province are famous for their baklava variations, which are widely distributed in Iran.[75][76][77][78] Iranian baklava uses a combination of chopped almonds, hazelnuts, or walnuts and pistachios spiced with saffron, cardamom, or jasmine. For the syrup, rose water, lemon juice, sugar, honey, and water are used.[79][80] Iranian baklava may be cut into diamonds or squares.[81] When it is finished, it is often garnished with chopped pistachios, rose petals, jasmine or coconut powder depending on the region.[82]\n\nTurkey\n\nIn Turkish cuisine, baklava is traditionally filled with pistachios, walnuts, or almonds (in some parts of the Aegean Region). In the Black Sea Region, hazelnuts are commonly used as a filling for baklava.[83] Hazelnuts are also used as a filling for the Turkish dessert Sütlü Nuriye, a lighter version of the dessert which substitutes milk for the simple syrup used in traditional baklava recipes.[84] Midye Baklava is a mussel-shaped baklava filled with nuts.[85][86] Pistachio sarma baklava is a green rolled baklava with ground pistachio butter filling.[87][88][89] Şöbiyet is a variation that includes kaymak[90] as the filling, in addition to the traditional nuts.[91] \n\nThe city of Gaziantep in south-central Turkey is famous for its baklava made from locally grown pistachios,[92] often served with kaymak cream. The dessert was introduced to Gaziantep in 1871 by Çelebi Güllü, who had learned the recipe from a Syrian chef in Damascus.[93] In 2008, the Turkish patent office registered a geographical indication for Antep Baklava,[94] and in 2013, Antep Baklavası or Gaziantep Baklavası was registered as a Protected Geographical Indication by the European Commission.[95] Gaziantep baklava is the first Turkish product to receive a protected designation from the European Commission.[96]\n\nOther Balkan nations\n\nAlbanians usually prepare the baklava for certain religious Sunni Muslim, Catholic Christian, or Orthodox Christian holidays, and they popularly prepare it for the winter holiday season and the New Year as part of Albanian cuisine.\n\nIn Bosnian cuisine, ružice is the name of the regional variant of baklava.[97]\n\nBaklava also exists in Romanian cuisine, being known as baclava in Romanian. It is one of the most preferred desserts among Romanians together with kanafeh (cataif) and sarailia. In Romania, some pastry shops that sell baklava have notable popularity. They are common in the south and southeast of the country, but some also exist in its east.[98] In Bulgaria, baklava is very popular during the winter holiday season, when people have it for dessert after dinner.\n\nThe Levant\n\nIn Syrian cuisine, baklava (Arabic: البقلاوة, Classical Syriac: ܒܩܠܘܐ) or warbat (Arabic: وربات),[99][100] is a dessert mostly served on special occasions like Eid al-Fitr or Syrian Christmas.[101] Syrian baklava is made of 24 layers of buttered filo dough, a filling of either chopped pistachios or chopped walnuts and a syrup consisting of sugar, orange blossom water, and lemon juice.[102] Syrian baklava comes in many shapes, but the diamond shape is the most common one.[103] Syrian warbat consists of layers of filo dough filled with a semolina based custard,[104][105] though it is sometimes also filled with pistachios, walnuts, almonds,[99] or sweet cheese.[106] The dessert is topped with a sweet syrup made from sugar, water, and lemon juice brought to a boil and then left to cool and thicken.[107] A Syrian baklava recipe was introduced to the Turkish city of Gaziantep in 1871 by Çelebi Güllü, who had learned the recipe from a chef in the city of Damascus which transformed into the Gaziantep baklava we know today.[93] The butter used in Syrian baklava is a type of dairy-based clarified butter or ghee called samneh.[108][109][110]\n\n\"Baklava\" is also used as a generic term for a selection of sweets made with filo pastry or kadayif (knafeh) to make confections like balluriyeh (layered), bourma (rolled), and bulbul's nest (nest-shaped).[111][112][113]\n\nSyrian and Lebanese baklava is traditionally flavored with rose water.[114] Kul wa-shkur (Arabic: كل واشكر, lit. 'eat and give thanks') is a variety of baklava made in Syria and Lebanon by folding filo sheets around a nut filling.[115][116][111]\n\nAlgeria\n\nBaklava in Algeria is called baklawa (Arabic: بقلاوة, Tifinagh: ⴱⴰⴽⵍⴰⴹⴰ). In most Algerian regions, baklava is the centerpiece of any sweets table. This type of baklava originates in the Algerian city of Constantine. The Algerian baklava is distinct in that filo dough is not used. Instead, they use another type of thin dough called malsouka or warqa and, instead of walnuts or pistachios, they use almonds.[117][118][119][120]\n\nLike other forms of baklava, the layered pastry is cut into diamond-shaped pieces and has one almond placed on top of each piece before being baked. It is then soaked in a syrup of honey, sugar, and lemon juice.[121][122][123]\n\nAzerbaijan\n\nAzerbaijani baklava (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan paxlavası) is made mostly for special occasions (like Nowruz).[124][125][126] Pastry, cardamom, and saffron are used for the preparation. Nuts (mostly hazelnuts, almonds, or walnuts) and sugar are used as the filling, and syrup is used as a sweetener.[127] Ethnic groups native to different regions (like Lezgins and Tat people) have contributed to some regional variations.[128][129][130] Tenbel pakhlava is filled with almonds or walnuts and consists of 8-10 layers. Its top layer is coated with yolk.[131][132] Half a walnut is placed on each diamond-shaped piece.[133] Ganja pakhlava has a filling of almond, sugar, and cardamom. 18 layers of dough are used.[133] Rose petals are added to the dough.[134][135] Guba pakhlava has a top layer that is coated with saffron. It uses 50 rishta layers.[136][137] Sheki pakhlava, or Sheki halva, is made from rishta (dough made from rice flour), filling (hazelnut, cardamom), and syrup.[133][134]\n\nCharles Perry notes that the Azerbaijanis also make an archaic type of pastry where 7 layers of sweetened ground nuts separate 8 layers. This is called Bakï pakhlavasï (Baku-style baklava) and is made from noodle paste rather than filo. He posits that this may even be representative of the 'earliest form of baklava' as developed by Turkish nomads combining the filling of nuts with their layered bread.[138]\n\nUzbek and Tatar\n\nUzbek cuisine has pakhlava, puskal, or yupka, or in Tatar yoka, which are sweet and salty savories (börekler) prepared with 10-12 layers of dough.[15] In Crimean Tatar cuisine, the pakhlava is their variant of baklava.[139]\n\nOther\n\nThere are many variants of Baklava in Maghrebi cuisine that are eaten to this day.[140] Owing to its ancient origins, Assyrian people today continue to enjoy baklava and eat it as part of their larger cuisine.[141]\n\nGallery\n\n Ganja pakhlava\n\n Several types of Baklava in Istanbul, sarma baklava can be seen (second from left)\n\n A tray of baklava in the Old City, Jerusalem\n\n A tray of Tunisian pastries including baklava\n\n Armenian gavar baklava \n\n Algerian baklawa served during Eid\n\n Gaziantep baklava\n\n \"Mussel\"-shaped Midye-baklava, stuffed with walnuts\n\n Yazdi baklava\n\n Greek baklava with walnuts\n\n A tray of Albanian bakllava in Kosovo\n\n Syrian baklawa\n\n Armenian baklava alongside other Armenian pastries\n\n Armenian baklava from Artsakh\n\n Azerbaijani baklava\n\n Quba baklava\n\n Armenian baklava\n\nSee also\n\nMille-feuille\n\nStrudel\n\nSfogliatelle\n\nList of desserts\n\nList of foods with religious symbolism\n\nList of pastries\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ \"Merriam-Webster\". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 2012-01-26. Retrieved 2012-04-22.\n\n^ \"Oxford Dictionaries\". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30. Retrieved 2012-04-22.\n\n^ \"baklava\". Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/9163123493. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)\n\n^ \"baklava\". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. OCLC 1032680871.\n\n^ \"baklava\". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2013). Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts. I.B. Tauris. p. 32. ISBN 978-1848858985.\n\n^ a b Paul D. Buell, \"Mongol Empire and Turkicization: The Evidence of Food and Foodways\", p. 200ff, in Amitai-Preiss, 1999.\n\n^ Sukhbaatar, O. (1997). A Dictionary of Foreign Words in Mongolian (in Mongolian). Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Language and Literature. p. 25. OCLC 46685208. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-09-25. Retrieved 2008-10-08.\n\n^ Nişanyan, Sevan (2009) (in Turkish). Sözlerin Soyağacı - Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojik Sözlüğü [Words' Family Tree - An Etymological Dictionary of Contemporary Turkish]. İstanbul. http://nisanyansozluk.com/?k=baklava Archived 2011-07-14 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Dehkhoda Persian Dictionary, باقلبا\". Loghatnaameh.com. Archived from the original on 2011-10-03. Retrieved 2012-04-22.\n\n^ Batmanglij, Najmieh, A Taste of Persia: An Introduction to Persian Cooking, I.B.Tauris, 2007, ISBN 1-84511-437-X, 9781845114374; page 156.\n\n^ Marks, Gil, Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, John Wiley and Sons, 2010, ISBN 0-470-39130-8, ISBN 978-0-470-39130-3; page 38.\n\n^ \"a derivation from balg, a common dialect form of barg \"leaf\", or from Ar. baql \"herb\" is unlikely\", W. Eilers, Encyclopædia Iranica, s.v. 'bāqlavā' Archived 2011-12-28 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Gülensoy, Tuncer (2007). Türkiye Türkcesindeki Türkçe Sözcüklerin Köken Bilgisi Sözlüğü - I. Turkey: Türk Dil Kurumu. p. 106. ISBN 978-9751619709.\n\n^ a b Akın and Lambraki, Turkish and Greek Cuisine / Türk ve Yunan Mutfağı p. 248-249, ISBN 975-458-484-2\n\n^ a b Kiaer, Jieun (2024). Whose Language Is English?. Yale University Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-300-26405-0.\n\n^ Krondl, Michael (2011). Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert. Chicago Review Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-55652-954-2.\n\n^ a b Perry, Charles. \"The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava\", in A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (ed. Sami_Zubaida, Richard Tapper), 1994. ISBN 1-86064-603-4, page 87\n\n^ Ayşenur Akkaya; Banu Koc (2017). \"Past, Present and Tomorrow of Baklava\". IRTAD Journal (August): 47-50. ISSN 2602-4462. Archived from the original on 30 April 2022. Retrieved 20 November 2021.\n\n^ a b c Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 151. ISBN 978-0470391303.\n\n^ Akkaya, Ayşenur; Koc, Banu (2017). \"Past, present and tomorrow of baklava\". International Rural Tourism and Development Journal. 1 (1): 47-50. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30. Retrieved 2021-05-01.\n\n^ Davidson, Alan (1983). Food in Motion: The Migration of Foodstuffs and Cookery Techniques : Proceedings : Oxford Symposium 1983. Oxford Symposium. ISBN 978-0-907325-16-1.\n\n^ a b c Patrick Faas (2003). Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 185f.\n\n^ Nasrallah, Nawal (2015). Goldstein, Darra (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford University Press. p. 395. ISBN 978-0-19-931361-7.\n\n^ a b Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 151. ISBN 978-0470391303.\n\n^ γάστρις Archived 2021-02-25 at the Wayback Machine, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus\n\n^ κοπτός Archived 2021-02-24 at the Wayback Machine, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus\n\n^ Deipnosophists 14:647, discussed by Charles Perry, \"The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava\", in A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (ed. Sami Zubaida, Richard Tapper), 1994. ISBN 1-86064-603-4. p. 88.\n\n^ Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott (1940). \"λάγανον\". In Henry Stuart Jones; Roderick McKenzie (ed.). A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 8 October 2026.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Athenaeus, \"Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum Libri XV (3 volumes), Kaibel, Georg editor, Leipzig: Teubner 1887-1892, Book 14, Chapter 57: 647f, https://scaife.perseus.org/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0008.tlg001.perseus-grc4:14.57/\n\n^ Husihui; Paul D. Buell; Eugene N. Anderson; Charles Perry (2010). A soup for the Qan: Chinese dietary medicine of the Mongol era as seen in Hu Szu-Hui's Yin-shan cheng-yao (2nd rev. and expanded ed.). Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-18020-8.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2023-09-16). \"The Sticky History of Baklava\". Smithsonian Magazine.\n\n^ Wasti, Syed Tanvir (2005). \"The Ottoman Ceremony of the Royal Purse\". Middle Eastern Studies. 41 (2): 193-200. doi:10.1080/00263200500035116. S2CID 143202946.\n\n^ a b Mayer, Caroline E. (1989). \"Phyllo Facts\". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2019-12-29.\n\n^ Hoffman, Susanna. The Olive and the Caper. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 9781563058486\n\n^ a b Rena Salaman, \"Food in Motion the Migration of Foodstuffs and Cookery Techniques\" from the Oxford Symposium on Food Cookery, Vol. 2, p. 184\n\n^ placenta Archived 2021-03-07 at the Wayback Machine, Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, on Perseus\n\n^ Goldstein 2015, \"ancient world\": \"The next cake of note, first mentioned about 350 B.C.E. by two Greek poets, is plakous. [...] At last, we have recipes and a context to go with the name. Plakous is listed as a delicacy for second tables, alongside dried fruits and nuts, by the gastronomic poet Archestratos. He praises the plakous made in Athens because it was soaked in Attic honey from the thyme-covered slopes of Mount Hymettos. His contemporary, the comic poet Antiphanes, tells us the other main ingredients, goat’s cheese and wheat flour. Two centuries later, in Italy, Cato gives an elaborate recipe for placenta (the same name transcribed into Latin), redolent of honey and cheese. The modern Romanian plăcintă and the Viennese Palatschinke, though now quite different from their ancient Greek and Roman ancestor, still bear the same name.\"\n\n^ Dalby 1998, p. 155: \"Placenta is a Greek word (plakounta, accusative form of plakous 'cake').\n\n^ \"LacusCurtius • Cato On Agriculture - Sections 74-90\". Penelope.uchicago.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-07-13. Retrieved 2017-01-28.\n\n^ Ash, John (1995). A Byzantine Journey. New York: Random House Incorporated. p. 223. ISBN 978-1-84511-307-0.\n\n^ Faas, Patrick (2005) [1994]. Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-226-23347-5. Archived from the original on 30 July 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2023.\n\n^ Vryonis 1971, p. 482.\n\n^ Salaman 1986, p. 184; Vryonis 1971, p. 482.\n\n^ Ash, John (2006). A Byzantine Journey. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN 978-1-84511-307-0.\n\n^ Speros Vryonis The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, 1971, p. 482\n\n^ Τριανταφύλλη, Κική (17 October 2015). \"Πλατσέντα, από την Αγία Παρασκευή Λέσβου\". bostanistas.gr. Archived from the original on 12 October 2016. Retrieved 7 February 2020.\n\n^ Γιαννέτσου, Βασιλεία Λούβαρη (2014). Τα Σαρακοστιανά: 50 συνταγές για τη Σαρακοστή και τις γιορτές της από τη MAMAVASSO. Georges Yannetsos. p. 161. Η πλατσέντα είναι σαν τον πλακούντα των αρχαίων Ελλήνων, με ξηρούς καρπούς και μέλι.\n\n^ \"Saudi Aramco World : Cooking with the Caliphs\". Archive.aramcoworld.com. Archived from the original on 2016-02-18. Retrieved 2017-01-28.\n\n^ Perry, Charles. \"What to Order in Ninth Century Baghdad,\" in Rodinson, Maxime, and Arthur John Arberry. \"Medieval Arab Cookery.\" (2001). p. 223\n\n^ Salloum, Habeeb; Salloum, Muna; Elias, Leila Salloum (2013). Sweet Delights from A Thousand and One Nights: the Story of Tradition Arab Sweets. Bloomsbury. pp. 45-48.\n\n^ Perry, Charles. \"What to Order in Ninth Century Baghdad,\" in Rodinson, Maxime, and Arthur John Arberry. \"Medieval Arab Cookery.\" (2001). p. 222 \"As for lauzinaj, it was not much like baklava.\"\n\n^ The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, p. 111, at Google Books\n\n^ Perry, Charles (2014). \"baklava\". In Davidson, Alan; Jaine, Tom (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Food (3 ed.). Oxford University Press.\n\n^ Hogrogian, Rachel (2014). The Armenian Cookbook. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1497387065.\n\n^ \"Armenian Pakhlava\". Floating Kitchen. 20 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Пахлава армянская\". En.edunclub.ru.\n\n^ The flower of paradise and other Armenian tales by Bonnie C. Marshall, Virginia A. Tashjian, Libraries Unlimited, 2007, p. 179, ISBN 1-59158-367-5\n\n^ Abu-Jaber, Diana (14 March 2006). The Language of Baklava. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 978-1400077762.\n\n^ \"Recipe Corner: Chocolate Walnut-Raisin Baklava with California Raisins\". Mirror-Spectator. 5 January 2023.\n\n^ \"Paklava - Traditional Style\". The Armenian Kitchen. 12 April 2011.\n\n^ Petrosian, I.; Underwood, D. (2006). Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction & Folklore. Armenian Research Center collection. Yerkir Publishing. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-4116-9865-9. Retrieved 11 December 2019.\n\n^ a b Theodore Kyriakou and Charles Campion (2004). The Real Greek at Home. Octopus Books. ISBN 978-1845334512.\n\n^ \"Gavar Baklava: The Queen of Local Pastries, Antidote for Holiday Drinking\". Hetq.com. 29 December 2017.\n\n^ \"Baklava Gavar\". Jidlonacestach.cz. 9 July 2023.\n\n^ Bournoutian, George (2018). 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Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans. pp. 35-44. doi:10.31410/ITEMA.2019.35. ISBN 9788680194233. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-05-01.\n\n^ a b \"The Sweets Story: When Syrians Come to Cairo\". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2016-03-17.\n\n^ Christa Salamandra (10 December 2004). A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria. Indiana University Press. pp. 97-. ISBN 0-253-11041-6.\n\n^ John A. Shoup (2008). Culture and Customs of Syria. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0313344565.\n\n^ Imad Alarnab (6 July 2023). Syrian Kitchen. HarperCollins Publishers Limited. ISBN 978-0008532376.\n\n^ Bodic, Slavka (11 September 2020). The Ultimate Syrian Cookbook: A Journey Through Syrian Cuisine With 111 Traditional Recipes. Independently Published. ISBN 9798685380357.\n\n^ Faye, Yakir Levy \\ (2012-07-26). \"An 'iftar' feast - FoodIndex - Jerusalem Post\". Jpost.com. Retrieved 2016-03-17.\n\n^ Madison Magazine. Consumer Publications, Limited. 1999.\n\n^ JOYCE SMITHThe Kansas City Star (2014-11-04). \"Sultan's Bakery opens on 39th Street | The Kansas City Star\". Kansascity.com. Retrieved 2016-03-17.\n\n^ Al-Saigh, Amina (April 10, 2023). \"Warbat Bil Ashta / Shaabiyat (Cream Stuffed Phyllo)\". Hungrypaprikas.com. Retrieved March 6, 2026.\n\n^ \"A baklava crawl in the Turkish city that's obsessed with the pastry\". Oregon Public Broadcasting. 7 Jun 2025. Retrieved 27 November 2025.\n\n^ \"البقلاوة... ملكة على عرش الحلويات العربية برغم النزاع حول أصولها\" [Baklava... the queen of Arabic sweets despite the dispute over its origins]. Raseef22 (in Arabic). 29 March 2024. Retrieved 27 November 2025.\n\n^ \"الحلويات السورية... إقبال كبير في تركيا رغم كل التحديات\" [Syrian sweets... huge demand in Türkiye despite all the challenges]. The New Arab (in Arabic). 19 Sep 2023. Retrieved 27 November 2025.\n\n^ a b Helou, Anissa (3 November 2015). Sweet Middle East: Classic Recipes, from Baklava to Fig Ice Cream. Chronicle Books. pp. 74, 81. ISBN 978-1-4521-3062-0. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ Krishna, Priya (19 September 2019). \"Youssef Akhtarini Fled Syria. His Baklava Recipe Came With Him\". Bon Appétit. Retrieved 25 February 2026.\n\n^ \"In Ottawa, this Syrian baklava is the best baklava\". Ottawa Citizen. Oct 8, 2024. Retrieved 25 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Rose seeds from Syria: the refugee family cultivating a new life\". The Guardian. 15 July 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2026.\n\n^ \"أشهرها البقلاوة.. حلويات تركية على موائد الأعياد في لبنان\" [The most famous of them is baklava... Turkish sweets on holiday tables in Lebanon]. Noon Post (in Arabic). 10 July 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Recipes from 13th-Century Syria\". NYU Press. 2 May 2017. Retrieved 25 February 2026.\n\n^ Wagda, Marin (2004). \"Bricks en vrac à l'est d'Ithaque\". 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Academia.\n\n^ Wagda, Marin (2003). \"Bricks, boureks et briouates\". Hommes & Migrations. 1245 (1): 125-127. doi:10.3406/homig.2003.4076.\n\n^ Nazarli, Amina (19 April 2018). \"Azerbaijanis welcome beloved Novruz holiday\". AzerNews. AzerNews. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018.\n\n^ Ismayilova, Laman (20 March 2018). \"Delicious sweets for Novruz holiday\". AzerNews. AzerNews. Archived from the original on 22 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018.\n\n^ Gadimova, Nazrin (27 February 2018). \"Celebrating Novruz? Try These 3 Pastries!\". Caspian News. Caspian News. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018.\n\n^ \"Азербайджанская пахлава\". 2009-03-24. Archived from the original on 2020-01-25. Retrieved 2020-01-25.\n\n^ Jeanne Jacob, Michael Ashkenazi (2014). The World Cookbook: The Greatest Recipes from Around the Globe. ABC-CLIO. pp. 82-83. ISBN 9781610694698.\n\n^ Nikki Kazimova (2011). 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Middle Eastern Studies. 41 (2): 193-200. doi:10.1080/00263200500035116. S2CID 143202946."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-baklava"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5993}, {"slug": "reference-khabur", "title": "Khabur", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The Khabur River is the largest perennial tributary to the Euphrates in Syria. Although the Khabur originates in Turkey, the karstic springs around Ras al-Ayn are the river's main source of water. Several important wadis join the Khabur north of Al-Hasakah, together creating what is known as the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Khabur\n\nKhabur south of Al-Hasakah\n\nNative name\nنهر الخابور (Arabic)\n\nܢܗܪܐ ܚܒܪ (Syriac)\n\nÇemê Xabûr (Kurdish)\n\nHabur Nehri (Turkish)\n\nLocation\n\nCountrySyria, Turkey\n\nCityRa's al-'Ayn, Al-Hasakah, Busayrah\n\nPhysical characteristics\n\nSourceRas al-Ayn\n\n • elevation350 m (1,150 ft)\n\nMouthEuphrates\n\n • coordinates35°8′33″N 40°25′51″E / 35.14250°N 40.43083°E / 35.14250; 40.43083\n\nLength486 km (302 mi)\n\nBasin size37,081 km2 (14,317 sq mi)\n\nDischarge \n\n • average45 m3/s (1,600 cu ft/s)\n\n • minimum2 m3/s (71 cu ft/s)\n\n • maximum57 m3/s (2,000 cu ft/s)\n\n[1][2]\n\nThe Khabur River is the largest perennial tributary to the Euphrates in Syria. Although the Khabur originates in Turkey, the karstic springs around Ras al-Ayn are the river's main source of water. Several important wadis join the Khabur north of Al-Hasakah, together creating what is known as the Khabur Triangle, or Upper Khabur area. From north to south, annual rainfall in the Khabur basin decreases from over 400 mm to less than 200 mm. This has made the river a vital water source for agriculture throughout history. The Khabur joins the Euphrates near the town of Busayrah.\n\nName\n\nIn ancient times, the river was known in Akkadian and Amorite as ḫabur,[3][4][5] in Hebrew: חָבוֹר, romanized: ḥāḇōr,[6] and in Old Aramaic: 𐤇𐤁𐤅𐤓, romanized: ḥbwr.[5]\n\nThe river was well noted by ancient writers, with various names used by various writers: Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder called it the Chaboras (Ancient Greek: Χαβώρας),[7] Procopius called it the Chabura,[8] Strabo, Zosimus, and Ammianus Marcellinus called it the Aborrhas (Ἀβόρρας),[9] and Isidore of Charax called it the Aburas (Ἀβούρας).[10] It was described as a large river of Mesopotamia which rose in Mons Masius, about 40 miles (64 km) from Nisibis, and flowed into the Euphrates at Circesium (Kerkesiah). \n\nGeography\n\nThe course of the Khabur can be divided into two distinct zones: the Upper Khabur area or Khabur Triangle north of Al-Hasakah, and the Middle and Lower Khabur between Al-Hasakah and Busayrah.\n\nTributaries\n\nThe river is fed by several smaller streams, the names of which are mentioned by the later classical writers. These are, the Scirtus (Procop. de Aedif. 2.7), the Cordes (Procop. de Aedif. 2.2), and the Mygdonius (Julian. Or. i.).\n\nThe tributaries to the Khabur are listed from east to west. Most of these wadis only carry water for part of the year.\n\nWadi Radd\n\nWadi Jarrah\n\nJaghjagh River (ancient Mygdonius)\n\nWadi Khanzir\n\nWadi Avedji\n\nHistory\n\nSince the 1930s, numerous archaeological excavations and surveys have been carried out in the Khabur Valley, indicating that the region has been occupied since the Lower Palaeolithic period.[11] Important sites that have been excavated include Tell Halaf, Tell Brak, Tell Leilan, Tell Mashnaqa, Tell Mozan and Tell Barri. The region has given its name to a distinctive painted ware found in northern Mesopotamia and Syria in the early 2nd millennium BCE, called Khabur ware. The region of the Khabur River is also associated with the rise of the Kingdom of the Mitanni that flourished c. 1500-1300 BC.\n\nThe Khabur River is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: \"Tiglath-Pileser ... took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh into exile. He took them to Halah, Habor (Khabur), Hara and the River Gozan, where they are to this day\".[12] The identification of the Khabur with the Habor is not contested.\n\nThe Khabur river was sometimes identified with the Chebar or Kebar, the location of Tel Abib and setting of several important scenes of the Book of Ezekiel. However, recent scholarship identifies the Chebar as the ka-ba-ru waterway mentioned among the 5th century BCE Murushu archives from Nippur, close to Nippur and the Shatt el-Nil, a silted up canal toward the east of Babylon.[13]\n\nThe ancient city of Corsote, visited by Cyrus the Younger on his ill-fated expedition against the Persians as told by Xenophon, was located at the confluence of the Khabur River, known by them as the 'Mascas', and the Euphrates according to Robin Waterfield.[14] Other authors have been circumspect upon the precise location of Corsote due to the changing names and courses of the rivers since that time.[15]\n\nPtolemy (5.18.6) mentions a town called Chabora (Χαβώρα), on the Euphrates, which he places near Nicephorion, and which probably derives its name from the river, and Theophylact Simocatta mentions Ἀβορέων φρούριον, which is, as certainly, the same place.[16] Procopius speaks of it as a river of importance, and Ammianus states that Julian the Apostate crossed it \"per navalem Aborae pontem\". Strabo describes it as near the town of Anthemusias.\n\nIn the seventh and eight century, several monasteries from the Tur Abdin such as the monastery of Qartmin, the monastery of Mar Awgin and the monastery of Mar Yoḥannān Ṭayyāyā, owned farmland in the upper Khabur valley and often had depended monasteries, so-called Lower Monasteries. As such, Simeon, who was a monk and administrator at the Qartmin abbey, planted 12,000 trees at the Lower Monastery near Sisauranon (which earned him the name 'of the olives').[17]\n\nModern Khabur River Valley\n\nThe Khabur River Project, begun in the 1960s, involved the construction of a series of dams and canals. Three dams were built in the Khabur Basin as part of a large irrigation scheme that also includes the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates. The section of the Khabur River within Tell Tamer Subdistrict are home to a self-governing Assyrian enclave. Two dams, Hasakah West and Hasakah East, have been constructed on tributaries to the Khabur between Ra's al-'Ayn and Al-Hasakah. The capacity of the reservoir of Hasakah West is 0.09 km3, and is also the southeastern end of the Assyrian enclave. The capacity of Hasakah East is 0.2 km3. A third dam, Hassakeh South, was constructed on the Khabur 25 km south of Al-Hasakah. The reservoir of this dam has a capacity of 0.7 km3.[18] The Khabur Valley, which now has about four million acres (16,000 km2) of farmland, is Syria's main wheat-cultivation area. The northeastern part is also the center for Syria's oil production.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Hole F; Zaitchik, BF (2007). \"Policies, plans, practice, and prospects: irrigation in northeastern Syria\". Land Degradation & Development. 18 (2): 133-152. doi:10.1002/ldr.772. S2CID 129117310.\n\n^ Burdon, DJ; Safadi, C (1963). \"Ras-el-Ain: the great karstic spring of Mesopotamia. An hydrogeological study\". Journal of Hydrology. 1 (1): 58-95. Bibcode:1963JHyd....1...58B. doi:10.1016/0022-1694(63)90033-7.\n\n^ Buck, Mary E. (2020). The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit. Brill. pp. 237-238.\n\n^ Gelb, Ignace J. (1980). Computer-aided Analysis of Amorite. University of Chicago Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-918986-21-4.\n\n^ a b Tell Fekherya bilingual inscription, see: Greenfield, Jonas C.; Shaffer, Aaron (1983). \"Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue from Tell Fekherye\". Iraq. 45 (1): 112. doi:10.2307/4200185. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200185.\n\n^ Malamat, Abraham (1962), \"חבור\", in Encyclopaedia Biblica vol. 3, Instituti Bialik, p. 3\n\n^ Ptolemy, The Geography, 5.18.3; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 30.3.\n\n^ Procopius, B.P., 2.5.\n\n^ Strabo, xvi; Zosimus, Historia Nova, 3.13; Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum, 14.3, 23.5.\n\n^ Isidore of Charax\n\n^ Nishiaki, Y. (1992). \"Preliminary results of the prehistoric survey in the Khabur Basin, Syria: 1990-91 seasons\". Paléorient. 18 (1): 97-102. doi:10.3406/paleo.1992.4566. Retrieved 7 July 2010.\n\n^ 1 Chronicles 5:26\n\n^ Thompson, Henry O. (1992). \"Chebar\", in ABD. Vol. 1. Doubleday. p. 893. ISBN 0-385-19351-3.\n\n^ Waterfield, Robin (2006). Xenophon's retreat : Greece, Persia, and the end of the Golden Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674023567. Retrieved 20 January 2017.\n\n^ Rennell, James (1816). Illustrations, chiefly geographical, of the history of the expedition of Cyrus, From Sardis to Babylonia and the retreat of the 10,000 Greeks. Bulmer. p. 101. Retrieved 21 January 2017.\n\n^ The History of Theophylact Simocatta, 4.10.\n\n^ Brunner, Kyle B. (2021). \"Simeon of the Olives and his World: Life of the Khabur Basin during the early Islamic period\". The Life of Simeon of the Olives: An Entrepreneurial Saint of Early Islamic North Mesopotamia. Gorgias Press LLC. pp. 59-60, 65-66, 76. ISBN 978-1-4632-4346-3. Retrieved 6 March 2025.\n\n^ Mutin, Georges (2003). \"Le Tigre et l'Euphrate de la discorde\". VertigO (in French). 4 (3): 1-10. doi:10.4000/vertigo.3869. Retrieved 18 December 2009.\n\n This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854-1857). \"Chaboras\". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-khabur"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1409}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-folk-pop-music", "title": "Assyrian folk-pop music", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Assyrian folk/pop music, also known as Assyrian folk-pop, is the musical style of the Assyrian people derived from traditional music that includes a broad range of stylistic varieties, which would also encompass fusions of Western genres such as pop, electronic, Latin, jazz and/or classical music, with a melodic...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian folk-pop\n\nStylistic originsAssyrian music\n\nCultural origins1950s, Middle East\n\nDerivative formsAssyrian folk music, Assyrian classic music, Assyrian pop music\n\nAssyrian folk/pop music, also known as Assyrian folk-pop, is the musical style of the Assyrian people derived from traditional music that includes a broad range of stylistic varieties, which would also encompass fusions of Western genres such as pop, electronic, Latin, jazz and/or classical music, with a melodic basis of Assyrian folk.\n\nBackground\n\nAssyrian folk music claims to be the descendant of the music of their ancient Upper Mesopotamian ancestors that has survived in the liturgical music of the Syriac Churches. Assyrian songs are generally sung in Iraqi Koine, a standard variety of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. However, older songs mostly had an Urmian dialect and tribal-folk music tend to contain Tyari dialects. Themes tend to focus on longing, melancholy, strife and love issues. Assyrian songs are usually lengthy, tending to be around 5 minutes long on average.\n\nComposition\n\nAssyrian folk can also be found in traditional Middle Eastern makams, and it has similarities to other folk music in Western Asia, such as Kurdish, Turkish, Persian, and Armenian music. Unlike most Western music, Assyrian music includes quarter tones halfway between notes, often through the use of instruments or the human voice. Modern Assyrian pop music is mostly written in the minor key, and would typically use the Phrygian scale, as well as the harmonic minor scale. The Aeolian mode (i.e. the natural minor scale) is somewhat rare, although it has been used more in the past. Some songs by Evin Agassi at the turn of the millennium had profusely used the Andalusian cadence due to influence of Latin pop at the time.\n\nRhythm\n\nAssyrian dance music (particularly khigga) has a rhythm or beat that is similar to a swing/shuffle, a galloping jazz and blues rhythm. Whereas, the faster-paced gubareh beat can be compared to the Irish jig. The sheikhani beat uses a rhythm that is analogous to dembow, a dance rhythm in reggaeton music. Solos are common in Assyrian music and they are usually protracted. Instrumentation is mostly arranged with a keyboard and electronic drums, namely in weddings or parties. Although many forms of Assyrian records do use acoustic and orchestral instruments such as strings, pianos, saxophones and violins.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nFolkloric period\n\nAssyrian folk music is omnipresent in the village scene. A \"musician\" is not necessarily a professional, whoever can sing in any manner is considered a \"singer\". Most of the time, music is learned by ear and passed down as an oral tradition. Village music may be categorized, basically, into four groups: local secular music not related to specific occasions; functional music; religious music and hymns; and music adopted from other areas.[2]\n\nHere are a few types of tribal Assyrian Music that has survived to this day, especially in the Assyrian villages and towns of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria:\n\nRaweh: An ancient melodic chant which features wailing echoed voices, usually of a male. Raweh is reminiscent of how one's voice echoes in a valley between mountains.\n\nZurna O Dawolah: These are two traditional music instruments, literally meaning a drum and wind-pipe (or flute). They are played together, either with or without singing in many ceremonies such as weddings, welcoming and, albeit rarely, funerals.\n\nDiwaneh: Sung in gatherings and meetings; lyrics cover aspects of life such as, working in the fields, persecution, suffering, religion.\n\nLilyana: Wedding songs usually sung by women only, especially for the bride before leaving her home to get married. Also sung for the bridegroom the day before his wedding by his family and relatives.\n\nTanbur: Another tribal music instrument, a string instrument with long neck, originated in ancient Assyria, discovered being depicted on carving from South Iraq from Ur to Akkad and Ashur. Albert Rouel Tamraz was a famous Assyrian singer from Iraq who played this instrument and sung many folkloric songs accompanied by hand-drum (tabla).\n\nIt was in the Assyrian homeland north of Mosul that people started to write the vernacular, more than two hundred years before the earliest British missionaries, although the earliest records of the Syriac language date from 5th century BC Achaemenid Assyria. The earliest dated text is a poem written in 1591. This makes early Neo-Aramaic literature a contemporary of Jewish Neo-Aramaic literature from roughly the same region, dating back to the late 16th century.\n\nThe Neo-Aramaic literature which existed before the arrival of British and American missionaries consisted mainly of poetry. This poetry can be divided into three categories: stanzaic hymns, dispute poems, and drinking songs. Of these three categories, only the hymns, which in Neo-Aramaic are termed duriky; and which can be seen as the equivalent of the Classical Syriac madrase, can usually be traced back to individual authors.[3]\n\nModern Assyrian Music\n\nWorld War I, and the resulting Assyrian genocide, drove many Assyrians out from the mountainous region of Hakkari, southeastern Turkey to the regions of northern Iraq and northeastern Syria. World War II brought them in direct contact with the west, especially the British Army in Iraq, Russians in Urmia and the French in Syria. The contact with the British caused the most influence on modern Assyrian music, especially the period after the independence of Iraq in 1932, which brought British oil companies into Iraq and they employed many by now English speaking Assyrians. At this time they came in contact with Western music and instruments. Assyrian youth started picking up and playing these new instruments after seeing and hearing the British playing. Assyrian youths started to find new bands and to play in parties, picnics and other functions for both Assyrians and others.\n\nGabriel Asaad was the pioneer of Assyrian music and composed the first Assyrian song in the Turoyo language, Othuroye Ho Mtoth Elfan l-Metba‘ (1926, ܐܬܘܪܝܶܐ ܗܐ ܡܛܬ ܐܠܦܢ ܠܡܛܒܥ \"Assyrians, Our ship is on the way to sink\"). In Baghdad, Iraq the earliest known record is by Hanna Patros in 1931 - perhaps two Gramophones (78 rpm) with 2 songs on each (church hymns and folk songs). Called “\"Karuzuta d-khasha\". Hanna Petros (1896-1958), later became the music director at the conservatory in Baghdad. There were church hymns and folklore songs with a musical company on the records. Albert Rouel Tamras releases his first records in Baghdad in 1966 on Bashirphone label owned by Jameil Bashir an Assyrian Iraqi oud and violin soloist. Singing in the background with Albert are Biba and Sargon Gabriel, two singers who would later become notable figures in modern Assyrian music in the United States. Contemporaneously, Evin Agassi was also making music in Iran during the 1950s and 1960s.\n\nFrom the 1970s and onward, Assyrian music started to incorporate elements from Western popular music, such as British and American music. Jermain Tamraz, originally from Iran, was the first Assyrian artist to arrive to Australia to record Assyrian music.[4] Genres such as soft rock, pop ballads and dance pop became popular from 1980s and onward, although they all still had elements of Assyrian folk. In the 1990s and 2000s, Assyrian artists routinely fused in the traditional sounds of zurna and dawola conjured by electronic keyboards, as synthesized music got popular at that time. The Latin genre became popular in the late 1990s with instruments such as the Flamenco guitar being featured abundantly in Assyrian songs. Rock music never became popular in the Assyrian music scene, although a few Assyrian songs have featured electric guitars. Despite rock's unpopularity, there exists an Assyrian-Armenian metal band called Melechesh, which has extensive Assyrian-Mesopotamian influences both lyrically and instrumentally.[5]\n\nIt is customary for modern Assyrian artists to generally sing in Iraqi Koine, or \"Standard Assyrian\" (which is based on the prestigious Urmian dialect but has influences of the Hakkari dialects), for them to be intelligible and have widespread recognition. Songs in mountainous dialects, such as Tyari, are usually of the folk-dance music genre and would attract certain audiences.[6] Due to Arab influence, some Assyrian singers may incorporate mawwal in their music.\n\nList of Assyrian singers\n\nJanan Sawa (b. 1956) Assyrian singer from Iraq based in America\n\nFaia Younan (b. 1992) Assyrian singer from Syria based in Sweden\n\nShamiram Urshan (1938-2011) Assyrian singer and entertainer from Iran based in California\n\nAcrassicauda, USA-based Iraqi thrash-metal band formed in 2001\n\nEvin Agassi (1945-2024)\n\nGabriel Asaad (1907-97)\n\nAshur Bet Sargis (b. 1949)\n\nRola Bahnam - Lebanon-based TV-presenter and singer with The 4 Cats\n\nJamil Bashir (1920-77)\n\nMunir Bashir (1930-97)\n\nAril Brikha (b. 1976) - Assyrian Techno/House music artist\n\nGeorge Chaharbakhshi (b. 1952)\n\nSargon Gabriel (b. 1947)\n\nLinda George (b. 1964)\n\nClaudia Hanna - Assyrian singer of Arabic & Assyrian music, based in Egypt\n\nNouri Iskandar (1938-2023)\n\nElias Karam (b. 1960)\n\nPaulus Khofri (1923-2000)\n\nMelechesh - Assyrian/Armenian black-metal/Mizrahi metal band, formed 1993 in Jerusalem, currently in Amsterdam\n\nAdwar Mousa (b. 1950)\n\nAbeer Nehme (b. 1980)\n\nHanna Patros (1896-1958), in the 1930s and 1940s\n\nNinsun Poli (active from 2004)\n\nTimz (real name Tommy Hanna, b. 1985) - Assyrian American Rap musician\n\nMarganita Vogt-Khofri (b. 1952)\n\nElias Zazi (b. 1964)\n\nJuliana Jendo (b. 1952)\n\nWadih El Safi (1921-2013)\n\nAzadoota, Sydney based Assyrian band, formed in 1996\n\nFairuz (b. 1934/1935) Famous Assyrian-Lebanese singer who grew up in Lebanon. Her father was an ethnic Assyrian from Mardin who fled the Assyrian Genocide of 1915 and belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church. She sings mostly in Arabic but has sung hymns in her native Western Syriac dialect.[7]\n\nJean Karat (1949-2003)[8]\n\nSee also\n\nTurkish pop music\n\nIranian pop music\n\nKurdish music\n\nArab pop music\n\nArmenian pop music\n\nAssyrian folk dance\n\nReferences\n\n^ Subhi Anwar Rashid, The History of Musical Instruments in Old Iraq. Pg 180-181\n\n^ Journalism: A 140-Year Experience”, Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society, Vol. VII, No. 2, 1993. pp. 17-8\n\n^ H. L. Murre-van den Berg\n\n^ \"Assyrian classics by Tamraz\". www.ishtartv.com. Ishtar TV. 12 October 2012. Retrieved 2025-06-27.\n\n^ Rimmer, J. Ancient musical Instruments of western Asia in the British Museum, London 1969 p. 39.f.pl.21, 17,18,199\n\n^ Solomon, Zomaya S. (1997). Functional and other exotic sentences in Assyrian Aramaic, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Xi/2:44-69.\n\n^ \"English :: Charming Voice of the Middle East: Fairuz\". Retrieved 17 April 2023.\n\n^ \"Jean Karat\". www.syriacmusic.com. Retrieved 2026-02-07.\n\nExternal links\n\nHistory of the Syriac Folk music, Syriacmusic.com"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-folk-pop-music"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1716}, {"slug": "reference-church-of-the-east-in-china", "title": "Church of the East in China", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Church of the East was a Christian organization with a presence in China during two periods: first from the 7th through the 10th century in the Tang dynasty and secondly during the Yuan dynasty. The Church of the East likely became extinct soon after the emergence of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Church of the East was a Christian organization with a presence in China during two periods: first from the 7th through the 10th century in the Tang dynasty and secondly during the Yuan dynasty. The Church of the East likely became extinct soon after the emergence of the Ming dynasty in 1368.\n\nAfter centuries of hiatus, the first Assyrian Church of the East Divine Liturgy was celebrated in China in 2010.[1]\n\nName\n\nJingjiao (Chinese: 景教; pinyin: Jǐngjiào; Wade-Giles: Ching3-chiao4; lit. 'Luminous Religion'), is the name in Chinese for Church for the East. The etymology is explained in the Xi'an Stele, \"真常之道，妙而難名，功用昭彰，強稱景教。\"(lit. 'The way of true and constant reality is wondrous and difficult to name. Its effects and functions are clearly manifest; therefore, we are compelled to designate it-provisionally-as the Luminous Religion.').[2]\n\nAnd later during the Yuan dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries, Yelikewen jiao (Chinese: 也里可溫教; pinyin: Yělǐkěwēn jiào) became the name of Christianity.[3]\n\nTang dynasty\n\nThe original workA copyA restorationA 9th-century fragmentary silk painting of Jesus Christ associated with the Church of the East in China, discovered in Cave 17 at Mogao Caves. It is now kept in the British Museum.\n\nHistory\n\nTwo possibly Church of the East monks were preaching Christianity in India in the 6th century before they smuggled silkworm eggs from China to the Eastern Roman Empire.\n\nThe first recorded Christian mission to China was led by the Syriac monk known in Chinese as Alopen. Alopen's mission arrived in the Chinese capital Chang'an in 635, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty. Taizong extended official tolerance to the mission and invited the Christians to translate their sacred works for the imperial library. This tolerance was followed by many of Taizong's successors, allowing the Church of the East to thrive in China for over 200 years.[4][5]\n\nChina became a metropolitan province of the Church of the East, under the name Beth Sinaye, in the first quarter of the 8th century. According to the 14th-century writer ʿAbdishoʿ of Nisibis, the province was established by the patriarch Sliba-zkha (714-28).[6] Arguing from its position in the list of exterior provinces, which implied an 8th-century foundation, and on grounds of general historical probability, ʿAbdishoʿ refuted alternative claims that the province of Beth Sinaye had been founded either by the 5th-century patriarch Ahha (410-14) or the 6th-century patriarch Shila (503-23).[7]\n\nChurch of the East worshippers in the time of Xuanzong accepted the Confucian religious beliefs of the emperor, and likely other traditional Chinese religions.[8]\n\nIn 781 the Christian community in Chang'an erected a tablet known as the Xi'an Stele on the grounds of a local monastery. The stele contains a long inscription in Chinese with Syriac glosses, composed by the cleric Adam, probably the metropolitan of Beth Sinaye. The inscription describes the eventful progress of the Church of the East mission in China since Alopen's arrival. The inscription also mentions the archdeacons Gigoi of Khumdan [Chang'an] and Gabriel of Sarag [Lo-yang]; Yazdbuzid, 'priest and country-bishop of Khumdan'; Sargis, 'priest and country-bishop'; and the bishop Yohannan. These references confirm that the Church of the East in China had a well-developed hierarchy at the end of the 8th century, with bishops in both northern capitals, and there were probably other dioceses besides Chang'an and Lo-yang.\n\nNestorian Christians like the Bactrian Priest Yisi of Balkh helped the Tang dynasty general Guo Ziyi militarily crush the An Lushan rebellion, with Yisi personally acting as a military commander. Yisi and the Church of the East were rewarded by the Tang dynasty with titles and positions as described in the Xi'an Stele.[9][10][11][12][13][14]\n\nIt is unlikely that there were many Christian communities in central China, and the only inland Chinese city south of the Yellow River where a Christian presence can be confirmed in the Tang dynasty is Chengdu.[15] And two monasteries have been located in Chengdu and Omei Shan, both in Sichuan.[16] Shortly afterwards Thomas of Marga mentions the monk David of Beth ʿAbe, who was metropolitan of Beth Sinaye during the reign of Timothy I (780-823). Timothy I is said also to have consecrated a metropolitan for Tibet (Beth Tuptaye), a province not again mentioned.\n\nEpitaphs were found dating from the Tang dynasty of a Christian couple in Luoyang of a Nestorian Sogdian woman named Lady An (安氏) who died in 821 and her Nestorian Han Chinese husband, Hua Xian (花献) who died in 827. These Han Chinese Christian men may have married Sogdian Christian women because of a lack of Han Chinese women belonging to the Christian religion, limiting their choice of spouses among the same ethnicity.[17] Another epitaph in Luoyang of a Nestorian Christian Sogdian woman also surnamed An was discovered and she was put in her tomb by her military officer son on 22 January, 815. This Sogdian woman's husband was surnamed He (和) and he was a Han Chinese man and the family was indicated to be multiethnic on the epitaph pillar.[18] In Luoyang, the mixed-race sons of Nestorian Christian Sogdian women and Han Chinese men had many career paths available to them. Neither their mixed ethnicity nor their faith were barriers and they were able to become civil officials or military officers and openly profess their Christian religion and support Christian monasteries.[19]\n\nDecline\n\nIn 845, a decree issued by Emperor Wuzong demanded that foreign religions like Buddhism and Christianity be cast out of the kingdom. The decree required that Christians be forced to return to laity and become taxpayers.[20] The decree had tremendously negative effects on the Christian community and later imperial decrees calling for religious toleration likely had no effect for the Christians, who were likely severely marginalized or extinct by then.[20] By the 10th century, the number of Christians in China declined significantly due to the persecution.[21] Persian traveller Abu Zayd al-Sirafi reported that Christians along with Muslims, Jews and Zoroastrians were killed during the Huang Chao rebellion around 878 or 879.[22]\n\nThe province of Beth Sinaye is last mentioned in 987 by the Arab writer Ibn al-Nadim, who met a Nestorian monk who had recently returned from China, who informed him that 'Christianity was just extinct in China; the native Christians had perished in one way or another; the church which they had used had been destroyed; and there was only one Christian left in the land'.[23] The collapse of the Church of the East in China coincided with the fall of the Tang dynasty, which led to a tumultuous era (the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period).[5]\n\nThe eventual extinction of Christianity has been attributed to factors such as that the religion had a minority status and was of foreign character along with dependence on imperial support.[24] The majority of Christians in Tang China were of foreign origin or descent (mostly from Persia and Central Asia).[22] The religion had relatively little impact on the native Han Chinese.[25] Another significant factor to the collapse of the Church of the East was the church's reliance on Tang imperial protection and patronage to continue to operate undisturbed. After the fall of the Tang dynasty, what was left of the church quickly vanished without such support.[24]\n\nLiterature\n\nDozens of Jingjiao texts were translated from Syriac into Chinese. Only a few have survived. These are generally referred to as the Chinese Jingjiao Documents. One of the surviving texts, the Zunjing or Book of Praise (尊經), lists about 35 books that had been translated into Chinese. Among these books are some translations of the Scriptures, including the Pentateuch (牟世法王經) - Genesis is known as 渾元經, Psalms (多惠聖王經), the Gospels (阿思瞿利容經), Acts of the Apostles (傳化經) and a collection of the Pauline epistles (寳路法王經). These translations of the Scriptures have not survived. However, three non-scriptural Christian books listed in the Zunjing are among the Jingjiao manuscripts that were discovered in the early 20th century: the Sutra on the Origin of Origins, the Sutra of Ultimate and Mysterious Happiness, and the Hymn of Perfection of the Three Majesties (also called Gloria in Excelsis Deo). Two additional Jingjiao manuscripts not listed in the Zunjing have also been discovered: Sutra of Hearing the Messiah and Treatise on the One God.[26][27]\n\nYuan dynasty\n\nThe Mongols called Church of the East Christians (or Christian priests in particular) Arka′un or Erke′un,[28] which was later applied for Christians in general (including Roman Catholics)[29][30] whereby Christianity was named in Chinese as 也里可溫教 (Yělǐkěwēn jiào). However, there is a suggestion that the term Yělǐkěwēn jiào might be used also for Míng jiào and some other religions in Jiangnan.[31]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Church of the East had significant evangelical success under the Mongol Empire. Although both the Abbasid caliphate and General Guo Ziyi fought on the Tang's side during the An Lushan Rebellion, Guo Ziyi's descendants joined the Mongol forces; his direct descendant Guo Kan was instrumental in the Mongol Siege of Baghdad (1258)[32][33][34] and the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate which saw the execution of the last Abbasid caliph and the slaughter of 800,000-2,000,000 Arab Muslim civilians in Baghdad, with only the Nestorian Christians being spared.\n\nThe rise of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty in the 13th century allowed the church to return to China, and rise to a greater status than it had ever had before.[35] However, this was primarily among foreigners.[36][37] By the end of the century, two new metropolitan provinces had been created for China: Tangut and 'Katai and Ong'.[38]\n\nThe province of Tangut covered northwestern China, and its metropolitan seems to have sat at Almaliq. The province evidently had several dioceses, even though they cannot now be localised, as the metropolitan Shemʿon Bar Qaligh of Tangut was arrested by the patriarch Denha I shortly before his death in 1281 'together with a number of his bishops'.[39]\n\nThe province of Katai (Cathay) and Ong, which seems to have replaced the old Tang dynasty province of Beth Sinaye, covered northern China and the country of the Christian Ongut tribe around the great bend of the Yellow River. The metropolitans of Katai and Ong probably sat at the Yuan capital Khanbaliq. The patriarch Yahballaha III grew up in a monastery in northern China in the 1270s, and the metropolitans Giwargis and Nestoris are mentioned in his biography.[40] Yahballaha himself was consecrated metropolitan of Katai and Ong by the patriarch Denha I shortly before his death in 1281.[41]\n\nDuring the first half of the 14th century there were Church of the East Christian communities in many cities in China, and the province of Katai and Ong probably had several suffragan dioceses. In 1253 William of Rubruck mentioned a Church of the East bishop in the town of 'Segin' (Xijing, modern Datong in Shanxi province). The tomb of a Church of the East bishop named Shlemun, who died in 1313, has recently been discovered at Quanzhou in Fujian province. Shlemun's epitaph described him as 'administrator of the Christians and Manicheans of Manzi (south China)'. Marco Polo had earlier reported the existence of a Manichean community in Fujian, at first thought to be Christian, and it is not surprising to find this small religious minority represented officially by a Christian bishop.[42]\n\nThe relationship between the Catholic Franciscan missionaries and the Church of the East Christians were strained and often in conflict. The Catholics viewed the Church of the East Christians as heretics and rivals while the Church of the East Christians viewed them as political rivals. Roman Catholicism in China was expanded at the expense of the Church of the East during the Yuan dynasty, with some converting to Catholicism.[43]\n\nDecline\n\nThe Church of the East declined in China substantially in the mid-14th century. Several contemporaries, including the papal envoy John of Marignolli, mention the murder of the Latin bishop Richard and six of his companions in 1339 or 1340 by a Muslim mob in Almaliq, the chief city of Tangut, and the forcible conversion of the city's Christians to Islam.[44] The last tombstones in two East Syriac cemeteries discovered in modern-day Mongolia around the end of the 19th century date from 1342, and several commemorate deaths during a plague in 1338.[45] In China, the last references to Nestorian and Latin Christians date from the 1350s, and it is likely that all foreign Christians were expelled from China soon after the collapse of the Yuan dynasty and the rise of the Ming dynasty in 1368.[46] Some scholars have posited that small amounts of Christians among Onguts and Keraites in northern China may have survived into the 15th century but evidence is inconclusive.[47]\n\nReasons often cited for the rapid decline and disappearance of Church of the East after the fall of the Yuan dynasty include the foreign character of the religion and its adherents, comprising mainly a Central Asian and Turkic-speaking immigrant community.[48] There was also a paucity of native Han Chinese converts, a lack of Chinese translations of the Bible, and a heavy political reliance on patronage by the Yuan imperial court.[48] In consequence of these factors, once the Yuan dynasty fell, the Church of the East in China quickly became marginalized and soon vanished, leaving little trace of its existence.[48]\n\nModern China (20th century-present)\n\nIn 1998, the Assyrian Church of the East sent then-Bishop Mar Gewargis to China.[49] A later visit to Hong Kong led the Assyrian Church to state that: \"after 600 years, the Eucharistic Liturgy, according to the anaphora of Mar Addai & Mari was celebrated at the Lutheran Theological Seminary chapel on Wednesday evening, October 6, 2010.\"[1] This visit was followed up two years later at the invitation of the Jǐngjiào Fellowship with Mar Awa Royel accompanied by Reverend and Deacon, arriving in Xi'an, China in October 2012. On Saturday October 27, the Holy Eucharist in the Aramaic language was celebrated by Mar Awa, assisted by Fr. Genard and Deacon Allen in one of the churches in the city.[50]\n\nSee also\n\nXi'an Stele\n\nDaqin Pagoda\n\nJingjiao Documents\n\nRabban Bar Sauma\n\nYahballaha III\n\nOngud\n\nKeraites\n\nChurch of the East in Sichuan\n\nMogao Christian painting\n\nMurals from the Christian temple at Qocho\n\nChristianity among the Mongols\n\nChinese Manichaeism\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"The Return to China\". Assyrian Church News. 2010-10-07. Retrieved 2019-10-22.\n\n^ Song, Lan You (1978). \"景教有關「天主」的翻譯\". 神學年刊 (2nd ed.).\n\n^ 王, 明蓀. \"元代有哪些來自西方的信仰？\" [During Yuan, what religious believes came from the west?]. Academy of Chinese Studies.\n\n^ Moule, Christians in China before the Year 1550, 38\n\n^ a b Moffett, pp. 14-15.\n\n^ Mai, Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio, x. 141\n\n^ Wilmshurst, The Martyred Church, 123-4\n\n^ Li, Dun J. (1965). The Ageless Chinese: A History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 373.\n\n^ Johnson, Scott Fitzgerald (26 May 2017). \"Silk Road Christians and the Translation of Culture in Tang China\". Studies in Church History. 53. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15-38. doi:10.1017/stc.2016.3. S2CID 164239427.\n\n^ DEEG, MAX (Cardiff University, UK) (2013). \"A BELLIGERENT PRIEST - YISI AND HIS POLITICAL CONTEXT\". In Tang, Li; Winkler, Dietmar W. (eds.). From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (illustrated ed.). LIT Verlag Münster. p. 113. ISBN 978-3-643-90329-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Deeg, Max (2007). \"The Rhetoric of Antiquity. Politico-Religious Propaganda in the Nestorian Steleof Chang'an 安長\". Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture. 1: 17-30. doi:10.18573/j.2007.10291. ISSN 1754-517X.\n\n^ Godwin, R. Todd (2018). Persian Christians at the Chinese Court: The Xi'an Stele and the Early Medieval Church of the East. Library of Medieval Studies. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78672-316-1.\n\n^ Chin, Ken-pa (2019). \"Jingjiao under the Lenses of Chinese Political Theology\". Religions. 10 (10): 551. doi:10.3390/rel10100551.\n\n^ LIPPIELLO, TIZIANA (2017). \"ON THE DIFFICULT PRACTICE OF THE MEAN IN ORDINARY LIFE TEACHINGS FROM THE ZHONGYONG*\". In Hoster, Barbara; Kuhlmann, Dirk; Wesolowski, Zbigniew (eds.). Rooted in Hope: China - Religion - Christianity Vol 1: Festschrift in Honor of Roman Malek S.V.D. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-67277-1.\n\n^ Li, Tang; Winkler, Dietmar W., eds. (2016). Winds of Jingjiao. Münster: LIT Verlag. p. 261. ISBN 978-3-643-90754-7.\n\n^ Baumer, Christoph (2016). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity (New ed.). London: I.B. Tauris. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-78453-683-1.\n\n^ Morrow, Kenneth T. (May 2019). NEGOTIATING BELONGING: THE CHURCH OF THE EAST'S CONTESTED IDENTITY IN TANG CHINA (PDF) (DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY OF IDEAS). THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS. pp. 109-135, viii, xv, 156, 164, 115, 116.\n\n^ Morrow, Kenneth T. (May 2019). NEGOTIATING BELONGING: THE CHURCH OF THE EAST'S CONTESTED IDENTITY IN TANG CHINA (PDF) (DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY OF IDEAS). THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS. pp. 155-156, 149, 150, viii, xv.\n\n^ Morrow, Kenneth T. (May 2019). NEGOTIATING BELONGING: THE CHURCH OF THE EAST'S CONTESTED IDENTITY IN TANG CHINA (PDF) (DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY OF IDEAS). THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS. p. 164.\n\n^ a b Moffett, Samuel Hugh (1998). A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. I: Beginnings to 1500. Orbis Books. p. 304. ISBN 978-1-60833-162-8.\n\n^ Watson Andaya, Barbara (2018), \"Christianity in Asia\", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.219, ISBN 978-0-19-027772-7, retrieved 2024-07-08\n\n^ a b Takahashi, Hidemi (2018-12-12), \"Syriac Christianity in China\", The Syriac World, Routledge, pp. 625-652, ISBN 978-1-315-70819-5, retrieved 2025-08-08\n\n^ Wilmshurst, The Martyred Church, 222\n\n^ a b Moffett, Samuel Hugh (1998). A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. I: Beginnings to 1500. Orbis Books. pp. 312-313. ISBN 978-1-60833-162-8.\n\n^ Morris, James H. (2017). \"Rereading the evidence of the earliest Christian communities in East Asia during and prior to the Táng Period\". Missiology: An International Review. 45 (3): 252-264. doi:10.1177/0091829616685352. ISSN 0091-8296. S2CID 164412254.\n\n^ P. Y. Saeki, The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China, pp. 248-265\n\n^ \"Chinese Nestorian Documents from the Tang Dynasty\". Archived from the original on 2014-05-17. Retrieved 2014-05-15.\n\n^ Johnson, Dale A. (2013). Searching for Jesus on the Silk Road. Lulu.com. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-300-43531-0.\n\n^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"The Church in China\" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n^ China: Five Thousand Years of History and Civilization. City University of HK Press. 2007. p. 680. ISBN 978-962-937-140-1.\n\n^ Oort, J. van Johannes; Berg, Jacob Albert van den, eds. (2011). \"A New Interpretation of Yelikewen and its relation to Mingjiao\". In Search of Truth. Augustine, Manichaeism and Other Gnosticism. BRILL. pp. 352-359?. ISBN 978-90-04-18997-3.\n\n^ Hodous, Florence (2020). \"1. Guo Kan: Military Exchanges between China and the Middle East\". Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques. 71 (4): 1137-1151. doi:10.1525/9780520970786-005. ISBN 978-0-520-97078-6. S2CID 225038696.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ \"Florence Hodous | Semantic Scholar\".\n\n^ \"Florence Hodous | Independent Scholar - Academia.edu\".\n\n^ Adler, Joseph A. (2005). \"Chinese Religions: An Overview\". Department of Religious Studies at Kenyon College. Gambier, Ohio: Kenyon College. Retrieved 2023-03-02.\n\n^ Avgerinos (June 1998). \"How the Christian Denominations Came to in China\". In a June 1998 issue of The Censer. Eastern Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Archived from the original on 2022-09-21.\n\n^ Lau, Hua Teck (2003). \"The Cross and the Lotus\". Church and the Society. 26 (2): 90.\n\n^ Fiey, POCN, 48-9, 103-4 and 137-8\n\n^ Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical Chronicle, ii. 450\n\n^ Wallis Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, 127 and 132\n\n^ Bar Hebraeus, Ecclesiastical Chronicle, ii. 452\n\n^ Lieu, S., Manichaeism in Central Asia and China, 180\n\n^ Tang, Li (2011). East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China. Harrassowitz. pp. 141-142. ISBN 978-3-447-06580-1.\n\n^ Yule and Cordier, Cathay and the Way Thither, iii. 31-3 and 212\n\n^ Nau, 'Les pierres tombales nestoriennes du musée Guimet', ROC, 18 (1913), 3-35\n\n^ Moule, Christians in China before the Year 1550, 216-40\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2021). The Assyrian Church of the East: History and Geography. Peter Lang. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-78997-912-1.\n\n^ a b c Tang, Li (2011). East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China. Harrassowitz. pp. 146, 149. ISBN 978-3-447-06580-1.\n\n^ \"Biography of HH Mar Gewargis III\". Assyrian Church News. 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2019-10-22.\n\n^ \"Bishop Mar Awa Royel Visits China\". Assyrian Church News. 2012-12-10. Retrieved 2019-10-22.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 978-1-134-43019-2.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus: Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut: Orient-Institut. ISBN 978-3-515-05718-9.\n\nGillman, Ian, and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit. Christians in Asia before 1500. Psychology Press, 1999.\n\nLieu, Samuel N. C. (1997). Manichaeism in Central Asia and China. Brill. ISBN 90-04-10405-4\n\nMoffett, Samuel Hugh (1999). \"Alopen\". Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. Wm. B. Eerdmans. pp. 14-15. ISBN 978-0-8028-4680-8.\n\nMalek, Roman; Peter Hofrichter, eds. (2006). Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica. ISBN 3-8050-0534-2.\n\nMoule, Arthur C., Christians in China before the year 1550, London, 1930\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-0876-5.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-907318-04-7.\n\n This article incorporates text from The Chinese repository, Volume 13, a publication from 1844, now in the public domain in the United States.\n\nExternal links\n\nSpiritual use of images in ancient Chinese Christianity"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-church-of-the-east-in-china"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3629}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-homeland", "title": "Assyrian homeland", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian homeland or Assyria (Syriac: ܐܬܘܪ, romanized: Āṯōr) is the homeland of the Assyrian people within which Assyrian civilisation developed, located in the Upper Mesopotamia of West Asia. The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyriaܐܬܘܪ (Syriac)\nĀṯōr\n\n Flag\n\n Star of Shamash\n\nThe Assyrian Triangle was the proposed borders for an autonomous Assyrian state following World War I.[1]\n\nMain languages\nNeo-Aramaic\n\nMesopotamian Arabic\n\nTurkish\n\nKurdish\n\nPersian\n\nToday part of Iraq (Mesopotamia)\n Iran (margin in western Urmia Plain and Salmas area)\n Syria (Mesopotamia)\n Turkey (Mesopotamia)\n\nThe Assyrian homeland or Assyria (Syriac: ܐܬܘܪ, romanized: Āṯōr) is the homeland of the Assyrian people within which Assyrian civilisation developed, located in the Upper Mesopotamia of West Asia. The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.[2] In Iran, the Urmia Plain forms a thin margin of the ancestral Assyrian homeland in the north-west, and the only section of the Assyrian homeland beyond the Mesopotamian region. The majority of Assyrians in Iran currently reside in the capital city, Tehran.[3]\n\nThe Assyrians are one of several indigenous Mesopotamian groups, claiming descent from the ancient Assyrians, Akkadians, Sumerians and Hurrians. The ancient Assyrians developed an independent civilisation in the city of Assur on the eastern border of northern Mesopotamia. The ancient Assyrian territory was divided through the centre by the Tigris River, with Mesopotamia on the west and the western margins of the Urmia Plains to the east. In modern times, Assyrians largely only recognise Assyrian towns and cities immediately neighbouring the Tigris to the east as their indigenous territory, in addition to Mesopotamia,[4][5] with their homeland only expanding beyond the borders due to the major centres of Assyrian civilisation, such as the cities of Nineveh, Assur and Nimrud, being built on the banks of the Tigris itself. \n\nModern Assyrians are predominantly Christian, mostly adhering to the East and West Syriac liturgical rites of Christianity.[6] They speak Neo-Aramaic languages, most common being Suret and Turoyo.[7]\n\nHistory\n\nAncient period\n\nThe city of Aššur and Nineveh (modern-day Mosul), which was the oldest and largest city of the ancient Assyrian empire,[8] together with a number of other Assyrian cities, seem to have been established by 2,600 BC. However it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, mentions \"smiting Subartu\" (Subartu being the Sumerian name for Assyria). Similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him.[9]\n\nAssyrians are eastern Aramaic-speaking, descending from pre-Islamic inhabitants of Upper Mesopotamia. The Old Aramaic language was adopted by the population of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from around the 8th century BC, and these eastern dialects remained in wide use throughout Upper Mesopotamia during the Persian and Roman periods, and survived through to the present day. The Syriac language evolved in Achaemenid Assyria during the 5th century BC.[10][11]\n\nDuring the Assyrian period Duhok was named Nohadra (and also Bit Nuhadra' or Naarda), where, during the Parthian-Sassanid rule in Assyria (c.160 BC to 250 AD) as Beth Nuhadra, gained semi-independence as one of a patchwork of Neo-Assyrian kingdoms in Assyria, which also included Adiabene, Osroene, Assur and Beth Garmai.[12][13]\n\nEarly Christian period\n\nSyriac Christianity took hold amongst the Assyrians between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD with the founding in Assyria of the Church of the East together with Syriac literature.[14]\n\nThe first division between Syriac Christians occurred in the 5th century, when Upper Mesopotamian based Assyrian Christians of the Sassanid Persian Empire were separated from those in The Levant over the Nestorian Schism. This split owed just as much to the politics of the day as it did to theological orthodoxy. Ctesiphon, which was at the time the Sassanid capital, eventually became the capital of the Church of the East. During the Christian era Nuhadra became an eparchy within the Assyrian Church of the East metropolitanate of Ḥadyab (Erbil).[15]\n\nAfter the Council of Chalcedon in 451, many Syriac Christians within the Roman Empire rebelled against its decisions. The Patriarchate of Antioch was then divided between a Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian communion. The Chalcedonians were often labelled 'Melkites' (Emperor's Party), while their opponents were labelled as Monophysites (those who believe in the one rather than two natures of Christ) and Jacobites (after Jacob Baradaeus). The Maronite Church found itself caught between the two, but claims to have always remained faithful to the Catholic Church and in communion with the bishop of Rome, the Pope.[16]\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nBoth Syriac Christianity and the Eastern Aramaic language came under pressure following the Arab Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia in the 7th century, and Assyrian Christians throughout the Middle Ages were subjected to Arabizing superstrate influence. The Assyrians suffered a significant persecution with the religiously motivated large scale massacres conducted by the Muslim Turco-Mongol ruler Tamurlane in the 14th century AD. It was from this time that the ancient city of Assur was abandoned by Assyrians, and Assyrians were reduced to a minority within their ancient homeland.[17][18]\n\nUpper Mesopotamia had an established structure of dioceses by AD 500 following the introduction of Christianity from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD.[19] After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC Assyria remained an entity for over 1200 years under Babylonian, Achamaenid Persian, Seleucid Greek, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid Persian rule. It was only after the Arab-Islamic conquest of the second half of the 7th century AD that Assyria as a named region was dissolved.\n\nThe mountainous region of the Assyrian homeland, Barwari, which was part of the diocese of Beth Nuhadra (current day Dohuk), saw a mass migration of Nestorians after the fall of Baghdad in 1258 and Timurlane's invasion from central Iraq.[20] Its Christian inhabitants were little affected by the Ottoman conquests, however starting from the 19th century Kurdish Emirs sought to expand their territories at their expense. In the 1830s Muhammad Rawanduzi, the Emir of Soran, tried to forcibly add the region to his dominion pillaging many Assyrian villages. Bedr Khan Beg of Bohtan renewed attacks on the region in the 1840s, killing tens of thousands of Assyrians in Barwari and Hakkari before being ultimately defeated by the Ottomans.[21]\n\nIn 1552, a schism occurred within the Church of the East: the established \"Eliya line\" of patriarchs was opposed by a rival patriarch, Sulaqa, who initiated what is called the \"Shimun line\". He and his early successors entered into communion with the Catholic Church, but in the course of over a century their link with Rome grew weak and was openly renounced in 1672, when Shimun XIII Dinkha adopted a profession of faith that contradicted that of Rome, while he maintained his independence from the \"Eliya line\". Leadership of those who wished to be in communion with Rome passed to the Archbishop of Amid Joseph I, recognized first by the Turkish civil authorities (1677) and then by Rome itself (1681).[22][23][24][25]\n\nA century and a half later, in 1830, headship of the Catholics was conferred on Yohannan Hormizd. Yohannan was a member of the \"Eliya line\" family, but he opposed the last of that line to be elected in the normal way as patriarch, Ishoʿyahb (1778-1804), most of whose followers he won over to communion with Rome, after he himself was irregularly elected in 1780, as Sulaqa was in 1552. The \"Shimun line\" that in 1553 entered communion with Rome and broke it off in 1672 is now that of the church that in 1976 officially adopted the name \"Assyrian Church of the East\",[26][27][28][29] while a member of the \"Eliya line\" family is one of the patriarchs of the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nFor many centuries, from at least the time of Jerome (c. 347 - 420),[30] the term \"Chaldean\" indicated the Aramaic language and was still the normal name in the nineteenth century.[31][32][33] Only in 1445 did it begin to be used to mean Aramaic speakers in communion with the Catholic Church, on the basis of a decree of the Council of Florence,[34] which accepted the profession of faith that Timothy, metropolitan of the Aramaic speakers in Cyprus, made in Aramaic, and which decreed that \"nobody shall in future dare to call [...] Chaldeans, Nestorians\".[35][36][37] \n\nPreviously, when there were as yet no Catholic Aramaic speakers of Mesopotamian origin, the term \"Chaldean\" was applied with explicit reference to their \"Nestorian\" religion. Thus Jacques de Vitry wrote of them in 1220/1 that \"they denied that Mary was the Mother of God and claimed that Christ existed in two persons. They consecrated leavened bread and used the 'Chaldean' (Syriac) language\".[38] Until the second half of the 19th century the term \"Chaldean\" continued in general use for East Syriac Christians, whether \"Nestorian\" or Catholic:[39][40][41][42] it was the West Syriacs who were reported as claiming descent from Asshur, the second son of Shem.[43]\n\nEarly modern period\n\nPeutinger's map of the inhabited world known to the Roman geographers depicts Singara as located west of the Trogoditi. Persi. (Latin: Troglodytae Persiae, \"Persian troglodytes\") who inhabited the territory around Mount Sinjar. By the medieval Arabs, most of the plain was reckoned as part of the province of Diyār Rabīʿa, the \"abode of the Rabīʿa\" tribe. The plain was the site of the determination of the degree by al-Khwārizmī and other astronomers during the reign of the caliph al-Mamun.[44] Sinjar boasted a famous Assyrian cathedral in the 8th century.[45]\n\nSyria and Upper Mesopotamia became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, following the conquests of Suleiman the Magnificent.[46]\n\nModern period\n\nDuring World War I the Assyrians of Anatolia suffered the Assyrian genocide which reduced their numbers by up to 40-50%. Subsequent to this, they entered the war on the side of the British and Russians. After World War I, the Assyrian homeland was divided between the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, which would become the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932, and the French Mandate of Syria which would become the Syrian Arab Republic in 1944.[47][48][49][50]\n\nAssyrians faced reprisals under the Hashemite monarchy for co-operating with the British during the years after World War I, and many fled to the West. The Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai, though born into the line of Patriarchs at Qochanis, was educated in Britain. For a time he sought a homeland for the Assyrians in Iraq but was forced to take refuge in Cyprus in 1933, later moving to Chicago, Illinois, and finally settling near San Francisco, California.[51]\n\nThe Chaldean Christian community was less numerous than the Assyrian refugees that were displaced during World War I and vociferous at the time of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, and did not play a major role in the British rule of the country. However, with the exodus of Assyrian Church of the East members from Anatolia, the Chaldean Catholic Church became the largest non-Muslim religious denomination in Iraq, and some Assyrian Catholics later rose to power in the Ba'ath Party government, the most prominent being Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. The Anatolian Assyrians that settled in Dohuk boast one of the largest churches in the region named the Mar Marsi Cathedral, and is the center of an Eparchy. Tens of thousands of Yazidi and Assyrian Christian refugees live in the city as well due to the ISIS invasion of Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul[52]\n\nIn addition to the Assyrian population, an Aramaic speaking Jewish population existed in the region for thousands of years, living mainly in Barwari, Zakho and Alqosh. However, all of the Barwari Jews either left or were exiled to Israel shortly after its independence in 1947. The region was heavily affected by the Kurdish uprisings during the 1950s and 60s and was largely depopulated during the Al-Anfal campaign in the 1980s, although some of its population later returned and their homes were subsequently rebuilt.[53] Assur, which is in the Saladin Governorate, was put on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in danger in 2003, at which time the site was threatened by a looming large-scale dam project that would have submerged the ancient archaeological site.[54]\n\nAttacks on Christians\n\nFollowing the concerted attacks on Assyrian Christians in Iraq, especially highlighted by the Sunday, August 1, 2004, simultaneous bombing of six Churches (Baghdad and Mosul) and subsequent bombing of nearly thirty other churches throughout the country, Assyrian leadership, internally and externally, began to regard the Nineveh Plains as the location where security for Christians may be possible. Schools especially received much attention in this area and in Kurdish areas where Assyrian concentrated population lives. In addition, agriculture and medical clinics received financial help from the Assyrian diaspora.[55]\n\nAs attacks on Christians increased in Basra, Baghdad, Ramadi and smaller towns more families turned northward to the extended family holdings in the Nineveh Plain. This place of refuge remains underfunded and gravely lacking in infrastructure to aid the ever-increasing internally displaced people population. From 2012, it also began receiving influxes of Assyrians from Syria owing to the civil war there.[56][57]\n\nIn August 2014 nearly all of the non-Sunni inhabitants of the southern regions of the Plains, which include Tel Keppe, Bakhdida, Bartella and Karamlesh were driven out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive.[58][59] Upon entering the town, ISIS looted the homes, and removed the crosses and other religious objects from the churches. The Christian cemetery in the town was also later destroyed.[60] Assyrian Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments and archaeological sites, as well as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries have been systematically vandalized and destroyed by ISIL. These include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Hatra).[61][62] ISIL destroyed a 3,000 year-old Ziggurat. ISIL destroyed Virgin Mary Church, in 2015 St. Markourkas Church was destroyed and the cemetery was bulldozed.[63]\n\nSoon after the beginning of the Battle of Mosul Iraqi troops advanced on Tel Keppe, but the fighting continued into 2017.[64][65] Iraqi forces recaptured the town from ISIS on 19 January 2017.[55]\n\nGeography\n\nClimate\n\nOwing to its latitude and altitude, the Assyrian homeland is cooler and much wetter than most of Iraq. Most areas in the region fall within the Mediterranean climate zone (Csa), with areas to the southwest being semi-arid (BSh).[66]\n\nClimate data for Tel Keppe\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n12\n(54)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n26\n(79)\n\n34\n(93)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n43\n(109)\n\n40\n(104)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n30\n(86)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n27\n(81)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n2\n(36)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n8\n(46)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n16\n(61)\n\n21\n(70)\n\n25\n(77)\n\n24\n(75)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n6\n(43)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n13\n(55)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n39\n(1.5)\n\n69\n(2.7)\n\n51\n(2.0)\n\n9\n(0.4)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n6\n(0.2)\n\n36\n(1.4)\n\n60\n(2.4)\n\n270\n(10.6)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n10\n\n10\n\n11\n\n9\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n5\n\n8\n\n12\n\n65\n\nSource: World Weather Online (2000-2012)[67]\n\nClimate data for Zakho\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n10.2\n(50.4)\n\n12.2\n(54.0)\n\n16.5\n(61.7)\n\n21.8\n(71.2)\n\n29.1\n(84.4)\n\n36.2\n(97.2)\n\n40.4\n(104.7)\n\n40.0\n(104.0)\n\n35.7\n(96.3)\n\n27.9\n(82.2)\n\n19.4\n(66.9)\n\n12.3\n(54.1)\n\n25.1\n(77.3)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n1.9\n(35.4)\n\n3.1\n(37.6)\n\n6.1\n(43.0)\n\n10.1\n(50.2)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n20.1\n(68.2)\n\n23.7\n(74.7)\n\n23.2\n(73.8)\n\n19.2\n(66.6)\n\n13.7\n(56.7)\n\n8.4\n(47.1)\n\n3.9\n(39.0)\n\n12.4\n(54.3)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n144\n(5.7)\n\n136\n(5.4)\n\n129\n(5.1)\n\n109\n(4.3)\n\n43\n(1.7)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n1\n(0.0)\n\n27\n(1.1)\n\n83\n(3.3)\n\n127\n(5.0)\n\n799\n(31.6)\n\nSource: [68]\n\nDemographics\n\nAssyrian populations are distributed between the Assyrian homeland and the Assyrian diaspora. There are no official statistics, and estimates vary greatly, between less than one million in the Assyrian homeland,[2] and 3.3 million with the diaspora included,[69] mostly due to the uncertainty of the number of Assyrians in Iraq and Syria. Since the 2003 Iraq War, Iraqi Assyrians have been displaced into Syria in significant but unknown numbers. Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, Syrian Assyrians have been displaced into Turkey in significant but unknown numbers. The indigenous Assyrian homeland areas are \"part of today's northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria\".[70] \n\nThe Assyrian communities that are still left in the Assyrian homeland are in Syria (400,000),[71] Iraq (300,000),[72] Iran (20,000),[73][74] and Turkey (15,000-25,100).[73][75] Most of the Assyrians living in Syria today, in the Al Hasakah Governorate in villages along the Khabur river, descend from refugees that arrived there after the Assyrian genocide and Simele massacre of the 1910s and 30s. Christian communities of Oriental Orthodox Syriacs lived in Tur Abdin, an area in Southeastern Turkey, Nestorian Assyrians lived in the Hakkari Mountains, which straddles the border of northern Iraq and Southern Turkey, as well as the Urmia Plain, an area located on the western bank of Lake Urmia, and Chaldean and Syriac Catholics lived in the Nineveh Plains, an area located in Northern Iraq.[76]\n\nMore than half of Iraqi Christians have fled to neighboring countries since the start of the Iraq War, and many have not returned, although a number are migrating back to the traditional Assyrian homeland in the Kurdish Autonomous region.[77] Most Assyrians nowadays live in northern Iraq, with the community in Northern (Turkish) Hakkari being completely decimated, and the ones in Tur Abdin and Urmia Plain are largely depopulated.[78]\n\nCreation of an Assyrian autonomous province\n\nThe Assyrian-inhabited towns and villages on the Nineveh Plain form a concentration of those belonging to Syriac Christian traditions, and since this area is the ancient home of the Assyrian empire through which the Assyrian people trace their cultural heritage, the Nineveh Plain is the area on which an effort to form an autonomous Assyrian entity has become concentrated. There have been calls by some politicians inside and outside Iraq to create an autonomous region for Assyrian Christians in this area.[79][80]\n\nIn the Transitional Administrative Law adopted in March 2004 in Baghdad, not only were provisions made for the preservation of Assyrian culture through education and media, but a provision for an administrative unit also was accepted. Article 125 in Iraq's Constitution states that: \"This Constitution shall guarantee the administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights of the various nationalities, such as Turkomen, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and all other constituents, and this shall be regulated by law.\"[81][82]\n\nOn January 21, 2014, the Iraqi government had declared that Nineveh Plains would become a new province, which would serve as a safe haven for Assyrians.[83] After the liberation of the Nineveh Plain from ISIL between 2016/17, all Assyrian political parties called on the European Union and UN Security Council for the creation of an Assyrian self-administered province in the Nineveh Plain.[84]\n\nBetween the 28th-30 June 2017, a conference was held in Brussels dubbed, The Future for Christians in Iraq.[85] The conference was organised by the European People's Party and had participants extending from Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac organizations, including representatives from the Iraqi government and the KRG. The conference was boycotted by the Assyrian Democratic Movement, Sons of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Patriotic Party, Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East. A position paper was signed by the remaining political organizations involved.[86]\n\nSee also\n\nBeth Nahrain\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nPersian Assyria\n\nAsōristān\n\nKurdistan\n\nReferences\n\n^ Odisho, Devi (February 12, 2016). \"Canada and the Future of Assyria\". Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved June 22, 2020.\n\n^ a b Carl Skutsch (2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1.\n\n^ Macuch, R. (1987). “ASSYRIANS IN IRAN i. The Assyrian community (Āšūrīān) in Iran.” Encyclopædia Iranica, II/8. pp. 817-822\n\n^ \"Assyrians: \"3,000 Years of History, Yet the Internet is Our Only Home\"\". www.culturalsurvival.org. 30 March 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-06.\n\n^ \"The Issue of An Assyrian Homeland\". Seyfocenter. 2020-03-06. Retrieved 2022-11-06.\n\n^ For Assyrians as a Christian people, see\n\nJoel J. Elias, The Genetics of Modern Assyrians and their Relationship to Other People of the Middle East \n\nSteven L. Danver, Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues, p. 517\n\n^ Y Odisho, George (1998). The sound system of modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Harrowitz. p. 8. ISBN 3-447-02744-4.\n\n^ \"Nineveh\". Max Mallowan. 9 July 2023.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2003). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-019-518364-1. Retrieved 16 May 2015.\n\n^ J. A. Brinkman (2001). \"Assyria\". In Bruce Manning Metzger, Michael David Coogan (ed.). The Oxford companion to the Bible. Oxford University Press. p. 63.\n\n^ Biblical Archaeology Review May/June 2001: Where Was Abraham's Ur? by Allan R. Millard\n\n^ Société des études arméniennes, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Association de la revue des études arméniennes (1989). Revue des études arméniennes, Volume 21. pp. 303, 309.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ NAARDA, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854)\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2005). \"The Syriac Orient: A Third 'Lung' for the Church?\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 71: 5-20.\n\n^ Parpola, Simo. \"ASSYRIAN IDENTITY IN ANCIENT TIMES AND TODAY\" (PDF).\n\n^ Fuller, 1864, pp. 200-201.\n\n^ Hill, Henry, ed (1988). Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches. Toronto, Canada. pp. 108-109\n\n^ \"History of Ashur\". Assur.de. Retrieved 12 June 2012.\n\n^ Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I By David Gaunt - p. 9, map p. 10.\n\n^ Islamic desk reference, E. J. van Donzel\n\n^ A modern history of the Kurds, David McDowall\n\n^ Wilhelm Baum; Dietmar W. Winkler (8 December 2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-134-43019-2.\n\n^ Eckart Frahm (24 March 2017). A Companion to Assyria. Wiley. p. 1132. ISBN 978-1-118-32523-0.\n\n^ Joseph, John (July 3, 2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. BRILL. ISBN 9004116419 - via Google Books.\n\n^ \"Fred Aprim, \"Assyria and Assyrians Since the 2003 US Occupation of Iraq\"\" (PDF). Retrieved October 12, 2019.\n\n^ Wilhelm Baum; Dietmar W. Winkler (8 December 2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-134-43019-2.\n\n^ Eckart Frahm (24 March 2017). A Companion to Assyria. Wiley. p. 1132. ISBN 978-1-118-32523-0.\n\n^ Joseph, John (July 3, 2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. BRILL. ISBN 9004116419 - via Google Books.\n\n^ \"Fred Aprim, \"Assyria and Assyrians Since the 2003 US Occupation of Iraq\"\" (PDF). Retrieved October 12, 2019.\n\n^ Gallagher, Edmon Louis (23 March 2012). Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text. BRILL. pp. 123, 124, 126, 127, 139. ISBN 978-90-04-22802-3.\n\n^ Julius Fürst (1867). A Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament: With an Introduction Giving a Short History of Hebrew Lexicography. Tauchnitz.\n\n^ Wilhelm Gesenius; Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1859). Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures. Bagster.\n\n^ Benjamin Davies (1876). A Compendious and Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, Chiefly Founded on the Works of Gesenius and Fürst ... A. Cohn.\n\n^ Coakley, J. F. (2011). Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; van Rompay, Lucas (eds.). Chaldeans. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-59333-714-8. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)\n\n^ \"Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence, 1431-49 A.D.\n\n^ Braun-Winkler, p. 112\n\n^ Michael Angold; Frances Margaret Young; K. Scott Bowie (17 August 2006). The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 5, Eastern Christianity. Cambridge University Press. p. 527. ISBN 978-0-521-81113-2.\n\n^ Wilhelm Braun, Dietmar W. Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History (RoutledgeCurzon 2003), p. 83\n\n^ Ainsworth, William (1841). \"An Account of a Visit to the Chaldeans, Inhabiting Central Kurdistán; and of an Ascent of the Peak of Rowándiz (Ṭúr Sheïkhíwá) in Summer in 1840\". The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 11. e.g. p. 36. doi:10.2307/1797632. JSTOR 1797632.\n\n^ William F. Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Armenia (London 1842), vol. II, p. 272, cited in John Joseph, The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East (BRILL 2000), pp. 2 and 4\n\n^ Layard, Austen Henry (July 3, 1850). Nineveh and its remains: an enquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient assyrians. Murray. p. 260 - via Internet Archive. Chaldaeans Nestorians.\n\n^ Simon (oratorien), Richard (July 3, 1684). \"Histoire critique de la creance et des coûtumes des nations du Levant\". Chez Frederic Arnaud - via Google Books.\n\n^ Southgate, Horatio (July 3, 1844). Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian [Jacobite] Church of Mesopotamia. D. Appleton. p. 141 - via Internet Archive. southgate papal chaldean.\n\n^ Abul Fazl-i-Ạllámí (1894), \"Description of the Earth\", The Áin I Akbarí, vol. III, Translated by H.S. Jarrett, Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press for the Asiatic Society of Bengal, pp. 25-27.\n\n^ Wright, William (1894). A short history of Syriac literature. Adam and Charles Black. ISBN 9780837076799. Retrieved 23 December 2014. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ \"Ottoman Empire | Facts, History, & Map | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 2023-07-03. Retrieved 2023-08-13.\n\n^ David Gaunt, \"The Assyrian Genocide of 1915\", Assyrian Genocide Research Center, 2009\n\n^ Akçam, Taner (2012). The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton University Press. pp. xx-xxi. ISBN 978-1-4008-4184-4. Retrieved 26 February 2015.\n\n^ Genocide Scholars Association Officially Recognizes Assyrian Greek Genocides. 16 December 2007. Retrieved 2010-02-02\n\n^ Khosoreva, Anahit. \"The Assyrian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and Adjacent Territories\" in The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies. Ed. Richard G. Hovannisian. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007, pp. 267-274. ISBN 1-4128-0619-4.\n\n^ Travis, Hannibal. \"Native Christians Massacred: The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians During World War I.\" Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol. 1, No. 3, December 2006.\n\n^ \"Mar Narsi church - Dhouk\". www.ishtartv.com.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (16 June 2018). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar. BRILL. ISBN 9789004167650 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. \"Ashur (Qal'at Sherqat)\". whc.unesco.org.\n\n^ a b Griffis, Margaret (19 January 2017). \"Militants Execute Civilians in Mosul; 101 Killed Across Iraq\". Antiwar.com. Retrieved 20 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Relief Projects - Assyrian Aid Society - Iraq\". www.assyrianaidiraq.org.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Aid Society of America\". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2017-07-12.\n\n^ Chulov, Martin; Hawramy, Fazel (9 August 2014). \"'Isis has shattered the ancient ties that bound Iraq's minorities'\". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 August 2014.\n\n^ Barnes, Julian E.; Sparshott, Jeffrey; Malas, Nour (8 August 2014). \"Barack Obama Approves Airstrikes on Iraq, Airdrops Aid\". Wall Street Journal - via online.wsj.com.\n\n^ \"Aiding the Assyrians Fight Against ISIS\". The Huffington Post. 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2016-05-02.\n\n^ \"ISIL video shows destruction of Mosul artefacts\", Al Jazeera, 27 Feb 2015\n\n^ Buchanan, Rose Troup and Saul, Heather (25 February 2015) Isis burns thousands of books and rare manuscripts from Mosul's libraries The Independent\n\n^ \"Assyrian Militia in Iraq Battles Against ISIS for Homeland\". www.aina.org. Retrieved 2017-04-17.\n\n^ Alkhshali, Hamdi; Smith-Spark, Laura; Lister, Tim (22 October 2016). \"ISIS kills hundreds in Mosul area, source says\". CNN. Retrieved 22 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi residents flee Islamic State-held town of Tel Keyf\". YouTube. Reuters. 10 January 2017. Archived from the original on 2021-12-19. Retrieved 12 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Shaqlawa\". Ishtar Broadcasting Corporation.\n\n^ \"Tel Kaif, Ninawa Monthly Climate Average, Iraq\". World Weather Online. Retrieved 22 January 2017.\n\n^ \"Climate: zakho\". Climate-Data. Retrieved 21 January 2017.\n\n^ \"UNPO: Assyria\". www.unpo.org. 2 November 2009.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6.\n\n^ \"Syria's Assyrians threatened by extremists - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East\". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 18 February 2015.\n\n^ \"مسؤول مسيحي : عدد المسيحيين في العراق تراجع الى ثلاثمائة الف\". Retrieved 18 February 2015.\n\n^ a b \"Ishtar: Documenting The Crisis In The Assyrian Iranian Community\". aina.org.\n\n^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2010-10-13). \"Iran: Last of the Assyrians\". Refworld. Retrieved 2013-09-18.\n\n^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. \"Refworld - World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Turkey : Assyrians\". Refworld.\n\n^ Rev. W.A. Wigram (1929). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. London.\n\n^ Assyria. UNPO (2008-03-25). Retrieved on 2013-12-08.\n\n^ The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great By Arther Ferrill - p. 70\n\n^ Iraqi Christians hold critical meeting Archived 2011-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, The Kurdish Globe\n\n^ Dutch MP calls for autonomous Assyrian Christian region in north Iraq, AKI\n\n^ \"Archived copy\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-14. Retrieved 2017-07-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ \"Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project\". Iraqdemocracyproject.org. 2008-02-19. Retrieved 2012-08-17.\n\n^ BetBasoo, Peter; Nuri Kino (22 January 2014). \"Will a Province for Assyrians Stop Their Exodus From Iraq?\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved 6 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians ask EU to support the creation of a Nineveh Plain Province\". Archived from the original on 2020-11-17. Retrieved 2017-07-12.\n\n^ \"christians-in-iraq\". christians-in-iraq. Archived from the original on 2018-08-29. Retrieved 2017-09-10.\n\n^ \"The Future of the Nineveh Plain - Government - Politics\". Scribd.\n\nExternal links\n\nNineveh, Assyria (Bet-Nahren)\n\nThe League of Nations and the Quest for an Assyrian Homeland"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-homeland"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4923}, {"slug": "reference-lake-urmia", "title": "Lake Urmia", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Lake Urmia[a] is an endorheic salt lake in Iran.[7][8] The lake is located in the Iranian region of Azerbaijan, near the Armenian border and south of the Caspian Sea. At its greatest extent, it was the largest lake in West Asia. It was once the sixth-largest saltwater lake...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Lake Urmia\n\nLake Urmia from space in 1984\n\nLake UrmiaLocation within Iran\n\nInteractive map of Lake Urmia\n\nCoordinates37°42′N 45°22′E / 37.700°N 45.367°E / 37.700; 45.367\n\nTypesalt (hypersaline) lake\n\nPrimary inflowsZarriné-Rūd, Simineh-Rūd, Mahabad River, Gadar River, Barandouz River, Shahar River, Nazlou River, Zola River, Kaftar Ali Chay, Aji Chay, Boyuk Chay, Rudkhaneh-ye Qal'eh Chay, Qobi Chay, Rudkhaneh-ye Mordaq, Leylan River; diversion from the Zab River\n\nPrimary outflowsnone: all water entering the lake is lost through evaporation\n\nBasin countriesIran\n\nMax. length140 km (87 mi) [1995]\n\nMax. width70 km (43 mi) [1995]\n\nSurface area6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi) [2021-april][1]\n\nAverage depth6 to 8 m (20 to 26 ft) [1910-2012][2]\n\nMax. depth15 to 20 m (49 to 66 ft) [1910-2012][2]\n\nWater volume5.5 km3 (1.3 cu mi) [2021][1]\n\nSalinity217-235 g L-1 Na-(Mg)-Cl-(SO4) brine [20th c.][3]\n8-11% in spring, 26-28% in late autumn[4]\n\nIslands102 [1995] (see list)\n\nReferences[5]\n\nRamsar Wetland\n\nOfficial nameLake Urmia [or Orumiyeh]\n\nDesignated23 June 1975\n\nReference no.38[6]\n\nLake Urmia[a] is an endorheic salt lake in Iran.[7][8] The lake is located in the Iranian region of Azerbaijan, near the Armenian border and south of the Caspian Sea. At its greatest extent, it was the largest lake in West Asia. It was once the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth, with a surface area of approximately 6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi), a length of 140 km (87 mi), a width of 70 km (43 mi), and a maximum depth of 20 m (66 ft).[9]\n\nBy late 2017, the lake had shrunk to 10% of its former size (and 1/60 of water volume in 1998) due to persistent general drought in Iran, but also the damming of the rivers that flow into it, and the pumping of groundwater from the surrounding area.[10] This dry spell was broken in 2019 and the lake began filling up once again, due to both increased rain and water diversion from the Zab River under the Urmia Lake Research Programme.[11] The trend reversed again in early 2020s, and a combination of drought and administrative mismanagement caused a renewed acute drop in water levels. Based on NASA's satellite imagery, the lake had almost entirely dried up by September 2025.[12] After massive rainfall across the Fertile Crescent, along with the mass release of surplus water from dams and dredging of canals, in early 2026, the water level in Lake Urmia rose to its highest in five years.[13]\n\nLake Urmia, along with its approximately 102 (former) islands, is protected as a national park by the Iranian Department of Environment.\n\nNames and etymologies\n\nRichard Nelson Frye suggested an Urartian origin for the name,[14] while T. Burrow connected the origin of the name Urmia to Indo-Iranian urmi- \"wave\" and urmya- \"undulating, wavy\".[15] A more likely etymology would be from Neo-Aramaic (Sureth) spoken by the shrinking number of the ancient Christian population of the nearby city of Urmia, consisting of ur meaning \"city,\" and mia meaning \"water.\" Together, the \"water city\", what Urmia city is: a city on the waters of the eponymous lake. The name could also derive from the combination of the Assyrian Aramaic words Ur (ܐܘܪ; a common name for cities around Mesopotamia, meaning \"city\") and Mia (Syriac: ܡܝܐ, lit. 'water'), \"City of Water\" referring to the city nearby.[16]\n\nLocally, the lake is referred to in Persian as Daryâče-ye Orumiye (دریاچهٔ ارومیه), in Azerbaijani as Urmu gölü (اۇرمۇ گؤلۆ). The traditional Armenian name is Kaputan tsov (Կապուտան ծով), literally \"blue sea\".[17][18][19]\n\nIts Old Persian name was Chichast, meaning \"glittering\", a reference to the glittering mineral particles suspended in the water of the lake and found along its shores. The Greeks called it Spauta (Σπαῦτα), and also it was probably the same as the Μαρτιανὴ λίμνη of Ptolemy.[20]\n\nArchaeology and history\n\nYanik Tepe is a prehistoric site on the east shore of Lake Urmia, that has been excavated in the 1950s and 1960s by C. A. Burney.[21] This area has been settled as far back as 6000 BC. There's a large group of sites south of Lake Urmia that have been excavated. They include Dalma Tepe, Teppe Hasanlu, and Geoy Tepe. Hajji Firuz Tepe may have been the earliest of these sites.\n\nSe Girdan kurgans are located on the south shore of Lake Urmia. Some of them were excavated in 1968 and 1970 by O. Muscarella. They have now been redated to the second half of the 4th millennium, although originally they were thought to be much younger.[22]\n\nOne of the early mentions of Lake Urmia is from Assyrian records of the 9th century BCE. There, in the records from the reign of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE), two names are mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia: Parsuwaš (i.e. the Persians) and Matai (i.e. the Mitanni). It is not completely clear whether these referred to places or tribes, or what their relationship was to the subsequent list of personal names and \"kings\". But the Matai were Medes and linguistically the name Parsuwaš matches the Old Persian word pārsa, an Achaemenid ethnolinguistic designation.[23]\n\nIn the last five hundred years the area around Lake Urmia has been home to Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Persians, Assyrians,[24] and Armenians.[25] The Assyrians of Urmia speak Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects and are religiously diverse, adhering to the East Syriac churches (mostly to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church),[26] and Protestantism.[27]\n\nChemistry\n\nThe main cations in the lake water include Na+, K+, Ca2+, Li+ and Mg2+, while Cl-, SO2-\n4, HCO-\n3 are the main anions. The Na+ and Cl- concentration is roughly four times the concentration of natural seawater.\n\nThe lake is divided into north and south, separated by the Urmia Lake Bridge and its associated causeway, which was completed in 2008. The bridge provides only a 1.5-kilometre (0.93 mi) gap in the embankment, allowing little exchange of water between the two sections. Due to drought and increased demands for agricultural water in the lake's basin, the salinity of the lake has risen to more than 300 g/L during recent years, and large areas of the lake bed have been desiccated.[28]\n\nEcology\n\nAAGGHKLUMHTSKTTD UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Iran[29]\n\nPalaeoecology\n\nModern ecology\n\nBased on the latest checklists of biodiversity at Lake Urmia in 2014 and 2016, it is home to 62 species of archaebacteria and bacteria, 42 species of microfungi, 20 species of phytoplankton, 311 species of plants, five species of mollusca, 226 species of birds, 27 species of amphibians and reptiles and 24 species of mammals (47 fossils have been recorded in the area).[30][31]\n\nLake Urmia is an internationally registered protected area as both a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve[29] and a Ramsar site.[32] The Iranian Department of Environment has designated most of the lake as a national park.[33]\n\nA recent drought has significantly decreased the annual amount of water the lake receives. This in turn has increased the salinity of the lake's water, reducing its viability as home to thousands of migratory birds, including flamingo populations. The salinity has particularly increased in the half of the lake north of the Urmia Lake Bridge.\n\nBy virtue of its high salinity, the lake no longer sustains any fish species. Nonetheless, Urmia Lake is considered a significant natural habitat of Artemia, which serve as food source for the migratory birds such as flamingos.[34] In early 2013, the then-head of the Iranian Artemia Research Center was quoted that Artemia urmiana had gone extinct due to the drastic increases in salinity. However this assessment has been contradicted,[35] and another population of this species has recently been discovered in the Koyashskoye Salt Lake at the Crimean Peninsula.[36]\n\nFalling level and increasing salinity\n\nThe lake is a major barrier between Urmia and Tabriz, two of the most important cities in the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan.[37] A project to build a highway across the lake was initiated in the 1970s but was abandoned after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, leaving a 15 km (9.3 mi) causeway with an unbridged gap.[38] The project was revived in the early 2000s, and was completed in November 2008 with the opening of the 1.5 km (0.93 mi) Urmia Lake Bridge across the remaining gap.[39] The highly saline environment is already heavily rusting the steel on the bridge despite anti-corrosion treatment. Experts have warned that the construction of the causeway and bridge, together with a series of ecological factors, will eventually lead to the drying up of the lake, turning it into a salt marsh, which will adversely affect the climate of the region.\n\nLake Urmia has been shrinking for a long time, with an annual evaporation rate of 0.6 to 1 m (24 to 39 in). Although measures are now being taken to reverse the trend,[40] the lake has shrunk by 60% and could disappear entirely.[40] Only 5% of the lake's water remains.[41]\n\nOn 2 August 2012, Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh, the head of Iran's Environment Protection Organization, announced that Armenia had agreed to transfer water to counter the critical fall in Lake Urmia's water level, remarking that \"hot weather and a lack of precipitation have brought the lake to its lowest water levels ever recorded\". He added that recovery plans for the lake included the transfer of water from Eastern Azerbaijan Province. Previously, Iranian authorities had announced a plan to transfer water from the Aras River, which borders Iran and Azerbaijan, but the 950-billion-toman plan was abandoned due to Azerbaijan's objections.[42]\n\nIn July 2014, Iran President Hassan Rouhani approved plans for a 14 trillion rial program (over $500 million) in the first year of a recovery plan. The money was supposed to be used for water management, reducing farmers' water use, and environmental restoration. Several months earlier, in March 2014, Iran's Department of Environment and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued a plan to save the lake and the nearby wetland, which called for spending $225 million in the first year and $1.3 billion overall for restoration.[43]\n\nStarting in 2016, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Urmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) signed up to a project funded by the Government of Japan entitled \"An Integrated Programme for Sustainable Water Resources Management in the Lake Urmia Basin\" to support ULRP in its goal to restore Lake Urmia. The project set out a multi-disciplinary framework covering several key interrelated areas and aims to have five outputs: 1. An advanced water accounting (WA) system for the entire Lake Urmia basin; 2. A drought management system based on risk/vulnerability assessment and preparedness response for the basin; 3. A socio-economic livelihood programme with viable and sustainable alternatives to current agricultural activities upstream of the lake to reduce water consumption significantly while maintaining the income and livelihood of affected communities; 4. An integrated watershed management (WM) programme; A capacity development programme to strengthen stakeholders at different levels.\n\nThe Silveh Dam in Piranshahr County should be complete in 2015. Through a tunnel and canals it will transfer up to 121,700,000 m3 (98,700 acre⋅ft) of water annually from the Lavin River in the Little Zab basin to Lake Urmia basin.[44][45]\n\nIn 2015, president Hassan Rouhani's cabinet approved $660 million for improving irrigation systems, and steps to combat desertification.[10]\n\nIn September 2018, A working group tasked with reviving Lake Urmia has started to grow two types of plants to save the region from salt particles. The two plants are Nitraria or Karadagh and Tamarix or Shoorgaz, which are planted on the land of Jabal Kandi village in Urmia County, to slow down the wind that brings with itself the salt particles.[46]\n\nBy the end of the summer of 2025, the lake had completely disappeared according to NASA images.[47]\n\nEnvironmental protests\n\nThe prospect that Lake Urmia might dry up entirely has drawn protests in Iran and abroad, directed at both the regional and national governments. Protests flared in late August 2011 after the Iranian parliament voted not to provide funds to channel water from the Aras River to raise the lake level.[48][49] Apparently, parliament proposed instead to relocate people living around Urmia Lake.[49]\n\nMore than 30 activists were detained on 24 August 2011 during an iftar meal.[49] In the absence of a right to protest publicly in Iran, protesters have incorporated their messages into chants at football matches.[48][50] On 25 August, several soccer fans were detained before and after the Tabriz derby match between Tractor Sazi F.C. and Shahrdari Tabriz F.C. for shouting slogans in favor of protecting the lake, including \"Urmia Lake is dying, the Majlis [parliament] orders its execution\".[48][49][51][52]\n\nFurther demonstrations took place in the streets of Tabriz and Urmia on 27 August and 3 September 2011.[48][50][53] Amateur video from these events showed riot police on motorcycles attacking apparently peaceful protesters.[50][54] According to the governor of West Azerbaijan, at least 60 supporters of the lake were arrested in Urmia, and dozens in Tabriz, because they had not applied for a permit to organize a demonstration.[55]\n\nThe effect of climate change on the lake, has been extensively covered by an Iranian photojournalist Solmaz Daryani.[56][57][58][59][60][61]\n\nIslands\n\nLake Urmia had approximately 102 islands.[62] Shahi Island was historically the lake's largest. However, it became a peninsula connected to the eastern shore when the lake level dropped.[3][63]\n\nShahi Island is the burial place of both Hulagu Khan (one of Genghis Khan's grandsons) and of Hulagu's son Abaqa. Both khans were buried in a castle above 1,000-foot (300 m) cliffs along the shore of the island.[64]\n\nBasin rivers\n\nLake Urmia is fed by 13 permanent rivers and many small springs, as well as rainfall directly into the lake.[3] Nearly half the inflow comes from the Zarrineh River and Simineh River.[3] There is no outflow from the lake so water is only lost through evaporation.[3]\n\nAji Chay\n\nAlamlou River\n\nBarandouz River\n\nGadar River\n\nGhaie River\n\nLeylan River\n\nMahabad River\n\nNazlou River\n\nRozeh River\n\nShahar River\n\nSimineh River\n\nZarrineh River\n\nZola River\n\nIn popular culture\n\nLake Urmia was the setting of the Iranian film The White Meadows (2009).[65]\n\nUrmia Lake Research Programme\n\nUrmia Lake Restoration Program (ULRP) is run by Sharif University of Technology with the following goals:[66]\n\nDocumenting the experiences and lessons learned from the cooperation of the academic community in various stages of studying and implementing solutions to a national environmental challenge in the country.\n\nGallery\n\n Lake Urmia, NW Iran, September 2015\n\n Bridge construction over Lake Urmia in 2005\n\n Lake Urmia around the \"Shahid Kalantari\" highway\n\nSee also\n\nArk of Nuh or Noah\n\nUrmia Lake Bridge\n\nList of drying lakes\n\nMount Judi\n\nNotes\n\n^ Persian: دریاچهٔ ارومیه, romanized: Daryâče-ye Orumiye;\nAzerbaijani: اۇرمۇ گؤلۆ, romanized: Urmu gölü;\nKurdish: گۆلائوو رمیەیێ, romanized: Gola Ûrmiyeyê;\nArmenian: Ուրմիա լիճ, romanized: Urmia lich;\nImperial Aramaic: ܝܡܬܐ ܕܐܘܪܡܝܐ\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Lake Urmia's surface increased by over 1500 km2\". Urmia Lake Research Program. 11 April 2021. Archived 20 October 2023 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b \"Urmia, Lake\", Encyclopedia Iranica\n\n^ a b c d e Stevens, Lora R.; Djamali, Morteza; Andrieu-Ponel, Valérie; de Beaulieu, Jacques-Louis (1 April 2012). \"Hydroclimatic variations over the last two glacial/interglacial cycles at Urmia Lake, Iran\". Journal of Paleolimnology. 47 (4). Springer Netherlands: 647. doi:10.1007/s10933-012-9588-3. S2CID 128970562.\n\n^ \"Urmia Lake\". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2015.\n\n^ \"Lake Urmia's surface increased by over 1500 km²\". Tehran Times. 11 April 2021.\n\n^ \"Lake Urmia [or Orumiyeh]\". Ramsar Sites Information Service. Retrieved 25 April 2018.\n\n^ Henry, Roger (2003). Synchronized chronology: Rethinking Middle East Antiquity: A Simple Correction to Egyptian Chronology Resolves the Major Problems in Biblical and Greek Archaeology. New York: Algora Publishing. p. 138. ISBN 0-87586-191-1.\n\n^ E. J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. Vol. 7. p. 1037 - via books.google.com. citing Strabo and Ptolemy\n\n^ \"Britanica\". Britannica.com. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ a b Stone, Richard (2 September 2015). \"Saving Iran's great salt lake\". Science. 349 (6252): 1044-5, 1047. Bibcode:2015Sci...349.1044S. doi:10.1126/science.aad1702. PMID 26339009.\n\n^ Dudley, Dominic. \"Iran's Lake Urmia: How A Dying Salt Lake Is Being Brought Back From The Brink\". Forbes. Retrieved 29 May 2020.\n\n^ \"NASA Confirms Lake Urmia Has Vanished Amid Iran's Environmental Crisis\". caspianpost.com.\n\n^ \"Unprecedented rise in Lake Urmia water level since 2020\". www.tehrantimes.com.\n\n^ Richard Nelson Frye, The history of ancient Iran, München (1984), 48-49\n\n^ The Proto-Indoaryans, by T. Burrow, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2 (1973), pp. 123-140, published by: Cambridge University Press, see 139\n\n^ \"Search Entry\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 23 November 2020.\n\n^ Amurian, A.; Kasheff, M. (15 December 1986). \"Armenians of modern Iran\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Archived from the original on 26 October 2018. Retrieved 2 May 2016. Urmia (class. Arm. Kaputan) ...\n\n^ Russell, James R. (1987). Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Harvard University. p. 430. Urmia Lake, called Kaputan cov by Arm. geographers...\n\n^ \"Armenian Highland\". armin.am. Institute for Armenian Studies of Yerevan State University. Archived from the original on 2 September 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2016. In the Armenian Highland there are numerous lakes and ponds. The most majors are Kaputan (Urmia), Van and Sevan.\n\n^ \"Spauta\". www.perseus.tufts.edu, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854). Retrieved 23 January 2026.\n\n^ C. A. Burney, Excavations at Yanik Tepe, North-West-Iran, Iraq 23, 1961, pp. 138ff.\n\n^ O. W. Muscarella, \"The Chronology and Culture of Se Girdan: Phase III\", Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 9/1-2, 2003, pp. 117-31\n\n^ cf. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2006), \"Iran, vi(1). Earliest Evidence\", Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. 13\n\n^ George David Malech. History of the Syrian Nation and the Old Evangelical-apostolic Church of the East: From Remote Antiquity to the Present Time (1910). Gorgias Press LLC. pp. 1-. ISBN 978-1-59333-408-6.\n\n^ Vander Werff, Lyle L. (1977). Christian mission to Muslims: the record: Anglican and Reformed approaches in India and the Near East, 1800-1938. The William Carey Library series on Islamic studies. William Carey Library. pp. 366. ISBN 978-0-87808-320-6.\n\n^ Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-313-32109-2.\n\n^ Vander Werff, Lyle L. (1977). Christian mission to Muslims: the record: Anglican and Reformed approaches in India and the Near East, 1800-1938. The William Carey Library series on Islamic studies. William Carey Library. pp. 366. ISBN 978-0-87808-320-6.\n\n^ Alireza Asem; Fereidun Mohebbi; Reza Ahmadi (2012). \"Drought in Urmia Lake, the largest natural habitat of brine shrimp Artemia\" (PDF). World Aquaculture. 43: 36-38. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 April 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.\n\n^ a b \"UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Directory\".\n\n^ Asem, A.; Eimanifar, A.; Djamal, M.; De; Rios, P.; Wink, M. (2014). \"Biodiversity of the Hypersaline Urmia Lake National Park (NW Iran)\". Diversity. 6 (1): 102-132. Bibcode:2014Diver...6..102A. doi:10.3390/d6010102.\n\n^ Asem, A.; Eimanifar, A.; Wink, M. (2016). \"\"Update of \"Biodiversity of the Hypersaline Urmia Lake National Park (NW Iran)\". Diversity. 8 (4): 6. doi:10.3390/d8010006.\n\n^ \"Lake Urmia [or Orumiyeh]\". Ramsar Sites Information Service. Retrieved 31 October 2023.\n\n^ \"ProtectedPlanet - Urumieh lake\". www.protectedplanet.net. Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2015.\n\n^ C. Michael Hogan. 2011. Urmia Lake. Eds. P. Saundry & C. J.Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington, D.C., www.eoearth.org\n\n^ \"Critical condition of Artemia urmiana and possibility of extinction (archived 2014/02/01)\". saveurmia.com. 11 January 2013. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014.\n\n^ Eimanifar A; Asem A; Djamali M; Wink M (2016). \"A note on the biogeographical origin of the brine shrimp Artemia urmiana Günther, 1899 from Urmia Lake, Iran\". Zootaxa. 4097 (2): 294-300. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4097.2.12. PMID 27394547. S2CID 25998873.\n\n^ Daryani, Solmaz (11 September 2020). \"The Ghost Towns of Lake Urmia, Once West Asia's Largest Lake\". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 17 October 2024.\n\n^ Schwartzstein, Peter. \"The return of a once-dying lake\". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 17 October 2024.\n\n^ \"Iran's East and West Azerbaijan Provinces Connected by Lake Orumiyeh Bridge\". Payvand.com. Archived from the original on 6 September 2022. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ a b Karimi, N. Iran's largest lake turning to salt. Associated Press 25 May 2011\n\n^ Erdbrink, Thomas (30 January 2014). \"Its Great Lake Shriveled, Iran Confronts Crisis of Water Supply\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 31 January 2014. Retrieved 11 May 2017. \n\n^ \"Armenia to help Iran save drying lake Oroumiyeh\". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2012.\n\n^ \"Iran to spend $500 million to save shrunken Lake Urmia\". newscientist.com. 4 July 2014.\n\n^ \"Completed by the end of the 94 dams Silveh Piranshahr\" (in Persian). Kurd Press. 23 August 2014. Archived from the original on 20 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.\n\n^ \"Silveh Dam and Irrigation and Drainage\" (in Persian). Omran Iran - Deputy Governor of Armenia. Retrieved 20 January 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Iran Using Plants to Fight Dust Pollution in Lake Urmia\". ifpnews.com. 28 September 2018.\n\n^ \"'Lake Urmia Has Become Part of History,' Report Declares as NASA Images Confirm Complete Disappearance\". Kurdistan24. 7 September 2025. Retrieved 8 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c d Mackey, Robert (30 August 2011). \"Protests in Iran Over Disappearing Lake\". The New York Times. Iran. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ a b c d \"Armeni Activists Detained in Iran For Environmental Protests\". RFE/RL. 26 August 2011. Retrieved 12 November 2015.\n\n^ a b c \"Iranian greens fear disaster as Lake Orumieh shrinks\". The Guardian. London. 5 September 2011.\n\n^ \"Rally protesting Iran over Urmia Lake turns violent\". Hurriyet Daily News. 1 September 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ \"Iranian Protest Urges Help for Shrinking Lake\". San Francisco Chronicle. 30 August 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ \"Azeri Turks in Ankara protest Urmia Lake drying up\". todayszaman.com. Archived from the original on 6 September 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ \"Iran police break up environmental protests\". euronews.net. 4 September 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ \"Iran arrests saltwater lake protesters\". BBC. 4 September 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2011.\n\n^ Daryani, Solmaz. \"A reflection on how climate change altered Lake Urmia\". The Caravan. Retrieved 7 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Final winners of IdeasTap and Magnum Photos documentary photography award announced\". British Journal of Photography. 22 December 2015. Retrieved 7 December 2019.\n\n^ Daryani, Solmaz. \"Troubled Waters\". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 27 February 2020.\n\n^ \"The Eyes of Earth\". emerge - Magazin für jungen Fotojournalismus (in German). 11 June 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Why is the largest lake in the Middle East drying up?\". english.alarabiya.net. 17 March 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2020.\n\n^ Daryani, Solmaz. \"Troubled Waters\". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 17 October 2024.\n\n^ List from: Farahang-e Joghrafiyayi-e shahrestânhâ-ye Keshvar (Shahrestân-e Orumiyeh), Tehran 1379\nHs.\n\n^ Asem, Alireza; Eimanifar, Amin; Djamali, Morteza; De los Rios, Patricio; Wink, Michael (2014). \"Biodiversity of the Hypersaline Urmia Lake National Park (NW Iran)\". Diversity. 6 (1): 102-132. Bibcode:2014Diver...6..102A. doi:10.3390/d6010102.\n\n^ Boyle, John Andrew (1974). \"The Thirteenth-Century Mongols' Conception of the After Life: The Evidence of their Funerary Practices\". Mongolian Studies. 1. Mongolia Society: 7. ISSN 0190-3667. JSTOR 43193015.\n\n^ \"The White Meadows\". Variety. 19 September 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2026.\n\n^ \"درباره ما\". طرح تحقیقاتی دریاچه ارومیه (in Persian). Archived from the original on 19 May 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2023.\n\nExternal links\n\n(in English) Urmia official website in English\n\nIranica Encyclopedia: Eckhart Ehlers, \"Lake Urmia\", 2013\n\nEncyclopedia of Earth: C. Michael Hogan, \"Lake Urmia\", 2011\n\nSaline Systems; Urmia Salt Lake, Iran Archived 21 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine\n\nProfile at UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Directory\n\nIran's Environmental Ticking Bomb Archived 29 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine\n\nLandsat - Drying of Lake Urmia, Iran, Google Earth Engine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-lake-urmia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3997}, {"slug": "reference-old-syriac", "title": "Old Syriac", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The term Old Syriac may refer to: Old Syriac language - an early stage of the Syriac language Old Syriac alphabet - an early stage of the Syriac alphabet Old Syriac Gospels - the Old Syriac version of the New Testament, that predates the standard Peshitta version, represented...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The term Old Syriac may refer to:\n\nOld Syriac language - an early stage of the Syriac language\n\nOld Syriac alphabet - an early stage of the Syriac alphabet\n\nOld Syriac Gospels - the Old Syriac version of the New Testament, that predates the standard Peshitta version, represented by two manuscripts:\n\nthe Curetonian Gospels\n\nthe Sinaitic Palimpsest\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac (disambiguation)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-old-syriac"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 58}, {"slug": "reference-sharbel-touma", "title": "Sharbel Touma", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Sharbel Touma (born 25 March 1979) is a former professional footballer who played as a winger. Born in Lebanon, he played for the Sweden national team.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sharbel Touma\n\nTouma in 2007\n\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nSharbel Touma\n\nDate of birth\n (1979-03-25) 25 March 1979\n\nPlace of birth\nBeirut, Lebanon\n\nHeight\n1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)\n\nPosition\nWinger\n\nYouth career\n\n1989-1992\nMotala\n\n1992-1994\nSyrianska\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n1994-1995\nSyrianska\n1\n(0)\n\n1995-1999\nDjurgården\n46\n(9)\n\n1999-2001\nAIK\n29\n(4)\n\n2002-2005\nHalmstad\n68\n(20)\n\n2005-2007\nFC Twente\n79\n(18)\n\n2007-2009\nBorussia Mönchengladbach\n17\n(3)\n\n2009-2010\nIraklis\n8\n(0)\n\n2010-2011\nDjurgården\n26\n(5)\n\n2011-2014\nSyrianska\n72\n(18)\n\n2017\nSyrianska\n1\n(0)\n\nTotal\n\n347\n(77)\n\nInternational career\n\n1994\nSweden U16\n1\n(0)\n\n1995-1997\nSweden U18\n8\n(1)\n\n1999-2001\nSweden U21\n5\n(1)\n\n2001-2004\nSweden\n2\n(0)\n\nManagerial career\n\n2017\nSyrianska\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals\n\nSharbel Touma (born 25 March 1979) is a former professional footballer who played as a winger. Born in Lebanon, he played for the Sweden national team.\n\nBeginning his career with Syrianska in the mid-1990s, he went on to represent Djurgårdens IF, AIK, Halmstad, Twente, Borussia Mönchengladbach, and Iraklis before returning to Syrianska in 2011 to wrap up his career.\n\nEarly life\n\nTouma was born in Beirut, Lebanon,[1][2] and is of Syriac (Assyrian/Aramean) origin.[3][4][5][6] He moved to Sweden at a young age and was granted Swedish citizenship.\n\nClub career\n\nTouma made his senior debut for Syrianska FC in the 1994 Division 2.[7] He joined Djurgårdens IF, where he won the PSM för klubblag with the under-16 squad.[7] He debuted in the senior team in the 1997 season.\n\nHe later played for AIK, Halmstads BK and F.C. Twente.[8] He won \"the Big Silver\" (Stora Silvret in Swedish, second place in the Swedish top league, Allsvenskan) with Halmstads BK 2004 and left them for FC Twente. On 4 November 2008 was suspended and called up for the second team from Borussia Mönchengladbach between December 2008, he also release the club in July 2009 to sign with Iraklis.\n\nTouma was on a trial with the Norwegian football club Rosenborg BK[9] and on 22 March 2010 Touma returned from Iraklis to his mother club Djurgårdens IF of the Allsvenskan.[10] He played from 1997-99 in Stockholm and scored 10 goals in 48 matches.\n\nIn 2017, Touma re-joined Syrianska, playing one league match.[11]\n\nInternational career\n\nA youth international for the Sweden U16, U18, and U21 teams, Touma made his full international debut for Sweden on 1 February 2001 in a friendly 0-1 loss against Finland when he played for 77 minutes before being replaced by Christian Hemberg.[12][13] He won his second and final cap on 17 October 2004 in a friendly 4-1 win against Scotland, coming on as a substitute for Christian Wilhelmsson in the 76th minute.[14]\n\nManagerial career\n\nIn 2024, Touma was appointed head coach of Syrianska.[15]\n\nPersonal life\n\nTouma is married and has two children: Phillip and Isabelle.[3] He is related to footballers Jimmy Durmaz, David Durmaz, and Charbel Georges.[16][5]\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\nAppearances and goals by club, season and competition\n\nClub\n\nSeason\n\nLeague\n\nCup\n\nLeague Cup\n\nEurope\n\nOther\n\nTotal\n\nDivision\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\n\nSyrianska FC\n\n1994[17]\n\nDivision 2 Östra Svealand\n\n1\n0\n\n-\n\n1\n0\n\nTotal\n\n1\n0\n0\n0\n-\n0\n0\n0\n0\n1\n0\n\nDjurgården\n\n1997[17]\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\n8\n0\n\n1\n-\n-\n-\n\n8\n1\n\n1998[18]\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n14\n1\n1\n0\n-\n-\n-\n\n15\n1\n\n1999[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n24\n8\n\n-\n-\n-\n\n24\n8\n\nTotal\n\n46\n9\n1\n1\n-\n0\n0\n0\n0\n47\n10\n\nAIK\n\n2000[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n4\n0\n0\n0\n-\n\n4\n0\n\n2001[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n25\n4\n4\n3\n-\n5\n0\n\n34\n7\n\nTotal\n\n29\n4\n4\n3\n-\n5\n0\n0\n0\n38\n7\n\nHalmstads BK\n\n2002[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n22\n6\n\n-\n\n22\n6\n\n2003[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n20\n4\n\n-\n\n20\n4\n\n2004[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n26\n10\n\n-\n\n1\n0\n26\n10\n\nTotal\n\n68\n20\n0\n0\n-\n0\n0\n1\n0\n69\n20\n\nFC Twente\n\n2004-05[19]\n\nEredivisie\n\n19\n4\n\n-\n\n19\n4\n\n2005-06[19][20]\n\nEredivisie\n28\n5\n\n-\n\n6\n1\n34\n6\n\n2006-07[19][20]\n\nEredivisie\n32\n9\n\n-\n4\n3\n1\n0\n37\n12\n\nTotal\n\n79\n18\n0\n0\n-\n4\n3\n7\n1\n90\n22\n\nBorussia Mönchengladbach\n\n2007-08[19]\n\n2. Bundesliga\n\n16\n3\n1\n0\n\n17\n3\n\n2008-09[19]\n\nBundesliga\n\n1\n0\n1\n0\n-\n\n2\n0\n\nTotal\n\n17\n3\n2\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n19\n3\n\nIraklis\n\n2009-10[19]\n\nSuper League\n\n8\n0\n\n-\n\n8\n0\n\nTotal\n\n8\n0\n0\n0\n-\n0\n0\n0\n0\n8\n0\n\nDjurgården\n\n2010[17]\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n26\n5\n0\n0\n-\n\n26\n5\n\nTotal\n\n26\n5\n0\n0\n-\n0\n0\n0\n0\n26\n5\n\nSyrianska FC\n\n2011[19]\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n24\n5\n\n-\n\n2\n0\n26\n5\n\n2012[19]\n\nAllsvenskan\n25\n8\n1\n2\n-\n\n26\n10\n\n2013[19]\n\nAllsvenskan\n17\n3\n\n-\n\n17\n3\n\n2014[17]\n\nSuperettan\n\n6\n2\n1\n0\n-\n\n7\n2\n\n2017[12]\n\nSuperettan\n\n1\n\n0\n\n-\n\n-\n\n-\n\n-\n\n1\n\n0\n\nTotal\n\n73\n18\n2\n2\n-\n0\n0\n1\n0\n77\n20\n\nCareer total\n\n347\n77\n9\n6\n0\n0\n9\n3\n10\n1\n375\n87\n\nInternational\n\nAppearances and goals by national team and year[12]\n\nNational team\n\nYear\n\nApps\n\nGoals\n\nSweden\n\n2001\n\n1\n\n0\n\n2002\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2003\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2004\n\n1\n\n0\n\nTotal\n\n2\n\n0\n\nHonours\n\nDjurgårdens IF\n\nDivision 1 Norra: 1998\n\nFC Twente\n\nUEFA Intertoto Cup: 2006\n\nBorussia Mönchengladbach\n\n2. Bundesliga: 2007-08\n\nReferences\n\nGeneral\n\nAlsiö, Martin; Frantz, Alf; Lindahl, Jimmy; Persson, Gunnar, eds. (2004). 100 år: Svenska fotbollförbundets jubileumsbok 1904-2004, del 2: statistiken [100 years: Swedish Football Association's centenary 1904-2004, part 2: statistics] (in Swedish). Vällingby: Stroemberg Media Group. ISBN 91-86184-59-8.\n\nSpecific\n\n^ \"500 AIK:are - Sharbel Touma\". aik.se.\n\n^ \"Aftonbladet sport: Allsvenskan\". aftonbladet.se.\n\n^ a b https://web.archive.org/web/20110518075022/http://www.svenskafans.com/fotboll/syrianska/162093.aspx\n\n^ \"'Ook Friesland kan meedoen aan het schaduw-WK'\". Voetbal International (in Dutch). 29 May 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2024.\n\n^ a b \"David Durmaz om mötet med sin nya klubb\". www.svenskafans.com (in Swedish). Retrieved 8 November 2025.\n\n^ Ahmed, Shuaib (11 March 2016). \"The Assyrian community in Sweden holding on to its roots\". These Football Times. Retrieved 8 November 2025.\n\n^ a b Frantz, Alf; Glanell, Tomas; Persson, Gunnar, eds. (2008). Det svenska fotbollslandslaget 1908-2008 [The Swedish National Football Team 1908-2008] (in Swedish). Vällingby: CA Strömberg AB. ISBN 978-91-86184-69-8.\n\n^ eredivisie.nl Archived 4 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Hjem - Rosenborg\". Rosenborg Ballklub. Archived from the original on 28 March 2010. Retrieved 22 March 2010.\n\n^ Sharbel Touma till DIF Archived 25 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ TV: Sharbel Touma, 38, bytte in sig själv: \"Livsviktig match\"‚ fotbollskanalen.se, 17 June 2017\n\n^ a b c \"Sharbel Touma - Spelarstatistik - Svensk fotboll\". www.svenskfotboll.se. (in Swedish). Retrieved 19 November 2021.\n\n^ \"Sverige - Finland - Matchfakta - Svensk fotboll\". www.svenskfotboll.se (in Swedish). February 2001. Retrieved 19 November 2021.\n\n^ \"Skottland - Sverige - Matchfakta - Svensk fotboll\". www.svenskfotboll.sehttps (in Swedish). 17 October 2004. Retrieved 19 November 2021.\n\n^ Officiellt: Sharbel Touma blir huvudtränare i Syrianska FC‚ fotbolltransfers.com, 21 December 2016\n\n^ \"Durmaz kusin jagas av allsvenskar\". fotbolldirekt.se. 22 August 2012. Archived from the original on 28 February 2013. Retrieved 30 April 2017.; \"Från division II till 50 000 på Friends?\". fotbolldirekt.se. 26 March 2013. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2017.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j Benjamin Strack-Zimmermann. \"Sharbel Touma - National Football Teams\". national-football-teams.com.\n\n^ Niklas Schulman. \"DIF.se - Lagstatistik 1998\". dif.se. Archived from the original on 22 February 2015. Retrieved 22 February 2015.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i \"Eliteprospects.com - Sharbel Touma\". Elite Prospects.\n\n^ a b \"Sharbel Touma » Vereinsspiele » Playoffs Eredivisie\". weltfussball.de.\n\nExternal links\n\nSharbel Touma at the Swedish Football Association (in Swedish)\n\nSharbel Touma at Elite Football"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sharbel-touma"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1292}, {"slug": "reference-gawar", "title": "Gawar", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Gawar may refer to: Yüksekova, known in Syriac as Gawar, a city in Turkey Gawar language, and Afro-Asiatic language of Cameroon See also Gavar, a town in Armenia Gaur (disambiguation) Gawar-Bati language, an Indo-Aryan language of Pakistan", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Gawar may refer to:\n\nYüksekova, known in Syriac as Gawar, a city in Turkey\n\nGawar language, and Afro-Asiatic language of Cameroon\n\nSee also\n\nGavar, a town in Armenia\n\nGaur (disambiguation)\n\nGawar-Bati language, an Indo-Aryan language of Pakistan"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-gawar"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 37}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-alexander-legend", "title": "Syriac Alexander Legend", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Syriac Alexander Legend (Neṣḥānā d-Aleksandrōs Syriac: ܢܨܚܢܐ) is a 6th or 7th century work of Christian Syriac literature concerning the legends of Alexander the Great.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Syriac Alexander Legend (Neṣḥānā d-Aleksandrōs Syriac: ܢܨܚܢܐ) is a 6th or 7th century work of Christian Syriac literature concerning the legends of Alexander the Great. \n\nIn the beginning of the story, Alexander declares his intentions to explore the ends of the world, and he promises to God that he will rule the world. He gathers an army in Egypt, and then travels to the Fetid Sea but is not able to cross it. Instead, he finds the \"window of heaven\" that allows him to travel from the place where the sun sets to where it rises. In the region of the sunrise, he travels to Central Asia and sets up camp near a mountain pass, only to be informed that he is now in the domain of the Persian emperor. He learns that beyond the mountain pass are barbarian tribes, with Gog and Magog as two of their kings. Deciding to seal up their entryway through the mountains, he tasks his blacksmiths and metalworkers from Egypt to construct an iron and bronze wall. He then reveals two prophecies about when the barbarians will penetrate the wall and bring about a world war, out of which the Romans will emerge victorious. Later, the Persian emperor learns of Alexander's presence. He advances an army against Alexander, but the advance is miraculously revealed to Alexander, who then proceeds to defeat the emperor despite his numerical disadvantage. After victory, Alexander travels and prays in Jerusalem, and finally, returns to Alexandria.[1]\n\nThe Syriac Alexander Legend is the first narrative to weave together many motifs that previously existed across different stories, including the Gates of Alexander, the apocalypse, and the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog. It went on to exert a major influence on apocalyptic literature written after it, especially that in the Syriac tradition, such as the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem. The portrayal of Alexander in the Legend is also believed to lie behind the character known as Dhu al-Qarnayn (or the \"Two-Horned One\") in the Quran.[2][3] \n\nOther names that the text goes by includes \"The Victory of Alexander\", the \"Christian Syriac Alexander Legend\" (or CSAL for short), or in the 1889 Budge edition, it appears under the title \"A Christian Legend concerning Alexander\". Other legendary works on Alexander in the Syriac language include the Syriac Alexander Romance (which it shows up with in its manuscripts, despite no original relationship between the texts[4]) and the Song of Alexander.\n\nComposition\n\nDate\n\nThe old consensus, since Theodor Nöldeke, placed the provenance of the Syriac Alexander Legend in north Mesopotamia in around 629-630 CE, shortly after Heraclius defeated the Sasanians.[5] In recent years, many historians have conducted a reappraisal of the date of the text. The basis of the original dating has been a vaticinium ex eventu prophecy, whose termination was placed around the year 630. One reanalysis of the internal chronology of the text has placed the termination of this prophecy instead in 614.[6] A more common approach in recent years has been to re-emphasize a second, earlier vaticinium ex eventu prophecy which describes an event that occurred in 514/5. Several scholars have since argued that the text was originally composed in the aftermath of this event, from the early-to-mid-6th century CE (perhaps during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I), and that the second and later prophecy was a hastily made interpolation in the text in the context of the Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628, potentially to propagandistically reignite its utility for the current war situation.[7][8][9][10]\n\nAside from the written date of the text, others have also argued that the contents of the legend likely circulated orally for several decades prior to its being placed into a written form.[11]\n\nThe text of the legend is attached to Syriac versions of the Alexander Romance, and is preserved in six late manuscripts, the oldest of which was copied in 1708-1709.[12] The slightly later Song of Alexander survives in five manuscripts, the oldest of which was copied in the 9th century CE.[13]\n\nSources\n\nA number of historians believe that the Legend is a substantially reshaped version of the earlier Alexander Romance.[14] Others consider the two to be independent works.[4]\n\nPlot\n\nThe plot of the Legend can be divided into three main sections:[1]\n\nFirst section. Alexander summons his council to declare his desire to explore the outermost part of the world. He is warned of the problems that he will encounter, but decides to go through anyways. He promises to God that he will bring the world into his dominion and gathers an army to Egypt where he enrolls blacksmiths and metalworkers. He then travels to the Fetid Sea but finds it impossible to cross. He finds the \"window of heaven\" which allows him to travel from the place where the sun sets to the place where the sun rises.\n\nSecond section. Alexander travels from the place of the sunset to sunrise and the section begins when he is in the region of the sunrise, in the Far East. From there, he travels westward to Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. He sets up camp at a mountain but a local delegation of elders meets him to inform him that the region he has encamped at is under the dominion of Tūbarlaq, the Persian emperor. In dialogue with the elders, he asks them about what lies beyond the mountain. They describe to him the barbarian tribe known as the Huns, of whom Gog and Magog are listed as two of the kings. Deciding to seal away these tribes, he uses the help of the blacksmiths and metalworkers he had recruited back in Egypt to construct a wall between two mountains made of iron and bronze. After the construction is complete, Alexander relays a prophecy of two future dates, set at 826 AG (514-515 AD) and 940 AG (628- 629 AD), during which the Huns will break through the gate and initiate the apocalypse (end of the world). A world conflict will arise out of which the Romans will emerge victorious and conquer the entire world.\n\nThird section. The locals inform Tūbarlaq about where Alexander has set camp. Tūbarlaq summons an army and advances on Alexander; however, by divine intervention, Alexander is informed of Tūbarlaq's approach. Alexander prays to God for victory in spite of his vast numerical disadvantage, as his soldiers number one tenth of Tūbarlaq's. His prayer is granted, and during the battle God plays an active part in defeating the Persians. Tūbarlaq's astrologers prophesy that in the end of the world, Persia will be destroyed and the Romans will conquer. After his victory, Alexander travels to Jerusalem where he prays before God. Finally, he returns to Alexandria.\n\nThemes\n\nAlexander's gate\n\nIn the Legend, the Gates of Alexander are an apocalyptic barrier built by Alexander in the Caucasus to keep out the nations of Gog and Magog.[15] This development was inspired by some elements of the historical context of the time, including dread of the northern hordes, a variety of Persian fortifications meant to seal off the movement of steppe nomads, and eschatological thinking and attitudes of the time.[16] At its outset, the Syriac Alexander Legend (otherwise known as the Neshana) records Alexander constructing a wall of iron to prevent an invasion of the Huns that would result in the plunder of peoples and countries. Alexander commanded that the gate should be constructed out of iron and bronze, for which he recruited three thousand blacksmiths to work the latter and three thousand other men for the former. However, it was believed that the barbarian tribes would break through during the apocalypse.[17] The dimensions and features of the gate are described in detail, and Alexander was said to have placed an inscription on it which reads \"The Huns will come forth and subdue the countries of the Romans and Persians; they will shoot arrows with armagest and will return and enter their country. Moreover, I wrote that (at) the end of eight hundred and twenty six years, the Huns would come forth by the narrow road...\" (the inscription goes on for several more pages). This prophecy whereby the Huns break through the gates is linked to the invasion of the Sabir people in 515 AD as Syriac texts would use the Seleucid calendrical system which began in 1 October, 312 BCE; by subtracting 311 or 312, a date of 514/5 is arrived at, representing a vaticinium ex eventu. A second prophecy of an incursion appears for 940 SE, pinpointing to 628/9 AD and corresponds with the invasion of Armenia by the Turkic Khazars (not to be confused with a reference to the Turks which may not occur in this type of literature until the ninth century),[16] although this may have been an interpolation that was made into the text during the reign of Heraclius to update the narrative for a contemporary political situation.[18]\n\nThe description of the Gates of Alexander in the Syriac Alexander Legend influenced most subsequent Syriac literature describing these events.[19]\n\nAlexander's horns\n\nThe horns of Alexander are described twice in the Legend. The first is during a prayer by Alexander's[20]:\n\nKing Alexander bowed, and worshipping said: “Oh God, master of kings and judges, you who raise up kings and dismiss their power, I perceive with my mind that you made me great among all kings, and that you caused horns to grow on my head, so that I may gore with them the kingdoms of the world. Give me the power from the heavens of your sanctity so that I may receive strength greater than the kingdoms of the world, and I will humiliate them and glorify your name forever, oh Lord!\n\nThe second reference occurs towards the end of the text as God speaks to Alexander and tells him that he gave him two horns to use them as a weapon against other worldly kingdoms[21]:\n\nI made you great among all kings, and I caused horns of iron to grow on your head, so that you may gore with them the kingdoms of the world.\n\nThe two-horned imagery of the Syriac Alexander Legend draws together elements from the Peshitta of 1 Kings 22:11/2 Chronicles 18:10, Micah 4:13, and the two-horned ram in Daniel 8. In particular, the term used in the Legend for two horns, qrntʾ, is likely to be inspired by the appearance of qrntʾ in the Peshitta (standard Syriac translation) of Daniel 8:3.[21]\n\nGog and Magog\n\nIn the Legend, Gog and Magog are kings of barbarian Hunnish tribes[a][22] that play a role in the apocalypse. The Legend is the first text to give this role to Gog and Magog.[23] The Legend claims that Alexander carved prophecies on the face of the Gate, marking a date for when these Huns, consisting of 24 nations, will breach the Gate and subjugate the greater part of the world.[b][24][25]\n\nCosmography\n\nThe Syriac Alexander Legend contains a notable discussion of cosmography among works in the popular domain of literature from Late Antiquity, as opposed to more systematic theological works or homiletic reflections on the Genesis creation narrative.[26] The opening of the text includes Alexander contemplating what he will discover about how the world is shaped if he succeeds in travelling through it:[27][26]\n\nAlexander told them: “This thought came to my mind, and I am seized by amazement: what is the extent of the earth and what the height of heaven? How many are the countries of the other kings? And on what are heavens based? Are perhaps clouds and winds that lift them up? Or are rather columns of fire rising from the earth that support the skies so that they do not move? Or are they hung to God’s nod and do not fall? And this is what I desire to go and see: upon what the heavens lie and what surrounds the whole creation.” \n\nAlexander travels to the ends of the earth, where he finds Oceanus, an unpassable ocean that circles the entire world. Alexander also observes the path of the sun: he discovers that the sun rises from one area of the earth and goes up until it enters the firmament through a window. The people who live near the sun's rising are forced to take shelter due to its heat. When the sun sets, it passes back into the earthly world through another celestial window, leaving the visible sky, after which it prostrates to God. The cycle is then repeated as the sun begins to return to the rising point. Alexander then discovers the Northern Mountains, which contain an ominous people that he seals away with a gate.[28]\n\nThe cosmography of the Syriac Alexander Legend is evidently inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh, such as when Gilgamesh reaches the ocean circling the earth, but in the Gilgamesh story, the ocean is traversable.[29][30] The Legend's cosmography also closely follows what is seen in the Babylonian Map of the World.[31] The text also aligns with a Mesopotamian cosmography in its description of the path of the sun: as the sun sets in the west, it passes through a gateway in the firmament, cycles to the other side of the earth, and rises in the east in its passage through another celestial gateway. Alexander, like Gilgamesh, follows the path of the sun during his journey.[32] Gilgamesh's journey takes him to a great cosmic mountain Mashu. Likewise, Alexander reaches a cosmic mountain known as Musas.[33]\n\nAlexander and Dhu al-Qarnayn\n\nIn the late 19th century, Theodor Noldeke proposed that traditions of the Syriac Alexander Legend played a role in the formation of traditions about an enigmatic figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn (\"The Two-Horned One\") in the Quran. Forgotten, this thesis would be revived in the field of Quranic studies by Kevin van Bladel in a 2008 article.[2] Since then, the thesis has been further developed by publications from Tommaso Tesei.[3][8] Some of the main combination of motifs that have been related between the two texts involve an apocalyptic incursion, Gog and Magog, and Gates of Alexander.[34] According to Marianna Klar, this thesis overemphasizes the similarities and downplays the differences. She argues that a direct relation between the two traditions has been assumed but not yet established.[35] In turn, Tesei has argued that the narrative differences are minor compared to the coherence between the texts, and that a direct relationship is bolstered by the presence of many elements unique to the Legend in the account of Dhu al-Qarnayn.[36]\n\nSee also\n\nGates of Alexander\n\nHistory of Alexander\n\nLetters of Alexander the Great\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also called Christian Legend concerning Alexander, ed. tr. by E. A. Wallis Budge. It has a long full-title, which in shorthand reads \"An exploit of Alexander.. how.. he made a gate of iron, and shut it [against] the Huns\".\n\n^ The first invasion, prophesied to occur 826 years after Alexander predicted, has been worked out to fall on 1 October 514; the second invasion on A.D. 629 (Boyle 1979, p. 124).\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Tesei 2023, p. 10-12.\n\n^ a b Van Bladel 2008.\n\n^ a b Tesei 2014.\n\n^ a b Tesei 2023, p. 10.\n\n^ Ciancaglini, Claudia A. (2001). \"The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance\". Le Muséon. 114 (1-2): 121-140. doi:10.2143/MUS.114.1.302.\n\n^ Ghaffar, Zishan (2020). Der Koran in seinem religions- und weltgeschichtlichen Kontext: Eschatologie und Apokalyptik in den mittelmekkanischen Suren. Beiträge zur Koranforschung. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. pp. 156-166. ISBN 978-3-506-70432-0.\n\n^ Shoemaker 2018, p. 79-86.\n\n^ a b Tesei 2023.\n\n^ Debié 2022, p. 272-273.\n\n^ Debié 2024, Chapter 3 § La datation du texte.\n\n^ Griffith, Sidney (2021). \"The Narratives of \"the Companions of the Cave,\" Moses and His Servant, and Dhū 'l-Qarnayn in Sūrat al-Kahf: Late Antique Lore within the Purview of the Qurʾān\". Journal of the International Qur'anic Studies Association. 6 (1): 137-166. doi:10.5913/jiqsa.6.2021.a005. ISSN 2474-8420.\n\n^ Monferrer-Sala 2011, p. 45, 50.\n\n^ Monferrer-Sala 2011, p. 45.\n\n^ Monferrer-Sala 2011, p. 55.\n\n^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, pp. 25-49.\n\n^ a b Dickens, Mark (2023). \"Gog and Magog in Syriac Literature II: Literature Connected to the Alexander Legend Prior to Michael the Syrian\". In Tamer, Georges; Mein, Andrew; Greisiger, Lutz (eds.). Gog and Magog: contributions toward a world history of an apocalyptic motif. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - tension, transmission, transformation. Berlin Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 153-161. ISBN 9783110720150.\n\n^ Tesei 2023, p. 173-179.\n\n^ Tesei 2023, p. 30-44.\n\n^ Dickens, Mark (2023). \"Gog and Magog in Syriac Literature II: Literature Connected to the Alexander Legend Prior to Michael the Syrian\". In Tamer, Georges; Mein, Andrew; Greisiger, Lutz (eds.). Gog and Magog: contributions toward a world history of an apocalyptic motif. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - tension, transmission, transformation. Berlin Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 161-195. ISBN 9783110720150.\n\n^ Budge 1889, p. 257.\n\n^ a b Tesei 2023, p. 137-146.\n\n^ Budge 1889, II, p. 150.\n\n^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, p. 17, \"The episode of Alexander's building a wall against Gog and Magog, however, is not found in the oldest Greek, Latin, Armenian and Syriac versions of the Romance. Though the Alexander Romance was decisive for the spreading of the new and supernatural image of Alexander the king in East and West, the barrier episode has not its origin in this text. The fusion of the motif of Alexander's barrier with the Biblical tradition of the apocalyptic peoples Gog and Magog appears in fact for the first time in the so called Syriac Alexander Legend. This text is a short appendix attached to the Syriac manuscripts of the Alexander Romance.\".\n\n^ Budge 1889, II, pp. 153-54.\n\n^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, pp. 17-21.\n\n^ a b Gleede 2021, p. 183.\n\n^ Tesei 2023, p. 173.\n\n^ Gleede 2021, p. 183-184.\n\n^ Debié 2024, Chapter 3 § Une cosmographie mésopotamienne.\n\n^ Debié 2024, Chapter 3 § La mer morte ou fétide : l’océan qui entoure le monde.\n\n^ Debié 2024, Chapter 3 § La carte babylonienne du monde et la carte d’Alexandre.\n\n^ Debié 2024, Chapter 3 § Le chemin du soleil et les portes du ciel.\n\n^ Debié 2024, Chapter 3 § Le mont Mashu.\n\n^ Tesei 2023, p. 114-115, 171-172.\n\n^ Klar 2020, p. 134, 137.\n\n^ Tesei 2023, p. 171-172.\n\nSources\n\nAnderson, Andrew Runni (1932). Alexander's Gate, Gog and Magog: And the Inclosed Nations. Mediaeval Academy of America. ISBN 9780910956079. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nArmstrong, Edward C. (1937). The Medieval French Roman d'Alexandre. Vol. VI. Princeton University Press.\n\nBoyle, John Andrew (1979), \"Alexander and the Mongols\", The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 111 (2): 123-136, doi:10.1017/S0035869X00135555, JSTOR 25211053, S2CID 164166534\n\nBudge, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis, ed. (1889). \"A Christian Legend concerning Alexander\". The History of Alexander the Great, Being the Syriac Version. Vol. II. Cambridge University Press. pp. 144-158.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2022). \"Textual Exchanges in Late Antiquity: East and South of Byzantium Seen Through an Eastern Christian Lens\". Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies Plenary Sessions. Vol. 1. Fondazione Università Ca’Foscari.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2024). Alexandre le Grand en syriaque. Les Belles Lettres.\n\nGleede, Benjamin (2021). Antiochenische Kosmographie? Zur Begründung und Verbreitung nichtsphärischer Weltkonzeptionen in der antiken Christenheit. De Gruyter.\n\nMonferrer-Sala, Juan Pedro (2011). \"Alexander The Great In The Syriac Literary Tradition\". In Zuwiyya, David (ed.). A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages. Brill. pp. 41-72. ISBN 978-90-04-21193-3.\n\nMeyer, Paul (1886). Alexandre le Grand dans la littérature française du moyen âge. F. Vieweg. p. 170.\n\nShoemaker, Stephen (2018). The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. University of Pennsylvania Press.\n\nStoneman, Richard (tr.), ed. (1991). The Greek Alexander Romance. Penguin. ISBN 9780141907116.\n\nTesei, Tommaso (2014). \"The prophecy of Ḏū-l-Qarnayn (Q 18:83-102) and the Origins of the Qurʾānic Corpus\". Miscellanea Arabica: 273-290.\n\nTesei, Tommaso (2023). The Syriac Legend of Alexander's Gate. Oxford University Press.\n\nVan Bladel, Kevin (2008). \"The Alexander Legend in the Qur'an 18:83-102\". In Reynolds, Gabriel Said (ed.). The Qurʼān in Its Historical Context. Routledge.\n\nVan Donzel, Emeri J.; Schmidt, Andrea Barbara (2010). Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam's Quest for Alexander's Wall. Brill. ISBN 978-9004174160.\n\nWestrem, Scott D. (1998). \"Against Gog and Magog\". In Tomasch, Sylvia; Sealy, Gilles (eds.). Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812216350.\n\nKlar, Marianna (2020). \"Qur'anic Exempla and Late Antique Narratives\". The Oxford Handbook of Qur'anic Studies. Oxford University Press. p. 134,137. ISBN 9780199698646.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBarry, Phillips; Anderson, A. R. (1933). \"Review of Alexander's Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations\". Speculum. 8 (2): 264-270. doi:10.2307/2846760. ISSN 0038-7134. JSTOR 2846760.\n\nCzeglédy, K. (1957). \"The Syriac Legend Concerning Alexander the Great\". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 7 (2/3): 231-249. ISSN 0001-6446. JSTOR 23682632.\n\nExternal links\n\nBudge's translation of four Syriac Alexander texts, including the Syriac Alexander Legend"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-alexander-legend"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3492}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-austria", "title": "Assyrians in Austria", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The Assyrian community in Austria began in 1974 when Assyrians from Diyarbakir, Midyat and Mardin in the Assyrian homeland immigrated to Vienna.[3]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Austria\nTotal population\n\n2,500 - 5,000 [1][2]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nVienna\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic and Austrian German\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nAssyrians in Austria (German: Assyrer in Österreich) are Austrians of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have Austrian citizenship.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Assyrian community in Austria began in 1974 when Assyrians from Diyarbakir, Midyat and Mardin in the Assyrian homeland immigrated to Vienna.[3]\n\nIn 2009, an Assyrian clubhouse was opened in Vienna. The clubhouse organizes community events such as parties and conferences.[4]\n\nReligion\n\nMost Assyrians in Austria belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church, though a minority belong to the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nThe Patriarchal Vicar responsible for the Syriac Orthodox community in Austria resides in the Swiss town of Arth. In 1987, the Syriac Orthodox church was recognized as a religious community by the government of Austria.[5]\n\nNotable people\n\nFadi Merza[6]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nDemographics of Austria\n\nAssyrians in France\n\nAssyrians in Germany\n\nAssyrians in the Netherlands\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Assyrische Bevölkerung weltweit\". bethnahrin. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ Özkan, Duygu. \"Die christlichen Assyrer zu Wien\". DiePresse. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ Özkan, Duygu. \"Die christlichen Assyrer zu Wien\". DiePresse. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Mesopotamien Kultur und Sport Verein Wien\". bethnahrin. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ Özkan, Duygu. \"Die christlichen Assyrer zu Wien\". DiePresse. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ Dakroub, Roy. \"Multiple WKA and Muay Thai World Champ Fadi Merza: Train Hard, Fight Easy\". ArabsMMA. Retrieved 24 June 2019."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-austria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 242}, {"slug": "reference-school-of-edessa", "title": "School of Edessa", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The School of Edessa (Syriac: ܐܣܟܘܠܐ ܕܐܘܪܗܝ) was a Christian theological school of great importance to the Syriac-speaking world. It had been founded as long ago as the 2nd century by the kings of the Abgar dynasty. In 363, Nisibis fell to the Persians in a peace treaty,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The School of Edessa (Syriac: ܐܣܟܘܠܐ ܕܐܘܪܗܝ) was a Christian theological school of great importance to the Syriac-speaking world. It had been founded as long ago as the 2nd century by the kings of the Abgar dynasty. In 363, Nisibis fell to the Persians in a peace treaty, causing Ephrem the Syrian, accompanied by a number of teachers, to leave the School of Nisibis. They went to Edessa, where Ephrem took over the directorship of its school. Then, its importance grew still further. There were innumerable monasteries at Edessa housing many monks. Ephrem occupied a cell there, practicing the ascetic life, interpreting Holy Scripture, composing poetry and hymns and teaching in the school, as well as instructing young girls in church music.[1]\n\nThe first recorded director of the School of Edessa was Qiiore, in the early 5th century. He had ascetic and scholarly qualifications and an administrative ability. Occupying the Chair of Exegesis (mepasqana), he replaced the texts of Ephraim with those of Theodore of Mopsuestia. With that seminal decision, Qiiore embarked upon a course of study that was to mix the deductive principles of Aristotle with Theodore's Dyophysite creed.[2]\n\nIn 489, after the Nestorian Schism, the Byzantine emperor Zeno, acting on the advice of Bishop Cyrus II of Edessa, ordered the school summarily closed for its teachings of Nestorian doctrine. Its scholars moved back to the School of Nisibis.[3]\n\nPeople\n\nThe following people are associated with the School of Edessa:\n\nBarhadbshabba Arbaya, historian of the school (c.600)\n\nBarsauma of Nisibis, student and teacher (fl. 489)\n\nElishaʿ bar Quzbaye, student (early 5th century)\n\nEphrem the Syrian, teacher (360s)\n\nIbas of Edessa, head (early 5th century)\n\nJacob of Serugh, student (late 5th century)\n\nNarsai, student and head (fl. 471)\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"MONASTIC LIFE IN THE SYRIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ANTIOCH\". Archived from the original on 2011-07-28.\n\n^ The School of Edessa, Nestorian.org.\n\n^ Meyendorff 1989, p. 99, 194.\n\nBibliography\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2005). \"The Theological Schools of Antioch, Edessa and Nisibis\". Christianity: A History in the Middle East. Beirut: Middle East Council of Churches. pp. 143-160.\n\nDrijvers, Hendrik J. W. (1995). \"The School of Edessa: Greek Learning and Local Culture\". Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East. Leiden: Brill. pp. 49-59.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2002). \"Christianity in Edessa and the Syriac-Speaking World: Mani, Bar Daysan, and Ephraem, the Struggle for Allegiance on the Aramean Frontier\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 2: 5-20. Archived from the original on 2019-09-10. Retrieved 2021-02-25.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2003). \"The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 6 (2): 269-292.\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (2002). \"The Transmission of Greek Philosophy via the School of Edessa\". Literacy, Education and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond. Leiden: Brill. pp. 225-239.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (1995). \"Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth: The School of Nisibis at the Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century\". Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-modern Europe and the Near East. Leiden: Brill. pp. 77-89.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-school-of-edessa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 564}, {"slug": "reference-british-assyrians", "title": "British Assyrians", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "They are the indigenous population of present-day Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeast Syria, descended from the ancient Mesopotamians. They speak Syriac and are predominantly Christian.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "British Assyrians\nFr Habib, the Chaldean Catholic Priest in London\n\nTotal population\n\n3,000-4,000 [1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nLondon\n\nLanguages\n\nEnglish\n\nSyriac-Aramaic\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nBritish Assyrians are British people of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have British citizenship.\n\nThey are the indigenous population of present-day Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeast Syria, descended from the ancient Mesopotamians. They speak Syriac and are predominantly Christian.\n\nConcentrations of Assyrians are found in Greenford and in Hanwell, both towns within the London Borough of Ealing.[2] Assyrians in the UK and other western countries mostly migrated from Iran, Iraq, Turksy and Syria. Migration was largely triggered by long standing ethnic and religious persecution in their homeland.\n\nReligious institutions\n\nA Chaldean Catholic Church is rented in Acton, London.[3] The Assyrian Church of the East have its own church, The Ancient Church of the East rent a hall and one Club exist [4][5] are owned by the Assyrians in South Ealing. The priest of the Chaldean Church is currently Father Habib al-Noufaly.[3] The former Chaldean priest was Father Andreas, now a bishop, ordained in Rome by the Pope in 2004.[6]\n\nImmigration history\n\nThe earliest recorded Assyrian in the UK was Hormuzd Rassam the famed archaeologist and politician. He became a diplomat in the UK in the mid-19th century and settled in Brighton. The theologian Louis Cheikho spent time in the United Kingdom in the late 19th century also. The theologian and orientalist Alphonse Mingana was also a notable early arrival in the Edwardian period. Assyrians have traditionally migrated to Britain from their ancestral homelands in northern Iraq, south eastern Turkey, north eastern Syria and north western Iran.\n\nModern times\n\nMany more Assyrians fled Iraq for the UK during the rule of the Baathist regime from 1963 to 2003 due to racial persecution, the Baathist Arabs pursuing a policy of forced Arabisation upon the Pre-Arab Assyrians, together with bouts of ethnic cleansing and forced relocations. A further influx occurred as a result of the al-Anfal Campaign against Iraqi minorities in the 1980s, and again after the Gulf War (1990-91).\n\nFollowing the Invasion of Iraq in 2003, more Assyrians fled to the UK in the face of increased religious and ethnic persecution from Arab Islamists and Kurdish Nationalists, including bombing of churches, random killings, violent harassment, death threats and kidnappings.[7]\n\nIn recent years, the Assyrians have received support from a number of parliamentarians, in particular MP Steven Pound of Ealing and Lord Hylton. Issues raised included the racial and religious persecution of Assyrians by both Kurds and Arabs, and a brief outline of their history since the \"Great Game\".[8] Assyrians received increased media coverage with the kidnapping and death of a Chaldean Catholic Bishop in Iraq.[9]\n\nOther groups of Assyrians have fled Iran due to religious persecution, Syria and northern Iraq due to ethnic discrimination and the recent civil war, where they are violently targeted for ethnic cleansing by the Islamists of ISIL, and also Turkey due to both ethnic and religious discrimination.\n\nAssyrians in London have formed a football club, FC Ealing Assyrians.[10]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nBritish Iraqis\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"This figure is an estimate from the Assyrian Cultural and Advice Centre\" [1] at Iraqi Assyrians in London: Beyond the 'Immigrant/Refugee' Divide; Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 1995\n\n^ Assyriac: Denied in Its Own Homeland, But Accepted in England Archived 12 February 2002 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b Watts, Greg (5 February 2005). \"At your service\". The Times. London. Retrieved 19 March 2009.\n\n^ Banipal UK tour of Arab authors Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine mentions an Assyrian club\n\n^ \"Assyrian Society of Great Britain, London (Temple Road)\".\n\n^ Chaldean Patriarch & Bishops Visit the Pope\n\n^ \"Blast Hits Churches Across Iraq, 11 dead\". christiansofiraq.com. Archived from the original on 18 August 2004.\n\n^ \"Christians of Iraq\". www.christiansofiraq.com. Retrieved 2 June 2024.\n\n^ \"CNS STORY: Iraqi bishop pauses due to weeping at funeral of priest, subdeacons\". www.catholicnews.com. Archived from the original on 10 June 2007. Retrieved 13 January 2022.\n\n^ Club News & Match Reports webcitation.org"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-british-assyrians"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 689}, {"slug": "reference-mount-izla", "title": "Mount Izla", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Mount Izla (Syriac: ܛܘܪ ܐܝܙܠܐ Ṭūr Īzlā' ),[1] also Mountain of Nisibis or briefly in the 9th century Mount Kashyari, is a low mountain or ridge near Nisibis in what once a part of Assyria, then Sassanid Persian province of Asoristan, but is now southeastern Turkey, along the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mt. Izla Mt. Izla in Turkey\n\nMount Izla (Syriac: ܛܘܪ ܐܝܙܠܐ Ṭūr Īzlā' ),[1] also Mountain of Nisibis or briefly in the 9th century Mount Kashyari, is a low mountain or ridge near Nisibis in what once a part of Assyria, then Sassanid Persian province of Asoristan, but is now southeastern Turkey, along the border with Syria. The ridge is the location of dozens of ancient monasteries which were built by the Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox Church in the early centuries of Eastern Rite Christianity. In modern times, all of the monasteries are in ruins except for that of Mar Melke reconsecrated in the 1930s, Mor Yakub Monastery, founded in Dibek in 2012-2013, and the Monastery of Mor Augin which was refounded in 2008 after being abandoned in the 70's.\n\nGeography\n\nThough called a mountain, it is actually a 77-kilometre-long (48 mi) ridge running from east to west, with a plateau on the northern (Turkey) side, and a plain on the southern (Syria) side. One end of the ridge is Dara, a Roman fortification. On the other is Sisauranon (Sīrwān), the location of the Castle of Tur Abdin, as well as a monastery which was built by Theodosius II in the 5th century.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly monasteries, believed to have been founded in the 4th century, are Mar Awgin, Mar Malke, and Mar Samuel. The next was the most famous, Mar Abraham of Kashkar, also known as the Great Monastery, which was founded in the latter part of the 6th century by the Assyrian Church of the East. Later monasteries included that of Rabban Sapra, Mar Yaret, Mar Khudahwi, Za'faran (Saffron), Mar Yohannan, and Mar Ya'qob. At its peak, there were approximately 40,000 Christian monks which resided on Mt. Izla.\n\nNotable residents\n\nAbraham the Great of Kashkar\n\nDadisho of Mount Izla\n\nBabai the Great\n\nReferences\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Izla - ܛܘܪܐ ܕܐܝܙܠܐ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified January 14, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/100.\n\nWigram, W. A. (2004). An introduction to the history of the Assyrian Church, or, The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire, 100-640 A.D. Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-103-7.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-0876-5.\n\nExternal links\n\n\"Gertrude Bell climbs Mt. Isla\" (video). YouTube. August 7, 2007. Archived from the original on 2021-12-15. Retrieved January 30, 2010.\n\n37°20′00″N 41°10′00″E / 37.33333°N 41.16667°E / 37.33333; 41.16667"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mount-izla"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 415}, {"slug": "reference-oud", "title": "Oud", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The oud (/uːd/ OOD; Arabic: عُود, romanized: ʿūd, pronounced [ʕuːd])[2][3][4] is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument[5] (a chordophone in the Hornbostel-Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have five or seven courses, with 10 or 13...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Oud\nOud crafted by Emmanuel Venious in 1916[1]\n\nString instrument\n\nClassification\n\nString instruments\n\nNecked bowl lutes\n\nHornbostel-Sachs classification321.321-6\n(Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum)\n\nDevelopedIslamic Golden Age\n\nRelated instruments\n\nList\n\nAngélique\n\nArchlute\n\nBarbat (lute)\n\nBaglamadaki\n\nBağlama\n\nBipa\n\nBiwa\n\nBouzouki\n\nÇifteli\n\nCobza\n\nCümbüş\n\nDaguangxian\n\nĐàn tỳ bà\n\nDombra\n\nDomra\n\nDutar\n\nKobza\n\nLavta\n\nLiuqin\n\nLute\n\nMandocello\n\nMandola\n\nMandolin\n\nMandolute\n\nPandura\n\nPipa\n\nQanbus\n\nRud\n\nŠargija\n\nSaz\n\nSetar\n\nTanbur\n\nTanbur (Turkish)\n\nTar (Azerbaijani instrument)\n\nTembûr\n\nTheorbo\n\nTorban\n\nSound sample\n\nCrafting and playing the Oud\n\nUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage\n\nCountryIran and Syria\n\nReference01867\n\nInscription history\n\nInscription2022 (17th session)\n\nListRepresentative\n\nThe oud (/uːd/ OOD; Arabic: عُود, romanized: ʿūd, pronounced [ʕuːd])[2][3][4] is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument[5] (a chordophone in the Hornbostel-Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have five or seven courses, with 10 or 13 strings respectively.\n\nThe oud is similar to other types of lute, and to Western lutes which developed out of the Medieval Islamic oud.[6] Similar instruments have been used in the Middle East, some predating Islam, such as the barbat from Persia. Different versions of the oud are used in Arabia, Turkey, and other Middle Eastern and Balkan regions.[7] The oud, as a fundamental difference with the western lute, has no frets and a smaller neck. It is the direct successor of the Persian barbat lute.[8] The oldest surviving oud is thought to be in Brussels, at the Museum of Musical Instruments.[9]\n\nAn early description of the \"modern\" oud was given by 11th-century musician, singer and author Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965-1040) in his compendium on music Ḥāwī al-Funūn wa Salwat al-Maḥzūn. The first known complete description of the ‛ūd and its construction is found in the epistle Risāla fī-l-Luḥūn wa-n-Nagham by 9th-century philosopher of the Arabs Yaʻqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī.[10] Kindī's description stands thus:\n\n[and the] length [of the ‛ūd] will be: thirty-six joint fingers-with good thick fingers-and the total will amount to three ashbār.[Notes 1] And its width: fifteen fingers. And its depth seven and a half fingers. And the measurement of the width of the bridge with the remainder behind: six fingers. Remains the length of the strings: thirty fingers and on these strings take place the division and the partition, because it is the sounding [or \"the speaking\"] length. This is why the width must be [of] fifteen fingers as it is the half of this length. Similarly for the depth, seven fingers and a half and this is the half of the width and the quarter of the length [of the strings]. And the neck must be one third of the length [of the speaking strings] and it is: ten fingers. Remains the vibrating body: twenty fingers. And that the back (soundbox) be well rounded and its \"thinning\" (kharţ) [must be done] towards the neck, as if it had been a round body drawn with a compass which was cut in two in order to extract two ‛ūds.[11]\n\nIn Pre-Islamic Persia, Arabia and Mesopotamia, the stringed instruments had only three strings, with a small musical box and a long neck without any tuning pegs. But during the Islamic era the musical box was enlarged, a fourth string was added, and the base for the tuning pegs (Bunjuk) or pegbox was added. In the first centuries of (pre-Islamic) Arabian civilisation, the stringed instruments had four courses (one string per course-double-strings came later), tuned in successive fourths. Curt Sachs said they were called (from lowest to highest pitch) bamm, maṭlaṭ, maṭnā and zīr.[12] \"As early as the ninth century\" a fifth string ḥād (\"sharp\") was sometimes added \"to make the range of two octaves complete\".[12] It was highest in pitch, placed lowest in its positioning in relation to other strings. Modern tuning preserves the ancient succession of fourths, with adjunctions (lowest or highest courses), which may be tuned differently following regional or personal preferences. Sachs gives one tuning for this arrangement of five pairs of strings, d, e, a, d', g'.[12]\n\nHistorically, oud strings were made of stretched and tightly wound animal gut, whereas modern strings are made with silk, nylon, copper and/or silver bound wire. The instrument is played by plucking stringers with a risha, which means feather in Arabic, that was traditionally made from an eagles feather. Although today, the risha is most commonly made from plastic, and less often from tortoise shell or filed down animal bone.[13]\n\nHistorical sources indicate that Ziryab (789-857) added a fifth string to his oud.[14] He was well known for founding a school of music in Andalusia, one of the places where the oud or lute entered Europe. Another mention of the fifth string was made by Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham in Ḥāwī al-Funūn wa Salwat al-Maḥzūn.\n\nNames and etymology\n\nThe oud plectrum, called risha in Arabic, mızrap in Turkish and zakhme in Persian\n\nThe Arabic: العود (al-ʿūd or oud) literally denotes a thin piece of wood similar to the shape of a straw. It may refer to the wooden plectrum traditionally used for playing the oud, to the thin strips of wood used for the back, or to the wooden soundboard that distinguishes it from similar instruments with skin-faced bodies.[15] Henry George Farmer considers the similitude between al-ʿūd and al-ʿawda (\"the return\" - of bliss).[16]\n\nMultiple theories have been proposed for the origin of the Arabic name oud. The word oud (عود) means \"from wood\" and \"stick\" in Arabic.[17][18] In 1940 Curt Sachs contradicted or refined that idea, saying oud meant flexible stick, not wood.[19] A western scholar of Islamic musical subjects, Eckhard Neubauer, suggested that oud may be an Arabic borrowing from the Persian word rōd or rūd, which meant string.[20][21] Another researcher, archaeomusicologist Richard J. Dumbrill, suggests that rud came from the Sanskrit rudrī (रुद्री, meaning \"string instrument\") and transferred to Arabic (a Semitic language) through a Semitic language.[22] While the authors of these statements about the meanings or origins of the word may have accessed linguistic sources, they were not linguists.\n\nHowever, another theory according to Semitic language scholars, is that the Arabic ʿoud is derived from Syriac ʿoud-a, meaning \"wooden stick\" and \"burning wood\"-cognate to Biblical Hebrew ’ūḏ, referring to a stick used to stir logs in a fire.[23][24]\n\nNames for the instrument in different languages include Arabic: عود ʿūd or ʿoud (Arabic pronunciation: [ʕu(ː)d, ʢuːd], plural: أعواد aʿwād), Armenian: ուդ, Syriac: ܥܘܕ ūd, Greek: ούτι oúti, Hebrew: עוּד ud, Persian: بربت barbat (although the barbat is a different lute instrument), Turkish: ud or ut,[25] and Azeri: ud \n\nHistory\n\nMusical instruments from pre-history\n\nEgyptian lute players with long-necked lutes. Fresco from the tomb of Nebamun, a nobleman in the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, c. 1350 BCHellenistic banquet scene from the 1st century AD, Hadda, Gandhara. Short-necked, 2-string lute held by player, far right\n\nThe entire complete history of the development of the lute family is not fully compiled at this date, only some of it. The highly influential organologist Curt Sachs distinguished between the \"long-necked lute\" and the short-necked variety.[26] Douglas Alton Smith argues the long-necked variety should not be called lute at all because it existed for at least a millennium before the appearance of the short-necked instrument that eventually evolved into what is now known as the lute.[27]\n\nMusicologist Richard Dumbrill today uses the word more categorically to discuss instruments that existed millennia before the term \"lute\" was coined.[28] Dumbrill documented more than 3000 years of iconographic evidence for the lutes in Mesopotamia, in his book The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. According to Dumbrill, the lute family included instruments in Mesopotamia prior to 3000 BC.[29] He points to a cylinder seal as evidence; dating from c. 3100 BC or earlier (now in the possession of the British Museum); the seal depicts on one side what is thought to be a woman playing a stick \"lute\".[29][30] Like Sachs, Dumbrill saw length as distinguishing lutes, dividing the Mesopotamian lutes into a long-necked variety and a short.[31] He focuses on the longer lutes of Mesopotamia, and similar types of related necked chordophones that developed throughout the ancient world: Greek, Egyptian (in the Middle Kingdom), Elamites, Hittite, Roman, Bulgar, Turkic, Indian, Chinese, Armenian/Cilician, Canaanite/Phoenician, Israelite/Judean, and various other cultures. He names among the long lutes, the pandura, the panduri, tambur and tanbur.[32]\n\nThe line of short-necked lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in Bactria and Gandhara, into a short, almond-shaped lute.[15][33] Curt Sachs talked about the depictions of Gandharan lutes in art, where they are presented in a mix of \"Northwest Indian art\" under \"strong Greek influences\".[34] The short-necked lutes in these Gandhara artworks were \"the venerable ancestor of the Islamic, the Sino-Japanese and the European lute families.\"[34] He described the Gandhara lutes as having a \"pear-shaped body tapering towards the short neck, a frontal stringholder, lateral pegs, and either four or five strings.\"[34] The oldest images of short-necked lutes from the area that Sachs knew of were \"Persian figurines of the 8th century B.C.,\" found in excavations at Suza, but he knew of nothing connecting these to the Oud-related Gandharan art 8 centuries later.[34]\n\nSpread of oud to Europe\n\nWhen the Umayyads conquered Hispania in 711, they brought their ud along. An oud is depicted as being played by a seated musician[35] in Qasr Amra of the Umayyad dynasty, one of the earliest depictions of the instrument as played in early Islamic history.\n\nDuring the 8th and 9th centuries, many musicians and artists from across the Islamic world flocked to al-Andalus.[36] Among them was Abu l-Hasan ‘Ali Ibn Nafi‘ (789-857),[37][38] a prominent musician who had trained under Ishaq al-Mawsili (d. 850) in Baghdad and was exiled to al-Andalus before 833 AD. He taught and has been credited with adding a fifth string to his oud[15] and with establishing one of the first schools of music in Córdoba.[39]\n\nBy the 11th century, Muslim Iberia had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread gradually to Provence, influencing French troubadours and trouvères and eventually reaching the rest of Europe. While Europe developed the lute, the oud remained a central part of Arab music, and broader Ottoman music as well, undergoing a range of transformations.[40]\n\nAlthough the major entry of the short lute was in western Europe, leading to a variety of lute styles, the short lute entered Europe in the East as well; as early as the sixth century, the Bulgars brought the short-necked variety of the instrument called Komuz to the Balkans.\n\nOrigins theory from religious and philosophical beliefs\n\nAccording to Abū Ṭālib al-Mufaḍḍal (a-n-Naḥawī al-Lughawī) ibn Salma (9th century), who himself refers to Hishām ibn al-Kullā, the oud was invented by Lamech, the descendant of Adam and Cain.[41] Another hypothetical attribution says that its inventor was Mani.[8] Ibn a-ṭ-Ṭaḥḥān adds two possible mythical origins: the first involves the Devil, who would have lured the \"People of David\" into exchanging (at least part of) their instruments with the oud. He writes himself that this version is not credible. The second version attributes, as in many other cultures influenced by Greek philosophy, the invention of the oud to \"Philosophers\".[10]\n\nCentral Asia\n\nOne theory is that the oud originated from the Persian instrument called a barbat (Persian: بربت ) or barbud, a lute indicated by Marcel-Dubois to be of Central Asian origin. The earliest pictorial image of the barbat dates back to the 1st century BC from ancient northern Bactria and is the oldest evidence of the existence of the barbat.[15] Evidence of a form of the barbaṭ is found in a Gandhara sculpture from the 2nd-4th centuries AD which may well have been introduced by the Kushan aristocracy, whose influence is attested in Gandharan art.[15] The name barbat itself meant short-necked lute in Pahlavi, the language of the Sasanian Empire, through which the instrument came west from Central Asia to the Middle East, adopted by the Persians.[15][42]\n\nThe barbat (possibly known as mizhar, kirān, or muwatter, all skin topped versions) was used by some Arabs in the sixth century.[43] At the end of the 6th century, a wood topped version of the Persian-styled instrument was constructed by al Nadr, called \"ūd\", and introduced from Iraq to Mecca.[43] This Persian-style instrument was being played there in the seventh century.[43] Sometime in the seventh century it was modified or \"perfected\" by Mansour Zalzal, and the two instruments (barbat and \"ūd shabbūt\") were used side by side into the 10th century, and possibly longer.[43] The two instruments have been confused by modern scholars looking for examples, and some of the ouds identified may possibly be barbats.[43] Examples of this cited in the Encyclopedia of Islam include a lute in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the frontispiece from The Life and Times of Ali Ibn Isa by Harold Bowen.[43]\n\nThe oldest pictorial record of a short-necked lute-type vīnā dates from around the 1st to 3rd centuries AD.[44] The site of origin of the oud seems to be Central Asia.[45] The ancestor of the oud, the barbat was in use in pre-Islamic Persia. Since the Safavid period, and perhaps because of the name shift from barbat to oud, the instrument gradually lost favor with musicians.[46]\n\nThe Turkic peoples had a similar instrument called the kopuz.[47] This instrument was thought to have magical powers and was brought to wars and used in military bands. This is noted in the Göktürk monument inscriptions. The military band was later used by other Turkic state's armies and later by Europeans.[48]\n\nTypes\n\nArabic oud from EgyptIranian barbatSyrian oud\n\nArabian oud, Turkish oud, and Persian barbat\n\nModern-day ouds fall into three categories: Arabian, Turkish, and Persian, the last also being known as barbat.[49]\n\nThis distinction is not based solely on geography; the Arabic oud is found not only in the Arabian Peninsula but throughout the Arab world.[50] Turkish ouds have been played by Anatolian Greeks, where they are called outi, and in other locations in the Mediterranean.[51] The Iraqi oud, Egyptian oud and Syrian oud, are normally grouped under the term 'Arabian oud' because of their similarities, although local differences may occur, notably with the Iraqi oud.[52] However, all these categories are very recent, and do not do justice to the variety of ouds made in the 19th century, and also today.[40]\n\nArabian ouds are normally larger than their Turkish and Persian counterparts, producing a fuller, deeper sound, whereas the sound of the Turkish oud is more taut and shrill, not least because the Turkish oud is usually (and partly) tuned one whole step higher than the Arabian.[53] Turkish ouds tend to be more lightly constructed than Arabian with an unfinished sound board, lower string action and with string courses placed closer together. Turkish ouds also tend to be higher pitched and have a \"brighter timbre\".[54] Arabian ouds have a scale length of between 61 cm and 62 cm in comparison to the 58.5 cm scale length for Turkish. There exists also a variety of electro-acoustic and electric ouds.[52]\n\nThe modern Persian barbat resembles the oud, although differences include a smaller body, longer neck, a slightly raised fingerboard, and a sound that is distinct from that of the oud.[49]\n\nThe cümbüş is a Turkish instrument that started as a hybrid of the oud and the banjo.[55]\n\nTuning\n\nDifferent ways of tuning the oud exist within the different oud traditions. Among those playing the oud in the Arabic tradition, a common older pattern of tuning the strings is (low pitch to high): D2 G2 A2 D3 G3 C4 on single string courses or D2, G2 G2, A2 A2, D3 D3, G3 G3, C4 C4 for a course of two strings.[56][57] In the Turkish tradition, the \"Bolahenk\" tuning, is common, (low pitch to high): C#2 F#2 B2 E3 A3 D4 on instruments with single string courses or C#2, F#2 F#2, B2 B2, E3 E3, A3 A3, D4 D4 on instruments with courses of two strings.[56][57] The C2 and F2 are actually tuned 1/4 of a tone higher than a normal c or f in the Bolahenk system.[56][57]\n\nMunir Bashir, a master of the Iraqi school of the Arabic maqam scale systemNaseer Shamma, oud virtuso\n\nMany current Arab players use this tuning: C2 F2 A2 D3 G3 C4 on the standard tuning instruments, and some use a higher pitch tuning, F2 A2 D3 G3 C4 F4, known as the Modern Arabic Tuning.\n\nZenne oud\n\nThe Zenne oud, often translated as a women's oud or female oud is a smaller version of the oud designed for those with smaller hands and fingers.[56] It usually has a scale length of 55-57 cm, instead of the 60-62 cm of the Arabic oud, and the 58.5 cm of the Turkish oud.[56]\n\nOud arbi and oud ramal\n\nArabic Oud in the Horniman Museum, London, UK\n\nThe oud arbi is a North African variant of the oud with a longer neck and only four courses.[56][58][59][60] It is not to be confused with the differently shaped and tuned kwitra. The oud arbi is tuned in a re-entrant tuning of G3 G3, E4 E4, A3 A3, D4 D4.[56][61]\n\nOud kumethra\n\nThe oud kumethra, also known as pregnant oud or pear oud, is an oud with the body in a pear-like shape. This type is relatively uncommon and mostly from Egypt.[62][63][64][65]\n\nSee also\n\nArabic Oud House\n\nArabic music\n\nArmenian music\n\nByzantine music\n\nFarid al-Atrash - A Syrian-Egyptian (notable) oud player\n\nKurdish music\n\nList of oud makers\n\nList of oud players\n\nMusic of Palestine\n\nMiddle Eastern and North East African music traditions\n\nMusic of Iraq\n\nTurkish music\n\nZaidoon Treeko\n\nNotes\n\n^ The shibr (singular of ashbār) is a measurement unit which equals roughly 18-24 cm, depending on the hand. It equates to the measured length between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the auricular finger when stretched flat and in opposite directions. The shibr otherwise measures 12 fingers (36:3): a \"full\" finger should be about 2 cm in width.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Ūd\". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 24 August 2019.\n\n^ \"The Arab World\". 1971.\n\n^ \"Arab Perspectives\". 1984.\n\n^ \"oud-Definition of oud in English by Oxford Dictionaries\". Oxford Dictionaries-English. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ Mackle, Jenna (5 July 2020). \"The Oud Instrument\". Ethnic Musical.\n\n^ Mottola, R. M. (Summer-Fall 2008). \"Constructing the Middle Eastern Oud with ter Kyvelos\". American Lutherie (94, 95).\n\n^ Dumbrill, Richard J. (2005). The archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford. p. 308. ISBN 9781412055383. OCLC 62430171.\n\n^ a b Poché, Christian (2001). \"'Ūd\". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.28694. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (oud; pl.: ʿīdān). Short-necked plucked lute of the Arab world, the direct ancestor of the European lute, whose name derives from al-ʿūd ('the lute'). Known both from documentation and through oral tradition, it is considered the king, sultan or emir of musical instruments, 'the most perfect of those invented by the philosophers'. Ikhwān al-Safāʾ: Rasāʾil [Letters] (1957), i, 202). It is the principal instrument of the Arab world, Somalia and Djibouti, and is of secondary importance in Turkey (ut, a spelling used in the past but now superseded by ud), Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan (ud). It plays a lesser role in Greece (outi), where it has given rise to a long-necked model (laouto); the latter is used in rustic and folk contexts, while the ʿūd retains pre-eminently educated and urban associations. In eastern Africa it is known as udi; in recent decades it has also appeared in Mauritania and Tajikistan. [...] The emergence of the ʿūd on the stage of history is an equally complex matter. Two authors of the end of the 14th century (Abū al-Fidā, or Abulfedae, and Abū al-Walīd ibn Shihnāh) place it in the reign of the Sassanid King Sh[ā]pūr I (241-72). Ibn Shihnāh added that the development of the ʿūd was linked to the spread of Manicheism, and its invention to Manes himself, a plausible theory because the disciples of Manes encouraged musical accompaniments to their religious offices. Reaching China, their apostolate left traces of relations between West and East, seen in a short-necked lute similar to the ʿūd (Grünwedel, 1912). But the movement's centre was in southern Iraq, whence the ʿūd was to spread towards the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century. However, the texts mentioning the introduction to Mecca of the short-necked lute as the ʿūd were all written in the 9th and 10th centuries. The ʿūd spread to the West by way of Andalusia (subscription, Wikilibrary access, or UK public library membership required)\n\n^ Oudadmin (2 March 2016). \"Alexandria to Brussels, 1839\". oudmigrations. Retrieved 15 April 2016.\n\n^ a b Beyhom, Amine (2010). Théories de l'échelle et pratiques mélodiques chez les Arabes - Volume 1 : L'échelle générale et les genres - Tome 1 : Théories gréco-arabes de Kindī (IXe siècle) à Ṭūsī (XIIIe siècle). Paris: Geuthner. ISBN 978-2-7053-3840-4.\n\n^ Beyhom, Amine (2011). \"Two persistent misapprehensions about the ʿūd\" (PDF). Iconea 2011. Paper for 'The Oud from Its Sumerian Origins to Modern Times', ICONEA Conference 2011 - 1-3 December 2011: 81-110 (85). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.\n\n^ a b c Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 254. ISBN 9780393020687. classic number of strings was four pairs ... bamm, maṭlaṭ, maṭnā, zīr ... A fifth pair of strings, above zīr seems to have been introduced as early as the ninth century ... {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Farraj, Johnny; Shumays, Sami Abu (2019). Inside Arabic music: Arabic maqam performance and theory in the 20th century Middle East. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-065835-9.\n\n^ \"Iraq\". 1984.\n\n^ a b c d e f During, Jean (15 December 1988). \"Encyclopaedia Iranica - Barbat\". Iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 4 February 2012.\n\n^ Farmer, Henry George (1939). \"The Structure of the Arabian and Persian Lute in the Middle Ages\". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1): 41-51 (49). JSTOR 25201835. ... from a work entitled Kitāb kashf al-humūūm ... 'ūd (lute) is derived from al-'awda (\"the return\" meaning the days of pleasure may return [in the joy of the music of the lute] ...)\n\n^ Kurtz, Glenn (19 November 2008). Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 9780307489760.\n\n^ Humphrey, Andrew (2009). Egypt. National Geographic Books. ISBN 9781426205217.\n\n^ Sachs, Kurt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 253. the principal meaning of this word ['ūd] is not 'wood,' as generally supposed, but 'flexible stick'.\n\n^ Douglas Alton Smith (2002). A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Lute Society of America (LSA). p. 9. ISBN 0-9714071-0-X..\n\n^ Pourjavady, Amir Hossein (2000). \"Review of The Science of Music in Islam. Vols. 1-2, Studies in Oriental Music; The Science of Music in Islam. Vol. 3, Arabisch Musiktheorie von den Anfängen bis zum 6./12. Jahrhundert, Eckhard Neubauer; The Science of Music in Islam. Vol. 4, Der Essai sur la musique orientale von Charles Fonton mit Zeichnungen von Adanson, Eckhard Neubauer, Fuat Sezgin\". Asian Music. 32 (1): 206-209. doi:10.2307/834339. JSTOR 834339.\n\n^ Dumbrill, Richard J. (1998). The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. London: Tadema Press. p. 319. 'rud' comes from the Sanskrit 'rudrī', which means 'stringed instrument' ... The word spreads on the one hand via the Indo-European medium into the Spanish 'rota'; French 'rotte'; Welsh 'crwth', etc, and on the other, via the Semitic medium, into Arabic 'ud; Ugaritic 'd; Spanish 'laúd'; German 'Laute'; French 'luth' ...\n\n^ \"Search Entry\". www.assyrianlanguages.org. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ \"Strong's Hebrew: 181. אוּד (ud) - a brand, firebrand\". biblehub.com. Retrieved 24 March 2018.\n\n^ \"Güncel Türkçe Sözlük'te Söz Arama\". Archived from the original on 11 March 2007.\n\n^ Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 251, 253. ISBN 9780393020687. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Smith, Douglas Alton (2002). A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Lute Society of America (LSA). ISBN 978-0-9714071-0-7.\n\n^ Dumbrill, Richard J. (2005). The archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford. pp. 305-310. ISBN 9781412055383. OCLC 62430171. The long-necked lute would have stemmed from the bow-harp and eventually became the tunbur; and the fat-bodied smaller lute would have evolved into the modern Oud. ... the lute pre-dated the lyre which can therefore be considered as a development of the lute, rather than the contrary, as had been thought until quite recently ... Thus the lute not only dates but also locates the transition from musical protoliteracy to musical literacy ...\n\n^ a b Dumbrill 1998, p. 321\n\n^ \"Cylinder Seal, Culture/period Uruk, Date (circa) 3100BC, Museum number 41632\". British Museum.\n\n^ Dumbrill 1998, p. 310\n\n^ Dumbrill, Richard J. (2005). The Archaeomusicology of the Ancient Near East. Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford Publishing. pp. 319-320. ISBN 978-1-4120-5538-3. The long-necked lute in the OED is orthographed as tambura; tambora, tamera, tumboora; tambur(a) and tanpoora. We have an Arabic Õunbur; Persian tanbur; Armenian pandir; Georgian panturi. and a Serbo-Croat tamburitza. The Greeks called it pandura; panduros; phanduros; panduris or pandurion. The Latin is pandura. It is attested as a Nubian instrument in the third century BC. The earliest literary allusion to lutes in Greece comes from Anaxilas in his play The Lyre-maker as 'trichordos' ... According to Pollux, the trichordon [sic] was Assyrian and they gave it the name pandoura ... These instruments survive today in the form of the various Arabian tunbar ...\n\n^ \"Bracket with two musicians 100s, Pakistan, Gandhara, probably Butkara in Swat, Kushan Period (1st century-320)\". The Cleveland Museum of Art. Retrieved 25 March 2015.\n\n^ a b c d Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 159-161. ISBN 9780393020687. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ \"Musician and dancing woman, Qusayr Amra. Art Destination Jordan\". universes.art.\n\n^ María Rosa Menocal; Raymond P. Scheindlin; Michael Anthony Sells, eds. (2000), The Literature of Al-Andalus, Cambridge University Press\n\n^ Gill, John (2008). Andalucia: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-01-95-37610-4.\n\n^ Lapidus, Ira M. (2002). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press. p. 311. ISBN 9780521779333.\n\n^ Davila, Carl (2009). \"Fixing a Misbegotten Biography: Ziryab in the Mediterranean World\". Islam in the Medieval Mediterranean. Vol. 21, no. 2. Al-Masaq.\n\n^ a b Oudadmin (8 March 2016). \"The journeys of Ottoman ouds\". oudmigrations. Retrieved 26 April 2016.\n\n^ ibn Salma, Abū Ṭālib al-Mufaḍḍal (a-n-Naḥawī al-Lughawī) (1984). Kitāb al-Malāhī wa Asmāʾihā min Qibal al-Mūsīqā. Cairo - Egypt: Al-Hay’a al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb. pp. 13-14. ذكر هشام بن الكلّى أنّ أول من عمل العود فضرب به رجل من بني قابيل، ويقال: قايين بن آدم، يقال له: لامك، وكان عمّر زمانا طويلاً، ولم يكن يولد لهُ، فتزوّج خمسين امرأة وتسرّى بمائتي سريّة [...] ثم ولد له غلام قبل أن يموت بعشر سنين، فاشتد فرحه، فلما أتت على الغلام خمس سنين مات، فجزع عليه جزعًا شديدًا، فأخذه فعلّقه على شجرة، فقال: لا تذهب صورته عن عيني حتى يتقطّع أشلاء أو أموت، فجعل لحمه يقع عن عظامه حتى بقيت الفخذ بالساق والقدم والأصابع، فأخذ عودًا فشقّه ورقّقه وجعل يؤلف بعضه على بعض، فجعل صدره على صورة الفخذ، والعنق على صورة الساق، والإبريق على قدر القدم، والملاوي كالأصابع، وعلّق عليه أوتارًا كالعروق، ثم جعل يضرب به ويبكي وينوح حتى عمي، فكان أول من ناح، وسمّى الذي اتّخذ: عودًا، لأنه اتُخذ من عود\n\n^ Blum, Stephen (20 January 2001). \"Central Asia\". Oxford Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05284. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. The 'ūd (lute) is believed to be a later development of a pre-Islamic Persian instrument called barbat...[was part of] eastwards diffusion of Middle Eastern and Central Asian chordophones... the pipa, likewise derived from the barbat or from its prototype\n\n^ a b c d e f First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936. Leiden: BRILL. 1993. p. 986. ISBN 978-90-04-09796-4.\n\n^ Karaikudi S., Subramanian (1985). \"An introduction to the Vina\". Asian Music. 16 (2): 7-82 (10). doi:10.2307/833772. JSTOR 833772. We find representations of the nissāri vinas in sculptures, paintings, terracotta figures, and coins in various parts of India […]. The lute type vina [...] is represented in Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, Pawaya (Gupta period), Ajanta paintings (300-500 A.D.) [...]. These varieties are plucked by the right hand and played by the left hand\n\n^ Picken, Laurence (1955). \"The origin of the short lute\". The Galpin Society Journal. 8: 32-42 (40). doi:10.2307/842155. JSTOR 842155. With the evidence as yet available, it is reasonable to place the site of origin of the short lute in Central Asia, perhaps among Iranised Turco-Mongols, within the area of the ancient first-century kingdom of the Kusanas. This conclusion must not be taken to exclude the possibility that short lutes first appeared somewhat earlier and somewhat further to the West-in Parthia, for example; but at present the evidence of the Kusana reliefs is the only evidence of their existence in the first century[...] The lutes of the Kusanas would seem to be the first representations of undoubted short ovoid lutes; and Fu Hsüan's essay, one of the first texts in any language devoted to a short lute, though not to an ovoid lute.\n\n^ Lawergren, Bo (2001). \"Iran\". The New Grove: 521-546 (534).\n\n^ Chabrier, Jean-Claude (2008). \"ʿŪd\". Encyclopedia of Islam: 534. The ḳabūs (al-Ḥid̲j̲āz), ḳabbūṣ (ʿUmān), ḳanbūṣ (Ḥaḍramawt), ḳupūz or ḳūpūz (Turkey) is a very old instrument. Ewliyā Čelebi [q.v.] says that the ḳūpūz was invented by a vizier of Meḥemmed II (d. 886/1481) named Aḥmed Pas̲h̲a Hersek Og̲h̲lu. He describes it as being a hollow instrument, smaller than the s̲h̲as̲h̲tār, and mounted with three strings (Travels, i/2, 235). On the other hand, Ibn G̲h̲aybī says that the ḳūpūz rūmī had five double strings. The instrument is no longer used by the Turks, although it has survived under the name of kobza, koboz, in Poland, Russia, and the Balkans, but here it is the lute proper and not a barbaṭ type\n\n^ Fuad Köprülü, Türk Edebiyatında İlk Mutasavvıflar (First Sufis in Turkish Literature), Ankara University Press, Ankara 1966, pp. 207, 209.; Gazimihal; Mahmud Ragıb, Ülkelerde Kopuz ve Tezeneli Sazlarımız, Ankara University Press, Ankara 1975, p. 64.; Musiki Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Music), M.E.B. İstanbul 1961, pp. 138, 259, 260.; Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments, New York 1940, p. 252.\n\n^ a b Goldrick, Navid (16 August 2013). \"Persian Oud - Barbat\". majnunn music and dance. Archived from the original on 4 December 2019. Retrieved 31 March 2018. Because of these efforts the Arabic Oud and the Barbat are now once again part of the Iranian musical landscape.\n\n^ \"Oud\". sonsdelorient.com. Archived from the original on 26 August 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Types of ouds\". arabinstruments.com. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2018.\n\n^ a b \"Types of Ouds : The Ultimate Oud Buyers' Guide Part 1 - Oud for Guitarists\". Oud for Guitarists. 17 September 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2017.\n\n^ \"OUD CAFE - Stringing & Tuning\". www.oudcafe.com. Retrieved 27 January 2017.\n\n^ \"About the Turkish oud\". arabinstruments.com. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2018.\n\n^ \"The Cümbüş\". www.campin.me.uk. Retrieved 12 October 2020.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"Stringed Instrument Database N-O\". stringedinstrumentdatabase.aornis.com. Retrieved 8 August 2018.\n\n^ a b c Parfitt, David. \"Tuning the oud\". oudipedia.info. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Andalusische Oud\". khoudir-oud.com. Archived from the original on 30 March 2015. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ \"But is it an oud? - oudmigrations\". oudmigrations. 7 March 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ Oudadmin (14 August 2017). \"The oud of Tunisia - oudmigrations\". oudmigrations. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ \"ATLAS of Plucked Instruments - Africa\". atlasofpluckedinstruments.com.\n\n^ \"ATLAS of Plucked Instruments - Middle East\". atlasofpluckedinstruments.com.\n\n^ \"Instrumentos Musicales en los Museos de URUEÑA\". funjdiaz.net.\n\n^ Scola, Allison (4 November 2014). \"Mixing It Oud\". Experience Sicily.\n\n^ \"OUD LUTE CONSTRUCTION\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.\n\nFurther reading\n\nParfitt, David. The Oud Handbook, (Amazon, 2025)\n\nBeckles Willson, Rachel. The Oud: An Illustrated History, (Interlink Books, 2023)\n\nRebuffa, David. Il Liuto, L'Epos, (Palermo, 2012), pp. 22-34.\n\nExternal links\n\nYale Collection of Music Instruments Archived 29 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-oud"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5464}, {"slug": "reference-christianity-in-iraq", "title": "Christianity in Iraq", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Christians in Iraq are one of the oldest, continuous and significant Christian communities. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Assyrians who descend from the ancient Assyria, followed by Armenians then the later Arabs, and a very small minority of Kurdish, Shabaks and Iraqi Turkmen Christians. Christians...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Christianity in Iraq\nLanguages\n\nAssyrian, Armenian, Kurdish, Arabic\n\nChristians in Iraq are one of the oldest, continuous and significant Christian communities. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Assyrians who descend from the ancient Assyria, followed by Armenians then the later Arabs, and a very small minority of Kurdish, Shabaks and Iraqi Turkmen Christians. Christians in Iraq primarily adhere to the Syriac Christian tradition and rites and speak Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects, although Turoyo is also present on a smaller scale. Some are also known by the name of their religious denomination as well as their ethnic identity, such as Chaldean Catholics, Chaldo-Assyrians, or Syriacs. Regardless of religious affiliation (Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, etc.) Assyrians Christians in Iraq and surrounding countries are one homogeneous people and separate to other groups in the country, with a distinct history of their own harking back to ancient Assyria.\n\nChristians have inhabited modern-day Iraq for about 2,000 years, tracing their ancestry to ancient Mesopotamia and surrounding lands. The great patriarch Abraham came from Ur (modern-day Nasiriyah), while Isaac's wife Rebecca came from Assyria (in modern-day northwestern Iraq.) Additionally, Daniel lived in Iraq most of his life and the prophet Ezekiel was from southern Iraq and his shrine is located there. Shrines of the prophet Jonah and Saint George are also located there, and a number of other biblical prophets and saints are said to have been from there as well. Adam and Eve are also widely thought to have hailed from Iraq, as the biblical Garden of Eden is often said to have been located in southern Iraq. Syriac Christianity was first established in Mesopotamia, and certain subsets of that tradition (namely the Church of the East and its successor churches) were established in northern and central-southern Iraq. This would become one of the most popular Christian churches in the Middle East and Fertile Crescent and would spread as far east as India and China.[1]\n\nPrior to the Gulf War in 1991, Christians numbered one million in Iraq.[2] This may be an underestimate by half as seen in the 1987 census numbers. Saddam Hussein kept anti-Christian violence under control but Christians were sometimes subjected to \"relocation programmes\".[2] The predominantly ethnically and linguistically distinct Assyrians were pressured to identify as Arabs. The Christian population fell to an estimated 800,000 during the Iraq War.[2] During the 2013-2017 Iraq War with ISIS rapidly sweeping through western lands, Christian fled as they feared the persecution by the militants, as they were to \"execute\" any person who did not believe in their Sunni sect. Thousands of Christians fled to Baghdad, where they found refuge and adequate housing, some of whom have chosen to make Baghdad their new permanent home following the full defeat of ISIS in Iraq.[3] Thousands have also fled to other parts of southern Iraq, such as the Shia-majority city of Najaf which housed thousands of Christians in holy Islamic shrines once they fled from ISIS.[4] A large population have also returned to their homes en masse following the defeat of ISIS and were able to celebrate Christian festivals in safety with the protection of the Nineveh Plain Protection Units and its allies.[5][6] At the same time, the current status of Iraqi Christians is split between the protection of Baghdad and Erbil, in light of their domestic competition.[7] The current number of Assyrians is said to be less than 140,000 in 2024, according to the non-profit Shlama Foundation.[8][9] Based on broader religious identification, the number of Christians is likely only slightly larger.\n\nChristians in Iraq have been well-integrated and have contributed greatly to Iraq, popularly as scholars, researchers, academics, and economists. Iraqi Christians have also hold high positions in the government, such as Thabit AbdulNour and Tariq Aziz. There is a large population that are entertainers, artists, actresses and singers. \n\nHistory\n\nChristianity in Iraq has its roots in the conception of the Church of the East in the 5th century AD, predating the existence of Islam in the region of Iraq.[10] Iraqi Christians are predominantly native Assyrians belonging to the Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church, Mar Thoma Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church and Syriac Orthodox Church.[10][11] In Iraq, there is also a significant population of Armenian Christians whose ancestors had fled from Turkey during the Armenian genocide.[10][11] The Christian population increased from 550,000 in 1947 (12% of the population of 4.6 million) to 1.4 million in 1987 (8% of the estimated population of 16.3 million).[12] After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians increased, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings.[13][14][11] The Iraq War (2003-2011) displaced much of the remaining Christian community from their homeland as a result of ethnic and religious persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists.[15][16][17][18][19]\n\nEarly Church\n\nChristianity was brought to Iraq in the 1st century by Thomas the Apostle and Mar Addai (Addai of Edessa) and his pupils Aggai and Mari. Thomas was one of the Twelve Apostles while, according to tradition, Addai was one of the first 70 disciples.[20] Iraq's Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian communities are believed to be among the oldest in the world.\n\nThe Assyrian people adopted Christianity in the 1st century[2] and modern-day northern Iraq became the centre of Eastern Rite Christianity and Syriac literature from the 1st century until the Middle Ages. Among the Assyrians, Christianity initially co-existed with the ancient Mesopotamian religion until the latter began to decline in the 4th century.\n\nIn the early centuries after the Arab Islamic conquest of the 7th century, Assyria (also known as Athura and Asoristan) was dissolved by the Arabs as a geopolitical entity. However, the indigenous Assyrians (known as Ashuriyun by the Arabs) continued to play an influential role in Iraq as scholars and doctors.\n\nRise of Islam\n\nAccording to Hirmis Aboona in the period prior to the establishment of Abbasid rule in 750 AD, pastoral Kurds moved into upper Mesopotamia from Persian Azerbaijan, taking advantage of an unstable situation. Cities in northern and northeastern Assyria were raided and attacked by the Kurds of Persian Azerbaijan, \"who killed, looted, and enslaved the indigenous population\", and the Kurds were moving into several areas in eastern Assyria. The chronicler Ibn Hawqal spoke about the state to which the region of Shahrazoor had been reduced, describing it as a “town, which was overpowered by the Kurds, and whose environs as far as Iraq had been enjoying prosperity”. Another contemporary source described the region of Adiabene thus: \"...the plain of Hadyab was entirely inhabited by the Nestorians but the Kurds have occupied it and depopulated it of its inhabitants\".[21]\n\nLater, the Seljuks invaded Mesopotamia with the support of Kurdish chieftains and tribes. They \"destroyed whatever they encountered\" and captured and enslaved women. The historian Ibn Khaldun wrote that the Kurds \"spoiled and spread horror everywhere\".[21] In time, the demographic change led to Assyria and much of Greater Armenia effectively becoming Kurdistan.[22]\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East has its origin in what is now southeastern Turkey and Asoristan (Sasanian Assyria). By the end of the 13th century, there were twelve Nestorian dioceses in a strip from Beijing to Samarkand. Northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian, Eastern Aramaic-speaking and Christian until the destructions of the 14th-century Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descent, Timur (Tamerlane), who conquered Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria. The civilian population was decimated, and the ancient city of Assur was finally abandoned by the Assyrians after a 4000-year history. Timur had 70,000 Christian Assyrians beheaded in Tikrit and 90,000 more in Baghdad.[23][24] Timur rewarded the Kurds for their support by \"settling them in the devastated regions, which until then had been inhabited by the followers of the Church of the East.\"[25]\n\nOttoman rule\n\nIn the 16th century, the Ottomans reinforced their eastern frontier with what they considered loyal Sunni Kurd tribes. They settled Kurdish tribes in these regions and in 1583, Sultan Murad III \"gave huge provinces to the Kurdish tribe of Mokri\". According to Aboona, \"many regions with numerous Assyrian and Armenian monuments and monasteries became completely populated by the Kurds after Chaldiran,\" and Kurdish historians wrote that \"the land was cleared at this time, its indigenous inhabitants driven out by force\". The Kurdish historian Ali al Qurani affirmed that Sarsing had \"been an Assyrian town and that the Kurds who settled there were immigrants from Persian Azerbaijan.\" Phebe Marr noted that \"in the north too, many of the Kurdish tribes of Persia migrated to Iraq\". British traveler James Rich observed in northern Iraq the \"rapid influx of Kurds from Persia... and that their advance never ceased\". He noted that \"some ten thousand families, comprising seventy thousand souls, were constantly moving across the border\". Southgate also observed the \"rapid advance and settlement of the Kurds from Persia into northern Iraq\" around that time.[26] Dr. Grant shared an eyewitness account, stating: \"Beth Garrnae (the region of Arbil-Kirkuk) once contained a large population of Nestorian Christians, they are now reduced to a few scattered villages... Within the last six years the Koords of Ravandoos and Amadia have successively swept over it..\"[27] In the 17th century, a new epoch began when Emir Afrasiyab of Basra allowed the Portuguese to build a church outside of the city of Basra.\n\nDuring World War I, the Assyrians of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran suffered the Assyrian genocide, which accounted for the deaths of up to 65% of the entire Assyrian population.[2]\n\nAssyrian genocide and post-World War era\n\nIn the early 1930s, the Iraqi Arab ministries disseminated leaflets among the Kurds calling them to join the Arabs in massacring Assyrians.[28] This call appealed to Islamic convictions and united Arabs and Kurds against the \"infidel\" Christians.[28] Just before the Simele massacre of August 11, 1933, Kurds began a campaign of looting against Assyrian settlements.[28] The Assyrians fled to Simele, where they were also persecuted. Just after Iraq formally gained independence in 1933, the Iraqi military led by Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi carried out large-scale massacres against the Assyrians in the city of Simele which had beforehand supported the British colonial administration.[2] According to some studies, many eyewitness accounts attested of the many atrocities that Arabs and Kurds perpetrated against Assyrian women.[28]\n\nUntil the 1950s, the Nineveh Plains (also known as Mosul Plains) had always been the cultural heartland for Chaldeans.[29] Many Christians moved to the southwards after 1933.[29] In 1832, 70% of Christians lived in and around Mosul.[29] By 1957 only 47 per cent remained there.[29] In 1958, the Kingdom of Iraq was toppled by a group of army officers led by Abdul Karim Qasim.[29] Iraqi Christians supported Qasim.[29] However, the population of Christians in the region reduced further during the 1963 coup, as many pro-Qasim and pro-Communist Christians fled Ba'ath reprisals.[29] By 1979, half of Iraqi Christians lived in Baghdad, comprising 14% of the city's population.[29]\n\nUnder the Ba'ath Party rule, Christians prospered.[29] However, dispute regarding the ethnic identity of Christians, who have predominantly identified as Assyrian.[29] In 1972, the government recognized the cultural rights of Assyrians, by allowing them to use Syriac language in media, education, and communications. However, this decree was not enforced. To consolidate power, the government launched a crackdown on minorities including Christians. According to several reports, Christians were forced to register themselves as either Arab or Kurd. However, according to many, government protection allowed Assyrian Christians to preserve their language and culture as they were not in a sensitive political arena.\n\nChristians were tolerated under the secular regime of Saddam Hussein. Being a highly educated community, Christians were useful as effective administrators, civil officers, and bureaucrats.[30] Saddam made one of them, Tariq Aziz, his deputy and foreign minister.[30] Aziz was known as one of the most pioneering diplomats in the history or Iraq.[30] Churches and cathedrals were protected by the government.[30] Aside from Aziz, some well-known Christians in the military were Georges Sada, Kamel Hana Gegeo, and Malko Hana.[30] Christians were also offered positions in security, presidential, and mayoral sectors of the government. The 1987 Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians.[30]\n\nIraq War, 2008-2017 instability and ISIS\n\nAs of 21 June 2007, the UNHCR estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.[31] Some of those refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) were Christians.[32][33] A 25 May 2007 article noted that in the previous seven months only 69 people from Iraq had been granted refugee status in the United States.[34] After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians rose, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings.[35] Some Christians were pressured to convert to Islam under threat of death or expulsion, and women were ordered to wear Islamic dress.[35][36]\n\nIn August 2004, International Christian Concern protested an attack by Islamists on Iraqi Christian churches that killed 11 people.[37] In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded and mutilated despite payment of a ransom, and in 2008, the Assyrian clergyman Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul was killed after being abducted.[35] In January 2008, bombs exploded outside nine churches.[35]\n\nIn 2007, Chaldean Catholic priest Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni and subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed were all killed in Mosul.[38] Ganni was driving with his three deacons when they were stopped and were ordered to convert to Islam; when they refused, they were shot.[38] Ganni was the pastor of the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and a graduate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome in 2003 with a licentiate in ecumenical theology. Six months later, the body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, archbishop of Mosul, was found buried near Mosul. He was kidnapped on 29 February 2008 when his bodyguards and driver were killed.[39]\n\nIn 2010, reports emerged in Mosul of people being stopped in the streets, asked for their identity cards, and shot if they had a first or last name indicating Assyrian or Christian origin.[40] On 31 October 2010, 58 people, including 41 hostages and priests, were killed after an attack on an Assyrian Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad.[41] A group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq, stated that Iraq's indigenous Christians were a \"legitimate target.\"[42] In November, a series of bombings and mortar attacks targeted Christian Assyrian-majority areas of Baghdad.[42]\n\nDuring the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, the Islamic State issued a decree in July that all Christians in the area of its control should either pay a special tax of approximately $470 per family, convert to Islam, or die.[43] Many of them took refuge in nearby Kurdish-controlled regions of Iraq and the Shi'a holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.[44][45][46][47][48] Christian homes were painted with the Arabic letter ن (nūn) for Nassarah (an Arabic word that means \"Christian\" or literally \"Nazarene\") as well as a declaration that they were property of the Islamic State.[49] On 18 July, jihadists reversed course and announced that all Christians would need to leave or be killed.[50][51] Most Christians who fled had their valuable possessions stolen.[52][44]\n\nNumerous Christian militias were created and joined the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that helped in the liberation of territories taken by ISIS.[53] According to Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, there were no Christians remaining in Mosul in 2015, for the first time in the nation's history.[54] But after Mosul's liberation in 2017, Christian families began to return.[55]\n\nCurrent situation\n\nAfter the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies in 2003, Christians were targeted by Islamist extremists.[56] Many of them fled from Baghdad and other areas to the Kurdistan region.[57] Christians who were too poor or unwilling to leave their ancient homeland fled mainly to Erbil's Christian suburb of Ankawa.[40] Around 10,000 Iraqi Christians live in the United Kingdom, led by Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, who has called on the government to accept more refugees.[58] Apart from emigration, the Christian share of the population is also declining due to lower birth rates and higher death rates compared to that of the Muslim population.[59] The war has caused the majority of Christians to leave Iraq.[60]\n\nToday, an estimated 150,000 to 400,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from 1.1 million in 2003.[60] Though the war has ended, fear and tensions persist.[61] Many Christians have returned to their historic homeland, while few families have returned to Mosul.[62][63] In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, in 2014, ten years after the invasion of Mosul by ISIS, Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda, of Erbil, said that of the 13,200 families that had fled Mosul and Nineveh to Iraqi Kurdistan, around 9000 had returned, but that the Christian community still required international aid to avoid a new exodus.[64]\n\nAs per the constitution, Christians are one of the recognized religious groups in Iraq.[65] The constitution recognizes Aramaic as an official language in the Christian region.[65] The Council of Christian Church Leaders is the official body for Christians.[66] Christians participate in the political life of Iraq,[67] although their political influence is limited due to their reduced population.[67] According to Article 3 in the Constitution, all Iraqi communities and sects must be represented in the cabinet.[65] Christians have five reserved seats in the Parliament from the constituencies of Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Duhok.[67] There are several Christian political parties and organizations in Iraq, such as the Chaldean Democratic Union Party, Assyrian Democratic Movement, Chaldean National Congress, Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, and Babylon Movement.[67] Some of these parties have seats in the parliament, while others were unable to win a seat. Christian militias that formed in Iraq are either affiliated with political parties, the PMF or the Kurdish government. Many still operate and protect Christian areas in Iraq, either within the Kurdish Peshmerga or the PMF.\n\nChristians are well-integrated in Christian-majority districts, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Shi'a-majority governorates in southeastern Iraq.[61][68] They can take government jobs, access education, and use other facilities, all while facing no political discrimination.[69] In Basra, Christians hold a quota seat on the provincial council, the highest local legislative and oversight authority.[61] The council, which consists of 35 members, is more favored than the Mandaeans.[61] Dozens of Christians also work as employees in various government institutions, and doctors among them enjoy a distinguished professional reputation.[61] They have their own personal status law and Syriac is recognized as an official language of Iraq.[67] From 5 to 8 March 2021, Pope Francis paid Iraq an apostolic visit, during which he visited the cities of Najaf, Baghdad, Ur, Mosul, Qaraqosh and Erbil.[70] He met with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and delivered a message of coexistence between Christians and Muslims in Iraq.\n\nIn an online conference hosted by pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need, in 2024, Nizar Semaan, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Adiabene, in Northern Iraq, said that there is still danger of social fragmentation. \"The problem with Iraq is that we are trying to create isolated islands for each community, with no common life. This is dangerous. You can live wherever you want, you can be proud of your identity, but don’t close your island to other people.\" He further stated that Christians would remain in the region, because \"the people here are like olive trees. You can cut them, burn them, but after 10 or 20 years they will continue to give fruit. They tried everything, but we remain, and as a Church we do everything to give a sign of hope”.[71]\n\nAlthough Christians are divided into many different groups and confessions, intermarriage is common and these differences are often neglected at a grassroots level. At an institutional level, ecumenical relations have improved since the persecutions carried out by the Islamic State, with a high point being the yearly joint celebration of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in September. Speaking to International Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda explained that \"young people from all Churches planned the festival together - organising prayers, sports, marathons, concerts, children’s games, and cultural events. Their collaboration became a visible sign of a new future. Older generations watched with admiration as the youth discovered that what unites them - their faith in Christ - is far greater than what divides them. In their hands, the dream of Christian unity in Iraq is already becoming a lived reality.\"[72]\n\nRelations with non-Christians\n\nFrom the late 13th century through to the present time, Christian Assyrians have suffered both religious and ethnic persecution, including a number of massacres and genocides.[40]\n\nIn 2010, President Jalal Talabani did not sign the death sentence order for former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz as he \"sympathise[d] with Tariq Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian.\"[73] This also came after appeals from the Holy See not to carry out the sentence.[74] On 5 June 2015, Aziz died at al-Hussein hospital in Nasiriyah after suffering from depression, diabetes, heart disease, and ulcers.[75][76]\n\nPersecutions\n\nIraqi Christians have been victim of executions, forced displacement campaigns, torture, and violence, especially at the hands of Sunni fundamentalist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Since the 2003 Iraq War, Iraqi Christians have fled from the country and their population has collapsed under the democratic government.[77] The majority of Christians have either fled to Iraqi Kurdistan or abroad. A population project by the Shlama Foundation has estimated that, as of July 2020, 150,000 Christian Assyrians remain in Iraq,[78] down from approximately 1.5 million in 2003.[79]\n\nIn 2003, Iraqi Christians were the primary target of extremist Sunni Islamists. Many kidnapped Christians were forced to forsake Christianity or be tortured.\n\nOn 1 August 2004, a series of car bomb attacks took place during the Sunday evening Mass in churches of two Iraqi cities, Baghdad and Mosul, killing and wounding numerous Christians. Jordanian-Iraqi Sunni Arab Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was blamed for the attacks.\n\nIn 2006, an Orthodox priest, Boulos Iskander, was snatched off the streets of the Sunni city of Mosul by a Sunni group that demanded a ransom. His corpse was later found with its arms and legs cut off.\n\nIn 2007, reports emerged regarding an operation to drive Christians out of the historically Christian suburb of Dora in southern Baghdad, with some Muslim Arabs accusing the Christians of being allies of the Americans. Between 2007 and 2009, 239 similar cases were registered by police.[80]\n\nIn 2008, a priest named Ragheed Ganni, was shot dead in his church along with three of his companions. That same year, reports came out that many Christian students were harassed.\n\nIn 2008, the charity Barnabas Aid conducted research into 250 Iraqi Christian IDPs who had fled to Iraqi Kurdistan to seek refugee status and found nearly half had witnessed attacks on churches or Christians or had been personally targeted by violence.\n\nIn 2009, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) reported that more than 40,000 Christians had moved from Baghdad, Basra and Mosul into Iraqi Kurdistan's cities. Reports state that the number of Christian families moving to Iraqi Kurdistan is increasing. 11,000 of those families were reportedly given financial assistance and support, often in the form of employment, by the KRG.[81]\n\nOn 31 October 2010, Sunni Islamist groups attacked a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass, killing more than 60 Iraqi Christians and wounding another 78.[82]\n\nIn 2011, Sunni extremists assassinated a Christian randomly using sniper rifles. Two months before the incident, two other Christians had been shot by a Sunni jihadist in Mosul, while another two were shot for unknown reasons in Baghdad.[83][84]\n\nOn 30 May 2011, a Christian man was beheaded by a Sunni man in Mosul.[85]\n\nOn 2 August 2011, a Catholic church was bombed by Sunni extremists in the Turkmen area of Kirkuk, wounding more than 23 Christians.\n\nOn 15 August 2011, a church was bombed by al-Qaeda in Kirkuk center.[86]\n\nOn 24 November 2013, a Christian journalist was gunned down in a targeted attack in Mosul.\n\nOn 25 December 2013, in Baghdad, Sunni extremists detonated two bombs targeting Christians observing Christmas in the Al-Dora area of the Al-Rashid district of Baghdad. First, a bomb was detonated in the mainly Christian Athorien (Hay Al-Athoriyeen) neighborhood market, killing at least eleven and injuring 40. Then, a bomb was detonated outside St. John's Roman Catholic Church targeting Christmas service worshippers, killing 27 and injuring 56.[87]\n\nIn 2014, during the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, ISIS ordered all Christians in the area of its control, where the Iraqi Army collapsed, to pay a special tax of approximately $470 per family, convert to Sunni Islam, or die. Many of them took refuge in nearby Kurdish and Shia-majority areas of Iraq.\n\nOn 1 April 2025, an axe-wielding attacker struck a procession of Assyrian Christians celebrating their new year in Dohuk, Iraq, wounding three people. The assailant, who shouted Islamic slogans and identified with the Islamic State, injured a 17-year-old boy, a 75-year-old woman, and a local security officer. The attack occurred during the annual Akitu festival, which draws Assyrians from Iraq and the diaspora. Despite the violence, the Assyrian community continued the celebrations, displaying resilience. Local leaders condemned the attack and called for a review of educational curricula to address extremism.[88]\n\nKurdification\n\nMany Assyrians activists claim they have suffered not only from Arabization, but also Kurdification in Iraqi Kurdistan, mainly in KDP-controlled areas. Assyrian activists have claimed that the number of Christians live in Iraqi Kurdistan has declined.[note 1] Iraqi Kurdistan accepted more than 200,000 Christians refugees and IDPs who had fled from other areas of Iraq between 2012 and 2016.[92]\n\nMany Assyrian organizations have also claimed that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has hindered international aid from reaching Christian Assyrians and at times attempted to prevent Assyrian Aramaic schools.[93] However, the KRG's annual report stated that the government rebuilt and renovated over 20 Christian churches in the region and reconstructed more than 105 Christian villages.[94]\n\nAssyrians who have arrived as IDPs to Iraqi Kurdistan have demanded more rights from the KRG which has led to serious disputes. In 2014, Assyrian International News Agency stated:\n\nInstitutions and government agencies in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region use both languages. The Constitution also stipulates that Turkmen and Syriac are official languages in the administrative units where native speakers of these languages comprise a significant proportion of the population (a law has also included the Armenian language alongside Turkmen and Syriac). The Constitution notes that any region or province can adopt an additional language as a \"local official language\" if the majority of the region or province's residents agree to this in a general referendum.\n\nSome have also complained that adults have to join the KDP in the KDP-majority areas of Iraqi Kurdistan in order to be granted employment and that KDP representatives are allowed to settle in Assyrian villages.[93] Some Christian IDPs had claimed that Arabs, Kurds and Islamists are fully aware that Assyrians have no means of protection in the face of attacks. In 2005, the U.S. Department of State's 2005 Human Rights Country Report for Iraq shared reports that many of the mostly non-Muslim residents of the Nineveh Plains were unable to vote in the January election and incidents of voter fraud and intimidation occurred during the Iraq War. It was reported that Kurdish security forces also prevented ballot boxes from arriving in some Christian villages, fearing that Christians would favor the central Iraqi government.[95] Some cases of illegal land and property seizures of Christian Assyrian lands by KDP members were also claimed.[95]\n\nMichael Youash, an Assyrian expert, had stated in a report that the KRG was unable to provide safe haven for all Christians. He claimed that the KDP publicizes that tens of thousands of Christian Assyrian families are coming to the safety of Iraqi Kurdistan from Arab areas, but \"hundreds of thousands\" of Christians are leaving the country (Iraq) entirely. He claims that this is directly connected to the problems of \"illegal land seizures\".[95]\n\nThere have been reports that Kurdish security forces have also committed abuses against some Christians in northern Iraq during the Iraq War of 2003. These included threats and intimidation to detentions and torture.[96] In 1992, Assyrians who supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein published a communiqué, which warned against the continuous process of Kurdification in northern Iraq, stating: \"The Kurdish leadership, and in a well-planned program, had begun to settle Kurds and in large numbers around Assyrian regions like Sarsank, Barwari Bala and others. They claimed that Kurdish housing project was natural to change the demographic, economic, and civic structure of the Christian regions in only few short years; a process that forced the Christians to emigrate as the vacant homes were overtaken by 'the Kurds'.\"[97] Francis Yusuf Shabo was a Christian Assyrian politician who dealt with complaints by Christian Assyrians regarding their forced eviction from their villages during the Arabization and those same villages' later resettlement by Arabs and Kurds.[97]\n\nHuman Rights Watch reported that some Kurds and minorities, including Christians, have gone into dispute over land. Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaign targeting Kurds, many of whom have returned to their villages, have had deep issues with local people (including Christian Assyrians) whom they have accused of supporting Saddam's genocidal campaign against them during the Al-Anfal campaign. According to the HRW, minorities in those disputed villages have been victimized by Kurdish authorities’ heavy handed tactics, \"including arbitrary arrests and detentions, and intimidation, directed at anyone resistant to Kurdish expansionist plans\". These disputes have created an opening for Sunni Arab extremists, who continue their campaign of killing minorities, especially religious Christian minorities.\n\nHRW reported that for the Kurds to politically incorporate Nineveh Plains into Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish authorities in that area have embarked on a two-pronged approach: they have offered minorities of the Nineveh Plains inducements while simultaneously wielding repression in order to keep them in tow. Some argue that this approach intends to push Shabak and Yazidi communities into identifying as ethnic Kurds and to induce Christians into siding with the Kurdish government's stance on any referendum concerning the future of the disputed territories.\n\nKurdish authorities have tried to win favor with the minority communities by spending millions of Iraqi dinars to build a pro-Kurdish system of patronage by helping make minority communities wealthier, financing alternative civil society organizations to compete with, undermine, and challenge the authority of established groups, many of which oppose Kurdish rule. The KRG also funds private militias created to protect minority communities from outside violence, in which Iraqi authorities have failed, but which mainly serve to entrench Kurdish influence. Finally, the Kurdish leadership has enriched the coffers of Christian and Yazidi religious leaders and paid for expensive new places of worship in order to win over minority religious establishments.\n\nIn 2009, during the Iraq War, HRW stated that \"KRG authorities have relied on intimidation, threats, and arbitrary arrests and detentions, more than actual violence, in their efforts to secure support of minority communities for their agenda regarding the disputed territories. A Chaldo-Assyrian leader described the Kurdish campaign to Human Rights Watch as “the overarching, omnipresent reach of a highly effective and authoritarian regime that has much of the population under control through fear.” [98]\n\nDuring the 2011 Dohuk riots, a group of Kurdish radical Islamists attacked properties of Christian Assyrians, Yazidis and non-Muslim Kurds. Attackers were instigated by Friday prayer sermons of radical clerics who had come from other parts of Iraq.[99][100][101][102][103][104]\n\nAccording to Youash Michael, Peshmerga forces oversaw security in the Nineveh Plains in 2008, allowing the KDP to deny the minorities of the Nineveh Plains a chance to express their will electorally. He also claimed that Kurds had seized the lands of two refugees and the KRG would not enforce any decree requiring the return of land to \"original Assyrian inhabitants\".[95]\n\nFreedom of religion\n\nIn 2026, Freedom House gave Iraq a score of 1 out of 4 for religious freedom.[105] In the same year, Open Doors ranked Iraq as the 18th worst place in the world to be a Christian.[106]\n\nDemographics\n\nIn 2022, Christian leaders report that the number of Christians has dropped from a pre-2003 estimate of fewer than 1.5 million to 150,000.[107] However, due to a lack of an official census, the number is difficult to estimate.[108] According to the Directorate of Christian Affairs in the Ministry of Endowments, around 350,000-400,000 Christians live in Iraq.[109]\n\n80% of Iraqi Christians belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church which, despite the name \"Chaldean\", consists mostly of ethnic Assyrians just as the Assyrian and Syriac churches do.[110] The Chaldean Catholic Church is a 17th-century offshoot of the Assyrian Church of the East, which maintains some followers to this day.[111] Before the advent of Islam, most people living in what is now Iraq followed Syriac Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism, or ancient Mesopotamian religions. There are about 60,000 Iraqi Armenians who follow either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. Several thousand Arab Christians who are either Greek Orthodox or Melkite Catholic are largely concentrated in Baghdad.[112] Other Christians live primarily in Basra, Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk, as well as in the Assyrian homeland regions of Nineveh Plains, Duhok, and Zakho in the north.[2]\n\nChristian\n\nGroup\n\nChristian\n\nDenominations\n\n% of Christian\n\npopulation[113]\n\nChaldeans (80%)\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\n80%\n\nSyriacs (10%)\n\nSyriac Catholic Church\n\n8%\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\n2%\n\nAssyrians (5%)\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\n5%\n\nAncient Assyrian Church of the East\n\nArmenians (3%)\n\nArmenian Orthodox Church\n\n3%\n\nArmenian Catholic Church\n\nArabs (2%)\n\nVarious\n\n2%\n\nChristian communities\n\nChurches of the Syriac Rite\n\nThe majority of Iraqi Christians belong to branches of Syriac Christianity, whose followers are mostly ethnic Assyrians adhering to both the East Syriac Rite and West Syriac Rite:\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nSyriac Catholic Church\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nAncient Church of the East\n\nAssyrian Evangelical Church\n\nAssyrian Pentecostal Church\n\nChurches of the Armenian rite\n\nFollowers of these churches are almost exclusively ethnic Armenians, using the Armenian Rite:\n\nArmenian Catholic Church\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church\n\nChurches of the Byzantine rite\n\nFollowers of these churches are an ethnic mix known as Melkites:\n\nMelkite Catholic Church under the Patriarchal Exarchate of Iraq\n\nMelkite Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Baghdad\n\nOther churches and communities\n\nLatin Church (Roman Rite)\n\nProtestant churches\n\nNotable people\n\nPolitics\n\nThabit AbdulNour (1890-1957), director of oil department and representative of Christians\n\nYusuf Salman Yusuf, also referred to as \"Comrade Fahd\", Iraqi Assyrian, one of the founders and most influential figures of the Iraqi Communist Party\n\nTariq Aziz (1936-2015), Chaldean Catholic, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein\n\nBasim Bello (1963-2024), longest serving mayor of the Tel Keppe District.\n\nBahnam Zaya Bulos, former Minister of Transport\n\nPriests\n\nFather Anastase-Marie al-Karmali\n\nIntellectuals\n\nYoussef Rizq Allah Ghanima\n\nSports\n\nAmmo Baba, Iraqi Assyrian footballer and coach\n\nAyoub Odisho, Iraqi Assyrian footballer and coach\n\nJustin Meram, Iraqi Assyrian footballer\n\nArtists\n\nSeta Hagopian, renowned Armenian singer, referred to as \"Warm Voice of Iraq\" and the \"Fairouz of Iraq\"\n\nAfifa Iskandar\n\nMunir Bashir\n\nLinda George, Iraqi Assyrian singer\n\nSimor Jalal, Iraqi Assyrian singer\n\nBeatrice Ohanessian, Iraqi Armenian pianist\n\nHaitham Yousif, Assyrian singer referred to as \"Prince of Love\" in the Arab world\n\nSee also\n\nReligion in Iraq\n\nFreedom of religion in Iraq\n\nPersecution of Christians in Iraq\n\nArab Christians\n\nAssyrian people\n\nChaldean Catholics\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nCatholic Church in Iraq\n\nDemographics of Iraq\n\nSyriac Catholic Church\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nKurdish Christians\n\nChristian influences on the Islamic world\n\nChristianity and Islam\n\nChristianity in the Middle East\n\nReligion in the Middle East\n\nMor Mattai Monastery\n\nList of churches and monasteries in Nineveh\n\nDelegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Armenia\n\nNotes\n\n^ \nAccording to Assyrian historian Eden Naby, the relations between Assyrians and Kurds have been marked by a \"bitter history\", since Kurdish tribal chiefs in Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, and northwest Iran regularly attacked and plundered Christian tribes, and Eden Naby writes that during World War I Kurds were \"responsible for most of the atrocities committed against the Assyrians in particular, due to proximity and a long tradition of perceived Kurdish rights to pillage Assyrian Christians and carry away women and goods\", and that \"Kurdish expansion happened at the expense of Assyrians\".[89][90][91]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Where Was the Garden of Eden Located?\".\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"Iraqi Christians' long history\". BBC. 1 November 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2010.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians displaced by ISIL find solace in Baghdad\". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2019-05-02.\n\n^ Mamouri, Ali (2014-08-07). \"Najaf takes in Christians displaced by Islamic State\". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 2019-05-02.\n\n^ \"In Iraq, Christians return home, also for the sake of children of the diaspora\". Aid to the Church in Need. 2019-02-21. Retrieved 2019-05-02.\n\n^ NPU (2019-04-14). \"Large celebrations were held throughout the Nineveh Plain for Palm Sunday. The NPU will continue to protect our people and defend their way of life.pic.twitter.com/4JcaBBIGIS\". @NinevehPU. Retrieved 2019-05-02.\n\n^ Roussos, Sotiris; Drakoularakos, Stavros (2022-11-01). \"Christians in Syria and Iraq: From Co-optation to Militarisation Strategies\". Studies in World Christianity. 28 (3): 334-360. doi:10.3366/swc.2022.0403. ISSN 1354-9901.\n\n^ \"Population Database\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 2024-05-15.\n\n^ \"Shlama Football League\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 2024-05-15.\n\n^ a b c \"Fact Sheet: Christianity in Iraq\". CNEWA. Retrieved 2024-09-24.\n\n^ a b c Bowcott, Owen; Jones, Sam (8 August 2014). \"Isis persecution of Iraqi Christians has become genocide, says religious leaders\". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2014.\n\n^ \"IRAQ: Christians live in fear of death squads\". IRIN Middle East. IRIN. 19 October 2006. Retrieved 21 October 2013.\n\n^ Harrison, Frances (13 March 2008). \"Christians besieged in Iraq\". BBC. Retrieved 31 October 2010.\n\n^ \"2.15. Religious and ethnic minorities, and stateless persons | European Union Agency for Asylum\". euaa.europa.eu. Retrieved 2024-09-24.\n\n^ \"Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh\". BBC News. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Population 'under attack', Radio Free Europe\". Rferl.org. Retrieved 18 June 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ Mardean Isaac (24 December 2011). \"The desperate plight of Iraq's Assyrians and other minorities\". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Analysis: Iraq's Christians under attack\". BBC News. 2 August 2004. Retrieved 25 April 2010.\n\n^ McQuade, Romsin (30 July 2014). \"Iraq's persecuted Assyrian Christians are in limbo\". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2014.\n\n^ Suha Rassam (2005). Christianity in Iraq. Gracewing Publications. ISBN 9780852446331.\n\n^ a b Aboona, H. (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. p. 92 - 96\n\n^ Aboona 2008, pp. 92-112\n\n^ \"14th century annihilation of Iraq\". Mertsahinoglu.com. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2011.\n\n^ NUPI - Centre for Russian Studies Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Aboona, H. (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. p. 92 - 97\n\n^ Aboona, H. (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. p. 101-5\n\n^ Aboona, H. (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. p. 177\n\n^ a b c d Sargon George Donabed, Forging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century (Croydon, UK: E dinburgh, 2015), and https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=akron1464911392&disposition=inline Archived 2017-01-05 at the Wayback Machine \"\"THE SIMELE MASSACRE AS A CAUSE OF IRAQI NATIONALISM: HOW AN ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE CREATED IRAQI MARTIAL NATIONALISM \"\"\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j \"World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iraq : Chaldeans\". Refworld. Retrieved 2025-09-15.\n\n^ a b c d e f \"Christians live in fear of death squads\". Irinnews.org. 19 October 2006. Retrieved 29 June 2011.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Refugee crisis could become regional security threat - Iraq | ReliefWeb\". reliefweb.int. 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ \"Iraq refugees chased from home, struggle to cope\". CNN. 20 June 2007. Retrieved 29 June 2011.\n\n^ U.N.: 100,000 Iraq refugees flee monthly. Alexander G. Higgins, Boston Globe, 3 November 2006\n\n^ Ann McFeatters: Iraq refugees find no refuge in America. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 25 May 2007\n\n^ a b c d Harrison, Frances (13 March 2008). \"Christians besieged in Iraq\". BBC. Retrieved 31 October 2010.\n\n^ \"Seeking asylum: 'We were told to leave, convert or die' - BBC News\". BBC News. Wales. 8 June 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2023.\n\n^ Bill Wilson (2005). Warshod. Xulon Press. ISBN 9781597810371. Retrieved June 10, 2011.\n\n^ a b \"Fr Ragheed Ganni - The Independent (14 June 2007)\". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on January 14, 2008. Retrieved 29 June 2011.\n\n^ \"Who are the Chaldean Christians?\". BBC News. 13 March 2008. Retrieved 22 May 2010.\n\n^ a b c Stourton, Edward (3 April 2010). \"Iraqi Christians under fire\". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 6 April 2010. 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Retrieved 2025-05-13.\n\n^ Bassem, Wassim (March 15, 2016). \"Najaf's forgotten Christian heritage - AL-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012\". Al-monitor. Retrieved 2025-05-13.\n\n^ \"Organized Expropriation of Christian Real Estate in Iraq - Daraj\". 2021-12-18. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ \"Nearly all gone\". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ \"Mass Violence and Genocide by the Islamic State/Daesh in Iraq and Syria\". College of Liberal Arts. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ \"Nearly all gone\". The Economist. 26 July 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.\n\n^ MyPluralist (2023-07-02). \"How Faith Helped Build Resistance Against, Defeat ISIS\". MyPluralist. Retrieved 2025-05-13.\n\n^ Fides, Agenzia. \"ASIA/IRAQ - Ten years after the ISIS occupation: less than 50 Christian families have returned to Mosul - Agenzia Fides\". www.fides.org. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Few Christian families have returned to Mosul after 10 years - Vatican News\". www.vaticannews.va. 2024-06-11. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ Barnes, Taylor (November 3, 2010). \"Al Qaeda ally in Iraq says all Christians 'legitimate targets'\". CSmonitor.\n\n^ \"IRAQ: Christian IDPs find refuge in Kurdish north - Iraq | ReliefWeb\". reliefweb.int. 2010-12-23. Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ \"Church leader urges Iraqi Christians to quit country\". BBC News. 7 November 2010. Retrieved 7 November 2010.\n\n^ Chick, Kristen. \"Briefing: Why Christians are declining in Mideast\". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2025-04-24.\n\n^ a b \"رجل دين مسيحي: وضع العراق قد يدعو مهاجرين للتفكير بـ\"العودة\" | الحرة\". www.alhurra.com (in Arabic). Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ a b c d e \"المسيحيون في البصرة... هجرة متواصلة رغم التعايش السلمي\". اندبندنت عربية (in Arabic). 2019-06-03. 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Retrieved 2025-04-17.\n\n^ Mohammed Tawfeeq, Ben Westcott and Ivana Kottasová (6 March 2021). \"Pope Francis condemns extremism as 'betrayal of religion'\". CNN. Retrieved 2021-03-15.\n\n^ d'Avillez, Filipe (2024-07-05). \"Iraq: \"Christians are like olive trees. You can burn them, but they will still bear fruit\"\". ACN International. Retrieved 2025-08-14.\n\n^ Newton, John (2025-09-11). \"Iraq: Ecumenical festival points to future for persecuted Church\". ACN International. Retrieved 2025-09-29.\n\n^ Talabani against Aziz execution, Al Jazeera English\n\n^ Fadel, Leila (18 November 2010). \"Iraq president refuses to sign death order for ex-official\". The Washington Post.\n\n^ World News (5 June 2015). \"Iraq War 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? Tariq Aziz\". NBC News.\n\n^ \"Iraq's Tariq Aziz 'dies in prison'\". BBC News. 5 June 2015.\n\n^ \"On Vulnerable Ground\". Human Rights Watch. 10 November 2009. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Population Project\".\n\n^ Lewis, Jonathan Eric (June 2003). \"Iraqi Assyrians: Barometer of Pluralism\". Middle East Quarterly. Retrieved July 22, 2020.\n\n^ Barrett, Greg (2012). The Gospel of Rutba: War, Peace, and the Good Samaritan Story in Iraq (in Arabic). Orbis Books. ISBN 978-1-60833-113-0.\n\n^ \"cabinet.gov.krd/uploads/documents/Status_Christians_Kurdistan_Region_Dec_09__2009_12_22_h16m26s16.pdf\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 January 2017. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ Shadid, Anthony (1 November 2010). \"Baghdad Church Attack Hits Iraq's Core\". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 June 2017.\n\n^ State, US Department of (2012-07-30). \"2011 International Religious Freedom Report - Iraq\". ecoi.net. Retrieved 2025-12-22.\n\n^ Human Rights Watch (2011-01-24), World Report 2011: Iraq, retrieved 2025-12-22\n\n^ Nesira, Hani. \"Religious minorities in the Arab world between terrorism and crises of fragile States\" (PDF). www.gchragd.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2017-06-07.\n\n^ Tawfeeq, Mohammed. \"Iraq church bombing wounds at least 20\". Archived from the original on July 15, 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Two bombs in Christian areas of the Iraqi capital Baghdad have killed at least 35 people, officials have said\". BBC News. 25 December 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2024.\n\n^ \"A man wielding an axe wounds 3 people at the Assyrian Christian new year parade in Iraq\". AP News. 2025-04-01. Retrieved 2025-04-09.\n\n^ Joan A. Argenter, R. McKenna Brown (2004). On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights. Institut d'Estudis Catalans. p. 199. ISBN 9780953824861.\n\n^ \"From Lingua Franca to Endangered Language The Legal Aspects of the Preservation of Aramaic in Iraq\" by Eden Naby, In: On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights, Foundation for Endangered Languages. Eds: Joan A. Argenter, R. McKenna Brown PDF\n\n^ Schanzer, Jonathan. (2004) \"Ansar al-Islam: Back in Iraq,\" Middle East Quarterly\n\n^ \"Abandoned and betrayed, Iraqi Christians rise up to reclaim their land\". The National. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ a b On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights. Foundation for Endangered Languages. 2007 Cambridge University Press, Joan A. Argenter, R. McKenna Brown - 2004.\n\n^ \"cabinet.gov.krd/uploads/documents/Status_Christians_Kurdistan_Region_Dec_09__2009_12_22_h16m26s16.pdf\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 January 2017. Retrieved 18 November 2016.\n\n^ a b c d Iraq's Minority Crisis and U.S. National Security: Protecting Minority Rights in Iraq, Michael Youash (2008) http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=auilr\n\n^ \"2005 report on Iraq: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor\". U.S. Department of State.\n\n^ a b Aprim, Fred. \"Indigenous People in Distress\". www.atour.com.\n\n^ \"On Vulnerable Ground | Violence against Minority Communities in Nineveh Province's Disputed Territories\". Human Rights Watch. 10 November 2009.\n\n^ Isaac, Mardean (24 December 2011). \"The desperate plight of Iraq's Assyrians and other minorities | Mardean Isaac\". The Guardian.\n\n^ UNHCR’s ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM-SEEKERS UNHCR THE UN REFUGEE AGENCY United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)GenevaAugust 2007\"\n\n^ UNHCR’s ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM-SEEKERS UNHCR THE UN REFUGEE AGENCY United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)GenevaAugust 2007\", see USDOS, 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices -Iraq,\n\n^ UNHCR’s ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM-SEEKERS UNHCR THE UN REFUGEE AGENCY United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)GenevaAugust 2007\", http://english.aljazeera.net/news/archive/archive?ArchiveId=19677 Archived 2007-02-23 at the Wayback Machine; AFP, Ethnic tensions deepen over vote in northern Iraqi city, 6 February 2006, http://www.institutkurde.org/en/info/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1107790140&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&;\n\n^ UNHCR’s ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM-SEEKERS UNHCR THE UN REFUGEE AGENCY United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)GenevaAugust 2007\", See: Patrick Martin, State Department cable details ethnic cleansing by US-backed forces in Iraq, 16 June 2005, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/kirk-j16.shtml.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Human Rights Abuses in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991,\" Amnesty International Special Report, AI Index: MDE 14/01/95\n\n^ \"Iraq\". Freedom House website. 2026.\n\n^ \"Iraq\". Open Doors website.\n\n^ US State Dept 2022 report\n\n^ \"Christian areas hit by Baghdad bombs\". BBC News. 25 December 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2013.\n\n^ www.rudawarabia.net https://www.rudawarabia.net/notfound.html. Retrieved 2025-05-27. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)\n\n^ \"Brief Summary on Iraqi Christians\" (PDF). U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).\n\n^ \"Iraq\". Open Door USA. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2018.\n\n^ \"Ethnologue: Iraq\". www.ethnologue.com. Retrieved 2019-05-09.\n\n^ \"Brief Summary on Iraqi Christians\" (PDF). U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).\n\nFurther reading\n\nAboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Amherst: Cambria Press. ISBN 9781604975833.\n\nBaarda, Tijmen C. (2020). \"Arabic and the Syriac Christians in Iraq: Three Levels of Loyalty to the Arabist Project (1920-1950)\". Arabic and its Alternatives: Religious Minorities and their Languages in the Emerging Nation States of the Middle East (1920-1950). Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 143-170. doi:10.1163/9789004423220_007. ISBN 9789004423220. S2CID 216310663.\n\nBarAbraham, Abdulmesih (2018). \"Safeguarding the Cross: Emergence of Christian Militias in Iraq and Syria\". Middle Eastern Christians and Europe: Historical Legacies and Present Challenges. Wien: LIT Verlag. pp. 217-238. ISBN 9783643910233.\n\nBarber, Matthew (2016). \"They that Remain: Syrian and Iraqi Christian Communities amid the Syria Conflict and the Rise of the Islamic State\". Christianity and Freedom. Vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 453-488. ISBN 9781107561885.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2009). \"Monasticism in Iraq: The Cultural Contribution\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 64-80. ISBN 9781607241119.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2010). \"Two Millennia of Christianity in Iraq\". Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. 21 (2): 175-184. doi:10.1080/09596411003619822. S2CID 145002661.\n\nCorbon, Jean (1998). \"The Churches of the Middle East: Their Origins and Identity, from their Roots in the Past to their Openness to the Present\". Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 92-110. ISBN 978-0-19-829388-0.\n\nDougherty, Beth K. (2019) [2004]. Historical Dictionary of Iraq (3rd ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538120057.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1998). \"Christians in Iraq\". Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 294-304. ISBN 978-0-19-829388-0.\n\nHealey, John F. (2010). \"The Church Across the Border: The Church of the East and its Chaldean Branch\". Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 41-55. ISBN 9781135193713.\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (2019). \"Changing Demography: Christians in Iraq since 1991\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 783-796. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nJoseph, John B. (1983). Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780873956000.\n\nLalik, Krzysztof (2018). \"Ethnic and Religious Factors of Chaldo-Assyrian Identity in an Interface with the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan\". Rediscovering Kurdistan's Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket. Cham: Springer. pp. 213-257. ISBN 9783319930886.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (1974). \"Religious Communities in Late Sasanian and Early Muslim Iraq\". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 17 (2): 113-135. doi:10.2307/3596328. JSTOR 3596328.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (1984). Iraq After the Muslim Conquest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691053950.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (1991). \"The Aramaean Population in the Economic Life of Early Islamic Iraq\". ARAM Periodical. 3 (1): 1-6.\n\nMüller, Hannelore (2018). \"Assyrian Christians in Iraq, the League of Nations and Transnational Christian Advocacy (1920s-1940s)\". Sayfo 1915: An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 253-304. ISBN 9781463207304.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2009). \"Chaldeans and Assyrians: The Church of the East in the Ottoman Period\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 146-164. ISBN 9781607241119.\n\nOhanian, Seda D. (2019). \"Armenians of Iraq\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 151-164. ISBN 9781912997152.\n\nO’Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 9780521811132.\n\nO’Mahony, Anthony (2008). \"Patriarchs and Politics: The Chaldean Catholic Church in Modern Iraq\". Christianity in the Middle East: Studies in Modern History, Theology, and Politics. London: Melisende. pp. 105-142. ISBN 9781901764499.\n\nO’Mahony, Anthony (2009). \"Christianity in Iraq: Modern History, Theology, Dialogue and Politics (until 2003)\". The Christian Heritage of Iraq. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 237-284. ISBN 9781607241119.\n\nPanchenko, Constantin A. (2021). Orthodoxy and Islam in the Middle East: The Seventh to the Sixteenth Centuries. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Publications. ISBN 9781942699330.\n\nRassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Leominster: Gracewing Publishing. ISBN 9780852446331.\n\nRío Sánchez, Francisco del (2007). \"The Aramaean Speakers of Iraq in the Arabic Sources\". Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 359-368. doi:10.31826/9781463212827-022. ISBN 978-1-4632-1282-7.\n\nRoussos, Sotiris (2010). \"Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the Middle East\". Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 107-119. ISBN 9781135193713.\n\nRoussos, Sotiris (2014). \"Globalization Processes and Christians in the Middle East: A Comparative Analysis\". The Journal of the Middle East and Africa. 5 (2): 111-130. doi:10.1080/21520844.2014.928924. S2CID 154336287.\n\nSalloum, Saad (2019). \"Minorities in Iraq: National Legal Framework, Political Participation, and the Future of Citizenship Given the Current Changes\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 11-32. ISBN 9781912997152.\n\nSchmidinger, Thomas (2019). \"Christians in Iraq\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 113-124. ISBN 9781912997152.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2009). \"The Christian Minorities in Iraq: The Question of Religious and Ethnic Identity\". In-Between Spaces: Christian and Muslim Minorities in Transition in Europe and the Middle East. Brussel: Peter Lang. pp. 45-57. ISBN 9789052015651.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2012). \"Christians in Iraq: An Analysis of Some Recent Political Developments\" (PDF). Der Islam. 88 (1): 179-198. doi:10.1515/islam-2011-0010. hdl:2066/101464. S2CID 156389791.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2013). \"Christianity in Iraq and its Contribution to Society\". Syriac Christianity in the Middle East and India: Contributions and Challenges. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 37-55. doi:10.31826/9781463235864-006. ISBN 9781463235864.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2015). \"Christians in Iraq: An Analysis of Some Recent Developments\". Christsein in der Islamischen Welt. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 587-594. ISBN 9783447104418.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2018). \"Christians in Iraq: The Transition from Religious to Secular Identity\". International Journal of Asian Christianity. 1: 11-24. doi:10.1163/25424246-00101002. S2CID 158309301.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2013). \"Christianity in the Middle East: Some historical remarks and preliminary demographic figures\". Syriac Christianity in the Middle East and India: Contributions and Challenges. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 107-125. doi:10.31826/9781463235864-011. ISBN 9781463235864.\n\nWhooley, John (2010). \"The Armenian Church in the contemporary Middle East\". Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East. London-New York: Routledge. pp. 78-106. ISBN 9781135193713.\n\nYoukhana, Emanuel (2019). \"Fleeing ISIS: Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Niniveh Plains after ISIS\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 125-150. ISBN 9781912997152.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial Website of the Eastern Orthodox Archdiocese of Baghdad, Kuwait and Dependencies\n\nEuropean Centre for Law and Justice (2011): The Persecution of Oriental Christians, what answer from Europe?\n\nSpencer, Richard (21 Jun 2014). \"Iraq's beleaguered Christians make final stand on the Mosul frontline\". The Telegraph."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christianity-in-iraq"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9488}, {"slug": "reference-ashur-uballit-i", "title": "Ashur-uballit I", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Ashur-uballit I (Aššur-uballiṭ I), who reigned between c. 1363 and c. 1328 BC, was king of Assyria and the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire. After his father Eriba-Adad I (1390-1364 BC) had broken half a century of intermittent Hurrian-Mitanni influence over Assyria, Ashur-uballit I's defeat of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashur-uballit I\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nTablet from the reign of Ashur-uballit I\n\nKing of the Middle Assyrian Empire\n\nReign1363-1328 BC[1]\n1353-1318 BC\n\nPredecessorEriba-Adad I\n\nSuccessorEnlil-nirari\n\nIssue\n\nEnlil-nirari\n\nMuballitat-Sherua\n\nFatherEriba-Adad I\n\nAshur-uballit I (Aššur-uballiṭ I), who reigned between c. 1363 and c. 1328 BC, was king of Assyria and the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire. After his father Eriba-Adad I (1390-1364 BC) had broken half a century of intermittent Hurrian-Mitanni influence over Assyria, Ashur-uballit I's defeat of the Mitanni king Shuttarna III marks Assyria's full ascendancy over the Hurri-Mitanni civilizations, much of which it annexed, and the beginning of its emergence as a powerful empire. Later on, due to disorder in Babylonia following the death of the Kassite king Burnaburiash II, Ashur-uballit invaded and established Kurigalzu II on the Babylonian throne, in the first of what would become a series of Assyrian interventions in Babylonian affairs.\n\nFamily and personal life\n\nBurnaburiash married Muballitat-Sherua of Assyria, the daughter of Ashur-uballit I. Together, they had at least one son, Prince Kara-hardash. They may also have been the parents of Kurigalzu II, or his grandparents.\n\nAmarna letters\n\nTwo of the Amarna letters were sent by Ashur-uballit I.\n\nBabylonian wars\n\nWith Assyrian power firmly established in Mesopotamia, northeast Levant and southeast Anatolia, Ashur-uballit started to make contacts with other great nations. His messages to the Egyptians angered his Babylonian neighbour Burnaburiash II, who himself wrote to the Pharaoh: “with regard to my Assyrian vassals, it was not I who sent them to you. Why did they go to your country without proper authority? If you are loyal to me, they will not negotiate any business. Send them to me empty-handed!”[2]\n\nLegacy\n\nPrince Kara-hardash succeeded his father. A revolt soon broke out that showed the unpopularity of the Assyrians. Asshur-uballit would not allow his grandson to be cast aside, and duly invaded Babylon. Because Kara-Hardash was killed in the rebellion, the Assyrians placed on the Babylonian throne Kurigalzu II. But this new puppet king did not remain loyal to his master, and soon invaded Assyria. Ashur-uballit stopped the Babylonian army at Sugagu, not far south from the capital Assur.[3]\n\nAshur-uballit I then counterattacked, and invaded Babylonia, appropriating hitherto Babylonian territory in central Mesopotamia, and forcing a treaty in Assyria's favour upon Kurigalzu.[4]\n\nSee also\n\nAmarna letter EA 15\n\nAmarna letter EA 16\n\nReferences\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). \"Appendix I: A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004430914.\n\n^ M. van de Mieroop - A history of the ancient near east, 2006, pp. 127-128\n\n^ J. Oates - Babylon, 2003, pp 91-92\n\n^ Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq\n\nExternal links\n\n2 Letters by Assur-uballit I to Pharaoh, EA 15, EA (el Amarna) 16."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashur-uballit-i"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 458}, {"slug": "reference-history-of-iran", "title": "History of Iran", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The history of Iran (also known as Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, a region encompassing all areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence by the Iranian peoples and Iranian languages - chiefly the Persians and the Persian language. Central to this region is the Iranian plateau,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The history of Iran (also known as Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, a region encompassing all areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence by the Iranian peoples and Iranian languages - chiefly the Persians and the Persian language. Central to this region is the Iranian plateau, now covered by modern Iran. The most pronounced impact of Iranian history can be seen stretching from Anatolia in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, and majority of Central Asia. It also stands in connection with the histories of other major civilizations, such as India, China, Greece, Rome, and Egypt.\n\nIran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to the 5th millennium BC.[1] The Iranian plateau's western regions were home to the Elamites, Kassites, Gutians, Urartians,[2][3][4] and the Mannaeans in Kurdistan.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The Iranian empire began with the rise of the Medes during the Iron Age, when Iran was unified as a nation under the Median kingdom in the 7th century BC.[12] By 550 BC, the Medes were sidelined by the conquests of Cyrus the Great, who brought the Persians to power with the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus' ensuing campaigns enabled the Persian expansion across most of West Asia and much of Central Asia, and his successors would conquer parts of Southeast Europe and North Africa to preside over the largest empire yet seen. In the 4th century BC, the Achaemenid Empire was conquered by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, whose death led to the establishment of the Seleucid Empire over the bulk of former Achaemenid territory. In the following century, Greek rule of the Iranian plateau came to an end with the rise of the Parthian Empire, which conquered large parts of the Seleucids' Anatolian, Mesopotamian, and Central Asian holdings. While the Parthians were succeeded by the Sasanian Empire in the 2nd century, Iran remained a leading power for the next millennium, although most of this period was marked by the Roman-Persian Wars.\n\nIn the 7th century, the Muslim conquest of Persia resulted in the Sasanian Empire's annexation by the Rashidun Caliphate and the beginning of the Islamization of Iran. In spite of invasions by foreign powers, such as the Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols, Iranian national identity was preserved, allowing it to develop as a distinct political and cultural entity, influencing its invaders. While the early Muslim conquests had caused the decline of Zoroastrianism, which had been Iran's majority religion, the achievements of Iranian civilizations were absorbed into the nascent Islamic empires and expanded upon during the Islamic Golden Age. Nomadic Turkic tribes overran parts of the Iranian plateau during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period, negatively impacting the region.[13] By 1501, however, the nation was reunified by the Safavid dynasty, which initiated Iranian history's most momentous religious change since the original Muslim conquest, by converting Iran to Shia Islam.[14][15] Iran again emerged as a world power, especially in rivalry with the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, Iran came into conflict with the Russian Empire, which annexed the South Caucasus by the end of the Russo-Persian Wars.[16]\n\nIn the 1940s, there were hopes Iran could become a constitutional monarchy, but a 1953 coup aided by the US and UK removed the elected prime minister, and Iran was ruled as an autocracy under the Shah with American support. The monarchy lasted until the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when the country was declared an Islamic republic.[17][18] Since then, it has experienced significant political, social, and economic changes. The establishment of an Islamic republic led to a restructuring of the country's political system. Iran's foreign relations have been shaped by regional conflicts, beginning with the Iran-Iraq War and persisting through many Arab countries; ongoing tensions with Israel, the US, and the Western world; and the Iranian nuclear program, which has been contentious in international diplomacy. Despite international sanctions and internal challenges, Iran remains a key player in regional and global geopolitics.\n\nPrehistory\n\nPaleolithic\n\nThe earliest archaeological artifacts in Iran were found in the Kashafrud and Ganj Par sites that are thought to date back to 100,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic.[1] Mousterian stone tools made by Neanderthals have also been found.[19] There are more cultural remains of Neanderthals dating back to the Middle Paleolithic period, which mainly have been found in the Zagros region (and fewer in central Iran) at sites such as Kobeh, Kunji, Bisitun Cave, Tamtama, Warwasi, and Yafteh Cave.[20] In 1949, a Neanderthal radius was discovered by Carleton S. Coon in Bisitun Cave.[21] Evidence for Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic periods are known mainly from the Zagros Mountains in the caves of Kermanshah and Khorramabad and a few number of sites in Piranshahr, Alborz and Central Iran. During this time, people began creating rock art in Iran.[22][23]\n\nNeolithic to Chalcolithic\n\nEarly agricultural communities such as Chogha Golan in the 11th millennium BC[24][25] along with settlements such as Chogha Bonut (the earliest village in Elam) in the 9th millennium BC[26][27] began to flourish in and around the Zagros Mountains.[28] Around about the same time, the earliest-known clay vessels and modelled human and animal terracotta figurines were produced at Ganj Dareh.[28] There are 10,000-year-old human and animal figurines from Tepe Sarab in Kermanshah province among many other ancient artefacts.[29]\n\nThe south-western part of Iran was part of the Fertile Crescent where most of humanity's first major crops were grown, in villages such as Susa (where a settlement was first founded possibly as early as 4395 BC)[30] and settlements such as Chogha Mish, dating back to 6800 BC;[31][32] there are 7,000-year-old jars of wine excavated in the Zagros Mountains[33] (now on display at the University of Pennsylvania) and ruins of 7,000-year-old settlements such as Tepe Sialk are further testament to that. The two main Neolithic Iranian settlements were Ganj Dareh and the hypothetical Zayandeh River Culture.[34]\n\nBronze Age\n\nThe Kura-Araxes culture (circa 3400 BC-ca. 2000 BC) stretched from northwestern Iran up into the neighbouring regions of the Caucasus and Anatolia.[35][36] Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of Iran and the world. The general perception among archaeologists is that Susa was an extension of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, hence incorporating many aspects of Mesopotamian culture.[37][38] In its later history, Susa became the capital of Elam, which emerged as a state founded 4000 BC.[39] There are also dozens of prehistoric sites across the Iranian plateau pointing to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the fourth millennium BC.[31] One of the earliest civilizations on the Iranian plateau was the Jiroft culture in southeastern Iran in the province of Kerman.\n\nIran is one of the most artefact-rich archaeological sites in West Asia. Archaeological excavations in Jiroft led to the discovery of several objects belonging to the 4th millennium BC.[40] There is a large quantity of objects decorated with highly distinctive engravings of animals, mythological figures, and architectural motifs. The objects and their iconography are considered unique. Many are made from chlorite, a grey-green soft stone; others are in copper, bronze, terracotta, and even lapis lazuli. Recent excavations at the sites have produced the world's earliest inscription which pre-dates Mesopotamian inscriptions.[41][42]\n\nThere are records of numerous other ancient civilizations on the Iranian plateau before the emergence of Iranian peoples during the Early Iron Age. The Early Bronze Age saw the rise of urbanization into organized city-states and the invention of writing (the Uruk period) in the Near East. While Bronze Age Elam made use of writing from an early time, the Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, and records from Sumer pertaining to Elam are scarce.\n\nRussian historian Igor M. Diakonoff states that the modern inhabitants of Iran are descendants of mainly non-Indo-European groups, more specifically of pre-Iranic inhabitants of the Iranian Plateau.[a]\n\nEarly Iron Age\n\nRecords become more tangible with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its records of incursions from the Iranian plateau. As early as the 20th century BC, tribes came to the Iranian plateau from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The arrival of the Iranic peoples on the Iranian plateau forced the Elamites to relinquish one area of their empire after another and to take refuge in Elam, Khuzestan and the nearby area, which only then became coterminous with Elam.[44] Bahman Firuzmandi says that the southern Iranians might be intermixed with the Elamite peoples living in the plateau.[45] By the mid-1st millennium BC, Medes, Persians, and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau. Until the rise of the Medes, they all remained under Assyrian domination, like the rest of the Near East. In the first half of the 1st millennium BC, parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaijan were incorporated into Urartu.\n\n Classical antiquity\n\nMedian and Achaemenid Empires (678-330 BC)\n\n The tomb of Cyrus the Great\n\n Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis\n\n Ruins of the Apadana, Persepolis\n\n Depiction of united Medes and Persians at the Apadana, Persepolis\n\n Ruins of the Tachara, Persepolis\n\nIn 646 BC, Assyrian king Ashurbanipal sacked Susa, which ended Elamite supremacy in the region.[46] For over 150 years Assyrian kings of nearby northern Mesopotamia had been wanting to conquer Median tribes of western Iran.[47] Under pressure from Assyria, the small kingdoms of the western Iranian plateau coalesced into increasingly larger and more centralized states.[46]\n\nIn the second half of the 7th century BC, the Medes gained their independence and were united by Deioces. In 612 BC, Cyaxares, Deioces' grandson, and the Babylonian king Nabopolassar invaded Assyria and laid siege to and eventually destroyed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, which led to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[48] Urartu was later on conquered and dissolved as well by the Medes.[49][50] The Medes are credited with founding Iran as a nation and empire, and established the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified empire of the Medes and Persians, leading to the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BC).\n\nCyrus the Great overthrew, in turn, the Median, Lydian, and Neo-Babylonian empires, creating an empire far larger than Assyria. He was better able, through more benign policies, to reconcile his subjects to Persian rule; the longevity of his empire was one result. The Persian king, like the Assyrian, was also \"King of Kings\", xšāyaθiya xšāyaθiyānām (shāhanshāh in modern Persian) - \"great king\", Megas Basileus, as known by the Greeks.\n\nCyrus's son, Cambyses II, conquered the last major power of the region, ancient Egypt, causing the collapse of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt. Since he became ill and died before, or while, leaving Egypt, stories developed, as related by Herodotus, that he was struck down for impiety against the ancient Egyptian deities. After the death of Cambyses II, Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the legitimate Achaemenid monarch Bardiya, and then quelling rebellions throughout his kingdom. As the winner, Darius based his claim on membership in a collateral line of the Achaemenid Empire.\n\nDarius' first capital was at Susa, and he started the building program at Persepolis. He rebuilt a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, a forerunner of the modern Suez Canal. He improved the extensive road system, and it is during his reign that mentions are first made of the Royal Road (shown on map), a great highway stretching all the way from Susa to Sardis with posting stations at regular intervals. Major reforms took place under Darius. Coinage, in the form of the daric (gold coin) and the shekel (silver coin), was standardized (coinage had been invented over a century before in Lydia c. 660 BC but not standardized),[51] and administrative efficiency increased.\n\nThe Old Persian language appears in royal inscriptions, written in a specially adapted version of the cuneiform script. Under Cyrus the Great and Darius, the Persian Empire eventually became the largest empire in human history up until that point, ruling and administrating over most of the known world,[52] as well as spanning the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The greatest achievement was the empire itself. The Persian Empire represented the world's first superpower[53] that was based on a model of tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions.[54]\n\nIn the late 6th century BC, Darius launched his European campaign, in which he defeated the Paeonians, conquered Thrace, and subdued all coastal Greek cities, as well as defeating the European Scythians around the Danube river.[55] In 512/511 BC, Macedon became a vassal kingdom of Persia.[55]\n\nIn 499 BC, Athens lent support to a revolt in Miletus, which resulted in the sacking of Sardis. This led to an Achaemenid campaign against mainland Greece known as the Greco-Persian Wars, which lasted the first half of the 5th century BC, and is known as one of the most important wars in European history. In the First Persian invasion of Greece, the Persian general Mardonius re-subjugated Thrace and made Macedon a full part of Persia.[55] The war eventually turned out in defeat, however. Darius' successor Xerxes I launched the Second Persian invasion of Greece. At a crucial moment in the war, about half of mainland Greece was overrun by the Persians, including all territories to the north of the Isthmus of Corinth,[56][57] however, this was also turned out in a Greek victory, following the battles of Plataea and Salamis, by which Persia lost its footholds in Europe, and eventually withdrew from it.[58] During the Greco-Persian wars, the Persians gained major territorial advantages. They captured and razed Athens twice, once in 480 BC and again in 479 BC. However, after a string of Greek victories the Persians were forced to withdraw, thus losing control of Macedonia, Thrace and Ionia. Fighting continued for several decades after the successful Greek repelling of the Second Invasion with numerous Greek city-states under the Athens' newly formed Delian League, which eventually ended with the peace of Callias in 449 BC, ending the Greco-Persian Wars. In 404 BC, following the death of Darius II, Egypt rebelled under Amyrtaeus. Later pharaohs successfully resisted Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt until 343 BC, when Egypt was reconquered by Artaxerxes III.\n\nGreek conquest (331 BC) and Seleucid Empire (312 BC-248 BC)\n\nFrom 334 BC to 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III in the battles of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, and conquered the Achaemenid Empire by 331 BC. Alexander's empire broke up shortly after his death, and Alexander's general, Seleucus I Nicator, tried to take control of Iran, Mesopotamia, and later Syria and Anatolia. His empire was the Seleucid Empire. He was killed in 281 BC by Ptolemy Keraunos.\n\nParthian Empire (248 BC-224 AD)\n\nThe Parthian Empire-ruled by the Parthians, a group of northwestern Iranian people-was the realm of the Arsacid dynasty. This latter reunited and governed the Iranian plateau after the Parni conquest of Parthia and defeating the Seleucid Empire in the late 3rd century BC. It intermittently controlled Mesopotamia between c. 150 BC and 224 AD and absorbed Eastern Arabia.\n\nParthia was the eastern arch-enemy of the Roman Empire, and it limited Rome's expansion beyond Cappadocia (central Anatolia). The Parthian armies included two types of cavalry: the heavily armed and armored cataphracts and the lightly armed but highly-mobile mounted archers.\n\nFor the Romans, who relied on heavy infantry, the Parthians were too hard to defeat, as both types of cavalry were much faster and more mobile than foot soldiers. The Parthian shot used by the Parthian cavalry was most notably feared by the Roman soldiers, which proved pivotal in the crushing Roman defeat at the Battle of Carrhae. On the other hand, the Parthians found it difficult to occupy conquered areas as they were unskilled in siege warfare. Because of these weaknesses, neither the Romans nor the Parthians were able completely to annex each other's territory.\n\nThe Parthian empire subsisted for five centuries, longer than most Eastern Empires. The end of this empire came at last in 224 AD, when the empire's organization had loosened and the last king was defeated by one of the empire's vassal peoples, the Persians under the Sasanians. However, the Arsacid dynasty continued to exist for centuries onwards in Armenia, the Iberia, and the Caucasian Albania, which were all eponymous branches of the dynasty.\n\nSasanian Empire (224-651 AD)\n\nThe first shah of the Sasanian Empire, Ardashir I, started reforming the country economically and militarily. For a period of more than 400 years, Iran was once again one of the leading powers in the world, alongside its neighbouring rival, the Roman and then Byzantine Empires.[59][60] The empire's territory, at its height, encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Abkhazia, Dagestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, parts of Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, parts of Pakistan, Central Asia, Eastern Arabia, and parts of Egypt.\n\nMost of the Sasanian Empire's lifespan was overshadowed by the frequent Byzantine-Sasanian wars, a continuation of the Roman-Parthian Wars and the all-comprising Roman-Persian Wars; the last was the longest-lasting conflict in human history. Started in the first century BC by their predecessors, the Parthians, and Romans, the last Roman-Persian War was fought in the seventh century. The Persians defeated the Romans at the Battle of Edessa in 260 and took emperor Valerian prisoner for the remainder of his life. Eastern Arabia was conquered early on. During Khosrow II's rule in 590-628, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon were also annexed to the Empire. The Sassanians called their empire Erânshahr (\"Dominion of the Aryans\", i.e., of Iranians).[61]\n\nA chapter of Iran's history followed after roughly 600 years of conflict with the Roman Empire. During this time, the Sassanian and Romano-Byzantine armies clashed for influence in Anatolia, the western Caucasus (mainly Lazica and the Kingdom of Iberia; modern-day Georgia and Abkhazia), Mesopotamia, Armenia and the Levant. Under Justinian I, the war came to an uneasy peace with payment of tribute to the Sassanians. However, the Sasanians used the deposition of the Byzantine emperor Maurice as a casus belli to attack the Empire. After many gains, the Sassanians were defeated at Issus, Constantinople, and finally Nineveh, resulting in peace. With the conclusion of the over 700 years lasting Roman-Persian Wars through the climactic Byzantine-Sasanian War of 602-628, which included the very siege of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, the war-exhausted Persians lost the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah (632) in Hilla (present-day Iraq) to the invading Muslim forces.\n\nThe Sasanian era, encompassing the length of Late Antiquity, is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran, and had a major impact on the world. In many ways, the Sassanian period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization and constitutes the last great Iranian Empire before the adoption of Islam. Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during Sassanian times,[62] their cultural influence extending far beyond the empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe,[63] Africa,[64] China and India[65] and also playing a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art.[66]\n\nThis influence carried forward to the Muslim world. The dynasty's unique and aristocratic culture transformed the Islamic conquest and destruction of Iran into a Persian Renaissance.[63] Much of what later became known as Islamic culture, architecture, writing, and other contributions to civilization, were taken from the Sassanian Persians into the broader Muslim world.[67]\n\nMedieval period\n\nEarly Islamic period\n\nIslamic conquest of Persia (633-651)\n\nIn 633, immediately following a civil war and during the reign of the Sasanian king Yazdegerd III, the Muslims under Umar invaded Iran. Several Iranian nobles and families such as king Dinar of the House of Karen, and later Kanarangiyans of Khorasan, mutinied against their Sasanian overlords. Although the House of Mihran had claimed the Sasanian throne under the two prominent generals Bahram Chobin and Shahrbaraz, it remained loyal to the Sasanians during its struggle against the Arabs, but the Mihrans were eventually betrayed and defeated by their own kinsmen, the House of Ispahbudhan, under their leader Farrukhzad, who had mutinied against Yazdegerd III. Yazdegerd III fled from one district to another until a local miller killed him for his purse at Merv in 651.[17] By 674, Muslims had conquered Khorasan (which included Khorasan province and modern Afghanistan and parts of Transoxiana).\n\nThe Muslim conquest of Persia ended the Sasanian Empire and led to the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. Over time, the majority of Iranians converted to Islam. Most of the aspects of the previous Persian civilizations were not discarded but were absorbed by the new Islamic polity. As Bernard Lewis has commented:\n\nThese events have been variously seen in Iran: by some as a blessing, the advent of the true faith, the end of the age of ignorance and heathenism; by others as a humiliating national defeat, the conquest and subjugation of the country by foreign invaders. Both perceptions are of course valid, depending on one's angle of vision.[68]\n\nUmayyad era and Muslim incursions into the Caspian coast\n\nAfter the fall of the Sasanian Empire in 651, the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate adopted many Persian customs, especially the administrative and the court mannerisms. Arab provincial governors were undoubtedly either Persianized Arameans or ethnic Persians; certainly Persian remained the language of official business of the caliphate until the adoption of Arabic toward the end of the 7th century,[69] when in 692 minting began at the capital Damascus. The Islamic coins evolved from imitations of Sasanian coins (as well as Byzantine), and the Pahlavi script on the coinage was replaced with Arabic alphabet.\n\nDuring the Umayyad Caliphate, the Arab conquerors imposed Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, who was not happy with the prevalence of the Persian language in the divan, ordered the official language of the conquered lands to be replaced by Arabic, sometimes by force.[70] In al-Biruni's From the Remaining Signs of Past Centuries for example it is written:\n\nWhen Qutaibah bin Muslim under the command of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef was sent to Khwarazmia with a military expedition and conquered it for the second time, he swiftly killed whoever wrote the Khwarazmian native language that knew of the Khwarazmian heritage, history, and culture. He then killed all their Zoroastrian priests and burned and wasted their books, until gradually the illiterate only remained, who knew nothing of writing, and hence their history was mostly forgotten.[71]\n\nSeveral historians see the rule of the Umayyads as setting up the \"dhimmah\" to increase taxes from the dhimmis to benefit the Muslim Arab community financially and by discouraging conversion.[72] Governors lodged complaints with the caliph when he enacted laws that made conversion easier, depriving the provinces of revenues. In the 7th century, when many non-Arabs such as Persians entered Islam, they were recognized as mawali (\"clients\") and treated as second-class citizens by the ruling Arab elite until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate. During this era, Islam was initially associated with the ethnic identity of the Arab and required formal association with an Arab tribe and the adoption of the client status of mawali.[72] The half-hearted policies of the late Umayyads to tolerate non-Arab Muslims and Shias had failed to quell unrest among these minorities.\n\nHowever, all of Iran was still not under Arab control; the region of Daylam was under the control of the Daylamites, while Tabaristan was under Dabuyid and Paduspanid control, and the Mount Damavand region was under Masmughans of Damavand. The Arabs had invaded these regions several times but achieved no decisive result because of the inaccessible terrain of the regions. The most prominent ruler of the Dabuyids, known as Farrukhan the Great (r. 712-728), managed to hold his domains during his long struggle against the Arab general Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, who was defeated by a combined Dailamite-Dabuyid army and was forced to retreat from Tabaristan.[73]\n\nWith the death of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 743, the Islamic world was launched into civil war. Abu Muslim was sent to Khorasan by the Abbasid Caliphate initially as a propagandist and then to revolt on their behalf. He took Merv defeating the Umayyad governor Nasr ibn Sayyar. He became the de facto Abbasid governor of Khurasan. During the same period, the Dabuyid ruler Khurshid declared independence from the Umayyads but was shortly forced to recognize Abbasid authority. In 750, Abu Muslim became the leader of the Abbasid army and defeated the Umayyads at the Battle of the Zab. Abu Muslim stormed Damascus later that year.\n\nAbbasid period and autonomous Iranian dynasties\n\nThe Abbasid army consisted primarily of Khorasanians and was led by Abu Muslim. It contained both Iranian and Arab elements, and the Abbasids enjoyed both Iranian and Arab support. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750.[74] According to Amir Arjomand, the Abbasid Revolution essentially marked the end of the Arab empire and the beginning of a more inclusive, multi-ethnic state in the Middle East.[75] One of the first changes the Abbasids made after taking power from the Umayyads was to move the empire's capital to Iraq. The latter region was influenced by Persian history and culture, and moving the capital was part of the Persian mawali demand for Arab influence in the empire. The city of Baghdad was constructed on the Tigris River, in 762, to serve as the Abbasid capital.[76]\n\nThe Abbasids established the position of vizier like Barmakids in their administration, which was the equivalent of a \"vice-caliph\", or second-in-command. Eventually, this change meant that many caliphs under the Abbasids ended up in a much more ceremonial role than ever before, with the vizier in real power. A new Persian bureaucracy began to replace the old Arab aristocracy, and the entire administration reflected these changes, demonstrating that the new dynasty was different in many ways from the Umayyads.[76]\n\nBy the 9th century, Abbasid control began to wane as regional leaders sprang up in the far corners of the empire to challenge the central authority of the Abbasid caliphate.[76] The Abbasid caliphs began enlisting mamluks, Turkic-speaking warriors, who had been moving out of Central Asia into Transoxiana as slave warriors as early as the 9th century. Shortly thereafter the real power of the Abbasid caliphs began to wane; eventually, they became religious figureheads while the warrior slaves ruled.[74]\n\nThe 9th century also saw the revolt by native Zoroastrians, known as the Khurramites, against oppressive Arab rule. The movement was led by a Persian freedom fighter Babak Khorramdin. Babak's Iranianizing rebellion,[b] from its base in Azerbaijan in northwestern Iran,[c] called for a return of the political glories of the Iranian[d] past. The Khorramdin rebellion of Babak spread to the western and central parts of Iran and lasted more than 20 years before it was defeated when Babak was betrayed by Afshin, a senior general of the Abbasid Caliphate.\n\nAs the power of the Abbasid caliphs diminished, a series of dynasties rose in various parts of Iran, some with considerable influence and power. Among the most important of these overlapping dynasties were the Tahirids in Khorasan (821-873); the Saffarids in Sistan (861-1003, their rule lasted as maliks of Sistan until 1537); and the Samanids (819-1005), originally at Bukhara. The Samanids eventually ruled an area from central Iran to Pakistan.[74]\n\nBy the early 10th century, the Abbasids almost lost control to the growing Persian faction known as the Buyid dynasty (934-1062). Since much of the Abbasid administration had been Persian anyway, the Buyids were quietly able to assume real power in Baghdad. The Buyids were defeated in the mid-11th century by the Seljuq Turks, who continued to exert influence over the Abbasids, while publicly pledging allegiance to them. The balance of power in Baghdad remained as such - with the Abbasids in power in name only - until the Mongol invasion of 1258 sacked the city and definitively ended the Abbasid dynasty.[76]\n\nDuring the Abbasid period an enfranchisement was experienced by the mawali and a shift was made in political conception from that of a primarily Arab empire to one of a Muslim empire[80] and c. 930 a requirement was enacted for all bureaucrats of the empire to be Muslim.[72]\n\nIslamic golden age, Shu'ubiyya movement and Persianization process\n\nIslamization was a long process by which Islam was gradually adopted by the majority population of Iran. Richard Bulliet's \"conversion curve\" indicates that only about 10% of Iran converted to Islam during the relatively Arab-centric Umayyad period. Beginning in the Abbasid period, with its mix of Persian as well as Arab rulers, the Muslim percentage of the population rose. As Persian Muslims consolidated their rule of the country, the Muslim population rose from approximately 40% in the mid-9th century to close to 90% by the end of the 11th century.[80] Seyyed Hossein Nasr suggests that the rapid increase in conversion was aided by the Persian nationality of the rulers.[81] Although Persians adopted the religion of their conquerors, over the centuries they worked to protect and revive their distinctive language and culture, a process known as Persianization. Arabs and Turks participated in this attempt.[e][83][84]\n\nIn the 9th and 10th centuries, non-Arab subjects of the Ummah created a movement called Shu'ubiyyah in response to the privileged status of Arabs. Most of those behind the movement were Persian, but references to Egyptians, Berbers and Aramaeans are attested.[85] Citing as its basis Islamic notions of equality of races and nations, the movement was primarily concerned with preserving Persian culture and protecting Persian identity, though within a Muslim context.\n\nThe Samanid dynasty led the revival of Persian culture and the first important Persian poet after the arrival of Islam, Rudaki, was born during this era and was praised by Samanid kings. The Samanids also revived many ancient Persian festivals. Their successor, the Ghaznawids, who were of non-Iranian Turkic origin, also became instrumental in the revival of Persian culture.[86]\n\nThe culmination of the Persianization movement was the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran, written almost entirely in Persian. This voluminous work, reflects Iran's ancient history, its unique cultural values, its pre-Islamic Zoroastrian religion, and its sense of nationhood. According to Bernard Lewis:[68]\n\nIran was indeed Islamized, but it was not Arabized. Persians remained Persians. And after an interval of silence, Iran re-emerged as a separate, different and distinctive element within Islam, eventually adding a new element even to Islam itself. Culturally, politically, and most remarkable of all even religiously, the Iranian contribution to this new Islamic civilization is of immense importance. The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavour, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and of course to India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna...\n\nThe Islamization of Iran was to yield deep transformations within the cultural, scientific, and political structure of Iran's society: The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine and art became major elements of the newly forming Muslim civilization. Inheriting a heritage of thousands of years of civilization, and being at the \"crossroads of the major cultural highways\",[89] contributed to Persia emerging as what culminated into the \"Islamic Golden Age\". During this period, hundreds of scholars and scientists vastly contributed to technology, science and medicine, later influencing the rise of European science during the Renaissance.[90]\n\nThe most important scholars of almost all of the Islamic sects and schools of thought were Persian or lived in Iran, including the most notable and reliable Hadith collectors of Shia and Sunni like Shaikh Saduq, Shaikh Kulainy, Hakim al-Nishaburi, Imam Muslim and Imam Bukhari, the greatest theologians of Shia and Sunni like Shaykh Tusi, Imam Ghazali, Imam Fakhr al-Razi and Al-Zamakhshari, the greatest physicians, astronomers, logicians, mathematicians, metaphysicians, philosophers and scientists like Avicenna and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, and the greatest shaykhs of Sufism like Rumi and Abdul-Qadir Gilani.\n\nPersianate states and dynasties (977-1219)\n\nIn 977, a Turkic governor of the Samanids, Sabuktigin, conquered Ghazna (in present-day Afghanistan) and established a dynasty, the Ghaznavids, that lasted to 1186.[74] The Ghaznavid empire grew by taking all of the Samanid territories south of the Amu Darya in the last decade of the 10th century, and eventually occupied parts of Eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-west India.[76] The Ghaznavids are generally credited with launching Islam into a mainly Hindu India. The invasion of India was undertaken in 1000 by the Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud and continued for several years. They were unable to hold power for long, however, particularly after the death of Mahmud in 1030. By 1040, the Seljuqs had taken over the Ghaznavid lands in Iran.[76]\n\nThe Seljuqs, who like the Ghaznavids were Persianate in nature and of Turkic origin, slowly conquered Iran over the course of the 11th century.[74] The dynasty had its origins in the Turcoman tribal confederations of Central Asia and marked the beginning of Turkic power in West Asia. They established a Sunni Muslim rule over parts of Central and West Asia from the 11th to 14th centuries. They set the Seljuq Empire that stretched from Anatolia in the west to western Afghanistan in the east and the western borders of modern-day China in the north-east; and was the target of the First Crusade. Today they are regarded as the cultural ancestors of the Western Turks, the present-day inhabitants of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and they are remembered as great patrons of Persian culture, art, literature, and language.[e][91][92]\n\nThe founder of the dynasty, Tughril Beg, turned his army against the Ghaznavids in Khorasan. He moved south and then west, conquering but not wasting the cities in his path. In 1055, the caliph in Baghdad gave Tughril Beg robes, gifts, and the title King of the East. Under Tughril Beg's successor, Malik Shah (1072-1092), Iran enjoyed a cultural and scientific renaissance, largely attributed to his brilliant Iranian vizier, Nizam al Mulk. These leaders established the observatory where Omar Khayyám did much of his experimentation for a new calendar, and they built religious schools in all the major towns. They brought Abu Hamid Ghazali, one of the greatest Islamic theologians, and other eminent scholars to the Seljuq capital at Baghdad and encouraged and supported their work.[74]\n\nWhen Malik Shah I died in 1092, the empire split as his brother and four sons quarreled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves. In Anatolia, Malik Shah I was succeeded by Kilij Arslan I who founded the Sultanate of Rûm and in Syria by his brother Tutush I. In Iran he was succeeded by his son Mahmud I whose reign was contested by his other three brothers Barkiyaruq in Iraq, Muhammad I in Baghdad and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan. As Seljuq power in Iran weakened, other dynasties began to step up in its place, including a resurgent Abbasid caliphate and the Khwarezmshahs. The Khwarezmid Empire was a Sunni Muslim Persianate dynasty, of East Turkic origin, that ruled in Central Asia. Originally vassals of the Seljuqs, they took advantage of the decline of the Seljuqs to expand into Iran.[93] In 1194, the Khwarezmshah Ala ad-Din Tekish defeated the Seljuq sultan Toghrul III in battle and the Seljuq empire in Iran collapsed.[94] Of the former Seljuq Empire, only the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia remained.\n\nA serious internal threat to the Seljuqs during their reign came from the Nizari Ismailis, a secret sect with headquarters at Alamut Castle between Rasht and Tehran. They controlled the immediate area for more than 150 years and sporadically sent out adherents to strengthen their rule by murdering important officials. Several of the various theories on the etymology of the word assassin derive from these killers.[74] Parts of northwestern Iran were conquered in the early 13th century AD by the Kingdom of Georgia, led by Tamar the Great.[95]\n\nMongol conquest and rule (1219-1358)\n\nMongol invasion (1219-1221)\n\nThe Khwarazmian dynasty only lasted for a few decades, until the arrival of the Mongols. Genghis Khan had unified the Mongols, and under him the Mongol Empire quickly expanded in several directions. In 1218, it bordered Khwarezm. At that time, the Khwarazmian Empire was ruled by Ala ad-Din Muhammad (1200-1220). Muhammad, like Genghis, was intent on expanding his lands and had gained the submission of most of Iran. He declared himself shah and demanded formal recognition from the Abbasid caliph Al-Nasir. When the caliph rejected his claim, Ala ad-Din Muhammad proclaimed one of his nobles caliph and unsuccessfully tried to depose an-Nasir.\n\nThe Mongol invasion of Iran began in 1219, after two diplomatic missions to Khwarezm sent by Genghis Khan had been massacred. During 1220-21 Bukhara, Samarkand, Herat, Tus and Nishapur were razed, and the populations were slaughtered. The Khwarezm-Shah fled, to die on an island off the Caspian coast.[17] During the invasion of Transoxiana in 1219, along with the main Mongol force, Genghis Khan used a Chinese specialist catapult unit in battle; they were used again in 1220 in Transoxania. The Chinese may have used the catapults to hurl gunpowder bombs, since they already had them by this time.[f]\n\nWhile Genghis Khan was conquering Transoxania and Iran, several Chinese who were familiar with gunpowder were serving in Genghis's army.[g] \"Whole regiments\" entirely made out of Chinese were used by the Mongols to command bomb hurling trebuchets during the invasion of Iran.[h] Historians have suggested that the Mongol invasion had brought Chinese gunpowder weapons to Central Asia. One of these was the huochong, a Chinese mortar.[i] Books written around the area afterward depicted gunpowder weapons which resembled those of China.[j]\n\nBefore his death in 1227, Genghis had reached western Azerbaijan, pillaging and burning many cities along the way after entering Iran from the northeast. The Mongol invasion was by and large disastrous to the Iranians. Although the Mongol invaders eventually converted to Islam and accepted the culture of Iran, the Mongol destruction in Iran and other regions of the Islamic heartland (particularly the historical Khorasan region, mainly in Central Asia) marked a major change of direction for the region. Much of the six centuries of Islamic scholarship, culture, and infrastructure was destroyed as the invaders leveled cities, burned libraries, and in some cases replaced mosques with Buddhist temples.[100][101][102] The Mongols killed many Iranian civilians. Destruction of qanat irrigation systems in the north east of Iran destroyed the pattern of relatively continuous settlements, producing many abandoned towns which were relatively quite good with irrigation and agriculture.[103] In 1221, Genghis Khan destroyed the city of Gurganj. Most if not all the ancient Iranic Khwarazmian people were killed or pushed out, paving the way for the Turkification of Khwarazm.\n\nIlkhanate (1256-1335)\n\nAfter Genghis's death, Iran was ruled by several Mongol commanders. Genghis' grandson, Hulagu Khan, was tasked with the westward expansion of Mongol dominion. However, by the time he ascended to power, the Mongol Empire had already dissolved, dividing into different factions. Arriving with an army, he established himself in the region and founded the Ilkhanate, a breakaway state of the Mongol Empire, which would rule Iran for the next 80 years and become Persian in the process.\n\nHulagu Khan seized Baghdad in 1258 and put the last Abbasid caliph to death. The westward advance of his forces was stopped by the Mamelukes, however, at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine in 1260. Hulagu's campaigns against the Muslims also enraged Berke, khan of the Golden Horde and a convert to Islam. Hulagu and Berke fought against each other, demonstrating the weakening unity of the Mongol empire.\n\nThe rule of Hulagu's great-grandson, Ghazan (1295-1304) saw the establishment of Islam as the state religion of the Ilkhanate. Ghazan and his famous Iranian vizier, Rashid al-Din, brought Iran a partial and brief economic revival. The Mongols lowered taxes for artisans, encouraged agriculture, rebuilt and extended irrigation works, and improved the safety of the trade routes. As a result, commerce increased dramatically.\n\nItems from India, China, and Iran passed easily across the Asian steppes, and these contacts culturally enriched Iran. For example, Iranians developed a style of painting based on a unique fusion of solid, two-dimensional Mesopotamian painting with the feathery, light brush strokes and other motifs characteristic of China. After Ghazan's nephew Abu Said died in 1335 the Ilkhanate lapsed into civil war and was divided between several petty dynasties - most prominently the Jalayirids, Muzaffarids, Sarbadars and Kartids. The mid-14th-century Black Death killed about 30% of the country's population.[104]\n\nSunnism and Shiism in pre-Safavid Iran\n\nPrior to the rise of the Safavid Empire, Sunni Islam was the dominant religion, accounting for around 90% of the population at the time. According to Mortaza Motahhari the majority of Iranian scholars and masses remained Sunni until the time of the Safavids.[105] The domination of Sunnis did not mean Shia were rootless in Iran. The writers of The Four Books of Shia were Iranian, as well as many other great Shia scholars.\n\nThe domination of the Sunni creed during the first nine Islamic centuries characterized the religious history of Iran during this period. There were however some exceptions to this general domination which emerged in the form of the Zaydīs of Tabaristan (see Alid dynasties of northern Iran), the Buyids, the Kakuyids, the rule of Sultan Muhammad Khudabandah (r. Shawwal 703-Shawwal 716/1304-1316) and the Sarbedaran.[106]\n\nApart from this domination there existed, firstly, throughout these nine centuries, Shia inclinations among many Sunnis of this land and, secondly, original Imami Shiism as well as Zaydī Shiism had prevalence in some parts of Iran. During this period, Shia in Iran were nourished from Kufah, Baghdad and later from Najaf and Hillah.[106] Shiism was the dominant sect in Tabaristan, Qom, Kashan, Avaj and Sabzevar. In many other areas merged population of Shia and Sunni lived together.\n\nDuring the 10th and 11th centuries, Fatimids sent Ismailis Da'i (missioners) to Iran as well as other Muslim lands. When Ismailis divided into two sects, Nizaris established their base in Iran. Hassan-i Sabbah conquered fortresses and captured Alamut in 1090 AD. Nizaris used this fortress until a Mongol raid in 1256.\n\nAfter the Mongol raid and fall of the Abbasids, Sunni hierarchies faltered. Not only did they lose the caliphate but also the status of official madhhab. Their loss was the gain of Shia, whose centre wasn't in Iran at that time. Several local Shia dynasties like Sarbadars were established during this time.\n\nThe main change occurred in the beginning of the 16th century, when Ismail I founded the Safavid dynasty and initiated a religious policy to recognize Shi'a Islam as the official religion of the Safavid Empire, and the fact that modern Iran remains an officially Shi'ite state is a direct result of Ismail's actions.\n\nTimurid Empire (1370-1507)\n\nForensic reconstruction of Turco-Mongol conqueror TimurDetailed map of the Timurid Empire with its tributary states and sphere of influence in Western-Central Asia (1402-1403)\n\nIran remained divided until the arrival of Timur, a Turco-Mongol[k] belonging to the Timurid dynasty. Like its predecessors, the Timurid Empire was also part of the Persianate world. After establishing a power base in Transoxiana, Timur invaded Iran in 1381 and eventually conquered most of it. Timur's campaigns were known for their brutality; many people were slaughtered and several cities were destroyed.[108]\n\nHis regime was characterized by tyranny and bloodshed, but also by its inclusion of Iranians in administrative roles and its promotion of architecture and poetry. His successors, the Timurids, maintained a hold on most of Iran until 1452, when they lost the bulk of it to Black Sheep Turkmen. The Black Sheep Turkmen were conquered by the White Sheep Turkmen under Uzun Hasan in 1468; Uzun Hasan and his successors were the masters of Iran until the rise of the Safavids.[108]\n\nSufi poet Hafez's popularity became firmly established in the Timurid era that saw the compilation and widespread copying of his divan. Sufis were often persecuted by orthodox Muslims who considered their teachings blasphemous. Sufism developed a symbolic language rich with metaphors to obscure poetic references to provocative philosophical teachings. Hafez concealed his own Sufi faith, even as he employed the secret language of Sufism (developed over hundreds of years) in his own work, and he is sometimes credited with having \"brought it to perfection\".[109] His work was imitated by Jami, whose own popularity grew to spread across the full breadth of the Persianate world.[110] \n\nThe Kara Koyunlu were a Turkmen[111][l] tribal federation that ruled over northwestern Iran and surrounding areas from 1374 to 1468. Although the Kara Koyunlu expanded their conquest to Baghdad, internal fighting, defeats by the Timurids, rebellions by the Armenians in response to their persecution,[115] and failed struggles with the Ag Qoyunlu led to their eventual demise.[116] Aq Qoyunlu were Turkmen[117][118] under the leadership of the Bayandur tribe,[119] tribal federation of Sunni Muslims who ruled over most of Iran and large parts of surrounding areas from 1378 to 1501 CE. Aq Qoyunlu emerged when Timur granted them all of Diyar Bakr in present-day Turkey. Afterward, they struggled with their rival Oghuz Turks, the Qara Qoyunlu. While the Aq Qoyunlu were successful in defeating Kara Koyunlu, their struggle with the emerging Safavid dynasty led to their downfall.[120]\n\nEarly modern period\n\nIran underwent a revival under the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736), the most prominent figure of which was Shah Abbas I. Some historians credit the Safavid dynasty for founding the modern nation-state of Iran. Iran's contemporary Shia character and significant segments of Iran's current borders take their origin from this era (e.g. Treaty of Zuhab).\n\nSafavid Empire (1501-1736)\n\nThe Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran and \"is often considered the beginning of modern Persian history\".[121] They ruled one of the greatest Iranian empires after the Muslim conquest of Persia[122] and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam[14] as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in Muslim history. The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736) and at their height, they controlled all of modern Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia, most of Georgia, the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Safavid Iran was one of the Islamic \"gunpowder empires\", along with its neighbours, its archrival and principal enemy the Ottoman Empire, and to the east, the Mughal Empire.\n\nThe Safavid ruling dynasty was founded by Ismāil, who styled himself Shāh Ismāil I.[123] Practically worshipped by his Qizilbāsh followers, Ismāil invaded Shirvan to avenge the death of his father, Shaykh Haydar, who had been killed during his siege of Derbent, in Dagestan. Afterwards he went on a campaign of conquest, and following the capture of Tabriz in July 1501, he enthroned himself as the Shāh of Iran,[124][125][126] minted coins in this name, and proclaimed Shi'ism the official religion of his domain.[14]\n\nAlthough initially the masters of Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan only, the Safavids had, in fact, won the struggle for power in Iran which had been going on for nearly a century between various dynasties and political forces following the fragmentation of the Kara Koyunlu and the Aq Qoyunlu. A year after his victory in Tabriz, Ismāil proclaimed most of Iran as his domain, and[14] quickly conquered and unified Iran under his rule. Soon afterwards, the new Safavid Empire rapidly conquered regions, nations, and peoples in all directions, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, parts of Georgia, Mesopotamia (Iraq), Kuwait, Syria, Dagestan, large parts of what is now Afghanistan, parts of Turkmenistan, and large chunks of Anatolia, laying the foundation of its multi-ethnic character which would heavily influence the empire itself (most notably the Caucasus and its peoples).\n\nTahmasp I, the son and successor of Ismail I, carried out multiple invasions in the Caucasus which had been incorporated in the Safavid empire since Shah Ismail I and for many centuries afterwards, and started with the trend of deporting and moving hundreds of thousands of Circassians, Georgians, and Armenians to Iran's heartlands. Initially only solely put in the royal harems, royal guards, and minor other sections of the Empire, Tahmasp believed he could eventually reduce the power of the Qizilbash, by creating and fully integrating a new layer in Iranian society. As Encyclopædia Iranica states, for Tahmasp, the problem circled around the military tribal elite of the empire, the Qizilbash, who believed that physical proximity to and control of a member of the immediate Safavid family guaranteed spiritual advantages, political fortune, and material advancement.[127] With this new Caucasian layer in Iranian society, the undisputed might of the Qizilbash (who functioned much like the ghazis of the neighbouring Ottoman Empire) would be questioned and fully diminished as society would become fully meritocratic.\n\nShah Abbas I and his successors would significantly expand this policy and plan initiated by Tahmasp, deporting during his reign alone around some 200,000 Georgians, 300,000 Armenians and 100,000-150,000 Circassians to Iran, completing the foundation of a new layer in Iranian society. With this, and the complete systematic disorganisation of the Qizilbash by his personal orders, he eventually fully succeeded in replacing the power of the Qizilbash, with that of the Caucasian ghulams. These new Caucasian elements (the so-called ghilman / غِلْمَان / \"servants\"), almost always after conversion to Shi'ism depending on given function would be, unlike the Qizilbash, fully loyal only to the Shah. The other masses of Caucasians were deployed in all other possible functions and positions available in the empire, as well as in the harem, regular military, craftsmen, farmers, etc. This system of mass usage of Caucasian subjects remained to exist until the fall of the Qajar dynasty.\n\nThe greatest of the Safavid monarchs, Shah Abbas I the Great (1587-1629) came to power in 1587 aged 16. Abbas I first fought the Uzbeks, recapturing Herat and Mashhad in 1598, which had been lost by his predecessor Mohammad Khodabanda by the Ottoman-Safavid War (1578-1590). Then he turned against the Ottomans, the archrivals of the Safavids, recapturing Baghdad, eastern Iraq, the Caucasian provinces, and beyond by 1618. Between 1616 and 1618, following the disobedience of his most loyal Georgian subjects Teimuraz I and Luarsab II, Abbas carried out a punitive campaign in his territories of Georgia, devastating Kakheti and Tbilisi and carrying away 130,000[129] - 200,000[130][131] Georgian captives towards mainland Iran. His new army, which had dramatically been improved with the advent of Robert Shirley and his brothers following the first diplomatic mission to Europe, pitted the first crushing victory over the Safavids' archrivals, the Ottomans in the above-mentioned 1603-1618 war and would surpass the Ottomans in military strength. He also used his new force to dislodge the Portuguese from Bahrain (1602) and Hormuz (1622) with aid of the English navy, in the Persian Gulf.\n\nHe expanded commercial links with the Dutch East India Company and established firm links with the European royal houses, which had been initiated by Ismail I earlier on by the Habsburg-Persian alliance. Thus Abbas I was able to break the dependence on the Qizilbash for military might and therefore was able to centralize control.\nThe Safavid dynasty had already established itself during Shah Ismail I, but under Abbas I it really became a major power in the world along with its archrival the Ottoman Empire, against whom it became able to compete with on equal foot. It also started the promotion of tourism in Iran. Under their rule Persian Architecture flourished again and saw many new monuments in various Iranian cities, of which Isfahan is the most notable example.\n\nExcept for Shah Abbas the Great, Shah Ismail I, Shah Tahmasp I, and Shah Abbas II, many of the Safavid rulers were ineffectual, often being more interested in their women, alcohol and other leisure activities. The end of Abbas II's reign in 1666, marked the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty. Despite falling revenues and military threats, many of the later shahs had lavish lifestyles. Shah Soltan Hoseyn (1694-1722) in particular was known for his love of wine and disinterest in governance.[132]\n\nThe declining country was repeatedly raided on its frontiers. Finally, Ghilzai Pashtun chieftain named Mir Wais Khan began a rebellion in Kandahar and defeated the Safavid army under the Iranian Georgian governor over the region, Gurgin Khan. In 1722, Peter the Great of neighbouring Imperial Russia launched the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723), capturing many of Iran's Caucasian territories, including Derbent, Shaki, Baku, but also Gilan, Mazandaran and Astrabad. In the midst of chaos, in the same year of 1722, an Afghan army led by Mir Wais' son Mahmud marched across eastern Iran, besieged and took Isfahan. Mahmud proclaimed himself 'Shah' of Persia. Meanwhile, Persia's imperial rivals, the Ottomans and the Russians, took advantage of the chaos in the country to seize more territory for themselves.[133] By these events, the Safavid dynasty had effectively ended. In 1724, conform the Treaty of Constantinople, the Ottomans and the Russians agreed to divide large portions of Iran, which they had conquered between themselves.[134]\n\nNader Shah and his successors\n\nIran's territorial integrity was restored by a native Iranian Turkic Afshar warlord from Khorasan, Nader Shah. He defeated and banished the Afghans, defeated the Ottomans, reinstalled the Safavids on the throne, and negotiated Russian withdrawal from Iran's Caucasian territories, with the Treaty of Resht and Treaty of Ganja. By 1736, Nader had become so powerful he was able to depose the Safavids and have himself crowned shah. Nader was one of the last great conquerors of Asia and briefly presided over what was probably the most powerful military force in the world.[135] To financially support his wars against Iran's arch-rival, the Ottoman Empire, he fixed his sights on the weak but rich Mughal Empire to the east. In 1739, accompanied by his loyal Caucasian subjects including Heraclius II,[136][137] he invaded Mughal India, defeated a numerically superior Mughal army in less than three hours, and completely sacked and looted Delhi, bringing back immense wealth to Iran. On his way back, he also conquered all the Uzbek khanates - except for Kokand - and made the Uzbeks his vassals. He also firmly re-established Iranian rule over the entire Caucasus, Bahrain, as well as large parts of Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Undefeated for years, his defeat in Dagestan, following guerrilla rebellions by the Lezgins and the assassination attempt on him near Mazandaran is often considered the turning point in Nader's impressive career. To his frustration, the Dagestanis resorted to guerrilla warfare, and Nader with his conventional army could make little headway against them.[138] At the Battle of Andalal and the Battle of Avaria, Nader's army was crushingly defeated and he lost half of his entire force, forcing him to flee for the mountains.[139] Though Nader managed to take most of Dagestan during his campaign, the effective guerrilla warfare as deployed by the Lezgins, but also the Avars and Laks, made the Iranian re-conquest of the particular North Caucasian region this time a short lived one; several years later, Nader was forced to withdraw. Around the same time, an assassination attempt was made on him near, which accelerated his descent into paranoia and megalomania. He blinded his sons, whom he suspected of the assassination attempts, and showed increasing cruelty against his subjects and officers. In his later years, this eventually provoked multiple revolts and, ultimately, his assassination in 1747.[140]\n\nNader Shah's death was followed by a period of anarchy as rival army commanders fought for power. Nader's own family, the Afsharids, were soon reduced to holding on to a small domain in Khorasan. Many of the Caucasian territories broke away in various Caucasian khanates. Ottomans regained lost territories in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Oman and the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara and Khiva regained independence. Ahmad Shah Durrani, one of Nader's officers, founded an independent state which eventually became modern Afghanistan. Heraclius II and Teimuraz II, who in 1744 had been made the kings of Kakheti and Kartli respectively by Nader for their loyal service,[137] capitalized on the eruption of instability and declared de facto independence. Heraclius II assumed control over Kartli after Teimuraz II's death, thus unifying the two as the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, becoming the first Georgian ruler in three centuries to preside over a politically unified eastern Georgia.[141] Due to the frantic turn of events in mainland Iran he would be able to remain de facto autonomous through the Zand era.[142]\n\nFrom his capital Shiraz, Karim Khan of the Zand dynasty ruled \"an island of relative calm and peace in an otherwise bloody and destructive period,\"[143] however the extent of Zand power was confined to contemporary Iran and parts of the Caucasus. Karim Khan's death in 1779 led to yet another civil war in which the Qajar dynasty eventually triumphed and became kings of Iran. During the civil war, Iran permanently lost Basra in 1779 to the Ottomans, which had been captured during the Ottoman-Persian War (1775-1776),[144] and Bahrain to the House of Khalifa after the Bani Utbah invasion in 1783.\n\nLate modern period\n\nQajar dynasty (1796-1925)\n\n Mihr 'Ali (Iranian, active ca. 1800-1830). Portrait of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar. Brooklyn Museum.\n\n Qajar era currency bill with depiction of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar\n\n A map of Iran under the Qajar dynasty in the 19th century\n\n A map showing the 19th-century northwestern borders of Iran, comprising modern-day eastern Georgia, Dagestan, Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, before being ceded to the neighboring Russian Empire by the Russo-Iranian wars\n\nAgha Mohammad Khan emerged victorious out of the civil war that commenced with the death of the last Zand king. His reign is noted for the reemergence of a centrally led and united Iran. After the death of Nader Shah and the last of the Zands, most of Iran's Caucasian territories had broken away into various Caucasian khanates. Agha Mohammad Khan, like the Safavid kings and Nader Shah before him, viewed the region as no different from the territories in mainland Iran. Therefore, his first objective after having secured mainland Iran, was to reincorpate the Caucasus region into Iran.[145] Georgia was seen as one of the most integral territories.[142] For Agha Mohammad Khan, the resubjugation and reintegration of Georgia into the Iranian Empire was part of the same process that had brought Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tabriz under his rule.[142] As the Cambridge History of Iran states, its permanent secession was inconceivable and had to be resisted in the same way as one would resist an attempt at the separation of Fars or Gilan.[142] It was therefore natural for Agha Mohammad Khan to perform whatever necessary means in the Caucasus in order to subdue and reincorporate the recently lost regions following Nader Shah's death and the demise of the Zands, including putting down what in Iranian eyes was seen as treason on the part Erekle II.[142]\n\nAgha Mohammad Khan subsequently demanded that Erekle renounce its 1783 treaty with Russia, and to submit again to Iranian suzerainty,[145] in return for peace and the security of his kingdom. The Ottomans, Iran's neighboring rival, recognized the latter's rights over Kartli and Kakheti for the first time in four centuries.[146] Heraclius appealed then to his theoretical protector, Empress Catherine II of Russia, pleading for at least 3,000 Russian troops,[146] but he was ignored, leaving Georgia to fend off the Persian threat alone.[147] Nevertheless, Heraclius II still rejected the Khan's ultimatum.[148] As a response, Agha Mohammad Khan invaded the Caucasus region after crossing the Aras river, and, while on his way to Georgia, he re-subjugated Iran's territories of the Erivan Khanate, Shirvan, Nakhchivan Khanate, Ganja khanate, Derbent Khanate, Baku khanate, Talysh Khanate, Shaki Khanate, Karabakh Khanate, which comprise modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, and Igdir. Having reached Georgia with his large army, he prevailed in the Battle of Krtsanisi, which resulted in the capture and sack of Tbilisi, as well as the effective resubjugation of Georgia.[149][m] Upon his return from his successful campaign in Tbilisi and in effective control over Georgia, together with some 15,000 Georgian captives that were moved back to mainland Iran,[147] Agha Mohammad was formally crowned Shah in 1796 in the Mughan plain, just as his predecessor Nader Shah was about sixty years earlier. Agha Mohammad Shah was later assassinated in 1797 while preparing a second expedition against Georgia in Shusha[142] (now part of the Republic of Azerbaijan) and its King Heraclius II.\n\nThe reassertion of Iranian hegemony over Georgia did not last long; in 1799 the Russians marched into Tbilisi.[151] The Russians were already actively occupied with an expansionist policy towards its neighboring empires to its south, namely the Ottoman Empire and the successive Iranian kingdoms, since the late 17th/early 18th century. The next two years following Russia's entrance into Tbilisi were a time of confusion, and the weakened and devastated Georgian kingdom, with its capital half in ruins, was easily absorbed by Russia in 1801.[147][148] As Iran could not permit or allow the cession of Transcaucasia and Dagestan, which had been an integral part of Iran for centuries,[152] this would lead directly to the wars of several years later, namely the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828. The outcome of these two wars (in the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, respectively) proved for the irrevocable forced cession and loss of what is now eastern Georgia, Dagestan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan to Imperial Russia.[152][149]\n\nThe area to the north of the river Aras, among which the territory of the contemporary republic of Azerbaijan, eastern Georgia, Dagestan, and Armenia were Iranian territory, was occupied by Russia in the course of the 19th century.[153]\n\n Painting showing the Battle of Sultanabad, 13 February 1812. State Hermitage Museum.\n\n Storming of Lankaran, 1812. Painted by Franz Roubaud.\n\n Battle of Elisabethpol (Ganja), 1828. Franz Roubaud. Part of the collection of the Museum for History, Baku.\n\nMigration of Caucasian Muslims\n\nFollowing the official loss of vast territories in the Caucasus, major demographic shifts were bound to take place. Following the 1804-1814 war, but also per the 1826-1828 war which ceded the last territories, large migrations of so-called Caucasian Muhajirs set off for mainland Iran. Some of these groups included the Ayrums, Qarapapaqs, Circassians, Shia Lezgins, and other Transcaucasian Muslims.[154]\n\nAfter the Battle of Ganja of 1804, many thousands of Ayrums and Qarapapaqs were settled in Tabriz. During the remaining part of the 1804-1813 war, as well as through the 1826-1828 war, a large number of the Ayrums and Qarapapaqs that were still remaining in newly conquered Russian territories were settled in and migrated to Solduz (in modern-day Iran's West Azerbaijan province).[155] As the Cambridge History of Iran states; \"The steady encroachment of Russian troops along the frontier in the Caucasus, General Yermolov's brutal punitive expeditions and misgovernment, drove large numbers of Muslims, and even some Georgian Christians, into exile in Iran.\"[156]\n\nFrom 1864 until the early 20th century, another mass expulsion took place of Caucasian Muslims as a result of the Russian victory in the Caucasian War. Others simply voluntarily refused to live under Christian Russian rule, and thus departed for Turkey or Iran. These migrations once again, towards Iran, included masses of Caucasian Azerbaijanis, other Transcaucasian Muslims, as well as many North Caucasian Muslims, such as Circassians, Shia Lezgins and Laks.[154][157]\nMany of these migrants would prove to play a pivotal role in further Iranian history, as they formed most of the ranks of the Persian Cossack Brigade, which was established in the late 19th century.[158] The initial ranks of the brigade would be entirely composed of Circassians and other Caucasian Muhajirs.[158] This brigade would prove decisive in the following decades in Qajar history.\n\nFurthermore, the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay included the official rights for the Russian Empire to encourage settling of Armenians from Iran in the newly conquered Russian territories.[n] At the close of the fourteenth century, after Timur's campaigns, the Timurid Renaissance flourished and Islam had become the dominant faith. Armenians had by then become a minority in Eastern Armenia.[161] After centuries of constant warfare on the Armenian plateau, many Armenians chose to emigrate and settle elsewhere. Following Shah Abbas I's massive relocation of Armenians and Muslims in 1604-05,[o] their numbers dwindled even further.\n\nAt the time of the Russian invasion of Iran, some 80% of the population of Iranian Armenia were Muslims (Persians, Turkics, and Kurds) whereas Christian Armenians constituted a minority of about 20%.[163] As a result of the Treaty of Gulistan (1813) and the Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828), Iran was forced to cede Iranian Armenia (which also constituted the present-day Armenia), to the Russians.[164][165] After the Russian administration took hold of Iranian Armenia, the ethnic make-up shifted, and thus for the first time in more than four centuries, ethnic Armenians started to form a majority once again in one part of historic Armenia.[166] The new Russian administration encouraged the settling of ethnic Armenians from Iran proper and Ottoman Turkey. As a result, by 1832, the number of ethnic Armenians had matched that of the Muslims.[163] It would be only after the Crimean War and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, which brought another influx of Turkish Armenians, that ethnic Armenians once again established a solid majority in Eastern Armenia.[167] Nevertheless, the city of Erivan retained a Muslim majority up to the twentieth century.[167] According to the traveller H. F. B. Lynch, the city of Erivan was about 50% Armenian and 50% Muslim (Tatars[p] i.e. Azeris and Persians) in the early 1890s.[170]\n\nFath Ali Shah's reign saw increased diplomatic contacts with the West and the beginning of intense European diplomatic rivalries over Iran. His grandson Mohammad Shah, who succeeded him in 1834, fell under the Russian influence and made two unsuccessful attempts to capture Herat. When Mohammad Shah died in 1848 the succession passed to his son Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, who proved to be the ablest and most successful of the Qajar sovereigns. He founded the first modern hospital in Iran.[171]\n\nConstitutional Revolution and deposition\n\nThe Great Persian Famine of 1870-1871 is believed to have caused the death of two million people.[173]\n\nA new era in the history of Iran dawned with the Persian Constitutional Revolution against the shah in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The shah managed to remain in power, granting a limited constitution in 1906 (making the country a constitutional monarchy). The first Majlis (parliament) was convened on 7 October 1906. The discovery of petroleum in 1908 by the British in Khuzestan spawned intense renewed interest in Persia by the British Empire (see William Knox D'Arcy and Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now BP). Britain's influence was solidified by the establishment of the Indo-European Telegraph Department in the 1860s and the Imperial Bank of Persia in 1889.[174] By the end of the 19th century, European interference became so pronounced that Iran's central government required Anglo-Russian approval for ministerial appointments.[175] Control of Persia remained contested between the United Kingdom and Russia, in what became known as The Great Game, and codified in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which divided Iran into spheres of influence, regardless of her national sovereignty.\n\nDuring World War I, the country was occupied by British, Ottoman and Russian forces but was essentially neutral (see Persian Campaign). In 1919, after the Russian Revolution and their withdrawal, Britain attempted to establish a protectorate in Iran, which was unsuccessful. The Constitutionalist movement of Gilan and the central power vacuum caused by the instability of the Qajar government resulted in the rise of Reza Khan, later Reza Shah Pahlavi, who established the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. In 1921, Reza Khan, an officer of the Persian Cossack Brigade, (along with Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabai) led a military coup against governing officials (leaving the Qajar monarchy nominally head of state).[q] In 1925, after being prime minister for two years, Reza Khan did depose the Qajar dynasty and became the first shah of the Pahlavi dynasty.\n\nPahlavi era (1925-1979)\n\nReza Shah (1925-1941)\n\nReza Shah ruled for almost 16 years until 16 September 1941, when he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. He established an authoritarian government that valued nationalism, militarism, secularism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda.[177] Reza Shah introduced many socio-economic reforms, reorganizing the army, government administration, and finances.[178] To his supporters, his reign brought \"law and order, discipline, central authority, and modern amenities - schools, trains, buses, radios, cinemas, and telephones\".[179] However, his attempts of modernisation have been criticised for being \"too fast\"[180] and \"superficial\",[181] and his reign a time of \"oppression, corruption, taxation, lack of authenticity\" with \"security typical of police states.\"[179]\n\nMany of the new laws and regulations created resentment among devout Muslims and the clergy. For example, mosques were required to use chairs; most men were required to wear western clothing, including a hat with a brim; women were encouraged to discard the hijab-hijab was eventually banned in 1936; men and women were allowed to congregate freely, violating Islamic mixing of the sexes. Tensions boiled over in 1935, when bazaaris and villagers rose up in rebellion at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad to protest against plans for the hijab ban, chanting slogans such as 'The Shah is a new Yezid.' Dozens were killed and hundreds were injured when troops finally quelled the unrest.[182]\n\nWorld War II\n\nMohammad Reza Pahlavi with FDR at the Tehran Conference, 1943.Polish refugee camp on the outskirts of Tehran, c. 1943.\n\nWhile German armies were highly successful against the Soviet Union, the Iranian government expected Germany to win the war and establish a powerful force on its borders. It rejected British and Soviet demands to expel German residents from Iran. In response, the two Allies invaded in August 1941 and easily overwhelmed the weak Iranian army in Operation Countenance. Iran became the major conduit of Allied Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union. The purpose was to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure Allied supply lines (see Persian Corridor). Iran remained officially neutral. Its monarch Rezā Shāh was deposed during the subsequent occupation and replaced with his young son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.[183]\n\nAt the Tehran Conference of 1943, the Allies issued the Tehran Declaration which guaranteed the post-war independence and boundaries of Iran. However, when the war actually ended, Soviet troops stationed in northwestern Iran not only refused to withdraw but backed revolts that established short-lived, pro-Soviet separatist national states in the northern regions of Azerbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan, the Azerbaijan People's Government and the Republic of Kurdistan respectively, in late 1945. Soviet troops did not withdraw from Iran proper until May 1946 after receiving a promise of oil concessions. The Soviet republics in the north were soon overthrown and the oil concessions were revoked.[184][185]\n\nMohammad-Reza Shah (1941-1979)\n\nInitially there were hopes that post-occupation Iran could become a constitutional monarchy. The new, young Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi initially took a very hands-off role in government, and allowed parliament to hold a lot of power. Some elections were held in the first shaky years, although they remained mired in corruption. Parliament became chronically unstable, and from the 1947 to 1951 period Iran saw the rise and fall of six different prime ministers. Pahlavi increased his political power by convening the Iran Constituent Assembly, 1949, which finally formed the Senate of Iran-a legislative upper house allowed for in the 1906 constitution but never brought into being. The new senators were largely supportive of Pahlavi, as he had intended.\n\nIn 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued. Mosaddeq was briefly removed from power in 1952 but was quickly re-appointed by the Shah, due to a popular uprising in support of the premier, and he, in turn, forced the Shah into a brief exile in August 1953 after a failed military coup by Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri.\n\n1953: U.S. aided coup removes Mosaddeq\n\nShortly thereafter on 19 August a successful coup was headed by retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, aided by the United States (CIA)[186] with the active support of the British (MI6) (known as Operation Ajax and Operation Boot to the respective agencies).[187] The coup-with a black propaganda campaign designed to turn the population against Mosaddeq[188] - forced Mosaddeq from office. Mosaddeq was arrested and tried for treason. Found guilty, his sentence was reduced to house arrest on his family estate while his foreign minister, Hossein Fatemi, was executed. Zahedi succeeded him as prime minister, and suppressed opposition to the Shah, specifically the National Front and Communist Tudeh Party. Several hundred people were killed after the coup d'état.\n\nIran was ruled as an autocracy under the Shah with American support from that time until the revolution. The Iranian government entered into agreement with an international consortium of foreign companies which ran the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years, splitting profits fifty-fifty with Iran but not allowing Iran to audit their accounts or have members on their board of directors. In 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years and Iran became closer to the West, joining the Baghdad Pact and receiving military and economic aid from the US. In 1961, Iran initiated a series of economic, social, agrarian and administrative reforms to modernize the country that became known as the Shah's White Revolution.\n\nThe core of this program was land reform. Modernization and economic growth proceeded at an unprecedented rate, fueled by Iran's vast petroleum reserves, the third-largest in the world. However, the reforms, including the White Revolution, did not greatly improve economic conditions and the liberal pro-Western policies alienated certain Islamic religious and political groups. In early June 1963 several days of massive rioting occurred in support of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following the cleric's arrest for a speech attacking the Shah.\n\nTwo years later, premier Hassan Ali Mansur was assassinated and the internal security service, SAVAK, became more violently active. In the 1970s, leftist guerilla groups such as Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), emerged and contributed to overthrowing the Shah during the 1979 Iranian Revolution.\n\nNearly a hundred Iranian political prisoners were killed by the SAVAK during the decade before the revolution and many more were arrested and tortured.[189] The Islamic clergy, headed by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (who had been exiled in 1964), were becoming increasingly vociferous.\n\nIran greatly increased its defense budget and by the early 1970s was the region's strongest military power. Bilateral relations with Iraq were not good, mainly due to a dispute over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. In November 1971, Iranian forces seized control of three islands at the mouth of the Persian Gulf; in response, Iraq expelled thousands of Iranian nationals. Following a number of clashes in April 1969, Iran abrogated the 1937 accord and demanded a renegotiation.\n\nIn mid-1973, the Shah returned the oil industry to national control. Following the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973, Iran did not join the Arab oil embargo against the West and Israel. Instead, it used the situation to raise oil prices, using the money gained for modernisation and to increase defense spending.\n\nA border dispute between Iraq and Iran was resolved with the signing of the Algiers Accord on 6 March 1975.\n\nContemporary period\n\nRevolution and the Islamic Republic (1979 to present)\n\nThe Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution,[190] was the revolution that transformed Iran from an absolute monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, one of the leaders of the revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic.[18] Its time span can be said to have begun in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations,[191] and concluded with the approval of the new theocratic Constitution-whereby Ayatollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country-in December 1979.[192]\n\nIn between, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left the country for exile in January 1979 after strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country, and on 1 February 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran.[192] The final collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty occurred shortly after on 11 February when Iran's military declared itself \"neutral\" after guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting. Iran officially became an Islamic Republic on 1 April 1979, after Iranians overwhelmingly approved a national referendum to make it so a day before.[17]\n\nIdeology of the 1979 Iranian Revolution\n\nThe ideology of the revolutionary government was populist, nationalist and most of all Shi'a Islamic. Its unique constitution is based on the concept of velayat-e faqih the idea advanced by Khomeini that Muslims - in fact everyone - requires \"guardianship\", in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists.[193] Khomeini served as this ruling jurist, or supreme leader, until his death in 1989.\n\nIran's rapidly modernising, capitalist economy was replaced by populist and Islamic economic and cultural policies. Much industry was nationalized, laws and schools Islamicized, and Western influences banned.\n\nThe Islamic revolution also created great impact around the world. In the non-Muslim world it has changed the image of Islam, generating much interest in the politics and spirituality of Islam,[194] along with \"fear and distrust towards Islam\" and particularly the Islamic Republic and its founder.[195]\n\nKhomeini (1979-1989)\n\nKhomeini served as leader of the revolution or as Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 to his death on 3 June 1989. This era was dominated by the consolidation of the revolution into a theocratic republic under Khomeini, and by the costly and bloody war with Iraq.\n\nRevolutionary factions disagreed on the shape of the new Iran. Those who thought the Shah would be replaced by a democratic government soon found Khomeini disagreed. In early March 1979, he announced, \"do not use this term, 'democratic.' That is the Western style.\"[196] In succession the National Democratic Front was banned in August 1979, the provisional government was disempowered in November, the Muslim People's Republican Party banned in January 1980, the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and its supporters came under attack between 1979 and 1981, a purge of universities was begun in March 1980, and leftist President Abolhassan Banisadr was impeached in June 1981.[197]\n\nThe consolidation lasted until 1982-3,[198][199] as Iran coped with the damage to its economy, military, and apparatus of government. Protests and uprisings by secularists, leftists, and more traditional Muslims-formerly allied revolutionaries but now rivals-were effectively suppressed. Many political opponents were executed by the new regimes. Following the events of the revolution, Marxist guerrillas and federalist parties revolted in regions comprising Khuzistan, Kurdistan and Gonbad-e Qabus, resulting in severe fighting between rebels and revolutionary forces. These revolts began in April 1979 and lasted between several months to over a year, depending on the region. The Kurdish uprising, led by the KDPI, was the most violent, lasting until 1983 and resulting in 10,000 casualties.\n\nIn the summer of 1979 a new constitution giving Khomeini a powerful post as guardian jurist Supreme Leader[200] and a clerical Council of Guardians power over legislation and elections, was drawn up by an Assembly of Experts for Constitution. The new constitution was approved by referendum in December 1979.\n\nIran hostage crisis (1979-1981)\n\nAn early event in the history of the Islamic republic that had a long-term impact was the Iran hostage crisis. Following the admitting of the former Shah of Iran into the United States for cancer treatment, on 4 November 1979, Iranian students seized US embassy personnel, labeling the embassy a \"den of spies.\"[201] Fifty-two hostages were held for 444 days until January 1981.[202] An American military attempt to rescue the hostages failed.[203]\n\nThe takeover was enormously popular in Iran, where thousands gathered in support of the hostage takers, and it is thought to have strengthened the prestige of the Ayatollah Khomeini and consolidated the hold of anti-Americanism. It was at this time that Khomeini began referring to America as the \"Great Satan.\" In America, where it was considered a violation of the long-standing principle of international law that diplomats may be expelled but not held captive, it created a powerful anti-Iranian backlash. Relations between the two countries have remained deeply antagonistic and American international sanctions have hurt Iran's economy.[204]\n\nIran-Iraq War (1980-1988)\n\nDuring this political and social crisis, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attempted to take advantage of the disorder of the Revolution, the weakness of the Iranian military and the revolution's antagonism with Western governments. The once-strong Iranian military had been disbanded during the revolution, and with the Shah ousted, Hussein had ambitions to position himself as the new strong man of the Middle East. He sought to expand Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf by acquiring territories that Iraq had claimed earlier from Iran during the Shah's rule.\n\nOf chief importance to Iraq was Khuzestan which not only boasted a substantial Arab population, but rich oil fields as well. On the unilateral behalf of the United Arab Emirates, the islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs became objectives as well. With these ambitions in mind, Hussein planned a full-scale assault on Iran, boasting that his forces could reach the capital within three days. On 22 September 1980, the Iraqi army invaded Iran at Khuzestan, precipitating the Iran-Iraq War. The attack took revolutionary Iran completely by surprise.\n\nAlthough Saddam Hussein's forces made several early advances, Iranian forces had pushed the Iraqi army back into Iraq by 1982. Khomeini sought to export his Islamic revolution westward into Iraq, especially on the majority Shi'a Arabs living in the country. The war then continued for six more years until 1988, when Khomeini, in his words, \"drank the cup of poison\" and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations.\n\nTens of thousands of Iranian civilians and military personnel were killed when Iraq used chemical weapons in its warfare. Iraq was financially backed by Egypt, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states, the United States (beginning in 1983), France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and the People's Republic of China (which also sold weapons to Iran).\n\nThere were more than 182,000 Kurdish victims[205] of Iraq's chemical weapons during the eight-year war. The total Iranian casualties of the war were estimated to be between 500,000 and 1,000,000. Almost all relevant international agencies have confirmed that Saddam engaged in chemical warfare to blunt Iranian human wave attacks; these agencies unanimously confirmed that Iran never used chemical weapons during the war.[206]\n\nStarting on 19 July 1988 and lasting for about five months the government systematically executed thousands of political prisoners across Iran. This is commonly referred to as the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners or the 1988 Iranian Massacre. The main target was the membership of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), although a lesser number of political prisoners from other leftist groups were also included such as the Tudeh Party of Iran (Communist Party).[207][208] Estimates of the number executed vary from 1,400[209] to 30,000.[210][211]\n\nKhamenei (1989-2026)\n\nOn his deathbed in 1989, Khomeini appointed a 25-man Constitutional Reform Council which named then president Ali Khamenei as the next Supreme Leader, and made a number of changes to Iran's constitution.[212] A smooth transition followed Khomeini's death on 3 June 1989. While Khamenei lacked Khomeini's \"charisma and clerical standing\", he developed a network of supporters within Iran's armed forces and its economically powerful religious foundations.[213] Under his reign Iran's regime is said - by at least one observer - to resemble more \"a clerical oligarchy ... than an autocracy.\"[213]\n\nRafsanjani: pragmatic conservativism (1989-1997)\n\nAli-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani succeeded Khamenei as president on 3 August 1989, as a pragmatic conservative who served two four-year terms and focused his efforts on rebuilding the country's economy and infrastructure damaged by war, though hampered by low oil prices. Rafsanjani sought to restore confidence in the government among the general population by privatizing the companies that had been nationalized in the first few years of the Islamic Republic, as well as by bringing in qualified technocrats to manage the economy. The state of their economy also influenced the government to move towards ending their diplomatic isolation. This was achieved through the reestablishment of normalized relations with neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and an attempt to improve its reputation in the region with assertions that its revolution was not exportable to other states.[214] During the Persian Gulf War in 1991 the country remained neutral, restricting its action to the condemnation of the U.S. and allowing fleeing Iraqi aircraft and refugees into the country.[214]\n\nIran in the 1990s had a greater secular behavior and admiration for Western popular culture than in the previous decades. This admiration had become a way in which the urban population expressed their resentment at the invasive Islamic policies of the government.[215] The pressures from the population placed on the new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led to an uneasy alliance between him and President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Through this alliance they attempted to hinder the ulama's ability to gain further control of the state. In 1989, they created a sequence of constitutional amendments that removed the office of prime minister and increased the scope of presidential power. However, these new amendments did not curtail the powers of the Supreme Leader of Iran in any way; this position still contained the ultimate authority over the armed forces, the making of war and peace, the final say in foreign policy, and the right to intervene in the legislative process whenever he deemed it necessary.[215]\n\nKhatami: reformers and conservatives struggle (1997-2005)\n\nPresident Rafsanjani's economic policies led to stronger relations with the outside world. But his government's relaxation of the enforcement of certain regulations on social behavior were met with some responses of widespread disenchantment among the general population with the ulama as rulers of the country.[215] This led to the defeat of the government's candidate for president in 1997, who had the backing of the supreme Islamic jurist. He was beaten by an independent candidate from the Reformists, Mohammad Khatami. He received 69% of the vote and enjoyed particular support from two groups of the population that had felt ostracized by the practices of the state: women and youth. The younger generations in the country had been too young to experience the shah's regime or the revolution that ended it, and now they resented the restrictions placed on their daily lives under the Islamic Republic. Mohammad Khatami's presidency was soon marked by tensions between the reform-minded government and an increasingly conservative and vocal clergy. This rift reached a climax in July 1999 when massive anti-government protests erupted in the streets of Tehran. The disturbances lasted over a week before police and pro-government vigilantes dispersed the crowds.\n\nDuring his first term, President Khatami oversaw Iran's second five-year development plan and introduced a new plan for 2000-2004 focused on economic reconstruction alongside social and political reforms. The plan aimed for privatization, job creation, and reduced subsidies but fell short on employment targets.[216] Despite this, Iran saw improved economic indicators: real GDP growth rose to nearly 6 percent, unemployment and inflation declined, external debt dropped significantly, and the government authorized private banks for the first time since 1979.[217] Poverty levels also decreased modestly.[218]\n\nIn the Majlis elections of 2000, for the first time liberals and Khatami's supporters gained parliamentary control from conservatives.[219] That same year, following the adoption of a new press law, authorities banned the publication of 16 reformist newspapers.[219]\n\nKhatami was re-elected in June 2001 but his efforts were repeatedly blocked by the conservatives in the parliament. Conservative elements within Iran's government moved to undermine the reformist movement, banning liberal newspapers and disqualifying candidates for parliamentary elections. This clampdown on dissent, combined with the failure of Khatami to reform the government, led to growing political apathy among Iran's youth.\n\nFollowing the September 11 attacks in 2001, Iran initially was sympathetic with the United States.[220] However, relations deteriorated sharply after President George W. Bush labeled Iran part of the \"Axis of Evil\" in 2002, accusing the country of pursuing weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the U.S.[221][222]\n\nDespite firm U.S. opposition, in 2002 Russian teams commenced work on Iran's inaugural nuclear reactor at Bushehr.[219]\n\nIn June 2003, anti-government protests by several thousand students took place in Tehran.[223][224] Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer and human rights advocate, became the first Iranian to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. She had been the country's first female judge until being forced to step down after the 1979 revolution.[219] The response to the award in Iran was mixed-enthusiastic supporters greeted her at the airport upon her return, the conservative media underplayed it, and Khatami criticized it as political.[225][226]\n\nA violent earthquake struck the Kerman province of southeastern Iran in December 2003. The earthquake was particularly destructive in Bam, with the death toll amounting to at least 34,000 people and injuring up to 200,000.[227]\n\nAfter the hardline Council of Guardians disqualified thousands of reformist candidates, conservatives regained control of parliament in the elections of 2004.[219]\n\nAhmadinejad: conservatism (2005-2013)\n\nIn the 2005 Iranian presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mayor of Tehran, became the sixth president of Iran, after winning 62 percent of the vote in the run-off poll, against former president Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.[228] During the authorization ceremony he kissed Khamenei's hand in demonstration of his loyalty to him.[229]\n\nDuring this time, the American invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and empowerment of its Shi'a majority, all strengthened Iran's position in the region particularly in the mainly Shi'a south of Iraq, where a top Shia leader in the week of the 3rd. of September 2006 renewed demands for an autonomous Shi'a region.[230] At least one commentator (former U.S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen) has stated that as of 2009, Iran's growing power had eclipsed anti-Zionism as the major foreign policy issue in the Middle East.[231]\n\nDuring 2005 and 2006, there were claims that the United States and Israel were planning to attack Iran, with the most cited reason being Iran's civilian nuclear energy program which the United States and some other states feared could lead to a nuclear weapons program. China and Russia opposed military action of any sort and also opposed economic sanctions. Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. The fatwa was cited in an official statement by the Iranian government at an August 2005 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.[232][233] However, the IAEA reported in 2008 that Iran's suspected nuclear weapons research remained “a matter of serious concern,” prompting European Union countries to agree on new sanctions.[234] Additional U.N. sanctions followed in 2010.[219] In 2011, Iran announced that the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant had been connected to the national electricity grid for the first time.[219] Eventually, the sanctions severely impacted Iran's economy, contributing to a dramatic depreciation of the rial, which reportedly fell to a record low of 35,000 to the US dollar-an 80% drop since late 2011.[235]\n\nIn 2007, a diplomatic standoff erupted between Iran and the UK after Iranian forces detained 15 British sailors and marines near the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which forms part of the Iran-Iraq border.[219]\n\nIn 2009, Ahmadinejad's reelection was hotly disputed and marred by large protests that formed the \"greatest domestic challenge\" to the leadership of the Islamic Republic \"in 30 years\". The resulting social unrest is widely known as the Iranian Green Movement. Reformist opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his supporters alleged voting irregularities and by 1 July 2009, 1000 people had been arrested and 20 killed in street demonstrations.[236] Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other Islamic officials blamed foreign powers for fomenting the protest.[237]\n\nIn 2010, Stuxnet was reportedly found in the Natanz Nuclear Facility.[219] Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm[238] thought to have been in development since at least 2005. Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to the Iran nuclear program.[239] Although neither the United States nor Israel has openly admitted responsibility, multiple independent news organizations claim Stuxnet to be a cyberweapon built jointly by the two countries in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games.[240] The program, started during the Bush administration, was rapidly expanded within the first months of Barack Obama's presidency.[241]\n\nOn 14 February 2011, widespread protests erupted in Tehran as thousands gathered in response to opposition calls, expressing solidarity with pro-democracy movements in the region and reviving dissent over the contested 2009 presidential election. Security forces quickly suppressed the demonstrations, resulting in two deaths and numerous injuries. Further protests followed, including on 20 February and 1 March, when the opposition reported around 200 arrests. Authorities subsequently managed to prevent large-scale demonstrations.[242]\n\nReports of growing tensions between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei emerged during this period. In the 2012 parliamentary elections, Ahmadinejad's allies lost ground to factions loyal to Khamenei, while the opposition Green Movement remained banned. Its leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, were placed under house arrest in early 2011 and have remained out of public view, with some government supporters demanding their execution.[242]s\n\nRouhani: pragmatism (2013-2021)\n\nOn 15 June 2013, Hassan Rouhani won the presidential election in Iran, with a total number of 36,704,156 ballots cast; Rouhani won 18,613,329 votes. In his press conference one day after election day, Rouhani reiterated his promise to recalibrate Iran's relations with the world.[243]\n\nOn 14 July 2015, after years of negotiations, Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, plus Germany)[244] together with the European Union finalized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.[245] The agreement aimed to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions.[246] It followed the 2013 Joint Plan of Action, an interim deal that opened formal negotiations.[247] By April 2015, negotiators had agreed on a framework that set the stage for the final accord in Vienna.[248]\n\nUnder the JCPOA, Iran agreed to significant restrictions on its nuclear activities, including limits on uranium enrichment levels, the number and type of operating centrifuges, and the size of its enriched uranium stockpile. Key facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Arak were to be repurposed for civilian research and medical uses. Iran also accepted more intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to verify compliance. In return, it received relief from nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States, although many other U.S. sanctions remained in place, especially those targeting Iran's missile program and regional activities.[249]\n\nBeginning on 28 December 2017, protests known as the Dey protests spread across Iran, starting over economic grievances in Mashhad but quickly expanding to political opposition to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the theocratic system.[250] Marking the most serious unrest since 2009, the largely leaderless protests[251] featured anti-regime chants and attacks on government sites,[252] with at least twenty-one protesters and two security personnel killed, and around 3,700 arrested by early January 2018.[253] In response, thousands of government supporters held pro-government rallies in multiple cities.[254]\n\nIn May 2018, Donald Trump decided to pull out of the JCPOA, announcing he would reimpose economic sanctions on Iran effective from 4 November that year.[255] This marked the beginning of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign, an effort to force Iran to renegotiate the nuclear agreement by imposing intensified sanctions.[256]\n\nOn 22 September 2018, the Ahvaz military parade was attacked by gunmen in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz.[257] The shooters killed 25 people, including soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and civilian bystanders.[258] The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.[259] Iran blamed \"militants in Syria\"[260] and claimed the \"U.S. and the Gulf states enabled the attack\" and vowed revenge.[261] The U.S., Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rejected the accusation.[262]\n\nFrom mid-March to April 2019 widespread flash flooding affected large parts of Iran, most severely in Golestan, Fars, Khuzestan, Lorestan, and other provinces. Iran was hit by three major waves of rain and flooding over the course of two weeks[263] which led to flooding in at least 26 of Iran's 31 provinces.[264] At least 70 people died nationwide.[264]\n\nThe 2019-2020 Iranian protests began in response to a 50-200% fuel price increase[265] and quickly spread to 21 cities,[266] becoming the most violent unrest since the 1979 revolution.[267][268] Security forces reportedly shot protesters from rooftops, helicopters, and at close range, killing around 1,500 people according to U.S. sources,[269] while Amnesty International described efforts to cover up the scale of the violence.[270] Protesters attacked 731 banks, 50 military bases, and nine religious centers,[271][268] prompting the government to impose a near-total internet blackout for six days.[272] The uprising was crushed within three days,[r] though sporadic protests continued.\n\nOn 3 January 2020, the United States military executed a drone strike at Baghdad Airport, killing Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, an elite branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).[274] The assassination sharply increased tensions between the two countries. Iran vowed retaliation, and on 8 January launched missile attacks on U.S. forces based in Iraq, marking the first direct military exchange between Iran and the U.S. since 1988. The same day, the IRGC mistakenly shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. Following these events, no further military escalation occurred.[275]\n\nThe 2020 parliamentary elections in Iran were marked by historically low voter turnout, officially reported at 42.6%-the lowest since the 1979 revolution. The elections took place in the wake of widespread public disillusionment following the violent crackdown on protests in late 2019, which severely damaged the credibility of President Hassan Rouhani and the reformist camp. As a result, conservative candidates won a dominant majority in the parliament, securing 221 out of 290 seats, while reformists managed to win only a small fraction. The outcome was widely seen as a significant blow to Rouhani ahead of the end of his term in 2021.[276]\n\nThe COVID-19 pandemic in Iran led to 7,627,863[277] confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 146,837[277] deaths. The first cases were reported in Qom on 19 February 2020.[278] The government responded by cancelling public events, closing institutions and shrines,[279][280] and requesting a $5 billion emergency loan from the IMF.[273] Initial resistance to quarantines and travel restrictions contributed to the virus's spread before a ban on intercity travel was implemented.[280][281] After restrictions eased in April, cases surged again, peaking in June and July.[282] Despite these rising case numbers, the government had no option but to keep the economy open, as it was already under strain from U.S. sanctions and had suffered a further 15% GDP decline due to the pandemic by June 2020.[283] Estimates of deaths have varied widely, with some leaked data suggesting a much higher toll than official figures,[284] and the government faced allegations of mismanagement and censorship.[285] The virus also impacted Iran's leadership, infecting 23 MPs by early March and killing at least 17 officials by late March.[286]\n\nEbrahim Raisi (2021-2024)\n\nOn 3 August 2021 Ebrahim Raisi was elected 8th President of Iran.[287]\n\nOn 16 September 2022, 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances.[288] The Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police of Iran's government, had arrested Amini for allegedly not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. The Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran stated that she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma before being transferred to a hospital.[289] However, eyewitnesses reported that she was severely beaten and that she died as a result of police brutality,[290] which was denied by the Iranian authorities.[291] Amini's death resulted in a series of protests described as more widespread and larger than previous large protests.[292] Iran Human Rights reported that by December 2022 at least 476 people had been killed by security forces attacking protests across the country.[293] By spring 2023, the protests had largely subsided,[294] ultimately leaving the political leadership unchanged and firmly entrenched in power.[295]\n\nIn October 2023, an IAEA report estimated Iran had increased its uranium stockpile 22 times over the 2015 agreed JCPOA limit.[296]\n\nOn 1 April 2024, Israel's air strike on an Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital Damascus killed an important senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Brig Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi.[297] In retaliation for the Israeli strike, Iran attacked Israel with over 300 drones and missiles on 13 April. However, the Iranian attack was mainly intercepted either outside Israeli airspace or over the country itself. It was the biggest missile attack in Iranian history, and its first ever direct attack on Israel.[298] It was followed by a retaliatory missile strike by Israel on Isfahan, Iran on 19 April.[299]\n\nOn 19 May 2024, Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in the country's East Azerbaijan province.[300] First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber was appointed acting president after the death of President Raisi.[301]\n\nMasoud Pezeshkian (2024-present)\n\nOn 28 July 2024, Masoud Pezeshkian was formally endorsed as Iran's new president by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pezeshkian, a reformist, won in a presidential election runoff on 5 July.[302] Three days later, Ismail Haniyeh, political chief of Palestinian political and military organisation Hamas, was assassinated in Iran's capital, Tehran, where he was to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian.[303]\n\nOn 1 October 2024, Iran launched about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for assassinations of Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforoushan. On 27 October, Israel responded to that attack by strikes on a missile defence system in the Iranian region of Isfahan.[304]\n\nIn December 2024, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, a close ally of Iran, was a severe setback for the political influence of Iran in the region.[305]\n\nIn early 2025, Iran was enriching substantial quantities of uranium to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade. Analysts warned that such activity exceeded any plausible civilian justification.[306] Beginning in April 2025, Iran and the United States entered negotiations for a new nuclear agreement, but progress stalled as Iran's leaders have refused to stop enriching uranium.[307] Among the main points of disagreement were the conditions for lifting sanctions against Iran.[308] In June 2025, IAEA found Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations for the first time in two decades.[309] In response, Iran announced the activation of a new enrichment facility and began installing additional advanced centrifuges.[310]\n\nOn 13 June 2025, Israel launched coordinated strikes across Iran, targeting nuclear facilities and eliminating top members of Iran's military leadership. This was the beginning of the Twelve-Day War[311] Iran retaliated with waves of missile and drone strikes against Israeli cities and military sites.[312] United States strikes on Iranian nuclear sites occurred on 22 June 2025.[313] On 24 June, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire after insistence from the US.[314]\n\nBeginning on 28 December 2025, mass demonstrations erupted across multiple cities in Iran amid widespread dissatisfaction with the Islamic Republic government and a deepening economic crisis. The movement quickly became the largest outbreak of unrest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protests following the death of Mahsa Amini.[315] The ensuing crackdown, carried out under Ali Khamenei's and senior officials' order for live fire on protesters, resulted in massacres that left thousands of protesters dead.[316] The Iranian government faced accusations of committing crimes against humanity.[317]\n\nOn 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched a major attack on Iran with the stated goal of regime change.[318] The attack included the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose compound was destroyed, as well as Ali Shamkhani, former head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and several other Iranian officials. In retaliation, Iran launched dozens of its drones and ballistic missiles throughout the Persian Gulf in addition to targeting Israel.[319]\n\nSee also\n\nHistory of the Caucasus\n\nHistory of the Middle East\n\nIranian religions\n\nList of monarchs of Iran\n\nOutline of Iran\n\nPolitics of Iran\n\nTarikh-i Abu al-Khayr Khani\n\nTazkera-ye Taher-e Nasrabadi\n\nTimeline of Iranian history\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"It is the autochthones of the Iranian plateau, and not the Proto-Indo-European tribes of Europe, which are, in the main, the ancestors, in the physical sense of the word, of the present-day Iranians.\"[43]\n\n^ \"Babak's Iranianizing rebellion in Azerbaijan gave occasion for sentiments at the capital to harden against men who were sympathetic to the more explicitly Iranian tradition\".[77]\n\n^ \"The activities of the Khurammiya reached their peak in the movement of Babak al-Khurrami, whose protracted rebellion based in north-western Iran seriously threatened the stability of the Abbassid caliphate... This revolt lasting for more than twenty years soon spread from Azerbaijan (North/West Iran) to western and central parts of Iran.\"[78]\n\n^ \"Babak revolted in Azerbaijan (816-838), evoking Abu Muslim as a heroic symbol... and called for a return to the Iranian past.\"[79]\n\n^ a b \"... Because the Turkish Seljuqs had no Islamic tradition or strong literary heritage of their own, they adopted the cultural language of their Persian instructors in Islam. Literary Persian thus spread to the whole of Iran, and the Arabic language disappeared in that country except in works of religious scholarship ...\"[82]\n\n^ \"Chinggis Khan organized a unit of Chinese catapult specialists in 1214, and these men formed part of the first Mongol army to invade Transoxania in 1219. This was not too early for true firearms, and it was nearly two centuries after catapult-thrown gunpowder bombs had been added to the Chinese arsenal. Chinese siege equipment saw action in Transoxania in 1220 and in the north Caucasus in 1239-40.\"[96]\n\n^ \"Though he was himself a Chinese, he learned his trade from his father, who had accompanied Genghis Khan on his invasion of Muslim Transoxania and Iran. Perhaps the use of gunpowder as a propellant, in other words the invention of true guns, appeared first in the Muslim Middle East, whereas the invention of gunpowder itself was a Chinese achievement.\"[97]\n\n^ \"During the 1250s, the Mongols invaded Iran with 'whole regiments' of Chinese engineers operating trebuchets (catapults) throwing gunpowder bombs. Their progress was rapid and devastating until, after the sack of Baghdad in 1258, they entered Syria. There they met an Islamic army similarly equipped and experienced their first defeat. In 1291, the same sort of weapon was used during the siege of Acre, when the European Crusaders were expelled form Palestine.\"[98]\n\n^ \"Indeed, it is possible that gunpowder devices, including Chinese mortar (huochong), had reached Central Asia through the Mongols as early as the thirteenth century. Yet the potential remained unexploited; even Sultan Husayn's use of cannon may have had Ottoman inspiration.\"[99]\n\n^ \"The presence of these individuals in China in the 1270s, and the deployment of Chinese engineers in Iran, mean that there were several routes by which information about gunpowder weapons could pass from the Islamic world to China, or vice versa. Thus when two authors from the eastern Mediterranean region wrote books about gunpowder weapons around the year 1280, it is not surprising that they described bombs, rockets and fire-lances very similar to some types of Chinese weaponry.[98]\n\n^ \"He was born some 100 km (62 miles) south of Samarkand into a clan of the Barlas, a Turkicized tribe of Mongol descent.\"[107]\n\n^ \"Subsequently, it came under the control of Turkmen dynasties like the Āq Qoyunlū and Qara Qoyunlū and then of local khanates like those of Qara Bāḡ and Naḵǰavān which formed a buffer region between the Ottomans and Safavids.\"[112]\"In a state of demographic stagnation or downturn, the region was an easy prey for nomadic Turkmen. The Turkmen, however, never managed to build strong states, owing to a lack of sedentary populations (Martinez-Gros 2009: 643). When Tamerlane died in 1405, the Jalāyerid sultan Ahmad, who had fled Iraq, came back to Baghdad. Five years later, he died in Tabriz (1410) in a battle led against the Turkmen Kara Koyunlu (\"[Those of the] Black Sheep\"), who took Baghdad in 1412.\"[113]\"Kara Koyunlu, also spelled Qara Qoyunlu, Turkish Karakoyunlular, English Black Sheep, Turkmen tribal federation that ruled Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Iraq from about 1375 to 1468.\"[114]\n\n^ \"Āghā Muḥammad Khān remained nine days in the vicinity of Tiflis. His victory proclaimed the restoration of Iranian military power in the region formerly under Safavid domination.\"[150]\n\n^ \"Griboedov not only extended protection to those Caucasian captives who sought to go home but actively promoted the return of even those who did not volunteer. Large numbers of Georgian and Armenian captives had lived in Iran since 1804 or as far back as 1795.\" [159][160] Until the mid-fourteenth century, Armenians had constituted a majority in Eastern Armenia.[161] \n\n^ \"[The Shah] deep inside understood that he would be unable to resist Sinan Pasha, i.e. the Sardar of Jalaloghlu, in a[n open] battle. Therefore he ordered to relocate the whole population of Armenia - Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, to Persia, so that the Ottomans find the country depopulated.\"[162]\n\n^ The term \"Tatars\", employed by the Russians, referred to Turkish-speaking Muslims (Shia and Sunni) of Transcaucasia.[168] Unlike Armenians and Georgians, the Tatars did not have their own alphabet and used the Perso-Arabic script.[168] After 1918 with the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and \"especially during the Soviet era\", the Tatar group identified itself as \"Azerbaijani\".[168] Prior to 1918 the word \"Azerbaijan\" exclusively referred to the Iranian province of Azarbayjan.[169]\n\n^ According to Encyclopædia Iranica it was targeted at officials who were in power and actually had a role in controlling the government - the cabinet and others who had a role in governing Iran.[176]\n\n^ \"The regime struck back brutally. 'It happened very fast,' a Western diplomat in Tehran told me. 'The government switched off the phones and the Internet and responded massively-and the whole thing was over in three days. I think the regime was genuinely afraid.\"[273]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Young, T. Cuyler; Bivar, Adrian David H. (2024). \"Ancient Iran\". Britannica.com.\n\n^ Pizzorno, Gabriel H. (2014). \"Dinkha Tepe Revisited\". Harvard University Department of History.\n\n^ Iranica Online - Denḵa Tepe.\n\n^ \"Capital of Musasir government in northwest Iran, experts believe\". Mehr News Agency. 4 September 2005.\n\n^ a b Iranica Online - Ziwiye.\n\n^ \"Qalaichi's ancient necropolis excavated for the first time\". The Tehran Times. 23 June 2024.\n\n^ Chauhan, Yamini (2012). \"Mannai\". Britannica.com.\n\n^ Cifarelli, Megan; Mollazadeh, Kazem; Binandeh, Ali (2019). \"A Decorated Bronze Belt from Gargul, Iran\". 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Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization Series n. 63. The Oriental Institute of The University Of Chicago. ISBN 9781885923660.\n\n^ Potts (1999), pp. 45-6.\n\n^ Maryam Tabeshian (13 December 2006). \"5000-Y-Old Inscribed Tablets Discovered in Jiroft\". CHN - Cultural Heritage News. Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 12 February 2026.\n\n^ \"New Discoveries in Jiroft May Change History of Civilization\". CHN - Cultural Heritage News. 26 January 2006. Archived from the original on 11 April 2008. Retrieved 16 March 2023.\n\n^ Iranica Online - Iranian History (1) Pre-Islamic Times.\n\n^ Quote from The Cambridge History of Iran Vol. 2, : Diakonoff, Igor M., \"Media\", p. 43 (36-148). See also the citation of this paper in Karatay, Osman (July-September 2009). \"Some Views on Looking for a New Home for Ancestors of Turks and Magyars in the Middle East\" (PDF). Journal of Eurasian Studies. I (3): 51 (49-72).\n\n^ Iranica Online - Elam vii., Non-Elamite texts in Elam.\n\n^ Sarfaraz & Firuzmandi (1996), p. 20.\n\n^ a b \"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History - Iran, 1000 BC-1 AD\". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2000. Retrieved 13 January 2026.\n\n^ Medvedskaya, I.N. (January 2002). \"The Rise and Fall of Media\". International Journal of Kurdish Studies. Archived from the original on 28 March 2008. Retrieved 10 August 2008 - via BNET.\n\n^ Sicker, Martin (2000). The pre-Islamic Middle East. Praeger. pp. 68-9. ISBN 9780275968908.\n\n^ Troy R. Bishop (1982). \"Urartu - Lost Kingdom of Van\". Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Urartu Civilization\". All About Turkey. Archived from the original on 1 July 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2015.\n\n^ \"Forgotten Empire - The world of Ancient Persia\". The British Museum. 2005. Archived from the original on 23 April 2007. 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The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781850437062.\n\nAxworthy, Michael (2010). Iran: Empire of the Mind. A History from Zoroaster to the Present Day. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465019205.\n\nBakhash, Shaul (1984). The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465068876.\n\nBakhash, Shaul (2008). \"Historical Setting\". In Curtis, Glenn E.; Hooglund, Eric (eds.). Iran, a country study (PDF) (5th ed.). US Government Publishing Office. ISBN 9780844411873.\n\nBournoutian, George A. (1980). The Population of Persian Armenia Prior to and Immediately Following its Annexation to the Russian Empire: 1826-1832. Nationalism and social change in Transcaucasia. Kennan Institute Occasional Paper Series. Art. 91. The Wilson Center, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies.\n\nBournoutian, George A. (2002). A Concise History of the Armenian People: (from Ancient Times to the Present) (2nd ed.). Mazda Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56859-141-4.\n\nBournoutian, George A. (2020). Armenia and Imperial Decline: The Yerevan Province, 1900-1914 (PDF). Routledge. ISBN 9780367590673.\n\nDurant, William J. (1935). The Story of civilization. Vol. I. Our Oriental Heritage. Simon & Schuster.\n\nMikaberidze, Alexander, ed. (2011). Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598843361.\n\nMikaberidze, Alexander (2015). Historical Dictionary of Georgia (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442241459.\n\nMunshi, Eskandar Beg (1978) [1629]. Tārīkh-e 'Ālamārā-ye 'Abbāsī [History of Shah 'Abbas the Great (two volumes)] (in Arabic and English). Translated by Roger M. Savory. Westview Press. ISBN 0891582967. LCCN 78020663.\n\nPotts, Daniel T. (1999). The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521564960.\n\nPow, Stephen (2022). \"The Mongol invasions of Europe\". In May, Timothy; Hope, Michael (eds.). The Mongol World. Routledge. ISBN 9781315165172.\n\nRoisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian, eds. (2010). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781405179362.\n\nSarfaraz, Ali Akbar; Firuzmandi, Bahman (1996). محموعۀ دروس باستان شناسی و هنر دوران تاریخی ماد، هخامنشی، اشکانی، ساسانی [A collection of archaeology and art lessons from the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian historical periods] (in Persian). Marlik. p. 20. ISBN 9789649049519.\n\nSuny, Ronald G. (1994). The Making of the Georgian Nation (2nd ed.). Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253209153.\n\nFurther reading\n\nSabri Ateş. Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914. Cambridge University Press, 21 okt. 2013. ISBN 1107245087.\n\nBrew, Gregory. Petroleum and Progress in Iran: Oil, Development, and the Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2022) online review\n\nChopra, R. M., article on \"A Brief Review of Pre-Islamic Splendour of Iran\", INDO-IRANICA, Vol. 56 (1-4), 2003.\n\nStephanie Cronin. Iranian-Russian Encounters: Empires and Revolutions Since 1800. Routledge, 2013. ISBN 0415624339.\n\nDaniel, Elton L. (2000). The History of Iran. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-36100-2.\n\nDel Guidice, Marguerite (August 2008). \"Persia - Ancient soul of Iran\". National Geographic Magazine.\n\nFoltz, Richard (2015). Iran in World History. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-933549-7.\n\nAskolʹd Igorevich Ivanchik, Vaxtang Ličʻeli. \"Achaemenid Culture and Local Traditions in Anatolia, Southern Caucasus and Iran\". BRILL, 2007.\n\nMatthee, Rudi, and Willem Floor. The Monetary History of Iran: From the Safavids to the Qajars. I. B. Tauris, 25 April 2013\n\nVladimir Minorsky. The Turks, Iran and the Caucasus in the Middle Ages. Variorum Reprints, 1978.\n\nNasr, Hossein (1972). Sufi Essays. Suny press. ISBN 978-0-87395-389-4.\n\nOlmstead, Albert T. E. (1948). The History of the Persian Empire: Achaemenid Period. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.\n\nRezvani, Babak., \"Ethno-territorial conflict and coexistence in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Fereydan\" Amsterdam University Press, 15 mrt. 2014.\n\nRoisman, Joseph, and Ian Worthington. \"A companion to Ancient Macedonia\" pp 342-346, pp 135-138. (Achaemenid rule in the Balkans and Eastern Europe). John Wiley & Sons, 7 July 2011. ISBN 144435163X.\n\nVan Gorde, A. Christian. Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Iran (Lexington Books; 2010) 329 pages. Traces the role of Persians in Persia and later Iran since ancient times, with additional discussion of other non-Muslim groups.\n\nBenjamin Walker, Persian Pageant: A Cultural History of Iran, Arya Press, Calcutta, 1950.\n\nExternal links\n\nPersian History Persian History\n\nIran History\n\nIran chamber Archived 10 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine\n\nWWW-VL History Index: Iran\n\nThe History of Persia from 1715\n\nRUSSIA i. Russo-Iranian Relations up to the Bolshevik Revolution"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-history-of-iran"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 27268}, {"slug": "reference-qudshanis", "title": "Qudshanis", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Qudshanis[2][3] (also: Kuçanis[4] or Kochanes,[5] officially Konak,[4] Kurdish: Koçanis,[6] Syriac: ܩܘܕܫܢܝܣ, romanized: Qūdšānīs , Syriac pronunciation: [quˈt͡ʃɑ.nɪs];[7]), is a small village in the Hakkâri District of Hakkâri Province, Turkey. The village is populated by Kurds of the Pinyanişî tribe and population was 30 in 2023.[1][8]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Qudshanis\n\nVillage\n\nQudshanisLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°39′7″N 43°47′53″E / 37.65194°N 43.79806°E / 37.65194; 43.79806\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceHakkâri\n\nDistrictHakkâri\n\nPopulation (2023)[1]30\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nQudshanis[2][3] (also: Kuçanis[4] or Kochanes,[5] officially Konak,[4] Kurdish: Koçanis,[6] Syriac: ܩܘܕܫܢܝܣ, romanized: Qūdšānīs , Syriac pronunciation: [quˈt͡ʃɑ.nɪs];[7]), is a small village in the Hakkâri District of Hakkâri Province, Turkey. The village is populated by Kurds of the Pinyanişî tribe and population was 30 in 2023.[1][8]\n\nIt was significant in the history of the Church of the East in that it was the seat of a line of patriarchs for many centuries until mid-1915, when Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin along with the rest of the Assyrians of Hakkari were forced to flee as part of the Sayfo.[2][9] \n\nHistory\n\nResidence of the Patriarch of the Church of the East in QodshanisA sketch of the interior of the Patriarchal Church of Mar Shalita, from Wigram's The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan. The church is still somewhat intact (although abandoned) to this day.\n\nThe village was founded in 1672 by Chaldean Catholics from the city of Amida who, upon settling here, broke off with the Catholic church and founded a new branch of the Church of the East in 1692, ruled by the Shimun line. From that point on the village functioned as the de facto capital of the Assyrian tribes in the region. The government of the Hakkari mountains was that of a tribal confederation, with Assyrian tribes such as the Tyari and Nochiya living in villages across the region, with their own leaders known as maliks (Syriac: ܡܠܟ). The tribes were subservient to the patriarch based in Qodchanis and paid him taxes, which the patriarch then gave to the Ottomans. Therefore, the patriarch functioned as a king of sorts for the Assyrians of the mountains, and his See in Qodchanis functioned as the capital of their confederation. The confederation was in effect almost like a vassal state ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and even then the Assyrians were not subservient to the Sultan, but rather the Patriarch. Upon his declaration of war in 1915, the tribes of the region went into open rebellion against the Turks.[10]\n\nIn a relatively isolated area, Qodshanis was for many years cut off from the outside world up until 1829, when a German traveller discovered it. Visitors from the West began arriving as emissaries.[9] One of these emissaries, an Englishman known as William Ainger Wigram, described it in his book The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan (1922):\n\nThe village of Qudshanis, which is the residence of the Nestorian or Assyrian Patriarch, Mar Shimun, and the headquarters of his Church, has a marvellous situation. It lies on a sloping alp of rugged pasture, between two mountain torrents which spring from the towering snow-fields to the west of it; and which descend in gradually deepening gorges, enclosing the tongue-shaped plateau on which the village stands. They meet beneath the point of the tongue at the base of a lofty wedge of rock; and thence the united stream flows on, joined by others on its way, till it falls into the Zab some two hours below the village. Nestorian tradition regards the Zab as the Pison [or Pishon/Uizhun], one of the four rivers of Paradise; and the Patriarch will occasionally date his official letters from my cell on the River of the Garden of Eden.[2]\n\nNotable people\n\nShimun XXI Eshai (1908-1975), Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian villages\n\nZagros Mountains\n\nMount Judi\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b \"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2023, Favorite Reports\" (XLS) (in Turkish). TÜİK. Retrieved 10 May 2024.\n\n^ a b c Wigram, William Ainger; Wigram, Edgar T. A. (1922). The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan. London: A. & C. Black, Ltd. p. 264.\n\n^ Wilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. University of Virginia: Peeters. ISBN 9782877235037.\n\n^ a b Konak Archived 2024-06-05 at the Wayback Machine, Nişanyan Yeradları, Sevan Nişanyan.\n\n^ \"Chapter Xvi. Kochanes\". Christians Under the Crescent in Asia. Gorgias Press. 2006. pp. 176-187. doi:10.31826/9781463211448-018. ISBN 9781463211448.\n\n^ \"Hakkari'ye bağlı köylerin Kürtçe, Türkçe ve eski isimleri\" (in Turkish). 27 January 2021. Archived from the original on 15 December 2022. Retrieved 16 July 2024.\n\n^ Maclean, Arthur John (1901). Dictionary of the Dialects of Vernacular Syriac. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 272a.\n\n^ Peter Alfred, Andrews; Benninghaus, Rüdiger, eds. (1989). Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey. p. 214.\n\n^ a b Verheij, Jelle (2005). \"Patriarchal Church of the \"Church of the East\", Hakkari\". History and historical geography of Turkey and the late Ottoman Empire & Ottoman-Armenian-Kurdish relations before the First World War. Retrieved 5 May 2020.\n\n^ Stafford, Ronald Sempill (2006) [1935]. The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0..\n\nSources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nJoseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9789004116412.\n\nMaclean, Arthur John; Browne, William Henry (1892). The Catholicos of the East and His People. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\nMaclean, Arthur John (1901). Dictionary of the Dialects of Vernacular Syriac. Oxford: Clarendon Press.\n\nPerkins, Justin (1843). A Residence of Eight Years in Persia, among the Nestorian Christians with Notices of the Muhammedans. Andover, Massachusetts: Allen, Morrill & Wardwell.\n\nStafford, Ronald Sempill (2006) [1935]. The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0.\n\nVerheij, Jelle (2005). \"Patriarchal Church of the \"Church of the East\", Hakkari\". History and historical geography of Turkey and the late Ottoman Empire & Ottoman-Armenian-Kurdish relations before the First World War. Retrieved 5 May 2020.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1910). An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church, or, The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire, 100-640 A.D. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\nWigram, William Ainger; Wigram, Edgar T. A. (1922). The Cradle of Mankind; life in eastern Kurdistan. London: A. & C. Black, ltd. p. 264.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. University of Virginia: Peeters. ISBN 9782877235037.\n\nExternal links\n\nMarShimun.com\n\nJelle Verheij: Patriarchal Church of the \"Church of the East\", Hakkari-Description and pictures of the village and the patriarchal church (2005)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-qudshanis"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1069}, {"slug": "reference-tell-al-rimah", "title": "Tell al-Rimah", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell al-Rimah (also Tell ar-Rimah or Tell el-Rimah) is an archaeological settlement mound, in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq, roughly 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Mosul and ancient Nineveh in the Sinjar region. It lies 15 kilometers south of the site of Tal Afar.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell al-Rimah\n\nQattara/Karana (?)\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n36°15′25.51″N 42°26′57.61″E / 36.2570861°N 42.4493361°E / 36.2570861; 42.4493361\n\nTypesettlement\n\nLocationNineveh Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nSite notes\n\nExcavation dates1964-1971\n\nArchaeologistsD. Oates, Theresa Howard Carter\n\nTell al-Rimah (also Tell ar-Rimah or Tell el-Rimah) is an archaeological settlement mound, in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq, roughly 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Mosul and ancient Nineveh in the Sinjar region. It lies 15 kilometers south of the site of Tal Afar.\n\nIt has been proposed that its ancient name in the 2nd millennium BC was Karana or Qattara or Razama. Karana and Qattara were very close together and thought to be part of a small kingdom.[1] It has also been suggested that the site's name in the 1st Millennium BC was Zamaḫâ. It is near the circular walled similar archaeological sites of Tell Hadheil, a large Early Dynastic site with Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian occupation, and Tell Huweish. Tell Hamira, known earlier as Tell Abu Hamira, is 16 kilometers to the east and has also been suggested as the site of Karana.\n\nCurrently, archaeology leans toward Qattara as the ancient name of Tell Al-Rimah but this is not at all certain. Given\nthat Qattara and Karana were clearly closely linked and proximate makes this difficult.[2] The town of Ṣarbat is known to have been close to Karana and Qattara.[3][4]\n\nArchaeology\n\nThe site covers an area roughly 25 hectares, surrounded by a polygonal city wall. The interior holds a number of low mounds and a large central mound 30 meters high and 100 meters in diameter.[5]\n\nThe region was originally surveyed by Seton Lloyd in 1938, who also investigated the nearby site of Tell Taya.[6] The site of Tell al-Rimah was excavated from 1964 to 1971 by a British School of Archaeology in Iraq team led by David Oates, joined by the Penn Museum and Theresa Howard Carter in the first three years.[7][8][9][10][11][12] A large temple and palace (central-eastern part of the tell, 150 meters northeast of the temple) from the early second millennium BC were excavated, as well as a Neo-Assyrian building. Tell al-Rimah also is known for having a third millennium example of brick vaulting.[13] It has been suggested that the city-goddess of Karana was Geshtinanna in Old Babylonian times.[14]\n\nAlthough only a small portion, 12 rooms encompassing 385 square meters, of the 1,319 square meter palace was excavated due to its depth, a number of Old Babylonian tablets contemporary with Zimri-Lim of Mari and 40 tablets from the time of Shalmaneser I were found as well as other objects.[15] Most of the Older texts were from the time of the Karana ruler, Aqba-Ḫammu with a few dating to the time of an earlier ruler Ḫadnû-rāpi. The tablets are mostly administrative documents involving loans of grain or tin.[16][17][18] The tablets also showed a thriving wine industry.[19] A god, Saggar, known from Mari is also attested in the texts.[20]\n\nAmong the finds were over 40 Middle Assyrian period faience rosettes with \"transverse perforations on the reverse sides and a knob disc attached to their obverse sides\".[21] In Room 1 of the palace a number\nof large storage jars, in fragments, were found, dated to the reign of Ḫadnû-rāpi by associated tablets. One held an \ninscription indicating its volume, added after firing, \"1 homer 5 sutū 1/3 qû, measured in the sutū of Šamaš.\". The\njar was determined to hold between 119 and 123 liters.[22]\n\nHistory\n\nMiddle Bronze\n\nIt reached its greatest size and prominence during the second millennium BC. The second millennium activity was primarily strong during the Old Babylonian (contemporary with Zimri-Lim of Mari, Hammurabi of Babylon and Ishme-Dagan of Ekallatum who was the son of Shamshi-Adad I) and Mitanni periods. In a letter found at Mari:\n\nSpeak to Yasmah-Addu, thus says Ishme-Dagan your brother. I wrote to you before to say that I had gone to Karana to help Samu-Addu. The ruler of Eshnunna, together with all his troops, his courtiers and his friends, has assembled and is staying in Upe and he kept writing to the ruler of Babylon (Hammurabi) to meet him in Mankisum, but the ruler of Babylon did not agree.[23]\n\nIn the Middle Bronze period the site experienced widespread destruction and was abandoned before being re-occupied in the Late Bronze period. In the Mitanni period that followed the Old Babylonian occupation Karana is frequently mentioned in tablets found at the trading city of Nuzi and two Nuzi type tablets were found at Karana. The city was no longer fortified at that time but appears to have been quite prosperous. Another period of abandonment then occurred, followed by re-occupation on a much smaller scale in Neo-Assyrian times.[24]\n\nA notable find was a large archive of letters of Iltani, daughter of Samu-Addu, king of Karana from the Old Babylonian period. The archive covers about a four-year period and amounts to about 200 tablets.[25][26] It is known she had at least two sons, one named Yasitna-abum and a sister in Assur.[27]\nAnother sister, Amat-Shamash, who was a priestess in Sippar who once sent her a gift of shrimp.\n\nThe slaves whom my father gave me have grown old; now, I have sent half a mina of silver to the king; allow me my claim and get him to send me slaves who have been captured recently, and who are trustworthy. In recollection of you, I have sent to you five minas of first-rate wool and one container of shrimps[28]\n\nHer husband was Aqba-aḫum of Qaṭṭara who in a text found at Mari wrote to her saying \"The ice (house) of Qaṭṭara should be unsealed, so that the goddess, you, and Belassunu could drink from it as needed. But the ice must remain under guard.\".[29] Another Mari text involving Iltani reveals that there was a version of the goddess Istar at Qatara.\n\n1 goat, offering of Iltani to Išḫara of Aritanaya; 1 goat offering of Iltani to Ištar of Ninet (Nineveh); 1 spring lamb, offering of Iltani to Ištar of Qaṭṭara, when she dedicated (a votive) statue of Yadruk-Addu; 1 lamb, offering of Iltani to Sin [8.x*.Ṣabrum].[30]\n\nAn Old Babylonian period seal was found saying \"i-lí-sa-ma-[ás] dumu iq-qa-at utu/iskur ir pí-it-ha-na,\" i.e., \"Ill-Samas, son of Iqqāt-Šamas Addu, servant of Pithana\" which has given rise to the suggestion that this referred to Pithana who was ruler of the Anatolian city of Kuššara, although that reading of the ruler's name is not certain.[31][32]\n\nLate Bronze Age\n\nOccupation is known primarily from the Abu-tab archive of about 100 tablets and fragments found in the\ncourtyard on the south side of the temple. Some were dateable by limmu to the reign of\nMiddle Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser I (c. 1273-1244 BC) with a few to early years of\nfollowing ruler Tukulti-Ninurta I c. 1243-1207 BC. Most are economic in nature.[17][16]\n\nIron Age\n\nThe site was lightly occupation in the later Iron Age period. The most notable artifact found was the stele of Neo-Assyrian ruler Adad-nirari III (811 to 783 BC), known as the Tell al-Rimah stela, which may mention an early king of Northern Israel stating \"He received the tribute of Ia'asu the Samaritan, of the Tyrian (ruler) and of the Sidonian (ruler)\" and contains the first cuneiform mention of Samaria by that name. On the side of the stele was an inscription of Nergal-ereš, who names himself \"governor of Raṣappa\".[33][34][35] It has been suggested, based on the stele, that Tell al-Rimah has called Zamaḫâ at that time.[36][37] A larger version of this stele was found at Dūr-Katlimmu.[38]\n\nKarana\n\nKnown rulers of Karana\n\nSamu-Addu - father of Iltani and Ashkur-Addu. fled to Eshnunna\n\nHatnu-rapi\n\nAshkur-Addu - son of Samu-Addu, brother of Iltani, father of Bini-shakim\n\nAqba-hammu - husband of Iltani, vassal of Hammurabi\n\nSamu-Addu held power in the last years of Shamshi-Adad of Ekallatum and may have been a vassal. With the death of Shamshi-Adad Mari, under Zimri-Lim expanded in the region and Hatnu-rapi, an ally of Zimri-Lim, took power. Hatnu-rapi was present at the sack of Shubat-Enil, the royal city of Shamshi-Adad. In a letter found at Karana:\n\nSpeak to Hatnu-rapi, thus says Bunu-Ishtar your brother. When you have read this letter, you, Sharriya and the other kings who are on your side get together and muster 4,000 men between you. And I from here shall muster 2,000 men. The former plus the latter, 6,000 good men, let us muster between us, and let us send them quickly to the help of Zimri-Lim; indeed, let us act to save Zimri-Lim. This is not a matter for neglect; let us apply ourselves to this, that we may the sooner send these troops to Zimri-Lim. May my brother not neglect this message of mine![23]\n\nAshkur-Addu then deposed Hatnu-rapi, who fled to Mari. A clay sealing read \"Bini-sakin, foremost son of the king, servant of Askur-Addu\". A messenger text found at Karana \"They have brought in four tablets of the governor of Susa in Elam.... I opened those tablets... but there was no news in them\" showed the wide regional interconnections at this time. Aqba-hammu then deposed Ashkur-Addu and became a vassal of Hammurabi.\n\nRazama\n\nRazama (ra-za-ma-aki) was an ancient Near East city which achieved prominence in the\nOld Babylonian period and was capital of the land of Yussan/Yassan.[39] It is currently unlocated. A complication is that there were two cities of this name in that period.[40] It is known that at\none point the chief archivist at Razama, appointed by Shamshi-Adad I,\nwas a Sîn-iddinam.[41] There is an unpublished treaty between Mutlya of Apum and Hazip-Tessup of Razamä.[42] The city was\nbriefly controlled by Ishme-Dagan I, ruler of Isin, after attacking it with\nthe assistance of Eshnunna, before it was recaptured by Zimri-Lim.[43]\n\nA text found at Tell Leilan (Subat-Enlil) mentions a Hurrian prince of the Razama, Hazip-Tessup.[44] A tablet found at Me-Turan carried a year\nname of Silli-Sin, a ruler of Eshnunna who was a contemporary of Hammurabi, \"Year Razama was smitten by weapons\".[45]\n\nRazama is mentioned in several texts found at the site of Mari. In\nthe 10th regnal year of Mari ruler Zimri-Lim (c. 18th century BC) an army\nled by Atamrum, king of Allahad and later of Andarig to attack Razama which\nwas ruled by Šarriya/Šarraya (Šarrum-kīma-kalima), a vassal of Zimri-Lim. The army consisted of troops from Eshnunna and Elam.[46][47][48] There was a long, and unsuccessful siege of the city.[49] The defenders practiced a strategy of active defense \"When troops arrived at Razama, when they arrived, the troops of the city came out and killed 700 Elamites and 600 Eshnunakeans\". They also dropped bitumen on the attacker's siege towers and burned them.[50] After a siege ramp was constructed it was attacked:\n\n... Citizens made a tunnel in the city. They made two holes in the wall, right and left toward the front of the ramp. At night they entered [that] tunnel, and in the early morning, the troops of the city [came] out and killed half of the troops (of Atamrum). They made them drop the bronze lances and their shields and brought them inside the city[51][52]\n\nLocation of Razama\n\nIn a text found at Mari, Razama it states \"500 Turukkeans made a raid below Ekallatum and Aššur and reached Razama\" which would place the city south of those cities. Ekallatum\nis unlocated but is known to be in the vicinity of Assur.[53] In another Mari text a journey of\nruler Zimri-Lim has him taking the path \"... Rassum, Tadum, Ilan-sura, Razama-of-Yussan, and Husla\". In a messenger text from Mari a route is recorded of \"[The route of the messen]gers [of the Ya]minites [between Ešnunna] and Karana, [he made it known to me] [thus: (from Ešnunna) to Dur]-Sin; [from Dur]-Sin to Arrapha; [from Ar]rapha [to Ka]wa[lhum]; [from K]awalh[um] to Razama of the Yamutbal; from Razama of the Yamutbal to Karana; from Karana to Allahad. To the river bank: this is their route\".[54] A reconstruction of Old Babylonian period trading routes included one \"ASSUR - Sadduatum - Razama sa Bura - Abidiban - Qattara - Razama sa Uhakim - Kaluzanum - Adubazum - Daraqum - Apum ...\".[55][56]\n\nTell al-Hawa has been suggested as the location. Tell al-Rimah has been proposed based on a tablet found in the palace area, Site C:\n\nŠarrum-kīma-kalima, son of Aniškibal, builder of the palace in Razamā, his capital city.[57][58][59]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nReferences\n\n^ Charpin, Dominique, and Jean-Marie Durand, \"Le nom antique de Tell Rimāh\", Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie Orientale, vol. 81, no. 2, pp. 125-46, 1987\n\n^ Nashef, Khaled, \"Qaṭṭarā and Karanā\", Die Welt Des Orients, vol. 19, 1988, pp. 35-39, 1988\n\n^ Cohen, Noam, \"The Iltani Archive and the Messiness of Spousal Violence\", Avar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Life and Society in the Ancient Near East 3.1, pp. 45-72, 2024\n\n^ Langlois, A. I., \"Archibab 2. Les archives de la princesse Iltani découvertes à Tell al-Rimah (XVIIIe siècle av. J.-C.) et l'histoire du royaume de Karana/Qaṭṭara\", Mémoires de NABU 18, Paris: SEPOA, 2017\n\n^ David Oates, \"Excavations at Tell al Rimah A Summary Report\", Sumer, vol. 19, no. 1-2, pp. 69-78, 1963\n\n^ Seton Lloyd, \"Some Ancient Sites in the Sinjar district, Iraq\", vol. 5, pp. 123ff, 1938\n\n^ David Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah: 1964\", Iraq, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 62-68, 1965\n\n^ David Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah, 1965\", Iraq, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 122-139, 1966\n\n^ David Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah, 1966\", Iraq, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 70-96, 1967\n\n^ David Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah: 1967\", Iraq, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 115-138, 1968\n\n^ David Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah, 1968\", Iraq, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 1-26, 1970\n\n^ David Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah: 1971, Iraq\", vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 77-86, 1972\n\n^ Barbara Parker, \"Cylinder Seals from Tell al Rimah, Iraq\", vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 21-38, 1975\n\n^ Dalley, Stephanie, \"Cults and Beliefs\", Mari and Karana: Two Old Babylonian Cities: With a New Introduction by the Author, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 112-138, 2002 ISBN 1-931956-02-2\n\n^ Battini, Laura, \"La dernière phase du palais de Tell al-Rimah : nouvelle approche\", Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie Orientale, vol. 95, no. 2, pp. 115-40, 2001\n\n^ a b H. W. F. Saggs, \"The Tell al Rimah Tablets: 1965\", Iraq, vol. 30, vo. 2, pp. 154-174, 1968\n\n^ a b D. J. Wiseman, \"The Tell al Rimah Tablets: 1966, Iraq\", vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 175-205, 1968\n\n^ Stephanie Page, \"The Tablets from Tell Al-Rimah 1967: A Preliminary Report\", Iraq, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 87-97, 1968\n\n^ McGovern, Patrick E., \"Wine and the Great Empires of the Ancient Near East\", Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 167-209, 2019\n\n^ Archi, Alfonso, \"Studies in the Pantheon of Ebla\", Ebla and Its Archives: Texts, History, and Society, Berlin, München, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 592-600, 2015\n\n^ Puljiz, Ivana, \"Faience for the empire: A Study of Standardized Production in the Middle Assyrian State\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 111, no. 1, pp. 100-122, 2021\n\n^ J. N. Postgate, \"An Inscribed Jar from Tell Al-Rimah\", Iraq 40, pp. 71-5, 1978\n\n^ a b Dalley, Stephanie, \"Rulers and Vassals\", Mari and Karana: Two Old Babylonian Cities: With a New Introduction by the Author, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 30-49, 2002 ISBN 1-931956-02-2\n\n^ Dalley, Stephanie, \"The Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age\", Mari and Karana: Two Old Babylonian Cities: With a New Introduction by the Author, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 179-207, 2002 ISBN 1-931956-02-2\n\n^ Jesper Eidem, \"Some Remarks on the Iltani Archive from Tell al Rimah\", Iraq, vol. 51, pp. 67-78, 1989\n\n^ [1]Langlois, Anne-Isabelle, \"'You Had None of a Woman's Compassion': Princess Iltani from her Archive Uncovered at Tell al-Rimah (18th Century BCE)\", Gender and methodology in the ancient Near East: Approaches from Assyriology and beyond 10, pp. 129-148, 2018\n\n^ Stol, Marten, \"The court and the harem before 1500 BC\", Women in the Ancient Near East, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 459-511, 2016\n\n^ Dalley, Stephanie, \"Food and Drink\", Mari and Karana: Two Old Babylonian Cities: With a New Introduction by the Author, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 78-96, 2002 ISBN 1-931956-02-2\n\n^ Sasson, Jack M., \"Religion\". From the Mari Archives: An Anthology of Old Babylonian Letters, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 235-293, 2015\n\n^ Sasson, Jack M., \"Culture\", From the Mari Archives: An Anthology of Old Babylonian Letters, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 294-342, 2015\n\n^ Lacambre, Denis, and Werner Nahm, \"Pithana, an Anatolian Ruler in the Time of Samsuiluna of Babylon: New Data From Tell Rimah (Iraq)\", Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie Orientale, vol. 109, pp. 17-28, 2015\n\n^ Frayne, Douglas, \"Qaṭṭarā / Karanā\", Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595 B.C.): Early Periods, Volume 4, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 737-747, 1990 ISBN 9780802058737\n\n^ Page, Stephanie, \"A Stela of Adad-Nirari III and Nergal-Ereš from Tell al Rimah\", Iraq, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 139-53, 1968\n\n^ Shea, William H., \"Adad-Nirari III and Jehoash of Israel\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 101-13, 1978\n\n^ Parpola, Simo, \"The Location of Raṣappa\", At the Dawn of History: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J. N. Postgate, edited by Yağmur Heffron, Adam Stone and Martin Worthington, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 393-412, 2017\n\n^ May, Natalie N., \"'The True Image of the God...:' Adoration of the King's Image, Assyrian Imperial Cult and Territorial Control\", Tales of Royalty: Notions of Kingship in Visual and Textual Narration in the Ancient Near East, edited by Elisabeth Wagner-Durand and Julia Linke, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 185-240, 2020\n\n^ Page, S., \"Joash and Samaria in a New Stela Excavated At Tell Al Rimah, Iraq\", Vetus Testamentum, 19(4), pp. 483-484, 1969\n\n^ Radner, Karen, \"The Stele of Adad-nērārī III and Nergal-ēreš from Dūr-Katlimmu (Tell Šaiḫ Ḥamad)\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 265-277, 2012\n\n^ Ismail, Farouk, \"The Land Yassan during the 18th Century BC\", Athar Alrafedain, Volume 7, Issue, pp. 35-56, 2022\n\n^ Goetze, Albrecht, \"An Old Babylonian Itinerary\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 7.2, pp. 51-72, 1953\n\n^ Koliński, Rafał, \"The Fate of Yasmaḫ-Addu, the King of Mari\", Fortune and Misfortune in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Warsaw, 21-25 July 2014, edited by Olga Drewnowska and Malgorzata Sandowicz, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 221-236, 2017\n\n^ Beckman, Gary, \"Hittite Treaties and the Development of the Cuneiform Treaty Tradition\", Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur \"Deuteronomismus\"-Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten, edited by Jan Christian Gertz, Doris Prechel, Konrad Schmid and Markus Witte, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 279-302, 2006\n\n^ Beitzel, Barry J., \"Išme-Dagan's Military Actions in the Jezirah: A Geographical Study\", Iraq, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 29-42, 1984\n\n^ Salvini, Mirjo, \"The earliest evidences of the Hurrians before the formation of the reign of Mittanni\", Urkesh and the Hurrians Studies in Honor of Lloyd Cotsen, Urkesh/Mozan Studies Bibliotheca Mesopotamica. Malibu: Undena Publications, pp. 99-115, 1998\n\n^ Muhamed, Ahmad Kamil, \"Old Babylonian Cuneiform Texts from the Hamrin Basin: Tell Hadad\", Edubba, vol. 1. London: NABU, 1992\n\n^ Charpin, D. - Ziegler, N., \"Mari et le Proche-Orient à l'époque amorrite\", Essai d'histoire politique (FM V), Paris, 2003\n\n^ Heimpel, W., \"Letters to the King of Mari\", Winona Lake, 2003\n\n^ Archi, Alfonso, \"Men at War in the Ebla Period: On the Unevenness of the written Documentation\", Ebla and Its Archives: Texts, History, and Society, Berlin, München, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 262-291, 2015\n\n^ Vidal, Jordi, \"The Siege of Razama An example of aggressive defence in Old-Babylonian times\", Altorientalische Forschungen 36.2, pp. 365-371, 2009\n\n^ Sasson, Jack M., \"Siege Mentality: Fighting at the City Gate in the Mari Archives\", Marbeh Ḥokmah: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East in Loving Memory of Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, edited by Shamir Yonah, Edward L. Greenstein, Mayer I. Gruber, Peter Machinist and Shalom M. Paul, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 465-478, 2015\n\n^ Vidal, Jordi, \"The Siege of Razama, An example of aggressive defence in Old-Babylonian times\", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 365-371, 2009\n\n^ . Heimpel, W., \"Details of Atamarum's siege of Razama\", NABU 102, pp. 89-90, 1996\n\n^ [2]Ziegler, Nele, and Adelheid Otto, \"Ekallatum, Samsi-Addu's capital city, localised\", Entre les fleuves-III. On the Way in Upper Mesopotamia: Travels, Routes and Environment as Basis for the Reconstruction of Historical Geography 30, pp. 221-252, 2023\n\n^ Charpin, Dominique, \"From Mari to Yakaltum: a route westwards according to the royal archives of Mari\", Entre les fleuves-III. On the Way in Upper Mesopotamia: Routes, Travels and Environment as Basis for the Reconstruction of Historical Geography 30, pp. 119-132, 2023\n\n^ Kolinski, Rafał, \"20th century BC in the Khabur Triangle Region and the advent of the Old Assyrian trade with Anatolia\", Archaeology of Political Spaces, The Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont in the 2nd Millennium BCE, Berlin: Topoi-Berliner Studien in Antike Welt bd 12, pp. 11-34, 2014\n\n^ Stratford, Edward, \"Tempo of Transport\", Volume 1 A Year of Vengeance, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 148-162, 2017\n\n^ Frayne, Douglas, \"Razamā\", Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595 B.C.): Early Periods, Volume 4, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 748-749, 1990\n\n^ Walker, C. B. F., \"A Foundation-Inscription from Tell al Rimah\", Iraq, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 27-30, 1970\n\n^ RIME 4.26.01.01 Composite Artifact Entry.” (2013) 2025. Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) April 8, 2025\n\nFurther reading\n\nBarrelet, Marie-Thérèse, \"Remarques Sur Une Decouverte Faite a Tell Al Rimah “Face de Humbaba” et Conventions Iconographiques\", Iraq 30.2, pp. 206-214, 1968\n\nTMA Bronze, \"Three Middle Assyrian 'Copper Dogs' from Tell Al Rimah\", Insight through Images: Studies in Honor of Edith Porada, pp. 149-152, 1986\n\nCarter, Theresa Howard, \"Excavations at Tell al-Rimah, 1964 Preliminary Report\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 178.1, pp. 40-69, 1965\n\nCarter, Theresa Howard, \"Tell al-Rimah: The Campaigns of 1965 and 1966\", Archaeology 20.4, pp. 282-289, 1967\n\nStephanie Dalley, \"Old Babylonian Trade in Textiles at Tell al Rimah, Iraq\", vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 155-159, 1977\n\nStephanie Dalley, C.B.F Walker and J.D. Hawkins, \"The Old Babylonian Tablets from Al-Rimah\", British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1976, ISBN 0-903472-03-1\n\nDalley, Stephanie, \"Old Babylonian greetings formulae and the Iltani Archive from Rimah\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 25.2. pp. 79-88, 1973\n\nHoward-Carter, T., \"An Interpretation of the Sculptural Decoration of the Second Millennium Temple at Tell al-Rimah\", Iraq 45, pp. 64-72, 1983\n\nLanglois, Anne-Isabelle, \"Les dépenses découvertes à Tell Al-Rimah. Archivistique et géographie historique\", Pratiques administratives et comptables au Proche-Orient à l'âge du Bronze, pp. 183-212, 2019\n\nPage, Stephanie, \"Adad-nirari III and Semiramis: the Stelae of Saba'a and Rimah\", Orientalia 38.3, pp. 457-458, 1969\n\nPage, St., \"Ice, offerings and deities in the Old Babylonian texts from Tell el-Rimah\", Actes de la XVII. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, pp. 181-183, 1970\n\nJoan Oates, \"Late Assyrian Temple Furniture from Tell al Rimah\", Iraq, vol. 36, no. 1/2, pp. 179-184, 1974\n\nBarbara Parker, \"Middle Assyrian Seal Impressions from Tell al Rimah\", Iraq, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 257-268, 1977\n\n[3]Carolyn Postgate, David Oates and Joan Oates, \"The Excavations at Tell al Rimah: The Pottery\", Aris & Phillips, 1998, ISBN 0-85668-700-6\n\nPollard, A. M., and Peter RS Moorey, \"Some analyses of middle Assyrian faience and related materials from Tell al-Rimah in Iraq\", Archaeometry 24.1, pp. 45-50, 1982\n\nJ. N. Postgate, \"A Neo-Assyrian Tablet from Tell al Rimah\", Iraq, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 31-35, 1970\n\nvon Saldern, Axel, \"Mosaic Glass from Hasanlu, Marlik, and Tell al-Rimah\", Journal of Glass Studies, vol. 8, pp. 9-25, 1966\n\nSasson, Jack M. , \"Hurrian personal names in the Rimah archives\", Undena, 1979\n\nExternal links\n\nRimah digital tablets at CDLI"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-al-rimah"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4005}, {"slug": "reference-hakkari-historical-region", "title": "Hakkari (historical region)", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Hakkari (Kurdish: حەکاری, Syriac: ܚܟܪܝ Ḥakkāri, or ܗܟܪܝ Hakkāri), was a historical mountainous region lying to the south of Lake Van,[1] encompassing parts of the modern provinces of Hakkâri, Şırnak, Van in Turkey and Dohuk in Iraq. During the late Ottoman Empire it was a sanjak within the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hakkari (Kurdish: حەکاری, Syriac: ܚܟܪܝ Ḥakkāri, or ܗܟܪܝ Hakkāri), was a historical mountainous region lying to the south of Lake Van,[1] encompassing parts of the modern provinces of Hakkâri, Şırnak, Van in Turkey and Dohuk in Iraq. During the late Ottoman Empire it was a sanjak within the old Vilayet of Van.\n\nHistory\n\nThe region stretching from Tur Abdin to Hakkari formed the Nairi lands which served as the northern Assyrian frontier and border with their Urartian rivals. The Assyrians of this region were Christians adhering to the Assyrian Church of the East and lived here until 1924, when the last Assyrians who survived the Assyrian genocide and massacres that occurred during 1918 were expelled. Most subsequently moved to the Sapna and Nahla valleys in northern Iraq. Those who went to Simele ended up immigrating further to the Tell Tamer Subdistrict in Syria during the 1930s.\n\nIn 980AD, Adud al-Dawla sent an expedition against the Hakkari Kurds and subdued them.[2] In 1041AD, after the defeat of the invading Oghuz turks and subsequent massacre in Urmia by Rawadids. They fled to Hakkari where they ravaged it. they were eventually defeated by the Kurds and 1500 Oghuz tribesmen were killed and the survivors were enslaved by the Kurds.[3][4]\n\nFollowing the devastation of the urban centres of Mesopotamia at the hands of Timur, a Turkic military leader operating under the guise of restoring the Mongol Empire, he was known as \"the Sword of Islam.\" His conquest of Baghdad and the general area, especially the destruction of Tikrit, affected the Syrian Orthodox Church which sheltered near Nineveh at Mar Mattai Monastery following the destruction of Christians in the region, the Ismailis and Sunni and Shi'a Muslims indiscriminately by Timur during the second part of the 14th century. The few survivors sought refuge among the Assyrians of Hakkari and the surrounding region. This region also produced many bishops and patriarchs as hereditary succession was used to prevent a full ecclesiastical collapse of the church. By the 16th century, the Assyrians disappeared from many cities where they previously thrived, such as in Tabriz and Nisibis. The head of the Church of the East moved from Baghdad to Maragha in Urmia by 1553.[5]\n\nBy the 1500s, the Assyrians were concentrated in an older version of the Assyrian triangle, with its points in Diyarbakir (west), Maragha (east). The Church of the East lost some of its members in the few centuries following the Schism of 1552 to the Chaldean Catholic Church, mainly in Diyarbakir. Those living in Hakkari, however, were unaffected by the disputes until 1692 when the Chaldean Archbishop of Diyarbakir Shimun IX Dinkha broke away from Rome and moved to Qudshanis in Hakkari where he reintroduced the Shimun line of hereditary patriarchial succession which continued until 1976.\n\nPatriarch Shimun XIII moved his seat from Amid to Qochanis. After the final return to the traditional faith, Patriarchs of the Shimun line decided to keep their independence and after that time there were two independent lines of traditional patriarchs: the senior Eliya line in Alqosh and the junior Shimun line in Qochanis.[6] Such division was additionally caused by the complex structure of local Assyrian communities, traditionally organized as tribal confederations with each tribe being headed by a local lord (malik), while each malik was ultimately subject to the patriarch, who mediated between Christian Assyrians and the Ottoman authorities.[7]\n\nThe Patriarch residing in the Church of Mār Shalīṭa in Qudshanis enjoyed both spiritual and political power over his subjects. Since priests were required to remain celibates the patriarchy moved from uncle to nephew.[5] This system came to be known as Nāṭar Kursyā (ܢܛܪ ܟܘܪܣܝܐ \"Guardian of the throne\"), and by the 19th century this system was applied to all dioceses of Hakkari.[8]\nThe Assyrians formed intricate alliances with neighbouring Kurdish tribes and their Ottoman lords, and each tribe was led by a Malik (ܡܠܟ) who also functioned as a military leader during wartime.[9] The Tyari Assyrians lived across 51 different villages and constituted 50,000 members - making it the most powerful among the semi-independent Assyrian tribes.[10]\n\nKurdish wars\n\nIn the 19th century, several competing Kurdish centers began emerging in the region. Mir Muhammed, the Kurdish Emir of the Soran Emirate situated around Rawanduz, was able to depose his rivals and control a region stretching from Mardin to Persian Azerbaijan.[11] However, he was defeated in battle when he tried to subdue the Assyrians of Hakkari in 1838. The Ottomans, seeking to consolidate their control of the region, engaged him in a costly war which eventually led to the dissolution of his Emirate.[12]\n\nAfter the fall of his main rival Mir Muhammed, Bedir Khan Beg, the last Kurdish Emir of the Emirate of Bohtan, sought to extend his dominion by annexing the Assyrian regions in Hakkari.[13] He took advantage of a rift between the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Shimun XVII Abraham, and Nurullah Beg, the last Kurdish Emir of the Emirate of Hakkâri. Bedir Khan Beg allied with Nurullah Beg and massacred the Assyrians of Hakkari in the summer of 1843, taking those who survived as slaves, and inflicted another massacre in 1846 on the Assyrians of Tiyari, also residing in Hakkari.[14] The Western powers, alarmed by the massacres, pressured the Ottomans to intervene: Bedir Khan Beg was subsequently defeated and exiled to Crete the following year, in 1847.[14]\n\nDirect Ottoman control\n\nAlthough the region was nominally under Ottoman control since the 16th century, it was in reality administered by its Assyrian and Kurdish inhabitants and their lords. The situation changed after the Badr Khans rule and the Tanzimat reforms as the Ottomans now were able to extend their full control unopposed, and in 1868 the Sanjak of Hakkari was created.[15]\n\nGenocide and exodus\n\nOn the eve of the First World War, patriarch Shimun XIX Benyamin was promised preferential treatment in anticipation of the war.[16] Shortly after the war began, however, Assyrian and Armenian settlements to the north of Hakkari were attacked and sacked by Kurdish irregulars allied with the Ottoman Army in the Assyrian genocide.[17][18] Others were forced into labour battalions and later executed.[19]\n\nThe turning point was when the patriarch's brother was taken prisoner as he was studying in Constantinople. The Ottomans demanded Assyrian neutrality and executed him as a warning.[20][21] In return, the patriarch declared war on the Ottomans on 10 April 1915.[20]\n\nThe Assyrians were immediately attacked by Kurdish irregulars backed by the Ottomans, driving most of the Assyrians of Hakkari to the mountain tops, as those who stayed in their villages were killed.[20] Shimun Benjamin was able to move unnoticed to Urmia, which at the time was under Russian control, and tried to persuade them to send a relief force to the besieged Assyrians.[20] When the Russians replied that the request was unreasonable, he returned to Hakkari and led the surviving 50,000 Assyrians through the mountains to safety in Urmia.[20] Thousands perished from cold and hunger during this march.[20]\n\nAfter the First World War\n\nDuring the peace conferences in Paris in 1919, the Assyrians asked for a state in Diyarbekir and northern Mesopotamia in Iraq; others requested a British protectorate in Upper Mesopotamia, northern Mosul, and Urmia.[22] The Assyrians tried to retake the region, but the Turks and Kurds objected to their desire to retake their ancestral lands in Hakkari, and an attempt to occupy the region by Agha Petros failed. In 1924, after a rebellion, Turkey formally occupied northern Hakkari and expelled the last Christian inhabitants who still remained in the region,[23] with the exception of the village of Gaznakh which due to Kurdish alliances and their conversion to the Chaldean Catholic Church avoided deportation. Assyrians still live in the southern Hakkari region of Barwari Bala, now straddling the Turkey-Iraq border, and in the Sapna and Nahla Valleys of Iraqs Nohadra region.\n\nEconomy\n\nAs of 1920, Hakkari was producing lead. The lead, which came from a government owned mine, was used to make bullets.[24]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian tribes\n\nTyari\n\nBarwari\n\nShemsdin (East Syriac ecclesiastical province)\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nNotes\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 2\n\n^ Houtsma, M. Th (1993). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. BRILL. p. 1137. ISBN 978-90-04-09790-2\n\n^ Peacock, Andrew (2017). \"Rawwadids\". Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition. New York.\n\n^ Houtsma, M. Th (1993). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. BRILL. p. 1138. ISBN 978-90-04-09790-2\n\n^ a b Alexander 1994, p. 36\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 1999a, p. 235-264.\n\n^ Wigram 1914.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 277\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 35\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2008). Neo-Aramaic dialect studies. Gorgias Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-59333-423-9. OCLC 862139304.\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 173\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 174\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 179\n\n^ a b McDowall 2000, p. 47\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 3\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 23\n\n^ Stafford 2006, p. 24\n\n^ Gaunt & Beṯ-Şawoce 2006, p. 134\n\n^ Gaunt & Beṯ-Şawoce 2006, p. 136\n\n^ a b c d e f Stafford 2006, p. 25\n\n^ Yusuf, Malik. \"The Assyrian Tragedy\". www.aina.org. Archived from the original on October 10, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2020.\n\n^ Nisan 2002, p. 187\n\n^ Nisan 2002, p. 188\n\n^ Prothero, W. G. (1920). Armenia and Kurdistan. London: H.M. Stationery Office. p. 71. Archived from the original on December 21, 2020. Retrieved September 18, 2013.\n\nReferences\n\nAboona, H (2008), Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, Cambria Press, ISBN 978-1-60497-583-3.\n\nAlexander, V (1994) [1994], The First Civilization, Victor Alexander, ISBN 978-1-4486-7089-5.\n\nChevalier, Michel (1985). Les montagnards chrétiens du Hakkâri et du Kurdistan septentrional (in French). Dép. de géographie de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne. ISBN 978-2-901165-13-2.\n\nGaunt, D; Beṯ-Şawoce, J (2006), Massacres, resistance, protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, Gorgias Press, ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\nMcDowall, D (2000), A modern history of the Kurds, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 978-1-85043-416-0.\n\nNisan, M (2002) [1991], Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression, McFarland, ISBN 978-0-7864-1375-1.\n\nStafford, R (2006) [1935], The Tragedy of the Assyrians, Gorgias Press, ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0.\n\nWilmshurst, D (2000), The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Volume 582, Cambria Press, ISBN 978-90-429-0876-5.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (1999a). \"The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 2 (2): 235-264. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-020119. S2CID 212688640.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1914). The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan (PDF). London: Adam and Charles Black."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hakkari-historical-region"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1753}, {"slug": "reference-thea-halo", "title": "Thea Halo", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Thea Halo (born 1941) is an American writer and painter of Assyrian[1] and Pontic Greek heritage. Born in New York City, she is the 8th child of Abraham and Sano Halo (original name Euthemia \"Themia\", Pontic Greek: Ευθυμία).[2][3] Thea began writing poetry and short-stories in 1992 and in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Thea Halo (born 1941) is an American writer and painter of Assyrian[1] and Pontic Greek heritage. Born in New York City, she is the 8th child of Abraham and Sano Halo (original name Euthemia \"Themia\", Pontic Greek: Ευθυμία).[2][3] Thea began writing poetry and short-stories in 1992 and in 2000 she published her book Not Even My Name (ISBN 0312262116), the memoir of her mother who belonged to Turkey's Pontic Greek minority, natives of the Black Sea coast region of Turkey known as Pontus.\n\nSano \"Themia\" Halo was a recipient of the New York State Governor's Award for excellence in honor of Women's History Month, \"Celebrating Women of Courage and Vision.\"\n\nNot Even My Name is the story of Sano (Themia) Halo's survival of the death march, at age ten, during the Greek genocide that killed her family. The title refers to Themia being renamed to Sano by an Assyrian family who could not pronounce her Greek name, after they took her in as a servant during the Greek genocide.[4] The story is told by her daughter Thea, and includes their mother-daughter pilgrimage to Pontus, Turkey in search of Sano's home seventy years after her exile.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Warda, Gladys (2000). \"Thea Halo, Not Even My Name: From a Death March in Turkey to a New Home in America. A Young Girl's True Story of Genocide and Survival\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 14 (2): 118-121. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 August 2003.\n\n^ Papageorgiou, Popi (19 December 2014). \"Συνέντευξη: Η Σάνο Χάλο, η \"Γιαγιά των Ποντίων\", μέσα από τα μάτια της Θία Χάλο\" [Interview: Sano Halo, the 'Grandmother of the Pontians,' Through the Eyes of Thea Halo]. Pontos News (in Greek). Retrieved 6 November 2022.\n\n^ \"Obituary: Sano Themia Halo (1909-2014)\". Armenian Weekly. May 4, 2014.\n\n^ Hedges, Chris (27 September 2000). \"A Few Words in Greek Tell of a Homeland Lost\". The New York Times. Sec. 1, p. 49. Retrieved 6 November 2022.\n\nExternal links\n\nNot Even My Name Web site."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-thea-halo"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 335}, {"slug": "reference-arrapha", "title": "Arrapha", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Arrapha or Arrapkha (Akkadian: Arrapḫa; Arabic: أررابخا ,عرفة) was an ancient Near Eastern city or kingdom in what today is northeastern Iraq, speculated to be located at city of Kirkuk.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Arrapha or Arrapkha (Akkadian: Arrapḫa; Arabic: أررابخا ,عرفة) was an ancient Near Eastern city or kingdom in what today is northeastern Iraq, speculated to be located at city of Kirkuk.[1]\n\nIn 1948, Arrapha became the name of the residential area in Kirkuk which was built by the North Oil Company as a settlement for its workers.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly Bronze Age IV\n\nEarly Bronze IVA - Akkadian period\n\nAncient Arrapha was a part of Sargon of Akkad's Akkadian Empire (2334-2154 BC). Later, the city was exposed to the raids of the Lullubi during the reign of Naram-Sin (r. 2255-2218 BC).[2]\n\nEarly Bronze IVB - Ur III period\n\nThe first written record of Arrapha is attested from the Neo-Sumerian Empire (c. 22nd to 21st century BC).[1]\n\nMiddle Bronze Age\n\nMiddle Bronze II - Assyrian/Babylonian periods\n\nArrapha was an important trading center in the 18th century BC under Assyrian and Babylonian rule.[1]\n\nLate Bronze Age\n\nMitanni period\n\nHowever, during the 15th and early 14th centuries BC, it was again a largely Hurrian city, the capital of the small Hurrian kingdom of Arrapha, situated along the southeastern edge of the area under Mitanni domination.[1][3][4] This kingdom was a vassal of Mitanni, which had units of chariots stationed in Arraphian cities such as Lubdu, Arwa and Arn-apuwe.[5]\n\nItḫi-Tešup, the king of Arrapḫa (15th century BCE)\n\nAssyrian period\n\nDuring the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1050 BC), it was fully incorporated into Assyria, after the Assyrian forces had defeated the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni.[1][4]\n\nIron Age\n\nThe city reached great prominence in the 11th and 10th centuries BC as a part of Assyria.\n\nIn 615 BC, seeing the Assyrians occupied with the Babylonians and violent rebellions among themselves, the Median king Cyaxares successfully invaded Arrapha, which was one of the last strongholds of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[6][7]\n\nClassical Age\n\nThe region later became part of the Persian ruled province of Athura (Achaemenid Assyria).\n\nArrapha then fell to the Macedonian Empire, where it became a part of Seleucid Syria in its succeeding Seleucid Empire (Syria being an aphetic form of Assyria[8]). Arrapha is mentioned as such until Hellenistic times, at which point the settlement was refounded under the Syriac name Karka (ܟܪܟܐ).[1]\n\nBetween the mid 2nd century BC and mid 3rd century AD, during the Parthian Empire and early Sassanid Empire the site was mentioned in Syriac scripts of Christian priest as Beth Garmai, apart from a brief interregnum in the early 2nd century AD when it became a part of the Roman Province of Corduene.[9] The Sassanids conquered the patchwork of independent Assyrian states in the mid to late 3rd century AD, and Arrapha was incorporated into Sassanid-ruled Garmekan until the Arab Islamic conquest of the mid 7th century AD, when Assuristan was dissolved and Arrapha-Karka eventually became Kirkuk.\n\nArrapha has not been excavated yet, due to its location beneath modern Kirkuk.[1]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g Bryce, Trevor (2009). The Routledge Handbook of The People and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the Fall of the Persian Empire. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 67-68. ISBN 978-1-134-15908-6. Retrieved 27 October 2012.\n\n^ Edwards, Charlesworth & Boardman 1970, p. 443\n\n^ Kimmons, Sergeant Sean. \"Soldiers Help Preserve Archeological Sites\".\n\n^ a b M. Chahin. Before the Greeks, p. 77.\n\n^ Qader, Asoss M. (2013). Arrapḫa (Kirkuk) von den Anfängen bis 1340 v. Chr. nach keilschriftlichen Quellen (PDF). Würzburg: Universität Würzburg. pp. 121, 124. Retrieved 1 March 2024.\n\n^ Martin Sicker. The Pre-Islamic Middle East, Page 68.\n\n^ I. E. S. Edwards, John Boardman, John B. Bury, S. A. Cook. The Cambridge Ancient History. p. 178-179.\n\n^ Joseph, John (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Studies in Christian Mission. Vol. 26. Leiden: Brill. pp. 20-21. ISBN 9789004116412. Retrieved 7 May 2020.\n\n^ Mohsen, Zakeri (1995). Sasanid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: The Origins of 'Ayyārān and Futuwwa. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 135. ISBN 978-3-447-03652-8.\n\nSources\n\nEdwards, Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen; Charlesworth, Martin Percival; Boardman, John (1970). The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 1, part 2. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521077910. Retrieved 3 January 2013.\n\nFurther reading\n\nLion, Brigitte, \"The Judicial Archives of the Kingdom of Arraphe\", Judicial Decisions in the Ancient Near East, pp. 297-365, 2023"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-arrapha"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 733}, {"slug": "reference-christianity-in-syria", "title": "Christianity in Syria", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Syria has among the oldest Christian communities on Earth, dating back to the 1st century AD, and has been described as a \"cradle of Christianity\".[2] With its roots in the traditions of Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle, Syria quickly became a major center of early Christianity and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Christianity in Syria\nOur Lady of Saidnaya Monastery, one of the oldest monasteries in the world\n\nTotal population\n\n10% (2025 estimate)[1]\n\nReligions\n\nGreek Orthodox Church of Antioch, Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Armenian Orthodox Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Maronite Church, Latin Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Protestantism\n\nLanguages\n\nMajority: Arabic\nMinorities: Armenian, Aramaic (Syriac)\n\nSyria has among the oldest Christian communities on Earth, dating back to the 1st century AD, and has been described as a \"cradle of Christianity\".[2] With its roots in the traditions of Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle, Syria quickly became a major center of early Christianity and produced many significant theologians and church leaders. Of the 200 bishops who took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, twenty were from Syria. Over the centuries, Syrian Christians have played a vital role in shaping Christian thought and practice, contributing to the development of various liturgical traditions, monastic movements, and theological schools. Paul the Apostle famously converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, and Syria has produced seven Popes: Pope Anicetus (157-168 AD), Pope John V (685-686), Pope Sergius I (687-701),[3] Pope Sisinnius (708), Pope Constantine (708-715), Pope Gregory III (731-741 AD), and the first pope, Saint Peter, who was from Bethsaida. Their legacy includes the establishment of some of the most ancient churches, monasteries, and pilgrimage sites, such as the 5th century remains of the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites, Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery, and the Cathedral of Constantine and Helen.[4]\n\nHowever, in recent times, the Syrian Christian community has faced numerous challenges, including ongoing and severe persecution, displacement, and emigration. Christians in Syria made up about 10% of the pre-war Syrian population but now it is estimated that they make up much lower due to the impact of the Syrian Civil War.[1] and Muslim terorism such as the June 22,2025 massacre inside the Mar Elias Greek Othodox Church in Damascus[5].Christians in Syria have also been subjected to violence and discrimination by Islamic State fighters during their control of large areas of the country. Their churches have been converted into military headquarters, and their property confiscated. Persecution of Christians in Syria has further intensified since.[6][7][8] In Aleppo, the country's second largest city, the proportion of Christian residents fell from 12% pre-war to 1.4% in 2023 with more than 20 churches damaged during the war.[9] The city of Idlib has been almost entirely depopulated of its Christian population under Islamist rule.[10] Some governments and organisations including the United States have claimed that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in Syria and Iraq, constitute an act of genocide.[11][12][13][14][15][16]\n\nThe country's largest Christian denomination is the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch,[17][18] closely followed by the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.[19][18] There is a small minority of Protestants in the country.[20]\n\nOverview\n\nIn the late Ottoman rule, a large percentage of Syrian Christians emigrated from Syria, especially after the bloody chain of events that targeted Christians in particular in 1840, the 1860 massacre, and the Assyrian genocide. According to historian Philip Hitti, approximately 90,000 Syrians arrived in the United States between 1899 and 1919 (more than 90% of them Christians).[21] The Syrians referred to includes historical Syria, or the Levant, encompassing Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Syrian Christians tend to be relatively wealthy and highly educated.[22]\n\nAccording to the Catholic charity group Aid to the Church (ACN), the number of Christians residing in Syria is estimated to have fallen from 2.1 million (10% of population) in 2011 to around 300,000 (less than 2%) in 2022. The decrease is due to a large-scale emigration of Christians to Europe triggered by deteriorating living conditions caused by the civil war.[23] US State Department estimates that Syrian Christians comprise 2.5-3% of the total population inside Syria, as of 2022.[24]\n\nOrigins\n\nThe Christian population of Syria comprised 10% of the Syrian population before 2011.[25] Estimates of the number of Christians in Syria in 2022 range from less than 2% to around 2.5% of the total Syrian population.[18][26]\n\nMost Syrians are members of either the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch (700,000), or the Syriac Orthodox Church. The vast majority of Catholics belong to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Other Eastern Catholic churches include the Maronite Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church; there is also a small number of Latin Church Catholics. The rest belong to the Eastern communions, which have existed in Syria since the earliest days of Christianity when all Christians were part of the Early Christianity. The main Eastern groups are:\n\nthe autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches;\n\nthe autocephalous Oriental Orthodox Churches;\n\nthe Eastern Catholic Churches, which are in communion with Rome;\n\nand the independent Assyrian Church of the East (i.e., the \"Nestorian\" Church). Followers of the Assyrian Church of the East are almost all Sureth speaking ethnic Assyrians whose origins lie in Mesopotamia, as are some Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians.\n\nEven though each group forms a separate community, Christians nevertheless cooperate increasingly. Roman Rite, Western Latin Church Catholicism and Protestantism were introduced by missionaries but only a small number of Syrians are members of Western rites.\n\nThe schisms that brought about the many sects resulted from both political and doctrinal disagreements. The doctrine most commonly at issue was the nature of Christ. In 431, the Nestorians were separated from the main body of the Church because of their belief in the dual character of Christ, i.e., that he had two distinct but inseparable \"qnoma\" (ܩܢܘܡܐ, close in meaning to, but not exactly the same as, hypostasis), the human Jesus and the divine Logos. Therefore, according to Nestorian belief, Mary was not the mother of God but only of the man Jesus. The Council of Chalcedon, representing the mainstream of Christianity, in 451 confirmed the dual nature of Christ in one person; Mary was therefore the mother of a single person, mystically and simultaneously both human and divine. The Miaphysites taught that the Logos took on an instance of humanity as His own in one nature. They were the precursors of the present-day Syriac and Armenian Orthodox churches.\n\nBy the thirteenth century, breaks had developed between Eastern or Greek Christianity and Western or Latin Christianity. In the following centuries, however, especially during the Ottoman era, some of the Eastern churches professed the authority of the pope in Rome and entered into or re-affirmed communion with the Catholic Church. Today called as the Eastern Catholic churches, they retain a distinctive language, canon law and liturgy.\n\nEastern Orthodoxy\n\nThe largest Christian denomination in Syria is the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch (officially named the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East), also known as the Melkite church after the 5th and 6th century Christian schisms, in which its clergy remained loyal to the Eastern Roman Emperor (\"melek\") of Constantinople.\n\nAdherents of that denomination generally call themselves \"Rūm\" which means \"Eastern Romans\" or \"Asian Greeks\" in Arabic. In that particular context, the term \"Rūm\" is used in preference to \"Yūnāniyyūn\" which means \"European Greeks\" or Ionians in Classical Arabic. The appellation \"Greek\" refers to the Koine Greek liturgy used in their traditional prayers and priestly rites.\n\nMembers of the community sometimes also call themselves \"Melkites\", which literally means \"supporters of the emperor\" in Semitic languages - a reference to their past allegiance to Roman and Byzantine imperial rule. But, in the modern era, this designation tends to be more commonly used by followers of the local Melkite Catholic Church.\n\nSyrians from the Greek Orthodox Community are also present in the Hatay Province of Southern Turkey (bordering Northern Syria), and have been well represented within the Syrian diasporas of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, Canada and Australia.\n\nOriental Orthodoxy\n\nTraditional Christianity in Syria is also represented by Oriental Orthodox communities, that primarily belong to the ancient Syriac Orthodox Church, and also to the Armenian Apostolic Church.\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church is the largest Oriental Orthodox Christian group in Syria. The Syriac Orthodox or Jacobite Church, whose liturgy is in Syriac, was severed from the favored church of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Orthodoxy), over the Chalcedonian controversy.\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church\n\nThe Armenian Apostolic Church is the second largest Oriental Orthodox Christian group in Syria. It uses an Armenian liturgy and its doctrine is Miaphysite (not monophysite, which is a mistaken term used or was used by the Chalcedonian Catholics and Chalcedonian Orthodox).\n\nCatholic Church\n\nOf the Eastern Catholic Churches, the oldest is the Maronite, with ties to Rome dating at least from the twelfth century. Their status before then is unclear, some claiming it originally held to the Monothelite heresy up until 1215, while the Maronite Church claims it has always been in union with Rome. The liturgy is celebrated in Aramaic (Syriac).\n\nThe Patriarchate of Antioch never recognized the mutual excommunications of Rome and Constantinople of 1054, so it was canonically still in union with both. After a disputed patriarchal election in 1724, it divided into two groups, one in union with Rome and the other with Constantinople. The term \"Melkite\" is in use mostly in reference to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Like its sister-church, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch ('Eastern Orthodox'), the Melkite Catholic Church uses both Greek and Arabic in its form of the liturgy. Most of the 375,000 Catholics in Syria belong to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the rest are members of the Latin Church, Maronites (52,000), Armenian or Syriac Rites.\n\nPopes of the Catholic Church\n\nSeven popes from Syria ascended the papal throne.[27][28] Many of them lived in Italy. Pope Gregory III[29][30] was the last pope born outside Europe until Francis was elected in 2013.\n\nNumerical order\n\nPontificate\n\nPortrait\n\nName\nEnglish · Regnal\n\nPersonal name\n\nPlace of birth\n\nNotes\n\n1\n\n33 - 64/67\n\nSt Peter\nPETRUS\n\nSimon Peter\n\nBethsaida, Galilea, Roman Empire\n\nSaint Peter was from village of Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire\n\n11\n\n155 to 166\n\nSt Anicetus\nANICETUS\n\nAnicitus\n\nEmesa, Syria\n\nTraditionally martyred; feast day 17 April\n\n82\n\n12 July 685\n - 2 August 686\n(1 year+)\n\nJohn V\nPapa IOANNES Quintus\n\nAntioch, Syria\n\n84\n\n15 December 687\n - 8 September 701\n(3 year+)\n\nSt Sergius I\nPapa Sergius \n\nSicily, Italy\n\nSergius I was born in Sicily, but he was from Syrian parentage[31]\n\n87\n\n15 January 708\n to 4 February 708\n(21 days)\n\nSisinnius\nPapa SISINNIUS\n\nSyria\n\n88\n\n25 March 708\n- 9 April 715\n(7 years+)\n\nConstantine\nPapa COSTANTINUS sive CONSTANTINUS\n\nSyria\n\nLast pope to visit Greece while in office, until John Paul II in 2001\n\n90\n\n18 March 731\n to 28 November 741\n(10 years+)\n\nSt Gregory III\nPapa GREGORIUS Tertius\n\nSyria\n\nThird pope to bear the same name as his immediate predecessor.\n\nProtestant Churches\n\nIn Syria, there is also a minority of Protestants. Protestantism was introduced by European missionaries and a small number of Syrians are members of Protestant denominations. The Gustav-Adolf-Werk (GAW) as the Protestant Church in Germany Diaspora agency actively supports persecuted Protestant Christians in Syria with aid projects.[32] A 2015 study estimates some 2,000 Muslim converted to Christianity in Syria, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism.[33]\n\nBy one estimate made by Elisabe Granli from University of Oslo, around 1,920 Syrian Druze converted to Christianity,[34] according to the same study Christian of Druze background (Druze converts to Christianity) still regard themselves as Druze,[34] and they claim that there is no contradiction between being Druze and being Christian.[34]\n\nDemographics\n\nThe number of Christians in Syria has been disputed for many decades. There has been no official census on religion in Syria since the 1960s.\n\nChristianity in Syria 1956[35]\n\nEastern Orthodoxy (mainly Antiochian Greeks) (35.7%)\n\nOriental Orthodoxy (mostly Armenians and Syriacs) (33.3%)\n\nCatholic Church (both Easterns and Latins) (26.2%)\n\nProtestantism (2.46%)\n\nChurch of the East (2.31%)\n\nChristianity in Syria\n\n1943[36]\n\n% of population\n\n1944[37]\n\n1945[38]\n\n1948[37]\n\n1953[39]\n\n% of population\n\n1956[35]\n\nGreek Orthodox\n\n136 957\n\n4,79\n\n139 265\n\n149 706\n\n168 747\n\n4,62\n\n181 750\n\nGreek Catholics\n\n46 733\n\n1,63\n\n47 522\n\n50 423\n\n55 880\n\n1,53\n\n60 124\n\nArmenians\n\nOrthodox\n\n101 747\n\n3,56\n\n103 180\n\n106 298\n\n110 594\n\n3,03\n\n114 041\n\nCatholics\n\n16 790\n\n0,59\n\n17 072\n\n17 706\n\n19 492\n\n0,53\n\n20 637\n\nTotal Armenians\n\n118 537\n\n4,15\n\n120 252\n\n121 310\n\n124 004\n\n130 086\n\n3,56\n\n134 678\n\nAssyrians\n\nSyriac Orthodox\n\n40 135\n\n1,40\n\n40 994\n\n43 652\n\n51 363\n\n1,40\n\n55 343\n\nSyriac Catholics\n\n16 247\n\n0,57\n\n16 562\n\n17 830\n\n19 738\n\n0,54\n\n20 716\n\nACOE\n\n9 176\n\n0,32\n\n9 215\n\n9 690\n\n11 176\n\n0,31\n\n11 760\n\nChaldeans\n\n4 719\n\n0,16\n\n4 765\n\n5 022\n\n5 492\n\n0,15\n\n5 723\n\nTotal Assyrians\n\n70 277\n\n2,45\n\n71 536\n\n76 194\n\n87 769\n\n2,40\n\n93 542\n\nMaronites\n\n13 349\n\n0,47\n\n13 621\n\n14 797\n\n16 530\n\n0,45\n\n19 291\n\nLatin Catholics\n\n5 996\n\n0,21\n\n6 083\n\n6 323\n\n6 749\n\n0,18\n\n7 079\n\nProtestants\n\n11 187\n\n0,39\n\n11 379\n\n12 433\n\n13 209\n\n0,36\n\n12 535\n\nTotal Christians\n\n403 036\n\n14,09\n\n409 658\n\n414 911\n\n433 880\n\n478 970\n\n13,10\n\n508 999\n\nTotal\n\n2 860 411\n\n100,00\n\n2 901 316\n\n2 949 919\n\n3 092 703\n\n3 655 904\n\n100,00\n\nStatus of Christians in Syria\n\nDamascus was one of the first regions to receive Christianity during the ministry of St Peter. There were more Christians in Damascus than anywhere else. With the military expansion of the Islamic Umayyad empire into Syria and Anatolia, non-Muslims who retained their native faiths were required to pay a tax (jizya) equivalent to the Islamic Zakat, and were permitted to own land; they were, however, not eligible for Islamic social welfare as Muslims were.[40]\n\nDamascus still contains a sizeable proportion of Christians, with some churches all over the city, but particularly in the district of Bab Touma (The Gate of Thomas in Aramaic and Arabic). Masses are held every Sunday and civil servants are given Sunday mornings off to allow them to attend church, even though Sunday is a working day in Syria. Schools in Christian-dominated districts have Saturday and Sunday as the weekend, while the official Syrian weekend falls on Friday and Saturday.\n\nIntegration\n\nChristians engage in every aspect of Syrian life and Syrian Christians are relatively wealthy and more highly educated than other Syrian religious groups.[22] Following in the traditions of Paul, who practiced his preaching and ministry in the marketplace, Syrian Christians are participants in the economy, the academic, scientific, engineering, arts, and intellectual life, entertainment, and the Politics of Syria. Many Syrian Christians are public sector and private sector managers and directors, while some are local administrators, members of Parliament, and ministers in the government. A number of Syrian Christians are also officers in the armed forces of Syria. They have preferred to mix in with Muslims rather than form all-Christian units and brigades, and fought alongside their Muslim compatriots against Israeli forces in the various Arab-Israeli conflicts of the 20th century. In addition to their daily work, Syrian Christians also participate in volunteer activities in the less developed areas of Syria. As a result, Syrian Christians are generally viewed by other Syrians as an asset to the larger community.\nIn September 2017, the deputy Hammouda Sabbagh, a Syriac Orthodox Christian and member of the Ba'ath Party, was elected speaker of parliament with 193 votes out of 252.[41]\n\nSeparation\n\nSyrian Christians are more urbanized than Muslims; many live either in or around Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, or Latakia. In the 18th century, Christians were relatively wealthier than Muslims in Aleppo.[42][43] Syrian Christians have their own courts that deal with civil cases like marriage, divorce and inheritance based on Bible teachings.\n\nThe Constitution of Syria states that the President of Syria has to be a Muslim;[18] this was as a result of popular demand at the time the constitution was written. However, until recently Syria did not profess a state religion.\n\nOn 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented the new constitution (after reaching power through a military coup in 1970), which led to a national crisis. Unlike previous constitutions, this one did not require that the president of Syria to be of the Islamic faith, leading to fierce demonstrations in Hama, Homs and Aleppo organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the ulama. They labeled Assad as the \"enemy of Allah\" and called for a jihad against his rule.[44] Robert D. Kaplan has compared Assad's coming to power to \"a Jew becoming tsar in Russia - an unprecedented development shocking to the Sunni majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries.\"[45]\n\nThe government survived a series of armed revolts by Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982.\n\nFreedom of religion in the 2020s\n\nIn 2023, the country was scored 2 out of 4 for religious freedom,[46] with the government controlling the appointment of Muslim religious leaders, restricted proselytizing, a ban on conversion of Muslims and active terror threats.\n\nIn the same year, the country was ranked as the 12th most difficult place in the world to be a Christian.[47]\n\nIn 2025, during a conference in Rome, organised by pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Jacques Maurad, of Homs, described the current status of Christians in Syria, saying: \"The Syrian people continue to suffer violence, reprisals, and tragic and regrettable events that undermine all the international claims and popular demands to put an end to this bloodbath. We are become more and more like Afghanistan. We don’t have that level of violence yet, but we’re not that far off either. People are under all sorts of pressure. Don’t think we are heading towards greater freedom, religious or otherwise”.[48]\n\nChristian Communities\n\nChristians spread throughout Syria and have sizable populations in some cities/areas; important cities/areas are:\n\nAleppo - has the largest Christian population of various denominations (mostly ethnic Armenians and Assyrians. Also members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and Melkite Greek Catholic Church)\n\nDamascus - contains sizable Christian communities of all Christian denominations represented in the country\n\nHoms - has the second largest Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch)\n\nWadi al-Nasara or Valley of Christians - has a sizable Christian population in the area (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch)\n\nSafita - has a sizable Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch)\n\nMaaloula - has a sizable Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and Melkite Catholic Church)\n\nSaidnaya - has a sizable Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch)\n\nTartous - has a sizable Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch)\n\nLatakia - has a sizable Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch)\n\nSuwayda - has a sizable Christian population (mostly members of Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and Melkite Greek Catholic Church)\n\nAl-Hasakah - has a large ethnic Assyrian population (mostly members of Syriac Orthodox Church)\n\nQamishli - has a large ethnic Assyrian population (mostly members of Syriac Orthodox Church)\n\nKhabur River - 35 villages has a large ethnic Assyrian population (mostly members of the Assyrian Church of the East)\n\nHama Governorate - has a number of Christian towns/cities/villages (Maharda, Al-Suqaylabiyah, Kafr Buhum, Toumin, Ayyo, Al-Biyah, Ain Halaqim, Barshin, Al-Bayda, Hazzour). Christians also live in the city of Hama\n\nIdlib Governorate - has five Christian villages between the Orontes river and the Turkish frontier (Al-Quniyah, Al-Yacoubiyah, Judayda, Hallouz and Al-Ghassaniyah). Christians also live in the cities of Idlib and Jisser al-Shughour.[49]\n\nDaraa Governorate - several Christian towns and villages at the western side of the Lajat: Izra, Khabab, Bassir, Tubna, Al-Masmiyah and Shaqra, in addition to Ghasm and Rakhm in the southeastern part of the Governorate[50]\n\nSyrian Christians during the Syrian civil war\n\nSyrian Christians, in line with their fellow citizens, have been badly affected by the Syrian civil war. According to Syrian law, all Syrian men of adult age with brothers are eligible for military conscription, including Christians.[51][52]\n\nChristian population in Syria has significantly diminished due to the departure of many Christians from the country amidst the civil war.[53] In the first five years after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, at least half of Syria's Christians had left the country,[8][54] but as the situation began to stabilize in 2017 following recent army gains, return of electricity and water to many areas and stability returning to many government controlled regions, some Christians began returning to Syria, most notably in the city of Homs.[55][56][57] Assyrian Democratic Organization (ADO), an Assyrian opposition group affiliated with the Syrian National Revolutionary Coalition (SNRC), estimated that approximately two-thirds of Syrian Christians had left the country by 2021. The estimate was also verified by other Christian organizations in Syria.[58]\n\nDuring the civil war, several attacks by ISIS have targeted Syrian Christians, including the 2015 al-Qamishli bombings and the July 2016 Qamishli bombings. In January 2016, YPG militias conducted a surprise attack on Assyrian checkpoints in Qamishli, in a predominantly Assyrian area, killing one Assyrian and wounding three others.[59][60]\nMore than 120 churches and Christian places of worship have been destroyed since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.[61]\nIn November 2021, the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs in Raqqa's city center was rebuilt by the aid group called the Free Burma Rangers.[62][63]\n\nFollowing a visit to Syria, to participate in a conference that brought together representatives of the Syrian churches and NGOs working with them in the country, Regina Lynch, project director for Aid to the Church in Need, described the difficult situation the local communities endure, but added that \"for many Christians, the war has had a positive effect on the faith, and, in spite of everything, it has been an opportunity for the Church to put its teaching on charity and forgiveness into action\".[64]\n\nProminent Christian figures have been involved in revolutionary activities of the Syrian opposition; through peaceful demonstrations as well as armed resistance. After the deadly clampdown launched by Assad regime deteriorated into a civil war, many Christians volunteered in various humanitarian organizations like the Syrian Civil Defence. As of 2019, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, around 61% of churches damaged in the Syrian civil war has been targeted by pro-Ba'athist forces. Also according to the SNHR, out of 124 documented incidents of violence against Christian religious centres between 2011 and 2019; 75 attacks were perpetrated by militant forces loyal to the Assad regime and 33 by various factions of the opposition.[65][66][67]\n\nThe US department of state and “various humans rights organizations” have criticized the regime for deliberately launching large-scale attacks on Christian churches and arresting Christian citizens.[68] In April 2013, Gregorios Ibrahim, the Archbishop of Syrian Orthodox Church in Aleppo, lamenting the vast exodus of a third of Syria's Christians from Syria, as well as indiscriminate attacks on Syrian cities and civilian areas since the civil war began.[69][70] A week after issuing the statement, the Archbishop was abducted and has remained missing ever since; allegedly by Al-Nusra Front before being handed over to ISIS.[71] Ba'athist regime has also passed a discriminatory military conscription law which enables government authorities to seize properties of Syrians and their families accused of draft evasion. The law disproportionately targets Sunni and Christian families across Syria, who constitute the vast majority of the Syrian refugee population.[18]\n\nAccording to various reports, the total population of Syrian Christians residing in Syria has been reduced from 1.5 million before 2011 to around 300,000 as of 2022 (less than 2% of population). Rather than the persecution by IS during 2014-17, the decline has been mainly due to large-scale emigration of native Christians due to subsequent deterioration of living conditions in the war-torn country. Many rural and young Christians view emigration to Europe as a way to advance career opportunities in education and employment, in addition to providing better prospects for their families.[72][73][23]\n\nAfter the fall of the Assad regime\n\nFollowing the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the Syrian Transitional Government, despite being composed of Islamists, vowed to respect the Christians and other religious denominations in Syria.[74][75] However, in the weeks following HTS taking power, numerous reports emerged of Christians, among other minorities, being persecuted in Syria.[76] An unknown number of non-Alawite religious minorities, including Christians, were also targeted and killed in massacres of Syrian Alawites during clashes in western Syria in March 2025,[77] with many fleeing their villages to the mountains.[78]\n\nOn 22 June 2025, at least one attacker opened fire and detonated an explosive device inside the Greek Orthodox Mar Elias Church during Divine Liturgy in Damascus, Syria, killing at least 30 people and injuring 54 others. The Syrian Ministry of Interior said the Islamic State was responsible for the suicide attack, while Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah claimed responsibility.[79]\n\nDuring the southern Syria clashes in July 2025, the churches in the villages of As-Sawra al-Kabira, Rudaymat al-Liwa, Taara and Ad-Duwayra in Suwayda Governorate were robbed, vandalized, and burned by members of the Defence and Interior Ministries, along with armed Bedouin men.[80] According to international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, 38 houses belonging to Christian families were set on fire and a bomb attack was prevented at a Maronite church in Tartus.[81]\n\nNotable Christians\n\nFares al-Khoury, Prime Minister of Syria (1944-1945) and (1954-1955)\n\nMikhail Ilyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1945)\n\nMichel Aflaq, philosopher and politician\n\nSami al-Jundi, politician\n\nMikhail Wehbe, Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations (1996-2003)\n\nIbrahim Haddad, Minister of Oil and Mineral Reserves (2001-2006)\n\nDawoud Rajiha, Minister of Defence (2011-2012)\n\nHammouda Sabbagh, Speaker of the People's Council of Syria (2017-2024)\n\nGeorge Sabra, politician\n\nHind Kabawat, politician\n\nPhilip Stamma, chess player\n\nMary Ajami, poet and pioneering feminist writer\n\nYohanna Ibrahim, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop and kidnapping victim\n\nPaul (Yazigi) of Aleppo, Greek Orthodox Archbishop and kidnapping victim\n\nPaul of Aleppo, chronicler\n\nBassem Yakhour, actor\n\nKosai Khauli, actor\n\nDima Kandalaft, actor\n\nGeorge Wassouf, singer\n\nNassif Zeytoun, singer\n\nGeorge Tutunjian, singer\n\nLena Chamamyan, singer\n\nFaia Younan, singer\n\nPaul Anka, American-Syrian singer\n\nNouri Iskandar, composer\n\nZeina Yazigi, journalist\n\nGhada Shouaa, heptathlete\n\nSee also\n\nArab Christians\n\nAnglican Diocese of Jerusalem\n\nChristianity and Islam\n\nNational Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon\n\nChristianity in the Middle East\n\nReligion in the Middle East\n\nGenocide of Christians by the Islamic State\n\nSectarianism and minorities in the Syrian Civil War\n\n1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus\n\nMassacre of Aleppo (1850)\n\nGreat Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915-1918)\n\nLate Ottoman genocides\n\nReligion in Syria\n\nFreedom of religion in Syria\n\nCatholic Church in Syria\n\nEastern Orthodoxy in Syria\n\nList of monasteries in Syria\n\nList of churches in Aleppo\n\nSt Baradates\n\nThe Ascetical Homilies of Isaac the Syrian\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Heath, Victoria (12 December 2024). \"Exploring Syria's religious landscape\". 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Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.\n\n^ al-Salem, Majd (22 June 2023). \"Emigration empties Qamishli of its Christian people\". Enab Baladi. Archived from the original on 15 July 2023.\n\n^ John Platts (1825). A new universal biography, containing interesting accounts. Printed for Sherwood, Jones, and co. p. 479.\n\n^ Archibald Bower, Samuel Hanson Cox (1845). The History of the Popes: From the Foundation of the See of Rome to A.D. 1758; with an Introd. and a Continuation to the Present Time, Volume 2. p. 14.\n\n^ John Platts (1825). A New Universal Biography: Forming the first volume of series. p. 483.\n\n^ Pierre Claude François Daunou (1838). The Power of the Popes. Tims. p. 352.\n\n^ \"Saint Sergius I | pope\". Archived from the original on 3 May 2015. 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London: Oxford University Press. pp. 76.\n\n^ a b Samir Abdoh, \"[2] Archived 2022-11-30 at the Wayback Machine\", Christian Denominations in Syria, year 2003, p.37-39\n\n^ Fauzi Mardam Bek, \"[3] Archived 2022-01-26 at the Wayback Machine\", Die christliche Minderheit in Syrien, yeae 2003, p.392-393\n\n^ Etienne de Vaumas, \"La population de la Syrie Archived 2018-05-04 at the Wayback Machine\", Annales de géographie, Année 1955, Vol. 64, n° 341, p.75\n\n^ al-Jawziyyah, Ibn Qayyim (2008). Ahkam Ahl al-Dhimmah. Vol. 1. Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm. p. 121.\n\n^ \"Un chrétien élu à la tête du Parlement syrien\". 28 September 2017. Archived from the original on 31 July 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2017.\n\n^ Saint Terzia Church in Aleppo Christians in Aleppo (in Arabic) Archived 30 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ BBC News Guide: Christians in the Middle East Archived 11 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, last update 15 December 2005.\n\n^ Alianak, Sonia (2007). Middle Eastern Leaders and Islam: A Precarious Equilibrium. Peter Lang. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-8204-6924-9.\n\n^ Kaplan, Robert (February 1993). \"Syria: Identity Crisis\". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2017.\n\n^ \"Freedom House website, retrieved 2023-08-08\". Archived from the original on 19 March 2022. Retrieved 9 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Open Doors website, retrieved 2023-08-08\". Archived from the original on 5 October 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2023.\n\n^ Burgos, Xavier (30 October 2025). \"Archbishop Mourad: \"The Church in Syria is dying. There is no freedom, religious or otherwise\"\". ACN International. Retrieved 10 November 2025.\n\n^ \"تقرير الطائفة المسيحية في إدلب\". 15 April 2010. Archived from the original on 6 February 2022. Retrieved 6 February 2022.\n\n^ Muhammad, Ihsan (9 March 2022). \"قرى مسيحية في درعا تفتقر للجيل الشاب وعائلات تسعى للهجرة\". NPA Syria. Archived from the original on 19 October 2023. 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ACN International. 30 March 2022. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.\n\n^ Yamin, Moubayed, Barq, Stifo, Bahnan, Samira, Mirna, George (5 September 2017). \"Don't be fooled: Assad is no friend of Syria's Christian minorities\". The Hill. Archived from the original on 12 March 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"The Syrian Regime Bears Primary Responsibility for 61% of the Targeting of Christian Places of Worship in Syria\". SNHR. 5 September 2019. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022.\n\n^ \"Targeting Christian Places of Worship in Syria: 63% have been targeted by government's forces\". reliefweb. 7 May 2015. Archived from the original on 24 July 2015.\n\n^ \"2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Syria\". U.S. Department of State. 2023. Archived from the original on 3 June 2023. Reports also stated that the authorities used sectarianism, including the politicization of religion, as a \"survival strategy.\".. human rights organizations reported that the regime intentionally destroyed churches and detained at least hundreds of Christian citizens.\n\n^ Fahmi, Dr Georges. \"Most Syrian Christians Aren't Backing Assad (or the Rebels)\". Chatham House. Archived from the original on 20 March 2021.\n\n^ \"لمطران حنا إبراهيم في حلب بسوريا: ثلث المسيحيين هاجروا منذ بدء الانتفاضة\" [Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim in Aleppo, Syria: A third of Christians have emigrated since the start of the uprising]. BBC News Arabic. 13 April 2013. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021.\n\n^ \"Rewards for Justice - Acts of Terror - ISIS Kidnapping Networks\". 31 December 2020. Archived from the original on 31 December 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Report: Number of Christians in Syria Dropped from 1.5 Million to 300,000\". Syria Observer. 18 November 2022. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023.\n\n^ \"News\". ACN United States. 16 November 2022. Archived from the original on 15 July 2023.\n\n^ Paveley, Rebecca (11 December 2024). \"Christians in Syria remain cautious after overthrow of Assad regime\". Church Times. Retrieved 15 December 2024.\n\n^ El Chamaa, Mohamad; Georges, Salwan. \"For Syria's Christians, Christmas is a time to grapple with hope and fear\". Washington Post. Retrieved 25 December 2024.\n\n^ Shepardson, David (28 December 2024). \"HTS Orders its Militants to Stop Posting Videos of Crimes Against Christians and Alawites\". London Insider. Retrieved 28 December 2024.\n\n^ Taheri, Mandy (8 March 2025). \"Hundreds of minorities, including Christians, killed in Syria-Reports\". Newsweek. Retrieved 8 March 2025.\n\n^ \"More than 1,000 killed in Syrian crackdown on Alawite region, war monitor says\". Reuters. 8 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Deadly church attack raises security fears for Syrians, minorities\".\n\n^ \"Worship places violence | Druze shrines, churches, and mosque targeted in Al-Suwaydaa - The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights\". Archived from the original on 25 August 2025. Retrieved 10 September 2026.\n\n^ Lozano, María (16 July 2025). \"New Wave of Violence Against Christian Communities in Syria: Greek-Catholic Church Attacked and Bomb Plot Foiled at Maronite Church\". ACN International. Retrieved 28 August 2025.\n\nFurther reading\n\nDick, Iganatios (2004). Melkites: Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics of the Patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem. Roslindale, MA: Sophia Press. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 26 February 2021.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2001). \"Melkites, Jacobites and the Christological Controversies in Arabic in Third/Ninth-Century Syria\". Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand Years. Leiden: Brill. pp. 9-55. ISBN 9004120556.\n\nGrillmeier, Aloys; Hainthaler, Theresia (2013). Christ in Christian Tradition: The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch from 451 to 600. Vol. 2/3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-921288-0.\n\nLeonhardt, Christoph (2018). \"The Greek- and the Syriac-Orthodox Patriarchates of Antioch in the Context of the Syrian Conflict\" (PDF). Chronos: Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 33: 21-54. doi:10.31377/chr.v33i0.92 (inactive 1 July 2025). S2CID 54732620. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 March 2019.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563. Archived from the original on 28 September 2024. Retrieved 26 February 2021.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2008). \"The East: Syria and Mesopotamia\". The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 365-386. ISBN 978-0-19-927156-6.\n\nExternal links\n\nEuropean Centre for Law and Justice (2011): The Persecution of Oriental Christians, what answer from Europe?"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christianity-in-syria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6684}, {"slug": "reference-hunayn-ibn-ishaq", "title": "Hunayn ibn Ishaq", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (808-873; also Hunain or Hunein; Arabic: أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; ʾAbū Zayd Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq al-ʿIbādī; known in Latin as Johannitius) was an influential Iraqi[2] Arab Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hunayn ibn Ishaq\n\nIluminure from the Hunayn ibn-Ishaq al-'Ibadi manuscript of the Isagoge\n\nBorn808 AD\nAl-Hirah, Iraq\n\nDied873 AD\nBaghdad, Abbasid Caliphate[1]\n\nAcademic work\n\nEraIslamic Golden Age\n\nMain interestsTranslation, ophthalmology, philosophy, religion, Arabic grammar\n\nNotable worksBook of the Ten Treatises of the Eye\n\nInfluencedIshaq ibn Hunayn\n\nHunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (808-873; also Hunain or Hunein; Arabic: أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; ʾAbū Zayd Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq al-ʿIbādī; known in Latin as Johannitius) was an influential Iraqi[2] Arab Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he worked with a group of translators, among whom were Abū 'Uthmān al-Dimashqi, Ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhti, and Thābit ibn Qurra, to translate books of philosophy and classical Greek and Persian texts into Arabic and Syriac.[3]\n\nḤunayn ibn Isḥaq was his era's most productive translator of Greek medical and scientific treatises. He studied Greek and became known as the \"Sheikh of the Translators\".[4] He mastered four languages: Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Persian. Later translators widely followed Hunayn's method. He was originally from al-Hirah, previously the capital of the Lakhmid kingdom, but worked in Baghdad, the center of the Translation movement. His fame went far beyond the local community.[5]\n\nOverview\n\nIn the Abbasid era, a new interest in extending the study of Greek science had arisen. At that time, there was a vast amount of untranslated ancient Greek literature pertaining to philosophy, mathematics, natural science, and medicine.[6][7] This valuable information was only accessible to a very small minority of Middle Eastern scholars who knew the Greek language; the need for an organized translation movement was urgent.\n\nIn time, Hunayn ibn Ishaq became arguably the chief translator of the era, and laid the foundations of Islamic medicine.[6] In his lifetime,Hunayn Ibn Ishaq translated countless works, including Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's Metaphysics, and the Old Testament, into Syriac and Arabic.[7][8] He personally translated 129 works of Galen himself, even travelling to find one, De demonstratione which he found half of in Damascus.[9] Ibn Ishaq also produced 36 of his own books, 21 of which covered the field of medicine.[8] His son Ishaq, and his nephew Hubaysh, worked together with him at times to help translate. Hunayn ibn Ishaq is known for his translations, his method of translation, and his contributions to medicine.[7] He has also been suggested by François Viré to be the true identity of the Arabic falconer Moamyn, author of De Scientia Venandi per Aves.[10] Hunayn Ibn Ishaq was a translator at the House of Wisdom, Bayt al-Hikma, where he received his education. In the West, another name he is known by his Latin name, Joannitius.[4] It was the translations that came from administrative and legal materials gathered that lead to understanding of how to build up Arabic as the new official language.[11]\n\nEarly life\n\nHunayn ibn Ishaq was an Arab Nestorian, born in 808, during the Abbasid period, in al-Hirah, to an ethnic Arab family and Arab tribe of Ibad.[12][13][14][15][16][17] Hunayn in classical sources is said to have belonged to the ʿIbad, thus his nisba \"al-Ibadi.[18][19] The ʿIbad was an Arab community composed of different Arab tribes that had once converted to the Church of the East and lived in al-Hira.[20][21] They were known for their literacy and multilingualism, being fluent in Syriac, their liturgical and cultural language, in addition to their native Arabic.[22][23][24]\n\nAs a child, he learned the Syriac and Arabic languages. Although al-Hira was known for commerce and banking, and his father was a pharmacist, Hunayn went to Baghdad in order to study medicine. In Baghdad, Hunayn had the privilege to study under renowned physician Yuhanna ibn Masawayh; however, Hunayn's countless questions irritated Yuhanna, causing him to scold Hunayn and forcing him to leave. Hunayn promised himself to return to Baghdad when he became a physician. He went abroad to master the Greek language. On his return to Baghdad, Hunayn displayed his newly acquired skills by reciting the works of Homer and Galen. In awe, ibn Masawayh reconciled with Hunayn, and the two started to work cooperatively.[25]\n\nHunayn was extremely motivated in his work to master Greek studies, which enabled him to translate Greek texts into Syriac and Arabic. The Abbasid Caliph al-Mamun noticed Hunayn's talents and placed him in charge of the House of Wisdom, the Bayt al Hikmah. The House of Wisdom was an institution where Greek works were translated and made available to scholars.[26] (At least one scholar has argued that there is no evidence of Hunayn being placed in charge of the Bayt al Hikmah.[27]) The caliph also gave Hunayn the opportunity to travel to Byzantium in search of additional manuscripts, such as those of Aristotle and other prominent authors.[25]\n\nAccomplishments\n\nIn Hunayn ibn Ishaq's lifetime, he devoted himself to working on a multitude of writings; both translations and original works.[25]\n\nAs a writer of original work\n\nHunayn wrote on a variety of subjects that included philosophy, religion and medicine. In \"How to Grasp Religion\", Hunayn explains the truths of religion that include miracles not possibly made by huhimans and humans' incapacity to explain facts about some phenomena, and false notions of religion that include depression and an inclination for glory. He also worked on Arabic grammar and lexicography,[25] writing a unique grammar of the Arabic language titled \"The Rules of Inflexion According to the System of the Greeks.\"[28]\n\nOphthalmology\n\nHunayn ibn Ishaq enriched the field of ophthalmology. His developments in the study of the human eye can be traced through his innovative book, \"Book of the Ten Treatises of the Eye\". This textbook is the first known systematic treatment of this field and was most likely used in medical schools at the time. Throughout the book, Hunayn explains the eye and its anatomy in minute detail; its diseases, their symptoms, and their treatments. Hunayn repeatedly emphasizes that he believes the crystalline lens to be in the center of the eye, and may have been the originator of this idea, which was widely believed from his lifetime through the late 1500s.[29]\nHe discusses the nature of cysts and tumors, and the swelling they cause. He discusses how to treat various corneal ulcers through surgery, and the therapy involved in repairing cataracts. The book is evidence of the skills Hunayn ibn Ishaq had not just as a translator and a physician, but also as a surgeon.[8]\n\nAs a physician\n\nHunayn ibn Ishaq's reputation as a scholar and translator, and his close relationship with Caliph al-Mutawakkil, led the caliph to name Hunayn as his personal physician, ending the exclusive use of physicians from the Bukhtishu family.[25] Despite their relationship, the caliph became distrustful; at the time, there were fears of death from poisoning, and physicians were well aware of its synthesis procedure. The caliph tested Hunayn's ethics as a physician by asking him to formulate a poison, to be used against a foe, in exchange for a large sum. Hunayn ibn Ishaq repeatedly rejected the Caliph's generous offers, saying he would need time to develop a poison. Disappointed, the caliph imprisoned his physician for a year. When asked why he would rather be killed than make the drug, Hunayn explained the physician's oath required him to help, and not harm, his patients.[26] He completed many different medical works that pushed the idea of treating medicine with the practice and art of physic treatments. Some of his medical works were pulled from Greek sources such as, Fi Awja al-Ma'idah (On Stomach Ailments) and al-Masail fi'l-Tibb li'l-Muta'allimin (Questions on Medicine for Students) and having these sources to drawn on keeps the original text clear.[30]\n\nAs a translator\n\nWith the construction of the House of Wisdom, the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun wanted to have a place to gather world knowledge from Muslim and non-Muslim educators. Hunayn ibn Ishaq was one of the most well-known translators at the institution and was called the sheikh of the translators, as he mastered the four principal languages of the time: Greek, Persian, Arabic, and Syriac. He was able to translate compositions on philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and even in subjects such as magic and oneiromancy.[4] Nonetheless, none of his extant translations credit the House of Wisdom, which questions the legitimacy of whether this place actually was the origin of the Translation Movement.[31] He laid down the basis of accurate translating techniques, which was extremely important for the accurate transmission of knowledge.[32][33]\n\nSome of Hunayn's most notable translations were his rendering of \"De Materia Medica\", a pharmaceutical handbook, and his most popular selection, \"Questions on Medicine\",[7] a guide for novice physicians. Information was presented in the form of questions taken from Galen's \"Art of Physic\" and answers, which are based on \"Summaria Alexandrinorum\". For instance, Hunayn explains what the four elements and the four humors are and that medicine divides into therapy and practice and also defines health, disease, neutrality, and as well as the natural and the contranatural, and the six necessary conditions of living healthily.[25]\n\nHunayn translated writings on agriculture, stones, and religion and also some of Plato's and Aristotle's works, in addition to commentaries. He also translated many medicinal texts and summaries, mainly those of Galen, such as Galen's \"On Sects\" and \"On the Anatomy of the Veins and Arteries\".[25] His translations are some of the only remaining documents of Greek manuscripts, and he helped influence the art of medicine, and through his book al-'Ashar Maqalat fi'l-Ayn (The Ten Treatises on the Eye) he helped to expand the science of ophthalmology through theory and practice.[4]\n\nMany R. Duval's published works on chemistry represent translations of Hunayn's work.[34] Also in Chemistry a book titled ['An Al-Asma'] meaning \"About the Names\", did not reach researchers but was used in \"Dictionary of Ibn Bahlool\" of the 10th century.\n\nTranslation techniques\n\nIn his efforts to translate Greek material, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was accompanied by his son Ishaq ibn Hunayn and his nephew Hubaysh. Hunayn would translate Greek into Syriac, and then he would have his nephew finish by translating the text from Syriac to Arabic, after which he then would seek to correct any of his partners' mistakes or inaccuracies he might find.[7][35]\n\nUnlike many translators in the Abbasid period, he largely did not try to follow the text's exact lexicon. Instead, he would try to summarize the topics of the original texts and then in a new manuscript paraphrase it in Syriac or Arabic.[7] He also edited and redacted the available texts of technical works by comparing the information included therein with other works on similar subjects.[25] Thus, his renditions may be seen as interpretations of medical, astronomical, and philosophical texts after researching the topics over which they range.[7][36] Some scholars argue Hunayn's approach differed from previous translators through his commentaries on the subject and was influenced by Galen's ideas along the way.[37]\n\nHunayn says:[38][33]\n\nGalen's works were translated before me by a certain Bin Sahda ... When I was young I translated them from a faulty Greek manuscript. Later when I was forty, my pupil Hubaish asked me to correct the translation. Meanwhile a number of manuscripts had accumulated in my possession. I collated these manuscripts and produced a single correct copy. Next I collated the Syriac text with it and corrected it. I am in the habit of doing this with everything I translate.\n\nSelected translations\n\n\"Kitab ila Aglooqan fi Shifa al Amraz\" - This Arabic translation, related to Galen's Commentary, by Hunayn ibn Ishaq, is extant in the Library of Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences. It is a masterpiece of all the literary works of Galen. It is part of the Alexandrian compendium of Galen's work. This manuscript from the 10th century is in two volumes that include details regarding various types of fevers (Humyat) and different inflammatory conditions of the body. More importantly, it includes details of more than 150 single and compound formulations of both herbal and animal origin. The book also provides an insight into understanding the traditions and methods of treatment in the Greek (Unani) and Roman eras.\n\nDe medica\n\nDe sectis\n\nDe ossibus ad tirones\n\nDe musculorum dissectione\n\nDe nervorum dissectione\n\nDe venarum arteriumque dissectione\n\nDe elementis secundum Hippocratem\n\nDe temperamentis\n\nDe facultibus naturalibus\n\nDe causis et symptomatibus\n\nDe locis affectis De pulsibus (four treatises)\n\nDe typis (febrium)\n\nDe crisibus\n\nDe diebus decretoriis\n\nMethodus medendi\n\nHippocrates and Dioscorides\n\nWorks\n\nKitab Adab al-Falasifa, original Arabic lost, known in medieval translation.\n\nLibro de Los Buenos Proverbios (Castilian Spanish).\n\nSefer Musré ha-Filosofim (Book of the Morals of the Philosophers), Hebrew translation of the Judeo-Andalusian poet, Juda ben Shlomo Al-Jarisi (1170-1235).[39]\n\nKayfiyyat idrāk ḥaqīqat al-diyāna [On how to discern the truth of religion].[40][41]\n\nFragments from various books interpolated or adapted\n\nGeneral History of Alfonso el Sabio (Castilian Spanish).\n\nLlibre de Saviesa of James of Aragon (Castilian Spanish).\n\nThe Pseudo Seneca (Castilian Spanish).\n\nLa Floresta de Philosophos (Castilian Spanish).\n\nEl Victorial (Castilian Spanish).\n\nBocados de Oro, taken directly from Adab al-Falasifa (Spanish).\n\nOther translated works\n\nPlato's Republic (Siyasah).\n\nAristotle's Categories (Maqulas), Physics (Tabi'iyat) and Magna Moralia (Khulqiyat).\n\nSeven books of Galen's anatomy, lost in the original Greek, preserved in Arabic.\n\nArabic version of the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint did not survive.\n\n\"Kitab al-Ahjar\" or the \"Book of Stones\".\n\nSee also\n\nBook of the Ten Treatises of the Eye (book)\n\nIshaq ibn Hunayn, Hunayn ibn Ishaq's son, also a translator and physician\n\nGalen § Influence on Islamic medicine\n\nHistory of medicine\n\nCitations\n\n^ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. \"Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq\". Encyclopedia Britannica, Invalid Date, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hunayn-ibn-Ishaq. Accessed 13 May 2023.\n\n^ Necipoğlu 2015, p. 30.\n\n^ Nadim (al-), Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq (1970). Dodge, Bayard (ed.). The Fihrist of al-Nadim; a Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Translated by Bayard Dodge. New York & London: Columbia University Press. pp. 440, 589, 1071.\n\n^ a b c d Osman, Ghada (31 December 2012). \"\"The sheikh of the translators\": The translation methodology of Hunayn ibn Ishaq\". Translation and Interpreting Studies. 7 (2): 161-175. doi:10.1075/tis.7.2.04osm. ISSN 1932-2798.\n\n^ Seleznyov, N. \"Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq in the Summa of al-Muʾtaman ibn al-ʿAssāl\" in VG 16 (2012) 38-45 [In Russian].\n\n^ a b Strohmaier 1993.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science: Islamic Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago, 2007. Print.\n\n^ a b c Opth: Azmi, Khurshid. \"Hunain bin Ishaq on Ophthalmic Surgery. \"Bulletin of the Indian Institute of History of Medicine 26 (1996): 69-74. Web. 29 October 2009\n\n^ Moller, Violet (14 April 2020). The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday. p. 38. ISBN 9780385541770. Retrieved 9 May 2025.\n\n^ François Viré, Sur l'identité de Moamin le fauconnier. Communication à l'Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, avril-juin 1967, Parigi, 1967, pp. 172-176\n\n^ El Khamloussy, Ahmed. \"Commented Translation of an Excerpt from Hunayn Ibn Ishaq's Epistle to His Patron 'Ali Ibn Yahya on the Translations of Galen.\" Order No. MM07845 University of Ottawa (Canada), 1995\n\n^ G., Strohmaier (24 April 2012). \"Ḥunayn b. Isḥāḳ al-ʿIbādī\". Encyclopaedia of Islam.\n\n^ \"Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq | Arab scholar\". Encyclopedia Britannica.\n\n^ Esposito, John L. (2000). The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 160.:\"The most famous of these translators was a Nestorian (Christian) Arab by the name of Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (808-73).\"\n\n^ Porter, Roy (2001). The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine. Cambridge University Press. p. 67.\"The major ninth-century medical figure in Baghdad was a Christian Arab, Hunain ibn Ishaq, an amazingly accurate and productive scholar, who traveled to the Greek Byzantine empire in search of rare Galenic treatises.\"\n\n^ Corbin, Henry (2014). History of Islamic Philosophy. Routledge. p. 16.:\"The latter was succeeded by one of his students, the famous and prolific Hunayn ibn Ishaq (194/ 809-260/ 873), who was born at al-Hirah into a family belonging to the Christian Arab tribe of the 'Ibad.\"\n\n^ Grmek, Mirko D.; Fantini, Bernardino (1998). Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Harvard University Press. p. 145.:\"Hunayn ibn Ishaq was able to satisfy their needs. Of Christian Arab descent, he had spent many years of his life in Byzantine territory, in pursuit of his studies, most probably in Constantinople.\"\n\n^ Selin, Helaine (2013). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 399.:\"The family nickname, al-'Ibadi, is derived from \"al-'Ibad,\" a Christian Arab tribe.\"\n\n^ Sarton, George (1927). Introduction to the History of Science. Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. 611:\"The nisba is derived from 'Ibad, the name of a Christian tribe of Arabs, established near Hira\"\n\n^ Ohlig, Karl-Heinz; Puin, Gerd-R. (2010). The hidden origins of Islam: new research into its early history. Prometheus Books. p. 32. :\"The 'Ibad are tribes made up of different Arabian families that became connected with Christianity in al-Hira.\"\n\n^ \"ḤIRA - Encyclopaedia Iranica\".:\"Ḥira became renowned for its literate population of Arab Christians, or ʿEbād [al-Masiḥ] \"devotees [of Christ]\". \"\n\n^ Yarshater, E. (1983). The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge University Press. p. 598.\"The population of Hira comprised its townspeople, the 'Ibad \"devotees\", who were Nestorian Christians using Syriac as their liturgical and cultural language, though Arabic was probably the language of daily intercourse.\"\n\n^ Milani, Milad (2014). Sufism in the Secret History of Persia. Routledge. p. 150.\"Hira was also home to the 'Ibad (\"devotees\"), who were Nestorian Christians using Syriac as their liturgical and cultural language, but Arabic for common daily use.\"\n\n^ Angelelli, Claudia V. (2014). The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 45.\"Hunayn was most likely trilingual from his youth; Arabic was the vernacular of his native town, Persian a frequently-used tongue in his region, and Syriac the language of the liturgy and of higher Christian education.\"\n\n^ a b c d e f g h \"Hunayn Ibn Ishaq\". The Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. XV. 1978. Print.\n\n^ a b Tschanz 2003.\n\n^ S. Gougenheim: Aristote au Mont-Saint-Michel, 136-137 Nemira Publishing House, Bucharest 2011, (Romanian edition)\n\n^ Vidro, Nadia (2020). \"A Book on Arabic Inflexion According to the System of the Greeks: A Lost Work by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq\". Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik. 72 (2): 26-58. doi:10.13173/zeitarabling.72.0026. S2CID 234954510.\n\n^ Leffler CT, Hadi TM, Udupa A, Schwartz SG, Schwartz D (2016). \"A medieval fallacy: the crystalline lens in the center of the eye\". Clinical Ophthalmology. 2016 (10): 649-662. doi:10.2147/OPTH.S100708. PMC 4833360. PMID 27114699.\n\n^ Iskandar, Albert Z. (2008), \"Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq\", Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 1081-1083, doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9796, ISBN 978-1-4020-4559-2, retrieved 4 December 2020\n\n^ Kalin, Ibrahim (1 March 2003). \"Dimitri Gutas: Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Ábbasid Society (Second-Fourth/Eighth-Tenth Centuries)\". Isis. 94 (1): 59. doi:10.1086/376126. ISSN 0021-1753.\n\n^ Rassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Developments to the Present Day. Gracewing. p. 84. ISBN 9780852446331.\n\n^ a b Rebhan, Helga (2010). Die Wunder der Schöpfung: Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek aus dem islamischen Kulturkreis. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 46. ISBN 9783880080058.\n\n^ Wright. Catalogue, pp. 1190-1191, MV Coll' orient, 1593\n\n^ Vagelpohl, U (2011). \"In the translator's workshop\" (PDF). Arabic Sciences and Philosophy. 21 (2): 249-288. doi:10.1017/S0957423911000038. PMC 3783994. PMID 24077025. S2CID 25275686.\n\n^ Cooper, Glen M. (2014), \"Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn: Abū Yaҁqūb Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-ҁIbādī\", Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 1094-1095, Bibcode:2014bea..book.1094C, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_704, ISBN 978-1-4419-9916-0, retrieved 4 December 2020\n\n^ Vagelpohl, U (2011). \"In the translator's workshop\" (PDF). Arabic Science and Philosophy. 21 (2): 249-288. doi:10.1017/S0957423911000038. PMC 3783994. PMID 24077025. S2CID 25275686.\n\n^ Rassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Gracewing. p. 84. ISBN 9780852446331.\n\n^ \"Testimonios Árabes de Adab Al-Falásifa\".\n\n^ Cucarella, Diego R. Sarrió (1 January 2019). \"'On how to discern the truth of religion', by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq: The impersonal recension\". Islamochristiana. 45. Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies: 155-163.\n\n^ Ishaq, Hunain ibn (2009). \"On how to discern the truth of religion\". tertullian.org. Translated by Davis, Stephen J. Retrieved 12 August 2024. Translated from Samir, Samir Khalil (1997). \"Maqālat Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq fī 'Kayfīyat idrāk ḥaqīqat al-diyāna\". Al-Mashriq (in Arabic). 71 (2): 345-363.\n\nReferences\n\nTschanz, David W. (2003). \"Hunayn bin Ishaq: The Great Translator\" (PDF). Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine: 39-40. Retrieved 7 September 2017.\n\nO'Leary, De Lacy (1949). How Greek science passed to the Arabs. London: Routledge and K. Paul.\n\nHunain ibn Ishaq, My Syriac and Arabic translations of Galen, ed. G. Bergstrasser with German translation, Leipzig (1925) (in German and Arabic)\n\nEastwood, Bruce.\"The Elements of Vision: The Micro-Cosmology of Galenic Visual Theory\"Books.Google.com\n\nNecipoğlu, Gülru (2015). \"The Scrutinizing Gaze in the Aesthetics of Islamic Visual Cultures: Sight, Insight, and Desire\". Muqarnas. 32. Brill Publishers: 23-61. JSTOR 44657311.\n\nStrohmaier, Gotthard (1993) [1991]. \"Ḥunain Ibn Isḥāq: An Arab Scholar Translating into Syriac\". ARAM. 3: 163-170. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 7 September 2017.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBrock, Sebastian P., Changing Fashions in Syriac Translation Technique: The Background to Syriac Translations under the Abbasids, Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 4 (2004): 3-14.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P., The Syriac Background to Hunayn's Translation Techniques, ARAM 3 (1991 [1993]): 139-162.\n\nCooper, Glen M., Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq's Galen Translations and Greco-Arabic Philology: Some Observations from the Crises (De crisibus) and the Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis), Oriens 44 (2016): 1-43.\n\nCooperson, Michael (1997). \"The Purported Autobiography of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq\" (PDF). Edebiyât. 7. Harwood Academic: 235-249. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 7 September 2017.\n\nEksell, Kerstin, Pragmatic Markers from Greek into Arabic: A Case Study on Translations by Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn, Studia graeco-arabica 5 (2015): 321-344.\n\nFaiq, Said. \"Medieval Arabic translation: A cultural consideration.\" Mediaevalia 26.2 (2005): 99-110.\n\nGorini, Rosanna; Shabat, Mohammed (2005). \"The Process of Origin and Growth of the Islamic Medicine: The Role of the Translators. A Glimpse on the Figure of Hunayn bin Ishaq\". Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine. 4 (8): 1-7.\n\nHaddad, Rachid (1974). \"Hunayn ibn Ishaq apologiste chrétien\". Arabica (in French). 21 (3): 292-302. doi:10.1163/157005874x00445.\n\nHealy, J. \"The Syriac-Speaking Christians and the Translation of Greek Science into Arabic.\" Muslim Heritage (2006).\n\nJohna, Samir. \"Marginalisation of ethnic and religious minorities in Middle East history of medicine: the forgotten contributions to Arabian and Islamic medicine and science.\" Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica 8.2 (2010): 203-210.\n\nLin, Daren (2008). \"A foundation of western ophthalmology in medieval Islamic medicine\" (PDF). University of Western Ontario Medical Journal. 78 (1): 41-45. Retrieved 7 September 2017.\n\nMillar, Marcia Inhorn; Lane, Sandra D. (1988). \"Ethno-ophthalmology in the Egyptian delta: An historical systems approach to ethnomedicine in the middle east\" (PDF). Social Science & Medicine. 26 (6): 651-657. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(88)90030-5. PMID 3283948.\n\nOsman, Ghada. \"The sheikh of the translators.\" The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies 66 (2014): 41.\n\nRashed, Roshdi. \"Problems of the transmission of Greek scientific thought into Arabic: Examples from mathematics and optics.\" History of science 27.2 (1989): 199-209.\n\nSa'di, Lutfi M. (1934). \"A Bio-Bibliographical Study of Hunayn Ibn is-Haq Al-Ibadi\". Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine. 2: 409-446. ProQuest 1296241043.\n\nSchrier, Omert J. (1995). \"Hunayn Ibn Isḥaq on Tragedy and Comedy: A New Fragment of Galen\". Mnemosyne. 48 (3): 344-348. JSTOR 4432506.\n\nSezgin, Fuat; Amawi, Mazin; Ehrig-Eggert, Carl; Neubauer, E. (1999). Ḥunain Ibn Isḥāq (d. 260/873): texts and studies. Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. ISBN 3-8298-6018-8.\n\nTamcke, Martin (2007). Christlich-muslimische Gespräche im Mittelalter [Christians and Muslims in dialogue in the Islamic Orient of the Middle Ages] (in German). Beirut Würzburg: Orient-Institut Ergon Verlag in Kommission. ISBN 978-3-89913-611-1.\n\nWatt, John W. (2014). \"The Syriac Translations of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and their Precursors\". In Tamcke, Martin; Grebenstein, Sven (eds.). Geschichte, Theologie und Kultur des syrischen Christentums: Beiträge zum 7. Deutschen Syrologie-Symposium in Göttingen, Dezember 2011. Göttinger Orientforschungen, I. Reihe: Syriaca 46. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 423-445.\n\nWatt, John W. (2014). \"Why Did Ḥunayn, the Master Translator into Arabic, Make Translations into Syriac? On the Purpose of the Syriac Translations of Ḥunayn and his Circle\". In Scheiner, Jens J.; Janos, Damien (eds.). The Place to Go: Contexts of Learning in Baghdād, 750-1000 C.E. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Vol. 26. Princeton, New Jersey: Darwin Press. pp. 363-388.\n\nExternal links\n\nHunain ibn Ishaq, On How to Discern the Truth of Religion - English translation\n\nAprim, Fred \"Hunein Ibn Ishak - (809-873 or 877)\"\n\n\"Hunayn Ibn Ishaq Al-'Ibadi, Abu Zaydonar Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography\". Retrieved 10 October 2014.\n\nBibliography of works on Hunain ibn Ishaq from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hunayn-ibn-ishaq"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4182}, {"slug": "reference-assyriska-ff", "title": "Assyriska FF", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyriska Fotbollsföreningen, also known simply as Assyriska FF, is a Swedish football club based in Södertälje, Stockholm County. The club, formed in 1974 by Assyrian immigrants, has advanced through the league system and is currently playing in the third highest Swedish league, Division 1. They played in the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyriska FF\n\nFull nameAssyriska Fotbollsföreningen\n\nNicknameAFF\n\nFounded1974 (1974)\n\nGroundSödertälje Fotbollsarena, Södertälje, Sweden\n\nCapacity8,500\n\nChairmanMoussa Esa\n\nManagerAbbod Kocadag\n\nLeagueEttan Fotboll\n\n2025Ettan Norra, 6th of 16\n\nHome colours\n\nAway colours\n\nAssyriska Fotbollsföreningen, also known simply as Assyriska FF, is a Swedish football club based in Södertälje, Stockholm County. The club, formed in 1974 by Assyrian immigrants, has advanced through the league system and is currently playing in the third highest Swedish league, Division 1. They played in the highest Swedish football league Allsvenskan in 2005 where their games were broadcast in over 80 countries.[1] The club has also played a final in Svenska Cupen, which was lost against IF Elfsborg in 2003.\n\nAssyriska is often viewed as a substitute national team by the Assyrian people.[1][2]\n\nThe club has a fan base from all over the world[2][3] and has also their own pop song which is called \"My Assyrian team - the team of my dream\". A documentary film about Assyriska called \"Assyriska: A National Team Without A Nation\" was also made in 2006 by Nuri Kino and Erik Sandberg. The success of the documentary film made it possible to win the Golden Palm Award at the Beverly Hills Film Festival.\n\nHistory\n\nAssyriska Föreningen in Södertälje was founded in 1971 by ethnic Assyrian refugees from Turkey who belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church. Three years later, a football team was started and played its first season in the lowest league in 1975. They advanced through the divisions and reached the second highest league, Division 1 (today replaced by Superettan), in 1992, as the first immigrant team ever. The team was however relegated in 1993, and the next few years, the club played every second year in Division 1 before managing to stay there for more than one season in 1997.\n\nIn 2003 Assyriska made it to the final in Svenska Cupen, where they lost with 0-2 against IF Elfsborg. On the way to the final, they won against IFK Göteborg with 4-1 and Djurgårdens IF with 0-4.[4]\n\nThey lost a promotion play-off against Örebro SK in 1999, but five years later, in 2004, Assyriska was promoted to Allsvenskan, the highest league, for the first time as Örebro SK was relegated due to economical problems.[5] Assyriska's debut in Allsvenskan went well in the beginning and they had a couple of notable wins against big clubs as IFK Göteborg with 0-3 and against IF Elfsborg with 1-3. However Assyriska were relegated after only one season in the Allsvenskan, where they finished last. Since then Assyriska had fallen into Division 1 North, but enjoyed a strong season in 2007 to finish champions and were promoted back into the Superettan.\n\nAt the close of the 2009 season Assyriska, having held off the challenge of rivals Syrianska FC to finish third in the Superettan table,[6] faced Djurgårdens IF in a play-off for a place in the Allsvenskan in 2010. Assyriska won the first match at home 2-0 but were overcome 3-0 after extra time in the repeat.[7][8] In season 2010, Assyriska finished 4th in the Superettan.[9] But 2010 was a season in which football became irrelevant for Assyriska after the murder of player Eddie Moussa.[10]\n\nSince then, the team has made a series of mid-table finishes and remains in the Superettan for the 2013 season.[11][12]\n\nStadium\n\nAssyriska Föreningen's primary stadium since 2006 is Södertälje Fotbollsarena. Until 2006, the team played at the old stadium Bårsta IP.\n\nSupporters\n\nAssyriska Föreningen's official fan club is called Zelge Fans. They were first started 1993 by a group of Assyriska supporters in Södertälje. They were known as Neshre, which means eagle (or eagles) in Syriac. Three months after they launched, the club changed its name to Zelge Fans, Zelge meaning \"sun rays\" in Syriac. The sun rays are a symbol of the Assyrian flag, which is where the idea to name the fan club Zelge Fans came from. Most of the members are Assyrians, but the Zelge fan club also has many Swedish members.\n\nAssyriska's fans are also growing in numbers as a result of the internet. During its early years, Assyriska did not have the mass means of communication to be able to spread their team information consistently to other mass Assyrian areas (Chicago, New Jersey, California, Toronto, Sydney, etc.). With the tech age, Assyriska has been able to spread its fan base outside of Södertälje and become known in over 80 countries. Acting as their national team, Assyriska represents the entire population of Assyrians throughout the world.[2][3]\n\nAssyriska has become a true symbol for Assyrians traveling to Sweden. Many make it their goal to watch an Assyriska match at least once when they travel to Sweden.\n\nPlayers\n\nFirst-team squad\n\nAs of 4 April, 2026[13]\n\nNote: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.\n\nNo.\n\nPos. \n\nNation\n\nPlayer\n\n1\n\nGK\n\n NGR\n\nKingdom Osayi\n\n2\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nElias Ländin\n\n3\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nLiam Tahwildaran\n\n5\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nAxel Karlsson\n\n6\n\nMF\n\n GUI\n\nAmadou Kalabane\n\n7\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nFelix Aaltonen\n\n8\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nAlfredo Nordeman\n\n11\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nAlexander Duranic\n\n12\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nSamuel Edgren\n\n13\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nKevin Jarrett\n\n14\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nViktor Widerberg\n\nNo.\n\nPos. \n\nNation\n\nPlayer\n\n15\n\nDF\n\n UKR\n\nVolodymyr Khomenko\n\n17\n\nFW\n\n NGR\n\nSamuel Nnamani\n\n18\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nLinus Hillemar\n\n19\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nNemanja Jovanovic\n\n20\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nAhmad Raouf\n\n21\n\nGK\n\n SWE\n\nLiam Rönnelöw\n\n22\n\nDF\n\n IRQ\n\nMartin Haddad\n\n23\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nVictor Åsberg\n\n24\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nAlessandro Jacob\n\n25\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nDaniil Ishchyk\n\n30\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nSerhii Ishchyk\n\nRetired numbers\n\n18 - Eddie Moussa, forward (2001-2010)\n\nNotable players\n\n Mikael Ishak\n\nKennedy Bakircioglu\n\nNahir Besara\n\nDavid Durmaz\n\nKachir Eskander\n\nMarcus Linday\n\nRaby Youssef\n\nDaniel Nannskog\n\nCeyhun Eris\n\nMetin Tasci\n\nStefan Batan\n\nStaff\n\nSports\n\nHead Coach: Abbod Kocadag\n\nAssistant Coach: Eufrat Barmousa\n\nAchievements\n\nLeague\n\nDivision 1 Norra:\n\nWinners (1): 2007\n\nRunners-up (1): 1999\n\nCups\n\nSvenska Cupen:\n\nRunners-up (1): 2003\n\nNotable coaches\n\n Peter Antoine (1999)\n\n Bo Petersson (2002)\n\n Conny Karlsson (2003-2004, 2009)\n\n José Morais (2005)\n\n Rikard Norling (2010-2011)\n\n Kachir Eskander (1997-2011)\n\nSeason to season\n\nSeason\n\nLevel\n\nDivision\n\nSection\n\nPosition\n\nMovements\n\n1993\n\nTier 2\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n14th\n\nRelegated\n\n1994\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Svealand\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n1995\n\nTier 2\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n12th\n\nRelegated\n\n1996\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Svealand\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n1997\n\nTier 2\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n9th\n\n1998\n\nTier 2\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n5th\n\n1999\n\nTier 2\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n2nd\n\n2000\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n11th\n\n2001\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n13th\n\n2002\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n5th\n\n2003\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n10th\n\n2004\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n3rd\n\nPromoted\n\n2005\n\nTier 1\n\n Allsvenskan \n\n14th\n\nRelegated\n\n2006*\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n13th\n\nRelegated\n\n2007\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2008\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n4th\n\n2009\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n3rd\n\nPromotion Playoffs\n\n2010\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n4th\n\n2011\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n9th\n\n2012\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n8th\n\n2013\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n8th\n\n2014\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n14th\n\nRelegation Playoffs\n\n2015\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n4th\n\n2016\n\nTier 2\n\n Superettan\n\n14th\n\nRelegated\n\n2017\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n9th\n\n2018\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n15th\n\nRelegated\n\n2019\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nSödra Svealand\n\n3rd\n\n2020\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nSödra Svealand\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2021\n\nTier 3\n\nEttan\n\nNorra\n\n14th\n\nRelegated\n\n2022\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nSödra Svealand\n\n2nd\n\nPromotion Playoffs\n\n2023\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nSödra Svealand\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2024\n\nTier 3\n\nEttan\n\nNorra\n\n12th\n\n2025\n\nTier 3\n\nEttan\n\nNorra\n\n6th\n\n* League restructuring in 2006 resulted in a new division being created at Tier 3 and subsequent divisions dropping a level.[14]\n\nSee also\n\nSyrianska FC\n\nList of Assyrian-Syriac football teams in Sweden\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Reimegård, Claes (12 April 2005). \"Assyriska laddar för festpremiär\". Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved 11 July 2013.\n\n^ a b c \"Assyriska har blivit hela världens landslag\" (in Swedish). DN. Archived from the original on 1 November 2003. Retrieved 31 October 2003.\n\n^ a b \"Assyriska ska värva stjärnor\". Expressen. 4 December 2004. Retrieved 11 July 2013.\n\n^ \"Elfsborg slog Assyriska i cupfinalen\". AB. 1 November 2003. Retrieved 12 July 2013.\n\n^ \"Assyriska till allsvenskan\". Sveriges Radio. SR. 8 November 2004. Retrieved 12 July 2013.\n\n^ \"Summary - Superettan - Sweden - Results, fixtures, tables and news\". Soccerway. 9 January 2013.\n\n^ \"Summary - Allsvenskan - Sweden - Results, fixtures, tables and news\". Soccerway. 9 January 2013.\n\n^ \"Jonson räddade Djurgården i kvalet\". Expressen. 8 November 2009. Retrieved 12 July 2013.\n\n^ \"Summary - Superettan - Sweden - Results, fixtures, tables and news\". Soccerway. 9 January 2013.\n\n^ \"\"De visste vilka de var ute efter\" | Nyheter\". Aftonbladet. 1 July 2010.\n\n^ \"Summary - Superettan - Sweden - Results, fixtures, tables and news - Soccerway\".\n\n^ \"Summary - Superettan - Sweden - Results, fixtures, tables and news - Soccerway\".\n\n^ \"Truppen\" (in Swedish). Assyriska FF. Retrieved 8 May 2024.\n\n^ \"GAIS - Lagfacta - Assyriska FF\". Archived from the original on 6 December 2008. Retrieved 8 September 2010.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyriska Föreningen - official team site\n\nZelge Fans - official supporter club site\n\nSvenskaFans Assyriska - supporter site"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyriska-ff"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1486}, {"slug": "reference-addai-of-edessa", "title": "Addai of Edessa", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "According to Eastern Christian tradition, Addai of Edessa (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܕܝ, Mar Addai or Mor Aday sometimes Latinized Addeus) or Thaddeus of Edessa[2] was one of the seventy disciples of Jesus.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nThaddeus of Edessa \n Addai ܡܪܝ ܐܕܝ\n\nIcon of St. Thaddeus (10th century, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai)\n\nDisciple of the Seventy\n\nBornc. 1st century AD\nEdessa, Osroene, Roman Empire\n\nDiedc. 2nd century AD\n\nVenerated inChurch of the East\nRoman Catholic Church\nEastern Orthodox Church\nOriental Orthodox Church\nChurch of Caucasian Albania\n\nFeastAugust 5\n\nPatronageAssyrians[1]\n\nAccording to Eastern Christian tradition, Addai of Edessa (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܕܝ, Mar Addai or Mor Aday sometimes Latinized Addeus) or Thaddeus of Edessa[2] was one of the seventy disciples of Jesus.\n\nLife\n\nBased on various Eastern Christian traditions,[3] Addai was a Jew born in Edessa (now Şanlıurfa, Turkey). He came to Jerusalem for a festival where he heard the preaching of John the Baptist (St. John the Forerunner). After being baptized in the Jordan River, he remained in Judea and became a follower of Jesus. He was chosen as one of the seventy disciples sent in pairs to preach in the cities and places.[4]\n\nAfter Pentecost and the ascension of Jesus, Addai started preaching the gospel in Mesopotamia, Syria and Persia.[4] He ordained priests in Edessa, converted many to Christianity and built up the church there. He also went to Beirut to preach, and many believe that he founded a church there.[5]\n\nThe Syriac liturgy referred to as the Liturgy of Addai and Mari originated around the year 200 AD and is used by the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church (both of which are based in Iraq); it is also used by the Eastern Syriac Churches in India which trace their origins to Thomas the Apostle, namely, the Chaldean Syrian Church[6] and Syro-Malabar Catholic Church .\n\nHis feast is celebrated on August 5 in the Christian calendar.[1]\n\nAddai and the healing of King Abgar\n\nAmong the Eastern Orthodox faithful, Addai was a disciple of Christ[7] sent by St. Thomas the Apostle to Edessa in order to heal King Abgar V of Osroene, who had fallen ill. He stayed to evangelize, and so converted Abgar and his people including Saint Aggai and Saint Mari.[8][9]\n\nThe story of how King Abgarus V[10][11][12] and Jesus had corresponded was first recounted in the 4th century by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea.[13] In the origin of the legend, Eusebius had been shown documents purporting to contain the official correspondence that passed between Abgar and Jesus, and he was well enough convinced by their authenticity to quote them extensively in his Ecclesiastical History. According to Eusebius:\n\nThomas, one of the twelve apostles, under divine impulse sent Thaddeus, who was also numbered among the seventy disciples of Christ, to Edessa, as a preacher and evangelist of the teaching of Christ. (Historia Ecclesiastica, I, xiii)\n\nThe story of the healing and Addai's evangelizing efforts resulted in the growing of Christian communities in southern Armenia, northern Mesopotamia and in Syria east of Antioch. Thaddeus' story is embodied in the Syriac document, Doctrine of Addai,[14] which recounts the role of Addai and makes him one of the 72 Apostles sent out to spread the Christian faith.[15] By the time the legend had returned to Syria, the purported site of the miraculous image, it had been embroidered into a tissue of miraculous happenings.[16]\n\nVarious traditions\n\nSt. Addai also appears in the First Apocalypse of James and the Second Apocalypse of James.[17]\n\nIn Roman Catholic tradition, he and Saint Mari are considered patrons of Persian and Assyrian people.[1]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Saint Who? Saints Addai and Mari\". Magnificat. 20 (12). Magnificat USA: 76. January 2019.\n\n^ Charles George Herbermann, The Catholic Encyclopedia (Universal Knowledge Foundation, 1913), p. 136.\n\n^ Holweck, Frederick George. A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints, B. Herder, 1924, p. 15\n\n^ a b \"Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy\", Orthodox Church in America\n\n^ CNA. \"St. Jude Thaddeus and St. Simon the Zealot, Apostles\". Catholic News Agency. Archived from the original on August 19, 2019. Retrieved 2022-05-29.\n\n^ Brown, Leslie W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 281.\n\n^ Sengstock, Mary C. (1982). Chaldean-Americans: Changing Conceptions of Ethnic Identity. Center for Migration Studies. ISBN 9780913256428.\n\n^ Herbermann, Charles George (1913). The Catholic Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Press. p. 282.\n\n^ Neale, John Mason (2008). A History of the Holy Eastern Church: The Patriarchate of Antioch: The Patriarchate of Antioch. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-60608-330-7.\n\n^ Bowman, Alan; Garnsey, Peter; Cameron, Averil (2005). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521301992.\n\n^ Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 9780028659435.\n\n^ Roberts, John Morris; Westad, Odd Arne (2013). The History of the World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199936762.\n\n^ Eusebius, Church History, 1.13 and 3.1\n\n^ Noegel, Scott B.; Wheeler, Brannon M. (2010-04-01). The A to Z of Prophets in Islam and Judaism. Scarecrow Press. p. 89. ISBN 9781461718956.\n\n^ Luke 10:1 - 20\n\n^ Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, 1934, (in English 1971) (On-line text)\n\n^ Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus : The key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1997 (Viking Penguin). Especially the section \"Thaddeus, Judas Thomas and the conversion of the Osrhoeans\", pp 189ff.\n\nExternal links\n\nThomasine Church Patriarchs\n\nSaints Index: Sts. Addai & Mari\n\nCatholic Encyclopedia: The Legend of Abgar\n\nCatholic Encyclopedia: The Liturgy of Sts. Addeus and Maris\n\nCatholic Encyclopedia: Doctrine of St. Addai"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-addai-of-edessa"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 914}, {"slug": "reference-history-of-iraq", "title": "History of Iraq", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Iraq, a country located in West Asia, largely coincides with the ancient region of Mesopotamia, often referred to as the cradle of civilization. The history of Mesopotamia extends back to the Lower Paleolithic period, with significant developments continuing through the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Iraq, a country located in West Asia, largely coincides with the ancient region of Mesopotamia, often referred to as the cradle of civilization. The history of Mesopotamia extends back to the Lower Paleolithic period, with significant developments continuing through the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, after which the region became known as Iraq. Within its borders lies the ancient land of Sumer, which emerged between 6000 and 5000 BC during the Neolithic Ubaid period. Sumer is recognized as the world's earliest civilization, marking the beginning of urban development, written language, and monumental architecture. Iraq's territory also includes the heartlands of the Akkadian, Neo-Sumerian, Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian empires, which dominated Mesopotamia and much of the Ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages.\n\nIraq was a center of innovation in antiquity, producing early written languages, literary works, and significant advancements in astronomy, mathematics, law, and philosophy. This era of indigenous rule ended in 539 BC when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, who declared himself the \"King of Babylon.\" The city of Babylon, the ancient seat of Babylonian power, became one of the key capitals of the Achaemenid Empire.\n\nIn the following centuries, the regions constituting modern Iraq came under the control of several empires, including the Greeks, Parthians, and Romans, establishing new centers like Seleucia and Ctesiphon. By the 3rd century AD, the region fell under Persian control through the Sasanian Empire, during which time Arab tribes from South Arabia migrated into Lower Mesopotamia, leading to the formation of the Sassanid-aligned Lakhmid kingdom. The Arabic name al-ʿIrāq likely originated during this period. The Sasanian Empire was eventually conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century, bringing Iraq under Islamic rule after the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 636. The city of Kufa, founded shortly thereafter, became a central hub for the Rashidun dynasty until their overthrow by the Umayyads in 661.\n\nWith the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate in the mid-8th century, Iraq became the center of Islamic rule, with Baghdad, founded in 762, serving as the capital. Baghdad flourished during the Islamic Golden Age, becoming a global center for culture, science, and intellectualism. However, the city's prosperity declined following the Buwayhid and Seljuq invasions in the 10th century and suffered further with the Mongol invasion of 1258. Iraq came under Ottoman rule in the 16th century and, apart from a Safavid occupation from 1623 to 1638, remained part of the empire until the end of World War I, after which Mandatory Iraq was established by the British Empire. Initially united under the province of Baghdad,[1][2] Ottoman Iraq was by the 17th century divided into the provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor,[3] which Ottoman officials collectively referred to as Hıtta-i Irakiyye (\"the Iraq Region\").[4][5][6] Iraq gained independence in 1932 as the Kingdom of Iraq, which became a republic in 1958. In the modern era, Iraq has faced significant challenges, including the rule of Saddam Hussein, the United-States-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, and subsequent efforts to rebuild the country amidst sectarian violence and the rise of the Islamic State. Despite these difficulties, Iraq plays a vital role in the geopolitics of the Middle East.\n\nPrehistory\n\nBetween 65,000 BC and 35,000 BC, northern Iraq was home to a Neanderthal culture, archaeological remains of which have been discovered at Shanidar Cave.[9] During 1957-1961, Shanidar Cave was excavated by Ralph Solecki and his team from Columbia University, uncovering nine skeletons of Neanderthal man of varying ages and states of preservation (labelled Shanidar I-IX). A tenth individual was later discovered by M. Zeder during examination of a faunal assemblage from the site at the Smithsonian Institution. The remains seemed to suggest that Neanderthals had funeral ceremonies, burying their dead with flowers (although the flowers are now thought to be a modern contaminant), and that they took care of injured and elderly individuals.\n\nThis region is also the location of a number of pre-Neolithic burials, dating from approximately 11,000 BC.[10] Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq, together with a large part of the Fertile Crescent, was a center of a Neolithic culture known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time. In Iraq, this period has been excavated at sites like M'lefaat and Nemrik 9. The following Neolithic period, PPNB, is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, and burnt lime (Vaisselle blanche). Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidence of early trade relations. Further important sites of human advancement were Jarmo (circa 7100 BC),[10] a number of sites belonging to the Halaf culture, and Tell al-'Ubaid, the type site of the Ubaid period (between 6500 BC and 3800 BC).[11]\n\nAncient Mesopotamia\n\nMesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having \"inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, and the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture.\"[12]\n\nThe \"Cradle of Civilisation\" is a common term for the area comprising modern Iraq as it was home to the earliest known civilisation, the Sumerian civilisation, which arose in the fertile Tigris-Euphrates river valley of southern Iraq in the Chalcolithic (Ubaid period).[13] It was there, in the late 4th millennium BC, that the world's first known writing system emerged. The Sumerians were also the first known to harness the wheel and create city-states; their writings record the first known evidence of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, written law, medicine, and organised religion.[13] The Sumerian language is a language isolate. The major city-states of the early Sumerian period included Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larsa, Sippar, Shuruppak, Uruk, Kish, Ur, Nippur, Lagash, Girsu, Umma, Hamazi, Adab, Mari, Isin, Kutha, Der, and Akshak.[13] The cities to the north, like Ashur, Arbela (modern Erbil), and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), were also extant in what was to be called Assyria from the 25th century BC; however, at this stage, they were Sumerian-ruled administrative centers.\n\nBronze Age\n\nSumer emerged as the civilization of Lower Mesopotamia out of the prehistoric Ubaid period (mid-6th millennium BC) in the Early Bronze Age (Uruk period). Classical Sumer ended with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC. Following the Gutian period, the Ur III kingdom was once again able to unite large parts of southern and central Mesopotamia under a single ruler in the 21st century. It may have eventually disintegrated due to Amorite incursions. The Amorite dynasty of Isin persisted until c. 1600 BC, when southern Mesopotamia was united under Kassite Babylonian rule.\n\nDuring the Bronze Age, in the 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash created a short-lived empire. Later, Lugal-Zage-Si, the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.[14] It was during this period that the Epic of Gilgamesh originated, which includes the tale of The Great Flood. The origin and location of Akkad remain unclear. Its people spoke Akkadian, an East Semitic language.[15] Between the 29th and 24th centuries BC, a number of kingdoms and city-states within Iraq began to have Akkadian-speaking dynasties, including Assyria, Ekallatum, Isin, and Larsa. However, the Sumerians remained generally dominant until the rise of the Akkadian Empire (2335-2124 BC), based in the city of Akkad in central Iraq. Sargon of Akkad founded the empire, conquered all the city-states of southern and central Iraq, and subjugated the kings of Assyria, thus uniting the Sumerians and Akkadians in one state. The Akkadian Empire was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer.\n\nHe then set about expanding his empire, conquering Gutium, Elam in modern-day Iran, and had victories that did not result in full conquest against the Amorites and Eblaites of the Levant. The empire of Akkad likely fell in the 22nd century BC, within 180 years of its founding, ushering in a \"Dark Age\" with no prominent imperial authority until the Third Dynasty of Ur. The region's political structure may have reverted to the status quo ante of local governance by city-states.[16]\n\nAfter the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in the late 22nd century BC, the Gutians occupied the south for a few decades, while Assyria reasserted its independence in the north. Most of southern Mesopotamia was again united under one ruler during the Ur III period, most notably during the rule of the prolific king Shulgi. His accomplishments include the completion of construction of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, begun by his father Ur-Nammu.[17] In 1792 BC, an Amorite ruler named Hammurabi came to power and immediately set about building Babylon into a major city, declaring himself its king. Hammurabi conquered southern and central Iraq, as well as Elam to the east and Mari to the west, then engaged in a protracted war with the Assyrian king Ishme-Dagan for domination of the region, creating the short-lived Babylonian Empire. He eventually prevailed over the successor of Ishme-Dagan and subjected Assyria and its Anatolian colonies. By the middle of the eighteenth century BC, the Sumerians had lost their cultural identity and ceased to exist as a distinct people.[18][19]\n\nIt is from the period of Hammurabi that southern Iraq came to be known as Babylonia, while the north had already coalesced into Assyria hundreds of years before. However, his empire was short-lived, and rapidly collapsed after his death, with both Assyria and southern Iraq, in the form of the Sealand Dynasty, falling back into native Akkadian hands. After this, another foreign people, the language-isolate-speaking Kassites, seized control of Babylonia. Iraq was from this point divided into three polities: Assyria in the north, Kassite Babylonia in the south-central region, and the Sealand Dynasty in the far south. The Sealand Dynasty was finally conquered by Kassite Babylonia circa 1380 BC. The origin of the Kassites is uncertain.[20]\n\nThe Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1020 BC) saw Assyria rise to be the most powerful nation in the known world. Beginning with the campaigns of Ashur-uballit I, Assyria destroyed the rival Hurrian-Mitanni Empire, annexed huge swathes of the Hittite Empire for itself, annexed northern Babylonia from the Kassites, forced the Egyptian Empire from the region, and defeated the Elamites, Phrygians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Cilicians, Gutians, Dilmunites, and Arameans. At its height, the Middle Assyrian Empire stretched from The Caucasus to Dilmun (modern Bahrain), and from the Mediterranean coasts of Phoenicia to the Zagros Mountains of Iran. In 1235 BC, Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria took the throne of Babylon.\n\nDuring the Bronze Age collapse (1200-900 BC), Babylonia was in a state of chaos, dominated for long periods by Assyria and Elam. The Kassites were driven from power by Assyria and Elam, allowing native south Mesopotamian kings to rule Babylonia for the first time, although often subject to Assyrian or Elamite rulers. However, these Akkadian kings were unable to prevent new waves of West Semitic migrants from entering southern Iraq, and during the 11th century BC, Arameans and Suteans entered Babylonia from The Levant, followed in the late 10th to early 9th century BC by the Chaldeans.[21] However, the Chaldeans were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia.[22]\n\nAssyria was an Akkadian (East Semitic) kingdom in Upper Mesopotamia, that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur (Akkadian Aššūrāyu).\n\nOf the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is positively known. In the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. He was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla, who appears to have lived in the late 25th or early 24th century BC, according to the king list. The foundation of the first true urbanised Assyrian monarchy was traditionally ascribed to Ushpia, a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Naplanum of Larsa.[23] c. 2030 BC.\n\nAssyria had a period of empire from the 19th to 18th centuries BC. From the 14th to 11th centuries BC, Assyria once more became a major power with the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire.\n\n Panoramic view of ruins in Babylon photographed in 2005\n\nIron Age\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC) was the dominant political force in the Ancient Near East during the Iron Age, eclipsing Babylonia, Egypt, Urartu, and Elam.[26] Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based on world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire is regarded by many researchers as the first world empire.[25][27] At its height, the empire ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, and modern-day Iran and Armenia. Under rulers such as Adad-Nirari II, Ashurnasirpal, Shalmaneser III, Semiramis, Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal, Iraq became the center of an empire stretching from Persia, Parthia, and Elam in the east to Cyprus and Antioch in the west, and from The Caucasus in the north to Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia in the south.[28]\n\nIt was during this period that an Akkadian-influenced form of Eastern Aramaic was adopted by the Assyrians as their lingua franca, and Mesopotamian Aramaic began to supplant Akkadian as the spoken language of the general populace of both Assyria and Babylonia. The descendant dialects of this tongue survive among the Mandaeans of southern Iraq and Assyrians of northern Iraq. The Arabs and the Chaldeans are first mentioned in written history (circa 850 BC) in the annals of Shalmaneser III. The Neo-Assyrian Empire left a legacy of great cultural significance. The political structures established by the Neo-Assyrian Empire became the model for the later empires that succeeded it, and the ideology of universal rule promulgated by the Neo-Assyrian kings inspired similar ideas of rights to world domination in later empires. The Neo-Assyrian Empire became an important part of later folklore and literary traditions in northern Mesopotamia. Judaism, and thus in turn also Christianity and Islam, was profoundly affected by the period of Neo-Assyrian rule; numerous Biblical stories appear to draw on earlier Assyrian mythology and history, and the Assyrian impact on early Jewish theology was immense. Although the Neo-Assyrian Empire is prominently remembered today for the supposed excessive brutality of the Neo-Assyrian army, the Assyrians were not excessively brutal compared to other civilizations.[24][29]\n\nIn the late 7th century BC, the Assyrian Empire tore itself apart with a series of brutal civil wars, weakening itself to such a degree that a coalition of its former subjects, including the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians, and Cimmerians, were able to attack Assyria, finally bringing its empire down by 605 BC.[30]\n\n The short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire (626-539 BC) succeeded that of Assyria. It failed to attain the size, power, or longevity of its predecessor; however, it came to dominate The Levant, Canaan, Arabia, Israel, and Judah, and even defeated Egypt. Initially, Babylon was ruled by the Chaldeans, who had migrated to the region in the late 10th or early 9th century BC. Its greatest king, Nebuchadnezzar II, rivaled Hammurabi as the greatest king of Babylon. However, by 556 BC, the Chaldeans had been deposed by the Assyrian-born Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar.[31]\n\n The transfer of empire to Babylon marked the first time the city, and southern Mesopotamia in general, had risen to dominate the Ancient Near East since the collapse of Hammurabi's Old Babylonian Empire. The period of Neo-Babylonian rule saw unprecedented economic and population growth and a renaissance of culture and artwork. Nebuchadnezzar II succeeded Nabopolassar in 605 BC. The empire Nebuchadnezzar inherited was among the most powerful in the world. He quickly reinforced his father's alliance with the Medes by marrying Cyaxares's daughter or granddaughter, Amytis. Some sources suggest that the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were built by Nebuchadnezzar for his wife (though the existence of these gardens is debated). Nebuchadnezzar's 43-year reign brought a golden age for Babylon, which became the most powerful kingdom in the Middle East.[32]\n\nThe Neo-Babylonian period ended with the reign of Nabonidus in 539 BC. To the east, the Persians had been growing in strength, and eventually Cyrus the Great established his dominion over Babylon. The Chaldeans disappeared around this time, though both Assyria and Babylonia endured and thrived under Achaemenid rule (see Achaemenid Assyria). The Persian rulers retained Assyrian Imperial Aramaic as the language of empire, together with the Assyrian imperial infrastructure and an Assyrian style of art and architecture.\n\nClassical Antiquity\n\nAchaemenid and Seleucid rule\n\nMesopotamia was conquered by the Achaemenid Persians under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, and remained under Persian rule for two centuries.\n\nThe Persian Empire fell to Alexander of Macedon in 331 BC and came under Greek rule as part of the Seleucid Empire. Babylon declined after the founding of Seleucia on the Tigris, the new Seleucid Empire capital. The Seleucid Empire at the height of its power stretched from the Aegean in the west to India in the east. It was a major center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas.[33] The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from Greece.[33][34] Much of the eastern part of the empire was conquered by the Parthians under Mithridates I of Parthia in the mid-2nd century BC.\n\nParthian and Roman rule\n\n At the beginning of the 2nd century AD, the Romans, led by emperor Trajan, invaded Parthia and conquered Mesopotamia, making it an imperial province. It was returned to the Parthians shortly after by Trajan's successor, Hadrian.\n\nChristianity reached Mesopotamia in the 1st century AD, and Roman Syria in particular became the center of Eastern Rite Christianity and the Syriac literary tradition. Mandeism is also believed to have either originated there around this time or entered as Mandaeans sought refuge from Palestine.\nSumerian-Akkadian religious tradition disappeared during this period, as did the last remnants of cuneiform literacy, although temples were still being dedicated to the Assyrian national god Ashur in his home city as late as the 4th century.[35]\n\nSassanid Empire\n\nIn the 3rd century AD, the Parthians were in turn succeeded by the Sassanid dynasty, which ruled Mesopotamia until the 7th-century Islamic invasion. The Sassanids conquered the independent states of Adiabene, Osroene, Hatra, and finally Assur during the 3rd century. In the mid-6th century, the Persian Empire under the Sassanid dynasty was divided by Khosrow I into four quarters, of which the western one, called Khvārvarān, included most of modern Iraq, and was subdivided into the provinces of Mishān, Asuristān, Adiabene, and Lower Media. North of Asoristan and west of Adiabene lay the sasanian province of Arbayistan, which roughly corresponded to Upper Mesopotamia. The term Iraq is widely used in the medieval Arabic sources for the area in the center and south of the modern republic as a geographic rather than a political term, implying no greater precision of boundaries than the term \"Mesopotamia\" or, indeed, many of the names of modern states before the 20th century.\n\nThere was a influx of Arabs in the Sassanid period. Upper Mesopotamia came to be known as Al-Jazirah in Arabic (meaning \"The Island\" in reference to the \"island\" between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), and Lower Mesopotamia came to be known as ʿIrāq-i ʿArab, meaning \"the escarpment of the Arabs\" (viz. to the south and east of \"the island\").[36]\n\nUntil 602, the desert frontier of the Persian Empire had been guarded by the Arab Lakhmid kings of Al-Hirah. In that year, Shahanshah Khosrow II Aparviz (Persian خسرو پرويز) abolished the Lakhmid kingdom and laid the frontier open to nomad incursions. Farther north, the western quarter was bounded by the Byzantine Empire. The frontier more or less followed the modern Syria-Iraq border and continued northward, passing between Nisibis (modern Nusaybin) as the Sassanian frontier fortress and Dara and Amida (modern Diyarbakır) held by the Byzantines.\n\nMiddle Ages\n\nIslamic conquest\n\nThe first organized conflict between invading Arab-Muslim forces and occupying Sassanid domains in Mesopotamia seems to have been in 634, when the Arabs were defeated at the Battle of the Bridge. There was a force of some 5,000 Muslims under Abū `Ubayd ath-Thaqafī, which was routed by the Persians. This was followed by Khalid ibn al-Walid's successful campaign, which saw all of Iraq come under Arab rule within a year, with the exception of the Sassanid Empire's capital, Ctesiphon. Around 636, a larger Arab Muslim force under Sa`d ibn Abī Waqqās defeated the main Persian army at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah and moved on to capture Ctesiphon. By the end of 638, the Muslims had conquered all of the Western Sassanid provinces (including modern Iraq), and the last Sassanid Emperor, Yazdegerd III, had fled to central and then northern Persia, where he was killed in 651.\n\nThe Islamic expansions constituted the largest of the Semitic expansions in history. These new arrivals established two new garrison cities, at Kufa, near ancient Babylon, and at Basra in the south and established Islam in these cities, while the north remained largely Assyrian and Christian in character.\n\nAbbasid Caliphate\n\nThe city of Baghdad, established in the 8th century as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, quickly became the leading cultural and intellectual hub of the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. At its peak, Baghdad was the largest and most multicultural city of the Middle Ages, with a population exceeding a million. However, its prominence was dramatically curtailed in the 13th century when the Mongol Empire sacked the city and destroyed its famed library during the Siege of Baghdad (1258).\n\nIn the 9th century, the Abbasid Caliphate entered a period of decline. During the late 9th to early 11th centuries, a period known as the \"Iranian Intermezzo\", parts of (the modern territory of) Iraq were governed by a number of minor Iranian emirates, including the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, Buyids and Sallarids. Tughril, the founder of the Seljuk Empire, captured Baghdad in 1055. In spite of having lost all governance, the Abbasid caliphs nevertheless maintained a highly ritualized court in Baghdad and remained influential in religious matters, maintaining the orthodoxy of their Sunni sect in opposition to the Ismaili and Shia sects of Islam.\n\nMongol invasion\n\nIn the later 11th century, Iraq fell under the rule of the Khwarazmian dynasty. Both Turkic secular rule and Abbasid caliphate came to an end with the Mongol invasions of the 13th century.[37]\nThe Mongols under Genghis Khan had conquered Khwarezmia by 1221, but Iraq proper gained a respite due to the death of Genghis Khan in 1227 and the subsequent power struggles.\nMöngke Khan from 1251 began a renewed expansion of the Mongol Empire, and when caliph al-Mustasim refused to submit to the Mongols, Baghdad was besieged and captured by Hulagu Khan in 1258. Estimates of the number of dead range from 200,000 to a million.[38] With the destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate, Hulagu had an open route to Syria and moved against the other Muslim powers in the region.[39]\n\nThe Mongols destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate and Baghdad's House of Wisdom. The city has never regained its previous pre-eminence as a major centre of culture and influence. Some historians believe that the Mongol invasion destroyed much of the irrigation infrastructure that had sustained Mesopotamia for millennia. Other historians point to soil salination as the culprit in the decline in agriculture.\n\nTurko-Mongol rule\n\nIraq now became a province on the southwestern fringes of the Ilkhanate and Baghdad would never regain its former importance.\n\nThe Jalayirids were a Mongol Jalayir dynasty[40] which ruled over Iraq and western Persia[41] after the breakup of the Ilkhanate in the 1330s. The Jalayirid sultanate lasted about fifty years, until disrupted by Tamerlane's conquests and the revolts of the \"Black Sheep Turks\" or Qara Qoyunlu Turkmen.\n\nThe mid-14th-century Black Death ravaged much of the Islamic world.[42] The best estimate for the Middle East is a death rate of roughly one-third.[43]\n\nIn 1401, a warlord of Mongol descent, Tamerlane (Timur Lenk), invaded Iraq. After the capture of Baghdad, most of its citizens were massacred. Timur also conducted massacres of the indigenous Assyrian Christian population, and it was during this time that the ancient Assyrian city of Assur was finally abandoned.[44] After Tamerlane's death in 1405, there was a brief attempt to re-establish the sultanate in southern Iraq and Khuzistan. The Jalayirids were finally eliminated by Kara Koyunlu in 1432.\n\nOttoman and Mamluk rule\n\nDuring the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the Qara Qoyunlu, or Black Sheep Turkmens, ruled the area now known as Iraq. In 1466, the Aq Qoyunlu, or White Sheep, defeated the Qara Qoyunlu and took control. From 1508, as with all territories of the former White Sheep Turkmen, Iraq fell into the hands of the Iranian Safavids. With the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639, most of the territory of present-day Iraq came under the control of the Ottoman Empire as the eyalet of Baghdad as a result of wars with the neighboring rival, Safavid Iran. Throughout most of the period of Ottoman rule (1533-1918), the territory of present-day Iraq was a battle zone between rival regional empires and tribal alliances. \n\nAlthough Iraq became a modern nation-state in the 20th century, its territorial core was already governed as a cohesive administrative and strategic region during the Ottoman period. As early as the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire administered the area as an integrated province, with imperial registers from 1558 to 1587 describing the Baghdad Eyalet as encompassing districts stretching from İmadiye and Zâho in the north to Deyrü Rahbe and Ane in the west, Kerne in the south, and Kasr-ı Şirin in the east.[1] This administrative configuration closely resembles the borders of modern-day Iraq. \n\nIn the 16th century, the Portuguese commanded by António Tenreiro crossed from Aleppo to Basra in 1523, attempting to make alliances with local lords in the name of the Portuguese king. In 1550, the local kingdom of Basra and tribal rulers relied on the Portuguese against the Ottomans, leading to threats of invasion and conquest by the Portuguese. From 1595, the Portuguese acted as military protectors of Basra, and in 1624, they helped the Ottoman pasha of Basra repel a Persian invasion. The Portuguese were granted a share of customs revenue and exemption from tolls. From approximately 1625 to 1668, Basra and the Delta marshes were in the hands of local chiefs independent of the Ottoman administration in Baghdad. In the 17th century, frequent conflicts with the Safavids sapped the strength of the Ottoman Empire and weakened its control over its provinces. The nomadic population swelled with the influx of bedouins from Najd, leading to raids on settled areas that became difficult to curb.[45]\n\nIn the 17th century, this unified framework evolved into four eyalets, Shahrizor, Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, although at various times, the provinces were administratively downgraded to sanjaks under the authority of Baghdad before later being reestablished as separate provinces.[46] For example, Ottoman registers from 1090 AH (1679-1680 CE) list İmadiye and Zâkho as districts of the Baghdad Eyalet,[3] underscoring the continued extent of Baghdad's administrative reach.\n\nThe year 1704 saw the rise of a Mamluk dynasty of Georgian origin, who succeeded in obtaining autonomy from the Ottoman Empire. While nominally under Ottoman sovereignty, the provinces of Iraq experienced varying degrees of autonomy during this period, particularly in Mosul under the Arab Jalili family and in Shahrizor under the Kurdish Emirates, though both remained formally tied to Baghdad.[47] They suppressed tribal revolts, curbed the power of the Janissaries, restored order, and introduced a program of modernization in the economy and military. In 1802, Wahhabis from Najd attacked Karbala in Iraq, killing up to 5,000 people and plundering the Imam Husayn Shrine.[48] Following the overthrow of the Mamluks in 1831 and the reassertion of direct Ottoman control, the region was reorganized into the three vilayets of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra. These were frequently referred to in official Ottoman documents as the Iraq Region (Hıtta-i Irakiyye).[4][49] This designation, used in matters of taxation, military coordination, and governance, reflects the Ottoman state's practical conception of Iraq as a coherent administrative unit within its broader imperial structure\n\nThe population of Iraq, estimated at 30 million in 800 AD, was only 5 million at the start of the 20th century.[50]\n\nKingdom of Khaza'il\n\nThe Kingdom of Khaza'il (Arabic: مملكة الخزاعل, romanized: Mamlakat al-Khaza'il), also known as the Emirate of Khaza'il (Arabic: إمارة الخزاعل, romanized: Imārat al-Khaza'il) to the Arabs and officially as the Kingdom of the Middle and Lower Euphrates (Arabic: مملكة الفرات الأوسط والأسفل, romanized: Mamlakat al-Furāt al-Awsaṭ wa-al-Asfal) by Britain,[51][52] was an autonomous kingdom in present-day Iraq that resisted Ottoman colonial rule from the early 16th century to the early 20th century. Ruled by the Khaza'il Royal family, also known as the Banu Khuza'ah Sheikhly dynasty, the Kingdom exercised military, economic, and political sovereignty, particularly in the Middle and Lower Euphrates region.\n\nAt the height of their power in the 17th, 18th and 19th century, the Khaza'il ruled from the northern city of Anah to Basra, including the southern outskirts of Baghdad and all cities along both sides of the Euphrates River, controlling all cultivatable land and tribal forces in their territory.[53][54] The Emirs of Khaza'il were known for their fierce armed resistance to Ottoman imperial authority lasting several centuries, vast land ownership, and their immense wealth established through the creation of Silk Road taxation mechanisms and agricultural monopoly.[53][55] They are also known for establishing the dominance of Shiism in Mesopotamia and ending 383 years of Ottoman Empire rule in Iraq.[56]\n\n20th century\n\nBritish mandate of Mesopotamia\n\nOttoman rule over Iraq lasted until World War I, when the Ottomans sided with Germany and the Central Powers. In the Mesopotamian campaign against the Central Powers, British forces invaded the country and suffered a defeat at the hands of the Turkish army during the Siege of Kut (1915-16). However, the British ultimately won the Mesopotamian Campaign with the capture of Baghdad in March 1917. During the war, the British employed the help of several Assyrian, Armenian, and Arab tribes against the Ottomans, who in turn employed the Kurds as allies. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and its subsequent division, the British Mandate of Mesopotamia was established by the League of Nations mandate.\n\nIn line with their \"Sharifian Solution\" policy, the British established a monarchy on 23 August 1921, with Faisal I of Iraq as king, who was previously King of Syria but was forced out by the French. The official English name of the country simultaneously changed from Mesopotamia to the endonymic Iraq.[57] Likewise, British authorities selected Sunni Arab elites from the region for appointments to government and ministry offices.[58][59] The royal family were Hashemites, who were also rulers of the neighboring Emirate of Transjordan, which later became the Kingdom of Jordan.[58]\n\nDuring the rise of the Zionist movement and Arab nationalism, Faisal envisioned a federation consisting of the modern states of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, including both modern Palestine and Israel.[60] He also signed the Faisal-Weizmann agreement.\n\nFaced with spiraling costs and influenced by the public protestations of the war hero T. E. Lawrence,[61] Britain replaced Arnold Wilson in October 1920 with a new Civil Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox.[62] Cox managed to quell a rebellion and was also responsible for implementing the policy of close cooperation with Iraq's Sunni minority.[63] Slavery was abolished in Iraq in the 1920s.[64] Britain granted independence to the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932,[65] on the urging of King Faisal, though the British retained military bases and local militia in the form of Assyrian Levies. King Ghazi ruled as a figurehead after King Faisal's death in 1933. His rule, which lasted until his death in 1939, was undermined by numerous attempted military coups until his death in 1939. His underage son, Faisal II succeeded him, with 'Abd al-Ilah as Regent.[66]\n\nIndependent Kingdom of Iraq\n\nIn 1934 Iraq became an oil exporter with the completion of the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline which transported oil from the Kirkuk Field, discovered in 1927, to the Mediterranean coast for shipment to Europe. The first commercial oil production on a small scale for domestic consumption had begun in 1927 from the Naft Khana field on the border with Iran.\n\nEstablishment of Arab Sunni domination in Iraq was followed by Assyrian, Yazidi and Shi'a unrests, which were all brutally suppressed. In 1936, the first military coup took place in the Kingdom of Iraq, as Bakr Sidqi succeeded in replacing the acting Prime Minister with his associate. Multiple coups followed in a period of political instability, peaking in 1941.\n\nDuring World War II, Iraqi regime of Regent 'Abd al-Ilah was overthrown in 1941 by the Golden Square officers, headed by Rashid Ali. The short lived pro-Nazi government of Iraq was defeated in May 1941 by the allied forces (with local Assyrian and Kurdish help) in the Anglo-Iraqi War. Iraq was later used as a base for allied attacks on Vichy-French held Mandate of Syria and support for the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.[67]\n\nIn 1945, Iraq joined the United Nations and became a founding member of the Arab League.\n\nIn 1948, massive violent protests known as the Al-Wathbah uprising broke out across Baghdad with partial communist support, having demands against the government's treaty with Britain. Protests continued into spring and were interrupted in May when martial law was enforced as Iraq entered the failed 1948 Arab-Israeli War along with other Arab League members.\n\nIn February 1958, King Hussein of Jordan and `Abd al-Ilāh proposed a union of Hāshimite monarchies to counter the recently formed Egyptian-Syrian union. The prime minister Nuri as-Said wanted Kuwait to be part of the proposed Arab-Hāshimite Union. Shaykh `Abd-Allāh as-Salīm, the ruler of Kuwait, was invited to Baghdad to discuss Kuwait's future. This policy brought the government of Iraq into direct conflict with Britain, which did not want to grant independence to Kuwait. At that point, the monarchy found itself completely isolated. Nuri as-Said was able to contain the rising discontent only by resorting to even greater political oppression.\n\nRepublic of Iraq\n\nIn 1958, inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, officers from the Nineteenth Brigade, 3rd Division, known as \"The Four Colonels,\" under the leadership of Brigadier Abd al-Karīm Qāsim (known as \"az-Za`īm\", 'the leader') and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif overthrew the Hashemite monarchy on 14 July 1958. The new government proclaimed Iraq to be a republic and rejected the idea of a union with Jordan. Iraq's activity in the Baghdad Pact ceased.\n\nThis revolution was strongly anti-imperial and anti-monarchical in nature and had strong socialist elements, broadly comparable to the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser regime in Egypt.[68][69] Numerous people were killed in the coup, including King Faisal II, Prince Abd al-Ilah, and Nuri al-Sa'id, as well as members of the royal family, which came to be known as the \"Royal family massacre\".[69] After burial, their bodies were dragged through the streets of Baghdad by their opponents and mutilated.[70][69] The violence in the streets of Baghdad included the killing of a number of foreign citizens. A mob attacked and burned the British embassy. The comptroller of the British ambassador's household, Colonel P.L.Graham MC, was shot dead in the embassy building and his body was never recovered.[71] Other British embassy staff took refuge in the registry of the embassy, and had to be escorted to safety by the Iraqi army.[72] \n\nFollowing the coup, the short-lived federation between Jordan and Iraq was abolished by King Hussein of Jordan.[69]\n\nAbd al-Karim Qasim promoted a civic nationalism in Iraq, which asserted the belief that Iraqis are a nation and emphasized the cultural unity of Iraqis of different ethnoreligious groups such as Mesopotamian Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Yazidis, Mandeans, Yarsans, and others. His vision of nationalism involved the recognition of an Iraqi identity stemming from ancient Mesopotamia, including its civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria.[73]\n\nQasim controlled Iraq through military rule and began forcibly redistributing surplus land owned by some citizens in 1958.[74][75] The Iraqi state emblem under Qasim was largely based on the Mesopotamian symbol of Shamash, avoiding pan-Arab symbolism by incorporating elements of Socialist heraldry.[76] Under Qasim, freedom of religion was granted to religious minorities, and early restrictions on Jews were removed, leading to their reintegration into society.[77][78]\n\nQasim's political ideologies were based on Iraqi nationalism instead of Arab nationalism, and he refused to join Gamal Abdel Nasser's political union between Egypt and Syria, known as the United Arab Republic. In 1959, Colonel Abd al-Wahab al-Shawaf led an uprising in Mosul against Qasim with the aim of joining the United Arab Republic, but was defeated by the government.[76]\n\nIraq withdrew from the Baghdad Pact in 1959, leading to strained relations with the West and developing a close alliance with the Soviet Union.[76][79] Qasim began claiming Kuwait as part of Iraq when it was officially declared an independent country in 1961.[79] During Ottoman rule, Kuwait was part of Basra Province and was separated by the British to establish the Kuwait protectorate.[79] In response, the United Kingdom sent its armed forces to the Iraq-Kuwait border, and Qasim was forced to back down.[79]\n\nIn 1961, Kurdish nationalist movements, led by Mustafa Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, launched an armed rebellion against the Iraqi government, seeking Kurdish autonomy.[76] The government faced challenges in quelling the Kurdish uprising, leading to intermittent conflict between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi military.[76] The armed rebellion escalated into war, which officially lasted for nine years until 1970, during which numerous coups occurred.[76]\n\nBa'athist Iraq\n\nQāsim was assassinated in February 1963 when the Ba'ath Party took power under the leadership of General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (prime minister) and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif (president). In June 1963, Syria, which by then had also fallen under Ba'athist rule, took part in the Iraqi military campaign against the Kurds by providing aircraft, armoured vehicles, and a force of 6,000 soldiers. Several months later, Abd as-Salam Muhammad Arif led a successful coup against the Ba'ath government. Arif declared a ceasefire in February 1964, which provoked a split among Kurdish urban radicals on one hand and Peshmerga (Freedom fighters) forces led by Barzani on the other.\n\nOn 13 April 1966, President Abdul Salam Arif died in a helicopter crash and was succeeded by his brother, General Abdul Rahman Arif. Following this unexpected death, the Iraqi government launched a last-ditch effort to defeat the Kurds. This campaign failed in May 1966, when Barzani forces thoroughly defeated the Iraqi Army at the Battle of Mount Handrin, near Rawandiz. Following the Six-Day War of 1967, the Ba'ath Party felt strong enough to retake power in 1968. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). The Ba'ath government started a campaign to end the Kurdish insurrection, which stalled in 1969 due to internal power struggles and tensions with Iran. The war ended with more than 100,000 casualties and little achievement for both sides.\n\nIn March 1970, a peace plan was announced that provided for broader Kurdish autonomy and gave Kurds representation in government bodies, to be implemented in four years.[80] Despite this, the Iraqi government embarked on an Arabization program in the oil-rich regions of Kirkuk and Khanaqin. By 1974, tensions escalated again, leading to the Second Kurdish Iraqi War, which lasted until 1975. The 1975 peace treaty between Iraq and Iran resolved the Shatt al-Arab dispute, leading to Iran withdrawing support for the Kurdish rebels and their subsequent defeat by the Iraqi government.[81][82]\n\nUnder Saddam Hussein\n\nIn July 1979, President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was forced to resign by Saddam Hussein, who assumed the offices of both President and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam then purged his opponents including those from within the Baath party.\n\nIraq's Territorial Claims to Neighboring Countries\n\nIraq's territorial claims to neighboring countries were largely due to the plans and promises of the Entente countries in 1919-1920, when the Ottoman Empire was divided, to create a more extensive Arab state in Iraq and Jazeera, which would also include significant territories of eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, all of Kuwait and Iran's border areas, which are shown on this English map of 1920.\n\nTerritorial disputes with Iran, the spread of Islamist ideology and military purges led to an inconclusive and costly eight-year war, the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988, termed Qādisiyyat-Saddām - 'Saddam's Qādisiyyah'), which devastated the economy. Iraq falsely declared victory in 1988 but actually only achieved a weary return to the status quo ante bellum, meaning both sides retained their original borders.\n\nThe war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980, following a long history of border disputes, and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution. Iraq was also aiming to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state. The United States supported Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran.[83] Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of the revolutionary chaos in Iran and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and within several months were repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years, Iran was on the offensive.[84] Despite calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988. The war finally ended with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in the form of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598, which was accepted by both sides. It took several weeks for the Iranian armed forces to evacuate Iraqi territory to honor pre-war international borders between the two nations (see 1975 Algiers Agreement). The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003.[84][85]\n\nThe war came at a great cost in lives and economic damage-half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers, as well as civilians, are believed to have died in the war with many more injured-but it brought neither reparations nor change in borders. The conflict is often compared to World War I,[86] in that the tactics used closely mirrored those of that conflict, including large scale trench warfare, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, use of barbed wire across trenches, human wave attacks across no-man's land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops and civilians as well as Iraqi Kurds. At the time, the UN Security Council issued statements that \"chemical weapons had been used in the war.\" However, in these UN statements, it was never made clear that it was only Iraq that was using chemical weapons, so it has been said that \"the international community remained silent as Iraq used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian as well as Iraqi Kurds\" and it is believed.\n\nA long-standing territorial dispute was the ostensible reason for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In November 1990, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 678, permitting member states to use all necessary means, authorizing military action against the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait and demanded a complete withdrawal by 15 January 1991. When Saddam Hussein failed to comply with this demand, the Gulf War (Operation \"Desert Storm\") ensued on 17 January 1991. Estimates range from 1,500 to as many as 30,000 Iraqi soldiers killed, as well as less than a thousand civilians.[87][88]\n\nIn March 1991 revolts in the Shia-dominated southern Iraq started involving demoralized Iraqi Army troops and the anti-government Shia parties. Another wave of insurgency broke out shortly afterwards in the Kurdish populated northern Iraq (see 1991 Iraqi uprisings). Although they presented a serious threat to the Iraqi Ba'ath Party regime, Saddam Hussein managed to suppress the rebellions with massive and indiscriminate force and maintained power. They were ruthlessly crushed by the loyalist forces spearheaded by the Iraqi Republican Guard and the population was successfully terrorized. During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives. In the aftermath, the government intensified the forced relocating of Marsh Arabs and the draining of the Iraqi marshlands, while the Coalition established the Iraqi no-fly zones.\n\nOn 6 August 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 661 which imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, providing for a full trade embargo, excluding medical supplies, food and other items of humanitarian necessity, these to be determined by the Security Council sanctions committee. After the end of the Gulf War and after the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, the sanctions were linked to removal of weapons of mass destruction by Resolution 687.[89] To varying degrees, the effects of government policy, the aftermath of Gulf War and the sanctions regime have been blamed for these conditions.\n\nThe effects of the sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq have been disputed.[90][91] Whereas it was widely believed that the sanctions caused a major rise in child mortality, recent research has shown that commonly cited data were fabricated by the Iraqi government and that \"there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions.\"[92][93][94] An oil for food program was established in 1996 to ease the effects of sanctions.\n\nIraqi cooperation with UN weapons inspection teams was questioned on several occasions during the 1990s. UNSCOM chief weapons inspector Richard Butler withdrew his team from Iraq in November 1998 because of Iraq's lack of cooperation. The team returned in December.[95] Butler prepared a report for the UN Security Council afterwards in which he expressed dissatisfaction with the level of compliance [2]. The same month, US President Bill Clinton authorized air strikes on government targets and military facilities. Air strikes against military facilities and alleged WMD sites continued into 2002.\n\nU.S. invasion and the aftermath (2003-present)\n\n2003 U.S. invasion\n\nAfter the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in the United States in 2001 were linked to the group formed by the multi-millionaire Saudi Osama bin Laden, American foreign policy began to call for the removal of the Ba'ath government in Iraq. Neoconservative think-tanks in Washington had for years been urging regime change in Baghdad. On 14 August 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-235, which declared that the Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations. It urged the President to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations. Several months later, Congress enacted the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on 31 October 1998. This law stated that it \"should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.\" It was passed 360 - 38 by the United States House of Representatives and 99-0 by the United States Senate in 1998.\n\nThe US urged the United Nations to take military action against Iraq. American president George W. Bush stated that Saddām had repeatedly violated 16 UN Security Council resolutions. The Iraqi government rejected Bush's assertions. A team of U.N. inspectors, led by Swedish diplomat Hans Blix was admitted, into the country; their final report stated that Iraqis capability in producing \"weapons of mass destruction\" was not significantly different from 1992 when the country dismantled the bulk of their remaining arsenals under terms of the ceasefire agreement with U.N. forces, but did not completely rule out the possibility that Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction. The United States and the United Kingdom charged that Iraq was hiding WMD and opposed the team's requests for more time to further investigate the matter. Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously by the UN Security Council on 8 November 2002, offering Iraq \"a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations\" that had been set out in several previous UN resolutions, threatening \"serious consequences\" if the obligations were not fulfilled. The UN Security Council did not issue a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.\n\nIn March 2003, the United States and the United Kingdom, with military aid from other nations, invaded Iraq.\n\nOver the following years in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Iraq disintegrated into a civil war from 2006 to 2008, and the situation deteriorated in 2011 which later escalated into a renewed war following ISIL gains in the country in 2014. By 2015, Iraq was effectively divided, the central and southern part being controlled by the government, the northwest by the Kurdistan Regional Government and the western part by the Islamic State. IS was expelled from Iraq in 2017, but a low-intensity ISIL insurgency continues mostly in the rural parts of northern western parts of the country, due to Iraq's long border with Syria.[96]\n\nOccupation (2003-2011)\n\nIn 2003, after the American and British invasion, Iraq was occupied by U.S.-led Coalition forces. On 23 May 2003, the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution lifting all economic sanctions against Iraq. As the country struggled to rebuild after three wars and a decade of sanctions, it was plagued by violence between a growing Iraqi insurgency and occupation forces. Saddam Hussein, who vanished in April, was captured on 13 December 2003 in ad-Dawr, Saladin Governorate.\n\nJay Garner was appointed Interim Civil Administrator with three deputies, including Tim Cross. Garner was replaced in May 2003 by Paul Bremer, who was himself replaced by John Negroponte on 19 April 2004. Negroponte was the last US interim administrator and left Iraq in 2005. A parliamentary election was held in January 2005, followed by the drafting and ratification of a constitution and a further parliamentary election in December 2005.\n\nTerrorism emerged as a threat to Iraq's people not long after the invasion of 2003. Al Qaeda now had a presence in the country, in the form of several terrorist groups formerly led by Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Al Zarqawi was a Jordanian militant Islamist who ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings and attacks during the Iraq war. Al Zarqawi was killed on 7 June 2006. Many foreign fighters and former Ba'ath Party officials also joined the insurgency, which was mainly aimed at attacking American forces and Iraqis who worked with them. The most dangerous insurgent area was the Sunni Triangle, a mostly Sunni-Muslim area just north of Baghdad.\n\nReported acts of violence conducted by an uneasy tapestry of insurgents steadily increased by the end of 2006.[97] Sunni jihadist forces including Al Qaeda in Iraq continued to target Shia civilians, notably in the 23 February 2006 attack on the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites leading to a civil war between Sunni and Shia militants in Iraq. Analysis of the attack suggested that the Mujahideen Shura Council and Al-Qaeda in Iraq were responsible, and that the motivation was to provoke further violence by outraging the Shia population.[98] In mid-October 2006, a statement was released stating that the Mujahideen Shura Council had been disbanded and was replaced by the \"Islamic State of Iraq\". It was formed to resist efforts by the U.S. and Iraqi authorities to win over Sunni supporters of the insurgency. Shia militias, some of whom were associated with elements in the Iraq government, reacted with reprisal acts against the Sunni minority. A cycle of violence thus ensued whereby Sunni insurgent attacks were followed reprisals by Shiite militias, often in the form of Shi'ite death squads that sought out and killed Sunnis. Following a surge in U.S. troops in 2007 and 2008, violence in Iraq began to decrease. The U.S. ended their main military presence in 2011, however, resulting in renewed escalation into war.[99]\n\nInsurgency and war (2011-2017)\n\nThe departure of US troops from Iraq in 2011 triggered a renewed insurgency and by a spillover of the Syrian civil war into Iraq. By 2013, the insurgency escalated into a state renewed war, the central government of Iraq being opposed by various factions, primarily radical Sunni forces.\n\nThe Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant invaded Iraq in 2013-14 and seized the majority of Al Anbar Governorate,[100] including the cities of Fallujah,[101] Al Qaim,[102] Abu Ghraib and (in May 2015) Ramadi,[103] leaving them in control of 90% of Anbar.[104][105] Tikrit, Mosul and most of the Nineveh province, along with parts of Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Diyala provinces, were seized by insurgent forces in the June 2014 offensive.[106] ISIL also captured Sinjar and a number of other towns in the August 2014 offensive, but were halted by the Sinjar offensive launched in December 2014 by Kurdish Peshmerga and YPG forces. The war ended with a government victory in December 2017.[107]\n\nOn 30 April 2016, thousands of protesters entered the Green Zone in Baghdad and occupied the Iraqi parliament building. This happened after the Iraqi parliament did not approve new government ministers. The protesters included supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada Al Sadr. Although Iraqi security forces were present, they did not attempt to stop the protesters from entering the parliament building.[109]\n\nContinued ISIL insurgency and protests (2017-present)\n\nTensions between the federal Iraqi government and Kurdistan Region arising from the Kurdistan Region independence referendum of 25 September 2017 escalated into armed conflict in October 2017. As a result of the conflict, Kurdistan Region lost a fifth of the land mass it had administered prior to the conflict and was forced to cancel the results of the referendum.\n\nBy 2018, violence in Iraq was at its lowest level in ten years.[110]\n\nProtests over deteriorating economic conditions and state corruption started in July 2018 in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities, mainly in the central and southern provinces. The latest nationwide protests, erupting in October 2019, had a death toll of at least 93 people, including police.[111]\n\nIn November 2021, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived a failed assassination attempt.[112]\n\nCleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement was the biggest winner in the 2021 parliamentary elections.[113] Governmental stalemate lead to the 2022 Iraqi political crisis.[114]\n\nIn October 2022, Abdul Latif Rashid was elected as the new President of Iraq after winning the parliamentary election against incumbent Barham Salih, who was running for a second term. The presidency is largely ceremonial and is traditionally held by a Kurd.[115] On 27 October 2022, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, close ally of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, took the office to succeed Mustafa al-Kadhimi as new Prime Minister of Iraq.[116]\n\nSee also\n\nAbbasid Caliphate\n\nAkkadian Empire\n\nAssyria\n\nBabylonia\n\nHistory of Asia\n\nHistory of Baghdad\n\nHistory of the Middle East\n\nList of kings of Iraq\n\nList of presidents of Iraq\n\nList of prime ministers of Iraq\n\nMesopotamia\n\nPolitics of Iraq\n\nSumer\n\nTimeline of Baghdad\n\nTimeline of Basra\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Gülcü, Erdinç (2016). \"XVI. Yüzyılın İkinci Yarısında Bağdat Vilayeti'nde Meydana Gelen İsyanlar ve Eşkıyalık Hareketleri\". Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi (in Turkish): 1811.\n\n^ Gülcü, Erdinç (2023). Osmanlı İdaresinde Bağdat (1534-1623): İdari ve Fiziki Yapı (in Turkish). Ankara: Atatürk Üniversitesi Yayınları. pp. 32-33.\n\n^ a b Musul - Kerkük ile İlgili Arşiv Belgeleri (1525-1919). Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. 1993. pp. 47-48.\n\n^ a b Ceylan, Ebubekir (2011). The Ottoman Origins of Modern Iraq: Political Reform, Modernization and Development in the Nineteenth Century Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 121.\n\n^ Musul - Kerkük ile İlgili Arşiv Belgeleri (1525-1919) (in Turkish). Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. 1993. pp. 180-181, 306-307, 311-312, 330.\n\n^ Nuri, Nahar Muhammed (2018). \"Iraq is not Artificial: Iraqi Trends and the Refutation of the Artificial State Hypothesis\". AlMuntaqa. 1 (3). Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies: 15. doi:10.31430/almuntaqa.1.3.0009. JSTOR 10.31430/almuntaqa.1.3.0009.\n\n^ Murray, Tim (2007). Milestones in Archaeology: A Chronological Encyclopedia. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 454. ISBN 978-1-57607-186-1.\n\n^ Edwards, Owen (2010). \"The Skeletons of Shanidar Cave\". Smithsonian.\n\n^ Edwards, Owen (March 2010). \"The Skeletons of Shanidar Cave\". Smithsonian. Retrieved 17 October 2014.\n\n^ a b Ralph S. Solecki, Rose L. Solecki, and Anagnostis P. Agelarakis (2004). The Proto-Neolithic Cemetery in Shanidar Cave. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 3-5. ISBN 9781585442720.\n\n^ Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Number 63) The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (2010) ISBN 978-1-885923-66-0 p.2, at http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/saoc/saoc63.html Archived 15 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine; \"Radiometric data suggest that the whole Southern Mesopotamian Ubaid period, including Ubaid 0 and 5, is of immense duration, spanning nearly three millennia from about 6500 to 3800 B.C\".\n\n^ Milton-Edwards, Beverley (May 2003). \"Iraq, past, present and future: a thoroughly-modern mandate?\". History & Policy. United Kingdom. Archived from the original on 8 December 2010. Retrieved 9 December 2010.\n\n^ a b c Charles Keith Maisels (24 October 2005). The Near East: Archaeology in the 'Cradle of Civilization'. Routledge. pp. 6-109. ISBN 978-1-134-66469-6.\n\n^ Roux, Georges (1993), Ancient Iraq (Penguin)\n\n^ Mark, Joshua J. (28 April 2011). \"Akkad\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18 August 2017.\n\n^ Zettler (2003), pp. 24-25. \"Moreover, the Dynasty of Akkade's fall did not lead to social collapse, but the re-emergence of the normative political organization. The southern cities reasserted their independence, and if we know little about the period between the death of Sharkalisharri and the accession of Urnamma, it may be due more to accidents of discovery than because of widespread 'collapse.' The extensive French excavations at Tello produced relevant remains dating right through the period.\"\n\n^ \"The Ziggurat of Ur\". British Museum. Retrieved 24 November 2017.\n\n^ Wolkstein, Diane; Kramer, Samuel Noah (1983). Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York City, New York: Harper&Row Publishers. pp. 118-119. ISBN 978-0-06-090854-6.\n\n^ Kramer, Samuel Noah (1963). The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. pp. 71-72. ISBN 978-0-226-45238-8. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ J. A. Brinkman, \"Kassiten (Kassû),\" RLA, vol. 5 (1976-80\n\n^ A. Leo Oppenheim - Ancient Mesopotamia\n\n^ George Roux - Ancient Iraq - p 281\n\n^ According to the Assyrian King List and Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 187.\n\n^ a b Aberbach 2003, p. 4.\n\n^ a b Düring 2020, p. 133.\n\n^ \"Black Obelisk, K. C. Hanson's Collection of Mesopotamian Documents\". K.C. Hansen. Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2014.\n\n^ Liverani, Mario (2017). \"Thoughts on the Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Kingship\". Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. p. 536. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\n^ Mark, Joshua J. (30 June 2014). \"Neo-Assyrian Empire\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 7 February 2022.\n\n^ Frahm, Eckart (2017). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Hoboken. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\n^ Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq\n\n^ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2007). \"Berossus on Late Babylonian History\". Oriental Studies: 116-149.\n\n^ Joshua J, Mark (2018). \"Nebuchadnezzar II\". World History Encyclopedia.\n\n^ a b Steven C. Hause, William S. Maltby (2004). Western civilization: a history of European society. Thomson Wadsworth. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-534-62164-3. The Greco-Macedonian Elite. The Seleucids respected the cultural and religious sensibilities of their subjects but preferred to rely on Greek or Macedonian soldiers and administrators for the day-to-day business of governing. The Greek population of the cities, reinforced until the second century BCE by immigration from Greece, formed a dominant, although not especially cohesive, elite.\n\n^ Glubb, Sir John Bagot (1967). Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. Thames & Hudson. p. 34. OCLC 585939. In addition to the court and the army, Syrian cities were full of Greek businessmen, many of them pure Greeks from Greece. The senior posts in the civil service were also held by Greeks. Although the Ptolemies and the Seleucids were perpetual rivals, both dynasties were Greek and ruled by means of Greek officials and Greek soldiers. Both governments made great efforts to attract immigrants from Greece, thereby adding yet another racial element to the population.\n\n^ George Roux - Ancient Iraq\n\n^ possibly an Arabic folk etymology of an older toponym deriving from the name of Uruk, see name of Iraq.\n\n^ Thomas T. Allsen Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia, p.84\n\n^ Frazier, Ian (25 April 2005). \"Annals of history: Invaders: Destroying Baghdad\". The New Yorker. p. 4. Retrieved 25 January 2013.\n\n^ Morgan. The Mongols. pp. 132-135.\n\n^ Bayne Fisher, William \"The Cambridge History of Iran\", p.3: \"(From then until the Timur's invasion of the country, Iran was under the rule of various rival petty princes of whom henceforth only the Jalayirids could claim Mongol)\n\n^ The History Files Rulers of Persia Archived 2021-05-12 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"The Islamic World to 1600: The Mongol Invasions (The Black Death)\". The University of Calgary. Archived from the original on 31 January 2009.\n\n^ Kathryn Jean Lopez (14 September 2005). \"Q&A with John Kelly on The Great Mortality on National Review Online\". Nationalreview.com. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2016.\n\n^ Nestorians, or Ancient Church of the East at Encyclopædia Britannica\n\n^ \"Iraq - The Ottoman Period, 1534-1918\". Countrystudies.us. Retrieved 19 June 2011.\n\n^ Musul - Kerkük ile İlgili Arşiv Belgeleri (1525-1919). Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. 1993. p. 52.\n\n^ Ceylan, Ebubekir (2011). The Ottoman Origins of Modern Iraq: Political Reform, Modernization and Development in the Nineteenth Century Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 45-53.\n\n^ Bowen, Wayne H. (2008). The History of Saudi Arabia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-313-34012-3. OCLC 166388162.\n\n^ Musul - Kerkük ile İlgili Arşiv Belgeleri (1525-1919). Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü. 1993. p. 173.\n\n^ Population crises and cycles in history A review of the book Population Crises and Population cycles by Claire Russell and W.M.S. Russell. valerieyule.com.au. 1999. ISBN 978-0-9504066-5-7. Retrieved 17 August 2016.\n\n^ Reports of administration for 1918 of divisions and districts of the occupied territories in Mesopotamia. Vol. 1. British Administration. 1919. p. 66.\n\n^ Mann, James Saumarez (1921). An Administrator In The Making: James Saumarez Mann, 1893-1920. Longmans, Green, & Co. p. 201.\n\n^ a b Nieuwenhuis, Tom (1982). Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq: Mamlūk Pashas, Tribal Shayks and Local Rule Between 1902 and 1831. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 90-247-2347-7.\n\n^ Güngörürler, Selim (2016). Diplomacy and Political Relations Between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran, 1639-1722. Georgetown University. p. 373.\n\n^ Fernea, Robert (1959). Irrigation and Social Organization Among the El Shabana; A Group of Tribal Cultivators in Southern Iraq. University of Chicago.\n\n^ Husain, Faisal (2018). The Tigris-Euphrates Basin Under Early Modern Ottoman Rule, c. 1534-1830. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University.\n\n^ \"How Mesopotamia Became Iraq (and Why It Matters)\". Los Angeles Times. 2 September 1990. Retrieved 2 August 2022.\n\n^ a b Tripp, Charles (2002). A History of Iraq. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52900-6. Retrieved 17 August 2016.\n\n^ Luedke, Tilman (2008). \"Iraq\". Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195176322.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-517632-2. Retrieved 13 June 2018.\n\n^ Masalha 1991, p. 684.\n\n^ Wilson, Jeremy (1998). Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorised Biography of T. E. Lawrence. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN 978-0-7509-1877-0. The exploits of T. E. Lawrence as British liaison officer in the Arab Revolt, recounted in his work Seven Pillars of Wisdom, made him one of the most famous Englishmen of his generation. This biography explores his life and career including his correspondence with writers, artists, and politicians.\n\n^ \"Cox, Sir Percy Zachariah (1864-1937), diplomatist and colonial administrator\". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref/32604 (inactive 6 September 2025).{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of September 2025 (link) (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)\n\n^ Liam Anderson; Gareth Stansfield (2005). The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, Or Division?. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-4039-7144-9. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 30 November 2018. Sunni control over the levels of power and the distribution of the spoils of office has had predictable consequences - a simmering resentment on the part of the Shi'a...\n\n^ Williams, Timothy (2 December 2009). \"In Iraq's African Enclave, Color Is Plainly Seen\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 December 2009.\n\n^ Ongsotto et al. Asian History Module-based Learning Ii' 2003 Ed. p69. [1]\n\n^ The New Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. 1. Internet Archive. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2007. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-59339-292-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)\n\n^ Robert Lyman (2006). Iraq 1941: The Battles For Basra, Habbaniya, Fallujah and Baghdad. Osprey Publishing. pp. 12-17. ISBN 978-1-84176-991-2.\n\n^ \"60 years on, Iraqis reflect on the coup that killed King Faisal II\". Arab News. 15 July 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2024.\n\n^ a b c d Cleveland, William (2016). A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.\n\n^ \"Faisal II | King, Iraq, & Death | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 26 April 2024. Retrieved 30 April 2024.\n\n^ Hornyold, Antony. Still in the Game, Knightley Publishing, Worcester, UK, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9570344-0-2\n\n^ Falle, Sam. My Lucky Life, The Book Guild Ltd, Lewes, Sussex, UK, 1996, ISBN 1857761219\n\n^ Reich, Bernard. Political leaders of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Bibliographical Dictionary. Westport, Connecticut, USA: Greenwood Press, Ltd, 1990. Pp. 245.\n\n^ \"ʿAbd al-Karīm Qāsim | Iraqi Prime Minister, Revolutionary Leader | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 3 April 2024. Retrieved 30 April 2024.\n\n^ Taylor, Katharine (May 2018). \"Revolutionary Fervor: The History and Legacy of Communism in Abd al-Karim Qasim's Iraq 1958-1963\". hdl:2152/65296.\n\n^ a b c d e f \"Abdul Karim Qasim - A-Z Index - The Kurdistan Memory Programme\". kurdistanmemoryprogramme.com. Retrieved 30 April 2024.\n\n^ katzcenterupenn. \"What Do You Know? Iraq's Jewish History\". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 28 July 2024.\n\n^ Haifa, Prof Yehudit Henshke, University of (26 December 2021). \"Abd al-Karim Qasim and treatment to Jews, The Preservation of Jewish Languages and Cultures in memory of Hayyim (Marani) Trabelsy\". Mother Tongue. Retrieved 28 July 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ a b c d Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, p.165\n\n^ G.S. Harris, Ethnic Conflict and the Kurds, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, pp.118-120, 1977\n\n^ Şahin, Tuncay. \"What's the Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq about?\". What's the Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq about?. Retrieved 28 July 2024.\n\n^ Anderson, Giulia Valeria (21 October 2019). \"US-Kurdish Relations: The 2nd Iraqi-Kurdish War and the Al-Anfal Campaigns\". Archived from the original on 14 December 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.\n\n^ Tyler, Patrick E. \"Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas\" Archived 30 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine New York Times 18 August 2002.\n\n^ a b Molavi, Afshin (2005). The Soul of Iran. Norton. p. 152.\n\n^ Fathi, Nazila (14 March 2003). \"Threats And Responses: Briefly Noted; Iran-Iraq Prisoner Deal\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 17 December 2008. Retrieved 16 February 2017.\n\n^ Abrahamian, Ervand, A History of Modern Iran, Cambridge, 2008, p.171\n\n^ Findlay, Justin (6 October 2017). \"What Was Operation Desert Storm?\". WorldAtlas. Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2020.\n\n^ Heidenrich, John G. (1993). \"The Gulf War: How Many Iraqis Died?\". Foreign Policy (90): 108-125. doi:10.2307/1148946. JSTOR 1148946.\n\n^ \"UN Security Council Resolution 687 -1991\". www.mideastweb.org. Archived from the original on 12 May 2018. Retrieved 11 November 2008.\n\n^ Iraq surveys show 'humanitarian emergency' Archived 6 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine UNICEF Newsline 12 August 1999\n\n^ Rubin, Michael (December 2001). \"Sanctions on Iraq: A Valid Anti-American Grievance?\". Middle East Review of International Affairs. 5 (4): 100-115. Archived from the original on 28 October 2012.\n\n^ Spagat, Michael (September 2010). \"Truth and death in Iraq under sanctions\" (PDF). Significance. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2018. Retrieved 22 December 2012.\n\n^ Dyson, Tim; Cetorelli, Valeria (1 July 2017). \"Changing views on child mortality and economic sanctions in Iraq: a history of lies, damned lies and statistics\". BMJ Global Health. 2 (2) e000311. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000311. ISSN 2059-7908. PMC 5717930. PMID 29225933.\n\n^ \"Saddam Hussein said sanctions killed 500,000 children. That was 'a spectacular lie.'\". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 4 August 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2017.\n\n^ Richard Butler, Saddam Defiant, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2000, p. 224\n\n^ Timeline-Rise, fall and spread of the Islamic State, 28 October 2019, archived from the original on 8 February 2021, retrieved 14 December 2020\n\n^ Gordon, Michael R.; Mazzetti, Mark; Shanker, Thom (17 August 2006). \"Bombs Aimed at G.I.'s in Iraq Are Increasing\". nytimes.com. Archived from the original on 16 July 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.\n\n^ Ibrahim, Ellen Knickmeyer and K. I. (23 February 2006). \"Bombing Shatters Mosque In Iraq\". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 14 February 2011. Retrieved 3 December 2017.\n\n^ Logan, Joseph (18 December 2011). \"Last U.S. troops leave Iraq, ending war\". Reuters. Archived from the original on 25 May 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2014.\n\n^ \"John Kerry holds talks in Iraq as more cities fall to ISIS militants\". CNN. 23 June 2014. Archived from the original on 19 January 2016. Retrieved 14 June 2015.\n\n^ \"Al Qaeda-linked militants capture Fallujah during violent outbreak\". Fox News. 4 January 2014. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2015.\n\n^ \"Militants kill 21 Iraqi leaders, capture 2 border crossings\". NY Daily News. 22 June 2014. Archived from the original on 27 December 2014. Retrieved 14 October 2014.\n\n^ \"Isis seizes Ramadi\". The Independent. 18 May 2015. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 3 December 2017.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Shiite Gov't faces Mammoth Task in taking Sunni al-Anbar from ISIL\". Informed Comment. 19 April 2015. Archived from the original on 13 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.\n\n^ \"Islamic State overruns Camp Speicher, routs Iraqi forces\". Long War Journal. 19 July 2014. Archived from the original on 26 March 2015. Retrieved 14 October 2014.\n\n^ \"Insurgents in Iraq Overrun Mosul Provincial Government Headquarters\". Voice of America. Reuters. 9 June 2014. Archived from the original on 26 December 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2014. \"Iraqi city of Mosul falls to jihadists\". CBS. 10 June 2014. Archived from the original on 18 December 2020. Retrieved 14 June 2015.\n\n^ Mostafa, Nehal (9 December 2017). \"Iraq announces end of war against IS, liberation of borders with Syria: Abadi\". Iraqi News. Archived from the original on 9 December 2017. Retrieved 9 December 2017.\n\n^ \"Iraq's Kurdistan says to respect court decision banning secession\". Reuters. 14 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Thousands of protesters storm Iraq parliament green zone\". AFP. 16 January 2012. Archived from the original on 1 May 2016. Retrieved 30 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Violence in Iraq at Lowest Level in 10 years\". Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2018.\n\n^ Alkhshali, Hamdi; Tawfeeq, Mohammed; Qiblawi, Tamara (5 October 2019). \"Iraq Prime Minister calls protesters' demands 'righteous,' as 93 killed in demonstrations\". CNN. Archived from the original on 27 October 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.\n\n^ \"Iraq PM says his would-be assassins have been identified\". BBC News. 8 November 2021. Archived from the original on 19 November 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2021.\n\n^ \"Iraq's Surprise Election Results\". Crisis Group. 16 November 2021. Archived from the original on 13 March 2022. Retrieved 27 December 2021.\n\n^ \"Iraqi leaders vow to move ahead after dozens quit parliament\". The Independent. 13 June 2022. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 13 June 2022.\n\n^ National, The (14 October 2022). \"Who are Iraq's new president Abdul Latif Rashid and PM nominee Mohammed Shia Al Sudani?\". The National. Archived from the original on 17 January 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2022.\n\n^ \"Iraq gets a new government after a year of deadlock - DW - 10/28/2022\". dw.com. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2022.\n\nSources\n\nAberbach, David (2003). Major Turning Points in Jewish Intellectual History. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-1766-9.\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-47874-8.\n\nMasalha, N. (October 1991). \"Faisal's Pan-Arabism, 1921-33\". Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 27, no. 4. pp. 679-693. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4283470.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBroich, John. Blood, Oil and the Axis: The Allied Resistance Against a Fascist State in Iraq and the Levant, 1941 (Abrams, 2019).\n\nde Gaury, Gerald. Three Kings in Baghdad: The Tragedy of Iraq's Monarchy, (IB Taurus, 2008). ISBN 978-1-84511-535-7\n\nElliot, Matthew. Independent Iraq: British Influence from 1941 to 1958 (IB Tauris, 1996).\n\nFattah, Hala Mundhir, and Frank Caso. A brief history of Iraq (Infobase Publishing, 2009).\n\nFranzén, Johan. \"Development vs. Reform: Attempts at Modernisation during the Twilight of British Influence in Iraq, 1946-1958,\" Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 37#1 (2009), pp. 77-98\n\nKriwaczek, Paul. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. Atlantic Books (2010). ISBN 978-1-84887-157-1\n\nMurray, Williamson, and Kevin M. Woods. The Iran-Iraq War: A military and strategic history (Cambridge UP, 2014).\n\nRoux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books (1992). ISBN 0-14-012523-X\n\nSilverfarb, Daniel. Britain's informal empire in the Middle East: a case study of Iraq, 1929-1941 ( Oxford University Press, 1986).\n\nSilverfarb, Daniel. The twilight of British ascendancy in the Middle East: a case study of Iraq, 1941-1950 (1994)\n\nSilverfarb, Daniel. \"The revision of Iraq's oil concession, 1949-52.\" Middle Eastern Studies 32.1 (1996): 69-95.\n\nSimons, Geoff. Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam (Springer, 2016).\n\nTarbush, Mohammad A. The role of the military in politics: A case study of Iraq to 1941 (Routledge, 2015).\n\nTripp, Charles R. H. (2007). A History of Iraq 3rd edition. Cambridge University Press.\n\nHistoriography\n\nBashkin, Orit (2015). \"Deconstructing Destruction: The Second Gulf War and the New Historiography of Twentieth-Century Iraq\". The Arab Studies Journal. 23 (1): 210-234. ISSN 1083-4753. JSTOR 44744905.\n\nExternal links\n\nIraq: The Cradle of Civilization\n\nIraq History and Culture from the cradle of civilization and Noah to the present age and time Archived 4 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine\n\nHistorical Context of the Iran - Iraq War from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-history-of-iraq"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12436}, {"slug": "reference-cizre", "title": "Cizre", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Cizre (Turkish: [ˈdʒizɾe])[a] is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey.[16] It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria-Turkey border and close to the Iraq-Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultural region of Turkish Kurdistan.[17]...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Cizre\n\nMunicipality\n\nAerial view of Cizre\n\nLogo\n\nCizreLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°19′55″N 42°11′13″E / 37.332°N 42.187°E / 37.332; 42.187\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceŞırnak\n\nDistrictCizre\n\nGovernment\n\n • Acting MayorDavut Sinanoğlu\n\nPopulation (2021)[1]130,916\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nWebsitewww.cizre.bel.tr\n\nCizre (Turkish: [ˈdʒizɾe])[a] is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey.[16] It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria-Turkey border and close to the Iraq-Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultural region of Turkish Kurdistan.[17] The city had a population of 130,916 in 2021. It is predominantly inhabited by Kurds.[1][18]\n\nCizre was founded as Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in the 9th century by Al-Hasan ibn Umar, Emir of Mosul, on a manmade island in the Tigris.[19] The city benefited from its situation as a river crossing and port in addition to its position at the end of an old Roman road which connected it to the Mediterranean Sea, and thus became an important commercial and strategic centre in Upper Mesopotamia.[19] By the 12th century, it had adopted an intellectual and religious role, and sizeable Christian and Jewish communities are attested.[20] Cizre suffered in the 15th century from multiple sackings and ultimately came under the control of the Ottoman Empire after 1515.[21]\n\nUnder Ottoman control, Cizre stagnated and was left as a small district centre dominated by ruins by the end of the 19th century.[22] The city's decline continued, exacerbated by the state-orchestrated destruction of its Christian population in the Armenian genocide and Sayfo in 1915,[23] and exodus of its Jewish population to Israel in 1951.[24] It began to recover in the second half of the 20th century through urban redevelopment, and its population saw a massive increase as a place of refuge from 1984 onwards as many fled the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.[25] At the close of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, Cizre has emerged as a battleground between Kurdish militants and the Turkish state, which inflicted significant devastation on the city to retain control.[26]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe various names for the city of Cizre descend from the original Arabic name Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, which is derived from 'jazira' (island), \"ibn\" (son of), and the name Umar, thus Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar translates to 'island of the son of Umar'.[27] The city's alternative Arabic name Madinat al-Jazira is composed of \"madinat\" ('city') and 'al-Jazira' (the island), and therefore translates to 'the island city'.[28] Cizre was known in Syriac as Gāzartā d'Beṯ Zabdaï (island of Zabdicene), from 'gazarta' (island) and 'Beṯ Zabdaï' (Zabdicene).[14]\n\nHistory\n\nHistorical affiliations\n\nHamdanid ???-978\n\nBuyid 978-984\n\nMarwanid 984-990\n\nUqaylid 990-???\n\nUnder Buyid suzerainty 990-996\n\nMarwanid ???-1096\n\n Under Seljuk suzerainty 1056-1096\n\n Seljuk 1096-1127\n\n Zengid 1127-1251\n\n Under Seljuk suzerainty 1127-1183\n\n Under Ayyubid suzerainty 1183-1251\n\nLuluid 1251-1261\n\n Under Mongol suzerainty 1252-1261\n\n Ilkhanate 1262-1335\n\nBohtan 1336/1337-1456\n\n Aq Qoyunlu 1456-1495/1496\n\nBohtan 1496-1847\n\n Under Safavid suzerainty 1507-1515\n\n Under Ottoman suzerainty 1515-1847\n\n Ottoman Empire 1847-1923\n\n Turkey 1923-present\n\nClassical and early medieval period\n\nCizre is identified as the location of Ad flumen Tigrim, a river crossing depicted on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a Roman 4th/5th century map.[29] The river crossing lay at the end of a Roman road that connected it with Nisibis,[22] and was part of the region of Zabdicene.[30] It was previously assumed by most scholars that Bezabde was located at the same site of what would later become Cizre,[31] but is now agreed to be at Eski Hendek, 13 km (8.1 mi) northwest of Cizre.[32]\n\nCizre was originally known as Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, and was founded by and named after al-Hasan ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab al-Taghlibi (d. c. 865), Emir of Mosul, in the early 9th century, as recorded by Yaqut al-Hamawi in Mu'jam al-Buldan.[33] The city was constructed in a bend in the river Tigris, and al-Hasan ibn Umar built a canal across the bend, placing the city on an island in the river, hence the city's name.[19] Eventually, the original course of the river disappeared due to sedimentation and shifted to the canal, leaving the city on the west bank of the Tigris.[34] Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was situated to take advantage of trade routes from the direction of Amid to the northwest, Nisibin to the west, and Iran to the northeast.[35] The city also functioned as a river port, and goods were transported by raft down the Tigris to Mosul and further south.[36] Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar supplanted the neighbouring city of Bezabde as its inhabitants gradually left for the new city, and was likely abandoned in the early 10th century.[35]\n\nMedieval Islamic scholars recorded competing theories of the founder of the city as al-Harawi noted in Ziyarat that it was believed that Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was the second city founded by Nuh (Noah) after the Great Flood.[8] This belief rests on the identification of nearby Mount Judi as the apobaterion (place of descent) of Noah's Ark.[37] The shahanshah Ardashir I of Iran (180-242) was also considered a potential founder.[23] In Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, Ibn Khallikan reported that Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi (d. 744) was considered by some to be responsible for the city's foundation, whilst he argued that Abd al-Aziz ibn Umar was the founder and namesake of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[38]\n\nThe city was fortified in the 10th century at the latest.[19] In the 10th century, Ibn Hawqal in Surat al-Ard described Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar as an entrepôt engaged in trade with the Byzantine Empire, Armenia, and the districts of Mayyafariqin, Arzen, and Mosul.[39] Abu Taghlib, Hamdanid Emir of Mosul, allied himself with the Buyid Emir Izz al-Dawla Bakhtiyar of Iraq in his civil war against his cousin Emir 'Adud al-Dawla of Fars in 977 on the condition that Bakhtiyar hand over Abu Taghlib's younger brother Hamdan, who had conspired against him.[40] Although Abu Taghlib had secured his reign by executing his rival brother Hamdan, the alliance quickly backfired following Adud al-Dawla's victory over Abu Taghlib and Bakhtiyar at Samarra in the spring of 978 as he then annexed Hamdanid territory in upper Mesopotamia, and thus Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar came under Buyid rule, forcing Abu Taghlib to go into exile.[41]\n\nBuyid control of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was cut short by the civil war that followed the death of Adud al-Dawla in 983 as it allowed the Kurdish chief Badh ibn Dustak to seize Buyid territory in upper Mesopotamia in the following year, and he was acknowledged as its ruler by the claimant Emir Samsam al-Dawla.[42] Bādh attempted to conquer Mosul in 990, and the Hamdanid brothers Abu Abdallah Husayn and Abu Tahir Ibrahim were sent by the Buyid Emir Baha al-Dawla to repel the threat.[43] The Uqaylid clan agreed to aid the brothers against Bādh in return for the cities of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, Balad, and Nisibin, and Bādh was subsequently defeated and killed.[43] The leader of the Uqaylids, Abu'l-Dhawwad Muhammad ibn al-Musayyab, secured control of the cities, and acknowledged Emir Baha al-Dawla as his sovereign.[43] On Muhammad's death in 996, his brother and successor as emir, al-Muqallad, asserted his independence, expelling the Buyid presence in the emirate, and thus ending Buyid suzerainty.[43]\n\nHigh medieval period\n\nTurkmen nomads arrived in the vicinity of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in the summer of 1042, and carried out raids in Diyar Bakr and upper Mesopotamia.[44] The Marwanid emirate became a vassal of the Seljuk Sultan Tughril in 1056.[45]\n\nIn the summer of 1083, the former Marwanid vizier Fakhr al-Dawla ibn Jahir persuaded the Seljuk Sultan Malikshah to send him with an army against the Marwanid emirate,[46] and eventually Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, the last remaining Marwanid stronghold, was captured by the Seljuk Turks in 1085.[47][48] Although the Marwanid emirate was severely reduced, its final emir, Nasir al-Dawla Mansur, was permitted to continue to rule solely Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar under the Seljuk Sultanate from 1085 onwards.[49] The mamluk Jikirmish seized Mansur and usurped the emirate of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar on Mansur's death in January 1096.[50] In late 1096, Jikirmish set out to relieve Kerbogha's siege of Mosul following a request for aid from the Uqaylid emir Ali ibn Sharaf al-Dawla of Mosul, but was defeated by Kerbogha's brother Altuntash, and submitted to him as a vassal.[50] Jikirmish was forced to aid in the ultimately successful siege against his former ally, and thus came under the suzerainty of Kerbogha as Emir of Mosul.[50] Kerbogha died in 1102, and Sultan Barkiyaruq appointed Jikirmish as his replacement as emir.[51] Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was thereafter directly ruled over by a string of Seljuk emirs of Mosul until the appointment of Zengi.[51]\n\nEmir Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi of Mosul was murdered by Assassins in 1126, and was succeeded by his son Mas'ud. He died after several months, and his younger brother became emir with the mamluk Jawali serving as atabeg (regent).[52] Jawali sent envoys to Sultan Mahmud II to receive official recognition for al-Bursuqi's son as emir of Mosul, but the envoys bribed the vizier Anu Shurwan to recommend Imad al-Din Zengi be appointed as emir of Mosul instead.[52] The sultan appointed Zengi as emir in the autumn of 1127, but he had to secure the emirate by force as forces loyal to al-Bursuqi's son resisted Zengi, and retained control of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[52] After taking Mosul, Zengi marched north and besieged Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar; in an attack, he ferried soldiers across the river whilst others swam to the city, and eventually the city surrendered.[53] Later, an Artuqid coalition of Da'ud of Hisn Kayfa, Timurtash of Mardin, and Ilaldi of Amid threatened Zengi's realm in 1130 whilst he campaigned in the vicinity of Aleppo in Syria, forcing him to return and defeat them at Dara.[54] After the battle, Da'ud marched on Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar and pillaged its surroundings, thus Zengi advanced to counter him, and Da'ud withdrew to the mountains.[54]\n\nThe dozdar (governor of the citadel) of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, Thiqat al-Din Hasan, was reported to have sexually harassed soldiers' wives whilst their husbands were on campaign, and thus Zengi sent his hajib (chamberlain) al-Yaghsiyani to handle the situation.[55] To avoid a rebellion, al-Yaghsiyani told Hasan he was promoted to dozdar of Aleppo, so he arranged to leave the city, but was arrested, castrated, and crucified by al-Yaghsiyani upon leaving the citadel.[55] The Jewish scholar Abraham ibn Ezra visited the city in November 1142.[56] On Zengi's death in 1146, his eldest son Sayf al-Din Ghazi I received the emirate of Mosul, including Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar,[57] and Izz al-Dīn Abū Bakr al-Dubaysī was appointed as the city's governor.[23] The city was transferred to Qutb al-Din Mawdud on his seizure of the emirate of Mosul after his elder brother Sayf al-Din's death in November 1149.[57]\n\nThe Grand Mosque of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was constructed in 1155.[58] After Qutb al-Din's death in September 1170, Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was inherited by his son and successor Sayf al-Din Ghazi II as emir of Mosul.[57] Michael the Syrian recorded that a Syriac Orthodox monastery was confiscated and the city's bishop Basilius was imprisoned in 1173.[59] Upon the death of Sayf al-Din Ghazi in 1180, Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was granted as an iqta' to his son Mu'izz al-Din Sanjar Shah within the emirate of Mosul, however, in late 1183, Sanjar Shah recognised Saladin as his suzerain, thus becoming a vassal of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt, and effectively forming an autonomous principality.[57] Sanjar Shah continued to mint coins in his own name, and copper dirhams were minted at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1203/1204.[60]\n\nSanjar Shah ruled until his murder by his son Ghazi in 1208, and was succeeded by his son Mu'izz al-Din Mahmud.[61] Mahmud successfully maintained Zengid control over Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar with the marriage of his son Al-Malik al-Mas'ud Shahanshah to the daughter of Badr al-Din Lu'lu', who had overthrown the Zengids at Mosul, and usurped power for himself in 1233.[61] The Grand Mosque of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was renovated during Mahmud's reign.[58] In the early 13th century, the city's fort and madrasa are attested by Ibn al-Athir in Al-Tārīkh al-bāhir fī al-Dawlah al-Atābakīyah bi-al-Mawṣil, and its mosque by Ibn Khallikan in Wafayāt al-Aʿyān.[38] According to the Arab scholar Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad, the Mongol Empire demanded 100,000 dinars in tribute from the ruler of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1251.[62] The end of the Zengid dynasty was heralded by the death of Mahmud in 1251, as Badr al-Din Lu'lu' had Mahmud's successor Al-Malik al-Mas'ud Shahanshah killed soon after, and assumed control of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[61]\n\nLate medieval period\n\nBadr al-Din Lu'lu' acknowledged Mongol suzerainty to secure his realm as early as 1252,[63] and minted coins in the name of Great Khan Möngke Khan in 1255 at the latest.[64] He is also known to have had a mosque built at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[23] Badr al-Din became subject to the Mongol Ilkhanate on Hulagu Khan's assumption of the title Ilkhan (subject khan) in 1256.[65] Badr al-Din Lu'lu' died in July/August 1259,[63] and his realm was divided between his sons, and Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was bequeathed to his son al-Malik Al-Mujahid Sayf al-Din Ishaq.[66] The sons of Badr al-Din Lu'lu' chafed under Mongol rule and soon all had rebelled and travelled to Egypt seeking military assistance as al-Muzaffar Ala al-Din Ali left Sinjar in 1260,[66] al-Salih Rukn al-Din Ismail left Mosul in June 1261,[63] and finally Ishaq fled Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar for Mamluk Egypt shortly afterwards.[67] Prior to his flight, Ishaq extorted 700 dinars from the city's Christians, and news of his impending escape pushed the populace to riot against his decision to leave the city to the wrath of the Mongols.[68]\n\nIn Ishaq's absence, 'Izz ad-Din 'Aibag, Emir of Amadiya, seized the city, and an attack by Abd Allah, Emir of Mayyafariqin, was repelled.[68] Baibars, Sultan of Egypt, refused to provide an army to the sons of Badr al-Din against the Mongols, but they were permitted to accompany Caliph Al-Mustansir on his campaign to reconquer Baghdad from the Mongols.[67] The three brothers marched with the caliph's campaign until they split at Al-Rahba, and travelled to Sinjar,[69] where Ali and Ishaq briefly remained whilst Ismail continued onwards to Mosul. However, the two brothers abandoned Sinjar and Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar to the Mongols, and returned to Egypt upon learning of the caliph's death and defeat in November.[70] Mosul was sacked and Ismail was killed by a Mongol army, after the Siege of Mosul (1261) from November to July/August 1262.[70] After the sack of Mosul, the Mongol army led by Samdaghu besieged Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar until the summer of 1263; the siege was lifted and the city spared when the Church of the East bishop Henan Isho claimed to have knowledge of chrysopoeia, and offered to render his services.[71] Jemal ad-Din Gulbag was appointed to govern Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, but he was later executed for conspiring with the city's former ruler Ishaq, and was replaced by Henan Isho,[71] who was also executed in 1268, following accusations of impropriety.[72]\n\nIn the second half of the 13th century, Mongol gold, silver, and copper coins were minted at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar,[73] and production there increased after Khan Ghazan's (r. 1295-1304) reforms.[74] It was later attested that the vizier Rashid-al-Din Hamadani had planned to construct a canal from the Tigris by the city.[74] Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was visited by the Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta in 1327, and he noted the city's mosque, bazaar,[75] and three gates.[23] In 1326/1327, the city was granted as a fief to a Turkman chief, and Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar remained under his control until the disintegration of the Ilkhanate in 1335, soon after which it was seized by the Bohtan clan in 1336/1337 with the aid of al-Ashraf, Ayyubid Emir of Hisn Kayfa.[76] In the 1330s, Hamdallah Mustawfi in Nuzhat Al Qulub reported that Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar had an annual revenue of 170,200 dinars.[77] The emirate of Hisn Kayfa had aimed to control Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar through the Bohtan clan in providing military assistance to its capture and the marriage of a daughter to Izz ad-Din, Emir of Bohtan, but this was unsuccessful as the Bohtan emirate developed the city and consolidated their rule, and eventually the emir of Hisn Kayfa attempted to take Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar by force in 1384/1385, but was repelled.[76]\n\nThe emirate of Bohtan submitted to the Timurid Empire in 1400, after Timur sacked Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in retribution for the emir having seized one of his baggage convoys.[21] As punishment for the emir's refusal to participate in Timur's campaign in Iraq, the city was sacked by Timur's son Miran Shah.[21]\n\nEarly modern period\n\nUzun Hasan usurped leadership of the Aq Qoyunlu from his elder brother Jahangir in a coup at Amid in 1452, and set about expanding his realm by seizing Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1456, whilst the emir of Bohtan withdrew into the mountains.[80] Rebellion and civil war followed the death of Uzun Hasan in 1478, and the emir of Bohtan retook Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar from the Aq Qoyunlu in 1495/1496.[81]\n\nJazirat Ibn ʿUmar came under Safavid suzerainty in the first decade of the 16th century, but after the Ottoman victory at the battle of Chaldiran over Shah Ismail I in 1514, Sultan Selim I sent Idris Bitlisi to the city and he successfully convinced the emir of Bohtan to submit to the Ottoman Empire.[82] The emirate of Bohtan was incorporated into the empire as a hükûmet (autonomous territory),[83] and was assigned to the eyalet (province) of Diyarbekir upon its formation in 1515.[84] Sayyid Ahmad ruled in 1535.[23]\n\nChristian families from Erbil found refuge and settled in Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1566.[23] In the mid-17th century, Evliya Çelebi visited Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar en route from Mosul to Hisn Kayfa,[85] and noted the city possessed four muftis and a naqib al-ashraf, and its qadis (judges) received a daily salary of 300 akçes.[86] In the late 17th century, Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar is mentioned by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in Les Six Voyages de J. B. Tavernier as a location on the route to Tabriz.[87]\n\nLate modern period\n\nThe Egyptian invasion of Syria in 1831-1832 allowed Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz, Emir of Soran, to expand his realm, and he seized Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1833.[88] The Ottoman response to Muhammad Pasha was delayed by the war with Egypt until 1836, in which year Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was retaken by an Ottoman army led by Reşid Mehmed Pasha.[89] Reşid deposed Sayf al-Din Shir, Emir of Bohtan and mütesellim of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, and he was replaced by Bedir Khan Beg.[89] In 1838, an Ottoman army was sent to Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar during the campaign to suppress the rebellion of Abdul Agha and Khan Mahmud in the vicinity of Lake Van.[90] The German adviser Helmuth von Moltke the Elder accompanied the Ottoman army and reported back to the Ottoman government from Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in June 1838.[91] Bedir Khan Beg reportedly established a munitions and arms factory in the city.[92]\n\nIn 1842, as part of the centralisation policies of the Tanzimat reforms, the kaza (district) of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was attached to the eyalet of Mosul, whilst the kaza of Bohtan, which constituted the remainder of the emirate, remained within the eyalet of Diyarbekir, thus administratively dividing the emirate, and provoking Bedir Khan.[93] The administrative reform aimed to increase Ottoman state revenue, but left the previously loyal emir disgruntled with the Ottoman state.[94] Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was visited by the American missionary Asahel Grant on 13 June 1843.[95] Bedir Khan's 1843 and 1846 massacres in Hakkari led the British and French governments to demand his removal from power,[92] and he was subsequently summoned to Constantinople, but Bedir Khan refused, and an Ottoman army was sent against him.[96] The emir defeated the Ottoman army, and he declared the independence of the Emirate of Bohtan.[92] Bedir Khan's success was brief as a large Ottoman army led by Osman Pasha, with Omar Pasha and Sabri Pasha, marched against him, and his relative Yezdanşêr defected and allowed for the Ottoman occupation of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[92] The Ottoman government unsuccessfully encouraged Bedir Khan to surrender, and the vali (governor) of Diyarbekir wrote to the Naqshbandi sheikhs İbrahim, Salih, and Azrail at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar to mediate in June 1847.[97] Although Bedir Khan retook Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, the emir was forced to withdraw and surrendered on 29 July.[98]\n\nAs a consequence of Bedir Khan's rebellion, the emirate of Bohtan was dissolved and Yezdanşêr succeeded him as mütesellim of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[99] Also, the eyalet of Kurdistan was formed on 5 December 1847, and included the kazas of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar and Bohtan.[100] Yezdanşêr met with Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Fenwick Williams at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1849 whilst he participated as the British representative in a commission to settle the Ottoman-Iranian border.[101] Yezdanşêr was soon replaced by the kaymakam Mustafa Pasha, sent away to Constantinople in March 1849, and forbidden from returning to Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[99] In 1852, the iane-i umumiye (temporary tax) was introduced, and the kaza of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was expected to provide 23,140 piastres.[102] During the Crimean War, in 1854, Yezdanşêr was ordered to recruit soldiers for the war, and 900 Kurds were recruited from Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar and Bohtan.[103] Yezdanşêr claimed to be maltreated by local officials and revolted in November, with Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar under his control.[103] He offered to surrender in January 1855 on the condition that he received the kazas of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar and Bohtan, but this was rejected.[104] An Ottoman army consisting of a regiment of infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and a battery of six guns was ordered to march on Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in February.[105] In March, Yezdanşêr accepted terms offered by General Williams, the British military commissioner with the Ottoman Anatolian army, and surrendered.[106]\n\nIn 1867, the eyalet of Kurdistan was dissolved and replaced by the Diyarbekir Vilayet, and Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar became the seat of a kaza in the sanjak of Mardin.[107] The kaza was subdivided into nine nahiyes, and possessed 210 villages.[108] Osman, son of Bedir Khan, seized Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1878 after his escape from captivity at Constantinople using demobilised Kurdish veterans of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and proclaimed himself as emir.[109] The rebellion endured for eight months until it was quelled by an Ottoman army led by Shevket Bey.[110] The city was visited by the German scholar Eduard Sachau in 1880.[34] In the late 19th century, the French geographer Vital Cuinet recorded in La Turquie d'Asie the city's five caravanserais, one-hundred and six shops, ten cafés, and a vaulted bazaar.[23] At the inception of the Hamidiye cavalry corps in 1891, Mustafa, agha (chief) of the local Miran clan, enrolled and was made a commander with the rank of paşa, hereafter known as Mustafa Paşa.[111] Throughout the 1890s, Mustafa Paşa exploited his position to seize goods from merchants and plunder Christian villages in the district.[112] In 1892,[113] Mustafa Paşa converted a mosque at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar into a barracks for his soldiers.[114]\n\nThe appointment of Mehmed Enis Paşa as vali of Diyarbekir on 4 October 1895 was quickly followed by massacres of Christians throughout the province,[115] and in mid-November an Ottoman army repelled an attempt by Mustafa Paşa to enter the city and slaughter its Christian inhabitants.[116] Mustafa Paşa subsequently complained to Enis Paşa, and the officer in charge of the regiment was summoned to Diyarbekir.[116] Later, the British and French vice-consuls at Diyarbekir, Cecil Marsham Hallward and Gustave Meyrier, respectively, suspected that Enis Paşa was responsible for the massacres in the province.[117] In 1897, the British diplomat Telford Waugh reported that Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was used as a place of exile by the Ottoman Empire as he noted the presence of Albanians deported there, and that the city's governor Faris, agha of the Şammar clan, had been exiled there after his fall from grace.[118]\n\nEarly 20th century\n\nMustafa Paşa feuded with agha Muhammad Aghayê Sor, and in 1900 the kaymakam of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar intervened to aid the Tayan clan, Mustafa Paşa's allies, against Aghayê Sor.[113] Several months later, Mustafa Paşa had twenty villages in the district loyal to his rival destroyed, and Aghayê Sor wrote to the Brigadier General Bahaeddin Paşa seeking protection.[113] Bahaeddin Paşa travelled to Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar to conduct an inquiry, but was imprisoned there for five days by Mustafa Paşa,[113] and the two rivals continued to attack each other's territories until Mustafa Paşa was assassinated on Aghayê Sor's orders in 1902.[119] Within the kaza of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, in 1909, there were 1500 households, 1000 of which possessed over 50 dönüms.[120] As late as 1910, the Miran clan annually migrated from their winter pastures in the plain of Mosul to Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in the spring to trade and pay taxes, and then across the Tigris to summer grazing grounds at the source of the River Botan.[121] The British scholar Gertrude Bell visited the city in May 1910.[122]\n\nIn 1915, amidst the ongoing genocide of Armenians and Assyrians perpetrated by the Ottoman government and local Kurds, Aziz Feyzi and Zülfü Bey carried out preparations to destroy the Christian population of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar on orders from Mehmed Reshid, vali of Diyarbekir.[123] From 29 April to 12 May, the officials toured the district and incited the Kurds against the Christians;[124] Halil Sâmi, kaymakam of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar since 31 March 1913, was replaced by Kemal Bey on 2 May 1915 due to his refusal to support the plans for genocide.[125] At this time, two redif (reserve) battalions were stationed in the city.[108] Julius Behnam, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Gazarta, fled to Azakh upon hearing of the commencement of massacres in the province in July.[108] Christians in rural areas of the district were massacred over several days from 8 August onwards,[125] and several Jacobite and 15 Chaldean Catholic villages were destroyed.[108]\n\nOn the night of 28 August, Flavianus Michael Malke, Syriac Catholic Bishop of Gazarta, and Philippe-Jacques Abraham, Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Gazarta, were killed.[126] On 29 August, Aziz Feyzi, Ahmed Hilmi, Mufti of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, and Ömer, agha of the Reman clan, coordinated the arrest, torture, and execution of all Armenian men and a number of Assyrians in Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar.[125][123] The men's bodies were dumped in the Tigris, and, two days later, the children were abducted into Muslim households, and most women were raped and killed, and their bodies were also thrown into the river.[123] Walter Holstein, German vice-consul at Mosul, reported the massacre to the German embassy at Constantinople on 9 September, and the German ambassador Ernst II, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg informed the German Foreign Office on 11 September that the massacre had resulted in the death of 4750 Armenians (2500 Gregorians, 1250 Catholics, and 1000 Protestants) and 350 Assyrians (250 Chaldeans and 100 Jacobites).[123] After the massacre, eleven churches and three chapels were confiscated.[108] 200 Armenians from Erzurum were exterminated near Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar by General Halil Kut on 22 September.[125] Kemal Bey continued in the office of kaymakam until 3 November 1915.[125]\n\nIn the aftermath of Ottoman defeat in the First World War, Ali İhsan Sâbis, commander of the Ottoman Sixth Army, was reported to have recruited and armed Kurds at Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in February 1919 in an effort to prevent British occupation.[127] After the murder of Captain Alfred Christopher Pearson, assistant political officer at Zakho, by Kurds on 4 April 1919, the occupation of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar was considered to ensure the security of British Iraq, but ultimately dismissed.[128] Ahmed Hilmi, Mufti of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar, was ordered to be arrested in May 1919 for his role in the massacre in 1915 as part of the Turkish courts-martial of 1919-1920, but he evaded arrest as he was under the protection of local Kurdish clans.[129]\n\nAppeals from Kurds to the British government to create an independent Kurdish state spurred the appointment of Nihat Anılmış as commander at Cizre in June 1920 with instructions from the Prime Minister of Turkey Mustafa Kemal to establish local government and secure control of local Kurds by inciting them to engage in armed clashes against British and French forces, thus preventing good relations.[130] Local Kurdish notables complained to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey of alleged illegal activity by Nihat Anılmış, and although it was decided no action was to be taken in July 1922,[131] he was transferred away from Cizre in early September.[132]\n\nAmidst the partition of the Ottoman Empire, Cizre was allocated to become part of 'the specifically French zone of interests' as per the Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August 1920.[133] However, Turkey concentrated a significant number of forces at Cizre in January 1923 to bolster the Turkish position at the Lausanne Conference of 1922-23,[134] and the city itself was retained by Turkey, but part of the district was transferred to Syria and Iraq.[135] In response to Kurdish revolts in the 1920s, the Turkish government aimed to Turkify the population of eastern Turkey, but Christians were deemed unsuitable, and thus attempted to eradicate those who had survived the genocide.[136] In this effort, 257 Syriac Orthodox men from Azakh and neighbouring villages were imprisoned by the government at Cizre in 1926, where they were beaten and denied food.[136]\n\nLate 20th century\n\nCizre received electricity and running water in the mid-1950s.[137] In the 1960s, the infrastructure of the city was developed as a new bridge, municipal buildings, and new roads were constructed and streets were widened, and amenities such as a public park named after Atatürk and a cinema were built.[137]\n\nRoughly 60 people were detained and tortured for 20 days by Turkish police after the killing of two Turkish policemen in Cizre on 13 January 1989.[138] The economy of Cizre was severely disrupted by the eruption of the Gulf War as trade with Iraq was embargoed and the border was closed, resulting in the closure of 90% of shops in the city.[137] Kurdish militants clashed with Turkish security forces in Cizre on 18 June 1991, and five Turkish soldiers and one militant were killed, according to official reports, however Amnesty International reported the death of one civilian also.[138] On 21 March 1992, a pro-PKK demonstration to celebrate Newroz in contravention of a state ban was dispersed by Turkish soldiers, and led to violence as Kurdish militants retaliated, resulting in the death of 26-30 people.[139] Properties in Cizre were damaged by Turkish soldiers in two shootouts against PKK militants in August and September 1993, and three militants were killed.[25]\n\nContemporary period\n\nRiots erupted in Cizre in October 2014 in response to the Turkish government's decision to prohibit Kurds from travelling to Syria to participate in the Syrian Civil War,[140] as well as in reaction to accusations that the Turkish government supported the Islamic State (ISIS) against the Kurds in Syria.[141] It is claimed that 17 Kurds from Cizre fought and died in the Siege of Kobanî.[142] Finally, the breakdown of the 2013-2015 PKK-Turkey peace process,[143] which was part of the broader third phase of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, prompted local Kurdish youth, affiliated with the YDG-H, the militant youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and later YPS, to erect blockades, ditches, and armed checkpoints, declare \"autonomy\",[144] and to carry out patrols in several neighbourhoods to block the movement of Turkish police.[140][145]\n\nA military operation was launched by the Turkish Armed Forces to reestablish control over the city on 4 September 2015, and a curfew was imposed,[146] which has also been described as a military siege.[147] An estimated 70 Kurdish militants responded with rocket-propelled grenade attacks, when Turkish soldiers tried to enter the city.[146][148] From the mountains that surround Cizre, the Turkish army used its heavy armour, including tanks and artillery to shell buildings inflicting great damage.[149][150] In wake of the clashes, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior claimed that 32 \"PKK militants\" and 1 civilian had been killed, whereas the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) argued that 21 civilians were killed.[148] On 10 September, an investigating delegation of 30 HDP MPs led by Selahattin Demirtaş were denied entry to the city by Turkish police.[146] The curfew was briefly relaxed on 11 September, but was reimposed just two days later.[151] On 14 December 2015, Turkish military operations resumed in Cizre, and the curfew was renewed.[152] The military operation continued until 11 February, but the curfew was maintained until 2 March.[153]\n\nDuring the clashes between 24 July 2015 and 30 June 2016 at Cizre, the Turkish Armed Forces claimed to have killed or captured 674 PKK militants, and to have suffered 24 killed military and police officers as casualties.[154] The pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP) said in a statement that 300 people had been killed during the curfew.[149] The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects reported that four neighbourhoods were completely destroyed, with 1200 buildings severely damaged and approximately 10,000 buildings damaged, and c. 110,000 people fled the district.[26]\n\nDuring the military confrontation, the infamous Cizre basement massacre occurred, in which independent U.N. monitors accused the Turkish military of burning alive more than 100 civilians in a basement by pouring gasoline and setting it on fire.[155][156] U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Raad al-Hussein urged Turkey to grant the U.N. unimpeded access to the affected areas following the events and said there were accounts of unarmed civilians, including women and children, being shot by snipers and that government forces also caused \"huge damage\" to the local infrastructure.[155] The Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed these accounts, stating that in some cases the Turkish security forces opened fire on civilians on the streets carrying white flags, deployed military vehicles at the Cizre State Hospital, destroyed residential buildings on a large scale, and deliberately and unjustifiably killed about 130 people, among whom were unarmed civilians and injured combatants, trapped in Cizre's basements.[157] The Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed concluded that between 203 and 266 people were killed during the military curfew, the majority of whom died when Turkish security forces stormed three residential basements where hundreds had been sheltering from the fighting. Kadir Kunur, co-mayor of Cizre said \"a total of 176 people were massacred altogether in three basements.\"[150] A Turkish opposition newspaper said that at least 60 civilians were killed in one of the basements.[158]\n\nFurthermore, the HRW accused the Turkish government of blocking access for independent investigations into alleged mass abuses against civilians, including unlawful killings of civilians, mass forced displacement, and widespread unlawful destruction of private property.[157]\n\nThe Turkish government announced plans in April 2016 to rebuild damaged 2700 houses in a project estimated to cost 4 billion Turkish lira.[159] The Turkish physician Dr Şebnem Korur Fincanci was arrested and imprisoned on charges of involvement in the propaganda of terrorism by the Turkish government on 20 June 2016 as a consequence of her report on conditions in Cizre after the end of the curfew in March 2016; she was later acquitted in July 2019.[160][161] On 26 August 2016, 11 policemen were killed and 78 were injured in a car bomb attack, which was attributed to the PKK. The attack targeted a police checkpoint and severely damaged a nearby riot police headquarters.[162] The Turkish government banned journalists and independent observers from entering the city to report on the bombing.[163]\n\nEcclesiastical history\n\nEast Syriac\n\nAt the city's foundation in the early 9th century, it was included in the diocese of Qardu,[35] a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Nisibis in the Church of the East.[164] In c. 900, the diocese of Bezabde was moved and renamed to Gazarta, and partially assumed the territory of the diocese of Qardu,[35] which was also moved and renamed to its new seat Tamanon, having previously been based at Penek.[165] Tamanon declined and at some point after the mention of its last bishop in 1265, its diocese was subsumed into the diocese of Gazarta.[166]\n\nEliya was archbishop of Gazarta and Amid in 1504.[167] Gazarta was a prominent centre of manuscript production, and most surviving east Syriac manuscripts from the late 16th century were copied there.[168]\n\nThe Catholic Church of Mosul, later known as the Chaldean Catholic Church, split from the Church of the East in the schism of 1552, and its inaugural patriarch Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa appointed Abdisho as archbishop of Gazarta in 1553.[169] Shemon VII Ishoyahb, Patriarch of the Church of the East, appointed Joseph as archbishop of Gazarta in response in 1554.[169][170] Abdisho succeeded Sulaqa as patriarch on his death in 1555.[169]\n\nGabriel was archbishop of Gazarta in 1586.[171] There was an archbishop of Gazarta named John in 1594.[172] Joseph was archbishop of Gazarta in 1610.[173] A certain Joseph, archbishop of Gazarta, is mentioned in a manuscript in 1618 with the patriarch Eliya IX.[174] An archbishop of Gazarta named Joseph is also mentioned in a manuscript in 1657.[174]\n\nJoseph, archbishop of Gazarta, resided at the village of Shah in 1822.[175] An archbishop named Joseph had two suffragan bishops, and served until his death in 1846.[176]\n\nIn 1850, the Church of the East diocese of Gazarta had 23 villages, 23 churches, 16 priests, and 220 families,[177] whereas the Chaldean diocese of Gazarta had 7 villages, 6 churches, 5 priests, and 179 families.[178] The Chaldean Catholic Church expanded considerably in the second half of the 19th century, and consequently its diocese of Gazarta grew to 20 villages, 15 priests, and 7,000 adherents in 1867.[178] The Chaldean diocese decreased to 5200 adherents, with 17 churches and 14 priests, in 1896, but recovered by 1913 to 6400 adherents in 17 villages, with 11 churches and 17 priests.[179]\n\nWest Syriac\n\nSyriac Orthodox\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox diocese of Gazarta was established in 864,[180] and supplanted the diocese of Bezabde.[181] It is first mentioned under the authority of the maphrian in the tenure of Dionysius I Moses (r. 1112-1142).[180] There were 19 villages in the Syriac Orthodox diocese of Azakh and Gazarta in 1915.[182]\n\nThe following is a list of incumbents of the see:\n\nIwanis (1040)[15]\n\nBasil (1173)[59]\n\nJohn Wahb (1265-1280), ordained by maphrian Gregory bar Hebraeus.[183]\n\nDioscorus Gabriel of Bartella (1284-1300), ordained by maphrian Gregory bar Hebraeus.[184]\n\n'Abd Allah of Bartella (1326)[184]\n\nIyawannis of Basibrina (1329-1335)[b]\n\nIyawannis Barsoum of Arbo (1415-1457)[186]\n\nDioscorus Simon of Ayn Ward (1483-1501)[187]\n\nDioscorus George (1677-1684), ordained by maphrian Baselios Yeldo.[188]\n\nDioscorus Shukr Allah (1687-1691), ordained by maphrian Basil Isaac.[189]\n\nDioscorus Saliba (1691-1698), ordained by Patriarch Ignatius George II at the church of the Virgin Mary at Aleppo.[190]\n\nDioscorus Murad (1698-1716), ordained by maphrian Basil Isaac.[191]\n\nDioscorus Aho (1718-?), ordained by Patriarch Ignatius Isaac II.[192]\n\nDioscorus Shukr Allah (1743/1745-c. 1785), ordained by Patriarch Ignatius Shukrallah II.[193]\n\nAthanasius Stephan (d. 1869)[193]\n\nJulius Behnam of Aqrah (1871-1927), ordained by Patriarch Ignatius Peter IV at the church of Umm al-Zunnar at Homs.[194] In 1916, he was represented by Iyawannis Shakir, archbishop of Mosul, at the synod held at the Mor Hananyo Monastery to elect a new patriarch.[195]\n\nSyriac Catholic\n\nThe Syriac Catholic diocese of Gazarta was established in 1863, and endured until its suppression in 1957. The following is a list of incumbents of the see:[196]\n\nFlavianus Pietro Matah (1863 - death 1874)\n\nGiacomo Matteo Ahmndahño (1888.10.10 - death 1908)\n\nBlessed Flavianus Michael Malke (1912.09.14 - 1915.08.29)\n\nGovernment\n\nMayors\n\nSeyyit Haşim Haşimi was RP mayor of Cizre in 1989-1994.[197] Haşimi was detained by police in the summer of 1993 on suspicion of aiding the PKK; Saki Işıkçı was deputy mayor at this time.[198]\n\nOn 29 October 2019, Mehmet Zırığ, HDP co-mayor of Cizre, who was elected in the 2019 Turkish local elections with 77% of the vote, was removed from office by the Governor of Şırnak amidst an investigation into charges of \"praising the crime and the criminal\", \"propagandising for a terrorist organisation\", and \"being a member of a terrorist organisation\", and kaymakam (district governor) Davut Sinanoğlu was appointed as acting mayor.[199] Berivan Kutlu, HDP co-mayor of Cizre, was detained by police on 12-19 March 2020.[200][201]\n\nDemography\n\nPopulation\n\nUntil 1915, Cizre had a diverse population of Christian Armenians and Assyrians, Jews, and Muslim Kurds.[108][202] The genocide of Armenians and Assyrians reduced the city's population significantly,[23] and it declined further with the departure of the Jews in 1950-1951.[24] The population began to recover in the second half of the 20th century,[23] and later increased dramatically from 1984 onwards due to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict as thousands of people fled to Cizre to escape pressure from both the Turkish armed forces and PKK militants.[25]\n\nHistorical population\n\nYearPop.±% p.a.\n\n18504,000-    \n\n18909,560+2.20%\n\n19187,500-0.86%\n\n19405,575-1.34%\n\n19606,473+0.75%\n\n198020,200+5.86%\n\n198529,496+7.87%\n\nYearPop.±% p.a.\n\n199050,023+11.14%\n\n199763,344+3.43%\n\n200790,477+3.63%\n\n2012106,831+3.38%\n\n2017118,953+2.17%\n\n2022134,041+2.42%\n\nSource: Wilmshurst (1850),[203] Elisséeff (1890, 1940, 1960),[23] Henning (1918),[22] Marcus (1980),[25] Population censuses (1985-1997)[204][205][206] and TÜIK (2007-2022)[207]\n\nReligion\n\nChristian population\n\nIn the Syriac Orthodox patriarchal register of dues of 1870, it was recorded that the city had 32 Syriac Orthodox households, who paid 107 dues, and was served by the Church of Morī Behnān and one priest.[208] According to the census carried out by the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, 4281 Armenians inhabited the kaza of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in 1913, with only one functioning church: 2716 Armenians lived in Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar itself and eleven nearby villages, and 1565 Armenians were nomadic.[209] 60 Chaldean Catholic families inhabited the city in 1850, and were served by one church and one priest.[203] There were 300 Chaldeans in 1865, 240 Chaldeans in 1880, 320 Chaldeans in 1888, 350 Chaldeans in 1890, and 600 Chaldeans, with 2 priests and 2 churches, in 1913.[203]\n\nA report submitted to the Paris Peace Conference by the Syriac Orthodox bishop Severios Barsoum in July 1919 testified that 7510 Syriac Orthodox Christians in 994 families and 8 clergymen had been killed in the kaza of Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar during the genocide.[210][211] 26 Syriac Orthodox villages and 13 churches had been affected.[212] In total, 35 Assyrian villages in the vicinity of Cizre were destroyed in the genocide.[213] A separate memorandum was submitted on behalf of Shimun XX Paulos, Patriarch of the Church of the East, in which it was requested that the city become part of an independent Assyrian state.[214]\n\nAfter the genocide, in 1918, it was reported Kurds made up the majority of the city, with approximately 500 Chaldeans.[22] There were 960 Assyrians at Cizre in total in 1918.[215]\n\nJewish population\n\nThe Jewish community of Cizre is attested by Benjamin of Tudela in the mid-12th century,[3] and he noted the city was inhabited by 4000 Jews led by rabbis named Muvhar, Joseph, and Hiyya.[8] J. J. Benjamin remarked on the presence of 20 Jewish families in Cizre during his visit in 1848.[216] Jews of Cizre spoke Judaeo-Aramaic and Kurdish.[24][217] There were 10 Jewish households in Cizre when visited by Rabbi Yehiel Fischel in 1859, and were described as very poor.[218] 126 Jews inhabited Cizre in 1891, as recorded by the Ottoman census.[219] The community had grown to 150 people by 1906,[220] and the synagogue was renovated in 1913.[221] In 1914, 234 Jews inhabited Cizre.[202] The Jewish community of Cizre emigrated to Israel in 1950-1951.[24] The Israeli politician Mickey Levy is a notable descendant of the Jews of Cizre.[217]\n\nKurdish population\n\nThe town is presently populated by Kurds of the Aluwa, Amara, Elîkan, Kiçan and Meman tribes.[18]\n\nCulture\n\nAs the capital of the Bohtan emirate, Cizre served as an important Kurdish cultural centre, and music, poetry, and science flourished under the protection of the emirs.[222]\n\nEducation\n\nCizre formerly played a significant role in the dissemination of Islamic education in Upper Mesopotamia.[23] In the 11th century, a madrasa was constructed by the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk.[223] In the following century, there were four Shafi'i madrasas, and two Sufi khanqahs outside the city walls.[23] The two Sufi khanqahs were noted by Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad in the 13th century, and he also recorded the names of the four Shafi'i madrasas as Ibn el-Bezri Madrasa, Zahiruddin Kaymaz al-Atabegi Madrasa, Radaviyye Madrasa and Kadi Cemaleddin Abdürrahim Madrasa.[224]\n\nUntil 1915, French Dominican priests operated a Chaldean Catholic school and Syriac Catholic school in the city, as well as other schools of those denominations in the vicinity.[108]\n\nMonuments\n\nReligious\n\nIn the 12th century, there was a bimaristan (hospital), 19 mosques, 14 hammams (baths), and 30 sabils (fountains).[23] This increased to two bimaristans, two grand mosques, 80 mosques, and 14 hammams when recorded by Ibn Shaddad in the next century.[224]\n\nCizre became a place of pilgrimage in the 15th century due to its association with Nuh (Noah), and it attracted notable figures, such as the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and potentially also his sons.[225] The Mosque of the Prophet Noah in Cizre purports to contain his tomb.[226][227] The tomb of the Kurdish poet Ali Hariri (1425-c. 1495), who died at Cizre, is considered sacred and visited by pilgrims.[228]\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church of Mar Behnam was renovated by Gregorius Jacob, archbishop of Gargar, in 1704.[190] Gregorius Thomas, archbishop of Jerusalem, was buried at the Church of Mar Behnam in 1748 behind the right wing of the altar; his grave and an inscription in Garshuni was still extant when visited by Aphrem Barsoum in 1910.[229] A number of archbishops of Gazarta were also buried here, including Dioscorus Gabriel of Bartella (d. 7 September 1300),[230] Dioscorus Shukr Allah (d. c. 1785), and Athanasius Stephan (d. 1869).[193]\n\nSecular\n\nThe citadel of Cizre (Kurdish: Birca Belek, 'multicoloured palace') was constructed by the emirate of Bohtan,[231] and is prominently presented as the residence of Zin in the tale of Mem and Zin.[232] After the emirate's dissolution in 1847, the citadel was periodically used as a barracks by Turkish soldiers, and was closed to the public.[233] It remained in military use, and was used by Turkish border guards from 1995 onwards, until 2010.[233] Excavations by archaeologists from Mardin Museum began in May 2013,[234] and continued until December 2014.[235]\n\nSport\n\nCizre Serhat Sports Club (Turkish: Cizre Serhat Spor Kulübü) was founded in 1972, and later renamed to Cizrespor.[236]\n\nGeography\n\nCizre is located at the easternmost point of the Tur Abdin in the Melabas Hills (Syriac: Turo d-Malbash, \"the clothed mountain\"), which is roughly coterminous with the region of Zabdicene.[30]\n\nClimate\n\nCizre has a Mediterranean climate (Csa in the Köppen climate classification) with wet, cool, occasionally snowy winters and dry, extremely hot summers. On 25 July 2025, Cizre recorded 49.4 °C (120.9 °F), setting a new highest temperature record for the city.[237] The previous highest temperature records in Turkey at 49.1 °C (120.4 °F) on 20 July 2021[238] and at 49.0 °C (120.2 °F) on 27 August 1961 were recorded in Cizre.[239] Cizre's 62-year-long highest temperature record was surpassed two years later in Sarıcakaya, Eskişehir Province in northwest Turkey.[240]\n\nClimate data for Cizre (1991-2020)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n11.8\n(53.2)\n\n13.7\n(56.7)\n\n18.4\n(65.1)\n\n24.0\n(75.2)\n\n31.0\n(87.8)\n\n38.4\n(101.1)\n\n42.3\n(108.1)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\n37.3\n(99.1)\n\n30.0\n(86.0)\n\n20.4\n(68.7)\n\n14.0\n(57.2)\n\n27.0\n(80.6)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n7.0\n(44.6)\n\n8.7\n(47.7)\n\n12.9\n(55.2)\n\n17.6\n(63.7)\n\n24.0\n(75.2)\n\n31.0\n(87.8)\n\n34.7\n(94.5)\n\n34.0\n(93.2)\n\n28.9\n(84.0)\n\n22.2\n(72.0)\n\n13.8\n(56.8)\n\n8.7\n(47.7)\n\n20.4\n(68.7)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n3.3\n(37.9)\n\n4.5\n(40.1)\n\n7.9\n(46.2)\n\n11.8\n(53.2)\n\n16.7\n(62.1)\n\n22.3\n(72.1)\n\n25.5\n(77.9)\n\n24.7\n(76.5)\n\n20.3\n(68.5)\n\n15.4\n(59.7)\n\n8.9\n(48.0)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n13.9\n(57.0)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n115.99\n(4.57)\n\n109.02\n(4.29)\n\n109.56\n(4.31)\n\n72.83\n(2.87)\n\n32.06\n(1.26)\n\n3.16\n(0.12)\n\n0.84\n(0.03)\n\n0.51\n(0.02)\n\n2.73\n(0.11)\n\n27.26\n(1.07)\n\n66.4\n(2.61)\n\n112.32\n(4.42)\n\n652.68\n(25.70)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n9.5\n\n9.0\n\n9.1\n\n7.5\n\n4.6\n\n1.5\n\n1.0\n\n1.0\n\n1.3\n\n3.9\n\n5.9\n\n8.4\n\n62.7\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n70.7\n\n67.0\n\n62.5\n\n59.3\n\n46.9\n\n30.9\n\n27.2\n\n27.9\n\n32.1\n\n45.4\n\n62.3\n\n70.6\n\n49.8\n\nSource: NOAA[241]\n\nNotable people\n\nIsmail al-Jazari (1136-1206), scholar\n\nMajd ad-Dīn Ibn Athir (1149-1210), historian\n\nAli ibn al-Athir (1160-1233), historian\n\nAbdisho IV Maron (r. 1555-1570), Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon\n\nMelayê Cizîrî (1570-1640), Kurdish poet\n\nBedir Khan Beg (1803-1868), Emir of Bohtan\n\nŞerafettin Elçi (1938-2012), Kurdish politician\n\nSelim Acar (b. 1961), businessman\n\nTahir Elçi (1966-2015), Kurdish lawyer\n\nHalil Savda (b. 1974), Kurdish conscientious objector\n\nFaysal Sarıyıldız (b. 1975), Kurdish politician\n\nNuran İmir (b. 1977), Kurdish politician\n\nLeyla İmret (b. 1987), Kurdish politician\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also known as Jizra prior to the modern Turkish scripting of \"Cizre\".[2]\n\nArabic: جَزِيْرَة ٱبْن عُمَر, romanized: Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar, alternatively transliterated as Jezirat al-Omar,[3] Djeziret ibn-Omar,[4] Jazīra,[5] al-Jazirah,[6] or Djezireh.[7] Also known as Madinat al-Jazira.[8]\n\nKurdish: Cizîr,[9] Cizîra Botan,[10] or Cizîre.[11]\n\nLishana Deni: גזירא, romanized: Gzira.[12]\n\nSyriac: ܓܙܪܬܐ ܕܒܪ ܥܘܡܪ, romanized: Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar,[5] alternatively known as Gāzartā,[13] Gāzartā d'Beṯ Zabdaï,[14] Gōzartō d-Qardū,[15] Gozarto,[5] Gzarta,[5] or Gziro.[11] \n\n^ Iyawannis of Basibrina was archbishop of Nisibin and Gazarta.[185]\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b \"31 ARALIK 2021 TARİHLİ ADRESE DAYALI NÜFUS KAYIT SİSTEMİ (ADNKS) SONUÇLARI\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\n^ Kaplan (2023), pp. 300-311.\n\n^ a b Şanlı (2017), p. 72.\n\n^ Sinclair (1989), p. 352.\n\n^ a b c d Carlson, Thomas A. (9 December 2016). \"Gazarta - ܓܙܪܬܐ ܕܒܪ ܥܘܡܪ\". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 25 April 2020.\n\n^ Çetinoğlu (2018), p. 178.\n\n^ Kieser (2011), p. 139.\n\n^ a b c Gil (2004), p. 428.\n\n^ Avcıkıran, Adem. Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî. p. 57.\n\n^ Zaken (2007), p. xii.\n\n^ a b Biner (2020), p. x.\n\n^ Sabar (2002), p. 121.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 20.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst (2000), p. 112.\n\n^ a b Palmer (1990), p. 257.\n\n^ \"Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri\". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ \"The struggle for autonomy in North Kurdistan: Voices from Cizre\". Corporate Watch. 4 December 2015. Retrieved 23 November 2020.\n\n^ a b Baz (2016), pp. 77, 107, 110, 139 and 140.\n\n^ a b c d Nicolle (2013), p. 227.\n\n^ Gil (2004), p. 428; Elisséeff (1986), pp. 960-961.\n\n^ a b c Sinclair (1989), p. 402.\n\n^ a b c d Henning (2018), p. 88.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Elisséeff (1986), pp. 960-961.\n\n^ a b c d Mutzafi (2008), p. 10.\n\n^ a b c d Marcus (1994), p. 18.\n\n^ a b \"YIKILAN KENTLER RAPORU\" (PDF) (in Turkish). Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects. September 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2020.\n\n^ Rassi (2015), p. 50.\n\n^ Gil (2004), p. 624.\n\n^ Roaf, M.; T. Sinclair; S. Kroll; St J. Simpson (27 October 2017). \"Places: 874296 (Ad flumen Tigrim)\". Pleiades. Retrieved 22 March 2020.\n\n^ a b Palmer (1990), p. xix.\n\n^ Lightfoot (1981), p. 86.\n\n^ Crow (2018), p. 235.\n\n^ Elisséeff (1986), pp. 960-961; ul-Hasan (2005), pp. 40-41.\n\n^ a b Lightfoot (1981), pp. 88-89.\n\n^ a b c d Sinclair (1989), p. 353.\n\n^ Sinclair (1989), p. 385.\n\n^ Zawanowska (2019), p. 36.\n\n^ a b ul-Hasan (2005), pp. 40-41.\n\n^ Kennedy (2011), p. 180.\n\n^ Canard (1986), p. 128.\n\n^ Canard (1986), p. 128; Busse (2008), p. 269.\n\n^ Kennedy (2004), p. 260.\n\n^ a b c d Kennedy (2004), pp. 295-296.\n\n^ Beihammer (2017), p. 64.\n\n^ El-Azhari (2016), p. 42.\n\n^ Ibn al-Athir, pp. 209-210\n\n^ Ibn al-Athir, p. 221\n\n^ Beihammer (2017), p. 249.\n\n^ Hillenbrand (1991), p. 627.\n\n^ a b c Ibn al-Athir, p. 286\n\n^ a b Cahen (1969), pp. 169-170.\n\n^ a b c El-Azhari (2016), pp. 17-18.\n\n^ El-Azhari (2016), p. 44.\n\n^ a b El-Azhari (2016), p. 46.\n\n^ a b El-Azhari (2016), pp. 120-121.\n\n^ Gil (2004), p. 471.\n\n^ a b c d Heidemann (2002), pp. 453-454.\n\n^ a b Kana'an (2013), p. 189.\n\n^ a b Snelders (2010).\n\n^ \"Zangid (Jazira) Sanjar 1203-1204\". The David Collection. Retrieved 16 April 2020.\n\n^ a b c Kana'an (2013), pp. 187-188.\n\n^ Jackson (2017), p. 252.\n\n^ a b c Humphreys (1977), p. 468.\n\n^ Pfeiffer (2013), p. 134.\n\n^ Boyle (2007), p. 345.\n\n^ a b Patton (1991), p. 99.\n\n^ a b Amitai-Preiss (2004), p. 57.\n\n^ a b Bar Hebraeus XI, 518\n\n^ Amitai-Preiss (2004), p. 58.\n\n^ a b Amitai-Preiss (2004), p. 60.\n\n^ a b Bar Hebraeus XI, 520\n\n^ Bar Hebraeus XI, 525\n\n^ James (2019), p. 30.\n\n^ a b Sinclair (2019), p. 647.\n\n^ Miynat (2017), p. 94.\n\n^ a b Sinclair (1989), p. 401.\n\n^ Miynat (2017), p. 86.\n\n^ Taner 2019, p. 65.\n\n^ \"Tcherkes Aghâ visitant les tribus kurdes (France, Paris. 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Retrieved 15 July 2020.\n\nPatton, Douglas (1991). \"Badr al-Dīn Lu'lu' and the Establishment of a mamluk Government in Mosul\". Studia Islamica. 74 (74). Brill: 79-103. doi:10.2307/1595898. JSTOR 1595898.\n\nPfeiffer, Judith (2013). \"Confessional Ambiguity vs. Confessional Polarisation: Politics and the Negotiation of Religious Boundaries in the Ilkhanate\". In Judith Pfeiffer (ed.). Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz. Brill. pp. 129-171.\n\nQuataert, Donald (1994). \"The Age of Reforms, 1812-1914\". In Halil İnalcık; Donald Quataert (eds.). An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914. Cambridge University Press. pp. 759-947.\n\nRassi, Salam (2015). Justifying Christianity in the Islamic Middle Ages: The Apologetic Theology of ʿAbdīshōʿ bar Brīkhā (d. 1318).\n\nRhétoré, Jacques (2005). Les chrétiens aux bêtes: souvenirs de la guerre sainte proclamée par les Turcs contre les chrétiens en 1915 (in French). Editions du CERF.\n\nRoberts, Sean (2013). Printing a Mediterranean World: Florence, Constantinople, and the Renaissance of Geography. Harvard University Press.\n\nSabar, Yona (2002). A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary: Dialects of Amidya, Dihok, Nerwa and Zakho, Northwestern Iraq. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.\n\nŞanlı, Süleyman (2017). \"An Overview of Historical Background of Unknown Eastern Jews of Turkey\". Mukaddime. 8 (1): 67-82.\n\nSato, Noriko (2001). Memory and Social Identity among Syrian Orthodox Christians (PDF). Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\nSinclair, T.A. (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume III. Pindar Press. ISBN 9780907132349.\n\nSinclair, Thomas (2019). Eastern Trade and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages: Pegolotti's Ayas-Tabriz Itinerary and its Commercial Context. Routledge.\n\nSnelders, Bas (2010). \"The Syrian Orthodox in their Historical and Artistic Settings\". Identity and Christian-Muslim Interaction: Medieval Art of the Syrian Orthodox from the Mosul area (PDF).\n\nTaner, Melis (14 October 2019). Caught in a Whirlwind: A Cultural History of Ottoman Baghdad as Reflected in Its Illustrated Manuscripts. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-41280-4.\n\nTaylor, Gordon (2007). Fever and Thirst: An American Doctor Among the Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-1844. Chicago Review Press.\n\nTernon, Yves (2002). Revue d'histoire arménienne contemporaine: Mardin 1915: Anatomie pathologique d'une destruction. Vol. 4.\n\nTouzard, Anne-Marie (2000). \"FRANCE vii. FRENCH TRAVELERS IN PERSIA, 1600-1730\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nul-Hasan, Mahmood (2005). Ibn Al-At̲h̲ir: An Arab Historian : a Critical Analysis of His Tarikh-al-kamil and Tarikh-al-atabeca. Northern Book Centre.\n\nÜngör, Uğur; Polatel, Mehmet (2011). Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property. Bloomsbury Publishing.\n\nÜngör, Uğur (2012). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Peeters Publishers. Retrieved 30 October 2024.\n\nYacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History. Translated by James Ferguson. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 November 2024.\n\nZaken, Mordechai (2007). Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival. Brill.\n\nZawanowska, Marzena (2019). \"Yefet ben ʿEli on Genesis 11 and 22\". In Meira Polliack; Athalya Brenner-Idan (eds.). Jewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands: The Medieval Period. SBL Press. pp. 33-61."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-cizre"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12445}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-calendar", "title": "Assyrian calendar", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian calendar (Syriac: ܣܘܼܪܓܵܕ݂ܵܐ ܐܵܬ݂ܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ, romanized: sūrgāḏā ʾĀṯōrāyā) is a solar calendar used by modern Assyrian people.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Assyrian calendar (Syriac: ܣܘܼܪܓܵܕ݂ܵܐ ܐܵܬ݂ܘܿܪܵܝܵܐ, romanized: sūrgāḏā ʾĀṯōrāyā) is a solar calendar used by modern Assyrian people.\n\nHistory\n\nHistorically and also in some sources in the modern day, Assyrians dated their calendar according to the Seleucid era (Syriac: ܕܝܲܘܢܵܝܹ̈ܐ, romanized: d-yawnāyē, lit. 'of the Greeks'), beginning on the first day of Tešrīn Qḏīm in 312 BC.[1]\n\nThe modern Assyrian calendar, however, uses a different reckoning: 4750 BC was set as its first year in the 1950s,[2] based on a series of articles published in the Assyrian nationalist magazine Gilgamesh; the first came in 1952 and written by Nimrod Simono and dealt with the Akitu festival, then an article by Jean Alkhas in 1955 (April, issue 34) fixed the year 4750 BC as the starting point.[3] Alkhas referenced his information to a French archaeologist, whom he did not name, as stating that a cuneiform tablet dating to 4750 BC mentioned the year of the calming of the great flood and beginning of life.[4]\n\nNew year\n\nThe year begins with the first sight of Spring. In the Julian calendar, the vernal equinox moved gradually away from 21 March. The Gregorian calendar reform restored the vernal equinox to its original date, but since the festival was by now tied to the date, not the astronomical event, Kha b-Nisan remains fixed at 21 March in the Julian reckoning, corresponding to 1 April in the Gregorian calendar.[5] and the calendar adopted by the ancient Assyrians had the month \"Nisan\" at the beginning of the calendar[6] lending to the term \"Kha b-Nisan\", or the \"first of Nisan\".\n\nMonths\n\nAssyrian calendar[1]\n\nSeason\n\nSyriac\n\nTransliteration\n\nArabic Julian/Gregorian equivalent\n\n(see Arabic names of Gregorian months § Iraq and the Levant)\n\nHebrew calendar equivalent\n\nEnglish Julian/Gregorian equivalent\n\nSpring\n\nܐܵܕܲܪ\n\nʾĀḏar\n\nآذَار (ʾĀḏār)\n\nאֲדָר (ʾĂḏār)\n\nMarch\n\nܢܝܼܣܵܢ\n\nNīsān\n\nنِيسَان (Nīsān) or نَيْسَان (Naysān)\n\nנִיסָן (Nīsān)\n\nApril\n\nܐܝܼܵܪ\n\nʾĪyār\n\nأَيَّار (ʾAyyār)\n\nאִיָּר (ʾĪyyār)\n\nMay\n\nSummer\n\nܚܙܝܼܪܵܢ\n\nḤzīrān\n\nحَزِيرَان (Ḥazīrān) or حُزَيْرَان (Ḥuzayrān)\n\nסִיוָן (Sīwān)\n\nJune\n\nܬܲܡܘܼܙ\n\nTammūz\n\nتَمُّوز (Tammūz)\n\nתַּמּוּז (Tammūz)\n\nJuly\n\nܐܵܒ\\ܛܲܒܵܚ\n\nʾĀb/Ṭabbāḥ\n\nآب (ʾĀb)\n\nאָב (ʾĀḇ)\n\nAugust\n\nAutumn\n\nܐܝܼܠܘܼܠ\n\nʾĪlūl\n\nأَيْلُول (ʾAylūl)\n\nאֱלוּל (ʾĔlūl)\n\nSeptember\n\nܬܸܫܪܝܼܢ ܐ\n\nTešrīn Qḏīm\n\nتِشْرِين ٱلْأَوَّل (Tišrīn al-ʾAwwal)\n\nתִּשׁרִי (Tišrī)\n\nOctober\n\nܬܸܫܪܝܼܢ ܒ\n\nTešrīn [ʾ]Ḥrāy\n\nتِشْرِين ٱلثَّانِي (Tišrīn aṯ-Ṯānī)\n\nמַרְחֶשְׁוָן (Marḥešwān)\n\nNovember\n\nWinter\n\nܟܵܢܘܿܢ ܐ\n\nKānōn Qḏīm\n\nكَانُون ٱلْأَوَّل (Kānūn al-ʾAwwal)\n\nכִּסְלֵו (Kislēw)\n\nDecember\n\nܟܵܢܘܿܢ ܒ\n\nKānōn [ʾ]Ḥrāy\n\nكَانُون ٱلثَّانِي (Kānūn aṯ-Ṯānī)\n\nטֵבֵת (Ṭēḇēṯ)\n\nJanuary\n\nܫܒ݂ܵܛ\n\nŠḇāṭ\n\nشُبَاط (Šubāṭ)\n\nשְׁבָט (Šḇāṭ)\n\nFebruary\n\nSee also\n\nBabylonian calendar\n\nHebrew calendar\n\nIslamic calendar\n\nKha b-Nisan\n\nMandaean calendar\n\nPersian calendar\n\nSolar Hijri calendar\n\nZoroastrian calendar\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Coakley, C. F. (2013). Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (sixth ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-19-968717-6.\n\n^ Wozniak, Marta (2012). \"Far from Aram-Nahrin: The Suryoye Diaspora Experience\". In Eamer, Allyson (ed.). Border Terrains: World Diasporas in the 21st Century. Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-84888-117-4.\n\n^ Paulissian, Robert (1999). \"Tasheeta d'zoyakha d'rish sheta Khatta d'Atoraye w'Bawlaye (Part II) [Assyrian and Babylonian New Year Celebrations (Part II)]\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (2): 35. ISSN 1055-6982.\n\n^ Daniel, Sennacherib (2001). \"Modern Festival, Ancient Tradition\" (PDF). Nakosha. 39: 3. OCLC 49885037.\n\n^ E. Elochukwu Uzukwu. Worship as Body Language: Introduction to Christian Worship : an African. Published by Liturgical Press, 1997.\n\n^ William Ricketts Cooper. \"An Archaic Dictionary: biographical, historical and mythological: from the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan monuments\". Published by S. Bagster and Sons, 1876."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-calendar"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 672}, {"slug": "reference-rosie-malek-yonan", "title": "Rosie Malek-Yonan", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Rosie Malek-Yonan (born July 4, 1965[1]) is an Assyrian-American[2][3][4][5] actress, author, director, public figure and activist. Malek-Yonan became a noted pianist at an early age. Having graduated from the University of Cambridge, she settled in the United States, where she pursued a career in music and dramatic arts....", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Rosie Malek-Yonan\n\nRosie Malek-Yonan (2008)\n\nBorn (1965-07-04) July 4, 1965\nTehran, Iran\n\nCitizenshipUnited States\n\nOccupations\n\nActress\n\nauthor\n\ndirector\n\nWebsitewww.rosiemalek-yonan.com \n\nRosie Malek-Yonan (born July 4, 1965[1]) is an Assyrian-American[2][3][4][5] actress, author, director, public figure and activist. Malek-Yonan became a noted pianist at an early age. Having graduated from the University of Cambridge, she settled in the United States, where she pursued a career in music and dramatic arts. As an actress she appeared in well over 30 films and television series, including Up Close & Personal (1996) and Rendition (2007), as well as, among others, Generations, Dynasty, CSI: Miami, JAG, ER and Babylon 5.\n\nShe also authored The Crimson Field, a historical novel set in the times of the Assyrian genocide during World War I; the book is one of the most popular pieces of prose among modern Assyrians.[5]\n\nEarly life and education\n\nMalek-Yonan was born in Tehran, Iran. Malek-Yonan's father, George Malek-Yonan, was an international attorney in Iran.[6] Malek-Yonan's mother, Lida Malek-Yonan[7] was an activist who launched and presided over the Assyrian Women's Organization which was the only officially recognized charter member of the Iranian Women's Association until the end of the Pahlavi dynasty.[8]\n\nCareer\n\nMalek-Yonan is a classically trained pianist, composer, actress, director, writer, documentary filmmaker and activist.[9] She began studying piano at the age of four and while still in her teens, competed in and won many national piano competitions in Iran and attended the Tehran Conservatory of Music.[10] In 1972 after winning a national piano competition in Iran, she was invited by Queen Farah Pahlavi to play at a Command Performance.[10]\n\nUpon receiving her L.C. degree in English from the University of Cambridge, she studied classical piano with Saul Joseph at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and acting with Ray Reinhardt at the American Conservatory Theater. A graduate of San Francisco State University with two degrees in Music, she won an invitation to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts[11] and the historic Pasadena Playhouse. Her plays have been produced and performed on stage. In 2008 Malek-Yonan's one woman play, An Assyrian Exodus previewed in Hartford, Connecticut. The work is based on true family diaries written during the 1918 Great Exodus from Urmia, Iran. About the production, Janey Golani, of The Assyrian Star writes, \"…presentations included those of Ms. Rosie Malek-Yonan which was filled with many emotional attendees who were struck by her performance of \"An Assyrian Exodus\" a dramatic staged reading based on Rosie's Family Diaries.\"[12][13]\n\nReviewing Malek-Yonan's work as an actor and director, Martin Hernandez of LA Weekly writes, \"Superbly acted and directed...Director Rosie Malek-Yonan honed the works to perfection, even down to the fitting choice of songs for transitions and intermission.\"[14] About her stage directing, Bruce Feld writes, \"Rosie Malek-Yonan has done an excellent job directing...top-of-the-line and what might have become a sketch in other hands becomes a poignant episode of universal import...exceptional direction.\".[15] In another review, Feld wrote, \"Very well directed by Rosie Malek-Yonan...The material is very tricky, but Malek-Yonan handles it with requisite sensitivity, without in any way watering down the heavy conflict...Sparks ignite...\"[15]\n\nMalek-Yonan made her television debut in 1983 on Aaron Spelling's television series, Dynasty,[16] followed by a national commercial for AT&T where she spoke in Assyrian. She has since appeared in numerous notable television shows, films and plays, acting in a wide range of roles opposite many of Hollywood's leading actors. She has had recurring roles on Days of Our Lives, Chicago Hope, Beverly Hills, 90210, The Young and the Restless and in 2008 she joined the cast of ABC's General Hospital as Farah Mir.[17][18][19][20] On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine she was Tekoa.[21][22][23] She has guest starred on such shows as Generations, Seinfeld, Life and JAG. She played the role of Nuru Il-Ebrahimi, opposite Reese Witherspoon in New Line Cinema's Rendition, directed by Oscar-winning director Gavin Hood. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.[24][25]\n\nIn 2015 Malek-Yonan joined the executive board of the Beverly Hills Film Festival as a consultant.[26]\n\nHuman rights activism\n\nMalek-Yonan is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning her people, in particular bringing attention to the Assyrian genocide as well as the plight of today's Assyrians in the Middle-East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and its Coalition Forces.[27]\nShe has candidly criticized the U.S. for failure to protect the Christians in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.[28] In an interview with The New York Times Malek-Yonan said, \"Anytime the Western countries go to war in the Middle East, it becomes a religious war…\" In the interview she also held Kurdish commanders in Iraq responsible for \"depriving the Christians of security in an effort to tilt the demographics in favor of Kurds. The expected result, she said, was an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Christians from Iraq. At least hundreds have been killed. One priest was quartered and beheaded.\"[4][29][30]\n\nOn June 30, 2006, Rosie Malek-Yonan, was invited to testify on Capitol Hill before a Congressional Committee[31][32] of the 109th Congress on religious freedom regarding the genocide, massacres and persecution of Assyrians in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 Iraq War. Reading from her book, she compared the Assyrian genocide of 1914-1918, as depicted in The Crimson Field, to the current plight of the indigenous Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Her 30-minute testimony and plea to the U.S. government, ultimately prompted Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) to travel to war-torn Iraq to witness matters for himself. While in Iraq, after meeting with local Assyrians, he turned in Malek-Yonan's in depth report to U.S. officials in Iraq. One year later, a Congressional appropriations subcommittee voted to send $10 million to aid the Assyrians in Iraq.[33] The complete archived transcript and webcast of the actual Congressional Testimony is available at the website of the U.S. House of Representatives.[34][35][36]\n\nMonica Malek-Yonan's documentary film, My Assyrian Nation on the Edge,[37][38] based on Rosie Malek-Yonan's Congressional Testimony was released September 2006 (ISBN 0-9771873-0-6) in English. The film is released in Europe with French, German, Swedish and Dutch subtitles (ISBN 978-0-9771873-31). The Australian Premiere was on 7 August 2008, at the Australian Parliament of New South Wales in Sydney.\n\nIn 2008, Malek-Yonan addressed the topics of genocide, world peace and in particular the Assyrian genocide in statements presented at the British House of Lords on 12 March and on 24 April at the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.[39]\n\nOn October 5, 2008, Malek-Yonan spoke on behalf of the Assyrian nation in Iraq at a Los Angeles rally held in front of the Federal Building to oppose the Iraq Election Law. She addressed the crowd of demonstrators and the media voicing her opposition at the removal of article 50 and its consequences for the minorities in Iraq in particular the Assyrians. \"Democracy in Iraq will fail if it does not treat all members of its society equally under the law.\" She went on to say, \"Assyrians have already paid a heavy price since the beginning of the Iraq War. The liberation of Iraqis must encompass all its citizens, including the Assyrians, and not just the Sunni, the Shi'ites and the Kurds.[40][41]\n\nMalek-Yonan is a public speaker[42][43] and is often invited to lecture about the Assyrian genocide.[44] On 24 February 2007, Malek-Yonan was a keynote speaker at an open forum in Anaheim, California, discussing the persecution of the Copts and the plight of Christians in the Middle East.[45] She has lectured at University of California, Berkeley,[46] University of California, Merced,[47] and Woodbury University among others.[48]\n\nOn December 20, 2010, Malek-Yonan, was invited by the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance to speak at a press conference to address the escalating crisis and the deadly attacks on the Assyrians in Iraq.[49] Later in an interview with Fox News, Malek-Yonan described how going to church is a game of Russian Roulette for the Assyrian Christians in Iraq. \"They never know when they go to church, if that's going to be the last mass, the last moment of their lives.\"[50] The press conference was prompted by the 31 October 2010 massacre at \"The Lady of Salvation Church\" in Baghdad.[51][52]\n\nAwards\n\nIn 2006, at the 73rd Annual Assyrian Convention in Chicago, Illinois, the Board of Advisors of the Assyrian American National Federation, Inc., Malek-Yonan was awarded Woman of the Year.[53]\n\nFor her numerous contributions as an actress, artist, director, author and activist, in March 2008, Malek-Yonan was awarded for Excellence in Arts and Entertainment by the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC).[9]\n\nAt the Assyrian Universal Alliance 26th World Conference in Sydney, Australia, Malek-Yonan was awarded \"2009 Assyrian Woman of the Year\" in recognition of her substantial contribution to advance the Assyrian national cause by promoting international recognition of the Assyrian genocide, her extensive efforts in conveying the needs of the Assyrians to the United States government, and achievements in providing individual service to the Assyrian community worldwide.[54]\n\nIn 2014, at the 14th annual Beverly Hills Film Festival, Malek-Yonan's screenplay, The Crimson Field, cowritten with her sister, Monica Malek-Yonan, based on her book by the same title, won the Palme d'Or for best screenplay.[55]\n\nCharitable work\n\nMalek-Yonan is a founding member of the Assyrian Cultural and Arts Society that has provided scholarships since 2005 to students at Woodbury University's Design School through an annual Assyrian Design Competition.[56]\n\nIn 2009 Malek-Yonan became an ambassador for the Swedish-based organization, Assyrians Without Borders.[57]\n\nFilmography\n\nFilms\n\nYear\n\nTitle\n\nRole\n\n1980\nOlives for Breakfast\nRosie\n\n1980\nWalking Among Angels\nAngel\n\n1990\nSeparate Rooms\nSophie\n\n1996\nUp Close & Personal\nAgent\n\n1996\nFor Goodness Sake II\nfour characters\n\n2002\nAnniversary\nMaria\n\n2005\nAnimal Stories\nMaria\n\n2007\nRendition\nNuru El-Ibrahimi\n\nDocumentary films\n\nYear\n\nTitle\n\nRole\n\nDirector/Notes\n\n2010\nDefying Deletion: The Fight Over Iraq’s Nineveh Plains\nHerself\nWinner 2011 Detroit Film Festival, 2011 Uptown Film Festival\n\n2006\nMy Assyrian Nation on the Edge (ISBN 0-9771873-0-6)\nHerself\nWriter, Director, Composer, Co-executive Producer\n\nTelevision series\n\nYear\n\nTitle\n\nRole\n\n1982\nDynasty\nStewardess\n\n1986\nCapitol\nRecurring role\n\n1986\nSanta Barbara\nGuest Starring\n\n1987, 1996\nDays of Our Lives\nRecurring role\n\n1989\nMurder, She Wrote\nAir Levant Clerk\n\n1989\nDivorce Court\nTerri Ahmadi\n\n1990\nGenerations\nGretchen\n\n1990\nCop Rock\nProduction Assistant\n\n1991\nLethal Charm aka Her Wicked Ways\nIberian Airline Clerk\n\n1991, 2008\nGeneral Hospital\nFarah Mir, recurring role\n\n1995\nNYPD Blue\nAckama\n\n1995\nBabylon 5 (\"Confessions and Lamentations\")\nDoctor\n\n1996\nStar Trek: Deep Space Nine\nTekoa\n\n1997\nThe Visitor\nMaria\n\n1997\nDiagnosis: Murder\nClaudia Mores\n\n1998\nBeverly Hills, 90210\nRecurring/Barbara\n\n1998\nProfiler\nRoya\n\n1998\nSeinfeld\nMrs. Phil\n\n1996, 1997, 1999\nChicago Hope\nCindy Grey, recurring role\n\n1999\nSt. Michael's Crossing (\"CBS Pilot\")\nWife\n\n1999\nMelrose Place\nDoctor\n\n1999\nEntertainment Tonight\nSelf\n\n1999, 2003\nThe Young and the Restless\nFadel, recurring role\n\n2000\nThe Practice\nLambert\n\n2001\nThree Sisters (\"NBC Pilot\")[58]\nArab Woman\n\n2002\nCSI: Miami\nReceptionist\n\n2002\nJAG\nmultiple episodes\n\n2007\nLife\nRoya Darvashi\n\n2007\nER\nNazely\n\n2008\nEli Stone\nNurse\n\nStage credits\n\nTitle\n\nRole\n\nTheatre\n\nDirector\n\nNotes/References\n\nAn Assyrian Exodus\nAssyria\nHartford Marriott\nRosie Malek-Yonan\n[12][13]\n\nWilliam Saroyan's The Time of Your Life\nElsie\nPasadena Playhouse\nJill Mana Capps\n[59][60]\n\nTennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke\nAlma\nPasadena Playhouse\nStan Zales\n[61]\n\nDetective Story\nSusan\nPasadena Playhouse\nDarleen Duralia\n[62]\n\nBedfellows\nMiranda Morales\nSkylight Theatre\nChris Fields\nWorld Premiere, Drama-Logue Award recipient, Critic's Pick[63][64][65][66][67]\n\nA Gentleman of Quality\nNicole\nIvar Theatre\nRosie Malek-Yonan\n[68][69][70]\n\nMolière's Le Malade imaginaire The Imaginary Invalid\nToinette\nGallery Theatre\nRosie Malek-Yonan\n[71][72][73]\n\nSpeak!\nBrandy\nTheatre Geo\nDana Coen\nWorld Premiere[74]\n\nSoft Dude\nDoll\nTheatre Geo\nRosie Malek-Yonan\nCritic's Pick[14][15]\n\nGarrison Keillor's My Stepmother, Myself\nSnow\nTheatre Geo\nRosie Malek-Yonan\n[75]\n\nDouble Bound\nMori\nMise en Scène Theater\nHerb Rogers\nWorld Premiere[76]\n\nOnce a Catholic\nMother Thomas Aquinas\nCeltic Arts Center\nJoe Premell\n[76][77]\n\nThe Light in the Mill\nNancy\nTheatre Americana\nEdgar Weinstock\nWorld Premiere[78][79][80][81]\n\nLies Like Truth\nDenise\nTheatre Americana\nJohn Otrin\nWorld Premiere[82][83]\n\nStage Door\nOlga\nCharles Jehlinger Theatre\nLisle Wilson\n[76]\n\nAll Over Town\nMillie\nCharles Jehlinger Theatre\nKen McGee\n[76]\n\nDirector credits\n\nThe Assyrian - a documentary film\n\nMy Assyrian Nation on the Edge\n\nHer Master's Voice - co-wrote with Monica Malek-Yonan - Radio Show\n\nThe Imaginary Invalid - Gallery Theatre, Hollywood[84][68][85]\n\nA Gentleman of Quality - co-wrote with Monica Malek-Yonan - Ivar Theatre, Hollywood[68][86][87][88]\n\nA Matter of the Mind - En Scene Theatre, N. Hollywood\n\nService Please Hold! (from 8x10) - Theatre Geo, Hollywood[89][15]\n\nSoft Dude - Theatre Geo, Hollywood[14][15]\n\nCorrect Address - Theatre Geo, Hollywood[14][15]\n\nThe Ties That Bind - Theatre Geo, Hollywood[15]\n\nMy Stepmother, Myself - Theatre Geo, Hollywood[90]\n\nBooks\n\nThe Crimson Field is an historical and literary epic novel, set in Urmia, Iran, Russia and San Francisco, California. It is based on real events and true family chronicles set to the backdrop of the Assyrian genocide of 1914-1918 in the shadows of World War I where 750,000 Assyrians were massacred by the Ottoman Turks and Kurdish tribes in Ottoman Turkey and in the Assyrian inhabited region of Urmi (Urmia) in northwestern Iran. The book was selected as The Assyrian Event of the Year 2005 by Zinda magazine (22 April 2006).[91] It was features in the Winter 2007's fourth issue of MAKE, a Chicago Literary Magazine[92] and chosen as required reading by Professor Ellene Phufas for a World Literature class for the SUNY system (State University of New York) to represent a work about the Christian Genocides in Asia Minor.[93]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan\", Virtual Embassy Tehran, United States Department of State, archived from the original on April 8, 2017\n\n^ Committee on international relations (30 June 2006). \"The plight of religious minorities: Can religious pluralism survive? Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa, global human rights and international operations of the Committee on international relations\". United States House of Representatives, 109th United States Congress. p. 117. Retrieved 24 May 2015.\n\n^ \"Christian Minorities in the Islamic Middle East : Rosie Malek-Yonan on the Assyrians\". Radio National. 2006-04-18. Retrieved 2017-04-19.\n\n^ a b Kramer, Andrew E. (26 June 2008). \"For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival\". The New York Times. p. 1.\n\n^ a b Woźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2011). \"National and social identity construction among the modern Assyrians/Syrians\". Parole de l'Orient. 36: 547-561.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Attorney George Malek-Yonan\". Noor-e Alam: Protestant Monthly in Iran (9): 11-13. February 1963.\n\n^ \"Lida Malek-Yonan\".\n\n^ \"Mrs. Lida Malek-Yonan, President of Assyrian Women's Organization\". Women's Organization Weekly. No. 196. Iran. 6 April 1971.\n\n^ a b \"IAPAC to Hold Northern California Norouz Celebration\". Payvand. 8 February 2008.\n\n^ a b \"National Performing Arts Competition Results\". Javanan Farhangi Special Edition. Winter 1972.\n\n^ \"Alumni Spotlight\". The Journal of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts: 15. Fall-Winter 2008.\n\n^ a b Golani, Janey, ed. (Winter 2009). \"A Brief Highlight\". The Assyrian Star. LVVI (1). Michigan: 35. ISSN 0004-6051.\n\n^ a b \"An Assyrian Exodus Production Photo\". September 2008.\n\n^ a b c d Martin Hernandez (21-27 October 1994). \"Calendar\". LA Weekly.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Drama-Logue 4-10 August 1994 by Bruce Feld\n\n^ \"Dynasty (The Search)\". IMDb. 1983.\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan Signs on to General Hospital\". The Soap Dispenser. June 2008.\n\n^ \"General Hospital: Rosie Malek-Yonan is Cast as Leyla's Mother\". Soaps on ABC. 9 June 2008.\n\n^ \"Comings and Goings\". Soap Opera Digest. 33 (25). NY: Source Interlink Media: 14. 17 June 2008. ISSN 0164-3584.\n\n^ \"Trouble for Leyla\". ABC Soaps in Depth. 12 (24). NJ: Heinrich BauerPublishing L.P.: 12 16 June 2008. ISSN 1525-7800.\n\n^ Lentz, Harris M. (2001). Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy Film and Television Credits. pp. 1744, 2028, 2190.\n\n^ Erdmann, Terry J.; Paula M. Block (2000). Deep Space Nine Companion (Star Trek Deep Space Nine). p. 387.\n\n^ Okuda, Michael; Denise Okuda; Debbie Mirek (1999). The Star Trek Encyclopedia.\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan in Rendition\". Assyria Times. 2008. Archived from the original on 2012-02-10. Retrieved 2011-03-30.\n\n^ \"Malek-Yonan Joins the Cast of Rendition\". Zinda. Washington, DC. 8 January 2008.\n\n^ \"Executive Board\". Archived from the original on 2016-10-10. Retrieved 2015-08-07.\n\n^ Schwimmer, Gene (1 March 2008). The Christian State. Eugene Schwimmer. ISBN 978-0-9815710-0-3.\n\n^ \"Testimony of Rosie Malek-Yonan before the House Committee on International Relations (Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 30 June 2006)\". Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. May 2007.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (18 March 2008). \"Genocide Unfolding: Death of a Catholic Assyrian Archbishop in Iraq\". Assyrian International News Agency.\n\n^ Johnston, Geoffrey P. (15 December 2008). \"Attacks on Iraq Christians largely under-reported\". ChristianWeek. Archived from the original on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2008.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (30 June 2006). \"Congressional Transcript Archives\". Open Publishing.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (30 June 2006). \"Congressional Hearing: Assyrian Plight\". Archived from the original on 6 March 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2012.\n\n^ \"US House Approves $10 Million for Religious Minorities in the Nineveh Plains of Iraq\". Assyrian International News Agency. 12 June 2007.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (30 June 2006). \"The Plight Of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism Survive?\". U.S. Congress.\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan's Statement Read Before the House Committee on International Relations on June 30, 2006\". Zinda Lighthouse Feature Article. Wash., D.C. 1 July 2006.\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan's Statement Read Before the House Committee on International Relations on June 30, 2006\". The Assyrian Star. LVIII (2). MA. Summer 2006.\n\n^ \"My Assyrian Nation on the Edge\". IMDb.\n\n^ \"My Assyrian Nation on the Edge\". Pearlida.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Author Addresses British House of Lords on Genocide\". Assyrian International News Agency. 23 April 2008.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (5 October 2008). \"Assyrians Demonstrate in Los Angeles Against Iraq Election Law\". Assyrian International News Agency.\n\n^ Cole, Ethan (6 October 2008). \"Assyrian Christians Protest Iraq Election Law\". The Christian Post.\n\n^ McCray, Kerry (29 October 2006). \"Assyrian History on Display: Turlock Event Features Author, Documentary\". Modesto Bee.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Club Marks 60 Years: Event to be Celebrated with Gala and Appearances by Writer-Actress\". Modesto Bee. 29 October 2006.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (17 February 2007). \"Assyrian Genocide Memorial Wall\". Zinda.\n\n^ Malek-Yonan, Rosie (24 February 2007). \"Deliver Us From Evil\". Zinda.\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan to Appear at UC-Berkeley\". Zinda. 25 February 2006.\n\n^ \"UC Merced Event Photo\". Archived from the original on 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2012-10-06.\n\n^ \"Woodbury University Event Photos\". Archived from the original on 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2012-10-06.\n\n^ \"Simon Wiesenthal Center Hosts Interfaith Leadership Crisis Meeting\". 21 December 2010. Archived from the original on 14 January 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2011.\n\n^ Devine, Christine (21 December 2010). \"Christians Persecuted in Iraq\". Fox News.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Church Hostages Rescued\". Al Jazeera. 1 November 2010.\n\n^ \"Baghdad Church Hostage Drama Engds in Bloodbath\". BBC News. 1 November 2010.\n\n^ \"Rosie Malek-Yonan, The Assyrian Woman of the Year\". Christians of Iraq. September 2006. Archived from the original on 2012-11-25. Retrieved 2011-03-18.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Author, Actor, Activist Elected Woman of the Year\". Encyclopedia of Things. Assyrian International News Agency. 30 April 2005.\n\n^ \"Golden Palm Screenplay Competition\". Facebook Fan Page. 27 April 2014.\n\n^ Kardously, Jean (2005). Modern Assyrian Design Scholarship Competition: Fashion Department, Woodbury University. USA.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ \"Annual Meeting of 2009\". Assyrians Without Borders. 21 March 2009. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2011.\n\n^ Steven Oxman (9 January 1991). \"Three Sisters Review\". Daily Variety.\n\n^ \"The Time of Your Life Review\". Daily Variety. 29 April 1993. p. 5.\n\n^ \"The Time of Your Life Production Photo\".\n\n^ \"Summer and Smoke Production Photos\".\n\n^ \"Detective Story Production Photos\".\n\n^ \"Bedfellows\". Back Stage West. 14 November 1996.\n\n^ \"Review of Bedfellows\". Drama-Logue. 7 November 1996.\n\n^ \"Bedfellows Review\". LA Weekly. 8 November 1996.\n\n^ \"Bedfellows\". LA Times. 15 November 1996.\n\n^ \"Bedfellows, The Echo Theatre Company\". Archived from the original on 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2012-02-05.\n\n^ a b c Shirley, Don (1 March 1995). \"People Watch: \"Calendar\"\". Los Angeles Times.\n\n^ \"Legit Theatre Review\". Los Angeles Times. 16 April 1995.\n\n^ \"Mr. Blackwell has kind words\". The Daily Breeze. 16 April 1995.\n\n^ \n\"Simpson Jurors Get Private Performance\". Daily News. 26 February 1995.\n\n^ \"People Watch\". Los Angeles Times. 1 March 1995.\n\n^ Don Shirley. \"Calendar\". Los Angeles Times.\n\n^ \"Openings\". Drama-Logue. 26 May 1994.\n\n^ \"Stage Whispers\". Drama-Logue. 27 July 1995.\n\n^ a b c d \"Credits\". Archived from the original on 2017-07-19. Retrieved 2012-10-06.\n\n^ Don Shirley (28 August 1986). \"Calendar\". Los Angeles Times.\n\n^ Frances Baum Nicholson (17 October 1989). \"The Light in the Mill\". Star News.\n\n^ Mary Cogswell Baum (12 October 1989). \"The Light in the Mill\". Sierra Madre News.\n\n^ Mary Cogswell Baum (12 October 1989). \"The Light in the Mill Review\". Daily Variety. Vol. 225, no. 27.\n\n^ \"Lies The Light In The Mill Production Photo\".\n\n^ \"Theatre Review\". Daily Variety. Vol. 223, no. 4. 9 March 1989.\n\n^ \"Lies Like Truth Production Photo\".\n\n^ Daily News, 26 February 1995\n\n^ Daily News of Los Angeles Simpson Jurors Get Private Performance 26 February 1995\n\n^ The Los Angeles Times 16 April 1995\n\n^ Daily Breeze (Torrance, Ca) Mr. Blackwell has Kind Words for Jury 16 April 1995\n\n^ \"Mr. Blackwell has Kind Words for Jury\". Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA). 16 April 1995.\n\n^ Hernandez, Martin (21-27 October 1994). \"Calendar\". LA Weekly.\n\n^ Drama-Logue June 1994\n\n^ Zinda Magazine. \"Event of the Year\". Zindamagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2014-08-27.\n\n^ Michael Zapata, ed. (2007). \"Rosie Malek-Yonan's The Crimson Field\". MAKE, A Chicago Literary Magazine. No. 4.\n\n^ Rosie Malek-Yonan (24 January 2010). \"SUNY Days for The Crimson Field\". Assyrian International News Agency.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website \n\nRosie Malek-Yonan at IMDb"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-rosie-malek-yonan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3603}, {"slug": "reference-baqofah", "title": "Baqofah", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Baqofah (Arabic: باقوفا;[2] Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܩܘܦܐ)[3][a] is a village in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. It is located in the Tel Kaif District in the Nineveh Plains.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Baqofah\n\nVillage\n\nBaqofahLocation in IraqShow map of IraqBaqofahBaqofah (Iraqi Kurdistan)Show map of Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nCoordinates: 36°35′20″N 43°07′50″E / 36.58888°N 43.13055°E / 36.58888; 43.13055\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nFederal region Kurdistan Region (de facto)[1]\n\nGovernorateNineveh Governorate\n\nDistrictTel Kaif District\n\nSub-districtTel Keppe\n\nBaqofah (Arabic: باقوفا;[2] Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܩܘܦܐ)[3][a] is a village in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. It is located in the Tel Kaif District in the Nineveh Plains.\n\nIn the village, there is a Chaldean Catholic church of Mar Gewargis.[4]\n\nEtymology\n\nSeveral theories have been put forward for the origin of the name of the village as the French Syriacist Jean Maurice Fiey argues it is derived from \"beth\" (\"place\" in Syriac) and \"qōpé\" (\"wooded\" in Syriac), and thus translates to \"wooded place\".[6] Alternatively, it is suggested the name is either a combination of \"beth\" and \"quba\" (\"baskets\" in Syriac) and translate to \"place of baskets\" or \"beth\" and \"qupa\" (\"monkey\" in Syriac), and thus translate to \"place of [the] monkey\".[5]\n\nHistory\n\nBaqofah is located atop two tells, of which the largest is partially covered by the village graveyard.[6] Whilst the French archaeologist Victor Place's survey found only the remains of jars in the early 19th century, others found several tombs containing an iron cuirass, sword, and dagger inlaid with gold.[6] In addition, a sculpted panel depicting a man killing a lion and a cylinder with a cuneiform inscription was also discovered.[6] Baqofah itself is first mentioned with the name Beṯ Qōpā in the Life of Rabban Hormizd in the seventh century AD as one of the villages that donated funds towards the construction of the Rabban Hormizd Monastery.[7][8]\n\nThe village had a mixed Christian and Muslim population until the eighteenth century, when the Muslim villagers left to found a village of the same name nearby.[8] At that time, Baqofah was part of the waqf of the Mosque of the Prophet Jonah at Mosul.[7] Baqofah was plundered by the forces of Shahanshah Nader Shah in 1743 amidst the Ottoman-Persian War of 1743-1746.[4] The Christian population of Baqofah was converted from the Church of the East to the Chaldean Catholic Church in the 18th century,[4] and a Chaldean Catholic priest named Francis from Baqofah is known to have been active at Baghdad in 1808.[8] A Kurdish attack on the village in 1833 resulted in the deaths of hundreds of villagers and abduction of many women and children.[9]\n\nIn 1850, Baqofah was visited by the English missionary George Percy Badger, who recorded the village's population as 20 Chaldean Catholic families and noted they were served by one priest and one church as part of the diocese of Mosul.[10] The population remained stable as 60% of the village's children died from croup at this time.[7] From 1864 to 1870, Jerome Simon Sindjari of Tel Keppe, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Tehran, resided at Baqofah and served as its priest; he also restored one of the doors of the church of Mar Gewargis in 1868.[8] The Chaldean Catholic priest Joseph Tfinkdji recorded that the village was inhabited by 1500 Chaldean Catholics with three priests and one church in 1913,[10] although 490 inhabitants were counted in 1923.[7] The population of Baqofah is recorded as 2211 people in the Iraqi census of 1957, however, the French Syriacist Jean Maurice Fiey argues the actual figure to be closer to 400 people at that time, and 70-80 families are noted to inhabit the village in 1961.[7] The Iraqi census of 1987 recorded 500 Assyrians at Baqofah.[11]\n\nIn early August 2014, Baqofah was abandoned as its population fled the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) offensive in Northern Iraq, prior to which the village was inhabited by approximately 600 Assyrians with 91 families.[4] After eleven days under ISIL occupation, Baqofah was seized by the Peshmerga,[9] who subsequently occupied the village for three months, during which time the village was looted by Peshmerga soldiers; after which control of Baqofah was transferred to the Assyrian militia Dwekh Nawsha.[12] Eventually, the village's population was permitted to return after the expulsion of ISIL from the Nineveh Plains and 30 families had resettled at Baqofah by June 2017.[13] The population of Baqofah briefly found refuge elsewhere in October 2017 due to skirmishes between the Peshmerga and Iraqi government forces.[4] By 2020, the village's population had grown to 202 Assyrians in 45 families.[11]\n\nNotable people\n\nEugene Manna (1867-1928), Chaldean Catholic bishop\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Baqofa or Baqufa.[4][5]\n\nCitations\n\n^ \"Anfragebeantwortung zum Irak: Sicherheitslage für Christ·innen in den chaldäisch-katholischen Siedlungsgebieten\" [Response to inquiry regarding Iraq: Security situation for Christians in the Chaldean Catholic settlement areas]. ecoi.net. 30 June 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2026. [Over three-quarters of the former inhabitants of Baqoufa and Telskuf, two Assyrian cities controlled by the Peshmerga, have not returned.]\n\n^ \"باقوفا\". Ishtar TV (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 7 April 2010. Retrieved 13 October 2021.\n\n^ bar Yawsef Esṭafanus of Bet Gangi, Peṭros (1907). \"SGCCB 00001\". Virtual Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. pp. Fol. 426r. Retrieved 28 October 2024. ܕܒܩܪܝܬܐ ܒܪܝܟܬܐ ܒܝܬ ܩܘܦܐ)\n\n^ a b c d e f \"The Mar Gorgis Church in Baqofa\". Mesopotamia Heritage. Retrieved 13 October 2021.\n\n^ a b \"Baqufa\". Ishtar TV. Translated by Aziz Emmanuel Zebari. 25 October 2012. Archived from the original on 31 July 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2021.\n\n^ a b c d Fiey (1975), p. 379.\n\n^ a b c d e Fiey (1975), p. 380.\n\n^ a b c d Wilmshurst (2000), p. 237.\n\n^ a b Mindy Belz (3 April 2015). \"Battle Ready: Assyrians and Kurds Holding Off ISIS in North Iraq\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2021.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst (2000), p. 199.\n\n^ a b \"Population Project\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 19 August 2021.\n\n^ Jennifer Percy (11 August 2015). \"At War in the Garden of Eden\". The New Republic. Retrieved 14 October 2021.\n\n^ Christa Pongratz-Lippitt (28 June 2017). \"Catholic groups help to return Christians to Nineveh Plain\". The Tablet. Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 14 October 2021.\n\nBibliography\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1975). Assyrie Chrétienne (in French). Vol. 2. Imprimerie Catholique de Beyrouth. Retrieved 15 August 2021.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Peeters Publishers. Retrieved 30 October 2024."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-baqofah"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1069}, {"slug": "reference-sanandaj", "title": "Sanandaj", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Sanandaj (Persian: سنندج; pronounced [sænænˈdædʒ] ⓘ Kurdish: سنە, romanized: Senneh[4]) is a city in the Central District of Sanandaj County, in the Kurdistan province of Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district.[5] With a population of 850,000,[6] it is the second largest Kurdish...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sanandaj\n سنە (Kurdish)\nسنندج (Persian)\n\nCity\n\nSanandaj from Abidar, Sanandaj Museum, Khosro Abad Mansion, Qeshlaq Bridge\n\nSeal\n\nInteractive map of Sanandaj\n\nCoordinates: 35°18′41″N 46°59′46″E / 35.31139°N 46.99611°E / 35.31139; 46.99611[1]\n\nCountryIran\n\nProvinceKurdistan\n\nCountySanandaj\n\nDistrictCentral\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorSeyed Anwar Rashidi[2]\n\nArea\n\n • Total3,033 km2 (1,171 sq mi)\n\nElevation1,538 m (5,046 ft)\n\nPopulation (2016)[3]\n\n • Total412,767\n\n • Density136.1/km2 (352.5/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3:30 (IRST)\n\nArea code087\n\nClimateCsa\n\nWebsitee-sanandaj.ir\n\nSanandaj (Persian: سنندج; pronounced [sænænˈdædʒ] ⓘ Kurdish: سنە, romanized: Senneh[4]) is a city in the Central District of Sanandaj County, in the Kurdistan province of Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district.[5] With a population of 850,000,[6] it is the second largest Kurdish city and 20th largest city overall in Iran. The city is considered a historic centre of Kurdish cultural and intellectual life, particularly noted for its tradition of Kurdish music, poetry, and carpet weaving.[7][8]\n\nHistory\n\nSanandaj's founding is fairly recent (about 250 years ago), yet in its short existence it has grown to become one of the centers of Kurdish culture.[9][10] During the Iran-Iraq War the city was attacked by Iraqi planes and saw disturbances.[11] Since 2019, UNESCO has recognized Sanandaj as Creative City of Music.[12]\n\nThe name \"Sinna\" first appears in records from the 14th century CE. Before this, the main city in the region was Sisar, whose exact location is unknown. Sisar was also called \"Sisar of Sadkhaniya\", or \"Sisar of the hundred springs\", and it has been proposed that the current name of \"Sinna\" is a contracted form of \"Sadkhaniya\".[13]\n\nThe name \"Sisar\" disappears in the 14th century and the name \"Sinna\" replaces it, for example in the works of Hamdallah Mustawfi who refers to a mountain and a pass with this name.[13] Then the Kurdish historian Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi mentions that in 1580 an Ardalan ruler named Timur Khan had a land grant including Sinna and the earlier Ardalan capital of Hasanabad. However, the local historian Ali-Akbar Munshi Waqayi-Nigar wrote in 1892/3 that Sinna was founded later, by the ruler Soleyman Khan Ardalan, on the site of an earlier settlement; the chronogram he gives for this event corresponds to 1046 AH, or 1636-7 CE.[14]\n\nSinna was developed significantly under the reign of Aman Allah \"the Great\" (from 1797-1825).[14] 19th-century Sinna was \"a lively commercial center, exporting oak galls, tragacanth, furs, and carpets\". Its population was mostly Kurdish, with a significant Jewish minority and smaller numbers of Armenian and Assyrian Christians (the latter of which are predominantly Chaldean Catholic).[14]\n\nDemographics\n\nEthnicity\n\nThe population of Sanandaj is mainly Kurdish. The city also had an Armenian minority who gradually emigrated from the city. Until the Iranian Revolution (1979), the city had a small Aramaic-speaking Jewish community of about 4,000 people.[9] The city boasted a sizable Assyrian community that spoke a unique dialect of Aramaic called Senaya, they are mostly members of the Chaldean Catholic Church.[15] The Kurdish character of Sanandaj has been extensively documented in urban studies scholarship. Alizadeh and colleagues (2019) characterise Sanandaj as a paradigmatic example of a traditional Kurdish city, noting that its urban morphology, architectural heritage, and social organisation have been shaped over centuries by Kurdish cultural norms.[16]\n\nLanguage\n\nThe linguistic composition of the city:[17]\n\nSanandaj linguistic composition\n\nLanguage\n\npercent\n\nCentral Kurdish\n\n86%\n\nHawrami\n\n7%\n\nNew Persian\n\n4.95%\n\nSouthern Kurdish\n\n2%\n\nAramaic\n\n0.05%\n\nThe predominance of Central Kurdish in the city reflects the broader demographic composition of Iranian Kurdistan. Persian serves primarily as the language of education, government, and inter-ethnic communication, while Kurdish is the dominant vernacular of daily life.[18]\n\nReligion\n\nMost of the people of Sanandaj follow the Shafi‘i branch of Sunni Islam.[19][20]\n\nPopulation\n\nAt the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 311,446 in 81,380 households.[21] The following census in 2011 counted 373,987 people in 106,771 households.[22] The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 412,767 people in 126,240 households.[3]\n\nThe city is the second largest Kurdish city in Iran, behind Kermanshah.[23]\n\nGeography\n\nLocation\n\nThe city is between the Qishlaq river, a tributary of the Diyala, and Mount Awidar, which separates it from the old Ardalan capital of Hasanabad. Carpet making is the biggest industry in Sanandaj.[14]\n\nClimate\n\nSanandaj has a Mediterranean climate (Csa) according to the Köppen climate classification, bordering on a humid continental climate (Dsa), with cold and wet winters and very hot and dry summers.\n\nThe synoptic station of Sanandaj started working in the autumn of 1959.[24]\n\nHighest recorded temperature: 44°C on 16 July 1981[25]\n\nLowest recorded temperature: -31°C on 6 February 1974[26]\n\nClimate data for Sanandaj (1991-2020, extremes 1959-2020)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n17.5\n(63.5)\n\n21.4\n(70.5)\n\n27.8\n(82.0)\n\n32.8\n(91.0)\n\n36.6\n(97.9)\n\n41.0\n(105.8)\n\n44.0\n(111.2)\n\n43.0\n(109.4)\n\n39.4\n(102.9)\n\n33.8\n(92.8)\n\n26.0\n(78.8)\n\n22.9\n(73.2)\n\n44.0\n(111.2)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n7.0\n(44.6)\n\n9.7\n(49.5)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n20.5\n(68.9)\n\n26.4\n(79.5)\n\n33.7\n(92.7)\n\n37.7\n(99.9)\n\n37.5\n(99.5)\n\n32.5\n(90.5)\n\n24.9\n(76.8)\n\n15.3\n(59.5)\n\n9.7\n(49.5)\n\n22.5\n(72.5)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n0.8\n(33.4)\n\n3.0\n(37.4)\n\n7.8\n(46.0)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\n17.8\n(64.0)\n\n24.3\n(75.7)\n\n28.4\n(83.1)\n\n27.6\n(81.7)\n\n21.9\n(71.4)\n\n15.4\n(59.7)\n\n7.8\n(46.0)\n\n3.1\n(37.6)\n\n14.2\n(57.6)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-4.4\n(24.1)\n\n-2.7\n(27.1)\n\n1.1\n(34.0)\n\n5.4\n(41.7)\n\n9.1\n(48.4)\n\n13.6\n(56.5)\n\n18.1\n(64.6)\n\n17.1\n(62.8)\n\n11.1\n(52.0)\n\n6.8\n(44.2)\n\n1.8\n(35.2)\n\n-2.1\n(28.2)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-28.0\n(-18.4)\n\n-31.0\n(-23.8)\n\n-16.0\n(3.2)\n\n-7.0\n(19.4)\n\n-2.0\n(28.4)\n\n3.0\n(37.4)\n\n7.0\n(44.6)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n1.0\n(33.8)\n\n-4.6\n(23.7)\n\n-14.0\n(6.8)\n\n-23.6\n(-10.5)\n\n-31.0\n(-23.8)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n44.6\n(1.76)\n\n50.7\n(2.00)\n\n58.0\n(2.28)\n\n65.9\n(2.59)\n\n28.9\n(1.14)\n\n2.2\n(0.09)\n\n1.3\n(0.05)\n\n0.2\n(0.01)\n\n1.0\n(0.04)\n\n28.2\n(1.11)\n\n55.8\n(2.20)\n\n47.4\n(1.87)\n\n384.2\n(15.14)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n6.8\n\n7.1\n\n7.9\n\n7.6\n\n4.3\n\n0.6\n\n0.3\n\n0.1\n\n0.5\n\n3\n\n6.4\n\n5.9\n\n50.5\n\nAverage rainy days\n\n6.9\n\n8.8\n\n11.4\n\n11.4\n\n5.9\n\n0.9\n\n0.5\n\n0.3\n\n0.4\n\n4.9\n\n10.4\n\n8.3\n\n70.1\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n8.0\n\n6.4\n\n2.1\n\n0.3\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.6\n\n3.9\n\n21.3\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n70\n\n64\n\n55\n\n53\n\n46\n\n28\n\n24\n\n24\n\n29\n\n43\n\n63\n\n69\n\n47\n\nAverage dew point °C (°F)\n\n-4.7\n(23.5)\n\n-3.9\n(25.0)\n\n-2.3\n(27.9)\n\n1.6\n(34.9)\n\n3.7\n(38.7)\n\n2.2\n(36.0)\n\n3.7\n(38.7)\n\n3.0\n(37.4)\n\n0.8\n(33.4)\n\n0.9\n(33.6)\n\n0.1\n(32.2)\n\n-2.9\n(26.8)\n\n0.2\n(32.3)\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n155\n\n166\n\n211\n\n231\n\n295\n\n356\n\n357\n\n347\n\n313\n\n255\n\n183\n\n152\n\n3,021\n\nSource 1: NCEI[27]\n\nSource 2: IRIMO (extremes, snow/sleet days for 1959-2010)[25][26][28]\n\nEconomy\n\nThe economy of Sanandaj is based upon the production of carpets, processed hides and skins, milled rice, refined sugar, woodworking, cotton weaving, metalware and cutlery.[29][30]\n\nIn Sanandaj, there is a combined cycle power plant with a capacity of 1000 megawatts, a petrochemical plant, a tractor manufacturing plant, a tire manufacturing plant, a tile and ceramic manufacturing plant, a pasteurized milk manufacturing plant, and hundreds of other factories.\n\nThere is also an international airport in Sanandaj.\n\nIn Sanandaj, there are two 5-star hotels, Laleh Hotel and Jin Plus Hotel, two 4-star hotels, Shadi Hotel and Shahu Hotel, and two 3-star hotels, Jahangardi Hotel and Farhangian Hotel.\n\nThe world's largest open-air cinema is located in Abidar Forest Park.\n\nNotable people\n\nSee: Category:People from Sanandaj\n\nMastoureh Ardalan, Kurdish poet and historian\n\nJalal Malaksha, Kurdish poet\n\nMazhar Khaleqi, Kurdish singer\n\nAbbas Kamandi, Kurdish singer\n\nNasser Razazi, Kurdish singer\n\nVoria Ghafouri, Kurdish footballer\n\nZhina Modares Gorji is a local bookseller and podcaster who was sentenced to over 20 years in Sanandaj prison on several charges. The sentence was reduced on appeal to 2 years and 4 months for \"propaganda against the state\" in 2024.[31]\n\nSee also\n\n Media related to Sanandaj at Wikimedia Commons\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n^ OpenStreetMap contributors (28 December 2024). \"Sanandaj, Sanandaj County\" (Map). OpenStreetMap (in Persian). Retrieved 28 December 2024.\n\n^ \"سید انور رشیدی شهردار سنندج\". IRNA. 7 August 2021. Archived from the original on 27 September 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2021.\n\n^ a b Census of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1395 (2016): Kurdistan Province. amar.org.ir (Report) (in Persian). The Statistical Center of Iran. Archived from the original (Excel) on 8 May 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Senneh rug\". Retrieved 9 January 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)\n\n^ Habibi, Hassan (2 November 2017) [Approved 21 June 1369]. Approval of the organization and chain of citizenship of the elements and units of the national divisions of Kurdistan province, centered in the city of Sanandaj. rc.majlis.ir (Report) (in Persian). Ministry of the Interior, Defense Political Commission of the Government Board. Proposal 3233.1.5.53; Letter 907-93808; Notification 83352/T130K. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 22 January 2024 - via Islamic Parliament Research Center of the Islamic Republic of Iran.\n\n^ \"آمار جمعیتی شهرستان سنندج :: فرمانداری سنندج\". Archived from the original on 7 August 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2016.\n\n^ Alizadeh, Hooshmand (2021). Building a Traditional Kurdish City: The Urban Morphology of Sanandaj. Palgrave Macmillan.\n\n^ Alizadeh, Hooshmand (2006). \"The Concept of Kurdish City\". The International Journal of Kurdish Studies. 20 (1/2): 13-52.\n\n^ a b Geoffrey Khan, The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj, Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, p. 1.\n\n^ Sanandaj Archived 15 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved 16 July 2014.\n\n^ \"Sanandaj | Iran | Britannica\". Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 30 November 2020.\n\n^ \"Sanandaj one-year anniversary as a UNESCO Creative City of Music | Creative Cities Network\". en.unesco.org. Archived from the original on 7 December 2020. \n\n^ a b Minorsky, Vladimir (1997). \"SĪSAR\". In Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P.; Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. IX (SAN-SZE) (PDF). Leiden: Brill. pp. 680-1. ISBN 90-04-10422-4. Retrieved 13 June 2022.\n\n^ a b c d Minorsky, Vladimir (1997). \"SANANDADJ\". In Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P.; Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. IX (SAN-SZE) (PDF). Leiden: Brill. pp. 6-7. ISBN 90-04-10422-4. Retrieved 13 June 2022.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2009). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj. Gorgias Press. pp. 3-4. ISBN 978-1-60724-134-8.\n\n^ Alizadeh, Hooshmand; Bahrami, Behzad; Farahani, Leila Mahmoudi (2019). \"Geophysical Setting and Urban Form of a Traditional City: Examination of the Kurdish City of Sanandaj, Iran\". Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning. 172 (6): 215-228. doi:10.1680/jurdp.18.00048.\n\n^ \"Language distribution: Kordestan Province\". Iran Atlas. Archived from the original on 4 December 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2021.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2009). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj. Gorgias Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-60724-134-8.\n\n^ \"Intelligence Ministry \"Invites\" Rouhani Campaign Manager to Stop Advocating for Sunni Muslim Rights\". 17 November 2017. Archived from the original on 23 January 2018. Retrieved 23 January 2018.\n\n^ BC.Diakonoff, I. M. (1985), \"Media\", The Cambridge History of Iran, 2 (Edited by Ilya Gershevitch ed.), Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-20091-2\n\n^ Census of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1385 (2006): Kurdistan Province. amar.org.ir (Report) (in Persian). The Statistical Center of Iran. Archived from the original (Excel) on 20 September 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2022.\n\n^ Census of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1390 (2011): Kurdistan Province. irandataportal.syr.edu (Report) (in Persian). The Statistical Center of Iran. Archived from the original (Excel) on 19 January 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2022 - via Iran Data Portal, Syracuse University.\n\n^ \"Sanandaj - Creative Cities Network\". UNESCO. UNESCO. Retrieved 25 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Statistics of 200 synoptic stations in the country\" آمار 200 ایستگاه سینوپتیک کشور. Chaharmahalmet (asp) (in Persian). Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 17 February 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2024.\n\n^ a b \"Form 7: TEMPERATURE RECORDS HIGHEST IN C. Station: Sanandaj(40747)\". Chaharmahalmet (asp). Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2024.\n\n^ a b \"Form 6: TEMPERATURE RECORDS LOWEST IN C. Station: Sanandaj(40747)\". Chaharmahalmet (asp). Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 20 January 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2024.\n\n^ \"World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020: Sanandaj-40747\" (CSV). ncei.noaa.gov (Excel). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 8 March 2024.\n\n^ \"Form 32: NO. OF DAYS WITH SNOW OR SLEET Station: Sanandaj(40747)\". Chaharmahalmet (asp). Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 7 September 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2024.\n\n^ \"کردستان از نظر نرخ بیکاری در جایگاه دوم کشور قرار گرفت\". yjc.ir. Archived from the original on 28 November 2015. Retrieved 14 May 2016.\n\n^ \"سرمایه‌گذاری در صنعت و معدن کردستان، 4 برابر کمتر از متوسط کشوری است\". sanayenews.com. Archived from the original on 11 June 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2016.\n\n^ KHRN (7 October 2024). \"KHRN: Kurdish activist's 21-year sentence reduced to two years, four months\". KHRN. Retrieved 13 December 2024.\n\nSources\n\nYamaguchi, Akihiko (2021). \"The Kurdish frontier under the Safavids\". In Matthee, Rudi (ed.). The Safavid World. Routledge. pp. 556-571.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAlizadeh, Hooshmand (2021). Building a Traditional Kurdish: City The Urban Morphology of Sanandaj. Palgrave Macmillan.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey; Mohammadirad, Masoud (2024). Language Contact in Sanandaj: A Study of the Impact of Iranian on Neo-Aramaic. De Gruyter Mouton.\n\nYona, Sabar (2010). \"Sanandaj\". In Norman A. Stillman (ed.). Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Brill Online.\n\nExternal links\n\nSanandaj\n\nSanandaj Online Community\n\nIslamic Azad University of sanandaj"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sanandaj"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2473}, {"slug": "reference-salmas", "title": "Salmas", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Salmas (Persian: سلماس)[a] is a city in the Central District of Salmas County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.[6]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Salmas\n سلماس\n\nCity\n\nSalmas\n\nSalmasLocation within Iran\n\nCoordinates: 38°12′10″N 44°46′01″E / 38.20278°N 44.76694°E / 38.20278; 44.76694[1][2]\n\nCountryIran\n\nProvinceWest Azerbaijan\n\nCountySalmas\n\nDistrictCentral\n\nEarliest Recognition224-242 AD\n\nRebuilt1930\n\nGovernment\n\n • TypeMayor-Council\n\n • BodySalmas\n\n • MayorN/A\n\nArea\n\n • Total9.26 sq mi (24.0 km2)\n\n • Land9.26 sq mi (24.0 km2)\n\n • Water0 sq mi (0 km2)\n\n • Metro4.75 sq mi (12.3 km2)\n\nElevation4,531 ft (1,381 m)\n\nPopulation (2016)[3]\n\n • Total92,811\n\n • RankTBA, Iran\n\n • Density10,000/sq mi (3,870/km2)\n\nDemonym(s)Salmasi, Salmassi\n\nTime zoneUTC+3:30 (IRST)\n\nZIP code58811 ≤ 58XXX ≤ 58991\n\nArea code44\n\nSalmas (Persian: سلماس)[a] is a city in the Central District of Salmas County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.[6]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe original name of Salmas was Dilman, which is probably related to the Daylamites who sometimes controlled the region. In the 20th century, it was known as Shapur.[7]\n\nHistory\n\nIron Age\n\nSalmas is located in the historic Azerbaijan region.[7] Its archaeological relics, which date as far back as the Urartian kingdom (860-590 BC), attest to its long human habitation.[7]\n\nClassical Age\n\nSalmas was part of the Armenian province of Nor Shirakan (also known as Persarmenia),[7][8] which was inhabited by Armenians.[8] A rock relief erected during the reign of the Sasanian monarch Ardashir I (r. 224-242) is located in the Khan-Takhti village near Salmas. This rock relief illustrates two akin scenarios in which a standing man receives a ring from a man riding a horse.[9]\n\nThe standing men's names are subject to interpretation, but the horsemen are typically considered to be Ardashir I and his son and heir, Shapur I. The German orientalist Ferdinand Justi (died 1907) theorized that the relief is meant to show the Armenians' gratitude to Ardashir I and Shapur I, something which some later scholars supported. The Iranologist Ehsan Shavarebi considers this theory to be \"logical\" but stresses that \"we need more investigations on the event depicted on the relief.\" He suggests that the rock relief is meant to illustrate the probable peace made between Ardashir I and the Kingdom of Armenia.[9] When the Arsacid house of Armenia was abolished and the country was made a Sasanian province in 428, Nor Shirakan and Paytakaran were incorporated into the Sasanian province of Adurbadagan.[10]\n\nTwo archeological sites showing inhabitation during the Sasanian era has been found near Salmas. One of them is known as Haftan Tepe, which contains Sasanian-era pottery akin to those found in Takht-e Soleyman. The other is called Qazun Basi, located to the south of Salmas. They were likely used as military and administrative hubs.[11] The 9th-century Muslim historian al-Baladhuri reported that the taxes of Salmas had been long given to Mosul, suggesting that during the Arab conquest of Iran it was Arab armies from Diyar Rabi'a that conquered Salmas. During the reign of Marzuban ibn Muhammad (r. 941/42-957) of the Daylamite Sallarid dynasty, Salmas became subjugated to his rule. In 943/44, Marzuban ibn Muhammad repelled an attack on Salmas by the Hamdanid dynasty, and in 955/56, it was attacked by the Kurdish military leader Daysam.[7] By 975, Salmas was seemingly under the rule of the Kurdish Rawadid dynasty, who after 983/84 ruled all of Azerbaijan.[12]\n\nSalmas is described by the 10th-century Islamic geographers Ibn Hawkal and al-Istakhri as a tiny town in Azerbaijan with a sturdy wall in a fertile location. Another 10th-century Islamic geographer, al-Maqdisi, considers the town to have been part of the administration of Armenia and inhabited by Kurds, which according to the modern scholar and orientalist Clifford Edmund Bosworth must had been part of the Hadhabani tribe.[7] In 1054/55, the Seljuk Empire imposed their rule on the Rawwadids, and in 1070 removed them from power resulting in Salmas being captured by the Seljuks.[12] In 1064, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (r. 1063-1072) made a military campaign against the Byzantines, Armenians and Georgians, in which the Kurds of Salmas took part.[7]\n\nSalmas was in ruins during the lifetime of the Muslim scholar Yaqut al-Hamawi (died 1229), but according to the geographer Hamdallah Mustawfi (died after 1339/40), it was once again thriving in the middle of the 14th-century. The vizier Khwaja Taj al-Din Ali Shah Tabrizi had rebuilt the town's 8,000-step-long wall during the reign of Ilkhanate ruler Ghazan (r. 1295-1304), and Salmas's revenues-presumably those of the entire district-amounted to 39,000 dinars, a large amount.[7]\n\nAnother mention of the city was made in 1281, when its bishop made the trip to the consecration of the Church of the East patriarch Yaballaha in Baghdad.[13]\n\nIn the Battle of Salmas on 17-18 September 1429, the Kara Koyunlu were defeated by Shah Rukh who was consolidating Timurid holdings west of Lake Urmia.[14] However, the area was retaken by the Kara Koyunlu in 1447 after the death of Shah Rukh.\n\nThe Lak tribe settled in the Salmas area at the end of the 16th century. It seems that at the time, the governor of Lak and Salmas was interchangeable. Today, there remains a possible final trace of the tribe in the form of a Lakestan area of the tribe which post-Safavids lived dispersed across the country.[15]\n\nIn March 1915 Cevdet Bey ordered 800 Assyrians of Salmas to be killed.[16] Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Church of the East was murdered by the Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak in Salmas in March 1918.[17][18][19]\n\nAround the advent of the 1910s, Imperial Russia started to station infantry and Cossacks in Salmas.[20] The Russians retreated at the time of Enver Pasha's offensive in the Iran-Caucasus region, but returned in early 1916, and stayed up to the wake of the Russian Revolution.[20]\n\nDemographics\n\nLanguage and ethnicity\n\nThe majority of the population is composed of Azerbaijanis and Kurds[21] with some Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews.[22]\n\nPopulation\n\nAt the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 79,560 in 19,806 households.[23] The following census in 2011 counted 88,196 people in 23,751 households.[24] The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 92,811 people in 27,115 households.[3] According to the 2019 census, the city's population is 127,864.[25]\n\nGeography\n\nClimate\n\nUnder the Köppen climate classification, Salmas features a cold semi-arid climate (BSk), typical of northwestern Iran.\n\nClimate data for Salmas (2001-2010 normals)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n2.0\n(35.6)\n\n5.6\n(42.1)\n\n12.1\n(53.8)\n\n16.6\n(61.9)\n\n22.0\n(71.6)\n\n28.2\n(82.8)\n\n31.3\n(88.3)\n\n31.5\n(88.7)\n\n26.9\n(80.4)\n\n20.6\n(69.1)\n\n11.5\n(52.7)\n\n4.8\n(40.6)\n\n17.8\n(64.0)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n-2.7\n(27.1)\n\n0.5\n(32.9)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\n10.7\n(51.3)\n\n15.3\n(59.5)\n\n20.6\n(69.1)\n\n24.0\n(75.2)\n\n24.0\n(75.2)\n\n19.3\n(66.7)\n\n13.8\n(56.8)\n\n5.9\n(42.6)\n\n-0.1\n(31.8)\n\n11.5\n(52.6)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-7.5\n(18.5)\n\n-4.6\n(23.7)\n\n0.3\n(32.5)\n\n4.8\n(40.6)\n\n8.5\n(47.3)\n\n13.1\n(55.6)\n\n16.7\n(62.1)\n\n16.5\n(61.7)\n\n11.7\n(53.1)\n\n7.0\n(44.6)\n\n0.3\n(32.5)\n\n-5.0\n(23.0)\n\n5.1\n(41.3)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n10.3\n(0.41)\n\n16.8\n(0.66)\n\n29.9\n(1.18)\n\n43.9\n(1.73)\n\n46.0\n(1.81)\n\n20.7\n(0.81)\n\n8.0\n(0.31)\n\n8.1\n(0.32)\n\n9.9\n(0.39)\n\n22.6\n(0.89)\n\n21.5\n(0.85)\n\n9.8\n(0.39)\n\n247.5\n(9.75)\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n76\n\n69\n\n58\n\n56\n\n58\n\n45\n\n43\n\n40\n\n42\n\n52\n\n68\n\n76\n\n57\n\nAverage dew point °C (°F)\n\n-5.8\n(21.6)\n\n-5.0\n(23.0)\n\n-2.6\n(27.3)\n\n1.5\n(34.7)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\n8.0\n(46.4)\n\n10.9\n(51.6)\n\n10.1\n(50.2)\n\n5.8\n(42.4)\n\n3.7\n(38.7)\n\n0.0\n(32.0)\n\n-4.8\n(23.4)\n\n2.3\n(36.2)\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n139.0\n\n168.4\n\n214.7\n\n214.0\n\n245.3\n\n347.4\n\n354.4\n\n348.4\n\n305.8\n\n240.0\n\n174.3\n\n137.8\n\n2,889.5\n\nSource: Iran Meteorological Organization(temperatures[26]), (precipitaion[27]), (humidity, dew point and sun 2001-2005[28][29])\n\nSalmas Historical Population\nYearPopulation±%\n\n1930 ~8000-    \n\n1934 ~7000-    \n\n1956 13,161-    \n\n1966 21,703+64.9%\n\n1976 27,638+27.3%\n\n1986 50,573+83.0%\n\n1996 65,416+29.3%\n\n2006 89,617+37.0%\n\n2011 97,060+8.3%\n\n2016 101,441+4.5%\n\n2021 N/A-    \n\nNote: The data presented of 1976 and earlier (1956-1976) are from the censuses before Iranian Revolution and the data of 1986 and later (1986-2016) are from the censuses after it. The data for the years 1920 and 1924 are not of any censuses.\nSources: \"Population and Housing Census\". Statistical Center of Iran. (used for censuses of 2006 and later), \"An Analysis to the Urban System of West Azerbaijan Province During the Years 1956 till 2006\". Urban Ecology Researches. (used for censuses of 1996 and earlier; the amounts are obtained from the data given in \"Real Population\" columns!), \"Location and Geography of the City\". Salmas County Municipality. (used for data of the years 1920 and 1924)\n\nNotable people\n\nStepanos V of Salmast (d. 1567) - Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church\n\nYohannan Gabriel (1758-1833) - Chaldean Catholic bishop of Salmas\n\nNicholas I Zaya (d. 1855) - Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans\n\nRaffi (1835-1888) - Armenian novelist\n\nPaul Bedjan (1838-1920) - Chaldean Catholic priest and orientalist\n\nAbraham Guloyan (1893-1983) - Politician\n\nMurad Kostanyan (1902-1989) - Actor\n\nHossein Sadaghiani (1903-1982) - The first manager and head coach of Iran national football team (1941-1951) and the first Iranian soccer player to play for foreign clubs (R. Charleroi S.C. and Fenerbahce SK) and in a European league\n\nArdeshir Ovanessian (c. 1905-1990) - Communist leader\n\nTimur Lakestani (1915-2011) - aka Father of Iranian Electrical Industry\n\nJafar Salmasi (1918-2000) - weightlifter\n\nEmmanuel Agassi (1930-2021) - boxer and father of Andre Agassi\n\nHadi Asghari (b. 1981) - football player\n\nGallery\n\n Overall View of Imam St. and Shahrdari Sq.\n\n Islamic Republic Blvd., Near Panahi Technical School\n\n Khan Takhti-Rd near Salmas\n\n The Haftvan Church\n\n Chaldean Catholic Church in Salmas\n\n Salmas\n\n An angled front view of Salmas Imam Khomeini Prayer House, 2017\n\n A view of Nation Park in a Winter night, 2016\n\nSee also\n\n1930 Salmas earthquake\n\nNor Shirakan\n\nBattle of Dilman\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nKhoy Khanate\n\n Media related to Salmas at Wikimedia Commons\n\n Iran portal\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also romanized as Salamas and Salmās; formerly Dīlmagān, Dīlman, Shahpoor, Shāhpūr, and Shapur;[4] also Armenian: Սալմաստ or Դիլման; Azerbaijani: سلماس; Kurdish: سەڵماس; and Syriac: ܣܵܠܵܡܵܣ, romanized as Salamas[5]\n\nReferences\n\n^ OpenStreetMap contributors (27 September 2024). \"Moghanjuq, دهستان زولاچای, بخش مرکزی [Zulachay Rural District, Central District], Salmas County, West Azerbaijan Province, 58818-17965, Iran\" (Map). OpenStreetMap (in Persian). Retrieved 27 September 2024.\n\n^ \"6Q38+4Q8 Salmas, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran\" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved 23 October 2025.\n\n^ a b سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1395 : استان آذربایجان غربی [General Population and Housing Census 2016: West Azerbaijan Province]. مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived from the original (Excel) on 30 August 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ Salmas at GEOnet Names Server\n\n^ \"List of all entries\". Assyrian Languages. Retrieved 14 March 2020.\n\n^ Habibi, Hassan (12 September 1990) [تاریخ تصویب (Approval date) 1369/06/21 (Iranian Jalali calendar)]. تصویب سازمان و سلسله تابعیت عناصر و واحدهای تقسیمات کشوری استان آذربایجان غربی به مرکزیت شهر ارومیه [‌Approval of the organization and chain of citizenship of the elements and units of the national divisions of West Azerbaijan province, centered in the city of Urmia]. لام تا کام [Lam ta Kam] (in Persian). ‌وزارت کشور [Ministry of the Interior]. کمیسیون سیاسی دفاعی هیأت دولت [Political Defense Commission of the Government Board]. شناسه [ID] D6D37EAB-50D7-43D6-B320-D774C01ADE50. شماره دوره [Course number] 69, شماره جلد [Volume number] 3. Archived from the original on 20 December 2023. Retrieved 29 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Bosworth 1995.\n\n^ a b Ghodrat-Dizaji 2010, p. 75.\n\n^ a b Shavarebi 2014, p. 115.\n\n^ Shahinyan 2016, pp. 194-195.\n\n^ Ghodrat-Dizaji 2007, p. 90.\n\n^ a b Peacock 2017.\n\n^ Houtsma, M. Th. et al. (1993 reprint) \"Salmas\" E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936 Volume 4, E.J. Brill, New York, page 118, ISBN 90-04-09796-1\n\n^ Houtsma, M. Th. et al. (1993 reprint) \"Tabrīz\" E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936 Volume 4, E.J. Brill, New York, page 588, ISBN 90-04-09796-1\n\n^ Naṣīrī, ʻAlī Naqī; Floor, Willem M. (2008). Titles & emoluments in Safavid Iran: a third manual of Safavid administration. Washington, DC: Mage Publishers. pp. 270-71. ISBN 978-1-933823-23-2. OCLC 183928765.\n\n^ Yuhanon, B. Beth (30 April 2018). \"The Methods of Killing in the Assyrian Genocide\". Sayfo 1915. Gorgias Press. p. 183. doi:10.31826/9781463239961-013. ISBN 978-1-4632-3996-1. S2CID 198820452.\n\n^ Brill, E. J. (1993). E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936. S - Ṭaiba. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-09793-3.\n\n^ O'Shea, Maria T. (2004) Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan Routledge, New York, page 100, ISBN 0-415-94766-9\n\n^ Nisan, Mordechai (2002) Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (2nd edition) McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina, page 187, ISBN 0-7864-1375-1\n\n^ a b Atabaki 2006, p. 70.\n\n^ \"..:: شهرداری سلماس ::\". Archived from the original on 26 December 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2014.\n\n^ \"An Annotated Bibliography - Amnon Netzer\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2017.\n\n^ سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1385 : استان آذربایجان غربی [General Population and Housing Census 2006: West Azerbaijan Province]. مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived from the original (Excel) on 20 September 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2022.\n\n^ سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1390 : استان آذربایجان غربی [General Population and Housing Census 2011: West Azerbaijan Province]. Iran Data Portal-Syracuse University (in Persian). مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran]. Archived from the original (Excel) on 20 January 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ \"2016 Population and Housing Census\". Statistical Center of Iran. Retrieved 20 May 2017.\n\n^ \"Form 5: AVERAGE OF MEAN DAILY TEMPERATURE IN C. Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 22 November 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\n\"Form 2: AVERAGE OF MINIMUM TEMPERATURE IN C. Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\n\"Form 3: AVERAGE OF MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE IN C. Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 10 May 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\n^ \"Form 25: Monthly total of precipitation in mm. Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\n^ \"Form 14: AVERAGE OF RELATIVE HUMIDITY IN PERCENT Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 6 June 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\n\"Form 10: AVERAGE OF DEW POINT TEMPERATURE IN C. Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 7 May 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\n^ \"Form 42: Monthly total of sunshine hours Station: Salmas(40722)\". Chaharmahalmet. Iran Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 6 June 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2024.\n\nSources\n\nAtabaki, Touraj (2006). Iran and the First World War: Battleground of the Great Powers. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1860649646.\n\nBosworth, C.E. (1995). \"Salmās\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VIII: Ned-Sam. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.\n\nGhodrat-Dizaji, Mehrdad (2007). \"Administrative Geography of the Early Sasanian Period: The Case of Ādurbādagān\". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 45 (1): 87-93. doi:10.1080/05786967.2007.11864720. S2CID 133088896.\n\nGhodrat-Dizaji, Mehrdad (2010). \"Ādurbādagān during the Late Sasanian Period: A Study in Administrative Geography\". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 48 (1): 69-80. doi:10.1080/05786967.2010.11864774. S2CID 163839498.\n\nPeacock, Andrew (2017). \"Rawwadids\". Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition. New York.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nShahinyan, Arsen (2016). \"Northern Territories of the Sasanian Atropatene and the Arab Azerbaijan\". Iran and the Caucasus. 20 (2): 191-203. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20160203.\n\nShavarebi, Ehsan (2014). \"A Reinterpretation of the Sasanian Relief at Salmās\". Iran and the Caucasus. 18 (2). Brill: 115-133. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20140203.\n\nExternal links\n\nSalmas famous people\n\n\"Salmas Map - Satellite Images of Salmas\", Maplandia"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-salmas"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2783}, {"slug": "reference-ain-sifni", "title": "Ain Sifni", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Ain Sifni (Arabic: عين سفني,[2] Kurdish: ئێسفنێ, romanized: Êsivnê,[3][4] Syriac: ܥܝܢ ܣܦܢ̈ܐ, romanized: ʿAïn Sappāné)[5][a] also known as Shekhan (Kurdish: شێخان, romanized: Şêxan),[b][11] is a town and subdistrict in the Shekhan District of the Nineveh Plains, within the Nineveh Governorate of northern Iraq. Ain Sifni is largely populated...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ain Sifni\n\nAin SifniLocation in IraqShow map of IraqAin SifniAin Sifni (Iraqi Kurdistan)Show map of Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nCoordinates: 36°41′30″N 43°21′00″E / 36.69167°N 43.35000°E / 36.69167; 43.35000\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nRegion Kurdistan Region (de facto)\n\nGovernorateNineveh Governorate (de jure)\nDohuk Governorate (de facto)\n\nDistrictShekhan District\n\nSub-districtAin Sifni\n\nPopulation (2014)[1]\n\n • Urban17,766\n\n • Rural6,355\n\nAin Sifni (Arabic: عين سفني,[2] Kurdish: ئێسفنێ, romanized: Êsivnê,[3][4] Syriac: ܥܝܢ ܣܦܢ̈ܐ, romanized: ʿAïn Sappāné)[5][a] also known as Shekhan (Kurdish: شێخان, romanized: Şêxan),[b][11] is a town and subdistrict in the Shekhan District of the Nineveh Plains, within the Nineveh Governorate of northern Iraq. Ain Sifni is largely populated by Yazidis,[12] most of whom speak Kurmanji Kurdish.[13]\n\nIn the town, there is a Chaldean Catholic church of Mar Yousif, and a church of Mar Gewargis of the Ancient Church of the East.[7][8][14] There are also seven Yazidi religious monuments, including mausoleums of Sheikh ‘Alî Chamse and Sheikh Hantuch,[15] and shrines of Sheikh Adi,[7] Nishingaha Peroz, and Sheikh Mushelleh.[16]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe Kurdish name of the town is derived from the plural form of \"sheikh\" (\"holy man\" in Kurdish), and thus translates to \"[the land of the] holy men\".[7][10] According to Yazidi tradition, Shekhan means \"two sheikhs\", in reference to the place that Abdulqadir Gilani and Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir met, where the Yazidi town of Shekhan, which was formerly the centre of the Yazidi principality, is located.[17] The Arabic name, Ain Sifni, is interpreted to stem from Ain as-Safīna (عين السفينة), referring to the Yazidi tradition that the town was the location of the construction of Noah's Ark.[18]\n\nHistory\n\nAccording to Yazidi tradition, Ain Sifni was the residence of Noah and location of the construction of Noah's Ark.[15] Ain Sifni is attested as a diocese of the Church of the East in 576 AD, in which year its bishop Bar Sahde attended the synod of Catholicos Ezekiel of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.[19] The town served as the centre of the subdistrict of Bēth Rustāqa which, as a consequence of the spread of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the district of Bēth Nūhadrā in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, was transferred to the district of Marghā in the late eighth century.[20]\n\nIt is suggested that the mausoleum of the Yazidi saint Sheikh ‘Alî Chamse was constructed in the 15th century.[15] The district of Ain Sifni was founded on 16 December 1924.[21] Assyrians of the Baz clan of Hakkari settled at Ain Sifni after the Assyrian genocide in the First World War, and were attacked by the Iraqi army during the Simele massacre in 1933.[22] Until the arrival of the Christian Assyrians, Ain Sifni was populated only by Yazidis and Jews.[15] The Chaldean Catholic Church of Mar Yousif was rebuilt in 1960, replacing an older church built in 1946-1948.[7] By 1961, 180 Chaldean Catholics inhabited the town.[18]\n\nThe Yazidi population of Ain Sifni was forcibly relocated to Mahad in 1975 by the Iraqi government as part of its policy of Arabisation, and the town was resettled by Arabs.[15] During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, two Iraqi military installations near Ain Sifni were struck by US airstrikes on 24 March.[23] Two battalions of the Iraqi 108th Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, were stationed at the town at this time.[24] The US bombing campaign against the garrison was ineffective, and an entire Iraqi battalion withdrew with no casualties.[24] On 6 April, ODAs 051, 055, and 056 of the US 10th Special Forces Group and 300 Peshmerga soldiers of the 12th Supay (battalion) seized the town, and 33 Iraqis were killed, 54 wounded, and 230 taken prisoner, and 1 Peshmerga casualty.[25]\n\nIn the aftermath of the fall of President Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Arab settlers fled Ain Sifni, allowing its former Yazidi population to return.[15] In January 2005, it was reported that the Kurdistan Democratic Party blocked the delivery of ballot boxes to Ain Sifni, thereby ensuring its population was unable to vote in the Iraqi parliamentary election.[26] The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a production sharing contract with Hunt Oil Company to extract oil near Ain Sifni in September 2007, despite the town being officially outside the control of the KRG, and has since been declared illegal by the Iraqi government.[27] The concession at Ain Sifni is estimated to have reservoirs of 900 million recoverable barrels of oil.[28]\n\nA priest house and community hall for local Christians was constructed by the Supreme Committee of Christian Affairs by December 2012.[7] The town had an estimated population of 11,498 in 2013.[2] Most of the town's population of 16,000 people fled during the Islamic State (IS) offensive in August 2014, and under 500 men remained to defend Ain Sifni under the leadership of mayor Mamo al-Bagsri.[10] Prior to the IS offensive, Ain Sifni was inhabited by 700 families, of which 80% were Yazidi, 10% were Christian, and 10% were Muslim.[15] Humanitarian aid was delivered to Ain Sifni by the Assyrian Aid Society in November 2014.[29] In October 2017, 560 Assyrians with 140 families inhabited Ain Sifni.[30]\n\nBy June 2018, the population had dropped to 200 families.[15] In November 2018, the refugee camp at Ain Sifni, which is inhabited by Yazidi refugees, was flooded by heavy rainfall.[11] The town was the residence of the Yazidi Emir Tahseen Said until he went into exile in Germany, where he died, and was buried at Ain Sifni on 5 February 2019.[31][32]\n\nGeography\n\nClimate\n\nAin Sifni has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa).\n\nClimate data for Ain Sifni\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n10.8\n(51.4)\n\n12.7\n(54.9)\n\n16.6\n(61.9)\n\n22.3\n(72.1)\n\n29.8\n(85.6)\n\n36.7\n(98.1)\n\n40.9\n(105.6)\n\n40.7\n(105.3)\n\n36.4\n(97.5)\n\n28.7\n(83.7)\n\n19.8\n(67.6)\n\n12.7\n(54.9)\n\n25.7\n(78.2)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n5.9\n(42.6)\n\n7.5\n(45.5)\n\n10.9\n(51.6)\n\n15.9\n(60.6)\n\n22.3\n(72.1)\n\n28.0\n(82.4)\n\n32.1\n(89.8)\n\n31.6\n(88.9)\n\n27.2\n(81.0)\n\n20.5\n(68.9)\n\n13.6\n(56.5)\n\n7.7\n(45.9)\n\n18.6\n(65.5)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n1.0\n(33.8)\n\n2.3\n(36.1)\n\n5.3\n(41.5)\n\n9.6\n(49.3)\n\n14.9\n(58.8)\n\n19.4\n(66.9)\n\n22.3\n(72.1)\n\n22.5\n(72.5)\n\n18.0\n(64.4)\n\n12.4\n(54.3)\n\n7.5\n(45.5)\n\n2.7\n(36.9)\n\n11.5\n(52.7)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n126\n(5.0)\n\n149\n(5.9)\n\n138\n(5.4)\n\n97\n(3.8)\n\n35\n(1.4)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n1\n(0.0)\n\n18\n(0.7)\n\n74\n(2.9)\n\n110\n(4.3)\n\n748\n(29.4)\n\nSource: https://en.climate-data.org/location/934732/\n\nGallery\n\n Yazidi cemetery in Ain Sifni\n\n Yazidi shrine of Nishingaha Peroz near Ain Sifni\n\n Chaldean Catholics from Ain Sifni\n\n Chaldean Catholic Church of Saint Yousif in Ain Sifni\n\n Ancient Church of the East Church of Mar Gewargis in Ain Sifni\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nYazidis in Iraq\n\nYazidi settlements\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as ʿAyn Sifni,[6] Ainsefni,[7] Ean Sefne,[8] ʿAïn Sifni, or Ain Siphni.[9]\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Sheikhan,[10] or Shekhan.[7]\n\nCitations\n\n^ Ali Sindi; Ramanathan Balakrishnan; Gerard Waite (July 2018). \"Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Demographic Survey\" (PDF). ReliefWeb. International Organization for Migration. p. 72. Retrieved 5 September 2021.\n\n^ a b \"'Ayn Sifnī\". World Gazetteer. Retrieved 11 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"سەرەکى\". پارێزگەھا دھوك (in Arabic). Retrieved 11 January 2023.\n\n^ Pirbari, Dimitri; Grigoriev, Stanislav. Holy Lalish, 2008 (Ezidian temple Lalish in Iraqi Kurdistan). p. 20.\n\n^ Chabot (1902), p. 110; Fiey (1975), p. 791.\n\n^ Carlson, Thomas A. (9 December 2016). \"ʿAyn Sifni\". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"Shekhan (Ainsefni)\". Ishtar TV. 16 December 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ a b \"Mar Yousif church - Eansefne\". Ishtar TV. 10 November 2011. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ Margoliouth (2009), p. 247; Wilmshurst (2000), p. 203.\n\n^ a b c Soguel, Dominique (12 August 2014). \"A sanctuary for Iraqi Yazidis - and a plea for Obama's intervention\". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ a b \"ŞÊXAN - Li kampa Kurdên Êzidî lehî rabû û avê da bin 30 çadiran\". Rudaw Media Network (in Kurdish). 23 November 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2019.\n\n^ Elî, Nasir (13 March 2019). \"Sheikhan: Where Kurdish men go for a second wife\". Rudaw Media Network. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ Salih, Mohammed A; Wilgenburg, Wladimir van (5 August 2014). \"Iraqi Yazidis: 'If we move they will kill us'\". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ \"Mar Gewragiz church - Ean Sefne\". Ishtar TV. 29 October 2011. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h \"The Yazidi mausoleums in Ain Sifni\". Mesopotamia Heritage. Retrieved 24 November 2020.\n\n^ Kreyenbroek (1995).\n\n^ Pirbari, Mossaki & Yezdin (2020), pp. 223-257.\n\n^ a b Fiey (1975), p. 791.\n\n^ Chabot (1902), p. 368.\n\n^ Morony (1982), pp. 14, 43.\n\n^ \"Basic information about Shekhan District\" (PDF). Christian Aid Programme in Iraq. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2014.\n\n^ Donabed (2015), p. 116.\n\n^ Harding, Luke; Howard, Michael (25 March 2003). \"Bombing raids signal start of mountain offensive\". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ a b Finlayson (2005), p. 75.\n\n^ Finlayson (2005), p. 78.\n\n^ \"Assyrians Prevented By Kurds From Voting in North Iraq\". Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. 31 January 2005. Retrieved 24 November 2020.\n\n^ Lando, Ben (25 August 2011). \"Hunt Oil knew KRG oil deal in disputed territory\". Iraq Oil Report. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ Helman, Christopher (13 September 2012). \"Newest Iraqi Gusher Could Make Texas Oilman A Billionaire\". Forbes. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ \"Within The Activities Of AAS-Iraq In Providing Aid To The Displaced Families From Mosul & Nineveh Plain\". Assyrian Aid Society. 4 November 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ \"Population Project\". Shlama Foundation. Retrieved 19 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Prince of IS-ravaged Yazidis buried in Iraq\". Qantara.de. 6 February 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\n^ \"What you did not know about Iraq's Yazidi minority\". Al Arabiya. 11 August 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2020.\n\nBibliography\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF) (in French). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Retrieved 24 November 2020.\n\nDonabed, Sargon George (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press.\n\nFiey, Jean Maurice (1975). Assyrie Chrétienne (in French). Vol. 2. Imprimerie Catholique de Beyrouth. Retrieved 15 August 2021.\n\nFinlayson, Kenneth (2005). \"This is What You Signed Up For: The Attack on Ayn Sifni\" (PDF). Veritas. 1 (1): 75-78.\n\nKreyenbroek, Philip (1995). Yezidism: its background, observances, and textual tradition. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0-7734-9004-3. OCLC 31377794.\n\nMargoliouth, J. P. (2009). Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Wipf and Stock Publishers.\n\nMorony, Michael (1982). \"Continuity and Change in the Administrative Geography of Late Sasanian and Early Islamic al-'Irāq\". Iran. 20. Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 1-49. doi:10.2307/4299720. JSTOR 4299720.\n\nPirbari, Dimitri; Mossaki, Nodar; Yezdin, Mirza Sileman (March 2020). \"A Yezidi Manuscript:-Mišūr of P'īr Sīnī Bahrī/P'īr Sīnī Dārānī, Its Study and Critical Analysis\". Iranian Studies. 53 (1-2): 223-257. doi:10.1080/00210862.2019.1669118. ISSN 0021-0862. S2CID 214483496.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Peeters Publishers. Retrieved 30 October 2024."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ain-sifni"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1955}, {"slug": "reference-sharafiya", "title": "Sharafiya", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Sharafiya (Syriac: ܫܲܪܦ̮ܝܼܵܐ, romanized: šarfīyā, Arabic: شرفية, romanized: šarafiyya, Kurdish: شەرەفیە, romanized: şerefye) is a village in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, a sub-district of the Tel Kaif District situated 40 km northwest of the city of Mosul and is on the main road that connects Mosul...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sharafiya\n ܫܲܪܦ̮ܝܼܵܐشرفية\n\nSharafiyaLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°41′20″N 43°5′46″E / 36.68889°N 43.09611°E / 36.68889; 43.09611\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh\n\nDistrictTel Kaif\n\nPopulation\n\n • Total500\n\nTime zoneGMT +3\n\nSharafiya (Syriac: ܫܲܪܦ̮ܝܼܵܐ, romanized: šarfīyā, Arabic: شرفية, romanized: šarafiyya, Kurdish: شەرەفیە, romanized: şerefye) is a village in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq, a sub-district of the Tel Kaif District situated 40 km northwest of the city of Mosul and is on the main road that connects Mosul to Alqosh, which it is only 5 kilometers south of.\n\nPrior to its destruction by the Islamic State, it was home to about 400 families.[1] After the defeat of the Islamic State in the region by the Kurdish Peshmerga, the village's Church of St. George was restored and baptisms of infants resumed in January 2018.[1][2]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nYazidis in Iraq\n\nSources\n\n^ a b Giovanni, Janine di. \"The Vanishing: In the field: the burgeoning understanding of moral injury\". Harper's Magazine. Vol. December 2018. ISSN 0017-789X. Retrieved 2024-05-04.\n\n^ \"Battle rages for control of Mosul dam\". Al Jazeera. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 2024-05-04."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sharafiya"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 204}, {"slug": "reference-miaphysitism", "title": "Miaphysitism", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Miaphysitism (/maɪˈæfɪsaɪtɪzəm, miː-/)[1] is the Christological doctrine that holds Jesus, the Incarnate Word, is fully divine and fully human, in one nature or physis (Ancient Greek: φύσις).[2] It is the position held by the Oriental Orthodox Churches. It differs from the dyophysitism of the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Miaphysitism (/maɪˈæfɪsaɪtɪzəm, miː-/)[1] is the Christological doctrine that holds Jesus, the Incarnate Word, is fully divine and fully human, in one nature or physis (Ancient Greek: φύσις).[2] It is the position held by the Oriental Orthodox Churches. It differs from the dyophysitism of the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of the East and major Protestant denominations, which holds that Jesus is one person with two natures (divine and human) as defined by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.\n\nWhile historically a major point of controversy within Christianity, some modern declarations by both Chalcedonian and Miaphysite churches claim that the difference between the two Christological formulations does not reflect any significant difference in belief about the nature of Christ.[3][4] Other statements from both Chalcedonian and Miaphysite churches claim that such difference is indeed theological but has been \"widened by non-theological factors\".[5]\n\nTerminology\n\nThe word miaphysite derives from the Ancient Greek terms μία (mía, 'one') and φύσις (phýsis, 'nature'). Miaphysites claim that the teaching is based on Cyril of Alexandria's formula mia physis tou theou logou sesarkomene, meaning 'One incarnate physis of God the Word' (or 'One enfleshed physis...').[6][7][8][9][10] The word sesarkomene (meaning 'enfleshed') is given in the nominative feminine case, and hence is describing the physis as incarnate. This is often incorrectly translated as 'One physis of God the incarnate Word', which would require the genitive masculine case sesarkomenou.[8] In his Second Letter to Succensus, Cyril clarifies that the nature (physis) is incarnate:\n\nFor if we say that the Only Begotten Son of God, who was incarnate and became man, is One, then this does not mean as they would suppose that he has been 'mixed' or that the nature of the Word has been transformed into the nature of flesh, or that of the flesh into the Word's. No, each nature is understood to remain in all its natural characteristics for the reasons we have just given, though they are ineffably and inexpressibly united, and this is how he demonstrated to us the one nature of the Son; though of course, as I have said, it is the 'incarnate nature' I mean.[10]\n\nEarly miaphysite Christians (including Cyril and his successor, Dioscoros) claim such terminology was furthermore present in early patristic writers such as Athanasius of Alexandria, Julius I of Rome, and Gregory Thaumaturgus.[11] This is disputed, with the scholarly consensus suggesting that this formula originated from the writings of Apollinaris of Laodicea, who espoused a form of monophysitism called Apollinarism.[9] Apollinarism was condemned in the First Council of Constantinople,[12] and was also explicitly rejected by Cyril in his First Letter to Succensus,[13] though Cyril does support the mia physis formula in the same letter.\n\nThe 451 Council of Chalcedon used physis to mean a set of properties appropriate to an ousia ('essence'), and defined that there is in Christ one hypostasis but two physeis ('natures'). It is disputed whether Cyril used physis in that sense. John Anthony McGuckin says that in Cyril's formula \"physis serves as a rough semantic equivalent to hypostasis\".[14] The 431 Council of Ephesus used physis to signify the single subjecthood of Christ and also condemned speaking of two physeis ('natures') in various homilies contained within the official minutes.[15]\n\nOthers interpret the miaphysite term physis in line with its use by the Council of Chalcedon and speak of \"miaphysitism\" as \"monophysitism\", a word used for all forms of denial of the Chalcedonian doctrine. However, they add that \"miaphysitism\" is \"the more accurate term for the position held by the Syriac, Coptic and Armenian churches\".[16] The Second Council of Constantinople,[17] held in 553 following Chalcedon, accepted Cyril's phrase but warned against misinterpreting it.[18]\n\nEtymologically, mia-physis and mono-physis both mean 'one nature'. However, mia-physis has come to denote the specific Severian theology that understands the union of Christ's natures as a single nature by composition, interpreted by Miaphysites as Cyrillian (the formula mia physis being drawn from his writings), rather than the Eutychian view of union by mixing or other forms of 'one-nature' (monophysite) theology (e.g., one purely human nature, one purely divine nature). Strictly speaking, by meaning alone, Miaphysites (Severians) are a type of monophysite, but a distinct kind and not to be confused with other non-miaphysite monophysites (such as Eutychians or Ebionites). In recent times, Miaphysites have adopted \"miaphysite\" as a self-designation; conversely, \"monophysite\" has been used to label non-miaphysite monophysites (especially Eutychians) and is considered by many miaphysites to be pejorative and inaccurate to describe their theology.\n\nThe broad term \"dyophysitism\" covers not only Chalcedonian teaching but also interpretations like Nestorianism which held that Jesus is not only of two natures but is in fact two centers of attribution, which may imply two persons, a view nominally rejected by Chalcedonians. Likewise, \"monophysitism\" includes both Oriental Orthodox teaching and Eutychianism, the latter maintaining that after the union, the eternal Son possessed a single synthesized nature, neither purely divine nor purely human, identical with neither.[19][20] Miaphysites reject Eutychianism: they hold that the incarnate Christ has one nature that is fully divine and fully human, retaining the properties of both without mingling, confusion (\"pouring together\"), or change.\n\nTo avoid confusion with Eutychians, the Oriental Orthodox Churches reject the label \"monophysite\". The Coptic Metropolitan Bishop of Damiette declared it a misnomer to call them monophysites, for \"they always confessed the continuity of existence of the two natures in the one incarnate nature of the Word of God. Non[e] of the natures ceased to exist because of the union and the term 'mia physis' denoting the incarnate nature is completely different from the term 'monophysites' [...] The Oriental Orthodox do not believe in a single nature in Jesus Christ but rather a united divine-human nature.\"[21]\n\nThe Agreed Statement by the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission in 2014 also declared:\n\nThe term 'monophysite', which has been falsely used to describe the Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, is both misleading and offensive as it implies Eutychianism. Anglicans, together with the wider oikumene, use the accurate term 'miaphysite' to refer to the Cyrilline teaching of the family of Oriental Orthodox Churches, and furthermore call each of these Churches by their official title of \"Oriental Orthodox\". The teaching of this family confesses not a single nature but one incarnate united divine-human nature of the Word of God. To say \"a single nature\" would be to imply that the human nature was absorbed in his divinity, as was taught by Eutyches.[22]\n\nConflict\n\nThe conflict over terminology was to some extent a conflict between two renowned theological schools. The Catechetical School of Alexandria focused on the divinity of Christ as the Logos or Word of God and thereby risked leaving his real humanity out of proper consideration (cf. Apollinarism). The stress by the School of Antioch was on the humanity of Jesus as a historical figure. Layered onto this theological rivalry was political competition between Alexandria on one side, and Antioch and Constantinople on the other.[23]\n\nThe condemnation of Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus (431) was a victory for the Alexandrian school, but acceptance required compromise: the Formula of Reunion agreed by Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch in 433. Cyril died in 444, and under his successor, Dioscurus I of Alexandria, a Constantinople-based archimandrite named Eutyches, whose responses were judged heretical by Bishop Flavian of Constantinople, accused Flavian himself of heresy. The emperor convoked another council in Ephesus and placed Dioscurus as the presiding bishop. This Second Council of Ephesus (449) rehabilitated Eutyches after his confession was deemed orthodox by the bishops, and condemned & deposed Flavian and other bishops. They appealed to Pope Leo I, who denounced the assembly as a latrocinium (robber council) instead of a regular concilium, declaring it null and void. Today the Oriental Orthodox Churches recognize that council as valid.\n\nThe Council of Chalcedon (451) annulled the earlier council presided over by Dioscurus. It was not accepted by the Oriental Orthodox Churches, who do not defend Eutyches and instead accept his implicit condemnation by the Third Council of Ephesus (475). Chalcedon accepted by acclamation Leo's Tome - the letter by Pope Leo I setting out, as he saw it, the imperial church's doctrine on the matter - and issued the Chalcedonian Definition. The clause most relevant to miaphysitism states:\"\n\nFollowing, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.\n\n- Bindley, T. Herbert, ed. (1899). The Oecumenical Documents of the Faith. London: Methuen.\n\nDissent from this definition did not at first lead to a clean break between what are now the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. While in the West, Rome tended to uphold steadfastly the text of Leo's Tome and of the Chalcedonian definition, the situation in the East was fluid for a century after the council, with compromise formulas imposed by the emperors and accepted by the church and leading at times to schisms between East and West (cf. Acacian Schism, Henotikon, Monoenergism). Initially, before the campaigns of Justin and Justinian against the miaphysites, they comprised the majority of the East at the time.[24] The situation then hardened into a fixed division between the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Chalcedonian churches, the latter which later split into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church (and its Protestant offshoots).\n\nThoughts of resolution\n\nIn recent decades, a number of Christological agreements between Miaphysite and Chalcedonian churches have been signed by theologians and church leaders, including with the Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, the Anglicans and other Protestant churches.\n\nCatholic Church\n\nOn 20 May 1973, Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria and Pope Paul VI of Rome jointly signed a common declaration that explicitly distinguishes Christ's divinity and humanity without necessarily using the phrase \"two natures\":[25]\n\nWe confess that our Lord and God and Saviour and King of us all, Jesus Christ, is perfect God with respect to His Divinity, perfect man with respect to His humanity. In Him His divinity is united with His humanity in a real, perfect union without mingling, without commixtion, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without separation. His divinity did not separate from His humanity for an instant, not for the twinkling of an eye. He who is God eternal and invisible became visible in the flesh, and took upon Himself the form of a servant. In Him are preserved all the properties of the divinity and all the properties of the humanity, together in a real, perfect, indivisible and inseparable union.\n\n- Common Declaration of Pope of Rome Paul VI and of the Pope of Alexandria Shenouda III\n\nAt that meeting they agreed to establish an official theological dialogue between the two Churches. On 12 February 1988 the commission conducting that dialogue signed \"a common formula expressing our official agreement on Christology\", which had already been approved by the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church on 21 June 1986. The brief common formula was as follows:[26]\n\nWe believe that our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Incarnate-Logos, is perfect in His Divinity and perfect in His Humanity. He made His Humanity one with His Divinity without mixture nor mingling, nor confusion. His Divinity was not separated from His Humanity even for a moment or twinkling of an eye.\nAt the same time, we anathematize the doctrines of both Nestorius and Eutyches.\n\n- Mixed Commission of the Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church: Common formula on Christology\n\nA \"Doctrinal Agreement on Christology\" was signed on 3 June 1990 by Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I, Catholicos of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, and Pope John Paul II, in which they explicitly spoke of \"divine and human natures\":[27]\n\nOur Lord Jesus Christ is one, perfect in his humanity and perfect in his divinity - at once consubstantial with the Father in his divinity, and consubstantial with us in his humanity. His humanity is one with his divinity - without change, without commingling, without division and without separation. In the Person of the Eternal Logos Incarnate are united and active in a real and perfect way the divine and human natures, with all their properties, faculties and operations. ... It is this faith which we both confess. Its content is the same in both communions; in formulating that content in the course of history, however, differences have arisen, in terminology and emphasis. We are convinced that these differences are such as can co-exist in the same communion and therefore need not and should not divide us, especially when we proclaim Him to our brothers and sisters in the world in terms which they can more easily understand. \n\n- Doctrinal Agreement on Christology approved by Pope John Paul II and Catholicos Mar Baselius Marthoma Mathews I of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, 3 June 1990\n\nSimilar accords were signed by the head of the Catholic Church and the heads of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.[28][29]\n\nIn 1984, John Paul II and the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I, signed a declaration allowing, \"in certain circumstances\", the faithful to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick from either Community. Another 1994 agreement permitted Catholics and members of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church to receive the sacrament of matrimony from either church.[30]\n\nEcumenical dialogue between the two churches was suspended following Rome's declarations on Fiducia supplicans (same-sex blessings) and further statements by Pope Francis on homosexual unions.[31]\n\nEastern Orthodox\n\nAlthough unofficial dialogue between individual theologians of the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox began in 1964, official dialogue did not begin until 1985.[32] By 1989 the two sides reached agreement on Christology, stating that in Cyril of Alexandria's formula the word physis refers to the hypostasis of Christ-the one eternal Person (one of the three hypostases) of the Trinity-who \"became incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Theotokos, and thus became man, consubstantial with us in his humanity but without sin. He is true God and true man at the same time, perfect in his divinity, perfect in his humanity. Because the one whom she bore was at the same time fully God as well as fully human, we call the Blessed Virgin Theotokos. When we speak of the one composite hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not say that in him a divine hypostasis and a human hypostasis came together. Rather, the one eternal hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity has assumed our created human nature, uniting it with his own uncreated divine nature to form an inseparably and unconfusedly united real divine-human being, the natures being distinguished from each other only in contemplation.\"[33]\n\nA second agreed statement was published in the following year, 1990, declaring:[33]\n\nThe Orthodox agree that the Oriental Orthodox will continue to maintain their traditional Cyrillian terminology of \"one nature of the incarnate Logos\" (μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη), since they acknowledge the double consubstantiality of the Logos which Eutyches denied. The Orthodox also use this terminology. The Oriental Orthodox agree that the Orthodox are justified in their use of the two-natures formula, since they acknowledge that the distinction is \"in thought alone\" (τῇ θεωρίᾳ μόνῃ). ... we have now clearly understood that both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition, though they have used Christological terms in different ways. It is this common faith and continuous loyalty to the Apostolic Tradition that should be the basis for our unity and communion.\n\n- Joint Commission Of The Theological Dialogue Between The Orthodox Church And The Oriental Orthodox Churches, Second Agreed Statement (1990)\n\nImplementing the recommendations of these two Agreed Statements would theoretically restore full communion between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, but as of 2021 they have not been enacted. Among the Eastern Orthodox, only the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Romania have accepted the Statements; among the Oriental Orthodox, the Coptic, Syriac, and Malankara churches have accepted them. The Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has requested clarification on some points, and the monastic community of Mount Athos rejects any form of dialogue, whether with the Oriental Orthodox or others.[34]\n\nSee also\n\nIncarnation (Christianity)\n\nCommunicatio idiomatum\n\nDocumenta Monophysitarum\n\nArianism\n\nSoteriology\n\nEcumenism\n\nEast-West Schism\n\nSchism of 1552\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"miaphysitism\". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.\n\n^ \"The Universal Church and Schisms\". Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Midlands, U.K.\n\n^ Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. \"Agreed Statements between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches (June 1989 & September 1990)\" (PDF).\n\n^ Rowell, Geoffrey; Bishoy of Damietta; Gabriel, Abba (17 October 2014). \"Agreed Statement by the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission\" (PDF). Anglican Communion. Cairo, Egypt. Retrieved October 22, 2020.\n\n^ \"Joint Declaration of the Holy Father Pope Paul VI and His Holiness Shenouda III (May 10, 1973) | Paul VI\". www.vatican.va. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ Crawford, Matthew R. (2022), \"Cyril of Alexandria, Second Letter to Succensus\", in DelCogliano, Mark (ed.), The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings: Volume 3: Christ: Through the Nestorian Controversy, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 740-746, doi:10.1017/9781107449640.053, ISBN 978-1-107-06213-9, retrieved 2026-04-24\n\n^ DelCogliano, Mark; Forness, Philip Michael; Forness, Philip Michael; Ebied, R. Y.; Wickham, L. R.; DelCogliano, Mark; Storin, Bradley K. (2022), \"Timothy Aelurus, Against the Council of Chalcedon\", in DelCogliano, Mark (ed.), The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings: Volume 4: Christ: Chalcedon and Beyond, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings, vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 169, doi:10.1017/9781009057103.007, ISBN 978-1-316-51114-5, retrieved 2026-04-24\n\n^ a b Chaillot, Christine, ed. (2016). The Dialogue between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Volos: Volos Academy Publications. pp. 39-54. ISBN 978-618-81264-5-9.\n\n^ a b DelCogliano, Mark; Storin, Bradley K.; Jovian, Emperor; Storin, Bradley K.; Tome, Synodical; Terentius, Serapion; DelCogliano, Mark (2022), \"Apollinarius of Laodicea, Selected Letters\", in DelCogliano, Mark (ed.), The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings: Volume 3: Christ: Through the Nestorian Controversy, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 308-321, doi:10.1017/9781107449640.024, ISBN 978-1-107-06213-9, retrieved 2026-04-24\n\n^ a b McGuckin, John Anthony; Cyril (2004). St. Cyril of Alexandria: the Christological controversy: its history, theology, and texts. Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 359-363. ISBN 978-0-88141-259-8.\n\n^ Price, Richard; Gaddis, Michael, eds. (2011). The acts of the Council of Chalcedon. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-84631-100-0.\n\n^ \"CHURCH FATHERS: First Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381)\". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2026-04-24.\n\n^ Crawford, Matthew R. (2022), \"Cyril of Alexandria, First Letter to Succensus\", in DelCogliano, Mark (ed.), The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings: Volume 3: Christ: Through the Nestorian Controversy, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 731-739, doi:10.1017/9781107449640.052, ISBN 978-1-107-06213-9, retrieved 2026-04-24\n\n^ McGuckin, John. St. Cyril of Alexandria's Miaphysite Christology and Chalcedonian Dyophysitism: The Quest for the Phronema Patrum (PDF). p. 38.\n\n^ Frenkel, Luise Marion (2015). Thedotus of Ancyra's homilies and the Council of Ephesus (431). Studia patristica. Leuven: Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-3147-3.\n\n^ Parry, Ken (2009). The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. John Wiley & Sons. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-4443-3361-9.\n\n^ \"CHURCH FATHERS: First Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381)\". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2026-04-24.\n\n^ Denzinger in Latin, 429; English translation of an earlier edition, 220\n\n^ Grudem, Wayne A. (2014). Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith. Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-51587-6.\n\n^ Newman, John Henry (2011). Francis J. McGrath (ed.). John Henry Newman Sermons 1824-1843. Vol. IV: The Church and Miscellaneous Sermons at St Mary's and Littlemore. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920091-7.\n\n^ Bishoy of Damiette (3 February 1998), Interpretation of the Christological Official Agreements between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, archived from the original (DOC) on 2004-07-22; cf. Coptic Orthodox Church of the Southern United States, The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.\n\n^ \"'Agreed Statement by the Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission' (Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia 5-10 November 2002. Revised. Cairo, Egypt 13-17 October 2014\" (PDF).\n\n^ Rausch, Thomas P. (2003). Who Is Jesus?: An Introduction to Christology. Liturgical Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780814650783.\n\n^ Wigram, William Ainger (1978). The Separation of the Monophysites. AMS Press. pp. 63, 132. ISBN 978-0-404-16115-6. Monophysites were no more than a party every where (except in Egypt, where they were all-powerful), but that party was the majority in Palestine and Syria, and was not negligible in the Capital, and in Asia Minor. .. There were plenty of laity and monks among the Monophysites; there was a fair supply of clergy; Chalcedonians were negligible in Egypt, and a minority in all the Orient, though they were a considerable minority, perhaps even a local majority, in Palestine.\n\n^ \"Common declaration of Paul VI and Shenouda III\". Vatican. Archived from the original on 14 February 2020. Retrieved 2020-09-16.\n\n^ \"Coptic Church Common Formula on Christology\" (PDF). AU: CAM.\n\n^ \"1990 Accordo dottrinale sulla cristologia tra Giovanni Paulo II e Mar Baselius Marthoma Mathews I\" [1990 Doctrinal agreement on Christology between John Paul II and Mar Baselius Marthoma Mathews I]. Christian community (in Italian). Vatican.\n\n^ \"Dichiarazione Comune di Giovanni Paolo II e del Patriarca Siro d'Antiochia Moran Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas\" [Joint Declaration of John Paul II and the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch Moran Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas]. Christian community (in Italian). Vatican.\n\n^ \"Common Declaration of John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin I\". Christian community. Vatican.\n\n^ Wooden, Cindy. \"Pope: Catholic, Oriental Orthodox should look at more sacramental sharing\". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 2025-10-30.\n\n^ Pentin, Edward (2024-03-11). \"Copts Halt Ecumenical Talks Over Rome's 'Change of Position' on Homosexuality\". NCR. Retrieved 2025-10-30.\n\n^ Bishop Youssef, \"The Agreed Statements: Oriental Orthodox Responses\" in St Nerses's Theological Review (1998), pp. 55-60, as reported in the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States\n\n^ a b Jeffrey Gros; Harding Meyer; William G. Rusch, eds. (2000). Growth in Agreement II. Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations at World Level 1982-1998. Michigan: World Council of Churches.\n\n^ A. Rofoeil, \"What Hinders the Full Communion between the Coptic Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox\", pp. 10-11.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2016). \"Miaphysite, Not Monophysite!\". Cristianesimo Nella Storia. 37 (1): 45-52. ISBN 9788815261687.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nChesnut, R. C. (1976). Three Monophysite Christologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198267126. OCLC 2913844.\n\nDavis, Leo Donald, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology, 1983 (Michael Glazier, Wilmington DE), reprinted 1990 (Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN, Theology and Life Series 21, 342 pp., ISBN 978-0-8146-5616-7), chaps. 4-6, pp. 134-257.\n\nFrend, W. H. C. (1972). The Rise of the Monophysite Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521081300. OCLC 516379.\n\nKavvadas, Nestor (2016). \"Severus of Antioch and Changing Miaphysite Attitudes toward Byzantium\". Severus of Antioch: His Life and Times. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 124-137. ISBN 9789004307995.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nOstrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.\n\nSeverios, Mathews (July 2020). Word Became Flesh: The Christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-643-91301-2.\n\nTannous, Jack (2013). \"You Are What You Read: Qenneshre and the Miaphysite Church in the Seventh Century\". History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 83-102. ISBN 978-0-19-991540-8.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (1997). \"Miaphysitism: A New Term for Use in the History of Dogma and in Ecumenical Theology\". The Harp. 10 (3): 33-40.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (January-April 2016). \"Miaphysitismus. Anmerkungen zur ökumenischen Sinnhaftigkeit eines Neologismus\" ['Miaphysitismus'? Comments on the Ecumenical Meaning of a Neologism]. Cristianesimo Nella Storia (in German and English). 37 (1): 19-29. doi:10.17395/82927. ISBN 9788815261687.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nZachhuber, Johannes (2018). \"Personhood in Miaphysitism: Severus of Antioch and John Philoponus\". Personhood in the Byzantine Christian Tradition: Early, Medieval, and Modern Perspectives. London: Routledge. pp. 29-43."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-miaphysitism"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4194}, {"slug": "reference-sapna-valley", "title": "Sapna valley", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Sapna Valley (Kurdish: ڕووباری سپنه‌, romanized: Rîbarê Sipne[1]) is a large valley in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, contained by two small mountain ranges to the north which are part of the greater Zagros mountain range. The valley is watered by the Great Zab river which flows along...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sapna Valley\n\nA view of the hills around Amedi in the central portion of the valley\n\nLong-axis directionNorth-South\n\nGeology\n\nTypeRiver valley\n\nGeography\n\nLocationKurdistan Region, Iraq\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nState/ProvinceDohuk Governorate\n\nDistrictAmedi District\n\nPopulation centerAmedi, Araden, Bamarni\n\nCoordinates37°05′N 43°30′E / 37.083°N 43.500°E / 37.083; 43.500 \n\nRiverGreat Zab\n\nInteractive map of Sapna Valley\n\nSapna Valley (Kurdish: ڕووباری سپنه‌, romanized: Rîbarê Sipne[1]) is a large valley in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, contained by two small mountain ranges to the north which are part of the greater Zagros mountain range. The valley is watered by the Great Zab river which flows along the eastern portion of the valley, and features hilly terrain in the central portion of it around Amadiya District.[2]\n\nSee also\n\nAraden\n\nBamarni\n\nDehi\n\nSources\n\n^ \"باران ژیانی له‌ دهۆك په‌ك خستووه\". Wishe (in Kurdish). 17 March 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2020.\n\n^ Solecki, Ralph S. (2005). \"The Bekhme dam project in Kurdistan Iraq: a threat to the archaeology of the archaeology of the upper Zagros river valley\". International Journal of Kurdish Studies. 19."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sapna-valley"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 182}, {"slug": "reference-khosrowabad-west-azerbaijan", "title": "Khosrowabad, West Azerbaijan", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Khosrowabad (Persian: خسرواباد, also Romanized as Khosrowābād; also known as Khosrava and Khoskawa; in Armenian: Խոսրովա)[1] is a village in Zulachay Rural District, in the Central District of Salmas County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 158, in 44 families.[2] As of 2017,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Khosrowabad\n خسرواباد\n\nVillage\n\nKhosrowabad mansion\n\nKhosrowabadLocation within Iran\n\nCoordinates: 38°10′00″N 44°44′14″E / 38.16667°N 44.73722°E / 38.16667; 44.73722\n\nCountry Iran\n\nProvinceWest Azerbaijan\n\nCountySalmas\n\nBakhshCentral\n\nRural DistrictZulachay\n\nPopulation (2006)\n\n • Total158\n\nTime zoneUTC+3:30 (IRST)\n\n • Summer (DST)UTC+4:30 (IRDT)\n\nKhosrowabad (Persian: خسرواباد, also Romanized as Khosrowābād; also known as Khosrava and Khoskawa; in Armenian: Խոսրովա)[1] is a village in Zulachay Rural District, in the Central District of Salmas County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 158, in 44 families.[2] As of 2017, about 60 of the village's residents were Assyrian.[3]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Iran\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nNicholas I Zaya\n\nReferences\n\n^ Khosrowabad at GEOnet Names Server\n\n^ \"Census of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1385 (2006)\" (Excel). Statistical Center of Iran. Archived from the original on 2011-09-20.\n\n^ \"Khosrova :: ARMENIAN LOCATIONS\". armenianarchitecture.org. Retrieved 2024-09-19."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-khosrowabad-west-azerbaijan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 153}, {"slug": "reference-odes-of-solomon", "title": "Odes of Solomon", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Odes of Solomon are a collection of 42 odes, anonymous but long attributed to Solomon.[1] There used to be confusion among scholars on the dating of the Odes of Solomon; however, most scholars date it to somewhere between AD 70 and 125.[2][3][4] The original language of the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Odes of Solomon are a collection of 42 odes, anonymous but long attributed to Solomon.[1] There used to be confusion among scholars on the dating of the Odes of Solomon; however, most scholars date it to somewhere between AD 70 and 125.[2][3][4] The original language of the Odes is thought to have been either Greek or Syriac, and the majority of scholars believe it to have been written by a Jewish Christian, very likely a convert from the Essene community to Christianity, because it contains multiple similarities to writings found in Qumran and to the Gospel of John.[3][5][6][7][2] Some have argued that the writer had even personally seen John the Baptist.[4]\n\nSome scholars in the past have suggested a Gnostic origin, but this viewpoint has come under heavy scrutiny.[8] \n\nManuscript history\n\nAfter the discovery of portions of the Odes of Solomon in Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic text discovered in 1773, scholars searched to find more complete copies. In 1909, James Rendel Harris discovered a pile of forgotten leaves from a Syriac manuscript lying on a shelf in his study. Unfortunately, all he could recall was that they came from the \"neighbourhood of the Tigris\". The manuscript (Cod. Syr. 9 in the John Rylands Library) is the most complete of the extant texts of the Odes. The manuscript begins with the second strophe of the first verse of Ode 3 (the first two odes have been lost). The manuscript gives the entire corpus of the Odes of Solomon through to the end of Ode 42. Then the Psalms of Solomon (earlier Jewish religious poetry that is often bound with the later Odes) follow, until the beginning of Psalm 17:38 and the end of the manuscript has been lost. However, the Harris manuscript is a late copy-certainly no earlier than the 15th century.[9]\n\nAuthorship\n\nLanguage and date\n\nAlthough earlier scholars thought the Odes were originally written in Greek[10] or Hebrew,[11] there is now a consensus that Syriac/Aramaic was the original language.[12] Their place of origin seems likely to have been the region of Syria. Estimates of the date of composition range from the first[5] to the third[13] century AD, with many settling on the second century. Some have claimed that Ode 4 discusses the closing of the temple at Leontopolis\nin Egypt, which would date this writing about 73 AD.[14] One of the strong arguments for an early date is the discovery of references to, and perhaps even quotations from, the Odes in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch.[15][16] Possible allusions were also made by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, which also supports an early date.[17] The Odes have clear similarities to the Gospel of John, which suggests the writer was in the same community as where the book was written.[8]\n\nThere is wide agreement that the Odes are related to the Gospel of John and the Dead Sea scrolls, thus Charlesworth concludes that the writer was an Essene convert to the Johannine community.[6]\n\nLiturgical use\n\nThe Odes of Solomon were, perhaps, composed for liturgical use. In the Syriac manuscripts, all of the Odes end with a hallelujah, and the Harris manuscript marks this word in the middle of an ode by the Syriac letter hê (ܗ). The use of plural imperative and jussive verb forms suggest that on occasion a congregation is being addressed. Bernard,[18] Aune, Pierce[19] and others who have commented on the Odes find in them clear early baptismal imagery-water is an ever-present theme (floods, drinking the living waters, drowning and the well-spring) as is the language of conversion and initiation. Charlesworth has led the criticism of this view.[5]\n\nThemes\n\nEvangelism\n\nThe Odes reflect a surprising emphasis on spreading the knowledge of God, and conversion of others.[20]\n\nAccording to James H. Charlesworth, \"the key characteristic in these hymns is a joyous tone of thanksgiving for the advent of the Messiah who had been promised (cf. Ode 7:1-6; 41:3-7) and for the present experience of eternal life and love from and for the Beloved (3:1-9; 11:1-24; 23:1-3; 26:1-7; 40:1-6)\".[21]\n\nTheology\n\nThough there is some dispute, according to Chadwick the Odes are likely part of the proto-Orthodox Christian strain, with slight differences,[22] as Odist appears to have mixed ideas from the Essene community with Christianity.[8] Others, such as James White, have argued that the book is influenced by Gnosticism.[23]\n\nSoteriology\n\nIt has been argued by some that the Odes support the doctrine of predestination; for example, they state, \"And before they had existed, I recognized them; and imprinted a seal on their faces.\" Others, however, do not agree with the conclusion that the book may be interpreted as teaching any kind of unconditional election, arguing that the writer had in mind, not unconditional election, but election based on foreknowledge.[26][8][27][28]\n\nAccording to the American New Testament scholar Thomas R. Schreiner, the soteriology of the Odes is highly grace oriented being underlined by a doctrine of election and he argued the writer saw salvation as a work of God which is not accomplished by human merit. Thomas R. Schreiner and Brian J. Arnold argued that the book supports a form of imputed righteousness.[28][29]\n\nEschatology\n\nThe book makes mention of the Antichrist figuratively, using the word \"dragon\" for the Antichrist.[25][30]\n\nThe Odes perhaps references the general resurrection.[31]\n\nChristology\n\nSome have argued that the book has docetic leanings, however it also appears to suggest that the birth of Jesus, though miraculous, was still a human birth, which would contradict docetism. It is also plausible that Ignatius of Antioch who opposed docetism (or vice versa) referenced the Odes of Solomon in his writings. Odes 8:5-6 have also been argued to refer to the resurrection of Christ.[32][33][34] Moreover, the strong ties of the Odes to the Johannine works suggests against docetism.[35]\n\nThe Odes of Solomon mention Christ as the Logos and that he is pre-existent.[36] The Odes contain many common Christian teachings, such as the Messiah is the Son of God and the atonement of Jesus.[36] The Odist calls Jesus both the son of Man and Son of God.[37]\n\nThe Odes possibly contain the earliest non-biblical attestation of the virgin birth, depending on the date of writing.[38]\n\nThe book mentions the mother of the Messiah, and alludes to his death by crucifixion and descent into Hades.[4]\n\nTrinity\n\nThe book mentions the \"Father, Son and the Holy Spirit\"[4] and seems to have trinitarian theology without any indications of subordinationism unlike later Tertullian and Origen would have.[24][39]\n\nBaptism\n\nThe book also apparently makes allusions to baptism but not to the Eucharist.[4] Possible baptismal themes include renewal (Ode 36:5), new creation (Ode 15:8, 21:3), the sealing of the Holy Spirit (Ode 4:7), entry into paradise (Ode 11:16), the Trinitarian formula (Ode 23:22), and circumcision (Ode 11). The presence of these themes has led some scholars to argue that the Odes are a collection of baptismal hymns.[40] The writer seems to have been influenced by Jewish apocalyptic thought and mysticism.[41][8]\n\nOther\n\nThe Odist perhaps has an understanding of \"priesthood of all believers\", seeing himself as an individual priest offering spiritual sacrifices.[42] \n\nThe Odes says that Mary had no pain during childbirth and the midwife was absent, which suggests the doctrine of virginitas in partu meaning that Mary was still a virgin after childbirth. The statement could also be an allusion to the Exodus story, where Jewish women had very quick childbirth, which is why the Egyptian midwives could not come fast enough.[43][44]\n\nRelation to Catholic and canonical texts\n\nThere are parallels in both style, and theology, between Odes and the writing of Ignatius of Antioch, as well as with the canonical Gospel of John. For example, both Odes and John use the concept of Jesus as Logos, and write in gentle metaphors. Harris lists the following similarities in theme between the Odes and the Johannine literature:\n\nChrist is the Word\n\nChrist existed before the foundation of the world (Odes 31, 33)\n\nChrist bestows living water abundantly\n\nChrist is the door to everything\n\nChrist stands to His people in the relation of Lover to Beloved\n\nBelievers love the Lord because He first loved them (Ode 3.3)\n\nBelievers' love to the Christ makes them His friends (Ode 8)[45]\n\nIt has been suggested that Ode 22:12 (\"the foundation of everything is Your [God's] rock. And upon it You have built Your kingdom, and it became the dwelling-place of the holy ones\")[46]) may be an earlier version of the saying in Matthew 16.18[47]\n\nRelation to Gnosticism\n\nSome have doubted the orthodoxy of the Odes, suggesting that they perhaps originated from a heretical or gnostic group. This can be seen in the extensive use of the word \"knowledge\" (Syr. ܝܕܥܬܐ īḏa‘tâ; Gk. γνωσις gnōsis), the slight suggestion that the Saviour needed saving in Ode 8:21c (ܘܦ̈ܖܝܩܐ ܒܗܘ ܕܐܬܦܪܩ wafrîqê ḇ-haw d'eṯpreq-\"and the saved (are) in him who was saved\") and the image of the Father having breasts that are milked by the Holy Spirit to bring about the incarnation of Christ. In the case of \"knowledge\", it is always a reference to God's gift of his self-revelation, and, as the Odes are replete with enjoyment in God's good creation, they seem at odds with the gnostic concept of knowledge providing the means of release from the imperfect world. The other images are sometimes considered marks of heresy in the odist, but do have some parallel in early patristic literature.\n\nScholars such as H. Chadwick, Emerton, and Charlesworth are fully convinced that the text has nothing to do with Gnosticism.[3]\n\nParallels with Mandaeism\n\nEric Segelberg (1958) notes similarities the Odes of Solomon share various similarities with the Mandaean Qolasta prayers, including baptism in water, signation, drinking of water, investiture, coronation, and ritual meals.[48]: 167 \n\nModern influence\n\nThe Odes of Solomon have inspired modern musicians and their projects. In 2010, composer John Schreiner released a two-disc album called The Odes Project, which is an adaptation of the Odes of Solomon into modern music.[49] The album Odes by Arthur Hatton, creator of LDS music website Linescratchers, was inspired by the Odes of Solomon and incorporated lines from the poems into its lyrics.[50]\n\nSee also\n\nPsalms of Solomon (1st-century text)\n\nWisdom of Solomon\n\nApostolic fathers\n\nReferences\n\n^ J. A. Emerton, \"The Odes of Solomon\" in H. F. D. Sparks, ed., The Apocryphal Old Testament, Volume 1 (Clarendon, 1984), pp. 684-685: \"from very early days the Odes were ascribed to Solomon\" but \"No claim to Solomonic authorship is made in the text\".\n\n^ a b \"Odes of Solomon\". www.earlyjewishwritings.com. Retrieved 2024-03-26.\n\n^ a b c \"Odes of Solomon\". www.earlychristianwritings.com. Retrieved 2022-04-01.\n\n^ a b c d e f Smith, Preserved (1915). \"The Disciples of John and the Odes of Solomon\" (PDF). The Monist. 25 (2): 161-199. doi:10.5840/monist191525235. JSTOR 27900527. Retrieved 2022-04-10.\n\n^ a b c Charlesworth, James H (1977). The Odes of Solomon. Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press. ISBN 0-89130-202-6.\n\n^ a b Charlesworth, James H. (1998). Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-85075-660-6.\n\n^ Charlesworth, James H.; McDonald, Lee Martin (2014-04-24). Sacra Scriptura: How \"Non-Canonical\" Texts Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-29668-9.\n\n^ a b c d e Denzer, Pam. Odes of Solomon: Early Hymns of the Jewish Christian Mystical Tradition.\n\n^ Harris, J. Rendel; Mingana, A. (1916-1920). The Odes and Psalms of Solomon. Vol. 1-2. Manchester: Manchester University Press.\n\n^ W. Frankenburg, \"Das Verständnis der Oden Salomos\", Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttenstamentliche Wissenschaft 21 (Giessen, 1911).\n\n^ H. Grimme, Die Oden Salomos: Syrisch-Hebräisch-Deutsch (Heidelberg, 1911).\n\n^ J. R. Harris, A. Mingana, A. Vööbus, J. A. Emerton, and James H. Charlesworth\n\n^ Drijvers, Han Jan Willem (1984). East of Antioch. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum. ISBN 0-86078-146-1.\n\n^ Rutherford Hayes Platt The lost books of the Bible and The forgotten books of Eden (Collins-World Publishers, 1926).\n\n^ R. M. Grant (1944). \"The Odes of Solomon and the Church of Antioch\", Journal of Biblical Literature 63, pp. 363-97.\n\n^ V. Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch, Yale Publications in Religion 1 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1960), pp. 71-80.\n\n^ Smith, Preserved (1915). \"The Disciples of John and the Odes of Solomon\" (PDF). The Monist. 25 (2): 161-199. doi:10.5840/monist191525235. JSTOR 27900527. Retrieved 2022-04-10.\n\n^ Bernard, JH (1912). \"The Odes of Solomon\" in Texts and Studies VIII.\n\n^ Pierce, Mark (1984). \"Themes in the Odes of Solomon and other early Christian writings and their baptismal character\" in Ephemerides Liturgicae XCVIII\".\n\n^ Odes of Solomon 6; 10.3\n\n^ James H. Charlesworth (1985), The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., Volume 2, ISBN 0-385-09630-5 (Vol. 1), ISBN 0-385-18813-7 (Vol. 2), p. 425.\n\n^ Drijvers, Han J. W. (1980). \"The 19th Ode of Solomon: Its Interpretation and Place in Syrian Christianity\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 31 (2): 337-355. doi:10.1093/jts/XXXI.2.337. ISSN 0022-5185. JSTOR 23961804.\n\n^ White, James R. (1998-05-01). Mary-Another Redeemer?. Baker Books. ISBN 978-1-4412-1399-0.\n\n^ a b Butts, Aaron Michael (2022). \"Odes of Solomon 7, 19, 41, and 42\". The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings. Vol. 3. pp. 84-91. doi:10.1017/9781107449640.009. ISBN 9781107449640. S2CID 246623771.\n\n^ a b Efrón, Joshua (1987). Studies on the Hasmonean Period. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-07609-9.\n\n^ Carson, D. A.; O'Brien, Peter Thomas; Seifrid, Mark A. (2001). Justification and Variegated Nomism. Isd. ISBN 978-3-16-146994-7.\n\n^ DeConick, April (2015-12-22). Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-31300-2.\n\n^ a b Schreiner, Thomas R. (2015-09-15). Faith Alone-The Doctrine of Justification: What the Reformers Taught ... and Why It Still Matters. Zondervan Academic. ISBN 978-0-310-51579-1.\n\n^ Arnold, Brian J. (2017-02-20). Justification in the Second Century. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-047683-5.\n\n^ Harris, J. Rendel (2015-04-09). The Odes and Psalms of Solomon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-49773-3.\n\n^ Mattision, Mark M. (2021-01-28). \"The Odes of Solomon | Articles\". Early Christian Texts. Retrieved 2022-05-10.\n\n^ Vuong, Lily C. (2013-11-19). Gender and Purity in the Protevangelium of James. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-152337-3.\n\n^ Charlesworth, James H.; McDonald, Lee Martin (2014-04-24). Sacra Scriptura: How \"Non-Canonical\" Texts Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-29668-9.\n\n^ Charlesworth, James H.; McDonald, Lee Martin (2014-04-24). Sacra Scriptura: How \"Non-Canonical\" Texts Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-29668-9.\n\n^ McDonald, Lee Martin; Charlesworth, James H. (2012-04-05). 'Noncanonical' Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0-567-12419-7.\n\n^ a b Bernard, J. H.; Robinson, J. Armitage (2004-08-26). The Odes of Solomon. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59244-837-1.\n\n^ Talbert, Charles H. (1994). Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles. Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-1-57312-278-8.\n\n^ Mitchell, Margaret M.; Young, Frances M.; Bowie, K. Scott. Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 1, Origins to Constantine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81239-9.\n\n^ The Spirit Is Moving: New Pathways in Pneumatology. BRILL. 2019-02-26. ISBN 978-90-04-39174-1.\n\n^ Johnson, Maxwell E. (2007). The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Rev. and expanded ed., [2nd ed.] ed.). Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-6215-1. OCLC 123485489.\n\n^ \"Odes of Solomon\". www.earlychristianwritings.com. Retrieved 2022-04-10.\n\n^ Voss, Henry Joseph (2016-10-25). The Priesthood of All Believers and the Missio Dei: A Canonical, Catholic, and Contextual Perspective. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4982-8329-8. In a hymn now known as Ode 20, the poet describes his understanding of the \"priesthood of all believers\": ..... Ode 20 demonstrates that first century Jewish-Christians in the region of Antioch perceived themselves as individual priests offering spiritual sacrifices\n\n^ Müller, Mogens; Tronier, Henrik (2002-08-01). The New Testament as Reception. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-31192-4.\n\n^ Caruana, Salvino. \"'born of the Virgin Mary ...' According to St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus of Lyons\" (PDF).\n\n^ Harris, J. Rendel (1911). The Odes And Psalms Of Solomon: Published From The Syriac Version (2nd ed.). pp. 74f.\n\n^ Charlesworth, James. The Odes of Solomon. Archived from the original on 2013-04-26.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\n^ Harris, J. Rendel (1911). The Odes and Psalms Of Solomon: Published From the Syriac Version (2nd ed.). pp. 73.\n\n^ Segelberg, Eric (1958). Maṣbuta: Studies in the Ritual of Mandaean Baptism. Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell.\n\n^ \"Vision\". The Odes Project. Archived from the original on December 10, 2013. cf. their new website\n\n^ \"Interview - Arthur Hatton, founder of Linescratchers\". Linescratchers. Archived from the original on 2012-03-18. Retrieved 2012-06-11.\n\nPrimary published sources\n\nBernard, JH (1912). \"The Odes of Solomon\" in Texts and Studies VIII.\n\nCharlesworth, James H (1977). The Odes of Solomon. Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press. ISBN 0-89130-202-6.\n\nFranzmann, M (1991). The Odes of Solomon: Analysis of the Poetical Structure and Form. Göttingen.\n\nHarris, JR and A Mingana (1916, 1920). The Odes and Psalms of Solomon in 2 vols. Manchester.\n\nVleugels, Gie. The Odes of Solomon: Syriac Text and English Translation with Text Critical and Explanatory Notes. MŌRĀN ETH’Ō 41. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 2016.\n\nSecondary published sources\n\nChadwick, H (1970). \"Some reflections on the character and theology of the Odes of Solomon\" in Kyriakon: Festschrift für J Quasten vol. 1, ed. P Granfield and JA Jungmann.\n\nDrijvers, Han Jan Willem (1984). East of Antioch: Studies in Early Syriac Christianity. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum Reprints. ISBN 0-86078-146-1.\n\nPierce, Mark (1984). \"Themes in the Odes of Solomon and other early Christian writings and their baptismal character\" in Ephemerides Liturgicae XCVIII.\n\nVleugels, Gie (2011). \"The Destruction of the Second Temple in the Odes of Solomon\", in: Das heilige Herz der Tora Festschrift für Hendrik Koorevaar, ed. Siegbert Riecker and Julius Steinberg, Aachen: Shaker Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8440-0584-4, 303-310\n\nExternal links\n\nZinner, Samuel and Mattison, Mark M., \"The Odes of Solomon: The Nuhra Version\" (2021) (public domain; Wikisource text)\n\nHarris, J. Rendel \"The Odes and Psalms of Solomon: Published from the Syriac Version\" 2nd ed. 1911\n\nHarris, J. Rendel and Mingana \"The Odes and Psalms of Solomon\" vol. 1: the text, 1916 (facsimiles of Syriac and Latin manuscripts)\n\nHarris, J. Rendel and Mingana \"The Odes and Psalms of Solomon\" vol. 2: the translation, 1920 (no copiable text, but much smaller filesize)\n\nHarris, J. Rendel and Mingana \"The Odes and Psalms of Solomon\" vol. 2: the translation, 1920 (copiable text from OCR, but very large filesize)\n\nBrahmachari Prangopal (aka. Simeon Goldstein) \"The Odes of Solomon: Introduction and Translation\"\n\nCharlesworth, James (Translator). \"The Odes of Solomon.\" Early Christian Writings.\n\nCharlesworth, James (Translator). \"The Odes of Solomon\" Archived from misericordia.edu.\n\nJ.B. Lightfoot or R.H. Charles, translator \"The Odes of Solomon\" 1913 in Rutherford Hayes Platt \"The lost books of the Bible and The forgotten books of Eden.\" (Collins-World Publishers, 1926).\n\nJackson H. Snyder II \"The Odes of Shalomé: Ancient Netzari Songs of Extraterrestrial Love\" Archived 2018-07-29 at the Wayback Machine (Snyder is a messianic Jewish Christian author)\n\n\"Solomon, Odes of\" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 365.\n\nInternet Archive Search\n\n The Psalms and Odes of Solomon public domain audiobook at LibriVox\n\nOdes of Solomon in Early Christian Writings"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-odes-of-solomon"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3201}, {"slug": "reference-maaloula", "title": "Maaloula", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Maaloula (Arabic: مَعلُولَا; Western Neo-Aramaic: ܡܥܠܘܠܐ ,מעלולא, romanized: Maʿlūlā) is a town in southwestern Syria. The town is located in the Rif Dimashq Governorate and is 56 km northeast of Damascus, and is built into the mountainside at an altitude of more than 1,500m. It is known as...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Maaloula\n معلولاܡܥܠܘܠܐ - מעלולא\n\nTown\n\nOverview of Maaloula, 2025\n\nMaaloulaLocation in Syria\n\nCoordinates: 33°50′39″N 36°32′48″E / 33.84417°N 36.54667°E / 33.84417; 36.54667\n\nCountry Syria\n\nGovernorateRif Dimashq\n\nDistrictal-Qutayfah\n\nSubdistrictMaaloula\n\nElevation1,500 m (4,900 ft)\n\nPopulation (2004 census)[1]\n\n • Total2,762\n\nMaaloula (Arabic: مَعلُولَا; Western Neo-Aramaic: ܡܥܠܘܠܐ ,מעלולא, romanized: Maʿlūlā) is a town in southwestern Syria. The town is located in the Rif Dimashq Governorate and is 56 km northeast of Damascus, and is built into the mountainside at an altitude of more than 1,500m. It is known as one of three remaining villages where Western Neo-Aramaic is spoken, the other two being the nearby smaller villages of Jubb'adin and the now depopulated Bakha.[2]\n\nEtymology\n\nMaʿlūlā is said to derive from the Aramaic word maʿəlā, meaning \"entrance\". The name is romanized as Maaloula, Ma'loula, Maalula, Ma'lula, Malula. However, \"Maaloula\" is the most common.[3]\n\nHistory\n\nCivil war\n\nMaaloula became the scene of battle between the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent group Al-Nusra Front and the Syrian Army in September 2013.[4]\n\nThe insurgents took over the town on October 21. Around 13 people were killed, with many more wounded.[5]\n\nOn October 28, government forces recaptured the town.[5]\n\nMaaloula was again taken over by the Al-Nusra Front on December 3, 2013. The group took 12 Orthodox nuns as hostages.[6] The nuns were moved between different locations and ended up in Yabroud where they were held for three months. Officials from Lebanon negotiated a deal for their release. Those negotiations produced an agreement on a prisoner exchange under which around 150 Syrian women detained by the government were also freed.[7] After the nuns were freed on 9 March 2014, they stated that they were mostly treated well by their captors.[8][9]\n\nOn 14 April 2014, with the help of Hezbollah and SSNP, the Syrian Army once again recaptured the town. The success of Syrian government forces in recapturing Maaloula was part of a string of other successes in the strategic Qalamoun region, including the seizure of the former rebel bastion of Yabroud in the previous month.[10][11]\n\nDemographics\n\nIn 1838, its inhabitants were Antiochian Greek Orthodox Christians, Melkite Catholics, and a minority of Sunni Muslims.[12] \n\nPresently, the population maintains religious diversity, with both Christians and Muslims identifying ethnically as Arameans[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Notably, the Muslim inhabitants have a remarkable legacy as they haven’t embraced an Arab ethnic identity, unlike the majority of other Syrians who underwent Islamization and, consequently, Arabization over the centuries.[21]\n\nIn the middle of the 20th century, 15,000 people lived in Maaloula.[22]\n\nAccording to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Maaloula had a population of 2,762 in the 2004 census.[1] However, the population increases to about 10,000 during the summer, due to people coming from Damascus for holidays.[23]\n\nLanguage\n\nWith two other nearby towns, Bakh'a and Jubb'adin, Maaloula is the only place where a Western Aramaic language is still spoken, which it has been able to retain amidst the rise of Arabic due to its distance from other major cities and its isolating geological features. However, modern roads and transportation, as well as accessibility to Arabic-language television and print media - and for some time until recently, also state policy - have eroded that linguistic heritage.\n\nAs the last remaining area where Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken, the three villages represent an important source for anthropological linguistic studies regarding first century Western Aramaic. According to scholarly consensus, the language of Jesus was a Western Middle Aramaic variety, Galilean Aramaic.\n\nMonasteries\n\nThere are two important monasteries in Maaloula: the Melkite Catholic monastery of Mar Sarkis and the Antiochian Greek Orthodox Convent of Saint Thecla.\n\nSaint Sarkis Monastic Complex\n\nThe Saint Sarkis Monastic Complex of Maaloula is one of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria. It was built on the site of a pagan temple, and has elements which go back to the fifth to sixth century Byzantine period.[24]\n\nSaint Sarkis is the Aramaic name for Sergius, a Roman soldier who was executed for his Christian beliefs. This monastery still maintains its solemn historical character.\n\nThe monastery has two of the oldest icons in the world, one depicting the Last Supper.\n\nConvent of Saint Thecla\n\nThis convent holds the remains of Thecla, which the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla accounts a noble virgin and pupil of Paul the Apostle. According to later legend not in the Acts, Thecla was being pursued by soldiers of her father to capture her because of her Christian faith. She came upon a mountain, and after praying, the mountain split open and let her escape through. The town gets its name from this gap or entrance in the mountain. However, there are many variations to this story among the residents of Maaloula.\n\nOther monasteries\n\nThere are also the remains of numerous monasteries, convents, churches, shrines and sanctuaries. There are some that lie in ruins, while others continue to stand, defying age. Many pilgrims come to Maaloula, both Muslim and Christian, and they go there to gain blessings and make offerings.\n\n View over the town of Maaloula from East to West (2007)\n\nVirgin Mary statue\n\nExternal image\n\n image of Lady of Peace statue\n\nThe people of Maaloula celebrated as a new statue of Mary, mother of Jesus was erected in its centre, replacing the figure destroyed in Islamist attacks in 2013. On 13 June 2015, Syrian officials unveiled the new statue of the Virgin Mary, draped in a white robe topped with a blue shawl, her hands lifted in prayer. The fibreglass figure stood at just over 3 metres (10 feet) tall and was placed on the base of the original statue.[25]\n\nThe statue is titled \"Lady of Peace\" (Arabic: سيدة السلام, romanized: sayyidat as-salām).\n\nClimate\n\nClimate data for Maaloula\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n7.1\n(44.8)\n\n8.0\n(46.4)\n\n11.7\n(53.1)\n\n16.3\n(61.3)\n\n21.6\n(70.9)\n\n26.0\n(78.8)\n\n28.5\n(83.3)\n\n28.7\n(83.7)\n\n25.8\n(78.4)\n\n20.8\n(69.4)\n\n12.9\n(55.2)\n\n8.7\n(47.7)\n\n18.0\n(64.4)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n2.7\n(36.9)\n\n3.3\n(37.9)\n\n6.3\n(43.3)\n\n10.4\n(50.7)\n\n14.8\n(58.6)\n\n18.9\n(66.0)\n\n20.9\n(69.6)\n\n21.3\n(70.3)\n\n18.4\n(65.1)\n\n14.2\n(57.6)\n\n8.2\n(46.8)\n\n4.3\n(39.7)\n\n12.0\n(53.5)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-1.8\n(28.8)\n\n-1.4\n(29.5)\n\n0.8\n(33.4)\n\n4.5\n(40.1)\n\n8.0\n(46.4)\n\n11.7\n(53.1)\n\n13.3\n(55.9)\n\n13.8\n(56.8)\n\n11.0\n(51.8)\n\n7.5\n(45.5)\n\n3.5\n(38.3)\n\n-0.1\n(31.8)\n\n5.9\n(42.6)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n46\n(1.8)\n\n38\n(1.5)\n\n22\n(0.9)\n\n16\n(0.6)\n\n14\n(0.6)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n0\n(0)\n\n2\n(0.1)\n\n16\n(0.6)\n\n30\n(1.2)\n\n45\n(1.8)\n\n229\n(9.1)\n\nSource: Climate-data.com[26]\n\nSister city\n\nBéziers,  France (2014)\n\nSee also\n\nWestern Neo-Aramaic\n\nBattle of Maaloula\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b General Census of Population and Housing 2004[link removed]. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Rif Dimashq Governorate. (in Arabic)\n\n^ \"The Village of Bakh'a in Qalamoun: Interview\". 26 January 2020.\n\n^ Etymology of Maaloula, in Yawna.org\n\n^ \"Syria rebels withdraw from ancient Christian town of Maaloula\". BBC News. September 6, 2013.\n\n^ a b \"Islamists besiege Christian villages in Syria | Barnabas - Christian persecution\". Archived from the original on 2013-12-07. Retrieved 2013-12-03.\n\n^ \"Syria Nun Kidnapping: Greek Orthodox Patriarch Urges Release of Maaloula Sisters\". International Business Times UK. 3 December 2013.\n\n^ Salma Abdelaziz and Ashley Fantz (9 March 2014). \"Reports: 13 nuns freed by kidnappers in Syria\". CNN.\n\n^ \"Nuns yet to reach Syria after reported release by rebels\". Reuters. 9 March 2014 - via www.reuters.com.\n\n^ \"Syria rebels free kidnapped nuns\". BBC News. 10 March 2014.\n\n^ \"Syria troops retake Christian town of Maalula\". Yahoo! News. Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 2014-04-17.\n\n^ \"Syria rebels driven from Christian town of Maaloula\". BBC News. 14 April 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2014.\n\n^ Smith, in Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. 172\n\n^ Abū al-Faraj ʻIshsh. اثرنا في الايقليم السوري (in Arabic). Al-Maṭbaʻah al-Jadīdah. p. 56. السريان في معلولا وجبعدين ولا يزال الأهلون فيها يتكلمون\n\n^ iنصر الله، إلياس أنطون. إلياس أنطون نصر الله في معلولا (in Arabic). لينين. p. 45. ... معلولا السريان منذ القديم ، والذين ثبتت سريانيتهم بأدلة كثيرة هم وعين التينة وبخعا وجبعدين فحافظوا على لغتهم وكتبهم أكثر من غيرهم . وكان للقوم في تلك الأيام لهجتان ، لهجة عاميّة وهي الباقية الآن في معلولا وجوارها ( جبعدين وبخعا ) ...\n\n^ Yaron Matras; Jeanette Sakel (2007). Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. De Gruyter. p. 185. doi:10.1515/9783110199192. ISBN 9783110199192. The fact that nearly all Arabic loans in Ma'lula originate from the period before the change from the rural dialect to the city dialect of Damascus shows that the contact between the Aramaeans and the Arabs was intimate…\n\n^ Emna Labidi (2022). Untersuchungen zum Spracherwerb zweisprachiger Kinder im Aramäerdorf Dschubbadin (Syrien) (in German). LIT. p. 133. ISBN 9783643152619. Aramäer von Ǧubbˁadīn\n\n^ Werner Arnold; P. Behnstedt (1993). Arabisch-aramäische Sprachbeziehungen im Qalamūn (Syrien) (in German). Harassowitz. p. 42. ISBN 9783447033268. Die arabischen Dialekte der Aramäer\n\n^ Werner Arnold; P. Behnstedt (1993). Arabisch-aramäische Sprachbeziehungen im Qalamūn (Syrien) (in German). Harassowitz. p. 5. ISBN 9783447033268. Die Kontakte zwischen den drei Aramäer-dörfern sind nicht besonders stark.\n\n^ Werner Arnold (2006). Lehrbuch des Neuwestaramäischen (in German). Harrassowitz. p. 133. ISBN 9783447053136. Aramäern in Ma'lūla\n\n^ Werner Arnold (2006). Lehrbuch des Neuwestaramäischen (in German). Harrassowitz. p. 15. ISBN 9783447053136. Viele Aramäer arbeiten heute in Damaskus, Beirut oder in den Golfstaaten und verbringen nur die Sommermonate im Dorf.\n\n^ Provence, Michael (2005). The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism. University of Texas Press. p. 123. ISBN 0-292-70680-4.\n\n^ Sly, Liz (2003-03-12). \"Language of Jesus clings to life\". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on April 7, 2024.\n\n^ \"HIS SPOKEN WORD: Preserving the LORD's language\". 30 March 2002. Archived from the original on 30 March 2002.\n\n^ Ross Burns, The Monuments of Syria, I. B. Taurus, 3rd edition 2009, p. 193.\n\n^ \"Ancient Syrian Christian town dedicates new Virgin Mary statue\". NDTV. Retrieved 9 May 2020.\n\n^ \"Climate: Maaloula, Syria\". Retrieved November 11, 2017.\n\nBibliography\n\nRobinson, E.; Smith, E. (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. Vol. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.\n\nWehbi, Rimon (2017). Die aramäischen Wassermühlen in Maalula. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University.\n\nWehbi, Rimon (2021). \"Zwei neuwestaramäische Texte über die Wassermühlen in Maalula (Syrien)\". Mediterranean Language Review (in German). 28 (1). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag: 135-153. doi:10.13173/MLR.28.1.135.\n\nExternal links\n\nMaaloula on Facebook \n\nYawna Maaloula Aramaic A non-profit educational initiative dedicated to the preservation of Aramaic - the language of Jesus - and the rich cultural heritage of Maaloula.\n\nA website dedicated to Maaloula\n\nNew York Times article on Aramaic language in Maaloula and other villages in Syria\n\nSyrian village clings to Aramaic language at Al Jazeera English\n\nAn episode from Australian program, Foreign Correspondent, about Maaloula.\n\nThe dialect of Maalula. Grammar, vocabulary and texts. (1897-1898) By Jean Parisot (in French): Parts 1, 2, 3 at the Internet Archive.\n\nSamples of spoken Western Neo-Aramaic at the Semitisches Tonarchiv (Semitic Audio Archive)\n\nBakh’a dialect\n\nJubb'adin dialect\n\nMaalouli dialect\n\n33°50′39″N 36°32′48″E / 33.84417°N 36.54667°E / 33.84417; 36.54667"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-maaloula"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1944}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-democratic-movement", "title": "Assyrian Democratic Movement", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The Assyrian Democratic Movement (Syriac: ܙܘܥܐ ܕܝܡܘܩܪܛܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ, romanized: Zawʻá Demoqraṭáyá ʼÁṯuráyá, Arabic: الحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية, ADM), popularly known as Zowaa (Syriac: ܙܘܥܐ, lit. 'the movement'), is an Assyrian political party situated in Iraq, and one of the main Assyrian parties within the Iraqi parliament. The Assyrian Democratic...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian Democratic Movement ܙܘܥܐ ܕܝܡܘܩܪܛܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ\nالحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية\n\nLeaderYacoob G. Yaco\n\nFoundedApril 12, 1979 (1979-04-12)\n\nHeadquartersBaghdad, Iraq\n\nStudent wingChaldo-Assyrian Student Union\n\nMilitary wingNineveh Plain Protection Units\n\nIdeologyAssyrian interests\nFederalism\n\nNational affiliationAthra Alliance\n\nColours  Purple\n\nSeats in the Council of Representatives of Iraq:0 / 329\n\nSeats in the Kurdistan Region Parliament:1 / 100\n\nParty flag\n\nWebsite\n\nwww.zowaa.org\n\nPolitics of Iraq\n\nPolitical parties\n\nElections\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Movement (Syriac: ܙܘܥܐ ܕܝܡܘܩܪܛܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ, romanized: Zawʻá Demoqraṭáyá ʼÁṯuráyá, Arabic: الحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية, ADM), popularly known as Zowaa (Syriac: ܙܘܥܐ, lit. 'the movement'), is an Assyrian political party situated in Iraq, and one of the main Assyrian parties within the Iraqi parliament. The Assyrian Democratic Movement states its aims are to establish equal citizenship rights with the rest of the Iraqi people without discrimination on the basis of nationality, belief, religious affiliation, culture, language and other characteristics of the native Assyrians of Iraq, to acknowledge the past massacres committed against them and to ensure they are never repeated again.\n\nWith regard to separatism from Iraq, the Assyrian Democratic Movement maintains that it does not seek the division of Iraq in order to establish an Assyrian state and states in its manifesto:\n\n\"The national axis in the approach of the Assyrian Democratic Movement has components of the Iraqi people, and to contribute to building the democratic pluralistic federal state and establishing the Iraqi state based on justice, equality and the rights of all components. And the common destiny of our Chaldean Assyrian people with the components of the Iraqi people, national and religious Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Armenians, Sabians, Yazidis and Shabaks.\"[1]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Movement was founded on April 12, 1979 after several meetings held in secrecy in Kirkuk, Mosul and Baghdad. The party was established among various smaller cultural-political and student groups such as the Assyrian Brothers, with the hope of fulfilling the political objectives of the Assyrian people in Iraq, in response to the oppressive brutality of the Ba'ath regime and its attempts to forcibly expropriate ethnic Assyrians from their native lands. The ideology of the movement stemmed from Assyrian cultural awareness that had developed in Urmia and Harput during the Assyrian independence movement. The movement took up armed struggle against the Iraqi regime in 1982 under the leadership of Ninos Pithyou with the primary focus of defending Assyrian villages, and joined the Iraqi-Kurdistan Front (IKF) in the early 1990s.[2][3][4]\n\nSince its inception, the ADM have joined with the Iraqi patriotic factions in the fight against dictatorship. The movement has also participated in the political field since 1982 alongside other groups. It started by issuing its central newspaper, Bahra, in June 1982. In 1988, fighter members of the movement and its headquarters as well as the rest of the Kurdish parties were attacked in the Anfal campaign. ADM participated in the 1991 uprising, then won seats in parliamentary elections for the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 1992.\n\nThe ADM is credited with the development of education in the Syriac language in both elementary and secondary schools as well as the initiation of different organizations such as the Chaldo-Assyrian Students' Union, Hammurabi Scouts, Assyrian Women's Union of Iraq and the Assyrian Aid Society.\n\nThe ADM has endured a struggle through the sacrifice of its martyrs' in the arena of armed struggle. On 14 July 1984, the Saddam led regime attacked ADM locations in Baghdad, arresting more than 150 members of the movement who were imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Twenty-two members were sentenced to life imprisonment, and four were sentenced to death where Yousip Toma, Youbert Shlimon and Youkhana Jajo were hanged on treason charges. Jamil Matti and Sheba Hamey were later killed by the Iraqi Army while safeguarding the villages of Hejerke and Pireka in Simele. Relatives of ADM members were also imprisoned, tortured and murdered for their connection to the movement.[5][4]\n\nSome ADM members were victims of political assassinations such as Francis Yousef Shabo who was allegedly assassinated by Wahid Kovli.[6][7]\n\nPrior to the Iraqi invasion\n\nDue to successful lobbying from influential Assyrian-Americans and from Congressman Henry Hyde, American President George W. Bush designated the ADM an officially recognized Iraqi opposition movement. In a December 9, 2002, memorandum, President Bush invoked both articles four and five of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 as a means of allowing the United States government to provide financial resources to the ADM and other Iraqi opposition groups. Kanna himself participated in a September 2002 meeting of Iraqi opposition leaders in New York and addressed the London conference of Iraqi opposition leaders in December 2002. In February 2003, Kanna addressed both Iraqi opposition leaders and U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at a conference in northern Iraq. Just hours prior to the American-led war against Iraq in March 2003, Kanna stressed the importance of the coming war for the history of the Assyrian people. He noted that some Assyrians were leaving the cities for the villages and urged diaspora Assyrians to provide humanitarian aid to their brethren.[8]\n\nAfter the fall of Baghdad\n\nYonadam Kanna became the leader of the party in 2001, succeeding Ninos Pithyou. He served on the temporary Iraqi Governing Council before it was disbanded in favor of the elected body formed after the January 2005 Iraqi elections.\n\nThe party's website, zowaa.org, describes it as \"a democratic and political organization -- national and patriotic -- to defend our people and their legitimate rights and to struggle under the banner of [a] free democratic Iraq.\" The site's declarations include calls for official recognition of the rights of Assyrians and \"unity of our people under their several religious identities\": the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic/Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East.[9] The group supports the idea of a federal Iraq, and maintains good relations with other Assyrian and Kurdish groups present in northern Iraq, as well as with Shi'a leaders in southern Iraq. The movement is also represented in the Kurdistan parliament. Party members and Assyrians in general have been the focus of some Islamic insurgent attacks in the time since the fall of Saddam Hussein.\n\nThe party also operates Ashur TV, Ashur Radio and issues the Bahra newspaper.\n\nThe party is based in the former headquarters of the Fedayeen Saddam in Zayouna, Baghdad.[10][11]\n\nOn July 22, 2023 the party joined the Athra Alliance, a political alliance representing Assyrian interests in Iraq.\n\nPost-war incidents and events\n\nThe party has faced many setbacks since the beginning of the Iraq invasion. \n\nOn November 17, 1994, one of ADM's militia soldiers, Zia Zia, was killed while guarding a headquarters of the party in a remote Assyrian village in northern Iraq.[12]\n\nOn October 20, 2003, a rocket-propelled grenade attack occurred on the ADM office in Kirkuk, injuring one ADM official.\n\nOn November 18, 2003, Sargon Nano, the ADM representative in Basra, was killed by masked gunmen.\n\nOn February 11, 2004, The Associated Press reported gunmen firing from a car attacking an office of the ADM in the northern city of Mosul, injuring one ADM member guard.\n\nOn March 26, 2004, gunmen killed ADM official Romeo Esha David in the city of Kirkuk.\n\nOn November 29, 2005, gunmen opened fire on four party members as they were hanging Iraqi election posters in northern city of Mosul (in the al-Shuhadaa district,) killing two ADM members.\n\nOn December 2, 2005, ADM election candidate Sarmas Behnam Ibrahim was gunned down in Kirkuk.\n\nOn January 1, 2006, 44-year-old ADM official Ayad Loqa Lazar was killed in the Baghdad district of Dora.\n\nOn May 6, 2006, an unsuccessful assassination attempt was made on the party's leader, Yonadam Kanna, as his convoy came under an improvised explosive device attack in Baghdad.\n\nOn February 4, 2018, a car bomb was detonated outside the headquarters of the ADM in Baghdad, injuring 4 people.[13]\n\nBranches\n\nThe organizational structure of the party is as follows:\n\nSecretary-General\n\nDeputy Secretary-General\n\nPolitical Bureau\n\nCentral Committee\n\nThe party is organized into several branches both in Iraq and in the diaspora. Some of these branches include:\n\n1st Branch - Baghdad\n\n2nd Branch - Kirkuk (Arrapha)\n\n3rd Branch - Nineveh (Mosul)\n\n4th Branch - Bakhdida\n\n5th Branch - Tel Keppe (Kalih)\n\n6th Branch - Alqosh (Sanhareeb)\n\n7th Branch - Nohadra\n\n8th Branch - Arbil\n\n9th Branch - Zakho\n\n10th Branch - Sarsing\n\n11th Branch - Australia\n\n12th Branch - Canada\n\n13th Branch - Illinois\n\n14th Branch - Michigan\n\n15th Branch - Arizona\n\n16th Branch - California\n\n17th Branch - Central Europe\n\n18th Branch - Western Europe\n\n19th Branch - Scandinavia\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian Democratic Organization\n\nAssyrian Policy Institute\n\nNineveh Plain Protection Units\n\nSons of Mesopotamia\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nReferences\n\n^ MD (2017-10-08). \"نبذة عن الحركة\". zowaa.org (in Arabic). Retrieved 2019-05-01.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Democratic Movement - History\". www.atour.com.\n\n^ \"Profile: Assyrian parties\". BBC. 14 January 2003. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ a b Donabed, Sargon (February 2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748686056. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ \"The Heroes of the Assyrian Democratic Movement\". www.atour.com.\n\n^ \"Murderers of Iraqi Kurdistan MP Francis Yousif Shabo lives in KDP controlled regions\". ekurd.net.\n\n^ \"The Heroes of the Assyrian Democratic Movement\". www.atour.com. Retrieved 2022-01-03.\n\n^ \"Congressional Record, Volume 155 Issue 58 (Tuesday, April 21, 2009)\". www.govinfo.gov. Retrieved 2022-01-03.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Democratic Movement\". www.globalsecurity.org.\n\n^ Tyson, Ann Scott (7 August 2003). \"Iraqi council faces many hurdles\". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ Szego, Julie (27 June 2008). \"Visiting Iraqi Christians tell exiles to stay strong\". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 October 2018.\n\n^ \"ZENDA - Sept. 27, 1999\". April 12, 2001. Archived from the original on 2001-04-12.\n\n^ \"تفجير ارهابي بالقرب من مقر الحركة الديمقراطية الاشورية في بغداد يسفر عن اصابة ٤ اشخاص\". Zowaa. Retrieved 8 September 2018.\n\nSources\n\nBarAbraham, Abdulmesih (2018). \"Safeguarding the Cross: Emergence of Christian Militias in Iraq and Syria\". Middle Eastern Christians and Europe: Historical Legacies and Present Challenges. Wien: LIT Verlag. pp. 217-238. ISBN 9783643910233.\n\nBrié, Françoise (2007). \"The Migration and Displacement of Assyro-Chaldeans in Iraq\". The Long March to the West: Twenty-first Century Migration in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean Area. London: Vallentine Mitchell Academic. pp. 343-353. ISBN 9780853037811.\n\nDougherty, Beth K. (2019) [2004]. Historical Dictionary of Iraq (3rd ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538120057.\n\nDonabed, Sargon G. (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748686056.\n\nLalik, Krzysztof (2018). \"Ethnic and Religious Factors of Chaldo-Assyrian Identity in an Interface with the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan\". Rediscovering Kurdistan's Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket. Cham: Springer. pp. 213-257. ISBN 9783319930886.\n\nSchmidinger, Thomas (2019). \"Christians in Iraq\". Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq. London: Transnational Press. pp. 113-124. ISBN 9781912997152.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2009). \"The Christian Minorities in Iraq: The Question of Religious and Ethnic Identity\". In-Between Spaces: Christian and Muslim Minorities in Transition in Europe and the Middle East. Brussel: Peter Lang. pp. 45-57. ISBN 9789052015651.\n\nTeule, Herman G. B. (2012). \"Christians in Iraq: An Analysis of Some Recent Political Developments\" (PDF). Der Islam. 88 (1): 179-198. doi:10.1515/islam-2011-0010. hdl:2066/101464. S2CID 156389791.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa Dimuqrataya Atoraya)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-democratic-movement"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1863}, {"slug": "reference-tell-tamer", "title": "Tell Tamer", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tell Tamer (Arabic: تَلّ تَمْر, romanized: Tall Tamr, Kurdish: گرێ خورما, romanized: Girê Xurma[2] or Til Temir,[3] Syriac: ܬܠ ܬܡܪ[4][5]) also known as Tal Tamr or Tal Tamir, is a town in western al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. It is the administrative center of the Tell Tamer Subdistrict consisting...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Tamer\n تَلّ تَمْر\nGirê Xurma\nܬܠ ܬܡܪ\n\nTown\n\nTell TamerLocation of Tell Tamer in Syria\n\nCoordinates: 36°39′38″N 40°22′17″E / 36.6606°N 40.3714°E / 36.6606; 40.3714\n\nCountrySyria\n\nGovernorateal-Hasakah\n\nDistrictal-Hasakah\n\nSubdistrictTell Tamer\n\nPopulation (2004)[1]\n\n • Total7,285\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (AST)\n\nGeocodeC4409\n\nTell Tamer (Arabic: تَلّ تَمْر, romanized: Tall Tamr, Kurdish: گرێ خورما, romanized: Girê Xurma[2] or Til Temir,[3] Syriac: ܬܠ ܬܡܪ[4][5]) also known as Tal Tamr or Tal Tamir, is a town in western al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. It is the administrative center of the Tell Tamer Subdistrict consisting of 13 municipalities.\n\nOriginally built and inhabited by Assyrians of the Upper Tyari tribe in the late 1930s,[6][7] the town is predominantly populated by Arabs, with Assyrians remaining a substantial minority of about 20%.[8] At the 2004 census, Tell Tamer had a population of 7,285.[1]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name of the town, \"Tell Tamer\", is derived from the Arabic and Aramaic words \"tell/tella\", both meaning \"hill\", and \"tamer/tamra\", both meaning \"date\". The name of the town therefore means \"Hill of Dates\".\n\nGeography\n\nIn the Khabur Valley of Upper Mesopotamia, Tell Tamer is situated on the left (eastern) bank of Khabur River, just south of the small Zirgan River's estuary. About 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the east, the landscape ascends to the Ard al-Shaykh volcanic basalt plateau.\n\nTell Tamer lies on a direct line between the city of Ras al-Ayn some 35 kilometres (22 mi) to the northwest and the provincial capital al-Hasakah some 40 kilometres (25 mi) to the southeast. The intersection with the M4 highway (Aleppo-Mosul), the major road between al-Hasakah and Diyarbakır (Turkey), and a nearby river crossing make Tell Tamer an essential transport hub.\n\nHistory\n\nIt was settled in the 1930s by Iraqi Assyrian refugees fleeing the Simele massacre in Iraq, who moved to French controlled Syria and settled in a 25 km stretch of the Khabur River in 35 settlements.\n\n Tal Tamer (1939)\n\n Assyrian men in Tal Tamer (1939)\n\n Assyrian woman cooking (1939)\n\n Assyrian woman spinning wool (1939)\n\n Tal Tamer watermill (1939)\n\nSyrian Civil War\n\nAn Assyrian exodus from the town began in November 2012, when Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters threatened to invade the town and Al-Nusra front kidnapped a number of Assyrian girls.[9] The exodus further continued when the Islamic State took control of nearby roads just outside the town. This environment led residents to organize local self-defense forces known as the Nattoreh.[10]\n\nIn October 2013, four Assyrians were kidnapped by Islamic State (ISIS) militants.\n\nControl by Kurdish-led forces\n\nAccording to the Syriac International News Agency, an ISIS attack on a nearby Assyrian village in May 2014 prompted Tell Tamer's residents to request protection from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which led to their deployment to the town.[11] During this period, some youth from Tell Tamer joined YPG-allied Christian militias, including the Syriac Military Council, the Sutoro forces, and the Khabur Guards, while families fled to the Kurdish-held cities of al-Hasakah and Qamishli.[9] Under Kurdish-led administration, Assyrian Christians were permitted to maintain their own political institutions and party offices in the town, including the Assyrian Democratic Party (ADP), which participates in the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC).[12]\n\nAfter ISIS captured Raqqa in January 2014, some Assyrians from Raqqa and al-Tabqah fled to Tell Tamer, while others from the town also left. Many Assyrian families later emigrated, primarily to the United States, Europe, and Canada.\n\nIn February and March 2015, ISIS militants, along with Arab residents from the village of Gêbish,[13] carried out multiple raids on villages in Tell Tamer's vicinity, leading to heavy clashes with the YPG, Women's Protection Units (YPJ), and Assyrian militas during the Eastern and Western al-Hasakah offensive.[14] During these raids ISIS managed to kidnap around 220 Assyrians from villages surrounding Tell Tamer, and by 26 February, that number had increased to 350. Several of these hostages were released by ISIS in late March.[15][16] \n\nOn 7 March 2015, Ivana Hoffmann, a German communist from Duisburg and member of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Turkey/North Kurdistan (MLKP), was killed in Tell Tamer while fighting alongside Kurdish YPG and YPJ forces. She is considered the first German and the first foreign woman to die in combat against ISIS.[17] \n\nOn 11 December 2015, three truck bombs killed 60 people and injured more than 80.\n\nOn 14 October 2019, Assad regime forces were deployed to Tell Tamer and established joint control following an agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in wake of the 2019 Turkish offensive into northeastern Syria.[18]\n\nAs of May 2026 it's still under Kurdish control.[19][20]\n\nDemographics\n\nIts original inhabitants are Assyrians from the Upper Tyari tribe, who came to the area from Hakkari region in Turkey via Iraq.[21][7] As late as the 1960s, they still comprised virtually the entire population of the town.[22] The majority of the town's modern population is composed of Arabs and Kurds, while local Assyrian leaders in the 1990s estimated their own community's presence in the town to be around 20%.[8]\n\nHistorical population estimates are as follows: 1,244 (1936); 1,250 (1960); 2,994 (1981); 5,030 (1993); 5,216 (1994); 5,405 (1995).[23]\n\nThe pre-war scholarly estimates actually placed the total number of Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East living all over of Syria at around 30,000 individuals, with between 15,000 and 20,000 (i.e., 2/3, at most) of them living along the Khabur.[24]\n\nReligion\n\nThe Assyrian \"Church of Our Lady\", located in the Old Town, at a prominent place near the actual Tell (hill), serves as the center of the Assyrian community. In the early 1980s the original church built of mud-brick in the 1930s was broken down and replaced by a new Italianate-style building. A large green-domed brick mosque built in the 1970s serves the growing Muslim community just to the south of the town center.[25]\n\nNotable people\n\nAdwar Mousa, prominent Assyrian singer-songwriter.\n\nJuliana Jendo, prominent Assyrian singer.\n\nFaia Younan, prominent Assyrian singer.\n\nOmar Souleyman, prominent Arab singer.\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nTell Tamer bombings\n\nEastern al-Hasakah offensive\n\nWestern al-Hasakah offensive\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"2004 Census Data for Nahiya Tell Tamer\" (in Arabic). Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics. Also available in English: UN OCHA. \"2004 Census Data\". Humanitarian Data Exchange.\n\n^ Omar, Husen (23 February 2015). \"Li Til Temir şer û pevçûn germ bûne (Hat nûkirin)\". www.rudaw.net (in Kurdish). Retrieved 27 October 2019.\n\n^ \"Li Bajaroka Til Temirê teqîn\". Nerina Azad (in Kurdish). Retrieved 27 October 2019.\n\n^ Fernandez 1998, pp. 41, 42.\n\n^ Dodge 1940, p. 314.\n\n^ Fernandez 1998.\n\n^ a b Dodge 1940.\n\n^ a b Fernandez 1998, p. 37.\n\n^ a b \"In northeast Syria, a Christian community fights for survival\". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 18 December 2025.\n\n^ Rashid (2018), p. 36.\n\n^ \"Assyrian citizens called the YPG to defend them against ISIS\". Syriac International News Agency. Archived from the original on 25 July 2015. Retrieved 25 February 2015.\n\n^ Backhaus, Andrea (14 November 2019). \"Nordsyrien: Die christlichen Kämpferinnen von Tell Tamer (2)\". Die Zeit (in German). ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 18 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Li Til Temir şer û pevçûn germ bûne (Hat nûkirin)\". Rudaw. 23 February 2015. Retrieved 18 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Heavy fighting as Islamic State militants attack Christian villages in northeastern Syria\". US News. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 18 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Isil frees 19 abducted Christians\". 2 March 2015.\n\n^ \"IS releases 24 Assyrian Christians so far\". SOHR. 3 March 2015. Retrieved 3 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Erste Deutsche stirbt im Kampf mit IS-Terroristen\". stern.de (in German). 9 March 2015. Retrieved 18 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Syrian regime forces push towards Turkey border after SDF deal\". The Defense Post. 14 October 2019. Retrieved 22 November 2019.\n\n^ \"Emergency committee formed to protect agricultural season in Tell Tamer -ANHA\". hawarnews.com. Retrieved 27 July 2026.\n\n^ \"YPJ martyrs' pictures hung in Tell Tamer -ANHA\". hawarnews.com. Retrieved 27 July 2026.\n\n^ Fernandez 1998, p. 41.\n\n^ Fernandez 1998, p. 43.\n\n^ Fernandez 1998, p. 43 f..\n\n^ Fernandez 1998, p. 30.\n\n^ Fernandez 1998, p. 38.\n\nBibliography\n\nDodge, Bayard (1940). \"The settlement of the Assyrians on the Khabbur\". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 27 (3): 301-320. doi:10.1080/03068374008730969. ISSN 0035-8789.\n\nFernandez, Alberto M. (1998). \"Dawn at Tell Tamer: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 12 (1): 34-47. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 August 2003.\n\nRashid, Bedir Mulla (2018) [1st pub. 2017]. Military and Security Structures of the Autonomous Administration in Syria. Translated by Obaida Hitto. Istanbul: Omran for Strategic Studies. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018.\n\nExternal links\n\nhttp://www.aina.org/articles/asotk.pdf\n\nhttp://www.aina.org/maps/khaburmap.htm"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-tamer"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1479}, {"slug": "reference-hymn-of-the-pearl", "title": "Hymn of the Pearl", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Hymn of the Pearl (also Hymn of the Soul, Hymn of the Robe of Glory or Hymn of Judas Thomas the Apostle) is a passage of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. In that work, originally written in Syriac, the Apostle Thomas sings the hymn while praying for...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Hymn of the Pearl (also Hymn of the Soul, Hymn of the Robe of Glory or Hymn of Judas Thomas the Apostle) is a passage of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. In that work, originally written in Syriac, the Apostle Thomas sings the hymn while praying for himself and fellow prisoners. Some scholars believe the hymn predates the Acts, as it only appears in one Syriac manuscript and one Greek manuscript of the Acts of Thomas. The author of the Hymn is unknown, though there is a belief that it was composed by the Syriac gnostic Bardaisan from Edessa due to some parallels between his life and that of the hymn.[1] It is believed to have been written in the 2nd century[2] or even possibly the 1st century,[3] and shows influences from heroic folk epics from the region.[1]\n\nSynopsis\n\nThe hymn tells the story of a boy, \"the son of the king of kings\", who is sent to Egypt to retrieve a pearl from a serpent. During the quest, he is seduced by Egyptians and forgets his origin and his family. However, a letter is sent from the king of kings to remind him of his past. When the boy receives the letter, he remembers his mission, retrieves the pearl and returns. That the boy is implicitly Thomas rather than Jesus is indicated by the eventual assertion that he is next in line to his elder brother, this unnamed brother not otherwise mentioned in the text.\n\nInterpretation\n\nThe hymn is commonly interpreted as a Gnostic view of the human condition, that we are spirits lost in a world of matter and forgetful of our true origin. This state of affairs may be ameliorated by a revelatory message delivered by a messenger, a role generally ascribed to Jesus. The letter thus takes on a symbolic representation of gnosis.\n\nThe hymn has been preserved and especially treasured in Manichaeism - a version of it appears as part of a Coptic Manichaean psalm book and is called the Psalms of Thomas. The Hymn of the Pearl has also been admired by Orthodox Christian thinkers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[4][5]\n\nExtracts from the text\n\nThe following text is from Wikisource, which contains the full text of the hymn.\n\nWhen I was a little child,\n\nand dwelling in my kingdom of my father's house,\n\nand in the riches and luxuries of my teachers,\n\nI was living at ease.\n\n[Then] from our home in the East,\n\nafter they had made preparations,\n\nmy parents sent me forth.\n\n[...]\n\nThen they made with me an agreement,\n\nand they inscribed it in my heart so that it would not be forgotten:\n\n\"If [you would go] down into Egypt\n\nand bring [back] the one pearl,\n\nwhich is in the middle of the sea\n\nsurrounded by the hissing serpent,\n\nthen you will put on your glorious garment\n\nand your toga which rests (is laid) over it.\n\nAnd with your brother, our second in command,\n\nyou will be heir in our kingdom.\"\n\n[...]\n\nI went straight to the serpent,\n\naround its lodging I settled\n\nuntil it was going to slumber and sleep,\n\nthat I might snatch my pearl from it.\n\nThen I became single and alone,\n\nto my fellow-lodgers I became a stranger.\n\n[...]\n\nBut in some way or another,\n\nthey perceived that I was not of their country.\n\nSo they mingled their deceit with me,\n\nand they made me eat their food.\n\nI forgot that I was a son of kings,\n\nand I served their king.\n\nAnd I forgot the pearl,\n\non account of which my parents had sent me.\n\nBecause of the burden of their exhortations,\n\nI fell into a deep sleep.\n\nBut [because of] all these things which happened to me,\n\nmy parents perceived [my oppression], and were grieved for me.\n\n[...]\n\nAnd they wrote a letter to me,\n\nand every noble signed his name on it.\n\n\"From your father, the king of kings,\n\nand your mother, the governor of the East,\n\nand from your brother, our second in command,\n\nto you, our son, who is in Egypt, peace.\n\nAwake and arise from your sleep,\n\nand hear the words of our letter.\n\nRemember that you are a son of kings,\n\nconsider the slavery you are serving.\n\nRemember the pearl,\n\non account of which you were sent to Egypt.\n\nThink of your glorious garment,\n\nremember your splendid toga,\n\nwhich you will put on and wear\n\nwhen your name is called out from the book of the combatants (athletes).\n\nAnd with your brother, our viceroy,\n\nWith him, you will be in our kingdom.\"\n\n[...]\n\nI remembered that I was a son of kings,\n\nand my free soul longed for its natural state.\n\nI remembered the pearl,\n\non account of which I was sent to Egypt.\n\nThen I began charming it,\n\nthe formidable and hissing serpent.\n\nI caused it to slumber and to fall asleep,\n\nfor my father's name I named over it,\n\nand the name of our second in command (our double),\n\nand of my mother, the queen of the East.\n\nThen I snatched away the pearl,\n\nand I turned to go back to my father's house.\n\nAnd their filthy and unclean clothing,\n\nI stripped off and left it in their country.\n\n[...]\n\nand my glorious garment which I had stripped off,\n\nand my toga which was wrapped with it,\n\n(from Ramatha and Reken), from the heights of Hyrcania,\n\nmy parents sent it there,\n\nwith the hand of their stewards,\n\nwho, on account of their faithfulness, could be trusted with it.\n\n[...]\n\nI clothed [myself] with it and ascended,\n\nto the palace of peace and worship.\n\nI bowed my head and worshipped him,\n\nthe brightness of my father who sent it to me.\n\nBecause I had done his commandments,\n\nso also he did what he had promised.\n\nAnd in the palace of his scribes\n\nI mingled with his teachers,\n\nbecause he rejoiced in me and received me,\n\nand I was with him and in his kingdom.\n\nAnd with the voice of praise,\n\nall his servants were praising him.\n\nAnd he also promised that to the palace\n\nof the king of kings I will hasten with him.\n\nAnd with my offering and with my pearl,\n\nI should appear with him before our king.\n\nUses in art and media\n\nHymn of the Pearl (Choral Composition) composed by Kevin Anthony and performed by BYU Singers.\n\nKenogaia: a Gnostic tale (Book) by David Bentley Hart\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Russell, J.R. (2012). \"Hymn of the Pearl\". Encyclopædia Iranica.\n\n^ Vander Stichele, C.; Scholz, S. (2014). Hidden Truths from Eden: Esoteric Readings of Genesis 1-3. Semeia Studies. SBL Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-62837-013-3. Retrieved 5 July 2018.\n\n^ Corrigan, K.; Rasimus, T. (2013). Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World: Essays in Honour of John D. Turner. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies. Brill. p. 261. ISBN 978-90-04-25476-3. Retrieved 5 July 2018.\n\n^ Robinson, Stephen E. \"Background for the Testaments\". www.churchofjesuschrist.org. Retrieved 2021-06-08.\n\n^ \"The \"Hymn of the Pearl\": An Ancient Counterpart to \"O My Father\" - BYU Studies\". 6 August 2019. Retrieved 2021-06-08.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBarnstone, Willis; Meyer, Marvin (2005). The Gnostic Bible: Gnostic Texts of Mystical Wisdom from the Ancient and Medieval Worlds Shambhala Publications, Boston MA. ISBN 1590301994. pp. 386-394.\n\nMyers, Susan E. (2010). Spirit Epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. Mohr Siebeck, ISBN 3161494725. pp. 71-74.\n\nExternal links\n\nHymn of the Pearl\n\nAudio with commentary\n\nAudio of the Hymn of the Pearl translated and read by Willis Barnstone"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hymn-of-the-pearl"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1247}, {"slug": "reference-ishoyahb-iii", "title": "Ishoyahb III", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 649 to 659. He is known for writing more than one hundred letters that have survived preserving information about Christian life under the earliest period of Islamic rule, including several letters he sent to the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ishoʿyahb III of Adiabene was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 649 to 659. He is known for writing more than one hundred letters that have survived preserving information about Christian life under the earliest period of Islamic rule, including several letters he sent to the Christians of Beth Qatraye in the eastern Arabian Peninsula.\n\nEarly career\n\nIshoʿyahb was the son of a wealthy Persian Christian named Bastomagh, of Kuphlana in Adiabene, who was a frequent visitor to the monastery of Beth ʿAbe.[1] He was educated at the School of Nisibis, became bishop of Nineveh, and was afterwards appointed metropolitan of Adiabene. As metropolitan of Adiabene he hindered the Jacobites from building a church in Mosul, despite the fact that they were supported by all the weight and influence of the Tagritians from Tikrit. Bar Hebraeus declares that he bribed right and left to effect this. He was one of the members of the delegation of the Church of the East which met the Roman emperor Heraclius in Aleppo in 630, and took away a very costly and beautiful casket, containing relics of the apostles, from a church at Antioch. Many argue the casket was stolen similar to how relics were often stolen during the Crusades. He donated the casket to the monastery of Beth ʿAbe.[1]\n\nIshoyahb's patriarchate\n\nOn Maremmeh's death in 647, the Church of the East in what is now Iraq elevated Ishoʿyahb to the Catholicate. However Metropolitan Shemʿon of Rev Ardashir did not recognise this.\n\nIshoʿyahb maintained good relations with the Arabs - whom he called variously Tayy, Muhajirs, and Hanifs - but never did heal the schism in his own Church.\n\nIshoʿyahb died in 659.\n\nWritings\n\nIshoʿyahb wrote a Refutation of Opinions on behalf of John, Metropolitan of Beth Lapat, several other tracts and sermons, some hymns, a vita of the martyr Isho-sabhran, and an exhortation to novices. He is also known for making substantial improvements to the liturgy of the Church for the daily office and for various sacraments.[1] The Chronicle of Seert, Pt.1.1, pg.85 (295), also credits him with choosing the three eucharistic anaphoras that are currently in use in the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nRelationship with East Arabian Christians\n\nThe letters of Isho'yahb offer unique insights into relations between the patriarchate of the Church of the East and the Christian populations of Eastern Arabia in the middle of the seventh century, shortly after the early Muslim conquests. His letters suggest a period of tense relations, with Isho'yahb offended by the theological associations between these Christians and the new faith of the invading Arabs. Isho'yahb wrote:[2]\n\nThe heretics are deceiving you [when they say] there happens what happens by order of the Arabs, which is certainly not the case. For the tayyaye mhaggre (Muhajir Arabs) do not aid those who say that God, Lord of all, suffered and died. And if by chance they do help them for whatever reason, you can inform the mhaggre (Mujahirs) and persuade them of this matter as it should be, if you care about it at all. So perform all things wisely, my brothers; give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.\n\nAnother major issue demonstrated by the letters of Isho'yahb regards the issue of the conversion of Christians in Oman to the new faith in order to avoid a poll tax (jizya) that would take away half of their wealth:[3]\n\nYou alone of all the peoples of the earth have become estranged from every one of them. And because of this estrangement from all these, the influence of the present error came to prevail with ease among you. For the one who has seduced you and uprooted your churches was first seen among us in the region of Radhan, where the pagans are more numerous than the Christians. Yet, due to the praiseworthy conduct of the Christians, the pagans were not led astray by him. Rather he was driven out from there in disgrace; not only did he not uproot the churches, but he himself was extirpated. However, your region of Fars received him, pagans and Christians, and he did with them as he willed, the pagans consenting and obedient, the Christians inactive and silent. As for the Arabs, to whom God has at this time given rule (shultana) over the world, you know well how they act towards us. Not only do they not oppose Christianity, but they praise our faith, honour the priests and saints of our Lord, and give aid to the churches and monasteries. Why then do your Mazonaye [Omanis] reject their faith on a pretext of theirs? And this when the Mazonaye themselves admit that the Arabs have not compelled them to abandon their faith, but only asked them to give up half of their possessions in order to keep their faith. Yet they forsook their faith, which is forever, and retained the half of their wealth, which is for a short time.\n\nSources\n\nBrief accounts of Ishoʿyahb's patriarchate are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus (thirteenth-century), and the ecclesiastical histories of the Church of the East writers Mari (twelfth-century), ʿAmr (fourteenth-century) and Sliba (fourteenth-century). There are also the works he penned himself.\n\nTranslations\n\nBcheiry, Iskandar. An Early Christian Reaction to Islam: Išū‘yahb III and the Muslim Arabs, Gorgias Press, 2019.\n\nSee also\n\nAdiabene (East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province)\n\nEast Syriac Rite\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c William Wright (1894). A short history of Syriac literature. London: Adam and Charles Black. pp. 171-174.\n\n^ Robert G. Hoyland (1998). Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. Darwin Press. pp. 174-82., 179. Quoting Ep. 48B, 97.\n\n^ Hoyland, 181-2 quoting Ep. 14C, 51\n\nSources\n\nAbbeloos, J. B., and Lamy, T. J., Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum (3 vols, Paris, 1877)\n\nAssemani, J. A., De Catholicis seu Patriarchis Chaldaeorum et Nestorianorum (Rome, 1775)\n\nBrooks, E. W., Eliae Metropolitae Nisibeni Opus Chronologicum (Rome, 1910)\n\nGismondi, H., Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria I: Amri et Salibae Textus (Rome, 1896)\n\nGismondi, H., Maris, Amri, et Salibae: De Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria II: Maris textus arabicus et versio Latina (Rome, 1899)\n\nWigram, W. A. (2004). An introduction to the history of the Assyrian Church, or, The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire, 100-640 A.D. Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-103-7.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W., Die Christologie des ostsyrischen Katholikos Ishoyahb III. von Adiabene (580-659). In: Studia Patristica 35 (2001) 516-526."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ishoyahb-iii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1084}, {"slug": "reference-khash-dish", "title": "Khash (dish)", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Khash (Armenian: խաշ) is a traditional dish made from a boiled cow or sheep parts, which might include the head, feet, and stomach (tripe). It originates from Armenia and is considered one of the oldest Armenian dishes.[1][2][3]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Khash\nArmenian khash\n\nPlace of originArmenia\n\nAssociated cuisineArmenian cuisine\n\n  Media: Khash\n\nKhash (Armenian: խաշ) is a traditional dish made from a boiled cow or sheep parts, which might include the head, feet, and stomach (tripe). It originates from Armenia and is considered one of the oldest Armenian dishes.[1][2][3] \n\nIn addition to Armenia, khash and its variations are also found in several other countries, including Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Mongolia, North Macedonia, Turkey, and some Persian Gulf countries.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name khash originates from the Armenian verb (խաշել), which means \"to boil\".[4] The dish, initially called khashoy (Armenian: խաշոյ), is mentioned by a number of medieval Armenian authors, including Grigor Magistros (11th century), Mkhitar Heratsi (12th century), and Yesayi Nchetsi (13th century).[4]\n\nThe Persian designation pacha stems from the term pāče, literally meaning \"trotter\".[5] The combination of a sheep's head and trotters is called kalle-pāče, which literally means \"head [and] trotter\" in Persian.[6]\n\nKhash is also known by derivations like khashi and xash (Georgian: ხაში; and Azerbaijani: xaş, respectively), while also being known by other designations, namely pacha (Persian: پاچه; Albanian: paçe; Neo-Aramaic: pacha; Mesopotamian Arabic: پاچة, romanized: pacha; Serbo-Croatian: pača; Bulgarian: пача; Hungarian: pacal; Greek: πατσάς), kalle-pache (Persian: کله‌پاچه; Turkish: kelle paça; Azerbaijani: kəllə-paça), kakaj šürpi (Chuvash: какай шÿрпи) or serûpê (Kurdish: سه‌روپێ).\n\nIn the South Caucasus\n\nIn the medieval Armenian medical textbook Relief of Fevers (1184), khash was described as a dish with healing properties, e.g., against snuffle. It was recommended to eat it while drinking wine.[7] In case of ailment, khash from the legs of a yeanling (lamb or kid) was advised.[8]\n\nArmenian khash is prepared using boiled cow or sheep parts such as the head, feet, and stomach (tripe). Typically consumed early in the morning during the winter season, it is served with garlic, salt, black pepper and lavash.[9] In Armenia and the rest of the South Caucasus, khash is often seen as food to be consumed after a party, as it is known to be consumed during battle hangovers (especially by men) and eaten with a \"hair of the dog\" vodka chaser.[10]\n\nIn Iran\n\nKalle-pache (kalle-pāče) in TehranAn Iranian pache (pāče) dishIranian khash\n\nKalle-pache (kalle-pāče; kalla-pāča; literally meaning \"head [and] trotter\") consists of a sheep's head (including the brain) and trotters,[11][12][13] and is typically seasoned with lemon and cinnamon.[12] Usually consumed as a breakfast soup,[12] kalle-pache is traditional to Afghanistan[14] and Iran.[12]\n\nIn Iran, kalle-pache is usually cooked in specialty stores, and is served in the morning.[15] It is especially consumed during cold seasons.[15] To prepare kalle-pache, the sheep's head and trotters are collected, cooked, and treated as per the recipe.[16]\n\nIn Iraq\n\nPacha is a traditional Iraqi dish made from sheep's head, trotters, and stomach; all boiled slowly and served with bread sunken in the broth.[17] The cheeks and tongues are considered the best parts. Many people prefer not to eat the eyeballs, which could be removed before cooking.[18] The stomach lining would be filled with rice and lamb and stitched with a sewing thread (Arabic: كيبايات).[19] Sheep brain is also included.[20][21][22]\n\nPacha is a common dish for Assyrians to eat around Christmas, but preparations of the dish take a long time.[18][23]\n\nIn Arab countries\n\nThe dish is known in Kuwait, Bahrain, and other Arabian Peninsula countries as Pacheh (باجه), since the Arabic alphabet has no letters 'p' and 'ch' so the dish is written with 'b' and 'j' as in Bajeh باجه). A variation of that is found in other Arab countries such as in Egypt and is known as kawari' (كوارع), Egyptians eat cow brain and sheep brain.[24]\n\nIn Albania\n\nAlbania's popular pache (paçe) consists of a sheep's or any cattle's head, that is boiled until meat comes off easily. It is then stewed with garlic, onion, black pepper, and vinegar. Sometimes a little flour is added to thicken the stew. It is also frequently cooked with cattle feet or tripe. It makes a hot and hearty winter stew.\n\nIn Turkey\n\nIn Turkish culinary culture, pacha (paça) is a generic word for certain soup preparations, especially with offal, but also without it. In most parts of Turkey, such as in Kastamonu, for instance, the term ayak paça (\"feet pacha\") is used for cow, sheep, or goat hooves,[25] and the term kelle paça is used for \"head pacha\" (chorba). Sometimes the term dil paça is also used for tongue soup, while \"meat pacha\" is made with gerdan (scrag end of sheep's neck). In Turkey, the word kelle refers to a sheep's head roasted in the oven, which is served after grilling at specialized offal restaurants.\n\nIn Greece\n\nThe Greek version, called patsás (πατσάς), may be seasoned with red wine vinegar and garlic (skordostoubi), or thickened with avgolémono. The Greek version sometimes uses calf feet with the tripe.\n\nSpecialized tavernas serving patsa are known as patsatzidika. Because patsas has the reputation of remedying hang-over and aiding digestion, patsatzidika are often working overnight, serving people returning home after dinner or clubbing.\n\nSimilar dishes\n\nPaya, South Asian version of this dish\n\nP'tcha, Ashkenazi Jewish version\n\nSmalahove, boiled sheep's head, a traditional western Norwegian food\n\nSoğuk paça, a Turkish cold dish made with the jelly obtained from sheep or cow hooves\n\nSvið, an Icelandic dish that includes a sheep's head cut in half\n\nSee also\n\nAspic\n\nBeshbarmak\n\nChitterlings\n\nHaggis\n\nHead cheese\n\nPowsowdie\n\nTripe chorba\n\nReferences\n\n^ William Pokhlyobkin (1978). The Ethnic Cuisines of our Peoples (in Russian). Light and Food Industry. Хаш - одно из древнейших армянских блюд, получивших распространение по всему Закавказью. С древности сохранился обычай есть хаш совершенно отдельно от всех иных блюд, причем рано утром на завтрак или даже до завтрака, по праздничным дням.\n\n^ Adjarian, Hrachia (1973). \"Armenian Etymological Dictionary\" (in Armenian). p. 346.\n\n^ Heratsi, Mkhitar (1178). Relief Of Fevers. Interstate Publishers. pp. Chapter 6 and Chapter 10. ISBN 978-0-8134-3032-4. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ a b Adjarian, Hrachia (1973). \"Armenian Etymological Dictionary\" (in Armenian). p. 346.\n\n^ \"پاچه\" [pāče]. Amid Dictionary (in Persian). Retrieved April 24, 2018.\n\n^ \"کله پاچه\" [kalle pāče]. Amid Dictionary (in Persian). Archived from the original on June 2, 2021. Retrieved April 24, 2018.\n\n^ Heratsi, Mkhitar. \"Chapter 6\". Relief of Fevers.\n\n^ Heratsi, Mkhitar. \"Chapter 10\". Relief of Fevers.\n\n^ \"Armenian Khash Recipe\". Travel Food Atlas. 31 March 2022.\n\n^ Elliott, Mark (2010). Azerbaijan with Excursions to Georgia. Trailblazer. p. 356. ISBN 978-1-905864-23-2.\n\n^ Edelstein, Sari (2009). Food, Cuisine, and Cultural Competency for Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professionals. Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-7637-5965-0.\n\n^ a b c d King, Bart (2010). The Big Book of Gross Stuff. Gibbs Smith. p. 243. ISBN 978-1-4236-0746-5.\n\n^ \"Sheep Heads, Brains And Hooves Are Delicacies In Iran\". HuffPost. April 13, 2009. Retrieved January 8, 2016.\n\n^ Elliott, Mark (2010). Azerbaijan with Excursions to Georgia. Trailblazer. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-905864-23-2.\n\n^ a b \"KALLA-PĀČA\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XV. April 20, 2012. p. 408.\n\n^ Field, Henry (1939). Contributions to the anthropology of Iran. Vol. 2. Chicago Natural History Museum. p. 559.\n\n^ \"Food in Iraq - Iraqi Cuisine - popular, dishes, diet, common meals, customs\". Foodbycountry.com. April 6, 2001. Retrieved March 14, 2010.\n\n^ a b \"Assyrian Restaurant in Chicago Reminds Iraqis of Home\". Christiansofiraq.com. August 28, 2005. Retrieved March 14, 2010.\n\n^ \"Little Shedrak's Pacha (Lamb's Head) - Chicago Area - Chowhound\". Chowhound.chow.com. 19 October 2003. Archived from the original on 25 October 2009. Retrieved March 14, 2010.\n\n^ David Finkel (September 15, 2009). The Good Soldiers. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-4299-5271-2. sheep brains iraq.\n\n^ John Martinkus (2004). Travels in American Iraq. Black Inc. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-86395-285-9.\n\n^ Peggy Faw Gish (February 12, 2015). Iraq. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 212. ISBN 978-1-4982-1763-7.\n\n^ Pinto, Jonathan (18 December 2017). \"For Windsor's Chaldeans, Christmas dinner isn't complete without pacha\". cbc.ca. Retrieved 20 April 2025.\n\n^ \"Meat | Egyptian Cuisine and Recipes\". Egyptian-cuisine-recipes.com. Retrieved January 8, 2016.\n\n^ Koz, M. Sabri (2002). Yemek kitabı: tarih, halkbilimi, edebiyat (in Turkish). Kitabevi. p. 486. ISBN 978-975-7321-74-3.\n\nExternal links\n\n\"A Brief History of Khash, Armenia's Love-It-or-Hate-It Hangover Cure (Recipe)\". Smithsonian Institution. February 27, 2018.\n\n\"Khash.org\".\n\n\"Khash and other Azeri adventures\". Toronto Star. February 7, 2007.\n\n\"HIS MAJESTY KHASH\". Vision TV. April 2013."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-khash-dish"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1382}, {"slug": "reference-neo-aramaic-languages", "title": "Neo-Aramaic languages", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities.[1] Within the field of Aramaic studies,[2] classification of Neo-Aramaic languages has been a subject...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Neo-Aramaic\n\nModern Aramaic\n\nGeographic\ndistributionArmenia, Iraq, Iran, Georgia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine\n\nEthnicityAssyrians, Israeli Christians, Arab Christians, Maronites (Including Lebanese Maronite Christians), Other Lebanese Christians, Antiochian Christians\n\nLinguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic\nSemitic\nWest Semitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nNeo-Aramaic\n\nSubdivisions\n\nWestern Neo-Aramaic\n\nCentral Neo-Aramaic\n\nNortheastern Neo-Aramaic\n\nNeo-Mandaic\n\nLebanese Aramaic†\n\nLanguage codes\n\nGlottologaram1259  Aramaic\n\nThe Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities.[1] Within the field of Aramaic studies,[2] classification of Neo-Aramaic languages has been a subject of particular interest among scholars, who proposed several divisions, into two (western and eastern), three (western, central and eastern) or four (western, central, northeastern and southeastern) primary groups.[3][4]\n\nIn terms of sociolinguistics, Neo-Aramaic languages are also classified by various ethnolinguistic and religiolinguistic criteria, spanning across ethnic and religious lines, and encompassing groups that adhere to Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism and Islam.[5]\n\nChristian Neo-Aramaic languages have long co-existed with Classical Syriac as a literary and liturgical language of Syriac Christianity.[6] Since Classical Syriac and similar archaic forms, like Targumic Aramaic (old Judeo-Aramaic variety) and Classical Mandaic, are no longer vernacular, they are not classified as Neo-Aramaic languages. However, the classical languages continue to have influence over the colloquial Neo-Aramaic languages.\n\nThe most prominent Neo-Aramaic varieties belong to Central Neo-Aramaic and Northeastern Neo-Aramaic groups. They are spoken primarily (though not wholly exclusively) by ethnic Assyrians, who are adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, and some other denominations. Other speakers include Muslim and Christian Arameans (Syriacs)[7][8][9] from Maaloula and Jubb'adin, who speak the endangered Western Neo-Aramaic language, Mandaeans, and some Mizrahi Jews. Nearly all varieties are now regarded as endangered or at risk of disappearing, especially as migration has changed the communities in which Neo-Aramaic is spoken. Some varieties are already believed to have become extinct.[10]\n\nHistory\n\nAramaic had become the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the 8th century BC, and was retained by the following Neo-Babylonian Empire and Achaemenid Empires, gradually displacing the hitherto dominant Akkadian language of the Assyrians and Babylonians. \nDuring the Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages, the linguistic development of the Aramaic language was marked by the coexistence of literary and vernacular forms, those of Assyria and Babylonia retaining an Akkadian grammatical influence. A dominant literary form among Aramaic-speaking Christians was Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya) evolving in the Neo-Assyrian kingdom of Osroene, which came to be known as Classical Syriac (a term coined by western scholars). At the same time, Aramaic-speaking Jews had their own literary languages (Judeo-Aramaic languages). Along with dominant literary forms, various vernacular forms were also spoken, with distinctive regional variations. By the late medieval period, literary forms used by Aramaic-speaking Christians were confided mainly to the religious sphere of life (liturgical use), while vernacular forms continued to develop into the early modern period. Gradually, some of those Neo-Aramaic vernacular forms also started to be used for literary purposes.[11]\n\nDuring the 19th century, systematic studies of Neo-Aramaic languages were initiated for the first time,[12] and by the beginning of the 20th century some Neo-Aramaic varieties already entered into the modern phase of their linguistic development, marked by the appearance of various Neo-Aramaic publications, and also by the establishment of modern schools and other institutions.\n\nThat development was severely interrupted by the breakout of the First World War (1914-1918) and the atrocities committed against Aramaic-speaking communities during the Seyfo (Assyrian genocide). The displacement of many Assyrian communities from their native regions disrupted both the four millennia long geographical and historical Assyrian continuity and the linguistic continuum, and also created new groups of Neo-Aramaic speakers throughout the diaspora. Those events had a profound impact on further development of Neo-Aramaic communities, affecting all spheres of life, including various cultural issues related to their language.[12]\n\nVarieties\n\nTuroyoHertevin dialectQaraqoshBohtanMlaḥsôAlqoshBarzaniInter-ZabBetanureZakhoTrans-ZabBarwarKoy Sanjaq (Christian, Jewish)Urmia (Christian, Jewish)Sanandaj (Christian, Jewish) Red markers represent Christian Neo-Aramaic varieties while blue represents Jewish ones and purple represents both spoken in the same town.\n\nThroughout the history of Aramaic language, a dialectal boundary dividing western and eastern varieties has existed, running transversely across the Syrian Desert from southeast to northwest.[13]\n\nOnly Western Neo-Aramaic, spoken in Maaloula and Jubb'adin in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains by Christian and Muslim Aramean (Syriac) communities, remains as a witness to the western varieties, which used to be much more widespread in the Levant (as evidenced in varieties from the first millennium CE such as Samaritan Aramaic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic).[14]\n\nThe other Neo-Aramaic languages are all eastern varieties, mostly spoken by ethnic Assyrian people, but with little homogeneity. Most distinct in this group is Modern Mandaic, which has low intelligibility with other varieties. It is the direct descendant of Classical Mandaic, which traces its roots back to the Persian-influenced Aramaic of the Arsacid Empire. Modern Mandaic is spoken fluently by about only a few thousand people.\n\nSpeakers\n\nThe number of modern speakers of Neo-Aramaic languages is estimated from approximately 575,000 to 1,000,000, the vast majority of whom are Assyrian people. The largest of subgroups of speakers are Assyrian Neo-Aramaic with approximately 500,000 speakers, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic with approximately 240,000 speakers, Turoyo (Surayt) with approximately 100,000 speakers and a few thousand speakers of other Neo-Aramaic languages (i.e. Modern Judeo-Aramaic varieties and Bohtan Neo-Aramaic, among others), which give a total of over 870,000 fluent Neo-Aramaic speakers, although a larger number have some knowledge of the language, but lack fluency.[15][16][17]\n\nSee also\n\nBible translations into Aramaic\n\nBible translations into Syriac\n\nSyriac alphabet\n\nSyriac literature\n\nSyriac studies\n\nRomanization of Syriac\n\nReferences\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 53.\n\n^ Brock 1989, p. 11-23.\n\n^ Yildiz 2000, p. 23-44.\n\n^ Kim 2008, p. 505-531.\n\n^ Heinrichs 1990.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 2008, p. 335-352.\n\n^ The Semitic Heritage of Northwest Syria, p. 271\n\n^ “…Maaloula Syriacs have maintained their Syriac identity since ancient times, and there is ample evidence of their Syriac heritage, especially in Maaloula, Ain Tineh, Bakhah, and Jubaadin…“, translated quote from the book إلياس أنطون نصر الله في معلولا, p. 45\n\n^ \"Hilfe für das Aramäerdorf Maaloula e.V. | an aid project in Syria\".\n\n^ \"Neo-Aramaic\". Endangered Language Alliance. Retrieved 2026-10-04.\n\n^ Murre van den Berg 2008, p. 335-352.\n\n^ a b Macuch 1990, p. 214.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 11.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian. 2017. An Introduction to Syriac Studies. P. 12\n\n^ Assyrian Neo-Aramaic by Ethnologue\n\n^ \"Chaldean Neo-Aramaic | Ethnologue\".\n\n^ \"Turoyo | Ethnologue\".\n\nSources\n\nArnold, Werner (1990). \"New materials on Western Neo-Aramaic\". Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 131-149. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nArnold, Werner (2008). \"The Roots qrṭ and qrṣ in Western Neo-Aramaic\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 305-311. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nArnold, Werner (2012). \"Western Neo-Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 685-696. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nHäberl, Charles G. (2012). \"Neo-Mandaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 725-737. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nHeinrichs, Wolfhart, ed. (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nJastrow, Otto (1993) [1967]. Laut- und Formenlehre des neuaramäischen Dialekts von Mīdin im Ṭūr ʻAbdīn. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447033343.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2002) [1992]. Lehrbuch der Ṭuroyo-Sprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447032131.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2012). \"Ṭuroyo and Mlaḥsô\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 697-707. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nJoseph, John B. (2000). The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: A History of Their Encounter with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004116419.\n\nKapeliuk, Olga (2012). \"Language Contact between Aramaic Dialects and Iranian\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 738-747. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nKiraz, George A. (2007). \"Kthobonoyo Syriac: Some Observations and Remarks\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 129-142.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2012). \"North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 708-724. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2018). \"Sound Symbolism in Neo-Aramaic\". Near Eastern and Arabian Essays: Studies in Honour of John F. Healey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 197-214. ISBN 978-0-19-883106-8.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2018). \"Remarks on the Historical Development and Syntax of the Copula in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Aramaic Studies. 16 (2): 234-269. doi:10.1163/17455227-01602010. S2CID 195503300.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2019). \"The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of Eastern Anatolia and Northwestern Iran\". The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: An Areal Perspective. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 190-236. ISBN 9783110421743.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2019). \"The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of Northern Iraq\". The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: An Areal Perspective. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 305-353. ISBN 9783110421743.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2019). \"The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of Western Iran\". The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia: An Areal Perspective. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 481-532. ISBN 9783110421743.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2019). \"The Neo-Aramaic Dialects and Their Historical Background\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 266-289. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nKim, Ronald (2008). \"Stammbaum or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 505-531.\n\nKrotkoff, Georg (1990). \"An Annotated Bibliography of Neo-Aramaic\". Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars Press. pp. 3-26. ISBN 9781555404307.\n\nMengozzi, Alessandro (2011). \"Neo-Aramaic Studies: A Survey of Recent Publications\". Folia Orientalia. 48: 233-265.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Churchof the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-352. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nPoizat, Bruno (2008). Manuel de Soureth (in French). Paris: Geuthner. p. 271. ISBN 978-2-7053-3804-6.\n\nPrym, Eugen; Socin, Albert (1881). Der neu-aramaeische Dialekt des Ṭûr 'Abdîn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Verlag.\n\nPère Jean Rhétoré (1912). Grammaire de la Langue Soureth (in French). Mossoul: imprimerie des Pères Dominicains. p. 255.\n\nCostaz, Louis (1963). Syriac-English Dictionary. imprimerie catholique de Beyrouth. p. 421.\n\nMacuch, Rudolf (1990). \"Recent Studies in Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 53 (2): 214-223. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00026045. S2CID 162559782.\n\nPrym, Eugen; Socin, Albert (1881). Der neu-aramaeische Dialekt des Ṭûr 'Abdîn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht's Verlag.\n\nOraham, A.J. (1941). Oraham's Dictionary of the stabilized and enriched Assyrian Language and English. p. 576.\n\nSabar, Yona (2002). A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary: Dialects of Amidya, Dihok, Nerwa and Zakho, Northwestern Iraq. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447045575.\n\nSabar, Yona (2003). \"Aramaic, once an International Language, now on the Verge of Expiration: Are the Days of its Last Vestiges Numbered?\". When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. pp. 222-234. ISBN 9780814209134.\n\nTezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: With Special Reference to Homonyms, Related Words and Borrowings with Cultural Signification. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library. ISBN 9789155455552.\n\nTezel, Sina (2015). \"Arabic or Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo\". Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized: A Festschrift for Jan Retsö. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 554-568.\n\nTezel, Sina (2015). \"Neologisms in Ṣūrayt/Ṭūrōyo\". Neo-Aramaic in Its Linguistic Context. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 100-109.\n\nWaltisberg, Michael (2016). Syntax des Ṭuroyo (= Semitica Viva 55). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-10731-0.\n\nWeninger, Stefan (2012). \"Aramaic-Arabic Language Contact\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 747-755. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (2000). \"The Aramaic Language and its Classification\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 14 (1): 23-44.\n\nExternal links\n\nHelen Younansardaroud: Bibliographie zu neuaramäischen Dialekten\n\nAramaic Dictionary - search the online dictionary using English or Aramaic words, including many other options.\n\nSureth - French/English Dictionary"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-neo-aramaic-languages"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1942}, {"slug": "reference-fast-of-nineveh", "title": "Fast of Nineveh", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "In the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, and in some certain Eastern Catholic Churches of the West Syriac Rite, the East Syriac Rite, the Alexandrian Rites (both Coptic and Ge'ez), and the Armenian Rite, the Fast of Nineveh...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Fast of the Ninevites \n ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝ̈ܐ\n\nJonah preaches to the Ninevites\n\nOfficial nameܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝܐ\n\nObserved byThree-day fast:\n All denominations of\n Syriac Christianity which use either the West Syriac Rite or the East Syriac Rite:\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church\nAssyrian Church of the East\n Ancient Church of the East\n Syro-Malabar Church\n Chaldean Catholic Church[1]\n\nSyriac Maronite Church of Antioch[2]\nMalabar Independent Syrian Church\nSyro-Malankara Catholic Church\nMar Thoma Syrian Church\nSyriac Orthodox Church\nSyriac Catholic Church\n All Christian denominations which use the Alexandrian rites:\nCoptic Orthodox Church[3]\n Coptic Catholic Church\nEthiopian Orthodox Church\nEritrean Orthodox Church\nEthiopian Catholic Church\nEritrean Catholic Church\n Five-day very distinctive Armenian version of the fast of the Catechumens:\n Armenian Apostolic Church\n Armenian Catholic Church\n\nTypeChristian\n\nBeginsMonday of the third week before Lent\n\nEndsThursday of the third week before Lent (i.e. feast day)\n\n2026 date26-28 January\n\nDuration3 days\n (or 5 days in the Armenian Church)\n\nFrequencyAnnual\n\nRelated toGreat Lent\n\nIn the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, and in some certain Eastern Catholic Churches of the West Syriac Rite, the East Syriac Rite, the Alexandrian Rites (both Coptic and Ge'ez), and the Armenian Rite, the Fast of Nineveh (Classical Syriac: ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝ̈ܐ Bā'ūṯā ḏ-Ninwāyē, literally \"Petition of the Ninevites\"; Armenian: Արաջավորաց Բահկ; Arajavorats Bahk; literally \"Fast of the Catechumens\"), is a three-day fast (or a five-day fast in the Armenian Church) starting the third Monday before Clean Monday from Sunday evening after sun set to Wednesday noon (or, until Friday, in the Armenian Church), during which participants usually abstain from all dairy foods and meat products. However, some faithful, traditionally observe the fast more rigorously and abstain from food and drink altogether from Sunday midnight to Wednesday after the Divine Liturgy, which is celebrated before the afternoon. However, the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Catholic Church both have and observe a very distinct version of the fast, which they call the Arajavorats Bahk (the Fast of the Catechumens), which instead lasts for 5 consecutive days (from Monday to Friday) in mid-January (in contrast to the three day fast observed in all other Eastern churches who observe the fast), and which ends just before the Armenian Feast of St. Sarkis. In addition, the very distinctive Armenian version of the fast is also generally more rigorous as it generally involves complete abstinence from the consumption of all types of animal products during their five-day fast.\n\nThe three day fast of Nineveh commemorates the three days that Prophet Jonah spent inside the belly of the Great Fish and the subsequent repentance with fasting from food and water performed by the Ninevites at the warning message of the prophet Jonah (cf. Jonah 3).[13]\n\nBiblical basis\n\nThe Prophet Jonah appears in 2 Kings aka 4 Kings, and is thus thought to have been active around 786-746 BC.[14] The text of Jonah 3 holds that after the prophet warned the people of Nineveh for the second time, they repented by fasting from food and water, along with wearing ashes and sackcloth.[15] For this reason, the passage relates how God spared the Ninevites.[15]\n\nAccording to John Boardman, a possible scenario which facilitated the Ninevites’ acceptance of Jonah's preaching is the reign of Ashur-dan III of the Neo-Assyrian Empire having an outbreak of plague in 765 BC, a revolt from 763-759 BC, and another plague epidemic right after. These documented events suggest Jonah's words were given credibility and adhered to, with everyone including animals and children fasting from food and water.[16]\n\nHistory\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nAs the patriarch Joseph (552-556/567 AD) (Classical Syriac: ܝܘܣܦ) had been deposed, Ezekiel (Classical Syriac: ܚܙܩܝܐܝܠ) was selected to replace him in the Church of the East, much to the joy of the emperor Khusrow Anushirwan who loved him and held him in high esteem.[17] A mighty plague devastated Assyria and Southern Mesopotamia with the Sassanian authorities unable to curb its spread and the dead littered the streets, in particular the imperial capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Classical Syriac: ܣܠܝܩ ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ) The metropolitans of the East Syriac ecclesiastical provinces of Adiabene (Classical Syriac: ܚܕܝܐܒ \"Ḥdāyaḇ\", encompassing the Assyrian cities of Arbela (Erbil), Nineveh, Assur, Hakkari and Adhorbayjan) and Beth Garmaï (Classical Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܓܪ̈ܡܝ \"Bēṯ Garmai\", encompassing Karka ( Kirkuk) and the surrounding region) called for services of prayer, fasting and penitence to be held in all the churches under their jurisdiction, as was believed to have been done by the Ninevites following the preaching of the prophet Jonah.\n\nFollowing its success, the tradition has been strictly adhered to every year by the descendants of the Assyrian Church of the East, its offshoots the Chaldean Catholic Church and Ancient Church of the East, and Syriac Orthodox Church. Patriarchs of the Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church also called for extra fasts in an effort to alleviate the suffering and affliction of those persecuted by ISIS in the region of Nineveh and the rest of the Middle East.\n\nOther Churches\n\nAlthough the fast of the Ninevites was originally observed in the Assyrian Church of the East, Marutha of Tikrit is known to have imposed the Fast of Nineveh in the West Syriac Church, and served as Maphrian of the Syriac Orthodox Maphrianate of the East until his death on 2 May 649.[18]\n\nIn the days of Pope Abraham of Alexandria (who was ethnically Syrian), the Coptic Orthodox Church adopted the fast, from which it spread to the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, all of which still retain its observance.[19][20]\n\nIn contrast, the Armenian Apostolic Church had adopted the fast from Saint Gregory the Illuminator (who was the founder and the first official head of the Armenian Church), which they still observe, although both they and the Armenian Catholic Church have a very distinct version of the fast, as they instead call their fast the Arajavorats Bahk (Fast of the Catechumens), and their fast is more rigorous (as it involves complete abstinence from the consumption of all types of animal products) and is also longer and lasts instead for 5 consecutive days (that is, from Monday to Friday) in mid-January, which ends just before the Armenian Feast of St. Sarkis (which lasts for over one month); and which is in complete contrast to the 3 days fast observed in all of the other Eastern churches who observe the fast.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Liturgical Year of the Chaldean Church\".\n\n^ \"The Antiochan Syriac Maronite Church FAQ - Beith Souryoye Morounoye\". beith-morounoye.org.\n\n^ a b \"Coptic Fasts & Feasts - Coptic Orthodox\". Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States.\n\n^ \"Calendar 3015\". soc-wus.netfirms.com. Archived from the original on 10 September 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2022.\n\n^ \"February Calendar of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch - Archdiocese of the Western United States. Retrieved 2022-09-17.\n\n^ \"January Calendar of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch- Archdiocese of the Western United States. Retrieved 2022-09-17.\n\n^ \"Coptic Fasts & Feasts 2020 A.D. / 1736-1737 A.M.\" Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States. Archived from the original on 2021-10-25. Retrieved 2022-09-17.\n\n^ \"Coptic Fasts & Feasts 2021 A.D. / 1737-1738 A.M.\" Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States. Archived from the original on 2021-10-25. Retrieved 2022-09-17.\n\n^ a b \"Calendar\". Assyrian Church News.\n\n^ a b \"Liturgical Seasons - Chaldean Diocese of St. Thomas the Apostle U.S.A\".\n\n^ \"Coptic Fasts & Feasts 2022 A.D. / 1738-1739 A.M.\" Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States. Archived from the original on 2022-03-20. Retrieved 2022-09-17.\n\n^ \"Coptic Fasts & Feasts 2023 A.D. / 1739-1740 A.M.\" Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States. Archived from the original on 2021-10-25. Retrieved 2022-09-17.\n\n^ \"Three Day Fast of Nineveh\". Syrian Orthodox Church (retrieved from the Internet Archive). Archived from the original on 2011-02-13.\n\n^ 2 Kings 14:25\n\n^ a b Bromiley, Geoffrey William (1979). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 1115-1116. ISBN 978-0-8028-3782-0.\n\n^ Boardman, John (1982). The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. III Part I: The Prehistory of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Aegean World, Tenth to Eighth Centuries BC. Cambridge University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0521224963. Retrieved 19 October 2013.\n\n^ Chronicle of Seert, ii. 100-101\n\n^ Barsoum, Ignatius Aphrem I (2003). Matti Moosa, ed. The Scattered Pearls: The History of Syriac Literature and Sciences Archived 2021-10-23 at the Wayback Machine/1.jpg\n\n^ \"صوم يونان طريق توبة وغفران جمع بين الطوائف المسيحية\". www.albawabhnews.com. 2023-02-05. Retrieved 2026-03-30.\n\n^ \"Jonahs Fast\". St. Verena American Coptic Orthodox Church. Retrieved 2026-03-30."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-fast-of-nineveh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1429}, {"slug": "reference-jilu", "title": "Jilu", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Jīlū was a district and one of the five independent Assyrian tribes, located in the Hakkari region of upper Mesopotamia in modern-day Turkey. Before 1915, Jīlū was home to mostly Assyrians and as well as a minority of Kurds. There were 20 Assyrian villages in this district. The...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Jīlū was a district and one of the five independent Assyrian tribes, located in the Hakkari region of upper Mesopotamia in modern-day Turkey.\nBefore 1915, Jīlū was home to mostly Assyrians and as well as a minority of Kurds. There were 20 Assyrian villages in this district. The area was traditionally divided into Greater and Lesser Jīlū, and Ishtāzin - each with its own Malik, and consisting of a number of Assyrian villages. In the summer of 1915, during the Assyrian genocide, Jīlū was surrounded and attacked by Turkish troops and neighbouring Kurdish tribes under the leadership of Agha Sūtū of Oramar. It is now located around Yeşiltaş, Yüksekova.\n\nAfter a brief struggle to maintain their positions, the Assyrian citizens of Jīlū were forced to flee to Salmas in Iran along with other refugees from the Hakkari highlands. Today their descendants live all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. In Syria's al-Hasakah Governorate there are two villages, Tel-Gorān and Abū-Tīnā, established in 1935 by Jīlū refugees from Iraq on the banks of the Khabur River.\n\nGeography and Nature\n\nThe Jīlū district is home to the second highest mountain range in Turkey, the Cilo-Sat range, which are an eastern extension of the Taurus Mountains. The highest peak in the Cilo-Sat range is Toura Jelu (also known as Cilo dağı, maximum elevation 4,168 m), from the summit of which one can see as far as the city of Mosul in Iraq. The southern slopes of the massif are covered with broad-leaved forests (primarily oak), and the northern slopes are covered with steppes and shrub thickets where the inhabitants of Jīlū and Dīz would graze their herds during the summer. Among the animals which abound in these mountains are bears, leopards, wolves, foxes, chamois, wild goats, and ovis (wild sheep), of which there are three varieties. There are also many birds, especially the large yellow partridge, and the red-legged variety.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nNot much is known about Jīlū's pre-Christian history due to its inaccessibility and instability, restricting any form of fieldwork, though prehistoric rock carvings have been found in the Gevaruk valley near Sāţ and on the Tirisin Plateau. These have been dated to 10,000 years ago.[2]\n\nAccording to the Acts of Saint Mari, it was his disciple St. Ţomīs who was the first to bring Christianity to the region of Gawar and Zozān (including Jīlū) in the 1st century AD.The text also mentions that he was martyred somewhere in the Gawar plain, not far from Jīlū, and that later on a church was established on his burial site. Indeed, the ancient church in the Jīlū village of Sāţ (modern-day İkiyaka) is dedicated to St. Mārī, and is the only church in the Hakkari region or northern Iraq historically known to have had been. Mārī was also the name of one of the area's earliest bishops. He was among the signatories of the acts of the synod of Catholicos Mār Dādīshoʿ in 424 AD.[3]\n\nA hitherto unpublished text of the Acts of St. Mammes of Caesarea, who lived in the 3rd century AD, also credits him with having traveled to the village of Oramar (modern-day Dağlıca) where he built a church, known today as El Ahmar Kilisesi. A church also in Oramar dedicated to his disciple St. Daniel is now the village mosque. Afterwards, St. 'Azīzā - reputedly a disciple of Mar Awgin - is credited with having arrived in Jīlū during the 4th century AD, establishing a monastery in the village of Zêrīnī. The earliest surviving manuscript from the Jīlū district was copied in this monastery and dates back to 1212/3.[4]\n\nThe Jīlū district is also home to one of the region's oldest churches, founded by St. Zayʿā and his disciple St. Tāwor in 427 AD. According to the Saint's vita, Jīlū at that time was the center of a kingdom named Jīlām-Jīlū and the church construction project was led by its king Bālaq son of King Zūraq. This church for many centuries was the cathedral of the Mār Sargīs Metropolitan Bishops of Jīlū. Most Jīlū's ancient churches are still standing, despite having been abandoned and in a state of decay for nearly a century.\n\n5th century, Church of the East origins\n\nThe Jīlū district was also important in the history of the Church of the East from an early period. At the synod of Catholicos Mār Isaac in 410 AD Beth-Bghāsh, located in the Jīlū village of Bé-Baghshé, was confirmed as a suffragan diocese of the ecclesiastical province of Adiabene.[5] The future Catholicos-Patriarch Timothy I, an influential figure in the Church of the East's missionary movement, became bishop of Beth-Bghāsh c.770 AD, upon the retirement of his elderly uncle Gīwargīs, and remained in the diocese until his election as Catholicos-Patriarch in 780 AD. Although a native of Hazzah near Arbil, his family is traditionally held to have originated from Jīlū.[6]\n\n15th century, destruction and revival\n\nIn 1448 the Jīlū district was ravaged by the Qara Qoyunlu and many of its villages lay abandoned for over a century.[4] This is probably the reason why the colophon of a manuscript copied in 1490 at Bé-Silim in the Baz district mentions only the metropolitan of Mosul. Normally, Baz would have been included in either the diocese of Beth-Bghāsh or Jīlū.[7]\n\nMost of the refugees from Jīlū fled to Assyrian districts in neighboring Iran. Evidence for this appears in the inclusion of Jīlū in the title of the metropolitan of Salamas around 1552, and the copying of a manuscript in the village of Naze north of Urmia in 1563 by the priest Paul of Oramar. Additionally, many Chaldean families in the Urmia region trace their ancestry to settlers originally from Jīlū. Among the most well known are the Malek-Yonan family of Geogtapa, who are descended from a Jīlū chieftain who founded the village in the 16th century. He also built a church there dedicated to St. Zayʿā which he set with stones brought from the original church in Jīlū.\n\nLater in the 16th century, many inhabitants from Jīlū returned to rebuild their homes and churches. Those of Zêrīnī found the church of St. 'Azīzā in ruins and, after rebuilding it, they acquired a text of the saint's legend from the town of Bakhdida in the Nineveh Plains.[8]\n\n16th-17th century\n\nSince the 16th century, and probably even earlier, the village of Mātā d-ʿUmrā d-Mār Zayʿā was the seat of a metropolitan bishop of the Church of the East. The diocese of this metropolitan bishop included the Hakkari districts of Jīlū, Baz, Tkhuma, Chāl (modern-day Çukurca), Ţāl, and Rékān.\n\nThe first historical mention of the diocese of Jīlū is from 1580, when the metropolitan of Jīlū, Siirt and Salamas, was elevated to the patriarchate of the Chaldean Catholic Church as Mār Shim'on IX Dinha (1580-1600). That year the new patriarch consecrated a metropolitan for Jīlū named Mār Sargīs, who was among the signatories of a letter from him to Pope Gregory XIII, and he is probably the same as the Metropolitan Mār Sargīs of Jīlū mentioned in hierarchies listed in the reports of 1607 and 1610 sent by Catholic patriarch Mār Shim'on X Eliyā (1600-1638) to Pope Paul V.\n\nIn 1610 also, the large village of Sāţ is recorded as being the residence of bishop named Mār Gīwargīs, who was probably a suffragan of Mār Sargīs. The report of 1610 also mentioned that the Malik of Jīlū was named David, and he commanded 4,000 fighting men; the Malik of Ishtāzin was named 'Caitar', and he was in charge of 500 fighters; and Sāţ was led by a man named 'Chartus', probably also a Malik, who in his turn commanded 300 fighters.[9]\n\nIn the late 17th century the diocese severed its ties with Catholicism, along with the rest of the Qudshānis patriarchate, and returned to being traditionalist. The metropolitan bishops of Jīlū were usually nominated from the same clan and all bore the hereditary title Mār Sargīs. An exception to this appears to have been the patriarch Mār Shim'on XV Michael Mukhattas (1740-1780), who is said to have been metropolitan of Jīlū before being elevated to the patriarchate and, indeed, the Cathedral of Sts. Zayʿā and Tāwor is commonly held to have served at certain times as the residence of the patriarchs of that line.\n\nIt is during this period that a new line of bishops belonging to the same clan as the metropolitans of Jīlū, Bé-Yagmālā, was established at the village of Gāgawran (modern-day Aksu) in the nearby Gāwār plain. These distant blood-relatives, who took the name Mār Slīvā, probably began as suffragans of Mār Sargīs and are first mentioned in a manuscript colophon from 1743.[10]\n\n19th century\n\nNineteenth-century bishop Mār Yawsip Sargīs was described by Sir Austen Henry Layard, who met him at the village of Nahrā in late August 1849, as \"... a young man of lofty stature and handsome countenance...\" and likened his look to that of a hunter or warrior.[11]\n\nIn 1891 he was visited by British explorer and writer Isabella Bird, who described him as \"a magnificent-looking man with a superb gray beard, the beau-ideal of an Oriental ecclesiastic.\"[12]\n\nThis bishop was approached by the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1890 and 1895, but on both occasions he refused to convert to Catholicism.[13] It is around this time that the inhabitants of the large and isolated village of Sāţ converted to the Catholicism in their entirety.\n\nMetropolitan Bishops of Jīlū\n\nName\n\nBirth\n\nConsecration\n\nDeath\n\nMār Yawsip Sargīs\n\n1819, Mātā d-ʿUmrā d-Mār Zayʿā\n\n1839, Qudshānis\n\n1899, Mātā d-ʿUmrā d-Mār Zayʿā\n\nMār Zayʿā Sargīs\n\n29 July 1888, Mātā d-ʿUmrā d-Mār Zayʿā\n\n5 July 1900, Qudshānis\n\n12 May 1951, Baghdad\n\nMār Īshoʿ Sargīs\n\n1911, Mātā d-ʿUmrā d-Mār Zayʿā\n\n14 May 1951, Baghdad\n\n19 December 1966, London (buried at St. Zayʿā Cathedral in Karrādat Maryam, Baghdad)\n\nMar Yawsip Sargis\n\n1950 Baghdad\n\n2 March 1967, Baghdad\n\nCurrently residing in Modesto, California\n\n20th century, post-genocide\n\nThe last of these metropolitan bishops to reside at Mātā d-Mār Zayʿā was Mār Zayʿā Sargīs, who was consecrated at 11 years of age. During the Assyrian genocide the bishop moved to the Salamas district between 1915 and 1918, then remained at the Baqubah refugee camp between 1918 and 1920, before moving to Mosul in 1920. From 1921 onward his see was fixed at the village of Khirshéniyah, immediately to the northwest of Alqosh in the Dohuk Governorate, where a small church was built dedicated to St. Zayʿā. Then in 1941 his see was moved to Baghdad, where a large Jīlū émigré community existed at Camp al-Sikak (the \"Railroads Camp\") with a mud-brick church dedicated to St. Zayʿā built in the 1920s.\n\nAfter the Iraqi revolution in 1958, a new Cathedral dedicated to St. Zayʿā was built at Karrādat Maryam, with large contributions in money and in kind from Jīlū entrepreneurs Lira and Supar. On 24 June 1959 the new cathedral was dedicated by Metropolitan Mar Yawsip Khnanishu and Bishop Mār Īshoʿ Sargīs. This dedication was marked by the attendance of high-profile officials, among them the new Iraqi president Abd al-Karim Qasim, as well as other religious leaders.\n\nIn the mid-1980s the cathedral was appropriated by the Iraqi government, which planned to turn the surrounding area into a restricted area. In return, a parcel of land was given in the Mechanics' quarter (Hayy al-Mīkānīk) of Dora, Baghdad. A new cathedral was built there and dedicated in 1986, forming the only parish of the \"diocese of Baghdad\" to which the current bishop from this line, Mar Yawsip Sargis, was assigned. In 2002 the bishop left for the United States and has since been unable to return to his diocese. He currently resides in exile at Modesto, California. For many years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq the cathedral in Baghdad was closed, reopening in 2009. With the death of the resident parish priest in 2011, the cathedral is no longer used for regular worship.\n\nLegend and Tradition\n\nAccording to Lalayan (Assyrians of the Van District, 1914), there was an oral legend concerning the origins and history of the Maliks of Greater Jīlū. The tradition is probably full of historical errors, but must have some element of truth to it.\n\nIt narrates that a man named Mandū, from the clan of \"Nebuchadnezzar,\" for some unknown reason set out from the city of Āthor (Mosul), traveling in the company of his four brothers: Bārut, Yôsip, Bākus and Issé. Mandū had promised that he would settle in a place where they could feed him the head and shanks of a sheep (a dish called pāchā). After a long journey Mandū and his brothers arrived at a place named Pāchū, where a poor man fed them pāchā. Mandū observed that he had reached his destination and decided to stay there and become the head of that district. He chose a good place, later known as Zārānīsh (Zêrīnī), just opposite from Pāchū. There he built a house for himself.\n\nOne day as Mandū was walking in the forest, he saw four birds but did not know from where they had come. He also saw a black stone, and nearby, a locked church. In his dream that night he saw the key to the church and a candelabra buried under the black stone. The next morning he went and found the key under the black stone, opened the church and entered it to pray. From that day that church became a place for worship for all the residents of the village. One day, as Mandū was walking according to his habit, he saw a large cave filled with human bones. He inquired and was told that some people had escaped from the Persians and had hidden themselves in this cave. The Persians found the cave and lit a fire before its entry, killing those inside it.\n\nAround the village there used to live some pagans who Mandū converted to Christianity, killing those who refused to. Mandū did not molest those from four well-known families though, and ordered them to go and live in a nearby village. They went as ordered and their descendants still remained for some time but did not increase. Each had remained one family only. Descendants of Malik Mandū became Maliks of Greater Jīlū, and also took the name of Mandū.\n\nThe same tradition recounts that during the reign of one of the Maliks, the Mar Shim'on (Catholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East) fled from Āthor (Mosul) and sought refuge in Alqosh. The Persians then came and conquered the area and took Mār Shim'on to Persia, permitting him to live in the town of Ushnū, where he settled as a refugee and built a large cathedral. After a while Malik Mandū is said to have freed Mār Shim'on from the Persians and brought him to Zêrīnī. For 60 years after that time the Mār Shim'ons lived in Zêrīnī. The grave of one of them was even said to be located in the village cemetery. It is not clear why they left Zêrīnī and settled in the village of Tirqônis, and later in Qudshānis, which was given to them as a gift by Malik Mandū. They did not stay long in Qudshānis either because the village was near Julamerk, and prone to the raids of its Kurdish Emir (prince).\n\nHe was therefore obliged to move to the district of Dīzan. Malik Mandū was not pleased that Mār Shim'on had left Qudshānis. He conferred with the Kurdish Emir of Julamerk on how he could return Mār Shim'on to Qudshānis. He went to Dīzan and burned Mār Shim'on's residence near the village of Rabbān Dād-Īsho'. Later they collected money and built a new one for him in Qudshānis, and invited him to live in it. In this manner Mār Shim'on was made to accept the invitation to go and settle in Qudshānis.\n\nIt continues to tell that the 'throne' of Malik Mandū was inherited by Malik Ahron. He attacked the Kurdish castle of Khirwāt (modern-day Hirvata near the Gawar Plain), took it and destroyed it. It was a great victory. Malik Ahron was followed by another who took the name Mandū. He also, like former Maliks, was a man of war. When there was a conflict with Malik Khubyar of Bāz, he attacked the district and killed a number of its inhabitants. Malik Mandū was followed by Malik Sulaymān and during his reign the Ottoman Government thought it was necessary to post its representatives in those parts. The Government appointed a local Rayyis (Chief) each in Julamerk, Gawar, and Shamdinan (Shamsdin). These Chiefs tried in every way to prevent fighting between the various tribes in the area. Therefore, Malik Sulaymān and Malik Shlëmun who followed him, both had kept peace among the other tribes.\n\nMalik Shlëmun was followed by Malik Wardā. It was said that he was bribed by the Kurdish chief of Oramar, not to aid the Assyrian tribes of Dīzan, Ţyāré, Tkhūmā when they were attacked by Kurdish Emir Badr Khān Beg of Bohtan and his allies. During the massacres of Badr Khan the Kurds attacked, plundered, killed and stole their cattle, but Malik Wardā did not interfere to defend the Assyrian tribes. Malik Īshū, who followed Malik Wardā, attacked the Assyrian Tkhuma Tribe and took away 2,000 head of sheep. After that the tribe of Dīzan attacked Tkhūmā, occupied the lands of Qarāsū, and put their own cattle in their planted fields. Malik Īshū attacked the Dīzan tribe, and took their cattle. He then controlled their fields and collected their farming produce for himself.\n\nMalik Īshū was followed by Malik Mirzā. Nothing is known about this Malik. During the time of Malik Khālil who followed Malik Mirzā, Kurdish tribes attacked Jīlū tribes and stole 2,000 head of sheep. Malik Khālil complained to the Ottoman government, later taking 400 strongmen from his tribe and 40 Turkish soldiers to attack the Kurdish chief of Oramar. He was forced to pay Malik Khālil 200 Liras, 682 sheep, seven mules, four cows, and some carpets and other things. Afterwards, in 1909 Malik Khālil traveled to Europe to collect money. He was dressed in his native clothes and was introduced into the presence of Pope Pius X. He explained to the Pope that he was Malik of Jīlū and added that there was no education in his country and requested Pope's permission to collect money to open schools.\n\nThe Pope gave his permission and in a short time he collected 18,000 Vatican Liras and returned home where he began to build a school building. He again went back to Europe to collect money. It appeared that he was impersonating a Catholic monk in his travels in Germany. As Lalayan had learned from a German Consul he knew, the German Government arrested Malik Khālil since they suspected him of fraud, i.e. collecting money for himself in the name of the Church, and he had requested the Consul to introduce him personally to German Government![14]\n\nLalayan (Assyrians of the Van District, 1914), also recounts the oral legend concerning the origins and history of the Maliks of Lesser Jīlū. It narrates that Malik Zāmū, considered the head of his clan, along with his brother Bayrijjé and their relatives, had come from the village of Ţirnākhīr in the Bohtān region and settled in the village of Ţelānā in Greater Jīlū. They had been exiled from their former homes by Kurds. Several Maliks inherited his position. One of the Maliks made strong kinship ties with one of the well-known families of Ţelānā by giving his daughter in marriage to one of their sons. It is not known when they settled in Zīr. From this clan was born a strongman named Aro, who later brought Ţelānā under his rule, and assumed the title and authority of Malik. He was succeeded by his son Malik Gewargīs, and then his grandson Malik Khammū, of whom nothing particular is known.[15]\n\nNotable Jīlū Assyrians\n\nMargaret George Shello (1942-1969)\n\nPeshmerga combat woman, Kurdistan Democratic Party Activist, and commander of a guerrilla unit during the First Iraqi-Kurdish War (1961-1970). Also known as \"Daya Kurdistan\" (the mother of Kurdistan).[16]\n\nFadi Merza Be-Gulawi\n\nWorld champion Muay Thai kickboxer[17]\n\nMalik Andrious\n\nMalik of Greater Jilu in the early 1920s. He was deported with Catholicos-Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai of the Assyrian Church of the East to Cyprus in 1933 after the Simele massacre.\n\nMalik Qambar\n\nMalik Qambar was a Catholic-Assyrian national leader and general of the Assyro-Chaldean battalion formed in 1920 as part of the French Foreign Legion.[18]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian tribes\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East to 1318\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East, 1318-1552\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East after 1552\n\nTyari\n\nGawar\n\nNochiya\n\nArosh and Halmon\n\nÖveç, Şemdinli\n\nBeyyurdu, Şemdinli\n\nReferences\n\n^ Layard, Austen Henry (1853). Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert: being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum. New York: New York, G.P. Putnam and Co. p. 430.\n\n^ \"The Petroglyphs of Anatolia\" (PDF). Saudi Aramco World. March-April 1984. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 January 2010. Retrieved 12 May 2011.\n\n^ Chabot, J.B., Synodicon Orientale, Paris, 1902, p. 285\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst, David, The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2000, p. 300\n\n^ Chabot, J.B., Synodicon Orientale, Paris, 1902, p. 273\n\n^ Beth-Zay‘ā, Esha‘yā Shamāshā Dāwīd, Tash‘īthā d-Beth-Nahreyn, Tehran: Assyrian Youth Cultural Society Press, 1963, p. 895\n\n^ Wilmshurst, David, The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2000, p. 278\n\n^ Wilmshurst, David, The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2000, p. 301\n\n^ Wilmshurst, David, The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2000, p. 286-7\n\n^ Wilmshurst, David, The ecclesiastical organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2000, p. 282\n\n^ Layard, Austen Henry, Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon: with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert: being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum, London: G.P. Putnam and Co., 1853, p. 434\n\n^ Bird, Isabella, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, including a summer in the Upper Karun region and a visit to the Nestorian rayahs, London: J. Murray, 1891, vol. ii, pp. 282 and 306\n\n^ Coakley, J.F., The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of The Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, pp. 175 and 178\n\n^ Lālāyān, K.A., Āthorāyé d-Māhal d-Wān, Tehran: Assyrian Youth Cultural Society Press, 1968, pp. 27-31\n\n^ Lālāyān, K.A., Āthorāyé d-Māhal d-Wān, Tehran: Assyrian Youth Cultural Society Press, 1968, pp. 31-32\n\n^ \"Margaret George, Bandita\". AL-BAB: Impressions of a Middle East - Past and Present. October 19, 2009. Retrieved 27 May 2015.\n\n^ \"Dominion - January 2010\". Archived from the original on 2010-03-14.\n\n^ \"Militärledaren Malik Qambar\". Huyada (in Swedish). 2017-07-23. Retrieved 2022-06-16.\n\nSources\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nCoakley, J.F. (1992). The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198267447."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jilu"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3908}, {"slug": "reference-duduk", "title": "Duduk", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The Armenian duduk (/duːˈduːk/ doo-DOOK; Armenian: դուդուկ IPA: [duˈduk])[1] or Tsiranapogh (Armenian: ծիրանափող, meaning \"apricot-made wind instrument\"), is a double reed woodwind instrument made of apricot wood originating from Armenia.[2][3] Variations of the Armenian duduk appear throughout the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Middle East.[4][5] The duduk, balaban...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Duduk\nDuduk\n\nWoodwind instrument\n\nClassification\nWind instrument with double reed\n\nInventorArmenians\n\nRelated instruments\n\nClosely related instruments include the Mey (Turkey), Balaban (Azerbaijan, Iran), Yasti Balaban (Dagestan), Duduki (Georgia), Duduk (Armenia), Hichiriki (Japan), Piri (Korea), Guanzi (China)\n\nMusicians\n\nDjivan Gasparyan, Gevorg Dabaghyan, Vache Hovsepyan, Levon Minassian, Pedro Eustache\n\nSound sample\n\nDuduk and its music\n\nUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage\n\nTwo Armenian boys playing the duduk\n\nCountryArmenia\n\nDomainsPerforming arts (music)\n\nReference00092\n\nRegionEurope and North America\n\nInscription history\n\nInscription2008 (3rd session)\n\nListRepresentative\n\nThe Armenian duduk (/duːˈduːk/ doo-DOOK; Armenian: դուդուկ IPA: [duˈduk])[1] or Tsiranapogh (Armenian: ծիրանափող, meaning \"apricot-made wind instrument\"), is a double reed woodwind instrument made of apricot wood originating from Armenia.[2][3] Variations of the Armenian duduk appear throughout the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Middle East.[4][5] The duduk, balaban and mey are almost identical, except for historical and geographical differences.[6]\n\nIt is commonly played in pairs: while the first player plays the melody, the second plays a steady drone called dum, and the sound of the two instruments together creates a richer, more haunting sound. The unflattened reed and cylindrical body produce a sound closer to the English horn than the oboe or bassoon. Unlike other double reed instruments like the oboe or shawm, the duduk has a very large reed proportional to its size.\n\nUNESCO proclaimed the Armenian duduk and its music as a Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005 and inscribed it in 2008.[7][8] Duduk music has been used in a number of Hollywood films.\n\nEtymology\n\nBoth the Russian book Musical Instruments Encyclopedia (Музыкальные инструменты. Энциклопедия) and American book Musical Instruments, A Comprehensive Dictionary give an ultimate origin of the word duduk as Persian, from tutak.[9][10]\n\nAccording to some, the name for the instrument may be derived from the Turkish düdük, meaning \"reed pipe\".[a] Yaşar Çağbayır and Gerard Clauson derive düdük from Old Turkic tütek, which etymologically means \"something which steams or smokes\", and in practice \"a spout\" or more generally \"a tube\", \"a pipe as a musical instrument\" and \"water-pipe\".[18][17] The word düdük can also mean \"whistle\" in Turkish expressions.[12]: 4 \n\nIn Armenia, the instrument is also known as tsiranapogh (ծիրանափող), which means apricot pipe.[7]\n\nOverview\n\nThe duduk is a double reed instrument with ancient origins, having existed since at least the fifth century, while there are Armenian scholars who believe it existed more than 1,500 years before that.[3]: 334  The earliest instruments similar to the duduk's present form are made of bone or entirely of cane. Today, the duduk is exclusively made of wood with a large double reed, with the body made from aged apricot wood.[19]\n\nThe particular tuning depends heavily on the region in which it is played. An eight-hole duduk (not counting the thumb hole on the lower side) can play ten successive notes of a diatonic scale with simple fingering, or sixteen consecutive notes of a chromatic scale by half-covering holes. For example, an A duduk can play all the notes from F♯ to the A more than an octave higher.[20][21] (Another reference gives different information.[22]) By using the lips to \"bend\" notes and partially covering holes any pitch in this range can be produced, as required for Oriental music.[23] The instrument's body has different lengths depending upon the range of the instrument and region. The reed (Armenian: եղեգն, eġegn), is made from one or two pieces of cane in a duck-bill type assembly. Unlike other double-reed instruments, the reed is quite wide, helping to give the duduk both its unique, mournful sound, as well as its remarkable breathing requirements. The duduk player is called dudukahar (դուդուկահար) in Armenian.\n\nThe performers use air stored in their cheeks to keep playing the instrument while they inhale air into their lungs. This \"circular\" breathing technique is commonly used with all the double-reed instruments in the Middle East.[24]\n\nDuduk \"is invariably played with the accompaniment of a second dum duduk, which gives the music an energy and tonic atmosphere, changing the scale harmoniously with the principal duduk.\"[25]\n\nHistory\n\nArmenian musicologists cite evidence of the duduk's use as early as 1200 BC, though Western scholars suggest it is 1,500 years old.[26] Variants of the duduk can be found in Armenia and the Caucasus. The history of the Armenian duduk music is dated to the reign of the Armenian king Tigran the Great, who reigned from 95 to 55 B.C.[8] According to ethnomusicologist Dr. Jonathan McCollum, the instrument is depicted in numerous Armenian manuscripts of the Middle Ages, and is \"actually the only truly Armenian instrument that's survived through history, and as such is a symbol of Armenian national identity ... The most important quality of the duduk is its ability to express the language dialectic and mood of the Armenian language, which is often the most challenging quality to a duduk player.\"[27]\n\nBalkan duduk\n\nWhile \"duduk\" most commonly refers to the double reed instrument described on this page, there is a very similar instrument played in northwestern Bulgaria. This is a blocked-end flute known as a kaval, resembling the Serbian frula, or kavalče in a part of North Macedonia,[28] and as duduk in northwest Bulgaria.[29][30] Made of maple or other wood, it comes in two sizes: 700-780 millimetres (28-31 in) and 240-400 millimetres (9.4-15.7 in) (duduce). The blocked end is flat.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nThe sound of the duduk has become known to wider audiences through its use in popular film soundtracks. Starting with Peter Gabriel's score for Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, the duduk's archaic and mournful sound has been employed in a variety of genres to depict such moods. Djivan Gasparyan played the duduk in Gladiator, Syriana, and Blood Diamond, among others.[31][32] It was also used extensively in Battlestar Galactica.[33] In the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, its sound was combined with the flicking of a trombone bell to create the fictitious Tsungi horn, most notably played by Iroh and often being featured in the show's soundtrack.[34][35] With many of the members who worked on ATLA now working on The Dragon Prince, the duduk regularly appears in its soundtrack as well. The sound of the duduk was also used in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for a lullaby which Mr. Tumnus plays on a fictitious double flute, and was featured in the theme song of the Dothraki clan during the TV adaptation Game of Thrones.[36][37]\n\nArmenia's entry in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, \"Apricot Stone\", featured Armenian musician Djivan Gasparyan playing the duduk.\n\nSelected film soundtracks\n\nThe Armenian duduk has been used in a number of films, especially \"to denote otherworldliness, loneliness, and mourning or to supply a Middle Eastern/Central Asian atmosphere\".[38]\n\nArarat (2002) by Mychael Danna\n\nAvatar (2009) by Nacer Khemir, in the track \"Shutting Down Grace's Lab\"\n\nBab'Aziz: le prince qui contemplait son âme (Bab'Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul), 2005 by Nacer Khemir\n\nBedtime Stories (2008) by Rupert Gregson-Williams[39]\n\nBrotherhood of the Wolf (2001) by Joseph LoDuca\n\nThe Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) by Harry Gregson-Williams, in the track \"A Narnia Lullaby\"[40]\n\nConstantine (2005) by Brian Tyler, Klaus Badelt, in the track \"Circle of Hell\"\n\nThe Crow (1994) by Graeme Revell featuring the duduk player Djivan Gasparyan\n\nDead Man Walking (1995) by David Robbins\n\nDune (2021) by Hans Zimmer, duduk by Pedro Eustache[41]\n\nDune: Part Two (2024) by Hans Zimmer, duduk by Pedro Eustache[42]\n\nElektra (2005) by Christophe Beck[39]\n\nGladiator (2000) by Djivan Gasparyan in the track \"Duduk of the North\"[43]\n\nHotel Rwanda (2004) main theme music[44]\n\nHulk (2003) duduk by Pedro Eustache by Danny Elfman[45]\n\nThe Island (2005) by Steve Jablonsky[39]\n\nThe Kite Runner (2007) by Alberto Iglesias[39]\n\nMunich duduk by Pedro Eustache (2005) by John Williams\n\nMayrig (1991) by Omar Al Sharif\n\nNext (2007) by Mark Isham[39]\n\nThe Last Temptation of Christ (1988) by Peter Gabriel, featuring the duduk player Vatche Hovsepian\n\nThe Passion of The Christ (2004) by Mel Gibson, composer John Debney duduks by Pedro Eustache and Chris Bleth\n\nPirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) by Hans Zimmer[39]\n\nRendition (2007) by Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian, duduk by Pedro Eustache\n\nRonin (1998) by Elia Cmiral, duduk by Albert Vardanyan\n\nSyriana (2005) by Alexandre Desplat, duduks by Djivan Gasparyan and Pedro Eustache\n\nThe Russia House (1990) by Jerry Goldsmith\n\nThe Siege (1998) by Graeme Revell, in the track \"Torture\"\n\nVantage Point (2008) by Atli Orvarsson[39]\n\nWanted (2008) by Danny Elfman[39]\n\nWarriors of Heaven and Earth (2003) by A. R. Rahman[46]\n\nYou Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) by Rupert Gregson-Williams[39]\n\nTelevision soundtracks\n\nAngel by Rob Kral[39]\n\nAvatar: The Last Airbender by Jeremy Zuckerman features the instrument in a recurring motif associated with the character of Zuko, most notably in the tracks \"Iroh's Tsungi Horn\" and \"The Blue Spirit\"[34]\n\nBattlestar Galactica (2004 TV series) by Bear McCreary. Its tracks \"Two Funerals\", \"Starbuck on the Red Moon\", \"Escape from the Farm\", \"Colonial Anthem, \"Black Market\", \"Something Dark is Coming\", \"Martial Law\", \"Prelude to War\" feature the duduk.[47][48][49] Roslin's theme was set to lyrics a second time for the third-season premiere \"Occupation\", this time in Armenian.\n\nBuffy the Vampire Slayer by Christophe Beck, Tomas Wanker, Rob Dunkin, Douglas Stevens[39]\n\nCastle by Robert Duncan[39]\n\nChildren of Dune by Brian Tyler in the tracks \"Dune Messiah\", \"The Throne of Alia\", \"The Preacher At Arrakeen\", \"Farewell\"[50]\n\nCold Case by Michael A. Levine[39]\n\nCSI: New York by Bill Brown[39]\n\nFirefly by Greg Edmonson[39]\n\nGame of Thrones by Ramin Djawadi features the instrument in Daenerys Targaryen's theme[51]\n\nJAG by Steve Bramson[39]\n\nThe Mummy Who Would Be King by Gil Talmi, Andrew Gross[39]\n\nOver There by Ed Rogers[39]\n\nThe Pacific by Blake Neely and Geoff Zanelli[39]\n\nPath to 9/11 by John Cameron[39]\n\nRome by Jeff Beal[52]\n\nThe Dragon Prince by Frederik Wiedmann[53]\n\nSpartacus by Randy Miller. Track \"Second Thought\"\n\nStar Trek: Enterprise by Paul Baillargeon[39]\n\nYu-Gi-Oh! by Wayne Sharpe\n\nXena: Warrior Princess by Joseph Loduca\n\nThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power by Bear McCreary, features this instrument in settings of the Númenor theme.\n\nBoohbah\n\nFoundation (TV series) by Bear McCreary features the instrument in a recurring motif associated with the character of Gaal Dornick.\n\nVideo game scores\n\nShards of the Exodar in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade by Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford and Russell Brower\n\nDalaran in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King by Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford and Russell Brower\n\nOrsis in Hearthstone: League of Explorers\n\nCivilization V by Michael Curran[54][55]\n\nCrimson Dragon by Saori Kobayashi and Jeremy Garren\n\nDark Void by Bear McCreary[39]\n\nDota 2 by Jason Hayes\n\nF.E.A.R. by Nathan Grigg\n\nGod of War III by Gerard Marino\n\nMass Effect by Jack Wall[56]\n\nMyst III: Exile by Jack Wall\n\nMyst IV: Revelation by Jack Wall[39]\n\nOutcast by Lennie Moore in the track \"Oriental Spirit\"\n\nPrince of Persia: The Two Thrones by Inon Zur[39]\n\nUncharted 2 by Greg Edmonson[39]\n\nCroft Manor Theme in Tomb Raider Legend by Troels Brun Folmann\n\nThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) by Jeremy Soule in the track \"Tundra\"\n\nTotal War: Rome II by Richard Beddow\n\nEmpire: Total War\n\nMetro Exodus by Oleksii Omelchuk\n\nXenoblade Chronicles 3 by Kenji Hiramatsu in both Day and Night versions of the track \"Eagus Wilderness\"\n\nSonic Frontiers in the movements for Ares Island by Tomoya Ohtani (duduk performed by Tarumi Yasutaka)[57]\n\nPopular music\n\n\"Come Talk to Me\" by Peter Gabriel (from the 1992 album Us)\n\n\"Zachem Ya\" by t.A.T.u. (from the 2001 album 200 Po Vstrechnoy)\n\n\"Prelude & Nostalgia\" by Yanni (from the 1997 album Tribute)\n\n\"Prelude & Nostalgia\" by Yanni (from the 2006 album Yanni Live! The Concert Event)\n\n\"Science\" and \"Arto\" (Hidden Track) by System of a Down (from the 2001 album Toxicity)\n\n\"Jenny Wren\" (2005) and \"Back in Brazil\" (2018) by Paul McCartney\n\n\"All That I Am\" by Rob Thomas (from the 2006 album ...Something to Be)\n\n\"Touching the Void\" by Soulfly (from the 2008 album Conquer)\n\n\"Qélé, Qélé\" by Sirusho (from the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest Armenian entry)\n\n\"1944\" by Jamala (2015)\n\n\"Soulfly X\" by Soulfly (from the 2015 album Archangel)\n\n\"Model Village\" by Gong (band) (from the 2016 album Rejoice! I'm Dead!)\n\n\"Come Along\" by Cosmo Sheldrake (from the 2017 album \"The Much Much How How and I\", and featured in advertisements for Apple's iPhone XR in the UK, USA, and Canada)\n\n\"Meeting\" album by A.G.A. Trio with Arsen Petrosyan on Duduk (2020 by NAXOS WORLD)\n\nAnime soundtracks\n\nArrietty by Cécile Corbel, in the track \"Sho's Song - Instrumental Version\"\n\nTales from Earthsea by Tamiya Terashima, in the tracks \"The Trip\", \"The Spider\" and \"Violent Robbery/The Seduction of the Undead\".[58]\n\nSee also\n\nMusic of Armenia\n\nGusans\n\nAulos\n\nShvi\n\nZurna\n\nSring\n\nMoscow festival\n\nNotes\n\n^ Attributed to multiple references.[11][12]: 17 [13][14][15][16][17]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Moore, J. Kenneth (2006). \"Book Reviews: Andy Nercessian, The Duduk and National Identity in Armenia\". Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society. 32. American Musical Instrument Society: 183-186. p. 183: ... the duduk (pronounced doo-dook) ...\n\n^ At’Ayan, Robert; McCollum, Jonathan (25 May 2016). \"Duduk (i)\". Grove Music Online. Vol. 1. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.L2294080.\n\n^ a b Hargopian, Harold (1999). \"Armenia: The Sorrowful Sound\". In Broughton, Simon; Ellingham, Mark; Trillo, Richard (eds.). World Music: The Rough Guide. Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East. London: Rough Guides. pp. 332-337. ISBN 978-1-85828-635-8. p. 335: ... there is one - the duduk (double reed flute) - which is indigenous to Armenia .... (Link - via Google Books. Archived 2018-05-09 at the Wayback Machine.)\n\n^ Stokes, Jamie, ed. (2008). Peoples of Africa and the Middle East. Vol. 1. Facts On File. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-8160-7158-6. One of the oldest indigenous Armenian instruments is the duduk, a woodwind instrument usually made from apricot wood, with a double reed.\n\n^ \"Armenian duduk and other Armenian folk instruments\" (PDF). UNESCO. June 2003. p. 32. Retrieved 16 March 2014. Duduk is considered to be the most Armenian of all folk instruments for its Armenian origin and honest expression. It has a 1500-year history and is native to Armenia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.\n\n^ Karahasanoğlu, Songül (2008). \"A Comparativ View of the Mey, Balaban and Duduk as Organological Phenomena\". The Journal of Academic Studies - CANAS Ataturk Kultor (in English and Turkish) (37): 437-447. Retrieved 28 February 2022.\n\n^ a b \"Sounds of Armenian duduk\". UNESCO. November 2012. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Duduk and its music were inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008 (originally proclaimed in 2005). The duduk, or dziranapogh in Armenian, is a double-reed woodwind instrument made of apricot wood, conventionally called the \"Armenian oboe\".\n\n^ a b \"Duduk and its Music\". UNESCO. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 16 March 2014. The roots of Armenian duduk music go back to the times of the Armenian king Tigran the Great (95-55 BC)\n\n^ Marcuse, Sibyl (1964). \"Duduk\". Musical Instruments, A Comprehensive Dictionary. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. p. 157.\n\n^ Есипова М. В. [Esipova, M. V.], ed. (2008). Дудук (свистковая флейта и язычковый духовой инструмент) [Duduk (whistle flute and reed wind instrument)]. Музыкальные инструменты. Энциклопедия [Musical instruments Encyclopedia] (in Russian). Moscow: Дека-ВС [Deca-Sun]. pp. 207-209. ISBN 978-5-901951-40-8.\n\n^ Latham, Alison, ed. (2011). The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. A term, derived from the Turkish düdük, used for a family of double-reed instruments of ancient Armenian origin.\n\n^ a b Nercessian, Andy (2001). The Duduk and National Identity in Armenia. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781461672722.\n\n^ Mikhaĭlovich Prokhorov, Aleksandr, ed. (1973). Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. Michigan: Macmillan. p. 438.\n\n^ Горбачевич, Кирилл Сергеевич [Gorbachevich, Kirill Sergeevich], ed. (1991). Словарь современного русского литературного языка [Dictionary of the Modern Russian Literary Language] (in Russian). Vol. 4. Moscow: Ру́сский язы́к. p. 4.\n\n^ Евгеньевой А. П. [Evgenyeva, A. P.], ed. (1999). Дудук [Duduk]. Словарь русского языка [Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian). Vol. 1. Moscow: Ру́сский язы́к. In 4 volumes.\n\n^ Kuznetsov, S. A. (1998). Большой толковый словарь русского языка: А-Я [Comprehensive Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language: A-Z] (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Норинт [Norint].\n\n^ a b Clauson, Gerard (1972). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 455.\n\n^ Çağbayır, Yaşar (2017). Ötüken Türkçe Sözlük 5 Cilt. Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat. p. 1318.\n\n^ Andrea L. Stanton; Edward Ramsamy; Peter J. Seybolt, eds. (2012). Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. p. 167. ISBN 9781412981767.\n\n^ \"Duduk Fingering Chart\". ArmenianDuduk.am.\n\n^ \"HOW TO PLAY DUDUK 3: Playing a scale\". YouTube. DudukLessons.com. 3 February 2014.\n\n^ Vartan, John (2000). \"Armenian Duduk An Instructional Book For Beginners\" (PDF). American Recording Productions. Archived from the original on January 18, 2006.\n\n^ David Brown (27 April 2017). \"The Duduk & Mey: History, Info and Set-Up\". Lark in the morning.\n\n^ Albright, Ch. (15 December 1988). \"BĀLĀBĀN\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014.\n\n^ \"WWW.DUDUK.CO.UK - Professional Armenian Duduks, Zurnas, Ghamish by Master Arthur Grigoryan\". Archived from the original on 2006-03-04. Retrieved 2006-02-20. Duduk Info at Ethnicinstruments.co.uk\n\n^ \"Gasparyan, Djivan | Encyclopedia.com\". www.encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011.\n\n^ Turpin, Andy (12 February 2010). \"Nothing Sounds Armenian Like a Duduk: ALMA Lecture\". Armenian Weekly. Archived from the original on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2014.\n\n^ www.macedoniadirect.com/instruments/supelki.htm Archived 2006-05-25 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Дудук : Horo.bg - българският сайт за народни хора, песни, танци, обичаи, фолклор\" (in Bulgarian). Horo.bg. Archived from the original on 2013-09-27. Retrieved 2013-09-22.\n\n^ For a detailed description of the instrument (in Bulgarian), see \"Бит и култура | Речник на остарели, редки, чуждици и диалектни думи ДЛ-ДУ\". Archived from the original on 2012-02-16. Retrieved 2012-03-04.\n\n^ Tsioulcas, Anastasia (6 July 2021). \"Jivan Gasparyan, Armenian Musician Beloved By Rock Stars And Hollywood, Has Died\". NPR. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ Zakoyan, Lilit (14 July 2021). \"Nectar for the Bitter World\". The Armenian Weekly. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Bear McCreary - Official site\". www.bearmccreary.com. 28 September 2006. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2018.\n\n^ a b Acastus (12 August 2006). \"Music Interview with the Track Team (part 3 of 3)\". Avatar Spirit. Archived from the original on 28 February 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2025.\n\n^ Firriolo, Andrew (19 November 2025). \"Composer Jeremy Zuckerman Reveals How He Brought Aang's World To Life In \"Avatar\"\". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Harry Gregson-Williams Talks Narnia & Narnian Lullaby Clip\". Archived from the original on July 21, 2012.\n\n^ Kalus, Ruben (22 April 2016). \"No flutes allowed: Composer Ramin Djawadi on the music of Game of Thrones\". Deutsche Welle. Archived 2016-11-01 at the Wayback Machine.\n\n^ Hung, Eric (2011). Leonard, Kendra Preston (ed.). Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon. Lanham, Maryland, US: Scarecrow Press. p. 259. ISBN 9780810877658.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y \"Chris Bleth Movie Credits\". Chrisbleth.com. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014.\n\n^ Brennan, Mike (2 December 2005). \"The Chronicles of Narnia Review\". Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. These include the use of the duduk as Mr. Tumnus' pipe in \"A Narnia Lullaby\"...\n\n^ King, Darryn (22 October 2021). \"How Hans Zimmer Conjured the Otherworldly Sounds of 'Dune'\". The New York Times.\n\n^ Broxton, Jonathan (8 March 2024). \"DUNE, PART TWO- Hans Zimmer | MOVIE MUSIC UK\". New York Times.\n\n^ \"Gladiator (Soundtrack) by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard\". www.tracksounds.com. Archived from the original on 20 June 2006. Retrieved 9 May 2018.\n\n^ \"Hotel Rwanda Film Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams, Andrea Guerra: Film Music on the Web CD Reviews April 2006\". Archived from the original on 2011-11-29. Retrieved 2011-09-20.\n\n^ \"Hulk: Editorial Review\". Filmtracks. 8 June 2003. Archived from the original on 22 July 2003.\n\n^ Savita Gautham. \"inese rhapsody\". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 2004-02-25. Retrieved 2003-10-23.\n\n^ \"Instruments of Battlestar Galactica: Duduk\". Bearmccreary.com. 2006-09-28. Archived from the original on 2010-05-31. Retrieved 2010-02-15.\n\n^ \"Duduk: The Instrument That Makes Hollywood Cry\". Galactica-station.blogspot.com. 2004-02-26. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2010-02-15.\n\n^ \"Battlestar Galactica: Season Two\". Musicweb-international.com. Archived from the original on 2011-10-14. Retrieved 2010-02-15.\n\n^ \"Children of Dune\". Cinemusic.net. Archived from the original on November 15, 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-15.\n\n^ \"Game of Thrones Composer Ramin Djawadi: 'I'm Just Trying to Create Something Magical' (Q&A)\". The Hollywood Reporter. 15 April 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-12-25. Retrieved 2013-12-27.\n\n^ \"Jeff Beal - Interview\". www.soundtrack.net. Archived from the original on 9 May 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.\n\n^ \"The Role of Orchestration and Instrumentation in The Dragon Prince: Piano and Death\". Max Luo. Retrieved 2021-01-11.\n\n^ \"Civ5in\". Michaelcurran.net. Archived from the original on 2013-09-27. Retrieved 2013-09-22.\n\n^ \"Rome - Augustus Caesar War - \"Ancient Roman Melody Fragments\" by Geoff Knorr\". ISSUU. Archived from the original on 2015-04-22. Retrieved 2013-09-22.\n\n^ Bloodworth, Daniel (2012-04-09). \"BackTrack: Composing Mass Effect - Jack Wall Interview, Part 1 | Side Mission\". GameTrailers. Archived from the original on 2012-06-05. Retrieved 2013-09-22.\n\n^ Ohtani, Tomoya (7 December 2022). Sonic Frontiers Original Soundtrack Stillness & Motion (booklet). Tokyo, Japan: Wave Master Entertainment. p. 11-12. WWCE-31540~5.\n\n^ Benoit Basirico (2005-11-14). \"Gedo Senki (Les Contes de Terremer)\". Cinezik.org. Archived from the original on 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2010-02-15."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-duduk"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3609}, {"slug": "reference-jiloan-hamad", "title": "Jiloan Hamad", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Jiloan Mohammed Hamad Amin Alla Werdi (Arabic: جِيلْوَان مُحَمَّد حَمَد أَمِين عَلَاء وَرْدِيّ; born 6 November 1990), simply known as Jiloan Hamad, is a former professional footballer who played as a winger.[2][3] Born in Soviet Azerbaijan and of Iraqi descent, Hamad moved to Sweden and represented their national...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Jiloan Hamad\n\nHamad with Hammarby IF in 2018\n\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nJiloan Mohammed Hamad Amin Alla Werdi[1]\n\nDate of birth\n (1990-11-06) 6 November 1990\n\nPlace of birth\nBaku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union[1]\n\nHeight\n1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)\n\nPosition\nWinger\n\nYouth career\n\nBK Forward\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n2007\nBK Forward\n23\n(8)\n\n2008-2013\nMalmö FF\n126\n(22)\n\n2014-2017\n1899 Hoffenheim II\n6\n(0)\n\n2014-2017\n1899 Hoffenheim\n15\n(1)\n\n2015\n→ Standard Liège (loan)\n6\n(1)\n\n2017-2018\nHammarby IF\n54\n(15)\n\n2019\nIncheon United\n11\n(1)\n\n2019-2021\nGorica\n52\n(6)\n\n2021-2022\nÖrebro SK\n41\n(6)\n\n2023\nAl-Kholood\n5\n(0)\n\n2023-2024\nUthai Thani\n23\n(6)\n\n2024\nLee Man\n6\n(0)\n\n2025\nZakho\n2\n(0)\n\nTotal\n\n370\n(66)\n\nInternational career\n\n2006-2007\nSweden U17\n9\n(4)\n\n2007-2009\nSweden U19\n17\n(2)\n\n2009-2012\nSweden U21\n28\n(3)\n\n2011-2018\nSweden\n8\n(0)\n\n2019\nIraq\n1\n(0)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals\n\nJiloan Mohammed Hamad Amin Alla Werdi (Arabic: جِيلْوَان مُحَمَّد حَمَد أَمِين عَلَاء وَرْدِيّ; born 6 November 1990), simply known as Jiloan Hamad, is a former professional footballer who played as a winger.[2][3] Born in Soviet Azerbaijan and of Iraqi descent, Hamad moved to Sweden and represented their national team before switching to represent Iraq.\n\nEarly and personal life\n\nHamad was born in Azerbaijan, and is of Kurdish descent.[4] His family originates from Ranya, Iraqi Kurdistan.[5][6] They sought refugee status in both Turkmenistan and Russia before settling in Sweden in 1992, when Jiloan was two years old.[7] Mohammed Hamad, Jiloan's father, was a guerrilla warrior in the Kurdish peshmerga for 15 years before fleeing Iraq together with his wife and children.[8]\n\nClub career\n\nBK Forward\n\nHaving joined their youth setup aged 14-15,[7] Hamad started his footballing career at the local club BK Forward in Örebro. He debuted in the senior team in 2006, aged 16, when the club competed in the Swedish third tier called Division 1.[9] During the upcoming two seasons, he played 23 competitive games for the club, scoring 8 goals. During this period, he enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Jimmy Durmaz, his childhood friend who later would move on to play with him at Malmö FF.[10] Before switching to the Scanian team he was refused by the local club Örebro SK, with the club citing that Hamad \"was too short\".[9]\n\nMalmö FF\n\nHamad came to Malmö FF from BK Forward in December 2007.[11] He made his Allsvenskan debut on 17 September 2008 in a 0-4-loss against IF Elfsborg. After only having played one match for the club in 2008, Hamad had a breakthrough in 2009 when he played 20 matches and scored two goals. In 2010, he battled with teammate Jimmy Durmaz for the position as left midfielder. Hamad ended up playing 27 games although only starting in 10, the majority of which were played as right midfielder. In the final game of 2010, he scored the game-winning goal against Mjällby AIF that secured the title, the day after his 20th birthday.\n\nHamad started the 2011 season with injury problems and missed the start of the season. He recovered and became the natural choice for playing right midfielder after team-mate Guillermo Molins was sold in the summer transfer window of 2011. Hamad also participated in the club's campaign to qualify for the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League and scored the goal that took the club through to the play-off round after equalizing at home against Rangers. He continued to play in Europe as the club qualified for the group stage of the 2011-12 UEFA Europa League after losing in the play-off round of the Champions League. During the 2011 season Hamad signed a new contract to the end of the 2013 season.[12]\n\nHamad played all of Malmö FF's 30 league matches during the 2012 season. He also scored six goals which was his best goal production since joining the club. Hamad was also given the captaincy for the majority of the team's matches. Former captain Daniel Andersson had stepped down to focus on coaching duties before the beginning of the season and new captain Ulrich Vinzents received limited time on the pitch.\n\nThe 2013 season was Hamad's first and only season as full-time captain for the club. In total he played 28 matches and scored eight goals in the league. He also played all matches for the club during the qualification stage for the 2013-14 UEFA Europa League and scored two goals. Some of his goals in the early part of the season was match-deciding, on 14 April 2013 he scored the only goal of the game in the home fixture against Kalmar FF, one week later he made the same accomplishment in the away fixture against AIK. Malmö FF secured the title one round before the competition of the league and Hamad could raise Lennart Johanssons Pokal on 3 November 2013 after a last home win against Syrianska FC. His last match for the club was the 2013 Svenska Supercupen against IFK Göteborg which Malmö FF won 3-2. For his performances in the 2013 Allsvenskan season he won midfielder of the year and was also nominated for most valuable player of the year.\n\n1899 Hoffenheim\n\nOn 30 October 2013, Bundesliga club 1899 Hoffenheim confirmed the free transfer of Jiloan Hamad to the club with a contract until 2017.[13] The transfer went through on 1 January 2014 when the German transfer window opened. During the same spring he played 8 competitive games for his new side.\n\nAfter attracting a serious injury during his loan spell at Standard Liège in 2015, he made his comeback for Hoffenheim in a Bundesliga fixture against Bayer Leverkusen on 23 January 2016, in which he scored the first goal in a 1-1 draw.[14]\n\nStandard Liège\n\nIn late January 2015, he was loaned to Belgian first tier side Standard Liège for the remainder of the 2014-2015 season.[15] He played 6 competitive games for the side, scoring once, before injuring his knee in late March 2015, effectively ending his season.[16]\n\nHammarby IF\n\nHe returned to his native country on 7 February 2017, signing a two-year deal (with an option for a further) with the Stockholm-based side Hammarby IF.[17][18] Hamad scored two goals in three games as Hammarby got knocked out in the group stage of the 2016-17 Svenska Cupen. On 3 April, the first match day of Allsvenskan 2017, he contributed with an assist to Rômulo's 2-1-goal in an away loss against IFK Norrköping.[19] He scored a brace for his side in a 2-1 away win against Halmstad on 14 May.[20] Hamad scored his first home goal at Tele2 Arena on 13 August 2017, from the penalty spot in a 2-2 draw against Östersund.[21]\n\nIncheon United\n\nOn 29 January 2019, Hamad signed with Incheon United in the K League 1.[22][23] On 23 July 2019 Jiloan Hamad parted ways with Incheon by mutual consent.\n\nAl-Kholood\n\nOn 31 January 2023, Hamad joined Saudi First Division League side Al-Kholood.[24]\n\nLee Man\n\nOn 8 July 2024, Hamad joined Hong Kong Premier League club Lee Man.[25]\n\nInternational career\n\nHaving been born in Azerbaijan, Hamad was able to represent both Iraq, Azerbaijan and Sweden.[7]\n\nSweden\n\nUnder-21\n\nHamad was a member and also for some time the captain of the Sweden U21 national side. On 7 September 2010, Hamad scored a last-minute goal for the 1-0 away win against Bulgaria U21 in a 2011 UEFA Euro U-21 Championship qualifier. In early 2011, Hamad revealed that he had rejected an offer from Azerbaijan coach Berti Vogts to play for his country of birth.[26]\n\nSenior\n\nHamad was first with the Sweden squad for the 2011 January training tour and played his first cap for Sweden during this tour.[27] His first cap for Sweden was against Botswana on 19 January 2011. Hamad was once again selected for the annual training camp for the Sweden national team in January 2012. The squad selection for the camp traditionally features the best Swedish players in domestic and other Scandinavian leagues.[28] He was selected for the friendly against England on 14 November, but did not get any playing time, and was then again selected for the winter tour in 2013.\n\nAfter a five-year absence, Hamad was called up to the Swedish squad for the training tour in January 2018. He made his return on the pitch in a 1-1 draw against Estonia, where several pundits praised Hamad's performance and voted him as the best player on the pitch.[29][30][31]\n\nIraq\n\nHamad was reported to be called up by Iraq in October 2018 though he declined to comment.[32] He was not called into Sweden's squad in December 2018.[33] On 26 February 2019, Hamad announced that he would represent the Iraq national team and \"help the team reach new heights\" from February 2019 and onward.[34]\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\nAs of match played 14 November 2018[35]\n\nAppearances and goals by club, season and competition\n\nClub\n\nSeason\n\nLeague\n\nCup\n\nContinental\n\nTotal\n\nDivision\n\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\n\nBK Forward\n\n2006\n\nDivision 1\n\n0\n0\n0\n0\n-\n0\n0\n\n2007\n\nDivision 1\n\n23\n8\n0\n0\n-\n23\n8\n\nTotal\n\n23\n8\n0\n0\n-\n23\n8\n\nMalmö FF\n\n2008\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n1\n0\n2\n0\n-\n3\n0\n\n2009\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n20\n2\n0\n0\n-\n20\n2\n\n2010\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n27\n3\n2\n0\n-\n29\n3\n\n2011\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n20\n3\n1\n1\n11\n2\n32\n6\n\n2012\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n30\n6\n1\n0\n-\n31\n6\n\n2013\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n28\n8\n3\n1\n6\n2\n37\n11\n\nTotal\n\n126\n22\n9\n2\n17\n4\n152\n28\n\n1899 Hoffenheim\n\n2013-14\n\nBundesliga\n\n7\n0\n1\n0\n-\n8\n0\n\n2014-15\n\nBundesliga\n\n1\n0\n0\n0\n-\n1\n0\n\n2015-16\n\nBundesliga\n\n7\n1\n0\n0\n-\n7\n1\n\n2016-17\n\nBundesliga\n\n0\n0\n0\n0\n-\n0\n0\n\nTotal\n\n15\n1\n1\n0\n0\n0\n16\n1\n\n1899 Hoffenheim II (loan)\n\n2013-14\n\nRegionalliga\n\n1\n0\n0\n0\n-\n1\n0\n\n2014-15\n\nRegionalliga\n\n2\n0\n0\n0\n-\n2\n0\n\n2015-16\n\nRegionalliga\n\n2\n0\n0\n0\n-\n2\n0\n\n2016-17\n\nRegionalliga\n\n1\n0\n0\n0\n-\n1\n0\n\nTotal\n\n6\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n6\n0\n\nStandard Liège (loan)\n\n2014-15\n\nBelgian Pro League\n\n6\n1\n0\n0\n-\n6\n1\n\nHammarby IF\n\n2017\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n25\n4\n4\n2\n-\n29\n6\n\n2018\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n29\n11\n4\n2\n-\n33\n13\n\nTotal\n\n54\n15\n8\n4\n0\n0\n62\n19\n\nCareer total\n\n230\n47\n18\n6\n17\n4\n265\n57\n\nInternational\n\nAs of match played 10 October 2019[36]\n\nAppearances and goals by national team and year\n\nNational team\nYear\nApps\nGoals\n\nSweden\n\n2011\n2\n0\n\n2012\n2\n0\n\n2013\n2\n0\n\n2014\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2015\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2016\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2017\n\n0\n\n0\n\n2018\n2\n0\n\nTotal\n\n8\n\n0\n\nIraq\n\n2019\n\n1\n\n0\n\nTotal\n\n1\n\n0\n\nCareer total\n9\n0\n\nHonours\n\nMalmö FF\n\nAllsvenskan: 2010, 2013\n\nSvenska Supercupen: 2013\n\nIndividual\n\nAllsvenskan midfielder of the year: 2013\n\nSee also\n\nList of Iraq international footballers\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Jiloan Hamad\". Global Sports Archive. Retrieved 22 November 2021.\n\n^ \"Klart: Jiloan Hamad blir ny expert på allsvenskan i TV4\". www.aftonbladet.se. Retrieved 10 October 2026.\n\n^ Thedéen, Jesper (14 July 2021). \"Hamad återvänder till Allsvenskan\". Fotbollskanalen. Retrieved 14 July 2021.\n\n^ Kristoffersson, Daniel (23 January 2012). \"Hyllar sin pappa - trots hård uppväxt\". Expressen. Retrieved 27 October 2014.\n\n^ Mubarak, Hassanin (30 October 2013). \"jiloan Hamad can still play for Iraq\". iraqsport.wordpress.com. Archived from the original on 25 November 2013. Retrieved 2 January 2014.\n\n^ Reimer, Arne (22 July 2009). \"Att få vara en av de tongivande spelarna i MFF skulle kännas häftigt\". mff.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 11 March 2013. Retrieved 7 March 2010.\n\n^ a b c Balal, Hassanane (23 September 2019). \"Interview With Jiloan Hamad - My Story So Far & Why I Chose Iraq Over Sweden\". IRAQ FOOTBALL. Retrieved 22 November 2021.\n\n^ Niva, Erik (25 February 2017). \"\"Alltid trott stenhårt på att jag har mitt öde i mina egna händer\"\". Aftonbladet.se (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 4 April 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2017.\n\n^ a b \"Jiloan Hamad: \"min kärlek för ÖSK försvann när de sa att jag var för liten\"\". Svenskafans.com. 16 March 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2017.\n\n^ \"Durmaz sågning av MFF: \"En sådan spelare tar man bara hem\"\". Svenskafans.com. 23 March 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2017.\n\n^ \"Malmö FF värvar talanger från Forward\". Fotbollskanalen. 9 November 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.\n\n^ \"Hamad förlänger\" (in Swedish). mff.se. Archived from the original on 6 November 2011.\n\n^ \"Schwedens Nationalspieler Jiloan Hamad wechselt zur TSG\". achtzehn99.de (in German). TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 30 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Succé för Hamad - mål i comebacken\". achtzehn99.de (in Swedish). Aftonbladet. 23 January 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2017.\n\n^ \"TSG loan out Hamad and Biteco\". TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. 31 January 2015. Archived from the original on 28 February 2015. Retrieved 28 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Jiloan Hamad borta resten av säsongen\". achtzehn99.de (in Swedish). Aftonbladet. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 10 February 2017.\n\n^ \"Jiloan Hamad klar för Bajen\". Hammarby Fotboll. 7 February 2017. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2017.\n\n^ \"Hamad joins Hammarby IF\". TSG 1889 Hoffenheim. 7 February 2017. Retrieved 10 February 2017.\n\n^ \"Uträknat HIF en felskriven slutscen från poäng\". Hammarby Fotboll. 2 April 2017. Archived from the original on 3 April 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2017.\n\n^ \"Jiloan Hamad matchhjälte och skadad\". Aftonbladet. 14 May 2017. Retrieved 14 May 2017.\n\n^ \"Bittert men hoppingivande kryss mot ÖFK\". Hammarby Fotboll. 13 August 2017. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2017.\n\n^ \"Jiloan Hamad har gjort klart med ny klubb - \"Tack för all kärlek!\"\" (in Swedish). Hammarby Fotboll. 29 January 2019. Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2019.\n\n^ [입단인터뷰] ‘다재다능 어태커’ 하마드, 인천에서의 새 도전에 설렘을 표하다 (in Korean). Incheon United. 29 January 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2019.\n\n^ \"جيلوان حمد ينتقل لصفوف فريق الخلود السعودي\".\n\n^ 港超聯 理文簽伊拉克國腳謝路安夏馬特 on.cc 8 July 2024\n\n^ \"Hamad nobbade Azerbadjan\". Sydsvenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 4 January 2011. Archived from the original on 8 January 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2011.\n\n^ Jönsson, Kent (14 December 2010). \"MFF-dominans i Hamréns trupp\". Sydsvenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). TT. Archived from the original on 5 January 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2011.\n\n^ Larsson, David B. \"Landslaget blir himmelsblågult: \"Vi är stolta\"\" (in Swedish). Fotbollskanalen. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2012.\n\n^ Daniel Kristoffersson (7 January 2018). \"Hamad glänste i Blågult\". Expressen. Archived from the original on 8 January 2018. Retrieved 7 January 2018.\n\n^ Patrik Brenning (7 January 2018). \"Frustrerande att se Hamad i Abu Dhabi\". Aftonbladet. Retrieved 7 January 2018.\n\n^ Olof Lundh (7 January 2018). \"En inställning i januari som inte alltid varit given\". Fotbollskanalen. Retrieved 7 January 2018.\n\n^ \"Hamad uppges aktuell för Iraks landslag\".\n\n^ \"Rätt spelare på vinterturné men helt fel resmål\".\n\n^ \"Klart: Hamad byter till Iraks landslag: \"Tiden är rätt\"\".\n\n^ Jiloan Hamad at Soccerway. Retrieved 13 January 2013.\n\n^ \"Jiloan Hamad\". National Football Teams. Benjamin Strack-Zimmermann. Retrieved 11 January 2018.\n\nExternal links\n\nMalmö FF profile (in Swedish)\n\nJiloan Mohamed Hamad at the Swedish Football Association (in Swedish)\n\nJiloan Hamad at Soccerway\n\nJiloan Hamad - K League stats at kleague.com (in Korean and English)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jiloan-hamad"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2555}, {"slug": "reference-upper-mesopotamia", "title": "Upper Mesopotamia", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Upper Mesopotamia or Upper Iraq, also called Jazira, the Iraqi Jazira or the Euphrates Jazira, constitutes the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in West Asia.[1] Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been known by...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Upper Mesopotamia or Upper Iraq, also called Jazira, the Iraqi Jazira or the Euphrates Jazira, constitutes the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in West Asia.[1] Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira (Arabic: الجزيرة, lit. 'the island', also transliterated Djazirah, Djezirah, Jazirah) and the Syriac variant Gāzartā or Gozarto (ܓܙܪܬܐ).[2] The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in eastern Turkey are in close proximity.\n\nThe region extends south from the mountains of Anatolia, east from the hills on the left bank of the Euphrates river, west from the mountains on the right bank of the Tigris river and includes the Sinjar plain. It extends down the Tigris to Samarra and down the Euphrates to Hit, Iraq. The Khabur runs for over 400 km (250 mi) across the plain, from Turkey in the north, feeding into the Euphrates.\n\nThe major settlements are Mosul, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, al-Hasakah, Diyarbakır, and Qamishli. The western Syrian part is essentially contiguous with the Syrian al-Hasakah Governorate and is described as \"Syria's breadbasket\".[3] The eastern Iraqi part includes the cities of Mosul, Duhok, Amedi and extends eastward just beyond Erbil.[4] In the north it includes the Turkish provinces of Şanlıurfa, Mardin, Şırnak, and parts of Batman Province and Diyarbakır Province.\n\nName\n\nThe name Mesopotamia is derived from Ancient Greek, meaning “the land between the two rivers,” in reference to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.[5] The earliest known antecedent of the name is the Akkadian term Bīritum Nārim, which corresponds to a similar geographical concept.[6] \n\nFollowing the Islamic conquest, the historical region of Mesopotamia came to be known as Iraq,[7][8][9] and the names of its constituent regions consequently changed as well. Upper Mesopotamia came to be known as al-Jazīra (Arabic: الجزيرة),[10] an Arabic term meaning “island,” referring to a land surrounded by water.[11] and the Syriac variant Gāzartā or Gozarto (ܓܙܪܬܐ).[2]\n\nIt is also known as al-Jazīra al-ʿIrāqiyya (الجزيرة العراقية, lit. 'the Iraqi Jazira'),[10][12] as it constituted the northern part of the land of Iraq.[13][14][15][16] It is also referred to as al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya (الجزيرة الفراتية, lit. 'the Euphrates Jazira'),[17] owing to the numerous branches and distributaries of the Euphrates in the region.[10] It is also sometimes referred to as Iqlīm ʾAqūr (إقليم أقور, lit. 'the Region of Aqūr'). Some scholars have proposed that the term Aqūr is a corrupted form of the name Ashūr.[12]\n\nGeography\n\nThe name al-Jazira has been used since the 7th century AD by Islamic sources to refer to the northern section of Mesopotamia, while the Lower Mesopotamia, also known as Sawād, is the southern part of Mesopotamia. The name means \"island\", and at one time referred to the land between the two rivers, which in Syriac is Beth Nahrain (ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ).[18] Historically, the name could be restricted to the Sinjar plain coming down from the Sinjar Mountains, or expanded to embrace the entire plateau east of the coastal ranges. In pre-Abbasid times the western and eastern boundaries seem to have fluctuated, sometimes including what is now northern Syria to the west and Adiabene in the east.\n\nAl-Jazira is characterised as an outwash or alluvial plain, quite distinct from the Syrian Desert and lower-lying central Mesopotamia; however, the area includes eroded hills and incised streams. The region has several parts to it. In the northwest is one of the largest salt flats in the world, Sabkhat al-Jabbul. Further south, extending from Mosul to near Basra is a sandy desert not unlike the Empty Quarter. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the region has been plagued by drought.\n\nHistory\n\nPrehistory\n\nAl-Jazirah is extremely important archeologically. This is the area where the earliest signs of agriculture and domestication of animals have been found, and thus the starting point leading to civilization and the modern world. Al-Jazirah includes the mountain Karaca Dağ in southern Turkey, where the closest relative to modern wheat still grows wild. At several sites (e.g. Hallan Çemi, Abu Hureyra, Mureybet) we can see a continuous occupation from a hunter-gathering lifestyle (based on hunting, and gathering and grinding of wild grains) to an economy based mainly on growing (still wild varieties of) wheat, barley and legumes from around 9000 BC (see PPNA). Domestication of goats and sheep followed within a few generations, but did not become widespread for more than a millennium (see PPNB). Weaving and pottery followed about two thousand years later.\n\nFrom Al-Jazirah the idea of farming along with the domesticated seeds spread first to the rest of the Levant and then to North-Africa, Europe and eastwards through Mesopotamia all the way to present-day Pakistan (see Mehrgarh).\n\nEarlier archeologists worked on the assumption that agriculture was a prerequisite to a sedentary lifestyle, but excavations in Israel and Lebanon surprised science by showing that a sedentary lifestyle actually came before agriculture (see the Natufian culture). Further surprises followed in the 1990s with the spectacular finds of the megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. The earliest of these apparently ritual buildings are from before 9000 BC-over five thousand years older than Stonehenge-and thus the absolute oldest known megalithic structures anywhere. As far as current knowledge goes, there were no firmly established farming societies during that time period. Farming appeared to be in an experimental stage, serving primarily as a supplement to ongoing hunting and gathering practices. This raises questions about whether (semi)sedentary hunter-gatherer communities were sufficiently affluent and numerous to coordinate and carry out large-scale communal construction projects. Alternatively, it suggests the possibility that well-established agricultural societies may have existed much earlier than previously recognized. Notably, Göbekli Tepe is located just 32 km from Karaca Dağ.\n\nThe questions raised by Göbekli Tepe have led to intense and creative discussions among archeologists of the Middle East.[19][20] Excavations at Göbekli Tepe continues, only about 5 percent has been revealed so far. Sumerians are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia.[21][22]\n\nEarly history\n\nThe Uruk period (c. 4000 to 3100 BC) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in Mesopotamia, including a section of the upper region.\n\nThe political history of Upper Mesopotamia and Syria during the Early Dynastic Period is well known from the royal archives recovered at Ebla. Ebla, Mari, and Nagar were the dominant states for this period. The earliest texts indicate that Ebla paid tribute to Mari but was able to reduce it after it won a military victory.[23][24] Cities like Emar on the Upper Euphrates and Abarsal (location unknown) were vassals of Ebla. Ebla exchanged gifts with Nagar, and a royal marriage was concluded between the daughter of a king of Ebla and the son of his counterpart at Nagar. The archives also contain letters from more distant kingdoms, such as Kish and possibly Hamazi, although it is also possible that there were cities with the same names closer to Ebla.[25] In many ways, the diplomatic interactions in the wider Ancient Near East during this period resemble those from the second millennium BC, which are particularly well known from the Amarna letters.[26]\n\nUpper Mesopotamia is also the heartland of ancient Assyria, founded circa the 25th century BC. From the late 24th Century BC, it was part of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BC) and, after a period of regional instability, the Neo-Sumerian Empire (c. 2112-2025 BC), before separating into three eras: Old Assyrian Empire (c. 2025-1364 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (c. 1363-912 BC), and Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 911-609 BC).\n\nThe region fell to the Assyrians' southern brethren, the Babylonians in 605 BC, and from 539 BC it became part of the Achaemenid Empire; Achaemenid Assyria was known as Athura. From 323 BC, it was ruled by the Greek Seleucid Empire, the Greeks corrupting the name to Syria, which they also applied to Aram.\n\nIt then fell to the Parthians and Romans and was renamed Assyria by both. The area was still known as Asōristān under the Sasanian Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia, when it was renamed al-Jazira.\n\nSince and pre-Islamic times, al-Jazira has been an economically prosperous region with various agricultural (fruit and cereal) products, as well as a prolific manufacturing (food processing and cloth weaving) system. The region's position at the border of the Sasanian and Byzantine territories also made it an important commercial center, an advantage that the region continued to enjoy, even after the Muslim conquest of Persia and Byzantine possessions in the Levant.\n\nAl-Jazira included the Roman/Byzantine provinces of Osroene and Mesopotamia, as well as the Parthian/Persian provinces of Asōristān, Arbayestan, Adiabene (including Nisibis and Mosul).[27] East and West Syriac monasticism, which had come into the region in the late fourth century, flourished in the sixth and early seventh century and survived into the Islamic period, with some monasteries even being founded up to the eight century, especially in the Tur Abdin.[28]\n\nIslamic empires\n\nThe conquest of the region took place under the early Caliphate that left the general administration of the region intact, with the exception of levying the jizya tax on the population. At the time of Mu‘awiyah, governor of Syria and the later of the Umayyad Caliphate), the administration of al-Jazira was included in the administration of Syria. During the early Umayyad Caliphate, the administration of al-Jazira was often shared with that of Arminiya, a vast province encompassing most of Transcaucasia, Eastern Anatolia and what is now Iranian Azerbaijan.\n\nThe prosperity of the region and its high agricultural and manufacturing output made it an object of contest between the leaders of the early conquering Arab armies. Various conquerors tried, in vain, to bind various cities of the former Sasanian provinces, as well as the newly conquered Byzantine provinces of Mesopotamia, into a coherent unit under their own rule.\n\nThe control of the region, however, was essential to any power centered in Baghdad. Consequently, the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate brought al-Jazira under the direct rule of the government in Baghdad. At this time, al-Jazira was one of the highest tax-yielding provinces of the Abbasid Empire.\n\nDuring the early history of Islam, al-Jazira became a center for the Kharijite movement and had to be constantly subdued by various caliphs.[29] In the 920s, the local Hamdanid dynasty established an autonomous state with two branches in al-Jazira (under Nasir al-Dawla) and Northern Syria (under Sayf al-Dawla). The demise of the Hamdanid power put the region back under the nominal rule of the Caliphs of Baghdad, while actual control was in the hands of the Buyid brothers who had conquered Baghdad itself. At the turn of the 11th century, the area came under the rule of a number of local dynasties, the Numayrids, the Mirdasids, and the Uqaylids, who persisted until the conquest by the Seljuq Empire.\n\nWith the arrival of the First Crusade, the western part came into Crusader hands as the County of Edessa, while the rest was ruled by a succession of semi-independent Turkish rulers until taken over by the Zengids, and eventually the Kurdish Ayyubids. Thereafter the northern and eastern portions were ruled initially by the Artuqids, laterly by the Kara Koyunlu and Akkoyunlu Turcomans and finally by the Safavids; while the western parts came under the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt until the Ottoman-Mamluk War (1516-17), when it was taken by the Ottoman Empire. Remainder of this region was in Ottoman hands after Battle of Chaldiran and Ottoman-Safavid War (1532-1555).\n\nModern history\n\nAlthough the region is ethnically diverse, it is considered to be the traditional Assyrian homeland in addition to Aramaic-speaking Christian descendants of the ancient Mesopotamians. Demographics saw huge shifts during the first half of the 20th century. Thousands of Assyrian refugees entered into Syrian Jazira province from Turkey following the Assyrian genocide of World War I. Additionally, in 1933 a further 24,000 Assyrian Christians fled into the area, following the Simele massacre in the Mosul region of northern Iraq.[30]\n\nViolence against Christians changed the demographics of Upper Mesopotamia. Some Kurdish and Persian tribes cooperated with Ottoman authorities in the Armenian and Assyrian genocides.[31] In the middle of the 19th century, and due to the wars between the Kurdish Buhti amirs and the Turks, many Christians in the Siirt area were killed by the Kurds.[32]\n\nIn Syria's Jazira province, the French official reports show the existence of 45 Kurdish villages in Jazira prior to 1927. After the failed Kurdish rebellions in Kemalist Turkey in the mid-1920s, there was a large influx of Kurds to Syrian Jazira province, that fell under the occupation of French Mandate authorities to escape the subsequent Turkish onslaught. It is estimated that 25,000 Kurds fled at this time to northern Syria, under French Mandate authorities, who encouraged their immigration,[33] and granted them Syrian citizenship.[34] A new wave of refugees arrived in 1929.[35] The mandatory authorities continued to encourage Kurdish immigration into Syria, and by 1939, the villages numbered between 700 and 800.[35] Sperl's estimation also contradicts the estimates of the French geographers Fevret and Gibert,[36] who estimated that in 1953 out of the total 146,000 inhabitants of Jazira, agriculturalist Kurds made up 60,000 (41%), nomad Arabs 50,000 (34%), and a quarter of the population were Christians.[36] Another account by Sir John Hope Simpson estimated the number of Kurds in Jazira province at 20,000 out of 100,000 people at the end of 1930.[37]\n\nUnder the French Mandate of Syria, newly arriving Kurds were granted citizenship by French Mandate authorities[38] and enjoyed considerable rights as the French Mandate authority encouraged minority autonomy as part of a divide and rule strategy and recruited heavily from the Kurds and other minority groups, such as Alawite and Druze, for its local armed forces.[39]\n\nAssyrian Christians began to emigrate from Syria after the Amuda massacre of 9 August 1937. This massacre, carried out by the Kurd Saeed Agha, emptied the city of its Assyrian population. In 1941, the Assyrian community of al-Malikiyah were subjected to a vicious assault. Even though the assault failed, the Assyrians were terrorized and left in large numbers, and the immigration of Kurds from Turkey to the area have converted al-Malikiya, al-Darbasiyah and Amuda to completely Kurdish cities. The historically important Christian city of Nusaybin had a similar fate after its Christian population left when it was annexed to Turkey. The Christian population of the city crossed the border into Syria and settled in Qamishli, which was separated by the railway (new border) from Nusaybin. Nusaybin became Kurdish and Qamishli became an Assyrian city. Things soon changed, however, with the immigration of Kurds beginning in 1926 following the failure of the rebellion of Saeed Ali Naqshbandi against the Turkish authorities.[40]\n\nRegions\n\nUpper Mesopotamia encompasses the northern part of West Asia. During the medieval period, Mesopotamia came to be known as Iraq,[7][8] a change that was accompanied by corresponding changes in the names of its constituent regions. Upper Mesopotamia came to be known as al-Jazīra, constituting the northern part of the land of Iraq.[13][14] The Muslim historian and geographer Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī attested:[41] \n\nIraq comprises Basra, Wāsit, Kūfa, Baghdad, al-Anbār, Hīt, and al-Jazīra.[a]\n\n- Muʿjam al-Buldān\n\nDuring the Gunpowder Age, al-Jazīra constituted part of the land of Iraq,[15][16] which was referred to in various forms, including ʿIrāq al-ʿArab and Hıṭṭa-i ʿIrāqiyye.[42][43] In the modern period, as a consequence of the World War I, the region was divided among three states: Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.\n\nSyria\n\nThroughout history, Iraq has maintained deep-rooted historical ties with the region known today as Syria. In antiquity, the empires of ancient Iraq, namely the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Chaldean empires, succeeded in incorporating Syrian territories under their rule, thereby satisfying the administrative unity of the ancient Near East. The name Syria (Arabic: سوريا, lit. 'Sūriyā') is also derived from Assyria in northern Iraq.[44][45][46] During the Islamic Golden Age, Syria formed part of the territories ruled by the Abbasids and administered from Baghdad, in central Iraq.\n\nEast Syria\n\nIraq and eastern Syria have shared the same historical trajectory since prehistoric times, and the eastern lands of present-day Syria remain, to this day, a stronghold of Iraqi culture. The region shares with Iraq its dialect, traditions, ethnic origins.[47][48] It was historically regarded as part of the land of Iraq, or of what may be termed Natural Iraq.[49]\n\nWith intimately and inseparably intertwined histories extending over millennia, Iraq ultimately and irrevocably lost the territories that constitute present-day eastern Syria in the course of the 20th century.[50] In the aftermath of the World War I these territories were placed under Iraqi-British administration. In 1919, Arab forces associated with the government of Faisal in Damascus occupied Zor, the administrative center of the region, bringing it under the authority of the Arab government in Syria.[51] The subsequent defeat and expulsion of Faisal's government by French forces in July 1920 brought these territories under French colonial administration. The subsequent establishment of the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon placed the western part of Upper Mesopotamia within the boundaries of the modern Syrian state, thereby ultimately separating the western Jazīra from Iraq.[50]\n\nWest Syria\n\nWestern Syria is rich in notable examples of Mesopotamian culture, with contact between Iraq and western Syria dating back to the fourth millennium BCE, during the Expansion of Uruk. The region was of considerable importance to the Mesopotamian Empires owing to its strategic location, and the movement of people and trade between the two regions left a profound cultural and religious impact on both.[52]\n\nDuring the medieval period, important dynasties such as the Hamdanids and Uqaylids emerged in Upper Iraq and succeeded in bringing extensive parts of Iraq and Syria, extending as far as the Mediterranean, under their rule within a unified political authority that played an important role in the history of the Islamic world.[53] One consequence of this political unity between the two regions was considerable intellectual and literary flourishing, as well as the emergence of the Mosul-Aleppo route as one of the major trade routes of the medieval world.[54]\n\nMany western Syrians adhere to the Alawite faith, which emerged in Iraq in the ninth century and subsequently spread in Syria through the efforts of al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥamdān al-Khaṣībī.[55] Alawism is generally regarded as a branch of Twelver Shi'ism, which is adhered to by the majority of Iraqis,[56] thereby contributing to strong religious and social ties between the two peoples.\n\nReligious status\n\nDjezirah is one of the four dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The others are in Aleppo, Homs-Hama and Damascus.[30]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nBeth Nahrain\n\nFertile Crescent\n\nGeography of Iraq\n\nNotes\n\n^ The Jazīra constitutes Upper Mesopotamia, while the remaining cities lie within Lower Mesopotamia, with Baghdad separating the two regions.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq\n\n^ a b Smith, J. Payne (1998). A compendious Syriac dictionary: founded upon the thesaurus syriacus. Eisenbrauns. p. 68. ISBN 1-57506-032-9. OCLC 1105266843.\n\n^ \"The next battlefield\". The Economist. Archived from the original on 2017-11-11. Retrieved 2017-09-17.\n\n^ \"The historical anatomy of Kerkuk region\". Turkmen.nl. Retrieved 2025-12-15.\n\n^ Hogg, Hope Waddell (1911). \"Mesopotamia\" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 179-187.\n\n^ Finkelstein, J. J. (1962), \"Mesopotamia\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 21 (2): 73-92, doi:10.1086/371676, JSTOR 543884, S2CID 222432558.\n\n^ a b Bosworth, C. E. (1998). \"ʿErāq-E ʿAjam(ī)\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 5. p. 538.\n\n^ a b Lockhart, L. (1965). \"D̲j̲ibāl\". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C-G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 534. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_2068. OCLC 495469475.\n\n^ In texts dating to the Islamic period, the geographical boundaries of the land of Iraq corresponded to those of the historical region of Mesopotamia. al-Ḥamawī, Yāqūt (1995) [1228]. Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān [Dictionary of Countries] (in Arabic). Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dār Sāder. p. 30.\n\n^ a b c Sūwādī, ʿAbd Muḥammad (1989). Al-Aḥwāl al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-Iqtiṣādiyya fī Bilād al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya [The Social and Economic Conditions in the Jazira] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Baghdad, Iraq: General Establishment for Cultural Affairs. p. 34.\n\n^ Al-Muʿjam al-Wasīṭ (in Arabic). Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo. 1972. p. 120.\n\n^ a b Al-Kaʿbī, ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm (2009). Al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya wa-Diyāruhā al-ʿArabiyya (Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, Diyār Muḍar) [The Jazira and Its Arab Districts: Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, and Diyār Muḍar] (in Arabic). Damascus, Syria: Ṣafḥāt for Studies and Publishing. p. 30. ISBN 978-9933-40-220-4.\n\n^ a b Sūwādī, ʿAbd Muḥammad (1989). Al-Aḥwāl al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-Iqtiṣādiyya fī Bilād al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya [The Social and Economic Conditions in the Jazira] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Baghdad, Iraq: General Establishment for Cultural Affairs. p. 37. The Euphrates Jazira constitutes the northern part of the region of Iraq, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers\n\n^ a b Al-Kaʿbī, ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm (2009). Al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya wa-Diyāruhā al-ʿArabiyya (Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, Diyār Muḍar) [The Jazira and Its Arab Districts: Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, and Diyār Muḍar] (in Arabic). Damascus, Syria: Ṣafḥāt for Studies and Publishing. p. 29. ISBN 978-9933-40-220-4.\n\n^ a b Ahmet Rifat, Lügât-i Tarihiyye ve Coğrafiyye (Tıpkıbasım- Facsimile), Keygar Neşriyat, Ankara: 2004, c. 6, s. 77. ve ayrıca bkz. Archived 2014-12-25 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b Azarbadegan, Zeinab (2018). \"Imagined Geographies, Re-invented Histories: Ottoman Iraq as Part of Iran\". Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. 5 (1). Indiana University Press: 124-125. doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.5.1.07.\n\n^ Ibn Khallikān, Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (1977) [1274]. ʿAbbās, Iḥsān (ed.). Wafayāt al-Aʿyān wa-Anbāʾ Abnāʾ al-Zamān [Deaths of Eminent Men and the Sons of the Epoch] (in Arabic). Vol. 5. Beirut, Lebanon: Dār Ṣādir. p. 147.\n\n^ A. Carlson, Thomas (June 30, 2014). \"Mesopotamia - ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ\". The Syriac Gazetteer. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020. Retrieved June 14, 2020.\n\n^ See discussion at Banning, E. B. (2011). \"So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East\". Current Anthropology. 52 (5): 619-660. doi:10.1086/661207. JSTOR 10.1086/661207. S2CID 161719608.\n\n^ \"Göbekli Tepe: Series Introduction\". Genealogy of Religion. 12 October 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-10-18. Retrieved 2013-03-24.\n\n^ Kleniewski, Nancy; Thomas, Alexander R (2010-03-26). Cities, Change, and Conflict: A Political Economy of Urban Life. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0495812227.\n\n^ Maisels, Charles Keith (1993). The Near East: Archaeology in the \"Cradle of Civilization\". Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0415047425.\n\n^ Archi, A.; Biga, M.G. (2003), \"A Victory over Mari and the Fall of Ebla\", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 55: 1-44, doi:10.2307/3515951, JSTOR 3515951, S2CID 164002885\n\n^ Charpin, D. (2008), \"Tell Hariri/Mari : Textes\", Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, 77-78: 223-224\n\n^ Frayne, Douglas (2008). The Royal inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Early periods, vol. 1, Presargonic Period (2700-2350 BC). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802035868.\n\n^ Biga, M.G. (1995), \"I rapporti diplomatici nel Periodo Protosiriano\", in Matthiae, P.; Pinnock, F.; Scandone-Matthiae, G. (eds.), Ebla, Alle origini della civiltà urbana, Milan, pp. 140-147{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Morony 1984, p. 126.\n\n^ Morony 1984, pp. 361-364.\n\n^ Morony 1984, pp. 468-477.\n\n^ a b Mouawad, Ray J. (2001-01-01). \"Syria and Iraq - Repression\". Middle East Quarterly. Archived from the original on 2007-08-05. Retrieved 2022-12-02.\n\n^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (2011). The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies. Transaction Publishers. p. 271. ISBN 978-1-4128-3592-3.\n\n^ Fiey, J. M. 1993. Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus, Répertoire des Diocèses Syriaques Orientaux et Occidentaux. Beirut. pp. 244-251.\n\n^ McDowell, David (2005). A Modern History of the Kurds (3. revised and upd. ed., repr. ed.). London [u.a.]: Tauris. p. 469. ISBN 1-85043-416-6.\n\n^ Kreyenbroek, Philip G.; Sperl, Stefan (1992). The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. London: Routledge. pp. 147. ISBN 0-415-07265-4.\n\n^ a b Tejel, Jordi (2009). Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society. London: Routledge. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-203-89211-4.\n\n^ a b Fevret, Maurice; Gibert, André (1953). \"La Djezireh syrienne et son réveil économique\". Revue de géographie de Lyon (in French). 28 (28): 1-15. doi:10.3406/geoca.1953.1294. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2012-03-29.\n\n^ Simpson, John Hope (1939). The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey (First ed.). London: Oxford University Press. p. 556. ASIN B0006AOLOA.\n\n^ Dawn Chatty (2010). Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East. Cambridge University Press. pp. 230-232. ISBN 978-1-139-48693-4.\n\n^ Yildiz, Kerim (2005). The Kurds in Syria : the forgotten people (1. publ. ed.). London [etc.]: Pluto Press, in association with Kurdish Human Rights Project. p. 25. ISBN 0745324991.\n\n^ Samn! (2013-12-22). \"Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: As-Safir on the History of the Persecution of Middle Eastern Christians\". Notes on Arab Orthodoxy. Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2022-12-02.\n\n^ al-Ḥamawī, Yāqūt (1995) [1228]. Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān [Dictionary of Countries] (in Arabic). Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dār Sāder. p. 30.\n\n^ Nuri, Nahar Muhammed (2018). \"Iraq Is Not Artificial: Iraqi Trends and the Refutation of the Artificial State Hypothesis\". AlMuntaqa. 1 (3). Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies: 9-39. doi:10.31430/almuntaqa.1.3.0009. JSTOR 10.31430/almuntaqa.1.3.0009.\n\n^ T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü (1993). Musul - Kerkük ile İlgili Arşiv Belgeleri (1525-1919) [Archival Documents Related to Mosul and Kirkuk (1525-1919)] (in Turkish). Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü.\n\n^ First proposed by Theodor Nöldeke in 1881; cf. Harper, Douglas (November 2001). \"Syria\". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 13 May 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2007.\n\n^ Frye, R. N. (1992). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (4): 281-285. doi:10.1086/373570. S2CID 161323237.\n\n^ Rollinger, Robert (1 October 2006). \"The Terms \"Assyria\" and \"Syria\" Again\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 65 (4): 283-287. doi:10.1086/511103. ISSN 0022-2968. S2CID 162760021. Archived from the original on 19 January 2023. Retrieved 19 January 2023.\n\n^ Ahmed, Abdulkareem Yaseen (2018). Phonological variation and change in Mesopotamia: a study of accent levelling in the Arabic dialect of Mosul (PhD thesis). Newcastle University.\n\n^ \"Syria's Eastern Front: The Iraq Factor | The Washington Institute\". www.washingtoninstitute.org. Retrieved 2026-09-19.\n\n^ Al-Ḥusaynī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq. Al-Thawra al-ʿIrāqiyya al-Kubrā [The Great Iraqi Revolution] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Qom, Iran: Al-Muḥibbīn. pp. 89-90. ISBN 964-7103-99-9.\n\n^ a b Tauber, Eliezer (1991). \"The Struggle for Dayr al-Zur: The Determination of Borders between Syria and Iraq\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 23 (3). Cambridge University Press: 361-385. doi:10.1017/S0020743800056348. JSTOR 164487.\n\n^ Ayyash, Abdul Qader (1989). The civilization of the Euphrates Valley. Syria - Damascus: Ahali for printing, publishing and distribution. p. 153.\n\n^ Goetze, A. (1975), Gadd, C. J.; Sollberger, E.; Edwards, I. E. S.; Hammond, N. G. L. (eds.), \"THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOMINATION OF SYRIA (1400-1300 B.C.)\", The Cambridge Ancient History, The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 2 (3 ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-20, doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521086912.002, ISBN 978-0-521-08691-2, retrieved 2026-09-20{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)\n\n^ Al-Muʿāḍidī, Khāshiʿ (1968). Dawlat Banī ʿUqayl fī al-Mawṣil [The State of the ʿUqaylid Dynasty in Mosul] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Baghdad, Iraq: Shafīq. p. 62.\n\n^ \"Hamdanid dynasty\". Islam story. July 16, 2008. Archived from the original on December 11, 2016.\n\n^ \"Alawite | Definition, Sect, Syria, & Assad Dynasty | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2026-09-20.\n\n^ \"National Profiles | World Religion\". The Association of Religion Data Archives (the ARDA). Retrieved 2026-09-20.\n\nBibliography\n\nMoore, Andrew M. T.; Hillman, Gordon C.; Legge, Anthony J. (2000). Village on the Euphrates: From Foraging to Farming at Abu Hureyra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510806-X.\n\nPeter M. M. G. Akkermans; Glenn M. Schwartz (2003). The archaeology of Syria: from complex hunter-gatherers to early urban societies (c. 16,000-300 BC). Cambridge University Press. pp. 72-. ISBN 978-0-521-79666-8. Retrieved 27 June 2011.\n\nIstakhri, Ibrahim. Al-Masālik wa-al-mamālik, Dār al-Qalam, Cairo, 1961\n\nBrauer, Ralph W., Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography, Philadelphia, 1995\n\nIbn Khurradādhbih. Almasalik wal Mamalik, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1967\n\nLe Strange, Guy (1905). The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia, from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.\n\nMohammadi Malayeri, Mohammad. Tārikh o Farhang-i Irān dar Asr-e Enteghaal, Tus, Tehran, 1996\n\nMorony, Michael G. (1984). Iraq after Muslim conquest. Princeton, N.J: Princeton university press. ISBN 0-691-05395-2."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-upper-mesopotamia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4748}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-universal-alliance", "title": "Assyrian Universal Alliance", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrian Universal Alliance (Syriac: ܚܘܝܕܐ ܬܒ̣ܝܠܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ, Arabic: الاتحاد الآشوري العالمي; Persian: اتحادیه جهانی آشوریان), usually abbreviated as AUA and popularly known as Khoyada (English: Unity) is an ethnic Assyrian worldwide umbrella organization made up of different sectors of the Assyrian federations and organizations throughout the world.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian Universal Alliance ‎ܚܘܝܕܐ ܬܒ̣ܝܠܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ\n\nGeneral SecretaryCarlo K. Ganjeh\n\nFoundedApril 13, 1968 (1968-04-13)\n\nHeadquartersCampbell, CA USA\n\nIdeologyAssyrian nationalism \n Minority rights\n\nInternational affiliationUNPO\n\nWebsite\n\nOfficial website\n\nAssyrian Universal Alliance (Syriac: ܚܘܝܕܐ ܬܒ̣ܝܠܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ, Arabic: الاتحاد الآشوري العالمي; Persian: اتحادیه جهانی آشوریان), usually abbreviated as AUA and popularly known as Khoyada (English: Unity) is an ethnic Assyrian worldwide umbrella organization made up of different sectors of the Assyrian federations and organizations throughout the world.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nOn the 13th of April 1968, the Assyrian Universal Alliance was founded in Pau, France where the first congress was held. The AUA as a global organisation seeks to spread, uphold and enhance the Assyrian name in the world, to secure the human rights of the Assyrian people in their homeland and to attain an autonomous state in the Assyrian homeland.[2][3]\n\nThe AUA has held 28 world congresses in which representatives of the Assyrian federations, organizations and political parties have participated, voicing the concerns of their respective communities and partaking in directing the affairs of the nation. Each AUA World Congress has convened in a different country to strengthen the relation between the AUA, the Assyrians and the government of that host country. The AUA World Congress has been held in the US, Europe, Australia, Iran and Iraq. The AUA had not been able to hold its World Congress in Iraq, the Assyrian homeland, until 2010 in Erbil as the aspirations of the Assyrian people were in direct conflict with the policies of the ruling Baath regime, which continuously denied Assyrians their national identity and status as the indigenous people of Iraq and persisted in its attempts to Arabize them.[4]\n\nThe current Secretary-General of the AUA is Carlo K Ganjeh. The current affiliates of the AUA include: the Assyrian National Congress of Georgia, Assyrian National Council of Iran, Assyrian Association of Armenia, Assyrian Australian National Federation and the Assyrian Federation of Russia.[5]\n\nAfter the inception of the AUA, a serious effort was undertaken to address the need of the Assyrian nation to have its own official flag. The worldwide effort netted a large number of designs which were presented in front of the AUA congress and a final design was approved at the 6th AUA congress in Yonkers, New York which was designed by Mr. George Bit-Atanus.[6]\n\nIdeology\n\nThe AUA does not see itself as a political party, rather as a collective that functions with political parties and leans towards appropriate institutions.[7] The founding document of the AUA declares \"Assyrian\" as the \"singular name for all members of our nation [umtan]\" and lists the various churches of Syriac heritage.[8]\n\nThe AUA's founding principles are centred around: \"One name for one nation, One language for one nation, One leadership for one nation, A homeland for one nation.”\n\nUNPO\n\nOn the 6th of August 1991, the Assyrian Universal Alliance became a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, representing Assyria.[9]\n\nThe AUA has continuously pushed for Assyrian rights during UNPO gatherings such as the General Assembly held in Taiwan, where the AUA presented the critical conditions of Assyrians living in Iraq and introduced a resolution that called the UNPO General Assembly to support an autonomous status (self-administered region) for Assyrians in Iraq.[10]\n\nIn August 1996, AUA delivered a statement to the UN sub-commission, voicing concerns over the discrimination against Assyrians in Northern Iraq as well as being deprived of preserving their identity. Thus, the AUA called for a civil administration to be put in place in Northern Iraq in order to provide the necessary services. In September 1996, an Assyrian delegation and the UNPO met with the assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq to brief him on the situation of Assyrians.[11]\n\nJohn J. Nimrod, former secretary-general of the AUA, served as chairman of the UNPO General Assembly from 1992 to 2004.[12]\n\nAssyrian Universal Alliance Foundation\n\nThe Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation (AUAF), a non-profit organization, was established in Chicago in 1978 as a response to the mass migration of Assyrian refugees to the United States, with the intent to assist with the resettlement process.[13]\n\nAUAF has since expanded its mission beyond social services to include humanitarian relief efforts, as well as educational and cultural programs. AUAF has developed multiple community programs such as a Fine Arts Program that identifies talented Assyrian Americans and engage their talents to become effective leaders, tutoring services for Assyrians in secondary school, scholarships, and the Ashurbanipal Library which was founded in the 1980s and is home to the largest and most extensive collection of Assyrian texts in the world.\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Universal Alliance\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"About AUA - Assyrian Universal Alliance\".\n\n^ Ryan, J. Atticus; Mullen, Christopher A. (1997). UNPO Yearbook 1997. Kluwer Law International.\n\n^ Minahan, James. Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A-C. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 209.\n\n^ \"AUA in brief\". Assyrian Universal Alliance. Retrieved September 1, 2018.\n\n^ \"Affiliates - Assyrian Universal Alliance\".\n\n^ Ashurian, Homer. \"Assyrian flag\". Assyrian Universal Alliance. Retrieved September 1, 2018.\n\n^ \"AUA Ideology\". Assyrian Universal Alliance. Retrieved September 1, 2018.\n\n^ Becker, Adam. Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism. University of Chicago Press. p. 354.\n\n^ \"UNPO\". Archived from the original on February 17, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2023.\n\n^ \"E Host\". www.ehostpros.com. Archived from the original on October 3, 2009. Retrieved April 17, 2023.\n\n^ Mullen, Christopher; Ryan, J. Atticus. Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization: yearbook 1996. p. 56.\n\n^ Jensen, Trevor (January 7, 2009). \"John J. Nimrod: 1922-2009\". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 1, 2018.\n\n^ \"About\". Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation. Retrieved September 1, 2018."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-universal-alliance"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 940}, {"slug": "reference-thomas-of-marga", "title": "Thomas of Marga", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Thomas of Marga, (Classical Syriac: ܬܐܘܡܐ ܒܪ ܝܥܩܘܒ, Taomá bár Yaˁqub) was an East Syriac bishop and author of an important monastic history in Syriac, who flourished in the 9th century CE. He was born early in the century in the region of Salakh to the north-east of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Thomas of Marga, (Classical Syriac: ܬܐܘܡܐ ܒܪ ܝܥܩܘܒ, Taomá bár Yaˁqub) was an East Syriac bishop and author of an important monastic history in Syriac, who flourished in the 9th century CE. He was born early in the century in the region of Salakh to the north-east of Mosul. As a young man he became in 832 a monk of the monastery of Beth 'Abhe, which was situated at the confluence of the Great Zab with one of its tributaries, about 25 miles east of Mosul. A few years later he was acting as secretary to Abraham, who had been abbot of Beth 'Abhe, and was patriarch of the Church of the East from 837 to 850.[1]\n\nAt some date during these 13 years Thomas was promoted by Abraham to be bishop of the diocese of Marga in the same district as Beth 'Abhe, and afterwards he was further advanced to be a metropolitan of Beth Garmai, a district farther to the southeast in the mountains which border the Tigris basin. It was during the period of his life at Beth 'Abhe and his bishopric that he composed The Book of Governors, which is in the main a history of his own monastery, but includes lives of Christian holy men in other parts of Mesopotamia and the regions east of the Tigris. The work was probably planned in imitation of the famous Paradise of Palladius, the history of Egyptian monasticism which had become well known to Syriac-speaking Christians in the version of Anan-Isho (6th century).[1]\n\nThe Book of Governors has been edited with an English translation and a copious introduction by E. W. Budge (2 vols., London, 1893; Google Books), who claims that \"it occupies a unique position in Syriac literature, and it fully deserves the veneration with which it has been and is still regarded by all classes of Nestorians to whom it is known.\" It gives a detailed history of the great monastery of Beth 'Abhe during its three centuries of existence down to the author's time. It is full of interesting narratives of saintly men told in a naive and candid spirit, and it throws much light on the history of Christianity in the Persian dominions. There is a later edition by P. Bedjan (Paris, 1901).[1]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c McLean 1911.\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: McLean, Norman (1911). \"Thomas of Margā\". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 865."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-thomas-of-marga"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 421}, {"slug": "reference-nineveh-plains", "title": "Nineveh Plains", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Nineveh Plains (Classical Syriac: ܦܩܥܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ, romanized: Pqaʿtā ḏ-Nīnwē, Modern Syriac: ܕܫܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ, romanized: Daštā d-Ninwe; Arabic: سهل نينوى, romanized: Sahl Naynawā; Kurdish: ده‌شتا نه‌ینه‌وا, romanized: Deşta Neynewa) is a region in Nineveh Governorate in Iraq. Located to the north and east of the city Mosul, it is...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nineveh Plains\n سهل نينوى\nܦܩܥܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ\nده‌شتا نه‌ینه‌وا\n\nRegion\n\nMap of the three districts which constitute Nineveh plains overlaid over the Nineveh Governorate map.\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nLargest cityBakhdida\n\nGovernment\n\n • Governor of HamdaniyaNisan Karromi\n\n • Governor of Tel KeppeRaad Naser\n\n • Governor of Al-ShikhanHasu Narmu\n\nArea\n\n • Total4,197 km2 (1,620 sq mi)\n\nPopulation\n\n • Total500,000\n\n • Density117/km2 (300/sq mi)\n\n • Census281,829\n\nNineveh Plains (Classical Syriac: ܦܩܥܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ, romanized: Pqaʿtā ḏ-Nīnwē, Modern Syriac: ܕܫܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ, romanized: Daštā d-Ninwe; Arabic: سهل نينوى, romanized: Sahl Naynawā; Kurdish: ده‌شتا نه‌ینه‌وا, romanized: Deşta Neynewa) is a region in Nineveh Governorate in Iraq. Located to the north and east of the city Mosul, it is the only Christian-majority region in Iraq and has been a gathering point for Iraqi Christians since 2003. Control over the region is contested between Iraqi security forces, KRG security forces, Assyrian security forces, Babylon Brigade and the Shabak Militia.[1]\n\nThe plains have a heterogenous population of Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christians belonging to different churches: the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic, the Syriac Orthodox church, and the Syriac Catholic church; as well as Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis, Shabaks and Turkmens.[2] The plains are also rich in the ruins of ancient Assyrian cities and religious sites, such as Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin, Mar Mattai Monastery, Rabban Hormizd Monastery and the Tomb of Nahum.[3]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Middle Bronze Age Kingdom of Andarig used to be located in the north. Peutinger's map of the inhabited world known to the Roman geographers depicts Singara as located west of the Trogoditi. Persi. (Latin: Troglodytae Persiae, \"Persian troglodytes\") who inhabited the territory around Mount Sinjar. By the medieval Arabs, most of the plain was reckoned as part of the province of Diyār Rabīʿa, the \"abode of the Rabīʿa\" tribe. The plain was the site of the determination of the degree by al-Khwārizmī and other astronomers during the reign of the caliph al-Mamun.[4] Sinjar also boasted a famous Church of the East cathedral in the 8th century.[5]\n\nAttacks on Christians\n\nFollowing the concerted attacks on Assyrians in Iraq, especially highlighted by the Sunday, August 1, 2004 simultaneous bombing of six Churches (Baghdad and Mosul) and subsequent bombing of nearly thirty other churches throughout the country, Assyrian leadership, internally and externally, began to regard the Nineveh Plain as the location where security for Christians may be possible. Schools especially received much attention in this area and in Kurdish areas where Assyrian concentrated population lives. In addition, agriculture and medical clinics received financial help from the Assyrian diaspora.\n\nAs attacks on Christians increased in Basra, Baghdad, Ramadi and smaller towns. more families turned northward to the extended family holdings in the Nineveh Plain. This place of refuge remains underfunded and gravely lacking in infrastructure to aid the ever-increasing internally displaced people population.\n\nIn February 2010, the attacks against Assyrians in Mosul forced 4,300 Assyrians to flee to the Nineveh plains where there is an Assyrian-majority population.[6] From 2012, it also began receiving influxes of Assyrians from Syria owing to the civil war there.[7][8]\n\nIn August 2014 nearly all of the non-Sunni inhabitants of the southern regions of the Plains were driven out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive.[9]\n\nCreation of an autonomous province\n\nThe Assyrian inhabited towns and villages on the Nineveh Plain form a concentration of those belonging to Syriac Christian traditions, and since this area is the ancient home of the Assyrian empire through which the people trace their cultural heritage, the Nineveh Plain is the area on which an effort to form and has become concentrated. There have been calls by some politicians inside and outside Iraq to create an autonomous region for Assyrians in this area.[10][11]\n\nIn the Transitional Administrative Law adopted in March 2004 in Baghdad, not only were provisions made for the preservation of Assyrian culture through education and media, but a provision for an administrative unit also was accepted. Article 125 in Iraq's Constitution states that: \"This Constitution shall guarantee the administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights of the various nationalities, such as Turkomen, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and all other constituents, and this shall be regulated by law.\"[12][13] Since the towns and villages on the Nineveh Plain form a concentration of those belonging to Syriac Christian traditions, and since this area is the ancient home of the Assyrian empire through which these people trace their cultural heritage, the Nineveh Plain is the area on which the effort to form an autonomous Assyrian entity have become concentrated. The same article has been used to proclaim an autonomous province for the Yezidi people.[14]\n\nOn January 21, 2014, the Iraqi government had declared that Nineveh Plains would become a new province, which would serve as a safe haven for Assyrians.[15]\n\nAfter the liberation of the Nineveh Plain from ISIL between 2016/17, all Assyrian political parties called on the European Union and UN Security Council for the creation of an Assyrian self-administered province in the Nineveh Plain.[16][17]\n\nBetween the 28th-30 June 2017, a conference was held in Brussels dubbed The Future for Christians in Iraq.[18] The conference was organised by the European People's Party and had participants extending from Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac organizations, including representatives from the Federal Iraqi Government and Kurdistan Region. The conference was boycotted by the Assyrian Democratic Movement, Sons of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Patriotic Party, Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East. A position paper was signed by the remaining political organizations involved.[19]\n\nA 2019 testimony from Assyrian activist Reine Hanna at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom claimed that the rate of Assyrian return in towns guarded by the Nineveh Plain Protection Units was significantly higher than those controlled by other forces following the end of the Islamic State's occupation of the Nineveh Plain. The NPU guarded Assyrian town of Bakhdida, for example, saw a 70% return of the town’s original Assyrian population (about 35,000 Assyrians). In Tesqopa, which is controlled by KRG Peshmerga, the rate of return is about 20% of the original Assyrian population. In Tel Keppe, which is controlled by PMF Brigade 50, the return rate of the original Assyrian population is about 7%.[20]\n\nGeography\n\nNineveh Plains lie to the east, northeast of the city of Mosul in the Iraqi Nineveh Governorate, plus between Semi-arid climate and Mediterranean climate. The ancient city of Nineveh stood where the eastern outskirts of Mosul are today, on the bank of the Tigris river. The Nineveh Plains is the only region in Iraq where a plurality of inhabitants follow Syriac Christianity. Before ISIL invaded Nineveh, Assyrians made up around 40% of the population within the plains.[21]\n\nPopulation\n\nThe Nineveh Plains are not only the historical homeland of the Assyrian people and a crucible of pre-Arab, pre-Kurdish, pre-Islam Mesopotamian civilisation, and it is a region where a majority of the population is currently drawn from the minorities.[22]\n\nChurches\n\nIn 2019 and 2020 the Christians of the Nineveh Plains belonged to the following Eastern churches:[23]\n\nSyriac Catholic Church (51.8%)\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church (31.9%)\n\nChaldean Catholic Church (15.7%)\n\nAncient Church of the East (0.3%)\n\nAssyrian Church of the East (0.1%)\n\nMelkite Greek Catholic Church (0.1%)\n\nEconomy\n\nThe Nineveh Plain appears to hold under its rich agricultural lands an extension of the petroleum fields tapped in 2006 by the Kurdistan Region in direct contract with foreign oil exploration companies. It is believed that this added incentive for absorption by the KRG of the region may lead to economic conflict with Sunni Arab tribes in the Mosul region itself. Assyrians claim that without Nineveh Plain autonomous administration, the indigenous Assyrian presence in its ancient homeland could well disappear. There are some oil reserves in Nineveh Plains.[24] The amount of crude oil in the Nineveh Plains stretching from Shekhan to Alqosh is 25 billion barrels which is worth $10 trillion.[25]\n\nMost of the inhabitants have practiced dry agriculture since ancient times and rely on the fertile plains to the south, growing agricultural products like grain, wheat, beans and in the summer goods such as cantaloupe and cucumber. Farmers followed old non-technological methods in their farming for several centuries, and their livelihood was always threatened due to natural disasters such as droughts or plant epidemics such as grasshoppers. Besides farmlands, other agriculture also occurs in grape vineyards. Grapevines spread all over the village and produce various types of grapes, among which are the black grapes that are well known in northern Iraq.[26][27]\n\nModern agricultural machinery such as tractors, harvester-threshers (reapers), along with new methods of treating and curing plant epidemics now exist. However, irrigation is still a problem in the area, and farming still relies on rainfall. Currently, dozen of farms now belong to the government and are deputized to their owners to use them, as most were taken during Saddam Hussein's control. The Assyrian settlement of Alqosh enjoyed being an important trade center for the various Kurdish, Yazidi, and Arab villages in the region and it houses a large market that receiving agricultural and animal products from across the region.[28]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nAssyrian independence movement\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nBarwari\n\nNahla plains\n\nUrmia Plain\n\nDisputed territories of Northern Iraq\n\nNotes\n\n^ Hanna, Reine (June 1, 2020). \"Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\" (PDF). p. 31. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"Shabaks, Yezidis, Assyrians protest settlement of Arab families in Nineveh\". Rûdaw. 8 February 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2019.\n\n^ \"Iraq Says It Intends to Make 3 New Provinces - ABC News\". ABC News. Archived from the original on 2014-01-25.\n\n^ Abul Fazl-i-Ạllámí (1894), \"Description of the Earth\", The Áin I Akbarí, vol. III, Translated by H.S. Jarrett, Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press for the Asiatic Society of Bengal, pp. 25-27.\n\n^ Wright, William. A short history of Syriac literature. Adam and Charles Black. ISBN 9780837076799. Retrieved 23 December 2014.\n\n^ UN report.\n\n^ \"Relief Projects | Assyrian Aid Society - Iraq\".\n\n^ \"Assyrian Aid Society of America\". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-03-04.\n\n^ Chulov, Martin; Hawramy, Fazel (9 August 2014). \"'Isis has shattered the ancient ties that bound Iraq's minorities'\". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 August 2014.\n\n^ Iraqi Christians hold critical meeting Archived 2011-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, The Kurdish Globe\n\n^ Dutch MP calls for autonomous Assyrian Christian region in north Iraq, AKI\n\n^ \"At the Tipping Point: A Nineveh Plain Province and Related Solutions to Iraq's Indigenous Minority Crisis\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-14. Retrieved 2014-10-14.\n\n^ \"Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project\". Iraqdemocracyproject.org. 2008-02-19. Retrieved 2012-08-17.\n\n^ \"Shengal Constituent Assembly Our People Demand To Govern Themselves\". ANF - English.\n\n^ BetBasoo, Peter; Nuri Kino (22 January 2014). \"Will a Province for Assyrians Stop Their Exodus From Iraq?\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved 6 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians ask EU to support the creation of a Nineveh Plain Province\". Archived from the original on 2020-11-17. Retrieved 2017-06-06.\n\n^ \"سهل نينوى: حديقة العالم القديم... وشرارة العراق الحديث\". www.majalla.com (in Arabic). Retrieved 2025-02-24.\n\n^ \"Christians-in-iraq\". Archived from the original on 2018-08-29. Retrieved 2017-08-04.\n\n^ \"The Future of the Nineveh Plain | PDF | Government | Social Institutions\".\n\n^ Hanna, Reine (September 26, 2019). \"Testimony for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Religious Minorities' Fight to Remain in Iraq\" (PDF). United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Retrieved July 23, 2020.\n\n^ \"Nineveh for Christians? Let's Wait and See\". Archived from the original on 2014-01-25. Retrieved 2025-05-25.\n\n^ Mardean Isaac (2010-12-30). \"The desperate plight of Iraq's Assyrians and other minorities\". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-08-17.\n\n^ \"Life after ISIS: New challenges to Christianity in Iraq\" (PDF). p. 13. Retrieved 4 May 2020.\n\n^ \"Christian Leaders Unhappy with Lack of Action on Nineveh Plain\". www.religiousfreedomcoalition.org. Archived from the original on 2018-11-25. Retrieved 2015-01-10.\n\n^ \"Nineveh Plain - Słownik kolokacji angielskich\". www.diki.pl. Retrieved 2025-03-16.\n\n^ Team, Mosaic (2022-01-18). \"Traditional Tahini Production Returns to the Nineveh Plain\". Mosaic Middle East. Retrieved 2025-03-16.\n\n^ Post-conflict Reconstruction in the Nineveh Plains of Iraq: Agriculture, Cultural Practices and Social Cohesion (Report). sipri.org. November 2022.\n\n^ \"Kurdistan's Gushing Crude Spawns Conflict\". iwpr.net.\n\nReferences\n\nNineveh Plains Geographical Information Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine\n\nNineveh Plains Needs\n\n36°37′N 43°7′E / 36.617°N 43.117°E / 36.617; 43.117"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nineveh-plains"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2057}, {"slug": "reference-synod-of-beth-lapat", "title": "Synod of Beth Lapat", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Synod of Beth Lapat, also known as the Synod of Barsauma, was a local council of the Church of the East, that was held in 484, in the Persian city of Gundeshapur (Bēth Lapaṭ, in the Syriac language). The council was headed by Metropolitan Barsauma of Nisibis...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Synod of Beth Lapat, also known as the Synod of Barsauma, was a local council of the Church of the East, that was held in 484, in the Persian city of Gundeshapur (Bēth Lapaṭ, in the Syriac language). The council was headed by Metropolitan Barsauma of Nisibis (d. 491), who was involved in a long conflict with Patriarch Babowai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (d. 484). No acts of this synod have been preserved, but fragmentary data from other sources suggest that various ecclesiological issues had been discussed, and that disciplinary canons against simony were adopted. Since Metropolitan Barsauma was involved in christological disputes, it is believed that several doctrinal questions were also discussed, and some later sources (acts of the synod held in 605) suggest that synod of 484 adopted a resolution in support of theological teachings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428). Since no creeds or theological decisions of this council have been preserved, its outcome has been the subject of various assumptions among scholars.[1][2][3]\n\nIn older scholarly works, the Synod of Beth Lapat was often regarded as a defining council, that marked the official acceptance of Nestorianism by the Church of the East. Such views have been criticized by modern scholars, who pointed out that theological works of Nestorius (d. c. 450), who was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, were not translated into Syriac language before the 6th century, long after the synod of 484, that regarded works of Theodore of Mopsuestia as source for theological guidance.[4]\n\nSee also\n\nAcacius of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nBabai of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nReferences\n\n^ Brock 1999, p. 282.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 28-29.\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 8.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 30, 34.\n\nSources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials\". Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. New York and London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281-298.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1910). An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church or The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire 100-640 A.D. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited.\n\n32°17′N 48°31′E / 32.283°N 48.517°E / 32.283; 48.517"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-synod-of-beth-lapat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 454}, {"slug": "reference-list-of-assyrian-kings", "title": "List of Assyrian kings", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The king of Assyria (Akkadian: Iššiʾak Aššur, later šar māt Aššur) was the ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria, which was founded in the late 21st century BC and fell in 609 BC. For much of its early history, Assyria was little more than a city-state,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "King of Assyria\n\nIššiʾak Aššur\nšar māt Aššur\n\nSymbol of Ashur, the ancient Assyrian national deity\n\nRelief depicting Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC) engaged in a lion hunt, a royal ritual meant to symbolically represent the Assyrian king's duty to bring order to the world[1]\n\nDetails\n\nFirst monarchTudiya\n(legendary)\nPuzur-Ashur I\n(independent city-state)\nAshur-uballit I[a]\n(first to use 'king')\n\nLast monarchAshur-uballit II\n\nFormation21st century BC\n\nAbolition609 BC\n\nThe king of Assyria (Akkadian: Iššiʾak Aššur, later šar māt Aššur) was the ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria, which was founded in the late 21st century BC and fell in 609 BC. For much of its early history, Assyria was little more than a city-state, centered on the city Assur, but from the 14th century BC onwards, Assyria rose under a series of warrior kings to become one of the major political powers of the Ancient Near East, and in its last few centuries it dominated the region as the largest empire the world had seen thus far. Ancient Assyrian history is typically divided into the Old, Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods, all marked by ages of ascendancy and decline.\n\nThe ancient Assyrians did not believe that their king was divine himself, but saw their ruler as the vicar of their principal deity, Ashur, and as his chief representative on Earth. In their worldview, Assyria represented a place of order while lands not governed by the Assyrian king (and by extension, the god Ashur) were seen as places of chaos and disorder. As such it was seen as the king's duty to expand the borders of Assyria and bring order and civilization to lands perceived as uncivilized. As Assyria expanded, its rulers gradually adopted grander and more boastful titles. Early kings used Iššiʾak Aššur (representative/viceroy of Ashur), considering the god Ashur to be the true king. From the time of Ashur-uballit I (14th century BC), the rulers instead used king (šar). In time, further titles, such as \"king of Sumer and Akkad\", \"king of the Universe\" and \"king of the Four Corners of the World\", were added, often to assert their control over all of Mesopotamia.\n\nAll modern lists of Assyrian kings generally follow the Assyrian King List, a list kept and developed by the ancient Assyrians themselves over the course of several centuries. Though some parts of the list are probably fictional, the list accords well with Hittite, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian king lists and with the archaeological record, and is generally considered reliable for the age. The line of Assyrian kings ended with the defeat of Assyria's final king Ashur-uballit II by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Median Empire in 609 BC, after which Assyria disappeared as an independent political unit, never to rise again. The Assyrians survived the fall of their empire and kept their own cultural and religious traditions (though were Christianized in the 1st-3rd centuries AD). At times, Assur and other Assyrian cities were afforded great deals of autonomy by its foreign rulers after the 7th century BC, particularly under the Achaemenid and Parthian empires.\n\nIntroduction\n\nSources\n\nIncomplete king-lists have been recovered from three of the major ancient Assyrian capitals (Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh). The three lists are largely consistent with each other, all originally copies of a single original list, and are based on the yearly appointments of limmy-officials (the eponymous officials for each year, appointed by the king to preside over the celebration of the New Year festival). Because of the consistency between the list and the method through which it was created, modern scholars usually accept the regnal years mentioned as more or less correct. There are some differences between the copies of the list, notably in that they offer somewhat diverging regnal years before the reign of king Ashur-dan I of the Middle Assyrian Empire (reign beginning in c. 1178 BC). After his time, the lists are identical in their contents.[3]\n\nThe king-lists mostly accord well with Hittite, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian king lists and with the archaeological record, and are generally considered reliable for the age.[4] It is however clear that parts of the list are fictional, as some known kings are not found on the list and other listed kings are not independently verified.[5] Originally it was assumed that the list was first written in the time of Shamshi-Adad I c. 1800 BC but it now is considered to date from much later, probably from the time of Ashurnasirpal I (r. 1049-1031 BC).[6] The oldest of the surviving king-lists, List A (8th century BC) stops at Tiglath-Pileser II (r. 967-935 BC) and the youngest, List C, stops at Shalmaneser V (r. 727-722 BC).[7]\n\nOne problem that arises with the Assyrian King List is that the creation of the list may have been more motivated by political interest than actual chronological and historical accuracy. In times of civil strife and confusion, the list still adheres to a single royal line of descent, probably ignoring rival claimants to the throne.[8] Additionally, there are some known inconsistencies between the list and actual inscriptions by Assyrian kings, often regarding dynastic relationships. For instance, Ashur-nirari II is stated by the list to be the son of his predecessor Enlil-Nasir II, but from inscriptions it is known that he was actually the son of Ashur-rabi I and brother of Enlil-Nasir.[9]\n\nTitles\n\nAssyrian royal titles typically followed trends that had begun under the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BC), the Mesopotamian civilization that preceded the later kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon. When the Mesopotamian central government under the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-2004 BC) collapsed and polities that had once been vassals to Ur became independent, many of the new sovereign rulers refrained from taking the title of king (šar), instead applying that title to their principal deities (in the case of Assyria, Ashur). For this reason, most of the Assyrian kings of the Old Assyrian period (c. 2025-1364 BC) used the title Iššiʾak Aššur, translating to \"governor of Assyria\".[10][11]\n\nIn contrast to the titles employed by the Babylonian kings in the south, which typically focused on the protective role and the piety of the king, Assyrian royal inscriptions tend to glorify the strength and power of the king.[12] Assyrian titularies usually also often emphasize the royal genaeology of the king, something Babylonian titularies do not, and also drive home the king's moral and physical qualities while downplaying his role in the judicial system.[13] Assyrian epithets about royal lineage vary in how far they stretch back, most often simply discussing lineage in terms of \"son of ...\" or \"brother of ...\". Some cases display lineage stretching back much further, Shamash-shum-ukin (r. 667-648 BC) describes himself as a \"descendant of Sargon II\", his great-grandfather. More extremely, Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC) calls himself a \"descendant of the eternal seed of Bel-bani\", a king who lived more than a thousand years before him.[14]\n\nAssyrian royal titularies were often changed depending on where the titles were to be displayed, the titles of the same Assyrian king would have been different in their home country of Assyria and in conquered regions. Those Neo-Assyrian kings who controlled the city of Babylon used a \"hybrid\" titulary of sorts in the south, combining aspects of the Assyrian and Babylonian tradition, similar to how the traditional Babylonian deities were promoted in the south alongside the Assyrian main deity of Ashur.[13] The assumption of many traditional southern titles, including the ancient \"king of Sumer and Akkad\" and the boastful \"king of the Universe\" and \"king of the Four Corners of the World\", by the Assyrian kings served to legitimize their rule and assert their control over Babylon and lower Mesopotamia.[15] Epithets like \"chosen by the god Marduk and the goddess Sarpanit\" and \"favourite of the god Ashur and the goddess Mullissu\", both assumed by Esarhaddon, illustrate that he was both Assyrian (Ashur and Mullissu, the main pair of Assyrian deities) and a legitimate ruler over Babylon (Marduk and Sarpanit, the main pair of Babylonian deities).[16]\n\nTo exemplify an Assyrian royal title from the time Assyria ruled all of Mesopotamia, the titulature preserved in one of Esarhaddon's inscriptions reads as follows:[17]\n\nThe great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, son of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria, grandson of Sargon, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria; who under the protection of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, the great gods, his lords, made his way from the rising to the setting sun, having no rival.\n\nRole of the Assyrian king\n\nAncient Assyria was an absolute monarchy, with the king believed to be appointed directly through divine right by the chief deity, Ashur.[1] The Assyrians believed that the king was the link between the gods and the earthly realm. As such, it was the king's primary duty to discover the will of the gods and enact this, often through the construction of temples or waging war. To aid the king with this duty, there was a number of priests at the royal court trained in reading and interpreting signs from the gods.[18]\n\nThe heartland of the Assyrian realm, Assyria itself, was thought to represent a serene and perfect place of order whilst the lands governed by foreign powers were perceived as infested with disorder and chaos.[1] The peoples of these \"outer\" lands were seen as uncivilized, strange and as speaking strange languages.[19] Because the king was the earthly link to the gods, it was his duty to spread order throughout the world through the military conquest of these strange and chaotic countries.[1] As such, imperial expansion was not just expansion for expansion's sake but was also seen as a process of bringing divine order and destroying chaos to create civilization.[19]\n\nThere exists several ancient inscriptions in which the god Ashur explicitly orders kings to extend the borders of Assyria. A text from the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243-1207 BC) states that the king received a royal scepter and was commanded to \"broaden the land of Ashur\". A similar inscription from the reign of Ashurbanipal (r. 668-631 BC) commands the king to \"extend the land at his feet\".[19]\n\nThe king was also tasked with protecting his own people, often being referred to as a \"shepherd\". This protection included defending against external enemies and defending citizens from dangerous wild animals. To the Assyrians, the most dangerous animal of all was the lion, used (similarly to foreign powers) as an example of chaos and disorder due to their aggressive nature. To prove themselves worthy of rule and illustrate that they were competent protectors, Assyrian kings engaged in ritual lion hunts. Lion-hunting was reserved for Assyrian royalty and was a public event, staged at parks in or near the Assyrian cities.[1] In some cases, the hunt even took place with captive lions in an arena.[20]\n\nLegitimacy\n\nAs opposed to some other ancient monarchies, such as ancient Egypt, the Assyrian king was not believed to be divine himself, but was seen as divinely chosen and uniquely qualified for the royal duties. Most kings stressed their legitimacy through their familial connections to previous kings; a king was legitimate through his relation to the previous line of great kings who had been chosen by Ashur. Usurpers who were unrelated to previous kings usually either simply lied about being the son of some previous monarch or claimed that they had been divinely appointed directly by Ashur.[19]\n\nTwo prominent examples of such usurpers are the kings Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BC) and Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC). The inscriptions of these kings completely lack any familial references to previous kings, instead stressing that Ashur himself had appointed them directly with phrases such as \"Ashur called my name\", \"Ashur placed me on the throne\" and \"Ashur placed his merciless weapon in my hand\".[19]\n\nAssyrian kings\n\nEarly Assyrian rulers\n\nEarly names in king lists\n\nThe Assyrian King List includes a long sequence of rulers before Assyria's first confidently attested kings (of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty), though it is suspected by modern scholars that at least portions of this line of rulers are invented since none of the names are attested in contemporary records and many of the names of the earliest rulers rhyme (suggesting an invented pattern).[3] This is further corroborated by the absence of certain figures in the list known to have ruled in Assur before the Puzur-Ashur dynasty (the governors under Assur's foreign rulers).[21] The Synchronistic King List diverges from the Assyrian King List and considers Erishum I (r. c. 1974-1935 BC), the fourth king of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty, to be the first king of Assyria. [22] Though it includes earlier names, the Assyrian King List does not list the length of the rule of any king before Erishum I.[3]\n\nGiven that the earliest rulers are described as \"kings who lived in tents\", they, if real, may not have ruled Assur at all but rather have been nomadic tribal chieftains somewhere in its vicinity. As in the Sumerian King List, several names may also have belonged to rulers who were contemporaries/rivals, rather than successors and predecessors of one another.[23] Some researchers have dismissed these names as a mixture of Amorite tribal-geographical names with no relation to Assyria at all.[24] It is possible that the 'kings who were ancestors', who are not attested in any other sources as present at Assur, refer to the ancestors of Shamshi-Adad I (r. c. 1808-1776 BC), given that other sources claim that his father was named Ilu-kabkabu, and they might thus not have been kings of Assyria, but rather rulers of Terqa, Shamshi-Adad's supposed ancestral home. Including these figures may have served to justify Shamshi-Adad's rise to the throne, either through obscuring his non-Assyrian origins or through inserting his ancestors into the sequence of Assyrian kings.[25]\n\nThe early portion of the Assyrian King List contains these otherwise historically unverified names:[3]\n\nKings who lived in tents\n\nTudiya\n\nAdamu\n\nYangi\n\nSuhlamu\n\nHarharu\n\nMandaru\n\nImsu\n\nHarsu\n\nDidanu\n\nHanu\n\nZuabu\n\nNuabu\n\nAbazu\n\nBelu\n\nAzarah\n\nUshpia\n\nApiashal, son of Ushpia\n\nKings who were ancestors\n\nThe kings are listed in reverse order in the AKL, starting from Aminu and ending with Apiashal(who is also included in the list of kings \nwho lived in tents).\n\nHale, son of Apiashal\n\nSamani, son of Hale\n\nHayani, son of Samani\n\nIlu-Mer, son of Hayani\n\nYakmesi, son of Ilu-Mer\n\nYakmeni, son of Yakmesi\n\nYazkur-el, son of Yakmeni\n\nIla-kabkabu, son of Yazkur-el\n\nAminu, son of Ila-kabkabu\n\nKings named on bricks\n\nThere are six of them, including three kings that are part of the Old Assyrian empire from Puzur-Ashur I to Ilu-shuma.\n\nSulili, son of Aminu\n\nKikkia\n\nAkiya\n\nAttested early rulers\n\nA handful of early local rulers of Assur under foreign suzerainty are known from contemporary sources from before the time of Puzur-Ashur I. The precise dates of the highly incomplete sequence of figures listed below are unknown and none of them appear among the rulers before Puzur-Ashur I in the king list.[21][26] Perhaps their absence could be explained by these figures not being considered to be proper kings.[21] Several are however attested with the title \"supreme judge\" (waklum) a title probably equivalent to Iššiʾak Aššur[27] and sometimes used by later kings.[28]\n\nName\n\nPeriod\n\nStatus and notes\n\nRef\n\nItiti\n\nAkkadian\n\nVassal of Rimush of Akkad (r. c. 2279-2270 BC) (?), described as the son of Ininlaba (possibly another ruler?)\n\n[27]\n\nAzuzu\n\nVassal of Manishtushu of Akkad (r. c. 2270-2255 BC). Name found inscribed on the point of a spear.\n\n[27]\n\nIlabaandul\n\nAttested as governor of Assur in an Akkadian-period list from Ur of local governors.\n\n[29]\n\nZariqum\n\nUr III\n\nVassal of Amar-Sin of Ur (r. c. 2046-2037 BC). Name found inscribed on a limestone slab.\n\n[30]\n\nSilulu\n\nUncertain\n\nName inscribed on a seal. Perhaps identifiable with the Assyrian King List's Sulili, but described as the son of Dakiki (not Aminu).\n\n[31]\n\nPuzur-Ashur dynasty (2025-1809 BC)\n\nThe dynasty founded by Puzur-Ashur is conventionally known by modern historians as the 'Puzur-Ashur dynasty' after its founder.[32][33] Puzur-Ashur I is generally seen as the founder of Assyria as an independent city-state c. 2025 BC.[34] Some historians on the other hand speculate that Puzur-Ashur was not a new dynastic founder, but that his dynasty actually began earlier, perhaps by Sulili. The dynasty has thus also been termed the 'Sulili-Puzur-Ashur dynasty'.[35] The dynasty has also been referred to simply as the 'Old Assyrian dynasty'.[34][36] These kings, beginning with Puzur-Ashur I, took power in the aftermath of the collapse of the Neo-Sumerian Empire, which had ruled over Assyria.[36]\n\n(Portrait)\n\nName\n\nReign\n\nSuccession and notes\n\nRef\n\nOld Assyrian period, 2025-1364 BC\n\nPuzur-Ashur I\nPuzur-Aššur\n\nUncertain[b]\n\nUnclear succession, possibly first independent ruler of Assur\n\n[37]\n\nShalim-ahum\nŠallim-aḫḫe\n\nUncertain[b]\n\nSon of Puzur-Ashur I\n\n[38]\n\nIlu-shuma\nIlu-šūma\n\nUncertain[b]\n\nSon of Shalim-ahum\n\n[38]\n\nErishum I\nErišum\n\nc. 1974 - 1935 BC\n(40 years)\n\nSon of Ilu-shuma\n\n[39]\n\nIkunum\nIkūnum\n\nc. 1934 - 1921 BC\n(14 years)\n\nSon of Erishum I\n\n[39]\n\nSargon I\nŠarru-kīn\n\nc. 1920 - 1881 BC\n(40 years)\n\nSon of Ikunum\n\n[39]\n\nPuzur-Ashur II\nPuzur-Aššur\n\nc. 1880 - 1873 BC\n(8 years)\n\nSon of Sargon I\n\n[39]\n\nNaram-Sin\nNarām-Sîn\n\nc. 1872 - 1829/1819 BC[c]\n(54 or 44 years)\n\nSon of Puzur-Ashur II\n\n[39]\n\nErishum II\nErišum\n\nc. 1828/1818 - 1809 BC[c]\n(20 or 10 years)\n\nSon of Naram-Sin\n\n[39]\n\nShamshi-Adad dynasty (1808-1736 BC)\n\nThe dynasty founded by Shamshi-Adad I, who deposed the Puzur-Ashur dynasty,[35] is conventionally known as the 'Shamshi-Adad dynasty', after its founder.[41][42] During the rule of Shamshi-Adad I and his successors, of Amorite descent and originally from the south, a more absolute form of kingship, inspired by that of Babylon, was introduced in Assyria.[43] During the preceding Puzur-Ashur dynasty, royal power in Assur had been more limited than in other cities, with inscriptions describing how the king worked in tandem with the city assembly to establish law and order.[36] The earliest use of the term šarrum (king) in Assyrian inscriptions comes from Shamshi-Adad I's reign.[25] Shamshi-Adad I was also the first Assyrian king to assume the title 'king of the Universe',[44] though these styles fell into a long period of disuse again after his death.[45] The short-lived realm founded by Shamshi-Adad I is sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia.[46]\n\n(Portrait)\n\nName\n\nReign\n\nSuccession and notes\n\nRef\n\nShamshi-Adad I\nŠamši-Adad\n\nc. 1808 - 1776 BC[d]\n(33 years)\n\nAmorite usurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nIshme-Dagan I\nIšme-Dagān\n\nc. 1775 - 1765 BC[e]\n(11 years)\n\nSon of Shamshi-Adad I\n\n[53]\n\nMut-Ashkur[f]\nMut-Aškur\n\nUncertain[g]\n\nSon of Ishme-Dagan I\n\n[57]\n\nRimush[f]\nRimuš\n\nUncertain[g]\n\nUncertain relation\n\n[54]\n\nAsinum[h]\nAsīnum\n\nUncertain[g]\n\nGrandson (?) of Shamshi-Adad I\n\n[54]\n\nNon-dynastic usurpers (1735-1701 BC)\n\nName\n\nReign\n\nSuccession and notes\n\nRef\n\nPuzur-Sin[i]\nPuzur-Sîn\n\nUncertain\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[58]\n\nAshur-dugul\nAššur-dugul\n\nUncertain\n(6 years)\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nAshur-apla-idi\nAššur-apla-idi\n\nUncertain[j]\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nNasir-Sin\nNāṣir-Sîn\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nSin-namir\nSîn-nāmir\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nIpqi-Ishtar\nIpqi-Ištar\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nAdad-salulu\nAdad-ṣalulu\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nAdasi\nAdasi\n\nUsurper, unrelated to previous kings\n\n[39]\n\nAdaside dynasty (1700-722 BC)\n\nThe dynasty founded by Bel-bani, which ruled Assyria throughout most of its history, is conventionally known as the Adaside[60] or Adasi[61][62] dynasty, after Bel-bani's father. In Babylonia, this dynasty of kings was called the \"Baltil dynasty\", Baltil being the oldest portion of the city of Assur.[63]\n\n(Portrait)\n\nName\n\nReign\n\nSuccession and notes\n\nRef\n\nBel-bani\nBēlu-bāni\n\nc. 1700 - 1691 BC\n(10 years)\n\nSon of Adasi\n\n[64]\n\nLibaya\nLibaia\n\nc. 1690 - 1674 BC\n(17 years)\n\nSon of Bel-bani\n\n[65]\n\nSharma-Adad I\nŠarma-Adad\n\nc. 1673 - 1662 BC\n(12 years)\n\nSon of Libaya\n\n[66]\n\nIptar-Sin\nIbtar-Sîn\n\nc. 1661 - 1650 BC\n(12 years)\n\nSon of Sharma-Adad I\n\n[67]\n\nBazaya\nBāzā[y]a\n\nc. 1649 - 1622 BC\n(28 years)\n\nSon of Bel-bani\n\n[64]\n\nLullaya\nLulā[y]a\n\nc. 1621 - 1616 BC\n(6 years)\n\nUnrelated to other kings, possibly a usurper\n\n[68]\n\nShu-Ninua[k]\nŠu-Ninua\n\nc. 1615 - 1602 BC\n(14 years)\n\nSon of Bazaya\n\n[69]\n\nSharma-Adad II\nŠarma-Adad\n\nc. 1601 - 1599 BC\n(3 years)\n\nSon of Shu-Ninua\n\n[66]\n\nErishum III\nErišum\n\nc. 1598 - 1586 BC\n(13 years)\n\nSon of Shu-Ninua\n\n[70]\n\nShamshi-Adad II\nŠamši-Adad\n\nc. 1585 - 1580 BC\n(6 years)\n\nSon of Erishum III\n\n[66]\n\nIshme-Dagan II\nIšme-Dagān\n\nc. 1579 - 1564 BC\n(16 years)\n\nSon of Shamshi-Adad II\n\n[71]\n\nShamshi-Adad III\nŠamši-Adad\n\nc. 1563 - 1548 BC\n(16 years)\n\nSon of Shamshi-Adad II[72]\n\n[71]\n\nAshur-nirari I\nAššur-nārāri\n\nc. 1547 - 1522 BC\n(26 years)\n\nSon of Ishme-Dagan II\n\n[71]\n\nPuzur-Ashur III\nPuzur-Aššur\n\nc. 1521 - 1498 BC[l]\n(24 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-nirari I\n\n[74]\n\nEnlil-nasir I\nEnlīl-nāsir\n\nc. 1497 - 1485 BC\n(13 years)\n\nSon of Puzur-Ashur III\n\n[74]\n\nNur-ili\nNur-ili\n\nc. 1484 - 1473 BC\n(12 years)\n\nSon of Enlil-nasir I\n\n[74]\n\nAshur-shaduni\nAššur-šaddûni\n\nc. 1473 BC\n(1 month)\n\nSon of Nur-ili\n\n[74]\n\nAshur-rabi I\nAššur-rabi\n\nc. 1472 - 1453 BC[m]\n(20 years)\n\nSon of Enlil-nasir I, usurped the throne from his nephew\n\n[76]\n\nAshur-nadin-ahhe I\nAššur-nādin-ahhē\n\nc. 1452 - 1431 BC[m]\n(22 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-rabi I\n\n[74]\n\nEnlil-nasir II\nEnlīl-nāsir\n\nc. 1430 - 1425 BC\n(6 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-rabi I, usurped the throne from his brother\n\n[77]\n\nAshur-nirari II\nAššur-nārāri\n\nc. 1424 - 1418 BC\n(7 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-rabi I[n]\n\n[39]\n\nAshur-bel-nisheshu\nAššūr-bēl-nīšēšu\n\nc. 1417 - 1409 BC\n(9 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-nirari II\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-rim-nisheshu\nAššūr-rem-nīšēšu\n\nc. 1408 - 1401 BC\n(8 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-nirari II\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-nadin-ahhe II\nAššur-nādin-ahhē\n\nc. 1400 - 1391 BC\n(10 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-rim-nisheshu\n\n[78]\n\nEriba-Adad I\nErība-Adad\n\nc. 1390 - 1364 BC\n(27 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-bel-nisheshu\n\n[78]\n\nMiddle Assyrian Empire, 1363-912 BC\n\nAshur-uballit I\nAššur-uballiṭ\n\nc. 1363 - 1328 BC\n(36 years)\n\nSon of Eriba-Adad I, first šar māt Aššur\n\n[79]\n\nEnlil-nirari\nEnlīl-nārāri\n\nc. 1327 - 1318 BC\n(10 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-uballit I\n\n[78]\n\nArik-den-ili\nArīk-den-ili\n\nc. 1317 - 1306 BC\n(12 years)\n\nSon of Enlil-nirari\n\n[78]\n\nAdad-nirari I\nAdad-nārārī\n\nc. 1305 - 1274 BC\n(32 years)\n\nSon of Arik-den-ili[o]\n\n[78]\n\nShalmaneser I\nSalmānu-ašarēd\n\nc. 1273 - 1244 BC\n(30 years)\n\nSon of Adad-nirari I\n\n[78]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta I\nTukultī-Ninurta\n\nc. 1243 - 1207 BC\n(37 years)\n\nSon of Shalmaneser I\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-nadin-apli\nAššūr-nādin-apli\n\nc. 1206 - 1203 BC[p]\n(4 years)\n\nSon of Tukulti-Ninurta I, usurped the throne from his father\n\n[80]\n\nAshur-nirari III\nAššur-nārāri\n\nc. 1202 - 1197 BC\n(6 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-nadin-apli\n\n[78]\n\nEnlil-kudurri-usur\nEnlīl-kudurri-uṣur\n\nc. 1196 - 1192 BC\n(5 years)\n\nSon of Tukulti-Ninurta I\n\n[78]\n\nNinurta-apal-Ekur\nNinurta-apal-Ekur\n\nc. 1191 - 1179 BC[q]\n(13 years)\n\nGreat-great-great-grandson of Adad-nirari I, usurped the throne from his distant cousin\n\n[87]\n\nAshur-dan I\nAššur-dān\n\nc. 1178 - 1133 BC[q]\n(46 years)\n\nSon of Ninurta-apal-Ekur\n\n[78]\n\nNinurta-tukulti-Ashur\nNinurta-tukultī-Aššur\n\nc. 1132 BC[r]\n(less than a year)\n\nSon of Ashur-dan I\n\n[78]\n\nMutakkil-Nusku\nMutakkil-Nusku\n\nc. 1132 BC[r]\n(less than a year)\n\nSon of Ashur-dan I, usurped the throne from his brother\n\n[80]\n\nAshur-resh-ishi I\nAššur-rēša-iši\n\n1132 - 1115 BC\n(18 years)\n\nSon of Mutakkil-nusku\n\n[78]\n\nTiglath-Pileser I\nTukultī-apil-Ešarra\n\n1114 - 1076 BC\n(39 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-resh-ishi I\n\n[78]\n\nAsharid-apal-Ekur\nAšarēd-apil-Ekur\n\n1075 - 1074 BC\n(2 years)\n\nSon of Tiglath-Pileser I\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-bel-kala\nAššūr-bēl-kala\n\n1073 - 1056 BC\n(18 years)\n\nSon of Tiglath-Pileser I; a century-long period of decline followed Ashur-bel-kala's death\n\n[89]\n\nEriba-Adad II\nErība-Adad\n\n1055 - 1054 BC\n(2 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-bel-kala\n\n[78]\n\nShamshi-Adad IV\nŠamši-Adad\n\n1053 - 1050 BC\n(4 years)\n\nSon of Tiglath-Pileser I, usurped the throne from his nephew\n\n[80]\n\nAshurnasirpal I\nAššur-nāṣir-apli\n\n1049 - 1031 BC\n(19 years)\n\nSon of Shamshi-Adad IV\n\n[78]\n\nShalmaneser II\nSalmānu-ašarēd\n\n1030 - 1019 BC\n(12 years)\n\nSon of Ashurnasirpal I\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-nirari IV\nAššur-nārāri\n\n1018 - 1013 BC\n(6 years)\n\nSon of Shalmaneser II\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-rabi II\nAššur-rabi\n\n1012 - 972 BC\n(41 years)\n\nSon of Ashurnasirpal I\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-resh-ishi II\nAššur-rēša-iši\n\n971 - 967 BC\n(5 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-rabi II\n\n[78]\n\nTiglath-Pileser II\nTukultī-apil-Ešarra\n\n966 - 935 BC\n(32 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-resh-ishi II\n\n[78]\n\nAshur-dan II\nAššur-dān\n\n934 - 912 BC\n(23 years)\n\nSon of Tiglath-Pileser II, began to reconquer the territory lost under his predecessors\n\n[90]\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire, 911-609 BC\n\nPortrait\n\nName\n\nReign\n\nSuccession\n\nLife details and notes\n\nRef\n\nAdad-nirari II\nAdad-nārārī\n\n911 - 891 BC\n(21 years)\n\nSon of Ashur-dan II\n\n[78]\n\nTukulti-Ninurta II\nTukultī-Ninurta\n\n890 - 884 BC\n(7 years)\n\nSon of Adad-nirari II\n\n[78]\n\nAshurnasirpal II\nAššur-nāṣir-apli\n\n884 - 859 BC\n(25 years)\n\nSon of Tukulti-Ninurta II\n\nChanged the Assyrian capital to Nimrud. Campaigned to the Mediterranean. First Assyrian king to make extensive use of reliefs. Died a natural death.\n\n[91]\n\nShalmaneser III\nSalmānu-ašarēd\n\n859 - 824 BC\n(35 years)\n\nSon of Ashurnasirpal II\n\nFully restored Assyria's ancient borders, though there was again decline after his death. Died a natural death.\n\n[92]\n\nShamshi-Adad V\nŠamši-Adad\n\n824 - 811 BC\n(13 years)\n\nSon of Shalmaneser III, defeated his brother Ashur-danin-pal in a civil war\n\nConquered Babylon, though it became independent again in the reign of his son. Died relatively young in unclear circumstances.\n\n[93]\n\nAdad-nirari III\nAdad-nārārī\n\n811 - 783 BC\n(28 years)\n\nSon of Shamshi-Adad V. Probably young at the time of his father's death, his mother Shammuramat may have served as co-regent in his early reign.\n\nAdad-nirari III's late reign began an obscure period from which few sources survive and Assyrian officials wielded great power. Presumably died of natural causes.\n\n[94]\n\nShalmaneser IV\nSalmānu-ašarēd\n\n783 - 773 BC\n(10 years)\n\nSon of Adad-nirari III\n\nFate unclear due to the lack of surviving sources\n\n[95]\n\nAshur-dan III\nAššur-dān\n\n773 - 755 BC\n(18 years)\n\nSon of Adad-nirari III\n\nFate unclear due to the lack of surviving sources\n\n[95]\n\nAshur-nirari V\nAššur-nārāri\n\n755 - 745 BC[s]\n(10 years)\n\nSon of Adad-nirari III\n\nFate unclear due to the lack of surviving sources, possibly deposed and killed by Tiglath-Pileser III\n\n[97]\n\nTiglath-Pileser III\nTukultī-apil-Ešarra\n\n745 - 727 BC\n(18 years)\n\nSon of either Adad-nirari III or Ashur-nirari V.[t] Succeeded Ashur-nirari V in uncertain circumstances, either legitimately or through a coup or civil war.\n\nRevitalized the Assyrian Empire and made it the supreme imperial and political power in the Near East. Conquered Babylon. Died a natural death.\n\n[99]\n\nShalmaneser V\nSalmānu-ašarēd\n\n727 - 722 BC\n(5 years)\n\nSon of Tiglath-Pileser III\n\nDeposed and killed by Sargon II in a palace coup\n\n[100]\n\nSargonid dynasty (722-609 BC)\n\nPortrait\n\nName\n\nReign\n\nSuccession\n\nLife details and notes\n\nRef\n\nSargon II\nŠarru-kīn\n\n722 - 705 BC\n(17 years)\n\nClaimed to be a son of Tiglath-Pileser III, actual connections to previous royalty disputed. Seized the throne from Shalmaneser V in a palace coup.\n\nChanged the Assyrian capital to Dur-Sharrukin. Killed in battle in Anatolia, fighting against Tabal.\n\n[101]\n\nSennacherib\nSîn-aḥḥē-erība\n\n705 - 681 BC\n(24 years)\n\nSon of Sargon II\n\nChanged the Assyrian capital to Nineveh. Murdered by his eldest son Arda-Mulissu, who hoped to seize power for himself.\n\n[102]\n\nEsarhaddon\nAššur-aḫa-iddina\n\n681 - 669 BC\n(12 years)\n\nSon of Sennacherib. After Sennacherib was killed by Arda-Mulissu, Esarhaddon had to fight a six-week-long civil war against his brother before he successfully assumed the throne.\n\nBrought Assyria to its greatest ever extent. Plagued by illnesses throughout his life. Died of natural causes on his way to campaign against Egypt.\n\n[103]\n\nAshurbanipal\nAššur-bāni-apli\n\n669 - 631 BC\n(38 years)\n\nSon of Esarhaddon. Ashurbanipal's brother Shamash-shum-ukin inherited Babylonia, but after their civil war in 652-648 BC, Ashurbanipal strengthened his hold on the south as well.\n\nGenerally regarded as the last great Assyrian king. Fate unclear due to lack of surviving sources, probably died a natural death.\n\n[104]\n\nAššur-etil-ilāni\nAššur-etil-ilāni\n\n631 - 627 BC\n(4 years)\n\nSon of Ashurbanipal\n\nFate unclear due to the lack of surviving sources\n\n[105]\n\nSîn-šumu-līšir[u]\nSîn-šumu-līšir\n(usurper)\n\n626 BC\n(3 months)\n\nProminent eunuch courtier and general. Influential under the reign of Aššur-etil-ilāni, rebelled upon the accession of Sîn-šar-iškun. Ruled only northern Babylonia.\n\nThe only eunuch to ever claim the throne of Assyria. Defeated by Sîn-šar-iškun.\n\n[108]\n\nSîn-šar-iškun\nSîn-šar-iškun\n\n627 - 612 BC\n(15 years)\n\nSon of Ashurbanipal, succeeded as king after Aššur-etil-ilāni's death[v]\n\nKilled by the forces of the Babylonians and Medes at the fall of Nineveh\n\n[111]\n\nAššur-uballiṭ II\nAššur-uballiṭ\n\n612 - 609 BC\n(3 years)\n\nPossibly son of Sîn-šar-iškun. Organized resistance against the Medes and Babylonians at Harran. Formally ruling with the title of crown prince since he was unable to undergo traditional coronation at Assur.\n\nDefeated by the Babylonians at the Siege of Harran, fate thereafter unknown\n\n[112]\n\nLater Assyrian kingship\n\nGeopolitical history and context\n\nThe defeat of Ashur-uballit II at Harran in 609 BC marked the end of the ancient Assyrian monarchy, which was never restored.[114] The territory of the Assyrian Empire was split between the Neo-Babylonian and Median empires.[115] The Assyrian people survived the fall of the empire, though Assyria continued to be a sparsely populated and marginal region under the Neo-Babylonian and later Achaemenid empires.[116] Under the Seleucid and Parthian empires, Assyria experienced a remarkable recovery. Under the last two or so centuries of Parthian rule, archaeological surveys have shown that the region reached a density of settlements that is only comparable to what the region was like under the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[117]\n\nA semi-autonomous city-state under Parthian suzerainty appears to have formed around the city of Assur,[w] Assyria's oldest capital,[120] near, or shortly after, the end of the 2nd century BC.[121] In this period, the ancient city flourished, with some old buildings being restored and some new ones, such as a new palace, being constructed.[122] The ancient temple dedicated to the god Ashur was also restored for the second time in the second century AD, and a cultic calendar effectively identical to that used under the Neo-Assyrian Empire was used. Stelae erected by the local rulers of Assur in this time resemble the stelae erected by the Neo-Assyrian kings,[120] though the rulers are depicted in Parthian-style trouser-suits rather than ancient garb. The rulers used the title maryo of Assur (\"master of Assur\") and appear to have viewed themselves as continuing the old Assyrian royal tradition.[123] These stelae retain the shape, framing and placement (often in city gates) of stelae erected under the ancient kings and also depict the central figure in reverence of the moon and sun, an ever-present motif in the ancient royal stelae.[124] This second period of prominent Assyrian cultural development at Assur came to end with the conquests of the Sasanian Empire in the region, c. 240,[118] whereafter the Ashur temple was destroyed again and the city's people were dispersed.[125]\n\nCity-lords of Assur\n\nThe sequence of local rulers of Assur under the three or four centuries of Parthian suzerainty is poorly known. Only five names are attested and their dates, their precise order and how they relate to each other is not clear. The order used here follows Aggoula (1985).[126] There are large gaps in this sequence.[126]\n\nName\n\nTimespan\n\nNotes\n\nRef\n\nHormoz\nHormoz (or Hormez?)\n\nUncertain\n\nIranian name. Known from an inscription on a statue.\n\n[127]\n\nHayyay\nRāʾeḥat Hayyay\n\nUncertain\n\nArabic name. Mentioned in an inscription.\n\n[128]\n\nHanni\nḤannī\n\nUncertain\n\nAkkadian-derived Aramaic name. Mentioned as the father of a person (whose name is illegible) in a relief.\n\n[129]\n\nRʻuth-Assor\nRʿūṯʾassor\n\n2nd century AD\n\nAkkadian-derived Aramaic name. Mentioned in inscriptions and in his own stele.\n\n[130]\n\n[unknown name]\n\n2nd century AD\n\nIndirectly mentioned in an inscription by his nephews, though his name is not preserved.\n\n[126]\n\nNbudayyan\nNḇūḏayyān\n\n2nd century AD\n\nAkkadian-derived Aramaic name. Mentioned in multiple inscriptions.\n\n[131]\n\nSee also\n\nList of kings of Babylon - for the Babylonian kings\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties - for other dynasties and kingdoms in ancient Mesopotamia\n\nList of kings of Syria - the Seleucids who became kings of Syria\n\nNotes\n\n^ Early Assyrian rulers, who ruled little more than a city-state, typically styled themselves Iššiʾak Aššur (regent or representative of Ashur). Some historians regard Ashur-uballit I as the first Assyrian king since he was the first to adopt the style šar māt Aššur (king of Assyria), which was then in consistent use from his time onwards.[2]\n\n^ a b c The Assyrian King List gives no regnal dates for the first three kings of the Puzur-Ashur dynasty and no eponyms are known.[3]\n\n^ a b The reign lengths of Naram-Sin and Erishum II are approximate; preserved eponyms suggest that they together ruled for 64 years, but the distribution of years is not known.[40]\n\n^ Shamshi-Adad I's death can be precisely dated relative to the sequence of Babylonian kings, as he is known to have died in the 17th year of the Babylonian king Hammurabi.[47] In the middle chronology, considered the most accurate chronology of Mesopotamian history by the majority of researchers on the basis of known evidence and synchronisms,[48][49][50] Hammurabi is dated to 1792-1750 BC. Hammurabi's 17th regnal year thus corresponds (in this chronology) to 1776 BC.[51]\n\n^ The Assyrian King List accords Ishme-Dagan I a reign of 40 or 50 years (depending on the copy).[52] He ruled from Ekallatum, near Assur, and it is possible that his reign overlapped with that of his father as letters from Mari show that he only ruled for about 11 years after his father's death.[53]\n\n^ a b It is not certain that Mut-Ashkur or Rimush actually ruled Assyria. Their names do not appear in the more complete copies of the Assyrian King List, which instead skip directly from Ishme-Dagan I to Ashur-dugul, and are only attested from a fragmentary copy of the list, KAV 14. It is possible that they controlled Ekallatum alone. Reade (2001) believes that Shamshi-Adad's descendants continued to rule at Assur as well until Puzur-Sin deposed them.[54]\n\n^ a b c No sources record the length of Mut-Ashkur's reign or the reigns of his immediate successors.[55] Reade (2001) speculatively assigned 29 years to the period between Ishme-Dagan I and Puzur-Sin (i.e. the reigns of Mut-Ashkur, Rimush and Asinum).[56]\n\n^ The inscription by the king Puzur-Sin, who deposed and succeeded Shamshi-Adad I's family, states that he drove Shamshi-Adad's \"grandson\" (or \"descendant\") a-sí-nim from Assur. A-sí-nim is usually interpreted as a proper name (i.e. the last king of Shamshi-Adad's dynasty was called Asinum) but it is not impossible that it was a title or nickname since the term assinnu was used for priest-like people who were neither male nor female. If this would be the case, the person Puzur-Sin drove from Assur could have been the earlier Rimush, and not a separate king called Asinum.[54]\n\n^ Contemporary inscriptions at Assur attest that the king Puzur-Sin deposed the Shamshi-Adad dynasty, on account of their line having been started by a foreign usurper. Puzur-Sin, and any potential successors of his line, were omitted in the Assyrian King List and no reference to him survives from the inscriptions of any later Assyrian ruler. It is possible that he was considered to be an usurper who deserved to be forgotten.[58]\n\n^ The Assyrian King List assigns Ashur-apla-idi and the five \"usurpers\" after him to the reign of Ashur-dugul, as his rivals.[3] Their rule together cannot have covered more than one year[40] and some Assyriologists believe it to be appropriate to omit them entirely from the sequence of kings as the list makes no claim that any of them ruled in their own right, and not just as rivals of Ashur-dugul.[55] There is also doubt that these figures claimed to be kings and fought against Ashur-dugul in the first place since the sequence of names is suspiciously similar to the eponyms of Ashur-dugul's reign.[59]\n\n^ Alternatively translated as Kidin-Ninua.[69]\n\n^ In the Seventh Day Adventist copy of the Assyrian King List, Puzur-Ashur III is accorded a reign of 24 years, whereas the Nassouhi copy gives 14 years. In later Assyrian historiography, the dates used varied. Scribes working in the reigns of Shalmaneser I (r. 1273-1244 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BC) used 14 years, whereas scribes working in the reign of Esarhaddon used 24 years (r. 681-669 BC).[9] Among modern scholars, the 24-year figure has more support[48][42][73] than the 14-year figure.[40]\n\n^ a b The length of the reigns of Ashur-rabi I and Ashur-nadin-ahhe I, who ruled in a period of instability, are broken off in all known copies of the Assyrian King List and there is no sure way of calculating them accurately.[75] This list follows the proposed dates of Düring (2020).[48] Other proposed dates include neither king having a full regnal year of their own or a combined reign of 14+15 years.[40] \n\n^ The Khorsabad copy of the Assyrian King List designates Ashur-nirari II as the son of his predecessor Enlil-nasir II, but contemporary inscriptions prove that he was the son of Ashur-rabi I.[9]\n\n^ The Khorsabad and Seventh Day Adventist copies of the Assyrian King List designated Adad-nirari I as the son of Enlil-nirari (and thus Arik-den-ili's brother). The Nassouhi copy designates him as Arik-den-ili's son, which must be correct given that Adad-nirari I's own inscriptions also state that he was Arik-den-ili's son.[40]\n\n^ Depending on the copy, the Assyrian King List assigns either 3 (Khorsabad and Seventh Day Adventist copies) or 4 (Nassouhi copy) years to Ashur-nadin-apli. Analysis of timespans from the time of the later king Esarhaddon favors 4 rather than 3 years.[9]\n\n^ a b Depending on the copy, the Assyrian King List assigns either 13 or 3 years to Ninurta-apal-Ekur, and either 36 or 46 years to his successor Ashur-dan I, which means that different reconstructions of the sequence of Assyrian kings can contradict each other by as much as 10-20 years.[75] In both the Khorsabad (and SDAS[81]) copy (3+46) and the Nassouhi copy (13+36), the total length of their reigns together adds up to 49 years. Inscriptions by Assyrian kings who ruled generations later, such as Tiglath-Pileser I (r. 1114-1076 BC), and centuries later, Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC), suggest that the combined 49-year figure made became the established version within ancient Assyrian historiography (though it may in this way have been based on errors in earlier king lists). There is little evidence as to which figure is correct in regards to Ashur-dan I, but it is unlikely that Ninurta-apal-Ekur would have ruled for only 3 years given that 11 eponyms could possibly be referred to his reign and because the Synchronistic King List makes him out to be a contemporary of three Babylonian kings with relatively long reigns. A larger amount of inscriptions are also known from Ninurta-apal-Ekur's reign than from Ashur-dan's reign, which does not suggest that it was so brief.[82] Most modern historians use the longest figures for both kings, giving Ninurta-apal-Ekur 13 years and Ashur-dan I 46 years.[83][84][85][78] Some argue with keeping to the 49 year-total,[75] through assigning the shorter figure to either Ninurta-apal-Ekur[3] or Ashur-dan I.[82][86]\n\n^ a b Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur and Mutakkil-Nusku are stated by the Assyrian King List to have ruled \"briefly\", with no reference to how long that is. Though it is thus typically assumed that neither ruled a full regnal year, this is impossible to verify and all dates above are thus somewhat uncertain.[3] The dates prior are known to be reasonably accurate however[3] as there exists preserved letters from Ashur-uballit I (dated here to 1363-1328 BC)[78] to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1351-1334 BC).[3][88]\n\n^ According to the Assyrian King List, Ashur-nirari V ruled for 10 years. As the Assyrians counted reign lengths from the first full year as king (in this case 754 BC), 10 years are only achieved if Ashur-nirari V actually ruled until 744 BC. Perhaps an error, alternatively it is possible that there was a co-regency between Ashur-nirari V and Tiglath-Pileser III.[96]\n\n^ Tiglath-Pileser III claimed in his own inscriptions to be a son of Adad-nirari III, but the Assyrian King List designates him as a son of Ashur-nirari V, his immediate predecessor. His parentage is disputed among modern historians due to the large timegap (38 years) between his accession and Adad-nirari III's death.[98]\n\n^ Although he was a short-lived usurper who never achieved control of the Assyrian heartland, Sîn-šumu-līšir is generally counted among the kings of Assyria.[40][106][107]\n\n^ Sîn-šar-iškun became king even though Aššur-etil-ilāni is known to have had sons of his own.[109] Historically, it has often been assumed that Aššur-etil-ilāni was deposed by Sîn-šar-iškun after a civil war, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this.[110]\n\n^ According to the 12th-century AD hagiography of Mar Behnam there was also an independent Assyrian king at Nineveh in the fourth century AD, named Sinharib (i.e. Sennacherib). This figure is not attested elsewhere and is generally regarded to be an invented anachronistic and Christianized version of the ancient king Sennacherib, cast in a role befitting the then Christian Assyrians so that he could still be revered.[118][119]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e The British Museum 2018.\n\n^ Radner 2015, pp. 7, 114.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j Lendering 2006.\n\n^ Rowton 1970, pp. 194-195.\n\n^ La Boda 1994, p. 89.\n\n^ Azize 1998, p. 1-27.\n\n^ Meissner 1990, p. 101-102.\n\n^ Hagens 2005, p. 24.\n\n^ a b c d Hagens 2005, p. 27.\n\n^ Hallo 1980, p. 193.\n\n^ Liverani 2013.\n\n^ Stevens 2014, p. 73.\n\n^ a b Karlsson 2017, p. 1.\n\n^ Karlsson 2017, p. 12.\n\n^ Soares 2017, p. 21.\n\n^ Soares 2017, p. 28.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 211.\n\n^ Melville 2016, pp. 219-229.\n\n^ a b c d e Parker 2011, pp. 357-386.\n\n^ Reade 1998b, pp. 72-79.\n\n^ a b c Chavalas 1994, p. 119.\n\n^ Lendering 2006b.\n\n^ Roux 1992, p. 187.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 19.\n\n^ a b Chavalas 1994, p. 117.\n\n^ Grayson 1972, pp. 2-6.\n\n^ a b c Grayson 1972, p. 2.\n\n^ Grayson 1972, pp. 46, 52, 76.\n\n^ Foster 2016, Chapter 3: Akkadian centers and settlements.\n\n^ Grayson 1972, p. 3.\n\n^ Grayson 1972, p. 5.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 36.\n\n^ Lewy 1966, p. 11.\n\n^ a b Aubet 2013, p. 276.\n\n^ a b Lewy 1966, p. 20.\n\n^ a b c Highcock 2017.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 197; Aubet 2013, p. 276.\n\n^ a b Chen 2020, p. 197.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Chen 2020, p. 198.\n\n^ a b c d e f Chen 2020, p. 200.\n\n^ Chavalas 1994, p. 118.\n\n^ a b Grayson 1972, p. 27.\n\n^ Eppihimer 2013, p. 49.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 103.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 114.\n\n^ Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 115.\n\n^ Reade 2001, p. 9.\n\n^ a b c Düring 2020, p. xvi.\n\n^ Kuhrt 1997, p. 12.\n\n^ Sagona & Zimansky 2009, p. 251.\n\n^ Chen 2020, pp. 198, 202.\n\n^ Chen 2020, pp. 198, 200.\n\n^ a b Reade 2001, p. 5.\n\n^ a b c d Reade 2001, p. 6.\n\n^ a b Hunger 2009, p. 148.\n\n^ Reade 2001, p. 8.\n\n^ Reade 2001, p. 5; Hunger 2009, p. 148.\n\n^ a b Chavalas 1994, p. 120.\n\n^ Reade 2001, p. 7.\n\n^ Veenhof & Eidem 2008, p. 24.\n\n^ Poebel 1943, p. 59.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 191.\n\n^ Fales 2014, pp. 204, 227.\n\n^ a b Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 81.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 92.\n\n^ a b c Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 104.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 89.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 92; Reade 2001, p. 6.\n\n^ a b Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 91.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198; Bertman 2003, p. 85.\n\n^ a b c Chen 2020, p. 198; McIntosh 2005, p. 355.\n\n^ Gwendolyn Leick (31 January 2002). Who's Who in the Ancient Near East. Routledge. pp. 148-. ISBN 978-1-134-78796-8.\n\n^ Bertman 2003, p. 99.\n\n^ a b c d e Chen 2020, p. 198; Düring 2020, p. xvi.\n\n^ a b c Hunger 2009, p. 147.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198; Lendering 2006; Düring 2020, p. xvi.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 198; Lendering 2006.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Chen 2020, p. 199.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Radner 2015, p. 114.\n\n^ a b c Chen 2020, p. 199; Lendering 2006.\n\n^ https://austriaca.at/0xc1aa5576%200x00237bb8.pdf page 60-61\n\n^ a b Hagens 2005, p. 28.\n\n^ Grayson 1972, p. 158.\n\n^ Leick 2010, p. 203.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 115.\n\n^ Van De Mieroop 2016, p. 362.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Fales 2014, p. 227.\n\n^ von Beckerath 1997, p. 190.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Tucker 2019, p. 161.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Radner 2015, p. 115.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Radner 2015, p. 115; Magill 1998, pp. 146, 149.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Radner 2015, p. 115; Bertman 2003, p. 103.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Bauer 2007, p. 349; Beaulieu 2018, pp. 178, 184-185.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 199; Grayson 2002, p. 200.\n\n^ a b Chen 2020, p. 200; Grayson 2002, p. 239.\n\n^ Davenport 2016, pp. 37-41.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Grayson 2002, p. 239; Davenport 2016, p. 36.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 390.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Davenport 2016, pp. 36-41; Ahmed 2018, p. 28; Radner 2012b.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 389; Radner 2012; Radner 2012b.\n\n^ Chen 2020, pp. 200-201; Melville 2016, p. 56; Radner 2012.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Elayi 2017, p. 29; Frahm 2014, p. 202; Radner 2003, p. 166.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Radner 2003, pp. 166, 176-177; Widmer 2019, footnote 53; Fales 2012, p. 135.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Na'aman 1991, pp. 243, 254; Finkel 2013, p. 123; Ahmed 2018, p. 121.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Na'aman 1991, pp. 243, 255.\n\n^ Perdue & Carter 2015, p. 40.\n\n^ Dalley 1994, p. 48.\n\n^ Oates 1992, p. 172; Na'aman 1991, p. 256; Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, pp. 122-123.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 255.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 200; Na'aman 1991, p. 243; Radner 2019, p. 135.\n\n^ Radner 2013; Radner 2019, pp. 135-136; Reade 1998, p. 264; Rowton 1951, p. 128.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 20.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 141.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 18.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 236.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, pp. 238, 240.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015, p. 7.\n\n^ Novák & Younansardaroud 2002, p. 170.\n\n^ a b Parpola 2004, p. 20.\n\n^ Schippmann 2012, pp. 816-817.\n\n^ Harper et al. 1995, p. 18.\n\n^ Radner 2015, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ Andrae & Lenzen 1933, pp. 105-106.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 19.\n\n^ a b c Aggoula 1985, p. 8.\n\n^ Beyer 1998, p. 15.\n\n^ Beyer 1998, p. 13; Aggoula 1985, p. 8.\n\n^ Beyer 2013, p. 42.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 20; Beyer 1998, p. 11.\n\n^ Beyer 1998, p. 11.\n\nBibliography\n\nAggoula, Basile (1985). 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Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspectives. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-965-1.\n\nMeissner, Bruno (1990). Reallexikon der Assyriologie. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-010051-8.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2016). The Campaigns of Sargon II, King of Assyria, 721-705 B.C. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-5403-9.\n\nNa'aman, Nadav (1991). \"Chronology and History in the Late Assyrian Empire (631-619 B.C.)\". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. 81 (1-2): 243-267. doi:10.1515/zava.1991.81.1-2.243. S2CID 159785150.\n\nNovák, Mirko; Younansardaroud, Helen (2002). \"Mār Behnāum, Sohn des Sanherib von Nimrūd\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 29 (1). doi:10.1524/aofo.2002.29.1.166. S2CID 163351203.\n\nOates, Joan (1992). \"The fall of Assyria (635-609 BC)\". The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 3 Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-3-11-103358-7.\n\nParker, Bradley J. (2011). \"The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Journal of Anthropological Research. 67 (3): 357-386. doi:10.3998/jar.0521004.0067.303. ISSN 0091-7710. JSTOR 41303323. S2CID 145597598.\n\nParpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 5-22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2021.\n\nPerdue, Leo G.; Carter, Warren (2015). Israel and Empire: A Postcolonial History of Israel and Early Judaism. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-05409-8.\n\nPoebel, A. (1943). \"The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad (Concluded)\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2 (1): 56-90. doi:10.1086/jnes.2.1.3693710. JSTOR 3693710. S2CID 162220863.\n\nRadner, Karen (2003). \"The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC\". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. 6. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: 165-183. doi:10.15366/isimu2003.6.009. hdl:10486/3476.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.\n\nRadner, Karen (2019). \"Last Emperor or Crown Prince Forever? Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources\". State Archives of Assyria Studies. 28: 135-142.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998). \"Assyrian eponyms, kings and pretenders, 648-605 BC\". Orientalia (NOVA Series). 67 (2): 255-265. JSTOR 43076393.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998b). Assyrian Sculpture. The British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-2141-3.\n\nReade, J. E. (2001). \"Assyrian King-Lists, the Royal Tombs of Ur, and Indus Origins\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 60 (1): 1-29. doi:10.1086/468883. JSTOR 545577. S2CID 161480780.\n\nRoux, Georges (1992). Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-012523-8.\n\nRowton, M. B. (1951). \"Jeremiah and the Death of Josiah\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2 (10): 128-130. doi:10.1086/371028. S2CID 162308322.\n\nRowton, M. B. (1970). The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-07051-5.\n\nSack, Ronald H. (2004). Images of Nebuchadnezzar: The Emergence of a Legend (2nd Revised and Expanded ed.). Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press. ISBN 1-57591-079-9.\n\nSagona, A.; Zimansky, P. (2009). Ancient Turkey. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-28916-0.\n\nSoares, Filipe (2017). \"The titles 'King of Sumer and Akkad' and 'King of Karduniaš', and the Assyro-Babylonian relationship during the Sargonid Period\" (PDF). Rosetta. 19: 20-35.\n\nStevens, Kahtryn (2014). \"The Antiochus Cylinder, Babylonian Scholarship and Seleucid Imperial Ideology\" (PDF). The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 134: 66-88. doi:10.1017/S0075426914000068. JSTOR 43286072.\n\nSchippmann, K. (2012). \"Parthian Assur\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 8. pp. 816-817.\n\nTucker, Spencer C. (2019). Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-5352-4.\n\nVan De Mieroop, Marc (2016). A History of the Ancient Near East (3rd ed.). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.\n\nVeenhof, Klaas R.; Eidem, Jesper (2008). Mesopotamia: The Old Assyrian Period. Academic Press Fribourg. ISBN 978-3-7278-1623-9.\n\nWidmer, Marie (2019). \"Translating the Seleucid βασίλισσα. Notes on the titulature of Stratonice in the Borsippa cylinder\". Greece & Rome. 66 (2). Cambridge University Press: 264-279. doi:10.1017/S001738351900007X. S2CID 199880564.\n\nYamada, Keiko; Yamada, Shiego (2017). \"Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited\". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.). \"Now It Happened in Those Days\": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-761-2.\n\nZawadzki, Stefan (1994). \"The Revolt of 746 B.C and the Coming of Tiglath-pileser III to the Throne\" (PDF). State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 8: 53-54.\n\nWeb sources\n\nHighcock, Nancy (2017). \"The Old Assyrian Period (ca. 2000-1600 B.C.)\". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 May 2021.\n\n\"Introducing the Assyrians\". The British Museum Blog. 19 June 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2019.\n\nLendering, Jona (2006). \"The Assyrian King List\". Livius. Retrieved 29 May 2021.\n\nLendering, Jona (2006b). \"Synchronistic King List\". Livius. Retrieved 29 May 2021.\n\nRadner, Karen (2012b). \"Shalmaneser V, king of Assyria (726-722 BC)\". Assyrian empire builders. Retrieved 18 December 2021.\n\nRadner, Karen (2012). \"Sargon II, king of Assyria (721-705 BC)\". Assyrian empire builders. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2020.\n\nRadner, Karen (2013). \"Royal marriage alliances and noble hostages\". Assyrian empire builders. Archived from the original on 22 September 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2019."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-list-of-assyrian-kings"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9499}, {"slug": "reference-dinkha-iv", "title": "Dinkha IV", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Mar Dinkha IV (Classical Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܕܢܚܐ ܪܒܝܥܝܐ and Arabic: مار دنخا الرابع), born Dinkha Khanania (15 September 1935 - 26 March 2015)[1] was an Eastern Christian prelate who served as the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. He was born in the village of Darbandokeh...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mar\nDinkha IV\nܡܪܝ ܕܢܚܐ ܪܒܝܥܝܐ\n\nHis Holiness\n\nDinkha IV presiding at the Assyrian Eucharist (or Raza) in a church near Chicago in June 2008.\n\nChurchAssyrian Church of the East\n\nDiocesePatriarchal Diocese of the Eastern United States\n\nSeeHoly Apostolic See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (in exile in Chicago)\n\nInstalled17 October 1976\n\nTerm ended26 March 2015\n\nPredecessorMar Shimun XXI Eshai\n\nSuccessorMar Gewargis III\n\nOther postsDeaconate at Mar Yokhanan Church, Harir (1950), Bishopric at Urmia (11 February 1962)\n\nOrders\n\nOrdination15 August 1957\n\nConsecration11 February 1962\nby Shimun XXI Eshai\n\nRankBishop\n\nPersonal details\n\nBornDinkha Khananya (Khanania)\n15 September 1935\nDarbandokeh, Iraq\n\nDied26 March 2015(2015-03-26) (aged 79)\nRochester, Minnesota, U.S.\n\nBuriedMontrose Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.\n\nDenominationAssyrian Church of the East\n\nResidenceChicago, Illinois, U.S.\n\nParentsAndrews Khananya (father) and Panna Khananya (mother)\n\nOccupationCleric\n\nMar Dinkha IV (Classical Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܕܢܚܐ ܪܒܝܥܝܐ and Arabic: مار دنخا الرابع), born Dinkha Khanania (15 September 1935 - 26 March 2015)[1] was an Eastern Christian prelate who served as the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. He was born in the village of Darbandokeh (Derbendoki), Iraq, and led the Church in exile in Chicago for most of his life. He was the first patriarch not from the Shimun family since establishment of the Assyrian Church of the East in 1672, and the first following the abolition of hereditary succession.\n\nPersonal life\n\nDinkha Khanania was born in Iraq and baptized in the Church of Mar Qaryaqos located in the village of his birth, Darbandokeh. Khanania (also written as \"Denkha Kh'nanya\") gained his elementary education under the tutorship of his grandfather, Benyamin Soro. In 1947-at the age of eleven-he was entrusted to the care of Mar Yousip Khnanisho, Metropolitan and the Patriarchal representative for all Iraq, the second-highest-ranking ecclesiastic of the Assyrian Church of the East.[2] After two years of study, he was ordained deacon in the church of Mar Youkhana in Harir by Mar Yousip on 12 September 1949. On 15 July 1957, he was ordained to the priesthood, and appointed to minister Urmia, Iran. He was the fourth in the line of succession to the Bishopric of Urmia.\n\nMar Dinkha's priesthood as Metropolitan of Iran and Tehran[2] reestablished a line of succession which had ceased to exist after the 1915 assassination of his predecessor.[3] In 1962, Mar Dinkha moved from northern Iraq to Tehran.[3] During his tenure in Iran, he established a seminary and advocated for Assyrian nationalism and ecumenism.[2] Responding to popular demand, Catholicos-Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai consecrated Mar Dinkha as bishop on 11 February 1962, in the church of Martyr Mar Gewargis in Tehran.\n\nMar Dinkha died on 26 March 2015 in Rochester, Minnesota.[1][4]\n\nTenure as Catholicos-Patriarch\n\nAfter the assassination of Mar Shimun XXI Eshai, the Church of the East had an urgent need to restore its leadership. In 1976, the prelates of the church convened in London to elect a new Catholicos Patriarch and chose Mar Dinkha as the most qualified candidate to fill the post.[2] He was consecrated on 17 October 1976, in the West London Church of St. Barnabas, Ealing.[5] With this consecration, Mar Dinkha IV became the successor to the Apostolic see of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Babylon). He also announced that the hereditary line of succession for the Patriarchy which had existed for 500 years[6] was discontinued with his tenure, allowing any cleric from the Church of the East to be elevated to Catholicos-Patriarch.[7]\n\nDinkha established headquarters-along with four other houses of worship-in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in part due to the instability of the Iran-Iraq War.[5] This conflict as well as Saddam Hussein's policy of Arabization in Iraq, the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions against Iraq intensified the Assyrian diaspora from the region. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolution and Shia emphasis in Iran created a tense situation for Assyrians in the Middle East.[8] During the reign of Shimun XXI and Dinkha IV, American membership in the Assyrian Church of the East rose from 3,200 in the 1950s[3] to approximately 100,000 in 2008.[9]\n\nIn 2005, the Patriarch conducted discussions with President of Iraqi Kurdistan Masoud Barzani on returning to the Apostolic See in northern Iraq and constructing a new residence in Ankawa.[10] On 15 July 2007, Mar Dinkha celebrated 50 years of his priesthood. A ceremony was held at St. George Cathedral in Chicago, where a portion of Ashland Avenue was renamed \"His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV Blvd\". In 2008, he received an honorary degree from the University of Chicago,[11] in part because of his emphasis on education-he stated a goal of only appointing theologians with doctoral degrees to the position of bishop.[12]\n\nTravels and ecumenism\n\nDinkha made ecumenism a priority during his reign,[13] as well as advocacy for the Assyrian people.[14]\n\nRelations with the Catholic Church\n\nDinkha promoted closer relations with the Catholic Church, both with the Vatican and the Chaldean Catholic Church; he first met Pope John Paul II immediately after the Pope's election in 1978[15] and made his first visit to the Vatican in 1984.[16] The two continued to meet informally over the next decade.[17] After a decision by the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East to have better relations with the Roman Catholic Church in 1994,[18] Dinkha agreed to a Joint Christological Declaration with the Holy See.[19] The \"Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\" declares that it is \"[a] basic step on the way towards the full communion to be restored between their Churches;\" emphasized common doctrinal positions between the two bodies, such as the Nicene Creed; and clarifies that the centuries the two have spent out of communion were due to geographic and cultural issues rather than doctrinal differences.[20]\n\nOn 29 November 1996, Dinkha signed an agreement of cooperation with the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldean Catholic Church-Raphael I Bidawid-in Southfield, Michigan[17] and met again on 16 August 1997, to bless an Assyrian church.[12] This \"Joint Synodal Decree for Promoting Unity\" also established a Joint Commission for Unity which helped draft the 2001 \"Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\" that allows Assyrians and Chaldeans to accept the Eucharist from one another.[21] The prior year, Assyrians and Roman Catholics also produced \"A Common Statement on Sacramental Life\" that assessed the importance of sacraments in both churches.[22] Assyrians have also been allowed to study at Baghdad's Chaldean Catholic College and unmarried deacons and priests can study at Catholic universities in Rome.[12]\n\nMiddle Eastern and Syriac ecumenism\n\nThe Church of the East has been a member of the World Council of Churches since its 1948 inception and Dinkha used this membership as a vehicle for bi- and multi-lateral ecumenism that would have been impossible prior to its inception.[23] In 1984, the Assyrian Church applied for membership in the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), but was denied due to objections by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, whose Patriarch, Pope Shenouda III, required the Church of the East to condemn its Church Fathers Diodore of Tarsus, Nestorius, and Theodore of Mopsuestia.[23] The dispute between the Assyrians and Copts resulted in a common Christological declaration in 1996, which was later rejected by the Coptic synod.[24] In 1996, the Church of the East was offered membership in the MECC, but declined to join at the time.[25] Discussions for the Church of the East to join the MECC have stalled since 1999.\n\nThe Austrian Pro Oriente Foundation brought together several Syriac churches in Vienna in 1994 to start a common dialogue amongst the Ancient Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Indian (Malankara) Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Representatives of these churches along with academics founded the Commission on Dialogue Within the Syriac Tradition.[26] Consultations have been convened intermittently since that time. As a product of this process, Dinkha entered into negotiations with the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas in 1997 and the two churches ceased anathematizing each other.[27] Although Dinkha spent over 20 years in dialogue with the Ancient Church of the East, the two remain out of communion.[16] In 1995, the Indian metropolitan see pledged its allegiance to Dinkha,[7] leaving the Ancient Church primarily active in the Middle East, with some 50,000-70,000 members.[12] In 1999, Dinkha declared that all ordinations and orders from the Ancient Church were valid.[28]\n\nPolitical work and Assyrian advocacy\n\nIn September 2006, Mar Dinkha IV paid a historic visit to northern Iraq to give oversight to the churches there and to encourage the president of Iraqi Kurdistan to open a Christian school in Erbil. During this trip, he also met Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Dinkha pursued a pragmatic political course, calling on Assyrians to work together with their respective governments. He sought to de-politicize the office of Catholicos-Patriarch and expanded the church's outreach to the youth by including non-Syriac liturgies composed in local languages.[29]\n\nSee also\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Awa Royel (27 March 2015). \"Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV Enters Eternal Rest\". The Orthodox Church. Archived from the original on 31 March 2015. Retrieved 27 March 2015.\n\n^ a b c d Baum, p. 150\n\n^ a b c Baum, p. 147\n\n^ \"Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East dies at age of 79\". Vatican Radio. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 27 March 2015.\n\n^ a b Joseph, p.252\n\n^ Baumer, p. 247\n\n^ a b Baumer, p. 244\n\n^ Baum, pp. 150-151\n\n^ Baum, p. 155\n\n^ Baumer, p. 270\n\n^ \"Nomination of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV for an Honorary Degree\" (PDF). Assyrian Church of the East Global Youth Organization. November 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 2 October 2009.\n\n^ a b c d Baumer, p. 272\n\n^ Baumer, p. 280\n\n^ Baumer, p. 7\n\n^ Baum, p. 152\n\n^ a b Joseph, p. 253\n\n^ a b Gros, Jeffrey; Meyer, Harding; Rusch, William G. (2000). Growth in Agreement II: Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations on a World Level, 1982-1998. Faith and Order Commission Papers. Vol. 187. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 709. ISBN 9782825413296.\n\n^ Bailey, p. 131\n\n^ Bailey, p. 42\n\n^ Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV (11 November 1994). \"Common Christological Declaration Between the Catholic Church and the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East\". Holy See. Archived from the original on 4 January 2009. Retrieved 2 October 2009.\n\n^ Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (20 July 2001). \"Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". Holy See. Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 2 October 2009.\n\n^ Bliss, Frederick M. (2007), Catholic and Ecumenical: History and Hope: Why the Catholic Church Is Ecumenical and What She Is Doing About It (2nd ed.), Rowman & Littlefield, p. 59, ISBN 978-0-7425-5257-9\n\n^ a b Baumer, p. 282\n\n^ Baum, pp. 151-152\n\n^ Bailey, p.132\n\n^ Baum, p. 153\n\n^ Joseph, p. 258\n\n^ Baum, p. 154\n\n^ Baumer, p. 279\n\nSources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nBailey, J. Martin (2003), Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? (Paperback), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 0-8028-1020-9\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14.\n\nJoseph, John (2000), The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters with Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Powers (Hardback), Studies in Christian Mission, vol. 26 (2nd ed.), Brill Publishers, ISBN 90-04-11641-9\n\nO’Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". In Angold, Michael (ed.). The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 9780521811132.\n\nMooken, Aprem (2003). The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial site of the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nHis biography from the Church of the East in India"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dinkha-iv"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2074}, {"slug": "reference-harees", "title": "Harees", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Harees, haresa, hareesa, arizah, harise, jarish, jareesh, (Arabic: هريس), harisa (Armenian: հարիսա), or korkot (Armenian: կորկոտ) is a dish of boiled, cracked, or coarsely-ground cracked wheat or bulgur, mixed with meat, spices, and butter.[1] Its consistency varies between a porridge and a gruel. Harees is known throughout Armenia...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Harees\nHarisa\n\nAlternative namesHareesa, arizah, harisa, jarish\n\nTypePorridge\n\nCourseMain course\n\nPlace of originArmenia\nArabian Peninsula\n\nRegion or stateWestern Asia\n\nMain ingredientsWheat, butter, and meat (usually mutton but sometimes chicken)\n\n  Media: Harees\n\nHarees dish: know-how, skills and practices\n\nUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage\n\nCountryQatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait\n\nReference01744\n\nRegionArab States\n\nInscription history\n\nInscription2023 (18th session)\n\nListRepresentative\n\nHarees, haresa, hareesa, arizah, harise, jarish, jareesh, (Arabic: هريس), harisa (Armenian: հարիսա), or korkot (Armenian: կորկոտ) is a dish of boiled, cracked, or coarsely-ground cracked wheat or bulgur, mixed with meat, spices, and butter.[1] Its consistency varies between a porridge and a gruel. Harees is known throughout Armenia where it is served on Easter, and the Arab world, where it is commonly eaten in Arab states of the Persian Gulf in the month of Ramadan, and in Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain during Ashura by Shia Muslims.\n\nEtymology\n\nArmenian etymology explains the word as coming from a saint‘s words, as according to folklore, Saint Gregory advised Harekh, (Armenian: հարի՛ սա, romanized: harí sa, lit. 'churn this!'),[2] thus the name of the dish. While the alternative word korkot (Armenian: կորկոտ) means „groats“ in Armenian.[3]\n\n\"Harisa\", also transliterated as \"horisa\", derived from the Arabic verb \"haras\" meaning \"to squish\" to describe the action of breaking and pounding the grains before mixing it with water to create a porridge.[4] In Arabic, \"Harees\" (Arabic: هريس) is linked to the verb (Arabic: هَرَسَ, romanized: harasa) which still means to mash or to squash.[5]\n\nHistory\n\nAccording to medieval Armenian lore, the patron saint of Armenia, Gregory the Illuminator, was offering a meal of love and charity to the poor. There weren't enough sheep to feed the crowds so wheat was added to the cooking pots. They noticed that the wheat was sticking to the bottom of the cauldrons. Saint Gregory advised, \"Harekh! Stir it!\" Thus, the name of the dish, harissa, came from the saint's words. Harissa has been offered as a charity meal ever since.[6] The dish was traditionally served on Easter day.[7]\n\nHarisa is mentioned by Ibn al-Karim in Kitab Al-Tabikh as early as the seventh century.[8] In the anecdotal cookbook, the Umayyad Caliph, Mu'awiya, returns from a trip to Arabia after returning to his newly won Persian lands. In some versions of the story, Mu'awiya is met with some Yemenite Jews whom he asks to prepare the porridge he tasted abroad while in other versions, he approaches locals. This story should be taken with a grain of salt as the author penned the story three centuries after it supposedly occurred.\n\nHarees is documented in Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's 10th-century cookbook Kitab Al Tabikh.,[9] as well as in al-Baghdadi's 13th-century cookbook Kitab Al Tabikh and Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī's 13th-century Andalusian cookbook Kitab Fadalat al-khiwan fi tayyibat al-ta'am w'al-alwan.\n\nHaleem,[10] and cholent originate from harees.[11]\n\nPreparation\n\nThe wheat is soaked overnight, then simmered in water along with meat and butter or sheep tail fat. Any remaining liquid is strained and the mixture is beaten and seasoned. Harees may be garnished with cinnamon, sugar, and clarified butter.\n\nVariants and traditions\n\nThere is a different traditional way of preparing Harees in each of the Arab countries in the Arabian Peninsula area, and among the tribes of these countries. Some variations include the use of cardamom pods in Saudi Arabia, or a garnish with parsley. Before the Armenian genocide where Armenians were spread through a larger area they also had different variations of Harisa. The wheat used in Armenian harissa is typically shelled (pelted) wheat, though in Adana, harissa was made with կորկոտ (korkot; ground, par-boiled shelled wheat). Harissa can be made with lamb, beef, or chicken.[12]\n\nHarees was only made by the wealthy during Ramadan and Eid, for the duration of a three- to seven-day wedding. It was, however, customary for the Harees dishes to be shared with poorer neighbours on such occasions.\n\nIt is similar to kashkeg, a kind of homogeneous porridge made of previously stewed and boned chicken or lamb and coarsely ground soaked wheat (typically shelled wheat).\n\nArab cuisine\n\nHarees is a popular dish in Arab cuisine, from the Levant to the Persian Gulf. It is often served during Ramadan, festivals such as Eid ul-Fitr, and at weddings.[13] In Lebanon, it is often cooked on religious occasions in a communal pot, such as in Ashura. Harise is also a common dish in Syrian cuisine and Iraqi cuisine.\n\nFormerly found only in homes, it is now served in restaurants as well.\n\nArmenian cuisine\n\nHarisa (Armenian: հարիսա, romanized: harisa) is traditionally served on Easter day, and is considered a national dish of Armenia.[14] It is a thick porridge made from korkot (dried or roasted cracked wheat) and fat-rich meat, usually chicken or lamb. Herbs were substituted for meat in harissa when Armenian religious days required fasting and penance. The extremely long cooking process is an essential part of the harisa tradition. Like other ritual dishes, the time taken for preparation is part of its cherished value.[14] Harissa has been offered as a charity meal since ancient times.[15] The dish was traditionally served on Easter.[16]\n\nHarisa is known for helping the Armenians of Musa Ler (in modern-day Turkey) to survive during the resistance of 1915.[17]\n\nEgyptian cuisines\n\nIn Egyptian cuisine, \"freekeh\", unripened, crushed durum wheat, was used to cook harisa, giving the resulting ferik a unique green hue.[18] The origin of the variation could be linked to the Sephardic migration of the 13th century, but historians remain uncertain.[19]\n\nKashmiri cuisine\n\nHarisa or hareesa (Kashmiri : ۂرؠ سہٕ [hərʲsɨ]) in Kashmir is prepared during winter (Chillai Kalan),[20] typically made of mutton and rice flour and eaten with Kashmiri bread called girda (Kashmiri : گِردٕ [girdɨ] ). It is cooked in huge degs (earthen pots) placed in wood-fired ovens. Downtown Srinagar is considered as the hub of harisa making in Kashmir.\n\nZanzibari\n\nIn Zanzibar, the dish is called boko boko and may be cooked with lamb, beef, or chicken. This same dish is also served across Tanzania and Kenya.[21]\n\nEthiopia\n\nHareesa, or harees, is a popular dish mainly in the Harari region. It is cooked with lamb or beef and served on Eid or special occasions such as the birth of a baby.\n\nEmirati Cuisine\n\nHarees is a traditional Emirati dish made from wheat, meat (usually chicken or lamb), and a pinch of salt. The wheat is soaked overnight, then cooked with meat until it reaches a smooth, porridge-like consistency. This hearty dish is particularly popular during Ramadan and festive occasions. It is often garnished with ghee for added flavor. Harees is a staple in Emirati households and showcases the simplicity and richness of Emirati culinary traditions.[22]\n\nSee also\n\nHaleem\n\nHrisseh\n\nKeşkek\n\nList of porridges\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Al Harees, traditional Emirati Cuisine\". UAE Style Magazine. 26 July 2013. Archived from the original on April 6, 2015.\n\n^ Ačaṙean, Hračʻeay (1971-1979), “հերիսայ”, (in Armenian), 2nd edition, a reprint of the original 1926-1935 seven-volume edition, Yerevan: University Press\n\n^ Ačaṙean, Hračʻeay (1973), “կորկոտ”, (in Armenian), 2nd edition, a reprint of the original 1926-1935 seven-volume edition, volume II, Yerevan: University Press, pages 650-651\n\n^ Gil Marks, Encyclopedia of Jewish Foods, 656 (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 258.\n\n^ Team, Almaany. \"Definition and meaning of Harees in Arabic - Arabic dictionary - Page 1\". www.almaany.com.\n\n^ Irina Petrosian, David Underwood (2006). Armenian food: fact, fiction & folklore (2. ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Yerkir Pub. p. 65. ISBN 9781411698659.\n\n^ Sonia Uvezian (1996). Cuisine of Armenia. Hippocrene Cookbooks Series. Hippocrene Books. p. 455. ISBN 9780781804172.\n\n^ Ibn al-Karīm, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and Charles Perry. A Baghdad Cookery Book : the Book of Dishes, 127 (Kitāb Al-Ṭabīkh), (Totnes, UK: Prospect, 2005), 72.\n\n^ Charles Perry, \"Cooking with the Caliphs\", Saudi Aramco World 57:4 (July/August 2006) full text Archived 2014-11-30 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"The haleem debate: Why some Indian Muslims are renaming the Ramzan delicacy 'daleem'\". 3 June 2019.\n\n^ Gil Marks, Encyclopedia of Jewish Foods, 656 (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 40.\n\n^ Keoleian, Ardashes Hagop (1913). The Oriental Cook Book. Sully & Kleinteich.\n\n^ \"Welcome to Abu Dhabi - Emirati Cuisine\". Archived from the original on 2010-11-29. Retrieved 2010-11-07.\n\n^ a b Irina Petrosian, David Underwood (2006). Armenian food: fact, fiction & folklore (2. ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Yerkir Pub. p. 65. ISBN 9781411698659.\n\n^ Irina Petrosian, David Underwood (2006). Armenian food: fact, fiction & folklore (2. ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Yerkir Pub. p. 65. ISBN 9781411698659.\n\n^ Sonia Uvezian (1996). Cuisine of Armenia. Hippocrene Cookbooks Series. Hippocrene Books. p. 455. ISBN 9780781804172.\n\n^ Albala, Ken (2011). Food cultures of the world encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood. p. 8. ISBN 9780313376276.\n\n^ Joel Haber, “Ferik-Egyptian Hamin”, (Jerusalem, Israel: Aish.com, 2022); Elais and Gary, “Lamb Harissa & Gazelle’s Horns”, (Santa Fe, NM:Made In Marrow, 2019).\n\n^ Marks, 11.\n\n^ Naqash, Rayan (16 December 2016). \"It's harissa time again: Savour the traditional winter delicacy that warms up cold Kashmiri mornings\". Scroll.in.\n\n^ Resta, Lizzie. \"A Culture Seen Through Cuisine: Traditional Zanzibari Recipes.\" (2008). (PDF)\n\n^ \"Emirati Cuisine | Al Fanar Restaurant & Cafe | UAE\". Al Fanar Restaurant. Retrieved 2024-05-29."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-harees"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1514}, {"slug": "reference-gulgoze-midyat", "title": "Gülgöze, Midyat", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Inwardo or Gülgöze (Syriac: ܥܝܢܘܪܕܐ, romanized: Iwardo, Inwardo, Ayin Warda, Ain Wardo)[2][3] is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Midyat, Mardin Province, Turkey.[4] Gülgöze is populated by Assyrians/Syriacs[a][5] and had a population of 245 in 2024.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Gülgöze\n\nNeighbourhood\n\nMor Hadbschabo Church in Iwardo\n\nGülgözeLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°24′25″N 41°29′20″E / 37.407°N 41.489°E / 37.407; 41.489\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nDistrictMidyat\n\nPopulation (2024)[1]245\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nInwardo or Gülgöze (Syriac: ܥܝܢܘܪܕܐ, romanized: Iwardo, Inwardo, Ayin Warda, Ain Wardo)[2][3] is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Midyat, Mardin Province, Turkey.[4] Gülgöze is populated by Assyrians/Syriacs[a][5] and had a population of 245 in 2024.[1]\n\nIn the village is the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mor Hadbşabo,[6] which is in the care of a sole nun.[7] Additionally, the village is home to the Churches of Mor Barsaumo and Kundel.[8]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe Turkish and Syriac names for the village translate to \"rose spring/source\".[9][3][10]\n\nHistory\n\nThe village of Iwardo is situated on top of three hills, and is considered one of the oldest Assyrian/Syriac villages in the Tur Abdin region.[11] The Church of Mor Barsaumo is located on a hill parallel to Aynwardo, carved into a rock structure and built on an old settlement in the village.[12][13] The Church of Kundel is located five kilometers northwest of the village and is believed to have been built between the 6th and 8th century, although its origins are unclear.[14] Both are not believed to have been used as a church space in a long time,[15] and the date of abandonment for the Church of Mor Barsaumo is unclear.[16] Noting the rock shape architecture, it is likely that the church was converted from a cistern and was meant to meet the water needs of the villagers.[17]\n\nIgnatius Aphrem I records the Metropolitan Simon of Aynwardo as a saint who perfected the West Syriac script.[18] Ignatius Hanukh from the village was the Patriarch of Tur Abdin from 1421 to 1444.[19] In 1453, the village was captured by the Ottoman Empire.[20] Kurdish raids in Midyat in 1855 caused the priest of the village, Karim, to commit suicide by plunging himself into a cistern.[21] In the Syriac Orthodox patriarchal register of dues of 1870, it was recorded that the village had 81 households, who paid 232 dues, and was served by the Churches of Mori Hütab and Morti Šmüni, with no priest.[22]\n\nPrior to the start of the First World War, the village had about 200 Assyrian/Syriac families, all of whom belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church.[9] During the Sayfo, thousands of Assyrian and Yazidi refugees from throughout Tur Abdin arrived there for safety as the structure of the village allowed for considerable defense from the ensuing violence.[23] Refugees arrived from villages including Habasnos, Midyat, Bote, Saleh, Keferze, Kafro Eloyto, Mzizah and Urnas.[5] The Defence of Iwardo took place alongside the Defense of Azakh in what Ottoman authorities dubbed the \"Midyat rebellion\",[24][25][26] and was led by a native of the village, Gallo Shabo.[27] The defense lasted 52-60 days[28] and remains significant to the collective memory of the genocide and the village's history, being compared to the Armenian Defense of Van (1915) and Musa Dagh.[29]\n\nA letter in the Secret Archive of the Vatican posits that 150 Assyrians were deported after Sayfo, with Aynwardo being one of the villages that they were expelled from.[30] In the 1960s, the village had 300 Assyrian/Syriac families, decreasing to half that number in 1985.[31] Between 1990 and 1994, 30 murders of Assyrians/Syriacs took place in Tur Abdin, with one of them being a priest of Aynwardo.[32] By 2008, there were 10 Assyrian/Syriac families in Aynwardo, which decreased to five in 2015.[31] In December 2017, an ancient settlement within the borders of the village was designated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as a first degree archaeological site with immovable architecture.[33]\n\nIn 2020, only three Assyrian/Syriac families remained in the village as most have since immigrated to Europe[34] (particularly Germany[35]). There is also a diaspora community of about 200 families around Haworth, New Jersey.[36] The Akbulut family continues to take care of the Mor Hadbşabo Church,[37][38] although it does not have a priest.[11] In 2024, a legend of a key that would help children with speech difficulties learn to talk began to surface on social media platforms.[39] As part of diaspora initiatives, many Assyrians/Syriacs have since returned to the village as recently as 2024, encouraged by government reforms and public works projects.[40][41] In 2025, a complex of eleven villas were completed and formally inaugurated by Syriac Orthodox patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II to welcome Assyrian returnees from the diaspora to the village.[42]\n\nDemography\n\nFamilies\n\nThe following is a list of the number of Syriac families that have inhabited Aynwardo per year stated. Unless otherwise stated, all figures are from the list provided in Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World, as noted in the bibliography below.[43][b]\n\n1915: 200[44]\n\n1966: 140\n\n1979: 96\n\n1981: 91\n\n1987: 93\n\n1995: 60\n\n1997: 7\n\n2008: 10[45]\n\nPopulation\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±% p.a.\n\n1997177-    \n\n2007193+0.87%\n\n2012216+2.28%\n\n2017236+1.79%\n\n2022237+0.08%\n\n2024245+1.67%\n\nSource: Population census (1997)[46] and TÜİK (2007-2024)[1]\n\nNotes\n\n^ The terms \"Assyrian\" and \"Syriac\" are used to refer to the same people\n\n^ The size of a single family varies between five and ten persons.[43]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Population Of Municipalities, Villages And Quarters\". TÜİK. Retrieved 12 June 2025.\n\n^ Carlson, Thomas A (9 December 2016). \"ʿAynwardo - ܥܝܢܘܪܕܐ\". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 5 June 2025.\n\n^ a b Korkut 2023, p. 18, Footnote 9.\n\n^ \"31 ARALIK 2021 TARİHLİ ADRESE DAYALI NÜFUS KAYIT SİSTEMİ (ADNKS) SONUÇLARI\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\n^ a b Travis 2017, pp. 185-188.\n\n^ Barsoum 2008, p. 17.\n\n^ \"Papazı olmayan kilisenin 40 yıldır bakımını yapıp, ziyaretçileri karşılıyor\". www.cumhuriyet.com.tr (in Turkish). 2020-11-27. Retrieved 2025-06-05.\n\n^ Emir, p. 17.\n\n^ a b Gaunt 2006, p. 202.\n\n^ Courtois 2013, p. 121.\n\n^ a b Polat, Veysi (2020-11-13). \"Mardin'in Süryani köyü Aynverd'i terk etmeyenler\". Independent Türkçe (in Turkish). Diyarbakır. Retrieved 2025-06-05.\n\n^ Keser-Kayaalp 2022, p. 111.\n\n^ Korkut 2023, p. 24.\n\n^ Keser-Kayaalp 2022, p. 125.\n\n^ Keser-Kayaalp 2022, pp. 113, 126.\n\n^ Korkut 2023, p. 29.\n\n^ Korkut 2023, pp. 29-30.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 21.\n\n^ Barsoum 2008, p. 45.\n\n^ Barsoum 2008, p. 70.\n\n^ Barsoum 2008, p. 131.\n\n^ Bcheiry 2009, pp. 51-52.\n\n^ Gerçek, Burçin; Akcam, Taner (24 April 2014). Report on Turks who reached-out to Armenians in 1915 (PDF) (Report). The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. pp. 31, 33. Retrieved 6 April 2025.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2009-04-18). \"The Assyrian Genocide of 1915\". SEYFO CENTER. Retrieved 2025-04-06. The events of Midyat have enabled Turkish historians to interpret the meager defense as a rebellion, thus justifying the full severity of its repression by the Ottoman authorities\n\n^ Gaunt 2006, p. 282.\n\n^ Courtois 2004, p. 189.\n\n^ Gaunt, Atto & Barthoma 2017, p. 158.\n\n^ Travis 2017, p. 188.\n\n^ Boyajian, David (2018-11-08). \"Prof. Hannibal Travis Speaks on the Assyrian, Armenian, Greek, and Yezidi Genocides\". The Armenian Mirror-Spectator. Retrieved 2025-06-05. In 1915, explained Travis, Assyrians made resistance stands, such as in Ayn-Wardo (in today's southeastern Turkey), against Turkish troops and Kurdish brigands - similar to that period's Armenian defence stands in Van and at Musa Dagh\n\n^ Gaunt, Atto & Barthoma 2017, p. 124.\n\n^ a b Güsten 2016, p. 9.\n\n^ Courtois 2013, p. 134.\n\n^ \"KÜLTÜR VE TURİZM BAKANLIĞI ŞANLIURFA KÜLTÜR VARLIKLARINI KORUMA BÖLGE KURULU KARAR\" (PDF). korumakurullari.ktb.gov.tr (in Turkish). Şanlıurfa: Ministry of Culture and Tourism (Turkey). 19 December 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Christians fear for their future in Turkey\". RFI. Radio France Internationale. 2020-06-05. Retrieved 2025-06-05.\n\n^ Güsten 2016, p. 10.\n\n^ Perlin, Ross (2024). Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York. New York: Atlantic Monthly Books. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-8021-6246-5.\n\n^ \"31 ARALIK 2021 TARİHLİ ADRESE DAYALI NÜFUS KAYIT SİSTEMİ (ADNKS) SONUÇLARI\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\n^ \"Papazı olmayan kilisenin 40 yıldır bakımını yapıyor\". www.trthaber.com (in Turkish). 2020-11-27. Retrieved 2025-09-25.\n\n^ Nisan, Nursin (2024-09-25). \"900 Yıllık \"Dil Açan Anahtar\" Sosyal Medyada Yeniden Gündem Oldu\". Mardin Haber Gazetesi (in Turkish). Retrieved 2025-06-05.\n\n^ Vatan hasretiyle 45 yıl sonra Hollanda'dan Midyat'taki Gülgöze köyüne geri döndü - TRT KURDİ (in Turkish). Retrieved 2025-06-06 - via www.sizinmedya.com.\n\n^ \"Ayınvert Köyünde 50 yıl sonra anavatana dönüşün huzur halayı\". Sizin Medya (in Turkish). 2024-09-30. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Returning diaspora families build entire neighborhood in ancestral village\". The Assyria Post. 2025-09-28. Retrieved 2025-09-28.\n\n^ a b Brock (2021), p. 167.\n\n^ Courtois 2004, p. 226.\n\n^ Courtois 2013, p. 148.\n\n^ \"1997 Population Count\" (PDF) (in Turkish). Turkish Statistical Institute. 1999. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 October 2022.\n\nBibliography\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Matti Moosa (2nd ed.). Gorgias Press. Retrieved 14 July 2020.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 1 April 2021.\n\nEmir, Başak. Documentation and Promotion of the Syriac Intangible Heritage in Mardin Region (PDF) (Report). Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation. Retrieved 5 June 2025.\n\nBcheiry, Iskandar (2009). The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Register of Dues of 1870: An Unpublished Historical Document from the Late Ottoman Period. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\nBrock, Sebastian (2021). \"The Syrian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century\". Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World (PDF). Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust. pp. 155-181. Retrieved 12 August 2022.\n\nCourtois, Sébastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans. Translated by Vincent Aurora. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 20 November 2024.\n\nCourtois, Sébastien de (2013). \"Tur Abdin : Réflexions sur l'état présent descommunautés syriaques du Sud-Est de la Turquie,mémoire, exils, retours\". Cahier du Gremmamo (in French). 21: 113-150.\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner (2017). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire (PDF). Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\nGüsten, Susanne (August 2016). A Farewell to Tur Abdin (PDF) (Report). Istanbul Policy Center. Retrieved 5 June 2025.\n\nKeser-Kayaalp, Elif, ed. (January 2022). Syriac Architectural Heritage at Risk in TurʿAbdin (PDF). Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\nKorkut, Tahsin (21 June 2023). \"Midyat'ta Bir Kaya Kilisesi (Gülgöze/Ayn Wardo Mor Barsavmo Kilisesi)\". Van Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (5): 13-48.\n\nTravis, Hannibal (2017). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315269832. ISBN 9781315269832.\n\nSee also\n\nDefence of Iwardo"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-gulgoze-midyat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1791}, {"slug": "reference-kurkh-monoliths", "title": "Kurkh Monoliths", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Kurkh Monoliths are two Assyrian stelae of c. 852 BC and 879 BC that contain a description of the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III. The Monoliths were discovered in 1861 by a British archaeologist John George Taylor, who was the British Consul-General stationed...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "37°49′30″N 40°32′24″E / 37.825°N 40.54°E / 37.825; 40.54\n\nKurkh Monoliths\n\nThe Monolith stele of Shalmaneser III\n\nMaterialLimestone\n\nSize2.2 m (7 ft 3 in) and 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in)\n\nWritingAkkadian cuneiform\n\nCreatedc. 852 BC and 879 BC\n\nDiscoveredÜçtepe Höyük, 1861\n\nPresent locationBritish Museum\n\nIdentificationME 118883 and ME 118884\n\nThe Kurkh Monoliths are two Assyrian stelae of c. 852 BC and 879 BC that contain a description of the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III. The Monoliths were discovered in 1861 by a British archaeologist John George Taylor, who was the British Consul-General stationed in the Ottoman Eyalet of Kurdistan, at a site called Kurkh, which is now known as Üçtepe Höyük, in the district of Bismil, in the province of Diyarbakir of Turkey. Both stelae were donated by Taylor to the British Museum in 1863.[1]\n\nThe Shalmaneser III monolith contains a description of the Battle of Qarqar at the end. This description contains the name \"A-ha-ab-bu Sir-ila-a-a”, providing the first extrabiblical reference to Ahab, king of Israel;[2][3] although this is the only reference to the term \"Israel\" in Assyrian and Babylonian records, which usually refer to the Northern Kingdom as the \"House of Omri\" in reference to its ruling dynasty-a fact brought up by some scholars who dispute the proposed translation.[4][5] It is also one of four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel, the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and the Mesha Stele.[6][7][8] This description is also the oldest document that mentions the Arabs.[9]\n\nAccording to the inscription Ahab committed a force of 2,000 chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers to the coalition against Assyria.[10]\n\nDiscovery\n\nThe location of the discovery at the town called \"Kurkh\" was described as\n\nabout 14 miles from Diyarbakir ... situated at the eastern end of an elevated platform ... on the right bank of the Tigris, and close to the angle formed by the junction of the Giuk Su with the former, which receives also the waters of the Ambar Su, on the left bank opposite,\n\nthen in the Ottoman Eyalet of Kurdistan in Al-Jazira.[11] The location was also known as Kerh or Kerh-i Dicle and is now known as Üçtepe (in Kurdish: Kerx/Kerkh or Kerxa Kîkan[12]), in the district of Bismil, in the province of Diyarbakir of Turkey.[13][14]: 117 \n\nKurkh was initially identified by Henry Rawlinson as the ancient city of Tushhan.[11] This identification was challenged by Karlheinz Kessler in 1980, who proposed ancient Tidu.[15][16]\n\nTaylor described his find as follows:\n\nI had the good fortune to discover a stone slab bearing the effigy of an Assyrian king, and covered on both sides with long inscriptions in the cuneiform character, to within 2 feet of its base, which had purposely been left bare to admit of its being sunk erect in the ground, as a trophy commemorative of its capture by the king, and at the point probably where his legions effected their forced entry into the city. Some little way below it, on the slope of the mound, and nearly entirely concealed by debris, I exhumed another perfect relic of the same description.[11]\n\nDescription\n\nAshurnasirpal IIShalmaneser IIIFirst published transcriptions, by George Smith (assyriologist)\n\nThe stela depicting Shalmaneser III is made of limestone with a round top. It is 221 centimetres (87 in) tall, 87 centimetres (34 in) wide, and 23 centimetres (9.1 in) deep.[17]\n\nThe British Museum describes the image as follows:\n\nThe king, Shalmaneser III, stands before four divine emblems: (1) the winged disk, the symbol of the god Ashur, or, as some hold, of Shamash; (2) the six-pointed star of Ishtar, goddess of the morning and evening star; (3) the crown of the sky-god Anu, in this instance with three horns, in profile; (4) the disk and crescent of the god Sin as the new and the full moon. On his collar the king wears as amulets (1) the fork, the symbol of the weather-god, Adad; (2) a segment of a circle, of uncertain meaning; (3) an eight-pointed star in a disk, here probably the symbol of Shamash, the sun-god; (4) a winged disk, again of the god Ashur. The gesture of the right hand has been much discussed and variously interpreted, either as the end of the action of throwing a kiss as an act of worship, or as resulting from cracking the fingers with the thumb, as a ritual act which is attributed to the Assyrians by later Greek writers, or as being simply a gesture of authority suitable to the king, with no reference to a particular religious significance. It seems fairly clear that the gesture is described in the phrase 'uban damiqti taraṣu', 'to stretch out a favourable finger', a blessing which corresponds to the reverse action, in which the index finger is not stretched out. There is a cuneiform inscription written across the face and base and around the sides of the stela.[17]\n\nThe inscription \"describes the military campaigns of his (Shalmaneser III's) reign down to 853 BC.\"[18]\n\nThe stela depicting Ashurnasirpal II is made of limestone with a round top. It is 193 centimetres (76 in) tall, 93 centimetres (37 in) wide, and 27 centimetres (11 in) deep. According to the British Museum, the stela \"shows Ashurnasirpal II in an attitude of worship, raising his right hand to symbols of the gods\" and its inscription \"describes the campaign of 879 when Assyrians attacked the lands of the upper Tigris, in the Diyabakir region.\"[19]\n\nShalmaneser III Stela inscription\n\nKurkh stele of Shalmaneser III, frontal aspectKurkh stele of Shalmaneser III, cuneiform inscription on the back and side\n\nThe inscription on the Shalmaneser III Stela deals with campaigns Shalmaneser made in western Mesopotamia and Syria, fighting extensively with the countries of Bit Adini and Carchemish. At the end of the Monolith comes the account of the Battle of Qarqar, where an alliance of twelve kings fought against Shalmaneser at the Syrian city of Qarqar. This alliance, comprising eleven kings, was led by Irhuleni of Hamath and Hadadezer of Damascus, describing also a large force[20] led by King Ahab of Israel.\n\nThe English translation of the end of the Shalmaneser III monolith is as follows:\n\nYear 6 (Col. ll, 78-I02) \n\n610. In the year of Dâian-Assur, in the month of Airu, the fourteenth day, I departed from Nineveh, crossed the Tigris, and drew near to the cities of Giammu, (near) the Balih(?) River. At the fearfulness of my sovereignty, the terror of my frightful weapons, they became afraid; with their own weapons his nobles killed Giammu. Into Kitlala and Til-sha-mâr-ahi, I entered. I had my gods brought into his palaces. In his palaces I spread a banquet. His treasury I opened. I saw his wealth. His goods, his property, I carried off and brought to my city Assur. From Kitlala I departed. To Kâr-Shalmaneser I drew near. In (goat)-skin boats I crossed the Euphrates the second time, at its flood. The tribute of the kings on that side of the Euphrates,---of Sangara of Carchemish, of Kundashpi of Kumuhu (Commagene), of Arame son of Gûzi, of Lalli the Milidean, of Haiani son of Gahari, of Kalparoda of Hattina, of Kalparuda of Gurgum, - silver, gold, lead, copper, vessels of copper, at Ina-Assur-uttir-asbat, on that side of the Euphrates, on the river Sagur, which the people of Hatti call Pitru, there I received (it). From the Euphrates I departed, I drew near to Halman (Aleppo). They were afraid to fight with (me), they seized my feet. Silver, gold, as their tribute I received. I offered sacrifices before the god Adad of Halman. From Halman I departed. To the cities of Irhulêni, the Hamathite, I drew near. The cities of Adennu, Bargâ, Arganâ, his royal cities, I captured. His spoil, his property, the goods of his palaces, I brought out. I set fire to his palaces. From Argana I departed. To Karkar I drew near. \n\n611. Karkar, his royal city, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire. 1,200 chariots, I,200 cavalry, 20,000 soldiers, of Hadad-ezer, of Aram (? Damascus); 700 chariots, 700 cavalry, 10,000* soldiers of Irhulêni of Hamath, 2,000 chariots, 10,000 soldiers of Ahab, the Israelite, 500 soldiers of the Gueans, 1,000 soldiers of the Musreans, 10 chariots, 10,000 soldiers of the Irkanateans, 200 soldiers of Matinuba'il, the Arvadite, 200 soldiers of the Usanateans, 30 chariots, [ ],000 soldiers of Adunu-ba'il, the Shianean, 1,000 camels of Gindibu', the Arabian, [ ],000 soldiers [of] Ba'sa, son of Ruhubi, the Ammonite, - these twelve kings he brought to his support; to offer battle and fight, they came against me. (Trusting) in the exalted might which Assur, the lord, had given (me), in the mighty weapons, which Nergal, who goes before me, had presented (to me), I battled with them. From Karkar, as far as the city of Gilzau, I routed them. 14,000 of their warriors I slew with the sword. Like Adad, I rained destruction upon them. I scattered their corpses far and wide, (and) covered (lit.., filled) the face of the desolate plain with their widespreading armies. With (my) weapons I made their blood to flow down the valleys(?) of the land. The plain was too small to let their bodies fall, the wide countryside was used up in burying them. With their bodies I spanned the Arantu) as with a bridge(?). In that battle I took from them their chariots, their cavalry, their horses, broken to the yoke. (*Possibly 20,000).[21]\n\n\"Ahab of Israel\"\n\nThe identification of \"A-ha-ab-bu Sir-ila-a-a\" with \"Ahab of Israel\" was first proposed[22] by Julius Oppert in his 1865 Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie.[23]\n\nEberhard Schrader dealt with parts of the inscription on the Shalmaneser III Monolith in 1872, in his Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (\"Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament\").[24] The first full translation of the Shalmaneser III Monolith was provided by James Alexander Craig in 1887.[25]\n\nSchrader wrote that the name \"Israel\" (\"Sir-ila-a-a\") was unique among Assyrian inscriptions, as the usual Assyrian terms for the Northern Kingdom of Israel were \"The Land of Omri\" or Samaria. This fact has been brought up by some scholars who dispute the proposed translation.[4][26] According to Shigeo Yamada, the designation of a state by two alternative names is not unusual in the inscription of Shalmaneser.\n\nSchrader also noted that whilst Assyriologists such as Fritz Hommel[27] had disputed whether the name was \"Israel\" or \"Jezreel\",[24][28] because the first character is the phonetic \"sir\" and the place-determinative \"mat\". Schrader described the rationale for the reading \"Israel\", which became the scholarly consensus, as:\n\n\"the fact that here Ahab Sir'lit, and Ben-hadad of Damascus appear next to each other, and that in an inscription of this same king [Shalmaneser]'s Nimrud obelisk appears Jehu, son of Omri, and commemorates the descendant Hazael of Damascus, leaves no doubt that this Ahab Sir'lit is the biblical Ahab of Israel. That Ahab appears in cahoots with Damascus is quite in keeping with the biblical accounts, which Ahab concluded after the Battle of Aphek an alliance with Benhadad against their hereditary enemy Assyria.\"[24]\n\nThe identification was challenged by other contemporary scholars such as George Smith and Daniel Henry Haigh.[22]\n\nThe identification as Ahab of Israel has been challenged in more recent years by Werner Gugler and Adam van der Woude, who believe that \"Achab from the monolith-inscription should be construed as a king from Northwestern Syria\".[29]\n\nAccording to the inscription, Ahab committed a force of 10,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 chariots to an Assyrian-led war coalition. The size of Ahab's contribution indicates that the Kingdom of Israel was a major military power in the Levant during the first half of the 9th century BCE.[30] Due to the size of Ahab's army, which was presented as extraordinarily large for ancient times, the translation raised polemics among scholars. Nadav Na'aman proposed a scribal error in regard to the size of Ahab's army and suggested that the army consisted of 200 instead of 2,000 chariots.\n\nSummarizing scholarly works on this subject, Kelle suggests that the evidence \"allows one to say that the inscription contains the first designation for the Northern Kingdom. Moreover, the designation \"Israel\" seems to have represented an entity that included several vassal states.\" The latter may have included Moab, Edom and Judah.[31]\n\nScribal errors and disputes\n\nThere are a number of issues surrounding the written words contained in the Monolith, mostly surrounding the text of the Battle of Qarqar. For example, the scribe lists one city as Gu-a-a, which some scholars believe refers to Que. However, H. Tadmor believes that this is actually a mistake, with Gu-a-a being an incorrect spelling for Gu-bal-a-a, that is, Byblos. Other scholars have also pointed out that it would be more logical if Shalmaneser fought Byblos instead of Que, because it would make better geographic sense-since the other kings of the area are polities to the south and west of Assyria, it might be expected that another city-state in that area-Byblos-would fight at Qarqar, rather than Que, which is in Cilicia.\n\nAnother issue with regard to spelling is the term musri, which is Akkadian for \"march\". Tadmor says that the actual Musri people had been conquered by the Assyrians in the 11th century BC, and thus believes that this reference to Musri must be \"Egypt\", although some scholars dispute this.\n\nAnother major error in the text is the assertion that Assyria fought \"twelve kings\". Casual readers will note that the Monolith in fact lists eleven, but some scholars have attempted to explain that there really is a missing king, stemming from the description of \"Ba'sa the man of Bit-Ruhubi, the Ammonite\". One scholar suggests that the two entities be split into \"Bit-Ruhubi\" Beth-Rehob, a state in southern Syria and \"Ammon\", a state in Trans-Jordan.\n\nSee also\n\nBlack Obelisk of Shalmaneser III\n\nBible\n\nBooks of Kings\n\nList of artifacts significant to the Bible\n\nOld Testament\n\nStela of Ashurnasirpal II\n\nBibliography\n\nKelle, Brad (2002), \"What's in a Name? Neo-Assyrian Designations for the Northern Kingdom and Their Implications for Israelite History and Biblical Interpretation\", Journal of Biblical Literature, 121 (4): 639-666, doi:10.2307/3268575, JSTOR 3268575\n\nTaylor, John George (1865), \"Travels in Kurdistan, with Notices of the Sources of the Eastern and Western Tigris, and Ancient Ruins in Their Neighbourhood\", Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London\n\nSchrader, Eberhard (1872), Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament) (editio princeps)\n\nHommel, Fritz (1885), Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens (History of Babylonia and Assyria), Berlin, Grote, p. 609\n\nBecking, Bob; Korpel, Marjo Christina Annette (1999), The crisis of Israelite religion: transformation of religious tradition in exilic and post-exilic times, BRILL, ISBN 9789004114968\n\nGugler, Werner, Jehu und seine Revolution, Kampen, 1996, pages 67-80\n\nA.S. van der Woude, Zacharia, G.F. Callenbach, Prediking van het Oude Testament, 325 pages, 9026607407\n\nLemche, Niels Peter (1998). The Israelites in History and Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664227272.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Collection | British Museum\".\n\n^ Greenspahn, F.E. (2008). The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century. NYU Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-8147-3187-1.\n\n^ Golden, J.M. (2004). Ancient Canaan and Israel: New Perspectives. Understanding Ancient Civilizations. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-57607-897-6.\n\n^ a b Grabbe, L.L. (2010). Israel in Transition 2: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIA (c. 1250-850 BCE): The Texts. The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-567-63840-3. The single case where \"Israel\" is mentioned is Shalmaneser's account of his battle with the coalition at Qarqar\n\n^ Kelle 2002, p. 642: \"The question of the identity of a-ha-ab-bu involves the fact that the other Assyrian inscriptions for 853-852 do not mention this person as a leader or participant in the coalition. They mention only Adad-idri and Irhuleni (see Bull Inscription and Black Obelisk). This lack of any further references leads some writers to assert that one should not equate the reference on the Monolith Inscription with Ahab of Israel. For example, W. Gugler supports A. S. van der Woude's thesis that tile inscription simply refers to an unknown northwest Syrian ruler. [Footnote:] W. Gugler, Jehu und seine Revolution (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996), 70-77. Some earlier readings also suggested \"Ahab of Jezreel\" (see Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia [ed. H. Rawlinson; 5 vols.: London: British Museum, 1861-1909], 3:6). However, this no longer appears to be considered, and the mot recent studies do not mention it (e.g., Grayson, Assyrian Rulers, 11-24).\"\n\n^ Lemche 1998, pp. 46, 62: \"No other inscription from Palestine, or from Transjordan in the Iron Age, has so far provided any specific reference to Israel. ... The name of Israel was found in only a very limited number of inscriptions, one from Egypt, another separated by at least 250 years from the first, in Transjordan. A third reference is found in the stele from Tel Dan-if it is genuine, a question not yet settled. The Assyrian and Mesopotamian sources only once mentioned a king of Israel, Ahab, in a spurious rendering of the name.\"\n\n^ Maeir, Aren (2013). \"Israel and Judah\". The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. New York: Blackwell. pp. 3523-27. The earliest certain mention of the ethnonym Israel occurs in a victory inscription of the Egyptian king MERENPTAH, his well-known \"Israel Stela\" (ca. 1210 BCE); recently, a possible earlier reference has been identified in a text from the reign of Rameses II (see RAMESES I-XI). Thereafter, no reference to either Judah or Israel appears until the ninth century. The pharaoh Sheshonq I (biblical Shishak; see SHESHONQ I-VI) mentions neither entity by name in the inscription recording his campaign in the southern Levant during the late tenth century. In the ninth century, Israelite kings, and possibly a Judaean king, are mentioned in several sources: the Aramaean stele from Tel Dan, inscriptions of SHALMANESER III of Assyria, and the stela of Mesha of Moab. From the early eighth century onward, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are both mentioned somewhat regularly in Assyrian and subsequently Babylonian sources, and from this point on there is relatively good agreement between the biblical accounts on the one hand and the archaeological evidence and extra-biblical texts on the other.\n\n^ FLEMING, DANIEL E. (1998-01-01). \"Mari and the Possibilities of Biblical Memory\". Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 92 (1): 41-78. JSTOR 23282083. The Assyrian royal annals, along with the Mesha and Dan inscriptions, show a thriving northern state called Israël in the mid-9th century, and the continuity of settlement back to the early Iron Age suggests that the establishment of a sedentary identity should be associated with this population, whatever their origin. In the mid-14th century, the Amarna letters mention no Israël, nor any of the biblical tribes, while the Merneptah stele places someone called Israël in hill-country Palestine toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. The language and material culture of emergent Israël show strong local continuity, in contrast to the distinctly foreign character of early Philistine material culture.\n\n^ Ephʻal, I. (1982). The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent, 9Th-5Th Centuries B.C. Magnes Press, Hebrew University. p. 76. ISBN 978-965-223-400-1.\n\n^ Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography edited by Ada Cohen, Steven E. Kangas P:126\n\n^ a b c Taylor 1865.\n\n^ A list of villages in Bismil Site accessed: 8.12.2020\n\n^ Ancient Locations Tidu? Kurkh Site accessed July 5, 2014\n\n^ Özfırat, Aynur (2012). N. Laneri; P. Pfälzner; S. Valentini (eds.). \"Üçtepe and Diyarbakır Area During the Early-Middle Bronze Ages\". Workshop on Looking North: The Socio-economic Dynamics of the Northern Mesopotamian and Anatolian Regions During the Late Third and Early Second Millenium BC. 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Rome, 5-10 May 2008). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, Studien zur Urbanisierung Nordmesopotamiens Supplementa: 117-126.\n\n^ Karlheinz Kessler (1980). Untersuchungen zur historischen Topographie Nordmesopotamiens. pp. 117-120.\n\n^ Naʼaman, N. (2005). Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and Counteraction. Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors : Interaction and Counteraction : Collected Essays. Eisenbrauns. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-57506-108-5.\n\n^ a b British Museum. The Kurkh Stela: Shalmaneser III Accessed July 5, 2014\n\n^ British Museum. Stela of Shalmaneser III Accessed July 5, 2014\n\n^ British Museum. The Kurkh Stela: Ashurnasirpal II Accessed July 5, 2014\n\n^ Huffmon, Herbert B. (2006). \"Jezebel - the 'Corrosive' Queen\". In Joyce Rilett Wood; John E. Harvey; Mark Leuchter (eds.). From Babel to Babylon: Essays on Biblical History And Literature in Honor of Brian Peckham. T&T Clark. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-567-02892-1.\n\n^ Daniel David Luckenbill\nAncient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (Chicago, 1926) Entire book is available online and to download here. Quoted text begins here. This is the English translation cited by the British Museum webpage on the Shalmaneser III stela here.\n\n^ a b Assyrian Eponym Canon, George Smith, 1875, page 188-189, \"The first one is called Ahab of Zirhala; and Professor Oppert, who discovered the name, reads Ahab the Israelite; but some ingenious remarks have been made on the name Zirhala by the Rev. D. H. Haigh, who has pointed out that Zir is not the usual reading of the first character, and that the name should be Suhala; and he suggests that the geographical name Samhala, or Savhala, a kingdom near Damascus, is intended in this place, and not the kingdom of Israel. The hypothesis of the Rev. D. H. Haigh may be correct; certainly he is right as to the usual phonetic value of the first character of this geographical name; but on the other hand, we find it certainly used sometimes for the syllable zir. Even if the view of the Rev. D. H. Haigh has to be given up, and if the reading, Ahab the Israelite, has to be accepted, it would be possible that this was not the Ahab of Scripture. The time when this battle took place, BC 854, was, according to the chronology here suggested, during the reign of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, BC 857 to 840; and at this time part of the territory of Israel had been conquered, and was held by the kingdom of Damascus: it is quite possible that the part of the country under the dominion of Damascus a ruler named Ahab may have reigned, and that he may have assisted Ben-hadad with his forces against the Assyrians. It does not seem likely that the Biblical Ahab, who was the foe of the king of Damascus, sent any troops to his aid, at least, such a circumstance is never hinted at in the Bible, and is contrary to the description of his conduct and reign. Under these circumstances I have given up the identification of the Ahab who assisted Ben-hadad at the battle of Qarqar, B.C. 854, with the Ahab, king of Israel, who died, I believe, forty-five years earlier, in BC 899.\"\n\n^ Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie, Julius Oppert, 1865, p.140, \"La grande importance de ce texte réside dans la citation du roi célèbre par son impiété, et du nom d'Israël. On se souvient que le roi d'Assyrie cite juste sur l'obélisque, parmi ses tributaires, Jéhu, l'un des successeurs d'Achab, et contemporain de Hazaël qui paraît pour la première fois à la 18e campagne, tandis qu'à la 14e nous lisons encore le nom de son prédécesseur Benhadad.\"\n\n^ a b c Eberhard Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 1872 Quotes in German:\np58-59 \"Der Name \"Israel\" selber findet sich und zwar als Name für das \"Reich Israel\" nur einmal in den Inschriften, nämlich auf dem neuentdeckten Stein Salmanassar's II, wo Ahab von Israel als Sir-'-lai d. i. als \"der von Israel\" bezeichnet wird (s. die Stelle in der Glosse zu 1 Kon. 16, 29). Es ist nun allerdings unter den Assyriologen Streit darüber, ob dieser Name wirklich mit hebr. ישראל und nicht vielmehr mit יזרעאל d. i. \"Jezreel\" zu identificiren sei, dieses deshalb, weil das erste Zeichen sonst den Lautwerth \"sir\" hat. Indess da das Adjectiv das Land-determinativ (\"mat\") vor sich hat, Jezreel aber kein \"Land\", denn vielmehr eine \"Stadt\" war, so wird schon deshalb die letztere Vermuthung aufzugeben sein. Dazu wird gerade bei zusammengesetzten, mit Zischlauten beginnenden Sylben ein so strenger Unterschied in den verschiedenen Zischlauten nicht gemacht, wie denn z. B. mit Bar-zi-pa in den Inschriften auch Bar-sip wechselt, obgleich sonst dem letzten Zeichen sip der andere \"sip\" fur gewohnlich nicht zukommt.\"\np99-100 \"Der Umstand, dass hier Ahab, der Sir'lit, und Benhadad von Damaskus neben einander erscheinen, sowie dass dieser selbe König in der später redigirten Inschrift des Nimrudobelisk's des Jehu, Sohnes des Omri, sowie anderseits des Hazael von Damask gedenkt, lässt darüber keinen Zweifel, dass unter diesem Ahab, dem Sir'liten, der biblische Ahab von Israel gemeint ist. Dass aber Ahab im Bunde mit Damask erscheint; ist durchaus in Uebereinstimmung mit dem biblischen Berichte; wonach Ahab nach der Schlacht bei Aphek mit Benhadad ein Bündniss schloss, selbstverständlich gegen den Erbfeind von Damaskus, gegen Assyrien.\"\n\n^ Craig, James A. (July 1, 1887). \"The Monolith Inscription of Salmaneser II\". Hebraica - via Internet Archive.\n\n^ Kelle 2002, p. 642a.\n\n^ Hommel 1885, p. 609: \"[beziehungsweise] Jesreel als seiner Residenz\" (\"or Jezreel as his residence\")\n\n^ Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, p278-279\n\n^ Becking & Korpel 1999, p. 11: \"No clear evidence then occurs for several centuries until the time of Shalmaneser III (9th century) who refers to 'Ahab of Israel'. This identification has been widely accepted, but it has recently been challenged. The arguments against the identification with the biblical Ahab are well presented and understandable, but is it reasonable that in the mid-9th century there was an 'Ahab' in Syria from a country whose name was very similar to 'Israel', yet he had no connection with the Ahab of the Bible? It is always possible, but common sense says it is not likely. [Footnote:] W. Gugler, Jehu und seine Revolution, Kampen 1996, 67-80. Gugler cites A.S. van der Woude, Zacharia (PredOT), Nijkerk 1984, 167, as the originator of the thesis, that the Achab from the monolith-inscription should be construed as a king from Northwestern Syria.\"\n\n^ Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography edited by Ada Cohen, Steven E. Kangas P:127\n\n^ Kelle 2002.\n\nThis article is about an item held in the British Museum. The object reference is EA 118884."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-kurkh-monoliths"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4414}, {"slug": "reference-jacobite-syrian-christian-church", "title": "Jacobite Syrian Christian Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Jacobite Syrian Christian Church,[3][4][5][6] also known as the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church,[7] Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church,[8] Malankara Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church,[9] or the Syriac Orthodox Church in India,[10][11] is an autonomous maphrianate[12][13] of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch based in Kerala, India. It is headed by...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nܥܺܕܬܳܐ ܣܽܘܪܝܳܝܬܳܐ ܐܳܪܬ݂ܳܕ݂ܳܟ݂ܣܳܝܬܳܐ ܕܗܶܢܕܽܘ \nമലങ്കര യാക്കോബായ സുറിയാനി ഓർത്തഡോക്സ് സഭ\n\nPatriarchal Centre in Puthencruz\n\nAbbreviationJSC\n\nTypeMaphrianate\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientationOriental Orthodox\n\nScripturePeshitta\n Vishudha Grandham\n\nTheologyOriental Orthodox theology\n\nPolityEpiscopal\n\nPatriarchIgnatius Aphrem II\n\nCatholicosBaselios Joseph[1]\n\nChurchSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nRegionIndia and Nasrani Malayali diaspora\n\nLanguageClassical Syriac, Malayalam and native languages\n\nLiturgyWest Syriac Rite\nDivine Liturgy of Saint James\n\nHeadquarters Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Centre (Patriarchal Centre)\nPuthencruz, Kochi, India\n\nFounderSaint Thomas the Apostle\n\nOrigin52 AD (by tradition) \n\n1665 (West Syriac Rite)\n\nMembers1 million (2011)[2]\n\nWebsitejacobitesyrianchurch.org\n\nThe Jacobite Syrian Christian Church,[3][4][5][6] also known as the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church,[7] Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church,[8] Malankara Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church,[9] or the Syriac Orthodox Church in India,[10][11] is an autonomous maphrianate[12][13] of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch based in Kerala, India. It is headed by the catholicos of India, Mor Baselios Joseph.[14] \n\nAccording to tradition, the community traces its origin to Thomas the Apostle's mission to South India in AD 52.[15][16] Over time, it became an integral part of Syriac Christendom, utilizing East Syriac liturgical practices and relying on visiting bishops for spiritual guidance, while a native archdeacon oversaw temporal affairs.[17]\n\nIn the 16th century Portuguese missionaries enforced Latin Catholic jurisdiction, severing the Malankara Church's links to the Syriac Church and enforcing Latinized liturgical customs.[17] Following the Council of Diamper, the community rejected Latinization through the Coonan Cross oath and re-established contact with Syriac Christians.[17]\n\nIn subsequent centuries, the Malankara metropolitans were consecrated by delegates sent by the Syriac patriarch of Antioch, who guided the community in de-Latinizing and adopting West Syriac liturgical traditions, theology, and canonical governance.[18] The 20th century saw the revival of the historical maphrianate, governed by the catholicos of India alongside a regional holy synod.[19]\n\nHeadquartered at the patriarchal centre in Puthencruz, Kerala, it serves a global population of around 1 million people, through various dioceses and patriarchal vicariates in India and around the world.[2][20] The church employs the West Syriac Rite, with the principal Eucharistic liturgy being the Liturgy of James the Just.[21][22][23] Classical Syriac served as the historical language of worship, but translations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries led to the widespread adoption of Malayalam and other local languages.\n\nName\n\nIn the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon, which fractured the Christian Church, Emperor Justin I, who supported the council, exiled Patriarch Severus of Antioch to Egypt, for refusing to accept the council, and professing Miaphysite Christology. The Syriac Orthodox Church is the church of Antioch that continued to accept Severus as patriarch until his death in 538 AD. During this turbulent time for the church, Jacob Baradaeus was consecrated as bishop with the support of Empress Theodora and he led and revived the church.[24] The term \"Jacobite\" was originally used as a derogatory word for Miaphysites from the church of Antioch.\n\nIn the aftermath of the Coonan Cross oath (1653), the Portuguese Padroado missionaries began using the term \"Jacobites\" to designate the indigenous Christians who were a part of the Syriac Orthodox Church under Patriarch Ignatius Abdulmasih I and Metropolitan Thoma I.[25] Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, members of the community were frequently referred to in colonial records and historical texts as \"Jacobite Syrians,\" though the indigenous ecclesiastical body was officially known as the \"Malankara Church.\"[26][27] Following the 1889 reformist schism, the orthodox faction formally adopted the title \"Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church\" to distinguish its traditionalist identity.[28] In 2002, the historic Puthencruz convention officially adopted the contemporary legal title \"Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\" in its constitutional framework.[29]\n\nThe geographical designation \"Malankara\" derives from Maliankara, a coastal locality near Kodungallur where, according to local tradition, Thomas the Apostle landed in 52 AD and established one of his first churches in India.[30] The designation \"Syrian\" reflects the church's Syriac heritage-an ancient Semitic Christian tradition that uses Classical Syriac, an Edessan dialect of Aramaic (the language traditionally believed to be spoken by Christ) as a sacred liturgical language-rather than a political affiliation with the modern nation-state of Syria.[31] To prevent ongoing secular misinterpretation between the state of Syria and the Syriac heritage, the holy synod of the Syriac Orthodox Church officially adopted the English title \"Syriac Orthodox Church\" in 2000.[32] However, many older churches and institutions continue to use the name \"Syrian\".\n\nThe term \"Orthodox\" derives from the Greek for \"right belief,\" reflecting the Oriental Orthodox communion's maintenance of the apostolic faith as upheld by the ecumenical councils at Nicaea (325 AD), Constantinople (381 AD), and Ephesus (431 AD).[33] Historically, the community has referred to itself in the local Malayalam vernacular as Sathya Suryani Sabha (സത്യ സുറിയാനി സഭ), which means \"Syriac Orthodox Church,\" with \"Sathya\" being translated as \"True\" or \"Orthodox\".[34] Additionally, some historians and linguists propose that the name Tharissa Palli-the church referenced in the 9th-century Quilon copper plates-derives from the Syriac root Trishath, meaning \"upright\", \"true\", or \"orthodox\".[35]\n\nHistory\n\nApostolic origins and early history (1st-3rd Centuries)\n\nThe origin of the Malankara Church is traditionally attributed to the evangelism of Thomas the Apostle, who according to community tradition arrived at the port of Muziris (near present-day Kodungallur, Kerala) in 52 AD.[36] Church tradition holds that St. Thomas established seven and a half churches along the Malabar Coast and ordained clergy before his martyrdom at Mylapore in 72 AD.[37]\n\nHistorians note that early Christian communities along the Malabar Coast grew primarily along Indo-Roman and Persian maritime trade routes.[38] Patristic writers such as Eusebius of Caesarea and St. Jerome record that Pantaenus, an Alexandrian Christian scholar, visited India around 190 AD and reported finding an established community of believers who preserved a Hebrew text of the Gospel of Matthew.[39] During this era, indigenous believers were referred to as Nasranis (Saint Thomas Christians).\n\nSyriac migrations and medieval expansion (4th-15th centuries)\n\nThe indigenous Christian community faced a gradual decline, due to a lack of ecclessiastical structure, leaving the church vulnerable and spiritually weakened.[40] In 345 AD, the demography and ecclesiastical structure of the Malabar church were transformed through the Knanaya migration led by the merchant St. Thomas of Cana, accompanied by a bishop, priests, and several dozen families from the Middle East.[41][42] This event deepened liturgical, cultural, and administrative ties between South India and Syriac Christendom.\n\nA second major migration occurred in the 9th century (823-825 AD), when a group of Persian merchants and clergy led by the merchant Marwan Sabrisho and two bishops, Mar Sapor and Mar Proth, arrived at the port of Kollam (Quilon).[43] The local Venad ruler, Ayyanadikal Thiruvadikal, issued the 9th-century Quilon Syrian copper plates in 849 AD.[44] These charters bestowed extensive civil, economic, tax-exempt, and judicial privileges upon the local Christian merchant guild and established Kollam as a major trade center.[45][46] The arrival of this migration is closely associated in local tradition with the start of the Malayalam era (Kollavarsham) in 825 AD.[47]\n\nThroughout these centuries, the Nasranis maintained ongoing ties with the Syriac Church, operating under a dual organizational structure: local secular and civil administration was led by an archdeacon, which was a de facto hereditary role passed on through the Pakalomattom family, while spiritual hierarchy, sacraments, and liturgical traditions were sustained through ecclesiastical networks connected to the ancient sees of the east.[48][49] Because they were ecclesiastically a part of the Syriac Church, they became known as Syriac Christians.\n\nBetween the 9th and 15th centuries, the Nasranis consolidated their position as an influential socio-economic and military power along the Malabar Coast. During this era, local traditions and European travel accounts record the existence of the Villarvattom Dynasty, a native Christian ruling house centered around Udayamperoor and Chendamangalam that held feudatory rights under the Second Chera Kingdom and later the Kingdom of Cochin.[50] Operating as dominant merchant guilds they controlled major maritime trade routes, collected customs duties, and managed key port infrastructures alongside local rulers.[51] This economic prominence earned the community high socio-feudal status, equivalent to the Nair military nobility. Local Hindu monarchs granted them hereditary honors, including the rights to carry arms, ride elephants, and use ceremonial processional insignia.[52] \n\nCulturally, this period saw the emergence of Karshoni-a dialect of Malayalam that was written using the Syriac alphabet-which scribes used to transcribe liturgical texts, administrative records, and prayer books, preserving native linguistic forms before the standardization of the Brahmic Malayalam script.[53]\n\nWestern colonization and latinization (16th-17th centuries)\n\nThe arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498 introduced European colonial power dynamics to the Malabar Coast. Portuguese missionaries sought to integrate the indigenous Nasranis into the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church under the padroado system.[54] This policy culminated in the Synod of Diamper in June 1599, convened by Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes of Goa.[55] The synod severed the Malankara Church's links to the Syriac Church and enforced latinized liturgical customs.[56][57]\n\nResistance to Portuguese latinization led to the Coonan Cross oath on January 3, 1653, at Mattancherry, where the majority of Nasranis swore a collective oath to break free from Portuguese Jesuit authority.[58] Following the revolt, the assembly elevated Archdeacon Thomas to episcopal status as Mar Thoma I, inaugurating the office of the metropolitan of Malankara as the ecclesiastical and temporal leader of the community.[59] The faction that accepted Catholicism evolved into the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. \n\nTo formalize and regularize his episcopal consecration according to eastern canonical traditions, the Nasrani community made direct contact with the Patriarchate of Antioch. In 1665, Mor Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, the metropolitan of Jerusalem sent by Patriarch Ignatius Abdulmasih I, arrived in Malabar.[60] He regularized Mar Thoma I’s episcopacy and affirmed administrative ties with the Patriarchate of Antioch, strengthening the community's adherence to Oriental Orthodox theology, and West Syriac liturgical practices.[61][62]\n\nMalankara metropolitanate and missionary relations (1685-1875)\n\nFollowing the 1665 delegation, successive hierarchs delegated by the patriarchs of Antioch visited Malabar\n\nto assist in church governance, codify liturgical traditions, and protect the community from foreign colonial influences.[63] In 1685, a delegation led by Maphrian Mor Baselios Yeldho arrived in Kerala with Hidatyullah Ramban (later Mor Ivanios Hidatyullah) at the request of Mar Thoma II.[64] Mor Baselios Yeldho passed away shortly after arrival at Kothamangalam, where his tomb at Marthoman Church remains a major center of pilgrimage. Mor Ivanios remained in Kerala to systematically teach theology, liturgical music, and canonical practices.[65]\n\nDuring this era, the office of the Malankara Metropolitan was maintained as a de facto hereditary title through the Pakalomattam family. In 1751, another delegation led by Maphrian Mor Baselios Shakralla arrived with Mor Gregorios Yuhanon, and Yuhanon Ramban (later Mor Ivanios Yuhannon) at the request of Mar Thoma V.[66] This period saw extensive copying of Syriac biblical and patristic manuscripts, institutionalizing Syriac scholars and scribal traditions across Malabar. Controversies surrounding the canonical validity of Mar Thoma VI caused him to seek to regularize his consecration. In 1772, he was re-consecrated by Mor Gregorios Yuhanon and Mor Ivanios Yuhanon at Niranam Church, receiving all orders of the episcopacy and formally assuming the episcopal title Mor Dionysius I.[67] During this time, Kattumangatt Kurien Ramban claimed to have been consecrated as bishop Mor Koorilos Abraham by Mor Gregorios Yuhanon on his deathbed, though the authenticity of these claims were disputed by Mor Dionysius I and later Jacobite historians.[68] He left for Thorizhyoor and established the Malabar Independent Syrian Church. \n\nThe de facto dynasty of the Pakalomattom family, which had maintained hereditary succession over the office of local head of the Malankara Church for centuries, came to an end with the episcopate of Mor Dionysius II.[69][28] By the early 19th century, British influence in Travancore and Cochin led to interaction with Anglican missionaries from the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Under Mor Dionysius II, the Syrian Seminary (Old Seminary) was established in Kottayam in 1815 with assistance from the British Resident Col. John Munro.[70] Subsequent Malankara metropolitans, including Mor Dionysius III and Mor Dionysius IV, initially cooperated with the CMS missionaries. However, when missionary interference threatened traditional Syriac Orthodox doctrines and practices, the Malankara Church under Mor Dionysius IV convened the Synod of Mavelikara in 1836, formally severing ties with the CMS and re-affirming its strict adherence to the faith and canons as part of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[71]\n\nInstitutionalization and 20th-century fractures (1876-1975)\n\nFollowing the 1836 synod of Mavelikara, Abraham Malpan and his nephew Mathews led an Anglican-influenced reform movement within the Malankara Church, seeking to translate the West Syriac liturgy into Malayalam and eliminate traditional practices.[72] In 1842, Mathews travelled to Mardin, and was consecrated as bishop Mar Athanasius Mathews by Mor Ignatius Elias II, the Syriac patriarch of Antioch, on the assumption that it was the wish of the community. Popular opposition to his reforms prompted the patriarch to send Mor Coorilos Yuyakim to evaluate the situation. To preserve unity, the aging Mor Dionysius IV relinquished active administration to Mor Coorilos Yuyakim, sparking decades of legal and jurisdictional conflict.[73] However, the courts decided that a foreign bishop couldn't be the Malankara metropolitan and gave the title to Mar Athanasius Mathews, sparking a division.[74]\n\nTo resolve the division, Patriarch Ignatius Peter IV convened the 1876 synod of Mulanthuruthy, which established the Malankara Association, created seven regional dioceses, and affirmed Mor Dionysius V as the recognized Malankara metropolitan.[75] The reformist faction rejected the synod's authority, continuing under Mar Athanasius Mathews and his successor, Mar Athanasius Thomas.[76] The schism culminated in the landmark 1889 Seminary Suit ruling, which affirmed the title of Malankara metropolitan and gave church assets to Mor Dionysius V and the traditionalist majority loyal to Oriental Orthodoxy, prompting the reformists to secede and form the independent Mar Thoma Syrian Church.[77]\n\nIn 1909, Mor Dionysius VI succeeded Mor Dionysius V, but soon clashed with co-trustees Konat Mathen Malpan and C. J. Kurien over fund control and\n\nchurch property management.[78] The co-trustees appealed to Patriarch Mor Ignatius Abded Aloho II, who deposed Mor Dionysius VI in May 1911 and appointed Mor Coorilos Paulose in his place.[79] Mor Dionysius VI appealed to the deposed former Patriarch Ignatius Abdulmasih II, inviting him to Kerala in 1912 to annul the excommunication and establish the Catholicate of the East, creating two factions in the church: the bishops faction (Metran Kakshi) that rejected the deposition and the patriarchal faction (Bava Kakshi) that accepted the deposition.[80] Fr. PT Geevarghese (later Mar Ivanios Geevarghese) from the bishops faction led a movement joining the Catholic Church, becoming the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.[81] \n\nFollowing the death of Mor Coorilos Paulose, leadership of the Patriarchal faction passed to Mor Athanasius Paulose, who served as Malankara Metropolitan from 1918 until his death in 1953.[82] In an effort to resolve the factional disputes, Patriarch Mor Ignatius Elias III traveled to Kerala in 1931 at the request of Mor Athanasius Paulose and Lord Irwin to mediate peace, before passing away and being interred at Manjinikkara Dayara.[83] Mor Athanasius Paulose was later succeeded as Malankara metropolitan by Mor Clemis Abraham.\n\nIn December 1958, following a landmark Indian supreme court ruling and reconciliation efforts between the two factions, Mor Clemis Abraham stepped down as Malankara metropolitan in favor of Mor Baselios Geevarghese II, facilitating the formal institutional reunion of the Malankara Church within the Syriac Orthodox Church.[84] This unity culminated in May 1964 when Patriarch Mor Ignatius Ya'qub III installed Mor Baselios Augen I as catholicos (maphrian) in full communion with Antioch.[85] However, conflict re-emerged when Augen I asserted ecclessiastical independence and removed the Patriarch's name from the liturgy, leading the Syriac Orthodox synod to depose him in 1975. Patriarch Ya'qub III then installed Mor Baselios Paulose II as catholicos to maintain the canonical line.[86] The bishops faction continued under Mor Baselios Augen I and later Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews I as the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.\n\nModern history and recent developments (1976-present)\n\nDuring the 1980s and 1990s, the church established dozens of diaspora parishes across North America, Europe, Oceania and the Persian Gulf to serve emigrating faithful, culminating in the creation of dedicated overseas dioceses and patriarchal vicariates.[87] To support its theological education and institutional growth, Malankara Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary was established at Vettickal, near Mulanthuruthy, in 1990.[88] Under the leadership of Mor Baselios Paulose II, the headquarters and administrative center of the Jacobite Syrian Church was temporarily shifted to Muvattupuzha.[89] \n\nFollowing the repose of Mor Baselios Paulose II in 1996, a landmark historic convention was convened at Puthencruz in July 2002, which adopted a comprehensive new constitution to govern the church's temporal affairs and formally re-established the local headship under Mor Baselios Thomas I.[90] The administrative headquarters was permanently established at the Patriarchal Centre in Puthencruz upon its completion and consecration in 2004.[91]\n\nThe late 20th and early 21st centuries were marked by intense civil litigation over the ownership and administration of historic church properties across Kerala. This conflict reached a major turning point on 3 July 2017, when the Supreme Court of India ruled that the 1934 Constitution of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church applied to all parish churches, denying the Jacobite faction legal administrative control over disputed parish properties, even for those where they had an absolute majority.[92] The verdict led to the takeover of numerous prominent historic churches and eviction of Jacobite faithful by local authorities and rival clergy from the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, prompting the Jacobite Church to construct hundreds of alternative worship centers and chapels across Kerala to maintain its pastoral operations.[93] \n\nFollowing the death of Mor Baselios Thomas I in October 2024, the holy synod elected Mor Gregorios Joseph, who was installed as Mor Baselios Joseph, catholicos of India in March 2025, by Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, the Syriac patriarch of Antioch, assuming leadership of the church's administration and regional governance.[94]\n\nFaith and practices\n\nCelebration of Holy Qurobo at St. Mary's Cathedral, Kundaraliturgy Vestment of Metropolitan and Deacon\n\nTheology\n\nThe Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, as a part of the Syriac Orthodox Church accepts only the three ecumenical councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus alongside the rest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The church confesses Trinitarianism.[95]\n\nThe church believes in the Incarnation of God the Son, who is Jesus Christ, through the Virgin Mary, who they teach was cleansed by the Holy Spirit of all natural impurity, filling her with the Father's grace. The church confesses Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son of God, who is fully divine and fully human, united out of two natures in one incarnate nature without confusion, change, division, or separation (miaphysitism). The church maintains that at the time of Christs death, his body separated from his soul, and his divinity did not depart from either.[96]\n\nThe church has accepted miaphysitism since early on, per pictorial evidence in St. Mary's Knanaya Church of Kottayam, Piravom Church, and Mulanthuruthy Church dating to the first millennium.[97]\n\nIn punishment by the cross (was) the suffering on this one; He who is true Christ and God above, and Guide ever Pure\n\n- Inscription of St. Mary's Knanaya Church, Kottayam[98]\n\nLiturgical practices\n\nTraditional baptismal font with indigenous sculptural elements at Akaparamb Mor Sapor Mor Prod Church.Nasrani Cross with Kozhukatta, a traditional food among Saint Thomas Christians\nThe Jacobite Syrian Christian Church celebrates its liturgy according to the West Syriac Rite, in alignment with the broader Syriac Orthodox Church.[99] Liturgical services, daily canonical prayers, and sacramental rites are conducted primarily in Malayalam alongside Classical Syriac and other regional vernaculars.[100]\n\nDue to its history, the Malankara faithful retain certain East Syriac vocabulary.[101][102] However, all prayers use the West Syriac dialect.[103]\n\nSacraments\n\nThe Jacobite Syrian Church administers seven primary sacraments, regarded as visible channels of invisible divine grace instituted by Christ:[104][105]\n\nHoly Baptism (Vishudha Mamodeesa): The foundational sacrament of initiation into the Christian faith, through which the candidate is reborn into the body of Christ. Baptism is administered through a combination of partial immersion and pouring with consecrated water in the name of the Holy Trinity, symbolizing burial and resurrection with Christ. Baptism is only administered once, and is a required before receiving all other sacraments.[106]\n\nHoly Chrismation (Vishudha Mooron): Administered immediately following Baptism, wherein the newly baptized is anointed with Holy Chrism (Mooron) to receive the gifts and seal of the Holy Spirit. In the West Syriac tradition, the consecrated oil-a complex mixture of olive oil, myrrh, balsam, and multiple aromatic spices-is consecrated exclusively by the Patriarch (historically delegated to the Catholicos as well) with at least two other bishops. During each consecration ceremony, a small portion of the previous batch is added to the newly prepared oil, preserving an unbroken lineage traditionally believed to trace back directly to the original batch consecrated by the Apostles. Chrismation is only administered once. Often, those that join the Church that have already received a valid baptism may be received with Chrismation.[106]\n\nHoly Eucharist (Vishudha Qurbana): The \"Queen of the Sacraments\" and the central act of worship, in which the consecrated bread and wine are transformed into the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Faithful partake in the Holy Mysteries for the remission of sins, spiritual healing, and eternal life, actively participating in Christ's once-for-all sacrifice on Calvary and His Resurrection. Faithful may receive the Holy Eucharist only once a day and must receive it at least once a year on the feast of Passover.[106]\n\nHoly Confession (Vishudha Kumbasaaram): The obligatory sacrament of repentance wherein a believer confesses sins directly to God in the presence of an ordained priest, who serves as a spiritual physician, witness, and representative of Christ. Rooted in Christ's delegation of the power to bind and loose, the priest pronounces divine absolution through the laying on of hands, granting forgiveness of sins committed after baptism, moral healing, and restoration to full ecclesiastical communion. It is recommended to be administered every 40 days, but the required and common practice involves confessing once a year during Lent, with a general prayer of absolution being offered every Liturgy.[106]\n\nHoly Priesthood (Vishudha Kahanoosa): The sacrament of ordination that transmits unbroken apostolic succession through the laying on of hands. All sacraments of the church must be administered by validly ordained priests. Bishops are recognized as the direct successors of the Apostles. Ordination to all major orders can only be conferred by a bishop, while the consecration of a bishop requires the Patriarch or Catholicos acting with at least two other bishops.[106]\n\nHoly Matrimony (Vishudha Vivaham): The holy sacrament that sanctifies the lifelong marital union between a man and a woman, elevating their covenant into a reflection of the union between Christ and the Church. The rite is highlighted by two key liturgical acts: the Blessing of the Rings (symbolizing mutual consent and pledge) and the Ceremonial Crowning of the bride and groom as king and queen of their new domestic church.[106]\n\nHoly Unction (Vishuda Kandheela): The sacrament of anointing the sick, administered by priests to impart spiritual and physical healing to those suffering from illness. Through prayers of faith and anointing with consecrated oil, the sacrament seeks divine restoration of health, comfort in suffering, and the forgiveness of sins.[106]\n\nDivine liturgy\n\nThe central act of worship in the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church is the Holy Qurbana (the Eucharistic liturgy), in which the bread and wine are believed to transform into the real Body and Blood of Christ.[107] While the primary service used is the Liturgy of St. James, the brother of the Lord, the church also employs around 80 anaphoras authored by Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Severus of Antioch, and Dionysius Bar Salibi.[107]\n\nCelebrated facing east, the altar is separated from the nave by a sacred veil that opens and closes at specific intervals during the service to signify the revealing and concealing of the Divine Mysteries.[107] The service is structured into two main divisions: the mass of the catechumens and the liturgy of the faithful. The mass of the catechumens comprises scriptural readings from the epistles and gospels, prayers of repentance and absolution, and a joint recitation of the Nicene Creed. Traditionally, the sermon was given here too. Although no longer enforced in modern practice, the unbaptized were traditionally dismissed following this initial section.[107] The service then proceeds to the Liturgy of the Faithful, which includes the exchange of the kiss of peace, the consecration of the holy mysteries, intercessory prayers for the living and departed faithful, the fracture and commixture, and the presentation of the holy mysteries to the congregation.[107]\n\nThe liturgy is offered on Sundays and major feast days, with many parishes celebrating it on other days as well.[107] Canonical regulations dictate that the faithful may attend the divine liturgy and receive the Eucharist only once per day. A priest may celebrate the liturgy twice in a day in cases of dire pastoral need and with explicit permission from the bishop.[107]\n\nHoly Bible\n\nThe official biblical text of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church is the Peshitta, the standard Syriac version of the Old and New Testaments.[108] In public liturgy and private devotions, the text is used in its traditional Malayalam translation, commonly referred to as the Vishudhagrandham (വിശുദ്ധ ഗ്രന്ഥം).[109]\n\nIn accordance with West Syriac manuscript traditions, the Syriac Old Testament canon includes several deuterocanonical books (such as Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, and 3 Maccabees), as well as additions like Psalm 151 and the Prayer of Manasseh.[110] The traditional West Syriac New Testament canon comprises 22 books, historically omitting five shorter epistles and books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and the Revelation), though these are included in modern printed editions used for study and reference.[111]\n\nSelected readings from the gospels, epistles, and Old Testament lectionaries are chanted during the Holy Qurbana and canonical hours according to a structured annual liturgical calendar.[112]\n\nPrayers\n\nThere are 7 hours of prayers in the Syriac Orthodox Church, in accordance with Psalms 119:164. The hours are: vespers (Ramsho/Sandhya - 6pm), compline (Sootara - 9pm), midnight (Patharathri - 12am), matins (Saphro/Prabatha-6am), third hour (Moonammani- 9am), sixth hour (Arammani- 12pm), and ninth hour (Ombpadammani - 3pm).[113][105] \n\nDaily prayers rely on the Shehimo, which is a prayer book that contains a different set of prayers for every hour of the week. The Shehimo was translated to Malayalam in 1976 by Curien Kaniyamparambil Malpan. For Sundays and feast days, prayers before the Divine Liturgy are taken from the Fenquitho.\n\nThe church uses a simplified tradition of two liturgical seasons for Sundays: Sleeba (Feast of the Holy Cross to Easter), which adapts prayers mostly from Wednesday's Shehimo along with selections from Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, and Qyamtha (Easter to the Feast of the Holy Cross), which uses prayers from Sunday's Shehimo and the Fenquitho's Easter service. The Fenquitho is still used for important feast days.[114][115]\n\nA common practice in households involves combining the ninth hour, vespers and compline from the Pampakuda Namaskaram, a set of common daily prayers translated from the Shehimo in 1910 by Konatt Mathen Malpan.[116][117]\n\nBoth the Shehimo and Fenquitho used in Malankara comes from the Pampakuda manuscript.[118] Prayers are done facing the east, and churches are normally built facing the east, in accordance with Matthew 24:27. Prostrations and kneeling form an integral practice within personal and liturgical prayer, symbolizing penance, humility, and bodily worship. However, in accordance with the Council of Nicaea, it is canonically prohibited on Sundays and throughout the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost.[119] This prohibition reflects the joy of Christ's resurrection, during which the faithful stand upright in prayer to signify their restored status as a redeemed people.\n\nBeth Gazo\n\nThe liturgical singing of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church is grounded in the Beth Gazo, the foundational hymnal and musical repertoire of the Syriac Orthodox liturgical tradition. The Beth Gazo contains hundreds of traditional hymns, responsories, and chants organized into an ancient modal system known as the Octoechos. The Malankara school of the Beth Gazo contains some Carnatic influences. Transmitted orally through generations of clergy, deacons, and choristers-and later codified in printed music books and recordings-learning the Beth Gazo remains a central discipline in liturgical training.[120]\n\nFasting and abstinence\n\nFasting is a fundamental pillar of spiritual discipline and ascetic practice within the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.[121] In accordance with West Syriac canonical tradition, the church observes five major multi-day fasts throughout the liturgical year. Traditional fasting practices include total fasting until the ninth hour (3pm), then abstaining from meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, and animal products.[122] Modern pastoral guidelines for fasting includes abstaining from meat, fish and egg for the entire period of the fast:\n\nGreat Lent (Valiya Nombu): Commencing with the Service of Reconciliation (Shubqono), the fast spans forty days-commemorating Christ's forty-day fast in the wilderness-and concludes on Lazarus Saturday (Kozhukatta Sheniaycha). This transitions the congregation into Passion Week, a period of intense fasting, and solemn prayer, culminating in the celebration of the Resurrection on Easter.\n\nNineveh Fast (Ninawa Nombu): A three-day fast observed three weeks before Great Lent, commemorating the repentance of Nineveh following the preaching of the Prophet Jonah.\n\nApostles' Fast (Sleeha Nombu ): Commemorates the fasting and ministry of the Twelve Apostles following Pentecost. Modern pastoral guidelines only mandate fasting for the last three days of the fast.\n\nDormition Fast (Shunoyo Nombu): A 15-day fast observed from August 1 to August 15 in honor of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Modern pastoral guidelines only mandate fasting for the last five days of the fast.\n\nNativity Fast (Yeldho Nombu): A 25-day period of preparation preceding the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas), observed from December 1 to December 25. Modern pastoral guidelines only mandate fasting for the last ten days of the fast.\n\nBeyond the canonical fasts, several optional fasts are widely observed within the Malankara tradition. Most prominent among these is the Eight-Day Fast (Ettu Nombu), observed from September 1 to September 8 in preparation for the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, which holds particular devotional significance across Kerala.[123] Additionally, faithful often undertake votive fasts prior to the feast days of parish patron saints.[124] In accordance with traditional funeral customs, immediate family members observe a forty-day period of prayer and fasting following the death of a relative. This memorial period includes offering the Divine Liturgy for the departed soul on the 3rd, 9th, 30th, and 40th days after death.[125][126] \n\nThe church also prescribes weekly fasting on all Wednesdays (commemorating the betrayal of Christ) and Fridays (commemorating the Crucifixion), with the exception of the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost.[127] Fasting is also observed on Sundays before the Divine Liturgy, which involves total abstinence from all food and drink from midnight until the consumption of the Holy Eucharist, after which total abstinence from food is canonically prohibited for the rest of the day, even during a fasting period.[128]\n\nLiturgical calendar\n\nThe Jacobite Syrian Christian Church follows the Syriac Orthodox liturgical calendar, structuring the ecclesiastical year into distinct seasons that celebrate the history of salvation. The liturgical year begins with the Sanctification of the Church (Qudosh Idto), which falls on the last Sunday of October or the first Sunday of November. While traditionally adhering to the Julian Calendar, the Malankara Church adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1953 pursuant to Encyclical No. 620 issued by Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum.[129]\n\nHoly orders\n\nThe Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church of India maintains apostolic succession within the hierarchy of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the greater Oriental Orthodox Churches.\n\nThe church functions under the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate of Antioch, established by St. Peter in 37 AD and confirmed as a historic patriarchate at the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) alongside Rome and Alexandria.[130] Its local head in India is the catholicos of India, who preserves continuity with the historic office of the maphrian.[131] This office was originally instituted under the jurisdiction of Antioch to consecrate bishops and administer local ecclesiology in eastern territories where direct oversight by the patriarch was geographically impractical.[132]\n\nThe Universal Synod of the Syriac Orthodox Church is the highest ecclesiastical body of the Syriac Orthodox Church, comprising all the bishops of the church and presided over by the patriarch.[133][134] The bishops of the dioceses in India form the Malankara Synod, which is presided over by the catholicos.[135][136] Bishops of the diaspora form part of the Antiochian Synod, which is presided over by the patriarch. Patriarchal vicariates are under the ecclesiastical care of the patriarch, who appoints bishops to serve as patriarchal vicars.[137]\n\nThree ranks of holy orders\n\nEpiscopate: patriarch, catholicos, archbishop and bishop.\n\nPresbyterate: archpriest and priest.\n\nDiaconate: archdeacon, deacon, subdeacon, lector and acolyte[138]\n\nMonasticism\n\nMonasticism holds a deeply influential position within the Syriac Orthodox tradition, serving as the historical backbone of its asceticism, theological scholarship, and episcopal leadership.[139] In accordance with canonical tradition, all bishops of the church are chosen exclusively from monastic priests.[140] Some celibate priests live dedicated ascetic lives without having formally taken monastic vows. If selected for the episcopate, such priests are required to receive the monastic tonsure and take formal vows prior to their episcopal consecration.[141][142]\n\nIn India, several monasteries serve as centers of spiritual retreat, liturgical preservation, and administrative governance. Monastics take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, devoting their lives to the canonical hours of prayer, physical labor, and pastoral service to the surrounding community.[143] Monks can be from any rank, but most male monks in Malankara are priests (hieromonks). Female monks are called nuns and live in separate convents.\n\nIntercession of saints\n\nThe church believes in the intercessions of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. The church holds the place of St. Mary as the Mother of God as affirmed by the Council of Ephesus, with the title of Theotokos (Θεοτόκος) in Greek, Yoldath Aloho (ܝܠܕܬ ܐܠܗܐ) in Syriac, or Daiva Mathavu (ദൈവമാതാവ്) in Malayalam. The church also considers Thomas the Apostle as its patron saint, the Apostle of India (ܫܠܝܚܐ ܕܗܢܕܘܐ Shleehe d'Hendo). Its most venerated relics include the Holy Girdle of St. Mary and the relics of St. Thomas the Apostle.[144] The church of India also venerates other saints, local saints, church fathers and martyrs, aligned with the practices of the entire Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nJurisdictions\n\nKollam Diocese\n\nThumpamon Diocese\n\nNiranam Diocese\n\nKottayam Diocese[145]\n\nIdukki Diocese\n\nKandanad Diocese\n\nKochi Diocese[146]\n\nAngamaly Diocese\n\nAngamaly\n\nPerumbavoor\n\nMuvattupuzha\n\nKothamangalam\n\nHighrange\n\nThrissur Diocese[147]\n\nKozhikode Diocese[148]\n\nMalabar Diocese[149]\n\nMangalore Diocese\n\nBangalore Diocese\n\nMylapore Diocese[150]\n\nMumbai Diocese\n\nDelhi Diocese\n\nThiruvananthapuram Diocese\n\nMalankara Syriac Knanaya Archdiocese[151]\n\nRanni\n\nKallisserry\n\nAmerica, Canada and Europe\n\nMalankara Simhasana Patriarchal Vicariates[152]\n\nSouth Kerala\n\nNorth Kerala\n\nKottayam and environs\n\nEAE Archdiocese[153]\n\nHonovar Mission Archdiocese\n\nMalankara Archdiocese of North America[154]\n\nMalankara Archdiocese of Australia[155]\n\nPatriarchal Vicarates outside India:\n\nKuwait\n\nQatar\n\nBahrain\n\nUnited Arab Emirates\n\nOman\n\nSaudi Arabia\n\nYemen\n\nNew Zealand\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nGermany\n\nCanada\n\nSingapore\n\nMalaysia\n\nHoly Land\n\nEcumenical relationships\n\nWhile globally represented as part the Syriac Orthodox Church, with theological dialogues conducted collectively by the entire Oriental Orthodox Churches - the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (JSCC) maintains distinct local, regional, and bilateral ecumenical engagements tailored specifically to the context in Kerala. All ecumenical dialogues are under the oversight and leadership of the Patriarch.[156]\n\nBilateral dialogue with the Catholic Church\n\nSince 1989, the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church has engaged in direct localized bilateral theological dialogue with the Vatican via the Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church.[157] Operating alongside representatives from local Catholic rites in India (Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, and the Latin Church), this commission has produced several pastoral agreements including:\n\nAgreement on intermarriage (1994): established canonical provisions and mutual recognition of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony between Catholic and Jacobite faithful under defined conditions.[158]\n\nShared pastoral care and facilities: formulated guidelines allowing shared access to hospital chaplaincies, educational institution campus ministries, cemetery usage, and local liturgical sharing for diaspora communities lacking independent church facilities.[159]\n\nRegional ecumenical cooperation\n\nThe church is an active member of the Kerala Council of Churches (KCC), collaborating with other Kerala Christian traditions.[160] Through local regional forums, the church engages in:\n\nSocio-political advocacy: joint representation to state and central governments regarding educational rights for religious minorities, welfare programs, and social justice initiatives.\n\nNasrani cultural heritage: collaborative initiatives aimed at preserving the Syriac language, historic manuscripts, and traditional art forms.\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nSyriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East\n\nList of patriarchs of Antioch - to 518\n\nList of Syriac Orthodox patriarchs of Antioch - list from 518\n\nCatholicos of India\n\nMaphrian of the East\n\nList of maphrians\n\nOriental Orthodox Churches\n\nSaint Thomas Christians\n\nMalankara Church\n\nReferences\n\n^ യാക്കോബായ സഭക്ക് പുതിയ നാഥൻ; ജോസഫ് മാർ ഗ്രി ഗോറിയോസ് കതോലിക്ക ബാവായാകും (in Malayalam). 8 December 2024.\n\n^ a b Murre-van den Berg, Heleen (2011). \"Syriac Orthodox Church\". In Kurian, George Thomas (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Blackwell Publishing. doi:10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc1344. ISBN 978-1-4051-5762-9. The Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East has almost one and a half million adherents. Of these, roughly two-thirds (one million) live in India, somewhat more than one-sixth (260,000) in the Middle East, whereas the remaining sixth is divided over Europe (100,000, mostly in Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands), North and South America (up to 40,000, most of these in the US and Canada), and Australia (a few thousand).\n\n^ \"JSC News - The Official News Portal of the Holy Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". Archived from the original on 7 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Pastoral message of H.B Thomas I, Maphrian of India, Jacobite Church Head in India\". Archived from the original on 17 September 2016. Retrieved 19 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Official Publication of Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". Archived from the original on 18 December 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2023.\n\n^ \"Jacobite Syrian Christian Church Constitution 2002 (in Malayalam) The official Constitution of the Church\" (PDF). Archived from the original on 12 August 2016.\n\n^ Joseph, Thomas. \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". gedsh.bethmardutho.org. Archived from the original on 14 January 2025. Retrieved 27 March 2025.\n\n^ Joseph, Jacob (2023), \"Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church\", Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 545-548, doi:10.1007/978-94-024-2241-2_33, ISBN 978-94-024-2240-5, retrieved 27 March 2025\n\n^ Knight, Sarah (8 May 2023). A Brief History of the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church. Edessa Press. ISBN 978-1739349622.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)\n\n^ \"Metropolitan's from the Syriac Orthodox Church of India Visits Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II\". 21 October 2016. Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2024.\n\n^ Alexander, George (2018). The Orthodox Dilemma (3rd rev. ed.). OCP Publications. p. 56. ISBN 9781387922284.\n\n^ Kaniamparampil, Curian Corepiscopa (1989). The Syrian Orthodox Church in India and Its Apostolic Faith. Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Tiruvalla, Kerala, India: National Offset Press / Rev. Philips Gnanasikhamony.\n\n^ Mundadan, A. Mathias (1984). History of Christianity in India: From the Beginning to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century. Church History Association of India. pp. 115-120.\n\n^ \"Welcome to Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". jacobitesyrianchurch.org. The Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, an Orthodox church in Malankara (Kerala, India) is an integral part of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church with the Patriarch of Antioch, His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II as its supreme head. The local head of the church in Malankara is the Catholicose of the east, His Beatitude Aboon Mor Baselios Thomas I, ordained by and accountable to the Patriarch of Antioch.\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric. \"Thomas Christians\". www.britannica.com.\n\n^ \"Thomas Christians\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 10 September 2026. By ancient belief and canonical doctrine, Thomas Christians trace their origins to the arrival of St. Thomas at Malankara, on a lagoon near present-day Kodungallur in 52 CE... That the historicity of this advent cannot be verified does not gainsay evidence that Christians have been on the Malabar Coast since the 2nd or 3rd century.\n\n^ a b c Neill, Stephen (1984). A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge University Press. pp. 45-52. ISBN 978-0521548854.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 15-20. ISBN 978-0754606192.\n\n^ Joseph, Thomas (2011). \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 10 September 2026.\n\n^ \"The Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). Retrieved 10 September 2026. Another 1.2 million Orthodox Indians belong to the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\n^ \"Saint Thomas Christians- Chronological Events from First Century to Twenty First Century\". Nasranis.\n\n^ Thomas, Abraham Vazhayil (1974). Christians in Secular India. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 9780838610213.\n\n^ Joseph, John (1984). Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. SUNY Press. ISBN 9781438408064.\n\n^ \"Mor Ya'qub Burdono (St. Jacob Baradaeus)\". www.syriacchristianity.info. Archived from the original on 22 April 2023. Retrieved 1 September 2021.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 100-108.\n\n^ Taylor, W. H. (2005). Antioch and Canterbury: The Syrian Orthodox Church and the Church of England 1874-1928. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-058-3.\n\n^ Kiraz, George Anton, ed. (2011). \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Gorgias Press.\n\n^ a b Joseph, Thomas. \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". In Kiraz, George Anton (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Constitution of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". Jacobite Syrian Christian Church Official Website. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ Menachery, George (1973). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India. Vol. 2. Trichur: St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia App. pp. 15-21.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2006). The Bible in the Syriac Tradition. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 12-18. ISBN 978-1593333003.\n\n^ \"General History - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 7 September 2026. In Syriac, the proper name of the Church is `idto suryoyto treeysath shubho. In the past, the name of the Church had been translated to English as \"Syrian Orthodox Church\". The Holy Synod of the Church approved the translation \"Syriac Orthodox Church\" in its session of March 28-April 3, 2000.\n\n^ Meyendorff, John (1989). Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 173-175. ISBN 978-0-88141-056-3.\n\n^ Royal Court of Final Appeal of Travancore (1889). Travancore Royal Court Judgement 1889 (in Malayalam). Retrieved 9 September 2026 - via Internet Archive.\n\n^ Philip, Jeevan. \"Tharissappally Cheppedu (Quilon Copper Plates-Tabula Quilonensis)\". Scribd. Retrieved 9 September 2026.\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 91-93, 112-115. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 43-52.\n\n^ Perczel, István (2018). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 978-1138899018.\n\n^ Mundadan, A. Mathias (1984). History of Christianity in India: Vol. 1 - From the Beginning up to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century. Bangalore: Church History Association of India. pp. 62-65.\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 102-106. ISBN 978-0198263777.\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 91-93, 112-115. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7.\n\n^ Vellian, Jacob (1986). Symposium on Knanites. Syrian Church Series. Vol. 12. Kottayam: Jyothi Book House. pp. 18-25.\n\n^ Narayanan, M. G. S. (2013) [1972]. Perumals of Kerala: Brahmin Oligarchy and Ritual Monarchy. Thrissur: CosmoBooks. pp. 277-278, 435-437. ISBN 978-8188765072.\n\n^ Narayanan, M. G. S. (2013) [1972]. Perumals of Kerala: Brahmin Oligarchy and Ritual Monarchy. Thrissur: CosmoBooks. pp. 277-278, 435-437. ISBN 978-8188765072.\n\n^ Perczel, István (2018). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 978-1138899018.\n\n^ Cereti, Carlo G. (2009). \"The Pahlavi Signatures on the Quilon Copper Plates\". In Sundermann, W.; Hintze, A.; de Blois, F. (eds.). Exegisti Monumenta: Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims-Williams. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 28-35. ISBN 978-3-447-05937-4.\n\n^ Narayanan, M. G. S. (2013) [1972]. Perumals of Kerala: Brahmin Oligarchy and Ritual Monarchy. Thrissur: CosmoBooks. pp. 277-278, 435-437. ISBN 978-8188765072.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2011). \"Thomas Christians\". In Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-714-8.\n\n^ Varghese, B. (2005). The West Syrian Liturgical Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). pp. 45-52.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 10-18.\n\n^ Narayanan, M. G. S. (2013) [1972]. Perumals of Kerala: Brahmin Oligarchy and Ritual Monarchy. Thrissur: CosmoBooks. pp. 277-285. ISBN 978-8188765072.\n\n^ Mundadan, A. Mathias (1984). History of Christianity in India: Vol. 1 - From the Beginning up to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century. Bangalore: Church History Association of India. pp. 140-155.\n\n^ Varghese, B. (2005). The West Syrian Liturgical Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). pp. 30-42.\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 91-93, 112-115. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7.\n\n^ Nedungatt, George, ed. (2001). The Synod of Diamper Revisited. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. pp. 140-155. ISBN 978-8872103319.\n\n^ Nedungatt, George, ed. (2001). The Synod of Diamper Revisited. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. pp. 140-155. ISBN 978-8872103319.\n\n^ Pathil, K. (2003). \"Diamper, Synod of\". New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4 (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America / Gale. pp. 724-725. ISBN 978-0787640088.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 43-52.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 43-52.\n\n^ Perczel, István (2018). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 978-1138899018.\n\n^ Perczel, István (2018). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 978-1138899018.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. pp. 120-135. ISBN 978-0860783053.\n\n^ Varghese, B. (2005). The West Syrian Liturgical Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). pp. 45-52.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 43-52.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. pp. 120-135. ISBN 978-0860783053.\n\n^ Mundadan, A. Mathias (1984). History of Christianity in India: Vol. 1 - From the Beginning up to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century. Bangalore: Church History Association of India. pp. 62-65.\n\n^ \"Mor Dionysius I\". www.syriacchristianity.in. Retrieved 7 September 2026.\n\n^ Yaqub III, Ignatius (1973). History of the Syrian Church in India. Translated by Moosa, Matti. Damascus.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 120-125.\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 91-93, 112-115. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 43-52.\n\n^ Varghese, B. (2005). The West Syrian Liturgical Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). pp. 70-74.\n\n^ Vadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: A Historiographical Critique. Delhi: Media House. pp. 102-106. ISBN 978-8174952585.\n\n^ Varghese, Alexander P. (2008). India: History, Religion, Vision and Contribution to the World. Vol. 1. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. pp. 360-364. ISBN 978-8126909032.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 160-165.\n\n^ David, I. (1988). The Orthodox Church of India: A History. New Delhi: MKS Publications. pp. 165-170.\n\n^ Vadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: A Historiographical Critique. Delhi: Media House. pp. 110-115. ISBN 978-8174952585.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 170-175.\n\n^ David, I. (1988). The Orthodox Church of India: A History. New Delhi: MKS Publications. pp. 172-178.\n\n^ Varghese, B. (2005). The West Syrian Liturgical Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). pp. 80-85.\n\n^ \"The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church\". CNEWA (in us-EN). Retrieved 9 September 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)\n\n^ \"St. Athanasius Paulose\". Syriac Orthodox Church Archdiocese of the Western USA. Retrieved 9 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Eliya III Shakir\". gedsh.bethmardutho.org. Archived from the original on 7 October 2025. Retrieved 9 September 2026.\n\n^ Joseph, Thomas. \"Mor Clemis Abraham Vayala (1918 - 2002)\". Syriac Orthodox Resources. Retrieved 9 September 2026.\n\n^ Vadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: A Historiographical Critique. Delhi: Media House. pp. 120-125. ISBN 978-8174952585.\n\n^ \"Catholicos Baselios Paulos II Puthussery (1914-1996)\". syriacorthodoxresources.org. Retrieved 7 September 2026.\n\n^ Vadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: A Historiographical Critique. Delhi: Media House. pp. 125-128. ISBN 978-8174952585.\n\n^ \"Malankara Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary\". MSOT Seminary. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Church headquarters\". syriacchristianity.in. Retrieved 10 September 2026.\n\n^ Varghese, B. (2005). The West Syrian Liturgical Tradition. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI). pp. 88-92.\n\n^ \"Patriarchal Centre, Puthencruz: Administrative Headquarters\". Jacobite Syrian Christian Church Official Website. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ Rajagopal, Krishnadas (16 November 2017). \"SC says no review of Malankara Church verdict\". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 7 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Supreme Court refers Malankara Orthodox-Jacobite row over churches to HC for fresh adjudication\". The Hindu. 30 January 2025. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 7 September 2026.\n\n^ \"The ordination of Mar Baselios Joseph as the new Maphrian of the Syriac Orthodox Church in India by the laying on of hands of His Holiness Mor Ignatius Aphrem II\". The Middle East Council of Churches. Retrieved 7 September 2026.\n\n^ \"General History - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 7 September 2024. The faith of the Syriac Orthodox Church is in accordance with the Nicene Creed. It believes in the Trinity, that is one God, subsisting in three separate persons called the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The three being of one Essence, of one Godhead, have one Will, one Work and one Lordship. The special aspect of the First Person is His Fatherhood, that of the Second Person His Sonship, and that of the Third Person His Procession.\n\n^ \"General History - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 7 September 2024.\n\n^ Kottayam Valiyapally Mural Painting\n\n^ Burnell, Arthur Coke (1874). On some Pahlavī inscriptions in South India. p. 314.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 15-22. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". gedsh.bethmardutho.org. Archived from the original on 14 January 2025. Retrieved 10 September 2026.\n\n^ Brown, L. W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 110-115.\n\n^ Joseph, Thomas. \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". In Kiraz, George Anton (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ Kiraz, George Anton (2019). The Syriac Dot: A Guide to the Syriac Language. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 105-110. ISBN 978-1463207038.\n\n^ Menachery, George (1973). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India. Vol. 1. Trichur: St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia App.\n\n^ a b \"Faith and Tradition | Jacobite Syriac Orthodox Church\". www.jacobitesyrianchurch.org. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"The Seven Living Sacraments - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 7 September 2026.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Kannanayackal, Mani Rajan (1991). Queen of the Sacraments: A treatise on the liturgy of the Holy Mass as celebrated in the Syrian Orthodox Church. St. Mary's Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church, Los Angeles. LCCN 91-61331.\n\n^ Weitzman, Michael P. \"Peshitta\". In Kiraz, George Anton (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ Thomas, Joseph (2008). The Syriac Heritage of the Saint Thomas Christians. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. pp. 112-118.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2006). The Bible in the Syriac Tradition. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 45-52. ISBN 978-1593333003.\n\n^ Haefeli, Leo (1927). Die Peshitta des Alten Testaments. Münster: Aschendorff. pp. 12-18.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 88-94. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ \"General History - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 7 September 2024. In accordance with Psalm 119, verse 164, \"Seven times in the day have I praised thee for thy judgments, O Righteous One,\" the Syriac Orthodox Church set the times for prayer to seven: Evening or ramsho prayer (Vespers), Drawing of the Veil or Sootoro prayer (Compline), Midnight or lilyoprayer, Morning or saphro prayer (Matins), the Third Hour or tloth sho`in prayer (Prime, 9 a.m.), the Sixth Hour or sheth sho`in prayer (Sext, noon) and the Ninth Hour or tsha` sho`in prayer (Nones, 3 p.m.). The midnight prayer consists of three qawme 'watches' (literally 'standing').\n\n^ Rajan, Kannanayakal Mani. The Prayer Book of the Syriac Orthodox Church (for the Season of Qyomtho). JSC Publications.\n\n^ Rajan, Kannanayakal Mani. The Prayer Book of the Syriac Orthodox Church (for the Season of Sleebo). JSC Publications.\n\n^ \"St. John's Orthodox Syrian Church Pampakuda\".\n\n^ \"Konatt Mathen Corepiscopo\". Archived from the original on 9 May 2015.\n\n^ \"syrianorthodox - Praying the shimo\". sites.google.com. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ \"CHURCH FATHERS: First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325)\". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 8 September 2026. Canon 20 Forasmuch as there are certain persons who kneel on the Lord's Day and in the days of Pentecost, therefore, to the intent that all things may be uniformly observed everywhere (in every parish), it seems good to the holy Synod that prayer be made to God standing.\n\n^ \"IBRAHIM & KIRAZ: Ephrem's Madroshe and the Syrian Orthodox Beth Gazo: A Loose, But Fascinating, Affinity\". syrcom.cua.edu. Archived from the original on 16 August 2011. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 122-128. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. Geneva: Inter-Orthodox Dialogue. pp. 85-90.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 130-133. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. Geneva: Inter-Orthodox Dialogue. pp. 92-95. ISBN 978-2825414811.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. Geneva: Inter-Orthodox Dialogue. pp. 96-98. ISBN 978-2825414811.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 152-155. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ \"Fasts and Feasts of the Syriac Orthodox Church\". Jacobite Syrian Christian Church Official Website. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Fasting - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 10 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Calendars of the Syriac Orthodox Church\". syriacorthodoxresources.org. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\n^ \"The Canons of the 318 Holy Fathers Assembled in Nicaea\". New Advent. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ \"The Maphrianate / Catholicate of the East\". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. Geneva: Inter-Orthodox Dialogue. pp. 45-52.\n\n^ \"Canon 6 of the Council of Nicaea\". New Advent. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ \"The Holy Synod\". Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ Joseph, Thomas. \"Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church\". In Kiraz, George Anton (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ \"About the Church: Synod and Hierarchy\". Jacobite Syrian Christian Church. Retrieved 5 September 2026.\n\n^ Johanna Ibrahim, Gregorios. \"Concept of Jurisdiction and Authority\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 11 September 2026.\n\n^ \"General History - Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\". syrianorthodoxchurch.org. Retrieved 7 September 2024. Episcopate: Within it there are the ranks of Patriarch, Catholicos, archbishop, and bishop.\nVicarate: Within it there are the ranks of chor-episcopos and priest or qasheesho.\nDeaconate: Within it there are the ranks of archdeacon, evangelical-deacon, subdeacon, lector or qoruyoand singer or mzamrono.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. \"Monasticism\". In Kiraz, George Anton (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 6 September 2026.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. Geneva: Inter-Orthodox Dialogue. pp. 60-65.\n\n^ Chaillot, Christine (2006). The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. Geneva: Inter-Orthodox Dialogue. pp. 62-64.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 144-145. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2004). West Syrian Liturgical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 140-146. ISBN 978-0754606185.\n\n^ \"St.Mary's Jacobite Syrian Cathedral, Manarcad\". Retrieved 1 September 2021.\n\n^ \"Kottayam Diocese\". Kottayam Diocese. Retrieved 26 September 2017.\n\n^ Kochi Diocese of Jacobite Syrian Church Retrieved 26 September 2017.\n\n^ \"Malankara Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church\". Thrissur Diocese. Archived from the original on 10 August 2018. Retrieved 26 September 2017.\n\n^ \"Kozhikode Diocese - Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". Kozhikode Diocese. Archived from the original on 26 September 2018. Retrieved 26 September 2017.\n\n^ \"Official Website of Malabar Diocese, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". Malabar Diocese. Archived from the original on 30 March 2018. Retrieved 26 September 2017.\n\n^ \"Mylapore Diocese - Diocese of Jacobite Syrian Christian Church\". Mylapore Diocese. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2017.\n\n^ \"Knayanaya suvisesha samajam\". www.knanayasuvisheshasamajam.com. Retrieved 9 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Simhasana Churches - Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church 2023\". Retrieved 9 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Arch Diocese\". The Evangelistic Association of the East. Retrieved 9 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Archdiocese - Brief History\". www.malankara.com. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Malankara Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Australia\". Retrieved 9 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Constitution of the Syriac Orthodox Church\". www.malankara.com. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2026. H.H himself governs all external relations with other churches and also the local, regional, and international parish councils and frames relations with them. He has the right to send his representative to all those organizations to carry out his own instructions.\n\n^ \"Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church\". www.christianunity.va. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Agreement on Inter-Church Marriages\". www.christianunity.va. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Agreement on Sharing of Sacred Places\". www.christianunity.va. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\n^ \"Members\". keralacouncilofchurches.org. Retrieved 8 September 2026.\n\nSources\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011). \"Thomas Christians\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nFrykenberg, Robert E. (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198263777.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jacobite-syrian-christian-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9904}, {"slug": "reference-tkhuma", "title": "Tkhuma", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Prior to World War I, the Tkhuma (Syriac: ܬܚܘܡܐ, romanized: Tkhūmā \"Borderland\"[1]) were one of five principal and semi-independent[2] Assyrian tribes subject to the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction of the Assyrian Patriarch with the title Mar Shimun. The Assyrians claimed the status of a firman of protection from...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Prior to World War I, the Tkhuma (Syriac: ܬܚܘܡܐ, romanized: Tkhūmā \"Borderland\"[1]) were one of five principal and semi-independent[2] Assyrian tribes subject to the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction of the Assyrian Patriarch with the title Mar Shimun. The Assyrians claimed the status of a firman of protection from the Caliphate and of an Ottoman millet to preserve their customs and traditions along with the tribes of Jelu, Baz, Tyari, and Deez/Diz, \"forming the highest authority under His Holiness Mar Shimun, the patriarch.\"[3] The Tkhuma Tribe is a tribe of Assyrians that lived in upper Mesopotamia until 1915, when they were dispersed into Persia, Iraq, and Syria during the Sayfo or Assyrian genocide. In 1915, the representative of the Assyrian Patriarch Shimun XX Paulos wrote that the Tkhuma of \"many Christian villages\" had \"been entirely destroyed.\"[4]\n\nIn 1933, Malik Loco Badawi, the chief of the Tkhuma tribe, from the Royal House of Badawi, went with the chief of the Tyari and 700 armed Assyrians into Syria at the outset of the Simele massacre.[5] The League of Nations took responsibility for the resettlement of the Tkhuma Assyrians, reporting in 1937 that 2,350 Tkhuma had been settled in three villages in Syria.[6]\n\nTkhuma villages in Khabour\n\nVillage\n\nPopulation in 1994\n\nLower Tell Ruman (Mazra'a)\n\n108\n\nAl-Kharitah (Gissa)\n\n254\n\nTel Shameh (Gundiktha)\n\n213\n\nTell Wardiyat (Mazra'a)\n\n108\n\nAl-Makhada (Berija)\n\n286\n\nTel-Taal (Tal)\n\n468\n\nTell Sakra (Gundiktha)\n\n564\n\nTel-Breij (Chal)\n\n179\n\nTel-Arboush (Arbush)\n\n399\n\nTell Hormiz (Tkhuma Gawaya)\n\n921\n\nTotal:\n\n3,500\n\nVillages\n\nThe following villages in Hakkari fell under the control of the Tkhuma Tribe:\n\nTkhuma Gawaya\n\nGundiktha\n\nMazra'a\n\nBerija\n\nGissa\n\nDistricts or villages outside of the Tkhuma Valley but fell under the jurisdiction of Tkhuma include:\n\nTal\n\nChal\n\nArbush\n\nMilitary\n\nIt was said that they the Tkhuma Tribe were the best fighters in the West Asia along with the Assyrian tribe of Tyari. Their Muslim neighbors stated that in order to stand a chance they needed to outnumber the Assyrians of Tkhuma or Tyari five to one, and have superior modern weapons.[7]\n\nA journalist of the Ottoman Empire wrote, \"The people of Tkhuma put up a great defense on September 27th and 28th [1915]. But while they were building trenches for themselves the Kurds were destroying them with guns. The Turks destroyed... Inner Tkhuma and many other places.\".[8] \n\nIn 1846, a battle went on in the Tikhoma region between the Assyrian Tikhoma tribe and the Kurdish forces of Bedr Khan Beg. After escaping the destruction of 1843, the Tikhoma Assyrians were attacked again when Bedr Khan led a force from Botan into their territory. Fighting took place for two days at the Srita Spring. Despite their resistance, the Assyrians were unable to withstand the Kurdish force, which numbered in the thousands. Eventually, the Tikhoma tribe retreated and sought refuge in the village of Tal.[9]\n\nIn the early 1930s the Assyrians consisting mainly of Tkhoumnayeh and Tyarayeh successfully defeated the Iraqis in Dairabun killing 33 and wounding 40 including 3 officers while the Assyrians suffered significantly less losses. The Iraqis were armed with modern weapons and attack planes given to them by the British while the Assyrians were only equipped with old rifles.[10]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Travis, Hannibal (2017). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-34864-9. OCLC 1119072702.\n\n^ M. Fernandez, Alberto. \"Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies.\n\n^ Dr. Khoshaba P. Jasim, The Assyrian Historiography and Linguistics, Presentation to 2nd World Assyrian Conference in Moscow, June 27-30, 2003, \nhttp://www.aina.org/articles/ahal.htm\n\n^ Paul Shimmun, Urmia, Salmas, and Hakkiari, in Great Britain, House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers 584 (1916)\n\n^ John Joseph, The Modern Assyrians 95 (2000)\n\n^ League of Nations, Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq 6 (1937)\n\n^ Wigram, William Ainger; Wigram, Sir Edgar Thomas Ainger (1914). The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan. A. and C. Black. p. 293.\n\n^ William W. Rockwell, The Pitiful Plight of the Assyrian Christians in Persia and Kurdistan 38 (1916)\n\n^ Aprim, Frederick (2007). Assyrians : from Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein. Driving into extinction the last Aramaic speakers. Internet Archive. Verdugo City, CA : Pearlida Publ. ISBN 978-0-9771873-1-7.\n\n^ Stafford, R. S. (2006). The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press, LLC. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tkhuma"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 719}, {"slug": "reference-tukulti-ninurta-i", "title": "Tukulti-Ninurta I", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tukulti-Ninurta I (lit. 'my trust is in [the warrior god] Ninurta'; reigned c. 1243-1207 BC) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He is the first king known to use the title \"King of Kings\".", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tukulti-Ninurta I\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of All Peoples\n\nKing of kings\n\nTukulti-Ninurta I depicted both standing and kneeling\n\nKing of the Middle Assyrian Empire\n\nReign37 regnal years\n1243-1207 BC (high)[1]\n1233-1197 BC (low)\n\nPredecessorShalmaneser I\n\nSuccessorAshur-nadin-apli\n\nIssueAshur-nadin-apli, Enlil-kudurri-usur\n\nFatherShalmaneser I\n\nTukulti-Ninurta I (lit. 'my trust is in [the warrior god] Ninurta'; reigned c. 1243-1207 BC) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He is the first king known to use the title \"King of Kings\".\n\nReign\n\nTukulti-Ninurta I succeeded Shalmaneser I, his father, as king and won a major victory against the Hittite Empire at the Battle of Nihriya in the first half of his reign, appropriating Hittite territory in Asia Minor and the Levant. Tukulti-Ninurta I retained Assyrian control of Urartu, and later defeated Kaštiliašu IV, the Kassite king of Babylonia, and captured the rival city of Babylon to ensure full Assyrian supremacy over Mesopotamia. He set himself up as king of Babylon, and took on the ancient title \"King of Sumer and Akkad\" first used by Ur-Nammu.\n\nBabylonian victory\n\nTukulti-Ninurta had petitioned the god Shamash before beginning his counter offensive. Kashtiliash IV was captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to his account, who \"trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though it were a footstool\" and deported him ignominiously in chains to Assyria. The victorious Assyrian demolished the walls of Babylon, massacred many of the inhabitants, pillaged and plundered his way across the city to the Esagila temple, where he made off with the Statue of Marduk. After capturing Babylonia, he invaded the Arabian Peninsula, conquering the pre-Arab states of Dilmun and Meluhha.[2] Middle Assyrian texts recovered at ancient Dūr-Katlimmu include a letter from Tukulti-Ninurta to his sukkal rabi'u, or grand vizier, Ashur-iddin advising him of the approach of his general Shulman-mushabshu escorting the captive Kashtiliash, his wife, and his retinue which incorporated a large number of women, on his way to exile after his defeat. In the process he defeated the Elamites, who had themselves coveted Babylon. He also wrote an epic poem documenting his wars against Babylon and Elam. After a Babylonian revolt, he raided and plundered the temples in Babylon, regarded as an act of sacrilege to all Mesopotamians, including Assyrians.\n\nConspiracy\n\nAs relations with the priesthood in Aššur began deteriorating, Tukulti-Ninurta built a new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. However, his sons rebelled against him and besieged him there. During the siege, he was murdered. One of them, Ashur-nadin-apli, would succeed him on the throne.\n\nDeath\n\nAfter his death, the Assyrian Empire fell into a brief period of stagnation. The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic describes the war between Tukulti-Ninurta I and Kashtiliash IV.[3]\n\nSources\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). \"Appendix I: A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004430914.\n\n^ J. M. Munn-Rankin (1975). \"Assyrian Military Power, 1300-1200 B.C.\", in I. E. S. Edwards (ed.) Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 2, Part 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 287-288, 298.\n\n^ The Cambridge Ancient History, I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, (ed) I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, Edition 3, revised, Cambridge University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-521-08691-4, ISBN 978-0-521-08691-2, pg. 284-295\n\n^ \"stela British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian origins: discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Tukulti-Ninurta I"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tukulti-ninurta-i"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 591}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-versions-of-the-bible", "title": "Syriac versions of the Bible", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. Portions of the Old Testament were written in Aramaic and there are Aramaic phrases in the New Testament. Syriac translations of the New Testament were among the first and date from the 2nd century. The whole Bible was translated by the 5th...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. Portions of the Old Testament were written in Aramaic and there are Aramaic phrases in the New Testament. Syriac translations of the New Testament were among the first and date from the 2nd century. The whole Bible was translated by the 5th century. Besides Syriac, there are Bible translations into other Aramaic dialects.\n\nSyria played an important or even predominant role in the beginning of Christianity. Here is where the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, the Didache, Ignatiana, and the Gospel of Thomas are believed to have been written. Syria was the country in which the Greek language intersected with the Syriac, which was closely related to the Aramaic dialect used by Jesus and the Apostles. That is why Syriac versions are highly esteemed by textual critics.[1]\n\nScholars have distinguished five or six different Syriac versions of all or part of the New Testament. It is possible that some translations have been lost. Other than Syria, the manuscripts also originate in countries like Egypt (specifically the Sinai), Iraq, Assyria, Armenia, Georgia, India, and even from China. This is good evidence for the great historical activity of the Syriac Church of the East.[2]\n\nDiatessaron\n\nThis is the earliest translation of the gospels into Syriac. The earliest translation of any New Testament text from Greek seems to have been the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four canonical gospels (perhaps with a now lost fifth text) prepared about AD 170 by Tatian. Although no original text of the Diatessaron survives, its foremost witness is a prose commentary on it by Ephrem the Syrian. Although there are many so-called manuscript witnesses to the Diatessaron, they all differ, and, ultimately only witness to the enduring popularity of such harmonies. Rescensions appeared in later centuries as translation of originals. Many medieval European harmonies draw on the Codex Fuldensis, which was likely based on the Diatessaron.[3]\n\nOld Syriac version\n\nThe Old Syriac version translation of the four gospels or Vetus Syra[4] is preserved today in only four manuscripts, both with a large number of gaps.\n\nThe Curetonian Gospels consist of fragments of the four Gospels. The text was brought in 1842 from the Nitrian Desert in Egypt, and is now held in the British Library. These fragments were examined by William Cureton and edited by him in 1858. The manuscript is dated paleographically to the 5th century. It is called Curetonian Syriac, and is designated by Syrc.[5]\n\nThe second manuscript is a palimpsest discovered by Agnes Smith Lewis at Saint Catherine's Monastery in 1892 at Mount Sinai called the Syriac Sinaiticus, and designated by Syrs. This version was known and cited by Ephrem the Syrian, It is a representative of the Western text-type.[6]\n\nTwo additional manuscripts of the Old Syriac version of the gospels were published in 2016 by Sebastian Brock[7] and in 2023 by Grigory Kessel,[8] respectively.\n\nThese four manuscripts represent only the Gospels. The text of Acts and the Pauline Epistles has not survived to the present. It is known only from citations made by Eastern fathers. The text of Acts was reconstructed by Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, and the text of the Pauline Epistles by J. Molitor. They used Ephrem's commentaries.[9]\n\nIt's apparent from textual criticism to determine that the Diatessaron influenced, and was thus earlier than, the Old Syriac.[10]\n\nPeshitta\n\nThe term Peshitta was used by Moses bar Kepha in 903 and means \"simple\" (in analogy to the Latin Vulgate). It is the oldest Syriac version which has survived to the present day in its entirety. \nIt contains the entire Old Testament, most (?) of the deuterocanonical books, as well as 22 books of the New Testament, lacking the shorter Catholic Epistles (2-3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, as well as John 7:53-8:11) and Revelation. \nIt was made in the beginning of the 5th century. Its authorship was ascribed to Rabbula, bishop of Edessa (411-435). The Syriac church still uses it to the present day.\n\nMore than 350 manuscripts survived, several of which date from the 5th and 6th centuries.\nIn the Gospels it is closer to the Byzantine text-type, but in Acts to the Western text-type. It is designated by Syrp.\n\nThe earliest manuscript of the Peshitta is a Pentateuch dated AD 464. There are two New Testament manuscripts of the 5th century (Codex Phillipps 1388).\n\nSome manuscripts\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14479 - the earliest dated Peshitta Apostolos.\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14459 - the oldest dated Syriac manuscript of the two Gospels\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14470 - the whole Peshitta text from the fifth/sixth century\n\nBritish Library, Add. 14448 - the major part of Peshitta from the 699/700\n\nLater Syriac versions\n\nThe Philoxenian was probably produced in 508 for Philoxenus, Bishop of Mabbug in eastern Syria. This translation contains the five books not found in the Peshitta: 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse. This translation survived only in short fragments. It is designated by syrph.\n\nThe Harclean Syriac version of the Bible is designated by syrh. It is represented by some 35 manuscripts dating from the 7th century and later; they show kinship with the Western text-type.\n\nAccording to some scholars the Philoxenian and Harclensis are only recensions of Peshitta, but according to others they are independent new translations.[11]\n\nThe Syro-Hexaplar version is the Syriac translation of the Septuagint based on the fifth column of Origen's Hexapla. The translation was made by Bishop Paul of Tella, around 617, from the Hexaplaric text of the Septuagint.[12][13] The Syro-Hexaplar version is very obviously translated from Greek, keeping Greek phraseology in the Syriac.[14] The Syrohexapla is given siglum Syh.\n\nSeveral copies of a Palestinian Syriac version of the Bible have been found. It is not in the Syriac language; it is Aramaic written with the Syriac alphabet.[15] Three long lectionaries with the four Gospels make up the bulk of the known Palestinian Syriac, although parts and fragments of the rest of the New Testament and the Old Testament have been found, as well.[15] The lectionaries date from the 11th and 12th centuries, some of the fragments from centuries earlier, while the text is estimated to have been established between A.D. 300 and 600.[15] The Palestinian Syriac (originally known as the Jerusalem Syriac) is given the siglum syrpal and is thought to be connected to a group of Melchite Christians living in Palestine. Its connection to the older Syriac is unknown, but it is known to use a lot of Graecisms instead of the expected phraseology of the Christian Palestinian Aramaic dialect.\n\nTwo Palestinian Syriac codices were discovered in the same place as the Old Syriac version found by Agnes Smith Lewis in 1892; however, the Biblical texts of the palimpsests are much different and centuries apart.[16] Lewis described her discovery years later, noting that it was from the \"same box\" as the much older Old Syriac version:\n\n\"[...] the Librarian, Father Galakteon, called my attention to a beautiful Codex whose value he was desirous of knowing. He kept [the Palestinian Syriac] apart from the others, wrapped in a cotton handkerchief, although it had come out of the same box as the now famous Palimpsest of the Syriac Gospels[...][16]\"\n\nSee also\n\nList of the Syriac New Testament manuscripts\n\nOther early Eastern translations\n\nCoptic versions of the Bible\n\nBible translations into Sogdian\n\nBible translations into Nubian\n\nBible translations into Persian\n\nReferences\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 4-5.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 3.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 10-36.\n\n^ Juckel, Andreas. \"Old Syriac Version\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 36-37.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 37-39.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2016). \"Two hitherto unattested passages of the Old Syriac Gospels in palimpsests from St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai\". Δελτίο Βιβλικών Μελετών. 31 (1): 7-18. ISSN 1012-2311.\n\n^ Kessel, Grigory (2023). \"A New (Double Palimpsest) Witness to the Old Syriac Gospels (Vat. iber. 4, ff. 1 & 5)\". New Testament Studies. 69 (2): 210-221. doi:10.1017/S0028688522000182. S2CID 257379178.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman (2005). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. New York - Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 97-98.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman (2005). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. New York - Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 45-98.\n\n^ Philoxenian - Syriac Orthodox Resources George Kiraz, 2001\n\n^ The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences, by Ighnāṭyūs Afrām I (Patriarch of Antioch). ISBN 9781931956048. p.313.\n\n^ A Short Commentary on the Book of Daniel by A. A. Bevan. ISBN 9781107669949. p.43.\n\n^ Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 70.\n\n^ a b c Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 75-82.\n\n^ a b Agnes Smith Lewis; Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1899). The Palestinian Syriac lectionary of the Gospels, re-edited from two Sinai MSS, and from P. de Lagarde's edition of the \"Evangeliarium Hierosolymitanum\". Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.\n\nBibliography\n\nKurt Aland; Barbara Aland (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Grand Rapids, Michigan. ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nM. Black, K. Aland (1972). Die alten Übersetzungen des Neuen Testaments, die Kirchenväterzitate und Lektionare: der gegenwärtige Stand ihrer Erforschung und ihre Bedeutung für die griechische Textgeschichte. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1967). \"Greek Words in the Syriac Gospels (Vet. and Pe.)\". Le Muséon. 80: 389-426.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2008). \"The Use of the New Testament in the Writings of Mor Ephrem\". Bringing Light to the World: Syriac Tradition Re-visited. Tiruvalla: Christava Sahitya Samithy. pp. 103-118.\n\nBruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 3-98. ISBN 0-19-826170-5.\n\nW. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum, Gorgias Press LLC 2002.\n\n\"The Syriac Version\". Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica. Oxford: 195-208. 1891.\n\nSyriac Versions of the Bible at the Bible Research\n\nAt the Encyclopedia of Textual Criticism\n\nThe New Testament with full western vocalization at syriacbible.nl\n\nPeshitta with analytical lexicon and English translation"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-versions-of-the-bible"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1755}, {"slug": "reference-mor-hananyo-monastery", "title": "Mor Hananyo Monastery", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Mor Hananyo[a] Monastery (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܚܢܢܝܐ‎, romanised: Dayro d-Mor Hananyo), also called Monastery of Saint Ananias, Deyrulzafaran (Arabic: ديرالزعفران, romanised: Dayr al-Za'farān) or Dayro d-Kurkmo (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܟܘܪܟܡܐ),[1] and in Turkish, Deyrulzafaran Manastırı, commonly known in English as the Saffron Monastery, is one of the most...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mor Hananyo Monastery\nܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܚܢܢܝܐ\n\nThe walls of the monastery have a yellowish hue attributed to saffron mixed into the lime mortar\n\nLocation within TurkeyShow map of TurkeyLocation within Near EastShow map of Near East\n\nMonastery information\n\nOther nameDayro d-Mor Hananyo\n\nDenominationSyriac Orthodox\n\nEstablished493\n\nDedicationSaint Hananya\n\nDioceseArchdiocese of Mardin\n\nControlled churchesVirgin Mary Church, Dome Church, Beth Qadisheh, Church of the Patriarchal Throne\n\nPeople\n\nFounderMor Shelmon\n\nAbbotMor Philoxenos Saliba Özmen\n\nArchitecture\n\nStatusActive\n\nSite\n\nLocationNear Mardin, Turkey\n\nCoordinates37°17′58″N 40°47′33″E / 37.29944°N 40.79250°E / 37.29944; 40.79250\n\nThe Mor Hananyo[a] Monastery (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܚܢܢܝܐ‎, romanised: Dayro d-Mor Hananyo), also called Monastery of Saint Ananias, Deyrulzafaran (Arabic: ديرالزعفران, romanised: Dayr al-Za'farān) or Dayro d-Kurkmo (Syriac: ܕܝܪܐ ܕܟܘܪܟܡܐ),[1] and in Turkish, Deyrulzafaran Manastırı, commonly known in English as the Saffron Monastery, is one of the most renowned monasteries of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Located about 3 km (1.9 mi) east of Mardin, Turkey, in the Syriac cultural region Tur Abdin, it has served as a spiritual, cultural, and intellectual centre of Syriac Orthodox Christianity for centuries. From 1166 to 1932, it functioned as the Patriarchal See of Antioch, housing 53 patriarchs and metropolitans in its burial chambers.\n\nBeginning as a temple to the Assyrian sun-god Šamaš, the site was converted into a monastery in the Christian era. Over the centuries it endured repeated attacks by Mongols, Turks, and Kurds, during which the monastery, its artworks, and many manuscripts were abused and destroyed. Despite this, the monastery survives and today is headed by its abbot Mor Filüksinos (Philoxenos) Saliba Özmen.\n\nExternally, the monastery's walls are famously yellow-tinted. Inside are many ornate and beautiful structures, including the Domed Church, the Sayyida (Church of the Virgin Mary), the Church of the Patriarchal Throne, a mausoleum, and a garden structure known as the 'Paradise'.\n\nThe monastery, regarded as the \"Mecca of Assyrians\" and a jewel of Tur Abdin, continues to function as a monastic community, tourist site, and centre of learning, attracting thousands of visitors annually, in addition to its critical ecclesiastical functions since its inception. Syriac Orthodox culture was centred in two monasteries in western Tur Abdin, Mor Hananyo and Mor Gabriel.\n\nName\n\nThe monastery was originally dedicated to Saint Solomon (Mor Shlemun), thought to have been its first abbot, persecuted under Byzantine emperor Justin I during his intense anti-Miaphysite policies, as described by Michael the Syrian.[2] The modern name derives from Mor Hananyo (Saint Hananya), metropolitan of Mardin and Kafartut, who purchased and restored the ruined site in 793 and gave it new life.[3] Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum believed Solomon to have been a disciple of Saint Augen, explaining why the monastery was sometimes also called Mor Hananyo & Augen.[2]\n\nThe Arabic name Dayr al-Za'faran (\"Saffron Monastery\"), with its Syriac translation Dayro d-Kurkmo, is traced to the 15th century. Tradition recalls that a merchant carrying saffron (za'faran) passed by this monastery during its rebuilding. The abbot purchased the saffron from him, mixed it with lime, and used it for building the monastery, lending its walls their distinctive warm, yellowish hue. Another theory for the name is that saffron was cultivated in the surrounding area with records indicating its cultivation in the fields of a monastery near Nusaybin.[4]\n\nThus, the monastery was initially called 'Mor Shlemun', then 'Mor Hananyo', then 'Mor Hananyo & Augen', and currently, it is referred to by both names 'Mor Hananyo' and 'Deyrulzafaran'.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nAccording to archaeological and traditional accounts, the site of the monastery was originally occupied by a temple dedicated to the Assyrian sun-god Šamaš, dating back to c. 2000 BC.[5] The temple's massive stone vaults, constructed without mortar, are still preserved beneath the monastery. One of its windows is aligned to catch the sunrise, suggesting its use in ritual observances and sacrifices.[6]\n\nIn late antiquity, the complex was transformed into a Roman citadel, later expanded into a Byzantine fortress. When the Romans abandoned the site in the late 5th century, it was converted into a Christian monastery by Mor Shlemon (Solomon) in 493 AD.[7] Architectural remains from this period, including floor mosaics, are still visible within the monastery.[8] The oldest surviving church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, dates from the 5th-6th centuries and features four altars, with carved wooden sanctuaries added in 1699.[9] It was raided and destroyed by the Persians in 607 AD when they conquered the region from Byzantine forces, leaving the monastery deserted afterwards.[3]\n\nAnanias (Hananyo) was educated and ordained as a monk at the Monastery of Mor Mattai near Mosul.[10] He was later ordained as the metropolitan bishop of Mardin and Kafartut, undertaking major restoration of the monastery. He also established a grand library of manuscripts, and under his leadership, the monastic community grew to about 80 monks. From this period onward, the monastery became a prominent religious centre and has since borne his name as Mor Hananyo Monastery.[3] Ananias was succeeded by his disciple Ignatius I in 816, who was the 80th bishop of the church and further expanded the monastery's structures and its library.[11]\n\nMedieval history\n\nIn 1034, the 67th Patriarch of Antioch, Dionysius IV Yahya (1031-1042), settled in Amid (modern-day Diyarbakır) after seeking the protection of the Muslim rulers. He also spent some time in Mor Hananyo, becoming the first patriarch to do so.[12] The region was invaded by Islamic forces in 640, and in 1106, it came under the control of the Artukids. The monastery was later abandoned and re-founded by Yuhanon (John) IV, bishop of Mardin, who renovated the complex between 1125 and 1148, after which it was designated the patriarchal residence before his death on 12 July 1165. The region was devastated by Mongol invaders in 1394 and in subsequent years.[13][14] In 1166, Patriarch Michael the Great was enthroned there, initiating nearly eight centuries of patriarchal presence.[15]\n\nDuring the 14th-15th centuries, the monastery endured devastation. In 1396, Tamerlane attacked Mardin for the second time, killing, looting, and taking many captives. As a result, some of its monasteries were destroyed, including the walls, cells, and the door of Mor Hananyo.[16] Kurdish raiders inflicted great damage on the monastery and surrounding villages over the years as well, including in 1516. The monastery further deteriorated due to neglect.[17] Patriarch Ignatius II rebuilt the monastery between 1696 and 1699, adding the Church of the Patriarchal Throne which was intended for synods and patriarchal elections. Later patriarchs would also gradually renovate it.[18] The patriarchal throne and many relics are still located in the monastery, in addition to the tombs of various patriarchs.[19]\n\nModern history\n\nSince the 13th century, the monastery has faced repeated Kurdish incursions, looting, and desecration. The wider insecurity of southeastern Anatolia, where most Assyrian Christians lived, left their communities vulnerable to frequent raids by neighbouring Kurdish Muslim groups. As the patriarchal seat of the Church, the monastery was directly affected. Horatio Southgate, an American missionary who visited in the 19th century, noted that Mor Hananyo had been invaded and occupied by Kurds. Regional upheavals, including the rebellion of Badr Khan in the 1840s, brought devastation to Assyrians of both the Syriac Orthodox Church in Tur Abdin and the neighbouring Church of the East in Hakkari.[20]\n\nSome of the worst violence, however, was unleashed in the massacres beginning in 1895.[21] During this period, the monastery was repeatedly occupied by Kurdish Muslims, who neglected and abused the site. Ancient manuscripts were destroyed, with some used as gunwadding for rifles or as kindling for fire, and clergy were powerless against local violence. The monastery's condition deteriorated rapidly, leaving it little more than a ruin by the time restoration was attempted.[22] Despite this, the monastery also became a refuge for displaced villagers, particularly during the massacres of 1895. Syriac Orthodox manuscripts preserved at the monastery contain eyewitness accounts of the atrocities in Syriac, Arabic and Garshuni.[23] There were widespread killings of men, women, childrenm and clergy; burnings of monasteries, homes, and churches; and the ransacking of villages across Mardin, Diyarbakır, and the surrounding regions. More than fifty villages were reported as emptied of their indigenous Assyrian population. Refugees who fled to the monastery were ordered by Ottoman officials to return to their ruined villages, where starvation, exposure, and renewed attacks caused further deaths. Contemporary letters also document appeals to the patriarch to intervene in cases of abduction and forced conversion, including an Armenian plea to rescue his wife and child from Kurdish captors who claim the wife converted to Islam after her kidnapping, and thus will not be returned. The violence has been described by scholars as a precursor to the Assyrian genocide of 1915.[20]\n\nThe monastery itself sheltered hundreds of women, children, and the elderly during the crises. One account recalls that only the intervention of an Ottoman army officer, moved to pity by the state of the refugees, prevented the complete massacre of those inside. Nevertheless, the villages surrounding the monastery - including Bnabil, Dara, Bkeera, Qillath, al-Mansuriyah, Macsarta, Baval, Sour, al-Qusour, al-Qalsatma - were devastated, with their Christian populations eradicated. The destruction extended across Diyarbakır, Nusaybin, Azekh, and Siirt, where the Chaldean Catholic archbishop and scholar Addai Sher was murdered. Further looting of farmland and livestock was reported by villagers who resorted to begging to survive. A state of anarchy prevailed, with both ecclesiastical and local civil authorities rendered helpless before the tyranny of Kurdish tribes, who operated undeterred under the blessing of the Ottoman state. They pillaged, murdered, raped, kidnapped, and harassed the indigenous Christians of the monastery and surrounding villages, who were also subjected to forced conversion to Islam against their will. The violence reflected deep-rooted attitudes that persisted long after these events.[24]\n\nDuring the Seferberlik massacres, part of the 1915 Assyrian genocide, Kurdish tribes besieged the monastery, intent on killing refugees from surrounding villages. One Assyrian man disguised himself to smuggle food past the besiegers.[25]\n\nDespite centuries of upheaval, Mor Hananyo remained the patriarchal seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church for nearly a millennium. This ended in 1924, soon after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, when Patriarch Ignatius Elias III received a telegram from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk delivered via the governor of Mardin, declaring:\n\nThe clerical leader in the black cassock [the Patriarch] should leave Turkey immediately and should never ever return![26]\n\nThe patriarch was stripped of Turkish citizenship, and the patriarchate relocated first to Homs, and then to Damascus, where it remains today as the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Archdiocese of Damascus. Mor Hananyo, however, would continue to function as a monastic centre, despite everything.[27]\n\nOver its history, at least 21 Syriac Orthodox synods were convened there, the last on 30 November 1916, when Ignatius Elias III was elected Patriarch of Antioch.[28]\n\nChurch architecture\n\nMor Hananyo Monastery is one of the main centres of the Syriac Orthodox Church, renowned for its magnificent architecture. The various churches and buildings of the monastery still preserve a significant amount of the original decoration and sculpture, many of which exhibit very high artistic quality.[8] The monastery is regarded as one of the largest and most influential in Mesopotamia. It is situated on a mound approximately 3 km east of the city of Mardin, Turkey. The monastery measures about 71 × 63 m, fortified by a strong wall, and is surrounded by water channels. Its courtyard features porches on four sides facing one another, and in the middle are two large cisterns fed from nearby springs through aqueducts that were used for storing fresh water during winter and spring.[29][30]\n\nThe complex is constructed on several levels, with two storeys across most of the site and three storeys in the southern section. These higher structures, considered the best-preserved parts of the monastery, contain the patriarchal apartments and the monks' cells. The construction is irregular, which reflects centuries of additions and reconstruction. Remains of the earliest building phases, made from large carved stones and bricks, can still be seen in the churches and the vaults of the lower storey.[29]\n\nThe monastery incorporates a variety of ecclesiastical buildings: the Domed Church of Mor Hananyo, the Church of the Virgin Mary (Sayyida), the Church of the Patriarchal Throne, the Mausoleum of the Fathers (Beth Qadisheh), and a garden structure known as the Paradise.[31] In addition, St Peter's Church and accommodation for patriarchs, metropolitans, and clergy are part of the compound.[14]\n\nOne of the most striking architectural features is the so-called Sun Temple, an underground vault beneath the main courtyard. This structure predates the monastery and is approximately 4500 years old, originally dedicated to the Mesopotamian sun-god Šamaš. The ceiling, constructed with massive stones fitted without mortar using interlocking techniques, has remained intact for millennia, going all the way back to ancient Assyrian times. A window in its eastern wall was aligned to capture the first rays of sunrise, likely used in ritual sacrifice. The chamber's stone blocks, some weighing up to one tonne and standing two metres high, are held together without mortar, with a central keystone locking them in place. The temple comprises two rooms, one covered by stone vaults and the other by a ceiling of fitted blocks. This subterranean sanctuary represents the oldest preserved part of the monastery.[32][6][7] Located to the north of the monastery are three smaller monasteries: one dedicated to the Theotokos (Syriac: ܝܘܠܕܬ ܐܠܗܐ, romanised: Yoldāth Alāhā, lit. 'Mother of God'), also known as 'Our Lady of the Dripping Water'; one to Mor Ozoziel;[33] and one to Jacob of Serug, who is dubbed 'the Teacher'.[34]\n\nMain Church (Domed Church)\n\nThe church located in the east wing of the monastery was meticulously built by Mor Hananyo (793-816) himself, which is why it is also named after him. The structure remains intact more than eleven centuries on. It was here that Patriarch Michael the Great was enthroned in 1166, followed by subsequent patriarchs.[15]\n\nThe building is shaped like a cross and measures 17.7 × 12.3 m; it is regarded as exceptionally beautiful.[35] Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I Dicorus (491-518) is said to have commissioned its construction, carried out by the Assyrian architects Theodosius and Theodore.[14] Its dome is shaped in the form of a cross, which has earned it the name 'Domed Church'. The surface area measures 271 m2, and the interior height rises to 17.7 m.[15]\n\nThe outer walls bear various animal motifs, while the southern gate is decorated with inscriptions narrating episodes from the life of Jesus, though many have faded with time. The same gate also contains the Greek letters Alpha and Omega (Α and Ω), echoing Revelation 22:13 and symbolising Christ as the beginning and the end.[15]\n\nInternally, the church was once adorned with frescoes, but only a single depiction of St Ananias survives, tall and narrow in form.[6] Its rich altar was historically laden with gold and silver.[36] Wooden service platforms to the north and south of the apse date from 1699, though the central platform was destroyed by fire in 1941, leaving only two columns intact.[35]\n\nThe church has six gates in total, and although Patriarch Ignatius Abded Mshiho II ordered plastering of the walls in 1903, which obscured some of the original decoration, a portrait of St Ananias himself is still preserved in the southern section.[15]\n\nTemple of the Sun (Shamash Temple)\n\nThis underground sanctuary, dating back to c. 2000 BC, predates the Christian monastery and was originally utilised for solar worship by the ancient Assyrians of the region.[37]\n\nThe ceiling is supported by immense stones, standing two metres tall and weighing 500-1,000 kg each. These stones are ingeniously fitted without mortar through interlocking methods that have preserved their stability for millennia. At the eastern end, there is a small opening that allows the rays of the rising sun to penetrate directly to the altar, where sacrifices were offered to the sun god Shamash.[6][38]\n\nThe temple is formed of two rooms, one smaller chamber covered by stone vaults, and a larger one with a ceiling of vast unmortared blocks. The monastery itself symbolically preserves the solar theme with 365 rooms, each representing a day of the year. The first rays of the sun enter the temple through a small opening in its eastern wall every morning.[38]\n\nMausoleum of the Fathers\n\nAlso called the Beth Qadisheh (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܩܕܝܫܗ, romanised: House of Saints), this mausoleum is located on the southeastern façade of the Domed Church. It measures 10.5 × 5.4 m. The doors to this chamber are double doors of walnut, dating back 300 years. The chamber contains seven burial niches, three of which are reserved for patriarchs.[39] Altogether, the bones of 53 patriarchs, metropolitans, and saints are interred here across several chambers, including those of Saint Hananya himself.[40]\n\nStone carvings embellish the interior, including grape clusters, vases with rods protruding, and seashells in semi-circular niches. Above the doorway is a cross surrounded by dolphins.[41] Inscriptions in Estrangelo and Serto Syriac scripts record the sanctity of the space, one explicitly stating 'Entombed here are the remains of saints'. The structure was renovated in 1884 by Patriarch Peter IV, the last patriarch later entombed there in 1894.[18]\n\nChurch of Virgin Mary (Sayyida Church)\n\nThe Church of the Virgin Mary, also called Sayyida, stands in the northern section of the monastery. It dates back to the 5th-6th centuries and is regarded as the original church of the complex. Measuring 10.75 × 14.25 m, it is spacious and venerable.[18]\n\nThe church contains four altars, each with a finely crafted wooden Holy of Holies built in 1699, some inscribed with verses from the Psalms.[18] Three handmade wooden doors, also from 1699, bear additional Syriac inscriptions of the Psalms of David.[7]\n\nInside, mosaics of the Byzantine era decorate the apse, and some of the ceilings and walls are built of baked brick in a Byzantine style. An octagonal baptismal font for adults remains in use today for baptism ceremonies.[6]\n\nPatriarch Jirjis II restored parts of the church in the late 17th century.[18] It remains one of the central liturgical spaces of the monastery.\n\nChurch of the Patriarchal Throne\n\nAbove the Church of the Virgin Mary to the south lies the Church of the Patriarchal Throne, built by Patriarch Jirjis II between 1696 and 1699 in honour of Saint Peter. Measuring 17.5 × 9.25 m, it was intended as the venue for patriarchal synods to convene and elect new patriarchs. Renovations and decorations were later added by Patriarchs Shukr Allah (1727), Jirjis IV (1773), and Jirjis V (1830). The altar front bears inscriptions from the Gospels in Estrangelo script, while a nearby Serto Syriac inscription states that relics of saints rest at the site, making it an important symbolic space within the monastery. The throne itself stands on the eastern side of the church and is fashioned of marble, richly ornamented with carvings.[18]\n\nThe Paradise (Dayr al-Firdaws)\n\nAdjoining the eastern side of the Sayyida Church is a smaller chamber known as the 'Paradise' (Dayr al-Firdaws), which served as a burial chamber for bishops and dignitaries. Measuring 6.5 × 5.7 m, it contains six stone graves covered with arches. There is a bountiful spring nearby known as Jroun Spring, along with mulberry trees.[39]\n\nThe chamber walls bear decorative carvings, including crosses and geometric designs. A Syriac inscription records its dedication as a place for interring the righteous, and Byzantine-style mosaics survive on the floor.[39]\n\nTraditionally, it was considered a particularly sanctified place within the monastery, reserved for ascetics who had achieved high spiritual standing. Renovations carried out during the 18th century reinforced the structure while preserving its original style.[39]\n\nManuscripts and scholarship\n\nA significant library was established at the monastery during the renovations under Ananias in the late eighth century. Over the following centuries, the monks of Mor Hananyo produced and copied a large number of manuscripts covering a wide range of subjects, bearing witness to their diverse intellectual interests. These manuscripts extended far beyond religious literature. For example, a codex copied in 1308-09 contains the Syriac translation of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblon alongside Severus Sebokht's Treatise on the Constellations.[34][42]\n\nAmong the most celebrated works preserved is the Lectionary of Deir ez-Za‘faran, copied in the mid-thirteenth century by Dioscorus Theodorus, later bishop of Hesna d-Ziyad (Kharput). The manuscript contains twenty miniatures, elaborate ornaments of colourful circles, stars, and crosses, and full-page decorative crosses introducing the canon tables. The frontispiece is set under a gold portion, and the interlaced borders in red, blue, and yellow closely follow Byzantine iconographic models. Unlike many contemporaneous manuscripts, the physiognomic rendering of its figures was not 'Islamicised' but retained a distinct Syriac Christian aesthetic.[34]\n\nThe monastery also preserves a Bible of considerable historical value and a sacred stone traditionally associated with the founding of the first school of medicine in the region. Among the renowned scholars connected with the monastery are Iwannis, metropolitan of Dara (8th-9th century), Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum (1933-1957), and Metropolitan Mor Philoxenos Yuhanon Dolabani (1947-1969). Mor Philoxenos Saliba Özmen, ordained Metropolitan of Mardin in 2003, also resides at Mor Hananyo.[34]\n\nDespite its prestige, the library suffered catastrophic losses through time, looting, and repeated pillaging. It suffered devastation by Turks, by the Mongols under Tamerlane, and later by Kurdish tribes, who used precious manuscripts either as rifle wadding or kindling for fires.[43] Even so, today the library of Mor Hananyo still contains more than 300 Syriac and Arabic manuscripts, the oldest dating to the 9th century, covering theology, patristics, scripture, law, grammar, philology, asceticism, rituals, and history, authored by both Greek and Syriac writers of various traditions, including Miaphysite and Nestorian.[44]\n\nIn 1928, Metropolitan Yuhanon Dolabani compiled a Syriac facsimile catalogue of all manuscripts in the monastery, which was translated into Arabic in Damascus in 2002 by Yohanna Ibrahim and later into English by Matti Moosa.[42]\n\nPrinting press\n\nThe monastery of Mor Hananyo holds a remarkable position in the history of printing in the Middle East. In 1874, Patriarch Peter IV and Archbishop Gregorios journeyed to England and acquired a printing press, which was transported to Aleppo by Antonius Azar before being installed at the monastery in 1881. A dedicated printing-house was constructed on the site in 1882. An additional press had already been brought from England in the 1880s as a backup and was installed in Jerusalem.[45]\n\nThe first book printed in the monastery appeared in 1888, and a copy was sent to Queen Victoria. Subsequently, the press remained active until 1917, producing books in Syriac, Arabic, and Turkish, in addition to the periodical Hikmet (Syriac: ܚܟܡܬܐ, romanised: Ḥekmṯo, lit. 'Wisdom') in 1913-1914. During the era of the Turkish Republic, the monastery's press was used to print official documents, as it was the only printing facility available in the region. Publications continued until 1969; additionally, a monthly magazine titled Öz Hikmet was printed until 1953.[45]\n\nToday some of the surviving works printed at Mor Hananyo are on display within the monastery, and others are exhibited at Kırklar Church (Mor Behnam) in Mardin.[46]\n\nModern-day significance\n\nMor Hananyo served as the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate from c. 1160-1932 when it was relocated to Homs and later to Damascus, marking the end of its nearly eight-century tenure as the ecclesiastical centre of the Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nThe monastery is one of the oldest still-functioning sacred sites in Mesopotamia. So great is the significance of the site to Assyrian Christians worldwide and their deep-rooted heritage in their homeland,[47] that (in 2013) the monastery attracted over 109,000 visitors, and most were non-residents of Mardin, even though only about 4,000 Assyrians lived in Mardin.[14] There continues to be an influx of visitors seeking to experience the site's historic spiritual and architectural legacy, and many locals refer to it as the \"Mecca of Assyrians\".[6]\n\nMor Hananyo is still a key player in Syriac liturgical observances, with services still being provided in Classical Syriac - one of the oldest liturgical languages of Christianity.[48] The upper floor is still occupied by visiting guests including the patriarch who occasionally visits from time to time.[6]\n\nComplementing the monastery's significance, its enduring presence marks part of larger efforts by Assyrian communities to reclaim and maintain their cultural and religious identity in their ancestral region.[47]\n\nTourism\n\nToday, the monastery functions both as a religious site and a tourist attraction. Open to visitors during designated hours, it offers guided tours and has a café, souvenir shop, and occasional displays of locally produced Assyrian wine called Dzafaran.[49] It is situated in Tur Abdin, a historically Assyrian region, and is preparing for potential World Heritage recognition under UNESCO's Tentative List programme.[5][50]\n\nAdmission to the monastery is 100₺ (as of September 2024) and it is open every day. Guided tours are sometimes conducted in Turkish, but many of the local clergymen also speak English. Visitors must wear appropriate attire.[51]\n\nGallery\n\n The Saffron Monastery\n\n The tree-lined path to the monastery\n\n The main entrance, accessed from the outer courtyard\n\n The Patriarchal Throne\n\n Mor Hananyo Monastery with its farms in the background\n\n Bible and pulpit\n\n The main inner courtyard\n\n New block beside the entrance gate of the monastery housing a wine shop and a small museum\n\n Domed Church containing a portrait of Saint Hananya\n\n Virgin Mary image in the Sayyida Chapel\n\n Entrance to one of the churches\n\nSee also\n\nOldest churches in the world\n\nMor Gabriel Monastery\n\nMount Izla\n\nAnti-Assyrian sentiment\n\nChristology\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"Hananyo\" is the West-Syriac pronunciation and appears on the monastery's entrance. In Classical Syriac it is pronounced \"Hananya\" and found transliterated as such in some literature.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 501.\n\n^ a b Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, pp. 17-18.\n\n^ a b c Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 7.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ a b \"Mor Hananyo Monastery | Archiqoo\". archiqoo.com. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Jin, De Wet and (2 May 2023). \"Mor Hananyo Monastery: Visit Turkey's Saffron Convent in Mardin\". Museum of Wander. Retrieved 9 June 2025.\n\n^ a b c \"Eglise syriaque orthodoxe d'Antioche\". Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Mor Hananyo Dayro, Turkey\". syriacchristianity.in. Retrieved 9 June 2025.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, pp. 5-7.\n\n^ Ignatius Yacoub III (11 September 2008). History of the Monastery of Saint Matthew in Mosul. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. p. 56. doi:10.31826/9781463213978/html. ISBN 978-1-4632-1397-8.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 9.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 23.\n\n^ \"Mor Hananyo Dayro, Turkey\". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.\n\n^ a b c d Toprak, Lokman (December 2014). \"Significance of Dayro D-Mor Hananyo and Mor Gabriel Monasteries within the scope of belief tourism\". European Journal of Science and Theology - via ResearchGate.\n\n^ a b c d e Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 4.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 35.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 36.\n\n^ a b c d e f Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 5.\n\n^ Traces in the Desert: Journeys of Discovery across Central Asia. (2008). Christoph Baumer. I. B. Tauris, New York, p. 21.\n\n^ a b Dinno 2017, pp. 89-90.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 41.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, pp. 89-90, 302.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, pp. 176-180.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, pp. 176-180.\n\n^ Talay, Shabo; Barthoma, Soner Ö. (2018). Sayfo 1915 - An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans During WWI. Gorgias Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-4632-0730-4. ISSN 1539-1507.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, pp. 223-225.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 302.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, pp. 49-51.\n\n^ a b Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 1.\n\n^ Toprak 2014, p. 23.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, pp. 1-6.\n\n^ Toprak 2014, pp. 23-24.\n\n^ Carlson, Thomas A. \"Mor ʿAzozoʾil\". syriaca.org. Retrieved 9 September 2025. A monastery in the hills above Dayr al-Zaʿfarān.\n\n^ a b c d \"Mor Hananyo Dayro, Turkey\". www.syrianchurch.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ a b \"A Historical Heritage in Mardin: Mor Hananyo Monastery | Grand Sirkeci Hotel\". www.grandsirkeci.com. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ Courtois, Sébastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide (in French). Translated by Aurora, Vincent (1st ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-59333-077-4.\n\n^ Toprak 2014, p. 65.\n\n^ a b \"Syriac Heritage in Mardin & Midyat\". grande flânerie. 26 October 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c d Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 6.\n\n^ Doğukan, Kubilayhan (12 October 2022). \"A Mysterious Journey to Deyrulzafaran Monastery\". Şiir Tadında. Retrieved 9 June 2025.\n\n^ \"Deyrulzafaran Manastırı - Mardin\". www.deyrulzafaran.org. Retrieved 9 June 2025.\n\n^ a b Dolabani, Philoxenos Yuhanon (2009). Ibrahim, Gregorios Yohanna (ed.). Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in Za‘faran Monastery. Dar Mardin: Christian Arabic and Syriac Studies from the Middle East. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-60724-252-9.\n\n^ Courtois 2004, p. 10.\n\n^ Ignatius Aphram I Barsoum 2008, p. 71.\n\n^ a b Vrolijk, Arnoud Vrolijk (2014). Roper, Geoffrey (ed.). Historical Aspects of Printing and Publishing in Languages of the Middle East: Papers from the Third Symposium on the History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East. Islamic Manuscripts and Books. Leiden; Boston: Brill. pp. 181-192. ISBN 978-90-04-25505-0.\n\n^ Doğukan, Kubilayhan (12 October 2022). \"A Mysterious Journey to Deyrulzafaran Monastery\". Şiir Tadında. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ a b Culture, Germany. \"Mardin Culture, In Depth Analysis of Mardin Culture\". Germany Culture. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ Tours, Mexico Turqia. \"Mardin Kontes Travel\". Mardin Kontes Travel (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ \"Meet the Turkish winemaker taking risks to restore Assyrian culture\". euronews. 4 November 2021. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ Agency, Anadolu (15 February 2022). \"UNESCO protocol signed for 9 churches, monasteries in Turkey's Mardin\". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ nomadicniko (8 June 2024). \"Tur Abdin & Syriac Orthodox Monasteries in Southeastern Turkey\". Nomadic Niko. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\nSources\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2011). The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.\n\nIgnatius Aphram I Barsoum (2008). History of the Za’faraan Monastery. Publications of the Archdiocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Translated by Matti Moosa. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-639-4.\n\nDinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis, Then Revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website\n\nCharity House\n\nPresentation Archived 2012-02-06 at the Wayback Machine\n\nPresentation"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mor-hananyo-monastery"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5103}, {"slug": "reference-nowruz", "title": "Nowruz", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Nowruz (Persian: نوروز, Iranian Persian: [noːˈɾuːz],[x] lit. 'New Day') is New Year's Day on the Iranian calendars, including the currently used Solar Hijri calendar.[37][38] Historically, it has been observed by Iranian peoples,[39] but is now celebrated by many Persianate cultures worldwide. It is a festival based on the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nowruz\nنوروز (Persian)\n\nA Haft-Sin arrangement, traditionally displayed for Nowruz.Azerbaijanis in traditional Nowruz outfitsKurdish girl in Palangan, Iran, during Nowruz festival preparationsKazakhs in traditional outfits during a Nowruz musical performanceCitizens from the Commonwealth of Independent States dancing in Moscow, Russia, for Nowruz festivities\n\nObserved byIranian peoples and diaspora (originally)\nVarious ethnic groups from Persianate societies (currently)\n\nCurrent countries:\n\n Afghanistan\n\n Albania[1][2]\n\n Armenia[a]\n\n Australia[b]\n\n Azerbaijan\n\n Bahrain[c]\n\n Bangladesh[4]\n\n Canada[d]\n\n China[e]\n\n Cyprus[6][7]\n\n France[f]\n\n Georgia[g]\n\n Germany[h]\n\n India[i]\n\n Iran\n\n Iraq[j]\n\n Israel[k][13][14]\n\n Kazakhstan[15]\n\n Kosovo\n\n Kyrgyzstan[15]\n\n Netherlands[l]\n\n New Zealand[m]\n\n North Macedonia\n\n Norway[n]\n\n Mongolia[o]\n\n Oman[20]\n\n Pakistan[p]\n\n Russia[q]\n\n Sweden[r]\n\n Syria[s]\n\n Tajikistan[26]\n\n Turkey[t]\n\n Turkmenistan[29]\n\n Ukraine[u]\n\n United Kingdom[v]\n\n United States[w]\n\n Uzbekistan\n\nTypeCultural\n\nSignificanceVernal equinox; first day of a new year on the Iranian calendars and the Solar Hijri calendar\n\nDateBetween 19 and 22 March[30]\n\n2025 date09:01:30, 20 March (UTC)[31]\n\n2026 date14:45:59, 20 March (UTC)[32][33]\n\n2027 date20:24:18, 20 March (UTC)[34][33]\n\nFrequencyAnnual\n\nRelated toChaharshanbe Suri, Sizdebedar\n\nNawrouz, Novruz, Nowrouz, Nowrouz, Nawrouz, Nauryz, Nooruz, Nowruz, Navruz, Nevruz, Nowruz, Navruz\n\nUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage\n\nCountryAfghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan\n\nReference02097\n\nRegionAsia and the Pacific\n\nInscription history\n\nInscription2016 (4th session)\n\nListRepresentative\n\nNowruz (Persian: نوروز, Iranian Persian: [noːˈɾuːz],[x] lit. 'New Day') is New Year's Day on the Iranian calendars, including the currently used Solar Hijri calendar.[37][38] Historically, it has been observed by Iranian peoples,[39] but is now celebrated by many Persianate cultures worldwide. It is a festival based on the Northern Hemisphere spring equinox,[40] and thus usually coincides with a date between 19 March and 22 March on the Gregorian calendar.\n\nThe roots of Nowruz lie in Zoroastrianism, and it has been celebrated by many peoples across West Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Black Sea Basin, the Balkans, and South Asia for over 3,000 years.[41][42] In the modern era, while it is observed as a secular holiday by most celebrants,[43][44] Nowruz remains a holy day for Zoroastrians,[45] Baháʼís,[46] and Ismaili Shia Muslims.[47][48][49]\n\nFor the Northern Hemisphere, Nowruz marks the beginning of the spring season.[36][50] Customs for the festival include various fire and water rituals, celebratory dances, gift exchanges, and poetry recitations, among others; these observances differ between the cultures of the diverse communities that celebrate it.[51]\n\nOverview\n\nThe first day of the Iranian calendar falls on the March equinox, the first day of spring, around 21 March. In the 11th century AD the Iranian calendar was reformed by Omar Khayyam to fix the beginning of the calendar year, i.e., Nowruz, at the vernal equinox. Accordingly, the definition of Nowruz given by the Iranian astronomer Tusi was the following: \"the first day of the official New Year [Nowruz] was always the day on which the sun entered Aries before noon.\"[52] Nowruz is the first day of Farvardin, the first month of the Solar Hijri calendar, which is the official calendar in use in Iran, and formerly in Afghanistan.\n\nThe United Nations officially recognized the \"International Day of Nowruz\" with the adoption of Resolution 64/253 by the United Nations General Assembly in February 2010.[53][54]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe word Nowruz is a combination of the Persian words نو (now, meaning 'new') and روز (ruz, 'day'). Historically, the word was vocalized in Classical Persian as Nawrōz, and in Middle Persian as Nōgrōz.[55] The modern pronunciation varies among Persian dialects, with Dari and Tajiki (the eastern dialects) using the pronunciations [nawˈɾoːz] and [næʋˈɾɵz] respectively, and Iranian Persian (the western dialect) using [nowˈɾuːz] (in particular in the Tehrani accent: [noːˈɾuːz]). A variety of spellings for the word Nowruz exist in English-language usage, including Norooz, Novruz, Nowruz, Navruz, Nauruz and Newroz.[56][57]\n\nSpring equinox calculation\n\nNowruz's timing is based on the vernal equinox of the Northern Hemisphere. In Iran, it is the first day of the new year in the Solar Hijri algorithmic calendar, which is based on precise astronomical observations, and the sophisticated intercalation system, which makes it more accurate than its European counterpart, the Gregorian calendar.[58]\n\nThe day of Nowruz begins on the midnight in the interval between the two consecutive solar noons that includes the instant of the March equinox.[59] (If the exact moment of astronomical equinox occurs before noon (Tehran time), that day is considered Nowruz and the first day of Farvardin. If the equinox occurs after noon, the following day is designated as Nowruz.[59]) Hence, the first mid-day is on the last day of one calendar year, and the second mid-day is on the first day (Nowruz) of the next year.\n\nEach 2820-year great grand cycle contains 2,137 normal years of 365 days and 683 leap years of 366 days, with the average year length over the great grand cycle 365.24219852. This average is just 0.00000026 (2.6×10-7) of a day-slightly more than 1/50 of a second-shorter than Newcomb's value for the mean tropical year of 365.24219878 days, but differs considerably more from the current average vernal equinox year of 365.242362 days, which means that the new year, intended to fall on the vernal equinox, would drift by half a day over the course of a cycle.[58][y]\n\nChaharshanbe Suri\n\nChaharshanbe Suri (Persian: چهارشنبه‌سوری, romanized: čahâr-šanbeh suri, lit. 'Festive Wednesday') is a prelude to the New Year. In Iran, it is celebrated on the eve of the last Wednesday before Nowruz. It is usually celebrated in the evening by performing rituals such as jumping over bonfires and lighting off firecrackers and fireworks.[60][61]\n\nIn Azerbaijan, where the preparation for Novruz usually begins a month earlier, the festival is held every Tuesday during four weeks before the holiday of Novruz. Each Tuesday, people celebrate the day of one of the four elements-water, fire, earth and wind.[62] On the holiday eve, the graves of relatives are visited and tended.[63][64]\n\nIranians sing the poetic line \"my yellow is yours, your red is mine\", which means \"my weakness to you and your strength to me\" (Persian: سرخی تو از من، زردی من از تو, romanized: sorkhi-ye to az man, zardi-ye man az to) to the fire during the festival, asking the fire to take away ill-health and problems and replace them with warmth, health, and energy. Trail mix and berries are also served during the celebration.\n\nSpoon banging (قاشق زنی, qāšoq zani) is a tradition observed on the eve of Charshanbe Suri, similar to the Halloween custom of trick-or-treating. In Iran, people wear disguises and go door-to-door banging spoons against plates or bowls and receive packaged snacks. In Azerbaijan, children slip around to their neighbors' homes and apartments on the last Tuesday prior to Novruz, knock at the doors, and leave their caps or little basket on the thresholds, hiding nearby to wait for candies, pastries and nuts.[62]\n\nThe ritual of jumping over fire has continued in Armenia in the feast of Trndez, which is a feast of purification in the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Catholic Church, celebrated forty days after Jesus's birth.[65]\n\nSizdah Be-dar\n\nIn Iran, the Nowruz holidays last thirteen days. On the thirteenth day of the New Year, Iranians leave their houses to enjoy nature and picnic outdoors, as part of the Sizdah Bedar ceremony. The greenery grown for the Haft-sin setting is thrown away, usually into running water. It is also customary for young single people, especially young girls, to tie the leaves of the greenery before discarding it, expressing a wish to find a partner. Another custom associated with Sizdah Bedar is the playing of jokes and pranks, similar to April Fools' Day.[66]\n\nHistory\n\nOrigin in Iranian religions\n\nThere exist various foundation myths for Nowruz in Iranian mythology.\n\nThe Shahnameh credits the foundation of Nowruz to the mythical Iranian King Jamshid, who saves mankind from a winter destined to kill every living creature.[67] To defeat the killer winter, Jamshid constructed a throne studded with gems. He had demons raise him above the earth into the heavens; there he sat, shining like the Sun. The world's creatures gathered and scattered jewels around him and proclaimed that this was the New Day (Now Ruz). This was the first day of Farvardin, which is the first month of the Iranian calendar.[68]\n\nAlthough it is not clear whether Proto-Indo-Iranians celebrated a feast as the first day of the calendar, there are indications that Iranians may have observed the beginning of both autumn and spring, respectively related to the harvest and the sowing of seeds, for the celebration of the New Year.[69] Mary Boyce and Frantz Grenet explain the traditions for seasonal festivals and comment: \"It is possible that the splendor of the Babylonian festivities at this season, led the Iranians to develop their own spring festival into an established New Year feast, with the name Navasarda \"New Year\" (a name which, though first attested through Middle Persian derivatives, is attributed to the Achaemenian period).\" Akitu was the Babylonian festivity held during the spring month of Nisan in which Nowruz falls. Since the communal observations of the ancient Iranians appear in general to have been seasonal ones and related to agriculture, \"it is probable that they traditionally held festivals in both autumn and spring, to mark the major turning points of the natural year.\"[69]\n\nNowruz is partly rooted in the tradition of Iranian religions, such as Mithraism and Zoroastrianism. In Mithraism, festivals had a deep linkage with the Sun's light. The Iranian festivals such as Mehregan (autumnal equinox), Tirgan, and the eve of Chelle ye Zemestan (winter solstice) also had an origin in the Sun god (Mithra). Among other ideas, Zoroastrianism is the first monotheistic religion that emphasizes broad concepts such as the corresponding work of good and evil in the world, and the connection of humans to nature. Zoroastrian practices were dominant for much of the history of ancient Iran. In Zoroastrianism, the seven most important Zoroastrian festivals are the six Gahambar festivals and Nowruz, which occurs at the spring equinox. According to Mary Boyce,[70] \"It seems a reasonable surmise that Nowruz, the holiest of them all, with deep doctrinal significance, was founded by Zoroaster himself\"; although there is no clear date of origin.[71] Between sunset on the day of the sixth Gahambar and sunrise of Nowruz, Hamaspathmaedaya (later known, in its extended form, as Frawardinegan; and today is known as Farvardigan) was celebrated. This and the Gahambars are the only festivals named in the surviving text of the Avesta.\n\nThe 10th-century scholar Biruni, in his work Kitab al-Tafhim li Awa'il Sina'at al-Tanjim, provides a description of the calendars of various nations. Besides the Iranian calendar, various festivals of Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Sabians, and other nations are mentioned in the book. In the section on the Iranian calendar, he mentions Nowruz, Sadeh, Tirgan, Mehrgan, the six Gahambars, Farvardigan, Bahmanja, Esfand Armaz and several other festivals. According to him, \"It is the belief of the Iranians that Nowruz marks the first day when the universe started its motion.\"[72] The Persian historian Gardizi, in his work titled Zayn al-Akhbār, under the section of the Zoroastrians festivals, mentions Nowruz (among other festivals) and specifically points out that Zoroaster highly emphasized the celebration of Nowruz and Mehrgan.[73][74]\n\nAchaemenid period\n\nAlthough the word Nowruz is not recorded in Achaemenid inscriptions,[75] there is a detailed account by Xenophon of a Nowruz celebration taking place in Persepolis and the continuity of this festival in the Achaemenid tradition.[76] Nowruz was an important day during the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BC). Kings of the different Achaemenid nations would bring gifts to the King of Kings. The significance of the ceremony was such that King Cambyses II's appointment as the king of Babylon was legitimized only after his participation in the referred annual Achaemenid festival.[77]\n\nCelebrations at Persepolis\n\nIt has been suggested that the famous Persepolis complex, or at least the palace of Apadana and the Hundred Columns Hall, were built for the specific purpose of celebrating a feast related to Nowruz.\n\nIranian and Jewish calendars\n\nIn 539 BC, the Jews came under Iranian rule, thus exposing both groups to each other's customs. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the story of Purim as told in the Book of Esther is adapted from an Iranian novella about the shrewdness of harem queens, suggesting that Purim may be an adoption of Iranian New Year.[78] A specific novella is not identified and Encyclopedia Britannica itself notes that \"no Jewish texts of this genre from the Persian period are extant, so these new elements can be recognized only inferentially.\" Purim is celebrated the 14 of Adar, usually within a month before Nowruz (as the date of Purim is set according to the Jewish calendar, which is lunisolar), while Nowruz occurs at the spring equinox. It is possible that the Jews and Iranians of the time may have shared or adopted similar customs for these holidays.[79] The Lunar new year of the Middle East occurs on 1 Nisan, the new moon of the first month of spring, which usually falls within a few weeks of Nowruz.\n\nLegacy in Persian literature\n\nIn his Shahnameh, the tenth-century poet Ferdowsi narrates a fictional account of Darius III's death, where an injured Darius, with his head cradled on Alexander the Great’s thigh, asks Alexander to wed Roxana, so their children might uphold Nowruz and keep the flame of Zoroaster burning:\n\nHer mother named her Roxana the fair; The world found joy and solace in her care. ... From her, perhaps, a glorious one shall rise; Who shall renew the name of bold Esfandiyār, wise. This sacred flame of Zoroaster, he shall adorn; The Zend and Avesta scriptures, in his hands be borne. The feast of Sadeh, this auspicious rite he'll keep; The splendor of Nowruz and fire temples deep.[80]\n\n- Ferdowsi\n\nParthian and Sasanian periods\n\nNowruz was the holiday of Parthian dynastic empires who ruled Iran (248 BC-224 AD) and the other areas ruled by the Arsacid dynasties outside of Parthia (such as the Arsacid dynasties of Armenia and Iberia). There are specific references to the celebration of Nowruz during the reign of Vologases I (51-78 AD), but these include no details.[75] Before the Sasanians established their power in Western Asia in 224 - 226 AD, Parthians celebrated Nowruz in autumn, and the first of Farvardin began at the autumn equinox. During the reign of the Parthian dynasty, the spring festival was Mehregan, a Zoroastrian and Iranian festival celebrated in honor of Mithra.[81]\n\nExtensive records on the celebration of Nowruz appear following the accession of Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 AD). Under the Sassanid emperors, Nowruz was celebrated as the most important day of the year. Most royal traditions of Nowruz, such as royal audiences with the public, cash gifts, and the pardoning of prisoners, were established during the Sassanid era and persisted unchanged until modern times.\n\nArab conquest and Islamization of Persia\n\nNowruz, along with the mid-winter celebration Sadeh, survived the Muslim conquest of Persia of 650 CE. Other celebrations such as the Gahambars and Mehrgan were eventually side-lined or only observed by Zoroastrians. Nowruz became the main royal holiday during the Abbasid period. Much like their predecessors in the Sasanian period, Dehqans would offer gifts to the caliphs and local rulers at the Nowruz and Mehragan festivals.[82]\n\nFollowing the demise of the caliphate and the subsequent re-emergence of Iranian dynasties such as the Samanids and Buyids, Nowruz became an even more important event. The Buyids revived the ancient traditions of Sassanian times and restored many smaller celebrations that had been eliminated by the caliphate. The Iranian Buyid ruler 'Adud al-Dawla (r. 949-983) customarily welcomed Nowruz in a majestic hall, decked with gold and silver plates and vases full of fruit and colorful flowers.[83] The King would sit on the royal throne, and the court astronomer would come forward, kiss the ground, and congratulate him on the arrival of the New Year.[83] The king would then summon musicians and singers, and invited his friends to gather and enjoy a great festive occasion.[83]\n\nLater Turkic and Mongol invaders did not attempt to abolish Nowruz.\n\nIn 1079 CE during the Seljuk era, a group of eight scholars led by astronomer and polymath Omar Khayyam calculated and established the Jalali calendar, computing the year starting from Nowruz.\n\nThe festival along with Mehregan was widely celebrated in Al-Andalus, as the Andalusians from the 9th century onwards strongly identified with many Iranian traditions despite the opposition from the Maliki jurists. Also, from the 10th century onwards the nobility, emirs and governors sponsored the celebrations and festivals. However, the jurists beginning from the 12th century started encouraging the Andalusians to celebrate Mawlid instead.[84]\n\nContemporary era\n\nBefore the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran and Afghanistan were the only countries that officially observed the ceremonies of Nowruz. When the Caucasian and Central Asian countries gained independence from the Soviets, they also declared Nowruz as a national holiday.\n\nNowruz was added to the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.[85][86][87][88]\n\nDuring the Iranian economic crisis in 2025 many people were unable to afford basic haft-sin.[89] In the same year, the Iranian government arrested 50 people for an anti-government chant at Nowruz celebrations.[90]\n\nCustoms\n\nHouse cleaning and shopping\n\nHouse cleaning, or shaking the house (Persian: خانه تکانی, romanized: xāne tekāni) is commonly done before the arrival of Nowruz. People start preparing for Nowruz with a major spring cleaning of their homes and by buying new clothes to wear for the New Year, as well as the purchase of flowers. The hyacinth and the tulip are popular and conspicuous.[91]\n\nVisiting family and friends\n\nDuring the Nowruz holidays, people are expected to make short visits to the homes of family, friends and neighbors. Typically, young people will visit their elders first, and the elders return their visit later. Visitors are offered tea and pastries, cookies, fresh and dried fruits and mixed nuts or other snacks. Many Iranians throw large Nowruz parties as a way of dealing with the long distances between groups of friends and family.[92]\n\nFood preparation\n\nOne of the most common foods cooked on the occasion of Nowruz is Samanu (Samanak, Somank, Somalek, Sumalak). This food is prepared using germinated wheat. In most countries that celebrate Nowruz, this food is cooked. In some countries, cooking this food is associated with certain rituals. Women and girls in different parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan cook Samanu in groups and sometimes during the night, and when cooking it, they sing memorable songs.\n\nCooking other foods is also common on Nowruz. For example, sabzi polo with fish is eaten on Eid night, as are sweets such as Nan-e Nokhodchi. In general, cooking Nowruz food is common in every region where Nowruz is celebrated, and each area has its food and sweets.\n\nBoloni\n\nAs a fortune telling method people may write a hafez poem on a paper and throw in a jug called a \"boloni\" along with a belonging of theirs. A young girl would then read the poems to others and then pull out a belonging.[93][94]\n\nHaft-sin\n\nTypically, before the arrival of Nowruz, family members gather around the Haft-sin table and await the exact moment of the March equinox to celebrate the New Year.[95][96] The number 7 and the letter S are related to the seven Ameshasepantas as mentioned in the Zend-Avesta. They relate to the four elements of Fire, Earth, Air, Water, and the three life forms of Humans, Animals and Plants. In modern times, the explanation was simplified to mean that the Haft-sin (Persian: هفت‌سین, seven things beginning with the letter sin (س)) are:\n\nSabze (Persian: سبزه) - wheat, barley, mung bean, or lentil sprouts grown in a dish.\n\nSamanu (Persian: سمنو) - sweet pudding made from germinated wheat\n\nPersian olive (Persian: سنجد, romanized: senjed)\n\nVinegar (Persian: سرکه, romanized: serke)\n\nApple (Persian: سیب, romanized: sib)\n\nGarlic (Persian: سیر, romanized: sir)\n\nSumac (Persian: سماق, romanized: somāq)\n\nThe Haft-sin table may also include a mirror, candles, painted eggs, a bowl of water, goldfish, coins, hyacinth, and traditional confectioneries. A \"book of wisdom\" such as the Quran, Bible, Avesta, the Šāhnāme of Ferdowsi, or the divān of Hafez may also be included.[95] Haft-sin's origins are not clear. The practice is believed to have been popularized over the past 100 years.[97]\n\nHaft-mewa\n\nIn Afghanistan, people prepare Haft Mēwa (Dari: هفت میوه, English: seven fruits) for Nauruz, a mixture of seven different dried fruits and nuts (such as raisins, silver berry, pistachios, hazelnuts, prunes, walnut, and almonds) served in syrup.[98]\n\nKhoncha\n\nKhoncha (Azerbaijani: Xonça; خونچا) is the traditional display of Nowruz in Azerbaijan. It consists of a big silver or copper tray, with a tray of green, sprouting wheat (samani) in the middle and a dyed egg for each member of the family arranged around it. The table should contain at least seven dishes.[62]\n\nAmu Nowruz and Hajji Firuz\n\nAn Iranian actor playing as Amu Nowruz, 2016Iranian street performers playing as Hajji Firuz in Tehran, 2013\n\nIn Iran, the traditional heralds of the festival of Nowruz are Amu Nowruz (Persian: عمو نوروز) and Haji Firuz (Persian: حاجی فیروز), who appear in the streets to celebrate the New Year.\n\nAmu Nowruz brings children gifts, much like his counterpart Santa Claus.[99] He is the husband of Nane Sarma, with whom he shares a traditional love story in which they can meet each other only once a year.[100][101] He is depicted as an elderly silver-haired man with a long beard carrying a walking stick, wearing a felt hat, a long cloak of blue canvas, a sash, giveh, and linen trousers.[102]\n\nHaji Firuz, a character with his face and hands covered in soot, clad in bright red clothes and a felt hat, is the companion of Amu Nowruz. He dances through the streets while singing and playing the tambourine. In the traditional songs, he introduces himself as a serf trying to cheer people whom he refers to as his lords.[103]\n\nKosa and Kechal\n\nKosa and Kechal (Azerbaijani: Kosa və Keçəl; كوسا و كئچل) are two comical characters from Azerbaijan who appear in the streets to celebrate Nowruz. Kosa is typically depicted as a \"plump skinny man with a fake beard\" who can't grow facial hair and symbolizes the winter, while Kechal is a \"bald myschievious fat man\" who symbolizes the summer, with his name literally translating to bald-head from Azerbaijani. When Nowruz arrives, they play Kos-kosa (a traditional Azerbaijani Nowruz game) with the kids, paint eggs, sing songs and often fight with each other, symbolizing the arrival of spring.[104][105][106] Kosa and Kechal have become one of the, if not the most, famous characters in Azerbaijani Nowruz traditions, gaining large amounts of attention and taking part in mainstream talkshows and movies.\n\nKampirak\n\nIn the folklore of Afghanistan, Kampirak and his retinue pass village by village, distributing gathered charities among people. He is an old, bearded man wearing colorful clothes with a long hat and rosary who symbolizes beneficence and the power of nature yielding the forces of winter. The tradition is observed in central provinces, specially Bamyan and Daykundi.[107]\n\nNauryz kozhe\n\nIn Kazakhstan, Kazakhs start the new year by cooking nauryz kozhe, a traditional drink.[108]\n\nCommunities\n\nThe festival of Nowruz is celebrated by many groups of people in the Black Sea basin, the Balkans, the South Caucasus, Western Asia, central and southern Asia, and by Iranian peoples worldwide.[109]\n\nPlaces where Nowruz is a public holiday include:\n\nAfghanistan[110]\n\nAlbania[1][2]\n\nAzerbaijan (five days)[111][112]\n\nGeorgia[113]\n\nIran (thirteen days)[114]\n\nIraqi Kurdistan, Iraq[115]\n\nKazakhstan (four days)[15]\n\nKosovo\n\nKyrgyzstan[116][117]\n\nBayan-Ölgii, Mongolia[19]\n\nTajikistan (four days)[26][118]\n\nTurkmenistan (two days)[119]\n\nUzbekistan[120]\n\nSyria (Syrian Kurds).[121]\n\nNowruz is celebrated by Kurds in Iraq[12][122] Syria, and Turkey,[123] as well as by the Iranis, Shias and Parsis in the Indian subcontinent and Iranian diaspora.\n\nNowruz is also celebrated by Iranian communities in the Americas and in Europe, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Toronto, Cologne and London.[124] In Phoenix, Arizona, Nowruz is celebrated at the Persian New Year Festival.[125] But because Los Angeles is prone to devastating fires, there are very strict fire codes in the city. Usually, Iranians living in Southern California go to the beaches to celebrate the event where it is permissible to build fires.[126] On 15 March 2010, the United States House of Representatives passed the Nowruz Resolution (H.Res. 267), by a 384-2 vote,[127] \"Recognizing the cultural and historical significance of Nowruz\".[128]\n\nAfghanistan\n\nNowruz marks Afghanistan's New Year's Day with the Solar Hijri Calendar as their official calendar.\nIn Afghanistan, the festival of Gul-i-Surkh (Dari: گل سرخ, 'red flower') is the principal festival for Nauruz. It is celebrated in Mazar-i-Sharif during the first 40 days of the year, when red tulips grow in the green plains and over the hills surrounding the city. People from all over the country travel to Mazar-i-Sharif to attend the Nauruz festivals. Buzkashi tournaments are held during the Gul-i-Surkh festival in Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul and other northern Afghan cities.\n\nJahenda Bala (Dari: جهنده بالا, 'raising') is celebrated on the first day of the New Year.[129] It is a religious ceremony performed at the Blue Mosque of Mazar-i-Sharif by raising a special banner resembling the Derafsh Kaviani royal standard. It is attended by high-ranking government officials such as the Vice-President, Ministers, and Provincial Governors and is the biggest recorded Nawroz gathering, with up to 200,000 people from all over Afghanistan attending.\n\nIn the festival of Dehqān (Dari: دهقان, 'farmer'), also celebrated on the first day of the New Year, farmers walk in the cities as a sign of encouragement for the agricultural production. In recent years, this activity only happens in Kabul and other major cities where the mayor and other government officials attend.\n\nDuring the first two weeks of the New Year, the citizens of Kabul hold family picnics in Istalif, Charikar and other green places where redbuds grow.\n\nDuring the Taliban regime of 1996-2001, Nauruz was banned as \"an ancient pagan holiday centered on fire worship\".[130] In March 2022, the Taliban said that Nauruz would not be a public holiday that year, although allowed celebrations to take place.[131]\n\nAlbania\n\nNevruz is celebrated annually in Albania on 22 March as Sultan Nevruz. In Albania, the festival commemorates the birthday of Ali ibn Abi Talib (died 661 CE) and simultaneously the advent of spring. It is prominent amongst the nations' Bektashis, but adherents of Sunnism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy also \"share in the nevruz festival to respect the ecumenical spirit of Albania\".\n\nArmenia\n\nSince the 19th century, Nowruz has not generally been celebrated by Armenians and is not a public holiday in Armenia. However, it is celebrated in Armenia by tens of thousands of Iranian tourists who visit Armenia with relative ease.[132] The influx of tourists from Iran accelerated since around 2010-11.[133][134] In 2010 alone, around 27,600 Iranians spent Nowruz in capital Yerevan.[135]\n\nIn 2015, President Serzh Sargsyan sent a letter of congratulations to Kurds living in Armenia and to the Iranian political leadership on the occasion of Nowruz.[136]\n\nAzerbaijan\n\nIn Azerbaijan, Nowruz celebrations go on for several days and included festive public dancing and folk music, and sporting competitions. In rural areas, crop holidays are also marked.[137] Additionally, in Azerbaijani tradition, the weather on the first day of Novruz is believed to forecast the seasons: spring, summer follows on the second day, autumn on the third, and winter on the fourth.[138][139]\n\nCommunities of the Azerbaijani diaspora also celebrate Nowruz in the US, Canada,[140] and Israel.[141]\n\nBangladesh\n\nNowruz is generally not celebrated by Bangladeshis, but it is widely celebrated by the country's Shia Muslims. It continues to be celebrated regularly in some areas of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna. During the Mughal period, Nowruz was celebrated for 19 days with pomp and gaiety.[142][143] Shia Muslims in Bangladesh have been seen spraying water around their home and drinking that water to keep themselves protected from diseases. A congregation to seek divine blessing is also arranged. Members of the Nawab family of Dhaka used to celebrate it amid pomp and grandeur. In the evening, they used to float thousands of candle lights in nearby ponds and water bodies. The National poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, also a Sunni, portrayed a vivid sketch of the festival highlighting its various aspects. In his poem, he described it as a platform of exposing a youth's physical and mental beauty to another opposite one for conquering his or her heart.[144]\n\nCentral Asia\n\nNowruz widely celebrated on a vast territory of Central Asia and ritual practice acquired its special features.[145] The festival was legitimized by prayers at mosques, and visits to the mazars of Muslim saints and to sacred streams. In the Emirate of Bukhara, a broad official celebration of Nowruz was started by Amir Muzaffar, who sought to strengthen the image of the Manghyt dynasty during the crisis of political legitimacy.[146] Currently, all five Central Asian countries (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan) celebrate Nowruz as a public holiday.[147]\n\nChina\n\nTraditionally, Nowruz is celebrated mainly in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by the Uyghurs, Chinese Tajik, Salar, Kyrgyz and Kazakh ethnicities.[5]\n\nGeorgia\n\nNowruz is not celebrated by Georgians, but it is widely celebrated by the country's large Azerbaijani minority (~7% of the total population)[148] as well as by Iranians living in Georgia.[148][149] Every year, large festivities are held in the capital Tbilisi, as well as in areas with a significant number of Azerbaijanis, such as the Kvemo Kartli, Kakheti, Shida Kartli, and Mtskheta-Mtianeti regions.[148] Georgian politicians have attended the festivities in the capital over the years, and have congratulated the Nowruz-observing ethnic groups and nationals in Georgia on the day of Nowruz.[150][151]\n\nIndia\n\nThe tradition of Nowruz in Northern India dates back to the Mughal Empire; the festival was celebrated for 19 days with pomp and gaiety in the realm.[142][143] However, it further goes back to the Parsi Zoroastrian community in Western India, who migrated to the Indian subcontinent from Persia during the Muslim conquest of Persia of 636-651 CE.\n\nIn the Princely State of Hyderabad, Nowruz (Nauroz) was one of the four holidays where the Nizam would hold a public Darbar, along with the two official Islamic holidays and the sovereign's birthday.[152] Prior to Asaf Jahi rule in Hyderabad, the Qutb Shahi dynasty celebrated Nowruz with a ritual called Panjeri, and the festival was celebrated by all with great grandeur.[153]\n\nA popular Deccani Urdu poem written by the founder of Hyderabad, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, is recited in the Deccan region on Nauroz:\n\nکہ نس دن عید ہور نوروز منج کوں نت خدا دیتا\n\nمرے دل مرغ کی خاطر پھولاں عشرت نوا دیتا\n\nTranslation:\n\nThe way God has given me Eid and Nauroz forevermore\n\nThe flowers give the birds of my heart bliss and joy galore\n\nIran\n\nNowruz is a two-week celebration that marks the beginning of the New Year in Iran's official Solar Hijri calendar.[154][155] The celebration includes four public holidays from the first to the fourth day of Farvardin, the first month of the Iranian calendar, usually beginning on 21 March.[156] On the Eve of Nowruz, the fire festival Chaharshanbe Suri is celebrated.[157] Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, some radical elements from the Islamic government attempted to suppress Nowruz,[158] considering it a pagan holiday and a distraction from Islamic holidays. Nowruz has been politicized, with political leaders making annual Nowruz speeches.[159]\n\nNowruz and food inflation in Iran\n\nAs of 2025 the inflation in Iran is skyrocketing and specifically, the food prices are surging.\n\nAs a result the prices of Haft Sin items and traditional Nowruz foods in Iran have significantly increased, reflecting the country's ongoing economic challenges and high inflation rates.[160][161]\n\nThe overall cost of preparing a Haft-Seen table is estimated to exceed half a million tomans in 2025.[162] Adding a fish and vegetable pilaf to the New Year's Eve meal pushes the total cost for a typical household to approximately 1,600,000 tomans.[162]\n\nThe price of specific food items have notably increased:\n\nDates increased from 110,000 tomans per kilogram in early March to 135,000 tomans by mid-March 2025 (an increase of 22.7%).[162][163]\n\nLentils and white beans jumped from 85,000 tomans per kilogram in mid-February to 105,000 tomans by mid-March 2025 (an increase of 23.5%).[162][163]\n\nIranian rice prices have risen by 45% over the past year, with one kilogram increasing from one million rials to 1.45 million rials (an increase of 45%).[163]\n\nImported rice prices surged even more dramatically, with a 10-kilogram bag of Pakistani rice increasing from 6.5 million rials in January 2024 to 17.5 million rials in January 2025, representing a 169% increase.[164]\n\nFruits, which are often part of the Haft Sin spread, have also seen price increase:\n\npomegranates saw the highest price increase at 11.1%, followed by bananas (3.7%) and apples (3.6%) compared to the previous month. In contrast, some fruits experienced slight price declines, with melons dropping by 9.6% and oranges by 4.6%.[160]\n\nA kilo of beef costs 9,900,000 rials ($10.50), cooking oil is 5,700,000 rials ($6.10), and even a simple loaf of bread is 200,000 rials (21 cents). Kiwis cost 1,500,000 rials ($1.60) per kilo, low quality oranges are 350,000 rials (37 cents), and the cheapest apples are 460,000 rials (49 cents).[165]\n\nKurdistan\n\nNewroz is largely considered a potent symbol of Kurdish identity. The Kurds of Turkey celebrate this feast between 18 and 21 March. Kurds gather into fairgrounds mostly outside the cities to welcome spring. Women wear colored dresses and spangled head scarves and young men wave flags of green, yellow and red, the historic colors of Kurdish people. They hold this festival by lighting fire and dancing around it.[166] Newroz has seen many bans in Turkey, as Turkey has a strong and long history of trying to suppress Kurdish history and culture. It has only been celebrated legally since 1992 after the ban on the Kurdish language was lifted. The holiday is now officially allowed in Turkey after international pressure on the Turkish government to lift culture bans. The Turkish government renamed the holiday Nevroz in 1995. However, Newroz celebrations are still suppressed and lead to continual confrontations with the Turkish authority. In Cizre, Nusyabin and Şırnak celebrations turned violent as Turkish police forces fired in the celebrating crowds.[167] In recent years, the Newroz celebration summons around 1 million participants in Diyarbakır, the biggest city of the Kurdish dominated Southeastern Turkey.\n\nIn Syria, the Kurds dress up in their national dress and celebrate the New Year.[168] Newroz has been a public holiday in Syria since 2026.[169] Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, Syrian Kurds have had to struggle to celebrate Newroz. According to Human Rights Watch, celebration has led to violent oppression, leading to several deaths and mass arrests.[170] The Syrian Arab Ba'athist government stated in 2004 that the Newroz celebrations will be tolerated as long as they do not become political demonstrations.[171] During the Newroz celebrations in 2008, three Kurds were shot dead by Syrian security forces.[172][173] In March 2010, an attack by Syrian police killed two or three people, one of them a 15-year-old girl, and more than 50 people were wounded.[174] The Rojava revolution of 2012 and the subsequent establishment of the de facto Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria saw Kurdish civil rights greatly expand, and Newroz is now celebrated freely in most Kurdish areas of Syria except for Efrin, where the ritual is no longer allowed since the 2018 occupation by Turkish-backed rebel groups.[175] Following the 2026 northeastern Syria offensive and subsequent ceasefire between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian transitional government, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree enshrining the recognition of Kurdish identity and Nowruz as a national holiday.[176]\n\nKurds in Iraq and Iran have had more freedom to celebrate Newroz than their countrymen in Syria and Turkey.\n\nKurds in the diaspora also celebrate the New Year; for example, Kurds in Australia celebrate Newroz not only as the beginning of the new year, but also as the Kurdish National Day. Similarly, the Kurds in Finland celebrate the new year as a way of demonstrating their support for the Kurdish cause.[177] Also in London, organizers estimated that 25,000 people celebrated Newroz during March 2006.[178] In Canada, the largest Kurdish Newroz festival is held in Ontario. In the States, the city of Nashville, Tennessee includes the largest Kurdish population in the United States. The Kurds celebrate Newroz by holding a Nashville festival; dressed in their traditional clothing, they sing and dance around a fire with their family and friends.[179]\n\nPakistan\n\nIn Pakistan, Nowruz is typically celebrated in parts of Gilgit-Baltistan,[180] Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially near the border with Afghanistan, and across Balochistan, with a large celebration held in the capital of Quetta.[181] Recently, the government of Iran has participated in hosting celebrations in Islamabad to commemorate the holiday.[181] Like in India, the Parsi and Isma'ili communities have historically celebrated the holiday,[182] as have some Shi'a Muslims.[22]\n\nSweden\n\nNowruz is celebrated by the Swedish Iranian community, and in Stockholm, the Eldfesten annual festival is one of the largest Chaharshanbe Suri concerts and festivals in the world and is broadcast nationally on Sveriges Television and internationally on Manoto.[183][184][185]\n\nUnited States\n\nVibrant Persian-speaking immigrant communities in the United States have been celebrating Nowruz for decades. The state of California is considered to have the largest Persian-speaking community in the country. On 19 March 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation declaring 19 March as Nowruz day.[186]\n\nTheology\n\nZoroastrianism\n\nNowruz itself has its origins in Zoroastrianism[187] and is the most important of the Zoroastrian Gahambars or religious feasts.[188] The holiday celebrates the arrival of the spring which Zoroastrians see as a representation of the triumph of good (Asha) over evil (Druj), a central theme of the religion.[189]\n\nBahá'í Faith\n\nNaw-Rúz is one of nine holy days for adherents of the Baháʼí Faith worldwide. It is the first day of the Baháʼí calendar, occurring on the vernal equinox around 21 March.[190] The Baháʼí calendar is composed of 19 months, each of 19 days,[191] and each of the months is named after an attribute of God; similarly, each of the 19 days in the month also are named after an attribute of God.[191] The first day and the first month were given the attribute of Bahá, an Arabic word meaning splendour or glory, and thus the first day of the year was the day of Bahá in the month of Bahá.[190][192] Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, explained that Naw-Rúz was associated with the Most Great Name of God,[190][192] and was instituted as a festival for those who observed the Nineteen-Day Fast.[193][194]\n\nThe day is also used to symbolize the renewal of time in each religious dispensation.[195] ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's son and successor, explained that significance of Naw-Rúz in terms of spring and the new life it brings.[190] He explained that the equinox is a symbol of the messengers of God and the message that they proclaim is like a spiritual springtime, and that Naw-Rúz is used to commemorate it.[196]\n\nAs with all Baháʼí holy days, there are few fixed rules for observing Naw-Rúz, and Baháʼís all over the world celebrate it as a festive day, according to local custom.[190] Persian Baháʼís still observe many of the Iranian customs associated with Nowruz such as the Haft-sin, but American Baháʼí communities, for example, may have a potluck dinner, along with prayers and readings from Baháʼí scripture.\n\nShia Islam\n\nShia literature refers to the merits of the day of Nowruz; the Day of Ghadir took place on Nowruz; and the fatwas of major Shia scholars[197] recommend fasting.\nAlong with Ismailis,[198][199] Alawites[200] and Alevis, the Twelver Shia also hold the day of Nowruz in high regard. \n\nIt has been said that Musa al-Kazim, the seventh Twelver Shia imam, has explained Nowruz and said: \"In Nowruz God made a covenant with His servants to worship Him and not to allow any partner for Him. To welcome His messengers and obey their rulings. This day is the first day that the fertile wind blew and the flowers on the earth appeared. The archangel Gabriel appeared to the Prophet, and it is the day that Abraham broke the idols. The day Prophet Muhammad held Ali on his shoulders to destroy the Quraishie's idols in the house of God, the Kaaba.\"[201]\n\nThe day upon which Nowruz falls has been recommended as a day of fasting for Twelver Shia Muslims by Shia scholars, including Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, Ruhollah Khomeini[202] and Ali al-Sistani.[203] However, Prominent Twelver clerics like the Ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei have also disparaged the actual holiday of Nowruz, condemning its origins in Zoroastrianism.[204] The day also assumes special significance for Shias as it has been said that it was on 16 March 632 AD, that the first Shia Imam, Ali, assumed the office of caliphate. Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims around the globe celebrate Nowruz as a religious festival. Special prayers and Majalis are arranged in Jamatkhanas. Special foods are cooked and people share best wishes and prayers with each other.\n\nIn popular culture\n\nNowruz is represented and also used as theme of rebirth and renewal in the 2023 Australian film Shayda, written, directed, and co-produced by Iranian Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari.[205]\n\nNowruz has also been featured in many Iranian films, such as:\n\nThe White Balloon (Badkonake Sefid; 1995), directed by Jafar Panahi[206] and written by Abbas Kiarostami[207]\n\nThe Glass Agency (1998), by Ebrahim Hatamikia[208]\n\nSo Close, So Far (2004), by Reza Mirkarimi[208]\n\nFireworks Wednesday (2006), by Asghar Farhadi[207][208]\n\nSee also\n\nAkitu - Spring festival in ancient Mesopotamia\n\nAroos-Gooleh - Traditional drama at Nowruz in Gilan Province\n\nAyeneh taudani - Mirror-throwing tradition at Nowruz\n\nBaháʼí Naw-Rúz - First day of the Bahá'í calendar year\n\nDehwa d-Shishlam Rabba - The Mandaean \"Little Nowruz\"\n\nDehwa Rabba - The Mandaean New Year\n\nĒostre - Germanic goddess\n\nHoli - Indian Hindu spring festival of colours\n\nKha b-Nisan - Assyrian New Year\n\nNew Year's Day - First day of the year in the Gregorian calendar\n\nPahela Baishakh - Bengali new yearPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets\n\nSham Ennessim - Egyptian spring festival\n\nVernal Equinox Day - One of the two Kōreisai Japanese holidays\n\nYilgayakh - Spring festival of TengrismPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets\n\nNotes\n\n^ By Iranian Armenians, Kurds, and Yazidis.\n\n^ By Iranian Australians, Afghans, and others.\n\n^ By the Ajam (Iranians).[3]\n\n^ By Iranian Canadians and Turkic peoples.\n\n^ By Xinjiang Tajiks and Turkic peoples.[5]\n\n^ By French Iranians and others.[8]\n\n^ By Azerbaijanis.[9]\n\n^ By German Afghans, Iranians, and others.[10]\n\n^ By Parsis, Iranis, Kashmiris, Deccanis, and many Shia Muslims.[11]\n\n^ By Kurds and Turkmen.[12]\n\n^ By Baháʼís and some Iranian Jews.\n\n^ By Dutch Afghans, Dutch Iranians and others.[16][17]\n\n^ By Afghan New Zealanders, Iranian New Zealanders, and others.\n\n^ By Norwegian Iranians and others.[18]\n\n^ By Bayan-Ölgii Kazakhs.[19]\n\n^ By Baloch, Baltis, Parsis, Iranis, Pashtuns, Wakhis, and some Shia Muslims.[21][22]\n\n^ By Tatars, Bashkirs, Tabasarans, and others.[23]\n\n^ By Swedish Iranians and Kurds.\n\n^ By Kurds.[24][25]\n\n^ By Azerbaijanis, Kurds, and Yörüks.[27][28]\n\n^ By Crimean Tatars.\n\n^ By British Azerbaijanis, British Iranians, and others.\n\n^ By Afghan Americans, Azerbaijanis, Iranians, Kurds, and others.\n\n^ \nClassical Persian: نوروز (Nawrōz)\n\nAfghan Persian (Dari): نوروز (Nawrōz, pronounced [nawˈɾoːz])\n\nTajik Persian: Наврӯз (Navrūz, pronounced [næʋˈɾɵz])\n\nOther languages:\nArabic: نوروز (Nawrūz)\n\nArmenian: Նովրուզ (Novruz)\n\nAzerbaijani: Новруз (Novruz)\n\nBengali: নওরোজ (Nôōrōj)\n\nChinese: 諾魯孜節 (Nuòlǔ zījié)\n\nGujarati: નવરોઝ (Navarōjha)\n\nGeorgian: ნოვრუზ (Novruz)\n\nHebrew: נורוז (Noroz)\n\nHindi: नौरोज़ (Nauroz)\n\nKazakh: Наурыз (Nauryz)\n\nKurdish: نەورۆز (Newroz)\n\nKyrgyz: Нооруз (Nooruz)\n\nMongolian: Наурыз (Nauryz)\n\nPashto: نوی ورز (Nəway wrəz)\n\nTurkish: Nevruz\n\nTatar: Нәүрүз (Nəwrüz)\n\nTurkmen: Новруз (Nowruz)\n\nUrdu: نوروز (Nauroz)\n\nUyghur: نەۋروز (Noruz)\n\nUzbek: Наврўз (Navroʻz)\n\n^ As the source explains, the 2820-year cycle is erroneous and has never been used in practice.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"The World Headquarters of the Bektashi Order - Tirana, Albania\". komunitetibektashi.org. 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T.; Jangali, Nicky; Derblom Jobe, Michelle (12 March 2018). \"Våren firas in med eldfest i Kungsträdgården\". SVT Nyheter. Archived from the original on 7 April 2024. Retrieved 8 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Governor Newsom Proclaims Nowrūz Day 2024\". California Governor. 19 March 2024. Archived from the original on 20 March 2024. Retrieved 22 March 2024.\n\n^ Sharma, Purnima (2018). \"Nowruz - New Year\". Himalayan and Central Asian Studies. 22 (4): 4. ProQuest 2124684703.\n\n^ Kreyenbroek, Philip G.; Rezania, Kianoosh (2013). \"Zoroastrianism under the Sasanians.\" Teachers and Teachings in the Good Religion: Opera Minora on Zoroastrianism. Harrassowitz. p. 43.\n\n^ \"Zoroastrian Holy Days Calendar - Office of Religious and Spiritual Life\". orsl.usc.edu. Archived from the original on 19 December 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.\n\n^ a b c d e Walbridge, John (11 July 2004). \"Naw-Ruz: The Baháʼí New Year\". Archived from the original on 21 August 2019. Retrieved 14 March 2007.\n\n^ a b Esslemont, J.E. (1980). Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era (5th ed.). Wilmette, Illinois, US: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. pp. 178-179. ISBN 978-0-87743-160-2. Archived from the original on 22 May 2021. Retrieved 22 March 2008.\n\n^ a b Lehman, Dale E. (18 March 2000). \"A New Year Begins\". Planet Baháʼí. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 14 March 2007.\n\n^ Bahá'u'lláh (1991). Baháʼí Prayers. Wilmitte, IL: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. p. 261.\n\n^ Bahá'u'lláh (1992) [1873]. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Most Holy Book. Wilmette, Illinois, US: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-85398-999-8. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2008.\n\n^ MacEoin, Dennis (1989). \"Bahai Calendar and Festivals\". Encyclopædia Iranica.\n\n^ `Abdu'l-Bahá (21 March 1913). \"Abdul-Baha at Clifton, England\" (PDF). Star of the West. 4 (1): 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 February 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024. republished in Effendi, Shoghi (1983). Hornby, Helen (ed.). Lights of Guidance: A Bahá'í Reference File. New Delhi, India: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. ISBN 978-81-85091-46-4. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2010.\n\n^ \"Nowruz in the Twelver Shi'a faith\". Rafed.net. Archived from the original on 15 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2017.\n\n^ \"Nowruz Persian New Year - Eid Mubarak! | Ismaili Web Amaana\". Ismaili Web Amaana. 15 March 2013. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 22 March 2017.\n\n^ \"Navroz\". The Ismaili. 18 March 2010. Archived from the original on 2 October 2011. Retrieved 12 May 2011.\n\n^ Khat, Azmat. \"Syria's Secretive Ruling Minority Sect\". FRONTLINE. Archived from the original on 22 December 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.\n\n^ Mireskandari, Anousheh (March 2012). \"Nowruz in Islam\". Islamic Centre of England. Archived from the original on 24 March 2016. Retrieved 22 March 2017.\n\n^ Tahrir al-Wasilah, by Ayatollah Khomeini, Vol. 1, pp. 302-303\n\n^ Islamic Laws, by Ali al-Sistani, under the section; \"Mustahab Fasts\"\n\n^ \"What Do the Ayatollahs Have Against Nowruz?\". iranwire.com. Archived from the original on 15 August 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.\n\n^ Niasari, Noora (5 March 2024). \"Noora Niasari Interview: Shayda, Freedom, and the Nature of Light\". Paste Magazine (Interview). Interviewed by Feldberg, Isaac. Retrieved 16 September 2025.\n\n^ Pennick, Bailey (20 March 2023). \"What to Watch: 11 Films Available to Watch Now in Honor of Persian New Year\". sundance.org - sundance.org. Retrieved 17 September 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Celebrate Nowruz by Watching These Eight Iranian Movies\". UAE Moments. 12 March 2025. Retrieved 17 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c \"A reflection of Nowruz in Iranian films\". ifilm-آفیلم. Archived from the original on 17 September 2025. Retrieved 17 September 2025.\n\nFurther reading\n\nMozaffari, Ali; Akbar, Ali (20 August 2023). \"Heritage Diplomacy and Soft Power Competition Between Iran and Turkey: Competing Claims over Rumi and Nowruz\". International Journal of Cultural Policy. 30 (5): 597-614. doi:10.1080/10286632.2023.2241872. ISSN 1028-6632.\n\nExternal links\n\n\"Nowruz\" at Encyclopædia Iranica"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nowruz"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12476}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-new-zealand", "title": "Assyrians in New Zealand", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in New Zealand are New Zealanders of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have New Zealand citizenship. The Assyrian community in New Zealand began in the 1990s when refugees from Iraq and Iran settled in the country.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian New Zealanders\nTotal population\n\n900 (2022)[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nWellington and Auckland\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic, English\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nRelated ethnic groups\n\nAssyrian Australians \n\nAssyrians in New Zealand are New Zealanders of Assyrian descent or Assyrians who have New Zealand citizenship. The Assyrian community in New Zealand began in the 1990s when refugees from Iraq and Iran settled in the country.\n\nWellington has a sizeable Assyrian population consisting of several hundred people. Smaller communities can be found in Miramar, Newtown, Strathmore, and in the Island Bay area. Many Assyrian New Zealanders live in Auckland, in the suburbs of Manurewa and Papatoetoe. They have an Assyrian church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nHistory\n\nIn 2018, the Assyrian community of New Zealand unveiled a monument at Makara Cemetery in Wellington to immortalize the souls of the Assyrian martyrs in the WW1 Assyrian genocide.[2]\n\nThe Holy Cross Primary School in Wellington began teaching about Assyrian New Year as a subject through the Intensive Oral Language Program, where students learn about Assyrian culture, language and heritage.[3]\n\nReligion\n\nThe magrammarjority of Assyrians in New Zealand adhere to churches of the Syriac Christian tradition. These churches include the: Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church.\n\nDemographics\n\nAccording to the 2013 Census:[4]\n\n58.1% of Assyrians in New Zealand lived in the Wellington Basin\n\nThe median age was 33.7 years\n\n22.1 percent were born in New Zealand and 77.7 percent were born overseas.\n\nThe statistic of the number of Assyrians in New Zealand may be inaccurate as many Assyrians would identify as Iraqi or Middle Eastern before Assyrian when completing the Census.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"2013 Census ethnic group profiles: Assyrian\". Stats NZ. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2019.\n\n^ Wright, Tony. \"Memorial unveiled for 'martyr' Kiwi WWI soldiers who fought against Armenian Genocide\". Newshub. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2019.\n\n^ Yalda, Ashoor. \"New Zealand Primary School Adds Assyrian New Year to Curriculum\". AINA. Retrieved 18 June 2019.\n\n^ \"2013 Census ethnic group profiles: Assyrian\". Stats NZ. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2019.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Church of the East Archdiocese of Australia, NZ and Lebanon\n\nChaldean & Assyrian Catholic Diocese of Australia and NZ"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-new-zealand"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 392}, {"slug": "reference-tell-shemshara", "title": "Tell Shemshara", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell Shemshāra (ancient Šušarra) (also Tell Shimshara, Tall Šimšārah, and Tall Šamšāra) is an archaeological site located on the right bank of Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, in the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous administrative division of Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan until recently.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Shemshara\n\nShusharra\n\nTell Shimshara\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n36°12′03″N 44°56′18″E / 36.20083°N 44.93833°E / 36.20083; 44.93833\n\nTypetell\n\nPeriodsHassuna, Middle Bronze Age, Islamic\n\nLocationIraq\n\nRegionSulaymaniyah Governorate\n\nSite notes\n\nHeight19 m (62 ft) (main mound), 6 m (20 ft) (lower mound)\n\nLength270 m (890 ft) (lower mound)\n\nWidth60 m (200 ft) (main mound)\n\nExcavation dates1957-1959, 2012\n\nArchaeologistsJ. Eidem, H. Ingholt, J. Læssøe, A. al-Qadir at-Tekrîti\n\nConditionperiodically flooded by Lake Dukan\n\nTell Shemshāra (ancient Šušarra) (also Tell Shimshara, Tall Šimšārah, and Tall Šamšāra) is an archaeological site located on the right bank of Little Zab in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, in the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous administrative division of Iraq. The site was inundated by Lake Dukan until recently.\n\nThe site was occupied, although not continuously, from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) until the 14th century CE. A small archive recovered from the Middle Bronze Age layers (early second millennium BCE) revealed that, at least in that period, the site was called Shusharra and was the capital of a small, semi-independent Turukkean polity called māt Utêm or \"land of the gatekeeper\" ruled by a man called Kuwari acting as governor under a larger Hurrian state.[1]\n\nArchaeology\n\nThe site of Tell Shemshāra consists of four adjacent natural hills:[2]\n\nMain Hill (SH 1), excavated in 1950s by Danish and Iraqi teams\n\nCamp Hill (SH 2), oval, northwest of Main Hill, Iraqi team found Mitanni remains and a small Islamic cemetery\n\nNorth Hill A (SH 3), north of Main Hill, extensive Islamic cemetery on southern slope\n\nNorth Hill B (SH 4), north of North Hill A, 1st millennium BC graves which are heavily robbed out\n\nThe site was first recorded in 1955 during an archaeological survey of the Ranya Plain, which was to be flooded by the reservoir of the planned Dukan Dam.[3] In 1957, a Danish team of archaeologists started a rescue excavation because the site would be flooded by Lake Dukan once the Dukan Dam would be finished.[4] The Danish excavation was directed by Professors Harold Ingholt, who also excavated the citadel mound of Hama, and Jørgen Læssøe.[5] It was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Danish Government Foundation for the Promotion of Research.[6] About 146 cuneiform tablets were found, mostly letters and most in one location, believed to have been stored in a pot on excavation level V.[7] The excavations were continued in 1958 and 1959 by Iraqi archaeologists of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) under the direction of Abd al-Qadir at-Tekrîti.[8][5] The work was never published but about 103 cuneiform tablets (45 well preserved and the rest in poor condition) tablets were found during the 1958 excavations in rooms near the findspot of the earlier tablets but in loose soil above excavation level V. They are all administrative texts.[9] The excavations have revealed that the site was occupied at least from the Hassuna period onward and the latest occupation phase dates to the 12th-14th centuries CE. The objects found during the Danish excavation were divided between the National Museum of Iraq and the National Museum of Denmark.[10] So far, the prehistoric material of the Hassuna layers and the majority of the archives from the second millennium BCE have been published.[11][12][13]\n\nBeginning in 2012, teams of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East and the Central Zagros Archaeological Project (CZAP) conducted new investigations at the site, as part of a larger archaeological project focusing on the entire Ranya Plain. Finds included terracotta molds for metal objects and two cuneiform tablets. The tablets, administrative\nin nature, were found on Level VIIIa and Level VIIIb, dating them to before the previously excavated\narchive.[14][15][2] High water prevented work in 2016-2017 but in October 2018 low levels allowed a short season of work.[16][17] At the same\ntime the University of Reading has focused on prehistoric periods at the site.[18]\n\nThe site and its environment\n\nTell Shemshara sits along the Little Zab, a tributary of the Tigris. Its strategic location in the northeastern corner of the Ranya Plain in the Zagros Mountains gave Shemshara control over travelling routes in all directions, particularly toward the north and east. Shemshara is a tell, or settlement mound, that can be divided in two parts; a high main mound and an elongated lower mound to the south. The main mound is about 75 meters wide at the bottom and about 25 meters wide at the top, whereas the lower town is 265 metres (869 ft) long and 13 metres (43 ft) high.[10] Shemshara is now partially submerged under Lake Dukan.[5] It has lost 164,000 cubic meters of volume to erosion since 1957 and at high water levels becomes an island.\n\nOccupation history\n\nThe excavations at the main mound revealed 16 occupation layers, ranging in date from the Hassuna period (early sixth millennium BCE) to the 14th century CE. A single radiocarbon sample from the basal level of the site, 3m below level 16, provided a date of 7322-7180 BC (IntCal13).[19]\n\nHassuna Period\n\nLayers 16-9 on the northeast flan of Main Hill dated to the Hassuna period. This occupation was characterized by rows of stones that are interpreted by the excavators as foundations for mudbrick walls, a pebble floor and a clay basin in the final occupation layer.[20] Pottery, which has only been found in abundance in layers 13-9, shows stylistic links with that of Hassuna and Tell es-Sawwan.[21] Obsidian was the preferred material for stone tools, with flint making up only 15 percent of the total assemblage. Whereas the flint was procured locally, the obsidian was obtained from two sources in eastern Turkey - one as yet unidentified, the other one being the volcanic Nemrut Dağ more than 300 kilometres (190 mi) away from Shemshara.[22] A unique piece in this assemblage is a dagger of over 35.5 centimetres (14.0 in) in length, broken in four pieces due to a fire.[23] Other artifacts that have been found at the site include stone bowls, bracelets and quern-stones and small objects made of bone.[24]\n\nUruk and Jemdet Nasr Period\n\nWhereas the main mound seems to have been abandoned after the Hassuna occupation, scarce archaeological material from the Uruk (fourth millennium BCE) and Jemdet Nasr periods (early third millennium BCE) has been found on the lower town.[25][26]\n\nMiddle Bronze Age\n\nBoth the Main Hill and the lower extension were re-occupied during the Middle Bronze Age (early second millennium BCE). Layers 8-4 on the main mound can be assigned to this period, mainly Hurrian in nature.[27][10] The excavations found a number of graves with bronze weapons on the main mound, as well as a mudbrick platform. In the lower town, a small part of a palace was excavated, and in three of its rooms a small archive of clay tablets was found.[7][9] The palace was destroyed by fire, and through analysis of the archive it has been proposed that this happened in year 30 of the reign of Shamshi-Adad I of Ekallatum in the first quarter of the 18th century BCE.[5]\n\nThe archive consisted of circa 250 clay tablets or fragments thereof, found in two groups in Level 5. The first group, called Archive 1 by the editor, comprises circa 146 documents, of which 100 are letters written to Kuwari, and 39 are administrative. Some fragments were part of the clay envelopes in which these letters were sent.[28] The second group, called Archive 2, comprises circa 104 documents almost all of administrative character. The texts were written in Akkadian. These texts revealed that during this period the site was called Šušarrā (also known from texts at Mari, that it was the capital of a polity called māt Utêm or \"land of the gatekeeper\" and that it was ruled by a man named Kuwari.[29] Chronologically, the archive can be divided in two parts, one covering the period during which Shemshara was the capital of a small semi-independent kingdom, and one covering the period after Kuwari decided to become a vassal of Shamshi-Adad I (who then established a garrison at Shemshara), who at that time had already conquered Mari and Shubat-Enlil and was now campaigning in the Zagros Mountains. Together, these two periods do not last longer than 3 years.[30] The letters in the Shemshara archive show that during this period, Kuwari had to deal with Turukkean refugees coming from the east and fleeing a war with Guteans (led by their leader Endusse); events which are also mentioned in the much larger archives found in Mari on the Syrian Euphrates.[31]\n\nShamshi-Adad I tried, in a treaty, to give Šušarrā to another power as bride price for his daughter:\n\n\"I want to make a golden statue of you and of me, where the one is holding the neck of the other tightly. I want to give you my daughter and as a bride-price I want to give you the land of Šušarra\"[32]\n\nThe city of Šušarrā being too much trouble to protect Shamshi-Adad I then deported the entire populace to Arrapha and Qabrâ.[33]\n\nIslamic Period\n\nLayers 1-3 were Islamic.\n\nŠašrum\n\nIt is generally thought that Tell Shemshara was the location of the city of Šašrum (Ša-aš-zarki-šè) in the 3rd millennium.[34] This identification has been disputed.[35] It is first mentioned during the reign of Šulgi, 2nd ruler of the Ur III Empire with his 42nd year name being \"Year: The king destroyed Šašrum\" (mu lugal-e ša-aš-ru-umki mu-hul) referring to his campaign in the Lower Zab river region against cities like Urbilum. In his 6th year name \"Amar-Suen, the king, destroyed Šašrum for the second time and Šurudhum\" (mu damar-dsuen lugal-e ša-aš-ru-umki a-ra2 2(diš)-kam u3 šu-ru-ud-hu-umki mu-hul) the 3rd ruler of Ur III, Amar-Sin, reports again destroying Šašrum.[36] An accounting text from that time reports \"1 mina of silver rings (as) a gift (to) Lugal-andul who brought the good news that Šašrum was ‘ruined’\".[37] A text from that year records \"part of the delivery of the booty of Šašru and Suruthum\".[38]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nTell Bazmusian\n\nBestansur\n\nLake Kanaw\n\nNotes\n\n^ [1] M. T. Larson, \"The Shemshara Archives\", Sumer, vol. 42, no. 1-2, pp. 36-39, 1983\n\n^ a b [2] Jesper Eidem, \"Back to Shemshara. NINO Excavations 2012-2015\", in Zagros Studies PIHANS Volume 130 Proceedings of the NINO Jubilee Conference and Other Research on the Zagros Region, 2020 ISBN 978-90-429-4055-0\n\n^ [3] Soof, Behnam Abu., \"Mounds in the Rania Plain and Excavations at Tell Basmusian (1956)\", Sumer, vol. 26, pp.65-104, 1970\n\n^ [4] Ingholt, H, \"The Danish Dokan Expedition\", Sumer, vol. 13, no. 1-2, pp. 214-215, 1957\n\n^ a b c d Eidem 1992, pp. 11-13\n\n^ Mortensen 1970, p. 9\n\n^ a b [5] Laessøe, J., \"An Old-Babylonian Archive Discovered at Tell Shemshara\", Sumer, vol. 13, no. 1-2, pp. 216-218, 1957\n\n^ [6] Al-Alusi, S., \"1959 - News and Correspondence\", Sumer XV, pp. 43-57, 1959\n\n^ a b [7] Laessøe, J., \"The Second Shemshara Archive\", Sumer vol. 16, no. 1-2, pp. 12-19, 1960\n\n^ a b c Mortensen 1970, pp. 11-14\n\n^ Mortensen 1970\n\n^ Eidem 1992\n\n^ Eidem & Læssøe 2001\n\n^ Eidem 2012\n\n^ Shimshara n.d.\n\n^ Eidem, J., Merlino, M., Mariotti, E., & Kalim Salih, R., \"Tell Shemshara 2018: Emerging and Floating Evidence\", Ash-Sharq, 3(1), pp. 21-33, 2019\n\n^ Matthews, Wendy, et al., \"Excavations and Contextual Analsyes: Shimshara\", The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent: Excavations at Bestansur and Shimshara, Iraqi Kurdistan, edited by Wendy Matthews et al., Oxbow Books, pp. 177-86, 2020\n\n^ Altaweel, Mark, and Augusta McMahon, \"Recent Archaeology in Iraq\", Iraq, vol. 80, pp. 263-66, 2018\n\n^ Flohr, Pascal, et al., \"Radiocarbon dating of Bestansur and Shimshara\", The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent: Excavations at Bestansur and Shimshara, Iraqi Kurdistan, edited by Roger Matthews et al., Oxbow Books, pp. 187-96, 2020\n\n^ Mortensen 1970, pp. 17-23\n\n^ Mortensen 1970, p. 62\n\n^ Mortensen 1970, p. 27\n\n^ Mortensen 1970, pp. 33-35\n\n^ Mortensen 1970, pp. 47ff., 58ff.\n\n^ [8] as-Soof, B.A., \"Uruk Pottery from the Dokan and Shahrazur Districts\", Sumer 20, pp. 37-44, 1964\n\n^ Al-Soof 1968, p. 82\n\n^ [9] Peder Mortensen, \"On the Chronology of Early Village-Farming Communities in Northern Iraq\", Sumer, vol. 18, pp. 76-80, 1962\n\n^ Eidem & Læssøe 2001, p. 14\n\n^ Eidem 1992, p. 17\n\n^ Eidem 1992, p. 16\n\n^ Eidem 1992, p. 18\n\n^ Stol, Marten, \"The court and the harem before 1500 BC\", Women in the Ancient Near East, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 459-511, 2016\n\n^ [10] Rovira, Leticia, \"“Share Them Out...” On the Mass Deportation of People according to the Texts of Mari (18th Century BC)\", 2014\n\n^ [11] Van Soldt, Wilfred H., et al., \"Satu Qala: a preliminary report on the seasons 2010-2011\", Anatolica 39, pp. 197-239, 2013\n\n^ Ghobadizadeh, Hamzeh and Sallaberger, Walther, \"Šulgi in the Kuhdasht Plain: Bricks from a Battle Monument at the Crossroads of Western Pish-e Kuh and the Localisation of Kimaš and Ḫurti\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 113, no. 1, pp. 3-33, 2023\n\n^ Hebenstreit, Laurent, \"The Sumerian Spoils of War during Ur III.\", Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien, pp. 373-380, 2006\n\n^ [12] Patterson, Daniel William, \"Elements Of The Neo-Sumerian Military\", Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 3171, 2018\n\n^ Frayne, Douglas, \"Amar-Suena E3/2.1.3\", Ur III Period (2112-2004 BC), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 235-284, 1997\n\nReferences\n\nAl-Soof, Abu (1968), \"Distribution of Uruk, Jamdat Nasr and Ninevite V Pottery as Revealed by Field Survey Work in Iraq\", Iraq, 30 (1): 74-86, doi:10.2307/4199840, JSTOR 4199840\n\nEidem, Jesper (1992), The Shemshāra archives 2. The administrative texts, Historisk-Filosofiske Skrifter, vol. 15, Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskab, ISBN 87-7304-227-7\n\nEidem, Jesper; Læssøe, Jørgen (2001), The Shemshara archives 1. The letters, Historisk-Filosofiske Skrifter, vol. 23, Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskab, ISBN 87-7876-245-6\n\nEidem, Jesper (2012), \"The NINO archeological project on the Rania Plain\", mar-shiprim.org, International Association for Assyriology, archived from the original on 3 March 2016, retrieved 11 December 2013\n\nMortensen, Peder (1970), Tell Shimshara. The Hassuna period, Historisk-Filosofiske Skrifter, vol. 5, 2, Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskab, OCLC 562453801\n\n\"Shimshara\", Central Zagros Archaeological Project, n.d., archived from the original on 15 December 2013, retrieved 15 December 2013\n\nFurther reading\n\n[13] de Groene, Donna, Robin Bendrey, and Roger Matthews, \"Pigs in the Neolithic of the eastern Fertile Crescent: New evidence from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Bestansur and Shimshara, Iraqi Kurdistan (7800-7100 BC, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 31.6, pp. 1258-1269, 2021\n\nEidem, Jesper (1985), \"News from the eastern front: the evidence from Tell Shemshāra\", Iraq, 47: 83-107, doi:10.2307/4200234, JSTOR 4200234\n\nKupper, Jean-Robert, \"L'akkadien des lettres de Shemshära\", Revue d'assyriologie et d'archeologie Orientale, 95, pp. 155-173, 2001\n\n[14] Jorgen Laessøe, \"I M 62 100. A Letter From Tell Shemshara\", in: Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger, Assyriological Studies 16, Oriental Institute of Chicago, pp. 189-196, 1965\n\nJorgen Laessøe, \"The Shemshara tablets : a preliminary report\", Arkaeologisk-Kunst historiske Meddelser udgivet of Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Bind 4, nr. 3, 1959\n\nJorgen Laessøe, \"The towers of Shemshara\", G. Barjamovic et al., Akkade is King. A collection of papers by friends and colleagues presented to Aage Westenholz on the occasion of his 70th birthday 15 May 2009 (PIHANS 118), pp. 79-91, 2011\n\n[15] Mohammed, Khana Akram, and Hazha Tayfur Mohammed, \"The remains of Shamshara Hill and the ancient city of Shusharra (in the light of archaeological evidence and cuneiform sources)\", Twejer Journal 5.3, pp. 639-696, 2022 (in Arabic)\n\nWhitlam, Jade, Charlotte Diffey, Amy Bogaard, and Mike Charles, \"The charred plant remains from Early Neolithic levels at Bestansur and Shimshara\", in The Early Neolithic of the Eastern Fertile Crescent, Excavations at Bestansur and Shimshara, Iraqi Kurdistan, eds. R. Matthews, W. Matthews, K.R. Raheem, and A. Richardson, pp. 411-428. Central Zagros Archaeological Project 2. Oxbow, Oxford, 2020\n\nExternal links\n\nNINO back in Iraq -Research on the Rania Plain in Iraqi Kurdistan, autumn 2015\n\nWeb site for current dig\n\nTell Shemshara tablets at CDLI"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-shemshara"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2662}, {"slug": "reference-hasana", "title": "Hasana", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The Hasana (Arabic: الحسنة; also spelled Hassanah or Hassaneh) is an Arab tribe resident in central Syria in villages east of Hama and Homs. In the mid-18th century, the tribe became the first of the Anaza tribes to relocate to Syria from Najd and has retained varying degrees...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Hasana (Arabic: الحسنة; also spelled Hassanah or Hassaneh) is an Arab tribe resident in central Syria in villages east of Hama and Homs. In the mid-18th century, the tribe became the first of the Anaza tribes to relocate to Syria from Najd and has retained varying degrees of influence in this region through Ottoman, Hashemite and French rule and in post-independent Syria.\n\nHistory\n\nOttoman period\n\nThe Hasana are a branch of the Anaza tribal confederation and had particularly close tribal links to Al Saud, which established the Emirate of Najd in the 18th century. The Hasana were the first Anaza tribe to migrate to Syria, arriving in 1757. By the 1770s they were frequently feuding with the long-established Mawali tribe over control of the northern Syrian plains. By the late 1780s, the Hasana drove the Mawali out of their traditional pasture grounds in the steppes of Hama and Homs. Thereafter, the Hasana under their leader Muhanna al-Fadil, became the prominent Bedouin tribe in this region and gained government sanction to collect tolls from the caravans on the road to and from Palmyra.[1] Additionally, the Hasana collected tribute, known as the khuwwa, from the weaker tribes long established in these steppes and the villages there.[2]\n\nDespite their overpowering of the tribes east of Hama and Homs, the Hasana were not solidly established in the region as they wintered deep into the Syrian Desert, sometimes as far as northern Arabia. Their position was increasingly challenged in the early 19th century by another branch of the Anaza, the Fad'an and their subordinates, the Siba'a. In 1814, large numbers of the Fad'an and Siba'a entered the plains east of the Orontes River, prompting the Hasana and the Rwala (another Anaza subtribe) to ally with local and provincial troops to drive them out. The Fad'an and Siba'a held out for two weeks and forced the local and regular troops to withdraw before the Hasana drove them out. While the Fad'an retreated on that occasion, they frequently returned to the area and raided the Hasana west of Hama.[3]\n\nFrench Mandatory period\n\nThe Ottomans lost Syria to the Triple Entente forces in 1916-1918, during World War I. The leader of the Hasana, Trad al-Milhim was among the Syrian tribal sheikhs to enter Damascus with the victorious Entente-backed Emir Faisal.[4] Two years later, Syria came under the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon. As part of their attempts to co-opt the Arab tribes of the Syrian steppe, the French authorities paid stipends to the heads of the tribes and awarded cooperative tribes with pasture and property rights. The Hasana under Trad al-Milhim was allotted substantial landholdings, with some twenty villages registered in his name in the 1930s. He became dependent on government support to enforce his control, losing his traditional authority.[5] \n\nPost-Syrian independence\n\nThe Hasana continue to inhabit villages ease of Homs and Hama, with their headquarters in Buwaydah.[4] In 1977 the Syrian tribes experienced a surge of influence at the parliamentary level, with results engineered by the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Among the beneficiaries were Trad al-Milhem who won a seat representing the Homs Governorate.[6] In 1994 the government gave two parliamentary seats representing Homs to the Hasana's leadership, Abdel Aziz Trad Milhim and his nephew Abdel Karim.[7] The Hasana's leadership remained loyal to the Syrian government throughout the Syrian civil war.[4]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Douwes 2000, p. 31.\n\n^ Douwes 2000, p. 32.\n\n^ Douwes 2000, pp. 32-33, 117-118.\n\n^ a b c Dukhan 2019, p. 1875.\n\n^ Darke 2018, p. 106.\n\n^ Dukhan 2019, p. 1998.\n\n^ Dukhan 2019, p. 1999.\n\nBibliography\n\nDarke, Diana (2018). The Merchant of Syria: A History of Survival. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190874858.\n\nDouwes, Dick (2000). The Ottomans in Syria: A History of Justice and Oppression. New York: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-031-1.\n\nDukhan, Haiyan (2019). State and Tribes in Syria: Informal Alliances and Conflict Patterns. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-49483-1."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hasana"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 658}, {"slug": "reference-jewish-babylonian-aramaic", "title": "Jewish Babylonian Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Aramaic: אַרָמִית, ʾarāmîṯ) or Talmudic Aramaic was the form of Middle Aramaic employed by writers in Lower Mesopotamia between the fourth and eleventh centuries. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the fifth century), the Targum...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Jewish Babylonian Aramaic\n\nBabylonian Talmudic Aramaic, Jewish Aramaic, Talmudic[1]\n\nארמית Ārāmît\n\nIncantation bowl in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic\n\nRegionBabylonia, modern day southern and some of central Iraq\n\nErac. 200-1200 CE\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern Aramaic\nSoutheastern\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic\n\nEarly formOld Aramaic\n\nWriting systemBabylonian Alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3tmr\n\nGlottologjewi1240\n\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic (Aramaic: אַרָמִית, ʾarāmîṯ) or Talmudic Aramaic was the form of Middle Aramaic employed by writers in Lower Mesopotamia between the fourth and eleventh centuries. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the fifth century), the Targum Onqelos, and of post-Talmudic (Gaonic) literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Jews. The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of inscriptions on incantation bowls.[2]\n\nClassification and type\n\nThe language was closely related to Eastern Aramaic varieties such as Mandaic. Its original pronunciation is uncertain and has to be reconstructed with the help of these kindred dialects and the reading tradition of the Yemenite Jews,[3] and where available those of the Iraqi, Syrian and Egyptian Jews. The value of the Yemenite reading tradition has been challenged by Matthew Morgenstern.[4] Vocalized Aramaic texts with which Jews are familiar, from the Tanakh and the siddurim, are of limited usefulness for this purpose, as they are in different dialects.[5]\n\nTalmudic Aramaic is believed to be a specialist language of study and legal argumentation like Law French which existed alongside a vernacular dialect of Aramaic;[6] Talmudic Aramaic continued in use for these purposes long after Judeo-Arabic languages had become used in daily life. It has developed a battery of technical logic terms such as tiyuvta \"conclusive refutation\" and tiqu \"undecidable moot point\", which are still used in Jewish legal writings, including those in other languages, and have influenced modern Hebrew.\n\nLike the other Judeo-Aramaic languages, it was written in the Hebrew alphabet.\n\nGrammar\n\nPronouns\n\nIndependent nominative pronouns\n\nIndependent personal pronouns[7]\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nאנא\n\nFirst person, singular, common\n\nאת\n\nSecond person, singular, common\n\nהוא / איהו\n\nThird person, singular, masculine\n\nהיא / איהי\n\nThird person, singular, feminine\n\nאנן\n\nFirst person, plural, common\n\nאנן קשישי ואינו דרדקי \n We are old and they are young (bekarot 8b)[8]\n\nאתון\n\nSecond person, plural, masculine\n\nאתון דשאליתו לי דיאילו \n It is you that I borrowed (Baba Mesia 97a) \n אתון דמיקרביתו לרב \n You, who are attached to Rav (Shabbat 37b)\n\nאינהו\n\nThird person, plural, masculine\n\nאנן קשישי ואינו דרדקי \n We are old and they are young (bekarot 8b)[8]\n\nאינהי\n\nThird person, plural, feminine\n\nCopulative pronouns\n\nCopulative pronouns[9]\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nנא\n\nFirst person, singular, common\n\nעדיפנא \n I am more worthy (Kiddushin 29b)[9]\n\nת\n\nSecond person, singular, common\n\nעציבת \n You (common singular) are sad (Pesahim 3b)[9]\n\nניהו\n\nThird person, singular, masculine\n\nמי ידענא היכא ניהו \n Do I know where he is (Sanhedrin 39a)[10] \nהי ניהו \n which is it (Nid. 41b)[11]\n\nניהי\n\nThird person, singular, feminine\n\nנן\n\nFirst person, plural, common\n\nזוטרינן \n we are young (Baba Qama 92b)[9]\n\nתו(ן)\n\nSecond person, plural, masculine\n\nחכימתו \n You (masculine plural) are wise (Gitin 56b)[9]\n\nנינהו\n\nThird person, plural, masculine\n\nהני הילכתה נינהו \nThese are laws from tradition (they) Mo'ed Qatan 3b[12] \n גזלני נינהו \nRobbers, they (Baba Batra 100a)[10] \n סהדי שקרי נינהו \nLying witnesses, they (Baba Batra 92b)[10]\n\nנינהי\n\nThird person, plural, feminine\n\nקדושה והבדלה חדה מילתא נינהי \nQedusha and Havdalah are one thing, they are (Pesah 102b)[10] \n כולהי חדא ברכתא נינהי \n all one long blessing, they are (Pesah 103b)[10]\n\nGenitive pronominal suffixes\n\nGenitive pronominal suffix[13]\n\nGenitive pronominal suffix (Hebrew)\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nַ אי[13][14]\n\nִ י\n\nFirst person, singular possessive. My\n\nנַפְשַאי \n my person\n (jevamot 64b)[15] \n דוּכְתַּאי \n my position\n (ketuvot 77b)[15]\n\nִי ךְ[13][15]\n\nְ ךָ\n\nSecond person, singular, possessive. Your\n\nפְּסוּקִיךְ \n your verse \n (chagiga 15)[15]\n\nָ ךְ[13][15]\n\nֵ ךְ\n\nSecond person, singular, possessive. Your\n\nרַבָּךְ \n your teacher \n (pesachim 24)[15] \n שוּפְרָךְ \n your beauty \n (Bava Metzia 84a) \n אמר ליה {רבי יוחנן} חילך לאורייתא {כמה יפה כוחך לסבול עול תורה} אמר ליה{ריש לקיש} שופרך לנשי {יופיך ראוי לנשים}\n\nֵי הּ\n\nוֹ\n\nThird person, singular, masculine possessive. His\n\nיְהֵא שְׁמֵיהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ\n\nMay his great name shall be blessed\n(Kaddish Shalem, 8th century)\n\nָ הּ\n\nָ הּ\n\nThird person, singular, feminine possessive. Her\n\nאסירא לייחודי בגברא דלא דידָהּ \n She is forbidden to be together in the room alone with a man who is not her husband (Erubin 100b)[16]\n\nִי ן[13][15]\n\nֵ נוּ\n\nFirst person, plural possessive. Our\n\nאַרְעִין \n our land (shanhedrin 94)[15]\n\nַ יְכוּ[13][17]\n\nְ כֶם\n\nSecond person, plural, masculine possessive. Your\n\nגַבְרַיְיכוּ \n Your men (Shabbat 140b)[17]\n\nַ יְיכִי[13][17]\n\nְ כֶן\n\nSecond person, plural, feminine possessive. Your\n\nקַרְחַיְיכִי \n your baldness \n (pesachim 110)[17] \n פַּרְחַיְיכִי \n your crumbs \n (pesachim 110)[17]\n\nַ יְהוּ[13][17]\n\nָ ם\n\nThird person, plural, masculine possessive. Their\n\nמָנַיְיהוּ \n their clothes (Shabbat 133b)\n מִינַיְיהוּ(ן)[18] \n from the men\n\nַ יְהִי[13][17]\n\nָ ן\n\nThird person, plural, feminine possessive. Their\n\nעָלַיְיהִי(ן)[18] \n about the women\n\nSuffix + אִית\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nאִיתֵיהּ\n\nHe is/exists[19][20]\n\nאִיתָהּ\n\nShe is/exists[19][20]\n\nאִיתְנָן\n\nWe are/exist[19]\n\nאִיתַנְכוּ\n\nYou (pl. m.) are/exist[19]\n\nאִיתַנְכִי\n\nYou (pl. f.) are/exist[19]\n\nאִיתַנְהוּ\n\nThey (m.) are/exist[19][20]\n\nאִיתַנְהִי\n\nThey (f.) are/exist[19][20]\n\nDemonstrative pronoun\n\nDemonstrative pronoun (near/proximal)\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nהַאי(י)\n\nThird person, singular, masculine demonstrative. This (Hebrew:זֶה)[21]\n\nמהַאי גִּיסָא ומהַאי גִּיסָא אַדַּעְתָּא דְדיקלא \n on the one side ... , on the other side with precise intention for \n האיי דיאנא \n this judge \nהאיי קלא \n this voice\n\nהָא\n\nThird person, singular, feminine demonstrative. This (Hebrew:זֹאת)[21]\n\nהא מילתא this word/thing\n\nהָ(א)נֵי\n\nThird person, plural, masculine demonstrative. These (Hebrew:אֵלֶּה, אֵלּוּ)[21]\n\nהָנֵי מילי these words/things\n\nהָנֵי \n\nThird person, plural, feminine demonstrative. These (Hebrew:אֵלֶּה, אֵלּוּ)[21]\n\nהָנֵי אִין הָנַך לאָ \n (Chagiga 11b) (These yes, those not )\n\nDemonstrative pronoun (medial)\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nהַאי(י)+ךְ←הַאִיךְ\n\nThird person, singular, masculine demonstrative. That [21][22]\n\nאיתתיה דהאייך \n His wife of that (man)\n\nהָא+ךְ←הָךְ\n\nThird person, singular, feminine demonstrative. That [21]\n\nהך ארעא \n that land \nהך לשנא \n that language\n\nהָ(א)נֵי+ךְ←הָנַךְ\n\nThird person, plural, masculine demonstrative. Those [21][22]\n\nמן הָנַךְ טעמי \n Because of those reasons \n הָנַךְ אֲזַלוּ לְעָלְמָא והָנֵי אַחֲרִינֵי נינהו \n Those others have gone away, and these are others here\n\nהָנֵי+ךְ←הָנַךְ\n\nThird person, plural, feminine demonstrative. Those [21]\n\nהָנֵי אִין הָנַך לאָ \n (Chagiga 11b) (These yes, those not )\n\nDemonstrative pronoun (remote/distal)\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nהָהוּ(א)\n\nThird person, singular, masculine demonstrative. That (Hebrew:הוּא)[21]\n\nהָהוּא גַבְרָא \n (Berachot 6b) \n (any man, anybody, that man )\n\nהָהִי(א)\n\nThird person, singular, feminine demonstrative. That (Hebrew:הִיא)[21]\n\nהָהִיא אִתְּתָא דַאֲתָא לְקָמֵיהּ \n(nedarim 50b) \n (That woman, who came before him )\n\nהָנְהוּ \n\nThird person, plural, masculine demonstrative. Those (Hebrew:הֵם)[21][23]\n\nהָנְהִי \n\nThird person, plural, feminine demonstrative. Those (Hebrew:הֵן)[21]\n\nAccusative pronominal suffixes\n\nAccusative pronominal suffix[24]\n\nMeaning\n\nExamples\n\nַ ן \n\nַ \nני[25]\n\nFirst person, singular, common\n\nגַנְבַן (Nedarim 62) he stole me \n\nנַטְרַנִי he supervised me[26]\n\nנֵיעָרְבִינְהוּ וְנִכְתְּבִינְהוּ\n\nך [25]\n\nSecond person, singular, masculine\n\nיך \n\nSecond person, singular, feminine\n\nיה \n\nThird person, feminine, singular\n\nה \n\nThird person, masculine, singular\n\nה \n\nThird person, masculine, singular\n\nינן [25]\n\nFirst person, plural, common\n\nינכו \n\nsecond person, plural, masculine\n\nנכי \n\nsecond person, plural, feminine\n\nינון / ינ(ה)ו [27]\n\nThird person, plural, masculine\n\nנֵיעָרְבִינְהוּ וְנִכְתְּבִינְהוּ (pessachim 13) he shall put them (the words) together and write them[28]\n\nינון / י(נ)הי[27]\n\nThird person, plural, feminine\n\nוּרְמִי אִינְהִי ← וּרְמִינְהִי (berachot 9) you shall opposite them (the two sentences)[29]\n\nSix major verbal patterns\n\nThere are six major verb stems or verbal patterns (binyanim) in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. The form pe‘al (פְּעַל) “to do”, the form Aph'el (אַפְעֵל) “let do”, and the form Pa'el (פַּעֵל) “like to do”, are all in the active voice. But the form Itpe'el (אִתְפְּעֵל), the form Itaph'al (אִתַפְעַל) and the form Itpa'al (אִתְפַּעַל) are essentially reflexive and usually function in a passive sense.[30][31]\n\nAramaic binyan\nHebrew binyan\nAramaic example\nHebrew parallel\nEnglish translation\n\n פְּעַל Pe'al\n קַל Qal/Pa'al\n כְּתַב \nכָּתַב\nhe wrote\n\n אִתְפְּעֵל Itpe'el\n נִפְעַל Niphal\n אִתְכְּתֵיב \nנִכְתַב\nit was written\n\n אַפְעֵל Aph'el\n הִפְעִיל Hiph'il\n אַפְקֵד \nהִפְקִיד\nhe deposited\n\n אִתַפְעַל Itaph'al\n הֻפְעַל Huph‘al\n אִתַפְקַד \nהֻפְקַד\nit was deposited\n\n פַּעֵל Pa'el\n פִּעֵל Pi'el\n קַדֵּיש \nקִדֵּש\nhe sanctifed\n\n אִתְפַּעַל Itpa'al\n הִתְפַּעֵל Hitpa'el\n וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ \nהִתְקַדֵּשׁ\nit was sanctifed\n\nVerbal pattern (binyan): pe‘al (פְּעַל) Basic Verb - Active\n\npast tense\n\nAramaic verb WROTE [32]\nHebrew verb parallel WROTE\nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא כְּתַבִית\nאֲנִי כָּתַבְתִּי\nana k'tavit\nani katavti\nI wrote\n\nאַתְּ כְּתַבְתְּ\nאַתָּה כָּתַבְתָּ\natt' k'tavt\natta katavta\nyou (m.) wrote\n\nאַתְּ כְּתַבְתְּ\nאַתְּ כָּתַבְתְּ\natt' k'tavt\natt' katavt\nyou (f.) wrote\n\nהוּא כְּתַב\nהוּא כָּתַב\nhu k'tav\nhu katav\nhe wrote\n\nהִיא כְּתַבָה\nהִיא כָּתְבָה\nhi k'tava\nhi kat'va\nshe wrote\n\nאֲנָן כְּתַבִינָן\nאָנוּ כָּתַבְנוּ\nanan k'tavinan\nanu katavnu\nwe wrote\n\nאַתּוּ כְּתַבִיתּוּ\nאַתֶּם כְּתַבְתֶּם\nattu k'tavitu\nattem k'tavtem\nyou (m.pl.) wrote\n\nאינון כְּתַבוּ\nהם כָּתְּבוּ\ninnun k'tavu\nhem katvu\nthey (m.) wrote\n\nAramaic verb CAME [33]\nHebrew verb parallel CAME \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אֲתֵיתִי \nאֲנָא אֲתַאי\nאֲנִי בָּאתִי\nana ateti/ana atai\nani bati\nI came\n\nאַתְּ אֲתֵית\nאַתָּה בָּאתָ\nat atet\nata bata\nyou (m.) came\n\nאַתְּ  ?\nאַתְּ בָּאת\nat ?\nat bat\nyou (f.) came\n\nהוּא אֲתָא\nהוּא בָּא\nhu ata\nhu ba\nhe came\n\nהִיא אֲתָת \nהִיא אֲתַאי \nהִיא אתיא \n\nהִיא בָּאָה\ni atat/atai/atjia\nhi ba'a\nshe came\n\nאֲנָן אֲתַאן \nאֲנָן אֲתַן \nאֲנָן אֲתֵינַן \n\nאָנוּ בָּאנוּ\nanan atan/atenan\nanu banu\nwe came\n\nאַתּוּ אֲתֵיתוּ\nאַתֶּם בָּאתֶם\natu atetu\natem batem\nyou (m.pl.) came\n\nאינון אֲתוּ\nהם בָּאוּ\ninnun atu\nhem ba'u\nthey (m.) came\n\nאינין אֲתַיָין \nאינין אֲתַאָן \nיאינין אתן \n\nהן בָּאוּ\ninnin attajan\nhen ba'u\nthey (f.) came\n\nParticiple\n\nThe Aramaic verb has two participles: an active participle with suffix[34] and a passive participle with suffix:[35]\n\nactive participles with suffix\n\nAramaic active participle WRITE with suffix\nHebrew active participle WRITE\nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nכָּתֵיב + אֲנָא ← כָּתֵיבְנָא\nאֲנִי כּוֹתֵב\nkatevna←katev+ana\nani kotev\nI write\n\nכָּתֵיב + אַתְּ ← כָּתְבַתְּ\nאַתָּה כּוֹתֵב\nkatvat← katev+ata\nata kotev\nyou write\n\nכָּתְבִי + אֲנָן ← כָּתְבִינָן\nאָנוּ כּוֹתְבִים\nkatvinan←katvi+anan\nanu kotvim\nwe write\n\nכָּתְבִי + אַתּוּ ← כָּתְבִיתּוּ\nאַתֶּם כּוֹתְבִים\nkatvitu← katvi+atu\natem kotvim\nyou (pl.) write\n\nAramaic active participle COME with suffix[36]\nHebrew active participle COME \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאָתֵי / אָתְיָא + אֲנָא ← אָתֵינָא\nאֲנִי בָּא\natena←ate+ana\nani ba\nI come\n\nאָתֵי / אָתְיָא + אַתְּ ← אָתֵיתְּ\nאַתָּה בָּא\natet← ate+at\nata ba\nYou come\n\nאָתוּ / אָתֵיָין + אֲנָן ← אָתִינָן\nאָנוּ בָּאִים\natinan←atu+anan\nanu ba'iim\nwe come\n\npassive participle with suffix\n\nAramaic passive participle with suffix BUSY \nHebrew passive participle BUSY \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nעֲסִיק + אֲנָא ← עֲסִיקְנָא\nאֲנִי עָסוּק\nassiqna←assiq+ana\nani assuq\nI am busy\n\nעֲסִיק + אַתְּ ← עֲסִיקַתְּ\nאַתָּה עָסוּק\nassiqat← assiq+ata\nata assuq\nyou are busy\n\nעֲסִיקִי + אֲנַן ← עֲסִיקִינַן\nאָנוּ עֲסוּקִים\nassiqinan←assiqi+anan\nanu assuqim\nwe are busy\n\nעֲסִיקִי + אַתּוּ ← עֲסִיקִיתּוּ\nאַתֶּם עֲסוּקִים\nassiqitu← assiqi+atu\natem assuqim\nyou (pl.) are busy\n\ninfinitive /gerund\n\nAramaic infinitive /gerund TO COME \nHebrew infinitive /gerund\nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\n(לְ)מֵיתֵי / לְמֵיתָא\n(לָ)בוֹא\nLemeta/meteyi\nla'vo\nTO COME\n\nFuture tense\n\nAramaic verb WILL WRITE [37]\nHebrew verb parallel WILL WRITE\nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אֶיכְתּוֹב\nאֲנִי אֶכְתּוֹב\nana eikhtov\nani ekhtov\nI will write\n\nאַתְּ תִּיכְתּוֹב\nאַתָּה תִּכְתּוֹב\nat tikhtov\nata tikhtov\nYou (m.sing.)will write\n\nאַתְּ תִּיכְתְּבִין\nאַתְּ תִּיכְתְּבִי\nat tikhtevin\nat tikhtevi\nYou (f.sing.) will write\n\nהוּא לִיכְתּוֹב\nהוּא יִכְתּוֹב\nhu likhtov\nhu yikhtov\nHe will write\n\nהִיא תִּיכְתּוֹב\nהִיא תִּכְתּוֹב\nhi tikhtov\nhi tikhtov\nShe will write\n\nאֲנָן לִיכְתּוֹב\nאָנוּ נִכְתּוֹב\nanan likhtov\nanu nikhtov\nWe will write\n\nאַתּוּ תִּיכְתְּבוּן\nאַתֶּם תִּיכְתְּבוּ\natu tikhtevu\natem tikhtevun\nyou (m.pl.) will write\n\nאינון לִיכְתְּבוּן\nהם יכְתְּבוּ\ninnun likhtevun\nhem yikhtevu\nthey (m.pl.) will write\n\nVerbal pattern (binyan): Itpe'el (אִתְפְּעֵל) Basic Verb - Passive\n\npast tense\n\nAramaic verb WAS/WERE WRITTEN [38]\nHebrew verb parallel WAS/WERE WRITTEN \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אִי(תְ)כְּתֵיבִית\nאֲנִי נִכְתַבְתִּי\nana itk'tevit\nani nikhtavti\nI was written\n\nאַתְּ אִי(תְ)כְּתַבְתְּ\nאַתָּה נִכְתַבְתָּה\nat itk'tavt\nata nikhtavta\nyou (m.s.) were written\n\nאַתְּ אִי(תְ)כְּתַבְתְּ\nאַתְּ נִכְתַבְתְּ\nat itk'tavt\nat nikhtavt\nyou (f.s.) were written\n\nהוּא אִי(תְ)כְּתֵיב\nהוּא נִכְתַבְ\nhu itk'tev\nhu nikhtav\nit (m.) was written\n\nהִיא אִי(תְ)כַּתְבָה\nהִיא נִכְתְּבָה\nhi itkatva\nhi nikhteva\nit (f.) was written\n\nאֲנָן אִי(תְ)כַּתְבִינָן\nאָנוּ נִכְתַבְנוּ\nanan itkatvinan\nanu nikhtavnu\nwe were written\n\nאַתּוּ אִי(תְ)כַּתְבִיתּוּ\nאַתֶּם נִכְתַבְתֶּם\natu itkatvitu\natem nikhtavtem\nyou (m.pl.) were written\n\nאינון אִי(תְ)כַּתְבוּ\nהם נִכְתְּבוּ\ninnun itkatvu\nhem nikhtevu\nthey (m.pl.) were written\n\nfuture tense\n\nAramaic verb Will BE WRITTEN [39]\nHebrew verb parallel Will BE WRITTEN \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אֶ(תְ)כְּתֵיב\nאֲנִי אֶכָּתֵיב\nana ekktev\nani ekkatev\nI will be written\n\nאַתְּ תִ(תְ)כְּתֵיב\nאַתָּה תִכָּתֵיב\nat tikktev\nata tikkatev\nyou (m.s.) will be written\n\nאַתְּ תִ(תְ)כְּתֵיבִין\nאַתְּ תִכָּתֵיבִי\nat tikkatevin\nat tikkatevi\nyou (f.s.) will be written\n\nהוּא לִ(תְ)כְּתֵיב\nהוּא יִכָּתֵיב\nhu likktev\nhu yikkatev\nit (m.) will be written\n\nהִיא תִ(תְ)כְּתֵיב\nהִיא תִכָּתֵיב\nhi tikktev\nhi tikkatev\nit (f.) will be written\n\nאֲנָן לִ(תְ)כְּתֵיב\nאָנוּ נִכָּתֵיב\nanan likktev\nanu nikkatev\nwe will be written\n\nאַתּוּ תִ(תְ)כַּתְבוּ\nאַתֶּם תִכָּתְבוּ\natu tikkat'vu\natem tikkatvu\nyou (m.pl.) will be written\n\nאינון לִ(תְ)כְּתֵיבוּן\nהם יִכָּתבוּ\ninnun likktevun\nem ikkatvu\nthey (s.pl.) will be written\n\nאינין לִ(תְ)כַּתְבָן\nהן תִכָּתֵבְנָה\ninnin likkt'van\nen tikkatevna\nthey (m.pl.) will be written\n\n|}\n\nVerbal pattern (binyan): pa‘el (פַּעֵל) Frequentative - Active\n\nThe verbal pattern (binyan) pa‘el are frequentative verbs showing repeated or intense action.\n\nThe verbal pattern pa'el is Active Frequentative.\n\npast tense\n\nAramaic verb SANCTIFIED [40]\nHebrew verb parallel SANCTIFIED \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא קַדֵּישִית\nאֲנִי קִדַּשְתִּי\nana qadeshit\nani qiddashti\nI sanctified\n\nאַתְּ קַדֵּישְתְּ\nאַתָּה קִדַּשְתָּ\nat qadesht\nata qiddashta\nYou (m.s.) sanctified\n\nאַתְּ קַדֵּישְתְּ\nאַתְּ קִדַּשְתְּ\nat qadesht\nat qiddasht\nYou (f.s.) sanctified\n\nהוּא קַדֵּיש\nהוּא קִדֵּש\nhu qaddesh\nhu qiddesh\nhe sanctified\n\nהִיא קַדִּישָה\nהִיא קִדְּשָה\nhi qaddisha\nhi qiddsha\nshe sanctified\n\nאֲנָן קַדֵּישְנָן\nאָנוּ קִדַּשְנוּ\nanan qaddeshnan\nanu qiddashnu\nwe sanctified\n\nאַתּוּ קַדֵּישְתּוּ\nאַתֶּם קִדַּשְתֶּם\natu qaddeshtu\natem qiddashtem\nYou (m.pl.) sanctified\n\nאינון קַדִּישוּ\nהם קִדְּשוּ\ninnun qaddishu\nhem qiddshu\nthey (m.pl.) sanctified\n\nfuture tense\n\nAramaic verb WILL SANCTIFY [41]\nHebrew verb parallel WILL SANCTIFY \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אֲקַדֵּיש\nאֲנִי אֲקַדֵּש\nana aqadesh\nani aqadesh\nI will sanctify\n\nאַתְּ תְקַדֵּיש\nאַתָּה תְקַדֵּש\nat teqadesh\nata teqadesh\nYou (m.s.) will sanctify\n\nאַתְּ תְקַדְּשִי\nאַתְּ תְקַדְּשִי\nat teqadeshi\nat teqadeshi\nYou (f.s.) will sanctify\n\nהוּא יְקַדֵּיש\nהוּא יְקַדֵּש\nhu yeqadesh\nhu yeqadesh\nhe will sanctify\n\nהִיא תְקַדֵּיש\nהִיא תְקַדֵּש\nhi teqadesh\nhi teqadesh\nshe will sanctify\n\nאֲנָן לְקַדֵּיש\nאָנוּ נְקַדֵּש\nanan leqadesh\nanu neqadesh\nwe will sanctify\n\nאַתּוּ תְקַדְּשוּ\nאַתֶּם תְקַדְּשוּ\natu teqadshu\natem teqadshu\nYou (m.pl.) will sanctify\n\nאינון לְקַדְּשוּ\nהם יְקַדְּשוּ\ninnun leqadshu\nhem yeqadeshu\nthey (m.pl.) will sanctify\n\nאינין לְקַדְּשָן\nהן תְקַדֵּשְנָה\ninnin leqadshan\nhen teqadeshna\nthey (f.pl.) will sanctify\n\nVerbal pattern (binyan): Itpa'al (אִתְפַּעַל) Frequentative - Passive\n\nThe verbal pattern itpa'al is Passive Frequentative.\n\nAramaic verb WAS/WERE SANCTIFIED [42]\nHebrew verb parallel WAS/WERE SANCTIFIED \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא יִ(תְ)קַדַּשִׁית\nאֲנִי נִתְקַדַּשְׁתִּי\nana yiqqadashit\nani nitqadashti\nI was sanctified\n\nאַתְּ יִ(תְ)קַדַּשְׁתְּ\nאַתָּה נִתְקַדַּשָׁה\nat yiqqadasht\nata nitqqadasha\nyou (m.s.) were sanctified\n\nאַתְּ יִ(תְ)קַדַּשְׁתְּ\nאַתְּ נִתְקַדַּשְׁתְּ\nat yiqqadasht\nat nitqadasht\nyou (f.s.) were sanctified\n\nהוּא יִ(תְ)קַדַּשׁ\nהוּא נִתְקַדַּשׁ\nhu yiqqadash\nhu nitqadash\nit (m.) was sanctified\n\nהִיא יִ(תְ)קַדַּשָׁה\nהִיא נִתְקַדַּשָׁה\nhi yiqqadasha\nhi nitqadasha\nit (f.) was sanctified\n\nאֲנָן יִ(תְ)קַדַּשִׁינָן\nאָנוּ נִתְקַדַּשׁנוּ\nanu yiqqadashinan\nanu nitqadashnu\nwe were sanctified\n\nאַתּוּ יִ(תְ)קַדַּשִׁיתּוּ\nאַתֶּם נִתְקַדַּשְׁתֶּם\natu yiqqadashitu\ninnu nitqadashtem\nthey (f.) were sanctified\n\nאִינון יִ(תְ)קַדַּשׁוּ\nהם נִתְקַדַּשׁוּ\ninnun yiqqadashitu\nhem nitqadashu\nthey (m.) were sanctified\n\nAramaic verb WILL BE SANCTIFIED [43]\nHebrew verb parallel WILL BE SANCTIFIED \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אֶ(תְ)קַדֵּשׁ\nאֲנִי אֶתְקַדַּשׁ\nana eqqadash\nani etqadesh\nI will be sanctified\n\nאַתְּ תִ(תְ)קַדַּשׁ\nאַתָּה תִתְקַדֵּשׁ\nat tiqqadash\nata titqadesh\nyou (m.s.) will be sanctified\n\nאַתְּ תִ(תְ)קַדְּשִׁין\nאַתְּ תִתְקַדְּשִׁי\nat tiqqadshin\nat titqadshi\nyou (f.s.) will be sanctified\n\nהוּא לִ(תְ)קַדַּשׁ\nהוּא יִתְקַדֵּשׁ\nhu liqqadash\nhu yitqadesh\nit (m.) will be sanctified\n\nהִיא תִ(תְ)קַדַּשׁ\nהִיא תִתְקַדֵּשׁ\nhi tiqqadash\nhi titqadesh\nit (f.) will be sanctified\n\nאֲנָן לִ(תְ)קַדַּשׁ\nאָנוּ נִתְקַדֵּשׁ\nanan liqqadash\nanu nitqadesh\nwe will be sanctified\n\nאַתּוּ תִ(תְ)קַדְּשׁוּ\nאַתֶּם תִתְקַדְּשׁוּ\natu tiqqadshu\natem titqadshu\nyou (m.pl.) will be sanctified\n\nאינון לִ(תְ)קַדְּשוּן\nהם יִתְקַדְּשׁוּ\ninnun liqqadshun\nhem yitqadshu\nthey (m.pl.) will be sanctified\n\nאינין לִ(תְ)קַדְּשָׁן\nהן תִתְקַדֵּשְׁנָה\ninnin liqqadshan\nhen titqadeshna\nthey (f.pl.) will be sanctified\n\nVerbal pattern (binyan): aph‘el (אַפְעֵל) Causative - Active\n\nThe verbal pattern aphel is Active Causative.\n\npast tense\n\nAramaic verb DEPOSITED [44]\nHebrew verb parallel DEPOSITED \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אַפְקֵידִית\nאֲנִי הִפְקַדְתִּי\nana afqedit\nani hifqaḏti\nI deposited\n\nאַתְּ אַפְקֵידְתְּ\nאַתָּה הִפְקַדְתָּ\nat afqedt\nata hifqaḏtta\nyou (m.s.) deposited\n\nאַתְּ אַפְקֵידְתְּ\nאַתְּ הִפְקַדְתְּ\nat afqedt\nat hifqaḏett\nyou (f.s.) deposited\n\nהוּא אַפְקֵיד\nהוּא הִפְקִיד\nhu afqed\nhu yifqid\nhe deposited\n\nהִיא אַפְקִידָה\nהִיא הִפְקִידָה\nhi afqidah\nhi yifqidah\nshe deposited\n\nאֲנָן אַפְקְדִינָן\nאָנוּ הִפְקַדְנוּ\nanan afqedinan\nanu hifqadnu\nwe deposited\n\nאַתּוּ אַפְקְדִיתּוּ\nאַתֶּם הִפְקַדְתֶּם\natu afqeditu\natem hifqaḏtem\nyou (m.pl.) deposited\n\nאינון אַפְקִידוּ\nהם הִפְקִידוּ\ninnun aphqidu\nhem hifqidu\nthey (m.pl.) deposited\n\nAramaic verb BROUGHT [45]\nHebrew verb parallel BROUGHT \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אַיְיתֵית\nאֲנִי הֵבֵאתִי\nana ajtet\nani heveti\nI brought\n\nאַתְּ אַיְיתֵיית\nאַתָּה הֵבֵאתָ\nat aytet\nata heveta\nyou (m.s.) brought\n\nהוּא אַיְיתִי\nהוּא הֵבִיא\nhu ayti\nhu hevi\nhe brought\n\nהִיא אַיְיתָא\nהִיא אַתָיְא\nהִיא אַתָאי\n\nהִיא הֵבִיאָה\nhi ayta\nhi heviya\nshe brought\n\nאֲנָן אַיְיתֵינָא\nאָנוּ הֵבֵאנוּ\nanan aytena\nanu hevenu\nwe brought\n\nאינון אַיְיתוּ\nהם הֵבִיאוּ\ninnun aytu\nem hevi'u\nthey (m.pl.) brought\n\nParticiple\n\nAramaic active participle BRING with suffix[46]\nHebrew active participle BRING \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nמַיְיתֵי / מַתְיָא + אֲנָא ← מַיְיתֵינָא\nאֲנִי מֵבִיא\nmaitena ←maite+ana\nani mevi\nI bring\n\nמַיְיתֵי / מַתְיָא + אַתְּ ← מַיְיתֵיתְּ\nאַתָּה מֵבִיא\nmaitet← maite+at\nata mevi\nyou bring\n\nמַיְיתוּ / מַיְתָן + אֲנָן ← מַיְיתִינָן\nאָנוּ מֵבִיאִים\nmaitinan←atu+maitu\nanu mev'iim\nwe bring\n\nFuture tense\n\nAramaic verb WILL DEPOSITE [47]\nHebrew verb parallel WILL DEPOSITE \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אַפְקֵד\nאֲנִי אַפְקִיד\nana afqed\nani afqid\nI will deposite\n\nאַתְּ תַפְקֵד\nאַתָּה תַפְקִיד\nat tafqed\nata tafqid\nyou (m.) will deposite\n\nאַתְּ תַפְקְדִי\nאַתְּ תַפְקִידִי\nat tafqedi\nat tafqidi\nyou (f.) will deposite\n\nהוּא לַפְקֵד\nהוּא יַפְקִיד\nhu lafqed\nhu yahqid\nhe will deposite\n\nהִיא תַפְקֵד\nהִיא תַפְקִיד\nhi tafqed\nhi tafqid\nshe will deposite\n\nאֲנָן לַפְקֵד\nאָנוּ נַפְקִיד\nanan lafqed\nanu nafqid\nwe will deposite\n\nאַתּוּ תַפְקְדוּ\nאַתֶּם תַפְקִידוּ\natu tafqedu\natem tafqidu\nyou (m.pl.) will deposite\n\nאינון לַפְקְדוּ\nהם יַפְקִידוּ\ninnun lafqedu\nhem yafqidu\nthey (m.) will deposite\n\nAramaic verb WILL BRING [48]\nHebrew verb parallel WILL BRING\nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nאֲנָא אַיְיתֵי\nאֲנִי אָבִיא\nana ayite\nani avi\nI will bring\n\nאַתְּ תַיְיתֵי\nאַתָּה תָּבִיא\nat tayite\nata tavi\nyou (m.) will bring\n\nאַתְּ  ?\nאַתְּ תָּבִיאי\nat ?\nat tavi'i\nyou (f.) will bring\n\nהוּא לַיְיתֵי\nהוּא יָבִיא\nhu layite\nhu yavi\nhe will bring\n\nהִיא תַיְיתֵי\nהִיא תָּבִיא\nhi tayite\nhi tavi\nshe will bring\n\nאֲנָן לַיְיתֵי\nאָנוּ נָבִיא\nanan layite\nanu navi\nwe will bring\n\nאַתּוּ תַיְתוּ\nאַתֶּם תָּבִיאוּ\natu tayitu\natem tavi'u\nyou (m.pl.) will bring\n\nאינון לַיְתוּ\nהם יָבִיאוּ\ninnun layitu\nem yavi'u\nthey (m.) will bring\n\nVerbal pattern (binyan): itaphal (אִתַּפְעַל) Causative - Passive voice\n\nThe verbal pattern itaphal is Passive Causative.\n\nAramaic verb was refuted/were refuted [49]\nHebrew verb parallel was refuted/were refuted \nRomanization of Aramaic\nRomanization of Hebrew\nEnglish translation\n\nהוּא אִיתּוֹתַב\nהוּא הוּשַׁב\nhu ittothav\nhu hushav\nit (m.s.) was refuted\n\nאינון אִיתּוֹתְבוּ\nהם הוּשְׁבוּ\ninnun ittotvu\nhem hushvu\nthey (m.pl.) were refuted\n\nNoun: singular/plural\n\nnoun: singular[50]\n\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic example\n\nHebrew parallel\n\nEnglish translation \nof the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic example\n\nמַלְכָּא (malk-a)[51]\n\nהמֶלֶךְ (ha-melekh)[51]\n\nthe king[51]\n\nעָלְמָא (ʿalm-a)[51]\n\nהעוֹלָם (ha-ʿolam)[51]\n\nthe world[51]\n\nמְדִינְתָא (meḏin-ta)[51]\n\nהמְדִינָה (ha-medina)[52]\n\nthe state[52]\n\nמְנָא הָא מִילְּתָא דְּאָמְרִי אֱנָשֵׁי (mil-tha)[53]\n\nמִנַּיִין מִלָּה זֹאת שֶׁאוֹמְרִים אֲנָשִׁים (ha-mila)\n\nthe word/thing[51]\n\nnoun: plural[50]\n\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic example\n\nHebrew parallel\n\nEnglish translation \nof the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic example\n\nמַלְכֵי (malkheji)/ מַלְכַיָּא (malkh-aya)[54] are often used not only in the construct state but even in the absolute and emphatic states. Thus, in Babylonian Aramaic, the form מַלְכֵי may mean either the kings of or kings or the kings\"[51]\n\nהמְלָכִים (ha-melakhim)[51]\n\nthe kings[55]\n\nעָלְמֵי (ʿalmeyi)/ עָלְמַיָּא (ʿalm-ayia)[51]\n\nהעוֹלָמים (ha-olamim)[51]\n\nthe worlds[51]\n\nמְנָא הָנֵי מִילֵּי (mil-eyi)[56]\n\nמִנַּיִין המִילִּים האֵלֶּה (ha-milim)\n\nthe words/things\n\nList of verbs\n\nAramaic verb\nHebrew verb parallel\nEnglish translation\n\nבע'[57]\nרָצָה\nask, request, want and require\n\nחז'[58]\nרָאָה\nsee\n\nעבד[59]\nעָשָׂה\ndo/make\n\nפלג[60]\nחלק\ndivide\n\nצרך[61]\nצריך\nnecessity\n\nאת'[62]\nבָּא\ncome\n\nתנ'[63]\nשנה\nteach, learn, state, recite and repeat\n\nתוב[64]\nשוב\nreturn\n\nנפק[65]\nיָצָא\ngo out\n\nנחת[66]\nיָרַד\ngo down\n\nסלק[67]\nעָלָה\ngo up\n\nילף[68]\nלמד\nlearn, teach\n\nיתב[69]\nיָשַׁב\nto sit\n\nזבן[70]\nקָנָה/מָכַר\nto buy/sell\n\nהדר[71]\nחָזַר\nto return\n\nסלק[72]\nהוֹרִיד, הֵסִיר\nto remove\n\nגלי[73]\nגִּלָּה\nto reveal\n\nאסי[74]\nרִפֵּא\nto heal, cure\n\nהוי[75]\nהָיָה\nhe was\n\nקום / קָאֵם[76]\nקם/עומד\nto stand\n\nעלל[77]\nבָּא אֶל\nto enter\n\nIdiom\n\nIdiom\n\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic example\n\nHebrew parallel\n\nEnglish translation \nof the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic example\n\nקָאֵים \n (qa'em)[78]\n\n-\n\n\"rising, standing, referring to\"[79]\n\nקָאֵים - קָא \n(qa)[80]\n\n-\n\n-[81]\n\nמַאי קָא מַשְׁמַע לַן \n(mai qa mashma lan)[82]\n\nמָה מַשְׁמִיעַ לָנּוּ \n(ma mashma lanu)\n\n\"What new point is he teaching us \"[83]\n\nמַאי קָאָמַר \n(mai qa'amar)[84]\n\nמָה הוּא אוֹמֵר \n(ma hu omer)\n\n\"What does he mean \"[85]\n\nתָּנוּ רַבָּנָן \n(tanu rabanan)[86]\n\nשָׁנוּ חֲכָמִים \n(shanu khakhamim)\n\n\"the rabbis taught\"[87]\n\nמְנָא הָנֵי מִילֵּי \n(mena hane mileji)[88]\n\nמִנַּיִין המִילִּים האֵלֶּה \n(minajin ha-milim ha-ele)\n\n\"What is the source\"[89]\n\nModern study\n\nThe language has received considerable scholarly attention, as shown in the bibliography below. However, the majority of those who are familiar with it, namely Orthodox Jewish students of Talmud, are given no systematic instruction in the language, and are expected to \"sink or swim\" in the course of their Talmudic studies, with the help of some informal pointers showing similarities and differences with Hebrew.[90]\n\nSee also\n\nJewish Palestinian Aramaic\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Jewish Babylonian Aramaic\". LINGUIST List. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 12 June 2025.\n\n^ Sokoloff 2003.\n\n^ Morag 1988.\n\n^ Morgenstern 2011.\n\n^ Bar-Asher Siegal 2013.\n\n^ Siegal, Elitzur A. Bar-Asher (2013). \"Reconsidering the Study of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Five Decades after E. Y. Kutscher and his Influential Methodology\". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. 163 (2). Harrassowitz Verlag: 346. doi:10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.163.2.0341. ISSN 0341-0137.\n\n^ Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 78.\n\n^ a b Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 79.\n\n^ a b c d e Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 99.\n\n^ a b c d e Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 100.\n\n^ Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 101.\n\n^ Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 82.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 90.\n\n^ Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, pp. 65, 66.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 66.\n\n^ Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 91.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 67.\n\n^ a b Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 92.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 90, 104.\n\n^ a b c d Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 95.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 80.\n\n^ a b Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 73.\n\n^ Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 72.\n\n^ Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 191.\n\n^ a b c Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 192.\n\n^ Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 91.\n\n^ a b Bar-Asher Siegal 2013, p. 194.\n\n^ Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, pp. 84, 92.\n\n^ Luzzatto & Krüger 1873, p. 92.\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 18: \"A survey of the aramaic binyanim\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 23: \"Talmud Bavli Aramaic\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 22: \"Past tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 123: \"Past tense: came\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 32.\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 33.\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 124: \"active participle with suffi\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 36: \"Future tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 25: \"Past tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 39: \"Future tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 23: \"Past tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 37: \"Future tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 26: \"Past tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 40: \"Future tense: banyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 24: \"Past tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 123 ff..\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 124: \"active participle with suffi\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 38: \"Future tense: binyan\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 125: \"Future tense: will bring\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 94: \"Past tense:was refuted/were refuted\"\n\n^ a b Frank 2011, pp. 231-232.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Frank 2011, p. 231.\n\n^ a b Frank 2011, p. 232.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 178: \"From where is the maxim that people say\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 233: \"...in the plural of masculine nouns ... construct forms such as מַלְכֵי\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, p. 233.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 178: \"From where do we derive these things\"\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 105ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 108ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 59ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 50ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 56ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 123ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 116ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 93.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 68ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 70ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 74.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 82ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 88ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, (Nr. 2 - Index).\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 64.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 74ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 111.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 114ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 126ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, 132ff.\n\n^ Frank 2011, pp. 49, (Nr. 26 - Index).\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 230.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 230: \"This participle is often used with a word that has a prepositional prefix - אֵי, to mean basing oneself upon or referring to.\"\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 229.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 229: \"A contraction of the participle קָאֵים (from the root קום) is often placed before another participle ... it has an emphatic effect that is difficult to translate into English.\"\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 153.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 153: \"What new point is he teaching us? This question points out a difficulty: Since the amora's halakha was already known to us from a mishna, a baraita, or the amora's own statement on another occasion - why did the amora present it again?\"\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 152.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 152: \"What does he mean? This question seeks a clarification of the meaning of a mishna, a baraitha, an amoraic statement, or a pasuk.\"\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 260.\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 260: \"the hakhamim taught. This expression usually introduces a baraitha that begins with an anonymous statement.\"\n\n^ Frank 2001, p. 178.\n\n^ Frank 2001, pp. 178: \"From where do we derive these things? What is the source? This question seeks a source for a statement in a mishna, in a baraitha, or by an amora.\"\n\n^ Bushinsky, J. (15 April 2005). \"The passion of Aramaic-Kurdish Jews brought Aramaic to Israel\". Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 16 August 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2023 - via Ekurd Daily.\n\nBibliography\n\nBar-Asher Siegal, Elitzur A. (2013). Introduction to the Grammar of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Münster: Ugarit. ISBN 978-3-86835-084-5.\n\nEpstein, J. N. (1960). Diqduq Aramit Bavlit [Grammar of Babylonian Aramaic] (in Hebrew).\n\nFrank, Yitzhak (2000). Grammar for Gemara: An Introduction to Babylonian Aramaic. Jerusalem: Ariel Institute. ISBN 0-87306-612-X.\n\nFrank, Yitzhak (2001). The Practical Talmud Dictionary. Jerusalem.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nFrank, Yitzhak (2011). Grammar for Gemara and targum onkelos: An Introduction to Aramaic. Jerusalem: Ariel Institute. ISBN 978-1-59826-466-1.\n\nJastrow, Marcus. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. ISBN 1-56563-860-3.\n\nKara, Yehiel (1983). Babylonian Aramaic in the Yemenite Manuscripts of the Talmud: Orthography, Phonology and Morphology of the Verb. Jerusalem.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nKlein, Hyman (1943). An Introduction to the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nKutscher, Eduard Yechezkel (1977). Ben-Hayyim, Z.; Dotan, A.; Sarfatti, G. (eds.). Hebrew and Aramaic Studies. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press / The Hebrew University.\n\nLevias, Caspar (1900). A grammar of the Aramaic idiom contained in the Babylonian Talmud. (reprints available)\n\nMarcus, David. A Manual of Babylonian Jewish Aramaic. University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-1363-8.\n\nMargolis, Max Leopold (1910). A manual of the Aramaic language of the Babylonian Talmud; grammar chrestomathy & glossaries. Munich.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) (reprints available)\n\nMelamed, Ezra Zion (2005). Dictionary of the Babylonian Talmud. Feldheim. ISBN 1-58330-776-1.\n\nMorag, Shelomo (1988). Babylonian Aramaic: The Yemenite Tradition - Historical Aspects and Transmission Phonology: the Verbal System (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute. ISBN 0-8018-7233-2.\n\nMorgenstern, Matthew (2011). Studies in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Based Upon Early Eastern Manuscripts. Harvard Semitic Studies. ISBN 978-1-57506-938-8.\n\nSokoloff, Michael (2003). A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods. Bar Ilan and Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-7233-2.\n\nLuzzatto, Samuel David; Krüger, Marcus Salomon (1873). Grammatik der biblisch-chaldäischen Sprache und des Idioms des Thalmud Babli: ein Grundriss (in German). Breslau: Schletter."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jewish-babylonian-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6664}, {"slug": "reference-tell-taya", "title": "Tell Taya", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell Taya is an archaeological site at a tell (hill city) in Nineveh Province (Iraq). It was occupied from the third to the first millennia BC. Tell Taya lies about 20 kilometres (12 mi) southwest of Mosul and Nineveh.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Taya\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n36°19′57.34″N 42°29′37.36″E / 36.3325944°N 42.4937111°E / 36.3325944; 42.4937111\n\nTypesettlement\n\nPeriodsEarly Dynastic, Akkadian, Old Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian\n\nLocationNineveh Province, Iraq\n\nSite notes\n\nArea20 km2 (7.7 sq mi)\n\nExcavation dates1967-1969, 1972-1973\n\nArchaeologistsJ.E. Reade\n\nTell Taya is an archaeological site at a tell (hill city) in Nineveh Province (Iraq). It was occupied from the third to the first millennia BC. Tell Taya lies about 20 kilometres (12 mi) southwest of Mosul and Nineveh. \n\nThe location controls a formerly rich agricultural area and an important trade route. The site of Tell al-Rimah is a few miles away. \n\nArchaeology\n\nThe site covers about 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi) and the central tell is around 9 metres (30 ft) high. The town was surrounded by a fortification wall, though not a large one. It was first recorded by Seton Lloyd (as Tall Teir) in 1938 during his survey of the region.[1] Tell Taya was excavated by a team from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq led by J. E. Reade in 1967-1969 and 1972-1973. There were nine levels of occupation on the main mound, with \"each ended in a destruction, desertion, or fundamental change of plan\". Numerous stone structures were investigated, and pottery, along with two cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, and a Sassanian era stamp seal, were recovered in the 9 layers. Both simple administrative tablets, found in the Old Babylonian level, were sealed \"Hasidim, son of Anzanum, servant of Samsi-Adad\". Hasidim is known to have been an official of the Amorite ruler Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1808-1776 BC). One of the cylinder seals, made of terracotta, was quite unusual, containing only cuneiform writing which has not yet been deciphered.[2][3][4] As part of the excavation four samples were radiocarbon dated, one from the Old Babylonian period (Level III), one the Ur III period (Level IV) and two from the Akkadian period (Level VIII).[5] Among the faunal finds were ten cucurbit seeds (probably melon) found in the Old Akkadian level. This is the earliest example in the region.[6] \n\nHistory\n\nWhile some Ubaid and Uruk sherds were found, the site was properly occupied on and off during the second half of the 3rd millennium, with some re-use in the Old Babylonian period and the Neo-Assyrian period. There is some evidence of Early Dynastic occupation, but major building at Tell Taya began around the time that the Akkadian Empire emerges.[2] \n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nTell al-Rimah\n\nTell Khoshi\n\nReferences\n\n^ Lloyd, Seton (1938). \"Some Ancient Sites in the Sinjar District\". Iraq. 5: 123-142. doi:10.2307/4241629. JSTOR 4241629.\n\n^ a b Reade, J. E. (1968). \"Tell Taya (1967): Summary Report\". Iraq. 30 (2): 234-264. doi:10.2307/4199854. JSTOR 4199854.\n\n^ Reade, J. E. (1971). \"Tell Taya (1968-9): Summary Report\". Iraq. 33 (2): 87-100. doi:10.2307/4199917. JSTOR 4199917.\n\n^ Reade, J. E. (1973). \"Tell Taya (1972-73): Summary Report\". Iraq. 35 (2): 155-187. doi:10.2307/4199963. JSTOR 4199963.\n\n^ [1]Burleigh, Richard, Janet Ambers, and Keith Matthews \"British Museum natural radiocarbon measurements XVII\", Radiocarbon 26.1, pp. 59-74, 1984\n\n^ Muthukumaran, Sureshkumar, \"Familiar but Foreign: Eastern Cucurbits\", in The Tropical Turn: Agricultural Innovation in the Ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 148-172, 2023\n\nFurther reading\n\nJohn Curtis, Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery, the Work of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1932-1982, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1982, ISBN 0-903472-05-8\n\nReade, J. E., \"Tell Taya\", pp. 72-78 in Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery. The work of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq 1932-1982, ed. J. Curtis.. London: Stephen Austin and Sons Ltd., 1982\n\nDavid Oates, The Excavations at Tell al Rimah: 1964, Iraq, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 62-68, 1965\n\nWaines, J. G., \" Plant remains from Tell Taya.\", Iraq 35, pp. 185-187, 1973\n\nExternal links\n\nTortoise figurine from Tell Taya - Metropolitan Museum\n\nMap Showing Location of Tell Taya"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-taya"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 666}, {"slug": "reference-xi-an-stele", "title": "Xi'an Stele", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Xi'an Stele or the Jingjiao Stele (Chinese: 景教碑; pinyin: Jǐngjiào bēi; lit. 'Nestorian Stele') is a Tang Chinese stele erected in 781 that documents 150 years of early Christianity in China.[1] It is a limestone block 279 centimetres (9 ft 2 in) high with text in both...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Xi'an Stele\n\nThe stele entitled 大秦景教流行中國碑 was erected in China in 781.\n\nTraditional Chinese大秦景教流行中國碑\n\nSimplified Chinese大秦景教流行中国碑\n\nLiteral meaningStele to the Propagation in China of the Jingjiao (Luminous Religion) of Daqin (Roman Empire)\n\nTranscriptions\n\nStandard Mandarin\n\nHanyu PinyinDàqín Jǐngjiào Liúxíng Zhōngguó Bēi\n\nYue: Cantonese\n\nJyutpingDaai6 Ceon4 Ging2 Gaau3 Lau4 Hang4 Zung1 Gwok3 Bei1\n\nMiddle Chinese\n\nMiddle Chinese/dɑiH.d͡ziɪn kˠiæŋX.kˠauH lɨu.ɦˠæŋ ʈɨuŋ.kwək̚ pˠiᴇ/\n\nAlternative Chinese name\n\nChinese景教碑\n\nLiteral meaningLuminous Religion Stele\n\nTranscriptions\n\nStandard Mandarin\n\nHanyu PinyinJǐngjiào Bēi\n\nYue: Cantonese\n\nJyutpingGing2 Gaau3 Bei1\n\nThe Xi'an Stele or the Jingjiao Stele (Chinese: 景教碑; pinyin: Jǐngjiào bēi; lit. 'Nestorian Stele') is a Tang Chinese stele erected in 781 that documents 150 years of early Christianity in China.[1] It is a limestone block 279 centimetres (9 ft 2 in) high with text in both Chinese and Syriac describing the existence of Christian communities in several cities in northern China. It reveals that the initial Church of the East had met recognition by the Tang Emperor Taizong, due to efforts of the Christian missionary Alopen in 635.[2] According to the stele, Alopen and his fellow Syriac missionaries came to China from Daqin (the Eastern Roman Empire) in the ninth year of Emperor Taizong (Tai Tsung) (635), bringing sacred books and images.[3] The Church of the East monk Adam (Jingjing in Chinese) composed the text on the stele.[4] Buried in 845, probably during the Huichang persecution of Buddhism,[5] the stele was not rediscovered until 1625. It is now in the Stele Forest in Xi'an.\n\nDiscovery\n\nThe stele is thought to have been buried in 845, during the Huichang persecution, which also affected Christians.[6]\n\nThe stele was unearthed in the late Ming dynasty (between 1621 and 1625)[7] beside Chongren Temple (崇仁寺) outside of Xi'an.[8]\nAccording to the account by the Jesuit Alvaro Semedo, the workers who found the stele immediately reported the find to the governor, who soon visited the monument, and had it installed on a pedestal under a protective roof, requesting the nearby Buddhist monastery to care for it.[9]\n\nThe newly discovered stele attracted attention of local intellectuals. It was Zhang Gengyou (Wade-Giles: Chang Keng-yu) who first identified the text as Christian in content. Zhang, who had been aware of Christianity through Matteo Ricci, and who himself may have been Christian, sent a copy of the stele's Chinese text to his Christian friend, Leon Li Zhizao in Hangzhou, who in his turn published the text and told the locally based Jesuits about it.[9]\n\nAlvaro Semedo was the first European to visit the stele (some time between 1625 and 1628).[10] Nicolas Trigault's Latin translation of the monument's inscription soon made its way in Europe, and was apparently first published in a French translation, in 1628. Portuguese and Italian translations, and a Latin re-translation, were soon published as well. Semedo's account of the monument's discovery was published in 1641, in his Imperio de la China.[11]\n\nEarly Jesuits attempted to claim that the stele was erected by a historical community of Roman Catholics in China, called Nestorianism a heresy, and claimed that it was Catholics who first brought Christianity to China. But later historians and writers admitted that it was indeed from the Church of the East and not the Roman Catholic Church.[12]\n\nThe first publication of the original Chinese and Syriac text of the inscription in Europe is attributed to Athanasius Kircher. China Illustrata edited by Kircher (1667) included a reproduction of the original inscription in Chinese characters,[13]\nromanization of the text, and a Latin translation.[14] This was perhaps the first sizeable Chinese text made available in its original form to the European public. A sophisticated romanization system, reflecting Chinese tones, used to transcribe the text, was the one developed earlier by Matteo Ricci's collaborator Lazzaro Cattaneo (1560-1640).\n\nThe work of the transcription and translation was carried out by Michał Boym and two young Chinese Christians who visited Rome in the 1650s and 1660s: Boym's traveling companion Andreas Zheng (郑安德勒) and, later, another person who signed in Latin as \"Matthaeus Sina\". D.E. Mungello suggests that Matthaeus Sina may have been the person who traveled overland from China to Europe with Johann Grueber.[15]\n\nContent\n\nThe heading on the stone, Chinese for Memorial of the Propagation in China of the Luminous Religion from Daqin (大秦景教流行中國碑, abbreviated 大秦景教碑). An even more abbreviated version of the title, 景教碑 (Jǐngjiào bēi, \"The Stele of the Luminous Religion\"), in its Wade-Giles form, Ching-chiao-pei or Chingchiaopei, was used by some Western writers to refer to the stele as well.[19]\n\nThe name of the stele can also be translated as A Monument Commemorating the Propagation of the Ta-Chin Luminous Religion in the Middle Kingdom (the church referred to itself as \"The Luminous Religion of Daqin\", Daqin being the Chinese language term for the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD,[20] and in later eras also used to refer to the Syriac Christian churches).[21]\n\nAuthorship\n\nThe stele was erected on February 4, 781 (\"Jianzhong 2, Taicu month, 7th day\" in the inscription), at the imperial capital city of Chang'an (modern-day Xi'an), or at nearby Zhouzhi County. The calligraphy was by Lü Xiuyan (呂秀巖), and the content was composed by the Church of the East monk Jingjing in the four- and six-character euphemistic style (大秦寺僧㬌淨述, \"Related by Jingjing, monk of the Daqin Temple\"). A gloss in Syriac identifies Jingjing with \"Adam, priest, chorepiscopus and papash of Sinistan\" (ܐܕܡ ܩܫܝܫܐ ܘܟܘܪܐܦܝܣܩܘܦܐ ܘܦܐܦܫܝ ܕܨܝܢܝܣܬܐܢ Adam qshisha w'kurapisqupa w'papash d'Sinistan). Although the term papash (literally \"pope\") is unusual and the normal Syriac name for China is Beth Sinaye, not Sinistan, there is no reason to doubt that Adam was the metropolitan of the Church of the East ecclesiastical province of Beth Sinaye, created a half-century earlier during the reign of Patriarch Sliba-zkha (714-28). A Syriac dating formula refers to the Church of the East patriarch Hnanishoʿ II (773-780), news of whose death several months earlier had evidently not yet reached the Church of the East of Chang'an. In fact, the reigning Church of the East patriarch in January 781 was Timothy I (780-823), who had been consecrated in Baghdad on 7 May 780.[22] The names of several higher clergy (one bishop, two chorepiscopi and two archdeacons) and around seventy monks or priests are listed.[23] The names of the higher clergy appear on the front of the stone while those of the priests and monks are inscribed in rows along the narrow sides of the stone, in both Syriac and Chinese. In some cases, the Chinese names are phonetically close to the Syriac originals, but in many other cases, they bear little resemblance to them. Some of the Church of the East monks had distinctive Persian names (such as Isadsafas, Gushnasap), suggesting that they might have come from Fars or elsewhere in Persia, but most of them had common Christian names or the kind of compound Syriac name (such as ʿAbdishoʿ, 'servant of Jesus') much in vogue among all Church of the East Christians. In such cases, it is impossible to guess at their place of origin.\n\nContent\n\nOn top of the tablet, there is a cross. Below this headpiece is a long Chinese inscription, consisting of around 1,900 Chinese characters, sometimes glossed in Syriac (several sentences amounting to about 50 Syriac words). Referring to God using the title 真主, Pinyin: Zhēnzhǔ (literally \"Veritable Majesty\" or \"True Lord\"), the text refers to Genesis, the cross, and baptism. It also pays tribute to missionaries and benefactors of the church, who are known to have arrived in China by 640. The text contains the name of an early missionary, Alopen. The tablet describes the \"Illustrious Religion\" and emphasizes the Trinity and the Incarnation, but there is nothing about Christ's crucifixion or resurrection. Other Chinese elements referred to include a wooden bell, beard, tonsure, and renunciation.[1] The Syriac proper names for God, Christ and Satan (Allaha, Mshiha and Satana) were rendered phonetically into Chinese. Chinese transliterations were also made of one or two words of Sanskrit origin such as Sphatica and Dasa. There is also a Persian word denoting Sunday.[24]\n\nYazedbuzid (Yisi in Chinese) helped the Tang dynasty general Guo Ziyi militarily crush the Sogdian-Turk led An Lushan rebellion, with Yisi personally acting as a military commander and Yisi and the Church of the East were rewarded by the Tang dynasty with titles and positions as described in the Xi'an Stele.[25][26][27][28][29]\n\nDebate\n\nThe Xi'an Stele attracted the attention of some anti-Christian, Protestant anti-Catholic, or Catholic anti-Jesuit groups in the 17th century, who argued that the stone was a fake or that the inscriptions had been modified by the Jesuits who served in the Ming Court. The three most prominent early skeptics were the German-Dutch Presbyterian scholar Georg Horn (1620-1670) (De originibus Americanis, 1652), the German historian Gottlieb Spitzel (1639-1691) (De re literaria Sinensium commentarius, 1660), and the Dominican missionary Domingo Navarrete (1618-1686) (Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China, 1676). Later, Navarrete's point of view was taken up by French Jansenists and Voltaire.[30]\n\nBy the 19th century, the debate had become less sectarian and more scholarly. Notable skeptics included Karl Friedrich Neumann, Stanislas Julien, Edward E. Salisbury and Charles Wall.[11][31] Ernest Renan initially had \"grave doubts\", but eventually changed his mind in the light of later scholarship, in favor of the stele's genuineness.[32] The defenders included some non-Jesuit scholars, such as Alexander Wylie, James Legge, and Jean-Pierre-Guillaume Pauthier, although the most substantive work in defense of the stele's authenticity - the three-volume La stèle chrétienne de Si-ngan-fou (1895 to 1902) was authored by the Jesuit scholar Henri Havret (1848-1902).[11]\n\nPaul Pelliot (1878-1945) did an extensive amount of research on the stele, which, however, was only published posthumously, in 1984 (a second edition, revised by Forte was then published in 1996).[33][34] His and Havret's works are still regarded as the two \"standard books\" on the subject.[35]\n\nModern location, and replicas\n\nThe Xi'an Stele, on its turtle (Bixi) pedestal. Left: 1907 photograph by Frits Holm, without the brick cladding/pavilion seen in earlier pictures and shortly before it was moved to the Beilin Museum. Right: The Xi'an Stele in Beilin Museum in 2026.\n\nSince the late 19th century a number of European scholars opined in favor of somehow getting the stele out of China and into the British Museum or some other \"suitable\" location (e.g., Frederic H. Balfour in his letter published in The Times in early 1886[36]). The Danish scholar and adventurer Frits Holm came to Xi'an in 1907 planning to take the monument for himself to Europe.[37] Local authorities prevented him and moved the stele, complete with its tortoise, from its location near Chongren Temple[8][38] to Xi'an's Beilin Museum (Forest of Steles Museum).[37][39]\n\nHolm had an exact copy of the stele made for him and had the replica stele shipped to New York, planning to sell it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum's director Caspar Purdon Clarke, however, was less than enthusiastic about purchasing \"so large a stone ... of no artistic value\". Nonetheless, the replica stele was exhibited in the museum (\"on loan\" from Mr. Holm) for about 10 years.[37] Eventually, in 1917 some Mrs. George Leary, a wealthy New Yorker, purchased the replica stele from Holm and sent it to Rome, as a gift to the Pope.[40][41] Another full-sized replica cast from that replica, gifted by Mrs. George Leary in 1919, is on permanent display in the Bunn Intercultural Center on the campus of Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.).\n\nThe original Xi'an Stele remains in the Forest of Steles. It is now exhibited on the museum's B2 floor, in a prominent display. When the official list of Chinese cultural relics forbidden to be exhibited abroad was promulgated in 2003, the stele was included into this short list of particularly valuable and important items.\n\nOther copies of the stele and its tortoise can be found near Xi'an Daqin Pagoda,[42] on Mount Kōya in Japan,[43] and, in Tianhe Church, Guangzhou.[44]\n\nOther early Christian monuments in China\n\nNumerous Christian gravestones have also been found in China in the Xinjiang region, Quanzhou and elsewhere from a somewhat later period. There are also two much later stelae (from 960 and 1365) presenting a curious mix of Christian and Buddhist aspects, which are preserved at the site of the former Monastery of the Cross in the Fangshan District, near Beijing.[46]\n\nIn 2006, a mortuary stone pillar with Church of the East inscriptions was discovered in Luoyang, the Nestorian pillar of Luoyang. Erected and engraved in 815, the inscriptions give partial details surrounding the background of a Sogdian Christian community living in Luoyang.[47]\n\nIn popular culture\n\nIn the 20th episode of The Longest Day in Chang'an, the Monk Jingde (Volker Helfrich) hands a missionary leaflet to Tan Qi (Rayzha Alimjan), which contains text taken from the inscription of the Xi'an Stele.\n\nSee also\n\nChurch of the East in China\n\nJingjiao Documents\n\nAdam (Jingjing)\n\nNestorian pillar of Luoyang\n\nMogao Christian painting\n\nMurals from the Christian temple at Qocho\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Hill, Henry, ed. (1988). Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches. Toronto, Canada. pp. 108 109.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Jenkins, Peter (2008). The Lost History of Christianity: the Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia - and How It Died. New York: Harper Collins. pp. 65. ISBN 978-0-06-147280-0.\n\n^ Ding, Wang (2006). \"Remnants of Christianity from Chinese Central Asia in Medieval ages\". In Malek, Roman; Hofrichter, Peter (eds.). Jingjiao: the Church of the East in China and Central Asia. Steyler Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH. ISBN 978-3-8050-0534-0.\n\n^ Godwin, R. Todd (2018). Persian Christians at the Chinese Court: The Xi'an Stele and the Early Medieval Church of the East. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-78673-316-0.\n\n^ McGrath, Anastasia (2021-02-10). \"China's Buried Christian History\". SAPIENTIA. Fordham University. Retrieved 2023-03-02.\n\n^ Mungello, David E. (1989). Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. University of Hawaii Press. p. 165. ISBN 0-8248-1219-0.\n\n^ Ma, Tianji (2025-03-07). \"Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China, written by Glen L. Thompson\". International Journal of Asian Christianity. 8 (1): 138-139. doi:10.1163/25424246-08010009. ISSN 2542-4238. Furthermore, the precise year of the Stele's discovery remains a subject of scholarly debate. The majority of researchers situate this event between 1621 and 1625, based on their respective analyses.\n\n^ a b Saeki, P.Y. (1951). Nestorian Documents and Relics in China (2nd ed.). Tokyo: Maruzen.\n\n^ a b Mungello, p. 168\n\n^ Mungello (p. 168), following Legge, is inclined to date Semedo's visit to Xi'an to 1628, but also mentions that some researchers interpret Semedo's account as to mean a 1625 visit.\n\n^ a b c Mungello, p. 169\n\n^ The Chinese repository, Volume 13. VICTORIA, HONGKONG: Printed for the proprietors. 1844. p. 472. Retrieved 2011-05-08.(Original from Harvard University)\n\n^ Reproduction of the original Chinese and Syriac text in Kircher's China Illustrata Archived 2010-07-30 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ China monumentis: qua sacris quà profanis, ..., pp. 13-28. An English translation of Kircher's work can be found as an \"Appendix\" in:\nJohan Nieuhof, An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China : delivered by their excellencies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking wherein the cities, towns, villages, ports, rivers, &c. in their passages from Canton to Peking are ingeniously described by John Nieuhoff; also an epistle of Father John Adams, their antagonist, concerning the whole negotiation; with an appendix of several remarks taken out of Father Athanasius Kircher; Englished and set forth with their several sculptures by John Ogilby (1673); the relevant chapters appear there as \"[Kircher Appendix] Chap. 2 and 3\", pp. 323-339.\n\n^ Mungello, p. 167\n\n^ Tang, Li; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2013). From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 131. ISBN 978-3-643-90329-7.\n\n^ Holm, Frits Vilhelm. \"Translation of the Nestorian Inscription\". The Nestorian Monument: An Ancient Record of Christianity in China.\n\n^ WILMSHURST, DAVID. A MONUMENT TO THE SPREAD OF THE SYRIAN BRILLIANT TEACHING IN CHINA (PDF). p. 9.\n\n^ Such as Holm 2001\n\n^ Hill, John E. (2004). \"The Kingdom of Da Qin\". The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu (2nd ed.). Retrieved 2008-11-30.\n\n^ Foster, John (1939). The Church in T'ang Dynasty. Great Britain: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. p. 123.\n\n^ Elijah of Nisibis, Chronography (ed. Brooks), i. 32 and 87\n\n^ Stewart, John (1928). Nestorian missionary enterprise, the story of a church on fire. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark., p. 183.\n\n^ Saeki, pp. 14-15\n\n^ Johnson, Scott Fitzgerald (26 May 2017). \"Silk Road Christians and the Translation of Culture in Tang China\". Studies in Church History. 53. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15-38. doi:10.1017/stc.2016.3. S2CID 164239427.\n\n^ Deeg, Max (2013). \"A Belligerent Priest - Yisi and his Political Context\". In Tang, Li; Winkler, Dietmar W. (eds.). From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (illustrated ed.). LIT Verlag Münster. p. 113. ISBN 978-3-643-90329-7.\n\n^ Godwin, R. Todd (2018). Persian Christians at the Chinese Court: The Xi'an Stele and the Early Medieval Church of the East. Library of Medieval Studies. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78672-316-1.\n\n^ Chin, Ken-pa (2019). \"Jingjiao under the Lenses of Chinese Political Theology\". Religions. 10 (10): 551. doi:10.3390/rel10100551.\n\n^ LIPPIELLO, TIZIANA (2017). \"On the Difficult Practice of the Mean in Ordinary Life Teachings from the Zhongyong\". In Hoster, Barbara; Kuhlmann, Dirk; Wesolowski, Zbigniew (eds.). Rooted in Hope: China - Religion - Christianity Vol 1: Festschrift in Honor of Roman Malek S.V.D. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-67277-1.\n\n^ Mungello, p. 170-171\n\n^ Wall, Charles (1840). An examination of the ancient orthography of the Jews, and of the original state of the text of the Hebrew Bible. Whittaker and Co. pp. 159-245.\n\n^ Keevak 2008, p. 103\n\n^ \"Sinologists: Paul Pelliot\". Archived from the original on 2012-03-30. Retrieved 2009-11-21.\n\n^ Paul Pelliott, \"L'inscription nestorienne de Si-ngan-fou\", ed. avec supléments par Antonino Forte, Kyoto et Paris, 1996. ISBN 4-900793-12-4\n\n^ Keevak 2008, p. 4\n\n^ Henri Havret (1895), p.4\n\n^ a b c Keevak 2008, pp. 117-121. Holm's original report can be found in Carus, Wylie & Holm 1909, and also in more popular form in Holm 2001\n\n^ Keevak 2008, p. 27\n\n^ See modern photos of the stele on Flickr.com, complete with the same tortoise\n\n^ NEW CAPTAIN ON ST. LOUIS.; Hartley, Young American Line Commander, Praised for Handling Ship. The New York Times, January 29, 1917\n\n^ Holm, Frits (November 1916). \"A JAPANESE AUTHOR ON THE CHINESE NESTORIAN MONUMENT\" (PDF). The Open Court. pp. 686-694. Retrieved March 23, 2023.\n\n^ Photos of the replica stele outside of the Daqin Pagoda\n\n^ Keevak 2008, p. 125\n\n^ 广州市基督教两会仿制景教碑立于天河堂 盼广州教会传承景教以来众圣徒\"道成肉身\"的美好见证 [Guangzhou CCC&TSPM Copied Jingjiao Stele in Tianhe Church, Hoping to Pass Good Witnesses of \"Incarnation\" Since Jingjiao Saints] (in Chinese (China)). 福音时报 (Gospel Times). 2016-03-10. Archived from the original on 2018-08-28. Retrieved 2018-08-28.\n\n^ Manichaean and Christian Remains in Zayton (Quanzhou, South China)\n\n^ Moule, A. C. (1930). Christians in China before the year 1550. London: SPCK. pp. 86-89.\n\n^ Nicolini-Zani, Matteo (2009). \"The Tang Christian Pillar From Luoyang and its Jingjiao Inscription: A Preliminary Survey\". Monumenta Serica. 57 (1): 99-140. doi:10.1179/mon.2009.57.1.003. ISSN 0254-9948. JSTOR 40727622. S2CID 190861764.\n\nFurther reading\n\nHenri Havret sj, La stèle chrétienne de Si Ngan-fou, Parts 1-3. Full text (was) available at Gallica:\n\nPart 1 (1895)\n\nPart 2 (1897)\n\nPart 3 (1902)\n\nSome of the volumes can also be found on archive.org.\n\nCarus, Paul; Wylie, Alexander; Holm, Frits (1909), The Nestorian Monument: An Ancient Record of Christianity in China, with Special Reference to the expedition of Frits V. Holm..., The Open court publishing company\n\nHolm, Frits (2001), My Nestorian Adventure in China: A Popular Account of the Holm-Nestorian Expedition to Sian-Fu and Its Results, Volume 6 of Georgias reprint series, Gorgias Press LLC, ISBN 0-9713097-6-0. Originally published by: Hutchinson & Co, London, 1924.\n\nKeevak, Michael (2008), The Story of a Stele: China's Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625-1916, ISBN 978-962-209-895-4\n\nBalmont, Alexis (2025), Le christianisme chinois du haut Moyen Âge. Recherche historique, philologique et théologique sur les textes chrétiens chinois du VIIe au Xe siècle., ISBN 978-2204168694. Published by Éditions du Cerf, Paris, includes a critical edition of the Chinese and Syriac text, introduced and annotated, together with a French translation.\n\nExternal links\n\nStele text in English from researchers at Fordham University; actually 1855 translation of A. Wiley\n\nLarge photograph of a rubbing of the stele from University of Birmingham\n\n\"The Jesus Messiah of Xi'an\" - translation and exposition of doctrinal passages in the stele text. From B. Vermander (ed.), Le Christ Chinois, Héritages et espérance (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1998).\n\nPhotos of a replica of the Nestorian Stele in Xi-an; photos are of a replica located in Japan Japanese text.\n\nSIR E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, KT., THE MONKS OF KUBLAl KHAN EMPEROR OF CHINA (1928) - contains reproductions of early photographs of the stele where it stood in the early 20th century (from Havret etc.)\n\nNestorian Stele - Inscription: A slice of Christian history from China. Australian Museum.\n\n34°10′N 108°34′E / 34.16°N 108.56°E / 34.16; 108.56"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-xi-an-stele"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3579}, {"slug": "reference-lachish-reliefs", "title": "Lachish reliefs", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Lachish reliefs are a set of Assyrian palace reliefs narrating the story of the Assyrian victory over the kingdom of Judah during the siege of Lachish in 701 BC. Carved between 700 and 681 BC, as a decoration of the South-West Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh (in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Lachish reliefs\n\nThe single inscription which identifies the location depicted in the reliefs reads: \"Sennacherib, the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment, before (or at the entrance of) the city of Lachish (Lakhisha). I give permission for its slaughter\". Identification number: BM 124911\n\nHeight2.5 m (8 ft 2 in)[1]\n\nWidth18 m (59 ft)[2]\n\nCreatedc. 681 BC\n\nDiscoveredc. 1847 (1847)\nMosul, Nineveh, Ottoman Iraq\n\nDiscovered byAusten Layard\n\nPresent locationLondon, United Kingdom\n\nThe Lachish reliefs are a set of Assyrian palace reliefs narrating the story of the Assyrian victory over the kingdom of Judah during the siege of Lachish in 701 BC. Carved between 700 and 681 BC, as a decoration of the South-West Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh (in modern Iraq), the relief is today in the British Museum in London,[3] and was included as item 21 in the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects by the museum's former director Neil MacGregor. The palace room, where the relief was discovered in 1845-1847, was fully covered with the \"Lachish relief\" and was 12 metres (39 ft) wide and 5.10 metres (16.7 ft) long.[4] The Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal sequence was found in the same palace.\n\nIdentification\n\nThe reliefs were discovered by the then 28-year-old Austen Henry Layard during excavations in 1845-1847. Commenting on the inscription above the seated figure of Sennacherib, Layard wrote:\n\nHere, therefore, was the actual picture of the taking of Lachish, the city as we know from the Bible, besieged by Sennacherib, when he sent his generals to demand tribute of Hezekiah, and which he had captured before their return; evidence of the most remarkable character to confirm the interpretation of the inscriptions, and to identify the king who caused them to be engraved with the Sennacherib of Scripture. This highly interesting series of bas-reliefs contained, moreover, an undoubted representation of a king, a city, and a people, with whose names we are acquainted, and of an event described in Holy Writ.\n\n- Austen Henry Layard, Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 1853,[5]\n\nLayard noted in his work that Henry Rawlinson, the \"Father of Assyriology\", disagreed with the identification as the biblical Lachish.[6] Rawlinson had written in 1852: \"At the same time, it is hardly possible that the capture of Lakitsu, which is figured in the most elaborate manner on the walls of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, can refer to this city, as the two names are written quite differently in the Cuneiform characters.\"[7] Layard and others refuted Rawlinson's identification, and the identification as the biblical Lachish prevailed.\n\nIsraeli researcher Yigael Yadin showed that the images of the walls and town depicted fit with the uncovered walls and town as seen from a certain point near the Tel Lachish digs. The descriptions shown in the reliefs were compared with those written about Lachish in the bible and found to be similar as well.[8]\n\nDescription\n\nThe Lachish reliefs represent \"the most elaborate set of reliefs depicting a siege of a city\" produced by any Assyrian monarch.[9] According to archaeologist David Ussishkin, while the artistic style follows the schematic traditions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the reliefs provide an uncharacteristically detailed view of the city's fortification and the exile of its inhabitants.[10]\n\nThe narrative structure of the relief series is divided into two distinct temporal phases that meet at Lachish's central city gate: the military assault is depicted on the left, while the right side shows the removal of booty and the deportation of Lachish's residents.[11] The artist utilized a specific spatial hierarchy where the city structures and siege ramp are rendered on a smaller scale compared to the human figures on either side, thereby focusing the viewer's attention on the fate of the people.[12]\n\nWithin the central siege scene, three prisoners are shown impaled naked on stakes at the bottom of the roadway, a location chosen to ensure all departing exiles witnessed this brutal display of Assyrian power.[13] A separate group of two men is shown being tortured. One is being stabbed by an Assyrian soldier, while the other two are being flayed alive. One of the impaled victims is distinguished by the tallest stake and the presence of a helmet plume, which likely identifies him as the military governor or commander of Lachish.[14]\n\nThe reliefs make a clear iconographic distinction between the general population, shown as families with their belongings, and those who are singled out for torture and execution, perhaps for taking an important role in the resistance.[15] The deported inhabitants are depicted in a continuous procession that descends from the city gate and winds along the base of the siege ramp. This line of exiles eventually reaches the right-hand side of the relief, where it joins a procession of soldiers presenting booty before Sennacherib, who is shown enthroned on a hill.[9]\n\nA procession of nine Assyrian soldiers is shown carrying away items that served as symbols of the kingdom of Judah, including the governor's throne, his official chariot, and a ceremonial mace.[16] These objects, including large ceremonial chalices, likely originated from the city's palace-fort rather than a religious sanctuary, as no archaeological evidence for a central shrine has been found at the site.[17] The imagery of impalement and the seizure of state symbols served to communicate the total collapse of the independence of the kingdom of Judah.[18]\n\nInterpretation\n\nLachish\n\nThe events surrounding the conquest of Lachish are recorded in an unparalleled number of sources for the 8th century BC; in the Hebrew Bible, the Lachish reliefs, Assyrian cuneiform prisms and in the archeological excavations at Lachish.[19] Sennacherib's conquests of Judean cities, without the capital Jerusalem, are mentioned in the Bible, the Book of Kings, Book of Chronicles, and in the Book of Isaiah.\n\n\"Later, when Sennacherib king of Assyria and all his forces were laying siege to Lachish, he sent his officers to Jerusalem with this message for Hezekiah king of Judah and for all the people of Judah who were there.\" - (2 Chronicles 32:9)\n\n\"Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.\" - (Isaiah 36:1-2)\n\nIn his annals, Sennacherib claimed that he destroyed 46 fortified cities and towns of Judah and took 200,150 captives, although the number of captives is seen today widely as exaggeration. He also claimed that he besieged King Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem \"like a bird in a cage.\"[20]\n\nJerusalem\n\nGrabbe and other scholars today consider the city pictured on the Lachish relief to be Jerusalem. They point out that since Jerusalem was not captured by the Assyrians, the artist from Nineveh who carved the relief \"added simply Lakisu instead of \"Ursalimmu\"\" (Jerusalem).[21] Other authors point out that the siege of Jerusalem is not depicted on the Lachish relief because it resulted in failure and the relief was seen as a way of compensation for not conquering Jerusalem.[22] The size of the relief, its position in the central room of his palace, and the fact that the Lachish relief constitutes the only battle scene created by Sennacherib, indicate the importance he gave to this successful siege and presumed victory over Judah.[23][24]\n\nSee also\n\nLachish ewer\n\nLachish letters\n\nSennacherib's Annals\n\nList of artifacts significant to the Bible\n\nReferences\n\n^ Ussishkin, David, The Lachish Reliefs and the City of Lachish; Israel Exploration Journal : Vol. 30; No. 3/4 (1980) pp. 174-195\n\n^ Ussishkin, David, Answers At Lachish; Biblical Archaeological Review; Nov/Dec 1979, Vol. 5; No. 6\n\n^ \"Room 10b: Assyria: Siege of Lachish\". British Museum. Retrieved 2012-10-03.\n\n^ \"The Lachish Reliefs and the City of Lachish\" (PDF). Ericlevy.com. Retrieved 2012-10-03.\n\n^ Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p128\n\n^ Layard, footnote to page 129\n\n^ Outline of the history of Assyria: as collected from the inscriptions discovered by Austin Henry Layard, Esq. in the ruins of Nineveh (1852), p23\n\n^ How to capture a city Professor Israel Efal, Library of the Center for Educational Technology (Hebrew)\n\n^ a b Ussishkin, 2003, p. 207\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, p. 208\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, p. 207\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, p. 207-208\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, pp. 209-210, 212\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, pp. 211, 213-214\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, pp. 208, 210\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, pp. 214-215\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, pp. 214-216\n\n^ Ussishkin, 2003, p. 214\n\n^ \"Jewish History\". Cojs.org. Archived from the original on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2012-10-03.\n\n^ Evans 2009, p. 3-4.\n\n^ Grabbe 2003, p. 293.\n\n^ Grabbe 2003, p. 295.\n\n^ Finkelstein 2007, p. 173.\n\n^ Thomas Nelson (1999-02-15). The King James Study Bible, KJV. Thomas Nelson. ISBN 9781418589141. Retrieved 2012-10-03.\n\nBibliography\n\nGrabbe, Lester (2003). Like a Bird in a Cage: The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 9780826462152.\n\nEvans, Paul (2009). The Invasion of Sennacherib in the Book of Kings: A Source-Critical and Rhetorical Study of 2 Kings 18-19. IDC Publisher. ISBN 978-9004175969.\n\nFinkelstein, Israel (2007). The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel: Invited Lectures Delivered at the Sixth Biennial Colloquium. Society of Biblical literature. ISBN 9781589832770.\n\nNelson, Thomas (1999). The King James study Bible. Liberty University. ISBN 9781418589141.\n\nUssishkin, David (2003). \"Symbols of conquest in Sennacherib's reliefs of Lachish: impaled prisoners and booty\". In Potts, T. (ed.). Culture through Objects. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P.R.S. Moorey. Oxford University. pp. 207-217."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-lachish-reliefs"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1579}, {"slug": "reference-imperial-aramaic", "title": "Imperial Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological). Since most surviving examples of the language have been found in Egypt, the language is...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Imperial Aramaic\n\nOfficial/Standard Aramaic\n\nLetoon Trilingual with Greek, Lycian and Aramaic. Fethiye Museum, 4th century BC.\n\nRegionAncient Near East\n\nErac. 750-300 BC,\n evolved into Biblical Aramaic then split into Middle Aramaic (c. 200-1200), or Old Syriac then Classical Syriac\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nWest Semitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nImperial Aramaic\n\nEarly formOld Aramaic\n\nWriting systemAramaic alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-2arc\n\nISO 639-3arc\n\nGlottologimpe1235\n\nImperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological). Since most surviving examples of the language have been found in Egypt, the language is also referred to as Egyptian Aramaic.[1]\n\nSome scholars use the term as a designation for a distinctive, socially prominent phase in the history of Aramaic language, that lasted from the middle of the 8th century BCE to the end of the 4th century BCE and was marked by the use of Aramaic as a language of public life and administration in the late Neo-Assyrian Empire and its successor states, the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire, also adding to that some later (Post-Imperial) uses that persisted throughout the early Hellenistic period. Other scholars use the term Imperial Aramaic in a narrower sense, reduced only to the Achaemenid period, basing that reduction on several strictly linguistic distinctions between the previous (Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian) phase and later (more prominent) Achaemenid phase.\n\nSince all of those phases can be semantically labelled as \"imperial\", some scholars opt for the use of more specific and unambiguous terms, like Neo-Assyrian Aramaic and Neo-Babylonian Aramaic (for the older phases), and Achaemenid Aramaic (for the later phase), thus avoiding the use of the polysemic \"imperial\" label, and its primarily sociolinguistic implications. Similar issues have arisen in relation to the uses of some alternative terms, like Official Aramaic or Standard Aramaic, that were also criticized as unspecific. All of those terms continue to be used differently by scholars.[2][3][4][5][6][7]\n\nThe Elephantine papyri and ostraca, as well as other Egyptian texts, are the largest group of extant records in the language, collected in the standard Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt.[1] Outside of Egypt, most texts are known from stone or pottery inscriptions spread across a wide geographic area.[1] More recently a group of leather and wooden documents were found in Bactria, known as the Bactria Aramaic documents.[1]\n\nName and classification\n\nThe term \"Imperial Aramaic\" was first coined by Josef Markwart in 1927, calling the language by the German name Reichsaramäisch.[8][9][10] In 1955, Richard N. Frye noted that no extant edict expressly or ambiguously accorded the status of \"official language\" to any particular language, causing him to question the classification of Imperial Aramaic. Frye went on to reclassify Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca used in the territories of the Achaemenid Empire, further suggesting that the language's use was more prevalent in these areas than initially thought.[11]\n\nHistory\n\nThe native speakers of Aramaic, the Arameans, settled in great numbers in Babylonia and Upper Mesopotamia during the ages of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The massive influx of settlers led to the adoption of Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[12]\nAfter the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia in 539 BC, the Achaemenids continued the use of Aramaic as the language of the region, further extending its prevalence by making it the imperial standard (thus \"Imperial\" Aramaic) so it may be the \"vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages.\" The adoption of a single official language for the various regions of the empire has been cited as a reason for the at the time unprecedented success of the Achaemenids in maintaining the expanse of their empire for a period of centuries.[13]\n\nSources\n\nOne of the most extensive collections of texts written in Imperial Aramaic is the Fortification Tablets of Persepolis, of which there are about five hundred. Other extant examples of Imperial Aramaic come from Egypt, such as the Elephantine papyri. Egyptian examples also include the Words of Ahikar, a piece of wisdom literature reminiscent of the Book of Proverbs. Scholarly consensus regards the portions of the Book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b-7:28) written in Aramaic as an example of Imperial Aramaic.[14] In November 2006, an analysis was published of thirty newly discovered Aramaic documents from Bactria which now constitute the Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents. The leather parchment contains texts written in Imperial Aramaic, reflecting the use of the language for Achaemenid administrative purposes during the fourth century in regions such as Bactria and Sogdia.[15]\n\nLegacy and influence\n\nThe evolution of alphabets from the Mediterranean region is commonly split into two major divisions: the Phoenician-derived alphabets of the West, including the Mediterranean region (Anatolia, Greece, and the Italian Peninsula), and the Aramaic-derived alphabets of the East, including the Levant, Persia, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The former Phoenician-derived alphabets arose around the 8th century BC, and the latter Aramaic-derived alphabets evolved from the Imperial Aramaic script around the 6th century BC. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, diversifying into a number of descendant cursives. Aramaic script and, as ideograms, Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts, itself developing from the Manichaean alphabet.[16]\n\nThe orthography of Imperial Aramaic was based more on its own historical roots than on any spoken dialect, leading to a high standardization of the language across the expanse of the Achaemenid Empire. Of the Imperial Aramaic glyphs extant from its era, there are two main styles: the lapidary form, often inscribed on hard surfaces like stone monuments, and the cursive form. The Achaemenid Empire used both of these styles, but the cursive became much more prominent than the lapidary, causing the latter to eventually disappear by the 3rd century BC.[17] In remote regions, the cursive versions of Aramaic evolved into the creation of the Syriac, Palmyrene and Mandaic alphabets, which themselves formed the basis of many historical Central Asian scripts, such as the Sogdian, Uyghur and Mongolian alphabets.[18] The Brahmi script, of which the entire Brahmic family of scripts derives (including Devanagari), most likely descends from Imperial Aramaic, as the empire of Cyrus the Great brought the borders of the Persian Empire all the way to the edge of the Indian subcontinent, with Alexander the Great and his successors further linking the lands through trade.[19]\n\nHebrew\n\nThe Babylonian captivity ended after Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon.[20] The mass-prevalence of Imperial Aramaic in the region resulted in the eventual use of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew.[21] Before the adoption of Imperial Aramaic, Hebrew was written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which, along with Aramaic, directly descended from Phoenician. Hebrew and Aramaic heavily influenced one another, with mostly religious Hebrew words (such as ‘ēṣ \"wood\") transferring into Aramaic and more general Aramaic vocabulary (such as māmmôn \"wealth\") entering the local Hebrew lexicon.\n\nLate Old Western Aramaic, also known as Jewish Old Palestinian, is a well-attested language used by the communities of Judea, probably originating in the area of Caesarea Philippi. By the 1st century CE, the people of Roman Judaea still used Aramaic as their primary language, along with Koine Greek for commerce and administration. The oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch (c. 170 BC) is written in the Late Old Western Aramaic dialect.[22]\n\nThe New Testament has several non-Greek terms of Aramaic origin,[23] such as:\n\nTalitha (ταλιθα) that can represent the noun ṭalyĕṯā (Mark 5:41).\n\nRabbounei (Ραββουνει), which stands for \"my master/great one/teacher\" in both Hebrew and Aramaic (John 20:16).\n\nNabataean Aramaic\n\nInstead of using their native Arabic, the Nabataeans would use Imperial Aramaic for their written communications, causing the development of Nabataean Aramaic out of Imperial Aramaic.[24] The standardized cursive and Aramaic-derived Nabataean alphabet became the standardized form of writing Arabic for the Arabian Peninsula, evolving on its own into the alphabet of Arabic by the time of spread of Islam centuries later. Influences from Arabic were present in the Nabataean Aramaic, such as a few Arabic loanwords and how \"l\" is often turned into \"n\". After Nabataea was annexed by the Roman Empire in 106 AD, the influence of Aramaic declined in favor of Koine Greek for written communication.\n\nManichaean\n\nThe Manichaean abjad writing system spread from the Near East over into Central Asia, travelling as far as the Tarim Basin in what is now the People's Republic of China. Its presence in Central Asia lead to influence from the Sogdian script, which itself descends from the Syriac branch of Aramaic. The traditions of Manichaeism allege that its founding prophet, Mani, invented the Manichaean script, as well as writing the major Manichaean texts himself. The writing system evolved from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which was still in use during the age of Mani, i.e. the early years of the Sassanian Empire. Along with other writing systems, the Manichaean alphabet was used to write Middle Persian, and other languages which were sometimes written with it include: Parthian, Sogdian, Bactrian, and Old Uyghur.[25]\n\nPahlavi scripts\n\nThe Pahlavi scripts used in the Arsacid and Sassanian Empire as well as in post-Sassanid Zoroastrian writings were derived from the Imperial Aramaic script due to its traditional use by Achaemenid scribes. Apart from the shape of the letters, these scripts contained numerous so-called Aramaeograms, i.e. spellings that had originally expressed Aramaic words phonetically, but had come to be used conventionally as logograms to denote Iranian words.[26]\n\nUnicode\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nRangeU+10840..U+1085F\n(32 code points)\n\nPlaneSMP\n\nScriptsImperial Aramaic\n\nMajor alphabetsAramaic\n\nAssigned31 code points\n\nUnused1 reserved code points\n\nUnicode Version History\n\n5.2 (2009)31 (+31)\n\nUnicode documentation\n\nCode chart ∣ Web page\n\nNote: [27][28]\n\nImperial Aramaic is a Unicode block containing characters for writing Aramaic during the Achaemenid Persian Empires.\n\nImperial Aramaic[1][2]\nOfficial Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)\n\n0\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\nA\nB\nC\nD\nE\nF\n\nU+1084x\n\n𐡀\n\n𐡁\n\n𐡂\n\n𐡃\n\n𐡄\n\n𐡅\n\n𐡆\n\n𐡇\n\n𐡈\n\n𐡉\n\n𐡊\n\n𐡋\n\n𐡌\n\n𐡍\n\n𐡎\n\n𐡏\n\nU+1085x\n\n𐡐\n\n𐡑\n\n𐡒\n\n𐡓\n\n𐡔\n\n𐡕\n\n𐡗\n\n𐡘\n\n𐡙\n\n𐡚\n\n𐡛\n\n𐡜\n\n𐡝\n\n𐡞\n\n𐡟\n\nNotes\n\n1.^As of Unicode version 18.0\n\n2.^Grey area indicates non-assigned code point\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Cook, Edward (2022). Biblical Aramaic and Related Dialects: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 3-7. ISBN 978-1-108-78788-8. Imperial Aramaic (IA) [Footnote: Other names: Official Aramaic, Reichsaramäisch. Because many of the surviving texts come from Egypt, some scholars speak of \"Egyptian Aramaic.\"]… As noted, the documentation of IA is significantly greater than that of Old Aramaic; the hot and dry climate of Egypt has been particularly favorable to the preservation of antiquities, including Aramaic texts written on soft media such as papyrus or leather. The primary, although not exclusive, source of our knowledge of Persian-period Aramaic is a large number of papyri discovered on the island of Elephantine… All of the Egyptian Aramaic texts have been collected and reedited in the Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt… This is now the standard text edition… Outside of Egypt, Aramaic texts written primarily on hard media such as stone or pottery have been discovered, including texts from Palestine, Arabia, Asia Minor, Iraq (Babylon), and Iran (Persepolis). A recent discovery, of uncertain provenance, is a relatively large collection of documents, now in a private collection, consisting mainly of the correspondence of the official Akhvamazda of Bactria dating from 354 to 324 BCE (Nave & Shaked 2012). They are similar in some ways to the Arshama archive published by Driver; the find-spot was no doubt Afghanistan.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 10-11.\n\n^ Fitzmyer 1997, p. 59.\n\n^ Folmer 1995, p. 8-13.\n\n^ Gzella 2012a, p. 574.\n\n^ Folmer 2012, p. 587-588.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 54, 105, 155, 158.\n\n^ Folmer 1995, p. 10.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 158.\n\n^ Josef Markwart, “Np. āđīna ‘Freitag’,” Ungarische Jahrbücher 7, 1927, pp. 91: \"In der Bedeutung 'bestimmte (kommende, zukünftige) Zeit’ ist das Wort zaman schon ins Reichsaramäische und von da ins aramaisierende Hebräisch und ins Nabatäische und aus diesem später ins Arabische übergegangen. [Footnote: So nenne ich die aramäische Kanzleisprache der Achaimeniden, in welcher die Mehrzahl, wenn nicht alle, aramäischen Inschriften und sämtliche Papyri der Achaimenidenzeit, sowie die aramäischen Stücke in den Büchern 'Ezra und Daniel abgefaßt sind. Daß Kautzsch und noch der Schweizer Karl Marti (Kurzgefaßte Grammatik der biblisch-aramäischen Sprache. Berlin 1896 S. 4) diese Sprache W est aramäisch nennen konnten, war ein grober Salto mortale, der nur dadurch verständlich wird, daß die Verfasser vom aramäischen Sprachgute des uzvärisn, d. h. von den aramäischen Ideogrammen des Mitteliranischen keine Kunde hatten.]\"\n\n^ Frye, Richard N.; Driver, G. R. (1955). \"Review of G. R. Driver's \"Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B. C.\"\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 18 (3/4): 456-461. doi:10.2307/2718444. JSTOR 2718444. p. 457.\n\n^ Richard, Suzanne (2003). Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader. EISENBRAUNS. ISBN 978-1-57506-083-5.\n\n^ Shaked, Saul (1987). \"Aramaic\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 251-252. Retrieved 10 October 2018.\n\n^ Collins 1993, p. 710-712.\n\n^ Naveh, Joseph; Shaked, Shaul (2006). Joseph Naveh (ed.). Ancient Aramaic Documents from Bactria. Studies in the Khalili Collection. Oxford: Khalili Collections. ISBN 978-1874780748.\n\n^ Geiger, Wilhelm; Kuhn, Ernst (2002). \"Grundriss der iranischen Philologie: Band I. Abteilung 1\". Boston: Adamant: 249ff. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\n^ Greenfield 1985, p. 709-710.\n\n^ Kara, György (1996). \"Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages\". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. pp. 535-558. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.\n\n^ \"Brāhmī | writing system\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-05-29.\n\n^ \"Cyrus the Great: History's most merciful conqueror?\". Culture. 2019-05-06. Archived from the original on May 13, 2019. Retrieved 2020-09-07.\n\n^ William M. Schniedewind (2006). Seth L. Sanders (ed.). Aramaic, the Death of Written Hebrew, and Language Shift in the Persian Period (PDF). Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures. University of Chicago. pp. 137-147. ISBN 1-885923-39-2.\n\n^ The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha Archived 2007-12-31 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Huehnergard, John and Jo Ann Hackett. The Hebrew and Aramaic languages. In The Biblical World (2002), Volume 2 (John Barton, ed.). P.19\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 213.\n\n^ Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond (October 14, 2005). \"Manichean script\". Encyclopedia Iranica.\n\n^ Sundermann, Werner. 1989. Mittelpersisch. In: Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Herausgegeben von Rudiger Schmidt. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. pp. 138-165. P. 140-143\n\n^ \"Unicode character database\". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.\n\n^ \"Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard\". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.\n\nSources\n\nBae, Chul-hyun (2004). \"Aramaic as a Lingua Franca During the Persian Empire (538-333 B.C.E.)\". Journal of Universal Language. 5: 1-20. doi:10.22425/jul.2004.5.1.1.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nCollins, John J. (1993). \"The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, by Zdravko Stefanovic\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 112 (4): 710-712. doi:10.2307/3267414. JSTOR 3267414.\n\nFitzmyer, Joseph A. (1997) [1979]. A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802848468.\n\nFolmer, Margaretha (1995). The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period: A Study in Linguistic Variation. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789068317404.\n\nFolmer, Margaretha (2012). \"Imperial Aramaic as an Administrative Language of the Achaemenid Period\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 587-598. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nJastrow, Otto (2008). \"Old Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic: Some Reflections on Language History\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 1-10. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nGreenfield, Jonas C. (1985). \"Aramaic in the Achaemenian Empire\". The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 698-713. ISBN 9780521200912.\n\nGzella, Holger (2008). \"Aramaic in the Parthian Period: The Arsacid Inscriptions\". Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 107-130. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nGzella, Holger (2012a). \"Imperial Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 574-586. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nGzella, Holger (2012b). \"Late Imperial Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 598-609. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nGzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004285101.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908598.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1871). \"Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache\". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. 25 (1-2): 113-131. JSTOR 43366019.\n\nStefanovic, Zdravko (1992). The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 9780567132543.\n\nYounger, Kenneth Lawson (2016). A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 9781628370843."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-imperial-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2803}, {"slug": "reference-mesopotamia", "title": "Mesopotamia", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Mesopotamia[a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris-Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq.[1][2] Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Iranian plateau, marking the shift...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "MesopotamiaA map showing the extent of Mesopotamia. Shown are Washukanni, Nineveh, Hatra, Assur, Nuzi, Palmyra, Mari, Sippar, Babylon, Kish, Nippur, Isin, Lagash, Uruk, Charax Spasinu and Ur, from north to south.A modern satellite view of Mesopotamia, October 2020.\n\nMesopotamia[a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris-Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq.[1][2] Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Iranian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.[3]\n\nMesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having \"inspired some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture.\" It is recognised as the cradle of some of the world's earliest civilizations.[4]\n\nThe Sumerians and Akkadians, each originating from different areas, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of recorded history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. The rise of empires, beginning with Sargon of Akkad around 2350 BC, characterized the subsequent 2,000 years of Mesopotamian history, marked by the succession of kingdoms and empires such as the Akkadian Empire. The early second millennium BC saw the polarization of Mesopotamian society into Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south. From 900 to 612 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire asserted control over much of the ancient Near East. Subsequently, the Babylonians, who had long been overshadowed by Assyria, seized power, dominating the region for a century as the final independent Mesopotamian realm until the modern era.[5] In 539 BC, Mesopotamia was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great. The area was next conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. After his death, it was fought over by the various Diadochi (successors of Alexander), of whom the Seleucids emerged victorious.\n\nAround 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. It became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with western parts of the region coming under ephemeral Roman control. In 226 AD, the eastern regions of Mesopotamia fell to the Sassanid Persians under Ardashir I. The division of the region between the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of the Sasanian Empire and the Muslim conquest of the Levant from the Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra.\n\nPresent\n\nIn the broader sense, the historical region of Mesopotamia also includes parts of present-day Iran (southwest), Turkey (southeast), Syria (northeast), and Kuwait.[6][7][8] The Marsh Iraqis are genetically and culturally the closest modern people to ancient Sumerian and are the direct descendants of Ancient Sumerians.[9] Modern Assyrians remain direct descendants of the native Mesopotamians.[10]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe regional toponym Mesopotamia (/ˌmɛsəpəˈteɪmiə/, Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία '[land] between rivers'; Arabic: بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن Bilād ar-Rāfidayn or بَيْن ٱلنَّهْرَيْن Bayn an-Nahrayn; Persian: میان‌رودان miyân rudân; Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ Beth Nahrain \"(land) between the (two) rivers\") comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος (mesos, 'middle') and ποταμός (potamos, 'river')[11] and translates to '(land) between rivers'. It is used throughout the Greek Septuagint (c. 250 BC) to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic equivalent Naharaim. An even earlier Greek usage of the name Mesopotamia is evident from The Anabasis of Alexander, which was written in the late 2nd century AD but specifically refers to sources from the time of Alexander the Great. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria.\n\nThe Akkadian term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept.[12] Later, the term Mesopotamia was more generally applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey.[13] The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia.[14][15][16]\n\nA further distinction is usually made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia.[2] Upper Mesopotamia is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad.[14] Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran.[2]\n\nFollowing the Islamic conquest, the historical region of Mesopotamia came to be known as Iraq,[17][18][19] and the names of its constituent regions consequently changed as well. Upper Mesopotamia came to be known as al-Jazīra (Arabic: الجزيرة),[20] an Arabic term meaning “island,” referring to a land surrounded by water.[21] Jazīra constituted the upper part of the land of Iraq.[22][23][24] The Muslim historian and geographer Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī attested:[25]\n\nIraq comprises Basra, Wāsit, Kūfa, Baghdad, al-Anbār, Hīt, and al-Jazīra.[b]\n\n- Muʿjam al-Buldān\n\nLower Mesopotamia came to be known as al-Sawād (Arabic: السواد) an Arabic term meaning “black land” or “arable land”.[26] Sawād constituted the lower part of the land of Iraq. Baghdad constituted the geographical boundary between Jazīra and Sawād, the two regions that together comprised al-ʿIrāq (Arabic: العراق).[19][27][28][29][30] Baghdad was itself regarded as the geographical center of the land of Iraq, as attested by the Muslim historian and geographer al-Yaʿqūbī:[31] \n\nI have begun with al-ʿIrāq because it lies at the center of the world […] and I have mentioned Baghdād because it lies at the center of al-ʿIrāq and is the great city.\n\n- Kitāb al-Buldān\n\nDuring the Gunpowder Age, it was referred to by several names, the most prominent being Iraq al-ʿArab and Ḥiṭṭa-i ʿIrāqiyye.[32][33] In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation. It is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazira, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date.[13][34] It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments.[34][35]\n\nGeography\n\nMesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the neighboring Armenian highlands. Both rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000-square-kilometre (5,800 sq mi) region of marshes, lagoons, mudflats, and reed banks in the south. In the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf.\n\nThe arid environment ranges from the northern areas of rain-fed agriculture to the south where irrigation of agriculture is essential.[37] This irrigation is aided by a high water table and by melting snows from the high peaks of the northern Zagros Mountains and from the Armenian Highlands, the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that give the region its name. The usefulness of irrigation depends upon the ability to mobilize sufficient labor for the construction and maintenance of canals, and this, from the earliest period, has assisted the development of urban settlements and centralized systems of political authority.\n\nAgriculture throughout the region has been supplemented by nomadic pastoralism, where tent-dwelling nomads herded sheep and goats (and later camels) from the river pastures in the dry summer months, out into seasonal grazing lands on the desert fringe in the wet winter season. The area is generally lacking in building stone, precious metals, and timber, and so historically has relied upon long-distance trade of agricultural products to secure these items from outlying areas.[38] In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times and has added to the cultural mix.\n\nPeriodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. The demands for labor have from time to time led to population increases that push the limits of the ecological carrying capacity; should a period of climatic instability ensue, central government can collapse and populations can decline. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and neglect of irrigation systems. Equally, centripetal tendencies amongst city-states have meant that central authority over the whole region, when imposed, has tended to be ephemeral, and localism has fragmented power into tribal or smaller regional units.[39] These trends have continued to the present day in Iraq.\n\nHistory\n\nThe prehistory of the Ancient Near East begins in the Lower Paleolithic period. Therein, writing emerged with a pictographic script, Proto-cuneiform, in the Uruk IV period (c. late 4th millennium BC). The documented record of actual historical events-and the ancient history of lower Mesopotamia-commenced in the early-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings. This entire history ends with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the late 6th century BC or with the Muslim conquest and the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, from which point the region came to be known as Iraq. In the long span of this period, Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient highly developed, and socially complex states.\n\nThe region was home to one of the four riverine civilizations where writing was invented, along with the Nile valley in Ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley civilization in the Indian subcontinent, and the Yellow River in Ancient China. Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such as Uruk, Nippur, Nineveh, Assur and Babylon, as well as major territorial states such as the city of Eridu, the Akkadian kingdoms, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the various Assyrian empires. Some of the important historical Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon of Akkad (who established the Akkadian Empire), Hammurabi (who established the Old Babylonian state), Ashur-uballit I and Tiglath-Pileser I (who established the Assyrian Empire).\n\nScientists analysed DNA from the 8,000-year-old remains of early farmers found at an ancient graveyard in Germany. They compared the genetic signatures to those of modern populations and found similarities with the DNA of people living in today's Turkey and Iraq.[40]\n\nPeriodization\n\nPre- and protohistory\n\nPre-Pottery Neolithic A (10,000-8700 BC)\n\nPre-Pottery Neolithic B (8700-6800 BC)\n\nJarmo (7500-5000 BC)\n\nHassuna (~6000 BC)\n\nSamarra (~5700-4900 BC)\n\nHalaf cultures (~6000-5300 BC)\n\nUbaid period (~6500-4000 BC)\n\nUruk period (~4000-3100 BC)\n\nJemdet Nasr period (~3100-2900 BC)[41]\n\nEarly Bronze Age\n\nEarly Dynastic period (~2900-2350 BC)\n\nAkkadian Empire (~2350-2100 BC)\n\nThird Dynasty of Ur (2112-2004 BC)\n\nMiddle Bronze Age\n\nIsin-Larsa period (19th to 18th century BC)\n\nFirst Babylonian dynasty (18th to 17th century BC)\n\nMinoan eruption (c. 1620 BC)\n\nLate Bronze Age\n\nOld Assyrian period (16th to 11th century BC)\n\nMiddle Assyrian period (c. 1365-1076 BC)\n\nKassites in Babylon, (c. 1595-1155 BC)\n\nLate Bronze Age collapse (12th to 11th century BC)\n\nIron Age\n\nSyro-Hittite states (11th to 7th century BC)\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC - 612 BC)\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC - 539 BC)\n\nClassical antiquity\n\nFall of Babylon (539 BC)\n\nAchaemenid Babylonia, Achaemenid Assyria (539 BC - 331 BC)\n\nSeleucid Mesopotamia (4th to 3rd century BC)\n\nParthian Babylonia (141 BC - 226 AD)\n\nMeshan (141 BC - 222 AD)\n\nOsroene (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD)\n\nAdiabene (1st to 2nd century AD)\n\nHatra (1st to 2nd century AD)\n\nRoman Mesopotamia (2nd to 7th century AD), Roman Assyria (2nd century AD)\n\nLate Antiquity\n\nAsōristān (3rd to 7th century AD)\n\nArbāyistān (3rd to 7th century AD)\n\nMuslim conquest (mid-7th century AD)\n\nLanguage and writing\n\nThe earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian, an agglutinative language isolate. Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken in early Mesopotamia.[42] Subartuan,[43] a language of the Zagros possibly related to the Hurro-Urartuan language family, is attested in personal names, rivers and mountains and in various crafts. Akkadian came to be the dominant language during the Akkadian Empire and the Assyrian empires, but Sumerian was retained for administrative, religious, literary and scientific purposes.\n\nDifferent varieties of Akkadian were used until the end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Old Aramaic, which had already become common in Mesopotamia, then became the official provincial administration language of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and then the Achaemenid Empire: the official lect is called Imperial Aramaic. Akkadian fell into disuse, but both it and Sumerian were still used in temples for some centuries. The last Akkadian texts date from the late 1st century AD.\n\nEarly in Mesopotamia's history, around the mid-4th millennium BC, cuneiform was invented for the Sumerian language. Cuneiform literally means \"wedge-shaped\", due to the triangular tip of the stylus used for impressing signs on wet clay. The standardized form of each cuneiform sign appears to have been developed from pictograms. The earliest texts, 7 archaic tablets, come from the É, a temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna at Uruk, from a building labeled as Temple C by its excavators.\n\nThe early logographic system of cuneiform script took many years to master. Thus, only a limited number of individuals were hired as scribes to be trained in its use. It was not until the widespread use of a syllabic script was adopted under Sargon's rule[44] that significant portions of the Mesopotamian population became literate. Massive archives of texts were recovered from the archaeological contexts of Old Babylonian scribal schools, through which literacy was disseminated.\n\nAkkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC. The exact dating is a matter of debate.[45] Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.\n\nLiterature\n\nLibraries were extant in towns and temples during the Babylonian Empire. An old Sumerian proverb averred that \"he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn.\" Women as well as men learned to read and write,[46] and for the Semitic Babylonians, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary.\n\nA considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists were drawn up.\n\nMany Babylonian literary works are still studied today. One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sîn-lēqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, although it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.\n\nScience and technology\n\nMathematics\n\nMesopotamian mathematics and science was based on a sexagesimal (base 60) numeral system. This is the source of the 60-minute hour, the 24-hour day, and the 360-degree circle. The Sumerian calendar was lunisolar, with three seven-day weeks of a lunar month. This form of mathematics was instrumental in early map-making. The Babylonians also had theorems on how to measure the area of shapes and solids. They measured the circumference of a circle as three times the diameter and the area as one-twelfth the square of the circumference, which would be correct if π were fixed at 3.[47]\n\nThe volume of a cylinder was taken as the product of the area of the base and the height; however, the volume of the frustum of a cone or a square pyramid was incorrectly taken as the product of the height and half the sum of the bases. Also, there was a recent discovery in which a tablet used π as 25/8 (3.125 instead of 3.14159~). The Babylonians are also known for the Babylonian mile, which was a measure of distance equal to about seven modern miles (11 km). This measurement for distances eventually was converted to a time-mile used for measuring the travel of the Sun, therefore, representing time.[47]\n\nAlgebra\n\nThe roots of algebra can be traced to the ancient Babylonia[48] who developed an advanced arithmetical system with which they were able to do calculations in an algorithmic fashion.\n\nThe Babylonian clay tablet YBC 7289 (c. 1800-1600 BC) gives an approximation of √2 in four sexagesimal figures, 1 24 51 10, which is accurate to about six decimal digits,[49] and is the closest possible three-place sexagesimal representation of √2:\n\nThe Babylonians were not interested in exact solutions, but rather approximations, and so they would commonly use linear interpolation to approximate intermediate values.[50] One of the most famous tablets is the Plimpton 322 tablet, created around 1900-1600 BC, which gives a table of Pythagorean triples and represents some of the most advanced mathematics prior to Greek mathematics.[51]\n\nAstronomy\n\nFrom Sumerian times, temple priesthoods had attempted to associate current events with certain positions of the planets and stars. This continued to Assyrian times, when Limmu lists were created as a year by year association of events with planetary positions, which, when they have survived to the present day, allow accurate associations of relative with absolute dating for establishing the history of Mesopotamia.\n\nThe Babylonian astronomers were very adept at mathematics and could predict eclipses and solstices. Scholars thought that everything had some purpose in astronomy. Most of these related to religion and omens. Mesopotamian astronomers worked out a 12-month calendar based on the cycles of the moon. They divided the year into two seasons: summer and winter. The origins of astronomy as well as astrology date from this time.\n\nDuring the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution.[52] This new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy.\n\nIn the Seleucid and Parthian eras, the astronomical reports were thoroughly scientific. How much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The Babylonian development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major episode in the history of astronomy.\n\nThe only Greek-Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC).[53][54][55] Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch. He supported Aristarchus of Samos' heliocentric theory where the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used, except that he correctly theorized on tides as a result of the Moon's attraction.\n\nBabylonian astronomy served as the basis for much of Greek, classical Indian, Sasanian, Byzantine, Syrian, medieval Islamic, Central Asian, and Western European astronomy.[56]\n\nMedicine\n\nThe oldest Babylonian texts on medicine date back to the Old Babylonian period in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū, or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa,[57] during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069-1046 BC).[58]\n\nAlong with contemporary Egyptian medicine, the Babylonians introduced the concepts of diagnosis, prognosis, physical examination, enemas,[59] and prescriptions. The Diagnostic Handbook introduced the methods of therapy and aetiology and the use of empiricism, logic, and rationality in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of medical symptoms and often detailed empirical observations along with logical rules used in combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient with its diagnosis and prognosis.[60]\n\nThe symptoms and diseases of a patient were treated through therapeutic means such as bandages, creams and pills. If a patient could not be cured physically, the Babylonian physicians often relied on exorcism to cleanse the patient from any curses. Esagil-kin-apli's Diagnostic Handbook was based on a logical set of axioms and assumptions, including the modern view that through the examination and inspection of the symptoms of a patient, it is possible to determine the patient's disease, its aetiology, its future development, and the chances of the patient's recovery.[57]\n\nEsagil-kin-apli discovered a variety of illnesses and diseases and described their symptoms in his Diagnostic Handbook. These include the symptoms for many varieties of epilepsy and related ailments along with their diagnosis and prognosis.[61] Some treatments used were likely based on the known characteristics of the ingredients used. The others were based on the symbolic qualities.[62]\n\nTechnology\n\nMesopotamian people invented many technologies including metal and copper-working, glass and lamp making, textile weaving, flood control, water storage, and irrigation. They were also one of the first Bronze Age societies in the world. They developed from copper, bronze, and gold on to iron. Palaces were decorated with hundreds of kilograms of these very expensive metals. Also, copper, bronze, and iron were used for armor as well as for different weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, and maces.\n\nAccording to a recent hypothesis, the Archimedes' screw may have been used by Sennacherib, King of Assyria, for the water systems at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Nineveh in the 7th century BC, although mainstream scholarship holds it to be a Greek invention of later times.[63] Later, during the Parthian or Sasanian periods, the Baghdad Battery, which may have been the world's first battery, was created in Mesopotamia.[64]\n\nReligion and philosophy\n\nThe Ancient Mesopotamian religion was the first recorded. Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat disc,[65] surrounded by a huge, holed space, and above that, heaven. They believed that water was everywhere, the top, bottom and sides, and that the universe was born from this enormous sea. Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic. Although the beliefs described above were held in common among Mesopotamians, there were regional variations. The Sumerian word for universe is an-ki, which refers to the god An and the goddess Ki.[66] Their son was Enlil, the air god. They believed that Enlil was the most powerful god. He was the chief god of the pantheon.\n\nPhilosophy\n\nThe numerous civilizations of the area influenced the Abrahamic religions, especially the Hebrew Bible. Its cultural values and literary influence are especially evident in the Book of Genesis.[67]\n\nGiorgio Buccellati believes that the origins of philosophy can be traced back to early Mesopotamian wisdom, which embodied certain philosophies of life, particularly ethics, in the forms of dialectic, dialogues, epic poetry, folklore, hymns, lyrics, prose works, and proverbs. Babylonian reason and rationality developed beyond empirical observation.[68]\n\nBabylonian thought was also based on an open-systems ontology which is compatible with ergodic axioms.[69] Logic was employed to some extent in Babylonian astronomy and medicine.\n\nBabylonian thought had a considerable influence on early Ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. In particular, the Babylonian text Dialogue of Pessimism contains similarities to the agonistic thought of the Sophists, the Heraclitean doctrine of dialectic, and the dialogs of Plato, as well as a precursor to the Socratic method.[70] The Ionian philosopher Thales was influenced by Babylonian cosmological ideas.\n\nCulture\n\nFestivals\n\nAncient Mesopotamians had ceremonies each month. The theme of the rituals and festivals for each month was determined by at least six important factors:\n\nThe Lunar phase (a waxing moon meant abundance and growth, while a waning moon was associated with decline, conservation, and festivals of the Underworld)\n\nThe phase of the annual agricultural cycle\n\nEquinoxes and solstices\n\nThe local mythos and its divine Patrons\n\nThe success of the reigning Monarch\n\nThe Akitu, or New Year Festival (first full moon after spring equinox)\n\nCommemoration of specific historical events (founding, military victories, temple holidays, etc.)\n\nMusic\n\nSome songs were written for the gods but many were written to describe important events. Although music and songs amused kings, they were also enjoyed by ordinary people who liked to sing and dance in their homes or in the marketplaces.\n\nSongs were sung to children who passed them on to their children. Thus songs were passed on through many generations as an oral tradition until writing was more universal. These songs provided a means of passing on through the centuries highly important information about historical events.\n\nGames\n\nHunting was popular among Assyrian kings. Boxing and wrestling feature frequently in art, and some form of polo was probably popular, with men sitting on the shoulders of other men rather than on horses.[73]\n\nThey also played a board game similar to senet and backgammon, now known as the \"Royal Game of Ur\".\n\nFamily life\n\nMesopotamia, as shown by successive law codes, those of Urukagina, Lipit Ishtar and Hammurabi, across its history became more and more a patriarchal society, one in which the men were far more powerful than the women. For example, during the earliest Sumerian period, the \"en\", or high priest of male gods was originally a woman, that of female goddesses. Thorkild Jacobsen, as well as others, have suggested that early Mesopotamian society was ruled by a \"council of elders\" in which men and women were equally represented, but that over time, as the status of women fell, that of men increased.[74]\n\nAs for schooling, only royal offspring and sons of the rich and professionals, such as scribes, physicians, temple administrators, went to school. Most boys were taught their father's trade or were apprenticed out to learn a trade.[74] Girls had to stay home with their mothers to learn housekeeping and cooking, and to look after the younger children. Some children would help with crushing grain or cleaning birds. Unusually for that time in history, women in Mesopotamia had rights. They could own property and, if they had good reason, get a divorce.[75]: 78-79 \n\nBurials\n\nHundreds of graves have been excavated in parts of Mesopotamia, revealing information about Mesopotamian burial habits. In the city of Ur, most people were buried in family graves under their houses, along with some possessions. A few have been found wrapped in mats and carpets. Deceased children were put in big \"jars\" which were placed in the family chapel. Other remains have been found buried in common city graveyards. 17 graves have been found with very precious objects in them. It is assumed that these were royal graves. Rich people of various periods have been discovered to have sought burial in Bahrein, identified with Sumerian Dilmun.[76]\n\nEconomy\n\nSumerian temples functioned as banks and developed the first large-scale system of loans and credit. The Babylonians developed the earliest system of commercial banking. It was comparable in some ways to modern post-Keynesian economics, but with a more \"anything goes\" approach.[69]\n\nAgriculture\n\nIrrigated agriculture spread southwards from the Zagros foothills with the Samara and Hadji Muhammed culture, from about 5,000 BC.[77]\n\nIn the early period down to Ur III temples owned up to one third of the available land, declining over time as royal and other private holdings increased in frequency. The word Ensi was used to describe the official who organized the work of all facets of temple agriculture. Villeins are known to have worked most frequently within agriculture, especially in the grounds of temples or palaces.[78]\n\nThe geography of southern Mesopotamia is such that agriculture is possible only with irrigation and with good drainage, a fact which had a profound effect on the evolution of early Mesopotamian civilization. The need for irrigation led the Sumerians, and later the Akkadians, to build their cities along the Tigris and Euphrates and the branches of these rivers. Major cities, such as Ur and Uruk, took root on tributaries of the Euphrates, while others, notably Lagash, were built on branches of the Tigris. The rivers provided the further benefits of fish, used both for food and fertilizer, reeds, and clay, for building materials. With irrigation, the food supply in Mesopotamia was comparable to that of the Canadian prairies.[79]\n\nThe Tigris and Euphrates River valleys form the northeastern portion of the Fertile Crescent, which also included the Jordan River valley and that of the Nile. Although land nearer to the rivers was fertile and good for crops, portions of land farther from the water were dry and largely uninhabitable. Thus the development of irrigation became very important for settlers of Mesopotamia. Other Mesopotamian innovations include the control of water by dams and the use of aqueducts. Early settlers of fertile land in Mesopotamia used wooden plows to soften the soil before planting crops such as barley, onions, grapes, turnips, and apples.\n\nMesopotamian settlers were among the first people to make beer and wine. As a result of the skills needed to farm in the Mesopotamian region, farmers did not generally depend on slaves to do the work. Although the rivers sustained life, they also destroyed it by frequent floods that ravaged entire cities. The unpredictable Mesopotamian weather was often hard on farmers. Crops were often ruined, so backup sources of food such as cows and lambs were kept. Over time the southernmost parts of Sumerian Mesopotamia suffered from increased salinity of the soils, leading to a slow urban decline and a centring of power in Akkad, further north.\n\nTrade\n\nMesopotamian trade with the Indus Valley Civilisation flourished as early as the third millennium BC.[80] Cylinder seals found throughout ANE is evidence of trade between Mesopotamian cities.[81] Starting in the 4th millennium BC, Mesopotamian civilizations also traded with ancient Egypt (see Egypt-Mesopotamia relations).[82][83]\n\nFor much of history, Mesopotamia served as a trade nexus - east-west between Central Asia and the Mediterranean world[84]\n(part of the Silk Road), as well as north-south between the Eastern Europe and Baghdad (Volga trade route). Vasco da Gama's pioneering (1497-1499) of the sea route between India and Europe and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 impacted on this nexus.[85][86]\n\nGenetics\n\nGenetic studies on the modern day people of Iraq are limited and generally restricted to analysis of classical keys due to the country's modern political instability,[87] although lately, there have been several published studies displaying a genealogical connection between all Iraqis and the neighboring countries, across religious, ethnic and linguistic barriers. Studies indicate that the different ethno-religious groups of Iraq (Mesopotamia) share significant similarities in genetics and that Mesopotamian Arabs, who make up the majority of Iraqis, are more genetically similar to Iraqi Kurds than other Arab populations in the Middle East and Arabia.[88]\n\nNo significant differences in Y-DNA variation were observed among Iraqi Mesopotamian Arabs, Assyrians, or Kurds.[87] Modern genetic studies indicate that Iraqi Mesopotamian Arabs are more related to Iraqi-Assyrians than Iraqi Kurds.[89][90]\n\nDogan et al. (2017) states that contemporary Assyrian and Yazidis from northern Iraq might \"have stronger continuity with the original genetic stock of the Mesopotamian people, which possibly provided the basis for the ethnogenesis of various subsequent Near Eastern populations.\" Among northern Iraqi Assyrians, J and R subclades were observed at 36% and 41% respectively, where R1a, R1b, J1 and J2 sub-clades accounted for 11%, 30%, 12% and 24%. For Yazidis, R haplogroup subclades dominate, where R1a and R1b account for 9% and 21%, respectively. The high prevalence of R and J macrohaplogroups is attributed to pre-Last Glacial Maximum events in the Near East.[91]\n\nMany historians and anthropologists provide strong circumstantial evidence to presuppose that Iraq's Marsh Arabs share very strong links to the ancient Sumerians.[92][93]\n\nWhile other studies indicate that the Iraqi-Assyrian population was found to be significantly related to other Iraqis, especially Mesopotamian Arabs,[94][92] likely due to the assimilation of indigenous Assyrians with other people groups who occupied and settled Mesopotamia after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.[95]\n\nGovernment\n\nThe geography of Mesopotamia had a profound impact on the political development of the region. Among the rivers and streams, the Sumerian people built the first cities, along with irrigation canals which were separated by vast stretches of open desert or swamp where nomadic tribes roamed. Communication among the isolated cities was difficult and, at times, dangerous. Thus, each Sumerian city became a city-state, independent of the others and protective of its independence.\n\nAt times, one city would try to conquer and unify the region, but such efforts were resisted and failed for centuries. As a result, the political history of Sumer is one of almost constant warfare. Eventually Sumer was unified by Eannatum. The unification was tenuous and failed to last, as the Akkadians conquered Sumer in 2331 BC only a generation later. The Akkadian Empire was the first successful empire to last beyond a generation and see a peaceful succession of kings. The empire was relatively short-lived, as the Babylonians conquered them within only a few generations.\n\nKings\n\nThe Mesopotamians believed their kings and queens were descended from the city gods, but, unlike the ancient Egyptians, they never believed their kings were real gods.[96] Most kings named themselves \"king of the universe\" or \"great king\". Another common name was \"shepherd\", as kings had to look after their people.\n\nPower\n\nWhen Assyria grew into an empire, it was divided into smaller parts, called provinces. Each of these were named after their main cities, like Nineveh, Samaria, Damascus, and Arpad. They all had their own governor, who had to make sure everyone paid their taxes. Governors had to call up soldiers to war and supply workers when a temple was built. He was responsible for enforcing the laws. In this way, it was easier to keep control of a large empire.\n\nAlthough Babylon was quite a small state in Sumer, it grew tremendously throughout the time of Hammurabi's rule. He was known as \"the lawmaker\" and created the Code of Hammurabi. Soon Babylon became one of the main cities in Mesopotamia. It was later called Babylonia, which meant \"the gateway of the gods\". It became one of history's greatest centers of learning.\n\nWarfare\n\nWith the end of the Uruk phase, walled cities grew. Many isolated Ubaid villages were abandoned, indicating a rise in communal violence. An early king Lugalbanda was supposed to have built the white walls around the city. As city-states began to grow, their spheres of influence overlapped, creating arguments between other city-states, especially over land and canals. These arguments were recorded in tablets several hundreds of years before any major war-the first recording of a war occurred around 3200 BC, but was not common until about 2500 BC.[97]\n\nAn Early Dynastic II king (Ensi) of Uruk in Sumer, Gilgamesh (c. 2600 BC), was commended for military exploits against Humbaba guardian of the Cedar Mountain, and was later celebrated in many later poems and songs in which he was claimed to be two-thirds god and only one-third human. The later Stele of the Vultures at the end of the Early Dynastic III period (2600-2350 BC), commemorating the victory of Eannatum of Lagash over the neighbouring rival city of Umma, is the oldest monument in the world that celebrates a massacre.[97]\n\nFrom this point forwards, warfare was incorporated into the Mesopotamian political system. At times, a neutral city acted as an arbitrator for two rival cities. This helped to form unions between cities, leading to regional states.[96] When empires were created, they went to war more with foreign countries. King Sargon, for example, conquered all the cities of Sumer, some cities in Mari, and then went to war with cities in modern-day Syria. Many Assyrian and Babylonian palace walls were decorated with pictures of the successful fights and the enemy either desperately escaping or hiding amongst reeds.\n\nThe Neo-Babylonian kings used deportation as a means of control, like their predecessors, the Assyrians. For the Neo-Babylonian kings, war was a means to obtain tribute, plunder, sought after materials such as various metals and quality wood, and prisoners of war which could be put to work as slaves in the temples which they built. The Assyrians displaced populations throughout their vast empire. This practice under the Babylonian kings was more limited, only being used to establish new populations in Babylonia itself. Though royal inscriptions from the Neo-Babylonian period don't speak of acts of destruction and deportation in the same boastful way royal inscriptions from the Neo-Assyrian period do, this does not prove that the practice ceased, or that the Babylonians were less brutal than the Assyrians, since there is evidence that the city Ascalon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II in 604 BC.[98][99]\n\nLaws\n\nCity-states of Mesopotamia created the first law codes, drawn from legal precedence and decisions made by kings. The codes of Urukagina and Lipit-Ishtar (the Code of Lipit-Ishtar) have been found. The most renowned of these was that of Hammurabi, as mentioned above, who was posthumously famous for his set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi, created c. 1780 BC, which is one of the earliest sets of laws found and one of the best preserved examples of this type of document from ancient Mesopotamia. He codified over 200 laws for Mesopotamia. Examination of the laws show a progressive weakening of the rights of women, and increasing severity in the treatment of slaves.[100]\n\nArt\n\nThe art of Mesopotamia rivalled that of Ancient Egypt as the most grand, sophisticated and elaborate in western Eurasia, from the 4th millennium BC until the Persian Achaemenid Empire conquered the region in the 6th century BC. The main emphasis was on very durable, forms of sculpture in stone and clay. Little painting has survived, but it seems that painting was mainly used for geometrical and plant-based decorative schemes. Most sculptures were also painted.\n\nThe Protoliterate period, dominated by Uruk, saw the production of sophisticated works like the Warka Vase and cylinder seals. The Guennol Lioness is an outstanding small limestone figure from Elam of about 3000-2800 BC, part man and part lion.[101] A little later there are a number of figures of large-eyed priests and worshippers, mostly in alabaster and up to a foot high, who attended temple cult images of the deity, but very few of these have survived.[102] Sculptures from the Sumerian and Akkadian period generally had large, staring eyes, and long beards on the men. Many masterpieces have been found at the Royal Cemetery at Ur (c. 2650 BC), including the two figures of a Ram in a Thicket, the Copper Bull and a bull's head on one of the Lyres of Ur.[103]\n\nFrom the many subsequent periods before the ascendency of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian art survives in a number of forms: cylinder seals, relatively small figures in the round, and reliefs of various sizes, including cheap plaques of moulded pottery for the home, some religious and some apparently not.[104] The Burney Relief is an unusual elaborate and relatively large (20 x 15 inches) terracotta plaque of a naked winged goddess with the feet of a bird of prey, and attendant owls and lions. It comes from the 18th or 19th century BC, and may also be moulded.[105]\n\nStone stelae, votive offerings, or ones probably commemorating victories and showing feasts, are found from temples, which unlike more official ones lack inscriptions that would explain them.[106] The fragmentary Stele of the Vultures is an early example of the inscribed type.[107] The Assyrian Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III a large and solid late one.[108]\n\nThe conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia and much surrounding territory by the Assyrians created a larger and wealthier state than the region had known before, and very grandiose art in palaces and public places, no doubt partly intended to match the splendour of the art of the neighbouring Egyptian empire. The Assyrians developed a style of extremely large schemes of very finely detailed narrative low reliefs in stone for palaces, with scenes of war or hunting. The British Museum has an outstanding collection. They produced very little sculpture in the round, except for colossal guardian figures, often the human-headed lamassu, which are sculpted in high relief on two sides of a rectangular block, with the heads effectively in the round, and five legs, so that both views seem complete. Even before dominating the region, they continued the cylinder seal tradition, with designs which are often exceptionally energetic and refined.[109]\n\n Bronze head of an Akkadian ruler, discovered in Nineveh in 1931, presumably depicting either Sargon of Akkad or Sargon's grandson Naram-Sin.[110]\n\n Striding lions from the Processional Street of Babylon.\n\n Lamassu, initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called Lamma, it was later depicted from Assyrian times as a hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion-specifically having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings, under the name Lamassu.[111][112]\n\n Assyrian ornaments and patterns, illustrated in a book from 1920\n\n Detail of Nebuchadnezzar II's Building Inscription plaque of the Ishtar Gate, from Babylon\n\n Artist's impression of a hall in an Assyrian palace from The Monuments of Nineveh by Austen Henry Layard, 1853\n\n A Neo-Assyrian relief of Ashur as a feather robed archer holding a bow instead of a ring (9th-8th century BC)\n\n The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. The king, surrounded by his royal attendants and a high-ranking official, receives a tribute from Sua, king of Gilzanu (north-west Iran), who bows and prostrates before the king. From Nimrud\n\n \"Winged genie\", Nimrud c. 870 BC, with inscription running across his midriff.\n\nArchitecture\n\nThe study of ancient Mesopotamian architecture is based on available archaeological evidence, pictorial representation of buildings, and texts on building practices. Scholarly literature usually concentrates on temples, palaces, city walls and gates, and other monumental buildings, but occasionally one finds works on residential architecture as well.[113] Archaeological surface surveys also allowed for the study of urban form in early Mesopotamian cities.\n\nBrick is the dominant material, as the material was freely available locally, whereas building stone had to be brought a considerable distance to most cities.[114] The ziggurat is the most distinctive form, and cities often had large gateways, of which the Ishtar Gate from Neo-Babylonian Babylon, decorated with beasts in polychrome brick, is the most famous, now largely in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.\n\nThe most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are the temple complexes at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples and palaces from the Early Dynastic period sites in the Diyala River valley such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar, the Third Dynasty of Ur remains at Nippur (Sanctuary of Enlil) and Ur (Sanctuary of Nanna), Middle Bronze Age remains at Syrian-Turkish sites of Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Aleppo and Kultepe, Late Bronze Age palaces at Hattusa, Ugarit, Ashur and Nuzi.\n\nIron Age palaces and temples are found at the Assyrian (Kalhu/Nimrud, Khorsabad, Nineveh), Babylonian (Babylon), Urartian (Tushpa/Van, Kalesi, Cavustepe, Ayanis, Armavir, Erebuni, Bastam) and Neo-Hittite sites (Karkamis, Tell Halaf, Karatepe). Houses are mostly known from Old Babylonian remains at Nippur and Ur. Among the textual sources on building construction and associated rituals, are Gudea's cylinders from the late 3rd millennium, as well as the Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions from the Iron Age.\n\n The Ishtar gate was constructed in about 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Pergamon Museum, Berlin\n\n The walls of Babylon, in Babylon\n\n The Ziggurat of Ur\n\n The ziggurat of Dur-kuriagalzu in 2010\n\n A suggested reconstruction of the appearance of a Sumerian ziggurat\n\n The alleged Abraham house in Ur\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Arabic: بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن Bilād ar-Rāfidayn or بَيْن‌ُ ٱلْنَهْرَيْن Bayn ul-Nahrayn; Turkish: Mezopotamya; Persian: میان‌رودان miyân rudân; Greek: Μεσοποταμία Mesopotamíā; Classical Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, Bēṯ Nahrēn\n\n^ The Jazīra constitutes Upper Mesopotamia, while the remaining cities lie within Lower Mesopotamia, with Baghdad separating the two regions.\n\nCitations\n\n^ Seymour, Michael (2004). \"Ancient Mesopotamia and Modern Iraq in the British Press, 1980-2003\". Current Anthropology. 45 (3): 351-368. doi:10.1086/383004. ISSN 0011-3204. JSTOR 10.1086/383004. S2CID 224788984.\n\n^ a b c Miquel, A.; Brice, W. C.; Sourdel, D.; Aubin, J.; Holt, P. M.; Kelidar, A.; Blanc, H.; MacKenzie, D. N.; Pellat, Ch. (2011), \"ʿIrāḳ\", in Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Online, OCLC 624382576.\n\n^ A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, rev. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).\n\n^ Milton-Edwards, Beverley (May 2003). \"Iraq, past, present and future: a thoroughly-modern mandate?\". History & Policy. United Kingdom. Archived from the original on 8 December 2010. Retrieved 9 December 2010.\n\n^ Lemche, Niels Peter (2004). \"Assyria and Babylonia\". Historical dictionary of ancient Israel. Historical dictionaries of ancient civilizations and historical eras. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. pp. 64-67. ISBN 978-0-8108-4848-1.\n\n^ Sissakian, Varoujan K.; Adamo, Nasrat; Al-Ansari, Nadhir; Mukhalad, Talal; Laue, Jan (January 2020). \"Sea Level Changes in the Mesopotamian Plain and Limits of the Arabian Gulf: A Critical Review\". Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering. 10 (4): 88-110.\n\n^ Pollock, Susan (1999), Ancient Mesopotamia. The Eden that never was, Case Studies in Early Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1, ISBN 978-0-521-57568-3.\n\n^ Davenport, Ben (9 August 2013). \"Ancient Mesopotamia - an overview\". www.arch.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 May 2025.\n\n^ Al-Zahery, Nadia; Pala, Maria; Battaglia, Vincenza; Grugni, Viola; Hamod, Mohammed A.; Kashani, Baharak Hooshiar; Olivieri, Anna; Torroni, Antonio; Santachiara-Benerecetti, A. Silvana; Semino, Ornella (2011). \"In search of the genetic footprints of Sumerians: a survey of Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation in the Marsh Arabs of Iraq\". BMC Evolutionary Biology: 288.\n\n^ Yildiz, Efrem (1999). \"The Assyrians: A historical and current reality\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 15-30.\n\n^ Hogg, Hope Waddell (1911). \"Mesopotamia\" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 179-187.\n\n^ Finkelstein, J. J. (1962), \"Mesopotamia\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 21 (2): 73-92, doi:10.1086/371676, JSTOR 543884, S2CID 222432558.\n\n^ a b Foster, Benjamin R.; Polinger Foster, Karen (2009), Civilizations of ancient Iraq, Princeton: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13722-3.\n\n^ a b Canard, M. (2011), \"al-ḎJazīra, Ḏjazīrat Aḳūr or Iḳlīm Aḳūr\", in Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Online, OCLC 624382576.\n\n^ Wilkinson, Tony J. (2000), \"Regional approaches to Mesopotamian archaeology: the contribution of archaeological surveys\", Journal of Archaeological Research, 8 (3): 219-267, doi:10.1023/A:1009487620969, ISSN 1573-7756, S2CID 140771958.\n\n^ Matthews, Roger (2003), The archaeology of Mesopotamia. Theories and approaches, Approaching the past, Milton Square: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-25317-8.\n\n^ Bosworth, C. E. (1998). \"ʿErāq-E ʿAjam(ī)\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 5. p. 538.\n\n^ Lockhart, L. (1965). \"D̲j̲ibāl\". In Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume II: C-G. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 534. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_2068. OCLC 495469475.\n\n^ a b \"Iraq - Abbasid, Seljuks, Mongols | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 22 September 2026. Retrieved 22 September 2026.\n\n^ Sūwādī, ʿAbd Muḥammad (1989). Al-Aḥwāl al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-Iqtiṣādiyya fī Bilād al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya [The Social and Economic Conditions in the Jazira] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Baghdad, Iraq: General Establishment for Cultural Affairs. p. 34.\n\n^ Al-Muʿjam al-Wasīṭ (in Arabic). Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo. 1972. p. 120.\n\n^ Al-Kaʿbī, ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm (2009). Al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya wa-Diyāruhā al-ʿArabiyya (Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, Diyār Muḍar) [The Jazira and Its Arab Districts: Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, and Diyār Muḍar] (in Arabic). Damascus, Syria: Ṣafḥāt for Studies and Publishing. p. 29. ISBN 978-9933-40-220-4.\n\n^ Sūwādī, ʿAbd Muḥammad (1989). Al-Aḥwāl al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-Iqtiṣādiyya fī Bilād al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya [The Social and Economic Conditions in the Jazira] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Baghdad, Iraq: General Establishment for Cultural Affairs. p. 37. The Euphrates Jazira constitutes the northern part of the region of Iraq, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers\n\n^ \"Upper Iraq | ancient region, Middle East | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 14 July 2026. Retrieved 22 September 2026.\n\n^ al-Ḥamawī, Yāqūt (1995) [1228]. Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān [Dictionary of Countries] (in Arabic). Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dār Sāder. p. 30.\n\n^ Wehr, Hans (1979). A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 513. ISBN 978-3-447-02002-2.\n\n^ Azarbadegan, Zeinab (2018). \"Imagined Geographies, Re-invented Histories: Ottoman Iraq as Part of Iran\". Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. 5 (1). Indiana University Press: 124-125. doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.5.1.07.\n\n^ Ahmet Rifat, Lügât-i Tarihiyye ve Coğrafiyye (Tıpkıbasım- Facsimile), Keygar Neşriyat, Ankara: 2004, c. 6, s. 77. ve ayrıca bkz. Archived 2014-12-25 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Al-Kaʿbī, ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm (2009). Al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya wa-Diyāruhā al-ʿArabiyya (Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, Diyār Muḍar) [The Jazira and Its Arab Districts: Diyār Bakr, Diyār Rabīʿa, and Diyār Muḍar] (in Arabic). Damascus, Syria: Ṣafḥāt for Studies and Publishing. p. 29. ISBN 978-9933-40-220-4.\n\n^ Sūwādī, ʿAbd Muḥammad (1989). Al-Aḥwāl al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-Iqtiṣādiyya fī Bilād al-Jazīra al-Furātiyya [The Social and Economic Conditions in the Jazira] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Baghdad, Iraq: General Establishment for Cultural Affairs. p. 37. The Euphrates Jazira constitutes the northern part of the region of Iraq, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers\n\n^ Al-Yaʿqūbī, Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaʿqūb. Kitāb al-Buldān [The Book of Countries] (in Arabic) (1st ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya. p. 11.\n\n^ Nuri, Nahar Muhammed (2018). \"Iraq Is Not Artificial: Iraqi Trends and the Refutation of the Artificial State Hypothesis\". AlMuntaqa. 1 (3). Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies: 9-39. doi:10.31430/almuntaqa.1.3.0009. JSTOR 10.31430/almuntaqa.1.3.0009.\n\n^ T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü (1993). Musul - Kerkük ile İlgili Arşiv Belgeleri (1525-1919) [Archival Documents Related to Mosul and Kirkuk (1525-1919)] (in Turkish). Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü.\n\n^ a b Bahrani, Z. (1998), \"Conjuring Mesopotamia: imaginative geography and a world past\", in Meskell, L. (ed.), Archaeology under fire: Nationalism, politics and heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, London, England: Routledge, pp. 159-174, ISBN 978-0-415-19655-0.\n\n^ Scheffler, Thomas (2003). \"'Fertile crescent', 'Orient', 'Middle East': the changing mental maps of Southwest Asia\". European Review of History. 10 (2): 253-272. doi:10.1080/1350748032000140796. S2CID 6707201.\n\n^ Broadbent, G., \"The Ecology of the Mudhif\", in: Geoffrey Broadbent and C. A. Brebbia, Eco-architecture II: Harmonisation Between Architecture and Nature, WIT Press, 2008, pp. 15-26.\n\n^ Emberling 2015, p. 255.\n\n^ Emberling 2015, p. 256.\n\n^ Thompson, William R. (2004) \"Complexity, Diminishing Marginal Returns, and Serial Mesopotamian Fragmentation\", (Vol 3, Journal of World-Systems Research).\n\n^ \"Migrants from the Near East 'brought farming to Europe'\". BBC. 10 November 2010. Archived from the original on 13 December 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2010.\n\n^ Pollock, Susan (1999), Ancient Mesopotamia. The Eden that never was, Case Studies in Early Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 2, ISBN 978-0-521-57568-3.\n\n^ \"Ancient History in depth: Mesopotamia\". BBC History. Archived from the original on 28 June 2017. Retrieved 21 July 2017.\n\n^ Finkelstein, J. J. (1955). \"Subartu and Subarian in Old Babylonian Sources\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 9 (1): 1-7. doi:10.2307/1359052. JSTOR 1359052. S2CID 163484083.\n\n^ Guo, Rongxing (2017). An Economic Inquiry into the Nonlinear Behaviors of Nations: Dynamic Developments and the Origins of Civilizations. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 23. ISBN 978-3-319-48772-4. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 8 July 2019. It was not until the widespread use of a syllabic script was adopted under Sargon's rule that significant portions of Sumerian population became literate.\n\n^ Woods C. (2006). \"Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the Death of Sumerian\". In S. L. Sanders (ed) Margins of Writing, Origins of Culture: 91-120, Chicago, Illinois [1]. Archived 29 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine.\n\n^ Tetlow, Elisabeth Meier (28 December 2004). Women, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society: Volume 1: The Ancient Near East. A&C Black. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-8264-1628-5. Archived from the original on 22 May 2020. Retrieved 20 June 2015.\n\n^ a b Eves, Howard (1969). An Introduction to the History of Mathematics. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-03-074550-8.\n\n^ Struik, Dirk J. (1987). A Concise History of Mathematics. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-60255-4.\n\n^ Fowler and Robson, p. 368. Photograph, illustration, and description of the root(2) tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection. Archived 2012-08-13 at the Wayback Machine. High resolution photographs, descriptions, and analysis of the root(2) tablet (YBC 7289) from the Yale Babylonian Collection. Archived 12 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine.\n\n^ Boyer 1991, \"Mesopotamia\" p. 30: \"Babylonian mathematicians did not hesitate to interpolate by proportional parts to approximate intermediate values. Linear interpolation seems to have been a commonplace procedure in ancient Mesopotamia, and the positional notation lent itself conveniently to the rile of three. [...] a table essential in Babylonian algebra; this subject reached a considerably higher level in Mesopotamia than in Egypt. Many problem texts from the Old Babylonian period show that the solution of the complete three-term quadratic equation afforded the Babylonians no serious difficulty, for flexible algebraic operations had been developed. They could transpose terms in equations by adding equals to equals, and they could multiply both sides by like quantities to remove fractions or to eliminate factors. By adding to they could obtain for they were familiar with many simple forms of factoring. [...]Egyptian algebra had been much concerned with linear equations, but the Babylonians evidently found these too elementary for much attention. [...] In another problem in an Old Babylonian text we find two simultaneous linear equations in two unknown quantities, called respectively the \"first silver ring\" and the \"second silver ring\".\"\n\n^ Joyce, David E. (1995). \"Plimpton 322\". Archived from the original on 8 March 2011. Retrieved 3 June 2022. The clay tablet with the catalog number 322 in the G. A. Plimpton Collection at Columbia University may be the most well known mathematical tablet, certainly the most photographed one, but it deserves even greater renown. It was scribed in the Old Babylonian period between -1900 and -1600 and shows the most advanced mathematics before the development of Greek mathematics.\n\n^ D. Brown (2000), Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology, Styx Publications, ISBN 90-5693-036-2.\n\n^ Otto E. Neugebauer (1945). \"The History of Ancient Astronomy Problems and Methods\", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 4 (1), pp. 1-38.\n\n^ George Sarton (1955). \"Chaldaean Astronomy of the Last Three Centuries B.C.\", Journal of the American Oriental Society 75 (3), pp. 166-173 [169].\n\n^ William P. D. Wightman (1951, 1953), The Growth of Scientific Ideas, Yale University Press, p. 38.\n\n^ Pingree (1998).\n\n^ a b H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, Marten Stol, Cornelis Tilburg (2004), Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine, p. 99, Brill Publishers, ISBN 90-04-13666-5.\n\n^ Stol 1993, p. 55.\n\n^ Friedenwald, Julius; Morrison, Samuel (January 1940). \"The History of the Enema with Some Notes on Related Procedures (Part I)\". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 8 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press: 77. JSTOR 44442727.\n\n^ H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, Marten Stol, Cornelis Tilburg (2004), Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine, pp. 97-98, Brill Publishers, ISBN 90-04-13666-5.\n\n^ Stol 1993, p. 5.\n\n^ Teall, Emily (October 2014). \"Medicine and Doctoring in Ancient Mesopotamia\". Grand Valley Journal of History. 3 (1): 3.\n\n^ Stephanie Dalley and John Peter Oleson (January 2003). \"Sennacherib, Archimedes, and the Water Screw: The Context of Invention in the Ancient World\", Technology and Culture 44 (1).\n\n^ Twist, Jo (20 November 2005), \"Open media to connect communities\", BBC News, archived from the original on 17 May 2019, retrieved 6 August 2007.\n\n^ Lambert, W. G. (2016). Ancient Mesopotamian Religion and Mythology: Selected Essays. The Cosmology of Sumer & Babylon. Mohr Siebeck. p. 111. ISBN 978-3-16-153674-8. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 8 July 2019.\n\n^ Hetherington, Norriss S. (2014). Encyclopedia of Cosmology (Routledge Revivals): Historical, Philosophical, and Scientific Foundations of Modern Cosmology. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. p. 399. ISBN 978-1-317-67766-6.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to life in ancient Mesopotamia (Paperback ed.). Oxford [u.a.], England: Oxford University Press. p. 312. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\n^ Giorgio Buccellati (1981), \"Wisdom and Not: The Case of Mesopotamia\", Journal of the American Oriental Society 101 (1), pp. 35-47.\n\n^ a b Dow, Sheila C. (April 2005). \"Axioms and Babylonian thought: A reply\". Journal of Post Keynesian Economics. 27 (3): 385-391. doi:10.1080/01603477.2005.11051453. S2CID 153637070. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2019.\n\n^ Giorgio Buccellati (1981), \"Wisdom and Not: The Case of Mesopotamia\", Journal of the American Oriental Society 101 (1), pp. 35-47 43.\n\n^ Black & Green 1992, pp. 156, 169-170.\n\n^ Liungman 2004, p. 228.\n\n^ Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea (1998), Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia.\n\n^ a b Harris, Rivkah (2000), Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia.\n\n^ Kramer, Samuel Noah (1963). The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-45238-8. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Bibby, Geoffrey and Phillips, Carl (1996), \"Looking for Dilmun\" (Interlink Pub Group).\n\n^ Bulliet, Richard; Crossley, Pamela Kyle; Headrick, Daniel; Hirsch, Steven; Johnson, Lyman; Northup, David (1 January 2010). The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-538-74438-6. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 30 May 2012.\n\n^ Saggs, H. W. F. - Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at University College, Cardiff, Wales (2000). Babylonians. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20222-1. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 29 May 2012.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Roux, Georges, (1993) \"Ancient Iraq\" (Penguin).\n\n^ Wheeler, Mortimer (1953). The Indus Civilization. Cambridge history of India: Supplementary volume (3 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (published 1968). p. 111. ISBN 978-0-521-06958-8. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021. In calculating the significance of Indus contacts with Mesopotamia, it is obvious that the economic vitality of Mesopotamia is the controlling factor. Documentary evidence there vouches for vigorous commercial activity in the Sarginid and Larsa phases [...] {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Wayne, Alexander; William, Violet (February 2012). \"Trade and Traders of Mesopotamian Ur\" (PDF). Journal of Business and Behavior Sciences. 19 (2012): 2.\n\n^ Shaw, Ian. & Nicholson, Paul, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, (London: British Museum Press, 1995), p. 109.\n\n^ Mitchell, Larkin. \"Earliest Egyptian Glyphs\". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. Archived from the original on 27 December 2012. Retrieved 29 February 2012.\n\n^ Bryce, James (1886). \"The Relations of History and Geography\". Littell's Living Age. 5. 169. Boston: Littell and Company: 70. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021. There was also an important trade route through central Asia, which coming down through Persia and Mesopotamia to the Levant, reached the sea in northern Syria [...]. These trade routes assumed enormous importance in the earlier Middle Ages, and upon them great political issues turned.\n\n^ Bulliet, Richard; Crossley, Pamela Kyle; Headrick, Daniel R.; Hirsch, Steven W.; Johnson, Lyman L.; Northrup, David (2009). \"Interregional Patterns of Culture and Contact\". The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History (6 ed.). Cengage Learning (published 2014). p. 279. ISBN 978-1-305-14709-6. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021. Eurasia's overland trade faded, and merchants, soldiers, and explorers took to the seas.\n\n^ \nBrebbia, Carlos A.; Martinez Boquera, A., eds. (28 December 2016). Islamic Heritage Architecture. Volume 159 of WIT transactions on the built environment. Southampton: WIT Press (published 2016). p. 111. ISBN 978-1-78466-237-0. Retrieved 10 April 2021. [...] the Silk Road [...] passed through central Asia and Mesopotamia. When the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to the sea [...].\n\n^ a b Al-Zahery, N.; et al. (2003). \"\"Y-chromosome and mtDNA polymorphisms in Iraq, a crossroad of the early human dispersal and of post-Neolithic migrations\"\" (PDF). PMID 12927131. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 December 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2010.\n\n^ Lazim, Hayder; Almohammed, Eida Khalaf; Hadi, Sibte; Smith, Judith (2020). \"Population genetic diversity in an Iraqi population and gene flow across the Arabian Peninsula\". Nature. 10 (1): 15289. Bibcode:2020NatSR..1015289L. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-72283-1. PMC 7499422. PMID 32943725.\n\n^ Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes, p. 242.\n\n^ \"Cavalli-Sforza et al. Genetic tree of West Asia\". Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2010.\n\n^ Dogan, Serkan; Gurkan, Cemal; Dogan, Mustafa; et al. (2017). \"A glimpse at the intricate mosaic of ethnicities from Mesopotamia: Paternal lineages of the Northern Iraqi Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, Turkmens and Yazidis\". PLOS ONE. 12 (11) e0187408. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1287408D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0187408. PMC 5669434. PMID 29099847.  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.\n\n^ a b Al-Zahery; et al. (October 2011). \"In search of the genetic footprints of Sumerians: a survey of Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation in the Marsh Arabs of Iraq\". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 11 (1): 288. Bibcode:2011BMCEE..11..288A. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-288. PMC 3215667. PMID 21970613.\n\n^ Spencer, William (2000). Iraq: Old Land, New Nation in Conflict. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-7613-1356-4.\n\n^ Cavalli-Sforza; et al. \"Genetic tree of West Asia\". Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2010.\n\n^ Tubiana, Joseph (22 October 2012). \"Siegbert Uhlig (ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Volume 1\". Aethiopica. 7: 194-211. doi:10.15460/aethiopica.7.1.294. ISSN 2194-4024.\n\n^ a b Dalling, Robert (2004), The Story of Us Humans, from Atoms to Today's Civilization.\n\n^ a b Winter, Irene J. (1985). \"After the Battle is Over: The 'Stele of the Vultures' and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East\". In Kessler, Herbert L.; Simpson, Marianna Shreve. Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Series IV. 16. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art. pp. 11-32. ISSN 0091-7338.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2005, pp. 57-58.\n\n^ Stager 1996, pp. 57-69, 76-77.\n\n^ Fensham, F. Charles (19620, \"Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient near Eastern Legal and Wisdom Literature\" (Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (April 1962)), pp. 129-139.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 24-37.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 45-59.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 61-66.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, Chapters 2-5.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 110-112.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 66-74.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 71-73.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 66-74, 167.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 141-193.\n\n^ M. E. L. Mallowan, \"The Bronze Head of the Akkadian Period from Nineveh. Archived 21 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine\", Iraq Vol. 3, No. 1 (1936), pp. 104-110.\n\n^ Leick, Gwendolyn (2002). A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. Routledge. pp. 109-110. ISBN 978-1-134-64102-4. Archived from the original on 21 November 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2022.\n\n^ \"Livius.org\". Archived from the original on 1 June 2014. Retrieved 10 March 2022.\n\n^ Dunham, Sally (2005), \"Ancient Near Eastern architecture\", in Snell, Daniel (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Near East, Oxford, England: Blackwell, pp. 266-280, ISBN 978-0-631-23293-3.\n\n^ \"Mesopotamia\". World History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2017.\n\nSources\n\nBeaulieu, P. A. (2005). \"World Hegemony, 900-300 BCE\". In Snell, D. C. (ed.). A Companion to the Ancient Near East. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1-4051-6001-8.\n\nBlack, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992). Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. The British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-1705-8.\n\nBoyer, Carl B. (1991). A History of Mathematics (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-54397-8.\n\nEmberling, Geoff (2015). \"Mesopotamian cities and urban process, 3500-1600 BCE\". In Yoffee, Norman (ed.). Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE-1200 CE. The Cambridge World History. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19008-4.\n\nFrankfort, Henri (1970). The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. Pelican History of Art (4th ed.). Penguin (now Yale History of Art). ISBN 0-14-056107-2.\n\nLiungman, Carl G. (2004). Symbols: Encyclopedia of Western Signs and Ideograms. Lidingö, Sweden: HME Publishing. ISBN 978-91-972705-0-2.\n\nPingree, David (1998). \"Legacies in Astronomy and Celestial Omens\". In Dalley, Stephanie (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. pp. 125-137. ISBN 978-0-19-814946-0.\n\nStager, L. E. (1996). \"The fury of Babylon: Ashkelon and the archaeology of destruction\". Biblical Archaeology Review. 22 (1).\n\nStol, Marten (1993). Epilepsy in Babylonia. Brill Publishers. ISBN 90-72371-63-1.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAlgaze, Guillermo, 2008. Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: the Evolution of an Urban Landscape. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226013770.\n\nAtlas de la Mésopotamie et du Proche-Orient ancien, Brepols, 1996 ISBN 2-503-50046-3.\n\nBottéro, Jean; 1987. (in French) Mésopotamie. L'écriture, la raison et les dieux, Gallimard, coll. « Folio Histoire », ISBN 2-07-040308-4.\n\nBottéro, Jean (15 June 1995). Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. Translated by Bahrani, Zainab; Van de Mieroop, Marc. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-06727-8.\n\nEdzard, Dietz Otto; 2004. Geschichte Mesopotamiens. Von den Sumerern bis zu Alexander dem Großen, München, Germany, ISBN 3-406-51664-5.\n\nHrouda, Barthel and Rene Pfeilschifter; 2005. Mesopotamien. Die antiken Kulturen zwischen Euphrat und Tigris. München, Germany 2005 (4. Aufl.), ISBN 3-406-46530-7.\n\nJoannès, Francis (2001). Dictionnaire de la civilisation mésopotamienne, Robert Laffont.\n\nKorn, Wolfgang; 2004. Mesopotamien - Wiege der Zivilisation. 6000 Jahre Hochkulturen an Euphrat und Tigris, Stuttgart, Germany, ISBN 3-8062-1851-X.\n\nMatthews, Roger; 2005. The early prehistory of Mesopotamia - 500,000 to 4,500 BC, Turnhout 2005, ISBN 2-503-50729-8.\n\nOppenheim, A. Leo; 1964. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a dead civilization. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, Illinois and London, England. Revised edition completed by Erica Reiner, 1977.\n\nPollock, Susan; 1999. Ancient Mesopotamia: the Eden that never was. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.\n\nPostgate, J. Nicholas; 1992. Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the dawn of history. Routledge: London, England and New York.\n\nRoux, Georges; 1964. Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books.\n\nSilver, Morris; 2007. Redistribution and Markets in the Economy of Ancient Mesopotamia: Updating Polanyi, Antiguo Oriente 5: 89-112.\n\nWilliams, Henry Smith (Ed.) 1904. The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01: Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia, Press of J. J. Little & Company. New York, U.S.A.\n\nExternal links\n\nAncient Mesopotamia - Timeline, definition, and articles at World History Encyclopedia\n\nMesopotamia - Introduction to Mesopotamia from the British Museum\n\nBy Nile and Tigris, a narrative of journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia on behalf of the British museum between the years 1886 and 1913, by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, 1920 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)\n\nMesopotamian Archaeology. Archived 15 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine, by Percy S. P. Handcock, 1912 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & \"layered PDF format\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 October 2005. Retrieved 19 September 2005. (12.8 MB))"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mesopotamia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 11099}, {"slug": "reference-acts-of-thomas", "title": "Acts of Thomas", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Acts of Thomas is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. It was originally a work of Syriac literature, composed in Edessa before 240 AD, but complete versions survive in both Syriac and Greek.[1] The surviving Syriac manuscripts,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Acts of Thomas\n\nEastern icon of Thomas the Apostle\n\nInformation\n\nReligionChristianity\n\nAuthorUnknown, sometimes ascribed to Leucius Charinus\n\nLanguageSyriac, Greek\n\nPeriodEarly Christianity\n\nActs of Thomas is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. It was originally a work of Syriac literature, composed in Edessa before 240 AD, but complete versions survive in both Syriac and Greek.[1] The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Encratite passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition. The earliest external reference to the Acts of Thomas dates to c.225 in Origen's Exegesis on Genesis,[2] although this text is now lost and its citation survives via later texts, e.g. Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History (3.1.1-3).\n\nFragments of four other cycles of romances around the figure of the apostle Thomas survive, but this is the only complete one. It should not be confused with the early \"sayings\" Gospel of Thomas. \"Like other apocryphal acts combining popular legend and religious propaganda, the work attempts to entertain and instruct. In addition to narratives of Thomas' adventures, its poetic and liturgical elements provide important evidence for early Syrian Christian traditions,\" according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary.\n\nActs of Thomas is a series of episodic Acts (Latin passio) that are said to have occurred during the evangelistic mission of Judas Thomas (\"Judas the Twin\") to Northwest India, specifically the Persian Kingdom and the Indo-Parthian Kingdom. It ends with his martyrdom: he dies pierced with spears, having earned the ire of the monarch Misdaeus, thought to be Abdagases I, a viceroy of the Gondophares in Sistan, modern day southern Afghanistan,[3] because of his conversion of Misdaeus' wives and a relative, Charisius. He was imprisoned while converting Indian followers won through the performing of miracles.\n\nEmbedded in the Acts of Thomas at different places according to differing manuscript traditions is a Syriac hymn, The Hymn of the Pearl, (or Hymn of the Soul), a poem that gained a great deal of popularity in mainstream Christian circles. The Hymn is older than the Acts into which it has been inserted, and is worth appreciating on its own. The text is interrupted with the poetry of another hymn, the one that begins \"Come, thou holy name of the Christ that is above every name\" (2.27), a theme that was taken up in Catholic Christianity in the 13th century as the Holy Name. \n\nMainstream Christian tradition rejects the Acts of Thomas as pseudepigraphical and apocryphal, and for its part, the Roman Catholic Church declared the book as heretical at the Council of Trent. See also Leucius Charinus.\n\nThomas is often referred to by his name Judas (his full name is Thomas Judas Didymus), since both Thomas and Didymus just mean twin, and several scholars believe that twin is just a description, and not intended as a name. The manuscripts end \"The acts of Judas Thomas the apostle are completed, which he did in India, fulfilling the commandment of him that sent him. Unto whom be glory, world without end. Amen.\"\n\nActs of Thomas\n\nThe Acts of Thomas connects Thomas the apostle's Indian ministry with two kings.[4] According to one of the legends in the Acts, Thomas was at first reluctant to accept this mission, but the Lord appeared to him in a night vision and said, “Fear not, Thomas. Go away to India and proclaim the Word, for my grace shall be with you.” But the Apostle still demurred, so the Lord overruled the stubborn disciple by ordering circumstances so compelling that he was forced to accompany an Indian merchant, Abbanes, to his native place in north-west India, where he found himself in the service of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares. The apostle's ministry resulted in many conversions throughout the kingdom, including the king and his brother.[5]\n\nThe claim made by the acts of Thomas that he traveled to the land of the Parthians and the border of India is supported by other recordings of the time, from writers such as Ephrem the Syrian, Eusebius and Origen[6] The Acts of Thomas states that this is where he died, impaled by spears after earning the ire of the monarch Misdaeus, thought to be Abdagases I, a viceroy of the Gondophares in Sistan, modern day southern Afghanistan. According to the legend, Thomas was a skilled carpenter and was bidden to build a palace for the king. However, the Apostle decided to teach the king a lesson by devoting the royal grant to acts of charity and thereby laying up treasure for the heavenly abode.\n\nContent\n\nThe text is broken by headings: \n\n1 - when he went into India with Abbanes the merchant. It even says that Jesus is the son of Joseph. The apostles cast lots to see who will go where as a missionary. Thomas is assigned India but refuses to go, even after Jesus speaks to him. Jesus then appears in human form and sells Thomas to a merchant as a slave, since Thomas is skilled as a carpenter. Thomas is then asked if Jesus is his master, which he affirms. It is only then that he accepts the mission to India.\n\n2 - concerning his coming unto the king Gundaphorus\n\n3 - concerning the serpent\n\n4 - concerning the colt\n\n5 - concerning the devil that took up his abode in the woman\n\n6 - of the youth that murdered the woman. A young couple begin to have relationship problems when the young woman proves to be too keen on sex, while the young man promotes being chaste, honouring the teachings of Thomas. So, the young man kills his lover. He comes to take the eucharist with others in the presence of Thomas, but his hand withers, and Thomas realises that the young man has committed a grave sin. Upon being confronted, the young man reveals what he did and his reason for doing so. As such, Thomas forgives him as his motive was good, and he goes to find the woman's body. In an inn, Thomas and those with him lay the woman's body on a couch and after praying, Thomas has the young man hold his lover's hand, whereupon the woman comes back to life.\n\n7 - of the Captain\n\n8 - of the wild asses\n\n9 - of the wife of Charisius\n\n10 - wherein Mygdonia receiveth baptism\n\n11 - concerning the wife of Misdaeus\n\n12 - concerning Ouazanes (Iuzanes) the son of Misdaeus\n\n13 - wherein Iuzanes receiveth baptism with the rest\n\nThe Martyrdom of Thomas\n\nView of Jesus\n\nThe view of Jesus in the book could be inferred to be docetic. Thomas is not just Jesus' twin, he is Jesus' identical twin. Hence, it is possible that Thomas signifies the earthly, human side of Jesus, while Jesus is entirely spiritual in his being. In this way, Jesus directs Thomas' quest from heaven, while Thomas does the work on earth.\n\nAlso in line with Gnostic thinking is the text's description of Jesus' stance on sex. For example, in one scene, Jesus appears to a young woman who has just gotten married in her bridal chamber. He advises against copulation even for reproductive purposes.\n\nReferences\n\n^ István Czachesz (2002). \"5. The Acts of Thomas\" (PDF). Apostolic commission narratives in the canonical and apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. University of Groningen. Retrieved 19 July 2018.\n\n^ McGuckin, J. (2004) \"The Life of Origen\", in J. McGuckin (ed.), The Westminster Handbook to Origen. Louisville: 1-24, at 12.\n\n^ \"VIII.- On Two Medieval Bronze Bowls in the British Museum. By O. M. DALTON, Esq., M.A, F.S.A\" (PDF). The identity of Misdaeus' (Mazdai), the second king visited, under whom St. Thomas suffered martyrdom, is less certain; he may possibly have been Abdagases, viceroy of Gondopharnes in Seistan. See E. J. Rapson, The Cambridge History of India, vol. i, 1922, pp. 576-80.\n\n^ \"Thomas The Apostle\". Stthoma.com. Archived from the original on 2011-08-06. Retrieved 2023-12-20.\n\n^ \nA. E. Medlycott, India and The Apostle Thomas, pp.18-71\n\n^ Cordier, Henri (1920). Marco Polo; notes and addenda to Sir Henry Yule's edition, containing the results of recent research and discovery. St. Ephraem the Syrian (born about A.D. 300, died about 378), who spent most of his life at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, states that the Apostle was martyred in ' India,' and that his relics were taken thence to Edessa. That St. Thomas evangelized the Parthians, is stated by Origen (born A.D. 185 or 186, died about 251-254). Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea Palaestinae from A.D. 315 to about 340) says the same\n\nBibliography\n\nLeslie W. Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: an account of the ancient Syrian Church of Malabar, rev'd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, p. 49-59.\n\nEusebius, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 4:30\n\nJ. N. Farquhar, The Apostle Thomas in North India (Manchester: University Press, 1926), chapter 4, fully repr. in George Menachery, ed., Indian Church History Classics, vol. 1: The Nazranies (Ollur, Thrissur: South Asia Research Assistance Services, 1998).\n\nStefan Heining, Taufe statt Ehe: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Thomasakten (= Baptism instead of marriage: A contribution to the exploration of the Acts of Thomas), Univ. Diss., Wurzburg, 2020. (urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-210796; https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-210796; cc-by-sa)\n\nM. R. James, trans. The Apocryphal New Testament: being the Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses, with other narratives and fragments newly translated, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon, 1953, pp. 364-436.\n\nA. E. Medlycott. India and the Apostle Thomas: an inquiry, with a critical analysis of the Acta Thomae (London: David Nutt, 1905), pp. 1-17, 213-97. fully repr. in George Menachery, ed., Indian Church History Classics, vol. 1: The Nazranies (Ollur, Thrissur: South Asia Research Assistance Services, 1998).\n\nVincent A. Smith. Early History of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan conquest, including the invasion of Alexamder the Great, 4th edn. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957, p. 235\n\nExternal links\n\nMedlycott India and Apostle Thomas Acts of Thomas Ed. Menachery\n\nEarly Christian Writings: Acts of Thomas\n\nThe Gnostic Society Library: From the translation and notes by M. R. James in The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford 1924."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-acts-of-thomas"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1687}, {"slug": "reference-church-of-the-east-in-india", "title": "Church of the East in India", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "According to apocryphal records, Christianity in India and in Pakistan (included prior to the Partition) commenced in 52 AD,[1] with the arrival of Thomas the Apostle in Kodungallur (Cranganore). Subsequently, the Christians of the Malabar region, known as St Thomas Christians established close ties with the Levantine Christians...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "According to apocryphal records, Christianity in India and in Pakistan (included prior to the Partition) commenced in 52 AD,[1] with the arrival of Thomas the Apostle in Kodungallur (Cranganore). Subsequently, the Christians of the Malabar region, known as St Thomas Christians established close ties with the Levantine Christians of the Near East. They eventually coalesced into the Church of the East led by the Catholicos-Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.\n\nThe Church of the East was often separated from the other ancient churches due to its presence in the Assyrian-Parthian Empire, an ancient rival of the (Byzantine) Greek and (Latin) Roman Empires. When Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople was declared a heretic by the Council of Ephesus, the Church of the East refused to acknowledge his deposition because he held the same christological position. Later, the \"anaphora of Mar Nestorius\" came to be used by Church of the East, which for this reason has been pejoratively labelled the \"Nestorian Church\" by its theological opponents.\n\nWhen the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa and Bombay was established in the 16th century, they opposed the East Syriac rite of Christian worship in what was Portuguese Cochin. After the schism of 1552, a section of the Church of the East became part of the Chaldean Catholic Church, both the Assyrian and Chaldean patriarchates intermittently attempted to regain their following in the Indian subcontinent, by sending their prelates to the Malabarese Christians. The Vatican supported the claim of the bishop from the Chaldean Church of Ctesiphon. But the Portugal-sponsored Synod of Diamper in 1599, overseen by Aleixo de Menezes, the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa, replaced the East Syriac bishop of St Thomas Christians and placed them under the Portuguese Padroado-backed bishop.[2] After that any attempts of Thomas Christians to contact bishops, even Chaldean Catholic ones in the Middle East were foiled.[3]\n\nMar John, Metropolitan of India (1122 AD)\n\nIn 1122, Mar John, Metropolitan-designate of India, with his suffragans went to Constantinople, thence to Rome, and received the pallium from Pope Callixtus II.[4] He related to the Pope and the cardinals the miracles that were wrought at the tomb of St. Thomas at Mylapore.[5] These visits, apparently from the Saint Thomas Christians of India, cannot be confirmed, as evidence of both is only available from secondary sources.[6][7][8] Later, a letter surfaced during the 1160s claiming to be from Prester John. There were over one hundred different versions of the letter published over the next few centuries. Most often, the letter was addressed to Emanuel I, the Byzantine Emperor of Rome, though some were addressed to the Pope or the King of France.\n\nHistorian Meir Bar-Ilan notes that a 20th-century collection of Hebrew Prester John Letters, edited by Ullendorff and Beckingham (1982) \"present[s] a Latin text with its Hebrew translation (and an English text where the Latin is missing) as follows\":[9]\n\nPraete janni invenitur ascendendo in Kalicut in arida ... [In English: 'It is found on the banks of the Janni rising in Calicut in the dry season ...]\nThis is true proof and well-known knowledge about the Jews who are found there near Prester John.\n\n- The Hebrew Letters of Prester John. 1982. pp. 32-33\n\nBar-Ilan concludes that evidence from the Hebrew Letters \"shows that Prester John lived in India; or to be more precise, in Malabar (southern India)\".[9]: 292 \n\nMar Ya'qob Metropolitan of India and Patriarch Yahballaha III\n\nAt the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Indian church was again dependent upon the Church of the East. The dating formula in the colophon to a manuscript copied in June 1301 in the church of Mar Quriaqos in Cranganore mentions Patriarch Yahballaha III (whom it calls Yahballaha V) and Metropolitan Yaqob of India. Cranganore, described in this manuscript as \"the royal city\", was doubtless the metropolitan seat of India at this time.[10]\n\nIn the 1320s, the anonymous biographer of the patriarch Yahballaha III and his friend Rabban Bar Sauma praised the achievement of the Church of the East in converting \"the Indians, Chinese and Turks\".[11] India was listed as one of the Church of the East's \"provinces of the exterior\" by the historian Din ‘Amr in 1348.[12]\n\nYahballaha maintained contacts with the Byzantine Empire and with Latin Christendom. In 1287, when Abaqa Khan's son and successor Arghun Khan sought an ambassador for an important mission to Europe, Yaballaha recommended his former teacher Rabban Bar Sauma, who held the position of Visitor-general. Arghun agreed, and Bar Sauma made a historic journey through Europe; meeting with the Pope and many monarchs; and bringing gifts, letters, and European ambassadors with him on his return. Via Rabban Sauma, Yahballaha received a ring from the Pope's finger, and a papal bull which recognized Yahballaha as the patriarch of all the eastern Christians.[13]\n\nIn May 1304, Yahballaha made profession of the Catholic faith in a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XI. But a union with Rome was blocked by his Nestorian bishops.\n\nUdayamperoor (known as Diamper in Portuguese), the capital of this kingdom, was the venue of the famous Synod of Diamper of 1599. It was held in the All Saints Church there. The venue was apparently chosen on account of the place having been the capital of a Christian principality.[14]\n\nSynod of Diamper and suppression of East Syriac jurisdiction in India\n\nIn 1552, there was a schism in the Church of the East and a faction led by Mar Yohannan Sulaqa declared allegiance to Rome. When, on 6 April 1553, Pope Julius III confirmed Yohannan Sulaqa as Chaldean Patriarch, the Pope said that the discipline and liturgy of the Chaldeans had already been approved by his predecessors, Nicholas I (858-867), Leo X (1513-1521), and Clement VII (1523-1534). Thus, parallel to the \"traditionalist\" (often referred as Nestorian) Patriarchate, the \"Chaldean\" Patriarchate in communion with Rome came into existence and both traditionalist and Chaldean factions began sending their own bishops to Malabar.\n\nWhen the Portuguese arrived in Malabar, they assumed that the four bishops present were Nestorian. Their report of 1504, addressed to the Chaldean Patriarch, their being startled by the absence of images and by the use of leavened bread; but this was in accordance with Chaldean usage. The Christians paid the expenses of the Papal delegate Marignoli.[15]\n\nThe Synod of Diamper of 1599 marked the formal subjugation of the Malabar Syriac Christian community to the Latin Church. It implemented various liturgical and structural reforms in the Indian Church. The diocese of Angamaly, which was now formally placed under the Portuguese Padroado and made suffragan to the archdiocese of Goa. The east syriac bishop was then removed from jurisdiction in India and replaced by a Latin bishop; the East Syriac liturgy of Addai and Mari was “purified from error”; and Latin vestments, rituals, and customs were introduced to replace the ancient traditions.[2]\n\nAccounts of foreign missionaries\n\nFrancis Xavier wrote a letter dated 26 January 1549, from Cochin to king John III of Portugal, in which he declared that:\n\n... a bishop of Armenia (Mesopotamia) by the name of Jacob Abuna has been serving God and Your Highness in these regions for forty-five years. He is a very old, virtuous, and saintly man, and, at the same time, one who has been neglected by Your Highness and by almost all of those who are in India. God is granting him his reward, since he desires to assist Him by himself, without employing us as a means to console his servants. He is being helped here solely by the priests of St. Francis. Y. H. should write a very affectionate letter to him, and one of its paragraphs should include an order recommending him to the governors, to the veadores da fazenda, and to the captains of Cochin so that he may receive the honour and respect which he deserves when he comes to them with a request on behalf of the Christians of St. Thomas. Your Highness should write to him and earnestly entreat him to undertake the charge of recommending you to God, since YH. has a greater need of being supported by the prayers of the bishop than the bishop has need of the temporal assistance of Y.H. He has endured much in his work with the Christians of St Thomas.[16][17]\n\nIn that same year, Francis Xavier also wrote to his Jesuit colleague and Provincial of Portugal, Fr. Simon Rodrigues, giving him the following description:[16][17]\n\nFifteen thousand paces from Cochin there is a fortress owned by the king with the name of Cranganore. It has a beautiful college, built by Frey [Wente], a companion of the bishop, in which there are easily a hundred students, sons of native Christians, who are named after St. Thomas. There are sixty villages of these Thomas Christians around this fortress, and the students for the college as I have said, are obtained from them. There are two churches in Cranganore, one of St. Thomas, which is highly revered by the Thomas Christians.\n\nThis attitude of St. Francis Xavier, and of the Franciscans before him, does not reflect any of the animosity and intolerance that kept creeping in with the spread of the Tridentine spirit of the Counter-Reformation, which tended to foster a uniformity of belief and practice. It is possible to follow the lines of argument of young Portuguese historians, such as Joéo Paulo Oliveira e Cosca, yet such arguments seem to discount the Portuguese cultural nationalism in their colonial expansion and the treatment of the natives. Documents recently found in the Portuguese national archives help to confirm a greater openness or pragmatism in the first half of the 16th century.[17][18]\n\nMalankara-Persian ecclesiastical relations\n\nSeveral historical evidences shed light on a significant Malankara-Persian ecclesiastical relationship that spanned centuries. While an ecclesiastical relationship existed between the Saint Thomas Christians of India and the Church in Sassanid Empire (Church of the East) in the earlier centuries, closer ecclesiastical ties developed as early as seventh century, when India became an ecclesiastical province of the Church of the East, albeit restricted to matters of purely ecclesiastical nature such as ordination of priests, and not involved in matters of temporal administration. This relationship endured until the Portuguese protectorate of Cochin of Malabar came to be in 16th century, and the Cape Route, a Portuguese discovery of a sea route to India.[19] The Christians who came under the two ancient yet distinct lineages of Malankara and Persia had one factor in common: their Saint Thomas heritage. The Church of the East shared communion with the Great Church (Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy) until the Council of Ephesus in the 5th century, separating primarily over differences in Christology.\n\nThe Saint Thomas Christians of India came in contact with Portuguese Latin Catholic missionaries only in the 16th century. Later, after the Oath of Koonan Cross (meaning \"leaning cross\") in 1653, the Saint Thomas Christians came in touch with the Syriac Orthodox Church.[19]\n\nThough claims have been made that the Saint Thomas Christians of Malankara had close interactions with the Roman Catholic Church and Syriac Orthodox Church before the 16th century, these assertions lack proof.[20][21][22]\n\nEarly references\n\nThe celebrated Church historian Eusebius has mentioned in his work that the Alexandrian scholar Pantenus[23] had seen Christians during his visit to India between 180 A. D. and 190 A. D. This account of Eusebius has later been quoted by several historians. According to Eusebius, Pantenus saw people reading the Gospel according to Mathew in Hebrew. Based on this reference by Eusebius, Jerome has recorded the existence of Christians in India during the early centuries of Christian Era. In addition to this, Jerome mentions that Pantenus held debates with Brahmins and philosophers in India.[24]\n\nThe evangelization of India is mentioned in a number of ancient works, including the book Acts of Judas Thomas written in Edessa around 180 A. D. in Syriac language, and Didascalia (meaning teachings of the Apostles) written around 250 A. D. Historians have often remarked that the Persians might have received this tradition about the Church in India from India itself.\n\nThe Chronicle of Seert is a historical document compiled in the Middle Ages. In this Chronicle, the Church in India is mentioned along with the history of Persian Church and the Patriarchs (Catholicoi) of Babylon. It also states that during the reigns of Shahlufa and Papa bar Aggai as the heads of Persian Church, the Persian bishop David of Basra preached the Gospel in India.[25] Some historians' records regarding the participation of Bishop John representing Persia and India as the Bishop of all of Persia and Greater India in the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 A. D. remains a matter of contention among historians.\n\nIshodad was a famous Bible scholar who lived in Persia in the 5th century. In his commentary on the Epistle to Romans, a note is scribbled in the margin that may be translated as: This article is translated by Mar Komai with the help of Daniel, an Indian priest, from Greek to Syriac. This statement reveals the connection between the Indian priest Daniel and the Persian bishop Mar Komai.[26][27][28]\n\nPersian Immigration\n\nThe two instances of immigration from Persia to Malankara (India) substantiate the Malankara-Persia connection. The first of these, which occurred in the 4th century, was led by a merchant named Thoma (fondly referred to as Knai Thoma or Knai Thomman by the Christians of Malankara, meaning Thomas of Cana), while the second immigration was led by two Persian bishops, Prod and Sappor in the 9th century.\n\nThere exists the strong traditional belief that Thomas of Cana, accompanied by a Persian bishop and seventy two families, reached the ancient port of Kodungallur in India. The history of Knanaya in Malankara is inseparably related to this immigration.\n\nIn 825 A. D., a group of Persians under the leadership of two Persian bishops Prod (or Proth, also known as Aphroth) and Sappor (also known as Sabrisho)reached Kerala and resided in Quilon. They received great honors from the native ruler known as Sthanu Ravi Varma who bestowed 72 titles and special rights and concessions on them. The king believed that the immigrants who were merchants by profession would boost the economy. Their Church in Quilon was known as Thareesa Pally and the titles were engraved on metal plates known as Thareesa Pally Chepped.\n\nIndian Church records\n\nThe oldest known Syriac manuscript copied in India in 1301 AD at Cranganore (1612 AG) at the Church dedicated to Mar Quriaqos and currently kept at the Vatican Library (MS Vatican Syriac 22) was written in Estrangela script by a very young deacon named Zakharya bar Joseph bar Zakharya, who was just 14 at the time of writing.[19] In that lectionary, it is stated that it was compiled during the time of Church of the East Patriarch Yahballaha III and Mar Yakob, the Metropolitan on the throne of St. Thomas in India at Kodungallur. The Church fathers Nestorius, Theodore and Deodore, who are venerated in the Church of the East, are also mentioned in this lectionary.[29][30] Johannes P. M. van der Ploeg comments that the author refers to Yahballaha III as 'the fifth'.\n\nMS Vatican Syriac 22 has the following passage about the \"Catholicos-Patriarch of the East\" in folio 93:\n\nThis holy book has been written in the royal and well known and famous town Shengala in the land of India, in the holy church dedicated to the glorious martyr Mar Quriaqos .... whilst our blessed and holy father Mar Yahballaha the fifth, the Turk, qatoliqa Patriakis of the East, the head of all the countries, was great governor, holding the offices of the Catholic Church of East, the shining lamp which illuminates its regions, the head of the pastors and Pontiff of the pontiffs, Head of great high priests, Father of the fathers.. The Lord may make long his life and protect his days in order that he may govern her, a long time, for her glory and for the exaltation of her sons. Amen.\n\n- J P M Van Der Ploeg, The syriac manuscripts of Saint Thomas Christians.\n\nPersian Bishops in Malankara\n\nWhile some Persian Bishops who traveled to Malankara belonged to different groups of immigrants fleeing persecution, others visited Malankara to provide spiritual administration to the Malankara Nasranis. Niranam Grandhavari[31] gives a list (incomplete) of Persian bishops and the year of their visits to Malankara.\n\nMar Joseph of Uraha (Edessa) (345 A. D.)\n\nMar Sabor and Mar Proth (825 A. D.)[19][32][33]\n\nMar Yohannan (988 A.D.)\n\nMar Joseph (1056 A.D.)\n\nMar Yacob (1122 A. D.)\n\nMar Joseph (1221 A.D.)\n\nMar David (1285 A.D.)\n\nMar Yabaloha (1407 A.D.)\n\nMar Thoma and Mar Yohannan (1490 A.D.)[34][35][36][37][38][39]\n\nMar Yahballaha, Mar Dinkha and Mar Yacob (1504 A.D.)[19][40][41][42]\n\nMar Abraham (1565 A. D.)[19]\n\nIt is worth noting that the Chaldean Catholic Church was originated only in 1552 AD following a schism in the Church of the East. This invalidates recent claims that the Persian Bishops were sent by the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, which is impossible considering that almost all of them visited Malankara before the origin of Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nPersian Church Records\n\nSeveral evidences are available from the historical records of Persian Church and letters of Persian bishops which corroborate the Malankara-Persian relation.\n\nIn the 5th century, Mar Mana, the Persian bishop of Rev Ardashir recorded that while sending his theological works and the works and translations of other Persian bishops to various places, they were sent to India as well.\n\nDuring the reign of Persian emperor Khosrau II in the 6th century, bishop Marutha reached Persia as the delegate of the Roman Emperor and visited the Persian Patriarch Sabrisho I (594-604). It is recorded that during this visit, the Patriarch presented bishop Marutho with fragrant spices and other special gifts which he had received from India.\n\nTwo letters from Persian Patriarch Ishoyahb III to the Metropolitan bishop of Fars between 650 and 660 A. D. show that the Indian Christians were under the jurisdiction of the Persian Patriarchate.[43] In the 7th century, Fars was an eparchy (ecclesiastical province) in the Persian Church with Rev Ardashir as its capital. At that time, Metropolitan bishop Simon of Rev Ardashir was in charge of the affairs of the Church of India. However, a situation arose in which the bishop became hostile to the Patriarch, resulting in excommunication. In his letter, the Patriarch reprimands the bishop and complains that because of the opposition of the bishop, it was impossible to tend to the spiritual needs of the faithful in India. The Patriarch adds that the Indians were cut off from the Patriarchate and the annual offertory given to the Patriarch by the Indians was no longer given. Following this, Patriarch Ishoyahb III issued an encyclical releasing the Church of India from the jurisdiction of Fars eparchy and appointed a Metropolitan Bishop for India. According to the canons of Persian Church in the medieval centuries, the bishop of India came tenth in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, followed by the bishop of China. The title of the Metropolitan bishop of India was the Metropolitan and Gate of all India.\n\nAlso during the reign of Patriarch Timothy the Great (780-823), the Patriarch released the Church of India from the authority of the bishop of Fars, placing it under his direct jurisdiction. Historians refer to two letters written by Patriarch Timothy with regard to the Church of India. The first letter contains guidelines for the election of Metropolitans. The letter demands that the acknowledgement of the Patriarch must be obtained after the people selected bishops based on the guidelines set by the Patriarch, before requesting the acknowledgement of the Emperor. In the second letter addressed to the Archdeacon of Malankara, the Patriarch mentions some violations of canon in the Church of India. The Patriarch also demands that bishops should abstain from entering wedlock and consuming meat.\n\nWhile writing about the journeys of Nestorian missionaries during his reign, Timothy I himself says (in Letter 13) that a number of monks go across the sea to India with nothing but a staff and a beggar's bag.\n\nIn the Persian Church, the bishops were supposed to report to the Patriarch every year. However, Patriarch Theodosius (853-858) suggested that the bishops of distant places like India and China need to report only once every six years, owing to the great distance.\n\nIn 1129, in response to the request of the Church of India, the Persian Patriarch Eliya II sent bishop Mar Yohannan to Malabar (Kerala, India). Mar Yohannan reached Kodungallur and gave the Church spiritual leadership from there. In 1490, a three-member delegation of the Christians of Malankara left for Baghdad with a petition to the Patriarch requesting him to appoint a Metropolitan Bishop for them. One of them perished on the way. The remaining two, named George and Joseph, were ordained to priesthood by Patriarch Shemʿon IV Basidi. The Patriarch selected two monks from the monastery of Mar Augen and consecrated them as bishops Mar Thoma and Mar John. These bishops accompanied the two priests on their return to India. Bishop Mar John died shortly after. Later, Mar Thoma and the priest Joseph returned to Baghdad.\n\nPatriarch Eliya V, who ascended the throne in 1502, sent three bishops, namely Mar Yabalaha, Mar Yakob and Mar Denaha to Malankara. By the time they reached Malankara, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had already set foot in Kerala. The three bishops were detained by the Portuguese. Few years later, Patriarch Abdisho IV Maron sent bishop Abraham to Malankara. Mar Abraham was also imprisoned by the Portuguese. As a result of the injuries suffered at the hands of the Portuguese, Mar Abraham died in 1597. Thus, the authority of Persian bishops in Malankara reached its termination.\n\nTestimonials of travelers\n\nThe 6th century Gallo-Roman historian Gregory of Tours has recorded the trips of Theodore, a Persian monk, to India on several occasions where the latter visited the tomb of Apostle St. Thomas and an adjoining monastery.\n\nNear the end of the 6th century, the Persian scholar Bodha has recorded his visit to India where he held discussions with Indian religious scholars in Sanskrit language.\n\nCosmas Indicopleustes, the Alexandrian traveler visited India during 520-525. Later, he wrote a book titled Christian Topography in which he mentions the Churches of Persia, India, Ceylon etc. Cosmas states the existence of Christians in Malabar, where pepper grows. Cosmas also records that there were Christians at Kalyana (Kalyan in Mumbai, India) with a bishop appointed from Persia. The traveler tries to emphasize the spread of Christianity in all these places.[44]\n\nMarco Polo, who visited Kerala in 1295 has recorded that he saw Nestorian Christians there.\n\nA lectionary compiled in 1301 in Syriac language at Kodungallur in Kerala is kept in the collection of Syriac manuscripts in the Vatican Library. In that lectionary, it is stated that it was compiled during the time of Church of the East Patriarch Yahballaha III and Mar Yakob, the Metropolitan on the throne of St. Thomas in India at Kodungallur. The Church fathers Nestorius, Theodore and Deodore, who are venerated in the Church of the East, are also mentioned in this lectionary.[45][30]\n\nIn an Arabic document written near the end of 14th century titled Churches and Monasteries in Egypt and its surroundings, it is mentioned that pilgrims visit the tomb of Apostle St. Thomas in Mylapore, India. In the same document, it is stated that a Church in the name of the Mother of God exists in Kullam (modern day Kollam in Kerala) and that the Christians there are pro-Nestorians.\n\nPersian Stone Crosses in Malankara\n\nThe Persian stone crosses in Malankara are eternal witnesses to Malankara-Persia connection.[46][44] At present, five such Persian crosses exist, two at Kottayam (Knanite) Knanaya Jacobite Valiya pally (meaning greater church), one each at Mylapore St. Thomas Mount, Kadamattom St. George Orthodox Church[47] and Muttuchira Catholic Church. These crosses are chiseled on stone and embedded in the walls of these churches. Some writings in ancient Persian language are also engraved near these crosses. The central panel, which contains the figure of the cross with its symbolic ornaments, is enclosed by an arch that has an inscription in the Pahlavi script of Sassanian Persia.[48]\n\nDecisions of the Synod of Diamper\n\nThe infamous Synod of Diamper was a calculated move towards separating the Malankara Church from Persian connection and bringing it under the Pope of Rome. This was the aim of Portuguese missionaries since the beginning of their missionary works in India. Their efforts culminated in the Synod of Diamper in 1599. Aleixo de Menezes, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Goa, who visited the churches of Malankara prior to convening the synod, had expressed his indignation over the prayer for the Patriarch of Persia amid the Divine Liturgy in those churches. He strictly admonished that the pope was the general primate (Catholicos) of the Church and in his stead, no one else should be prayed for. Several canons of the synod, including canons 12, 17, 19 etc. were solely aimed at obstructing and obliterating Malankara-Persian relation and establishing a relationship with Rome instead.[49][30]: 45 \n\nIn spite of almost sixteen centuries of Persian connection, a majority of the Christians of Malankara became associated with the Roman Catholic Church and Western Syriac Church of Antioch (Syriac Orthodox). At present, only a very small minority of Christians in Malankara (numbering around 50,000) are in direct connection with the Assyrian Church of the East.[50]\n\nLiturgical language\n\nDuring the early centuries of Christian Era, the population to the east of Tigris-Euphrates river system was under Persian rule, while the population to its west was under Roman rule. The Syrian people spread over the two empires used the Syriac language independently by developing distinct transformations from basic Esṭrangēlā. The form of Syriac which was developed in Persia resembled Esṭrangēlā more closely, and is referred to as Eastern Syriac, Chaldean Syriac or Nestorian Syriac. Until the 17th century, the Church of India used this dialect. Following the Synod of Diamper in 1599 and the Oath of Coonan Cross in 1653, they came in direct contact with the West Syriac tradition and hence with the West Syriac dialect of the language.[51] Until then, the Liturgy of Nestorius, who is considered a saint by the Chaldean Church and anathematized by the Western Syriac tradition, was popular in Malankara. Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, who was the first West Syrian bishop to visit Malankara, faced severe opposition from the people of Malankara for following West Syrian liturgy, and was asked to follow the East Syrian liturgy, which the people referred to as old liturgy.[52][53]\n\nSince the 17th century, efforts were made by the visiting bishops of West Syriac tradition to establish the use of western dialect in liturgy in Malankara. Written in a more roundly form, this dialect is known as Western Syriac, Maronite Syriac or Jacobite Syriac. As both these forms are indistinguishable in terms of grammar and meaning, they differ only in the shape of letters and pronunciation. Even though the Western Syriac was introduced in the Malankara Church in the 17th century, its use was still greatly eclipsed by the use of Eastern Syriac until the 19th century, as shown by the pronunciations in the Eastern Syriac way which have transcended into the daily usage and liturgical translations of the Christians of Malankara. This is exemplified by the pronunciation of words like Sleeba, Kablana, Qurbana, Kasa, Thablaitha etc. (instead of Sleebo, Kablono, Qurbono, Kaso, Thablaitho as in the Western dialect) which has remained unchanged through the centuries. Even the letters written by the primate of Malankara Church, Malankara Metropolitan Mar Dionysius, the Great (+1808) were in Eastern Syriac.[24] As the attempts by Western Syriac visiting bishops to get Western Syriac liturgy adopted by the Malankara Church continued to face opposition from Malankara, a middle ground was reached in 1789 by the Malankara Palliyogam (assembly of parish representatives) held at Mavelikkara Puthiyakavu church and presided by Mar Dionysius, the Great. The decision was documented in the historical document Puthiyacavu Padiyola which stated that the prayers of canonical hours, ordinations and Holy Qurbana must be done in the new liturgical rite (Western Syriac), while weddings and baptisms must continue following the old liturgical rite (Eastern Syriac).[54][55] Two decades later, the transition to Western Syriac Liturgy was fully implemented by the Malankara Palliyogam of 1809 through the declaration Kandanad Padiyola which stated that all prayers and sacraments must follow the Western Syriac liturgical rites.[56][57]\n\nSee also\n\nGondophares\n\nChaldean Syrian Church\n\nSt Gaspar\n\nIndia (East Syriac ecclesiastical province)\n\nAssyrian Church of the East in India\n\nNear East\n\nNotes\n\n^ Curtin, D. P.; Nath, Nithul. (May 2017). The Ramban Pattu. Dalcassian Publishing Company. ISBN 9781087913766.\n\n^ a b \"Synod of Diamper\". britannica.com. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 July 2022. The local patriarch-representing the Assyrian Church of the East, to which ancient Christians in India had looked for ecclesiastical authority-was then removed from jurisdiction in India and replaced by a Portuguese bishop; the East Syrian liturgy of Addai and Mari was \"purified from error\"; and Latin vestments, rituals, and customs were introduced to replace the ancient traditions.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2011). \"Thomas Christians\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 14 June 2021. The destruction of all Syriac books considered heretical at the Synod of Diamper (1599) and the Romanization of the rite (though Syriac was still allowed) witness to the domineering character of the European hierarchy in India. Any attempts to contact bishops - even Chald. Catholic ones - in the Middle East were foiled.\n\n^ The realm of Prester John, Silverberg, pp. 29-34.\n\n^ Raulin, op. cit., pp. 435-436. Counto. Asia Lisbonne, 1788, Dec. XII, p. 288.\n\n^ Halsall, Paul (1997). Otto of Freising: The Legend of Prester John Archived 13 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Retrieved 20 June 2005.\n\n^ Silverberg, pp. 3-7\n\n^ Bowden, p. 177\n\n^ a b Bar-Ilan, Meir (January 1995). \"Prester John: Fiction and history\". History of European Ideas. 20 (1-3): 291-298. doi:10.1016/0191-6599(95)92954-S. Citing:\n\n\"The Hebrew letters of Prester John were printed in Constantinople 1519, and later in\":\n\nNeubauer, A. (1888). \"Collections on the Lost Ten Tribes and the Children of Moses\" Qobes al Yad, vol. IX, pp. 1-74; (in Hebrew); and\n\nUllendorff, E.; Beckingham, C. F. (1982). The Hebrew Letters of Prester John. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\n^ MS Vat Syr 22; Wilmshurst 2000, pp. 343, 391\n\n^ Wallis Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, 122-123\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 343.\n\n^ Phillips, p. 123\n\n^ \"History of Indian Churches\". Synod of Diamper (in Malayalam). 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2019.\n\n^ Father Nidhiry: A History of His Times by Prof. Abraham Nidhiry\n\n^ a b Costellioe, Letters, 232-246\n\n^ a b c \"Christen und Gewürze\" : Konfrontation und Interaktion kolonialer und indigener Christentumsvarianten Klaus Koschorke (Hg.) (in German, English, and Spanish), 1998. pp. 31-32\n\n^ Arquivio Nacional torre do Tombo Lisbo:Nucleo Antigo N 875 contains a summary of letters from india written in 1525 and also the kings replay to it :Cf.OLIVERIA E COSTA, Portuguese, Apendice Documental 170-178\n\n^ a b c d e f Brock (2011a).\n\n^ Cardinal Tisserant, Eugene (1957). Eastern Christianity in India. Longmans, Green and Co. p. 17.\n\n^ Malancharuvil, Cyril (1973). The Syro Malankara Church. p. 7.\n\n^ Rev. Dr. Varghese, T. I. മലങ്കര അന്ത്യോഖ്യൻ ബന്ധം പത്തൊമ്പതാം നൂറ്റാണ്ടിൻ്റെ സൃഷ്ടി [Malankara-Antioch Relation a Nineteenth Century Creation] (in Malayalam).\n\n^ nl:Pantenus\n\n^ a b John, Fr. M. O. (December 2013). \"പോർട്ടുഗീസ് വരവിനു മുമ്പുള്ള മലങ്കര സഭയുടെ വിദേശ ബന്ധം\" [Foreign Relationship of the Malankara Church before the Arrival of the Portuguese]. Basil Pathrika (in Malayalam). Pathanamthitta: Thumpamon Diocese.\n\n^ \"St. Gregorios Malankara (Indian) Orthodox Church of Washington, DC : Indian Orthodox Calendar\". Stgregorioschurchdc.org. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ Paul IAS, D. Babu (1986). The Syrian Orthodox Christians of St. Thomas. Cochin: Swift Offset Printers. p. 11.\n\n^ Sugirtharajah, R. S. (2001). The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters. Cambridge: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. p. 18. ISBN 978-0521005241.\n\n^ Stewart, John (1928). Nestorian Missionary Enterprise: The Story of a Church on Fire. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. pp. 88. ISBN 9789333452519. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Dr. Mar Gregorios, Paulos. വത്തിക്കാൻ ലൈബ്രറിയിൽ നിന്നും ഒരു പുതിയ രേഖ [Vatican Libraryil ninnum oru puthiya rekha] (PDF) (in Malayalam). India: Kottayam.\n\n^ a b c Thomas, Dr. M. Kurian. കാതോലിക്ക എന്ന് ചൊല്ലി വാഴ്ത്തി ഞായം [Catholica Ennucholly Vazhthy Njayam - History & Relevance of the Catholicate] (PDF) (in Malayalam). India: Sophia Books, Kottayam.\n\n^ Niranam Granthavari (Record of History written during 1770-1830). Editor Paul Manalil, M.O.C.Publications, Catholicate Aramana, Kottayam. 2002.\n\n^ Kerala Charithram P.59 Sridhara Menon\n\n^ V. Nagam Aiya (1906), Travancore State Manual, page 244\n\n^ Mingana 1926, p. 468-470.\n\n^ Brown 1956, p. 16-18.\n\n^ Mundadan 1967, p. 56-58.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 20, 347, 398.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 106-111.\n\n^ Neill (2004), p. 193-195.\n\n^ Rev. H Hosten, St Thomas Christians of Malabar, Kerala Society papers, Series 5, 1929,\n\n^ \"Christen und Gewürze\" : Konfrontation und Interaktion kolonialer und indigener Christentumsvarianten Klaus Koschorke (Hg.)Book in German, English, Spanish, 1998 Page 31,32\n\n^ Neill (2004), p. 194.\n\n^ \"Chronicles of Malabar: Influence of Persian Christianity on Malabar(500-850)\". Chroniclesofmalabar.blogspot.com. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ a b Mihindukulasuriya, Prabo. \"Persian Christians in the Anuradhapura Period\". Academia.edu. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ Dr. Mar Gregorios, Paulos. വത്തിക്കാൻ ലൈബ്രറിയിൽ നിന്നും ഒരു പുതിയ രേഖ [Vatican Libraryil ninnum oru puthiya rekha] (PDF) (in Malayalam). India: Kottayam.\n\n^ \"Ancient Churches, Stone Crosses of Kerala- Saint Thomas Cross, Nazraney Sthambams and other Persian Crosses\". Nasrani.net. 16 January 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ \"Religion and Death\". Kadamattomchurch.org. Archived from the original on 27 December 2014. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ Winckworth, C. P. T (April 1929). \"A New Interpretation of the Pahlavi Cross-Inscriptions of Southern India\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 30 (119). Oxford University Press: 237-244. doi:10.1093/jts/os-XXX.April.237. JSTOR 23950669.\n\n^ \"2.2.8\". ഉദയംപേരൂർ സുന്നഹദോസ് നിശ്ചയങ്ങൾ - രണ്ടാം മൗത്വ, രണ്ടാം കൂടിവിചാരം, എട്ടാം കാനോന [Decisions of the Synod of Diamper] (in Malayalam). Diamper, Kerala. 1599.\n\n^ nl:Chaldean Syrian Church\n\n^ Mar Severius, Dr. Mathews (23 February 2001). \"സുറിയാനി സാഹിത്യ പഠനത്തിന്റെ സാംഗത്യം\". In John, Kochumariamma (ed.). മലങ്കരയുടെ മല്പാനപ്പച്ചൻ [The Scholarly Father of Malankara] (in Malayalam). Johns and Mariam Publishers, Kottayam. pp. 185-192.\n\n^ Mooken, Mar Aprem (1976). പൗരസ്ത്യ സഭാചരിത്ര പ്രവേശിക [Introduction to Eastern Church History] (in Malayalam). Thiruvalla. p. 95.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Thomas, Dr. M. Kurian (2008). അഞ്ചാം പാത്രിയര്കീസ് മാർ ഗ്രീഗോറിയോസ് അബ്ദൽ ജലീദ് [Mar Gregorios Abdal Jaleed, the Fifth Patriarch] (in Malayalam). India: Sophia Books, Kottayam. p. 32.\n\n^ Niranam Granthavari (Record of History written during 1770-1830). Editor Paul Manalil, M.O.C.Publications, Catholicate Aramana, Kottayam. 2002, p158.\n\n^ Yakub III, Ignatius (2010). ഇന്ത്യയിലെ സുറിയാനി സഭാ ചരിത്രം [History of the Syrian Church in India] (in Malayalam). Cheeramchira. p. 210.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Thomas, Dr. M. Kurian; Thottappuzha, Varghese John (6 October 2021). \"മലങ്കര അസോസിയേഷൻ: 1653 മുതൽ 2020 വരെ\" [Malankara Association: from 1653 to 2020]. www.ovsonline.in (in Malayalam).\n\n^ Thomas, Dr. M. Kurian (July 2017). \"19. സഹായത്തിൻ്റെ ദൗത്യത്തിൽനിന്ന് അധികാരത്തിൻ്റെ അകത്തളത്തിലേയ്ക്ക്\" [From mission of help to foyer of subjugation]. നസ്രാണി സംസ്‌കൃതി [Nasrani Culture] (in Malayalam). Kottayam: Sophia Books. p. 131.\n\nBibliography\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nSamuel Giamil, ed. (1902). Brevis notitia historica circa Ecclesiae Syro-Chaldaeo-Malabaricae statum. Genuinae relationes inter sedem apostolicam et Assyriorum orientalium seu Chaldaeorum ecclesiam. Rome: Loescher. pp. 552-64.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011a). \"Thomas Christians\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nBrown, Leslie W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.\n\nChronicle of Se'ert: Scher, Addai. Histoire nestorienne inédite: Chronique de Séert. pp. PO 4.3, 5.2, 7.2, 13.4. (editions issued: 1908, 1910, 1911, 1919).\n\nCosmas Indicopleustes. W. Wolska-Conus (ed.). Christian Topography. Topographie chrétienne. Vol. 3 Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Éditions du Cerf. pp. 141, 159, 197. (editions issued: 1968, 1970, 1973).\n\nda Cunha Rivara, J. H., ed. (1992) [1862]. Diamper Synod, Acts of. Archivo Portuguez-Oriental, Fasciculo 4o que contem os Concilios de Goa e o Synodo de Diamper. Nova-Goa: Imprensa Nacional. Reprint: New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1992. pp. 283-556.\n\nDionysio (1970) [1578]. Josephus Wicki (ed.). Relatio P. Francisci Dionysii S. I. De Christianis S. Thomae Cocini 4 Ianuarii 1578. Documenta Indica XI (1577-1580). Roma: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. pp. 131-43. ISBN 9788870411232.\n\nA. S. Ramanatha Ayyar., ed. (1927). Funerary Inscription of the Last Villarvattam King. The Travancore Archaeological Series VI/1. pp. 68-71.\n\nGeorge of Christ (1970) [1578]. Josephus Wicki (ed.). Rev. Georgius de Christo, Archidiaconus Christianorum S. Thomae, P. E. Mercuriano, praep. gen. S. I. Cocino 3 Ianuarii 1578. Documenta Indica XI (1577-1580). Roma: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. pp. 129-31.\n\nGoes, Damião de. (1619). Chronica do Felicissimo Rey Dom Emmanuel da gloriosa memoria. Lisbon: Antonio Alvares.\n\nGouvea, Antonio. (1606). Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa Dom Frey Aleixo de Menezes Primaz da India Oriental, Religioso da Orden de S. Agostino. Coimbra: Officina de Diogo Gomez.\n\nEnglish translation: Malekandathil, Pius (2003). Jornada of Dom Alexis de Menezes: A Portuguese Account of the Sixteenth Century Malabar. Kochi: LRC Publications.\n\nM. R. Raghava Varier; Kesavan Veluthat (2013). \"Kollam Copper Plates\". Tarisāppaḷḷippaṭṭayam (Caritram) [The Tarissāppaḷḷi Document] (in Malayalam). Kottayam: National Book Stall Sahithya Pravarthaka C. S. Ltd. pp. 109-113.\n\nKollam Copper Plates in English translation: Narayanan, M. G. S. (1972). Cultural Symbiosis in Kerala. Trivandrum: Kerala Historical Society. pp. 91-94.\n\nA. S. Ramanatha Ayyar, ed. (1927). Kumari-Muṭṭam Tamil Inscription. The Travancore Archaeological Series VI/1. pp. 176-89.\n\nJosephus Simonius Assemani, ed. (1725). Letter of Mar Thomas, Mar Yahballāhā, Mar Jacob and Mar Denḥā to Patriarch Mar Eliah V. Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana, vol. III/1. Rome: Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide. pp. 589-99.\n\nMarco Polo the Venetian, The Travels of: Trans. John Masefield. Everyman’s Library London-New York: J. M. Dent and Sons-E. P. Dutton and Co. 1908.\n\n[Traditional] (1931). \"Mārggam Kaḷi Pāṭṭu\" [The Song of the Drama of the Way]. In H. Hosten (ed.). The Song of Thomas Ramban - Mr. T. K. Joseph, vs Fr. Romeo Thomas, T.O.C.D. and Others. Translated by Joseph, T. K. Darjeeling.\n\nRepublished in: George Menachery (1998). Indian Church History Classics. Vol. One: The Nazranies. Pallinada, Ollur, Thrissur: The South Asia Research Assistance Services. pp. 522-525.\n\nMingana, Alphonse (1926). \"The Early Spread of Christianity in India\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 10 (2): 435-514. doi:10.7227/BJRL.10.2.7.\n\nMonserrate, Antonio de (1579). Informacion de los Christianos de S. Thomé. Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu, MS Goa 33. Manuscript preserved in Rome.\n\nMundadan, Mathias (1967). The Arrival of the Portuguese in India and the Thomas Christians Under Mar Jacob, 1498-1552. Bangalore: Dharmaram College.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2004) [1984]. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521548854.\n\nPeriplus Maris Erythraei: K. Müller. 1855/1965. Geographi Graeci minores, vol. 1. Paris, Hildesheim (reprint): Firmin Didot, Olms (reprint). 1965. pp. 515-62.\n\nRoz, Francisco (1928). \"Relação sobre a Serra. De erroribus Nestorianorum qui in hac India orientali versantur British Library, Add 9853, ff. 86 (525)-99 (539)\". Inédit latin-syriaque de la fin de 1586 ou du début de 1587, retrouvé par le P. Castets S. I., missionaire à Trichinopoly, in I. Hausherr. Orientalia Christiana 11,1 (40): 1-35.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nZaynuddin Makhdum (2012). K. M. Mohamed (ed.). Tahrid ahlil iman 'ala jihadi' abdati sulban [Exhortation to the followers of the Faith to the holy war against the followers of the Cross]. Calicut: Other Books.\n\nZaynuddin Makhdum (2009). Muhammad Husayn Nainar (ed.). Tuḥfat al-Mujāhidīn: A Historical Epic of the Sixteenth Century. Kuala Lumpur: Islamic Book Trust."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-church-of-the-east-in-india"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6862}, {"slug": "reference-shimun-xxi-eshai", "title": "Shimun XXI Eshai", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Mar Eshai Shimun XXI (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܝܫܝ ܫܡܥܘܢ ܟܓ.; 26 February 1908 - 6 November 1975), sometimes known as Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, Mar Shimun XXIII Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse,[1] was Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920 until his murder on...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mar\nEshai Shimun XXI\n\nPatriarch\n\nMar Eshai Shimun XXI\n\nNative nameܡܪܝ ܐܝܫܝ ܫܡܥܘܢ ܟܓ.\n\nChurchAssyrian Church of the East\n\nSeeHoly Apostolic See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nInstalled20 June 1920\n\nTerm ended5 November 1975\n\nPredecessorMar Shimun XX Paulos (1918-1920)\n\nSuccessorMar Dinkha IV (1976-2015)\n\nOrders\n\nRankCatholicos-Patriarch\n\nPersonal details\n\nBornEshai d'Mar Shimun\n26 February 1908\nKonak, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire (now Hakkari Province, Turkey)\n\nDied6 November 1975(1975-11-06) (aged 67)\nSan Jose, California, United States\n\nBuriedTurlock Memorial Park\n\nMar Eshai Shimun XXI (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܐܝܫܝ ܫܡܥܘܢ ܟܓ.; 26 February 1908 - 6 November 1975), sometimes known as Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, Mar Shimun XXIII Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse,[1] was Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920 until his murder on 6 November 1975 in San Jose, California. He was consecrated as patriarch at 12 years old. \n\nBiography\n\nMar Eshai was born on 26 February 1908 in Qudchanis, the mountainous region located in southern Turkey. Mar Eshai was raised with great care while receiving the necessary theological and liturgical training by the Archdeacon of the Patriarch, Thoma of Ashita and by the Metropolitan of Rustaqa, Mar Yosip Khnanisho, who was also his uncle.\n\nAt the age of twelve, due to geopolitical upheavals at the time, Mar Eshai was ordained as Patriarch in 1920, succeeding his uncle, Shimun XX Paulos.[2] His aunt Surma acted as regent for several years, working with the Metropolitans and looking after secular affairs.[3][4] He was educated in England, studying theology at Canterbury and at Westcott House, University of Cambridge.[1]\n\nAs early as 1926 at the age of 18, the Patriarch attended the Nicene Council Commemoration held at Westminster Abbey, London. The Church and State Conference held in Oxford and the Faith and Order Conference held in Edinburgh were both attended by Mar Eshai in 1937. The distinguished Athenaeum Club of London had favoured Eshai by conferring an honorary membership. He was also a member of the American Historical Society and other organizations, as well as being a representative to the World Council of Churches and being given an entry in Who's Who.\n\nNumerous appeals and publications concerning the Assyrian Question, written by the Patriarch and presented to the British Government and various international bodies, highlight him as a writer of distinction.[2] He was the translator or author of several books on the theology and history of the Church of the East (see \"Works\" section.) The volatile political environment and uncertainties for the church caused in 1933 by the independence of Iraq from the British mandate rule forced the patriarch to be exiled to Cyprus, away from the new see in Bebadi. In 1940, he relocated again, to Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.\n\nPrior to Mar Eshai Shimun's intervention, Assyrians living among their Islamic neighbors shared a tenuous relationship that was firmly rooted in mistrust by both sides. Therefore, in 1948 Eshai made a revolutionary announcement of a new policy for the Assyrian people and the Assyrian Church of the East. Through direct contact with embassy representatives of the Middle Eastern countries in Washington and at the United Nations Headquarters, he broke down the walls of suspicion and misunderstanding. This new policy decreed Assyrians and members of the Assyrian Church of the East all over the world to remain as loyal and faithful citizens of the countries in which they lived, something that had never been done before.[2]\n\nMar Eshai became an American citizen about 1949 and settled in the San Francisco area in 1954. In 1964, a dispute over hereditary succession and church calendars caused the metropolitan of the Assyrian Church of the East in India (known there as the Chaldean Syrian Church) to break away and Mar Thoma was stopped from his duties in the Church of the East. In 1995 Mar Eshai's successor, Mar Dinkha IV, was able to mostly heal the rift. 17% (the Ancient Church of the East) remain separated from the main body of the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nMar Eshai sought to resign as patriarch for health reasons in the late 1960s, but he was persuaded to remain in office. Some activists within the church wanted the patriarch to take a more active role in pushing for a homeland for the Assyrian people, as he had before 1933.\n\nIn 1972, Mar Eshai opted to step down from his position as patriarch, and he married the next year. This was controversial, as it contravened longstanding traditions about bishops being able to marry in the Eastern Church.\n\nRumors of a conspiracy among those who were went against the patriarch's decisions and wished to have him replaced began to circulate. On 6 November 1975, the patriarch was shot and killed at the door of his home in San Jose, California, by David Malek Ismail; the Malek Ismail family had been in charge of protecting the Shimun patriarchal line for generations. According to trial records, Ismail said he was upset over the patriarch's marriage; however, the records suggest links between Ismail and church dissidents. According to Deputy District Attorney Brian Madden, the murder of the patriarch Mar Shimun was the outcome of a plot among church dissidents possibly related to land ownership in the Middle East.[5] Ismail was convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to life imprisonment and was released after 12 years.[6]\n\nWhen the church council met in London on 17 October 1976, it elected as patriarch Mar Dinkha IV (who had been bishop of Tehran).\n\nWorks\n\nMany Syriac books were translated into English by Mar Eshai Shimun.[2] Some of which are:\n\nPortions of the Aramaic liturgy;\n\nThe Book of Hymns and Praises;\n\nSynodical Rules of the Church of the East;\n\nThe Book of Marganitha, a standard theological work of the Church of the East;\n\nThe publication of the homilies of Mar Narsai, the great saint and scholar of the fifth century, in two volumes, numbering more than 1400 pages;\n\nalong with seventy pages of introduction and critical apparatus in English by Shimun as well as countless outstanding sermons on the historical doctrine of the Church of the East.\n\nThe Assyrian Tragedy\n\nThe Assyrian Tragedy documents the national struggle of the Assyrian people prior, during, and after World War I. It was originally published anonymously in 1934. Authorship of the book was posthumously attributed to Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII.[7][8][9]\n\nMost of the material in the book is his personal letters to various heads of governments and organizations and their replies. The book was reprinted in January, 1988 by Mr. Sargis Michael, over a decade after the assassination of Mar Eshai.[7]\n\nSee also\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nAssyrian Neo-Aramaic\n\nAssyrian people\n\nList of Assyrians\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Foster, p. 34\n\n^ a b c d \"Mar Eshai Shimun biography | Mar Shimun Memorial Foundation\". Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\n^ \"Joint Regent Lady Surma d'Mar Shimun of the Assyrian Nation (Iraq)\". Women in Power,1900-1940. Retrieved 30 July 2026.\n\n^ \"Mar Poulus Shimun\". Mar Poulus Shimun. Retrieved 30 July 2026.\n\n^ \"1975: From The Public Records of The Trial Proceedings of The Assassination of His Holiness, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII\". 17 July 2000. Archived from the original on 9 March 2022.\n\n^ Coakley, J. F. (September 1996). \"The church of the East since 1914\". Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/bjrl.78.3.14.\n\n^ a b \"ANNEMASSE: The Assyrian Tragedy, February 1934\". www.atour.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.\n\n^ \"The Assyrian Tragedy | Mar Shimun Memorial Foundation\". Retrieved 5 November 2019.\n\n^ Shimun, Mar Eshai (2010). The Assyrian Tragedy. Mar Shimun Memorial Foundation. ISBN 9781453511442.\n\nSources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14.\n\nFoster, John (1939). The Church of the T'ang Dynasty. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\nMooken, Aprem (2003). \"The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century\". INFLIBNET. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial site of the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nShimun memorial website\n\nBiography of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII to 1970\n\n\"Summary of the trial record for the patriarch's murder\". Archived from the original on March 6, 2001. Retrieved March 16, 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shimun-xxi-eshai"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1445}, {"slug": "reference-shalmaneser-v", "title": "Shalmaneser V", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Shalmaneser V (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: Salmānu-ašarēd,[2][3][4] meaning \"Salmānu is foremost\";[3] Biblical Hebrew: שַׁלְמַנְאֶסֶר Šalmanʾeser) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 727 BC to his deposition and death in 722 BC. Though Shalmaneser V's brief reign is poorly known from contemporary sources, he remains known for the conquest...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shalmaneser V\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Babylon\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nPossible depiction of Shalmaneser V during his time as crown prince,[1] from one of the reliefs of his father Tiglath-Pileser III\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign727-722 BC\n\nPredecessorTiglath-Pileser III\n\nSuccessorSargon II\n\nDied722 BC\n\nSpouseBanitu\n\nIssueAshur-dain-aplu (?)\nOther children (?)\n\nAkkadianSalmānu-ašarēd\n\nDynastyAdaside dynasty\n\nFatherTiglath-Pileser III\n\nMotherIaba (?)\n\nShalmaneser V (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: Salmānu-ašarēd,[2][3][4] meaning \"Salmānu is foremost\";[3] Biblical Hebrew: שַׁלְמַנְאֶסֶר Šalmanʾeser) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 727 BC to his deposition and death in 722 BC. Though Shalmaneser V's brief reign is poorly known from contemporary sources, he remains known for the conquest of Samaria and the fall of the Kingdom of Israel, though the conclusion of that campaign is sometimes attributed to his successor, Sargon II, instead.\n\nShalmaneser V is known to have campaigned extensively in the lands west of the Assyrian heartland, warring not only against the Israelites, but also against the Phoenician city-states and against kingdoms in Anatolia. Though he successfully annexed some lands to the Assyrian Empire, his campaigns resulted in long and drawn-out sieges lasting several years, some being unresolved at the end of his reign. The circumstances of his deposition and death are not clear, though they were likely violent, and it is unlikely that Sargon II was his legitimate heir. It is possible that Sargon II was entirely unrelated, which would make Shalmaneser V the final king of the Adaside dynasty, which had ruled Assyria for almost a thousand years.\n\nShalmaneser V is also known under the name Ululayu ( Ulūlāyu,[5][6][7][2][3] meaning \"one who [was born] in the month Ulūlu\"),[3] possibly his birth name, which is used instead of his regnal name Shalmaneser in some non-contemporary sources. Contemporary official documents from his reign exclusively refer to the king as Shalmaneser, not Ululayu, meaning that it is unlikely that the latter was ever used as an official regnal name.\n\nBackground\n\nName\n\nThe name Shalmaneser, rendered by contemporaries as Salmānu-ašarēd in Assyria and Šulmānu-ašarēd in Babylonia, was only ever borne by Assyrian monarchs and never given to anyone other than a king. This suggests that it was exclusively a regnal name, assumed by Shalmaneser V, and by the four previous Assyrian kings to use the name, probably upon their accession to the position of crown prince and then more publicly after they rose to the throne itself. The name means \"Salmānu is foremost\", Salmānu (literally \"friendly one\") being a deity popular in the Middle Assyrian period and exclusively worshipped within Assyrian territory, possibly being a friendly manifestation of the Assyrian national deity Ashur.[8] Other interpretations of the meaning of Salmānu-ašarēd also exist, it could alternatively mean \"likeness of Anu\" or possibly \"worshipper of fire\".[9] Shalmaneser V is unlikely to have taken the regnal name due to its actual etymological meaning, but rather due to its associations with his glorious ancestors and distant predecessors Shalmaneser I (r. 1274-1245 BC) and Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC), well-known for their conquests in the lands west of the Assyrian heartland.[10]\n\nThe modern English-language rendition of the name, 'Shalmaneser', comes from how the name appears in Hebrew in the Bible,[9] שלמנאסר[9] (šlmnʾsr).[8] The Hebrew rendition has its own meaning, not the same one as the original Assyrian version: 'Shalmaneser' is derived from the Hebrew words shalem (to be whole, to make complete) and 'asar (to bind, to tie up), effectively meaning something akin to \"peace in chains\" or \"covenant of recompense\".[9]\n\nShalmaneser V is also known by the name Ululayu, meaning \"one who (was born) in the month Ulūlu\". Several non-contemporary sources, such as the Ptolemaic Canon, the Babylonian King List and the works of later Greco-Roman historians, use this name, or a variation thereof (such as the Greek Eloulaios) in place of his actual regnal name.[3] This has historically been interpreted as Ululayu having been a second regnal name of Shalmaneser, but while the name also appears in a handful of contemporary sources, letters sent by Shalmaneser when he was the crown prince to his father Tiglath-Pileser, these are not formal documents. There is no evidence that contemporary official documents ever referred to him as Ululayu.[11] There is also no evidence that any other Assyrian king ever used more than one regnal name in their lifetime.[12] Nevertheless, Shalmaneser V was evidently remembered by later generations as Ululayu, which, going by the context in which it was used, might have been his birth name.[3]\n\nSome sources anglicise the name Shalmaneser as Salmanasser.[13]\n\nShalmaneser as crown prince\n\nShalmaneser V was the son and heir of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BC).[14] Several letters sent by Shalmaneser to his father while Shalmaneser was still the crown prince (using the name Ululayu) are known, all beginning with the standard formula \"To the king, my lord: your servant Ululayu. The best of health to the king, my lord! Assyria is well, the temples are well, all the king’s forts are well. The king, my lord, can be glad indeed\". This introduction served as a routine report, telling the king that all was well in the crown prince's lands. Further contents of the letters record several activities conducted by Shalmaneser while he was crown prince, such as detaining emissaries who had passed through certain cities without his permission, and the transportation of goods.[15] Most of his responsibilities appear to have been diplomatic in nature or related to the palace household.[10]\n\nThough it is clear from the letters that Shalmaneser controlled lands on behalf of his father while he was crown prince, it is not entirely clear where he was located. Though his letter on detaining the emissaries specifies that the emissaries had passed through the region of Til-Barsip and Guzana (in modern Syria), it also states that they had been detained at the more eastern site of Kubaneše, meaning that Shalmaneser may have been located close to the Assyrian heartland, rather than in the western provinces. That his letters mention that \"Assyria is well\" could indicate that his area of responsibility was in central Assyria. The Assyriologists Keiko Yamada and Shigeo Yamada suggested in 2017 that Shalmaneser's letters were sent at a time when Tiglath-Pileser was away on campaign and the crown prince was residing at Nimrud as regent. Yamada and Yamada noted that this was speculative and that Shalmaneser, as crown prince, is also likely to have participated in his father's campaigns.[16]\n\nIt is possible that one of Tiglath-Pileser's inscriptions records the crown prince by the name Shalmaneser (not Ululayu), possibly indicating that he had assumed that name already during his father's reign, but the text is fragmentary and it could also be a reference to the city of Til-Barsip (called Kar-Shalmaneser by the Assyrians).[17]\n\nReign\n\nSources, artifacts, and activities\n\nShalmaneser appears to have become king of both Assyria and Babylonia upon his father's death without challenges.[10] Few contemporary sources have survived from Shalmaneser's brief reign, which makes many of his activities as king poorly known and obscure.[18][19]\n\nWith the exception of a handful of inscriptions on lion-shaped weights, there are no known commemorative inscriptions confidently attributable to Shalmaneser. There is an unpublished and fragmentary brick from the city of Apqu (in modern Syria) that might be referrable to Shalmaneser, indicating some building work in that city. Shalmaneser does not appear to have conducted any large construction projects in the great cities of the Assyrian heartland, such as Assur or Nimrud,[20] and it is plausible that he spent most of his short reign waging war.[18][20]\n\nBabylonian chronicles state that Shalmaneser became king on the 25th day of the month Tebeth, following Tiglath-Pileser's death, and that he died in the month of Tebeth in his fifth year as king, with his successor Sargon II becoming king on the 12th day of that month. The Babylonian King List records him by the name Ululayu, confirms him as reigning in Babylonia for five years, and designates him as part of the \"dynasty of Baltil\"[20] (Baltil being a reference to the oldest part of the city of Assur, essentially meaning that Shalmaneser was part of the \"Assyrian dynasty\").[21] There is only a single preserved contemporary source for Shalmaneser's reign in Babylonia, a legal document concerning a disputed sale of a slave, dated to his third regnal year.[22]\n\nShalmaneser's coronation month, Tebeth, was very late in the year, corresponding to December-January, meaning that it is unlikely that he undertook any significant activities in 727 BC. Very little information is provided by any of the surviving sources for events of his reign. The Assyrian Eponym Chronicle, which records significant events for each year in Assyria, is fragmentary in the period covered by Shalmaneser's reign. It is plausible that the fragmentary entry for Shalmaneser's first full year, 726 BC, states that he stayed in the Assyrian capital that year, and the preposition ana (meaning \"to\"), preserved three times in the Chronicle for the subsequent years, suggests that he was away on military campaigns in 725, 724 and 723 BC. No information survives from 722 BC, his last year.[23]\n\nThe lion-shaped weights preserved with inscriptions by Shalmaneser also contain the phrase \"mina of the land\" (a mina being an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight), possibly meaning \"mina of the land (of Assyria)\", which would suggest an attempt at establishing a unified national standard of weights.[24]\n\nTraditionally, Assyrian kings held the office of eponym (year name) in their second regnal year, a custom that had occurred regularly up to and including Tiglath-Pileser III's reign. Shalmaneser deviated from this custom, holding the office in his fourth regnal year. The kings of the Sargonid dynasty that succeeded Shalmaneser also took the office of eponym at different points in their reigns, or not at all, which implies that Shalmaneser issued some administrative reforms that were continued and respected by succeeding kings.[25]\n\nRule in Babylonia\n\nIt seems that Shalmaneser was relatively unopposed as king in Babylonia, though he appears to have faced some resistance from the Chaldean tribes in the south. A 7th century BC letter written in Aramaic records deportations of captives from Bit-Amukani by Tiglath-Pileser, from Bit-Dakkuri by Shalmaneser, from Dur-Sin by Sargon, and from kšw (reading uncertain) by Sargon's successor, Sennacherib.[26] In 1925, the Assyriologist Daniel David Luckenbill identified a fragmentary Babylonian inscription as belonging to Shalmaneser V, by identifying the last sign in the king's name in the inscription as representing ašarēd, the last portion of Shalmaneser's name (Shalmaneser V was the only king of that name to rule Babylonia). The inscription mentions restoration work in the city of Borsippa and the conclusion of some campaign directed at rebels or enemies in the south, but it is too damaged to reveal who these enemies were. The fragmentary account in this inscription reads:[27]\n\n[...] who did not bow in submission at his feet [...] the mention of his name [...] his word(?) [...] bringing [...] hastily before him [...] those not obedient to my(?) command [...] that [...] he caused to be surrounded, surrounding the town. [...] the god in whom he trusted [...] with the help of his sepulchre(?) they destroyed, his rule [...] they did not draw my(?) yoke. [...] who carried off [...] and was turning (them, it) to himself (his own use) [...] his word and the mention of his name they did not fear, and they did not dread his rule [...] overflowed his land(?) and laid it low like a deluge. [...] his own [...] fell upon him and his life was no more. [...] I(?) carried off and brought to Assyria.[28]\n\nConquest of Samaria and western wars\n\nThe city of Samaria, capital of the Kingdom of Israel, was besieged and captured by the Assyrians in the 720s BC. The city's fall ended the Kingdom of Israel, which became the Assyrian province of Samerina. On the aftermath of the conquest, nearly thirty thousand people were deported and resettled across the Assyrian Empire, as per the standard Assyrian way of dealing with defeated enemy peoples through resettlement. This specific resettlement is the basis of the narrative of the Ten Lost Tribes.[29] There exists some debate as to whether the Assyrian king who captured Samaria was Shalmaneser V or Sargon II. Both the Babylonian Chronicle and the Bible (2 Kings 17:3-6 and 18:9-11) clearly ascribe the city's conquest to Shalmaneser (the Bible records a siege lasting three years), but Sargon claims in several of his inscriptions that he was the one who conquered it. Various explanations have been proposed for the contradiction.[30]\n\nThe popular history author Susan Wise Bauer wrote in 2007 that Sargon might have finished the siege, which had been slow, inefficient and still ongoing at the time of Shalmaneser's death.[29] Keiko Yamada and Shigeo Yamada wrote in 2017 that the explicit attribution of the city's capture to Shalmaneser by both the Babylonians and the Bible means that it is likely that the event took place in his reign. Their reconstruction of events place the beginning of the siege in 725 or 724 BC, and its resolution in 722 BC near the end of Shalmaneser's reign, and believe that Sargon's inscriptions relating to Samaria may be referencing another incident in which Sargon was forced to put down a large revolt in Syria, which involved the population of Samaria. If this hypothesis of two conquests is accepted, it is unclear which king was responsible for most of the resettlements, though it is clear from surviving inscriptions that Sargon took responsibility for it. The siege of Samaria was perceived by contemporaries as the most important event of Shalmaneser's time, as indicated by it being the only event mentioned of his reign in the Babylonian Chronicle, possibly partly because of its distance from Assyria.[31]\n\nIn addition to his war against the Israelites, Shalmaneser is known to have undertaken other campaigns in the west. The 1st century AD Romano-Jewish historian Josephus records a campaign by the Assyrian king Eloulaios against the coastal cities of Phoenicia. The 2nd century BC Greek historian Menander of Ephesus records a five-year siege of Tyre as part of an Assyrian war in Phoenicia, probably taking place during Shalmaneser's reign. If the siege lasted for five years, it must have been unresolved by the time of Shalmaneser's death, with Sargon II possibly abandoning the hostile policy against the city after becoming king. Shalmaneser is also known to have warred against the kingdom of Tabal in Anatolia, as Sargon mentions in his inscriptions that his \"predecessor\" defeated and deported the Tabalian king Hullî to Assyria. It is plausible that Shalmaneser annexed certain territories between Tabal and the Assyrian heartland as part of his western wars. The lands of Samʾal (in northern Syria) and Que (in Cilicia) are recorded as tributary states in Tiglath-Pileser's reign but as integrated Assyrian provinces in Sargon's reign.[32]\n\nDeposition and death\n\nShalmaneser was deposed in 722 BC and replaced as king by Sargon II. The exact circumstances surrounding the struggle for the throne are not clear, but were likely violent. An awkward succession is clearly indicated by the fact that out of all of Sargon's numerous preserved inscriptions, only a single one mentions Shalmaneser's fate in any detail, recording him as a godless tyrant who robbed Assur, Assyria's ceremonial center, of its traditional rights and privileges:[10][33]\n\nShalmaneser, who did not fear the king of the world, whose hands have brought sacrilege in this city [Assur], put on his people, he imposed the compulsory work and a heavy corvée, paid them like a working class. The Illil of the gods,[a] in the wrath of his heart, overthrew his rule and appointed me, Sargon, as king of Assyria. He raised my head; let me take hold of the scepter, the throne and the tiara.[33]\n\nThis inscription serves more to explain Sargon's rise to the throne than to explain Shalmaneser's downfall. As attested in other inscriptions, Sargon did not see the injustices described as actually having been imposed by Shalmaneser V. Other inscriptions by Sargon state that the tax exemptions of important cities like Assur and Harran had been revoked \"in ancient times\" and the compulsory work described would have been conducted in the reign of Tiglath-Pileser, not Shalmaneser.[33]\n\nUnless Shalmaneser somehow fled Assyria and took refuge in one of the surrounding enemy states (which there is no evidence for), it can be assumed that he was killed upon his deposition.[10] The exact nature of his demise can not be determined. The entry for 722 BC in the Eponym Chronicle is too fragmentary to read, and the Babylonian Chronicle only describes Shalmaneser's end as \"the fate\", an expression that refers to death, but not through any specific (i.e. natural/violent etc.) means. It seems clear from surviving sources that Sargon's rise to throne was opposed by a significant faction of Assyrians who supported either Shalmaneser or his rightful heir-apparent. This is based on Sargon's inscriptions recording the king in his early reign as dealing with over six thousand \"guilty Assyrians\" through resettlement.[24] Sargon's rule was also challenged in Babylonia, where the Chaldean chief Marduk-apla-iddina II seized the throne.[34][35]\n\nIn later Assyrian king lists, Sargon was designated as the son of Tiglath-Pileser (and thus Shalmaneser's brother), but that claim does not appear in Sargon's own inscriptions, where he is instead described as being called upon and personally appointed as king by Ashur.[36] The idea that he was Tiglath-Pileser's son is accepted by many modern historians, though treated with considerable caution,[37] but he is not believed to have been the legitimate heir and next-in-line after Shalmaneser.[38] Some Assyriologists, such as J. A. Brinkman, believe that Sargon, at the very least, did not belong to the direct dynastic lineage.[39] References as late as the 670s BC, during the reign of Sargon II's grandson Esarhaddon, to the possibility that \"descendants of former royalty\" might try to seize the throne suggests that the Sargonid dynasty founded by Sargon was not necessarily well connected to previous Assyrian monarchs.[40] Babylonian king lists dynastically separate Sargon and his descendants from Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser V: Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser are recorded as of the \"dynasty of Baltil\", whereas the Sargonids are recorded as of the \"dynasty of Ḫanigalbat\", possibly connecting them to an ancient Middle Assyrian junior branch of the Assyrian royal family who governed as viceroys in the western parts of the Assyrian Empire with the title \"king of Hanigalbat\".[41] If Sargon was unrelated to Shalmaneser and a completely non-dynastic usurper, the deposition and death of Shalmaneser marked the end of the Adaside dynasty, which had ruled Assyria for nearly a thousand years, since the accession of Bel-bani in the 17th century BC.[42]\n\nFamily and children\n\nNeo-Assyrian family tree\n\nKey (male • female • KING)\n\nADAD-NIRARI II (r. 911-891 BC)\n\nTUKULTI-NINURTA II (r. 890-884 BC)\n\nASHURNASIRPAL II (r. 883-859 BC), m. Mullissu-mukannishat-Ninua\n\nSHALMANESER III (r. 859-824 BC)\n\nAshur-danin-pal\n\nSHAMSHI-ADAD V (r. 824-811 BC), m. Shammuramat\n\nADAD-NIRARI III (r.811-783 BC)\n\nSHALMANESER IV (r. 783-773 BC), m. Hama\n\nASHUR-DAN III (r. 773-755 BC)\n\nASHUR-NIRARI V (r. 755-745 BC)\n\nTIGLATH-PILESER III (r. 745-727 BC), m. Yaba\n\nSHALMANESER V (r. 727-722 BC), m. Banitu\n\n(?) SARGON II (r. 722-705 BC), m. (1) Atalia, (2) Ra'ima\n\nSENNACHERIB (r. 705-681 BC), m. (1) Tashmetu-sharrat, (2) Naqi'a\n\nAshur-nadin-shumi\n\nAshur-ili-muballissu\n\nArda-mulissu\n\nAshur-shumu-ushabshi\n\nESARHADDON (r. 681-669 BC), m. Esharra-hammat\n\nSeru'a-etirat\n\nSin-nadin-apli\n\nShamash-shum-ukin\n\nASHURBANIPAL (r. 669-631 BC), m. Libbali-sharrat\n\nASHUR-ETIL-ILANI (r. 631-627 BC)\n\nSIN-SHAR-ISHKUN (r. 627-612 BC)\n\nASHUR-UBALLIT II (r. 612-609 BC)\n\n(among others)\n\nNergal-shumu-ibni\n\nNabu-shar-usur\n\nShadditu\n\nAhat-abisha\n\nSin-ahu-usur\n\nShalmaneser's queen\n\nThe name of Shalmaneser V's wife and queen was Banitu. Her tomb was discovered in excavations at the Northwest Palace at Nimrud in 1988-1989, alongside a tablet with a funerary inscription. Curiously, the tomb contained two female skeletons but objects in the grave are attributed to three queens: Iabâ (queen of Tiglath-Pileser III), Banitu (queen of Shalmaneser V), and Atalia (queen of Sargon II). Among the various objects, a bronze cosmetic container and a golden bowl are attributed to Banitu. The most common assumption by historians is that the two bodies in the grave are those of Iabâ and Atalia, since the funerary inscription only records the name of Iabâ (the original owner of the grave) and the latest inscribed objects are attributed to Atalia. Since the inscription also includes a curse against any who disturbed the tomb, but Atalia was buried there anyway, it is possible that Atalia and Iabâ were closely related, Atalia perhaps being Iabâ's daughter. It would then be possible that the objects inscribed with Banitu's name actually belonged to Atalia, who had inherited them from the previous queen.[43]\n\nIn 2008, the Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley proposed the alternative idea that Iabâ and Banitu were the same person, and that the name Iabâ (based on ascribing it a West Semitic origin and translating it into \"beautiful\") was translated into Akkadian as \"Banitu\". Dalley's proposal, since accepted by several prominent Assyriologists, such as Eckhart Frahm and Sarah C. Melville, implies that Iabâ would have been relatively young at the end of Tiglath-Pileser's reign (and thus not have been Shalmaneser's mother) and would then have been married by Shalmaneser after his father's death. There is another example of two successive kings sharing a queen; in the ninth century BC, Mullissu-mukannišat-Ninua is recorded as the queen of both Ashurnasirpal II and his successor Shalmaneser III, though it is not clear if she actually married Shalmaneser III or just retained the title. The equation of Iabâ with Banitu cannot be proven with certainty, as the etymological origin (possibly Arabic rather than West-Semitic) and meaning of \"Iabâ\" cannot be conclusively proven, and the name Banitu could just as likely be derived from the Akkadian word bānītu (\"[divine] creatress\") as banītu (\"beautiful\"). The hypothesis of equating the two is based solely on the possible similarity in the names, with no explicit evidence having been found.[44]\n\nIn 2013, the Assyriologist David Kertai questioned the equation of Banitu and Iabâ, on a chronological basis. Examinations of the skeletons found in the tomb revealed that both women died at the age of about 30-35 and that their deaths were separated by 20-50 years. Based on this data, and the speculation that Banitu had to have died during Shalmaneser's short reign, and that Atalia died before Sargon II built his palace at Dur-Sharrukin in 707 BC (since she is not mentioned in the reliefs there), Kertai concluded that Banitu and Iabâ were two different women and that Iabâ (then possibly Shalmaneser's mother) must have died during Tiglath-Pileser's reign. The Assyriologist Saana Svärd defended the equation in 2015, stating that it was possible that Atalia died during the reign of Sargon II's successor Sennacherib and was buried in the same grave as Banitu, 20-50 years after the prior burial. Though chronological difficulties can thus be explained away, Keiko Yamada and Shigeo Yamada questioned in 2017 if it was truly likely that the queen of Sargon II would have been buried in the same grave as the queen of Shalmaneser V, who had been deposed and killed by Sargon II.[45]\n\nSiblings and children\n\nIf Sargon II was also a son of Tiglath-Pileser III, and thus Shalmaneser V's brother, the two had at least one more sibling, since Sargon's royal inscriptions speak of a brother called Sin-ahu-usur, who is attested during Sargon's reign as an \"equal brother\" and the \"great vizier\". Sin-ahu-usur is also known to have participated in some of Sargon's military campaigns, attested as present on one of his wars against Urartu in the north.[46]\n\nThe commonly accepted hypothesis that Sargon II was not the legitimate heir of Shalmaneser V implies the existence of more legitimate heirs.[24] In 2017, Keiko Yamada and Shigeo Yamada suggested that the palace official Ashur-dain-aplu was one of Shalmaneser V's sons. Ashur-dain-aplu is identified in a letter as the \"son of Shalmaneser\", meaning either Shalmaneser III or Shalmaneser V (as the name was only ever used by Assyrian kings and Shalmaneser IV was childless). There are other references to a son of Shalmaneser III by this name, but they are unlikely to be the same person as Ashur-dain-aplu seems supportive of the king (whereas Shalmaneser III's son by that name was a rebel). Additionally, official correspondence of the letter's type is rare from the time of Shalmaneser III but more common from the times of later kings.[47] The letter was found at Nineveh, not made the Assyrian capital until the reign of Sennacherib, long after Shalmaneser III's death but just a few decades after Shalmaneser V's death.[48] If he was Shalmaneser V's son, Ashur-dain-aplu through some means survived the turmoil and chaos at the end of his father's reign and even managed to continue his political career, holding prominent palace positions possibly as late as the reign of Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC), Sennacherib's successor.[47]\n\nTitles\n\nIf Luckenbill's 1925 identification of the fragmentary Babylonian inscription representing an inscription by Shalmaneser V is correct, the king used the following titulature in that inscription:[49]\n\n[I am Shalmaneser], the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, king of the Four Regions of the World, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, son of [...], king of Assyria; most precious scion of Assyria, seed of royalty, of the eternal days.[49]\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"Illil of the gods\" is one of the names of the god Assur, as can be seen in other inscriptions, such as Ashurbanipal's hymn to Assur.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 402-403.\n\n^ a b Bertin 1891, p. 49.\n\n^ a b c d e f Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 388.\n\n^ \"Salmanu-ašared [SHALMANESER V, KING OF ASSYRIA] (RN)\". Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 2022-09-21. Retrieved 2022-07-25.\n\n^ \"Ululayu [1] (PN)\". Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2022-07-25.\n\n^ \"Ululayu [1] (PN)\". Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. University of Pennsylvania.\n\n^ \"Ululayu [EPONYM OF THE YEAR 823?] (PN)\". Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus. University of Pennsylvania.\n\n^ a b Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 387-389.\n\n^ a b c d Abarim.\n\n^ a b c d e Radner 2012.\n\n^ Frame 1992, pp. 303-304.\n\n^ Frame 1992, p. 194.\n\n^ \nFor example: Isaac Newton's The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended:\nNewton, Isaac (2009) [1728]. \"3: The Assyrian Empire\". In Pierce, Larry; Pierce, Marion (eds.). Newton's Revised History of Ancient Kingdoms: A Complete Chronology (revised ed.). Green Forest, Arkansaw: New Leaf Publishing Group. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-89051-556-3. Retrieved 24 October 2023. Salmanasser or Shalmaneser (729-720 BC) [...] The Annals of Tyre relate that Salmanasser or Shalmaneser, (also called Enemessar by Tobit), invaded all Phoenicia, captured the city of Samaria and transplanted Israel into Chalach and Chabor, by the Gozan River in the cities of the Medes. \n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 389.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 397-399.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 399-400.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 401-402.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1925, p. 162.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 387.\n\n^ a b c Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 403-404.\n\n^ Fales 2014, p. 219.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 417.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 405-406.\n\n^ a b c Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 423.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 405.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 417-418.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1925, pp. 162-164.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1925, pp. 163-164.\n\n^ a b Mark 2014.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 406-408.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 408-409.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 410-416.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2017, p. 26.\n\n^ Chen 2020b, pp. 202-206.\n\n^ Frahm 2003, p. 129.\n\n^ Parker 2011.\n\n^ Chen 2020, p. 201.\n\n^ Cogan 2017, p. 154.\n\n^ Garelli 1991, p. 46.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 63.\n\n^ Fales 2014, pp. 204, 227.\n\n^ Binetti 2016, p. 53.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 390-392.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, pp. 392-394.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 394.\n\n^ Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 395.\n\n^ a b Yamada & Yamada 2017, p. 426.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1924, p. 17.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1925, p. 164.\n\nBibliography\n\nAhmed, Sami Said (2018). Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal. The Hague: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3111033587.\n\nBertin, G. (1891). \"Babylonian Chronology and History\". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 5: 1-52. doi:10.2307/3678045. JSTOR 3678045. S2CID 164087631.\n\nBinetti, Christopher Ronald (2016). A Better Place to Be: Republicanism as an Alternative to the Authoritarianism-Democracy Dichotomy (PhD thesis). University of Maryland. doi:10.13016/M2J782.\n\nChen, Fei (2020). \"A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004430921.\n\nChen, Fei (2020). \"A List of Babylonian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004430921.\n\nCogan, Mordechai (2017). \"Restoring the Empire\". Israel Exploration Journal. 67 (2): 151-167. JSTOR 26740626.\n\nElayi, Josette (2017). Sargon II, King of Assyria. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 978-1628371772.\n\nFales, Frederick Mario (2014). \"The Two Dynasties of Assyria\". In Gaspa, Salvatore; Greco, Alessandro; Morandi Bonacossi, Daniele; Ponchia, Simonetta; Rollinger, Robert (eds.). From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3868351019.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2003). \"New sources for Sennacherib's \"first campaign\"\". Isimu. 6: 129-164.\n\nFrame, Grant (2007) [1992]. Babylonia 689-627 B.C: A Political History. Leiden: The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. ISBN 978-9062580699.\n\nGarelli, Paul (1991). \"The Achievement of Tiglath-pileser III: Novelty or Continuity?\" (PDF). In Cogan, M.; Eph'al, I. (eds.). Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor. Jerusalem: Magnes. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-05-23. Retrieved 2021-03-27.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1924). The Annals of Sennacherib. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 506728.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1925). \"The First Inscription of Shalmaneser V\". The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 41 (3): 162-164. doi:10.1086/370064. S2CID 170658223.\n\nParker, Bradley J. (2011). \"The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Journal of Anthropological Research. 67 (3): 357-386. doi:10.3998/jar.0521004.0067.303. JSTOR 41303323. S2CID 145597598.\n\nYamada, Keiko; Yamada, Shiego (2017). \"Shalmaneser V and His Era, Revisited\". In Baruchi-Unna, Amitai; Forti, Tova; Aḥituv, Shmuel; Ephʿal, Israel; Tigay, Jeffrey H. (eds.). \"Now It Happened in Those Days\": Studies in Biblical, Assyrian, and Other Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Mordechai Cogan on His 75th Birthday. Vol. 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575067612.\n\nWeb sources\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2014). \"Sargon II\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 9 February 2020.\n\nRadner, Karen (2012). \"Shalmaneser V, king of Assyria (726-722 BC)\". Assyrian empire builders. Retrieved 27 March 2021.\n\n\"Shalmaneser meaning\". Abarim Publications. 2014. Retrieved 9 April 2021."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shalmaneser-v"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5094}, {"slug": "reference-bulgur", "title": "Bulgur", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Bulgur[1][a] or borghol[2][b] is a cracked wheat foodstuff found in Middle Eastern[3] and South Asian cuisines, among others. It is a cereal food made from the groats of several different wheat species.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Bulgur[1][a] or borghol[2][b] is a cracked wheat foodstuff found in Middle Eastern[3] and South Asian cuisines, among others. It is a cereal food made from the groats of several different wheat species.\n\nCharacteristics\n\nBulgur, cooked\nNutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)\n\nEnergy350 kJ (84 kcal)\n\nCarbohydrates18.58 g\n\nSugars0.10 g\n\nDietary fiber4.5 g\n\nFat0.24 g\n\nProtein3.08 g\n\nVitamins and minerals\n\nVitaminsQuantity %DV†\n\nVitamin A equiv.0% 0.0 μg\n\nVitamin A1 IU\n\nThiamine (B1)5% 0.057 mg\n\nRiboflavin (B2)2% 0.028 mg\n\nNiacin (B3)6% 1.000 mg\n\nVitamin B65% 0.083 mg\n\nFolate (B9)5% 18 μg\n\nVitamin C0% 0.0 mg\n\nVitamin D0% 0 μg\n\nVitamin E0% 0.01 mg\n\nVitamin K0% 0.5 μg\n\nMineralsQuantity %DV†\n\nCalcium1% 10 mg\n\nIron5% 0.96 mg\n\nMagnesium8% 32 mg\n\nPhosphorus3% 40 mg\n\nPotassium2% 68 mg\n\nSodium0% 5 mg\n\nZinc5% 0.57 mg\n\nOther constituentsQuantity\n\nWater78 g\n\nUSDA Nutritional Database\n\n†Percentages estimated using US recommendations for adults,[4] except for potassium, which is estimated based on expert recommendation from the National Academies.[5]\n\nBulgur is produced by parboiling raw wheat, which is then de-hulled, dried, and cracked.[6] Bulgur is a common ingredient in cuisines of many countries of the West Asian cuisine and Mediterranean Basin,[7][8][9] such as Syria.[10] It has a light, nutty flavor.[11] \n\nBulgur is recognized as a whole grain by the United States Department of Agriculture.[12]\n\nComposition and nutrition\n\nCooked bulgur is 78% water, 19% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A 100-gram (3+1⁄2-ounce) reference serving supplies 350 kilojoules (84 kilocalories) of food energy. A study of uncooked samples from different sources found, with some variation between samples, about 9% protein, 11% moisture, 1% ash, 70% starch of which 2-2.8% beneficial resistant starch, 7% fibre, mostly beneficial insoluble fibre.[13]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe word bulgur is the Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic burghul (برغل), which is ultimately borrowed from the Persian barghul.[14][15]\n\nHistory\n\nBulgur originated in the ancient Middle East; food historian Gil Marks dates it to circa 4000 BC.[15] It is one of the first processed foods ever created.[15] In medieval times, it was used to create kishk; a yogurt preserve made by drying a yoghurt and milk mixture, recipes for it can be found as early as the 10th century in the Arabic cookbook kitab al-tabikh by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq.[16] Bulgur was largely unknown in North America until the 20th century when it was brought in by Armenian, Syrian, and Jewish immigrants.[15][17]\n\nCulinary uses\n\nBulgur does not require cooking, although it can be included in cooked dishes; soaking in water is all that is needed.[18]\n\nCoarse bulgur is used to make pottages,[19] while the medium and fine grains are used as breakfast cereals,[20] and in pilavs, breads,[21] salads such as kısır, and dessert puddings such as kheer.[22][23] Bulgur porridge is similar to frumenty, a cracked wheat porridge that was a staple of medieval cuisine.[24][25]\n\nIn breads, it adds a whole-grain component. It is a main ingredient in kibbeh and in tabbouleh salad. It is often used where rice or couscous could be used. It can be used to accompany other dishes in the same way as pasta or rice.\n\nArmenians prepare bulgur as a pilaf in chicken stock, with or without sautéed noodles, or cooked with tomatoes, onions, herbs and red pepper. Finely ground bulgur is used for making eetch, a salad similar to tabbouleh.[26]\n\nIn Greece, it is known as πλιγούρι (pligouri) and in Cyprus as πουρκούρι (pourkouri), where it is used to make κούπες (koupes, known as içli köfte in Turkish), a variety of kibbeh. It is deep-fried, with a crust made of fine bulgur, flour, oil, salt and egg, filled with ground meat (beef, pork, or both), onions, parsley and spices.\n\nThe Saudi Arabian version of bulgur, especially common in Nejd and Al-Hasa, is known as jarish (Arabic: جَريش).[27]\n\nProduction and consumption\n\nA 2007 study published in the Journal of Food Engineering found that the consumption of bulgur in south-eastern Turkey was 2 and 2.5 times that of pasta and rice, respectively, with the average person consuming 25 kilograms of bulgur annually, and in the Levant, Arabia, Iran, and Iraq, it reached 30-35 kilograms annually.[3]\n\nSee also\n\nEinkorn wheat\n\nFreekeh\n\nLaapsi\n\nSemolina\n\nWheat berry\n\nNotes\n\n^ \nEnglish: /ˈbʌlɡər, ˈbʊl-/ BUL-gər, BUUL- ⓘ\n\nArmenian: բլղուր, romanized: blghur, arabized: بلغور, pronounced [bəlˈʁuɾ] ⓘ\n\nGreek: πουργούρι / πλιγούρι, romanized: pourgoúri / pligoúri, cyrillized: пургури / плигури, arabized: بورغورى / بليغورى, pronounced [puɾˈɣuɾi / pliˈɣuɾi]\n\nTurkish: bulgur, arabized: بلغور, hellenized: π̇ουγο̇ύρ, pronounced [buɫˈɡʊɾ]\n\nAzerbaijani: булгур, romanized: bulqur, arabized: بلغور, pronounced [buɫˈɡuɾ]\n\nKurdish: بولخور / ساڤار, romanized: bulxur / savar, cyrillized: бӧлхӧр / савар, armenized: բւղխւր / սավար, pronounced [bʊlˈxʊɾ / saːˈvaːɾ]\n\nPersian: بلغور, romanized: bolghur, cyrillized: булғур, hebraized: בלגור, pronounced [bʊlˈɢuːɾ]\n\nPunjabi: ਬੁਲਗੁਰ, romanized: bulgur, arabized: بلغور, pronounced [bʊlgúːɾ]\n\n^ Egyptian Arabic: برغل, romanized: borġol, cyrillized: боргьол, pronounced [boɾˈɣoɫ]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Bulgur\". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 15 July 2023.\n\n^ \"Burghul | Define Burghul at Dictionary.com\". Dictionary.reference.com. Archived from the original on 2016-02-17. Retrieved 2014-03-20.\n\n^ a b \nBayram, Mustafa; Öner, Mehmet D. (March 2007). \"Bulgur milling using roller, double disc and vertical disc mills\". Journal of Food Engineering. 79 (1): 181-187. doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2006.01.042. Retrieved 29 January 2026.\n\n^ United States Food and Drug Administration (2024). \"Daily Value on the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels\". FDA. Archived from the original on 2024-03-27. Retrieved 2024-03-28.\n\n^ \"TABLE 4-7 Comparison of Potassium Adequate Intakes Established in This Report to Potassium Adequate Intakes Established in the 2005 DRI Report\". p. 120. In: Stallings, Virginia A.; Harrison, Meghan; Oria, Maria, eds. (2019). \"Potassium: Dietary Reference Intakes for Adequacy\". Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. pp. 101-124. doi:10.17226/25353. ISBN 978-0-309-48834-1. PMID 30844154. NCBI NBK545428.\n\n^ Celine Steen; Tamasin Noyes (15 November 2015). The Great Vegan Grains Book: Celebrate Whole Grains with More than 100 Delicious Plant-Based Recipes * Includes Soy-Free and Gluten-Free Recipes!. Fair Winds Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-62788-826-4. Archived from the original on 4 July 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2017.\n\n^ Irina Petrosian; David Underwood (2006). Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction & Folklore. Lulu.com. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-4116-9865-9. Archived from the original on 2023-07-04. Retrieved 2017-10-29.\n\n^ LeeAnne Gelletly (17 November 2014). The Kurds. Mason Crest. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-63355-946-2. Archived from the original on 4 July 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2017.\n\n^ Albala, Ken (25 May 2011). Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood. p. 261. doi:10.5040/9798400652585. ISBN 978-0-313-37627-6. OCLC 1452736210. S2CID 60031138. Archived from the original on 4 July 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2017.\n\n^ \"Syria's Detainee Files\". PBS.\n\n^ Victoria Wise (3 December 2004). The Pressure Cooker Gourmet: 225 Recipes for Great-Tasting, Long-Simmered Flavors in Just Minutes. Harvard Common Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-1-55832-201-1. Archived from the original on 4 July 2023. Retrieved 29 October 2017.\n\n^ Jacqueline B. Marcus (15 April 2013). Culinary Nutrition: The Science and Practice of Healthy Cooking. Academic Press. p. 561,300. ISBN 978-0-12-391883-3.\n\n^ Tacer Caba, Zeynep; Boyacioglu, M. Hikmet; Boyacioglu, Dilek (2012). \"Bioactive healthy components of bulgur\". International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition. 63 (2): 250-256. doi:10.3109/09637486.2011.639748. ISSN 0963-7486. PMID 22136100.\n\n^ \n\"bulgur\". Nişanyan Sözlük (in Turkish). Retrieved 26 January 2026.\n\n^ a b c d \nMarks, Gil (17 November 2010). \"Bulgur\". Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6. Retrieved 26 January 2026.\n\n^ \nal-Warrāq, al-Muẓaffar Ibn Naṣr Ibn Sayyār (26 November 2007). Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayy?r Al-Warr?q's Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook. Translated by Nawal Nasrallah. BRILL. pp. 74, 291, 570, 559. ISBN 978-90-04-15867-2. Retrieved 9 February 2026.\n\n^ \nSalloum, Habeeb; Center, University of Regina Canadian Plains Research (2005). \"Burghul: The cornerstone of our diet in the depression years\". Arab Cooking on a Saskatchewan Homestead: Recipes and Recollections. University of Regina Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-88977-182-6. Retrieved 8 February 2026.\n\n^ Yonan, Joe (15 July 2014). \"Weeknight Vegetarian: Don't cook these grains. Soak them\". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 13 October 2018. Retrieved 12 October 2018.\n\n^ Shulman, Martha Rose. \"Winter Tomato Soup With Bulgur Recipe\". NYT Cooking. Archived from the original on 2018-08-30. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ \"Breakfast Bulgur Porridge\". Martha Stewart. 2011-01-03. Archived from the original on 2018-08-30. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ Shulman, Martha Rose. \"Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread With Bulgur Recipe\". NYT Cooking. Archived from the original on 2018-08-30. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ Salloum, Habeeb (2012-02-28). The Arabian Nights Cookbook: From Lamb Kebabs to Baba Ghanouj, Delicious Homestyle Arabian Cooking. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4629-0524-9. Archived from the original on 2023-08-15. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ \"Recipe: Bulgur pudding with fruit, nuts and honey\". Los Angeles Times. 11 May 2013. Archived from the original on 2018-08-30. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ Rogosa, Eli (2016-07-01). Restoring Heritage Grains: The Culture, Biodiversity, Resilience, and Cuisine of Ancient Wheats. Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60358-671-9. Archived from the original on 2023-08-15. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ Diehl, Daniel; Donnelly, Mark P. (2011-04-13). Medieval Celebrations: Your Guide to Planning and Hosting Spectacular Feasts, Parties, Weddings, and Renaissance Fairs. Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-4430-0. Archived from the original on 2023-08-15. Retrieved 2018-08-30.\n\n^ \"In Lebanon, women are carving their way into the culinary scene\". Middle East Eye. 29 March 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2026.\n\n^ Maby, Lyn (November-December 1975). \"Food from Saudi Arabia\". Saudi Aramco World. pp. 32-40. Archived from the original on 2015-01-07.\n\nExternal links"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-bulgur"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1556}, {"slug": "reference-narsai", "title": "Narsai", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Narsai the Harp of the Holy Spirit (Classical Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܢܪܣܝ ܟܢܪܐ ܕܪܘܚܐ, romanized: Mar Narsai Kinnara d'Rukha, c. 399 - c. 502) was one of the most important poet-theologians of the early Church of the East. His homilies belong to the same late antique Syriac preaching culture...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nNarsai\n\nBornc. 399\n‘Ain Dulba (ܥܝܢ ܕܘܠܒܐ)\n(modern-day Iraq)\n\nDiedc. 502\nNisibis, Sassanid Empire\n(modern-day Nusaybin, Mardin, Turkey)\n\nVenerated inRoman Catholic Church\nAssyrian Church of the East\nAncient Church of the East\nSyro Malabar Church\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nFeast30 January (Church of the East)\n\nNarsai the Harp of the Holy Spirit (Classical Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܢܪܣܝ ܟܢܪܐ ܕܪܘܚܐ, romanized: Mar Narsai Kinnara d'Rukha, c. 399 - c. 502) was one of the most important poet-theologians of the early Church of the East. His homilies belong to the same late antique Syriac preaching culture as those of Jacob of Serugh and Isaac of Antioch, but they reflect the traditions associated with the School of Edessa, the School of Nisibis, and the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. His stature in Syriac literature is seen as on par with Jacob's, both only second to Ephrem the Syrian.\n\nNarsai is venerated as a saint in all the modern descendants of the Church of the East; the Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, and Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. Saint Narsai is known as the 'Flute of the Holy Spirit.'\n\nAlthough many of his works seem to have been lost, eighty-one of his mēmrē (ܡܐܡܖ̈ܐ), or verse homilies survive.[1]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name Narsai is believed to be derived from Middle Persian Narsēh,[2] which in turn is from Avestan Nairyō.saȵhō, meaning 'potent utterance'.\n\nLife\n\nNarsai was born at ‘Ain Dulba (ܥܝܢ ܕܘܠܒܐ \"Plane Tree Spring\") in the district of Ma‘alləta (ܡܥܠܬܐ) in the Sasanian Empire (now in Duhok Governorate, Iraq).[3]: 2  Being orphaned at an early age, he was raised by his uncle, who was head of the monastery of Kfar Mari (ܕܝܪܐ ܕܟܦܪ ܡܪܝ) near Beth Zabdai (ܒܝܬ ܙܒܕܝ).[1] Narsai spent ten years as a student at the School of Edessa and later returned there to teach (c. 437), eventually becoming head of the school.[4][5]\n\nNarsai was a follower of the work of Theodore of Mopsuestia.[6] Perhaps in 471, Narsai left Edessa after disagreeing with the city's bishop Cyrus (471-498). With the help of his friend Barsauma, who was bishop of Nisibis (although Narsai and Barsauma's wife do not seem to have seen eye-to-eye), Narsai re-established the School of Nisibis.[3]: 3  When his former school was ordered closed by Byzantine emperor Zeno in 489, it seems that many of his faithful staff and students came to join Narsai in Nisibis. Evidence from the first Statutes of the School of Nisibis, drafted in 496, shows that Narsai was still alive, and he must have been a venerable old teacher in his nineties. Narsai died sometime early in the sixth century[1] and was buried in Nisibis in a church that was later named after him. Joseph Huzaya was one of his pupils.\n\nNarsai's extant works belong to the distinctive Syriac literary genre of the mēmrā, or homily in verse. He employs two different metres - one with couplets of seven syllables per line, the other with twelve.[1] The mêmrê were designed to be recited in church or religious school, each an exposition of a particular theme. The later Syriac writer Abdisho bar Berika of Nisibis suggests that Narsai wrote 360 mēmrē in twelve volumes along with prose commentaries on large sections of the Old Testament and a book entitled On the Corruption of Morals.[3]: 6  However, only eighty mēmrē remain, and none of his prose works.\n\nTheology and preaching\n\nSeveral of Narsai's festal homilies, including those on the Nativity, Epiphany, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, contain extended Christological reflection. Philip Michael Forness notes that these homilies suggest that, in the mid- to late fifth century, Narsai was presenting detailed Christological teaching in sermons that may have been delivered before broad liturgical audiences.[7] His Christology is usually read within the Dyophysite tradition of the Church of the East, in contrast to the Miaphysite Christology associated with Jacob of Serugh and later Syriac Orthodox writers.\n\nLate antique sources also remembered Narsai's homilies as instruments of doctrinal controversy. According to Barhadbshabba Arbaya, Jacob of Serugh composed attractive metrical homilies that drew ordinary people away from Narsai's teaching, and Narsai responded by composing his own \"orthodox\" homilies in the same poetic medium. Forness cautions that this account should not be taken as a straightforward historical report, but argues that it preserves the perception that Syriac metrical homilies were understood as media through which theological conflict could and the transmission of doctrine could take place.[8]\n\nWorks and transmission\n\nThe corpus attributed to Narsai consists primarily of metrical homilies, or mēmrē, on biblical, liturgical, doctrinal, and moral subjects. The major Syriac edition by Alphonse Mingana contains the full text of forty-seven homilies and the incipits of thirty-four others.[9] Later tradition credited Narsai with composing a homily for each day of the year and arranging them into twelve volumes. Forness treats this tradition cautiously, but notes that it reflects the importance attached to Narsai's homilies as a collected body of teaching.[10]\n\nHomilies\n\nHundreds of works have been attributed to Narsai, but only 81 of his homilies (mēmrē) have survived.[11] The corpus attributed to Narsai consists primarily of metrical homilies, or mēmrē, on biblical, liturgical, doctrinal, and moral subjects. His extraordinary literary production was written about by the next generation of Syriac authors, such as Barhadbshabba Arbaya, who wrote:[12]\n\nFor each day in the year, he [Narsai] composed one homily. He divided them into twelve volumes, of which each had two prophets [i.e., divisions], which all amounted to twenty-four prophets.”\n\nNarsai's surviving homilies cover a wide range of subjects. Some expound major feasts of the liturgical year, while others treat biblical figures and episodes such as Adam and Eve, Noah, the Tower of Babel, Joseph, Moses, Samson, and the Three Youths in the furnace. Others address sacramental and ecclesiastical themes, including baptism, the Eucharist, priesthood, the church, and the sanctification of the altar. The range of the corpus shows Narsai's importance not only as a controversial theologian, but also as an exegete, liturgical interpreter, and moral teacher within the East Syriac tradition.\n\nSome surviving sogitha are also attributed to Narsai, but they are considered spurious.[13]\n\nThe homilies are all poetry, and most use 12-syllable metre, with a minority using 7-syllable meter. Most, if not all, of Narsai's homilies involve biblical exegesis across liturgical, moral, and theological subjects.[14]\n\nEditions and translations\n\nIn 1905, Alphonse Mingana published a two-volume work with the Syriac text of 47 of these homilies. In 1970, a photographic reproduction of a manuscript with 72 of Narsai's homilies was published by Patriarchal Press. Two numbering systems are used for Narsai's homilies: one by Mingana, and a second by Macomber,[15] in his 1970 inventory of Narsai's manuscripts.[16]\n\nNarsai’s work continues to be published and translated in the 2020s.[17]\n\nList of Narsai's homilies\n\nName[18]\nNumber (Macomber)[18]\nNumber (Mingana)[16]\nTranslations\n\nAdditional notes\n\nOn Revelations to Patriarchs and Prophets (I)\n1\n1\nEnglish[19]\n\nOn Revelations to Patriarchs and Prophets (II)\n2\n2\n\nOn Revelations to Abraham\n3\n3\nEnglish[20]\n\nOn the Nativity\n4\n-\nEnglish[21]\n\nOn Mary\n\n(On the Incarnation)\n\n5\n-\nEnglish[22][23]\n\nOn Epiphany\n6\n-\nEnglish[24]\n\nOn John the Baptist\n7\n-\nEnglish[25]\n\nOn Peter and Paul\n8\n4\nEnglish[26]\n\nGerman[27]\n\nOn the Four Evangelists\n9\n-\n\nOn Stephen\n10\n5\nEnglish[28]\n\nOn the Three Doctors\n11\n-\nFrench[29]\n\nOn the Iniquity of the World\n12\n6\nEnglish[30]\n\nOn Supplication\n\n(On Prayer)\n\n13\n7\nEnglish[31]\n\nOn Jonah\n14\n8\nEnglish[32][33]\n\nOn Reproof\n15\n9\n\nOn Human Nature\n16\n16\nEnglish[34]\n\nFor Any Saints Day\n17\n-\n\nOn the Departed and the Resurrection\n18\n-\nFrench[35][36]\n\nOn Works\n19\n-\n\nOn Lent I\n20\n10\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn the Temptation of Christ (1)\n21\n-\nEnglish[38]\n\nOn the Temptation of Christ (2)\n22\n-\n\nOn Lent III\n23\n11\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn Lent IV\n24\n12\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn Reproof\n25\n13\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn Lent V\n26\n14\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn the Parable of the Ten Virgins\n27\n15\nFrench[39]\n\nOn the Raising of Lazarus\n28\n-\n\nOn Palm Sunday (1)\n29\n-\n\nOn Palm Sunday (2)\n30\n-\n\nAgainst the Jews\n31\n18\nItalian[40]\n\nOn the Canaanite Women\n32\n-\nEnglish[41]\n\nOn the Prodigal Son\n33\n-\nFrench[42]\n\nOn Holy Week\n34\n19\n\nOn the Mysteries\n35\n17\nEnglish[43]\n\nFrench[44]\n\nProbable forgery[45]\n\nOn the Passion\n36\n-\nMcLeod[46]\n\nOn the Repentant Thief\n37\n20\nEnglish[47]\n\nOn Mysteries and Baptism\n38\n21\nEnglish[48]\n\nFrench[49][44]\n\nOn Baptism\n39\n22\nEnglish[50]\n\nFrench[51]\n\nOn the Resurrection\n40\n-\nMcLeod[52]\n\nOn the Confessors\n41\n24\n\nOn the Martyrs (1)\n42\n25\n\nOn the Martyrs (2)\n43\n-\n\nProbable forgery\n\nOn New Sunday\n\n(On the New Creation)\n\n44\n26\nEnglish[53]\n\nOn the Ascension\n45\n-\nMcLeod[54]\n\nOn Pentecost\n46\n27\n\nOn the Workers in the Vineyard\n47\n28\nFrench[55]\n\nOn the Rich Man and Lazarus\n48\n28\nFrench[56]\n\nOn Creation IV\n\n(On the Forming of Adam and Eve)\n\n49\n29\nEnglish[57]\n\nFrench[58][59]\n\nOn Humility\n50\n-\n\nOn the Antichrist\n51\n23\n\nOn the Second Coming\n52\n23\nFrench[60]\n\nOn the Wheat and the Tares\n53\n-\nFrench[61]\n\nOn the Finding of the Cross\n54\n30\n\nOn the Bronze Serpent\n55\n-\nEnglish[62]\n\nOn the Dedication of the Church\n56\n-\n\nOn the Tabernacle\n57\n-\nEnglish[63]\n\nOn Isaiah's Vision\n58\n31\nEnglish[64]\n\nOn the Church and the Priesthood\n59\n32\nEnglish[65]\n\nOn the Dedication of the Church\n60\n33\nEnglish[66]\n\nGerman[67]\n\nOn Creation II\n61\n34\nFrench[68][69]\n\nOn Creation III\n62\n35\nEnglish[70]\n\nFrench[71]\n\nOn Creation I\n63\n36\nFrench[72][73]\n\nOn Creation V\n64\n37\nFrench[74]\n\nOn Creation VI\n65\n38\nFrench[75]\n\nGerman[76]\n\nOn the Soul\n66\n39\nGerman[77]\n\nOn the Blessing of Noah\n67\n-\nEnglish[78]\n\nOn the Tower of Babel\n68\n-\nEnglish[79]\n\nOn Job\n69\n40\n\nOn Joseph\n70\n41\n\nOn the Flood\n71\n-\nEnglish[80]\n\nOn the Miracles of Moses\n72\n42\n\nOn Samson\n73\n43\n\nOn David and Saul\n74\n-\n\nOn Solomon\n75\n-\n\nOn Enoch and Elijah\n76\n-\nEnglish[81]\n\nOn the Three Children\n77\n44\n\nOn Reproof of the Clergy\n78\n45\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn Reproof\n79\n46\nEnglish[37]\n\nOn Reproof of Women\n80\n47\nEnglish[82]\n\nOn John 1:14\n\n(On Christology)\n\n81\n-\nEnglish[83]\n\nOn the Feast of the Victorious Cross\n82\n\n(Title Unknown)\n83\n\n(Title Unknown)\n84\n\nSyriac editions\n\nMajor collection of Narsai's works, containing the full text of 47 memre and the incipits of 34 more - Mingana, Alphonse (1905). Narsai Doctoris Syri Homiliæ et Carmina (in Syriac and Latin). Mosul.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nPublished translations\n\nEnglish\n\nBecker, Adam (2026). Narsai: The Homilies. Volume 2. Peeters Publishers.\n\nButts, Aaron; Heal, Kristian; Kitchen, Robert, eds. (2024). Narsai: The Homilies: Volume 1. Peeters.\n\nConnolly, Dom R.H. (1909). The liturgical homilies of Narsai. Cambridge University Press.\n\nFour mēmrē on baptism and eucharist\n\nFrishman, Judith (1992). The ways and means of the divine economy : an edition, translation and study of six biblical homilies by Narsai (PhD thesis). Leiden University.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2018). Mar Narsai: Homily 33 on the Sanctification of the Church. Gorgias Press.\n\nKuzhuppil, Thomas (2006). The Vision of the Prophet Isaiah: A Theological Study of Narsai's Interpretation of Isaiah 6. Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum.\n\nMcLeod, Frederick G., ed. (1979). Narsai's metrical homilies on the Nativity, Epiphany, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension: critical edition of Syrica text. François Graffin. Turnhout: Brepols.\n\nFive mēmrē on dominical feasts - Christmas, Epiphany, Passion of Jesus, Easter, and Ascension of Jesus - these show Narsai's christological opposition to Cyril of Alexandria in a few places\n\nMolenberg, Corrie (1993). \"Narsai's Memra on the Reproof of Eve's Daughters and the 'Tricks and Devices' they Perform\". Le Muséon. 106 (1-2): 65-87.\n\nWalters, J. Edward (2021). Eastern Christianity: A Reader. Eerdmans.\n\nYounan, Andrew, ed. (2024). Narsai: Selected Sermons. Paulist Press.\n\nFrench\n\nBrouwers (1965). \"Premier poème de Narsaï sur le Baptême\". Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph. 41: 177-207.\n\nDelly, E. (1959). \"Le 23e 'Memra' de Narsai\". Divinitas. 3: 514-553.\n\nFrishmann, J., ed. (1992). Narsai's Memre on Old testament Topics. University of Leiden (dissertation).\n\nSix mēmrē on Old Testament topics - on Enoch and Elijah, the Genesis flood narrative, Blessings of Noah, the Tower of Babel, the Tabernacle, and the Nehushtan\n\nMartin, F (1900). \"Homélie de Narsaï sur les trois Docteurs\". Journal Asiatique. 15: 469-525. Archived from the original on December 21, 2006.\n\nMemra on the Three Doctors (Diodorus of Tarsus, Nestorius, and Theodore of Mopsuestia)\n\nGuillaumont, Antoine (1956). \"Poème de Narsaï sur le baptême\". L'Orient Syrian. 1 (2): 189-207.\n\nGignoux, Philippe, ed. (1968). Homélies de Narsaï sur la création: Édition critique du texte syriaque. Patrologia Orientalis 34, fasc. 3-4 (in French). Turnhout/Paris: Brepols.\n\nSix mēmrē on creation\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1962). \"Homélie de Narsai sur la création d'Adam et d'Eve et sur la transgression du commandement\". L'Orient Syrian. 7: 307-336.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1962b). \"Homélie de Narsai sur la création du monde\". L'Orient Syrian. 7: 477-506.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1963). \"Sur les mystères de l'église et sur le baptême\". In Hamman, A. (ed.). L'Initiation chrétienne. Bernard Grasset. pp. 195-213.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1963b). \"Sur l'exposition des mystères\". In Hamman, A. (ed.). L'Initiation chrétienne. Bernard Grasset. pp. 214-247.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1963c). \"Homélie de Narsai sur le mot 'au commencement' et sur I'Essence divine\". L'Orient Syrian. 8: 227-250.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1966). \"Les doctrines eschatologiques de Narsai\". L'Orient Syrian. 11: 321-352, 461-488.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1967). \"Les doctrines eschatologiques de Narsai\". L'Orient Syrian. 12: 23-54.\n\nKruger, Paul (1958). \"Traduction et commentaire de l'homélie de Narsaï sur les martyrs. Contribution à l'étude du culte des martyrs dans le nestorianisme primitif\". L'Orient Syrien. 3: 299-316.\n\nSiman, Emmanuel Pataq, ed. (1984). Cinq homélies sur les paraboles évangéliques (in French). Paris: Cariscript.\n\nFive mēmrē on Parables of Jesus - of the Ten Virgins, of the Prodigal Son, of the rich man and Lazarus, of the Workers in the Vineyard, and of the Tares\n\nGerman\n\nAllgeier, Arthur (1917). \"Der König und die Königin des 44. (45.) Psalmes im Lichte des N. Test. und der altchristlichen Auslegung. Ein Beitrag zur Begriffsgeschichte der Sponsa Christi\". Der Katholik. 19 (3): 145-173.\n\nAllgeier, Arthur (1922). \"Ein syrischer Memrâ über die Seele religionsgeschichtlichem Rahmen\". Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft. 21: 360-396.\n\nKruger, Paul (1952). \"Die älteste syrisch-nestorianische Dokument über die Engel\". Ostkirchliche Studien. 1: 283-296.\n\nKruger, Paul (1958b). \"Ein Missionsdokument aus frühchristlicher Zeit. Deutung und Übersetzung des Sermo de memoria Petri et Pauli des Narsai\". Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religions wissenschaft. 42: 271-291.\n\nItalian\n\nMingana, Paul T. (2003). E saranno benedetti nel tuo seme tutti i popoli della terra : uno studio di Pshitta Gn 22, 15-18 nell'esegesi di Mar Narsai, tesi di laurea in Teologia Biblica / Paul T. Mingana. Pontificia Universitas Urbaniana.\n\nSee also\n\nRomanos the Melodist\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b c d Lucas Van Rompay, \"Narsai\", Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage Electronic Edition, edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay (Gorgias Press, 2011; online ed. Beth Mardutho, 2018)\n\n^ \"ܢܪܣܝ\", Wiktionary, the free dictionary, 2025-02-04, retrieved 2026-06-17\n\n^ a b c Butts, Aaron Michael (2020). \"Narsai's life and work\". In Butts, Aaron Michael; Heal, Kristian S.; Kitchen, Robert A. (eds.). Narsai: Rethinking His Work and His World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 1-8. ISBN 978-3-16-159349-9.\n\n^ \"Publication Preview - Narsai: Selection Sermons\". Ancient Jew Review. 17 December 2024. Retrieved 21 May 2026.\n\n^ \"Our Patron Saint: St Narsai\". St Narsai Assyrian Christian College. Retrieved 21 May 2026.\n\n^ McLeod, Frederick (2007). \"Narsai's Dependence on Theodore of Mopsuestia\" (PDF). Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 7, Page 18. Retrieved 2 June 2026.\n\n^ Forness 2018, pp. 167-169.\n\n^ Forness 2018, pp. 50-53.\n\n^ Forness 2018, pp. 24-26.\n\n^ Forness 2018, pp. 49-53.\n\n^ Forness 2018, p. 25.\n\n^ Forness 2018, p. 50.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Brock 2021, p. V, including note 4.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Brock 2021, p. V-VI.\n\n^ Macomber 1970.\n\n^ a b Brock 2009.\n\n^ \"Aaron M. Butts, Kristian S. Heal, Robert A. Kitchen (eds.), Narsai: The Homilies, vol. 1. Eastern Christian Texts in Translation 6. Leuven: Peeters, 2024, xvi-189 pp. isbn 9789042950986 (pb) and Andrew Younan (trans.), Narsai: Select Homilies. Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2024, xiii-338 pp. isbn 978-08091-0672-1\". Brill. 4 May 2026. Retrieved 2 June 2026.\n\n^ a b Butts, Heal & Brock 2021.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Kitchen 2024, p. 23-55.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 92-108.\n\n^ McLeod 1979, p. 36-69.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Kitchen 2024, p. 129-154.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 133-162.\n\n^ McLeod 1979, p. 70-105.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 163-183.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Kitchen 2024, p. 81-111.\n\n^ Kruger 1958b.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Kitchen 2024, p. 113-128.\n\n^ Martin 1900.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Kitchen 2024, p. 155-184.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 284-206.\n\n^ Butts, Heal & Kitchen 2024, p. 57-79.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 109-128.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 227-244.\n\n^ Gignoux 1966.\n\n^ Gignoux 1967.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Becker 2026.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 184-205.\n\n^ Siman 1984, p. 6-22.\n\n^ Mingana 2003, p. 397-415.\n\n^ Walters 2021, p. 56-67.\n\n^ Siman 1984, p. 23-29.\n\n^ Connolly 1909, p. 1-31.\n\n^ a b Gignoux 1963b.\n\n^ Brock 1990.\n\n^ McLeod 1979, p. 106-135.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 206-222.\n\n^ Connolly 1909, p. 46-61.\n\n^ Brouwers 1965.\n\n^ Connolly 1909, p. 32-45.\n\n^ Guillaumont 1956.\n\n^ McLeod 1979, p. 136-161.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 260-283.\n\n^ McLeod 1979, p. 162-187.\n\n^ Siman 1984, p. 61-80.\n\n^ Siman 1984, p. 40-60.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 70-91.\n\n^ Gignoux 1968, p. 610-637.\n\n^ Gignoux 1962.\n\n^ Delly 1959.\n\n^ Siman 1984, p. 81-106.\n\n^ Frishman 1992, p. 2.109-122.\n\n^ Frishman 1992, p. 2.93-106.\n\n^ Kuzhuppil 2006, p. 171-189.\n\n^ Connolly 1909, p. 62-74.\n\n^ Harrak 2018.\n\n^ Allgeier 1917, p. 151-163.\n\n^ Gignoux 1968, p. 556-581.\n\n^ Gignoux 1963c.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 49-69.\n\n^ Gignoux 1968, p. 582-609.\n\n^ Gignoux 1968, p. 526-555.\n\n^ Gignoux 1962b.\n\n^ Gignoux 1968, p. 638-671.\n\n^ Gignoux 1968, p. 672-705.\n\n^ Kruger 1952.\n\n^ Allgeier 1922.\n\n^ Frishman 1992, p. 2.55-70.\n\n^ Frishman 1992, p. 2.73-90.\n\n^ Frishman 1992, p. 1.23-51.\n\n^ Frishman 1992, p. 1.3-20.\n\n^ Molenberg 1993.\n\n^ Younan 2024, p. 245-259.\n\nBibliography\n\nBrock, Sebastian (1990). \"Diachronic Aspects of Syriac Word Formation: An Aid for Dating Anonymous Texts\". In Lavenant, René (ed.). V Symposium Syriacum. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. pp. 321-330.\n\nBrock, Sebastian (2009). \"A Guide to Narsai's Homilies\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 12 (1): 21-40.\n\nButts, Aaron; Heal, Kristian; Brock, Sebastian (2021). Clavis to the Metrical Homilies of Narsai. Peeters.\n\nForness, Philip Michael (2018). Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford University Press.\n\nMacomber, W.F. (1970). \"The manuscripts of the metrical homilies of Narsai\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 39: 275-306.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBecker, Adam H (2006). Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and Christian Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA: University of Pennsylvania. ISBN 978-0-8122-3934-8.\n\nBecker, Adam (2016). \"The \"Evil Inclination\" of the Jews: The Syriac Yatsra in Narsai's Metrical Homilies for Lent\". Jewish Quarterly Review. 106 (2): 179-207.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nVan Rompany, Lucas (2011). Humanity's Sin in Paradise: Ephrem, Jacob of Sarug, and Narsai in Conversation. Gorgias Press.\n\nVööbus, Arthur (1965). History of the School of Nisibis. Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 266, subsidia 26. Louvain: Secrétariat du CSCO.\n\nWitkamp, Nathan (2018). Tradition and Innovation: Baptismal Rite and Mystagogy in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Narsai of Nisibis. Brill.\n\nWright, William (2001) [1894]. A Short History of Syriac Literature. Piscataway, New Jersey, USA: Gorgias. pp. 58-59. ISBN 0-9713097-5-2.\n\nExternal links\n\nVolume 1 of the photographic reproduction of a manuscript of 82 of Narsai's works\n\nVolume 2"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-narsai"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3257}, {"slug": "reference-ashur-uballit-ii", "title": "Ashur-uballit II", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Aššur-uballiṭ II, also spelled Assur-uballit II and Ashuruballit II[4] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒌑𒋾𒆷, romanized: Aššur-uballiṭ,[5][6] meaning \"Ashur has kept alive\"),[6] was the final ruler of Assyria, ruling from his predecessor Sîn-šar-iškun's death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC to his own defeat at Harran in 609 BC...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashur-uballit II\n\nRuling crown prince of Assyria\n\nRuler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign612-609 BC\n\nPredecessorSîn-šar-iškun\n\nSuccessorBabylonian conquest\n\nBornc. 645 BC[n 1]\n\nDiedc. 608-606 BC[2] (aged c. 40)\n\nAkkadianAššur-uballiṭ\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherSîn-šar-iškun[3] (?)\n\nAššur-uballiṭ II, also spelled Assur-uballit II and Ashuruballit II[4] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒌑𒋾𒆷, romanized: Aššur-uballiṭ,[5][6] meaning \"Ashur has kept alive\"),[6] was the final ruler of Assyria, ruling from his predecessor Sîn-šar-iškun's death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC to his own defeat at Harran in 609 BC and failure to retake the city in 608 BC.[7] He was possibly the son of Sîn-šar-iškun and likely the same person as a crown prince mentioned in inscriptions at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 626 and 623 BC.\n\nOver the course of Sîn-šar-iškun's reign, the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been irreversibly weakened by war between rival claimants to the throne. A revolt in 626-620 BC in Babylonia had seen the loss of the empire's southern provinces which would go on to form the Neo-Babylonian Empire, war against its king Nabopolassar and the Medes and attacks on its northern territories by Scythians proved disastrous for Assyria; leading to sacks and destructions of the important cities of Assur, Kalhu, Arbela, Arrapha and Nineveh between 614 BC and 612 BC.\n\nAfter the loss of these cities and the death of Sîn-šar-iškun, Aššur-uballiṭ II rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at Harran where, bolstered by an alliance with Egypt (former vassals of Assyria), he ruled for three years, and may have continued to fight on after the loss of all Assyrian cities. His identification as \"king of Assyria\" comes from Babylonian sources. Contemporary Assyrian inscriptions suggest that the Assyrians saw Aššur-uballiṭ as their legitimate ruler, but continued to refer to him as \"crown prince\" seeing as he could not undergo the traditional Assyrian coronation ceremony at Assur and thus had not formally been bestowed with the kingship by the Assyrian chief deity, Ashur. His rule at Harran came to an end when the city was seized by Medo-Babylonian forces in 610 BC. Aššur-uballiṭ's attempt at retaking it in 609 BC was repulsed whereafter he is no longer mentioned in contemporary chronicles, signalling the end of the ancient Assyrian monarchy.\n\nBackground\n\nIn the beginning of the 7th century BC, Assyria was at the height of its power. The entire Fertile Crescent, Levant, large swathes of Ancient Iran and eastern Anatolia, parts of the southern Caucasus, East Mediterranean as far as Cyprus, northern Arabian Peninsula and for a time Egypt and eastern Libya was under the rule of the Assyrian king and due to the flourishing of trade and culture, the era has been described as the Pax Assyriaca (a term coined to parallel the Pax Romana). By the end of the same century, the Assyrian empire had fallen, and although Assyria remained as a satrapy and geopolitical entity until the mid 7th century AD and a number of Neo-Assyrian polities arose between the mid 2nd century BC and mid 3rd century AD, Assyrian power was never to rise again.[8]\n\nOne of the major reasons for its fall was Assyria's failure to efficiently solve the so-called \"Babylonian problem\", the near constant rebellions in its southern provinces, especially in the ancient and prestigious city of Babylon. Although some kings had ruled successfully without revolts in Babylonia, such as Esarhaddon,[9] the revolts in the region had intensified during the rule of Sîn-šar-iškun (reigned 627-612 BC). Sîn-šar-iškun had come to the throne in 627 BC following the death of his brother Aššur-etil-ilāni and was almost immediately faced by a revolt by the Assyrian general Sîn-šumu-līšir in 626 BC, who successfully seized some cities in northern Babylonia, including Babylon itself and Nippur. Although Sîn-šumu-līšir was defeated after only three months, his revolt weakened Assyrian control in Babylonia.[10]\n\nAlmost immediately afterwards, another revolt sprung up in Babylonia, this one by Nabopolassar, who successfully seized both Babylon and Nippur. The defeat of Sîn-šar-iškun's attempted reconquest of these cities in October of 626 BC was the final Assyrian campaign for the city of Babylon. On 22/23 November of that year, Nabopolassar was formally crowned as king of Babylon, founding the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Sîn-šar-iškun attempted to reconquer cities in northern Babylonia in 625-624 BC but was repeatedly repelled. In 622 BC, Nabopolassar seized the last Assyrian outposts in Babylonia but was initially unable to encroach into Assyria itself.[11]\n\nThe Babylonians scored repeated victories against the weakened Assyrians and by 616 BC Babylonian troops had even reached as far north as the Balikh River. Assyria's ally, Pharaoh Psamtik I of Egypt, whose dynasty had been installed as vassals of Assyria following the Assyrian destruction of the Kushite Empire saw Assyria as a buffer between his own kingdom and those of the Babylonians and Medes in the east, rushed to Sîn-šar-iškun's aid, but a joint Egyptian-Assyrian campaign into Babylonia was unsuccessful.[12] In 614 BC, the city of Assur, once the capital and still the ideological and religious center of Assyria, was captured, plundered and sacked by the Medes (hitherto vassals of Assyria) under Cyaxares, allies of Nabopolassar.[13] The Babylonian army under Nabopolassar had been late to the battle, only arriving after the Medes had already killed many of the city's inhabitants and begun plundering it.[14] Two years later, the Assyrian capital itself, Nineveh, fell.[13] The fate of Sîn-šar-iškun is not certain, but it is commonly accepted that he died in defense of Nineveh in 612 BC.[13]\n\nAššur-uballiṭ 's background is uncertain. It is known that he was an Assyrian general and he might have been the son of Sîn-šar-iškun.[3] Aššur-uballiṭ is likely the same person as the unnamed crown prince (designated heir) attested in inscriptions from Nineveh dated to 626 and 623 BC. Sîn-šar-iškun's appointment of a crown prince so early in his reign (having only become king in 627 BC) was likely to avoid the weakening succession problems which had been common in Assyria since the reign of Sennacherib (reigned 705-681 BC).[1]\n\nReign\n\nRule at Harran and status\n\nIn Assyrian tradition, the king was appointed to his position by the Assyrian national deity, Ashur, during the New Year festivals in Assur. The last king to be crowned at the temple of Ashur at Assur had been Sîn-šar-iškun and with the city's destruction in 614 BC, the traditional Assyrian coronation ritual was now impossible.[15] The coronation ritual in Assur saw the god Ashur invest the king with royal power, affirming his status as Ashur's earthly representative.[16] Aššur-uballiṭ did have a coronation ceremony in late 612 BC,[15] but instead of conducting it in Assur, it was conducted in the temple of the moon god Sin, another important deity in the empire, at the northern Assyrian city of Harran.[16] At Harran, the Assyrian Empire continued to endure under the rule of Aššur-uballiṭ. His identification as Sîn-šar-iškun's successor and the king of Assyria comes from Babylonian chronicles. The Babylonians thus saw him as the Assyrian king, but the subjects Aššur-uballiṭ governed himself probably did not share this view. Instead, Aššur-uballiṭ's formal title was crown prince (mar šarri, literally meaning \"son of the king\"),[16] which can be inferred from preserved documents, such as the following portion of a legal document from the city Dur-Katlimmu:\n\nWhoever contests the agreement, [missing portion] shall be his legal adversaries; the covenant of the crown prince shall seek vengeance; he shall give ten minas of silver.\n28th day, month Tebetu, eponym year of Seʾ-ilaʾi. Witness is the city lord Iadiʾ-il. Witness is Nabû-naṣir son of Šulmu-šarri. Witness is Šarru-emuranni son of Nabû-eṭir. Witness is Salmanu-reḫtu-uṣur.[17]\n\nThe portion of the document that is important in regards to Aššur-uballiṭ's status is the mention of the \"covenant of the crown prince\" (adê ša mar šarri). This phrase is common in legal documents, appearing frequently since the reign of Esarhaddon in 672 BC, but always in the form of \"covenant of the king\" (adê ša šarri), showing that the office of king was vacant and the crown prince filled that role instead.[18] Inscriptions from this time also record the name of the final Commander-in-Chief of the Assyrian army, Nabû-mar-šarri-uṣur[n 2], which means \"O Nabu, protect the crown prince!\". Such names were common in Assyria but usually referred to the king, not the crown prince.[19] Aššur-uballiṭ not formally being king does not indicate that his claim to the throne was challenged, only that he had yet to go through with the traditional ceremony. The appointment of a crown prince required the formal recognition of all subjects and of the gods. Should the king be unable to exercise his duties, the crown prince was a competent substitute, exercising similar legal and political power. Aššur-uballiṭ was the recognized legitimate ruler, and his title was only a provisional arrangement until he could undergo the proper coronation.[20]\n\nThe choice of Aššur-uballiṭ as a regnal name was probably a highly conscious one. The meaning of the name, \"Ashur has kept alive\", suggests that Assyria's chief deity and its empire would be ultimately successful in their battle against their enemies. It also connects him to the earlier Assyrian king of the same name, Aššur-uballiṭ I of the 14th century BC who had founded the Middle Assyrian Empire. Aššur-uballiṭ I had been the first Assyrian ruler to abandon the old religious title of iššiʾak (\"governor\") in favor of the title šarrum (\"king\"), signifying his role as an absolute monarch.[6]\n\nIn Assyria, each year was assigned an eponym name. The name used for the year noted in the Dur-Katlimmu legal document, \"Seʾ-ilaʾi\", only appears in this source from a city still under Assyrian control, and demonstrates that it is from after the Assyrian heartlands had fallen to invaders, when eponym names, in the absence of central authority, became local and often confined to single cities. The Šulmu-šarri, whose son is mentioned, also appears in inscriptions dating to the reign of Ashurbanipal a little over a decade prior. Although the document uses traditional Assyrian titles such as Companion (ša qurbūte, literally meaning \"he who is close to the king\") and cohort commander (rab kiṣri), suggesting that they still carried their traditional importance, the document also calls the local leader Iadiʾ-il by the title of city lord (Akkadian: bēl āli) a title formerly only associated with members of the Assyrian ruling dynasty. A non-dynastic appointed official for the government of a city was usually titled as ḫazannu (usually translated as \"mayor\") or ša muḫḫi āli (meaning \"city oversser\") and the use of the title bēl āli indicates that parts of the Assyrian administrative framework were no longer functioning by 609 BC.[18]\n\nFall of Harran and attempted recapture\n\nAt the time Aššur-uballiṭ became the ruler of Assyria in 612 BC, his main objective would have been to retake the Assyrian heartland, including Assur and Nineveh. Bolstered by the forces of his allies, Egypt (a leading military power in the region) and Mannea, this goal was probably seen as quite possible and his rule at Harran and role as crown prince (and not legitimately crowned king) probably seemed like a mere temporary retreat. Instead, Aššur-uballiṭ's rule at Harran composes the final years of the Assyrian Empire, which at this point had effectively ceased to exist.[20][21]\n\nIn 611 BC, Nabopolassar's army consolidated his rule throughout northern Mesopotamia, going as far as to the border of Harran itself. After Nabopolassar himself had travelled the recently conquered Assyrian heartland in 610 BC in order to ensure stability, the Medo-Babylonian army embarked on a campaign against Harran in November of 610 BC.[21] Intimidated by the approach of the Medo-Babylonian army, Aššur-uballiṭ and a contingent of Egyptian reinforcements retreated from the city into the deserts of Syria.[2] The siege of Harran lasted from the winter of 610 BC to the beginning of 609 BC and the city eventually capitulated.[21] Aššur-uballiṭ's failure at Harran marks the end for the ancient Assyrian monarchy, which would never be restored.[7]\n\nAfter the Babylonians had ruled Harran for three months, Aššur-uballiṭ and a large force of Egyptian soldiers attempted to retake the city, but this campaign failed disastrously.[2][22] Beginning in July or June 609 BC, Aššur-uballiṭ's siege lasted for two months, until August or September, but he and the Egyptians retreated when Nabopolassar again led his army against them. It is possible that they had retreated even earlier.[22]\n\nFate\n\nThe eventual fate of Aššur-uballiṭ is unknown[2] and his siege of Harran in 609 BC is the last time he, or the Assyrian military in general, are mentioned in Babylonian records.[22] After the battle at Harran, Nabopolassar resumed his campaign against the remainder of the Assyrian army in the beginning of the year 608 or 607 BC. It is thought that Aššur-uballiṭ was still alive at this point, for in 608 BC the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II, Psamtik I's successor, personally led a large Egyptian army into former Assyrian territory to rescue his ally and turn the tide of the war. Because there is no mention of a large battle between the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Medes in 608 BC (a battle between the four greatest military powers of their day is unlikely to have been forgotten and left out of contemporary sources) and no later mentions of Aššur-uballiṭ, it is possible that he died at some point in 608 BC before his allies and his enemies could clash in battle.[2] M.B. Rowton speculates that Aššur-uballiṭ could have lived until 606 BC,[2] but by then the Egyptian army is mentioned in Babylonian sources without any references to the Assyrian king.[15]\n\nAlthough Aššur-uballiṭ is no longer mentioned after 609 BC, the Egyptian campaigns in the Levant continued for some time until a crushing defeat at Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC which may have involved remnants of the Assyrian army. Throughout the next century, Egypt and Babylon, brought into direct contact with each other through Assyria's fall, would frequently be at war with each other over control in the Fertile Crescent.[22]\n\nSee also\n\nSargonid dynasty\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nNotes\n\n^ As per Reade (1998), discussing the crown prince in 626 BC as \"probably then in his twenties\".[1]\n\n^ Nabû-mar-šarri-uṣur's predecessor as Commander-in-Chief, Šamaš-sarru-ibni, had probably died with King Sîn-šar-iškun at Nineveh in 612 BC.[19]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Reade 1998, p. 264.\n\n^ a b c d e f Rowton 1951, p. 128.\n\n^ a b Radner 2013.\n\n^ Kia 2016, p. 214.\n\n^ Bertin 1891, p. 42.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2019, p. 136.\n\n^ a b Radner 2019, p. 141.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 11.\n\n^ Porter 1987, pp. 1-2.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, pp. 14-16.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2019, p. 135.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 18.\n\n^ a b c Reade 1998, p. 260.\n\n^ a b c Radner 2019, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 137.\n\n^ a b Radner 2019, pp. 137-139.\n\n^ a b Radner 2019, p. 140.\n\n^ a b Radner 2019, pp. 140-141.\n\n^ a b c Lipschits 2005, p. 19.\n\n^ a b c d Lipschits 2005, p. 20.\n\nCited bibliography\n\nBertin, G. (1891). \"Babylonian Chronology and History\". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 5: 1-52. doi:10.2307/3678045. JSTOR 3678045. S2CID 164087631.\n\nKia, Mehrdad (2016). The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia: Volume I. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1440845680.\n\nLipschits, Oled (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575060958.\n\nPorter, Barbara N. (1987). Symbols of Power: Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy (681-669 BC). University of Pennsylvania.\n\nRadner, Karen (2019). \"Last Emperor or Crown Prince Forever? Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources\". State Archives of Assyria Studies. 28: 135-142.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998). \"Assyrian eponyms, kings and pretenders, 648-605 BC\". Orientalia (NOVA Series). 67 (2): 255-265. JSTOR 43076393.\n\nRowton, M. B. (1951). \"Jeremiah and the Death of Josiah\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2 (10): 128-130. doi:10.1086/371028. S2CID 162308322.\n\nCited web sources\n\nRadner, Karen (2013). \"Royal marriage alliances and noble hostages\". Assyrian empire builders. Retrieved 26 November 2019."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashur-uballit-ii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2688}, {"slug": "reference-semel", "title": "Semel", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Semel or Semels may refer to: David Semel, American film, television director and producer Harry Semels (1887-1946), American film actor Stephen Semel, American film editor, director and producer Terry Semel (born 1943), U.S. businessman, former chairman and chief executive officer of Yahoo! Incorporated Semel Institute for Neuroscience and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Semel or Semels may refer to:\n\nDavid Semel, American film, television director and producer\n\nHarry Semels (1887-1946), American film actor\n\nStephen Semel, American film editor, director and producer\n\nTerry Semel (born 1943), U.S. businessman, former chairman and chief executive officer of Yahoo! Incorporated\n\nSemel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles\n\nSemel District, Duhok Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan region\n\nThe Semel Editor ®, a semantics editor (i.e. not a text editor) for C++\n\nSee also\n\nSimele (or Sumail), a town in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-semel"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 90}, {"slug": "reference-lahmacun", "title": "Lahmacun", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Lahmacun,[a] lahmajun, or lahmajo[b] is a Middle Eastern flatbread topped with minced meat (most commonly beef or lamb), minced vegetables, and herbs such as onions, garlic, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley, flavored with spices such as chili pepper and paprika, then baked.[3] Lahmacun is often wrapped around vegetables,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Lahmacun\nLahmacun with salad\n\nAlternative namesLahmadjoune, Lahmajun, lahmajoun, lahm b'ajin, lahmajo, lahmajin, lahamagine, lahmatzoun\n\nCourseMain\n\nRegion or stateLevant[1]\n\nServing temperatureWarm\n\nMain ingredientsWheat flour, minced meat, vegetables and herbs\n\n  Media: Lahmacun\n\nLahmacun,[a] lahmajun, or lahmajo[b] is a Middle Eastern flatbread topped with minced meat (most commonly beef or lamb), minced vegetables, and herbs such as onions, garlic, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley, flavored with spices such as chili pepper and paprika, then baked.[3] Lahmacun is often wrapped around vegetables, including pickled vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce, parsley, and roasted eggplant.[4][5][6][7]\n\nIt originated in the Levant region of West Asia and the earliest known written evidence of its existence come from medieval Syria[1] where it is traditionally known by its Arabic name lahm bi ʿajīn (\"meat with dough\").[8] Lahm bi ajeen, or lahmacun is a popular dish in Lebanon and Syria.[9][10]\n\nVariants of lahmacun are also common in Armenia and Turkey,[11][2] where the dish became popular in local cuisines.[11] In English, it is sometimes referred to as \"Lebanese pizza\", \"Armenian pizza\",[12] or \"Turkish pizza\",[13] because of its round shape and superficial similarity to pizza, though it traditionally contains neither cheese nor tomato sauce and is made with a thinner crust.[14][11][15]\n\nEtymology and terminology\n\nThe name had entered English from Turkish lahmacun, pronounced lahmajun, and from Armenian լահմաջո (lahmajo), both derived from Arabic لحم [بـ]عجين (laḥm [bi-]ʿajīn), meaning \"dough [with] meat\".[16][17][9] The names lahmajin and sfiha are often used interchangeably to refer to certain foods.[18][19][20]\n\nThe word lahmacun is attested in explorer Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatnâme a travelogue from the 17th century, according to Sevan Nişanyan, it is the oldest Turkish-language use of the word.[21]\n\nHistory\n\nMedieval Syria\n\nFlatbreads in the Middle East have been cooked in tandoors and on metal frying pans such as the tava for thousands of years.[17] They have been used to wrap meat and other foods for convenience and portability. However, until the wider adoption in medieval times of the large stone ovens, flatbreads stuffed or topped with meat and other foods were not baked together, cooking the bread and the topping at the same time.[17][9] The earliest known written evidence closely corresponding to laḥm bi-ʿajīn (lahmacun) comes from medieval Syrian culinary literature.\n\nA 13th-century Syrian cookbook compiled in Aleppo, Kitāb al-Wusla ilā al-Ḥabīb (Scents and Flavors), contains a recipe describing minced meat spread on thin dough and baked in a brick oven (furn).[22] It instructs to “cut up meat small, then spread it on a round piece of dough and bake it in the oven.” This recipe is identified by scholars as the earliest textual reference to laḥm bi ʿajīn (“meat with dough”).[23][24][25][26]\n\nOttoman period\n\nThe 17th-century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi also notices the dish for the first time in Syria, Damascus, he listed lahm-ı acîn among the notable foods of Damascus.[27] This Ottoman reference records the name of the dish in a Syrian context several centuries after the earlier Aleppine cookbook tradition.[28] He listed it among the praised foods of the city in his Seyahatname.[29][30][31] In his book, Çelebi warns that a man who falls off his horse will become \"a paste like lahm-ı acîn (lahmacun)\".[32]\n\nAn 1844 French-Arabic dictionary of Syrian and Egyptian Arabic by the Swedish orientalist Jacob Berggren defines lahm el-ʿajin (لحم العجين) as small baked pastries filled with minced meat, and mixed with sour milk or pomegranate juice before being cooked in an oven.[33] 2 recipes for lahma bi-ajin can be found in the 1885 cookbook titled Ustadh al-Tabbakhin by Lebanese writer Khalil Khattar Sarkis, along with a recipe for meat-filled fatayer.[34]\n\nTwentieth-century spread\n\nTurkey\n\nBefore becoming widespread throughout Turkey, lahmacun was primarily associated with the southern and southeastern regions of the country, particularly around Urfa and Gaziantep, as well as with Arab countries.[35][36] Multiple studies state that lahmacun did not become widespread throughout Turkey until its introduction to Istanbul in the 1950s. Before that period, it was largely confined within Turkey to the southeast, a region with significant interaction with Arab culture and cuisine.[37][1] \n\nAccording to Bal, migrants from southeastern Turkey brought lahmacun to Istanbul during the mid-20th century, contributing to its spread in the city and subsequently elsewhere in Turkey.[37] Anthropologist Ayfer Suna Bartu similarly recorded an Istanbul informant recalling that fifty years earlier nobody in Istanbul knew what lahmacun was, or that it had instead been called pizza.[38]\n\nLahmacun subsequently became a widely consumed dish in Turkey, while regional varieties remained particularly associated with southeastern Anatolia. In 2025, the European Union registered Antep Lahmacunu / Gaziantep Lahmacunu as a protected geographical indication (PGI).[39][40][41]\n\nArmenia\n\nLahmajo (the Armenian name for lahm bi 'ajin) became established in Armenia during the Soviet period through Armenian repatriation from the Middle East. The dish was introduced to Yerevan in the 1960s by Armenian repatriates from Aleppo, Syria.[42][43] Following the Second World War, around 90,000 diaspora Armenians, particularly from Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and Syria, settled in Armenia. Their food traditions contributed to Soviet Armenian cuisine, including lahmajo.[44] In the 1960s, lahmajo was associated with the new wave of repatriates and was referred to by locals as an \"akhpar meal\", a term used for diaspora Armenian repatriates. It was initially regarded as foreign to local cuisine before becoming incorporated into Armenian food culture.[45]\n\nA variety of such dishes exist such as sfiha and manakish, became popular in Levant, such as Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Syria. A thin flatbread, topped with spiced ground meat, became known as lahm b'ajin (meat with dough), shortened to lahmajin and similar names.[17][9]\n\nRegional traditions\n\nIn Assyrian tradition, lahmacun is served to those who are grieving the loss of a loved one, alongside coffee and other dishes.[46] In Mosul, Iraq, lahmajin is a common food served at any time of day.[47]\n\nIn The Netherlands lahmacun is often sold as a street food or snack, often under the name Turkish pizza. The lahmacun is rolled up and filled with salad, sambal and garlic sauce, often with added döner meat and/or cheese.[48]\n\nVariations\n\nAntep, includes garlic[49]\n\nUrfa, includes onion[49]\n\nAleppo (Arabic: لحم بعجين من حلب; Turkish: Halep işi lahmacun), includes garlic, onion, and pomegranate molasses[50][18]\n\nʻUsh al-bulbul (Arabic: عش البلبل, not to be confused with bulbul yuvasi) is an Aleppan smaller variety with thicker dough.[18][51][52]\n\nControversy\n\nDue to the hostile nature of the relations between Armenia and Turkey, the opening of Armenian restaurants serving the food in Russia was met by some protests.[2][53] In March 2020, Kim Kardashian, an American socialite and media personality of Armenian heritage, posted a video on her Instagram saying \"Who knows about lahmacun? This is our Armenian pizza. My dad would always put string cheese on it and then put it in the oven and get it really crispy.\" This sparked outrage among Turkish social media users, who lashed out at her for describing lahmacun as Armenian pizza.[54]\n\nSee also\n\nSfiha\n\nPizza marinara\n\nAl-Maltout\n\nNotes\n\n^ /ˌlɑːməˈdʒuːn/ LAH-mə-JOON, Turkish: [lahmaːˈdʒun] ⓘ; Arabic: لحم بعجين, romanized: laḥm bi-ʿajīn, lit. 'meat with dough'.\n\n^ Armenian: լահմաջո.[2]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Bartu, Ayfer (2001). \"Rethinking Heritage Politics in a Global Context\". In AlSayyad, Nezar (ed.). Hybrid Urbanism: On the Identity Discourse and the Built Environment. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 154. ISBN 978-0-275-96612-6.\n\n^ a b c McKernan, Bethan (27 October 2016). \"A 'pizza war' has broken out between Turkey and Armenia\". The Independent. Retrieved 10 December 2016.\n\n^ Alkan, Sena (19 November 2016). \"A delicious, fresh experience: try lahmacun\". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 16 January 2020. The true origin of lahmacun is a mystery...\n\n^ Ghillie Basan (1997). Classic Turkish Cookery. Tauris Parke Books. p. 95. ISBN 1-86064-011-7.\n\n^ Allen Webb (2012). Teaching the Literature of Today's Middle East. Routledge. pp. 70-. ISBN 978-1-136-83714-2.\n\n^ Sally Butcher (2012). Veggiestan: A Vegetable Lover's Tour of the Middle East. Anova Books. pp. 128-. ISBN 978-1-909108-22-6.\n\n^ Jeff Hertzberg, M.D.; Zoë François (2011). Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day. St. Martin's Press. pp. 216-218. ISBN 978-1-4299-9050-9.\n\n^ Nawal Nasrallah, Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine, Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2018 - a scholarly cookbook and food history that discusses laḥm bi-ʿajīn as a traditional Levantine meat flatbread.\n\n^ a b c d Marks, Gil (1999). The World of Jewish Cooking. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-684-83559-4.\n\n^ Dmitriev, Kirill; Hauser, Julia; Orfali, Bilal (2019-09-24). Insatiable Appetite: Food as Cultural Signifier in the Middle East and Beyond. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-40955-2.\n\n^ a b c Carol Helstosky (2008). Pizza: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books. pp. 59-. ISBN 978-1-86189-630-8.\n\n^ \"'Armenian Pizza' Is the Comfort Food You Didn't Know You Were Missing (Recipe)\". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 16 January 2020. No one knows for certain whether lahmacun's roots lie in Armenia, or elsewhere in the Middle East. \"The race to find where these ancient foods originated is not fruitful territory,\" cautioned Naomi Duguid, author of Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan. After all, meat-enhanced flatbreads are ubiquitous throughout the region...\n\n^ \"Turkish flatbread lahmacun - just don't call it pizza\". South China Morning Post. 4 April 2015.\n\n^ Karadsheh, Suzy (2018-10-09). \"Easy Lahmacun Recipe (Turkish Pizza)\". The Mediterranean Dish. Retrieved 2026-05-17.\n\n^ The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. Routledge. 10 January 2014. ISBN 978-1-317-93412-7. Retrieved 16 January 2020.\n\n^ \"Entry: lahmacun\". American Heritage Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved 2020-01-07.\n\n^ a b c d Marks, Gil (17 November 2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6 - via Google Books.\n\n^ a b c \nKhayr al-Din al-Asadi (1981). موسوعة حلب المقارنة [Comparative Encyclopedia of Aleppo] (in Arabic). p. 2624. Retrieved 12 Feb 2026.\n\n^ \n\"المطبخ السوري... أتراك يرحبون باللاجئين ويخشون أطعمتهم\" [Syrian cuisine... Turks welcome refugees but fear their food]. The New Arab (in Arabic). 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2026.\n\n^ \n\"طهاة يضيفون مفاهيم جديدة إلى المطبخ الفلسطيني\" [Chefs are adding new concepts to Palestinian cuisine.]. Oman Daily (in Arabic). 4 August 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2026.\n\n^ \"lahmacun\". Nişanyan Sözlük (in Turkish). Retrieved 26 April 2026.\n\n^ Nasrallah, Nawal (17 Sep 2014). \"In my Iraqi Kitchen: Recipes, History and Culture, by Nawal Nasrallah\". In My Iraqi Kitchen. Retrieved 30 September 2025.\n\n^ Perry, Charles (3 March 2020). Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook. NYU Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-4798-0083-4. Retrieved 30 September 2025.\n\n^ Charles Perry (ed. and trans.), Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook, New York University Press, Library of Arabic Literature, 2017, pp. 200-201. Quote: \"Cut up meat small, then spread it on a round piece of dough and bake it in the oven (furn).\" NYU Press - Scents and Flavors\n\n^ Nawal Nasrallah, Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine, 2nd ed., Equinox Publishing, 2018, pp. 450-451. Quote: \"The earliest record of lahm bi ʿajin appears in a 13th-century Aleppine cookbook, Kitāb al-Wusla ilā al-Ḥabīb, where the recipe calls for minced meat to be spread on thin dough and baked in a brick oven.\" Equinox Publishing - Delights from the Garden of Eden\n\n^ Nasrallah, Nawal (2018). Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine. Equinox Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-78179-457-9. Retrieved 30 September 2025.\n\n^ Samıkıran, Oğuzhan (2014). \"Nefs-i Şam Örneğinde Gayrimüslimlerin Nüfûs ve Mesleklerine Dair Bir Araştırma (1674-1700)\". Avrasya İncelemeleri Dergisi. 3 (2): 240. Evliya Çelebi Şam'ın yiyeceklerinden bahsederken \"…peynirli böreği ve lahm-ı acînli böreği…\" ifadelerini kullanır.\n\n^ Yentürk, Nejat (2021). \"Yufka Ekmeğinden Börek ve Baklavaya Uzanan Yol\". Journal of Turkish Studies: 337. Seyahatname'de adı verilen börek çeşitleri arasında lahm-ı acînli börek (Şam) da bulunmaktadır.\n\n^ Samıkıran, Oğuzhan (2014). \"Nefs-i Şam Örneğinde Gayrimüslimlerin Nüfûs ve Mesleklerine Dair Bir Araştırma (1674-1700)\". AVİD, Avrasya İncelemeleri Dergisi. 3 (2): 240. Evliya Çelebi Şam ve çevresinin bazı gıda dallarına mahsus niteliklerinden şöyle bahseder: ...hâs ve beyâz Havrân gılâlından beyâz çakıl ekmeği ve 'Acem çöreği ve peynirli böreği ve lahm-ı 'acînli böreği ve kahkî rû-yu zemînde nazîri yokdur...\n\n^ Samıkıran, Oğuzhan (2014). \"Nefs-i Şam Örneğinde Gayrimüslimlerin Nüfûs ve Mesleklerine Dair Bir Araştırma (1674-1700)\". AVİD, Avrasya İncelemeleri Dergisi. 3 (2): 240. ... lahm-ı 'acînli böreği ... Evliya Çelebi, Seyâhatnâme, c. V, s. 106a.\n\n^ Yentürk, Nejat (2021). \"Yufka Ekmeğinden Börek ve Baklavaya Uzanan Yol\". Journal of Turkish Studies / Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları. 56: 337. lahm-ı acînli börek (Şam)\n\n^ Çelebi, Evliya (1 September 2023). Günümüz Türkçesiyle Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi 7.Kitap 2. Cilt; Almanya-Çerkezistan-Dağıstan-Kırım-Macaristan- Romanya-Rusya-Slovakya-Tataristan-Ukranya- Viyana (Yeditepe Yayınevi) (in Turkish). Yeditepe Yayınevi. p. 68. ISBN 978-625-6777-69-9. Retrieved 31 July 2026. değil ki insan attan düşüp kurtula. O at da, insanoğlu da atların ayakları altlarında pelte, macun ve lahmacun gibi olur, Allah saklasın.\n\n^ Berggren, Jakob (1844). Guide français-arabe vulgaire des voyageurs dt des francs en Syrie et en Égypte: avec carte physique et géographique de la Ssyrie et plan géométrique de Jérusalem ancien et moderne, comme supplément aux voyages en orient [A French-Arabic guide for travelers and Franks in Syria and Egypt: with a physical and geographical map of Syria and a geometric plan of ancient and modern Jerusalem, as a supplement to travels in the Orient] (in Arabic and French). Leffler et Sebell. p. 263. Retrieved 26 December 2025.\n\n^ Sarkis, Khalil (1885). كتاب تذكرة الخواتين واستاذ الطباخين (in Arabic). المطبعة الادبية. p. 468. Retrieved 25 December 2025.\n\n^ Bartu, Ayfer Suna (1997). Reading the Past: The Politics of Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Istanbul. University of California, Berkeley. p. 149. We became a nation of lahmacun eaters. Fifty years ago no one in Istanbul knew what lahmacun was - or if we did, we called it pizza.\n\n^ Cite error: The named reference Hybrid3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).\n\n^ a b Bal, Reyyan (2026). \"Cultural Hybridity on a Plate: Food, Identity and Conflict Resolution in Barış Manço's \"Lahburger\"\". Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies (10): 73.\n\n^ Bartu, Ayfer Suna (1997). Reading the Past: The Politics of Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Istanbul. University of California, Berkeley. p. 149.\n\n^ \"Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2237\". EUR-Lex. 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"TRT World - Türkiye's famed Gaziantep lahmacun gets EU geographical indication registration\". TRT World. November 5, 2025. Retrieved 14 March 2026.\n\n^ \"'Antep Lahmacunu / Gaziantep Lahmacunu'\". eur-lex.europa.eu. 2025. Retrieved 14 March 2026.\n\n^ Petrosian, Irina; Underwood, David (2006). Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction & Folklore. p. 16. ISBN 9781411698659.\n\n^ Addison, Bill (17 July 2025). \"Hot cheese breads and meat pies are only the start at L.A.'s best new Armenian restaurant\". Los Angeles Times. repatriated Armenians in the 1960s returning from the Syrian city of Aleppo as the ones who introduced the dish to Yerevan.\n\n^ Deinyan, Marianna; Aridzanjan, Anna (2023). Yerevan: Die armenische Küche. Riva. p. 16. ISBN 9783742324757. Schnell erweiterten Gerichte der ursprünglich westarmenischen Küche, zum Beispiel »Lahmajo«, die Esskultur Sowjetarmeniens.\n\n^ Kanegarian, Ella (4 July 2021). \"Interrupted Flavors: Thoughts on Armenian Cuisine\". EVN Report. It was referred to as an \"akhpar meal\" by locals and treated as something foreign from their own cuisine.\n\n^ Sabbağ, Çiğdem. \"MARDİN YEME İÇME KÜLTÜRÜ\" (PDF). ADIYAMAN ÜNİVERSİTESİ. p. 299. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2025.\n\n^ \n\"اللحم بعجين.. فطائر تمتاز بها محافظة الموصل العراقية\" [Lahm bi ajeen... pastries that are a specialty of Mosul province in Iraq]. Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2026.\n\n^ Sturm, Melvin (2024-04-18). \"3 Turkse pizza-recepten (+ alles wat je moet weten over dit comfortfood)\". Culy (in Netherlands Dutch). Retrieved 2025-10-16.\n\n^ a b Mahir, Hasan (3 March 2008). Geziantep: Gaziantep gezi notları (in Turkish). p. 148.\n\n^ \"Halep işi lahmacun tarifi\". Hurriyet (in Turkish). 24 November 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2023.\n\n^ \n\"طريقة عمل حلوى عش البلبل\" [How to make oush al-bulbul dessert]. Al-Ain News (in Arabic). 22 January 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2025.\n\n^ \n\"طريقة عمل عش البلبل باللحمة.. وصفات حلبية على أصولها\" [How to make \"Bird's Nest\" with meat... Authentic Aleppo recipes]. Cairo24 (in Arabic). 20 April 2025. Retrieved 27 December 2025.\n\n^ \"Lahmacun Kimin?\". kapsamhaber.com/ (in Turkish). Retrieved 2018-12-10.\n\n^ \"Kim Kardashian faces Turkish backlash after calling lahmacun 'Armenian pizza'\". 27 March 2020."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-lahmacun"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2668}, {"slug": "reference-febronia-of-nisibis", "title": "Febronia of Nisibis", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Phebronia of Nisibis, also known as Phebronia of Sebapte, was a nun at Nisibis, Roman Empire (modern-day Nusaybin, Turkey). She suffered persecution under Diocletian, who offered her freedom if she renounced her faith and married his nephew, Lysimachus, who had been leaning towards conversion to Christianity. Febronia refused...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nFebronia\n\nMartyrdom of St. Phebronia, fresco in the Byzantine monastery of St. Phebronia, Palagonia\n\nVirgin and martyr\n\nBorn284\n\nDied304\n\nVenerated inEastern Orthodox Church\n\nOriental Orthodoxy\n\nRoman Catholic Church\n\nCanonizedPre-Congregation\n\nMajor shrineSan Carlo ai Catinari, Rome[1]\n\nFeast25 June Roman Catholic Church\n\n12 February Eastern Orthodox Church\n\n25 June Greek Orthodox Church\n\n1 Epip Coptic Church\n\nTuesday after second Sunday of the Exaltation of the Cross Armenian Apostolic Church\n\nAttributesPalm of martyrdom and the shears used to cut off her breasts[2]\n\nPatronagePalagonia, Sicily\n\nPhebronia of Nisibis, also known as Phebronia of Sebapte, was a nun at Nisibis, Roman Empire (modern-day Nusaybin, Turkey). She suffered persecution under Diocletian, who offered her freedom if she renounced her faith and married his nephew, Lysimachus, who had been leaning towards conversion to Christianity. Febronia refused and was tortured, suffered mutilation and death. Lysimachus, witnessing her suffering, converted.[3]\n\nSaint Phebronia's tomb can be found in a monastery named after her in the village of Himo, near the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria.[4]\n\nPhebronia is one of the 140 Colonnade saints whose images adorn St. Peter's Square. She is known as a Holy Virgin Martyr.[5]\n\nIn the Coptic Orthodox Church, her feast day is 1 Epip which corresponds to 8 July (Gregorian Calendar) or 25 June (Julian Calendar).[6]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Dall’Oriente all’Occidente il culto millenario di Santa Febronia Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine (in Italian)\n\n^ \"Febronia of Nisibis\". Patron Saint Index. Archived from the original on 13 September 2009.\n\n^ \"Febronia of Nisibis\". Patron Saint Index. Archived from the original on 13 September 2009.\n\n^ أرمني, فيكين شيتريان-صحافي وكاتب (2022-06-03). \"Syrian Christians: Life Between War and Migration | Daraj\". daraj.com. Archived from the original on 2022-08-14. Retrieved 2022-08-14.\n\n^ \"St. Peter's Square - The Saint Statues on the Colonnades\". stpetersbasilica.info. Retrieved 2023-06-23.\n\n^ Egypt, Michael Ghaly-. \"Abib Month Coptic Calendar - Coptic Synaxarium (Coptic Orthodox Calendar: Daily Synaxarion | St-Takla.org\". st-takla.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.\n\nExternal links\n\nSpecial St. Febronia Worldwide\n\nFrench Version of the Greek Original, after 1721, Metz"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-febronia-of-nisibis"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 336}, {"slug": "reference-asoristan", "title": "Asoristan", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Asoristan (Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭮𐭥𐭥𐭮𐭲𐭭, Asōristān, Āsūristān), also known as Suristan,[1][2][3] was the name of the Sasanian province of Assyria and Babylonia from 226 to 637 CE.[1][4][5]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Asōristān\n\nProvince of the Sasanian Empire\n\n226-637\n\nMap of Asoristan and its surrounding provinces\n\nCapitalCtesiphon\n\nHistorical eraLate Antiquity\n\n• Sasanian conquest 226\n\n• First Muslim campaign 633\n\n• Second Muslim campaign 637\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nParthian Empire\n\nRashidun Caliphate\n\nToday part ofIraq\n\nAsoristan (Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭮𐭥𐭥𐭮𐭲𐭭, Asōristān, Āsūristān), also known as Suristan,[1][2][3] was the name of the Sasanian province of Assyria and Babylonia from 226 to 637 CE.[1][4][5]\n\nName\n\nThe name Asōristān appears in several Sasanian sources: in Parthian (𐭀𐭎𐭅𐭓𐭎𐭕𐭍),[6] along with the Greek form ΑCCΥΡΙΑΝ (Assyrian), in Shapur I's (r. 240-270) inscription on the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht;[7] in the Paikuli inscription of Narseh (r. 293-303); and in the Bundahishn. It was borrowed into Armenian as Asorestan and appears in Chinese inscriptions. In Syriac Athor denotes Assyria, while Asōristān refers to the ancient land of Babylonia and the adjective āsōrīg means 'Babylonian'. Consequently, Assyria and Asoristan were frequently mixed up. In Syriac, the land called Asoristan was known as Bēth Nahren[8] (Classical Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ lit. 'between the two rivers'), Bābēl/Bābil, and Ereḫ/Erāq. The Parthians were probably the first to use the term Asōristān ('Assyria') to refer to historical Babylonia. In this, they were followed by the Sasanians.[9]\n\nAfter the mid-6th century, it was also called Khwārwarān in New Persian. Although it is difficult to determine the true meaning of the renaming of southern Mesopotamia to \"Assyria\", it is possible that due to the Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene being in the north, it excluded the Assyrians further south and therefore the Persians named it accordingly to include the few million Semitic Mesopotamian people who were descendants of the ancient Assyrians south of Adiabene, contrary to the Greeks renaming Assyrians \"Syrians\", an Indo-European corruption of \"Assyrians\". At the very least, names associated with Assyria continued to be used and were not obsolete.[10]\n\nDuring the Parthian Empire, much of historical Athura lay to the north of Asoristan in the Assyrian inhabited independent frontier provinces of Upper Mesopotamia (in modern Northern Iraq, Southeast Turkey and Northeast Syria): Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai, Adiabene, Osroene, Hatra, Tyareh and Assur. When the Sassanid Empire conquered these in the mid-3rd century, they were reincorporated into Asoristan.[11]\n\nGeographical extent\n\nAsoristan was largely identical with ancient Mesopotamia.[4] The northern border is somewhat uncertain but probably went along a line from Anatha to Takrit. Hira was probably the southernmost point, north of Arabia, the border then following the northern part of the swamps of Wasit.\n\nHistory\n\nNames, capital, language\n\nDuring the Achaemenid (550-330 BCE) and Parthian Empires (150 BCE - 225 CE), Achaemenid Assyria had been known by the Old Persian name Athura. Asōristān, Middle Persian \"land of Assyria\",[1] was the capital province of the Sasanian Empire and was called Dil-ī Ērānshahr, meaning \"Heart of Iran\".[5] The city of Ctesiphon served as the capital of both the Parthian and Sasanian Empire, and was for some time the largest city in the world.[12]\n\nThe main language spoken by the Assyrian people was Eastern Aramaic, which still survives among the Assyrians, with the local Syriac language becoming an important vehicle for Syriac Christianity. The Assyrian Church of the East was founded in Asōristān and it was an important centre of the Syriac Orthodox Church.[13]\n\nParthian client kingdoms\n\nThe Parthians had exercised only loose control at times, allowing for a number of Assyrian kingdoms to flourish in Upper Mesopotamia in the form of independent Osroene, Adiabene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai and the Arab-Assyrian state of Hatra. Assyriologists such as Georges Roux and Simo Parpola opine that ancient Assur itself may have been independent during this time.\n\nThe Sasanian Empire conquered Assyria and Mesopotamia from the Parthians during the 220s, and by 260 AD had abolished these independent Assyrian city-states and kingdoms, with the 3000-year-old city of Assur being sacked in 256 AD. Some regions appear to have remained partly autonomous as late as the latter part of the fourth century, with an Assyrian king named Sinharib reputedly ruling a part of Assyria in the 370s AD.\n\nBetween 633 and 638, the region was invaded by the Arabs during the Muslim conquest of Persia; together with Meshan, it became the province of Iraq. Asōristān was dissolved by 639 AD, bringing an end to over 3000 years of Assyria as a geopolitical entity, although it remained an ecclesiastical province within Syriac Christianity, and Medieval Arabs continued to refer to the indigenous people as Ashuriyun. A century later, the area became the capital province of the Abbasid Caliphate and the center of the Islamic Golden Age for five hundred years, from the 8th to the 13th centuries.\n\nAfter the Muslim conquest, Asōristān saw a gradual but large influx of Muslim peoples; at first Arabs arriving in the south, but later also including Iranian (Kurdish) and Turkic peoples during the mid to late Middle Ages.\n\nThe Assyrian people continued to endure, rejecting Arabization, Turkification and Islamization, and continued to form the majority population of the north as late as the 14th century, until the massacres of Timur drastically reduced their numbers and led to the city of Assur being finally abandoned. After this period, the indigenous Assyrians became the ethnic, linguistic and religious minority in their homeland that they are to this day.\n\nPopulation\n\nThe population of Asorestan was a mixed one, however its naming indicates that there was a large population of Assyrians in southern Mesopotamia, in the region that was once Babylonia.[14] The Assyrians lived in the northern half while their ethnically indistinguishable brethren formerly known as Babylonians lived in the south, including the still extant Mandaeans who, like the Assyrians, are indigenous to Mesopotamia. Nabateans and Arameans dwelt in the far southwestern deserts, and minorities of Persians, Armenians and Jews lived throughout Mesopotamia. The small Greek element in the southern cities, still strong in the Parthian period, was absorbed by the Assyrians in Sasanian times. The majority of the population was Assyrian, Jewish, and Mandaean, speaking Akkadian-influenced Eastern Aramaic languages, some of which still survive as Northeastern Neo-Aramaic among the Assyrians and Mandeans. As the breadbasket of the Sasanian Empire, most of the population was engaged in agriculture or worked as soldiers, traders, and merchants. The Persians lived in various parts of the province; Persian garrison soldiers lived along the outer fringe of southern and western Asoristan; Persian noble families lived in the major cities, while some Persian peasants lived in the villages in Lower Mesopotamia.[15] The native Assyrians played a very active role in the province and were found in the administrative class of society as army officers, civil servants, and feudal lords.\n\nLanguage\n\nAt least three dialects of Eastern Middle Aramaic were in spoken and liturgical use, many of which are descended from the Imperial Aramaic introduced by Tiglath-Pileser III as the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC: Classical Syriac, mainly in the north and among Syriac Christians throughout the region; Classical Mandaic by the Mandaeans, and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic by the Jews. Other colloquial but unnamed or unrecorded Eastern Middle Aramaic dialects were also spoken. Some Eastern Aramaic languages survive as the NENA languages and Turoyo, with estimates ranging from 577,000 to 1,000,000 fluent speakers, with a far smaller number of speakers of Neo-Mandaic still extant.\n\nAside from the liturgical scriptures of these religions which exist today, archaeological examples of all three of these dialects can be found in the collections of thousands of Aramaic incantation bowls-ceramic artifacts dated to this era-discovered in Iraq, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey. While the Jewish Aramaic script called Ktav Ashuri retained the original \"square\" or \"block\" style used to write Imperial Aramaic, the Syriac alphabet and the Mandaic alphabet developed when cursive styles began to appear. The Mandaic alphabet likely evolved from Inscriptional Parthian.\n\nVernacular Middle Persian, known as dari (as opposed to the higher register-parsi-used for administrative, religious, and literary purposes), was the common language of the capital of Ctesiphon. In the first centuries after the Muslim conquests, dari Middle Persian probably lost speakers in Iraq but continued to be used by city-dwellers in the region until at least the 10th century AD.[16]\n\nReligion\n\nThe religious demography of Mesopotamia was very diverse during late antiquity. From the 1st and 2nd centuries Syriac Christianity became the primary religion, while other groups practiced Mandaeism, Judaism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and the ancient Assyro-Babylonian Mesopotamian religion.[17] Assyrian Christians of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Assyrian Church of the East were probably the most numerous group in the province.[17]\n\nAncient Mesopotamian religion\n\nAncient Mesopotamian religion remained strong in places, particularly in Upper Mesopotamia. Temples were still being dedicated to Ashur, Shamash, Ishtar, Sin, Hadad, Dumuzid, Nergal, Bel and Ninurta in Assur, Arbela, Edessa, Amid, Nohadra, Kirkuk, Sinjar, Nineveh Plains, and Harran among other places, during the 3rd and 4th centuries, and traces would survive into the 10th century in remote parts of Mesopotamia.[18]\n\nChristianity\n\nAsorestan, and particularly Assyria proper, were the centers for the Church of the East (now split into the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church), which at one time extended far beyond the confines of the by then defunct Sasanian empire and was the most widespread Christian church in the world, reaching well into Central Asia, China, Mongolia Tibet and India as well as the Aegean. It sees as its founders the apostle Thomas (Mar Toma), and Saint Thaddeus (Mar Addai), and used the distinctly Syriac version of Eastern Aramaic for its scriptures and liturgy. The Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari is one of the oldest Eucharistic prayers in Christianity, composed around the year 200 AD. The Church of the East was consolidated in 410 at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, held at the Sasanian capital, Selucia-Ctesiphon, which remained the seat of the Patriarchate of the Church of the East for over 600 years.\n\nMandaeism\n\nThe Mandaeans, who are according to their traditions the original followers of John the Baptist, are the last surviving Gnostics from antiquity.[19] According to most scholars, Mandaeism originated sometime in the first three centuries CE, in either southwestern Mesopotamia or Syria (the southeastern Levant especially).[20] However, some scholars take the view that Mandaeism is older and dates from pre-Christian times.[21] Mandaeans assert that their religion predates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as a monotheistic faith.[22] Their language and script is Mandaic, a form of Aramaic. Two of their important religious texts, written between the 1st and 3rd centuries, are the Ginza Rabba and the Mandaean Book of John (preserving original traditions about John the Baptist). The Mandaean population numbers between 60,000 and 100,000 today.[23] Mandaeism flourished in the Parthian and early Sassanid period in the region.[24]\n\nManichaeism\n\nThe religion of Manichaeism, founded by Mani (216-276), originated in 3rd century Asorestan, and spread across a vast geographical area. In some instances, Manichaeism even surpassed the Assyrian Church of the East in its reach, as it was for a time also widespread in the Roman Empire. While none of the six original Syriac scriptures of the Manichaeans have survived in their entirety, a long Syriac section of one of their works detailing key beliefs was preserved by Theodore Bar Konai (a Church of the East author from Beth Garmaï), in his book Ketba Deskolion written in about 792. Like the Church of the East, the traditional center of the Manichaean church was in Seleucia-Ctesiphon.[25] Mani dedicated his only Middle Persian writing, the Shāpuragān, to Shapur I.\n\nJudaism\n\nThe Jewish community of Babylonia came to prominence in the 3rd century CE as a center of Jewish scholarship owing to the decline of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel. The Jewish-Roman wars, the Crisis of the Third Century, and Rome's conversion to Christianity all led to an increase in Jewish immigration to Asoristan, and the region became the main center of Judaism in late antiquity. This set the stage for the composition of the major book defining Rabbinic Judaism, the Babylonian Talmud, which was written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic in Asoristan between the 3rd and 5th centuries. The Babylonian Talmudic academies were all established relatively near to Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The first Talmudic academy was founded in Sura by Rav (175-247) in about 220. One of the most influential Talmudic teachers, Rava (270-350), who was influenced by both Manichaean polemic and Zoroastrian theology, studied in another Talmudic academy at Pumbedita.\n\nZoroastrianism\n\nThe Sasanian state religion, Zoroastrianism, was largely confined to the Iranian administrative class, and did not filter down to the Assyrian-Babylonian population.[17]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Nicholson, Oliver (2018). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. p. 1008. ISBN 9780198662778. Asuristan or Suristan (from Assyria)\n\n^ Schaeder 1997: \"the Sāsānid province of Sūristān (Dil-i Ērāns̲h̲ahr)\"\n\n^ Sakly & Darley-Doran 2002: \"Locating the town [Wāsiṭ] on the mediaeval course of the Tigris in the ancient Sāsānid province of Sūristān, which was situated in the centre of Lower Mesopotamia or the Sawād, poses one of the most difficult problems of the historical geography of mediaeval Babylonia (M. Streck, EI 1 art. Wāsiṭ).\"\n\n^ a b Dalley, Stephanie M. (2012). \"Assyria\". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8. […] the province of Assyria formed by Trajan in 116 CE and abandoned by Hadrian (Eutr. 8. 2; Ruf. Fest. 14 and 20) corresponds to the later Sasanid 'Asorestan' with a new royal city at Ctesiphon.\n\n^ a b Buck, Christopher (1999). Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baháí̕ Faith. SUNY Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780791497944.\n\n^ Gignoux 1972, p. 47b.\n\n^ Sprengling 1940, p. 347.\n\n^ Widengren 1987.\n\n^ Frye 2002, p. 76.\n\n^ Odisho, Edward Y. (1988). The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 10. ISBN 9783447027441.\n\n^ The Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present, Part 25. Richard Ernest Dupuy, Trevor Nevitt Dupuy. Harper & Row, 1970. Page 115.\n\n^ Rosenberg, Matt T. (2007). \"Largest Cities Through History\". New York: About.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-18. Retrieved 2012-05-01.\n\n^ Khanbaghi, Aptin (2 February 2006). The Fire, the Star and the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval and Early Modern Iran. I.B. Tauris. p. 6. ISBN 9781845110567.\n\n^ Nezhad, Shahin; Delshad, Farshid (2023). Iranshahr and the Downfall of the Sassanid Dynasty: Persia at the Eve of the Arab Invasions. Logos Verlag Berlin. p. 67. ISBN 9783832556112.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 181.\n\n^ Lazard, G. (1975). \"The Rise of the New Persian Language\". In Frye, Richard N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 598-600. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.\n\n^ a b c Etheredge, Laura (2011). Iraq. Rosen Publishing. p. 72. ISBN 9781615303045.\n\n^ J. Hämeen-Anttila Continuity of Pagan Religious Traditions in Tenth-Century Iraq\n\n^ McGrath, James (23 January 2015), \"The First Baptists, The Last Gnostics: The Mandaeans\", YouTube-A lunchtime talk about the Mandaeans by Dr. James F. McGrath at Butler University, retrieved 14 December 2021\n\n^ \"Mandaeanism | religion\". Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2021.\n\n^ Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques (1978). Etudes mithriaques. Téhéran: Bibliothèque Pahlavi. p. 545.\n\n^ \"The People of the Book and the Hierarchy of Discrimination\". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 14 December 2021.\n\n^ \"The Mandaeans - Who are the Mandaeans?\". The Worlds of Mandaean Priests. Retrieved 14 December 2021.\n\n^ Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2002), The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people (PDF), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195153859\n\n^ Gardner, Iain; Lieu, Samuel N.C. (2004). Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780521568227.\n\nSources\n\nFrye, Richard (2002). \"Mapping Assyria\". Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena. Proceedings of the Third Symposium of the Melammu Project. Held in Chicago, USA, October 27-31, 2000. Milan: Università di Bologna & IsIAO. pp. 75-78. ISBN 978-8-884831-07-1.\n\nGignoux, Philippe (1972). Glossaire des Inscriptions Pehlevies et Parthes [Glossary of Pahlavi and Parthians inscriptions]. Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum. Supplementary Series; 1 (in French). London: Lund Humphries.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (2005) [1984]. Iraq After The Muslim Conquest. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-315-7.\n\nSakly, Mondher & Darley-Doran, R. (2002). \"Wāsiṭ\". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume XI: W-Z. Leiden: E. J. Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1343. ISBN 978-90-04-12756-2.\n\nSchaeder, H. H. (1997). \"Sawād\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume IX: San-Sze. Leiden: E. J. Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6666. ISBN 978-90-04-10422-8.\n\nSprengling, M. (1940). \"Shahpuhr I, the Great on the Kaabah of Zoroaster (KZ)\". The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 57 (4): 341-429. ISSN 1062-0516.\n\nWidengren, Geo (1987). \"Āsōristān\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. II/8: Aśoka IV-Āṯār al-Wozarāʾ (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation. pp. 785-786. Retrieved 19 June 2026.\n\nFurther reading\n\nRezakhani, Khodādād (2018). \"Mesopotamia, Persian\". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.\n\n30°53′41″N 47°34′41″E / 30.89472°N 47.57806°E / 30.89472; 47.57806"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-asoristan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2844}, {"slug": "reference-mar-qardagh", "title": "Mar Qardagh", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Mār Qardāgh (Classical Syriac: ܣܗܕܐ ܡܪܝ ܩܪܕܓ ܐܬ݂ܘܪܝܐ), was an Assyrian prince who was martyred for converting to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint Qardāgh\n\nBornAdiabene\n\nDied4th century\nArbil, Adiabene\n\nVenerated inChaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Syro-Malabar Church\n\nMajor shrineChurch of Mār Qardāgh, Arbil, Iraq\n\nFeastFriday of the 14th week after the Pentecost\n\nMār Qardāgh (Classical Syriac: ܣܗܕܐ ܡܪܝ ܩܪܕܓ ܐܬ݂ܘܪܝܐ), was an Assyrian prince who was martyred for converting to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.\n\nLife\n\nQardāgh was born to a noble family in the Sassanid Empire during the 4th century and descended from the \"great race and lineage of the kingdom of the Assyrians\".[1] When Qardāgh was 25 years old, Shapur II visited his parents’ estate and was impressed with Qardāgh's handsome appearance and athleticism. Qardāgh was appointed as a governor for a large region in northern Persia, there he met Abdisho (ܥܒܕܝܫܘܥ) and converted to Christianity.[2]\n\nUpon returning home Qardāgh was rejected by his family and under pressure from the religious elite, Shapur sentenced him to be stoned. Qardāgh fled with a small army to the mountains where he was able to repel the Persians for months. One night Saint Stephen appeared to him and told him that it was better to give his life for his faith than to continue fighting. He surrendered to the king and it was his own father who threw the first stone.[2]\n\nHe was buried in Arbil, Adiabene where a church holding his relics was later constructed.[2]\n\nSee also\n\nMar Behnam\n\nReferences\n\n^ Joel Walker (25 March 2006). The Legend of Mar Qardāgh: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-93219-7.\n\n^ a b c Mār Qardāgh Archived 2011-11-29 at the Wayback Machine, St. Peter The Apostle Catholic Diocese for Chaldeans.\n\nSources\n\nPayne, Richard E. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. Univ of California Press. pp. 1-320. ISBN 9780520961531."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mar-qardagh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 303}, {"slug": "reference-savur", "title": "Savur", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Savur (Syriac: ܨܰܘܪܳܐ, romanized: Ṣawro;[2] Arabic: صور, romanized: Ṣawr;[3] Kurdish: Stewr),[4] meaning “mountain ridge” in Syriac[5] and formerly known as Savor, is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[6] Its area is 962 km2,[7] and its population is 24,821 (2022).[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Savur\n\nDistrict and municipality\n\nMap showing Savur District in Mardin Province\n\nSavurLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°32′15″N 40°53′21″E / 37.53750°N 40.88917°E / 37.53750; 40.88917\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nArea962 km2 (371 sq mi)\n\nPopulation (2022)[1]24,821\n\n • Density25.8/km2 (66.8/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nArea code0482\n\nWebsitewww.savur.bel.tr\n\nSavur (Syriac: ܨܰܘܪܳܐ, romanized: Ṣawro;[2] Arabic: صور, romanized: Ṣawr;[3] Kurdish: Stewr),[4] meaning “mountain ridge” in Syriac[5] and formerly known as Savor, is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[6] Its area is 962 km2,[7] and its population is 24,821 (2022).[1]\n\nDemographics\n\nAccording to the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1,032 lived in Savur on the eve of World War I. They had one church and two schools. They were massacred during the Armenian genocide. The Agha Petros mentions an Assyrian population of 200.[8]\n\nMother tongue, Savur District, 1927 Turkish census[9]\n\nTurkish\nArabic\nKurdish\nCircassian\nArmenian\nUnknown or other language\n\n387\n8,443\n18,749\n-\n-\n7\n\nReligion, Savur District, 1927 Turkish census[9]\n\nMuslim\nChristian\nJewish\nUnknown or other religion\n\n27,203\n48\n-\n335\n\nToday, the town is populated by Arabs, Assyrians and Kurds.[10][11]\n\nPolitics\n\nIn the local elections of March 2019, Gülistan Öncü of the pro-minority HDP was elected mayor.[12] On 15 November 2019, she was detained due to an investigation related to terrorism. She was dismissed the following day, and District Governor Bayram Türker was appointed as a trustee.[13]\n\nComposition\n\nThere are 41 neighbourhoods in Savur District:[14]\n\nAkyürek (Menda)\n\nArmutalan (Zivinga Menda)\n\nBağyaka (Bakustan)\n\nBaşağaç (Siçwan)\n\nBaşkavak (Ehmedî)\n\nBengisu\n\nÇınarönü (Cilîn)\n\nDereiçi (Qeleth)\n\nDurusu (Kunifir)\n\nEvkuran (Dêrslav)\n\nGölbaşı\n\nHarmantepe (Xerab Memo)\n\nHisarkaya (Kela Pozreş)\n\nİçören\n\nİşgören (Qewsan)\n\nKaplan\n\nKaraköy (Xerabreş)\n\nKayacıklar (Bazikê)\n\nKayatepe (Mineyzil)\n\nKırbalı (Qerbe)\n\nKırkdirek (Çilstûn, Kirdilek)\n\nKocahüyük (Sêgira, Qosê)\n\nKöprülü (Bakaysê)\n\nKoşuyolu\n\nOrmancık (Askêla)\n\nPınardere (Elfan)\n\nSafa\n\nSancaklı (Birîva)\n\nŞenocak (Şutê)\n\nSerenli (Dengizan)\n\nSeydin\n\nSoylu (Dêrîş)\n\nSürgücü (Ewîna)\n\nTaşlık (Cirzê)\n\nTokluca\n\nÜçerli (Dêrteyar)\n\nÜçkavak\n\nYaylayanı (Memika)\n\nYazır (Qunzêrîp)\n\nYenilmez\n\nYeşilalan (Barman)\n\nNotable people\n\nAziz Sancar, Turkish scientist and second Turkish Nobel laureate[15]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports\" (XLS). TÜİK. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"The Mhalmoyto city of Sawro ܨܰܘܪܐ\". SyriacPress. 2022-04-30. Retrieved 2022-05-12.\n\n^ al-Hamawi, Yaqut (1220). Kitāb Mu'jam al-Buldān.\n\n^ Avcıkıran, Adem (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî (in Kurdish and Turkish). p. 55.\n\n^ Louis Costaz, S. J., Dictionnaire Syriaque-Français / Syriac-English Dictionary / قاموس سرياني عربي(Beirut: Dar al-Machreq; transcribed into tables by the American Foundation for Syriac Studies, NJ) ܨܘܪܐ [from sedra.bethmardutho.org, accessed on Jul. 01, 2025].\n\n^ Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi Archived 2015-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Kaza Savur / Sur / ܨܘܪܐ - Ṣawro\". Virtual Genocide Memorial. Retrieved 2023-09-18.\n\n^ a b \"Mardin population census republic of Turkey by first results\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-06-26.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2011). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye & Aşiretler (in Turkish). Nûbihar. p. 271.\n\n^ Özdem, Filiz (2005). Taşın belleği Mardin (in Turkish). Yapı Kredi Yayınları. p. 297.\n\n^ Şafak, Yeni (2019-11-16). \"Mardin Savur Seçim Sonuçları - Savur Yerel Seçim Sonuçları\". Yeni Şafak (in Turkish). Retrieved 2019-11-16.\n\n^ \"4 HDP mayors in southeastern Turkey dismissed on terror charges\". DailySabah. 16 November 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-16.\n\n^ Mahalle Archived 2015-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015\". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2024-11-25."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-savur"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 587}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-belgium", "title": "Assyrians in Belgium", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Belgium are Belgian citizens of Assyrian descent. Belgium's Assyrian diaspora is concentrated in the Flemish cities of Mechelen and Antwerp, although there are also significant numbers living in Liège and Brussels. The majority of the Assyrian diaspora living in Belgium are of Turkish descent, mostly from...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Belgium are Belgian citizens of Assyrian descent. Belgium's Assyrian diaspora is concentrated in the Flemish cities of Mechelen and Antwerp, although there are also significant numbers living in Liège and Brussels. The majority of the Assyrian diaspora living in Belgium are of Turkish descent, mostly from the towns of Bohtan (Beth-Qardu),[1] Tur-Abdin and Hakkâri.[2][3]\n\nHistory\n\nThe first Assyrians came to Belgium around 1980; mostly from Tur Abdin in Turkey. They were political immigrants fleeing the Turkish-Kurdish conflicts in Southeast Turkey. They left their houses and moved to Europe for a brighter future.[3] Following the First Gulf War, the majority of Assyrian immigrants have come to Belgium from Iraq and Syria. In the 1980s (as with other immigrants in Europe), nationalism started to develop in Belgium among the Assyrians, who have continued to be oppressed in Turkey since the Assyrian genocide during World War I.[4][5][6]\n\nAssyrians from Belgium, in common with other Assyrian communities around the world, have been involved in demonstrations aiming to raise awareness of the Assyrian Genocide.[2]\n\nCurrent situation\n\nAssyrians integrated into Belgian society while maintaining their cultural identity, supporting social events organized by Assyrian clubs. Assyrians in Belgium have started projects including the publishing of an Assyrian grammar book by Efrem Yildiz, the organisation of trips in association with the Association of Assyro-Chaldeans in Belgium, the production of an Assyrian movie Akitu[7] and the founding of the Assyrian Belgian Youth (AJB). Additionally, politicians of Assyrian descent take part in Belgian politics: municipal councillors of Assyrian descent have taken office in Brussels, Etterbeek, Liège and Mechelen, including Ibrahim Erkan (Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Christian Democrats), Sandrine Es (Etterbeek, Liberal Party) and Ibrahim Hanna (Etterbeek, Christian Democrats). New Flemish Alliance councilman Melikan Kucam is featured in Mechelen aan de Tigris (Mechelen on the Tigris), a book by Flemish author August Thiry about Assyrian refugees from Hassana in the southeastern Turkish district of Silopi.\n\nMany Assyrians in Belgium belong to either the Chaldean Catholic Church or the Syriac Orthodox Church, with smaller numbers belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East.[8] The first Assyrians mainly worked in factories or opened restaurants, but today, most attend university and work in all economic sectors.[9]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in France\n\nAssyrians in Germany\n\nAssyrians in the Netherlands\n\nReferences\n\n^ Bohtan Neo-Aramaic\n\n^ a b \"Shlama Foundation\". Shlama. Shlama.be.\n\n^ a b Thiry, August (June 2007). Mechelen aan de Tigris [Mechelen on the Tigris] (in Dutch). Mechelen: EPO. ISBN 9789064452246.\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Türkiye\". October 16, 2023 - via minorityrights.org. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Turkey experience oppression, discriminatory policies a century after the genocide\". www.gerceknews.com. Archived from the original on 2024-01-23.\n\n^ Bulut, Uzay (February 2, 2023). \"The Endangered Assyrians and the Language of Jesus Seek International Support\". Gatestone Institute.\n\n^ Asmar, Riad. \"Akitu the Movie\". Akitu. Riad Asmar. Retrieved 23 September 2019.\n\n^ Nas, Kristof (2018-06-21). \"Chaldeans in Belgium\". Chaldeans in Belgium. Archived from the original on 2019-12-26. Retrieved 2019-12-26. The people we know today as Assyrians are largely Chaldeans and Arameans / Syrian Orthodox. In Belgium there are hardly any Assyrians who belong to the Assyrian Church.\n\n^ \"Diaspora en Assyrische Renaissance\". the ARO. ARO.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Assyrians in Belgium at Wikimedia Commons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-belgium"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 543}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-policy-institute", "title": "Assyrian Policy Institute", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The Assyrian Policy Institute (API) is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization based in the United States[1] that primarily advocates for the rights of Assyrians[2][3] and other minorities in the Middle East including Yazidis and Mandaeans.[4]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian Policy Institute\n\nAbbreviationAPI\n\nTypeNon-governmental organization\n\nHeadquartersWashington, DC\n\nWebsitehttps://www.assyrianpolicy.org/\n\nThe Assyrian Policy Institute (API) is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization based in the United States[1] that primarily advocates for the rights of Assyrians[2][3] and other minorities in the Middle East including Yazidis and Mandaeans.[4]\n\nEarly history\n\nThe API was founded in 2018 in order to effectively represent worldwide Assyrian interests in Washington.[2] Shortly after the founding of the organization, the API further clarified its purpose, stating:\n\n\"Our work will focus on fostering public awareness about issues affecting Assyrians in their ancestral lands, guiding U.S. policy on matters related to Assyrians in countries like Iraq and Syria, and publishing authoritative reports that are valuable to academics and policymakers.\"[3]\n\nAdvocacy by country\n\nThe API maintains a list of Middle Eastern countries that contain a sizable Assyrian population and outlines a list of recommendations for the country in question to implement in order to protect the rights of its Assyrian population.\n\nIraq\n\nThe API's recommendations for Iraq are:\n\n\"Establishment of a Nineveh Plain Province for minoritized communities\n\nRestoration of the Nineveh Plain after IS\n\nDevelopment of Assyrian-led security\n\nPrevention of land theft and forced demographic change\n\nAccess to the full-spectrum of state-provided services\n\nProtection of freedom of speech\"[5]\n\nThe API has accused the Iraqi government of failing to include provisions in its constitution that legally protect minorities from political discrimination.[4]\n\nOn January 20, 2020, the API reported that four humanitarian workers from the France-based Christian nonprofit SOS Chrétiens d'Orient were missing in Baghdad, Iraq. One of the reported missing workers was a man named Tareq Khidr Mattoka, a French Assyrian from the town of Bakhdida. No person or group ever claimed responsibility for the disappearance or asked for a ransom.[6] According to a statement released by SOS Chrétiens d'Orient via Twitter, the four workers were released on March 26, 2020.[7]\n\nOn October 31, 2018, the API released a statement commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Our Lady of Salvation Church Massacre.[8]\n\nBusiness discrimination\n\nThe API has also accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq of multiple discriminatory business practices. One report claimed that the KRG required all business owners from the Assyrian-majority city of Ankawa, located in the Erbil Governorate, to renew their business licenses with the Erbil Center District for a fee. The alleged regulation applied exclusively to Ankawa, despite the fact that nine other districts were under the Erbil Center District's jurisdiction. There were also allegations that the renewal process was deliberately lengthy and expensive, and that KRG officials expected bribes in exchange for processing the renewals.[9] Many Assyrians viewed this as an attempt by the KRG to hurt their businesses and secure a monopoly on industries in their areas of control.[10] \n\nThe KRG later released an official statement in which they denied these allegations and referred to them as “baseless.”[11][12][13]\n\nThe API responded to the KRG's denial of these claims in a later report. The API claimed that this latest denial of human rights abuses by the KRG is consistent with previous denial of accusations of wrongdoing. Examples of this that the API provided was the KRG's denial of accusations made by Human Rights Watch,[14] Amnesty International,[15] and the US Department of State Human Rights Report.[16] The report goes on to say that the reason that the API had originally made the claim about the KRG tax policy was due to an Ankawa-based activist group called Hand in Hand approaching them and explaining the situation to them.[16] The report also provided documentation the ordinance in question that proved that a new tax policy specifically in Ankawa had been created by the KRG.[17] \n\nThe report then says that Assyrian business-owners affected by the new tax policy as well as Assyrian parliamentarians in the Iraqi Parliament and the Kurdistan Region Parliament who corroborated these claims. Some business-owners attempted to legally appeal the policy, but the government upheld its decision.[18]\n\nFurthermore, the report claimed that the Assyrian parliamentarians who were interviewed about the new tax policy claimed that they had inquired to the KRG Shura Council about the policy, and received a response saying:\n\n\"Not collecting this tax in some towns as a result of negligence or incompetence of the relevant KRG departments is no reason to refrain from collecting such a tax in said towns [Ankawa].\"[19]\n\nThe API claimed that this was essentially a public admission by the KRG that the tax collection policy was arbitrary.\n\nThe report concluded that the tax rate was imposed on the city of Ankawa as an act of business discrimination against one of the only Assyrian-majority areas in KRG jurisdiction. They encouraged the KRG to formally accept their role in this policy, and claimed that they, “[stand] ready to meet with KRG officials both in Iraq and in the United States to address the many long-standing grievances of Ankawa residents, including the improper confiscation of lands belonging to Assyrians and KRG policies advancing demographic change in the area, as well as interference in local, regional, and federal elections for Assyrian representatives.”[16]\n\nTreatment of journalists\n\nOn June 17, 2019, Kurdish Asayish authorities in Dohuk detained an Assyrian journalist named Hormuz Mushi without any charges pressed against him. The API alleged that he was being detained due to his reporting of the negligence of Assyrian cultural sites by the KRG. The API urged KRG authorities to release Mushi.[20] The arrest was also condemned by Assyrian parliamentarian Fareed Yaqoob.[21]\n\nIn November 2019, the API reported that Kurdish authorities had detained an Assyrian journalist named William Bnyameen Adam for nearly two weeks following a report on his recent trip to Syria.[22][23] An earlier statement claimed that Adam and his family had previously received death threats from members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party as a result of his criticism of high-ranking KRG officials.[24]\n\nSyria\n\nThe API's recommendations for Syria are:\n\n\"Ending the war in Syria and rebuilding the Syrian state\n\nRehabilitation of the Khabour Region\n\nProtection of Assyrian property rights\n\nRecognition of Assyrians as one of the constituent peoples of Syria\n\nProtection of freedom of speech\"[25]\n\nIn 2018, the API urged the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria to release Assyrian journalist Souleman Yusph. API stated that Yusph was imprisoned by Kurdish forces in Syria for reporting on alleged human rights violations enacted by Kurdish authorities in Syria.[26] This included forced closures of Assyrian schools, intimidation and imprisonment of rivals, and the severe beating of Isa Rashid, an Assyrian education director who worked for some of the closed Assyrian schools.[27] Yusph was also critical of the Dawronoye movement and posted videos on his personal Facebook page showing individuals tied to the movement forcefully closing schools and intimidating residents.[28]\n\nThe API also further reported on the Administration's 2018 forced closure of Assyrian schools in its areas of control. Specifically, the API alleged that Kurdish and Dawronoye affiliated authorities had forcefully broken and replaced locks in schools and fired all of their staff without warning. From 1935 until then, these schools had operated under the control of the Syriac Orthodox Church and taught the Syriac language to their students.[29] The API stated that this was an effort by the PYD to \"impose a Kurdish nationalist curriculum onto all areas it governs.\"[30] The forced closures were condemned by the Assyrian Democratic Organization[30] and eventually led to widespread protests by Assyrian civilians in the area.[29][30]\n\nTurkey\n\nThe API's recommendations for Turkey are:\n\n\"Recognition of Assyrians as an ethnic minority in Turkey\n\nReturn of Assyrian properties confiscated by Turkish officials\n\nProtection of religious freedom\n\nEnding arbitrary detentions and restrictions on free speech\n\nEqual access to education for Assyrian students\n\nRecognition of the 1915 Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocide\n\nLiving conditions and well-being of refugees\"[31]\n\nThe API has condemned the government of Turkey for its denial of its role in the Assyrian genocide.\n\nThe API released a statement condemning the Turkish government's arrest of an Assyrian priest named Sefer Aho Bileçen who was caught providing water and bread to members of the outlawed PKK. The priest was charged with terrorism as a result.[32][33][34][35]\n\nIn 2020, the API released a statement of concern regarding the disappearance of Assyrian couple Hurmuz and Şimoni Diril. The couple were abducted outside of their home in the village of Meer, in the Şirnak Province of Turkey. Their disappearance was first reported by their son Ramzi Diril, a Chaldean Catholic priest. The couple were reported to be some of the last Assyrians living in Meer, a historically Assyrian village that was evacuated twice in both 1989 and 1992 due to heightened conflict between the Turkish government and the PKK. On January 25, 2020, an eyewitness claimed that the couple was abducted by members of the PKK. On March 3, 2020, Şimoni's body was found with no cause of death apparent. As of June 29, 2020, Hurmiz Diril's whereabouts are still unknown.[36]\n\nTurkish airstrikes\n\nThe API reported on the 2018 Turkish airstrikes in Iraq. Specifically, the API claimed that these airstrikes happened in villages that are mostly inhabited by Assyrians.[37] The Turkish government's intended targets for these airstrikes were members of the PKK who had taken refuge in northern Iraq.[38] The airstrikes led to the deaths of at least seven non-combatants, which the Human Rights Watch claimed could be considered a violation of the laws of war.[39]\n\nThe API also released a statement of condemnation following the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria. Specifically, they condemned the “indiscriminate airstrikes” conducted by Turkey onto Assyrian civilians in the city of Qamishli, a town founded by Assyrian genocide survivors in 1915. The statement went on to address Assyrian civilian casualties and properties owned by Assyrians that were destroyed in the airstrikes. The report concluded by claiming that Turkey, “has consistently abetted ISIS throughout the Syria conflict through its open border policy, provision of weapons to questionable groups, and other practices. American withdrawal allows Turkish-supported extremism to be reasserted in the area.”[40]\n\nIran\n\nThe API's recommendations for Iran are:\n\n\"Protection of religious freedom\n\nAchieving full participation for Assyrians in civil and political life\n\nProtection of Assyrian property rights\n\nLinguistic freedom for Assyrians and other minorities\n\nEnding economic neglect of minority-populated regions\n\nEnding restrictions on freedom of speech\"[41]\n\nIn 2018, API Board Chairman Jon Koriel sent a letter to the Chief Justice of Iran, Sadiq Larijani[42] and the Prosecutor General of Tehran, Abbas Ja’fari Dolat Abadi[43] urging them to overturn the convictions of four Christians, including Assyrian couple Pastor Victor Bet Tamraz and Shamiran Issavi, who were previously arrested for \"illegal church activities\" which “threaten national security.\"[44] The activities were clarified by Amnesty International as being typical Christian religious practices, including attending Christmas gatherings and organizing house churches.[45] In July 2020, the API reported that the appeal was denied by the Iranian judiciary, and the court upheld the couples' respective 10-year and 5-year prison sentences. In August 2020, the couple fled the country seeking asylum elsewhere. However, they were otherwise \"safe and well\" according to their daughter Dabrina in an interview with the API.[46]\n\nThe API has criticized the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces for refusing to comply with the Iraqi Prime Minister's July 2019 order to have Brigade 30 and the Babylon Brigades withdraw from Hamdaniya District and Tel Keppe District in the Nineveh Plains.[47]\n\nJordan\n\nThe API's Recommendations for Jordan are:\n\n\"Repatriation of Assyrian refugees who wish to return home\n\nIncreased humanitarian aid to Assyrian refugee families\n\nAccess to work permits for refugees\n\nAccess to education for refugee children\"[48]\n\nThe challenges facing Assyrian refugees in Jordan were the subject of a June 2019 API report titled Lives on Hold: Assyrian Refugees in Jordan.[49]\n\nLebanon\n\nThe API's Recommendations for Lebanon are:\n\n\"Repatriation of Assyrian refugees who wish to return home\"[50]\n\nIn July 2020, the API held an emergency meeting open to all community-members to discuss the living situation of Assyrians in Lebanon. Panelists included Beirut-based Cor-Bishop Yatron Koliana, Acting Head of the Assyrian Church of the East in Lebanon, and Jack Jendo, board member of the Assyrian Support Committee[51] (a Lebanon-based Assyrian charity affiliated with the Assyrian Church of the East).[52]\n\nThe panelists claimed that Assyrian refugees in Lebanon face unique problems in the era of economic-downturn, anti-corruption protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This was said to be due to their distinct ethnic and religious background. They claimed that Assyrian refugees ruled out the idea settling refugee camps due to fear of discrimination targeting Christians in these camps. This has led them to seek other forms of private shelter, which often have costs of rental, food, water, utilities, and healthcare, which many Assyrian refugees are unable to pay themselves. Previous reliance on remittances from abroad to pay these costs is also not a possibility, due to the global economic crisis caused by the pandemic. Assyrians who wish to leave these conditions for another country are unable to do so due to travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic and the economic instability that came with being a refugee.[51]\n\nOther activities\n\nNineveh Plain Protection Units\n\nThe Assyrian Policy Institute advocates in favor of the presence of the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) in the disputed area of the Nineveh Plain due to its reported positive correlation to the number of Assyrian returnees to towns and villages in the Nineveh Plain where the NPU is in control.[53][54]\n\nIn 2019, API director Reine Hanna testified before the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom claiming that the percentage of Assyrian return in towns guarded by the NPU was higher than those controlled by other forces following the end of the Islamic State's occupation of the Nineveh Plain. The NPU-guarded Assyrian town of Bakhdida, for example, saw a 70% return of the town's original Assyrian population (about 35,000 Assyrians). In Tesqopa, which is controlled by Peshmerga, the alleged rate of return is about 20% of the original Assyrian population (about 2,000 Assyrians). In Tel Keppe, which is controlled by Brigade 50, the alleged return rate of the original Assyrian population is about 7% (about 200 Assyrians).[55][53]\n\nAssyrians and the COVID-19 Pandemic\n\nDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the API signed a joint NGO statement with other NGOs including Nadia's Initiative and Yazda that highlighted the risks posed to vulnerable populations in Iraq, mainly Assyrians in the Nineveh Plains and Yazidis in Sinjar. The statement urged the Iraqi government to take measures to protect these communities, who they claimed were left especially vulnerable as a result of the pandemic.[56]\n\nThe July 2020 community meeting organized by the API in regards to Assyrians in Lebanon included statements about the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Assyrian population in Lebanon, particularly Assyrian refugees' inability to resettle in their home countries due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.[51]\n\nAssyrian genocide recognition\n\nThe API supports the recognition of the Assyrian genocide as well as compensation towards the survivors and their descendants. In August 2019, the API spearheaded an effort among 15 other Assyrian organizations to release a letter thanking Representative Josh Harder for the creation of House Resolution 537, which would have the United States officially recognize the Assyrian genocide if passed.[57]\n\nIn August 2020, the API released a joint statement cosigned by 35 total non-governmental organizations regarding the Simele massacre. In the statement, the organizations encouraged the Iraqi government to officially recognize the massacre, and urged them to maintain the currently unprotected mass grave sites resulting from the massacre, among other requests.[58] Other notable signatories included the Armenian Assembly of America, the Assyrian Aid Society-Iraq, the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, International Christian Concern, the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, and Yazda.[59]\n\nAs of 2020, the API has been keeping track of United States recognition of the Assyrian genocide at the state level through a map that documents which state legislatures have recognized the genocide. Currently, API's map says that three American state legislatures (Arizona, California, and New York) have passed resolutions that officially recognize the Assyrian genocide. Ten other legislatures (Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington D.C., and West Virginia) have passed resolutions that recognize the Armenian genocide, but acknowledge the Assyrian victims within their text.[60]\n\nHanna has also advocated in favor of recognizing the Armenian genocide as well.[61]\n\nPartnerships\n\nThe API has multiple partnerships with other advocacy-based organizations, particularly Assyrian and Yazidi-based ones. Hanna stated in an interview with ANB TV that some of the API's collaborative partners include, but are not limited to, the Assyrian Studies Association, the Assyrian-American Association of Southern California, the Centre for Canadian-Assyrian Relations, and several Assyrian Student Associations. Hanna also stated that there are more, but those are the ones that the API works most closely with.[62]\n\nThe official website of the Yazidi advocacy organization Nobody's Listening also lists the API as an official partner of theirs.[63]\n\nReports\n\nThe Assyrian Policy institute releases reports concerning issues of interest to the Assyrian people.[64] One of the reports concerning minority quotas in Baghdad and Erbil was presented in Gütersloh, Germany.[65]\n\nCurrently, its reports are as follows:\n\nReport\n\nDate released\n\nIraq's Stolen Election: How Assyrian Representation Became Assyrian Repression[66][67]\n\nNovember 27, 2018\n\nLives on Hold: Assyrian Refugees in Jordan[68][69][49]\n\nJune 20, 2019\n\nAn Iraq for All: Improving the Status of Assyrians in the Iraqi Constitution[70][4]\n\nJanuary 2, 2020\n\nErasing the Legacy of Khabour: Destruction of Assyrian Cultural Heritage in the Khabour Region of Syria[71][72]\n\nMarch 31, 2020\n\nContested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain[53]\n\nJune 1, 2020\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian Confederation of Europe\n\nNineveh Plain Protection Units\n\nAssyrian Democratic Movement\n\nIraqi Christian Relief Council\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Assyrian diaspora seeks to reconnect with homeland\". english.ankawa.com. Retrieved 2020-05-25.\n\n^ a b \"Start för Assyrian Policy Institute i Washington\". Hujådå (in Swedish). 2018-05-28. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ a b \"We are pleased to announce the formation of the Assyrian Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.\" May 14, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020. Our work will focus on fostering public awareness about issues affecting Assyrians in their ancestral lands, guiding U.S. policy on matters related to Assyrians in countries like Iraq and Syria, and publishing authoritative reports that are valuable to academics and policymakers.\n\n^ a b c Snell, Joe (2020-01-09). \"Iraqi Constitution fails to provide security for Assyrians, Yazidis, study finds\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Updated: Four humanitarian workers, including one Assyrian, missing in Baghdad, Iraq\". January 24, 2020. Retrieved August 9, 2020.\n\n^ \"SOS Chrétiens d'Orient\". Twitter (in French). March 26, 2020.\n\n^ \"Statement on the 8th Anniversary of the Our Lady of Salvation Church Massacre\". October 31, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG Imposes Discriminatory New Regulation on Assyrians in Ankawa\". July 14, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Erbil's Christians decry 'discriminatory and exploitative' Kurdish business regulation\". The New Arab. August 2, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ Goran, Baxtiyar (July 4, 2018). \"KRG responds to 'baseless allegations' of discrimination by Assyrian Policy Institute\". Kurdistan 24. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG Statement on baseless allegations of discrimination against Christian citizens\". Kurdistan Regional Government Cabinet. July 2, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG Statement in response to an article by Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG statement on Human Rights Watch report - \"On Vulnerable Ground\"\". Kurdistan Regional Government Cabinet. November 10, 2009. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Statement in response to Amnesty International Report\". Kurdistan Regional Government Cabinet. April 20, 2009. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ a b c \"API Response to KRG Statement Denying Unjust Tax Rates, Ordinances in Ankawa\". July 9, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Jan. 2018 Ordinance Issued by the KRG's Erbil Center District\" (PDF). January 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Dec. 2012 KRG Response\" (PDF). December 2012. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Feb. 2018 KRG Shura Council Response to Official Inquiry into Unjust Ankawa Tax Rates by Two Assyrian Parliamentarians\" (PDF). February 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"KRG Intelligence Forces Detain Assyrian Journalist Hormuz Mushi in Dohuk\". Jun 20, 2019. Retrieved August 8, 2020.\n\n^ \"النائب فريد يعقوب : على اسايش دهوك الإفراج الفوري عن الصحفي هرمز موشي وتكريمه لشجاعته في كشف الموقع الأثري الاشوري، واي اذى يصيبه تتحمله قوات الامن\". Zowaa (in Arabic). June 19, 2019. Retrieved August 8, 2020.\n\n^ \"Assyrian journalist detained in Iraq for 13 days after reporting trip to Syria\". Committee to Protect Journalists. November 13, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Updated: Assyrian Journalist Khlapieel Bnyameen Detained by KRG since October 31\". November 14, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Activist Faces Death Threats After Criticizing KRG Officials\". July 26, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Syria: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Kurdish Self-Administration in Syria: Release Assyrian Journalist Souleman Yusph\". September 30, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ Safi, Marlo (September 25, 2018). \"Closure of Syrian Schools: Another Bleak Sign for Christians in Syria\". National Review. Retrieved August 2, 2020.\n\n^ \"Souleman Yusph\". Facebook.\n\n^ a b \"Assyrians in Syria Protest PYD's Closure of Schools in Qamishli\". August 28, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ a b c \"Kurdish Self-Administration Orders Closure of Assyrian Schools in Northern Syria\". August 14, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Turkey: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Churchman who gave food to PKK members charged with terrorism\". February 13, 2020.\n\n^ \"Syriac Orthodox monk Sefer Bileçen indicted as \"terrorist supporter\"\". Agenzia Fides. February 13, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Assyrian priest indicted on terrorism charges in Turkey\". February 11, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Updated: Local priest, two other Assyrians in Tur Abdin detained by Turkish authorities\". February 11, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Updated: Two Assyrians missing in southeastern Turkey\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Turkish airstrikes in Assyrian villages in northern Iraq continue\". October 6, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ Callimachi, Rukmini (August 16, 2018). \"Turkish Airstrike in Iraqi Territory Kills a Kurdish Militant Leader\". New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Turkey/Iraq: Strikes May Break Laws of War\". Human Rights Watch. September 19, 2018.\n\n^ \"API Statement on Turkish Offensive in Northeastern Syria\". October 10, 2019. Retrieved August 9, 2020.\n\n^ \"Iran: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ Koriel, Jon (September 10, 2018). \"API Letter to Head of Iranian Judiciary\" (PDF). Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ Koriel, Jon (September 10, 2018). \"API Letter to Prosecutor General of Tehran\" (PDF). Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"API Statement Calling for Acquittal of Bet-Tamraz Family, End to Persecution of Christians in Iran\". September 10, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Iran: Christians Sentenced for Practising Their Faith: Victor Bet-tamraz, Shamiram Issavi, Hadi Asgari, Amin Afshar-naderi\". Amnesty International. August 24, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Updated: Iranian-Assyrian Pastor and wife denied appeal; combined 15 year sentence upheld\". August 16, 2020. Retrieved September 12, 2020.\n\n^ \"Iran-Backed Militia Refuses to Comply with Orders to Withdraw from Nineveh Plain, Stages Protest\". August 5, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Jordan: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ a b \"Lives on Hold: Assyrian Refugees in Jordan\". assyrianpolicy. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"Lebanon: Assyrian Policy Institute\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ a b c Altaji, Yasmeen (July 2020). \"Lebanon's Assyrians confront severe economic crisis\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ Snell, Joe (April 22, 2020). \"Amid impossible conditions, Assyrian orgs fill front lines to help IDPs and refugees\". the Assyrian Journal. Retrieved August 7, 2020. The Assyrian Support Committee (ASC), a Beirut-based aid group affiliated with the Assyrian Church of the East, launched an initiative aimed at spreading awareness about the virus and distributing food baskets and hygiene kits to 511 Assyrian families in Bauchrieh, Hadath, Zahle and Ashrafieh.\n\n^ a b c \"Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain\". assyrianpolicy. June 1, 2020. Retrieved July 27, 2020.\n\n^ Zaya, R.S. (August 7, 2020). \"Iraq's Indigenous Peoples Can't Face Another Conflict\". Foreign Policy. Retrieved August 7, 2020. Internally displaced Assyrians cite mistrust of security forces as the primary impediment to their return, so it is no surprise that the NPU-the only force made up of locals from the plains-has return rates in areas it controls significantly higher than in areas secured by Kurdish forces or Iran-backed militias alone and higher return rates than all areas controlled by other forces in the plains combined, according to a June assessment by the Assyrian Policy Institute (API).\n\n^ Hanna, Reine (September 26, 2019). \"Testimony for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Religious Minorities' Fight to Remain in Iraq\" (PDF). United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Retrieved July 23, 2020.\n\n^ \"Joint NGO Statement Highlights Health and Security Risks from COVID-19 Crisis for Vulnerable Iraqi Communities\". Religious Freedom Institute. Retrieved 2020-05-25.\n\n^ \"Coalition Letter\" (PDF). August 27, 2019. Retrieved June 27, 2020.\n\n^ Altaji, Yasmeen. \"Assyrian, Non-Assyrian NGOs join call for Iraqi recognition of Simele Massacre\". the Assyrian Journal. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Joint NGO Statement to Commemorate Assyrian Genocide Remembrance Day\". August 7, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Genocide Recognition in the United States\". Retrieved August 7, 2020.\n\n^ \"The Memory of the Armenian Genocide Should Be Preserved\". Armenian National Institute. April 24, 2019. Retrieved August 7, 2020. Reine Hanna, the director of the Assyrian Policy Institute, tells me that the lasting consequences of the genocide continue to be widespread to this day.\n\n^ Modern Assyrian on YouTube\n\n^ \"Our Partners\". Nobody's Listening. Retrieved August 10, 2020.\n\n^ Joseph, Max (May 6, 2019). \"Why Assyrians Must Demand Accountability to Protect our History and Future - The Curious Case of Nineb Lamassu\". Medium. Retrieved August 7, 2020. There is also the Assyrian Policy Institute, which produces briefings and reports focusing on Assyrian issues in our homelands.\n\n^ \"Reine Hanna - Assyrian Policy Institute\". Assyria TV (in Swedish). 2018-12-12. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"UNPO: Assyria: New Report Shows Quota Representation Faulty\". unpo.org. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"Iraq's Stolen Election: How Assyrian Representation Became Assyrian...\" assyrianpolicy. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ Aria (2019-08-10). \"PBB Abaikan Pengungsi Kristen Korban ISIS di Yordania\". KATOLIKNEWS.com. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"Latest UN Horror Show: Christian Refugees Ignored | IFCJ\". International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. 2019-08-05. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"An Iraq for All: Improving the Status of Assyrians in Iraq's Constitution\". assyrianpolicy. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"Assyrian presence in Syria's Khabour on the verge of vanishing 5 years after ISIS's aggression\". Nationalia (in Catalan). Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\n^ \"Erasing the Legacy of Khabour: Destruction of Assyrian Cultural Heritage\". assyrianpolicy. Retrieved 2020-05-22.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-policy-institute"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4439}, {"slug": "reference-christology", "title": "Christology", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Christology is a branch of Christian theology that concerns the nature of Jesus, which has been the topic of much debate over the centuries that culminated in the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, issuing a formulation of the hypostatic union between a human and divine nature...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Christology is a branch of Christian theology that concerns the nature of Jesus, which has been the topic of much debate over the centuries that culminated in the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, issuing a formulation of the hypostatic union between a human and divine nature of Jesus, \"united with neither confusion nor division.\"[1]\n\nDifferent denominations have different, sometimes mutually exclusive, beliefs on this matter, such as whether Jesus was divine in nature, human in nature, both, or neither. Jesus's mission as the Jewish messiah is also a related concern: whether he came specifically to free the Jewish people from foreign rulers, something else in addition to that, or something else entirely, and what his role is in salvation and the coming of the kingdom of heaven.[2][3][4][5][6]\n\nChristian writings address Jesus by numerous titles, such as Son of Man, Son of God, Christ (Messiah), and Kyrios. These terms centered around certain themes, namely \"Jesus as a preexistent figure who becomes human and then returns to God\" as opposed to adoptionism, the notion that Jesus was a human who was adopted by God at some point, typically when he is baptised, crucified, or resurrected.\n\nContemporary scholarship generally acknowledges the advent of high Christology as a monotheistic phenomenon within early Jewish Christianity,[7][8] though older evolutionary models viewed it as a later gentile concept.[9][10] Most scholars argue that high Christology precedes Paul.[11][12][13][14] Many scholars today contend that the synoptic gospels and other New Testament texts portray Jesus as divine.[15]\n\nDefinition and approaches\n\nChristology (from the Greek χριστός, khristós, 'anointed one' and -λογία, -logia), literally 'the understanding of Christ',[16] is the study of the nature (person) and work (role in salvation)[a] of Jesus Christ.[2][5][4][web 3][web 4][b]\nIt studies Jesus Christ's humanity and divinity, and the relationship between these two aspects;[6][13] as well as the role he plays in salvation.\n\nOntological Christology analyzes the nature or being[web 5]\nof Jesus Christ. Functional Christology analyzes the works of Jesus Christ, while soteriological Christology analyzes the \"salvific\" standpoints of Christology.[19]\n\nTheologians may take several different approaches to Christology.[c] For example:\n\nChristology from above[20] or high Christology[21] emphasizes approaches that include aspects of divinity (such as titles like \"Lord\" and \"Son of God\") and the idea of the pre-existence of Christ as the Logos ('the Word'),[20][21][22] (as expressed in the prologue to the Gospel of John.[d]) These approaches interpret the works of Christ in terms of his divinity. According to Pannenberg, Christology from above \"was far more common in the ancient Church, beginning with Ignatius of Antioch and the second century Apologists\".[22][23]\n\nChristology from below[24] or low Christology[21] takes as its starting point the human aspects and the ministry of Jesus (including the miracles, parables, etc.) and moves towards his divinity and the mystery of incarnation.[20][21]\n\nPerson of Christ\n\nA standard Christological teaching describes Jesus as possessing two natures: one human, one divine. Many scholars today concede this.[15][14] Some issues have arisen regarding the exact kind of union these two are in. According to post-Chalcedonian definitions, Jesus's two natures form a duality, coexisting within one hypostatic union.[25] However, in the Oriental Orthodox paradigm, the union of these two natures is a composite nature that is both fully human and fully divine. There are no direct discussions in the New Testament regarding a dual nature of Jesus;[25] theologians have debated various approaches since the early days of Christianity.[25]\n\nFrom the earliest sources, Paul's letters, Jesus is understood to receive prayer (1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 12:8-9), the presence of Jesus is confessionally invoked by believers (1 Corinthians 16:22; Romans 10:9-13; Philippians 2:10-11), people are baptized in Jesus' name (1 Corinthians 6:11; Romans 6:3), Jesus is the reference in Christian fellowship for a religious ritual meal (the Lord's Supper; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34).[26] Jesus is described as \"existing in the very form of God\" (Philippians 2:6), and being the \"fullness of the Deity [living] in bodily form\" (Colossians 2:9). Jesus is also in some verses directly called God (Romans 9:5,[27] Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1).\n\nThe standard evidences for the divinity of Jesus fall under five themes that are shared by God: his honors, attributes, names, deeds, and shares the seat of God's throne.[13]\n\nThere are some Christological doctrines that have acquired broad support:\n\nMonophysitism (Monophysite controversy, 3rd-8th centuries): After the union of the divine and the human in the historical incarnation, Jesus Christ had only a single nature. The Council of Chalcedon and Third Council of Ephesus condemned Monophysitism as heretical in 451 AD and 475 AD, respectively.\n\nMiaphysitism (Oriental Orthodox churches): In the person of Jesus Christ, divine nature and human nature are united in a compound nature ('physis').\n\nDyophysitism (Eastern Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Church of the East, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and the Reformed Churches): Christ maintained two natures, one divine and one human, after the Incarnation; articulated by the Chalcedonian Definition.\n\nMonarchianism (including Adoptionism and Modalism): God as one, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity. Condemned as heretical in the Patristic era but followed today by certain groups of Nontrinitarians.\n\nInfluential Christologies broadly condemned as heretical[e]\ninclude:\n\nDocetism (3rd-4th centuries) claimed the human form of Jesus was mere semblance without any true reality.\n\nArianism (4th century) viewed the divine nature of Jesus, the Son of God, as distinct and inferior to God the Father, e.g., by having a beginning in time.\n\nNestorianism (5th century) considers the two natures (human and divine) of Jesus Christ to subsist separately.[30]\n\nMonothelitism (7th century), considered Christ to have only one will.\n\nAs councils were convened, some theological positions were rejected as heresies, yet the acceptance of these councils remains partial. Notably, certain Christological views reemerged in later centuries, such as the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, which reflect elements of Arianism.\n\nSalvation\n\nIn Christian theology, atonement is the forgiving of sin and the method by which human beings can be reconciled to God, both through faith in Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection.[31] Due to the influence of Gustaf Aulén (1879-1978), whose book Christus Victor came out in English translation in 1931, the various theories or paradigmata of atonement are often grouped under the headings of the \"classical paradigm,\" \"objective paradigm,\" and \"subjective paradigm.\"[32][33][34][35]\n\nClassical paradigm:[f]\n\nRansom theory of atonement, which teaches that Jesus's death was a ransom sacrifice, usually said to have been paid to Satan or to death itself, in some views paid to God the Father, in satisfaction for the bondage and debt on the souls of humanity as a result of inherited sin. Gustaf Aulén reinterpreted the ransom theory,[36] calling it the Christus Victor doctrine, arguing that Christ's death was not a payment to the Devil, but defeated the powers of evil, which had held humankind in their dominion.[37][g]\n\nRecapitulation theory,[39] which says that Jesus succeeded where Adam failed. Theosis ('divinization') is a \"corollary\" of the recapitulation.[40]\n\nObjective paradigm:\n\nSatisfaction theory of atonement,[h] developed by Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4-1109), which teaches that Jesus Christ suffered crucifixion as a substitute for human sin, satisfying God's just wrath against humankind's transgression due to Christ's infinite merit.[41]\n\nPenal substitution, also called \"forensic theory\" and \"vicarious punishment,\" which was a development by the Reformers of Anselm's satisfaction theory.[42][43][i][j] Instead of considering sin as an affront to God's honour, it sees sin as the breaking of God's moral law. Penal substitution sees sinful man as being subject to God's wrath, with the essence of Jesus' saving work being his substitution in the sinner's place, bearing the curse in the place of man.\n\nGovernmental theory of atonement, \"which views God as both the loving creator and moral Governor of the universe.\"[45]\n\nSubjective paradigm:\n\nMoral influence theory of atonement,[k] developed, or most notably propagated, by Abelard (1079-1142),[46][47] who argued that \"Jesus died as the demonstration of God's love,\" a demonstration which can change the hearts and minds of the sinners, turning back to God.[46][48]\n\nMoral example theory, developed by Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) in his work De Jesu Christo servatore (1578), who rejected the idea of \"vicarious satisfaction.\"[l] According to Socinus, Jesus' death offers humanity a perfect example of self-sacrificial dedication to God.[48]\n\nOther theories are the \"embracement theory\" and the \"shared atonement\" theory.[49][50]\n\nEarly Christologies (1st century)\n\nThe earliest Christological reflections were shaped by both the Jewish background of the earliest Christians, and by the Greek world of the eastern Mediterranean in which they operated.[51][web 3][m]\n\nAccording to Matthew Novenson: \n\n... whereas for much of the twentieth century high Christology was widely thought to be late, Gentile, and polytheist, over the last thirty years it has taken its place as early, Jewish, and monotheist.[56]\n\nHistorically, in the Alexandrian school of thought (fashioned on the Gospel of John), Jesus is the eternal Logos who already possesses unity with the Father before the act of Incarnation.[57] In contrast, the Antiochian school viewed Christ as a single, unified human person apart from his relationship to the divine.[57][n]\n\nDevelopment of Christology\n\nTwo fundamentally different Christologies developed in the early Church, namely a \"low\" or adoptionist Christology, and a \"high\" or \"incarnation\" Christology.[11] The chronology of the development of these early Christologies is a matter of debate within contemporary scholarship.[59][60][61][web 6] There is no consensus on the continuity or discontinuity of earthly Jesus and post-Easter christology.[62]\n\nThe \"low Christology\" or \"adoptionist Christology\" is the belief \"that God exalted Jesus to be his Son by raising him from the dead\",[63] thereby raising him to \"divine status\".[web 7] According to the \"evolutionary model\"[64] or evolutionary theories,[65] the Christological understanding of Jesus developed over time,[66][67][68] as witnessed in the Gospels,[60] with the earliest Christians believing that Jesus was a human who was exalted, or else adopted as God's Son,[10][69] when he was resurrected.[68][70] Later beliefs shifted the exaltation to his baptism, to his birth, and subsequently to the idea of his pre-existence, as witnessed in the Gospel of John.[68] This \"evolutionary model\" was proposed by proponents of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, especially Wilhelm Bousset's influential Kyrios Christos (1913).[10] This evolutionary model was very influential, and the \"low Christology\" has long been regarded as the oldest Christology.[71][72][web 7][o]\n\nThe other early Christology is \"high Christology\", which is \"the view that Jesus was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, did the Father's will on earth, and then was taken back up into heaven whence he had originally come\",[web 7][73] and from where he appeared on earth.[p] According to Bousset, this \"high Christology\" developed at the time of Paul's writing, under the influence of Gentile Christians, who brought their pagan Hellenistic traditions to the early Christian communities, introducing divine honours to Jesus.[74] According to Casey and Dunn, this \"high Christology\" developed after the time of Paul, at the end of the first century CE when the Gospel of John was written.[75]\n\nSince the 1970s, these late datings for the development of a \"high Christology\" have been contested,[76] and a majority of scholars argue that this \"high Christology\" existed already before the writings of Paul.[11][q] According to the \"New Religionsgeschichtliche Schule\",[76][web 9] or the Early High Christology Club,[web 10] which includes Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado, N. T. Wright, and Richard Bauckham,[76][web 10] this \"incarnation Christology\" or \"high Christology\" did not evolve over a longer time, but was a \"big bang\" of ideas which were already present at the start of Christianity, and took further shape in the first few decades of the church, as witnessed in the writings of Paul.[76][web 10][web 7][r][s]\n\nNew Testament scholar Larry Hurtado supports this early high Christology position, emphasizing that devotional practices directed toward Jesus, such as prayer, hymns, invocation of his name, and the Aramaic liturgical expression Maranatha emerged remarkably early, likely within the first months or years following Jesus’ crucifixion. Hurtado argues that this reverence arose initially within Jewish-Christian communities in Roman Judea and involved assigning to Jesus divine prerogatives previously reserved for God alone, such as participation in worship and the divine throne. He views this as a historically unprecedented development in Jewish monotheistic devotion.[83]\n\nThere is a controversy regarding whether Jesus himself claimed to be divine. In Honest to God (1963), then-Bishop of Woolwich, John A. T. Robinson, questioned the idea.[84] John Hick, writing in 1993, and separately Gerd Ludemann, cited \"broad agreement\" that scholars do not today support the view that Jesus claimed to be God and that the proclamation of the divinity of Jesus was a development within the earliest Christian communities.[8][85] Larry Hurtado, who argues that the followers of Jesus within a very short period developed an exceedingly high level of devotional reverence to Jesus.[86] N. T. Wright points out that arguments over the claims of Jesus regarding divinity have been passed over by more recent scholarship, which sees a more complex understanding of the idea of God in first century Judaism.[87] Andrew Loke has argued that this \"high Christology\" may go back to Jesus himself.[81][web 6] Loke argues that if Jesus did not claim and show himself to be truly divine and risen from the dead, the earliest Christian leaders who were devout ancient monotheistic Jews would have regarded Jesus as merely a teacher or a prophet; they would not have come to the widespread agreement that he was truly divine, which they did;[82] on which Larry Hurtado commented \"I don't find Loke's case persuasive.\"[web 12] Brant Pitre also argues that the Historical Jesus claimed to be divine and was the origin of high Christology.[12] According to Dale Allison, writing for The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus, the historical Jesus held an exalted self-conception comparable to divine agents in other Second Temple Jewish texts, such as the Son of man.[88]\n\nNew Testament writings\n\nThe study of the various Christologies of the Apostolic Age is based on early Christian documents.[3]\n\nPaul\n\nThe oldest Christian sources are the writings of Paul.[89] According to most scholars, the central Christology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's pre-existence.[90][91] Although this is disputed by a minority of scholars.[92] and the identification of Christ as Kyrios.[93] Both notions likely existed before him in the early Christian communities, and Paul deepened them and used them for preaching in the Hellenistic communities.[90]\n\nWhat exactly Paul believed about the nature of Jesus cannot be determined decisively. In Philippians 2, Paul possibly implies that Jesus was preexistent and came to Earth \"by taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness\". This sounds like an incarnation Christology according to the view of most scholars.[94] Although this interpretation has been disputed by a few scholars.[95] In Romans 1:4, however, Paul states that Jesus \"was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead\", which sounds like an adoptionistic Christology, where Jesus was a human being who was \"adopted\" after his death. Different views would be debated for centuries by Christians and finally settled on the idea that he was both fully human and fully divine by the middle of the 5th century in the Council of Ephesus. Paul's thoughts on Jesus' teachings, versus his nature and being, are more defined, in that Paul believed Jesus was sent as an atonement for the sins of everyone.[96][97][98]\n\nThe Pauline epistles use Kyrios to identify Jesus almost 230 times, and express the theme that the true mark of a Christian is the confession of Jesus as the true Lord.[99] Paul viewed the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other divine manifestations as a consequence of the fact that Christ is the Son of God.[web 4]\n\nThe Pauline epistles also advanced the \"cosmic Christology\"[t] later developed in the Gospel of John,[101] elaborating the cosmic implications of Jesus' existence as the Son of God: \"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.\"[102] In the Epistle to the Colossians, which purports to be written by Paul (though this is disputed), relevant claims are made: \"Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven\";[103][104] \"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation\".[105][93][100]\n\nThe Gospels\n\nThe synoptic Gospels date from after the writings of Paul. They provide episodes from the life of Jesus and some of his works, but the authors of the New Testament show little interest in an absolute chronology of Jesus or in synchronizing the episodes of his life,[106] and as in John 21:25, the Gospels do not claim to be an exhaustive list of his works.[3]\n\nMany scholars today concede the synoptic gospels and other New Testament texts portray Jesus as divine.[15] Christologies that can be gleaned from the three synoptic Gospels generally emphasize the humanity of Jesus, his sayings, his parables, and his miracles. The Gospel of John provides a different perspective that focuses on his divinity.[web 4] The first 14 verses of the Gospel of John are devoted to the divinity of Jesus as the Logos, usually translated as \"Word\", along with his pre-existence, and they emphasize the cosmic significance of Christ, e.g.: \"All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.\"[107] In the context of these verses, the Word made flesh is identical with the Word who was in the beginning with God, being exegetically equated with Jesus.[web 4]\n\nPre-existence\n\nThe notion of pre-existence is deeply rooted in Jewish thought, and can be found in apocalyptic thought and among the rabbis of Paul's time,[90] but Paul was most influenced by Jewish-Hellenistic wisdom literature, where \"'Wisdom' is extolled as something existing before the world and already working in creation.[90] According to Witherington, Paul \"subscribed to the christological notion that Christ existed prior to taking on human flesh[,] founding the story of Christ [...] on the story of divine Wisdom\".[91][u]\n\nKyrios\n\nThe title Kyrios for Jesus is central to the development of New Testament Christology.[108] In the Septuagint it translates the Tetragrammaton, the name of the God of Moses. As such, it closely links Jesus with God, as in, \"... in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ...\".[109]\n\nKyrios is also conjectured to be the Greek translation of Aramaic Mari, which in everyday Aramaic usage was a very respectful form of polite address, which means more than just 'teacher' and was somewhat similar to 'rabbi'. While the term Mari expressed the relationship between Jesus and his disciples during his life, the Greek Kyrios came to represent his lordship over the world.[110]\n\nThe early Christians placed Kyrios at the center of their understanding, and from that center attempted to understand the other issues related to the Christian mysteries.[108] The question of the deity of Christ in the New Testament is inherently related to the Kyrios title of Jesus used in the early Christian writings and its implications for the absolute lordship of Jesus. In early Christian belief, the concept of Kyrios included the pre-existence of Christ, for they believed if Christ is one with God, he must have been united with God from the very beginning.[108][111]\n\nControversies and ecumenical councils (2nd-8th century)\n\nPost-Apostolic controversies\n\nFollowing the Apostolic Age, from the second century onwards, a number of controversies developed about how the human and divine are related within the person of Jesus.[112][113] As of the second century, a number of different and opposing approaches developed among various groups. In contrast to prevailing monoprosopic views on the Person of Christ, alternative dyoprosopic notions were also promoted by some theologians, but such views were rejected by the ecumenical councils. For example, Arianism did not endorse divinity, Ebionism argued Jesus was an ordinary mortal, while Gnosticism held docetic views which argued Christ was a spiritual being who only appeared to have a physical body.[28][29] The resulting tensions led to schisms within the church in the second and third centuries, and ecumenical councils were convened in the fourth and fifth centuries to deal with the issues.\n\nAlthough some of the debates may seem to various modern students to be over a theological iota, they took place in controversial political circumstances, reflecting the relations of temporal powers and divine authority, and certainly resulted in schisms, among others that separated the Church of the East from the Church of the Roman Empire.[114][115]\n\nFirst Council of Nicaea (325) and First Council of Constantinople (381)\n\nIn 325, the First Council of Nicaea defined the persons of the Godhead and their relationship with one another, decisions which were ratified at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. The language used was that the one God exists in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); in particular, it was affirmed that the Son was homoousios (of the same being) as the Father. The Nicene Creed declared the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus.[116][117][118] After the First Council of Nicaea in 325 the Logos and the second Person of the Trinity were being used interchangeably.[119]\n\nFirst Council of Ephesus (431)\n\nIn 431, the First Council of Ephesus was initially called to address the views of Nestorius on Mariology, but the problems soon extended to Christology, and schisms followed. The 431 council was called because in defense of his loyal priest Anastasius, Nestorius had preferred that the title Christokos (Christ-bearer) be used over Theotokos (God-bearer) for Mary and later contradicted Proclus during a sermon in Constantinople. Pope Celestine I (who was already upset with Nestorius due to other matters) wrote about this to Cyril of Alexandria, who orchestrated the council. During the council, Nestorius defended his position by arguing that there are two distinct and separate natures of Christ, one human and the other divine, hence Mary gave birth only to the human nature, suggesting that the title Theotokos (God-bearer) is insufficient to fully describe the Incarnation, as it does not encompass Christ's humanity. The debate about the single or dual nature of Christ ensued in Ephesus.[120][121][122][123]\n\nThe First Council of Ephesus debated miaphysitism (two natures united as one after the hypostatic union) versus dyophysitism (coexisting natures after the hypostatic union) versus monophysitism (only one nature) versus Nestorianism (two hypostases). From the Christological viewpoint, the council adopted Mia Physis ('but being made one', κατὰ φύσιν) - Council of Ephesus, Epistle of Cyril to Nestorius, i.e. 'one nature of the Word of God incarnate' (μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη, mía phýsis toû theoû lógou sesarkōménē). In 451, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed dyophysitism. The Oriental Orthodox rejected this and subsequent councils and continued to consider themselves as miaphysite according to the faith put forth at the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus.[124][125] The council also confirmed the Theotokos title and excommunicated Nestorius.[126][127]\n\nCouncil of Chalcedon (451)\n\nThe 451 Council of Chalcedon was highly influential, and marked a key turning point in the christological debates.[128] It is the last council which many Lutherans, Anglicans and other Protestants consider ecumenical.[129][130]\n\nThe Council of Chalcedon fully promulgated the Western dyophysite understanding put forth by Pope Leo I of Rome of the hypostatic union, the proposition that Christ has one human nature (physis) and one divine nature (physis), each distinct and complete, and united with neither confusion nor division.[112][113] Most of the major branches of Western Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Reformed), Church of the East,[131] Eastern Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy subscribe to the Chalcedonian Christological formulation, while Oriental Orthodoxy (in Antioch, Alexandria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Armenia) reject it.[130][132][133]\n\nAlthough the Chalcedonian Creed did not put an end to all christological debate, it did clarify the terms used and became a point of reference for many future Christologies.[130][132][133] But it also broke apart the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the fifth century,[128] and unquestionably established the primacy of Rome in the East over those who accepted the Council of Chalcedon. This was reaffirmed in 519, when the Eastern Chalcedonians accepted the Formula of Hormisdas, anathematizing all of their own Eastern Chalcedonian hierarchy, who died out of communion with Rome from 482 to 519.\n\nFifth-Seventh Ecumenical Council (553, 681, 787)\n\nThe Second Council of Constantinople in 553 interpreted the decrees of Chalcedon, and further explained the relationship of the two natures of Jesus. It also condemned the alleged teachings of Origen on the pre-existence of the soul, and other topics.[web 13]\n\nThe Third Council of Constantinople in 681 declared that Christ has two wills of his two natures, human and divine, contrary to the teachings of the Monothelites,[web 14] with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will.[134]\n\nThe Second Council of Nicaea was called under the Empress Regent Irene of Athens in 787. It affirmed the veneration of icons while forbidding their worship. It is often referred to as \"The Triumph of Orthodoxy\".[web 15]\n\n9th-11th century\n\nEastern Christianity\n\nWestern medieval Christology\n\nThe Franciscan piety of the 12th and 13th centuries led to \"popular Christology\". Systematic approaches by theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, are called \"scholastic Christology\".[135]\n\nIn the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas provided the first systematic Christology that consistently resolved a number of the existing issues.[136] In his Christology from above, Aquinas also championed the principle of perfection of Christ's human attributes.[137][138][139]\n\nThe Middle Ages also witnessed the emergence of the \"tender image of Jesus\" as a friend and a living source of love and comfort, rather than just the Kyrios image.[140]\n\nReformation\n\nArticle 10 of the Belgic Confession, a confessional standard of the Reformed faith, subscribes to Nicene orthodoxy regarding the deity of Christ. The article places emphasis on the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal divine nature of Christ as Creator.\n\nWe believe that Jesus Christ, according to his divine nature, is the only begotten Son of God, begotten from eternity, not made nor created (for then He should be a creature), but co-essential and co-eternal with the Father, \"the express image of His person, and the brightness of His glory\" (Hebrews 1:3), equal unto him in all things. He is the Son of God, not only from the time that He assumed our nature, but from all eternity, as these testimonies, when compared together, teach us. Moses says that God created the world; and John saith that \"all things were made by that Word\" (John 1:3), which he calls God. And the apostle says that God made the worlds by His Son (Hebrews 1:2); likewise, that \"God created all things by Jesus Christ\" (Ephesians 3:9). Therefore, it must needs follow, that he who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ did exist at that time, when all things were created by him. Therefore, the prophet Micah says, \"His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting\" (Micah 5:2). And the apostle: \"He has neither beginning of days, nor end of life\" (Hebrews 7:3). He therefore is that true, eternal, and almighty God, whom we invoke, worship and serve.[141]\n\nJohn Calvin maintained there was no human element in the Person of Christ which could be separated from the Person of the Word.[142] Calvin also emphasized the importance of the \"Work of Christ\" in any attempt at understanding the Person of Christ and cautioned against ignoring the works of Jesus during his ministry.[143]\n\nModern developments\n\nLiberal Protestant theology\n\nThe 19th century saw the rise of Liberal Protestant theology, which questioned the dogmatic foundations of Christianity, and approached the Bible with critical-historical tools.[web 16] The divinity of Jesus became of less emphasis or importance, and was replaced with a focus on the ethical aspects of his teachings.[144][v]\n\nRoman Catholicism\n\nCatholic theologian Karl Rahner sees the purpose of modern Christology as to formulate the Christian belief that \"God became man and that God-made-man is the individual Jesus Christ\" in a manner that this statement can be understood consistently, without the confusions of past debates and mythologies.[146][w] Rahner pointed out the coincidence between the Person of Christ and the Word of God, referring to Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26 which state whoever is ashamed of the words of Jesus is ashamed of the Lord himself.[148]\n\nSince the reading of Jesus as a supernatural figure is antithetical to Rabbinic Judaism, Rosemary Radford Ruether argued that the New Testament had to be polemical against \"the Jews\" who, to the Christian mindset, misread scripture. She says that that Christology implicitly rejects Judaism as an act of revenge for Jewish rejection of Christian doctrine.[149] \n\nHans von Balthasar argued the union of the human and divine natures of Christ was achieved not by the \"absorption\" of human attributes, but by their \"assumption\". Thus, in his view, the divine nature of Christ was not affected by the human attributes and remained forever divine.[150] The same distinction is recorded in the Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution, Gaudium et spes: \"in Him, human nature was assumed, not absorbed\".[151]\n\nPope Francis, in his 2024 encyclical letter Dilexit nos, refers to the \"divinity and plenary humanity\" of Jesus.[152]\n\nTopics\n\nNativity and the Holy Name\n\nThe Nativity of Jesus impacted the Christological issues about his person from the earliest days of Christianity. Luke's Christology centers on the dialectics of the dual natures of the earthly and heavenly manifestations of existence of the Christ, while Matthew's Christology focuses on the mission of Jesus and his role as the savior.[153][154] The salvific emphasis of Matthew 1:21 later impacted the theological issues and the devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus.[155][156][157]\n\nMatthew 1:23 provides a key to the \"Emmanuel Christology\" of Matthew. Beginning with 1:23, the Gospel of Matthew shows a clear interest in identifying Jesus as \"God with us\" and in later developing the Emmanuel characterization of Jesus at key points throughout the rest of the Gospel.[158] The name 'Emmanuel' does not appear elsewhere in the New Testament, but Matthew builds on it in Matthew 28:20 (\"I am with you always, even unto the end of the world\") to indicate Jesus will be with the faithful to the end of the age.[158][159] According to Ulrich Luz, the Emmanuel motif brackets the entire Gospel of Matthew between 1:23 and 28:20, appearing explicitly and implicitly in several other passages.[160]\n\nCrucifixion and resurrection\n\nThe accounts of the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of Jesus provides a rich background for christological analysis, from the canonical Gospels to the Pauline Epistles.[161]\n\nA central element in the christology presented in the Acts of the Apostles is the affirmation of the belief that the death of Jesus by crucifixion happened \"with the foreknowledge of God, according to a definite plan\".[162] In this view, as in Acts 2:23, the cross is not viewed as a scandal, for the crucifixion of Jesus \"at the hands of the lawless\" is viewed as the fulfilment of the plan of God.[162][163]\n\nPaul's Christology has a specific focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. For Paul, the crucifixion of Jesus is directly related to his resurrection and the term \"the cross of Christ\" used in Galatians 6:12 may be viewed as his abbreviation of the message of the Gospels.[164] For Paul, the crucifixion of Jesus was not an isolated event in history, but a cosmic event with significant eschatological consequences, as in 1 Corinthians 2:8.[164] In the Pauline view, Jesus, obedient to the point of death (Philippians 2:8), died \"at the right time\" (Romans 5:6) based on the plan of God.[164] For Paul, the \"power of the cross\" is not separable from the resurrection of Jesus.[164]\n\nThreefold office\n\nThe threefold office (Latin munus triplex) of Jesus Christ is a Christian doctrine based upon the teachings of the Old Testament. It was described by Eusebius and more fully developed by John Calvin. It states that Jesus Christ performed three functions (or \"offices\") in his earthly ministry - those of prophet, priest, and king. In the Old Testament, the appointment of someone to any of these three positions could be indicated by anointing him or her by pouring oil over the head. Thus, the term messiah, meaning \"anointed one\", is associated with the concept of the threefold office. While the office of king is that most frequently associated with the Messiah, the role of Jesus as priest is also prominent in the New Testament, being most fully explained in chapters 7 to 10 of the Book of Hebrews.\n\nMariology\n\nSome Christians, notably Roman Catholics, view Mariology as a key component of Christology.[web 17] In this view, not only is Mariology a logical and necessary consequence of Christology, but without it, Christology is incomplete, since the figure of Mary contributes to a fuller understanding of who Christ is and what he did.[165]\n\nProtestants have criticized Mariology because many of its assertions lack any Biblical foundation.[166] Strong Protestant reaction against Roman Catholic Marian devotion and teaching has been a significant issue for ecumenical dialogue.[167]\n\nCardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) expressed this sentiment about Roman Catholic Mariology when in two separate occasions he stated, \"The appearance of a truly Marian awareness serves as the touchstone indicating whether or not the christological substance is fully present\"[168] and \"It is necessary to go back to Mary, if we want to return to the truth about Jesus Christ.\"[169]\n\nSee also\n\nCatholic spirituality\n\nChristian messianic prophecies\n\nChristian views of Jesus\n\nChristological argument\n\nCrucifixion of Jesus\n\nDoubting Thomas\n\nEucharist\n\nEutychianism\n\nFive Holy Wounds\n\nGenealogy of Jesus\n\nGreat Church\n\nGreat Tribulation\n\nHarrowing of Hell\n\nKingship and Kingdom of God\n\nLast Judgement\n\nLife of Jesus in the New Testament\n\nMiracles of Jesus\n\nNames and titles of Jesus in the New Testament\n\nReligious perspectives on Jesus\n\nPaterology\n\nPneumatology\n\nRapture\n\nScholastic Lutheran Christology\n\nSecond Coming of Christ\n\nTransfiguration of Jesus\n\nUniversal resurrection\n\nNotes\n\n^ The work of Jesus Christ:\n\nVeli-Matti Kärkkäinen: \"soteriology, the doctrine of salvation\"[17]\n\nbiblicaltraining.org: \"The Past Work of Christ, The Atoning Savior\";[web 1]\n\n\"Present work of Christ: work as mediator and Lord\";[web 2]\n\"Future work of Christ: work as coming judge and reigning king\"[web 2]\n\n^ Definitions:\n\nBart Ehrman: \"the understanding of Christ\";[16] \"the nature of Christ - the question of Christology\"[2]\n\nBird, Evans & Gathercole (2014): \"New Testament scholars often speak about \"Christology\", which is the study of the career, person, nature, and identity of Jesus Christ.\"[5]\n\nRaymond Brown (1994): \"[C]hristology discusses any evaluation of Jesus in respect to who he was and the role he played in the divine plan.\"[18]\n\nBernard L. Ramm (1993): \"Christology is the reflective and systematic study of the person and work of Jesus Christ.\"[4]\n\nMatt Stefon, Hans J. Hillerbrand (Encyclopedia Britannica): \"Christology, Christian reflection, teaching, and doctrine concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Christology is the part of theology that is concerned with the nature and work of Jesus, including such matters as the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and his human and divine natures and their relationship.\"[web 3]\n\nCatholic Encyclopedia: \"Christology is that part of theology which deals with Our Lord Jesus Christ. In its full extent it comprises the doctrines concerning both the person of Christ and His works.\"[web 4]\n\n^ Bird, Evans & Gathercole (2014): \"There are, of course, many different ways of doing Christology. Some scholars study Christology by focusing on the major titles applied to Jesus in the New Testament, such as \"Son of Man\", \"Son of God\", \"Messiah\", \"Lord\", \"Prince\", \"Word\", and the like. Others take a more functional approach and look at how Jesus acts or is said to act in the New Testament as the basis for configuring beliefs about him. It is possible to explore Jesus as a historical figure (i.e., Christology from below), or to examine theological claims made about Jesus (i.e., Christology from above). Many scholars prefer a socio-religious method, comparing beliefs about Jesus with beliefs in other religions to identify shared sources and similar ideas. Theologians often take a more philosophical approach and look at Jesus' \"ontology\" or \"being\" and debate how best to describe his divine and human natures.\"[5]\n\n^ John 1:1-14\n\n^ Heretical Christologies:\n\nDocetism (3rd-4th centuries) taught that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, and above all the human form of Jesus, was mere semblance without any true reality. Broadly it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion. Docetic teachings were attacked by Ignatius of Antioch and were eventually abandoned by proto-orthodox Christians.[28][29]\n\nArianism, which viewed Jesus as primarily an ordinary mortal, was condemned as heretical in 325, exonerated in 335, and eventually re-condemned as heretical at the First Council of Constantinople (381).[28][29]\n\nNestorianism opposed the concept of hypostatic union, and emphasized a radical distinction between the two natures (human and divine) of Jesus Christ. It was condemned by the Council of Ephesus (431).\n\nMonothelitism held that although Christ has two natures (Dyophysitism), his will is united. The doctrine was promoted by Emperor Heraclius and Ecumenical Patriarch Sergius I as a compromise position between Chalcedonianism and various minority christologies. It was condemned as heretical by the Third Council of Constantinople (681).\n\n^ The \"ransom theory\" and the \"Christ Victor\" theory are different, but are generally considered together as Patristic or \"classical\" theories, to use Gustaf Aulén's nomenclature. These were the traditional understandings of the early Church Fathers.\n\n^ According to Pugh, \"Ever since [Aulén's] time, we call these patristic ideas the Christus Victor way of seeing the cross.\"[38]\n\n^ Called by Aulén the \"scholastic\" view\n\n^ Penal substitution:\n\nVincent Taylor (1956): \"the four main types, which have persisted throughout the centuries. The oldest theory is the Ransom Theory [...] It held sway for a thousand years [...] The Forensic Theory is that of the Reformers and their successors.\"[42]\n\nPacker (1973): \"Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon and their reforming contemporaries were the pioneers in stating it [i.e. the penal substitutionary theory] [...] What the Reformers did was to redefine satisfactio (satisfaction), the main mediaeval category for thought about the cross. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo?, which largely determined the mediaeval development, saw Christ's satisfactio for our sins as the offering of compensation or damages for dishonour done, but the Reformers saw it as the undergoing of vicarious punishment (poena) to meet the claims on us of God's holy law and wrath (i.e. his punitive justice).\"[43]\n\n^ Mark D. Baker, objecting against the penal substitution theory, states that \"substitution is a broad term that one can use with reference to a variety of metaphors.\"[44]\n\n^ Which Aulén called the \"subjective\" or \"humanistic\" view. Propagated, as a critique of the satisfaction view, by Peter Abelard\n\n^ Christ suffering for, or punished for, the sinners.\n\n^ Early Christians found themselves confronted with a set of new concepts and ideas relating to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, as well the notions of salvation and redemption, and had to use a new set of terms, images, and ideas in order to deal with them.[51] The existing terms and structures which were available to them were often insufficient to express these religious concepts, and taken together, these new forms of discourse led to the beginnings of Christology as an attempt to understand, explain, and discuss their understanding of the nature of Christ.[51] Early Jewish Christians had to explain their concepts to a Hellenistic audience which had been influenced by Greek philosophy, presenting arguments that at times resonated with, and at times confronted, the beliefs of that audience. This is exemplified by the Apostle Paul's Areopagus sermon that appears in Acts 17:16-34,[52] where Paul is portrayed as attempting to convey the underlying concepts about Christ to a Greek audience. The sermon illustrates some key elements of future christological discourses that were first brought forward by Paul.[53][54][55]\n\n^ The views of these schools can be summarized as follows:[58]\n\nAlexandria: Logos assumes a general human nature;\n\nAntioch: Logos assumes a specific human being.\n\n^ Ehrman:\n\n\"The earliest Christians held exaltation Christologies in which the human being Jesus was made the Son of God - for example, at his resurrection or at his baptism - as we examined in the previous chapter.\"[72]\n\n\"Here I'll say something about the oldest Christology, as I understand it. This was what I earlier called a 'low' Christology. I may end up in the book describing it as a 'Christology from below' or possibly an 'exaltation' Christology. Or maybe I'll call it all three things [...] Along with lots of other scholars, I think this was indeed the earliest Christology.\"[web 8]\n\n^ Proponents of Christ's deity argue the Old Testament has many cases of Christophany: \"The pre-existence of Christ is further substantiated by the many recorded Christophanies in the Bible.\"[170] \"Christophany\" is often considered a more accurate term than the term \"theophany\" due to the belief that all the visible manifestations of God are in fact the preincarnate Christ. Many argue that the appearances of \"the Angel of the Lord\" in the Old Testament were the preincarnate Christ. \"Many understand the angel of the Lord as a true theophany. From the time of Justin on, the figure has been regarded as the preincarnate Logos.\"[171]\n\n^ Richard Bauckham argues that Paul was not so influential that he could have invented the central doctrine of Christianity. Before his active missionary work, there were already groups of Christians across the region. For example, a large group already existed in Rome even before Paul visited the place. The earliest centre of Christianity was the twelve apostles in Jerusalem. Paul himself consulted and sought guidance from the Christian leaders in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1-2;[77] Acts 9:26-28,[78] 15:2).[79] \"What was common to the whole Christian movement derived from Jerusalem, not from Paul, and Paul himself derived the central message he preached from the Jerusalem apostles.\"[80]\n\n^ Loke (2017): \"The last group of theories can be called 'Explosion Theories' (one might also call this 'the Big-Bang theory of Christology'!). This proposes that highest Christology was the view of the primitive Palestinian Christian community. The recognition of Jesus as truly divine was not a significant development from the views of the primitive Palestine community; rather, it 'exploded' right at the beginning of Christianity. The proponents of the Explosion view would say that the highest Christology of the later New Testament writings (e.g. Gospel of John) and the creedal formulations of the early church fathers, with their explicit affirmations of the pre-existence and ontological divinity of Christ, are not so much a development in essence but a development in understanding and explication of what was already there at the beginning of the Christian movement. As Bauckham (2008a, x) memorably puts it, 'The earliest Christology was already the highest Christology.' Many proponents of this group of theories have been labelled together as 'the New Religionsgeschichtliche Schule' (Hurtado 2003, 11), and they include such eminent scholars as Richard Bauckham, Larry Hurtado, N. T. Wright and the late Martin Hengel.\"[76]\n\n^ Andrew Loke has argued that this \"high Christology\" may go back to Jesus himself.[81][web 6] Loke argues that if Jesus did not claim and show himself to be truly divine and risen from the dead, the earliest Christian leaders who were devout ancient monotheistic Jews would have regarded Jesus as merely a teacher or a prophet; they would not have come to the widespread agreement that he was truly divine, which they did;[82] on which Larry Hurtado commented \"I don't find Loke's case persuasive.\"[web 11] Brant Pitre also argues that the Historical Jesus claimed to be divine and was the origin of high Christology.[12]\n\n^ The concept of \"cosmic Christology\", which focuses on how the arrival of Jesus as the Son of God forever changed the nature of the cosmos.[93][100]\n\n^ Witherington: \"[Christ's Divinity] We have already seen that Paul, in appropriating the language of the christological hymns, subscribed to the christological notion that Christ existed prior to taking on human flesh. Paul spoke of Jesus both as the wisdom of God, his agent in creation (1 Cor 1:24, 30; 8:6; Col 1:15-17; see Bruce, 195), and as the one who accompanied Israel as the 'rock' in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:4). In view of the role Christ plays in 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul is not founding the story of Christ on the archetypal story of Israel, but rather on the story of divine Wisdom, which helped Israel in the wilderness.\"[91]\n\n^ Gerald O'Collins and Daniel Kendall have called this Liberal Protestant theology \"neo-Arianism.\"[145]\n\n^ Grillmeier: \"The most urgent task of a contemporary Christology is to formulate the Church's dogma - 'God became man and that God-made-man is the individual Jesus Christ' - in such a way that the true meaning of these statements can be understood, and all trace of a mythology impossible to accept nowadays is excluded.\"[147]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Davis 1990, p. 342.\n\n^ a b c Ehrman 2014, p. 171.\n\n^ a b c O'Collins 2009, pp. 1-3.\n\n^ a b c Ramm 1993, p. 15.\n\n^ a b c d Bird, Evans & Gathercole 2014, p. 134, n. 5.\n\n^ a b Ehrman 2014, p. ch. 6-9.\n\n^ Novenson, Matthew (2020). Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Brill. p. 2. ISBN 978-9004437975.\n\n^ a b Gerd Lüdemann, \"An Embarrassing Misrepresentation\" Archived 24 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Free Inquiry, October / November 2007: \"the broad consensus of modern New Testament scholars that the proclamation of Jesus's exalted nature was in large measure the creation of the earliest Christian communities.\"\n\n^ \"Christology | Definition, History, Doctrine, Summary, Importance, & Facts | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 1 March 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ a b c Loke 2017, pp. 3-4.\n\n^ a b c Ehrman 2014, p. 125.\n\n^ a b c Pitre, Brant (2024). Jesus and Divine Christology. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802875129.\n\n^ a b c Bowman Jr., Robert; Komoszewski, J. (2024). The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense. Kregel Academic. ISBN 0825445795.\n\n^ a b Fletcher-Louis, Crispin (2015). Jesus Monotheism: Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond. Wipf and Stock. pp. 3-4. ISBN 1498236251. On this view, during his ministry in Galilee and Judea the disciples must have had either no Christology-no very strong beliefs specifically about Jesus-or a \"low\" one in which Jesus is simply a created being (a prophet, or even the long-awaited Jewish messiah)....There is now, however, a newly emerging consensus that a \"high Christology\" goes back to the earliest period of the church and that it was adopted by the Jerusalem-based disciples in the early years, or even the first months, of the movement after Jesus' death.\n\n^ a b c Pawl, Timothy (2025). The Cambridge Companion to Christology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 33, 40-41. ISBN 978-1009307970. Many scholars concede that the Synoptics do portray Jesus as a divine entity of sorts…scholars identify a range of ways that the Synoptics and Acts depict Jesus as divine. Though Jesus is not overtly preexistent and \"one\" with God as in John, he does still arguably emerge as a divine being in the Synoptics and Acts…While some of these narrative descriptors situate Jesus as a divinity in a more general sense, some situate him alongside the God of Israel, or potentially even as a manifestation of Israel's God.\n\n^ a b Ehrman 2014, p. 108.\n\n^ Kärkkäinen 2016.\n\n^ Brown 2004, p. 3.\n\n^ \nChan, Mark L. Y. (2001). Christology from Within and Ahead: Hermeneutics, Contingency, and the Quest for Transcontextual Criteria in Christology. BRILL. pp. 59-62. ISBN 978-90-04-11844-7. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ a b c O'Collins 2009, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ a b c d Brown 2004, p. 4.\n\n^ a b Pannenberg 1968, p. 33.\n\n^ Bobichon, Philippe (1 January 2011). \"Filiation divine du Christ et filiation divine des chrétiens dans les écrits de Justin Martyr\". In: Patricio de Navascués Benlloch - Manuel Crespo Losada - Andrés Sáez Gutiérrez (dir.), Filiación. Cultura pagana, religión de Israel, orígenes del cristianismo, vol. III, Madrid, pp. 337-378. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 27 March 2021.\n\n^ O'Collins 2009, p. 16.\n\n^ a b c Introducing Christian Doctrine by Millard J. Erickson, L. Arnold Hustad 2001, p. 234\n\n^ Hurtado 2005, pp. 134-152.\n\n^ \"Is Jesus God? (Romans 9:5)\". billmounce.com. Archived from the original on 23 June 2021. Retrieved 15 July 2022.\n\n^ a b c Ehrman 1993.\n\n^ a b c McGrath 2007, p. 282.\n\n^ Nestorius (2002). The Bazaar of Heracleides. G. R. Driver, Leonard Hodgson. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-7252-0239-9.\n\n^ \"Atonement\". Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005\n\n^ Weaver 2001, p. 2.\n\n^ Beilby & Eddy 2009, pp. 11-20.\n\n^ Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, E.T. London: SPCK; New York: Macmillan, 1931\n\n^ Vincent Taylor, The Cross of Christ (London: Macmillan & Co, 1956), pp. 71-77\n\n2\n\n^ Pugh 2015, p. 8.\n\n^ Leon Morris, 'Theories of the Atonement' in Elwell Evangelical Dictionary.\n\n^ Pugh 2015, p. 1.\n\n^ Pugh 2015, pp. 1, 26.\n\n^ Pugh 2015, p. 31.\n\n^ Tuomala, Jeffrey (1993), \"Christ's Atonement as the Model for Civil Justice\", American Journal of Jurisprudence, 38: 221-255, doi:10.1093/ajj/38.1.221, archived from the original on 17 June 2020, retrieved 11 December 2019\n\n^ a b Taylor 1956, pp. 71-72.\n\n^ a b Packer 1973.\n\n^ Baker 2006, p. 25.\n\n^ Beilby & Eddy 2009, p. 17.\n\n^ a b Weaver 2001, p. 18.\n\n^ Beilby & Eddy 2009, p. 18.\n\n^ a b Beilby & Eddy 2009, p. 19.\n\n^ Jeremiah, David. 2009. Living With Confidence in a Chaotic World, pp. 96 & 124. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.\n\n^ Massengale, Jamey. 2013.Renegade Gospel, The Jesus Manifold\n\n^ a b c McGrath 2006, pp. 137-141.\n\n^ Acts 17:16-34\n\n^ McGrath 2006, pp. 137-41.\n\n^ Creation and redemption: a study in Pauline theology by John G. Gibbs 1971 Brill Publishers pp. 151-153\n\n^ Mercer Commentary on the New Testament by Watson E. Mills 2003 ISBN 0-86554-864-1 pp. 1109-1110\n\n^ Novenson, Matthew (2020). Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Brill. p. 2. ISBN 978-9004437975.\n\n^ a b Charles T. Waldrop (1985). Karl Barth's christology ISBN 90-279-3109-7 pp. 19-23\n\n^ Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (2000). Historical Theology: An Introduction. pp. 50-51. ISBN 0567223574.\n\n^ Loke 2017.\n\n^ a b Ehrman 2014.\n\n^ Talbert 2011, p. 3-6.\n\n^ The Jesus Handbook. William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2022. p. 516. ISBN 9780802876928.\n\n^ Ehrman 2014, pp. 120, 122.\n\n^ Netland 2001, p. 175.\n\n^ Loke 2017, p. 3.\n\n^ Mack 1995.\n\n^ Ehrman 2003.\n\n^ a b c Bart Ehrman, How Jesus became God, Course Guide\n\n^ Talbert 2011, p. 3.\n\n^ Geza Vermez (2008), The Resurrection, pp. 138-139\n\n^ Bird 2017, pp. ix, xi.\n\n^ a b Ehrman 2014, p. 132.\n\n^ Ehrman 2014, p. 122.\n\n^ Loke 2017, p. 4.\n\n^ Loke 2017, pp. 4-5.\n\n^ a b c d e Loke 2017, p. 5.\n\n^ Galatians 2:1-2\n\n^ Acts 9:26-28\n\n^ Acts 15:2\n\n^ Bauckham 2011, pp. 110-111.\n\n^ a b Loke 2017, p. 6.\n\n^ a b Loke 2017, p. 100-135.\n\n^ \"Jesus Worship\". Bible Odyssey. 14 December 2022. Retrieved 27 July 2025.\n\n^ Robinson, John A. T. (1963), Honest to God, p. 72.\n\n^ Hick, John, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, page 27 Archived 14 December 2023 at the Wayback Machine. \"A further point of broad agreement among New Testament scholars [...] is that the historical Jesus did not make the claim to deity that later Christian thought was to make for him: he did not understand himself to be God, or God the Son, incarnate. [...] such evidence as there is has led the historians of the period to conclude, with an impressive degree of unanimity, that Jesus did not claim to be God incarnate.\"\n\n^ Hurtado, Larry W. (2005). How on earth did Jesus become a god?: historical questions about earliest devotion to Jesus. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 4-6. ISBN 0-8028-2861-2. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2020.\n\n^ Wright, N. T. (1999). The challenge of Jesus : rediscovering who Jesus was and is. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. p. 98. ISBN 0-8308-2200-3. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2020.\n\n^ Allison, Dale (2024). The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Cambridge University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-1009232999.\n\n^ Ehrman 2014, p. 113.\n\n^ a b c d Grillmeier & Bowden 1975, p. 15.\n\n^ a b c Witherington 2009, p. 106.\n\n^ Dunn, James D. G. (2011). Christology in the making: a New Testament inquiry into the origins of the doctrine of the incarnation (2nd ed., [Repr.] ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-4257-2.\n\n^ a b c Grillmeier & Bowden 1975, pp. 15-19.\n\n^ Fuller, Reginald (1965). The Foundations of New Testament Christology (1st ed.). New York: Scribner. p. 235. ISBN 9780006418740.\n\n^ Talbert, Charles H. (1 June 1967). \"The Problem of Pre-Existence in Philippians 2:6-11\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 86 (2): 141-153. doi:10.2307/3263269. ISSN 0021-9231. JSTOR 3263269.\n\n^ Sanders, E. P. (1977). Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-1899-5.\n\n^ Dunn, James D. G. (1990). Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 1-7. ISBN 0-664-25095-5. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 15 May 2020.\n\n^ Sanders, E. P. \"St. Paul the Apostle - Theological views\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 15 May 2020.\n\n^ O'Collins 2009, p. 142.\n\n^ a b Larry R. Helyer (2008). The Witness of Jesus, Paul and John: An Exploration in Biblical Theology. ISBN 0-8308-2888-5 p. 282\n\n^ Enslin, Morton S. (1975). \"John and Jesus\". ZNW. 66 (1-2): 1-18. doi:10.1515/zntw.1975.66.1-2.1. ISSN 1613-009X. S2CID 162364599. [Per the Gospel of John] No longer is John [the Baptizer] an independent preacher. He is but a voice, or, to change the figure, a finger pointing to Jesus. The baptism story is not told, although it is referred to (John 1:32f). But the baptism of Jesus is deprived of any significance for Jesus - not surprising since the latter has just been introduced as the preexistent Christ, who had been the effective agent responsible for the world's creation. (Enslin, p. 4)\n\n^ 2 Corinthians 5:17\n\n^ Colossians 1:20\n\n^ Zupez, John (2014). \"Celebrating God's Plan of Creation/Salvation\". Emmanuel. 120: 356-359.\n\n^ Colossians 1:15\n\n^ Karl Rahner (2004). Encyclopedia of theology: a concise Sacramentum mundi ISBN 0-86012-006-6 p. 731\n\n^ John 1:3\n\n^ a b c Johnson, Mini S. (1 January 2005). Christology: Biblical And Historical. Mittal Publications. pp. 229-235. ISBN 978-81-8324-007-9. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Matthew 28:19\n\n^ The Christology of the New Testament. Westminster John Knox Press. January 1959 [1959-01-01]. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-664-24351-7. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ The Christology of the New Testament. Westminster John Knox Press. January 1959 [1959-01-01]. pp. 234-237. ISBN 978-0-664-24351-7. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ a b Fahlbusch 1999, p. 463.\n\n^ a b Rausch 2003, p. 149.\n\n^ \"Internet History Sourcebooks: Medieval Sourcebook\". sourcebooks.fordham.edu. Vol. XIV, p. 207. Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, trans H. R. Percival, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, (repr. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955), XIV, pp. 192-142\n\n^ Jonathan Kirsch, God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism (2004)\n\n^ Charles Freeman, The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (2002)\n\n^ Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788), p. 21\n\n^ O'Collins, Gerald (2004). A concise dictionary of theology. A&C Black. pp. 144-145. ISBN 0-567-08354-3.\n\n^ Marthaler, Berard L. (1993). The Creed: The Apostolic Faith in Contemporary Theology. Twenty-Third Publications. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-89622-537-4. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Campbell, James P. (June 2010). Mary and the Saints by James P. Campbell, 2005, pp. 17-20. Loyola Press. ISBN 978-0829430301.\n\n^ González, Justo L. (1 January 2005). Essential Theological Terms. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-664-22810-1.\n\n^ Hall, Stuart George (1992). Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 211-218. ISBN 978-0-8028-0629-1.\n\n^ Chafer, Lewis Sperry (1 January 1993). Systematic Theology. Kregel Academic. pp. 382-384. ISBN 978-0-8254-2340-6. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Parry, Ken (10 May 2010). The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. John Wiley & Sons. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-4443-3361-9. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Baker, Kenneth (1982). Fundamentals of Catholicism: God, Trinity, Creation, Christ, Mary. Ignatius Press. pp. 228-231. ISBN 978-0-89870-019-0. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Mary, Mother of God by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson 2004 ISBN 0802822665 p. 84\n\n^ a b Price & Gaddis 2006, pp. 1-5.\n\n^ Olson, Roger E. (1999). The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition Reform. InterVarsity Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-8308-1505-0.\n\n^ a b c Armentrout & Boak Slocum 2005, p. 81.\n\n^ Meyendorff 1989, pp. 287-289.\n\n^ a b Espín & Nickoloff 2007, p. 217.\n\n^ a b Beversluis 2000, pp. 21-22.\n\n^ Richardson, Alan; Bowden, John, eds. (1983). The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology. p. 169. ISBN 0664227481.\n\n^ Johnson, Mini S. (1 January 2005). Christology: Biblical And Historical. Mittal Publications. pp. 74-76. ISBN 978-81-8324-007-9. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Gilson, Etienne (1994), The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, p. 502, ISBN 978-0-268-00801-7\n\n^ Johnson, Mini S. (1 January 2005). Christology: Biblical And Historical. Mittal Publications. pp. 76-79. ISBN 978-81-8324-007-9. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ O'Collins 2009, p. 208-12.\n\n^ Goris, Harm J. M. J. (2002). Aquinas as Authority: A Collection of Studies Presented at the Second Conference of the Thomas Insituut Te Utrecht, December 14-16, 2000. Peeters Publishers. pp. 25-35. ISBN 978-90-429-1074-4. Archived from the original on 14 December 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.\n\n^ Christology: Key Readings in Christian Thought by Jeff Astley, David Brown, Ann Loades 2009 ISBN 0-664-23269-8 p. 106\n\n^ Needham, Nick, ed. (2021). The Three Forms of Unity. Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press. pp. 6-7. ISBN 9781954887176.\n\n^ Calvin's Christology by Stephen Edmondson 2004 ISBN 0-521-54154-9 p. 217\n\n^ Calvin's First Catechism by I. John Hesselink 1997 ISBN 0-664-22725-2 p. 217\n\n^ Dunn 2003, p. ch. 4.\n\n^ O'Collins & Kendall 1996, pp. 30-31.\n\n^ Rahner 2004, pp. 755-767.\n\n^ Grillmeier 1975, p. 755.\n\n^ Encyclopedia of Theology: a concise Sacramentum mundi by Karl Rahner 2004 ISBN 0-86012-006-6 p. 1822\n\n^ Carroll, James (2001). Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 102.\n\n^ The eschatology of Hans Urs von Balthasar by Nicholas J. Healy 2005 ISBN 0-19-927836-9 pp. 22-23\n\n^ Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spec, 22, version quoted by Neuner, J. and Dupuis, J., The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, Revised Edition (1983), Collins: London, ISBN 0-00-599706-2 p. 191\n\n^ Pope Francis, Dilexit nos, paragraph 49, published on 24 October 2024, accessed on 11 December 2024\n\n^ Theology of the New Testament by Georg Strecker 2000 ISBN 0-664-22336-2 pp. 401-403\n\n^ Matthew by Grant R. Osborne 2010 ISBN 0-310-32370-3 p. lxxix\n\n^ Matthew 1-13 by Manlio Simonetti 2001 ISBN 0-8308-1486-8 p. 17\n\n^ Matthew 1-2/ Luke 1-2 by Louise Perrotta 2004 ISBN 0-8294-1541-6 p. 19\n\n^ All the Doctrines of the Bible by Herbert Lockyer 1988 ISBN 0-310-28051-6 p. 159\n\n^ a b Matthew's Emmanuel by David D. Kupp 1997 ISBN 0-521-57007-7 pp. 220-224\n\n^ Who do you say that I am?: essays on Christology by Jack Dean Kingsbury, Mark Allan Powell, David R. Bauer 1999 ISBN 0-664-25752-6 p. 17\n\n^ The theology of the Gospel of Matthew by Ulrich Luz 1995 ISBN 0-521-43576-5 p. 31\n\n^ Who do you say that I am? Essays on Christology by Jack Dean Kingsbury, Mark Allan Powell, David R. Bauer 1999 ISBN 0-664-25752-6 p. 106\n\n^ a b New Testament christology by Frank J. Matera 1999 ISBN 0-664-25694-5 p. 67\n\n^ The speeches in Acts: their content, context, and concerns by Marion L. Soards 1994 ISBN 0-664-25221-4 p. 34\n\n^ a b c d Christology by Hans Schwarz 1998 ISBN 0-8028-4463-4 pp 132-134\n\n^ Paul Haffner, 2004 The mystery of Mary Gracewing Press ISBN 0-85244-650-0 p. 17\n\n^ Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States: Baker Academic, 2001), p. 736.\n\n^ Erwin Fahlbusch et al., \"Mariology\", The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 1999-2003), p. 409.\n\n^ Communio, 1996, Volume 23, p. 175\n\n^ Raymond Burke, 2008 Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, seminarians, and Consecrated Persons ISBN 1-57918-355-7 p. xxi\n\n^ Theology for Today by Elmer L. Towns 2008 ISBN 0-15-516138-5 p. 173\n\n^ \"Angel of the Lord\" by T. E. McComiskey in The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2001 ISBN 0-8010-2075-1 p. 62\n\nSources\n\nPrinted sources\n\nArmentrout, Donald S.; Boak Slocum, Robert (2005), An Episcopal dictionary of the church, Church Publishing, ISBN 978-0-89869-211-2\n\nBaker, Mark D. (2006). Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement. Baker Academic. ISBN 978-1-4412-0627-5. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2022.\n\nBauckham, R. (2011), Jesus: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press\n\nBeilby, James K.; Eddy, Paul R. (2009), The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, InterVarsity Press\n\nBermejo-Rubio, Fernando (2017). Feldt, Laura; Valk, Ülo (eds.). \"The Process of Jesus' Deification and Cognitive Dissonance Theory\". Numen. 64 (2-3). Leiden: Brill Publishers: 119-152. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341457. eISSN 1568-5276. ISSN 0029-5973. JSTOR 44505332. S2CID 148616605.\n\nBeversluis, Joel Diederik (2000), Sourcebook of the world's religions, New World Library, ISBN 978-1-57731-121-8\n\nBird, Michael F.; Evans, Craig A.; Gathercole, Simon (2014), \"Endnotes - Chapter 1\", How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature - A Response to Bart Ehrman, Zondervan, ISBN 978-0-310-51961-4\n\nBird, Michael F. (2017), Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology, Wim. B. Eerdmans Publishing\n\nBrown, Raymond Edward (2004), An Introduction to New Testament Christology, Paulist Press\n\nChilton, Bruce. \"The Son of Man: Who Was He?\" Bible Review. August 1996, 35+.\n\nCullmann, Oscar (1980). The Christology of the New Testament. trans. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-24351-7\n\nDavis, Leo Donald (1990), The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology (Theology and Life Series 21), Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, ISBN 978-0-8146-5616-7\n\nDunn, James D. G. (2003), Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8028-3931-2\n\nEhrman, Bart D. (1993), The Orthodox corruption of scripture: the effect of early Christological controversies on the text of the New Testament, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-510279-6, archived from the original on 14 December 2023, retrieved 16 October 2020\n\nEhrman, Bart D. (2003), Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-972712-4, archived from the original on 14 December 2023, retrieved 27 February 2019\n\nEhrman, Bart (2014), How Jesus became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, Harper Collins\n\nEspín, Orlando O.; Nickoloff, James B. (2007), An introductory dictionary of theology and religious studies, Liturgical Press, ISBN 978-0-8146-5856-7\n\nFahlbusch, Erwin (1999), The encyclopedia of Christianity, Brill\n\nFuller, Reginald H. (1965). The Foundations of New Testament Christology. New York: Scribners. ISBN 0-684-15532-X\n\nGreene, Colin J.D. (2004). Christology in Cultural Perspective: Marking Out the Horizons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-2792-6\n\nGrillmeier, Alois (1975), \"Jesus Christ: III. Christology\", in Rahner, Karl (ed.), Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi (reprint ed.), A&C Black, ISBN 9780860120063, retrieved 9 May 2016\n\nGrillmeier, Aloys; Bowden, John (1975), Christ in Christian Tradition: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 978-0-664-22301-4\n\nHodgson, Peter C. (1994). Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.\n\nHurtado, Larry W. (2003), Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0802860705, OCLC 51623141\n\nKärkkäinen, Veli-Matti (2016), Christology: A Global Introduction, Baker Academic\n\nKingsbury, Jack Dean (1989). The Christology of Mark's Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.\n\nLetham, Robert. The Work of Christ. Contours of Christian Theology. Downer Grove: IVP, 1993, ISBN 0-8308-1532-5\n\nLoke, Andrew Ter Ern (2017), The Origin of Divine Christology, vol. 169, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-108-19142-5\n\nMack, Burton L. (1995), Who wrote the New Testament? The making of the Christian myth, Harper San Francisco, ISBN 978-0-06-065517-4\n\nMcGrath, Alister E. (2006), Christianity: an introduction, Wiley, ISBN 978-1-4051-0901-7\n\nMacLeod, Donald (1998). The Person of Christ: Contours of Christian Theology. Downer Grove: IVP, ISBN 0-8308-1537-6\n\nMcGrath, Alister E. (2007), Christian theology: an introduction, Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-5360-7, archived from the original on 14 December 2023, retrieved 16 October 2020\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 978-0-88-141056-3. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2022.\n\nNetland, Harold (2001), Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith & Mission, InterVarsity Press\n\nO'Collins, Gerald; Kendall, Daniel (1996), Focus on Jesus: Essays in Christology and Soteriology, Gracewing Publishing\n\nO'Collins, Gerald (2009), Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus, OUP Oxford, ISBN 978-0-19-955787-5\n\nPacker, J. I. (1973), What did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution, Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture\n\nPannenberg, Wolfhart (1968), Jesus God and Man, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 978-0-664-24468-2\n\nWolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, T & T Clark, 1994 Vol.2.\n\nPrice, Richard; Gaddis, Michael (2006), The acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 978-0-85323-039-7\n\nPugh, Ben (2015), Atonement Theories: A Way through the Maze, James Clarke & Co\n\nRahner, Karl (2004), Encyclopedia of theology: a concise Sacramentum mundi, A&C Black, ISBN 978-0-86012-006-3\n\nRamm, Bernard L. (1993), \"Christology at the Center\", An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic, Regent College Publishing, ISBN 9781573830089\n\nRausch, Thomas P. (2003), Who is Jesus? : an introduction to Christology, Liturgical Press, ISBN 978-0-8146-5078-3\n\nSchwarz, Hans (1998). Christology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-4463-4\n\nTalbert, Charles H. (2011), The Development of Christology during the First Hundred Years: and Other Essays on Early Christian Christology. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 140, Brill\n\nTaylor, Vincent (1956), The Cross of Christ, Macmillan & Co\n\nWeaver, J. Denny (2001), The Nonviolent Atonement, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing\n\nWitherington, Ben (2009), \"Christology - Paul's christology\", in Hawthorne, Gerald F.; Martin, Ralph P.; Reid, Daniel G. (eds.), Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 978-0-8308-7491-0\n\nWeb-sources\n\n^ \"The Work of Jesus Christ: Summary\". Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.\n\n^ a b \n\"Lecture 8: The Work of Jesus Christ: Summary\". Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.\n\n^ a b c \n\"Christology | Definition, History, Doctrine, Summary, Importance, & Facts | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 1 March 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ a b c d e \n\"CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Christology\". www.newadvent.org. Archived from the original on 3 July 2017. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ \nChabot, Eric (11 May 2009). \"THINKAPOLOGETICS.COM: Jesus- A Functional or Ontological Christology?\". THINKAPOLOGETICS.COM. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ a b c \"The Origin of \"Divine Christology\"?\". Larry Hurtado's Blog. 9 October 2017. Archived from the original on 27 February 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ a b c d Ehrman, Bart D. (14 February 2013). \"Incarnation Christology, Angels, and Paul\". The Bart Ehrman Blog. Archived from the original on 22 April 2018. Retrieved 2 May 2018.\n\n^ Ehrman, Bart (6 February 2013). \"The Earliest Christology\". Archived from the original on 28 February 2019.\n\n^ \"\"Early High Christology\": A \"Paradigm Shift\"? \"New Perspective\"?\". Larry Hurtado's Blog. 10 July 2015. Archived from the original on 1 March 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ a b c Bouma, Jeremy (27 March 2014). \"The Early High Christology Club and Bart Ehrman - An Excerpt from 'How God Became Jesus'\". Zondervan Academic Blog. HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Archived from the original on 21 April 2018. Retrieved 2 May 2018.\n\n^ Loke, Andrew (18 February 2019). \"Is Jesus God? A Historical Evaluation Concerning the Deity of Christ\". Ethos Institute. Archived from the original on 8 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.\n\n^ Loke, Andrew (18 February 2019). \"Is Jesus God? A Historical Evaluation Concerning the Deity of Christ\". Ethos Institute. Archived from the original on 8 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.\n\n^ \"The Fifth Ecumenical Council - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America\". Archived from the original on 26 March 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ \"The Sixth Ecumenical Council - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America\". Archived from the original on 26 March 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ \"The Seventh Ecumenical Council\". Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Archived from the original on 24 March 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Jesus - The debate over Christology in modern Christian thought | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2023.\n\n^ \"Mariology Is Christology\", in Vittorio Messori, The Mary Hypothesis, Rome: 2005. [1] Archived 5 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine\n\nFurther reading\n\nOverview\n\nD. Glenn Butner, Jr. Christological Dogmatics: A Theological Witness to the Person and Work of Christ. Baker Academic, 2026.\n\nKereszty, Roch A. Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology, 3rd edn. Alba House, 2022.\n\nMurphy, Francesca Aran, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Christology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.\n\nPawl, Timothy J. & Michael L. Peterson, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.\n\nReeves, Michael (2015). Rejoicing in Christ. IVP. ISBN 978-0830840229.\n\nEarly high Christology\n\nMoehlman, Conrad Henry (1960), How Jesus Became God: An Historical Study of the Life of Jesus to the Age of Constantine, Philosophical Library\n\nBird, Michael F. (2017), Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology, Wim. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8028-7506-8\n\nHurtado, Larry W. (2003), Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0802860705, OCLC 51623141\n\nHurtado, Larry W. (2005), How on Earth did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0802828613, OCLC 61461917\n\nBauckham, Richard (2008), Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-4559-7\n\nEhrman, Bart D. (2014), How Jesus became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, Harper Collins\n\nBird, Michael F.; Evans, Craig A.; Gathercole, Simon; Hill, Charles E.; Tilling, Chris (2014), How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature - A Response to Bart Ehrman, Zondervan, ISBN 978-0-310-51961-4\n\nLoke, Andrew Ter Ern (2017), The Origin of Divine Christology, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1107199262\n\nFletcher-Louis, Crispin (2015), Jesus Monotheism: Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond, Wipf and Stock Publishers, ISBN 978-1-7252-5622-4\n\nAtonement\n\nPugh, Ben (2015), Atonement Theories: A Way through the Maze, James Clarke & Co\n\nExternal links\n\nEncyclopædia Britannica, Christology - full access article"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christology"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 11956}, {"slug": "reference-baz-tribe", "title": "Baz (tribe)", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Baz (Syriac: ܒܙ) was one of the five independent Assyrian tribes of the Hakkari region, and is present in both Iraq and Syria today.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Baz (Syriac: ܒܙ) was one of the five independent Assyrian tribes of the Hakkari region, and is present in both Iraq and Syria today.\n\nHistory\n\nMaha Khtayya was the chief village of the region, followed by Shwawwa.[1] \n\nThe Assyrians of the Baz tribe were renowned carpenters and iron-workers who worked not only in their villages, but throughout Mosul and other large towns of Upper Mesopotamia.[2]\n\nAssyrian Villages in Baz, Turkey\n\nThe Assyrian settlements that traditionally comprised the Baz region in Hakkari consist of the following villages.[1][3] The region has been empty since they were abandoned in 1915 due to the Assyrian genocide.[1]\n\nArwantus (Artusnaye)\n\nShwawwa (Shawutnaye)\n\nMaha Khtayya (Mahaye) (37°27 N, 43°53 E)\n\nBe-Selim (Selimnaye)\n\nArgab (Argabaye)\n\nKojij (Kojijnaye)\n\nCurrent Baznaye settlements\n\nThese are the villages occupied after the Baznaye were resettled by the British in 1920s and the French in the 1930s.\n\nIraq\n\nBabilo (Shawutnaye)\n\nBagereh (Selimnaye)\n\nChaqala (Kojijnaye)\n\nSardarawa (Artusnaye)\n\nSorka (Mahaye)\n\nSimele (Mahaye)\n\nBadarrash (Artusnaye)\n\nSarsing (Artusnaye)\n\nSikren (Artusnaye)\n\nSedar (Shawutnaye)\n\nPirozawa (Argabaye)\n\nAin Sifni (Mixed Baznaye)\n\nMawana (Mixed Baznaye)\n\nSyria\n\nTell Baz (Shawutnaye, Mahaye and some Argabaye)[4][5]\n\nTell Ruman Foqani (Selimnaye and Mahaye)[4][6]\n\nFamous people\n\nGeneral Agha Petros Elia - Assyrian military leader during World War I and Chief Negotiator for the Assyrian people during the 1920s.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Mutzafi, Hezy (2000). \"The Neo-Aramaic dialect of Maha Khtaya d-Baz. Phonology, morphology and texts\". Journal of Semitic Studies. 45: 293, 294. doi:10.1093/jss/45.2.293.\n\n^ Maunsell, F.R. (1901). \"Central Kurdistan\". The Geographical Journal. 18 (2): 138. doi:10.2307/1775333. JSTOR 1775333.\n\n^ Ainsworth, William (1841). \"An Account of a Visit to the Chaldeans, Inhabiting Central Kurdistan; And of an Ascent of the Peak of Rowandiz (Tur Sheikhiwa) in Summer in 1840\". Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 11: 35. doi:10.2307/1797632. JSTOR 1797632.\n\n^ a b Dodge, Bayard (1 July 1940). \"The settlement of the Assyrians on the Khabbur\". Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. 27 (3): 314. doi:10.1080/03068374008730969. ISSN 0035-8789.\n\n^ Fernandez, Alberto M. (1998). \"Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 12 (1): 41, 42. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-28. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ Fernandez, Alberto M. (1998). \"Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 12 (1): 41, 42. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-28. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n38°01′N 44°06′E / 38.017°N 44.100°E / 38.017; 44.100"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-baz-tribe"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 433}, {"slug": "reference-srnak-province", "title": "Şırnak Province", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Şırnak Province (Turkish: Şırnak ili, Kurdish: Parêzgeha Şirnex[2]) is a province in Turkey in the Southeastern Anatolia Region.[3] Şırnak Province was created in 1990, with areas that were formerly part of the Siirt, Hakkâri and Mardin Provinces.[4][5] It borders both Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Syria. The current...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Şırnak Province\n Şırnak ili\n\nProvince\n\nBeytüşşebap, Uludere dağ\n\nLocation of Şırnak Province in Turkey\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nSeatŞırnak\n\nGovernment\n\n • GovernorBirol Ekici\n\nArea7,078 km2 (2,733 sq mi)\n\nPopulation (2023)[1]570,745\n\n • Density80.64/km2 (208.8/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nArea code0486\n\nWebsitewww.sirnak.gov.tr\n\nŞırnak Province (Turkish: Şırnak ili, Kurdish: Parêzgeha Şirnex[2]) is a province in Turkey in the Southeastern Anatolia Region.[3] Şırnak Province was created in 1990, with areas that were formerly part of the Siirt, Hakkâri and Mardin Provinces.[4][5] It borders both Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Syria. The current Governor of the province is Cevdet Atay.[6]\n\nThe province had a population of 570,745 in 2023.[1] Its area is 7,078 km2.[7] It encompasses 19 municipalities, 240 villages and 192 hamlets.[3]\n\nConsidered part of Turkish Kurdistan,[8] the province has a Kurdish majority.[9]\n\nGeography\n\nŞırnak Province has some mountainous regions in the west and the south, but the majority of the province consists of plateaus, resulting from the many rivers that cross it. These include the Tigris (and its tributaries Hezil and Kızılsu) and Çağlayan. The most important mountains are Mount Cudi (2089 m),[10] Mount Gabar, Mount Namaz and Mount Altın.\n\nDistricts\n\nŞırnak province is divided into seven districts (center district in bold):[3]\n\nBeytüşşebap District\n\nCizre District\n\nGüçlükonak District\n\nİdil District\n\nSilopi District\n\nŞırnak District\n\nUludere District\n\nHistory\n\nInspectorate-General\n\nIn order to Turkify the local population,[11] in June 1927, Law 1164 was passed,[12] which allowed the creation of Inspectorates-General (Umumi Müffetişlik, UM).[13] The province was included in the First Inspectorate General (Turkish: Birinci Umumi Müfettişlik), which covered the provinces of Hakkâri, Siirt, Van, Mardin, Şırnak Bitlis, Sanlıurfa, Elaziğ, and Diyarbakır.[14] The First Inspectorate General was established in January 1928 and had its headquarters in Diyarbakır.[15] The UM was governed by an Inspector General, who governed with a wide-ranging authority over civilian, juridical and military matters.[13] In 1948 the policy of governing the province within the Inspectorate General was abandoned and the administration was not re-employed again,[13] but the office of the Inspector General was only dissolved in 1952 during the government of the Democrat Party.[16]\n\nKurdish-Turkish conflict\n\nŞırnak has been a focal point in the ongoing Kurdish-Turkish conflict, which began in 1984.[17] From its creation in 1990 to 2002, Şırnak Province was part of the OHAL (state of emergency) region which was declared to counter the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and governed by a supergovernor, who was given additional powers than a normal Turkish provincial governor, including the power to relocate and resettle whole settlements.[18] In December 1990, the supergovernor and the provincial governors in the OHAL region received absolute immunity from prosecution in connection with decisions they made under Decree No. 430.[19]\n\nTurkish Forces' operation, 1992\n\nOn 18 August 1992 Turkish forces attacked the city, killing 54 people, mostly children and women. For three days homes were burned, livestock were killed, and people were killed. 20,000 out of 25,000 residents fled the city, Amnesty International reported.[20][21]\n\nDuring the operation, a curfew was imposed in the town and when it finally ended, the whole city was in ruins.\n\nWhile the town was under bombardment, there was no way to get an account of what was happening in the region as journalists were prevented from entering the city centre which was completely burned down by the security forces. Şırnak was under fire for three days and tanks and cannons were used to hit buildings occupied by civilians.[22]\n\nOn 26 August 1992, Amnesty International sent requests to then Prime Minister, Süleyman Demirel, Interior Minister İsmet Sezgin, Emergency Legislation Governor Ünal Erkan and Şırnak province governor Mustafa Mala, to immediately initiate an independent and impartial inquiry into the events, to ensure no-one was mistreated in police custody and to make their results public.[23]\n\n2015-2016 Clashes\n\nThe 2015-16 Şırnak clashes took place in Şırnak City, Cizre, Idil and Silopi. On 14 March 2016 a curfew was declared in Şırnak province. This marked the start of an 80 day long operation against Kurdish PKK militants in the province. The curfew remained in place for 9 months.[24] 2,044 buildings were destroyed during the military operation.[25]\n\nPopulation\n\nHistoric population figures of the province:[26][1]\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±%\n\n1990262,006-    \n\n2000353,197+34.8%\n\n2010430,109+21.8%\n\n2020537,762+25.0%\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Population Of Municipalities, Villages And Quarters\". TÜİK. Retrieved 10 May 2024.\n\n^ \"Li Şirnexê qedexeya hatûçûnê hate ragehandin Kaynak: Li Şirnexê qedexeya hatûçûnê hate ragehandin\" (in Kurdish). Rûpelanu. 11 November 2019. Retrieved 27 April 2020.\n\n^ a b c \"Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri\". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ Kanun No. 3647, Resmî Gazete, 18 May 1990.\n\n^ \"İl İdaresi ve Mülki Bölümler Şube Müdürlüğü İstatistikleri - İl ve İlçe Kuruluş Tarihleri\" (PDF) (in Turkish). p. 77. Retrieved 25 October 2023.\n\n^ \"Yöneticilerimiz\". Şırnak Valiliği. Retrieved 22 October 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Vaner, Semih (2005). La Turquie (in French). Fayard. p. 366. ISBN 9782213623696.\n\n^ Watts, Nicole F. (2010). Activists in Office: Kurdish Politics and Protest in Turkey. University of Washington Press. p. 167. ISBN 9780295990507.\n\n^ Siirt 1973 (in Turkish). Ajans-Türk Matbaacilak Sanayii. 1973. p. 102.\n\n^ Üngör, Umut. \"Young Turk social engineering : mass violence and the nation state in eastern Turkey, 1913- 1950\" (PDF). University of Amsterdam. pp. 244-247. Retrieved 8 April 2020.\n\n^ Aydogan, Erdal. \"Üçüncü Umumi Müfettişliği'nin Kurulması ve III. Umumî Müfettiş Tahsin Uzer'in Bazı Önemli Faaliyetleri\". Retrieved 8 April 2020.\n\n^ a b c Bayir, Derya (22 April 2016). Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law. Routledge. pp. 139-141. ISBN 978-1-317-09579-8.\n\n^ Jongerden, Joost (2007-01-01). The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatical Policies, Modernity and War. BRILL. p. 53. ISBN 978-90-04-15557-2.\n\n^ Umut, Üngör. \"Young Turk social engineering : mass violence and the nation state in eastern Turkey, 1913- 1950\" (PDF). University of Amsterdam. p. 258. Retrieved 8 April 2020.\n\n^ Bozarslan, Hamit (2008-04-17). Fleet, Kate; Faroqhi, Suraiya; Kasaba, Reşat; Kunt, I. Metin (eds.). The Cambridge History of Turkey. Cambridge University Press. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-521-62096-3.\n\n^ \"Turkey's Southeast Beginning to Resemble Syria\". al-monitor. June 13, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2016.\n\n^ Jongerden, Joost (2007). The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds. Brill. pp. 141-142. ISBN 978-90-47-42011-8.\n\n^ Norwegian Refugee Council/Global IDP Project (4 October 2002). \"Profile of internal displacement: Turkey\" (PDF). p. 78.\n\n^ amnesty.org\n\n^ 18 AUGUST 1992: WHEN ŞIRNAK WAS TURNED INTO A DEAD CITY\n\n^ \"KURDS IN TURKEY SEEM TO BE NEARING FULL-SCALE REVOLT (Published 1992)\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2023-04-16.\n\n^ \"AI Index: EUR 44/85/92\" (PDF). Amnesty International. 3 September 1992. Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Turkey's Şırnak Now Nothing But Rubble\". Al-Monitor. December 2, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2016.\n\n^ \"Şırnak'ta hasar tespiti yappıldı!..2 bin 44 ev yıkıldı\". dogan haber ajansi (in Turkish). November 16, 2016. Retrieved December 31, 2016.\n\n^ \"Genel Nüfus Sayımları\" (in Turkish). Retrieved 1 March 2023.\n\n37°26′58″N 42°34′28″E / 37.44944°N 42.57444°E / 37.44944; 42.57444"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-srnak-province"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1192}, {"slug": "reference-ma-amoul", "title": "Ma'amoul", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Ma'amoul (Arabic: معمول maʿmūl [mæʕˈmuːl]) is a filled cookie made with semolina flour and butter. Originating in the Arab world, the filling can be made with dried fruits like figs, dates, or nuts such as pistachios, walnuts, and occasionally almonds or cheese.[2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ma'amoul\nMa'amoul, dusted with powdered sugar, a mould for making ma'amoul can be seen in the background\n\nTypeCookie\n\nCourseDessert\n\nPlace of originLevant[1]\n\nRegion or stateMiddle East\n\nMain ingredientsSemolina, dates, pistachios or walnuts\n\n Cookbook: Ma'amoul\n\n  Media: Ma'amoul\n\nMa'amoul (Arabic: معمول maʿmūl [mæʕˈmuːl]) is a filled cookie made with semolina flour and butter. Originating in the Arab world, the filling can be made with dried fruits like figs, dates, or nuts such as pistachios, walnuts, and occasionally almonds or cheese.[2]\n\nMa'amoul is usually made during the holidays of Easter, and a few days before Eid (then stored to be served with Arab coffee and chocolate to guests who come during the holiday).[2][3][4] It is popular throughout the Arab world.[5]\n\nThey may be in the shape of balls, domed or flattened cookies. They can either be decorated by hand or be made in special wooden moulds called tabe.[6] Different moulds can denote different fillings.[7]\n\nPreparation\n\nThe dough is prepared by mixing semolina and butter together and leaving the batter to rest so that the semolina absorbs the butter, before being used to enclose the filling, the filled ma'amoul is then squeezed into a mold then baked.[7][8][9][10]\n\nHistory\n\nLevantine maʿamoul has been linked by food historians to kleicha, a Mesopotamian date-filled cookie attested since at least the medieval period, and to kahk, an ancient Egyptian date-filled cookie.[9][1][11][8]\n\nAn 1895 Egyptian Arabic-English dictionary by author Socrates Spiro described \"maʿmûl\" as \"a kind of Syrian cake\"; the name was translated as \"made, manufactured\".[12]\n\nLate 19th-century proceedings by the International Congress of Orientalists described both ma'amoul and karabij with natef; ma'amoul was described as a small, round, nut-filled or plain semolina flour cookie with a decorated top, and karabij was described as a long, finger-shaped, nut-filled cookie served with or without natef cream.[13] A recipe for walnut-filled ma'amoul appeared in the 1885 Beirut cookbook Ustadh al-Tabbakhin.[14]\n\nIn 1883, Swedish Orientalist Carlo Landberg described ornamented, date-filled ('ajwa) ma'amoul being made for Eid al-Adha in Syria.[15]\n\nVariations\n\nThe cookies can be filled with nuts (commonly used nuts are pistachios, almonds or walnuts) or dried fruits (such as figs[16][17]), most commonly orange-scented date paste.[18] A variety of spices are also added to the dough, like mastic (Arabic gum) and mahleb, other common traditional flavorings include rose water.[9][8]\n\nIn Arabian Gulf cuisine, ma'amoul are traditionally flavored with saffron and cardamom, and sometimes made with white flour.[16]\n\nIn Turkey, maamouls are referred to as kömbe and the filling usually consists of crushed walnuts, ginger and cinnamon.[19]\n\nIn Latakia, Syria, cheese is a traditional filling.[20][21][22]\n\nMa'amoul maad\n\nMa'amoul maad (Arabic: معمول مد) is a variation of ma'amoul where instead of shaping the dough into individual cookies, it is shaped into a 3-layer cake, with the semolina dough at the bottom layer, the filling in the second layer, and more semolina dough at the top layer.[23][24] It is popular in Lebanon, where qishta is a popular filling besides nuts and dates.[24][25][26]\n\nA similar dessert called dahdah (Arabic: دحدح, romanized: daḥdaḥ, lit. 'plump') is made in Palestine, specifically in Hebron.[27][28][29]\n\nKarabij\n\nKarabij Halab (Arabic: كرابيج حلب, lit. 'whips of Aleppo') are a stuffed semolina cookie originating from Aleppo, Syria, they are typically stuffed with pistachios, and are served with natef, a sort of marshmallow creme,[30][31]. They are a variation of ma'amoul,[32] and are also popular in Lebanon.[33][34]\n\nKerebiç is Turkish a variation of karabij.[35][36] It is a semolina cookie that stuffed with nuts and served with soapwort cream, it is popular in Mersin during Ramadan.[37][38][39][40] It is a registered patent under the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office as a geographical indication, according to the patent office, it was popularized by Arab confectioners in the 1940s.[41][42][43]\n\n Maamoul at Vienna Naschmarkt\n\n Lebanese karabij with cream (center)\n\n Turkish Kerebiç in Mersin\n\n Ma'amoul filled with dates and nuts, not yet baked\n\nEtymology\n\nThe Arabic word (معمول maʿmūl [mæʕˈmuːl]) is derived from the Arabic verb ʿamala (عمل, meaning \"to do\"). Grammatically, it is the verb's passive past participle (اسم مفعول), meaning \"that which has been done\" or \"made.\"[44][8]\n\nIt is also commonly referred to as maʿmūl al-ʿīd (Arabic: معمول العيد, lit. 'Eid ma'amoul').[45][46]\n\nCustoms\n\nWhile ma'amoul are consumed all-year long, they are most associated with Eid Al-Fitr or iftar as meals in celebration of the end of Ramadan's fasting.[47] For Christian Arabs as well, ma'amoul is also part of the Easter celebrations.[6]\n\nMa'amoul was traditionally served by the Sephardic Jewish community of Jerusalem during Purim. It was described as the \"Sephardic Hamantash\".[48] Ma'amoul is also eaten by Samaritans on Sukkot.[49]\n\nSee also\n\nKleicha\n\nKolompeh\n\nKoloocheh\n\nKue makmur\n\nList of cookies\n\nList of pastries\n\nList of shortbread biscuits and cookies\n\nBalparmak tatlısı\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Marks, Gil (17 November 2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. pp. 1175-1180. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6. Retrieved 2 January 2026.\n\n^ a b Robertson, Amy E. (11 April 2017). \"Ma'amoul: An Ancient Cookie That Ushers In Easter And Eid In The Middle East\". The Salt. NPR. Retrieved 10 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Ma'amoul: The Sweet Tradition of Eid\". The Irresistible Magazine. Al Rifai. 7 September 2016. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Ma'amoul pie, or how to leave well enough alone\". At the Immigrant's Table. 3 February 2014. Archived from the original on 14 April 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2017.\n\n^ Obayda, Gloria (2010). Sweets And Desserts Of The Middle East. Aribasteel. ISBN 9780955268144.\n\n^ a b Helou, Anissa (2015). Sweet Middle East: Classic Recipes, from Baklava to Fig Ice Cream. Photographs by Linda Pugliese. Chronicle Books. ISBN 9780594094197.\n\n^ a b Ayoub, Sarah; Tabbouch, Sivine; Hazim, Karima Chloe (5 April 2023). \"'A very sensory experience': the magic of maamoul, and how to make your own - recipe\". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c d \nAli, Lillian (17 June 2025). \"The History of Ma'amoul, a Middle Eastern Cookie That Is a 'Love Letter' to Our Ancestors\". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ a b c Fox, Tessa (14 April 2022). \"Maamoul: A sweet celebration for Christians and Muslims\". BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2026.\n\n^ Taylor, Elise (9 April 2024). \"Umber Ahmad Shares Her Recipe for Ma'amoul Cookies to Make This Eid al-Fitr\". Vogue. Retrieved 23 March 2026.\n\n^ Robertson, Amy E. (11 April 2017). \"Maamoul: An Ancient Cookie That Ushers In Easter And Eid In The Middle East\". NPR. Retrieved 2 January 2026.\n\n^ Spiro, Socrates (1895). An Arabic-English Vocabulary of the Colloquial Arabic of Egypt: Containing the Vernacular Idioms and Expressions, Slang Phrases, Etc., Etc., Used by the Native Egyptians (in Arabic). Al-Mokattam printing office. p. 414. Retrieved 14 December 2025.\n\n^ Actes du huitième congrès international des orientalistes tenu en 1889 à Stockholm et à Christiania (in German). Brill. 1891. pp. 400-403. Retrieved 22 December 2025.\n\n^ Sarkis, Khalil [in Arabic] (1885). كتاب تذكرة الخواتين واستاذ الطباخين (in Arabic). المطبعة الادبية. p. 475. Retrieved 6 January 2026.\n\n^ \nLandberg, Carlo (1883). Proverbes et dictons de la province de Syrie, section de Ṣaydâ ... [Proverbs and sayings from the province of Syria, section of Ṣaydâ ...] (in French). Brill. p. 126. Retrieved 11 January 2026.\n\n^ a b Al-Khusaibi, Mohammed; Al-Habsi, Nasser; Rahman, Mohammad Shafiur (18 October 2019). Traditional Foods: History, Preparation, Processing and Safety. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-24620-4. Retrieved 23 March 2026.\n\n^ \"الحلويات الدمشقية عراقة أضحت كماليات على الموائد\" [Damascene sweets, once a tradition, have become mere luxuries on the table.]. Al-Bayan (newspaper) (in Arabic). 2021. Retrieved 23 March 2026.\n\n^ Goldstein, Joyce (2002). Saffron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean. Chronicle Books. p. 169. ISBN 9780811830522.\n\n^ Warren, Ozlem. \"Tag: variations of ma'amoul\". Ozlem's Turkish Table. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\n^ \nالمأكولات التراثية في اللاذقية… ارتباط بمناسبات اجتماعية ومنتجات من خير الأرض والبحر [Traditional cuisine in Latakia… linked to social occasions and products from the bounty of the land and sea]. Syrian Arab News Agency (in Arabic). 20 March 2024. Archived from the original on 10 November 2025. Retrieved 11 January 2026.\n\n^ \"Ma'moul bil jibn | Traditional Cheese Dessert From Latakia Governorate\". TasteAtlas. Retrieved 11 January 2026.\n\n^ \"الكرابيج والمعمول بالجبن\" حلويات لاذقانية حاضرة في عيد الفطر.. ما أسعارها في السوق؟ [\"Karabij and Maamoul with cheese\" are Latakia sweets present during Eid al-Fitr.. What are their prices in the market?]. Athr Press (in Arabic). 20 April 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2026.\n\n^ Tamimi, Sami; Wrigley, Tara. \"Ma'amoul Bars - Ma'amoul Maad\". The Happy Foodie. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Date and Cinnamon Squares | Maamoul Mad Recipe\". John Gregory Smith. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ Kara, Faiyaz (20 September 2023). \"Beirut Bakery and Deli, Beirut Grill and Deli deliver Levantine delights of the highest order\". Orlando Weekly. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ إكرام صعب (17 April 2021). \"كلاّج رمضان\".. حلوى بيروتية لم تعد للفقراء [\"Kallaj Ramadan\"... A Beiruti sweet that is no longer for the poor]. Sky News Arabia. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ أبو رجائي \"ملك الدحدح\" في الخليل.. البيع بالبركة [Abu Rajai, \"King of Dahdah\" in Hebron... Selling by the Blessings]. Al-Jazeera (in Arabic). 7 November 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ Ismail, Manal. \"Dahdah (Palestinian Semolina Cake) Recipe - Manal Ismail\". Asif. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ طريقة عمل الدحدح الفلسطيني بالسميد .. حلوى المناسبات بلمسة تراثية [How to make Palestinian Dahdah with semolina...a sweet for special occasions with a traditional touch.]. Sada El-Balad (in Arabic). 27 January 2025. Retrieved 10 September 2025.\n\n^ Davidson, Alan (2014). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. p. 440. ISBN 978-0-19-967733-7. Retrieved 1 October 2025.\n\n^ Salloum, Habeeb; Salloum, Muna; Elias, Leila Salloum (25 June 2013). Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of Traditional Arab Sweets. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85772-330-7. Retrieved 1 October 2025.\n\n^ Roden, Claudia (22 March 2018). A New Book of Middle Eastern Food: The Essential Guide to Middle Eastern Cooking. As Heard on BBC Radio 4. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-1-4059-3778-8. Retrieved 1 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Karabij Halab And Natef Authentic Recipe | TasteAtlas\". Taste Atlas. Retrieved 1 October 2025.\n\n^ Dbesh, Nina. \"Karabij - Lebanese Pistachio Ma'amoul with Meringue\". Foodish by Anu Museum. Retrieved 1 October 2025.\n\n^ \"\"From Dough to Delight: The Maamoul Making Bite by Bite\"\". Syria Times. 10 June 2024. Archived from the original on 9 December 2024. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ Datian, Christine Vartanian (6 January 2022). \"Alice Bezjian's Walnut-Date Ma'amoul Lebanese Cookies\". The Armenian Mirror-Spectator. Retrieved 30 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Ramazan sofralarının tatlı lezzeti 'kerebiç'\" [The sweet taste of Ramadan tables: 'kerebiç']. Anadolu Agency (in Turkish). 28 April 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Kerebiç tatlısı nasıl yapılır, malzemeleri neler? (Kerebiç tarifi)\" [How to make Kerebiç dessert, what are the ingredients? (Kerebiç recipe)]. NTV (in Turkish). 7 May 2019. Archived from the original on 21 April 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Naz Kerebiç Mersin Tatlarını Kayseri'ye taşıdı\" [Naz Kerebiç brought Mersin Flavors to Kayseri]. Kayseri Gündem (in Turkish). 4 February 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Ramazan sofralarının vazgeçilmez tatlısı:\" [The indispensable dessert of Ramadan tables]. duzcetv (in Turkish). 12 March 2024. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Coğrafi İşaret Platformu\". Coğrafi İşaret Platformu (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 19 April 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Mersin Kerebici\". venereturkey.com. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \"No: 426 - Mahreç İşareti\" (PDF). ci.turkpatent.gov.tr (in Turkish). 11 April 2019. Retrieved 29 October 2025.\n\n^ \nمعمول. Almaany. Retrieved 12 November 2017.\n\n^ باسل الخطيب (22 April 2023). لا مهرب منها.. ما الكمية المسموح بتناولها من معمول العيد؟ [There's no escaping it... What is the permissible amount of Eid ma'amoul to eat?]. Sky News Arabia (in Arabic). Retrieved 2 January 2026.\n\n^ ما قصة معمول العيد، المعمول بحب استثنائي؟: \" أنا جدة ل 16 حفيدًا ولا يغادرني أحد منهم الا محملًا بالمعمول\" [What is the story of Eid Maamoul, made with exceptional love?: \"I am a grandmother to 16 grandchildren and none of them leave me without carrying Maamoul.\"]. SBS Arabic (Podcast) (in Arabic). 19 April 2022. Retrieved 2 January 2026.\n\n^ Webb, Lois Sinaiko; Cardella, Lindsay Grace (2011). Holidays of the World Cookbook for Students (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. p. 383. ISBN 9780313383946.\n\n^ Ṭalbi-Ḳadmi, Raḥel (1996). Rasheliḳah = Rashelika : niḥoaḥ ha-miṭbaḥ ha-Yerushalmi Sefaradi ha-mesorati : ḥamishah dorot shel matkonim mishpaḥtiyim mesoratiyim רשליקה = Rashelika : ניחוח המטבח הירושלמי ספרדי המסורתי : חמישה דורות של מתכונים משפחתיים מסורתיים [Rashelika: the aroma of the traditional Spanish Jerusalem kitchen: five generations of traditional family recipes]. Jerusalem: O. Raikh, Y. Ḳadmi. pp. 82-87. LCCN 98825100.\n\n^ Tsedaka, Benyamim (29 October 2020). Samaritan Cookbook: A Culinary Odyssey from the Ancient Israelites to the Modern Mediterranean. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-7252-8589-7. Retrieved 2 October 2025.\n\nFurther reading\n\nFarah, Madelain, Lebanese Cuisine: More than 200 Simple, Delicious, Authentic Recipes: London: 2001 ISBN 978-1-56858-179-8\n\nSmouha, Patricia, Middle Eastern Cooking, London 1955 ASIN: B0000CJAHX\n\nRoden, Claudia, A New Book of Middle Eastern Food: London 1986 ISBN 0-14-046588-X\n\nRoden, Claudia, The Book of Jewish Food: New York 1997, London 1999 ISBN 0-14-046609-6\n\nUvezian, Sonia, Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen: A Culinary Journey Through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan: 2004 ISBN 0-9709716-8-0, ISBN 978-0-9709716-8-5\n\nJoan Nathan, The Jewish Holiday Kitchen: New York 1988 ISBN 0-8052-0900-X\n\nJoan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook: 2004 ISBN 0-8052-4217-1, ISBN 978-0-8052-4217-1\n\nExternal links\n\n\"Maamoul - Traditional Middle Eastern Cookies\". www.libanaissweets.com. Retrieved 10 November 2015."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ma-amoul"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2212}, {"slug": "reference-christian-palestinian-aramaic", "title": "Christian Palestinian Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Christian Palestinian Aramaic was a Western Aramaic dialect that began as a vernacular between the first and third centuries CE, and emerged as a written language used by the Melkite Christian community in Palestine, Transjordan and Sinai[1] between the fifth and thirteenth centuries.[a] It is preserved in inscriptions,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Christian Palestinian Aramaic\n\nCPA in uncial script: underwriting of Matthew 26:72-27:2 in a palimpsest\n\nRegionPalestine, Transjordan, Sinai\n\nEraca. 400-1200 AD\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nWestern Aramaic\nPalestinian Aramaic\nChristian Palestinian Aramaic\n\nEarly formsProto-Afroasiatic\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nOld Aramaic\n\nMiddle Aramaic\n\nWestern Middle Aramaic\n\nWriting systemChristian Palestinian Aramaic Alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3None (mis)\n\nGlottologchri1239\n\nChristian Palestinian Aramaic was a Western Aramaic dialect that began as a vernacular between the first and third centuries CE, and emerged as a written language used by the Melkite Christian community in Palestine, Transjordan and Sinai[1] between the fifth and thirteenth centuries.[a] It is preserved in inscriptions, manuscripts (mostly palimpsests, less papyri[4] in the first period) and amulets.\n\nAll the medieval Western Aramaic dialects are defined by religious community. CPA is closely related to its counterparts, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA) and Samaritan Aramaic (SA), but distinguished by its lack of direct borrowing from Hebrew and incorporation of Greek syntax,[5][6][7] as well as Old Arabic substrate influence.[8] CPA shows a specific vocabulary that is often not paralleled in the adjacent Western Aramaic dialects.[5]\n\nName\n\nNo primary source contemporary with its use gives CPA a name as a distinct dialect or language. According to Barhebraeus writing in the 13th century, \"the people of Damascus and of the mountains of Lebanon and of the rest of Inner Syria\" spoke an Aramaic dialect he called al-falasṭīniyya (\"the Palestinian\") between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE.[9] Inscriptions in that area during that time period are classified mostly as Haurani Aramaic and Nabataean Aramaic, and in the 6th century those inscribed in stone are mostly in Greek, though there are several Syriac manuscripts produced by monasteries associated with the Ghassanids.[10]\n\nModern scholarship uses names like \"Palestinian Syriac\" and \"Syro-Palestinian Aramaic\" because of the modified Syriac Esṭrangēlā script in which CPA texts are written.[6] Another cause for the association of CPA with Syriac is the fact that in later Rabbinic literature, the term \"Syriac\" was often used to describe Aramaic in general.[11] Egeria, in the account of her pilgrimage to Palestine at the end of the 4th century, refers to Syriac,[12] which was probably what is now Christian Palestinian Aramaic.[13]\n\nThe term syrica Hierosolymitana (\"Jerusalemite Syriac\") was introduced by Johann David Michaelis based on the appearance of the Arabic name of Jerusalem, al-Quds,[b] in the colophon of a Gospel lectionary of 1030 AD (today Vat. sir. 19).[15] It was also used in the first edition by Franciscus Miniscalchi Erizzo.[16]\n\nThe terms \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\" and \"Melkite Aramaic\"[c] refer to the Christian group in Palestine deploying this dialect for their written sources.\n\nHistory\n\nCPA emerged as a written language in Melkite Christian communities in the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Arabia Petraea (Palaestina Salutaris) around the fifth century, and possibly in the fourth.[17] It existed as a vernacular prior to being written, alongside several other related Western Aramaic dialects, part of a continuum of Late Antiquity Aramaic, used from Palestine to Mesopotamia for daily speech in the region.[18][19][20]\n\nIt appears to have developed as a written form to convey religious ideas and texts that were more transcribed in Greek (and Syriac) to the common people in the language of their daily life, so it could be more accessible to them. [8] Its emergence coincides with the increasing Christianization of Arabic-speaking populations in the fourth and fifth centuries, in the Negev (such as the Nabataeans), and particularly in the Northern Jordanian highlands, where this was accompanied by a sedentarization process.[21] The intermingling between these Arabic-speaking and Aramaic-speaking Christianized populations and the lack of widespread fluency in Greek spawned the need for a popular literary form to bring the liturgy to the people. [21]\n\nCPA is preserved in inscriptions, manuscripts, mostly palimpsests in the early period, and amulets. The history of CPA writing can be divided into three periods: early (5th-7th/8th centuries), middle (8th-9th) and late (10th-13th). The existence of a middle period has only recently been suggested.[2]\n\nOnly inscriptions, fragmentary manuscripts and the underwriting of palimpsests survive from the early period. Of the inscriptions, only one can be dated with any precision. The fragments are both Biblical and Patristic. The oldest complete (non-fragmentary) manuscript dates to 1030.[22] All the complete manuscripts are liturgical in nature.[23][6]\n\nCPA declined as a spoken language because of a gradual language shift and increased Arabization following the early Muslim conquests. Its use as a spoken language, among many other Western Aramaic dialects, was in a diglossic context, whereby it was the vernacular used, with Greek employed primarily for writing, and the vernacular gradually gave way to the continuum of Levantine Arabic dialects.[24] From the tenth century onwards it was mainly a liturgical language in the Melkite churches, with the Melkite community mostly speaking Arabic.[7][6] Even as a written language, it went extinct around the fourteenth century and was only identified or rediscovered as a distinct variety of Aramaic in the nineteenth century.[25]\n\nCorpus\n\nThe only surviving original texts in CPA are inscriptions in mosaics and rock caves (lavras),[26][27] magical silver amulets[28][29][30] and a single short magical booklet.[31] All other surviving manuscript compositions are translations of Greek originals.[32]\n\nMany of the palimpsests come from Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula (e.g., the Codex Climaci Rescriptus),[33] but some also from Mar Saba (e.g., part of the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus),[33] the Cairo Genizah[d][33][34] and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.[35] They often transmit rare texts lost in the Greek transmission (e.g. the Transitus Mariae;[36][37][38] the hitherto unknown martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea, one of the eleven followers of Pamphilus of Caesarea;[38][39] and a missing quire of Codex Climaci Rescriptus[38][40][41]), or offer valuable readings for the textual criticism of the Septuagint.[42]\n\nTwo palimpsests found at Saint Catherine's represented the Palestinian Syriac version of the Bible. This Bible was originally known as the Jerusalem Syriac version, from a Vatican codex dating to 1030.[43] The palimpsests have been dated by their colophons to 1104 and 1118.[43] It's believed that by that time, Palestinian Aramaic had been supplanted by Arabic and even priests were barely able to read and understand the sacred texts.[43]\n\nInscriptions have been found in Palestine in the area of Jerusalem at the Church of Saint Anne,[44] and to the east in the Judaean Desert at ʿEn Suweinit,[45] near ʿAbūd,[46] as well as ʿUmm er-Rūs,[47] and at Mevo Modiim.[48] In the Negev, four find spots are in its north: Khirbet Qaṣra (to the south of Bet Guvrin/Eleutheropolis), Giv’ot Bar (south of Rahat), Anab al-Kabīr, and Hūrah. Nessana, an important Byzantine era town along the border with Egypt, yielded several CPA papyrus fragments, alongside those in Greek, Latin, and Arabic.[48][49] Other find spots include those in the vicinity of Hippos at Uyun Umm el-ˁAẓām[50][51] in Galilee, and at Khirbet Qastra near Haifa,[52] the latter of which can be clustered with three others from the Upper Western Galilee at Evron, Shlomi and Kabri/Khirbet el-Khazneh.[48] Uyun Umm el-Azam is considered a northern outlier of the Northern Jordanian Highlands cluster (outlined below), along with Deir al-Adas in Syria.[50]\n\nIn the Transjordan, inscriptions are clustered in the area of the Northern Jordanian Highlands. They have been found in the north of what was once the Decapolis, around Irbid, in el-Burz, Qam, and Dayr el-Saˁneh, as well as in Wadi Rājib west of Ajloun.[50] In the Jerash/Gerasa area, inscriptions were found in the old city, as well as in the steppe region to the east, specifically in Riḥāb, Khayyān el-Mushrif,[26] and on tombstones in Khirbet el-Samrā.[27][50] In the south of the Decapolis, around Amman, finds were in el-Quwaysmeh, Khirbet el-Kursī, as well as further south in the area of Mount Nebo, in Ayūn Mūsa[26] and Khirbet el-Mukhayyat.[50] Finds outside of the Highlands area include one of graffiti much farther to the east around Qasr Burqu', as well as two from the southeastern end of the Dead Sea; one an inscription in stone at the monastic complex of Qaṣr el-ˀAbyad, and the other a fragment of parchment from the area of Lot's cave at ˁAyn ˁAbāṭah.[50]\n\nThe manuscripts include a short letter on papyrus from Khibert Mird[53] and at least one wooden board.[54] The parchment manuscript fragments are Biblical (mostly in the form of lectionaries), Patristic, theological (e.g. the catecheses by Cyril of Jerusalem and homilies by John Chrysostom), hagiographic (mostly martyrs' lives) or apocryphal (e.g., the Transitus Mariae). There are only three dated manuscripts, the Gospel lectionaries of 1030, 1104, and 1118.[22]\n\nFeatures\n\nCPA can be distinguished from JPA and SA by the lack of direct influence from Hebrew and new Hebrew loanwords, its Hebrew loanwords being retained from an earlier symbiosis of Hebrew and Aramaic.[32] It is also distinguished by the presence of Greek syntax (by partial retention in translation).[7] Also, unlike JPA and SA, CPA is attested only in primary texts (mostly in palimpsests). There was no transmission of manuscripts after the language itself went out use as liturgical language. In comparison with its counterparts, therefore, the CPA corpus represents an older, more intact example of Western Aramaic from when the dialects were still living, spoken languages.\n\nThere is an evident Arabic substrate to CPA, indicating the influence of Old Arabic on its lexicon and structure, which explains why speakers of this dialect were among the first to transition towards using Levantine Arabic dialects.[55]\n\nEditions of texts\n\nManuscripts\n\nJan P. N. Land, Anecdota Syriaca IV (Leiden, 1875), pp. 177-233 [Latin], pp. 103-224 [Syropalestinian], pls. I-VI.\n\nJames Rendall Harris, Biblical Fragments from Mount Sinai (Cambridge, 1890), pp. 65-68.\n\nPaul de Lagarde, Evangeliarum Hierosolymitanum (Bibliothecae syriacae; Göttingen, 1892), pp. 257-402.\n\nGeorge H. Gwilliam, The Palestinian Version of the Holy Scriptures (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series Vol. I Part V; Oxford, 1893).\n\nGeorge H. Gwilliam, Francis Crawford Burkitt, John F. Stenning, Biblical and Patristic Relics of the Palestinian Syriac Literature, (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series Vol. I, Part IX; Oxford, 1896).\n\nG. Margoliouth, The Liturgy of the Nile, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1896, pp. 677-727, pls. I-II.\n\nAgnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, The Palestinian Syriac Lectionary of the Gospels (London, 1899).\n\nAgnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, Palestinian Syriac Texts from Palimpsest Fragments in the Taylor-Schechter Collection (London, 1900).\n\nAgnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson, An Appendix of Palestinian Syriac Texts (Studia Sinaitica XI; London, 1902), pp. XXVIII-XXIX, XLVII.\n\nFriedrich Schulthess, Christlich-palästinische Fragmente, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 56, 1902, pp. 249-261.\n\nFriedrich Schulthess, Christlich-palästinische Fragmente aus der Omajjaden-Moschee zu Damaskus (Berlin, 1905).\n\nPavel K. Kokowzoff, Nouveaux fragments syropalestiniens de la Bibliothèque Impériale Publique de Saint-Pétersbourg (St. Petersburg, 1906).\n\nHugo Duensing, Christlich-palästinisch-aramäische Texte und Fragmente (Göttingen, 1906).\n\nAgnes S. Lewis, A Palestinian Syriac Lectionary: Containing Lessons from the Pentateuch, Job, Proverbs, Prophets, Acts, and Epistles (Cambridge, 1897).\n\nAgnes S. Lewis, Supplement to a Palestinian Syriac Lectionary (Cambridge, 1907).\n\nAgnes S. Lewis, Codex Climaci Rescriptus (Horae Semiticae VIII; Cambridge, 1909).\n\nAgnes S. Lewis, The Forty Martyrs of the Sinai Desert and the Story of Eulogios (Horae Semiticae IX; Cambridge, 1912).\n\nMatthew Black, Rituale Melchitarum. A Christian Palestinian Euchologion (Stuttgart, 1938).\n\nMatthew Black, \"A Palestinian Syriac Palimpsest Leaf of Acts XXI (14-26),\" Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 23, 1939, pp. 201-214, pls. 1-2.\n\nN. Pigoulewski, \"Fragments syro-palestiniens des Psaumes CXXIII-IV,\" Revue Bibilque 43 (1934), pp. 519-527, pl. XXX.\n\nHugo Duensing, Neue christlich-palästinische-aramäische Fragmente, NAWG, phil.-hist. Kl. 9 (Göttingen, 1944).\n\nMatthew Black, A Christian Palestinian Syriac Horologion (Texts and Studies N.S. 1; Cambridge, 1954).\n\nHugo Duensing, Nachlese christlich-palästinisch aramäischer Fragmente, NAWG, phil.-hist. Kl. 5 (Göttingen, 1955).\n\nCharles Perrot, \"Un fragment christo-palestinien découvert à Khirbet Mird,\" Revue Biblique 70, 1963, pp. 506-555, pls. XVIII-XXIX.\n\nMoshe Goshen-Gottstein with the Assistance by H. Shirun (ed.), The Bible in the Syropalestinian Version. Part I. Pentateuch and Prophets (Publications of the Hebrew University Bible Project Monograph Series; Jerusalem, 1973).\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Christian Palestinian Aramaic Old Testament and Apocrypha (Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic I; Groningen, 1997). ISBN 90-5693-007-9\n\nMaurice Baillet, \"Un livret magique en christo-palestinien à l’Université de Louvain,\" Le Muséon 76, 1963, pp. 375-401.\n\nSebastian P. Brock, A Fragment of the Acta Pilati in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Journal of Theological Studies N.S. 22, 1971, pp. 157-158.\n\nSebastian P. Brock, Catalogue of the New Finds (Athens, 1995).\n\nAlain Desreumaux, Codex sinaiticus Zosimi rescriptus (Histoire du Texte Biblique 3; Lausanne, 1997). ISBN 2-9700088-3-1\n\nAlain Desreumaux, \"Une inscription araméenne melkite sous une peinture copte du musée du Louvre. Le texte araméen melkite,\" Oriens Christianus 86, 1996, pp. 82-97.\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Christian Palestinian Aramaic New Testament Version from the Early Period. Gospels (Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic IIA; Groningen, 1998). ISBN 90-5693-018-4\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Christian Palestinian Aramaic New Testament Version from the Early Period. Acts of the Apostles and Epistles (Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic IIB; Groningen, 1998). ISBN 90-5693-019-2\n\nSebastian P. Brock, Fragments of PS-John Chrysostom, Homily on the Prodigal Son, in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Le Muséon 112, 1999, pp. 335-362.\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler and Michael Sokoloff, The Catechism of Cyril of Jerusalem in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Version (A Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic V; Groningen, 1999). ISBN 90-5693-030-3\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler, Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus. A Collection of Christian Palestinian Aramaic Manuscripts, Le Muséon 127, 2014, pp. 263-309.\n\nAlin Suciu, \"An Addition to Christian Palestinian Aramaic Literary Corpus: Logos XV of Abba Isaiah of Scetis,\" Journal of Semitic Studies 61, 2016, pp. 449-461.\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler, \"Three Early Witnesses of the «Dormition of Mary» in Christian Palestinian Aramaic: Palimpsests from the Cairo Genizah (Taylor-Schechter Collection) and the New Finds in St Catherine's Monastery,\" Apocrypha 29 (2018), pp. 69-95.\n\nLaurent Capron, Deux fragments d’épittres pauliniennes (1 Thess. et 1 Cor.) en araméen christopalestinien, Semitica 61, 2019, 117-127.\n\nChrista Müller-Kessler, \"An Overlooked Christian Palestinian Aramaic Witness of the Dormition of Mary in Codex Climaci Rescriptus (CCR IV),\" Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 16, 2019, pp. 81-98.\n\nC. Müller-Kessler, \"The Unknown Martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea in Christian Palestinian Aramaic from St Catherine's Monastery (Sinai, Arabic NF 66),\" Analecta Bollandiana 137, 2019, pp. 63-71.\n\nInscriptions\n\nM. Halloun and R. Rubin, \"Palestinian Syriac Inscription from ‘En Suweinit,\" Liber Annuus 31, 1981, pp. 291-298, pls. 59-62.\n\nNotes\n\n^ This period may be described as Middle Aramaic or Late Aramaic.[2][3]\n\n^ This itself was a correction of adquds by the editors Assemani.[14]\n\n^ The term \"Melkite Aramaic\" was coined by Alain Desreumaux.[2]\n\n^ Today in the Taylor-Schechter Collection, University Library of Cambridge; Bodleian Library, Oxford; and Museum of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia\n\nReferences\n\n^ Arabic in Context. Brill. 6 June 2017. p. 338. ISBN 9789004343047. For the Aramaic-speaking Christian communities of Sinai, Palestine or Trans-Jordan, Christian Palestinian Aramaic was the dominant language in local churches; for Syria and Mesopotamia, it was rather Syriac.…\n\n^ a b c Christa Müller-Kessler, \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Its Significance to the Western Aramaic Dialect Group\" (review article), Journal of the American Oriental Society 119, 4 (1999), pp. 631-636.\n\n^ J. A. Fitzmyer, \"The Phases of the Aramaic Language,\" in The Wandering Aramean(Chico, California, 1979), pp. 57-84.\n\n^ Alain Desreumaux apud Philothée du Sinaï, Nouveaux manuscrits syriaques du Sinai (Athens, 2008)\n\n^ a b Christa Müller-Kessler, Grammatik des Christlich-Palästinisch-Aramäischen. Teil 1: Schriftlehre, Lautlehre, Morphologie (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 6; Hildesheim, 1991), p. 6.\n\n^ a b c d Matthew Morgenstern, \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\", in Stefan Weninger (ed.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook (De Gruyter Mouton, 2011), pp. 628-37.\n\n^ a b c Friedrich Schulthess, Grammatik des christlich-palästinischen-Aramäisch (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1924), pp. 1-2.\n\n^ a b Gzella (2025), p. 752-753.\n\n^ Hoyland 2009, p. 129-130.\n\n^ Hoyland 2009, p. 121.\n\n^ Contours in the Text. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 64. …Suristi, \"Syria\", and \"Syrian\" - the Greek names for Aram, Aramaean or Aramaic. Aramaic was also known as 'Syriac' in later Rabbinic literature…\n\n^ J. Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels (Oxford, 1963), p. 163.\n\n^ W. Telfer, Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa (London, 1955), p. 35.\n\n^ F. Rosenthal, \"Das Christlich-Palestinensische\", in Die aramaistische Forschung seit Th. Nöldelke’s Veröffentlichungen (Leiden, 1939), pp. 144-146.\n\n^ J. D. Michaelis and J. D. G. Adler, Novi Testamenti versiones syricae Simplex, Philoxeniana et Hierosolymitana (Copenhagen, 1798), p. 140.\n\n^ F. Miniscalchi Erizzo, Evangeliarum Hierosolymitanum (Verona, 1861).\n\n^ Stadel (2026), p. 13, 16.\n\n^ Gzella (2015), p. 317-329.\n\n^ Hoyland 2009, p. 121, 129-130.\n\n^ Stadel (2026), p. 16-17.\n\n^ a b Stadel (2026), p. 18-21.\n\n^ a b Smith Lewis, Agnes and Dunlop Gibson, Margaret (1899). The Palestinian Syriac lectionary of the Gospels, re-edited from two Sinai MSS, and from P. de Lagarde's edition of the \"Evangeliarium Hierosolymitanum\". Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner. p. ix.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Sebastian P. Brock, \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\", in Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition (Gorgias Press, 2011 [print]; Beth Mardutho, 2018 [online]).\n\n^ Hoyland (2009), p. 131.\n\n^ Theodor Nöldeke, \"Über den christlich-palästinischen Dialect\", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 22 (1868), pp. 443-527.\n\n^ a b c Émile Puech, \"Notes d’épigraphie christo-palestinniene de Jordanie\", in C. Dauphin and B. Harmaneh (eds.), In Memoriam Fr. Michele Piccirillo, OFM (1944-2008) (BAR International Series 248; Oxford, 2011), pp. 75-94, figs. 205-236.\n\n^ a b Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Alain Desreumaux, Khirbet es-samra I Jordanie (Bibliothèque de l'anquité tardive; Turnhout, 1998), pp. 435-521 (script samples).\n\n^ J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993), pp. 107-109, pl. 17.\n\n^ E. Puech, \"Deux amulettes palestiniennes une en grec et une bilingue en grec-christo-palestinien,\" in H. Gasche and B. Hrouda (eds.), Collectanea orientalia. Histoire, arts de l’espace et industrie de la terre. Etudes offertes en hommage à Agnès Spycket (CPOA 3; Neuchâtel, 1996), pp. 299-310.\n\n^ K. Beyer, Die Texte vom Toten Meer, Vol. 1-2, Supplement (Göttingen, 1984, 1994, 2004).\n\n^ M. Baillet, \"Un Livret Magique en Christo-Palestinien à L'Université de Louvain\", Le Muséon 78, 1963, pp. 375-401.\n\n^ a b Christa Müller-Kessler, Grammatik des Christlich-Palästinisch-Aramäischen. Teil 1: Schriftlehre, Lautlehre, Morphologie (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 6; Hildesheim, 1991), p. 8.\n\n^ a b c Müller-Kessler, Christa (2014). \"Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus (CRSG/O/P/S)\". Le Muséon (3): 263-309. doi:10.2143/MUS.127.3.3062095.\n\n^ M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, \"Christian Palimpsests from the Cairo Geniza\", Revue d’Histoire des Textes 8, 1978, pp. 109-132.\n\n^ F. Schulthess, Christlich-Palästinische Fragmente aus der Omajjaden-Moschee zu Damaskus (Berlin, 1905).\n\n^ Müller-Kessler, Christa (January 2018). \"Three Early Witnesses of the \"Dormition Of Mary\" in Christian Palestinian Aramaic from the Cairo Genizah (Taylor-Schechter Collection) and the New Finds in St Catherine's Monastery\". Apocrypha. 29: 69-95. doi:10.1484/J.APOCRA.5.116638.\n\n^ Müller-Kessler, Christa (18 July 2019). \"An Overlooked Christian Palestinian Aramaic Witness of the \"Dormition of Mary\" in Codex Climaci Rescriptus (CCR IV)\". Collectanea Christiana Orientalia. 16: 81-98. doi:10.21071/cco.v16i0.1101. hdl:10396/19203. ISSN 2386-7442.\n\n^ a b c \"Research Site | Sinai Palimpsests Project\". sinai.library.ucla.edu.\n\n^ Müller-Kessler, Christa (January 2019). \"The Unknown Martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea in Christian Palestinian Aramaic From St Catherine's Monastery (Sinai, Arabic NF 66)\". Analecta Bollandiana. 137 (1): 63-71. doi:10.1484/J.ABOLL.4.2019024.\n\n^ Agnes Smith Lewis, The Codex Climaci Rescriptus (Horae Semiticae VIII; Cambridge, 1909).\n\n^ Sebastian P. Brock, \"The Syriac ‘New Finds’ at St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai and Their Significance\", The Harp 27 (2011), pp. 39-52.\n\n^ Christa Müller-Kessler, \"1.4.9 Christian Palestinian Aramaic Translation\", in Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov (eds.), The Hebrew Bible, Vol. 1A (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 447-456.\n\n^ a b c Bruce M. Metzger (1977). The Early Versions of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 75-82.\n\n^ F. Macler, \"L’inscription syriaque de Ste. Anne à Jérusalem,\" in Mosaïque orientale (Paris, 1907), pp. 16-21.\n\n^ M. Halloun, and R. Rubin, \"Palestinian Syriac Inscription from ʿEn Suweinit,\" Liber Annuus 31 (1981), 291-298, Tf. 59-62\n\n^ J. T. Milik, \"Inscription araméenne christo-palestinienne de ʿAbûd,\" Liber Annuus 10, 1959-60, pp. 197-204.\n\n^ R. A. Macalister, \"A Byzantine Church at Umm er Rûs,\" PEFQS 31, 1899, pp. 200-204.\n\n^ a b c Stadel (2026), p. 19.\n\n^ Masalha (2022), p. 23-24.\n\n^ a b c d e f Stadel (2026), p. 18.\n\n^ Estēe Dvorjetski, Christa Müller-Kessler, Michael Eisenberg, Adam Pažout, Mechael Osband, “Christian Palestinian Aramaic Inscription from the Rural Territory of Sussita-Antiochia Hippos”, ARAM 34, 2022, pp. 138-151\n\n^ L. Segni and J. Naveh, \"A Bilingual Greek - Aramaic Inscription from Ḥ. Qastra, near Haifa,\" ‘Atiqot 29, 1996, pp. 77-78.\n\n^ J. T. Milik, \"The Archaeological Remains at el-Mird in the Wilderness of Judaea, Appendix: The Monastery of Kastellion,\" Biblica 42, 1961, pp. 21-27.\n\n^ M.-H. Rutschowscaya and A. Desreumaux, \"Une peinture copte sur un bois inscrit en araméen christo-paestinien au Musée du Louvre,\" Compte rendue de séances l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 1992, pp. 83-92.\n\n^ Gzella (2025), p. 747-765.\n\nSources\n\nGzella, Holger (2015), A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam, Brill\n\nGzella, Holger (2025), \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic: Between Greek and Arabic\", Interconnected Traditions Semitic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures : a Festschrift for Geoffrey Khan, Volume 1\n\nHoyland, Robert (2009), \"Late Roman Arabia, Monophysite Monks, Arab Tribes\", From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East, Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.100513\n\nMasalha, Nur (2022). Palestine Across Millennia: A History of Literacy, Learning and Educational Revolutions. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7556-4296-0.\n\nStadel, Christian (2026-05-13), \"The Formative Milieu and Linguistic Profile of Christian Palestinian Aramaic\" (PDF), Syriaca 1, ISBN 9791257420185\n\nFurther reading\n\nBlack, Matthew (1941). \"The Palestinian Syriac Gospels and the Diatessaron\". Oriens Christianus. 36: 101-111.\n\nBlack, Matthew (1967). An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9781725272026.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1971). \"A Fragment of the Acta Pilati in Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 22 (1): 157-159. doi:10.1093/jts/XXII.I.157. JSTOR 23962351.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011a). \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 96-97.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011b). \"The Syriac, Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Arabic Manuscripts at Sinai\". St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai: Its Manuscripts and Their Conservation. London: Saint Catherine Foundation. pp. 43-50. ISBN 9780952806325.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2012a). \"Sinai: A Meeting Point of Georgian with Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". Caucasus between East and West: Historical and Philological Studies in Honour of Zaza Aleksidze. Tbilisi: National Center of Manuscripts. pp. 482-494.\n\nSebastian P. Brock, \"Ktabe mpassqe: Dismembered and Reconstructed Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic Manuscripts: Some Examples, Ancient and Modern\", Hugoye, Journal of Syriac Studies 15 (2012), pp. 7-20.\n\nCreason, Stuart (2008). \"Aramaic\" (PDF). The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 108-144.\n\nFitzmyer, Joseph A. (1997) [1979]. A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802848468.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1997). \"From Aramaic to Arabic: The Languages of the Monasteries of Palestine in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods\". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 51: 11-31. doi:10.2307/1291760. JSTOR 1291760.\n\nLi, Tarsee (2013). Greek Indicative Verbs in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Gospels: Translation Technique and the Aramaic Verbal System. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781611438956.\n\nMorgenstern, Matthew (2012). \"Christian Palestinian Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 628-637. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nPhilothée du Sinaï, Nouveaux manuscrits syriaques du Sinai (Athens, 2008).\n\nÉmile Puech, \"Notes d’épigraphie christo-palestinienne de Jordanie\", in Memoriam: Fr Michele Piccirillo, ofm (1944-2008) ed. by Claudine Dauphin and Basema Hamarneh, BAR International Series 248 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 75-94."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christian-palestinian-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3973}, {"slug": "reference-diatessaron", "title": "Diatessaron", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Diatessaron (Syriac: ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ, romanized: Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê; c. 166-169 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic.[1] Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he found in the four gospels...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Diatessaron (Syriac: ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ, romanized: Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê; c. 166-169 AD) is the most prominent early gospel harmony. It was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic.[1] Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he found in the four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - into a single coherent narrative of Jesus's life and death. However, and in contradistinction to most later gospel harmonists, Tatian appears not to have been motivated by any aspiration to validate the four separate canonical gospel accounts; or to demonstrate that, as they stood, they could each be shown as being without inconsistency or error.\n\nAlthough widely used by early Syriac Christians, the original text has not survived. It was reconstructed in 1881 by Theodor Zahn from translations and commentaries.[2]\n\nTerminology\n\nThe title Diatessaron comes from the Latin diatessarōn, meaning: \"made of four [ingredients]\"; this is derived in turn from Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων (dia tessarōn), meaning \"out of four\" (i.e., διά, dia, \"at intervals of\" and tessarōn [genitive of τέσσαρες, tessares], \"four\").\n\nThe Syriac name for this gospel harmony is 'ܐܘܢܓܠܝܘܢ ܕܡܚܠܛܐ' (Ewangeliyôn Damhalltê) meaning: \"Gospel of the Mixed\".\n\nOverview\n\nTatian's harmony follows the gospels closely in terms of text but, in order to fit all the canonical material in, he created his own narrative sequence, which is different from both the synoptic sequence and John's sequence; and occasionally creates intervening time periods that are found in none of the source accounts.[3] This sequence is coherent and consistent within itself, but not necessarily consistent with that in all or any of the separate canonical gospels; and Tatian apparently applies the same principle in respect of the narrative itself. Where the gospels differ from one another in respect of the details of an event or teaching, the Diatessaron resolves such apparent contradictions by selecting one or another alternative wording and adding consistent details from the other gospels; while omitting apparent duplicate matter, especially across the synoptics. Hence, in respect of the healing of the blind at Jericho the Diatessaron reports only one blind man, Bartimeaus, healed by Jesus when leaving the city according to the account in Mark 10:46ff (expanded with phrases from Luke 18:36-37); consequently omitting any separate mention of two unnamed blind men healed by Jesus leaving Jericho (Matthew 20:29ff), and also the healing by Jesus entering Jericho the previous day of a single unnamed blind man (Luke 18:35ff).[4]\n\nOtherwise, Tatian originally omitted altogether both of the different genealogies in Matthew and Luke, as well as Luke's introduction (Luke 1:1-4);[3] and also did not originally include Jesus' encounter with the adulteress (the pericope adulterae: John 7:53-8:11). The pericope is present in western manuscripts believed to be based on the Diatessaron (e.g., Codex Fuldensis) but is generally considered to be a latter interpolation to the Gospel of John,[5] with the Diatessaron itself often cited as an early textual witness in support of its omission.\n\nTatian added no significant wording to the textual material he took from the separate gospels.[6] Only 56 verses in the canonical Gospels do not have a counterpart in the Diatessaron, mostly the genealogies and the pericope adulterae. The final work is about 72 per cent the length of the four gospels put together; around a quarter of the text of the separate gospels being adjudged by Tatian to be duplicated. (McFall, 1994).\n\nIn the early Church, the gospels at first circulated independently, with Matthew the most popular. The Diatessaron is notable evidence for the authority already enjoyed by the gospels by the mid- to late-2nd century.[7] Within twenty years after Tatian's harmony was written, Irenaeus was expressly arguing for the authoritative character of the Four Gospels. It is unclear whether Tatian intended the Diatessaron to supplement or replace the four separate gospels; but both outcomes came to pass in different churches. The Diatessaron became adopted as the standard lectionary text of the gospels in some Syriac-speaking churches from the late 2nd to the 5th century, until it gave way to the four separate Gospels such as the Syriac Sinaitic gospels,[7] or later in the Peshitta version.[8] At the same time, in the churches of the Latin west, the Diatessaron circulated as a supplement to the four gospels, especially in the Latin translation.\n\nRecensions and translations\n\nA number of recensions of the Diatessaron are extant. The earliest, part of the Eastern family of recensions, is preserved in 4th century theologian Ephrem the Syrian's Commentary on Tatian's work, which itself is preserved in two versions: an Armenian translation preserved in two copies, and a copy of Ephrem's original Syriac text dated to the late 5th or early 6th century, which has been edited by Louis Leloir (Paris, 1966).\n\nMany other translations have been made, sometimes including substantial revisions to the text. There are translations into Arabic, Latin, Old Georgian, Old High German, Middle High German, Middle English, Middle Dutch and Old Italian. There is a Persian harmony that seems to have borrowed some readings from the Diatessaron. There are also Parthian texts with borrowings from the Diatessaron.[9] The Arabic translation was made by Ibn al-Tayyib in the early 11th century from the original Syriac.\n\nTatian's harmony\n\nTatian was an Assyrian who was a pupil of Justin Martyr in Rome,[10] where, Justin says, the apomnemoneumata (recollections or memoirs) of the Apostles, the gospels, were read every Sunday. When Justin quotes the synoptic Gospels, he tends to do so in a harmonised form, and Helmut Koester and others conclude that Justin must have possessed a Greek harmony text of Matthew, Luke and Mark.\n\nIf so, it is unclear how much Tatian may have borrowed from this previous author in determining his own narrative sequence of Gospel elements. It is equally unclear whether Tatian took the Syriac Gospel texts composited into his Diatessaron from a previous translation, or whether the translation was his own. Where the Diatessaron records Gospel quotations from the Jewish Scriptures, the text appears to agree with that found in the Syriac Peshitta Old Testament rather than that found in the Greek Septuagint-as used by the original Gospel authors. The majority consensus is that the Peshitta Old Testament preceded the Diatessaron, and represents an independent translation from the Hebrew Bible. Resolution of these scholarly questions remained very difficult so long as no complete version of the Diatessaron in Syriac or Greek had been recovered; while the medieval translations that had survived-in Arabic and Latin-both relied on texts that had been heavily corrected to conform better with later canonical versions of the separate Gospel texts.[11]\n\nThere is scholarly uncertainty about what language Tatian used for its original composition, whether Syriac or Greek.[11][12]\n\nDiatessaron in Syriac Christianity\n\nThe Diatessaron was used as the standard Gospel text in the liturgy of at least some sections of the Syrian Church for three centuries[13] and was quoted or alluded to by Syrian writers. Ephrem the Syrian wrote a commentary on it,[13] the Syriac original of which was rediscovered only in 1957, when a manuscript acquired by Sir Chester Beatty in 1957 (now Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709, Dublin) turned out to contain the text of Ephrem's commentary. The manuscript constituted approximately half of the leaves of a volume of Syriac writings that had been catalogued in 1952 in the library of the Coptic monastery of Deir es-Suriani in Wadi Natrun, Egypt. Subsequently, the Chester Beatty library was able to track down and buy a further 42 leaves, so that now approximately eighty per cent of the Syriac commentary is available (McCarthy 1994). Ephrem did not comment on all passages in the Diatessaron, and nor does he always quote commentated passages in full; but for those phrases that he does quote, the commentary provides for the first time a dependable witness to Tatian's original; and also confirms its content and their sequence. [1].\n\nTheodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus on the Euphrates in upper Syria in 423, suspecting Tatian of having been a heretic, destroyed copies of the Diatessaron.[14]\n\nAccording to an English translation of Theodoret's Compendium of Heretical Fables:[15][16]\n\nTatian the Syrian was first a sophist, and then he also became a student of the divine Justin the martyr. [...] This man also composed the so-called Gospel of the Four [Greek: διὰ τεσσάρων, dia tessaron], cutting out the genealogies, and the other things which show the Lord born according to the flesh from the seed of David. [...]\nAnd I myself found more than two hundred such books held in honor in the churches in our area, and having collected them all, I put them away, and I substituted the Gospels of the four evangelists.\n\nMuslim scholar Ali J. Ataie argues that Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a Christian heretical cleric related to Muhammad's wife Khadija, may have seen the first granted revelation as in continuity with previous gospels and accepting his prophethood after interpreting and correlating from the Diatessaron.[17]\n\nVernacular harmonies derived from the Diatessaron\n\nNo Christian tradition, other than some Syriac ones, has ever adopted a harmonized Gospel text for use in its liturgy. However, in many traditions, it was not unusual for subsequent Christian generations to seek to provide paraphrased Gospel versions in language closer to the vernacular of their own day. Frequently such versions have been constructed as Gospel harmonies, sometimes taking Tatian's Diatessaron as an exemplar; other times proceeding independently. Hence from the Syriac Diatessaron text was derived an 11th-century Arabic harmony (the source for the published versions of the Diatessaron in English); and a 13th-century Persian harmony. The Arabic harmony preserves Tatian's sequence exactly, but uses a source text corrected in most places to that of the standard Syriac Peshitta Gospels; the Persian harmony differs greatly in sequence, but translates a Syriac text that is rather closer to that in Ephrem's commentary.\n\nA Vetus Latina version of Tatian's Syriac text appears to have circulated in the West from the late 2nd century; with a sequence adjusted to conform more closely to that of the canonical Gospel of Luke; and also including additional canonical text (such as the Pericope Adulterae), and possibly non-canonical matter from the Gospel of the Hebrews. With the gradual adoption of the Vulgate as the liturgical Gospel text of the Latin Church, the Latin Diatessaron was increasingly modified to conform to Vulgate readings.[11] In 546 Victor of Capua discovered such a mixed manuscript; and, further corrected by Victor so as to provide a very pure Vulgate text within a modified Diatessaron sequence and to restore the two genealogies of Jesus side-by-side, this harmony, the Codex Fuldensis, survives in the monastic library at Fulda, where it served as the source text for vernacular harmonies in Old High German, Eastern Frankish and Old Saxon (the alliterative poem 'Heliand'). The older mixed Vulgate/Diatessaron text type also appears to have continued as a distinct tradition, as such texts appear to underlie surviving 13th-14th century Gospel harmonies in Middle Dutch, Middle High German, Middle French, Middle English, Tuscan and Venetian; although no example of this hypothetical Latin sub-text has ever been identified. The Liège Diatessaron is a particularly poetic example. This Latin Diatessaron textual tradition has also been suggested as underlying the 16th century Islam-influenced Gospel of Barnabas (Joosten, 2002).\n\nUse of the word \"God\"\n\nRobert F. Shedinger writes that in quotations to the Old Testament where the great uncial codices have κύριος and the Hebrew OT manuscripts יהוה (YHWH), Tatian wrote the term \"God\". Pavlos D. Vasileiadis reports that \"Shedinger proposed that the Syriac Diatessaron, composed some time after the middle of the second century CE, may provide additional confirmation of Howard's hypothesis (Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures, 136-140). Additionally, within the Syriac Peshitta is discernible the distinction between κύριος rendered as ܡܪܝܐ (marya, which means \"lord\" and refers to the God as signified by the Tetragrammaton; see Lu 1:32) and ܡܪܢ (maran, a more generic term for \"lord\"; see Joh 21:7).\"[18] R. F. Shedinger holds that after יהוה, θεός could be a term before κύριος became the standard term in the New Testament Greek copies.[19]\n\nShedinger's work has been strongly criticized. Since Tatian's Diatessaron is known only indirectly from references to it in other works, Shedinger's dissertation is based on his collection of 69 possible readings, only two of which, in the judgment of William L. Petersen. reach the level of probability. Peterson complains of Shedinger's \"inconsistent methodology\" and says that the surviving readings do not support his conclusions.[20] Petersen thinks the dissertation should never have been accepted for a doctoral degree, in view of \"the illogical arguments, inconsistent standards, philological errors, and methodological blunders that mar this book. [...] the errors are so frequent and so fundamental that this volume can contribute nothing to scholarship. What it says that is true has already been said elsewhere, with greater clarity and perspective. What it says that is new is almost always wrong, plagued [...] with philological, logical, and methodological errors, and a gross insensitivity to things historical (both within the discipline, as well as the transmission-history of texts). Reading this book fills one with dismay and despair. It is shocking that a work which does not rise to the level of a master's thesis should be approved as a doctoral dissertation; how it found its way into print is unfathomable. One shudders to think of the damage it will do when, in the future, it is cited by the ignorant and the unsuspecting as \"demonstrating\" what it has not.\"[21] Jan Joosten's review of Shedinger's work is also condemnatory. In his judgment \"Shedinger's study remains unconvincing, not only in the final conclusions but also in the details of the argument.\"[22]\n\nSee also\n\nDura Parchment 24\n\nPapyrus 25\n\nEusebian Canons\n\nOld High German Tatian\n\nFootnotes\n\n^ Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Tatian\n\n^ Theodor Zahn: Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons und der altkirchlichen Literatur. Teil 1. Tatian’s Diatessaron. Deichert, Erlangen 1881.\n\n^ a b McFall, Leslie; \"Tatian's Diatessaron: Mischievous or Misleading?\"; Westminster Theological Journal, 56, 87-114; 1994\n\n^ Moore, G. F., \"Tatian's Diatessaron and the Analysis of the Pentateuch\"; Journal of Biblical Literature, 9:2, 201-215; 1890\n\n^ \"certainly not part of the original text,\" according to Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Pericope adulterae.\n\n^ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, Introduction to Diatessaron.\n\n^ a b Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Diatessaron\n\n^ Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Peshitta\n\n^ William L. Petersen, \"Diatessaron\", in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition, edited by Sebastian P. Brock, Aaron M. Butts, George A. Kiraz and Lucas Van Rompay.\n\n^ Joosten, Jan (2002). \"The \"Gospel of Barnabas\" and the Diatessaron\". The Harvard Theological Review. 95 (1): 73-96. ISSN 0017-8160. JSTOR 4150739.\n\n^ a b c W. B. Lockwood, Vernacular Scriptures in Germany and the Low Countries before 1500, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. G.W.H. Lampe, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 429.\n\n^ Schmid, Ulrich B. “In Search of Tatian’s Diatessaron in the West.” Vigiliae Christianae, vol. 57, no. 2, 2003, pp. 176-99. JSTOR website Retrieved 19 Mar. 2023.\n\n^ a b Smith Lewis, Agnes (1894). A Translation of the Four Gospels from the Syriac of the Sinaitic Palimpsest. New York: Macmillan and Co. pp. xvii-xviii.\n\n^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Theodoret\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.\n\n^ Theodoret of Cyrus, Compendium of Heretical Fables [DT][MT], 12, Retrieved February 26, 2026, from Page 12 and Page 13\n\n^ Theodoret of Cyrus - Avalon Library\n\n^ Ataie, Ali J. (2025). \"Authenticating the New Testament Gospels from a Sunnite Perspective\". In Jardim, Georgina L.; Glaser, Ida; Shafaie, Shirin (eds.). The Gospels in Islamic Context: Function and Content. Routledge. pp. 52-63. ISBN 9781003500193.\n\n^ Vasileiadis 2014, pp. 64.\n\n^ Shedinger 2001, pp. 138.\n\n^ \"Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 122, No. 2 Summer 2003), p. 391\". JSTOR 3268458.\n\n^ \"Reseña en Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 6.2 (2003)\".\n\n^ \"Novum Testamentum, Vol. 46, No. 3 (July 2004), p. 299\". JSTOR 1561595.\n\nReferences\n\nJan Joosten, (2001). \"Tatian's Diatessaron and the Old Testament Peshitta\", Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 120, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 501-523\n\nJan Joosten, (2002). \"The Gospel of Barnabas and the Diatessaron\", Harvard Theological Review 95.1 (2002): pp 73-96.\n\nCarmel McCarthy, (1994). Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes (Oxford University Press) ISBN 978-0-19-922163-9 The first English translation.\n\nMcFall, Leslie (1994). \"Tatian's Diatessaron: Mischievous or Misleading?\". Westminster Theological Journal. 56: 87-114.\n\nPetersen, William L. (1990). \"Textual evidence of Tatian's dependence upon Justin's Apomnemonegmata\". New Testament Studies. 36 (4): 512-534. doi:10.1017/S0028688500019706. S2CID 170574860.\n\nShedinger, Robert F. (2001). Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia. Subsidia Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum orientalium. Vol. 591. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9042910429.\n\nJeffrey Tigay, editor, (1986) Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.\n\nVasileiadis, Pavlos D. (2014). \"Aspects of rendering the sacred Tetragrammaton in Greek\". Open Theology. 1 (1). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter: 56-88. doi:10.2478/opth-2014-0006. ISSN 2300-6579. OCLC 927128789.\n\nFurther reading\n\nPetersen, William Lawrence (1994). Tatian's Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09469-7.\n\nBarker, James William (2021). Tatian's Diatessaron: Composition, Redaction, Recension, and Reception. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-284458-3.\n\nExternal links\n\nEarly Christian Writings: Diatessaron e-text and commentaries.\n\nPhilip Schaff: ANF09. The Gospel of Peter, The Diatessaron of Tatian, The Apocalypse of Peter, the Vision of Paul, The Apocalypse of the Virgin and Sedrach, The Testament of Abraham, The Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena, The Narrative of Zosimus, The Apology of Aristid - Christian Classics Ethereal Library an English translation of an Arabic text, published at Rome in 1888.\n\nThe Dura fragment of the Diatessaron (from the Internet Archive)\n\nText of Arabic and Latin Translations of Diatessaron Archived 2009-06-06 at the Wayback Machine\n\nDiatessaron wiki Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine\n\nThe Diatessaron and its Relevance to the Study of the Pentateuch - TheTorah.com\n\n[2]\n\nTatian's Diatessaron and the Greek Text of the Gospels\n\nCHURCH FATHERS: The Diatessaron (Tatian)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-diatessaron"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3068}, {"slug": "reference-shimun-xx-paulos", "title": "Shimun XX Paulos", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Mar Shimun XX Paulos (1885 in Qodshanis, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire - 27 April 1920 in Baquba, Ottoman Empire) served as Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. from 1918 to 1920.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mar\nShimun XX Paulos\n\nCatholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East\n\nMar Shimun XX Paulos in 1920\n\nChurchAssyrian Church of the East\n\nDiocesePatriarchal Diocese of Qodshanis\n\nSeeHoly Apostolic See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nInstalled23 March 1918\n\nTerm ended27 April 1920\n\nPredecessorMar Shimun XIX Benyamin (1903-1918)\n\nSuccessorMar Shimun XXIII Eshai (1920-1975)\n\nOrders\n\nRankCatholicos-Patriarch\n\nPersonal details\n\nBorn1885\nQodshanis, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire\n\nDied27 March 1920(1920-03-27) (aged 34-35)\nBaquba, Ottoman Empire\n\nDenominationChristian, Assyrian Church of the East\n\nResidenceQodshanis, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire and later Urmia, Persia\n\nOccupationCleric\n\nMar Shimun XX Paulos (1885 in Qodshanis, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire - 27 April 1920 in Baquba, Ottoman Empire) served as Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. from 1918 to 1920.[1] \n\nPaulos was born into a large religious family which included his uncle Rubil (Shimun XVIII), his brother Benyamin (Mar Shimun XIX), his sister Surma, his twin brother Zaia and his brother David.[2][3]\n\nHis brother, Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin, was killed along with several of his followers by Simko Shikak (Ismail Agha Shikak), a Kurdish agha during peace talks.[4] Mar Shimun XX Paulos was elected on 23 March 1918.[5] He was consecrated in the ancient Church of Mart Maryam (Saint Mary) in Urmia by the metropolitan Mar Eskhaq Khnanisho and the bishops Mar Eliya Abuna of Alqosh, Mar Yosip Khnanisho of Shemsdin (the metropolitan's designated successor), and Mar Zaya Sargis of Jilu.\n\nOn 20 August 1918, for fear of persecution from the Ottoman Turks during their campaign of genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and other Christians of the Ottoman Empire, the newly elected Catholicos-Patriarch fled with about 60,000 of his people from Urmia in Iran seeking the protection of the British in Iraq. 15,000 of his followers died on the way. The survivors were in a camp in Baquba, about 50 kilometers north of Baghdad.[6][7] \n\nThe episcopacy of the Autocephalous Church of the East at this time consisted only of four bishops: Mar Yosip Khnanisho, Mar Zaya Sargis of Jilu, Mar Yalda Yahballaha of Barwari and Mar Abimalek Timothy (South India).\n\nBecoming sick, Shimun XX spent his short patriarchal days at Mor Mottai monastery belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. He died on 27 April 1920 of tuberculosis.[2] He was buried on 9 May 1920 in the Armenian cemetery in Baghdad.\n\nMar Shimun XX Paulos' successor was Shimun XXI Eshai (son of his brother David); Eshai was 12 years old at this time and Paulos’ sister Surma acted as regent for several years, working with the Metropolitans and looking after secular affairs.[2] Eshai was the last of the hereditary patriarchs and served until 1975.\n\nSee also\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Living Stones Yearbook 2021\" (PDF). Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust. Retrieved 30 July 2026.\n\n^ a b c \"Joint Regent Lady Surma d'Mar Shimun of the Assyrian Nation (Iraq)\". Women in Power,1900-1940. Retrieved 30 July 2026.\n\n^ \"Mar Poulus Shimun\". Mar Poulus Shimun. Retrieved 30 July 2026.\n\n^ \"Mar Benyamin Shimun XXI, Patriarch and Martyr (1887-1918)\". Assyrian Church of the East - Diocese of Canada. Retrieved 30 July 2026.\n\n^ Coakley, The Church of the East and the Church of England, 340\n\n^ \"Ba'qubah\". Global Security. Archived from the original on September 2, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-14.\n\n^ Austin, H. H. (2006). The Baqubah Refugee Camp: An Account of Work on Behalf of the Persecuted Assyrian Christians. Georgias Press. ISBN 9781593334017. Retrieved 2009-09-14.\n\nSources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1992). The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198267447.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14.\n\nRudolf Macuch:History of the late and neusyrischen literature. De Gruyter, Berlin 1976, 253ff. ISBN 3-11-005959-2\n\nAustin: The Baqubah Refugee Camp. An Account of Work on behalf of the Persecuted Assyrian Christians, The Faith Press, London 1920\n\nDavid Wilmshurst:The Ecclesiastical Organization of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 582 / Subs. 104). Peeters, Leuven 2000, 367th ISBN 90-429-0876-9.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial site of the Assyrian Church of the East"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shimun-xx-paulos"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 736}, {"slug": "reference-maragheh", "title": "Maragheh", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Maragheh (Persian: مراغه)[a] is a city in the Central District of Maragheh County, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county[7] and the district. Maragheh is on the bank of the river Sufi Chay. It is 130 kilometres (81 mi) from Tabriz, the largest city...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Maragheh\n Persian: مراغه\nAzerbaijani: مراغا\n\nCity\n\nMaraghehLocation within Iran\n\nCoordinates: 37°23′22″N 46°14′16″E / 37.38944°N 46.23778°E / 37.38944; 46.23778[1][2]\n\nCountryIran\n\nProvinceEast Azerbaijan\n\nCountyMaragheh\n\nDistrictCentral\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorAli Nezhadabyaz (acting)[3]\n\n • ParliamentAli Alizadeh[4]\n\nPopulation (2016)[5]\n\n • Total175,255\n\nTime zoneUTC+3:30 (IRST)\n\nWebsitewww.maraghe.com\n\nMaragheh (Persian: مراغه)[a] is a city in the Central District of Maragheh County, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county[7] and the district. Maragheh is on the bank of the river Sufi Chay. It is 130 kilometres (81 mi) from Tabriz, the largest city in northwestern Iran.\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Islamic history\n\nIt has been long suggested that Maragheh is identical with Phraaspa/Phraata,[8] the winter capital of Atropatene.[9] The 9th-century Muslim historian al-Baladhuri (died 892) reports that the town was originally known as Akra-rudh (called \"Afrah-rudh\" by Ibn al-Faqih, and \"Afrazah-rudh\" by Yaqut al-Hamawi) a Persian name which means \"river of Afrah\", and which the Russian orientalist Vladimir Minorsky considered to seem reminiscent of the name of Phraata.[10] He added that it is unlikely that Maragheh did not exist during the Roman era, due to its favorable location.[11]\n\nRule under the caliphate and Sajids\n\nDuring the Arab conquest of Iran, the towns of Adharbayjan (which also must have included Maragheh) were captured by al-Mughira. The Umayyad prince Marwan ibn Muhammad briefly stayed at Maragheh following his expedition to Muqan and Gilan in 740. It was during this period that the settlement was given the name of \"Maragheh\" (meaning \"place where an animal rolls\") due to the large quantity of dung there (Minorsky considers this to be an Arabic folk etymology of pre-existing local name). Marwan also engaged in some building activities in the town. Control over the town was later handed to the daughters of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809).[11]\n\nDue to the rebellion of the lord of Tabriz, Wajna ibn Rawwad, a wall was erected around Maragheh and a garrison was also established there. This was done under the orders of Khuzayma ibn Khazim, the governor of Adharbayjan and Arminiya (Armenia), a position he had probably reached in 803. Following the launch of the rebellion of Babak Khorramdin in 816/17, the people sought shelter in Maragheh. The caliph al-Mam'un (r. 813-833) soon had the walls of the town was restored, followed by the re-population of the place. In 836, Maragheh served as the winter quarters of Khaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin during his expedition against Babak.[11]\n\nIn an attempt to reduce the unstable autonomy of the Arab chieftains of Adharbayjan and partly to curb the dominance of the Bagratid kings of Armenia, the caliph al-Mu'tamid installed Muhammad ibn Abi'l-Saj as the governor of Adharbayjan and Armenia in 889/90, or more likely, in 892. The latter belonged to the Sajid family, native to Ushrusana and most likely of Sogdian origin. Muhammad's first challenge came in the form of 'Abd-Allah ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Hamdani, a rebel who had taken control of Maragheh. Muhammad convinced him to surrender in 893 by promising his safety, but once 'Abd-Allah did so he was executed by the Sajid. Maragheh was afterwards made Muhammad's capital, though he usually resided in Barda'a.[12] Muhammad amassed so much authority that he briefly declared independence from the caliphate.[13]\n\nFollowing Muhammad's death to an epidemic in 901, his troops installed his son Devdad ibn Muhammad on the throne. Five months after, however, the latter was removed from power by his uncle Yusuf ibn Abi'l-Saj, who destroyed the walls of Maragheh and moved his capital to Ardabil.[13] In 909, Yusuf was officially acknowledged as the ruler of Adharbayjan and Armenia by the newly ascended caliph al-Muqtadir.[14] A dirham struck by Yusuf at Maragheh from the same year has been found. The last Sajid ruler, Abu'l-Musafir al-Fath, was killed at Maragheh in 929.[11]\n\nDaylamite rule\n\nFollowing the collapse of the Sajid kingdom, the Kurdish commander Daysam ibn Ibrahim al-Kurdi attempted to establish his rule over Azerbaijan, but he was eventually defeated in 941/42 by Marzuban ibn Muhammad (r. 941/42-957), who gained control over the region, expanding his realm as far as Dvin in Armenia.[15] The latter belonged to the Sallarid dynasty, of Daylamite stock and originally centered in the Tarum district of Daylam.[16] In 948, Azerbaijan was briefly controlled by the Buyid dynasty, as demonstrated by a coin struck at Maragheh by Abu Mansur Muhammad, a general of the Buyid ruler Rukn al-Dawla (r. 935-976).[11]\n\nRawadid and Seljuk rule\n\nFollowing the death of the Sallarid Ibrahim I ibn Marzuban I in 983, Azerbaijan (excluding a small part, possibly Miyana) was conquered by the Kurdish Rawadids, former vassals of the Sallarids.[17] In 1039, Maragheh was sacked by a wave of immigrating Oghuz Turks, who destroyed its mosque and killed many of its inhabitants.[18] In 1054, the Rawadid ruler Abu Mansur Wahsudan (r. 1019-1058/9) was forced to submit to the Seljuk ruler Tughril (r. 1037-1063).[19][20] In 1070, Tughril arrested Wahsudan's son and successor Abu Nasr Mamlan II (r. 1058/9-1070) and incorporated Azerbaijan into his domain, thus marking the end of the Rawadid dynasty.[19] In 1104, the Seljuk brothers and rivals Berkyaruq (r. 1094-1105) and Muhammad I Tapar (r. 1105-1118) had their peace treaty signed near Maragheh. A year later, Muhammad I visited Maragheh.[11] In 1111/12, a certain Ahmadil ibn Ibrahim ibn Wahsudan was appointed as the ruler of Maragheh. The background of the latter is obscure, but some modern historians consider him to be from the Rawadid dynasty.[21][22]\n\nAhmadili rule\n\nFollowing Ahmadil's death on 16 May 1116, he was reportedly succeeded by his slave Aq Sunqur, who by 1122 had emerged as a semi-independent subject of the Seljuks.[22] This marked the start of the Ahmadili dynasty, a name they are commonly referred as due to their connection to Ahmadil.[21] Aq Sunqur secretly conspired with the rebel prince Tughril ibn Muhammad, encouraging the latter to invade Maragheh in return for soldiers and aid. The rebellion failed in 1122/23, and led to the dismissal of Aq Sunqur by the Seljuk ruler Mahmud II (r. 1118-1131). However, Aq Sunqur was soon re-appointed as the governor of Maragheh. In 1150, the Seljuk ruler Ghiyath ad-Din Mas'ud (r. 1133-1152) besieged Maragheh, due to a conflict between Aq Sunqur's son and successor Arslan Aba and another local ruler. The town was captured after two days, but a resolution was soon reached through the mediation of various military leaders.[22]\n\nIn 1174/75, the Eldiguzid prince (and subsequent ruler) Muhammad Jahan Pahlavan (r. 1175-1186) besieged Maragheh, but was unsuccessful in capturing it. The last Ahmadili ruler of Maragheh was Sulafa Khatun (r. 1209-1225). She was at Ru'in Dez during the Mongol conquest of Maragheh in 1221, led by generals Jebe and Subutai.[21][25] The Mongols \"stormed\" the city on 30 March 1221 and burned it and killed its inhabitants.[26] They continued south to capture and destroy Hamadan, until they finally took again the northern route to Derbent and the Northern Caucassus, which culminate with the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223.[25]\n\nKhwarazmian rule\n\nIn 1225, the Khwarazmshah of the Anushtegin dynasty, Jalal al-Din Mangburni (r. 1220-1231), reached Maragheh, which he was able to enter without any trouble, due the discontentment of the locals towards the raids and oppression by the Kingdom of Georgia. Mangburni attempted to restore Maragheh to its previous successful state.[26]\n\nMongol rule\n\nIn 1231, Mongol rule over Maragheh was made definite. After the Mongol ruler Hulagu Khan (r. 1256-1265) had captured Baghdad in 1258, he established his residence in Maragheh. He also had an observatory built under the directorship of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Other buildings from this period are lacking, since the first Mongol Ilkhanate rulers lived a semi-nomadic life. Zakariya al-Qazwini, who wrote a geographical dictionary around 1275, seems to have known Maragheh well.[27] He described its mineral springs, a cave which probably corresponds to the later Chay-Baghi, a mountain called Zanjaqan with its calcareous spring, and the \"impregnable\" fortress of Ru'in Dez.[27] In 1304, the Ilkhanate ruler Öljaitü (r. 1304-1316) appointed Nasir al-Din Tusi's son as the new head of the observatory.[27] In 1306, the prominent Sufi poet Awhadi Maraghai settled in Maragheh, living there until his death on 6 April 1338.[28] In 1312, Qara-Sunqur, the former amir al-umara of Aleppo, was appointed ruler of Maragheh by Öljaitü. This event is described by the 14th-century Maghrebi scholar Ibn Battuta, who also reports that Maragheh was called \"Little Damascus\". Qara-Sunqur died in 1328.[27]\n\nWriting c. 1340, Hamdallah Mustawfi described Maragheh as the capital of a tuman which included all the southern portion of Azerbaijan.[29] It bordered the tumans of Tabriz on the north and Khoy on the west; to the east was Iraq-e Ajam and to the south was Kurdistan.[29] Among the cities underneath Maragheh were Dih-i Khwaraqan, Leylan, and Pasveh.[29] He also described six districts that belonged to Maragheh, some of whose readings are uncertain: Sarajun, Niyajun, Duzakhrud, Gavdul (at the confluence of the Leylan and Jaghatu rivers), Behestan, and Hashtrud.[29] He also mentioned Anguran as a dependency of Maragheh.[29] Mustawfi reports that inhabitants of Maragheh spoke pahlavī-e moḡayyar (\"modified Pahlavi\"), i.e. the vernacular of northwestern and central Iran.[30]\n\nModern era\n\nThe 17th century Ottoman Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi mentioned that the women or the \"female society\"[31] in Maragheh mostly conversed in Pahlavi.[32] According to Mortaza Firuzi, Hossein Hassanpashaei, and Sanaz Rahkarfarshi, some sources either falsely disregard this language or deem it as the dominant language of Maragheh, which was most likely Turkman based on the account of Evliya Çelebi.[31] According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, the current inhabitants speak Azeri Turkish, but in the 14th century, they still spoke \"arabicized Pahlawi,\" an Iranian dialect of the north western group.[33]\n\nBetween the 18th and 20th centuries, Maragheh was governed by the Moqaddam family.[34]\n\nDemographics\n\nLanguage and ethnicity\n\nThe population consists mostly of Iranian Azerbaijanis who are bilingual in Azerbaijani and Persian.\n\nPopulation\n\nAt the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 146,405 in 38,891 households.[35] The census in 2011 counted 162,275 people in 47,552 households.[36] The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 175,255 people in 54,958 households.[5]\n\nGeography\n\nMaragheh is situated in a narrow valley running nearly north and south at the eastern end of a well-cultivated plain opening towards Lake Urmia, the world's sixth-largest saltwater lake, which lies 30 km to the west.[37] It lies at the southern foot of Mount Sahand, which separates it from the city of Tabriz to the north.[10] The historical core of the city is on the east bank of the Sufi Chay, which comes down from Mount Sahand before turning west and eventually flows out into Lake Urmia.[10] The climate is relatively mild and moist, and the abundant water supply makes the surrounding area very fertile.[10] Maragheh is surrounded by extensive vineyards and orchards, all well watered by canals led from the river, and producing great quantities of fruit.[37] The hills west of the town consist of horizontal strata of sandstone covered with irregular pieces of basalt.[37] The remains of the historic Maragheh observatory crown one of these hills.[37]\n\nMaragheh lies just off the main highway from Tabriz to Kermanshah, which instead goes through Bonab further west.[10] Another important road skirts around the south and southeast sides of Mount Sahand and connects Maragheh with Ardabil and Zanjan further east.[10]\n\nClimate\n\nMaragheh has a cold semi-arid climate (BSk) according to the Köppen climate classification.\n\nClimate data for Maragheh (1991-2020)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n16.9\n(62.4)\n\n19.0\n(66.2)\n\n26.0\n(78.8)\n\n31.6\n(88.9)\n\n33.9\n(93.0)\n\n39.6\n(103.3)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\n40.4\n(104.7)\n\n37.4\n(99.3)\n\n32.3\n(90.1)\n\n24.3\n(75.7)\n\n21.1\n(70.0)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n4.6\n(40.3)\n\n7.2\n(45.0)\n\n12.4\n(54.3)\n\n18.2\n(64.8)\n\n23.9\n(75.0)\n\n30.3\n(86.5)\n\n34.0\n(93.2)\n\n34.0\n(93.2)\n\n29.2\n(84.6)\n\n21.9\n(71.4)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\n6.8\n(44.2)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n-0.3\n(31.5)\n\n1.8\n(35.2)\n\n6.6\n(43.9)\n\n12.0\n(53.6)\n\n17.2\n(63.0)\n\n23.1\n(73.6)\n\n26.8\n(80.2)\n\n26.6\n(79.9)\n\n21.7\n(71.1)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n7.1\n(44.8)\n\n1.9\n(35.4)\n\n13.3\n(55.9)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-3.8\n(25.2)\n\n-2.1\n(28.2)\n\n2.1\n(35.8)\n\n6.8\n(44.2)\n\n11.3\n(52.3)\n\n16.5\n(61.7)\n\n20.4\n(68.7)\n\n20.3\n(68.5)\n\n15.5\n(59.9)\n\n9.8\n(49.6)\n\n3.2\n(37.8)\n\n-1.5\n(29.3)\n\n8.2\n(46.8)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-20.6\n(-5.1)\n\n-16.6\n(2.1)\n\n-13.2\n(8.2)\n\n-6.2\n(20.8)\n\n1.0\n(33.8)\n\n8.0\n(46.4)\n\n11.0\n(51.8)\n\n12.4\n(54.3)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n-0.6\n(30.9)\n\n-9.0\n(15.8)\n\n-18.4\n(-1.1)\n\n-20.6\n(-5.1)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n27.2\n(1.07)\n\n28.2\n(1.11)\n\n41.3\n(1.63)\n\n56.4\n(2.22)\n\n29.3\n(1.15)\n\n5.4\n(0.21)\n\n2.2\n(0.09)\n\n0.6\n(0.02)\n\n5.0\n(0.20)\n\n19.8\n(0.78)\n\n38.1\n(1.50)\n\n26.7\n(1.05)\n\n280.2\n(11.03)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n5.1\n\n5.3\n\n7.0\n\n7.7\n\n5.0\n\n1.4\n\n0.4\n\n0.3\n\n0.9\n\n3.0\n\n5.2\n\n4.7\n\n46.0\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n69.0\n\n64.0\n\n56.0\n\n52.0\n\n46.0\n\n33.0\n\n31.0\n\n29.0\n\n33.0\n\n45.0\n\n61.0\n\n68.0\n\n48.9\n\nAverage dew point °C (°F)\n\n-5.6\n(21.9)\n\n-4.8\n(23.4)\n\n-2.5\n(27.5)\n\n1.4\n(34.5)\n\n4.3\n(39.7)\n\n5.1\n(41.2)\n\n7.3\n(45.1)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\n3.7\n(38.7)\n\n2.0\n(35.6)\n\n-0.6\n(30.9)\n\n-3.8\n(25.2)\n\n1.1\n(34.0)\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n144.0\n\n160.0\n\n194.0\n\n220.0\n\n283.0\n\n358.0\n\n371.0\n\n361.0\n\n314.0\n\n248.0\n\n179.0\n\n138.0\n\n2,970\n\nSource: NOAA[38]\n\nMaragha observatory\n\nOn a hill west of the town are the remains of the famous Maragheh observatory called Rasad Khaneh, constructed under the direction the Ilkhanid king, Hülagü Khan for Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.[37] The building, which no doubt served as a citadel as well, enclosed a space of 340 by 135 meters, and the foundations of the walls were 1.3 to 2 meters in thickness.[37] The observatory was constructed in the thirteenth century and was said to house a staff of at least ten astronomers and a librarian who was in charge of the library which allegedly contained over 40,000 books. This observatory was one of the most prestigious during the medieval times in the Islamic Empire during the golden age of Islamic science. The famous astronomer Ibn al-Shatir of Damascus built on the work of Maragha astronomers 100 years later.[39]\n\nIn 1256 Nasir al-Din al-Tusi came to work at the Maragheh observatory after being attacked by a group of Mongols who came from the east. These Mongols ambushed Iran, crushing everything in their path. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was located at the Alamut, a castle in the South Caspian province of Qazin, when the Mongols invaded. Hulagu Khan was the leader of the Mongols and grandson of Genghis Khan. He was a fearless leader and warrior who was determined to conquer not only the Alamut, but many other countries across the globe as well. In order to spare his life, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi told Hulagu that he could predict the future if only he had better equipment. Being interested in science, Hulagu believed him and appointed Nasir al-Din al-Tusi as the scientific advisor of the Mongols. Hulagu allowed Nasir al-Din al-Tusi to build an observatory, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi chose Maragha, Iran. In 1259, the Maragheh observatory began construction, which took a total of three years to complete. Hulagu also put Nasir al-Din al-Tusi in charge of waqfs which were religious endowments. As director of the observatory, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and his team were able to make fascinating discoveries in astronomy, physics, and mathematics.[40]\n\nNasir al-Din al-Tusi was the director of the Maragheh observatory, and made many new discoveries while he was there. Such discoveries include the Tusi-couple, a system based on geometry that includes a smaller circle within a larger circle that is twice the diameter of the smaller circle. The rotations of the smaller circle allow a specific point on the circumference to oscillate back and forth in linear motion. The Tusi-couple solved many issues with Ptolemaic's systems over planetary motion. Also, he helped astronomy become more accurate by discovering brand new stars as well as composing a star catalogue with detailed information about each star. Another notable work from Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was an astronomical book that contained detailed notes and observations about the movement of planets. Under Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, scholars from across the Islamic world came to the Maragheh observatory in order to further their studies in math, science, and astronomy. Furthermore, many new instruments were introduced to the observatory, which made him and his team's work a competitor to that of Europe.[41]\n\nThe Maragheh observatory eventually had its downfall in the 13th century. The Mongol leader, Hulagu, died in 1265, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi died in 1274. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's son became the director of the observatory after his father's death, however, there weren't enough scholars at the observatory to fund the research that was being conducted. Therefore, the Maragheh observatory became inactive at the beginning of the 14th century. Over time, the observatory began to crumble due to consistent earthquakes and the lack of preservation of the observatory. Furthermore, the contents of the observatory were stolen during Mongol raids which wiped out important documents and books that were contained within the libraries of the observatory.[40]\n\nUniversities in Maragheh\n\nUniversity of Maragheh\n\nPayam-e Noor University of Maragheh\n\nAzad University of Maragheh\n\nFamous natives\n\nFor a complete list see: Category:People from Maragheh\n\n Mohammad Sa'ed, the 27th Prime Minister of Iran.\n\n Bulud Qarachorlu, poet.\n\nSister cities and twin towns\n\n Goražde, Bosnia and Herzegovina,[42][43]\n\nGallery\n\n The Gonbad-e Ghafariyeh\n\n The Gonbad-e Modavvar (left) and the Gonbad-e Kabud (right)\n\n Museum of the Ilkhanate in Maragheh\n\n Train station in Maragheh\n\n Street in Maragheh\n\n Mellat Park\n\n Bazaar in Maragheh\n\nSee also\n\n Maraghe travel guide from Wikivoyage\n\n Iran portal\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also romanized as Marāgheh; also known as Marāgha (Azerbaijani: مراغا; and Armenian: Մարաղա)[6]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"کوی الهیه, خیاوان باشی, قره برقع [Kui-ye Elahiyeh, Bashi Street, Qarah Barqa], Maragheh City, Maragheh Central District, Maragheh County, East Azerbaijan Province, 55136-67318\" (Map). OpenStreetMap (in Persian). 4 September 2024. Retrieved 4 September 2024.\n\n^ \"96QQ+Q4C Maragheh, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran\" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved 17 September 2025.\n\n^ Maragheh Salam News \n\n^ \"علیزاده رئیس مجمع نمایندگان استان آذربایجان شرقی شد\". 27 June 2023.\n\n^ a b سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1395 : استان آذربایجان شرقی [General Population and Housing Census 2016: East Azerbaijan Province]. مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived from the original (Excel) on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ Maragheh at GEOnet Names Server\n\n^ Habibi, Hassan (12 September 1990) [تاریخ تصویب (Approval date) 1369/06/21 (Iranian Jalali calendar)]. تصویب سازمان و سلسله تابعیت عناصر و واحدهای تقسیمات کشوری استان آذربایجان شرقی به مرکزیت شهر تبریز [‌Approval of the organization and chain of citizenship of the elements and units of the national divisions of East Azerbaijan province, centered in the city of Tabriz]. مرکز پژوهشهای مجلس شورای اسلامی ایران [Research Center of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran] (in Persian). ‌وزارت کشور [Ministry of the Interior]. کمیسیون سیاسی دفاعی هیأت دولت [Political Defense Commission of the Government Board]. یب‌نامه‌شماره .93808ت907 [Resolution No. 93808T907]. Archived from the original on 4 August 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2025.\n\n^ Minorsky 1991, pp. 498-499.\n\n^ Frye 1984, p. 163.\n\n^ a b c d e f Minorsky 1991, p. 498.\n\n^ a b c d e f Minorsky 1991, p. 499.\n\n^ Madelung 1975, p. 228.\n\n^ a b Madelung 1975, p. 229.\n\n^ Madelung 1975, p. 230.\n\n^ Bosworth 1987, pp. 224-231.\n\n^ Bosworth 2000.\n\n^ Madelung 1975, p. 236.\n\n^ Madelung 1975, p. 238.\n\n^ a b Peacock 2017.\n\n^ Madelung 1975, p. 239.\n\n^ a b c Luther 1987, pp. 898-900.\n\n^ a b c Yavari 2011.\n\n^ Ḥarīrī al-Baṣrī, Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī al- (1054-1122); texte, Al-QĀSIM ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥarīrī (Abū Muḥammad) Auteur du (1201-1300). \"Les Maqâmât d'Aboû Moḥammad al-Qâsim ibn ʿAlî al-Ḥarîrî\".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Shah, Amina (1980). The assemblies of al-Hariri : fifty encounters with the Shaykh Abu Zayd of Seruj. London : Octagon Press. pp. 22-27. ISBN 978-0-900860-86-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ a b Pubblici, Lorenzo (2021). Mongol Caucasia. Invasions, conquest, and government of a frontier region in thirteenth-century Eurasia (1204-1295). Brill. pp. 135-136. ISBN 978-90-04-50355-7.\n\n^ a b Minorsky 1991, p. 500.\n\n^ a b c d Minorsky 1991, p. 501.\n\n^ Lewisohn 2011.\n\n^ a b c d e Minorsky 1991, p. 502.\n\n^ Yarshater 1988, pp. 238-245.\n\n^ a b Firuzi, Mortaza; Rahkarfarshi, Sanaz; Hassanpashaei, Hossein (2016). \"The culture and language of the people of Nakhchivan, Tabriz and Maragheh in Travel literature of Evliya Çelebi\". International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies. 3 (2): 591-599. Retrieved 16 November 2022.\n\n^ Source: Mohammad-Amin Riahi . “Molehaazi darbaareyeh Zabaan-I Kohan Azerbaijan”(Some comments on the ancient language of Azerbaijan), ‘Itilia’at Siyasi Magazine, volumes 181-182. ریاحی خویی، محمدامین، «ملاحظاتی درباره‌ی زبان كهن آذربایجان»: اطلاعات سیاسی - اقتصادی، شماره‌ی 182-181 Also available at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/Azari/26.pdf]\n\n^ V. Minorsky, \"Margha\" in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2009. Brill Online.\"At the present day, the inhabitants speak Adhar Turkish, but in the 14th century they still spoke “arabicized Pahlawi” (Nuzhat al-Qolub: Pahlawi Mu’arrab) which means an Iranian dialect of the north western group.\"\n\n^ Good 1977, pp. 132-133.\n\n^ سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1385 : استان آذربایجان شرقی [General Population and Housing Census 2006: East Azerbaijan Province]. مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived from the original (Excel) on 20 September 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2022.\n\n^ سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1390 : استان آذربایجان شرقی [General Population and Housing Census 2011: East Azerbaijan Province]. Iran Data Portal-Syracuse University (in Persian). مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran]. Archived from the original (Excel) on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ a b c d e f One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Marāgha\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 667-668.\n\n^ \"World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020 - Maragheh\". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved January 1, 2024.\n\n^ Lindberg, David C. (1992). The Beginnings of Western Science. United States: The University of Chicago Press. pp. 179-181. ISBN 9780226482057.\n\n^ a b \"The Observational Instruments at the Maragha Observatory after AD 1300\". ou-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com. Retrieved 2021-01-20.\n\n^ \"Al-Tusi, Nasir al-Din\". Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Retrieved 2021-01-20.\n\n^ \"Obavještenje\". Archived from the original on 2011-09-11. Retrieved 2011-03-19.\n\n^ gorazde.ba. \"NAČELNIK UPRILIČIO PRIJEM ZA GOSTE IZ IRANA\". Grad Goražde. Retrieved 5 April 2018.\n\nE. Makovicky (1992): 800-year-old pentagonal tiling from Maragha, Iran, and the new varieties of aperiodic tiling it inspired. In: I. Hargittai, editor: Fivefold Symmetry, pp. 67-86. World Scientific, Singapore-London\n\nPeter J. Lu and Paul J. Steinhardt: Decagonal and Quasi-crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture, Science 315 (2007) 1106-1110\n\nSources\n\nBosworth, C. E. (1987). \"Azerbaijan iv. Islamic History to 1941\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. III/2: Awāʾel al-maqālāt-Azerbaijan IV. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 224-231. ISBN 978-0-71009-114-7.\n\nBosworth, C. E. (2000). \"Mosaferids\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nBournoutian, George (2021). From the Kur to the Aras: A Military History of Russia's Move into the South Caucasus and the First Russo-Iranian War, 1801-1813. Brill. ISBN 978-9004445154.\n\nFrye, R. N. (1984). The History of Ancient Iran. C. H. Beck. ISBN 978-3406093975.\n\nGood, Mary-Jo Delvecchio (1977). \"Social Hierarchy in Provincial Iran: The Case of Qajar Maragheh\". Iranian Studies. 10 (3): 129-163. doi:10.1080/00210867708701529. JSTOR 4310267. (registration required)\n\nLewisohn, Leonard (2011). \"Awḥadī Marāghaʾī\". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30552. ISSN 1873-9830.\n\nLornejad, Siavash; Doostzadeh, Ali (2012). Arakelova, Victoria; Asatrian, Garnik (eds.). On the modern politicization of the Persian poet Nezami Ganjavi (PDF). Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-09-14. Retrieved 2022-10-17.\n\nLuther, K. A. (1987). \"Atābakān-e Marāḡa\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. II/8: Aśoka IV-Āṯār al-Wozarāʾ. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 898-900. ISBN 978-0-71009-108-6.\n\nMadelung, W. (1975). \"The Minor Dynasties of Northern Iran\". In Frye, Richard N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 198-249. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.\n\nMinorsky, V. (1991). \"Marāg̲h̲a\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VI: Mahk-Mid. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 498-503. ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.\n\nPeacock, Andrew (2017). \"Rawwadids\". Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition. New York.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nYarshater, E. (1988). \"Azerbaijan vii. The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. III/3: Azerbaijan IV-Bačča(-ye) Saqqā. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 238-245. ISBN 978-0-71009-115-4.\n\nYavari, Neguin (2011). \"Aḥmadīlīs\". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website\n\nMaragheh in Enc. Britannica\n\nThe Columbia Encyclopedia\n\nPhotography of Gunbad-i-Qabud\n\nAstronomy and Astrophysics Research Center of Maragha Archived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine\n\nBiography of A'bd alqader ibn Ghaibi al Hafiz al Maraghi\n\nMaragheh photos\n\nMore photos and Information of Maragheh, Tishineh"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-maragheh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4457}, {"slug": "reference-christianity-in-iran", "title": "Christianity in Iran", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "In Iran, Christianity dates back to the early years of the religion. Through this time the Christian faith has always been followed by a minority of the population of Iran under its different state religions: Zoroastrianism in ancient Persia, followed by Sunni Islam in the Middle Ages after...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Iranian Christians\nAssyrian Christians from Urmia\n\nTotal population\n\n300,000[1]-370,000[1]\n\nLanguages\n\nPersian, Armenian and Aramaic (Suret)\n\nIn Iran, Christianity dates back to the early years of the religion. Through this time the Christian faith has always been followed by a minority of the population of Iran under its different state religions: Zoroastrianism in ancient Persia, followed by Sunni Islam in the Middle Ages after the Arab conquest, then Shia Islam since the Safavid conversion of the 15th century. However, Christians comprised a larger share of the population in the past than they do today. Armenians are the largest Christian community in Iran.[2]\n\nMajor denominations\n\nA number of Christian denominations are represented in Iran. Many members of the larger and older churches belong to minority ethnic groups, with the Armenians and Assyrians having their own distinctive culture and language. The members of the newer and smaller churches are drawn both from the traditionally Christian ethnic minorities and converts from a non-Christian background.[3][4]\n\nThe major Christian churches in Iran are:\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church (between 110,000,[5] 250,000,[6] and 300,000[7] adherents)\n\nAssyrian Church of the East (about 11,000-20,000 adherents),[1][8]\n\nCatholic Church (about 21,380 adherents) in three different rites.[8]\n\nChaldean Catholic Church (3,900 adherents as of 2014)[9]\n\nArmenian Catholic Church\n\nLatin Church\n\nAssyrian Evangelical Church Presbyterian\n\nAssyrian Pentecostal Church Pentecostal\n\nJamaʿat-e Rabbani (Iranian Assemblies of God)\n\nAnglican Diocese of Iran\n\nRussian Orthodox Church\n\nAccording to Operation World, there are between 7,000 and 15,000 members and adherents of the various Protestant, Evangelical, and other minority Christian denominations in Iran.[8]\n\nIn the 2016 census, the Statistical Center of Iran reported there were 117,700 Christians in the country;[10] other reports put the figure at over half a million people.\n\nThe \"Country Information and Guidance: Christians and Christian Converts, Iran\" report published in December 2014 by the U.K. Home Office states that there were 370,000 Christians in Iran.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nGregoryMirianBademusTiridatesAsyncritusMaruthasRazhden the ProtomartyrJamesEustathiusTeresia SampsoniaJosefShams PahlaviAbdas of SusaSaint Benjamin the Deacon and Martyr\n\nAccording to the Acts of the Apostles there were Persians, Parthians and Medes among the first new Christian converts at Pentecost.[11] Since then there has been a continuous presence of Christians in Iran.\n\nDuring the apostolic age Christianity began to establish itself throughout the Mediterranean. However, a quite different Semitic-speaking Christian culture developed on the eastern borders of the Roman Empire and in Persia.[12][13] Syriac Christianity owed much to preexistent Jewish communities and to the Aramaic language.[14][15][16] This language had been spoken by Jesus, and, in various modern Eastern Aramaic forms is still spoken by the ethnic Assyrian Christians in Iran, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and Iraq today (see Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, and Senaya language).\n\nFrom Persian-ruled Assyria (Assuristan), missionary activity spread Eastern-Rite Syriac Christianity throughout Assyria and Mesopotamia, and from there into Persia, Asia Minor, Syria, the Caucasus and Central Asia, establishing the Saint Thomas Christians of India and erecting the Nestorian Stele and the Daqin Pagoda in China.\n\nEarly Christian communities straddling the Roman-Persian border found themselves in the midst of civil strife. In 313, when Constantine I proclaimed Christianity a tolerated religion in the Roman Empire, the Sassanid rulers of Persia adopted a policy of persecution against Christians, including the double-tax of Shapur II in the 340s. The Sassanids feared the Christians as a subversive and possibly disloyal minority. In the early-5th century official persecution increased once more. However, from the reign of Hormizd III (457-459) serious persecutions grew less frequent and the Persian church began to achieve a recognized status. Through the Battle of Avarayr (451) and the resultant treaty of 484, for example, the Persian Empire's numerous Armenian subjects gained the official right to profess Eastern Christianity freely.[17][18] Ultimately, the many Christian martyrs in Persia came to be commemorated in Christian memory, including through a collection of texts of Syriac literature known as the Persian martyr acts. Political pressure within Persia and cultural differences with western Christianity were mostly to blame for the Nestorian schism, in the course of which the Roman Empire church hierarchy labelled the Church of the East heretical. The bishop of Ctesiphon (the capital of the Sassanid Empire) acquired the title first of catholicos, and then patriarch, completely independent of any Roman/Byzantine hierarchy.\n\nMany old churches remain in Iran from the early days of Christianity. Some historians regard the Assyrian Church of Mart Maryam (St. Mary) in northwestern Iran, for example, as the second-oldest church in Christendom after the Church of Bethlehem in the West Bank. A Chinese princess, who contributed to its reconstruction in 642 AD, has her name engraved on a stone on the church wall. The famous Italian traveller Marco Polo also described the church following his visit.\n\nThe Arab Islamic conquest of Persia, in the 7th century, originally benefited Christians as they were a protected minority under Islam. However, from about the 10th century religious tension led to persecution once more. The influence of European Christians placed Near Eastern Christians in peril during the Crusades. From the mid-13th century, Mongol rule was a relief to Persian Christians until the Ilkhanate adopted Islam at the turn of the 14th century. The Christian population gradually declined to a small minority. Christians disengaged from mainstream society and withdrew into ethnic ghettos (mostly Assyrian and Armenian speaking). Persecution against Christians revived in the 14th century; when the Muslim warlord of Turco-Mongol descent Timur (Tamerlane) conquered Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor, he ordered large-scale massacres of Christians in Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia Minor and Syria. Most of the victims were indigenous Assyrians and Armenians, members of the Assyrian Church of the East and of Orthodox Churches.\n\nIn 1445 a part of the Sureth-speaking Church of the East entered into communion with the Catholic Church (mostly in the Ottoman Empire, but also in Persia). This group had a faltering start but has existed as a separate church since Pope Julius III consecrated Yohannan Sulaqa as Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon in 1553. Most Assyrian Catholics in Iran today are members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The community that remains independent is the Assyrian Church of the East, but both churches now have much smaller memberships in Iran than the Armenian Apostolic Church.\n\nThe number of Christians in Iran was further significantly boosted through various policies of the subsequent kingdoms that ruled from 1501. For example, in 1606 during the Ottoman-Safavid War (1603-18), king Abbas I resettled some 300,000 Armenians deeper within modern-day Iran, as well as establishing their own quarter in the then-capital Isfahan, which is still largely populated by Christian Armenians some four centuries later: the New Julfa district. Other hundreds of thousands of Christian Georgians and Circassians were furthermore deported and resettled during the same Safavid era and in the later Qajar era within Iran, although both communities are exclusively Muslim nowadays.[19]\n\nIn the 18th and 19th centuries, Protestant missionaries began to evangelize in Persia. They directed their operations towards supporting the extant churches of the country while improving education and health-care. Unlike the older, ethnic churches, these evangelical Protestants began to engage with the ethnic Persian Muslim community. Their printing presses produced much religious material in various languages. Some Persians subsequently converted[20] to Protestantism and their churches still exist within Iran (using the Persian language).\n\nA Russian spiritual mission was operating in Iran by the beginning of the 20th century and, by 1917, there were about fifty Russian Orthodox churches. Over the next three years, everything that had been created over the previous three centuries was lost. In the early 1940s, a Russian church reappeared in Iran thanks to the donations of Russian emigrants - St. Nicholas Cathedral, which was under the administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. In the 1980s and 1990s, the church was gradually abandoned, and in 1995, at the request of its parishioners, St. Nicholas Church was annexed to the Moscow Patriarchate.\n\nIn the early 20th century, once again Iran's stable and extant Christian population was boosted - this time due to the effects of the Assyrian genocide (1914-1924) and the Armenian genocide (1914-1923), as many tens of thousands of refugees poured in. However, both massacres drastically negatively affected Iran's Christian population as well, as Ottoman troops crossed the Iranian border in the later stages of World War I and massacred many tens of thousands of Armenians and Assyrians within Iran's borders as well, especially in West Azerbaijan Province, but also in adjacent provinces.[21][22] Vibrant, huge and millennia-old native Christian communities in these parts of Iran were virtually shattered by the Ottoman actions, being reduced from formerly composing majorities in some of the regions, to very small - though noticeable - surviving communities. Prior to World War I and the Assyrian genocide, the population of Urmia was 40% to 50% Christian, for example.[23][24]\n\nIn 1918, during the Persian Campaign, about half of the Assyrians of Persia died in Turkish and Kurdish massacres and in related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.[25]\n\nCurrent situation\n\nIn 1976, the census reported that the Christian population of Iran holding citizenship there numbered 168,593 people, with most of them being Armenians. Due to the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, almost half of the Armenians migrated to the newly independent Armenia, but one estimate from 1999 placed the number as high as 310,000.[26] Other estimates since 2000 have placed the number of Christians with Iranian citizenship as high as 109,415 in 2006.\n\nSignificant immigration of Assyrians from Iraq has been recorded during this period, due to massacres and harassment in post-Saddam Iraq. However, most of those Assyrians in Iran do not have Iranian citizenship, and therefore are not included in the data. In 2008, the central office of the International Union of Assyrians was officially transferred to Iran after being hosted in the United States for more than four decades.[27]\n\nCensus\n\nTotal\n\nChristians\n\n+/-\n\n#\n\n%\n\n1956\n\n18,654,127\n\n114,528\n\n0.614%\n\n1966\n\n24,771,922\n\n149,427\n\n0.603%\n\n +30%\n\n1976[28]\n\n33,396,908\n\n168,593\n\n0.505%\n\n +13%\n\n1986[28]\n\n49,445,010\n\n97,557\n\n0.197%\n\n -42%\n\n1996[29]\n\n60,055,488\n\n78,745\n\n0.131%\n\n -19%\n\n2006[30]\n\n70,097,741\n\n109,415\n\n0.156%\n\n +39%\n\n2011[31]\n\n74,682,938\n\n117,704\n\n0.157%\n\n +8%\n\n2016[32]\n\n79,598,054\n\n130,158\n\n0.163%\n\n +11%\n\nOn 2 February 2018, four United Nations human rights experts said that members of the Christian minority in Iran, particularly those who have converted to Christianity, are facing severe discrimination and religious persecution in Iran. They expressed their concerns over treatment of three Iranian Christians imprisoned in Iran.[33]\n\nIranian Christians tend to be urban, with 50% living in Tehran.[34]\n\nChristianity remains the second-largest non-Muslim minority religion in the country.[35]\n\nA June 2020 online survey found a much smaller percentage of Iranians stating they believe in Islam, with half of those surveyed indicating they had lost their religious faith.[36] The poll, conducted by the Netherlands-based GAMAAN (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran), using online polling to provide greater anonymity for respondents, surveyed 50,000 Iranians and found 1.5% identified as Christians.[36][37]\n\nChristian converts from Islam\n\nBeginning in the 1970s, some Protestant pastors started to hold church services in homes in Persian, rather than in one of the ethnic Christian minority languages such as Armenian or Syriac. One of the key leaders who spearheaded this movement was the Assemblies of God bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr. Worship in homes rather than in church buildings, and the utilization of the national language (Persian), which was spoken by nearly all Iranians, combined with dissatisfaction at violence connected to the Iranian Revolution, led to substantial numbers of Iranian Muslims converting from Islam to Christianity. This took place both within Iran and abroad, among the Iranian diaspora.[38] It is currently illegal to distribute Christian literature in the official language, Persian.[39]\n\nMuslims who change their faith to Christianity are subject to societal and official pressure which may lead to the death penalty.[40][41][42] Although the Civil Code does not provide explicitly for the death penalty - with the crime being punishable by fines, lashing, and prison terms - judges can impose the death penalty if they desire.[43] Iran was number nine on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.[44]\n\nPentecostal pastor Hossein Sudmand was charged with apostasy and executed in 1990.[43]\nMehdi Dibaj was arrested and imprisoned for more than 10 years before he was sentenced to death in 1993, but after international pressure, he was freed in 1994, although the death sentence was not lifted. He was murdered the next year.[45][46]\nIn 2011, Youcef Nadarkhani, an Jammiat-e Rabbani pastor, was allegedly sentenced to death for refusing to recant his faith.[47]\nMore recently the Iranian-American pastor and former Muslim Saeed Abedini, who in 2013 was sentenced to eight years prison, allegedly \"Helped to build the country's underground Christian church network\".[48]\nSatellite TV networks, such as Mohabat TV, Sat7 Pars, and TBN Nejat TV, distribute educational and encouraging programs for Christians, especially targeting Persian speakers. Some Christian ex-Muslims emigrate from Iran for educational, political, security or economic reasons.[49][50][51][52][53]\n\nIt is difficult to obtain accurate figures for Protestants of all denominations and Catholics in Iran.[54] Complicating the matter is the mixture of ethnic identity with religious affiliation, and the number of Muslim converts to Christianity, who as discussed above have a strong incentive to conceal themselves.[54][55] Most informants often referred to \"only a few thousand\" in estimating the overall numbers of non-ethnic Christians in Iran. According to the data from the mid 1990s, all Protestant churches in Iran claimed an ethnic and Iranian membership of 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 or 15,000.[43][54] A 2015 study estimated (describing this as a conservative estimate) that there were 100,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background living in Iran, most of them evangelical or Pentecostal Christians.[56] Significant numbers of Muslim converts to Christianity in Iran are estimated to range from 300,000 to 500,000 by various sources.[57][58][59][60][61] Other estimates put the numbers between 800,000 and 3 million.[62]\n\nAccording to scholar Ladan Boroumand, \"Iran today is witnessing the highest rate of Christianization in the world.\"[63] According to scholar Shay Khatiri of Johns Hopkins University, “Islam is the fastest shrinking religion in there [Iran], while Christianity is growing the fastest”,[64] and in 2018 \"up to half a million Iranians are Christian converts from Muslim families, and most of these Christians are evangelicals.\"[65] He adds that \"recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between 1 million and 3 million\".[66]\n\nIn May 2019 Iran's Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi expressed concern over Iranian Muslims converting to Christianity and said the Intelligence Ministry have dispatched agents active in \"countering the advocates of Christianity\" to areas where there is a potential for people to convert.[67] In June 2024, it was reported that the Iranian judiciary sentenced five Christian converts to a total of over 25 years in prison.[68]\n\nThe Bible in languages of Iran\n\nArmenian and Assyrian Christians use Bibles in their own languages.\n\nMultiple Persian translations and versions of the Bible have been translated in more recent times, although distribution of Christian literature in Persian is currently illegal.[4][69][70][71]\n\nPortions of the Bible are translated into Azeri,[72] Mazanderani, Gilaki,[73] Bakhtiari, Luri, Kurdish (Kurmanji and Sorani).\n\nFreedom of religion\n\nIn 2023, the country was given a score of zero out of four for religious freedom.[74]\n\nIn the same year, it was ranked as the eighth most difficult place in the world to be a Christian.[75]\n\nSee also\n\nCatholic Church in Iran\n\nChristianity in the Safavid Empire\n\nGerman Speaking Evangelical Congregation in Iran\n\nChristians in the Persian Gulf\n\nIranian Armenians\n\nIranian Assyrians\n\nList of religious centers in Tehran#Churches\n\nReligion in Iran\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Country Information and Guidance \"Christians and Christian Converts, Iran\" 19 March 2015. p. 9\n\n^ Golnaz Esfandiari (23 December 2004). \"A Look At Iran's Christian Minority\". Payvand. Retrieved 21 March 2012.\n\n^ \"Iran\". United States Department of State. Retrieved 2 March 2026.\n\n^ a b \"Country policy and information note: Christians and Christian converts, Iran, September 2022\". gov.uk. Retrieved 7 April 2023.\n\n^ \"In Iran, 'crackdown' on Christians worsens\". Christian Examiner. Washington D.C. April 2009. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2009.\n\n^ Price, Massoume (December 2002). \"History of Christians and Christianity in Iran\". Christianity in Iran. FarsiNet Inc. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2009.\n\n^ \"In Iran, 'crackdown' on Christians worsens\". Christian Examiner. Washington D.C. April 2009. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2015.\n\n^ a b c \"Iran\". Archived from the original on 14 July 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Current Chaldean Dioceses\". www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Archived from the original on 5 September 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2016.\n\n^ \"Iran\".\n\n^ Acts 2:9\n\n^ Florence Jullien. Eastern Christianity: a Crossroads of Cultures. Florence Jullien. Eastern Christianity: a Crossroads of Cultures, 16, Peeters, pp.1-45, 2012, EASTERN CHRISTIAN STUDIES.\n\n^ Burns, Kyle Joseph (2019). Examining the Efficiency of Rule-Based Machine Translation (Honors thesis). Schreyer Honors College, The Pennsylvania State University.\n\n^ \"History of Syriac | Beth Mardutho\". Retrieved 2 March 2026.\n\n^ Romeny, Bas ter Haar. \"Chapter One: Hypotheses on the Development of Judaism and Christianity in Syria in the Period after 70 C.E.\". Matthew and the Didache. Brill. pp. 13-33. doi:10.1163/9789004495326_003.\n\n^ Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (2020). \"Syriac Christian Sources and the Babylonian Talmud\" (PDF). In Aaron Michael Butts; Simcha Gross (eds.). Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersections Across the First Millennium. 180. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 255-279. ISBN 9783161591358.\n\n^ Hewsen, Robert H. (17 August 2011). \"AVARAYR\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 11 July 2015. So spirited was the Armenian defense, however, that the Persians suffered enormous losses as well. Their victory was pyrrhic and the king, faced with troubles elsewhere, was forced, at least for the time being, to allow the Armenians to worship as they chose.\n\n^ Susan Paul Pattie (1997). Faith in History: Armenians Rebuilding Community. Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 40. ISBN 1560986298. The Armenian defeat in the Battle of Avarayr in 451 proved a pyrrhic victory for the Persians. Though the Armenians lost their commander, Vartan Mamikonian, and most of their soldiers, Persian losses were proportionately heavy, and Armenia was allowed to remain Christian.\n\n^ Rezvani, Babak (Winter 2009). \"The Fereydani Georgian Representation\". Anthropology of the Middle East. 4 (2): 52-74. doi:10.3167/ame.2009.040205.\n\n^ Cate, Patrick; Singer, Dwight (1980). \"A Survey of Muslim Converts in Iran\". pp. 1-16. Archived from the original on 16 March 2020. Retrieved 19 November 2012.\n\n^ Richard G. Hovannisian (2011). The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies. Transaction Publishers. pp. 270-271. ISBN 978-1-4128-3592-3. Archived from the original on 18 October 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2017.\n\n^ Alexander Laban Hinton; Thomas La Pointe; Douglas Irvin-Erickson (2013). Hidden Genocides: Power, Knowledge, Memory. Rutgers University Press. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-8135-6164-6. Archived from the original on 29 July 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2017.\n\n^ \"Urmia\". Archived from the original on 30 September 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2015 - via Questia.\n\n^ Orūmīyeh Archived 3 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine Britannica.com\n\n^ \nBaumer, Church of the East, at 263. The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity, Christoph Baumer, I.B. Tauris, 2006.\n\n^ Gorder, Christian (2010). Christianity in Persia and the Status of Non-Muslims in Iran. Lexington Books. p. 19.\n\n^ Tehran Times: Assyrians’ central office officially transferred to Iran Archived 31 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b Statistical Centre of Iran: 6. Followers of selected religions in the 1976 & 1986 censuses Archived 29 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Statistical Centre of Iran: 2. 17. Population by religion and ostan, 1375 census Archived 18 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Statistical Centre of Iran: 2. 15. Population by religion and ostan, 1385 census Archived 18 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Statistical Centre of Iran: Population by religion, 2006-2011\n\n^ \"Religious composition of Iran 2016\". pop-stat.mashke.org. Retrieved 17 June 2025.\n\n^ Iran must ensure rights of Christian minority and fair trial for the accused- UN experts Iran must ensure rights of Christian minority and fair trial for the accused- UN experts Archived 10 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ University of Maryland \"Minorities at Risk\" Project. Assessment for Christians in Iran Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Page dated 31 December 2006. Assessed on 9 October 2011.\n\n^ Barry Rubin (2015). The Middle East: A Guide to Politics, Economics, Society and Culture. Routledge. p. 354. ISBN 978-1-317-45578-3. Archived from the original on 29 July 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2017.\n\n^ a b \"Iranians have lost their faith according to survey\". Iran International. 25 August 2020. Archived from the original on 8 September 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2020.\n\n^ \"گزارش نظرسنجی درباره نگرش ایرانیان به دین\". گَمان - گروه مطالعات افکارسنجی ایرانیان (in Persian). 23 August 2020. Archived from the original on 8 October 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2020.\n\n^ Miller, Duane Alexander (2015). \"Power, Personalities and Politics: The Growth of Iranian Christianity since 1979\". Mission Studies. 32 (1): 66-86. doi:10.1163/15733831-12341380. Retrieved 18 August 2015.\n\n^ \"What it's like to be a Christian in Iran\". Deutsche Welle. 25 January 2016. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.\n\n^ \"Iran to Punish Apostasy with Death\". Der Spiegel. 28 February 2008. Archived from the original on 3 December 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2018.\n\n^ \"Archived copy\". Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ \"Archived copy\" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ a b c Afshari, Reza (2011). Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism. University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 140, ISBN 978-0-8122-2139-8\n\n^ \"Iran is number 9 on the World Watch List\". UK: Open doors.\n\n^ Afshari, Reza (2011). Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism. University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 140f., ISBN 978-0-8122-2139-8\n\n^ Mehdi Dibaj Archived 2 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine Human Rights & Democracy for Iran.\n\n^ Banks, Adelle M. (28 September 2011). \"Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani's potential execution rallies U.S. Christians\". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2011. Religious freedom advocates rallied Wednesday (Sept. 28) around an Iranian pastor who is facing execution because he has refused to recant his Christian faith in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.\n\n^ Aghajanian, Liana (14 March 2014). \"Iran's Oppressed Christians\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 August 2014. Retrieved 28 June 2014.\n\n^ Miller, Duane Alexander (October 2009). \"The Conversion Narrative of Samira: From Shi'a Islam to Mary, her Church, and her Son\" (PDF). St Francis Magazine. 5 (5): 81-92. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2013.\n\n^ Miller, Duane Alexander (April 2012). \"The Secret World of God: Aesthetics, Relationships, and the Conversion of 'Frances' from Shi'a Islam to Christianity\" (PDF). Global Missiology. 9 (3). Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 19 November 2012.\n\n^ Nasser, David (2009). Jumping through Fires. Grand Rapids: Baker.\n\n^ Rabiipour, Saiid (2009). Farewell to Islam. Xulon.\n\n^ \"TBN Nejat Television Takes Powerful Message of Hope to Millions Across Iran, Middle East, Europe, and Beyond\". TBN. 12 February 2015. Archived from the original on 6 October 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.\n\n^ a b c Sanasarian, Eliz (2000). Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge Middle East Studies). Cambridge University Press, p. 44, ISBN 0-521-77073-4\n\n^ Aghajanian, Liana (12 May 2014). \"'Our second mother': Iran's converted Christians find sanctuary in Germany\". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 December 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2021.\n\n^ Johnstone, Patrick; Miller, Duane Alexander (2015). \"Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census\". Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. 11: 8. Archived from the original on 28 September 2019. Retrieved 30 October 2015.\n\n^ \"Report: Iran: Christian converts and house churches (1) -prevalence and conditions for religious practice Translation provided by the Office of the Commissioner-General for Refugees and Stateless Persons, Belgium\" (PDF). Office of the Commissioner-General for Refugees and Stateless Persons, Belgium. 22 February 2009. In his research article, Miller (2015, p. 71) points to an anonymous, but the well-informed source that estimated that in 2010, there were about 100,000 converts in Iran... estimated the number of Christian ethnic Persians to be about 175,000. these were claimed to be converts of Shiite Muslim background.\n\n^ \"Iranians Turn Away from the Islamic Republic\". Journal of Democracy. 22 January 2020.\n\n^ \"'Our second mother': Iran's converted Christians find sanctuary in Germany\". The Guardian. 12 May 2014. The underground nature of the Christian conversion movement has made numbers impossible to determine accurately. Estimates range from 300,000 to 500,000 by various sources.\n\n^ \"2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Iran\". United States Department of State. 12 May 2019. estimates citing figures lower than 10,000, and others, such as Open Doors USA, citing numbers above 800,000, Many Protestants and converts to Christianity from Islam reportedly practice in secret.\n\n^ \"Are Iran's Christian converts at greater risk after Soleimani's demise?\". The Jerusalem Post. 7 February 2018. Conservative estimates place the number of Christians in Iran between 500,000 to 800,000 believers, but others claim there are more than one million. Traditionally, Christian families amount to around 250,000, while the remainder consists of converts from Islam. Most converts from Islam belong to the underground Protestant house-church movement, which Iran considers to be illegal. Meanwhile, according to Islamic and Iranian law, conversion from Islam is a capital offense.\n\n^ \"Iran: Christians and Christian converts - Department of Justice\". Home Office. 20 February 2020. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 25 May 2022. Open Doors, interviewed by the UK Home Office on 8 August 2017, stated that many converts do not publicly report their faith due to persecution, so it is difficult to record the exact numbers of Iranian Christian converts. Open Doors believes the number to be 800,000, although this is a conservative estimate. Other estimates put the number between 400,000-500,000 right up to 3 million... A March 2019 US Congressional Research Service report on Iran put the 300,000\n\n^ \"Iranians Turn Away from the Islamic Republic\". Journal of Democracy. 20 January 2020.\n\n^ \"Iran's Christian Boom\". JewishPress. 29 June 2021. Shay Khatiri of Johns Hopkins University wrote last year about Iran that \"Islam is the fastest shrinking religion there, while Christianity is growing the fastest.\"\n\n^ \"America Must Focus on Religious Persecution against Iranian Christian Converts\". providence. 3 August 2020. Speaking of faith and Iran, most people think of Islam. Yet Islam is the fastest shrinking religion there, while Christianity is growing the fastest. According to a report by the Department of State from 2018, up to half a million Iranians are Christian converts from Muslim families, and most of these Christians are evangelicals. Recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between one million and three million. This is up from 100,000 in 1994, and a majority of these converts are reportedly women. A recent documentary, Sheep among Wolves, documents the lives of these converts and shows how Iran is the \"fastest-growing church\" in the world.\n\n^ \"America Must Focus on Religious Persecution against Iranian Christian Converts\". providence. 3 August 2020. Recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between one million and three million.\n\n^ \"Iran Intelligence 'Summons' People 'Who Showed Interest in Christianity'\". Radio Farda. 4 May 2019. Archived from the original on 6 June 2019. Retrieved 8 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Christian converts sentenced to total of 25 years in jail by Iranian judiciary - report\". The Jerusalem Post. 24 June 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.\n\n^ \"2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Iran\". state.gov. Retrieved 7 April 2023.\n\n^ \"What its like to be a Christian in Iran\". dw.com. Retrieved 7 April 2023.\n\n^ \"Iran continues to persecute Christians in violation of international law\". jpost.com. 21 January 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2023.\n\n^ \"موقدّس کئتاب\". korpu.net. Archived from the original on 18 June 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2021.\n\n^ \"خوش بَموییدی | گیلک مدیا\". www.gilakmedia.com. 28 September 2009. Archived from the original on 26 August 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2021.\n\n^ \"Iran: Freedom in the World 2022 Country Report\". Freedom House.\n\n^ \"Iran\". UK: Open doors.\n\nFurther reading\n\nMiller, Duane Alexander (2015). \"Power, Personalities and Politics: The Growth of Iranian Christianity since 1979\". Mission Studies. 32 (1). Brill: 66-86. doi:10.1163/15733831-12341380.\n\nGillman, Ian and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999.\n\nFoltz, Richard (2013). Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present. London: Oneworld publications. ISBN 978-1-78074-308-0.\n\nA Brief History of Christianity in Iran by Massoume Price\n\nMoffett, Samuel Hugh, A History of Christianity in Asia: Beginnings to 1500, San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1992.\n\nStatistical Information from: Operation World Website\n\nChristian architecture in Iran Archived 5 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine\n\nRFE/RL article on Christians in Iran\n\nBradley, Mark, Iran and Christianity: Historical Identity and Present Relevance Continuum, London, 2008\n\nJenkins, Philip, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia and How it Died, HarperOne, New York, 2008\n\nRömer, Benedikt, The Iranian Christian Diaspora: Religion and Nationhood in Exile, I.B. Tauris, London/New York, 2024\n\nExternal links\n\nFarsiNet Large Iranian Christian internet portal (mostly evangelical)\n\nwww. IranChurches.ir The Base of Iranian Historic Churches\n\nOnline Kelisa Iranian Virtual Church\n\nwww. christforiran.com Iranian Christian resources\n\nA Cry from Iran - an award-winning documentary video (DVD) telling the story of some Iranian Christian martyrs\n\nwww. Irankelisa.com Archived 27 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine Virtual Iranian seminary for Christians residing in Iran.\n\nwww. gilakmedia.com Gilak Media - Digital Scripture in Video, Audio and Print form in the Gilaki language.\n\nChristchurch Teheran[link removed]"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christianity-in-iran"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5091}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-christianity", "title": "Syriac Christianity", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Syriac Christianity (Syriac: ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ, Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto or Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā) is a branch of Eastern Christianity. The formative body of Syriac literature, covering theological writings and traditional liturgies, are expressed in the Classical Syriac language, a variation of the old Aramaic language.[1][2][3] In a wider sense, the term...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syriac Christianity (Syriac: ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ, Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto or Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā) is a branch of Eastern Christianity. The formative body of Syriac literature, covering theological writings and traditional liturgies, are expressed in the Classical Syriac language, a variation of the old Aramaic language.[1][2][3] In a wider sense, the term can also refer to Aramaic Christianity in general, thus encompassing all Christian traditions that are based on the liturgical uses of the Aramaic language and its variations, both historical and modern.[4][5][6]\n\nAlong with Greek and Latin, Classical Syriac was one of the three most important languages of Early Christianity.[7] It became a vessel for the development of a distinctive Syriac form of Christianity which flourished throughout the Near East and other parts of Asia during late antiquity and the early medieval period, giving rise to various liturgical and denominational traditions, represented in modern times by several churches which continue to uphold the religious and cultural heritage of Syriac Christianity.[8][9]\n\nSyriac Christianity comprises two liturgical traditions: the East Syriac Rite and the West Syriac Rite.[10]\n\nThe East Syriac Rite (also known as the Chaldean, Assyrian, or Persian Rite)[11] uses the Liturgy of Addai and Mari. It is the rite of the churches descended from the Church of the East, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Syrian Church, and the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.\n\nThe West Syriac Rite (also called Antiochian Syriac Rite) uses the Liturgy of Saint James. It is the rite of the Oriental Orthodox Syriac Orthodox Church (including its component the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church), Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church; and the Catholic Maronite Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Protestant forms of this rite are used by the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India.\n\nIn India, indigenous Eastern Christians (Saint Thomas Christians) of both liturgical traditions (East and West Syriac) are called Syrian Christians. The traditional East Syriac community is represented by the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Chaldean Syrian Church of India. The West Syriac liturgical tradition was introduced after 1665, and the community associated with it is represented by the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (part of the Syriac Orthodox Church) and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, both of which are Oriental Orthodox, in addition to the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (an Eastern Catholic church), the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church (part of the Anglican Communion), and the Malabar Independent Syrian Church (an independent Oriental Orthodox Church not part of the Oriental Orthodox Communion).[12]\n\nThe Syriac language is a variety of Aramaic language that emerged in Edessa, Upper Mesopotamia, during the first centuries AD.[13] It is related to the Aramaic of Jesus, a Galilean dialect.[14] This relationship added to its prestige for Christians.[15] The form of the language in use in Edessa predominated in Christian writings and was accepted as the standard form, \"a convenient vehicle for the spread of Christianity wherever there was a substrate of spoken Aramaic\".[1] The area where Syriac or Aramaic was spoken, an area of contact and conflict between the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire, extended from around Antioch in the west to Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital in Mesopotamia in the east and comprised the whole or parts of present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, and southeastern parts of Turkey and western parts of Iran, with its speakers being largely Semitic Assyrians, Arameans, Phoenicians, Mandaeans and Judeans.[2][1]\n\nName\n\nIn modern English, the term \"Syriac Christianity\" is preferred over the alternative form \"Syrian Christianity\", that was also commonly used in older literature, as a synonym, particularly during the 19th and the 20th centuries.[16] Since the latter term proved to be very polysemic, a tendency occurred (firstly among scholars) to reduce the term \"Syrian Christianity\" to its primary (regional) meaning, that designates the Christianity in Syria, while more specific term (Syriac Christianity) came to be used as preferred designation for the entire Syriac branch of Eastern Christianity.[17] That distinction is not yet universally accepted, even among scholars. It is gradually introduced in most of the English speaking world, with some notable exceptions. Churches of Syriac tradition in India still self-identify, in Indian English, as \"Syrian\" Churches, both for sociolinguistic and legal reasons.[18][19]\n\nModern distinctions between \"Syrian\" and \"Syriac\" (Christianity) are observed in English language as a partially accepted convention, but such distinctions do not exist in most of the other languages, nor on the endonymic (native) level among adherents of Syriac Christianity.[17] Native terms (ethnonyms, demonyms, glottonyms) that were derived from the name of Syria did not possess a distinctive formal duality that would be equivalent to the conventional English distinction between terms Syrian and Syriac.[20] Since the proposed distinction is not yet universally accepted among scholars, its individual and often inconsistent application has created a complex narrative, that is additionally burdened by older problems, inherited from terminological controversies that originated much earlier, within Syriac studies in particular, and also within Aramaic studies in general.[21]\n\nThe use of Syrian/Syriac labels was also challenged by common scholarly reduction of Syriac Christianity to the Eastern Aramaic Christian heritage found among the Assyrian people in what is today Iraq, Southeast Turkey and Northwest Iran, and its offspring. Such reduction was detaching Syriac Christianity from Western Aramaic Christian traditions, that were enrooted in the very homeland of Christianity, encompassing ancient Aramaic-speaking communities in Judea and Palestine, with Galilee and Samaria, and also those in the regions of Nabatea and Palmyrene to the east,[22] and Phoenicia and Syria proper to the north. Since Western Aramaic Christians did not fit into narrow scholarly definition of Syriac Christianity, focused on Eastern Aramaic traditions,[23] various researchers have opted for an additional use of some wider terms, like \"Aramaic Christianity\",[4][5] or \"Aramaic Christendom\",[6] thus designating a religious, cultural and linguistic continuum, encompassing the entire branch of Christianity that stemmed from the first Aramaic-speaking Christian communities, formed in apostolic times, and then continued to develop throughout history, mainly in the Near East and also in several other regions of Asia, including India and China.[24][25]\n\nIn English language, the term Aramaic Christianity should not be confused with term Aramean Christianity, since the first designation is linguistically defined and thus refers to Aramaic-speaking Christians in general, while the second designation is more specific and refers only to Christian Arameans.[26][27]\n\nHistory\n\nChristianity began in the Near East, in Jerusalem among Aramaic-speaking Christians (Assyrians). It soon spread to other Aramaic-speaking Semitic peoples like Aramaic pagan peoples along the Eastern Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire,[28] including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires. Like its Greek and Latin counterparts, the Syriac traditions includes non-ethnic members who wrote in Syriac and were members of the tradition at large, such as Aphraat the Persian.[29]\n\nThe ruins of the Dura-Europos church, dating from the first half of the 3rd century are concrete evidence of the presence of organized Christian communities in the Aramaic-speaking area, far from Jerusalem and the Mediterranean coast, and there are traditions of the preaching of Christianity in the region as early as the time of the Apostles.\n\nHowever, \"virtually every aspect of Syriac Christianity prior to the fourth century remains obscure, and it is only then that one can feel oneself on firmer ground\".[30] The fourth century is marked by the many writings in Syriac of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, the Demonstrations of the slightly older Aphrahat and the anonymous ascetical Book of Steps. Ephrem lived in the Roman Empire, close to the border with the Sasanian Empire, to which the other two writers belonged.[30] However, another source claims there is a significant amount of evidence from the fourth century and before about liturgical practices.[31]\n\nEarly Syriac Christian communities, especially around such as Edessa and Nisibis, retained a strong Judeo-Christian character influenced in part by the Jewish presence in nearby Adiabene. Early Syriac authors like Ephrem and Aphrahat drew upon Jewish exegetical methods and sectarian traditions in their writings, and the Syriac churches remained spiritually close to Jewish practices in their early centuries. They also resisted successive attempts at Hellenization and integration into the Byzantine Empire's forced ecclesiastical and theological framework. This resistance manifested after the Council of Ephesus (431), when the Church of the East asserted its independence from Byzantine authority and reorganised around Nisibis.[32] A similar development occurred after the Council of Chalcedon (451) when the Syriac Orthodox Church established its own hierarchy distinct from that of the imperial church. \n\nOther items of early literature of Syriac Christianity are the Diatessaron of Tatian, the Curetonian Gospels and the Syriac Sinaiticus, the Peshitta Bible and the Doctrine of Addai.\n\nThe bishops who took part in the First Council of Nicea (325), the first of the ecumenical councils, included twenty from Syria and one from Persia, outside the Roman Empire.[33] Two councils held in the following century divided Syriac Christianity into two opposing parties.\n\nEast-West theological contrast\n\nSyriac Christianity is divided on several theological issues, both Christological and Pneumatological.[34]\n\nIn 431, the Council of Ephesus, which is reckoned as the third ecumenical council, condemned Nestorius and Nestorianism. That condemnation was consequently ignored by the East Syriac Church of the East, which had been previously established in the Sasanian Empire as a distinct Church at the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410, and which at the Synod of Dadisho in 424 had declared the independence of its head, the Catholicos, in relation to \"Western\" (Roman Empire) Church authorities. Even in its modern form of Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East, it honours Nestorius and his mentors (e.g. Theodore of Mopsuestia) & students (e.g. Ibas of Edessa) as teachers and saints.[35]\n\nIn 451, the Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council as accepted by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, condemned Monophysitism, and also rejected Dyoprosopism.[36] This council was rejected by the Oriental Orthodox Churches (among which is the Syriac Orthodox Church) that use the West Syriac Rite. The Patriarchate of Antioch was consequently divided between two communities: pro-Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian. The Chalcedonians were often referred to as \"Melkites\" by their opponents, derived from the Syriac word \"Melka,\" meaning \"royal.\" This term implied their loyalty to the Byzantine emperor and was used by non-Chalcedonians to suggest that the Melkites prioritized allegiance to the empire over adherence to true teachings. The non-Chalcedonians were dubbed \"Monophysites\" which means they believed in Christ having a sole, divine nature, despite that not being the actual doctrine of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, which espouse Miaphysitism, the teaching that Christ has one composite nature, fully human and fully divine; they were also called Jacobites (especially, but not exclusively, the Syriac Orthodox Church, particularly in the late Ottoman era) after Jacob Baradaeus.\n\nIn 553, the Council of Constantinople, the fifth ecumenical council, anathematized Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also condemned several writings of Theodoret of Cyrus and Ibas of Edessa (see Three-Chapter Controversy).[36] Since those three theologians were highly regarded among Eastern Syriac Christians, further rifts were created, culminating in 612, when a major council of the Church of the East was held in Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Presided by Babai the Great (d. 628), the council officially adopted specific Christological formulations, using Syriac term qnoma (ܩܢܘܡܐ) as designation for dual (divine and human) properties within one prosopon (person) of Christ.[37]\n\nTheological estrangement between East Syriac and West Syriac branches was manifested as a prolonged rivalry, that was particularly intensive between the Church of the East and the Maphrianate of the East (of the Syriac Orthodox Church),[36] with each branch claiming that its doctrines were not heretical while also accusing the other of teaching heresy. Their theological estrangement has persisted through the medieval and early modern periods and into the present era. In 1999, the Coptic Orthodox Church, a sister-church of the Syriac Orthodox Church, blocked admittance of the Assyrian Church of the East to the Middle East Council of Churches, which has among its members the Chaldean Catholic Church,[38][39][40] and demanded that it remove from its liturgy the mention of Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, whom it venerates as \"the Greek doctors\".[41]\n\nEast-West liturgical contrast\n\nWhile not always being the case, the liturgies of the East and West Syriacs are quite distinct nowadays. The East Syriac Rite is noted especially for its eucharistic Qurbana of Addai and Mari, in which the Words of Institution are absent. West Syriacs use the Syro-Antiochian or West Syriac Rite, which belongs to the family of liturgies known as the Antiochene Rite.\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church adds to the Trisagion (\"Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us\") the phrase \"who were crucified for us\". The Church of the East interpreted this as heretical.[42] Patriarch Timothy I of the Church of the East declared: \"And also in all the countries of Babylon, of Persia, and of Assyria, and in all the countries of the sunrise, that is to say, among the Indians, the Chinese, the Tibetans, the Turks, and in all the provinces under the jurisdiction of this Patriarchal See, there is no addition of Crucifixus es pro nobis\".[43]\n\nAmong the Saint Thomas Christians of India, the East Syriac Rite was the one originally used, but those who in the 17th century accepted union with the Syriac Orthodox Church adopted the West Syriac Rite of that church.\n\nFurther divisions\n\nA schism in 1552 in the Church of the East gave rise to a separate patriarchate, which at first entered into union with the Catholic Church but later formed the nucleus of the present-day Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East, while at the end of the 18th century most followers of the earlier patriarchate chose union with Rome and, with some others, now form the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nIn India, all of the Saint Thomas Christians are still collectively called \"Syrian Christians\". The majority of the Saint Thomas Christians, who initially depended on the Church of the East, maintained union with Rome in spite of discomforts felt at Latinization by their Portuguese rulers and clergy, against which they protested. They now form the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. A small group, which split from these in the early 19th century, united at the beginning of the 20th century, under the name of Chaldean Syrian Church, with the Assyrian Church of the East.\n\nThose who in 1653 broke with the Catholic Church as dominated by the Portuguese in India and soon chose union with the Syriac Orthodox Church later split into various groups. The first separation was that of the Malabar Independent Syrian Church in 1772.[44] At the end of the 19th century, the Malankara Marthoma Syrian Church separated, after which they adopted a Reformed variant of the Liturgy of St. James and later in the course of the 20th century, a division arose among those who remained united with the Syriac Orthodox Church who insisted on full autocephaly and are now called the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and those, the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, who remain faithful to the patriarch.\n\nA reunion movement led in 1930 to the establishment of full communion between some of the Malankara Syrian Orthodox and the Catholic Church. They now form the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.\n\nIn the Middle East, the newly enthroned patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Ignatius Michael III Jarweh, declared himself a Catholic and, having received confirmation from Rome in 1783, became the head of the Syriac Catholic Church.\n\nIn the 19th and 20th centuries, as persecution peaked especially after the Assyrian genocide, many Syriac Christians, both East and West, left the Middle East for other lands, creating a substantial diaspora.[45]\n\nIn modern times, several Churches of Syriac tradition are actively participating in ecumenical dialogue.[46][47]\n\nTerms for Syriac Christians\n\nIndigenous Aramaic-speaking communities of the Near East (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ)[48] adopted Christianity very early, perhaps already from the first century, and began to abandon their three-millennia-old traditional ancient Mesopotamian religion, although this religion did not fully die out until as late as the tenth century. The kingdom of Osroene, with the capital city of Edessa, was absorbed into the Roman Empire in 114 as a semi-autonomous vassal state and then, after a period under the supremacy of the Parthian Empire, was incorporated as a Roman province, first in 214, and finally in 242.[49]\n\nIn 431 the Council of Ephesus declared Nestorianism a heresy. Nestorians, persecuted in the Byzantine Empire, sought refuge in the parts of Mesopotamia that were part of the Sasanian Empire. This encouraged acceptance of Nestorian doctrine by the Persian Church of the East, which spread Christianity outside Persia, to India, China, Tibet and Mongolia, expanding the range of this eastern branch of Syriac Christianity. Most of the remaining Syriac Christians within the Byzantine Empire formally accepted Miaphysitism having rejected the Council of Chalcedon, and also spread their faith eastwards Persia, India, and China.[50]\n\nChurches of Syriac traditions\n\nWest Syriac Rite\n\nOriental Orthodox\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church (Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, based in Damascus, Syria)\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church (Syriac Orthodox Church in India, Catholicosate, based in Kochi, Kerala, India)\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church, Catholicosate, based in Kottayam, Kerala, India)\n\nMalabar Independent Syrian Church (Independent Oriental Orthodox Church, based in Thozhiyur, Kerala, India, not part of the Oriental Orthodox Communion)\n\nEastern Catholic Churches of the West Syriac Rite\n\nMaronite Catholic Church (Syriac Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, based in Bkerké, Lebanon)\n\nSyriac Catholic Church (Syriac Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, based in Beirut, Lebanon)\n\nSyro-Malankara Catholic Church (Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, Catholicosate, based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India)\n\nEastern Protestant Churches\n\nMalankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church (in full communion with the Anglican Communion, based in Thiruvalla, Kerala, India)\n\nSt. Thomas Evangelical Church of India (based in Thiruvalla, Kerala, India)\n\nEast Syriac Rite\n\nChurch of the East\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East, traditionalist continuation that emerged from the Shimun line of patriarchs of the Church of the East that took this name in 1976\n\nThe Chaldean Syrian Church, an archbishopric in India of the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nThe Ancient Church of the East, split from the Assyrian Church of the East in the 1960s.\n\nEastern Catholic Churches of the East Syriac Rite\n\nThe Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church that emerged from the Elia line of patriarchs of the Church of the East following splits in 1552, 1667/1668 and 1779\n\nThe Syro-Malabar Church, an Eastern Catholic Church based in Kerala that is independent from the Chaldean Catholic hierarchy since the Synod of Diamper in 1599.\n\nEast Syriac Christians were involved in the mission to India, and many of the present Churches in India are in communion with either East or West Syriac Churches. These Indian Christians are known as Saint Thomas Christians.\n\nIn modern times, even apart from the Eastern Protestant denominations like Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar and St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India, which originated from Churches of the West Syriac Rite,[52][53] various Evangelical denominations continue to send representatives among Syriac Christians. As a result, several Evangelical groups have been established, particularly the Assyrian Pentecostal Church (mostly in America, Iran, and Iraq) from East Syriac Christians, and the Aramean Free Church (mostly in Germany, Sweden, America and Syria) from West Syriac Christians. Because of their new (Protestant) theology these are oftentimes not classified as traditional churches of Syriac Christianity.\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian people\n\nSaint Thomas Christian denominations\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nChristianity in Turkey\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b c Rompay 2008, pp. 365-386.\n\n^ a b Murre van den Berg 2007, p. 249.\n\n^ Kitchen 2012, pp. 66-77.\n\n^ a b Simmons 1959, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Aufrecht 2001, p. 149.\n\n^ a b Quispel 2008, p. 80.\n\n^ Brock 2005, pp. 5-20.\n\n^ Winkler 2019, pp. 119-133.\n\n^ Hunter 2019, pp. 783-796.\n\n^ Varghese 2019, pp. 391-404.\n\n^ John Hardon (2013). Catholic Dictionary: An Abridged and Updated Edition of Modern Catholic Dictionary. Crown Publishing Group. p. 493. ISBN 978-0-307-88635-4.\n\n^ Perczel 2019, pp. 653-697.\n\n^ Brock 1998, pp. 708-719.\n\n^ Allen C. Myers, ed. (1987), \"Aramaic\". The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. p. 72. ISBN 0-8028-2402-1. \"It is generally agreed that Aramaic was the common language of Palestine in the first century A.D. Jesus and his disciples spoke the Galilean dialect, which was distinguished from that of Jerusalem (Matt. 26:73).\"\n\n^ Montgomery 2002, p. 27.\n\n^ Robinson & Coakley 2013, p. 1, note 1.\n\n^ a b Millar 2006, pp. 107-109.\n\n^ O'Mahony 2006, p. 511.\n\n^ Winkler 2019, pp. 130-132.\n\n^ Andrade 2019, pp. 157-174.\n\n^ Burnett 2005, pp. 421-436.\n\n^ Jobling 1996, pp. 62-73.\n\n^ Rompay 2008, p. 366.\n\n^ Dickens 2019, pp. 583-624.\n\n^ Takahashi 2019, pp. 625-652.\n\n^ Healey 2014, p. 391.\n\n^ Healey 2019a, p. 433-446.\n\n^ Daryaee 2019, pp. 33-43.\n\n^ Rompay, Lucas Van (2010-03-01). \"Past and Present Perceptions of Syriac Literary Tradition\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (1): 81. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030105. ISSN 1097-3702.\n\n^ a b Brock 2004a, p. 362.\n\n^ Rouwhorst, Gerard (March 1997). \"Jewish Liturgical Traditions in Early Syriac Christianity\". Vigiliae Christianae. 51 (1): 72-93. doi:10.2307/1584359. ISSN 0042-6032. JSTOR 1584359.\n\n^ Spinks, Bryan D. (December 1980). Addai and Mari-The Anaphora of the Apostles: A Text for Students. Grove Liturgical Studies. Vol. 24. Bramcote: Grove. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-905422-93-0.\n\n^ Montgomery 2002, p. 27, 57.\n\n^ Hainthaler 2019, p. 377-390.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 5, 30.\n\n^ a b c Meyendorff 1989.\n\n^ Brock 1999d, p. 281-298.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 151-152.\n\n^ Brock 2004b, p. 58.\n\n^ Nichols 2010, p. 137.\n\n^ \"Metropolitan Bishoy, \"The Assyrian Churches\"\".\n\n^ Marijke Metselaar-Jongens, Defining Christ: The Church of the East and Nascent Islam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2016), p. 79\n\n^ Mingana 1926, p. 466.\n\n^ Fenwick, John R.K. \"Malabar Independent Syrian Church The Thozhiyur Church\".\n\n^ Chaillot 1998.\n\n^ Brock 1999e, pp. 189-197.\n\n^ Brock 2004b, pp. 44-65.\n\n^ Donabed 2015, p. 18.\n\n^ Ross 2001, p. 49.\n\n^ T.V. Philip, East of the Euphrates: Early Christianity in Asia Archived 2017-04-28 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Gorelik, Michael (1979). Oriental Armour of the Near and Middle East from the Eighth to the Fifteenth Centuries as Shown in Works of Art (in Islamic Arms and Armour). London: Robert Elgood. p. Fig.38. ISBN 978-0859674706.\n\n^ Leustean, Lucian N. (2014). Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge. p. 568. ISBN 978-1-317-81866-3.\n\n^ Fortescue, Adrian (1913). The lesser eastern churches. London: Catholic Truth Society. pp. 368-371, 374-375. ISBN 978-1-177-70798-5. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nGeneral and cited sources\n\nAbouzayd, Shafiq (2019). \"The Maronite Church\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 731-750. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2019). \"Syriac and Syrians in the Later Roman Empire: Questions of Identity\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 157-174. 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(2019). \"The Establishment of the Syriac Churches\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 105-118. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nMichelson, David Allen. (2022).The Library of Paradise: a History of Contemplative Reading in the Monasteries of the Church of the East. Oxford University Press.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408-450). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520253919.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2013). \"The Evolution of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the Pre-Islamic Period: From Greek to Syriac?\" (PDF). Journal of Early Christian Studies. 21 (1): 43-92. doi:10.1353/earl.2013.0002. S2CID 170436440.\n\nMingana, Alphonse (1926). \"The Early Spread of Christianity in India\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 10 (2): 435-514. doi:10.7227/BJRL.10.2.7.\n\nMontgomery, Robert L. (2002). The Lopsided Spread of Christianity: Toward an Understanding of the Diffusion of Religions. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 9780275973612.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2007). \"Syriac Christianity\". The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. Malden: Blackwell. pp. 249-268. ISBN 9780470766392.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2008). \"Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic in the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800\". Aramaic in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 335-352. ISBN 9783447057875.\n\nMurre van den Berg, Heleen (2015). \"Classical Syriac and the Syriac Churches: A Twentieth-Century History\". Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 119-148. ISBN 9789042930469.\n\nMurre-van den Berg, Heleen (2019). \"Syriac Identity in the Modern Era\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 770-782. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nNichols, Aidan (2010) [1992]. Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism (2nd revised ed.). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 9781586172824.\n\nO'Mahony, Anthony (2006). \"Syriac Christianity in the modern Middle East\". The Cambridge History of Christianity: Eastern Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 511-536. ISBN 9780521811132.\n\nPenn, Michael Philip (2019). \"Early Syriac Reactions to the Rise of Islam\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 175-188. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nPerczel, István (2019). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nPossekel, Ute (2019). \"The Emergence of Syriac Literature to AD 400\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 309-326. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nQuispel, Gilles (2008). Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica: Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789047441823.\n\nRobinson, Theodore H.; Coakley, James F. (2013) [1915]. Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar (6th revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199687176.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (2008). \"The East: Syria and Mesopotamia\". The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 365-386. ISBN 9780199271566.\n\nRoss, Steven K. (2001). Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture on the Eastern Fringes of the Roman Empire, 114-242 CE. London-New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781134660636.\n\nSaint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole (2019). \"Syriac Hagiographic Literature\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 339-354. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2008). \"The Church of the East & Its Theology: History of Studies\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 74 (1): 115-131.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2013). \"Jacobs and Jacobites: The Syrian Origins of the Name and its Egyptian Arabic Interpretations\". Scrinium: Journal of Patrology, Critical Hagiographyand Ecclesiastical History. 9: 382-398.\n\nSimmons, Ernest (1959). The Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2019). \"Syriac Christianity in China\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 625-652. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nTaylor, David G. K. (2019). \"The Coming of Christianity to Mesopotamia\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 68-87. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nTeule, Herman (2007). \"Current Trends in Syriac Studies\". Eastern Crossroads: Essays on Medieval Christian Legacy. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 387-400. doi:10.31826/9781463212827-024. ISBN 9781463212827.\n\nVarghese, Baby (2019). \"The Liturgies of the Syriac Churches\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 391-404. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea; Younansardaroud, Helen (2019). \"The Renaissance of Syriac Literature in the Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 698-717. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWatt, John W. (2019). \"Syriac Philosophy\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 422-437. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2019). \"The Church of the East in the 'Abbasid Era\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 189-201. doi:10.4324/9781315708195-15.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (2019). \"The Syriac Church Denominations: An Overview\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 119-133. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nWood, Philip (2019). \"Historiography in the Syriac-Speaking World, 300-1000\". The Syriac World. London: Routledge. pp. 405-421. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\nExternal links\n\nJacobite Syrian Church\n\n(In French) - Translation into English Syriac Christianity Archived 2009-04-11 at the Wayback Machine on WikiSyr Archived 2009-04-11 at the Wayback Machine\n\n(In French) - Translation into English Syriac Catholic Circle\n\nQambel Maran- Syriac chants from South India- a review and liturgical music tradition of Syriac Christians revisited\n\nTraditions and rituals among the Syrian Christians of Kerala\n\nAudio Aramaic-Bible\n\nThe Center for the Study of Christianity: A Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity Archived 2021-10-24 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-christianity"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5831}, {"slug": "reference-babylonian-astronomy", "title": "Babylonian astronomy", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia. The numeral system used, sexagesimal, was based on 60, as opposed to ten in the modern decimal system. This system simplified the calculating and recording of unusually great and small numbers.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia. The numeral system used, sexagesimal, was based on 60, as opposed to ten in the modern decimal system. This system simplified the calculating and recording of unusually great and small numbers.[1]\n\nDuring the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new empirical approach to astronomy. They began studying and recording their belief system and philosophies dealing with an ideal nature of the universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science, and some modern scholars have thus referred to this approach as a scientific revolution.[2] This approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astrology. Classical Greek and Latin sources frequently use the term Chaldeans for the philosophers, who were considered as priest-scribes specializing in astronomical and other forms of divination. Babylonian astronomy paved the way for modern astrology and is responsible for its spread across the Graeco-Roman empire during the 2nd-century Hellenistic Period. The Babylonians used the sexagesimal system to trace the planets' transits, by dividing the 360 degree sky into 30 degrees, they assigned 12 zodiacal signs to the stars along the ecliptic. \n\nOnly fragments of Babylonian astronomy have survived, consisting largely of contemporary clay tablets containing astronomical diaries, ephemerides and procedure texts, hence current knowledge of Babylonian planetary theory is in a fragmentary state.[3] Nevertheless, the surviving fragments show that Babylonian astronomy was the first \"successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena\" and that \"all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West ... depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways\".[4]\n\nOld Babylonian astronomy\n\nAn object labelled the ivory prism was recovered from the ruins of Nineveh. First presumed to be describing rules to a game, its use was later deciphered to be a unit converter for calculating the movement of celestial bodies and constellations.[5]\n\nBabylonian astronomers developed zodiacal signs. They are made up of the division of the sky into three sets of thirty degrees and the constellations that inhabit each sector.[6]\n\nThe MUL.APIN contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting heliacal risings and settings of the planets, and lengths of daylight as measured by a water clock, gnomon, shadows, and intercalations. The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time intervals, and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by given right-ascensional differences.[7][8][9]\n\nPlanetary theory\n\nThe Babylonians were the first civilization known to possess a functional theory of the planets.[9] The oldest surviving planetary astronomical text is the Babylonian Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, a 7th-century BC copy of a list of observations of the motions of the planet Venus that probably dates as early as the second millennium BC. The Babylonian astrologers also laid the foundations of what would eventually become Western astrology.[10] The Enuma anu enlil, written during the Neo-Assyrian period in the 7th century BC,[11] comprises a list of omens and their relationships with various celestial phenomena including the motions of the planets.[12]\n\nCosmology\n\nIn contrast to the world view presented in Mesopotamian and Assyro-Babylonian literature, particularly in Mesopotamian and Babylonian mythology, very little is known about the cosmology and world view of the ancient Babylonian astrologers and astronomers.[6] This is largely due to the current fragmentary state of Babylonian planetary theory,[13] and also due to Babylonian astronomy and cosmology largely being separate endeavors. Nevertheless, traces of cosmology can be found in Babylonian literature and mythology.[14]\n\nOmens\n\nIt was a common Mesopotamian belief that gods could and did indicate future events to mankind through omens; sometimes through animal entrails, but most often they believed omens could be read through astronomy and astrology. Since omens via the planets were produced without any human action, they were seen as more powerful. But they believed the events these omens foretold were also avoidable. The relationship Mesopotamians had with omens can be seen in the Omen Compendia, a Babylonian text composed starting from the beginning of the second millennium on-wards.[15] It is the primary source text that tells us that ancient Mesopotamians saw omens as preventable. The text also contains information on Sumerian rites to avert evil, or “nam-bur-bi”, a term later adopted by the Akkadians as “namburbu”, meaning roughly, “[the evil] loosening”. The god Ea was the one believed to send the omens. Concerning the severity of omens, eclipses were seen as the most dangerous.[16]\n\nThe Enuma Anu Enlil is a series of cuneiform tablets that gives insight on different sky omens Babylonian astronomers observed.[17] Celestial bodies such as the Sun and Moon were given significant power as omens. Reports from Nineveh and Babylon, circa 2500-670 B.C., show lunar omens observed by the Mesopotamians. \"When the moon disappears, evil will befall the land. When the moon disappears out of its reckoning, an eclipse will take place\".[18]\n\nAstrolabes\n\nThe astrolabes (not to be mistaken for the later astronomical measurement device of the same name) are one of the earliest documented cuneiform tablets that discuss astronomy and date back to the Old Babylonian Kingdom. They are a list of thirty-six stars connected with the months in a year,[6] generally considered to be written between 1800 and 1100 B.C. No complete texts have been found, but there is a modern compilation by Theophilus Pinches, assembled from texts housed in the British Museum that is considered excellent by other historians who specialize in Babylonian astronomy. Two other texts concerning the astrolabes that should be mentioned are the Brussels and Berlin compilations. They offer similar information to the Pinches anthology, but do contain some differing information from each other.[19]\n\nThe thirty-six stars that make up the astrolabes are believed to be derived from the astronomical traditions from three Mesopotamian city-states, Elam, Akkad, and Amurru. The stars followed and possibly charted by these city-states are identical stars to the ones in the astrolabes. Each region had a set of twelve stars it followed, which combined equals the thirty-six stars in the astrolabes. The twelve stars of each region also correspond to the months of the year. The two cuneiform texts that provide the information for this claim are the large star list “K 250” and “K 8067”. Both of these tablets were translated and transcribed by Weidner. During the reign of Hammurabi these three separate traditions were combined. This combining also ushered in a more scientific approach to astronomy as connections to the original three traditions weakened. The increased use of science in astronomy is evidenced by the traditions from these three regions being arranged in accordance to the paths of the stars of Ea, Anu, and Enlil, an astronomical system contained and discussed in the MUL.APIN.[19]\n\nMUL.APIN\n\nMUL.APIN is a collection of two cuneiform tablets (Tablet 1 and Tablet 2) that document aspects of Babylonian astronomy such as the movement of celestial bodies and records of solstices and eclipses.[20] Each tablet is also split into smaller sections called Lists. It was comprised in the general time frame of the astrolabes and Enuma Anu Enlil, evidenced by similar themes, mathematical principles, and occurrences.[21]\n\nTablet 1 houses information that closely parallels information contained in astrolabe B. The similarities between Tablet 1 and astrolabe B show that the authors were inspired by the same source for at least some of the information. There are six lists of stars on this tablet that relate to sixty constellations in charted paths of the three groups of Babylonian star paths, Ea, Anu, and Enlil. There are also additions to the paths of both Anu and Enlil that are not found in astrolabe B.[21]\n\nRelationship of calendar, mathematics and astronomy\n\nThe exploration of the Sun, Moon, and other celestial bodies affected the development of Mesopotamian culture. The study of the sky led to the development of a calendar and advanced mathematics in these societies. The Babylonians were not the first complex society to develop a calendar globally and nearby in North Africa, the Egyptians developed a calendar of their own. The Egyptian calendar was solar based, while the Babylonian calendar was lunar based. A potential blend between the two that has been noted by some historians is the adoption of a crude leap year by the Babylonians after the Egyptians developed one. The Babylonian leap year shares no similarities with the leap year practiced today. It involved the addition of a thirteenth month as a means to re-calibrate the calendar to better match the growing season.[22]\n\nBabylonian priests were the ones responsible for developing new forms of mathematics and did so to better calculate the movements of celestial bodies. One such priest, Naburimannu, is the first documented Babylonian astronomer. He was a priest for the moon god and is credited with writing lunar and eclipse computation tables as well as other elaborate mathematical calculations. The computation tables are organized in seventeen or eighteen tables that document the orbiting speeds of planets and the Moon. His work was later recounted by astronomers during the Seleucid dynasty.[22]\n\nAurorae\n\nA team of scientists at the University of Tsukuba studied Assyrian cuneiform tablets, reporting unusual red skies which might be aurorae incidents, caused by geomagnetic storms between 680 and 650 BC.[23]\n\nNeo-Babylonian astronomy\n\nNeo-Babylonian astronomy refers to the astronomy developed by Chaldean astronomers during the Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian periods of Mesopotamian history. The systematic records in Babylonian astronomical diaries allowed for the observation of a repeating 18-year Saros cycle of lunar eclipses.[24]\n\nArithmetical and geometrical methods\n\nThough there is a lack of surviving material on Babylonian planetary theory,[13] it appears most of the Chaldean astronomers were concerned mainly with ephemerides and not with theory. It had been thought that most of the predictive Babylonian planetary models that have survived were usually strictly empirical and arithmetical, and usually did not involve geometry, cosmology, or speculative philosophy like that of the later Hellenistic models,[25] though the Babylonian astronomers were concerned with the philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe.[26] Babylonian procedure texts describe, and ephemerides employ, arithmetical procedures to compute the time and place of significant astronomical events.[27] More recent analysis of previously unpublished cuneiform tablets in the British Museum, dated between 350 and 50 BC, demonstrates that Babylonian astronomers sometimes used geometrical methods, prefiguring the methods of the Oxford Calculators, to describe the motion of Jupiter over time in an abstract mathematical space.[28]\n\nAside from occasional interactions between the two, Babylonian astronomy was largely independent from Babylonian cosmology.[14] Whereas Greek astronomers expressed \"prejudice in favor of circles or spheres rotating with uniform motion\", such a preference did not exist for Babylonian astronomers.[29]\n\nContributions made by the Chaldean astronomers during this period include the discovery of eclipse cycles and saros cycles, and many accurate astronomical observations. For example, they observed that the Sun's motion along the ecliptic was not uniform, though they were unaware of why this was; it is today known that this is due to the Earth moving in an elliptic orbit around the Sun, with the Earth moving swifter when it is nearer to the Sun at perihelion and moving slower when it is farther away at aphelion.[30]\n\nHeliocentric astronomy\n\nThe only surviving planetary model from among the Chaldean astronomers is that of the Hellenistic Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC), who supported the Greek Aristarchus of Samos' heliocentric model.[31] Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch, Aetius, Strabo, and Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi. The Greek geographer Strabo lists Seleucus as one of the four most influential astronomers, who came from Hellenistic Seleuceia on the Tigris, alongside Kidenas (Kidinnu), Naburianos (Naburimannu), and Sudines. Their works were originally written in the Akkadian language and later translated into Greek.[32] Seleucus, however, was unique among them in that he was the only one known to have supported the heliocentric theory of planetary motion proposed by Aristarchus,[33] where the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system through reasoning, though it is not known what arguments he used.[32]\n\nAccording to Lucio Russo, his arguments were probably related to the phenomenon of tides.[34] Seleucus correctly theorized that tides were caused by the Moon, although he believed that the interaction was mediated by the Earth's atmosphere. He noted that the tides varied in time and strength in different parts of the world. According to Strabo (1.1.9), Seleucus was the first to state that the tides are due to the attraction of the Moon, and that the height of the tides depends on the Moon's position relative to the Sun.[35]\n\nAccording to Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, Seleucus may have proved the heliocentric theory by determining the constants of a geometric model for the heliocentric theory and by developing methods to compute planetary positions using this model. He may have used trigonometric methods that were available in his time, as he was a contemporary of Hipparchus.[32]\n\nNone of his original writings or Greek translations have survived, though a fragment of his work has survived only in Arabic translation, which was later referred to by the Persian philosopher Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865-925).[36]\n\nBabylonian influence on Hellenistic astronomy\n\nMany of the works of ancient Greek and Hellenistic writers (including mathematicians, astronomers, and geographers) have been preserved up to the present time, or some aspects of their work and thought are still known through later references. However, achievements in these fields by earlier ancient Near Eastern civilizations, notably those in Babylonia, were forgotten for a long time. Since the discovery of key archaeological sites in the 19th century, many cuneiform writings on clay tablets have been found, some of them related to astronomy. Most known astronomical tablets have been described by Abraham Sachs and later published by Otto Neugebauer in the Astronomical Cuneiform Texts (ACT). Herodotus writes that the Greeks learned such aspects of astronomy as the gnomon and the idea of the day being split into two halves of twelve from the Babylonians.[19] Other sources point to Greek pardegms, a stone with 365-366 holes carved into it to represent the days in a year, from the Babylonians as well.[5]\n\nInfluence on Hipparchus and Ptolemy\n\nIn 1900, Franz Xaver Kugler demonstrated that Ptolemy had stated in his Almagest IV.2 that Hipparchus improved the values for the Moon's periods known to him from \"even more ancient astronomers\" by comparing eclipse observations made earlier by \"the Chaldeans\", and by himself. However Kugler found that the periods that Ptolemy attributes to Hipparchus had already been used in Babylonian ephemerides, specifically the collection of texts nowadays called \"System B\" (sometimes attributed to Kidinnu). Apparently Hipparchus only confirmed the validity of the periods he learned from the Chaldeans by his newer observations. Later Greek knowledge of this specific Babylonian theory is confirmed by 2nd-century papyrus, which contains 32 lines of a single column of calculations for the Moon using this same \"System B\", but written in Greek on papyrus rather than in cuneiform on clay tablets.[37]\n\nMeans of transmission\n\nHistorians have found evidence that Athens during the late 5th century may have been aware of Babylonian astronomy, astronomers, or astronomical concepts and practices through the documentation by Xenophon of Socrates telling his students to study astronomy to the extent of being able to tell the time of night from the stars. This skill is referenced in the poem of Aratus, which discusses telling the time of night from the zodiacal signs.[5]\n\nSee also\n\nBabylonian astrology\n\nBabylonian calendar\n\nBabylonian mathematics\n\nBabylonian star catalogues\n\nEgyptian astronomy\n\nHistory of astronomy (Section on Mesopotamia).\n\nMayan astronomy\n\nMUL.APIN\n\nPleiades\n\nVenus tablet of Ammisaduqa\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Friberg 2019.\n\n^ Brown 2000, pp. 5-6.\n\n^ Aaboe 1958, p. 209.\n\n^ Aaboe 1974, p. 21.\n\n^ a b c Van der Waerden 1951.\n\n^ a b c Rochberg-Halton 1983.\n\n^ Pingree 1998.\n\n^ Rochberg 2004.\n\n^ a b Evans 1998, p. 296-297.\n\n^ Holden 2006, p. 1.\n\n^ Hermann Hunger, ed. (1992). Astrological reports to Assyrian kings. State Archives of Assyria. Vol. 8. Helsinki University Press. ISBN 978-951-570-130-5.\n\n^ Lambert 1987, p. 93.\n\n^ a b Aaboe 1958.\n\n^ a b Rochberg 2002, p. 679.\n\n^ Hunger & Pingree 1999.\n\n^ Hunger & Pingree 1999, p. 1-33.\n\n^ Hunger & Pingree 1999, p. 12-20.\n\n^ Thompson, R. Campbell (1904). The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon. New York: D. Appleton & Company. pp. 451-460.\n\n^ a b c Van der Waerden 1949.\n\n^ van der Waerden, B. L. (1951). \"Babylonian Astronomy. III. The Earliest Astronomical Computations\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 10 (1): 20-34. doi:10.1086/371009. JSTOR 542419. S2CID 222450259.\n\n^ a b Hunger & Pingree 1999, p. 57-65.\n\n^ a b Olmstead 1938.\n\n^ Hayakawa et al. 2019.\n\n^ Aaboe et al. 1991.\n\n^ Sarton 1955.\n\n^ Brown 2000.\n\n^ Aaboe 2001, p. 40-62.\n\n^ Ossendrijver 2016.\n\n^ Pingree 1992, p. 557.\n\n^ Leverington 2003, p. 6-7.\n\n^ Sarton 1955, p. 169.\n\n^ a b c Van der Waerden 1987.\n\n^ Paul Murdin, ed. (2001). \"Seleucus of Seleucia (c. 190 BCE?)\". The Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Bibcode:2000eaa..bookE3998.. doi:10.1888/0333750888/3998. ISBN 978-0333750889.\n\n^ Lucio Russo, Flussi e riflussi, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2003, ISBN 88-07-10349-4.\n\n^ Van der Waerden 1987, p. 527.\n\n^ Shlomo Pines (1986). Studies in Arabic versions of Greek texts and in mediaeval science. Vol. 2. Brill Publishers. pp. viii & 201-17. ISBN 978-965-223-626-5.\n\n^ Aaboe 2001, p. 62-65.\n\nSources\n\nAaboe, Asger (1958). \"On Babylonian Planetary Theories\". Centaurus. 5 (3-4): 209-277. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0498.1958.tb00499.x.\n\nAaboe, Asger (1974). \"Scientific Astronomy in Antiquity\". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 276 (1257): 21-42. Bibcode:1974RSPTA.276...21A. doi:10.1098/rsta.1974.0007. JSTOR 74272.\n\nAaboe, Asger (2001). Episodes From the Early History of Astronomy. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-0109-7. ISBN 978-0-387-95136-2.\n\nAaboe, A.; Britton, J.P.; Henderson, J.A.; Neugebauer, O.; Sachs, A.J. (1991). \"Saros Cycle Dates and Related Babylonian Astronomical Texts\". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 81 (6): 1-75. doi:10.2307/1006543. JSTOR 1006543.\n\nBrown, David (2000). Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-45332-6.\n\nEvans, James (1998). The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. Oxford University Press.\n\nFriberg, Jöran (2019). \"Three thousand years of sexagesimal numbers in Mesopotamian mathematical texts\". Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 73 (2): 183-216. doi:10.1007/s00407-019-00221-3.\n\nHayakawa, Hisashi; Mitsuma, Yasuyuki; Ebihara, Yusuke; Miyake, Fusa (2019). \"The Earliest Candidates of Auroral Observations in Assyrian Astrological Reports: Insights on Solar Activity around 660 BCE\". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 884 (1): L18. arXiv:1909.05498. Bibcode:2019ApJ...884L..18H. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab42e4.\n\nHetherington, Norris S. (1993). Cosmology : historical, literary, philosophical, religious, and scientific perspectives. CRC Press.\n\nHolden, James H. (2006). A History of Horoscopic Astrology. American Federation of Astr.\n\nHunger, Hermann; Pingree, David (1999). Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-29413-4.\n\nKoch, Ulla Susanne (1995). Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination. Museum Tusculanum Press.\n\nLambert, W.G. (1987). \"Review: Babylonian Astrological Omens and Their Stars\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 107 (1): 93-96. doi:10.2307/602955. JSTOR 602955.\n\nLeverington, David (2003). Babylon to Voyager and Beyond: A History of Planetary Astronomy. Cambridge University Press. Bibcode:2003bvb..book.....L.\n\nNeugebauer, O. (1948). \"The History of Ancient Astronomy Problems and Methods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 4 (1): 1-38. doi:10.1086/370729.\n\nOlmstead, A.T. (1938). \"Babylonian Astronomy: Historical Sketch\". The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. 55 (2): 113-129. doi:10.1086/amerjsemilanglit.55.2.3088090.\n\nOssendrijver, Mathieu (2016). \"Ancient Babylonian astronomers calculated Jupiter's position from the area under a time-velocity graph\". Science. 351 (6272): 482-484. Bibcode:2016Sci...351..482O. doi:10.1126/science.aad8085. PMID 26823423.\n\nPingree, David (1992). \"Hellenophilia versus the History of Science\". Isis. 83 (4): 554-563. Bibcode:1992Isis...83..554P. doi:10.1086/356288.\n\nPingree, David (1998). \"Legacies In Astronomy And Celestial Omens\". In Dalley, Stephanie (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. pp. 125-137.\n\nRochberg, Francesca (2002). \"A consideration of Babylonian astronomy within the historiography of science\". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. 33 (4): 661-684. Bibcode:2002SHPSA..33..661R. doi:10.1016/S0039-3681(02)00022-5.\n\nRochberg, Francesca (2004). The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511617409. ISBN 978-0-521-83010-2.\n\nRochberg-Halton, F. (1983). \"Stellar Distances in Early Babylonian Astronomy: A New Perspective on the Hilprecht Text (HS 229)\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 43 (3): 209-217. doi:10.1086/373020. JSTOR 545074.\n\nSarton, George (1955). \"Chaldaean Astronomy of the Last Three Centuries B. C.\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 55 (3): 166-173. doi:10.2307/595168. JSTOR 595168.\n\nSteele, John (2019). \"Explaining Babylonian Astronomy\". Isis. 110 (2): 292-295. doi:10.1086/703532.\n\nVan der Waerden, B.L. (1949). \"Babylonian Astronomy. II. The Thirty-Six Stars\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 8 (1): 6-26. doi:10.1086/370901.\n\nVan der Waerden, B.L. (1951). \"Babylonian Astronomy. III. The Earliest Astronomical Computations\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 10 (1): 20-34. doi:10.1086/371009.\n\nVan der Waerden, B.L. (1987). \"Babylonian Astronomy. III. The Earliest Astronomical Computations\". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 500 (1): 525-545. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1987.tb37224.x.\n\nWatson, Rita; Horowitz, Wayne (2011). Writing Science Before the Greeks: A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Astronomical Treatise MUL.APIN. Leiden: Brill Academic Pub. ISBN 978-90-04-20230-6.\n\nFurther reading\n\nJones, Alexander. \"The Adaptation of Babylonian Methods in Greek Numerical Astronomy.\" Isis, 82(1991): 441-453; reprinted in Michael Shank, ed. The Scientific Enterprise in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 2000. ISBN 0-226-74951-7\n\nNeugebauer, Otto. Astronomical Cuneiform Texts. 3 volumes. London:1956; 2nd edition, New York: Springer, 1983. (Commonly abbreviated as ACT).\n\nToomer, G. J. \"Hipparchus and Babylonian Astronomy.\" In A Scientific Humanist: Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, ed. Erle Leichty, Maria deJ. Ellis, and Pamela Gerardi, pp. 353-362. Philadelphia: Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 9, 1988."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-babylonian-astronomy"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3709}, {"slug": "reference-liturgy-of-addai-and-mari", "title": "Liturgy of Addai and Mari", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Liturgy of Addai and Mari (or the Holy Qurbana of Mar Addai and Mar Mari) is the Eucharistic liturgy belonging to the East Syriac Rite and was historically used in the Church of the East of the Sasanian (Persian) Empire. This liturgy is traditionally attributed to Saint...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Liturgy of Addai and Mari (or the Holy Qurbana of Mar Addai and Mar Mari) is the Eucharistic liturgy belonging to the East Syriac Rite and was historically used in the Church of the East of the Sasanian (Persian) Empire. This liturgy is traditionally attributed to Saint Addai (disciple of Saint Thomas the Apostle) and Saint Mari (a disciple of Saint Addai). It is currently in regular use in the Assyrian Church of the East (including its archdiocese the Chaldean Syrian Church of India), the Ancient Church of the East, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church of India, and the Chaldean Catholic Church. The latter two are Eastern Catholic churches in full communion with the Holy See of Rome.\n\nOverview\n\nThe Anaphora of Addai and Mari is similar to the ancient eucharistic rite of the Didache, belonging to \"a primordial era\" before the Words of Institution were made standard across other anaphoras.[1] The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is perhaps the only anaphora in continuous use by an apostolic church since its establishment.[2][3] The anaphora that is part of this liturgy is of particular interest, being one of the oldest in Christianity, possibly dating back to 3rd-century Edessa,[4] even if the outline of the current form can only be traced as far back as the time of the Patriarch Ishoyahb III in the 7th century. In the form given in the oldest manuscripts, this anaphora does not include the Words of Institution, which has raised ecumenical concerns. The Eastern Catholic churches employing this liturgy have inserted the Words of Institution in accordance with their Eucharistic teaching.\n\nRelations between Rome and the Assyrian Church have dramatically improved since the 1980s. The patriarch, Mar Dinkha IV, visited Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1984 and participated in a day of prayer for peace at Assisi in 1986. In 1994, Mar Dinkha and Pope John Paul II signed a common declaration in the Vatican.[5] This common Christological declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East in 1994 established that both churches confessed the same doctrine concerning Christology (the divinity and humanity of Christ). This declaration went on to create a mixed committee for further theological dialogue between the two (now sister) churches. The text affirmed that Catholics and Assyrians are \"united today in the confession of the same faith in the Son of God\". In 2001 this committee drew up guidelines for mutual admission to the eucharist between the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, overcoming the issue of the lack of words of Institution in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari.[6]\n\nUse\n\nThe Liturgy of Addai and Mari has been in continuous use in the Church of the East since at least the 7th century.[4] Hymns by Saint Ephrem and others are often sung during the communion. A piece of dough from the eucharistic bread is saved from week to week, not as reserve sacrament but as leaven for the next week's bread. Authors from Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 400) to Shimun XXI Eshai in the mid-20th century and Mar Aprem Mooken of India in the early 21st century have identified the Epiclesis, beginning with the words Netheh Mar Rookha d'Qudsha... (May the Holy Spirit come...) as the high point of the Holy Qurbana.\n\nIn the Syro-Malabar Church this liturgy has three forms: a simplified form, a standard form for Sundays use, and a highly solemn form, known as the Raza, used only on solemnities.[7] A reform of the Raza in order to return to the unadulterated and original form was issued in 1985,[8] followed in 1989 by a reform of the other two forms carried out with the same principles.[9]\n\nA slight reform of the liturgy of Addai and Mari celebrated by the Chaldean Catholic Church came into effect on 6 January 2007, making uniform the many different uses of each parish and removing additions introduced over the centuries in imitation of the Roman Rite. The main changes were: a return to the ancient arrangement of the interior of churches, restoration of the preparation of the bread and wine before the beginning of the service and removal of Filioque from the Creed.[10]\n\nThe prayers of the liturgy of Addai and Mari are of three types, according as they are recited by the celebrating priest or bishop:[11]\n\ncushapa: personal prayers of the celebrant\n\ngehanta or \"inclinations\": prayers said in low voice by the celebrant\n\nqanona: conclusions of the gehanta conducted aloud\n\nAbsence of the Words of Institution\n\nThe Eucharistic Prayers (or Anaphoras) of all the present Christian Churches that believe in apostolic succession include the Words of Institution, and the relevant Institution narrative, with the sole exception of some versions of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari.\n\nThe oldest manuscript of this anaphora was published by W.F. Macomber in 1966[12] (known as Mar Eshaya text) and dates from about the 10th or 11th century. It does not include the Words of Institution, nor do other ancient manuscripts of later date. Mar Aprem Mooken of India indicates that many priests of the Assyrian Church of the East follow the old practice of not including the Words of Institution.[13] The practitioners justify the absence of the Words of Institution by the practice of baking sacramental bread by Holy Leaven. \n\nSome scholars believe that the medieval manuscript represents the 4th-century tradition (or even earlier), while others believe that the Words of Institution were originally present and were later dropped, probably due to the liturgical reform of Mar Isho-Yab III in about AD 650.[14] The former include Macomber and Spinks, the latter H. Engerding and E. Mazza. B. Botte suggested that the Words of Institution were originally not written but recited from memory.[15]\n\nCatholic Church's position\n\nThe Catholic Church has always recognized the validity of apostolic succession of the Church of the East, and thus the validity of its priesthood. Still some Catholics questioned the validity of the consecration in the absence of the Words of Institution because the Council of Florence had declared that the words (in Catholic theology, the \"form\") of the sacrament of the Eucharist are \"the words of the Saviour with which he effected this sacrament\",[16] words that the same council indicated as \"This is my body\" and \"This is the chalice of my blood\".[17]\n\nNevertheless, the Catholic Church never officially contested the validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari. In the closing decades of the 20th century, ecumenical rapprochement with the Assyrian Church of the East and the situation of the by then widely scattered Assyrian and Chaldean Christians who lacked a priest of their own Church made more acute the issue of the validity of the Eucharistic consecration of the form of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari that did not include the Words of Institution, as used by the Assyrian Christians, while the Eastern Catholic Churches that use the East Syriac Rite include in their versions of this liturgy the Institution narrative, with its Words of Institution. Accordingly, on 20 July 2001 the Holy See[18] declared that the Anaphora of Addai and Mari can be considered valid. Three reasons were given for this judgment. First, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari dates back to the early Church. Secondly, the Church of the East has otherwise preserved the orthodox faith in regard to the Eucharist and Holy Orders. And finally, though the Words of Institution are not spoken expressly, their meaning is present: \"The words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession\".[19]\n\nGuidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nCatholic canon law excludes participation by Catholics in the Eucharistic services of Christian communities whose sacraments or priesthood it considers invalid, and permits participation by members of such communities in the Catholic Eucharist only in very exceptional circumstances and only if the individual members in question hold the same belief as the Catholic Church concerning the Eucharist;[20] but in the case of Churches whose sacraments and priesthood it considers valid, it allows such participation much more easily.[21] Accordingly, the 20 July 2001 document of the Holy See, titled Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East,[19] drew the following conclusions from the recognition of the validity of the Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari as celebrated in the Assyrian Church of the East:\n\nAssyrian faithful are permitted, when necessary, to participate and to receive Holy Communion in a Chaldean celebration of the Holy Eucharist.\n\nChaldean faithful unable to approach a Catholic minister are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist, even if celebrated using the Anaphora of Addai and Mari in its form without the Words of Institution.\n\nAssyrian ministers are warmly invited (but not obliged) to insert the Words of Institution in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari when Chaldean faithful are present at the liturgy.\n\nThe provisions above are thus intended for occasions when it is not possible for Assyrian or Chaldean faithful to attend their own Church. They are not a declaration of full communion between the two Churches, although the document recognizes that the joint declaration signed by Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East has solved the main dogmatic problem between the two Churches and that on 29 \n\nNovember 1996 the Assyrian and Chaldean patriarchs had agreed to a list of common proposals aimed at re-establishing full communion.\n\nUnlike the Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East has an Open Communion practice, allowing any baptized Christian to receive its Eucharist.[22]\n\nDialogue between the two Churches later slowed down and was suspended in 2002.\n\nStructure of the Anaphora\n\nTaking into consideration only the more typical and ancient parts,[23] the structure of the anaphora of this liturgy is the following:[24]\n\nthe Opening Dialogue,\n\nthe preface (or first Gehanta):\n\nWorthy of praise from every mouth and of confession from every tongue is the adorable and glorious name of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost, who didst create the world by thy grace and its inhabiters by thy mercifulness and didst save mankind by thy compassion and give great grace unto mortals.\n\nthe Pre-Sanctus:\n\nThy majesty, o my Lord, thousand thousands of those on high bow down and worship and ten thousand times ten thousand holy angels and hosts of spiritual beings, ministers of fire and spirit, praise thy name with holy cherubin and seraphin shouting and praising without ceasing and crying one to another and saying:\n\nthe Sanctus, without the Benedictus:\n\nHoly holy holy Lord God of hosts heaven and earth are full of his praises\n\nthe Post-Sanctus (or second Gehanta) centered on the Redemption by Christ. This prayer and all the following up to the end of the epiclesis are addressed directly to Christ.\n\nAnd with these heavenly hosts we give thanks to thee, o my Lord, even we thy servants weak and frail and miserable, for that thou hast given us great grace past recompense in that thou didst put on our manhood that thou mightest quicken it by thy godhead, and hast exalted our low estate and restored our fall and raised our mortality and forgiven our trespasses and justified our sinfulness and enlightened our knowledge and, o our Lord and our God, hast condemned our enemies and granted victory to the weakness of our frail nature in the overflowing mercies of thy grace.\n\nthe Oblation (or third Gehanta) which makes direct reference to the Body and Blood of Christ:\n\nDo thou, o my Lord, in thy many and unspeakable mercies make a good and acceptable memorial for all the just and righteous fathers who have been wellpleasing in thy sight, in the commemoration of the body and blood of thy Christ which we offer unto thee on thy pure and holy altar as thou hast taught us, and grant us thy tranquillity and thy peace all the days of the world.\n\nYea, o our Lord and our God, grant us thy tranquillity and thy peace all the days of the world that all the inhabitants of the earth may know thee that thou art the only true God the Father and that thou hast sent our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son and thy beloved. And he our Lord and our God came and in his lifegiving gospel taught us all the purity and holiness of the prophets and the apostles and the martyrs and the confessors and the bishops and the doctors and the presbyters and the deacons and all the children of the holy catholic church, even them that have been signed with the living sign of holy baptism.\n\nthe Anamnesis:\n\nAnd we also, o my Lord, thy weak and frail and miserable servants who are gathered together in thy name, both stand before thee at this time and have received the example which is from thee delivered unto us, rejoicing and praising and exalting and commemorating and celebrating this great and fearful and holy and lifegiving and divine mystery of the passion and the death and the burial and the resurrection of our Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ.\n\nthe Epiclesis:\n\nAnd may there come, o my Lord, thine Holy Spirit and rest upon this offering of thy servants and bless it and hallow it that it be to us, o my Lord, for the pardon of offences and the remission of sins and for the great hope of resurrection from the dead and for new life in the kingdom of heaven with all those who have been wellpleasing in thy sight.\n\nthe Doxology:\n\nAnd for all this great and marvellous dispensation towards us we will give thee thanks and praise thee without ceasing in thy Church redeemed by the precious blood of thy Christ, with unclosed mouths and open faces lifting up praise and honour and confession and worship to thy living and holy and lifegiving name now and ever and world without end.\n\nThe Institution narrative, with its Words of Institution, is placed by Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in the middle of the Oblation, while the Chaldean Catholic Church places it just before the Epiclesis.\n\nSee also\n\nHallowing of Nestorius\n\nHallowing of Theodore of Mopsuestia\n\nHoly Leaven\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Sarhad Yawsip Jammo, The Anaphora of Addai and Mari: A Study of Structure and Historical Background\". Archived from the original on 1 December 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2021.\n\n^ Mateusz Rafal Potoczny (2019) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337307286_THE_ANAPHORA_OF_THE_APOSTLES_ADDAI_AND_MARI_AND_ITS_CHRISTOLOGICAL_CHARACTER\n\n^ Stylianos Muksuris, The Anaphorae of the Liturgy of Sts. Addai and Mari and the Byzantine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great: A Comparative Study.\n\n^ a b Addai and Mari, Liturgy of. Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. 2005\n\n^ \"Relations between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". CNEWA.org. Retrieved 23 September 2019.\n\n^ \"Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". Vatican.va. Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 26 July 2010.\n\n^ Pallath, Paul (2000). La liturgia eucaristica della chiesa siro-malabarese. Padova: Messaggero Abbazia di Santa Giustina. p. 22. ISBN 8825008422.\n\n^ Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Decree dated 19 December 1985\n\n^ Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Decree dated 3 April 1989\n\n^ \"TQ & A on the Reformed Chaldean Mass\". Retrieved 12 May 2012.\n\n^ Wilson, Stephen (1997). \"The Anaphora of the Apostols Addai and Mari\". In Bradshaw, Paul F. (ed.). Essays on Early Eastern Eucharistic Prayers. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press. p. 20. ISBN 081466153X.\n\n^ W.F. Macomber The oldest known text of the anaphora of the Apostles Addai and Mari OPC 32 (1966) 335-6\n\n^ Mar Aprem Mooken, \"Anaphora of Addai and Mari from the Perspective of the Church of the East\", in Studies on the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, ed. Boscos Pothur, (Kochi: LRC Publications, 2004), pp.205-206.\n\n^ Enrico Mazza, The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of Its Interpretation, Liturgical Press: 1999 ISBN 081466170X pag 73\n\n^ For a review of the views of scholars, see Stephen B. Wilson, The Anaphora of the Apostles Addai and Mari in ed. Paul Bradshaw Essays on Early Eastern Eucharistic Prayers, ISBN 081466153X (1997) pp. 19-37\n\n^ Council of Florence, Decr. 4 Sep 1439, Denzinger 1321\n\n^ Council of Florence, Decr. 4 Febr 1442, Denzinger 1352\n\n^ Concretely, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in agreement with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.\n\n^ a b Guidelines issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity\n\n^ Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 671 §4 and cf. Code of Canon Law, canon 844 §4\n\n^ Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 671 §§2-3 and cf. Code of Canon Law, canon 844 §§2-3\n\n^ \"see for example\". Archived from the original on 27 June 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2012.\n\n^ Choice of material as per: Jasper, R.C.D.; Cuming, G.J. (1990). Prayers of the Eucharist: early and reformed. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press. pp. 43-44. ISBN 0814660851.\n\n^ Texts adapted from translation in: Brightman, Frank Edward; Hammond, Charles Edward (1896). Liturgies, Eastern and Western, being the texts original or translated of the principal liturgies of the church. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 283-88.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Order of the Hallowing of the Apostles Archived liturgical text\n\npresent form of liturgy of Addai and Mari of the Chaldean Church\n\nGuidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East Document of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity\n\nRobert F. Taft, SJ, Professor Emeritus of Oriental Liturgy, Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome: Mass Without the Consecration? The Historic Agreement on the Eucharist between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East promulgated 26 October 2001\n\nGoggin, John (1913). \"Liturgy of Addeus and Maris\" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-liturgy-of-addai-and-mari"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3049}, {"slug": "reference-ashur-bet-sargis", "title": "Ashur Bet Sargis", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Ashur Bet Sargis[a] (Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ ܒܝܬ ܣܪܓܝܤ; born July 2, 1949) is an Assyrian singer, composer, guitarist and activist. He became famous in the Assyrian communities worldwide for his nationalistic songs in the 1970s. His career peaked, and became prominent, in the 1990s with five albums released within...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashur Bet Sargisܐܫܘܪ ܒܝܬ ܣܪܓܝܣ\n\nSargis performing in Ankawa in 2025\n\nBackground information\n\nBorn (1949-07-02) July 2, 1949\nBaghdad, Iraq\n\nGenresAssyrian music, folk, soft rock\n\nOccupationsComposer, singer, songwriter, political activist\n\nYears active1960s-present\n\nAshur Bet Sargis[a] (Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ ܒܝܬ ܣܪܓܝܤ; born July 2, 1949) is an Assyrian singer, composer, guitarist and activist. He became famous in the Assyrian communities worldwide for his nationalistic songs in the 1970s. His career peaked, and became prominent, in the 1990s with five albums released within that decade. \n\nHis songs usually tend to be sentimental ballads and anthems, although he has made many folk dance music as well. To the contrast of his Assyrian peers in music, Sargis's music is slow and mellow. He is also known for incorporating Greek instruments such as the tambouras into his music.\n\nEarly career in Iraq\n\nAshur Bet Sargis was born in Baghdad, Iraq to an Assyrian family who was originally from Habbaniyah. He started playing the organ as a teenager at the local Assyrian church. He later began composing nationalistic songs under the influence of established Assyrian musicians such as Evin Aghassi and King Biba, as well as western artists. As Sargis recalls of his early days in the biography written for his album Everything So Far:[1]\n\nMusic was being redefined out in the rest of the world, and stars like Elvis, Paul Anka, and of course The Beatles were shining all over the place. I wanted to be a part of this transformation, and offer its fruition to my people.\n\nRise to fame\n\nShortly after the Ba'ath-led revolution of 1968, Sargis fled the unstable political situation in Iraq in 1969, ending up in Chicago, United States. A year later he formed his first band, \"East Bird Band\", which released its first recording in 1972. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1973 and in 1975 released his first LP Ashur Sargis Sings for Ancient Assyria which contained nationalistic songs like \"Roosh Jwanqa\" and \"Bet Nahren Atrewa\", written by Benyamin Mako,[2] as well as several other songs that have since become staples of his catalog and concerts.[1]\n\nIn 1976, Sargis became the first Assyrian artist to tour overseas when he and his band played three sold-out shows in Australia. Soon afterward he would travel to Iran, which at that time had the second largest population of Assyrians in the Middle East, and had long been a large producer of Assyrian music on the record labels that flourished in Tehran in the days before the Islamic Revolution. After two weeks of performances there, he returned to Los Angeles to record his third album, Sing Me a Lullaby. He followed it with Dance of Victory in 1984.\n\nLater years\n\nSargis is known for his staunch support for Zowaa and has composed several songs for the party.[3] He also returned to Northern Iraq many times where he gave many concerts during Kha b-Nisan, before the Iraq War. He is often featured at Zowaa-sponsored festivals in the Nineveh Plains and the Dohuk Governorate. Sargis currently resides in Los Angeles, California.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio Albums\n\n1972 - Bet Nahren (\"Mesopotamia\")\n\n1975 - Ancient Assyria ( Atour Atiqa)\n\n1979 - Sing Me a Lullaby (Tanili Lay Lay)\n\n1984 - Dance of Victory (Riqda d'Ghaliboota)\n\n1990 - Winter Wind (Pokha d'Sitwa)\n\n1992 - The Mighty Assyrians\n\n1995 - Mirror of Deception (Nora Aldyana)\n\n1996 - From a Distant World (Ana Lewin Min Daha Dunyeh)\n\n1998 - Immortal Memories (Zmaryeta d'Khoba Mtomaya)\n\n2008 - Dashta D'Nineveh (Nineveh Plains)\n\n2016 - Nishmi (My Breath)\n\n2020 - Tarpa (Leaf)\n\nSingles\n\n2014 - Hala Leten\n\n2020 - Yalikhtoh Smoqta Zardeh\n\n2022 - Prookh Rama Ya Nishra (Remix) (Fly High Oh Eagle)\n\n2023 - Shiklow\n\n2023 - Tawani (My Room)\n\n2023 - Ayni Tosh'yeh'le (My Eyes Hid)\n\nCompilation(s)\n\n2003 - Everything So Far (Kol'Mindi Hal Hadyia)\n\nNotes\n\n^ Sometimes referred to as Ashur Sargis, without the family name affix \"bêṯ\".\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Ashur Bet Sargis\". 28 February 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2011.\n\n^ \"Bet Nahrain by Ashur Bet Sargis\". Archived from the original on 12 January 2010.\n\n^ الحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية تحتفل بالذكرى الـ 28 لتأسيسها Archived 29 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, ADM\n\nExternal links\n\nAshur Bet Sargis, entry at Last.fm\n\nLyrics from AssyrianLyrics.com\n\nMusic pearls of Beth-Nahrin: an Assyrian/Syriac discography, Abboud Zeitoune\n\nAshur Bet-Sargis Finds Solace in Dashta D’Nineveh, Skokie.net\n\nآشور بت سركيس بين احضان الوطن, Zahrira.net\n\nتأملات في ألبوم آشور بت سركيس دشتا د نينوى, خابور كوم"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashur-bet-sargis"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 728}, {"slug": "reference-shamshi-adad-v", "title": "Shamshi-Adad V", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Shamshi-Adad V (Akkadian: Šamši-Adad) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 824 to 811 BC. He was named after the god Adad, who is also known as Hadad.[1][2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shamshi-Adad V\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Sumer and Akkad\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nDetail from a stele portraying Shamshi-Adad V in British Museum\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign824-811 BC\n\nPredecessorShalmaneser III\n\nSuccessorAdad-Nirari III\n\nDied811 BC\n\nSpouseShammuramat\n\nIssueAdad-Nirari III\n\nFatherShalmaneser III\n\nShamshi-Adad V (Akkadian: Šamši-Adad) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 824 to 811 BC. He was named after the god Adad, who is also known as Hadad.[1][2]\n\nFamily\n\nShamshi-Adad was a son and successor of King Shalmaneser III, the husband of Queen Shammuramat (by some identified with the mythical Semiramis), and the father of Adad-nirari III, who succeeded him as king.[3]\n\nHe was also a grandfather of Shalmaneser IV.[4][5]\n\nReign\n\nThe first years of Shamshi-Adad's reign saw a serious struggle for the succession of the aged Shalmaneser.\n\nThe revolt was led by Shamshi-Adad's brother Assur-danin-pal, and had broken out already by 826 BC. The rebellious brother, according to Shamshi-Adad's own inscriptions, succeeded in bringing to his side 27 important cities, including Nineveh. The rebellion lasted until 820 BC,[6] weakening the Assyrian empire and its ruler; this weakness continued to reverberate in the kingdom until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III.\n\nLater in his reign, Shamshi-Adad campaigned against Southern Mesopotamia, and stipulated a treaty with the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I.\n\nIn 814 BC, he won the Battle of Dur-Papsukkal against the Babylonian king Marduk-balassu-iqbi, and a few Aramean tribes settled in Babylonia. The extent of Shamshi-Adad's victory was such that he obtained the submission of the Babylonian king and, after obtaining booty from several Babylonian cities, he returned to Assyria with palace treasures and gods (i.e. the sacred representation of the gods).[7]\n\nSee also\n\nStela of Shamshi-Adad V\n\nNotes\n\n^ Reilly, Jim (2000) \"Contestants for Syrian Domination\" in \"Chapter 3: Assyrian & Hittite Synchronisms\" The Genealogy of Ashakhet Archived 2012-03-11 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Bedford, Peter (2001-05-21). \"Empire and Exploitation: The Neo-Assyrian Empire\". CiteSeerX 10.1.1.482.6408. {{cite CiteSeerX}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help)\n\n^ Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition\n\n^ Georges Roux (1992-08-27). Ancient Iraq. Penguin UK. p. 302. ISBN 978-0-14-193825-7. Retrieved 2020-11-07.\n\n^ \"Sammu-ramat | queen of Assyria | Britannica\". Retrieved 2020-11-08.\n\n^ Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, Atlanta, 2004, p. 167\n\n^ Jean-Jacques Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles, Atlanta, 2004, p. 183\n\nFurther reading\n\nKirk Grayson, A. (1996). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (858-754 BC). University of Toronto press."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shamshi-adad-v"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 399}, {"slug": "reference-aramaic-alphabet", "title": "Aramaic alphabet", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The ancient Aramaic alphabet was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian peoples throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects underwent linguistic Aramaization during a language shift for governing purposes -...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Aramaic script\n\nAramaic inscription from Tayma, containing a dedicatory inscription to the god Salm\n\nScript type Abjad\n\nPeriod800 BC to AD 600\n\nDirectionRight-to-left\n\nLanguagesAramaic (Syriac[1] and Mandaic), Hebrew, Edomite\n\nRelated scripts\n\nParent systemsEgyptian hieroglyphs\nProto-Sinaitic\nPhoenician\nAramaic script\n\nChild systems\n\nHebrew[1]\n\nNabataean[1]\n\nArabic\n\nPalmyrene[1]\n\nManichaean\n\nSyriac\n\nHatran[1]\n\nMandaic[1]\n\nElymaic[1]\n\nPahlavi\n\nKharosthi\n\nBrahmi (debated)\n\nISO 15924\n\nISO 15924Armi (124), ​Imperial Aramaic\n\nUnicode\n\nUnicode aliasImperial Aramaic\n\nUnicode rangeU+10840-U+1085F\n\nThe ancient Aramaic alphabet was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian peoples throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects underwent linguistic Aramaization during a language shift for governing purposes - a precursor to Arabization centuries later - including among the Assyrians and Babylonians who permanently replaced their Akkadian language and its cuneiform script with Aramaic and its script, and among Jews (but not Samaritans) who adopted the Aramaic language as their vernacular and started using the Aramaic alphabet, which they call \"Ktav Ashuri\", even for writing Hebrew, displacing the former Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. The modern Hebrew alphabet derives from the Aramaic alphabet, in contrast to the modern Samaritan alphabet, which derives from Paleo-Hebrew.\n\nThe letters in the Aramaic alphabet all represent consonants, some of which are also used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels. Writing systems, like the Aramaic, that indicate consonants but do not indicate most vowels other than by means of matres lectionis or added diacritical signs, have been called abjads by Peter T. Daniels to distinguish them from alphabets such as the Greek alphabet, that represent vowels more systematically. The term was coined to avoid the notion that a writing system that represents sounds must be either a syllabary or an alphabet, which would imply that a system like Aramaic must be either a syllabary, as argued by Ignace Gelb, or an incomplete or deficient alphabet, as most other writers had said before Daniels. Daniels put forward that this is a different type of writing system, intermediate between syllabaries and 'full' alphabets.\n\nThe Aramaic alphabet is historically significant since virtually all modern Middle Eastern writing systems can be traced back to it. That is primarily due to the widespread usage of the Aramaic language after it was adopted as both a lingua franca and the official language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Neo-Babylonian Empire, and their successor, the Achaemenid Empire. Among the descendant scripts in modern use, the Jewish Hebrew alphabet bears the closest relation to the Imperial Aramaic script of the 5th century BC, with an identical letter inventory and, for the most part, nearly identical letter shapes. By contrast the Samaritan Hebrew script is directly descended from Proto-Hebrew/Phoenician script, which was the ancestor of the Aramaic alphabet. The Aramaic alphabet was also an ancestor to the Syriac alphabet, Mongolian script, Kharosthi,[2] and Brahmi,[3] and the Nabataean alphabet, which is ancestral to the Arabic alphabet.\n\nHistory\n\nThe earliest inscriptions in the Aramaic language use the Phoenician alphabet.[4] Over time, the alphabet developed into the Aramaic alphabet by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertile Crescent. It was also adopted by other peoples as their own alphabet when empires and their subjects underwent linguistic Aramaization during a language shift for governing purposes - a precursor to Arabization centuries later. \n\nThese include the Assyrians and Babylonians, who permanently replaced their Akkadian language and its cuneiform script with Aramaic and its script, and among Jews, but not Samaritans, who adopted the Aramaic language as their vernacular and started using the Aramaic alphabet even for writing Hebrew, displacing the former Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. The modern Hebrew alphabet derives from the Aramaic alphabet, in contrast to the modern Samaritan alphabet, which derives from Paleo-Hebrew.\n\nAchaemenid Empire (The First Persian Empire)\n\nAround 500 BC, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Persians as the \"vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast Persian empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed as Official Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic or Achaemenid Aramaic, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenid Persians in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did.\"[5]\n\nImperial Aramaic was highly standardised. Its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect and was influenced by Old Persian. The Aramaic glyph forms of the period are often divided into two main styles, the \"lapidary\" form, usually inscribed on hard surfaces like stone monuments, and a cursive form whose lapidary form tended to be more conservative by remaining more visually similar to Phoenician and early Aramaic. Both were in use through the Achaemenid Persian period, but the cursive form steadily gained ground over the lapidary, which had largely disappeared by the 3rd century BC.[6]\n\nFor centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BC, Imperial Aramaic, or something near enough to it to be recognisable, remained an influence on the various native Iranian languages. The Aramaic script survived as the essential characteristics of the Iranian Pahlavi writing system.[7]\n\n30 Aramaic documents from Bactria have been recently discovered, an analysis of which was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC, in the Persian Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdiana.[8]\n\nThe widespread usage of Achaemenid Aramaic in the Middle East led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew. Formerly, Hebrew had been written using an alphabet closer in form to that of Phoenician, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.[9]\n\nAramaic-derived scripts\n\nSince the evolution of the Aramaic alphabet out of the Phoenician one was a gradual process, the division of the world's alphabets into the ones derived from the Phoenician one directly, and the ones derived from Phoenician via Aramaic, is somewhat artificial. In general, the alphabets of the Mediterranean region (Anatolia, Greece, Italy) are classified as Phoenician-derived, adapted from around the 8th century BC. Those of the East (the Levant, Persia, Central Asia, and India) are considered Aramaic-derived, adapted from around the 6th century BC from the Imperial Aramaic script of the Achaemenid Empire.\n\nAfter the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, diversifying into a number of descendant cursives.\n\nThe Hebrew and Nabataean alphabets, as they stood by the Roman era, were little changed in style from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) alleges that not only the old Nabataean writing was influenced by the \"Syrian script\" (i.e. Aramaic), but also the old Chaldean script.[10]\n\nA cursive Hebrew variant developed from the early centuries AD. It remained restricted to the status of a variant used alongside the noncursive. By contrast, the cursive developed out of the Nabataean alphabet in the same period soon became the standard for writing Arabic, evolving into the Arabic alphabet as it stood by the time of the early spread of Islam.\n\nThe development of cursive versions of Aramaic led to the creation of the Syriac, Palmyrene and Mandaic alphabets, which formed the basis of the historical scripts of Central Asia, such as the Sogdian and Mongolian alphabets.[11]\n\nThe Old Turkic script is generally considered to have its ultimate origins in Aramaic,[12][13][11] in particular via the Pahlavi or Sogdian alphabets,[14][15] as suggested by V. Thomsen, or possibly via Kharosthi (cf., Issyk inscription).\n\nBrahmi script was also possibly derived or inspired by Aramaic. Brahmic family of scripts includes Devanagari.[16]\n\nLanguages using the alphabet\n\nToday, Biblical Aramaic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects and the Aramaic language of the Talmud are written in the modern-Hebrew alphabet, distinguished from the Old Hebrew script. In classical Jewish literature, the name given to the modern-Hebrew script was \"Ashurit\", the ancient Assyrian script,[17] a script now known widely as the Aramaic script.[18][19] It is believed that, during the period of Assyrian dominion, Aramaic script and language received official status.[18] \n\nSyriac and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects are today written in the Syriac alphabet, which script has superseded the more ancient Assyrian script and now bears its name. Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. The near-identical nature of the Aramaic and the classical Hebrew alphabets caused Aramaic text to be typeset mostly in the standard Hebrew script in scholarly literature.\n\nMaaloula\n\nIn Maaloula, one of few surviving communities in which a Western Aramaic dialect is still spoken, an Aramaic Language Institute was established in 2006 by Damascus University that teaches courses to keep the language alive.\n\nUnlike Classical Syriac, which has a rich literary tradition in Syriac-Aramaic script, Western Neo-Aramaic was solely passed down orally for generations until 2006 and was not utilized in a written form.[20]\n\nTherefore, the Language Institute's chairman, George Rizkalla (Rezkallah), undertook the writing of a textbook in Western Neo-Aramaic. Being previously unwritten, Rizkalla opted for the Hebrew alphabet. In 2010, the institute's activities were halted due to concerns that the square Maalouli-Aramaic alphabet used in the program bore a resemblance to the square script of the Hebrew alphabet. As a result, all signs featuring the square Maalouli script were subsequently removed.[21] The program stated that they would instead use the more distinct Syriac-Aramaic alphabet, although use of the Maalouli alphabet has continued to some degree.[22] Al Jazeera Arabic also broadcast a program about Western Neo-Aramaic and the villages in which it is spoken with the square script still in use.[23]\n\nLetters\n\nBelow this table is another table, where the Aramaic letters are put besides their cognates in other scripts.\n\nAramaic written using\n\nName\n\nPronunciation\n\nTransliteration\n\nPhoneme\n\nName\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nSyriac script\n\nImage\nText\nImage\nText\n\n𐡀‎\n\nܐ\n\nAlaf\n\n[ʔ]; [aː], [eː]\n\nʔ/ʾ, ā, ē\n\nālap̄\n\n𐡁‎\n\nܒ\n\nBeth\n\n[b], [β] > [v]\n\nb, ḇ\n\nbēth\n\n𐡂‎\n\nܓ\n\nGamal\n\n[ɡ], [ɣ]\n\ng, ḡ\n\ngāmal\n\n𐡃‎\n\nܕ\n\nDalath\n\n[d], [ð]\n\nd, ḏ\n\ndālaṯ\n\n𐡄‎\n\nܗ\n\nHe\n\n[h]\n\nh\n\nhē\n\n𐡅‎\n\nܘ\n\nWaw\n\n[w]; [oː], [uː]\n\nw, ō, ū\n\nwaw\n\n𐡆‎\n\nܙ\n\nZayn\n\n[z]\n\nz\n\nzayn\n\n𐡇‎\n\nܚ\n\nHeth\n\n[ħ]\n\nħ/ḥ\n\nhēṯ\n\n𐡈‎\n\nܛ\n\nTeth\n\n[tˤ]\n\nṭ\n\ntēṯ\n\n𐡉‎\n\nܝ\n\nYod\n\n[j]; [iː], [eː]\n\ny, ī, ē\n\nyoḏ\n\n𐡊‎\n\nܟ\n\nKaf\n\n[k], [x]\n\nk, ḵ\n\nkāp̄\n\n𐡋‎\n\nܠ\n\nLamad\n\n[l]\n\nl\n\nlāmaḏ\n\n𐡌‎\n\nܡ\n\nMim\n\n[m]\n\nm\n\nmim\n\n𐡍‎\n\nܢ\n\nNun\n\n[n]\n\nn\n\nnun\n\n𐡎‎\n\nܣ\n\nSemkath\n\n[s]\n\ns\n\nsemkaṯ\n\n𐡏‎\n\nܥ\n\nAyn\n\n[ʕ]\n\nʕ/ʿ\n\nʕayn\n\n𐡐‎\n\nܦ\n\nPe\n\n[p], [ɸ] > [f]\n\np, p̄\n\npē\n\n, \n\n𐡑‎\n\nܨ\n\nSade\n\n[sˤ]\n\nṣ\n\nṣāḏē\n\n𐡒‎\n\nܩ\n\nQof\n\n[q]\n\nq\n\nqop̄\n\n𐡓‎\n\nܪ\n\nResh\n\n[r]\n\nr\n\nrēš\n\n𐡔‎\n\nܫ\n\nShin\n\n[ʃ]\n\nš\n\nšin\n\n𐡕‎\n\nܬ\n\nTaw\n\n[t], [θ]\n\nt, ṯ\n\ntaw\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nPalmyrene\n\nSyriac\n\nManichaean\n\nHebrew\n\nMaalouli\n\nHatran\n\nParthian\n\nPahlavi\n\nNabataean\n\nArabic\n\nElymaic\n\nMandaic\n\nProto-Sinaitic\n\nPhoenician\n\nBrahmi\n\nKharosthi\n\nSogdian\n\nTurkic\n\nOld Uyghur\n\n𐡀‎\n\n𐡠‎\n\nܐ\n\n𐫀‎\n\nא\n\n𐣠‎‎\n\n𐭀‎\n\n𐭠‎\n\n𐢀‎ 𐢁‎\n\nا\n\n𐿠‎\n\nࡀ‎‎\n\n𐤀‎\n\n𑀅, 𑀆\n\n𐨀\n\n𐼰‎‎\n\n𐰁‎\n\n𐽰\n\n𐡁‎\n\n𐡡‎\n\nܒ\n\n𐫁‎‎\n\n𐫂‎\n\nב\n\n𐣡‎\n\n𐭁‎\n\n𐭡‎\n\n𐢂‎ 𐢃‎\n\nب\n\n𐿡‎‎\n\nࡁ‎\n\n𐤁‎\n\n𑀩, 𑀪\n\n𐨦\n\n𐼱‎\n\n𐰋‎ 𐰉‎\n\n𐽱\n\n𐡂‎\n\n𐡢‎‎\n\nܓ\n\n𐫃‎\n\n𐫄‎\n\nג\n\n𐣢‎\n\n𐭂‎\n\n𐭢‎‎\n\n𐢄‎\n\nج\n\n𐿢‎\n\nࡂ‎\n\n𐤂‎\n\n𑀕\n\n𐨒\n\n𐼲‎\n\n𐰱‎ 𐰲‎\n\n𐽲\n\n𐡃‎\n\n𐡣‎\n\nܕ\n\n𐫅‎\n\nד\n\n𐣣‎\n\n𐭃‎\n\n𐭣‎‎\n\n𐢅‎\n\nذ د\n\n𐿣‎\n\nࡃ‎‎\n\n𐤃‎\n\n𑀤, 𑀥, 𑀟, 𑀠\n\n𐨢\n\n𐰓‎\n\n𐡄‎\n\n𐡤‎‎\n\nܗ\n\n𐫆‎\n\nה\n\n𐣤‎\n\n𐭄‎\n\n𐭤‎\n\n𐢆‎ 𐢇‎\n\nه\n\n𐿤‎\n\nࡄ‎\n\n𐤄‎\n\n𑀳\n\n𐨱\n\n𐼳‎\n\n𐡅‎\n\n𐡥‎‎‎\n\nܘ\n\n𐫇‎\n\n𐫈‎\n\nו\n\n𐣥‎\n\n𐭅‎\n\n𐭥‎‎\n\n𐢈‎\n\nو\n\n𐿥‎\n\nࡅ‎‎\n\n𐤅‎\n\n𑀯, 𑀉, 𑀊, 𑀒, 𑀑\n\n𐨬\n\n𐼴‎‎\n\n𐰆‎ 𐰈‎\n\n𐽳\n\n𐡆‎\n\n𐡦‎\n\nܙ\n\n𐫉‎\n\n𐫊‎‎\n\n𐫋‎\n\n𐫌‎\n\nז\n\n𐣦‎‎\n\n𐭆‎\n\n𐭦‎\n\n𐢉‎‎\n\nز\n\n𐿦‎\n\nࡆ‎‎\n\n𐤆‎\n\n𑀚\n\n𐨗\n\n𐼵‎\n\n𐰕‎\n\n𐽴\n\n𐡇‎\n\n𐡧‎‎\n\nܚ\n\n𐫍‎\n\nח\n\n𐣧‎\n\n𐭇‎\n\n𐭧‎\n\n𐢊‎‎\n\nخ ح\n\n𐿧‎‎\n\nࡇ‎\n\n𐤇‎\n\n𑀖\n\n𐨓\n\n𐼶‎\n\n𐽲 𐽵\n\n𐡈‎\n\n𐡨‎\n\nܛ\n\n𐫎‎\n\nט\n\n𐣨‎‎\n\n𐭈‎\n\n𐭨‎\n\n𐢋‎‎\n\nظ ط\n\n𐿨‎\n\nࡈ‎‎\n\n𐤈‎\n\n𑀣, 𑀝, 𑀞\n\n𐨠\n\n𐱃‎\n\n𐡉‎\n\n𐡩‎‎\n\nܝ\n\n𐫏‎\n\nי\n\n𐣩‎‎\n\n𐭉‎\n\n𐭩‎\n\n𐢌‎ 𐢍‎\n\nي\n\n𐿩‎\n\nࡉ‎\n\n𐤉‎\n\n𑀬\n\n𐨩\n\n𐼷‎‎\n\n𐰖‎ 𐰃‎ 𐰘‎\n\n𐽶\n\n𐡊‎\n\n𐡪‎‎\n\nܟ\n\n𐫐‎\n\n𐫑‎\n\n𐫒‎\n\nך כ\n\n𐣪‎\n\n𐭊‎\n\n𐭪‎\n\n𐢎‎ 𐢏‎\n\nك\n\n𐿪‎\n\nࡊ‎‎\n\n𐤊‎\n\n𑀓\n\n𐨐\n\n𐼸‎\n\n𐰜‎ 𐰚‎\n\n𐽷\n\n𐡋‎\n\n𐡫‎\n\nܠ\n\n𐫓‎\n\n𐫔‎\n\n𐫕‎\n\nל\n\n𐣫‎‎\n\n𐭋‎\n\n𐭫‎\n\n𐢐‎ 𐢑‎\n\nل\n\n𐿫‎\n\nࡋ‎‎\n\n𐤋‎\n\n𑀮\n\n𐨫\n\n𐼹‎\n\n𐰠‎ 𐰞‎\n\n𐽸\n\n𐡌‎\n\n𐡬‎\n\nܡ\n\n𐫖‎‎\n\nם מ\n\n𐣬‎‎\n\n𐭌‎\n\n𐭬‎\n\n𐢒‎ 𐢓‎\n\nم\n\n𐿬‎\n\nࡌ‎\n\n𐤌‎\n\n𑀫\n\n𐨨\n\n𐼺‎\n\n𐰢‎\n\n𐽹\n\n𐡍‎\n\n𐡭‎ 𐡮‎‎\n\nܢ\n\n𐫗‎\n\nן נ\n\n𐣭‎\n\n𐭍‎\n\n𐭭‎‎\n\n𐢔‎ 𐢕‎\n\nن\n\n𐿭‎‎\n\nࡍ‎\n\n𐤍‎\n\n𑀦\n\n𐨣\n\n𐼻‎\n\n𐰣‎ 𐰤‎\n\n𐽺\n\n𐡎‎\n\n𐡯‎\n\nܣ\n\n𐫘‎\n\nס\n\n𐣮‎‎\n\n𐭎‎\n\n𐭮‎\n\n𐢖‎\n\nﺱ\n\n𐿮‎\n\nࡎ‎‎\n\n𐤎‎\n\n𑀱\n\n𐨭\n\n𐼼‎\n\n𐰾‎\n\n𐽻\n\n𐡏‎\n\n𐡰‎\n\nܥ\n\n𐫙‎\n\n𐫚‎\n\nע\n\n𐣯‎\n\n𐭏‎\n\n𐭥‎\n\n𐢗‎\n\nغ ع\n\n𐿯‎\n\nࡏ‎‎\n\n𐤏‎\n\n𑀏, 𑀐, 𑀇, 𑀈\n\n𐨀𐨅\n\n𐼽‎\n\n𐰍‎ 𐰏‎\n\n𐡐‎\n\n𐡱‎\n\nܦ\n\n𐫛‎\n\n𐫜‎‎\n\nף פ\n\n𐣰‎\n\n𐭐‎\n\n𐭯‎\n\n𐢘‎‎‎\n\nف\n\n𐿰‎\n\nࡐ‎\n\n𐤐‎\n\n𑀧, 𑀨\n\n𐨤\n\n𐼾‎\n\n𐰯‎\n\n𐽼\n\n𐡑‎\n\n𐡲‎\n\nܨ\n\n𐫝‎‎\n\nץ צ\n\n𐣱‎‎\n\n𐭑‎\n\n𐭰‎\n\n𐢙‎\n\nض ص\n\n𐿱‎‎\n\nࡑ‎\n\n𐤑‎\n\n𑀲\n\n𐨯\n\n𐼿‎‎\n\n𐰽‎\n\n𐽽\n\n𐡒‎\n\n𐡳‎‎\n\nܩ\n\n𐫞‎\n\n𐫟‎\n\n𐫠‎\n\nק\n\n𐣲‎\n\n𐭒‎\n\n𐭬‎\n\n𐢚‎\n\nق\n\n𐿲‎\n\nࡒ‎\n\n𐤒‎\n\n𑀔\n\n𐨑\n\n𐰸‎ 𐰴‎\n\n𐡓‎\n\n𐡴‎\n\nܪ\n\n𐫡‎\n\nר\n\n𐣣‎\n\n𐭓‎\n\n𐭥‎\n\n𐢛‎‎\n\nر\n\n𐿳‎\n\nࡓ‎‎\n\n𐤓‎\n\n𑀭\n\n𐨪\n\n𐽀‎‎\n\n𐰼‎ 𐰺‎\n\n𐽾\n\n𐡔‎\n\n𐡵‎\n\nܫ\n\n𐫢‎\n\n𐫣‎\n\nש\n\n𐣴‎\n\n𐭔‎\n\n𐭱‎\n\n𐢜‎ 𐢝‎‎\n\nش\n\n𐿴‎\n\nࡔ‎\n\n𐤔‎\n\n𑀰\n\n𐨮\n\n𐽁‎\n\n𐱁‎ 𐱂‎\n\n𐽿\n\n𐡕‎\n\n𐡶‎\n\nܬ\n\n𐫤‎\n\nת\n\n𐣵‎‎\n\n𐭕‎\n\n𐭲‎\n\n𐢞‎\n\nث ت\n\n𐿵‎\n\nࡕ‎‎\n\n𐤕‎\n\n𑀢\n\n𐨟\n\n𐽂‎\n\n𐱅‎\n\n𐾀\n\nUnicode\n\nThe Imperial Aramaic alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009, with the release of version 5.2.\n\nThe Unicode block for Imperial Aramaic is U+10840-U+1085F:\n\nImperial Aramaic[1][2]\nOfficial Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)\n\n0\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\nA\nB\nC\nD\nE\nF\n\nU+1084x\n\n𐡀\n\n𐡁\n\n𐡂\n\n𐡃\n\n𐡄\n\n𐡅\n\n𐡆\n\n𐡇\n\n𐡈\n\n𐡉\n\n𐡊\n\n𐡋\n\n𐡌\n\n𐡍\n\n𐡎\n\n𐡏\n\nU+1085x\n\n𐡐\n\n𐡑\n\n𐡒\n\n𐡓\n\n𐡔\n\n𐡕\n\n𐡗\n\n𐡘\n\n𐡙\n\n𐡚\n\n𐡛\n\n𐡜\n\n𐡝\n\n𐡞\n\n𐡟\n\nNotes\n\n1.^As of Unicode version 18.0\n\n2.^Grey area indicates non-assigned code point\n\nThe Syriac Aramaic alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999, with the release of version 3.0.\n\nThe Syriac Abbreviation (a type of overline) can be represented with a special control character called the Syriac Abbreviation Mark (U+070F). The Unicode block for Syriac Aramaic is U+0700-U+074F:\n\nSyriac[1][2]\nOfficial Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)\n\n0\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\nA\nB\nC\nD\nE\nF\n\nU+070x\n\n܀\n\n܁\n\n܂\n\n܃\n\n܄\n\n܅\n\n܆\n\n܇\n\n܈\n\n܉\n\n܊\n\n܋\n\n܌\n\n܍\n\nSAM\n\nU+071x\n\nܐ\n\nܑ\n\nܒ\n\nܓ\n\nܔ\n\nܕ\n\nܖ\n\nܗ\n\nܘ\n\nܙ\n\nܚ\n\nܛ\n\nܜ\n\nܝ\n\nܞ\n\nܟ\n\nU+072x\n\nܠ\n\nܡ\n\nܢ\n\nܣ\n\nܤ\n\nܥ\n\nܦ\n\nܧ\n\nܨ\n\nܩ\n\nܪ\n\nܫ\n\nܬ\n\nܭ\n\nܮ\n\nܯ\n\nU+073x\n\nܰ\n\nܱ\n\nܲ\n\nܳ\n\nܴ\n\nܵ\n\nܶ\n\nܷ\n\nܸ\n\nܹ\n\nܺ\n\nܻ\n\nܼ\n\nܽ\n\nܾ\n\nܿ\n\nU+074x\n\n݀\n\n݁\n\n݂\n\n݃\n\n݄\n\n݅\n\n݆\n\n݇\n\n݈\n\n݉\n\n݊\n\nݍ\n\nݎ\n\nݏ\n\nNotes\n\n1.^As of Unicode version 18.0\n\n2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac alphabet\n\nMandaic alphabet\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 89. ISBN 978-0195079937.\n\n^ \"Kharoshti | Indo-Parthian, Brahmi Script, Prakrit | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 26 September 2024.\n\n^ \"Brahmi | Ancient Script, India, Devanagari, & Dravidian Languages | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. 6 September 2024. Retrieved 26 September 2024.\n\n^ Inland Syria and the East-of-Jordan Region in the First Millennium BCE before the Assyrian Intrusions, Mark W. Chavalas, The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium, ed. Lowell K. Handy, (Brill, 1997), 169.\n\n^ Shaked, Saul (1987). \"Aramaic\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. 2. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 250-261. p. 251\n\n^ Greenfield, J.C. (1985). \"Aramaic in the Achaemenid Empire\". In Gershevitch, I. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: Volume 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 709-710.\n\n^ Geiger, Wilhelm; Kuhn, Ernst (2002). Grundriss der iranischen Philologie: Band I. Abteilung 1. Boston: Adamant. pp. 249ff.\n\n^ Naveh, Joseph; Shaked, Shaul (2006). Ancient Aramaic Documents from Bactria. Studies in the Khalili Collection. Oxford: Khalili Collections. ISBN 978-1-874780-74-8.\n\n^ Thamis (18 January 2012). \"The Phoenician Alphabet & Language\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 25 June 2023.\n\n^ Ibn Khaldun (1958). F. Rosenthal (ed.). The Muqaddimah (K. Ta'rikh - \"History\"). Vol. 3. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. p. 283. OCLC 643885643.\n\n^ a b Kara, György (1996). \"Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages\". In Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. pp. 535-558. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.\n\n^ Babylonian beginnings: The origin of the cuneiform writing system in comparative perspective, Jerold S. Cooper, The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process, ed. Stephen D. Houston, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 58-59.\n\n^ Tristan James Mabry, Nationalism, Language, and Muslim Exceptionalism, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 109.\n\n^ Turks, A. Samoylovitch, First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936, Vol. VI, (Brill, 1993), 911.\n\n^ George L. Campbell and Christopher Moseley, The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets, (Routledge, 2012), 40.\n\n^ \"Brāhmī | writing system\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 29 May 2020.\n\n^ Danby, H., ed. (1964). \"Tractate Megillah 1:8\". Mishnah. London: Oxford University Press. p. 202 (note 20). OCLC 977686730. (The Mishnah, p. 202 (note 20)).\n\n^ a b Steiner, R.C. (1993). \"Why the Aramaic Script Was Called \"Assyrian\" in Hebrew, Greek, and Demotic\". Orientalia. 62 (2): 80-82. JSTOR 43076090.\n\n^ Cook, Stanley A. (1915). \"The Significance of the Elephantine Papyri for the History of Hebrew Religion\". The American Journal of Theology. 19 (3). The University of Chicago Press: 348. doi:10.1086/479556. JSTOR 3155577.\n\n^ Oriens Christianus (in German). 2003. p. 77. As the villages are very small, located close to each other, and the three dialects are mutually intelligible, there has never been the creation of a script or a standard language. Aramaic is the unwritten village dialect...\n\n^ Maissun Melhem. \"Schriftenstreit in Syrien\" (in German). Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 15 November 2023. Before the Islamic conquest, Aramaic was spoken throughout Syria and was a global language. There were many variants, but Aramaic did not exist as a written language everywhere, including the Ma'alula region, notes Professor Jastrow. The decision to use the Hebrew script, in his opinion, was made arbitrarily.\"\n\n^ Beach, Alastair (2 April 2010). \"Easter Sunday: A Syrian bid to resurrect Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ\". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2 April 2010.\n\n^ Al Jazeera Documentary الجزيرة الوثائقية (11 February 2016). \"أرض تحكي لغة المسيح\". Archived from the original on 17 November 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2018 - via YouTube.\n\nSources\n\nByrne, Ryan. \"Middle Aramaic Scripts\". Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier. (2006)\n\nDaniels, Peter T., et al. eds. The World's Writing Systems. Oxford. (1996)\n\nCoulmas, Florian. The Writing Systems of the World. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford. (1989)\n\nRudder, Joshua. Learn to Write Aramaic: A Step-by-Step Approach to the Historical & Modern Scripts. n.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. 220 pp. ISBN 978-1461021421. Includes a wide variety of Aramaic scripts.\n\nAncient Hebrew and Aramaic on Coins, reading and transliterating Proto-Hebrew, online edition (Judaea Coin Archive).\n\nExternal links\n\nComparison of Aramaic to related alphabets\n\nOmniglot entry"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-aramaic-alphabet"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3187}, {"slug": "reference-dara-mesopotamia", "title": "Dara (Mesopotamia)", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Dara or Daras (Turkish: Dara Antik Kenti; Greek: Δάρας; Syriac: ܕܪܐ[1]) was an important East Roman fortress city in northern Mesopotamia on the border with the Sassanid Empire. Because of its great strategic importance, it featured prominently in the Roman-Persian conflicts (in 530, 540, 544, 573, and 604)....", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dara\n\nΔάρας (Greek)\n\nDaras, Anastasiopolis, Iustiniana Nova\n\nRuins of rock-cut building in Daras\n\nLocation within Turkey\n\n37°10′40″N 40°56′28″E / 37.17778°N 40.94111°E / 37.17778; 40.94111\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nPeriodsLate Antiquity\n\nLocationOğuz, Mardin Province, Turkey\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nHistory\n\nBuilt505\n\nBuilt byAnastasius I\n\nAbandonedAfter 639\n\nEvent(s)Battle of Dara\nFall of Dara\n\nDara or Daras (Turkish: Dara Antik Kenti; Greek: Δάρας; Syriac: ܕܪܐ[1]) was an important East Roman fortress city in northern Mesopotamia on the border with the Sassanid Empire. Because of its great strategic importance, it featured prominently in the Roman-Persian conflicts (in 530, 540, 544, 573, and 604). The former archbishopric remains a multiple Catholic titular see. Today, the village of Dara in the Mardin Province occupies its location.\n\nHistory\n\nFoundation by Anastasius\n\nDuring the Anastasian War in 502-506, the Roman armies fared poorly against the Sassanid Persians. According to the Syriac Chronicle of Zacharias of Mytilene, the Roman generals blamed their difficulties on the lack of a strong base in the area, as opposed to the Persians, who held the great city of Nisibis (which until its cession in 363 had served the same purpose for the Romans).[2]\n\nTherefore, in 505, while the Persian King Kavadh I was distracted in the East, Emperor Anastasius I decided to rebuild the village of Dara, only 18 kilometres westwards from Nisibis and just 5 km from the actual border with Persia, to be \"a refuge for the army in which they might rest, and for the preparation of weapons, and to guard the country of the Arabs from the inroads of the Persians and Saracens\".[2] Masons and workers from all over Mesopotamia were gathered and worked with great haste. The new city was built on three hills, on the highest of which stood the citadel, and endowed with great storehouses, a public bath and water cisterns.[2] It took the name Anastasiopolis (Greek: Ἀναστασιούπολις) and became the seat of the Roman dux Mesopotamiae.\n\nReconstruction by Justinian\n\nAccording to Procopius, the hasty construction of the original walls resulted in poor quality, and the severe weather conditions of the region exacerbated the problem, ruining some sections. Thus Byzantine Emperor Justinian I was compelled to undertake extensive repairs to the city, afterwards renaming it Iustiniana Nova.[3] The walls were rebuilt and the inner wall raised by a new storey, doubling its height to about 20 m (66 ft). The towers were strengthened and raised to three stories (ca. 35 m) high, and a moat dug out and filled with water.[4]\n\nJustinian's engineers also diverted the nearby river Cordes towards the city by digging a canal. The river now flowed through the city, ensuring ample water supply. At the same time, by means of diverting its flow to an underground channel which exited 65 km (40 mi) to the north, the garrison was able to deny water to a besieging enemy, a fact which saved the city on several occasions.[5] To avert the danger of flooding, which had already once wrecked large parts of the city, an elaborate arch dam was built to contain it,[6] one of the earliest known of its kind.[7] In addition, barracks were built for the garrison, and two new churches were constructed, the \"Great Church\", and one dedicated to St Bartholomew.[8]\n\nLater history\n\nThe city was later besieged and captured by the Persians under Khosrau I in 573-574, but was returned to the Romans by Khosrau II after the Roman-Persian treaty in 591. It was taken again by Khosrau II in 604-05 after a nine-month siege, recovered again for the Roman Empire by Heraclius. Finally captured in 639 by the Arab Muslims, the city then lost its military significance, declined and was eventually abandoned.\n\nModern history\n\nDara became the site of massacre during the Armenian genocide. According to some reports, the cisterns were filled with the bodies of slaughtered Armenians from Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Erzurum in the spring and summer of 1915.[9]\n\nEcclesiastical history\n\nArchbishopric\n\nThe new city became the seat of a Christian bishop and was at first a Metropolitan see, with three suffragans: Rhesaina (also called Theodosiopolis), Rhandus and Nasala.[10]\n\nIts first known bishop was Eutychianus, who took possession in 506. His successor, Thomas, was deposed in 519 for his opposition to the Council of Chalcedon and died in 540. Mamas was removed in 537. Stephanus took part in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.\n\nAfter the 7th-century Arab conquest, Dara again became the seat of Jacobite (Syriac Orthodox) bishops.[11][12] Between 825 and 860, the archbishop was John of Dara, a prolific theologian. In the 10th century, Syriac Orthodox Diocese of Dara lost its Metropolitan rank, which passed to its former suffragan Rhesaina.[13]\n\nTitular Catholic see\n\nNo longer a residential bishopric, Dara is now listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, both Latin and in particular for the Syriac Catholic Church, which, though of the West Syriac Rite, is in full communion with the Holy See.[14]\n\nThe diocese was nominally restored in the 15th century as the Latin Catholic titular bishopric of Dara.\n\nAs such, it has the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank:\n\nHubert Léonard, Carmelite Order (O. Carm.) (1474.11.16 - 1489.07.06) and again (1492.12.03 - ?)\n\nBlasius de Aguinaga (1669.09.09 - ?)\n\nNicolás de Ulloa y Hurtado de Mendoza, Augustinian Order (O.E.S.A.) (1677.02.08 - 1679.11.27)\n\nFrancisco Zapata Vera y Morales (1680.03.11 - 1703.04.23)\n\nFranz Engelbert Barbo von Waxenstein (1703.06.04 - 1706.12.25)\n\nIn 1925 it was renamed and Promoted as Metropolitan Titular archbishopric of Dara.\n\nIt has been vacant for decades, having had the following incumbents of that (highest) rank :\n\nAlfonso Archi (1925.11.16 - 1927.03.04)\n\nJoseph-Marie Le Gouaze (1927.09.29 - 1930.12.05)\n\nLuigi Fantozzi (1931.01.01 - 1932.01.14)\n\nTorquato Dini (1933.11.12 - 1934.03.26)\n\nAntonio Riberi (黎培理) (1934.08.13 - 1967.07.25), as papal diplomat: Apostolic Delegate to Africa for Missions (1934.08.13 - 1945), Apostolic Internuncio (papal envoy) to PR China (1946.07.06 - 1959.02.19), Apostolic Nuncio (papal ambassador) to Ireland (1959.02.19 - 1962.04.28), Apostolic Nuncio to Spain (1962.04.28 - 1967.06.26); later created Cardinal-Priest of San Girolamo della Carità pro hac vice Title (1967.06.29 - 1967.12.16)\n\nNicholas Thomas Elko (1967.12.22 - 1971.08.10)\n\nEstablished as Titular bishopric of Anastasiopolis, suppressed without incumbent, restored in 1979 as titular bishopric of Dara Syrorum (Dara of the Syriacs, or just Dara in Curiate Italian).\n\nIt has had the following incumbents, of both the lowest (episcopal) and intermediary (archiepiscopal) ranks:\n\nTitular Bishop Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka (1979.08.25 - 1983.07.15) (later Archbishop)\n\nTitular Bishop Flavien Joseph Melki (1996.05.25 - 2026.01.30), Curial bishop of the Syriacs\n\nSee also\n\nMt. Izla\n\nReferences\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., \"Dara - ܕܪܐ \" in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified June 30, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/67.\n\n^ a b c Zacharias of Mytilene, Syriac Chronicle, Book VII, Chapter VI\n\n^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.1.11-13\n\n^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.1.14-21\n\n^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.2\n\n^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.3.16-21\n\n^ Smith 1971, pp. 54f.; Schnitter 1987a, p. 13; Schnitter 1987b, p. 80; Hodge 1992, p. 92; Hodge 2000, p. 332, fn. 2\n\n^ Procopius, De Aedificiis, II.3.26\n\n^ Kevorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. pp. 364, 375, 378.\n\n^ Echos d'Orient X, 1907, pp. 144-145\n\n^ Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. II, coll. 997-998, and 1427-1430\n\n^ Raymond Janin, v. Dara in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XIV, Paris 1960, coll. 83-84\n\n^ Echos d'Orient X, 1907, p. 96\n\n^ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 879\n\nSources and external links\n\nPrimary sources\n\nZacharias of Mytilene, Syriac Chronicle, Book VII, Chapter VI\n\nProcopius, De Aedificiis, Book II\n\nSecondary sources\n\nBrian Croke, James Crow: Procopius and Dara, in: Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983), p. 143-159.\n\nItalo Furlan, Accertamenti a Dara, Padua 1984\n\nMichael Whitby: Procopius' description of Dara (\"Buildings\" II 1-3), in: The defence of the Roman and Byzantine East. Proceedings of a colloquium held at the University of Sheffield in April 1986, Oxford 1986, S. 737-783.\n\nGunnar Brands: Ein Baukomplex in Dara-Anastasiopolis, in: Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 47 (2004), pp. 144-155.\n\nChristopher Lillington-Martin, \"Archaeological and Ancient Literary Evidence for a Battle near Dara Gap, Turkey, AD 530: Topography, Texts & Trenches\", British Archaeological Reports (BAR) -S1717, 2007 The Late Roman Army in the Near East from Diocletian to the Arab Conquest Proceedings of a colloquium held at Potenza, Acerenza and Matera, Italy (May 2005) edited by Ariel S. Lewin and Pietrina Pellegrini with the aid of Zbigniew T. Fiema and Sylvain Janniard. ISBN 978-1-4073-0161-7. (pages 299-311).\n\nArch dam\n\nHodge, A. Trevor (1992), Roman Aqueducts & Water Supply, London: Duckworth, ISBN 0-7156-2194-7\n\nHodge, A. Trevor (2000), \"Reservoirs and Dams\", in Wikander, Örjan (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, pp. 331-339, ISBN 90-04-11123-9\n\nSchnitter, Niklaus (1987a), \"Verzeichnis geschichtlicher Talsperren bis Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts\", in Garbrecht, Günther (ed.), Historische Talsperren, Stuttgart: Verlag Konrad Wittwer, pp. 9-20, ISBN 3-87919-145-X\n\nSchnitter, Niklaus (1987b), \"Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Bogenstaumauer\", in Garbrecht, Günther (ed.), Historische Talsperren, Stuttgart: Verlag Konrad Wittwer, pp. 75-96, ISBN 3-87919-145-X\n\nSmith, Norman (1971), A History of Dams, London: Peter Davies, ISBN 0-432-15090-0\n\n External links \n\nArticle on the city by Encyclopædia Iranica\n\nGCatholic - Latin titular see, with titular incumbent bio links\n\nGCatholic - Syriac Catholic titular see, with titular incumbent bio links"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dara-mesopotamia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1618}, {"slug": "reference-hatran-aramaic", "title": "Hatran Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Hatran Aramaic (Aramaic of Hatra, Ashurian or East Mesopotamian) designates a Middle Aramaic dialect known from a corpus of 450 inscriptions and graffiti. The language was used in the region of Hatra and Assur in northeastern parts of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), approximately from the 3rd century BC to...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hatran\n\nHatrean\n\nRegionHatra\n\nEra100 BCE - 240 CE\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern Middle Aramaic\nHatran\n\nWriting systemHatran alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3None (mis)\n\nGlottologhatr1234\n\nAshurian\n\nRegionUpper Mesopotamia\n\nEraDramatically declined as a vernacular language after the 14th century[1]\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern Aramaic\nAshurian\n\nWriting systemHatran alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3-\n\nGlottologassy1241\n\nHatran Aramaic (Aramaic of Hatra, Ashurian or East Mesopotamian) designates a Middle Aramaic dialect known from a corpus of 450 inscriptions and graffiti. The language was used in the region of Hatra and Assur in northeastern parts of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), approximately from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century CE.[2][3] Its range extended from the Nineveh Plains in the centre, up to Tur Abdin in the north, Dura-Europos in the west and Tikrit in the south.\n\nMost of the evidence of the language comes from Hatran inscriptions within the cities dating between 100 BC and the mid-3rd century AD, coinciding with Shapur I's destruction of Hatra in 241 AD and Assur in 257 AD.[4][5] As a result of Hatra being the site with the most attestation, Hatran Aramaic is a more common name. The excavations undertaken by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities in the 1950s brought to light more than 100 Hatran texts, the publication of the first which was undertaken by F. Safar in the journal Sumer. The first four series were the subject of reviews in the journal Syria. The texts range in date from the 2nd or 3rd century BCE to the destruction of the city c. 240 CE; the earliest dated text provides a date of 98 BCE.\n\nMany inscriptions are short commemorative graffiti with minimal text. Some of the longer inscriptions have 12-14 lines. It is therefore difficult to identify more than a few features of the Aramaic dialect of Hatra, which shows overall the greatest affinity to Syriac.\n\nThe stone inscriptions bear witness to an effort to establish a monumental script. This script is little different from that of the Aramaic inscriptions of Assur (possessing the same triangular š, and the use of the same means to avoid confusion between m, s, and q). The ds and the rs are not distinguished from one another, and it is sometimes difficult not to confuse w and y.\n\nHaving conquered the Aramean city-states to the west, the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC) adopted Old Aramaic as the official language alongside the Assyrian Akkadian language. With the Achaemenid Empire succeeding them and adopting Old Aramaic, it rose to become the lingua franca of Iran, Mesopotamia and the Levant.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nThe city of Nisibis came under siege several times during the Roman-Persian Wars. However, in 363 AD the Romans were forced to surrender the city to the Persians and standby as the Christian population was expelled.[7] St Ephrem the Syrian was one of these refugees and ended up settling in Edessa. The city was flourishing with pagans, quite the opposite to his beloved Nisibis which had been a bastion for Syriac-speaking Christians.[8] As Edessa's demographics shifted to a Christian-majority which used Syriac as the language of worship, the language rose to become the new regional lingua franca. Well over 70 important Syriac writers are known from the gold age of Syriac (5th - 9th centuries), stretching from the Levant and the Sinai to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains and Qatar.[9] Combined with the devastation of the cities of Assur and Hatra, Syriac replaced the language of the locals and remained as a major language until its decline following the Mongol invasions and conquests and rise of the Neo-Aramaic languages.\n\nDevelopment\n\nHatran Aramaic developed through dialectic deviation as well as producing its own script. Various dialects of Aramaic developed around major cities or regions including the sister dialect of Syriac (city of Edessa), Mandaic (region surrounding the head of the Persian Gulf), Nabataean (from the Negev to the east bank of the Jordan River and the Sinai Peninsula), Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Babylon), Palmyrene (Palmyra) and various Palestinian sub dialects (Palestine). Syriac, Mandaic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic also developed their own variants of the original script which is still employed today by Western Neo-Aramaic speakers as well as members of the Jewish nation for Hebrew who refer to it as \"Ktāḇ Āšūrī\" (Assyrian writing) since it was the Assyrian monarchs who promulgated it.[10]\n\nHatran Aramaic and Syriac have been heavily influenced by Akkadian, partly due to the proximity to the heartland as well as the native Assyrians having adopted these two dialects. Many commonly used nouns such as month names were burrowed from Akkadian as well as being influenced phonologically, morphologically and syntactically.[11]\n\nDocumentation\n\nWith Hatra enjoying great prosperity during the life of the language, the city has by far the most inscriptions with the city of Assur also containing numerous inscriptions. The rest of the evidence is spread sparsely throughout Dura-Europos, Gaddāla, Tikrit, Qabr Abu Naif, Abrat al-Sagira and Sa'adiya.[4] The surviving corpus which has been published, transliterated and translated consists of commemorative and votive inscriptions, similar to those found in Edessa, Palmyra and among the Nabataean inscriptions. This method usually includes the date of completion of the writing, place, person who commissioned the inscription or statue as well as the scribe's own details on some occasions. Unlike the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and the Syriac scribes of the Sasanian realm, the regal year is not included.[12] Both Assyro-Babylonian and Arabian gods are mentioned in the inscriptions including Ashur, Allat, Bel, Gad (Tyche), Nabu, Nasr, (Apollo), Shamash and Sin. ܽWhile both cities also attest the personal names of affluent citizens, the Hatran rulers with distinctly Parthian names are attested only in Hatra.[13]\n\nAshurian Transliteration\n\nEnglish\n\nSyriac Equivalent\n\n'Assurḥēl\n\nAshur is powerful\n\nܐܠܗܐ ܚܝܠܬܢܐ\n\n'Assurḥannī\n\nAshur took pity on me\n\nܐܬܪܚܡ ܐܠܗܐ ܥܠܝ\n\n'Assurəmar\n\nAshur has declared\n\nܐܡܪ ܐܠܗܐ\n\n'Assurnṯan\n\nAshur has given (compare with Esarhaddon)\n\nܢܬܠ ܐܠܗܐ\n\n'Assur'qab\n\nAshur has replaced (a son)\n\nܥܩܒ ܐܠܗܐ\n\n'Assuršma'\n\nAshur has heard (our prayer/supplication)\n\nܫܡܥ ܐܠܗܐ\n\n'Assurtāreṣ\n\nAshur set (it) right\n\nܬܪܨ ܐܠܗܐ\n\n'Ap̄rahāṭ\n\nAphrahat (or sage)\n\nܐܦܪܗܛ ܐܘ ܚܟܝܡܐ\n\nBēṯ(ə)lāhyhaḇ\n\nThe house of God has given (a son)\n\nܒܝܬ ܐܠܗܐ ܝܗܒ\n\nBar Nērgāl\n\nSon of Nergal\n\nܒܪ ܪܓܠ\n\nBar Nešrā\n\nSon of Nasr (the eagle)\n\nܒܪ ܢܫܪܐ\n\nMāranyhaḇ\n\nOur lord has given (a son)\n\nܝܗܒ ܡܪܢ\n\nMāryā\n\nThe lord (used as a term for the Hatran rulers before using the title king; used by Syriac-speaking Christians to refer to God)\n\nܡܪܝܐ\n\nMlāḇēl\n\nBel has filled\n\nܡܠܐ ܒܝܠ\n\nNḇūḇnā\n\nNabu has built (a son)\n\nܒܢܐ ܢܒܘ\n\nNḇūḡabbār\n\nNabu is mighty\n\nܢܒܘ ܓܢܒܪܐ\n\nNḇūdayyān\n\nNabu is the judge\n\nܢܒܘ ܕܝܢܐ\n\nNērgāldammar\n\nNergal is wondrous\n\nܢܪܓܠ ܕܘܡܪܐ\n\nNešrānṯan\n\nNasr has given (a son)\n\nܢܬܠ ܢܫܪܐ\n\nSanaṭrūq\n\nSanatruq I and Sanatruq II\n\nܣܢܛܪܘܩ\n\nSlōkh\n\nSeleucus\n\nܣܠܘܟ\n\nWalagaš\n\nVologash\n\nܘܠܓܫ\n\nPhonology\n\nThe following features are attested:\n\nLenition\n\nA weakening of ʿayn; in one inscription, the masculine singular demonstrative adjective is written ʿdyn (ʿdyn ktbʾ \"this inscription\") which corresponds to Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic hādēn. Similar demonstratives, ʿadī and ʿadā, are attested in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.\n\nDissimilation\n\nThe surname ʾkṣrʾ \"the court\" (qṣr) and the proper name kṣyʾ, which resembles Nabataean qṣyw and the Safaitic qṣyt, demonstrate a regressive dissimilation of emphasis, examples of which are found already in Old Aramaic, rather than a loss of the emphasis of q, which is found in Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic.\n\nDissimilation of geminate consonants through n-insertion: the adjective šappīr \"beautiful\" is regularly written šnpyr; likewise, the divine name gadd \"Tyché\" is once written gd, but more commonly appears as gnd. This is a common phenomenon in Aramaic; Carl Brockelmann, however, claims that it is a characteristic feature of the northern dialect to which Armenian owes its Aramaic loans.\n\nVocalism\n\nThe divine name Nergal, written nrgl, appears in three inscriptions. The pronunciation nergōl is also attested in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin, 63b) where it rhymes with tarnəgōl, \"cock.\"\n\nSyntactic phonology\n\nThe Hatran b-yld corresponds to the Syriac bēt yaldā \"anniversary\". The apocope of the final consonant of the substantive bt in the construct state is not attested in either Old Aramaic or Syriac; it is, however, attested in other dialects such as Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.\n\nOrthography\n\nThe dialect of Hatra is no more consistent than that of Palmyra in its use of matres lectiones to indicate the long vowels ō and ī; the pronominal suffix of the 3rd person plural is written indiscriminately, and in the same inscription one finds hwn and hn, the quantifier kwl and kl \"all\", the relative pronoun dy and d, and the word byš and bš \"evil\".\n\nAlphabet\n\nHatran script\nHatran Aramaic script\n\nScript type Abjad\n\nPeriodc.98 BCE - c.257 AD\n\nRelated scripts\n\nParent systemsProto-Sinaitic alphabet\nPhoenician alphabet\nAramaic alphabet\nHatran script\n\nISO 15924\n\nISO 15924Hatr (127), ​Hatran\n\nUnicode\n\nUnicode aliasHatran\n\nUnicode rangeU+108E0-U+108FF\n\nFinal Accepted Script Proposal\n\nThe Hatran alphabet is the script used to write Hatran Aramaic, and many inscriptions of this alphabet could be found at Hatra, an ancient city in northern Iraq built by the Seleucid Empire and also used by the Parthian Empire, but subsequently destroyed by the Sassanid Empire in 241 AD. Assur also has several inscriptions which came to an end following its destruction by the Sasanians in 257 AD while the rest of the inscriptions are spread sparsely throughout Dura-Europos, Gaddala, Tur Abdin, Tikrit, Sa'adiya and Qabr Abu Naif.[4] Many of the contemporary ruins were destroyed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in early 2015. It was encoded in the Unicode Standard 8.0 with support from UC Berkeley's Script Encoding Initiative.\n\nThe script is written from right to left, as is typical of Aramaic scripts and of most abjads. Numerals are also written from right to left (bigger place value on the right), and there are two known punctuation marks as well. Some common ligatures also exist, and they do not appear to be necessary, and are rather just a shorthand form of writing. Some 600 texts are known to exist.[14]\n\nThe alphabet consists of the letters listed in the following table. Ligatures have been used in certain inscriptions, although it appears to be optional.[14]\n\nName\n\nLetter\n\nSound Value\n\nImperial Aramaic\nEquivalent\n\nSyriac\nEquivalent\n\nPhoenician\nEquivalent\n\nHebrew\nEquivalent\n\nArabic\nEquivalent\n\nInscriptional Parthian\nEquivalent\n\nInscriptional Pahlavi\nEquivalent\n\nInscription Form\n\nTransliteration\n\nIPA\n\nʾĀlap̄*\n\n𐣠‎\n\nʾ or nothing\n\n[ʔ]\nor silent\n\n𐡀‎\n\nܐ\n\n𐤀‎\n\nא\n\nا\n\n𐭀‎\n\n𐭠‎\n\nBēṯ\n\n𐣡‎\n\nhard: b\nsoft: ḇ (also bh, v, β)\n\nhard: [b]\nsoft: [v] or [w]\n\n𐡁‎\n\nܒ\n\n𐤁‎\n\nב\n\nب\n\n𐭁‎‎\n\n𐭡‎\n\nGāmal\n\n𐣢‎\n\nhard: g\nsoft: ḡ (also g̱, gh, ġ, γ)\n\nhard: [ɡ]\nsoft: [ɣ]\n\n𐡂‎\n\nܓ\n\n𐤂‎\n\nג\n\nج\n\n𐭂‎\n\n𐭢‎\n\nDālaṯ*\n\n𐣣‎\n\nhard: d\nsoft: ḏ (also dh, ð, δ)\n\nhard: [d]\nsoft: [ð]\n\n𐡃‎\n\nܕ\n\n𐤃‎\n\nד\n\nد, ذ\n\n𐭃‎\n\n𐭣‎\n\nHē*\n\n𐣤‎\n\nh\n\n[h]\n\n𐡄‎\n\nܗ\n\n𐤄‎\n\nה\n\nه\n\n𐭄‎\n\n𐭤‎\n\nWaw*\n\n𐣥‎\n\nconsonant: w\nmater lectionis: ū or ō\n(also u or o)\n\nconsonant: [w]\nmater lectionis: [u] or [o]\n\n𐡅‎‎\n\nܘ\n\n𐤅‎\n\nו\n\nو\n\n𐭅‎\n\n𐭥‎\n\nZayn*\n\n𐣦‎\n\nz\n\n[z]\n\n𐡆‎\n\nܙ\n\n𐤆‎\n\nז\n\nز\n\n𐭆‎\n\n𐭦‎\n\nḤēṯ\n\n𐣧‎\n\nḥ\n\n[ħ], [x], or [χ]\n\n𐡇‎\n\nܚ\n\n𐤇‎\n\nח\n\nح, خ\n\n𐭇‎\n\n𐭧‎\n\nṬēṯ\n\n𐣨‎\n\nṭ\n\n[tˤ]\n\n𐡈‎\n\nܛ\n\n𐤈‎\n\nט\n\nط, ظ\n\n𐭈‎\n\n𐭨‎\n\nYōḏ\n\n𐣩‎\n\nconsonant: y\nmater lectionis: ī (also i)\n\nconsonant: [j]\nmater lectionis: [i] or [e]\n\n𐡉‎\n\nܝ\n\n𐤉‎\n\nי\n\nي\n\n𐭉‎\n\n𐭩‎\n\nKāp̄\n\n𐣪‎\n\nhard: k\nsoft: ḵ (also kh, x)\n\nhard: [k]\nsoft: [x]\n\n𐡊‎\n\nܟ\n\n𐤊‎\n\nכ, ך\n\nك\n\n𐭊‎\n\n𐭪‎\n\nLāmaḏ\n\n𐣫‎\n\nl\n\n[l]\n\n𐡋‎\n\nܠ\n\n𐤋‎\n\nל\n\nل\n\n𐭋‎\n\n𐭫‎\n\nMīm\n\n𐣬‎\n\nm\n\n[m]\n\n𐡌‎\n\nܡ\n\n𐤌‎\n\nמ, ם\n\nم\n\n𐭌‎\n\n𐭬‎\n\nNūn\n\n𐣭‎\n\nn\n\n[n]\n\n𐡍‎\n\nܢ\n\n𐤍‎‎\n\nנ, ן\n\nن\n\n𐭍‎\n\n𐭭‎\n\nSemkaṯ\n\n𐣮‎\n\ns\n\n[s]\n\n𐡎‎\n\nܣ\n\n𐤎‎‎\n\nס\n\n𐭎‎\n\n𐭮‎\n\nʿĒ\n\n𐣯‎\n\nʿ\n\n[ʕ]\n\n𐡏‎‎\n\nܥ\n\n𐤏‎\n\nע\n\nع, غ\n\n𐭏‎\n\n𐭥‎\n\nPē\n\n𐣰‎\n\nhard: p\nsoft: p̄ (also p̱, ᵽ, ph, f)\n\nhard: [p]\nsoft: [f]\n\n𐡐‎\n\nܦ\n\n𐤐‎\n\nפ, ף\n\nف\n\n𐭐‎\n\n𐭯‎\n\nṢāḏē*\n\n𐣱‎\n\nṣ\n\n[sˤ]\n\n𐡑‎\n\nܨ\n\n𐤑‎\n\nצ, ץ\n\nص, ض\n\n𐭑‎\n\n𐭰‎‎\n\nQōp̄\n\n𐣲‎\n\nq\n\n[q]\n\n𐡒‎\n\nܩ\n\n𐤒‎\n\nק\n\nق\n\n𐭒‎\n\n𐭬‎\n\nRēš*\n\n𐣣‎\n\nr\n\n[r]\n\n𐡓‎\n\nܪ\n\n𐤓‎\n\nר\n\nر\n\n𐭓‎\n\n𐭥‎\n\nŠīn\n\n𐣴‎\n\nš (also sh)\n\n[ʃ]\n\n𐡔‎\n\nܫ\n\n𐤔‎\n\nש\n\nس, ش\n\n𐭔‎\n\n𐭱‎\n\nTaw*\n\n𐣵‎\n\nhard: t\nsoft: ṯ (also th, θ)\n\nhard: [t]\nsoft: [θ]\n\n𐡕‎\n\nܬ\n\n𐤕‎\n\nת\n\nت, ث\n\n𐭕‎\n\n𐭲‎\n\nUnicode\n\nThe Hatran (Ashurian) script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2015 with the release of version 8.0.\n\nThe Unicode block for this script is U+108E0-U+108FF:\n\nHatran[1][2]\nOfficial Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)\n\n0\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\nA\nB\nC\nD\nE\nF\n\nU+108Ex\n\n𐣠‎\n\n𐣡‎\n\n𐣢‎\n\n𐣣‎\n\n𐣤‎\n\n𐣥‎\n\n𐣦‎\n\n𐣧‎\n\n𐣨‎\n\n𐣩‎\n\n𐣪‎\n\n𐣫‎\n\n𐣬‎\n\n𐣭‎\n\n𐣮‎\n\n𐣯‎\n\nU+108Fx\n\n𐣰‎\n\n𐣱‎\n\n𐣲‎\n\n𐣴‎\n\n𐣵‎\n\n𐣻‎\n\n𐣼‎\n\n𐣽‎\n\n𐣾‎\n\n𐣿‎\n\nNotes\n\n1.^As of Unicode version 18.0\n\n2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points\n\nMorphology\n\nVerbal morphology\n\nThe perfect: The first person singular of the perfect appears only in one inscription: ʾnʾ ... ktbyt \"I ... wrote\"; this is the regular vocalization elsewhere among those Aramaic dialects in which it is attested.\n\nThe causative perfect of qm \"demand\" should be vocalized ʾēqīm, which is evident from the written forms ʾyqym (which appears beside ʾqym), the feminine ʾyqymt, and the third person plural, ʾyqmw. This detail distinguishes Hatran as well as Syriac and Mandaic from the western Jewish and Christian dialects. The vocalization of the preformative poses the same problem as the Hebrew hēqīm.\n\nThe imperfect: The third person of the masculine singular is well attested; it consistently has the preformative l-.\n\nIn the jussive: lṭb bʿšym \"that Baʿl Šemēn may announce it\" (Syriac ʾaṭeb(b)), lʾ ldbrhn ... bqṭyrʾ \"that he not oppress them\" (Syriac dəbar baqəṭīrā \"to oppress,\" lit. \"to carry away with force\").\n\nIn the indicative: mn dy lšḥqh \"whoever strikes him\" (Syriac šəḥaq), mn dy lqrhy wlʾ ldkrhy \"whoever reads it and does not make mention of it\", mn dlʿwl mhkʾ bmšn \"whoever goes from here to Mesene\", kwl mn dlcbwr ... wlktwb lʿlyh \"whoever passes ... and writes over\".\n\nThe preformative l- is employed identically in the Aramaic of Assur. The dialect of Hatra is thus further distinguished from Syriac (which uses an n- preformative) and also from Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, in which the use of the l- preformative for the indicative is not consistent.\n\nNominal morphology\n\nThe distinction between the three states is apparent. As in Syriac, the masculine plural form of the emphatic state has the inflection -ē, written -ʾ. The confusion of this form with that of the construct state may explain the constructions bnʾ šmšbrk \"sons of Š.\" and bnʾ ddhwn \"their cousins.\" The absolute state is scarcely used: klbn \"dogs\" and dkyrn \"(that they may be) remembered.\"\n\nNumbers\n\nThe ancient Semitic construction, according to which the counted noun, in the plural, is preceded by a numeral in the construct state, with an inversion of genders, is attested by one inscription: tltt klbn \"three dogs.\" This same construction has been discovered in Nabataean: tltt qysrym \"the three Caesars.\"\n\nSyntax\n\nAs in Syriac, the analytical construction of the noun complement is common. The use of the construct state appears to be limited to kinship terms and some adjectives: brykʾ ʿhʾ. In the analytical construction, the definite noun is either in the emphatic state followed by d(y) (e.g. ṣlmʾ dy ... \"statue of ...\", sprʾ dy brmrynʾ \"the scribe of (the god) Barmarēn\") or is marked by the anticipatory pronominal suffix (e.g. qnh dy rʿʾ \"creator of the earth,\" ʿl ḥyyhy d ... ʾḥyhy \"for the life of his brother,\" ʿl zmth dy mn dy ... \"against the hair (Syriac zemtā) of whomever ...\"). The complement of the object of the verb is also rendered analytically: ...lʾ ldkrhy lnšr qb \"do not make mention of N.\", mn dy lqrhy lʿdyn ktbʾ \"whoever reads this inscription.\"\n\nLikewise, the particle d(y) can have a simple declarative meaning: ...lʾ lmr dy dkyr lṭb \"(a curse against whomever) does not say, 'may he be well remembered'\" which can be compared with lʾ lmr dy dkyr.\n\nVocabulary\n\nPractically all of the known Hatran words are found in Syriac, including words of Akkadian origin, such as ʾrdklʾ \"architect\" (Syriac ʾardiklā), and Parthian professional nouns such as pšgrybʾ / pzgrybʾ \"inheritor of the throne\" (Syriac pṣgrybʾ); three new nouns, which appear to denote some religious functions, are presumably of Iranian origin: hdrpṭʾ (which Safar compares with the Zoroastrian Middle Persian hylptʾ hērbed \"teacher-priest\"), and the enigmatic terms brpdmrkʾ and qwtgd/ryʾ.\n\nSee also\n\nAramaic language\n\nArabic alphabet\n\nAramaic studies\n\nPalmyra\n\nRoman-Persian Wars\n\nSyriac\n\nReferences\n\n^ Micheau 2006, pp. 391.\n\n^ Beyer 1986, p. 32.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 273.\n\n^ a b c Beyer 1998, p. 155.\n\n^ Geoff Hann (2015). Iraq: The ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 246. ISBN 9781841624884.\n\n^ M. Folmer (2015). The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period: A Study in Linguistic Variation. Peeters Publishers. p. 6. ISBN 978-9068317404.\n\n^ \"St Ephraem\". New Advent.\n\n^ MSusan Myers (2010). Spirit Epicleses in the Acts of Thomas. Mohr Siebeck. p. 38. ISBN 9783161494727.\n\n^ \"Origins of Syriac\". Beth Mardutho. Archived from the original on 2018-06-28. Retrieved 2016-06-03.\n\n^ \"Aramaic language\". Encyclopædia Britannica. 29 March 2024.\n\n^ Stephen Kaufman (1974). The Akkadian influences on Aramaic (PDF).\n\n^ Sebastian P. Brock (2015). Fashion in early Syriac colophons. Archived from the original on 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2016-06-04.\n\n^ Beyer 1998, pp. 155-185.\n\n^ a b Everson, Michael (September 24, 2012). \"N4324: Preliminary proposal for encoding the Hatran script in the SMP of the UCS\" (PDF). International Organization for Standardization. Retrieved 20 August 2016.\n\nSources\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1998). Die aramäischen Inschriften aus Assur, Hatra und dem übrigen Ostmesopotamien. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525536452.\n\nCaquot, André. \"L'araméen de Hatra.\" Comptes rendus du groupe linguistique d'études Chamito-Sémitiques 9 (1960-63): 87-89.\n\nGzella, Holger (2012). \"Late Imperial Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin-Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 574-586. ISBN 9783110251586.\n\nGzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004285101.\n\nBrugnatelli, Vermondo, \"Osservazioni sul causativo in aramaico e in semitico nord-occidentale\", Atti del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese 25 (1984), p. 41-50.(text online)\n\nMicheau, Françoise (2006). \"Eastern Christianities (eleventh to fourteenth century): Copts, Melkites, Nestorians and Jacobites\". In Angold, Michael (ed.). Eastern Christianity. The Cambridge History of Christianity. Vol. 5. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 373-403. ISBN 978-0-521-81113-2.\n\nExternal links\n\nAlphabets of Yesterday and Today: Hatra"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hatran-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3112}, {"slug": "reference-harran", "title": "Harran", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Harran[a] is a municipality and district of Şanlıurfa, Turkey.[2] Its area is 904 km2,[3] and its population is 96,072 (2022).[1] It is approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Syrian border crossing at Akçakale.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Harran\n\nDistrict and municipality\n\nThe Harran plain\n\nLogo\n\nHarranLocation within TurkeyShow map of TurkeyHarranLocation within ŞanlıurfaShow map of Şanlıurfa\n\nCoordinates: 36°52′15″N 39°01′30″E / 36.87083°N 39.02500°E / 36.87083; 39.02500\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceŞanlıurfa\n\nEstablishedc. 2500-2000 BC\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorMahmut Özyavuz (MHP)\n\nArea904 km2 (349 sq mi)\n\nElevation360 m (1,180 ft)\n\nPopulation (2022)[1]96,072\n\n • Density106/km2 (275/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nPostal code63510\n\nArea code0414\n\nWebsitewww.harran.bel.tr\n\nHarran[a] is a municipality and district of Şanlıurfa, Turkey.[2] Its area is 904 km2,[3] and its population is 96,072 (2022).[1] It is approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Syrian border crossing at Akçakale.\n\nHarran was founded at some point between the 25th and 20th centuries BC, possibly as a merchant colony by Sumerian traders from Ur. Over the course of its early history, Harran rapidly grew into a major Mesopotamian cultural, commercial and religious center. It was made a religiously and politically influential city through its association with the moon-god Sin; many prominent Mesopotamian rulers consulted with and renovated the moon-temple of Eḫulḫul in Harran. Harran came under Assyrian rule under Adad-nirari I (r. 1305-1274 BC) and became a provincial capital often second in importance only to the Assyrian capital of Assur itself. During the collapse of the Assyrian Empire, Harran briefly served as the final capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (612-609 BC).\n\nThe city continued to be prominent after the fall of Assyria and experienced varying degrees of foreign cultural influence during its time under the Neo-Babylonian (609-539 BC), Achaemenid (539-330 BC), Macedonian (330-312 BC) and Seleucid (312-132 BC) empires. During classical antiquity Harran was often contested between the Roman and Parthian (later Sasanian) empires. In 53 BC Harran was the site of the Battle of Carrhae, one of the worst military defeats in Roman history. The Harranian moon cult of Sin proved to be enduring and lasted long into the Middle Ages, known to have existed as late as the 11th century AD. The last worshippers of Sin at that time migrated to the regions around Mardin and Mosul.[4] Harran was captured by the Rashidun Caliphate in 640 and remained an important city in the Islamic period. It flourished as a center of science and learning and was the site of both the first Islamic university (the Harran University)[5][b] and the oldest mosque in Turkey[c] (the Harran Grand Mosque).[7] Harran twice served as a capital city in the Middle Ages, first briefly under the Umayyad Caliphate (744-750) and later under the Numayrid Emirate (990-1081).\n\nThe city was conquered by the Mongol Empire in 1260 but was largely destroyed and left abandoned in 1271. Although Harran was kept as a military outpost under some later regimes, it has over the last five centuries mainly been used as a temporary settlement by local nomadic societies. Harran transitioned back into a semi-permanent village settlement in the 1840s, but has only recently grown into a permanent town through advancements in local irrigation and agriculture. Harran was a Turkish district until 1946, after when it was downgraded to a sub-district of the Akçakale district. It regained its status as a district in 1987.[8] Today, it is a major local tourist spot. The town is particularly famous for its unique beehive houses, which are reminiscent of buildings that were already present at Harran in ancient Mesopotamian times.\n\nToponymy\n\nThe name Harran is recorded for the city from the earliest documents mentioning it and has remained in continuous use and largely unchanged since ancient times.[9] Harran is mentioned in early cuneiform records of the Sumerians and Hittites as 𒌷𒊮𒆜 (URU.ŠÀ.KASKAL), sometimes shortened to 𒆜 (KASKAL),[10] transliterated as Ḫarrānu(m).[11][12] Ḫarrānu literally means \"journey\", \"caravan\" or \"crossroad\".[5] It is often interpreted as \"caravan path\"[12] or \"intersection of routes and travel\".[9] Harran is rendered as חָרָן (Ḥaran) in Hebrew and Aramaic,[13] حَرَّان (Ḥarrân) in Arabic,[14] حران (Harrān) in Ottoman Turkish,[15] and Harran in modern Turkish.[16]\n\nThe ancient Assyrians called the city Huzirina.[17] Ḫarrānu was Hellenised to Kárrhai (Κάῤῥαι)[18] in the Hellenistic period.[19] The Romans later Latinised the Greek name into Carrhae.[19][20] Due to the prominence of both Harran and Carrhae in historical literary sources, some scholars use the compound name \"Carrhae-Harran\" for the ancient city.[21] Under the Byzantine Empire, the city continued to be called Carrhae (Kάρραι) but was also sometimes referred to as Hellenopolis (Ἑλληνόπολις),[18] \"city of the pagan Greeks\", in reference to the strong pagan traditions there.[5][11]\n\nHistory\n\nHistorical affiliations\n\nList\n\nUncertain; independent? c. 2500/2000-1800 BC\n\nShamsi-Adad's kingdom c. 1800-1775 BC\n\nIndependent c. 1775-1550? BC\n\nKingdom of Mitanni c. 1550-1300 BC\n\nAssyrian Empire c. 1300-610 BC\n\nBabylonian Empire 610-539 BC\n\nAchaemenid Empire 539-330 BC\n\nMacedonian Empire 330-312 BC\n\nSeleucid Empire 312-132 BC\n\nKingdom of Osroene (Parthian vassal) 132 BC-AD 165\n\nRoman Empire (1st time) 165-240\n\nSasanian Empire (1st time) 240-242\n\nRoman Empire (2nd time) 242-549\n\nSasanian Empire (2nd time) 549-562?\n\nRoman/Byzantine Empire (3rd time) 562?-640\n\nRashidun Caliphate 640-661\n\nUmayyad Caliphate 661-750\n\nAbbasid Caliphate 750-890\n\nHamdanid Emirate 890-990\n\nNumayrid Emirate 990-1081\n\nUqaylid Emirate 1081-1102\n\nSeljuk Empire (Jikirmish) 1102-1106\n\nArtuqid State 1106-1127\n\nZengid Emirate 1127-1182\n\nAyyubid Sultanate (1st time) 1182-1237\n\nKhwarazmians 1237-1240\n\nAyyubid Sultanate (2nd time) 1237-1240\n\nMongol Empire 1260-1271\n\nMamluk Sultanate 1270s-1517\n\nOttoman Empire 1517-1922\n\nRepublic of Turkey 1922-present\n\nEarly history\n\nHarran is situated at an important geographical crossroad, both between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and at the border between the ancient Mesopotamian and Anatolian cultures. The earliest known settlements in the region surrounding Harran date to 10000-8000 BC and settlements in its close vicinity are known to have existed by 6000 BC.[12] The region was linked to the Sumerians, and was occupied by ancient Semitic-speaking people around 2750 BCE.[20] The earliest written records concerning Harran suggest that the city itself was founded c. 2500[9]-2000 BCE[5][22] as a merchant outpost by traders from the Sumerian city of Ur.[5][22]\n\nThe first clear evidence about Harran comes from the inscribed clay tablets found at Ebla, dating to the 24th century BCE. These tablets provide good information about the social and administrative life of Harran during the Early Bronze Age. Harran is mentioned in the Ebla tablets alongside the cities of Urshun and Irrite; at that time, the ruler of Harran was a queen named Zugalum.[23]\n\nHarran was from early on associated with the Mesopotamian moon-god Nanna (later named Sin)[5] and soon became regarded as a sacred city of the moon.[11][24] Harran's great moon temple, the Eḫulḫul (\"Temple of Rejoicing\"),[25] was already present in the city by c. 2000 BCE. [26] Sin was also a major deity in Ur, which also housed his main temple,[27] but Harran's affinity for the moon can perhaps also be explained by its geography and climate: According to Donald Frew, in the hot and desolate landscape surrounding Harran the sun was a natural enemy, whereas the night (and thus the moon) were more comforting.[5] The sun-god Shamash is however also thought to have had a temple in Harran. Another prominent deity in the city was Sin's son Nusku, the god of light.[28]\n\nAlthough next to nothing is known of the architecture and layout of Harran prior to the Middle Ages,[29] the city is believed to have been designed according to some vaguely moon-shaped plan.[11] Medieval sources allude to its shape, but what kind of ‘moon shape’ those sources meant is unclear.[30]\n\nThe religious authorities of Harran, speaking on behalf of Sin, were considered suitable guarantors and signatories in political treaties. Already c. 2000 BCE, a peace treaty was sealed in the Eḫulḫul between Mari and an Amorite tribe called the Yaminites. Further treaties signed that invoke Sin of Harran include a 14th century BCE treaty between Šuppiluliuma I of the Hittites and Shattiwaza of Mitanni, and an 8th century BCE treaty between the Assyrian king Ashur-nirari V and Mati'ilu of Arpad.[26]\n\nMiddle Bronze Age\n\nOver time, Harran grew into a major Mesopotamian cultural, commercial and religious center.[9] In addition to its religious importance, Harran was also important due to its strategic placement on an intersection of trade routes.[31] Because Harran had an abundance of goods that passed through its region, it often became a target for raids.[32] In the 19th century BC, the lands surrounding Harran were occupied by confederations of semi-nomadic tribes.[22]\n\nIn the following century the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I (r. 1808-1776 BC) is recorded to have launched an expedition to conquer the region around Harran and secure the trade routes there from hostile forces.[32] After the fall of Shamshi-Adad I's kingdom in the early 18th century BC, Harran was an independent city-state for a time; archives from Mari from the time of Zimri-Lim (r. 1775-1761) record that Harran in his time was ruled by a king named Asdi-Takim.[33]\n\nLate Bronze Age\n\nHarran was incorporated into the Mitanni kingdom in the 16th century BC[33] and later conquered from Mitanni by the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I (r. 1305-1274 BC).[5][34]\n\nIron Age\n\nThe city would not be firmly incorporated into Middle Assyrian Empire until the 1100s BC,[35] before which it was often occupied by Arameans.[28] Under Assyria, Harran grew into a fortified provincial capital second in importance only to the capital of Assur itself. In the 10th century, Harran was one of the few cities, along with Assur, to be exempt from needing to pay tribute to the Assyrian king[36] and in the 9th and 8th centuries BC, Harran was made the seat of the turtanu, the Assyrian commander-in-chief.[34]\n\nSince Harran was the sacred city of the moon-god, many Mesopotamian kings travelled there to receive the blessing and confirmation of their rule from the city's religious officials and in turn renovated and expanded Harran and its temples.[5] The Eḫulḫul was renovated twice in the Neo-Assyrian period by the kings Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC) and Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC).[24] Prophecies made by prophets and oracles of the moon cult of Harran were held in high regard; in the 670s BC the Harranians correctly prophesied that Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC) would conquer Egypt and Sasi, a usurper proclaimed king by the Oracle of Nusku from Harran, managed to rally widespread support in the empire before he was defeated. The reign of Esarhaddon in particular marked the rise of the Eḫulḫul into one of the most prominent religious sanctuaries in the ancient Near East, a position it would retain for centuries.[37]\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire was defeated in the late seventh century BC by the newly established Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Medes. The Assyrian capital of Nineveh fell in 612 BC but the remnants of the Assyrian army, led by Crown Prince Aššur-uballiṭ II, rallied at Harran.[38] Harran is therefore typically regarded as the short-lived final capital of ancient Assyria.[17][39] Aššur-uballiṭ II underwent a coronation ceremony at Harran, being invested with rulership by Sin.[38] After a long siege lasting from the winter of 610 BC to early 609 BC, Harran was captured by the Babylonians and Medes, ending the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[40] The Eḫulḫul was destroyed by the Medes at this time[41] and was neglected for many years[42] but was eventually restored by the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (r. 556-539 BC),[24] who was from Harran.[43] The city itself was also significantly revitalised in Nabonidus's reign.[44]\n\nAntiquity (539 BC-640)\n\nAfter the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, Harran was successively under the control of the Achaemenid (539-330 BC), Macedonian (330-312 BC) and Seleucid (312-132 BC) empires.[5][19] Under the Seleucids, Harran largely functioned as a military colony[19] and from the time of the Macedonian conquest onwards, many Greeks settled in Harran. Under the centuries of Hellenic control, Harran gradually underwent some Hellenization of its culture.[45][d] After the collapse of the Seleucid Empire, Harran became part of the Kingdom of Osroene in 132 BC,[19] ruled by the Nabatean Arab Abgarid dynasty[46] and most frequently a vassal state of the Parthian Empire.[19] Abgarid rule may have encouraged the local moon cult; the moon was important in both the ancient Bedouin and Nabatean Arab religions.[42]\n\nFrom the first century BC until the end of antiquity, Harran was typically located near or on the border of the Roman (later Byzantine) and Parthian (later Sasanian) empires. Harran frequently changed hands between the two empires but was in practice often more or less independent.[5] In 53 BC, the city was the site of the Battle of Carrhae between the Romans and Parthians, in which the Parthian general Surena defeated and killed the Roman triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus,[20] one of the worst military defeats in Roman history.[5] Osroene (and thus also Harran) first came under Roman control as a result of the wars of Lucius Verus and Avidius Cassius in 162-166 AD. Harran gained colonial status under Emperor Septimius Severus in 195.[19] Sources from Roman times describe Harran as a fortified garrison town.[19][47] In 217, the Roman emperor Caracalla was murdered in Harran while visiting the temple of Sin.[19][47] Harran, along with the nearby cities of Nisibis and Hatra, were captured by the Sasanian king Ardashir I in 238-240 but was swiftly retaken by Emperor Gordian III.[48] Later in 296, Harran was also the site of a battle where the future emperor Galerius suffered a crushing defeat against the Sasanian king Narseh.[49] In the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus (359), it is noted that the walls of Harran were in poor condition. This issue was not rectified until repairs conducted in the reign of Justinian I (r. 527-565).[50]\n\nFrom the time of the Christianization of Mesopotamia and Syria until long into the Middle Ages, Harran developed a rivalry with the nearby city of Edessa due to the cities having polarised attitudes concerning Christianity. Whereas Edessa adopted the new religion very early, Harran remained a pagan stronghold for centuries[42] and became the largest center of pagan cults in eastern Syria.[21] Harran was still overwhelmingly pagan in the 4th century, to the degree that the bishop appointed to Harran in 361 refused to reside in the city and instead lived in Edessa.[42] Despite its paganism, Harran was a site of interest to Christians since the city is mentioned in the Book of Genesis as the town where Abraham and his family stopped on their way from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan.[35]\n\nThe last pagan Roman emperor, Julian (r. 361-363) intentionally avoided the Christian Edessa[21][42] and instead stopped at Harran in 363 to consult the oracles of the moon temple on his upcoming Persian campaign.[51] Although it is known that Sin was still worshipped at Harran in this time[45] Julian is curiously stated to have consulted the female moon deity Luna.[47] The oracles warned the emperor of impending disaster but Julian proceeded anyway and was killed in the war. Harran was the only city in the Roman Empire to declare citywide mourning after Julian's death.[5] Later sources indicate that the deities worshipped by the pagans of Harran in late antiquity included Sin, Bat-Nikkal (consort of Sin; a different name from his ancient consort Ningal),[45] the \"lord with his dogs\" (identified as a localised version of the god Nergal), Tar'atha (identified with the Syrian goddess Atargatis), Gadlat (an Arabian goddess), and perhaps Shamash.[42] Though Sin had in the past been the only major deity in Harran, he was by this point only the most important of several different ancient gods.[35]\n\nThe pagans of Harran became an issue in the increasingly Christianised late Roman Empire. As late as the early 5th century, the theologian Theodoret wrote that Harran was \"a barbarous place, full of the thorns of paganism\".[42] At the Second Council of Ephesus (449), the Bishop of Harran, Stephen, was accused of accepting bribes from pagans to let them practice their rituals in peace.[21] Harran was briefly captured by the Sasanian king Khosrow I in 549, who exempted the city from paying the tribute he demanded from Edessa on account of Harran not being Christian like his enemies but rather a stronghold of the \"old religion\".[42] The endurance of paganism at Harran in the Christian late Roman Empire is likely only explainable through the pagans there offering regular bribes to church officials and civil administrators in the region.[21] In 590, Emperor Maurice (r. 582-602) ordered the Bishop of Harran, Stephen, to persecute the pagans of Harran. Many who refused to convert to Christianity, including the governor Acindynus, were executed.[51] By this time, the Christians and pagans of Harran lived in separate quarters of the city.[50]\n\nMiddle Ages (640-1271)\n\nHarran under the caliphates\n\nMaurice's persecution of the pagans of Harran had little effect on the strength of the pagan community and Harran remained a largely pagan city.[52] When the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate, led by the general Iyad ibn Ghanm, besieged Harran in the winter of 639-640 it was the pagans of the city who negotiated its peaceful surrender.[51] Ibn Ghanm is recorded to have given the pagans of Harran a new moon temple after the capture of the city.[53] Harran under Islamic rule became one of the most important settlements in the Diyar Mudar district.[11] In 657, Caliph Ali asked the Harranians to aid him against Mu'awiya I, the first Umayyad caliph, but the Harranians instead sided with Mu'awiya at the Battle of Siffin in the same year. In response, it is claimed that Ali enacted a brutal massacre in Harran, exterminating most of the inhabitants. However, there is no evidence that Ali captured or even entered the vicinity of Harran, as the Battle of Siffin had ended in a stalemate for both sides. [51]\n\nUnder the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750), Harran was renovated[11] and prospered once more.[51] In 717, Caliph Umar II founded the first Muslim university at Harran, bringing many scholars from other cities in the caliphate (including Alexandria) and installing them in Harran.[5] Harran was made the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate under its last caliph, Marwan II, from 744 to 750.[9][54] The reason for Marwan moving his court to Harran is not known,[55] but might be either to better monitor the troublesome eastern provinces of the caliphate[11] or due to the anti-Christian sentiment of the city's pagan population,[56] who had never been disloyal to the Umayyads.[55] The move of the capital to Harran caused some outrage; the Banu Kalb tribe saw it as an abandonment of Syria and under Yazid ibn Khalid al-Qasri besieged the former capital of Damascus before being suppressed.[57] Harran did not continue to function as a capital under the succeeding Abbasid Caliphate, though the city enjoyed some special privileges. When Al-Mansur (r. 754-775) ordered the destruction of the walls of all cities in northern Mesopotamia, Harran was a notable exception.[56]\n\nThe Madrasa of Harran[b] underwent its golden age in the 8th century, particularly under the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809).[9][e] Many prominent scholars of this time were educated at the institution in subjects such as mathematics, philosophy, medicine and astrology. The school was also an important site for translations of documents from Syriac and Greek into Arabic[9] and Harran flourished as a center of science and learning. Al-Rashid furthermore supplied Harran with a new water supply, constructing a canal from the Balikh River.[11] At some point, Neoplatonism was introduced to Harranian intellectuals, though the precise timing is not clear. It might have been brought to Harran by the scholar Thābit ibn Qurra in the late 9th century, who could have learnt Neoplatonism in Baghdad. Alternatively, Neoplatonism might have been brought to Harran as early as the 6th century by Neoplatonists such as Simplicius of Cilicia, who fled persecution in the Byzantine Empire.[58]\n\nThe local Harranian religion continued to develop as a blend of ancient Mesopotamian religion and Neoplatonism[50] and Harran remained notorious for its strong pagan traditions long into the Islamic period.[11] The city retained a highly heterogenous population that practiced many different religions. Some adopted syncretistic faiths tolerable by the Muslims, others continued to honor the old deities of ancient Mesopotamia and Syria, and some primarily worshipped the stars and planets.[59][f] The Harranian pagans considered themselves the heirs of ancient star-worshipping civilizations such as Babylonia, Greece, India, Persia and Egypt.[60] In addition to pagans, Harran was also home to Muslims, Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Zoroastrians, Manicheans, and other groups.[61]\n\nIn 830, Harun al-Rashid's son Al-Ma'mun (r. 813-833) arrived at Harran with an army on his way to raid in the Byzantine Empire[35] and intended to destroy the city due to its large pagan population. Al-Ma'mun asked the populace if they were Muslims, Christians or Jews (\"people of the book\" protected under Islamic law). Unable to claim that they were, the people of Harran instead claimed that they were \"Sabians\", a mysterious religious group also protected according to the Quran but who no one at the time knew who they were.[5] Upon being inquired who their prophet was, the Harranians claimed that their prophet was the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus.[62] There were many Islamic writers who saw through the claims of Harranians and still considered them to be pagans and not Sabians, and thus lacking any special right to toleration or protection.[63] In 933, the Harranian pagans were ordered through a decree to convert to Islam, but a visitor to the city in the following year found that there were still pagan religious leaders operating a remaining public temple. Toleration of the pagans at Harran appears to have been renewed in the late 10th century.[64] \n\nHarran also had a significant Shi'i population, and was a center of Nusayri dawah (missionary) belonging to the ghulat current of Twelver Shi'ism, where Al-Khasibi established the first cells outside of Baghdad some time before 945. Around 962, however, Hamdanid prince Sayf al-Dawla removed the entire Shi'i population of the city to repopulate Aleppo after a Byzantine attack left the city devastated. The rural population around Harran, however, continued to subscribe to some form of Shi'ism, and mounted a series of uprisings as Hamdanid authority began to wane, particularly in the winter of 1032-1033.[65]\n\nLate Middle Ages\n\nThe power of the Abbasid Caliphate and its vassals in the region around Harran (the Hamdanid dynasty) declined at the end of the 10th century. A new local Arab Shi'i dynasty emerged during this time, the Numayrid dynasty, who ruled a small realm with Harran as its capital from 990 to 1081.[55][65] The toleration of paganism at Harran was at last revoked for the final time in the 11th century and the last moon temples were closed and destroyed. The precise date when this happened and the events surrounding it are unknown, perhaps coinciding with the city falling under the control of the Fatimid Caliphate[64] in 1038 through the submission of the Numayrid ruler Shabīb ibn Waththāb,[66] or more likely with a failed anti-Uqaylid rebellion in 1083.[64] Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad reported that a Sabian temple was destroyed by the Uqaylid dynasty governor Yahya ibn as-Shatir, who conquered Harran in 1081.[67] In 1059,[55] the Harran Castle, presumably constructed in Byzantine times,[18] was rebuilt and strengthened by the Numayrid ruler Manīʿ ibn Shabīb.[55] By the 1180s, Harran was fully devoted to Islam with little to no traces of its former moon cult.[64][g] The last \"Sabians\" migrated eastwards, to the region around Mardin and Mosul, and, as the specialist on the Yezidis Artur Rodziewicz has recently demonstrated, they joined the community centred in Lalish around Adi ibn Musafir, a descendant of the Umayyad lineage, which in time developed into the religious community of the Yezidis, in which elements of Harranian religion and cult can still be discerned to this day.[68][69] \n\nIn the late 11th and early 12th century, political control in northern Mesopotamia and Syria was fragmented. Harran was an important city to the various local Muslim rulers as a counterweight to the nearby crusader states. Numayrid control of Harran came to an end in 1081 when the city was captured by the Uqaylid dynasty. It was then under the control of various Turkish princes; first Jikirmish of Mosul (1102-1106), then the Artuqids of Mardin (1106-1127) and then the Zengid dynasty, which captured Harran under Imad al-Din Zengi in 1127.[70]\n\nIn the 12th century, Harran at times fell under the influence of the County of Edessa, a short-lived crusader state. There is no record of the crusaders ever conquering Harran but the Harran Castle preserves remnants of a Christian chapel with distinct crusader architecture, perhaps suggesting a peaceful crusader presence. The growth of Edessa under Christian rule contributed to the decline of Harran. Edessa is higher up the water table than Harran and as more wells were constructed in Edessa, those in Harran gradually dried up.[5] Harran was in the 12th century still renowned for its ancient origins; a now lost work by Hammad al-Harrani made the claim that Harran had been the first city founded after the great flood.[71]\n\nDespite the threat of water scarcity, Harran continued to be an important town under the rule of the Ayyubid Sultanate, which followed the Zengids.[72] Saladin (r. 1174-1193) at some point enlarged Harran's Grand Mosque[11] and thereafter granted Harran to his brother Al-Adil I (later sultan 1200-1218). Al-Adil later gave Harran to his son Al-Kamil (later sultan 1218-1238). Harran was then under the rule of Al-Kamil's brother Al-Ashraf Musa 1202-1228/1229, after whose death the city steadily declined in importance.[h] Harran was captured by Khwarazmians in 1237, driven from their homeland following the fall of the Khwarazmian Empire, but the castle was retained and fortified by the Ayyubid ruler As-Salih Ayyub though he soon had to give it up to broker a deal with the Khwarazmians for military aid against Badr al-Din Lu'lu' of Mosul. Harran was later regained from the Khwarazmians by the Ayyubids in 1240 by An-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo.[73]\n\nHarran was captured by the Mongol Empire under Hulagu Khan in 1259[73] or 1260[11][72] through the peaceful surrender of its governor.[73] The Harran Castle, as was traditional placed under a different governor, continued to resist for some time until one of the towers were breached.[73] Under the Mongols, Harran continued to flourish for a few years as a major urban center.[20] Mongol control of Harran was immediately contested by the Sultanate of Rum[20] and the Mamluk Sultanate.[72] The Mongols decided to abandon Harran in 1271,[5][74] deporting the population to the nearby cities of Mardin[74] and Mosul.[72] Accounts differ concerning the reason for the abandonment and the state in which the city was left. One account states that the city had been damaged in a battle against the Turks in the year prior, motivating the abandonment,[20] whereas another states that the Mongols themselves caused the damage during the abandonment.[72] The Mongols are also variously stated to either have simply walled up the gates but otherwise left what remained intact[5] or to have pillaged the city for building materials before burning down the remnants.[72] One major reason for the abandonment was likely the decreasing water supply. It was impossible to sustain the population size of Harran with its water storage systems in disrepair and its wells no longer producing enough water.[75] Another possible reason for the abandonment was the difficulty to retain and defend Harran and the little strategic value offered by the city in return.[73]\n\nLater history (1271-present)\n\nHarran was regained from the Mongols by the Mamluk Sultanate later in the 1270s.[72] The Mamluks repaired the castle at some point, most likely in the 1330s or 1340s,[76] and it became the seat of a local military governor,[72] but there was otherwise little effort spent on trying to revive the city.[11] By this point Harran was no longer on any of the major trade routes.[76] A small village-sized settlement sprung up at the site, probably in the immediate vicinity of the castle.[72] The space within Harran's city walls gradually filled up with dirt and sand through natural means. Over the centuries, few structures remained above the soil; the castle survived owing to its position on a hill and its continued use. The remnants of the mosque were also kept clear due to its religious and historical significance.[5]\n\nUnder the Ottoman Empire, which captured the region in the early 16th century, Harran was the capital of a nahiyah (a local administrative unit composed of a group of villages).[72] The demolished Harran University was repaired under the Ottoman sultan Selim I (r. 1512-1520) though it again declined in importance after his reign.[9] The Ottomans continued to use the castle, and also built a new smaller mosque in the southern part of the city, but Harran gradually declined over the course of Ottoman rule and was eventually entirely abandoned as a permanent settlement.[72]\n\nHarran has over the last five hundred years mainly been used as a temporary settlement by local nomadic societies.[9] One of the major semi-nomadic tribes that have continuously lived in and around Harran since the Middle Ages and still today are the Nmēr,[i] descendants of the medieval Numayrid lords of the city.[77] By the 1840s, Harran had once more become a semi-permanent village settlement, although the inhabitants spent the summer months encamped outside the village to avoid vermin in their houses.[72] By the middle of the 20th century, Harran comprised about a hundred houses, inhabited by semi-settled nomadic Arabs, most of whom still did not stay at the site for the duration of the entire year. The city's ancient water systems had long fallen into disrepair and Harran in the 20th century had only a single source of drinking water, Jacob's Well, about 1.6 kilometres (0.99 miles) west of its walls. Although six wells were still operational within the ancient walls they only produced brackish water and were thus only useful for providing water to animals. The water at Harran had perhaps been contaminated from seeping saltpeter from its ancient ruins.[78]\n\nSince the middle of the 20th century, Harran has re-transitioned into a permanently inhabited settlement due to local advancements in irrigation and agriculture.[9] Particularly important in this development was the Turkish Southeastern Anatolia Project, launched in the 1970s, which through irrigation efforts transformed the formerly dry desert plains surrounding Harran into productive agricultural fields.[79] Harran received its own plan for future development in 1992.[80] The ruins of the ancient city were placed on the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey in 2000.[81] Accelerated economic and demographic growth in Harran is expected to in the future once more transform Harran into an important local center.[79] Economic issues caused by the Syrian civil war across the nearby Syrian border has recently caused many Harranian families to migrate elsewhere for work, such as to the cities Urfa (ancient Edessa), Adıyaman and Gaziantep.[82]\n\nTown\n\nMonuments and ruins\n\nThe Harran Castle is a large brick fortress of unknown date, though ancient Greek inscriptions found at one of its gates suggest that it was founded at some point during Byzantine rule (4th-7th centuries).[18] It is also possible that it was built under Muslim rule in the 9th century.[83] If it was not built in the 9th century, it is likely to at least have been expanded in the early Islamic period. Before its fall into ruin, the castle was a three-story structure. It was probably initially a palace but was converted into a more castle-like militaristic building in the 11-13th centuries when the region surrounding Harran experienced considerable political turmoil. The castle has recently been partially excavated and reconstructed with the support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.[18]\n\nHarran was the site of the oldest mosque built in Anatolia, known as the Grand Mosque or Paradise Mosque.[7] The mosque was built by the Umayyad caliph Marwan II in 744-750, at the time the city was his capital.[55][7] The masonry of the mosque indicates that it was restored several times throughout its history. Measuring 104 by 107 metres (341 ft × 351 ft) at its height, the mosque has fallen into ruin over the centuries and little of it remains standing today. Remaining portions include the eastern wall, the mihrab, a fountain, and the 33.3-metre (109-foot) tall minaret.[7]\n\nAnother important historical monument in Harran is its ancient burial mound, spread over a large area and partially surviving intact at the center of the city's archaeological site. The burial mound preserves inscriptions and architectural elements from several different cultures and appears to have been in continuous use from the 3rd century BC to the 13th century AD.[18] The burial mound may be older than Harran itself since ceramic dated to c. 5000 BC has been found at the site.[84]\n\nThe precise location of the ancient great Eḫulḫul temple is unknown[85] and no certain archaeological evidence of it has yet been found.[17] It is likely that one of the major medieval buildings of Harran displaced the Eḫulḫul and were constructed on top of it, either the Harran Castle or the Grand Mosque.[55] Writings from the Islamic period contradictingly claim that the castle[86] or the mosque[87] were the converted moon temple.[87] The castle being on the site of the ancient temple is further supported by its higher elevation[55] whereas the mosque is further supported by the finds of Babylonian inscriptions and four stelae of Nabonidus among its ruins.[88] These inscriptions and stelae directly mention the Eḫulḫul. Additionally, the remains of an ancient altar with moon iconography have also been recovered from the ruins of the mosque.[89] As a result, the mosque enjoys more scholarly support as the most likely site of the ancient temple.[89][90][91][92]\n\nCity walls\n\nThe old town of Harran is still largely surrounded by Harran's ancient city walls.[93] Though they are in generally poor condition,[84] some stretches are well-preserved in good condition[93][84] and give an idea of how the settlement once looked.[84] The exact date of the current walls and which of the many cultures that have inhabited Harran constructed them is not known. The walls were most likely constructed under either Roman or Byzantine rule. Inscriptions in both Greek and Syriac have been discovered during excavations of parts of the walls.[7]\n\nThe walls of Harran resemble those of the nearby Edessa, though are slightly smaller.[84] They are vaguely elliptical in layout,[7] normally around 3 metres (9.8 feet) thick[84] and approximately 4.5 kilometres (2.8 miles) long and 5 metres (16 feet) high.[93] Before they fell into ruin, the walls had 187 bastions and 6-8 gates,[87] most of which are in ruined condition today.[7] Only one of the medieval gates of Harran, the Aleppo Gate, remain standing today. The walls were once surrounded by a great moat filled with water.[87]\n\nBeehive houses\n\nHarran mainly attracts attention today due to the distinctive vernacular architecture of the houses in its old town, known as beehive houses[12] (kümbets).[94] This building type is not seen elsewhere in Turkey and is rare in the rest of the world. Houses similar to the modern beehive houses have long been present in Harran; the earliest known buildings from Harran appear to have been circular[12] and Assyrian reliefs from the 7th century BC depict domed buildings architecturally similar to the present beehive houses.[95] They have not been consistently present on the site, instead being built, ruined, forgotten and rebuilt multiple times throughout Harran's history.[93][95] Beehive houses were recorded at Harran by the 12th-century explorer Ibn Jubayr but not by the 17th-century explorer Evliya Çelebi.[95]\n\nThe majority of the present beehive houses in Harran date to the early twentieth century and none have been standing for longer than since the mid-19th century. The architecture of the beehive houses has subtly changed since the twentieth century; photographs from that time show the houses erected on the grounds like tents whereas the present conical domes are built on larger cubical bases.[95]\n\nSince wood is rare in the region around Harran owing to its climate, locals have traditionally built houses from materials they could easily gather such as stone, brick and mud.[93] The modern beehive houses were constructed by locals who learnt how to build them by examining excavated ancient buildings and used bricks gathered from the ruins as building material. The beehive houses were compatible with the nomadic lifestyle of the locals since they can be built and dismantled rapidly, like a tent, but also efficiently resist both heat and cold.[95] Because of the weak materials used for plastering the beehive houses require repair every 1-3 years. Their walls are usually 50-60 centimetres thick and their domes are about 20-30 centimetres thick. The domes have an opening at the top which provides natural air circulation and ventilation. This feature, combined with the thick walls, provide relatively good indoor conditions throughout the year, even in the extreme summer heat.[93][96]\n\nAs of a count conducted in 2002, Harran had 2,760 beehive houses[93] though the number in the old town has since declined to a few dozen.[82] Some of the beehive houses remained inhabited until the 1980s[97] but they are today mainly used as store houses and barns[98] and have been under conservation[93] since 1979.[87] One of the oldest extant buildings in Harran is a beehive complex that today serves as the Harran Culture House (Harran Kültür Evi), a local museum and restaurant.[99][100] The Culture House building was originally built c. 1800 but fell into ruins at some point and was rebuilt for tourism purposes[87][100] in 1999.[87] The museum showcases artefacts as well as traditional jewelry and clothes from the region surrounding Harran.[94]\n\nModern buildings\n\nSince prohibitions relating to conservation of historical monuments has hindered locals from gathering building materials from the ancient ruins since the 1950s, newer houses constructed in Harran are mostly concrete structures[93] with no architectural relation to the beehive houses.[98] Concrete houses have been built both alongside beehive houses[93] and outside the ancient city walls.[98] The majority of the population of Harran today live in a more newly constructed village about 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) from the old city center.[97]\n\nGeography and climate\n\nHarran is located in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey,[101] approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa.[11] Harran is situated 360 metres (1,180 feet) above sea level, which is the lowest point in the surrounding lowland region.[102]\n\nHarran has a hot and dry climate.[9][93] The precipitation rate is rarely more than 40 centimetres.[9] During the summer, Harran experiences significant temperature differences between the days and nights.[103]\n\nComposition\n\nThere are 136 neighbourhoods in Harran District:[104]\n\n15 Temmuz\n\nAğcıl\n\nAhmetkara\n\nAkkuş\n\nAlacalı\n\nAlgılı\n\nAltılı\n\nAralı\n\nArın\n\nAşağı Yeşilova\n\nAşağıkesmekaya\n\nAşağıyakınyol\n\nAşağıyarımca\n\nAslankuyusu\n\nAvlak\n\nAydıncık\n\nAydınlar\n\nAydüştü\n\nBalkat\n\nBalkır\n\nBaşak\n\nBaşkaragöz\n\nBatıkonacık\n\nBellitaş\n\nBilgili\n\nBinekli\n\nBirelismet\n\nBozceylan\n\nBozyazı\n\nBuğdaytepe\n\nBükdere\n\nBuldum\n\nBulgurlu\n\nBüyüktaşlıca\n\nBüyüktürbe\n\nÇağbaşı\n\nÇaltılı\n\nÇatalhurma\n\nÇepkenli\n\nCevizli\n\nCeylangözü\n\nÇiçek\n\nÇiftçiler\n\nÇolpan\n\nCumhuriyet\n\nDamlasu\n\nDayanıklı\n\nDemirli\n\nDiriliş\n\nDoğukesmekaya\n\nDoğukonacık\n\nDoruç\n\nDuran\n\nEmekli\n\nEskiharran\n\nGazlıkuyu\n\nGiyimli\n\nGögeç\n\nGökçe\n\nGöktaş\n\nGözcü\n\nGüllübağ\n\nGürgelen\n\nHazreti İmambakır\n\nHuzurlu\n\nHz.Yakup\n\nİbniteymiye\n\nİmambakır\n\nKabataş\n\nKarataş\n\nKaymaklı\n\nKılıçlı\n\nKırmıtlı\n\nKökenli\n\nKoyunluca\n\nKüçük Ekinli\n\nKüçükminare\n\nKüçükyıldız\n\nKüplüce\n\nKuruyer\n\nKütüklü\n\nKuyukent\n\nMeydankapı\n\nMinare\n\nMiyanlı\n\nOğulcuk\n\nÖncüler\n\nOrtakonacık\n\nÖzbay\n\nÖzlüce\n\nÖztaş\n\nÖztürk\n\nParapara\n\nSadak\n\nSade\n\nSaide\n\nSeferköy\n\nŞehit Ali Aydar\n\nSelalmaz\n\nSerince\n\nŞeyhhayatiharrani\n\nSoylu\n\nŞuayipşehri\n\nSugeldi\n\nŞükürali\n\nSüleymandemirel\n\nSütlüce\n\nSuvacık\n\nTahılalan\n\nTanınmış\n\nTantana\n\nTaylıca\n\nTekdal\n\nTekneli\n\nToytepe\n\nTozluca\n\nTüccariye\n\nTürkoğlu\n\nÜçdirek\n\nUluağaç\n\nÜnlü\n\nUzunyol\n\nVarlıalan\n\nYakacık\n\nYardımlı\n\nYaygılı\n\nYayvandoruk\n\nYenice\n\nYenidoğan\n\nYeşilova\n\nYolgider\n\nYukarıkesmekaya\n\nYukarıyakınyol\n\nYukarıyarımca\n\nYünlüce\n\nZeytindalı\n\nDemographics\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±% p.a.\n\n199029,592-    \n\n199740,664+4.65%\n\n200758,734+3.75%\n\n201272,939+4.43%\n\n201785,319+3.19%\n\n202296,072+2.40%\n\nSource: 1990 census,[105] 1997 census[106] and TÜIK (2007-2022)[1]\n\nIn its most prosperous periods in ancient and medieval history Harran was probably home to around 10,000-20,000 residents.[75]\n\nAs a result of Harran's retransition into a permanent settlement over the course of the late 20th century and early 21st century, the city and surrounding district has experienced a rapid population increase. Despite this, Harran retains predominantly rural characteristics.[107] As of 2022, Harran had a population of 96,072.[1] The Harran district ranks 857th among 872 districts in Turkey, and last among the districts of the Şanlıurfa Province, by socioeconomic development.[107] As of 2009, Harran has a low unemployment rate (2.73%; 753rd among all districts), a low literacy rate (55.16%; 865th among all districts) and a high population increase rate (64.23%; 7th among all districts).[107] Harran's possibilities for development are subject to several limiting factors, including the amount of productive land and the relatively limited area reserved for urban development.[80]\n\nIn his seyahatnâme from the 17th century, Evliya Çelebi mentioned that the vicinity of Harran was inhabited by Bedouins of Qays and Mawali tribes.[108] The local culture is predominantly Arabic in terms of lifestyle, clothing and food.[82] Harran has close social, cultural, commercial and urban relations with Urfa, the capital of the Şanlıurfa Province.[107] The majority of the district's population is composed of tribal Arabs.[109]\n\nLanguage\n\nAccording to the census conducted by Turkey in 1927, 88.0% of the population spoke Arabic as their mother tongue; 6.8% Kurdish, and 5.2% Turkish.[110] In 1998, the majority of the population of Harran spoke Turkish; approximately 19% spoke Arabic and 10% spoke Kurdish.[9]\n\nTourism\n\nThe ancient ruins at Harran function like an open-air museum[82] and the town is a popular local tourist attraction,[87] often visited as a day trip from Urfa.[100] Popular attractions include the Harran Culture House[100] and the ruins of the castle and mosque.[82] Prior to 2015, Harran had around two thousand visitors a year, according to a local tour guide. The Syrian civil war has reduced this to almost zero.[82]\n\nPolitics\n\nMayors of Harran\n\n#\n\nMayor\n\nTerm\n\nParty\n\n1\n\nİbrahim Özyavuz\n\n1994-2009\n\nAK Party; MHP\n\n2\n\nMehmet Özyavuz\n\n2009-2019\n\nAK Party\n\n3\n\nMahmut Özyavuz\n\n2019-present\n\nMHP\n\nHarran was established as a district in 1987 and divided into three neighbourhoods.[107] Harran first participated in the Turkish local elections in 1989, though there were no mayoral candidates at that time. The 1989 election was a close election between three parties; the True Path Party (DYP) received 36.1% of the vote, the ANAP received 35.8% and the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP) received 28.1%.[111]\n\nİbrahim Özyavuz of the AK Party and later the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) served as Mayor of Harran for three terms from 1994 to 2009, achieving victory in the local elections of 1994, 1999 and 2004.[112] İbrahim Özyavuz was defeated in the local elections of March 2009, beaten by Mehmet Özyavuz of AK Party who achieved 54.2% of the vote.[113] Mehmet Özyavuz retained his position as mayor for a second term winning the local elections of March 2014, receiving 55.5% of the vote.[114]\n\nSince 31 March 2019, the Mayor of Harran is Mahmut Özyavuz of the MHP, who won in the local elections of March 2019 with 54.9% of the vote, defeating the incumbent Mehmet Özyavuz of the AK Party.[115] Mahmut Özyavuz is the son of İbrahim Özyavuz.[116]\n\nArchaeology\n\nAlthough Harran was of great interest to historians due to its association with the ancient moon cult and its abundant appearances in Mesopotamian, Roman and Arab historical writings, the site itself did not receive significant archaeological attention until the 19th century owing to its geographical remoteness. Harran first garnered attention in 1850 when it was visited by some members of Francis Rawdon Chesney's Euphrates Expedition. Harran was also visited by the missionary George Percy Badger in 1852 and by Eduard Sachau in 1879, who sketched some of the ruins. In 1911, Conrad Preusser published a brief but accurate study of the ruins of the Harran Castle and K. A. C. Creswell included a detailed survey of the remains of the Grand Mosque in his 1932 book Early Muslim Architecture Volume I. Harran was also visited and photographed by T. E. Lawrence (\"Lawrence of Arabia\"). None of these early visitors conducted excavations and instead only observed the ruins and remnants visible on the surface.[117]\n\nSeton Lloyd, William C. Brice and C. J. Gadd led a three-week archaeological expedition at Harran in the summer of 1950.[117] Results from a further archaeological survey conducted by R. Storm Rice were also published in 1952. Lloyd, Brice, Gadd and Rice mainly confined themselves to surveying Harran and clearing rubble.[5] Rice's work did however reveal the extent of the original city walls and their gates.[11] During later digs in 1956 and 1959, Rice also excavated the ruins of the Grand Mosque.[118] The site was later visited by H.J.W. Drijvers (who authored Cults and Beliefs at Edessa) in the 1970s and by Tamara Green (who authored The City of the Moon God) in 1977, but both only observed previously reported discoveries and did not dig for any new material. Excavations at Harran have thus continued to be very limited, partly due to its remote and at times politically tumultuous location and partly due to the difficulty for foreign archaeologists to work in Turkey.[5]\n\nIn 2012 and 2013, the Şanlıurfa Museum Directorate, with Mehmet Önal acting as consultant, carried out more extensive excavations at Harran, focusing on the walls, burial mound and castle. The excavations were mainly for restoration purposes on the western part of the city wall and uncovered the walls, towers and bastions. In excavations in the northern part of the castle, a gallery and crenellated corridor were discovered on the west side, with several artefacts of interest.[119] In 2014, following a decision of the Council of Ministers and courtesy of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, further excavation work was conducted, again under the direction of Önal. This round of excavations uncovered a bathhouse,[119] a bazaar,[120] public toilets, a perfumery shop and workshop.[121] In 2016, further excavations were carried out on the city wall, revealing new parts of the wall and leading to the discovery of a broken statue of a woman with a Syriac inscription and a male relief, both used as spolia in the wall. Excavations of the west side of the castle carried out in 2014-2016 uncovered a crenellated corridor belonging to a second defense system adjacent to the wall of the castle and further excavations in 2017-2018 in the southern part of the castle located remnants of a bathhouse.[122]\n\nNotable people\n\nOracle of Nusku, Assyrian prophetess (fl. 671-670 BC)[123]\n\nAdad-guppi, Assyrian priestess (c. 648-544 BC)[124]\n\nNabonidus, last Neo-Babylonian king (r. 556-539 BC)[43]\n\nJabir ibn Hayyan, alchemist and author (d. 806/816)[28]\n\nAsad ibn al-Furat, jurist, theologian and general (c. 759-828)[125]\n\nThābit ibn Qurra, mathematician, astronomer and translator (826/836-901)[11]\n\nAl-Battani, mathematician and astronomer (c. 858-929)[126]\n\nSinān ibn al-Fatḥ, mathematician (10th century)[127]\n\nHammad al-Harrani, scholar, poet and traveller (11th-12th century)\n\nIbn Hamdan, scholar and judge (1206-1295)\n\nIbn Taymiyyah, jurist and theologian (1263-1328)[128]\n\nSee also\n\nList of cities of the ancient Near East\n\nList of ancient settlements in Turkey\n\nList of municipalities in Şanlıurfa Province\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nHistory of Anatolia\n\nNotes\n\n^ For other names and renditions in other languages, see the \"toponymy\" section.\n\n^ a b Not to be confused with the modern Harran University, established in Urfa in 1992.[6]\n\n^ Harran is located in Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region. Depending on how Anatolia's borders are defined, Harran may or may not be seen as part of Anatolia but remains a part of the Republic of Turkiye.\n\n^ The deities worshipped at Harran for instance began to at times be referred to by the names of corresponding ancient Greek deities[11] but their ancient Mesopotamian names also continued being used.[45]\n\n^ Harun al-Rashid is also famous for founding the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, to which scholars from Harran would later be brought.[5]\n\n^ The medieval Harranian worshippers of astronomical objects continued to use ancient names for the celestial bodies, alternating between Greek, Akkadian and Aramaic names (the moon for instance continued to be known as Sīn).[59]\n\n^ The Arab geographer Ibn Jubayr visited Harran in the 1180s and noted that he found no memory or trace of the famous moon cult.[64]\n\n^ As an example, the revenue from Harran declined from three million dirhams under Musa to only two million in 1242, less than fourteen years after the end of his rule.[73]\n\n^ Nmēr is a dialectal form of Numair.[77]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d \"Population Of SRE-1, SRE-2, Provinces and Districts\". TÜIK. Retrieved 11 October 2023.\n\n^ Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi Archived 2015-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Rodziewicz, Artur (2022). Eros and the pearl: the Yezidi cosmogonic myth at the crossroads of mystical traditions. Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-88043-2.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Frew 1999.\n\n^ harran.edu.tr.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Binici et al. 2020, p. 1021.\n\n^ \"Harran\". sanliurfa.gov.tr. Retrieved 27 September 2022.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Özdeniz et al. 1998, p. 478.\n\n^ Gordon 1967, p. 77.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Bosworth 2003, pp. 13-14.\n\n^ a b c d e Başaran 2011, p. 544.\n\n^ Hauser 2012.\n\n^ Rogers 1875, p. 298.\n\n^ Leggett 1885, p. 33.\n\n^ Potts 2013, p. 4.\n\n^ a b c Leick 2009, p. 83.\n\n^ a b c d e f Binici et al. 2020, p. 1020.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Gray, Sherwin-White & Spek 2015.\n\n^ a b c d e f Binici et al. 2020, p. 1019.\n\n^ a b c d e Vedeshkin 2018, p. 266.\n\n^ a b c Green 1992, p. 19.\n\n^ \"Harran\". tayproject.org.\n\n^ a b c Pingree 2002, p. 8.\n\n^ Green 1992, p. 21.\n\n^ a b Lloyd, Brice & Gadd 1951, pp. 87-88.\n\n^ Healey 2018, p. 57.\n\n^ a b c Glassé 2003, p. 171.\n\n^ Bienkowski & Millard 2000, p. 140.\n\n^ Rice 1952, p. 38.\n\n^ Lloyd, Brice & Gadd 1951, p. 80.\n\n^ a b Green 1992, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ a b Holloway 1995, p. 280.\n\n^ a b Green 1992, p. 20.\n\n^ a b c d Sinclair 1990, p. 29.\n\n^ Lloyd, Brice & Gadd 1951, p. 88.\n\n^ Radner 2003, pp. 173-174.\n\n^ a b Radner 2019, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ Reade 2011, p. 123.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 19.\n\n^ Lambert 1972, p. 56.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Dalley et al. 1998, pp. 152-153.\n\n^ a b Beaulieu 1989, p. 76.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 230.\n\n^ a b c d Healey 2018, p. 52.\n\n^ Salman 2008, p. 103.\n\n^ a b c Lloyd, Brice & Gadd 1951, p. 89.\n\n^ Farrokh, Maksymiuk & Gracia 2018, p. 15.\n\n^ Maksymiuk 2018, p. 88.\n\n^ a b c Lloyd, Brice & Gadd 1951, p. 90.\n\n^ a b c d e Pingree 2002, p. 17.\n\n^ Vedeshkin 2018, p. 267.\n\n^ Rice 1952, p. 44.\n\n^ Blankinship 1994, p. 51.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Sinclair 1990, p. 31.\n\n^ a b Green 1992, p. 95.\n\n^ Gil 1997, p. 87.\n\n^ Pingree 2002, p. 10.\n\n^ a b Pingree 2002, pp. 17-18.\n\n^ Pingree 2002, p. 35.\n\n^ Van Bladel 2009, p. 66, note 8.\n\n^ Pingree 2002, p. 23.\n\n^ Green 1992, p. 122.\n\n^ a b c d e Hutton 2006, p. 141.\n\n^ a b Winter, Stefan (2016). A History of the ‘Alawis: From Medieval Aleppo to the Turkish Republic. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691173894.\n\n^ Rice 1952, p. 78.\n\n^ Van Bladel 2009, p. 111.\n\n^ Rodziewicz, Artur (2022). Eros and the pearl: the Yezidi cosmogonic myth at the crossroads of mystical traditions. Berlin: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-88043-2.\n\n^ Rodziewicz, Artur. \"Heft Sur - The Seven Angels of the Yezidi Tradition and Harran\". 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(2003). \"ḤARRĀN\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XII, Fasc. 1. pp. 13-14.\n\nDalley, Stephanie; Reyes, A. T.; Pingree, David; Salvesen, Alison; McCall, Henrietta (1998). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-814946-0.\n\nChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Harran\" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 16.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2003). \"The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?\". Herodotus and His World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199253746.\n\nDjebbar, Ahmed (2005). L'algèbre arabe: genèse d'un art (in French). Vuibert. ISBN 978-2-7117-5381-9.\n\nEsztári, Réka; Vér, Ádám (2015). \"The Voices of Ištar: Prophetesses and Female Ecstatics in the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Religion and Female Body in Ancient Judaism and Its Environments. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110410099. ISBN 9783110406535.\n\nFinegan, Jack (2019). Archaeological History Of The Ancient Middle East. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-72638-5.\n\nFarrokh, Kaveh; Maksymiuk, Katarzyna; Gracia, Javier Sánchez (2018). The Siege of Amida (359 CE). Siedlce University. ISBN 978-83-7051-887-5.\n\nFrew, Donald (1999). \"Harran: Last Refuge of Classical Paganism\". The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. 13 (9): 17-29. doi:10.1558/pome.v13i9.17.\n\nGil, Moshe (1997) [1983]. A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Translated by Ethel Broido. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-59984-9.\n\nGlassé, Cyril (2003). The New Encyclopedia of Islam. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 978-0-7591-0190-6.\n\nGordon, Edmund I. (1967). \"The Meaning of the Ideogram dKASKAL.KUR = \"Underground Water-Course\" and Its Significance for Bronze Age Historical Geography\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 21: 70-88. doi:10.2307/1359360. ISSN 0022-0256. JSTOR 1359360. S2CID 163463497.\n\nGray, Eric William; Sherwin-White, Susan Mary; Spek, R. J. van der (2015). \"Carrhae\". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.1389. ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5. Retrieved 2022-08-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nGreen, Tamara M. (1992). The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran. Brill. ISBN 9789004301429.\n\nGurney, Oliver (1990). \"Sultantepe and Harran\". Ancient Anatolia: Fifty Years' Work by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. ISBN 978-0-9954656-9-5.\n\nHauser, Stefan R. (2012), \"Carrhae\", in Bagnall, Roger S; Brodersen, Kai; Champion, Craige B; Erskine, Andrew (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah14067, ISBN 978-1-4443-3838-6\n\nHauser, Stefan R. (2017). \"Post-Imperial Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nHealey, John F. (2018). \"The Pre-Christian Religions of the Syriac-Speaking Regions\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\nHolloway, Steven W. (1995). \"Harran: Cultic Geography in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its Implications for Sennacherib's 'Letter to Hezekiah' in 2 Kings\". The Pitcher is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gösta W. Ahlström. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-63671-3.\n\nHutton, Ronald (2006) [2003]. Witches, Druids and King Arthur. New York: Hambledon Continuum. ISBN 1-85285-555-X.\n\nKhalilieh, Hassan (2006). Admiralty and Maritime Laws in the Mediterranean Sea (ca. 800-1050): The Kitāb Akriyat al-Sufun vis-à-vis the Nomos Rhodion Nautikos. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-474-1029-4.\n\nLambert, Wilfred G. (1972). \"Nabonidus in Arabia\". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 2: 53-64. JSTOR 41222956.\n\nLeggett, Eugene (1885). Notes on the Mint-towns and Coins of the Mohamedans from the Earliest Period of the Present Time: With Map and a Table Showing the Dinars, Dirhems and Fulus of the Amawee and Abasee Khaleefehs from the Year 79 to 332 A.H. Stevens & Sons.\n\nLeick, Gwendolyn (2009). Historical Dictionary of Mesopotamia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6324-8.\n\nLipschits, Oled (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575060958.\n\nLloyd, Seton; Brice, William; Gadd, C. J. (1951). \"Harran\". Anatolian Studies. 1: 77-111. doi:10.2307/3642359. ISSN 2048-0849. JSTOR 3642359. S2CID 240812354.\n\nMaksymiuk, Katarzyna (2018). \"Strategic aims of Šāpur II during the campaign in northern Mesopotamia (359-360)\". Historia i Świat. 7: 87-97. doi:10.34739/his.2018.07.05. hdl:11331/2484. ISSN 2299-2464. S2CID 217236938.\n\nNiehr, Herbert (2014). The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-22943-3.\n\nÖnal, Mehmet. 2019a. \"Çarşı Hamamı.\" pp. 325-360 in Mehmet Önal, Süheyla İrem Mutlu and Semih Mutlu (eds), Harran ve Çevresi: Arkeoloji. Şanlıurfa: Elif Matbaası.\n\nÖnal, Mehmet. 2019b. \"Doğu Çarşısı.\" pp. 299-324 in Mehmet Önal, Süheyla İrem Mutlu and Semih Mutlu (eds), Harran ve Çevresi: Arkeoloji. Şanlıurfa: Elif Matbaası.\n\nÖnal, Mehmet. 2019c. \"Harran'da Bulunan Kürevi Konik Kaplar.\" pp. 361-418 in Mehmet Önal, Süheyla İrem Mutlu and Semih Mutlu (eds), Harran ve Çevresi: Arkeoloji. Şanlıurfa: Elif Matbaası.\n\nÖnal, Mehmet. 2019d. \"Harran 2017 Yılı Çalışmaları.\" pp. 633-650 in 40. Kazı Sonuçları Toplantısı. 2. cilt (07-11 Mayıs 2019, Çanakkale). Ankara: T. C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlıǧı / Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüǧü.\n\nÖnal, Mehmet and Alain Desreumaux. 2019. \"The Fragment of a Woman['s] Statue with Syriac Inscription [was] Found in Harran Excavation.\" pp. 241-249 in Mehmet Önal, Süheyla İrem Mutlu and Semih Mutlu (eds), Harran ve Çevresi: Arkeoloji. Şanlıurfa: Elif Matbaası.\n\nÖzdeniz, M. B; Bekleyen, A; Gönül, I. A; Gönül, H; Sarigül, H; Ilter, T; Dalkiliç, N; Yildirim, M (1998). \"Vernacular domed houses of Harran, Turkey\". Habitat International. 22 (4): 477-485. doi:10.1016/S0197-3975(98)00027-7. ISSN 0197-3975.\n\nPingree, David (2002). \"The Ṣābians of Ḥarrān and the Classical Tradition\". International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 9 (1): 8-35. doi:10.1007/BF02901729. ISSN 1073-0508. JSTOR 30224282. S2CID 170507750.\n\nPotts, D. T. (2013). \"Mesopotamian and Persian Migrations\". The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm364. ISBN 978-1-4443-3489-0.\n\nRadner, Karen (2003). \"The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC\". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. 6. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: 165-183.\n\nRadner, Karen (2019). \"Last Emperor or Crown Prince Forever? Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources\". State Archives of Assyria Studies. 28: 135-142.\n\nReade, Julian (2011). \"The Evolution of Assyrian Imperial Architecture: Political Implications and Uncertainties\". Mesopotamia. XLVI: 109-125. ISSN 0076-6615.\n\nRice, D. S. (1952). \"Medieval Ḥarrān: Studies on Its Topography and Monuments, I\". Anatolian Studies. 2: 36-84. doi:10.2307/3642366. ISSN 0066-1546. JSTOR 3642366. S2CID 129270461.\n\nRobinson, Chase F. (1996). \"Ibn al-Azraq, His \"Ta'rīkh Mayyāfāriqīn\", and Early Islam\". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 6 (1): 7-27. doi:10.1017/S1356186300014747. ISSN 1356-1863. JSTOR 25183117. S2CID 162208139.\n\nRogers, Edward Thomas (1875). \"Notice on the Dînârs of the Abbasside Dynasty\". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 7: 262-305. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00016488. S2CID 163155102.\n\nSalman, Barış (2008). \"Family, Death and Afterlife According to Mosaics of the Abgar Royal Period in the Region of Osroene\". Journal of Mosaic Research (1): 103-115. ISSN 1309-047X.\n\nSinclair, T. A. (1990). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume IV. Pindar Press. ISBN 978-0-907132-52-3.\n\nTalhamy, Yvette (2010). \"The Fatwas and the Nusayri/Alawis of Syria\". Middle Eastern Studies. 46 (2): 175-194. doi:10.1080/00263200902940251. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 20720657. S2CID 144709130.\n\nVan Bladel, Kevin (2009). \"Hermes and the Ṣābians of Ḥarrān\". The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 64-118. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376135.003.0003. ISBN 978-0-19-537613-5.\n\nVedeshkin, Mikhail A. (2018). \"Bribe and Punishment: To the Question of Persistence of Pagan Cults in Late Antiquity\". Schole. 12 (1): 259-275.\n\nYiğiter, Reyhan Genli; Yirmibeşoğlu, Funda (2011). \"Local Agenda 21 and sustainable development: The case of Harran, Turkey\". Urbani Izziv. 22 (1): 144-153. doi:10.5379/urbani-izziv-en-2011-22-01-006. ISSN 0353-6483. JSTOR 24920564.\n\nWeb\n\n\"1989 Municipal Election Harran\". secim.iha.com.tr. Archived from the original on 2022-08-27. Retrieved 2022-08-27.\n\n\"2009 Municipal Election Harran\". secim.iha.com.tr. Retrieved 2022-08-27.\n\n\"Babalar Günü'ndeki en anlamlı kare\". RHA Ajans (in Turkish). Retrieved 2022-08-27.\n\nChangoiwala, Puja (2019-08-23). \"Exploring Harran, a historic Turkish town close to Syria\". Business Line. Retrieved 2022-08-29.\n\n\"Exploring the Top Attractions of Ancient Harran\". PlanetWare. Retrieved 2022-08-28.\n\n\"Harran\". T. C. ŞANLIURFA VALİLİĞİ. Retrieved 2022-08-28.\n\n\"Harran and Sanliurfa\". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 2022-08-28.\n\n\"History of University - Quality Coordination\". kalite.harran.edu.tr. Retrieved 2022-08-28.\n\n\"Şanlıurfa Harran Election Results 2014 - Yeni Şafak Elections\". Yeni Şafak (in Turkish). 9 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-08-27.\n\n\"Şanlıurfa Harran Election Results 2019 - Yeni Şafak Elections\". Yeni Şafak (in Turkish). 9 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-08-27.\n\n\"TÜRKİYE BÜYÜK MİLLET MECLİSİ\". www.tbmm.gov.tr. Retrieved 2022-08-27.\n\nYalav-Heckeroth, Feride (2017-08-28). \"Harran: The 5000-Year-Old Ancient City in Turkey\". Culture Trip. Retrieved 2022-08-28."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-harran"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 10805}, {"slug": "reference-adiabene", "title": "Adiabene", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Adiabene (Greek: Ἀδιαβηνή, Classical Syriac: ܚܕܝܐܒ) was an ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, corresponding to the heartland of ancient Assyria.[2] The size of the kingdom varied over time; initially encompassing an area between the Zab Rivers, it eventually gained control of Nineveh and starting at least with the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Adiabene\n\nc. 164 BC-c. 379 AD\n\nThe Kingdom of Adiabene in c. 37 AD at its greatest extent, during the reign of Izates II\n\nStatusVassal of the Parthian Empire (145 BC - 224 AD) \n Vassal of the Sasanian Empire (224-379)\n\nCapitalArbela\n\nCommon languagesClassical Syriac\n\nReligion Ashurism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Manichaeism\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nKing \n\n• around 164 BC Abdissares\n\n• around 15 CE Izates I\n\n• 20s? - c. 36[1] Monobaz I\n\n• c. 36 - c. 55/59 AD Izates II\n\n• c. 55/59 AD[1] - late 60s/mid-70s\n - - - - - - - - - - - - Monobaz II\n\n• ? - 116 Meharaspes\n\nHistorical eraAntiquity\n\n• Established c. 164 BC\n\n• Transformed into a Sasanian province c. 379 AD\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nParthian Empire\n\nRoman Empire\n\nSasanian Empire\n\nToday part ofIraq\nTurkey\n\nAdiabene (Greek: Ἀδιαβηνή, Classical Syriac: ܚܕܝܐܒ) was an ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, corresponding to the heartland of ancient Assyria.[2] The size of the kingdom varied over time; initially encompassing an area between the Zab Rivers, it eventually gained control of Nineveh and starting at least with the rule of Monobazos I (late 1st-century BCE), Gordyene became an Adiabenian dependency.[3] It reached its zenith under Izates II, who was granted the district of Nisibis by the Parthian king Artabanus II (r. 12-40) as a reward for helping him regain his throne.[4][5] Adiabene's eastern borders stopped at the Zagros Mountains, adjacent to the region of Media.[6] Arbela served as the capital of Adiabene.[7]\n\nThe formation of the kingdom is obscure. The first instance of a recorded Adiabenian ruler is in 69 BCE, when an unnamed king of Adiabene participated in the battle of Tigranocerta as an ally of the Armenian king Tigranes the Great (r. 95-55 BCE).[8] However, coinage implies the establishment of a kingdom in Adiabene around 164 BCE, following the disintegration of Greek Seleucid rule in the Near East.[9][10] Adiabene was conquered by the Parthian king Mithridates I (r. 171-132 BCE) between 145 and 141 BCE, and served at least from the reign of Mithridates II (r. 124-91 BCE) as an integral part of the Parthian realm.[11]\n\nAdiabenian rulers converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century CE.[12] Queen Helena of Adiabene (known in Jewish sources as Heleni HaMalka, meaning Helene the Queen) moved to Jerusalem, where she built palaces for herself and her sons, Izates bar Monobaz and Monobaz II at the northern part of the city of David, south of the Temple Mount.[13] Monobaz II sent help to aid the Jews during the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans. According to the Talmud, both Helena and Monobaz donated large funds for the Temple of Jerusalem. After 115 CE, there are no historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene.\n\nThe Parthians were overthrown by the Sasanian Empire in 224, who by the time of Shapur I (r. 240-270) had established their rule in Adiabene.[4] Ardashir II is the last figure to be recorded as king of Adiabene, which implies that the kingdom was after his tenure in c. 379 transformed into a province (shahr), governed by a non-royal delegate (marzban or shahrab) of the Sasanian king.[14]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name of the state entered English from the Ancient Greek Ἀδιαβηνή, which was derived from ܚܕܝܐܒ, Ḥaḏy’aḇ or Ḥḏay’aḇ, in Syriac. The state was also known as Nōdšīragān or Nōd-Ardaxšīragān in Middle Persian,[15][16] Նոր Շիրական, Nor Shirakan, in Armenian, and חַדְיָב, Ḥaḏyāḇ, in Hebrew.\n\nLocation\n\nAdiabene occupied a district in Median Empire between the Upper Zab (Lycus) and the Lower Zab (Caprus), though Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of Nineveh, Ecbatana, and Gaugamela as also belonging to it.[17] By the late 1st century CE, its borders extended as far as Nisibis.[a] In the Talmudic writings the name occurs as חדייב ,חדייף and הדייב. Its chief city was Arbela (Arba-ilu), where Mar Uqba had a school, or the neighboring Hazzah, by which name the later Arabs also called Arbela.[20]\n\nIn Kiddushin 72a the Biblical Habor is identified with Adiabene,[21] but in Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah i. 71b with Riphath.[22] In the Targum Jonathan on Jeremiah li. 27, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz are paraphrased by Kordu, Harmini, and Hadayab, i.e., Corduene, Armenia, and Adiabene; while in Ezekiel xxvii. 23 Harran, Caneh, and Eden are interpreted by the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic translator as \"Harwan, Nisibis, and Adiabene.\"\n\nPopulation\n\nAdiabene had a mixed population of Assyrians, Arabs, Arameans, Greeks, Iranians, and Jews.[23][24] Adiabene was a major-speaking Syriac language kingdom. According to Pliny, four tribes inhabited the region of Adiabene: Orontes, Alani, Azones and Silices.[25] The account of Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews shows that there was a substantial Jewish population in the kingdom. The difficult mixing of cultures can be seen in the story of the martyrdom of Mahanuš, a prominent Iranian Zoroastrian who converted to Christianity.[26] In later times Adiabene became an archbishopric, with the seat of the metropolitan at Arbela.[27]\n\nThe first known king of Adiabene was Abdissar who is known to scholarship only through his coinage, his Semitic name, meaning \"the servant of Ishtar,\" suggests that he was of local Assyrian origin.[28][29] Based on the names of some Adiabenian rulers, Ernst Herzfeld suggested a Sakan or Scythian origin for the royal house of the kingdom;[30][31] however, later progress in Iranian linguistic studies showed that these names were common west middle Iranian names.[32] It has been suggested that the royal house of Adiabene, after fleeing Trajan's invasion, established the later Amatuni dynasty which ruled the area between the lakes Urmia and Van.[33][34]\n\nAdiabene was a district in Mesopotamia between upper and lower Zab and was a part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and inhabited by Assyrians even after the fall of Nineveh. It was an integral part of Asoristan (Achaemenid and Sasanian Assyria).[35][36] The region was later made a part of the Roman province of Assyria after the invasion by Trajan in 116.[37]\n\nAccording to Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, when the heartland of Assyria was back into focus in early Christianity (during the Parthian era and about six centuries after the fall of the Assyrian Empire), \"it was with an Assyrian, not a Persian let alone Greek, self-identification: the temple of Ashur was restored, the city was rebuilt, and an Assyrian successor state that returned in the shape of the client kingdom of Adiabene.\" The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus states that the inhabitants of Adiabene were Assyrians.[38]\n\nThrough an examination of Syriac source work, it can be seen that the population of Adiabene was Syriac speaking and of local Assyrian origin. Despite this, Adiabene's elites were integrated with values of Zoroastrian social life through Sasanian culture. It can be assumed that many local Semitic cults succumbed to state supported Zoroastrianism during this period. This development can be seen Legend of Mar Qardagh, where the main protagonist is portrayed as being of Assyrian royal descent, yet a follower of the Zoroastrian faith prior to his conversion to Christianity.[39]\n\nHistory\n\nAchaemenid Persian Empire\n\nUnder the Achaemenid Persian kings, Adiabene seems for a time to have been a vassal state of the Persian Empire. The Ten Thousand, an army of Greek mercenaries, retreated through Adiabene on their march to the Black Sea after the Battle of Cunaxa.\n\nQueen Helena's conversion to Judaism\n\nAccording to Jewish tradition, Helena, the Queen of Adiabene converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century.[40] Queen Helena of Adiabene (known in Jewish sources as Heleni HaMalka) moved to Jerusalem where she built palaces for herself and her sons, Izates bar Monobaz and Monobaz II at the northern part of the city of David, south of the Temple Mount, and aided Jews in their war with Rome. Queen Helena's sarcophagus was discovered in 1863. A pair of inscriptions on the sarcophagus, \"tzaddan malka\" and \"tzadda malkata,\" is believed to be a reference to the provisions (tzeda in Hebrew) that Helena supplied to Jerusalem's poor and to the Jewish kingdom in general. According to Josephus, the queen converted to Judaism together with her son Monobaz II, under the influence of two Jews. Another tradition has it that she met a Jewish jewelry merchant in Adiabene by the name of Hananiah (Ananias) or Eliezer, who told her about the people of Israel and persuaded her to join them.[41] All historic traces of Jewish royalty in Adiabene ended around 115 CE, but these stories made a huge impact on rabbinic literature and Talmud.[42] Nominally Zoroastrian, the people of Adiabene were tolerant toward Judaism, and permitted the establishment of Jewish communities there. The Jews of Edessa, Nisibis, and Adiabene repaid them by being among the most vigorous opponents of Trajan. In late second century Christianity rapidly spread among Zoroastrians and those formerly professing Judaism. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire under Constantine, the position of Adiabenian Christians was naturally exacerbated, since they were seen as potentially disaffected by the zealously Zoroastrian Sasanians.[43]\n\nHellenistic period\n\nThe little kingdom may have had a series of native rulers nominally vassal to the Macedonian, Seleucid and later Armenian (under Tigranes the Great) empires.\n\nParthian Empire\n\nIt later became one of the client kingdoms of the Parthian empire. During the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE, it gained a certain prominence under a series of kings descended from Monobaz I and his son Izates I. Monobaz I is known to have been allied with king Abennerig of Characene, in whose court his son Izates II bar Monobaz lived for a time and whose daughter Symacho Izates married, as well as the rulers of other small kingdoms on the periphery of the Parthian sphere of influence.\n\nRoman intermezzo (117-118)\n\nThe chief opponent of Trajan in Mesopotamia during the year 115 was the last king of independent Adiabene, Meharaspes.[44] He had made common cause with Ma'nu (Mannus) of Singar (Singara). Trajan invaded Adiabene, and made it part of the Roman province of Assyria; under Hadrian in 117.\n\nIn the summer of 195 Septimius Severus was again warring in Mesopotamia, and in 196 three divisions of the Roman army fell upon Adiabene. According to Dio Cassius, Caracalla took Arbela in the year 216, and searched all the graves there, wishing to ascertain whether the Arsacid kings were buried there. Many of the ancient royal tombs were destroyed.\n\nSasanian rule\n\nDespite the overthrow of the Parthians by the Sasanians in 224 CE, the feudatory dynasties remained loyal to the Parthians, and resisted Sasanian advance into Adiabene and Atropatene. Due to this, and religious differences, Adiabene was never regarded as an integral part of Iran, even though the Sasanians controlled it for several centuries.\n\nAfter the Roman Empire gradually made Christianity its official religion during the fourth century, the inhabitants of Adiabene, who were primarily Assyrian Christians, sided with Christian Rome rather than the Zoroastrian Sasanians. The Byzantine Empire sent armies to the region during the Byzantine-Sasanian wars, but this did nothing to change the territorial boundaries. Adiabene remained a province of the Sasanians Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia.[45]\n\nThe region was recorded as Nod-Ardadkhshiragan or Nod-Ardashiragan in Sasanian period.\n\nKings\n\nBishops\n\nBetween the 5th and the 14th centuries Adiabene was a metropolitan province of the Assyrian Church of the East. The Chronicle of Erbil, a purported history of Christianity in Adiabene under the Parthians and Sasanians, lists a number of early bishops of Erbil.[46] The authenticity of the Chronicle of Erbil has been questioned, and scholars remain divided on how much credence to place in its evidence. Some of the bishops in the following list are attested in other sources, but the early bishops are probably legendary.\n\nPkidha (104-114)\n\nSemsoun (120-123)\n\nIsaac (135-148)\n\nAbraham (148-163)\n\nNoh (163-179)\n\nHabel (183-190)\n\nAbedhmiha (190-225)\n\nHiran of Adiabene (225-258)\n\nSaloupha (258-273)\n\nAhadabuhi (273-291)\n\nSri'a (291-317)\n\nIohannon (317-346)\n\nAbraham (346-347)\n\nMaran-zkha (347-376)\n\nSoubhaliso (376-407)\n\nDaniel (407-431)\n\nRhima (431-450)\n\nAbbousta (450-499)\n\nJoseph (499-511)\n\nHuana (511-?)\n\nSee also\n\nAsoristan\n\nAssyria (Roman province)\n\nOsroene\n\nSinharib\n\nNor Shirakan\n\nList of Jewish states and dynasties\n\nNotes\n\n^ Nisibis was not part of Adiabene before 36, when Artabanus presented the city to Izates as a reward for his loyalty. Strabo[18] implies that Nisibis was not part of Adiabene, while Pliny[19] reports that Nisibis and Alexandria were chief cities of Adiabene. On the remnants of the ten tribes in the Khabur area, see Emil Schiirer, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, II, ii, pp. 223-25; Avraham Ben-Yaakov, Jewish Communities of Kurdistan, [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 9-11; Neusner, Jacob (1964). \"The Conversion of Adiabene to Judaism: A New Perspective\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 83 (1): 60-66. doi:10.2307/3264908. JSTOR 3264908.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b (Frankfurt/Main), Bringmann, Klaus (October 2006). \"Monobazus\". brillonline.com. Retrieved 11 April 2018.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Sellwood, David Grenville. \"ADIABENE.\" Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published December 15, 1983. https://doi.org/10.1163/2330-4804_EIRO_COM_4769\n\n^ Marciak 2017, pp. 269-270, 447.\n\n^ a b Frye 1984, p. 279.\n\n^ Sellwood 1983, pp. 456-459.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, p. 270.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, p. 269.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, p. 345.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, pp. 347, 422.\n\n^ Marciak & Wójcikowski 2016, pp. 79-101.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, p. 347.\n\n^ Gottheil, Richard. \"Adiabene\". Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 November 2011.\n\n^ Neusner, Jacob (1964). \"The Conversion of Adiabene to Judaism: A New Perspective\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 83 (1): 60-66. doi:10.2307/3264908. JSTOR 3264908.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, p. 412.\n\n^ ŠKZ\n\n^ Frye 1984, p. 222.\n\n^ \"Hist.\" xviii., vii. 1\n\n^ Geogr. xvi, 1, 1\n\n^ Hist. Nat. vi, 16, 42\n\n^ Yaqut, Geographisches Wörterbuch, ii. 263; Payne-Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, under \"Hadyab\"; Hoffmann, Auszüge aus Syrischen Akten, pp. 241, 243.\n\n^ Compare Yebamot 16b et seq., Yalqut Daniel 1064\n\n^ Genesis x. 3; compare also Genesis Rabba xxxvii.\n\n^ Sweeney, Emmet, 2007, The Ramessides, Medes, and Persians, p. 176\n\n^ Wiesehöfer, Josef (7 March 2016). \"Nisibis\". Nisibis | Oxford Classical Dictionary. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.4435. ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.\n\n^ Pliny the Elder, The natural history, book VI, chap. 30\n\n^ Fiey, J. M. (1965). Assyrie chrétienne I. Beirut: Imprimerie catholique.\n\n^ Hoffmann, \"Akten,\" pp. 259 et seq.\n\n^ Marciak, M., & Wójcikowski, R. S. (2016). IMAGES OF KINGS OF ADIABENE: NUMISMATIC AND SCULPTURAL EVIDENCE. Iraq, 78, 79-101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26426068\n\n^ Grabowski, M. Abdissares of Adiabene and the Batas-Herir relief. https://www.academia.edu/2557534/Abdissares_of_Adiabene_and_the_Batas_Herir_relief?source=swp_share\n\n^ Ernst Herzfeld, 1947, Zoroaster and his world, Volume 1, p. 148, Princeton university press, University of Michigan, 851 pages\n\n^ Ernst Herzfeld, Gerold Walser, 1968, The Persian Empire: Studies in geography and ethnography of the ancient Near East, p. 23, University of Michigan, 392 pages\n\n^ Helmut Humbach, Prods Oktor Skjaervo, 1983, The Sasanian Inscription of Paikuli Pt. 3,1, p. 120, Humbach, Helmut und Prods O. Skjaervo, Reichert, 1983, ISBN 3882261560/9783882261561\n\n^ Jacob Neusner, 1969, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, Volume 2, p. 352-353, Brill, 462 pages\n\n^ Jacob Neusner, 1990, Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia, Volym 204, p. 103-104, University of Michigan, Scholars Press, 228 pages\n\n^ Whinston, William. Translator. The Works of Josephus. Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers Inc. 1999\n\n^ Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. David Womersley, ed. Penguin Books, 2000\n\n^ \"Adiabene\". JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2011-09-19.\n\n^ Crone, Patricia; Cook, Michael (21 April 1977). Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. CUP Archive. ISBN 9780521211338. Retrieved 11 April 2018 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Marciak 2017, pp. 291, 336.\n\n^ \"Helena\". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 11 April 2018.\n\n^ Shapira, Ran (1 October 2010). \"A Royal Return\". Haaretz. Archived from the original on May 9, 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2018.\n\n^ Maroney 2009, p. 97.\n\n^ electricpulp.com. \"ADIABENE - Encyclopaedia Iranica\". www.iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 11 April 2018.\n\n^  Abel, Danielle (2005). Early Syro-Mesopotamian Christian Writers, Jews and Judaism: Influence and Reaction (with a Study of a Selection of Aphrahat's Demonstrations) (PhD thesis). University of Manchester.\n\n^ electricpulp.com. \"Encyclopædia Iranica - Home\". www.iranica.com. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2018.\n\n^ Mingana, A. (1907). The Chronicle of Arbela. Press of the Dominican Fathers at Mosul. Retrieved 20 July 2023.\n\nSources\n\nKia, Mehrdad (2016). The Persian Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1610693912. (2 volumes)\n\nFrye, R. N. (1983). \"The political history of Iran under the Sasanians\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Vol. 3(1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20092-X.\n\nFrye, Richard Nelson (1984). The History of Ancient Iran. C.H.Beck. pp. 1-411. ISBN 9783406093975. false.\n\nGrabowski, Maciej (2011). \"Abdissares of Adiabene and the Batas-Herir relief\". Warszawa. IX: 117-140.\n\nHansman, J. F. (1986). \"Arbela\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 3. pp. 277-278.\n\nMarciak, Michał; Wójcikowski, R. (2016). \"Images of Kings of Adiabene: Numismatic and Sculptural Evidence\". Iraq. IX. Cambridge University Press: 79-101. doi:10.1017/irq.2016.8.\n\nMarciak, Michał (2017). Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia Between East and West. BRILL. ISBN 9789004350724.\n\nMaroney, Eric (2009). The Other Zions: The Lost Histories of Jewish Nations. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1442200470.\n\nSellwood, D. (1983). \"Adiabene\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 5. pp. 456-459.\n\nBrauer, E., The Jews of Kurdistan, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1993.\n\nGrayzel, Solomon, A History of the Jews, New York: Mentor, 1968.\n\nGottheil, Richard. \"Adiabene\". Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901-1906.; which cites:\n\nJosephus, Jewish Antiquities xx. 2, § 4;\n\nidem, Wars of the Jews. ii. 19, § 2; iv. 9, § 11; v. 2, § 2; 3, § 3; 4, § 2; 6, § 1, noting that Josephus probably got his information from Adiabenian Jews in Jerusalem (Von Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, iii. 4).\n\nPliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, v. 66, vi. 44 et seq.\n\nAmmianus, History, xviii. 7, § 1; xxiii. 6, § 21\n\nStrabo, Geography, xvi. 745 et seq.\n\nBrüll, Adiabene, in Jahrbuch i. 58 et seq.\n\nGrätz, Heinrich, in Monatsschrift, 1877, xxvi. 241 et seq., 289 et seq.\n\nVon Gutschmid, Gesch. Irans, pp. 140 et seq.\n\nSchürer, Gesch. ii. 562.\n\nExternal links\n\nBishops of Adiabene\n\nHistory of Aramaic (includes references to Adiabene)\n\nThe forced conversion of the Jewish community of Persia and the beginnings of the Kurds \n\n\"Assyria\" at Livius.org Archived 2014-03-29 at the Wayback Machine\n\n\"Arbela\" at Livius.org Archived 2013-05-02 at the Wayback Machine\n\nAdiabene, Jewish Kingdom of Mesopotamia (different page see above)\n\nInfo from Jewish Encyclopedia"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-adiabene"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3037}, {"slug": "reference-mosul", "title": "Mosul", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Mosul[a] is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Mosul is situated on the banks of Tigris and the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, once the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mosul\n الموصل\n\nMetropolis\n\nTop to bottom, left to right:\n\nView over Tigris river, an old house in Mosul, Mor Mattai Monastery, Umayyad Mosque (Al-Musaffi), temple of Maran, Hatra, Nineveh Walls and Mosul Corniche\n\nNicknames: Nīnwē ܢܝ݂ܢܘܹܐ \n\nThe Pearl of the North\n\nMosulLocation in IraqShow map of IraqMosulMosul (West and Central Asia)Show map of West and Central Asia\n\nCoordinates: 36°20′30″N 43°7′45″E / 36.34167°N 43.12917°E / 36.34167; 43.12917\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh\n\nDistrictMosul\n\nGovernment\n\n • TypeMayor-council government\n\n • BodyNineveh Governorate\n\n • MayorAbdul Sattar Khidr Al-Habbo\n\nArea\n\n • Total180 km2 (69 sq mi)\n\nElevation[1]223 m (732 ft)\n\nPopulation (2023)[2]\n\n • Total1,792,000\n\n • Rank2nd in Iraq\n\n • Density10,000/km2 (26,000/sq mi)\n\nDemonym(s)Mosuli\nMaslawi\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (AST)\n\nArea code60\n\nMosul[a] is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Mosul is situated on the banks of Tigris and the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, once the largest city in the world, are on the east side of the city.[6]\n\nDue to its strategic and central location, the city has traditionally served as a hub of international commerce and travel in the region. It is considered as one of the historically and culturally significant cities of the Arab world. The North Mesopotamian Arabic spoken in Mosul is known as Maslawi and is widely spoken in the region. Together with the Nineveh Plains, Mosul is a historical center of the Assyrians. The surrounding region is ethnically and religiously diverse; a large majority of the city is Arabs, with Kurds, Assyrians, Turkmens, Shabaks, and other minorities comprising the population. Sunni Islam is the largest religion but there are a sizeable number of Christians and Yazidis as well as adherents of other Muslim sects such as Twelver Shi'ism and Shabakism, and in the past, Iraqi Jews.[7]\n\nThe metropolitan area has grown from the old city on the western side to encompass substantial areas on both the \"Left Bank\" (east side) and the \"Right Bank\" (west side), as locals call the two respective sides of the Tigris. Historically, essential products of the area included marble and crude oil. The region is rich in oil reserves. Mosul is home to the University of Mosul and its renowned Medical College, one of the Middle East's largest educational and research centers. The city is also home to historic mosques, Christian sites, synagogues and Yazidi temples.\n\nEtymology\n\nIn its current Arabic form and spelling (الموصل), the term Mosul (or rather Mawsil) means \"linking point\", or, loosely, \"Junction City\". On the city's eastern side are the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh, and Assyrians still call the entire city Nineveh (or Ninweh).[7]\n\nAn early settlement, possibly on the site of the current city of Mosul, was first mentioned by Xenophon in his expeditionary logs of Achaemenid Assyria in 401 BC, during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. There, he notes a small Assyrian town of \"Mépsila\" (Ancient Greek: Μέψιλα) on the Tigris, near where Mosul is today (Anabasis, III.iv.10). It may be safer to identify Xenophon's Mépsila with the site of Iski Mosul, or \"Old Mosul,\" about 30 km (19 mi) north of modern Mosul, where six centuries after Xenophon's report, the Sasanian Empire's center of Budh-Ardhashir was built.\n\nMosul is also nicknamed al-Faiha (\"the Paradise\"), al-Khaḍrah (\"the Green\"), and al-Hadbah (\"the Humped\"). It is sometimes called \"The Pearl of the North\"[8] and \"the city of a million soldiers.\"[9]\n\nHistory\n\nAncient era and early Middle Ages\n\nThe area where Mosul lies was an integral part of Assyria from as early as the 25th century BC. After the Akkadian Empire (2335-2154 BC), which united all the peoples of Mesopotamia under one rule, Mosul again became a continuous part of Assyria proper from circa 2050 BC through the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire between 612 and 599 BC. Mosul remained within the geopolitical province of Assyria for another 13 centuries (as a part of Achaemenid Assyria, Seleucid, Roman Assyria) until the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century. During the Roman-Parthian period, the Arab Kingdom of Hatra rose to prominence, flourishing as a major political and cultural center and serving as a buffer state between the two empires,[10][11] before being destroyed by the Sasanian Empire.[12] Afterward, the region became part of the Sasanian province of Arbāyistān.[13] After the Muslim conquests, the region saw a gradual influx of Muslim Arab, Kurdish, and Turkic peoples, although indigenous Assyrians continued to use the name Athura for the ecclesiastical province.\n\nNineveh was one of the oldest and most significant cities in antiquity and was settled as early as 6000 BC.[14] The city is mentioned in the Old Assyrian Empire (2025-1750 BC) and during the reign of Shamshi-Adad I (1809-1776 BC) it was listed as a center of worship of the goddess Ishtar, remaining so during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1056 BC). During the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), Nineveh grew in size and importance, particularly from the reigns of Tukulti-Ninurta II and Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) onward; he chose the city of Kalhu (the Biblical Calah, modern Nimrud) as his capital in place of the ancient traditional capital of Aššur (Ashur), 30 km (19 mi) from present-day Mosul.\n\nThereafter, successive Assyrian emperor-monarchs, such as Shalmaneser III, Adad-nirari III, Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II, continued to expand the city. Around 700 BC, King Sennacherib made Nineveh Assyria's new capital. Immense building work was undertaken, and Nineveh eclipsed Babylon, Kalhu and Aššur in size and importance, making it the largest city in the world. Many scholars believe the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were at Nineveh.[15]\n\nThe mound of Kuyunjik in Mosul is the site of the palaces of King Sennacherib and his successors Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, (who established the Library of Ashurbanipal), Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and Sin-shar-ishkun. The Assyrian Empire began to unravel in 626 BC, being consumed by a decade of brutal internal civil wars, significantly weakening it. A war-ravaged Assyria was attacked in 616 BC by a vast coalition of its former subjects, most notably their Babylonian relations from southern Mesopotamia, together with the Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Cimmerians, and Sagartians. Nineveh fell after a siege and bitter house-to-house fighting in 612 BC during the reign of Sin-shar-ishkun, who was killed defending his capital. His successor, Ashur-uballit II, fought his way out of Nineveh and formed a new Assyrian capital at Harran (now in southeastern Turkey).\n\nMosul (then the Assyrian town of Mepsila, founded by the former inhabitants out of the ruins of their former capital) later succeeded Nineveh as the Tigris bridgehead of the road that linked Assyria and Anatolia with the short-lived Median Empire and succeeding Achaemenid Empire (546-332 BC), where it was a part of the geopolitical province of Athura (Assyria), where the region, and Assyria in general, saw a significant economic revival.\n\nMosul became part of the Seleucid Empire after Alexander's conquests in 332 BC. While little is known of the city from the Hellenistic period, Mosul likely belonged to the Seleucid satrapy of Syria, the Greek term for Assyria (\"Syria\" originally meaning Assyria rather than the modern nation of Syria), which the Parthian Empire conquered circa 150 BC.\n\nMosul changed hands again with the rise of the Sasanian Empire in 225 and became a part of the Sasanian province of Arbāyistān, which bordered Asoristan to the south, Adiabene to the east, and Armenia to the north, and extended westward roughly along a line from Amida past Singara to the Khabur River and Dura-Europos.[13] Christianity was present among the indigenous Assyrian people in Mosul as early as the 1st century, although the ancient Mesopotamian religion remained strong until the 4th century. It became an episcopal seat of the Assyrian Church of the East in the 6th century.\n\nIn 637 (other sources say 641), during the period of the Caliph Umar, Mosul was annexed to the Rashidun Caliphate by Utba ibn Farqad al-Sulami during the early Arab Muslim invasions and conquests, after which Assyria dissolved as a geopolitical entity.\n\n9th century to 1535\n\nIn the late 9th century the Turkic dynasts Ishaq ibn Kundaj and his son Muhammad seized control over Mosul, but in 893 Mosul came once again under the direct control of the Abbasid Caliphate. In the early 10th century Mosul came under the control of the native Arab Hamdanid dynasty. From Mosul, the Hamdanids under Abdallah ibn Hamdan and his son Nasir al-Dawla expanded their control over Upper Mesopotamia for several decades, first as governors of the Abbasids and later as de facto independent rulers. A century later they were supplanted by the Uqaylid dynasty.[16]\n\nMosul was conquered by the Seljuk Empire in the 11th century. After a period under semi-independent atabeg such as Mawdud, in 1127 it became the centre of power of the Zengid dynasty. Saladin besieged the city of Mosul unsuccessfully in 1182 After his conquest of Aleppo in 1183, ending Zengid rule in Syria, Saladin made a last offensive against Mosul in late 1185, hoping for an easy victory over the presumably demoralized Zengid Emir of Mosul Mas'ud, but failed due to the city's unexpectedly stiff resistance and a serious illness which caused Saladin to withdraw to Harran. Upon Abbasid encouragement, Saladin and Mas'ud negotiated a treaty in March 1186 that left the Zengids in control of Mosul, but under the obligation to supply the Ayyubids with military support when requested.[17] The city remained in control of the Zengids, until Badr al-Din Lu'lu' took over from 1234 to 1259.\n\nDuring the final stages of the Mongol invasion of Persia and Mesopotamia, in 1258, while about 80 years old, Badr al-Din Lu'lu' went in person to Meraga to offer his submission to the Mongol invader Hulagu.[18] Badr al-Din helped the Khan in his following campaigns in Syria. Mosul was spared destruction, but Badr al-Din died shortly thereafter in 1259.[18] Badr al-Din's son continued in his father's steps, but after the Mongol defeat in the Battle of Ain Jalut (1260) against the Mamluks, he sided with the latter and revolted against the Mongols. Hulagu then besieged the city of Mosul for nine month, and destroyed it in 1262.[18][19][20]\n\nMosul was then ruled by the Mongol Ilkhanate and Jalairid Sultanate and escaped Timur's destructions. In 1165, Benjamin of Tudela passed through Mosul. He wrote about a Jewish community of about 7,000 people led by Rabbi Zakkai, presumed to be a scion of the Davidic line. In 1288-89, when the Exilarch was in Mosul, he signed a supporting paper for Maimonides.[21][22] In the early 16th century, Mosul was under the Turkmen federation of the Ağ Qoyunlu, and in 1508 it was conquered by the Safavid dynasty of Iran.\n\nMetalworking hub\n\nIn the 13th century, Mosul had a flourishing industry making luxury brass items that were ornately inlaid with silver.[23]: 283-6  Many of these items survive today; in fact, of all medieval Islamic artifacts, Mosul brasswork has the most epigraphic inscriptions.[24]: 12  However, the only reference to this industry in contemporary sources is the account of Ibn Sa'id, an Andalusian geographer who traveled through the region around 1250.[23]: 283-4  He wrote that \"there are many crafts in the city, especially inlaid brass vessels which are exported (and presented) to rulers\".[23]: 284  These were expensive items that only the wealthiest could afford, and it wasn't until the early 1200s that Mosul had the demand for large-scale production of them.[23]: 285  Mosul was then a wealthy, prosperous capital city, first for the Zengids and then for Badr al-Din Lu'lu'.[23]: 285 \n\nThe origins of Mosul's inlaid brasswork industry are uncertain.[24]: 52  The city had an iron industry in the late 10th century, when al-Muqaddasi recorded that it exported iron and iron goods like buckets, knives and chains.[24]: 52  However, no surviving metal objects from Mosul are known before the early 13th century.[24]: 52  Inlaid metalworking in the Islamic world was first developed in Khurasan in the 12th century by silversmiths facing a shortage of silver.[24]: 52-3  By the mid-12th century, Herat in particular had gained a reputation for its high-quality inlaid metalwork.[24]: 53  The practice of inlaying \"required relatively few tools\" and the technique spread westward, perhaps by Khurasani artisans moving to other cities.[24]: 53 \n\nBy the turn of the 13th century, the silver-inlaid-brass technique had reached Mosul.[24]: 53  A pair of engraved brass flabella found in Egypt and possibly made in Mosul are dated by a Syriac inscription to the year 1202, which would make them the earliest known Mosul brasses with a definite date (although they are not inlaid with anything).[24]: 49-50  One extant item may be even older: an inlaid ewer by the master craftsman Ibrahim ibn Mawaliya is of an unknown date, but D.S. Rice estimated that it was made around 1200.[24]: 53  Production of inlaid brasswork in Mosul may have already begun before the turn of the century.[24]: 53-4 \n\nThe body of Mosul metalwork significantly expands in the 1220s - several signed and dated items are known from this decade, which according to Julian Raby \"probably reflects the craft's growing status and production.\"[24]: 54  In the two decades from roughly 1220 to 1240, the Mosul brass industry saw \"rapid innovations in technique, decoration, and composition\".[24]: 54  Artisans were inspired by miniature paintings produced in the Mosul area.[24]: 54  Mosul seems to have become predominant among Muslim centers of metalwork in the early 13th century.[24]: 53  Evidence is partial and indirect - relatively few objects which directly state where they were made exist, and in the rest of cases it depends on nisbahs.[24]: 53  However, al-Mawsili is by far the most common nisbah; only two others are attested: al-Is'irdi (referring to someone from Siirt) and al-Baghdadi.[24]: 53  There are, however, some scientific instruments inlaid with silver that were made in Syria during this period, with the earliest being 1222/3 (619 AH).[24]: 53  Instability after the death of Badr al-Din Lu'lu' in 1259, and especially the Mongol Siege of Mosul in July 1262, probably caused a decline in Mosul's metalworking industry.[24]: 54  There is a relative lack of known metalwork from the Jazira in the late 1200s; meanwhile, an abundance of metalwork from Mamluk Syria and Egypt is attested from this same period.[24]: 54  This doesn't necessarily mean that production in Mosul ended, though, and some extant objects from this period may have been made in Mosul.[24]: 54-5 \n\nThe earliest definite evidence of Mawsili craftsmen emigrating westward to Mamluk Syria and Egypt dates from the 1250s.[24]: 23, 54  Extant Mawsili works from these regions seem to be the result of one particular family setting up workshops in Damascus and then Cairo rather than a mass movement of Mosul artisans to those cities.[24]: 37  Five Mawsili craftsmen are known from these two cities in the late 13th century, of which 3 or 4 are members of this same family.[24]: 37  The first is Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Mawsili, who produced the earliest known silver-inlaid work from Damascus in the late 1250s.[24]: 39  His presumed son, Ali ibn Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Mawsili, was active in Cairo several decades later.[24]: 37-9  However, the earliest known silver-inlaid brasswork from Cairo belongs to another presumed member of this family, Muhammad ibn Hasan.[24]: 37-9  His one known work, a candlestick dated to 1269, has an inscription which suggests he died before it was completed.[24]: 39  The \"key figure\" for early Mamluk metalwork in Cairo, however, was Ali ibn Husayn.[24]: 39  His works from the 1280s both show Mosul influence as well as a different \"early Mamluk\" style.[24]: 39 \n\nA final member was Husayn ibn Ahmad ibn Husayn, a grandson of Husayn ibn Muhammad, who was active at the turn of the 14th century and made \"a major work\" for the Rasulid sultan al-Mu'ayyad Hizabr al-Din Dawud ibn Yusuf.[24]: 42-4  This family appears to have initiated \"two of the most characteristic features of 14th-century Mamluk metalwork: large-scale inspirational candlesticks, and large multi-lobed medallions with a wide border that eventually became filled with flying ducks\".[24]: 42  Mosul metalwork eventually influenced a tradition of metal inlay in Fars and elsewhere in western Iran in the 14th century.[24]: 55  The Ilkhanids rounding up artisans and gathering them in their capital of Tabriz for centralized royal production may have played a role in this transmission.[24]: 55  Only two items are definitively known to have been produced in Mosul.[24]: 23  The first is the Blacas ewer, made by Shuja' ibn Man'a in 1232, and the second is a silver-inlaid pen box made by Ali ibn Yahya in 1255/6 (653 AH).[24]: 12, 23  No other works by either craftsman are known.[24]: 23  They form part of the broader Mosul work which consists of 35 known surviving brasses made by artisans with the nisbah al-Mawsili, by some 27 different makers.[24]: 22  80% of them are from the years 1220 to 1275, and the remaining 20% are from 1275 to about 1325.[24]: 23 \n\nModern western scholarship has termed this body of metalwork attributed to Mosul the \"Mosul School\", although the validity of this grouping is disputed.[23]: 283  The \"indiscriminate\" attribution of silver-inlaid brasses to Mosul,[23]: 283  particularly by Gaston Migeon at the turn of the 20th century, led to a reaction against the term.[24]: 13  Later scholars such as Max van Berchem, Mehmet Ağa-Oğlu, and D.S. Rice all took a more skeptical view; van Berchem in particular argued that only six known items could be definitely attributed to Mosul, and others were likely made elsewhere.[24]: 13-5  Souren Melikian-Chirvani remarked in 1973 that Mosul had been famous in the west for a century for metalwork it did not make.[24]: 11  However, Julian Raby has defended the concept of the Mosul School, arguing that the city did have a distinct metalworking tradition with its own techniques, styles and motifs, and sense of community.[24]: 11-2  He compared Mosul's metalwork to Kashan's pottery and wrote that \"Mawsili metalworkers displayed a conscious sense of community and tradition and, at least in the early years, a proud acknowledgement of tradition\" and that the city's metalwork gained a wide reputation or \"brand value\" lasting for over a century.[24]: 57 \n\nPart of Raby's argument was that many items shared one or two recurring symbols that \"served no practical purpose\" and may have been meant as a \"brand\", \"workshop mark\", a \"guild emblem\", or \"perhaps as a mark of master craftsmanship\".[24]: 12, 31, 33, 56  The first one is an octagon filled with complex geometric patterns, which appears on at least 13 items over the course of three decades: the 1220s through the 1240s.[24]: 30-2  Several of the most important Mosul artists from what Raby terms the \"second generation of Mosul metalwork\" all used this symbol: Ahmad al-Dhaki, Ibn Jaldak, Shuja' ibn Man'a, Dawud ibn Salama, and Yunus ibn Yusuf.[24]: 32  A notable absence is Ibrahim ibn Mawaliya, a member of the first generation.[24]: 32  The octagon disappears after about 1250, and is also not used by workers known to have been outside Mosul.[24]: 32 \n\nAnother recurring symbol is a rosette with either 10 or 12 leaves found at the bottom of the item - either the base of a ewer or the bottom of the shaft of a candlestick.[24]: 33  This is not normally visible, and perhaps because it served no practical purpose, it was eventually abandoned around the middle of the century.[24]: 33  The last example of this rosette is the bottom of a candlestick made by Dawud ibn Salama in 1248/9 (646 AH).[24]: 33  Raby suggested that Ibrahim ibn Mawaliya \"may have been a seminal figure\" in the Mosul brasswork industry.[24]: 33  The particular phrasing of the \"benedictory inscriptions\" on his objects, bestowing good luck on their owners, is repeated in several works by other Mosul craftsmen.[24]: 33  Two assistants of Ibrahim ibn Mawaliya's are known: his tilmidh (apprentice) Isma'il ibn Ward, and his ghulam Qasim ibn Ali.[24]: 24  Ahmad al-Dhaki's workshop was possibly also \"intimately connected to others in Mosul\".[24]: 35 \n\nThe Mosul metalwork is the only example in the Muslim world where metalworkers recorded their relationships between masters and apprentices (tilmidh) and hirelings (ajir).[24]: 56  This was apparently a point of pride for Mosul artisans.[24]: 56  Julian Raby speculated that two elaborate but impractically tiny Mosuli objects, a tiny 6x4 cm box made by Isma'il ibn Ward and an anonymous 8-cm-tall bucket, were made as \"credential work\" by apprentice or journeyman metalworkers as part of a test to be accepted into a craftsman's guild.[24]: 56-7  According to Raby, the Mosul metalwork may have been part of the gifts that Badr al-Din Lu'lu' gave to other rulers to appease them as part of his realpolitik diplomacy.[24]: 29  Another notable item tentatively attributed to Mosul metalworkers is the Courtauld bag, which is believed to be the world's oldest surviving handbag. It was likely made for a noblewomen of the Ilkhanate during the early 1300s.[28]\n\nOttoman period\n\nWhat started as irregular attacks in 1517 were finalized in 1538, when Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent added Mosul to his empire by capturing it from his arch-rival, Safavid Persia.[29] Thenceforth Mosul was governed by a pasha. Following its capture, Mosul was incorporated into the Baghdad Eyalet, as confirmed by imperial registers from 1558 to 1587, which list sanjaks ranging from Zakho and Erbil in the north to areas around the Mesopotamian Marshes in the south.[30] Mosul was celebrated for its line of walls, comprising seven gates with large towers, a renowned hospital (maristan) and a covered market (qaysariyya), and its fabrics and flourishing trades.\n\nOttoman Iraq had been acquired by the Ottoman Empire in 1555 by the Peace of Amasya, but until the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639 Ottoman control over Mesopotamia was not decisive.[31] After the Peace of Amasya, the Safavids recaptured most of Mesopotamia one more time during the reign of king Abbas I (r. 1588-1629). Among the newly appointed Safavid governors of Mesopotamia during those years was Qasem Sultan Afshar, who was appointed governor of Mosul in 1622.[32][33] Before 1638, the Ottomans considered Mosul \"still a mere fortress, important for its strategic position as an offensive platform for Ottoman campaigns into Iraq, as well as a defensive stronghold and staging post guarding the approaches to Anatolia and to the Syrian coast. Then, with the Ottoman reconquest of Baghdad (1638), the liwa of Mosul became an independent wilaya.\"[34]: 202 \n\nDespite being a part of the Ottoman Empire, during the four centuries of Ottoman rule Mosul was considered \"the most independent district\" within the Middle East, following the Roman model of indirect rule through local notables.[35]: 203-204  \"Mosuli culture developed less along Ottoman-Turkish lines than along Iraqi-Arab lines; and Turkish, the official language of the State, was certainly not the dominant language in the province.\"[34]: 203 \n\nIn line with its status as a politically stable trade route between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, Mosul developed considerably during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Like the development of the Mamluk dynasty in Baghdad, during this time \"the Jalili family was establishing itself as the undisputed master of Mosul\" and \"helping to connect Mosul with a pre-Ottoman, pre-Turcoman, pre-Mongol, Arab cultural heritage that was to put the town on its way to recapturing some of the prestige and prominence it had enjoyed under the golden reign of Badr ad-Din Lu'lu'.\"[34]: 203  Along with the al-Umari and Tasin al-Mufti families, the Jalilis formed an \"urban-based small and medium gentry and a new landed elite\", which proceeded to displace the control of previous rural tribes.[36] Such families establish themselves through private enterprise, solidifying their influence and assets through rents on land and taxes on manufacturing.\n\nAs well as by elected officials, Mosul's social architecture was highly influenced by the Dominican fathers who arrived in Mosul in 1750, sent by Pope Benedict XIV (Mosul had a large Christian population, predominantly indigenous Assyrians).[37] In 1873 they were followed by the Dominican nuns, who established schools, health clinics, a printing press, an orphanage, and workshops to teach girls sewing and embroidery.[38] A congregation of Dominican sisters founded in the 19th century still had its motherhouse in Mosul in the early 21st century. Over 120 Assyrian Iraqi Sisters belonged to this congregation.[37]\n\nIn the 19th century the Ottoman government started to reclaim central control over its outlying provinces. Their aim was to \"restore Ottoman law, and rejuvenate the military\" and to revive \"a secure tax base for the government\".[39]: 24-26  In order to reestablish rule, in 1834 the sultan abolished public elections for governor, and began \"neutraliz[ing] local families such as the Jalilis and their class\"[39]: 28-29  and appointing new, non-Maslawi governors directly. In line with its reintegration within central government rule, Mosul was required to conform to new Ottoman reform legislation, including the standardization of tariff rates, the consolidation of internal taxes and the integration of the administrative apparatus with the central government.[39]: 26 \n\nThis process started in 1834 with the appointment of Bayraktar Mehmed Pasha, who was to rule Mosul for the next four years. After his reign, the Ottoman government (wishing still to restrain the influence of powerful local families) appointed a series of governors in rapid succession, ruling \"for only a brief period before being sent somewhere else to govern, making it impossible for any of them to achieve a substantial local power base.\"[39]: 29  Mosul's importance as a trading center declined after the opening of the Suez Canal, which enabled goods to travel to and from India by sea rather than by land through Mosul. Mosul was the capital of Mosul Vilayet, one of the three vilayets (provinces) of Ottoman Iraq, with a brief break in 1623, when Persia seized the city.\n\n1918 to 1990s\n\nAt the end of World War I in October 1918, after the Armistice of Mudros, British forces occupied Mosul. After the war, the city and surrounding area became part of the British-occupied Iraq (1918-1920) and then Mandatory Iraq (1920-1932). This mandate was contested by Turkey, which continued to claim the area on the grounds that it was under Ottoman control during the signature of the Armistice. In the Treaty of Lausanne, the dispute over Mosul was left for future resolution by the League of Nations. In 1926, Iraq's possession of Mosul was confirmed by the League of Nations' brokered agreement between Turkey and Great Britain. Former Ottoman Mosul Vilayet became the Nineveh Governorate of Iraq, but Mosul remained the provincial capital. Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, many Ottoman buildings were demolished, first under the British Mandate and later under King Faisal.[40] Mosul was also site of uprisings by Arab nationalists against Qasim in 1959 by Colonel Abdul Wahab al-Shawaf, which was violently suppressed and al-Saadi was executed.\n\nUntil the 1950s the Mosul plain was an important center for Chaldaean community. Like the Assyrians, many moved southwards after the 1933 massacre in Simele, which resulted death of approximately 6,000 Assyrians. In 1932 70% of the Christians lived in and around Mosul, by 1957 only 47% remained there. In 1972, the recognized cultural rights for Iraqi Christians and Assyrians. Mosul was home to a large Ba'ath Party headquarters and was an important military center. Oil was discovered in the area surrounding Mosul in the late 1920s.[41] The Ba'athist government nationalized oil in 1972 and used oil revenues for the city's infrastructure development and diversification of economy. Mosul benefited considerably from the development of oilfields in the region, and became a hub for cement, textile and sugar industries.[42] The opening of the University of Mosul in 1967 enabled the education of many in the city and surrounding area.[41]\n\nHowever, the city's infrastructure was partially destroyed during the Iran-Iraq War.[42] After the 1991 uprisings, Mosul was included in the northern no-fly zone imposed and patrolled by the United States and the United Kingdom between 1991 and 2003.[43] Although this prevented Saddam's forces from mounting large-scale military operations again in the region, it did not stop his regime from implementing a steady policy of \"Arabisation\" by which the demography of some areas of Nineveh Governorate were gradually changed.[43] Despite this program, Mosul and its surrounding towns and villages remained home to a mixture of Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens, Shabaks, a few Jews, and isolated populations of Yazidis, Mandeans, Kawliya and Circassians.[43]\n\nIn the 1990s, the Faith Campaign was initiated to strengthen the regime's power by aligning with Salafi Islam under Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.[40] This campaign aimed to foster support for the regime through a more visible embrace of conservative Islamic ideologies.[40] Northwest Mosul became a significant base for Salafism during this period, and other regions south of Mosul also saw rapid growth of Salafi, Wahhabi, and extremist ideologies, creating an environment conducive to their spread.[40] Saddam's government empowered tribal sheikhs from these areas, granting them significant influence in Mosul's urban population.[40] These sheikhs, with their newfound authority, helped in introduce and promote extremist views within the city.[40] Large mosques such as Mosul Grand Mosque were built.[40] Over time, this contributed to Mosul becoming a more tribal society, where traditional legal systems were often bypassed in favor of tribal reconciliations led by sheikhs.[40] Historically, the city had been known for its conservative religious beliefs, primarily rooted in Sufism, which was considered moderate and non-extremist.[40]\n\nMosul in modern era (1918-2003)\n\n A coffee house in Mosul, 1914\n\n The leaning minaret of Great Mosque of al-Nuri gave Mosul its nickname \"the hunchback\" (الحدباء al-Ḥadbāˈ)\n\n Mosul, 1968\n\n Women in Mosul Spring Festival - 1977\n\n Latin Church, Mosul 1980s\n\n21st century\n\nMosul fell on 11 April 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Army 5th Corps, abandoned the city and surrendered two days after the fall of Baghdad. U.S. Army Special Forces with Kurdish fighters quickly took civil control of the city.\n\nOn 22 July, Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, were killed in a gun battle with coalition forces in Mosul after a failed attempt at their capture.[44] Mosul served as the operational base for the US Army's 101st Airborne Division during the occupational phase of the Operation Iraqi Freedom. During its tenure, the 101st Airborne Division was able to extensively survey the city and, advised by the 431st Civil Affairs Battalion, non-governmental organizations, and the people of Mosul, began reconstruction work by employing the people of Mosul in different sectors.[45][46] Other U.S. Army units also occupied the city.[47]\n\nOn 24 June 2004, a coordinated series of car bombs killed 62 people, many of them policemen. On 21 December 14 American soldiers, four American employees of Halliburton, and four Iraqi soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on a dining hall at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Marez next to the main U.S. military airfield at Mosul. The Pentagon reported that 72 other personnel were injured in the attack, carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest and the uniform of the Iraqi security services. The Islamist group Army of Ansar al-Sunna (partly evolved from Ansar al-Islam) took responsibility for the attack in an online statement.\n\nIn December 2007, Mosul International Airport was reopened. An Iraqi Airways flight carried 152 Hajj pilgrims to Baghdad, the first commercial flight since U.S. forces declared a no-fly zone in 1993, though further commercial flight remained prohibited.[48] On 23 January 2008, an explosion in an apartment building killed 36 people. The next day, a suicide bomber dressed as a police officer assassinated the local police chief, Brigadier General Salah Mohammed al-Jubouri, the director of police for Nineveh province, as he toured the site of the blast.[49]\n\nIn May 2008, US-backed Iraqi Army Forces led by Major General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the commander of military operations in Mosul, launched a military offensive of the Ninawa campaign in hopes of bringing stability and security to the city.[50] \n\nHumvee down after Islamic State attack in 2014ISOF on the street of Mosul, 16 November 2016. The city was liberated in 2017\n\nIn 2008, many Assyrian Christians fled the city, following a wave of murders and threats against their community. The murder of a dozen Assyrians, threats that others would be murdered unless they converted to Islam, and the destruction of their houses sparked a rapid exodus of the Christian population, with some fleeing to Syria and Turkey, and others were given shelter in churches and monasteries.[51][52]\n\nOn 10 June 2014, the Islamic State captured Mosul during the June 2014 Northern Iraq offensive.[53][54][55] , after the Iraqi troops stationed there withdrew.[56][57][58] Troop shortages and infighting among top officers and Iraqi political leaders played into IS's hands and fueled panic that led to the city's abandonment.[59] Half a million people escaped on foot or by car during the next two days.[60] According to western and pro-Iraqi government press, Mosul residents were de facto prisoners,[61] forbidden to leave the city unless they left IS a significant collateral of family members, personal wealth and property. They could then leave after paying a significant \"departure tax\"[62] for a three-day pass (for a higher fee they could surrender their home, pay the fee and leave for good) and if those with a three-day pass failed to return within that time, their assets would be seized and their family killed.[63] By August, the city's new IS administration was dysfunctional, with frequent power cuts, a tainted water supply, collapse of infrastructure, and failing health care.\n\nAfter more than two years of occupation of Mosul, Iraqi forces, with the help of American and French forces, launched a joint offensive to recapture it on 16 October 2016.[64][65] The battle was considered key in the military intervention against IS.[66][67] A military offensive to retake the city was the largest deployment of Iraqi forces since the 2003 invasion by U.S. and coalition forces[68] On 9 July 2017, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi arrived in preparation to announce the full liberation and reclamation of Mosul after three years of IS control.[69] A formal declaration was made on the next day.[70] The battle continued for another couple of weeks in the Old City before Iraqi forces regained full control of Mosul on 21 July 2017.[71][72]\n\nDemographics\n\nAccording to Salahuddin Khuda Bakhsh, the Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal was at Mosul in 969 AD (358 AH) He called it a \"fine town with excellent markets, surrounded by fertile districts of which the most celebrated was that round Nineveh where the Prophet Jonah was buried. In the tenth century, the population consisted of Kurds and Arabs, and the numerous districts round Mosul, occupying all Diyar Rabi'a, are carefully enumerated by Ibn Hawkal.\"[16][73]\n\nIn the 20th century, Mosul was indicative of Iraq's mingling ethnic and religious cultures\n\nToday Mosul has a Sunni Arab majority in urban areas, such as downtown Mosul west of the Tigris; across the Tigris and further north in the suburban areas, thousands of Assyrians, Kurds, Turkmens, Shabaks, Yazidis, Armenians and Mandeans made up the rest of Mosul's population.[74] Shabaks were concentrated on the city's eastern outskirts.\n\nReligion\n\nMosul has a predominantly Sunni Muslim population. The city also had an ancient Jewish population. Like their counterparts elsewhere in Iraq, most were forced out in 1950-51. Most Iraqi Jews have moved to Israel, and some to the United States.[75] In 2003, during the Iraq War, a rabbi in the American army found an abandoned, dilapidated synagogue in Mosul dating to the 13th century.[76]\n\nDuring IS's occupation, religious minorities were targeted to convert to Islam, pay tribute (jizya) money, leave, or be killed.[77] The persecution of Christians in Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh Plains removed a Christian community that had been present in the region since the 1st century.[78]\n\nInfrastructure\n\nThe Mosul Dam was built in the 1980s to supply Mosul with hydroelectricity and water. Despite this, water supply cuts are still common.[79]\n\nFive bridges cross the Tigris in Mosul, known from north to south as:[80]\n\nAl Shohada Bridge (or \"Third Bridge\")\n\nFifth Bridge\n\nOld Bridge (or \"Iron Bridge\", or \"First Bridge\")\n\nAl Huriya Bridge (literally \"Freedom Bridge\", also known as \"Second Bridge\")\n\nFourth Bridge\n\nDuring the Battle of Mosul (2016-17) between IS and the Iraqi Army supported by an international coalition, two bridges were 'damaged' by coalition airstrikes in October 2016, two others in November, and the Old Bridge was 'disabled' in early December.[80] According to the news lmed, in late December the bridges were targeted to disrupt the resupply of IS forces in East Mosul from West Mosul.[80] In January 2017, CNN reported that IS itself had 'destroyed' all bridges to slow the Iraqi ground troops' advance.[81]\n\nMosul is served by Mosul International Airport.\n\nEconomy\n\nMosul, the second largest city in Iraq, was historically one of the most important commercial and industrial centers, contributing significantly to the economy of Iraq.[82] The region having natural resources, it became a key contributor to the national economy and Iraq's industrial and agricultural sectors.[82] The economy was based on a mix of oil, agriculture, industrial products, and minerals. Its strategic location and presence of airport, made Mosul an important city before the war in Iraq in 2013.[82]\n\nThe city is known for sulfur reserves, particularly from the Meshraq Sulfur Plant, which had an annual production capacity of one million tons of sulfur.[82] It was home to one of Iraq's largest sugar plants, fed by sugarcane grown in the region.[82] The city was formerly a hub of cement production, with over 1,000 factories manufacturing cement and concrete masonry units (CMU).[82] Additionally, Mosul had a growing oil and gas sector, with number of oil wells around the city.[82] \n\nAgriculturally, Mosul contributed significantly to Iraq's wheat supply, with fertile lands surrounding the city.[82]\n\nDuring the IS occupation, large reserves of sulfur from the plant fell under the militants' control and the plant was damaged during the US-led coalition airstrikes.[83] Mosul's economy suffered during the conflict and many of the industries have yet fully to recover.[83] The Kurdistan Region has historically been a major importer of Mosul's natural resources, forming a close relationship between the two regions.[83] Years before IS took control of Mosul, extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and their allies had already started to gain influence over the city's administration and economy, laying the groundwork for the economic instability that would follow.[83] When IS seized Mosul in June 2014, they looted the city's central bank, destroyed local businesses, and forcibly extracted money from business owners and farmers to fund their operations.[83] As a result, the city's economy collapsed. Many businesses were forced to close, leading to skyrocketing unemployment and increasing poverty levels.[83]\n\nReconstruction has since the end of the war become a multi-million dollar industry. To this day, large parts of the city are either being rebuilt or remain in ruins.[67]\n\nGeography\n\nMosul stands 223 meters above sea level in the Upper Mesopotamia region of the Middle East. To the south west of Mosul is the Syrian Desert and to the East is the Zagros Mountains. It is surrounded by the Nineveh Plains.\n\nClimate\n\nMosul has a hot semi-arid climate (BSh), verging on the Mediterranean climate (Csa), with extremely hot, prolonged, dry summers, brief mild transitional seasons, and moderately wet (and occasionally snowy), relatively cool winters.\n\nClimate data for Mosul (1991-2020)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n21.2\n(70.2)\n\n26.9\n(80.4)\n\n31.8\n(89.2)\n\n36.5\n(97.7)\n\n43.2\n(109.8)\n\n47.4\n(117.3)\n\n49.4\n(120.9)\n\n49.3\n(120.7)\n\n46.5\n(115.7)\n\n42.2\n(108.0)\n\n32.5\n(90.5)\n\n28.4\n(83.1)\n\n49.4\n(120.9)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n13.1\n(55.6)\n\n15.4\n(59.7)\n\n20.0\n(68.0)\n\n25.9\n(78.6)\n\n33.2\n(91.8)\n\n39.8\n(103.6)\n\n43.4\n(110.1)\n\n43.3\n(109.9)\n\n38.5\n(101.3)\n\n31.9\n(89.4)\n\n21.6\n(70.9)\n\n15.1\n(59.2)\n\n28.4\n(83.2)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n7.4\n(45.3)\n\n9.3\n(48.7)\n\n13.3\n(55.9)\n\n18.5\n(65.3)\n\n25.1\n(77.2)\n\n31.5\n(88.7)\n\n34.8\n(94.6)\n\n34.1\n(93.4)\n\n28.8\n(83.8)\n\n22.2\n(72.0)\n\n14.8\n(58.6)\n\n9.6\n(49.3)\n\n20.8\n(69.4)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n2.6\n(36.7)\n\n3.8\n(38.8)\n\n7.5\n(45.5)\n\n11.5\n(52.7)\n\n16.6\n(61.9)\n\n21.7\n(71.1)\n\n25.4\n(77.7)\n\n24.8\n(76.6)\n\n20.0\n(68.0)\n\n14.6\n(58.3)\n\n7.9\n(46.2)\n\n4.1\n(39.4)\n\n13.4\n(56.1)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-17.6\n(0.3)\n\n-12.3\n(9.9)\n\n-5.8\n(21.6)\n\n-4.0\n(24.8)\n\n1.8\n(35.2)\n\n6.8\n(44.2)\n\n11.6\n(52.9)\n\n12.9\n(55.2)\n\n8.9\n(48.0)\n\n-2.6\n(27.3)\n\n-6.1\n(21.0)\n\n-15.4\n(4.3)\n\n-17.6\n(0.3)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n61.6\n(2.43)\n\n53.9\n(2.12)\n\n59.4\n(2.34)\n\n46.1\n(1.81)\n\n17.5\n(0.69)\n\n1.2\n(0.05)\n\n0.2\n(0.01)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.6\n(0.02)\n\n12.7\n(0.50)\n\n41.7\n(1.64)\n\n61.9\n(2.44)\n\n356.8\n(14.05)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n11\n\n11\n\n12\n\n9\n\n6\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n5\n\n7\n\n10\n\n71\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n79.0\n\n73.0\n\n66.3\n\n62.1\n\n44.2\n\n29.3\n\n26.2\n\n27.4\n\n32.0\n\n43.8\n\n63.1\n\n76.5\n\n51.9\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n158\n\n165\n\n192\n\n210\n\n310\n\n363\n\n384\n\n369\n\n321\n\n267\n\n189\n\n155\n\n3,083\n\nPercentage possible sunshine\n\n54\n\n56\n\n58\n\n61\n\n73\n\n84\n\n86\n\n87\n\n86\n\n79\n\n65\n\n53\n\n70\n\nSource 1: World Meteorological Organisation (precipitation days 1976-2008)[84][85]\n\nSource 2: Weatherbase (extremes only),[86] Meteomanz(extremes since 2009)[87]\n\nHistorical and religious buildings\n\nMosul is rich in old historical places and ancient buildings: mosques, castles, churches, monasteries, and schools, many of which have architectural features and decorative work of significance. The town centre is dominated by a maze of streets and 19th-century houses. The markets are known for the mixture of people who jostle there: Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Iraqi Jews, Iraqi Turkmens, Armenians, Yazidi, Mandeans, Romani and Shabaks.\n\nThe Mosul Museum contains many finds from the ancient sites of the old Assyrian capital cities Nineveh and Nimrud. It is laid-out around a courtyard and with a façade of Mosul marble containing displays of Mosul life depicted in tableau form. On 26 February 2015, IS militants destroyed the museum's ancient Assyrian artifacts.\n\nThe English writer Agatha Christie lived in Mosul while her second husband, Max Mallowan, an archaeologist, was involved in the excavation in Nimrud.[88]\n\nMosques and shrines\n\nGreat Mosque of al-Nuri: Originally built by Nur al-Din Zengi circa 1172 AD.[89] Ibn Battuta found a marble fountain there and a mihrab (the niche that indicates the direction of Mecca) with a Kufic inscription. Its decorated brickwork minaret, called al-Hadba (\"the hunchback\") due to its lean, was destroyed along with much of the mosque in 2017.[90] The building has since been reconstructed and was reopened 2025.[91]\n\nMosul Grand Mosque is an unfinished mosque, which would become the largest mosque in Mosul.\n\nMujahidi Mosque: The mosque dates back to 12th century AD, and is distinguished for its shen dome and elaborately wrought mihrab.\n\nProphet Younis Mosque and Shrine: Located east of the city, and included the tomb of Prophet Younis (Jonah), dating back to the 8th century BC, with a tooth of the whale that swallowed and later released him. It was completely demolished by IS in July 2014.[92]\n\nProphet Jirjis Mosque and Shrine: The late 14th century mosque and shrine honoring Prophet Jirjis (George) was built over the Quraysh cemetery. It was destroyed by IS in July 2014.[93]\n\nProphet Daniel Shrine: A Tomb attributed to Prophet Daniel was destroyed by IS in July 2014.[94][95]\n\nHamou Qado (Hema Kado) Mosque: An Ottoman-era mosque in the central Maydan area built in 1881, and officially named Mosque of Abdulla Ibn Chalabi Ibn Abdul-Qadi.[96] It was destroyed by IS in March 2015 because it contained a tomb that was revered and visited by local Muslims on Thursdays and Fridays.[97]\n\nChurches and monasteries\n\nMosul has the highest proportion of Assyrian Christians of all the Iraqi cities outside of the Kurdish region, and contains several interesting old churches, some of which originally date back to the early centuries of Christianity. Its ancient Assyrian churches are often hidden and their entrances in thick walls are not easy to find. Some of them have suffered from excessive restoration.\n\nShamoun Al-Safa (St. Peter, Mar Petros): This church dates from the 13th century is and named after Shamoun Al-Safa or St. Peter (Mar Petros in Assyrian Aramaic). Earlier it had the name of the two Apostles, Peter and Paul, and was inhabited by the nuns of the Sacred Hearts.\n\nChurch of St. Thomas (Mar Touma in Assyrian Aramaic): One of the oldest historical churches, named after St. Thomas the Apostle who preached the Gospel in the East, including India.\n\nMar Petion Church: Mar Petion, educated by his cousin in a monastery, was martyred in 446 AD. It is the first Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul, after the union of many Assyrians with Rome in the 17th century. It dates back to the 10th century, and lies 3 m below street level. This church suffered destruction, and it has been reconstructed many times. A hall was built on one of its three parts in 1942. As a result, most of its artistic features have been severely damaged.\n\nAncient Tahira Church (The Immaculate): Near Bash Tapia, considered one of the most ancient churches in Mosul. No evidence helps to determine its exact area. It could be either the remnants of the church of the Upper Monastery or the ruined Mar Zena Church. Al-Tahira Church dates back to the 7th century, and it lies 3 m below street level. Reconstructed last in 1743.\n\nAl-Tahera Church: Syriac Catholic Church completed in 1862.\n\nMar Hudeni Church: It was named after Mar Ahudemmeh (Hudeni) Maphrian of Tikrit who was martyred in 575 AD. Mar Hudeni is an old church of the Tikritans in Mosul. It dates back to the 10th century, lies 7 m below street level and was first reconstructed in 1970. People can get mineral water from the well in its yard. The chain, fixed in the wall, is thought to cure epileptics.\n\nSt. George's Monastery (Mar Gurguis): One of the oldest churches in Mosul, named after St. George, located to the north of Mosul, was probably built late in the 17th century. Pilgrims from different parts of the North visit it yearly in the spring, when many people also go out to its whereabouts on holiday. It is about 6 m below street level. A modern church was built over the old one in 1931, abolishing much of its archeological significance. The only monuments left are a marble door-frame decorated with a carved Estrangelo (Syriac) inscription, and two niches, which date back to the 13th or 14th century.\n\nMar Matte: situated about 20 km (12 mi) east of Mosul on the top of a high mountain (Mount Maqloub).\n\nMonastery of Mar Behnam: Also called Deir Al-Jubb (The Cistern Monastery) and built in the 12th or 13th century, it lies in the Nineveh Plain near Nimrud about 32 km (20 mi) southwest of Mosul.\n\nSt. Elijah's Monastery (Dair Mar Elia): Dating from the 6th century, it was the oldest Christian Monastery in Iraq, until its destruction by IS in January 2016.[98][99]\n\nOther Christian historical buildings:\n\nThe Roman Catholic Church (built by the Dominican Fathers in Nineveh Street in 1893)\n\nMar Michael\n\nMar Elias\n\nMar Oraha\n\nRabban Hormizd Monastery, the monastery of Notre-Dame des Semences, near the Assyrian town of Alqosh\n\nOther sites\n\nBash Tapia Castle: A ruined castle rising high over the Tigris, which was one of the few remnants of Mosul's old walls until it was blown up by IS in 2015.\n\nQara Saray (The Black Palace): The remnants of the 13th-century palace of Sultan Badruddin Lu'lu'.\n\nAshur Mall is the largest mall of Mosul, based on Assyrian architecture\n\nEducation\n\nThe University of Mosul is the largest university in Mosul.[100] Other schools of higher education include Ninevah University, Al-Hadbaa University College, and the Northern Technical University.\n\nMosul also has multiple high schools some of which are coeducational while others are gender segregated. These include but are not limited to:\n\nAl-Hafsah School[101]\n\nAl-Haj Secondary School for Girls[102]\n\nKourtoba High School for Girls\n\nAl-Mouhobeen Secondary School for Boys and Girls\n\nAl-Mustaqbal High School for Boys\n\nAl-Mutamaizat High School for Girls\n\nAl-Mutamaizeen High School for Boys\n\nAl-Resalah Al-Islamia (Al-Resalah) High School for Boys\n\nAl-Sharqiya High School for Boys\n\nSport\n\nThe city has one football team capable of competing in the top-flight of Iraqi football - Mosul FC.\n\nAl Mosul University Stadium is the home stadium to Mosul FC and can hold up to 20,000 people.\n\nThe University of Mosul contains a College of Physical Education and Sports Science which teaches undergraduate and graduate students and performs research in three scientific departments.[103]\n\nMedia\n\nNewspapers\n\nAsh-Shabibah, a defunct daily newspaper[104]\n\nNotable people\n\nAbdulahad AbdulNour (1888-1948), physician and humanitarian\n\nThabit AbdulNour (1890-1957), Iraqi Politician, government Administrator, and diplomat[105]\n\nZaha Hadid, noted architect and first woman to win the Pritzker award, was named Dame by Queen Elizabeth II.\n\nAl Jalili, Hussein Pasha, raised and led army to defend Mosul against the Iranian Shah Nadir Shah, 1743.\n\nAl Jalili, Ismael, Eye doctor who discovered and researched the Jalili syndrome.\n\nAl Jamil, Sayyar, historian and political analyst.\n\nAbu Al Soof, Behnam (1931-2012), Archeologist, anthropologist, historian and writer of Christian origin.\n\nTariq Aziz, Assyrian Deputy Prime Minister 1979-2003 (real name Michael Youkhanna) (from Tel Keppe)\n\nMunir Bashir (1930-1997), Assyrian musician, who had several successes in the Middle East during the 20th century\n\nAsenath Barzani, first Jewish female rabbi\n\nVian Dakhil (born 1971), Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament.\n\nHawar Mulla Mohammed (born 1971), Kurdish Iraqi soccer player for the national team\n\nPaulos Faraj Rahho (1942-2008), Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, assassinated in the 2008\n\nTaha Yassin Ramadan (1938-2007), Former Vice President of Iraq\n\nHormuzd Rassam (1826-1910), Assyrian archaeologist and diplomat of the 19th century\n\nKathem Al Saher (born 1957), Arab Iraqi pop singer, songwriter, actor, and musician\n\nAdnan Koucher, Iraqi scholar\n\nSalah al-Din al-Sabbagh (1889-1945), Arab Iraqi Army officer\n\nSalah Salim Ali, Norwegian Iraqi Writer and translator, author of Ibsen i Arabia.\n\nIgnatius Gabriel I Tappouni (1879-1968), Assyrian Patriarch of Antioch and all east for the Syriac Catholic Church between 1929 and 1968, Church Father of the Second Vatican Council and the first Eastern Rite prelate to be raised to the College of Cardinals since the reign of Pope Pius IX\n\nBehnam Afas (born 1934), Iraqi-New Zealander author and researcher into the role of Christian scholars and missionaries\n\nGhazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer (born 1958), Arab Interim President of Iraq during 2004-05\n\nIgnatius Zakka I (1931-2014), Assyrian Patriarch of Antioch and all east for the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nOmar Mohammed (born 1986), historian and citizen journalist, creator of the Mosul Eye news blog.\n\nLoris Ohannes Chobanian (1933-2023), Armenian-American composer and professor at Baldwin Wallace University\n\nSee also\n\nList of largest cities of Iraq\n\nList of rulers of Mosul\n\nUniversity of Mosul\n\nIraq\n\nNineveh Governorate\n\nMosul District\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAsteroid 22292 Mosul named after the city in 2018\n\nBattle of Mosul (2016-2017)\n\nChaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Mosul\n\nMosul question\n\nNineveh Plains\n\nNotes\n\n^ /ˈmoʊsəl, moʊˈsuːl/ MOH-səl, moh-SOOL; Arabic: الموصل, romanized: al-Mawṣil, pronounced [alˈmawsˤil] ⓘ, locally [ɪlˈmoːsˤɪl]; Kurdish: مووسڵ, romanized: Mûsl;[3][4] Turkish: Musul; Syriac: ܡܘܨܠ, romanized: Moṣil[5]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Gladstone, Philip (10 February 2014). \"Synop Information for ORBM (40608) in Mosul, Iraq\". 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CNN. Archived from the original on 15 July 2025. Retrieved 5 May 2025.\n\n^ \"قائد عسكري سابق: المالكي أمر بسحب القوات من الموصل\" (in Arabic). Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 22 January 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.\n\n^ \"How Mosul fell - An Iraqi general disputes Baghdad's story\". Reuters. 14 October 2014. Archived from the original on 17 October 2023. Retrieved 5 July 2021.\n\n^ \"Since Islamic State swept into Mosul, we live encircled by its dark fear\". The Guardian. 29 August 2014. Archived from the original on 8 October 2019. Retrieved 12 December 2016.\n\n^ Loveday morris (19 October 2015). \"Isis in Iraq: Mosul residents are paying traffickers and risking their lives to escape cruel grip of Islamic State\". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2017.\n\n^ Sinan Salaheddin (13 March 2015). \"ISIS Blocks Trapped Residents From Leaving Iraq's Mosul\". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 25 August 2015.\n\n^ Abdelhak Mamoun (11 March 2015). \"ISIS warns people of Mosul not to leave city\". Iraqi News. Archived from the original on 15 July 2025. Retrieved 2 September 2017.\n\n^ \"Battle for Mosul: Iraq and Kurdish troops make gains\". BBC News. 17 October 2016. Archived from the original on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 17 October 2016.\n\n^ Blau, Max; Park, Madison; McLaughlin, Eliott C. (17 October 2016). \"Battle for Mosul: Iraqi forces close in\". CNN. Archived from the original on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 17 October 2016.\n\n^ Yan, Holly; Muaddi, Nadeem (17 October 2016). \"Why the battle for Mosul matters in the fight against ISIS\". CNN. Archived from the original on 18 October 2016. Retrieved 17 October 2016.\n\n^ a b Santing, Kiki (1 November 2024). \"Pro-Iranian militias in Mosul: Between stability and destabilization\". Krit:Arab. doi:10.58079/13xzk. Archived from the original on 28 December 2024. Retrieved 28 December 2024.\n\n^ \"In 'liberated' Mosul, ISIS still imperils the path to city's revival\". The Christian Science Monitor. 11 August 2017. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 23 August 2017.\n\n^ Mosul: Iraq PM to celebrate victory over IS in the city Archived 8 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine BBC, 9 July 2017\n\n^ \"Battle for Mosul: Iraq PM Abadi formally declares victory\". BBC. 10 July 2017. Archived from the original on 11 July 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017.\n\n^ Ivor Prickett (1 August 2017). \"In Mosul, Revealing the Last ISIS Stronghold\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 November 2022. Retrieved 5 November 2017.\n\n^ \"Civilians return to Mosul as Iraqi forces mop up residual ISIS fighters\". Stars and Stripes. 21 July 2017. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 22 July 2017.\n\n^ Salahuddin Khuda Bakhsh (1914). A History of the Islamic Peoples. University of Calcutta.\n\n^ Mosul|Encyclopedia.com: Facts, Pictures, Information Archived 12 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved on 2 July 2011.\n\n^ Mosul Archived 8 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved on 2 July 2011.\n\n^ Huerta, Carlos. \"Jewish Mosul Revisited: Jewish heartbreak and hope in Nineveh\". almosul.org. Archived from the original on 19 November 2010.\n\n^ \"Iraq: ISIS Abducting, Killing, Expelling Minorities\". Human Rights Watch. 19 July 2014. Archived from the original on 25 February 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ Logan, Lara (22 March 2015). \"Iraq's Christians persecuted by ISIS\". CBS News. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2016.\n\n^ \"In Mosul, Water, Electricity Shortages, And Warnings of Disease\". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 22 October 2014. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2020.\n\n^ a b c \"Mosul battle: Last bridge 'disabled by air strike'\". BBC News. 27 December 2016. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2017.\n\n^ Mohammed Tawfeeq (13 January 2017). \"ISIS destroys Mosul bridges as troops advance\". CNN. Archived from the original on 16 January 2017. Retrieved 2 March 2017.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h \"ERROR\". www.rudaw.net. Archived from the original on 5 July 2024. Retrieved 16 March 2025.\n\n^ a b c d e f \"City profile of Mosul, Iraq: Multi-sector assessment of a city under siege - October 2016 - Iraq | ReliefWeb\". reliefweb.int. 19 December 2016. Archived from the original on 6 January 2026. Retrieved 16 March 2025.\n\n^ \"World Weather Information Service - Mosul\". United Nations. Archived from the original on 22 May 2019. Retrieved 1 January 2011.\n\n^ \"World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020: Mosul\" (CSV). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived from the original on 27 February 2024. Retrieved 2 August 2023.\n\n^ \"Mosul, Iraq Travel Weather Averages\". Weatherbase. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2012.\n\n^ \"Mosul - Weather data by month\". Meteomanz. Archived from the original on 21 January 2025. Retrieved 28 June 2024.\n\n^ Reuters\n\n^ Tabbaa, Yasser (2002). \"The Mosque of Nur al-Din in Mosul, 1170-1172\". Annales islamologiques. 36: 339-360. Archived from the original on 16 October 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Al-Hadba minaret\". UNESCO: Revive the Spirit of Mosul. Archived from the original on 3 March 2025. Retrieved 5 October 2025.\n\n^ Abdul-Zahra, Qassim (1 September 2025). \"Iraq reopens historic al-Nuri mosque in Mosul 8 years after Islamic State destruction\". PBS News. Archived from the original on 4 September 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.\n\n^ \"ISIS destroys 'Jonah's tomb' in Mosul\". Al Arabiya. 25 July 2014. Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Retrieved 11 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Islamic State destroys ancient Mosul mosque, the third in a week\". The Guardian. Associated Press. 28 July 2014. Archived from the original on 28 July 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2016.\n\n^ Clark, Heather (27 July 2014). \"Muslim Militants Blow Up Tombs of Biblical Jonah, Daniel in Iraq\". Christian News Network. Archived from the original on 31 July 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2014. Al-Sumaria News also reported on Thursday that local Mosul official Zuhair al-Chalabi told the outlet that ISIS likewise \"implanted explosives around Prophet Daniel's tomb in Mosul and blasted it, leading to its destruction.\"\n\n^ Hafiz, Yasmine (25 July 2014). \"ISIS Destroys Jonah's Tomb in Mosul, Iraq, As Militant Violence Continues\". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2014. The tomb of Daniel, a man revered by Muslims as a prophet though unlike Jonah, he is not mentioned in the Quran, has also been reportedly destroyed. Al-Arabiya reports that Zuhair al-Chalabi, a local Mosul official, told Al-Samaria News that \"ISIS implanted explosives around Prophet Daniel's tomb in Mosul and blasted it, leading to its destruction.\"\n\n^ \"ISIS destroys beloved mosque in central Mosul\". Rudaw. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2015.\n\n^ Gianluca Mezzofiore (6 March 2015). \"Iraq: Isis destroys 19th century Ottoman mosque in central Mosul\". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 24 June 2025.\n\n^ Chaplains Struggle to Protect Monastery in Iraq Archived 21 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine. NPR's Morning Edition, 21 November 2007. Retrieved on 2 July 2011.\n\n^ \"Only on AP: Islamic State razing of Iraq monastery condemned\". news.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 19 January 2016.\n\n^ \"Iraqi university rebuilds after IS 'dark age'\". BBC News. 21 November 2018. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 17 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Responding to Iraq's learning crisis\". UNICEF Connect. 10 February 2020. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.\n\n^ \"\"Education will help us build a future.\" - Iraq\". ReliefWeb. 26 February 2021. Archived from the original on 27 February 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.\n\n^ \"College of Physical Education and Sport Science\". University of Mosul. Archived from the original on 20 August 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2021.\n\n^ Yitzhak Oron (1960). Middle East Record Volume 1, 1960. The Moshe Dayan Center. p. 243. GGKEY:3KXGTYPACX2. Archived from the original on 17 November 2023. Retrieved 5 October 2022.\n\n^ Basri, Mir (2004). Notable Iraqi Personalities in the New Iraq (in Arabic). London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nSources\n\nHumphreys, R. Stephen (1991). \"Masūd b. Mawdūd b. Zangī\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VI: Mahk-Mid. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 780-782. ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.\n\nNasiri, Ali Naqi; Floor, Willem M. (2008). Titles and Emoluments in Safavid Iran: A Third Manual of Safavid Administration. Mage Publishers. p. 309. ISBN 978-1933823232.\n\nOberling, P. (1984). \"AFŠĀR\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 6. pp. 582-586. Archived from the original on 29 April 2011.\n\nRothman, E. Nathalie (2015). Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801463129.\n\nExternal links\n\nIraq Image - Mosul Satellite Observation[link removed]\n\nDetailed map of Mosul by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, from lib.utexas.edu\n\nArchNet.org. \"Mosul\". Cambridge, Massachusetts, US: MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Archived from the original on 10 December 2012. Retrieved 15 April 2013."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mosul"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 11640}, {"slug": "reference-nimrud-ivories", "title": "Nimrud ivories", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Nimrud ivories are a large group of small carved ivory plaques and figures dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BC that were excavated from the Assyrian city of Nimrud (in modern Ninawa in Iraq) during the 19th and 20th centuries. The ivories mostly originated outside...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nimrud ivories\n\nAn ivory plaque which depicts a lion eating a man, from Nimrud in the British Museum. The plaque still has much of its original gold leaf and paint.\n\nMaterialElephant ivory[1]\n\nCreated9th to 7th centuries BC\n\nPeriod/cultureNeo-Assyrian\n\nPlaceNimrud\n\nPresent locationBritish Museum, London, National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, and elsewhere\n\nIdentification1954,0508.1 \n\nThe Nimrud ivories are a large group of small carved ivory plaques and figures dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BC that were excavated from the Assyrian city of Nimrud (in modern Ninawa in Iraq) during the 19th and 20th centuries. The ivories mostly originated outside Mesopotamia and are thought to have been made in the Levant and Egypt, and have frequently been attributed to the Phoenicians due to a number of the ivories containing Phoenician inscriptions.[2] They are foundational artefacts in the study of Phoenician art, together with the Phoenician metal bowls, which were discovered at the same time but identified as Phoenician a few years earlier. However, both the bowls and the ivories pose a significant challenge as no examples of either - or any other artefacts with equivalent features - have been found in Phoenicia or other major colonies (e.g. Carthage, Malta, Sicily).[3]\n\nMost are fragments of the original forms; there are over 1,000 significant pieces, and many more very small fragments. They are carved with motifs typical of those regions and were used to decorate a variety of high-status objects, including pieces of furniture, chariots and horse-trappings, weapons, and small portable objects of various kinds. Many of the ivories would have originally been decorated with gold leaf or semi-precious stones, which were stripped from them at some point before their final burial. A large group were found in what was apparently a palace storeroom for unused furniture. Many were found at the bottom of wells, having apparently been dumped there when the city was sacked during the poorly-recorded collapse of the Assyrian Empire between 616 BC and 599 BC.[4]\n\nMany of the ivories were taken to the United Kingdom and were deposited in (though not owned by) the British Museum. In 2011, the Museum acquired most of the British-held ivories through a donation and purchase and is to put a selection on view.[5] It is intended that the remainder will be returned to Iraq. A significant number of ivories were already held by Iraqi institutions but many have been lost or damaged through war and looting. Other museums around the world have groups of pieces.\n\nDescription\n\nThe ivories comprise plaques decorated in relief with intricate carvings of sphinxes, lions, serpents, people, flowers and geometric motifs, as well as carvings of female heads and female figurines. They were carved in various locations across the Ancient Near East, including Egypt, modern Syria and Lebanon, with relatively few carved locally.[6] The ivory used to make these objects would originally have been derived from Syrian elephants which were endemic in the Middle East in ancient times, but by the 8th century BC the Syrian elephant had been hunted close to extinction, and ivory for later objects would have had to be imported from India,[7] or, more likely, Africa.[4]\n\nThe ivory plaques are thought to have been used to decorate chariots, furniture and horse trappings, and would originally have been covered in gold leaf or ornamented with semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli.[8] Some pieces still preserve remnants of gold leafing. Many were already centuries old when put in storage and may have fallen out of fashion by that time. The gold may have been removed from the ivories before they were put in storage,[9] or it may have been taken by the Babylonians when they sacked and razed Nimrud in 612 BC.[8]\n\nSome of the ivories have Phoenician letters engraved on their back, which it is thought may have been used as guides to the assembly of pieces onto the furniture to which the ivories were attached. The presence of Phoenician letters on the ivories suggests that they were the product of Phoenician craftsmen.[10]\n\nIn addition to plaques, many small ivory carvings of female heads have been found at Nimrud, most only one or two inches in height, but a few over 5 inches tall. Many of these heads wear a flat cap which is very similar to the flat caps depicted on much earlier ivories from the Tel Megiddo site in modern Israel.[11] Another common carved form found at Nimrud comprises figurines of two naked females joined back to back, which are thought to have been used either as handles for fans or mirrors, or as a decorative element on furniture.[11]\n\nThe plaques show a wide variety of themes, some of which exhibit a pure Assyrian style,[7] and some of which show Egyptian influence, with engravings of Egyptian people or gods, and even Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, the Egyptian themes are often misconstrued, and the hieroglyphs do not form valid names, so they would seem to be debased imitations of Egyptian art.[12]\n\nA far greater number of ivories were found at Nimrud than at any other Assyrian site, and it is thought that they had been brought to Nimrud as booty or imported as luxury goods from cities on the Mediterranean coast. Some centuries later it seems that these objects fell out of fashion, and were put into storage.[9]\n\nDiscoveries\n\nLayard (1845)\n\nThe first group of ivories was excavated from the site of the palace of Shalmaneser III (ruled 859-824 BC) at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud. The palace was rediscovered in 1845 by Austin Henry Layard, on the very first day of his excavations; on the second day, he made the first discovery of ivories.[13]\n\nLoftus (1854-1855)\n\nMore ivories were found during William Kennett Loftus's excavations in 1854-1855. They were found in a group of buildings labelled the \"South-East Palace\" or \"Burnt Palace\"; Loftus described the circumstances of the discovery in a letter to the Journal of Sacred Literature in February 1855:\n\nThe S.E. Palace at Nimroud has just yielded a large collection of beautiful ivories, relics of a throne or furniture, &c. They have been fitted together by means of rivets, slides, and grooves - a complete Assyrian puzzle, and somewhat dangerous to sit on! Many exhibit traces of gilding and enamel, and were probably broken up for the inlaid gold and jewels with which they were once adorned. There is a decided Egypto-Assyrian character about the whole collection, perfect Egyptian heads being mixed with Assyrian Bulls and Lions. The heads were very fine indeed. Some of the articles were maces, dagger-handles, or portions of chairs and tables (for we have undoubted evidence of the Assyrians using such.) Figures back to back form a shaft, and support a flower-headed capital. There are also boxes, and a vase - all elaborately carved. The Assyrians were adepts in veneering, the layers being highly ornamented with sacred emblems and lion-hunts. Phoenician inscriptions are found on two of three articles. They were found strewed at the bottom of a chamber among wood ashes. They had escaped the flames, but are blackened from lying among smouldering wood. I have got up a horse-load of objects, and am fitting them together as fast as possible, preparatory to boiling them in gelatine. The whole room is not yet explored, as the earth must first be removed from above. I propose going down to-morrow.[14]\n\nMallowan (1949-1963)\n\nFurther discoveries were made between 1949 and 1963 by a team from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq led by the archaeologist Max Mallowan.[8] Mallowan found thousands of ivories, many of which were discovered at the bottom of wells into which they had apparently been thrown when the city was sacked, either in the turmoil that followed the death of Sargon II in 705 BC or when Nineveh fell and was destroyed in 612 BC.[13] Mallowan's wife was the famous British crime novelist, Agatha Christie (1890-1976), who was fascinated with archaeology, and who accompanied her husband on the Nimrud excavations.[15] Christie helped photograph and preserve many of the ivories found during the excavations, explaining in her autobiography that she cleaned the ivories using a fine knitting needle, an orange stick and a pot of face cream.[9]\n\nThe collection of ivories uncovered by Mallowan were divided between Iraq and Britain, where they remained at the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (later to become the British Institute for the Study of Iraq) until 1987.[6] They were then put in storage at the British Museum until 2011, but were not put on display.[9] Many of the Iraqi-held ivories have been lost or damaged. Following the Iraq War 2003 the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad was looted, and many of the ivories kept there were damaged or stolen. Other ivories that were stored in a bank vault in Baghdad were damaged by water when the building was shelled.[9]\n\nIn March 2011, the British Museum purchased one third of the Mallowan ivories (comprising 1,000 complete ivories and 5,000 fragments) from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq for £1.17 million, following a public fundraising campaign that raised £750,000 in six months, and with the support of grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund.[9][6] This is the second most expensive purchase by the British Museum since the end of the Second World War.\n\nIn addition to the purchase, the British Institute for the Study of Iraq has also donated another third of its collection to the British Museum in recognition of the storage of the collection by the museum over the previous 24 years. It is anticipated that the remaining third of the collection will be returned to Iraq sometime in the future.[8][6] A selection of the ivories will be put on display at the British Museum from 14 March 2011.[8]\n\nOates (1957-1963)\n\nThe largest single ivory find was made between 1957 and 1963 when a British School team led by David Oates discovered a room at the Nimrud palace that was dubbed the \"ivory room\", which had apparently served as the main storage centre for ivory objects amassed by the Assyrian kings. Subsequent excavations by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities unearthed still more ivories.[16]\n\nOther discoveries\n\nIn recent years excavations by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities have unearthed more ivories.[16]\n\n Female head, probably from a statuette, Syrian style\n\n Female head, probably from a statuette, North Syrian style\n\n Ram-headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree, Phoenician, Cleveland Museum of Art\n\n Man and Griffin in Combat, Phoenician, Cleveland Museum of Art\n\n Plaque 8th-7th century BC\n\n Plaque with plant motif\n\n Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers.\n\n Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. The winged god Assur appears above.\n\n Standing man holding a lotus flower\n\n Carved ivory piece of an Egyptian woman\n\nCanaanite and Aramaic inscriptions\n\nA number of the ivories contain Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions - a few contain a number of words, and many more contain single letters. Some of these were found in the mid-nineteenth century by Layard and Loftus (in particular a knob inscribed \"property of Milki-ram\" [lmlkrm]), and more were found in 1961 by Mallowan and Oates. Of the latter, the most significant finds were excavated in \"Fort Shalmaneser\" in the southeast of the Nimrud site.[17] Alan Millard published a series of these in 1962; the code \"ND\" is the standard excavation code for \"Nimrud Documents\":[17]\n\nND 10151 - a 9 cm label with three letters\n\nND 10359 - a triangular plaque from a harness, with three letters\n\nND 8184 - a curved strip, with six letters, and further smaller fragments\n\nND 10150 - the most detailed inscription, on a fragment 9 x 5 cm, with three lines of fragmented text. This is also known as TSSI I 6, having been published in Gibson's Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions\n\nND 10304 - an inscribed griffin, with five letters\n\nND 10303 - an inscribed griffin, with three letters\n\nThey have been compared to the Arslan Tash ivory inscription and the Ur Box inscription.[17]\n\nOne of the fragmentary ivories found at Nimrud carries the name of Hazael. This was probably king Hazael mentioned in the Bible.[18]\n\nCollections\n\nIvories from Nimrud are held at a number of institutions across the world:\n\nBritish Museum, London, England: 6,000 pieces excavated by Mallowan which were formerly held at the British Institute for the Study of Iraq; as well as a number of pieces from other excavations.\n\nBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery 28 pieces from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.[19]\n\nNational Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq.\n\nThe Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan. This museum houses about 30 pieces, which were excavated by Sir Max Mallowan. All of them are contained within 2 large display cases.\n\nMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York City\n\nCleveland Museum of Art\n\nErbil Civilization Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan. The museum houses 3 plaques, which were also excavated by Sir Max Mallowan between 1949 and 1963 AD. All of these plaques are on display in Hall 2 of the Museum.\n\nUniversity of Melbourne, Australia: 3 pieces excavated by Mallowan.[20]\n\nThe California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco has a group of pieces.[21]\n\nCatalogues\n\nThe Nimrud Ivories are being published in a series of scholarly catalogues. Many of these are available free online from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI): links here.\n\nSee also\n\nMona Lisa of Nimrud\n\nNimrud lens\n\nBegram ivories\n\nNotes\n\n^ \"Nimrud Ivories\". British Museum. 21 February 2011. Retrieved 15 March 2011.\n\n^ Richard David Barnett. “The Nimrud Ivories and the Art of the Phoenicians” Iraq, vol. 2, no. 2, British Institute for the Study of Iraq, 1935, pp. 179-210, https://doi.org/10.2307/4241579. “The Nationality of the NW. Palace Ivories: That the group of ivories was not Assyrian was concluded on their discovery from their Egyptian appearance. Francois Lenormant, in the Bulletin archéologique de l'Athenaeum français, No. 6, June 1856, asserted that his father, Charles, had been the first to recognize that the pseudo-Egyptian workmanship was in reality Phoenician, whereas Dr. Birch of the British Museum, the ivories' first publisher, had held them for Egyptian work executed in Assyria, or copied there. Posterity, a few dissentients apart, has followed Lenormant, and some wilder misattributions might have been avoided had it been noticed, as stated above, that in Layard's group seven pieces bore a letter of the Phoenician alphabet, and in that of Loftus were two inscriptions apparently also Phoenician. (There seem to be weaker reasons for describing them as Aramaic.) Modern work has only enhanced the plausibility of Lenormant's view. Other ivories of similar type have been found at Samaria, the capital of Ahab, whose connexions with Tyre were notorious. Again, those found at Arslan Tash in North Syria, according to a fragment among them which bore an inscription in what is either Phoenician or Aramaic, were seemingly made and presented by some Phoenician tributaries of Damascus to their overlord. To these points we may add the internal evidence of the religious scenes themselves, which in Part II of this paper are shown to be just such as would be expected in the art of a country so situated as Phoenicia. A concluding point of internal detail, in striking confirmation, is that the loggia windows represented on the panels of the 'Woman at the Window' illustrate what is in the Talmud called 'the Tyrian window', 'through which one can put one's head', i.e. παρακπύτειν, in contrast to the Egyptian type, through which one could not.”\n\n^ Martin, S. Rebecca (2017). The Art of Contact: Comparative Approaches to Greek and Phoenician Art. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. pp. 28, 89. ISBN 978-0-8122-9394-4. The two greatest challenges of Phoenician art history are thus highlighted by these critical early discoveries: none of the metal bowls and hardly any ivories were found in Phoenicia, and the portable objects that we assign to Phoenician manufacture do not necessarily share stylistic or iconographic features with one another or with material excavated in Phoenicia. Yet it is almost universally believed that these two genres, metal bowls and carved ivories, mark the inception of Phoenician fine art… While it is tempting to ascribe to lack of excavation the problem of discovering the \"true\" Phoenician origins of worked ivory and metal bowls, the idea is probably fantastical. We have very little direct evidence of metal working or ivory working on the mainland. Published areas of the well-excavated Sarepta (Sarafand, Lebanon) yielded fewer than ten ivory objects, only three of which are figurative, and not even one scrap of a \"Phoenician\" metal bowl. And, as Hans Niemeyer and others point out, neither bowls nor ivories appear in the main colonies, not at Carthage, Malta, Sicily, or elsewhere. Even Markoe, the foremost expert on \"Phoenician\" metal bowls, admitted regarding those from Assyria, \"we simply do not know where these vessels were produced.\"\n\n^ a b Metropolitan note\n\n^ British Museum Collection\n\n^ a b c d \"Nimrud Ivories\". Art Fund. Archived from the original on 11 April 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.\n\n^ a b Frankfort 1970, p. 311\n\n^ a b c d e \"Christie ivories to go on show at British Museum\". BBC Online. 8 March 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2011.\n\n^ a b c d e f Kennedy, Maev (7 March 2011). \"British Museum buys Assyrian treasures cleaned by Agatha Christie\". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 8 March 2011.\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 311-312\n\n^ a b Frankfort 1970, pp. 313-314\n\n^ Frankfort 1970, pp. 314-322\n\n^ a b Fant & Reddish 2008, p. 113\n\n^ Loftus, W.K. The Journal of Sacred Literature (ed. J. Kitto), July 1855, p. 492\n\n^ \"Agatha Christie and archaeology\". British Museum. Retrieved 8 March 2011.\n\n^ a b Fant & Reddish 2008, p. 114\n\n^ a b c Millard, A. R. “Alphabetic Inscriptions on Ivories from Nimrud” Iraq, vol. 24, no. 1, 1962, pp. 41-51\n\n^ A. R. Millard, Alphabetic Inscriptions on Ivories from Nimrud. Iraq, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 1962), pp. 41-51 (13 pages). https://doi.org/10.2307/4199711\n\n^ Horry, Ruth A (2015). \"Conserving Birmingham Museum's Nimrud ivories\". Oracc. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 19 December 2020.\n\n^ \"Nimrud Ivories\". University of Melbourne. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2011.\n\n^ \"FAMSF press release (see end)\". Archived from the original on 6 November 2011. Retrieved 16 August 2012.\n\nReferences\n\nFant, Clyde E.; Reddish, Michael Glenn (2008). Lost Treasures of the Bible: understanding the Bible through archaeological artifacts in world museums. Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2881-1.\n\nFrankfort, Henri (1970) [1954]. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. Pelican History of Art (4th ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-05331-2.\n\nFurther reading\n\nCrawford, Vaughn E.; et al. (1980). Assyrian reliefs and ivories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: palace reliefs of Assurnasirpal II and ivory carvings from Nimrud. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0870992600.\n\nExternal links\n\nNimrud ivories on the British Museum Flickr stream"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nimrud-ivories"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3164}, {"slug": "reference-doctrine-of-addai", "title": "Doctrine of Addai", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Doctrine of Addai (Syriac: ܡܠܦܢܘܬܐ ܕܐܕܝ ܫܠܝܚܐ Malp̄ānūṯā d-Addai Šlīḥā) is a work of Christian Syriac literature, written in the late 4th or early 5th century CE. It recounts the legend of the Image of Edessa as well as the legendary works of Addai and his disciple...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Doctrine of Addai (Syriac: ܡܠܦܢܘܬܐ ܕܐܕܝ ܫܠܝܚܐ Malp̄ānūṯā d-Addai Šlīḥā) is a work of Christian Syriac literature, written in the late 4th or early 5th century CE. It recounts the legend of the Image of Edessa as well as the legendary works of Addai and his disciple Mari in Mesopotamia.[1]\n\nContent\n\nThe document details how Addai went to Edessa and cured King Abgar - fulfilling the promise made to Abgar by Jesus. After the royal family had been healed and Addai preached for Abgar, the royal family and many of the citizens of Edessa became Christians. Abgar asked Addai to build a church in Edessa. Many people came to the church in order to pray and listen to reading daily from the Old Testament and the Ditonron - a reading that William Cureton purported was the Diatessaron of Tatian. Addai died in 45 AD just prior to Abgar, meaning that he was in Edessa for approximately ten or eleven years.[2]\n\nHistory\n\nIn his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea provides the earliest reference to this text in which he describes an exchange between Jesus Christ and Abgar V in the \"language of the Syrians.\" The Doctrine of Addai itself originated in Edessa, though its author is unknown. It was circulated far and wide, reaching as far as Spain.[3]\n\nPurpose\n\nHelmut Koester regards the development of tradition of Thaddaeus' activity in Edessa as part of an effort to build the authority of the orthodox or Palutian[a] faction in Syria against the Manicheans and gnostics, who had an older and stronger presence in the area and traced their lineage to Thomas the Apostle.[4][b] He considers the Palutian faction to have come to Edessa around 200 CE and only become significant in the fourth century.[5]\n\nManuscripts\n\nms Saint-Petersburg, National Library of Russia Saltykov-Shchedrine, N.S. Syr. 4 (Pigulevskaya 48), f. 1v33\n\nms London, British Library, Add. 14654, f. 33r-v (fragment) + Add. 14644, f. 1-9v + Add. 14535, f. 1r (fragment) + Add. 12155, f. 53v + Add. 17193, f. 36v-37 (extrait)\n\nms Alqosh, Église paroissiale chaldéenne, cod. 87 ?\n\nms London, British Library, Add. 12161, f. 1v (fragment)\n\nms London, British Library, Add. 14612, f. 165r (fragment)\n\nms London, British Library, Add. 14644, f. 1-9v (mutilated from the beginning and in the middle)\n\nms Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, syr. 62, f. 102v-108 (extraits)\n\nms Birmingham, Selly Oak College Library, Coll. Mingana, Syr. 405, f. 1\n\nms Jerusalem, Couvent syrien orthodoxe Saint-Marc, cod. 153, p. 241-259[6]\n\nPseudo-Abdias (x. 1)\n\nNicephorus (H. E., ii. 7)[7]\n\nPublished editions\n\nPhillips, George, ed. (1876). The Doctrine of Addai, the apostle (in Syriac). London: Trübner & Co. pp. 51-106.\n\nMeščerskaja, Elena Nikitična (1984). Legenda ob Avgare - rannesirijskij literaturnyj pamjatnik: istoričeskie korni v ėvoljucii apokrifičeskoj legendy [The Legend of Abgar - early Syrian literary monument: Historical roots and evolution of an apocryphal legend] (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. pp. 119-184. OCLC 715504370.\n\nModern translations\n\nEnglish\n\nCureton, William (1864). Ancient Syriac documents relative to earliest establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the neighbouring countries, from the year after our Lord's Ascension to the beginning of the fourth century. London, UK: Williams and Norgate. p. 6-23, 108-109.\n\nPhillips, George, ed. (1876). The Doctrine of Addai, the apostle. London: Trübner & Co. pp. 1-50. (HTML version)\n\nHoward, George (1981). The Teaching of Addai: Texts and translations. Early Christian literature series. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-490-6. Note: This includes a reprint of the Syriac edition of Phillips 1876[6]\n\nLollar, Jacob A. (2023-11-10). The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-6667-5208-3.\n\nOther\n\nDesreumaux, Alain (1993). Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus: présentation et trad. du texte syriaque intégral de \"La doctrine d'Addaï\" [History of King Abgar and Jesus: Presentation and tradition Of the Syriac text of \"The Doctrine of Addai\"] (in French). Paris: Brepols. pp. 53-117. ISBN 978-2-503-50305-9. This also contains an Ethiopian version.[8]\n\nDutch: Jan Willem Drijvers, Helena Augusta, waarheid en legende ( Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1989), pp: 153-157, Note: partielle\n\nRussian: Elena Nikitična Meščerskaja, Legenda ob Avgare - rannesirijskij literaturnyj pamjatnik: (istoričeskie korni v ėvoljucii apokrifičeskoj legendy) ( Moskva: Nauka, 1984), pp: 185-203\n\nArmenian: A Carrière, La légende d'Abgar dans l'Histoire d'Arménie de Moïse de Khoren ( Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1895), pp: 357-414\n\nEthiopic: Getatchew Haile, \" The Legend of Abgar in Ethiopic Tradition,\" Orientalia christiana periodica vol. 55 ( 1989), pp: 375-410[6]\n\nSee also\n\nAbgar Legend\n\nHoly Qurbana of Addai and Mari\n\nEarly centers of Christianity\n\nNotes\n\n^ The group now understood as the orthodox faction was known as the Palutians in Syria at this time. (Koester 1965, p. 305)\n\n^ Cf. Bauer, Walter (1909). Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (in German). Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr. pp. 444-445.\n\nCitations\n\n^ Noegel, Scott B.; Wheeler, Brannon M. (2010-04-01). The A to Z of Prophets in Islam and Judaism. Scarecrow Press. p. 89. ISBN 9781461718956.\n\n^ Moosa, Matti (2020). \"Selected Writings of Matti Moosa\" (PDF). Internet Archive. Prepared by Robert Bedrosian: 18. According to the Doctrine of 'Addai, an apocryphal Syriac document of the late fourth century, 'Addai went to Edessa and healed King Abgar in fulfillment of the promise of Jesus. As a result of the healing of Abgar and the preaching of 'Addai, the Edessan royal family and many citizens were converted to Christianity. By the order of Abgar, 'Addai built a church in Edessa. Day by day, a large multitude of people assembled and attended the prayers and listened to the reading of the Old Testament and the \"Ditonron,\" believed by William Cureton to be the Diatessaron (43). The death of 'Addai occurred shortly before that of Abgar, in A.D. 45, so that the ministry of 'Addai in Edessa covered a period of about ten or eleven years.\n\n^ Lollar, Jacob A (2023). \"The Doctrine of Addai and the Letters of Jesus and Abgar\". Cascade. ISBN 978-1-6667 -5206-9.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Koester 1965, p. 296,305.\n\n^ Koester 1965, p. 305-306.\n\n^ a b c Saint-Laurent et al. 2015.\n\n^ Walker, Alexander (1885). \"Translator's introductory notice to the apocryphal acts of the apostles\" . In Roberts, Alexander; Donaldson, James (eds.). Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.. Note: Walker conflates the Acts of Thaddeus with the Doctrine of Addai.\n\n^ French national library\n\nReferences\n\nBauer, Walter (1991) [1934]. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Translated by Steely, John E.; Kraft, Robert A. Archived from the original on 18 August 2000.\n\nKoester, Helmut (July 1965). \"ΓΝΩΜΑΙ ΔΙΑΦΟΡΟΙ: The Origin and Nature of Diversification in the History of Early Christianity\". Harvard Theological Review. 58 (3): 279-318. doi:10.1017/S0017816000031400. JSTOR 1508818. S2CID 163149876.\n\nSaint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon; Michelson, David A.; Zanetti, Ugo; Detienne, Claude, eds. (5 November 2015). \"Addai (Teaching of) (text)\". Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca. Retrieved 31 August 2017.  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 3.0 license.\n\nFurther reading\n\nLeclercq, Henri (1913). \"Legend of Abgar\" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nDoctrine of Addai Archived 2017-04-19 at the Wayback Machine (text, in English)\n\nChapman, Henry Palmer (1913). \"Doctrine of Addai\" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nPhillips, George, ed. (1876). \"Preface\". The Doctrine of Addai, the apostle. London: Trübner & Co. p. iii-xv. (HTML version)\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2003). \"The Doctrina Addai as a Paradigm of Christian Thought in Edessa in the Fifth Century\" (PDF). Institute of Christian Oriental Research, Catholic University of America. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) (HTML version)\n\nRamelli, Ilaria (2006). \"Possible historical traces in the Doctrina Addai\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 9 (1). Catholic University of Milan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2015. Retrieved 13 September 2017. (HTML version)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-doctrine-of-addai"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1291}, {"slug": "reference-church-of-saint-thomas-mosul", "title": "Church of Saint Thomas, Mosul", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The church is dedicated to Saint Thomas the Apostle and is believed to have been constructed on the site of the house that the saint resided in during his stay in Mosul.[2] The church is first mentioned in 770 as part of a grievance to Caliph Al-Mahdi.[2] The...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Church of Saint Thomas\n\nReligion\n\nAffiliationSyriac Orthodox\n\nLocation\n\nLocationMosul, Iraq\n\nInteractive map of Church of Saint Thomas\n\nCoordinates36°20′27″N 43°07′31.5″E / 36.34083°N 43.125417°E / 36.34083; 43.125417[1]\n\nArchitecture\n\nTypeChurch\n\nThe Church of Saint Thomas is a Syriac Orthodox church in Mosul, Iraq.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nThe church is dedicated to Saint Thomas the Apostle and is believed to have been constructed on the site of the house that the saint resided in during his stay in Mosul.[2] The church is first mentioned in 770 as part of a grievance to Caliph Al-Mahdi.[2] The current structure suggests it was built in the 13th century.[2] The church was damaged during Shahanshah Nader Shah's siege of Mosul as part of the Ottoman-Persian War of 1743-1746, and was subsequently renovated in 1744 by Cyril George, metropolitan bishop of Hattakh, with the permission of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud I.[3] It was later renovated again in 1848.[4]\n\nAmidst restoration work in 1964, the finger bones of Saint Thomas were discovered in the church.[5][6] On 23 December 2009, a bomb damaged the church, killed two men and injured five people.[7] In the aftermath of the Fall of Mosul, the relics of Saint Thomas were taken from the church by Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul,[5] and transferred to the Monastery of Saint Matthew on 17 June 2014.[8] The church was used as a prison by Islamic State insurgents until the city's liberation in 2017.[5]\n\nBurials\n\nIgnatius Isaac II, Syriac Orthodox patriarch of Antioch (r. 1709-1723)[9]\n\nBasil Matthew II, Syriac Orthodox maphrian of the East (r. 1713-1727)[10]\n\nBasil Lazarus IV, Syriac Orthodox maphrian of the East (r. 1730-1759)[11]\n\nCyril Rizq Allah, Syriac Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Mosul (r. 1760-1772)[12]\n\nCyril 'Abd al-'Aziz, Syriac Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Mosul (r. 1782-1816)[13]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"The Mar Touma Syriac-Orthodox church in Mosul\". Mesopotamia Heritage. Retrieved 10 February 2022.\n\n^ a b c Hann, Dabrowska & Townsend Greaves (2015), p. 216.\n\n^ Barsoum (2009a), pp. 26, 34, 39, 50.\n\n^ Barsoum (2009b), p. 47.\n\n^ a b c Arraf, Jane (31 March 2018). \"Iraq's Christians Remain Displaced This Easter\". NPR. Retrieved 18 May 2018.\n\n^ من الأرشيف: اكتشاف ذخيرة الرسول توما بيد مطران الموصل مار سويريوس زكا عيواص. Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 23 June 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2018.\n\n^ Ahmed, Hamed (23 December 2009). \"Iraqi Police: Bomb targets church in Mosul\". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 18 May 2018.\n\n^ \"Holy Relics of Saint Thomas transferred to the Monastery of St Matthew in Nineveh\". OCP. 9 July 2014. Archived from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2018.\n\n^ Barsoum (2009a), p. 14.\n\n^ Barsoum (2009a), p. 22.\n\n^ Barsoum (2009a), p. 39.\n\n^ Ignatius Jacob III 2008, pp. 126-127; Barsoum 2009a, pp. 101-102.\n\n^ Ignatius Jacob III (2008), p. 128.\n\nBibliography\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2009a). History of the Syriac Dioceses. Vol. 1. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 26 June 2021.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2009b). The Collected Historical Essays of Aphram I Barsoum. Vol. 1. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 26 June 2021.\n\nHann, Geoff; Dabrowska, Karen; Townsend Greaves, Tina (2015). Iraq: The ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN 9781841624884.\n\nIgnatius Jacob III (2008). History of the Monastery of Saint Matthew in Mosul. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 25 May 2021."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-church-of-saint-thomas-mosul"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 569}, {"slug": "reference-shalmaneser-i", "title": "Shalmaneser I", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Shalmaneser I (𒁹𒀭𒁲𒈠𒉡𒊕 mdsál-ma-nu-SAG Salmanu-ašared;[2][3] 1273-1244 BC or 1265-1235 BC) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He was the son and successor of Adad-nirari I.[4]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shalmaneser I\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of All Peoples\n\nKing of the Middle Assyrian Empire\n\nReign1273-1244 BC[1]\n1263-1234 BC\n\nPredecessorAdad-nirari I\n\nSuccessorTukulti-Ninurta I\n\nIssueTukulti-Ninurta I\n\nFatherAdad-nirari I\n\nShalmaneser I (𒁹𒀭𒁲𒈠𒉡𒊕 mdsál-ma-nu-SAG Salmanu-ašared;[2][3] 1273-1244 BC or 1265-1235 BC) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He was the son and successor of Adad-nirari I.[4]\n\nReign\n\nAccording to his annals, discovered at Assur, in his first year he conquered eight countries in Anatolia to the northwest of Assyria, and destroyed the fortress of Arinnu, the dust of which he brought to Assur.\n\nIn his second year he defeated Shattuara, king of Hanilgalbat (Mitanni), and his Hittite and Ahlamu allies.[4] He incorporated the remains of the Mittanni kingdom as part of one of the Assyrian provinces. Shalmaneser I also claimed to have blinded 14,400 enemy prisoners in one eye. He was one of the first Assyrian kings known to deport his defeated enemies to various lands.\n\nHe conquered the whole country from Taidu to Irridu, from Mount Kashiar to Eluhat, and from the fortresses of Sudu and Harranu to Levantine Carchemish on the Euphrates. He scored a number of military victories over the Hittite Empire, Babylonia and over polities in the Levant, Anatolia and Zagros, expanding the Middle Assyrian Empire, built palaces at Assur, Nineveh and Arbela, restored the \"world-temple\" at Assur (Ehursagkurkurra), and founded the city of Kalhu (the biblical Calah/Nimrud).[4] He was succeeded by his son Tukulti-Ninurta I.\n\nAnnual limmu officials beginning with the year of accession of Šulmanu-ašared. The list is partly derived from Freydank[5] and McIntyre.[6] The exact order of the earliest limmus is conjectural but the ordering from Šerriya onwards is essentially fixed.\n\nNotes\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). \"Appendix I: A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004430914.\n\n^ ORACC Middle Assyrian Laws - Shalmaneser I\n\n^ The name means: \"[the god] Salmanu is preeminent\"; Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq (Penguin, 3rd ed., 1992), p. 295.\n\n^ a b c One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Sayce, Archibald Henry (1911). \"Shalmaneser\". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 798.\n\n^ Helmut Freydank, AoF 3 (2005), 45-56.\n\n^ Eponyms of Shalmaneser 1 - Summary\n\nSources\n\nDönbaz, Veysel, and Grant, Frame (1983). \"The building activities of Shalmaneser I in Northern Mesopotamia\". Annual Review of the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Project 1 (1983): 1-5."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shalmaneser-i"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 414}, {"slug": "reference-baghdad", "title": "Baghdad", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Baghdad[a] is the capital and the largest city of Iraq. It is located on the banks of the Tigris in central Iraq. With an estimated population of 8 million, it ranks among the most populous and largest cities in the Middle East and the Arab world and constitutes...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Baghdad\n بَغْدَاد\n\nMetropolis\n\nMayoralty of Baghdad\n\nThe Republican Palace in the Green ZoneAl-Rashid StreetMustansiriyya MadrasaBab al-WastaniQushlaAl-Shaheed MonumentAl-Kazimiyya Mosque\n\nFlagSeal\n\nNickname: City of Peace (مَدِيْنَةُ السَّلَام)[1]\n\nInteractive map of Baghdad\n\nBaghdadLocation within IraqShow map of IraqBaghdadLocation within Near EastShow map of Near EastBaghdadLocation within AsiaShow map of Asia\n\nCoordinates: 33°18′55″N 44°21′58″E / 33.31528°N 44.36611°E / 33.31528; 44.36611\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateBaghdad\n\nEstablished30 July 762 AD\n\nFounderCaliph al-Mansur\n\nDistricts9\n\nGovernment\n\n • TypeMayor-council\n\n • BodyBaghdad City Advisory Council\n\n • MayorAmmar Moussa Kadhum\n\nElevation34 m (112 ft)\n\nPopulation (2024 census)[2]\n\n • Metropolis7,837,463\n\n • Rank1st in Iraq\n2nd in the Arab world\n\n • Metro9,780,429 (Baghdad governorate)\n\nDemonymBaghdadi\n\nGDP (Nominal, 2024)[3]\n\n • MetroUS$46.2 billion\n\n • Per capitaUS$4,600\n\nTime zoneUTC+03:00 (AST)\n\nPostal code10001 to 10090\n\nWebsiteamanatbaghdad.gov.iq (in Arabic)\n\nBaghdad[a] is the capital and the largest city of Iraq. It is located on the banks of the Tigris in central Iraq. With an estimated population of 8 million, it ranks among the most populous and largest cities in the Middle East and the Arab world and constitutes 22% of Iraq's population. Baghdad is a primary financial and commercial center in the region.\n\nFounded in 762 AD by al-Mansur on a site with settlement dating back to at least the Neo-Babylonian period, Baghdad became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and its most notable development project. The city evolved into an intellectual and cultural center. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the \"Center of Learning\". For much of the Abbasid era, during the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad was one of the largest cities in the world and rivaled Chang'an, as the population peaked at more than one million. It was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger for many centuries due to frequent plagues and shifts in power between multiple successive empires. Later, Baghdad served as the administrative center of Ottoman Iraq,[4] exercising authority over the provinces of Basra, Mosul, and Shahrizor.[5]\n\nDuring the First World War, Baghdad was made the capital of Mandatory Iraq. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent monarchy in 1932, it gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arab culture. During the Ba'ath Party rule, the city experienced a period of relative prosperity and growth. However, it faced severe infrastructural damage due to the Iraq War, which began with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, resulting in a substantial loss of cultural heritage and historical artifacts. During the insurgency and renewed war from 2013 to 2017, it had one of the highest rates of terrorist attacks in the world. However, these attacks have gradually declined since the territorial defeat of the Islamic State militant group in Iraq in 2017, and are now rare. Since the end of the war, numerous reconstruction projects have been underway to induce stability.\n\nIraq's largest city, Baghdad is the seat of government. It generates 40% of the economy of Iraq. A major center of Islamic history, Baghdad is home to numerous historic mosques, as well as churches, mandis and synagogues, highlighting the city's historical diversity. Religious sites such as Masjid al-Kadhimayn, Buratha Mosque, the Shrine of Abdul-Qadir Gilani and Abu Hanifa Mosque are visited by millions of people annually. It was once home to a large Jewish community and was regularly visited by Sikh pilgrims from India.[6] Baghdad is a regional cultural hub. The city is well known for its coffeehouses.\n\nName\n\nThe name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, and its origin is disputed.[7] The site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. Archaeological evidence shows that the site of Baghdad was occupied long before the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia in 637 CE, and that several ancient empires had their capitals located in the surrounding area.[8]\n\nArab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad's name, generally looked for its roots in Middle Persian.[7] They suggested various meanings, the most common of which was \"bestowed by God\".[7][9] Modern scholars generally tend to favor this etymology,[7] which views the word as a Persian compound of bagh () \"god\" and dād () \"given\".[10][11] In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Indo-Iranian bhag and Slavic bog \"god.\"[7][12] A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt (Mehrdad in New Persian), known in English by its borrowed Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning \"Given by Mithra\" (dāt is the more archaic form of dād, related to Sanskrit dāt, Latin dat and English donor).[7] There are a number of other locations whose names are compounds of the Middle Persian word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan, Baghshan in Iran,[13] and Baghdati in Georgia, which likely share the same etymological Iranic origins.[14][15][16]\n\nOther authors have suggested older origins for the name, in particular the name Bagdadu or Hudadu that existed in Old Babylonian (spelled with a sign that can represent both bag and hu), and the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic name of a place called Baghdatha (בגדתא).[7][17][18] A later attestation of the name is found in a boundary stone from the reign of Merodach-baladan I (12th century BC), where it appears in cuneiform as Bag-da-du.[19]\nSome scholars suggested Aramaic derivations.[7]\n\nAnother highly recommended view is that Baghdad is a reference to Bagh and Dad as in Dadan, Dedan, and Dad as in Hadad, Adad. Another view suggested by Christophe Wall-Romana, is that name of \"Baghdad\" is derived from \"Akkad\", as the cuneiform logogram for Akkad (𒀀𒂵𒉈𒆠) is pronounced \"a-ga-dèKI\" (\"Agade\") and its resemblance to \"Baghdad\" is compelling.[20][21] It is argued that, throughout all the various spellings of the city's name, whether Baghdad [بغداد], Baghdadh [بغداذ], Baghdan [بغدان], Maghdad [مغداد], Maghdadh [مغداذ], or Maghdan [مغدان], the only phonetically definite segment of the name appears to be Aghda [ىَغْدَا], which could be equated with the pronunciation of the name Agade.[21][22]\n\nWhen the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name \"City of peace\" (Arabic: مدینة السلام, romanized: Madīnat as-Salām), which now refers to the Round City of Baghdad proper. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis.\n\nChristophe Wall-Romana has suggested that al-Mansur's choice to found his \"new city\" at Baghdad because of its strategic location was the same criteria which influenced Sargon's choice to found the original city of Akkad in the exact same location.[23][24]\n\nHistory\n\nFoundation\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the site of Baghdad had been occupied prior to its Abbasid foundation. An extensive facing of Neo-Babylonian brickwork has been identified along the western bank of the Tigris at Baghdad, with bricks stamped with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar II. Assyrian geographical catalogues during the reign of Sardanapalus from the Neo-Assyrian period record a place whose name was very similar to “Baghdad”, which likely refers to the town standing on the site where the Abbasids would later build their capital.[25]\n\nAfter the fall of the Umayyads, the victorious Abbasids sought a new capital.[26][27] On 30 July 762, the Caliph Al-Mansur commissioned Baghdad's construction, guided by the Iranian Barmakids. He believed Baghdad was ideal for ruling the Islamic Empire. Historian al-Tabari recorded a prophecy from Christian monks about a leader named Miklas building a great city in the area, and Al-Mansur, who was once called Miklas, saw this as a good omen. He expressed deep affection for the site, declaring it would be the home of his dynasty.[26][27][28][29] The two designers who were hired by Al-Mansur to plan the city's design were Naubakht, a Zoroastrian who also determined that the date of the foundation of the city would be astrologically auspicious, and Mashallah, a Jew from Khorasan, Iran.[30][31][32] They determined the city's auspicious founding date under the sign of Leo the lion, symbolizing strength and expansion.[33]\n\nThe city's layout consisted of two large semicircles, with a 2 km-wide circular core known as the \"Round City.\" It had parks, gardens, villas, and promenades. Unlike European cities of the time, Baghdad had a sanitation system, fountains, and public baths, with thousands of hammams enhancing hygiene. The mosque and guard headquarters stood at the center, though some central space's function remains unknown. Baghdad's circular design reflected ancient Near Eastern urban planning, similar to the Sasanian city of Gur and older Mesopotamian cities like Mari.[34][35][36] While Tell Chuera and Tell al-Rawda also provide examples of this type of urban planning existing in Bronze Age Syria.[37][38] This style of urban planning contrasted with Ancient Greek and Roman urban planning, in which cities are designed as squares or rectangles with streets intersecting each other at right angles.[39][33][34]\n\nBaghdad was designed to symbolize paradise as described in the Qur'an.[40] It took four years (764-768) to build, with over 100,000 workers involved.[39][41] Al-Mansur recruited engineers and artisans worldwide. Astrologers Naubakht Ahvazi and Mashallah advised starting construction under Leo, associated with fire, productivity, and expansion. Bricks for the city were 18 inches square, and Abu Hanifah supervised their production. A canal supplied water for drinking and construction.[42] Marble was used extensively, including steps leading to the river.[43] The Golden Gate Palace, home of the caliph, stood at Baghdad's center with a grand 48-meter green dome. Only the caliph could approach its esplanade on horseback. Nearby were officer residences and a guardhouse. After Caliph Al-Amin's death in 813, the palace ceased to be the caliph's residence. It was divided into three judicial districts: Round City (Madinat al-Mansur), al-Karkh (al-Sharqiyya), and Askar al-Mahdi. The city had four walls named after major destinations-Kufa, Basra, Khurasan, and Syria; their gates pointed in on these destinations.[44] The gates were 2.4 km apart, with massive iron doors requiring several men to operate and walls, up to 44m thick and 30m high, were reinforced with a second wall, towers, and a moat for added defense.[45]\n\nCenter of learning (8th-9th centuries)\n\nBaghdad's strategic location along the Tigris and its abundant water supply contributed to its rapid growth. To prevent disturbances, Al-Mansur moved markets to al-Karkh. Over time, Baghdad became a hub for merchants and craftsmen. Officials called \"Muhtasib\" monitored trade to prevent fraud.[46][47] Baghdad surpassed Ctesiphon, the former Sassanid capital, located 30 km southeast. The ruins of Ctesiphon remain in Salman Pak, where Salman the Persian is believed to be buried.[48] Ctesiphon itself had replaced Seleucia, which had earlier succeeded Babylon.[49][50] According to the traveler Ibn Battuta, Baghdad was one of the largest cities,[51] not including the damage it has received. The residents are mostly Hanbalis.[52] Most residents were Hanbali Muslims. The city housed Abu Hanifa's grave, marked by a mosque and cell.[53] Its ruler, Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, was a Tatar who had embraced Islam.[54]\n\nWithin a generation of its founding, Baghdad became a hub of learning and commerce. The city flourished into an unrivaled intellectual center of science, medicine, philosophy, and education, especially with the Abbasid translation movement began under the second caliph Al-Mansur and thrived under the seventh caliph Al-Ma'mun.[55] Baytul-Hikmah or the \"House of Wisdom\" was among the most well known academies,[56] and had the largest selection of books in the world by the middle of the 9th century. Notable scholars based in Baghdad during this time include translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq, mathematician al-Khwarizmi, and philosopher Al-Kindi.[56] Baghdad was lively, with attractions like cabarets, chess halls, live plays, concerts, and acrobatics.[57] Storytelling flourished, with professional storytellers (al-Qaskhun) captivating crowds, inspiring the tales of Arabian Nights.[58]\n\nAlthough Arabic was used as the language of science, the scholarship involved not only Arabs, but also Persians, Syriacs,[59] Nestorians, Jews, Arab Christians,[60][61] and people from other ethnic and religious groups native to the region.[62][63][64][65] These are considered among the fundamental elements that contributed to the flourishing of scholarship in the Medieval Islamic world.[66][67][68] Baghdad was also a significant center of Islamic religious learning, with Al-Jahiz contributing to the formation of Mu'tazili theology, as well as Al-Tabari culminating in the scholarship on the Quranic exegesis.[55] Baghdad is likely to have been the largest city in the world from shortly after its foundation until the 930s, when it tied with Córdoba.[69] Several estimates suggest that the city contained over a million inhabitants at its peak.[70]\n\nMany of the One Thousand and One Nights tales, widely known as the Arabian Nights, are set in Baghdad during this period. It would surpass even Constantinople in prosperity and size.[71]\nAmong the notable features of Baghdad during this period were its exceptional libraries. Many of the Abbasid caliphs were patrons of learning and enjoyed collecting both ancient and contemporary literature. Although some of the princes of the previous Umayyad dynasty had begun to gather and translate Greek scientific literature, the Abbasids were the first to foster Greek learning on a large scale. Many of these libraries were private collections intended only for the use of the owners and their immediate friends, but the libraries of the caliphs and other officials soon took on a public or a semi-public character.[72]\n\nFour great libraries were established in Baghdad during this period. The earliest was that of the famous al-Ma'mun, who was caliph from 813 to 833. Another was established by Sabur ibn Ardashir in 991 or 993 for the literary men and scholars who frequented his academy.[72] This second library was plundered and burned by the Seljuks only seventy years after it was established. This was a good example of the sort of library built up out of the needs and interests of a literary society.[72] The last two were examples of madrasa or theological college libraries. The Nizamiyya of Baghdad was founded by the Persian Nizam al-Mulk, who was vizier of two early Seljuk sultans.[72] It continued to operate even after the coming of the Mongols in 1258. The Mustansiriyya Madrasa, which owned an exceedingly rich library, was founded by al-Mustansir, the second last Abbasid caliph, who died in 1242.[72] This would prove to be the last great library built by the caliphs of Baghdad.\n\nStagnation and invasions (10th-16th centuries)\n\nBy the 10th century, the city's population was between 1.2 million[73] and 2 million.[74] Baghdad's early meteoric growth eventually slowed due to troubles within the Caliphate, including relocations of the capital to Samarra (during 808-819 and 836-892), the loss of the western and easternmost provinces, and periods of political domination by the Iranian Buwayhids (945-1055) and Seljuk Turks (1055-1135). The Seljuks were a clan of the Oghuz Turks from Central Asia that converted to the Sunni branch of Islam. In 1040, they destroyed the Ghaznavids, taking over their land and in 1055, Tughril Beg, the leader of the Seljuks, took over Baghdad. The Seljuks expelled the Buyid dynasty of Shiites that had ruled for some time and took over power and control of Baghdad. They ruled as Sultans in the name of the Abbasid caliphs (they saw themselves as being part of the Abbasid regime). Tughril Beg saw himself as the protector of the Abbasid Caliphs.[75]\n\nBaghdad was captured in 1394, 1534, 1623 and 1638. The city has been sieged in 812, 865, 946, 1157, 1258 and in 1393 and 1401, by Tamerlane. In 1058, Baghdad was captured by the Fatimids under the Turkish general Abu'l-Ḥārith Arslān al-Basasiri, an adherent of the Ismailis along with the 'Uqaylid Quraysh.[76] Not long before the arrival of the Saljuqs in Baghdad, al-Basasiri petitioned to the Fatimid Imam-Caliph al-Mustansir to support him in conquering Baghdad on the Ismaili Imam's behalf. It has recently come to light that the famed Fatimid da'i, al-Mu'ayyad al-Shirazi, had a direct role in supporting al-Basasiri and helped the general to succeed in taking Mawṣil, Wāsit and Kufa. Soon after,[77] by December 1058, a Shi'i adhān (call to prayer) was implemented in Baghdad and a khutbah (sermon) was delivered in the name of the Fatimid Imam-Caliph.[77] Despite his Shi'i inclinations, Al-Basasiri received support from Sunnis and Shi'is alike, for whom opposition to the Saljuq power was a common factor.[78]\n\nOn 10 February 1258, Baghdad was captured by the Mongols led by Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis Khan (Chingiz Khan), during the siege of Baghdad.[79] Many quarters were ruined by fire, siege, or looting. The Mongols massacred most of the city's inhabitants, including the caliph Al-Musta'sim, and destroyed large sections of the city. The canals and dykes forming the city's irrigation system were also destroyed. During this time, in Baghdad, Christians and Shia were tolerated, while Sunnis were treated as enemies.[80] The sack of Baghdad put an end to the Abbasid Caliphate.[81]\n\nAt this point, Baghdad was ruled by the Ilkhanate, a breakaway state of the Mongol Empire, ruling from Iran. In August 1393, Baghdad was occupied by the Central Asian Turkic conqueror Timur (\"Tamerlane\"),[82] by marching there in only eight days from Shiraz. Sultan Ahmad Jalayir fled to Syria, where the Mamluk Sultan Barquq protected him and killed Timur's envoys. Timur left the Sarbadar prince Khwaja Mas'ud to govern Baghdad, but he was driven out when Ahmad Jalayir returned.\n\nIn 1401, Baghdad was again sacked, by Timur, a Central Asian Turko-Mongol figure.[83] When his forces took Baghdad, he spared almost no one, and ordered that each of his soldiers bring back two severed human heads.[84] Baghdad became a provincial capital controlled by the Mongol Jalayirid (1400-1411), Turkic Kara Koyunlu (1411-1469), Turkic Ak Koyunlu (1469-1508), and the Iranian Safavid (1508-1534) dynasties.\n\nOttoman and Mamluks (16th-19th centuries)\n\nThe Safavids took control of the city in 1509 under the leadership of Shah Ismail I. It remained under Safavid rule until the Ottomans seized it in 1535, but the Safavids regained control in 1624. A massacre occurred when the Shah's army entered the city. It remained under Safavid rule until 1639 when Sultan Murad IV recaptured it in 1638.\n\nIn 1534, Baghdad was captured by the Ottoman Empire,[85] becoming the administrative capital of Ottoman Iraq.[4] Under the Ottomans, Baghdad continued into a period of decline, partially as a result of the enmity between its rulers and Iranian Safavids, which did not accept the Sunni control of the city. Between 1623 and 1638, it returned to Iranian rule before falling back into Ottoman hands.[86] Baghdad has suffered severely from visitations of the plague and cholera,[87] and sometimes two-thirds of its population has been wiped out.[88] The city became part of an eyalet and then a vilayet.[89]\n\nFor a time, Baghdad had been the largest city in the Middle East.[90] The city saw relative revival in the latter part of the 18th century, under Mamluk government.[90] Direct Ottoman rule was reimposed by Ali Rıza Pasha in 1831.[90] From 1851 to 1852 and from 1861 to 1867, Baghdad was governed, under the Ottoman Empire by Mehmed Namık Pasha.[90] The Nuttall Encyclopedia reports the 1907 population of Baghdad as 185,000.[90]\n\nThe city's municipality was established in 1868, and Ibrahim al-Daftari was appointed its first mayor.[91] The year 1869 is of great importance in the history of Baghdad in the Ottoman era, as it was the beginning of what can be considered a distinct era of the Ottoman eras, the foundations of which were laid by Governor Midhat Pasha, who implemented a number of reform systems and laws that the state legislated during the era of reforms and reconstruction, which was called the Tanzimat era.[91] The overall importance of Baghdad to the Ottomans was that they made the headquarters of the Sixth Corps of the Ottoman Army in the city.[91]\n\nBy the 19th century, Baghdad emerged as a leading center for Jewish learning.[92] The city had a Jewish population of over 6,000 and had numerous yeshivas.[92] The Jewish population has grown so rapidly that by 1884, there were 30,000 Jews in Baghdad and by 1900, about 50,000, comprising over a quarter of the city's total population.[92] Large-scale Jewish immigration from Kurdistan to Baghdad continued throughout this period.[92] By the mid-19th century, the religious infrastructure of Baghdad grew to include a large yeshiva which trained up to sixty rabbis at time.[92] Religious scholarship flourished in Baghdad, which produced great rabbis, such as Joseph Hayyim ben Eliahu Mazal-Tov, known as the Ben Ish Chai (1834-1909) or Rabbi Abdallah Somekh (1813-1889). During this time, Baghdadi Jews established a successful trade diaspora in China, India and Singapore.\n\n Baghdad Eyalet in 1609\n\n Baghdad Vilayet in 1900\n\n Souk in Baghdad, 1876\n\nModern era\n\nBaghdad and southern Iraq remained under Ottoman rule until 1918, when they were captured by the British in World War I. In summer 1920, a revolt erupted in Baghdad against the British administration.[93] Beginning with mass demonstrations including embittered officers from the Old Ottoman Army, it gained momentum and spread to the middle and lower Euphrates which grown into more than 100,000 armed tribesmen.[94][95] The British authorities responded by air bombing across the country including Baghdad.[96] In 1921, under the Mandate of Mesopotamia, Baghdad became the capital of the British-protected monarchy. Baghdad was made capital of the independent kingdom of Iraq in 1932.\n\nSeveral architectural and planning projects were commissioned to reinforce this administration.[97] During this period, the substantial Jewish community (probably exceeding 100,000 people) comprised between a quarter and a third of the city's population. The National Museum of Iraq and the University of Baghdad were built by King Faisal, who laid foundation for the modern Iraqi state. The city's population grew from an estimated 145,000 in 1900 to 580,000 in 1950.[98] A development plan came in 1957, visioned by Frank Lloyd Wright.[98] The plan proposed to build a cultural hub on an island on the river, with an opera house, museums, a university, shopping malls, and a 300-foot statue of the fifth Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid.\n\nOn 1 April 1941, members of the \"Golden Square\" led by former minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani staged a coup in Baghdad and installed a pro-German and pro-Italian government to replace the pro-British government of Regent Abd al-Ilah.[99][100] The British forces intervened in the resulting Anglo-Iraqi War.[101] Fearing the advancement, Gaylani and his government had fled, and the mayor of Baghdad surrendered to the British and Commonwealth forces.[100][102] \n\nOn 1-2 June 1941, during the ensuing power vacuum, Jewish residents of Baghdad were attacked in the Farhud, a pogrom that followed the collapse of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's pro-Axis government.[103][104][105] Iraqi soldiers and policemen, including supporters of Rashid Ali's coup, participated in the violence, as did civilians and members of nationalist youth movements.[106][107] Historians have also placed the violence in the context of the spread of antisemitism and Nazi propaganda in Iraq during the late 1930s and early 1940s.[108][109] Estimates of the casualties vary. Scholarly accounts commonly place the number of Jews killed at around 180.[110][111] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gives an estimate of 150-180 Jews killed, approximately 600 injured, an undetermined number of women raped, and approximately 1,500 Jewish-owned homes and stores looted; it notes that the Iraqi government's investigating commission reported 128 Jews killed and 210 injured.[112][113] \n\nThe violence ended on 2 June after Iraqi troops entered Baghdad and killed several hundred rioters while restoring order.[114] Between 1950 and 1951, Jewish targets in Baghdad were attacked in a series of bombings whose responsibility remains disputed. Avi Shlaim has argued that members of the Zionist underground in Baghdad were responsible for three of the five bombings.[115] Historian Moshe Gat, however, concluded from archival evidence that Israeli emissaries did not carry out the bombings attributed to them by the Iraqi authorities, while Esther Meir-Glitzenstein has argued that archival scholarship does not support the claim that the attacks were an Israeli operation intended to produce mass emigration.[116][117]\n\nOn 14 July 1958, a significant portion of the Iraqi Army under Abdul-Karim Qasim, staged a coup to topple the Kingdom of Iraq.[118] The army seized control over Baghdad and stormed the radio station and the Al-Rehab Palace.[119][120] Many people were brutally killed during the coup, including King Faisal II, former Regent Abd al-Ilah and former Prime Minister Nuri al-Said and members of the royal family.[120] Many of the royal figures' bodies were dragged through the streets and mutilated. Mob violence emerged and several foreign nationals staying at the Baghdad Hotel, including Americans and Jordanians were killed.[120] New principles were adopted for the city's development. New Baghdad and Sadr City were developed during the reign of Qasim. In 1960, Baghdad hosted an international conference with dignitaries from Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, that founded Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).[121]\n\nDuring the 1970s, Baghdad experienced a period of prosperity and growth because of a sharp increase in the price of petroleum, Iraq's main export.[122] New infrastructure including oil pipelines, modern sewerage, and highways were built.[123] Master plans of the city (1967 and 1973) were delivered by the Polish planning office Miastoprojekt-Kraków, mediated by Polservice.[123] Saddam Hussein sponsored architectural and artwork events, that attracted world's popular architects.[124] The city had a vibrant lifestyle.[125] Baghdad was called as \"Nuremberg of 1930s\" and \"Las Vegas of the 1980s\".[125]\n\nHowever, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s was a difficult time for the city, as money was diverted to the military and thousands of residents endured devastations.[126] Iran launched a number of missiles and rockets on Baghdad, some of them hitting dangerously close to Al-Rashid Street and the Jewish Quarter.[127][128][129] Power plants and oil refineries were damaged.[127] A nuclear reactor near Baghdad was destroyed in an airstrike by Israel.[130] Despite the war, preparations were underway for Baghdad to host a Non-Alignment Movement summit.[123] Conference centers and hotels such as Palestine Hotel, Al-Mansour Hotel and Ishtar Hotel were built.[123] However, the summit was later shifted to New Delhi, due to deteriorating security.[131][132]\n\nDuring the Gulf War, Baghdad was the most heavily defended area of Iraq.[133][134] Initially, U.S. airstrikes on Baghdad failed and resulted a tactical victory for the Iraqi Air Force.[135][136] Later, the Coalition forces proceeded with aerial bombings.[137] Air defense, communication systems, bridges, chemical weapon facilities, and artilleries were damaged.[138] Oil refineries and airport were targeted.[138] On 13 February 1991, an aerial bombing attack in Amiriya killed at least 408 civilians.[139][140] Shortly after the end of the war, ethnic Kurds and Shi'a Muslims led uprisings against the government.[132] Clashes took place Shi'a rebels and the Republican Guard led by Qusay Hussein.[141] Sadr City was besieged until the order restored.[141] Another uprising occurred in 1999, after Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was assassinated in Najaf.[142] Unrest began as large scale protests took place in Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, specially Saddam City.[142] The Republican Guard deployed in the district suppressed the demonstration, leaving between 27 and 100 dead.[142]\n\nBaghdad was targeted in frequent U.S. airstrikes.[143] On 26 June 1993, cruise missiles were launched into downtown Baghdad, targeting the intelligence headquarters in the Mansour district.[144] The attack killed nine civilians nearby, including actress and painter Layla Al-Attar.[145] During the 1998 bombing of Iraq, missiles struck multiple locations across Baghdad, including presidential palaces, several Republican Guard barrakcs, and offices of the Ministry of Defense and the Military industry. On February 16, 2001, the U.S. launched air strikes on five military targets at Taji.[146][147]\n\n21st century\n\nWith decades of economic sanctions, the city experienced stangnation.[148] By the end of the 1990s, the government's efforts resulted in the reconstruction of Baghdad.[149] Damaged government offices, presidential palaces, bridges and road were restored.[150] The airport was reopened with flights from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.[150] Numerous mosques and Islamic institutions were built under the Faith Campaign. In 2001, a broad initiative was launched to revive Baghdad's cultural heritage.[151] Older mosques, churches, synagogues, mandis were rebuilt. However, these efforts were interrupted by the war.[152][153][154]\n\nBetween 2003 and 2020, the city was disturbed by series of violence and terrorist activities.[155] In 2003, the United States-led coalition invaded Iraq.[155] On 9 April, the U.S. forces captured Baghdad.[155] A statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled at the Firdous Square, symbolizing the end of his rule.[156] Shortly after the overthrow of the regime, an insurgency began against the U.S-led rule in Iraq.[157] Also two minor riots took place, causing some distrubance in the population.[158][159] Religious and ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Assyrians, Mandaeans and Jews were subjected to kidnappings, death threats and violence.[160] On the eve of Ashura on 2 March 2004, one of the deadliest bombings took place in Baghdad, where at least 80-100 people were killed and 200 were injured.[161][162] Over 965 people were killed in a bridge disaster on Al-Aimmah Bridge. Violence escalated into a civil war consisting of Shia and Sunni insurgents and coalition forces. Shi'a militias were Muqtada as-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi and the Iranian-backed Special Groups and among Sunni insurgents, the largest was Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).[160]\n\nMansour district, before 2003, was home to wealthy Sunnis. It quickly became stronghold for the Sunni insurgency. While Shia militias were based in Sadr City, Kadhimiyah, and West Rasheed, with Bab Al-Sharqi becoming stronghold for the Mahdi Army.[160] Later, they also expanded into the surrounding districts of eastern Baghdad. 9 Nissan, Karadah, and Rusafa were dominated by Shias.[160] In 2007, coalition forces and Iraqi Army successfully defeated the insurgents.[160] By 2009, the level of violence decreased.[160] The period surrounding Provincial Elections was remarkably peaceful.[160] But Baghdad witnessed an uptick in attacks in early April 2009, when a series of suicide bomb and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks were perpetrated. [160] The war caused huge damage to Baghdad's transportation, power, and sanitary infrastructure.[155] Though the war ended in 2011, instability continued. Baghdad was rocked by the Arab Spring protests. An insurgency lasted till 2013. It was followed by another war from 2013 to 2017, which included suicide bombings in January 2018 and January 2021.[163] The city attracted global media attention on 3 January 2020, when Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad Airport.[164]\n\nMost reconstruction efforts have been devoted to the restoration and repair of badly damaged urban infrastructure. More visible efforts at reconstruction through private development have also been made. In late 2009, a construction plan was proposed to rebuild the heart of Baghdad, but the plan was never realized because corruption was involved in it. Various projects have commenced in Baghdad to induce stability. A large number of historical sites has been restored. Modern-scale development projects such as shopping malls, hotels and office spaces are now in Baghdad. The area surrounding the airport and presidential complex has emerged as new investment hospot and expansion of Baghdad. In December 2015, Baghdad was selected by UNESCO as the first Arab city of the center of literary creativity.[165]\n\nGeography\n\nThe city is located on a vast plain bisected by the Tigris river. The Tigris splits Baghdad in half, with the eastern half being called \"Risafa\" and the Western half known as \"Karkh\". The land on which the city is built is almost entirely flat and low-lying, being of quaternary alluvial origin due to periodic large flooding of the Tigris river. The Diyala river is a tributary of the Tigris, flowing southeast of the city and bordering its eastern suburbs.\n\nBaghdad is 529.8 kilometres (329.2 mi) northwest of Basra, 402.9 kilometres (250.4 mi) south of Mosul, 366.8 kilometres (227.9 mi) south of Erbil and 103.8 kilometres (64.5 mi) northeast of Karbala.[166] Located to the south is Mahmoudiyah, which serves as the gateway to Baghdad.\n\n Panoramic view of the Tigris as it flows through Baghdad\n\nClimate\n\nBaghdad has a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh), featuring extremely hot, prolonged, dry summers and mild to cool, slightly wet, short winters. In the summer, from June through August, the average maximum temperature is as high as 44 °C (111 °F) and accompanied by sunshine. Rainfall has been recorded on fewer than half a dozen occasions at this time of year and has never exceeded 1 mm (0.04 in).[167] Even at night, temperatures in summer are seldom below 24 °C (75 °F). Baghdad's record highest temperature of 51.8 °C (125.2 °F) was reached on 28 July 2020.[168][169] Humidity is under 50% in summer, due to Baghdad's distance from both the marshes in southern Iraq and the coasts of the Persian Gulf. Dust storms from the deserts to the west are a normal occurrence during the summer.\n\nIts winter temperatures are those of a hot desert climate. From December through February, Baghdad has maximum temperatures averaging 16 to 19 °C (61 to 66 °F), with highs possible above 21 °C (70 °F). Lows below freezing occur statistically a couple of times per year.[170]\n\nAnnual rainfall, almost entirely confined to the period from November through March, averages approximately 150 mm (5.91 in), but has been as high as 338 mm (13.31 in) and as low as 37 mm (1.46 in).[167] On 11 January 2008, light snow fell across Baghdad for the first time in 100 years.[171] Snowfall was again reported on 11 February 2020, with accumulations across the city.[172]\n\nClimate data for Baghdad (1991-2020 normals)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n24.8\n(76.6)\n\n28.2\n(82.8)\n\n36.6\n(97.9)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\n46.7\n(116.1)\n\n49.6\n(121.3)\n\n51.8\n(125.2)\n\n50.0\n(122.0)\n\n48.4\n(119.1)\n\n40.2\n(104.4)\n\n35.6\n(96.1)\n\n25.3\n(77.5)\n\n51.8\n(125.2)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n16.2\n(61.2)\n\n19.3\n(66.7)\n\n24.5\n(76.1)\n\n30.5\n(86.9)\n\n37.1\n(98.8)\n\n42.2\n(108.0)\n\n44.7\n(112.5)\n\n44.5\n(112.1)\n\n40.3\n(104.5)\n\n34.0\n(93.2)\n\n23.9\n(75.0)\n\n18.0\n(64.4)\n\n30.6\n(87.1)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n10.0\n(50.0)\n\n12.8\n(55.0)\n\n17.5\n(63.5)\n\n23.4\n(74.1)\n\n29.5\n(85.1)\n\n33.4\n(92.1)\n\n35.8\n(96.4)\n\n35.3\n(95.5)\n\n31.2\n(88.2)\n\n25.1\n(77.2)\n\n16.5\n(61.7)\n\n11.7\n(53.1)\n\n23.5\n(74.3)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n4.7\n(40.5)\n\n6.5\n(43.7)\n\n10.5\n(50.9)\n\n15.7\n(60.3)\n\n21.1\n(70.0)\n\n24.9\n(76.8)\n\n26.9\n(80.4)\n\n26.2\n(79.2)\n\n22.2\n(72.0)\n\n17.2\n(63.0)\n\n10.2\n(50.4)\n\n6.0\n(42.8)\n\n14.9\n(58.8)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-11.0\n(12.2)\n\n-10.0\n(14.0)\n\n-5.5\n(22.1)\n\n-0.6\n(30.9)\n\n8.3\n(46.9)\n\n14.6\n(58.3)\n\n22.4\n(72.3)\n\n20.6\n(69.1)\n\n15.3\n(59.5)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\n-1.5\n(29.3)\n\n-8.7\n(16.3)\n\n-11.0\n(12.2)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n24.6\n(0.97)\n\n16.6\n(0.65)\n\n15.7\n(0.62)\n\n16.2\n(0.64)\n\n3.3\n(0.13)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.1\n(0.00)\n\n7.6\n(0.30)\n\n23.6\n(0.93)\n\n17.0\n(0.67)\n\n124.7\n(4.91)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n5\n\n5\n\n6\n\n4\n\n2\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n1\n\n5\n\n6\n\n34\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n69.1\n\n58.9\n\n48.7\n\n41.1\n\n31.4\n\n24.4\n\n23.8\n\n25.7\n\n30.9\n\n41.6\n\n57.9\n\n68.0\n\n43.5\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n192.2\n\n203.4\n\n244.9\n\n255.0\n\n300.7\n\n348.0\n\n347.2\n\n353.4\n\n315.0\n\n272.8\n\n213.0\n\n195.3\n\n3,240.9\n\nPercentage possible sunshine\n\n60\n\n64\n\n67\n\n69\n\n79\n\n83\n\n85\n\n87\n\n86\n\n82\n\n70\n\n60\n\n74\n\nAverage ultraviolet index\n\n3\n\n4\n\n6\n\n8\n\n10\n\n11\n\n11\n\n10\n\n8\n\n6\n\n4\n\n3\n\n7\n\nSource 1: WMO (precipitation days 1976-2008)[173][174]\n\nSource 2: Climate & Temperature[175][176]\n\nGovernance\n\nAdministratively, Baghdad Governorate is divided into districts which are further divided into sub-districts.[177] Municipally, the governorate is divided into 9 municipalities, which have responsibility for local issues.[177] Regional services, however, are coordinated and carried out by a mayor who oversees the municipalities.[177] The governorate council is responsible for the governorate-wide policy.[177] These official subdivisions of the city served as administrative centers for the delivery of municipal services but until 2003 had no political function.[177] Beginning in April 2003, the U.S-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) began the process of creating new functions for these.[177] The process initially focused on the election of neighborhood councils in official neighborhoods, elected by neighborhood caucuses.[177] The CPA convened a series of meetings in each neighborhood to explain local government, to describe the caucus election process and to encourage participants to spread the word and bring friends, relatives and neighbors to subsequent meetings.[177]\n\nEach neighborhood process ultimately ended with a final meeting where candidates for the new neighborhood councils identified themselves and asked their neighbors to vote for them.[177] Once all 88 neighborhood councils were in place, each neighborhood council elected representatives from among their members to serve on one of the city's nine district councils.[177] The number of neighborhood representatives on a district council is based upon the neighborhood's population.[177] The next step was to have each of the nine district councils elect representatives from their membership to serve on the 37 member Baghdad City Council.[177] Later, the number of official neighborhoods were increased to 89.[177] This three tier system of local government connected the people of Baghdad to the central government through their representatives from the neighborhood, through the district, and up to the city council.[177] The same process was used to provide representative councils for the other communities in Baghdad Province outside of the city itself.[177] There, local councils were elected from 20 neighborhoods (Nahia) and these councils elected representatives from their members to serve on six district councils (Qada).[177]\n\nAs within the city, the district councils then elected representatives from among their members to serve on the 35 member Baghdad Regional Council. The first step in the establishment of the system of local government for Baghdad Province was the election of the Baghdad Provincial Council. As before, the representatives to the Provincial Council were elected by their peers from the lower councils in numbers proportional to the population of the districts they represent. The 41 member Provincial Council took office in February 2004 and served until national elections held in January 2005, when a new Provincial Council was elected. This system of 127 separate councils may seem overly cumbersome; however, Baghdad Province is home to approximately seven million people. At the lowest level, the neighborhood councils, each council represents an average of 75,000 people. The nine District Advisory Councils (DAC) are as follows:[177]\n\nAdhamiyah\n\nKarkh (Green Zone)[178]\n\nKarrada[179][180]\n\nKadhimiya[181]\n\nMansour\n\nSadr City (Thawra)[182]\n\nAl Rashid[183]\n\nRusafa\n\nNew Baghdad (Tisaa Nissan) (9 April)[184]\n\nThe nine districts are subdivided into 89 smaller neighborhoods which may make up sectors of any of the districts above. The following is a selection (rather than a complete list) of these neighborhoods:\n\nAl-Ghazaliya\n\nAl-A'amiriya\n\nDora\n\nKarrada\n\nAl-Jadriya\n\nAl-Hebnaa\n\nZayouna\n\nAl-Saydiya\n\nAl-Sa'adoon\n\nAl-Shu'ala\n\nAl-Mahmudiyah\n\nBab Al-Moatham\n\nAl-Baya'\n\nAl-Za'franiya\n\nHayy Ur\n\nSha'ab\n\nHayy Al-Jami'a\n\nAl-Adel\n\nAl Khadhraa\n\nHayy Al-Jihad\n\nHayy Al-A'amel\n\nHayy Aoor\n\nAl-Hurriya\n\nHaydar-Khana\n\nHayy Al-Shurtta\n\nYarmouk\n\nJesr Diyala\n\nAbu Disher\n\nAl-Maidan\n\nRaghiba Khatoun\n\nArab Jibor\n\nAl-Fathel\n\nAl-Ubedy\n\nAl-Washash\n\nAl-Wazireya\n\nBataween\n\nNotable streets\n\nHaifa Street\n\nHilla Road - Runs from the north into Baghdad via Yarmouk (Baghdad)\n\nCaliphs Street - site of historical mosques and churches\n\nAl-Sa'doun Street - stretching from Liberation Square to Masbah\n\nAbu Nuwas Street - runs along the Tigris from the Jumhouriya Bridge to 14 July Suspended Bridge\n\nDamascus Street - goes from Damascus Square to the Baghdad Airport Road\n\nMutanabbi Street - A street with numerous bookshops, named after the 10th century Iraqi poet Al-Mutanabbi\n\nRabia Street\n\n14 July Street (Mosul Road)\n\nMuthana al-Shaibani Street\n\nBor Saeed (Port Said) Street\n\nThawra Street\n\nAl-Qanat Street - runs through Baghdad north-south\n\nAl-Khat al-Sare'a - Mohammed al-Qasim (high speed lane) - runs through Baghdad, north-south\n\nIndustry Street runs by the University of Technology - center of the computer trade in Baghdad\n\nAl Nidhal Street\n\nAl-Rasheed Street - city center Baghdad\n\nAl-Jumhuriya Street - city center Baghdad\n\nFalastin Street\n\nTariq al-Muaskar - (Al-Rasheed Camp Road)\n\nAkhrot street\n\nBaghdad Airport Road[185]\n\nDemographics\n\nBaghdad's population was estimated at 7.22 million in 2015. The surrounding metropolitan region's population is estimated to be 10,500,000.[6] It is second largest city in the Arab world after Cairo and fourth largest metropolitan area in the Middle East after Istanbul.[6] At the beginning of the 21st century, some 1.5 million people migrated to Baghdad.[6] The 2013-2017 civil war following the Islamic State's invasion in 2014 caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi internally displaced people to flee to the city.[6]\n\nEthnicity\n\nThe vast majority of Baghdad's ethnic population are Iraqi Arabs, while minority groups include Kurds, Feyli, Kurdish, Turkmen, Assyrians, Kawliya, Circassians, Mandaeans, and Armenians.[6][186][187] Post-2003 have left an impact of Baghdad's ethnic composition.[188] In 2003, approximately 500,000 Kurds lived in Baghdad.[188] As of 2016, about 300,000 remained in Baghdad.[188] Among them, about 150,000 are Shi'a mostly of Luri origin.[189] The main Kurdish neighborhood is situated in central Baghdad, known as the Quarter of Kurds (Akd al-Akrad).[190] It is home to more than 200 Kurdish families that have lived there for generations.[191][192]\n\nChristians in Baghdad are predominantly ethnic Assyrians and Armenians.[193] Assyrians began moving to Baghdad by the mid 20th century from northern Iraq and Iran.[193][194][195] The historic \"Assyrian Quarter\" of the city - Dora, which boasted a population of 150,000 Assyrians in 2003, made up over 3% of the capital's population then.[196] The community has been subject to kidnappings, death threats, vandalism, and house burnings by al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups.[196] As of the end of 2014, only 1,500 Assyrians remained in Dora and others in Karrada district.[196] Before the war, 25,000 Armenians lived in Iraq, with majority them concentrated in Baghdad.[195] Although the Armenian population has reduced, Baghdad is still home to the largest community of Armenians in Iraq, primarily concentrated in the Armenian quarter of Bab al-Sharqi area.[197]\n\nAn estimated 60,000 Iraqi Turkmen live in Baghdad, with significant population in the neighborhoods of Adhamiyah and Ragheba Khatun.[198][199][200] There is a Circassian neighborhood in the city, which is home to the largest Circassian community of Iraq.[201][202] The metropolitan area and the adjoining governorate is also home to Kawliya, African Iraqis, Chechens and other groups.[203][204][205]\n\nReligion\n\nThe majority of the citizens are Muslims with minorities of Christians, Yezidis, Jews and Mandeans also present.[206] There are many religious centers distributed around the city including mosques, churches, synagogues and Mashkhannas cultic huts.[206] The city historically had a predominantly Sunni population, but by the early 21st century about 52% of the city's population were Shi'ites.[6] Sunni Muslims make up 29-34% of Iraq's population and are still a majority in west and north Iraq.[207] As early as 2003, about 20% of the population of the city was the result of mixed marriages between Shi'ites and Sunnis.[207][6] Following the civil war between Sunni and Shia militia groups during the occupation of Iraq, the population of Sunnis significantly decreased as they were pushed out of many neighborhoods.[6] A majority of the neighborhoods have become either entirely Sunni or Shi'ite, while a few localities are mixed, such as Yarmouk.\n\nThe Christian community in Baghdad is divided among mainly the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syriac Catholic Church.[208] There is also a significant presence of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church, along with the largest Armenian Apostolic and Protestant communities in Iraq, which is also located in Baghdad.[209] The city is the headquarters of the Chaldean Catholic Church, with its see located in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows,[210] while the Ancient Church of the East has its see in the Cathedral of the Virgin.[208] Before the Iraq War in 2003, Baghdad was home to 300,000-800,000 Christians,[211][208] primarily concentrated in several neighborhoods with a Christian majority or significant minority, such as Karrada and al-Dora, which had about 150,000 Christians.[212] After 2003, a large number of Christians were displaced, and many of them fled to Baghdad after ISIS' takeover of Mosul. About 100,000 Christians remain in Baghdad, primarily in Karrada and Mansour district.[213][214]\n\nBaghdad was historically home to one of the world's most significant Jewish communities. By the 1920s, close to 140,000 Jews lived in Iraq, most of them in Baghdad, where they made up about one-third of the city's population.[215] The community declined sharply in the mid-20th century. Historian Moshe Gat identifies anti-Jewish policies and discrimination by the Iraqi government, along with Zionist activity and the establishment of Israel, among the factors contributing to the mass departure; more than 120,000 Iraqi Jews left for Israel in 1950 and 1951.[216]\n\nThe remaining Jewish community continued to face restrictions and persecution. A 1969 U.S. State Department assessment reported restrictions on Jews' property rights and freedom of movement and increased harassment; nine Iraqi Jews were among fourteen people executed as alleged spies in January 1969.[217] By April 2003, only 33 Jews remained in the Baghdad area, declining to 22 by the end of 2004.[218] In its 2023 reporting, the U.S. State Department stated that only a very small number of Jewish citizens lived in Baghdad and that media organizations reported only a handful of Jews remaining in federal Iraq.[219] The city was historically home to over 60 synagogues, cemeteries, and shrines, many of which were preserved before 2003.[220] However, their condition deteriorated after the war, and only a few sites, such as the Meir Taweig Synagogue and Al-Habibiyah Jewish Cemetery, remain.[220][221]\n\nBeyond their traditional homelands, around Amarah and Basra, Mandaeans are also found in Baghdad.[222] By the late 20th century, Mandaeans began settling in Baghdad for better opportunities.[222] Most of them live primarily around al-Qadisiyah and Dora, which is near to their places of worship and cultural centers.[222] However, persecution of Mandaeans greatly decreased since 2003.[222] There is also a small of community of Baháʼís and Sikhs, who live in Baghdad.[223] The Sikhs are mostly Indians.[6] Before 2003, Baghdad was regularly visited by Sikh pilgrims from India.[6]\n\n Al-Sarai Mosque\n\n Al-Khilani Mosque\n\n Mandaean Mandi of Baghdad\n\n Armenian Orthodox Church of Baghdad\n\n Interior of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows (headquarter of the Chaldean Catholic Church)\n\nEconomy\n\n View of Central Business district\n\nBaghdad serves as the commercial and financial hub, home to 22% of the population, and generates 40% of Iraq's GDP.[224] It connects trade routes between Turkey, Syria, India, and Southeast Asia.[225] As the capital, it hosts government institutions and state enterprises, key sources of employment.[225] The public education system follows Ba'athist socialist ideologies, for employment in the public sector.[226] Since 2003, the public sector has struggled to provide jobs, and the private sector hasn't grown sufficiently, leading companies to hire mainly foreigners.[226] To address this, NGOs are establishing incubation centers in the city.[227]\n\nBaghdad serves as headquarters for important companies of Iraq, such as Iraq National Oil Company, State Organization for Marketing of Oil and Iraqi Airways.[225] Baghdad is home to large insurance companies and banks - Central Bank of Iraq, Rafidain Bank, and Rashid Bank and regional headquarters for First Abu Dhabi Bank, Fransabank and Saudi National Bank.[228] Multinational companies such as Honeywell, Shell, General Electric, SalamAir and Robert Bosch GmbH have established their regional base.[228] Baghdad is also home to Iraq Stock Exchange, that was established in 1992. Most of these establishments are located in Al-Rasheed Street, Karrada and Mansour district.[225]\n\nIt was once one of the main destinations in the region with a wealth of cultural attractions.[229] Tourism has diminished due to wars, but in recent years the city has a revival in tourism although still facing challenges.[230] There are numerous historic, scientific and artistic museums in Baghdad.[231][232] Religious tourism in Baghdad has grown since 2003, with sites like Al-Kadhimiya Mosque, Abu Hanifa Mosque, Mausoleum of Abdul-Qadir Gilani, and Buratha Mosque attracting visitors from Iran, Pakistan, and India, while non-religious tourists mainly come from Turkey, France, and the United States.[233] About 1 million people visit the city annually for religious purposes.[233] The pilgrims are both Shia and Sunni Muslims.[234]\n\nThe city contains the factories of carpets, leather and textiles, workshops, cement and tobacco factories.[235] Industrial areas extend from the city center to outside and suburbs in the metropolitan area, such as Taji and northern Baghdad.[235] Subsequently, it has produced a wide variety of consumer and industrial goods, including processed foods and beverages, clothes, footwear, wood products, furniture, paper and printed material, bricks, chemicals, plastics, electrical equipment, and metal and nonmetallic products.[235] Bismayah, southeast of Baghdad, is home to world's largest precast factory.[228] In agricultural aspect, palm groves are spread in the city, and many of its people depends on the cultivation of many yields.[228]\n\nBaghdad, like other provinces such as Babylon, Karbala and Qadissiya, contains metals such as aluminum, ceramics, nickel, manganese and chromium, whose size is not yet known, being recently discovered by local Iraqi cadres lacking experience and mechanisms to determine the size of these explorations.[228] An oilfield is located in eastern Baghdad.[236] It was believed that the quantities of oil is modest, but the drilling disclosed that its size exceeds the initial estimates, and has northern extensions in the province of Salah al-Din, and southern province of Wasit.[236] The city is also home to Dora Refinery, a large oil refinery in Dora, which is the 3rd largest in Iraq in terms of production.[228] The production of it exceeds 200,000 barrels (32,000 m3) per day, while its total production estimated if it was developed up to 120,000 barrels (19,000 m3) per day.[228]\n\nMost reconstruction efforts have been devoted to the restoration and repair of badly damaged urban infrastructure.[237] Some of the private projects includes Baghdad Renaissance Plan, Sindbad Hotel Complex and Conference Center, and Central Bank of Iraq Tower. Other proposed projects include Romantic Island and Baghdad Gate.[238][239] Numerous projects have been also impacted due to corruption.[240] According to a report published by CNBC, there are around 150 entertainment projects planned for the city.[241] Many of them were delayed due to government policies.[241] Also Baghdad has witnessed the opening of dozens of tourist complexes annually with areas reaching 20,000 square metres (4.9 acres) in addition to some major tourism projects with areas exceeding 50,000 square metres (12 acres) with the aim of investment combining trade and tourism as a distinctive economic model.[241] In recent years, Baghdad has also adopted modern economic trends like, establishment of startup hubs, office space and incubation centers, as well as development of shopping malls such as Baghdad Mall and Dijlah Village.[227]\n\nTransportation\n\nBaghdad lacks substantial public transportation, and taxis are the primary means of transportation in the city. Roads in Baghdad have been known to be especially congested since at least 2003.[242] According to MP Jassim Al-Bukhati in 2021, \"Baghdad's roads are designed to accommodate 700,000 cars, while now there are between 2.5 and 3 million cars on them\".[243] This is because, since 2003, car imports have increased.[243] Since then, river-based water transport has become a popular mode of transport. Use of boats crossing across the river saves time for travelers escaping congestion.[244] Private organizations are working to improve the transport system.[245][246]\nAmong the major bridges connecting Karkh and Rusafa are 14th of July Bridge, Al-Aimmah Bridge and Al-Sarafiya Bridge.[247] In 2023, the authorities announced plans to build 19 bridges in Baghdad.[247] This is a part of its post-war reconstruction efforts, as many bridges were damaged during the war.[247] Streets, avenues and alleys form an important part of the transport network.[248] Al-Sa'doun Street stretches from Liberation Square to Masbah.[248] Abu Nuwas Street runs along the Tigris from the Jumhouriya Bridge to 14 July Suspended Bridge.[248] Damascus Street goes from Damascus Square to the Baghdad Airport Road.[248] Hilla Road runs from the north into Baghdad via Yarmouk.[248] Mutanabbi Street is a street with numerous bookshops, named after the 10th century Iraqi poet Al-Mutanabbi.[248] Caliphs Street is the site of historical mosques and churches.[248]\n\nAir transport\n\nIraqi Airways, the national airline of Iraq, operates out of Baghdad International Airport in Baghdad.[249] The airport was opened by Saddam Hussein in 1982 as Saddam International Airport.[249] It was closed as result of the Gulf War and subsequent embargo.[250] The airport was reopened in August 2000.[250] The airport adopted its current name after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[250]\n\nPlanned Baghdad Metro\n\nThe Baghdad Metro project was first proposed during the 1970s but did not come to fruition due to wars and sanctions. After the Iraq war, Iraqi authorities intended to revive the project, but it was again delayed due to domestic instability.[251] In 2019, it was reported that Korean Hyundai and French Alstom would be building the metro.[252] However, the planned construction did not happen.\n\nAs of February 2024, the current plan consisted of fully electric and automated (driverless) trains running on an extensive railway network including an underground railway portion as well as an elevated railway. The proposed Baghdad Metro system includes seven main lines with a total length of more than 148 kilometres, 64 metro stations, four workshops and depots for trains, several operations control centers (OCC) and seven main power stations (MPS) with a capacity of 250 mega-watts, and several Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) towers. The metro will be equipped with CCTV and internet as well as USB ports for charging. Special compartments will be allocated for women and children as well as seats for people with special needs, pregnant women, and the elderly. The metro stations will be connected to other public transport networks such as buses and taxis, and 10 parking spaces will be available for commuters. The planned operating speed will be 80-140 km/hour with an estimated 3.25 million riders per day.[253]\n\nIn July 2024, it was announced that an international consortium of German, French, Spanish, and Turkish companies was awarded $17.5 billion contract to construct Baghdad's metro.[254] The consortium includes Alstom, Systra, SNCF, Talgo, Deutsche Bank and SENER. The consortium was then to negotiate the technical, financial and operational details of the project which is now estimated to be completed in May 2029.[255]\n\nCityscape\n\nThe Round City was the core of the city, during the establishment of Baghdad. It ceased to exist, as a result of the Mongolian siege. Urban features such as streets, avenues, alleyways and squares clusters a large number of landmarks, which itself creates an identity of cultural or intellectual hubs and define the beauty of Baghdad.\n\nAl-Rasheed Street is one of the most significant landmarks in Baghdad. Located in al-Rusafa area, the street was an artistic, intellectual and cultural center for many Baghdadis. It also included many prominent theaters and nightclubs such as the Crescent Theatre where Egyptian Singer Umm Kulthum sang during her visit in 1932 as well as the Chakmakji Company that recorded the music of various Arab singers.[256] The street also contains famous landmarks including the ancient Haydar-Khana Mosque as well as numerous well-known cafés such as al-Zahawi Café and the Brazilian Café.[257][258]\n\nMutanabbi Street is located near the old quarter of Baghdad; at Al-Rasheed Street. It is the historic center of Baghdadi book-selling, a street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. It was named after the 10th-century classical Iraqi poet Al-Mutanabbi.[259] This street is well established for bookselling and has often been referred to as the heart and soul of the Baghdad literacy and intellectual community.[259] Firdos Square is a public open space in Baghdad and the location of two of the best-known hotels, the Palestine Hotel and the Sheraton Ishtar, which are both also the tallest buildings in Baghdad.[260] The square was the site of the statue of Saddam Hussein that was pulled down by the coalition forces in a widely televised event during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.\n\nQushla or Qishla is a public square and the historical complex located in al-Rusafa neighborhood at the riverbank of Tigris.[261] The place and its surroundings is where the historical features and cultural capitals of Baghdad are concentrated, from the Mutanabbi Street, Abbasid-era palace and bridges, Ottoman-era mosques to the Mustansiriyya Madrasa.[261] The square developed during the Ottoman era as a military barracks.[261] It became a place where the citizens of Baghdad find leisure such as reading poetry in gazebos.[261] It is characterized by the iconic clock tower which was donated by George V.[261] The entire area is submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Tentative list.[262]\n\nArchitecture\n\nDuring the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam Hussein's government built new monuments, mosques, palaces and hotels.[263] The Street's architecture and aesthetic was inspired by Renaissance architecture and also includes the famous Iraqi shanasheel.[264]\n\nModern landmarks\n\nThe National Museum of Iraq whose collection of artifacts was looted during the invasion, and the iconic Hands of Victory arches.[265] Multiple political parties are in discussions as to whether the arches should remain as historical monuments or be dismantled.[265] Thousands of ancient manuscripts in the National Library were destroyed under Saddam's command.[265]\n\nGrand Festivities Square is the main square where public celebrations are held and is also the home to three important monuments commemorating Iraqi's fallen soldiers and victories in war; namely Al-Shaheed Monument, the Victory Arch and the Unknown Soldier's Monument.[266] Al-Shaheed Monument, also known as the Martyr's Memorial, is dedicated to the Iraqi soldiers who died in the Iran-Iraq War.[266] However, it is since generally considered by Iraqis to be for all of the martyrs of Iraq, especially those allied with Iran and Syria fighting ISIS, not just of the Iran-Iraq War.[266] The monument was opened in 1983, and was designed by the Iraqi architect Saman Kamal and the Iraqi sculptor and artist Ismail Fatah Al Turk.[266] Though these works symbolize the ruling entity.[122] Neverthelsess, they have remained part of architectural legacy, which beautified Baghdad.[122]\n\nMasjid Al-Kadhimain is a shrine that is located in the Kādhimayn suburb of Baghdad.[206][267] It contains the tombs of the seventh and ninth Twelver Shi'ite Imams, Musa al-Kadhim and Muhammad at-Taqi respectively, upon whom the title of Kādhimayn (\"Two who swallow their anger\") was bestowed.[268][267][206] Many Shi'ites travel to the mosque from far away places to commemorate those imams.[206][267] A'dhamiyyah is a predominantly Sunni area with a Mosque that is associated with the Sunni Imam Abu Hanifa. The name of Al-Aʿẓamiyyah is derived from Abu Hanifa's title, al-Imām al-Aʿẓam (the Great Imam).[269][270]\n\nThe historic Jewish quarters of Bataween and Shorja is home to numerous sites associated with Jews.[271] These sites were preserved during the Ba'athist regime.[272] However, after 2003, many of them are in poor condition.[272] Meir Taweig Synagogue is the only active synagogue of Iraq, having a large compound that consists of a community center, Jewish school and library.[272] Daniel Market (Souq Danial), which was named after Menahem Saleh Daniel, still bears the same name. It is popular for fabrics and shoes.[272] The Great Synagogue of Baghdad, the oldest synagogue of Iraq, is restored as a museum.[272] Al-Habibiyah Cemetery is the largest Jewish cemetery in Baghdad, home to about 1,000 graves.[272] The Tomb of Joshua became a Muslim shrine, but is believed to be the burial site of Joshua.[272] Shaykh Yitzhak Tomb and Synagogue was preserved until 2003. but has since become neglected. Other sites include House of Sassoon Eskell and library of Mir Basri.[272]\n\nThe Sabian-Mandaean Mandi of Baghdad is a Mandaen temple in al-Qadisiyyah.[273] It is the main community center for Mandaeans in Iraq.[273] Plans are underway to demolish and build a larger one to accommodate more worshippers.[273] A cultural institute for Mandeans is also in Baghdad.[274] The city is home to Baba Nanak Shrine, a sacred site in Sikhism.[6] It was destroyed during the Iraq War in 2003.[6] In the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad, was the house of Baháʼu'lláh, (Prophet Founder of the Baháʼí Faith) also known as the \"Most Great House\" (Bayt-i-Aʻzam) and the \"House of God\", where Baháʼu'lláh mostly resided from 1853 to 1863. It is considered a holy place and a place of pilgrimage by Baháʼís according to their \"Most Holy Book\".[275] On 23 June 2013, the house was destroyed under unclear circumstances.[223]\nBaghdad Zoo was once the largest zoological park in the Middle East. Within eight days following the 2003 invasion, however, only 35 of the 650 animals in the facility survived.[276] This was a result of theft of some animals for human food, and starvation of caged animals that had no food.[276] Conservationist Lawrence Anthony and some of the zoo keepers cared for the animals and fed the carnivores with donkeys they had bought locally.[276][277] Eventually Paul Bremer, Director of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq after the invasion, ordered protection for the zoo and enlisted U.S. engineers to help reopen the facility.[276] Al-Zawraa Park is also part of the zoo, which is a main urban park of the city.[276]\n\n Al-Salam Palace\n\n Baghdadi Museum\n\n Iraq National Museum\n\n Abd al-Karim Qasim Museum\n\n Al-Zawraa Park with Al-Rahman Mosque in background\n\nEducation\n\nThe House of Wisdom was a major academy and public center in Baghdad. The Mustansiriya Madrasa was established in 1227 by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustansir. The name was changed to al-Mustansiriya University in 1963. The University of Baghdad is the largest university in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab world. Prior to the Gulf War, multiple international schools operated in Baghdad, including:\n\nÉcole française de Bagdad[278]\n\nDeutsche Schule Bagdad[279]\n\nBaghdad Japanese School (バグダッド日本人学校), a nihonjin gakko[280]\n\nUniversities\n\nUniversity of Baghdad\n\nMustansiriya University\n\nIraqi University\n\nNahrain University\n\nAlbayan University\n\nUniversity of Technology\n\nAmerican University of Iraq - Baghdad\n\nAl-Turath University College\n\nDijlah University College\n\nCulture\n\nBaghdad has always played a significant role in the broader Arab cultural sphere, contributing several significant writers, musicians and visual artists. Historically, the city had a vibrant modern culture and lifestyle.[125] Famous Arab poets and singers such as Nizar Qabbani, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, Salah Al-Hamdani, Ilham al-Madfai and others have performed for the city. The dialect of Arabic spoken in Baghdad differs from that of other large urban centers in Iraq, having features more characteristic of nomadic Arabic dialects (Versteegh, The Arabic Language). It is possible that this was caused by the repopulating of the city with rural residents after the multiple sackings of the late Middle Ages. For poetry written about Baghdad, see Reuven Snir (ed.), Baghdad: The City in Verse (Harvard, 2013).[281] Baghdad joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature in December 2015.[282]\n\nSome of the important cultural institutions in the city include the National Theater, which was looted during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but efforts are underway to restore the theater.[283] The live theater industry received a boost during the 1990s, when UN sanctions limited the import of foreign films. As many as 30 movie theaters were reported to have been converted to live stages, producing a wide range of comedies and dramatic productions.[284] Institutions offering cultural education in Baghdad include The Music and Ballet School of Baghdad and the Institute of Fine Arts Baghdad. The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra is a government funded symphony orchestra in Baghdad. The INSO plays primarily classical European music, as well as original compositions based on Iraqi and Arab instruments and music. Mandaeans had cultural club in Al-Zawraa, where poetry evenings and cultural seminars were held, attended by poets, writers, artists, officials, and dignitaries of the communities.[285] There is also a social cultural center of Mandaeans at al-Qadisiyyah.[285] Baghdad Jewish Community Center is located in Al-Rashid Street.[286]\n\nBaghdad is also home to a number of museums which housed artifacts and relics of ancient civilization; many of these were stolen, and the museums looted, during the widespread chaos immediately after United States forces entered the city.\n\nDuring occupation of Iraq, AFN Iraq (\"Freedom Radio\") broadcast news and entertainment within Baghdad, among other locations. There is also a private radio station called \"Dijlah\" (named after the Arabic word for the Tigris River) that was created in 2004 as Iraq's first independent talk radio station. Radio Dijlah offices, in the Jamia neighborhood of Baghdad, have been attacked on several occasions.[287]\n\nSport\n\nBaghdad is home to some of the most successful football (soccer) teams in Iraq, the biggest being Al-Shorta (Police), Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya (Air Force), Al-Zawraa, and Al-Talaba (Students). The largest stadium in Baghdad is Al-Shaab Stadium, which was opened in 1966. In recent years, the capital has seen the building of several football stadiums which are meant be opened in the near future. The city has also had a strong tradition of horse racing ever since World War I, known to Baghdadis simply as 'Races'. There are reports of pressures by the Islamists to stop this tradition due to the associated gambling.[288]\n\nClub\n\nFounded\n\nLeague\n\nAl-Quwa Al-Jawiya SC\n\n1931\n\nIraq Stars League\n\nAl-Shorta SC\n\n1932\n\nIraq Stars League\n\nAl-Zawraa SC\n\n1969\n\nIraq Stars League\n\nAl-Talaba SC\n\n1969\n\nIraq Stars League\n\nTwin towns - sister cities\n\n Cairo, Egypt[289]\n\n Pyongyang, North Korea[290]\n\n Tehran, Iran[291]\n\n Jerusalem (East), Palestine[292]\n\nSee also\n\nIraqi art\n\nList of mosques in Baghdad\n\nList of places in Iraq\n\nHistory of the Jews in Baghdad\n\nBattle of Baghdad (2003)\n\nNotes\n\n^ /ˈbæɡdæd/ ⓘ BAG-dad or /bəɡˈdæd/ bəg-DAD; Arabic: بَغْدَاد, romanized: Baḡdād, [baɣˈdaːd] ⓘ\n\nReferences\n\n^ Petersen, Andrew (13 September 2011). \"Baghdad (Madinat al-Salam)\". Islamic Arts & Architecture. Archived from the original on 16 September 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2016.\n\n^ \"Governorates and cities in Iraq\". City Population. 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Railwaygazette.\n\n^ جواد, قحطان جاسم. \"أم كلثوم ونجيب الريحاني وبديعة مصابني قدموا أبرز أعمالهم على مسارحه.. جولة في شارع الرشيد في بغداد في ذكرى تأسيسه\". الجزيرة نت (in Arabic). Al Jazeera. Retrieved 23 July 2023.\n\n^ \"الحيدر خانة تتكسر معالمه ووزارة الثقافة تعلّق بإحباط على إعمار محتضن قادة ثورة العشرين! » وكالة بغداد اليوم الاخبارية\". وكالة بغداد اليوم الاخبارية (in Arabic). Retrieved 23 July 2023.\n\n^ \"الگاردينيا - مجلة ثقافية عامة - مقاهي بغداد ... ذاكرة المكان وملتقى الثقافة\". algardenia.com. Retrieved 23 July 2023.\n\n^ a b Owles, Eric (18 December 2008). \"Then and Now: A New Chapter for Baghdad Book Market\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 21 December 2008. Retrieved 19 May 2010.\n\n^ \"Iraq: A Guide to the Green Zone\". Newsweek. 17 December 2006. Archived from the original on 27 January 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2018.\n\n^ a b c d e Al-Qushla: Iraq's oasis of free expression. Archived 16 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine Al-Jazeera. Retrieved 16 January 2018.\n\n^ 5880 Archived 4 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine. UNESCO. Retrieved 16 January 2018.\n\n^ Ouroussoff, Nicolai (15 December 2003). \"Patron of fear\". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 May 2025.\n\n^ \"عراقٌ انا | الشـناشـيل ج2\". عراقٌ انا (in Arabic). 21 June 2017. Archived from the original on 14 June 2023. Retrieved 23 July 2023.\n\n^ a b c Burkeman, Oliver (15 April 2003). \"Ancient archive lost in Baghdad library blaze\". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 28 November 2024.\n\n^ a b c d Makiya, K.; Al-Khalilm, S., The Monument: Art, Vulgarity, and Responsibility in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, p. 29\n\n^ a b c افتتاحية قبة الامام الجواد عليه السلام. aljawadain.org (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 13 August 2009. Retrieved 27 April 2009.\n\n^ \"تاریخچه حرم کاظمین\" (in Persian). kazem.ommolketab.ir. Archived from the original on 10 March 2018. Retrieved 15 June 2017.\n\n^ al-Aadhamy. History of the Great Imam mosque and al-Adhamiyah mosques 1. p. 29.\n\n^ Al Shakir, Osama S. (20 October 2013). \"History of the Moof Abu Hanifa and its school\". Abu Hanifa An-Nu'man Mosque. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 20 June 2017. (in Arabic)\n\n^ Mahmoud, Sinan; Al-Ameri, Aymen. \"Restoring Al Bataween - a symbol of Baghdad's lost diversity\". The National. Retrieved 28 November 2024.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Al-Ahmed, Zeyad (11 March 2021). \"Iraqi Jews share a deeply rooted heritage\". JNS.org. Retrieved 28 November 2024.\n\n^ a b c \"مندى الصابئة / الصابئة المندائية - بغداد\". www-cese-iq.translate.goog. Archived from the original on 23 February 2026. Retrieved 2 October 2024.\n\n^ \"المندائيون يحتفلون بافتتاح أول صرح معرفي وثقافي لهم في بغداد\". Asharq Al-Awsat (in Arabic). Retrieved 1 December 2024.\n\n^ Smith, Peter (2000). \"Baghdad: the House of Baháʼu'lláh\" A concise encyclopedia of the Baháʼí Faith. Oxford: Oxford: Oneworld Publications. pp. 66-67. ISBN 978-1-85168-184-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ a b c d e \"The Choice, featuring Lawrence Anthony\". BBC Radio 4. 4 September 2007. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2007.\n\n^ Anthony, Lawrence; Spence Grayham (3 June 2007). Babylon's Ark; The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-0-312-35832-7.\n\n^ \"Arrêté du 22 novembre 1990 complétant l'arrêté du 23 août 1990 fixant la liste des établissements d'enseignement prévue à l'article 1er du décret no 90-469 du 31 mai 1990\" (Archive). Legislature of France. Retrieved on 12 March 2016.\n\n^ \"Deutscher Bundestag 4. Wahlperiode Drucksache IV/3672\" (Archive). Bundestag (West Germany). 23 June 1965. Retrieved on 12 March 2016. p. 35/51.\n\n^ \"中近東の日本人学校一覧\" (). National Education Center (国立教育会館) of Japan. 21 February 1999. Retrieved on 12 March 2016. \"バクダッド 休 校 中 \" (means \"Baghdad School Closed\")\n\n^ \"Baghdad: The City in Verse, translated and edited by Reuven Snir\". Harvard University Press. Archived from the original on 19 August 2019. Retrieved 8 September 2019.\n\n^ \"Baghdad celebrates selection as UNESCO City of Literature | Nermeen Mufti\". AW. Archived from the original on 30 January 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2021.\n\n^ \"Five women confront a new Iraq | csmonitor.com\". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 28 August 2009.\n\n^ \"In Baghdad, Art Thrives As War Hovers\". Commondreams.org. 2 January 2003. Archived from the original on 27 June 2010. Retrieved 27 April 2010.\n\n^ a b \"الگاردينيا - مجلة ثقافية عامة - \"الصابئة المندائية عراقيون، منهم العلماء.. والشعراء والمهنيين والصاغة، كيف كانوا واين اصبحوا!؟\"\". algardenia.com. Retrieved 11 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Muslims Rescue Baghdad's Jewish Community Center\". Arab News. 13 April 2003. Retrieved 5 February 2025.\n\n^ \"Gunmen storm independent radio station in latest attack against media in Iraq\". International Herald Tribune. 29 March 2009. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2016.\n\n^ Thomas, Claire (13 February 2018). \"And they're off! Iraqi Kurdistan holds first cash-betting horse race\". english.alaraby.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 December 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2021.\n\n^ \"Brotherhood & Friendship Agreements\". cairo.gov.eg. Cairo. Archived from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2023.\n\n^ Corfield, Justin (2013). \"Sister Cities\". Historical Dictionary of Pyongyang. London: Anthem Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-85728-234-7.\n\n^ \"گذری بر خواهرخوانده تهران در شرق اروپا\" (in Persian). Iranian Students' News Agency. 21 March 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2023.\n\n^ \"Baghdad and East Jerusalem Called Sister Cities in 'the Cause of Peace'\". Los Angeles Times. 16 February 1988. Retrieved 20 May 2025.\n\nSources\n\nDefrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B. R., eds. (1854), Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah (in French and Arabic), vol. 2, Paris: Société Asiatic\n\nDunn, Ross E. (2005), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-24385-9\n\nLe Strange, Guy (2011). Baghdad: During the Abbasid Caliphate. Cosimo, Inc. ISBN 978-1-61640-532-8.\n\nLevy, Reuben (2011). A Baghdad Chronicle. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-60054-6.\n\nFurther reading\n\nArticles\n\nA Dweller in Mesopotamia, being the adventures of an official artist in the Garden of Eden, by Donald Maxwell, 1921 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & \"layered PDF\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 September 2005. (7.53 MB) format)\n\nBy Desert Ways to Baghdad, by Louisa Jebb (Mrs. Roland Wilkins), 1908 (1909 ed) (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & \"layered PDF\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 September 2005. (11.3 MB) format)\n\nMiastoprojekt goes abroad: the transfer of architectural labour from socialist Poland to Iraq (1958-1989) by Lukasz Stanek, The Journal of Architecture, Volume 17, Issue 3, 2012\n\nBooks\n\nCaecilia Pieri, Bagdad, la construction d'une capitale moderne, 1914-1960, Presses de l'Ifpo, 2015, 440 pages, about 800 illustrations (ISBN 978-2-35159-399-8) (ISSN 2225-7578).\n\nMina Marefat, Caecilia Pieri, Gilles Ragot, Le Corbusier's Gymnasium in Bagdad, 2014, Éditions du patrimoine, collection Regards (French and English versions), Presses de l'Ifpo (Arabic version) (ISBN 978-2-7577-0301-4).\n\nPieri, Caecilia (2011). Baghdad Arts Deco: Architectural Brickwork, 1920-1950 (1st ed.). The American University in Cairo Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-977-416-356-2.\n\n\"Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-135\" by Ibn Battuta.\n\n\"Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914.\" by Bell Gertrude Lowthian, and O'Brien, Rosemary.\n\n\"Historic Cities of the Islamic World\". by Bosworth, Clifford Edmund.\n\n\"Ottoman administration of Iraq, 1890-1908.\" by Cetinsaya, Gokhan.\n\n\"Naked in Baghdad.\" by Garrels, Anne, and Lawrence, Vint.\n\n\"A memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson.\" by Rawlinson, George.\n\nStanek, Łukasz (2020). Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War. Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-19455-4.\n\nExternal links\n\nAmanat/Mayoralty of Baghdad\n\nMap of Baghdad Archived 30 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine\n\nIraq Image - Baghdad Satellite Observation\n\nNational Commission for Investment in Iraq\n\nInteractive map\n\nIraq - Urban Society\n\n- Baghdad government websites Archived 22 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine\n\nEnvisioning Reconstruction In Iraq\n\nDescription of the original layout of Baghdad\n\nEthnic and sectarian map of Baghdad - Healingiraq\n\nMan With A Plan: Hisham Ashkouri\n\nBehind Baghdad's 9/11\n\nIraq Inter-Agency Information & Analysis Unit Reports, maps and assessments of Iraq from the UN Inter-Agency Information & Analysis Unit\n\n Geographic data related to Baghdad at OpenStreetMap"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-baghdad"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 17835}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-the-netherlands", "title": "Assyrians in the Netherlands", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in the Netherlands (Dutch: Assyriërs in Nederland) are Dutch citizens of Assyrian descent. They mainly live in the east of the country, in the province of Overijssel, in such cities as Enschede, Hengelo, Rijssen, Almelo and Borne. The main reason that the Assyrians are concentrated there is...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in the Netherlands\nAssyriërs in Nederland\nTotal population\n\n30.000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nTwente, Amsterdam and surroundings\n\nLanguages\n\nAramaic (Surayt and Suret)\n Dutch\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic\n\nAssyrians in the Netherlands (Dutch: Assyriërs in Nederland) are Dutch citizens of Assyrian descent. They mainly live in the east of the country, in the province of Overijssel, in such cities as Enschede, Hengelo, Rijssen, Almelo and Borne. The main reason that the Assyrians are concentrated there is because it is an industrial area which lies at the Germany-Netherlands border, where a large German Assyrian population resides. Many Assyrians in the Netherlands have relatives in Germany.\n\nHistory\n\nThe first Assyrians came to the Netherlands in the 1970s as a result of fights between the PKK and the Turkish army. Most of them were from the province of Mardin in southeastern Turkey, where the aforementioned conflict took place. In the 1980s, Assyrians from Syria, with almost all of them being from the originally Assyrian city of Qamishli (Syriac: ܒܬ ܙܠܝܢ Bet Zalin), began to emigrate to the Netherlands. The latest group of Assyrians to migrate to the Netherlands are from Iraq, and they have been arriving there since the first Gulf War. The large majority of Turkish and Syrian Assyrians in the Netherlands belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church since they are from the western part of the Assyrian homeland, where the Syriac Orthodox Church is the most prominent.\n\nIn the 1980s, as with other immigrants in Europe, a strong feeling of nationalism started to develop among the Assyrians in the Netherlands. This sentiment started to make Assyrians be active in working for projects that helped them preserve their identity. A few projects that started out were Assyrian society building, Assyrians churches and Assyrians language classes, which were being given in Dutch schools to Assyrian children and also on weekends in so-called Bible school classes. They also started camps for Assyrians youth and Assyrian music and dance classes were offered in the community. For adult Assyrians, lectures on society building and many social events were organized. Since 1981 there has been a Syriac Orthodox monastery in the village Glane near the German border.\n\nThe Assyrians began to organize demonstrations to bring their situation in the Assyrian homeland to the attention of the media and to bring the 20th century Assyrian genocide to the attention of the Dutch government.\n\nCurrent situation\n\nThe Assyrians have managed to both integrate into Dutch society and maintain their own ethnic identity, as there are a lot of social events organized by Assyrian clubs. Some of the latest projects which Assyrians in the Netherlands have started are: the Seyfo Center, the Assyrian Church Choir, representation of Assyrians in the Dutch government (such as Attiya Gamri), and the foundation of the Assyrian Youth Movement (AJF).\n\nAssyrians in the Netherlands mostly belong to Syriac Orthodox Church, but there is also a small community belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church and Syriac Catholic Church. The first Assyrians mainly worked in factories or opened restaurants, but today, mostly attend university and work in all sectors of the economy.\n\nNotable people\n\nAttiya Gamri\n\nGeorge Aslan\n\nNinos Gouriye\n\nJasar Takak\n\nSee also\n\nTurks in the Netherlands\n\nIranians in the Netherlands\n\nSyrians in the Netherlands\n\nIraqis in the Netherlands\n\nKurds in the Netherlands\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"In Nederland\". 14 November 2015.\n\nExternal links\n\nhttp://www.assyrie.nl/"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-the-netherlands"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 572}, {"slug": "reference-mesopotamian-mythology", "title": "Mesopotamian mythology", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Mesopotamian mythology refers to the myths, religious texts, and other literature that comes from the region of ancient Mesopotamia which is a historical region of Western Asia, situated within the Tigris-Euphrates river system that occupies the area of present-day Iraq. In particular the societies of Sumer, Akkad, and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mesopotamian mythology refers to the myths, religious texts, and other literature that comes from the region of ancient Mesopotamia which is a historical region of Western Asia, situated within the Tigris-Euphrates river system that occupies the area of present-day Iraq. In particular the societies of Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria, all of which existed shortly after 3000 BCE and were mostly gone by 400 CE.[1] These works were primarily preserved on stone or clay tablets and were written in cuneiform by scribes. Several lengthy pieces have survived erosion and time, some of which are considered the oldest stories in the world, and have given historians insight into Mesopotamian ideology and cosmology.\n\nCreation myths\n\nThere are many different accounts of the creation of the earth from the Mesopotamian region. This is because of the many different cultures in the area and the shifts in narratives that are common in ancient cultures due to their reliance on word of mouth to transmit stories. These myths can share related themes, but the chronology of events vary based on when or where the story was written down.\n\nAtra-Hasis\n\nAtra-Hasis refers both to one of the Mesopotamian myths focusing on the earth’s creation, and also the main character of that myth.[2] The myth possibly has Assyrian roots, as a fragmented version may have been found in the library of Ashurbanipal, though translations remain unsure. Its most complete surviving version was recorded in Akkadian. The myth begins with humans being created by the mother goddess Mami to lighten the gods' workload. She made them out of a mixture of clay, flesh, and blood from a slain god. Later in the story though, the god Enlil attempts to control overpopulation of humans through various methods, including famine, drought, and finally, a great flood. Mankind is saved by Atrahasis, who was warned of the flood by the god Enki and built a boat to escape the waters, eventually placating the gods with sacrifices.[2]\n\nEridu Genesis\n\nEridu Genesis has a similar plot to that of the Akkadian myth, Atra-Hasis, though it is harder to tell what happens exactly in Eridu Genesis because the tablet upon which it was recorded is badly damaged. The two stories share the flood as the major event however, although the hero who survives in Eridu Genesis is called Zi-ud-sura instead of Atrahasis. Eridu Genesis was recorded around the same time as Atra-Hasis, however the fragmented tablet that held it was found in Nippur, located in modern-day east Iraq, while the version of Atra-hasis that came from the same time was found in the library of Ashurbanipal, in modern-day north Iraq.[1]\n\nEnuma Elish\n\nEnuma Elis (also spelled Enuma Elish) is a Babylonian creation myth with an unclear composition, though it possibly dates back to the Bronze Age. This piece was thought to be recited in a ritual celebration of the Babylonian new year. It chronicles the birth of the gods, the world, and man, whose purpose was to serve the gods and lighten their work load.[2] The focus of the narrative is on praising Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, who creates the world, the calendar, and humanity.\n\nHeroic epics\n\nThese stories tended to focus on a great hero, following their journey through trials or simply important events in their life. Stories like these can be found in many different cultures around the world, and often give insight into the values of those societies. For example, in a culture that celebrated a hero that was devout to the gods or respected their father, it can be inferred that the society valued those traits.\n\nEpic of Gilgamesh\n\nThe Epic of Gilgamesh is a well known Mesopotamian myth, often regarded as the oldest surviving work of literature. It was initially a number of individual short stories, and was not combined into one cohesive epic until the 18th century BCE.[1] The story follows the Sumerian king Gilgamesh, typically regarded as a historical figure, and his good friend, Enkidu through various adventures and quests that eventually lead to Enkidu's death. The second half of the epic deal with Gilgamesh, distressed about the death of his friend and his own impending mortality, as he searches for immortality. In the end he fails, but he comes to terms with the fact that he is eventually going to die and returns to his city of Uruk a wiser king.[3]\n\nThe Myth of Adapa\n\nThe earliest record of the myth of Adapa is from the 18th century BCE. Adapa was a Sumerian citizen who was blessed by the god Enki with immeasurable intelligence. However, one day Adapa was knocked into the sea by the south wind, and in a rage he broke the south wind’s wings so that it could no longer blow. Adapa was summoned to be judged by An, and before he left Enki warned him not to eat or drink anything offered to him. However, An had a change of heart when he realized just how smart Adapa was, and offered him the food of immortality, which Adapa, dutiful to Enki, turned down. This story is used as an explanation for humankind’s mortality, it is associated with the fall of man narrative that is also present in Christianity.[4]\n\nCommon themes\n\nImmortality is a constant goal of the characters in Mesopotamian epics. No matter the version of the story, the man who survives the flood, whether Atrahasis, Zi-ud-sura, or Utnapishtim, is granted immortality by the gods. This character then makes a reappearance in the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Gilgamesh is searching for immortality after coming to fear death and the underworld after hearing stories from his friend, Enkidu, about what awaits humanity after death. Enkidu says:\n\nOn entering the House of Dust,\neverywhere I looked there were royal crowns gathered in heaps,\neverywhere I listened, it was the bearers of crowns,\nwho, in the past, had ruled the land,\nbut who now served Anu and Enlil cooked meats,\nserved confections, and poured cool water from waterskins.[5]\n\nUpon hearing that his position in life did not matter in the underworld, Gilgamesh is terrified and seeks out Utnapishtim, who has achieved immortality after surviving the flood sent by the gods to wipe out humanity. Immortality is also touched on in the myth of Adapa. Adapa’s accidental refusal to eat the food of immortality offered to him by the gods is used as an explanation for the fact that humans die.\n\nAlso common in Mesopotamian myths is the reoccurring concept that humanity’s purpose is to serve the gods.[6] In all of the creation myths, humans are only made by the gods in order to help in the fields or offer sacrifices. When they get to be too numerous, loud, or otherwise bothersome, the gods attempt to control the population through plagues, droughts, and most famously, the great flood. This disregard for human life emphasizes the hierarchy that existed in the Mesopotamian consciousness, with humans existing as subjects to the will of the gods.\n\nA recent comprehensive study of ancient Mesopotamian rituals and their correlations with myths reveals that another recurrent topic of Mesopotamian myths is that specific rituals (Sumerian: me; Akkadian: parṣu) are in the possession of certain gods and how these rituals came into the possession of other gods or how they were given by the gods to humankind.[7]\n\nSources\n\nModern understanding of Mesopotamian mythology has been provided through archeological excavations of West Asia and the recovery of many stone and clay tablets, some of which contained the records of many myths. There have been different versions of each myth found in various locations across the region, with inconsistencies between each but maintaining overall common themes and narratives. These versions were written in different languages, including Akkadian, Sumerian, and Old Babylonian, and were often translated from one to another, leading to further inconsistencies due to the inherently imperfect nature of these translations.[4]\n\nResearch\n\nSince 2026, the Living Library of Hylistics portal offers an overview of modern scholarly research on Mesopotamian (and other) myths, and also includes an introduction to the theory and methodology of mythological research.[8]\n\nSee also\n\nAncient Mesopotamian religion\n\nDescent of Inanna into the Underworld\n\nList of Mesopotamian deities\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Mesopotamian religion\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-05-02.\n\n^ a b c Myths from Mesopotamia : creation, the flood, Gilgamesh, and others. Dalley, Stephanie. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press. 1989. ISBN 0198143974. OCLC 19325158.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)\n\n^ David., Coogan, Michael (2013). A reader of ancient Near Eastern texts : sources for the study of the Old Testament. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195324921. OCLC 796081940.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ a b Mark, Altaweel (2018-02-26). Revolutionizing a world : from small states to universalism in the pre-Islamic Near East. Squitieri, Andrea. London. ISBN 9781911576631. OCLC 1028993193.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ The epic of Gilgamesh. Jackson, Danny P., 1946- (2nd ed.). Wauconda, Ill., USA: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. 1997. ISBN 0865163529. OCLC 37157754.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)\n\n^ Spar, Ira. \"Mesopotamian Creation Myths | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art\". The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved 2018-05-02.\n\n^ Zgoll, Annette (2025). Rituale: Schlüssel zur Welt hinter der Keilschrift. Göttinger Beiträge zum Alten Orient. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen. ISBN 978-3-86395-671-4.\n\n^ See https://hylistics.uni-goettingen.de\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Mythology of Mesopotamia at Wikimedia Commons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mesopotamian-mythology"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1573}, {"slug": "reference-adad-nirari-i", "title": "Adad-nirari I", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Adad-nārārī I (1305-1274 BC or 1295-1263 BC short chronology) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. His annals survived in more detail than most of his predecessors, and he achieved numerous major military victories that further strengthened the position of Assyria as the most powerful...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Adad-nirari I\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Middle Assyrian Empire\n\nReign31 regnal years\n1305-1274 BC (MC)[1]\n1295-1263 BC (SC)\n\nPredecessorArik-den-ili\n\nSuccessorShalmaneser I\n\nIssueShalmaneser I, Ibashi-ili\n\nFatherArik-den-ili\n\nAdad-nārārī I (1305-1274 BC or 1295-1263 BC short chronology) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. His annals survived in more detail than most of his predecessors, and he achieved numerous major military victories that further strengthened the position of Assyria as the most powerful state in the world at the time.\n\nEarly life\n\nHis name is rendered in all but two inscriptions ideographically as mdadad-ZAB+DAḪ, meaning \"Adad (is) my helper,\"[2]\n\nIn his inscriptions from Assur[3] he calls himself son of Arik-den-ili, the same filiations being recorded in the Nassouhi kinglist.[i 1] He is recorded as a son of Enlil-nirari in the Khorsabad kinglist[i 2] and the SDAS kinglist,[i 3] probably in error.\n\nReign\n\nEarly rule\n\nHe boasted that he was the \"defeater of the heroic armies of the Kassites (the ruling dynasty of their Babylonian neighbours to the south), Qutu (their eastern Gutean neighbours in northwestern Iran), Lullumu (the pre Indo-European Lullubi tribesmen of Ancient Iran immediately east of Assyria) and Shubaru (\" Hurrian and Hittite northerners in Asia Minor\").[4] Pacifier of all enemies above and below.\"[3] The defeat of Nazi-Maruttaš' Kassite forces must have been particularly sweet as his father \"could not rectify the calamities inflicted by the king of the Kassite lands,\" during his reign.[5] It took place at the town of Kar Ishtar in the province of Ugarsulu and victory was assured when Adad Nirari's army fell on the Kassite camp \"like a devastating flood,\" as described gloatingly by Tukulti-Ninurta I in his eponymous epic,[i 5] plundering and carrying off his royal standard.[i 6] This triumph resulted in a border realignment with Assyria extending its territory into southern Mesopotamia, into Pilasqu, the city of Arman in Ugarsallu and Lullumu.\n\nNazi-Maruttaš' successor, Kadašman-Turgu was sufficiently motivated to secure peace that he seems to have agreed to a humiliating treaty with Adad Nirari where \"he pardoned his (Nazi-Maruttaš') son of the crime,\" twice.[i 7]\n\nRelations with Mitanni and Hittites\n\nWith peace and territorial gains in Assyria's favour towards Babylon in the south, the Assyrians could turn their attention north and westwards, taking lands from the former Mitanni Empire. Under Shattiwaza, Hanigalbat (the southern remnant of the Mitanni Empire) had become a vassal state of the Hittite empire, celebrated with a treaty, as a buffer to the ascendant Assyrians. But treaties were between individual kings during the late bronze age as nation states had yet to emerge and with the accession of Shattuara I in Hanigalbat and Urhi Teššup as Mursili III of the Hittites and a waning of Hittite engagement in international affairs, the former may have sought to adopt a more independent position. \n\nAccording to Adad-nārārī, conflict was triggered by Shattuara's preemptive attack which resulted in the defeat and capture of the Mitanni king Shattuara, who was taken to Aššur and forced to swear fealty as a vassal of the Assyrians,[i 8] apparently without any attempted intervention by the Hittites, providing regular tribute for the remainder of his reign. \n\nBolstered by his military victories, Adad-nārārī pronounced himself šar kiššati, \"king of the universe,\" in imitation of his ancient predecessor Shamshi-Adad I, and greeted his Hittite counterpart on equal terms as a fellow \"great king.\" He invited himself to visit Amman Mountain (Amanus, a cult center perhaps?) in his \"brother's\" territory,[6] drawing a scathing put down from Hittite king Mursili III (Urhi Teššup),\n\nSo you've become a \"Great King,\" have you? But why do you still continue to speak about \"brotherhood\" and about coming to Mt. Ammana?... For what reason should I call you \"brother\"?…Do those who are not on familiar terms with each other call each other \"brother\"? Why then should I call you \"brother\"? Were you and I born of the same mother? As my grandfather and my father did not call the King of Assyria \"brother,\" you should not keep writing to me (about) \"coming\" and \"Great King-ship.\" It displeases me.[i 9][7]\n\nBy the time Hittite king Hattusili III (c. 1267-1237 BC) overthrew Urhi Teššup, the conquest was a fait accompli and a sheepish Hattušili was to request that Adad-nārārī intervene to curb the incursions of the people of Turira, a Hanigalbat frontier town, against those of Carchemish, still a loyal Hittite vassal but a future Assyrian city, \n\n\"If Turira is yours, smash it!... If Turira is not yours, write to me so that I may smash it. The possessions of your troops who are dwelling in the city shall not be claimed.\"\n\nHattušili's main complaint, however, was the breach in protocol caused when Adad-nārārī snubbed his inauguration: \n\n\"It is the custom that when kings assume kingship, the kings, his equals in rank, send him appropriate [gifts of greeting]. Clothing befitting kingship, and fine [oil] for his anointing. But you did not do this today.\"\n\nHattušili was at great pains to placate his Assyrian counterpart following the \"sad experiences\" encountered by his envoys in their dealings with his predecessor and call on Adad-nārārī to confirm with his own envoy, Bel-qarrad, that he had been treated well by Hattušili. Although still in the Bronze Age, iron was not unknown, and Hattušili goes on to discuss Adad-nārārī's request for the metal:\n\nIn regard to the good iron about which you wrote to me - good iron is not available in my armory in the city of Kizzuwatna. I have written that it is a bad time for making iron. They will make good iron, but they have not yet finished it. When they finish it, I will send it to you. For the moment, I have sent you a dagger blade of iron.[i 10] \n\nConflict with Hanigalbat resumed when Shattuara's son, Wasashatta, rebelled and engaged with the Hittites for support. Adad-nārārī was later to gloat that the Hittites took his gifts but gave nothing in return when he (Adad-nārārī) counterattacked, sacking and plundering the cities of Amasaku, Kahat, Shuru, Nabula, Hurra, Irridu, Shuduhu and Washshukanu,[i 8] places largely as yet unidentified, destroying the city of Taite (Taida) and sowing kudimmus over it.[nb 1] \n\nThe denouement took place at Irridu (Ordi?) where Wasashatta was captured and, along with his extended family and court, deported in fetters to Aššur where he vanished from history. Adad-nārārī annexed the kingdom of Hanigalbat, enslaved its people,[nb 2] and appointed a governor drawn from the Assyrian aristocracy. While the name of this individual is unknown, one of his successors, during the later reign of Šulmanu-ašaredu, was Qibi Assur who founded a short dynasty of Assyrian viceroys ruling over this region.\n\nGovernance\n\nThe seat of Assyrian governance was possibly Wasashatta's former capital, Taida, because his monumental steles recounted that it \"had become dilapidated and (he) removed its debris. (He) restored it,\"[i 11] rebuilding the palace replete with a suitably boastful commemorative inscription prepared but never installed as it was found in the ruins of Assur. His building restorations in the city of Assur were celebrated in monumental inscriptions and include the Step Gate of the temple of the god Ashur, various of the city's walls, its quay along the river Tigris, the temple of Ishtar and the storehouses of the gate of An and Adad.[3]\n\nHis reign lasted for 31 years, but only around 12 Limmu officials, from the Assyrian Eponym dating system have yet been identified, primarily from monumental inscriptions, and these include Shulmanu-qarradu, Andarasina, Ashur-eresh, variant Ashur-erish (son of Abattu), Ana-Ashur-qalla (officer of the palace), Iti-ili-ashamshu, Sha-Adad-ninu, Qarrad-Ashur,[3] Assur-dammiq,[i 12] Sin-n[a....],[i 13] Ninurta-emuqaya,[i 14] Bābu-aḫa-iddina and Adad-šumu-lesir, the eponym in whose year he died. Bābu-aḫa-iddina was a high-ranking official, some sources say \"chancellor,\" son of Ibassi-ili, who served under Adad-nārārī and his two successors. He celebrated his eponym year towards the end of Adad-nārārī's reign as attested in texts relating the activities of Assur-kasid son of Sin-apla-eris at Billa. His archive, called \"archive 14410,\" consisting of 60 tablets was found in a tomb under a house in Assur.[8]\n\nA bronze sword of Adad-nārārī I can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[9]\n\nThe Adad-nārārī epic\n\nThis historical epic is extant in four fragments[i 15] and concerns the conflict between Adad-nārārī and his Babylonian contemporary Nazi-Maruttash, with whom he clashes and ultimately vanquishes in battle. The surviving pieces do not allow for a detailed narrative to be reconstructed. They do, however, suggest a sequence of events, where Adad-nārārī harks back to the setbacks faced by his father, \"the seed of the men has disappeared forever,\" his petitioning of the god Šamaš, \"O Šamaš you are the true judge,\" in preparation for his denouement with \"the unjust Kassite king,\" and so on.\n\nArchaeological discoveries\n\nIn 2018, inscriptions were discovered at Qasr Shemamok on four brick molds referring to the celebration of building a palace by the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I (1308-1275 BC) in Kilizu.[10][11][12][13]\n\nInscriptions\n\n^ Nassouhi kinglist, iii 23.\n\n^ Khorsabad kinglist iii 17.\n\n^ SDAS kinglist, iii 8.\n\n^ Axe blade, AO 29146.\n\n^ Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, extant in several fragments, for example BM 98496, BM 98730, BM 98731 and BM 121033 in the British Museum.\n\n^ Synchronistic Chronicle (ABC 21) tablet C, column 1, lines 24 to 31.\n\n^ Tablet VAT 15420.\n\n^ a b BM 115687 dark grey stone in the British Museum, inscribed on all six sides.\n\n^ Tablet 7499, text KUB 23:102, Urhi Teššup letter to Adad-nārārī, see Bryce (2003), p. 87 note 21 for summary of provenance.\n\n^ Tablet KBo I:14 Hattušili letter to Adad-Nirari.\n\n^ Assur 5764 and 9309.\n\n^ Tablet KAJ 262, Urad-serua #23 corn loan.\n\n^ Tablet KAJ 77, Urad-serua #53 corn loan.\n\n^ Tablet KAJ 76, Urad-serua #11 corn loan.\n\n^ Tablets Rm 293, in the Rassum siglum in the British Museum and VAT 10084, VAT 9820 and VAT 10889 in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin.\n\nNotes\n\n^ The kudimmu plant, which exuded a kind of salt or lye, was planted on ruins to symbolically pronounce them barren and uninhabitable.(See Salting the earth.)\n\n^ Imposing the \"hoe, spade and basket.\"\n\nReferences\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). \"Appendix I: A List of Assyrian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-9004430914.\n\n^ Dietz Otto Edzard (1999). Reallexikon Der Assyriologie Und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: A - Bepaste. Walter De Gruyter Inc. p. 29.\n\n^ a b c d A. K. Grayson (1972). Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Volume 1. Otto Harrassowitz. pp. 57-79.\n\n^ Marc Van De Mieroop (2009). The Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of Ramesses II. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 64.\n\n^ J. M. Munn-Rankin (1975). \"XXV: Assyrian Military Power, 1300-1200 BC\". In I. E. S. Edwards; C. J. Gadd; N. G. L. Hammond; S. Solberger (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume II, Part 2, History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region, 1380-1000 BC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 274-279.\n\n^ Trevor Bryce (2003). Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age. Routledge. pp. 76-77, 96-97.\n\n^ Harry A. Hoffner Jr. (2009). Letters from the Hittite Kingdom. Society of Biblical Literature. pp. 322-324.\n\n^ Olof Pedersén (1998). Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500 - 300 BC. CDL Press. p. 87.\n\n^ [1]https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/322443\n\n^ \"Archaeological Projects in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq\". Harvard University. 2015. Retrieved 8 April 2023.\n\n^ Masetti-Rouault, Maria Grazia, \"Late Bronze and Iron Age Levels from Qasr Shemamok.: A First Evaluation of the Impact of the Assyrian Presence in the Region East of Calah\", Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East: Vol. 2: Field Reports. Islamic Archaeology, edited by Adelheid Otto et al., 1st ed., Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 253-64, 2020\n\n^ Masetti-Rouault, M. G and Rouault, O., Mahmoud Omar\n« Late Bronze and Iron I - II Levels in Qasr Shemamok». p346- 366, Proceedings of the 2nd International Scientific conference. Archaeology and Heritage of Hawler - Erbil May 8 & 9, 2018 Erbil.\n\n^ Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Maria, \"Changing gods at Qasr Shemamok: Local cults and the Assyrian Empire at the beginning of the Iron Age\", Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200-900 BCE): Proceedings of the NYU-PSL International Colloquium, Paris Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, April 16-17, 2019, edited by Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Ilaria Calini, Robert Hawley and Lorenzo d’Alfonso, New York, USA: New York University Press, pp. 251-276, 2014\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian origins: discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Adad-nirari I"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-adad-nirari-i"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2112}, {"slug": "reference-naqia", "title": "Naqiʾa", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Naqiʾa or Naqia[3][4][5] (Akkadian: Naqīʾa,[6] also known as Zakūtu (),[6][7] was a wife of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BC) and the mother of his son and successor Esarhaddon (r. 681-669). Naqiʾa is the best documented woman in the history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire[8] and she reached...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Naqiʾa\n\nWoman of the Palace[a]\nMother of the King[b]\n\nNaqiʾa depicted in a contemporary relief\n\nBornBefore c. 728 BC\n\nDiedAfter 669 BC\n\nSpouseSennacherib\n\nIssueEsarhaddon\nŠadditu (?)\n\nWest Semitic\n(possibly Aramaic)Naqīʾa\n\nAkkadianZakūtu\n\nNaqiʾa or Naqia[3][4][5] (Akkadian: Naqīʾa,[6] also known as Zakūtu (),[6][7] was a wife of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BC) and the mother of his son and successor Esarhaddon (r. 681-669). Naqiʾa is the best documented woman in the history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire[8] and she reached an unprecedented level of prominence and public visibility;[9] she was perhaps the most influential woman in Assyrian history.[8] She is one of the few ancient Assyrian women to be depicted in artwork, to commission her own building projects, and to be granted laudatory epithets in letters by courtiers. She is also the only known ancient Assyrian figure other than kings to write and issue a treaty.\n\nNaqiʾa must have been married to Sennacherib before he became king (705) since she gave birth to his son Esarhaddon c. 713. Whether she ever held the position of queen is debated; Assyrian kings had multiple wives but the evidence suggests that only one of them could be the queen at any one given time. Sennacherib is known to have had another queen, Tašmētu-šarrat. Naqiʾa might have become queen late in Sennacherib's reign. She is referred to as the \"queen of Sennacherib\" in documents from the reign of her son. In 684, Sennacherib, perhaps influenced by Naqiʾa, designated Esarhaddon as his crown prince despite having older sons.\n\nDuring the reign of her son, Naqiʾa reached her most prominent position, bearing the title ummi šari (lit. 'Mother of the King'). Under Esarhaddon, Naqiʾa secured ownership of several estates throughout the empire and grew enormously wealthy, perhaps wealthier than Esarhaddon's own queen Ešarra-ḫammat. Naqiʾa might have governed her own set of territories surrounding the Babylonian city of Lahira. The last known attestation of Naqiʾa is from 669, in the months after Esarhaddon's death. After her son's death, Naqiʾa wrote a treaty which forced the royal family, aristocracy and all of Assyria to swear loyalty to her grandson Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631). After this, Naqiʾa appears to have retired from public life.\n\nName and origin\n\nThough nothing certain can be said of her origins, Naqiʾa having two names could point to her originating outside of Assyria proper, possibly in Babylonia or in the Levant.[7] The name Naqīʾa is originally of Aramaic,[10][7] or at the very least West Semitic,[6] origin while Zakūtu is Akkadian.[7] The name Zakūtu, used only sometimes,[11] was probably adopted when she became associated with the Assyrian royal family; both names have the same meaning, interpreted as \"purity\",[12] \"pure\"[4] or \"the pure one\".[13] Naqiʾa is known to have had a sister, Abirami (Abi-rāmi[14] or Abi-rāmu),[15] attested as purchasing land in the city of Baruri in 674 BC.[11][14]\n\nBiography\n\nReign of Sennacherib\n\nGiven the age at which she gave birth to Esarhaddon, Naqiʾa cannot have been born later than c. 728.[16] Naqiʾa was one of the consorts of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705-681),[17] with the marriage taking place by the late 8th century due to the birth of their son in c. 713.[18] This was before Sennacherib's accession to the throne, when he was still crown prince under his father Sargon II.[17] Except for Esarhaddon, it is unknown which of Sennacherib's many children were also the children of Naqiʾa.[19] It is probable that Naqiʾa was also the mother of Sennacherib's only daughter known by name, Šadditu,[1] since Šadditu retained a prominent position under Esarhaddon.[19] Naqiʾa was not the mother of Sennacherib's elder sons, such as Arda-Mulissu.[1]\n\nIt is possible that Naqiʾa gained influence already in Sennacherib's reign; in 684 she may have been responsible for the king dismissing Arda-Mulissu as heir and instead proclaiming their son Esarhaddon as crown prince.[1][7][13] Despite growing reports that Esarhaddon suffered from various illnesses, Sennacherib at no point changed the succession after Esarhaddon's appointment as crown prince, also perhaps due to Naqiʾa's influence. She is recorded as employing divination and astrology to bolster Sennacherib's opinion of Esarhaddon.[20] Throughout her life, Naqiʾa seems to have maintained a close relationship with prophets active in the city of Arbela.[21]\n\nThough often identified as a queen of Sennacherib,[1][4][6] it is not clear whether Naqiʾa held that position in Sennacherib's lifetime.[6] The chief issue is that Naqiʾa is known to have been associated with Sennacherib before he became king and with Esarhaddon throughout his subsequent reign (681-669), but Sennacherib is known to also have been married to another woman, Tašmētu-šarrat, who is securely attested with the title of queen.[17] The general assumption among researchers is that while kings could have multiple wives, only one of them was at any given time recognized as the queen since administrative documents always use the title without qualification (implying that there was no ambiguity).[22][23]\n\nNaqiʾa is referred to as Sennacherib's queen (mí.é.gal) in multiple documents, but all of them, perhaps with a single exception, were written in Esarhaddon's reign,[1] meaning that she might have been bestowed the title retroactively by her son.[23] The single possible exception is a single bead with a fragmentary inscription that calls her \"mí.é.gal of Sennacherib\" and then breaks off; it is possible that it was written in Sennacherib's reign.[1] Another possibility is that Naqiʾa achieved the status of queen only late in Sennacherib's reign.[23] Tašmētu-šarrat is not mentioned in any documents from Esarhaddon's reign.[24] Perhaps the promotion of Naqiʾa's son as crown prince means that she was queen around 684 and that Tašmētu-šarrat (otherwise attested only securely in c. 694)[17] was dead at that point in time.[1] After Esarhaddon became crown prince, Sennacherib granted some tax-exempt lands to Naqiʾa. In the document describing the grant, she is however titled only as the \"mother of the crown prince\".[11]\n\nReign of Esarhaddon\n\nNaqiʾa's authority grew in the reign of her son; early on she built a palace for him in Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and made an inscription commemorating the construction.[18] Constructing palaces was an unusual activity for a queen to engage in, usually done only by kings. The inscription documenting the project is bombastic and clearly takes inspiration from those of the kings.[8] In most sources from Esarhaddon's time,[18] Naqiʾa is referred simply to as the queen mother (ummi šari, lit. 'Mother of the King'). Naqiʾa retained this title in the reign of Esarhaddon's son (and her grandson) Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631), despite then no longer being the mother of the reigning king.[2] In terms of surviving sources she was by far the most prominent queen mother in Assyrian history; most known occurrences of the title are from her lifetime.[18]\n\nAs queen mother, the basic structure of Naqiʾa's household was similar to that of the queen and other officials. In addition to Nineveh, Naqiʾa probably had residencies in other cities, including some in Babylonia.[18] Naqiʾa appears to have had significant estates in the Babylonian city of Lahira (Laḫiru), which she perhaps governed herself;[13][14] a 678 document describes the city as part of \"the queen mother's domain\".[14] All queens also appear to have had large holdings in the western city of Harran. Some mentions exist of a statue of Naqiʾa being built in the city of Gadisê, near Harran.[14]\n\nNaqiʾa was likely very wealthy, perhaps even wealthier than Esarhaddon's queen Ešarra-ḫammat. Naqiʾa is recorded to have made numerous donations to temples, to have provided the royal palace with horses from her estates and to have employed a large and extensive staff. It is clear that she held an exceptional position; in letters addressed to her numerous flattering epithets, such as \"able like Adapa\", are used. A legal document from Esarhaddon's reign claims that \"the verdict of the mother of the king, my lord, is as final as that of the gods\".[18] Such statements are highly unusual given that they usually only applied to kings.[25] Numerous letters from courtiers refer to the health of Naqiʾa. Her security appears to have been a matter of great concern as one document containing a query to the sun-god Shamash asks whether a person who might be appointed to her guard would guard Naqiʾa \"like his own self.[26]\n\nThough letters to Naqiʾa were mostly about religious affairs, some concern politics.[18] It is possible that she partook in Esarhaddon's rebuilding project of Babylon, destroyed by his father.[13] Perhaps Naqiʾa's prominence resulted from Esarhaddon's own tumultuous accession, when he had to fight a civil war against his brother Arda-Mulissu.[26] In 2014, Philippe Clancier speculated that Naqiʾa might have commanded armies during this civil war, though no Assyrian text describes her doing so. The only Assyrian queen, and woman overall, confidently known to have partaken in military campaigns is the earlier Shammuramat. If Naqiʾa did lead armies against Arda-Mulissu, omitting this from the records would not be surprising since all battlefield victories were normally ascribed to the Assyrian king personally whether or not the king was at the battle.[10] The civil war is thought to have been the catalyst of Esarhaddon's later paranoia and distrust of his servants, vassals and family members.[27] Although highly distrustful of his male relatives, Esarhaddon seems to not have been paranoid in regards to his female relatives. During his reign his queen Ešarra-ḫammat, his mother Naqiʾa and his daughter Šērūʾa-ēṭirat all wielded considerably more influence and political power than women during most earlier parts of Assyrian history,[28] though they never occupied any formal political positions.[9] An explanation for the reverence accorded to Naqiʾa by officials of the empire is that the people might have partly credited the empire's successes in Esarhaddon's reign to her.[20] Though capable and energetic,[8] Esarhaddon was chronically ill for the duration of his reign and Naqiʾa might have been believed to have had some sort of magical influence, connected to the association between the Assyrian queen and the goddess Ishtar, that kept the empire victorious.[20]\n\nLater life\n\nThe last evidence of Naqiʾa is from around the time of Ashurbanipal's accession, at the end of 669, when she forced the royal family, aristocracy and all of Assyria to swear loyalty to her grandson.[26] The royal treaty forced on the people by Naqiʾa, dubbed the Zakutu Treaty by modern historians, is a remarkable document as the only text of its kind written by someone other than the king.[9][29] Why Naqiʾa, and not Ashurbanipal, was the one to implement the treaty is not known. Some aspects of the treaty, for instance its brevity, indicate that it was created relatively hastily after Esarhaddon's death in 669.[29] The Zakutu Treaty reads:[29]\n\nTreaty of Zakutu, queen of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, mother of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, (grandmother of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria) with Shamash-shum-ukin, his equal brother, with Shamash-metu-uballit and the rest of his brothers, with the king's relatives, with the officials and the governors, the bearded and the eunuchs, the courtiers, the exempted people, and everyone who enters the palace, with the people of Assyria, small and great: Anyone who (concludes) this treaty which Zakutu, the queen dowager, has imposed on all the people of Assyria on behalf of Ashurbanipal, her favorite grandson, anyone who should [...] lie and carry out a deceitful or evil plan or revolt against Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord; in your hearts plot evil intrigue (or) speak slander against Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord; in your hearts contrive (or) plan an evil mission (or) wicked proposal for rebellion (and) uprising against Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord; [...] or conspire with another for the murder of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord: May [...] Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, [...] (And if) from this day on you (hear) an evil (plan) of conspiracy (and) rebellion against Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord, you shall come and report to Zakutu, his (grand)mother and Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord; and if you hear of a (plot) to kill or destroy Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord, you shall come and report to Zakutu, his (grand)mother and Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord; and if you hear of evil intrigue being contrived against Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord, you shall speak (of it) in the presence of Zakutu, his (grand) mother and Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord; and if you hear and know that there are men who agitate or conspire among you - whether bearded men or eunuchs, whether his brothers or royal relatives or your brothers or your friends or anyone in the whole country - should you hear or know, you shall seize and kill them and bring them to Zakūtu, his (grand) mother and Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, your lord.[30]\n\nAfter Ashurbanipal became king without incident, Naqiʾa appears to have retired from public life[9] since there is no further evidence of her acting publicly again.[29] Sebastian Fink believes Naqiʾa died shortly after Ashurbanipal's accession.[8] According to Gregory D. Cook, Naqiʾa was probably dead by the time of Ashurbanipal's Sack of Thebes in 663.[16] Jack Finegan on the other hand believed that Naqiʾa was alive by the time of the civil war between Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin in 652-648 and that she during this conflict again tried to support Ashurbanipal's right to rule.[13]\n\nNaqiʾa's career resulted in her achieving, for a woman of her time, an unprecedented level of prominence and public visibility.[9] She is the best documented, and perhaps most influential, woman of the Neo-Assyrian period.[8] Naqiʾa stands apart from nearly all other Assyrian queens, who are often rarely mentioned by name in surviving texts. She is the only royal woman, other than Ashurbanipal's queen Libbāli-šarrat, known to have been depicted in royal artwork.[31] In a relief depicting Naqiʾa and Esarhaddon, she is depicted seemingly nearly as his equal and as doing the same religious gesture as the king. She is also depicted wearing a \"mural crown\", a royal crown with features of a castle wall, also included in the artwork of Libbāli-šarrat.[32]\n\nLegacy\n\nIn later Greco-Roman literary tradition, two great queens of Assyria were remembered: Semiramis (based on the earlier queen Shammuramat) and Nitocris. It is possible that the figure of Nitocris, said to have lived five generations after Semiramis and to have conducted building projects in Babylon, was based on Naqiʾa.[13][5] The legend of building work in Babylon could relate to her lands in Babylonia, the possibility that she partook in Esarhaddon's projects in the city,[13] or perhaps to the palace she built for her son in Nineveh early in his reign.[33] The palace at Nineveh could also have served as inspiration since the ancient Greeks sometimes erroneously equated Nineveh and Babylon.[34]\n\nIt is possible that some portions of the Semiramis legend were based on Naqiʾa, rather than Shammuramat.[5] In particular, one of the legendary tales of Semiramis describes the queen as founding Babylon. While there are no obvious connections between the historical Shammuramat and Babylon,[35] it is, as mentioned, possible to draw connections to Naqiʾa and building works in the city or the surrounding region.[34]\n\nCharacterizations of Naqiʾa vary among modern historians. Some, such as Sarah C. Melville have viewed her as an unselfish mother, who worked to help her son during his reign, whereas others, such as Zafrira Ben-Barak, have viewed her as a politically ambitious woman who exploited every opportunity she could to advance her personal position.[26]\n\nNotes\n\n^ This was the formal title of Neo-Assyrian queens. Though it is debated whether she actually held the title in Sennacherib's reign, she was in any case (possibly retroactively) attributed it in the reign of Esarhaddon.[1]\n\n^ Title used in the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.[2]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Frahm 2014, p. 191.\n\n^ a b Kertai 2013, p. 120.\n\n^ Cook 2017, p. 895.\n\n^ a b c Gansell 2018, p. 80.\n\n^ a b c Dalley 2005, p. 15.\n\n^ a b c d e Teppo 2005, p. 36.\n\n^ a b c d e Elayi 2018, p. 16.\n\n^ a b c d e f Fink 2020.\n\n^ a b c d e Melville 2012.\n\n^ a b Clancier 2014, p. 23.\n\n^ a b c Tetlow 2004, p. 288.\n\n^ Nemet-Nejat 2014, p. 240.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Finegan 1979, Assyrian Empire.\n\n^ a b c d e Joannès 2016, p. 31.\n\n^ Teppo 2005, p. 34.\n\n^ a b Cook 2017, p. 902.\n\n^ a b c d Kertai 2013, p. 118.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Teppo 2005, p. 37.\n\n^ a b Elayi 2018, p. 17.\n\n^ a b c Cook 2017, p. 903.\n\n^ Nissinen 2017, p. 320.\n\n^ Kertai 2013, p. 109.\n\n^ a b c Elayi 2018, p. 15.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 192.\n\n^ Solvang 2003, p. 39.\n\n^ a b c d Teppo 2005, p. 38.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 166.\n\n^ Radner 2003, p. 168.\n\n^ a b c d Melville 2014, p. 231.\n\n^ Melville 2014, pp. 231-232.\n\n^ Cook 2017, p. 896.\n\n^ Pinnock 2018, p. 734.\n\n^ Dalley 2013, p. 124.\n\n^ a b Dalley 2005, p. 16.\n\n^ Dalley 2005, p. 14.\n\nBibliography\n\nClancier, Philippe (2014). \"Warlike men and invisible women: how scribes in the Ancient Near East represented warfare\". Clio. 39 (39): 17-34. JSTOR 26238711.\n\nCook, Gregory D. (2017). \"Naqia and Nineveh in Nahum: Ambiguity and the Prostitute Queen\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 136 (4): 895-904. doi:10.15699/jbl.1364.2017.198627. JSTOR 10.15699/jbl.1364.2017.198627.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2005). \"Semiramis in History and Legend: a Case Study in Interpretation of an Assyrian Historical Tradition, with Observations on Archetypes in Ancient Historiography, on Euhemerism before Euhemerus, and on the So-called Greek Ethnographie Style\". In S. Gruen, Erich (ed.). Cultural Borrowings and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 3-515-08735-4.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (2013). The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5.\n\nElayi, Josette (2018). Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 978-0884143178.\n\nFinegan, Jack (2018) [1979]. Archaeological History Of The Ancient Middle East. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-88029-120-0.\n\nFink, Sebastian (2020). \"Invisible Mesopotamian royal women?\". In Carney, Elizabeth D. & Müller, Sabine (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World. London: Routledge. pp. 137-148. doi:10.4324/9780429434105-15. ISBN 978-0429434105. S2CID 224979097.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2014). \"Family Matters: Psychohistorical Reflections on Sennacherib and His Times\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-9004265615.\n\nGansell, Amy Rebecca (2018). \"Dressing the Neo-Assyrian Queen in Identity and Ideology: Elements and Ensembles from the Royal Tombs at Nimrud\". American Journal of Archaeology. 122 (1): 65-100. doi:10.3764/aja.122.1.0065. JSTOR 10.3764/aja.122.1.0065. S2CID 194770386.\n\nJoannès, Francis (2016). \"Women and Palaces in the Neo-Assyrian Period\". Orient. 51: 29-46. doi:10.5356/orient.51.29. S2CID 189033552.\n\nKertai, David (2013). \"The Queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 40 (1): 108-124. doi:10.1524/aof.2013.0006. S2CID 163392326.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2012). \"Zakutu (Naqi'a)\". The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. London: Wiley-Blackwell. OCLC 785860275.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2014). \"Women in Neo-Assyrian texts\". In Chavalas, Mark W. (ed.). Women in the Ancient Near East: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-44855-0.\n\nNemet-Nejat, Karen (2014). \"Women in Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions: Neo-Assyrian Oracles\". In Chavalas, Mark W. (ed.). Women in the Ancient Near East: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-44855-0.\n\nNissinen, Martti (2017). Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-880855-8.\n\nPinnock, Frances (2018). \"A city of gold for the queen: some thoughts about the mural crown of Assyrian queens\". In Cavalieri, Marco & Boschetti, Cristina (eds.). Mvlta per Ægvora: Il polisemico significato della moderna della moderna ricerca archeologica. Omaggio a Sara Santoro. Vol. II. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain. ISBN 978-2-87558-691-9.\n\nRadner, Karen (2003). \"The Trials of Esarhaddon: The Conspiracy of 670 BC\". ISIMU: Revista sobre Oriente Próximo y Egipto en la antigüedad. 6. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: 165-183.\n\nSolvang, Elna K. (2003). A Woman's Place is in the House: Royal Women of Judah and their Involvement in the House of David. London: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 0-8264-6213-8.\n\nTeppo, Saana (2005). Women and their Agency in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (PDF) (Thesis). University of Helsinki.\n\nTetlow, Elisabeth Meier (2004). Women, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society: Volume 1: The Ancient Near East. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-1628-4."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-naqia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3456}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-independence-movement", "title": "Assyrian independence movement", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian independence movement is a political movement and ethno-nationalist desire of ethnic Assyrians to live in their indigenous Assyrian homeland in northern Mesopotamia under the self-governance of an Assyrian State.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Assyrian independence movement is a political movement and ethno-nationalist desire of ethnic Assyrians to live in their indigenous Assyrian homeland in northern Mesopotamia under the self-governance of an Assyrian State.\n\nThe tumultuous history of the traditional Assyrian homeland and surrounding regions, as well as the Partition of the Ottoman Empire, led to the emergence of modern Assyrian nationalism.[1] To this respect, Assyrian independence movement is a \"catch-all\" term of the collective efforts of proponents of Assyrian nationalism in the context of the modern nation state. As a result of genocide and war, the Assyrians were reduced to a minority population in their indigenous homeland, resulting in political autonomy being unattainable due to the security risks,[2] and the rise of the movement for Assyrian independence as it exists today.[3]\n\nThe territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria.[4][5] The efforts are specifically in the regions where larger concentrations still exist, and not the Assyrian homeland in its entirety, those regions with large concentrations being Erbil, and the Duhok Governorate in Iraq, the latter two being located in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and the Al-Hasakah Governorate in Syria.[6][7] Mosul and the Nineveh Governorate had a sizable Assyrian presence prior to the takeover and forced expulsion of the Assyrian population by the Islamic State in 2014.[8]\n\nIn his 53 years as Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII petitioned the League of Nations,[9] and then the United Nations[10] for an Assyrian Homeland before stepping down as Patriarch in 1973.[11] The assassination of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII in 1975[12] was a demoralizing moment to Assyrian freedom fighters, as he was a significant spiritual and temporal leader.[13]\n\nThe independence movement is active both within the homeland and throughout the global diaspora,[14] with much resistance from the local Middle Eastern states and regions,[15] as well as the Kurdish.[16] The movement has spanned centuries, with the initial conceptualization of modern Assyrian statehood occurring in the 19th century with the waning of the Ottoman Empire and rise of European control of the region, notably by the British and Russian Empires, as well as the French Republic.\n\nThere have been many hindrances to the movement, including events such as the Assyrian genocide, Simele massacre, internal conflicts over naming disputes and Assyrian churches, portrayals in media, and Arabization, Kurdification, and Turkification policies. Most recently, the primary problem for them has been ISIS, which took over and expelled a massive portion of the population from the Nineveh Plains in Northern Iraq. The Assyrian Aid Society of America has requested that the U.S. government designate these actions as a genocide against Assyrians in these regions.[17]\n\nAusten Henry Layard, the British Empire's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, stated that the Assyrians had survived the Arab, Mongol, and Kurdish conquests in the mountains of Hakkari and northern Mesopotamia, where they had fought to maintain their independence in the nineteenth century.[18]\n\nIn 2016, the Iraqi Parliament voted against a new Christian province in Nineveh Plains, which was a stated political objective of all major Assyrian political groups and institutions. Assyrians, including the leader of the Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, Romeo Hakkari, protested the Iraqi parliament's decision and stated \"We do not want to be part of the possible Sunni (Arab) autonomous region in Iraq\".[19]\n\nWorld War I\n\nIn Turkey\n\nAssyrians primarily lived in the provinces of Hakkari, Şırnak, and Mardin in southeastern Turkey, These areas had sizable Kurdish and Armenian populations. Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution. \n\nThe Hakkari region was the main center of Assyrian population in early 20th century. According to the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, there were 18,000 Assyrians in Van Vilayet, 15,000 in Bitlis Vilayet and 25,000 in Diyarbekir Vilayet in 1912/1913.[20] In 1914, Young Turks with the aid of the Kurds and other Muslim ethnic groups, began to systemically target the ancient indigenous Christian communities of Asia Minor, primarily composed of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and to a small degree Georgians. Events such as the Assyrian genocide, Greek genocide and Armenian genocide followed, as did the similarly motivated Great Famine of Mount Lebanon which targeted Maronite Christians. In the beginning, key Assyrian nationalist leaders and religious figures were wiped out of communities, followed by the systematic massacre and ethnic cleansing by the Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Chechens and Circassians of hundreds of thousands of unarmed men, women and children.[21][22][23][24][25]\n\nAt the outset of World War I, almost one half of the Assyrian population lived in what is today South Eastern Turkey, with the remainder living in what is now Northern Iraq, North Eastern Syria and North Western Iran. The Ottomans planned to join the side of the Central Powers (Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria) and join them in dividing up the British, Russian and French empires in Asia.[26] In 1914, knowing that it was heading into the war, the Ottoman government passed a law that required the conscription of all young males into the Ottoman army to support the war effort. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I in October 1914 by bombarding Russian ports on the Black Sea.\n\nIn late 1914 and 1915, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk regime declared a holy war on the British, French and Russian Empires.\nOttoman Turkish army and allied Kurdish, Turcoman, Circassian and Chechen militias proceeded to massacre tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains of Kurdistan (upper Mesopotamia, present-day southeastern Turkey) due to Russia's massacres and hostilities towards Muslim populations in northern Iran (including but not limited to Azeris, Turkmen, and Iranians) in 1911 and onwards.[27] \n\nFollowing the unprovoked massacres of tens of thousands of unarmed Assyrian civilians by the Ottoman Turkish Army and their allies, the Patriarch of the Assyrians, Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin, declared war on the Ottomans on behalf of the Assyrian nation. The Assyrian army under General Dawid, the patriarch's brother, led the Assyrians in a successful breaking of an encircling Ottoman army maneuver, and across the Persian border onto the plains of Urmia.\n\nAssyrian volunteers\n\nIn April 1915 the Assyrian nation, led by its main tribal chiefs of Bit-Jilu, Bit-Bazi, Bit-Tyari, Bit-Tkhuma, Bit-Shamasha, Bit-Eshtazin, Bit-Nochiya and Bit-Diz \"took arms against the Turks at the request of the Russians and British.\"[28] Over the summer of 1915 they successfully held off the far larger Ottoman army and 10,000 Turkish militia and tribal forces fighting with the Ottomans. The Ottomans, unable to break the Assyrians, then brought in heavy artillery and ammunition that, together with an overwhelming advantage in numbers and supplies, eventually overwhelmed the lightly armed and outnumbered Assyrians.[28] \n\nThe Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late, leading most of the population of the tribes and districts of Jilu, Baz, Tyari, Tkhuma, Tergawar, Mergawar, Bohtan, Barwari, Amadia and Seert to be massacred, including women, children and the elderly. Churches and monasteries were destroyed or converted into Mosques, livestock and possessions were stolen by the Turks and Turkmens, who then occupied the emptied Assyrian towns, villages and farmsteads.[28] \n\nSurvivors of fighting age joined the Assyrians of northwest Persia, northern Iraq and northeast Syria, including those from Salamas and Urmia to form an Assyrian army, and had a real prospect of fighting with the Russians to evict the Ottoman forces from Persia, and historic Assyria. The Assyrians, under such leaders as Agha Petros and Malik Khoshaba, scored a number of victories over the Ottoman and Turkmen forces despite overwhelming odds during this period, until the Russian Revolution of 1917 dissolved the Russian army.\n\nLacking allies except the British some miles away in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians planned to follow the Russian lines to the Caucasus, but the Allies (including British, French, and Russian diplomats) urged Mar Shimoun and the Assyrian army to defend the Allied-Ottoman front lines, and enjoy autonomy and independence in the post-war period as their reward.[28]\n\nAn Assyrian nation under British and Russian protection was promised the Assyrians first by Russian officers, and later confirmed by Captain Gracey of the British Intelligence Service over indigenous Kurdish land. Based on these representations, the Assyrians of Hakkari, under their Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin and the Assyrian tribal chiefs \"decided to side with the Allies, first with Christian Russia, and next with the British, in the hope that they might secure after the victory, a self-government for the Assyrians.\"[29] The French also joined the alliance with the Assyrians, offering them 20,000 rifles. The Assyrian army grew to 20,000 men co-led by Agha Petrus Elia of the Bit-Bazi tribe, and Malik Khoshaba of the Bit-Tiyari tribe, according to Joseph Naayem, a key witness, whose account on the atrocities was prefaced by Lord James Bryce.[30][31]\n\nAssyrian resistance in Tur Abdin\n\nThe Assyrian Syriac Christians of Diyarbekir Vilayet made significant resistance. Their strongest stand was at the villages of Azakh, Iwardo, and Basibrin. For month, Kurdish tribes and Turkish soldiers commanded by Ömer Naci Bey were unable to subdue the mostly Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic Assyrian villagers, who were joined by Armenian and other Assyrian refugees from surrounding villages. The leaders of the Azakh fedayeen swore: \"We all have to die sometime, do not die in shame and humiliation\", and lived up to their fighting words.[32] \n\nAlso in April, Turkmen and Turkish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men, among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest. The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Arabs and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind. At about this time, in Seert the Turks and Arabs \"assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they carried out mass infanticide, leading the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss.[33]\n\nIn October 1914, 71 Assyrian rebels males of Gawar were arrested and taken to the local government centre in Bashkale and killed in cold blood.[34]\n\nAlso in April, Turkish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men (among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest). The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Arabs and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind. At about this time, in Seert the Turks and Arabs \"assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they led the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss, according to Joseph Naayem.[33]\n\nIn April 1915, Ottoman Troops invaded Gawar, a region of Hakkari, and massacred the entire population.[35]\n\nIn late 1915, Cevdet Bey, Military Governor of Van Province, upon entering Siirt (or Seert) with 8,000 soldiers whom he himself ordered the massacre of almost 20,000 Assyrian civilians in at least 30 villages. Cevdet is reported to have held a meeting in February 1915 at which he said, \"We have cleansed the Armenian and Assyrian Christians from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van\".[36] The following is a list[37] documenting the villages that were attacked by Cevdet's soldiers and the estimated number of Assyrian deaths:[38]\n\nAin-Dare - 200\n\nArchkanes - 500\n\nArtoull (Altahtanie) - 500\n\nArtoun (Alfokanie) - 1000\n\nBekend - 500\n\nBenkof - 200\n\nBerke - 500\n\nCharnakh - 200\n\nDehok - 500\n\nDer-Chemch - 200\n\nDer-Mar-Yacoub - 500\n\nDer-Maze-n - 300\n\nDerr-Rabban - 300\n\nGalwaye - 500\n\nGoredi - SW\n\nGuedianes - 500\n\nHadide - 1000\n\nHartevena - 200\n\nKetmes - 1000\n\nMar-Chmoune - 300\n\nMar-Gourya - 1000\n\nPiros - 1000\n\nRedwan - 500\n\nSadagh - 2000\n\nSairt - 2000\n\nTellimchar - 1500\n\nTelnevro - 500\n\nTentas - 500\n\nThe village of Sairt/Seert, was populated by Assyrians and Armenians. Seert was the seat of an Assyrian Archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Assyrian orientalist Addai Scher who was helped by local Kurds to flee but was eventually murdered by Ottoman soldiers. On March 3, 1918, the Ottoman army led by Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak, assassinated Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin, one of the Assyrians leaders at that time. The Assyrian leader Malik Khoshaba attacked Simko and sacked his citadel in revenge, however the Kurdish chieftain himself managed to flee.[39] The issue between the two in this case was a proxy war between Iran and Russia. \n\nThe Assyrian National Council stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 Assyrians died between 1914 and 1918.[40] The Times of London was perhaps the first widely respected publication to document the fact that 250,000 Assyrians eventually died in the Ottoman genocide of Christians, a figure which many journalists and scholars have subsequently accepted....\nAs the Earl of Listowel, speaking in the House of Lords on 28 November 1933, stated, the Assyrians fought on our side during the war, and made enormous sacrifices, having lost altogether by the end of the War about two-thirds of their total number..... About half of the Assyrian nation died of murder, disease, or exposure as refugees during the war, according to the head of the Anglican Church, which had a mission to the Assyrians.\n\nScholars have placed the number of Assyrian victims at 250,000 to 500,000.[41][42][43][44][45]\n\nContemporary sources usually speak of the events in terms of an Assyrian genocide, along with the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide and Great Famine of Mount Lebanon by the Ottoman Empire. For example, the International Association of Genocide Scholars reached a consensus that \"the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, Pontian and Anatolian Greeks and Maronites.\"[46] After this resolution, the Dictionary of Genocide co-authored by eminent genocide scholar Samuel Totten, an expert on Holocaust education and the genocide in Darfur, contained an entry on the \"Assyrian genocide\".[18] The president of Genocide Watch, Gregory Stanton, endorsed the \"repudiation by the world's leading genocide scholars of the Turkish government's ninety year denial of the Ottoman Empire's genocides against its Christian populations, including Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians.\"[46]\n\nThe death toll of the Assyrian genocide in Turkey alone was approximately 250,000, according to contemporary and more recent sources. \"In 1918, according to the Los Angeles Times, Ambassador Morgenthau confirmed that the Ottoman Empire had 'massacred fully 2,000,000 men, women, and children - Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians; fully 1,500,000 Armenians.' \"[41] With 250,000 Greeks among the dead, that makes Ambassador Morgenthau's estimate of Assyrian deaths about 250,000.[41] The Assyro-Chaldean National Council stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll is unknown, but it estimates that about 275,000 Assyrians died between 1914 and 1918.[40]\n\nAssyrian rebellion\n\nThe Assyrian rebellion was an uprising by the Assyrians in Hakkari that began on the 3rd of September 1924 and ended on the 28th of September. The Assyrians of Tyari and Tkhuma returned to their ancestral land in Hakkari in 1922, shortly after World War I without permission from the Turkish government. This led to clashes between the Assyrians and the Turkish army with their Arab allies that grew into a rebellion in 1924, it ended with the Assyrians being forced to retreat to Iraq.\n\nIn Persia\n\nThe Ottoman forces threatened Urmia and northwestern Persia after the Russian Revolution (1917) in October 1917. The Assyrians, led by Assyrian general Agha Petros held them off until June 1918, however their Armenian allies resistance broke and vastly outnumbered, out gunned and cut off from lines of supply, they were again encircled and had no choice but to break through the Ottoman forces to their British allies across the border in Mesopotamia. Up to 100,000 Assyrians left Persia in 1918, but around half died of Turkish, Kurdish and Arab massacres and related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders had perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.[47]\n\nHannibal Travis, assistant professor of law at Florida International University, wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Genocide Studies and Prevention that[48] the Assyrian city of Urmia was \"completely wiped out, the inhabitants massacred,\" with 200 surrounding villages ravaged, 200,000 of Assyrian dead, and hundreds of thousands more Assyrians starving to death in exile from their agricultural lands. The Associated Press reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Christians. The victims included 800 massacred near Urmia, and 2,000 dead from disease.[49]\n\nTwo hundred Assyrians were burned to death inside a church. The Russians discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, mostly naked and mutilated, some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces. Other leading British and American newspapers corroborated these accounts of the Assyrian genocide. The New York Times reported on 11 October that 12,000 Assyrian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped in sex attacks, or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.[50]\n\nIn Iraq\n\nIn Iraq, the Assyrians joined the Kurds and Arabs in celebrating the Ottoman defeat, and joining the levies of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.\nUp to 1921 the Levies had consisted of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans. Now that an Iraqi Army was to be formed, the Arabs would be required to join it rather than to go to Levies. It was decided to enlist Assyrians in the Levies.[51]\n\nIn July 1922, orders were issued in which no more Arabs were to be enlisted, as they were required to join the new Iraqi Army, those serving could not re-engage, A 1922 Treaty between Great Britain and Iraq allowed for the continued existence of the Levies as \"local forces of the Imperial garrison\" and that its members were \"members of the British Forces who are inhabitants of Iraq\".[52] By 1923 the ethnic composition of the Iraq Levies was half Assyrian and half Kurd, plus an attached battalion of Marsh Arabs and a few Turkomans. The original Levies were not Assyrians until 1928 when the Levies became entirely Assyrian.\n\nAs a high British official in Mesopotamia wrote in 1933: \"As they became more disciplined they rendered excellent service; during the Arab rebellion of 1920 they displayed, under conditions of the greatest trial, steadfast loyalty to their British officers.\"[53]\n\nIn 1931 Assyrian Levies and Iraqi Army units were patrolling Barzan district. Government troops implied government control, which Shaykh Ahmad still wanted to avoid.[54]\n\nOn October 23, 1931, the Catholicos of the Church of the East, Mar Shimun XXI Eshai, and the maliks of the Jilu, Baz, Tkhuma, and Upper Tiyari tribes wrote to the Chairman of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations to request resettlement out of Iraq, to French Syria or any other country in the League that would accept them as refugees. The Patriarch wrote that: \"The Assyrian Nation which is temporarily living in Iraq, ... have unanimously held a Conference with me in Mosul on the 20th October 1931. At this Conference were present the temporal and spiritual leaders of the Assyrian Nation in its entirely as it will be observed from the document quoted above bearing the leaders' signatures.\" He goes on to say that at the conference, \"it was unanimously decided by all those present that it is quite impossible for us to live in Iraq.\"[55]\n\nHe added that \"together with the undermentioned signatories being the responsible leaders of the Assyrian Nation\" wanted to inform the League that the Assyrians, \"which in past centuries numbered millions but reduced to a very small number due to repeated persecutions and massacres that faced us, ... have been able to preserve our Language and Faith up to the present time.\" He concludes that \"WE ARE POSITIVELY SURE THAT IF WE REMAIN IN IRAQ, we shall be exterminated in the course of few years.\"[56]\n\nOn June 1, 1932, the Assyrian Levies presented a signed memorial to their commanding officer stating that \"all the men had decided to cease serving as from 1st July.\" The reason was Britain had \"failed adequately to ensure the future of the Assyrian nation after the termination of their mandate over Iraq.\"[57]\n\nThey had dug trenches and were determined on destroying the Assyrians and taking their properties and possessions. Assyrians painfully remembered the massacre of 1933 in Simele and the surrounding villages and pledged \"Never Again!\". They remembered the raping and pillaging of defenseless Assyrian villagers.[58]\n\nIn early 1933, the American representative in Iraq, Paul Knabenshue, described public animosity towards the Assyrians as reaching a 'fever' pitch.[59] With Iraq's independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Shimun XXI Eshai, demanded that the Assyrians be given autonomy within Iraq, seeking support from Britain. He pressed his case before the League of Nations in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian Levies (a levy under the command of the British, serving British interests), and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave. In June 1933, the Patriarch was invited to Baghdad for negotiations with Hikmat Sulayman's government and was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority. Mar Shimun would eventually be exiled to Cyprus, thus forcing the head of the Assyrian Church of the East to be located in Chicago up until 2015, when it was moved to Erbil.[60]\n\nIn early August 1933, the chiefs of the Tkhuma Tribe and the Tiyari led more than 1,000 Assyrians who had been refused asylum in Syria in crossing the border to return to their villages in Northern Iraq, where their wives and children had remained. The French, who at the time were controlling Syria, had notified the Iraqis that the Assyrians were not armed; but while the Iraqi soldiers were disarming those whose arms had been returned, shots were fired resulting in 30 Iraqi and Assyrian casualties. Anti-Assyrian and Anti-British xenophobia, apparent throughout the crisis, accelerated.[59] \n\nReports circulated of Assyrian mutilation of Iraqi soldiers, later proven to be false. In Baghdad, the government panicked, fearing disaster as the Assyrians presented a formidable fighting force that could provoke a general uprising in the north. The government unleashed Kurdish irregulars who killed some 120 inhabitants of two Assyrian villages in the week of August 2 to August 9 (with most of the massacre occurring on August 7). Then on August 11, Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi (who had clashed with Assyrians before) led a march to what was then one of the most heavily inhabited Assyrian area in Iraq, the Simele district.\n\nThe Assyrian population of the district of Simele was indiscriminately massacred; men women, and children. In one room alone, eighty one Assyrians of Baz tribe were massacred.[61] Religious leaders were prime targets; eight Assyrian priests were killed during the massacre, including one beheaded and another burned alive.[62] Girls were raped and women violated and made to march naked before the Muslim army commanders.[61] Holy books were used as fuel for burning girls. Children were run over by military cars. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were flung in the air and pierced with bayonets.\n\nBack in the city of Nohadra, 600 Assyrians were killed by Sidqi's men.[61]\n\nIn the end, around 65 Assyrian villages were targeted in the Mosul and Dohuk districts.[63][64]\n\nThe Semele or Simele massacre was the systematic targeting of Assyrians of Northern Iraq in August 1933. This included not only the massacre of Simele, but also the killing spree that continued among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts that led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 innocent Assyrians.[65][66]\n\nThe Simele massacre of the Assyrian people is often regarded as a phase of the Assyrian genocide beginning in August 1914 in the early days of what became World War I. \n\nList of targeted villages[64]\n\nAla Keena\nBameri\nBetershy\nDairke\nGond Naze\nKaserezden\nKorekavana\nMajel Makhte\nSirchuri\n\nAloka\nBarcawra\nBetafrey\nDair Kishnik\nHarkonda\nKerry\nKowashey\nRabibyia\nShekhidra\n\nBadalliya\nBaroshkey\nBidari\nDerjendy\nIdleb\nKitba\nLazga\nRekawa\nSpendarook\n\nBaderden\nBasorik\nBiswaya\nFishkhabour\nKaberto\nKhalata\nMansouriya\nSar Shorey\nTal Zet\n\nBagerey\nBastikey\nCarbeli\nGarvaly\nKarpel\nKharab Koli\nMawani\nSezary\nTel Khish\n\nBakhitmey\nBenaringee\nChem Jehaney\nGereban\nKarshen\nKharsheniya\nQasr Yazdin\nSidzari\nZeniyat\n\nToday, most of these villages are inhabited by Kurds. The main campaign lasted until August 16, but violent raids on Assyrians were being reported up to the end of the month. After the campaign, Badr Sidqi was invited to Baghdad for a victory rally.[67] The campaign resulted in one third of the Assyrian population of Iraq fleeing to Syria.[68]\n\nImmediately after the massacre and the shutting down of the Assyrian uprising, the Iraqi government demanded a conscription bill. Non-Assyrian Iraqi tribesmen offered to serve in the Iraqi army, to counter the Assyrians. In late August, the government of Mosul demanded that the central government 'ruthlessly' stamp out the rebellion, and that it eliminate all foreign influence in Iraqi affairs, and that the government take immediate steps to enact a law for compulsory military service.[69]\n\nThe next week, 49 Kurdish tribal chieftains joined in a pro-conscription telegram to the government, expressing thanks for punishing the 'Assyrian insurgents',[59] stating that a \"nation can be proud of itself only through its power, and since evidence of this power is the army,\"[59] they requested compulsory military service. Rashid Ali presented the bill to the parliament. His government fell before it was legislated and Jamil Midfai's government enacted conscription in January 1934.[69]\n\nThe massacre would eventually lead to 15,000 Assyrians leaving the Nineveh Plains for neighboring French Mandate of Syria, and create 35 new villages on the banks of the Khabur River.[63]\n\nRaphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide, was directly influenced by the story of this massacre.[70] The Simele massacre inspired Lemkin to create the concept of \"Genocide\".[71] In 1933, Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based the Simele massacre, the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust.[71][72]\n\n Conferences and treaties\n\nAfter siding with the Allies of World War I, the Assyrians were promised an independent state of their own. This promise was not kept.[73]\n\nParis Peace Conference, 1919\n\nIn 1919, the Syriac Orthodox Bishop Afram I Barsoum (later Patriarch of Antioch) wrote a letter on behalf of the Assyrians to the League of Nations. [a]\n\nIn the letter the bishop wrote that 180,000 Assyrians had been massacred by the Turks. He also said that the Assyrian people were against the proposed autonomy of the Kurds. The letter convinced France to allow Assyrian representation during the upcoming peace conference.[74]\n\nThree Assyrian groups were scheduled to participate in the Peace Conference: Assyrian delegates from the United States, Iraq and Iran.\n\nThe Assyrian group from Iran arrived in France first. The British, having no authority in Iran and fearing the presence of a group which it could not control, forced the Iranian Assyrian delegation to leave Paris and not participate.\n\nThen the Assyrian delegates from the United States arrived. Their demands included the establishment of an Assyrian independent territory which would include Northern Beth Nahrain, beginning at the Little Zab Diyar Bakir and extending to the Armenian mountains, and that the territory would be under the protection of the great powers.\n\nU.S. delegate Rev. Joel E. Werda in his petition concluded;\n\nWe have the most conclusive proofs to show that the Assyrians were urged by the official representatives of Great Britain, France and Russia, to enter into the war on the side of the Allies ... with the most solemn promises of being given a free state. The Assyrians, therefore, having risked the very existence of their nation, and having made such appalling sacrifices upon the altar of freedom, demand that these promises of the Allied governments now be honorably redeemed.[75]\n\nGreat Britain and the U.S. delegates denied this petition, explaining that the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had strong reservations concerning any plans to divide Turkey. The American Assyrian delegation returned from the conference empty handed.\n\nThe Assyrian delegates from Iraq, after many delays by the British authorities, were approved to travel to Paris on July 21 on one condition: that they pass through London, England first. Surma Khanim, the head of the delegation was kept in London until the conference of France finished its deliberations. His demands had been to allow the Assyrians to return to Hakkâri, that they be accorded equal rights, that all Assyrian prisoners be released, and that the individuals responsible for the atrocities committed against the Assyrians be punished.\n\nTreaty of Sèvres, 1920\n\nThe Treaty of Sèvres, signed on August 10, 1920, between the Allies and Turkey, laid the foundations for the new Turkish frontier after World War I.[76] Assyrians were not permitted by Great Britain to participate in these deliberations under the rule that the Assyrians were not an equal power with the rest of the participants. However, the Assyrian issue was discussed and the plan was to contain full safeguards for the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other racial or religious minorities under articles 62, 63, 140, 141, 142, 147, 148, 149, and 150. As a result of this treaty, Mosul (Nineveh) was given to Iraq while France was guaranteed 25% of Mosul's oil production.\n\nArticle 62 of the Treaty states:[77]\n\n... this plan must provide complete guarantees as to the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other ethnic or religious minorities in this area. To this end, a commission made up of British, French, Italian, Persian and Kurdish representatives will visit the area so as to determine what adjustments, if any, should be made to the Turkish frontier wherever it coincides with [the] Persian frontier as laid down in this treaty.\n\nTreaty of Lausanne, 1923\n\nThe Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, between the Allied powers and Turkey, was composed after Turkey requested that the issue of Mosul (Nineveh) be re-examined. Assyrians once again were not allowed to participate as Great Britain interfered, but they were promised again that their rights would be protected. It is worth mentioning that Agha Petros, General of the Assyrian Army, attended the opening ceremonies. The United States stood with Great Britain in these deliberations, the latter promising 20% of the oil industry business be awarded to American companies. Turkey lost its appeal to win Mosul back based on Great Britain's claims that the region would be saved for the future settlement of the Kurdish and Assyrian people, but no final agreement was reached.[78]\n\nArticle 39 of the treaty states:[79]\n\nThere will be no official restriction on any Turkish citizen's right to use any language he wishes, whether in private, in commercial dealings, in matter of religion, in print or at a public gathering. Regardless of the existence of an official language, appropriate facilities will be provided for any non-Turkish-speaking citizen of Turkey to use his own language before the court.\n\nConstantinople Conference, 1924\n\nThe Constantinople Conference was between Great Britain and Turkey, May 21, 1924.\nThe Assyrians were told that Britain was \"fighting\" their case for them and that there was no need for them to attend. A letter on behalf of the Assyrians and their settlement was written under the direction of Sir Henry Conway Dobbs, the British High Commissioner in Iraq, under \"Statement of Proposals for the Settlement of the Assyrian People in Iraq\", in that regard.[80]\n\nThe government of Turkey claimed Mosul as part of Turkey, and Fet'hi Beg declared that the Assyrians, whom he referred to as Nestorians, are welcome to live in their previous lands in Turkey where they would find freedom. Sir Percy Cox stated that Mosul belonged to Iraq and that the Christian Assyrians needed protection from Turkey.\n\nThis was part of his statement:\n\n...His Majesty's Government has decided to endeavor to secure a good treaty frontier, which will at the same time admit of the establishment of the Assyrians in a compact community within the limits of the territory in respect of which His Majesty's Government hold a mandate under the authority of the League of Nations, if not in every case in their ancestral habitation, at all events in suitable adjacent districts. This policy for the settlement of the Assyrians has the full sympathy and support of the Iraqi Government, which is prepared for its part, to give the necessary cooperation for giving effect thereto.[81]\n\nUltimately, no agreement was reached. Turkey then massed its troops on the border to occupy the Mosul Province by force. The Assyrian Levy Force of 2,000 was sent north to protect Iraq since the Iraqi army at this time was unfit to undertake such a task. The Assyrian force was largely responsible for the annexation of Mosul to Iraq rather than to Turkey, as an official of the League of Nations stated.\n\nInterwar period (1925-39)\n\nRecommendation of the League of Nations\n\nOn June 16, 1925, the Commission presented its findings. It recommended that the Assyrian people receive full protection if they were to return to Turkey, that they be given their freedom, and that they receive reimbursements for all their losses during World War I.[82] The Commission further recommended the Patriarch, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, be given full authority over his people.\n\nThese recommendations were not approved. It was finally decided that the issue be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague, an integral part of the charter of the League of Nations. This court was later replaced by the International Court of Justice after the birth of the United Nations.\n\nThe Hague September\n\nIn 1925 the Permanent Court of International Justice took over the disputed border line issue and, in December 1925, adopted a resolution which refused the idea of the Assyrian's return to Hakkâri and gave that region to Turkey, while giving Mosul to Iraq and settling on a border line almost matching the same status quo line which was called the Brussels Line. Further, it recommended the continuation of the British mandate on Iraq for another 25 years to safeguard the Assyrian interests.[83]\n\nAssyrian human rights\n\nOn November 11, 1927, the Assyrians continued to protest their mistreatment and sent letters to the League of Nations, requesting a report from both the governments of Britain and Iraq concerning the situation. The Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague did not accept the reports of Britain and Iraq and requested that both countries fulfill their obligations towards the Assyrians. \n\nBritish treaties and Assyrian petitions\n\nBritain dropped the earlier established recommendations by the Mandate Commission on the grounds that those recommendations should be directed to the Turkish Government and not the Iraqi Government, Assyrians from the Hakkâri and Tur Abdin originally, escaped and have no intentions of returning to Turkey. Hence, they should occupy the land the Iraqi government has provided for them.\n\nSeveral treaties were signed and ratified between Britain and Iraq in the next two years in what seemed to be Britain's preparations to clear the way for Iraq to enter the League of Nations.\n\nThree petitions were received by the Mandate Commission stressing the fears of the Assyrians regarding the termination of the Mandate; they were dated in September 1931; October 20, 1931; and October 23, 1931. One was rejected by Sir Francis Humphrys on the grounds that it was submitted by a person not qualified to represent the Assyrians. Humphrys still pledged the moral responsibility of Great Britain to the future attitude of the Iraqi government.\n\nThe October 23, 1931, petition was submitted by Shimun XXI Eshai, in Mosul, asking for permission to allow the Assyrians to leave Iraq before the end of the Mandate, stating that it would be impossible for the Assyrians to live in Iraq. This decision was reached at with the agreement of all the Assyrian leaders and when responses to this petition were delayed, the Assyrians decided to take action and planned for a general 'cessation of service' by all the Levies.\n\nThe Mandate Commission reviewed the Assyrian petition and was still not satisfied with Britain's and Iraq's assurances of protection of minorities. Worth mentioning here that Sir Humphrys was accused by his own fellow British officials to fabricate lies in regards to the Iraqi government's sentiments about the Assyrians.\n\nThe Mandate Commission gave its recommendations, stating that they are concerned about the Christians, and accordingly, average people were given the right to submit any petitions to the League of Nations, directly, in the future.\n\nIn partial compliance with requests of the petition, the Iraqi government set up a further land-finding committee. It discovered but little land both cultivable and available. In fact, they found malaria-ridden, swampy lands, and recommended expenditure on an irrigation scheme to produce more. Hundreds upon hundreds of Assyrians died with malaria in those lands.\n\nThe Council of the League of Nations accepted the recommendations and Iraq issued a declaration guaranteeing the protection of minorities on May 30, 1932.\n\nAccordingly, Iraq was accepted into the League of Nations on October 3, 1932.[84]\n\nMassacre of Assyrians in Iraq\n\nThe Assyrian national question was taken to Geneva by the Assyrian Patriarch Shimun XXI Eshai again when he addressed the Permanent Mandate Commission meeting and urged the council to fulfill its obligations toward the Assyrian Nation. The League yet again granted the Assyrians their rights of homogenous community in Iraq with a local autonomy.\n\nMar Eshai Shimum was quoted in the meeting:\n\nIf the (British) mandate is lifted without effective guarantees for our protection in the future, our extermination would follow.\n\nAfter the establishment of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932, an Assyrian uprising followed through the following year, anyone refusing to sign a declaration of loyalty to King Faisal and agreeing not to thwart the scheme of the League of Nations for the settlement of the Assyrians, was deported by the order of the government on August 18, 1933, and deprived of Iraqi nationality.\n\nThe failed uprising led to the massacre of 3,000 Assyrians throughout northern Iraq, with the largest massacre taking place in the village of Simele. Eyewitnesses wrote numerous books about the events.[85]\n\nThe Levies, alarmed by this and the imminent withdrawal of British troops, decided upon a concentration of all Assyrians in the Amadia area for security. All Assyrian officers jointly presented a manifesto on July 16 to the commanding officer requesting discharge within 30 days. The other ranks also followed the lead of their officers. The British feared if this were allowed to happen they would lose all authority in Iraq. To buy time, they decided to allow discharge over a four-month period. A British battalion was flown in from Egypt when discharges commenced. \n\nAfter negotiations with Assyrian leaders, the Levies withdrew their request and the British battalion was withdrawn. In all, 296 were discharged. No Iraqi was held responsible for the massacre. A large number of Assyrians began to flee Iraq and find safety in Syria, under French control at the time. The transport and machine gun Assyrian companies ceased to exist as separate units, both being divided between the two Assyrian battalions. Kirkuk was occupied by a platoon from the 2nd battalion to guard the wireless and other RAF stores.\n\nDue to the events of 1933, Assyrians mark August 7 as their martyrs day.\n\n…We're washed up as a race, we're through, it's all over, why should I learn to read the language? We have no writers, we have no news - well, there is a little news: once in a while the English encourage the Arabs to massacre us, that is all. It's an old story, we know all about it.[86][87]\n\nMar Eshai Shimun in Geneva with Yousuf Malik\n\nAfter the Simele massacre, the Council of the League of Nations was absolutely sure that the Assyrian issue was still an unsolved problem. The Assyrian Patriarch requested the League to form an Assyrian and Kurdish enclave in the north of the province of Mosul under a special administration. The Patriarch reminded the Council about the plan originally suggested by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Minister, on December 17, 1919.\n\nIn Iraq, Rashid Ali al-Kaylani, the Iraqi Prime Minister, announced that the Assyrians should find a new home outside Iraq and promised that the Iraqi government was willing to make very generous contributions to cover any expenses of such settlement. On October 13, 1933, the League of Nations appointed a committee of six of its members to look into this possibility.\n\nOn October 24, the Assyrians submitted another petition by Yousuf Malik, an Assyrian Nationalist from Iraq who was exiled to Lebanon and who moved between Cyprus, Beirut and Damascus exposing what was going on inside Iraq and the British games. This petition gives the details of many cases of oppression against the Assyrians in Iraq, details on hardships from government officials, and the facts about the Simele massacre.\n\nFrom October 1933 to June 1935, the committee of six looked into many options. They covered Brazil, British Guiana, Niger, however, all failed. A further suggestion that the British Red Cross might send a relief party to Mosul was also objected to, apparently on the grounds that this would discourage the activities of the Iraqi Crescent, which has not carried out any relief work among the Assyrians. In September 1935, the plan of settling of some of the Assyrians in the Khabour and Ghab areas in Syria was approved. History shows that the plan was never followed up so it too has failed.\n\nThings did not change for the Assyrians in Iraq until the outbreak of World War II, when the Iraqis revolted under Rashid Ali al-Kaylani who sided himself with Germany and wanted to force the British out of Iraq completely. The faith of the British existence in Iraq hanged in the hands of the 1500 Assyrian Levies' ability to hold the British Air Force Base in Habbaniya against the rebels of over 60,000 Arab tribesmen and regular troops who surrounded the base.\n\nThe Battle of Habbaniya is well described in the book, The Golden Carpet by Somerset de Chair, a British intelligence officer serving in Iraq during World War II.\n\nAssyrian resistance during World War II\n\nThe British and Soviet Allies used the Iraq Levies, many of whom were Assyrians, to resist German efforts to gain a foothold in West Asia.[88] The Iraq Levies distinguished themselves in May 1941 during the Anglo-Iraqi War.\n\nIn the early days of World War II, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani came to power as Prime Minister of Iraq. As one of his first acts, he sent an Iraqi artillery force to confront the RAF base situated in Habbaniya, RAF Habbaniya. By the end of April, the Iraqi armed forces were situated in strong positions on the escarpment above the base and a siege began.\n\nAmin al-Husseini (Arabic: محمد أمين الحسيني 1895/1897 - July 4, 1974), was the choice of the Nazis and Italian fascists to make inroads into the Middle East, including Iraq. A veteran of the Ottoman army, from 1921 to 1948 he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.\n\nAs early as 1920, al-Husseini was active in both opposing the British in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state and opposing Jewish immigration and the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. His oppositional role peaked during the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, wanted by the British, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in Lebanon, Iraq, Italy and finally Nazi Germany where he met Adolf Hitler in 1941.[89] He asked Germany to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.\n\nal-Husseini was still in the Kingdom of Iraq when, on 1 April 1941, pro-German Rashid Ali and his pro-German \"Golden Square\" supporters staged a coup d'etat. The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état caused the pro-British Regent Abdul Ilah to flee and the pro-British Prime Minister Taha al-Hashimi to resign. From his base in Iraq, al-Husseini issued a fatwa for a holy war against Britain in May. Less than days later, the Rashid Ali government collapsed, Regent Abdul Ilah returned, and British troops occupied the country.\n\nIraq had been a major supplier of petroleum to the Allied war effort and represented an important landbridge between British forces in Egypt and India. To secure Iraq, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered General Archibald Wavell to protect the air base at Habbaniya.\n\nDuring 1940/41 Iraq joined the Axis powers and the Battle of Habbaniya took place. At Habbaniya, the besieging Iraqis demanded the cessation of all training activities and of all flights in and out of the base.\n\nThe commander at RAF Habbaniya, Air Vice-Marshal Harry George Smart, responded to the Iraqi demands by launching a pre-emptive strike against the Iraqi forces overlooking the air base. During the Rashid Ali rebellion in 1941 the base was besieged by the Iraqi Army encamped on the overlooking plateau. The subsequent arrival of a relief column (Kingcol), part of Habforce sent from Palestine, then a British mandate, combined with the Habbaniya units to force the rebel forces to retreat to Baghdad. The Levies then recruited an additional 11,000 men, mostly Assyrians but also some Kurd and Yezidi.\n\nThe siege was lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF, and the RAF's Iraq Levies. This action initiated the Anglo-Iraqi War. Within a week, the Iraqis abandoned the escarpment. By mid-May, British forces from Habbaniya had moved on to Fallujah and, after overcoming Iraqi resistance there, moved on to Baghdad. On 29 May, fearing a British onslaught, Gaylani fled to Persia. As a result, al-Husseini fled to Persia where he was granted legation asylum first by the Empire of Japan and then by Fascist Italy.\n\nBy 1942, the Iraq Levies consisted of a Headquarters, a Depot, Specialist Assyrian companies, 40 service companies and the 1st Parachute Company, which consisted of 75% Assyrian and 25% Kurd. The new Iraq Levies disciplinary code was based largely on the Indian Army Act. The Levies had 22 Assyrian companies, 5 Mixed Assyrian/Yizidi companies, 10 Kurdish companies, 4 Gulf Arab companies and 3 Baluchi companies. Eleven Assyrian companies served in World War II-era Palestine and another four served in Cyprus. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were active in both Albania and Greece. The Iraq Levies was renamed the Royal Air Force Levies.\n\nIn 1945 after the Second World War 1945 - the Iraq Levies were reduced to 60 British officers and 1,900 other ranks and the RAF Regiment took over command of the Levies. In 1946 the Iraq Levies battalions were redesignated as Wings and Squadrons to conform to the RAF Regiment procedure.\n\nAfter World War II\n\nMar Eshai Shimun at the United Nations\n\n The United Nations was born in San Francisco (replacing the League of Nations).\n\nThe Assyrian Patriarch, Shimun XXI Eshai, was there to present the Assyrian petition to the new world body of peace and was accompanied by two members of the Assyrian National Federation. In this petition the Assyrian tragedy was explained from World War I until the end of World War II.\n\nSeveral petitions from the Patriarch in 1945 and 1946 were sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations to look into the Assyrian National Question. A letter from the UN Secretary-General # 1100-1-4/MEJ dated Oct. 7, 1946 was received by Mar Shimun stating that he had referred the Patriarch's petition to the Commission on Human Rights.\n\nPetition to the UN Secretary-General about Assyrian Massacres in Iran\n\nA petition concerning the Assyrian massacres in Iran was filed again by Shimun XXI Eshai, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. Mar Eshai struggled for over a half century at the League of Nations, then the United Nations. None of his petitions were taken seriously.[90]\n\nAssyrians in the Republic of Iraq (1958-2003)\n\nInspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser, officers from the Nineteenth Brigade known as \"Free Officers\", under the leadership of Brigadier Abdul-Karim Qassem and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif, overthrew the Hashimite monarchy on July 14, 1958.\n\nThe overthrow of Iraq's monarchy instilled new hope for the Assyrian cause. However, this hope was short-lived. Qassem was assassinated in February 1963, throwing Iraq into a period of political uncertainty. Out of the chaos emerged the Ba'ath Party who promptly took control of Iraq's government.\n\nThe Ba'ath brought promise to Iraq and the Assyrian cause when the new government recognized the cultural rights of Syriac-speaking citizens (Assyrians, Chaldeans and members of the East Syrian Church) in 1972. Syriac was to be the language used at all primary schools where the majority of pupils spoke that language in addition to Arabic. Syriac was also to be taught at intermediate and secondary schools where the majority of students spoke that language in addition to Arabic. Special programs in Syriac were to be broadcast on public radio and television and three Syriac-language magazines were to be published. An association of Syriac-speaking authors and writers was also established.[91]\n\nStill, no autonomy was granted to the Assyrians. However, movements towards autonomy and independence remained active. In 1968, a new Assyrian flag was introduced and adopted by the Assyrian Congress in Tehran. In 1977, the Assyrian Provisional Government, headquartered from the Assyrian diaspora in the United States in Chicago, chartered a constitution for an autonomous Assyrian state. The Assyrians now had their goal set and would maintain it.\n\nWhen Saddam Hussein rose to power, things began to change for the Assyrians in Iraq. Assyrians were deprived of their cultural and national rights while at the same time the Ba'athist regime tried to co-opt their history. The 1972 proclamation was reversed and Hussein began a strict campaign of Arabization on any non-Arabs in Iraq, including Assyrians as well as other groups such as Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, and Armenians. During the Iran-Iraq War, many Assyrians were recruited to the armies of both sides. This resulted in Assyrians in Iraq killing Assyrians in Iran. It was estimated that 60,000 Assyrians were killed during the conflict.\n\nWhen Hussein first assumed power, the Assyrian population in Iraq numbered 2 million to 2.5 million. Due to both persecution by his regime and subsequent emigration to Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, that number began to decline drastically.\n\nPost-Ba'thist Iraq (2003-present)\n\nWith the fall of Saddam Hussein and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, no reliable census figures exist on the Assyrians in Iraq (as they do not for Kurds or Iraqi Turkmen), though the number of Assyrians is estimated to be approximately 800,000.\n\nThe Assyrian Democratic Movement (or ADM) was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the ADM also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guided Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.\n\nAssyrian Convention Addresses Assyrian Autonomy\n\nThe panel discussion entitled \"Focus on Iraq\" on August 30 featured Assyrian politicians and activist from Iraq and the U.S., which was held in Chicago.\n\nMr. Willis Fautre's (from Human Rights Without Frontiers) model, two overlapping forms of federalism are envisioned. First, the nation would have separate administrative \"regions\", each with its own parliament; a form of territorial federalism. Each community (Assyrians, Turkmen, Arabs, and Kurds) would also have their own parliament representing their communities throughout the country; a form of community federalism. The community parliament would have full autonomy in religion, culture, schools, agriculture, energy, and protection of monuments. \n\nThe unity of the federal government would be guaranteed by a bicameral system with a House of Representatives elected directly by the people and a Senate appointed by the various communities. For legislation affecting linguistic, cultural, or religious rights, both houses of parliament would have to pass the bill. In addition, though, in the community-based Senate, a super-majority (e.g. 2/3) vote would be needed in addition to a simple majority of every represented community. In such a way, each community would enjoy virtual veto power in matters of language, culture, and religion.\n\nThe proposal for an Assyrian self-administered zone established in the environs of Mosul, extending to Dohuk in the north and Fesh Khabur to the northwest has gained increasing appeal among Assyrian activists, intellectuals, and political leaders. The current political challenges facing Assyrians in the newly developing Iraq include rising Islamic pressure, gross under representation of Assyrians, and a sometimes callous misrepresentation of Assyrians simply as a Christian minority without reference to the Assyrian political, cultural, and nationalist platform. As Mr. Jatou reflected, the increasing Islamic fervor as well as other challenges in Iraq necessitate the establishment of an administrative area for Assyrians and Yezidis.\n\nCurrent situation\n\nThe first of the many church bombings that were to come occurred on the morning of August 4, 2003, that left 19 worshippers dead.\n\nAs the attacks on Assyrians continue to escalate, with the 20th church bombed and the death toll of the Assyrians climbing in 2004, demands by Assyrian politicians for an autonomous safe haven reached at an all-time high. A meeting took place in the British House of Commons to discuss the subject.\n\nA meeting was organized by the Labour MP Stephen Pound, in conjunction with the Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Jubilee Campaign, a Christian human-rights group. Pound's demands were: \n\nSupport an autonomous administrative region as a safe haven\n\nSupport the infrastructure of the region\n\nOppose \"the active and passive ethnic cleansing\" of \"the only indigenous people of Iraq\"\n\nPound argued \"the fate of the Chaldo-Assyrians in Iraq will define the socio-political structure of the Middle East.\"\n\nThe then Prime Minister of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, said he was considering the plan, but nothing resulted as he lost his position in the January 2005 elections.\n\nOn November 30, 2005, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshiyar Zebari, supported the idea of an Assyrian administrative region by saying \"They (Assyrians) are free to organize a province or regional government. It should not be just because we have Kurdistan, but should be organized around an area. If they can do it in three provinces or even one it should and can be done.\"[92]\n\nIn the same weekend, a further five Assyrian churches were bombed in Iraq. By the end of 2004, an estimated 40,000 Assyrians and other Christians had fled Iraq since the beginning of the war.[93]\n\nAustralia's Labor Party member Chris Bowen spoke about the possibility of autonomy for the Assyrians numerous times in the Parliament during 2005.\n\nOn February 24, 2006, Minister of Human Rights in Kurdistan, Dr. Mohammad Ihsan, stated \"We don't mind Iraqi Christians concentrating anywhere they wish, and establishing a new province for themselves in the Nineveh plain, and bringing together Iraqi Christians from all over the world and their return to their houses and towns.\"\n\nOn March 18, 2007, it was reported that Muslims were forcing the Christian Assyrians in the Dora Neighborhood of Baghdad to Pay the jizya,[94] the 'Protection Tax' demanded from Christians and Jews by the Qur'an and Islamic law.[95]\n\nOn May 9, 2007, Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV dispatched a letter to President George W. Bush pleading for immediate protection of the Christians of Iraq.[96]\n\nThe following week a group of armed Muslims set fire to St. George Assyrian Church in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad. The group of men poured gasoline on the church and set it on fire. This is the same church that was bombed in the first of a wave of bombings of Assyrian churches. When St. George was bombed in 2004, the church Cross was not damaged; the bombers tore the cross down with their hands after the bombing.[97]\n\nEuropean support\n\nThe National Democrats in Sweden were supporters of ethnopluralism, and support the foundation of an Assyrian state.[98] After visiting the Assyrians in northern Iraq, Dutch Parliament member Joel Voordewind of the Christian Union party asked the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Verhagen to increase the pressure on the Central Government of Baghdad through the European Union in order to execute a plan for an Assyrian police force for the protection of their towns and villages in the Nineveh plains.[99]\n\nUS Support\n\nIn September 2016, a bipartisan resolution was introduced into the US House of Representatives to support the creation of a permanent safe haven for persecuted minorities, including Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Turkmen, that would be centered on the traditional Assyrian homeland in the Nineveh Plain.[100] The legislation was introduced by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), and it had 11 co-sponsors from Democrats and Republicans. It was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.[101]\n\nOrganizations that actively lobby the U.S government include: Assyrian American Political Advocacy Committee (AAPAC), Assyrian American National Federation (AANF), Assyrian American National Coalition (AANC), Assyrian Policy Institute.\n\nAssyrian Christian Police Force\n\nDuring recent kidnappings and murders of Assyrian Bishops and priests in the North Iraqi region, Assyrians have demonstrated worldwide in the thousands in demanding protection for their villages and the Nineveh Plains region, which Assyrians hope will become an autonomous area under the control of the Assyrians and minorities in the North.\n\nA $4 million measure will fund a 711-man local police force for the Nineveh Plain. It is part of a $30 million emergency relief package for the predominantly Christian region submitted to Congress last month by Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.\n\nIn April 2008, the initial complement of 711 policemen were called up and began training. Another 4000 policemen will be needed to fully secure the region and establish checkpoints on all highways and roads leading into the villages.\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nSimele massacre\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nAssyrian people\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nList of Assyrian tribes\n\nAssyrian flag\n\nHistory of the Assyrian people\n\nNotes\n\n^ See the original letter Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine and a revised clearer version Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine\n\nReferences\n\n^ League of Nations; Secretariat; Information Section (1935). The settlement of the Assyrians, a work of humanity and appeasement. Geneva: Information section. OCLC 14164442.\n\n^ Wigram, William (April 2010). Our Smallest Ally. Assyrian Academic Society. ISBN 978-0982712412. Our Smallest Ally is now homeless, and dependent on our charity at Baqubah, for its lands and villages have been utterly destroyed, and it has the further mortification of seeing - from reasons beyond our control - that although it threw in its lot with the ultimately victorious side, Kurds, and others of the defeated enemy, are in practical possession of its ruined homesteads. Such a state of things is incomprehensible to the minds of this people, but it is due to the difficulties of the country, the entire absence of food in, and the inaccessibility of their home, for purposes of ordinary transport, coupled with the extremely disorderly political conditions of Kurdistan and North-Western Persia.\n\nThese circumstances combine to render their safe re-instalment in their former lands, at present impracticable.\n\nH. H. Austin\n(Late G.O.C. Refugee Camp, Baqubah)\nFebruary 6, 1920.\n\n^ League of Nations; Council (1937). Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq. Geneva. OCLC 3822236.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6. Archived from the original on 2023-01-15. Retrieved 2018-10-03.\n\n^ Carl Skutsch (2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1. Archived from the original on 2023-01-15. Retrieved 2018-10-03.\n\n^ \"Demographics\". Heritage for Peace. 2013-10-16. Archived from the original on 2021-05-10. Retrieved 2016-06-03.\n\n^ \"27 maps that explain the crisis in Iraq\". vox.com. Archived from the original on 2016-06-01. Retrieved 2016-06-03.\n\n^ \"'Leave, convert or die': Isis takes largest Christian town\". The Independent. 2014-08-07. Archived from the original on 2020-07-13. 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The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press, LLC. pp. 24-25. ISBN 9781593334130. Archived from the original on 2015-04-09. Retrieved 2017-08-25.\n\n^ Jordi Tejel (2008). Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society p. 147 Archived 2023-09-08 at the Wayback Machine.\n\n^ Jordi Tejel (2008). Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society (PDF). pp. 25-29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04.\n\n^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922). \"Enver Pasha\" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 31 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. pp. 5-6.\n\n^ Arnoux, Anthony (October 11, 1915). \"The European War: August [1914] to March [1915\". Priv. print. - via Google Books.\n\n^ a b c d Naayem, Shall This Nation Die? (New York, 1921)\n\n^ \"British Betrayal of the Assyrians\". www.aina.org. Archived from the original on 2021-06-13. Retrieved 2009-08-15.\n\n^ Bartrop, Paul (2014). Encountering Genocide: Personal Accounts from Victims, Perpetrators, and Witnesses. ABC-CLIO. 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Hudson, The Admission of Iraq to Membership in the League of Nations, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1933), pp. 133-138 Archived 2019-02-12 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Assyrians of Eastern Massachusetts - p. 66 by Sargon Donabed, Ninos Donabed\n\n^ William Saroyan, \"Seventy Thousand Assyrians,\" in William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories. New York: New Directions, 1934\n\n^ Seventy Thousand Assyrians, William SAROYAN, WikiQuotes.\n\n^ The Tragedy of the Assyrians By R. S. Stafford - p. 59\n\n^ Newsreel Archived 2017-01-25 at the Wayback Machine Die Deutsche Wochenschau, December 10, 1941, Nr. 588, Excerpt in video images.\n\n^ The League of Nations in Retrospect: Proceedings of the Symposium - p. 376 by United Nations Library - 1983\n\n^ \"Twelfth periodic reports of States parties due in 1993 : Iraq. 14/06/96, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Iraqi government's point of view)\". Archived from the original on 2012-02-06. Retrieved 2014-04-08.\n\n^ \"Zinda 30 November 2005\". Archived from the original on 1 February 2016. Retrieved 20 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Iraq losing its best and brightest\". The Christian Science Monitor. 2004-09-21. Archived from the original on 2015-06-13. Retrieved 20 March 2015.\n\n^ \"More on Muslims Forcing Christian Assyrians in Baghdad to Pay 'Protection Tax'\". Archived from the original on 17 December 2014. Retrieved 20 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Cmje\". Archived from the original on 2008-10-07. Retrieved 20 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Patriarch Pleads Protection for Iraqi Christians\". Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Muslims Burn Assyrian Church in Baghdad\". Archived from the original on 26 March 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2015.\n\n^ \"Den nya nationalhögern\" (in Swedish). Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved 2007-12-15. Högt upp i Nd:s program står att verka för en återvandringspolitik. Södertäljes syrianer och assyrier ska uppmuntras att skaffa sig ett nytt land, gärna med hjälp av generösa bidrag.\n\n^ English version\n\n^ \"House Resolution Introduced-to-create Safe Haven for Persecuted Minorities In Iraq\" algemeiner.com 9 2016 https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/09/15/house-resolution-introduced-to-create-safe-haven-for-persecuted-minorities-in-iraq/ Archived 2016-09-24 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Patrick Goodenough \"ISIS Genocide Brings Fresh Calls for a Semi-Autonomous Haven for Christians in Iraq\" AINA.org http://www.aina.org/news/20160913143759.htm Archived 2016-09-24 at the Wayback Machine\n\nBibliography\n\nPrimary sources\n\nNaayem, Jean (1920). Les Assyro-Chaldeans et les Armeniens Massacres Par les Turcs, documents inédits recueillis par un témoin oculaire published in English as Shall This Nation Die?. Paris/New York: Bloud et Gay/Chaldean Rescue. Archived from the original on 2017-12-18. Retrieved 2009-08-15.\n\nRhetore, Jacques. 'Les chrétiens aux bêtes'; Souvenirs de la guerre sainte proclamée par les Turcs contre les chrétiens en 1915. Paris: Les editions du Cerf (2004/2005).\n\nToynbee, Arnold (1916). Treatment of Armenians and the Assyrian Christians by the Turks, 1915-1916, in the Ottoman Empire and North-West Persia, 3 Class 96, Series II, six files, FO 96*205-210. Foreign Office.\n\nYonan, Gabrielle (1989). Ein vergassener Holocaust: Die Vernichtung der christlichen Assyrer in der Turkei. Gottingen: Gesellschaft für bedrohte Volker.\n\nIsmet Inönü, Cable sent from Ismet Inönü, head of the Turkish delegation in Lausanne, to the Turkish government. Cable No. 353, January 15, 1923. See the original Ottoman text in atour.com Archived 2017-07-24 at the Wayback Machine.\n\nSecondary sources\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London and New York: I.B. Tauris..\n\nde Courtois, Sébastian (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: The Eastern Christians, the Last Arameans. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press..\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, resistance, protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-301-3..\n\nGriselle, Eugene (1918). Syriens et Chaldéens: Leur Martyre, Leurs Espérances. Paris: Bloud et Gay..\n\nMalek, Yusuf (1936). The British Betrayal of the Assyrians. Warren Point, NJ: Kimball Press..\n\nNisan, Mordechai (1991). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 9780899505640..\n\nShahbaz, Yonan (1918). The Rage of Islam: An Account of the Massacre of Christians by the Turks in Persia. Philadelphia, PA: Roger Williams Press..\n\nYohannan, Abraham (1916). The Death of a Nation, or: The Ever Persecuted Nestorians or Assyrian Christians. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons..\n\nExternal links\n\nAtour: The State of Assyria - the oldest Christians in the Middle East and the national struggle for their Assyrian homeland and statehood.\n\nAssyria Council of Europe (ACE)\n\nIraq Sustainable Democracy Project"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-independence-movement"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 12338}, {"slug": "reference-john-j-nimrod", "title": "John J. Nimrod", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "John J. Nimrod (May 1, 1922 - January 4, 2009) was an Assyrian American minority rights activist and Illinois state senator.[1][2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "John J. Nimrod (May 1, 1922 - January 4, 2009) was an Assyrian American minority rights activist and Illinois state senator.[1][2]\n\nCareer\n\nBorn in Chicago to Assyrian parents who had emigrated from Iran's northwest Urmiah region, John Nimrod was for three decades a leading international figure actively working for Assyrian survival in the Middle East, cultural and educational advances in American diaspora, and the cause of minorities from Uighurs to Tibetans and Assyrians who remain officially unrepresented in world political fora. He served for many years as a leading figure in UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization), the world body that presses for the rights of such people, often scattered from their homelands as a result of persecution.\nHe began his public career working in political circles in the northern Chicago suburbs, served as committeeman and Niles Township Supervisor, and later served in the Illinois State Senate from District 4 (1973 to 1983).[3][4] An early advocate of solar power, he worked to revise the Illinois mental health code as a Republican state senator. He also sponsored a bill to have the pledge of allegiance said in schools every day.\n\nDuring his years in Illinois politics, he formed a network within state and city government that allowed him to later advance the work of the Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation (AUAF), a cultural and educational organization, based in Chicago, and initially funded by Helen Nimrod James Schwarten (1910-1999), his sister. The AUAF funds scholarship programs for Chicago area Assyrian students, publication of works about Assyrians in English and Assyrian Aramaic, the language of the modern Assyrians, and sponsors other cultural activities such as the series of DVDs produced by Lina Yakubova about Assyrian communities in the locations to which they have been scattered since the genocide of World War I. Nimrod served as the key person, in his capacity as the president of the AUAF since 1999, to solicit and distribute funding for underprivileged Chicagoans from state and city welfare funds. Particularly strengthened by coming under the wing of the AUAF is Ashurbanipal Library, the only publicly accessible Assyrian library in diaspora.\n\nA key organization to which Nimrod devoted the last twenty years of his life was the Assyrian Universal Alliance, the umbrella organization of Assyrians internationally, formed in 1968 in France. Established under the initiative of Assyrians living in the Middle East, particularly the then professionally successful Assyrians of Tehran, Iran, the AUA brought together Assyrians from many countries worldwide (as well as the USSR, but only in the period after the end of the Cold War). It also successfully bridged church divisions that have challenged the allegiance of the Assyrians. Nimrod, as president of this organization since 1991, traveled to many world capitals where he argued the Assyrian case. Together with John Yonan, another Chicago Assyrian, Nimrod helped to bring relief to Assyrians who in the 1970s suffered under the Baath party in Iraq in the years when Saddam Hussein was building his power base. Thousands of Assyrian refugees found shelter in the US due to the work of the AUA.\n\nPolitical divisions in Middle Eastern capitals, especially antagonism directed at the United States due to Cold War politics and the related issue of Israel, led to a deterioration of the unity of the AUA from the 1970s onward. From the disunity that resulted, the AUA tried to salvage its role as representative of the Assyrian voice internationally as pressures on the Assyrians, the easternmost Christians in the Middle East, mounted following the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1979), and the two US led wars in Iraq (1991 following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and the 2003-2008 war). During Nimrod's leadership of the AUA, other rising Assyrian political parties, especially in Iraq, challenged the AUA umbrella status. The lack of effective communication among Assyrians worldwide led to the exploitation of their sectarian and diasporic divisions by Baathist spy networks and later by elements in the Kurdish political parties of Iraq. Nimrod tried to put the AUA infrastructure on a sound footing even as the diaspora community increased and immigrant individuals, families and tribes challenged the authority of organizations and individuals whose western worldview and political experience differed from theirs. He experienced difficulty in surmounting the divisions.\n\nNonetheless he remained an ardent supporter of Assyrian causes and formed many deep and effective relationships with the leadership of the Church of the East, members of the Chaldean church, and others within the Syriac-based Christian communities that form the basis of the Assyrian community worldwide. His good relations with Iranian political figures like former President Khatami led to a successful convening of an AUA Congress in Tehran attended by Iranian dignitaries.\n\nPersonal life\n\nJohn Nimrod was born to Joseph Nimrod and Anna Kochaly Nimrod, a family from Spurghan, a large satellite village in Iran's West Azarbaijan province. The father immigrated to the United States for temporary work, as had many other Assyrians from this area, prior to World War I, leaving behind a large extended family, including two daughters and one son. (Schwarten, p. 2) The family survived the ethnic cleansing of Assyrians and Armenians in the Urmiah region, survived an arduous trek on foot from Iran to the refugee camp in Baquba, Iraq, and finally, thanks to the relief organizations that allowed the father to reach his family with money, the family made its way to New York, then to Chicago by train. Two children, John and a sister named Julia, were born in Chicago. The family lived in the Lincoln Park section of the city where many Assyrian families had settled.\nAfter high school graduation (1940), Nimrod started at Northwestern University but his education was interrupted by service in the U.S. Army (Europe) but returned to graduate in 1950 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Later he served in the Korean War and was discharged with the rank of captain. He worked for Fisher Body and later started a fiberglass plant in Chicago that built molds for swimming pools. He married Dorothy (Ingrid) Paul, and during the 1960s they adopted four children, John, Joseph, Lizabeth and Naomi.\n\nNimrod spoke the Neo-Aramaic language well, a skill he polished in Chicago as he became increasingly active in Assyrian affairs.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home: Obituary: Senator John J. Nimrod\". Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2009-11-03.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Universal Alliance\". Archived from the original on 2010-01-03. Retrieved 2009-11-03.\n\n^ 'Illinois Blue Book 1979-1980,' Biographical Sketch of John Joseph Nimrod, pg. 24\n\n^ \"The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Nill to Nixdorf\".\n\n\"Hero of the Assyrian Christians of Iraq Dies.\" Journal Chretien, Wednesday, January 7, 2009\n\nSchwarten, Helen Nimrod James. My story, Persia to America : (the story of the Assyrians). Chicago: Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation, Ashurbanipal Library, [1986?]\n\nShoumanov, Vasili. Assyrians in Chicago Chicago: Arcadia, c2001. 96 p. : ill.; 24 cm.\n\n\"State Senator backed law requiring Pledge in schools\", Chicago Sun-Times, January 11, 2009\n\n\"Vet became state senator Chicago native served in WW II, Korea and led Assyrian group\" Chicago Tribune, January 7, 2009"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-john-j-nimrod"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1173}, {"slug": "reference-nochiya", "title": "Nochiya", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The Nochiya (Syriac: ܢܵܘܟ̰ܝܼܵܐ,[1] pl.: Nochiyaye,) are an Assyrian tribe that were based in and around the villages of Beyyurdu and Öveç in the Şemdinli district of the province of Hakkari, Turkey.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Nochiya (Syriac: ܢܵܘܟ̰ܝܼܵܐ,[1] pl.: Nochiyaye,) are an Assyrian tribe that were based in and around the villages of Beyyurdu and Öveç in the Şemdinli district of the province of Hakkari, Turkey.\n\nPeople\n\nThe Assyrians of the Nochiya Region were simple farmers who owned cattle and grew food. They were known particularly for their fine tobacco, which was their main source of income along with herding sheep. Prayer and fasting were strictly observed in the villages of the Nochiya Assyrians. An Englishman visiting the Nochiya Region in the late 19th century noted that \"there is perhaps no Assyrian district where simple piety and loyal devotion to the church of their fathers is more beautifully seen than in Nochiya\".[2] Nochiyaye were and are still today most famous for their Eastern Rite faith and for being the guardians of the Assyrian Church of the East's canon laws, which they have preserved.[3]\n\nReligion\n\nThere were at least six monasteries and more than 40 churches within the Nochiya Region. The Nochiyaye were best known for their adherence to the Assyrian Church of the East faith; because of this, religious customs such as Lent and prayer were strictly observed. The Mar Ishu Monastery in the village of Mar Ishu was a theological school for priests and was run by the Metropolitans of Shamizdin, who would not tolerate any changes to the church's canon laws.[2]\n\nAn Englishman visiting the Nochiya Region in the late 19th century noted that \"there is perhaps no Assyrian district where simple piety and loyal devotion to the church of their fathers is more beautifully seen than Nochiya\".\n\nThere were other important religious figures in the tribe, including two bishops, four archdeacons, twelve priests, and a large number of deacons distributed among the clans. To this day, the majority of the priests and deacons within the Assyrian Church of the East belong to the Nochiya tribe, including the Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV.[3]\n\nSaint Mar Yosip Khnanisho\n\nThe 12th and the last of the metropolitans the Matran family donated to the church was Mar Yosip Khnanisho, who died on July 3, 1977, in Baghdad, Iraq. At an early age, he was aware for the sublime position he was dedicated, thus he had learned by heart the complete Eucharistic rites, performed in the church by a deacon or priest. He was tutored adequately by a learned scholar, Rev. Rehana, his father's uncle, who was well versed in the Aramaic, Russian and Turkish languages and an authority in Eastern theology. Rev. Rehana was the head of the Seminary in Mar Ishu Monastery and he taught classes to a number of students studying for the priesthood. From this seminary many graduated to become bishops and priests in various dioceses and parishes.\n\nAt age twelve, Khnanisho was ordained a deacon. By 1912 Khnanisho had already acquired a thorough knowledge of theology therefore he was found to be well suited to be ordained a priest. In the year 1914, at the beginning of World War I, he was sent as a delegate, representing the Metropolitan Mar Iskhaq Khnanisho, to participate in a most important meeting called by Mar Benyamin Shimon XIX, the Catholicos Patriarch at the patriarchal cell in Qudchanis, Turkey, to discuss the effects of the World War on the Church and the nation and prepare for the changes that were expected to take place. While there he was consecrated a bishop on August 10, 1914, by the patriarch and was appointed as assistant to the patriarch.[4]\n\nHe remained in Qudchanis until 1916 when the Assyrians had to leave their homeland and possessions in consequence of the Great War. After the treacherous assassination of the Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimon XIX by Kurds during Sayfo in 1918, Khnanisho assumed to a great extent, the leadership of the nation, until the Assyrians arrived in the refugee camps, set up by the Red Cross and League of Nations, at Baqubah, Iraq in 1918. In December 1918 he was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan in Baghdad by Patriarch Mar Paulos Shimon XX.[4]\n\nWhen Shimun XXI Eshai, the Catholicos Patriarch, was exiled in 1933 by the monarchial regime of Iraq, Khnanisho was entrusted with the church administration in Iraq and the Middle East.\n\nIn 1973, when Shimun XXI Eshai resigned his position as the Catholicos Patriarch, Khnanisho was vested with responsibilities of administering the Church of the East throughout the world. At the same time, the Iraqi government issued a Republican decree appointing Khnanisho as the supreme head of all the Assyrians in Iraq.\n\nOn July 3, 1977, at 1:10 pm Khnanisho died in Baghdad, Iraq. His death coincides with the feast celebrated every year in memory of St. Thomas the Apostle.[4]\n\nNotable Nochiyaye\n\nReligious Figures\n\nAssyrian Church of the East:\n\nSaint Mar Yosip Khnanisho - Mar Ishu, NOCHIYA - Last Metropolitan of Shamizdin, d.1977, Baghdad\n\nMar Dinkha IV - Darbandokeh, Iraq - Patriarch\n\nMar Emmanuel Yosip - Darbandokeh, Iraq - Bishop, Diocese of Canada\n\nPolitical Activists\n\nDr. Emanuel Kamber - Darbandokeh, Iraq - Previous Secretary General, Assyrian Universal Alliance, Chicago\n\nKurdistan Democratic Party:\n\nFawzi Hariri - Harir, Iraq - ‘Iraqi Minister for Industry' & 'Elected INC Member'\n\nSargis Aghajan - Diyana, Iraq\n\nOthers\n\nGeniro - Tees, - Darbandokeh, Pop Singer, Canada brother of Ninos Dikho\n\nSee also\n\nJilu\n\nTyari\n\nHalmon\n\nAshitha\n\nReferences\n\n^ Maclean, Arthur John (1901). Dictionary of the Dialects of Vernacular Syriac. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 210b-211a.\n\n^ a b \"The Assyrians of Shamizdin, Turkey\". zyworld.com. Archived from the original on 17 January 2003.\n\n^ a b \"Zinda 2 November 2005\". www.zindamagazine.com.\n\n^ a b c \"Mar Yosip\". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2006."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nochiya"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 940}, {"slug": "reference-dyophysitism", "title": "Dyophysitism", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Dyophysitism (/daɪˈɒfɪsaɪtɪzəm/;[2] from Greek δύο dyo, \"two\" and φύσις physis, \"nature\") is the Christological position that Jesus Christ is in two distinct, inseparable natures: divine and human. It is accepted by the majority of Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Church of the East, Anglicanism,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Icon of Christ the Pantocrator. The icon represents the dual nature of Christ, illustrating traits of both man and God[1]Mirrored composites of left and right sides of image\n\nDyophysitism (/daɪˈɒfɪsaɪtɪzəm/;[2] from Greek δύο dyo, \"two\" and φύσις physis, \"nature\") is the Christological position that Jesus Christ is in two distinct, inseparable natures: divine and human. It is accepted by the majority of Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Church of the East, Anglicanism, Methodism, Reformed Christianity and Lutheranism. It is rejected by the Oriental Orthodox churches, who hold to Miaphysitism-that Jesus Christ is of two natures united into one composite nature-while rejecting Monophysitism as heresy along with other extant denominations.\n\nThose who subscribe to the \"two natures after the union\" formula on either Chalcedonian and Nestorian side were referred to as dyophysites (/daɪˈɒfəsaɪts/). It is related to the doctrine of the hypostatic union and prosopic union.\n\nHistory\n\nDevelopment of dyophysite Christology was gradual; dyophysite tradition and its complex terminology were finally formulated as a result of the long Christological debates that were constant during the 4th and 5th centuries. Variations of dyophysite Christology steadily emerged in the teachings of Valentinus,[3] Paul of Samosata,[4] Diodore of Tarsus,[5] Theodore of Mopsuestia,[6] and others.\n\nDyophysitism stands in opposition to the views of monophysitism, the doctrine of Jesus having a sole divine nature, and miaphysitism, the doctrine that Christ is of both divine and human natures fully united into one composite nature. The Chalcedonian definition of dyophysitism holds that the two natures are completely and perfectly united in the one Person and hypostasis of Jesus Christ,[7] in union with each other and co-existing without mixture, confusion or change;[8] the Nestorian definition varies depending on certain readings of Nestorius , the general consensus is that Nestorius taught a Prosopic union which is the union of a multitude of parsopa , Nestorius himself claimed the union could be named hypostatic, leaving space for argument and various different interpretations. The importance of dyophysitism was often emphasized by prominent representatives of the Antiochene school in contrast to the Alexandrian school.[9]\n\nThe miaphysites upheld the idea of one nature in Christ based on their understanding of Cyril of Alexandria's teachings,[10] including his Twelve Anathemas, namely number 4 which states:[11]\n\n\"If anyone shall divide between two persons or subsistences those expressions which are contained in the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, or which have been said concerning Christ by the Saints, or by himself, and shall apply some to him as to a man separate from the Word of God, and shall apply others to the only Word of God the Father, on the ground that they are fit to be applied to God: let him be anathema.\"\n\nDyophysitism was articulated in the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[12] which produced the Chalcedonian Definition, that states:[13]\n\nWe confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. the distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.\n\nNature (ousia) in the Chalcedonian sense can be understood to be referring to a set of \"powers and qualities which constitute a being\"[14] whereas person (prosopon) refers to \"a concrete individual acting as subject in its own right.\"[15]\n\nFor adherents, the hypostatic union is the center of Jesus's unity (his divinity and humanity being described as natures) whereas those who rejected the Council of Chalcedon saw his nature itself as the point of unity.\n\nDyophisitism has also been used to describe some aspects of Nestorianism, the doctrines ascribed to Nestorius of Constantinople. It is now generally agreed that some of his ideas were not far from those that eventually emerged as orthodox, but the orthodoxy of his formulation of the doctrine of Christ is still controversial among churches.[16] This became especially prominent after the discovery of the Bazaar of Heracleides, which renewed interest in his work.\n\nAcceptance\n\nAfter many debates and several councils, dyophysitism gained its official dogmatic form at the Council of Chalcedon[17] and the Second Council of Constantinople of 553, which are accepted in the present day by a majority of Christian churches, including the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, the Anglican Church, and the Old Catholic Church, as well as Reformed, Lutheran, and various other Christian denominations. Apart from that, the ancient Church of the East has preserved dyophysite Christology and other traditions of the Antiochene School.[9]\n\nThere remain churches which hold to the Miaphysite positions, such as the Oriental Orthodox Churches.[18]\n\nSee also\n\nIchthys (second century, Catacomb of Priscilla)\n\nFirst Council of Ephesus\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Chatzidakis, Manolis; Walters, Gerry (1967). \"An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai\". The Art Bulletin. 49 (3): 201.\n\n^ \"Dyophysitism\". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary - via Dictionary.com.\n\n^ \"CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies, III.16 (St. Irenaeus)\". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ Sample, Robert L. (March 1979). \"The Christology of the Council of Antioch (268. C.E.) Reconsidered\". Church History. 48 (1): 18-26. doi:10.2307/3163921. ISSN 0009-6407.\n\n^ Greer, Rowan A. (1966-10-01). \"THE ANTIOCHENE CHRISTOLOGY OF DIODORE OF TARSUS\". The Journal of Theological Studies. XVII (2): 327-341. doi:10.1093/jts/XVII.2.327. ISSN 0022-5185.\n\n^ McLeod, Frederick G. (2012-02-01). \"The Christology in Theodore of Mopsuestia's Commentary on the Gospel of John\". Theological Studies. 73 (1): 115-138. doi:10.1177/004056391207300105. ISSN 0040-5639.\n\n^ Craig, William Lane (2016). \"7. Doctrine of Christ Lecture 3 Antiochean Christology (Dyophysitism)\" (PDF). Reasonable Faith. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-02-10. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ \"What are the Hypostatic Union, Dyophysitism, and Miaphysitism?\". Apologetics.Media. 2023-12-28. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ a b Meyendorff 1989.\n\n^ \"The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria\". The Gospel Coalition. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ \"\"Cyril of Alexandria Twelve Anathemas\"\". Early Church Texts. 2024-02-10. Archived from the original on 2023-09-26. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ \"Diophysitism\", in the Slobodan Maldini: Dictionary of Exorcism. p. 750. Archived from the original on November 4, 2018. Retrieved Nov 4, 2018.\n\n^ \"Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText\". www.vatican.va. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ \"The Definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) | Reformed Theology at Semper Reformanda\". Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ Wagner, Christian B. (2020-11-09). \"Dyophysitism: An Introduction to Chalcedonian Christology\". Scholastic Answers. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\n^ Chesnut 1978, pp. 392-409.\n\n^ Loon 2009, pp. 24-29.\n\n^ \"Oriental Orthodoxy « Western Prelacy\". westernprelacy.org. Retrieved 2024-02-10.\n\nSources\n\nChesnut, Roberta C. (1978). \"The Two Prosopa in Nestorius' Bazaar of Heracleides\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 29 (2): 392-409. doi:10.1093/jts/XXIX.2.392. JSTOR 23958267.\n\nLoon, Hans van (2009). The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria. Leiden-Boston: Basil BRILL. ISBN 978-9004173224.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1983). Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (Revised 2 ed.). New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823209675.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410556.\n\nOstrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dyophysitism"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1186}, {"slug": "reference-history-of-mesopotamia", "title": "History of Mesopotamia", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources. Mesopotamia...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources. Mesopotamia has been home to many of the oldest major civilizations, entering history from the Early Bronze Age, for which reason it is often called a cradle of civilization.\n\nShort outline of Mesopotamia\n\nMesopotamia (Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία, romanized: Mesopotamíā; Classical Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, lit. 'Bēṯ Nahrēn') means \"Between the Rivers\". The oldest known occurrence of the name Mesopotamia dates to the 4th century BC, when it was used to designate the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The name was presumably translated from a term already current in the area-probably in Aramaic-and apparently was understood to mean the land lying \"between the (Euphrates and Tigris) rivers\", now Iraq.[1]\n\nLater and in the broader sense, the historical region included not only the area of present-day Iraq, but also parts of present-day Iran, Syria and Turkey.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia.[8][9][10] A further distinction is usually made between Upper or Northern Mesopotamia and Lower or Southern Mesopotamia.[11]\n\nUpper Mesopotamia is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad.[8] Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf.[11] In modern scientific usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation. It is usually used to designate the area until the Arab Muslim conquests in the 7th century AD, with Arabic names like Syria, Jezirah and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date.[7][12][nb 1]\n\nChronology and periodization\n\nTwo types of chronologies can be distinguished: a relative chronology and an absolute chronology. The former establishes the order of phases, periods, cultures and reigns, whereas the latter establishes their absolute age expressed in years. In archaeology, relative chronologies are established by carefully excavating archaeological sites and reconstructing their stratigraphy - the order in which layers were deposited. In general, newer remains are deposited on top of older material. Absolute chronologies are established by dating remains, or the layers in which they are found, through absolute dating methods. These methods include radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology and the written record that can provide year names or calendar dates.\n\nBy combining absolute and relative dating methods, a chronological framework has been built for Mesopotamia that still incorporates many uncertainties but that also continues to be refined.[13][14] In this framework, many prehistorical and early historical periods have been defined on the basis of material culture that is thought to be representative for each period. These periods are often named after the site at which the material was recognized for the first time, as is for example the case for the Halaf, Ubaid and Jemdet Nasr periods.[13] When historical documents become widely available, periods tend to be named after the dominant dynasty or state; examples of this are the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods.[15] While reigns of kings can be securely dated for the 1st millennium BC, there is an increasingly large error margin toward the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC.[14]\n\nThe chronology for much of the third and second millennia BC is subject to much debate. Based on different estimates for the length of periods for which still very few historical documents are available, so-called Ultra-long, Long, Middle, Short and Ultra-short Chronologies have been proposed by various scholars, varying by as much as 150 years in their dating of specific periods.[16][17] Despite problems with the Middle Chronology, this chronological framework continues to be used by many recent handbooks on the archaeology and history of the ancient Near East.[14][18][19][20][21] A study from 2001 published high-resolution radiocarbon dates from Turkey supporting dates for the 2nd millennium BC that are very close to those proposed by the Middle Chronology.[22][nb 2]\n\nPrehistory\n\nPre-Pottery Neolithic period\n\nThe early Neolithic human occupation of Mesopotamia is, like the previous Epipaleolithic period, confined to the foothill zones of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains and the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. One of the earliest settled site for hunter-gatherers is Körtik Tepe (10,400 BC). The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period (10,000-8,700 BC) saw the introduction of agriculture, while the oldest evidence for animal domestication dates to the transition from the PPNA to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB, 8700-6800 BC) at the end of the 9th millennium BC. This transition has been documented at sites like Abu Hureyra and Mureybet, which continued to be occupied from the Natufian well into the PPNB.[23][24] The so-far earliest monumental sculptures and circular stone buildings from Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey date to the PPNA/Early PPNB and represent, according to the excavator, the communal efforts of a large community of hunter-gatherers.[25][26]\n\n Inside the Shanidar Cave, where the remains of eight adults and two infant Neanderthals, dating from around 65,000-35,000 years ago were found, northern Iraq.\n\n Skeletal remains of Shanidar II, c. 60,000 to 45,000 BCE. Iraq Museum\n\n Reconstitution of housing in Aşıklı Höyük, Upper Mesopotamia, modern Turkey.\n\n Jar in calcite alabaster, Syria, late 8th millennium BC.\n\n Mace-head, late 8th millennium BC.\n\n Alabaster pot Mid-Euphrates region, 6500 BC, Louvre Museum\n\n Alabaster pot, Mid-Euphrates region, 6500 BC, Louvre Museum\n\n Female statuette, 8th millennium BC, Syria.\n\nChalcolithic (Copper Age) period\n\nThe Fertile Crescent was inhabited by several distinct, flourishing cultures between the end of the last ice age (c. 10,000 BC) and the beginning of history. One of the oldest known Neolithic sites in Mesopotamia is Jarmo, settled around 7000 BC and broadly contemporary with Jericho (in the Levant) and Çatalhöyük (in Anatolia). It as well as other early Neolithic sites, such as Samarra and Tell Halaf were in northern Mesopotamia; later settlements in southern Mesopotamia required complicated irrigation methods. The first of these was Eridu, settled during the Ubaid period culture by farmers who brought with them the Samarran culture from the north.\n\nHalaf culture (Northwestern Mesopotamia)\n\nPottery was decorated with abstract geometric patterns and ornaments, especially in the Halaf culture, also known for its clay fertility figurines, painted with lines. Clay was all around and the main material; often modelled figures were painted with black decoration. Carefully crafted and dyed pots, especially jugs and bowls, were traded. As dyes, iron oxide containing clays were diluted in different degrees or various minerals were mixed to produce different colours.\n\nHassuna culture (Northern Mesopotamia)\n\nThe Hassuna culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia dating to the early sixth millennium BC. It is named after the type site of Tell Hassuna in Iraq. Other sites where Hassuna material has been found include Tell Shemshara.\n\nSamarra culture (Central Mesopotamia)\n\nThe Samarra culture is a Chalcolithic archaeological culture in northern Mesopotamia that is roughly dated to 5500-4800 BCE. It partially overlaps with the Hassuna and early Ubaid.\n\nUbaid culture (Southern Mesopotamia)\n\nThe Ubaid period (c. 6500-3800 BC)[27] is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid in Southern Mesopotamia, where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley.[28]\n\nIn South Mesopotamia the period is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium.[29] In the south it has a very long duration between about 6500 and 3800 BC when it is replaced by the Uruk period.[30]\n\nNorthern expansion of Ubaid culture\n\nUruk period \"King-Priest\"Mesopotamian king as Master of Animals on the Gebel el-Arak Knife, dated circa 3300-3200 BC, Abydos, Egypt. This work of art suggests early Egypt-Mesopotamia relations, showing the influence of Mesopotamia on Egypt at an early date, and the state of Mesopotamian royal iconography during the Uruk period. Louvre Museum.[31][32]Similar portrait of an Uruk King-Priest with a brimmed round hat and large beard, bare-chested with a straight skirt. Uruk, 3300-3000 BC.[33][34]\n\nIn North Mesopotamia the period runs only between about 5300 and 4300 BC.[30] It is preceded by the Halaf period and the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period and succeeded by the Late Chalcolithic period. The new period is named Northern Ubaid to distinguish it from the proper Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia,[35] and two explanations were presented for the transformation. The first maintain an invasion and a replacement of the Halafians by the Ubaidians; however, there is no hiatus between the Halaf and northern Ubaid that excludes the invasion theory.[36][37] The most plausible theory is a Halafian adoption of the Ubaid culture.[36][35][37][38]\n\nUruk period\n\nNamed after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia.\n\nSumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods.[39]\n\nThe late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age; it may also be called the \"Protoliterate period\".\n\nThird millennium BC\n\nJemdet Nasr period\n\nThe Jemdet Nasr period, named after the type-site Jemdet Nasr, is generally dated to 3100-2900 BC.[40] It was first distinguished on the basis of distinctive painted monochrome and polychrome pottery with geometric and figurative designs.[41] The cuneiform writing system that had been developed during the preceding Uruk period was further refined. While the language in which these tablets were written cannot be identified with certainty for this period, it is thought to be Sumerian. The texts deal with administrative matters like the rationing of foodstuffs or lists of objects or animals.[42] Settlements during this period were highly organized around a central building that controlled all aspects of society. The economy focused on local agricultural production and sheep-and-goat pastoralism. The homogeneity of the Jemdet Nasr period across a large area of southern Mesopotamia indicates intensive contacts and trade between settlements. This is strengthened by the find of a sealing at Jemdet Nasr that lists a number of cities that can be identified, including Ur, Uruk and Larsa.[43]\n\nEarly Dynastic period\n\nThe entire Early Dynastic period is generally dated to 2900-2350 BC according to the Middle Chronology, or 2800-2230 BC according to the Short Chronology.[44] The Sumerians were firmly established in Mesopotamia by the middle of the 4th millennium BC, in the archaeological Uruk period, although scholars dispute when they arrived.[45] It is hard to tell where the Sumerians might have come from because the Sumerian language is a language isolate, unrelated to any other known language. Their mythology includes many references to the area of Mesopotamia but little clue regarding their place of origin, perhaps indicating that they had been there for a long time. The Sumerian language is identifiable from its initially logographic script which arose last half of the 4th millennium BC.\n\nBy the 3rd millennium BC, these urban centers had developed into increasingly complex societies. Irrigation and other means of exploiting food sources were being used to amass large surpluses. Huge building projects were being undertaken by rulers, and political organization was becoming ever more sophisticated. Throughout the millennium, the various city-states Kish, Uruk, Ur and Lagash vied for power and gained hegemony at various times. Nippur and Girsu were important religious centers, as was Eridu at this point. This was also the time of Gilgamesh, a semi-historical king of Uruk, and the subject of the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. By 2600 BC, the logographic script had developed into a decipherable cuneiform syllabic script.\n\nThe chronology of this era is particularly uncertain due to difficulties in our understanding of the text, our understanding of the material culture of the Early Dynastic period and a general lack of radiocarbon dates for sites in Iraq. Also, the multitude of city-states makes for a confusing situation, as each has its own history. In the past, the Sumerian King List was considered to be an important historical source, but recent scholarship has dismissed the utility of this text up to the point that it should not be used at all for the reconstruction of Early Dynastic political history.[46]\n\nEnshakushanna of Uruk conquered all of Sumer, Akkad, and Hamazi, followed by Eannatum of Lagash who also conquered Sumer. His methods were force and intimidation (see the Stele of the Vultures), and soon after his death, the cities rebelled and the empire again fell apart. Some time later, Lugal-Anne-Mundu of Adab created the first, if short-lived, empire to extend west of Mesopotamia, at least according to historical accounts dated centuries later. The last native Sumerian to rule over most of Sumer before Sargon of Akkad established supremacy was Lugal-Zage-Si.\n\nAkkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),[47] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD.\n\nAkkadian Empire\n\nThe Akkadian period is generally dated to 2350-2170 BC according to the Middle Chronology, or 2230-2050 BC according to the Short Chronology.[44] Around 2334 BC, Sargon became ruler of Akkad in northern Mesopotamia. He proceeded to conquer an area stretching from the Persian Gulf into modern-day Syria. The Akkadians were a Semitic people and the Akkadian language came into widespread use as the lingua franca during this period, but literacy remained in the Sumerian language. The Akkadians further developed the Sumerian irrigation system with the incorporation of large weirs and diversion dams into the design to facilitate the reservoirs and canals required to transport water vast distances.[48] The dynasty continued until around c. 2154 BC, and reached its zenith under Naram-Sin, who began the trend for rulers to claim divinity for themselves.\n\nThe Akkadian Empire lost power after the reign of Naram-Sin, and eventually was invaded by the Guti from the Zagros Mountains. For half a century the Guti controlled Mesopotamia, especially the south, but they left few inscriptions, so they are not well understood. The Guti hold loosened on southern Mesopotamia, where the second dynasty of Lagash came into prominence. Its most famous ruler was Gudea, who left many statues of himself in temples across Sumer.\n\nUr III period\n\nEventually the Guti were overthrown by Utu-hengal of Uruk, and the various city-states again vied for power. Power over the area finally went to the city-state of Ur, when Ur-Nammu founded the Ur III Empire (2112-2004 BC) and conquered the Sumerian region. Under his son Shulgi, state control over industry reached a level never again seen in the region. Shulgi may have devised the Code of Ur-Nammu, one of the earliest known law codes (three centuries before the more famous Code of Hammurabi). Around 2000 BC, the power of Ur waned, and the Amorites came to occupy much of the area, although it was Sumer's long-standing rivals to the east, the Elamites, who finally overthrew Ur. In the north, Assyria remained free of Amorite control until the very end of the 19th century BC. This marked the end of city-states ruling empires in Mesopotamia, and the end of Sumerian dominance, but the succeeding rulers adopted much of Sumerian civilization as their own.\n\nSecond millennium BC\n\nOld Assyrian Period\n\nOf the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is positively known. The Assyrian King List mentions rulers going back to the 23rd and 22nd century BC. The earliest king named Tudiya, who was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla, appears to have lived in the mid-23rd century BC, according to the king list. Tudiya concluded a treaty with Ibrium for the use of a trading post in the Levant officially controlled by Ebla. Apart from this reference to trading activity, nothing further has yet been discovered about Tudiya. He was succeeded by Adamu and then a further thirteen rulers about all of whom nothing is yet known. These early kings from the 23rd to late 21st centuries BC, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents were likely to have been semi nomadic pastoralist rulers, nominally independent but subject to the Akkadian Empire, who dominated the region and at some point during this period became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur.[49] A king named Ushpia (c. 2030 BC) is credited with dedicating temples to Ashur in the home city of the god. In around 1975 BC Puzur-Ashur I founded a new dynasty, and his successors such as Shalim-ahum, Ilushuma (1945-1906 BC), Erishum I (1905-1867 BC), Ikunum (1867-1860 BC), Sargon I, Naram-Sin and Puzur-Ashur II left inscriptions regarding the building of temples to Ashur, Adad and Ishtar in Assyria. Ilushuma in particular appears to have been a powerful king and the dominant ruler in the region, who made many raids into southern Mesopotamia between 1945 BC and 1906 BC, attacking the independent Sumero-Akkadian city states of the region such as Isin, and founding colonies in Asia Minor. This was to become a pattern throughout the history of ancient Mesopotamia with the future rivalry between Assyria and Babylonia. However, Babylonia did not exist at this time, but was founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite prince named Sumuabum during the reign of Erishum I.\n\nIsin-Larsa, Old Babylonian and Shamshi-Adad I\n\nAnubanini rock relief\n(Isin-Larsa period)[50]Original relief.Components of the relief.\n\nThe next two centuries or so, called the Isin-Larsa period, saw southern Mesopotamia dominated by the Amorite cities of Isin and Larsa, as the two cities vied for dominance. This period also marked a growth in power in the north of Mesopotamia. An Assyrian king named Ilushuma (1945-1906 BC) became a dominant figure in Mesopotamia, raiding the southern city states and founding colonies in Asia Minor. Eshnunna and Mari, two Amorite ruled states also became important in the north.\n\nBabylonia was founded as an independent state by an Amorite chieftain named Sumuabum in 1894 BC. For over a century after its founding, it was a minor and relatively weak state, overshadowed by older and more powerful states such as Isin, Larsa, Assyria and Elam. However, Hammurabi (1792 BC to 1750 BC), the Amorite ruler of Babylon, turned Babylon into a major power and eventually conquered Mesopotamia and beyond. He is famous for his law code and conquests, but he is also famous due to the large amount of records that exist from the period of his reign. After the death of Hammurabi, the first Babylonian dynasty lasted for another century and a half, but his empire quickly unravelled, and Babylon once more became a small state. The Amorite dynasty ended in 1595 BC, when Babylonia fell to the Hittite king Mursilis, after which the Kassites took control.\n\nIn the north an Amorite king named Shamshi-Adad I of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia rose to power. His son Ishme-Dagan I continued this process, however his successors were eventually conquered by Hammurabi, a fellow Amorite from Babylon.\n\nMiddle Assyrian Period and Empire\n\nThe Middle Assyrian period begins c. 1720 BC with the ejection of Amorites and Babylonians from Assyria by a king called Adasi. The nation remained relatively strong and stable, peace was made with the Kassite rulers of Babylonia, and Assyria was free from Hittite, Hurrian, Gutian, Elamite and Mitanni threat. However a period of Mitanni domination occurred from the mid-15th to early 14th centuries BC. This was ended by Eriba-Adad I (1392 BC - 1366), and his successor Ashur-uballit I completely overthrew the Mitanni Empire and founded a powerful Assyrian Empire that came to dominate Mesopotamia and much of the ancient Near East (including Babylonia, Asia Minor, Iran, the Levant and parts of the Caucasus and Arabia), with Assyrian armies campaigning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caspian, and from the Caucasus to Arabia. The empire endured until 1076 BC with the death of Tiglath-Pileser I. During this period Assyria became a major power, overthrowing the Mitanni Empire, annexing swathes of Hittite, Hurrian and Amorite land, sacking and dominating Babylon, Canaan/Phoenicia and becoming a rival to Egypt.\n\nKassite dynasty of Babylon\n\nAlthough the Hittites overthrew Babylon, another people, the Kassites, took it as their capital (c. 1650-1155 BC (short chronology)). They have the distinction of being the longest lasting dynasty in Babylon, reigning for over four centuries. They left few records, so this period is unfortunately obscure. They are of unknown origin; what little we have of their language suggests it is a language isolate. Although Babylonia maintained its independence through this period, it was not a power in the Near East, and mostly sat out the large wars fought over the Levant between Egypt, the Hittite Empire, and Mitanni (see below), as well as independent peoples in the region. Assyria participated in these wars toward the end of the period, overthrowing the Mitanni Empire and besting the Hittites and Phrygians, but the Kassites in Babylon did not. They did, however, fight against their longstanding rival to the east, Elam (related by some linguists to the Dravidian languages in modern India). Babylonia found itself under Assyrian and Elamite domination for much of the later Kassite period. In the end, the Elamites conquered Babylon, bringing this period to an end.\n\nHurrians\n\nThe Hurrians were a people who settled in northwestern Mesopotamia and southeast Anatolia in 1600 BC. By 1450 BC they established a medium-sized empire under a Mitanni ruling class, and temporarily made tributary vassals out of kings in the west, making them a major threat for the Pharaoh in Egypt until their overthrow by Assyria. The Hurrian language is related to the later Urartian, but there is no conclusive evidence these two languages are related to any others.\n\nHittites\n\nBy 1300 BC the Hurrians had been reduced to their homelands in Asia Minor after their power was broken by the Assyrians and Hittites, and held the status of vassals to the \"Hatti\", the Hittites, a western Indo-European people (belonging to the linguistic \"centum\" group) who dominated most of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) at this time from their capital of Hattusa. The Hittites came into conflict with the Assyrians from the mid-14th to the 13th centuries BC, losing territory to the Assyrian kings of the period. However they endured until being finally swept aside by the Phrygians, who conquered their homelands in Asia Minor. The Phrygians were prevented from moving south into Mesopotamia by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I. The Hittites fragmented into a number of small Neo-Hittite states, which endured in the region for many centuries.\n\nBronze Age collapse\n\nRecords from the 12th and 11th centuries BC are sparse in Babylonia, which had been overrun with new Semitic settlers, namely the Arameans, Chaldeans and Sutu. Assyria however, remained a compact and strong nation, which continued to provide much written record. The 10th century BC is even worse for Babylonia, with very few inscriptions. Mesopotamia was not alone in this obscurity: the Hittite Empire fell at the beginning of this period and very few records are known from Egypt and Elam. This was a time of invasion and upheaval by many new people throughout the Near East, North Africa, The Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions.\n\nFirst millennium BC\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire is usually considered to have begun with the accession of Adad-nirari II, in 911 BC, lasting until the fall of Nineveh at the hands of the Babylonians, Medes, Scythians and Cimmerians in 612 BC. The empire was the largest and most powerful the world had yet seen. At its height Assyria conquered the 25th Dynasty Egypt (and expelled its Nubian/Kushite dynasty) as well as Babylonia, Chaldea, Elam, Media, Persia, Urartu, Phoenicia, Aramea/Syria, Phrygia, the Neo-Hittites, Hurrians, northern Arabia, Gutium, Israel, Judah, Moab, Edom, Corduene, Cilicia, Mannea and parts of ancient Greece (such as Cyprus), and defeated and/or exacted tribute from Scythia, Cimmeria, Lydia, Nubia, Ethiopia and others.\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire\n\nThe Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 620 BC and ended in 539 BC. During the preceding three centuries, Babylonia had been ruled by their fellow Akkadian speakers and northern neighbours, Assyria. The Assyrians had managed to maintain Babylonian loyalty through the Neo-Assyrian period, whether through granting of increased privileges, or militarily, but that finally changed after 627 BC with the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, and Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar a Chaldean chieftain the following year. In alliance with king Cyaxares of the Medes, and with the help of the Scythians and Cimmerians the city of Nineveh was sacked in 612 BC, Assyria fell by 605 BC and the seat of empire was transferred to Babylonia for the first time since Hammurabi.\n\nClassical Antiquity to Late Antiquity\n\nAfter the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the Assyrian empire descended into a series of bitter civil wars, allowing its former vassals to free themselves. Cyaxares reorganized and modernized the Median Army, then joined with King Nabopolassar of Babylon. These allies, together with the Scythians, overthrew the Assyrian Empire and destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC. After the final victory at Carchemish in 605 BC the Medes and Babylonians ruled Assyria. Babylon and Media fell under Persian rule in the 6th century BC (Cyrus the Great).\n\nFor two centuries of Achaemenid rule both Assyria and Babylonia flourished, Achaemenid Assyria in particular becoming a major source of manpower for the army and a breadbasket for the economy. Mesopotamian Aramaic remained the lingua franca of the Achaemenid Empire, much as it had done in Assyrian times. Mesopotamia fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BC, and remained under Hellenistic rule for another two centuries, with Seleucia as capital from 305 BC. In the 1st century BC, Mesopotamia was in constant turmoil as the Seleucid Empire was weakened by Parthia on one hand and the Mithridatic Wars on the other. The Parthian Empire lasted for five centuries, into the 3rd century AD, when it was succeeded by the Sassanids. After constant wars between Romans and first Parthians, later Sassanids; the western part of Mesopotamia was passed to the Roman Empire. Christianity as well as Mandeism entered Mesopotamia from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, and flourished, particularly in Assyria (Assuristan in Sassanid Persian), which became the center of the Assyrian Church of the East and a flourishing Syriac Christian tradition which remains to this day. A number of Neo-Assyrian kingdoms arose, in particular Adiabene. The Sassanid Empire and Byzantine Mesopotamia finally fell to the Rashidun army under Khalid ibn al-Walid in the 630s. After the Arab-Islamic conquest of the mid-7th century AD, Mesopotamia saw an influx of non native Arabs and later also Turkic peoples. The city of Assur was still occupied until the 14th century, and Assyrians possibly still formed the majority in northern Mesopotamia until the Middle Ages. Assyrians retain Eastern Rite Christianity whereas the Mandaeans retain their ancient gnostic religion and Mesopotamian Aramaic as a mother tongue and written script to this day. Among these peoples, the giving of traditional Mesopotamian names is still common.\n\nClassical antiquity\n\nMedian and Babylonian Assyria (605 to 549 BC)\n\nPersian Babylonia,\n\nAchaemenid Assyria (6th to 4th centuries BC)\n\nSeleucid Mesopotamia (4th to 2nd centuries BC)\n\nParthian Asuristan (Assyria) (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD)\n\nOsroene (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD)\n\nAdiabene (1st to 2nd centuries AD)\n\nRoman Mesopotamia (2nd to 7th centuries AD), Roman Assyria (2nd century AD)\n\nLate antiquity\n\nSassanid Asuristan (Assyria) (3rd to 7th centuries AD)\n\nArab Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia, dissolution of Assyria (633-651 AD)\n\nSee also\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nAssyria\n\nBabylonia\n\nCradle of civilization\n\nHistory of institutions in Mesopotamia\n\nHistory of Iraq\n\nLevantine Iron Age Anomaly\n\nMusic of Mesopotamia\n\nSumer\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ Finkelstein 1962, p. 73\n\n^ \"history of Mesopotamia | Definition, Civilization, Summary, Agriculture, & Facts | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-04-30.\n\n^ \"How Mesopotamia Became Iraq (and Why It Matters)\". Los Angeles Times. 1990-09-02. Retrieved 2022-04-30.\n\n^ Wood, Michael (2010-11-10). \"The Ancient World | Mesopotamia\". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-04-30.\n\n^ Seymour, Michael (2004). \"Ancient Mesopotamia and Modern Iraq in the British Press, 1980-2003\". Current Anthropology. 45 (3): 351-368. doi:10.1086/383004. ISSN 0011-3204. JSTOR 10.1086/383004. S2CID 224788984.\n\n^ Miquel et al. 2011.\n\n^ a b Foster & Polinger Foster 2009, p. 6\n\n^ a b Canard 2011\n\n^ Wilkinson 2000, pp. 222-223\n\n^ Matthews 2003, p. 5\n\n^ a b Miquel et al. 2011\n\n^ Bahrani 1998\n\n^ a b Matthews 2003, pp. 65-66\n\n^ a b c van de Mieroop 2007, p. 4\n\n^ van de Mieroop 2007, p. 3\n\n^ Brinkman 1977\n\n^ Gasche et al. 1998\n\n^ Kuhrt 1997, p. 12\n\n^ Potts 1999, p. xxix\n\n^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 13\n\n^ Sagona & Zimansky 2009, p. 251\n\n^ Manning et al. 2001\n\n^ Moore, Hillman & Legge 2000\n\n^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003\n\n^ Schmidt 2003\n\n^ Banning 2011\n\n^ Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Number 63) Archived 2013-11-15 at the Wayback Machine The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (2010) ISBN 978-1-885923-66-0 p. 2; \"Radiometric data suggest that the whole Southern Mesopotamian Ubaid period, including Ubaid 0 and 5, is of immense duration, spanning nearly three millennia from about 6500 to 3800 B.C.\"\n\n^ Hall, Henry R. and Woolley, C. Leonard. 1927. Al-'Ubaid. Ur Excavations 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n\n^ Adams, Robert MCC. and Wright, Henry T. 1989. 'Concluding Remarks' in Henrickson, Elizabeth and Thuesen, Ingolf (eds.) Upon This Foundation - The ’Ubaid Reconsidered. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. 451-456.\n\n^ a b Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham. 2010. 'Deconstructing the Ubaid' in Carter, Robert A. and Philip, Graham (eds.) Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and Integration in the Late Prehistoric Societies of the Middle East. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. p. 2.\n\n^ \"Site officiel du musée du Louvre\". cartelfr.louvre.fr.\n\n^ Cooper, Jerrol S. (1996). The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-first Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference. Eisenbrauns. pp. 10-14. ISBN 9780931464966.\n\n^ Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2003. p. 481. ISBN 9781588390431.\n\n^ \"Kultische Szene (sog. Preußer-Siegel)\". Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.\n\n^ a b Susan Pollock; Reinhard Bernbeck (2009). Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives. John Wiley & Sons. p. 190. ISBN 9781405137232.\n\n^ a b Georges Roux (1992). Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books Limited. p. 101. ISBN 9780141938257.\n\n^ a b Peter M. M. G. Akkermans, Glenn M. Schwartz (2003). The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c.16,000-300 BC). Cambridge University Press. p. 157. ISBN 9780521796668.\n\n^ Robert J. Speakman; Hector Neff (2005). Laser Ablation ICP-MS in Archaeological Research. UNM Press. p. 128. ISBN 9780826332547.\n\n^ Crawford 2004, p. 75\n\n^ Pollock 1999, p. 2\n\n^ Matthews 2002, pp. 20-21\n\n^ Woods 2010, pp. 36-45\n\n^ Matthews 2002, pp. 33-37\n\n^ a b Pruß 2004\n\n^ Woolley 1965, p. 9\n\n^ Marchesi, Gianni (2010). \"The Sumerian King List and the Early History of Mesopotamia\". M. G. Biga - M. Liverani (Eds.), ana turri gimilli: Studi dedicati al Padre Werner R. Mayer, S. J., da amici e allievi (Vicino Oriente - Quaderno 5; Roma): 231-248.\n\n^ Woods 2006\n\n^ \"Ancient Irrigation\". Archived from the original on 2019-05-03. Retrieved 2013-04-23.\n\n^ Saggs, The Might, 24.\n\n^ Potts 1999, p. 318.\n\nNotes\n\n^ This page will use Mesopotamia in its widest geographical and chronological sense.\n\n^ This page will use the Middle Chronology.\n\nBibliography\n\nAkkermans, Peter M.M.G.; Schwartz, Glenn M. (2003). The Archaeology of Syria. From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (ca. 16,000-300 BC). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79666-0.\n\nBahrani, Z. (1998). \"Conjuring Mesopotamia: Imaginative Geography and a World Past\". In Meskell, L. (ed.). Archaeology under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. London: Routledge. pp. 159-174. ISBN 978-0-415-19655-0.\n\nBanning, E.B. (2011). \"So Fair a House. Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East\". Current Anthropology. 52 (5): 619-660. doi:10.1086/661207. S2CID 161719608.\n\nBraidwood, Robert J.; Howe, Bruce (1960). Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan (PDF). Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization. Vol. 31. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. OCLC 395172. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-10-07. Retrieved 2011-02-26.\n\nBrinkman, J.A. (1977). \"Appendix: Mesopotamian Chronology of the Historical Period\". In Oppenheim, A.L. (ed.). Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 335-348. ISBN 0-226-63186-9.\n\nCanard, M. (2011). \"al-ḎJazīra, Ḏjazīrat Aḳūr or Iḳlīm Aḳūr\". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Leiden: Brill Online. OCLC 624382576.\n\nCrawford, Harriet E. W. (2004). Sumer and the Sumerians (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521533386.\n\nDeutscher, Guy (2007). Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-953222-3.\n\nFinkelstein, J.J. (1962). \"Mesopotamia\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 21 (2): 73-92. doi:10.1086/371676. JSTOR 543884. S2CID 222432558.\n\nFoster, Benjamin R.; Polinger Foster, Karen (2009). Civilizations of Ancient Iraq. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13722-3.\n\nGasche, H.; Armstrong, J.A.; Cole, S.W.; Gurzadyan, V.G. (1998). Dating the Fall of Babylon: a Reappraisal of Second-Millennium Chronology. Chicago: University of Ghent/Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 1-885923-10-4.\n\nHunt, Will (2010). Arbil, Iraq Discovery Could be Earliest Evidence of Humans in the Near East. Heritage Key. Retrieved 4 August 2010.\n\nKozłowski, Stefan Karol (1998). \"M'lefaat: Early Neolithic Site in Northern Irak\". Cahiers de l'Euphrate. 8: 179-273. OCLC 468390039.\n\nKuhrt, A. (1997). Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 BC. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16763-9.\n\nManning, S.W.; Kromer, B.; Kuniholm, P.I.; Newton, M.W. (2001). \"Anatolian Tree Rings and a New Chronology for the East Mediterranean Bronze-Iron Ages\". Science. 294 (5551): 2532-2535. Bibcode:2001Sci...294.2532M. doi:10.1126/science.1066112. PMID 11743159. S2CID 33497945.\n\nMatthews, Roger (2002). Secrets of the Dark Mound: Jemdet Nasr 1926-1928. Iraq Archaeological Reports. Vol. 6. Warminster: BSAI. ISBN 0-85668-735-9.\n\nMatthews, Roger (2003). The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches. Approaching the past. Milton Square: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-25317-9.\n\nMiquel, A.; Brice, W.C.; Sourdel, D.; Aubin, J.; Holt, P.M.; Kelidar, A.; Blanc, H.; MacKenzie, D.N.; Pellat, Ch. (2011). \"ʿIrāḳ\". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Leiden: Brill Online. OCLC 624382576.\n\nMohammadifar, Yaghoub; Motarjem, Abbass (2008). \"Settlement Continuity in Kurdistan\". Antiquity. 82 (317). ISSN 0003-598X.\n\nMoore, A.M.T.; Hillman, G.C.; Legge, A.J. (2000). Village on the Euphrates: From Foraging to Farming at Abu Hureyra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510807-8.\n\nMuhesen, Sultan (2002). \"The Earliest Paleolithic Occupation in Syria\". In Akazawa, Takeru; Aoki, Kenichi; Bar-Yosef, Ofer (eds.). Neandertals and Modern Humans in Western Asia. New York: Kluwer. pp. 95-105. doi:10.1007/0-306-47153-1_7. ISBN 0-306-47153-1.\n\nPollock, Susan (1999). Ancient Mesopotamia: The Eden That Never Was. Case Studies in Early Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57568-3.\n\nPotts, D.T. (1999). The Archaeology of Elam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56496-4.\n\nPruß, Alexander (2004), \"Remarks on the Chronological Periods\", in Lebeau, Marc; Sauvage, Martin (eds.), Atlas of Preclassical Upper Mesopotamia, Subartu, vol. 13, pp. 7-21, ISBN 2503991203\n\nSagona, A.; Zimansky, P. (2009). Ancient Turkey. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-28916-0.\n\nSchmid, P.; Rentzel, Ph.; Renault-Miskovsky, J.; Muhesen, Sultan; Morel, Ph.; Le Tensorer, Jean Marie; Jagher, R. (1997). \"Découvertes de Restes Humains dans les Niveaux Acheuléens de Nadaouiyeh Aïn Askar (El Kowm, Syrie Centrale)\". Paléorient. 23 (1): 87-93. doi:10.3406/paleo.1997.4646.\n\nSchmidt, Klaus (2003). \"The 2003 Campaign at Göbekli Tepe (Southeastern Turkey)\" (PDF). Neo-Lithics. 2/03: 3-8. ISSN 1434-6990. Retrieved 21 October 2011.\n\nSolecki, Ralph S. (1997). \"Shanidar Cave\". In Meyers, Eric M. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Ancient Near East. Vol. 5. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 15-16. ISBN 0-19-506512-3.\n\nvan de Mieroop, M. (2007). A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC. Malden: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-22552-2.\n\nWilkinson, Tony J. (2000). \"Regional Approaches to Mesopotamian Archaeology: the Contribution of Archaeological Surveys\". Journal of Archaeological Research. 8 (3): 219-267. doi:10.1023/A:1009487620969. ISSN 1573-7756. S2CID 140771958.\n\nWoods, Christopher (2006). \"Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the Death of Sumerian\" (PDF). In Sanders, S.L. (ed.). Margins of Writing, Origins of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 91-120. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-04-29. Retrieved 2010-03-29.\n\nWoods, Christopher (2010). \"The Earliest Mesopotamian Writing\" (PDF). In Woods, Christopher (ed.). Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond. Oriental Institute Museum Publications. Vol. 32. Chicago: University of Chicago. pp. 33-50. ISBN 978-1-885923-76-9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-08-26. Retrieved 2011-08-10.\n\nWoolley, C.L. (1965). The Sumerians. New York: W.W. Norton.\n\nFurther reading\n\nJoannès, Francis (2004). The Age of Empires: Mesopotamia in the First Millennium BC. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1755-8.\n\nMatthews, Roger (2000). The Early Prehistory of Mesopotamia: 500,000 to 4,500 BC. Subartu. Vol. 5. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 2-503-50729-8.\n\nNissen, Hans J. (1988). The Early History of the Ancient Near East 9000-2000 B.C. London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-58656-1.\n\nPostgate, J.N. (1992). Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-11032-7.\n\nSaggs, H.W.F. (1990). Assyria: The Might that Was. London: Sidgwick and Johnson. ISBN 0-312-03511-X.\n\nSimpson, St. John (1997). \"Mesopotamia from Alexander to the Rise of Islam\". In Meyers, Eric M. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Ancient Near East. Vol. 3. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 484-487. ISBN 0-19-506512-3.\n\nWencel, Maciej Mateusz (2017). \"Radiocarbon Dating of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia: Results, Limitations, and Prospects\". Radiocarbon. 59 (2): 635-645. Bibcode:2017Radcb..59..635W. doi:10.1017/RDC.2016.60. ISSN 0033-8222. S2CID 133337438."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-history-of-mesopotamia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 6316}, {"slug": "reference-idil", "title": "İdil", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "İdil (Syriac: ܐܙܟ, romanized: Azakh,[2][nb 1] or Beth Zabday,[5] Kurdish: Hezex,[6] Arabic: آزخ, romanized: Azekh)[7] is a city and seat of the İdil District of the Şırnak Province in Turkey.[8] It is located in the historical region of Tur Abdin. The town had a population of 30,271 in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "İdil\n\nMunicipality\n\nİdilLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°20′28″N 41°53′38″E / 37.341°N 41.894°E / 37.341; 41.894\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceŞırnak\n\nDistrictİdil\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorTürkan Kayır (Independent)\n\nPopulation (2021)[1]30,271\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nWebsitewww.idil.bel.tr\n\nİdil (Syriac: ܐܙܟ, romanized: Azakh,[2][nb 1] or Beth Zabday,[5] Kurdish: Hezex,[6] Arabic: آزخ, romanized: Azekh)[7] is a city and seat of the İdil District of the Şırnak Province in Turkey.[8] It is located in the historical region of Tur Abdin. The town had a population of 30,271 in 2021 and is composed of Kurds of the Domanan, Dorikan, Harunan, Meman and Omerkan tribes.[1][9][10] The town was once home to a large number of Assyrians/Syriacs, however, only a few families remain today.[11]\n\nIn the city, there is a Syriac Orthodox Church of the Mother of God (Arabic: كنيسة العذراء,[7] Turkish: Meryem Ana Kilisesi).[12]\n\nHistory\n\nAzakh (today called İdil) is identified as the town of Ashikhu,[13] or Asiḫu, which is earliest attested in an administrative note from the governor's archive at Tell Halaf, during the reign of Adad-nirari III, King of Assyria, in the late 9th and early 8th century BC.[14] Azakh was later conflated with the neighbouring city of Bezabde, and led to its alternative Syriac name Beth Zabday.[15]\n\nOttoman Empire\n\nMuhammad Pasha, Emir of Rawandiz, took advantage of the disruption caused to the Ottoman Empire by the Egyptian Muhammad Ali's invasion of Syria in 1831-1832 to expand his realm, and besieged Azakh in 1834.[16][17] The emir surrendered, however, upon the arrival of a large Ottoman army under the leadership of Reşid Mehmed Pasha.[16] The village was attacked again later by Bedir Khan Beg, Emir of Bohtan, in 1847,[18] resulting in the death of Cyril George, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Azakh,[19] a priest, and eight congregants.[20]\n\nDefense of Azakh\n\nAt the beginning of the 20th century, the village had a population of 1000, and was inhabited by Arabic-speaking Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic Christians,[21][22] some of whom emigrated to Brazil in 1914.[23] Amidst the Sayfo, in July 1915,[22] refugees from the villages of Esfes, Kefshenne, Kufakh, Babqqa, and Khaddel fled to Azakh.[24] The village was subsequently attacked by Kurdish tribesmen from mid-August until their withdrawal on 9 September.[22] An expeditionary force of approximately 8000 Ottoman soldiers and Kurdish auxiliaries,[25] led jointly by Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter and Ömer Naci, was diverted from its original task to conduct anti-Russian operations in Iran to besiege Azakh,[26] and arrived in late October.[22] Scheubner-Richter refused to involve Germans in the siege, and the first attack began on 7 November.[22] After subsequent attacks, and a Syriac counter-attack on 14 November, the Turkish army retreated on 21 November.[22]\n\nRepublic of Turkey\n\nThe village became the seat of a bucak (subdistrict) of Cizre in 1924.[27] In the following year, a number of villagers emigrated to Brazil,[23] at which time 100 Syriacs were deported from Azakh.[28] In the aftermath of the failure of the Kurdish Sheikh Said rebellion, the Turkish government enacted oppressive measures, thus in 1926 the inhabitants of Azakh were accused of complicity in the rebellion, and of possession of arms received from the British government.[29] The Turkish authorities alleged that the village's men had served in the British Iraq Levies on the basis of the discovery of British rifles and permits to carry arms in English and Arabic in Azakh.[29] The population was thus disarmed after the arrival of 1500 Turkish soldiers, and 257 or 357 men from Azakh and neighbouring villages, including notables and three priests, were accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned at Cizre.[29][30] The Syriacs of Azakh were deemed unsuitable for Turkification by the Turkish government, and as a result aimed to exterminate those who had survived the genocide, whereby those who had been arrested were beaten and denied food whilst imprisoned.[30] They were later transferred to Midyat, where most were released in August 1926, whilst notables remained imprisoned, who were transferred to Harpoot until eventually released after five more months.[30]\n\nSyriacs from Azakh emigrated to Ain Diwar and Al-Malikiyah in northeastern Syria in the early 1930s after the construction of French military bases.[31] The village was elevated to district in 1937, upon which it was officially renamed İdil.[27] The village was inhabited by 3500 Syriacs in 1964.[32] As a result of the Cypriot crisis of 1963-1964, Syriacs of İdil were the victim of anti-Christian riots.[33] The village was exclusively populated by Syriacs until the mid-1970s;[34] this was in part due to the prohibition of sale of property to Muslim Kurds by Mayor Şükrü Tutuş.[35] Efforts to encroach on the Syriac population resulted in the construction of social housing for Kurds in the village, who consequently amounted to 10% of the population,[35] and the election of Abdurrahman Abay, chief of the Kurdish Kecan tribe, as mayor in 1979 with the aid of the Turkish authorities, including the military commander, judge, and district governor.[36] Abay alleged that he received congratulations via telegram from Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, for the \"Muslim conquest of Idil\".[36] This led the Syriac population to decline in the 1970s and 1980s.[32]\n\nAfter their forced eviction by the Turkish army on 20 November 1993, a number of Syriac refugees from Hassana fled to İdil.[37] On 9 January 1994, Melke Tok, priest of Miden, was abducted whilst en route from İdil to Bsorino.[38] The priest was later released after negotiations,[39] and attested that, whilst in captivity, he was buried alive and pressured into converting to Islam.[40] The murder of former mayor Şükrü Tutuş on 17 June 1994 led the remaining Christian population of several hundred people to seek asylum in Western Europe, and was followed by the Kurdish repopulation of the village.[36] Syriacs later returned, but by 2015 only 50 inhabited the city.[32]\n\nThe eruption of violence in early 2016 led all but two Syriacs to flee İdil,[32] as well as an estimated three thousand people, and a curfew was imposed on 16 February.[41] The Turkish army began operations in the city on 18 February and claimed to have killed at least 47 PKK militants by 25 February.[42] The curfew was partially lifted on 31 March and the refugees returned to İdil,[43] including at least four Syriac families.[32] In late July 2019, Syriac properties in the district were struck by suspected arson attacks.[44] As of September 2020, only 23 Syriacs inhabit İdil.[45]\n\nGovernment\n\nThe town is divided into the six neighbourhoods of Aşağı, Atakent, Turgut Özal, Yeni and Yukarı.[8]\n\nMayors\n\nElection\nMayor\nParty\n\n2024\nTürkan Kayır\nDEM Party\n\n2019\nSongül Erdem\nHDP\n\n2014\nMehmet Muhdi Arslan\nBDP\n\n2009\nResul Sadak\nDTP\n\n2004\nResul Sadak\nSHP\n\n1994\nMurat Dalmış\nDYP\n\n1979\nAbdurrahman Abay\nANAP\n\n1966\nŞükrü Tutuş\nANAP\n\nMayor Mehmet Muhdi Arslan and deputy mayor Nevin Girasun were suspended on 20 September 2016 following their arrest in August on suspicion of aiding and abetting the PKK, and Kaymakam (district governor) Ersin Tepeli was appointed as trustee on the following day.[46]\n\nNotable people\n\nJacques Behnan Hindo (b. 1941), Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Al-Hasakah-Nisibis.[47]\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Hazakh,[3] Azekh,[3] Hazak,[4] or Azék.[4]\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b \"31 ARALIK 2021 TARİHLİ ADRESE DAYALI NÜFUS KAYIT SİSTEMİ (ADNKS) SONUÇLARI\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\n^ Carlson, Thomas A. (14 January 2014). \"Āzakh\". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 11 August 2020.\n\n^ a b Sinclair (1989), p. 351.\n\n^ a b Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 327.\n\n^ Biner (2019), p. x.\n\n^ Avcıkıran (2009), p. 57.\n\n^ a b \"السريان يشاركون في مؤتمر بازبدي (آزخ) الدولي في تركيا\". Ishtar TV (in Arabic). Retrieved 18 December 2019.\n\n^ a b \"Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri\". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ Baz, Ibrahim (2016). Şırnak aşiretleri ve kültürü (in Turkish). pp. 135, 138, 148 and 150. ISBN 9786058849631.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). p. 268. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ Abdalla (2017), p. 141, 177.\n\n^ DelCogliano (2006), p. 341.\n\n^ Palmer (1990), p. 29.\n\n^ Radner (2006), pp. 296-297.\n\n^ Palmer (1990), p. 155.\n\n^ a b Jongerden & Verheij (2012), pp. 253-254.\n\n^ Barsoum (2003), p. 157.\n\n^ Abdalla (2018), p. 97.\n\n^ Barsoum (2008), p. 59.\n\n^ Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 255.\n\n^ Bardakci et al. (2017), p. 169.\n\n^ a b c d e f \"Azakh\". Foundation for Conservation and Promotion of the Aramaic Cultural Heritage (in German). Retrieved 11 August 2020.\n\n^ a b Atto (2011), p. 163.\n\n^ Sato (2001), p. 54.\n\n^ DelCogliano (2006), p. 342.\n\n^ Dadrian (2002), p. 66.\n\n^ a b \"İdil\". Şırnak Valiliği (in Turkish). Retrieved 11 August 2020.\n\n^ Atto (2011), p. 98.\n\n^ a b c Altuġ (2011), pp. 127-128.\n\n^ a b c Sato (2001), pp. 62-63.\n\n^ Sato (2001), p. 64.\n\n^ a b c d e Güsten (2016), p. 9.\n\n^ Güsten (2016), p. 8.\n\n^ Joseph (1984), p. 103.\n\n^ a b Susanne Güsten (22 January 2015). \"Robert Tutus ist der letzte Christ im anatolischen Idil\". Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 28 December 2019.\n\n^ a b c Susanne Güsten (4 April 2012). \"Hopes to Revive the Christian Area of Turkey\". New York Times. Retrieved 8 December 2019.\n\n^ Atto (2011), p. 139.\n\n^ \"UA 03/94 - TURKEY: ABDUCTION / FEAR OF EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING: MELKE TOK\". Amnesty International. 10 January 1994. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\n^ Atto (2011), p. 133.\n\n^ Pacal, Jan (29 August 1996). \"What happened to the Turkish Assyrians?\". Assyrian International News Agency. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Fresh curfew declared amid exodus from İdil\". Hürriyet Daily News. 16 February 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Turkish army kills 47 PKK militants in İdil in week\". Hürriyet Daily News. 25 February 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Thousands return to ruined İdil after 43-day curfew\". Hürriyet Daily News. 31 March 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\n^ \"Fires on Assyrian land raise arson alarm\". Ahval News. 6 August 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\n^ Ozbek, Aysegul (1 September 2020). \"\"Çocukluğumu, anadilimi, arkadaşlarımı bıraktım İdil'de\"\". Bianet (in Turkish). Retrieved 12 September 2020.\n\n^ \"İdil Belediyesi'ne Kayyum, Eş Başkanı Gözaltında\". Bianet (in Turkish). 21 September 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2020.\n\n^ \"Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo\". Catholic-Hierarchy. Retrieved 11 August 2020.\n\nBibliography\n\nAbdalla, Michael (2017). Dżihad w praktyce : Asyryjczycy miejscowości Azach (Azakh) w Górnej Mezopotamii w latach I wojny światowej : opór, ugoda, zdemilitaryzowanie, exodus [Jihad in Practice. The Assyrians of Azakh in Upper Mesopotamia during World War I: Resistance, Agreement, Demilitarization, and Exodus]. Wydział Prawa, Administracji i Ekonomii Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. pp. 141-186.\n\nAbdalla, Michael (2018). \"The term Seyfo in historical perspective\". In Hannibal Travis (ed.). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. pp. 92-105.\n\nAltuġ, Seda (2011). Sectarianism in the Syrian Jazira: Community, land and violence in the memories of World War I and the French mandate (1915- 1939). Utrecht University. hdl:1874/205821. Retrieved 11 August 2020.\n\nAtto, Naures (2011). Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora: Identity Discourses Among the Assyrian/Syriac Elites in the European Diaspora (PDF). Leiden University Press. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\nAvcıkıran, Adem (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî.\n\nBardakci, M.; Freyberg-Inan, A.; Giesel, C.; Leisse, O. (2017). Religious Minorities in Turkey: Alevi, Armenians, and Syriacs and the Struggle to Desecuritize Religious Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-1-137-27026-9. Retrieved 25 October 2019.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Matti Moosa (2nd ed.). Gorgias Press. Retrieved 14 July 2020.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2008). History of the Za'faran Monastery. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 26 June 2021.\n\nBiner, Zerrin Ozlem (2019). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press.\n\nDadrian, Vahakn N. (2002). \"The Armenian Question and the Wartime Fate of the Armenians as Documented by the Officials of the Ottoman Empire's World War I Allies: Germany and Austria-Hungary\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 34 (1): 59-85. doi:10.1017/S0020743802001034.\n\nDelCogliano, Mark (2006). \"Syriac Monasticism in Tur Abdin: A Present-Day Account\". Cistercian Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 311-349.\n\nGüsten, Susanne (2016). A Farewell to Tur Abdin (PDF). Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\nJongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill.\n\nJoseph, John (1984). Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. SUNY Press.\n\nPalmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Tur Abdin. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 15 July 2020.\n\nRadner, Karen (2006). \"How to reach the Upper Tigris: The route through the Tur Abdin\" (PDF). State Archives of Assyria Bulletin. 15: 273-305. Retrieved 11 August 2020.\n\nSato, Noriko (2001). Memory and Social Identity among Syrian Orthodox Christians (PDF). Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\nSinclair, T.A. (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume III. Pindar Press. ISBN 9780907132349."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-idil"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2152}, {"slug": "reference-goblet-drum", "title": "Goblet drum", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, darabuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, toumperleki, tumbak, tabla, or zerbaghali;[1] Arabic: دربوكة / Romanized: darbuka) is a single-head membranophone with a goblet-shaped body.[2] It is most commonly used in the traditional music of North Africa, the Middle...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Goblet drum\n\nPercussion instrument\n\nOther namesChalice drum, tarabuka (tarambuka), tarabaki, darbuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, dumbul, toumperleki (tumberleki), tumbak, zerbaghali\n\nClassification\nHand percussion, membranophone\n\nHornbostel-Sachs classification211.26\n\nThe goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, darabuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, toumperleki, tumbak, tabla, or zerbaghali;[1] Arabic: دربوكة / Romanized: darbuka) is a single-head membranophone with a goblet-shaped body.[2] It is most commonly used in the traditional music of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. The instrument is also featured in traditional music from South Asia and Eastern Europe.[3] The West AfricanGoblet drums have been around for thousands of years and were used in Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian cultures.\nThey were also seen in Babylonia and Sumer from as early as 1100 BCE. On Sulawesi, large goblet drums are used as temple instruments and placed on the floor when played, which may reflect ancient use of the drum.[4]\n\nThe origin of the term Darbuka lies in the rural Egyptian Arabic slang word that changed \"darb\" meaning \"to strike\" into \"darbuka\".[5]\n\nTechnique\n\nThe Eastern and North-African goblet drums are played under the arm or resting on the player's leg, with a much lighter touch and quite different strokes to hand drums such as the djembe, found in West Africa - the strokes used with goblet drums sometimes include rolls or quick rhythms articulated with the fingertips. \n\nThere are two main types of goblet drums. The Egyptian style, Darbuka, is also known as Tabla (Arabic: طبلة) and is very popular; it has rounded edges around the head, whereas the Turkish style exposes the edge of the head. The exposed edge allows closer access to the head so finger-snapping techniques can be done, but the hard edge discourages the rapid rolls possible with the Egyptian style.\n\nThe goblet drum may be played while held under one arm (usually the non-dominant arm) or by placing it sideways upon the lap (with the head towards the player's knees) while seated. Some drums are also made with strap mounts so the drum may be slung over the shoulder, to facilitate playing while standing or dancing. It produces a resonant, low-sustain sound while played lightly with the fingertips and palm. Some players move their fists in and out of the bell to alter the tone. Some players also place their hands on the surface of the drum to produce a muted sound. There are a variety of rhythms (see dumbek rhythms) that form the basis of the folkloric and modern music and dance styles of the Middle East.\n\nThere are three main sounds produced by the goblet drum. The first is called a \"doom\". It is the deeper bass sound produced by striking the head near the center with the length of the fingers and palm and taking off the hand for an open sound. The second is called the \"tak\" and is the higher-pitched sound produced by hitting near the edge of the head with the fingertips. A \"tak\" struck with the secondary hand is also known as a \"ka\". The third is the closed sound \"pa\" (also called \"sak\"), for which the hand is briefly rested on the head so as not to permit an open sound. Additionally, there are more complex techniques including snaps, slaps, pops and rolls that are used to ornament the basic rhythm. Hand clapping and hitting the sides of the drum can be used in addition to drumhead sounds.\n\nAnother technique commonly used in Greece, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania and Turkey is to tap with the fingers of one hand and with a thin drum stick in the other.\nIn Turkey the stick is called the çubuk, which means wand, or stick, and where the Romanis there occasionally use this technique.\n\nUse in Western classical music\n\nThe first known Western classical composition to feature a goblet drum is the opera Les Troyens (1856-1858) by the French composer Hector Berlioz, which calls for a tarbuka in the Dance of the Nubian Slaves in Act IV.\n\nThe first compositions for goblet drum and orchestra were composed by the Egyptian-American musician Halim El-Dabh in the 1950s; his Fantasia-Tahmeel for goblet drum and strings was premiered in New York City in 1958, with a string orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.\n\nNotable goblet drum musicians\n\nMustapha Antari\n\nSetrak Sarkissian\n\nSaid El Artist\n\nHossam Ramzy\n\nRony Barrak\n\nCarmine Guida\n\nDjamchid Chemirani\n\nPettik Ádám\n\nBilal Göregen\n\nGallery\n\n Cambodian skor daey, also known as skor arak. This is the smaller of two Cambodian goblet drums, the other being called skor chhaiyam (Khmer: ស្គរឆៃយ៉ាំ).\n\n Egyptian tabla and darabuka\n\n Indian tumbaknaer\n\n Iranian/Persian tombak or zarb\n\n West African djembe\n\n Libyan darbuka\n\n Turkish darbuka\n\n Moroccan taarija\n\n Man playing a tombak\n\n TOYMBELEKI Museum of Popular Instruments, Research Centre for Ethnomusicology. In Plaka, Athens, Greece.\n\nSee also\n\nAshiko\n\nDuhulla\n\nTaarija\n\nTonbak\n\nToubeleki\n\nReferences\n\n^ Silverman, Carol (2012). Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora. Oxford University Press. pp. 258, 393.\n\n^ Karaol, Esra; Doğrusöz, Nilgün (2014-04-15). \"Mısırlı Ahmet: The Clay Darbuka Technique and Its Performance Analysis\". Rast Müzikoloji Dergisi. 2 (1): 50-67. doi:10.12975/rastmd.2014.02.01.00020.\n\n^ Blades, James (1970). Percussion Instruments and Their History. New York. p. 175.\n\n^ Sadie, Stanley, (1980). \"Darbuka\". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 5. p. 239. ISBN 1-56159-174-2.\n\n^ الغناء البلدي في مصر"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-goblet-drum"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 892}, {"slug": "reference-ashur-dan-ii", "title": "Ashur-dan II", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Ashur-Dan II (Aššur-dān) (934-912 BC), son of Tiglath Pileser II, was the last king of the interregnum between the Middle Assyrian Empire, and the birthing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He was best known for recapturing previously held Assyrian territory in Anatolia, Levant and Zagros and shoring up Assyria's...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ashur-dan II\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nKing of the Middle Assyrian Empire\n\nReign934-912 BC\n\nPredecessorTiglath Pileser II\n\nSuccessorAdad-nirari II (Neo-Assyrian Empire)\n\nFatherTiglath Pileser II\n\nAshur-Dan II (Aššur-dān) (934-912 BC), son of Tiglath Pileser II, was the last king of the interregnum between the Middle Assyrian Empire, and the birthing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He was best known for recapturing previously held Assyrian territory in Anatolia, Levant and Zagros and shoring up Assyria's natural borders, in a line from Tur Abdin, Harran, Kiultepe, Merida and Hakkari across southeast Anatolia in the north, the Khabur delta and Hassakeh region to the west, Zagros Mountains to the east and central Mesopotamia to the south. The reclaimed territory through his conquest was fortified with horses, ploughs, and grain stores. His military and economic expansions benefited four subsequent generations of kings that replicated his model.[1]\n\nBackground\n\nThe direction of the campaigns conducted by Assyrian kings and the means of reconstructing chronology of events from the period of 841-745 and beyond are found in one type of eponym list, commonly known as an Eponym Chronicle.[2] The Assyrian royal annals add to this skeleton outline significantly. Annals are still preserved for all but the last few kings. There are no letters available from this period, however administrative and legal documents exist. For Ashur-Dan II, whose annals are only preserved in fragments, certain characteristics of Assyrian military can be observed. He followed the description of his military exploits by the count of wild animals (wild bulls, elephants, and lions) that he had hunted and killed, which traditionally characterized Assyrian kings as protective and heroic. The accounts conclude with Ashur-Dan's building activities, stressing that he did not exploit the spoils of his campaign to enrich himself, but rather to honour and exalt the gods.[1]\n\nAccomplishments\n\nThe fragmentary annals suggest Ashur-Dan was the first king to conduct regular military campaigns in over a century. His military campaigns primarily focused on northern territories along mountainous terrain that made controlling it problematic.[2] These areas were vital because they lay close to the Assyrian heartland and thus were vulnerable to enemy attacks. Furthermore, several important routes leading to Anatolia ran through these areas and were a source of crucial metals. In one of his more significant victories, Ashur-Dan captured the king of the northeastern state of Katmuḫu(kadmuhu), flayed him, and displayed his skin publicly on the walls of Arbela, then replaced him with a loyal subordinate and took valuable bronze, tin, and precious stones from Kadmuhu.[1][2]\n\nAnother chief concern of Ashur-Dan’s known military campaigns was the Aramaeans to the west. The fragmentary annals state that Ashur-Dan believed he was rightfully retaking Assyrian territory occupied by the Aramaeans in the recent past. He also claimed that he had brought back Assyrians who had fled due to starvation to resettle the lands. The impression conveyed through these annals was that the Aramaeans had enslaved and slaughtered Assyrians and seized their land.[1]\n\nEastwards, the Zagros foothills down to the lower Zab, were crucial strategic points where Assyrian kings frequently campaigned, both for Assyrian security and to safeguard the limited routes through the mountains. This was a key commercial point for Assyrians, through which they received horses and valuable lapis lazuli mined in northeast Afghanistan.[2]\n\nAfter re-establishing Assyria's borders, Ashur-Dan went through an extensive period of resettlement and land reclamation. Ashur-Dan also left his mark on the Craftsman’s Gate and the New Palace by performing construction on both sites. His basic ideology and strategy laid the foundation for the Neo-Assyrian period, which was elaborated by his successors.[1] He was able to establish a uniformly structured political entity with well-defined and well-structured borders. His conquest is presented as a return of stability and prosperity after a perceived unlawful period of intrusion. The displaced Assyrians were rehoused in towns and the resettled lands were fortified with agricultural growth. The decline of Early Assyria was largely due to a lack of systematic administration and an influx of Arameans. Ashur-Dan established government offices in all provinces, creating a strong administrative presence in the areas under his rule. At the end of the millennium, Assyria was surrounded by enemies to the south, in and around Babylonia, to the west by the Arameans in Syria, and to the north and east by the Nairi people. Ashur-Dan successfully expanded Assyrian territory surrounded by formidable foes and established provincial administration that once again transformed Assyria from a territorial power to an imperial power known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[2] The Neo-Assyrian Empire was a diverse and multi-ethnic state from people from many tribes of different origins. It was a uniformly structured political entity with well-defined and well-guarded borders, and the Assyrian kings certainly regarded it as a unified whole, \"the land of Aššur\", whose territory they constantly strove to expand. To the outside world, it likewise was a unified, monolithic whole, whose inhabitants were unhesitatingly identified as Assyrians regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.[3]\n\nSuccession\n\nAshur-Dan was succeeded by his son, Adad-nirari II (911-891 BC). He continued to campaign repeatedly in areas that his father had attacked, expanding on his father’s achievements. He ruled two years fewer than his father, but the number and range of his military campaigns were greater. To the west he marched as far as the Balikh river, to the south as far as the middle Euphrates, to the north as far as the southern regions of Lake Van, and to the east he penetrated the Zagros mountains. Three versions of his annals are known. Altogether the annals cover campaigns from the accession to the eighteenth regnal year.[1]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. 1924-01-01. ISBN 9780521224963. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ a b c d e Kuhrt, Amélie (1995-01-01). The Ancient Near East, C. 3000-330 BC. Taylor & Francis US. ISBN 9780415167642.\n\n^ Parpola, Simo (1990). \"ASSYRIAN IDENTITY IN ANCIENT TIMES AND TODAY\" (PDF). Unity and Diversity.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAlbert Kirk Grayson (1991). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC). University of Toronto Press."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ashur-dan-ii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1022}, {"slug": "reference-zurna", "title": "Zurna", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The zurna[a][b] is a double reed wind instrument played in West Asia, the Caucasus, Southeast Europe and parts of North Africa. It is also used in Sri Lanka.[2] It is usually accompanied by a davul (bass drum) in Turkish, Armenian, Anatolian, Azerbaijani, Assyrian and Kurdish folk music.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The zurna[a][b] is a double reed wind instrument played in West Asia, the Caucasus, Southeast Europe and parts of North Africa. It is also used in Sri Lanka.[2] It is usually accompanied by a davul (bass drum) in Turkish, Armenian, Anatolian, Azerbaijani, Assyrian and Kurdish folk music. \n\nEtymology and terminology\n\nA folk etymology explains that the name is derived from Persian \"سرنای\" (surnāy), composed of \"سور\" (sūr) meaning \"banquet, feast\", and نای (nāy) meaning \"reed, pipe\". The term is attested in the oldest Turkic records, as \"suruna\" in the 12th and 13th century Codex Cumanicus (CCM fol. 45a). Zurna has also been suggested as a possible borrowing from Hittite or Luwian into the Armenian language, where Arm. զուռնա zuṙna is compared to Luwian zurni \"horn\".[3]\n\nOrigins\n\nThe zurna was said to originate from Central Asia and ancient Asia Minor (Anatolia). Images of the zurna are visible in stone reliefs and artwork by the Hittites, who were an ancient empire from Asia Minor about 2000 to 1200 B.C. It was known in Persia from 6th century A.D., and later introduced in several countries following the spread of Islam (A.D. 650-1500).[4] \nThe zurna played an important role in Ottoman mehter music.[5]\n\nAs zurna became popular and intriguing, it spread further to the east and west. In the 16th century, the Central Asian shawms got to China under the name 'sona'. The Kirghiz peoples, from ancient Persia and Afghanistan, had used the zurna, as well as Syrian people, who called it 'zamr'. As the Ottoman Empire sprawled into Europe, the zurna was introduced to the Balkans, Hungary, and even Western Europe. There were alteration of name and its structure, but the similarities to the original zurna was very apparent, as seen in the zurna of Macedonia, the shepherd flute of the Basque and the mountain territories of Italy, and the zurna in North Africa, called 'zmar', of Tunis and Tangier.[6]\n\nIn Kurdish and Turkish folk music, the zurna joined with the davul or dihol to appoint a melodic concomitant to tribal and village folk dance. Today, the zurna is an essential part of Turkish folk music and dance, as well as in Armenian dance and Kurdish dance.\n\nTurkish lore says that Adam, who was moulded from clay, had no soul. It is said only the melodious tuiduk-playing of Archangel Gabriel could breathe life into Adam. According to a Turkmen legend, the devil played the main role in tuiduk invention (note the term \"devil openings\", şeytan delikleri, in Turkish for the small apertures on the bell).\n\nCharacteristics\n\nThe zurna, like the duduk and kaval, is a woodwind instrument used to play folk music.\n\nThe zurna is made from the slow-growing hardwood of fruit trees such as plum or apricot (Prunus armeniaca). There are several different types of zurnas. The most typical is the Armenian zurna. The longest (and lowest-pitched) is the kaba zurna, used in Bulgaria, the shortest (and highest-pitched), which can be made of bone, is the zurna played in Messolonghi and other villages of Aetolia-Acarnania region in Greece. The zurna, a relative of the oboe, is found almost everywhere where the common reed grows because it uses a short cylindrical reed that is tied to a conical brass tube on one end, flattened to a narrow slit on the other end as a source of the sound.\n\nIt requires high pressure to give any tone at all and when it does, it is almost constantly loud, high pitched, sharp, and piercing. The need for high pressure makes it suitable for playing without stop using circular breathing. A small pacifier-style disk that the lips may lean on helps the lip muscles that hold the high-pressure air, rest, and recover during long non-stop playing sessions. The combination of constant volume and non-stop playing makes the zurna unsuitable for emphasis of the rhythm. It has therefore been played almost invariably along with big drums that both provide the rhythm and the lower frequencies that travel further away than the zurna's loud, high pitched sound.\n\nIt has a cylindrical bore, and a bell opening out in a parabolic curve, thus adapted to reflect the sound straight ahead. Because of its loud and highly directional sound as well as accompaniment by big drums, it has historically been played outdoors, during festive events such as weddings and public celebrations. It has also been used to gather crowds in order to make official announcements. This use of the zurna as a token of the ruling power developed into Janissary bands and eventually into military music. Seven holes on the front, and one thumb hole, provide a range of over one octave including some transposition.\n\nUsage\n\nSimilar to the mizmar and rhaita, zurnas are used in the folk music of many countries and regions, especially in Armenia, Iran, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, the Maghreb, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia, Kurdistan and the other Caucasian countries, and have now spread throughout India, China, Korea and Eastern Europe.\n\nThe zurna is most likely the immediate predecessor of the European shawm, and is related to the Chinese suona still used today in weddings, temple and funeral music.[7] The Japanese charumera, or charamera, traditionally associated with itinerant noodle vendors is a small zurna, its name derived from the Portuguese chirimoya. Few, if any, noodle vendors continue this tradition, and those who do would use a loudspeaker playing a recorded charumera.\n\nA zurna was used by frontman Stu Mackenzie in King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's 9th studio album, Flying Microtonal Banana.\n\nThe Homeworld series uses a zurna quite extensively in its soundtrack, particularly in more action-focused pieces.\n\nSee also\n\nPku\n\nZhaleika\n\nNey\n\nSorna\n\nKangling\n\nSopila\n\nPiffero\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also called sunay, birbynė, lettish horn, zurla or zurle, surla, sornai, zournas, zurma, or zurnes.\n\n^ Armenian: զուռնա zuṙna; Old Armenian: սուռնայ suṙna; Albanian: surle/surla; Romanian: surlă; Persian: karna/Kornay/surnay; Macedonian: зурла/сурла zurla/surla; Bulgarian: зурна/зурла; Hungarian: zurna/töröksip; Serbian: зурла/zurla; Assyrian: ܙܘܪܢܐ/zurna; Tat: zurna; Turkish: zurna; zirne; Greek: ζουρνάς; Azerbaijani: zurna; Sinhalese: හොරණෑව[1][horaṇǣva]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"hewisi, Daul, Thammattam, Horane, Bera, Batanala, drums wadanaya\". YouTube. 12 May 2023.\n\n^ Meddegoda, Chinthaka P. (January 2019). \"The Cultural Function of the Sri Lankan Horanawa\". Double Reeds along the Great Silk Route.\n\n^ \"The Survival of Ancient Anatolian and Mesopotamian Vocabulary until the Present\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 50 (3): 203-207. July 1991. doi:10.1086/373501. ISSN 0022-2968. S2CID 162282522.\n\n^ Zurna Instruments of the World - Virtual encyclopedia\n\n^ Zurna Republic of Turkey - Ministry of Culture and Tourism\n\n^ Mysterious Age-Old Zurna by Bora Özkök (Folk Dance Federation of California, South, Inc.)\n\n^ \"Suona -- Eight-eyed monkey with the bad rap - China culture\". Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2012-11-10.\n\nExternal links\n\nArmenian Zurna, Duduk.com\n\nJanitschareninstrumente und Europa. Memo G. Schachiner, MusicalConfrontations.com\n\nZurna FAQ by Satilmis Yayla, 1996 Oslo, Norway. Archived at Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-zurna"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1155}, {"slug": "reference-chronicle-of-seert", "title": "Chronicle of Seert", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Chronicle of Seert, sometimes called the Histoire nestorienne, is an ecclesiastical history written in Arabic by an anonymous Christian writer from the Church of the East, at an unknown date between the ninth and the eleventh century. There are grounds for believing that it is the work...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Chronicle of Seert\n\nAuthor(s)anonymous Church of the East author\n\nAscribed toIshoʿdnah of Basra (allegedly)\n\nLanguageArabic\n\nDateSometime between the 9th-11th centuries\n\nGenreecclesiastical history\n\nSubjecthistory of the Church of the East\n\nPeriod coveredfifth to seventh centuries\n\nSourcesGreek or Syriac histories\n\nThe Chronicle of Seert, sometimes called the Histoire nestorienne, is an ecclesiastical history written in Arabic by an anonymous Christian writer from the Church of the East, at an unknown date between the ninth and the eleventh century. There are grounds for believing that it is the work of Ishoʿdnah of Basra, who flourished in the second half of the ninth century.\n\nOnly part of the original text has survived. The surviving text consists of two long extracts, covering the years 251-422 and 484-650 respectively. The portion of the text covering events beyond the middle of the 7th century has been lost.[1] Parallel to it in some parts is a Haddad Chronicle (also known as the Brief Ecclesiastical Chronicle) first described by Butros Haddad in 1986 and published by him in 2000.[2] The lost Ecclesiastical History of Daniel bar Maryam is sometimes thought to have been a major source of the Chronicle of Seert.[3]\n\nThe Chronicle deals with ecclesiastical, social, and political issues of the Persian Christian church giving a history of its leaders and notable members. It details the growth and prospering of the Nestorian Church despite alternating periods of persecution and toleration under the Zoroastrian rulers of Sassanid Persia. The work then celebrates the triumph of the Muslim conquerors in the 7th century as liberators from increasing Zoroastrian oppression.\n\n\"The Arabs treated them with generosity and by the grace of God (may He be exalted) prosperity reigned and the hearts of Christians rejoiced at the ascendancy of the Arabs. May God affirm and make it triumphant!\"\n\nIt is not clear when the Chronicle of Seert was written. It cannot have been written earlier than the ninth century, as at one point in the text the author quotes the Church of the East patriarch Ishoʿ Bar Nun (823-4). Some scholars believe that the Chronicle is the work of the ninth-century author Ishoʿdnah of Basra, who is known to have written a three-volume ecclesiastical history. Others put the date of composition as late as the eleventh century.\n\nThe Chronicle of Seert was edited by Addai Scher, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Seert, and published as several fascicles (Arabic text with French translation) in the series Patrologia Orientalis between 1910 and 1919.\n\nNotes\n\n^ A History of Christianity in Asia, 2nd Edition, Orbis Books, April 1998.\n\n^ Mukhtasar al-’akhbār al-bī‛iiah, edited by Butrus Haddād (Baghdad: Al-Diwan Press, 2000).\n\n^ Sebastian Brock (1976), \"Syriac Sources for Seventh-Century History\", Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2 (1): 17-36, doi:10.1179/030701376790206207, pp. 25-26.\n\nEditions and translations\n\nAlcock, Anthony (english tr.). \"The Chronicle of Séert\". (2014) Online\n\nScher, Addai (ed. and french tr.). \"Histoire nestorienne inédite: Chronique de Séert. Première partie.\" Patrologia Orientalis 4.3 (1908), 5.2 (1910).\n\nScher, Addai (ed. and frenchtr.). \"Histoire nestorienne inédite: Chronique de Séert. Seconde partie.\" Patrologia Orientalis 7.2 (1911), 13.4 (1919).\n\nFurther reading\n\nMoffet, Samuel Hugh, A History of Christianity in Asia, Orbis Books; 2nd edition (April 1998) ISBN 1-57075-162-5\n\nWood, Philip (2013). The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq. Oxford University Press."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-chronicle-of-seert"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 554}, {"slug": "reference-dura-europos-church", "title": "Dura-Europos church", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "The Dura-Europos church (or Dura-Europos house church) is the earliest identified Christian house church.[1] It was located in Dura-Europos, Syria, and one of the earliest known Christian churches.[2] It is believed to have been an ordinary house that was converted to a place of worship between 233 and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dura-Europos church\n\nIsometric drawing of the church\n\nDura-Europos churchLocation within Syria\n\n34°44′45″N 40°43′41″E / 34.745829°N 40.727958°E / 34.745829; 40.727958\n\nLocationDura-Europos\n\nCountry Syria\n\nDenominationEarly Christianity\n\nHistory\n\nStatusInactive\n\nFounded233 (233)\n\nArchitecture\n\nFunctional statusRuins (possibly destroyed)\n\nStyleHouse church\n\nCompleted233 AD\n\nDemolished256 AD (abandoned)\n\nThe Dura-Europos church (or Dura-Europos house church) is the earliest identified Christian house church.[1] It was located in Dura-Europos, Syria, and one of the earliest known Christian churches.[2] It is believed to have been an ordinary house that was converted to a place of worship between 233 and 256 AD, and appears to have been built following the Durene tradition, distinguished by the use of mud brick and a layout consisting of rooms encircling a courtyard, which was characteristic of most other homes built in the Dura-Europos region.[3] Prior to the town being abandoned in 256 during the Persian siege, the Romans built a ramp extending from the city wall which buried the church building in a way that allowed for the preservation of its walls, enabling its eventual excavation by archaeologists in 1933.[4][5][6] It was less famous, smaller, and more-modestly decorated than the nearby Dura-Europos synagogue, though there are many similarities between them.\n\nThe church was uncovered by a French-American team of archaeologists during two excavation campaigns in the city from 1931-32. The frescos were removed after their discovery and are preserved at Yale University Art Gallery.[7]\n\nThe fate of the church after the occupation of Syrian territory by ISIL during the Syrian Civil War is unknown; it is assumed the building was destroyed.[8][9]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Christian chapel at Dura-Europos was a domus ecclesiae that occupied an old, private dwelling in the ancient city's M8 block, along the western rampart of the city, opposite Gate 17, a short distance south of the main door. This house's layout is typical of local domestic architecture; it had a square, central courtyard around which the various rooms were arranged. Access from the street was though a modest door.[10]\n\nThe building's construction was dated using an inscription on the plaster that showed the date 232/233.[11] The inscription was made on a wet plaster and later covered over.[10] The house was probably built on a plot of undeveloped land; it was a little larger than the average size used for individual residences in Dura. The building was trapezoidal, and measured approximately 17.4 m (57 ft) from east to west, and between 18.6 and 20.2 m (61 and 66 ft) from north to south. The islet M8 was briefly occupied by a building-probably a private house-during the first century AD but was destroyed by the beginning of second century, judging by the significant thickness of the abandonment layer 1.3 m (4.3 ft) covering its remains. The construction of a first dwelling on the islet came after the Roman occupation of 165, and was followed by other constructions in the years of strong urban growth accompanying the military reinforcement of the city (209-211). The house was bordered by other buildings on the east side but the area to the south remained vacant. The conversion to a Christian church probably occurred in 240/241.[10][12]\n\nThe new building was about 17.4 m (57 ft) long and 19 m (62 ft) wide, and was close to the city wall, from which it was separated by a street. The house consisted of a peristyle with living rooms on all four sides. In the north was the entrance into an anteroom that led into the peristyle, which had two columns on the east side. Some rooms were 5.22 m (17.1 ft) high and other rooms were probably about 4 m (13 ft) high. There was a staircase to the roof and a small basement.[13]\n\nConversion to a church\n\nDuring the conversion of the private house into a church, a wall between two small rooms was demolished to make space for the large assembly room. This signified the shift to \"church houses\", which were more permanently adapted for religious use. As noted in The Oxford History of Christian Worship; \"one of the larger rooms served as a baptistry, another for the celebration of the Eucharist, and a third possibly for the instruction of catechumens\".[14]\n\nThe house seems to have been converted in one campaign, and mainly concerned the west and south parts of the building. The first room from the street (Room 8, approximately 5.7 m × 2.5 m (18.7 ft × 8.2 ft), in the northeast corner of the building, served as a vestibule.[15] It opened with a passage monumentalized by an arch in the courtyard, two steps below. This almost-square space 7.7 m × 7.7 m × 8.55 m (25.3 ft × 25.3 ft × 28.1 ft) was renovated; the ground was raised by 0.08 m (3.1 in) and covered with cinder, plaster, and tiles, removing in the operation a small basin to collect rainwater that was previously located in the northwest corner. A low, narrow masonry bench 0.5 m × 0.42 m (1.6 ft × 1.4 ft) was built along the west, north, and south walls. It was preceded by a step- in front of stairwell 7 and the door to room 6.[16] The east side of the courtyard opened onto a portico of two columns with a diameter of 0.75 m (30 in) equally spaced. It measures approximately 9 m × 2.65 m (29.5 ft × 8.7 ft). The columns make it possible to estimate the height of the ceiling in rooms 2 and 3 at around 4 m (13 ft). In the middle of the south side of the courtyard opens a 1.6-metre (5.2 ft) monumental door, which was the main access to the south wing of building.[16]\n\nOriginally, this included the house's triclinium, the largest room, about 8 m × 5.15 m (26.2 ft × 16.9 ft) that served as a dining room (room 4A). High ceiling (about 5.07 m); it was also raised above the courtyard almost\n0.5 m (1.6 ft) and included a peripheral masonry bench covered with a plaster coating. A brazier was located immediately to the right of the entrance. A small door in the northeast corner was the only access to a secondary room in the southeast corner of the house (room 3), which was probably a utility or storage room for this dining room. Another door in the northwest corner of room 4A opened to a room 4B, which was probably also a utility room.[16]\n\nDuring the conversion, the two rooms 4A and 4B were joined to form a large, rectangular room\n12.9 m × 5.15 m (42.3 ft × 16.9 ft), the floor of which is raised by back-filling the previous one to a height of the seat. On the east side, a platform was set up against the partition wall separating the new room from room 3, which was preserved: this platform would have accommodated a lectern for a reader or a cathedral.[16] A hole in the ground next to it would have accommodated the base of a lamp. A window was cut into the wall facing the courtyard, just north of the gate. This large room was the Christian community's meeting room.[17]\n\nIn the house's north wing, room 5, which was approximately 7.5 m × 4.2 m (25 ft × 14 ft) and together with room 6 at the north-west corner, formed the private quarters of the house-perhaps the gynaeceum. A window was pierced in the south-eastern wall, and the doorway leading to room 6 to the north had a careful decoration that was unusual for an interior door. Room 6 was about 6.8 m × 3.15 m (22.3 ft × 10.3 ft); this was converted into a baptistry. In its original state, it was a service room. It was first divided in the direction of the height by installing a ceiling at 3.45 m (11.3 ft) off the ground. The western part was dug up to the bedrock for the installation of a basin against the western wall.[17] The basin was 1.63 m (5.3 ft) wide and 0.95 m (3.1 ft) deep, including 0.5 m (1.6 ft) above the ground level of the room. It was topped with brick-and-mortar masonry ciborium consisting of a barrel vault 174 m (571 ft) wide, which was supported by two pilasters along the west wall and two masonry columns on the east side. A 0.2 m (0.66 ft) step was built in front of basin.[18] The whole constitutes the baptismal pool of a building of worship. On the other side of the room, a low bench 0.22 m × 0.5 m (0.72 ft × 1.64 ft) was built along the wall. A semicircular niche is dug in the south wall between the two doors, and a table was set up in front of it. All of the room's the walls received a rich, painted decoration; geometric and plant motifs were painted on the baptismal pool; the room's ceiling and the vault were decorated with white stars on a blue background, according to a pattern quite similar to that of the vault of the mithraeum of Dura Europos. The decoration of the ciborium also recalls that of the Torah niche in the synagogue; the same artists were probably responsible for both.[18]\n\nNo prominent altar was found and archeologists are unsure where exactly it was located,[19] it was suggested a platform in the big room could have held an altar.[20] In contrast with the others, the room serving as the baptistry was very developed.[19] The layout of the building's assembly room seems to suggest the emergence of the ritual Christian Mass at this time, with a raised dais on one end elevating the speaker and making them visible and audible to a large assembly, and the orientation of the room towards the east as opposed to the western Jerusalem, which was already at this moment in history a documented Christian custom.[21] This room's numerous wall paintings were relatively well preserved and were made in the tradition of Parthian art, although their quality is significantly lower than that of the Dura-Europos synagogue.\n\nThe building is notably smaller and sports less modifications than the nearby synagogue that was excavated during the same time period, which can generally be attributed to the Christian population in Dura-Europos being much smaller and less affluent than the Jewish population at the time of its construction.[22] Another reason for this may have been restrictions placed on the practice of Christianity by the Roman Empire who had control over Dura-Europos at the time of its construction; the church was small so the believers could met in secret while the building looked the same as other houses of the block.[23][24]\n\nDiscovery\n\nThe house-church was uncovered during an archaeological project that was first initiated at the end of World War I, and after stalling in 1923 due to civil unrest and revolts against French control in Syria, was reinvigorated in 1928 with the involvement of American researchers led by scientific director Michael Rostovtzeff of Yale University.[25] Clark Hopkins, who was field director of the site from 1931 to 1935, oversaw the discovery of the house-church in 1931 working closely with Harry Pearson, who was able to construct a detailed floor plan of the church. The discovery was significant at the time due to it being the only ritual Christian building dated from before the Constantinian era.[26] It also offered a unique glimpse into the layout and architecture of such early converted Christian buildings before they were transformed into larger churches, since many such house-churches are known to have existed but were either destroyed or never uncovered.[27]\n\nReligious significance\n\nThe finding of the church gives an important window into the early spread of Christianity throughout Syria, and lends truth to apostolic legends which claim that Jesus' first generation of followers originated Christianity in Syrian cities.[28] There is ongoing scholarly debate about the greater significance of Christian presence in Dura-Europos specifically, and the reason for the church's construction. Some scholars have attempted to draw a connecting line between the existence of the church and the Jewish synagogue excavated nearby, claiming the church may have branched off from the synagogue or emerged as a counter to it, evidenced by a piece of Hebrew writing found within the church which \"resembles not only a Jewish prayer, but also a mealtime blessing passed down in the Didache, an early Jewish-Christian liturgical manual likely from Syria.\"[28] Others have associated the tradition of Christianity in Dura-Europos with the spread of Valentinianism; a school of thought originated by the mid-second century Christian theologian Valentinus whose ideas were preserved in texts and circulated throughout the eastern world. Due to the similarity in traditions documented in Dura-Europos specifically and by Valentinian teachings, some scholars believe Valentinian presence and influence in Dura-Europos is what led to the construction of the church.[29] Another theory is that Christianity arrived in Dura-Europos with the Roman army who made up \"as much as 50 percent\" of the city's population during the time in which they occupied it.[29] The church was excavated near the city wall, which was the frontier of the city's expansion during the time in which they were under Roman control.[24] Considering many nearby houses were known to be occupied by members of the army, and graffiti was found inside the church containing Latin-originated names, Roman involvement in the church is more or less confirmed, though how much their presence directly led to its formation is still debated.[30]\n\nPaintings\n\nThe surviving frescoes are acknowledged to be \"the earliest church wall painting[s] yet discovered,\" and probably the oldest-known Christian paintings.[31] The \"Good Shepherd\", the \"Healing of the paralytic\" and \"Christ and Peter walking on the water\" are considered the earliest depictions of Jesus.[32] A much larger fresco depicts three women approaching a large sarcophagus; this most likely depicts the three Marys visiting Christ's tomb[7] or the Parable of the Ten Virgins.[33] There were also frescoes of Adam and Eve, and David and Goliath. The frescoes clearly followed the Hellenistic Jewish iconographic tradition but they are more crudely done than the paintings of the nearby Dura-Europos synagogue.[32]\n\nAccording to The Oxford History of Christian Worship, early Christian paintings would be quite surprising for a modern viewer:\n\nClearly, however, the early images have an agenda other than the simple illustration of texts. Both at Dura-Europos and in the catacombs, the visual jottings of seemingly disconnected scenes serve to answer the question: Who is our God? And, by visual analogies, they express the triumph over death, of which baptism is the beginning. Blessed be the faithful God who saved the Israelites through the waters of the sea, who saved Jonah from the belly of the whale, who saved Daniel and the three youths, who provided water in the desert! Blessed be the God who, like a shepherd, finds and rescues the lost, who heals the sick and feeds the hungry! Blessed be the God who raised Lazarus from the dead, and who lifts to eternal life all that go down into the tomb of baptism! Blessed be God who will do for us the great deeds he wrought for our ancestors![34]\n\nBaptistry\n\nOnly the baptistry was decorated with wall paintings, which distinguished the church from the nearby Jewish synagogue that featured artwork on display throughout. Scholars hypothesize that this difference stems from Christianity's desire to promote conversion at the time, which would only happen within the baptistry and give the convert the singular experience of witnessing the artworks when they were anointed.[35] The room's ceiling could be reconstructed using plaster fragments; it was painted in dark blue with bright stars.[36] The baptismal font was on the west side of the room, where there were a brick canopy with a vaulted ceiling and two pillars in the front. The pillars were painted dark green with black veins, probably to imitate marble. The front over the arch of the niche showed fruits in fields. The ceiling inside the niche was blue with bright stars.[37] Inside the niche was the baptismal pool. There are paintings on the back wall; the Good Shepherd was on the left[38] with a ram on his shoulders. The figure was about 40 cm (16 in) high. A flock of sheep was depicted in front of him, in the middle of the field and on the right. The number of sheep and rams cannot be determined today; it was probably once between thirteen and sixteen. The sheep on the far right are drinking water, although this part of the scene was in poor condition. The large number of sheep was atypical for comparable presentations. Under the Shepherd are Adam and Eve; both figures appearing to be a later addition. The whole picture was found to be poorly preserved and was found in fragments that had to be reassembled. It is uncertain whether the number of sheep had a symbolic meaning. The representation of the Good Shepherd was extremely popular in ancient times; it is always a picture of a young, beardless man in a short skirt carrying a sheep on his back.[39]\n\nProcession of women\n\nThe main part of the east and north wall is taken up in the lower half by a single scene, which is only partially preserved. When the paintings were found on the east wall, the feet of five women walking to the left could still be seen. The scene continues on the north wall, where the remains of a painted, half-closed door are located, which was exactly opposite the room's main door and was the first to be seen when entering the room. The following part of the depiction, to the left of the door, has been completely destroyed but the depiction of two women is well preserved. The women hold torches in one hand and a vessel in the other. They are dressed in white veils and stand in front of a white, box-shaped object, believed in some interpretations to be Jesus' tomb.[40][41][42]\n\nOther investigations concluded the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins is presented here, whose story is transmitted in the Gospel according to Matthew 24:1-13.[43][33][44] Ten virgins go to their bridegroom, carrying lamps. Five of the women take enough oil. In the middle of the night, the bridegroom arrives and the virgins set up their lamps, the foolish virgins ask the others for more oil because the lights threatened to go out. The wise virgins say they should buy oil, they then go into the wedding hall, the door of which is closed behind them so virgins arriving later could not enter. The white object represents a wedding hall or a wedding tent.[33] The door to the wedding hall is on the far right on the wall, while the five foolish virgins were in front of the door on the east wall. Baptism was viewed in the Eastern Church as a kind of marriage between the baptized and Jesus, which explains the importance of the scenes. In the Eastern Church, the ten virgins were the brides of Jesus.[33] The scene told initiates they were beginning a new spiritual relationship with God.[45]\n\nMiracles of Jesus\n\nAbove the main field of the wall with the depictions of women were several smaller scenes, only two of which had survived. The preserved scenes were about 90 cm (35 in) high and 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) wide in the lower part. In the lower third, there was a representation of water; it is possible this was an element connecting of all the scenes. Miracles performed by Jesus were depicted here. On the north wall, there were three figures. Standing in the middle and above the others was a man, probably Jesus. Below Jesus, on the right side was a man lying on a bed. On the left was a depiction of a man walking away carrying a bed on his shoulders, which researchers agreed was a depiction of the story of the healing of a paralyzed man told in Mark 2:1-12,[46] although there are other opinions on the interpretation of the scene.[47]\n\nTo the right of it, another scene shows two men walking on water, not a depiction of the story in which Jesus walks on water (a solo walk), which is told in Mark 6:45-61[48] and in Matthew 14:22-34.[49] The scene was only partially preserved because the wall was torn down. In the background, there is a large ship with the apostles on board, who watch the two men. Five figures had been preserved:[50]\n\nChrist encourages his apostle Peter to walk over a stormy sea as a ship carrying other apostles sails in the background. The image told viewers that, just as Christ saved Peter from drowning in the waters of Galilee, he would save baptized Christian souls through his death and resurrection.[51]\n\nWoman at the fountain and garden\n\nThe south wall had two doors and a niche, limiting the space available for paintings. Near the main niche, there was a figure of a woman standing by a fountain. She turns to the left and wears a long robe with a rosette on her chest. In front of her is a well, into which she lowers two ropes. Two lines can be seen on their backs that come from heaven. In older literature, the woman was interpreted as the Samaritan woman at the well and sometimes also as Rebekah.[53] Recent considerations, however, make it more likely the painting depicts Virgin Mary.[54] If the identification as the Virgin Mary is correct, it is the oldest image of Mary known to date.[55]\n\nAbove the woman, on the upper part of the wall next to the canopy, was a painting of a garden. This scene remains only in descriptions and a technically poor photograph.[56]\n\nDavid and Goliath\n\nOn the south wall under a niche between the two doors was a depiction of David and Goliath, to which as the inscriptions on the figures clearly attest. This depiction was in a poor condition. Above the scene was a Greek inscription: \"τὸν Χ(ριστὸ)ν Ἰ(ησοῦ)ν ὑμεῖν. Μν[ή]σκεσθε [...Πρ]όκλου\" (\"Christ Jesus (be) with you, remember [Pr]oklos\"). It is unclear whether the inscription is connected to a foundation on the part of the mentioned Proclus or whether it was affixed in his memory after his death.[57] David stands on the right and hits Goliath. In the image, David was depicted as a Roman soldier and Goliath wore the costume of a Persian, who were the Romans' contemporaneous enemies. The depiction of David in a baptistry is unusual but to the Eastern Church, David was the prototype of an anointed man, having been anointed in the Bible by Samuel prior to his battle with Goliath, ensuring his victory.[58] Anointings also took place in the baptistry, whereby baptism was also viewed as a kind of anointing.[59]\n\nGraffiti\n\nGraffiti and drawings were found on the walls of the house. A Greek inscription on the west wall of the assembly hall is important for the history of the building. It names the year 545 of the Seleucid era, which corresponds to the year 232/233 AD.[60] Several examples of the Greek alphabet were present, as was one instance of the Syriac alphabet.[61] Four names were also identified, two of which, Paulus and Proclus, come from Latin and are linked to members of the Roman garrison who occupied the city, lending to the theory that the Roman army had an influence on the origin of Christianity in Dura-Europos.[30] Also noteworthy are two line drawings, each depicting a rider.\n\nComparable buildings\n\nThe ruins of the oldest house church made of stone blocks, which were built at the beginning of the fourth century AD through the conversion of a residential building, are located in Qirqbize in northwest Syria. In the nearby village of Fafertin stood the oldest purpose-built church building, which is inscribed and dated to 372 AD.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Snyder 2003, p. 128.\n\n^ Snyder 2005, p. 30.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 155.\n\n^ Floyd V. Filson (June 1939). \"The Significance of the Early House Churches\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 58 (2): 105-112. doi:10.2307/3259855. JSTOR 3259855.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 156.\n\n^ Fischer 1955.\n\n^ a b \"Dura-Europos: Excavating Antiquity\". Yale University Art Gallery.\n\n^ Curry, Andrew (September 1, 2015). \"Here Are The Ancient Sites ISIS Has Damaged and Destroyed\". National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 2019-08-13. Retrieved December 25, 2020.\n\n^ Peppard, Michael (2016-01-07). \"ISIS seeks to control the country's future by destroying its Christian past\". America Magazine. Retrieved 2024-08-02.\n\n^ a b c White 1997, p. 124.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, p. 92.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, p. 34.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 7-32.\n\n^ Wainwright 2006, p. 146, 1283.\n\n^ White 1997, p. 125.\n\n^ a b c d White 1997, p. 128.\n\n^ a b White 1997, p. 129.\n\n^ a b White 1997, p. 130.\n\n^ a b O'Donoghue, Neil Xavier (2017). Liturgical Orientation: the Position of the President at the Eucharist. Joint Liturgical Studies. Vol. 83. ISBN 978-1-84825-960-7. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\n^ Wainwright 2006, p. 100.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 158.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 157.\n\n^ Wilford, John Noble (19 December 2011). \"A Melting Pot at the Intersection of Empires for Five Centuries\". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\n^ a b Gates 1984.\n\n^ Peppard 2016, pp. 11-14.\n\n^ Peppard 2016, pp. 15-16.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 163.\n\n^ a b Peppard 2016, p. 20.\n\n^ a b Peppard 2016, pp. 20-21.\n\n^ a b Peppard 2016, pp. 21-22.\n\n^ Fine 2011.\n\n^ a b Snyder 2003, pp. 129-134.\n\n^ a b c d Klaver, Sanne (2013). \"The Brides of Christ\". Eastern Christian Art. 9: 63-78. doi:10.2143/ECA.9.0.3044823. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\n^ Wainwright 2006, p. 818.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 162.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 43-44.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 44-45.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 50-57.\n\n^ Peppard 2016, p. 100.\n\n^ Peppard 2016, p. 11.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 190-197.\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 160.\n\n^ Matthew 25:1-13\n\n^ Peppard 2016, p. 119.\n\n^ \"Baptistery wall painting: Procession of women\". artgallery.yale.edu. Yale University Ar Gallery. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\n^ Mark 2:1-12\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 57-61.\n\n^ Mark 6:45-61\n\n^ Matthew 14:22-34\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 61-65.\n\n^ \"Baptistery wall painting: Christ Walking on Water\". artgallery.yale.edu. Yale University Art Gallery. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\n^ \"Yale Art Gallery painting might be oldest known image of the Virgin Mary\". Yale News. 12 February 2016. Retrieved 3 September 2021.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 186-188.\n\n^ Serra, Dominic E. (2006). \"The baptistery at Dura-Europos: the wall paintings in the context of Syrian baptismal theology\". Ephemerides Liturgicae. 120 (1): 67. ISSN 0340-7446.\n\n^ Peppard, Michael (30 January 2016a). \"Opinion | Is This the Oldest Image of the Virgin Mary?\". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 December 2022.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, pp. 65-66.\n\n^ For the inscription, see (Peppard 2016, p. 68); (White 1997, pp. 131f.)\n\n^ Brody & Hoffman 2011, p. 161.\n\n^ Peppard 2016, pp. 48-85.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, p. 90.\n\n^ Kraeling & Welles 1967, p. 91.\n\nSources\n\nBrody, Lisa R.; Hoffman, Gail L. (2011). Dura-Europos : crossroads of antiquity. Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Chicago, Ill. : McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College : dist. by the University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-1-892850-16-4. Retrieved 4 December 2022.\n\nFine, Steven (December 2011). \"Dura Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity and Edge of Empires: Pagans, Jews and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos\". Near Eastern Archaeology. 74 (4): 246-249. doi:10.5615/neareastarch.74.4.0246. S2CID 163349096.\n\nFischer, James A. (1955). \"The Synagogue Paintings of Dura-Europos\". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 17 (2): 69-75. ISSN 0008-7912. JSTOR 43710126.\n\nGates, Marie-Henriette (September 1984). \"Dura-Europos: A Fortress of Syro-Mesopotamian Art\". The Biblical Archaeologist. 47 (3): 166-181. doi:10.2307/3209918. JSTOR 3209918. S2CID 195010349.\n\nHopkins, Clark (1934). \"The Christian Church\". The Excavations At Dura Europos. pp. 238-288. Retrieved 20 December 2021.\n\nKraeling, Carl Hermann; Welles, Charles Bradford (1967). The excavations at Dura-Europos: conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Letters, Final Report 8 Part 2, The Christian building. New York: New Haven: Dura-Europos Publications, Locust Valley. OCLC 490392414.\n\nPeppard, Michael (2016). The world's oldest church : Bible, art, and ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria. New Haven. ISBN 978-0-300-21399-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\nSnyder, Graydon F. (2003). Ante pacem : archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine (Rev. ed.). Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-895-4.\n\nSnyder, Graydon F. (2005). The people are holy : the history and theology of Free Church worship (1st ed.). Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-952-4.\n\nWainwright, Geoffrey (2006). The Oxford History of Christian Worship. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513886-3.\n\nWhite, L. Michael (1997). The social origins of Christian architecture. Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press. ISBN 978-1-56338-180-5.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Dura Europos domus ecclesiae at Wikimedia Commons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dura-europos-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 4896}, {"slug": "reference-duhok", "title": "Duhok", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Duhok (Kurdish: دهۆک, romanized: Dihok;[3][4] Arabic: دهوك, romanized: Dohūk;[5] Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ, romanized: Beth Nohadra,[6][7] Lishanid Noshan: דוהוך, romanized: Dohok[8]) is a city in Kurdistan Region, Iraq and the capital city of Duhok Governorate.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Duhok\n دهۆک (Kurdish)دهوك (Arabic)\n\nCity\n\nTop-bottom, R-L:\nView over Dohuk \n American University of Kurdistan, Dohuk • Sharansh Waterfall\nDohuk at night • Assyrian Mar Narsai Church\n\nDuhokLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°52′N 43°0′E / 36.867°N 43.000°E / 36.867; 43.000\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nFederal region Kurdistan Region\n\nGovernorateDuhok Governorate\n\nDistrictDuhok District\n\nGovernment\n\n • GovernorAli Tatar\n\nArea[1]\n\n • Total577 km2 (223 sq mi)\n\nElevation565 m (1,854 ft)\n\nPopulation\n\n • Estimate (2018)[2]340,871\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (Arabian Standard Time)\n\nPostcode42001\n\nArea code062\n\nWebsiteduhok.gov.krd\n\nDuhok (Kurdish: دهۆک, romanized: Dihok;[3][4] Arabic: دهوك, romanized: Dohūk;[5] Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ, romanized: Beth Nohadra,[6][7] Lishanid Noshan: דוהוך, romanized: Dohok[8]) is a city in Kurdistan Region, Iraq and the capital city of Duhok Governorate.\n\nName\n\nThe city of Duhok received its name from the Kurdish words 'du' (two) and 'hok' (lump) as a tax payment of two lumps from the basket of each passing caravan that often carry wheat and barley.[9] According to a tradition presented by Sasson Nahum, Duhok was initially named Duhok-e Dasinya, signifying \"Duhok of the Yezidis\". However, after a massacre of the Yezidis, the town was abandoned, leading to the settlement of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the area.[10]\n\nDemographics\n\nThe city is home to diverse ethnic groups, with Kurds forming the majority, while other minorities include Assyrians, Yazidis, Armenians, and Arabs.[11] The city also hosts tens of thousands of refugees from Syria, mostly Syrian Kurds, and internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are Yazidis and Assyrians who fled after ISIS took control of Sinjar and Mosul, Iraq.[12][13]\n\nAccording to the Kurdistan Regional Government, as of March 2024, the Kurdistan Region hosts 631,174 IDPs, with 40% of them living in Duhok Governorate. Additionally, there are 251,475 Syrian refugees, of which 131,700 (as of 2022) reside in Duhok Governorate.[14][12]\n\nHistory\n\nOne of the earliest written references to Duhok appears in the late 15th-century Persian chronicle Kitab-i Diyarbakriyya by Abu Bakr Tihrani, which mentions Duhok in accounts of Aq Qoyunlu military campaigns.[15]\n\nAccording to historical sources, Duhok served as the center of the Yazidi principality of Dasini (Sheikhan) until the 16th century, with the mountain overlooking the city known as \"Mount Dasin\". Following the foundation of the Safavid Empire in 1501 and its subsequent expansion into Kurdistan, the region came under Safavid authority after the capture of Diyarbakir and Mosul in 1508. The Mir of Bahdinan, Hasan ibn Seyf al-Din, was commissioned by Shah Ismail to assist in the capture of Duhok fortress from the Dasini tribe, after which the city passed to the control of the Bahdinan emirate.[16][17] As observed by Evliya Çelebi in Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels), Bahdinan was divided into: Akre, Zaxo, Shixoyi, Duhok, Zibari, and Muzuri.[18]\n\nIn 1820, Rich described Duhok as a small town comprising 300 houses, serving as the principal site for the Doski tribe, accompanied by eighty additional villages. The missionary Henry Aaron Stern (1851) observed Dohuk's diverse population, which included Jewish residents. Stern further noted that the kiahya, or village mayor, was an Assyrian Christian of Chaldean Catholic affiliation. By 1859, Rabbi Yehiel found two minyans of Jews in the area. The Muslim and Assyrian Christian communities comprised around a hundred households. Stern also mentioned the large Yazidi population at the time, as well as the fact that it was initially called \"Dohuk-e-Dasiniya\", i.e. Duhok of the Yazidis, potentially implying that it was founded or heavily influenced by Yazidis.[10]\n\nIn 1929, the settled population reached approximately 3,500 inhabitants, with Kurds forming the majority. Among the 550 households, 65 were Assyrian Christian, and 30 were Jewish.[10]\n\nModern times\n\nThe University of Duhok was founded on 31 October 1992.[19]\n\nIn March 2024, an ancient Assyrian archaeological site was vandalized with Islamist slogans. This incident drew criticism from the Assyrian community, in line with the Kurdistan Region's ongoing failure to preserve their ancient artifacts. Notably, in 2016, the Halamata reliefs were spray-painted with the Kurdish flag and subsequently stolen.[20][21]\n\nOn 1 April 2025, during the Kha b-Nisan (Assyrian New Year) parade in downtown Duhok, a man armed with an axe attacked Assyrians celebrating the event while shouting Islamist slogans, injuring a 17-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman.[22] The assailant, later identified as a Syrian Kurdish national affiliated with the Islamic State, was quickly subdued by nearby Assyrians.[23] The incident was described as a terrorist attack by the Assyrian deputy governor.[23]\n\nCulture\n\nThe culture of the city of Duhok reflects the city's diverse ethnic and religious composition, alongside significant Assyrian and Yazidi communities.[24]\n\nFestivals and celebrations\n\nNewroz (Kurdish New Year)\n\nNewroz is celebrated annually on the 21st of March and marks the first day of spring. The festival of Newroz holds deep cultural significance for the Kurds, symbolizing freedom and resistance.[25][26]\n\nIn Duhok, Newroz is celebrated with large public gatherings, traditional Kurdish music (most notably songs of Hesen Zîrek), folk dancing such as halparke, and family picnics. Residents wear traditional Kurdish clothes and prepare festive meals to share with family and neighbors.[27]\n\nThe celebration of Newroz is connected to Duhok's history. During the Kurdish uprisings of 1991, the people of Duhok, alongside Peshmerga, liberated the city and won against the Ba’athist regime on 14 March 1991. This victory paved the way for the lighting of the Newroz flame seven days later, on 21 March 1991.[28]\n\nIn 2025, thousands of residents celebrated Newroz after the postponed due to overlapping with Ramadan and Eid-Al Fitr. Families pitched tents in valleys and mountains across the city, joining in traditional dancing, music, and meals. Large crowds were recorded in Duhok and the governorate as locals embraced the spring weather.[27]\n\nAkitu (Assyrian New Year)\n\nDuhok hosts major celebrations for the Akitu festival, marking the Assyrian New Year. The festival, dating back to the 5th millennium BCE, is celebrated annually on the 1st of April. The festive procession kicks off in front of the Virgin Mary Church in Duhok, with participants marching to the celebration venue. During the march, attendees wave flags and banners, perform traditional folk dances, and showcase Assyrian heritage and customs.[29]\n\nIn 2025, thousands of Assyrians from Iraq and across the diaspora took part of the celebrations in Duhok. Ninos Odisho, a member of the organizing committee, stated that the event aimed to send a clear message to the Assyrians who remain rooted in their homeland.[29]\n\nDuhok Provincial Festival\n\nIn May 2025, Duhok hosted the 11th edition of its annual provincial festival, drawing thousands from the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. The festival turned the city into a showcase of heritage, culture, and pride. Local folklore troupes performed traditional dabka dances, while singers echoed melodies rooted in the region's multiethnic legacy.[30]\n\nThe festival also honored the area's rich folklore, with dozens of ensembles presenting scenes from daily life, weddings, and rituals across the diverse communities of Duhok. Government departments, NGOs, and private companies erected pavilions across the Nowruz Square to display projects and local initiatives.[30]\n\nKurdish food festival\n\nIn October 2025, Duhok hosted a festival showcasing traditional Kurdish cuisine, coinciding with World Food Day. Participants across the governorate of Duhok displayed a wide range of Kurdish food products and handmade crafts reflecting the region's cultural identity.[31]\n\nKhalil Mahmoud, mayor of the Semel District, stated that \"the goal of the festival was to introduce younger generations to the traditional Kurdish cuisine and preserve the region’s culture.\" Participants prepared traditional dishes such as dolma, sour kubba, yogurt kubba, and rice with chickpeas.[31]\n\nMusic\n\nDuhok has a rich musical heritage dating to the 1970s. The Tipa Duhok band, a band in Duhok, became one of the most famous bands in Iraq. Its song \"Nergiz-Nergiz\" was popular throughout Iraq.[32] The band kept continuing until 2014, where due to the war with ISIS, the federal government of Iraq had to cut Kurdistan's budget, hence the band was forced to suspend its work.[32]\n\nNotable musicians from Duhok include Kurdish musician and composer Dilshad Said, as well as Dastor (Mohammed Salah), a Kurdish singer known for his work in rap and pop music, who has also produced more than 100 tracks.[33][34]\n\nMusic in Duhok has gone through many phases. The period from 2003 to 2013 is considered the golden age of music for Duhok. The rise of ISIS and financial difficulties in the Kurdistan Region negatively affected the music industry.[33]\n\nArts and galleries\n\nThe Duhok Gallery was opened in 1998 by the Directorate of Culture in Duhok. The gallery, located in the city centre, has showcased many public and personal exhibitions since its opening.[35]\n\nIn January 2019, the gallery hosted its 14th annual exhibition, showcasing over a hundred new pieces of art created by artists across the region. Artists from Kurdish cities, such as Duhok, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Halabja, and Kirkuk participated in the exhibition.[36]\n\nMuseums\n\nDuhok is home to many museums preserving the region's cultural heritage. One of these museums is the Duhok Cultural Museum, located inside the Duhok Directorate of Culture and Arts building. The museum was founded in 1998 by Rafaat Rajab, who was behind its success until his death in 2019. The museum features many artifacts representing the culture of coexistence in the region. Kurds, Assyrians, Christians, Yazidis, and Arabs all have a unique cultural history represented by these artifacts.[37] The exhibits in the museum mainly feature the old, agricultural life that was present back then in the region. There were herbs that were used for medicine and food, traditional clothes, pottery, carpentry, and household items that were in use for a long time. Many collectors of old artifacts helped the museum by donating their well-preserved items. Some of the items are even more than 500 years old.[37]\n\nIn Khanke, a town south of Duhok, a local resident named Ivan Haji single-handedly founded a museum, spending over six years collecting thousands of precious artifacts that tell the story of his community's heritage. The museum features Kurdish textiles, vintage cameras, old phones, typewriters, traditional instruments, intricately woven bags, and old farming tools.[38]\n\nArchaeology\n\nSeven kilometers southwest of Duhok, Halamata Cave is an archaeological site containing the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai Reliefs, associated with the northern canal system built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704-681 BC) to carry water to his capital city of Nineveh\".[39]\n\nIn 2020, researchers discovered in the Balyuz hills, ten kilometers west of Duhok City, an ancient tablet with Greek inscription which dates back to 165 BC. The inscriptions refer to Demetrius, the region's ruler during that time.[40]\n\nClimate\n\nAccording to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, Duhok, like most of Upper Mesopotamia, has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa) featuring sweltering, virtually rainless summers and cool to cold, wet winters.[41] Precipitation falls in the cooler months, being heaviest in late winter and early spring.[42] The city experiences around two or three snowy days yearly, with more severe falls in the uplands. Summers are virtually rainless, with rain returning in late autumn.[41]\n\nClimate data for Duhok, Iraq\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n27\n(81)\n\n30\n(86)\n\n34\n(93)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n41\n(106)\n\n45\n(113)\n\n46\n(115)\n\n44\n(111)\n\n39\n(102)\n\n31\n(88)\n\n24\n(75)\n\n46\n(115)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n19\n(66)\n\n24\n(75)\n\n32\n(90)\n\n38\n(100)\n\n42\n(108)\n\n41\n(106)\n\n37\n(99)\n\n29\n(84)\n\n20\n(68)\n\n13\n(55)\n\n27\n(80)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n7\n(45)\n\n10\n(50)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n18\n(64)\n\n25\n(77)\n\n31\n(88)\n\n34\n(93)\n\n34\n(93)\n\n29\n(84)\n\n22\n(72)\n\n14\n(57)\n\n9\n(48)\n\n21\n(69)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n3\n(37)\n\n5\n(41)\n\n9\n(48)\n\n13\n(55)\n\n18\n(64)\n\n23\n(73)\n\n27\n(81)\n\n26\n(79)\n\n21\n(70)\n\n15\n(59)\n\n8\n(46)\n\n6\n(43)\n\n15\n(58)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-4\n(25)\n\n-6\n(21)\n\n-1\n(30)\n\n3\n(37)\n\n6\n(43)\n\n10\n(50)\n\n13\n(55)\n\n17\n(63)\n\n11\n(52)\n\n4\n(39)\n\n-2\n(28)\n\n-2\n(28)\n\n-6\n(21)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n92.2\n(3.63)\n\n99.3\n(3.91)\n\n105\n(4.1)\n\n96.4\n(3.80)\n\n44.3\n(1.74)\n\n4.9\n(0.19)\n\n0.1\n(0.00)\n\n0.1\n(0.00)\n\n2.1\n(0.08)\n\n36\n(1.4)\n\n68.9\n(2.71)\n\n95.8\n(3.77)\n\n645.1\n(25.33)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n13.1\n\n11.5\n\n12.2\n\n12\n\n7.6\n\n2.5\n\n3.3\n\n3.6\n\n3.1\n\n6.1\n\n8\n\n10.2\n\n93.2\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n1\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n1\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n72.4\n\n69.4\n\n64.5\n\n60.2\n\n46\n\n30.5\n\n25.8\n\n26.7\n\n30.6\n\n46.8\n\n62.9\n\n72.9\n\n50.7\n\nAverage dew point °C (°F)\n\n-0.1\n(31.8)\n\n1.0\n(33.8)\n\n3.8\n(38.8)\n\n7.5\n(45.5)\n\n9.2\n(48.6)\n\n8.2\n(46.8)\n\n9.2\n(48.6)\n\n9.1\n(48.4)\n\n7.6\n(45.7)\n\n7.6\n(45.7)\n\n5.2\n(41.4)\n\n2.0\n(35.6)\n\n5.9\n(42.6)\n\nPercentage possible sunshine\n\n50.1\n\n53.2\n\n56.4\n\n57.8\n\n70.2\n\n89.8\n\n95.2\n\n94.4\n\n90.5\n\n71.8\n\n59.5\n\n50.1\n\n69.9\n\nSource 1: My Forecast[43]\n\nSource 2: Weatherbase (precipitation-precip days-humidity-dew point-sun)[44]\n\nTransport\n\nRoad networks\n\nDuhok is connected to major cities of the Kurdistan Region via a network of highways and regional roads. The ninth cabinet of the Kurdistan Region has prioritized road development, with significant development across the governorate, with 212 road and bridge projects completed in 2024.[45][46]\n\nOne of these projects is The Ba’adre-Etit Strategic Highway Project, a 26-kilometer road project in the Duhok Governorate. Once this project finishes, the entire Erbil-Duhok road will be a modern dual carriageway, improving connectivity and supporting economic, trade, and tourism development across the region.[47]\n\nAnother project is the Duhok-Semel Road Project, which was completed in January 2025. This road connects the city of Duhok to the Semel District. The road serves as an example for necessary infrastructure development and has provided convenience for those moving between the places of Duhok and Semel.[45]\n\nThe Development Road Project is a major road planned to span 1,200 kilometers, beginning at the Faw Peninsula in Basra and ending at the Iraq-Turkey border. The Duhok Governorate is key in this project, with the route passing through the Zakho District, which is administered by the governorate.[48] Erbil and Baghdad have agreed on the most efficient route for the project, which will run from Basra to Duhok and then to Turkey. The selected route also runs from Rabia to Faysh Khabur and then to the Turkish border. The project is scheduled to begin construction in 2026.[49]\n\nPublic transportation\n\nPublic transportation in Duhok mainly consists of taxis and shared vans (locally known as \"sarbis\").[50] In May 2025, Duhok introduced its first electric taxi, with the government waiving additional registration fees to encourage more electric vehicles.[51]\n\nBuses are also available, however are mostly available for inter-city travel, with regular services operating from Istanbul, Mardin, and Cizre in Turkey.[52][53][54]\n\nThere are no metros or tramways currently operating in Duhok, however, an academic study has proposed a light rail system to help reduce traffic congestion in the city.[50][55]\n\nNotable people\n\nHaviv Shimoni (1933-1994), politician\n\nYitzhak Mordechai (born 1944), general and politician\n\nKarim Findi (born 1946) Kurdish author and writer\n\nTamar Fattah Ramadhan Kuchar (?), politician\n\nNimrud Baito (born 1952), politician\n\nJanan Sawa (born 1956), musician\n\nDalshad Said (born 1958), musician\n\nPascal Esho Warda (born 1961), Assyrian politician and former Minister of Immigration and Refugees in Iraq\n\nBasima Abdulrahman\n\nFadhil Barwari (1966-2018), military officer\n\nSami Khoshaba Latchin, sleeper agent of the Iraqi government\n\nHogir Hirori (born 1980), film director\n\nKhalid Mushir (born 1981), footballer\n\nJassim Mohammed Haji (born 1984), footballer\n\nSalih Jaber (born 1985), footballer\n\nBina Qeredaxi (born 1988), Kurdish filmmaker and media promoter from Iraq\n\nKovan Abdulraheem (born 1988), Paralympic athlete\n\nShahyan Tahseen (born 1988) Kurdish news anchor and TV presenter\n\nHelket Idris Abid (born 1988), Kurdish director, writer, actor and journalist\n\nKurdwin Ayub (born 1990) Kurdish-Austrian filmmaker\n\nZana Allée (born 1994), footballer\n\nRewan Amin (born 1996), footballer\n\nAhmad Allée (born 1996), footballer\n\nSee also\n\nList of largest cities of Iraq\n\nDuhok Dam\n\nDuhok International\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"الوحدات الإدارية ومساحتها كما في 2009\". Archived from the original on 22 August 2017.\n\n^ \"Iraq: Governorates & Cities\".\n\n^ \"K24 rêjeya dengdanê li navçeyên cuda yên Herêma Kurdistan belav kir\". Kurdistan24 (in Kurdish). Retrieved 18 December 2019.\n\n^ \"كوردستانی سەرسوڕهێنەر- وێبسایتی فەرمی دەستەی گشتی گەشت و گوزار\". bot.gov.krd. Retrieved 18 December 2019.\n\n^ قناة التغيير. \"دهوك تغرق بالفيضانات والدفاع المدني يحذر المواطنين الخروج من منازلهم - نشرة أخبار الثالثة\" (in Arabic). Retrieved 21 March 2024.\n\n^ Kadr, Salahden Ghareb (2010). Klimatische Optimierung von verdichteten Wohnhäusern in Irakisch-Kurdistan (in German). Univerlagtuberlin. ISBN 978-3-7983-2238-7.\n\n^ \"Duhok\". Retrieved 6 October 2020.\n\n^ Jared Greenblatt (2011). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Amәdya. p. 11. ISBN 978-90-04-18257-8.\n\n^ \"Duhok City\". dhk-pti.com. Retrieved 16 October 2023.\n\n^ a b c Zaken, M. (1 January 2007), \"Chapter Three. Dohuk\", Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan, Brill, pp. 79-96, doi:10.1163/ej.9789004161900.i-376.24, ISBN 978-90-474-2212-9, retrieved 10 October 2023\n\n^ \"Life in Duhok\". The American University of Kurdistan.\n\n^ a b \"International aid for IDPs and refugees in Duhok decreasing\". Kurdistan 24. 24 June 2022.\n\n^ Khalel, Sheren; Vickery, Matthew (27 October 2014). \"The Forgotten Yazidis\". Foreign Policy Magazine.\n\n^ \"Kurdistan Region: A Beacon of Hope for Displaced Persons and Refugees\". Government of Kurdistan Region. 3 March 2024.\n\n^ Ebu Bekr-i Tihrani. Kitâb-ı Diyarbekriyye. Translated by Mürsel Öztürk. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2014, pp. 61, 157. ISBN 978-975-16-2752-0.\n\n^ Guli, Nizar (1 January 2025). \"Mîrnişînên Dasin ȗ Şêxan li Serdemê Osmanîyan (1515- 1750) Vêkolîneke Dokûmenkarî- The Emirate of Dasin and Sheikhan in the Ottoman Era 1515-1750 A Documentary Study\". Peywend: 11-12, 22-27.\n\n^ Ali, Majid Hassan (2018). Religious Minorities in Republican Iraq Between Granting Rights and Discrimination : a socio-political and historical study (Thesis). Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Fakultät Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften. p. 42\n\n^ Bruinessen, Martin van (1 January 2000). \"Kurdistan in the 16th and 17th centuries, as reflected in Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname\". The Journal of Kurdish Studies 3 (2000), 1-11 - via www.academia.edu.\n\n^ \"University of Duhok (UoD)\". Retrieved 19 October 2022.\n\n^ team, T. I. I. (5 March 2023). \"Islamists vandalize Assyrian archeological site in Iraqi Kurdistan\". The Insight International. Retrieved 22 July 2025.\n\n^ \"Thieves raid 2700-year-old site in Duhok\". Rudaw. 5 March 2018.\n\n^ Clements-Thrower, Antony (3 April 2025). \"Man with axe screams ISIS slogans as he attacks Christians attending festival\". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 22 July 2025.\n\n^ a b Bechocha, Julian (1 April 2025). \"Two injured in axe attack during Akitu celebrations in Duhok\".\n\n^ \"The American University of Kurdistan\". auk.edu.krd. Retrieved 22 April 2026.\n\n^ Kurdistan24 (20 March 2025). \"President Masoud Barzani, PM Barzani to attend Newroz celebration in Akre\". President Masoud Barzani, PM Barzani to attend Newroz celebration in Akre. Kurdistan24. Retrieved 22 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Newroz capital Akre lights up in celebrations\". www.rudaw.net. Rudaw. 20 March 2024. Archived from the original on 19 August 2025. Retrieved 22 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"Spring gatherings: Duhok celebrates Nowruz\". Shafaq News. Retrieved 22 April 2026.\n\n^ Kurdistan24 (14 March 2026). \"Duhok Commemorates 35th Anniversary of 1991 Uprising Against Ba'ath Rule\". Duhok Commemorates 35th Anniversary of 1991 Uprising Against Ba'ath Rule. Retrieved 22 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ a b Hanna, Fadi (10 April 2025). \"A Vibrant and Defiant Start to the Assyrian New Year in Iraq\". Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation. Retrieved 22 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"More than a party: Duhok festival reaffirms province's evolving identity\". Shafaq News. Retrieved 22 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"Duhok hosts Kurdish food festival\". Shafaq News. Retrieved 22 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"What happened to \"Nergiz-Nergiz\" that charmed Iraqis' hearts\". Shafaq News. Retrieved 23 April 2026.\n\n^ a b Kurdistan24 (21 January 2022). \"The music store that witnessed the evolution of Kurdish music\". The music store that witnessed the evolution of Kurdish music. Retrieved 23 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Dastor\". Genius. Retrieved 23 April 2026.\n\n^ Robinson, A.C. (25 January 2019). \"Duhok Gallery gathers Kurdistan artists under one roof\". Retrieved 23 April 2026.\n\n^ Robinson, A.C. (21 January 2019). \"'Art for a Free Kurdistan' on display in Duhok\". Retrieved 23 April 2026.\n\n^ a b Kurdistan24 (19 May 2022). \"Duhok showcases its cultural wealth on World Museum Day\". Duhok showcases its cultural wealth on World Museum Day. Retrieved 23 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Kurdistan24 (5 October 2025). \"In Khanke, One Man's Dream Preserves a Community's Past\". In Khanke, One Man’s Dream Preserves a Community’s Past. Retrieved 23 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Maltai Rock Reliefs | Mapping Mesopotamian Monuments\". mcid.mcah.columbia.edu. Retrieved 21 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Researchers in Kurdistan's Duhok find artifact over 2,000 years old\".\n\n^ a b Hakgudener, Serhan Hakgudener, Siniša Prvanov, Dr Serhan Hakgudener, Serhan. \"Figure 2 - from Renewable Energy Potential of Duhok: A\". Academia.edu. Retrieved 29 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Climate Dohuk: Temperature, climate graph, Climate table for Dohuk\". Retrieved 29 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Dahuk, Iraq Climate\". My Forecast. Retrieved 4 January 2014.\n\n^ \"Dahuk, Iraq travel weather averages\". CantyMedia. Retrieved 17 July 2024.\n\n^ a b Kurdistan24 (28 January 2026). \"Duhok Authorities Complete Strategic Road Linking City to Semel District\". Duhok Authorities Complete Strategic Road Linking City to Semel District. Retrieved 23 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Kurdistan24 (24 May 2024). \"9th Cabinet prioritizes road development in Kurdistan Region\". 9th Cabinet prioritizes road development in Kurdistan Region. Retrieved 23 April 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Upgrading Erbil-Duhok Connectivity: Ba'adre-Etit Highway Progress\". Kurdistan Regional Government. Retrieved 23 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Erbil, Baghdad yet to agree on Kurdistan's inclusion in Development Road: PM advisor\". Rudaw. 21 December 2025. Retrieved 24 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Baghdad, Erbil agree on lowest-cost route for Development Road\". Shafaq News. Retrieved 24 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"Desctiptive study of taxis services in Duhok City\". search.emarefa.net. Retrieved 24 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Duhok rolls out first electric taxi in push for cleaner transport\". Shafaq News. Retrieved 24 April 2026.\n\n^ 12go.com https://12go.com/en/travel/duhok/istanbul?date=2026-04-27&people=2&adults=2&direction=forward. Retrieved 24 April 2026. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)\n\n^ 12go.com https://12go.com/en/travel/duhok/mardin. Retrieved 24 April 2026. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)\n\n^ \"Duhok - Cizre Bus Trip\". www.obilet.com. Retrieved 24 April 2026.\n\n^ Tiwari, Rahul. \"Action Plan for Strengthening and Establishing City Bus System\". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\nExternal links\n\nIraq Image - Dahuk Satellite Observation Archived 2012-06-23 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-duhok"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3853}, {"slug": "reference-agha-petros", "title": "Agha Petros", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Petros Elia of Baz (Syriac: ܦܸܛܪܘܿܣ ܐܹܠܝ݂ܵܐ ܕܒܵܙ; 1 April 1880 - 2 February 1932), better known as Agha Petros (Syriac: ܐܓܐ ܦܛܪܘܣ), was an Assyrian military leader and warlord,[4][5] best known for his role during World War I. He commanded both Assyrian and Armenian forces that defeated...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Petros Elia of Baz\nܦܸܛܪܘܿܣ ܐܹܠܝ݂ܵܐ ܕܒܵܙ\n\nAgha Petros in his French uniform, in the 1920s\n\nBornPetros Elia\n(1880-04-01)1 April 1880\nBaz, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire\n\nDied2 February 1932(1932-02-02) (aged 51)\nToulouse, France\n\nSpouseZarifa Khanum\n\nRelativesAgha Mirza (brother)\n\nMilitary career\n\nAllegianceAllies of World War I, Assyrian volunteers, Assyrian Levies\n\nService years1906-1926\n\nNicknameAgha Petros\n\nCommandsAssyrian volunteers, later the Assyrian Levies\n\nConflicts\nSee list\n\nOttoman invasion of Persia (1906)\n\nPersian Constitutional Revolution\n\nWorld War I\n\nPersian Campaign\n\nBattle of Dilman\n\nBattle of Tabriz\n\nHakkari Expedition 1916\n\nBattle of Seray Mountain\n\nBattle of Oramar\n\nUrmia Clashes\n\nBattle of Charah\n\nBattle of Suldouze\n\nBattle of Ushno\n\nSimko Shikak revolt (1918-1922)\n\nSimko Shikak revolt (1926)\n\nMesopotamian campaign\n\nBattle of Sharqat\n\nCaucasus campaign\n\nBattle of Bitlis[1]\n\nDefense of Van (1915)[2]\n\nSinai and Palestine campaign\n\nRaid on the Suez Canal\n\nSurchi Revolt\n\nDefense of Jujar\n\nBattle of Aqra Dagh\n\nAwardsCroix de Guerre (France)[3]\nOrdre national de la Légion d'honneur (France)[3]\nCross of St. George (Russia)[3]\nOrder of Saint Stanislaus (Russia)[3]\nRoyal Order of the Lion (Belgium)[3]\nOrder of the Crown, Commander, (Belgium)[3]\nOrder of San Gregorio, Commander, (Vatican Pope Benoit XV) 1921\n\nSignature\n\nPetros Elia of Baz (Syriac: ܦܸܛܪܘܿܣ ܐܹܠܝ݂ܵܐ ܕܒܵܙ; 1 April 1880 - 2 February 1932), better known as Agha Petros (Syriac: ܐܓܐ ܦܛܪܘܣ), was an Assyrian military leader and warlord,[4][5] best known for his role during World War I. He commanded both Assyrian and Armenian forces that defeated Ottoman, Kurdish, and Qajar armies in multiple battles across Mesopotamia and Persia, and he also led ethnic conflicts against Kurdish tribes within the region.\n\nEarly years\n\nPetros Elia was born in 1 April 1880, in the village of Lower Baz, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He received his elementary education in his hometown before his father decided that he should attend a Christian European missionary school in Urmia, Qajar Persia, at 14 years old.[6] Petros had a typical upbringing, living with his older brother Mirza, his father Eliya, and his mother Dolo or Daloo.[7][8] Upon completing his studies, he returned to Baz, where he worked as a teacher.[9] It was thanks to his fluency in numerous languages, including Syriac, Turkish, Arabic, French, Persian, Kurdish, English, and Russian, that he was first appointed by the Ottomans as a secretary at an embassy in Urmia, and later promoted to consul in May 1909 for his good work.[3][10][6][11]\n\nThe embassy was called Shahbandar and was in charge of Turkish consular affairs at the time.[12] A Christian Assyrian man by the name of Daoud Rassam, who was from Mosul, was in charge of the embassy.[12][3] This led to Petros' acquaintance with the Rassam family, and just shortly after, Petros chose the daughter of Rassam, Zarifa Khanum, as his wife and married her in early June 1906.[12][3][13] It was reported that during the Persian Constitutional Revolution, Petros had deposed and arrested the Persian governor of Urmia and took control of the city by himself, ruling it in the name of the Turkish Ottoman Government.[13][14] The governor was later released from captivity after Petros had demanded a medal from the Shah in exchange.[14]\n\nPrior to the First World War, Petros received military training at a Russian military academy.[6]\n\nWorld War I\n\nPetros became known for his actions alongside Russian forces in the Van and Bitlis regions during 1915-1916, where he earned a reputation for gallantry and for his resourcefulness in several military engagements.[15]\n\nAfter the Russians entered Urmia, Agha Petros was appointed as a general with a small Assyrian force under his command. He later engaged and defeated forces of Ottoman and Kurds in a series of battles.[3] He was later approached by the Allies and was given command of the left wing of the army of Assyrian volunteers (the right wing being commanded by Mar Shimun’s brother Dawid Mar Shimun, the center being under the command of Mar Shimun).[16][17]\n\nIn 1917, when the Bolsheviks had taken control of the Russian armies and abducted Tsar Nicholas II and his family, Agha Petros was so furious that he resigned from his commission with the Russian army, refusing to take orders from revolutionaries. He immediately took control of the Assyrian army and established his headquarters in Urmia.[18]\n\nBy 1918, Agha Petros and his Assyrian forces managed to control vast territory of Iranian Azerbaijan, west of Lake Urmia, where they established self-governance.[19][20][21][22][23]\n\nHis volunteers had quite a few successes over the Ottoman forces, notably at Suldouze where Petros’ 1,500 horsemen overcame the forces of Kheiri Bey's (8,000 men).[16] Petros also defeated the Ottomans in a major engagement at Sauj Bulak and drove them back to Rowanduz.[3][24]\n\nPetros not only led the Assyrian forces, but also had some limited control over Armenian troops that fought alongside them.[25][26] There was disunion in the ranks, and instead of posting a force to contain the Turks, whom he had defeated previously, he moved his forces to Sain Qaleh as encouraged by the British officials, who had promised him military help. Nevertheless, the British did not fulfill their promises. He reached Sain Kala seven days after the British detachment retired.[27]\n\nAfter the invasion of Mosul by the Young Turks, the Assyrian army, led by General Agha Petros, fought intensively and successfully against the Ottoman army and their Kurdish allies, and pushed them out of Mosul and the whole area, leading to Britain's control of the region. The battles are described in detail by surviving letters of Petros and British officials.[28]\n\nAgha Petros also had some disagreements with Mar Shimun, the patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, and was often mistrusted by his family.[29][30] The Allied military advisors reported that he schemed against Mar Shimun, by trying to dissuade the Allies to trust the Patriarch.[31]\nHowever, after the murder of Mar Shimun by the Iranian Kurdish leader Simko, Agha Petros joined forces with Malik Khoshaba and others in driving Simko from his stronghold at Kuhnashahir.[3]\n\nLater years\n\nPetros was the head negotiator for the Assyrians between 1919 and 1923. On July 24, 1923, he took part in the League of Nations Peace Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he approached the Turkish delegation for the resettlement of the Assyrians in and around Hakkâri Province in exchange for the loyalty of the Assyrians. The then secretary/minister of foreign affairs of Turkey, İsmet İnönü who was heading the Turkish delegation at Lausanne was in favor of the resettlement but a telegram received from the central government in Ankara prevented that.[32]\n\nDuring his last years Petros moved near Toulouse, France, where he lived until his death of a cerebral attack at the railway station, on February 2, 1932. In France, Agha Petros was called the ''Young Napoleon,'' and in journals and newspapers, he was referred to as the ''New Nebuchadnezzar'' due to his exceptional performance during the First World War.[33]\n\nControversies\n\nIn his book The Cradle of Mankind, life in Eastern Kurdistan W.A. Wigram mentions that Petros was involved in fraudulent acts in British Columbia (Canada), where he resorted to collecting money purportedly for the building of an orphanage in Macedonia.[34] According to some historians[35] he fled the country as the Canadian police was about to arrest him, He was later to be found in Rome where he passed himself off as an Assyrian tribal chief desirous to bring his tribe from the Assyrian Church of the East over to the fold of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Impressed and grateful for this decision, the Catholic authorities granted him an official decoration.[34][35] Other historians such as David Gaunt described his time in Canada as a ''vacation'' where he ''raised funds'' for an orphanage.[36] Petros then returned to the Ottoman Empire and displayed his decoration from the Pope to local authorities to ask for a job at an Ottoman Consulate. A job that he did get, as a secretary, and as a Consul in Urmia in 1909.[34]\n\nSome historians believe Petros Elia was merely concerned by his own ambition.[37] The Allied military advisors reported that he schemed against Mar Shimun, by trying to dissuade the Allies from trusting him. He was also reportedly mistrusted by the Allies.[35] Lieutenant Gasfield and French Surgeon-Major Caujole have recorded his subordinates' low esteem in their reports.[35][38]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian people\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nNotes\n\n^ Wilson, Arnold Talbot (1931). Mesopotamia, 1917-1920 A Clash of Loyalties; a Personal and Historical Record. H. Milford. p. 35.\n\n^ Wilson, Arnold Talbot (1931). Mesopotamia, 1917-1920 A Clash of Loyalties; a Personal and Historical Record. H. Milford. p. 35.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l \"آغا بطرس: سنحاريب القرن العشرين\" (PDF). نينوس نيراري. p. 23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-08-12.\n\n^ Reynolds, Michael A. (2011). Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918. Cambridge University Press. p. 119. ISBN 9781139494120.\n\n^ Astourian, Stephan H.; Kévorkian, Raymond H., eds. (2020). Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. p. 77. ISBN 9781789204513.\n\n^ a b c Baldwin Oliver (1932). The Questing Beast. p. 176.\n\n^ Macuch, Rudolf (2019-07-22). Geschichte der spät- und neusyrischen Literatur (in German). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 267. ISBN 978-3-11-084853-3.\n\n^ \"صورة آغا بطرس في وثيقة بريطانية سرية\". www.ishtartv.com. Retrieved 2025-07-21.\n\n^ Robins, James (2020-11-12). When We Dead Awaken: Australia, New Zealand, and the Armenian Genocide. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-83860-751-7.\n\n^ Salem, Chris (2023-01-29). \"A Chaldean Catholic Hero of the Assyrian People - The Story of Agha Petros Elia of Baz\". Nineveh Rising. Retrieved 2025-04-14.\n\n^ Lindenmayer, Sarah (2018). Debt of Honour: How an Anzac saved the Assyrian people from Genocide. Australian Self Publishing Group. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-6483177-2-2.\n\n^ a b c Gevargiz, Hannibal (2015-05-15). Famous Assyrian Women (in Persian). Lulu.com. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-329-13809-4.\n\n^ a b The National Archives (Kew, United Kingdom) (1812). Foreign Office: Confidential Print Eastern Affairs 1812-1946. p. 160.\n\n^ a b Шкловский, Виктор (1984). A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs, 1917-1922. Cornell University Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-8014-9291-4.\n\n^ Wilson, Arnold Talbot (1931). Mesopotamia, 1917-1920 A Clash of Loyalties; a Personal and Historical Record. H. Milford. p. 35.\n\n^ a b Joseph Naayem, Shall this Nation die?, Chaldean Rescue, New York, 1920, p. 277 online version\n\n^ Naayem, Shall This Nation Die?, p. 281\n\n^ Lindenmayer, Sarah (2018). Debt of Honour: How an Anzac saved the Assyrian people from Genocide. Australian Self Publishing Group. pp. 29-30. ISBN 978-0-6483177-2-2.\n\n^ Astourian, Stephan (2020). Collective and State Violence in Turkey The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\n^ kalabalik, Dr. Kamuran (2021). BOLŞEVİK İHTİLALİ SONRASINDA URMİYE, SALMAS VE HOY HAVALİSİNDE ERMENİ-NASTURİ OLAYLARI VE OSMANLI DEVLETİ (1917-1918). Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları. pp. 94-97.\n\n^ Strecker, Mark (2018). Americans in a Splintering Europe Refugees, Missionaries and Journalists in World War I. MacFarland, incorporated, Publishers. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-4766-7602-9.\n\n^ Atabaki, Touraj (2006). Iran and the First World War Battleground of the Great Powers. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-78673-467-9.\n\n^ Heydari, Asghar. هولوکاست جیلولوق در ایران و نقش انگلستان در آن یا تلاش انگلستان برای تشکیل جمهوری ارمنستان در خاک ایران (PDF) (in Persian). p. 246.\n\n^ استشهاد مارشمعون .ونزوح الاشوريين الى بعقوبة Archived 2010-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, Zahrira.net\n\n^ Robins, James (2020-11-12). When We Dead Awaken: Australia, New Zealand, and the Armenian Genocide. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-83860-751-7.\n\n^ Bourne, Kenneth (1984). British Documents on Foreign Affairs--reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print: From the First to the Second World War. the Soviet Union, 1917-1939. Part II. Series A. University Publications of America. ISBN 978-0-89093-601-6.\n\n^ The Tragedy of the Assyrians By R. S. Stafford online version\n\n^ \"World War I\".\n\n^ Ashur Giwargis,The Assyrian Liberation Movement And the French Intervention (1919-1922), AINA.org\n\n^ Joseph Naayem, Shall this Nation die?, Chaldean Rescue, New York, 1920, p296 online version : \"The cause of our flight was Agha Petrus who had written to Mar Shimun at Salmas, advising him to commence the attack on the Turks, who had retired on Kara Tepe, and promising that he would reinforce him with 3,500 men. The attack began. Agha Petrus came two days later with only 300 men. Arrived at Salmas from Schakar Yazi, he retook the road to Urmia, whilst Mar Shimun's men advanced steadily.\"\n\n^ Viktor Shklovsky, Russian commissar in Urmia region wrote : \" … he governed a certain locality in Turkey and ruined the populace with exorbitant taxes, while residing in America he was sentenced to a term of hard labor in Philadelphia. At the present time he sides with Russia and is our official dragoman. His services are to be used with extreme caution.\" Zindamagazine Archived 2010-01-16 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Agha Petros and the Lausanne Telegraphs, atour.com\n\n^ David, Yousif (2007). Born killer : new history of Iraq during Saddam Husain 1920-1989. Medius Co. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-9799449-0-1.\n\n^ a b c Rev. W.A. Wigram (1922). The Cradle of Mankind, life in Eastern Kurdistan, Second Edition. London: A & C Black, Ltd. pp. 218-219.\nonline version\n\n^ a b c d (in French) Méthy Daniel, L'action des grandes puissances dans la région d'Ourmia (Iran) et les Assyro-Chaldéens: 1917-1918 in Studia Kurdica n°1-\n4.5, \n5, Paris,1988, ISSN 0765-1074, p86.. online version\n\n^ Gaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017-05-01). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Berghahn Books. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-78533-499-3.\n\n^ Rev. W.A. Wigram (2002). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1-931956-11-1.\n\n^ Viktor Shklovsky, Russian commissar in Urmia region wrote: \"… he governed a certain locality in Turkey and ruined the populace with exorbitant taxes, while residing in America he was sentenced to a term of hard labor in Philadelphia. At the present time he sides with Russia and is our official dragoman. His services are to be used with extreme caution.\" Zindamagazine Archived 2010-01-16 at the Wayback Machine\n\nReferences\n\nZindamagazine Archives\n\nRev. W.A. Wigram (1914). The Cradle of Mankind, life in Eastern Kurdistan. London: A & C Black, Ltd. online version\n\nRev. W.A. Wigram (2002). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1-931956-11-1.\n\nThe Tragedy of the Assyrians By R. S. Stafford online version\n\nJoseph Naayem, Shall this Nation die?, Chaldean Rescue, New York, 1920 online version\n\n(in French) Méthy Daniel, L'action des grandes puissances dans la région d'Ourmia (Iran) et les Assyro-Chaldéens: 1917-1918 in Studia Kurdica n°1-5, Paris,1988, ISSN 0765-1074 online version\n\nآغا بطرس: سنحاريب القرن العشرين, نينوس نيراري Archived 2018-08-12 at the Wayback Machine\n\nExternal links\n\n1923: Agha Petros and the Lausanne Telegraphs"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-agha-petros"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2474}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-greece", "title": "Assyrians in Greece", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Greece (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܝܘܢ) (Greek: Ασσύριοι στην Ελλάδα) include migrants of Assyrian descent living in Greece. The Assyrian community in Greece is primarily composed of individuals who migrated due to political, religious, and ethnic persecution in their countries of origin, particularly in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Greece\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܝܘܢ\nΑσσύριοι στην Ελλάδα\n\nTotal population\n\n6,000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic and Greek\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nAssyrians in Greece (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܝܘܢ) (Greek: Ασσύριοι στην Ελλάδα) include migrants of Assyrian descent living in Greece. The Assyrian community in Greece is primarily composed of individuals who migrated due to political, religious, and ethnic persecution in their countries of origin, particularly in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. The number of Assyrians in Greece is estimated at around 6,000 people.[1]\n\nHistory and distribution\n\nThe modern history of the Assyrians in Greece dates back to the 1920s, particularly during the period of the Assyrian genocide (1914-1920) when a number of Assyrians fled the Ottoman Empire to escape violence and persecution.[2] Following the genocide, a number of Assyrians settled in various parts of the Middle East, and a significant portion later migrated to Greece.[1] The Assyrians who were settled in Greece formed the Assyrian Federation of Greece to represent their community and advocate for the rights and needs. This organisation was officially recognised by the Greek state in 1934.[1]\n\nMore Assyrian refugees, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, later arrived from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria due to instability in those countries and using Greece as an immigration bridge to western and northern European countries, like Germany and Sweden, where it is possible to get easier access to asylum and social benefits.[3]\n\nCurrently there are more than 6,000 Assyrians in Greece, around 1,000 of them are naturalised while most of the rest live in limbo with no permit.[1] These areas have become home to various Assyrian cultural organizations and churches, which serve as centers for community life and spiritual practices.[4] The ethnic Assyrians are mostly concentrated in suburbs of Athens, mainly in the Egaleo and Kalamaki.[1]\n\nReligion and Cultural Identity\n\nThe Assyrian community in Greece is predominantly Christian, with the majority adhering to the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, or the Syriac Orthodox Church. Religious life is central to the community, with many Assyrian Christians participating in church services, festivals, and cultural events that preserve their Assyrian heritage.[5]\n\nAssyrians in Greece also maintain a strong sense of cultural identity through various community-based organizations, including cultural centres and media outlets that aim to promote and preserve Assyrian language, traditions, and history.[1] These institutions also serve as gathering points for Assyrian refugees and their descendants to connect with their roots and maintain a sense of belonging.[6] In terms of language, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic remains widely spoken among the community, especially within households and religious settings, alongside Greek, which is increasingly adopted by younger generations for practical purposes.[7]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrians in Austria\n\nAssyrians in Finland\n\nAssyrians in France\n\nAssyrians in Germany\n\nAssyrians in the Netherlands\n\nAssyrians in Sweden\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g Tzilivakis, Kathy (10 May 2003). \"Iraq's Forgotten Christians Face Exclusion in Greece\". Athens News. Retrieved 7 April 2012.\n\n^ \"Assyrians in Greece - People Group Profile\". Joshua Project. Retrieved 2025-02-19.\n\n^ Dezső, Tamás (December 1, 2013). Assyrians and Greeks: The nature of contacts in the 9th-7th centuries BC (published 12 Jan 2015).\n\n^ Parpola, Simo (September 4, 1999). \"Assyrians after Assyria\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, Vol. XIII (published November 2, 1999). Retrieved 2025-02-19.\n\n^ Hooke, S. H. \"BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION\". Hutchinson House, London, W.i. New York - Melbourne - Sydney - Cape Town. Retrieved 2025-02-19.\n\n^ \"AssyrianCultural Identity in Greece\". SBS. Retrieved 2025-02-19.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael (2014). \"Assyrians, Syrians and the Greek Language in the late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 73 (2): 299-317. doi:10.1086/677249. ISSN 0022-2968."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-greece"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 618}, {"slug": "reference-sahdona", "title": "Sahdona", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Sahdona of Halmon (Classical Syriac: ܣܗܕܘܢܐ, literally \"little martyr\") also known as Sahdona of Mahoze and Sahdona the Syrian, Hellenised as Martyrius, was a 7th-century East Syriac monk, theologian and Bishop who later defected to the West Syriac Church before returning to the Church of the East.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sahdona\n\nBishop of Mahoze\n\nSeeBeth Garmai\n\nIn office640s\n\nPersonal details\n\nBornca. 600\nHalmon, Sassanid Empire\n\nDiedca. 649\nEdessa, Rashidun Caliphate\n\nSahdona of Halmon (Classical Syriac: ܣܗܕܘܢܐ, literally \"little martyr\") also known as Sahdona of Mahoze and Sahdona the Syrian, Hellenised as Martyrius, was a 7th-century East Syriac monk, theologian and Bishop who later defected to the West Syriac Church before returning to the Church of the East.\n\nBiography\n\nSahdona was born around 600 AD in the village of Halmon near Beth Nuhadra north of Nineveh. He joined the Beth Abe Monastery at his youth and took part in a delegation headed by the Catholicos Ishoyahb II to seek peace with the Byzantine Empire after the Sasanian defeat in a recent war.\nAround 635/640 Sahdona was shortly consecrated as the bishop of Mahoze d'Arewan.[1]\n\nDefection\n\nIt seems that Sahdona was part of a delegation to the west and was involved in a debate with the monks of a certain Non-Chalcedonian (i.e. West Syriac) monastery. The monks, defeated, suggested that their opponents see their abbot. Sahdona accepted and after the second debate declared his conversion to the West Syriac Church. He was shortly accused of heresy and deposed.[2]\nSahdona first found refuge in Nisibis and later in Edessa. He later returned to the Church of the East but was excommunicated by Ishoyahb II so he stayed for the rest of his life in Edessa where he died around 649 AD.[1]\n\nWorks\n\nSahdona authored the voluminous \"Book of Perfection\" while a monk in Beth Abe and is considered the most significant work of East Syriac monasticism.\nHe also left several letters to fellow monks concerning monastical rules.[1]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c سهدونا (in Arabic). Qenshrin.com. Retrieved August 22, 2012.\n\n^ Scott-Moncrieff, Philip (2004). The Book of Consolations or The Pastoral Epistles of Mar Isho Yahbh of Kuphlana in Adiabene Part One The Syriac Text. Kessinger Publishing. pp. xx. ISBN 9781417949649.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1968). \"A Further Fragment of the Sinai Sahdona Manuscript\". Le Muséon. 81: 139-154.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2009). \"New Fragments of Sahdona's Book of Perfection at St Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai\". Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 75 (1): 175-178.\n\nBedjan, Paul (2010). The Works of Sahdona (Martyrius). Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-677-6."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sahdona"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 376}, {"slug": "reference-bamarni", "title": "Bamarni", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Bamarni (Arabic: بامرني;[2] Kurdish: بامه‌رنێ, romanized: Bamernê;[3][4] Syriac: Beṯ Mūrdānī;[5] Hebrew: במרני)[2] is a village and sub-district in the Duhok Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It is located in the Sapna valley in the district of Amadiya.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Bamarni\n\nVillage\n\nBamarniLocation in IraqShow map of IraqBamarniBamarni (Iraqi Kurdistan)Show map of Iraqi Kurdistan\n\nCoordinates: 37°07′16″N 43°16′09″E / 37.12111°N 43.26917°E / 37.12111; 43.26917\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nRegion Kurdistan Region\n\nGovernorateDuhok Governorate\n\nDistrictAmadiya District\n\nSub-districtBamarni\n\nPopulation (2014)[1]\n\n • Urban1,957\n\n • Rural5,687\n\nBamarni (Arabic: بامرني;[2] Kurdish: بامه‌رنێ, romanized: Bamernê;[3][4] Syriac: Beṯ Mūrdānī;[5] Hebrew: במרני)[2] is a village and sub-district in the Duhok Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It is located in the Sapna valley in the district of Amadiya.\n\nThe village is located in a mountain gorge and has a strong Naqshbandi presence.[6]\n\nHistory\n\nBamarni is first attested as an Assyrian Christian village with the name Beṯ Mūrdānī in the 10th-century Life of Rabban Joseph Busnaya whose inhabitants adhered to the Church of the East.[5] A Jewish community also previously resided at Bamarni.[7] In the early 20th century, Bamarni was the residence of the Naqshbandi Sheikh Bahā al-Dīn, whose house and takiyya was destroyed by the British in August 1919, but was later permitted to return.[8] At this time, there were six or seven Jewish households.[8]\n\nIn December 2020, Miran Abdulrahman was appointed mayor of the sub-district, making her the first female mayor in the Dohuk Province.[9]\n\nSee also\n\nBamarni Air Base\n\nReferences\n\n^ Ali Sindi; Ramanathan Balakrishnan; Gerard Waite (July 2018). \"Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Demographic Survey\" (PDF). ReliefWeb. International Organization for Migration. Retrieved 5 September 2021.\n\n^ a b \"Jewish Quarter, Bamarne, Iraq\". Diarna: The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life. Retrieved 22 August 2020.\n\n^ KRSO (2009), p. 161.\n\n^ \"Civilian vehicles bombed by Turkish jets in South Kurdistan\". Firat News Agency. 26 July 2020. Retrieved 22 August 2020.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst (2000), p. 133.\n\n^ فرنسيس, بشير يوسف. موسوعة المدن والمواقع في العراق - الجزء الأول (in Arabic). Vol. 1. E-Kutub. p. 119. ISBN 9781780582627.\n\n^ \"Cave at Bamarne, Iraqi-Kurdistan\". Diarna: The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life. Retrieved 22 August 2020.\n\n^ a b Zaken (2007), p. 265.\n\n^ Nasri, Ayub (3 December 2020). \"First woman mayor appointed in Duhok Province\". Rûdaw. Retrieved 3 December 2020.\n\nBibliography\n\nKRSO (2009), \"2009 - ناوی پاریزگا. يه که کارگيرييه كانی پاریزگاكانی هه ریمی کوردستان\" (PDF), Kurdistan Region Statistics Office (KRSO) (in Kurdish), pp. 1-179, archived from the original (PDF) on 14 March 2017, retrieved 6 February 2021\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Peeters Publishers. Retrieved 30 October 2024.\n\nZaken, Mordechai (2007). Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan: A Study in Survival. Brill."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-bamarni"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 432}, {"slug": "reference-dolma", "title": "Dolma", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Dolma (US: /ˈdoʊlmə/, Turkish: [doɫˈma] ⓘ) is a family of stuffed dishes largely associated with Ottoman cuisine. It mainly includes vegetables and leaves, and occasionally seafood, offal, fruits, and meats, that are hollowed out or wrapped, then filled with a mixture of rice, minced meat, herbs, and spices....", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dolma\nWhole stuffed pepper and tomato dolma\n\nCourseAppetizer or main dish\n\nRegion or stateEastern Mediterranean, Balkans, Anatolia, Levant, Middle East, South Caucasus, North Africa, Central Asia, Europe\n\nAssociated cuisineOttoman cuisine\n\nServing temperatureHot, cold, or room temperature\n\nMain ingredientsMinced meat, rice, herbs, spices\n\nVariationsVegetables, leaves, seafood, fruits, meats, offal\n\n Cookbook: Dolma\n\n  Media: Dolma\n\nDolma making and sharing tradition, a marker of cultural identity\n\nUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage\n\nCountryAzerbaijan\n\nReference01188\n\nRegionEurope and North America\n\nInscription history\n\nInscription2017 (12th session)\n\nListRepresentative\n\nDolma (US: /ˈdoʊlmə/, Turkish: [doɫˈma] ⓘ) is a family of stuffed dishes largely associated with Ottoman cuisine. It mainly includes vegetables and leaves, and occasionally seafood, offal, fruits, and meats, that are hollowed out or wrapped, then filled with a mixture of rice, minced meat, herbs, and spices. The leaf-wrapped type can be specifically known as sarma, but colloquially dolma is used for both.[1]\n\nDolma has spread during the Ottoman Empire,[2] becoming a staple food across the modern cuisines of post-Ottoman regions and nations.[3][4][5]\n\nIn 2017, the dolma-making tradition of Azerbaijan was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.[6] Armenia officially recognizes the preparation and consumption of tolma on its own intangible cultural heritage list.[7]\n\nEtymology and terminology\n\nThe word dolma is of Turkish origin and means \"something stuffed\" or \"filled\".[8][9] It derives from the verb dolmak (\"to get filled or stuffed\"),[1] which itself ultimately derives from the Old Turkic tolmak.[10] Gerard Clauson identifies the verbal root tol- (\"to be filled, or full\") as widely attested in early Turkic texts and as surviving across the modern Turkic languages with similar meanings.[11]\n\nOne of the earliest attestations of the word dolma appears in Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium, Turcicæ, Arabicæ, Persicæ (1680) by Franciscus a Mesgnien Meninski, where the Ottoman Turkish word طولمه (dolma) is recorded with the Latin definition ripieno (\"stuffed\" or \"filled\").[12] The earliest written mention of dolma in English dates to the late 19th century, appearing in James William Redhouse’s A Turkish and English Lexicon (1890), which defines it as \"an act of filling\" and \"a dish of meat, fruit, or vegetable, filled with rice, forcemeat, etc.\"[13]\n\nIn addition to modern Turkish, dolma is the standard spelling in Azerbaijani and the romanization of the Western Armenian spelling դոլմա, which in Eastern Armenian is տոլմա (tolma). It is also called derevapatat in Western Armenian[14], which literally means rolled leaves. Name forms related to dolma in other languages include Greek: ντολμάς (ntolmás), Arabic: ضُلْمَة (ḍulma), Persian dolmeh, Georgian: ტოლმა (ṭolma), Tatar: тулма (tulma), Turkmen dolâma, and Swedish dolme.[15]\n\nIn Turkey, a distinction is made between dolma (\"stuffed thing\"), referring to hollowed vegetables filled with a stuffing, and sarma (\"rolled/wrapped thing\"), in which the filling is wrapped in edible leaves such as vine or cabbage leaves.[16][15] In other languages from former Ottoman territories and beyond, these distinctions often overlap, where dolma is used more broadly, including for wrapped leaves that would be classified as sarma in Turkish.[17] In some post-Ottoman countries, dolma is referred to by a native term meaning \"stuffed\", such as γεμιστά (gemista) in Greek, Arabic: محشي (maḥshī) in Arabic, umpluți in Romanian, töltött in Hungarian, punjena in Serbo-Croatian, mbushur in Albanian, polneti in Macedonian, pulneni in Bulgarian, memulah in Hebrew, and rellenada in Judeo-Spanish.[1] In Arabic-speaking countries, native names are often blended with Turkish terms, such as maḥshī yabraq or maḥshī brag in Syrian and Kuwaiti Arabic, a combination of the Turkish word yaprak (\"leaf\") and the Arabic maḥshī (\"stuffed\").[15]\n\nIn Armenia, a wild grapevine can be found, called toli in Armenian, the name of which is derived from the Urartian word uduli, meaning \"grape\" or \"vine\".[18][19] Like in the other languages, the etymology of the Armenian dolma or tolma is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish[20] and, according to Armenian scholars, it is additionally influenced by the old root toli.[21][22]\n\nMeatless varieties of dolma are known in Turkish as yalancı dolma (\"fake\" or \"counterfeit dolma\"), typically filled with seasoned rice.[15][23] The term reflects an older culinary convention when vegetarian dishes were regarded as substitutes rather than \"genuine\" dishes in medieval Islamic societies, as Islam does not prescribe abstention from meat on any occasion.[23] Arabs referred to such dishes as muzawwaj (\"counterfeit\").[23] Related forms of the term are used in several other languages, including Arabic يالانجي (yalanji), Greek ντολμαδάκια γιαλαντζί (ntolmadákia gialantzí), Armenian յալանչի դոլմա (yalanchi tolma), and Georgian იალანჩი ტოლმა (ialanchi tolma).\n\nHistory\n\nOrigin\n\nAlthough its exact origin is disputed,[24] dolma is mainly associated with an array of stuffed vegetables that originated in Turkey[1] during the Ottoman Empire.[15][25][26][27][28] The concept is believed to have been invented in the Ottoman palace kitchens during the 15th century,[28] where Ottoman chefs perfected the stuffing of vegetables.[29][30] Dolma has changed little since Ottoman times,[31] during which recipes for both meat-and-rice fillings, meatless and olive oil-based varieties first appeared.[32][27][33][34]\n\nAccording to Gil Marks, many credit the Ottoman Turks for the innovation of the dish, who have developed diverse versions and spread the concept.[1] Marks notes that they may have been inspired by manti, a type of dumpling found in many Central Asian cuisines.[1] The Oxford Companion to Food argues that the distribution and the name of the dish indicates that dolma belongs to the court cuisine of the Ottoman Empire, where stuffed vegetables were first treated as a regular culinary genre in Istanbul.[15] The book points out that the Ottoman origin of the dish is obscured to an extent by the fact that it may be referred to by a native name is some countries.[15]\n\nClaudia Roden has suggested that the dish may have been adopted from the Greeks, though she also observes that \"stuffed vegetables were obviously developed as a 'court cuisine', invented and prepared for a rich and powerful leisured class to excite their curiosity and titillate their palates, as well as to satisfy their desire for ostentation.\"[25]\n\nWilliam Pokhlebkin, a culinary historian specialist, contends that the dish's inception traces back to Armenian culinary heritage.[35] The Oxford Companion to Food also notes that, according to some, dolma may have originated in Armenia from where it later spread to Turkey.[36]\n\nThe earliest known reference to dolma as a dish appears in the 16th-century Persian book Mâddet ol-Hayât, which observes that cabbage dolmeh is \"commonly prepared in the land of the Rûm (Turkey) but not well known in Iran\".[26]\n\nEarly stuffed dishes\n\nAccording to Charles Perry, it was relatively recently that stuffed vegetables became a characteristic food of the Eastern Mediterranean, when the Ottoman Turks made them a regular culinary category 500 years ago.[26] He observes that medieval Arabic cookbooks contained many recipes for stuffed dishes, but rarely stuffed vegetables.[26] Claudia Roden argues that stuffed vegetables do not appear in the early Arabic and Persian cookbooks, but seem to have been known during the Ottoman Empire, where they were possibly developed in this period.[25] The Oxford Companion to Food also notes that vegetables were stuffed in pre-Ottoman times, but only sporadically.[15]\n\nThe earliest recorded use of stuffing as a cooking technique appears in the Roman cookbook Apicius from late antiquity.[37] The recipes involve stuffing a variety of animals, including chickens, pigs, boars, sheep, hares, and dormouses, as well as fish, such as calamari, cuttlefish, and sardines, and even pumpkins.[37] The fillings generally consisted of forcemeat.[37] The cookbook also provides the earliest recipe for stuffed vegetables, which involves cucumbers stuffed with forcemeat, then cooked in broth or wine sauce.[38]\n\nThe practice of stuffing was also known in Central Asia, where fillings (usually meat) were enclosed in thin dough to form dumplings such as manti.[1][39] Several kinds of stuffed and wrapped intestine dishes are mentioned in the 11th-century dictionary of Turkic languages Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, with the fillings containing meat, spices, and sometimes liver.[33][40][41][42] One variety called sogut is stuffed with rice in addition to meat and spices, providing the first written information about stuffed dishes containing rice.[40][41] An Uyghur imperial doctor named Hu Sihui, who served for the Chinese Emperor during the Yuan dynasty, compiled a recipe for stuffed eggplants called qiézi mántou in his 13th-century cookbook and medical text Yinshan Zhengyao.[39] The dish consisted of eggplants stuffed with minced meats, sheep's fat, onions, and mandarin orange peel, which was then steamed and finished with garlic, cream or yogurt, and ground basil.[39]\n\nIn the Middle East, stuffing as a technique existed by the Abbasid period, appearing in Kitab al-Tabikh, a 10th-century compilation of the Baghdad court cuisine by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq.[26] The stuffed dishes appeared in many forms, precisely sausages, meats, pastries (e.g. sānbusaj), and sweets (e.g. crepes).[26] The fillings were based on meat and herbs, while the stuffed sweets were filled with nuts only.[26] Food historian Clifford Wright argues that the Abbasids possibly learned stuffing from the Persians.[29]\n\nStuffed vegetables first appeared in the region in the 13th-century Syrian cookbook Kitab al-Wuslah ila l-habib, although limited to eggplant and snake melon.[26] They were filled with meat, and cooked in broth, fat, and aromatics.[26]\n\nIn the western Arab world from the same century, namely North Africa and Moorish Spain (Al-Andalus), the cookbook Kitāb al-ṭabīẖ contained 50 recipes on stuffed and wrapped dishes, with eggplant being the primary vegetable used for stuffing.[26][43][44] By the 13th century, the eastern and western Arab world had been politically separated for five centuries, and the cuisines evolved in their own directions.[26] The characteristic savory stuffing in the east was usually meat or nuts, while in the west, eggs and cheese were common fillings.[26] Other western Arabic stuffed dishes involved pies, pastries, meats, and fish.[26]\n\nStuffed vine leaves are not mentioned in medieval cookbooks.[45] According to Andrew Dalby, stuffed vine leaves seem to have been used in wrapped foods during the late Roman and early Byzantine times, considering them to be the predecessors of modern dolmades.[46] Rena Salaman provides an example to this, arguing that the Pontic Greeks had a dish called keftethes during the Byzantine period, which were apparently vine leaves filled with small pieces of meat.[47] In Ancient Greece, thrion was a fig leaf stuffed with sweetened cheese.[15] Eugenia Ricotti argues that rice, a key ingredient in modern stuffed vine leaves, did not exist in Ancient Greece.[48] Margareta Aslan similarly argues that rice was not widely used during the Roman and Byzantine times.[49] Moreover, rice had not been an ingredient among the dolma of the Safavid Dynasty.[50]\n\nOttoman period\n\nDuring the Ottoman Empire, vegetables became one of the hallmarks of the Ottoman cuisine, especially eggplants.[27] They were so numerous and highly regarded that one observer commented in the 19th century that it was \"on the preparation of vegetables that the Turkish cook expends all his art\".[27] Most Ottoman families had gardens where they grew their own vegetables and fruits, and in season, market prices were low.[27]\n\nStuffed vegetables, collectively known as dolma, became one of the most loved and diverse categories of the empire's cuisine.[27] They evolved from just onions and apples in the 15th century to a wide range of vegetables and leaves over the following centuries, with meatless and dairyless varieties becoming mainstream by the late 18th century.[27] By the 17th century, Istanbul had 50 cookshops known as dolmacı that specialized in several stuffed vegetables.[51]\n\nPriscilla Mary Işın argues that the innovation of dolma recipes was driven by the imperial court.[28] The establishment of the Ottoman palace kitchen, known as Matbah-ı Âmire, created a competitive environment where cooks constantly experimented with flavors and techniques to impress the Sultan and his council.[28] The size of the Ottoman Empire further accelerated this creativity, where it connected different geographies and agricultural traditions.[28] Işın points out that \"vegetables from across these regions flowed into Istanbul's kitchens, where they were hollowed out, filled, and reimagined\".[28]\n\nSeveral food historians, including Alan Davidson in The Oxford Companion to Food and Claudia Roden, have associated dolma with the Ottoman court cuisine.[15][25][2] Precisely, Roden argues that the lengthy, skilled, and delicate preparation of these dishes indicates the presence of numerous specialized cooks in large palace kitchens, while the harmony between vegetables and fillings demonstrates the refined taste and deep culinary knowledge of their masters.[25] She observes that, over time, stuffed vegetables spread to poorer households who simplified the fillings while preserving the time-consuming preparation, as a means of demonstrating their culinary skills and impressing guests.[25]\n\nDolma also became a marker of status, where rich men and high-ranking state officials began employing specialist dolma cooks.[28] Since stuffed zucchini was the most common variety, foreigners have suggested that the Dolmabahçe Palace got its name because it was built on a \"garden where zucchini was grown\".[52] Dolma may have spread into the general population through the wealthy Istanbulites, who mimicked the dishes of the Ottoman imperial kitchens by creating their own recipes and elaborating on such dishes.[53]\n\nReligious practices also played a key role in shaping the popularity of dolma.[28] The empire was home to large populations of Christians, who fasted for nearly 180 days a year for Lent and followed dietary rules that prohibited the consumption of animal products.[28] During this period, stuffed leaves and vegetables became increasingly common as cooks found creative ways to make meals without meat, including meatless varieties of dolma.[28][52]\n\nOttoman sources record various stuffed dishes between the 15th and 19th century:[52]\n\n15th century: onions, apples, tripes, quinces, spleens.[51][54]\n\n16th century: gourds, vine leaves, cabbages, carrots, unripe zucchinis, plum leaves, eggplants, pumpkins, lamb.[52][51]\n\n17th century: fish (mackerels, northern red snappers, bonitos, goatfishes, pacific blue-eyes, common pandoras, cuttlefish), watermelons, luffas, borage leaves.[55]\n\n18th century: leeks, spinach, Armenian cucumbers, okras, Jerusalem artichokes.[56]\n\n19th century: mussels, melons, ribs, squash, turnips, ducks, bitter tomatoes, red tomatoes, bell peppers, hazelnut leaves, quince leaves, bitter tomato leaves, morello cherry leaves.[57][58]\n\nHistorical variations\n\nUnder centuries of Ottoman rule, dolma spread across territories in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, where communities adapted it to local tastes and ingredients, while taking on new names.[28][59][60][61][15][62][63]\n\nDolma spread as far as Sweden, after the Swedish king Charles XII lost the Battle of Poltava to Russia in 1709, and spent his exiled years in the Ottoman Empire.[28] When he returned to Sweden in 1715 with a taste for stuffed dishes and a retinue of Turkish chefs who created stuffed cabbage rolls, giving birth to the Swedish kåldomar.[28][15] Swedish chefs developed a sweeter version of dolma, often dressing it with a traditional Swedish syrup called ljus sirap and serving it with lingonberries.[28]\n\nVersions of dolma in Persian cuisine were seen as early as the 17th century,[64] Several dolma recipes were recorded in 19th-century Iran by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar's chef, including stuffed vine leaves, cabbage leaves, cucumbers, eggplants, apples, and quinces, with varied fillings prepared with ground meat, sauteed mint leaves, rice and saffron.[65] Iraqi Jewish families have a version of dolma with sweet and sour flavors that were not found in other versions.[66] Dolma are part of cuisine of the Sephardic Jews as well.[67] Jews in the Ottoman Empire used locally grown grape leaves and adopted the Turkish name of the dish.[68]\n\nDolma also spread to India.[28] As Armenian merchants settled in Kolkata in the 16th century, they introduced the concept of stuffed vegetables to local kitchens.[28] Bengali cooks invented potoler dolma, where the native gourds potala stuffed with fish, prawns, potatoes, poppy seed paste, raisins, and cottage cheese, cooking it in a fragrant curry.[28]\n\nDuring winter months cabbage was a staple food for peasants in Persia and the Ottoman Empire, and it spread to the Balkans as well. Jews in Eastern Europe prepared variations of stuffed cabbage rolls with kosher meat-this dish is called holishkes. As meat was expensive, rice was sometimes mixed in with the meat. Jews in Europe would sometimes substitute barley, bread or kasha (barley porridge) for the rice.[68] There are similar Slavic cabbage rolls: golubtsy in Russian, holubtsi in Ukrainian, gołąbki in Polish.\n\nIn the Persian Gulf, basmati rice is preferred, and the flavor of the stuffing may be enhanced using tomatoes, onions and cumin.[69]\n\nVarieties and preparation\n\nThere are many varieties of dolma with olive oil and clarified butter. The olive oil based dolmas are usually stuffed with rice and served cold with a garlic-yogurt sauce, but variations with meat based fillings are served warm, often with tahini or avgolemono sauce.[70][71]\n\nA common filling for any stuffed vegetable is a mixture of minced meat, rice, chopped onion and parsley, as well as chopped tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper. Raisins, chopped walnuts, and pine nuts are sometimes added to the mixture.[25]\n\nStuffed vine leaves\n\nThe origins of stuffed vine leaves, or sarma, are unknown. They can be made with meat or grain fillings, and served with garlic yogurt, tarbiya or sweet and sour sauces made with pomegranate syrup and sour cherries. They are known as dolmeh in Iran, îprax or sarme by Kurds, dolmades in Greece, koupepia in Cyprus, tolma sardu or terevor tolma in Armenia,[72] yarpaq dolması in Azerbaijan,[73] and yebra in Syria.[74][75] Egyptians call it mahshi waraq enab (محشي ورق عنب),[76] this version of dolma, or mahshi as it is called in Egypt, is typically eaten during the summer.[77] Stuffed vine leaves without any meat, called yalanchi dolma in Turkish and Western Armenian, are served at room temperature.\n\nCabbage rolls\n\nIn several countries, cabbage rolls are stuffed with beans and tart fruits. It is wrapped with cabbage leaves, and stuffed with red beans, garbanzo beans, lentils, cracked wheat, tomato paste, onion and many spices and flavorings. Cabbage rolls are called Pasuts tolma (պասուց տոլմա) (Lenten dolma) in Armenian where they are of seven different grains - chickpea, bean, lentil, cracked wheat, pea, rice and maize. Armenian cooks sometimes use rose hip syrup to flavor stuffed cabbage rolls.[78] Cabbage rolls are also known as lahana dolmasi in Turkey and kələm dolması in Azerbaijan.[73] During winter in Egypt cabbage is traditionally used to make mahshi; these cabbage rolls are called mahshi kromb (محشي كرمب).[77]\n\nVegetables\n\nSoğan dolması (soğan means \"onion\" in Turkish), dolmeyê pivazê in Kurdish), or stuffed onions, its’onats sokh (Armenian: լցոնած սոխ; meaning “stuffed onion”), or stuffed onions, are a traditional dish in Turkey, Armenia and Bosnia. The ingredients include onions, minced beef, rice, oil, tomato purée, paprika, vinegar or sour cream, strained yogurt, black pepper, salt and spices. After the onion's skin is removed, the larger, external, layers (leaves) of onion bulbs are used as containers, so-called \"shirts\" for the meat stuffing. The remaining part of the onion is also used, mixed with the meat and fried on oil for a couple of minutes, to obtain the base of the stuffing. To extract the separate \"shirts\", the entire bulbs are cut on the top and then boiled until soft enough to be pried off, layer by layer. In order to prevent a further softening and crumbling, the bulbs should be blanched. The \"shirts\" are removed from the bulbs by slow and gentle finger pressure. Filled \"shirts\" are boiled slowly at low heat in broth. The level of liquid should be sufficient to cover the dolmas entirely. Onion dolma are usually served with dense natural yogurt.\n\nStuffed peppers (Armenian: լցոնած բիբար, Kurdish: dolmeyê îsotan, Greek: γεμιστές πιπεριές, Turkish: biber dolması) are common in many cuisines, while mostly popular in Armenia, Greece and Turkey. Bell peppers are hollowed and filled with rice, herbs, onions, currants and optionally raisins. The Armenian version adds tarragon, mint, walnuts and/or pine nuts to the stuffing. In the cuisine of the Crimean Tatars, dolma refers to peppers stuffed with minced lamb or beef, rice, onion, salt, pepper. Carrots, greens, tomato paste, and spices can be added to the filling. When grape leaves are stuffed with the same filling, however, they are called sarma.\n\nStuffed turnips are popular in Jordan and the West Bank (notably in Hebron and as-Salt). The turnips are stuffed with spiced rice and minced meat and are lightly fried before being cooked in a tamarind sauce.[79]\n\nMülebbes dolma is a historic recipe from the Ottoman era.[80] Şalgam dolma are stuffed Russian turnips.[81][82]\n\nEnginar dolması is stuffed whole artichoke hearts. They may be stuffed with seasoned rice or ground meat cooked in fresh tomato sauce with aleppo pepper.[83] Celery root may be substituted for the artichoke.[84]\n\nEggplant dolma is a dish popular in a few countries. In Armenia, It is called its’onats smbuk or smbukov dolma (Armenian: լցոնած սմբուկ or սմբուկով դոլմա) and is traditionally made with hollowed eggplant that is filled with rice, meat, herbs (tarragon, mint, parsley, coriander) onions, currants, walnuts or pinenuts and optionally raisins. While another version prepares the filling with onions, garlic, tomatoes, cinnamon, allspice, cumin, turmeric, black pepper, apricots and pomegranade seeds. There also is an Armenian version making this dish using the dried skin and outer layer of an eggplant. In Turkey, this dish is called Halep dolması, named after Aleppo. It is a dish of eggplants stuffed with a meat and rice filling that is flavored with spices and either sour plum flavoring syrup or lemon juice.[85][86] In the Arab world, this dish is known as makdous (Arabic: المكدوس). It is a dish of oil-cured aubergines. These are miniature, tangy eggplants stuffed with walnuts, red pepper, garlic, olive oil, and salt. Sometimes chilli powder is added.\n\nA regional specialty from Mardin is a mixed dolma platter. The sumac and Urfa pepper seasoned rice filling is first wrapped with onion layers, vine leaves, and cabbage. The remainder of the rice is used to fill eggplant, zucchini, and stuffing peppers. The wrapped onion dolma are added on the bottom of a deep cooking pot and the stuffed vegetables, cabbage rolls, and stuffed vine leaves are layered on top of the onion dolmas. The entire pot of dolmas are cooked in sumac flavored water.[87]\n\nDifferent forms of stuffed carrots are popular in some cuisines in West Asia, such as Armenian and Palestinian cuisine, usually they stuffed with rice and ground meat, and are cooked in tamarind sauce.[88][89][90]\n\nSeafood\n\nThere are also seafood variants of dolma. Stuffed mussels (Armenian: Լցոնած միդիա, or Միդիա տոլմա; Turkish: Midye dolma) may be filled with rice, onion, black pepper, allspice, lemon juice, pine nuts and salt.[91]\n\nThe filling for stuffed squid[a] is made from halloumi cheese, onion, breadcrumbs, garlic and parsley. The whole tentacle is stuffed with the mixture and fried in a butter, olive oil and tomato sauce. For another variation a whole small squid may be stuffed with a bulgur and fresh herb mixture and baked in the oven.[93]\n\nStuffed mackerel (Turkish: Uskumru dolma, Armenian: լցոնած սկումբրիա), or stuffed trout (Armenian: լցոնած իշխան) are staples of Armenian and Turkish cuisine. While the trout (typically sevan trout) version is more specific to Armenia. The version that was traditionally prepared by Armenian cooks is particularly well-regarded. After the fish is prepared by carefully separating the skin from the meat, the meat is sauteed with onions, currants, dried apricots, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, walnuts, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, fresh herbs and lemon juice. The entire mixture is stuffed into the whole, intact skin, or grape leaves. The stuffed mackerel is then either baked or preferably grilled long enough to brown the skin.[93][94]\n\nStuffed sardines (Greek: σαρδέλες γεμιστές or σαρδέλες παντρεμένες) are often filled with kasseri cheese, tomato, onion, basil and parsley.[95] In Greece and Turkey, stuffed sardines may be served as a mezze platter at traditional eateries called taverna, or meyhane.[96][97]\n\nOffal\n\nDalak dolması is spleen stuffed with rice, meat and herbs. It may be served as a meze, paired with rakı. The dish originates in Armenian cuisine, and is a traditional Armenian Orthodox New Year dish, served with anoushabour and chi kufta.[98][99][100] Diyarbekir-style dalak dolması is made with lamb and lamb's tail fat; it was registered as a geographical indication by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office in October 2021.[101]\n\nMumbar dolması is intestine stuffed with a moist mixture of ground meat, rice, pepper, cumin and salt. The stuffed intestine is then boiled in water until it is cooked thoroughly, after which it may be sliced and fried in butter before serving.[102]\n\nFruit-based dolmas\n\nThere are some fruit-based dolmas as well like stuffed quinces (Armenian: լցոնած սերկևիլ, Persian: دلمه به, Turkish: Ayva dolması). There are many variations of this dish. One has a rice and currant filling, flavored with coriander, cinnamon and sugar.[103] Another variation uses meat and bulgur to stuff the quince that is then flavored with grape syrup.[104] Armenian stuffed quinces specifically are made with quince, minced meat or cubed meat, onion, rice, pine nuts or walnuts, raisins, apricots, cinnamon, grape syrup, allspice, cloves, pepper, salt and butter.[105] This type of stuffed quinces is called Etchmiadzin Dolma. Iranian stuffed quinces are made with quince, minced meat or cubed meat, almond, pistachio, barberry, butter, cardamom, coriander, tarragon, plum, onion, saffron, salt, pepper, turmeric and cinnamon.[106] Grape syrup is also an ingredient in the meat-based variants of stuffed apples. and stuffed yellow plums.[107] Persian Jews may serve stuffed quince, called dolma bay, as a Sabbath meal or during Sukkot.[108]\n\nStuffed apples (Armenian: լցոնած խնձոր, Persian: دلمه سیب, Turkish: Elma dolması) are mostly popular in Armenia, Iran and Turkey. Turkish stuffed apples are made from cubed lamb, ground lamb, rice, black pepper and sumac-flavored grape syrup. Dried apricots and blanched almonds are added to the pot near the end of the cooking process. Armenian stuffed apples are made with apples stuffed with minced meat, parsley, mint, tarragon, black pepper, salt, raisins, apricots, walnuts, allspice, cinnamon, sumac, cumin, sumac-flavored grape syrup, sautéed onions and garlic. This type of stuffed apples is called etchmiadzin dolma as well. Iranian stuffed apples are made with apples that are stuffed with onion, turmeric, cloves, butter, minced meat, rice, cinnamon, pepper, grape syrup, lemon juice, and brown sugar. A meatless variant of the filling for stuffed apples is made from a sauteed mixture of diced apples, diced pears, walnuts, hazelnut, currants, cinnamon, cloves, and star anise. The hollowed out apples are stuffed with the mixture and baked in the oven. This version may be garnished with powdered sugar. This version is most popular in Armenia and Turkey.\n\nStuffed melons were part of the Ottoman palace cuisine. The recipe survives in modern Turkish, Yemenite, Iranian and Armenian cooking.[109]\n\nOther variations\n\nStuffed sorrel (Armenian: ավելուկով տոլմա or սալորի տերևներով դոլմա, Turkish: Labada sarması or Evelik Dolması) is a generic name for meals made of sorrel leaves stuffed with meat (lamb) and rice, or more rarely rice only.[110]\n\nStuffed mallow (Kurdish: Melûkîyê tije kirî or Dolma ya melûkîyê; Arabic: خبازة محشية; Hebrew: עלי חלמית ממולאים, romanized: Aley Ḥalmith Meemou'laim; Turkish: Ebegümeci sarması) is a generic name for dishes made of mallow leaves, stuffed with meat (lamb) and rice, or, more rarely, rice only. Other names are Mallow Sarma or Mallow Dolma. It is mostly popular in Kurdistan (Kurdish populated regions) Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Palestine and the Balkans, where it may be served with yogurt.[111][112]\n\nReligious celebrations and customs\n\nIt is customary for Jewish families to eat holishkes cabbage rolls on Simchat Torah.[68]\n\nAssyrians prepare meatless dolmas for Lent.[113] When traditional ingredients are not available, the Armenian Christian community in West Bengal, India celebrates Christmas with potoler dorma, a local variation from Anglo-Indian cuisine.[114] Stuffed vegetables called gemista or tsounidis are also common in Greek cuisine.[115]\n\nMuslim families often serve dolma as part of the iftar meal during Ramadan and during the Eid al-Fitr celebrations that mark the end of the holy month. Large pots of dolma are prepared during the Nowruz festival.[116]\n\nControversy\n\nThe origin of dolma is a subject of dispute in the region, particularly between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.[117][118] In Armenia, it is typically rolled into a tube, while in Azerbaijan it is folded into a small parcel.[117] In 2011, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, stated at the annual conference of the country's Academy of Sciences that \"if you ask an Armenian what dolma means in their language, they will not be able to answer. It is a meaningless word for them.\"[119][118] In response, Armenia held its own dolma festival, using the term uduli as the festival's name.[119][118]\n\nThe Armenian side notes that the preparation of dolma requires grape leaves, which they consider evidence of early agricultural development; there is also archaeological evidence of viticulture and wine consumption in ancient Armenia.[119] Azerbaijani sources, in turn, point to a Turkic origin for the name of the dish.[120]\n\nSee also\n\nDolma Festival in Armenia\n\nList of stuffed dishes\n\nSheikh al-mahshi, zucchini stuffed with minced lamb meat and pine nuts in yogurt sauce\n\nNotes\n\n^ Greek: Γεμιστό καλαμάρι/Καλαμάρι γεμιστό (yemisto kalamari/kalimari yemisto)\n\nItalian: Calamari ripieni\n\nPortuguese: Lula recheada\n\nSpanish: Calamares rellenos\n\nTunisian: كلامار محشي (kalamar mihshi)[92] \n\nTurkish: Kalamar dolması\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. John Wiley & Sons. p. 529. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6.\n\n^ a b Kaufer Greene, Gloria (1999). The New Jewish Holiday Cookbook: An International Collection of Recipes and Customs. New York: Times Book. p. 368. ISBN 978-0-8129-2977-5.\n\n^ Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. John Wiley & Sons. p. 529. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6.\n\n^ Davidson, Alan (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-19-211579-9.\n\n^ Roden, Claudia (1974). A Book of Middle Eastern Food. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 298-299. ISBN 978-0-394-71948-1.\n\n^ Dolma making and sharing tradition, a marker of cultural identity Archived 2017-12-07 at the Wayback Machine. UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.\n\n^ \"ՀՀ ՈՆՄԺ Արժեքների Ցանկ\" [List of Intangible Cultural Values of Armenia]. int-heritage.am (in Armenian). 19 April 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2025.\n\n^ Ayto, John (2013). \"Dolmades\". The Diner's Dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-964024-9. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-29.\n\n^ \"Dolma\". Merriam Webster. 25 July 2024.\n\n^ Çağbayır, Yaşar (2017). Ötüken Türkçe Sözlük 5 Cilt. Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat. p. 1269.\n\n^ Clauson, Gerard (1972). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 491. ISBN 978-0-19-864112-4.\n\n^ Meninski, Franciszek à Mesgnien (1680). Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae, Praecipuas earum opes a Turcis peculariter usurpatas continens: Nimirum Lexicon Turcico-Arabico-Persicum. Vienna. p. 3153.\n\n^ Redhouse, James William (1890). A Turkish and English Lexicon. Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian. pp. 1261-1262.\n\n^ Mardikian, George (1944). Dinner at Omar Khayyam's. Viking Press. p. 31.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Davidson, Alan (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-19-211579-9.\n\n^ Şengelen, Özge (2022-12-27). \"Turkish stuffed delight: 8 different delicious flavors\". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 2026-02-26.\n\n^ Dogan, Yunus; Nedelcheva, Anely; Luczaj, Lukasz; Dragulescu, Constantin; Stefkov, Gjoshe; Maglajlic, Aida; Ferrier, Jonathan; Papp, Nora; Hajdari, Behxhet; Dajic-Stevanovic, Zora; Pieroni, Andrea (2015). \"Of the importance of a leaf: the ethnobotany of sarma in Turkey and the Balkans\". Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 11 (26): 26. doi:10.1186/s13002-015-0002-x. PMC 4428097. PMID 25890379.\n\n^ Vardanyan, L. M.; Sarksyan, G. S.; Ter-Sarkisyants, A. E., eds. (2012). Armenians. Peoples and Cultures (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. ISBN 978-5-02-037563-5.\n\n^ S. Piruzyan, Aram (1960). Հայկական ճաշեր, Армянская кулинария [Armenian cuisine]. Moscow, USSR: Gostorgizdat. p. 21.\n\n^ \"տոլմա in Armenian\". kaikki.org. Retrieved 2026-02-25.\n\n^ Balant, Manica; Garnatje, Teresa; Vitales, Daniel; Oganesian, Marine; Vallès, Joan; Stepanyan-Gandilyan, Nina; Gras, Airy (2025). \"Bridging past and present: exploring Cannabis traditions in Armenia through ethnobotanical interviews and bibliographic prospecting\". Journal of Cannabis Research. 7 (1) 8. doi:10.1186/s42238-025-00259-x. PMC 11780856. PMID 39881377.\n\n^ Petrosian, Irina; Underwood, David (2006). Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction & Folklore. Lulu.com. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-4116-9865-9.\n\n^ a b c Zaouali, Lilia (2007). Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes. University of California Press. p. x.\n\n^ Erickson, Alicia (20 March 2023). \"Yaprakh, the Kurdish version of dolmas\". BBC. Retrieved 23 January 2026.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Roden, Claudia (1974). A Book of Middle Eastern Food. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 298-299. ISBN 978-0-394-71948-1.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Perry, Charles (1983). \"Before Dolma: A Taxonomy of Medieval Arab Stuffery\". In McWilliams, Mark (ed.). Wrapped and Stuffed Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Berkeley: Aris Books. p. 259. ISBN 978-1-903018-99-6.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Işın, Priscilla Mary (2018). Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine. Reaktion Books. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-78023-939-2.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Gayatri, Soumya. \"Dolma: The stuffed dish the world fell in love with\". BBC. Retrieved 9 March 2026.\n\n^ a b Wright, Clifford A. (1999). A Mediterranean Feast. New York: Morrow. p. 322. ISBN 978-0-688-15305-2.\n\n^ Holland, Mina (2014). The Edible Atlas: Around the World in Thirty-Nine Cuisines. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. ISBN 978-0-85786-856-5.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2018). Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine. Reaktion Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-78023-939-2.\n\n^ Dordevic-Milosevic, Suzana; Mastilovic, Jasna; Stanisic, Svetlana; Kilibard, Natasa (2021). \"Food, Nutrition, and Health in Serbia\". In Gostin, Alina-Ioana; Bogueva, Diana; Kakurinov, Vladimir (eds.). Nutritional and Health Aspects of Food in the Balkans. Elsevier Science. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-12-820786-4.\n\n^ a b Kadirgan, Piril (2023). \"Istanbul's Portable Food Practices in the Case of Dolma\". In McWilliams, Mark (ed.). Portable Food: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2022 (PDF). Prospect Books. pp. 156-163.\n\n^ Yerasimos, Marianna (2002). 500 Yıllık Osmanlı Mutfağı [500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine] (in Turkish). Boyut Yayınları. pp. 178-205. ISBN 978-975-521-668-3.\n\n^ William Pokhlyobkin (1978). Национальные кухни наших народов [The Ethnic Cuisines of our Peoples. Light and Food Industry] (in Russian). Центрполиграф. ISBN 978-5-9524-2783-9. From the 17th to the early 19th century, Armenia was divided between Turkey and Iran. During this period, Armenia's economy, its human and material resources declined, but its spiritual and material culture remained unchanged, and Armenian cuisine did not perish. On the contrary, Armenians contributed to the cuisine of the Seljuk Turks, so many truly Armenian dishes later became known in Europe through the Turks as, allegedly, Turkish cuisine (for example, dolma).\n\n^ Davidson, Alan (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-19-211579-9.\n\n^ a b c Vehling, Joseph Dommers (1978). Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome. Chicago: Dover Publications. pp. 79, 121, 135, 154, 161, 185, 191, 192, 194, 201, 204, 205, 212, 215.\n\n^ Vehling, Joseph Dommers (1978). Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome. Chicago: Dover Publications. p. 79. [Stew the] peeled cucumbers either in broth [1] or in a wine sauce; [and] you will find them to be tender and not causing indigestion. [1] Usually cucumbers are parboiled in water and then finished in broth; most often after being parboiled they are stuffed with forcemeat and then finished in broth.\n\n^ a b c Öney Tan, Aylin (1983). \"Mantı or Mantou: Dumplings across the Silk Road from Central Asia to Turkey\". In McWilliams, Mark (ed.). Wrapped and Stuffed Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Berkeley: Aris Books. pp. 145-147. ISBN 978-1-903018-99-6.\n\n^ a b Ögel, Bahaeddin (2023). Türk Kültür Tarihine Giriş 4 Cilt: Türklerde Yemek Kültürü [Introduction to Turkish Cultural History, Volume 4: Food Culture Among the Turks] (in Turkish). pp. 325-328.\n\n^ a b al-Kashghari, Mahmud (1982-84). Compendium of The Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Lūḡāt at-Turk): Part I. Translated by Dankoff, Robert; Kelly, James. Harvard University Print. pp. 255, 276, 316, 359.\n\n^ al-Kashghari, Mahmud (1982-84). Compendium of The Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Lūḡāt at-Turk): Part II. Harvard University Print. p. 177.\n\n^ Martinelli, Candida (2012). The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook (PDF). pp. 108-109. Take nicely-shaped sweet eggplants and take out their seedy flesh carefully so that they keep their shape. [Hollow them out, reserving the tops for later.] Then boil what you took out from inside in salted water until it is done. Drain the water and mash it [the boiled flesh] to pieces, as mentioned earlier. Combine with white bread crumbs, egg and cooked pounded meat. Fill the empty skins with this [retaining some] and replace the seedy flesh as it was. Throw them into and arrange them in the tajine and pour in the rest of the stuffing and some oil. Put in the oven and leave until thickened and completely done. Take out the eggplants and put them as they are on a platter, whole, as if nothing had been done to them [stuff the eggplants, replacing the tips].\n\n^ Perry, Charles (2017). Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook. New York University Press. p. 93.\n\n^ Byrd, Melanie; Dunn, John P. (2020). Cooking Through History: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Food with Menus and Recipes [2 Volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 979-8-216-06626-2.\n\n^ Dalby, Andrew (2013). Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. Routledge. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-134-96985-2.\n\n^ Salaman, Rena (1983). \"The Case of the Missing Fish, or Dolmathon Prolegomena\". In Davidson, Alan (ed.). Food in Motion: The Migration of Foodstuffs and Cookery Techniques. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-907325-16-1.\n\n^ Salza Prina Ricotti, Eugenia (2006). Meals and Recipes from Ancient Greece. Los Angeles: Getty Publications. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-89236-876-1.\n\n^ Aslan, Margareta (2018). \"Turkish Flavours in the Transylvanian Cuisine (17th-19th Centuries)\". In Jianu, Angela; Barbu, Violeta (eds.). Earthly Delights: Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe. Brill. p. 116. ISBN 978-90-04-36754-8.\n\n^ \"DOLMA\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\n^ a b c Işın, Priscilla Mary (2013). \"Fish of the Fields: Aubergines in the Ottoman Period\" (PDF). Food and History. 11 (1): 27. doi:10.1484/J.FOOD.1.103553.\n\n^ a b c d Işın, Priscilla Mary (2021). Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü. Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi. p. 97.\n\n^ Smith, Andrew (2013). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Vol. 1 (2 ed.). OUP USA. p. 502. ISBN 978-0-19-973496-2.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2021). Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü. Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi. pp. 37, 97, 89.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2021). Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü. Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi. pp. 46, 97, 170, 271, 238, 256.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2021). Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü. Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi. pp. 49, 97, 406.\n\n^ Işın, Priscilla Mary (2021). Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü. Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi. pp. 97, 171, 192, 263-264, 286, 347, 397.\n\n^ Samancı, Özge (2019). \"İstanbul Mutfağında Yeni Dünya Lezzetleri: Domates, Biber, Patates\". Meltem İzmir Akdeniz Akademisi Dergisi. 86-89 (5): 89.\n\n^ Blüher, P. M. (1901). Encyclopédie de cuisine de tous les pays. University of California. p. 171.\n\n^ Janes, Lauren; Bourguignon, Hélène (2014). \"Curiosité gastronomique et cuisine exotique dans l'entre-deux-guerres: Une histoire de goût et de dégoût\". Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire (in French). 123 (3): 69. doi:10.3917/vin.123.0069. ISSN 0294-1759.\n\n^ \"Aubergines à l'algérienne\". Le Pot-au-feu: 245. 1934.\n\n^ Surina, Asele; McNamara, Randall (2005-01-01). \"Food Culture in Russia and Central Asia\". Food Culture Around the World.\n\n^ Labon, Joanna (1995). Balkan Blues: Writing Out of Yugoslavia. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 9780810113251.\n\n^ \"DOLMA\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 2026-02-26.\n\n^ Ghanoonparvar, M. R. (1995). \"DOLMA\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. VII/5: Divorce IV-Drugs. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 478-479. ISBN 978-1-56859-023-3.\n\n^ Meri, Josef (2016-06-23). The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations. Routledge. p. 486. ISBN 978-1-317-38321-5.\n\n^ Kittler, Pamela Goyan; Sucher, Kathryn P.; Nelms, Marcia (2011-08-22). Food and Culture. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-538-73497-4.\n\n^ a b c \"The Jews, stuffed cabbage and Simchat Torah\". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 2012-10-07. Archived from the original on 2017-11-10. Retrieved 2018-06-30.\n\n^ Salloum, Habeeb (2012-02-28). Arabian Nights Cookbook: From Lamb Kebabs to Baba Ghanouj, Delicious Homestyle Arabian Cooking. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4629-0524-9.\n\n^ Kopka, Deborah (2011-09-01). Passport Series: Middle East. Milliken Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-4291-2261-0.\n\n^ Marks, Gil (2010-11-17). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6. Archived from the original on 2016-08-10.\n\n^ Martirosyan, Hrach (2011). Etymological dictionary of the Armenian inherited lexicon. Brill. ISBN 9789004173378.\n\n^ a b King, David C. (2006). Azerbaijan. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 978-0-7614-2011-8.\n\n^ Marks, Gil (2008-03-11). Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-544-18750-4.\n\n^ Marks, Gil (2010-11-17). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6.\n\n^ Hervé Beaumont (2008). Egypte (in French). Editions Marcus. pp. 36-. ISBN 978-2-7131-0269-1.\n\n^ a b Andrew Humphreys (1998). Cairo. Lonely Planet. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-86442-548-5.\n\n^ Duguid, Naomi (2016-09-06). Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan. Artisan Books. ISBN 978-1-57965-727-7.\n\n^ \"Beyond mansaf: four traditional Jordanian dishes you probably did not know\". Jordan Times. 10 April 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2025.\n\n^ Virgül. Pusula Yayıncılık. 2007. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30.\n\n^ Turkish folk culture researches. Halk Kültürünü Araştırma Dairesi. 1990.\n\n^ Zat, Vefa (2002). Eski İstanbul meyhaneleri. İletişim. ISBN 978-975-470-998-8.\n\n^ \"Kıymalı enginar dolması tarifi\". Mıllıyet Haber - Türkıye'nın Haber Sıtesı. Archived from the original on 2018-06-29. Retrieved 2018-06-29.\n\n^ \"Kereviz Dolması tarifi (Bursa) - Haber - Mutfağım\". Kanal D. 31 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-30.\n\n^ Vakfı, Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih (1994). Dünden bugüne İstanbul ansiklopedisi. Kültür Bakanlığı. ISBN 978-975-7306-06-1.\n\n^ Erdoğdu, Şeref (1999). Ankaram. T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı. ISBN 978-975-17-2180-8.\n\n^ \"Zeytinyağlı Sumaklı Karışık Dolma tarifi - Haber - Mutfağım\". Kanal D. 5 April 2013. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-30.\n\n^ Mishan, Ligaya (12 Feb 2020). \"The Rise of Palestinian Food\". The New York Times Style Magazine. Retrieved 28 June 2025.\n\n^ Kalla, Joudie (2018). \"Teta Najla's jazar mahshi\". Baladi. Minneapolis: Harvard Common Press. ISBN 978-1-78131-881-2.\n\n^ Zerouali, Nadia (8 May 2018). \"Lamb Tonight: Make Armenian Stuffed Carrots\". Food Republic. Retrieved 28 June 2025.\n\n^ New York Media, LLC (22 February 1993). New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. pp. 69-. ISSN 0028-7369.\n\n^ Kouki, Mohamed (2000). Tunisian Gastronomy. Tunis: Wafa. p. 157.\n\n^ a b Basan, Ghillie (1997-04-15). Classic Turkish Cooking. Macmillan. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-312-15617-6.\n\n^ YAŞİN, Mehmet (10 September 2017). \"Uskumru mu kolyoz mu?\". Archived from the original on 2017-11-01. Retrieved 2018-06-29.\n\n^ \"MEDITERRANEAN BAKED STUFFED SARDINES\". 30 days of Greek food. 9 July 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2020.\n\n^ Zat, Erdir (2014). Türkiye Meyhaneler Rehberi: Türkiye Meyhaneler Rehberi. Overteam Yayınları. ISBN 978-605-5058-11-1.\n\n^ Civitello, Linda (2011). Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People. New York: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-40371-6.\n\n^ Kesmez, Melisa; Aydın, Mehmet Said (September 2013). Rakı Cep Ansiklopedisi [Rakı Pocket Encyclopaedia] (in Turkish). Overteam Yayınları. p. 26. ISBN 978-605-5058-00-5.\n\n^ Balian, Setrag (December 2016), \"Panem et Circenses: Armenian Religious Feasts and Celebrations\" (PDF), This Week in Palestine, no. 224, Turbo Computers & Software Co. Ltd., pp. 66-67\n\n^ Kezelian, Harry (2021-01-07), Armenian Holiday Traditions, Watertown, Massachusetts: The Armenian Mirror Spectator\n\n^ Diyarbekir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2021-10-15), No: 921 - Mahreç İşareti: DİYARBAKIR DALAK DOLMASI (PDF) (in Turkish), Turkish Patent and Trademark Office\n\n^ Kaptan, Şükrü Tekin (1988). Denizli'nin halk kültürü ürünleri: bölgesel folklor karakterleri. Ş.T. Kaptan.\n\n^ Üçer, Müjgân (2006). Anamın aşı tandırın başı: Sivas mutfağ̮ı : il merkezi ve ilçe yemekleri : gelenek, görenek, inançlar ve sözlü kültür. Kitabevi.\n\n^ Toygar, Kâmil; Toygar, Nimet Berkok (2005). Ankara'da bağcılık ve bağ kültürü. Birlik Matbaacılık. ISBN 978-975-95216-5-3.\n\n^ Victoria Atamian Waterman (6 August 2024). \"\"Simply Quince\"\". Armenian Weekly.\n\n^ \"Dolmeh Beh (Quince Stuffed With Beef and Cardamom)\". Jewish Food Society. 3 September 2021.\n\n^ Jaine, Tom (1988). Taste: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery. ISBN 9780907325390. Retrieved 2018-06-29.\n\n^ Marks, Gil (1999-09-02). The: World of Jewish Cooking. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-83559-4.\n\n^ Lovegren, Sylvia (15 April 2016). Melon: A Global History. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781780236186.\n\n^ Uvezian, Sonia (2007). The Cuisine of Armenia. Hippocrene Books. ISBN 9780781806954.\n\n^ Hubbard, Ben; Bilal, Shbair (7 April 2024). \"To Battle Wartime Hunger, Gazans Turn to a Humble Leafy Green (Published 2024)\". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 June 2025.\n\n^ \"Preserving Kurdish culture in America through botany\". www.rudaw.net. 6 Sep 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2025.\n\n^ Albala, Ken (2011). Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 255. ISBN 9781449618117.\n\n^ \"It's Christmas in January for Armenians - Times of India\". The Times of India. 7 January 2017. Retrieved 2018-08-13.\n\n^ Perry, Charles Perry (2014-11-20). \"Dolma\". The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967733-7. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-29.\n\n^ Albala, Ken (2011). Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-37626-9.\n\n^ a b \"Долма: армянская или азербайджанская?\". BBC (in Russian). 23 December 2017. Retrieved 23 January 2026.\n\n^ a b c \"Food feuds continue to simmer in the Caucasus\". Al Jazeera. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 23 January 2026.\n\n^ a b c \"A culinary conflict in the South Caucasus\". openDemocracy. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 23 January 2026.\n\n^ \"A culinary conflict in the South Caucasus\". openDemocracy. 23 June 2017. Retrieved 23 January 2026.\n\nSources\n\nAlan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food. ISBN 0-19-211579-0.\n\nGosetti Della Salda, Anna (1967). Le ricette regionali italiane (in Italian). Milano: Solares."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dolma"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 7508}, {"slug": "reference-isaac-of-antioch", "title": "Isaac of Antioch", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Isaac of Antioch, also known as Isaac of Amid or Isaac the Syrian, is one of the stars of Syriac literature, and the reputed author of a large number of metrical homilies,[1] many of which are distinguished by an originality and acumen rare among Syriac writers. The mid-6th...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Isaac of Antioch, also known as Isaac of Amid or Isaac the Syrian, is one of the stars of Syriac literature, and the reputed author of a large number of metrical homilies,[1] many of which are distinguished by an originality and acumen rare among Syriac writers. The mid-6th century Chronicle of Edessa gives his date of death as 451-452; and the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian makes him contemporary with Nonus, who became the 31st bishop of Edessa in 449.\n\nLife\n\nConsiderable difficulty exists in reconstructing the biography of Isaac. Eastern and Western texts on the topic were collected by Assemani (B.O. i. 2072 14), who concluded that Isaac flourished during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II, and that he was a native either of Amid (Diyarbakir) or of Edessa, both located in modern-day Turkey. Several writers identify him a disciple of Ephrem the Syrian also named Isaac. A contrary testimony according to the patriarch Bar Shushan (d. 1073), who made a collection of his homilies, asserts his master was a disciple of Ephrem named Zenobius.[2]\n\nHe is supposed to have migrated to Antioch, and to have become abbot of one of the convents in its neighborhood. According to Zacharias Rhetor he visited Rome and other cities, and the Zuqnin Chronicle by Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahr informs us that he composed poems on the Secular Games of 404, and wrote on the destruction of Rome by Alaric I in 410. He also commemorated the destruction of Antioch by an earthquake in 459, so that he must have lived until about 460. Unfortunately these poems have perished.[2]\n\nAuthorship\n\nWhen we examine the collection of homilies attributed to Isaac, a difficulty arises on two grounds. \n\nThe author of some of the poems is a fervent proponent of Chalcedonian orthodoxy (see especially Nos. 1-3 in Gustav Bickell's edition = 62-64 in Paul Bedjan's), in other and more important homilies (such as Bickell 6, 8 = Bedjan 59, 61, and especially Bedjan 60) the doctrine is monophysite, even though Eutyches and Nestorius are equally condemned.\n\nOne of the monophysite homilies, the famous poem of 2136 lines on the parrot which uttered the Trisagion in the streets of Antioch (Bickell, 8 = Bedjan 61), appears to have been written at Antioch after Peter the Fuller (patriarch 471-488) raised the dispute about the addition to the doxology of the words qui crucifixus es pro nobis. It is therefore scarcely possible that the author of this homily should be the same who composed the lost poems on the secular games in 404 and on the sack of Rome.[2]\n\nMoreover, T. J. Lamy (S. Ephraemi hymni et sermones, iv. 361-364) and Bedjan (Homiliae S. Isaaci, i. pp. iv-ix) have called attention to statements made by Jacob of Edessa (708) in a letter to John the Stylite. He says there were three Isaacs who wrote in Syriac, two Monophysite and one Chalcedonian:\n\nThe first, he says, a native of Amid, and pupil of S. Ephraim, visited Rome in the time of Arcadius (395-408), on his return journey suffered imprisonment at Constantinople, and afterwards became a priest in the church of Amid.\n\nThe second was a priest of Edessa, and flourished in the reign of Zeno (474-491). He went up to Antioch in the time of Peter the Fuller. Jacob then tells the story of the parrot (see above).\n\nThe third was also an Edessene. At first in the days of Bishop Paul (510-522) he was monophysite, but afterwards in the time of the Chalcedonian bishop Asclepius he wrote poems setting forth \"Nestorian\" (i.e. Chalcedonian) doctrine.[2]\n\nWith such conflicting evidence it is impossible to arrive at a certain result. But Jacob is an early witness: and on the whole it seems safe to conclude with Bedjan (p. ix) that works by at least two authors have been included in the collection attributed to Isaac of Antioch. Still the majority of the poems are the work, of one hand the 5th-century monophysite who wrote the poem on the parrot. A full list of the 191 poems existing in European MSS. is given by Bickell, who copied out 181 with a view to publishing them all:\nthe other 10 had been previously copied by Pius Zingerle. But the two volumes published by Bickell in his lifetime (Gießen, 1873 and 1877) contain only 37 homilies. Bedjan's edition, of which the first volume has alone appeared (Paris, 1903) contains 67 poems, viz. 24 previously published (18 by Bickell), and 43 that are new, though their titles are all included in Bickell's list.[2]\n\nHomilies\n\nThe writer's main interest lies in the application of religion to the practical duties of life, whether in the church or in the world. He has a great command of forcible language and considerable skill in apt illustration. The zeal with which he denounces the abuses prevalent in the church of his day, and particularly in the monastic orders, is not unlike that of the Protestant reformers.[2]\n\nHe shows acquaintance with many phases of life. He describes the corruption of judges, the prevalence of usury and avarice, the unchastity which especially characterized the upper classes, and the general hypocrisy of so-called Christians. His doctrinal discussions are apt to be diffuse; but he seldom loses sight of the bearing of doctrine on practical life. He judges with extreme severity those who argue about religion while neglecting its practice, and those who though stupid and ignorant dare to pry into mysteries which are sealed to the angels. \"Not newly have we found Him, that we should search and pry into God. As He was He is: He changeth not with the times. ... Confess that He formed thee of dust: search not the mode of His being: Worship Him that He redeemed thee by His only Son: inquire not the manner of His birth.\"[2]\n\nSome of Isaac's works have an interest for the historian of the 5th century. In two poems (Bickell II, 12 = Bedjan 48, 49), written probably at Edessa, he commemorates the capture of Beth-Uur, a city near Nisibis, by the Arabs. Although the historical allusions are far from clear, we gather that Beth-Uur, which in zealous paganism had been a successor to Uaran, had been in earlier days devastated by the Persians; but for the last 34 years the Persians had themselves suffered subjection. And now had come a flood of Arab invaders, sons of Hagar, who had swept away the city and carried all its inhabitants captive.[3]\n\nFrom these two poems, and from the 2nd homily on Fasting (Bickell 14 = Bedjan 17) we gain a vivid picture of the miseries borne by the inhabitants of that frontier region during the wars between Persia and the Romano-Greek empire. There are also instructive references to the heathen practices and the worship of pagan deities (such as Baalti, Uzzi, Gedlath and the planet Venus) prevalent in Mesopotamia. Two other poems (Bickell 35-36 = Bedjan 66-67), written probably at Antioch, describe the prevalence of sorcery and the extraordinary influence possessed by Chaldeans and enchanters over women who were nominally Christians.[4]\n\nThe date of Isaac of Nineveh is now known from the Liber fundatorum of Ishoʿdnaḥ of Baṣra, an 8th-century writer; see Bedjan's edition, and Chabot, Livre de la chasteté, p. 63. Assemani (B.O. i. 445) had placed him late in the 6th century, and Chabot (De S. Isaaci Ninivitae vita, &c.) in the second half of the 5th.\n\nLamy (op. cit. iv. 364-366) has pointed out that several of the poems are in certain MSS. attributed to Ephraim. Possibly the author of the orthodox poems was not named Isaac at all.\n\nAssemani's list of 104 poems (B.O. i. 254-234) is completely covered by Bickell's.\n\nThe metre of all the published homilies is heptasyllabic.[4]\n\nTranslations\n\nBecker, A. H. (2024). Isaac of Antioch: Homilies on Moral and Monastic Reform. United States: SBL Press.\n\nReferences\n\n^ The fullest list, by Gustav Bickell, contains 191 which are extant in MSS.\n\n^ a b c d e f g McLean 1911, p. 858.\n\n^ McLean 1911, pp. 858-859.\n\n^ a b McLean 1911, p. 859.\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: McLean, Norman (1911). \"Isaac of Antioch\". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 858-859."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-isaac-of-antioch"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1387}, {"slug": "reference-assur-etil-ilani", "title": "Aššur-etil-ilāni", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Aššur-etil-ilāni, also spelled Ashur-etel-ilani[3] and Ashuretillilani[4] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒉪𒅅𒀭𒈨𒌍, romanized: Aššur-etil-ilāni,[5][6] meaning \"Ashur is the lord of the gods\"),[7] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 631 BC to 627 BC.[n 1] Aššur-etil-ilāni is an obscure figure with a brief reign from which few inscriptions survive. Because...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Aššur-etil-ilāni\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign631-627 BC[1]\n\nPredecessorAshurbanipal\n\nSuccessorSîn-šar-iškun\n\nDied627 BC[2]\n\nSpouseAna-Tašmētum-taklāk (?)\n\nAkkadianAššur-etil-ilāni\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherAshurbanipal\n\nMotherLibbāli-šarrat\n\nAššur-etil-ilāni, also spelled Ashur-etel-ilani[3] and Ashuretillilani[4] (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒉪𒅅𒀭𒈨𒌍, romanized: Aššur-etil-ilāni,[5][6] meaning \"Ashur is the lord of the gods\"),[7] was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 631 BC to 627 BC.[n 1] Aššur-etil-ilāni is an obscure figure with a brief reign from which few inscriptions survive. Because of this lack of sources, very little concrete information about the king and his reign can be deduced.\n\nIt is possible that Aššur-etil-ilāni was a weak ruler as there are no records of the king ever undertaking a military campaign or going on a hunt, activities previous Assyrian kings would famously do very often; this, in turn, may have helped to entice some of Assyria's vassals, such as the Kingdom of Judah, to break free from Assyrian control and begin to act independently. Aššur-etil-ilāni was succeeded by his brother Sîn-šar-iškun under uncertain, though not necessarily violent, circumstances.\n\nBackground and chronology\n\nThere is a distinct lack of available sources in regards to the last few years of Ashurbanipal's reign and the reign of Aššur-etil-ilāni. The annals of Ashurbanipal, the primary sources for his reign, go no further than 636 BC.[8] Although Ashurbanipal's final year is often repeated as 627 BC,[9][10] this follows an inscription at Harran made by the mother of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus nearly a century later. The final contemporary evidence for Ashurbanipal being alive and reigning as king is a contract from the city of Nippur made in 631 BC.[4] To get the attested lengths of the reigns of his successors to match, most scholars agree that Ashurbanipal either died, abdicated or was deposed in 631 BC.[11] Of the three options, a death in 631 BC is the most accepted.[12] If Ashurbanipal's reign would have ended in 627 BC, the inscriptions of his successors Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun in Babylon, covering several years, would have been impossible since the city was seized by the Neo-Babylonian king Nabopolassar in 626 BC to never again fall into Assyrian hands.[13]\n\nAshurbanipal had named his successor as early as 660 BC, when documents referencing a crown prince were written. He had been the father of at least one son, and probably two, early on in his reign. These early sons were likely Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun. The common assumption that Aššur-etil-ilāni came to the throne at a young age is based on the phrase \"my father did not rear me\" (\"rear\" meaning to care for someone until they're fully grown), found in one of his inscriptions. However, the same phrase appears in a prayer by Ashurbanipal and Aššur-etil-ilāni is unlikely to have been very young as he is attested to have had male children during his reign.[14]\n\nReign\n\nAššur-etil-ilāni ascended the throne after the death of his father Ashurbanipal in 631 BC.[15] A land grant from Aššur-etil-ilāni to his rab šaqi (a general serving him since he was a young boy) Sîn-šumu-līšir suggests that Ashurbanipal died a natural death.[8] As in many other successions in Assyrian history, Aššur-etil-ilāni's rise to the Assyrian throne was initially met with opposition and unrest.[15] The same land grant to Sîn-šumu-līšir references the actions of an Assyrian official called Nabu-riḫtu-uṣur who with the help of another official, Sîn-šar-ibni, attempted to usurp the Assyrian throne. Sin-shum-lishir probably assisted the king with stopping Nabu-riḫtu-uṣur and Sîn-šar-ibni.[8] As no sources indicate the opposite, the conspiracy appears to have been crushed relatively quickly.[15] Excavations at Nineveh from the time around Ashurbanipal's death show fire damage, indicating that the plot perhaps resulted in some violence and unrest within the capital itself.[16]\n\nThe spread of inscriptions by Aššur-etil-ilāni in Babylonia suggest that he exercised the same amount of control in the southern provinces as his father Ashurbanipal had, having a vassal king (Kandalanu) but exercising actual political and military power there himself. His inscriptions are known from all the major cities, including Babylon, Dilbat, Sippar and Nippur.[15] Too few inscriptions of Aššur-etil-ilāni survive to make any certain assumptions about his character. Excavations of his palace at Kalhu, one of the more important cities in the empire and a former capital, may indicate that he was less boastful than his father as it had no reliefs or statues similar to those that his predecessors had used to illustrate their strength and success.[17] The lack of such depictions may partly be because there are no records of Aššur-etil-ilāni ever conducting a military campaign or going on a hunt. His Kalhu palace was quite small with unusually small rooms by Assyrian royal standards.[18] It is possible that some of Assyria's vassals used the reign of what they perceived to be a weak ruler to break free of Assyrian control and even attack Assyrian outposts. In c.  628 BC, Josiah, ostensibly an Assyrian vassal and the king of Judah in the Levant, extended his land so that it reached the coast, capturing the city of Ashdod and settling some of his own people there.[18]\n\nIt is frequently assumed, without any supporting evidence, that Aššur-etil-ilāni's brother Sîn-šar-iškun fought with him for the throne.[19] Although the exact circumstances of Aššur-etil-ilāni's death and the rise of his brother Sîn-šar-iškun to the throne are unknown, there is no evidence to suggest that Aššur-etil-ilāni was deposed and/or killed in a coup.[15]\n\nTitles\n\nVery few inscriptions survive from Aššur-etil-ilāni's brief reign. Preserved on bricks of the temple of Nabu at Kalhu,[20] the following titles can be read:\n\nI am Aššur-etil-ilāni, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, son of Ashurbanipal, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, grandson of Esarhaddon, King of the Universe, King of Assyria.[20]\n\nSee also\n\nSargonid dynasty\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nNotes\n\n^ His reign is often given erroneously as 627-623 BC, under the assumption that Ashurbanipal died in 627 BC and not in 631 BC.[3]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Na’aman 1991, p. 243.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ a b Leick 2002, p. 28.\n\n^ a b Reade 1970, p. 1.\n\n^ Bertin 1891, p. 50.\n\n^ Na’aman 1991, p. 248.\n\n^ Tallqvist 1914, p. 39.\n\n^ a b c Ahmed 2018, p. 121.\n\n^ Encyclopaedia Britannica.\n\n^ Mark 2009.\n\n^ Reade 1998, p. 263.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 8.\n\n^ Na’aman 1991, p. 246.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, pp. 122-123.\n\n^ a b c d e Na’aman 1991, p. 255.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 122.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 128.\n\n^ a b Ahmed 2018, p. 129.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 126.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1927, p. 408.\n\nBibliography\n\nAhmed, Sami Said (2018). Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3111033587.\n\nBertin, G. (1891). \"Babylonian Chronology and History\". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 5: 1-52. doi:10.2307/3678045. JSTOR 3678045. S2CID 164087631.\n\nLipschits, Oled (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575060958.\n\nLeick, Gwendolyn (2002). Who's Who in the Ancient Near East. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415132312.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End. University of Chicago Press.\n\nNa’aman, Nadav (1991). \"Chronology and History in the Late Assyrian Empire (631-619 B.C.)\". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. 81 (1-2): 243-267. doi:10.1515/zava.1991.81.1-2.243. S2CID 159785150.\n\nReade, J. E. (1970). \"The Accession of Sinsharishkun\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 23 (1): 1-9. doi:10.2307/1359277. JSTOR 1359277. S2CID 159764447.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998). \"Assyrian eponyms, kings and pretenders, 648-605 BC\". Orientalia (NOVA Series). 67 (2): 255-265. JSTOR 43076393.\n\nTallqvist, Knut Leonard (1914). Assyrian Personal Names (PDF). Leipzig: August Pries.\n\nWeb sources\n\n\"Ashurbanipal\". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 November 2019.\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2009). \"Ashurbanipal\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 28 November 2019.\n\nExternal links\n\nDaniel David Luckenbill's Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End, containing translations of Aššur-etil-ilāni's inscriptions."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assur-etil-ilani"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1335}, {"slug": "reference-ishodad-of-merv", "title": "Ishodad of Merv", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Mar Ishodad of Merv (Classical Syriac: ܡܵܪܼܝ ܝܼܫܘܿܥܕܵܕ ܡܲܪܘܼܙܵܝܵܐ‎, romanized: Māri Ishoʿdāḏ Maruzāyā; fl. AD 850) was an Assyrian Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Hdatta during the Abbasid Caliphate. He was a prominent theologian of the Church of the East, best known for his Commentaries, which...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mar Ishodad of Merv (Classical Syriac: ܡܵܪܼܝ ܝܼܫܘܿܥܕܵܕ ܡܲܪܘܼܙܵܝܵܐ‎, romanized: Māri Ishoʿdāḏ Maruzāyā; fl. AD 850) was an Assyrian Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Hdatta during the Abbasid Caliphate. He was a prominent theologian of the Church of the East, best known for his Commentaries, which covered the Syriac Bible.\n\nLife\n\nVery little is known of Ishoʿdad's life,[1] but a few details have survived in annotations to the list of patriarchs compiled by Mari ibn Suleiman and Amr ibn Matta.[2] His epithet \"of Merv\" may denote a birthplace, meaning that he was born in the city of Merv in Khorasan, but this inference remains conjectural: his relationship to Merv is not known with certainty.[3] A member of the Church of the East-historically, though inaccurately,[4] known as the Nestorian church-he became bishop of Hdatta,[5] a town close to the mouth of the Great Zab in modern Iraq, perhaps in 837 after Abraham II of Seleucia-Ctesiphon left the see to become Patriarch of the Church of the East.[3]\n\nIshodad was a candidate for the patriarchate of the Church of the East around 853 after Abraham's death.[5][6] At the time the patriarchate was subject to the Abbasid Caliphate, and after two failed attempts to select a new patriarch, a secretary of the reigning caliph al-Mutawakkil, Ibrahim ibn Nuh al-Anbari,[6] recommended Ishodad for the position. al-Mutawakkil, however, opted for the candidate of Vizier Bukhtishu, Theodosius of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and Ishoʿdad remained at Hdatta in opposition to the new patriarch.[6] He died shortly afterwards.[5]\n\nCommentaries\n\nIshodad is best known for his extensive Syriac exegesis of the Old and New Testaments,[7] the Commentaries. The Commentaries were widely influential in the Syriac world, not only in the Church of the East but also the miaphysite West Syriac Orthodox Church. The West Syriac author Jacob Bar-Salibi, for example, made use of Ishodad's work in his own commentaries on the Psalms.[8][9]\n\nContents\n\nThe subjects of Ishodad's commentaries are as follows:[10][11]\n\nOld Testament\n\nThe Pentateuch\n\nThe Book of Sessions:[a]\n\nJoshua\n\nSamuel\n\nKings\n\nEcclesiastes\n\nRuth\n\nSong of Songs\n\nJob\n\nSirach\n\nIsaiah\n\nTwelve Prophets\n\nJeremiah\n\nEzekiel\n\nDaniel\n\nPsalms\n\nNew Testament\n\nThe four Gospels\n\nActs of the Apostles\n\nThree \"Catholic Epistles\":[12]\n\nJames\n\n1 Peter\n\n1 John\n\nEpistles of St Paul:\n\nRomans\n\n1 and 2 Corinthians\n\nGalatians\n\nEphesians\n\nPhilippians\n\nColossians\n\n1 and 2 Thessalonians\n\n1 and 2 Timothy\n\nTitus\n\nPhilemon\n\nHebrews\n\nCharacteristics\n\nIshodad's work largely followed the lines set by Theodore of Mopsuestia,[8] the pre-eminent biblical interpreter of the Church of the East. Jacques-Marie Vosté went as far as to argue that Ishodad's arguments themselves could constitute an important source for the reconstruction of Theodore's own views given the paucity of that writer's surviving corpus, though this argument has not been accepted by later scholars.[13] Nonetheless, Ishodad differed from Theodore in certain significant respects. Against Theodore, he accepted the canonicity of the Book of Job and the Song of Songs.[14] Moreover, he drew on a wide range of previous commentators beyond Theodore, including Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil of Caesarea, and John Chrysostom, and among Syriac authors Aba I, Ephrem the Syrian, Narsai, and Henana of Adiabene.[8]\n\nClemens Leonhard describes the Commentaries as having a \"generally sober character\". In line with the traditional view of the exegetical School of Antioch, Ishodad openly rejects allegorical interpretation, and focuses on historical and philosophical problems in the texts.[15] Paul S. Russell views Ishodad's work as displaying a \"scholarly sensibility along the lines of modern biblical research\" in its careful treatment of different editions of the scriptural texts.[16]\n\nIshodad is the earliest authority to identify the disciple Nathanael, mentioned in John, with Bartholomew, one of the Twelve listed in the Synoptics.[17]\n\nHistorical context\n\nIshodad wrote the Commentaries in a fraught context. Under al-Mutawakkil, the tolerance of the Abbasid Caliphate towards its Christian and Jewish subjects had begun to wane.[6] Meanwhile, the Church of the East remained divided over the exegetical innovations of Henana of Adiabene, who had drawn on Greek and West Syriac sources in contrast to the official interpretive tradition of Theodore.[18] Though the increasingly characteristic pessimism of the works of Ishodad's era is not evident in the Commentaries, their intended audience is limited to Christian scholars, reflecting a period in which the possibilities for interreligious dialogue were declining.[19]\n\nModern editions\n\nThe first modern edition of Ishodad's works was prepared by Gustav Diettrich, who published selections of Ishodad's commentaries on the Old Testament in 1902.[20] His New Testament commentaries were edited and translated into English in five volumes by Margaret Dunlop Gibson in 1911-16;[21] Ceslas Van den Eynde prepared a complete edition and translation into French of the Old Testament commentaries in 1950-81.[22]\n\nNotes\n\na. ^ These are treated as a single book in Syriac tradition.[23]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 4.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, pp. 4-5.\n\n^ a b Leonhard 2001, p. 5.\n\n^ Guscin 2016, p. 156.\n\n^ a b c Vauchez, Dobson & Lapidge 2000, p. 739.\n\n^ a b c d Leonhard 2001, p. 8.\n\n^ Greenberg 2002, p. 416.\n\n^ a b c Van Rompay 2011.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 17.\n\n^ Van den Eynde 1950-81.\n\n^ Gibson 2011.\n\n^ Fitzgerald 2010, p. 341.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 23.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 12.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 24.\n\n^ Russell 2009, p. 60.\n\n^ Hill 1998, pp. 49-50.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 18.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, pp. 9-10.\n\n^ Leonhard 2001, p. 11.\n\n^ Gibson 2011.\n\n^ Van den Eynde 1950-81.\n\n^ van Peursen 2011, p. 145.\n\nBibliography\n\nFitzgerald, John T. (2010). \"Theodore of Mopsuestia on Paul's Letter to Philemon\". In Tolmie, D. Francois (ed.). Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 333-64.\n\nGibson, Margaret (2011). The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv, Bishop of Hadatha (c. 850 AD): In Syriac and English. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-01906-4. Retrieved 29 November 2012.\n\nGreenberg, Gillian (9 January 2002). Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Texts: Essays in Memory of Michael P. Weitzman. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-84127-235-1. Retrieved 29 November 2012.\n\nGuscin, Mark (2016). The Tradition of the Image of Edessa. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.\n\nHill, C. E. (1998). \"The Identity of John's Nathanael\". Journal for the Study of the New Testament. 20 (67): 45-61. doi:10.1177/0142064x9802006703. S2CID 170347938.\n\nLeonhard, Clemens (2001). Ishodad of Merw's Exegesis of the Psalms 119 and 139-147: A Study of His Interpretation in the Light of the Syriac Translation of Theodore of Mopsuestia's Commentary. Louvain: Peeters.\n\nvan Peursen, Wido (2011). \"Ben Sira in the Syriac Tradition\". In Rey, Jean-Sébastien; Joosten, Jan (eds.). The Texts and Versions of the Book of Ben Sira: Transmission and Interpretation. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill. pp. 143-66.\n\nRussell, Paul S. (2009). \"The Psalms and Psalm 29 among Syrian Christians\". In Hardy, Lowell K. (ed.). Psalm 29 through Time and Tradition. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. pp. 52-68.\n\nVan den Eynde, Ceslas (1950-81). Commentaire d'Išo'dad de Merv sur l'Ancien Testament (in French). Louvain: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.\n\nVan Rompay, Lucas (2011). \"Ishoʿdad of Merv\". In Brock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Beth Mardutho / Gorgias Press. Retrieved 10 June 2019.\n\nVauchez, André; Dobson, Richard; Lapidge, Michael (2000). Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Cerf. ISBN 978-1-57958-282-1. Retrieved 29 November 2012.\n\nExternal links\n\nIshō'dād of Merv on syri.ac"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ishodad-of-merv"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1230}, {"slug": "reference-dargecit", "title": "Dargeçit", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Dargeçit (Arabic: كربوران, Kurdish: Kerboran,[2] Syriac: ܟܦܪܒܘܪܐܢ, romanized: Karburan)[3][a] is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[6] Its area is 519 km2,[7] and its population is 27,147 (2022).[1] The town is principally populated by Kurds of the Erebiyan tribe.[8] It is located in the historic region of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Dargeçit\n\nDistrict and municipality\n\nMap showing Dargeçit District in Mardin Province\n\nDargeçitLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°32′38″N 41°43′12″E / 37.544°N 41.720°E / 37.544; 41.720\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nArea519 km2 (200 sq mi)\n\nElevation940 m (3,080 ft)\n\nPopulation (2022)[1]27,147\n\n • Density52.3/km2 (135/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nArea code0482\n\nDargeçit (Arabic: كربوران, Kurdish: Kerboran,[2] Syriac: ܟܦܪܒܘܪܐܢ, romanized: Karburan)[3][a] is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey.[6] Its area is 519 km2,[7] and its population is 27,147 (2022).[1] The town is principally populated by Kurds of the Erebiyan tribe.[8] It is located in the historic region of Tur Abdin.[9]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe Kurdish and Syriac names of the village are derived from \"kfar\" (\"village\" in Syriac) and \"buron\" (\"fallow land\" in Syriac).[10]\n\nHistory\n\nThere was a Church of the East monastery of Mar Shallīṭā, located on the west bank of the Tigris near Karburan (today called Dargeçit), which was last mentioned in the eleventh century.[11] A community of adherents of the Church of the East is known to have existed at Karburan from the scribe and deacon Masʿūd, who copied a manuscript there in 1429/1430 (AG 1741).[12] At the beginning of the 18th century, some Syriac Orthodox families at Karburan converted to Catholicism under the influence of French missionaries.[13] It was recorded by the priest Yuhanna of Basibrina from the Qardash family that Karburan was set on fire by an emir called Bidayn in 1714.[14] According to oral tradition, in the 1750s, the Christians of Karburan placed themselves under the protection of the Erebi tribe to protect themselves from bandits and Kurds in neighbouring villages.[15]\n\nA number of Syriac Orthodox families in the village converted to Protestantism upon the arrival of English and American missionaries in the region in the 1830s and the establishment of a Protestant mission at Mardin in 1858.[16] Some Syriac Orthodox families at Karburan joined the Syriac Catholic Church in the 1850s.[17] Muhammad Beg was killed at Karburan by Yezdanşêr and Musawwar Beg during their revolt in 1855.[18] In the Syriac Orthodox patriarchal register of dues of 1870, it was recorded that Karburan had 96 households, who paid 324 dues, and it was served by the Church of Morī Qūryāqūs and four priests.[19] Following the arrival of the American missionary Caleb Frank Gates at Mardin in 1880, Syriac Protestants in the village appealed to him to establish a Protestant church at Karburan.[20] However, opposition to the construction of a Syriac Protestant church in the village from the Syriac Orthodox villagers led to a raid on the house of the leader of Protestants, in which the leader's son was killed and 200 sheep were stolen.[20] Despite this, a Syriac Protestant church was later built at Karburan.[20]\n\nThere were 300 Syriac, Armenian, and Kurdish families at Karburan in 1900.[21] In 1914, Karburan was inhabited by 2000 Syriacs, according to the list presented to the Paris Peace Conference by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation.[22] In 1915, the village was populated by 500 Christian families, including Syriacs and Armenians, and 60 Muslim families.[23] The Syriac population was divided between Syriac Orthodox Christians, Syriac Catholics, and Syriac Protestants.[24] There were more than 350 Syriac Orthodox families.[25] Twelve Syriac priests, one monk, and Mor Antimos Ya’qub of Esfes, the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Dayro da-Slibo, resided at Karburan.[26] At this time, the village was one of the largest and richest villages in Tur Abdin and acted as a commercial and craftwork centre due to its many water mills.[24]\n\nAmidst the Sayfo, in 1915, survivors of massacres in neighbouring villages fled to Karburan and informed the villagers of their plight.[27] A council held by the Syriac notables was unable to agree upon a course of action and Mor Antimos Ya’qub was taken to the town hall by the Turkish mudir (village-level government official), where he eventually converted to Islam, believing that this would spare him.[27] The Syriacs were consequently forced to barricade themselves in seven large building complexes, popularly known as the \"seven palaces\", after coming under attack from Kurds led by Ömar and Mustafa, the sons of Ali Ramo.[27] Some Syriacs who agreed to leave the buildings after having received assurances from the Turkish mudir were taken to the town hall and killed whereas another group that refused to leave their building was attacked by the Turkish gendarmes and massacred.[27]\n\nThe Syriac villagers managed to hold off the Turkish troops for four days until they ran out of ammunition and thus their building complexes were stormed one by one and, after each building was captured, the Turkish troops took the captive Syriacs outside and killed them in front of the other defenders.[28] Mor Antimos Ya’qub, despite his conversion to Islam, was seized by Mustafa ibn Ali Ramo and was tortured on the roof of a building and either had his throat slit or he threw himself from the roof.[29] The bodies were then collected and burned on a large fire.[29] The French Armenian historian Raymond Kévorkian notes that 600 Syriacs were able to flee whilst the British historian David Gaunt attests that about 100 Syriacs from Karburan survived.[30] Some Syriacs survived as they had fled to Hah whereas others had been away from Karburan when the massacres took place, and some children were kept as servants in Muslim households.[29]\n\nIn the aftermath of the Sayfo, the Syriacs of Karburan largely adopted the Kurdish language as their mother tongue, whilst only a few continued to speak Syriac.[31] The population was 1285 in 1960.[32] In 1966, 875 Kurdish-speaking Christians in 150 families inhabited Karburan.[32] In 1970, Karburan was inhabited by 2000 people, of whom two thirds were Syriacs.[33] From 1970 onwards, as a result of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, the Syriacs of Karburan were forced to emigrate to Sweden, particularly the city of Västerås, Germany, and Belgium to escape the violent living conditions and thus the population dropped from about 300 families in 1975 to only 20 families in 1976.[34] By 1978, there were 16 Syriac families.[35] Andreas (Endravos) Demir, the Christian mayor of Karburan, was killed by Kurds on 29 October 1978.[36] The final Syriac family left Karburan in 1979.[33] The village's name was consequently changed to Dargeçit by the Turkish government.[21] The Church of Mar Cyriacus, which had been abandoned after the departure of the village's Syriac population, was later confiscated by the state treasury.[37] The Church of Mor Kuraykos was renovated by Syriacs in the diaspora whilst the Syriac Catholic and Syriac Protestant churches remain abandoned.[21] From the summer and autumn of 2015, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants fought against the Turkish government at Dargeçit until they were defeated in April 2016.[38]\n\nGovernment\n\nThe district of Dargeçit was established in 1987.[39] Dargeçit gained the status of town in 1989.[40] Since the 2013 administrative reform, Dargeçit is a metropolitan district and municipality. Prior to the reform, the district comprised the main town of Dargeçit (four neighbourhoods: Bahçebaşı, Safa, Saray and Tepebaşı), two towns (Kılavuz and Sümer), thirty-six villages and twenty-six hamlets.[41]\n\nThere are 41 neighbourhoods in Dargeçit District:[42]\n\nAkçaköy (Îzar)\n\nAkyol (Derêca)\n\nAlayunt (Arbayê)\n\nAltınoluk (Gera Cafer)\n\nAltıyol (Serdef)\n\nBağözü (Trîwa)\n\nBahçebaşı\n\nBatur (Batêr)\n\nBaysun (Êzdîna)\n\nBeğendi (Gizre)\n\nBelen (Bakvan)\n\nBostanlı (Wersikê)\n\nÇatalan (Deyrik)\n\nÇatalçam (Dayro da-Slibo)\n\nÇavuşlu (Zêwkê)\n\nÇelikköy (Çêlik)\n\nÇukurdere (Gelîkur)\n\nDeğerli (Îwan)\n\nGürgen (Botijê)\n\nGürışık (Gundê Xace)\n\nIlısu (Germav)\n\nKarabayır (Zengan)\n\nKartalkaya (Lîyan)\n\nKılavuz (Xelilan)\n\nKısmetli (Basiqil kêvil)\n\nKorucu (Şikeftika)\n\nKumdere (Şibêbiyê)\n\nKuşluca (Kopraz)\n\nOrmaniçi (Qawaqa)\n\nSafa\n\nSaray\n\nSuçatı (Kerbent)\n\nSümer (Deywan)\n\nTanyeri (Rover)\n\nTavşanlı (Xirabê Qesrê)\n\nTemelli (Emara)\n\nTepebaşı\n\nUlaş (Dîlan)\n\nYanılmaz (Guriza)\n\nYılmaz (Mêranê)\n\nYoncalı (Zivinga Çelik)\n\nNotable people\n\nJulius Abd al-Ahad Antar (r. 1882-1885), Syriac Orthodox bishop of the Monastery of the Cross.[43]\n\nYusuf Çetin (b. 1954), Syriac Orthodox metropolitan and patriarchal vicar\n\nFuat Deniz (1967-2007), Assyrian-Swedish sociologist and writer\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Kafarbūrān, Kafar Boran, Kärbōrān, Karbūrān, Karboran, Karkh Buran, Keferboran, Kerburân, Kerburan, Kfar-Boran’da, Kfar-Boran, Kfarbūrān, Kferburan, or Kırbüran.[4] Nisba: Kärbōrānī.[5]\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b \"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports\" (XLS). TÜİK. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Avcıkıran (2009), p. 55.\n\n^ Carlson, Thomas A. (9 December 2016). \"Karburan - ܟܦܪܒܘܪܐܢ\". The Syriac Gazetteer. Retrieved 2 October 2024.\n\n^ Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 322; Wilmshurst (2000), p. 44; Courtois (2013), p. 144; Barsoum (2008), p. 15; Gaunt (2006), p. 232; Kévorkian (2011), p. 376; Tan (2018), p. 117; Palmer (1990), p. 258; Ritter (1967), p. 11; Travis (2018), p. 185; Courtois (2004), p. 185; Bcheiry (2009), p. 50.\n\n^ Ritter (1967), p. 11.\n\n^ Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi Archived 6 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Tan (2018), p. 109.\n\n^ Barsoum (2003), p. 559.\n\n^ Keser Kayaalp (2021), p. 163; Aras (2005), p. 50.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 91.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), pp. 44, 48; Carlson (2018), p. 113.\n\n^ Aras (2005), p. 61.\n\n^ Barsoum (2008), p. 133.\n\n^ Aras (2005), pp. 60-61.\n\n^ Aras (2005), pp. 53-54.\n\n^ Aras (2005), p. 53.\n\n^ Barsoum (2008), p. 131; Tan (2018), p. 118.\n\n^ Bcheiry (2009), p. 50.\n\n^ a b c Aras (2005), p. 54.\n\n^ a b c Woźniak-Bobińska (2020), p. 164.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), pp. 232, 427.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), p. 232; Courtois (2004), p. 227.\n\n^ a b Gaunt (2006), p. 232.\n\n^ Courtois (2004), p. 186.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), p. 232; Takahashi (2011).\n\n^ a b c d Gaunt (2006), pp. 232-233.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), p. 233; Travis (2018), p. 185.\n\n^ a b c Gaunt (2006), p. 233.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), p. 233; Kévorkian (2011), p. 376.\n\n^ Atto (2011), p. 237.\n\n^ a b Ritter (1967), p. 12.\n\n^ a b Courtois (2013), p. 150.\n\n^ Atto (2011), pp. 198, 236; Yacoub (2016), p. 198.\n\n^ Dinno (2017), p. 384.\n\n^ Aras (2005), p. 26.\n\n^ Palmer (1990), p. 134; Barsoum (2008), p. 17; Tozman (2012), p. 149.\n\n^ Yeğen (2021), p. 325.\n\n^ \"İl İdaresi ve Mülki Bölümler Şube Müdürlüğü İstatistikleri - İl ve İlçe Kuruluş Tarihleri\" (PDF) (in Turkish). p. 62. Retrieved 27 December 2022.\n\n^ Atto (2011), p. 198.\n\n^ \"Dargeçit Tarihçe\" (in Turkish). Retrieved 3 October 2023.\n\n^ Mahalle Archived 6 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Barsoum (2008), p. 39.\n\nBibliography\n\nAras, Ramazan (2005). Migration and Memory: Assyrian Identity in Mardin Kerboran/Dargeçit (Master of Arts in History thesis). Boğaziçi University. Retrieved 18 April 2025.\n\nAtto, Naures (2011). Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora: Identity Discourses Among the Assyrian/Syriac Elites in the European Diaspora (PDF). Leiden University Press. Retrieved 27 December 2019.\n\nAvcıkıran, Adem (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Matti Moosa (2nd ed.). Gorgias Press. Retrieved 14 July 2020.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 1 April 2021.\n\nBcheiry, Iskandar (2009). The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Register of Dues of 1870: An Unpublished Historical Document from the Late Ottoman Period. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 21 March 2025.\n\nCarlson, Thomas A. (2018). Christianity in Fifteenth-Century Iraq (PDF). Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 12 November 2024.\n\nCourtois, Sébastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans. Translated by Vincent Aurora. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 20 November 2024.\n\nCourtois, Sébastien de (2013). \"Tur Abdin : Réflexions sur l'état présent descommunautés syriaques du Sud-Est de la Turquie, mémoire, exils, retours\". Cahier du Gremmamo (in French). 21: 113-150.\n\nDinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis then Revival. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 26 November 2024.\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 21 May 2023.\n\nJongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle, eds. (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. Retrieved 20 November 2024.\n\nKeser Kayaalp, Elif (2021). Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia.\n\nKévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History.\n\nPalmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Tur Abdin. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 15 July 2020.\n\nRitter, Hellmut (1967). Turoyo: Die Volkssprache der Syrischen Christen des Tur 'Abdin (in German). Vol. 1. Franz Steiner Verlag.\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2011). \"al-Ṣalīb, Dayr\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press.\n\nTan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). Pak Ajans Yayincilik Turizm Ve Diş Ticaret Limited şirketi. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\nTozman, Markus (2012). \"Cadastral Registration of Lands and Preservation Orders in Turkey's South-East: Subtle Forms of Discrimination?\". In Pieter Omtzigt; Markus K. Tozman; Andrea Tyndall (eds.). The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery (PDF). LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 139-156. Retrieved 17 October 2024.\n\nTravis, Hannibal, ed. (2018). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies (PDF). Routledge. Retrieved 30 October 2024.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Peeters Publishers. Retrieved 30 October 2024.\n\nWoźniak-Bobińska, Marta (2020) [2018]. Modern Assyrian/Syriac Diaspora in Sweden. Translated by Marta Malina Moraczewska. University of Lodz. Retrieved 18 April 2025.\n\nYacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History. Translated by James Ferguson. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 November 2024.\n\nYeğen, Mesut (2021). \"State Violence in 'Kurdistan'\". In Stephan H. Astourian; Raymond H. Kévorkian (eds.). Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 303-346."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-dargecit"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2277}, {"slug": "reference-medo-babylonian-conquest-of-the-assyrian-empire", "title": "Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire was the last war fought by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, between 626 and 609 BC. Succeeding his brother Ashur-etil-ilani (r. 631-627 BC), the new king of Assyria, Sinsharishkun (r. 627-612 BC), immediately faced the revolt of one of his brother's chief generals,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire\n\nMap of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 824 BC (dark green) and in its apex in 671 BC (light green), under King Esarhaddon\n\nDate626-609 BC\n(17 years)\n\nLocationMiddle East\n\nResult\n\nMedo-Babylonian victory\n\nFall of the Assyrian Empire[1][2][3]\n\nBelligerents\n\nMedes\nBabylonians\nAssyrians\nEgypt\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\n Cyaxares the Great\nNabopolassar\nSinsharishkun †\nAshur-uballit II †\nNecho II\n\nThe Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire was the last war fought by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, between 626 and 609 BC. Succeeding his brother Ashur-etil-ilani (r. 631-627 BC), the new king of Assyria, Sinsharishkun (r. 627-612 BC), immediately faced the revolt of one of his brother's chief generals, Sin-shumu-lishir, who attempted to usurp the throne for himself. \n\nThough this threat was dealt with relatively quickly, the instability caused by the brief civil war may have made it possible for another official or general, Nabopolassar (r. c. 626 - 605 BC), to rise up and seize power in Babylonia. \n\nSinsharishkun's inability to defeat Nabopolassar, despite repeated attempts over the course of several years, allowed Nabopolassar to consolidate power and form the Neo-Babylonian Empire, restoring Babylonian independence after more than a century of Assyrian rule. The Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the newly-formed Median Empire under King Cyaxares (r. 625-585 BC), then invaded the Assyrian heartland. In 614 BC, the Medes captured and sacked Assur, the ceremonial and religious heart of the Assyrian Empire, and in 612 BC, their combined armies attacked and razed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. \n\nSinsharishkun's fate is unknown but it is assumed that he died in the defense of his capital. He was succeeded as king only by Ashur-uballit II (r. 612-609 BC), possibly his son, who rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at the city of Harran and, bolstered by an alliance with Egypt, ruled for three years, in a last attempt to resist the Medo-Babylonian invasion of his realm.\n\nBackground\n\nIn the first half of the seventh century, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was at the height of its power, controlling the entire Fertile Crescent, and allied with Egypt. However, when Assyrian king Assurbanipal died of natural causes in 631 BC,[4] his son and successor Ashur-etil-ilani was met with opposition and unrest, a common occurrence in Assyrian history.[5] An Assyrian official called Nabu-rihtu-usur attempted to usurp the Assyrian throne with the help of another official, Sin-shar-ibni, but the king, likely with the help of Sin-shumu-lishir, stopped Nabu-rihtu-usur and Sin-shar-ibni crushing the conspiracy relatively quickly.[4][5] However, it is possible that some of Assyria's vassals used the reign of what they perceived to be a weak ruler to free themselves from Assyrian control and even attack Assyrian outposts. In c.  628 BC, Josiah, an Assyrian vassal and the king of Judah in the Levant, extended his land so that it reached the coast, capturing the city of Ashdod and settling some of his own people there.[6] Ashur-etil-ilani's end is unclear, but it is frequently assumed, without any supporting evidence, that Ashur-etil-ilani's brother Sinsharishkun fought with him for the throne and,[7] ultimately, ascended to the throne in the middle of 627 BC.[8] Roughly at the same time, the vassal king of Babylon, Kandalanu, died which led to Sinsharishkun also becoming the ruler of Babylon, as proven by inscriptions by him in southern cities such as Nippur, Uruk, Sippar and Babylon itself.[9] Around this time, the Neo-Assyrian Empire was also in the midst of a 125-year-long megadrought stretching from 675 to 550 BC, which further weakened the empire.[10]\n\nCourse of the war\n\nRise of Babylon\n\nSinsharishkun's rule of Babylon did not last long, as almost immediately in the wake of him coming to the throne, the general Sin-shumu-lishir rebelled.[8] Sin-shumu-lishir was a key figure during Ashur-etil-ilani's reign, putting down several revolts and possibly being the de facto leader of the country. The new king might have endangered his position, therefore he revolted in an attempt to seize power for himself.[9] Sin-shumu-lishir seized some cities in northern Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon itself and would rule there for three months before being defeated by Sinsharishkun.[8] Nabopolassar, possibly using the political instability caused by the previous revolt and the ongoing interregnum in the south,[8][11] assaulted both Nippur and Babylon.[n 1] In the aftermath of a failed Assyrian counterattack, Nabopolassar was formally crowned King of Babylon on November 22/23, 626 BC, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom.[12]\n\nIn 625-623 BC, Sinsharishkun's forces again attempted to defeat Nabopolassar, campaigning in northern Babylonia. The Assyrian campaigns were initially successful, seizing the city of Sippar in 625 BC and repelling Nabopolassar's attempt to reconquer Nippur. Another Assyrian vassal, Elam, also stopped paying tribute to Assyria during this time and several Babylonian cities, such as Der, revolted and joined Nabopolassar. Realizing the threat this posed, Sinsharishkun led a massive counterattack himself which saw the successful recapture of Uruk in 623 BC.[13] Sinsharishkun could possibly have ultimately been victorious but another revolt, led by an Assyrian general, occurred in the empire's western provinces in 622 BC.[13] This general, whose name remains unknown, took advantage of the absence of Sinsharishkun's forces to march on Nineveh, met an army which surrendered without fighting and successfully seized the Assyrian throne. The surrender of the army indicates that the usurper was an Assyrian and possibly even a member of the royal family, or at least a person that would be acceptable as king.[14] Sinsharishkun then abandoned his Babylonian campaign to defeat the usurper, accomplishing the task after roughly a hundred days of civil war; however the absence of the Assyrian army saw the Babylonians conquer the last remaining Assyrian outposts in Babylonia in 622-620 BC.[13] The Babylonian siege of Uruk had begun by October 622 BC, and though control of the ancient city would shift between Assyria and Babylon, it was firmly under Babylonian rule by 620 BC,[15] and Nabopolassar consolidated his rule over the entirety of Babylonia.[16] During the next years, the Babylonians scored several other victories against the Assyrians and by 616 BC, Nabopolassar's forces had reached as far as the Balikh River. Pharaoh Psamtik I, Assyria's ally, marched with his forces to help Sinsharishkun. The Egyptian Pharaoh had over the last few years campaigned in order to establish dominance over the small city-states of the Levant, and it was in his interests that Assyria survived as a buffer state between his own empire and those of the Babylonians and Medes in the east.[16] A joint Egyptian-Assyrian campaign to capture the city of Gablinu was undertaken in October of 616 BC, but ended in defeat, after which the Egyptian allies kept to the west of the Euphrates, only offering limited support.[17] In 616 BC, the Babylonians defeated the Assyrian forces at Arrapha and pushed them back to the Little Zab.[18] Nabopolassar failed to seize Assur, the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria, in May of the next year, forcing him to retreat to Tikrit, but the Assyrians were unable to capture Tikrit and end his rebellion.[17]\n\nMedes' intervention\n\nIn October or November 615 BC, the Medes, under King Cyaxares, invaded Assyria and conquered the region around the city of Arrapha in preparation for a great final campaign against the Assyrians.[17] \nThat same year, they defeated Sinsharishkun at the Battle of Tarbiṣu, and in 614 BC, they conquered Assur, plundering the city and killing many of its inhabitants.[1][18][19][20] Nabopolassar only arrived at Assur after the plunder had already begun and met with Cyaxares, allying with him, signing an anti-Assyrian pact and Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar married a Median princess. Shortly after, Sinsharishkun made his last attempt at a counterattack, rushing to rescue the besieged city of Rahilu, but Nabopolassar's army had retreated before a battle could take place.[21]\nIn 612 BC, the Medes and Babylonians joined their forces to besiege Nineveh, taking the city after a lengthy and brutal siege, with the Medes playing a major part in the city's downfall.[21][22][23][24] Although Sinsharishkun's fate is not entirely certain, it is commonly accepted that he died in the defense of Nineveh.[25][26]\n\nAfter the destruction of Assur in 614 BC, the traditional Assyrian coronation was impossible,[27] so Ashur-uballit II was crowned in Harran, which he made his new capital. While the Babylonians saw him as the Assyrian king, the few remaining subjects Ashur-uballit II governed likely did not share this view, and his formal title remained crown prince (mar šarri, literally meaning \"son of the king\").[28] However, Ashur-uballit not formally being king does not indicate that his claim to the throne was challenged, only that he had yet to go through with the traditional ceremony.[29] Ashur-uballit's main objective would have been to retake the Assyrian heartland, including Assur and Nineveh. Bolstered by the forces of his allies, Egypt and Mannea, this ambition was quite possible, and his temporary rule from Harran as crown prince, rather than legitimately crowned king, may have seemed more like a temporary circumstance. Instead, Ashur-uballit's rule at Harran composes the final years of the Assyrian state, which at this point, had effectively ceased to exist as an Empire.[2][29][30] After Nabopolassar himself had travelled the recently conquered Assyrian heartland in 610 BC in order to ensure stability, the Medo-Babylonian army embarked on a campaign against Harran in November of 610 BC.[30] Intimidated by the approach of the Medo-Babylonian army, Ashur-uballit and a contingent of Egyptian reinforcements fled the city into the deserts of Syria.[31] The siege of Harran lasted from the winter of 610 BC to the beginning of 609 BC, and the city eventually capitulated.[32] Ashur-uballit's failure at Harran ended the ancient Assyrian state, which would never be restored.[33]\n\nAfter the Babylonians had ruled Harran for three months, Ashur-uballit, along with a large force of Egyptian soldiers attempted to retake the city, launching a siege in June or July of 609 BC.[31][34] His siege lasted at most two months, until August or September, before being forced to retreat by Nabopolassar; they may have retreated even earlier.[34]\n\nAftermath\n\nThe eventual fate of Ashur-uballit is unknown and his siege of Harran in 609 BC is the last time he, or the Assyrians in general, are mentioned in Babylonian records.[31][34] After the battle at Harran, Nabopolassar resumed his campaign against the remainder of the Assyrian army in the beginning of the year 608 or 607 BC. It is thought that Ashur-uballit was still alive at this point, for in 608 BC, the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II, Psamtik I's successor, personally led a large Egyptian army into former Assyrian territory to rescue his ally and turn the tide of the war. There is no mention of a large battle between the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and Medes in 608 BC, which would have been mentioned in contemporary sources as it marked conflict of the four greatest military powers of their day, and there are no later mentions of Ashur-uballit, it is possible he died at some point during 608 BC, before such a battle could occur.[31] The historian M.B. Rowton speculates Ashur-uballit could have lived until 606 BC,[31] however, by this time, references to the Egyptian army in Babylonian sources bear no reference to the Assyrians or their king.[27]\n\nAlthough Ashur-uballit is no longer mentioned after 609 BC, the Egyptian campaigns in the Levant continued for some time until a crushing defeat at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. Throughout the next century, Egypt and Babylon, brought into direct contact with each other through Assyria's fall, would frequently be at war with each other over control in the Fertile Crescent.[34][35]\n\nSee also\n\nFall of Babylon\n\nWars of Alexander the Great\n\nThird Punic War\n\nWar of Actium\n\nInvasions of the Roman Empire\n\nSiege of Baghdad\n\nNotes\n\n^ It is also possible that Nabopolassar was an ally of Sin-shumu-lishir in the previous revolt and merely continued his rebellion, but this theory requires more assumptions without any concrete evidence.[9]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Liverani 2013, p. 539.\n\n^ a b Frahm 2017, p. 192.\n\n^ Curtis 2009, p. 37.\n\n^ a b Ahmed 2018, p. 121.\n\n^ a b Na’aman 1991, p. 255.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 129.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 126.\n\n^ a b c d Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ a b c Na’aman 1991, p. 256.\n\n^ Mary Caperton Morton (15 January 2020). \"Megadrought Helped Topple the Assyrian Empire\". Eos. Retrieved 21 March 2022.\n\n^ Beaulieu 1997, p. 386.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 14.\n\n^ a b c Lipschits 2005, p. 15.\n\n^ Na’aman 1991, p. 263.\n\n^ Boardman 1992, p. 62.\n\n^ a b Lipschits 2005, p. 16.\n\n^ a b c Lipschits 2005, p. 17.\n\n^ a b Boardman 2008, p. 179.\n\n^ Bradford 2001, p. 48.\n\n^ Potts 2012, p. 854.\n\n^ a b Lipschits 2005, p. 18.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 194.\n\n^ Dandamayev & Grantovskiĭ 1987, pp. 806-815.\n\n^ Dandamayev & Medvedskaya 2006.\n\n^ Yildirim 2017, p. 52.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 135.\n\n^ a b Reade 1998, p. 260.\n\n^ Radner 2019, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ a b Radner 2019, pp. 140-141.\n\n^ a b Lipschits 2005, p. 19.\n\n^ a b c d e Rowton 1951, p. 128.\n\n^ Bertman 2005, p. 19.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 141.\n\n^ a b c d Lipschits 2005, p. 20.\n\n^ Edwards 1970, p. 14.\n\nBibliography\n\nAhmed, Sami Said (3 December 2018). Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-139617-0.\n\nBeaulieu, Paul-Alain (1997). \"The Fourth Year of Hostilities in the Land\". Baghdader Mitteilungen. 28: 367-394.\n\nBertman, Stephen (14 July 2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. OUP USA. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\nBoardman, John (16 January 1992). The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22717-9.\n\nBoardman, John (28 March 2008). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 3, Part 2, The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC (PDF). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-05429-4.\n\nBradford, Alfred S. (2001). With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-95259-4.\n\nCurtis, Adrian (16 April 2009). Oxford Bible Atlas. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-162332-5.\n\nDandamayev, M.; Grantovskiĭ, È. (1987). \"ASSYRIA i. The Kingdom of Assyria and its Relations with Iran\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 8. pp. 806-815.\n\nDandamayev, M.; Medvedskaya, I. (2006). \"MEDIA\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nEdwards, Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen (1970). The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (12 June 2017). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.\n\nLipschits, Oded (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-095-8.\n\nLiverani, Mario (4 December 2013). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.\n\nNa’aman, Nadav (1991). \"Chronology and History in the Late Assyrian Empire (631-619 B.C.)\". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. 81 (1-2): 243-267. doi:10.1515/zava.1991.81.1-2.243. S2CID 159785150.\n\nPotts, Daniel T. (15 August 2012). A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-6077-6.\n\nRadner, Karen (2019). \"Last Emperor or Crown Prince Forever? Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources\". State Archives of Assyria Studies. 28: 135-142.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998). \"Assyrian eponyms, kings and pretenders, 648-605 BC\". Orientalia (NOVA Series). 67 (2): 255-265. JSTOR 43076393.\n\nRowton, M. B. (1951). \"Jeremiah and the Death of Josiah\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2 (10): 128-130. doi:10.1086/371028. S2CID 162308322.\n\nYildirim, Kemal (2017). \"Diplomacy in Neo-Assyrian Empire (1180-609) Diplomats in the Service of Sargon II and Tiglath-Pileser III, Kings of Assyria\". International Academic Journal of Development Research. 5 (1): 128-130."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-medo-babylonian-conquest-of-the-assyrian-empire"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2596}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-continuity", "title": "Assyrian continuity", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian continuity thesis is the idea that the modern Assyrians are to be culturally and historically identified with, and are the direct descendants of, the ancient Assyrians, who were one of several contemporary civilizations in Mesopotamia. This claimed heritage is a key aspect of the modern Assyrian...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The modern Assyrian flag (top) uses ancient Assyrian iconography, including the god Ashur (bottom left) and the star of the god Shamash (bottom right)\n\nThe Assyrian continuity thesis is the idea that the modern Assyrians are to be culturally and historically identified with, and are the direct descendants of, the ancient Assyrians, who were one of several contemporary civilizations in Mesopotamia. This claimed heritage is a key aspect of the modern Assyrian identity.[1] The modern Assyrian people are an ethno-linguistic and religious minority in their ancestral homeland, which spans parts of Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran.\n\nAssyrian culture and identity appear to have survived the violent collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC. During the long post-imperial period (6th century BC - 3rd century AD), when Assyria was also known as Athura, Provincia Assyria, and Asoristan, the Akkadian language gradually went extinct, completely disappearing by the 1st century AD. However, other aspects of the Assyrian civilization, such as religion, traditions, naming patterns, and the Akkadian-influenced dialects of East Aramaic survived in a reduced but recognizable form, before giving way to specifically native forms of Eastern Rite Christianity.[2][3][4]\n\nThe gradual extinction of Akkadian and its replacement with Akkadian-influenced East Aramaic does not reflect the disappearance of the original Assyrian population;[5] Aramaic was used not only by settlers, but also by native Assyrians and Babylonians,[6] in time even becoming used by the royal administrations of Assyria and Babylonia themselves, and indeed retained by the succeeding Indo-European-speaking Achaemenid Empire.[7][8] In fact, the new language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Imperial Aramaic, was itself a creation of the Assyrian Empire and its people, and with its retention of an Akkadian grammatical structure and Akkadian words and names, is distinct from the Western Aramaic of the Levant which gradually replaced the Canaanite languages (with the partial exception of Hebrew). In addition, Aramaic also replaced other Semitic languages such as Hebrew, Phoenician, Arabic, Edomite, Moabite, Amorite, Ugarite, Dilmunite, and Chaldean among non-Aramean peoples without prejudicing their origins and identity.[9] Since the Aramaic language was so deeply integrated into the empire and due to the fact it was spread chiefly by Assyria, in later Demotic Egyptian, Greek, and Mishanic Hebrew texts it was referred to as the \"Assyrian writing.\"[10] Due to assimilation efforts encouraged by Assyrian kings, fellow Semitic Arameans, Israelites, Judeans, Phoenicians, and other non-Semitic groups such as Hittites, Hurrians, Urartians, Phrygians, Persians, and Elamites deported into the Assyrian heartland are also likely to quickly have been absorbed into the native population, self-identified, and been regarded, as Assyrians.[5] The Assyrian population of Upper Mesopotamia was largely Christianized between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, however Mesopotamian religion enduring among Assyrians in small pockets until the late Middle Ages, a further indication of continuity. Assyrian Aramaic-language sources from the Christian period predominantly use the self-designation Suryāyā (\"Syrian\") alongside \"Athoraya\",[11][12] with early medieval Arab, Persian and Armenian sources using the derivative terms \"Sūryānīyūn\", \"Asori\" and \"Assuri\" respectively. The term Suryāyā, sometimes alternatively translated as \"Syrian\" or \"Syriac\", is generally accepted to derive from the ancient Akkadian Assūrāyu, meaning Assyrian.[13][14] The academic consensus is that the modern name \"Syria\" originated as a shortened form of \"Assyria\" and applied originally only to Mesopotamian Assyria and not to the modern Levantine country of Syria.[15] Christian Palestinian Aramaic texts, presumably with Greek influence, use the term \"Suraya\" and \"Asuraya\" interchangeably to refer to the ancient Assyrians.[16]\n\nAssyrian nationalism centered on a desire for self-determination developed near the end of the 19th century, coinciding with increasing contacts with Europeans, increasing levels of ethnic and religious persecution, along with increased expressions nationalism in other Middle Eastern groups, such as the Arabs, Armenians, Copts, Jews, Kurds, Persians, and Turks.[17] Through the large-scale promotion of long extant terms and promotion of identities such as ʾĀthorāyā and ʾAsurāyā, Assyrian intellectuals and authors hoped to inspire the unification of the Assyrian nation, transcending long-standing religious denominational divisions between the Assyrian Church of the East, its 17th century offshoot, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, and various smaller largely Protestant denominations.[17] This effort has been met with both support and some opposition from various religious communities; some denominations have rejected unity and promoted alternate religious identities, such as \"Aramean\", \"Syriac\", and \"Chaldean\". Though some religious officials and activists (particularly in the west) have promoted such identities as separate ethnic groups rather than simply religious denominational groups, they are not generally treated as such by international organizations or historians, and historically, genetically, geographically and linguistically these are all the same Assyrian people.[18][19][20]\n\nMany scholars in various fields have expressed support for Assyrian continuity.[21] There is also some opposition, especially in the field of Syriac studies.[22] According to the leading Syriac scholar Sebastian Brock, \"the alleged ethnic identity with the ancient Assyrians is in fact a recent creation which has taken place in the course of the last century and a half, and it lacks any sound historical basis.\"[23] According to Adam H. Becker, a Syriac scholar who has investigated the origins of Assyrian nationalism, the use of the word Assyrian itself for the modern ethnic group \"derives from Western sources, not from a continuity of identity between the ancient Assyrians and the modern ones.\"[24] Proponents of the thesis regard such statements as inaccurate and partial.[25]\n\nAssyrians after the Assyrian Empire\n\nEarly assumption of Assyrian annihilation\n\nAncient Assyria fell in the late 7th century BC through the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire, with most of its major population centers violently sacked.[26] In the millennia following the fall of Assyria, knowledge of the ancient empire chiefly survived in western literary tradition through accounts of Assyria in the Hebrew Bible and works by classical authors,[27] both of which described Assyria's fall as violent and comprehensive destruction.[28][29] Before the 19th century, the prevalent belief in Biblically influenced western scholarship was that ancient Assyria and Babylonia had been literally annihilated due to provoking divine wrath.[30] This belief was reinforced through archaeologists in the Middle East initially not finding many remains fitting with the conventional European image of ancient cities, with stone columns and great sculptures, beyond those of ancient Persia;[30] Assyria and other Mesopotamian civilizations left no magnificent ruins above ground-all that remained to see were huge grass-covered mounds in the plains which travellers at times believed to simply be natural features of the landscape.[27] Early European archaeologists in the Middle East were also for the most part more interested in confirming Biblical truth through their excavations than to spend time on new interpretations of the evidence they discovered.[31]\n\nThough the Bible and other Hebrew texts describe the destruction of the Assyrian Empire, they do not actually claim that the Assyrian people were destroyed or replaced. The 2nd century BC apocryphal Book of Judith states that the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605-562 BC) \"ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh\", the Book of Ezra refers to the Persian king Darius I as \"king of Assyria\", and the Book of Isaiah states that there will come a day when God will proclaim \"Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage\".[32] The erroneous idea of complete Assyrian annihilation, despite increasing evidence to the contrary, proved to be enduring in western academia. As late as 1925, the Assyriologist Sidney Smith wrote that \"The disappearance of the Assyrian people will always remain a unique and striking phenomenon in ancient history. Other, similar kingdoms and empires have indeed passed away, but the people have lived on ... No other land seems to have been sacked and pillaged so completely as was Assyria\".[33] Just a year later, Smith had completely abandoned the idea of the Assyrians having been eradicated and recognized the persistence of Assyrians through the Christian period into the present.[34]\n\nPost-imperial Assyria in modern Assyriology\n\nModern Assyriology does not support the idea that the fall of Assyria also brought with it an eradication of the Assyrian people and their culture.[36][3][37] Though in the past regarded as a \"post-Assyrian\" age, Assyriologists today consider the last period of ancient Assyrian history to be the long post-imperial period,[36][38][3] extending from 609 BC to around AD 250 with the destruction of the semi-independent Assyrian states of Assur, Osroene, Adiabene, Beth Nuhadra and Beth Garmai by the Sassanid Empire, or to the end of Sassanid ruled Asoristan (Assyria) and the Islamic Conquest around 637 AD, and support a continuity into the present day.[36][4][39]\n\nThough the centuries that followed the fall of Assyria are characterized by a distinct lack of surviving sources from the region, at least in comparison to previous eras,[36] the idea that Assyria was rendered uninhabited and desolated stems from the contrast with the richly attested Neo-Assyrian period, not from the actual extant written sources from the post-imperial period, which although reduced, remain unbroken through to the modern era.[40]\n\nThough the Assyrian bureaucracy and governmental institutions disappeared with Assyria's fall, Assyrian population centers and culture did not.[40] At Dur-Katlimmu, one of the largest settlements along the Khabur river, a large Assyrian palace, dubbed the \"Red House\" by archaeologists, continued to be used in Neo-Babylonian times, with cuneiform records there being written by people with Assyrian names, in Assyrian style, though dated to the reigns of the early Neo-Babylonian kings.[41] These documents mention officials with Assyrian titles and invoke the ancient Assyrian national deity Ashur.[40] Two Neo-Babylonian texts discovered at the city of Sippar in Babylonia attest to there being royally appointed governors at both Assur and Guzana, another Assyrian site in the north. Arbela is attested as a thriving Assyrian city, but only very late in the Neo-Babylonian period, and there were attempts to revive the city of Arrapha in reign of Neriglissar (r. 560-556 BC), who returned a cult statue to the site. Harran was revitalized, with its great temple dedicated to the lunar god Sîn being rebuilt under Nabonidus whose mother was an Assyrian priestess from that city. (r. 556-539 BC).[41] In nearby Edessa, Assyrian religious traditions also survived well into the common era.[42] Even in certain regions beyond the Euphrates, the legacy of Assyria endured, such as in Hierapolis where Shalmaneser had once settled many Assyrians. By at least the second century CE, the memory of Semiramis and Sardanapalus was faithfully preserved by the city's inhabitants, as mentioned by Lucian.[42]\n\nThe Assyrians who remained in their homeland clung to their old ways of living, as illustrated by the continuation of pottery forms discovered in certain areas, but also by the endurance of Assyrian cultural traditions expressed through various Aramaic legends like those of Ahiqar, Behnam, or Šamaš-šuma-ukin's rebellion against his brother Ashurbanipal.[43] Aramaic speakers from the 9th century BCE to the late Hellenistic period lived, wrote, and thought in ways deeply connected to the practices and traditions of the Akkadian writing empires, and Aramaic scribes even purposefully adopted Assyrian and Babylonian Akkadian names for themselves in an effort to associate with the cultures of these kingdoms.[44][45] Aramaic literature does not show a strong attachment to any ethnic group from the Iron Age. Instead, it celebrates the achievements of Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian kings. In the legend of Ahiqar, Sennacherib is portrayed as a just and thoughtful ruler, in sharp contrast to the image presented in the book of Isaiah. At other times, Aramaic literature traces its lineage back to the Akkadian period with Sargon, or to Hebrew kings such as David, Solomon, and others.[46][47] The story of Ahiqar, through its remembrance of the Assyrian court and its references to various Assyrian kings, attests to the continuing interest among Aramaic-speakers in identifying with an Assyrian past.[48] It is possible that later Assyrians, seeking consolation after the fall of their empire, retained memories of their past by propagating narratives such as the Ahiqar story.[49]\n\nIndividuals with Assyrian names are attested at multiple sites in Assyria and Babylonia during the Neo-Babylonian Empire, including Babylon, Nippur, Uruk, Sippar, Dilbat and Borsippa. The Assyrians in Uruk apparently continued to exist as a community until the reign of the Achaemenid king Cambyses II (r. 530-522 BC) and were closely linked to a local cult dedicated to Ashur.[50] Many individuals with clearly Assyrian names are also known from the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, sometimes in high levels of government. A prominent example is Pan-Ashur-lumur, who served as the secretary of Cambyses II.[51] Distinctively Assyrian names are also found in Aramaic and Greek throughout cities like Hatra, Assur, Dura-Europos and Palmyra, among other regions in the late antique period. Although the Assyrians no longer spoke Akkadian, they continued using traditions from Assyria's imperial period, with certain name forms surviving well into the Christian period and being attested in Syriac onomastica.[52] In the former Assyrian territory, memories survived as tangible ruins of the past, providing later Assyrian generations who inhabited the land the means to connect themselves to an ancient past that they preserved, while Assyrian religious traditions also continued to endure even though Akkadian was forgotten.[53] The temple dedicated to Ashur in Assur was rebuilt by local Assyrians in the reign of Cyrus the Great and Assyria also survived in exile within Babylonia, particularly within Uruk, owing to certain religious and cultural traditions surviving.[54] The Assyrian region during this period appears to have prosperous, with multiple cities in the Assyrian satrapy being mentioned in Aramaic documents presumably as administrative centers. Assyria's rural conditions also appear to have been flourishing, with the countryside bearing abundant provisions for passing armies, and local Assyrians supplying livestock tribute to the Achaemenid kings, as depicted in reliefs.[55]\n\nUnder the Seleucid and Parthian empires, further efforts were made to revitalize Assyria and the ancient great cities began to be resettled,[56] with the predominant portion of the population remaining native Assyrian.[57] The original Assyrian capital of Assur is in particular known to have flourished during the Parthian era.[58] Continuity from ancient Assyria is clear in Assur and other cities such as Arbela during this period, with personal names of the city's denizens greatly reflecting names used in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, such as Qib-Assor (\"command of Ashur\"), Assor-tares (\"Ashur judges\") and even Assor-heden (\"Ashur has given a brother\", a late version of the name Aššur-aḫu-iddina, i.e. Esarhaddon), reflecting names extant in the lafe 3rd millennium BC.[59] The Assyrians at Assur continued to follow the traditional ancient Mesopotamian religion, worshipping Ashur (at this time known as Assor) and other Mesopotamian gods such as Shamash, Ishtar, Sin, Adad, Bel, Nergal, Ninurta and Tammuz.[60] Assur may even have been the capital of its own semi-autonomous or vassal state, either under the suzerainty of the largely Assyrian populated Kingdom of Hatra,[61] or under direct Parthian suzerainty.[62] Though this second golden age of Assur came to an end with the conquest, sack and destruction of the city by the Sasanian Empire c. AD 240-250,[63] the inscriptions, temples, continued celebration of festivals and the wealth of theophoric elements (divine names) in personal names of the Parthian period illustrate a strong continuity of traditions dating back to circa 21st century BC, and that the most important deities of old Assyria were still worshipped at Assur and elsewhere more than 800 years after the Assyrian Empire had been destroyed.[2] The cultural and historical memory of Assyria endured within Babylonia, and Assyrian scholarship impacted the Babylonian one.[64] Assyrian personal names invoking Assur remained in use throughout Hellenistic Babylonia, with the families who bore them likely descending from Assyrians who had settled in the south. In Uruk, the cult of Assur survived, and certain temple priests carried names that included Assur. Cuneiform texts from the city preserved distinctly Assyrian and Ninevite literary traditions across various fields such as astrology, while some families even preserved ancient Assyrian cuneiform texts as heirlooms. Certain scholars in Hellenistic Uruk clearly cultivated an awareness of the Assyrian past and culture by such practices, and kept the memory of Assyria alive by preserving tales like that of Ahiqar, the sage of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon.[65]\n\nIdentity in ancient Assyria\n\nDevelopment and distinctions\n\nEthnicity and culture are largely based in self-perception and self-designation.[5] In ancient Assyria, a distinct Assyrian identity appears to have formed already in the Old Assyrian period (c. 2025-1364 BC), when distinctly Assyrian burial practices, foods and dress codes are attested[66] and Assyrian documents appear to consider the inhabitants of Assur to be a distinct cultural group, even though they were ethnolinguistically identical to the Semites of Southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia).[67] A wider Assyrian identity appears to have spread across northern Mesopotamia under the Middle Assyrian Empire (c. 1363-912 BC), since later writings concerning the reconquests of the early Neo-Assyrian kings refer to some of their wars as liberating the Assyrian people of the cities they reconquered.[68] Though there for much of ancient Assyria's history existed a distinct Assyrian identity, Assyrian culture and civilization, like any other culture and civilization, did not develop in isolation. As the Assyrian Empire expanded and contracted, elements from regions the Assyrians conquered or traded with culturally influenced the Assyrian heartland and the Assyrians themselves. Early Assyrian culture was greatly influenced by the Hurrians and vice versa, a people that also lived in northern Mesopotamia, and by the culture of southern Mesopotamia, particularly that of Sumer and Babylonia.[6]\n\nSurviving evidence suggests that the ancient Assyrians had a relatively open definition of what it meant to be Assyrian. Modern ideas such as a person's ethnic background, or the Roman idea of legal citizenship, do not appear to have been reflected in ancient Assyria.[5] Although Assyrian accounts and artwork of warfare frequently describe and depict foreign enemies, they are not usually depicted with different physical features, but rather with different clothing and equipment, though this may be more related to the fact Assyria mostly had contact with other societies in Western Asia, Anatolia, East Mediterranean, North Africa and Southern Caucasus where the people were likely similar physically to the Assyrians. Assyrian accounts describe enemies as barbaric only in terms of their behaviour, as lacking correct religious practices or being uncivilised, and as doing wrongdoings against Assyria. All things considered, there does not appear to have been any well-developed concepts of ethnicity or race in ancient Assyria.[69] What mattered for a person to be seen by others as Assyrian was mainly fulfillment of obligations (such as military service), being affiliated with the Assyrian Empire politically, and maintaining loyalty to the Assyrian king; some kings, such as Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC), explicitly encouraged assimilation and mixture of foreign cultures with that of Assyria.[5]\n\nPre-modern self-identities\n\nThough many foreign states ruled over the Assyrian heartland in the millennia following the empire's fall, there is no evidence of any large scale influx of immigrants that replaced the original population,[5] which instead continued to make up a significant portion of the region's people until Mongol and Timurid massacres in the late 14th century.[70] In pre-modern ecclesiastical Syriac-language (the type of Aramaic used in Christian Mesopotamian writings) sources, the typical self-designations used is suryāyā (as well as the shortened surayā), and sometimes ʾāthorāyā (\"Assyrian\") and ʾārāmāyā (\"Aramaic\" or \"Aramean\").[11][71] A reluctance of the overall Christian population to adopt ʾĀthorāyā as a self-designation probably derives from Assyria's portrayal in the Bible. \"Assyrian\" (Āthorāyā) also continuously survived as the designation for a Christian from Mosul (ancient Nineveh) and Mesopotamia in general.[72] It is clear from the surviving sources that ʾārāmāyā and suryāyā were not distinct and mutually exclusive identities, but rather interchangeable terms used to refer to the same people; the Syriac author Bardaisan (154-222) is for instance referred to in 4th-century Syriac translations of Eusebius's Church History as both ārāmāyā and suryāyā.[11]\n\nSūryāyā, which also occurs in the forms sūrāyā and sūrōyō,[13] though sometimes translated to \"Syrian\",[73] was coined as a self-designation by Mesopotamian Christians in Edessa some time after the 5th century AD, quickly gaining widespread usage in both what would come to be called West and East Syriac traditions.[74] This term ultimately derives from the ancient Akkadian term assūrāyu (\"Assyrian\").[13][14] Luwian and Aramaic texts from the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, such as the Çineköy inscription, sometimes use the shortened \"Syria\" for the Assyrian Empire.[75] The consensus in modern academia is thus that \"Syria\" is simply a shortened form of \"Assyria\".[15] The modern distinction between \"Assyrian\" and \"Syrian\" is the result of ancient Greek historians and cartographers, who designated the Levant as \"Syria\" and Mesopotamia as \"Assyria\". By the time the terms are first attested in Greek texts (in the 4th century BC), the local denizens in both the Levant and Mesopotamia had already long used both terms interchangeably for the entire region, and continued to do so well into the later Christian period.[76] Whether the Greeks began referring to Mesopotamia as \"Assyria\" because they equated the region with the Assyrian Empire, long fallen by the time the term is first attested in Greek, or because they named the region after the people who lived there, the (As)syrians, is not known.[77] It is known however, the Seleucid Greeks conceived that the Aramaic-speakers of the east were descended from the ancient Assyrians, an idea which the Seleucids borrowed from Classical Greeks, who deemed Assyrians and Syrians to be identical. Although the term \"Syria\" began to be confined to the region west of the Euphrates, the conflation of \"Assyrian\" and \"Syrian\" persisted, which is evident among certain communities well into the late medieval period.[78][79] Even Josephus the Hebrew, who had a more unique stance on Syrian identity, perpetuated the traditions of Strabo and Herodotus which held Assyrians and Syrians to consisted of the same ethnos, mentioning the \"Syrians\" in Babylonia. This region was once under Assyria, and therefore Josephus followed the reasoning of Strabo, who argued that its inhabitants could be called \"Assyrians\" or \"Syrians\" interchangeably.[80] Syrians in Roman Syria could also posit themselves as constituting the same ethnic group and heirs of an ancient legacy that their counterparts, the Assyrians in the Parthian and Sasanian kingdoms, claimed.[81] Thus, those inhabiting Roman Syria could still envision the ancient Assyrians as their direct ethnic ancestors or at least the founders of their ethnos.[80] In general, Syrians themselves adopted the Greek formulations that conceived of the Aramaic-speakers of the Near East as being descended from the Assyrians and understood their past through it. In doing so, they came to see themselves as an ethnic group.[82] Hence, from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, authors from Roman Syro-Mesopotamia, such as Tatian and Lucian, writing in Greek and Aramaic, extensively used the Assyrian past to define their communities in relation to the Greeks and Romans and bore their self-ascriptions as \"Syrian\" and \"Assyrian\" with significance.[83][80] Tatian and Lucian designated themselves as Assýrios not only to denote Syrian origin, but to stress a native cultural identity in contrast with Greek.[39] As expressed by the writer Meleager of Gadara, Syrians, it seems, came from Assyria.[84] Furthermore, although the Seleucids emphasized their Macedonian origins and implemented a policy of Hellenization upon the inhabitants of the Near East whom they ruled over, they eventually began to assimilate into the native Assyrian population of Mesopotamia and adopt their customs, coming to be seen by their contemporaries and even themselves as the heirs of the Neo-Assyrian empire and dynasty.[85][86] The (As)Syrians too came to see the Seleucids as the successors of Assyria, counting them in continuity with Semiramis and Sardanapalus, thereby Assyrianizing them.[87] The Roman historian Titus Livius particularly captures this process of Greek assimilation into the native populations when he laments that the Macedonians who settled within Mesopotamia have \"degenerated into Syrians\".[88] Semiramis herself also gained popularity in the East, with women in Mesopotamia bearing her name. Although the Greek provides the basis for the modern tale, the earliest forms of the Saga likely derived from perishable Aramaic sources in the Levant and Mesopotamia, as the tale displays Akkadian influences.[89]\n\nAlthough suryāyā is thus clearly connected to \"Assyrian,\"[90] the more prevalent term for ancient Assyrians, ʾāthorāyā is not the typical self-designation in pre-modern sources. Syriac sources did however prominently use ʾāthorāyā in other contexts, particularly in relation to ancient Assyria. Ancient Assyria was typically referred to as ʾāthor, which also survived as a designation for the region surrounding its last great capital, Nineveh.[91] The reluctance of Medieval Syriac Christians to use ʾāthorāyā as a self-designation could perhaps be explained by the Assyrians described in the Bible being prominent enemies of Israel; the term ʾāthorāyā was sometimes employed in Syriac writings as a term for enemies of Christians. In this context, the term was sometimes applied to the Persians of the Sasanian Empire; the 4th-century Syriac writer Ephrem the Syrian for instance referred to the Sasanian Empire as \"filthy ʾāthor, mother of corruption\". In a similar fashion, the term in this context was also sometimes applied to the later Muslim rulers.[91] Though not used by the overall Syriac-speaking community in the Middle Ages, the term ʾāthorāyā did survive as a self-identity throughout the period as it was the typically used designation for a Syriac Christian from Mosul (ancient Nineveh) and its vicinity.[91] While terms like Assyrian, Babylonian, and Aramean became associated with paganism and their use declined, positive references to Assyrian heritage of Syriac Christians can still be found, for instance, in the writings of Abdisho of Nisibis who took a contrary view.[92] The older association of Assyria with the Aramaic-speaking homeland persisted however, and some Syriac intellectuals continued to use \"Assyria\" and \"Assyrians\" to refer to their land and people. Despite this, most Syriac Christians primarily identified themselves by village or religion, as was customary in the Middle East.[93] Although terms like Nineveh, Assyria, and Babylon would have been known through biblical texts, Syriac authors likely instead drew on inherited traditions and an awareness of these regions as their ancestral lands for their usage, favoring such antique designations over more contemporary terms.[94] The use of terms such as ʾāthor and ʾāthorāyā points to, at the very least, a recognition of the ancient Assyrians, and to an awareness among Syriac Christians of northern Mesopotamia of their impact on the region, which they had once made the center of their empire.[95]\n\nPre-modern Syriac-language sources at times identified positively with the ancient Assyrians, with the regional population keeping the memory of Assyria alive in the local Syriac histories of the Sasanian period,[96] drawing connections between the ancient empire and themselves.[73] Most prominently, ancient Assyrian kings and figures long appeared in local folklore and literary tradition[97] and claims of descent from ancient Assyrian royalty were forwarded both for figures in folklore and by actual living high-ranking members of society in northern Mesopotamia.[98] Figures like Sargon II,[99] Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BC), Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BC), Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin long figured in local folklore and literary tradition.[97] In large part, tales from the Sasanian period and later times were invented narratives, based on ancient Assyrian history but applied to local and current landscapes.[100] Medieval tales written in Syriac, such as that of Behnam, Sarah, and the Forty Martyrs, for instance by and large characterize Sennacherib as an archetypical pagan king assassinated as part of a family feud, whose children convert to Christianity.[97] The appearance of Sennacherib in this story is not strange, as many Syriac sources from late antiquity and the early medieval period refer to both him and the Assyrians, usually with the goal of portraying Syriac Christians as the heirs of an Assyrian past. The story is, however, unique in portraying the Assyrian king as the father of the two martyrs.[101] Sennacherib also appears in the Sasanian period stories of Mar Awgin, Mar Qardagh, Mar Mattai, and Mar Behnam. Although these stories often confused his figure, they likely relied upon inherited local traditions as well as the Bible for their memory of this king.[102]\n\nThe 7th-century Assyrian History of Mar Qardagh made the titular saint, Mar Qardagh, out to be a descendant of the legendary Biblical Mesopotamian king Nimrod and the historical Sennacherib, with his illustrious descent manifesting in Mar Qardagh's mastery of archery, hunting and polo.[103] A sanctuary constructed for Mar Qardagh during this time was built directly on top of the ruins of a Neo-Assyrian temple.[104] The legendary figure Nimrod, otherwise traditionally viewed as simply Mesopotamian, is explicitly referred to as Assyrian in many of the Sasanian-period texts and is inserted into the line of Assyrian kings.[99] Nimrod, as well as other legendary Mesopotamian (though explicitly Assyrian in the texts) rulers, such as Belus and Ninus, sometimes play significant roles in the writings.[105] Certain Christian texts considered the Biblical figure Balaam to have prophesied the Star of Bethlehem; a local Assyrian version of this narrative appears in some Syriac-language writings from the Sasanian period, which allege that Balaam's prophecy was remembered only through being transmitted through the ancient Assyrian kings.[106] In some stories, explicit claims of descent are made. According to the 6th-century History of Karka, twelve of the noble families of Karka (ancient Arrapha) were descendants of ancient Assyrian nobility who lived in the city during the time of Sargon II.[107] The goal of this specific Syriac text was to demonstrate that the past continued to the present without break, and hence, it begins with the pious king Sargon, who built the city and enacted the fast of Ninevites, and ends with the Assyrian martyrs who made it a blessed field for Christianity.[108] Later on, the bishop of Karka d-Bet Selok, who was influenced by this story, Sabrisho, implemented the Fast of the Ninevites in efforts to act like the righteous king Sargon, who was the first to listen to Jonah's message. With this, the story of Jonah acted as a way to link Syriac Christians with a local Assyrian past.[109] Generally, Syriac Christians of northern Mesopotamia were fascinated with the story of Jonah, and some Syriac works implied that the Ninevites, their alleged Assyrian ancestors, were the first Gentile converts to Christianity, as Jonah prefigured Christ.[110] As the biblical story and fast held particular importance within both the East and West Syriac traditions, only later spreading to other churches through patriarchs of Assyrian origin, it implies that Syriac Christians believed it referred to their own ancestors. Accordingly, Ephrem, although he portrays the Assyrians negatively in other works, praises the inhabitants of Nineveh and the Assyrian king at his repentance, presenting the Assyrians as a penitent people in contrast to the Israelites who are cast as arrogant.[111]\n\nTo account for the appearance of Assyrian figures like Sennacherib and Esarhaddon in these Syriac texts, scholars have argued that oral, folkloric memories of the ancient Assyrians continued in regions such as Arbela, Nineveh, and Assur. Thus, although the Assyrian state collapsed, the memories of such ancient kings loomed large in the Assyrian heartland, and ruins in the region were attributed to ancient Assyrians.[112] In places such as Nisibis, Arbela, and Karka d-Bet Selokh, these ruins of old encouraged links between the Syriac Christians and the ancient Assyrians, causing distant antiquity and Christian martyrdom to form the basis for the developed histories of these areas.[113] Local communities in northern Mesopotamia commemorated the memory of a great past they called ʾāthor (Assyria), with Syriac Christians recognizing such ruins as the works of their ancestors, even if the exact historical details of the empire had been forgotten. Pagan rituals and rites of Assyrian origin also continued to be practiced deep into late antiquity, likely connecting their practitioners to a distant past through stories and ideas that were passed down. Syriac authors acknowledged this tradition and reinforced these ideas with validity by creating new Christian literary narratives in a landscape already rich with meaning.[114] The Christianized inhabitants of Assyria and Babylonia during the 3rd and 4th centuries were largely the same pagan population of the Assyro-Babylonian empires and were the successors of this cultural background. In keeping with this background, they developed a personal approach to their Christian faith, retaining some knowledge from their past, particularly Assyrian traditions.[115][116] So when Christianity spread to Adiabene, church leaders purposely suppressed some customs continuing from Assyria's imperial period, but at the same time, they integrated memories of Assyria into their emerging stories with the goal of forging a Christian identity compatible with local traditions.[117] Although most Syriac authors were uninterested in nations without relevance to biblical accounts, local Syriac histories and hagiographies preserved garbled accounts of Assyrian city foundations and the ancestry of social elites, likely being derived from oral tradition rather than written sources.[118] According to East Syrian synodical documents, Assyria was transformed into an archdiocese, and its bishop of Adiabene centered in Arbel, bore the title \"Metropolitan of the Assyrians.\"[119][120] The archbishopric of Adiabene, in this context should be understood in its Hellenic and Parthian boundaries, which extended to the Khabur River, and not the region only between the Greater and Lesser Zab.[121] Hence, by late antiquity, Syriac-speaking authors in Adiabene were positing that they, as Assyrians, were descended from the ancient Assyrians.[122] A reason as to why the term \"Syrian\" as a self-identity is not explicitly found within these texts is possibly due to the Syrians being seen as meek people in the Sasanian regions, and thus it is unsurprising that these hagiographers sometimes avoided the term.[123] Syriac Christians who lived within metropolitan regions of Beth Garmai, Adiabene, and Mosul of northern Mesopotamia often turned to the Assyrian past to narrate themselves as its heirs in their efforts to include themselves in the political spheres of the Sasanian empire and to present themselves as the natives of the land, descending from a distinctly Assyrian population, in contrast with their fellow Zoroastrians.[124][125] Survival of references to ancient Assyria in late antique and medieval Syriac sources are common, with Fergus Millar noting that Syriac Christians who lived in what was once ancient Assyria did not suffer a 'historical amnesia,' retaining awareness of their Assyrian origins and the history of their native region.[126] Comparative to southern Mesopotamia, which felt no connection with Babylonian continuity, the Christians of northern Mesopotamia employed the terms Assyria and Assyrians to identify themselves and developed notions that they were connected to the Assyrians of antiquity through various tales.[110] The hagiography of Mar Qardagh reveals the outlook of a writer who considered the nobles of Adiabene to be of a local Assyrian origin,[127] and the story of Mor Behnam serves to assign Syriac Christians origins more deeply into antiquity, connecting them with the ancient Assyrians.[128] Syriac writers institutionalized narratives of Christianized Assyrians like those of Behnam, Qardagh, and Karka d'Bet-Selok into their collective memory of the Assyrian past to self-fashion themselves as a Christianized Assyrian people, placing the ancient Assyrians at the center of their region's communal history above even the Seleucids and Persians. These tales and their accompanying festivals were also read and practiced annually by both elites and commoners to celebrate and honor such martyrs. As a result, Christianized Assyrians and Assyria remained prominent in Syriac Christian communities well into the Medieval Ages and beyond, serving as a living link to their ancestry.[129] When retold they fostered a sense of belonging for Syriac Christians to an ancient past, intertwined with Assyria, and served to strengthen the identity of their community by emphasizing their distinctiveness and forming a link to antiquity.[130] Notably, the hagiographers of legends as those of Behnam and Qardagh felt the need to include their Assyrian ancestry, when their Zoroastrian background alone would have sufficed. These Assyrian martyrs were considered by the Syriac authors of their tales to be the true children of the ancient Mesopotamians. Qardagh's hagiography and his recognition as an Assyrian plays a key role in defining the identity of the Church of the East, which, by at least the seventh century, openly professed its Assyrian heritage.[131] The memory of Assyria and of its rulership was not only alive, but used by the Church of the East as an identity marker in a Zoroastrian milieu.[132]\n\nThe biblical king Nimrod is also of great importance for the identity formation among both East and West Syrians. Several Syriac writers hold a positive view of him, and despite Nimrod being overwhelmingly considered a depraved figure in other Christian literature, the Syriac tradition holds a confident view of him. Some of those who purported this image included, but were not limited to, Ephrem the Syrian, Jacob Serugh, and Narsai.[133] Although some have suggested this positive view derives from a defunct, unwritten, Jewish tradition in Mesopotamia, this is hardly a viable theory. The development of this position on Nimrod appears to be an internal development within the Syriac and a form of local patriotism by Syriac Christians, and it is because Nimrod had become a cultural hero and a foundational figure among the Christians of upper Mesopotamia that they supplanted the negative view of him for a positive one. The biblical foundations that Nimrod created in Genesis 10:10-12 were associated with the important urban centers of northern Mesopotamia, such as Nisibis and Edessa, by these authors.[134][135] His unusual role as a positive foundational figure contributed to a sense of a \"Syrian\" ethnicity and played a significant role in their supposed claims of descent.[136][137] The position Nimrod played in creating a distinctive identity for Syriac Christians in Mesopotamia also finds appeals to him as a direct ancestral figure. The fact that the inhabitants of this geographical area considered themselves to be Nimrod's descendants is perhaps expressed most vividly in the Acts of Mar Mari, whose author declares the Syriac Christians within the region as \"The sons of the powerful Nimrod\" (bnay Nemrud gabārā).[138] Further, Catholicos Timothy I brought up Nimrod in one of his letters to claim him as the ancestor of the Syriac Christians and, in doing so, positioned himself as Nimrod's heir.[139] Syriac Christians also bore the name of Nimrod himself.[138] Due being the first earthly ruler, Nimrod was frequently identified with the mythical Assyrian king Ninus by Jacob of Edessa and many other Syriac writers.[140][135] Likewise, Ephrem also declares the ancient Assyrians to be \"the race of Nimrod.\"[141] Ephrem in particular seems to stress the importance of his region and its connection with Nimrod, identifying him with the northern Mesopotamian territories and ascribing his biblical foundations to known cities in the region. This is perhaps one of the signs of an ethnic community, being geography and a link to a territory, but at least, his positive view of Nimrod, who reigned in his own land, is conspicuous.[142] In general, the foundation of cities by various civic developers such as Nimrod, Belus, Semiramis, and Belochus all appear within the Syriac literature. The northern Mesopotamian Christian centers being founded by various Assyrian and Babylonian figures was interwoven into the writing of multiple Syriac writers potentially in efforts to boost their national identity, ascertaining to a form of nationalism, as these were some of the most important sites for Syriac Christianity.[143][144] Syriac authors endowed Nimrod with a positive image, and the cities he established were replaced by cities familiar to them in northern and southern Mesopotamia. He was recast from a biblical figure into a founding hero, coming to embody a memory of the local Mesopotamian past for Syriac Christians.[145]\n\nAmong West Syrians, the results of the Leiden project have argued that the Syriac Orthodox have been continuously reconstructing their past since their inception as a Christian community in hopes of legitimizing their existence as a distinct group.[146] As Syriac became a symbol of religious recognition and also a primary feature of an ethnic community, it allowed Syriac Christians to turn to an ancient past in hopes of defining themselves. They reasoned that the Assyrians and Babylonians spoke Syriac, which was Aramaic, and hence they were a part of the Syrian people. This is a process of social identity construction, and one should not think of ancient fault lines here.[147] Therefore, some Syrians, including those in the Syriac Orthodox tradition, eventually ethnicized their confessional identity and linked themselves to the ancient ethnonym \"Assyrian\" in their historiographical traditions, with certain scholars having demonstrated that the medieval Syriac Orthodox patriarchate portrayed the ancient Assyrians as the ancestors of the Christians of northern Mesopotamia.[148][19] This idea started as early as Severus Sebokht, who marked astronomy as one of the cornerstones of civilization and who identified the ancient peoples of modern-day Iraq as suryāyē (Syrians) in his discourse against the Greeks.[149] Severus invoked this continuity in efforts to disprove claims of Greek superiority.[150] Jacob of Edessa, Severus's disciple, also stressed that the Assyrian kings, or synonymously, Chaldean kings, were the ancestors of the Syrians and that they belonged to \"our tongue.\"[151] Jacob also aimed to prove, according to the Greek books, that \"empires arose from our people more powerful than all the empires of their times.\"[152] Later on, Dionysius, inspired by Jacob's arguments, also wrote about the identity of the Syrians. He used the Old Testament to demonstrate that the Syrians were a people with a prestigious history and many kings in Damascus, Babylonia, Assyria, and Edessa. He aimed to demonstrate a continuous existence of a Syrian empire, and thus considered the Assyrians and Chaldeans as belonging to the people of the Syrians, this empire only disappearing when Cyrus put an end to it. Dionysius's conception of a Syrian identity was rooted in territory, language, and history of kingship. His arguments paved the way for other Syriac authors to form their own ethnic arguments, like Michael.[153][154][155] Dionysius also recognized that the Syrians east of the Euphrates were termed such in a metaphorical way, and that they held the kings of Assyria, Babylon and Edessa, also believing these Syrians were Mesopotamians, distinct from those in Syria proper which was the west of the Euphrates and held the Aramean kingdoms. His passage was directed at those who claimed the Syrians had no kings.[156][157][158] The sense of a Syrian identity dating back to antiquity based on language is notably expressed by Michael, who counted 194 kings for the Syrians, including the Assyrians and Babylonians within this list.[152] For him, the Aramaic language was the common connection between the Babylonians, Assyrians, and the various Aramean principalities. It was a tool for him to prove the historical identity of the Syrians against his opponents, who claimed the Syrians had no kings.[159] However, this does not mean that Michael's views of the Syriac Orthodox was not ethnic. In fact, language is used to prove common descent.[160] Michael recognized that both the Arameans and Assyrians were called Syrians and that they were both the forebearers of the Syriac tradition,[161] but distinguished them. The \"Syrians\" east of the Euphrates were called such metaphorically and were putatively descended from the Assyrians and Babylonians. Despite the prominence of Edessa, he continued to maintain that the Syrians, in the proper sense, were most specifically those west of the Euphrates who traced descent from the Arameans.[162][163] Previous writers of Syriac were already aware of the interchangeability of the terms \"Aramean,\" \"Syrian,\" and \"Assyrian,\" and even of \"Assyria\" with \"Aram.\" However, the equation of the three terms was precisely the point that Michael Rabo strenuously argued for in his appendix against the Greeks.[164] He harmonized existing arguments about the Syrians and succeeded in identifying them with Aramean and Assyrian history.[165] Michael also offers a passage where he assimilates the terms \"Assyrian\" and \"Syrian\" with each other while enumerating nations which developed a writing system.[166] This passage is believed to derive from an earlier lost work of an anonymous Syriac writer during the reign of Abd al-Malik, who copied Hippolytus's list of literate peoples and equated the Syrians with the Assyrians in his list of the sons of Shem, an idea that later influenced eight other East and West Syriac authors in their versions.[167] Within the Syriac tradition, the Assyrians of Hippolytus's list are replaced by their equivalent, the Syrians.[168] The Chronicle of 1234 further shares many similarities with Michael's list, the most significant being is that both Syriac witnesses equate the Assyrians to the Syrians while mentioning those people who are literate in the world.[169] A sense of continuity between the Aramaic and Semitic-speakers of the ancient Near East and those of the Late Antique and Medieval Near East would also continue after Michael, such as in Bar Hebraeus's Chronicle.[170] His source, Michael, had identified both the Assyrians and Arameans as the ancestors of the Syrians, grouping them under the term \"Chaldean.\" Bar Hebraeus removed the difficulties in the identification of the old Mesopotamians and uses the term \"ancient Syrians,\" which included ancient speakers of Aramaic from Syria, Assyria, and Babylon. He explicitly identifies the Chaldean kings with these ancient Syrians, terming them such. Bar Hebraeus connected the Syriac Orthodox to the Ancient Near Eastern Empires using neutral terms like \"ancient Syrians\" and \"our Syrians\" to avoid the debate about the \"true Syrians\" discussed by Michael.[171][172] Patriarch Philoxenus I Nemrud and his cousin, the priest Nebuchadnezzar, had names that harkened back to the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian kings. These choices were certainly inspired by Michael's historical vision, which held the ancient Mesopotamians to be Syrians.[173] The name of king Sargon is also attested in Syriac Christians from the 7th century onwards, appearing in the personal names of a priest named Sargon and another, Autel, son of Sargon. The father of John of Damascus, Sarjun Ibn Mansur, was also titled after the ancient king. Likewise with the names Nemrud and Nebuchadnezzar, these were likely attempts to link themselves with a pre-Christian Assyrian past.[174][175][176] According to the Syriac interpretation of ancient history, centered on the belief that powerful \"Syrian\" kingdoms existed on both sides of the Euphrates and that the Syriac Orthodox had their own sovereign kings, which aimed to defend the Syriacs by emphasizing the importance of the kingdoms that arose from them, as presented by Jacob, Dionysius, and Michael, the Seleucids were likewise regarded as local Syrian kings in the ancient sense of the word. Since Alexander conquered Persia, which had previously conquered the Mesopotamian kingdoms that these authors referred to as \"Syrian\" kingdoms, the Seleucids were viewed as restorers of local Syrian royalty. Therefore, they were regarded as \"Syrians\" by Syriac authors who aimed to demonstrate their historical heritage. Alexander, although Greek, was considered native. This explains the development of a hybrid Syrian identity based on the usage of Aramaic but marked by Greek culture.[177] Claims of an autonomous past for Syrians, like those made by Dionysius Telmahroyo, seem to have been accepted by Arab authors, particularly Masudi, who mentions that the kings of Nineveh and Mosul were Syrians, a point which Michael would have agreed on. They had now constituted a nation, analogous to the Romans, Arabs, and Persians in his view.[178][179] Both the Assyrian and Aramean pasts furnished Syriac Christians with ancestral narratives that could define them as linguistically, territorially, or theologically legible to more powerful audiences. The Aramean past offered a spatial orientation to the west in Syria, while the Assyrian past offered a link to Mesopotamia eastward.[161] Thus, Syriac-speaking authors, both Syriac Orthodox and from the Church of the East, considered themselves not the stock of conquered peoples but of empire builders and great victors.[180] This was a process that gradually crystallized based on available sources of their time, but by at least the 12th century, the Syriac Orthodox were aware of having a core composed of the cultural traditions of the Assyrians and Arameans.[181]\n\nMichael was the first writer to acknowledge community on a larger scale, counting East Syrians as part of his people. Theologically, he distinguished his community from the East Syrians, but in times of hardship, he grouped West and East Syrians all under the ethnic term \"Syrian.\" East Syrian pre-Christian history and early Christian history were treated as the history of his own community by Michael, and he reflects a conscious group identity with East Syrians based on common name, ancestry, memories, language, regional culture, and to an extent, also a common homeland and solidarity between the two groups.[182] Michael's predecessors also acknowledged linguistic unity and at times shared cultural elements between both Syrian groups, but they were less pronounced ideas compared to Michael.[182] This idea of unity with East Syrians was also expressed by Dionysius of Tel Mahre, although to a lesser extent, who became aware of a homeland and started to look for a common name. Dionysius represents the final phase of a gradual development to a common community.[183] Various Syriac sources also indicate that East and West Syrians lived in the same regions and cities, in fact, there was also an increase in contact and shared use between the two groups literary traditions. Eliya of Nisibis for example, used West Syrian sources, and this exchange of knowledge can be seen in various genres of Syriac literature.[184] Bar Ebroyo, too, considered East Syrians to be of the same people as his community. He clearly indicated that anyone who speaks or spoke Aramaic belonged to his community, with his homeland being Mesopotamia, including the region east of the Tigris. In this way, Bar Ebroyo tactically included East Syrians in his general \"Syrian\" terminology and even dedicated a section in his works to mentioning the patriarchs of the Church of the East.[184]\n\nModern identity and nationalism\n\n19th century identities and developments\n\nEarly travellers and missionaries in northern Mesopotamia in the 19th century observed connections between the indigenous Christian population and the ancient Assyrians. The British traveller Claudius Rich (1787-1821) referenced \"Assyrian Christians\" in Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of Ancient Nineveh (published posthumously in 1836, though describing an 1820 journey). It is just possible that Rich considered \"Assyrian\" a geographic, rather than ethnic, term since he in a footnote on the same page also referenced the \"Christians of Assyria\". More clear-cut evidence of Assyrian self-identity in the 19th century can be seen in the writings of the American missionary Horatio Southgate (1812-1894). In Southgate's Narrative of a Visit to the Syrian [Jacobite] Church of Mesopotamia (1844) he remarked with surprise that Armenians referred to the Syriac Christians as Assouri, which Southgate associated with the English \"Assyrians\", rather than Syriani, which he himself had been using.[185] It seems that the Assyrian identification had been in use for several decades before Layard's excavation, such as in Kharput, but also even the Syriac Orthodox Church in Constantinople bore the name \"Assyrian Orthodox\" as early as 1844. Early Jacobites found it conventional to use the English \"Assyrian\" to translate emic sūryōyō and its equivalents in other languages.[12] Armenian and Georgian sources have since antiquity consistently referred to Assyrians as Assouri or Asori, with Armenian Christian literature in particular often referring to Syriac as \"Assyrian\".[186][185][166] Southgate also mentioned that the Syriac Christians themselves at this point claimed origin from the ancient Assyrians as \"sons of Assour\". Southgate's account thus demonstrates that modern Assyrians still claimed ancient Assyrian descent already in the early 19th century, a period prior to the great archaeological discoveries of the mid to late 19th century.[185] Despite the survival of Assyrian self-ascription among some villages in the Syriac Orthodox heartland, even in areas that had never encountered missionaries or archeologists, the majority identified primarily as sūryōye.[161]\n\nConnections between the modern population and ancient Assyrians were further popularized in the west and academia by the British archaeologist and traveller Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), responsible for the early excavations of several major ancient Assyrian sites, such as Nimrud. In Nineveh and its Remains (1849), Layard argued that the Christians he met in northern Mesopotamia and southeast Anatolia claimed to be \"descendants of the ancient Assyrians\". It is possible that Layard's knowledge of them as such derived from his partnership with the local Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910).[185]\n\nTowards the end of the 19th century, a so-called \"religious renaissance\" or \"awakening\" took place in Urmia, Iran. Perhaps partly encouraged by Anglican, Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox missionary efforts, the concepts of nation and nationalism were introduced to the Assyrians in Urmia, who began to revive the term ʾāthorāyā as a self-identity, and began building a national ideology more heavily based around ancient Assyria than Christianity. This was not an isolated phenomenon: Middle Eastern nationalism, probably influenced by developments in Europe, also began to be strongly expressed in other communities during this time, such as among the Armenians, Arabs, Kurds, Pontic Greeks, Maronites, Jews and Turks. This time also saw the development of Literary Urmia Aramaic, a new literary language based on the at the time spoken Neo-Aramaic dialects. Through the promotion of an identity rooted in ancient Assyria, various communities could transcend their denominational differences and unite under one national identity.[17] Overall, the connection to the Assyrians of antiquity was certainly stimulated by ancient traditions in Syriac literature which linked the Syrians with the empires of biblical times, that of the Assyrians and Babylonians.[187]\n\nContemporary identities and name debate\n\nIn the years before World War I, several prominent East Aramaic-language authors and intellectuals promoted Assyrian nationalism. Among them were Freydun Atturaya (1891-1926), who in 1911 published an influential article titled Who are the Syrians [surayē]? How is Our Nation to Be Raised Up?, in which he pointed out the connection between surayē and \"Assyrian\" and argued for the adoption of ʾāthorāyā. Prominent Assyrian intellectuals across the three main religious denominations (Chaldean, Nestorian, Jacobite) advocated for a transformation of the meaning of \"Assyrian\" in the English language.[188] The early 20th century saw an increase in the use of the term ʾāthorāyā as a self-identity. Also used as the neologism ʾasurāyā, perhaps inspired by the Armenian Asori.[17] The adoption of ʾāthorāyā and a stronger association with ancient Assyria through nationalism is not a unique development in regard to the Assyrians. Greeks, for instance, due to associating the term \"Hellene\" with the pagan religion, overwhelmingly self-identified as Romans (Rhōmioi)[189] up until nationalism around the time of the Greek War of Independence, when a more strong association with Ancient Greece spread among the populace.[190][191] Today, sūryōyō or sūrāyā are the predominant self-designations used by Assyrians in their native language, though they are typically translated as \"Assyrian\" rather than \"Syrian\".[192]\n\nToday, as a consequence of World War I, the Sayfo (Assyrian genocide) and various other massacres, a majority of the Assyrians have been displaced from their homeland, and today they live in diaspora communities in countries such as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Greece, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In the aftermath of these events, explicit Assyrian self-identity became even more widespread and established in their communities, not only in order to unify communities in the diaspora (which often originated in different regions) but also because \"Syrian\" became internationally established as the demonym of the newly created country of Syria.[193] Many Assyrians who were not members of the Assyrian Church of the East also embraced Assyrian nationalism, such as D. B. Perley (1901-1979), who in 1933 helped found the Assyrian National Federation and religiously identified himself as a Syriac Orthodox Christian but ethnically identified himself as an Assyrian. In 1935, Perley wrote that \"The Assyrians, although representing but one single nation as the direct heirs of the ancient Assyrian Empire … are now doctrinally divided … No one can coherently understand the Assyrians as a whole until he can distinguish that which is religion or church from that which is nation …\" and even proposed uniting all Assyrians under a single patriarch of the Church of the East.[1]\n\nFor communities that identify themselves as Assyrian, Assyrian continuity forms a key part of their self-identity. Many modern Assyrians are named after ancient Mesopotamian figures, such as Sargon, Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar (and indeed many Assyrian family names still link to ancient Mesopotamian names), and the modern Assyrian flag displays symbolism which is derived from ancient Assyria.[1] From the second half of the 20th century to the present, Assyrians, particularly in the diaspora, have continued to promote Assyrian nationalism as a unifying force among their people. Some denominational groups have opposed being lumped in as \"Assyrians\" and as a result, they have founded counter-movements of their own;[1] the so-called \"name debate\" is still a hotly discussed topic within Syriac Christian communities today, especially in the diaspora which lives outside the Assyrian homeland.[194] Modern international organizations generally do not recognize Assyrians, Syriacs, Arameans and Chaldeans as members of different ethnic groups, instead, they merely consider these names alternate names for Assyrians[18] and numerous church leaders have also affirmed that they belong to the same ethnic group, albeit to different Christian denominations.[195]\n\nOther forms of continuity\n\nIn addition to continuity in written record, self-designation and self-perception, there continued to be important continuities between ancient and contemporary Mesopotamia in terms of religion, literary culture and settlement well after the post-imperial period.[104]\n\nAssyrian settlements\n\nAssyrian settlements continued to be occupied into the Christian period and through to the present day. The ancient capital of Nineveh, for instance, became the seat of a bishop, the Bishop of Nineveh, and a church (later converted to a mosque under Islamic rule) was built on top of the ruins of an ancient Assyrian palace. The main population center in the city gradually shifted to the opposite bank of the river, which became the city today known as Mosul; ancient Nineveh only gradually fell into ruin and eventually became open countryside.[30] Though most of the old population centers were similarly gradually abandoned and fell into ruin some also endured. The ancient city of Arbela, today known as Erbil, has been continuously inhabited since the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[196]\n\nReligion\n\nAlthough the ancient Mesopotamian pantheon ceased to be worshipped in Assur and its surrounds with the city's destruction in the 3rd century AD, it persisted at other Assyrian localities, despite the overwhelming conversion of the region to Syriac Christianity, for much longer; the old faith persisted at Harran until at least the 10th century and at Mardin until as late as the 18th century.[197]\n\nThe Fast of Nineveh is a three-day fast commemorating the repentance of the Ninevites at the hands of Jonah and is found in all of the traditional churches of modern Assyrians, such as the Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church. This fast is unique to the Assyrian Christian communities and connects Assyrians to their ancient heritage.[198]\n\nNusardil (Feast of God) is another religious festival unique to Assyrians and found across all three churches and is usually celebrated in July. Following the holy mass, members of the community throw water at each other in an act of cleansing the path of God. This tradition likely finds its origins in ancient Assyrian and Mesopotamian rituals, such as the New Year.[198] Such festivals, among others found locally in the Assyrian community, served to adapt to Christian needs yet also recall their ancient Assyrian heritage, acting as a link to a pre-Christian past.[199] Certain Syriac religious works from the fourth or fifth century AD also drew on Assyro-Babylonian stories and fables, not found anywhere in other Christian texts, incorporating these concepts into their writings.[200]\n\nLanguage\n\nIn the wake of the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BC, Aramean tribes began to migrate into Assyrian ruled territory. In the first millennium BC, Aramean linguistic influence on Assyria grew greater and greater, owing to further migrations as well as mass deportations enacted by several Assyrian kings.[6] Though the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, in combination with resettlements and deportations, changed the ethno-linguistic make-up of the Assyrian heartland to some degree, there is no evidence to suggest that the more ancient Assyrian inhabitants of the land ever disappeared or became restricted to a small elite, nor that the ethnic and cultural identity of the new settlers was anything other than \"Assyrian\" after one or two generations.[5]\n\nBecause the Assyrians never imposed their language on foreign peoples whose lands they conquered outside of the Assyrian heartland, there were no mechanisms in place to stop the spread of languages other than Akkadian. Beginning with the migrations of Aramaic-speaking settlers into Assyrian controlled territory during the Middle Assyrian period, this lack of linguistic policies facilitated the spread of the Aramaic language.[201] As the most widely spoken and mutually understandable of the Semitic languages (Semitic being the language group containing many of the languages spoken through the empire, although Indo-European, Hurro-Urartian and various isolates were also present),[202] Aramaic grew in importance throughout the Neo-Assyrian period and increasingly replaced the Akkadian language even within the Assyrian heartland itself.[203][7] From the 9th century BC onwards, Aramaic became the de facto lingua franca, with Akkadian becoming relegated to a language of the political elite (i.e. governors and officials).[201]\n\nThe widespread adoption of the language does not indicate a wholesale replacement of the original native population; the Aramaic language was used not only by settlers but also by native Assyrians, who adopted it and its alphabetic script.[6] The Aramaic language had entered the Assyrian royal administration by the reign of Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC), given that Aramaic writings are known from a palace he built in Kalhu.[7] By the time of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745-727 BC), the Assyrian kings employed both Akkadian and Aramaic-language royal scribes (with Sumerian still being used for religious purposes), confirming the rise of Aramaic to a position of an official language used by the imperial administration.[7][8] It is clear that Aramaic was spoken by the Assyrian royal family from at least the late 8th century BC onwards, given that Tiglath-Pileser's son Shalmaneser V (r. 727-722 BC) owned a set of lion weights inscribed with text in both Akkadian and Aramaic.[8] A recorded drop in the number of cuneiform documents late in the reign of Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631 BC) could indicate a greater shift to Aramaic, often written on perishable materials like leather scrolls or papyrus,[201] though it could perhaps alternatively be attributed to political instability in the empire.[204] The denizens of Assur and other former Assyrian population centers under Parthian rule, who clearly connected themselves to ancient Assyria, wrote and spoke in Aramaic.[57]\n\nThough modern Assyrian languages, most prominently the Suret language, are Neo-Aramaic languages with little resemblance to the old Akkadian language,[205] they are not wholly without Akkadian influence. Most notably there are numerous examples of Akkadian loanwords in both ancient and modern Aramaic languages.[206] This connection was noted already in 1974, when a study by Stephen A. Kaufman found that the Syriac language, an Assyrian Aramaic dialect today mainly used liturgical language, has at least fourteen exclusive (i.e. not attested in other dialects) loanwords from Akkadian, including nine of which are clearly from the ancient Assyrian dialect (six of which are architectural or topographical terms).[207] A 2011 study by Kathleen Abraham and Michael Sokoloff on 282 words previously believed to have been Aramaic loanwords in Akkadian determined that many such cases were questionable, and also found that 15 of those words were actually Akkadian loanwords in Aramaic and that the direction of the loan could not be determined in 22 cases; Abraham's and Sokoloff's conclusion was that the number of loanwords from Akkadian to Aramaic was far larger than the number of loanwords from Aramaic to Akkadian.[208] Elements of Neo-Assyrian Akkadian survived the fall of the empire, with the language imparting a noticeable lexical heritage on certain varieties of Aramaic which were present in the northern Mesopotamian area.[209] Akkadian is the underlying substrate of multiple modern Syriac phenomena, some of which have managed to survive four-thousand years, and both languages can help to decipher each other in their linguistics at times.[210]\n\nAcademia and politics\n\nThe use of the Assyrian name by modern Assyrians has historically led to controversy and misunderstanding, not only within but also outside the Assyrian community.[194] Discussions on the connection between the modern and ancient Assyrians have also entered into academia.[194] In addition to support by prominent historical Assyriologists, such as Austen Henry Layard[185] and Sidney Smith,[34] Assyrian continuity enjoys wide support within contemporary Assyriology. Among proponents of continuity are prominent Assyriologists such as Simo Parpola,[194][211] Robert D. Biggs,[212] H. W. F. Saggs,[213] Georges Roux,[214] J. A. Brinkman,[215] Mirko Novák,[5][216] and Robert Rollinger.[217][218] Historians of other fields have also supported Assyrian continuity, such as the Iranologist Richard Nelson Frye,[219] Philip K. Hitti,[220] Patricia Crone,[221] Michael Cook,[221] Mordechai Nisan,[222] Aryo Makko,[223] Helen Younansardaroud,[216] Onver A. Cetrez,[224] Racho Donef,[225] linguist Geoffrey Khan,[226] Eden Naby,[199] Cynthia Jean,[227] Andreas D. Boldt,[4] Amar Annus,[228] Artur Boháč,[229] John MacGinnnis,[230][231] Natalie Naomi May,[232] Maria Gabriella Micale,[233] Svante Lundgren,[234] and Joshua J. Mark (contributor of the World History Encyclopedia).[235] Other scholars supporting continuity include, among others, the linguist Judah Segal,[236] the political scientist James Jupp,[237] the genocide researcher Hannibal Travis,[238][239] alongside the political scientist and genocide researcher Adam Jones,[20] and the geneticists Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza,[240] Mohammad Taghi Akbari, Sunder S. Papiha, Derek Frank Roberts, and Dariush Farhud.[241] Numerous scholars who themselves are of Assyrian origin, such as Efrem Yildiz,[242] Sargon Donabed,[243] Odisho Malko Gewargis,[244] Edward Y. Odisho,[245] Konstantine Matveef,[246] Shamiran Mako,[247] Fuat Deniz,[248] Helen Malko,[198] and William Piroyan,[199] Amir Harrak,[249] Hirmis Aboona,[250] Nicholas Al-Jeloo,[251] Zack Cherry,[252] Alda Benjamen,[253] and Joseph Yacoub[254] have also published academic works and lectures in support of Assyrian continuity.[242][243][244]\n\nWholesale opposition of Assyrian continuity is not reflected within Assyriology, Karen Radner considers Assyrian continuity to still be a matter of debate, but also opposes the idea that Assyrian identity only emerged in the 19th century, noting that modern Christians in northern Mesopotamia saw themselves as descendants of the ancient Assyrians long before the discovery of ancient sites and visits by foreign missionaries,[63] as can for instance be gathered from the accounts of Horatio Postgate.[185] Due to the efforts of many scholars in diverse fields of study, such a denial of Assyrian continuity has become increasingly difficult to sustain in academia.[255] Some opponents to Assyrian continuity, such as Becker, have argued that the rich Christian literature from the Sasanian period connecting with ancient Assyria was simply based on the Bible, rather than actual remembrance of ancient Assyria,[104] despite several figures appearing in the tales, such as Esarhaddon and Sargon II, barely being mentioned in the Bible.[a] The texts are also very much a local Assyrian phenomenon, given that the historical accounts presented in them are at odds with those of other historical writings from the Sasanian Empire.[257] The use of Assyria and Assyrians in Syriac texts is not fundamentally the product of an invention based on foreign or biblical sources, but rather a reinterpretation of the Syriac Christian past founded on local histories and memories that encountered Roman and Christian texts, and were fused with them.[95]\n\nNames clearly reminiscent of those used by Assyrians in the Neo-Assyrian Empire continued to be used at Assur throughout the post-imperial period, at least until the 3rd century AD.[59] Some opponents to Assyrian continuity, such as David Wilmshurst, hold that ancient Assyrian names ceased being used in the Christian period and that this in turn was evidence of a lack of continuity.[258] There is some evidence of continued use of names with explicit ancient Mesopotamian connections in the Christian period; Arabic-language records from 13th-century Rumkale for instance record a man by the name Nebuchadnezzar (rendered Bukthanaṣar in the Arabic text), a relative of a Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church named Philoxenus Nemrud (also a name with ancient Assyrian connections, deriving either from Nimrud or Nimrod); both of these names are also however mentioned in the Bible.[259] Modern Assyrian authors, such as Odisho Malko Gewargis, contend that a decrease in ancient pagan names invoking gods such as Ashur, Nabu and Sîn is hardly surprising given the Christianization of the Assyrians; similar cases of native names being increasingly replaced by Biblically derived names are also known from numerous other Christianized peoples.[244]\n\nDenial\n\nSome academics, most notably the historians J.F. Coakley,[194] John Joseph, David Wilmshurst and Adam H. Becker, have opposed continuity between modern and ancient Assyrians, typically arguing that modern Assyrian identity only emerged in the middle to late 19th century as a consequence of interactions with foreign missionaries and/or the discovery of ancient Assyrian ruins.[260][261] Wilmshurst labeled Assyrian descent \"a travesty of the truth\" and claimed that \"the native Christian population of Iraq and Iran is thoroughly mongrel, and has been for centuries.\"[262][263]\n\nModern Assyrians consider opposition to Assyrian continuity to be offensive, and associate it with other historical forms of oppression against them. Sargon Donabed, for instance, considers the use of terms such as \"Chaldeans\", \"Syrian\", \"Syriacs\", \"Arameans\", or more extremely \"Arab Christians\", \"Kurdish Christians\" and \"Turkish Christians\", to be harmful as they add to division and confusion in regard to identity and are \"clearly reflective of modern political parlance\".[264] In a 2022 article, Donabed also wrote that denial of Assyrian continuity constitutes a normalization and propagation of epistemic violence against Assyrians in academia, manifested in ways such as scare quotes in Syriac studies[265] and reducing Assyrians to being defined as solely \"Nestorians\" from Hakkari.[266] Director of the Leiden Project, Prof. Bas ter Haar Romeny, also reminds that denying modern Syriac Christians the right to identify with the ancient Assyrians would be using a double standard.[264][142]\n\nAryo Makko has stated that Western scholarship has treated Assyrian identity in a pejorative, even hostile, fashion, refusing to refer to it without citations or viewing the existence of an Assyrian identity as regrettable.[262] He states that the understanding of Assyrian identity originates in Orientalism and studying Assyrians as only Eastern Christians, based on the study of Syriac language religious sources, and ignores both contemporary processes and Armenian, Persian, and Ottoman sources.[262] He further states that these disciplines were unchallenged on their position until recently,[262] and that Assyrian identity suffered from the challenge of its historicity by Syriac studies scholars and related academics, who \"viewed it as funny, illegitimate and even dangerous.\"[267]\n\nAnti-Assyrian tendencies to deny Assyrian identity have been documented especially since after the Simele massacre in 1933.[268] Views against Assyrian continuity are heavily attributable to the actions of the government in Ba'athist Iraq (1968-2003), which sought to counteract Assyrian demands for autonomy through refusing to recognize Assyrians as a third ethnic minority of the country, instead promoting Assyrians, \"Syrians\" and Chaldeans as separate peoples, and undercounted Assyrians in censuses; in 1977, it was made impossible to register as Assyrian in the national census and Assyrians were consequently forced to register as Arabs for fear of losing employment and ration cards.[269] In Sweden, the advent of the Assyrian naming dispute saw arguments from those emphasizing \"Syrian\" or \"Syriac\" identity involving a denial of Assyrian continuity, insisting that ancient Assyrians had long died out and that the term was invented by the British to support imperialism in Iraq.[270]\n\nMembers of the Assyrian community, such as David Barsum Perley, have previously challenged denial of Assyrian continuity. In particular, Perley challenged Arnold J. Toynbee and Adolf Leo Oppenheim.[271]\n\nArbella Bet-Shlimon, in contrast to other scholars, argues that the debate over whether or not Assyrians are direct descendants of ancient Assyrians is a form of discredited race science. She holds that the denial of Assyrian identity outside of direct descent from ancient Assyrians has contributed to anti-Assyrian sentiment in academia.[272]\n\nGenetics\n\nGenetic testing of Assyrian populations is a relatively new field of study, but has hitherto supported continuity from Bronze and Iron Age populations and underlined the notion that Assyrians historically rarely intermarried with surrounding populations.[273] Genetic studies conducted in 2000 and 2008 support Assyrians as genetically distinct from other groups in the Middle East such as Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Iranians, Armenians, Shabaks, Turcomans and Levantine peoples, with high endogamy; indicating that the community has historically been relatively closed owing to their religious and cultural traditions, with little intermixture with other groups.[274] A study from 2017 investigating the genetics of various northern Iraqi population groups found that Assyrians and Yezidis clustered together, but away from other population groups in northern Iraq analyzed by the study, with the Iraqi Assyrians seen to be a genetically homogenous and enclosed group of people. According to the study, \"contemporary Syriacs and Yazidis from northern Iraq may in fact have a stronger continuity with the original genetic stock of the Mesopotamian people, which possibly provided the basis for the ethnogenesis of various subsequent Near Eastern populations.\"[275]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyria\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nOld Assyrian Empire\n\nMiddle Assyrian Empire\n\nAchaemenid Assyria\n\nAsoristan\n\nHistory of the Assyrians\n\nAssyrian culture\n\nAssyrian cuisine\n\nAssyrian Music\n\nAssyrian nationalism\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nName of Syria\n\nList of ethnic Assyrians\n\nNationalist historiography\n\nNotes\n\n^ Sargon II was for instance due to being mentioned only once in the Bible long forgotten in western scholarship and was only accepted as a real Assyrian king within Assyriology in the 1860s.[256]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Butts 2017, p. 605.\n\n^ a b Hauser 2017, p. 240.\n\n^ a b c Frahm, Eckart (2023). \"Assyria's Legacy on the Ground\". Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Basic Books. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-5416-7440-0\n\n^ a b c Boldt, Andreas D. (2017). Historical Mechanisms: An Experimental Approach to Applying Scientific Theories to the Study of History. Routledge. p. 154. ISBN 978-1-351-81648-9\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Novák 2016, p. 132.\n\n^ a b c d Frahm 2017, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c d Radner 2021, p. 149.\n\n^ a b c Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 319.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 15.\n\n^ Edmonds, Alexander Johannes (2025). Triumph and Betrayal: Assyria's Path to Empire, 935-745 BC. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 82-83. ISBN 978-3-11-159382-1.\n\n^ a b c Butts 2017, p. 600.\n\n^ a b Makko 2012, p. 298.\n\n^ a b c Benjamen 2022, p. 2.\n\n^ a b Parpola 2004, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ a b Shehadeh 2011, p. 17.\n\n^ Ramsin Edward. \"What Does This Newly Digitised Manuscript Reveal About the Assyrian Identity?\". Assyrian Cultural Institute.\n\n^ a b c d Butts 2017, p. 603.\n\n^ a b Petrosian 2006, pp. 143-144.\n\n^ a b Travis, Hannibal (2017). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-351-98025-8.\n\n^ a b Jones, Adam (2023). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (4th ed.). Routledge. p. 209. ISBN 978-1-032-02810-1.\n\n^ See the scholars listed in the Academia and politics section.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako (2009) p. 83.\n\n^ Brock & Taylor (2001) vol. III, p. 124.\n\n^ Becker (2015) p. 299.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako (2009) p. 84.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 192.\n\n^ a b Trolle Larsen 2017, pp. 583-584.\n\n^ Frahm 2017c, p. 560.\n\n^ Kuhrt 1995, p. 239.\n\n^ a b c Reade 2018, p. 286.\n\n^ Dalley 1993, p. 134.\n\n^ Frahm 2017c, pp. 560-561.\n\n^ Dalley 1993, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ a b Smith 1926, p. 69.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 20.\n\n^ a b c d Hauser 2017, p. 229.\n\n^ Ponchia & Lanfranchi 2024, p. 525-526.\n\n^ Frahm 2017, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Ponchia & Lanfranchi 2024, p. 526.\n\n^ a b c Kuhrt 1995, p. 240.\n\n^ a b Hauser 2017, p. 230.\n\n^ a b Frahm, Eckart (2023). \"Assyria's Legacy on the Ground\". Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Basic Books. p. 357. ISBN 978-1-5416-7440-0\n\n^ Koliński, Rafał (2018). \"The Post-Assyrian Period in the Eastern Assyria\". Alter Orient und Altes Testament. 463 (1): 110.\n\n^ Sanders, Seth L. (2017). From Adapa to Enoch. Mohr Siebeck. p. 155. ISBN 978-3-16-154456-9.\n\n^ Simonson, Brandon (2024). \"Theophoric Aramaic Personal Names as Onomastic Sequences in Diasporic and Cosmopolitan Communities\". In Palamidis, Alaya; Bonnet, Corinne (eds.). What's in a Divine Name?: Religious Systems and Human Agency in the Ancient Mediterranean. de Gruyter. pp. 517-518. ISBN 978-3-11-132627-6.\n\n^ Sanders 2017, p. 186.\n\n^ Sanders 2017, p. 195.\n\n^ Ponchia, Simonetta; Lanfranchi, Giovanni (2024). The Neo-Assyrian Empire: A Handbook. de Gruyter. p. 525. ISBN 978-3-11-069076-7.\n\n^ Doody, Margaret Anne (1996). The True Story of the Novel. Rutgers University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-8135-2453-5.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 194.\n\n^ Parpola 1999.\n\n^ Al-Jeloo 2012, p. 475-476.\n\n^ Ponchia & Lanfranchi 2024, p. 525.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 6.\n\n^ Curtis, John (2005). \"The Achaemenid period in Northern Iraq\". In Briant, Pierre; Boucharlat, Rémy (eds.). L'archéologie de l'empire achéménide. Editions De Boccard. pp. 2-3. ISBN 978-2-7018-0195-7.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 238.\n\n^ a b Reade 1998, p. 71.\n\n^ Haider 2008, p. 193.\n\n^ a b Livingstone 2009, p. 154.\n\n^ Haider 2008, p. 197.\n\n^ Radner 2015, p. 19.\n\n^ Harper et al. 1995, p. 18.\n\n^ a b Radner 2015, p. 7.\n\n^ May, Natalie N. (2022). \"The Destruction of the Assyrian Capitals\". In Berlejung, Angelika; Maeir, Aren M.; Oshima, Takayoshi M. (eds.). Writing and Re-Writing History by Destruction. Mohr Siebeck. p. 248. ISBN 978-3-16-161249-7.\n\n^ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2017). \"Assyria in Late Babylonian Sources\". In Frahm, Eckart (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 551-553. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 39.\n\n^ Michel 2017, p. 81.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 145.\n\n^ Bahrani 2006, pp. 56-57.\n\n^ Dinno, Khalid (2017). \"The Synods and Canons in the Syrian (Syriac) Orthodox Church in the Second Millennium: An Overview\". The Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 17 (1): 23.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 81.\n\n^ Butts 2017, p. 600-601.\n\n^ a b Butts 2017, p. 601.\n\n^ Tannous, Jack (2025). \"What is Syriac? Explorations in the History of a Name\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 28 (1): 94.\n\n^ Rollinger 2006, pp. 285-287.\n\n^ Tamari 2019, p. 113.\n\n^ Rollinger 2006, p. 284.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. (2013). Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-511-99780-8.\n\n^ Frye, Richard N. (1992). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (4): 283. doi:10.1086/373570.\n\n^ a b c Andrade, Nathanael J. \"Assyrians, Syrians and the Greek Language in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 73 (2): 305.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. \"Assyrians, Syrians and the Greek Language in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 73 (2): 316.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. (2018). \"Syriac and Syrians in the later Roman Empire\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ Payne, Richard E. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. University of California Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-520-29245-1\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 116. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFTannous2025 (help)\n\n^ Parpola 2004, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ Yildiz, Efrem (2012). \"The Assyrian Linguistic Heritage\". In Donabed, Sargon (ed.). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 205. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. (2013). Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 298-299. ISBN 978-0-511-99780-8.\n\n^ Parpola, Simo. \"The Melammu Project\". www.melammu-project.eu.\n\n^ Frahm 2023, p. 399-400.\n\n^ Clément de Blois, François (2002). \"Naṣrānī (Ναζωραȋος) and ḥanīf (ἐθνικός): Studies on the Religious Vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam\". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 65 (1): 21.\n\n^ a b c Butts 2017, pp. 600-601.\n\n^ Yacoub, Joseph (2017). \"L'Assyro-Babylonie D'Hier dans L'Imaginaire des Chrétiens Assyro-Chaldéens D'Aujourd'hui\". Ninway Magazine (in French). No. 10. p. 32.\n\n^ Frye, Richard N. (2002). \"Mapping Assyria\". Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena (PDF). Ed. Mimesis. p. 77. ISBN 978-88-8483-107-1.\n\n^ Harrak, Amir (2019). The Chronicle of Michael the Great (The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex): Books XV-XXI. Gorgias Press. p. xxii. ISBN 978-1-4632-4031-8.\n\n^ a b Payne, Richard E. (2021). \"Ein iranisches Assyrien. Die Macht der Vergangenheit in der Spätantike\". Historische Zeitschrift (in German). 312 (1): 28. doi:10.1515/hzhz-2021-0001. ISSN 2196-680X.\n\n^ Hauser 2017, p. 241.\n\n^ a b c Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 5.\n\n^ Payne 2012, pp. 205, 217.\n\n^ a b Payne 2012, p. 214.\n\n^ Payne 2012, p. 209.\n\n^ Mellon Saint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole (2018). The History of Mar Behnam and Sarah: Martyrdom and Monasticism in Medieval Iraq. Gorgias Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-4632-3914-5.\n\n^ Holm, Tawny L. (2014). \"Memories of Sennacherib in Aramaic Tradition\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Brill Publishers. p. 314. ISBN 978-90-04-26562-2.\n\n^ Payne 2012, p. 205.\n\n^ a b c Payne 2012, p. 208.\n\n^ Minov 2020, pp. 187, 191.\n\n^ Minov 2020, p. 203.\n\n^ Payne 2012, p. 217.\n\n^ Crone & Cook 1977, pp. 57-58.\n\n^ Becker 2008, pp. 10-11.\n\n^ a b Salvesen, Alison (1998). \"The Legacy of Babylon and Nineveh in Aramaic Sources\". In Dalley, Stephanie (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-19-929158-8.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante (2015). Die Assyrer: Von Ninive bis Gütersloh (in German). LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 146-148. ISBN 978-3-643-13256-7.\n\n^ Payne, Richard E. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. University of California Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-520-29245-1.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2013). The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in Late Antique Iraq. Oxford University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-19-967067-3.\n\n^ Payne 2021, p. 27-28.\n\n^ Jean 2012, p. 167: \"The Christians of Mesopotamia, newly converted during the third and fourth centuries are, roughly speaking, the same population as the pagans of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. They are the heirs of an ancient way of thinking and of local social and cultural systems. They developed a specific approach to their new faith, which could not be completely conflicting with their background.\"\n\n^ Jean, Cynthia (2011). \"L'évangélisation de l'Assyrie par Addaï et Mār Māri. Les figures fondatrices du christianisme oriental des origines\" (in French): p. 2.\n\n^ Frahm, Eckart (2023). \"Assyria's Legacy on the Ground\". Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Basic Books. p. 363. ISBN 978-1-5416-7440-0.\n\n^ Debié, Muriel; Taylor, David (2012). \"Syriac and Syro-Arabic Historical Writing\". In Foot, Sarah; Robinson, Chase F. (eds.). The Oxford History of Historical Writing. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-19-186334-9.\n\n^ Arabou, Jessi (2023). \"Assyrian Christians, Dr. Aaron M. Butts: A Rebuttal\". Assyrian Cultural & Social Youth Association Inc: 5.\n\n^ Marciak, Michał (2017). Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia Between East and West. Brill Publishers. p. 416. ISBN 978-90-04-35072-4.\n\n^ Marciak, Michał (2017). Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia Between East and West. Brill Publishers. p. 413. ISBN 978-90-04-35072-4.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. (2014). \"Assyrians, Syrians and the Greek Language in the late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Periods\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 73 (2): 299-317. doi:10.1086/677249. JSTOR 10.1086/677249.\n\n^ Payne, Richard E. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. University of California Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-520-29245-1.\n\n^ Smith, Kyle (13 February 2016). \"When Christians Became Iranian\". Marginalia.\n\n^ Edward, Ramsin (2024). \"Christianising Assyria (II)\". Banipal: Issued by General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts. 52 (1): 231.\n\n^ Al-Jeloo, Nicholas (2012). \"Kaldayutha: The Spar-Sammane and Late Antique Syriac Astrology\". ARAM Periodical. 24 (1): 478-479.\n\n^ Marciak, Michał (2017). Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia Between East and West. Brill Publishers. p. 290. ISBN 978-90-04-35070-0.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, p. 451.\n\n^ Payne 2021, p. 28-29.\n\n^ Corticelli, Maria Rita (2022). Religious Minorities in Iraq: Co-Existence, Faith and Recovery after ISIS. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 59-62. ISBN 978-0-7556-4134-5.\n\n^ Jean, Cynthia (2012). \"Exorcism and the founding figures of Early Eastern Christianity\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala Universitet. pp. 164-165. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Ponchia & Lanfranchi 2024, p. 528.\n\n^ Minov 2020, p. 192.\n\n^ Minov 2020, pp. 193-194.\n\n^ a b Bonura 2025, p. 111.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2011). 'We Have No King But Christ': Christian Political Thought in Greater Syria on the Eve of the Arab Conquest. Oxford University Press. pp. 125-126. ISBN 978-0-19-958849-7.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2011). 'We Have No King But Christ': Christian Political Thought in Greater Syria on the Eve of the Arab Conquest. Oxford University Press. pp. 119-120. ISBN 978-0-19-958849-7.\n\n^ a b Minov 2020, p. 194.\n\n^ Bonura, Christopher J. (2025). A Prophecy of Empire: The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius from Late Antique Mesopotamia to the Global Medieval Imagination. University of California Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-520-41826-4.\n\n^ Segal 1970, p. 1.\n\n^ Kubat, Rodoljub (2014). \"Memra of Ephrem the Syrian of Jonah and the Repentance of the Ninevites\". Θεολογια. 85 (4): 198.\n\n^ a b Haar Romeny, Bas ter; Atto, Naures; van Ginkel, Jan J.; Immerzeel, Mat; Snelders, Bas (2009). \"The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and Conclusions of the Leiden Project\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 45.\n\n^ Hilkens, Andy (2018). The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 and Its Sources. Peeters. pp. 206-207. ISBN 978-90-429-3402-3.\n\n^ Hilkens, Andy (2018). The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 and Its Sources. Peeters. p. 227. ISBN 978-90-429-3402-3.\n\n^ Debié, Muriel (2024). Alexandre le Grand en Syriaque: Le maître des lieux, des savoirs et des temps (in French). Belles Lettres. pp. 522-523. ISBN 978-2-251-45490-0. Alors qu'il était associé dans la Bible (Gn 8, 10-12) à la tour de Babel et à la révolte contre Dieu, les lettrés syriaques le dotèrent d'une image positive. Sans plus mentionner le lien avec Babel, ils firent de lui le premier souverain de Babylone et plus largement le premier souverain terrestre, un souverain qui avait reçu la royauté de Dieu qui avait fait de lui un vaillant guerrier. Comme vu plus haut, selon Aphraate, la première bête que vit Daniel était les descendants de Nemrod, les fils de Cham, c'est-à-dire les Babyloniens. Les noms des cités qu'il aurait fondées selon la Genèse ont été mis à jour et adaptés au contexte de l'Antiquité tardive et remplacés par des noms locaux et familiers de cités de Mésopotamie du Nord et du Sud. Il était devenu dans la tradition syriaque un héros fondateur, acculturé du texte biblique pour constituer une mémoire du passé local mésopotamien.\n\n^ Tomass, Mark (2012). \"Multiple Resource-Sharing Groups as Basis for Identity Conflict\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity And Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 243. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Haar Romeny, Bas ter; Atto, Naures; van Ginkel, Jan J.; Immerzeel, Mat; Snelders, Bas (2009). \"The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and Conclusions of the Leiden Project\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 42-43.\n\n^ Pohl, Walter (2021). \"Mapping Historiography: An Essay in Comparison\". In Pohl, Walter; Mahoney, Daniel (eds.). Historiography and Identity IV: Writing History Across Medieval Eurasia. Brepols Publishers. p. 328. ISBN 978-2-503-58658-8.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2021). \"Conceptions of Suryaya Identity in the Sixth to Ninth Centuries\". The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750-850. Princeton University Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-691-21279-1.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 104. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFTannous2025 (help)\n\n^ Debié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 104. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014.\n\n^ a b Fathi, Jean (2016). \"Yūḥannā ibn al-Ġurayr, passeur de la tradition syriaque et arabe chrétienne au XVIIe siècle\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies (in French). 68 (1): 158.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2021). \"Conceptions of Suryaya Identity in the Sixth to Ninth Centuries\". The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750-850. Princeton University Press. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-691-21279-1.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2021). \"Conceptions of Suryaya Identity in the Sixth to Ninth Centuries\". The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750-850. Princeton University Press. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-691-21279-1.\n\n^ Debié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 97.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2021). \"Conceptions of Suryaya Identity in the Sixth to Ninth Centuries\". The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, c. 750-850. Princeton University Press. pp. 225-226. ISBN 978-0-691-21279-1\n\n^ Haar Romeny 2009, p. 330.\n\n^ Debié 2009, p. 104.\n\n^ Weltecke, Dorothea (2009). \"Michael the Syrian and Syriac Orthodox Identity\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 120. doi:10.1163/187124109X408023.\n\n^ Haar Romeny, Bas ter (2009). Religious Origins of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East. Brill Publishers. p. 329. ISBN 978-90-04-17375-0.\n\n^ a b c Kellogg, Sarah Bakker (2019). \"Perforating Kinship: Syriac Christianity, Ethnicity, and Secular Legibility\". Current Anthropology. 60 (4): 479.\n\n^ Andrade, Nathanael J. (2018). \"Syriac and Syrians in the Later Roman Empire\". The Syriac World. Routledge. p. 167. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 90.\n\n^ Tannous, Jack (2025). \"What is Syriac? Explorations in the History of a Name\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 28 (1): 117.\n\n^ Weltecke, Dorothea (2021). The \"Description of the Times\" by Mōr Michael the Great. Peeters. p. 209. ISBN 978-90-429-3658-4.\n\n^ a b Jullien, Florence (2005). \"Conférences de Mme Florence Jullien\". Annuaires de l'École pratique des hautes études (in French). 114: 282.\n\n^ Hilkens, Andy (2020). \"Language, Literacy and Historical Apologetics: Hippolytus of Rome's lists of literate peoples in the Syriac tradition\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 72 (1): 29-31.\n\n^ Hilkens 2020, p. 23: \"Hippolytus may have placed the Assyrians last in his list of Shemites, but in the\nSyriac tradition their equivalent - the Syrians - are moved forward to first\nor second place, after the Hebrews or in one case (Michael) after the\nChaldeans.\"\n\n^ Hilkens, Andy (2018). The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 and Its Sources. Peeters. p. 111. ISBN 978-90-429-3402-3.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 105. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFTannous2025 (help)\n\n^ Weltecke, Dorothea (2016). \"Bar ʻEbroyo: Remarks on his Historical Writing\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 19 (1): 311.\n\n^ Weltecke, Dorothea (2016). \"Bar ʻEbroyo: Remarks on his Historical Writing\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 19 (1): 323-324.\n\n^ Fathi, Jean (2016). \"Yūḥannā ibn al-Ġurayr, passeur de la tradition syriaque et arabe chrétienne au XVIIe siècle\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies (in French). 68 (1): 151.\n\n^ Becker 2008, p. 8.\n\n^ Edward, Ramsin (2024). \"Christianising Assyria (II)\". Banipal: Issued by General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts. 52 (1): 231-232\n\n^ Yana, George V. (2008). Ancient and Modern Assyrians: A Scientific Analysis. Xlibris Corporation. pp. 75-76. ISBN 978-1-4653-1629-5.\n\n^ Debié, Muriel (2024). Alexandre le Grand en syriaque: Le maître des lieux, des savoirs et des temps (in French). Belles Lettres. pp. 309-310. ISBN 978-2-251-45490-0.\n\n^ Wood, Philip (2021). \"Conceptions of Suryaya Identity in the Sixth to Ninth Centuries\". The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre. Princeton University Press. pp. 229-230. ISBN 978-0-691-21279-1.\n\n^ Tannous 2025, p. 113-114. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFTannous2025 (help)\n\n^ Edward, Ramsin (2024). \"Christianising Assyria (II)\". Banipal: Issued by General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts. 52 (1): 229.\n\n^ Haar Romeny, Bas ter; Atto, Naures; van Ginkel, Jan J.; Immerzeel, Mat; Snelders, Bas (2009). \"The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and Conclusions of the Leiden Project\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 28.\n\n^ a b Haar Romeny, Bas ter; Atto, Naures; van Ginkel, Jan J.; Immerzeel, Mat; Snelders, Bas (2009). \"The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and Conclusions of the Leiden Project\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 26-27.\n\n^ Haar Romeny, Bas ter; Atto, Naures; van Ginkel, Jan J.; Immerzeel, Mat; Snelders, Bas (2009). \"The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians: Results and Conclusions of the Leiden Project\" (PDF). Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 27-28.\n\n^ a b van Ginkel, Jan J. (2008). \"Aramaic Brothers or Heretics: The image of the East Syrians in the Chronography of Michael the Great (d. 1199)\". The Harp. 23: 366.\n\n^ a b c d e f Butts 2017, p. 602.\n\n^ Becker 2015, p. 328.\n\n^ Murre-van den Berg, H.L. (1998). \"A Syrian Awakening. Alqosh and Urmia as Centres of Neo-Syriac Writing\" (PDF). Symposium Syriacum. VII: 502-503.\n\n^ Makko 2012, pp. 297-298.\n\n^ Cameron 2009, p. 7.\n\n^ Efstathiadou 2011, p. 191.\n\n^ Morrison 2018, p. 39.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 11.\n\n^ Butts 2017, p. 604.\n\n^ a b c d e Butts 2017, p. 599.\n\n^ Salem 2020.\n\n^ Trolle Larsen 2017, p. 584.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 21.\n\n^ a b c Malko, Helen (2019). \"Heritage Wars: A Cultural Genocide in Iraq\". In Bachman, Jeffrey (ed.). Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations. Routledge. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-351-21408-7.\n\n^ a b c Piroyan, William; Naby, Eden (1999). \"FESTIVALS ix. Assyrian\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. IX/6: Festivals VIII-Fish (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation. pp. 561-563.\n\n^ Corticelli 2022, p. 56.\n\n^ a b c Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 318.\n\n^ Radner 2021, p. 147.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 180.\n\n^ Frahm 2017b, p. 190.\n\n^ Luukko & Van Buylaere 2017, p. 314.\n\n^ Abraham & Sokoloff 2011, pp. 22, 59.\n\n^ Kaufman 1974, p. 164.\n\n^ Abraham & Sokoloff 2011, p. 59.\n\n^ Frahm 2023, p. 361.\n\n^ Gai, Amikam (2016). \"Modern Syriac and Akkadian - Each Language in the Looking-Glass of the Other\". Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes. 106 (1): 51-59. JSTOR 26449340.\n\n^ Parpola 2004, p. 5-22.\n\n^ Biggs 2005, p. 10: \"Especially in view of the very early establishment of Christianity in Assyria and its continuity to the present and the continuity of the population, I think there is every likelihood that ancient Assyrians are among the ancestors of modern Assyrians of the area\".\n\n^ Saggs 1984, p. 290: \"The destruction of the Assyrian Empire did not wipe out its population. They were predominantly peasant farmers, and since Assyria contains some of the best wheat land in the Near East, descendants of the Assyrian peasants would, as opportunity permitted, build new villages over the old cities and carried on with agricultural life, remembering traditions of the former cities. After seven or eight centuries and after various vicissitudes, these people became Christians. These Christians, and the Jewish communities scattered amongst them, not only kept alive the memory of their Assyrian predecessors but also combined them with traditions from the Bible\".\n\n^ Roux 1992, pp. 276-277, 419-420.\n\n^ Assyrian Academic Society: Summary of the Lecture \"There is no reason to believe that there would be no racial or cultural continuity in Assyria since there is no evidence that the population of Assyria was removed\".\n\n^ a b Novák, Mirko; Younansardaroud, Helen (2002). \"Mār Behnām, Sohn des Sanherib von Nimrūd\". Altorientalische Forschungen (in German). 29 (1): 166-167. doi:10.1524/aofo.2002.29.1.166.\n\n^ Barryakoub, Afram (2007). \"Nytt fynd stärker samband mellan suroye-asuroye\". Huyada (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. I completely agree that these names mean Assyrians. From an etymological point of view, that is where the word comes from, I am very sure. It is a distortion of the word Assyrian.\n\n^ Rollinger, Robert (2012). \"The Terms \"Assyria\" and \"Syria\" Again\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity And Influence. Uppsala Universitet. pp. 47-52. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Frye 1999, pp. 69-70.\n\n^ Hitti 1951, p. 519.\n\n^ a b Crone & Cook 1977, p. 55.\n\n^ Nisan 2002, p. 181.\n\n^ Makko 2012, p. 297-317.\n\n^ Cetrez, Onver. A (2012). \"Assyrian Identification as a Body of Power Politics: A Practice-Oriented Analysis\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity And Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 221. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Donef, Racho (2012). Assyrians Post-Nineveh: Identity, Fragmentation, Conflict and Survival. Tatavla Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9874239-0-0.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2012). \"The Language of the Modern Assyrians: The North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialect group\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 178. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Jean 2012, p. 167: \"The Christians of Mesopotamia, newly converted during the third and fourth centuries are, roughly speaking, the same population as the pagans of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. They are the heirs of an ancient way of thinking and of local social and cultural systems. They developed a specific approach to their new faith, which could not be completely conflicting with their background.\"\n\n^ Annus, Amar (2002). \"Continuity of Mesopotamian Traditions in Late Antiquity\". The God Ninurta: In the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia. Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. pp. 187-202. ISBN 978-951-45-9057-3.\n\n^ Boháč, Artur (2010). \"Assyrian Ethnic Identity in a Globalizing World\". Beyond Globalisation: Exploring the Limits of Globalisation in the Regional Context. University of Ostrava. p. 69. ISBN 978-80-7368-717-5.\n\n^ Barryakoub, Afram (2010). \"Nytt ljus över assyrisk kontinuitet\". Huyada (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 21 May 2024. When one of the audience members asked MacGinnis what he thought about the persistent myth of the extinction of Assyrian identity after the fall of Nineveh, his response began with: 'This is of course ridiculous…'\n\n^ MacGinnis, John (2012). \"Population and Identity in the Assyrian empire: A Case Study\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity And Influence. Uppsala Universitet. pp. 148-149. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ May 2022, p. 248: \"Assyrians survived until nowadays. Apparently, they kept memories of their history, but could not anymore impact historical narrations of others.\"\n\n^ Micale, M. G. (2010). \"Designing Architecture, Building Identities. The Discovery and Use of Mesopotamian Features in Modern Architecture between Orientalism and the Definition of Contemporary Identities\". In P. Matthiae et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE I. Wiesbaden. pp. 99-100\n\n^ Lundgren 2015, p. 140: \"The explanation is that the Europeans came to this conclusion because the Assyrians they encountered in Mesopotamia considered themselves as such. Thus, it was by no means the case that the Europeans persuaded these people to see themselves as Assyrians, but rather the other way around, that the Europeans adopted this view from Oriental Christians. The Christians in Mesopotamia were not only referred to as Assyrians by Europeans. The term \"Assyrian\" is also used for them in Armenian, Georgian, Russian, Arabic, Persian, and Kurdish texts from the Middle Ages and the early modern period.\"\n\n^ Mark 2018, \"there are still Assyrians living in the regions of Iran and northern Iraq, and elsewhere, in the present day\".\n\n^ Segal 1970, pp. 47, 51, 68-70.\n\n^ Jupp 2001, p. 174: \"The Assyrians are the descendants of the once mighty Assyrian nation which inhabited the northern part of the country known as Iraq\", \"The Assyrians, who were Christians, managed to survive in the lands of their forefathers until the outbreak of the First World War\".\n\n^ Travis 2010, pp. 148-151.\n\n^ Travis 2010, p. 148: \"Although some authors doubt that Assyrian people could have survived from 600 BCE to the nineteenth century, many of the factors that justify recognizing Armenians, Jews, or other groups as continuously existing since ancient times also apply to the Assyrians, namely common patterns of worship, consistent self-identification, and genetic continuity\".\n\n^ Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994, p. 218: \"They are Christian and are possibly bona fide descendants of their ancient namesakes\".\n\n^ Akbari et al. 1986, p. 85: \"The Assyrians are a group of Christians, also known as Nestorians, with a long history in the Middle East. From historical and archaeological evidence, it is thought that their ancestors formed part of the Mesopotamian civilization\".\n\n^ a b Yildiz 1999, p. 16-19.\n\n^ a b Donabed 2019, p. 118.\n\n^ a b c Gewargis 2002, p. 89.\n\n^ Odisho, Edward Y. (1988). The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 3-18. ISBN 978-3-447-02744-1.\n\n^ Odisho, Edward Y. (2009). Linguistic and Cultural Studies in Aramaic and Arabic. Gorgias Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-60724-586-5.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (2012). \"Between Denial and Existence: Situating Assyrians within the Discourse on Cultural Genocide\". Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity And Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 284. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Deniz, Fuat (1999). Upprätthållande och transformation av etnisk identitet i förhållande till moderniseringsprocesser: det assyriska exemplet [Maintenance and Transformation of Ethnic Identity: the Assyrian case]. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 91-628-3759-1.\n\n^ Harrak, Amir (10 July 2019). \"Assyrians Of The 12th Century AD by Professor Amir Harrak\". Assyria TV.\n\n^ Aboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. pp. 30, 107. ISBN 978-1-60497-583-3.\n\n^ Al-Jeloo, Nicholas (26 September 2016). Assyrian Continuity Post-Empire: The Relevance of Preserving Assyrian History and Heritage - via YouTube.\n\n^ Barryakoub, Afram (2007). \"Nytt fynd stärker samband mellan suroye-asuroye\". Huyada (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. What I want to emphasize strongly here is that our Assyrian ancestors definitely did not receive the concept of Suraye or Suroye from a foreign people or language, to name for example the Luwian language, and suddenly began to call themselves Suraye or Suroye instead of Ashuraye (Assyrians). The origin of this pronunciation change, that Ashuraye became Suraye and Suroye, is proven in the Aramaic language that Assyrian kings, voluntarily and for strategic purposes, received and elevated to an official language in the Assyrian empire since the 9th century BC, side by side with their own and much older language which they themselves called Ashuritu or Akadattu, that is, the Assyrian or Akkadian language.\n\n^ Benjamen 2022, pp. 10-11.\n\n^ Yacoub 2017, p. 30-35: \"Needless to say, the impact of the discoveries was considerable on the Assyrians, even if they had never lost their reference to Assyria and Babylonia. The promptness with which they reacted revealed the extent to which they recognized themselves in this civilization.\"\n\n^ Travis, Hannibal (2012). \"On the Existence of National Identity Before 'Imagined Communities': The Example of the Assyrians of Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Persia\". In Donabed, Sargon; Makko, Aryo; Cetrez, Onver A. (eds.). Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity And Influence. Uppsala Universitet. p. 118. ISBN 978-91-554-8303-6.\n\n^ Holloway 2003, p. 71.\n\n^ Payne 2012, p. 215.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2011, p. 415.\n\n^ Jackson 2020, Chapter 1.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2011, pp. 413-416.\n\n^ Becker 2008, p. 396.\n\n^ a b c d Makko 2012, p. 302.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2011, p. 414.\n\n^ a b Donabed 2012, p. 412.\n\n^ Donabed 2022, p. 548.\n\n^ Donabed 2022, p. 550-551.\n\n^ Makko 2012, p. 309.\n\n^ Donabed 2012, p. 21, footnote 21.\n\n^ Naby 2006, pp. 527-528.\n\n^ Gaunt 2010, p. 8.\n\n^ Michael 1979, pp. 15-16, 18.\n\n^ Bet-Shlimon 2026, p. 16.\n\n^ Travis 2010, p. 149.\n\n^ Banoei et al. 2008, p. 79.\n\n^ Dogan, Serkan; Gurkan, Cemal; Dogan, Mustafa; Balkaya, Hasan Emin; Tunc, Ramazan; Demirdov, Damla Kanliada; Ameen, Nihad Ahmed; Marjanovic, Damir (2017). \"A glimpse at the intricate mosaic of ethnicities from Mesopotamia: Paternal lineages of the Northern Iraqi Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, Turkmens and Yazidis\". PLOS ONE. 12 (11) e0187408. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1287408D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0187408. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 5669434. PMID 29099847.\n\nBibliography\n\nBooks\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2015). Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-14528-0.\n\nBenjamen, Alda (2022). Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-83879-5.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Taylor, David G.K., eds. (2001). The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Volume I: The Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Volume II: The Heirs of the Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Volume III: At the Turn of the Third Millennium: the Syrian Orthodox Witness. Rome: Trans World Film Italia.\n\nCameron, Averil (2009). The Byzantines. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-9833-2.\n\nCavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca; Menozzi, Paolo & Piazza, Alberto (1994). The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08750-4.\n\nCetrez, Önver A.; Donabed, Sargon G.; Makko, Aryo, eds. (2012). The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.\n\nReview: Tower, Daniel (2013). \"Önver A. Cetrez, Sargon G. Donabed, and Aryo Makko, eds.: The Assyrian Heritage: Threads of Continuity and Influence. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2012; pp. xiii + 345\". Journal of Religious History. 37 (3): 431-433. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.12087.\n\nCrone, Patricia; Cook, Michael A. (1977). Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-21133-8.\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-47874-8.\n\nGaunt, David; Atto, Naures; Barthoma, Soner O. (2017). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Berghahn. ISBN 978-1-78533-498-6.\n\nHarper, Prudence O.; Klengel-Brandt, Evelyn; Aruz, Joan; Benzel, Kim (1995). Assyrian Origins: Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: Antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0-87099-743-2.\n\nHolloway, Steven W. (2003). \"The Quest for Sargon, Pul and Tiglath-Pileser in the Nineteenth Century\". In Chavalas, Mark W.; Younger, Jr, K. Lawson (eds.). Mesopotamia and the Bible. Edinburgh: A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-84127-252-8.\n\nHitti, Philip K. (1951). History of Syria: Including Lebanon and Palestine. London: MacMillan. OCLC 5510718.\n\nJackson, Cailah (2020). Islamic Manuscripts of Late Medieval Rum, 1270s-1370s: Production, Patronage and the Arts of the Book. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-5150-5.\n\nJupp, James (2001). Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80789-1.\n\nKaufman, Stephen A. (1974). The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Assyriological Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-62281-9.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-44550-5.\n\nNisan, Mordechai (2002). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (2nd ed.). Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1375-1.\n\nRadner, Karen (2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.\n\nRoux, Georges (1992). Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-012523-8.\n\nSaggs, Henry W. F. (1984). The Might That Was Assyria. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-312-03511-2.\n\nSegal, Judah B. (1970). Edessa: The Blessed City. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-821545-5.\n\nTravis, Hannibal (2010). Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-59460-436-2.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-907318-04-7.\n\nBook chapters\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2008). \"The Ancient Near East in the Late Antique Near East: Syriac Christian Appropriation of the Biblical East\". Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 394-415. ISBN 978-3-16-149411-6.\n\nButts, Aaron Michael (2017). \"Assyrian Christians\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nDonabed, Sargon (2019). \"Persistent Perseverance: A Trajectory of Assyrian History in the Modern Age\". In Rowe, Paul S. (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-64904-0.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"Introduction\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2017). \"Assyria in the Hebrew Bible\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nHaider, Peter W. (2008). \"Tradition and change in the beliefs at Assur, Nineveh and Nisibis between 300 BC and AD 300\". In Kaizer, Ted (ed.). The Variety of Local Religious Life in the Near East: In the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-16735-3.\n\nHauser, Stefan R. (2017). \"Post-Imperial Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nKalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (2014). \"Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography: An Introduction\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-26561-5.\n\nLuukko, Mikko; Van Buylaere, Greta (2017). \"Languages and Writing Systems in Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nMakko, Aryo (2012). \"Discourse, Identity and Politics: A Transnational Approach to Assyrian Identity in the Twentieth Century\". In Cetrez, Önver A.; Donabed, Sargon G.; Makko, Aryo (eds.). The Assyrian Heritage: threads of continuity and influence. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. ISSN 1654-630X.\n\nMichel, Cécile (2017). \"Economy, Society, and Daily Life in the Old Assyrian Period\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nNaby, Eden (2006). \"Assyrian Nationalism in Iraq: Survival under Religious and Ethnic Threat\". In Burszta, Wojciech J.; Kamusella, Tomasz & Wojchiechowski, Sebastian (eds.). Nationalisms Across the Globe: An Overview of Nationalisms in State-Endowed and Statless Nations, Volume II: the World. Bygoszcz: School of Humanities and Journalism. ISBN 83-87653-46-2.\n\nNovák, Mirko (2016). \"Assyrians and Arameans: Modes of Cohabitation and Acculuration at Guzana (Tell Halaf)\". In Aruz, Joan; Seymour, Michael (eds.). Assyria to Iberia: Art and Culture in the Iron Age. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-606-8.\n\nPayne, Richard (2012). \"Avoiding Ethnicity: Uses of the Ancient Past in Late Sasanian Northern Mesopotamia\". In Pohl, Walter; Gantner, Clemens; Payne, Richard (eds.). Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World: The West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, 300-1100. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4094-2709-4.\n\nRadner, Karen (2021). \"Diglossia and the Neo-Assyrian Empire's Akkadian and Aramaic Text Production\". In Jonker, Louis C.; Berlejung, Angelika & Cornelius, Izak (eds.). Multilingualism in Ancient Contexts: Perspectives from Ancient Near Eastern and Early Christian Contexts. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media. ISBN 978-1-991201-16-4.\n\nReade, Julian Edgeworth (2018). \"Nineveh Rediscovered\". In Brereton, Gareth (ed.). I am Ashurbanipal, king of the World, king of Assyria. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-48039-7.\n\nShehadeh, Lamia Rustum (2011). \"The name of Syria in ancient and modern usage\". In Beshara, Adel (ed.). The Origins of Syrian Nationhood: Histories, pioneers and identity. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-61504-4.\n\nTamari, Steve (2019). \"The Land of Syria in the Late Seventeenth Century: ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi and Linking City and Countryside through Study, Travel, and Worship\". In Tamari, Steve (ed.). Grounded Identities: Territory and Belonging in the Medieval and Early Modern Middle East and Mediterranean. Leiden: BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-38533-7.\n\nTrolle Larsen, Mogens (2017). \"The Archaeological Exploration of Assyria\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-32524-7.\n\nJournal articles\n\nAbraham, Kathleen; Sokoloff, Michael (2011). \"Aramaic Loanwords in Akkadian - A Reassessment of the Proposals\". Archiv für Orientforschung. 52: 22-76. JSTOR 24595102.\n\nAkbari, Mohammad Taghi; Papiha, Sunder S.; Roberts, Derek Frank; Farhud, Dariush (1986). \"Genetic differentiation among Iranian Christian communities\". American Journal of Human Genetics. 38 (1): 84-98. PMC 1684716. PMID 3456196.\n\nBahrani, Zainab (2006). \"Race and Ethnicity in Mesopotamian Antiquity\". World Archaeology. 38 (1): 48-59. doi:10.1080/00438240500509843. JSTOR 40023594. S2CID 144093611.\n\nBanoei, Mohammad Mehdi; Chaleshtori, Morteza Hashemzadeh; Sanati, Mohammad Hossein; Shariati, Parvin; Houshmand, Massoud; Majidizadeh, Tayebeh; Soltani, Niloofar Jahangir; Golalipour, Massoud (2008). \"Variation ofDAT1 VNTR Alleles and Genotypes Among Old Ethnic Groups in Mesopotamia to the Oxus Region\". Human Biology. 80 (1): 73-81. doi:10.3378/1534-6617(2008)80[73:VODVAA]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 41465951. PMID 18505046. S2CID 10417591.\n\nBet-Shlimon, Arbella (21 April 2026). \"\"Propaganda of the Victims\": Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies\". Review of Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/rms.2026.10037.\n\nBiggs, Robert D. (2005). \"My Career in Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 19 (1): 1-23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2008.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (1993). \"Nineveh after 612 BC\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 20 (1): 134-147. doi:10.1524/aofo.1993.20.1.134. S2CID 163383142.\n\nDonabed, Sargon (August 2022). \"The Existential Threat of Academic Bias: The Institutionalization of Anti-Assyrian Rhetoric\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 54 (3): 547-553. doi:10.1017/S0020743822000770. eISSN 1471-6380.\n\nDonabed, Sargon (2012). \"Rethinking Nationalism and an Appellative Conundrum: Historiography and Politics in Iraq\". National Identities. 14 (4): 407-431. Bibcode:2012NatId..14..407D. doi:10.1080/14608944.2012.733208. S2CID 145265726.\n\nDonabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (2009). \"Ethno-cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians\". Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand: 71-113. ISSN 1608-7526.\n\nEfstathiadou, Anna (2011). \"Representing Greekness: French and Greek Lithographs from the Greek War of Independence (1821-1827) and the Greek-Italian War (1940-1941)\" (PDF). Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 29 (2): 191-218. doi:10.1353/mgs.2011.0023. S2CID 144506772.\n\nFrye, Richard N. (1999). \"Reply to John Joseph\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 69-70. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 July 2020.\n\nGaunt, David (9 December 2010). \"Identity Conflicts among Oriental Christians in Sweden\" (PDF). Sens Public. doi:10.7202/1064038ar. ISSN 2104-3272.\n\nGewargis, Odisho Malko (2002). \"We Are Assyrians\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 16 (1): 77-95. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2003.\n\nKuhrt, Amélie (1995). \"The Assyrian heartland in the Achaemenid period\". Pallas. Revue d'études antiques. 43 (43): 239-254. JSTOR 43660582.\n\nLivingstone, Alasdair (2009). \"Remembrance at Assur: The Case of the dated Aramaic memorials\". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 106: 151-157.\n\nLundgren, Svante (2023). \"When the Assyrian Tragedy Became Seyfo: A Study of Swedish-Assyrian Politics of Memory\". Genocide Studies International. 14 (2): 95-108. doi:10.3138/GSI-2022-0002. S2CID 257178308.\n\nMorrison, Susannah (2018). \"\"A Kindred Sigh for Thee\": British Responses to the Greek War for Independence\". The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing. 47 (1): 37-55.\n\nParpola, Simo (1999). \"Assyrians after Assyria\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (2).\n\nParpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 5-22.\n\nPetrosian, Vahram (2006). \"Assyrians in Iraq\". Iran and the Caucasus. 10 (1): 138. doi:10.1163/157338406777979322. S2CID 154905506.\n\nReade, Julian E. (1998). \"Greco-Parthian Nineveh\". Iraq. 60: 65-83. doi:10.2307/4200453. JSTOR 4200453. S2CID 191474172.\n\nRollinger, Robert (2006). \"The Terms \"Assyria\" and \"Syria\" Again\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 65 (4): 283-287. doi:10.1086/511103. JSTOR 10.1086/511103. S2CID 162760021.\n\nSmith, Sidney (1926). \"Notes on \"The Assyrian Tree\"\". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 4 (1): 69-76. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00102599. JSTOR 607403. S2CID 178173677.\n\nValk, Jonathan (1 November 2020). \"Crime and Punishment: Deportation in the Levant in the Age of Assyrian Hegemony\". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 384: 77-103. doi:10.1086/710485. S2CID 225379553.\n\nYildiz, Efrem (1999). \"The Assyrians: A Historical and Current Reality\". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 13 (1): 15-30.\n\nOther\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2018). \"Assyria\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 27 February 2022.\n\nMichael, Sargon R., ed. (2 April 1979). \"Special issue dedicated in memory of Dr. David B. Perley\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 2, no. 4. Berkeley, California. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2023. Retrieved 16 July 2025.\n\nSalem, Chris (24 December 2020). \"A Name Chaldeans Forgot: Assyria\". Medium. Retrieved 6 January 2022.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBedford, Peter R. (2009). \"The Neo-Assyrian Empire\". In Morris, Ian; Scheidel, Walter (eds.). The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537158-1.\n\nDeutscher, G. (2009). \"Akkadian\". Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7.\n\nFiloni, Fernando (2017). The Church in Iraq. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 978-0-8132-2965-2."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-continuity"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 19179}, {"slug": "reference-achaemenid-assyria", "title": "Achaemenid Assyria", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Athura[1] (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎰𐎢𐎼𐎠 Aθurā Persian pronunciation: [aθuɾaː]), also called Assyria, was a geographical area within the Achaemenid Empire in Upper Mesopotamia from 539 to 330 BC as a military protectorate state. Although sometimes regarded as a satrapy,[2][3] Achaemenid royal inscriptions list it as a dahyu (plural dahyāva),...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Athura𐎠𐎰𐎢𐎼𐎠 Aθurā\n\nProvince of Achaemenid Empire\n\n539 BC-330 BC\n\nSatrapies of the Achaemenid Empire\n\nHistory \n\n• Established 539 BC\n\n• Disestablished 330 BC\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire\n\nMacedonian Empire\n\nAthura[1] (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎰𐎢𐎼𐎠 Aθurā Persian pronunciation: [aθuɾaː]), also called Assyria, was a geographical area within the Achaemenid Empire in Upper Mesopotamia from 539 to 330 BC as a military protectorate state. Although sometimes regarded as a satrapy,[2][3] Achaemenid royal inscriptions list it as a dahyu (plural dahyāva), a concept generally interpreted as meaning either a group of people or both a country and its people, without any administrative implication.[4][5][6]\n\nIt mostly incorporated the territories of Neo-Assyrian Empire corresponding to what is now northern Iraq in the upper Tigris, the middle and upper Euphrates, parts of modern-day northwestern Iran, modern-day northeastern Syria (Eber-Nari) and part of southeast Anatolia (now Turkey). However, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula were separate Achaemenid territories.[7][8] The Neo-Assyrian Empire collapsed after a period of violent civil wars, followed by an invasion by a coalition of some of its former subject peoples, the Iranian peoples (Medes, Persians and Scythians), Babylonians and Cimmerians in the late seventh century BC, culminating in the Battle of Nineveh, and Assyria had fallen completely by 609 BC.\n\nBetween 609 and 559 BC, former Assyrian territories were divided between the Median Empire to the east and the Neo-Babylonian Empire to the west. Both parts were subsumed into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC, and it has been argued that they constituted the satrapies of Media and Aθurā, respectively.[3] In Herodotus's account, the Ninth Tributary District comprised \"Babylonia and the rest of Assyria\" and excluded Eber-Nari.[9]\n\nDespite a few rebellions, Aθurā functioned as an important part of the Achaemenid Empire and its inhabitants were given the right to govern themselves throughout Achaemenid rule and Old Aramaic was used diplomatically by the Achaemenids.[10]\n\nKnown for their combat skills, Assyrian soldiers (along with the Lydians) constituted the main heavy infantry of the Achaemenid military.[11] Due to the major destruction of Assyria during the fall of its empire, some early scholars described the area as an \"uninhabited wasteland.\" Other Assyriologists, however, such as John Curtis and Simo Parpola, have strongly disputed this claim, citing how Assyria would eventually become one of the wealthiest regions among the Achaemenid Empire.[12] This wealth was due to the land's great prosperity for agriculture that the Achaemenids used effectively for almost 200 years.\n\nIn contrast to the policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Achaemenid Persians did not intervene in the internal affairs of their ruling satrapies as long as they continued the flow of tribute and taxes back to Persia.[13]\n\nFall of the Assyrian Empire\n\nBetween the mid 14th centuries and late 11th century BC, and again between the late 10th and late seventh centuries BC, the respective Middle Assyrian Empire and Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East militarily, culturally, economically and politically,[14] and the Persians and their neighbours the Medes, Parthians, Elamites and Mannaeans were vassals of Assyria and paid tribute.[15][16]\n\nHowever, the Assyrian empire descended into a period of civil war in 626 BC, which drastically weakened it, and eventually led to a number of its former subject peoples, namely the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians, forming an alliance and attacking the civil war-ridden Assyrians in 616 BC. The Battle of Nineveh in 612 BC eventually left Assyria destroyed for years to come.[17][15][16]\n\nThe Assyrians continued to fight on with the aid of another of their former vassals, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the Saïte dynasty, who feared the rise of these new powers. A costly but victorious Battle at Megiddo against the forces of the Kingdom of Judah in 609 allowed Saïte Egypt to advance to the rescue, only to be defeated by the Babylonian-Median-Scythian alliance. Harran, the new Assyrian capital, was eventually taken the same year, thus ending the empire.[18][16]\n\nDespite this, part of the remnants of the former Assyrian army continued to fight on, along with Egypt, until final defeat at Carchemish in 605 BC.[16]\n\nThe Babylonian rule was unpopular but did not last long. In 539, Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonian king Nabonidus-ironically himself an Assyrian from Harran-took Babylon and made it, along with Assyria, into provinces of the new Achaemenid Empire.[16]\n\nAs part of the Achaemenid Empire\n\nThe former major Assyrian capitals of Nineveh, Dur-Sharrukin and Kalhu (now Nimrud) were only sparsely populated during Achaemenid rule. Most Assyrian settlement was in smaller cities, towns and villages at plain level, in the mountains, or on mounds such as Tell ed-Darim. However, according to more recent Assyriologists such as Georges Roux, cities such as Arrapḫa, Guzana (now the ruins of Tell Halaf) and Arbela (now Erbil) remained intact, and Ashur was to revive. Despite many of the Assyrian cities being left largely in ruins from the battles that led to the fall of its empire in the seventh century BC, rural Assyria was prosperous according to the Greek scholar Xenophon.[19] After passing Kalhu and Nineveh (which he described in ruins with only a handful of Assyrians dwelling amongst them), Xenophon and the Greeks turned north-west, following the east bank of the Tigris. He described rural Assyria:\n\n[T]here was an abundance of corn in the villages, and found a palace, with many villages round about it ... In these villages they remained for three days, not only for the sake of the wounded, but likewise because they had provisions in abundance - flour, wine, and great stores of barley that had been collected for horses, all these supplies having been gathered together by the acting satrap of the district.[20]\n\nThe testimony is an example of the rich agricultural resources of Assyria's region and the existence of a satrap's palace.\nIt is not known exactly where this palace was located, but Austen Henry Layard suggested it may have been near Zakho.[21]\n\nAn inscription found in Egypt, written by Arsames, describes Assyrian cities that obtained administrative centres under Achaemenid rule:[22]\n\nLair: Assyrian Lahiru (Eski Kifri), by the Diyala Valley\n\nArzuhina: Tell Chemchemal, 40 kilometers east of Kirkuk\n\nArbela\n\nHalsu: Location unknown\n\nMatalubash: Assyrian Ubaše (Tell Huwaish), 20 kilometers north of ancient city of Assur\n\nPrior to the Persian rule of Assyria, the Achaemenids were greatly Assyrianized,[23] and Aramaic continued as the lingua franca of the Empire in the region, with the Imperial Script the everyday writing system. Traditional Mesopotamian religion within the empire was tolerated, and the judicial system, Assyrian calendar and imperial standards imposed by the Assyrians remained in force everywhere.[24]\n\nThe Assyrians, like all other tributary peoples of the Achaemenids, were obliged to pay taxes to the Emperor and, whenever he campaigned, supply troops as well. Reliefs of Assyrian tribute bearers carved on the east and north sides of the Apadana, consist of seven bearded men: one carrying animal skins, one carrying a length of cloth, two carrying bowls, and two leading mouflons.[25]\n\nRise of Aramaic\n\nThe Assyrian Empire resorted to a policy of deporting troublesome conquered peoples (predominantly Aramean tribes as well as many Jews, Elamites and others) into Mesopotamia. While this allowed some integration, it may have also led to the various rebellions within the Empire in the seventh century. By the sixth century, the indigenous and originally Akkadian-speaking peoples of Assyria and Babylonia spoke Akkadian-influenced varieties of Eastern Aramaic that still survive among the Assyrian people to this day. Consequently, during the Persian rule of Assyria, Aramaic gradually became the main language spoken by the Assyrians.[26]\n\nEven before the Empire fell, the Assyrians had made Aramaic language the lingua franca of its empire; many could speak it and the ruling elite of Assyria needed to be bilingual, capable of speaking both Akkadian and Aramaic. The conquest of Assyria and the violent destruction of the cities meant that many of these bilingual skilled individuals died with their language and the Aramaic script was incorporated into the Assyrian culture by around the late 6th century BC.[26]\n\nFollowing the Achaemenid conquest of Assyria under Darius I, Imperial Aramaic was adopted as the \"vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages.\" The use of a single official language is thought to have greatly contributed to the success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did.[27]\n\nImperial Aramaic was highly standardized; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. In 1955, Richard N. Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an \"official language\", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language.[28]\n\nFrye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought.\n\nFor centuries after the fall of the Achaemenids, Imperial Aramaic-or near enough for it to be recognizable-remained an influence on the various native Iranian languages. Aramaic script and-as ideograms-Aramaic vocabulary survived as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts.[29]\n\nOne of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis fortification tablets, which number about five hundred.[30]\n\nMany of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, and from Elephantine in particular. Of them, the best known is the Wisdom of Ahiqar, a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs. Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language.\n\nA group of thirty Imperial Aramaic documents from Bactria were recently discovered, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the fourth century BC Achaemenid provinces of Bactria and Sogdia.[31]\n\nAramaic dialects and written script survive to this day among the Christian Assyrians of Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran.\n\nAssyrian revolts in 546 and 520 BC\n\nIn 546 and 520 BC, the two Assyrian provinces of Mada and Athura revolted against the Achaemenids.[32] Though the revolts were suppressed, it illustrated that the two regions acted in unison, suggesting perhaps an ethnic and cultural link. Having said this a rebellion could occur in several different parts of an Empire for geographical reasons and it may have been that the whole of the Mesopotamia region became swept with rebellion.\n\nCampaigns\n\nAlthough the effectiveness of the once invincible Assyrian army was shown to be greatly depleted by the time of its eventual collapse, the soldiers of Assyria continued to be brave and fierce warriors. Most soldiers at the time would not wear heavy armour, but rather than act as melee troops, would serve as skirmishers. The Assyrian troops were different, since they fought as archers, cavalry and heavy infantry and were useful as front line troops. The Assyrian infantry was specifically trained to engage in hand-to-hand combat.[33] A massive army was assembled by Xerxes in the early 5th century BC. Contemporary estimates place the numbers between 100,000 and over a million. Whatever the number, it was enormous and the Persians summoned troops from all across their realm. Herodotus remarks that Assyrian soldiers were employed in Xerxes's expedition to Greece.[32]\n\nThe Assyrian contingent wore on their heads either bronze helmets or plaited helmets of a peculiarly foreign design which is hard to describe. Their shields, spears, and daggers, resembled Egyptian ones, and they also carried wooden clubs with iron studs, and wore.\n\n- Herodotus[34]\n\nInfluence of Assyrian art on Achaemenid sculpture\n\nThe Assyrians continued to serve the Achaemenids under Emperor Darius the Great, who was at his time considered the greatest ruler, often styling himself as \"King of Kings.\" He ruled as a king over many other powerful subordinates and, as such, it was believed that a great palace should be built at Susa in Pars. The Assyrians were employed in the construction of this building, albeit with many other tributary peoples as well as Persians themselves. The western Assyrians of Athura were closer to Mount Lebanon, where fine trees could be found and timber processed for Darius's grand Palace. The eastern Assyrians of Mada were charged with excavating gold.[32]\n\nAssyrian influence over Achaemenid art and sculpture can be seen in various areas of the empire. Examples include the doorway relief of the palaces in Pasargadae,[35] and in the Bukan area (near Urmia) where various tiles are decorated with human-headed winged figures, lions, and ibexes.[36] The symbol of the Assyrian god Aššūr was chosen as the faravahar, the symbol of God in Zoroastrianism, during the Achaemenid rule of Assyria.[37]\n\nThe best example of Assyrian influence can be observed in the Gate of All Nations in Persepolis, with two lamassus (human-headed winged bull) in the entrance.[35] The Assyrian lamassu was used to protect the palace from evil spirits, while those of Persepolis expressed meditative calm and humanity. Iranologists and Assyriologists have tried to answer the question of how was the influence transmitted. Possibilities include contacts between Athura and Persia were frequent and Achaemenid architects visited the Assyrian palaces. Other suggest Assyrian slaves were brought back to Persia to have them work on the new palaces.[38]\n\nEconomy\n\nAs with many other countries, the primary occupation was farming.[39] The large output of Mesopotamian farms resulted in highly populated civilizations.[39] The chief crop that fueled the ever-growing civilizations in the region was the grain barley and enumer wheat though sesame seeds also provided a source of nourishment.[39] Like much of the rest of the world at the time, the economy of Athura relied heavily upon the produce of the farms and the rivers, including fish and what fruit and meat could be raised in the Euphrates' fertile soils. The agricultural year began with sowing after summer. Flooding posed a serious risk to farmers, whilst rodents were supposedly driven off by prayers to the rodent god.[40] To ensure that such prayers were answered, tall silos were built to house the grain and keep out the mice.\n\nTrees were grown for their fruit. To prevent the hot winds of the region from destroying the crops, tall palm trees were planted around the smaller trees, thus breaking the wind and shading the plants from the heat of the sun, the intensity of which provided plenty for the plants, even when shaded.[40] Following the Persian conquest, peaches were added to the original Assyrian mix of apples, cherries, figs, pears, plums and pomegranates.[40] Tree growing was an art mastered with tree-cutting and even \"artificial mating\" in order to have the Palm trees yield fruit.[40] In the north, rainfall in Athura met the demands of farming but in the more southernly parts (covering Mada) Shadufs were used to assist in irrigation.[41]\n\nOxen, donkeys, cattle and sheep were raised, the latter for their milk (which could be turned into butter) and the former as draught animals. Pigs, ducks, geese and chickens were all raised for their meat. Hunting supplemented the food supply with birds and fish.[42]\n\nThe down-time resulting from farming and the seasons allowed men and women to master other skills in life such as the arts, philosophy and leisure. Without the fertile soils of the Euphrates river valley, civilization would not have come to be.[39]\n\nArchaeological findings\n\nKalhu\n\nKalhu (Nimrud)'s buildings were dramatically destroyed during the sacking of 614-612 BC. However, evidence of reoccupation during the \"post-Assyrian period\" (612-539 BC) is noted in various areas, including the Palace of Adad-nirari III, the North-West Palace, the Burnt Palace and Nabu Temple complex, Fort Shalmaneser, and the Town-Wall Houses.[43]\n\nXenophon passed by Nimrud (which he called Larissa) in 401 BC along with 10,000 Greek soldiers and described the city as\n\na large deserted city ... Its wall was twenty-five feet in breadth and a hundred in height, and the whole circuit of the wall was two parasangs. It was built of clay bricks, and rested upon a stone foundation twenty feet high ... Near by this city was a pyramid of stone, a plethrum in breadth and two plethra in height; and upon this pyramid were many barbarians (Assyrians) who had fled away from the neighbouring villages.[44]\n\nDespite Xenephon's description of the city as being abandoned, archaeological evidence seems to show that there was some Achaemenid-period occupation. Phase 3 or H in the Nabu Temple complex and Burnt Palace is described as Achaemenid occupation.[45] They include traces of kilns on the south side of Room 47 in the Burnt Palace, together with red glass ingots and slag, which after a radiocarbon analysis yielded a date of 425 +/- 50 BC.[46] In the Nabu Temple, a pipe lamp and a group of seven pottery vessels are considered to be \"ascribed to the Achaemenid period.\"[47] There was also some Achaemenid occupation in the South-East Palace: a deep footed bowl, a hemispherical bowl (which is compared with pottery from the Achaemenid village at Susa),[48] and three pottery vessels.[49] Also in the South-East Palace were two \"eye of Horus\" amulets, often regarded as hallmarks of Achaemenid period material culture. Another eye of Horus amulet has been found in the Town Hall Houses. In the palace of Adad-nirari III, three bronze kohl sticks with castellated heads having been identified as Achaemenid period.\n\nAssur\n\nLike other Assyrian capitals, Assur was greatly destroyed during the battles of the century before. The importance of the city thereafter is not clear, but much evidence indicate it was a flourishing city during the Achaemenid rule. After the Babylonian conquest by Cyrus the Great, the \"Cyrus Cylinder\" mentions Assur as one of the cities of which cult statues were returned.[50]\nIn 401 BC, Xenophon describes the city as\n\nA large and prosperous city named \"Caenae\" (Assur[51][52]) which was seen on the opposite (west) bank of the Tigris River.[53] From this city, the barbarians (Assyrians) brought over loaves, cheeses and wine, crossing upon rafts made of skins.\n\nAt the Assur Temple, two shrines have been identified as being built between the fifth and third centuries BC.[54] A few graves at the site also may have been belonged to the Achaemenid period. From the grave site, a pair of circular earrings with globules has clearly been identified as Achaemenid.[55] These earrings are similar to the silver earring found at Dur-Sharrukin near Nineveh. In another grave, Haller dates grave number 811 as Achaemenid period.[56] The grave contained three bodies, a stamp-seal showing the goddess Ishtar standing on the back of a lion. This might indicate that ancient Mesopotamian religion was still being practiced within the Assyrian population during the Achaemenid rule. Other objects from the grave 811 include a bronze fibula; another earring, but gold rather than the earlier described silver; different kinds of beads of silver, agate, frit and glass; an alabastron; a bowl made of copper; and two pottery bottles.[56] It is not clear, however, if all the items are Achaemenid in date.\n\nTel ed-Daim\n\nTo the northeast of Kirkuk, the site of Tel ed-Daim shows significant evidence of Achaemenid rule.[57] A small fortified palace (most probably for a local governor) includes a bronze wall-plaques, a bronze snaffle-bit of a type well known from Achaemenid contexts at Persepolis, kohl tubes with ribbed decoration tapering, and pottery.[58] The pottery in the palace show similarities with the pottery from Nimrud that has been identified as Achaemenid.[59]\n\nEski Mosul Dam Salvage Project\n\nIn the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project, a few items were identified as dating from the Achaemenid period. The project was located to the northwest of Mosul, in the upper Tigris valley, and within the Assyrian heartland. In the Kharabeh Shattani site, various amounts of pottery have been dated Achaemenid. These include four bowls of which have similarities of Achaemenid bowls in Susa and Pasargadae.[60] Other times include clay spindle whorls, two iron sickle blades, and a bronze plate optimistically identified as a horse's forehead plaque. A bronze finger-ring with a crouching animal engraved on the bezel was also found in the site and is considered to be widespread in the Achaemenid empire.[12] Also in the project, a grave site excavated found bodies that included a conical kohl pot and a bronze pin with a castellated top. These objects are considered to be distinctive Achaemenid type.[61]\n\nAssyria after the Achaemenid period\n\nIn the late fourth century BC, Alexander the Great led his Greco-Macedonian army to conquer the Achaemenid Empire. The empire's vast territory and numerous tributary peoples ensured that rebellion would be a constant problem. This new Greek Empire relied upon the administrative system put in place by the Persians to govern these new lands; consequently, the Assyrian lands of Athura and Mada were administrated as such by their own satraps. When Alexander the Great died, the Greek successor state of the Seleucid Empire, created in the Babylonian War, retained control of much of the Persian Empire. The Babylonian Chronicles now show the vitality of Greek culture in ancient cities like Babylon.\n\nWhilst Greek rule beyond the Euphrates was subject to constant and eventually successful Iranian incursions, Assyria was forced to take the role of a frontier province, first defending the Seleucid Empire against the Parthians and later defending the Parthian Empire against the Romans. Greek rule in the East did not last long, although the cultural impact did - by the mid-third century BC, the satraps began revolting against the Seleucid Empire in Iran and Bactria, establishing their own domains. A temporary revival of Seleucid power reestablished Imperial authority in these regions in the late 3rd and early 2nd century BC, but afterward the Parthians came to incorporate the lands known as Assyria once again by the mid-second century BC.\n\nRule by the Parthian Empire aimed to emulate that of their Persian predecessors, the Achaemenids, with a similar system of administration involving satraps and smaller provinces. Indeed, the main rebel behind the rise of Parthia from Seleucia was a satrap himself.[62] On top of this, the Parthian Empire was more decentralized and power was shared amongst clan leaders,[62] hinting at the possibility of the retention of the provinces. Mesopotamia became the heartland of the Seleucid Empire with a new capital, Seleucia, founded. As a result, much culture and knowledge was exchanged between the Greeks and the Assyrians. The invasions of Alexander the Great consisted not only of soldiers but scientists and historians.[63]\n\nBeginning in the first century BC, the Romans began expanding their Empire at the cost of the Parthians. Initially, the nomadic military tactic of circling and shooting worked to deadly effect against the slow, heavy-moving infantry of the Romans.[64] In time, however, superior technology and strategy drove the Parthians out of the Mediterranean and most of Anatolia. The Parthians continued to resist Roman rule, invading and in turn being invaded by the Romans many times, with their capital Ctesiphon being sacked three times.[65] The consequence of these bloody and inconclusive wars meant that the Assyrian provinces bore the brunt of the fighting, with Assyrian troops fighting for one side and then, at the change of the governing of the lands of Mada and Athura, fighting for the other side. Naturally such events served to undermine the Assyrians.\n\nAssyrians had begun to adopt Christianity from the first century and Aramaic remained the spoken language of the region.\n\nBy the second century AD, the Roman Empire under Trajan began to achieve the upper hand against the Parthians and established the province of Assyria along the Euphrates and Tigris.\n\nFrom AD 226, Assyria became a province of the Sasanian Empire and was known as Asōristān (\"Asōr-land\") in Middle Persian.\n\nIn 650, the area fell to the early Muslim conquests. However, the region remained Aramaic-speaking and largely Christian well into the Middle Ages. Assyrians remain in the area to this day, and there are a number of Assyrian towns and villages in the region. In addition, cities such as Mosul, Dohuk, Erbil and Kirkuk have Assyrian populations. Most Assyrians remain Christian and retain the Aramaic language and script.\n\nSee also\n\nBabylonia § Fall of Babylon\n\nMedes § Persian dominance\n\nMesopotamia (Roman province)\n\nHistory of Mesopotamia\n\nTimeline of the Assyrian Empire\n\nReferences\n\n^ Iranian History at a Glance. Alhoda UK. 2005. p. 11. ISBN 978-964-439-005-0.\n\n^ Maspéro, Gaston (1900). The Passing of the Empires: 850 B.C. to 330 B.C. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. p. 688.\n\n^ a b Parpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2). JAAS: 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2007-11-13. With the fall of Nineveh, the Empire was split in two, the western half falling in the hands of a Chaldean dynasty, the eastern one in the hands of Median kings. In 539 BC, both became incorporated in the Achaemenid Empire, the western one as the megasatrapy of Assyria (Aθūra), the eastern one as the satrapy of Media (Māda).\n\n^ Cameron, George (1973). \"The Persian satrapies and related matters\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 32: 47-56. doi:10.1086/372220. S2CID 161447675.\n\n^ Cook, J.M.: \"The rise of the Achaemenids and establishment of their empire\", pp. 261-262, in Ilya Gershevitch, Fisher, William Bayne; Gershevitch, I.; Boyle, John Andrew (1968). The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge University Press. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-521-20091-2.\n\n^ Briant, Pierre (2002): From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, pp. 177, 390-391, 909.\n\n^ Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France: 3-4.\n\n^ \"Achaemenid Assyria\" at Encyclopædia Iranica\n\n^ Briant, Pierre, op. cit. p. 391.\n\n^ \"Achaemenid Assyria\" at Encyclopædia Iranica\n\n^ Farrokh, Kaveh; Frye, Richard N. (2009). Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. Bloomsbury USA. p. 176. ISBN 978-1-84603-473-2.\n\n^ a b Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France.\n\n^ \"The Culture And Social Institutions Of Ancient Iran\" by Muhammad A. Dandamaev, Vladimir G. Lukonin. Page 104\n\n^ Healy, Mark (2000). The Ancient Assyrians. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1-84176-032-2.\n\n^ a b Frahm, Eckart (2016). \"Revolts in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: A Preliminary Discourse Analysis\". Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East. pp. 76-89. doi:10.1163/9789004330184_006. ISBN 9789004330177. Radner provided a typological assessment of revolts throughout the Neo-Assyrian period (ca. 1000-609 BC)\n\n^ a b c d e Grant, R.G. (2005). \"Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat\". London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 19.\n\n^ Encyclopaedia Britannica Archived 2018-04-06 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Frahm, Eckart (2016). \"Revolts in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: A Preliminary Discourse Analysis\". Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East. pp. 76-89. doi:10.1163/9789004330184_006. ISBN 9789004330177. Radner provided a typological assessment of revolts throughout the Neo-Assyrian period (ca. 1000-609 BCE)\n\n^ Arrian, Anabasis, III.7.3.\n\n^ Anabasis, book III.IV. pages 18, 24-32.\n\n^ Layard, A. H., 1853. Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 61 and 686\n\n^ Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France: 3.\n\n^ \"The 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project\", Muhammad Dandamayev, R. M. Whiting. 41-48.\n\n^ \"Syria-Palestine under Achemenid Rule\", by Israel Eph'Al. in: The Cambridge Ancient History 2nd Edition, Vol. 4. Pages 147-161.\n\n^ Briant, P., 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, Winona Lake, Indiana. Page 175.\n\n^ a b Parpola, Simo (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2). JAAS. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-17.\n\n^ \"Achaemenid Assyria\" at Encyclopædia Iranica p. 251\n\n^ Frye, Richard N.; Driver, G. R. (1955). \"Review of G. R. Driver's \"Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B. C.\"\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 18 (3/4): 456-461. doi:10.2307/2718444. JSTOR 2718444. p. 457.\n\n^ Geiger, Wilhelm; Kuhn, Ernst (2002). Grundriss der iranischen Philologie: Band I. Abteilung 1. Boston: Adamant. pp. 249ff..\n\n^ Stolper, John A. Matthew (2007). \"What are the Persepolis Fortification Tablets?\". The Oriental Studies News & Notes (winter): 6-9. Archived from the original on 14 February 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-13.\n\n^ Naveh, Joseph; Shaked, Shaul (2006). Ancient Aramaic Documents from Bactria. Studies in the Khalili Collection. Oxford: Khalili Collections. ISBN 1-874780-74-9.\n\n^ a b c Parpola, Simo (1999-09-04). \"Assyrians after Assyria\". University of Helsinki. Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2007-07-27.\n\n^ Kaveh Farrokh, Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War, page 76.\n\n^ Herodotus, The Histories, transl. Harry Carter, Book Seven (New York: The Heritage Press, 1958), p 431.\n\n^ a b André-Salvini, Béatrice (2005). Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia. University of California Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-520-24731-4.\n\n^ Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh; Stewart, Sarah (29 November 2005). Birth of the Persian Empire. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-84511-062-8.\n\n^ The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran By Muhammad A. Dandamaev, Vladimir G. Lukonin. p. 342.\n\n^ Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France: various pages.\n\n^ a b c d Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 244.\n\n^ a b c d Bertman, Stephe. p. 245.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen. p. 264.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen. p. 265.\n\n^ Curtis, John. (2004) \"The Assyrian heartland in the period 612-539 BCE.\"\n\n^ Anabasis book III Archived 2008-06-01 at the Wayback Machine by Xenophon.\n\n^ Mallowan, M.E.L., (1966.) \"Nimrud and its Remains.\" London.\n\n^ Barag, D., 1985. \"Catalogue of Western Asiatic Glass in the British Museum I\", p. 108-9. London.\n\n^ Oates, D. and J., 1958. \"Nimrud 1957: the Hellenistic settlement\", Iraq 20: 114-157.\n\n^ Ghirshman, R., 1954. Village Perse-Achéménide, p.25\n\n^ Oates, D. and J., 1958. \"Nimrud 1957: the Hellenistic settlement\", p. 12-14\n\n^ Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France: 12.\n\n^ Andrae, W., 1977. Das wiedererstandene Assur, new impression edited by B. Hrouda, München.\n\n^ Oates, D., 1968. Studies in the Ancient History of Northern Iraq, p. 60\n\n^ Anabasis, book II. IV. 28\n\n^ Roaf, M. D., 1983. \"Sculptures and Sculptors at Persepolis.\"\n\n^ Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France: 12-3.\n\n^ a b Haller, A., 1954. Die Gräber und Grüfte von Assur, WVDO-G 65, Berlin.\n\n^ al-Tekriti, A. Q., 1960. \"The excavations at Tell ed-Daim (Dokan)\", Sumer XVI: 93-109\n\n^ Forgotten empire: the world of Ancient Persia By John Curtis, Nigel Tallis, Béatrice André-Salvini. Page 40.\n\n^ Curtis, John (November 2003). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\" (PDF). L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide. Paris, France: 14.\n\n^ Simpson, St. J., 1990. ‘Iron Age crop storage and ceramic manufacture in rural Mesopotamia: a review of the British Museum excavations at Qasrij Cliff and Khirbet Qasrij in Northern Iraq’, 119-140.\n\n^ The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq, by John Curtis. Paris, Collège de France, Novembre 2003\n\n^ a b Bentley, Jerry H.; Herb F. Ziegler (2006). Traditions & Encounters a Global Perspective on the Past. Vol. 1. New York: McGraw-Hill..\n\n^ Parker, Geoffrey. Compact History of the World. 4th ed. London: Times Books, 2005 pg 33 ISBN 0-7607-2575-6\n\n^ Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 43., \"Carrhae was a disaster for the Roman empire in the east.\"\n\n^ Parker, Geoffrey (2005). Compact History of the World. London: Times Books. p. 37. map shows temporary acquisitions of \"Assyria\" and \"Mesopotamia\" provinces\n\nSources\n\nCurtis, John (2003). \"The Assyrian Heartland in the Period 612-539 BC\". Continuity of Empire (?): Assyria, Media, Persia. Padova: Editrice e Libreria. pp. 157-167.\n\nCurtis, John (2005). \"The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq\". L'Archéologie de l'Empire Achéménide: Nouvelles Recherches. Paris: De Boccard. pp. 175-195.\n\nDalley, Stephanie (1993). \"Nineveh after 612 BC\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 20 (1): 134-147. doi:10.1524/aofo.1993.20.1.134. S2CID 163383142.\n\nKuhrt, Amélie (1995). \"The Assyrian Heartland in the Achaemenid Period\". Pallas: Revue d'études antiques. 43: 239-254."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-achaemenid-assyria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5378}, {"slug": "reference-garshuni", "title": "Garshuni", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Garshuni or Karshuni (Syriac alphabet: ܓܪܫܘܢܝ, Arabic alphabet: كرشوني) are non-Syriac writings using the Syriac alphabet, most often being Arabic or Malayalam.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Garshuni or Karshuni (Syriac alphabet: ܓܪܫܘܢܝ, Arabic alphabet: كرشوني) are non-Syriac writings using the Syriac alphabet, most often being Arabic or Malayalam. \n\nThe word \"Garshuni\" was used by George Kiraz to coin the term \"garshunography\", denoting the writing of one language in the script of another.[1]\n\nHistory\n\nGarshuni is first attested only in the mid-12th century and, for literary purposes, beginning in the 14th century.[2] A sample from the 6th century exists[3] but is considered by scholars as an atypical case.\n\nGarshuni originated in the seventh century, when Arabic was becoming the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent, but the Arabic alphabet was not yet fully developed. There is evidence that writing Arabic in Garshuni influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant and Mesopotamia, who commonly use the Sertā script.[4]\n\nSuryani Malayalam is a Malayalam dialect of the Malankara Nasrani community in India, which was historically written in Karshoni until the 19th century.\n\nA folk etymology traces the origins of the word to the prophet Moses, being related to \"Gershon\" from Exodus 2:22, or to a certain Carsciun.[4]\n\nCharacteristics\n\nThe Syriac alphabet has three principal varieties:\n\nEstrangelā (the Classical Syriac script),\n\nMadnhāyā (the Eastern Syriac script, often called \"Assyrian\" or \"Nestorian\"),\n\nSertā (the Western Syriac script, often called \"Jacobite\" or \"Maronite\").\n\nThe Syriac alphabet is extended by use of diacritics to write Arabic Garshuni.\n\nThe correspondence of letters is not always one-to-one. For instance, the Syriac letter \"g\" (ܓ) can represent both \"gh\" (غ) and \"j\"‌ (ج).[4] \n\nSimilarities\n\nOccasionally, other languages such as Turkish, Persian, Sogdian, the Kurdish languages and Malayalam have been written in the Syriac alphabet, and these are sometimes also referred to as \"Garshunis\". With several additional characters, the Malayalam version is better known as Karsoni and had been in use till early 20th century among the Keralite Syriac Christian clergymen and followers.\n\nFor the analogous Jewish practice of writing Arabic in Hebrew letters, see Judeo-Arabic languages.\n\nToday, Assyrians use the word 'garshuni' when referring to a spoken language written using something other than its corresponding script, i.e. spoken Assyrian written using Latin script.\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac language\n\nArabic\n\nKarsoni\n\nThe Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran\n\nTransliteration\n\nJudeo-Arabic - Jewish varieties of Arabic language\n\nAljamiado - Writing with the Arabic or Hebrew script for European languages\n\nBibliography\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, F., “De l'intérêt de l'étude du garshouni et des manuscrits écrits selon ce système” in: L’Orient chrétien dans l’empire musulman: Hommage au professeur Gérard Troupeau (Studia arabica III). Versailles: Editions de Paris, 2005, pp. 463-475.\n\nBriquel-Chatonnet, F.; Desreumaux, A.; Binggeli, A., “Un cas très ancien de garshouni? Quelques réflexions sur le manuscrit BL Add. 14644” in: P. G. Borbone, A. Mengozzi, M. Tosco (éds.), Loquentes linguis. Studi linguistici e orientali in onore di Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006, pp. 141-147.\n\nMengozzi, A., “The History of Garshuni as a Writing System: Evidence from the Rabbula Codex” in: F. M. Fales & G. F. Grassi (eds), CAMSEMUD 2007. Proceedings of the 13th Italian Meeting of Afro-Asiatic Linguistics, held in Udine, May 21-24, 2007, Padova: S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice e Libreria, 2010, pp. 297-304.\n\nMingana, A., “Garshūni or Karshūni?” in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1928) 891-893.\n\nMorozov, D.A., “Garshuni: Syriac script in Christian Arabic texts” (in Russian: “Karshuni: Sirijskaja pisjmennostj v arabo-hristianskih tekstah”) in: 5-je chtenija pamiati N. F. Kaptereva: Rossija i pravoslavnyj Vostok (Moscow, 30-31 Oct. 2007). Moscow, 2007, pp. 70-72.\n\nRam, H., Qiṣṣat Mar Eliĭa (Die Legende vom Hl. Elias). Als Beitrag zur Kenntnis der arabischen Vulgar-Dialekte Mesopotamiens nach der Handschrift Kod. Sachau 15 der Konigl. Bibliothek zu Berlin herausgegeben, ubersetzt und mit einer Schriftlehre versehen. Inaugural-Dissertation. Leipzig, 1906.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N., “Un clerc syro-occidental d’Arfad et le métropolitain de Jérusalem, de l’Église de l’Orient: Le livre “De l’unanimité de la foi” et sa recension en garshuni\" (in Russian: “Zapadnosirijskij knizhnik iz Afrada i ijerusalimskij mitropolit Cerkvi Vostoka: “Kniga obschnosti very” i jejo rukopisnaja redakcija na karshuni\") in: Symbol 58: Syriaca et Arabica. Paris-Moscow, 2010, pp. 34-87 (text in Garshuni: pp. 45-72).\n\nReferences\n\n^ Kiraz, George (2012). Turras Mamlla: A Grammar of the Syriac Language. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. volume 1, 291 ff. ISBN 978-1-4632-0183-8.\n\n^ Mengozzi, A. (2010) \"The history of Garshuni as a writing system: Evidence from the Rabbula Codex\" pp. 297-304 In F. M. Fales & G. F. Grassi (Eds.), CAMSEMUD 2007: Proceedings of the 13th Italian Meeting of Afro-Asiatic Linguistics. SARGON Editrice. ISBN 978-88-95672-05-2.\n\n^ Briquel-Chatonnet, F., Desreumaux, A., & Binggeli, A. (2006). Un cas très ancien de garshouni? Quelques réflexions sur le manuscrit British Library Add. 14644. In P. G. Borbone, A. Mengozzi, & M. Tosco (Eds.), Loquentes linguis: Studi linguistici e orientali in onore di Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti (pp. 141-147). Harrassowitz.\n\n^ a b c \"Garshuni\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. 2011. pp. 172-173.\n\nExternal links\n\nCommentary on Pentateuch(Torah) / Manuscript on Garshuni\n\n\"The Unique Explanation of the Secrets' is a manuscript in Garshuni, dating back to 1740\n\nDib, Yūsuf (1888). \"The Festive Maronite\". World Digital Library.\n\nGarshuni works at the World Digital Library\n\nSyriac-Garshuni glossary"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-garshuni"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 875}, {"slug": "reference-surma-d-bait-mar-shimun", "title": "Surma D'Bait Mar Shimun", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Lady Surma D'Bait Mar Shimun (27 January 1883 - 7 December 1975) was the sister of the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East and leader of the Assyrians, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Lady Surma D'Bait Mar Shimun (27 January 1883 - 7 December 1975) was the sister of the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East and leader of the Assyrians, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin.\n\nBiography\n\nLady Surma was born in Qudshanis in Hakkari. She was educated by Rev. W.H. Browne of the Archbishop of Canterbury mission where she became fluent in English. After the assassination of her brother by the Kurdish rebel Simko and succeeded by his younger brother, Mar Shimun XX Paulos. Surma Khanum (Lady Surma) practically became regent, and in 1918 she was invited by British authorities to present the Assyrian question in London and she also attended the Treaty of Versailles negotiations, probably as the only woman regent.[1]\n\nThe descendants of the Assyrian Empire had lived as a semi-independent nation in the Hakari mountains, but they were massacred and driven out by the Ottomans and Kurds in 1915. In return they were promised an independent homeland by Britain, France, and Russia in 1918 in Northern Iraq - the Mosul district - but this promise was not fulfilled. Mar Paulus died of tuberculosis 1920 and was succeeded by his 12 years old nephew, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, (1908-75), who was also assassinated. When Mar Eshai went to school in England until 1927, she assisted the Metropolitans Mar Yosip Khnanisho of Rustaqa in Church affairs and was in charge of the secular affairs together with her brother, General David d'Mar Shimun, father of the Patriarch. She continued to act as a consultant throughout Mar Eshai's life, given her temporal and secular expertise.\n\nAt the time of the disturbances in 1933 in Iraq, the Patriarchal family were taken to Cyprus, where they remained until 1952 when they moved to England and finally settling in the United States in 1960 thanks to a private law enacted in Congress and signed by the President. She died in the year of 1975 in the city of Turlock, California.[2]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Surma Khanum marshimun.com\n\n^ Women in power 1900-1940\n\nFurther reading\n\nStavridis, Stavros (2017). \"Lady Surma: The pillar of the Assyrian nation, 1883-1975\". In Travis, Hannibal (ed.). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-28405-0.\n\nClaire Weibel Yacoub, \"Le rêve brisé des Assyro-Chaldéens\", Editions du Cerf, Paris, 2011; \"Surma l'Assyro-Chaldéenne (1883-1975), Dans la tourmente de Mésopotamie\", Editions l'Harmattan, Paris, 2007, translated into Arabic."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-surma-d-bait-mar-shimun"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 391}, {"slug": "reference-chronicle-of-zuqnin", "title": "Chronicle of Zuqnin", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Chronicle of Zuqnin is an 8th-century Syriac historical work composed by a monk, most likely Joshua the Stylite, from the Monastery of Zuqnin near Amida on the upper Tigris. It covers history from the creation of the world to the mid-8th century AD with an account of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Chronicle of Zuqnin \n ܟܪܘܢܝܩܐ ܕܙܘܩܢ̈ܝܢ\n\nVatican Library \n British Library\n\nExcerpt from the chronicle (fol.136v) describing & illustrating the appearance of a comet in iyyōr 1071 SE (May 760 AD)\n\nTypeChronicle\n\nDatemid-8th century AD\n\nPlace of originZuqnin Monastery\n\nLanguageClassical Syriac with many Arabisms\n\nScribeElisha of Zuqnin\n\nAuthorLikely Joshua the Stylite\n\nConditionWell-preserved palimpsest, damaged preface, missing first & last pages\n\nContentsBiblical history, late antique Near Eastern events, early Islamic rule, spiritual commentary, anti-Chalcedonian polemics\n\nThe Chronicle of Zuqnin is an 8th-century Syriac historical work composed by a monk, most likely Joshua the Stylite, from the Monastery of Zuqnin near Amida on the upper Tigris. It covers history from the creation of the world to the mid-8th century AD with an account of political, social, and religious life in the Near East, in addition to spiritual affairs like miracles, martyrdom, and celestial observations from the author’s perspective and lived experience, during and after the Muslim conquest.\n\nDivided into four parts, the chronicle draws from a variety of sources, both Syriac and non-Syriac, including the Bible and John of Ephesus, and also features the author's own original commentary. Some documents, such as the Revelation of the Magi, are only extant in this chronicle, making it an invaluable resource for modern academia and Syriac studies.\n\nAuthorship\n\nThe author’s name and origins have not survived, which has led to several false attributions. The Maronite figure Giuseppe Simone Assemani once credited the work to Dionysius I of Tell-Mahre, the 9th-century Syriac Orthodox patriarch, for seemingly no reason, and this proved anachronistic. Recognizing the problem, Chabot introduced the conventional designation \"Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Maḥrē\", a name still commonly used in scholarship despite its lack of connection to the historical Dionysius, patriarch of Antioch.[1]\n\nThe author of the Chronicle of Zuqnin remains anonymous, though it is generally agreed that he was a monk from a monastery in the region of Zuqnin near Amida (modern Diyarbakır), and most probably Joshua the Stylite.[2] This association is partly due to a later colophon added by a Syrian monk, Elisha of Zuqnin, who copied the manuscript in the late 9th or early 10th century. While repairing damaged portions - especially from the Edessan Chronicle material - Elisha inserted Joshua’s name into the text and attributed the work to him. Elisha, who had lived for a time at the Monastery of Deir el-Surian in Egypt, likely made this copy during a return visit to Zuqnin.[3] For this reason, several modern scholars, including François Nau, Amir Harrak, and Andrew Palmer, have supported Joshua’s authorship.[4] Joshua likely wrote it at the request of his abbot, Sergius.[5]\n\nThe monastery of Zuqnin, where the work was produced, was also a center of learning. Founded in the 4th century near Diyarbakir, it flourished as a major monastic and intellectual hub until its decline in the 10th century.[6] Its library contained numerous manuscripts, including a biography of Matthew the Hermit.[7]\n\nSources\n\nThe Chronicle of Zuqnin is structured around different source materials. For the biblical period, the author relied on the Syriac translation of Eusebius’s Chronicon; for the years 495-507, he incorporated a detailed Edessan chronicle of local events, and for the 6th century, he drew heavily on the now-lost second part of John of Ephesus’s Ecclesiastical History. The final section, covering the 8th century, is considered the author’s original contribution based his own knowledge and experience.[2]\n\nThe chronicler drew on a wide variety of sources, both Syriac and non-Syriac. Among them were the Chronicon and Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, the Ecclesiastical History of John of Ephesus, the Revelation of the Magi, the Plerophoria of John Rufus, and various Edessan chronicles,[8] including the Chronicon of Jacob of Edessa.[9] Non-Syriac material also appears, including from Theophanes, Al-Tabari, Al-Azadi, and even Neo-Babylonian chronicles that correlated planetary movements with fluctuations in market prices.[10] The Bible was a major foundation as well, with the chronicler drawing heavily from both the Peshitta and the Septuagint.[11]\n\nStructure and content\n\nThe Chronicle of Zuqnin begins with the creation of the world and extends to the author’s own time in 0750 c. 750 - c. 776 AD, and is divided into four parts.[12] The first runs from Adam to Constantine, the second from Constantine to Theodosius the Lesser, the third continues to the reign of Justin II, and the fourth covers the years 599-775.[13] The work is the largest Syriac historiographical composition written before the 8th century[14] and it forms one of the most important sources for the history of the Jazira region in the period of the Abbasid caliph Abu Jafar Al-Mansur.[15] It preserves valuable information not found anywhere else about the early history of Islam and the medieval Near East.[16]\n\nThe text begins with a mutilated letter addressed to the author's spiritual fathers named \"George the Chorepiscopos of Amid, Euthalius the Abbot, Lazarus the Periodeute, the honorable Anastasius, and the entire monastic community\".[17] In this letter, the chronicler describes his work using several Syriac designations, such as \"commentary\", \"story\", \"account\", and \"memorandum\".[17] He also includes a list of living rulers like al-Mansur (r. 754-775) and al-Mahdi (r. 775-785).[17] The manuscript contains numerous misspelled words, many of which were corrected by Chabot in his edition. Since most are phonetic in nature, it suggests that the content may have been dictated to the author.[18]\n\nPart III is largely based on John of Ephesus's Ecclesiastical History.[19] It recounts the persecution of Miaphysite Christians under Chalcedonians, describing how monks were forced into a nomadic lifestyle for their safety, and how the Syriac Orthodox were suppressed by imperial authorities and Chalcedonian loyalists.[20] It also narrates the plague of Justinian and its devastating impact on monastic communities on top of the Chalcedonian persecution, including John of Ephesus himself, who was eventually stricken.[20]\n\nPart IV covers the years 767-775, a period of economic collapse in Mesopotamia. The Abbasids, particularly Caliph al-Mansur and the governor of Mosul, Musa ibn Mus'ab, reduced the Jazira - long a breadbasket of the region - into ruin by exploiting its agricultural and human resources.[20] The chronicler describes Musa ibn Mus'ab in highly personal terms like \"a vessel of sin, son of perdition, advocate of the devil, and one who held everything sacred and religious in contempt\".[21]\n\nSecular history and contemporary geopolitics\n\nThe chronicle comprises multiple unique details like the list of 80 kings of Edessa,[22] a variety of hagiographical elements (miracles, non-human characters, grotesque martyrdoms), and the mere account of historical events.[23]\n\nThe work recounts numerous historical events such as the destruction of a Nestorian monastery in Seleucid year 1077 (766 AD) on Mt. Qardu and a flood in Mosul soon afterwards.[24] It offers a detailed account of the martyrdom of Cyrus of Harran when he was murdered for refusing to convert to Islam, in sharp contrast to many other Christians in the Jazira that apostatized under threat of financial instability.[25] Similarly, the text recounts the life of Mar Habib, bishop of Edessa, and a miracle in which he saved a monastery in Upper Mesopotamia from Arab invaders.[26]\n\nThe narrative presents significant detail concerning the oppressive economic policies devised by the Abbasid caliphs that devastated Upper Mesopotamia. Once a productive area abundant in water, manpower, and agricultural capacity, the territory turned desolate and sparsely populated due to heavy taxation and overutilization. Toward the end of the text, the author recounts a few stories that involve Christian-Muslim relations, including the execution of a Christian who converted to Islam but later recanted. Both Abbasid and Umayyad taxation policies are described in detail, with special attention to the violence that often accompanied them. The dire consequences of Islamic rule on Christians is mentioned, especially in the densely populated regions of the Jazira. The Arab-Byzantine border is presented as having suffered severely. While relations between Christians and Muslims were frequently marked by tension and violence, those between steadfast Christians and apostates were characterized by deep mistrust and ridicule of the other's faith.[27]\n\nThe chronicle addresses major events like the iconoclast reforms of Yazid II, the wars waged by the Marwanid dynasty in Upper Mesopotamia, the career of Marwan II prior to his rise to caliph, and the broader conflicts between Muslims and the Khazars and Romans. The compiler provides a detailed narration of Church affairs in the style of Michael the Syrian’s chronicle. The author also points out, like John of Ephesus, that the state remains opposed to Miaphysite Orthodoxy in all forms, which led to the heavy persecution of the Syriac Orthodox faithful.[28] It also narrates the campaigns of the Umayyad prince Maslama against the Romans under Emperor Leo III and the Turks. Furthermore, the chronicle discusses the Abbasid revolution, noting the helpless conditions of Christians during that time and the hardships faced by the Arabs under the Persians.[29]\n\nThe text further discusses the social and cultural context and events pertaining to the Arabization of Upper Mesopotamia during the Abbasid rule. It underscores the deepening confessional divide between the Miaphysites and Chalcedonians to the extent that the author sees the early Islamic conquests as a liberation from the \"tyranny of the Romans\". He portrays the Byzantine persecutors as worse than the Muslims, despite detailing the latter's persecution of the Assyrians quite vividly. The Chalcedonians, as the chronicle explains, have abandoned their language and traditions in favor of those of the invading Arab Muslims, assimilating into the larger Arab society. In contrast, the Jacobites maintained a stronger preference for and preservation of Syriac culture well into the Crusades.[30]\n\nThe chronicle is one of the few Syriac sources, alongside works like the Life of Simeon of the Olives, from the seventh and eighth centuries that document socio-economic activities at a micro level.[31]\n\nSpirituality\n\nLike other chronicles past and present, this chronicle emphasizes that worldly punishments like plagues, earthquakes, and droughts were brought upon by God to punish corrupt human behavior - a theme common to biblical thought, Byzantine chronography, and more than anything else, Assyrian and Babylonian literature.[10] Historical examples of punishment for sin are presented so that future generations would take heed and not sin, even stating \"It is our own fault; because we sinned, slaves have become our masters\" with regard to persecution by Muslims. When Muslims conquered the monastery of St. Simeon the Stylite and took many innocent Christian captives, the author blames this on the lack of faithfulness and fasting among them, who opted for the debauchery of drunkenness, dancing, and festivals.[32] Likewise, when Arabs were driven away near Aleppo in 813, they had no one to blame but themselves as the author attributes this to their disobedience to God.[33]\n\nThe chronicler frequently compares his own time to the period of biblical history, a common feature of the Syriac tradition in which later writers build on earlier ones. He compares the Abbasids to the Assyrians and Egyptians of Scripture who oppressed the people of God - the Israelites at the time and the Christians in his own time, the Syriac Orthodox in particular.[34][35]\n\nThe chronicle discusses the persecutions of the Miaphysite faithful amid significant Chalcedonian incursions. It also highlights a distinctly separate experience; while Chalcedonians grappled with their ecumenical councils, these matters were merely historical footnotes for the Miaphysites, irrelevant to the non-Chalcedonian Churches in the East.[36] Although anti-Chalcedonian sentiment is strong throughout, the chronicle still longs for Church unity despite the harsh memories of persecution.[37]\n\nThe chronicle includes a letter from the Jews to Emperor Marcian in which they ask for forgiveness for their transgressions in crucifying the Messiah and request permission to reopen their synagogues. They argue that, as Chalcedon has affirmed, what was crucified was merely a man and not God Himself. This serves as a polemic against Chalcedonians and not so much against the Jews.[38]\n\nAstronomical phenomena are vividly described with detailed drawings, including multiple auroras, unusual clouds, and comets, most famously a two-tailed sighting of Halley's Comet in 760. These are framed as supernatural warnings connected to divine wrath and the Second Coming.[39]\n\nOne section of interest is called the Revelation of the Magi, found in pages 17-25. The story, an expansion of the Adoration of the Magi as seen in the Gospel of Matthew, appears to date from some point in the 2nd-5th century, but was preserved nowhere else than the Zuqnin chronicle.[40]\n\nLanguage, style, and structure\n\nThe chronicle's structure is chronological but lacks a consistent division between years and periods. Events are dated mainly by the Seleucid calendar which is called the \"era of Alexander\" or \"of the Greeks\", though the Hijri, Antiochene, and Laodicean calendars appear once each.[19]\n\nThe work contains plenty of Arabisms as well, which reflect the author's own familiarity with Arabic. Examples include ܥܣܟܪ ('Askir) for عسكر ('Askar), meaning military; ܪܣܘܠܐ (Rasūlā) for رسول (Rasūl), meaning \"messenger\" and referring to Mohammed; ܫܠܬܢܐ (Šultānā) for سلطان (Sulṭān), meaning \"governor\"; and ܫܪ̈ܬܐ (Šartā) for شرطة (Šurṭa), meaning \"police\". Even when native Syriac cognates exist, the author opted for Arabisms instead, such as ܓܙܝܪܬܐ (Jazīrtā) for جزيرة (Jazīra) instead of the native ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ (Bêth Nahrain), meaning \"Mesopotamia\"; ܓܘܫܕܐ (Gušdā) for جسد (Jasad) instead of the native ܫܠܕܐ (Šaldā), meaning \"body\"; and ܒܓܠܐ (Bağlā) for بغل (Bağl) instead of the native ܟܕܢܐ (Kadnā), meaning \"mule\".[35]\n\nSince the text contains many grammatical and spelling errors, Amir Harrak suggests that its author was probably not a scholarly historian like Michael the Syrian or Gregory Barhebraeus, but rather a monk who spent much of his time in prayer and meditation on a pillar. Harrak describes the author as an \"ardent moralist\" - someone who heavily criticized anyone he believed had done wrong, regardless of their religious or ethnic background, and in graphic detail, where people and events are presented in stark extremes with little nuance in between.[21] Many of the misspelled words were fixed in modern editions and translations, and since most of these errors are phonetic in nature, it may indicate that some content was dictated to the author.[18]\n\nIn addition, the chronicle preserves Akkadian words and toponyms in the Syriac dialect of that time, as referenced in the chronicle regarding the castle \"ÉGAL\" of Sennacherib, whom the author calls \"king of Assyria\".[41]\n\nManuscripts\n\nThe entire chronicle survives in a single palimpsest manuscript of 179 folios, of which 173 are now preserved in the Vatican Library as Codex Zuqninensis (Vat. Syr. 162), acquired from the Monastery of Deir el-Surian in Egypt by Assemani, while 6 folios (ff. 2-7) are held in the British Library (Add. 14,665).[12] The first and last folios are missing but a heavily damaged preface still survives. The manuscript is thought to be an autographon that was begun in 773-774 and completed between 775-776.[42] A digital version of the Vatican manuscript is available online through the Vatican Library.\n\nPart II of the chronicle has been edited and translated multiple times. Paul Martin produced a French edition in 1876, William Wright an English edition in 1882, Archbishop Mor Yohanon Dolabani issued an edition in Mardin in 1959, and N. V. Pigulevskaya prepared a Russian translation in 1940.[43] J. B. Chabot also translated Part I into Latin (1872)[44] and later published French translations of Parts II and IV; Hespel also produced a French translation of Part IV.[45]\n\nSee also\n\nChronicle of 1234\n\nMichael the Syrian's Chronicle\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nChristology\n\nCouncil of Ephesus\n\nCouncil of Chalcedon\n\nArab-Byzantine wars\n\nBattle of the Zab\n\nReferences\n\n^ Harrak 2017, p. xii.\n\n^ a b Brock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. p. 53.\n\n^ Harrak 1999, p. 9.\n\n^ Harrak 1999, pp. 4-5.\n\n^ Bunnin, Nicholas; Yu, Jiyuan, eds. (2004-01-01). The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. Malden, MA, USA: BLACKWELL PUBLISHING. p. 275. doi:10.1002/9780470996379. ISBN 978-0-470-99637-9.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 9.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 12.\n\n^ Harrak 2017, pp. xv-xvi.\n\n^ Ibrahim, Gregorios Yohanna; Kiraz, George Anton (2010). Studies on Jacob of Edessa. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-60724-997-9.\n\n^ a b Harrak 1999, p. 23.\n\n^ Harrak 2017, p. xvii.\n\n^ a b Harrak 2017, p. xi.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 145.\n\n^ Brock et al. 2011, p. 201.\n\n^ Brock et al. 2011, p. 450.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 367.\n\n^ a b c Harrak 2017, pp. xxii-xxiii.\n\n^ a b Harrak 2017, pp. xxiii-xxiv.\n\n^ a b Harrak 1999, p. 18.\n\n^ a b c Harrak 1999, pp. 18-20.\n\n^ a b Harrak 1999, p. 24.\n\n^ Brock et al. 2011, p. 5.\n\n^ Saint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon (2015). Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches (1 ed.). University of California Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-520-28496-8. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt19632bn.\n\n^ Harrak 1999, p. 16.\n\n^ Harrak 1999, pp. 17, 30-31.\n\n^ Harrak 1999, pp. 30-31.\n\n^ Harrak 2009, pp. 324-235.\n\n^ Wood 2011, p. 1.\n\n^ Wood 2011, pp. 2-3.\n\n^ Philip, Wood (2019). \"Historiography in the Syriac-Speaking World, 300-1000\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 411-413. ISBN 9780367732363.\n\n^ Hoyland, Robert G.; Brunner, Kyle B.; Tannous, Jack Boulos Victor (2021). The Life of Simeon of the Olives: An Entrepreneurial Saint of Early Islamic North Mesopotamia. Gorgias Press LLC. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-4632-4346-3. Retrieved 16 January 2025.\n\n^ Morony 2005, pp. 8-9.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 47.\n\n^ Morony 2005, pp. 47-48.\n\n^ a b Harrak 1999, pp. 25-27.\n\n^ Menze, Volker Lorenz (2008). Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 271-273. ISBN 978-0-19-953487-6.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2025). The Council of Chalcedon and the Syriac Orthodox Church: Efforts of Reconciliation (451-631). Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 85. ISBN 978-3-447-12330-3.\n\n^ Butts, Aaron Michael; Gross, Simcha (2021). \"Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersections across the First Millennium\". Church History. 90 (4). Cambridge University Press & Assessment: 15. doi:10.1017/S0009640722000130. ISSN 0009-6407.\n\n^ Hayakawa, Hisashi; Mitsuma, Yasuyuki; Fujiwara, Yasunori (2017). \"The Earliest Drawings of Datable Auroras and a Two-Tail Comet from the Syriac Chronicle of Zūqnīn\" (PDF). Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. 69 (2): 1-15. arXiv:1610.08690. Bibcode:2017PASJ...69...17H. doi:10.1093/pasj/psw128.\n\n^ Witakowski 2008, pp. 809-844.\n\n^ Harrak 2017, p. 290.\n\n^ Harrak 2017, p. xiv.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature and Theology. Variorum. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-86078-305-3.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, p. 225.\n\n^ Harrak 1999, p. 32.\n\nSources\n\nBarsoum, Ignatius Aphram (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Moosa, Matti (Second rev. ed.). Piscataway (N. J.): Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-931956-04-9.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas; E. Fiano (2011). \"Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage\". Beth Mardutho. ISBN 9781593337148 - via Academia.edu.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nHarrak, Amir (1998). \"Arabisms in Part IV of the Syriac Chronicle of Zuqnin\". Symposium Syriacum VII. Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. pp. 469-498. ISBN 9788872103197.\n\nHarrak, Amir, ed. (1999). The Chronicle of Zuqnīn, Parts III and IV: A.D. 488-775. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. ISBN 9780888442864.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2005). \"Ah! The Assyrian is the Rod of My Hand!: Syriac View of History after the Advent of Islam\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 45-65. ISBN 9789042914186.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2009). \"Joshua the Stylite of Zuqnīn\". Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 1. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 322-326. ISBN 9789004169753.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2011a). \"Zuqnin, Chronicle of\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. p. 450.\n\nHarrak, Amir (2011b). \"Chronicles, Syriac\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 98-99.\n\nHarrak, Amir, ed. (2017). The Chronicle of Zuqnīn, Parts I and II: From the Creation to the Year 506/7 AD. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. doi:10.31826/9781463237370-002.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (2005). \"History and Identity in the Syrian Churches\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042914186.\n\nWitakowski, Witold, ed. (1987). The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahrē: A Study in the History of Historiography. Uppsala-Stockholm: University of Uppsala. ISBN 9789155419677.\n\nWitakowski, Witold, ed. (1996). Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre: Chronicle (Known also as the Chronicle of Zuqnin), Part III. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9780853237600.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2011). \"Historiography, Syriac\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 199-203.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2008). \"The Magi in Syriac tradition\". In Kiraz, George (ed.). Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone: Studies in Honor of Sebastian P. Brock. Gorgias Press. pp. 809-844. doi:10.31826/9781463214814-037. ISBN 978-1-59333-706-3.\n\nWood, Philip (2011). \"The Chroniclers of Zuqnin and Their Times (c. 720-75)\". Parole de l'Orient. 36: 549-568.\n\nExternal links\n\nVat. sir. 162, digitized Vatican manuscript"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-chronicle-of-zuqnin"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3447}, {"slug": "reference-david-david-surgeon", "title": "David David (surgeon)", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Professor David John David AC (born 21 December 1940) is an Australian surgeon. He is a specialist in the area of craniofacial surgery and plastic & reconstructive surgery of the Head and Neck. He was the founder of the Australian Craniofacial Unit.[2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "ProfessorDavid DavidAC\n\nBornDavid John David\n (1940-12-21) 21 December 1940\n\nCitizenshipAustralian\n\nEducationRostrevor College\n\nKnown forCraniofacial surgery\n\nAwards\n\nCompanion of the Order of Australia (1988)\n\nSA Australian of the Year (2018)\n\n Australian rules football career\nPersonal information\n\nPosition\nruck rover/Half-back flank[1]\n\nPlaying career\n\nYears\nClub\nGames (Goals)\n\n1959-1963\nSturt Football Club\n27\n\nCricket career\n\nCricket information\n\nDomestic team information\n\nYearsTeam\n\n1963-1967Adelaide University Cricket Club\n\n1967Finchley Cricket Club\n\nWebsitewww.ddms.com.au\n\nProfessor David John David AC (born 21 December 1940)\nis an Australian surgeon. He is a specialist in the area of craniofacial surgery and plastic & reconstructive surgery of the Head and Neck. He was the founder of the Australian Craniofacial Unit.[2]\n\nDavid was created a Companion of the Order of Australia in the 1988 Australia Day Honours.[3] He was named 2018 South Australian Australian of the Year in October 2017.[4]\n\nAn alumnus of Rostrevor College,[5] David retired from clinical practice on 30 June 2018 but continues to teach in medical surgery and allied professions as Clinical Professor of Craniofacial Surgery at the University of Adelaide.[6]\n\nThe Australian Craniofacial Unit was founded in Adelaide by David in 1975. It remains one of only two such units in the world (the other is in Dallas).[7] Before establishing the unit in Adelaide, he studied under Paul Tessier in France, who is regarded as the father of modern craniofacial surgery.[1]\n\nPersonal\n\nDavid has been married twice. He has four children and nine grandchildren with his first wife. He married Bronwyn in 2016.[1]\n\nWhile at university, he played for the Sturt Football Club then Adelaide University Cricket Club.[1] He won the Bradman Medal for best A-grade cricketer in the 1966-67 season.[8] When he moved to England to continue his studies, he played for Finchley Cricket Club in the Middlesex County Cricket League and played with and against international players.[1]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e Rice, Steve (5 November 2017). \"The life and career of South Australian of the Year and renowned craniofacial surgeon Professor David David\". The Advertiser. Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\n^ \"David David Medical Services\". Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) entry for Mr David John DAVID\". Australian Honours Database. Canberra, Australia: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 26 January 1988. Retrieved 15 February 2020. AC AD88. FOR SERVICE TO MEDICINE, PARTICULARLY IN THE FIELD OF CRANIOFACIAL SURGERY, AND TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS\n\n^ \"2018 SOUTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR AWARDS RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED\". National Australia Day Council. 30 October 2017. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\n^ Profile, Adelaidenow.com.au. Accessed 17 July 2024.\n\n^ \"Questions?\". David David Medical Services. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\n^ Penberthy, David (4 December 2019). \"Highest honour for the Australian doctor David David who changed the face of surgery\". The Weekend Australian. Retrieved 15 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Bradman Medal\". South Australian Cricket Association. Retrieved 15 February 2020."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-david-david-surgeon"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 497}, {"slug": "reference-barwari", "title": "Barwari", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Barwari (Syriac: ܒܪܘܪ,[1] Kurdish: به‌رواری, romanized: Berwarî)[2] is a region in the Hakkari mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The region is inhabited by Assyrians and Kurds, and was formerly also home to a number of Jews prior to their emigration to Israel in 1951.[3] It is...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Barwari (Syriac: ܒܪܘܪ,[1] Kurdish: به‌رواری, romanized: Berwarî)[2] is a region in the Hakkari mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The region is inhabited by Assyrians and Kurds, and was formerly also home to a number of Jews prior to their emigration to Israel in 1951.[3] It is divided between northern Barwari in Turkey, and southern Barwari in Iraq.\n\nEtymology\n\nThe name of the region is derived from \"berwar\" (\"slope [of a hill]\" in Kurdish).[4]\n\nHistory\n\nThe British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard visited Barwari Bala in 1846 and noted that some villages in the region were inhabited by both Assyrians and Kurds.[5] Assyrians of Barwari Bala were rayah (subjects) of the Kurdish emirate of lower Barwari,[6] whilst Assyrians in Barwari Shwa'uta were partly semi-independent and partly rayah.[7] In the 1840s, a series of massacres of Assyrians in Barwari Bala were perpetrated by Kurdish tribes under the leadership of Bedir Khan Beg, Mir of Bohtan, resulting in the death or expulsion of half of the population.[6] The region was estimated by American Presbyterian missionaries to contain 32 Assyrian villages, with 420 Church of the East Christian families, in 1870.[8]\n\nAmidst the Assyrian genocide in the First World War, in 1915, most Assyrian villages in Barwari Bala were destroyed and their inhabitants slaughtered by Turkish reservists and Kurdish tribesmen led by Rashid Bey, Mir of lower Barwari, whilst the survivors took refuge in the vicinity of Urmia and Salamas in Iran.[9] Assyrian villages in northern Barwari were similarly pillaged and their inhabitants massacred.[10] Until the genocide in 1915, northern Barwari was inhabited by approximately 9000 Assyrians, whilst there were c. 5000 Assyrians in southern Barwari.[11] Survivors were transferred under British protection from Iran to the refugee camp at Baqubah in Iraq in 1918, where they remained until most families attempted to return to their villages in 1920.[12]\n\nAs a consequence of the partition of the Ottoman Empire, most of Hakkari was allocated to Turkey, which prevented Assyrians from returning,[13] whilst Assyrians in southern Barwari in Iraq were permitted to return to their original villages.[12] The Assyrians of southern Barwari suffered major upheaval with the eruption of the First Iraqi-Kurdish War in 1961, forcing a sizeable number to flee and seek refuge in Iraqi towns until most returned at the war's conclusion in 1970, during which time a few Assyrian villages were seized and settled by Kurds.[12] In accordance with the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iraq and Iran, the Iraqi government carried out border clearings in 1977-1978,[14] destroying a number of Assyrian and Kurdish villages, and displacing their population.[15]\n\nVillages that had been spared in the late 1970s were destroyed by the Iraqi Army in the Al-Anfal campaign in 1987-1988, and all Assyrians in the region were moved to refugee camps, from which they moved to Iraqi towns or emigrated abroad to Europe, North America, or Australia.[9] In total, all 82 villages in the sub-district of Barwari Bala were destroyed in the campaign,[16] of which 35 villages were entirely inhabited by Assyrians.[14] Assyrians returned to rebuild their villages after the establishment of the Iraqi no-fly zones in 1991, however, the majority have remained in the diaspora.[9]\n\nGeography\n\nIraq\n\nSouthern or lower Barwari corresponds to the part of the region now located within northern Iraq, and encompasses Barwari Bala and Barwari Žēr. Barwari Bala (\"upper Barwari\" in Kurdish) is a sub-district in Amedi District within the Dohuk Governorate,[17] and is located alongside the Iraq-Turkey border.[4] The sub-region of Barwari Bala is separated from the Sapna valley to the south by the Matina mountains, and from the historical region of Lower Tyari in Hakkâri Province in Turkey by the Širani mountains to the north.[18] Its eastern border is defined by the Great Zab, beyond which lies Nerwa Rekan, and the Khabur serves as the western boundary of Barwari Bala.[4] Barwari Žēr (\"lower Barwari\" in Kurdish) is located further to the south of Barwari Bala.[4]\n\nThe following villages in Barwari Bala are currently inhabited by Assyrians:[19][20]\n\nTarshīsh\n\nJdīdā\n\nBeṯ Kolke[21]\n\nTūṯā Shamāyā\n\nMāyā\n\nDerishke[22]\n\nAïnā d'Nūne\n\nHayyat\n\nBeṯ Shmiyāye\n\nDūre\n\nHelwā\n\nMalakṯā\n\nAqrī[23]\n\nBeṯ Balōkā\n\nHayyis\n\nMūsākān\n\nMerkaje\n\nQasrka\n\nBaz\n\nBetanure\n\nSardasht\n\nCham Dostina\n\nKhwara[24]\n\nKani Balavi\n\nJelek\n\nIden\n\nChaqala\n\nThe following villages in Barwari Bala were formerly inhabited by Assyrians:\n\nAlqōshtā[25]\n\nAvsarke[26]\n\nBazif[27]\n\nBeluzan[17]\n\nButara[28]\n\nDargeli[25]\n\nMaghribiya[29]\n\nTirwanish[30]\n\nTurkey\n\nThe districts of Barwari Sevine,[a] Barwari Shwa'uta,[b] Barwari Qudshanes, and Bilidjnaye were located in southeastern Turkey,[4] and constituted northern or upper Barwari.[32]\n\nThe following villages in Barwari Sevine were formerly inhabited by Assyrians:[33]\n\nḤardālānīs\n\nQōṭrānīs\n\nAḥwānīs\n\nShmūnīnīs\n\nSīwīne\n\nEspen\n\nṢallan\n\nQūrānīs\n\nKarme\n\nŌret\n\nThe following villages in Barwari Qudshanes were formerly inhabited by Assyrians:[34]\n\nQūdshānīs\n\nBeṯ Nānō\n\nNerwā\n\nTīrqōnīs\n\nKīgar\n\nSōrīnes\n\nTarmel\n\nBeṯ Ḥājīj\n\nPeḥḥen\n\nChāros\n\nThe following villages in Bilidjnaye were formerly inhabited by Assyrians:[35]\n\nDerres\n\nĀwert\n\nDāden\n\nBeṯ Respi\n\nĀlāṣ\n\nNauberi\n\nThe following villages in Barwari Shwa'uta were formerly inhabited by Assyrians:[35]\n\nShwāwūṯā\n\nSāqerran\n\nDairikki\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Barwari Sweni or Barwari Siweene.[31]\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Barwari d'Shwawootha.[7]\n\nCitations\n\n^ \"Bahra Magazine\" (PDF). Bahra Magazine. 7 November 2010. Retrieved 23 April 2020.\n\n^ Hamelink (2016), p. 351.\n\n^ Mutzafi (2008), p. 8.\n\n^ a b c d e Khan (2008), p. 1.\n\n^ Aboona (2008), pp. 5-6.\n\n^ a b Khan (2008), p. 3.\n\n^ a b Aboona (2008), p. 87.\n\n^ Mooken (2003), pp. 61-62.\n\n^ a b c Khan (2008), p. 2.\n\n^ Yacoub (2016), p. 115.\n\n^ Yonan (1996), pp. 27, 87.\n\n^ a b c Khan (2008), pp. 2-3.\n\n^ Travis (2006), p. 334.\n\n^ a b Donabed (2015), p. 179.\n\n^ Khan (2008), pp. 1-2.\n\n^ Noory (2012), p. 108.\n\n^ a b Donabed (2015), p. 112.\n\n^ Khan (2008), p. 1; Aboona (2008), pp. 5-6.\n\n^ \"Christian Communities in the Kurdistan Region\". Iraqi Kurdistan Christianity Project. 2012. Archived from the original on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 150.\n\n^ \"Beqolke\". Ishtar TV. 31 August 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2020.\n\n^ \"Derishke (Muslims and Christians)\". Ishtar TV. 26 November 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2020.\n\n^ \"Iqri\". Ishtar TV. 11 August 2011. Retrieved 4 September 2020.\n\n^ \"Khwara\". Ishtar TV. 21 February 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2020.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst (2000), p. 149.\n\n^ Donabed (2015), p. 298.\n\n^ Donabed (2015), p. 292.\n\n^ Donabed (2015), p. 293.\n\n^ Donabed (2015), p. 300.\n\n^ Donabed (2015), p. 302.\n\n^ Aboona (2008), pp. 87, 294.\n\n^ Yacoub (2016), p. 115; Yonan (1996), pp. 87-88.\n\n^ Aboona (2008), p. 294; Wilmshurst (2000), p. 295.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 295; Aboona (2008), p. 293.\n\n^ a b Aboona (2008), p. 294; Wilmshurst (2000), p. 294.\n\nBibliography\n\nAboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. Retrieved 27 August 2020.\n\nDonabed, Sargon George (2015). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press.\n\nHamelink, Wendelmoet (2016). The Sung Home. Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation. Brill.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2008). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar. Brill.\n\nMooken, Aprem (2003). The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century. St. Ephrem's Ecumenical Research Institute. Retrieved 27 August 2020.\n\nTravis, Hannibal (2006). \"\"Native Christians Massacred\": The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians during World War I\". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 1 (3): 327-372. Retrieved 3 September 2020.\n\nMutzafi, Hezy (2008). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Betanure (province of Dihok). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.\n\nNoory, Alan M. (2012). Shopping for Identity: An Economic Explanation for the Post-2003 Violence in Iraq (PhD dissertation). University of Missouri-St. Louis. OCLC 794855377. Retrieved 6 September 2020.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913 (PDF). Peeters Publishers. Retrieved 30 October 2024.\n\nYacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History. Translated by James Ferguson. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 November 2024.\n\nYonan, Gabriele (1996). Lest We Perish: A Forgotten Holocaust : the Extermination of the Christian Assyrians in Turkey and Persia (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 March 2021. Retrieved 7 May 2020."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-barwari"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1354}, {"slug": "reference-justin-meram", "title": "Justin Meram", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Justin Meram (Arabic: جستن حكمت عزيز ميرام; born December 4, 1988), known as Justin Hikmat Azeez Meram in Iraq,[4] is an Iraqi former professional footballer who played as a winger. Born in the United States, he played for the Iraq national team.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Justin Meram\n\nMeram with Iraq at the 2015 AFC Asian Cup\n\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nJustin Joseph Meram[1] \nJustin Hikmat Azeez Meram[2]\n\nDate of birth\n (1988-12-04) December 4, 1988\n\nPlace of birth\nShelby Charter Township, Michigan, United States\n\nHeight\n1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)[3]\n\nPosition\nWinger\n\nCollege career\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n2007-2008\nYavapai Roughriders\n52\n(51)\n\n2009-2010\nMichigan Wolverines\n41\n(24)\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n2007-2008\nArizona Sahuaros\n\n2011-2017\nColumbus Crew\n188\n(37)\n\n2018\nOrlando City SC\n17\n(1)\n\n2018-2019\nColumbus Crew\n18\n(1)\n\n2019\nAtlanta United FC\n20\n(4)\n\n2020-2023\nReal Salt Lake\n85\n(8)\n\n2023\nCharlotte FC\n14\n(3)\n\n2024\nMichigan Stars\n0\n(0)\n\n2025\nDes Moines Menace\n0\n(0)\n\nInternational career‡\n\n2014-2022\nIraq\n36\n(4)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals as of 4 April 2024\n‡ National team caps and goals as of 28 March 2022\n\nJustin Meram (Arabic: جستن حكمت عزيز ميرام; born December 4, 1988), known as Justin Hikmat Azeez Meram in Iraq,[4] is an Iraqi former professional footballer who played as a winger. Born in the United States, he played for the Iraq national team.\n\nCareer\n\nCollege and amateur\n\nMeram attended Eisenhower High School in Michigan, and played for local side Vardar, before going on to play two years of college soccer at Yavapai College in Arizona. Meram was a program standout at Yavapai, leading his team to back-to-back NJCAA National Championships, earning 2008 National Junior College Player of the Year honors, being named a NSCAA and NJCAA All-American, earning ACCAC Conference Player of the Year honors, and being named MVP at both the national and regional tournaments during the 2007 season, while setting a school record for points and finished second all-time in goals and assists.\n\nHe transferred to the University of Michigan as a junior in 2009, where he was named to the All-Big Ten second team both years, and to the NSCAA All-GreatLakes Region second team in his senior year in 2010. He finished his college career with 24 goals and 14 assists in 41 games for the Wolverines.\n\nDuring his college years in Arizona, Meram also played with the Arizona Sahuaros, both in the National Premier Soccer League and in local amateur USASA competitions.[5]\n\nClub career\n\nColumbus Crew\n\nOn January 14, 2011, Meram was drafted in the first round (15th overall) in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft by Columbus Crew.[6] He made his professional debut on February 22, 2011, as a second-half substitute in the first leg of the Crew's CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final series against Real Salt Lake,[7] and made his MLS debut on May 28 as a late substitute in a 3-3 tie with Chivas USA.[8]\n\nMeram made his MLS regular season debut on May 28 against Chivas USA. Meram started and recorded an assist in the Crew's U.S. Open Cup match against Richmond Kickers. Meram appeared in both quarterfinal matches against Real Salt Lake as a substitute in the 2010-11 CONCACAF Champions League.\n\nIn his second season, Meram made 22 appearances and 11 starts to score four goals and record one assist in 960 minutes. Meram recorded goals in three consecutive games during the month of May against FC Dallas, San Jose Earthquakes and Seattle Sounders FC. He also scored the game-winner in the 89th minute on September 19.\n\nMeram made 19 appearances split between right midfield, left midfield and forward in his third season with the Black & Gold, recording one goal and one assist. His appearances included eight starts and five substitute appearances at left midfield, one start and three substitute appearances at right midfield and two substitute appearances at forward. He made his season debut against San Jose (March 16) and his first start of the year at right wing in the match at Toronto FC (May 18). In his second straight start at right midfield at New York Red Bulls (May 26), he was awarded a penalty which led to a Federico Higuaín goal. Meram made starts in the right midfield at Philadelphia Union (June 5) and against New York (August 10) but did not travel to the match at Real Salt Lake (August 24) suffering from back spasms. He returned to action with a start at left midfield against Seattle (August 31) and in the next match against Houston Dynamo (September 4) scored his first goal and recorded his first assist-the game-winner-of the season in a start at left midfield in the 2-0 win. In MLS Reserve League action, he made nine starts - five at forward and four in the midfield-scoring one goal and recording one assist. In the 2013 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, he made two appearances - including one start at forward-and scored the game-winning goal in the 84th minute in the Third Round win against Dayton Dutch Lions (May 29) after subbing-on.\n\nMeram made 32 appearances-including 19 starts-at midfield as part of a breakout campaign. He scored eight goals and assisted on four others, career-bests in both categories. Meram appeared in the season-opening win at D.C. United (March 8) and recorded his first assist of the season. He was an 89th-minute sub and scored the game-winning goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time at Seattle (March 29). He made his first start of the season at left midfield against New York (April 26) and drew a penalty that led to a Columbus goal. Meram came on as a late-match substitute at New England Revolution (July 26) and assisted on Ethan Finlay's match-winning goal. He scored his third goal of the season in a second-half substitute appearance versus Toronto FC (August 9). He scored the opening goal versus the LA Galaxy (August 16) and added an assist later in the contest. Meram repeated the one-goal, one-assist effort for the second consecutive match in a start versus Houston (August 23). He started in the club's final nine League matches of the regular season, recording his first career brace versus Chivas USA (September 7) and scoring again at Philadelphia (October 11). Meram made his postseason debut and scored his first MLS Cup Playoffs goal in a start versus New England (November 1) -- he started the second leg at New England (November 9) and recorded his first career MLS Cup Playoffs assist. Meram made two Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup appearances, including one start in tournament action-he made a substitute appearance in the 2-1 win over Indy Eleven in the Fourth Round (June 17) and started at forward in the Fifth Round at Chicago Fire Soccer Club (June 25). Following the season, he received his first-ever international call-up, making three caps for Iraq at the 22nd Arabian Gulf Cup.\n\nMeram made 31 appearances (28 starts) at left midfield in 2015, scoring six goals and notching five assists. He started the home opener against Toronto FC (March 14) and registered the game-winning goal. He missed the club's match against New York (March 28) while on international duty with the Iraq National Team, but returned with a start at Vancouver Whitecaps FC (April 8), where he recorded his first assist of the season. He scored in consecutive matches following a tally against Philadelphia (April 25). Meram recorded his second assist of the season with a helper on Kei Kamara's second goal vs. Seattle (May 9) and earned his third assist via Kei Kamara's eighth-minute goal vs. Chicago (May 22), which was the 500th-ever home regular-season goal in Black & Gold history. He started the club's international friendly vs. Valencia CF (May 27) and made his 100th appearance in MLS and for Crew with a start at Orlando City SC (May 30). Meram received his second international call-up of the season from the Iraq National Team and earned his 14th cap by starting the team's friendly at Japan (June 11). He recorded assists in back-to-back games for the second time in his career with a helper at Orlando (August 1). Once again, Meram received a call-up by Iraq ahead of two 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, scoring his first international goal against Chinese Taipei (September 3) and his second against Thailand (September 8). He earned an additional call-up and started for Iraq in a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying match at Vietnam (October 8). In the 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs, Meram started all five games for Crew, scoring the fastest goal in MLS postseason history (nine seconds) in the First Leg against the New York Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference Championship (November 22). Meram made a substitute appearance in both Crew's 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Fourth Round contest at Richmond (June 17) and its Round of 16 match at Orlando (June 30).\n\nOrlando City\n\nOn January 29, 2018, Orlando City acquired midfielder Justin Meram from Columbus Crew in exchange for $1.05 million in allocation money plus a 2019 international roster spot.[9] He made his debut in the season opener against D.C. United on March 4 and scored his first goal for Orlando against Atlanta on May 14. On August 3, after a difficult spell at Orlando, Meram was traded back to Columbus in return for $750,000 in TAM and a 2019 international roster spot.\n\nAtlanta United\n\nOn May 7, 2019, Meram joined defending MLS champions Atlanta United FC for $100,000 in GAM and a 2nd round draft pick. Atlanta United technical director Carlos Bocanegra described Meram as a \"proven commodity in MLS.\"[10] On June 29, 2019, Meram scored a brace to help his side to a 2-1 win over the Montreal Impact.[11] His contract option was not renewed at the end of the season.[12]\n\nReal Salt Lake\n\nOn February 11, 2020, Meram signed with Real Salt Lake.[13] In January 2022, Real Salt Lake announced that they extended Meram's contract through the 2023 MLS season.[14]\n\nCharlotte FC\n\nOn April 27, 2023, Charlotte FC announced that they acquired Meram from Real Salt Lake in exchange for $200,000 in general allocation money (GAM).[15] On May 13, 2023, Meram scored his first goals for Charlotte, with a brace in their 3-1 victory over his former club Atlanta United.[16]\n\nMichigan Stars\n\nMeram joined the Michigan Stars in April 2024, starting in the club's 2-0 win over Minnesota United FC 2 in the second round of the 2024 U.S. Open Cup.[17]\n\nInternational career\n\nIn 2013, Meram began a two-year process to gain dual citizenship to become eligible to represent Iraq. On September 16, 2013, Iraq coach Hakeem Shaker called up Meram for a training session in preparation for a 2015 AFC Asian Cup qualification match against Saudi Arabia.[18]\n\nIn October 2014, Meram was called up for a friendly against Yemen but did not attend as his club team, the Crew, were still involved in the 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs.[19] On November 10, 2014, Meram was included in Iraq's final roster ahead of their group stage matches of the 22nd Arabian Gulf Cup.[20] Meram became the first player in Major League Soccer history to be called up by Iraq.[19] When asked in 2014 about representing Iraq internationally, Meram said, \"My goal was (to represent) Iraq from day one.\"[19]\n\nMeram went on to make his international debut, a start in the midfield, in Iraq's opening match of the tournament against Kuwait on November 14, 2014. Meram went on to play the full 90 minutes of the eventual 0-1 loss.[21] In the match, Meram had several chances at goal, including a shot cleared off the line by a Kuwaiti defender just before halftime.[22]\n\nMeram earned his second call-up to participate in training camp and friendlies ahead of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. In December 2014, it was announced that Meram was called into Iraq's camp for four friendlies in the following weeks against Kuwait, Iran, and two against Uzbekistan. At that time, he was also named to Iraq's squad for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup to be held in Australia in January 2015.[23] Meram made his competitive debut as a second-half substitute in Iraq's first match and second match of the tournament, a 1-0 victory over Jordan on January 12, 2015,[24] and a 1-0 loss to Japan. He started the Lions of Mesopotamia's final Group stage match against Palestine (January 20), helping Iraq to a 2-0 win and qualification for the Quarterfinals. Meram started that Quarterfinal match against Iran, playing 45 minutes in a match that Iraq eventually won on penalties 3-3 (7-6). The match represented Meram's 10th cap for Iraq.[23] Meram scored his first goal for Iraq on September 3, 2015, converting a 91st-minute penalty as his side defeated Chinese Taipei 5-1 in 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification.[25]\n\nOn October 18, 2021, Meram announced his retirement from international soccer.[26] However, on March 19, 2022, he was recalled for matches against Syria and the United Arab Emirates.\n\nPersonal life\n\nJustin was the youngest of Hikmat \"Sam\" Aziz Meram and Lamia Mansour Hormis' four sons. He and his parents are ethnic Assyrians[27][28] from the Tel Keppe District of Mosul. Their religious background is Chaldean Catholic.[27][28] His parents immigrated to the United States and met in the Detroit area. Justin's father came to the United States in 1967 while his mother arrived in 1975. Meram's Iraqi passport lists his name as Justin Hikmat Aziz (with his first name, father's name, and the name of his grandfather), following local naming conventions.[29]\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\nAs of October 30, 2022[30][31]\n\nClub\n\nSeason\n\nLeague\n\nPlayoffs\n\nNational cup\n\nContinental\n\nTotal\n\nDivision\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\n\nColumbus Crew\n\n2011\n\nMLS\n\n17\n0\n0\n0\n1\n0\n2\n0\n20\n0\n\n2012\n\n22\n4\n-\n1\n0\n-\n23\n4\n\n2013\n\n19\n1\n-\n2\n1\n-\n21\n2\n\n2014\n\n32\n8\n2\n1\n2\n0\n-\n36\n9\n\n2015\n\n31\n6\n5\n1\n2\n0\n-\n38\n7\n\n2016\n\n33\n5\n-\n2\n1\n-\n35\n6\n\n2017\n\n34\n13\n5\n1\n1\n0\n-\n40\n14\n\nTotal\n\n188\n37\n12\n3\n11\n2\n2\n0\n213\n42\n\nOrlando City SC\n\n2018\n\nMLS\n\n17\n1\n-\n1\n1\n-\n18\n2\n\nColumbus Crew\n\n2018\n\n9\n1\n3\n0\n0\n0\n-\n12\n1\n\n2019\n\n9\n0\n-\n0\n0\n-\n9\n0\n\nTotal\n\n18\n1\n3\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n21\n1\n\nAtlanta United FC\n\n2019\n\nMLS\n\n20\n\n4\n\n1\n\n0\n\n5\n\n0\n\n1[a]\n\n0\n\n27\n\n4\n\nReal Salt Lake\n\n2020\n\n21\n\n3\n\n1[b]\n\n0\n\n-\n\n-\n\n22\n\n3\n\n2021\n\n31\n\n2\n\n0\n\n0\n\n-\n\n-\n\n31\n\n2\n\n2022\n\n33\n\n3\n\n0\n\n0\n\n-\n\n-\n\n33\n\n3\n\nCareer total\n\n328\n51\n17\n3\n17\n3\n3\n0\n365\n57\n\n^ Includes 1 appearance in the Campeones Cup\n\n^ Includes 1 appearance in the MLS Is Back Tournament knockout round\n\nInternational\n\nAs of March 28, 2022[32]\n\nIraq\n\nYear\nApps\nGoals\n\n2014\n5\n0\n\n2015\n12\n2\n\n2016\n5\n0\n\n2017\n3\n1\n\n2018\n4\n0\n\n2019\n4\n1\n\n2021\n2\n0\n\n2022\n1\n0\n\nTotal\n36\n4\n\nScores and results list Iraq's goal tally first.[32]\n\n#\nDate\nVenue\nOpponent\nScore\nResult\nCompetition\n\n1.\nSeptember 3, 2015\nPAS Stadium, Tehran, Iran\n Chinese Taipei\n5-1\n5-1\n2018 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\n2.\nSeptember 8, 2015\nRajamangala Stadium, Bangkok, Thailand\n Thailand\n1-0\n2-2\n\n3.\nAugust 31, 2017\n1-0\n2-1\n2018 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\n4.\nMarch 20, 2019\nBasra Sports City, Basra, Iraq\n Syria\n1-0\n1-0\n2019 International Friendship Championship\n\nHonors\n\nAtlanta United\n\nCampeones Cup: 2019\n\nU.S. Open Cup: 2019\n\nSee also\n\nList of Iraq international footballers\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Crew SC Profile\". Columbus Crew SC. Retrieved January 5, 2016.\n\n^ \"Gulf Cup Profile (English)\". gulfcup.sa/en. Retrieved November 14, 2014.\n\n^ \"Justin Meram\". Real Salt Lake. Retrieved August 21, 2022.\n\n^ \"Gulf Cup Profile (Arabic)\". gulfcup.sa. Retrieved November 14, 2014.\n\n^ \"Meet the Arizona Sahuaros, Professional Soccer Team Members\". Azsahuaros.com. Archived from the original on September 24, 2016. Retrieved February 14, 2014.\n\n^ \"Michigan's Justin Meram drafted by the MLS' Columbus Crew\". Retrieved January 29, 2018.\n\n^ \"Crew, RSL finish scoreless in testy CCL opener\". February 22, 2011. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2018.\n\n^ \"Columbus Crew vs Chivas USA 05-28-2011 - Recap\". MLSsoccer.com. May 28, 2011. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved February 14, 2014.\n\n^ \"Orlando City SC Acquires Justin Meram from Columbus Crew SC\". January 29, 2018.\n\n^ \"Atlanta acquires midfielder Justin Meram from Columbus\". USA Today. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2019.\n\n^ \"Meram has vintage night in leading Atlanta United to a win\". Retrieved June 30, 2019.\n\n^ Patrick, Joe (January 6, 2020). \"Justin Meram says goodbye to Atlanta United\". Dirty South Soccer. Retrieved August 21, 2021.\n\n^ \"Real Salt Lake Signs Forward Justin Meram\". Real Salt Lake. February 11, 2020. Retrieved February 11, 2020.\n\n^ \"Justin Meram re-signs with Real Salt Lake through 2023\". January 10, 2022.\n\n^ \"Charlotte FC Acquires Forward Justin Meram from Real Salt Lake in Exchange for $200,000 General Allocation Money\". April 27, 2023.\n\n^ \"A Brace and Team of the Matchday - Justin Meram\". May 13, 2023.\n\n^ Marthaler, Jon (April 3, 2024). \"2024 US Open Cup Round 2: With strong defense, retired MLS player, Michigan Stars outlast MNUFC2 in OT\". TheCup.us. Retrieved April 4, 2024.\n\n^ حكيم شاكر يوجه الدعوة للمحترف في الدوري الامريكي جوستن ميرام ويؤكد التحاق قاسم بتركيا [Justin Meran callup] (in Arabic). Iraqfpg.com. September 16, 2013. Retrieved February 14, 2014.\n\n^ a b c Jardy, Adam. \"Soccer: Crew's Justin Meram called up to Iraqi national team\". The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved November 11, 2014.\n\n^ \"Columbus Crew forward Justin Meram named in Iraq Squad for Gulf Cup\". Fox Soccer.\n\n^ \"Iraq vs. Kuwait\". gulfcup.sa. Retrieved November 14, 2014.\n\n^ Schwepfinger, Ryan. \"Meram earns first cap in start for Iraq\". Columbus Crew SC. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014. Retrieved November 15, 2014.\n\n^ a b \"Columbus Crew SC winger Justin Meram named to Iraq roster ahead of 2015 Asian Cup\". Major League Soccer. Archived from the original on December 29, 2014. Retrieved December 17, 2014.\n\n^ \"Columbus Crew SC's Justin Meram comes off bench to help Iraq beat Jordan in Asian Cup\". Major League Soccer. Archived from the original on January 14, 2015. Retrieved January 12, 2015.\n\n^ \"International Roundup: Justin Meram scores in Iraq win, AJ DeLaGarza and Guam lose at Iran\". Major League Soccer. Retrieved September 4, 2015.\n\n^ Butler, Dylan. \"MLS veteran Justin Meram retires from international soccer with Iraq\". MLS. Retrieved October 18, 2021.\n\n^ a b \"Assyriska and What It Means to a Proud Community\". February 15, 2016. Archived from the original on October 4, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2020. It is extremely important to represent my Assyrian background.\n\n^ a b Kay, Bryan (February 22, 2016). \"'It was always my No1 choice': Justin Meram, the US-born Christian playing for Iraq\". The Guardian. Retrieved August 19, 2020. Right now, he is the lone Christian in the ranks, flying the flag for Iraq's Chaldeans, an ancient Assyrian people who have called the region home since long before the time of Jesus.\n\n^ Mubarak, Hassanin (November 12, 2014). \"JUSTIN MERAM: THE MOST FAMOUS JUSTIN IN IRAQ\". iraqsport.wordpress.com. Retrieved November 15, 2014.\n\n^ Justin Meram at Major League Soccer\n\n^ Justin Meram at Soccerway\n\n^ a b Justin Meram at National-Football-Teams.com\n\nExternal links\n\nJustin Meram at Major League Soccer\n\nJustin Meram at Soccerway\n\nJustin Meram at Michigan\n\nOfficial website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-justin-meram"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3215}, {"slug": "reference-tamzara", "title": "Tamzara", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Tamzara[a] is an Armenian folk dance native to the Armenian Highlands. In Armenia the dance originally had a ritual character, it was a wedding song and dance. Now \"Tamzara\" has lost its former ritual significance, when it was performed during almost all community events and parties. It is...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tamzara\n\nGenreFolk dance\n\nOriginArmenian Highlands\n\nYalli (Kochari, Tenzere), traditional group dances of Nakhchivan\n\nUNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage\n\nCountryAzerbaijan\n\nReference01190\n\nRegionEurope and North America\n\nInscription history\n\nInscription2018 (13th session)\n\nListNeed of Urgent Safeguarding\n\nTamzara[a] is an Armenian folk dance native to the Armenian Highlands. In Armenia the dance originally had a ritual character, it was a wedding song and dance. Now \"Tamzara\" has lost its former ritual significance, when it was performed during almost all community events and parties. It is today performed by Armenians, Assyrians, Azerbaijanis (in the regions of Sharur, Nakhchivan and parts of Iranian Azerbaijan),[2][3] Greeks and Turks.[4][5][6][7][8] In post-Soviet Armenia, tamzara dance is gaining more and more popularity among all strata of the population.\n\nThis dance was also especially popular in the formerly Armenian-populated regions of Erzincan, Erzurum, Kigi, Arapgir, Harput, and Malatya. There are many versions of Tamzara, with slightly different music and steps, coming from the various regions and old villages in the Armenian Highlands. According to Folk Dance Federation of California, Inc (July, 2001) Tamzara is performed by Armenians not only in Armenia, also in the countries of Armenian Diaspora.[9]\n\nHistory and description\n\nSome scholars suggest that the dance may have originated in the ancient village of Tamzara, located in the northeastern part of Sebastia/Sivas, which was once part of Western Armenia. The name is believed to stem from a local story: “The leader of the village offered his guests his hospitality and always called for his daughter-in-law Zara to serve them ‘tan’ (yoghurt mixed with salt and water). Therefore, he called to her by saying: ‘Tan, Zara!’” According to old local legends, this phrase eventually led to the village being referred to as Tanzara.[10][6]\n\nThe meaning of this dance, which is famous in the villages of Charchibogan, Chomakhtur and other villages of Nakhchivan's Sharur region, is \"Gizili tanbatan\" (half golden) in word-by-word translation. Tamzara is included to the repertoire of the folklore dancing collectives respectively. The women dancing used to dress luxuriously and adorn themselves with golden accessories, including rings, ear-rings, bracelets, chains and others.\n\nIn 2018, Azerbaijani-style Tamzara, along with kochari, was inscribed into the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the Yalli dance in need of urgent safeguarding.[11]\n\nStyle\n\nAll Tamzaras have the unique 9\n8 rhythm, with the two accented beats at the end of each measure. In addition, the melody to most Tamzaras is very similar, though there are exceptions. Like most folk dances of the Armenian Highlands, Tamzara is done as a line dance or circle dance, with a large group of people with interlocked pinkies. However one version of the Tamzara is done by a man with one or two women standing shoulder to shoulder facing the same direction with their arms around each other's waists.\n\nTamzara is one of the most popular Armenian folk dances to have been preserved in the United States by the Armenian-American community.[9]\n\nSee also\n\nAn Dro\n\nFaroese dance\n\nKalamatianos\n\nKhigga\n\nSyrtos\n\nNotes\n\n^ Armenian: Թամզարա, romanized: T'amzara; Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܬܢܙܪܐ, romanized: Tanzara;[1] Azerbaijani: Tənzərə; Greek: Τάμσαρα, romanized: Támsara; Turkish: Tamzara\n\nReferences\n\n^ Thirty Assyrian Folk Dances\n\n^ (in Azerbaijani) Irada Sariyeva. Yalli Dances of Nakhchivan. Baki Khabar. 25 January 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2015.\n\n^ Recep Albayrak Hacaloğlu. Azeri Türkçesi dil kilavuzu. Hacaloğlu, 1992; p. 272.\n\n^ Korkmaz, M. Akif (April 2021). \"HASAN TAHSİN OKUTAN'IN GİRESUN ŞEBİNKARAHİSAR TAMZARA DÜĞÜN ÂDETLERİ HALK OYUNLARI VE TÜRKÜLERİ\". Karadeniz İncelemeleri Dergisi. 15 (30): 579-614.\n\n^ \"Pontic Music and Dance presented in Culture section\". www.newsfinder.org. Archived from the original on 2007-10-10. \n\n^ a b Tamzara, Folk Dance Federation of California\n\n^ VitriFolk Belgian Dance Community\n\n^ \"Stockton Folk Dance Camp\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-05-07. Retrieved 2015-03-10.\n\n^ a b Tamzara, Folk Dance Federation of California\n\n^ Stockdon Folk Dance Camp (PDF). Folk Dance Federation of California, South, Inc. 2008. pp. 148-149.\n\n^ Yalli (Kochari, Tenzere), traditional group dances of Nakhchivan. UNESCO.\n\nExternal links\n\nArmenian Tamzara by Karin Folk Ensemble\n\nAuthentic Tamzara from Historical Armenia performed by Armenian Folk Dance Society. The Armenian Folk Dance Society performed at the 1939 and 1964 World's Fair in New York.\n\nGreek Tamsara, Tamzara\n\nArmenian Davul-Zurna Tamzara (2) sample\n\nArmenian Tamzara by Richard Hagopian, Fresno California\n\nExternal videos\n\n Darulelhan Heyeti Tarafından - Sivas Tamzarasi (Taş Plak Arşivi)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tamzara"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 715}, {"slug": "reference-tell-leilan", "title": "Tell Leilan", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell Leilan (Shekhna) is an archaeological site situated near the Wadi Jarrah in the Khabur River basin in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. The site has been occupied since the 5th millennium BC. During the late third millennium, the site was known as Shekhna. During that time it was...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Leilan\n\nView of Tell Leilan\n\nLocation within Syria\n\n36°57′26″N 41°30′19″E / 36.95722°N 41.50528°E / 36.95722; 41.50528\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nCulturesAkkadian, Assyrian\n\nLocationAl-Hasakah Governorate, Syria\n\nHistory\n\nBuilt5000 BC\n\nAbandoned1726 BC\n\nSite notes\n\nConditionIn ruins\n\nTell Leilan (Shekhna) is an archaeological site situated near the Wadi Jarrah in the Khabur River basin in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. The site has been occupied since the 5th millennium BC. During the late third millennium, the site was known as Shekhna. During that time it was under control of the Akkadian Empire and was used as an administrative center.[1][2] Around 1800 BC, the site was renamed \"Šubat-Enlil\" by the king Shamshi-Adad I, and it became his residential capital.[3] Shubat-Enlil was abandoned around 1700 BC.\n\nGeography\n\nThe site is located close to some other flourishing cities of the time. Hamoukar is about 50 km away to the southeast. Tell Brak is about 50 km away to the southwest, and also in the Khabur River basin. Tell Mozan (Urkesh) is about 50 km to the west.\n\nLeilan, Brak and Urkesh were particularly prominent during the Akkadian period.[4]\n\nHistory\n\nChalcolithic\n\nThe city originated around 5000 BC as a small farming village.\n\nEarly Bronze\n\nEarly Bronze III\n\nThe Early Bronze III (c. 2750-2350 BC) began with a period of optimal climate conditions during the EB IIIA (c. 2750-2500 BC) allowing the growth of urban city-states, followed by a shift to drier conditions in EB IIIB (c. 2500-2350 BC) causing urban intensification and political turmoil competing for resources. In Mesopotamia, the EB IIIA correlates with Early Dynastic II-IIIA, while EB IIIB is represented by Early Dynastic IIIB.\n\nEarly Dynastic IIIA/Ninevite 5. It grew to be a large city c. 2600 BC, three hundred years before the Akkadian Empire. The city had a large wall by c. 2600 BC.[5] A number of finds from the Ninevite 5 period were found at the site.[6][7][8][9]\n\nEarly Bronze IV\n\nThe Early Bronze IV (c. 2350-2000 BC) encompassed the EB IVA (Akkadian period) and EB IVB (Ur III period). The EB IV began with climate change (c. 2350 BC), changed from EB IVA to EB IVB due to a climate change (c. 2200 BC) and ended with a climate change (c. 2036 BCE). During this time, Northern Mesopotamia experienced drier conditions.\n\nDrought. A 3-foot layer of sediment at Tell Leilan containing no evidence of human habitation offered clues as to the cause of the demise of the Akkadian imperial city; analysis indicated that at around 2200 BC, a three-century drought was severe enough to affect agriculture and settlement.[10][11][12][13]\n\nMiddle Bronze\n\nMiddle Bronze IIA\n\nShubat-Enlil\n\nKingdom of Upper Mesopotamia\n\ncirca 1809 BCE-circa 1776 BCE\n\nCapitalShubat-Enlil\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nKing \n\n• circa 1809 BCE - 1776 circa BCE Shamshi-Adad I\n\nHistorical eraBronze Age\n\n• Established circa 1809 BCE\n\n• Disestablished circa 1776 BCE\n\nSucceeded by\n\nApum\n\nToday part ofSyria\n\nThe conquest of the region by the Amorite warlord Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1781 BC) of Ekallatum revived the abandoned site of Tell Leilan. Shamshi-Adad saw the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region and made it the capital city of his empire. He renamed it from Shehna to Shubat-Enlil, or Šubat-Enlil, meaning \"the residence of the god Enlil\" in the Akkadian language.[14] In the city a royal palace was built and a temple acropolis to which a straight paved street led from the city gate. There was also a planned residential area and the entire city was enclosed by a wall. The city size was about 90 hectares (220 acres). Shubat-Enlil may have had a population of 20,000 people at its peak.\n\nKingdom of Apum\n\nAfter the death of Shamshi-Adad, the city became the capital of Apum and prospered until king Samsu-iluna of Babylon sacked it in 1726 BC.[15] During this period various minor kings ruled there, including Turum-natki, Zuzu, and Haja-Abum. Qarni-Lim, king of nearby Andarig, maintained a large palace there. Later Andarig rilers Atamrum and Himdiya also held Šubat-Enlil after it was sacked by Elamites.[16][17]\n\nArchaeology\n\nBeginning in 1979 the mound of Tell Leilan was excavated by a team of archaeologists from Yale University, led by Harvey Weiss.[18][19][20] The dig ended in 2008. Among many important discoveries at Tell Leilan is an archive of 1100 cuneiform clay tablets maintained by the rulers of the city.[21][22] These tablets date to the eighteenth century BC and record the dealings with other Mesopotamian states and how the city administration worked.[23] Finds from the excavations at Tell Leilan are on display in the Deir ez-Zor Museum.[24]\n\nTell Mohammad Diyab\n\nThe site of Tell Mohammed Diyab is located 7 km southeast of Tell Leilan.[25] Its total area is about 50 ha, and the main tell is about 12 ha. Excavations revealed significant findings from the Amorite period, including at the time of Shamshi-Adad I. There are two distinct cities at the site. Excavations started in 1992.[26]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nShort chronology timeline\n\nList of Mesopotamian dynasties\n\nTell Khoshi\n\nNotes\n\n^ [1] Ristvet, Lauren, Thomas Guilderson and Harvey Weiss, \"The Dynamics of State Development and Imperialization at Third Millennium Tell Leilan, Syria\", In Orient Express, vol. 21, no. 2, 2004\n\n^ [2] F. de Lillis Forest, L. Milano and L. Mori, \"The Akkadian Occupation in the Northwest Area of the Tell Leilan Acropolis\", KASKAL, vol. 4, 2007\n\n^ Eidem, J., \"Old Assyrian Trade in Northern Syria. The Evidence from Tell Leilan. In J. G. Dercksen (ed.), \nAnatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period\", pp. 31-41, Publications de l’Institut historique et archéologique néerlandais de Stamboul 111. Leiden., 2008\n\n^ Margreet L. Steiner, Ann E. Killebrew, The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: C. 8000-332 BCE. OUP Oxford, 2014 p398\n\n^ [3] Risvet, L., \"The Third Millennium City Wall at Tell Leilan, Syria: Identity, Authority and Urbanism\", in J. Bretschneider, J. Driessen and K. Vanlerberghe, eds., Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean. Leuven: Peters, pp. 183-212, 2007\n\n^ [4] Weiss, Harvey, \"Ninevite 5 Periods and Processes.\", In The origins of North Mesopotamian civilization: Ninevite 5 chronology, economy, society. Brussels: Brepols. E. Rova and H. Weiss, editors. 2003\n\n^ [5] Parayre, Dominique, \"The Ninevite 5 Sequence of Glyptic at Tell Leilan\", In The origins of North Mesopotamian civilization: Ninevite 5 chronology, economy, society. Brussels: Brepols. E. Rova and H. Weiss, editors., 2003\n\n^ [6] van Gijn, Annelou, The Ninevite 5 Chipped Stone Assemblage from Tell Leilan: Preliminary Results\", In The origins of North Mesopotamian civilization: Ninevite 5 chronology, economy, society. Brussels: Brepols. E. Rova and H. Weiss, editors., 2003\n\n^ [7] Wetterstrom, Wilma, \"Ninevite 5 Period Agriculture at Tell Leilan: Preliminary Results\", In The origins of North Mesopotamian civilization: Ninevite 5 chronology, economy, society. Brussels: Brepols. E. Rova and H. Weiss, editors., 2003\n\n^ Leilan.yale.edu, Harvey Weiss et al., The genesis and collapse of Third Millennium north Mesopotamian Civilization, Science, vol. 291, pp. 995-1088, 1993\n\n^ Leilan.yale.edu, H. M. Cullen, Climate change and the collapse of the Akkadian empire: Evidence from the deep sea, Geology, vol. 28, pp. 379-382, 2000\n\n^ Leilan.yale.edu, M. Staubwasser and H. Weiss, Holocene Climate and Cultural Evolution in Late Prehistoric-Early Historic West Asia,\" in M. Staubwasser and H. Weiss, eds., Holocene Climate and Cultural Evolution in Late Prehistoric-Early Historic West Asia. Quaternary Research (special issue) Volume 66, Issue 3 (November 2006), pp. 372-387.\n\n^ [8] Archived 18 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine Ristvet, L. and H. Weiss 2005 \"The Hābūr Region in the Late Third and Early Second Millennium B.C.,\" in Winfried Orthmann, ed., The History and Archaeology of Syria. Vol. 1. Saabrucken: Saarbrucken Verlag.\n\n^ Harvey Weiss, Tell Leilan and Shubat Enlil, Mari, Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires, vol. 4, pp. 269-92, 1985\n\n^ L. Ristvet, \"Resettling Apum: Tribalism and Tribal States in the Tell Leilan Region, Syria.\", In\nN. Laneri, P. Philzner and S. Valentini (eds.), Looking North: the Socioeconomic\nDynamics of Northern Mesopotamian and Anatolian Regions during the Late Third\nand Early Second Millennium BC. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp.37-50, 2012\n\n^ Eidem, Jesper. 2008. The Royal Archives from Tell Leilan: Old Babylonian Letters and Treaties from The Lower Town Palace. Yale Tell Leilan Research, Vol. 2. London and New Haven: Yale University Press.\n\n^ Pulhan, Gül. 2000. On the Eve of the Dark Age: Qarni-Lim’s Palace at Tell Leilan. Ph.D. Dissertation, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University, New Haven, CT\n\n^ [9] Harvey Weiss, Excavations at Tell Leilan and the Origins of North Mesopotamian cities in the Third Millennium B.C., Paléorient, vol 9, iss. 2, pp. 39-52, 1983\n\n^ Harvey Weiss et al., 1985 Excavations at Tell Leilan, Syria, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 94, no. 4, pp. 529-581, 1990\n\n^ [10] Weiss, Harvey, \"Tell Leilan 1989: New Data for Mid-Third Millennium Urbanization and State Formation.\", Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, vol. 122, pp. 193-218, 1990\n\n^ [11] Claudine Adrienne Vincente, \"The 1987 Tell Leilan Tablets Dated by the Limmu of Habil-kinu: Volume 1 and 2\", AMI, 1992\n\n^ [12] Van De Mieroop, Marc, \"The Leilan Tablets 1991 a Preliminary Report\", Orientalia, NOVA SERIES, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 305-344, 1994\n\n^ Jesper Eidem, with a contribution by Lauren Ristvet and Harvey Weiss: The Royal Archives from Tell Leilan. Old Babylonian Letters and Treaties from the Lower Town Palace East (PIHANS 117). The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, 2011.\n\n^ Bonatz, Dominik; Kühne, Hartmut; Mahmoud, As'ad (1998). Rivers and steppes. Cultural heritage and environment of the Syrian Jezireh. Catalogue to the Museum of Deir ez-Zor. Damascus: Ministry of Culture. OCLC 638775287.\n\n^ Mckee, G. \"Places: 957515415 (Tell Mohammad Diyab)\". Pleiades. Retrieved 18 November 2025.\n\n^ Virginia Verardi 2008, The different stages of the Acropolis from the Amorite period at Tell Mohammed Diyab. - academia.edu\n\nFurther reading\n\nVincente, C.-A., \"Tell Leilan Recension of the Sumerian King List.\", NABU 1990, no. 11, pp. 8-9, 1990\n\n[13] Weiss, Harvey, Sturt Manning, Lauren Ristvet, Lucia Mori, Mark Besonen, Andrew McCarthy, Philippe Quenet, Alexia Smith, Zainab Bahrani, \"Tell Leilan Akkadian Imperialization, Collapse, and Short-Lived Reoccupation Defined by High-Resolution Radiocarbon Dating\", in H. Weiss, ed., Seven Generations since the Fall of Akkad. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz., pp. 163-192, 2012\n\nThe Climate of Man - II: The curse of Akkad. Elizabeth Kolbert. The New Yorker. May 2, 2005.\n\nvan de Mieroop, Marc (1999). The Mesopotamian City. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-815286-8.\n\nAkkermans, Peter M. M. G.; Schwartz, Glenn M. (2004). The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c. 16,000-300 BC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79666-0.\n\n[14] Weiss, Harvey, Francesca deLillis, Dominique deMoulins, Jesper Eidem, Thomas Guilderson, Ulla Kasten, Torben Larsen, Lucia Mori, Lauren Ristvet, Elena Rova, and Wilma Wetterstrom, 2002, Revising the contours of history at Tell Leilan. Annales Archeologiques Arabes Syriennes, vol. 45, pp. 59-74\n\nWeiss, Harvey, ed., 2012, Seven Generations Since the Fall of Akkad. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz ISBN 9783447068239\n\n[15] Harvey Weiss, \"Rediscovering: Tell Leilan on the Habur Plains of Syria\", The Biblical Archaeologist, ASOR, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 5-34 (Mar 1985)\n\nExternal links\n\nTell Leilan project"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-leilan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1846}, {"slug": "reference-michael-the-syrian", "title": "Michael the Syrian", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Michael the Syrian, also known as Michael the Great (Syriac: ܡܝܟܐܝܠ ܪܒܐ, romanized: Mīkā'ēl Rābā; 1126 - 7 November 1199), was the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch from 1166 until his death in 1199. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "His Holiness (Moran Mor)\nMichael the Syrian \n ܡܝܟܐܝܠ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ\nPatriarch of Antioch and All the East\n\n79th Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nA portrait and icon of Michael the Great\n\nNative nameܡܝܟܐܝܠ Mikhoēl\n\nChurchSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nSeeAntioch\n\nIn office1166-1199\n\nPredecessorAthanasius VII bar Qatra\n\nSuccessorAthanasius VIII\n\nOrders\n\nOrdination18 October 1166\n\nPersonal details\n\nBorn1126\nMelitene, Danishmend Kingdom\n(modern-day Malatya, Turkey)\n\nDied1199 (aged 72-73)\n\nBuriedMor Bar Sauma Monastery\n\nMichael the Syrian, also known as Michael the Great (Syriac: ܡܝܟܐܝܠ ܪܒܐ, romanized: Mīkā'ēl Rābā; 1126 - 7 November 1199), was the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch from 1166 until his death in 1199. He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the Syriac Orthodox Church, remembered both as a saint and as a historian.\n\nHailing from the distinguished Qindisi family of Melitene, he quickly rose through the ranks to become Patriarch of Antioch. His tenure as patriarch at the Mor Hananyo Monastery involved maintaining good political and ecumenical relations with Crusaders, expressing disdain for Byzantines, and protecting his flock from Arab and Turkic incursions while navigating various church politics, including a schism in the patriarchate by Theodoros bar Wahbun.\n\nHis monumental Chronicle is the largest surviving historical work in Syriac literature, covering world history from Creation up to his own day. The chronicle, mainly preserved in an Edessan manuscript as a copy of a copy, records ecclesiastical affairs, natural phenomena, secular history, and other pertinent matters. Modern scholars call it \"undoubtedly the greatest of all Syriac chronicles\" and a cornerstone of medieval historiography, in addition to dozens of other works by Michael which catalyzed the era of \"Syriac Renaissance.\"\n\nMichael, described as \"one of the greatest pontiffs [...] finest of the Patriarchs [...] of everlasting name, of graceful pursuit, and of uncommon qualities,\" is highly venerated in the Oriental Orthodox Communion and his feast day in the Syriac Orthodox Church is on November 7, the date of his repose.\n\nLife\n\nThe life of Michael is recorded by Bar Hebraeus. Michael was born in Melitene (modern Malatya, Turkey) into a Syriac Orthodox priestly family in 1126. His father, Reverend Eliya al-Qindasi (Elias Qîndîsî), was a priest, and his uncle Athanasius Zakkai (or Zakka) was a monk who later became bishop of Anazarbus in Cilicia in 1136. He thus belonged to the distinguished Qindasi family.[1][2] At the time of his birth, Melitene was part of the Turkoman Danishmend dynasty, and after its division in 1142, it became the capital of a principality. In 1178, the city came under the control of the Sultanate of Rûm.\n\nAs a youth, Michael joined the Monastery of Mar Barsauma near Melitene, which had served as the patriarchal seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church since the 11th century. After completing his theological studies, he was ordained as a monk. Before reaching the age of thirty, he was appointed archimandrite (abbot) of the monastery, a position he held for nearly a decade. During this tenure, Michael enlarged the monastery's library, added new buildings, and rebuilt the water supply system, ensuring that it could accommodate the thousands of pilgrims who gathered annually for the feast of Saint Barsauma.[2] He also took measures to improve the monastery's defenses against marauding bandits.[3]\n\nMichael soon gained a reputation as both a historian and theologian. In 1165, Patriarch Athanasius VII (1139-1166) sought to ordain him bishop of Amid (modern Diyarbakir), but Michael declined in order to devote himself to study. Following the patriarch's death in 1166, the Holy Synod met at Dayr Fesqin (or Peshqîn) near Melitene to elect his successor. After much debate, Michael was proposed as one of three candidates. Though initially reluctant, he accepted on the condition that the synod agree to enforce certain canons aimed at strengthening the church in its time of turmoil. Dionysios Jacob bar Salibi, bishop of Marash and Mabbug, preached in his favor, and Michael was unanimously elected and consecrated Patriarch of Antioch on 18 October 1166, in the presence of 28 bishops.[4]\n\nPatriarchate\n\nMichael was the first Syriac Orthodox patriarch to act within the city of Antioch itself since the expulsion of Severus of Antioch by Justinian in the 6th century, and he consecrated a number of bishops there.[5] He established his primary patriarchal residence at the Monastery of Deyruelzafaran in Mardin, while also spending significant time at Mar Barsauma.[6] Immediately after his election, he contacted Pope John I of Alexandria (Yohanna ibn Abi Ghalib), in keeping with the traditional bonds between the Syriac and Coptic patriarchates. Michael also traveled extensively through the Levant. In 1168 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, staying at the Monastery of Mary Magdalene near the Damascus Gate (Bāb al-'Amūd), and subsequently resided for a year at Antioch, which was under Crusader rule. In Antioch and Jerusalem, he was received with great respect by the Latin patriarchs and nobility, cultivating cordial relations with figures such as Amaury de Nesle, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.[7][8]\n\nMichael was invited in 1178 to attend the Third Lateran Council in Rome by Pope Alexander III but he declined, though he sent a theological treatise in his stead.[9] He likewise refused overtures from Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, who attempted to negotiate ecclesiastical union. On three occasions (1170, 1172, and thereafter), Michael declined to travel to Constantinople or meet imperial envoys, instead sending representatives and responding with clear affirmations of the Syriac Orthodox Miaphysite faith.[10]\n\nAs patriarch, Michael appointed twenty-five bishops, reformed lax clerical practices, and combated simony. His reforms provoked opposition, and he faced several rebellions from bishops and clergy. In 1171 and again in 1176, monks of Mar Barsauma rebelled against him. In 1174, he deposed Yuhanna al-Qaluniqi, bishop of Mardin, who retaliated by agitating the emir of Mosul and ruler of Mardin against Michael. Further opposition came from Bar Masih and culminated in the consecration of Theodore bar Wahbun as antipatriarch in Cilicia around 1180. Supported by discontented clergy, the Armenian king, the Catholicos of Armenia, and even at times the Crusaders - all of whom claimed jurisdictions over the Syrians of Cilicia - Theodore appealed in vain to Saladin for recognition. Michael excommunicated him, and after his escape from imprisonment at Mar Barsauma, Theodore sought refuge with the Armenian catholicos Gregory IV and Prince Leo II of Cilician Armenia, who officially recognized him. The schism persisted for 13 years until Theodore's death in 1193, when the Syriac Orthodox synod reaffirmed loyalty to Michael.[11][12][5]\n\nDespite these challenges, Michael maintained wide prestige. He cultivated diplomatic relations with Muslim and Christian rulers alike, including Sultan Kilij Arslan II of Rûm, whom he met cordially at Melitene in 1182. He supported Pope Mark III of Alexandria in the excommunication of Mark ibn Kunbar during the Egyptian controversy on confession.[13] In his Chronicle, Michael lamented the suffering of Middle Eastern Christians under Latin occupation, particularly in Jerusalem.[9]\n\nLate in his life, amidst the controversies with Theodore bar Wahbun and the burdens of office, Michael attempted to resign in 1193, but the synod refused his abdication.[11] He continued his patriarchate until his death on 7 November 1199 at the Monastery of Mar Barsauma, aged 72, having served 33 years as patriarch, and was buried in a tomb he had constructed in advance, located north of the altar of the monastery's church.[14] During his patriarchate, Michael ordained one Maphrian and 54 bishops.[8] His successor was Athanasius IX (1199-1207), also abbot of Mar Barsauma; a rival claimant, Michael II the Younger, contested him and later became antipatriarch instead of Athanasius and later John XIV.[15]\n\nChronicle\n\nComposition and structure\n\nMichael is best known for the world chronicle that he composed, the longest and richest surviving chronicle in the Syriac language.[16] The Chronicle is the most extensive historical work of Syriac literature ever written, comprising 21 books from the Creation of the world to his era in 1194.[17] It was composed in a unique three-column format: the first column for secular and political history, the second for ecclesiastical affairs, and the third for natural phenomena such as earthquakes, locust swarms, and celestial events.[18][19] Between chapters, Michael inserted chronological tables that synchronized different systems of dating - the Seleucid era, the Nativity, Olympiads, and the Hijra (used exclusively in reference to Muslim caliphs). A small miscalculation in aligning Seleucid and Nativity dates runs throughout the work.[20] This method built upon the tables of Eusebius of Caesarea, was expanded by Jacob of Edessa, and later developed by Michael himself.[21]\n\nThis new format of separate columns outlining different historical sections was used by earlier by Syriac Orthodox hierarchs such as John of Ephesus, Jacob of Edessa, and Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, and later by Bar Hebraeus. It was reserved for senior hierarchs which emphasized the important mission that accompanied it.[21]\n\nMichael occasionally devoted all three columns to a single subject when greater detail was needed.[22] After the chronicle ends abruptly, it is followed by six appendices. The first appendix summarizes the kings and patriarchs cited in the text. The second appendix is a treatise on the historical identity of the Syrians, associating them with ancient Near Eastern empires which are the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Arameans. When the chronicle was translated into Armenian twice in 1246 and 1247, some aspects were changed to accommodate Armenian interests.[23]\n\nManuscripts and translations\n\nThe autograph of Michael the Great's Chronicle is lost. What survives is a much later copy of a copy: it was transcribed in 1598 by Bishop Michael of Urbish, four centuries after the author's death[18] and was itself based on an earlier copy produced by Moses of Mardin.[24] The scribe preserved Michael's style, while correcting errors in the margins - sometimes with remarks such as \"This was in the year 1909 of the perfidious and corrupt Greeks,\" echoing Michael's own hostility toward Byzantine persecutions against the Jacobites.[25] The surviving codex, written in elegant script on roughly 800 large folios, was preserved in the library of Edessa, though 19 folios are missing.[26] This Edessene manuscript remained in Urfa until 1924, when the city's Christian population was expelled in the aftermath of Sayfo; it was then moved to the Syriac Orthodox church of St. George in Aleppo. The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library digitized it in 2008.[27]\n\nSyriac manuscript tradition\n\nThe 1598 Urbish copy remains the only extant Syriac witness of the text, written in Serto script,[25] although other transcriptions based on it exist. The manuscript was discovered in Edessa and subsequently copied for modern scholars. One such copy was made for the Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Rahmani in 1887, and another for the French orientalist Jean-Baptiste Chabot in 1899 (a digital facsimile is available at vHMML Reading Room). The Vorlage for these later copies is preserved today by the Edessene community in Aleppo. The text has lacunae, corresponding exactly to the gaps in the Arabic versions made from it. Despite these defects, the 1598 codex is regarded as the best surviving witness to the Chronicle's original layout and presentation.[5][28]\n\nArmenian translations\n\nAn abridged Armenian translation was produced in 1248 by the Assyrian priest Yeshu' (Ishoʿ) ibn Shammas Yaʿqub al-Tume al-Sharqi, a native of Hisn Kifa, at the request of Catholicos Constantine I of Cilicia. The work was not a literal translation but a condensed adaptation, often altering the material considerably. It was later revised by the Armenian monk Vardan. Two Jerusalem editions appeared in 1870 and 1871, with the latter considered more reliable.[29][26][30] \n\nThis Armenian version was the first form of Michael's Chronicle to reach Europe. It served as the basis for the French translation published in 1868 by Victor Langlois, who mistakenly assumed it was a complete rendering of the Syriac original.[30]\n\nArabic/Garshuni translations\n\nThe Chronicle was also translated into Garshuni (Arabic in Syriac script) by John Shuqayr (Hanna al-Sadadi), metropolitan of Damascus, in 1759. At least five manuscripts of this translation survive.[17][26] However, since Shuqayr worked directly from the 1598 Urbish copy, the Arabic version preserves the same lacunae as the Syriac Vorlage.[31][5]\n\nOther Arabic renderings exist, including a more recent translation provided by the late Archbishop Saliba Shamoun (1932-2025) and edited by Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim.[32]\n\nWestern scholarship and editions\n\nKnowledge of Michael's Chronicle in Europe began only in the 18th century, and even then it was largely ignored - Joseph Assemani did not reference it despite his access to Syriac sources. The Armenian adaptation initially misled scholars, as it was thought to represent a faithful translation. Serious study began only in the mid-19th century, when manuscripts of the Armenian text reached Europe.[33]\n\nIn 1899-1910, J. B. Chabot published a French translation in four volumes (Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d'Antioche, 1166-1199), based on the Syriac manuscript in Edessa. His work included a facsimile edition of the Syriac text prepared between 1897 and 1899 in Aleppo, though some scribal errors were introduced in the copying process.[17][5]\n\nIn 2014, Matti Moosa published the first complete English translation of the Chronicle, titled The Syriac Chronicle of Michael Rabo (the Great).\n\nContent and themes\n\nSecular and political affairs\n\nThe first column of the Chronicle records wars and conflicts among Arabs (whom Michael always calls Ṭāyyōyê,[1] in reference to Tayy), Turks, Byzantines, Latins (Crusaders), and Armenians.\n\nMichael paid particular attention to the Crusaders. He devoted long passages to the Knights Templar, praising their asceticism, obedience, fraternity, and generosity in famine relief. While theological divisions remained, he considered the Latins more favorable allies than Greeks, who consistently persecuted the Syriac Orthodox (see Caesaropapism).[34]\n\nMichael describes the devastating sieges of Edessa in the 12th century, whose population suffered the most at the hands of successive invaders. Caught between Franks, Greeks, Turks, Arabs, and their internal conflicts, Edessa was besieged repeatedly, each time producing severe persecution of its defenseless citizens: death, torture, imprisonment, humiliation, starvation, slavery, and rape. Many structures were dismantled for building material or repurposed - for example, the Church of St. Thomas was used as a stable. Michael places great blame on the Franks, whom he sometimes preferred to Turks or Greeks, who routinely pillaged the city and subjugated its native Miaphysite population; even when their victory was hoped for during the Turkish occupation, he calls them \"brainless fools\" for plundering shops and houses instead of attacking the Turkish soldiers in the citadel, which contributed to their defeat. After this disaster, Edessa fell into moral and spiritual decline, with Christians reduced to a minority as mosques multiplied.[35]\n\nAfter the disaster of 1146, the city declined morally and its native Syrian inhabitants were spiritually broken. Christians became a minority while the Muslim population grew and more mosques were built. Edessa was later absorbed by the Ayyubids, the Mongol conquests of Tatars and Hulaguids, and finally the Ottoman Empire, and its Christian population was largely eliminated during the persecutions that culminated in the early 20th century. By 1908, Christians constituted only about 19% of the population; on the eve of the mass exodus in 1924, the Syriac Orthodox numbered roughly 2,500. There are no Christians remaining in Şanlıurfa today.[35]\n\nEcclesiastical affairs\n\nThe second column focuses on the church, particularly in ecclesiastical matters, which make up a large section - this was due to how at the time, the Syriac Orthodox Church extended across the Levant, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Iran, India, and China, and was governed by mutually antagonistic factions. Here, Michael recorded relations with neighboring communities. He chastised the \"Synodites\" (Chalcedonians/Byzantines) for their persecutions, claiming they devoted more energy to oppressing the Syriac people than resisting Turks. In contrast, relations with the Coptic Church were warm, and regular correspondence between patriarchs was reported.[36]\n\nMichael's theology portrays Christianity as independent of territory or temporal power. Like earlier Syriac chroniclers, a comparison is made to ancient Mesopotamian beliefs, where he interprets successes and failures in history as signs of divine favor or abandonment.[37][38]\n\nNatural phenomena\n\nThe third column registers natural events: earthquakes across Antioch, Damascus, and Constantinople; locusts; and comets, which Michael called kawkbō šūšīnō (\"curly star\"), preserving Syriac terminology over Greek loanwords. He rebukes astrologers for their attempts to predict events, including times when they failed to do so, affirming instead that disasters came from divine judgment, not planetary influence.[37]\n\nMichael's mastery of Syriac is noted as advanced and traditional, though he also read and spoke Arabic, and commended other bishops for their knowledge. His Chronicle includes occasional Arabisms in colloquial dialect, as well as Syriacized borrowings from Greek, Armenian, and Latin.[39]\n\nHistoriography and sources\n\nWhile he rarely mentions sources for some periods - likely drawing on memory and oral traditions - he does name a few: 1. Jacob of Edessa, Michael's main source for the pre-7th century; 2. Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, whose chronicle no longer survives; 3. Basil Bar-Shumono, whom Michael quoted on early Edessan history; 4. Dionysius bar Salibi, whom Michael called an exceptional writer; 5. Patriarch John bar Shushan, whom Michael does not quote directly but reports his work; 6. Joseph the Monk, whom Michael quoted for the invasion of Miletus in 1050 AD; 7. Ignatius bishop of Melitene, whom Michael quotes at length regarding the Syriac Orthodox faith before the Chalcedonian patriarch of Constantinople; and 8. Evenaius of Keshum, whom Michael refutes for claiming that temptation strikes the righteous without the will of God, thereby undermining divine providence. He also quoted lost works, such as the Chronicle of Azakh, letters, synodal acts, and local biographies. Greek historians, ecclesiastical pamphlets, and unnamed Arabic sources were also used.[40][41][38]\n\nMichael freely inserted biblical parallels into his historical narrative, a tendency scholars term \"presentism.\" He likened the Syriac Orthodox to the Israelites, the Nestorians to Judas, and the Seljuks to Jezebel. Turks were cast as Gog and Magog, while Kilij Arslan, Sultan of Iconium, was seen as fulfilling the prophecy in Jeremiah 17:5. Biblical portents were linked to earthquakes, eclipses, or comets, read as divine warnings preceding invasions.[42]\n\nMichael attempts to console the believers by drawing on biblical events from the Old Testament. The events of the Council of Chalcedon are compared to the events of Exodus 32, and to the three who remained faithful in Persia when all the captives of Judah worshipped the statue; Michael applies this to the multitude at Chalcedon, calling them the synod of the apostates. He also cites \"one who does the will [of God] is better than one thousand\" (Eccl. 16:3). A recurring emphasis is that the saved are always a minority, and that the Church's size or prestige does not matter so long as it upholds true doctrine.[43]\n\nHis historical outlook emphasized that punishment follows sin, but calamities can be alleviated through repentance. He cited the plague of 745, which abated only when the Arab caliph Marwan II repented.[44]\n\nThe general view that developed in Syriac historiography is that disasters are caused by sin and are sent to punish sin and to teach people not to sin, but that disasters can also be relieved or averted by repentance and eventually by the intervention of the Church and its relics. This included the belief that God sends warning signs of impending disaster for those who have the sense to understand them. Since the schism caused by the Council of Chalcedon, God has sent portents involving the sun, earthquakes, and tearful signs in the sky that were taken to indicate the wickedness of the heretics and what would come upon the earth. But the warnings were not heeded, so God sent the barbarians.[45]\n\nMichael refers to numerous examples in which strange phenomena were taken to be divine messages. In the mid-fifth century, the fall of three stones from the sky was regarded by many as a sign of corruption in the churches, the dislodgment of the Orthodox faith, and the advance of Dyophysite doctrine, while a darkness similar to an eclipse observed at the consecration of Marcian was signified as a sign marking his reign of spiritual blindness and uproar. When Justin I started his reign, a fiery comet shaped like a spear pointing downward was interpreted as a sign of apostasy and the destruction of the Church. When a similar streak fire shaped like a sword stretched across the sky from south to north for thirty days in 634, many took it to be a sign of the advance of the Arabs. Later, in 745, three pillars of fire were witnessed by contemporaries in the heavens, and in the following year heavy dust darkened the sky for weeks alongside meteors in January and a flame towering in the same direction. All these signs were seen as omens of war, bloodshed, disasters and divine chastisement.[46]\n\nHe criticized Byzantine rulers like Heraclius for mutilating Syriac Orthodox dissenters. Heraclius ordered the noses and ears cut off and houses looted for anyone who did not support the Council of Chalcedon. This persecution persisted for an extended period, and many monks - particularly those from Beit Maron, Mabbugh, Hims, and the southern regions - supported the council and seized control of numerous churches and monasteries.[47] Michael reports that Christians are unfit to govern other Christians, and despite persecution in the Sassanid regions, he regarded it as preferable to Roman rule, which he portrays as intent on destroying both the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Church of the East by continuously slaughtering the Syriac Christians. He further asserts that the Islamic conquests functioned simultaneously as punishment for the Chalcedonians and as a providential rescue for the Miaphysites, who, he argues, would not have survived without them - despite the severe hardships the church later suffered under Muslim rule.[48] Michael also recounts that the Orthodox bishop Epiphanius fled the Arab conquest of Syria only to be killed as a martyr by the Roman general Gregorius in Cilicia.[49] He adds that when the Romans withdrew from Syria, they robbed, pillaged, and devastated the country more than the Arabs, treating it as if it belonged to an enemy. Michael then remarks, \"if the Arabs did not keep their promises, neither did the Romans - and not only toward the Arabs but among themselves.\"[50]\n\nIdentity and geography\n\nMichael's Chronicle articulates both confessional and ethnic identities. Above all, he defined the mhaymne (\"faithful\"), meaning Syriac Orthodox believers - whether Syriac- or Arabic-speaking (in Mosul and Tikrit) - as his people, in addition to the Copts, Armenians, and others who belonged to the same Miaphysite/non-Chalcedonian faith as him.[51]\n\nYet because of the geopolitical circumstances of his era, he felt it necessary to define his people and faith in more nationalistic and secular terms; accordingly, he consistently connected them to the ancient empires of Assyria and Babylonia, identifying their kings as his own ancestors. He used names like \"Assyria\" (Ātōr), \"Nineveh,\" and \"Babylonia\" for regions of Mesopotamia, explicitly as ancestral lands rather than mere biblical allusions.[52][53] \n\nThe Melkites (Aramaic-speaking Syrians who followed the Council of Chalcedon after imperial crackdown) were disparagingly labeled \"Greeks\" rather than Syrians.[54] Both Byzantine and Muslim critics mocked the Syriac Christians for \"never producing kingdoms,\" to which Michael countered by citing Assyria and Babylonia as their sovereign ancestors.[55][21]\n\nAttributed to Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), transmitted via Dionysius of Tell-Mahre (d. 945), and later adopted by Michael, the Syriac account reframes ancient history to claim powerful \"Syrian\" kingdoms east and west of the Euphrates. Michael emphasized the historical significance of the \"Syrian\" kingdoms that existed on both sides of the Euphrates, using this narrative to assert his people's historical sovereignty despite lacking contemporary kings. He portrayed the Seleucids as local Syrian kings, viewing them as restorers of native royalty after Alexander's conquest of Persia. Despite Alexander being Greek, he was considered native, contributing to a hybrid Syrian identity characterized by Aramaic language and Greek cultural influences.[56] Michael harmonizes various arguments by linking Syrian history with Aramean and Assyrian histories,[57] citing them as forbearers of the Syriac tradition due to their shared Aramaic language.[58]\n\nSignificance\n\nUntil the rediscovery of the Chronicle, Michael the Great was primarily known in the West as an author of canonical and liturgical writings. The publication of his universal history dramatically shifted scholarly appreciation of his importance. His work extends from Creation to his own day (late 12th century), and is based on a wide array of sources, many of which are now lost.[17]\n\nThese include Syriac chronicles such as those of Jacob of Edessa, John of Litharb, Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, as well as non-Orthodox Syriac authors like Elias of Nisibis and Theophilus of Edessa. Michael also cites local chronicles, council records, biographies, theological pamphlets, and Greek historians, alongside letters and official reports. He drew heavily on John of Asia for the period of Emperor Tiberius III.[59]\n\nMedieval and modern scholars alike have hailed Michael's work as \"undoubtedly the greatest of all Syriac chronicles.[60] It preserves priceless excerpts from otherwise lost Syriac historians, including Dionysius of Tell-Mahre. Scholars emphasize that Michael's historiographical method was consistent with medieval practice but rooted in the strong tradition of Syriac Christian historical writing, which shaped the historiography of the Syriac Orthodox Church, culminating in Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286), who drew extensively on Michael.[54]\n\nAlthough Moses of Mardin collaborated with European scholars in the 16th century, the Chronicle itself remained unknown in Europe until the Armenian version circulated in the 19th century. Joseph Assemani ignored it, and it was only through Chabot's edition that it entered mainstream Oriental studies.[33] Today, the Chronicle remains a central source for the history of Byzantium, Islam, Crusades, and the medieval Near East, in addition to its role in preserving Syriac identity.\n\nAs Michael began to write more personally in the final parts of his Chronicle, compassion and sensitivity became visible: sadness at death by violence and war and sympathy for living beings in pain were prevalent elements of his later writings.[61]\n\nOther works\n\nAlthough best remembered for his monumental Chronicle, Michael the Great was also an active theologian, liturgist, and ecclesiastical legislator. His surviving and attributed writings demonstrate the breadth of his intellectual, pastoral, and historical activity within the Syriac Orthodox Church.[62][63]\n\nLiturgy and canons\n\nAnaphora - preserved in several manuscripts (six in European collections), including a collection of prayers arranged alphabetically\n\nLiturgy in 16 pages - arranged according to the alphabet, beginning with the invocation: \"Almighty God and Lord of all, make us worthy to draw near to this great divine mystery\"\n\nDefinitive structure of the pontificate and its rituals - a revision of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and rituals (partly edited in later centuries)\n\nCanons - a collection of twenty-nine canons enacted at the Monastery of Mar Hananya in 1166, followed by twelve more in 1174; several were cited by Bar Hebraeus in his Nomocanon\n\nSedra and Busqyos - including two busqyos (liturgical hymns), one dedicated to St. Barsauma, both of which entered the liturgy of the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nHomilies, poetry, and encomia\n\nHomilies - a large collection for Sundays and church feasts; the Edessene Chronicler notes that Michael transcribed in his own hand a huge volume of existing homilies and added his own compositions\n\nMetric Homilies - two in verse, one on John of Mardin and the other on Barsouma\n\nPoems and Odes:\n\nA heptasyllabic ode (1159) on a young woman martyred for her faith in Tal'afar\n\nA dodecasyllabic ode (1167) praising John, Metropolitan of Mardin (d. 1165)\n\nAnother dodecasyllabic ode in praise of St. Barsauma, partially preserved (28 pages extant)\n\nShort poems, including one on the bishop of Mardin\n\nEncomia - including one dedicated to Dionysios bar Salibi\n\nTheology and polemics\n\nConfession of Faith - composed in Antioch and addressed to Emperor Manuel I Komnenos in 1169\n\nArguments against the Albigensians (Albigeois) - written in Antioch and sent to Manuel I in 1178, intended for the Lateran Council, though Michael ultimately declined to attend in person\n\nTreatise on confession before communion - a polemical response to Mark Ibn Kunbar, a 12th-century Coptic priest of the Alexandrian Church\n\nTreatise against falsifications of Mark, son of Qanbar the Copt - likely composed in Arabic, though some attribution is disputed\n\nLetter of Simeon the Stylite - Michael preserves and affirms Simeon's opposition to the Council of Chalcedon by citing his letter to Emperor Leo, which opposes the Chalcedonian claims that he accepted the Fourth Council of the Empire[64]\n\nChronography and biography\n\nRevision of the Life of Mar Abbai of Nicaea - undertaken in 1185; draws from earlier Syriac sources such as John Rufus\n\nReconstruction of the biography of Abbai of Nicaea - preserved in a manuscript dated 1196 in the British Museum\n\nObituary of Mar Barsaumo\n\nRecommendation for Bar Wahbun (1172) - a letter of recommendation when sending him to meet a Byzantine delegate to discuss potential union of the churches following the brief schism\n\nVeneration and legacy\n\nMichael the Great\n\nMor Michael Rabo\n\nBornMichael ܡܝܟܐܝܠ\n\nResting placeMor Bar Sauma Monastery\n\nHonored inOriental Orthodox Churches, especially Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nFeastNovember 7\n\nTradition or genreSyriac Christianity\n\nMichael the Great is one of the most highly venerated saints in the Oriental Orthodox communion, especially within the Syriac Orthodox Church, where he is remembered for his scholarship, sanctity, and wisdom. His feast is celebrated on November 7, the anniversary of his repose in 1199.[65]\nThe late patriarch Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum (1887-1957) of the Syriac Orthodox Church describes him as:\n\n...one of the greatest pontiffs of the Church of God, the finest of the Patriarchs of Antioch, a scholar, and a famous chronicler; of everlasting name, of graceful pursuit, and of uncommon qualities, of widely known virtues, and of good deeds. [...] Is it not right for the general history of the world to remember your honorable name since you have written those volumes that are full of the events of the ages, from their inception until your happy reign, for you have brought to life what took place, and had it not been for you, these would have been totally forgotten? Indeed, it is befitting to do so for the world in general and for your nation in particular. Your greatness is manifest not only in this, but also in the fact that you were magnificent in your virtues, endurance and self-esteem. You were great in your Patriarchal works. It is no wonder that history describes you as \"the Great.\"[8]\n\n800th Anniversary (1999)\n\nOn the 800th anniversary of Michael's passing, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch declared 1999 the \"Year of Saint Michael the Great.\" A solemn Divine Liturgy was celebrated in honor of Mor Michael Rabo at St. Ephrem's Monastery in Ma'arrat Saydnaya. Although a symposium of scholars and orientalists had been planned for Aleppo, it was ultimately convened at the Patriarchal Theological Seminary at St. Ephrem's Monastery in Saydnaya from October 1 to 8, 1999.[8]\n\nScholarly legacy and enduring influence\n\nMichael's Chronicle is regarded as the most voluminous historical work in the Syriac Orthodox tradition, foundational to later historiography.[66] Sebastian Brock describes it as \"undoubtedly the greatest of all Syriac chronicles.\"[60] His era catalyzed what scholars call the \"Syriac Renaissance,\" a period of cultural and theological revival within the Syriac Orthodox Church.[67] \n\nMichael is further remembered as a poet, canonist, and defender of the faith, whose example continues to inspire Syriac Orthodox faithful to, as the patriarchate of Antioch describes, \"hold to the faith, work according to the law of the Lord, persist in it day and night, and comply with the Canon of the Church... that it may keep us within the fold of Christ Jesus, our Lord.\"[8] \n\nFollowing the Assyrian genocide, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal See was forcibly relocated from Mardin, Turkey, in 1924, after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. This patriarchal seat had been established by Michael in 1166 and remained in Mardin until that time, marking the first change in nearly a millennium.[5] It was relocated to Homs, Syria and later to Damascus, where it remains today as the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Archdiocese of Damascus.[68]\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac literature\n\nChronicle of 1234\n\nChronicle of Zuqnin\n\nCave of Treasures\n\nPhiloxenus of Mabbug\n\nChristology\n\nCouncil of Ephesus\n\nMor Hananyo Monastery\n\nByzantine-Seljuk wars\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. ix.\n\n^ a b Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 34.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. ix-x.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 35.\n\n^ a b c d e f Weltecke, Dorothea (2011). \"Michael I Rabo (d. 1199) [Syr. Orth.]\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition - via Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute.\n\n^ Dinno 2017, p. 41.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, pp. 35-36.\n\n^ a b c d e \"1999- THE EIGHT HUNDRETH ANNIVERSARY OF PATRIARCH MOR MICHAEL THE GREAT - Department of Syriac Studies\". Retrieved 30 August 2025.\n\n^ a b Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 37.\n\n^ Wright 1894, p. 252.\n\n^ a b Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 36.\n\n^ Wright 1894, p. 254.\n\n^ Abu Salih the Armenian (1895). The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries. Clarendon Press. p. 30. ASIN B00QH2BQLW.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 38.\n\n^ Wright 1894, p. 250.\n\n^ Witakowski 2011, p. 199-203.\n\n^ a b c d Moosa, Matti I. (1968). \"Studies in Syriac Literature Syriac Literature of the Christian Era\" (PDF). The Muslim World. 58 (3): 194-217. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1968.tb02984.x. ISSN 1478-1913. Archived from the original on 24 June 2011.\n\n^ a b Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. x.\n\n^ Weltecke 2010.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, pp. ix-x.\n\n^ a b c Debié, Muriel (1 January 2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 93-114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014. ISSN 1871-2428.\n\n^ Weltecke 2010, p. 186.\n\n^ Brock et al. 2011, p. 288.\n\n^ Borisovič, Piotrovskij (2017). the Great, Michail; Pritula, Anton Dmitrievič (eds.). Christianskij vostok: vzaimodejstvie s drugimi kulʹturami. Journal of studies in the Christian Culture of Asia and Africa. St. Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo Gosudarstvennogo Ėrmitaža. p. 82. ISBN 978-5-93572-734-5.\n\n^ a b Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. xiii.\n\n^ a b c Barsoum 2003, pp. 445-448.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, pp. x, xii.\n\n^ Brock 1992, p. 210.\n\n^ Brock 1992, p. 17.\n\n^ a b Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 40.\n\n^ Brock 1992, p. 212.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 33.\n\n^ a b Bar-Abrahem 1998, pp. 39-40.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. xvii.\n\n^ a b Tarzi, Joseph (2000). \"Edessa in the Era of Patriarch Michael the Syrian\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (2): 203-211 - via ResearchGate.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, pp. xix-xxi.\n\n^ a b Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. xxi.\n\n^ a b Saint-Laurent 2015.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, p. xxii.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, pp. xxvi-xxx.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, pp. 41-44.\n\n^ Morony 2005, pp. 5-6.\n\n^ Morony 2005, pp. 9-10.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 11.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 12.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ Morony 2005, pp. 15-16.\n\n^ Morony 2005, pp. 16-17.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 17.\n\n^ Morony 2005, p. 25.\n\n^ Weltecke 2009, pp. 117-118.\n\n^ Harrak, Debié & Ginkel 2019, pp. xxii-xxiii.\n\n^ \"Assyrians Of The 12th Century AD by Professor Amir Harrak\". 10 July 2019. Timestamp; 1:12:24 - 1:12:42\n\n^ a b Weltecke 2009, p. 122.\n\n^ Weltecke, Dorothea; Runia, Anthony; Palmer, Thomas (2021). The 'Description of the Times' by Mor Michael the Great (1126-1199): A Study on its Historical and its Historiographical Context. Vol. 27. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-3658-4. JSTOR j.ctv1q26wbs.\n\n^ Debié, Muriel. \"Alexandre le Grand en syriaque - Maître des lieux, des savoirs et des temps\". www.cultura.com. pp. 309-310. Retrieved 30 August 2025. It is undoubtedly to the scholar Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), transmitted to the Syrian - Orthodox historian and patriarch Dionysius of Tellmahre (d. 945), himself taken up by another Syrian Orthodox patriarch and historian, Michael the Syrian (d. 1199), that we owe the Syriac version of the history of the ancient kingdoms, centered on the idea that there were powerful \"Syrian\" kingdoms east and west of the Euphrates. The authorities of the Syriac Orthodox Church wanted to show that they had sovereigns of their own even though in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages they no longer had their own kings to represent them. This passage is written against the (Byzantine) Greeks and has an apologetic dimension aimed at defending the Syriacs by showing the importance of the kingdoms that emerged from them.. he rereads world history through this prism and situates Alexander between the kingdoms he calls \"Syrian\" of the Chaldeans and Assyrians (\"Syrian\" because they all used Aramaic, like the Suryoye, Syrian or Syriac), which existed until Cyrus the Great conquered them… This reading of history, which aims to show \"that empires arose from our people more powerful than all the empires of their time,\" places Alexander as the restorer of a \"Syrian\" power since he put an end to the kingdom of the Persians which had triumphed over the \"Syrian\" Mesopotamian empires…\n\n^ Weltecke, Runia & Palmer 2021- \"It is clear, besides, that Michael attempts a harmonization of different argumentations, in which he succeeds in identifying Syrian with Aramean and Assyrian history.\"\n\n^ Kellogg, Sarah Bakker (2019). \"Perforating Kinship: Syriac Christianity, Ethnicity, and Secular Legibility\". Syriac Christianity, Ethnicity, and Secular Legibility. 60 (4): 479. doi:10.1086/705233. hdl:1874/386369. Since at least the ninth century, West and East Syriac ecclesiastical elites have taken disparate and shifting positions on how to translate the term \"Suryoyo\" into other languages. Suryoyo, in these ancient texts, referred to both the Syriac language and the Roman province of Syria and was linked by medieval ecclesiastical historians to both the ancient Aramaeans and the ancient Assyrians. Patriarch Michael the Great, for example, wrote in his twelfth-century ecclesiastical history that both the ancient Assyrians and the ancient Aramaeans were forebears of the Syriac tradition because there were Aramaic speakers in both societies.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, p. 44.\n\n^ a b Brock 1992, p. 15.\n\n^ Weltecke 2010, p. 199.\n\n^ Bar-Abrahem 1998, pp. 38-39.\n\n^ Barsoum 2003, pp. 446-478.\n\n^ Moosa, Matti (2005). The Maronites in History. Gorgias Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-59333-182-5.\n\n^ Fr. K. Mani Rajan, M.Sc., M.Ed., Ph.D. (2007). Martyrs, Saints & Prelates of The Syriac Orthodox Church (PDF). Vol. 1. The Travancore Syriac Orthodox Publishers. p. 97.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"MICHAEL THE SYRIAN\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 30 August 2025.\n\n^ Witold Witakowski (2011). \"Historiography, Syriac\". e-GEDSH.\n\n^ \"History\". Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. 5 January 2015. Archived from the original on 11 October 2025. Retrieved 19 October 2025.\n\nSources\n\nBarsoum, Ignatius Aphram (2003). The Scattered Pearls: A History of Syriac Literature and Sciences. Translated by Moosa, Matti (Second rev. ed.). Piscataway (N. J.): Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-931956-04-9.\n\nDinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis, Then Revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1.\n\nHarrak, Amir; Debié, Muriel; Ginkel, Jan J. van (2019). Harrak, Amir (ed.). The Chronicle of Michael the Great (the Edessa-Aleppo Syriac codex): books XV-XXI from the year 1050 to 1195. Gorgias Chronicles of Late Antiquity. Translated by Harrak, Amir. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-4031-8.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas; E. Fiano (2011). \"Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage\". Beth Mardutho. ISBN 9781593337148 - via Academia.edu.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nBar-Abrahem, Abdulmesih (1998). \"Patriarch Michael the Great: Beyond his World Chronicle\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 12 (2): 33-45. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 April 2003.\n\nBcheiry, Iskandar (2004). \"A List of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchs between 16th and 18th Century: A Historical Supplement to Michael the Syrian's Chronicle in a MS. of Sadad\" (PDF). Parole de l'Orient. 29: 211-261.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1980). \"Syriac Historical Writing: A Survey of the Main Sources\" (PDF). Journal of the Iraq Academy: Syriac Corporation. 5: 1-30.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1992). Studies in Syriac Christianity: History, Literature, and Theology. Aldershot: Variorum. ISBN 9780860783053.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). Syriac Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1960-1990. Kaslik: Parole de l'Orient.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754659082.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1899a). \"La Chronique de Michel le Syrien\". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 43 (4): 476-484.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1899b). Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199). Vol. 1. Paris: Ernest Leroux. ISBN 9785881102456. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1901). Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199). Vol. 2. Paris: Ernest Leroux. ISBN 9785881814632. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1905). Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199). Vol. 3. Paris: Ernest Leroux. ISBN 9785884196919. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1910). Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199). Vol. 4. Paris: Ernest Leroux.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1924). Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d'Antioche (1166-1199). Vol. Supplement. Paris: Ernest Leroux.\n\nDebié, Muriel (2009). \"Syriac Historiography and Identity Formation\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 93-114. doi:10.1163/187124109X408014.\n\nDebié, Muriel; Taylor, David G. K. (2012). \"Syriac and Syro-Arabic Historical Writing, c. 500-c. 1400\". The Oxford History of Historical Writing. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 155-179. ISBN 978-0-19-923642-8.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (1998). \"Making History: Michael the Syrian and his Sixth-Century Sources\". Symposium Syriacum VII. Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. pp. 351-358. ISBN 9788872103197.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2006). \"Michael the Syrian and his Sources: Reflections on the Methodology of Michael the Great as a Historiographer and its Implications for Modern Historians\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 6: 53-60. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-060107. S2CID 212688456.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2008). \"Aramaic Brothers or Heretics: The Image of the East Syrians in the Chronography of Michael the Great (d. 1199)\". The Harp. 23: 359-368.\n\nGinkel, Jan J. van (2010). \"A Man Is Not an Island: Reflections of the Historiography of the Early Syriac Renaissance in Michael the Great\". The Syriac Renaissance. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 113-121.\n\nHarrak, Amir, ed. (2019). The Chronicle of Michael the Great (The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex): Books XV-XXI, from the Year 1050 to 1195 AD. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781463240318.\n\nGregorios Y. Ibrahim (ed.), Text and Translations of the Chronicle of Michael the Great. The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex of the Chronicle of Michael the Great, Vol. 1, Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press (2009).\n\nKaufhold, Hubert (2000). \"Notizen zur Späten Geschichte des Barsaumo-Klosters\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (2). Retrieved 23 February 2024.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (2000). \"Michael the Syrian as a Source for Economic History\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (2): 141-172. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030111. S2CID 212689089.\n\nMorony, Michael G. (2005). \"History and Identity in the Syrian Churches\". Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042914186.\n\nSaint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon (2015). Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches (1 ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-28496-8. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt19632bn.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (1 January 2009). \"Michael the Syrian and Syriac Orthodox Identity\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1): 115-125. doi:10.1163/187124109X408023. ISSN 1871-2428.\n\nReller, Jobst (2017). \"Patriarch Michael the Syrian's Views on Islam in the Context of Syriac Historiography and Philosophy\". Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 187-207. ISBN 9789042931640.\n\nRompay, Lucas van (1999). \"Jacob of Edessa and the Early History of Edessa\". After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. pp. 269-285. ISBN 9789042907355.\n\nSchmidt, Andrea B. (2013). \"The Armenian Versions I and II of Michael the Syrian\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 16 (1): 93-128. doi:10.31826/hug-2014-160105. S2CID 212688681.\n\nTarzi, Joseph (2000). \"Edessa in the Era of Patriarch Michael The Syrian\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (2): 203-221.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (1997). \"The World Chronicle by Patriarch Michael the Great (1126-1199): Some Reflections\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 11 (2): 6-29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 June 2003.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2010). \"Originality and Function of Formal Structures in the Chronicle of Michael the Great\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 3 (2): 173-202. doi:10.31826/hug-2010-030112 - via ResearchGate.\n\nWeltecke, Dorothea (2011). \"Michael I Rabo\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 287-290.\n\nWitakowski, Witold (2011). \"Historiography, Syriac\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 199-203.\n\nWright, William (1894). A Short History of Syriac Literature. London: Adam and Charles Black.\n\nExternal links\n\nJullien, Florence (2006). \"MICHAEL THE SYRIAN\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nFrench translation of Armenian version of the Chronicle\n\nEnglish translation of preface to the Chronicle\n\nRobert Bedrosian, Michael the Syrian - English translation of Armenian version of the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian.\n\nJürgen Tubach (1993). \"Michael the Syrian\". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 5. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 1467-1471. ISBN 3-88309-043-3.\n\nNASA scientists and Michael the Syrian"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-michael-the-syrian"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 7451}, {"slug": "reference-andrew-rohan", "title": "Andrew Rohan", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Andrew Baijan Rohan (Arabic: أندرو روهان; born 30 June 1948 in Iraq) is an Australian politician of Assyrian descent who currently serves on Fairfield City Council. He was previously a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Smithfield for the Liberal Party from 2011 to 2015.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "CouncillorAndrew Rohan\n\nCouncillor of the Fairfield City Council\n\nIncumbent\n\nAssumed office \n4 December 2021\n\nMember of the New South Wales Parliament\nfor Smithfield\n\nIn office\n26 March 2011 - 28 March 2015\n\nPreceded byNinos Khoshaba\n\nSucceeded bySeat abolished\n\nPersonal details\n\nBorn (1948-06-30) 30 June 1948\nHabbaniyah, Iraq\n\nPartyAustralian Women's Party (since 2021)\n\nOther political\naffiliationsLiberal Party (suspended in 2016)\n\nSpouseJanet Rohan\n\nEducationUniversity of Baghdad\n\nOccupationPolitician\n\nProfessionPetroleum geologist\n\nEthnicityAssyrian\n\nAndrew Baijan Rohan (Arabic: أندرو روهان; born 30 June 1948 in Iraq) is an Australian politician of Assyrian descent who currently serves on Fairfield City Council. He was previously a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing Smithfield for the Liberal Party from 2011 to 2015.[1]\n\nEarly years and background\n\nBorn in Iraq, Rohan completed studies in petroleum geology at the University of Baghdad, graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Geology) in 1970 and a Master of Science (Petroleum Geology) in 1975. Migrating to Australia in 1979,[2] he initially worked as a petroleum geologist for Robertson Research before establishing his own printing business in 1995.[1][2]\n\nElected as a Councillor to Fairfield City Council in 2008, Rohan was President of the Smithfield branch, and Smithfield SEC of the Liberal Party between 2003 and 2011.[1]\n\nPolitical career\n\nAt the 2011 state election, Rohan was elected to the normally safe[3] Labor seat with a swing of 18.8 points and won the seat with 54.8 per cent of the two-party vote.[4] His main opponent was the then incumbent sitting member, Ninos Khoshaba, representing Labor. Since the seat was first created in 1988, Rohan's win was the first time the seats has been held by the Liberals.[3] Smithfield was abolished in 2015, mostly replaced by Prospect. Rohan attempted to transfer there, but was defeated.\n\nIn August 2016, Rohan was suspended from the Liberal Party after announcing his run for Fairfield City Council as an Independent against the endorsed Liberal candidates.[5]\n\nRohan was elected to the City of Fairfield as a councillor in 2021 as a member of the Australian Women's Party.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Mr Andrew Baijan Rohan (1948- )\". Former members of the Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 12 September 2019.\n\n^ a b \"Meet Our First Liberal MP\". Fairfield City Champion. Fairfax Media. 29 March 2011. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.\n\n^ a b Kembrey, Melanie (27 March 2011). \"Liberals win Smithfield for first time\". Fairfield Champion. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 13 April 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.\n\n^ Green, Antony (4 April 2011). \"Smithfield\". NSW Votes 2011. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 3 April 2011.\n\n^ \"Liberal Party doles out 10-year suspension after councillor's independent mayor bid\". ABC News. 16 August 2016.\n\nExternal links\n\nCampaign profile\n\nMr Andrew Baijan ROHAN, BSc(Geology), MSc(Petroleum Geology) MP - Parliament of New South Wales\n\nTwitter Page\n\nYouTube Channel\n\nPicasa Photo Albums[link removed]"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-andrew-rohan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 484}, {"slug": "reference-malik-khoshaba", "title": "Malik Khoshaba", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Malik Khoshaba Yousif Zaia (Syriac: ܡܠܟ ܚܕܒܫܒܐ ܝܘܣܦ) was an Assyrian tribal leader (or \"malik\") of the Tyari tribe (Bit Tyareh) who played a significant role in the Assyrian independence movement during World War I.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Malik Khoshaba d'Malik Yousif \n ܡܠܟ ܚܕܒܫܒܐ ܝܘܣܦ\n\nܡܠܟ ܚܕܒܫܒܐ ܝܘܣܦ\n\nBorn1877 (1877)\nTyari, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire\n\nDied1954 (aged 76-77) \nMosul, Iraq\n\nMilitary career\n\nAllegianceTyari tribe \n Allies of World War I\n\nNicknameLion of Tyari[1]\n\nCommandsLower Tyari tribe \n Assyrian volunteers, later the Assyrian levies\n\nConflicts\n\nAssyrian-Kurdish Clashes (1900-1910)\n\nWorld War I\n\nPersian campaign\n\nHakkari Expedition 1916\n\nHakkari Expedition 1917\n\nBattle of Seray Mountain\n\nUrmia Clashes\n\nBattle of Charah\n\nBattle of Suldouze\n\nBattle of Urmia April 1918\n\nBattle of Urmia June 1918\n\nAssyrian rebellion\n\nSurchi Revolt\n\nDefense of Jujar\n\nBattle of Aqra Dagh (1920)\n\nMalik Khoshaba Yousif Zaia (Syriac: ܡܠܟ ܚܕܒܫܒܐ ܝܘܣܦ) was an Assyrian tribal leader (or \"malik\") of the Tyari tribe (Bit Tyareh) who played a significant role in the Assyrian independence movement during World War I.\n\nEarly life\n\nMalik Khoshaba was born in the village of Lizan in the Lower Tyari region of which lies in modern-day Turkey. Khoshaba descended from the distinguished \"Bet Polous\" family of ancient lineage. He completed his primary education at a Presbyterian missionary in Tyari before continuing his secondary studies in Mosul and completing his further studies at the American college in Urmia. Khoshaba was well versed in several languages such as English, Arabic, Kurdish and Russian that made him a standout individual within the Tyari Assyrians who inhabited the region of Hakkari in southeastern Anatolia. While in Urmia his studies were interrupted by a tragic event that tested his mettle as a leader in Lower Tyari: while away at Urmia, Malik Khoshaba’s father, Malik Yousif, was murdered by the Kurdish Rashid Beg, the “Mira” or prince, of the Barwari region in 1900. This tragedy required his return to Lower Tyari where he vowed to avenge his father’s murder. In 1908, Malik Khoshaba assembled a formidable force of Lower Tyari fighters from the villages of Lizan, Bne Laggipa, Minyanish, Zawitha and Zarne and attacked the Barwari Kurds where a fierce battle ensued that resulted in Malik Khoshaba killing Rashid Beg’s brother, Said Beg, thereby avenging his father’s murder.[2]\n\nKhoshaba's grandfather, Malik Patto of Lower Tyari, fought against Bedr Khan Beg of Bohtan during the 1843 and 1846 massacres in Hakkari in 1843. Patto's family ruled over Tyari for 600 years and was successful in bringing back Patriarch Mar Abraham Shimun to Hakkari after the attacks of Bedir Khan Beg.[3]\n\nWorld War I\n\nKhoshaba led forces in counterattacks against the far larger Ottoman Army during and after the period known as the Assyrian genocide with some success. Khoshaba was known for his bravery, cruelty and military capabilities during this time.\n\nIn one engagement, seeing a large convoy of girls and young women whom the Turks were carrying off, Malik Khoshaba led a small force to attack the convoy. Dividing his force into two, he attacked the Turks from both sides. In this encounter he completely vanquished the Turks, and delivered from their grip 2,600 women and girls, whom they led back to the neighbourhood of Bashkale and Deir, where the 47,000 refugees were encamped. During this fight, Malik Khoshaba lost only six men.[4]\n\nThe Assyrian forces under the command of Malik Khoshaba and General Agha Petros numbered some 6,000 men, flanked by Allied (mainly Russian) troops. Their task at the time was to hold the front against the Turks who were attempting to advance on the city of Baku, in which they were successful in doing so for seven months (January - July 1918) while surrounded by enemy forces.[5]\n\nDuring the first summer of the arrival of the Assyrian refugees in Iran, the Assyrians of Lower Tyari under the leadership of Malik Khoshaba were settled around the mountains of Seray where they were besieged by Turkish and Kurdish forces under the command of Khalil Pasha. During the night, Malik Khiyo of Ashitha (17 years old at the time) observed two groups crossing his front, positioned himself in an artillery observation post and directed a moonlight strike to hold off the enemy. Two of Khoshaba's patrols were successful in capturing Turkish and Kurdish soldiers to gather intel about their positions. Khoshaba was also successful in preventing the enemy's field guns from damaging his post at dawn, while also bringing in twenty-four Turkish prisoners and personally killing four Turkish soldiers. By 7:30am, the enemy was beaten by the men of Khoshaba and Khiyo of Ashitha.[6]\nOn 13 August 1917, in Seray and Mavana, the Assyrians were surrounded by the 5th and 6th Divisions, under the leadership of Iskander Pasha, who vowed to annihilate the Assyrian race with their Persian allies. Khoshaba decided to withdraw his men to their defences for the night, and to send out patrols to halt the enemy moving towards Seray. By 10:30pm the Assyrians had captured eighty-eight prisoners and a mass of arms. Khoshaba, who could speak fluent Turkish, questioned the prisoners, most of whom claimed no reinforcements would be arriving. Khoshaba also translated a captured code of signals which would call for mortar bombs. Early the following morning, Khoshaba captured more Turkish prisoners; among them was a Turkish army colonel, second in command to Iskander Pasha.[7]\n\nHe along with his fighters pacified Urmia of hostile Muslims bent on massacring Christians.[8]\n\nThe Assyrian forces under the command of Malik Khoshaba and General Agha Petros numbered some 6,000 men, flanked by Allied (mainly Russian) troops. Their task at the time was to hold the front against the Turks who were attempting to advance on the city of Baku, in which they were successful in doing so for seven months (January - July 1918) while surrounded by enemy forces.[9]\n\nBattle of Charah\n\nAssyrians attacked the Fortress of Charah on March 16, 1918[10] after the murder of Mar Shimun by the Iranian Kurdish leader Simko, Agha Petros joined forces with Malik Khoshaba and others in driving Simko from his stronghold at Koynashahr.[11] Simko Shikak, who was responsible for the murder of the Assyrian patriarch Mar Shimun was staying in the fortress. The fortress had never been conquered despite numerous attempts by the Iranian government. During the battle, Simko was panic stricken after seeing the Assyrians rip apart his forces. While the battle was going on, Simko managed to flee, abandoning his men. After one day of fighting, the Kurds were decisively defeated. It is said that the river in Charah was completely red from the dead Shikak fighters.[12]\n\nLater life\n\nMalik Khoshaba was appointed the president of the Assyrian Advisory Committee which was made up of a number of influential Assyrian tribal leaders. This led to two factions developing within the Assyrians of Iraq, a patriarchal faction led by Shimun XXI Eshai and a non-patriarchal faction led by Malik Khoshaba and Mar Zaya Sargis, Bishop of Jilu.[13] The tension between the two factions reached a pinnacle according to a letter from the Administrative Inspector of Mosul to the Ministry of Interior, on 19 June 1933, Khoshaba, accompanied with Malik Khiyo of Ashitha and Malik Zaia Shams-al-Din of Lower Tyari left from Nohadra to Amadiya against the wishes of the Qaimmaqam who warned Khoshaba that Malik Yaqo was awaiting him on the road with at least 80 armed men. This resulted in the Mustarrif sending Iraqi police to ensure Khoshaba and his accompanions were not harmed and further drove the split between the factions.[14]\n\nControversy\n\nLater in life, Khoshaba became a figure of great controversy among Assyrians. He was seen by many (though not all) as a divisive figure, particularly with regards to undermining the cause of Assyrian autonomy within the newly created and Arab-dominated state of Iraq in 1932.[15]\n\nAccording to British Army officer Ronald Sempill Stafford, Khoshaba murdered his own wife and daughter, believing that she had engaged in immoral conduct.[16]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian people\n\nSimele massacre\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nReferences\n\n^ E Werda, Rev Joel (1924). The Flickering Light of Asia or the Assyrian Nation and Church. Author.\n\n^ \"Leaders & Heroes\".\n\n^ Mooken, Mar Aprem (1 January 2003). The History of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Twentieth Century. St. Ephrem's Ecumenical Research Institute. p. 222.\n\n^ \"SHALL THIS NATION DIE?\". www.aina.org. Retrieved 2022-06-09.\n\n^ Yacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History. Oxford University Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-19-063346-2.\n\n^ Haddad, Eva (1953). The Assyrian, The Rod of My Anger. E. Haddad. pp. 57-62. ISBN 9780646284187. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Haddad, Eva (1953). The Assyrian, The Rod of My Anger. E. Haddad. pp. 87-96. ISBN 9780646284187. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ \"Leaders & Heroes\". www.tyareh.org. Retrieved 2022-07-09.\n\n^ Yacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the sword : the Assyrian Christian genocide : a history. James Ferguson. Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-069463-0. OCLC 973223097.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik. Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945. p. 152.\n\n^ \"常德升同汽车科技有限公司\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-08-12. Retrieved 2022-06-04.\n\n^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik. Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945. p. 152.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (13 January 2016). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1474412124.\n\n^ \"Settlement of the assyrian community in Iraq\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-09-24.\n\n^ zindamagazine.com December 15, 2003\n\n^ Stafford, Ronald Sempill Stafford (1935). The Tragedy of the Assyrian Minority in Iraq. Routledge. p. 122. ISBN 9781136196126. Retrieved 2018-07-06. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-malik-khoshaba"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1570}, {"slug": "reference-tehran", "title": "Tehran", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tehran[a] is the capital and largest city of Iran.[7] It is also the capital of Tehran province and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District.[8] With a population of around 9 million in the city,[9][10][11] and 16.8 million in the metropolitan area,[12] Tehran is the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tehran\n تهران\n\nCapital city\n\nTehran skyline and the Alborz\n (Mount Tochal)Milad Tower and Mount DamavandAzadi TowerGolestan PalaceNational GardenChitgar LakeNiavaran Complex\n\nFlagSeal\n\nMap of Tehran\n\nTehranLocation within IranShow map of IranTehranLocation within Middle EastShow map of Middle EastTehranLocation within AsiaShow map of Asia\n\nCoordinates: 35°41′20″N 51°23′23″E / 35.6889°N 51.3897°E / 35.6889; 51.3897\n\nCountry Iran\n\nProvinceTehran\n\nCountyTehran\nRey\nShemiranat\n\nDistrictCentral\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorAlireza Zakani\n\n • City Council ChairmanMehdi Chamran\n\n • City CouncilIslamic City Council of Tehran\n\nArea[1]\n\n • Urban750 km2 (290 sq mi)\n\n • Metro2,235 km2 (863 sq mi)\n\nElevation[2]1,040 to 2,040 m (3,410 to 6,690 ft)\n\nPopulation (2016 census)[3]\n\n • Capital city8,693,706\n\n • Estimate (2026)9,840,100[4]\n\n • Density12,052/km2 (31,210/sq mi)\n\n • Metro (2025)14,557,000 (province)[5]\n\n • Population rank in Iran1st\n\nDemonymTehrani\n\nGDP (Nominal, 2024)[6]\n\n • Capital cityUS$67.6 billion\n\n • Per capitaUS$7,000\n\nTime zoneUTC+03:30 (IRST)\n\nArea code+98 21\n\nClimateBSk\n\nWebsitetehran.ir\n\nTehran[a] is the capital and largest city of Iran.[7] It is also the capital of Tehran province and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District.[8] With a population of around 9 million in the city,[9][10][11] and 16.8 million in the metropolitan area,[12] Tehran is the most populous city in Iran and West Asia,[13] the largest metropolitan area in the Middle East and the 24th-most-populous metropolitan area in the world. Greater Tehran includes several municipalities, including Eslamshahr, Shahriar, Qods, Malard, Golestan, Varamin, Pakdasht, Qarchak, Nasimshahr, Parand, Pardis, Andisheh, Fardis, Tajrish, and Rey.\n\nIn classical antiquity, part of the territory of present-day Tehran was occupied by Rhages, a prominent Iranian city that was not destroyed in the medieval Arab and Mongol invasions.[14] Rey is absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran. Tehran was first chosen as the capital of Iran in 1786 by Agha Mohammad Khan of the Qajar dynasty, because of its proximity to Iran's territories in the Caucasus-which were contested in the Russo-Iranian Wars-and to avoid the vying factions of prior ruling Iranian dynasties; the capital of Iran had been moved several times throughout its long history, with Tehran becoming the 51st. Under Reza Shah, Tehran witnessed Iran's first institute of higher learning, bank, railway line, and museum. Large-scale construction works began in the 1920s, and Tehran became a destination for mass migrations from all over Iran, especially in the 20th century.[15] Tehran was at the center of the Iranian Revolution, and experienced major bombing damage during the Iran-Iraq War, the Twelve-Day War, and the 2026 Iran war.\n\nTehran is home to many historical sites, including the World Heritage Site Golestan Palace of the Qajar dynasty and the Masoudieh, Sa'dabad, Niavaran and Marmar palace complexes of both the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties. Landmarks include the Azadi Tower, a memorial built in 1971 to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire; the Milad Tower, the world's sixth-tallest self-supporting tower, completed in 2007; and the Tabiat Bridge, completed in 2014.[16][17][18][19]\n\nTehran has been described as a cultural \"melting pot\", hosting more Azerbaijanis than any other city in the world.[20][21][22][23][24][25] Tehran is served by Imam Khomeini International Airport, alongside the domestic Mehrabad Airport, a central railway station, Tehran Metro, the Tehran Bus Rapid Transit system, trolleybuses, and a large network of highways.\n\nBecause of air pollution, earthquakes and water scarcity, there have been plans to relocate the capital to another area, although none have been approved.[26] A 2016 survey of 230 cities across the globe by Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of life.[27] According to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran was among the top ten fastest growing tourism destinations.[28] In 2016, the Tehran City Council declared 6 October \"Tehran Day\", celebrating the date in 1907 when the city officially became the capital of Iran.[29]\n\nEtymology\n\nVarious theories on the origin of the name Tehran have been put forward. Iranian linguist Zana Kamrani, in an article \"Shemiran-Tehran\", suggests that Tehran, and Kehran mean \"the warm place\", and \"Shemiran\" means \"the cool place\". He lists cities with the same base and suffix and studied the components of the word in ancient Iranian languages, and came to the conclusion that Tehran and Kehran meant the same thing in different Iranian language families, as the constant \"t\" and \"k\" are close to each other in such languages. He also provided evidence that cities named \"Shemiran\" were colder than those named \"Tehran\" or \"Kehran\". He considered other theories not consider the ancient history of Iranian languages, such as \"Tirgan\" theory and \"Tahran\" theory folk etymology.[30]\n\nThe official City of Tehran website says that \"Tehran\" comes from the Persian words \"Tah\" meaning \"end\", or \"bottom\", and \"Ran\" meaning \"[mountain] slope\"; the bottom of the mountain (ته کوه), referring to Tehran's position at the foot of the Alborz mountains.[31]\n\nIn English, it is also spelt \"Teheran\",[32] with both variants being used in books since at least 1800, and \"Teheran\" being the dominant form from after WWII until shortly before the Islamic Revolution.[33]\n\nHistory\n\nArchaeological remains from the ancient city of Ray suggest that settlement in Tehran dates back over 6,000 years.[34]\n\nClassical era\n\nTehran is in the historical Media region (Old Persian: 𐎶𐎠𐎭 Māda) in northwestern Iran. By the time of the Median Empire, part of present-day Tehran was a suburb of the prominent Median city of Rhages (Old Persian: 𐎼𐎥𐎠 Ragā). In the Avesta's Videvdat (i, 15), Rhages is mentioned as the 12th sacred place created by Ohrmazd.[35] In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhages appears as a province (Bistun 2, 10-18). From Rhages, Darius I sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, who was putting down a rebellion in Parthia (Bistun 3, 1-10).[35] Some Middle Persian texts give Rhages as the birthplace of Zoroaster,[36] although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan province.\n\nMount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsi's Šāhnāme,[37] an Iranian epic poem based on the ancient legends of Iran. It appears in the epics as the homeland of the protoplast Keyumars, the birthplace of King Manuchehr, the place where King Fereydun bound the dragon fiend Zahhak (Bivarasp), and the place where Arash shot his arrow.[37]\n\nMedieval period\n\nIn 641, during the reign of the Sasanian Empire, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rhages, before fleeing to Khorasan.[35] Rhages was dominated by the Parthian House of Mihran, and Siyavakhsh-the son of Mehran, the son of Bahram Chobin-who resisted the seventh-century Muslim invasion of Iran.[35] Because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rhages, they ordered the town destroyed and rebuilt anew by the aristocrat Farrukhzad.[35]\n\nIn the ninth century, Tehran was a well-known village, but less so than Rhages, flourishing nearby. Rhages was described in detail by tenth-century Muslim geographers.[35] Despite the interest that Arabian Baghdad displayed in Rhages, the number of Arabs in the city remained insignificant and the population mainly consisted of Iranians of all classes.[35][38]\n\nThe Oghuz Turks invaded Rhages in 1035 and again in 1042, but the city was recovered under the Seljuks and the Khwarezmians.[35] Medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rhages about 500,000 before the Mongol invasion. In the 13th century, the Mongols invaded Rhages, laid the city to ruins, and massacred many of its inhabitants.[35] Others escaped to Tehran. In July 1404, Castilian ambassador Ruy González de Clavijo visited Tehran on a journey to Samarkand, the capital of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, the ruler of Iran at the time. He described it in his diary as an unwalled region.\n\nEarly modern era\n\nItalian traveler Pietro della Valle passed through Tehran overnight in 1618, and in his memoirs called the city Taheran. English traveler Thomas Herbert entered Tehran in 1627, and mentioned it as Tyroan. Herbert states that the city had about 3,000 houses.[39]\n\nIn the early 18th century, Karim Khan of the Zand dynasty ordered a palace and a government office built in Tehran, possibly to declare the city his capital; but he later moved his government to Shiraz. Eventually, Qajar king Agha Mohammad Khan chose Tehran as the capital of Iran in 1786.[40] Khan's choice of his capital was based on a similar concern for the control of both northern and southern Iran.[40] He was aware of the loyalties of the inhabitants of former capitals Isfahan and Shiraz to the Safavid and Zand dynasties respectively, and was wary of the power of the local notables in these cities.[40] Thus, he probably viewed Tehran's lack of a substantial urban structure as a blessing, because it minimized the chances of resistance to his rule by the notables and by the general public.[40] He had to remain within close reach of Azerbaijan and Iran's integral northern and southern Caucasian territories[40]-at that time not yet irrevocably lost per the treaties of Golestan and Turkmenchay to the neighboring Russian Empire-which would follow in the course of the 19th century.[41]\n\nAfter 50 years of Qajar rule, the city still barely had more than 80,000 inhabitants.[40] Up until the 1870s, Tehran consisted of a walled citadel, a roofed bazaar, and the three main neighborhoods of Udlajan, Chale-Meydan, and Sangelaj, where the majority resided.\n\nDuring the long reign of Naser al-Din Shah (1848-1896), Tehran witnessed Iran's first institute of higher learning, bank, railway line and museum.[42][43][44] The Golestan Palace was significantly rebuilt and expanded in 1865 by Haji Ab ol Hasan Mimar Navai, including the Brilliant Hall, the Mirror Hall and the Edifice of the Sun. The city expanded rapidly through multiple development plans.[45] The first development plan in 1855 emphasized traditional spatial structure. The second, under the supervision of Dar al-Fonun in 1878, included new city walls, in the form of a perfect octagon with an area of 19 square kilometers, mimicking the Renaissance cities of Europe.[46] Tehran was 19.79 square kilometers and had expanded more than fourfold.[47]\n\nLate modern era\n\nGrowing awareness of civil rights resulted in the Constitutional Revolution and the first constitution of Iran in 1906. On 2 June 1907, the parliament passed a law on local governance known as the Baladie (municipal law), providing a detailed outline of issues such as the role of councils within the city, the members' qualifications, the election process, and the requirements to be entitled to vote.\n\nMohammad Ali Shah abolished the constitution and bombarded the parliament with the help of the Russian-controlled Cossack Brigade on 23 June 1908. That was followed by the capture of the city by the revolutionary forces of Ali-Qoli Khan (Sardar Asad II) and Mohammad Vali Khan (Sepahsalar e Tonekaboni) on 13 July 1909. As a result, the monarch was exiled and replaced by his son Ahmad, and the parliament was re-established.\n\nDuring the Persian campaign of World War I, Russian forces that were occupying the northwest of Iran marched around Qazvin and approached Tehran, causing a crisis and the dissolution of parliament. Ahmad Shah Qajar and his entourage decided to leave Tehran and move the capital to another place, sparking fears of rebellion in other cities.[48] During the Battle of Robat Karim, Iranian forces led by Heydar Latifiyan prevented the Russians from taking Tehran, despite the latter winning the battle.[49] This also allowed government functions to be moved to Qom and then to Isfahan, while the monarchy remained in Tehran.[48]\n\nPahlavi era\n\nAfter World War I, the constituent assembly elected Reza Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty as the new monarch, who immediately suspended the Baladie law of 1907, replacing the decentralized and autonomous city councils with centralist approaches to governance and planning.[46] From the 1920s to the 1930s, under the rule of Reza Shah, the city was rebuilt. Several old buildings, including parts of the Golestan Palace, Takyeh Dowlat, and Toopkhaneh Square, were replaced with modern buildings influenced by classical Iranian architecture, particularly the buildings of the National Bank, the police headquarters, the telegraph office, and the military academy.\n\nChanges to the urban fabric began with the street-widening act of 1933, which served as a framework for changes in all other cities. The Grand Bazaar was divided in half and many historic buildings were demolished and replaced by wide straight avenues,[51] and the traditional texture of the city was replaced with intersecting cruciform streets that created large roundabouts in major public spaces such as the bazaar. As an attempt to create a network for easy transportation within the city, the old citadel and city walls were demolished in 1937, replaced by wide streets cutting through the urban fabric. By 1937, the city was heavily influenced by modernist planning patterns of zoning and gridiron networks.[46]\n\nDuring World War II, Tehran was occupied as a result of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. In 1943, Tehran was the site of the Tehran Conference, attended by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.\n\nThe establishment of the planning organization of Iran in 1948 resulted in the first socioeconomic development plan covering the period from 1949 to 1955. These plans not only failed to slow the unbalanced growth of Tehran but, with the 1962 land reforms that Reza Shah's son and successor, Mohammad Reza Shah named the White Revolution, Tehran's chaotic growth was further accentuated.\n\nIn the 1960s and 1970s, Tehran developed rapidly under Mohammad Reza Shah. Modern buildings altered the face of Tehran, and ambitious projects were planned for the following decades. To resolve the problem of social exclusion, the first comprehensive plan was approved in 1968. The consortium of Iranian architect Abd-ol-Aziz Farmanfarmaian and the American firm of Victor Gruen Associates identified the main problems blighting the city as high-density suburbs, air and water pollution, inefficient infrastructure, unemployment, and rural-urban migration. Eventually, the whole plan was marginalized by the 1979 Revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War.[46]\n\nTehran's most famous landmark, the Azadi Tower, was built by the order of the Shah in 1971. It was designed by Hossein Amanat, an architect whose design won a competition, combining elements of classical Sasanian architecture with post-classical Iranian architecture. Formerly known as the Shahyad Tower, it was built to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Imperial State of Iran.\n\nIslamic Republic\n\nFollowing the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Tehran underwent profound transformations in its urban landscape, political structure, and social dynamics. The revolution led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which brought about a shift from a pro-Western monarchy to a theocratic system based on Islamic principles. This change was reflected in various aspects of Tehran's development.[52][53][54] Politically, the revolution resulted in the consolidation of power by forces loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution. Several million Tehranis greeted Khomeini's return to Iran.[55] This period saw the establishment of new governance structures aligned with Islamic ideologies.[56][57]\n\nDuring the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988 and as a part of the War of the cities, Tehran was repeatedly targeted by airstrikes and Scud missile attacks leading to substantial infrastructural damage.[58][59]\n\n21st century\n\nThe 435-meter-high Milad Tower, one of the proposed development projects of pre-revolutionary Iran,[60] was completed in 2007 and has become a famous landmark of Tehran. Tabiat Bridge, a 270-meter pedestrian overpass[16] that was designed by award-winning architect Leila Araghian, was completed in 2014. The city municipality started planting a large number of imported palm trees, replacing endemic plane trees.[61] In the Twelve-Day War of June 2025, Tehran was attacked by Israeli airstrikes[62] and, in an unprecedented move, the people of Tehran committed mass evacuations.[63][64][65] The city has been under attack in the ongoing 2026 Iran war.[66] On 8 March 2026, Israeli strikes on oil depots near Tehran caused the city to be engulfed in a cloud of thick black smoke, causing a dangerous black acid rainfall.[67] Residents were advised by Iranian authorities to stay indoors, wear masks when outside, and conserve food and fuel.[68]\n\nAfter the ceasefire, Bloomberg reports that Tehran has suffered extensive destruction: buildings torn open, piles of rubble, and neighborhoods partially devastated. An analysis by the American agency of the Iranian capital estimates that 2,816 buildings were destroyed there: about 32% were linked to military activities, 25% to industry, 21% to civilian uses, while 19% belonged to the commercial sector and 2% to government infrastructure. The municipality of Tehran also states that more than 39,000 residential units were severely damaged by the bombings.[69]\n\nDemographics\n\nPopulation\n\nTehran's Population History\nYearPop.±% p.a.\n\n 15541,000-    \n\n 16263,000+1.54%\n\n 179715,000+0.95%\n\n 180750,000+12.79%\n\n 181260,000+3.71%\n\n 183480,000+1.32%\n\n 1867147,256+1.87%\n\n 1930250,000+0.84%\n\n 1940540,087+8.01%\n\n 19561,560,934+6.86%\n\n 19662,719,730+5.71%\n\n 19764,530,223+5.23%\n\n 19866,058,207+2.95%\n\n 19916,497,238+1.41%\n\n 19966,758,845+0.79%\n\n 20067,711,230+1.33%\n\n 20118,244,759+1.35%\n\n 20168,737,510+1.17%\n\nTehran had a population of 7,711,230 people, in 2,286,787 households at the time of the 2006 National Census.[70] The 2011 census counted 8,154,051 people, in 2,624,511 households.[71] The 2016 census recorded 8,693,706 people, in 2,911,065 households.[3]\n\nLanguage and ethnicity\n\nWith its cosmopolitan atmosphere, Tehran is home to diverse ethnic and linguistic groups from all over the country. The present-day dominant language is the Tehrani variety of the Persian language, and the majority of people identify themselves as Persians.[18][17] Historically the native language of the Tehran-Ray region was not Persian, which is linguistically Southwest Iranian and originates in Fars, but an extinct Persian dialect and Northwestern Iranian language.[72]\n\nIranian Azeris are the second-largest ethnic group, comprising about 10-15% [73][74] of the population. Ethnic Mazanderanis are the third-largest, comprising about 5% of the population.[75] Tehran's other ethnic communities include Kurds, Armenians, Georgians, Bakhtyaris, Talysh, Baloch, Assyrians, Arabs, Jews, and Circassians. In the 2010 census by the Sociology Department of the University of Tehran, in many districts of Tehran across various socio-economic classes in proportion to population sizes of each district and socio-economic class, 63% of the people were born in Tehran, 98% knew Persian, 75% identified themselves as ethnic Persian, and 13% had some degree of proficiency in a European language.[17]\n\nThere was a drastic change in ethnic-social composition in the early 1980s. After the political, social, and economic consequences of the 1979 Revolution and the years that followed, many Iranian citizens, mostly Tehranis, left Iran. The majority of Iranian emigrations have left for the United States, Germany, Sweden, and Canada. With the start of the Iran-Iraq War, a second wave of inhabitants fled the city, especially during the Iraqi air offensives on Tehran. With most major powers backing Iraq at the time, economic isolation gave yet more reason for many inhabitants to leave Tehran and the country. Having left all they had and having struggled to adapt to a new country and build a life, most of them never came back when the war was over. During the war, Tehran received a great number of migrants from the west and the southwest of Iran bordering Iraq.\n\nReligion\n\nThe majority of religious Tehrani are officially Twelver Shia Muslims, which has been the main religion since the 16th-century Safavid conversion. Other religious communities include followers of the Sunni and Mystic branches of Islam, Christian denominations, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and the Baháʼí Faith.\n\nIn the 2016 \"Tehran Survey\", when residents of Tehran were asked about the importance of religion in their life, 53.5% considered it to be \"very important / important\", 31.1% to be \"rather important\", 10.5% to be \"not very important\" and 4.8% to be \"not at all important.\"[76] \n\nThere are many religious centres scattered around Tehran, from old to newly built centres, including mosques, churches, synagogues, and Zoroastrian fire temples. Tehran has a very small third-generation Indian Sikh community with a local gurdwara that was visited by the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh in 2012.[77]\n\nGeography\n\nLocation and subdivisions\n\nCity of Tehran is bounded in the north by the southern end and the highest point of Alborz Mountain Range (Tochal Peak, 3,963m), in the east by a hilly stretch of Alborz (namely, Sorkheh Hesar National Park, part of Khojir National Park and the northeastern badlands), in the southeast by Raga Mountain and in the west and southwest by fertile meadows and many villages, fed by numerous rivers and streams, mainly Karaj and Jajrud.\n\nThe metropolis is divided into 22 municipal districts, each with its administrative center. Of the 22 municipal districts, 20 are located in Tehran County's Central District, while districts 1 and 20 are respectively located in the counties of Shemiranat and Ray.\n\nRegions and municipal districts of Tehran\n\nNorth:\n\nDistrict 1:\n\n • Farmaniyeh\n\n • Evin\n\n • Darakeh\n\n • Zaferaniyeh\n\n • Mahmoodiyeh\n\n • Velenjak\n\n • Darband\n\n • Golabdarreh\n\n • Jamaran\n\n • Dezashib\n\n • Niavaran\n\n • Darabad\n\n • Tajrish\n\n • Gheytariyeh\n\n • Chizar\n\n • Ozgol\n\n • Aghdasiyeh\n\n • Elahieh\n\n • Jamshidiyeh\n\n • Saadabad\n\n • Kamraniyeh\n\nDistrict 2:\n\n • Farahzad\n\n • Shahrara\n\n • Gisha\n\n • Punak-e\n   Bahtari\n\n • Saadat Abad\n\n • Sadeghieh\n\n • Shahrak-e Gharb\n\n • Tarasht\n\n • Tohid\n\nDistrict 3:\n\n • Darus\n\n • Davoodiyeh\n\n • Ekhtiariyeh\n\n • Golhak\n\n • Vanak\n\n • Jordan\n\nDistrict 4:\n\n • Khak Sefid\n\n • Hakimiyeh\n\n • Lavizan\n\n • Ozgol\n\n • Pasdaran\n\n • Resalat\n\n • Shams Abad\n\n • Shemiran-e-No\n\n • Tehranpars\n\n • Zargande\n\n • Narmak\n\nDistrict 5:\n\n • Bolvar-e\n   Ferdows\n\n • Jannat Abad\n\n • Ekbatan\n\n • Punak\n\nEast:\n\nDistrict 8:\n\n • Mo'allem\n\n • Narmak\n\n • Samangan\n\n • Nezam Abad\n\nDistrict 13:\n\n • Dowshan Tappe\n\n • Niru Havaii\n\n • Tehran-e-No\n\n • Piroozi\n\nDistrict 14:\n\n • Chaharsad\n   Dastgah\n\n • Dulab\n\n • Esfahanak\n\n • Khorasan\n\n • Sad Dastgah\n\nDistrict 15:\n\n • Afsariyeh\n\n • Bisim\n\n • Khavaran\n\n • Kiyanshahr\n\n • Masoudiyeh\n\n • Moshiriyeh\n\nCenter:\n\nDistrict 6:\n\n • Amir Abad\n\n • Arjantin\n\n • Yousef Abad\n\n • Park-e Laleh\n\nDistrict 7:\n\n • Abbas Abad\n\n • Behjat\n   Abad\n\n • Emam\n   Hossein\n\n • Sabalan\n\nDistrict 10:\n\n • Beryanak\n\n • Haft Chenar\n\n • Salsabil\n\nDistrict 11:\n\n • Dokhaniyat\n\n • Lashkar\n\n • Moniriyeh\n\n • Sheikh Hadi\n\nDistrict 12:\n\n • Baharestan\n\n • Bazar-e Tehran\n\n • Ferdowsi\n\n • Gorgan\n\n • Park-e Shahrr\n\n • Pich-e Shemiran\n\nSouth:\n\nDistrict 16:\n\n • Ali Abad\n\n • Bagh-e Azari\n\n • Khazane\n\n • Yakhchi Abad\n\n • Javadiyeh\n\n • Nazi Abad\n\nDistrict 17:\n\n • Emamzade\n   Hasan\n\n • Bagh Khazaneh\n\n • Qal'e Morghi\n\nDistrict 19:\n\n • Abdol Abad\n\n • Khani Abad No\n\n • Nemat Abad\n\nDistrict 20:\n\n • Dolat Abad\n\n • Javanmard-e\n   Ghassab\n\n • Ebn\n   Babviyeh\n\n • Hazrat-e\n   Abdol-Azim\n\n • Sizdah-e\n   Aban\n\n • Rey\n\nWest:\n\nDistrict 9:\n\n • Jey\n\n • Sar-Asyab\n\n • Mehr Abad\n\nDistrict 18:\n\n • Khalije Fars\n\n • Yaft Abad\n\n • Shad Abad\n\n • Shahrak-e\n   Vali-Asr\n\n • Tolid Daru\n\n • Ferdows\n\nDistrict 21:\n\n • Shahrak-e-Darya\n\n • Bashgah-e\n   Naft\n\n • Tehransar\n\n • Shahrak-e-Pasdaran\n\n • Shahrak-e-Azadi\n\n • Vardavard\n\nDistrict 22:\n\n • Bagh-e\n   Haj-Seif\n\n • Kan\n\n • Kuy-e\n   Sazman-e\n   Barname\n\n • Park Chitgar\n\n • Peykanshahr\n\n • Stadium-e\n   Azadi\n\n • Shahrak-e\n   Cheshmeh\n\n • Shahrak-e\n   Rah-Ahan\n\n • Shahrak-e\n   Omid\n • Shahid Baqeri\n\n • Dehkade-ye-Olympic\n\n • Daryache Chitgar\n\n • Golestan\n\nMunicipal districts of Tehran\n\nName\nPersian Name\nCounty\nNumber of\nMunicipal Regions\nArea\nPopulation\nPopulation Density\nLocation within Tehran\n\nDistrict 1\nمنطقه ۱ - Mantaqe ye Yek\nShemiranat County\n10\n64.0 km2\n487,508\n10,533/km2\n\nDistrict 2\nمنطقه ۲ - Mantaqe ye Do\nTehran County\n9\n64.0 km2\n701,303\n14,964/km2\n\nDistrict 3\nمنطقه ۳ - Mantaqe ye Se\nTehran County\n6\n31.2 km2\n330,649\n10,156/km2\n\nDistrict 4\nمنطقه ۴ - Mantaqe ye Chahār\nTehran County\n9\n61.4 km2\n919,001\n14,943/km2\n\nDistrict 5\nمنطقه ۵ - Mantaqe ye Panj\nTehran County\n7\n52.9 km2\n858,346\n18,320/km2\n\nDistrict 6\nمنطقه ۶ - Mantaqe ye Šeŝ\nTehran County\n6\n21.4 km2\n251,384\n13,763/km2\n\nDistrict 7\nمنطقه ۷ - Mantaqe ye Haft\nTehran County\n5\n15.4 km2\n312,194\n20,140/km2\n\nDistrict 8\nمنطقه ۸ - Mantaqe ye Haŝt\nTehran County\n3\n13.4 km2\n425,197\n31,984/km2\n\nDistrict 9\nمنطقه ۹ - Mantaqe ye Noh\nTehran County\n3\n19.6 km2\n174,239\n6,387/km2\n\nDistrict 10\nمنطقه ۱۰ - Mantaqe ye Dah\nTehran County\n3\n8.2 km2\n327,115\n40,029/km2\n\nDistrict 11\nمنطقه ۱۱ - Mantaqe ye Yāzdah\nTehran County\n4\n12.6 km2\n307,940\n25,743/km2\n\nDistrict 12\nمنطقه ۱۲ - Mantaqe ye Davāzdah\nTehran County\n6\n16.9 km2\n241,831\n15,150/km2\n\nDistrict 13\nمنطقه ۱۳ - Mantaqe ye Sizdah\nTehran County\n4\n12.8 km2\n248,952\n14,726/km2\n\nDistrict 14\nمنطقه ۱۴ - Mantaqe ye Ĉahārdah\nTehran County\n6\n24.3 km2\n515,795\n21,370/km2\n\nDistrict 15\nمنطقه ۱۵ - Mantaqe ye Pānzdah\nTehran County\n6\n35.4 km2\n641,279\n23,186/km2\n\nDistrict 16\nمنطقه ۱۶ - Mantaqe ye Ŝānzdah\nTehran County\n6\n18.1 km2\n268,406\n16,238/km2\n\nDistrict 17\nمنطقه ۱۷ - Mantaqe ye Hefdah\nTehran County\n3\n8.2 km2\n273,231\n33,276/km2\n\nDistrict 18\nمنطقه ۱۸ - Mantaqe ye Heĵdah\nTehran County\n5\n37.5 km2\n419,882\n11,029/km2\n\nDistrict 19\nمنطقه ۱۹ - Mantaqe ye Nuzdah\nTehran County\n3\n20.3 km2\n261,027\n12,809/km2\n\nDistrict 20\nمنطقه ۲۰ - Mantaqe ye Bist\nRay County\n5\n23.0 km2\n365,259\n16,365/km2\n\nDistrict 21\nمنطقه ۲۱ - Mantaqe ye Bist-o-Yek\nTehran County\n3\n51.6 km2\n186,821\n3,646/km2\n\nDistrict 22\nمنطقه ۲۲ - Mantaqe ye Bist-o-Do\nTehran County\n4\n54.0 km2\n176,347\n3,025/km2\n\nNorthern Tehran is the wealthiest part of the city,[78] with districts such as Zafaraniyeh, Jordan, Elahiyeh, Pasdaran, Kamranieh, Ajodanieh, Farmanieh, Darrous, Niavaran, Jamaran, Aghdasieh, Mahmoodieh, Velenjak, Qeytarieh, Ozgol and Ekhtiarieh.[79][80] The city center houses government ministries and headquarters. Commercial centers are located further north.\n\nTopography\n\nNorthern Tehran is at the foot of Alborz, starting at an elevation of 1,800 meters (5,900 ft), with many houses and streets on steep slopes and hills. There is a stretch of hills in the middle of the city (which historically divided Tehran and Shemiran) with its highest point at 1,500 metres (4,900 ft). Southwards and westwards of those hills, Tehran is less steep. On the east, there are numerous hills, with the highest point at 1,950 metres (6,400 ft). The southern end of Tehran (Rey) is at 1,100 metres (3,600 ft), next to a single mountain (Raga) at 1,500 metres (4,900 ft).\n\nClimate\n\nTehran lies at the southern foot of the Alborz Mountains and the northern edge of the Iranian Central Plateau, giving the city a complex climate. According to the Köppen climate classification system, the bulk of metropolitan Tehran is classified as a cold semi-arid (BSk), while lower elevation suburbs and plains (near Mehrābād Airport) verge on a hot semi-arid (BSh) classification. At the same time, the elevated northern districts (such as Shemiran) approach a Mediterranean climate (Csa) type.\n\nThe city's wide elevation range-from approximately 1,100 m above sea level in the southern plains to over 1,800 m in the northern suburbs-yields pronounced topographic micro-climates.[81] The elevation rises up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) at the end of Velenjak in northern Tehran. \nNorthern parts of Tehran tend to be cooler, receive slightly more precipitation (including more snow), and retain more greenery. In contrast, the more open, lower-lying southern sections of the city experience stronger daytime heating, less relief through breezes, and larger temperature differences between day and night. The difference between daily maximum and minimum temperatures (known as diurnal range) can be modest (≈ 10-12 °C) in built-up urban zones but may exceed 15-20 °C in suburbs or peripheral areas during clear, dry nights.[82]\n\nUrban expansion, the \"heat-island\" effect, and reduced vegetation have contributed to modest upward shifts in mean temperatures, particularly during summer nights. The dominance of dry summers means that water management and green-space planning carry particular significance for Tehran's long-term habitability.[83]\n\nSummers in Tehran are long and dry. Daytime highs often soar to over 35 °C, and during peak heat waves they may approach or even exceed 40 °C. Nighttime minima during midsummer typically hover around 20-25 °C, though cooler nights are common in the northern districts. Winters are cool in central areas but are notably colder in the higher elevations north of the city: daytime highs in January average around 7-9 °C, while overnight lows in the city centre fall to near 0-2°C or slightly below and routinely dip below zero in the suburbs and mountain-adjacent zones.[82]\n\nAnnual total rainfall for central Tehran averages roughly 230-300 mm. The wet season spans from late autumn through early spring (roughly November to May), while the summer months (June to September) are extremely dry and often see no measurable rainfall. Most precipitation falls from frontal systems moving in from the northwest and through the Alborz range, with occasional convective storms. Snowfall occurs almost every winter, though accumulation in central Tehran is usually brief, while the northern districts and Alborz foothills receive heavier and longer-lasting snow.[84]\n\nAir currents have a great effect on Tehran's weather. The prevailing wind blowing from the west causes the west of Tehran to always be exposed to fresh air. Although this wind brings smoke and pollution from the western industrial areas, its strong wind takes polluted air out of Tehran.[82]\n\nThe main direction of the prevailing wind is northwest to southeast.[85] Other air currents that blow in the area are:\n\nTochal breeze: With the rapid cooling of the Alborz mountain range at night, a local high-pressure center is formed on Mount Tochal. This cold current flows down the mountain because of high pressure. Thus, a gentle breeze blows into the city from the north at night.[82]\n\nSouthern and southeastern regional winds: These winds blow from the desert plains in the hot months of the year.[82]\n\nWestern winds: these winds are the Westerlies that affect Tehran throughout the year and can be called the prevailing wind.[82]\n\nSignificant weather events\n\nIn February 2005, heavy snow covered all parts of Tehran. Snow depth was recorded as 15 cm (6 in) in the south and 100 cm (39 in) in the north. One newspaper reported that it had been the worst weather in 34 years. Ten thousand bulldozers and 13,000 municipal workers were deployed to keep the main roads open.[86][87] On 5 and 6 January 2008, a wave of heavy snow and low temperatures covered Tehran in a thick layer of snow and ice, forcing the Council of Ministers to declare a state of emergency and close down the capital from 6 to 7 January.[88] On 3 February 2014, Tehran received heavy snowfall, specifically in the northern parts of the city, with a depth of 2 metres (6.6 ft). In one week of successive snowfalls, roads were made impassable in some areas, with the temperature ranging from -8 to -16 °C (18 to 3 °F).[89] On 3 June 2014, a severe thunderstorm with powerful microbursts created a haboob, engulfing Tehran in sand and dust and causing five deaths, with more than 57 injured. This event knocked down numerous trees and power lines. It struck between 17:00 and 18:00, dropping temperatures from 33 to 19 °C (91 to 66 °F) within an hour. The dramatic temperature drop was accompanied by wind gusts reaching nearly 118 km/h (73 mph).[90]\n\nIn July and August 2025, Tehran experienced extreme heat and severe drought conditions, marking one of the most acute environmental crises in the city's recent history. Temperatures exceeded 40 °C during a prolonged heatwave, coinciding with the fifth consecutive year of below-average rainfall. Reservoir levels in the surrounding region fell, with water storage at Karaj Dam reduced by 58%, Lar by 34%, Taleghan by 32%, and the combined Latyan and Mamloo reservoirs by 47% compared to normal capacity. Inflows to major dams were reported to be 43% lower than the previous year.[91] The water shortage prompted authorities to announce temporary public holidays and the closure of government offices and banks to conserve electricity and water.[92][93]\n\nClimate data\n\nThe highest recorded temperature was 43 °C (109 °F) on 3 July 1958 and 6 July 1975. The lowest recorded temperature was -15 °C (5 °F) on 8 January 1969.[94]\n\nClimate data for Tehran Geophysic, altitude: 1,418.6 m (4,654 ft) (1991-2010, temperature normals and precipitation 1991-2020, records 1991-2022)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n17.0\n(62.6)\n\n22.7\n(72.9)\n\n28.4\n(83.1)\n\n32.0\n(89.6)\n\n36.0\n(96.8)\n\n40.6\n(105.1)\n\n41.6\n(106.9)\n\n40.9\n(105.6)\n\n37.3\n(99.1)\n\n32.0\n(89.6)\n\n24.0\n(75.2)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\n41.6\n(106.9)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n7.4\n(45.3)\n\n9.7\n(49.5)\n\n14.8\n(58.6)\n\n20.7\n(69.3)\n\n26.5\n(79.7)\n\n32.6\n(90.7)\n\n35.3\n(95.5)\n\n34.2\n(93.6)\n\n30.1\n(86.2)\n\n23.3\n(73.9)\n\n14.6\n(58.3)\n\n9.1\n(48.4)\n\n21.5\n(70.7)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n4.2\n(39.6)\n\n6.2\n(43.2)\n\n10.7\n(51.3)\n\n16.3\n(61.3)\n\n21.9\n(71.4)\n\n27.8\n(82.0)\n\n30.5\n(86.9)\n\n29.5\n(85.1)\n\n25.4\n(77.7)\n\n18.8\n(65.8)\n\n10.8\n(51.4)\n\n6.0\n(42.8)\n\n17.3\n(63.2)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n0.8\n(33.4)\n\n2.5\n(36.5)\n\n6.6\n(43.9)\n\n11.7\n(53.1)\n\n16.5\n(61.7)\n\n22.1\n(71.8)\n\n25.1\n(77.2)\n\n24.1\n(75.4)\n\n20.2\n(68.4)\n\n14.3\n(57.7)\n\n7.3\n(45.1)\n\n2.7\n(36.9)\n\n12.8\n(55.1)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-11.7\n(10.9)\n\n-8.2\n(17.2)\n\n-6.0\n(21.2)\n\n-1.8\n(28.8)\n\n4.5\n(40.1)\n\n11.8\n(53.2)\n\n15.4\n(59.7)\n\n13.6\n(56.5)\n\n10.0\n(50.0)\n\n6.4\n(43.5)\n\n-7.9\n(17.8)\n\n-7.2\n(19.0)\n\n-11.7\n(10.9)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n47.4\n(1.87)\n\n38.7\n(1.52)\n\n51.9\n(2.04)\n\n40.5\n(1.59)\n\n17.3\n(0.68)\n\n3.6\n(0.14)\n\n3.2\n(0.13)\n\n2.5\n(0.10)\n\n2.0\n(0.08)\n\n17.2\n(0.68)\n\n36.1\n(1.42)\n\n39.5\n(1.56)\n\n299.9\n(11.81)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n10.0\n\n9.1\n\n11.2\n\n9.3\n\n8.5\n\n2.7\n\n1.6\n\n0.9\n\n1.2\n\n4.1\n\n8.4\n\n10.1\n\n77.1\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n5.1\n\n3.3\n\n2.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.1\n\n0.3\n\n2.9\n\n13.7\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n157.3\n\n172.3\n\n198.1\n\n213.8\n\n279.1\n\n342.4\n\n345.2\n\n346.7\n\n308.4\n\n257.1\n\n180.1\n\n146.8\n\n2,947.3\n\nSource: Iran Meteorological Organization (records[94] (temperatures[95]), (precipitation[96]), (humidity[97]), (days with precipitation[98][99]), (sunshine[100])\n\nClimate data for Tehran Mehrabad, altitude: 1,191 m (3,907 ft) (1991-2020 normals, extremes 1951-present)[b]\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\n24.4\n(75.9)\n\n30.3\n(86.5)\n\n33.4\n(92.1)\n\n37.0\n(98.6)\n\n42.2\n(108.0)\n\n43.0\n(109.4)\n\n42.4\n(108.3)\n\n38.4\n(101.1)\n\n33.4\n(92.1)\n\n26.4\n(79.5)\n\n21.0\n(69.8)\n\n43.0\n(109.4)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n8.5\n(47.3)\n\n11.1\n(52.0)\n\n16.2\n(61.2)\n\n22.3\n(72.1)\n\n28.2\n(82.8)\n\n34.3\n(93.7)\n\n36.9\n(98.4)\n\n35.8\n(96.4)\n\n31.6\n(88.9)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n15.7\n(60.3)\n\n10.2\n(50.4)\n\n23.0\n(73.3)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n4.7\n(40.5)\n\n7.0\n(44.6)\n\n11.8\n(53.2)\n\n17.6\n(63.7)\n\n23.2\n(73.8)\n\n28.8\n(83.8)\n\n31.4\n(88.5)\n\n30.5\n(86.9)\n\n26.3\n(79.3)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\n11.6\n(52.9)\n\n6.5\n(43.7)\n\n18.3\n(64.9)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n1.3\n(34.3)\n\n3.0\n(37.4)\n\n7.2\n(45.0)\n\n12.6\n(54.7)\n\n17.6\n(63.7)\n\n22.5\n(72.5)\n\n25.2\n(77.4)\n\n24.6\n(76.3)\n\n20.7\n(69.3)\n\n14.8\n(58.6)\n\n7.8\n(46.0)\n\n3.2\n(37.8)\n\n13.4\n(56.1)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-15.0\n(5.0)\n\n-13.0\n(8.6)\n\n-8.0\n(17.6)\n\n-4.0\n(24.8)\n\n2.4\n(36.3)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n14.0\n(57.2)\n\n13.0\n(55.4)\n\n9.0\n(48.2)\n\n2.8\n(37.0)\n\n-7.2\n(19.0)\n\n-13.0\n(8.6)\n\n-15.0\n(5.0)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n31.7\n(1.25)\n\n32.9\n(1.30)\n\n42.5\n(1.67)\n\n34.8\n(1.37)\n\n14.0\n(0.55)\n\n2.3\n(0.09)\n\n2.3\n(0.09)\n\n1.4\n(0.06)\n\n0.9\n(0.04)\n\n13.6\n(0.54)\n\n30.9\n(1.22)\n\n31.8\n(1.25)\n\n239.1\n(9.43)\n\nAverage snowfall cm (inches)\n\n24.0\n(9.4)\n\n11.6\n(4.6)\n\n1.7\n(0.7)\n\n0.1\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n7.3\n(2.9)\n\n44.7\n(17.6)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n4.8\n\n5.4\n\n5.9\n\n5.2\n\n3.7\n\n0.8\n\n0.5\n\n0.3\n\n0.2\n\n2.5\n\n4.9\n\n5.3\n\n39.5\n\nAverage rainy days\n\n6\n\n7.1\n\n10.3\n\n9.8\n\n6.9\n\n2\n\n1.6\n\n0.9\n\n0.7\n\n5.3\n\n8.6\n\n7.8\n\n67\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n5.1\n\n2.9\n\n1.1\n\n0.1\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.0\n\n0.4\n\n2.7\n\n12.3\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n57\n\n51\n\n43\n\n39\n\n31\n\n25\n\n25\n\n26\n\n28\n\n36\n\n50\n\n58\n\n39\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n176.0\n\n178.0\n\n208.0\n\n232.0\n\n284.0\n\n339.0\n\n344.0\n\n344.0\n\n305.0\n\n254.0\n\n181.0\n\n164.0\n\n3,009\n\nAverage ultraviolet index\n\n2\n\n3\n\n3\n\n5\n\n6\n\n7\n\n7\n\n7\n\n5\n\n4\n\n3\n\n2\n\n5\n\nSource 1: NOAA NCEI[101] (snowfall 1981-2010)[102]\n\nSource 2: Iran Meteorological Organization (records[94]), (snow/sleet days 1951-2005[99]), Weather Atlas (UV)[103]\n\nClimate data for Tehran-Shomal (north of Tehran), altitude: 1,549.1 m (5,082 ft) (1988-2010, temperature normals, precipitation, and snow days 1988-2020, records 1988-present)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n17.2\n(63.0)\n\n23.5\n(74.3)\n\n29.0\n(84.2)\n\n32.4\n(90.3)\n\n34.6\n(94.3)\n\n40.4\n(104.7)\n\n41.8\n(107.2)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\n36.9\n(98.4)\n\n31.2\n(88.2)\n\n23.6\n(74.5)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\n42.0\n(107.6)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n6.9\n(44.4)\n\n9.1\n(48.4)\n\n14.3\n(57.7)\n\n20.2\n(68.4)\n\n26.1\n(79.0)\n\n32.2\n(90.0)\n\n34.9\n(94.8)\n\n33.9\n(93.0)\n\n29.8\n(85.6)\n\n22.9\n(73.2)\n\n14.3\n(57.7)\n\n9.0\n(48.2)\n\n21.1\n(70.0)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n3.0\n(37.4)\n\n4.8\n(40.6)\n\n9.6\n(49.3)\n\n15.0\n(59.0)\n\n20.3\n(68.5)\n\n26.1\n(79.0)\n\n28.9\n(84.0)\n\n27.8\n(82.0)\n\n23.7\n(74.7)\n\n17.3\n(63.1)\n\n9.8\n(49.6)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n15.9\n(60.7)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n-1.0\n(30.2)\n\n0.5\n(32.9)\n\n4.8\n(40.6)\n\n9.8\n(49.6)\n\n14.5\n(58.1)\n\n19.9\n(67.8)\n\n22.9\n(73.2)\n\n21.6\n(70.9)\n\n17.5\n(63.5)\n\n11.6\n(52.9)\n\n5.2\n(41.4)\n\n1.0\n(33.8)\n\n10.7\n(51.2)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-13.0\n(8.6)\n\n-11.0\n(12.2)\n\n-8.0\n(17.6)\n\n-2.4\n(27.7)\n\n0.0\n(32.0)\n\n12.0\n(53.6)\n\n13.0\n(55.4)\n\n10.6\n(51.1)\n\n8.8\n(47.8)\n\n2.6\n(36.7)\n\n-8.3\n(17.1)\n\n-9.6\n(14.7)\n\n-13.0\n(8.6)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n56.6\n(2.23)\n\n64.2\n(2.53)\n\n70.1\n(2.76)\n\n54.9\n(2.16)\n\n25.6\n(1.01)\n\n3.9\n(0.15)\n\n5.0\n(0.20)\n\n3.9\n(0.15)\n\n3.7\n(0.15)\n\n24.5\n(0.96)\n\n53.8\n(2.12)\n\n61.1\n(2.41)\n\n427.3\n(16.83)\n\nAverage precipitation days\n\n12.3\n\n10.9\n\n12.3\n\n10.0\n\n8.9\n\n3.3\n\n3.4\n\n1.6\n\n1.3\n\n5.8\n\n8.6\n\n10.7\n\n89.1\n\nAverage snowy days\n\n7.3\n\n5.6\n\n2.3\n\n0.1\n\n0.1\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n0\n\n1.0\n\n4.0\n\n20.4\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n67\n\n59\n\n53\n\n44\n\n39\n\n30\n\n31\n\n31\n\n33\n\n44\n\n57\n\n66\n\n46\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n135.8\n\n146.4\n\n185.1\n\n215.0\n\n274.6\n\n322.8\n\n331.8\n\n327.5\n\n292.6\n\n245.5\n\n171.5\n\n135.8\n\n2,784.4\n\nSource 1: [104]\n\nSource 2: [105]\n\nEnvironmental issues\n\nTehran is located near two major fault lines. The city's wide elevation range-from approximately 1,100 m above sea level in the southern plains to over 1,800 m in the northern suburbs-yields pronounced topographic micro-climates[81]. Tehran suffers from severe air pollution, 80% of it due to cars.[107] The remaining 20% is due to industrial pollution. Other estimates suggest that motorcycles account for 30% of air and 50% of noise pollution in Tehran.[108] The city is considered one of the strongest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the Middle East. Enhanced concentration of carbon dioxide over Tehran, that likely originate from the anthropogenic urban sources in the city, is easily detectable from satellite observations throughout the year.[83] A plan to move the capital has been discussed many times in prior years, due mainly to the environmental issues of the region. In 2010, the government announced that \"for security and administrative reasons, the plan to move the capital from Tehran has been finalized.\"[109] There are plans to relocate 163 state firms and several universities from Tehran to avoid damages from a potential earthquake.[109][110]\n\nCity officials are engaged in a battle to reduce air pollution. They have, for instance, encouraged taxis and buses to convert from petrol engines to compressed natural gas. The government has set up a \"Traffic Zone\" covering the city centre during peak traffic hours. Entering and driving inside this zone is only allowed with a special permit. There are efforts to raise people's awareness of the hazards of pollution. Pollution Indicator Boards have been installed all around the city to monitor the level of particulate matter (PM2.5/PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide (CO).\n\nEconomy\n\nTehran is the economic centre of Iran.[111] About 30% of Iran's public-sector workforce and 45% of its large industrial firms are located in the city, and almost half of these workers are employed by the government.[112] Most of the remainder of workers are factory workers, shopkeepers, laborers, and transport workers.\n\nFew foreign companies operate in Tehran, because of the government's complex international relations. But before the 1979 Revolution, many foreign companies were active in Iran.[113] Tehran's present-day modern industries include the manufacturing of automobiles, electronics and electrical equipment, weaponry, textiles, sugar, cement, and chemical products. It is also a leading centre for the sale of carpets and furniture. The oil refining companies of Pars Oil, Speedy, and Behran are based in Tehran.\n\nTehran relies heavily on private cars, buses, motorcycles, and taxis, and is one of the most car-dependent cities in the world. The Tehran Stock Exchange, is a full member of the World Federation of Exchanges and a founding member of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges.[114]\n\nFashion industry\n\nDesign, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, retail, advertising, and other sectors of the fashion industry in Tehran have been able to grow significantly according to the needs of the country. In particular, a large number of male and female models are working in Tehran's fashion advertising and promotion sections. Despite the lack of adequate laws to support models, payments to female models have been considered high. Also, modeling of children is usually prohibited in Tehran. Clothing manufacturers are closely related to other fashion sectors in Tehran. For example, the manufacturers of women's boots and bodysuits have strengthened their exports and branding in other countries by using this connection.[115]\n\nShopping\n\nTehran has a wide range of shopping centers and is home to over 60 modern shopping malls.[116][117] The city has a number of commercial districts, including those located at Valiasr, Davudie, and Zaferanie. The largest old bazaars are the Grand Bazaar and the Bazaar of Tajrish. Iran Mall is the largest mall in the world in area.[118] Most of the international branded stores and upper-class shops are in the northern and western parts of the city. Tehran's retail business is growing with several newly built malls and shopping centres.[116] Shoe (Mostly women's boots) manufacturing companies in Tehran can be reached in the malls.[119]\n\nTourism\n\nTehran, as one of the main tourist destinations in Iran, has a wealth of cultural attractions. It is home to royal complexes of Golestan, Saadabad, and Niavaran, which were built under the reign of the country's last two monarchies. There are several historic, artistic, and scientific museums in Tehran, including:\n\nNational Museum\n\nMalek Museum\n\nCinema Museum at Ferdows Garden\n\nAbgineh Museum\n\nMuseum of the Qasr Prison\n\nCarpet Museum\n\nSafir Office Machines Museum\n\nPalestine Square Countdown Clock\n\nThe Museum of Contemporary Art hosts works of famous artists such as Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol. The Iranian Imperial Crown Jewels, one of the largest jewel collections in the world, are on display at Tehran's National Jewelry Museum. Several cultural and trade exhibitions take place in Tehran, which are mainly operated by the country's International Exhibitions Company. The annual International Book Fair is known to the international publishing world as one of the most important publishing events in Asia.[120]\n\nInfrastructure\n\nHighways and streets\n\nFollowing the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the political system changed from constitutional monarchy to Islamic republic. Then the construction of political power in the country needed to change so that new spectrums of political power and decision-making centers emerged in Iran. Motives, desires, and actions of these new political power decision-making centers in Iran made them rename streets and public places throughout the country, especially Tehran. For example Shahyad square changed to Azadi square and Pahlavi street changed to Valiasr street.[121] The metropolis of Tehran is equipped with a large network of highways and interchanges.\n\nAccording to the head of Tehran Municipality's Environment and Sustainable Development Office, Tehran was designed to have a capacity of about 300,000 cars, but more than five million cars are on the roads.[122] The automotive industry has recently developed, but international sanctions influence the production processes periodically.[123] According to local media, Tehran has more than 200,000 taxis plying the roads daily,[124] with several types of taxi available in the city. Airport taxis have a higher cost per kilometer as opposed to regular green and yellow taxis in the city.\n\nBuses\n\nBuses have served the city since the 1920s. Tehran's transport system includes conventional buses, trolleybuses, and bus rapid transit (BRT). The city's four major bus stations include the South Terminal, the East Terminal, the West Terminal, and the northcentral Beyhaghi Terminal.\n\nThe trolleybus system was opened in 1992, using a fleet of 65 articulated trolleybuses built by Czech Republic's Škoda.[125] This was the first trolleybus system in Iran.[125] In 2005, trolleybuses were operating on five routes, all starting at Imam Hossein Square.[126] Two routes running northeastwards operated almost entirely in a segregated busway located in the middle of the wide carriageway along Damavand Street, stopping only at purpose-built stops located about every 500 metres along the routes, effectively making these routes trolleybus-BRT (but they were not called such). The other three trolleybus routes ran south and operated in mixed traffic. Both route sections were served by limited-stop services and local (making all stops) services.[126] A 3.2-kilometer extension from Shoosh Square to Rah Ahan Square was opened in March 2010.[127] Visitors in 2014 found that the trolleybus system had closed, apparently sometime in 2013.[128] However, it reopened in March 2016, operating on a single 1.8-km route between Meydan-e-Khorasan (Khorasan Square) and Bozorgrah-e-Be'sat.[129][130] Around 30 vehicles had been refurbished and returned to service.[129][130] Extensions were planned.[130]\n\nTehran's bus rapid transit (BRT) was officially inaugurated in 2008. It has 10 lines with some 215 stations in different areas of the city. As of 2011, the BRT system had a network of 100 km (62 mi), transporting 1.8 million passengers on a daily basis.\n\nRailway and subway\n\nTehran has a central railway station that connects services round the clock to various cities in the country, along with a Tehran-Europe train line also running. The feasibility study and conceptual planning of the construction of Tehran's subway system were started in the 1970s. \n\nList of Tehran Metro Lines\n\nLine\n\nOpening[131]\n\nLength\n\nStations[132]\n\nType\n\n1\n\n2001\n\n70 km (43 mi)[133]\n\n32[133][134]\n\nMetro\n\n2\n\n2000\n\n26 km (16 mi)[135]\n\n22[134][135]\n\nMetro\n\n3\n\n2012\n\n37 km (23 mi)[136]\n\n24[134][136]\n\nMetro\n\n4\n\n2008\n\n22 km (14 mi)[137]\n\n22[137]\n\nMetro\n\n5\n\n1999\n\n43 km (27 mi)[138]\n\n11[138][139]\n\nCommuter rail\n\n6\n\n2019\n\n9 km (5.6 mi)[140]\n\n3\n\nMetro\n\n7\n\n2017\n\n13.5 km (8.4 mi)[141]\n\n8\n\nMetro\n\nMetro Subtotal:\n\n177.5 km (110 mi)\n\n111\n\nTotal:\n\n220.5 km (137 mi)\n\n122\n\nAirport\n\nTehran is served by the international airports of Mehrabad and Imam Khomeini. Mehrabad Airport, an old airport in western Tehran that doubles as a military base, is mainly used for domestic and charter flights. Imam Khomeini Airport, located 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of the city, handles the main international flights.\n\nParks and green spaces\n\nThere are over 2,100 parks within the metropolis of Tehran,[142] with one of the oldest being Jamshidie Park, which was first established as a private garden for Qajar prince Jamshid Davallu, and was then dedicated to the last empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi. The total green space within Tehran stretches over 12,600 hectares, covering over 20 percent of the city's area. The Parks and Green Spaces Organization of Tehran was established in 1960, and is responsible for the protection of the urban nature present in the city.[143]\n\nTehran's Birds Garden is the largest bird park in Iran. There is also a zoo located on the Tehran-Karaj Expressway, housing over 290 species within an area of about five hectares.[144] In 2009, the Ab-o-Atash Park (\"Water and Fire park\") was founded. Its main features are an open water fountain area for cooling in the hot climate, fire towers, and an amphitheatre.[145]\n\nEnergy\n\nFresh water resources of Tehran province in 2017\n\nGroundwater (37.0%)\n\nSewage treatment (63.0%)\n\nGreater Tehran is supplied by surface water from the Lar dam on the Lar River in the northeast of the city, the Latyan dam on the Jajrood River in the north, the Karaj River in the northwest, as well as by groundwater in the vicinity of the city. The city experiences stark water supply inequalities: impoverished districts struggle with inadequate water provision and hazardous water quality, while affluent areas are largely exempt from these hardships.[146]\n\nAccording to the national energy roadmap, the government plans to promote green technology to increase the nominal capacity of power plants from 74 gigawatts to over 120 gigawatts by the end of 2025.[147] Solar panels have been installed in Pardisan Park for green electricity production, said Masoumeh Ebtekar, head of the Department of Environment.\n\nEducation\n\nTehran is the largest and most important educational center in Iran. There are a total of nearly 50 major colleges and universities in Greater Tehran. Since the establishment of Dar ol Fonun by the order of Amir Kabir in the mid-19th century, Tehran has amassed a large number of institutions of higher education. Some of these institutions have played crucial roles in the unfolding of Iranian political events. Samuel M. Jordan, whom Jordan Avenue in Tehran was named after, was one of the founding pioneers of the American College of Tehran, which was one of the first modern high schools in the Middle East. Tehran is home to Iran's largest military academy and several religious schools and seminaries.\n\nAmong major educational institutions located in Tehran, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), University of Tehran, Sharif University of Technology, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences are the most prestigious. Other major universities located in Tehran include Tehran University of Art, Allameh Tabatabaei University, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Shahid Beheshti University (Melli University), Kharazmi University, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology, Iran's Polymer and Petrochemical Institute, Shahed University, and Tarbiat Modarres University. Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran University of Science and Technology and K. N. Toosi University of Technology also located in Tehran are nationally well known for taking in the top undergraduate Engineering and Science students; and internationally recognized for training competent undergraduate students. It has probably the highest percentage of graduates who seek higher education abroad.\n\nCulture\n\nIranian festivals are held in Tehran along with regional and western festivals. Nowruz, Chaharshanbe Suri, Sizdah Be-dar, Yaldā Night, Valentine's Day and Halloween have been popular festivals in recent decades.[148]\n\nArchitecture\n\nThe oldest surviving architectural monuments are from the Qajar and Pahlavi eras. In Greater Tehran, monuments dating back to the Seljuk era remain as well; notably the Toqrol Tower in Ray. Rashkan Castle, dating back to the ancient Parthian Empire, of which some artifacts are housed at the National Museum;[149] and the Bahram fire temple, which remains since the Sassanian Empire. Tehran only had a small population until the late 18th century but it began to take a more considerable role in Iranian society after it was chosen as the capital city. Despite the regular occurrence of earthquakes during the Qajar period and after, some historic buildings remain from that era.[150] Tehran is Iran's primate city, and is considered to have the most modernized infrastructure in the country. However, the gentrification of old neighbourhoods and the demolition of buildings of cultural significance have caused concerns.[151]\n\n Hasanabad Square\n\n A view of the building of the City Theater of Tehran\n\n Police House,\nthe National Garden\n\nTehran was previously a low-rise city because of seismic activity in the region, but modern high-rise developments have been built in recent decades to service its growing population. There have been no major quakes in Tehran since 1830.[152] Tehran International Tower is the tallest skyscraper in Iran. It is 54-stories tall and located in the northern district of Yusef Abad. The Azadi Tower, a memorial built under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, has long been the most famous symbol of Tehran. Originally constructed in commemoration of the 2,500th year of the foundation of the Imperial State of Iran, it combines elements of the architecture of the Achaemenid and Sassanid eras with post-classical Iranian architecture. The Milad Tower, which is the sixth tallest tower[153] and the 24th-tallest freestanding structure in the world,[154] is the city's other famous landmark tower. Leila Araghian's Tabiat Bridge, the largest pedestrian overpass in Tehran, was completed in 2014 and is also considered a landmark.[16]\n\nFashion and clothing\n\nThe city has produced many notable Iranian design houses and clothing companies. Fashion events are also held in some areas of the city.[155] Many famous Iranian models were born in Tehran, including Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Cameron Alborzian, Sahar Biniaz, Elnaaz Norouzi, Shermine Shahrivar and Sadaf Taherian. Women of Tehran widely used over-the-knee and leather boots after 2000s.[156]\n\nTheater\n\nUnder the reign of the Qajars, Tehran was home to the royal theatre of Tekye Dowlat, located to the southeast of the Golestan Palace, in which traditional and religious performances were observed. It was eventually demolished and replaced with a bank building in 1947, following the reforms during the reign of Reza Shah.\n\nBefore the 1979 Revolution, the Iranian national stage had become the most famous performing scene for known international artists and troupes in the Middle East,[157] with the Vahdat Hall, formerly but very much still known as Roodaki Hall (spelled in multiple ways in English), constructed to function as the national stage for opera and ballet. The hall was inaugurated in October 1967 and named after prominent Persian poet Rudaki. It is home to the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, the Tehran Opera Orchestra, and the Iranian National Ballet Company.\n\nThe City Theater of Tehran, one of Iran's biggest theatre complexes, which contains several performance halls, was opened in 1972. It was built at the initiative and presidency of Empress Farah Pahlavi, and was designed by architect Ali Sardar Afkhami, constructed within five years.\n\nOne of the gathering centers of cabarets in old Tehran was Laleh-Zar Street. Famous Persian cabarets were active in the city until 1979. They also introduced many domestic artists. In common language, cabaret was sometimes called \"home of dance\" or \"dancing place\".[158]\n\nThe annual events of Fajr Theater Festival and Tehran Puppet Theater Festival take place in Tehran.\n\nCinema\n\nThe first movie theater in Tehran was established by Mirza Ebrahim Khan in 1904.[159] Until the early 1930s, there were 15 theaters in Tehran province and 11 in other provinces.[160] Most of the movie theatres are located downtown. The complexes of Kourosh Cinema, Mellat Gallery and Cineplex, Azadi Cinema, and Cinema Farhang are among the most popular cinema complexes in Tehran. Several film festivals are held in Tehran, including Fajr Film Festival, Children and Youth Film Festival, House of Cinema Festival, Mobile Film and Photo Festival, Nahal Festival, Roshd Film Festival, Tehran Animation Festival, Tehran Short Film Festival, and Urban Film Festival.\n\nMusic and dance\n\nThere are a variety of concert halls in Tehran. An organization like the Roudaki Culture and Art Foundation has five different venues where more than 500 concerts take place this year. Vahdat Hall, Roudaki Hall, Ferdowsi Hall, Hafez Hall and Azadi Theater are the top five venues in Tehran, where classical, pop, traditional, rock or solo concerts take place.[161]\n\nErotic dancers were active and trained in Tehran until the 1979 revolution. But after this date, because of the policies of the new government, these activities were completely banned.[148]\n\nSports\n\nFootball and volleyball are the city's most popular sports, while wrestling, basketball, and futsal are also major parts of the city's sporting culture. Ice hockey and rugby are also popular. 12 ski resorts operate in Iran, the most famous being Tochal, Dizin, and Shemshak, all within one to three hours from the city of Tehran.\n\nTochal's resort is the world's fifth-highest ski resort at over 3,730 m (12,240 ft) above sea level at its highest point. It is also the world's nearest ski resort to a capital city. The resort was opened in 1976, shortly before the 1979 Revolution. It is equipped with an 8 km (5 mi) long gondola lift that covers a huge vertical distance.[162] There are two parallel chair ski lifts in Tochal that reach 3,900 m (12,800 ft) high near Tochal's peak, rising higher than the gondola's seventh station, which is higher than any of the European ski resorts. From the Tochal peak, there are views of the Alborz range, including the 5,610-metre-high (18,406 ft) Mount Damavand, a dormant volcano.\n\nTehran is the site of the national stadium of Azadi, the biggest stadium by capacity in West Asia, where many of the top matches of Iran's Premier League are held. The stadium is a part of the Azadi Sport Complex, which was originally built to host the 7th Asian Games in September 1974. This was the first time the Asian Games were hosted in West Asia. Tehran played host to 3,010 athletes from 25 countries/NOCs, which was at the time the highest number of participants since the inception of the Games.[163] That followed hosting the 6th AFC Asian Cup in June 1976, and then the first West Asian Games in November 1997. The success of the games led to the creation of the West Asian Games Federation (WAGF), and the intention of hosting the games every two years.[164] The city had also hosted the final of the 1968 AFC Asian Cup. Several FIVB Volleyball World League courses have also been hosted in Tehran. In 2014, the city hosted the FILA Wrestling World Cup event at the Azadi Indoor Stadium.[165]\n\n Tehran derby in Azadi Stadium. The match is considered one of the world's most intense derbies.\n\n Iran's ice hockey league in Tehran\n\n Horse riding in the west of the city\n\n One of the health clubs in the city\n\n Dizin, Iran's largest ski resort, is located near Tehran.\n\nFood\n\nThere are many restaurants and cafes in Tehran, both modern and classic, serving both Iranian and cosmopolitan cuisine. Pizzerias, sandwich bars, and kebab shops make up the majority of food shops in Tehran.[166]\n\nGraffiti\n\nMany styles of graffiti are seen in Tehran. Some are political and revolutionary slogans painted by governmental organizations,[167] and some are works of art by ordinary citizens, representing their views on both social and political issues. However, unsanctioned street art is forbidden in Iran,[167] and such works are usually short-lived. During the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, many graffiti works were created by people supporting the Green Movement. They were removed from the walls by the paramilitary Basij forces.[168] In recent years, the Tehran Municipality has been using graffiti in order to beautify the city. Several graffiti festivals have also taken place in Tehran, including the one organized by the Tehran University of Art in October 2014.[169]\n\nTwin towns - sister cities\n\nTehran is twinned with:[170]\n\n Ankara, Turkey\n\n Baghdad, Iraq\n\n Beijing, China\n\n Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan\n\n Brasília, Brazil\n\n Budapest, Hungary\n\n Caracas, Venezuela\n\n East Jerusalem, Palestine\n\n Havana, Cuba\n\n Khartoum, Sudan\n\n London, England, United Kingdom[171]\n\n Los Angeles, United States[172]\n\n Manila, Philippines\n\n Minsk, Belarus[173]\n\n Moscow, Russia\n\n Pretoria, South Africa\n\n Sanaa, Yemen\n\n Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina[174]\n\n Tbilisi, Georgia\n\n Yerevan, Armenia\n\n Seoul, South Korea[175]\n\nSee also\n\nIran International Exhibitions Company\n\nIslamic City Council of Tehran\n\nList of people from Tehran\n\nTehran City Council (1968-1979)\n\nTehran water shortage\n\nNotes\n\n^ /tɛˈræn, -ˈrɑːn, teɪˈ-/ ⓘ terr-A(H)N, tay-RA(H)N; Persian: تهران, romanized: Tehrân, pronounced [tʰehˈɹɒːn, -ˈɾɒːn] ⓘ\n\n^ Rainy days from parameter codes 46 and 71 from the NOAA source\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"City of Tehran Statisticalyearbook\" (PDF). 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Bibcode:2022EDSus..2412867N. doi:10.1007/S10668-021-01970-4. hdl:10419/287117.\n\n^ \"Tehran Park Gets Solar Panels\". Financial Tribune. 16 October 2016. Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 30 November 2019.\n\n^ a b فرهنگ عامه مردم تهران - ۹۸ [Popular culture of Tehran people - 98] (in Persian).\n\n^ Karimian, Hossein. \"Anjomane Asare Melli\". Ancien Rey.\n\n^ \"A guide to Iran - etiquette, customs, clothing and more…\". Kwintessential.co.uk. Archived from the original on 17 October 2007. Retrieved 16 December 2007.\n\n^ Urschel, Donna. \"The Style of Tehran - Library of Congress\". Loc.gov. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2012.\n\n^ \"Women to blame for earthquakes, says Iran cleric\". The Guardian. 19 April 2010. Archived from the original on 25 February 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Milad Tower, a perfect product for a perfect project\". NBN (Nasl Bartar Novin). n.d. Archived from the original on 17 November 2009. 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Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Tehran's graffiti war\". France 24. 2 March 2010. Archived from the original on 21 March 2011. Retrieved 19 November 2014.\n\n^ \"دانشگاه هنر میزبان فستیوال گرافیتی\" [The University of Art is hosting the Graffiti Festival] (in Persian). Deutsche Welle. 24 October 2012. Archived from the original on 23 October 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2018.\n\n^ \"گذری بر خواهرخوانده تهران در شرق اروپا\". isna.ir (in Persian). Iranian Students' News Agency. 21 March 2018. Archived from the original on 28 May 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2020.\n\n^ \"The Twin Cities of Oxford, Cambridge and London\". oxford-royale.com. Oxford Royale Academy. 16 February 2017. Archived from the original on 19 June 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2020.\n\n^ \"Sister Cities of Los Angeles\". Sister Cities of Los Angeles. Retrieved 8 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Twin towns of Minsk\". minsk.gov.by. Minsk. Archived from the original on 9 September 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2020.\n\n^ \"Gradovi pobratimi: Spisak\". sarajevo.ba (in Bosnian). Sarajevo. Archived from the original on 19 December 2019. Retrieved 18 June 2020.\n\n^ \"Sister and Friendship Cities\". seoul.go.kr. Seoul. Archived from the original on 5 July 2017. Retrieved 18 June 2020.\n\nBibliography\n\nEmerson, Charles. 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War (2013) compares Tehran to 20 major world cities; pp. 309-24.\n\nExternal links\n\nGoogle Map: Tehran\n\nTehran Municipality website\n\nTehran Geographic Information Center\n\nTehranimages. A photographic project focusing on neglected pieces of architecture in downtown Tehran, Iran.\n\nMust see in Tehran"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tehran"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 14745}, {"slug": "reference-great-lent", "title": "Great Lent", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Great Lent, or the Great Fast (Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή, romanized: Megali Tessarakosti or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, Megali Nisteia, meaning \"Great 40 Days\", and \"Great Fast\", respectively), is the most important fasting season of the church year within many denominations of Eastern Christianity. It is intended to prepare Christians for...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Great Lent, or the Great Fast (Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή, romanized: Megali Tessarakosti or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, Megali Nisteia, meaning \"Great 40 Days\", and \"Great Fast\", respectively), is the most important fasting season of the church year within many denominations of Eastern Christianity. It is intended to prepare Christians for the greatest feast of the church year, Easter.[1]\n\nGreat Lent shares its origins with the Lent of Western Christianity and has many similarities with it. There are some differences in the timing of Lent, besides calculating the date of Easter and how it is practiced, both liturgically in the public worship of the church and individually.\n\nOne difference between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity is the calculation of the date of Easter (see Computus). Most years, the Eastern Pascha falls after the Western Easter, and it may be as much as five weeks later; occasionally, the two dates coincide. Like Western Lent, Great Lent itself lasts for forty days, but in contrast to the West, Sundays are included in the count while Holy Week is not.\n\nGreat Lent officially begins on Clean Monday, seven weeks before Pascha (Ash Wednesday is not observed in Eastern Christianity), and runs for 40 continuous days, concluding with the Presanctified Liturgy on Friday of the Sixth Week. The next day is called Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.\n\nFasting continues throughout the following week, known as Passion Week or Holy Week, and does not end until after the Paschal Vigil early in the morning of Pascha (Easter Sunday).\n\nPurpose\n\nThe purpose of Great Lent is to prepare the faithful to not only commemorate, but to enter into the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. The totality of the Byzantine Rite life centers around the Resurrection.[2] Great Lent is intended to be a \"workshop\" where the character of the believer is spiritually uplifted and strengthened; where their life is rededicated to the principles and ideals of the Gospel; where fasting and prayer culminate in deep conviction of life; where apathy and disinterest turn into vigorous activities of faith and good works.\n\nLent is not for the sake of Lent itself, as fasting is not for the sake of fasting. Rather, these are means by which and for which the individual believer prepares himself to reach for, accept and attain the calling of their Savior. Therefore, the significance of Great Lent is highly appraised, not only by the monks who gradually increased the length of time of the Lent, but also by the lay people themselves. The Eastern Orthodox lenten rules are the monastic rules. These rules exist not as a Pharisaic law, \"burdens grievous to be borne\" Luke 11:46, but as an ideal to be striven for; not as an end in themselves, but as a means to the purification of heart, the enlightening of mind, the liberation of soul and body from sin, and the spiritual perfection crowned in the virtue of love towards God and man.\n\nIn the Byzantine Rite, asceticism is not exclusively for the \"professional\" religious, but for each layperson as well, according to their strength. As such, Great Lent is a sacred Institute of the Church to serve the individual believer in participating as a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. It provides each person an annual opportunity for self-examination and improving the standards of faith and morals in their Christian life. The deep intent of the believer during Great Lent is encapsulated in the words of Saint Paul: \"forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus\" (Philippians 3:13-14).\n\nThrough spending more time than usual in prayer and meditation on the Holy Scripture and the Holy Traditions of the Church, the believer in Christ becomes through the grace of God more godlike. The emphasis towards this period differs somewhat from Western Christianity- the Eastern focus is less on repentance and more of an attempt to recapture humanity's original state.\n\nHistory\n\nThe pattern of fasting and praying for 40 days is seen in the Christian Bible, on which basis the liturgical season of Lent was established.[3][4] In the Old Testament, the prophet Moses went into the mountains for 40 days and 40 nights to pray and fast \"without eating bread or drinking water\" before receiving the Ten Commandments (cf. Exodus 34:28).[4] Likewise, the prophet Elijah went into the mountains for 40 days and nights to fast and pray \"until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God\" when \"the word of the Lord came to him\" (cf. 1 Kings 19:8-9).[4] The early Christian bishop Maximus of Turin wrote that as Elijah by \"fasting continuously for a period of forty days and forty nights...merited to extinguish the prolonged and severe dryness of the whole world, doing so with a stream of rain and steeping the earth's dryness with the bounty of water from heaven\", in the Christian tradition, this is interpreted as being \"a figure of ourselves so that we, also fasting a total of forty days, might merit the spiritual rain of baptism...[and] a shower from heaven might pour down upon the dry earth of the whole world, and the abundant waters of the saving bath might saturate the lengthy drought of the Gentiles.\"[5] In the New Testament, Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights; it was during this time that Satan tried to tempt him (cf. Matthew 4:1-3).[4] The 40-day and night fasts of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus prepared them for their work.[3]\n\nEarly Christianity records the tradition of the Black Fast before Easter; for the meal of the day consumed after sunset (when the fast is broken), the Apostolic Constitutions permit the consumption of \"bread, vegetables, salt and water, in Lent\" with \"flesh and wine being forbidden.\"[6] The Canons of Hippolytus authorize only bread and salt to be consumed during Holy Week.[6] The practice of fasting and abstaining from alcohol, meat and lacticinia during Lent thus became established in the Church.[6]\n\nObservance\n\nSelf-discipline\n\nObservance of Great Lent is characterized by fasting and abstinence from certain foods, intensified private and public prayer, self-examination, confession, personal improvement, repentance and restitution for sins committed, and almsgiving. Fasting is defined as not consuming food or liquids until evening (at sundown).[7][8] In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Black Fast is the normative way of fasting during Great Lent; these Oriental Orthodox Christians go without water and food from midnight to sunset; after that time, the consumption of water and one vegetarian meal is permitted.[8]\n\nThe Lenten supper that is eaten after the fast is broken in the evening must not include certain foods.[7] Foods most commonly abstained from are meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, wine, and oil. According to some traditions, only olive oil is abstained from; in others, all vegetable oils.[9] While wine and oil are permitted on Saturdays, Sundays, and a few feast days, and fish is permitted on Palm Sunday as well as the Annunciation when it falls before Palm Sunday, and caviar is permitted on Lazarus Saturday, meat and dairy are prohibited entirely until the fast is broken on Easter (Pascha) Sunday.[10] Additionally, married Eastern Orthodox Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians traditionally abstain from sexual relations during Lent \"to give themselves time for fasting and prayer (1 Cor. 7: 5).\".[11][8]\n\nBesides the additional liturgical celebrations described below, Christians are expected to pay closer attention to and increase their private prayer. According to Byzantine Rite theology, when asceticism is increased, prayer must be increased also. The Church Fathers have referred to fasting without prayer as \"the fast of the demons\" since the demons do not eat according to their incorporeal nature, but neither do they pray.\n\nLiturgical observances\n\nGreat Lent is unique in that, liturgically, the weeks do not run from Sunday to Saturday, but rather begin on Monday and end on Sunday, and most weeks are named for the lesson from the Gospel which will be read at the Divine Liturgy on its concluding Sunday. This is to illustrate that the entire season is anticipatory, leading up to the greatest Sunday of all: Pascha.\n\nDuring the Great Fast, a special service book is used, known as the Lenten Triodion, which contains the Lenten texts for the Daily Office (Canonical Hours) and Liturgies. The Triodion begins during the Pre-Lenten period to supplement or replace portions of the regular services. This replacement begins gradually, initially affecting only the Epistle and Gospel readings, and gradually increases until Holy Week when it entirely replaces all other liturgical material. During the Triduum even the Psalter is eliminated, and all texts are taken exclusively from the Triodion. The Triodion is used until the lights are extinguished before midnight at the Paschal Vigil, at which time it is replaced by the Pentecostarion, which begins by replacing the normal services entirely (during Bright Week) and gradually diminishes until the normal services resume following the Afterfeast of Pentecost.\n\nOn the weekdays of Great Lent, the full Divine Liturgy is not celebrated, because the joy of the Eucharist (literally \"Thanksgiving\") is contrary to the attitude of repentance which predominates on these days. Since it is considered especially important to receive the Holy Mysteries (Holy Communion) during this season, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts-also called the Liturgy of St. Gregory the Dialogist- may be celebrated on weekdays.\n\nThis service starts with Vespers during which a portion of the Body and Blood of Christ, which was reserved the previous Sunday, is brought to the prothesis table. This is followed by a solemn great entrance where the Holy Mysteries are brought to the altar table, and then, skipping the anaphora (eucharistic prayer), the outline of remainder of the divine liturgy is followed, including holy communion. Most parishes and monasteries celebrate this liturgy only on Wednesdays, Fridays and feast days, but it may be celebrated on any weekday of Great Lent.\n\nBecause the divine liturgy is not celebrated on weekdays, the Typica occupies its place in the canonical hours, whether or not a liturgy is celebrated at vespers. On Saturday and Sunday the Divine Liturgy may be celebrated as usual. On Saturdays, the usual Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is celebrated; on Sundays the longer Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is used.\n\nThe services of the Canonical Hours are much longer during Great Lent and the structure of the services is different on weekdays. The usual evening small compline is replaced by the much longer service of Great Compline. While in the Russian tradition Great Compline is used on Friday night (though some parts are read rather than sung and some Lenten material is replaced by non-Lenten hymns), in the Greek practice, ordinary Compline is used together with, on the first four weeks, a quarter of the Akathist to the Theotokos. On the fifth Saturday, known as the Saturday of the Akathist, everywhere, the entire Akathist is sung at Matins.\n\nIn “The Typikon Decoded”, Archbishop Job Getcha offers this comparison of the commemorations associated with the Sundays of Great Lent in the “Ancient Triodion”. These more ancient commemorations are retained in the hymnography still in use for the “Contemporary” Sundays of St Gregory Palamas, St John of the Ladder, and St Mary of Egypt.  On each of these, the troparia of the 1st Canon at Matins reference the more ancient commemoration, the Prodigal Son, Good Samaritan, and the Rich Man and Lazarus respectively.  \n\nDuring Palm Week, between the Sunday of St Mary of Egypt and Lazarus Saturday, the 1st Canon at Matins on each weekday references the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus as a parallel to the Lazarus of Bethany who falls ill and is raised from the dead after four days in the tomb (John 11:1-45).[12]\n\nAncient Triodia\nContemporary Triodia\n\n(Jerusalem Lectionary)\n(Constantinople Lectionary)\n\nSunday of the Holy Prophets\nSunday of Triumph of Orthodoxy\n\nSunday of the Prodigal Son\nSunday of St Gregory Palamas\n\nSunday of the Publican & Pharisee\nVeneration of the Cross\n\nSunday of the Good Samaritan\nSunday of St John Climacus (of \"The Ladder\")\n\nSunday of the Rich Man & Lazarus\nSunday of St Mary of Egypt\n\nPalm Sunday\nPalm Sunday\n\nTheme of Lenten joy\n\nA difference between the Eastern and Western observances is that while in the West the chanting of Alleluia ceases during Lent, in the East its use is increased. This is because for Christians, fasting should be joyous (cf. Matthew 6:16), and the sense of unworthiness must always be tempered with hope in God's forgiveness.[13]\n\nIn fact, days which follow the Lenten pattern of services are referred to as \"days with Alleluia\". This theme of \"Lenten joy\" is also found in many of the hymns of the Triodion, such as the stichera which begin with the words: \"The Lenten Spring has dawned!...\" (Vespers Aposticha, Wednesday of Maslenitsa) and \"Now is the season of repentance; let us begin it joyfully, O brethren...\" (Matins, Second Canon, Ode 8, Monday of Maslenitsa).\n\nThe making of prostrations during the services increases as well. The one prayer that typifies the Lenten services is the Prayer of Saint Ephrem, which is said at each service on weekdays, accompanied by full prostrations. One translation of it reads:\n\nO Lord and master of my life! a spirit of idleness, despondency, ambition and idle-talking, give me not. \n\nBut rather, a spirit of chastity, humble-mindedness, patience and charity, bestow upon me Thy servant. \n\nYea, my king and Lord, grant me to see my own failings and refrain from judging others: For blessed art Thou unto ages of ages. Amen.\n\nThe public reading of Scripture is increased during Great Lent. The Psalter (Book of Psalms), which is normally read through once a week, is read through twice each week for the six weeks prior to Holy Week. Readings from the Old Testament are also increased, with the Books of Genesis, Proverbs and Isaiah being read through almost in their entirety at the Sixth Hour and Vespers. During Cheesefare Week, the readings at these services are taken from Joel and Zechariah, while during Holy Week they are from Exodus, Ezekiel and Job.\n\nUniquely, on weekdays of Great Lent there is no public reading of the Epistles or Gospels. This is because the readings are particular to the divine liturgy, which is not celebrated on weekdays of Great Lent. There are, however, Epistles and Gospels appointed for each Saturday and Sunday.\n\nPrayer for the dead\n\nDuring the Great Fast, the church also increases its prayer for the dead, not only reminding the believer of his own mortality, and thus increasing the spirit of penitence, but also to remind him of his Christian obligation of charity in praying for the departed. A number of Saturdays during Great Lent are Saturdays of the Dead, with many of the hymns of the Daily Office and at the Divine Liturgy dedicated to remembrance of the departed. These Saturdays are:\n\nThe Saturday of Meatfare Week\n\nThe Second Saturday of Great Lent\n\nThe Third Saturday of Great Lent\n\nThe Fourth Saturday of Great Lent\n\nIn addition, the Lity, a brief prayer service for the departed, may be served on each weekday of Great Lent, provided there is no feast day or special observance on that day.\n\nFeast days\n\nSince the season of Great Lent is moveable, beginning on different dates from year to year, accommodation must be made for various feast days on the fixed calendar (Menaion) which occur during the season. When these feasts fall on a weekday of Great Lent, the normal Lenten aspect of the services is lessened to celebrate the solemnity.\n\nThe most important of these fixed feasts is the Great Feast of the Annunciation (March 25), which is considered to be so important that it is never moved, even if it should fall on the Sunday of Pascha itself, a rare and special occurrence which is known as Kyrio-Pascha. The fast is also lessened, and the faithful are allowed to eat fish, unless it is Good Friday or Holy Saturday. Whereas on other weekdays of Great Lent, no celebration of the Divine Liturgy is permitted, there is a Liturgy (usually the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom) celebrated on Annunciation-even if it falls on Good Friday.\n\nWhen the feast day of the patron saint of the parish church or monastery falls on a weekday of Great Lent, there is no liturgy (other than the Presanctified), but fish is allowed at the meal. In some churches the feast of a patron saint is moved to the nearest Saturday (excluding the Saturday of the Akathist), and in other churches, it is celebrated on the day of the feast itself.\n\nWhen some other important feast occurs on a weekday, such as the First and Second Finding of the Head of John the Baptist (February 24), the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (March 9), etc., it is usually combined with the Lenten service, and wine and oil are allowed at the meal.\n\nRegardless of the rank of the feast being celebrated, the Lenten hymns contained in the Triodion are never omitted, but are always chanted in their entirety, even on the feast of the Annunciation.\n\nOn the Saturdays, Sundays, and a number of weekdays during Great Lent, the service materials from the Triodion leave no room for the commemoration of the Saint of the day from the Menaion. In order that their services not be completely forgotten, a portion of them (their canon at Matins, and their stichera from \"Lord I Have Cried\" at Vespers) is chanted at Compline.\n\nReadings\n\nIn addition to the added readings from Scripture, spiritual books by the Church Fathers are recommended during the Fast.\n\nOne book commonly read during Great Lent, particularly by monastics, is The Ladder of Divine Ascent, which was written in about the 7th century by St. John of the Ladder when he was the Hegumen (Abbot) of Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai. The Ladder is usually read in the trapeza (refectory) during meals, but it may alternatively be read during the Little Hours on weekdays so that everyone can hear. Many of the laity also read The Ladder privately during Great Lent.\n\nThe theme of The Ladder is not Great Lent itself, but rather it deals with the ascent of the soul from earth to heaven. That is, from enslavement to the passions to the building up of the virtues and its eventual theosis (union with God), which is the goal of Great Lent.\n\nBesides the Ladder, in some monasteries the Paradise of the Holy Fathers by Palladius and the penitential sermons of St. Ephrem the Syrian are read during Matins.\n\nOutline\n\nLiturgically, the period of the Triodion can be divided into three sections: (1) the Pre-Lenten period, (2) the Great Forty Days, and (3) Holy Week.\n\nPre-Lenten period\n\nBefore the forty days of Great Lent commence, there is a three-week Pre-Lenten season, to prepare the faithful for the spiritual work they are to accomplish during the Great Fast. During this period many of the themes which will be developed in the liturgical texts of the forty days are introduced. Each week runs from Monday to Sunday and is named for the Gospel theme of the Sunday which concludes it.\n\nIn the Slavic tradition, with the addition of Zacchaeus Sunday, some regard the pre-Lenten period as lasting four weeks, but there are no liturgical indications that the week following the fifth Sunday before Lent (whether preceded by Zacchaeus Sunday or otherwise) is in any way Lenten, because Zacchaeus Sunday falls outside the Triodion, the liturgical book which governs the pre-Lenten period and Lent itself.\n\nZacchaeus Sunday\n\nIn the Slavic liturgical traditions, Zacchaeus Sunday occurs on the fifth Sunday before the beginning of Great Lent (which starts on a Monday). Though there are no materials provided in the Lenten Triodion for this day, it is the very first day that is affected by the date of the upcoming Pascha (all the preceding days having been affected by the previous Pascha). This day has one sole Pre-Lenten feature: the Gospel reading is always the account of Zacchaeus from Luke 19:1-10, for which reason this Sunday is referred to as \"Zacchaeus Sunday\" (though the week before is not called \"Zacchaeus week\").\n\nThis reading actually falls at the end of the lectionary cycle, being assigned to the 32nd Week after Pentecost. However, depending upon the date of the upcoming Pascha, the readings of the preceding weeks are either skipped (if Pascha will be early) or repeated (if it will be late) so that the readings for the 32nd Sunday after Pentecost always occur on the Sunday preceding the Week of the Publican and the Pharisee.\n\nIn the Byzantine (\"Greek\") liturgical traditions, the Gospel reading for Zacchaeus remains in the normal lectionary cycle and does not always fall on the fifth Sunday before Lent. In fact, it usually falls a few weeks before, and the fifth Sunday before Lent is known as the Sunday of the Canaanite Woman after the story in Matthew 15:21-28.\n\nThe Lenten significance of the Gospel account of Zacchaeus is that it introduces the themes of pious zeal (Zacchaeus' climbing up the sycamore tree; Jesus' words: \"Zacchaeus, make haste\"), restraint (Jesus' words: \"come down\"), making a place for Jesus in the heart (\"I must abide at thy house\"), overcoming gossip (\"And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner\"), repentance and almsgiving (\"And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold\"), forgiveness and reconciliation (\"And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham\"), and the reason for the Passion and Resurrection (\"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost\").\n\nThe Epistle reading for Zacchaeus Sunday is 1 Timothy 4:9-15, which in and of itself has no Lenten theme, other than as an admonition to righteous behaviour.\n\nPublican and Pharisee\n\nThe reading on the Sunday which concludes this week is the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14). The Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is the first day the Lenten Triodion is used (at Vespers or All-Night Vigil on Saturday night), though it is only used for the Sunday services, with nothing pertaining to weekdays or Saturday. The theme of the hymns and readings on this Sunday is dedicated to the lessons to be learned from the parable: that righteous actions alone do not lead to salvation, that pride renders good deeds fruitless, that God can only be approached through a spirit of humility and repentance, and that God justifies the humble rather than the self-righteous. The week which follows the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is a fast-free week, to remind the faithful not to be prideful in their fasting as the Pharisee was (Luke 18:12).\n\nThe Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is also the first day that structural changes (as opposed to simply substituting Lenten hymns for normal hymns from the octoechos or menaion) are made to the Sunday services. For example, there begins to be a significant 'split' after the Great Prokimenon at Vespers that night. \n\nProdigal Son\n\nThe theme of this week is the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). Again, the Triodion does not give propers for the weekdays. The Gospel Reading on Sunday lays out one of the most important themes of the Lenten season: the process of falling into sin, realization of one's sinfulness, the road to repentance, and finally reconciliation, each of which is illustrated in the course of the parable.\n\nThe week following is the only week of the Triodion on which there is normal fasting (i.e. no meat, fish, wine, oil or animal products on Wednesday or Friday except if an important feast such as the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple or Forty Martyrs of Sebaste falls on that day, in which case certain foods are allowed).\n\nMeatfare Week\n\nThe Saturday of this week is the first Saturday of the Dead observed during the Great Lenten season. The proper name in the typikon for the Sunday of this week is The Sunday of the Last Judgment, indicating the theme of the Gospel of the day (Matthew 25:31-46). The popular name of \"Meatfare Sunday\" comes from the fact that this is the last day on which the laity are permitted to eat meat until Pascha (Byzantine Rite monks and nuns never eat meat).\n\nCheesefare Week\n\nDuring Cheesefare Week the eating of dairy products is permitted on every day (even Wednesday and Friday, which are normally observed as fast days throughout the year), though meat may no longer be eaten any day of the week. On the weekdays of this week, the first Lenten structural elements are introduced to the cycle of services on weekdays (the chanting of \"Alleluia\", the Prayer of Saint Ephrem, making prostrations, etc.).\n\nWednesday and Friday are the most lenten, but some lenten elements are also observed on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The office of Cheesefare Saturday celebrates the \"Holy Ascetic Fathers\".\n\nCheesefare Week is concluded on Cheesefare Sunday. The proper name for this Sunday is The Sunday of Forgiveness, both because of the Gospel theme for the day (Matthew 6:14-21) and because it is the day on which everyone asks forgiveness of their neighbor. The popular name of \"Cheesefare Sunday\" derives from the fact that it is the last day to eat dairy products before Pascha. On this Sunday, Eastern Christians identify with Adam and Eve, and forgive each other in order to obtain forgiveness from God, typically in a Forgiveness Vespers service that Sunday evening.\n\nDuring Forgiveness Vespers (on Sunday evening) the hangings and vestments in the church are changed to somber Lenten colours to reflect a penitential mood. At the end of the service comes the \"Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness\" during which all of the people one by one ask forgiveness of one another, that the Great Fast may begin in a spirit of peace.\n\nThe Great Forty Days\n\nThe forty days of Great Lent last from Clean Monday until the Friday of the Sixth Week. Each of the Sundays of Great Lent has its own special commemoration, though these are not necessarily repeated during the following week. However, during the Third, Fifth and Sixth Weeks, the idiomelon at Vespers is based on the same parable that the Canon at Matins the previous Sunday was (the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan and Lazarus and the Rich Man respectively). An exception is the Week of the Cross (the Fourth Week), during which the theme of the preceding Sunday-the Veneration of the Cross-is repeated throughout the week. The themes introduced in the Pre-Lenten period continue to be developed throughout the forty days.\n\nClean Week\n\nThe first week of Great Lent starting on Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent. The name \"Clean Week\" refers to the spiritual cleansing each of the faithful is encouraged to undergo through fasting, prayer, repentance, reception of the Holy Mysteries and begging forgiveness of his neighbor. It is also traditionally a time for spring cleaning so that one's outward surroundings matches his inward disposition.\n\nThroughout this week fasting is most strict. Those who have the strength are encouraged to fast completely, eating only on Wednesday and Friday evenings, after the Presanctified Liturgy. Those who are unable to keep such a strict fast are encouraged to eat only a little, and then only xerophagy (see Prodigal Son) once a day. On Monday, no food should be eaten at all and only uncooked food on Tuesday and Thursday. Meals are served on Saturday and Sunday, but these are fasting meals at which meat, dairy products and fish are forbidden.\n\nAt Great Compline during the first four days of the Fast (Monday through Thursday) the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is divided into four parts and one part is chanted each night.\n\nThe First Saturday is called \"St. Theodore Saturday\" in honor of St. Theodore the Recruit, a 4th-century martyr. At the end of the Presanctified Liturgy on Friday (since, liturgically, the day begins at sunset) a special canon to St. Theodore, composed by St. John of Damascus, is chanted. Then the priest blesses kolyva (boiled wheat with honey and raisins) which is distributed to the faithful in commemoration of the following miracle worked by St. Theodore on the First Saturday of Great Lent.\n\nFifty years after the death of St Theodore, the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), as a part of his general policy of persecution of Christians, commanded the governor of Constantinople during the first week of Great Lent to sprinkle all the food provisions in the marketplaces with the blood offered to pagan idols, knowing that the people would be hungry after the strict fasting of the first week. St Theodore appeared in a dream to Archbishop Eudoxius, ordering him to inform all the Christians that no one should buy anything at the marketplaces, but rather to eat cooked wheat with honey (kolyva).\n\nThe First Sunday of Great Lent is the Feast of Orthodoxy, which commemorates the restoration of the veneration of icons after the Iconoclast controversy, which is considered to be the triumph of the Church over the last of the great heresies which troubled her (all later heresies being simply a rehashing of earlier ones). Before the Divine Liturgy on this day, a special service, known as the \"Triumph of Orthodoxy\" is held in cathedrals and major monasteries, at which the synodicon (containing anathemas against various heresies, and encomia of those who have held fast to the Christian faith) is proclaimed.\n\nThe theme of the day is the victory of the True Faith over heresy. \"This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith\" (1 John 5:4). Also, the icons of the saints bear witness that man, \"created in the image and likeness of God\" (Genesis 1:26), may become holy and godlike through the purification of himself as God's living image.\n\nThe First Sunday of Great Lent originally commemorated the Prophets such as Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. The Liturgy's Prokeimenon and alleluia verses as well as the Epistle (Hebrews 11:24-26,32-40) and Gospel (John 1:43-51) readings appointed for the day continue to reflect this older usage.\n\nSecond Week\n\nThe Second Sunday of Great Lent commemorates St. Gregory Palamas, the great defender of the Church's doctrine of Hesychasm against its attack by Barlaam of Calabria. The Epistle is Hebrews 1:10-14; 2:1-3 and the Gospel is Mark 2:1-12\n\nThroughout this week, and until the Sixth Friday in Lent, one meal may be taken a day with xerophagy. Until the Sixth Saturday in Lent, Saturday and Sunday fasting remains the same as in the First Week.\n\nThird Week\n\nThe Veneration of the Cross is celebrated on the third Sunday. The veneration comes on this day because it is the midpoint of the forty days. The services for this day are similar to those on the Great Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14). During the All-Night Vigil the priest brings the cross out into the center of the church, where it is venerated by the clergy and faithful. It remains in the center of the church through Friday of the week following (the Fourth Week of Great Lent).[14]\n\nThe Epistle is Hebrews 4:14-5:6 and the Gospel is Mark 8:34-9:1.\n\nFourth Week\n\nThis week is celebrated as a sort of afterfeast of the Veneration of the Cross, during which some of the hymns from the previous Sunday are repeated each day. On Monday and Wednesday of the Fourth Week, a Veneration of the Cross takes place at the First Hour (repeating a portion of the service from the All-Night Vigil of the previous Sunday). On Friday of that week, the veneration takes place after the Ninth Hour, after which the cross is solemnly returned to the sanctuary by the priest and deacon.\n\nThe Sunday which ends the fourth week is dedicated to St. John Climacus, whose work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent has been read throughout the Great Lenten Fast.\n\nFifth Week\n\nOn Thursday of the Fifth Week, the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is chanted in its entirety during Orthros. This is the longest Canon of the church year, and during the course of its nine Odes, most every person mentioned in the Bible is called to mind and tied to the theme of repentance. In anticipation of the Canon, Vespers on Wednesday afternoon is longer than normal, with special stichera added in honor of the Great Canon. While the Great Canon itself is recited during Matins for Thursday, this service is usually celebrated by anticipation on the prior Wednesday evening, so that more people can attend.\n\nAs a part of the Matins of the Great Canon, the Life of St. Mary of Egypt by St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (634 - 638) is read, for her example of repentance and overcoming temptation. On this day also is chanted the famous kontakion, \"My soul, my soul, why sleepest thou...\" by St. Romanos the Melodist. The next day (Thursday morning) a special Presanctified Liturgy is celebrated, and the fast is relaxed slightly (wine and oil are allowed) as consolation after the long service the night before.\n\nSaturday of the Fifth Week is dedicated to the Theotokos (Mother of God), and is known as the \"Saturday of the Akathist\" because the Akathist to the Theotokos is prescribed to be chanted during Matins on that day, though as with the Great Canon, usually done in anticipation on Friday evening to allow more people to attend.\n\nThe Fifth Sunday is dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt, whose Life was read earlier in the week during the Great Canon. At the end of the Divine Liturgy many churches celebrate a \"Blessing of Dried Fruit\", in commemoration of St. Mary's profound asceticism.\n\nSixth Week\n\nDuring the Sixth Week the Lenten services are served as they were during the second and third weeks. However, the hymns of each day begin to take on a more narrative form (as they will during Holy Week) in anticipation of the celebration of Lazarus Saturday.\n\nGreat Lent ends at Vespers on the evening of the Sixth Friday, and the Lenten cycle of Old Testament readings is brought to an end. (Genesis ends with the account of the burial of Joseph, who is a type of Christ.) At that same service, the celebration of Lazarus Saturday begins. The resurrection of Lazarus is understood as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection of Jesus, and many of the Resurrection hymns normally chanted on Sunday (and which will be replaced the next day with hymns for Palm Sunday) are chanted at Matins on the morning of Lazarus Saturday.\n\nPalm Sunday differs from the previous Sundays in that it is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church. None of the normal Lenten material is chanted on Palm Sunday, and fish, wine and oil are permitted in the trapeza. The blessing of palms (or pussywillow) takes place at Matins on Sunday morning, and everyone stands holding palms and lit candles during the important moments of the service.\n\nThis is especially significant at the Great Entrance during the Divine Liturgy on Palm Sunday morning, since liturgically that entrance recreates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The themes of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday are tied together, and some of the same hymns (including one of the apolytikia) are chanted on both days. The Holy Week services begin on the night of Palm Sunday, and the liturgical colours are changed from the festive hues of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday back to somber Lenten colours.\n\nHoly Week\n\nAlthough technically, Holy Week is separate from Great Lent, its services mirror those of Great Lent and are contained in the same book, the Lenten Triodion. Whereas, during Great Lent each week has its own theme, during Holy Week each day has its own theme, again based upon the Gospel readings for the day:\n\nHoly and Great Monday-Joseph the all-comely as a type of Christ, and the account of The Fig Tree (Matthew 21:18-22)\n\nHoly and Great Tuesday-the Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13)\n\nHoly and Great Wednesday-The anointing of Jesus at Bethany (Matthew 26:6-16)\n\nNote that for the previous three days, one meal a day is taken a day with xerophagy.\n\nHoly and Great Thursday-The Mystical Supper\n\nOne meal may be eaten on this day with wine and oil.\n\nHoly and Great Friday-The Passion (Matthew 27:62-66)\n\nNo food is to be eaten on this day.\n\nHoly and Great Saturday-The Burial of Jesus and the Harrowing of Hell (Matthew 28:1-20)\n\nOne meal may be eaten with xerophagy.\n\nDuring Holy Week, the order of services is often brought forward by several hours: Matins being celebrated by anticipation the evening before, and Vespers in the morning. This \"reversal\" is not something mandated by the typicon but has developed out of practical necessity. Since some of the most important readings and liturgical actions take place at Matins, it is celebrated in the evening (rather than early in the morning before dawn, as is usual for Matins) so that more people can attend.\n\nSince during Holy Week Vespers is usually joined to either the Presanctified Liturgy or the Divine Liturgy, and since the faithful must observe a total fast from all food and drink before receiving Holy Communion, it is celebrated in the morning. Vespers on Good Friday is an exception to this, usually being celebrated in late morning or in the afternoon.\n\nThe Matins services for Holy Monday through Thursday are referred to as \"Bridegroom Prayer\" because the troparion of the day and the exapostilarion (the hymn that concludes the Canon) develop the theme of \"Christ the Bridegroom\". Thursday has its own troparion, but uses the same exapostilarion. The icon often displayed on these days depicts Jesus and is referred to as \"the Bridegroom\" because the crown of thorns and the robe of mockery are parallel to the crown and robe worn by a bridegroom on his wedding day.\n\nThis icon is often confused with the visually similar icon of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, which shows Him post-Crucifixion in the same pose but lacking the rod and robe, dead, showing the marks of the nails in his Hands and the spear wound in His side. Incidentally, Thursday has its own icon showing either the Mystical Supper or the Washing of Feet, or both. The Passion of Christ is seen as the wedding of the Saviour with his bride, the Church.\n\nHoly Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday\n\nThe first three days of Holy Week (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday), the services all follow the same pattern and are nearly identical to the order followed on weekdays during the Great Forty Days; however, the number of Kathismata (sections from the Psalter) is reduced and the Old Testament readings are taken from different books. The Presanctified Liturgy is celebrated on each of the first three days, and there is a Gospel reading at each one (during the Forty Days there was no Gospel reading unless it was a feast day). There is also a Gospel reading at Matins on each day and the Canon chanted at Matins is much shorter, consisting of only three or four odes rather than the usual nine.\n\nIn addition to the Gospel readings at Matins and Vespers, there is a reading of all four Gospels which takes place during the Little Hours (Third Hour, Sixth Hour and Ninth Hour) on these first three days. Each Gospel is read in its entirety and in order, beginning with Matthew 1:1, and continuing through John 13:30 (the rest of the Gospel of John will be read during the remainder of Holy Week). The Gospels are divided up into nine sections with one section being read by the priest at each of the Little Hours.\n\nThe Prayer of Saint Ephrem is said for the last time at the end of the Presanctified Liturgy on Holy and Great Wednesday. From this moment on, there will be no more prostrations made in the church (aside from those made before the epitaphios) until Vespers on the afternoon of Pentecost.\n\nIn some churches, the Holy Mystery (Sacrament) of Unction is celebrated on Holy and Great Wednesday, in commemoration of the anointing of Jesus' feet in preparation for his burial (Matthew 26:6-13).\n\nThe remaining three days of Holy Week retain a smaller degree of Lenten character, but each has elements that are unique to it.\n\nHoly (Maundy) Thursday\n\nHoly and Great Thursday is a more festive day than the others of Holy Week in that it celebrates the institution of the Eucharist. The hangings in the church and the vestments of the clergy are changed from dark Lenten hues to more festive colours (red, in the Russian tradition).\n\nWhereas the Divine Liturgy is forbidden on other Lenten weekdays, the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil (combined with Vespers) is celebrated on this day. Many of the standard hymns of the Liturgy are replaced with the Troparion of Great Thursday. In some churches, the Holy Table (altar) is covered with a simple white linen cloth, in commemoration of the Mystical Supper (Last Supper).\n\nDuring this Divine Liturgy, the reserved Mysteries are renewed (a new Lamb being consecrated, and the old Body and Blood of Christ being consumed by the deacon after the Liturgy). Also, when the supply of Chrism runs low, it is at this Liturgy that the heads of the autocephalous churches will Sanctify new Chrism,[15] the preparation of which would have been begun during the All-Night Vigil on Palm Sunday.\n\nAfter the Liturgy, a meal is served. The rule of fasting is lessened somewhat, and the faithful are allowed to partake of wine in moderation during the meal and use oil in the cooking.\n\nThat night, the hangings and vestments in the church are changed to black, and Matins for Great and Holy Friday is celebrated.\n\nGood Friday\n\nHoly and Great Friday is observed as a strict fast day, on which the faithful who are physically able to should not eat anything at all. Some even fast from water, at least until after the Vespers service that evening.\n\nThe Matins service, usually celebrated Thursday night, is officially entitled, \"The Office of the Holy and Redeeming Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ\".[16] It is commonly known as the \"Matins of the Twelve Gospels\", because interspersed throughout the service are twelve Gospel readings which recount the entire Passion of Christ from the Last Supper to the sealing of the tomb. Before the Sixth Gospel (Mark 15:16-32) which first mentions the Crucifixion, the priest carries a large cross into the center of the church, where it is set upright and all the faithful come forward to venerate it. The cross has attached to it a large icon of the soma (the crucified body of Christ).\n\nAt the beginning of each Gospel, the bell is rung according to the number of the Gospel (once for the first Gospel, two for the second, etc.). As each Gospel is read the faithful stand holding lighted candles, which are extinguished at the end of each reading. After the twelfth Gospel, the faithful do not extinguish their candles but leave them lit and carry the flame to their homes as a blessing. There, they will often use the flame to light the lampada in their icon corner.\n\nOn the morning of Great Friday, the Royal Hours are served. This is a solemn service of the Little Hours and Typica to which antiphons, and scripture readings have been added. Some of the fixed psalms which are standard to each of the Little Hours are replaced with psalms which are of particular significance to the Passion.\n\nVespers on Good Friday is usually celebrated after the Royal Hours service,[17] although in some monasteries it is served in the afternoon.[18] After the Little Entrance the Gospel reading is a concatenation of the four Evangelists' accounts of the Crucifixion and the Descent from the Cross. At the point during the reading which mentions Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, two clergymen approach the large cross in the center of the church, remove the soma, wrap it in a piece of white linen, and carry it into the sanctuary.\n\nLater, during the Troparion, the clergy carry the epitaphios (a cloth icon symbolizing the winding sheet in which Jesus was prepared for burial) into the center of the church, where it is venerated by all the faithful. Special chants and prayers and chanted along with biblical readings and psalms chanted.\n\nThe Matins of Lamentation is normally celebrated on the evening of Great Friday after the Vespers service. At this service, special hymns and prayers are chanted. The Lamentations of Great and Holy Friday are the main chants of the service. Prior to the chanting of the Lamentations, which reflect the lament of the Theotokos over her son Christ, the epitaphios is placed on a decorated catafalque or bier representing the tomb of Christ.\n\nThe priest then sprinkles rosewater and fresh rose petals all over the tomb, the congregation, and the temple/church. A procession with the ornate tomb then takes place around the church and back into the church where it will be venerated by everyone. As more special prayers and chants are sung especially the chant: \"The Noble Joseph...\" as the service finishes.\n\nHoly Saturday\n\nHoly and Great Saturday (known also as the Great Sabbath, because on it Jesus \"rested\" from his labours on the Cross) combines elements of deep sorrow and exultant joy. This, like Good Friday is also a day of strict fasting, though a meal may be served after the Divine Liturgy at which wine (but not oil) may be used.\n\nThe Matins of Lamentation (usually celebrated on Friday evening) resembles the Byzantine Rite funeral service, in that its main component is the chanting of Psalm 118 (the longest Psalm in the Bible), each verse of which is interspersed with laudations (ainoi) of the dead Christ. The service takes place with the clergy and people gathered around the epitaphios in the center of the church. Everyone stands holding lighted candles during the psalm. Next are chanted the Evlogitaria of the Resurrection, hymns which are normally chanted only on Sundays.\n\nThis is the first liturgical mention of the impending Resurrection of Jesus. At the end of the Great Doxology the epitaphios is carried in procession around the outside of the church, as is the body at a priest's funeral, and then is brought back in. By local custom, the clergy may raise the epitaphios at the door so that all may pass under it as they enter in, symbolically entering into the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel (Matthew 27:62-66) is not read at its usual place during Matins, but rather, following readings of the vision in Ezekiel of the dry bones returning to life and an Epistle, near the end of the service, in front of the epitaphios. This positioning is a remnant of a pre-Byzantine rite celebrated at Jerusalem.\n\nThe next morning (Saturday), the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil is celebrated (combined with Vespers). At the beginning of the service, the hangings and vestments are still black. The service is much longer than usual, and includes 15 Old Testament readings recounting the history of salvation, including two canticles, the Song of Moses and the Song of the Three Holy Children, and showing types of the death and resurrection of Jesus.\n\nMany parts of the liturgy which are normally performed in front of the Holy Doors are instead done in front of the epitaphios. Just before the Gospel reading, the hangings and vestments are changed to white, and the entire atmosphere of the service is transformed from sorrow to joy. In the Greek practice, the priest strews the entire church with fresh bay leaves, symbolizing Christ's victory over death. This service symbolizes the descent of Christ into Hades and the Harrowing of Hell.\n\nThus, according to Byzantine Rite theology, Jesus' salvific work on the Cross has been accomplished, and the righteous departed in the Bosom of Abraham have been released from their bondage; however, the Good News of the Resurrection has not yet been proclaimed to the living on earth, the celebration of which commences at midnight with Matins. For this reason, neither is the fast broken nor the Paschal greeting exchanged.\n\nAt the end of the Divine Liturgy, the priest blesses wine and bread which are distributed to the faithful. This is different from the Sacred Mysteries (Holy Communion) which were received earlier in the service. This bread and wine are simply blessed, not consecrated. They are a remnant of the ancient tradition of the church (still observed in some places) whereby the faithful did not leave the church after the service, but were each given a glass of wine, and some bread and dried fruit to give them strength for the vigil ahead. They would listen to the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, read in full, and await the beginning of the Paschal Vigil. However, this is not usually done nowadays.\n\nThe last liturgical service in the Lenten Triodion is the Midnight Office which forms the first part of the Paschal Vigil. During this service the Canon of Great Saturday is repeated, near the end of which, during the ninth ode, the priest and deacon take the epitaphios into the sanctuary through the Holy Doors and lay it on the Holy Table (altar), where it remains until the feast of the Ascension. After the concluding prayers and a dismissal, all of the lights and candles in the church are extinguished, and all wait in silence and darkness for the stroke of midnight, following which the Pentecostarion replaces the Lenten Triodion, commencing with the resurrection of Christ being proclaimed.\n\nSee also\n\nApostles' Fast - Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christian fast after Pentecost\n\nCoptic Lent - Coptic Orthodox fastsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets\n\nDormition Fast - Two-week fast before the feast\n\nEaster - Commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ\n\nFasting and abstinence in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\nLent - Christian observance before Easter\n\nMaslenitsa - Slavic folk and Christian holiday\n\nNativity Fast - Period of abstinence and penance in Christianity\n\nSawma Rabba - Eastern rite Christian liturgical season\n\nReferences\n\n^ Moroz, Vladimir (10 May 2016). \"Лютерани східного обряду: такі є лише в Україні\" (in Ukrainian). РІСУ - Релігійно-інформаційна служба України. Retrieved 19 September 2018. В українських лютеран, як і в ортодоксальних Церквах, напередодні Великодня є Великий Піст або Чотиридесятниця.\n\n^ \nKallistos (Ware), Bishop; Mary, Mother (1977), \"The Meaning of the Great Fast\", The Lenten Triodion, South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon's Seminary Press (published 2002), pp. 13 ff, ISBN 1-878997-51-3\n\n^ a b Hynes, Mary Ellen (1993). Companion to the Calendar: A Guide to the Saints and Mysteries of the Christian Calendar. Liturgy Training Publications. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-56854-011-5.\n\n^ a b c d Conte, Jeanne (2001). Lenten Reflections. Nova Publishers. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1-56072-737-8.\n\n^ Johnson, Lawrence J. (14 July 2017). Worship in the Early Church: Volume 3: An Anthology of Historical Sources. Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-6328-8.\n\n^ a b c Kellner, Karl Adam Heinrich (1908). Heortology: A History of the Christian Festivals from Their Origin to the Present Day. K. Paul. p. 99.\n\n^ a b Concerning Fasting on Wednesday and Friday. Orthodox Christian Information Center. Accessed 2010-10-08.\n\n^ a b c Samaan, Moses (9 April 2009). \"The Meaning of the Great Lent\". Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California, and Hawaii. Retrieved 10 March 2024. The Church teaches us to fast until sunset. Fish is not allowed during this period. Also married couples should refrain from physical relations to give themselves time for fasting and prayer (1 Cor. 7: 5). We would like to emphasize the importance of the period of strict abstention during fasting. It is refraining from eating and drinking for a period of time, followed by eating vegetarian food. ... True fasting must be accompanied by abstention from food and drink until sunset as designated by the Church.\n\n^ \"The Fasting Rule of the Orthodox Church\". www.abbamoses.com. Retrieved 2018-08-02.\n\n^ \"The Fasting Rule of the Church\". abbamoses.com. Retrieved 19 February 2015.\n\n^ Menzel, Konstantinos (14 April 2014). \"Abstaining From Sex Is Part of Fasting\". Greek Reporter. Retrieved 27 May 2021.\n\n^ Archbishop Job Getcha: The Typikon Decoded: An Explanation of Byzantine Liturgical Practice. St Vladimir's Seminary Press: Yonkers, New York. ISBN 978-088141-412-7\n\n^ Sokolof, Archpriest D. (1917), \"Moveable Feasts and Fasts\", A Manual of the Orthodox Church's Divine Services, Jordanville, NY: Printshop of St. Job of Pochaev (published 2001), p. 98\n\n^ Sunday of the Cross Orthodox synaxarion\n\n^ [1]\n\n^ Bishop Kallistos, op. cit., p. 565\n\n^ \"Μεγάλη Παρασκευή: LIVE η λειτουργία του Επιτάφιου\" [Good Friday: LIVE the service of the Epitaph]. News24/7 (in Greek). 17 April 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2023. Το πρωί της Μεγάλης Παρασκευής γίνεται ο στολισμός του Επιταφίου στις εκκλησίες. Αρχικά ψάλλονται οι Μεγάλες Ώρες, που περιέχουν ψαλμούς, τροπάρια, Αποστόλους, Ευαγγέλια και Ευχές. [On the morning of Good Friday, the epitaph is decorated in the churches. First, the Great Hours are sung, which contain psalms, tropes, Apostles, Gospels and Blessings.]\n\n^ \"Παρασκευή μεγάλη [Good Friday]\". Great Greek Encyclopedia. Vol. ΙΘ΄. Athens: Phoenix. p. 664.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Fasting Discipline of the Orthodox Church\n\nResources for Great Lent\n\nSundays of Great Lent\n\nThe Great Lent & The Holy Paskha-Coptic articles and hymns at http://St-Takla.org\n\nGreat Lent, Holy Week, and Pascha in the Greek Orthodox Church\n\nGreat Lent: History, Significance, Meaning\n\nGreat Lent and Holy Pascha Archived 2008-03-03 at the Wayback Machine\n\nA Homily on Fasting and Dispassion by St. Theodore the Studite, to be read at the beginning of Great Lent\n\nThe Origins of Lent A study of the early historical development of the fast"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-great-lent"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9065}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-lebanon", "title": "Assyrians in Lebanon", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Lebanon (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܠܒܢܢ; Arabic: الآشوريين في لبنان; French: Libanais-Assyriens), or Assyrian Lebanese, are people of Assyrian descent living in Lebanon. It is estimated that there are approximately 30,000 Assyrians currently residing in Lebanon, primarily in Beirut and Zahlé. This number includes the descendants of Assyrian...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Lebanon\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܠܒܢܢ\n\nالآشوريين في لبنان\n\n Assyrian flag plaque and the Lamassu symbol, outside the Assyrian Society of Lebanon\n\nTotal population\n\n≈ 30,000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nBeirut (Achrafieh) \n Jdeideh \n Zahlé\n\nLanguages\n\nAssyrian: Suret, Surayt \n Other: Mesopotamian Arabic, Lebanese Arabic, French\n\nReligion\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nRelated ethnic groups\n\nOther AssyriansLebanese Maronites \n\nAssyrians in Lebanon (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܠܒܢܢ; Arabic: الآشوريين في لبنان; French: Libanais-Assyriens), or Assyrian Lebanese, are people of Assyrian descent living in Lebanon. It is estimated that there are approximately 30,000 Assyrians currently residing in Lebanon, primarily in Beirut and Zahlé. This number includes the descendants of Assyrian genocide survivors who fled Iraq, Turkey, and Iran between 1915 and 1934.[2][3]\n\nHistory\n\nAssyrians are one of several minority groups in Lebanon. A Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) community settled in Lebanon among the Maronites after Mongol invasions in the Late Middle Ages, however, this community was either dispersed or absorbed by the Maronites. [4] Assemani (1687-1768) noted that many Maronite families were of Jacobite origin.[4] A Jacobite community was present in Tripoli in the 17th century.[4]\n\nThe 1915 Assyrian genocide forced Western Assyrians from Tur Abdin to flee to Lebanon, where they formed communities in the Beirut districts of Zahlè and Musaytbeh.[5] Assyrian refugees from French Cilicia arrived in 1921 to bolster their numbers.[5] In 1944 it was estimated that 3,753 Syriac Orthodox Assyrians lived in Lebanon.[6]\n\nPrior to the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), there were 65,000 Syriac Orthodox Assyrians in the country.[5] Half of the community emigrated as a result of violence, with many going to Sweden, which protected \"stateless people\".[5] As of 1987 there were only a few thousand Syriac Orthodox Assyrians in Lebanon.[7]\n\nAssyrians remained neutral during the events of the Lebanese Civil War; however, individuals joined several armed forces, mainly working closely together with the founder and leader of the Lebanese Forces militia Bachir Gemayel and Christian groups such as the Tyous Team of Commandos and the Shuraya Party.\n\nAn influx of Assyrian refugees occurred due to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the War in Iraq (2013-2017), with Assyrians from Iraq fleeing to Lebanon as refugees in order to immigrate to Europe, the United States, and Australia.\n\nA third exodus has begun since 2011 as droves of Assyrians have fled Syria due to the Syrian Civil War, mainly settling in Sed El Baouchrieh.[8][9][10]\n\nThe number of Assyrians who fled IS violence in Iraq and Syria was at peek 20,000. The majority of Assyrians from Qamishli and the Khabour Region in Syria have taken refuge in Lebanon most of whom are living in the neighborhoods of Baucherieh, Achrafieh, Hadath, and Zahlé. While many Assyrians from Iraq have either returned home, or moved to Europe.[11]\n\nA 2020 report by The Assyrian Journal has stated that Assyrian refugees in Lebanon face unique problems in the era of economic-downturn, anti-corruption protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This was said to be due to their distinct ethnic and religious background. The report stated that many Assyrian refugees ruled out the idea settling refugee camps due to fear of discrimination targeting Christians in these camps. This has led them to seek other forms of private shelter, which often have costs of rental, food, water, utilities, and healthcare, which many Assyrian refugees are unable to pay themselves. Previous reliance on remittances from abroad to pay these costs is also not a possibility, due to the global economic crisis caused by the pandemic. Assyrians who wish to leave these conditions for another country are unable to do so due to travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic.[12]\n\nIn 2022 the Syriac Catholic Church elected Isaac Jules Peter Georges Boutros as bishop, making him the youngest Catholic bishop in the world at the time. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Jules spoke about the Syriac community in Lebanon, saying that there were approximately 4000 Syriac Catholic families in the country, mostly in Beirut. He added that the Syriac Catholic community does not feel represented in the Lebanese confessional system. \"We are not represented in the Parliament, and there are no opportunities for Syriac men or women to reach top places in ministries, Government or Parliament. When our grandparents arrived in Lebanon our patriarchs suggested that they get involved in economy and trade, rather than politics. As a result, our presence in politics was always very shy.\"[13]\n\nEducation\n\nThe St George Assyrian School (French: Ecole St-Georges Assyrienne) is an Assyrian school in Lebanon that is run by the Assyrian Church of the East. It is located in Sed El Baouchrieh. The school provides classes up to the third grade and has 150 students, of which 100 are Assyrians. One hour of Syriac language lessons per week is compulsory for Assyrian students, with language courses available in the summer as well.[14]\n\nPolitics\n\nThere are a number of Assyrian political parties that represent the local population in Lebanon. Majority of the Assyrian political parties in Lebanon are part of the March 14 Alliance and include the following parties:\n\nSyriac Union Party\n\nShuraya Party\n\nReligion\n\nThe majority of Assyrians in Lebanon are Christians who adhere to the East and West Syriac Rite. These include the following churches:\n\nCatholic Assyrians\n\nChaldean Catholic Church\n\nThere is an estimated 20,000 Chaldean Catholic adherents in Lebanon, the majority being refugees from Iraq. The Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Beirut was established on the 3rd of July 1957 and the main parish in the country is St Raphael Chaldean Catholic Cathedral.[15][16]\n\nSyriac Catholic Church\n\nThe Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Yonan of the Syriac Catholic Church currently resides in Beirut, where the church is based. The church owns a summer residence in Deir El Sherfet on top of Mount Lebanon.[17] In 1817, a Syriac Catholic diocese was established in Beirut, but has remained vacant since 1898. The diocese of Beirut is currently under the jurisdiction of a patriarchal vicar or apostolic administrator since its vacancy.\n\nAccording to Catholic statistics from 1962, the Syriac Catholic Church had 6 parishes in Lebanon, accounting for 6 churches, 14 priests and 14,500 adherents. In 1964, this grew to 8 churches and 15,000 adherents.\n\nOrthodox Assyrians\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nThe Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch is represented in Lebanon under the following clergymen:\n\nArchbishopric of Mount Lebanon under Mor Theophilos George Saliba\n\nPatriarchal Vicate of Zahle under Mor Justinos Boulos Safar\n\nArchbishopric of Beirut & Benevolent institutions in Lebanon under Mor Clemis Daniel Malak Kourieh\n\nPatriarchal Institutions in Lebanon under Mor Chrysostoms Michael Shamoun.\n\nChurch of the East\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East (ACOE) in Lebanon is part of the Archdiocese of Australia, New Zealand and Lebanon, under the leadership of Mar Meelis Zaia.\n\nThe ACOE churches in Lebanon include:\n\nMar Gewargis (Sed El Baouchrieh), built in 1953\n\nMar Zaya (Ksara, Zahlé)\n\nRabban Pethyoun (Hadath)\n\nMar Khnanya (Achrafieh)\n\nNotable people\n\nFairuz[18]\n\nAbeer Nehme\n\nElias Zazi\n\nPhilippe de Tarrazi\n\nIsaac Armalet\n\nAlexander Michel Melki[19]\n\nFelix Michel Melki[19]\n\nSee also\n\nIraqis in Lebanon\n\nSyrians in Lebanon\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Lebanon: Assyrian Policy Institute\".\n\n^ Carl Skutsch (2013). Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-135-19388-1.\n\n^ Lebanon Assyrian or Nestorian Church - Flags, Maps, Economy, History, Climate, Natural Resources, Current Issues, International Agreements, Population, Social Statistics, Political System\n\n^ a b c Joseph 1983, p. 111.\n\n^ a b c d Hunter 2014, p. 548.\n\n^ A. H. Hourani (1947). Minorities in the Arab World. London: Oxford University Press.\n\n^ John C. Rolland (2003). Lebanon: Current Issues and Background. Nova Publishers. pp. 79-. ISBN 978-1-59033-871-1.\n\n^ Collins, Dylan. \"Fleeing ISIL, Assyrian refugees mark Easter in Lebanon\". Al-Jazeera. Retrieved 18 June 2019.\n\n^ Abou Rahal, Layal (18 March 2015). \"Assyrians struggle in Lebanon after fleeing IS jihadists\". Yahoo News. Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 25 November 2025.\n\n^ Samaha, Nour. \"Syria's Assyrians: 'No one helped us'\". Al-Jazeera. Retrieved 18 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Lebanon | Assyrian Policy Institute\". Assyrian Policy. Retrieved 2022-01-17.\n\n^ Altaji, Yasmeen (July 2020). \"Lebanon's Assyrians confront severe economic crisis\". The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved July 22, 2020.\n\n^ ACN (2022-08-18). \"Hope for Syriac Catholics\". ACN International. Retrieved 2022-11-17.\n\n^ \"Une école, une église et une histoire jalonnée de persécutions\". L'Orient-Le Jour. 22 February 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2019.\n\n^ \"Chaldean Catholic Church\". Catholics and Cultures. 15 March 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ \"Chaldean Diocese of Beirut\". gcatholic. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ Abraham, Salim. \"The Iraqis determined to seize control of their future after fleeing ISIS\". Catholic Herald. Retrieved 24 June 2019.\n\n^ FatmaAydemir, Sami Rustom: Libanesische Sängerin Fairouz: Die fremde Stimme, taz.de, 20. November 2014 (German)\n\n^ a b \"Niva möter tre svenska spelare - redo för Asiatiska mästerskapen\". www.aftonbladet.se (in Swedish). 2019-01-04. Retrieved 2024-06-05.\n\nSources\n\n1932 Census; British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2, (Nov., 1999), pp. 219-241\n\n1956 Estimates; International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, (Apr., 1980), pp. 175-187\n\nHunter, Erica C. D. (2014). \"The Syrian Orthodox Church\". In Leustean, Lucian N. (ed.). Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge. pp. 541-562. ISBN 978-1-317-81866-3.\n\nJoseph, John (1983). Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-600-0."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-lebanon"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1539}, {"slug": "reference-balawat-gates", "title": "Balawat Gates", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Balawat Gates are three sets of decorated bronze bands that had adorned the main doors of several buildings at Balawat (ancient Imgur-Enlil), dating to the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC) and Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC). Their extensive use of narrative art depicting the exploits...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Balawat Gates\n\nFull-size replica in the British Museum (top) and smaller gate in the Istanbul museum (bottom)\n\nMaterialBronze and wood\n\nCreatedc.860 BCE\n\nDiscovered1878\n\nPresent locationBritish Museum, Walters Art Museum, Istanbul Archaeology Museums and Mosul Museum\n\nThe Balawat Gates are three sets of decorated bronze bands that had adorned the main doors of several buildings at Balawat (ancient Imgur-Enlil), dating to the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC) and Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC). Their extensive use of narrative art depicting the exploits of Assyrian kings has cemented their position as some of the most important surviving works of art of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, comparable to the extensive Assyrian palace reliefs. When the Neo-Assyrian Empire fell in 614-612 BC, Balawat was destroyed. The wooden elements of the gates decomposed, leaving only the bronze bands (some of which were badly damaged). The remains of two sets of gates can be found in the British Museum's collection,[1] those from the Temple of Mamu are housed in the Mosul Museum.[2] Small sections of the Shalmaneser bronze door bands are also in the Louvre Museum[3] at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore[4] and in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.\n\nDescription\n\nContemporary inscriptions suggest that the gates at Balawat near Nimrud were made of cedar. They were not hinged as they opened by turning massive pine pillars which were decorated with bronze and turned in stone sockets.[6] Archaeologists believe that the gates were originally 6.8 m (22 ft) high and these estimates have been used to create full size reconstructions of the gates at the British Museum. The gates in the British Museum were discovered in 1878 by local archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam.[7] Rassam was the first Assyrian archaeologist.[8] By the time of their discovery the wood had already rotted away and only remnants of the decorated bronze bands remained. The eight bands on each door would have been over 285 feet long in total and they decorated and strengthened the outer face and door post of each door. 265 feet of the bands are in the British Museum whilst 2 feet are at the Walters Museum in Baltimore.[4] The variety of the images gives archaeologists an insight into the life, technology and civilisation at that time.[7] The pictorial information is supplemented by inscriptions which give further information.[4]\n\nThe bands describe an important religious discovery in 852 BCE when King Shalmaneser III found the source of the River Tigris at the Tigris tunnel. This was a very important event because the rivers were thought to be deities. The pictures also show the workmen carving walls to represent their King in the way that he would approve.[7] Carvings can still be seen in East Turkey of markings made by Shalamaneser's workers to the south west of Lake Van.[7] Possibly the most important pictures are the ground plans of nearby buildings as these restored the reputation of Rassam who discovered the gates. Following the gates discovery there was a lot of debate about whether these gates were found here and whether Rassam had given an accurate account. It was argued that these were an important find in a minor place and these gates must have come from a more important nearby city like Nineveh. However excavations at the site have revealed that pictures on the gates agree with evidence on the ground which provides proof that the gates were indeed at Balawat, Balawat was important, the gates were here and Rassam had been telling the truth.[9] Rassam felt that the credit for many of his other discoveries had been taken by senior British Museum staff.[10]\n\nIn 1893 Rassam had sued the British Museum keeper E. A. Wallis Budge in the British courts for both slander and libel. Budge had written to the trustees of the museum saying that Rassam had used \"his relatives\" to smuggle antiquities out of Nineveh and had only sent \"rubbish\" to the British Museum. The elderly Rassam was upset by these accusations and when he challenged Budge he received a partial apology and retraction that the High court considered \"insincere\" and \"ungentlemanly\". Rassam took the matter to court and he was fully supported by the judge but not by the jury.[10]\n\nThree sets of gates\n\nTwo sets of Balawat Gates were commissioned in Ashurnasirpal II's reign and one set in his son, Shalmanser III's reign. The first set was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1878 and now resides in the British Museum. Along with these gates, a limestone coffer was found containing two inscribed marble tablets of Ashurnasirpal II. The inscriptions on this coffer described the foundation of a temple equipped with bronze gates dedicated to Mamu, the Assyrian god of dreams. The second set of gates originated from the Temple of Mamu. These gates were excavated by Max Mallowan in 1956 and are now located in the Mosul Museum, though many pieces were looted in 2003. The third set of gates, which were set up by Ashurnasirpal II's son, Shalmaneser III, were discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1878. Shalmaneser III's gates are also located in the British Museum. The third set of gates were published in 1905. The gates belonging to Shalmaneser III were discovered at the small Assyrian site of Imgur-Enlil.[11]\n\nSome of the Balawat Bronze Bands at Mosul Museum survived the looting in the wake of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Nevertheless, Destruction of Mosul Museum artifacts further occurred in 2015 because of a terrorist attack. Some of the details of the aftermath have been described based on a video.[12]\n\nThe full documentation of all these Bronze Bands is available in a 2008 publication by the British Museum.[13]\n\nEckhard Unger who was the curator of the Istanbul museum described the remains of Balawat gates that are still in the Istanbul Museums. Unger was fully aware that the major parts of the gates were in London and Paris and he was able to visit both locations and discuss them with the respective curators.[14]\n\nEmbossed scenes\n\nThe surviving pieces of all three sets of gates consist of long bands or strips of bronze, which were mounted on wooden doors. They were embossed and inlaid with chased decoration showing scenes of warfare, the presentation of tribute and the hunting of lions and bulls.[15] Each pair of gates consisted of 16 bronze bands (8 each side). All of the bronze bands were arranged in a decorative scheme. The bronze edging strips on the doors were also inscribed. The gates commissioned by Ashurnasirpal II are decorated in single register with an embossed and engraved figurative scene on the top and the bottom, which are bordered with palmettes. Beyond these borders are a second pair of outer borders, which include decorative rosettes.[16] The bronze bands covered both doors and the doorposts. Careful reconstruction of these gates demonstrates that the doorposts were tapered towards the top and the bands also reduced in size.[6]\n\nGallery\n\n Detail of an embossed scene on bronze plate showing Shalmaneser III in a chariot and Assyrian archers. From a Balawat gate, Iraq, 859-824 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul\n\n Detail of an embossed scene on bronze plate showing Assyrian army attacking a city. From a Balawat gate, Iraq, 859-824 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul\n\n Detail of an embossed scene on bronze plate showing armed men carrying booty. From a Balawat gate, Iraq, 859-824 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul\n\n Detail of an embossed scene on bronze plate showing Assyrian war chariots. From a Balawat gate, Iraq, 859-824 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul\n\nSee also\n\nal-Mastumah\n\nNotes\n\n^ British Museum Collection\n\n^ JE Curtis et al., The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II, British Museum Press, 2008, p. 3\n\n^ revêtement de porte, 850, retrieved 2022-05-03\n\n^ a b c Fragments of Bands from a Gate, art.thewalters.org, retrieved 11 December 2013\n\n^ The bronze ornaments of the palace gates of Balawat (Shalmaneser II, B.C. 859-825) edited, with an introduction by Samuel Birch; with descriptions and translations by Theophilus G. Pinches.\n\n^ a b The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II by J. E. Curtis; N. Tallis, Review by: Sarah C. Melville, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 129, No. 3 (July-September 2009), pp. 552-554, Published by: American Oriental Society, retrieved December 2013\n\n^ a b c d Bronze band from the gates of the palace of Shalmaneser III, British Museum, accessed 11 December 2013\n\n^ Reade, Julian (1993). \"Hormuzd Rassam and His Discoveries\". Iraq. 55. British Institute for the Study of Iraq: 39-62. doi:10.2307/4200366. JSTOR 4200366.\n\n^ Tucker, D.J. (1994). \"Representations of Imgur-Enlil on the Balawat Gates\". Iraq. 56: 107-116. doi:10.2307/4200388. JSTOR 4200388.\n\n^ a b del Mar, Alexander (18 September 1910). \"Discoveries at Nineveh\" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved 13 December 2013.\n\n^ The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II by J. Curtis and N. Tallis. pp. 264. London, British, Museum Press, 2008\n\n^ Assessing the Damage at the Mosul Museum, Part 1: The Assyrian Artifacts. February 27, 2015 -- gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com\n\n^ The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II. London, 2008. With R.D. Barnett, L.G. Davies, M.M. Howard and C.B.F. Walker, edited by J.E. Curtis and N. Tallis. British Museum Press. academia.edu\n\n^ Unger (1912).\n\n^ Review by Frances Reynolds. Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, UK. Of \"The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II. Edited by J. Curtis and N. Tallis\n\n^ See the description for BM 124687.\n\nReferences\n\n[1] Theophilus G Pinches and Walter de Gray Birch, The bronze ornaments of the palace gates of Balawat (Shalmaneser II, B.C. 859-825) edited, with an introduction by Walter de Gray Birch; with descriptions and translations by Theophilus G. Pinches, Society of Great Russell Street, 1902\n\nCurtis, J.E., and Tallis, N. (eds.) 2008. The Balawat Gates of Ashurnasirpal II, British Museum Press (with R.D. Barnett, L.G. Davies, M.M. Howard, and C.B.F. Walker). ISBN 978-0-7141-1166-7\n\nLéonard W. King, Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmanezer. King of Assyria BC 860-825, Longman's & Company, 1915\n\nUnger, Eckhard (1912). Zum Bronzetor von Balawat, Beitrage zur Erklarung und Deutung der assyrischen Inschriften und Reliefs Salmanassars III. E. Pfeiffer.\n\nExternal links\n\nBronze relief fragment at the Walters Art Museum"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-balawat-gates"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1704}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-russia", "title": "Assyrians in Russia", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Russia (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܪܘܣܝܐ; Russian: Ассирийцы в России, romanized: Assiriytsy v Rossii), or Russian Assyrians, are Assyrian people or people of Assyrian descent living in the country of Russia. As of the 2002 Russian census, Assyrians number 14,000 people total in the country.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Russia\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܪܘܣܝܐ\nАссирийцы в России\n\nSt. Mary Assyrian Church in Moscow\n\nTotal population\n\n14,000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nSt. Petersburg, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar Krai, Kazan\n\nLanguages\n\nAssyrian Neo-Aramaic, Russian\n\nReligion\n\nAssyrian Church of the East[2]\n\nAssyrians in Russia (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܪܘܣܝܐ; Russian: Ассирийцы в России, romanized: Assiriytsy v Rossii), or Russian Assyrians, are Assyrian people or people of Assyrian descent living in the country of Russia. As of the 2002 Russian census, Assyrians number 14,000 people total in the country.\n\nHistory\n\nAssyrians came to Russia and the Soviet Union in three main waves:[2] \n\nThe first wave was after the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, which delineated a border between Russia and Persia. Many Assyrians suddenly found themselves under Russian sovereignty, and thousands of relatives crossed the border to join them.\n\nThe second wave was a result of the repression and violence during and after World War I. Assyrians were represented by the All-Russian Union of Assyrians \"Khoyad-Atur\" from 1924 to 1928.\n\nThe third wave came after World War II when Moscow unsuccessfully tried establishing a satellite state in Iranian Kurdistan. Soviet troops withdrew in 1946 and left the Assyrians exposed to the same kind of retaliation that they had suffered from the Turks 30 years earlier. Again, many Assyrians found refuge in the Soviet Union, this time mainly in the cities. From 1937 to 1959, the Assyrian population in the USSR grew by 587.3%. The Soviets in the thirties oppressed the Assyrians' religion and persecuted religious and other leaders.\n\nSoviet Union\n\nDuring World War II, a number of Assyrians were registered as soldiers or in high-ranking positions in the Soviet Armed Forces; more than 6,000 total were mobilized for fighting.[3] Lado Davydov and Sergey Sarkhoshev were the only two Assyrian soldiers in the USSR to be given the honor of Hero of the Soviet Union.[4] Major general Alexander Tamrazov led troops into battle in the Kuban region, and his brother (who was also a general) would also be honored for activities in the Krasnodar region.[5] Another high-ranking officer, Georgi Ilyich Sarkisov, served in the Ukrainian Soviet Army for many decades.[6]\n\nCurrent situation\n\nAccording to the 2002 Russian census, there were 14,000[1] Assyrians in Russia. 13,300 people (95% of all Assyrians) spoke Assyrian Neo-Aramaic as their native language.\n\nIn 1998, the Mat Maryam temple was built in Moscow.[7]\n\nUrmia, Krasnodar Krai is a predominantly Assyrian village in Russia.\n\nSee also\n\nru:Православные ассирийцы (Assyrians of Orthodox faith)\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b NATIONAL COMPOSITION OF POPULATION FOR REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION Archived 2007-02-17 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b Sepina, A. (2003). \"Святая апостольская соборная Ассирийская церковь Востока\" [Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East]. In Bourdeaux, Michael; Filatov, Sergey (eds.). Современная религиозная жизнь России. Опыт систематического описания [Contemporary religious life of Russia. Systematic description of experiences] (in Russian). Vol. 1. Keston Institute. Moscow: Logos. ISBN 5-94010-237-9.\n\n^ Shoumanov, Vasili (2 June 2005). \"Assyrians of Russia in World War II\". www.zindamagazine.com. Retrieved 2025-06-25.\n\n^ Cherkashin, Nikolay (9 June 2019). \"Как Герой Советского Союза обувь чистил\" [How the Hero of the Soviet Union cleaned shoes]. www.stoletie.ru (in Russian). Moscow: Century. Retrieved 2025-06-25.\n\n^ Shabbas, Julius (1981). \"Assyrian Generals in the Soviet Army\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 4, no. 1. Berkeley, California: Assyrian Foundation of America. p. 24. Retrieved 25 June 2025.\n\n^ Ninos Emmanuel (12 May 2021). \"Assyrian soldiers in WWII in the former USSR\" (Podcast) (in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic). SBS Assyrian. Event occurs at 3:47 P.M. Retrieved 21 January 2025.\n\n^ Михайлов, С. С. \"Московский приход храма Март-Марьям Ассирийской церкви Востока\" Московский регион: этноконфессиональная ситуация. Москва: ИЭА РАН, 2000."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-russia"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 618}, {"slug": "reference-persecution-of-christians-by-the-islamic-state", "title": "Persecution of Christians by the Islamic State", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The persecution of Christians by the Islamic State involves the systematic mass murder[1][2][3] of Christian minorities, within the regions of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique and Nigeria controlled by the Islamic extremist group Islamic State. Persecution of Christian minorities climaxed following the Syrian...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Persecution and genocide of Christians by the Islamic State\n\nPart of the Syrian civil war, the War in Iraq (2013-2017), the Sinai insurgency, the Libyan civil war (2014-2020), the Boko Haram insurgency, the Kivu conflict, the Insurgency in Cabo Delgado, and the Moro Conflict\n\nLocation Territory of the Islamic State Iraq\n Egypt\n Syria\n Libya\n Nigeria\n Democratic Republic of the Congo\n Mozambique\n Philippines\n\nDateOngoing\n\nTargetChristians (mostly Assyrians, Arab Christians, Armenians, Copts, Citadel Christians, and other groups)\n\nAttack typeGenocidal massacre, religious persecution, ethnic cleansing, human trafficking and forced conversions to Sunni Islam.\n\nPerpetrators Islamic State\n\nDefendersChristian militias in Iraq and Syria\n Iraqi Armed Forces\n CJTF-OIR\n Syrian Armed Forces\n Egyptian Armed Forces\n Libyan National Army\n\n Armed Forces of the Philippines\n\nMotive\n\nIslamic extremism\n\nAnti-Christian sentiment\n\nThe persecution of Christians by the Islamic State involves the systematic mass murder[1][2][3] of Christian minorities, within the regions of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique and Nigeria controlled by the Islamic extremist group Islamic State. Persecution of Christian minorities climaxed following the Syrian civil war and later by its spillover but has since intensified further.[4][5][6] Christians have been subjected to massacres, forced conversions, rape, sexual slavery, and the systematic destruction of their historical sites, churches and other places of worship.\n\nAccording to US diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez, \"While the majority of the victims of the conflict which is raging in Syria and Iraq have been Muslims, Christians have borne a heavy burden given their small numbers.\"[7]\n\nThe depopulation of Christians from the Middle East by the Islamic State as well as other organisations and governments has been formally recognised as an ongoing genocide by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom. Christians remain the most persecuted religious group in the Middle East, and Christians in Iraq are “close to extinction”.[8][9][10] According to estimates by the US State Department, the number of Christians in Iraq has fallen from 1.2 million 2011 to 120,000 in 2024, and the number in Syria from 1.5 million to 300,000, falls driven by persecution by terrorist groups and repression by authoritarian regimes.[6]\n\nTimeline\n\nThe mass flight and expulsion of ethnic Assyrians from Iraq and Syria is a process which was initiated during the start of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US and the Multi-National Force and later it was initiated during the start of the Syrian civil war and the spillover. Leaders of Iraq's Assyrian community estimate that over two-thirds of the Iraqi Assyrian population may have fled the country or been internally displaced during the U.S.-led invasion which lasted from 2003 until 2011. Reports suggest that whole neighborhoods of Assyrians have cleared out in the cities of Baghdad and Basra, and that Sunni insurgent groups and militias have threatened Assyrian Christians.[11] Following the campaign of the Islamic State in northern Iraq in August 2014, one quarter of the remaining Assyrians fled the jihadists, finding refuge in neighboring countries.[12]\n\nNorthern Iraq (2014)\n\nAfter the fall of Mosul, IS demanded that Assyrian Christians living in the city convert to Islam, pay jizyah, or face execution, by July 19, 2014.[13][14][15][16] IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi further noted that Christians who do not agree to follow those terms must \"leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate\" within a specified deadline.[16] This resulted in a complete Assyrian Christian exodus from Mosul, marking the end of 1,800 years of continuous Christian presence.[17] A church mass was not held in Mosul for the first time in nearly 2 millennia.[18]\n\nIn October 2014, a release put out by the Assyrian International News Agency stated that 200,000 Assyrians had been driven from their homes by the violence and become displaced.[19]\n\nIS has already set similar rules for Christians living in other cities and towns, including its de facto capital Raqqa.[20][21]\n\nIS had also been seen marking Christian homes with the letter nūn for Nassarah (\"Cultural Christian\").[22][23] Several religious buildings were seized and subsequently demolished, most notably Mar Behnam Monastery.[24]\n\nBy August 7, IS captured the primarily Assyrian towns of Qaraqosh, Tel Keppe, Bartella, and Karamlish, prompting the residents to flee.[25] More than 100,000 Iraqi Christians were forced to flee their homes and leave all their property behind after IS invaded Qaraqosh and surrounding towns in the Nineveh Plains Province of Iraq.[26]\n\nLibya (2015)\n\nOn February 12, 2015, the IS released a report in their online magazine Dabiq showing photos of 21 Egyptian Copts migrant workers that they had kidnapped in the city of Sirte, Libya, and whom they threatened to kill to \"avenge the [alleged] kidnapping of Muslim women by the Egyptian Coptic Church\".[27] The men, who came from different villages in Egypt, 13 of them from Al-Our, Minya Governorate,[28] were kidnapped in Sirte in two separate attacks on December 27, 2014, and in January 2015.[29]\n\nSyria (2015)\n\nIn February 2015, in response to a major Kurdish offensive in the Al-Hasakah Governorate, IS abducted 150 Assyrians from villages near Tell Tamer in northeastern Syria, after launching a large offensive in the region.[30][31]\n\nAccording to US diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez, of the 232 of the Assyrians kidnapped in the IS attack on the Assyrian Christian farming villages on the banks of the Khabur River in Northeast Syria, 51 were children and 84 were women. \"Most of them remain in captivity, with one account claiming that ISIS is demanding $22 million (or roughly $100,000 per person) for their release.\"[7]\n\nOn 8 October 2015, IS released a video showing three of the Assyrian men kidnapped in Khabur being murdered. It was reported that 202 of the 253 kidnapped Assyrians were still in captivity, each one with a demanded ransom of $100,000.[32]\n\nEgypt (2018)\n\nOn 2 November 2018, Islamic State gunmen killed at least seven Coptic Christian pilgrims in Egypt on Friday and wounded at least 16 in an attack.[33] In April 2021, Islamic State gunmen executed a Christian businessman who was kidnapped in Egypt's Sinai.[34]\n\nPhilippines\n\nOn the Island of Mindanao, Groups such as Abu Sayyaf and the Maute Group have pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) to gain financial help and recruit foreign fighters. Islamic extremists routinely threaten Christians and have driven many out of Muslim-majority areas. Many pastors and other believers have been killed[35]\n\nJolo Cathedral bombings\n\nIn the morning of January 27, 2019, two bombs exploded at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Sulu, Philippines. Twenty people were killed and 102 others injured, perpetrated by Abu Sayyaf and Jamaah Ansharut Daulah targeting Christians[36]\n\nReactions\n\nOn 2 and 3 August 2014, thousands of Assyrians of the diaspora protested the persecution of their fellow Assyrians within Iraq and Syria, demanding a United Nations-led creation of a safe haven for minorities in the Nineveh Plains.[37][38]\n\nIn October 2014, Kurdish-Danish human rights activist Widad Akrawi dedicated her 2014 International Pfeffer Peace Award \"to all victims of persecution, particularly the Yazidis, the Christians, and all residents of the Kobanê region.\"[39] \n\nThe same month, David Greene, a radio journalist at NPR, stated that around 1,000 Christians had been killed \"in areas where Islamic State fighters are targeting religious minorities\", without specifying a source.[40]\n\nRecognition as genocide\n\nChaldean Catholic priest Douglas Al-Bazi, who was tortured by the Islamic State, has urged the US to recognise the killings as genocide.[41]\n\nOn February 3, 2016, European Parliament unanimously voted to recognize the persecution of religious minorities, including Christians, by the Islamic State as genocide.[42][43][44] Lars Adaktusson, a Swedish member of the European Parliament, said of the vote: \"It gives the victims of the atrocities a chance to get their human dignity restored. It's also a historical confirmation that the European Parliament recognized what is going on and that they are suffering from the most despicable crime in the world, namely genocide.\"[45]\n\nThe United States House of Representatives followed suit on March 15, 2016, declaring that these atrocities against minorities were genocide.[46] Already in December 2015, at a town hall event, the 67th United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, called the systematic persecution a genocide.[47]\n\nOn April 20, 2016, the British Parliament unanimously voted to denounce the actions against minorities as genocide.[48]\n\nSee also\n\nArmenian genocide\n\nBoxer Rebellion\n\n§Massacre of Chinese Christians and missionaries\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nChristianity and Islam\n\nChristianity in the Middle East\n\nCollaboration with the Islamic State\n\nGenocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State\n\nIraqi Turkmen genocide\n\nGreat Famine of Mount Lebanon\n\nGreek genocide\n\nHuman rights in Islamic State-controlled territory\n\nHindu terrorism\n\nHindutva\n\nViolence against Christians in India\n\nLate Ottoman genocides\n\nPersecution of Shias by the Islamic State\n\nSyrian Civil War spillover in Iraq\n\nPersecution of Copts\n\nReferences\n\n^ Rodriguez, Meredith (August 8, 2014). \"Chicago-area Assyrians march against ISIL, others protest airstrikes\". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2014.\n\n^ Bowcott, Owen; Jones, Sam (August 8, 2014). \"Isis persecution of Iraqi Christians has become genocide, says religious leaders\". The Guardian. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2014.\n\n^ McQuade, Romsin (July 30, 2014). \"Iraq's persecuted Assyrian Christians are in limbo\". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2014.\n\n^ \"Syria: Opposition Abuses During Ground Offensive\". Human Rights Watch. 2013-11-19. Archived from the original on 2015-09-26. Retrieved 2022-01-22.\n\n^ Levs, Josh (August 7, 2014). \"Will anyone stop ISIS?\". CNN. Archived from the original on August 7, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.\n\n^ a b Kino, Nuri (2024-01-30). \"Don't Forget About the Persecuted Christians of Iraq and Syria\". Newsweek. Retrieved 2024-11-05.\n\n^ a b Fernandez, Alberto M. (June 16, 2015). \"The \"Sayfo\" Continues Responding to Global Christian Persecution\". Berkeley Center Cornerstone. Georgetown University Religious Freedom Project. Archived from the original on 9 July 2015. Retrieved 20 June 2015.\n\n^ \"Christian persecution 'at near genocide levels'\". BBC News. 2019-05-03. Retrieved 2024-11-05.\n\n^ \"Worsening Conditions for Christians in the Middle East\". International Christian Concern. 2022-11-30. Retrieved 2024-11-05.\n\n^ \"Iraq's Christians 'close to extinction'\". BBC News. 2019-05-23. Retrieved 2024-11-05.\n\n^ \"Population 'under attack'\". Radio Free Europe. Retrieved 18 June 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"BBC News - Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh\". BBC News. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2014.\n\n^ \"BBC News - Iraqi Christians flee after Isis issue Mosul ultimatum\". BBC News. 18 July 2014. Archived from the original on 24 July 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2015.\n\n^ van Tets, Fernande (7 August 2014). \"Isis takes Iraq's largest Christian town as residents told - 'leave, convert or die'\". The Independent. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015. Retrieved 5 January 2015.\n\n^ Jadallah, Ahmed (18 July 2014). \"Convert, pay tax, or die, Islamic State warns Christians\". Reuters. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015. Retrieved 5 January 2015.\n\n^ a b \"Convert, pay tax, or die, Islamic State warns Christians\". Reuters. 18 July 2014. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 2 July 2017. It said that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom the group has now named Caliph Ibrahim, had set a Saturday deadline for Christians who did not want to stay and live under those terms to \"leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate\". \"After this date, there is nothing between us and them but the sword,\" it said.\n\n^ \"For the first time in 1,800 years, no Masses said in Mosul\". Catholicworldreport.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2014.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christian church burnings confirmed by EU delegation\". Iraq news, the latest Iraq news. 16 June 2014. Archived from the original on 23 February 2015. Retrieved 13 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Increasing Calls for Military Intervention to Save Assyrians and Yazidis\". Aina.org. Archived from the original on 16 February 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2014.\n\n^ Abedine, Saad; Mullen, Jethro (28 February 2014). \"Islamists in Syrian city offer Christians safety - at a heavy price\". CNN. Archived from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.\n\n^ Hubbard, Ben (23 July 2014). \"Life in a Jihadist Capital: Order With a Darker Side\". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 May 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2014.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Christians flee after Isis issue Mosul ultimatum\". BBC News. August 7, 2014. Archived from the original on July 24, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.\n\n^ Loveluck, Louisa (August 7, 2014). \"Christians flee Iraq's Mosul after Islamists tell them: convert, pay or die\". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.\n\n^ \"Isis militants 'seize Iraq monastery and expel monks'\". BBC News. August 7, 2014. Archived from the original on July 24, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.\n\n^ \"UN Security Council condemns attacks by Iraqi jihadists\". BBC News. August 7, 2014. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.\n\n^ \"BBC News - Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh\". BBC News. 7 August 2014. Archived from the original on 16 February 2015. Retrieved 13 February 2015.\n\n^ El-Gundy, Zeinab (12 February 2015). \"Islamic State publishes report on Coptic Egyptian workers kidnapped in Libya\". Al-Ahram. Archived from the original on 13 September 2018. Retrieved 16 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Thousands mourn Egyptian victims of Islamic State in disbelief\". Reuters. 16 Feb 2015. Archived from the original on 25 February 2015. Retrieved 26 Feb 2015.\n\n^ \"ISIL video shows Christian Egyptians beheaded in Libya\". Al Jazeera. 16 Feb 2015. Archived from the original on 28 January 2018. Retrieved 16 Feb 2015.\n\n^ Al-Khalidi, Suleiman (2015-02-25). \"Islamic State in Syria abducts at least 150 Christians\". Reuters. Retrieved 2025-07-19.\n\n^ \"Islamic State 'abducts dozens of Christians in Syria'\". BBC. 23 February 2015. Archived from the original on 1 April 2019. Retrieved 23 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Isis appears to have killed three Christian hostages in Syria\". The Guardian. 8 October 2015. Archived from the original on 23 October 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2018.\n\n^ Walsh, Declan; Ezz, Mohamed (2018-11-02). \"ISIS Says It Was Behind Deadly Attack on Christians in Egypt\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2024-05-28. Retrieved 2022-01-22.\n\n^ Casper, Jayson (19 April 2021). \"ISIS Executes Christian Businessman Kidnapped in Egypt's Sinai\". Christianity Today. Retrieved 2022-01-22.\n\n^ \"Philippines (Mindanao)\". The Voice of the Martyrs. Retrieved 9 August 2026.\n\n^ \"AFP releases names of casualties of Jolo blast\". Manila Bulletin. 2019-01-29. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30.\n\n^ \"Thousands rally against 'silent genocide'\". 2 August 2014. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Assyrians Demonstrate Worldwide Against ISIS Persecution\". Aina.org. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2014.\n\n^ Kelly, Linda (22 October 2014). \"Dr. Widad Akrawi Receives the Pfeffer Peace Award\". Fellowship of Reconciliation. Archived from the original on 19 October 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2015.\n\n^ \"As Christians Flee, Governments Pressured to Declare ISIS Guilty Of Genocide\". NPR. 24 December 2015. Archived from the original on 16 February 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2018. At least a thousand Christians have been killed. Hundreds of thousands have fled.\n\n^ Simov, Stoyan (15 March 2016). \"Iraqi Priest Who Terrorists Smashed Face With Hammer: US Must Recognize Christian Genocide\". Christian Post. Retrieved 16 September 2016.\n\n^ Moore, Jack (February 4, 2016). \"European Parliament Recognizes ISIS Killing of Religious Minorities as Genocide\". Newsweek. Archived from the original on December 21, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2016.\n\n^ JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION Archived 2017-10-12 at the Wayback Machine, European Parliament\n\n^ MEP's call for urgent action to protect religious minorities against ISIS Archived 2017-02-15 at the Wayback Machine, European Parliament\n\n^ Kaplan, Michael (February 4, 2016). \"ISIS Genocide Against Christians, Yazidis? European Parliament Recognizes Islamic State Targeting Religious Minorities\". International Business Times. Archived from the original on May 29, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2016. The European Parliament characterized the persecution as \"genocide\" Thursday.\n\n^ Bruton, F. Brinley (March 17, 2016). \"Kerry: ISIS Is Committing Genocide Against Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims\". NBC News. Archived from the original on June 16, 2019. Retrieved March 18, 2016.\n\n^ Thomas, George (2 February 2016). \"'It's Genocide,' Europe Says of Christian Slaughter by ISIS\". Christian Broadcasting Network. \"I'm sure now we have enough evidence that what is happening is genocide, deliberately aimed at destroying, not only the lives but wiping out the existence of Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in the Middle East in territory controlled by ISIS,\" she said.\n\n^ \"Isis is committing genocide against Yazidis and Christians, British MP's unanimously declare\". Independent.co.uk. 21 April 2016. Archived from the original on 23 August 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2016."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-persecution-of-christians-by-the-islamic-state"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2762}, {"slug": "reference-sargon-stele", "title": "Sargon Stele", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Sargon Stele[1] was found in the autumn of 1845 in Cyprus on the site of the former city-kingdom of Kition, in present-day Larnaca to the west of the old harbour of Kition in the archaeological site of Bamboula.[2] The language on the stele is Assyrian Akkadian.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sargon Stele\n\nMaterialBasalt\n\nHeight2.09 metres (6.9 ft)\n\nWidth68 cm (27 in)\n\nCreatedc. 707 BC\n\nDiscovered1845\nLarnaca, Cyprus\n\nPresent locationBerlin, Germany\n\nLanguageAkkadian\n\nThe Sargon Stele[1] was found in the autumn of 1845 in Cyprus on the site of the former city-kingdom of Kition, in present-day Larnaca to the west of the old harbour of Kition in the archaeological site of Bamboula.[2] The language on the stele is Assyrian Akkadian.\n\nThe stele was placed there during the time Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC) ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935-605 BC). It was offered for sale to the British Museum, which bid 20 £. Ludwig Ross offered 50 £ for the stele and it was shipped to a museum in Berlin where it remains at the Berlin State Museums. Together with the stele was found a gilded silver plakette, that today is located at the Louvre. A replica of the stele is on display in the Larnaca District Museum.\n\nInscription\n\nKaren Radner summed up the contents of the cuneiform inscription in 2010:\n\n\"Invocation of Aššur, Sin, Šamaš, Adad, Marduk, Nabû, Ištar, Sebetti\"-paragraph 1.[3]\n\n\"Introduction of Sargon, with royal titles and as the protégé of the gods\"-paragraph 2.[4]\n\n\"Summary of the military successes: the subjugation of the Babylonian cities; the rule over all people between the Upper Sea and the Lower Sea; the victories against Elam, in Iran and in Hatti; the humiliation of Urzana of Musasir and Rusa of Urartu; the defeat of Hamath\"-paragraph 3.\n\n\"Sargon as the guardian of the Marduk temple at Babylon\"-paragraph 4.\n\n\"The delegations from Dilmun and Adnana\"-paragraph 5.\n\n\"The erection of the monument in a connection with Mount Ba'al-harri\"-paragraph 6.\n\n\"Instructions for future kings to safeguard the monument\"-paragraph 7.\n\n\"Curses against those who harm it\"-paragraph 8.\n\nThe stele was erected around 707 BC but does not refer to the specific names of all ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus at the time. Cypriot kingdoms may have become vassal to the Assyrian king Sargon II.[5]\n\nThe city-kingdoms of Cyprus are listed somewhat later by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680-669 BCE) as Idalium, Chytri, Soli, Paphos, Salamis, Kourion, Tamassos, the \"New Town\", Ledra and \"Nuria\".[6]\n\nTheories about the purposes of the stele\n\nKaren Radner said in 2010 that \"In the inscriptions of Sargon we find, for the first time, that islands are used to mark the scope of Assyria's might-perhaps an indication of growing awareness that the world is more than one landmass enclosed by the sea\".[7]\n\nKaren Radner writes that Cyprus \"was at that time dominated (to use a deliberately vague term) by the Phoenician kingdom of Tyre which, according to the Assyrian testimony, treated the local city-states as its vassals.\"\n\nWhen the stele was erected, Tyre still dominated Cyprus, although the Assyrians were now showing more interest in the island. Gradually, the role of Tyre diminished, and Assyrians began to establish direct contacts.\n\nFurther reading\n\nRobert Merrillees, Studies on the provenances of the stele of Sargon II from Larnaca (Kition) and the two so-called Dhali (Idalion) silver bowls in the Louvre, Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes. Volume 46, 2016. Hommage à Antoine Hermary. pp. 349-386; DOI: 10.3406/cchyp.2016.1698\n\nReferences\n\n^ The name used in the displays at the Larnaca District Museum\n\n^ Radner, Karen (2010). The Stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A focus for an emerging Cypriot identity?. Harrassowitz. p. 429. ISBN 978-3-447-06171-1.\n\n^ Radner, Karen (2010). The Stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A focus for an emerging Cypriot identity?. Harrassowitz. p. 433. ISBN 978-3-447-06171-1.\n\n^ Radner, Karen (2010). The Stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A focus for an emerging Cypriot identity?. Harrassowitz. p. 434. ISBN 978-3-447-06171-1.\n\n^ The plaque on the ground of Larnaca District Museum near the Bamboula site could be wrong by confusing the contents of this stele with that of Esarhaddon's annal.\n\n^ Novotny, J. and Jeffers, J. 2018. The royal inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630-627 BC) and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626-612 BC), Kings of Assyria, Part 1 (RINAP 5). Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake, Indiana. pp. 107-136.\n\n^ Radner, Karen (2010). The Stele of Sargon II of Assyria at Kition: A focus for an emerging Cypriot identity?. Harrassowitz. p. 441. ISBN 978-3-447-06171-1."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sargon-stele"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 704}, {"slug": "reference-black-obelisk-of-shalmaneser-iii", "title": "Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is a black limestone Neo-Assyrian sculpture with many scenes in bas-relief and inscriptions. It comes from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq, and commemorates the deeds of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BC). It is on display at the British Museum in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III\n\nBlack Obelisk of Shalmaneser III in the British Museum. The White Obelisk of Ashurnasirpal I is located next to it\n\nMaterialblack limestone\n\nSizec. 1.98 metres high, 45 cm wide\n\nWritingAkkadian\n\nCreated827-824 BC\n\nDiscoveredNimrud, Ottoman Iraq\n36°05′53″N 43°19′44″E / 36.09806°N 43.32889°E / 36.09806; 43.32889\n\nPresent locationBritish Museum, London\n\nRegistrationME 118885\n\nLocation\n\nNimrud Location of discovery\n\nThe Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is a black limestone Neo-Assyrian sculpture with many scenes in bas-relief and inscriptions. It comes from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq, and commemorates the deeds of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BC). It is on display at the British Museum in London, and several other museums have cast replicas.\n\nIt is one of two complete Neo-Assyrian obelisks yet discovered-the other one being the much earlier White Obelisk of Ashurnasirpal I-and is historically significant because it is thought to display the earliest ancient depiction of a biblical figure: Jehu, King of Israel. The traditional identification of \"Yaw\" as Jehu has been questioned by some scholars, who proposed that the inscription refers to another king, Jehoram of Israel.[1][2] Its reference to Parsua is also the first known reference to the Persians.\n\nTribute offerings are shown being brought from identifiable regions and peoples. It was erected as a public monument in 825 BC at a time of civil war, in the central square of Nimrud. It was discovered by archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1846 and is now in the British Museum.\n\nDescription\n\nIt features twenty relief scenes, five on each side. They depict five different subdued kings, bringing tribute and prostrating before the Neo-Assyrian king. From top to bottom they are: (1) Sua of Gilzanu (in north-west Iran), (2) \"Yaua of Bit Omri\" (Jehu of the House of Omri), (3) an unnamed ruler of Musri (in northern Iraq), (4) Marduk-apil-usur of Suhi (middle Euphrates), and (5) Qalparunda of Patin (Antakya region of Turkey). Each scene occupies four panels around the monument and is described by a cuneiform script above them.\n\nOn the top and the bottom of the reliefs there is a long cuneiform inscription recording the annals of Shalmaneser III. It lists the military campaigns which the king and his commander-in-chief headed every year, until the thirty-first year of reign. Some features might suggest that the work had been commissioned by the commander-in-chief, Dayyan-Assur.\n\nSecond register\n\nThe second register from the top is thought to include the earliest surviving picture of a biblical figure. The name appears as mIa-ú-a mar mHu-um-ri-i. Rawlinson's original translation in 1850 seminal work \"On the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia\" stated: \"The second line of offerings are said to have been sent by Yahua, son of Hubiri, a prince of whom there is no mention in the annals, and of whose native country, therefore, I am ignorant\"[5][6] Over a year later, a connection with the bible was made by Reverend Edward Hincks, who wrote in his diary on 21 August 1851: \"Thought of an identification of one of the obelisk captives - with Jehu, king of Israel, and satisfying myself on the point wrote a letter to the Athenaeum announcing it\".[7] Hincks' letter was published by Athenaeum on the same day, entitled \"Nimrud Obelisk\".[8] Hincks' identification is now the commonly held position by biblical archaeologists.\n\nThe identification of \"Yahua\" as Jehu was questioned by contemporary scholars such as George Smith[9] as well as in more recent times by P. Kyle McCarter and Edwin R. Thiele,[1][2] based on the fact that Jehu was not an Omride, as well as transliteration and chronology issues. However, the name read as \"Yaw, son of Omri (Bit-Khumri\", see House of Omri), is generally accepted to follow Hincks as the Biblical Jehu, king of Israel. This depiction of Jehu is the first historical image of an Israelite.[10]\n\nThe stele describes how Jehu brought or sent his tribute in or around 841 BC.[11] The caption above the scene, written in Assyrian cuneiform, can be translated:[4]\n\n\"I received the tribute of Iaua (Jehu) son of (the people of the land of) Omri (Akkadian: 𒅀𒌑𒀀 𒈥 𒄷𒌝𒊑𒄿): silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king [and] spears.\"[4]\n\n The four illustrated faces of the Black Obelisk. The second row of reliefs illustrates the Israelite delegation of King Jehu.[12]\n\n The Neo-Assyrian king Shalmaneser III receives tribute from Sua, king of Gilzanu, The Black Obelisk.\n\n Part of the gift-bearing Israelite delegation of King Jehu, Black Obelisk, 841-840 BCE.[13]\n\n Jehu on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III.[14] This is \"the only portrayal we have in ancient Near Eastern art of an Israelite or Judaean monarch\".[4]\n\nCasts and replicas\n\nReplicas can be found at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, Illinois; Harvard's Museum of the Ancient Near East in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the ICOR Library in the Semitic Department at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.; Corban University's Prewitt-Allen Archaeological Museum in Salem, Oregon; the Siegfried H. Horn Museum at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI; Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology in Pittsburgh, PA; Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand; the Museum of Ancient Art at Aarhaus University in Denmark, and in the library of the Theological University of the Reformed Churches in Kampen, the Netherlands.\n\nSee also\n\nKurkh Monoliths\n\nList of artifacts significant to the Bible\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b P. Kyle McCarter, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 216 (Dec., 1974), pp. 5-7\n\n^ a b Edwin R. Thiele, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 222 (Apr., 1976), pp. 19-23\n\n^ Kuan, Jeffrey Kah-Jin (2016). Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine: Israelite/Judean-Tyrian-Damascene Political and Commercial Relations in the Ninth-Eighth Centuries BCE. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 64-66. ISBN 978-1-4982-8143-0.\n\n^ a b c d Cohen, Ada; Kangas, Steven E. (2010). Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography. UPNE. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-58465-817-7.\n\n^ On the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia, 1850\n\n^ The Bible in the British Museum: Interpreting the Evidence, T. C. Mitchell, page 14\n\n^ Studies on the Text and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon, edited by Geoffrey Khan, Diana Lipton, p. 159\n\n^ \"Nimrud Obelisk, Athenaeum, 1251, 1384-85\n\n^ Assyrian Eponym Canon, George Smith, 1875, page 190, \"There is another supposed Hebrew king in the annals of Shalmaneser, b.c. 842, Extracts VIII. and X., called \"Jehu son of Omri,\" who is generally identified with \"Jehu son of Nimshi,\" the king of Israel. The country ruled by Jehu, son of Omri, is not stated in the inscriptions; and it appears unlikely that Jehu, king of Israel, who exterminated the family of Omri, should call himself son of that king. Without advancing any theory for the identification of the monarch mentioned in the Neo-Assyrian inscriptions, I would urge that the identity of the Jehu of the Bible with the Jehu of the inscriptions is not proved, and that these notices are not enough to force us to alter all our Bible dates.\"\n\n^ Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2011). Jerusalem: The Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-307-26651-4.\n\n^ Millard, Alan (1997) Discoveries from Bible Times, Oxford, Lion, p121\n\n^ Delitzsch, Friedrich; McCormack, Joseph; Carruth, William Herbert; Robinson, Lydia Gillingham (1906). Babel and Bible;. Chicago, The Open court publishing company. p. 78.\n\n^ Delitzsch, Friedrich; McCormack, Joseph; Carruth, William Herbert; Robinson, Lydia Gillingham (1906). Babel and Bible;. Chicago, The Open court publishing company. p. 78.\n\n^ Kuan, Jeffrey Kah-Jin (2016). Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine: Israelite/Judean-Tyrian-Damascene Political and Commercial Relations in the Ninth-Eighth Centuries BCE. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 64-66. ISBN 978-1-4982-8143-0.\n\n^ Delitzsch, Friedrich; McCormack, Joseph; Carruth, William Herbert; Robinson, Lydia Gillingham (1906). Babel and Bible;. Chicago, The Open court publishing company. p. 78.\n\nExternal links\n\nBritish Museum page on the Black Obelisk\n\nPhoto; Article\n\nPhoto; Article\n\nJehu Panel; Article\n\nPhotos of the four panels of the Black Obelisk dealing with Jehu and his tribute"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-black-obelisk-of-shalmaneser-iii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1342}, {"slug": "reference-nimrud-lens", "title": "Nimrud lens", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Nimrud lens, also called Layard lens, is an 8th-century BC piece of rock crystal which was unearthed in 1850 by Austen Henry Layard at the Assyrian palace of Nimrud in modern-day Iraq.[3][4] It may have been used as a magnifying glass or as a burning-glass to start...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Nimrud lens\n\nThe lens on display in the British Museum\n\nMaterialRock crystal\n\nSizeDiameter: 38 mm (1.5 in)\nThickness: 23 mm (0.9 in)[1][2]\n\nCreated750-710 BC\n\nPeriod/cultureNeo-Assyrian\n\nDiscovered1850\nAssyrian palace of Nimrud\n\nDiscovered byAusten Henry Layard\n\nPlaceNorth West Palace, Room AB\n\nPresent locationBritish Museum, London\n\nIdentification90959 \n\nThe Nimrud lens, also called Layard lens, is an 8th-century BC piece of rock crystal which was unearthed in 1850 by Austen Henry Layard at the Assyrian palace of Nimrud in modern-day Iraq.[3][4] It may have been used as a magnifying glass or as a burning-glass to start fires by concentrating sunlight, or it may have been a piece of decorative inlay.[3]\n\nDescription\n\nThe lens is slightly oval and was roughly ground, perhaps on a lapidary wheel.[1] It has a focal point about 11 cm (4.5 in) from the flat side and a focal length of about 12 cm (4.7 in).[1][2][3] This would make it equivalent to a 3× magnifying glass.[5]\n\nThe surface of the lens has twelve cavities that were opened during grinding, which would have contained naphtha or some other fluid trapped in the raw crystal. The lens is said to be able to focus sunlight, although the focus is far from perfect. Because the lens is made from natural rock crystal, the material of the lens has not deteriorated significantly over time.[1]\n\nThe Nimrud lens is on display in the British Museum.[3]\n\nInterpretation\n\nThe function of the lens is not clear, with some authors suggesting that it was used as an optical lens and others suggesting a purely decorative function.[3]\n\nAssyrian craftsmen made intricate engravings and could have used a magnifying lens in their work.[6] The discoverer of the lens noted that he had found very small inscriptions on Assyrian artifacts that he suspected had been achieved with the aid of a lens.[1]\n\nItalian scientist Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome has proposed that the lens was used by the ancient Assyrians as part of a telescope, and that this explains their knowledge of astronomy (see Babylonian astronomy).[6] Experts on Assyrian archaeology are unconvinced, however, doubting that the optical quality of the lens is sufficient to have been of much use. The ancient Assyrians saw the planet Saturn as a god surrounded by a ring of serpents, which Pettinato suggests was their interpretation of Saturn's rings as seen through a telescope.[7] Other experts say that serpents occur frequently in Assyrian mythology and note that there is no mention of a telescope in any of the many surviving Assyrian astronomical writings.[6]\n\nAccording to his book, Layard found the lens buried beneath other pieces of glass that looked like the enamel of an object, perhaps made of wood or ivory, that had disintegrated.[3] The British Museum curator's notes propose that the lens could have been used \"as a piece of inlay, perhaps for furniture\" and that there is no evidence that the Assyrians used lenses for their optical qualities (e.g., for magnification, for telescopy, or for starting fire).[3]\n\nSee also\n\nVisby lenses\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e Layard, Austen Henry (1853). Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon: with travels in Armenia. G.P. Putnam and Co. pp. 197-8, 674. With the glass bowls was discovered a rock-crystal lens...\n\n^ a b Brewster, D. (1852). \"On an account of a rock-crystal lens and decomposed glass found in Niniveh\". Die Fortschritte der Physik (in German). Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"The Nimrud lens / the Layard lens\". Collection database. The British Museum. Retrieved Oct 21, 2012.\n\n^ Villiers, Geoffrey de; Pike, E. Roy (2016-10-16). The Limits of Resolution. CRC Press. ISBN 9781315350806.\n\n^ Hecht, Eugene (1987). Optics (2nd ed.). Addison Wesley. pp. 186-188. ISBN 0-201-11609-X.\n\n^ a b c Whitehouse, David (1999-07-01). \"World's oldest telescope?\". BBC News. Retrieved 2008-05-10. If one Italian scientist is correct then the telescope was not invented sometime in the 16th century by Dutch spectacle makers, but by ancient Assyrian astronomers nearly three thousand years earlier. According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy.\n\n^ \"World's oldest telescope?\". EXN Science Wire. 1999-06-29. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2008-05-10. Pettinato believes the lens was used by Assyrian astronomers as a telescope more than three thousand years ago. They saw more in the night sky than was possible with the naked eye alone. For example, the Assyrians saw the planet Saturn as a god surrounded by a ring of serpents. Pettinato says that would be a logical assumption to make if they saw Saturn's rings through a primitive telescope.\n\nBibliography\n\nA. H. Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (London, 1853), p. 197-98.\n\nExternal links\n\nBritish Museum entry\n\nOldest Optical Device? The Nimrud Lens Archived 2017-03-03 at the Wayback Machine\n\n36°05′57″N 43°19′39″E / 36.0992°N 43.3275°E / 36.0992; 43.3275"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nimrud-lens"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 861}, {"slug": "reference-akkadian-literature", "title": "Akkadian literature", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Akkadian literature is the ancient literature written in the East Semitic Akkadian language (Assyrian and Babylonian dialects) in Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia) during the period spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age (roughly the 25th to 4th centuries BC).[1][2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Akkadian literature is the ancient literature written in the East Semitic Akkadian language (Assyrian and Babylonian dialects) in Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia) during the period spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age (roughly the 25th to 4th centuries BC).[1][2]\n\nDrawing on the traditions of Sumerian literature, the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians compiled a substantial textual tradition of mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, letters and other literary forms. Conversely, Akkadian also influenced Sumerian literature.\n\nLiterature in Akkadian society\n\nMost of what we have from the Assyrians and Babylonians was inscribed in cuneiform with a metal stylus on tablets of clay, called laterculae coctiles by Pliny the Elder; papyrus seems to have also been utilised, but not been preserved.[3]\n\nThere were libraries in most towns and temples in Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer; an old Sumerian proverb averred that \"he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn.\" Women as well as men learned to read and write, and after the time the Sumerians themselves had been absorbed by the Semites circa 2000 BC, this involved a knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary. The Assyrians and Babylonians' very advanced systems of writing, science, medicine, civil administration, legal and economic structures and mathematics contributed greatly to their literary output.[3]\n\nMany works of Akkadian literature were commissioned by kings who had scribes and scholars in their service. Some of these works served to celebrate the king or the divine, while others recorded information for religious practices or medicine. Poetry, proverbs, folktales, love lyrics, military campaigns and accounts of disputes were all incorporated into Akkadian literature.[4]\n\nRelation to other ancient literatures\n\nA considerable amount of Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer, which was a language isolate. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists of them were drawn up.[3]\n\nAssyrian culture and literature came from the same source as Babylonia, but even here, there was a difference between the two ethnolinguistically similar countries. Assyrian literature was similar to that of Babylonia, however, in the early periods, education was mostly restricted to a single class of society in Assyria, unlike Babylonia. Under the second Assyrian empire, when Nineveh had become a great centre of trade, Aramaic - the language of commerce and diplomacy - was added to the number of subjects that the educated class was required to learn, dialects of which still survive among the Assyrian people today.[3]\n\nUnder the Seleucids, Greek was introduced into Babylon, and fragments of tablets have been found with Sumerian and Assyrian (i.e. Semitic) words transcribed into Greek letters.[3]\n\nNotable works\n\nAccording to A. Leo Oppenheim, the corpus of cuneiform literature amounted to around 1,500 texts at any one time or place, approximately half of which, at least from the first millennium, is extant in fragmentary form, and the most common genres included (in order of predominance) are omen texts, lexical lists, ritual incantations, cathartic and apotropaic conjurations, historical and mythological epics, fables and proverbs.[5]\n\nAnnals, chronicles and historical epics\n\nThe Assyrian dialect of Akkadian is particularly rich in royal inscriptions from the end of the 14th century BC onward, for example the epics of Adad-nārārī, Tukulti-Ninurta, and Šulmānu-ašarēdu III and the annals which catalogued the campaigns of the neo-Assyrian monarchs. The earliest historical royal epic is, however, that of Zimri-Lim (c. 1710-1698 BC short) of Mari. Similar literature of the middle Babylonian period is rather poorly preserved with a fragmentary epic of the Kassite period, that of Adad-šuma-uṣur and of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur I and Marduk.[6]\n\nThe chronicle tradition is first attested in the compositions of the early Iron Age which hark back to earlier times, such as the Chronicle of Early Kings, the Dynastic Chronicle, Chronicle P and the Assyrian Synchronistic History. A series of fifteen neo to late Babylonian Chronicles have been recovered which narrate the period spanning Nabû-nasir (747-734 BC) to Seleucus III Ceraunus (243-223 BC) and were derived from the political events described in Babylonian astronomical diaries.\n\nHumorous literature\n\nExemplars of comical texts span the genres of burlesque to satire and include humorous love poems and riddles. “At the cleaners” is a tale of the dispute between an insolent scrubber and his client, a “sophomoric fop” who lectures the cleaner in ridiculous detail on how to launder his clothes, driving the exasperated cleaner to suggest that he lose no time in taking it to the river and doing it himself.[7] The Dialogue of Pessimism was seen as a saturnalia by Böhl, where master and servant switch roles, and as a burlesque by Speiser, where a fatuous master mouthes clichés and a servant echoes him. Lambert considered it a musing of a mercurial adolescent with suicidal tendencies.[8]\n\nThe Aluzinnu (“trickster,” a jester, clown or buffoon) text, extant in five fragments from the neo-Assyrian period concerns an individual, dābibu, ākil karṣi, “character assassin,” who made a living entertaining others with parodies, mimicry, and scatological songs. The Poor Man of Nippur provides a subversive narrative of the triumph of the underdog over his superior[9] while Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite is a school text of a slapstick nature.[10]\n\nLaws\n\nThe earliest Akkadian laws are the “Old Assyrian Laws” relating to the conduct of the commercial court of a trading colony in Anatolia, c. 1900 BC. The Laws of Eshnunna were a collection of sixty laws named for the city of its provenance and dating to around 1770 BC. The Code of Ḫammu-rapi, c. 1750 BC, was the longest of the Mesopotamian legal collections, extending to nearly three hundred individual laws and accompanied by a lengthy prologue and epilogue. The edict of Ammi-Saduqa, c. 1646 BC, was the last issued by one of Ḫammu-rapi’s successors.\n\nThe Middle Assyrian Laws date to the fourteenth century BC, over a hundred laws are extant from Assur. The Middle Assyrian Palace Decrees, known as the “Harem Edicts,” from the reigns of Aššur-uballiṭ I, c. 1360 BC, to Tukultī-apil-Ešarra I, c. 1076 BC, concern aspects of courtly etiquette and the severe penalties (flagellation, mutilation and execution) for flouting them. The Neo-Babylonian Laws number just fifteen, c. 700 BC, probably from Sippar.[11]\n\nMythology\n\nOne of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh,[3] which first appears in Akkadian during the Old Babylonian period as a circa 1,000 line epic known by its incipit, šūtur eli šarrī, ‘‘Surpassing all other kings,’’ incorporating some of the stories from the five earlier Sumerian Gilgamesh tales. A plethora of mid to late second millennium versions give witness to its popularity. The Standard Babylonian version, ša naqba īmeru, ‘‘He who saw the deep,’’ contains up to 3,000 lines on eleven tablets and a prose meditation on the fate of man on the twelfth which was virtually a word-for-word translation of the Sumerian “Bilgames and the Netherworld.” It is extant in 73 copies and was credited to a certain Sîn-lēqi-unninni[12] and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. The whole story is a composite product, and it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.[3]\n\nAnother epic was that of the \"Creation\" Enûma Eliš, whose object was to glorify Bel-Marduk by describing his contest with Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. In the first book, an account is given of the creation of the world from the primeval deep, and the birth of the gods of light. Then comes the story of the struggle between the gods of light and the powers of darkness, and the final victory of Marduk, who clove Tiamat asunder, forming the heaven from half of her body and the earth from the other. Marduk next arranged the stars in order, along with the sun and moon, and gave them laws they were never to transgress. After this, the plants and animals were created, and finally man. Marduk here takes the place of Ea, who appears as the creator in the older legends, and is said to have fashioned man from clay.[3]\n\nThe legend of Adapa, the first man - a portion of which was found in the record-office of the Egyptian king Akhenaton at Tell-el-Amarna - explains the origin of death. Adapa, while fishing, had broken the wings of the south wind, and was accordingly summoned before the tribunal of Anu in heaven. Ea counselled him not to eat or drink anything there. He followed this advice, and thus refused the food that would have made him and his descendants immortal.[3]\n\nAmong the other legends of Babylonia may be mentioned those of Namtar, the plague-demon; of Erra, the pestilence; of Etana and of Anzu. Hades, the abode of Ereshkigal or Allatu, had been entered by Nergal, who, angered by a message sent to her by the gods of the upper world, ordered Namtar to strike off her head. She, however, declared that she would submit to any conditions imposed on her, and would give Nergal the sovereignty of the earth. Nergal accordingly relented, and Allatu became the queen of the infernal world. Etana conspired with the eagle to fly to the highest heaven. The first gate, that of Anu, was successfully reached; but in ascending still farther to the gate of Ishtar, the strength of the eagle gave way, and Etanna was dashed to the ground. As for the storm-god Anzu, we are told that he stole the tablets of destiny, and therewith the prerogatives of Enlil. God after god was ordered to pursue him and recover them, but it would seem that it was only by a stratagem that they were finally regained.[3]\n\nOmens, divination and incantation texts\n\nThe magnitude of omen literature within the Akkadian corpus is one of the peculiar distinguishing features of this language's legacy. According to Oppenheim, 30% of all documents of this tradition are of this genre.[13] Exemplars of omen text appear during the earliest periods of Akkadian literature but come to their maturity early in the first millennium with the formation of canonical versions. Notable among these is the Enuma Anu Enlil (astrological omens), Šumma ālu (terrestrial omens), Šumma izbu (anomalous births), Alamdimmû (physiognomic omens), and Iškar Zaqīqu (dream omens). It is among this genre, also, that the Sakikkū (SA.GIG) “Diagnostic Handbook” belongs.\n\nThe practice of extispicy, divination through the entrails of animals, was formalized into a science over the millennia by the Babylonians and supporting texts were eventually gathered into a monumental handbook, the Bārûtu, extending over a hundred tablets and divided into ten chapters.[14] Divination, however, extended into other fields with, for example, the old Babylonian libanomancy texts, concerning interpreting portents from incense smoke,[15] being one and Bēl-nadin-šumi's omen text on the flight paths of birds, composed during the reign of Kassite king Meli-Šipak, being another exemplar.[16]\n\nIncantations form an important part of this literary heritage, covering a range of rituals from the sacred, Maqlû, \"burning\" to counter witchcraft, Šurpu, “incineration” to counter curses, Namburbi, to preempt inauspicious omens, Utukkū Lemnūtu (actually bilingual), to exorcise “Evil Demons,” and Bīt rimki, or “bath house,” the purification and substitution ceremony, to the mundane, Šà.zi.ga, “the rising of the heart,” potency spells, and Zu-buru-dabbeda, “to seize the ‘locust tooth’,” a compendium of incantations against field pests.[17]\n\nWisdom and didactic literature\n\nA particularly rich genre of Akkadian texts was that represented by the moniker of “wisdom literature,” although there are differences in opinion concerning which works qualify for inclusion.[18] One of the earliest exemplars was the Dialogue between a Man and His God from the late Old Babylonian period. Perhaps the most notable were the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer (Ludlul bēl nēmeqi) and the Babylonian Theodicy. Included in this group are a number of fables or contest literature, in varying states of preservation, such as the Tamarisk and the Palm, the Fable of the Willow, Nisaba and Wheat (kibtu), the Ox and the Horse (Inum Ištar šurbutum, “When exalted Ishtar”), the Fable of the Fox, and the Fable of the Riding-donkey.[19]\n\nW. G. Lambert and others include several popular sayings, and proverbs (both bilingual and Babylonian) together with the Lament of a Sufferer with a Prayer to Marduk, Counsels of Wisdom, Counsels of a Pessimist, and Advice to a Prince in this genre. “A Dialogue between Šūpê-amēli and His Father” (Šimâ milka) is a piece of wisdom literature in the manner of a deathbed debate from the Akkadian hinterland.[18] There are also Akkadian translations of earlier Sumerian works such as the Instructions of Shuruppak which are often considered belonging to this tradition.\n\nDisputation poems\n\nThe Akkadian disputation poem or Akkadian debate, also known as the Babylonian disputation poem, is a genre of Akkadian literature in the form of a disputation. They feature a dialogue or a debate involving two contenders, usually cast as inarticulate beings such as particular objects, plants, animals, and so forth. Extant compositions from this genre date from the early 2nd millennium BC, the earliest example being the Tamarisk and Palm, to the late 1st millennium BC. These poems occur in verse and follow a type of meter called 2||2 or Vierheber, which is the same meter found in some other Akkadian texts like the Enuma Elish.[20]\n\nOther genres\n\nBesides the purely literary works, there were others of varied nature, including collections of letters, partly official, partly private. Among them the most interesting are the letters of Hammurabi, which have been edited by Leonard William King.[3]\n\nList of works\n\nThe following gives the better-known extant works, excluding lexical and synonym lists.\n\nAbnu šikinšu\n• Adad-nārārī I Epic\n• Adad-šuma-uṣur Epic\n• Adapa and Enmerkar\n• Adapa and the South Wind\n• Advice to a Prince\n• Agushaya Hymn\n• Alamdimmû\n• Aluzinnu text\n• Ardat-lili\n• Asakkū marṣūtu\n• Ašipus' Almanac (or Handbook)\n• At the cleaners\n• Atra-ḫasīs\n• Autobiography of Adad-guppī\n• Autobiography of Kurigalzu\n• Autobiography of Marduk\n• Babylonian Almanac\n• Babylonian King List\n• Babylonian Theodicy\n• Bārûtu\n• Birth legend of Sargon\n• Bīt mēseri\n• Bīt rimki\n• Bīt salā’ mê\n• Bullussa-rabi’s Hymn to Gula \n• Catalogue of Texts and Authors \n• Chronicle of Early Kings\n• Chronicle of the Market Prices\n• Chronicle of reign of Šulgi\n• Chronicle P\n• Code of Hammurabi\n• Consecration of a priest\n• Counsels of a Pessimist\n• Counsels of Wisdom\n• Crimes and Sacrileges of Nabu-šuma-iškun\n• Curse of Akkad\n• Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin\n• Dialogue between a Man and His God\n• Dialogue of Pessimism\n• Dingir.šà.dib.ba\n• Donkey Disputation \n• Dream of Kurigalzu\n• Dynastic Chronicle\n• Dynastic Prophecy\n• Dynasty of Dunnum (Harab Myth)\n• Eclectic Chronicle\n• Edict of Ammi-Saduqa\n• Egalkura spells \n• Elegies Mourning the Death of Tammuz\n• Enlil and Sud\n• Enuma Anu Enlil\n• Enûma Eliš\n• Epic of Anzu\n• Epic of Gilgameš\n• Epic of the Kassite period\n• Epic of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur\n• Epic of the plague-god Erra (Erra and Išum)\n• Etana\n• Fable of the Fox\n• Fable of the Riding-donkey\n• Fable of the Willow\n• Girra and Elamatum\n• Great Prayer to Šamaš\n• Great Prayer to Nabû \n• Great Revolt Against Naram-Sin\n• Harem Edicts\n• Hemerology for Nazi-Maruttaš\n• Hymn to Ištar (“Ištar 2”) \n• Hymn to Ninurta as Savior \n• Hymn to the Queen of Nippur \n• Ḫulbazizi\n• Inana's Ascent\n• Iqqur Ipuš\n• Iškar Zaqīqu\n• Ištar’s hell ride\n• Kalûtu catalogue\n• KAR 6\n• Kataduggû\n• Kedor-laomer texts\n• Kettledrum rituals\n• King of Battle (šar tamḫāri)\n• Ki'utu\n• Labbu myth\n• Lamaštu\n• Lament of a Sufferer with a Prayer to Marduk\n• Laws of Eshnunna\n• Lipšur litanies\n• Ludlul bēl nēmeqi\n• Maqlû\n• Marduk's Address to the Demons\n• Marduk Prophecy\n• Middle Assyrian Laws\n• Mîs-pî\n• Moon god and the cow\n• Mukīl rēš lemutti\n• MUL.APIN\n• Muššu'u\n• Na'id-Šihu Epic\n• Nabonidus Chronicle\n• Namburbi\n• Namerimburrudû\n• Neo-Babylonian Laws\n• Nergal and Ereškigal\n• New year ritual-Akitu procession\n• Nigdimdimmû\n• Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite\n• Nissaba and the Wheat\n• Ox and the Horse\n• Palm and Vine\n• Pazuzu\n• Poor Man of Nippur\n• Prophecy A\n• Qutāru\n• Recipes against Antašubba\n• Religious Chronicle\n• Royal inscription of Simbar-Šipak\n• Sag-gig-ga-meš (Muruṣ qaqqadi)\n• Sakikkū\n• Salmānu-ašarēdu III Epic\n• Synchronistic History\n• A Syncretistic Hymn to Ištar \n• Șēru šikinšu\n• Šammu šikinšu\n• Šar Pūḫî\n• Šà.zi.ga\n• Series of Ox and Horse \n• Series of the Fox \n• Series of Ox and Horse \n• Series of the Poplar \n• Series of the Spider \n• Šēp lemutti\n• Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren \n• Šu'ila\n• Šulgi Prophecy\n• Šumma ālu\n• Šumma amēlu kašip\n• Šumma immeru\n• Šumma Izbu\n• Šumma liptu \n• Šumma sinništu qaqqada rabât\n• Šurpu\n• Tākultu ritual texts \n• Tamarisk and Palm\n• Tamītu Oracles\n• Tašritu hemerology\n• Tukulti-Ninurta Epic\n• Tu-ra kìlib-ba\n• The therapeutic series UGU (Šumma amēlu muḫḫašu umma ukāl)\n• Uruhulake of Gula\n• Uruk King List\n• Uruk Prophecy\n• Ušburruda\n• Utukkū Lemnūtu\n• Verse Account of Nabonidus\n• Vision of the Netherworld\n• Walker Chronicle\n• Weidner Chronicle\n• Zimri-Lim Epic\n• Zi-pà incantations\n• Zisurrû (Sag-ba Sag-ba)\n• Zu-buru-dabbeda\n\nSee also\n\nAncient literature\n\nAncient near eastern cosmology\n\nReferences\n\n^ Wilson, Epiphanius (1 June 2006). Babylonian and Assyrian Literature. Echo Library. ISBN 9781406804898 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Silvestro Fiore, Voices from the Clay: The Development of Assyro-Babylonian Literature. U. of Oklahoma Press.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Babylonia and Assyria\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 99-112.\n\n^ Lenzi, Alan (2020-01-10). \"Introduction\". An Introduction to Akkadian Literature: Contexts and Content. Penn State Press. ISBN 978-1-64602-030-0.\n\n^ A. Leo Oppenheim (1977). Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. University Of Chicago Press. pp. 16-17. ISBN 9780226631868.\n\n^ Jack M. Sasson (2005). \"Comparative Observations on the Near Eastern Epic Traditions\". In John M. Foley (ed.). Companion to Ancient Epic. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 221.\n\n^ UET 6/2, 414[link removed]\n\n^ Benjamin R. Foster (1974). \"Humor and Cuneiform Literature\". JANES. 6: 82.\n\n^ J. S. Cooper (Jul 1975). \"Structure, Humor, and Satire in the Poor Man of Nippur\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 27 (3): 163-174. doi:10.2307/1359242. JSTOR 1359242. S2CID 163822119.\n\n^ A. R. George (1993). \"Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite, and Notes on Other Comic Tales\". Iraq. 55: 63-75. doi:10.2307/4200367. JSTOR 4200367. S2CID 192947135.\n\n^ D. L. Baker (2009). Tight Fists Or Open Hands?: Wealth and Poverty in Old Testament Law. Wm. B. Eerdmans. pp. 4-6.\n\n^ A. R. George (2003). The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. pp. 22-33, 379.\n\n^ W. Hallo (2009). The world's oldest literature: studies in Sumerian belles-lettres. Brill. p. 7. ISBN 9789004173811.\n\n^ Ulla Koch-Westenholz (2000). Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzazu, Padanu, and Pan Takalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series Mainly from Assurbanipal's Library. Museum Tusculanum. p. 9.\n\n^ I. L. Finkel (1983). \"A New Piece of Libanomancy\". Archiv für Orientforschung. 29: 50-57.\n\n^ Nicla De Zorzi (2009). \"Bird Divination in Mesopotamia - New Evidence From BM 108874\". KASKAL: Rivista di storia, ambienti e culture del Vicino Oriente Antico. 6: 91-94.\n\n^ A. R. George and Junko Taniguchi (2010). \"The Dogs of Ninkilim, part two: Babylonian rituals to counter field pests\" (PDF). Iraq. LXXII: 79-148. doi:10.1017/S0021088900000607. S2CID 190713244.\n\n^ a b Victor Avigdor Hurowitz (2007). Richard J. Clifford (ed.). Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel. SBL. pp. xi-xiii, 37-51.\n\n^ Marianna E. Vogelzang (1991). \"Some Questions About the Akkadian Disputes\". In aG.J. Reinink and aH.L.J. Vanstiphout (ed.). Dispute poems and dialogues in the ancient and mediaeval Near East. Peeters. p. 47.\n\n^ * Jiménez, Enrique (2017). The Babylonian Disputation Poems. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-33625-4.\n\nFurther reading\n\nShin Shifra (2008). Words as Magic and the Magic in Words. Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, The Israeli Ministry of Defence Press (in Hebrew). These are transcriptions of Shifra's discourses on literature of the Ancient Near East, first broadcast as a \"University on the Air\" course on the Israeli Army Radio."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-akkadian-literature"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3301}, {"slug": "reference-cave-of-treasures", "title": "Cave of Treasures", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Cave of Treasures (Syriac: ܡܥܪܬ ܓܙܐ, romanized: Maʿarraṯ ġazzē) is pseudepigraphal work of Syriac literature that retells biblical narrative within a distinctly Christian and Mesopotamian setting. Originally composed in Syriac, it provides a then-modern Christian interpretation of the Old Testament from the creation of Adam to the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Cave of Treasures\nܡܥܪܬ ܓܙܐ\n\nBritish Library\n\nFrench genealogy of Christ, cf. Book of the Cave of Treasure (from the Syriac MS Add 25875, British Museum), translated by E. W. Budge\n\nTypePseudepigrapha \"rewritten Bible\"\n\nDate6th century\n\nPlace of originUpper Mesopotamia\n\nLanguageSyriac\n\nAuthor(s)Unknown; falsely attributed to Ephrem the Syrian\n\nContentsSyriac Christian retelling of biblical history and prefiguration of Christ, interweaving Jewish, Assyrian, and early Christian traditions with moral and liturgical teachings\n\nThe Cave of Treasures (Syriac: ܡܥܪܬ ܓܙܐ, romanized: Maʿarraṯ ġazzē) is pseudepigraphal work of Syriac literature that retells biblical narrative within a distinctly Christian and Mesopotamian setting. Originally composed in Syriac, it provides a then-modern Christian interpretation of the Old Testament from the creation of Adam to the coming of Christ, and presents Adam and the patriarchs as prefigurations of Christ, and also situating key events in Assyria and surrounding regions. The narrative incorporates local Mesopotamian traditions by presenting figures such as Nimrod in a positive light and linking biblical history to the cultural memory of the Assyrian and Persian world.\n\nThe text was an important part of shaping the Syriac Christian identity, elevating the status of the Syriac language, providing theological responses to Jewish critique, and addressing cultural and religious dynamics near the Sasanian Empire. It also provides a major source of information regarding the secular history of the region and the turbulent problems that Upper Mesopotamia faced. It circulated widely in multiple recensions and languages and influenced later Syriac historiography, including among authors such as the author of the Chronicle of Zuqnin, Michael the Syrian, and Barhebraeus.\n\nAuthorship\n\nThe Cave of Treasures was long attributed to Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373) due to some manuscripts bearing a heading that names him, but modern scholarship has completely rejected this attribution. The text was first quoted in a mid-7th century work and shows no awareness of the Islamic conquests, indicating that it must have been composed before 630 AD. It even mentions the late Sassanian king Khosrow II (r. 590-628). The text's multiple and frequent apologetic attacks against Jews also suggest a 7th-century composition, which was a time when Christians hoped that widespread conversion and baptism of Jews would prepare the way for the Second Coming.[1][2][3]\n\nMultiple theories have been advanced regarding its authorship. Albrecht Goetze argued that it was a compilation of three separate 4th-century Jewish-Christian works: one concerning legends about Adam and Seth, one on the genealogy of Mary, and one on the life of Christ. These were then edited together by a Syriac-language writer from the Church of the East who supplemented the text with biblical material and theological interpolations.[1] Sebastian Brock has further noted that the work was addressed to an unknown figure named Nemesius.[4] This Nemesius, or Nemosaya (Syriac: ܢܡܘܣܝܐ) as rendered in the primary works, is perhaps related to the Greek nomikos (νομικὸς), which means \"lawyer\" and could possibly refer to the Torah or Judaism in general.[5] \n\nThe author demonstrates a strong pride in the Syriac language, elevating it above all other dialects of Aramaic, and likely moved between the eastern and western provinces of the Syriac-speaking world.[6] It is presented chronologically over seven millennia, relying on a variety of sources, most of which are Christian. The Cave of Treasures was later influential for a number of authors, including the author of the Chronicle of Zuqnin, al-Ya'qubi, al-Tabari, Eutychius of Alexandria, Michael the Great, Barhebraeus, and Solomon of Basra.[7]\n\nThe cave in question refers to an unnamed cave in Upper Mesopotamia where, after the Fall, Adam deposited gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Later, when Christ was born, the Magi arrived at the cave to retrieve the gifts and present them to the newborn Son.[8]\n\nContent\n\nThe Cave of Treasures belongs to the genre of \"rewritten Bible\" that recounts biblical history from the creation of the world to the life of Christ within a different framework; in this case, a Syriac one. It emphasizes salvation history, the continuity of God's plan, and the prefiguration of Christ throughout earlier events.[9] The text situates its narrative setting in Assyria, identified with the land of \"Nod\". Assyria serves as the central stage of the work: it is where Cain is exiled, where the Magi receive incense, and where the journeys of Nimrod - a pivotal figure in the story - take place. The Arsacids identify Adiabene with Nod-Shirakan, and the toponym \"Nod\" appears in inscriptions from Karka de-Beth Slouq and Erbil. Like the Syriac tradition at large, the work shows a favorable view of the Assyrian king Nimrod, who in the biblical tradition is remembered as an adversary of Abraham.[10]\n\nBiblical narrative and Christological prefiguration\n\nThe text retells the Old Testament, presenting Adam and his descendants as \"prophets, priests, and kings\" foreshadowing Christ.[11] Adam's body and Abel's blood are explicitly paralleled with Christ, while the burial of patriarchs in Jerusalem, at the site where Christ himself would be buried, reinforces this prefiguration. Abraham's offering of tithes to Melchizedek at Golgotha is depicted as an anticipation of the Eucharist, while Noah's reception of the dove at the ark prefigures baptism. Patriarchal lives and biblical events are thus presented as direct anticipations of the incarnation.[12]\n\nThe societies described are also presented as moral examples, such as Noah's gender segregation in the ark and the peace between different social orders. Furthermore, they are used to justify modern Christian practices that were controversial in the Roman and Sassanian churches of the time, particularly the Naziritic practices, such as wearing skins or leaving hair uncut, as Noah commands Shem to do. The descriptions of Shem and Melchizedek are similar in Theodoret of Cyrrhus's Historia Religiosa and Rabbula's banned canons in the Bnay Qyama; such practices were considered sacred and orthodox, obligations for priest to abide by.[13]\n\nThe freedom with which the author makes these assertions shows how fluid and loosely defined early Church canons were and the limited power of the Church to enforce them. Additionally, in the absence of a strongly policed state like that of Justinian I, Jewish communities were able to critique Christianity, including questions concerning the genealogy of Christ. The text addresses such criticisms while also reinforcing Christianity's distinct identity in relation to surrounding religious traditions.[14]\n\nAdam's resting place at Golgotha is described as the \"center of the world\" where major events in soteriology occur. The Cave deliberately omits sections critical to Judaism such as those of Moses in the Book of Exodus to maintain the biblical account in a Christian framework.[15]\n\nThe text also describes multiple \"falls\" of humanity beyond the events at Eden. The first one involves the loss of virginity after the initial fall, yet Seth's offsprings are committed to abstaining from fornication, unlike Cain's offsprings. These two oppositions emphasize the value of asceticism, where Seth is honored for his chastity and teaches virtue to his sons and chastity to his daughters, but they ultimately succumb to temptation when lured by the Cainites through the enchanting music of a flute. Another significant fall occurs at the Tower of Babel, which brings the total to four falls.[14]\n\nAssyrian and Mesopotamian setting\n\nThe setting of the narrative is closely tied to Assyria, identified with the biblical \"land of Nod\". Cain is exiled there, the Magi receive incense there, and Nimrod's journeys are situated in this land. Adiabene is equated with Nod-Shirakan, a toponym attested in inscriptions at Erbil and Karka d-Beth Slouq.[10]\n\nAt the time of writing, many locations were already associated with Nimrod, such as Mosul, Nimrud-Athor, and Tell-Nimrud, the former capital of Ashurnasirpal, king of Assyria. References to places like Assur, Nineveh, and the shrine of Mar Qardagh at Melqi suggest that the native Mesopotamians of the period retained a living memory of their ancient Assyrian past, even though Tell-Nimrud itself had no continued settlement. The Cave of Treasures thus merges two traditions, Jewish-Christian and Assyrian. By the early sixth century, when the text was composed, these traditions had become intertwined into a shared foundation myth for the territory of Assyria.[16]\n\nThe author engaged with these matters because he sought to construct a foundation myth for the Zoroastrian cult at a time when identifying Nimrod with Zoroaster was already commonplace. According to the Targum, Nimrod was the founder of Babil, Resen, and Nineveh. It was necessary for the Assyrian author to develop such mythologies in order to condemn foreign cults within his land and to explain the origins of foreign religions and portraying them as traditions that were later corrupted.[17]\n\nThe Cave also links biblical Babylonian kings with contemporary Sasanian kings, identifying \"Sisan the servant of Nimrod\" with Sasanian kings and even presenting one of the Magi as king of Persia.[18]\n\nNimrod\n\nIn contrast to St. Jerome and the Latin tradition which frequently depict Nimrod as a despotic ruler, the Syriac tradition takes a more positive stance and commemorates Nimrod as the introducer of monarchy, founder of many Mesopotamian cities from Edessa to Seleucia, and a royalty worthy of respect.[19] Nimrod is also cast as a prophet, responsible for the prophecy regarding the star that would lead the Magi to the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. The author of the Cave enhances Nimrod's image by attributing authorship of this major revelation to him, suggesting that without his contribution, God's plan for mankind would remain incomplete.[20] Similar to other Syriac writers like Narsai and Jacob of Serug, the Cave's author does not portray King Nimrod negatively in relation to the biblical Tower of Babel; rather, he is considered righteous and a descendant of Noah - so much that other Syriac Christians of the time have often been named after him.[21]\n\nThe Cave also identifies Nimrod with Zoroaster himself. He is portrayed as a fire-worshipper, following the teaching of Yonton (a corruption of Joktan), Noah's fourth son. Nimrod was taught wisdom by Yonton when he traveled to Yokadra in the region of Nod and met with Yonton at Lake Atras. After bathing in the lake and having \"made obeisance\" to Yonton to acknowledge the latter's superiority, Nimrod was taught \"wisdom and the book of revelation\" by Yonton, emphasizing the role of legitimate practice of astronomy in contrast to the forbidden art of astrology. Fire, though associated with Zoroastrians, is presented as acceptable because of its Christian associations in the burning bush of Moses and Pentecost. This \"orthodox\" Zoroastrianism, however, later decayed through Satan's corruption of Ardashir, who introduced incest and the false arts of astrology (as opposed to astronomy).[22] Although highly spiritual and supernatural in nature, this description aligns with the secular historical development of the region and its religions. In this framework, Zoroastrianism as practiced by the Assyrian descendants of Noah's son is not portrayed as inherently evil, but as a faith that only became corrupted through the influence of the devil.[23]\n\nSyriac identity and polemics\n\nThe Cave contains strong anti-Jewish polemics with emphasis on Syriac themes and images. Pilate is said not to have written the inscription in Syriac above the cross since Syrians were innocent of Christ's death; only Jews (Caiphas), Greeks (Herod), and Romans (Pilate) were guilty.[24] The author maintains that Syriac, not Hebrew, was the original language of humanity, from which all other languages were dispersed after the events of the Tower of Babel. This distinction placed the Syriac language (and bracketing the Syriac people) as superior to all nations, namely the Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews. Moreover, the author refers to the Edessan dialect of Syriac as being considered the superior version of Aramaic, with Mesopotamian liturgical Syriac \"annexing\" other, lesser dialects.[25]\n\nPaganism and Neoplatonism are denounced with idols described as vessels of demons. The work confirms that pagan practices were still practiced in the 6th century in places like Harran when the text reached its final form.[26]\n\nCosmology and Iranian motifs\n\nThe text provides fresh evidence for a newly discovered fraternity between the Assyrians and Persians of late antiquity. Despite heavy persecution by the Sassanids against the Syriac Christians, there was a familiarity with each other's cultures, leading to significant cultural and linguistic exchange between the two groups. Thus, the Syriac Christians were not merely a persecuted minority under an oppressive regime, but active agents of history who participated in every facet of Iranian society.[27] It incorporates Iranian cosmological concepts, describing a tripartite heaven - Fire (ܢܘܪܐ; Nūrā), Light (ܢܘܗܪܐ; Nuhrā), and Firmament (ܪܩܝܥܐ; Rqīʿā) - in contrast to the seven-fold system widely adopted at the time,[28] though Syriac Christianity had neither concept.[29] This tripartite division of the sky is, however, attested in Akkadian sources. One example is KAR 307, a religious explanatory text in Neo-Assyrian script from Assur dated to the first millennium BC; another example is AO 8196, a late Babylonian compendium of astrological, astronomical, and religious information.[30] The lowest level, Rqi'a, is associated with a major Iranian festival of Rapithwin which represents midday.[28] Rapithwin is an Iranian loanword meaning \"midday\", personified as a man whose soul lingers above the earth.[31]\n\nMagi and treasures\n\nThe Magi (ܡܓܘܫܐ; Mgūšêh) are described as a group inhabiting Persia who become disturbed upon witnessing a constellation resembling \"a maiden carrying a child\" with \"a crown set upon his head\". After consulting their books, one of which is titled \"The Revelation of Nimrod,\" God's plan for the birth of His Son becomes clear to them. They then journey to the \"Cave of Treasure\" where they retrieve the three gifts - gold, frankincense, and myrrh - deposited there from Paradise by Adam after the fall, and proceed to Bethlehem.[8]\n\nWhile most traditions viewed the Magi as three in number, the Syriac tradition held that they were twelve. This discrepancy was already recognized by Syriac-language authors such as Jacob of Edessa, who noted the difference between artistic depictions of the Nativity showing three Magi and his own tradition's teaching of twelve,[32] some of whom were named Hormizd, Yazdgird, and Peroz.[33]\n\nTestament of Adam\n\nThis cycle was inserted into the original work in the Arabic recensions[34] and differs in several respects from the Cave. It is an earlier Syriac composition that was appended to the text in those Arabic recensions.[35] In this version the cave functions as the subject of a prophecy of Adam about the coming of the Messiah, transmitted through the generations to Christ; unlike the main cycle (the Cave of Treasures itself), it contains only the testament with the three gifts and omits Adam’s physical body.[2] The composition is in three parts: an horarium of days and nights, the prophecy of Adam, and a list of the angelic hierarchy, the last of which is probably a later addition.[36]\n\nManuscripts and translations\n\nThe Cave of Treasures circulated widely in late antiquity and the medieval period, surviving in multiple versions and languages.[37] The original Syriac text is extant in 34 manuscripts preserved in two different recensions. While these recensions diverge significantly, both ultimately derive from the same archetype. Each recension was discovered in separate regions, one in the Syriac Orthodox milieu and the other in the Church of the East, suggesting that they reflect the shared Syriac heritage of their respective communities while also bearing the imprint of their distinct theological perspectives.[38]\n\nBeyond Syriac, the work was translated into Arabic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and possibly Coptic.[39] \n\nThe Arabic (مغارة الكنوز; Maghārat al-Kunūz) survives in two distinct versions. The earliest was translated in Egypt around 750 AD and survives in 46 manuscripts, though none have been translated into modern languages. This version contains significant additions not present in the Syriac, including the insertion of a \"Testament of Adam\". A second Arabic recension, written in Garshuni, is closer to the Syriac source.[34]\n\nThe Ethiopic (መዝገብ ገዛ; Baʿāta Mazāgebet) version, composed sometime between the 13th and 14th centuries, is based on an Arabic Vorlage and has also not been translated. The Coptic survives in two fragmentary manuscripts, which once formed part of a complete text. These fragments correspond closely to the Syriac original and may predate the Arabic translation of 750. Their Greek linguistic features further suggest that a now-lost Greek version may have served as an intermediary.[34]\n\nA Georgian version was produced in the 8th century AD, closely following the Syriac text. However, it contains Arabic names and incorporates the Testament of Adam, which implies that it was translated from Arabic. Since it agrees more closely with the Syriac than with the earliest Arabic version, it likely derives from a different Arabic Vorlage, confirming the existence of two independent Arabic recensions.[34]\n\nThese translations, in their attempt to reconcile and merge the two Syriac recensions, represent different interpretive traditions of the same work. One of the important manuscripts that many modern translations are based on is British Museum Add. 25875, preserved in London. Although not an original Syriac witness, its close textual correspondence to the ancient versions makes it more faithful to the archetype than either of the two surviving Syriac recensions.[40]\n\nSome passages from the Cave of Treasures are found in the Coptic Enconium of Mary Magdalene of Pseudo-Cyril.[41]\n\nSee also\n\nChronicle of Zuqnin\n\nChronicle of 1234\n\nMichael the Syrian's Chronicle\n\nIranian history\n\nAssyrian continuity\n\nBiblical canon\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Bauckham, Davila & Panayotov (2013), p. 353.\n\n^ a b McDowell (2025), p. 296.\n\n^ McDowell (2025), p. 303.\n\n^ Brock (1997), p. 39.\n\n^ McDowell (2025), pp. 304-305.\n\n^ Wood (2019), pp. 407-408.\n\n^ Toepel (2019), p. 509.\n\n^ a b Minov (2014), p. 165.\n\n^ Minov (2017), pp. 1-2.\n\n^ a b Wood (2011), p. 132.\n\n^ Wood (2011), pp. 131-132.\n\n^ Wood (2011), p. 136.\n\n^ Wood (2011), pp. 136-137.\n\n^ a b Wood (2011), p. 137.\n\n^ Brock et al. (2011), p. 90.\n\n^ Wood (2011), p. 134.\n\n^ Wood (2011), pp. 133-134.\n\n^ Wood (2012), p. 74.\n\n^ Minov (2020), p. 196.\n\n^ Minov (2020), p. 202.\n\n^ Minov (2020), p. 195.\n\n^ Wood (2019), p. 140.\n\n^ Wood (2011), pp. 132-134.\n\n^ Wood (2011), p. 139.\n\n^ Wood (2011), pp. 139-140.\n\n^ Toepel (2019), pp. 511-514.\n\n^ Minov (2014), pp. 151-152.\n\n^ a b Minov (2014), pp. 153-154.\n\n^ Minov (2014), p. 155.\n\n^ Minov (2014), p. 156.\n\n^ Minov (2014), pp. 157-160.\n\n^ Minov (2014), pp. 168-169.\n\n^ Minov (2014), p. 174.\n\n^ a b c d Bauckham, Davila & Panayotov (2013), p. 534.\n\n^ McDowell (2025), p. 308.\n\n^ McDowell (2025), p. 307.\n\n^ Wood (2019), p. 408.\n\n^ Bauckham, Davila & Panayotov (2013), pp. 532-533.\n\n^ Toepel (2019), p. 508.\n\n^ Bauckham, Davila & Panayotov (2013), p. 535.\n\n^ Marquis (2016), p. 197.\n\nSources\n\nBauckham, Richard; Davila, James; Panayotov, Alex (2013-11-18). Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-2739-5.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P.; Butts, Aaron M.; Kiraz, George A.; Van Rompay, Lucas (2011). \"Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage\". Beth Mardutho. ISBN 9781593337148 - via Academia.edu.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nMcDowell, Gavin (2025-10-13). The Rewritten Bible in Late Antiquity: »Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer«, »Jubilees«, and the »Cave of Treasures«. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783111590776. ISBN 978-3-11-159033-2.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2013). \"The Cave of Treasures and the Formation of Syriac Christian Identity in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Between Tradition and Innovation\". Between Personal and Institutional Religion: Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity. Brepols: Turnhout. pp. 155-194.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2014). \"Dynamics of Christian Acculturation in the Sasanian Empire: Some Iranian Motifs in the Cave of Treasures\". Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians: Religious Dynamics in a Sasanian Context. Piscataway: Gorgias Press. pp. 149-201.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2017). \"Date and Provenance of the Syriac Cave of Treasures: A Reappraisal\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 20 (1): 129-229. doi:10.31826/hug-2018-200105.\n\nMinov, Sergey (2020). Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004445512.\n\nToepel, Alexander (2013). \"The Cave of Treasures: A new Translation and Introduction\". Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 531-584. ISBN 9780802827395.\n\nToepel, Alexander (2019). \"Late Paganism as Witnessed by the Syriac Cave of Treasures\". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 59 (3): 507-528.\n\nWood, Philip (2011). Panicker, Geevarghese; Thekeparampil, Jakob; Kalakudi, Abraham (eds.). The Harp. Vol. 22. USA: Gorgias Press. pp. 131-140. doi:10.31826/9781463233112/html. ISBN 978-1-4632-3311-2.\n\nWood, Philip (2012). \"Syriac and the Syrians\". The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 170-194. ISBN 978-0-19-027753-6.\n\nWood, Philip (2019). \"Historiography in the Syriac-Speaking World, 300-1000\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. ISBN 9780367732363.\n\nMarquis, Christine Luckritz (2016). \"An Enconium of Mary Magdalene: A new translation and introduction\". In Landau, B. (ed.). New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Vol. 1. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-8028-7289-0.\n\nExternal links\n\nTranslation of the Book of the Cave of Treasures"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-cave-of-treasures"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3444}, {"slug": "reference-david-barsum-perley", "title": "David Barsum Perley", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "David Barsum Kashish (1901 - July 14, 1979), better known as David Barsum Perley, was an Assyrian nationalist writer and activist.[1] Originally of the Syriac Orthodox Church,[2] Perley dedicated his life's work to researching and advancing the Assyrian community, and his writings/philosophy would become part of the backbone...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "David Barsum Perley\n\nPortrait photograph of Perley, c. 1970s\n\nBorn1901\nElazığ, Ottoman Empire\n\nDiedJuly 14, 1979(1979-07-14) (aged 77-78)\nEast Patchogue, New York, U.S.\n\nOther nameDavid Barsum Kashish\n\nEducationBoston University (BA)\n\nNew York University (JD)\n\nOccupationsLawyer, writer\n\nYears active1935 - 1979\n\nKnown forAssyrian nationalist activism\n\nDavid Barsum Kashish (1901 - July 14, 1979), better known as David Barsum Perley, was an Assyrian nationalist writer and activist.[1] Originally of the Syriac Orthodox Church,[2] Perley dedicated his life's work to researching and advancing the Assyrian community, and his writings/philosophy would become part of the backbone for larger Assyrian nationalist thought. \n\nEarly life\n\nDavid Kashish was born in 1901 in Elazığ (Harput), in the Ottoman Empire, as the second youngest of six children.[3][4] His family was active in the Assyrian community of Harput and were members of the Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) Church.[5]\n\nKashish was a student of the Assyrian nationalist figure Ashur Yousif,[6] and he attended the Euphrates College in Harput.[4] His father was killed during the Assyrian genocide, and after a two-year stay in Russia, he emigrated to Massachusetts, United States.[7][1] At some point, he changed his last name to Perley.[8]\n\nCareer and activism\n\nPerley first enrolled in the International College in Springfield upon his arrival,[5] and later graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1926 and from New York University with a Juris Doctor in 1933.[3][4] He practiced law in Paterson, New Jersey, specializing in immigrant cases.[1]\n\nAfter the Simele massacre, Perley was left distraught and contributed to two chapters in The British Betrayal of the Assyrians.[3] He co-founded[9] the Assyrian National Federation (now the Assyrian American National Federation) in response to the massacre,[10] together with Assyrian organizations in Massachusetts, Yonkers, Philadelphia, and Connecticut.[11][12] The notion of a British betrayal towards the Assyrians would remain a consistent theme throughout his writings.[13]\n\nMuch like other Syriac Orthodox Assyrians at the time, Perley loathed being labeled by his religious denomination.[14] He was critical of the mixing of religious affiliation with ethnicity and emphasized Assyrian ethnic identity over church names, asserting that members of the East and West Syriac churches were one like other Assyrian activists in his time.[15] Perley also dedicated writings to defending the Assyrian Church of the East from the Nestorian misnomer.[16] He was also critical of scholars who disputed Assyrian continuity and pinned the ancient Assyrians as a cruel empire,[17] challenging those such as Arnold J. Toynbee and Adolf Leo Oppenheim.[4][18]\n\nIn 1944, Perley authored Whither Christian Missions, representing Assyrian accounts of the Simele massacre.[14] In 1973, Perley was awarded the Star of Ashur as the highest honor of the Assyrian Universal Alliance.[16] He died at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in East Patchogue, New York on July 14, 1979.[19]\n\nLegacy\n\nPerley is remembered as a strong advocate for the Assyrian community,[20][10] and was known for his philosophical views on Assyrian nationalism.[21] He is considered to be one of the fathers of the Assyrian nationalist movement, with the ideal of unifying different confessions and geographical origins embedded into the AANF.[11][22]\n\nIn 1984, a memorial fund was established by Perley's family and friends in his honor at Harvard University.[23] The fund was established in order to promote the research of Assyrian history, culture, language, and literature past the 17th century. A collection of books from the fund is maintained by the Middle East Division of Harvard Library.[2]\n\nPerley's later relatives are believed to have been assimilated into American society, highlighted by an anecdote recorded in Erin Hughes' thesis about a young woman (Perley's relative) inquiring about Assyrians at an event.[24] In August 2016, a collective of writings by Perley was published as the first book of the independent Nineveh Press.[25][26] The book's editor, Tomas Beth-Avdalla, had begun compiling materials in 2010 and had sent manuscripts to an Assyrian publisher in Sweden, which was rejected. The book contains articles, letters, speeches, and other published work by/related to Perley.[16]\n\nWorks\n\nPerley, David Barsum (1944). Whither Christian Missions?: John Van Ess of the Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America Persecutes the Assyrian Race and Church. Randolph Press.\n\nPerley, David Barsum (2016). Beth-Avdalla, Tomas (ed.). A Collection of Writings on Assyrians. Enschede: Nineveh Press. ISBN 978-9198344103.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Coakley, James F. \"Perley, David Barsum (1901-1979)\". gedsh.bethmardutho.org. Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Retrieved 16 July 2025.\n\n^ a b Naby, Eden. \"David B. Perley Memorial Assyrian Fund\". edennaby.com. Eden Naby. Archived from the original on 2008-10-14. Retrieved 16 July 2025.\n\n^ a b c Banyamin, Brian (9 May 2025). \"David Barsum Perley\". auaf.us. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Assyrian Cultural Foundation. Retrieved 2025-07-16.\n\n^ a b c d Donabed & Donabed 2006, p. 103.\n\n^ a b Michael 1979, p. 5.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2011, p. 25.\n\n^ Aprim, Fred (May-June 2000). \"David Barsoum Perley, J.S.D. (1901-1979)\" (PDF). fredaprim.com. Renyo Hiro Magazine. Retrieved 16 July 2025.\n\n^ Donabed & Donabed 2006, p. 56.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, pp. 105-106.\n\n^ a b Donabed, Sargon (2016). \"FOREWORD\". A Collection of Writings on Assyrians. Enschede: Nineveh Press. Retrieved 16 July 2025.\n\n^ a b Hughes 2016, p. 136.\n\n^ Atto 2011, p. 281, footnote 538.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante (5 June 2024). \"The Rise and Fall of Assyrian Nationalism\" (PDF). Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 45. Lund University: 60. ISSN 1608-7526.\n\n^ a b Donabed & Mako 2011, p. 26.\n\n^ Donabed & Mako 2009, p. 92.\n\n^ a b c Lundgren, Svante (23 December 2016). \"Legendary Assyrian American's Works Published\". www.ishtartv.com. Ishtar TV. Retrieved 2025-07-16.\n\n^ Michael 1979, pp. 15-16, 18.\n\n^ Michael 1979, p. 3.\n\n^ \"David Barsam Perley\". The Long Island Advance. July 19, 1979. p. 22A. Retrieved February 15, 2026.\n\n^ Naby, Eden (May-June 1980). \"EULOGY FOR DAVID BARSUM PERLEY: Delivered on the Fortieth Day of his Death by Eden Naby (Frye) at the Assyrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary on 19 August 1979 Paramus, N.J.\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 3, no. 3. Berkeley, California. p. 7. Retrieved 16 July 2025.\n\n^ Donabed & Donabed 2006, p. 57.\n\n^ Atto 2011, pp. 281-282.\n\n^ \"David B. Perley Memorial Assyrian Fund\". Harvard Library Collection Funds. Retrieved 2023-11-20.\n\n^ Hughes 2016, p. 138.\n\n^ Snell, Joe (2018-06-16). \"Tomas Beth-Avdalla stands up for modern Assyrian literature\". theassyrianjournal.com. The Assyrian Journal. Retrieved 2025-07-16.\n\n^ \"Q&A with Nineveh Press founder Tomas Beth-Avdalla\". auaf.us. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Assyrian Cultural Foundation. 20 September 2024. Retrieved 2025-07-16.\n\nBibliography\n\nAtto, Naures (2011). Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora: Identity Discourses Among the Assyrian/Syriac Elites in the European Diaspora (PDF). Leiden University Press. Retrieved 11 November 2025.\n\nDonabed, Sargon; Donabed, Ninos (2006). Assyrians of Eastern Massachusetts. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738544809.\n\nDonabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (1 September 2009). \"Ethno-Cultural and Religious Identity of Syrian Orthodox Christians\". Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. ISSN 1608-7526 - via SSRN.\n\nDonabed, Sargon; Mako, Shamiran (27 July 2011). \"Harput, Turkey to Massachusetts: Immigration of Jacobite Christians\". Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 23: 19-42. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1895722. ISSN 1608-7526. SSRN 1895722.\n\nHughes, Erin (29 June 2016). An American atra? Boundaries of diasporic nation-building amongst Assyrians and Chaldeans in the United States (PhD thesis). The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 13 April 2024.\n\nMichael, Sargon R., ed. (2 April 1979). \"Special issue dedicated in memory of Dr. David B. Perley\" (PDF). Nineveh Magazine. Vol. 2, no. 4. Berkeley, California. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2023. Retrieved 16 July 2025."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-david-barsum-perley"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1253}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-mexico", "title": "Assyrians in Mexico", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyrians in Mexico (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܡܟܣܝܩܘ, Spanish: Asirios en México), or Mexican Assyrians, are Assyrian people or people of Assyrian descent living in Mexico. Most of the Assyrian immigrants who arrived in the country were Chaldean Catholic, as they fled from religious persecution and ethnic persecution in their...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Mexico\nܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܡܟܣܝܩܘ\nAsirios en México\n\nTotal population\n\nest. 2,000 Mexicans of Assyrian descent[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nMexico City, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Baja California, Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Durango, Puebla\n\nLanguages\n\nMexican Spanish, Neo-Aramaic, Arabic, Persian\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nAssyrians in Mexico (Syriac: ܣܘܪ̈ܝܐ ܕܡܟܣܝܩܘ, Spanish: Asirios en México), or Mexican Assyrians, are Assyrian people or people of Assyrian descent living in Mexico. Most of the Assyrian immigrants who arrived in the country were Chaldean Catholic, as they fled from religious persecution and ethnic persecution in their historical homeland in modern-day Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran.\n\nHistory\n\nThe immigration of Chaldo-Assyrians from northern Iraq to North America started at the beginning of the 20th century. They, alongside Armenians, all came to the New World looking for job opportunities and for a better life. Driven out by the harsh treatment of the conquering Turks, most followed family members, joining them in established businesses. Jajjo Hajji is widely considered the first pioneer in Mexico. Hajji ended up in Veracruz, Mexico after leaving Adana, Turkey in 1901. Several other Chaldo-Assyrians migrated from Tel Keppe to Mexico and established communities in Salina Cruz, Saint Louis, Tecuala, Estabeca, Montreux, Mérida (Yucatán), and Mexico City.[2]\n\nCulture\n\nDue to a diluted population and a community scattered over a large geographic region, there is not a strong number of Chaldean churches in Mexico. Youth groups, social organizations, and inter-ethnic marriage in the Assyrian-Mexican community have resulted in a marked language shift away from Neo-Aramaic toward Spanish. The majority especially those of younger generations speak Spanish as their first language.[2]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian diaspora\n\nReferences\n\n^ Brief History of Assyrians, AINA.org\n\n^ a b Miri, Dr. Adhid. \"Chaldeans in Mexico\". Chaldean News. Retrieved 2020-08-27."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-mexico"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 296}, {"slug": "reference-sin-sar-iskun", "title": "Sîn-šar-iškun", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Sîn-šar-iškun (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒁹𒀭𒌍𒌋𒌋𒃻𒌦, romanized: Sîn-šar-iškun[4][5] or Sîn-šarru-iškun,[6] meaning \"Sîn has established the king\")[5] was the penultimate king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, reigning from the death of his brother and predecessor Aššur-etil-ilāni in 627 BCE to his own death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Sîn-šar-iškun\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of Babylon\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign627-612 BCE[1]\n\nPredecessorAššur-etil-ilāni\n\nSuccessorAššur-uballiṭ II\n(Assyria)\nNabopolassar\n(Babylon)\n\nBornBefore 660 BCE\n\nDiedAugust 612 BCE[2]\nNineveh\n\nSpouseAna-Tašmētum-taklāk (?)\n\nIssueAššur-uballiṭ II[3] (?)\n\nAkkadianSîn-šar-iškun\nSîn-šarru-iškun\n\nDynastySargonid dynasty\n\nFatherAshurbanipal\n\nMotherLibbāli-šarrat\n\nSîn-šar-iškun (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒁹𒀭𒌍𒌋𒌋𒃻𒌦, romanized: Sîn-šar-iškun[4][5] or Sîn-šarru-iškun,[6] meaning \"Sîn has established the king\")[5] was the penultimate king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, reigning from the death of his brother and predecessor Aššur-etil-ilāni in 627 BCE to his own death at the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE.\n\nSucceeding his brother in uncertain, possibly violent circumstances, Sîn-šar-iškun was immediately faced by the revolt of one of his brother's chief generals, Sîn-šumu-līšir, who attempted to usurp the throne for himself and briefly took over much of Babylonia. Though Sîn-šumu-līšir was defeated relatively quickly, the instability caused by his revolt, combined with an ongoing interregnum in Babylonia in the south (neither Sîn-šar-iškun nor Sîn-šumu-līšir had formally proclaimed themselves as kings of Babylon) might be what made it possible for Nabopolassar, a southerner of unclear origin, to rise up and seize power in Babylonia. Sîn-šar-iškun's inability to defeat Nabopolassar, despite repeated attempts over the course of several years, allowed Nabopolassar to consolidate power and form the Neo-Babylonian Empire, restoring Babylonian independence after more than a century of Assyrian rule and centuries of domination prior to that.\n\nThe Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the Median ruler Cyaxares, technically still a vassal of Assyria, then invaded the Assyrian heartland. In 614 BCE, the Medes captured and sacked Assur, the ceremonial and religious heart of the Assyrian Empire while much of the Assyrian army was occupied fighting the Babylonians, and in 612 BCE their combined armies attacked, brutally sacked, and razed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. Sîn-šar-iškun's fate is unknown, but it is assumed that he died in the defence of his capital. He was succeeded as king only by Aššur-uballiṭ II, possibly his son, who fought his way out of Nineveh and rallied what remained of the Assyrian army at the city of Harran\n\nDespite the catastrophic fall of Assyria during his time as king, there is nothing to suggest that Sîn-šar-iškun was any less competent than his successful warrior-king predecessors who had dominated Western Asia for centuries. He employed the same tactics as his predecessors and appears to have utilized his forces rationally and strategically, fighting entirely in-line with traditional Assyrian warfare. What doomed the Assyrian Empire might instead have been a combination of the weakening of Assyrian military power caused by internal revolts, the lack of an effective defensive plan for the Assyrian heartland, which had not been successfully invaded in over eight hundred years, over expansion of the Assyrian empire leading its military to be spread too thinly, combined with having to face multiple enemies in large numbers which aimed to outright destroy Assyria rather than simply conquer it.\n\nBackground\n\nChronology\n\nAs a consequence of Assyria's violent downfall,[7] the period from a few years before the death of Ashurbanipal to the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE suffers from a distinct lack of surviving sources. The annals of Ashurbanipal, the primary sources for his reign, go no further than 636 BCE.[8] Although Ashurbanipal's final year is often repeated as 627 BCE[9][10], this follows an inscription at Harran made by the mother of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus nearly a century later. The final contemporary evidence for Ashurbanipal being alive and reigning as king is a contract from the city of Nippur made in 631 BCE.[11] To get the attested lengths of the reigns of his successors to match, most scholars agree that Ashurbanipal either died, abdicated or was deposed in 631 BCE.[12] Of the three options, a death in 631 BCE is the most accepted.[13] If Ashurbanipal's reign would have ended in 627 BCE, the inscriptions of his successors Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun in Babylon, covering several years, would have been impossible since the city was seized by the Neo-Babylonian king Nabopolassar in 626 BCE to never again fall into Assyrian hands.[14]\n\nAshurbanipal had named his successor as early as 660 BCE, when documents referencing a crown prince (probably Aššur-etil-ilāni) were written. He had been the father of at least one son, and probably two, early on in his reign. These early sons were likely Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun.[15] Aššur-etil-ilāni succeeded Ashurbanipal as king in 631 BCE and ruled until his own death in 627 BCE. It is frequently assumed, without any supporting evidence, that Sîn-šar-iškun fought with Aššur-etil-ilāni for the throne.[16]\n\nSîn-šar-iškun has sometimes historically and erroneously been known as Esarhaddon II after a letter written by Šērūʾa-ēṭirat, a daughter of Sîn-šar-iškun's grandfather Esarhaddon. The chronology and relations of the royal family were uncertain and Šērūʾa-ēṭirat was believed to have been too young to refer to the famous Esarhaddon. The idea of a separate Esarhaddon II as king has been abandoned by Assyriologists since the late 19th century,[17] but the name sometimes appears as a synonym of Sîn-šar-iškun.[18][19]\n\nAssyria and Babylonia\n\nIn the middle of the seventh century BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire ruled the entire Near East. Due to their powerful standing army and their sophisticated administration, the Assyrians had managed to create the best organized and largest empire that the world had yet seen.[7] Though Babylonia in the south had also once been a large kingdom, it had typically been weaker than its northern neighbor due to internal divisions and the lack of a well-organized army. The population of Babylonia was divided into various ethnic groups with different priorities and ideals. Though old native Babylonians ruled most of the cities, such as Kish, Ur, Uruk, Borsippa, Nippur, and Babylon itself, the Chaldean tribes, led by chieftains who often squabbled with each other, dominated most of the southernmost land.[20] The Arameans lived on the fringes of settled land and were notorious for plundering surrounding territories. Because of the infighting of these three major groups, Babylonia often represented an appealing target for Assyrian campaigns.[21] The two kingdoms had competed since the rise of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BCE, and in the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians consistently gained the upper hand.[22] Babylon's internal and external weakness led to its conquest by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 729 BCE.[21]\n\nDuring the expansion of Assyria into a major empire, the Assyrians had conquered various neighboring kingdoms, either annexing them as Assyrian provinces or turning them into vassal states. Because the Assyrians venerated the long history and culture of Babylon, it was preserved as a full kingdom, either ruled by an appointed client king, or by the Assyrian king in a personal union.[21] The relationship between Assyria and Babylonia was similar to the relationship between Greece and Rome in later centuries; much of Assyria's culture, texts and traditions had been imported from the south. Assyria and Babylonia also shared the same language (Akkadian).[23] The relationship between Assyria and Babylon was emotional in a sense; Neo-Assyrian inscriptions implicitly gender the two countries, calling Assyria the metaphorical \"husband\" and Babylon its \"wife\". In the words of the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm, \"the Assyrians were in love with Babylon, but also wished to dominate her\". Though Babylon was respected as the well-spring of civilization, it was expected to remain passive in political matters, something that Assyria's \"Babylonian bride\" repeatedly refused to be.[24]\n\nThe Assyrians attempted various strategies to appease their Babylonian subjects throughout the eighth and seventh centuries BC; ranging from violent subjugation through war to direct rule either by the Assyrian king or by a representative (sometimes a relative such as a son or brother). Though there was some success in pacifying the urban population of Babylonians, the Arameans and Chaldeans remained unconvinced and repeatedly rebelled whenever they saw an opportunity. Despite the enormous effort spent in keeping the region, Babylonia was seen as too important economically and strategically to allow to secede, but no matter what the Assyrians attempted, rebellion and civil war was the inevitable result each time. Prolonged Assyrian control of Babylonia proved so impossible that modern researchers have dubbed it the \"Babylonian problem\".[25]\n\nReign\n\nRise to the throne and revolt of Sîn-šumu-līšir\n\nIn the middle of 627 BCE, Ashurbanipal's son and successor Aššur-etil-ilāni died, leading to Aššur-etil-ilāni's brother Sîn-šar-iškun ascending to the Assyrian throne.[26] Although it has been suggested by several historians, there is no evidence to prove the idea that Aššur-etil-ilāni was deposed in a coup by his brother. Sîn-šar-iškun's inscriptions state that he was selected for the kingship from among several of \"his equals\" (i.e., his brothers) by the gods.[27]\n\nAlso dying at roughly the same time as Aššur-etil-ilāni was the vassal king of Babylon, Kandalanu, which led to Sîn-šar-iškun also becoming the ruler of Babylon, as proven by inscriptions by him in southern cities such as Nippur, Uruk, Sippar and Babylon itself.[28] Sîn-šar-iškun's rule of Babylon did not last long, and almost immediately in the wake of him coming to the throne, the general Sîn-šumu-līšir rebelled.[26] Sîn-šumu-līšir had been a key figure in Assyria during Aššur-etil-ilāni's reign, putting down several revolts and possibly being the de facto leader of the country. The rise of another king might have endangered his position and as such led him to revolt and attempt to seize power for himself.[28] Sîn-šumu-līšir was a eunuch and the only eunuch to claim the throne of Assyria. The possibility that a eunuch, normally trusted due to their perceived lack of political ambition, would do so had never been entertained prior to Sîn-šumu-līšir's attempt.[29][30]\n\nSîn-šumu-līšir successfully seized control of some cities in northern Babylonia, including Nippur and Babylon itself and would rule there for three months before Sîn-šar-iškun defeated him.[26] Though both of them exercised control there, it is unclear if Sîn-šar-iškun and Sîn-šumu-līšir actually claimed the title \"king of Babylon\" (or only used \"king of Assyria\"), meaning that Babylonia could have experienced an interregnum of sorts.[31] Modern historians typically include both Sîn-šumu-līšir and Sîn-šar-iškun in lists of Babylonian kings, as did some ancient Babylonian king lists.[32][33]\n\nRise of Babylon under Nabopolassar\n\nSome months after Sîn-šumu-līšir's revolt, another revolt began in Babylon. An official or general called Nabopolassar, possibly using the political instability caused by the previous revolt[26] and the ongoing interregnum in the south,[31] assaulted both Nippur and Babylon.[n 1] Nabopolassar's armies took the cities from the garrisons left there by Sîn-šar-iškun but the Assyrian response was swift and in October of 626 BCE, the Assyrian army recaptured Nippur and besieged Nabopolassar at Uruk. A simultaneous Assyrian attempt at recapturing Babylon itself, the last Assyrian action against the city, was repulsed by Nabopolassar's garrison and the attack at Uruk also failed.[35]\n\nIn the aftermath of the failed Assyrian counterattack, Nabopolassar was formally crowned king of Babylon on November 22/23 626 BCE, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom.[35] In 625-623 BCE, Sîn-šar-iškun's forces again attempted to defeat Nabopolassar, campaigning in northern Babylonia. Initially, these campaigns were successful; in 625 BCE the Assyrians took the city of Sippar and Nabopolassar's attempted reconquest of Nippur failed. Another of Assyria's vassals, Elam, also stopped paying tribute to Assyria during this time and several Babylonian cities, such as Der, revolted and joined Nabopolassar. Realizing the threat this posed, Sîn-šar-iškun led a massive counterattack himself which saw the successful recapture of Uruk in 623 BCE.[36]\n\nSîn-šar-iškun might have ultimately been victorious had it not been for another revolt, led by an Assyrian general in the empire's western provinces in 622 BCE.[36] This general, whose name remains unknown, took advantage of the absence of Sîn-šar-iškun and the Assyrian army to march on Nineveh, met a hastily organized army which surrendered without fighting and successfully seized the Assyrian throne. The surrender of the army indicates that the usurper was an Assyrian and possibly even a member of the royal family, or at least a person that would be acceptable as king.[37] Understandably alarmed by this development, Sîn-šar-iškun abandoned his Babylonian campaign and though he successfully defeated the usurper after a hundred days of civil war, the absence of the Assyrian army saw the Babylonians conquer the last remaining Assyrian outposts in Babylonia in 622-620 BCE.[36] The Babylonian siege of Uruk had begun by October 622 BCE and though control of the ancient city would shift between Assyria and Babylon, it was firmly in Nabopolassar's hands by 620 BCE. Nippur was also conquered in 620 BCE and Nabopolassar pushed the Assyrians out of Babylonia.[38] Though he had successfully driven out the Assyrian army, pro-Assyrian factions still existed in some Babylonian cities, for instance Ur and Nippur, by 617 BCE, making Nabopolassar's full consolidation of control in the south slow.[39] The fighting in Babylonia in the last stages of the localized conflict turned conditions so desperate in some places that parents sold their children into slavery to avoid them starving to death.[40]\n\nFighting in Assyria\n\nWhile unlikely to have been received positively, the end of Assyrian rule in Babylonia would probably not have been regarded as significant to the Assyrians at the time. All fighting had happened in Babylonia and the outcome was not yet decisive, characteristic of previous Assyro-Babylonian conflicts in the Neo-Assyrian period. In previous uprisings, the Babylonians had sometimes temporarily gained the upper hand as well and there was no reason to believe that Nabopolassar's success would be anything but a temporary inconvenience.[39]\n\nIn 616 BCE, Nabopolassar entered Assyrian territory for the first time, leading his armies along the Euphrates river into lands in present-day Syria. As he marched on, he took the Assyrian city Hindanu and reached the Balikh River, where he defeated an Assyrian force near the city Gablinu. Nabopolassar then pushed north, reaching as far as the Khabur River. The Assyrians swiftly regrouped in order to deal with the threat.[39] Realizing that the situation was dire, Assyria's ally, Pharaoh Psamtik I of Egypt, marched his troops to aid Sîn-šar-iškun. Psamtik had over the last few years campaigned to establish dominance over the small city-states of the Levant and it was in his interests that Assyria survived as a buffer state between his own empire and those of the Babylonians and Medes in the east.[38] A joint Egyptian-Assyrian campaign to capture the city of Gablinu was undertaken in October of 616 BCE, but ended in failure after which the Egyptian allies kept to the west of the Euphrates, only offering limited support.[41] Both the Assyrians and the Babylonians then withdrew, though the Babylonians retained Hindanu and now controlled the middle Euphrates, a major strategical victory and probably the first step in Nabopolassar's plan to counteract the possibility of an Assyrian invasion of Babylonia. That Nabopolassar withdrew at the same time as the Assyrians did suggests that the Babylonians were not yet ready to conduct a full invasion of Assyria and that their plans were at this time just to secure Babylonian independence, not to conquer and destroy Assyria.[39]\n\nIn March 615 BCE, Nabopolassar inflicted a crushing defeat on the Assyrian army at the banks of the Tigris, pushing them back to the Little Zab.[7] This victory weakened Assyrian control of the buffer zone that had established around the middle of the Tigris river between the two kingdoms, meaning that the Babylonians now controlled lands directly bordering the Assyrian heartland itself.[42]\n\nFall of the Assyrian Empire\n\nIn May 615 BCE, Nabopolassar and the Babylonians assaulted Assur, the ceremonial and religious center of Assyria and the Assyrian Empire's southernmost remaining city. Sîn-šar-iškun swiftly rallied his army and counterattacked, lifting the siege of Assur and forcing Nabopolassar to retreat to the city of Takrit. There, Sîn-šar-iškun besieged Nabopolassar, but he was eventually forced to abandon the siege.[7][42] Though the conflict had shifted to Assyria becoming the defender, the war was at this point still being fought according to standard Mesopotamian practice, with attacks, counterattacks and retreats and neither side having the confidence or means to force a decisive confrontation. Despite constant defeats and setbacks, the Assyrian army remained powerful and capable of being deployed rapidly.[42]\n\nIn late 615 BCE[41] or in 614 BCE,[42] the Medes under their king Cyaxares entered Assyria and conquered the region around the city of Arrapha in preparation for a campaign against Sîn-šar-iškun.[41] Although there are plenty of earlier sources discussing Assyro-Median relations, none are preserved from the period leading up to Cyaxares's invasion and as such, the political context and reasons for the sudden attack are not known.[7] Perhaps, the war between Babylonia and Assyria had disrupted the economy of the Medes and inspired a direct intervention.[42]\n\nIn July or August of 614 BCE, the Medes mounted attacks on the cities of Nimrud and Nineveh and successfully conquered the city of Tarbiṣu. They then besieged Assur. This siege was successful and the Medes captured the ancient heart of Assyria, plundering it and killing many of its inhabitants.[2] The brutal sack of Assur came as a shock to people throughout the Near East. Even the Babylonian chronicles, hostile to Assyria, speak of the Medes as unnecessarily brutal, stating that they \"inflicted a terrible defeat on a great people, pillaged and looted them and robbed them\".[43] Nabopolassar only arrived at Assur after the plunder had already begun and met with Cyaxares, allying with him and signing an anti-Assyrian pact.[2] The treaty between the Babylonians and Medes was sealed through the marriage of Nabopolassar's son and heir, Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyaxares's daughter, Amytis.[44] The onset of winter after the fall of Assur meant that both the Medes and Babylonians then returned to their homelands, preparing for further campaigns in the next year. The Assyrians appear to have not recognized the severity of their situation as they did not use the pause in the fighting to fall back into, and prepare, defensive positions. Instead of repairing the damage in Nimrud, the populace there dismantled the walls further to prepare for future renovation work (which would never happen).[43]\n\nIn an attempt to keep the enemies out of Assyria, Sîn-šar-iškun went on the offensive in 613 BCE, attacking Nabopolassar's forces in the middle Euphrates, occupied at the time with suppressing an Assyrian-supported rebellion of a local tribe.[43] Sinshariskun successfully rescued the tribe's besieged city of Rahilu, but Nabopolassar's army retreated before a battle could take place.[2] Around this time, Sîn-šar-iškun, apparently finally recognizing the disaster that was about to befall his kingdom, sent a letter to Nabopolassar, attempting to broker peace. Sîn-šar-iškun pleaded with Nabopolassar to avoid any more bloodshed and wrote that he should \"quiet his fuery heart\". Nabopolassar was not interested; Sîn-šar-iškun had waited too long and there was no longer anything he could offer that the Babylonians and Medes would not be able to take for themselves in battle. A harsh response was sent, in which Nabopolassar declared that \"[Nineveh's] roots I shall pluck out and the foundations of the land I shall obliterate\".[45] The original tablets containing these letters have not been preserved, with the known text instead having been derived from tablets made during Seleucid times, centuries later. Whether the letters are copies of authentic, more ancient, originals, or fabrications entirely is a matter of debate.[46]\n\nIn April or May 612 BCE, at the start of Nabopolassar's fourteenth year as king of Babylon, the combined Medo-Babylonian army marched on Nineveh.[2] Sîn-šar-iškun rallied his forces to make a final stand at the capital but stood little chance at defending it on account of the city's massive size.[47] From June to August 612 BCE, the Medo-Babylonian army besieged the Assyrian capital and in August the walls were breached, leading to a lengthy and brutal sack.[2] The city was looted, depictions of the Assyrian kings were mutilated and inhabitants as young as the age of ten were slaughtered en masse before the entire city was razed and burned to the ground.[47] Sîn-šar-iškun's fate is not entirely certain but it is commonly accepted that he died in the defense of Nineveh.[48][49]\n\nLegacy\n\nSuccession\n\nWith the destructions of Assur in 614 BCE and Nineveh in 612 BCE, the Assyrian Empire had essentially ceased to exist.[50] Sîn-šar-iškun was succeeded by another Assyrian king, Aššur-uballiṭ II, possibly his son and probably the same person as a crown prince mentioned in inscriptions at Nineveh from 626 and 623 BCE. Aššur-uballiṭ established himself at Harran in the west.[48] Because Assur had been destroyed, Aššur-uballiṭ could not undergo the traditional coronation of the Assyrian monarchs and could thus not be invested with the kingship by the god Ashur and because of this, inscriptions from his brief reign indicate that he was viewed as the legitimate ruler by his subjects, but still with the title of crown prince and not king. To the Assyrians, Sîn-šar-iškun was the last true king.[51]\n\nAššur-uballiṭ's rule at Harran lasted just three years and he fled the city when Nabopolassar's army approached in 610 BCE.[52] An attempt at recapturing Harran carried out with the remnants of the Assyrian army and Egyptian reinforcements in 609 BCE failed, after which Aššur-uballiṭ and the Assyrians he commanded disappear from history, never again to be mentioned in Babylonian sources.[53][54]\n\nThe Biblical Book of Nahum \"prophetically\" discusses the Fall of Nineveh, but it is unclear when it was written. It may have been written as early as during Ashurbanipal's Egyptian campaign in the 660s BCE, or as late as around the time of Nineveh's actual fall. If it was written around 612 BCE, the \"king of Assyria\" mentioned would be Sîn-šar-iškun.[55]\n\nKing of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.\n\n- Nahum 3:18, New International Version[56]\n\nReasons for the fall of Assyria\n\nAlthough it has been a commonly circulated idea that one of the primary reasons that led to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was a civil war between Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun over the throne which weakened Assyria, there is no contemporary text which suggests that this is true. No inscriptions mention a war or even a dispute between the two brothers. There were revolts at the beginnings of both the reign of Aššur-etil-ilāni and Sîn-šar-iškun, but these were minor and dealt with relatively quickly. As such, protracted civil war between contenders to the Assyrian throne was probably not the reason for Assyria's fall.[57]\n\nThe primary reason for Assyria's collapse in the reign of Sîn-šar-iškun is more likely to be the failure to resolve the \"Babylonian problem\" which had plagued Assyrian kings since Assyria first conquered southern Mesopotamia. Despite the many attempts of the kings of the Sargonid dynasty to resolve the constant rebellions in the south in a variety of different ways; Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon and Esarhaddon's restoration of it, rebellions and insurrections remained common. Nabopolassar's revolt was the last in a long line of Babylonian uprisings against the Assyrians and Sîn-šar-iškun's failure to stop it, despite trying for years, doomed his kingdom. The Neo-Babylonian threat, combined with the rise of the Median Empire (Assyria had for many years attempted to stop the formation of a unified Median state through repeated campaigns into Media) culminated in Assyria's destruction.[58]\n\nIt would be easy to ascribe Assyria's catastrophic defeat to a weakened Assyrian military and an incompetent king, but there is no evidence to suggest that Sîn-šar-iškun was an incompetent ruler.[59] Assyria was unprepared for foreign attacks into its heartland since the heartland had not been penetrated for five hundred years; no defensive plan existed because in their experience one had never been needed. Sîn-šar-iškun did not use his forces to defend his territory, instead repeatedly going on the offensive, but he kept entirely faithful to the traditional ways of Assyrian warfare. He used the proven principles of war, as used by his successful ancestors before him; supporting rebellions in enemy countries, using flanking maneuvers, concentrating on one point of the position of the enemy and pressing the attack through taking the war to the enemy. Using alternate tactics probably never occurred to him and with an Assyrian mindset considered, he appears to have been a capable military leader who deployed his forces rationally and strategically. In a normal war, he might have been victorious, but he was wholly unprepared to go on the defensive against an enemy that was both numerically superior and that aimed to destroy his country rather than conquer it.[60]\n\nTitles\n\nFrom one of his inscriptions commemorating his building projects at Nineveh,[61] Sîn-šar-iškun's titles read as follows:\n\nSîn-šar-iškun, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, [missing portion] chosen of Ashur and Ninlil, beloved of Marduk and Sarpanitum, dear to the heart of [missing portion], the sure choice of the heart of Nabu and Marduk, favorite of [missing portion], whom Ashur, Ninlil, Bêl, Nabu, Sin, Nin-gal, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela in the midst of his companions looked upon with sure favor and called his name for the kingship; whom they named in every metropolis, for the priesthood of every sanctuary and for the rule of all the people, to whose aid they kept coming, like his father and mother, slaying his enemies and bringing low his opponents, [missing portion] whom they created for the rulership of the universe and crowned with the crown of rulership among all [missing portion], for the guidance of his subjects, into whose hand Nabu, guardian of all things, placed a righteous scepter and a just staff [missing portion][61]\n\nIn another inscription, commemorating his restoration of a temple, Sîn-šar-iškun incorporates his ancestry:\n\nSîn-šar-iškun, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, son of Ashurbanipal, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, grandson of Esarhaddon, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, great-grandson of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, the unrivaled prince, descendant of Sargon, the great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad.[62]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian kings\n\nMilitary history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nNotes\n\n^ It is also possible that Nabopolassar was an ally of Sîn-šumu-līšir in the previous revolt and merely continued his rebellion, but this theory requires more assumptions without any concrete evidence.[28]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 243.\n\n^ a b c d e f Lipschits 2005, p. 18.\n\n^ Radner 2013.\n\n^ Bertin 1891, p. 50.\n\n^ a b Tallqvist 1914, p. 201.\n\n^ Frahm 1999, p. 322.\n\n^ a b c d e Melville 2011, p. 13.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 121.\n\n^ Encyclopaedia Britannica.\n\n^ Mark 2009.\n\n^ Reade 1970, p. 1.\n\n^ Reade 1998, p. 263.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 8.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 246.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, pp. 122-123.\n\n^ Ahmed 2018, p. 126.\n\n^ Johnston 1899, p. 244.\n\n^ Woodall 2018, p. 108.\n\n^ Myers 1890, p. 51.\n\n^ Brinkman 1973, p. 89.\n\n^ a b c Brinkman 1973, p. 90.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 209.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 208.\n\n^ Frahm 2014, p. 212.\n\n^ Melville 2011, p. 16.\n\n^ a b c d Lipschits 2005, p. 13.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 255.\n\n^ a b c Na'aman 1991, p. 256.\n\n^ Oates 1992, p. 172.\n\n^ Siddal 2007, p. 236.\n\n^ a b Beaulieu 1997, p. 386.\n\n^ Chen 2020, pp. 202-206.\n\n^ Beaulieu 2018, p. 195.\n\n^ Da Riva 2017, p. 81.\n\n^ a b Lipschits 2005, p. 14.\n\n^ a b c Lipschits 2005, p. 15.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 263.\n\n^ a b Lipschits 2005, p. 16.\n\n^ a b c d Melville 2011, p. 17.\n\n^ Sack 2004, p. 7.\n\n^ a b c Lipschits 2005, p. 17.\n\n^ a b c d e Melville 2011, p. 18.\n\n^ a b c Melville 2011, p. 19.\n\n^ Wiseman 1991, p. 229.\n\n^ Melville 2011, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ Da Riva 2017, pp. 80-81.\n\n^ a b Melville 2011, p. 20.\n\n^ a b Yildirim 2017, p. 52.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 135.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 19.\n\n^ Radner 2019, pp. 135-136.\n\n^ Rowton 1951, p. 128.\n\n^ Radner 2019, p. 141.\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 20.\n\n^ Walton, Matthews & Chavalas 2012, p. 791.\n\n^ Nahum 3:18.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 265.\n\n^ Na'aman 1991, p. 266.\n\n^ Melville 2011, p. 21.\n\n^ Melville 2011, p. 27.\n\n^ a b Luckenbill 1927, p. 410.\n\n^ Luckenbill 1927, p. 413.\n\nCited bibliography\n\nAhmed, Sami Said (2018). Southern Mesopotamia in the time of Ashurbanipal. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-103358-7.\n\nBeaulieu, Paul-Alain (1997). \"The Fourth Year of Hostilities in the Land\". Baghdader Mitteilungen. 28: 367-394.\n\nBeaulieu, Paul-Alain (2018). A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-8899-9.\n\nBertin, G. (1891). \"Babylonian Chronology and History\". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 5: 1-52. doi:10.2307/3678045. JSTOR 3678045. S2CID 164087631.\n\nBrinkman, J. A. (1973). \"Sennacherib's Babylonian Problem: An Interpretation\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 25 (2): 89-95. doi:10.2307/1359421. JSTOR 1359421. S2CID 163623620.\n\nChen, Fei (2020). \"A List of Babylonian Kings\". Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-43092-1.\n\nDa Riva, Rocío (2017). \"The Figure of Nabopolassar in Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Historiographic Tradition: BM 34793 and CUA 90\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 76 (1): 75-92. doi:10.1086/690464. S2CID 222433095.\n\nFrahm, Eckhart (1999). \"Kabale und Liebe: Die königliche Familie am Hof zu Ninive\". Von Babylon bis Jerusalem: Die Welt der altorientalischen Königsstädte. Reiss-Museum Mannheim.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (2014). \"Family Matters: Psychohistorical Reflections on Sennacherib and His Times\". In Kalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (eds.). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-26561-5.\n\nJohnston, Christopher (1899). \"A Recent Interpretation of the Letter of an Assyrian Princess\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 20: 244-249. doi:10.2307/592332. JSTOR 592332.\n\nLipschits, Oled (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-095-8.\n\nLuckenbill, Daniel David (1927). Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End. University of Chicago Press.\n\nMelville, Sarah C. (2011). \"The Last Campaign: the Assyrian Way of War and the Collapse of the Empire\". In Lee, Wayne E. (ed.). Warfare and Culture in World History. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-5278-4.\n\nMyers, P. V. N. (1914). A General History for Colleges and High Schools. Boston: Ginn & Company.\n\nNa'aman, Nadav (1991). \"Chronology and History in the Late Assyrian Empire (631-619 B.C.)\". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. 81 (1-2): 243-267. doi:10.1515/zava.1991.81.1-2.243. S2CID 159785150.\n\nOates, Joan (1992). \"The fall of Assyria (635-609 BC)\". The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 3 Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-3-11-103358-7.\n\nRadner, Karen (2019). \"Last Emperor or Crown Prince Forever? Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources\". State Archives of Assyria Studies. 28: 135-142.\n\nReade, J. E. (1970). \"The Accession of Sinsharishkun\". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 23 (1): 1-9. doi:10.2307/1359277. JSTOR 1359277. S2CID 159764447.\n\nReade, J. E. (1998). \"Assyrian eponyms, kings and pretenders, 648-605 BC\". Orientalia (NOVA Series). 67 (2): 255-265. JSTOR 43076393.\n\nRowton, M. B. (1951). \"Jeremiah and the Death of Josiah\". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2 (10): 128-130. doi:10.1086/371028. S2CID 162308322.\n\nSack, Ronald H. (2004). Images of Nebuchadnezzar: The Emergence of a Legend (2nd Revised and Expanded ed.). Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press. ISBN 1-57591-079-9.\n\nSiddal, L. R. (2007). \"A Re-Examination of the Title ša reši in the Neo-Assyrian period\". In Azize, Joseph; Weeks, Noel (eds.). Gilgames̆ and the World of Assyria: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Mandelbaum House, the University of Sydney, 21-23 July 2004. Peeters Publishers. ISBN 978-90-429-1802-3.\n\nTallqvist, Knut Leonard (1914). Assyrian Personal Names (PDF). Leipzig: August Pries.\n\nWalton, John H.; Matthews, Victor H.; Chavalas, Mark W. (2012). The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-6608-3.\n\nWiseman, Donald J. (2003) [1991]. \"Babylonia 605-539 B.C.\". In Boardman, John; Edwards, I. E. S.; Hammond, N. G. L.; Sollberger, E.; Walker, C. B. F. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: III Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C. (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22717-8.\n\nWoodall, Chris (2018). Minor Prophets in a Major Key. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-5326-4218-0.\n\nYildirim, Kemal (2017). \"Diplomacy in Neo-Assyrian Empire (1180-609) Diplomats in the Service of Sargon II and Tiglath-Pileser III, Kings of Assyria\". International Academic Journal of Development Research. 5 (1): 128-130.\n\nCited web sources\n\n\"Ashurbanipal\". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 November 2019.\n\nMark, Joshua J. (2009). \"Ashurbanipal\". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 28 November 2019.\n\n\"Nahum 3:18\". Bible Hub. Retrieved 14 February 2020.\n\nRadner, Karen (2013). \"Royal marriage alliances and noble hostages\". Assyrian empire builders. Retrieved 26 November 2019.\n\nExternal links\n\nDaniel David Luckenbill's Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia Volume 2: Historical Records of Assyria From Sargon to the End, containing translations of Sinsharishkun's inscriptions."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-sin-sar-iskun"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5536}, {"slug": "reference-book-of-steps", "title": "Book of Steps", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "The Book of Steps (Syriac: ܟܬܒܐ ܕܡܣ̈ܩܬܐ, Kṯāḇâ ḏ-Masqāṯâ; also known by the Latin name Liber Graduum) is an anonymous treatise and a work of Christian Syriac literature, probably written in the late fourth century AD (or possibly early fifth century). The author appears to be living in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Book of Steps (Syriac: ܟܬܒܐ ܕܡܣ̈ܩܬܐ, Kṯāḇâ ḏ-Masqāṯâ; also known by the Latin name Liber Graduum) is an anonymous treatise and a work of Christian Syriac literature, probably written in the late fourth century AD (or possibly early fifth century). The author appears to be living in the Sasanian Empire, perhaps somewhere near the Lesser Zab, as it is mentioned in Memra Thirty, and addresses the author's own Christian community.\n\nSummary\n\nThe Book of Steps is divided into thirty chapters, or discourses (ܡܐܡ̈ܖܐ, mêmrê). The first discourse, and subsequent ones (especially number 14), divides the community into two groups. One group is called the perfect (ܓܡܝ̈ܖܐ, gmîrê), to whom the stricter major commandments apply. The other group is called the upright (ܟܐ̈ܢܐ, kênê), who seem to comprise the remainder of the community, to whom only lesser commandments (which are described as spiritual milk to the solid food of the major commandments - Hebrews 5.13-14) apply. The lesser commandments are outworkings of the Golden Rule (Matthew 7.12 and Luke 6.31), and represent a life devoted to charity. On the other hand, the 'perfect' are expected to renounce family, marriage and property so as to receive baptism of fire and Spirit.\n\nThis division of the community echoes a similar division in Manichaeism. The teaching of the Book of Steps has been described as Messalian by some scholars (including Kmoskó the editor of the critical Syriac edition). However, Brock has demonstrated that the Book of Steps' emphasis on the structure of the visible church (particularly strong in discourse 12) shows that its doctrine is quite removed from Messalianism. An English translation of the entirety of the Book of Steps by Kitchen and Parmentier has recently been published.\n\nThe headings of the thirty chapters, or discourses, are as follows:\n\nOn the distinction between the major commandments, for the perfect, and the minor commandments, for the upright.\n\nOn those who wish to be perfect.\n\nThe physical and the spiritual ministry.\n\nOn vegetables for the sick (see Romans 14.2).\n\nOn milk for infants (see I Corinthians 3.1-2).\n\nOn the person who becomes perfect and continues to grow.\n\nOn the commandments for the upright.\n\nOn the person who gives all he has to the poor to eat.\n\nOn uprightness and on the love of the upright and of prophets.\n\nOn the advantage we have when we endure evil while performing good; and on fasting and humiliation of body and soul.\n\nOn hearing the Scriptures, and when the Law is read before us.\n\nOn the ministry of the hidden and the revealed church (English trans. in Murray. Symbols. and Brock (1988). Syriac Fathers.).\n\nOn the way of life of the upright.\n\nOn the upright and the perfect.\n\nOn the marriage instinct in Adam.\n\nOn how a person grows as a result of the major commandments.\n\nOn the sufferings of our Lord, by which an example is provided for us.\n\nOn the tears of prayer (English trans. in Brock (1988). Syriac Fathers.).\n\nOn the distinguishing characteristics of the way of perfection.\n\nOn the hard steps on the way.\n\nOn the Tree of Adam.\n\nOn the judgments by which those who make them are not saved.\n\nOn Satan, Pharaoh and the Children of Israel.\n\nOn repentance.\n\nOn the voice of God and that of Satan.\n\nOn the second law which the Lord laid down for Adam.\n\nOn the matter of the thief who was saved.\n\nOn the human soul not being blood.\n\nOn subduing the body.\n\nOn the commandments of faith and of love of the solitaries.\n\nReferences\n\nBrock, Sebastian P (1987). \"The Book of Steps\". The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life. Cistercian studies series 101. Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA: Cistercian. pp. 42-61. ISBN 0-87907-901-0.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-61143-563-4.\n\nGuillaumont, A (1974). \"Situation et signification du «Liber Graduum» dans la spiritualité syriaque\". Symposium Syriacum 1972. Orientalia Christiana analecta 197 (in French). Rome: Pontificalum Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. pp. 311-325.\n\nKitchen, RA; MFG Parmentier (2004). The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber Graduum. Cistercian Studies 196. Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA: Cistercian.\n\nKmoskó, Mihály (1926). \"Liber graduum = Ketava de-maskata\". Patrologia syriaca = Malfanuta da-abahata Suryaye t.3 (in Syriac and Latin). Paris: Firmin-Didot. pp. 285-304, 433-444.\n\nMurray, Robert (2004) [1975]. Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac tradition. Piscataway, New Jersey, USA: Gorgias. ISBN 1-59333-150-9."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-book-of-steps"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 738}, {"slug": "reference-basil-gorgis", "title": "Basil Gorgis", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Basil Gewargis Hanna or Basil Korkis (Arabic: باسل كوركيس) (born 8 January 1961) is a former Iraqi international football player of Assyrian descent. Despite having a short career, he is considered to be one of the best players of all time in Iraq, being known for his tenacity...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Basil Gorgis\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nBasil Gorgis Hanna\n\nDate of birth\n (1961-01-15) 15 January 1961\n\nPlace of birth\nAnkawa, Iraq\n\nHeight\n1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)\n\nPosition\nMidfielder\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n1977-1979\nAl Saadoon\n\n1979-1982\nAl-Amana\n\n1982-1990\nAl Shabab\n\n1990-1991\nAl Talaba\n\n1995\nNorth York Astros\n\nInternational career\n\n1982-1989\nIraq\n49\n(4)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals\n\nBasil Gewargis Hanna or Basil Korkis (Arabic: باسل كوركيس) (born 8 January 1961) is a former Iraqi international football player of Assyrian descent. Despite having a short career, he is considered to be one of the best players of all time in Iraq, being known for his tenacity and attacking threat.\n\nAs a player, Basil took the national team to uncharted territory, where he was part of the Iraqi \"golden team\" of the 1980s that included Hussein Saeed and Ahmad Radhi.\n\nBasil is married and they have three daughters together.\n\nClub career\n\nLike all up and coming Iraqi players, \"It all started in the streets\" as Basil was once quoted. \nAs a teenager, he played with the youth league team Homentmen, a youth club belonging to Nadi Al-Armeni (Armenian Club). At the age of 16, he moved on to the club of Tammuz, a Junior team belonging to Nadi Al-Athori, where he caught the eye of the then first division Al-Amana coach Mustufa Auda. Throughout his youth, Basil points to Zia Isaac as the one who coached him into the player he would become.[1] Basil remained in the Iraq Super League for all his career, where he went on to play for Al Shabab and Al Talaba.\n\nHe emigrated to Canada, where he played as an amateur with Nineveh Star from 1992. In 1995, he joined semi-professional club Scarborough Astros of the Canadian National Soccer League, helping them to the Ontario Cup Final losing on penalties to St.Catharines Roma Wolves.[2][3]\n\nInternational goals\n\nScores and results list Iraq's goal tally first.\n\nNo\nDate\nVenue\nOpponent\nScore\nResult\nCompetition\n\n1.\n16 August 1985\nMoulay Abdellah Stadium, Rabat\n Morocco\n1-0\n1-0\n1985 Pan Arab Games\n\n2.\n16 March 1988\nKing Fahd International Stadium, Riyadh\n Saudi Arabia\n2-0\n2-0\n9th Arabian Gulf Cup\n\n3.\n21 July 1988\nAmman International Stadium, Amman\n Syria\n1-1\n1-1\n1988 Arab Nations Cup\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"About us\". Precision Soccer. Archived from the original on 23 November 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2017.\n\n^ Hassanin Mubarak. \"Player Database\". iraqsport.com. Archived from the original on 8 March 2003.\n\n^ Laskaris, Sam (16 June 1995). \"Astros hope Iraqi helps offence soar\". Toronto Star. p. SC6.\n\nExternal links\n\nBasil Gorgis at National-Football-Teams.com\n\nInterview with Basil Gorgis"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-basil-gorgis"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 439}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-rebellion", "title": "Assyrian rebellion", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian rebellion (Turkish: Nasturi Ayaklanması, \"Nestorian Uprising\")[6] was an uprising by the Assyrians in Hakkari which was administered by Assyrians at the time.[7] It began in July 1924 and ended on 28 September that same year.[8][9] This was the first rebellion in the newly formed Republic of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian Rebellion\n\nPart of Revolts during the Turkish War of Independence and Assyrian independence movement\n\nAssyrian rebels in Hakkari\n\nDateJuly 1924 - 28 September 1924\n\nLocationHakkari\n\nResult\n\nTurkish victory[1]\n\nSuccessful Assyrian counter attack stopping a possible Turkish invasion of Iraq after gathering in Amadiya\n\nConflict ended when the British Royal Air Force bombed Turkey\n\nBelligerents\n\nAssyrians\n\nTurkey\n\nKurdish tribes\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\nMalik Khoshaba\nMalik Yaqo \n Malik Yonan \n Malik Shamisdin \n Malik Ismail II\nMalik Yousif\nMustafa Kemal Pasha \n Süleyman Sabri Pasha \n Osman Avni \n Nurettin Pasha \n Mürsel Pasha \n Ferit Bey\n\nUnits involved\n\nTyari \n Tkhuma\nTurkish Armed Forces\n Kurdish tribes\n\nStrength\n\nLess than 1,000 men[2]\n40,000+ men[3]\n\nCasualties and losses\n\nLow[4]\n1,500+[5]\n\nThe Assyrian rebellion (Turkish: Nasturi Ayaklanması, \"Nestorian Uprising\")[6] was an uprising by the Assyrians in Hakkari which was administered by Assyrians at the time.[7] It began in July 1924 and ended on 28 September that same year.[8][9] This was the first rebellion in the newly formed Republic of Turkey. After the rebellion ended, 8,000 Assyrians were deported into Mandatory Iraq.[10] \n\n(Another rebellion by the Assyrian community had taken place in 3-4 September 1924.)[11]\n\nBackground\n\nAssyrians of Tyari and Tkhuma returned to their ancestral land in Hakkari in 1922, shortly after World War I, without permission from the Turkish government. In 1924, the Vali (Ottoman term for governor) of Van wrote to Auli Beg who was the Agha of the village of Chal, telling him to inform the Assyrians in Hakkari not to worry about their visit. The Vali wanted to discuss whether they had come to Hakkari under the force of the British or wanted to live in Turkey as citizens. The Vali stated that if Assyrians were coming to live as citizens peacefully, they would be free to do so. If they were coming by force of the British, then they would need to return to Iraq. However, the Kurdish Agha Auli Beg lied to the Assyrians and stated that the Turks were planning to expel them by force and annihilate them.\n\nIn July 1924, Assyrians met with the Vali of Van. Two guards stopped them before meeting him, but they could not understand each other as the Assyrians were speaking Aramaic and the Turks were speaking Turkish. Another Assyrian man arrived, and the Turks said there were now three Assyrians. One of the Turkish guards lowered his rifle, and the Assyrian who had just arrived quickly shot at the guards without aiming, and the guards did the same. Both of them missed. However, there were Assyrians who were hidden who began shooting at the Turks and ended up killing a governor and six Turkish soldiers. The Vali was wounded in this attack and were later taken and surrendered to the British in Amediya.\n\nMalik Khoshaba expressed his disappointment in what had happened, claiming the Kurds tricked the Assyrians into attacking the Turks just like they did in 1915. The Assyrians in Hakkari were put in a difficult situation because the majority of Assyrian fighters were in military service with the British in Iraq. The British reassured the Assyrians that they would assist them with the British army and airplanes.[12]\n\nBattle\n\nA messenger was sent to Malik Ismael that told him that the Turkish army and their Kurdish allies were waiting to destroy them as they have occupied Julamerg and the district of Leon. A few Assyrian scouts went to the mountains of Istanbul and confirmed what the messenger had said and saw the large forces of Turks and Kurds.[13]\n\nIn the early morning the fighting began and the Turks were bombarding the Assyrians with artillery and machine gun fire. The Assyrians were significantly outnumbered and outgunned and were using British single fire rifles. The Assyrians were waiting for help from the British Army or Navy, but it never arrived, and they struggled in battle using inferior weaponry. Assyrians then retreated to Iraq.[14]\n\nAssyrians then launched a counterattack after gathering in Amediya, in the face of Turkish machine gun fire and artillery. Assyrians defeated the Turks in a series of battles and captured several towns in Iraq and the Turks retreated to their border. The victorious battles by the Assyrians in the face of incredible odds were described as incredible by observers.[14]\n\nFollowing attacks on units of the 7th Corps, the Turkish General Staff authorized the 7th Corps to enter the Zakho and Amadiya regions should air strikes continue north of Birsivi, Balona, and Çakallo-locations where British outposts were situated. On September 21, British aircraft attacked a camel caravan south of Shiranis.\n\nIn preparation for mobilization, the General Staff requested that the Ministry of National Defense dispatch the necessary weapons, ammunition, uniforms, and other supplies for the mobilization of the 7th and 5th Divisions; the 1st and 14th Cavalry Divisions and the 2nd and 17th Infantry Divisions (currently under the command of the 7th Corps); and the 34th Infantry Regiments (slated for deployment from the 28th, 36th, and 9th Corps) to their respective locations.[15]\n\nBritish warplanes then arrived and dropped bombs in Asheeta, ending the conflict.[14]\n\nAftermath\n\nAfter the British bombed Asheeta, they ordered the Assyrians not to cross the Turkish border to attack and to come back to return to Iraq. Assyrians returned disappointed because the British did not live up to their word of helping them to occupy Southeastern Anatolia.[14]\n\nLegacy\n\nAccording to some sources, the Assyrian rebellion was much similar to that of the later Sheikh Said Rebellion of 1925.[16] The Assyrian rebellion itself played an important role in modern Assyrian history, and goes down in history as the first ever rebellion against the newly formed Republic of Turkey.[17] As the Turkish authorities expelled the Assyrian tribes of Tyari and Tkhuma, they made it clear that they were no longer welcome into the territory of the Turkish Republic.[18] \n\nSee also\n\nSheikh Said Rebellion\n\nMalik Ismail II\n\nRepublic of Turkey\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"آغا بطرس: سنحاريب القرن العشرين\" (PDF). نينوس نيراري. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2018.\n\n^ Genelkurmay belgelerinde Kürt isyanları: Nasturi-Şeyh Sait-Raçkotan-Raman-Sason-Ağrı-Koçuşağı-Mutki-Bicar-Asi Resul-Tendürük-Savur-Zeylan-Oramar (in Turkish). Kaynak Yayınları. 2011. p. 49. ISBN 9789753436007. Archived from the original on 2023-04-07. Retrieved 2023-03-18.\n\n^ Genelkurmay belgelerinde Kürt isyanları: Nasturi-Şeyh Sait-Raçkotan-Raman-Sason-Ağrı-Koçuşağı-Mutki-Bicar-Asi Resul-Tendürük-Savur-Zeylan-Oramar (in Turkish). Kaynak Yayınları. 2011. p. 62. ISBN 9789753436007. Archived from the original on 2023-04-07. Retrieved 2023-03-18.\n\n^ Donef, Racho (2014). The Hakkâri Massacres: An Anthology of Documents Related to Massacres and Deportation of Assyrians in Northern Mesopotamia : Ethnic Cleansing by Turkey, 1924-25. Tatavla Publishing. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-9874239-1-7. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-14.\n\n^ Donef, Racho (2014). The Hakkâri Massacres: An Anthology of Documents Related to Massacres and Deportation of Assyrians in Northern Mesopotamia : Ethnic Cleansing by Turkey, 1924-25. Tatavla Publishing. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-9874239-1-7. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-14.\n\n^ Genelkurmay belgelerinde Kürt isyanları: Nasturi-Şeyh Sait-Raçkotan-Raman-Sason-Ağrı-Koçuşağı-Mutki-Bicar-Asi Resul-Tendürük-Savur-Zeylan-Oramar (in Turkish). Kaynak Yayınları. 2011. p. 35. ISBN 9789753436007. Archived from the original on 2023-04-07. Retrieved 2023-03-18.\n\n^ Donef, Racho (2014). The Hakkâri Massacres: An Anthology of Documents Related to Massacres and Deportation of Assyrians in Northern Mesopotamia : Ethnic Cleansing by Turkey, 1924-25. Tatavla Publishing. pp. 167-174. ISBN 978-0-9874239-1-7. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-04-14.\n\n^ Olson, Robert (2013-12-18). The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292764125. Archived from the original on 19 April 2023. Retrieved 3 October 2020. (1) Nestorian (Nasturi) rebellion (12-28 September 1924); (2) Sheikh Said rebellion (13 February-31 May 1925); (3) Raçkotan and Raman pacifying operations\n\n^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik. Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945. Ramon Michael. p. 173. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-05-17.\n\n^ Dündar, Fuat (January 2017). \"When did the First World War End for Turkey ?\". Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (141): 141209-206 -. doi:10.4000/remmm.9938. ISSN 0997-1327. Archived from the original on 2023-04-13. Retrieved 2023-04-13.\n\n^ Olson, Robert (2013-12-18). The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292764125. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2020-10-03. One of these was the Assyrian (Nestorian) rebellion of 3-4 September 1924 of Beyt Sebab, which, as indicated above, was itself very much related to the Sheikh Said rebellion.\n\n^ Ismail, Malek Yakoub (2020-07-20). The Assyrians and the Two World Wars: First English Edition. Edessa Publications. pp. 252-253. ISBN 978-0-9837543-5-0. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-01-09.\n\n^ Ismail, Malek Yakoub (2020-07-20). The Assyrians and the Two World Wars: First English Edition. Edessa Publications. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-9837543-5-0. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-01-09.\n\n^ a b c d Ismail, Malek Yakoub (2020-07-20). The Assyrians and the Two World Wars: First English Edition. Edessa Publications. p. 254. ISBN 978-0-9837543-5-0. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2022-01-09.\n\n^ Musul Sorunu ve Nasturi İsyanı. 2004. ISBN 9789758308736.\n\n^ Olson, Robert (2013-12-18). The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-76412-5.\n\n^ Holmes, Amy Austin (2024). Statelet of Survivors: The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria. Oxford University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-19-762103-5.\n\n^ Omissi, David E. (1990). Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919-1939. Manchester University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-7190-2960-8."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-rebellion"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1537}, {"slug": "reference-samovar", "title": "Samovar", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "A samovar (Russian: самовар, IPA: [səmɐˈvar] ⓘ, lit. 'self-brewer') is a metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water. Although originating in Russia, the samovar is well known outside of the country and has spread through Russian culture to other parts of Eastern Europe, as well as...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "A samovar (Russian: самовар, IPA: [səmɐˈvar] ⓘ, lit. 'self-brewer') is a metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water. Although originating in Russia, the samovar is well known outside of the country and has spread through Russian culture to other parts of Eastern Europe, as well as West and Central and South Asia. Since the heated water is typically used to make tea, many samovars have a ring-shaped attachment (конфорка, konforka) around the chimney to hold and heat a teapot filled with tea concentrate.[1] Though traditionally heated with coal or kindling, many newer samovars use electricity to heat water in a manner similar to an electric water boiler. \n\nDescription\n\nA Samovar is typically made of iron, copper, polished brass, bronze, silver, gold, tin, or nickel-and consists of a body, base and chimney, cover and steam vent, handles, tap and key, crown and ring, chimney extension and cap, drip-bowl, and teapot. The body shape can be an urn, krater, barrel, cylinder, or sphere. Sizes and designs vary, from very large capacity to smaller family-sized vessels, holding four litres (1.1 US gal), and those of a modest one litre (0.26 US gal) size.[2]\n\nA traditional samovar consists of a large metal container with a tap near the bottom and a metal pipe running vertically through the middle. The pipe is filled with solid fuel which is ignited to heat the water in the surrounding container. A small (six-to-eight-inch, 15 to 20 cm) chimney is put on the top to ensure draft. After the water boils and the fire is extinguished, the chimney can be removed and a teapot placed on top to be heated by the rising hot air. The teapot is used to brew a strong concentrate of tea known as zavarka (заварка). The tea is served by diluting this concentrate with boiled water from the main container, usually at a water-to-tea ratio of 10 to 1, varying to taste.\n\nHistory\n\nThe origin and history of the samovar prior to the 18th century is unknown.\nConnections exist to a similar Greek water-heater of classical antiquity, the autepsa, a vase with a central tube for coal. \nThe Russian tradition was probably influenced by Byzantine and Central Asian cultures.[3] Conversely, Russian culture also influenced Asian, Western European and Byzantine cultures. \n\"Samovar-like\" pottery found in Shaki, Azerbaijan in 1989 was estimated to be at least 3,600 years old. While it differed from modern samovars in many respects, it contained the distinguishing functional feature of an inner cylindrical tube that increased the area available for heating the water. Unlike modern samovars, the tube was not closed from below, and so the device relied on an external fire (i.e. by placing it above the flame) instead of carrying its fuel and fire internally.[4]\n\nThe first historically recorded samovar-makers were the Russian Lisitsyn brothers, Ivan Fyodorovich and Nazar Fyodorovich. From their childhood they were engaged in metalworking at the brass factory of their father, Fyodor Ivanovich Lisitsyn. In 1778 they made a samovar, and the same year Nazar Lisitsyn registered the first samovar-making factory in Russia. They may not have been the inventors of the samovar, but they were the first documented samovar-makers, and their various and beautiful samovar designs became very influential throughout the later history of samovar-making.[5][6] \nThese and other early producers lived in Tula, a city known for its metalworkers and arms-makers. Since the 18th century Tula has been also the main center of Russian samovar production, with tul'sky samovar being the brand mark of the city. A Russian saying equivalent to \"carrying coal to Newcastle\" is \"to travel to Tula with one's own samovar\". Although Central Russia and the Ural region were among the first Samovar producers, over time several samovar producers emerged all over Russia, which gave the samovar its different local characteristics.[7] By the 19th century samovars were already a common feature of Russian tea culture. They were produced in large numbers and exported to Central Asia and other regions.\n\nThe samovar was an important attribute of Russian households and taverns to tea-drinking. It was used by all classes, from the poorest peasants up to the most well-suited people.[8][9] The Russian expression \"to have a sit by the samovar\" means to have a leisurely talk while drinking tea from a samovar. In everyday use samovars were an economical permanent source of hot water in older times. Various slow-burning items could be used for fuel, such as charcoal or dry pinecones. When not in use, the fire in the samovar pipe faintly smouldered. As needed it could be quickly rekindled with the help of bellows. Although a Russian jackboot сапог (sapog) could be used for this purpose, bellows were manufactured specifically for use on samovars.[10] Today samovars are popular souvenirs among tourists in Russia.[11]\n\n Baroque samovar, 18th century Samovars, from a 1989 series of USSR postage stamps\n\n Barrel type samovar, early 1800s, from a 1989 series of USSR postage stamps\n\n \"Squash\" type samovar, c. 1830, from a 1989 series of USSR postage stamps\n\n Samovar in the form of a classical vase, c. 1840, from a 1989 series of USSR postage stamps\n\n Russian silver & enamel samovar with cup & tray, late 19th century\n\n Samovar by Georg Stephan Dorffer, German museum\n\n Samovar with teapot in Riga, Latvia. Latvia was influenced by the Russian culture and there still exists a Russian-speaking community.\n\n Samovar made out of ceramic (Gzhel samovar)\n\n Samovar of old production\n\n Samovar in Tomsk museum\n\n Samovar on table. Art by Russian painter Sergei Smirnov, made in 1981\n\nOutside Russia\n\nThe Russian word was adopted as Persian: سماور samovar, and Turkish: semaver.\n\nIran\n\nSamovar (Persian: samăvar) culture has an analog in Iran and is maintained by expatriates around the world. In Iran, samovars have been used for at least two centuries (roughly since the era of close political and ethnic contact between Russia and Iran started), and electrical, oil-burning or natural gas-consuming samovars are still common. The Iranian city of Borujerd has been the main center of samovar production and a few workshops still produce hand-made samovars. Borujerd's samovars are often made with German silver, in keeping with the varshosazi artistic style.[12] Iranian craftsmen used Persian art motifs in their samovar production. The art samovars of Borujerd are often displayed in Iranian and Western museums as illustrations of Iranian art and handicraft.[13]\n\nKashmir\n\nKashmiri samovars are made of copper, sometimes with engraved or embossed calligraphic motifs. Historically, the Kashmiris made two variants of samovar; copper samovars typically used by Muslims as well as brass samovars with a nickel-plated inner lining used by local Hindus called Kashmiri Pandit.[14] Inside a samovar there is a heating element in which charcoal and live coals are placed in order to boil water. Green tea leaves, salt, cardamom, and cinnamon are often brewed with these samovars.[15]\n\nTurkey\n\nTurkish samovars are popular souvenirs among tourists, and charcoal burning samovars are still popular in rural areas. However, in modern homes, they have been replaced with the çaydanlık (lit. 'teapot'), a metal teapot with a smaller teapot on top taking the place of the cap of the lower one. To make Turkish tea, the lower part is used to boil the water and the upper part, called demlik is used for concentrated tea. Tea is poured first from the demlik and then diluted to the desired level with plain boiling water from the lower tea kettle. The body is traditionally made of brass or copper, occasionally also silver or gold, but çaydanlık are now also made from stainless steel, aluminium, or ceramics with plastic, steel or aluminium handles.\n\nGallery\n\nSee also\n\nAuthepsa\n\nKelly Kettle\n\nPercolator\n\nVarsho samovars of Borujerd, Iran.\n\nReferences\n\n^ ЭЛЕКТРОСАМОВАР ЭСТ 3,0/1,0 - 220, Руководство по эксплуатации, Государственное унитарное предприятие \"Машиностроительный завод \"Штамп\" им. Б.Л. ВанниковаЭ, 300004, г. Тула\n\n^ \"Из какого металла изготавливают самовары?\". www.samovarnie-tradicii.ru. Retrieved 12 February 2021.\n\n^ Mack, Glenn Randall (2005). Food culture in Russia and Central Asia. Surina, Asele. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 126. ISBN 0313327734. OCLC 57731170.\n\n^ \"Birth of the Samovar?\", Azerbaijan International, Autumn 2000 (8.3) Pages 42-44 (retrieved June 7, 2017)\n\n^ \"Самовары Лисицыных (Lisitsyns Samovars)\", Sloboda (in Russian), Tula, Russia, archived from the original on 1 February 2010, retrieved 16 January 2010\n\n^ Smith, R. E. F.; Christian, David (1984). Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-521-25812-8.\n\n^ \"History of the Tula Samovars - the Samovar and Tula are inseparable | Russian Samovar Manufacturing samovars - Coal samovars, Electric samovars, Exclusive samovars, Antique samovars\". www.shopsamovar.com (in Russian). Retrieved 11 October 2018.\n\n^ \"Information about Russian Samovars\". www.russianamericancompany.com. Retrieved 7 September 2018.\n\n^ Barry, Mary J. \"The Samovar History and Use\" (PDF). fortross.org.\n\n^ Kelley, Katie (5 June 2014). \"Episode 19 Russian Samovar\". A History of Central Florida Podcast. Retrieved 24 January 2016.\n\n^ \"Which souvenirs to buy in Russia? From Matrioskas to Cheburashka\". Russiable. 28 January 2017. Retrieved 4 November 2018.\n\n^ \"ورشوسازی، عرصه‌ٔ کم‌رنگ قلمزنی\" [Warsawization, the dim realm of calligraphy]. سایت خبری پیام ما آنلاین (in Persian). 19 December 2023. Archived from the original on 27 March 2024. Retrieved 29 November 2025.\n\n^ Bandehy, Lily (2016). Tasteful memories of Persia. EBN SelfPublishing. p. 170. ISBN 978-82-92527-26-9. Retrieved 16 June 2016.\n\n^ \"Original Kashmiri Samovar\". Kashmir.net. 8 June 2012. Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Kashmiri Samovar\". kousa.org. 8 June 2012. Archived from the original on 4 July 2019. Retrieved 8 June 2012.\n\nFurther reading\n\nIsrafil, Nabi (1990), Samovars: The Art of the Russian Metal Workers, Fil Caravan, ISBN 978-0-9629138-0-8.\n\nExternal links\n\nRussian Samovar at A History of Central Florida Podcast\n\nMaking tea with a Samavar Archived 24 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine at RussianTeaCake.com"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-samovar"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1635}, {"slug": "reference-syro-malabar-church", "title": "Syro-Malabar Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Syro-Malabar Church, also known as the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church or Edtha Qatholiqi d'Malabar Suryaya,[b] is an Eastern Catholic church based in Kerala, India. It is a sui iuris (autonomous) particular church in full communion with the Holy See and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syro-Malabar Church\n\nܥܸܕܬܵܐ ܕܡܲܠܲܒܵܪ ܣܘܼܪܝܵܝܵܐ\n\nസീറോ മലബാർ കത്തോലിക്കാ സഭ\n\nSeal of the Syro-Malabar Church\n\nAbbreviationSMC\n\nTypeParticular church (sui iuris)\n\nClassificationEastern Christian\n\nOrientation\nEastern Catholic\n\nSyriac\n\nScripture\nHoly Bible\n\nPeshitta (Syriac)[1]\n\nMalayalam POC Bible (Malayalam)\n\nTheology\nEast Syriac theology[2]\n\nCatholic theology\n\nPolityEpiscopal polity\n\nGovernanceHoly Episcopal Synod of the Syro-Malabar Church\n\nPopeLeo XIV\n\nMajor ArchbishopRaphael Thattil\n\nAdministrationMajor Archiepiscopal Curia[3]\n\nParishes3,224\n\nRegionIndia and Nasrani Malayali diaspora[4]\n\nLanguage\nLiturgical Syriac\n\nMalayalam\n\nTamil\n\nSyro-Malabarica\n\nEnglish\n\nKannada\n\nHindi and most other Indian languages\n\nLiturgyEast Syriac Rite - Syro-Malabaric Rite[a]\n\nHeadquartersMount Saint Thomas, Kakkanad, Kochi, Kerala, India\n\nTerritoryIndia (with diaspora in Canada, United States, Europe, UK, Australasia and the Middle East)\n\nFounderSaint Thomas the Apostle by tradition[6]\n\nOrigin\n\nc. 50 AD (Saint Thomas Christianity, by tradition),\n\n1552 (origin of Eastern Catholicism in the Church of the East),[7]\n\n1887 (modern foundation)[8]\n\nMalabar, India\n\nSeparated fromChurch of the East[9]\n\nBranched fromSaint Thomas Christians[10][11][12][13]\n\nMembers\n5.5 million worldwide, as per 2023 Annuario Pontificio[14]\n\n2.35 million in Kerala, per 2011 Kerala state census[15]\n\nClergy\n\nBishops: 65\n\nPriests: 9,121\n\nPublicationssyromalabarvision.com\n\nOfficial websitesyromalabarchurch.in\n\nOfficial News Portalsyromalabarnews.com\n\nThe Syro-Malabar Church, also known as the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church or Edtha Qatholiqi d'Malabar Suryaya,[b] is an Eastern Catholic church based in Kerala, India. It is a sui iuris (autonomous) particular church in full communion with the Holy See and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO).[16][17][18] The major archbishop presides over the entire church. The incumbent Major Archbishop is Raphael Thattil, serving since January 2024.[19] It is the largest Syriac Christian church and the largest Eastern Catholic church.[20] Syro-Malabar is a prefix reflecting the church's use of the East Syriac liturgy and origins in Malabar (modern Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu). The name has been in usage in official Vatican documents since the nineteenth century.[21] \n\nThe Syro-Malabar Church is primarily based in India: along with five metropolitan archeparchies and ten suffragan eparchies in Kerala, there are 4 Archeparchies and 13 eparchies in other parts of India, and also four eparchies outside India. The Syro-Malabar Synod of Bishops, canonically convoked and presided over by the major archbishop, constitutes the supreme authority of the church. The Major Archiepiscopal Curia of the church is based in Kakkanad, Kochi.[22] It is the largest among Saint Thomas Christians communities, with a population of 2.35 million in Kerala as per the 2011 Kerala state census[15] and 4.53 million worldwide as estimated in the 2023 Annuario Pontificio. It is the second largest sui iuris church within the communion of the Catholic Church, second in scale only to the Latin Church.[23]\n\nThe Syro-Malabar Church traditionally links its origins to Thomas the Apostle's evangelization efforts in 1st-century AD India.[24][25][26][27] The earliest recorded organised Christian presence in India dates to the 6th century, when Persian missionaries of the East Syriac Rite tradition of the Church of the East, established themselves in modern-day Kerala and Sri Lanka.[28][29][30][31] The Church of the East shared communion with the Roman Imperial Church, within Nicene Christianity, until the Council of Ephesus in the 5th century, separating primarily over differences in Christology and for political reasons. The Syro-Malabar Church uses a variant of the East Syriac Rite, which dates back to 3rd century Edessa, Upper Mesopotamia.[32] Hence, it is a part of Syriac Christianity by liturgy and heritage.[33]\n\nAfter the schism of 1552, a portion of the Church of the East entered communion with the Holy See of Rome, forming what became the modern-day Chaldean Catholic Church. Throughout the later half of the 16th century, the Malabar Church was under Chaldean Catholic jurisdiction as the Archdiocese of Angamaly. Through the Synod of Diamper of 1599, the Chaldean jurisdiction was abolished and the Malabar Church was reorganized as the Archdiocese of Cranganore and made subject to the Padroado Latin Catholic Primatal Archbishopric of Goa. In 1653, after a half-century of administration under the Padroado missionaries, the local Christians revolted and took the Coonan Cross Oath. In response, Pope Alexander VII, with the help of Carmelite missionaries, was by 1662 able to reconcile the majority of dissidents with the Latin Catholic Church under Bishop Parambil Chandy, the native Apostolic vicar of Malabar.[34][35] During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Archdiocese of Cranganore remained under the Syro-Malabar, but it was later suppressed and integrated into the modern day Latin Archdiocese of Verapoly.\n\nAfter more than two centuries under the hegemony of the Latin Church, in 1887 Pope Leo XIII fully emancipated the Syro-Malabars, though the Archdiocese of Verapoly remained as the jurisdiction for Latin Catholics. He established two Apostolic Vicariates for Syro-Malabar, Thrissur and Changanassery (originally named Kottayam), and in 1896, the Vicariate of Ernakulam was erected as well, governed by indigenous Syro-Malabar bishops. In 1923, the Syro-Malabar hierarchy was organized and unified under Ernakulam as the Metropolitan See, with Augustine Kandathil as the first head and archbishop.[36] Consequently, the Syro-Malabar Church became an autonomous sui iuris Eastern Catholic Church.[37]\n\nThe Syro-Malabars are unique among Catholics in their inculturation with traditional Indian customs through Saint Thomas Christian heritage. The Saint Thomas Christian community has been described as \"Indian in culture, Christian in faith and Syriac in liturgy\".[38][39] The church is predominantly of the Malayali ethnic group who speak Malayalam, although there are a minority of Tamils, Telugus, and North Indians from the various eparchies outside Kerala. Following emigration of the church's members, eparchies have been established in other parts of India and in other countries to serve especially the diaspora living in the Western world. There are four eparchies outside of India, located in English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and United States. Marth Alphonsa is the church's first canonized saint, followed by Mar Kuriakose Chavara, Marth Euphrasia, and Marth Mariam Thresia. The Syro-Malabar Church is one of the two Eastern Catholic Churches in India, the other being the Syro-Malankara Church, which represents the faction of the Puthenkoor that entered into full communion with the Holy See in 1930.[40]\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Coonan Cross Oath\n\nIt is believed that the Saint Thomas Christians in Malabar came into contact with the Persian Church of the East in the middle of the 4th century. Saint Thomas Christians looked to Catholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East for ecclesiastical authority.[41] Although the bishops from the Middle East were the spiritual rulers of the church, the general administration of the Church of Kerala was governed by the indigenous Archdeacon.[42] The Archdeacon was the head of Saint Thomas Christians.[43] Even when there were more than one foreign bishop, there was only one Archdeacon for the entire community.[43]\n\nThe Church of the East Patriarch Shemon VII Ishoyahb's unpopularity led to the schism of 1552, due to the patriarchal succession being hereditary, normally from uncle to nephew. Opponents appointed the monk Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa as a rival patriarch. Sulaqa's subsequent consecration by Pope Julius III (1550-1555) saw a permanent split in the Church of the East; and the reunion with Catholic Church resulted in the formation of the modern-day Chaldean Catholic Church of Iraq.[44][45]\n\nThus, parallel to the \"traditionalist\" (often referred as Nestorian) Patriarchate of the East, the \"Chaldean\" Patriarchate in communion with Rome came into existence. Following the schism, both traditionalist and Chaldean factions began sending their bishops to Malabar. Abraham of Angamaly was one among them. He first came to India in 1556 from the traditionalist patriarchate. Deposed from his position in 1558, he was taken to Lisbon by the Portuguese, escaped at Mozambique and left for his mother church in Mesopotamia, entered into communion with the Chaldean patriarchate and Rome in 1565, received his episcopal ordination again from the Latin patriarch of Venice as arranged by the Pope Pius IV (1559-1565) in Rome. Subsequently, Abraham was appointed by Pope as Archbishop of Angamaly, with letters to the Archbishop of Goa and the Bishop of Cochin.[46]\n\nIn 1597, Abraham of Angamaly died. The Catholic Portuguese padroado Archbishop of Goa, Aleixo de Menezes, downgraded the Angamaly Archdiocese into a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Goa and appointed the Jesuit Francisco Ros as Bishop of Angamaly. Menezes held the Synod of Diamper in 1599 to bring the Saint Thomas Christians under the complete authority of the Latin Church.[34]\n\nCoonan Cross Oath\n\nThe oppressive rule of the Portuguese padroado eventually led to a revolt in 1653, known as the Coonan Cross Oath.[47] The Thomas Christians including their native priests assembled in the church of Our Lady at Mattancherry near Cochin, formally stood before a crucifix and lighted candles and solemnly swore an oath upon the Gospel that they never again accept another European prelate.[48][49] The exact wording used in Coonan Cross Oath is disputed. There are various versions about the wording of oath, one version being that the oath was directed against the Portuguese, another that it was directed against Jesuits, yet another version that it was directed against the authority of Latin Catholics.[50]\n\nPost-Coonan Cross Oath\n\nAfter the Coonan Cross Oath, the leaders of Saint Thomas Christians assembled at Edappally, where four senior priests Anjilimoottil Itty Thommen Kathanar of Kallisseri, Palliveettil Chandy Kathanar of Kuravilangad, Kadavil Chandy Kathanar of Kaduthuruthy and Vengoor Geevarghese Kathanar of Angamaly were appointed as advisors of the Archdeacon. On 22 May 1653, at a general meeting held in Alangad, twelve priests laid hands on Archdeacon Thoma, proclaiming him bishop.[51] After the consecration of Thoma I, The information about this consecration was then communicated to all the churches. The vast majority of churches accepted Thoma I as their bishop.[52]\n\nAt this point of time, Portuguese authorities requested direct intervention of Rome and hence Pope sent Carmelite Missionaries in two groups from the Propagation of the Faith to Malabar headed by Fr. Sebastiani and Fr. Hyacinth. Fr. Sebastiani arrived first in 1655 and began to speak directly with the Thoma I. Fr. Sebastiani, with the help of Portuguese, gained the support of many, especially with the support of Palliveettil Chandy, Kadavil Chandy Kathanar and Vengoor Geevarghese Kathanar. These were the three of the four counselors of Thoma I, who had defected with Francisco Garcia Mendes, Archbishop of Cranganore, before the arrival of Sebastaini, according to Jesuit reports.[49]\n\nThe Carmelite missionaries succeeded in convincing a group of St.Thomas Christians that the consecration of Archdeacon as bishop was not legitimate and Thoma I started losing his followers. In the meantime, Sebastiani returned to Rome and was ordained as bishop by Pope on 15 December 1659. Between 1661 and 1662, out of the 116 churches, the Carmelites claimed 84 churches, leaving the native archdeacon Thoma I with 32 churches. The 84 churches and their congregations were the body from which the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church has descended.[53]\n\nThe other 32 churches and their congregations represented the nucleus from which the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church), the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Marthoma Syrian Church, and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church have originated.[53] In 1663, with the conquest of Cochin by the Dutch, the control of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast was lost. The Dutch declared that all the Portuguese missionaries had to leave Kerala. Before leaving Kerala, on 1 February 1663 Sebastiani consecrated Palliveettil Chandy as the Metran of the Catholic St. Thomas Christians.\n\nThoma I, meanwhile, sent requests to various Oriental churches to receive canonical consecration as bishop. In 1665 Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, a bishop sent by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, arrived in India. The independent group under the leadership of Thoma I which resisted the authority of the Portuguese padroado welcomed him.[54] Abdal Jaleel consecrated Thoma I canonically as a bishop and regularised his episcopal succession. This led to the first lasting formal schism in the Saint Thomas Christian community.[55]\n\nThereafter, the faction affiliated with the Catholic Church under Bishop Palliveettil Chandy came to be known as Pazhayakuttukar (or \"Old Allegiance\"), and the branch affiliated with Thoma I came to be known as Puthenkūttukār (or \"New Allegiance\"). They were also known as Jacobite Syrians[56] and they organized themselves as independent Malankara Church.[55] The visits of prelates from the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch continued since then and this led to gradual replacement of the East Syriac Rite liturgy with the West Syriac Rite and the Puthenkūttukār affiliated to the Miaphysite Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Communion.\n\nThe Pazhayakuttukar faction remained in communion with the Catholic and preserved the traditional East Syriac (Persian) liturgy and Dyophysite Christology. They were also known as Romo-Syrians[56] or Syrian Catholics. They also used the title Malankara Church initially.[c] Following the death of Palliveettil Chandy in 1687, the Syrian Catholics of the Malabar coast came under the parallel double jurisdiction of Vicariate Apostolic of Malabar under Roman Catholic Carmelites and Archdiocese of Cranganore under the Padroado. Thus many priests and laymen attempted to persuade the Pope to restore their Chaldean Catholic rite and hierarchy of the local church, and for the appointment of bishops from local priests. To represent their position, Kerala's Syrian Catholics Joseph Kariattil and Paremmakkal Thomma Kathanar went to Rome in 1778. While they were in Europe, Kariatty Joseph Kathanar was installed in Portugal as the Archbishop of Kodungalloor Archdiocese.[58]\n\nWhile journeying home, they stayed in Goa where Kariattil died before he could formally take charge. Before he died, Kariattil appointed Kathanar as the Administrator of Kodungalloor Archdiocese after him. The new administrator ran the affairs of the church, establishing his headquarters at Angamaly. In 1790, the headquarters of the Archdiocese was shifted to Vadayar, dodging the invasion of Tippu Sultan. In the last four years of his life, Thomma Kathanar managed church administration from his own parish, Ramapuram.[58]\n\nAngamaly Padiyola, a declaration of the Pazhayakūr gave the history of Saint Thomas Christians up to 1787 and advocated for the appointment of a native bishop that adhered to the local traditions.[59]\n\nLatin Catholic Carmelite clergy from Europe served as bishops, and the church along with the Latin Catholics was under the Apostolic Vicariate of Malabar (modern-day Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Verapoly). In 1887, the Holy See established two Apostolic Vicariates, Thrissur and Kottayam (later Changanassery) under the guidance of indigenous Syro-Malabar bishops, and named the church as \"The Syro-Malabar Church\" to distinguish them from the Latins.[37] The Holy See re-organized the Apostolic Vicariates in 1896 into three Apostolic Vicariates (Thrissur, Ernakulam, and Changanassery). A fourth Apostolic Vicariate (Kottayam) was established in 1911 for Knanaya Catholics.\n\nRestoration of the Syro-Malabar hierarchy\n\nIn 1923, Pope Pius XI set up a fully-fledged Syro-Malabar hierarchy with Ernakulam-Angamaly as the Metropolitan See and Augustine Kandathil as the first head and archbishop of the church. In 1992, Pope John Paul II raised the Syro-Malabar Church to major archepiscopal rank and appointed Cardinal Antony Padiyara of Ernakulam as the first major archbishop.[60]\n\nThe Syro-Malabar Church shares the same liturgy with the Chaldean Catholic Church based in Iraq and the independent Assyrian Church of the East based in Iraq, including its archdiocese the Chaldean Syrian Church of India. The Syro-Malabar Church is the second-largest particular church (sui iuris) in the Catholic Church, after the Latin Church.[61]\n\nThe Catholic Saint Thomas Christians (Pazhayakūttukār) came to be known as the Syro Malabar Catholics from 1932 onwards to differentiate them from the Syro-Malankara Catholics in Kerala. The Indian East Syriac Catholic hierarchy was restored on 21 December 1923 with Augustine Kandathil as the first metropolitan and head of the church with the name Syro-Malabar.[62]\n\n2020s\n\nIn 2021, the Syro Malabar Synod of Bishops announced that the celebration of the Qurbana according to the Second Vatican Council reform: the liturgy of the word would be celebrated coram populo, while the rest of the Qurbana would be celebrated facing the altar. After hearing this announcement, many priests of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Major Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly announced that they would continue their public facing Qurbana. Pope Francis appointed Cyril Vasiľ as the Pontifical Delegate and Andrews Thazhath as Apostolic Administrator for the Archdiocese in matters of solving the crisis but was unsuccessful. On 7 December 2023, Pope Francis wrote in a letter to George Alencherry accepting his resignation as Major Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly. He also accepted the resignation of Andrews Thazhath as the Apostolic Administrator and appointed Bosco Puthur, due to Thazhath being the Archbishop of Trichur and President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India. Pope Francis then made a video message to the people of Ernakulam-Angamaly asking them to only do the Uniform Mass starting Christmas and saying there will be punishment for those who do not. When Christmas came, only 290 churches of 328 churches held the Uniform Mass. The Vatican is now currently discussing further action.[63][64][65]\n\nOn 9 January 2024, Raphael Thattil was elected as major archbishop by the Syro-Malabar Synod of Bishops. Pope Francis confirmed the election, with Thattil now heading the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.[19]\n\nLiturgy\n\nThe East Syriac Eucharistic Liturgy, which is called Holy Qurbana in East Syriac Aramaic and means \"Eucharist\", is celebrated in its solemn form on Sundays and special occasions. During the celebration of the Qurbana, priests and deacons put on elaborate vestments which are unique to the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. The most solemn form of Holy Mass (Holy Qurbana) is Rāsa, literally which means \"Mystery\". \n\nForced liturgical latinization\n\nThe liturgy of the Syro-Malabar Church was in a heavily latinized state when the church was finally emancipated in 1896 after 300 years of Latin administration established by the Portuguese in the 16th century. The history of latinization in the Syro-Malabar Church stems from the colonial Synod of Diamper in 1599, which among other things, declared the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch a Nestorian heretic. The successive Jesuit and Carmelite administration indulged in further latinizations in the Syro-Malabar Church.[66][67]\n\nLiturgical latinisation was furthered in 1896 by Ladislaus Zaleski, the Apostolic Delegate to India, who requested permission to translate the Roman Pontifical into Syriac. This was the choice of some Malabar prelates, who chose it over the East Syriac Rite and West Syriac Rite pontificals. A large number of Syro-Malabarians had schismed and joined with Assyrians at that time and various delayed the approval of this translation, until in 1934 Pope Pius XI stated that latinization was to no longer be encouraged.[68] He initiated a process of liturgical reform that sought to restore the oriental nature of the Latinized Syro-Malabar rite.[69]\n\nRestoration of East Syriac liturgy\n\nEast Syriac liturgy has three anaphorae: those of the Holy Apostles (Saints Mar Addai and Mar Mari), Mar Theodore Mpašqana, and Mar Nestorius. The first is the most popularly and extensively used. The second is used (except when the third is ordered) from Advent to Palm Sunday. The third was traditionally used on the Epiphany and the feasts of St. John the Baptist and of the Greek Doctors, both of which occur in Epiphany-tide on the Wednesday of the Rogation of the Ninevites, and on Maundy Thursday. The same pro-anaphoral part (Liturgy of the Word) serves for all three.[70]\n\nIn the second half of the 20th century, there was a movement for better understanding of the liturgical rites. A restored Eucharistic liturgy, drawing on the original East Syriac sources, was approved by Pope Pius XII in 1957, and for the first time on the feast of St. Thomas on 3 July 1962 the vernacular, Malayalam, was introduced for the celebration of the Syro-Malabar Qurbana.[71]\n\nIn 2021, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church adopted a uniformed manner of celebration liturgies, removing the practice of facing versus populum during the Liturgy of Eucharist. Following this, there has been sustained dissent by some clergy and laity in the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly.[72][73][74][75]\n\nLiturgy dispute\n\nThe question of liturgical identity was the main obstacle the newly formed hierarchy had to solve and there was difference of opinion among the bishops about the direction of liturgical reform.[66][76] The Pazhayakoottukar were using a heavily latinised form of the East Syriac liturgy which they had inherited from the period that immediately followed the Synod of Diamper.[77][78] The Carmelite missionaries imposed further latinization in this rite.[79] The opinion of the bishops were divided with some aspiring for a return to genuine East Syriac Rite while others opting for retaining the latinized rite or a new process of inculturation copying the North Indian Brahminical rites.[66] In 1934, Rome decided for the re-establishment of the genuine East Syriac rite, and in 1962 the Chaldean Pontifical was reintroduced. But many Latin rite priests and bishops of the Syro-Malabar Church opposed these decisions and identified those who supported the reintroduced liturgy as 'Chaldean traditionalists' (Kaldāyavādikal).[76] The reforms of the 2nd Council of Vatican encouraged the recovery of lost Eastern Catholic liturgical traditions and in 1986 Pope John Paul II inaugurated the reintroduced liturgy personally in Kottayam, during his visit to India, in an attempt to resolve the confusion in liturgy.[66][76] However following the introduction of versus populum liturgy in the Latin Rite, those who oppose the reintroduced liturgy began practicing it among themselves. Post-Vatican II liturgical innovations based on Hindu Brahminical inculturation, such as the Bāratīyapūja (the 'Indian Mass') supported by Archbishop Parecattil and many of the Indian Latin prelates emerged during this period. This accelerated the liturgical conflict within the Syro-Malabar hierarchy.[80] In response, the unauthorised liturgical forms were strictly forbidden by Rome.[81] However the differences in the direction of the priest during the liturgy, namely ad orientem and versus populum, continued. Following the elevation of the Syro-Malabar Church to major archiepiscopal rank in 1992, the church initiated discussions on the resolution of differences and in 1999, they decided on a uniform mode of liturgical practice combining both styles.[82] However this was met with widespread protests among the clergy and many bishops temporarily paused its implementation. In 2020, the church leadership resumed this process and implemented it in all eparchies except the Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, where it continue to face fierce protests by the local clergy which demands complete versus populum liturgy.[83]\n\nHierarchy\n\nList of ecclesiastical heads\n\nChaldean Catholic metropolitans of India\n\nJoseph Sulaqa (1558)\n\nAbraham of Angamaly (1565)\n\nNative bishops after Coonan Cross Oath\n\nPalliveettil Chandy (1663, Vicar apostolic of Malabar)\n\nKariattil Iousep (1783, Archbishop of Cranganore)\n\nHeads of the restored Syro-Malabar hierarchy\n\nAugustine Kandathil (1923, Metropolitan Archbishop of Ernakulam)\n\nMajor archbishops\n\nMar Antony Padiyara (1992-1996)\n\nMar Abraham Kattumana(1992-1995) [d]\n\nMar Varkey Vithayathil (1997-2011)\n\nMar George Alencherry (2011-2023)\n\nMar Raphael Thattil (since 2024)[84]\n\nSyro-Malabar major archiepiscopal curia\n\nThe curia of the Syro-Malabar Church began to function in March 1993 at the archbishop's house of Ernakulam-Angamaly. In May 1995, it was shifted to new premises at Mount St. Thomas near Kakkanad, Kochi. The newly constructed curial building was opened in July 1998.\n\nThe administration of the Syro-Malabar Church has executive and judicial roles. The major archbishop, officials, various commissions, committees, and the permanent synod form the executive part. The permanent synod and other offices are formed in accordance with the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO). The officials include the chancellor, vice-chancellor, and other officers. Various commissions are appointed by the major archbishop: Liturgy, Pastoral Care of the Migrant and Evangelisation, Particular Law, Catechism, Ecumenism, Catholic Doctrine, Clergy and Institutes of Consecrated Life, and Societies of Apostolic Life.[85]\n\nThe members of the commissions are ordinarily bishops, but include priests. For judicial activities there is the major archiepiscopal ordinary tribunal formed in accordance with CCEO which has a statutes and sufficient personnel, with a president as its head. At present, Rev. Dr. Jose Chiramel is the president. The Major archiepiscopal curia functions in the curial building in Kerala, India. They have prepared the particular law for their Church and promulgated it part by part in Synodal News, the official Bulletin of this Church. There are statutes for the permanent synod and for the superior and ordinary tribunals. CCEO c. 122 § 2 is specific in the particular law, that the term of the office shall be five years and the same person shall not be appointed for more than two terms consecutively.[85]\n\nJurisdictions\n\nThere are 35 eparchies (dioceses). Nine of them are Metropolitan archeparchies, each administered by a Metropolitan Archbishop leading the ecclesiastical provinces of the church comprising 22 suffragan eparchies, all in India. The Archeparchy of Kottayam enjoys personal jurisdiction over the Southist (Knanaya) Syro-Malabar Catholics in India. The remaining 4 eparchies serve the United States, Oceania, the UK and Canada. In addition, there are apostolic visitors appointed for EU and GCC countries.[24]\n\nReligious Institutes for Consecrated Life\n\nThe church has been instrumental in the formation of several indigenous institutes, first of their kind in India, for example, the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, which is the first indigenous institute for men in the country. Most of these institutions are focused upon mission work especially in the northern non Christian dominant regions of India, with congregations like the CST and MST, being incharge of entire eparchies.\n\nReligious Institutes for consecrated life are divided in the Eastern Catholic Church Law (Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches; CCEO) as Monasteries, Hermitages, Orders, Congregations, Societies of Common Life in the Manner of Religious, Secular Institutes, and Societies of Apostolic Life, depending upon their nature of charism and apostolate. Furthermore, they vary in their jurisdictional authority, with three levels of rights: pontifical, major-archiepiscopal, and eparchial. These mainly denote who they answer to concerning establishment, expansion, and governance.\n\nMajor archiepiscopal churches\n\nThe following is the list of the Major archiepiscopal pilgrimage churches in the order of their elevation to this title by the Holy Synod of the church.[86]\n\nName of the church\n\nLocation\n\nJurisdiction\n\nYear\n\nMarth Mariam Archdeacon Church\n\nKuravilangad\n\nPalai\n\n2018\n\nMarth Mariam Knanaya Church[87]\n\nKaduthuruthy\n\nKottayam\n\n2020\n\nSt. Sebastian's Church\n\nThazhekad \n\nIrinjalakuda\n\n2020\n\nMar Sleeva Church\n\nNadavayal\n\nMananthavady\n\n2020\n\nMar Thoma Church\n\nPalayoor\n\nThrissur\n\n2020\n\nMarth Mariam Church\n\nKudamaloor\n\nChanganassery\n\n2020\n\nMarth Mariam Church (Akkarappally)\n\nKanjirapally\n\nKanjirappally\n\n2020\n\nMarth Mariam Church\n\nArakuzha\n\n Kothamangalam\n\n2021\n\nSt. Joseph's Church\n\nPeravoor\n\nTellicherry\n\n2022\n\nSt. Sebastian's Church\n\nNedumkandam\n\nIdukki\n\n2024[88][86]\n\nSeminaries\n\nMajor seminaries\n\nSeminaries of the Syro-Malabar Church are under the general supervision of the Roman Congregation for the Eastern Churches and share the Major archbishop as their common Chancellor.[89] Saint Joseph's Seminary in Mangalapuzha, established by Syrian Catholics in 1865, is the oldest of the extant seminaries of the church.[90] However, the Saint Thomas Seminary in Vadavathoor is the first seminary to be established under the Syro-Malabar hierarchy.[91]\n\nList of prominent Syro-Malabar Catholics\n\nProminent Syro-Malabar leaders\n\nKadavil Chandy, Syriacist, poet, and church leader.\n\nParampil Chandy, the first Indian native Catholic bishop\n\nJoseph Kariattil, the first Indian native Catholic Metropolitan archbishop\n\nParemmakkal Thoma Kathanar, administrator of the Archdiocese of Cranganore-Angamaly and author of Varthamanappusthakam, the first travelogue in an Indian language\n\nThachil Matthoo Tharakan, lay leader and Minister of Travancore\n\nNidhiry Mani Kathanar, church leader and founder of Deepika, the first Malayalam daily\n\nPalackal Thoma, scholar and founder of C.M.I.\n\nPlacid J. Podipara, Saint Thomas Christian historian\n\nJoseph Parecattil, the first Cardinal from the Syro-Malabar Church\n\nJoseph Powathil, Archbishop of Changanacherry and proponent of Syro-Malabar identity and traditions\n\nEmmanuel Thelly, orientalist and Syriacist, author of several books including a Syriac lexicon\n\nAntony Padiyara, first Major archbishop\n\nGeorge Alencherry, first elected Major archbishop\n\nKoonammakkal Thomas, expert in Syro-Malabar history and Suriyani Malayalam and malpan (ecclesiastical teacher).\n\nSaints, Blesseds, Venerables and Servants of God\n\nSaints\n\nMarth Alphonsa Muttathupadathu - religious sister of FCC congregation\n\nMar Kuriakose Chavara Kathanar - priest and one of the founding members of CMI\n\nMarth Euphrasia Eluvathingal - religious sister of CMC congregation\n\nMarth Mariam Thresia Chiramel - religious sister and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family (CHF)\n\nBlesseds\n\nMar Thevarparambil Augustine Kathanar (Kunjachan) - priest of Pala (1891-1973)\n\nMarth Rani Maria Vattalil Sāhdhā - martyr and religious sister of the FCC congregation (1954-1995)\n\nVenerables\n\nPayyappilly Varghese Kathanar - priest and founder of Sisters of the Destitute (1876-1929)\n\nMar Thomas Kurialachery - first bishop of Changanassery and founder of The Congregation of the Sisters of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (SABS) (1872-1925)\n\nKadalikkattil Mathai Kathanar - priest and founder of the Sacred Heart Congregation (SH) (1872-1935)\n\nVithayathil Joseph Kathanar - priest and co-founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family (CHF) (1865-1964)\n\nUkken Augustine John Kathanar - priest and founder of Congregation of Sisters of Charity (CSC) (1880-1956)\n\nMaria Celine Kannanaikal - religious sister of UMI congregation (1931-1957)\n\nMar Mathew Makkil - first vicar apostolic of Kottayam and the founder of Sisters of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (SVM) (1851-1914)[92]\n\nPanjikaran Joseph Kathanar - priest and founder of Medical Sisters of St. Joseph (MSJ)[93] (1888-1949)\n\nServants of God\n\nMar Mathew Kavukattu - first Archbishop of Changanassery (1904-1969)[94]\n\nPoothathil Thomas Kathanar (Tommiyachan) - priest and founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph Congregation (SJC)[95] (1871-1943)\n\nThachuparambil Antony Kathanar - priest of Thrissur (1894-1963)[96]\n\nPuthenparampil Thomas (Thommachen) - layman and founder member of Secular Franciscan Order (SFO)[97] (1836-1908)\n\nThekkekara Canisius Kathanar - priest and professed religious member of the CMI congregation (1914-1998)[98]\n\nO. Fortunatus Thanhäuser - professed religious member of the Hospitaller Order of St John of God and founder of the congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St John of God (1918-2005)\n\nMary Celine Payyappilly - religious sister of CMC congregation (1906-1993)\n\nMary Francesca de Chantal Vallayil - religious sister and co-founderess of The Congregation of the Sisters of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (SABS) (1880-1972)\n\nMsgr. Kandathil Joseph Kathanar - priest and founder of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate (ASMI) congregation (1904-1991)\n\nKattarath Varkey Kathanar - priest and founder of the Vincentian Congregation (VC) (1851-1931)\n\nFidelis Thaliath - religious sister of SD congregation (1929-2008)\n\nKaniarakath Sebastian (Bruno) Kathanar - priest and professed religious member of the CMI congregation (1894-1991)\n\nMary Collett Aarampulickal - religious sister of the FCC congregation (1904-1984)\n\nMadavath Armond Kathanar - priest and professed religious member of the Capuchin Order (OFM Cap)\n\nSee also\n\nLiturgical calendar of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church\n\nSisters of the Destitute\n\nCarmelites of Mary Immaculate\n\nCongregation of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux\n\nAll India Catholic Union\n\nCatholic Church in India\n\nNotes\n\n^ Liturgy of Mar Addai and Mar Mari, Qudasha of Mar Theodore and Qudasha of Mar Nestorius[5]\n\n^ Syriac: ܥܸܕܬܵܐ ܩܵܬܘܿܠܝܼܩܝܼ ܕܡܲܠܲܒܵܪ ܣܘܼܪܝܵܝܵܐ or ܥܸܕܬܵܐ ܕܡܲܠܲܒܵܪ ܣܘܼܪܝܵܝܵܐ; Malayalam: സുറിയാനി മലബാർ സഭ (സുറിയാനി കത്തോലിക്കാ സഭ)\n\n^ \"In the travelogue Varthamanappusthakam (dated to 1790) written by Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar, the author uses the terms Malankara Pallikkar, Malankara Idavaka, Malankara Sabha etc. to refer to the Syrian Catholic community.[57]\n\n^ Pontifical Delegate - exercised the authority of administration of the church by the papal bull, though the title of Major-archbishop was held by Mar Antony Padiyara\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Peshitta | Syriac Bible\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 9 September 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2020.\n\n^ Maniyatt, Pauly, ed. (3 September 2007). East Syriac theology : an introduction. Satna, M.P., India: Ephrem's Publications. ISBN 9788188065042 - via Internet Archive.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church Curia\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 9 September 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Eparchial Sees in the Syro-Malabar Church\". Archived from the original on 14 July 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2019.\n\n^ \"Circular - New Liturgical Texts of the Syro-Malabar Church::Syro Malabar News Updates\". Archived from the original on 4 June 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Un esercizio di comunione\". L'Osservatore Romano. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 23 July 2021.\n\n^ \"Malabar Catholic Church\". Gorgias Encyclopaedia of Syriac Heritage. Gorgias Press. Archived from the original on 8 December 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ Perczel, István (2013). \"Some New Documents on the Struggle of the Saint Thomas Christians to Maintain the Chaldaean Rite and Jurisdiction\". In Peter Bruns; Heinz Otto Luthe (eds.). Festschrift for Hubert Kaufhold on his 70th Birthday. Orientalia Christiana. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 435. Archived from the original on 22 September 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2024.\n\n^ Encyclopaedia of sects & religious doctrines, Volume 4 By Charles George Herbermann page 1180,1181\n\n^ Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2008). Christianity in India From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford University Press. p. 369. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7. Once Mar Thoma I had been consecrated and joined to the Patriarchate of Antioch, Mar Gregorios himself stayed on in Malabar as joint ruler over the newly formed Jacoba Malankara Church. This joint rule, lasting twenty years (when they both died), made permanent the 'vertical' split between Malabar Christians linked to Rome and Malankara Christians linked to Antioch (in Mardin). Those of the 'new allegiance', known as Puthankuttukar, were led by metrans who looked to the Jacoba Patriarch of Antioch in Mardin. Those of the 'old allegiance', known as Pazhayakuttukar, looked to Rome.\n\n^ Fernando, Leonard; Gispert-Sauch, G. (2004). Christianity in India: Two Thousand Years of Faith. Penguin Books India. p. 79. ISBN 9780670057696. The community of the St Thomas Christians was now divided into two: one group known as the 'old party' joined in communion with the Western Church and in obedience to the Pope whose authority they recognized in the archbishop of Goa. The 'new party' (Puttankuttukar) stayed with Mar Thoma and eventually came under the influence of and entered into communion with the West Syrian Church of Antioch\n\n^ Robert Eric Frykenberg (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. OUP Oxford. p. 361. ISBN 9780198263777. His followers became known as the 'new party' (Puthankuttukar), as distinct from the 'old party' (Pazhayakuttukar), the name by which the Catholic party became known.\n\n^ Hillerbrand, Hans J. (2004). Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set. Routledge. ISBN 9781135960285. those who rejected the Latin rite were known as the New Party, which later became the Jacobite Church\n\n^ Boghossian, Vartan Waldir, ed. (9 September 2023). \"Annuario Orientale Cattolico - 2023\". issuu.com. Retrieved 20 June 2024.\n\n^ a b Zachariah, K.C. (April 2016). \"Religious denominations of Kerala\" (PDF). Kerala: Centre for Development Studies (CDS). Working paper 468. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2022.\n\n^ \"Letter signed by the Holy Father to the major archbishop and bishops of the Synod of the Syro-Malabar Church (3 July 2021) | Francis\". Holy See. Archived from the original on 12 April 2022. Retrieved 17 April 2022.\n\n^ Catholic-Hierarchy.org Archived 11 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine - Syro-Malabar Catholic Church of the Chaldean Tradition\n\n^ GCatholic.org Archived 11 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine - Syro-Malabar Church (Eastern-Rite sui juris Catholic Church)\n\n^ a b \"Pope Francis confirms election of head of Syro-Malabar Church\". Vatican News. 10 January 2024. Archived from the original on 10 January 2024. Retrieved 10 January 2024.\n\n^ Winkler, Dietmar W. (2019). \"The Syriac Church denominations: an overview\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 119-133. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\n^ St. Raphael Syro Malabar Catholic Mission of Cleveland (2014)[1] Archived 30 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Synod of Bishops of the Syro-Malabar Church\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 12 October 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.\n\n^ Annuario pontificio (2023) (in Italian). Libreria Editrice Vaticana. 2023. ISBN 978-88-266-0797-9.\n\n^ a b \"The Syro-Malabar Church Today: An Overview\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 11 August 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2020.\n\n^ George Menachery (1973) The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India, Ed. George Menachery, B.N.K. Press, vol. 2, ISBN 81-87132-06-X, Lib. Cong. Cat. Card. No. 73-905568; B.N.K. Press - (has some 70 lengthy articles by different experts on the origins, development, history, culture... of these Christians, with some 300 odd photographs).\n\n^ Leslie Brown, (1956) The Indian Christians of St. Thomas. An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1956, 1982 (repr.)\n\n^ Thomas Puthiakunnel, (1973) \"Jewish colonies of India paved the way for St. Thomas\", The Saint Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India, ed. George Menachery, Vol. II., Trichur.\n\n^ Frykenberg, pp. 102-107; 115.\n\n^ Mihindukulasuriya, Prabo. \"Persian Christians in the Anuradhapura Period\". Academia.edu. Archived from the original on 2 June 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ \"St. Gregorios Malankara (Indian) Orthodox Church of Washington, DC : Indian Orthodox Calendar\". Stgregorioschurchdc.org. Archived from the original on 21 January 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2018.\n\n^ \"Mar Aprem Metropolitan Visits Ancient Anuradhapura Cross in Official Trip to Sri Lanka\". Assyrian Church News. 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2015.\n\n^ Addai and Mari, Liturgy of. Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. 2005\n\n^ P. Malekandathil (2003). St. Thomas Christians: A Historical Analysis of their Origin and Development up to 9th Century AD, from St.Thomas Christians and Nambudiris Jews and Sangam Literature: A Historical Appraisal. Kochi, India: Bosco Puthur (ed.) LRC Publications).\n\n^ a b Menon (1965).\n\n^ Stephen Neill, A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707, pp. 326-27, Cambridge University Press, 1984\n\n^ \"CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE SYROMALABAR CHURCH\". Syro-Malabar Church Official website. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 13 August 2020.\n\n^ a b George Joseph Nedumparambil (2013). \"A Search of the Roots of the Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala\" (PDF). University of Würzburg. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 March 2023. Retrieved 19 September 2019.\n\n^ Amaladass (1993), p. 16.\n\n^ Wilfred, Felix (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-932906-9.\n\n^ Roberson, Ronald. \"The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church\". Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Archived from the original on 3 August 2018. Retrieved 2 August 2018.\n\n^ \"Thomas Christians\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 3 June 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2021. India's ancient Christians looked to the Assyrian Church of the East (often disparaged as \"Nestorian\" by Western or Roman Catholic Christians, who associated it with the anathematized bishop Nestorius) and its catholicos (or patriarch) for ecclesiastical authority\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. \"Thomas Christians\". e-GEDSH:Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage. Archived from the original on 7 March 2022. Although India was supplied with bishops from the Middle East, the effective control lay in the hands of the indigenous Archdeacon.\n\n^ a b Joseph, Clara A.B (2019). Christianity in India: The Anti-Colonial Turn. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351123846. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023. Documents address him as the Jathikku Karthavyan [the head of the caste], that is, the head of the Thomas Christians.....even when there were more than one foreign bishop, there was only one Archdeacon for entire St.Thomas Community..\n\n^ Habbi 1966, p. 99-132, 199-230.\n\n^ Wilmshurst 2000, p. 21-22.\n\n^ Herbermann, Charles George (2005). Encyclopaedia of sects & religious doctrines, Volume 4. Cosmo Publications. p. 1181. ISBN 9788177559385. ....and Abraham succeeded also in obtaining his nomination and creation as Archbishop Angamale from the pope, with letters to the Archbishop of Goa, and to the Bishop Cochin dated 27 Feb 1565.\n\n^ \"Koonan Oath 00001\" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 June 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2007.\n\n^ \"Thomas Christians\". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Archived from the original on 28 March 2015. Retrieved 25 May 2022. In 1653 anti-Catholic kattanars met at Koonen (\"Crooked\") Cross, a granite monument at Mattancheri. There they swore an oath to never again accept another farangi (European) prelate and installed their own high metran\n\n^ a b Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, \"Eastern Christianity in India\"\n\n^ Census of India (1961: Kerala. Office of the Registrar General. 1965. p. 111. There are various versions about the wording of swearing, one version being that it was directed against the Portuguese, another that it was directed against Jesuits, yet another that it was directed against the authority of church of Rome.\n\n^ McGuckin, John Anthony (15 December 2010). The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, John Anthony McGuckin. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781444392548. Archived from the original on 3 January 2023. Retrieved 9 April 2021.\n\n^ Neill 2004, pp. 320-321.\n\n^ a b Catholic Encyclopedia profile of \"St. Thomas Christians\" - The Carmelite Period\n\n^ Thekkedath, History of Christianity in India\"\n\n^ a b Neill, Stephen (1970). The Story of the Christian Church in India and Pakistan. Christian Literature Society. p. 36. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023. At the end of a period of twenty years, it was found that about two - thirds of the people had remained within the Roman allegiance; one - third stood by the archdeacon and had organized themselves as the independent Malankara Church, faithful to the old Eastern traditions and hostile to all the Roman claims.\n\n^ a b The Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society. Vol.3. Mythic Society. 1911. p. 141. This incident marks an epoch in the history of the Syrian Church, and led to a separation of the community into parties, namely the Pazhayakuru (the Romo-Syrians) who adhered to the Church of Rome according to the Synod at Diamper; and the Puttankuru, the Jacobite Syrians, who after the oath of the Coonan Cross got Mar Gregory from Antioch, acknowledged the spiritual supremacy thereof. The former owed its foundation to the Archbishop Menezes and the Synod at Diamper in 1599 and its reconciliation after the revolt to the Carmelite Bishop Father Joseph of St.Mary whom the Pope appointed in 1659.\n\n^ Thoma Kathanar, Paremmakkal (2014). Varthamanappusthakam (Translation of John Malieckal). Oriental Institute of Religious Studies India Publications, Vadavathoor. ISBN 978-93-82762-15-7.\n\n^ a b Malekandathil, Pius (2013). \"Nazrani History and Discourse on Early Nationalism in Varthamanapusthakam\". NSC Network. Archived from the original on 28 October 2018. Retrieved 28 January 2013.\n\n^ Whitehouse, Thomas, ed. (1873). Lingerings of light in a dark land: Researches into the Syrian church of Malabar. William Brown and Co. p. 308.\n\n^ Roberson, Ronald. \"The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church\". CNEWA. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Annuario Orientale Cattolico - 2023\". Holy See Press Office. 9 September 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)\n\n^ Thalian, George (1961). The Great Archbishop Augustine W. Kandathil, D. D.: the Outline of a Vocation. Bp. Louis memorial press.\n\n^ \"Letter of the Holy Father to His Beatitude Mar George Cardinal Alencherry\". Holy See Press Office. Archived from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.\n\n^ \"Pope Francis accepts Syro-Malabar head's resignation, seeks end to 'liturgy war'\". The Pillar. 7 December 2023. Archived from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.\n\n^ ജോർജ്, അനിൽ (25 December 2023). മാർപാപ്പയുടെ അന്ത്യശാസനം തള്ളി; എറണാകുളം - അങ്കമാലി അതിരൂപതയിലെ 328 പള്ളികളിൽ 290 എണ്ണത്തിലും നടന്നത് ജനാഭിമുഖ കുർബാന [Pope's ultimatum rejected; Of the 328 churches in the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese, 290 held Mass]. The Fourth (in Malayalam). Archived from the original on 28 December 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.\n\n^ a b c d Brock (2011d).\n\n^ Vellian (2001).\n\n^ The Synod of Diamper and the Liturgy Jacob Vellian The Synod of Diamper Revisited, George Nedugatt, ed.\n\n^ A Study of the Syro-Malabar Liturgy (George Vavanikunnel)\n\n^  Jenner, Henry (1913). \"East Syrian Rite\". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n^ The Origin and Progress of the Syro-Malabar Hierarchy By Varkey J. Vithayathil\n\n^ \"Prelate threatens sanctions in Catholic world's nastiest liturgical dispute\". Crux. 27 June 2023. Archived from the original on 27 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Holy Mass row: Papal delegate issues strict warning, orders priests in Kerala archdiocese to obey Synodal decision\". The South First. 17 August 2023. Archived from the original on 4 September 2023.\n\n^ \"As Kerala priests keep up protest, Vatican warns: Stop public offering of Mass or face action\". The Indian Express. 17 August 2023. Archived from the original on 4 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Where things stand in the Syro-Malabar 'liturgy war'\". 7 January 2023. Archived from the original on 30 September 2023.\n\n^ a b c Winkler 2018, pp. 131-132. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWinkler2018 (help)\n\n^ Perczel (2013), p. 425.\n\n^ Fenwick (2009), p. 136-137. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFFenwick2009 (help)\n\n^ Pallath & Kollara (2012), p. 90-102.\n\n^ Pallath, Paul (1995). Roman Documents on the Syro-Malabar Liturgy. Kottayam: OIRSI.\n\n^ Pallath, Paul; Kollara, Joseph (2012). Roman Pontifical into Syriac and Beginning of Liturgical Reform in the Syro-Malabar Church. Kottayam: OIRSI. pp. 4-6, 11-35.\n\n^ Pallath, Paul (2019). The Liturgical Heritage of the Syro-Malabar Church: Shadows and Realities. Changanacherry: HIRS Publishers. pp. 144-190.\n\n^ Kumar, Dileep V. (22 June 2024). Babu, Majnu (ed.). \"Facing the Altar or Congregation: Unity at Stake in Syro-Malabar Church over Liturgical Changes\". thesouthfirst.com. Archived from the original on 22 June 2024. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Major Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly, India (Syro-Malabar Rite)\". GCatholic. Archived from the original on 24 September 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2021.\n\n^ a b Francis Eluvathingal, Syro-Malabar Church Since the Eastern Code\n\n^ a b \"Syro Malabar Church Pilgrim Churches\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 9 October 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"കടുത്തുരുത്തി വലിയ പള്ളിയിൽ മൂന്നുനോമ്പാചരണവും മുത്തിയമ്മയുടെ ദർശനത്തിരുനാളും\". Lifeday. 1 February 2020. Retrieved 13 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Priests cannot offer Holy Mass as per their will: Mar Thattil\". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 2 May 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church | Major seminaries\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 16 July 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Mangalapuzha| History\". Archived from the original on 9 October 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Santhom\". Archived from the original on 7 December 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church | Mar Mathew Makkil\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 9 October 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church | Joseph C. Panjikaran\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 9 October 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church | Mar Mathew Kavukattu\". syromalabarchurch.in. Archived from the original on 9 October 2025. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Thomas Poothathil | THE ARCHEPARCHY OF KOTTAYAM | Leading the Knanaya Community\". 12 November 2015. Archived from the original on 26 December 2024. Retrieved 2 May 2024.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church | Antony Thachuparambil\". syromalabarchurch.in. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Edathua Church\". edathuachurch.in. Archived from the original on 8 December 2025. Retrieved 2 May 2024.\n\n^ \"Syro Malabar Church | Rev Fr Canisius CMI Thekkekara\". syromalabarchurch.in. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\nBibliography\n\nAmaladass, Anand (1993) [1989 (New York: Orbis Books)]. \"Dialogue between Hindus and the St. Thomas Christians\". In Coward, Harold (ed.). Hindu-Christian dialogue: perspectives and encounters (Indian ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 978-81-208-1158-4.\n\nASSEMANI, Bibliotheca Orientalis (Rome, 1719-28); DE SOUZA.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011d). \"Malabar Catholic Church\". Gorgias Encyclopaedia of Syriac Heritage. Gorgias Press. Archived from the original on 8 December 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2026.\n\nOrientale Conquistado (2 vols., Indian reprint, Examiner Press, Bombay).\n\nGouvea, Antonio de (2003) [1606]. Malekandathil, Pius (ed.). Jornada of Dom Alexis de Menezes: A Portuguese Account of the Sixteenth Century Malabar. Kochi: L. R. C. Publications. ISBN 9788188979004..\n\nFr. tr. De Glen, Histoire Orientale etc. (Brussels, 1609); DU JARRIC.\n\nJarric, Pierre du (1615). Thesaurus rerum Indicarum. Sumptibus Petri Henningii..\n\nPaulinus, a. S. Bartholomaeo (1794). India Orientalis Christiana'. Typis Salomonianis.\n\nMacKenzie, Gordon Thomson (2008) [1st Pub. 1901]. Christianity in Travancore. Travancore Government Press. ISBN 9781230341651.\n\nMedlycott, Adolphus E. (1905). India and the Apostle Thomas: An Inquiry, with a Critical Analysis of the Acta Thomae.\n\nThalian, George (1961). \"The Great Archbishop Augustine W. Kandathil, D. D.: the Outline of a Vocation\". Bp. Louis memorial press..\n\nMenachery G (1973) The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India Archived 3 January 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Ed. George Menachery, B.N.K. Press, vol. 2, ISBN 81-87132-06-X, Lib. Cong. Cat. Card. No. 73-905568; B.N.K. Press  - (has some 70 lengthy articles by different experts on the origins, development, history, culture ... of these Christians, with some 300 odd photographs). Vol. 1, 1982. Vol. 3, 2010.\n\nMundadan, A. Mathias. (1984) History of Christianity in India, vol. 1, Bangalore, India: Church History Association of India.\n\nPodipara, Placid J. (1970) \"The Thomas Christians\". London: Darton, Longman and Tidd, 1970. (is a readable and exhaustive study of the St. Thomas Christians.)\n\nPhilip, E. M. (1908) The Indian Christians of St. Thomas (1908; Changanassery: Mor Adai Study Center, 2002).\n\nAprem, Mar. (1977) The Chaldaean Syrian Church in India. Trichur, Kerala, India: Mar Narsai, 1977.\n\nMenachery, George (2000) Kodungallur - The Cradle of Christianity in India, Thrissur: Marthoma Pontifical Shrine.\n\nMenachery, George & Snaitang, Dr. Oberland (2012)\"India's Christian Heritage\". The Church History Association of India, Dharmaram College, Bangalore.\n\nActs of St. Thomas (Syriac) MA. Bevan, London, 1897\n\nTisserant, Eugene (1957). Hambye, E. R. (ed.). Eastern Christianity in India: A History of the Syro-Malabar Church from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Westminster: Newman Press.\n\nMichael Geddes, (1694) A Short History of the Church of Malabar together with the Synod of Diamper, London. Ed. Prof. George Menachery in the Nazranies i.e. The Indian Church History Classics I, 1998.\n\nPuthur, B. (ed.) (2002), The Life and Nature of the St Thomas Christian Church in the Pre-Diamper Period (Cochi, Kerala).\n\nT.K Velu Pillai, (1940) \"The Travancore State Manual\"; 4 volumes; Trivandrum\n\nMenachery G (ed); (1998) \"The Indian Church History Classics\", Vol. I, The Nazranies, Ollur, 1998. ISBN 81-87133-05-8.\n\nMenachery, George. Glimpses of Nazraney Heritage.SARAS 2005 Ollur.\n\nPalackal, Joseph J. Syriac Chant Traditions in South India. PhD, Ethnomusicology, City University of New York, 2005.\n\nJoseph, T. K. The Malabar Christians and Their Ancient Documents. Trivandrum, India, 1929.\n\nLeslie Brown, (1956) The Indian Christians of St. Thomas. An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1956, 1982 (repr.)\n\nThomas P. J; (1932) \"Roman Trade Centres in Malabar\", Kerala Society Papers II.\n\nMarco Polo.(1298) LATHAM, R. (TRANSL.) \"The Travels\" Penguin Classics 1958\n\nBjorn Landstrom (1964) \"The Quest for India\", Doubleday (publisher) English Edition, Stockholm.\n\nFrancis Eluvathingal (ed), Syro-Malabar Church Since the Eastern Code, Mary Matha Publications, Trichur, 2003.\n\nFrancis Eluvathingal, \"Patriarchal and Major Archiepiscopal Curia in the Eastern Catholic Legislation based on CCEO Canons 114-125\" ORISI, Kottayam, 2009.\n\nRoman Documents on the Syro-Malabar Liturgy. Issue 213 of Oriental Institute of Religious Studies, India. Kottayam: Oriental Institute of Religious Studies. 1999. ISBN 81-86063-49-8.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2011a). \"Thomas Christians\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Archived from the original on 7 March 2022. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nMenon, A. Sreedhara (1965). \"Portuguese and the Malabar Church\". Kerala District Gazetteers: Ernakulam. Trivandrum: The Superintendent of Government Presses, Government Press: 128, 131-144. Archived from the original on 11 February 2022. Retrieved 11 February 2022.\n\nBrown, Leslie W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original on 2 February 2024. Retrieved 15 July 2021.\n\nMingana, Alphonse (1926). \"The Early Spread of Christianity in India\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 10 (2): 435-514. doi:10.7227/BJRL.10.2.7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 15 July 2021.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2004) [1984]. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521548854. Archived from the original on 18 October 2023. Retrieved 15 July 2021.\n\nMundadan, Mathias (1967). The Arrival of the Portuguese in India and the Thomas Christians Under Mar Jacob, 1498-1552. Bangalore: Dharmaram College. Archived from the original on 2 February 2024. Retrieved 15 July 2021.\n\nHabbi, Joseph (1966). \"Signification de l'union chaldéenne de Mar Sulaqa avec Rome en 1553\". L'Orient Syrien. 11: 99-132, 199-230. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 6 January 2024.\n\nVellian, Jacob (2001). \"The Synod of Diamper and the Liturgy of the Syro-Malabar Church\". In Nedungatt, George (ed.). The Synod of Diamper Revisisted. Pontificio Istituto Orientale. pp. 173-198. ISBN 8872103312.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765. Archived from the original on 2 August 2023. Retrieved 6 January 2024.\n\nExternal links\n\nSyro-Malabar Church\n\nArchdiocese of Thrissur\n\nArchdiocese of Kottayam\n\nArchdiocese of Changanacherry\n\nArchdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly\n\nArchdiocese of Tellicherry\n\nThe website for Synod of Diamper\n\nIndian Christianity: Books by Geddes, Mackenzie, Medlycott, &c.\n\nThe Chennai Mission Archived 25 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSyro malabar mission in Chennai Archived 28 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSyro Malabar Church in Australia\n\nwww.christianhomily.com Sunday and Feast Homily Resources in English and Homily Videos in Malayalam according to the Syro-Malabar Calendar Set one and two by Fr. Abraham Mutholath\n\nHomily Videos in Malayalam by Fr. Abraham Mutholath\n\nwww.bibleinterpretation.org Bible Interpretation by Rev. Abraham Mutholath in English.\n\nwww.biblereflection.org Bible Interpretation with reflection by Rev. Abraham Mutholath in English.\n\nSyro Malabar Matrimony Archived 19 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\nArticle on the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA web site\n\nFathima Matha Church, East Hill, Kozhikode\n\n9°58′56″N 76°16′35″E / 9.9823°N 76.2763°E / 9.9823; 76.2763"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syro-malabar-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 8850}, {"slug": "reference-tiglath-pileser-i", "title": "Tiglath-Pileser I", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tiglath-Pileser I (/ˈtɪɡləθ paɪˈliːzər, -ˌlæθ, pɪ-/; from the Hebraic form[1] of Middle Assyrian Akkadian: 𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏, romanized: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, \"my trust is in the son of Ešarra\") was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1114-1076 BC). According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was \"one of the two or...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tiglath-Pileser I\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nRock relief of Tiglath-Pileser I\n\nKing of the Middle Assyrian Empire\n\nReign1114-1076 BC\n\nPredecessorAshur-resh-ishi I\n\nSuccessorAsharid-apal-Ekur\n\nDied1076 BC\n\nIssueAsharid-apal-Ekur, Ashur-bel-kala, Shamshi-Adad IV\n\nAkkadian𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏 \nTUKUL.TI.A.É.ŠÁR.RA\nTukultī-apil-Ešarra\n\nFatherAshur-resh-ishi I\n\nReligionAncient Mesopotamian religion\n\nTiglath-Pileser I (/ˈtɪɡləθ paɪˈliːzər, -ˌlæθ, pɪ-/; from the Hebraic form[1] of Middle Assyrian Akkadian: 𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏, romanized: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, \"my trust is in the son of Ešarra\") was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1114-1076 BC). According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was \"one of the two or three great Assyrian monarchs since the days of Shamshi-Adad I\".[2] He was known for his \"wide-ranging military campaigns, his enthusiasm for building projects, and his academic interest in cuneiform tablet collections\".[3] Under him, Assyria confirmed its position as the leading power of the Ancient Near East, a position the kingdom largely maintained for the next five hundred years. He further expanded Assyrian control deeper into Anatolia, Levant and Ancient Iran, and to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.[4] From his surviving inscriptions, he seems to have carefully cultivated a fear of himself in his subjects and in his enemies alike.\n\nThe beginning of Tiglath-Pileser's I reign had heavy involvement in military campaigns, as suggested from translated texts from the Middle Assyrian Empire period. The texts were believed to be \"justification of war.\"[5] Although little literary text is available from the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, there is evidence to show that the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I inspired the act of recording information, including that of his military campaigns. Toward the end of Tiglath-Pileser's reign literary texts took the form of \"summary texts\" which served as a vessel for as much information about his reign as possible, with the intent to be handed down to his successor.\n\nReign\n\nThe son of Ashur-resh-ishi I, he ascended to the throne in 1115 BC, and became one of the greatest of Assyrian conquerors.[6] Tiglath-Pileser I referred to himself as \"unrivalled king of the universe, king of the four quarters, king of all princes, lord of lords… whose weapons the god Assur has sharpened and whose name he has pronounced eternally for control of the four quarters… splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm\".[7] Alongside this view of himself, he emphasized the brutality of his takeover of numerous lands, and was the first Assyrian king to claim hostages, occasionally children, as a political instrument against conquered peoples.[7]\n\nHis first campaign was against the Phrygians (Mushku) in 1112 BC, who had occupied certain Assyrian controlled districts in the Anatolian Upper Euphrates; then he overran Commagene and Cappadocia, and drove the Hittites from the Assyrian ruled Hurrian province of Subartu, northeast of Malatia.[6]\n\nIn a subsequent campaign, the Assyrian forces penetrated into the mountains south of Lake Van and then turned westward to receive the submission of Malatia. In his fifth year, Tiglath-Pileser attacked Comana in Cappadocia, and placed a record of his victories engraved on copper plates in a fortress he built to secure his Cilician conquests.[6]\n\nThe Arameans emerged in a region which was largely under the domination of the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1050 BC) and established a string of small states in the region. In order to nullify this threat, Tiglath-Pileser I performed many campaigns in the Levant against the Arameans and other tribal peoples.[9]\n\nThe control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of Pitru at the junction between the Euphrates and Sajur; thence he proceeded to 'Gubal (Byblos), Sidon, Berytus and finally to Arvad where he embarked onto a ship to sail the Mediterranean, on which he killed a nahiru or \"sea-horse\" (which A. Leo Oppenheim translates as a narwhal) in the sea.\n\nThe general view is that the restoration of the temple of the gods Ashur and Adad at Assyrian capital of Assur was one of his initiatives. It is also believed he was one of the first kings to commission parks and botanical gardens with foreign trees and plants brought from around the empire.[6][10][3]\n\nThe latter part of his reign seems to have been a period of retrenchment, as Aramaean tribesmen put pressure on his realm. He died in 1076 BC and was succeeded by his son Asharid-apal-Ekur. The later kings Ashur-bel-kala and Shamshi-Adad IV were also his sons.\n\nAnnals and texts\n\nTiglath-Pileser's I inscriptions from his \"fifth year annals\" varied in form, from inscriptions on prisms to cuneiform inscriptions on tablets. A.0.87.i (or RIMA 2) was inscribed on multiple 8-sided prisms and included 6 military campaigns that Marco De Odorico affirms as easily identifiable given that \"the subdivision of paragraphs by horizontal lines... as well as the introduction begin with 'in my succession year'\".[5]\n\nConsidering that much of Tiglath-Pileser I's reign involved military campaigns, it is unsurprising that most of his literary texts would include such information as \"Altogether I conquered 42 lands and their rulers from the other side of the Lower Zab in distant mountainous regions to the other side of the Euphrates, people of Hatti, and the Upper Sea in the west - from my accession year to my fifth regnal year.\"[5] Tiglath-Pileser I's prism was essentially a year-by-year layout of his military campaigns, and today is considered one of the world's first-preserved annals.\n\nReturning from the campaigns\n\nTiglath-Pileser I's annals contain military campaign documentation, as well as records of tribute. Once returned from a successful war campaign Tiglath-Pileser I is said to have had statues of the various animals he had come into contact with as well as hunted. From the translated annals text, it is said that he had \"2 nāhirū (horse of the sea)  sculptures, 4 burhiš sculptures, 4 lions constructed of basalt, 2 bull colossi made of alabaster, 2 burhiš sculptures made of white limestone and had them set up at the gates in the City of Ashur\"[11]\n\nThese statues were mainly used to decorate the \"royal entrance\", a practice that was taken up by Tiglath-Pileser I's son Aššur-bel-kala after his father's death.[11] In addition to erecting statues of animals his people had never seen, Tiglath-Pileser I returned from some war campaigns with the living animals themselves, including calves of wild bulls as well as elephants.\n\nSee also\n\nTiglath-Pileser II\n\nTiglath-Pileser III\n\nReferences\n\n^ Spelled as \"תִּגְלַת פִּלְאֶסֶר\" \"Tiglath-Pileser\" in the Book of Kings (2Kings 15:29) or as \"תִּלְּגַת פִּלְנְאֶסֶר\" \"Tilgath-Pilneser\" in the Book of Chronicles (2Chronicles 28:20).\n\n^ Roux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. Third edition. Penguin Books, 1992 (paperback, ISBN 0-14-012523-X).\n\n^ a b Leick 2010, p. 171.\n\n^ 'The Collins Encyclopedia of Military History', Dupuy & Dupuy, 1993, p. 9\n\n^ a b c Odorico, Marco De. \"Compositional and Editorial Processes of Annalistic and Summary Texts of Tiglath-pileser I\". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\n^ a b c d Chisholm 1911, p. 968.\n\n^ a b Frahm, Eckart (2017). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. p. 3. ISBN 9781444335934.\n\n^ \"Prism British Museum\". The British Museum.\n\n^ W.T. Pitard, Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 2, De Gruyter, 2009, pg. 638\n\n^ Bryce, p. 563.\n\n^ a b Lundström, Steven Marcus. \"The Hunt is on again! Tiglath-pileser I's and Aššur-bel-kala's nāḫirū-Sculptures in Assur, in: H.D. Baker/K. Kaniuth/A. Otto (eds.), Stories of Long Ago. Festschrift für Michael Roaf. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 397, Münster 2012, 323-338\". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\nSources\n\nBryce, Trevor, The Routledge Handbook of The People and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persians Empire, p. 563\n\nHarper, Robert Francis; et al. (1901). Babylonian and Assyrian Literature. New York: D. Appleton and company.\n\nLeick, Gwendolyn (March 1, 2010). The A to Z of Mesopotamia. Scarecrow Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0810875777.\n\nAttribution:\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Tiglath-Pileser s.v. Tiglath-Pileser I.\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 968.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAlbert Kirk Grayson (1991). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC). University of Toronto Press.\n\nExternal links\n\nInscription of Tiglath-Pileser I. Babylonian and Assyrian Literature. Project Gutemberg.\n\nInscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, Babylonian and Assyrian Literature, at Internet Archive\n\nPrism of Tiglat Pileser I, at the British Museum.\n\nAssyrian origins: discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Tiglath-Pileser I"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tiglath-pileser-i"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1451}, {"slug": "reference-jimmy-durmaz", "title": "Jimmy Durmaz", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Jakup Jimmy Durmaz (né Jakup Jimmy Touma; born 22 March 1989) is a Swedish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Swedish club Östertälje FC.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Jimmy Durmaz\n\nDurmaz with Sweden in 2019\n\nPersonal information\n\nFull name\nJakup Jimmy Durmaz[1]\n\nBirth name\nJakup Jimmy Touma\n\nDate of birth\n (1989-03-22) 22 March 1989\n\nPlace of birth\nÖrebro, Sweden\n\nHeight\n1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)[2]\n\nPosition\nMidfielder\n\nTeam information\n\nCurrent team\nÖstertälje FC\n\nYouth career\n\n2001-2005\nBK Forward\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n2005-2008\nBK Forward\n35\n(4)\n\n2008-2012\nMalmö FF\n91\n(14)\n\n2012-2014\nGençlerbirliği\n61\n(11)\n\n2014-2016\nOlympiacos\n43\n(9)\n\n2016-2019\nToulouse\n83\n(9)\n\n2019-2021\nGalatasaray\n12\n(0)\n\n2020-2021\n→ Fatih Karagümrük (loan)\n29\n(3)\n\n2021-2022\nFatih Karagümrük\n45\n(1)\n\n2023\nAIK\n19\n(0)\n\n2024\nGençlerbirliği\n12\n(0)\n\n2025\nEtimesgutspor\n8\n(0)\n\n2026-\nÖstertälje FC\n\nInternational career\n\n2009-2010\nSweden U21\n8\n(0)\n\n2011-2019\nSweden\n49\n(3)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals\n\nJakup Jimmy Durmaz (né Jakup Jimmy Touma; born 22 March 1989) is a Swedish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Swedish club Östertälje FC.\n\nHe began his career at BK Forward and moved in 2008 to Malmö FF, where he won the Allsvenskan title in 2010. He had two seasons each with Gençlerbirliği of Turkey and Olympiacos of Greece, winning two Super League Greece titles and one Greek Football Cup.\n\nA full international between 2011 and 2019, Durmaz won 49 caps for Sweden and scored three times. He was part of their squads for UEFA Euro 2016 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.\n\nEarly life\n\nDurmaz was born in Örebro, Sweden,[3][4] into an Assyrian family[5] of the Syriac Orthodox faith.[3][6][7] His father, Semun,[8] is from Midyat, Turkey[9] while his mother, Joula, is from Beirut, Lebanon.[9][10] They emigrated to Sweden from Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War.[6]\n\nDurmaz previously had his mother's surname, Touma, before changing it to his father's surname, Durmaz, in 2009.[11]\n\nClub career\n\nMalmö FF\n\nDurmaz came to Malmö FF from BK Forward in July 2008. He made his Allsvenskan debut on 14 July 2008 against Hammarby IF.\n\nHis breakthrough came in the 2010 league winning season when he started in 15 games and played 27. Durmaz scored the opening goal against AC Milan in an exhibition game on 14 August 2011.[12] Durmaz continued to the play regularly for the club during the 2011 season and finished the season with 27 league matches played and four goals scored.\n\nGençlerbirliği\n\nIn June 2012, Durmaz signed a three-year contract with Turkish club Gençlerbirliği S.K.[13][14] During his time with the Ankara based side as a domestic player[15] in Turkey. Durmaz scored 11 times and provided six assists in 61 league appearances.[16]\n\nOlympiacos\n\nAfter two seasons in Turkey, Durmaz signed for Greek Super League club Olympiacos Durmaz in August 2014.[17] He scored his first goal for the club with a close-range effort against OFI on 14 September.[18] His first hat-trick came in an 8-0 win over Tyrnavos in a Greek Cup game on 29 January 2015.[19]\n\nToulouse\n\nDurmaz moved to Ligue 1 club Toulouse in August 2016, for a fee in the region of €2.5 million.[20][21] On 26 August 2017, Durmaz scored two goals (both of them penalties) in Toulouse's 3-2 Ligue 1 home win over Stade Rennais to bring his 2017-18 Ligue 1 goal tally to three and improve on the two Ligue 1 goals he scored in the whole of the 2016-17 Ligue 1 season.[22]\n\nGalatasaray\n\nOn 2 July 2019, Durmaz joined reigning Süper Lig champions Galatasaray on a free transfer after his contract with Toulouse ran out.[16] He signed on a three-year deal, earning 6 million Turkish lira for the first season, increasing by a million in each subsequent campaign.[23]\n\nDurmaz made his debut for the club in the Turkish Super Cup on 7 August 2019, playing 81 minutes in their 1-0 win over Akhisar.[24]\n\nFatih Karagümrük\n\nOn 2 October 2020, he loaned from Galatasaray to Fatih Karagümrük, one of the Super League teams.[25] On 4 August 2021, he signed permanent contract with the team for following two seasons.\n\nAIK\n\nOn 12 January 2023, Durmaz signed a contract with AIK that will run until 31 December 2024.[26]\n\nReturn to Gençlerbirliği\n\nIn January 2024, Durmaz returned to former club Gençlerbirliği on an eighteen-month contract.[27]\n\nÖstertälje FC\n\nDespite having announced his retirement from football in February 2026,[28] Durmaz signed for Division 6 side Östertälje FC in March 2026.[9][29]\n\nInternational career\n\nDurmaz made his debut for Sweden on 8 February 2011 in a friendly game against Cyprus.[30] Durmaz was selected for the annual training camp for the Sweden national team in January 2012. The squad selection for the camp traditionally feature the best Swedish players in domestic and other Scandinavian leagues.[31]\n\nDurmaz represented Sweden at Euro 2016.[32]\n\nHe was named in Sweden's 23-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia,[33] but only made one appearance in the tournament, coming on as a substitute against Germany in the group stage.[34][35] After conceding a last-minute free kick in the game, from which Toni Kroos scored to beat Sweden 2-1, Durmaz was subjected to racial abuse and threats of violence on social media.[36] Expert analysis found that the most abusive posts were almost all bot generated, rather than from genuine users.[37]\n\nPersonal life\n\nDurmaz's younger brother, Elias, is also a footballer.[38] He is related to footballers Sharbel Touma, David Durmaz, and Charbel Georges.[39][40]\n\nCareer statistics\n\nClub\n\nAs of match played 6 August 2023[41][42][43]\n\nAppearances and goals by club, season and competition\n\nClub\n\nSeason\n\nLeague\n\nCup [a]\n\nContinental\n\nOther\n\nTotal\n\nDivision\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\n\nBK Forward\n2005\n\nDivision 2 Norra Svealand\n\n0\n0\n0\n0\n-\n-\n0\n0\n\n2006\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\n0\n0\n0\n0\n-\n-\n0\n0\n\n2007\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\n22\n2\n0\n0\n-\n-\n22\n2\n\n2008\n\nDivision 1 Norra\n\n13\n2\n0\n0\n-\n-\n13\n2\n\nTotal\n\n35\n4\n0\n0\n-\n-\n35\n4\n\nMalmö FF\n\n2008\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n9\n2\n0\n0\n-\n-\n9\n2\n\n2009\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n13\n0\n1\n0\n-\n-\n14\n0\n\n2010\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n27\n2\n2\n0\n-\n-\n29\n2\n\n2011\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n27\n4\n3\n0\n12[b]\n0\n-\n42\n4\n\n2012\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n15\n6\n0\n0\n-\n-\n15\n6\n\nTotal\n\n91\n14\n6\n0\n12\n0\n-\n109\n14\n\nGençlerbirliği\n2012-13\n\nSüper Lig\n\n29\n5\n3\n0\n-\n-\n32\n5\n\n2013-14\n\nSüper Lig\n\n32\n6\n1\n0\n-\n-\n33\n6\n\nTotal\n\n61\n11\n4\n0\n-\n-\n65\n11\n\nOlympiacos\n\n2014-15\n\nSuper League Greece\n\n19\n2\n5\n3\n3[c]\n0\n-\n27\n5\n\n2015-16\n\nSuper League Greece\n\n24\n7\n2\n0\n2[d]\n0\n-\n28\n7\n\n2016-17\n\nSuper League Greece\n\n0\n0\n0\n0\n2[e]\n0\n-\n2\n0\n\nTotal\n\n43\n9\n7\n3\n7\n0\n-\n57\n12\n\nToulouse\n\n2016-17\n\nLigue 1\n\n27\n2\n1\n1\n-\n-\n28\n3\n\n2017-18\n\nLigue 1\n\n20\n3\n3\n0\n-\n2[f]\n1\n25\n4\n\n2018-19\n\nLigue 1\n\n36\n4\n1\n0\n-\n-\n37\n4\n\nTotal\n\n83\n9\n5\n1\n-\n2\n1\n90\n11\n\nGalatasaray\n\n2019-20\n\nSüper Lig\n\n11\n0\n3\n0\n0\n0\n1[g]\n0\n15\n0\n\n2020-21\n\nSüper Lig\n\n1\n0\n0\n0\n1[h]\n0\n0\n0\n2\n0\n\nTotal\n\n12\n0\n3\n0\n1\n0\n1\n0\n17\n0\n\nFatih Karagümrük (loan)\n\n2020-21\n\nSüper Lig\n\n30\n3\n2\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n32\n3\n\nFatih Karagümrük\n\n2021-22\n\nSüper Lig\n\n32\n1\n2\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n34\n1\n\n2022-23\n\nSüper Lig\n\n13\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n13\n0\n\nTotal\n\n75\n4\n4\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n79\n3\n\nAIK\n\n2023\n\nAllsvenskan\n\n14\n0\n4\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n18\n0\n\nTotal\n\n14\n0\n4\n0\n0\n0\n0\n0\n18\n0\n\nCareer total\n\n414\n50\n31\n4\n20\n0\n3\n1\n480\n56\n\n^ Includes Svenska Cupen, Turkish Cup, Greek Football Cup and Coupe de France\n\n^ Six appearances in UEFA Champions League, six appearances in UEFA Europa League\n\n^ One appearance in UEFA Champions League, two appearances in UEFA Europa League\n\n^ Appearances in UEFA Europa League\n\n^ One appearance in UEFA Champions League, one appearance in UEFA Europa League\n\n^ Appearances in Coupe de la Ligue\n\n^ Appearances in Turkish Super Cup\n\n^ Appearances in UEFA Europa League\n\nInternational\n\nAs of 5 September 2019[44][45]\n\nAppearances and goals by national team and year\n\nNational team\nYear\nApps\nGoals\n\nSweden\n\n2011\n1\n0\n\n2012\n2\n1\n\n2013\n11\n0\n\n2014\n9\n1\n\n2015\n5\n0\n\n2016\n10[a]\n0\n\n2017\n5\n1\n\n2018\n5[b]\n0\n\n2019\n1\n0\n\nTotal\n49\n3\n\n^ Two appearances in UEFA Euro 2016\n\n^ One appearance in 2018 FIFA World Cup\n\nScores and results list Sweden's goal tally first\n\n#\nDate\nVenue\nOpponent\nScore\nResult\nCompetition\n\n1\n23 January 2012\nJassim Bin Hamad Stadium, Doha, Qatar\n Qatar\n1-0\n5-0\nFriendly\n\n2\n12 October 2014\nFriends Arena, Stockholm, Sweden\n Liechtenstein\n2-0\n2-0\nUEFA Euro 2016 qualifying\n\n3\n9 June 2017\n\nFriends Arena, Stockholm, Sweden\n France\n1-1\n2-1\n2018 FIFA World Cup qualification\n\nHonours\n\nMalmö[46]\n\nAllsvenskan: 2010\n\nOlympiacos[46]\n\nSuper League Greece: 2014-15, 2015-16\n\nGreek Cup: 2014-15\n\nGalatasaray[46]\n\nTurkish Super Cup: 2019\n\nIndividual\n\nStor Grabb: 2016[47]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"FIFA World Cup Russia 2018: List of Players: Sweden\" (PDF). FIFA. 15 July 2018. p. 29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2019.\n\n^ \"2018 FIFA World Cup Russia - List of Players\" (PDF). FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 4 June 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 June 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2018.\n\n^ a b Jean-Francois Fournel (6 September 2017). \"Jimmy Durmaz, un chrétien d'Orient en équipe de Suède de football\". La Croix (in French). Retrieved 25 August 2020.\n\n^ \"Mondial-2018 : Jimmy Durmaz, joueur suédois, victime d'injures racistes\". France 24 (in French). 3 July 2018. Retrieved 17 June 2026.\n\n^ Durmaz, who plays in France for Toulouse, was born in Sweden to Assyrian parents who had emigrated from Turkey.\n\n^ a b \"Jimmy Durmaz, un chrétien d'Orient à la Coupe du monde de foot\". Aleteia (in French). Retrieved 17 June 2026.\n\n^ \"Coupe du monde 2018. Jimmy Durmaz, le symbole suédois\". Ouest-France (in French). 4 July 2018. Retrieved 25 August 2020.\n\n^ Bengtsson, Olle BengtssonTextOlle (27 June 2018). \"Familjen i Södertälje tror stödet till Durmaz tar Sverige vidare: \"När kärleken tar över blir man starkare\"\". Norrtelje Tidning (in Swedish). Retrieved 17 June 2026.\n\n^ a b c SyriacPress (6 March 2026). \"Jimmy Durmaz ends professional career and joins Östertälje FC\". SyriacPress. Retrieved 23 July 2026.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz about his Syriac-Aramaic roots\". YouTube.\n\n^ \"MFF-löftet byter namn - Touma blir Durmaz - Allsvenskan - Fotbollskanalen\". www.fotbollskanalen.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 October 2026.\n\n^ \"Malmö FF - AC Milan\". everysport.com (in Swedish). Everysport. 14 August 2011. Retrieved 16 August 2011.\n\n^ \"Durmaz skrev på för Genclerbirligi: \"Vågar inte vänta\"\". fotbollskanalen.se (in Swedish). Fotbollskanalen. 27 June 2012. Retrieved 27 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durma(z)'dı geldi\". genclerbirligi.org.tr (in Turkish). Gençlerbirliği. 17 July 2012. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012. Retrieved 17 July 2012.\n\n^ \"TFF profile\". 14 March 2015.\n\n^ a b \"Sweden International Jimmy Durmaz Arrives in Istanbul Ahead of Completing Galatasaray Move\". Turkish Football. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2019.\n\n^ Παίκτης του Ολυμπιακού ο Ντουρμάζ (in Greek), 22 August 2014, retrieved 22 August 2014\n\n^ \"Durmaz thrilled by Malmö return with Olympiacos\". UEFA. 25 September 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2019.\n\n^ Durmaz keen on Olympiakos stay Archived 1 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 29 January 2015\n\n^ Jimmy Durmaz (Olympiakos) en route pour Toulouse Retrieved 20 August 2016\n\n^ Toulouse : l'international suédois Jimmy Durmaz a signé Retrieved 20 August 2016\n\n^ \"Durmaz stars as Toulouse take down Rennes\". www.ligue1.com. 26 August 2017.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz Galatasaray'da\" (in Turkish). Galtasaray. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2019.\n\n^ \"AKHISARSPOR VS. GALATASARAY 0 - 1\". Soccerway. Retrieved 10 August 2019.\n\n^ \"Jakup Jimmy Durmaz Fatih Karagümrük'e kiralandı\". www.galatasaray.org. 2 October 2020.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz till AIK Fotboll\" (in Swedish). AIK Fotboll. 12 January 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2023.\n\n^ \"JİMMY DURMAZ YENİDEN GENÇLERBİRLİĞİ'MİZDE\" [JIMMY DURMAZ IS BACK IN GENÇLERBIRLIĞI]. genclerbirligi.org.tr (in Turkish). 24 January 2024. Retrieved 24 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz avslutar sin karriär\" [Jimmy Durmaz ends his career]. fotbollskanalen.se (in Swedish). 16 February 2026. Retrieved 16 February 2026.\n\n^ Nyheter, S. V. T. (4 March 2026). \"Tidigare landslagsspelaren Jimmy Durmaz värvad till Östertälje\". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 23 July 2026.\n\n^ \"Debuten som gav Durmaz mersmak\". sydsvenskan.se (in Swedish). Sydsvenskan. 8 February 2011. Archived from the original on 12 February 2011. Retrieved 28 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Landslaget blir himmelsblågult: \"Vi är stolta\"\". fotbollskanalen.se (in Swedish). Fotbollskanalen. 12 January 2012. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2012.\n\n^ \"Sverige utslaget ur EM efter tung förlust mot Belgien\". Svenska Dagbladet. 22 June 2016.\n\n^ \"Revealed: Every World Cup 2018 squad - Final 23-man lists | Goal.com\".\n\n^ FIFA.com. \"2018 FIFA World Cup Russia - Players - Jimmy DURMAZ - Jimmy Durmaz\". www.fifa.com. Archived from the original on 23 June 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018.\n\n^ \"World Cup 2018: Germany revive World Cup hopes with late winner over Sweden\". BBC Sport. 23 June 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2018.\n\n^ \"World Cup 2018: Sweden's Jimmy Durmaz says racial abuse 'passed limit'\". BBC Sport. 24 June 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2018.\n\n^ Hatstormen mot Durmaz fanns inte Archived 6 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine fplus.se. Retrieved 5 July 2018.\n\n^ Wahlberg, Malin (12 January 2023). \"Officiellt: Jimmy Durmaz klar för AIK\". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 October 2026.\n\n^ \"Durmaz kusin jagas av allsvenskar\". fotbolldirekt.se. 22 August 2012. Archived from the original on 28 February 2013. Retrieved 30 April 2017.; \"Från division II till 50 000 på Friends?\". fotbolldirekt.se. 26 March 2013. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2017.\n\n^ \"David Durmaz om mötet med sin nya klubb\". www.svenskafans.com (in Swedish). Retrieved 8 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz » Club matches\". worldfootball.net. Retrieved 27 June 2018.\n\n^ \"Jimmy DURMAZ - Football : la fiche de Jimmy DURMAZ - Coupe du monde 2018\". L'Équipe (in French). Retrieved 27 June 2018.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz\". svenskfotboll.se. Swedish Football Association. Retrieved 16 August 2011.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz\". European Football. 30 June 2018.\n\n^ \"Jimmy Durmaz\". National Football Teams. Benjamin Strack-Zimmermann. Retrieved 30 June 2018.\n\n^ a b c \"Trophies\". Soccerway. Retrieved 10 August 2019.\n\n^ \"Stora Grabbars Märke - Svensk fotboll\". www.svenskfotboll.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 29 September 2021.\n\nExternal links\n\nJimmy Durmaz - UEFA competition record (archive)\n\nJimmy Durmaz - FIFA competition record (archived)\n\nMalmö FF profile (in Swedish)\n\nJimmy Durmaz at the Swedish Football Association (in Swedish) (archive)\n\nJimmy Durmaz at Soccerway\n\nJimmy Durmaz at www.mackolik.com (in Turkish)\n\nJimmy Durmaz at National-Football-Teams.com"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jimmy-durmaz"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2425}, {"slug": "reference-nestorianism", "title": "Nestorianism", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinally distinct sets of teachings that fall under the umbrella term Dyophysitism, such as two natures in Christ (human and Divine) or two persons in Christ (the Man and the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinally distinct sets of teachings that fall under the umbrella term Dyophysitism, such as two natures in Christ (human and Divine) or two persons in Christ (the Man and the Word).[1] The extent to which those two definitions are actually distinct is also debatable.[2] The first meaning of the term is related to the teachings of Christian theologian Nestorius (died c. AD 451) as according to his immediate opponents at the Council of Ephesus and traditionally used by Miaphysites. The second meaning of the term relates to a set of later theological teachings that were traditionally labeled as Nestorian by Chalcedonians but differ in the teachings of Nestorius in origin, scope and terminology.[3] Per the latter definition, the Oxford English Dictionary defines Nestorianism as:\n\n\"The doctrine of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople (appointed in 428), by which Christ is asserted to have had distinct human and divine persons.\"[4]\n\nThe original definition of Nestorianism, as articulated by Nestorius himself, is preserved primarily in his surviving writings on topics such as Mariology and Christology. Although many of his works were lost or destroyed, others have been transmitted through his opponents or preserved in Church of the East libraries. Most notable among these is the Bazaar of Heracleides, composed during his exile following the Council of Chalcedon. The modern rediscovery of the Bazaar has prompted renewed scholarly interest in reconstructing Nestorius’s own theological positions, which appear to diverge in significant respects from the \"two-person\" formulation of Christology attributed to him by both his contemporaries and later critics.[5] His theology was influenced by teachings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (died 428), the most prominent theologian of the Antiochian School. Nestorian Mariology prefers the title Christotokos, which encompasses the term Theotokos ('God-bearer') for Mary, thus emphasizing distinction between divine and human aspects of the Incarnation, and at the same time their unity in the person of Christ. Nestorian Christology promotes the concept of a prosopic union of two concrete realities (divine and human) in Jesus Christ,[6] as opposed to the concept of a hypostatic union of two hypostases into one. The distinction is between 'two hypostases in one person' and 'two hypostases united into one hypostasis', respectively. Hypostasis is not seen as subject, but rather a nature existing in reality. This Christological position is viewed by the West as radical dyophysitism,[7] and, according to Chalcedonian Christianity, differs from their dyophysitism, which was reaffirmed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.[8] Such teachings brought Nestorius into conflict with other prominent church leaders, most notably Cyril of Alexandria, who issued 12 anathemas against him in 430. Nestorius and his teachings were eventually condemned as heretical at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and again at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. His teachings were considered as heretical not only in Chalcedonian Christianity, but even more so in Oriental Orthodoxy.[8] The Church of the East would affirm the orthodoxy of Nestorius, lining up with the tradition of the School of Antioch of its time.\n\nAfter the condemnation, some supporters of Nestorius, who were followers of the Antiochian School and the School of Edessa, relocated to the Sasanian Empire, where they were affiliated with the local Assyrian community of the satrapy of Asuristan (Assyria), many who were followers of the Assyrian Church, known as the Church of the East, while others were Syriac Orthodox. During the period from 484 to 612, gradual development led to the creation of specific doctrinal views within the Church of the East.[9] Evolution of those views was finalized by prominent East Syriac theologian Babai the Great (died 628) who was using the specific Syriac term qnoma (ܩܢܘܡܐ) as a designation for dual (divine and human) substances within one prosopon (person) of Christ. Such views were officially adopted by the Church of the East at a council held in 612.[10]\n\nOpponents of such views in the West inaccurately labeled them as \"Nestorian\", leading to the practice of mislabeling the Church of the East as Nestorian, and indeed the Assyrian people themselves as \"Nestorians\".[11] However, in modern religious studies it has been criticized as improper and misleading,[12] even though Nestorius is officially venerated as a saint in the Assyrian Church of the East.[13] As a consequence, both in scholarly literature and in the field of inter-denominational relations, the term Nestorian increasingly focuses on its primary meaning, the original teachings of Nestorius, rather than referring to the teachings of the far older-originating Assyrian Church of the East or its offshoot, the Chaldean Catholic Church.[14]\n\nHistory\n\nNestorianism was condemned as heresy at the Council of Ephesus (431). The Armenian Church rejected the Council of Chalcedon (451) because they believed Chalcedonian Definition was too similar to Nestorianism. The Persian Nestorian Church, on the other hand, supported the spread of Nestorianism in Persarmenia. The Armenian Church and other eastern churches saw the rise of Nestorianism as a threat to the independence of their Church. Peter the Iberian, a Georgian prince, also strongly opposed the Chalcedonian Creed.[15] Thus, in 491, Catholicos Babken I of Armenia, along with the Albanian and Iberian bishops met in Vagharshapat and issued a condemnation of the Chalcedonian Definition.[16]\n\nNestorians held that the Council of Chalcedon proved the orthodoxy of their faith and had started persecuting non-Chalcedonian or Miaphysite Syriac Christians during the reign of Peroz I. In response to pleas for assistance from the Syriac Church, Armenian prelates issued a letter addressed to Persian Christians reaffirming their condemnation of the Nestorianism as heresy.[15]\n\nFollowing the exodus to Persia, scholars expanded on the teachings of Nestorius and his mentors, particularly after the relocation of the School of Edessa to the city of Nisibis under Persian control in 489, where it became known as the School of Nisibis. Nestorian monasteries propagating the teachings of the Nisibis school flourished in 6th century Persarmenia.[15]\n\nDespite this initial Eastern expansion, the Nestorians' missionary success was eventually deterred. David J. Bosch observes, \"By the end of the fourteenth century, however, the Nestorian and other churches-which at one time had dotted the landscape of all of Central and even parts of East Asia-were all but wiped out. Isolated pockets of Christianity survived only in India. The religious victors on the vast Central Asian mission field of the Nestorians were Islam and Buddhism\".[17]\n\nDoctrine\n\nNestorianism is described as a radical form of dyophysitism[7] that, according to Chalcedonians, differs from their version of dyophysitism on several points, mainly by opposition to the concept of hypostatic union. It can be seen as the antithesis to Eutychian Monophysitism, which emerged in reaction to Nestorianism after the conclusion of the Council of Ephesus. Where Nestorianism holds that Christ had two distinct natures, divine and human, Monophysitism holds that he had but a single nature, his human nature being absorbed into his divinity. A brief definition of Nestorian Christology can be given as: \"Jesus Christ, who is not identical with the Son but personally united with the Son, who lives in him, is one hypostasis and one nature: human.\"[19] This contrasts with Nestorius' own teaching that the Word, which is eternal, and the Flesh, which is not, came together in a hypostatic union, 'Jesus Christ', Jesus thus being both fully man and God, of two ousia (Ancient Greek: οὐσία) (essences) but of one prosopon (person).[20] Both Nestorianism and Monophysitism were condemned as heretical at the Council of Chalcedon and the Second Council of Ephesus.\n\nNestorius developed his Christological views as an attempt to understand and explain rationally the incarnation of the divine Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity as the man Jesus. He had studied at the School of Antioch where his mentor had been Theodore of Mopsuestia; Theodore and other Antioch theologians had long taught a literalist interpretation of the Bible and stressed the distinctiveness of the human and divine natures of Jesus. Nestorius took his Antiochene leanings with him when he was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople by Byzantine emperor Theodosius II in 428.\n\nNestorius's teachings sparked controversy when he publicly challenged the long-established title of Theotokos[21] ('God-Bearer') for the Virgin Mary. He argued that this title, while orthodox per se, was inadequate to fully encompass the nature of the Incarnation, as it singled out Christ's divinity with no reference to His humanity. To address this perceived limitation, he proposed the alternative title of Christotokos ('Christ-Bearer') as a more appropriate designation for Mary.[22]\n\nHe also advanced the image of Jesus as a warrior-king and rescuer of Israel over the traditional image of the Christus dolens.[23]\n\nNestorius' opponents found his teaching too close to the heresy of adoptionism - the idea that Christ had been born a man who had later been \"adopted\" as God's son. Nestorius was especially criticized by Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who argued that Nestorius's teachings undermined the unity of Christ's divine and human natures at the Incarnation. Some of Nestorius's opponents argued that he put too much emphasis on the human nature of Christ, and others debated that the difference that Nestorius implied between the human nature and the divine nature created a fracture in the singularity of Christ, thus creating two Christ figures.[24] Nestorius himself always insisted that his views were orthodox, though they were deemed heretical at the Council of Ephesus in 431, leading to the Nestorian Schism, when churches supportive of Nestorius and the rest of the Christian Church separated. However, this formulation was never adopted by all churches termed 'Nestorian'. Indeed, the modern Assyrian Church of the East, which reveres Nestorius, does not fully subscribe to Nestorian doctrine, though it does not employ the title Theotokos.[25]\n\nIntentions\n\nAs written in his Bazaar of Heracleides, Nestorius went on to qualify his beliefs, including justifying his position, seemingly disconnecting him from the heresy of which bears his name. He would state that he never taught two persons or separated the Savior into two, affirming two natures in one person, that Mary is the mother of God; that Christ is God and Man. And, he \"was born in flesh Christ, who is God above all.\"[26] As John McGuckin says, \"For Nestorius, a nature without a hypostasis was a 'phantom.' He used the word to mean the concrete particularity of the nature. His critics, however, read 'hypostasis' as 'Person,' and thus accused him of teaching two Persons when he was actually trying to teach two concrete realities.\"[27]\n\nNestorius would live long enough to read and happily agree with the Tome of Leo proclaiming him 'guiltless' and 'truthful' as he articulated the teachings he was trying to express in dyophysitism.[28]\n\nAs scholars note, Nestorius was trying to safeguard the distinctions of the two natures against confusion and mixture. For him, a nature without its own hypostasis (or concrete existence) was not a real nature at all. Nestorius defines hypostasis as the concrete reality of the nature, the 'that which' (id quod) of the essence. It is the individual instance which possesses the properties of the nature. ... This is why he insists on two hypostases: to ensure the humanity is not swallowed up.\n\nJ.F. Bethune Baker says, \"By hypostasis Nestorius means the actual concrete existence of the nature. ... For him, to say that there were two natures but only one hypostasis would have been to say that one of the natures was unreal a mere abstraction.\"[29]\n\nHis Bazaar and teachings following his excommunication would be preserved Mar Babai the Great and the Assyrian Church which would use syriac terminology to express what he meant.[30]\n\nAs Mar Babai the Great explains, \"A nature (kyānā) which is not composed and does not stand in its own concrete instance (qnōmā) is not a nature at all, but a mere mental concept. ... For if the nature of man in Christ was not a qnōmā, then he did not truly become man, but only appeared to be so.\" Book of Union, Chapter 1 [31]\n\n\"The two qnōmē remain distinct in their natural properties, so that the divinity is not changed into humanity, nor the humanity into divinity ... but they are united in the one parṣōpā of the Sonship, so that there is one Son, one Lord, and one Christ.\" Book of Union, Chapter 4 [32]\n\nSebastian Brock says, \"The word qnoma ... does not mean 'person' (for which parsopa is used), but 'an individual instance of a nature' (kyana). Since a nature (kyana) is an abstraction and can only exist in a concrete individual (qnoma), it follows that to speak of two natures is to imply two qnome.\"[30]\n\nThus, the Assyrians professed within the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word and Son of God, there exists one Parṣōpā (ܦܪܨܘܦܐ), that is one subject-one person of the incarnate Messiah, there are two Kyānē (ܟܝܵܢܹ̈ܐ) of the one Parṣōpā, that is two natures of the Word of God; there exists the Qnōmē (ܩܢܘܡ̈ܐ), the two real, concrete, and particular instances and realities, united perfectly in the one Parṣōpā. Thus, he professed that the Lord Jesus Christ has two natures (Trēn Kyānē - ܬܪܹܝܢ ܟܝܵܢܹ̈ܐ), two concrete instances and realities (Trēn Qnōmē - ܬܪܹܝܢ ܩܢܘܡ̈ܐ) of the two natures, in one person (Ḥdā Parṣōpā - ܚܕ݂ܵܐ ܦܪܨܘܦܐ). Summarizing the teachings of Nestorius, who would himself later understand Cyril was not trying to mix but unite the natures to preserve the indivisibility of the incarnate Christ.\n\nNestorius's posthumous victory would be eminent within the Tome of Leo which states Agit enim utraque forma (\"Each form [nature] does what is proper to it\") and that one form suffers and the other sprinkles miracles.[33] This would be seen as a concession to the dual-subject terminology and the antiochene theology Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia stressed in their teachings by many, as noted by many scholars.[34][35][36][37][38]\n\nThis would be prevalent in the Church up until the condemnation of homo assumptus by Thomas Aquinas, who rejected the idea that the human 'hypostasis' was assumed by a divine one. Nevertheless, scholars agree that, in correcting the enhypostaton language used by John Damascene, the scholastics would still concede to the individualistic language used for the human nature. In the De Unione, Aquinas suggests that there is a secondary esse. This looked very much like the Nestorian view that there were two concrete beings (hypostases) in Christ. The difference is largely one of terminology: what Nestorius calls a hypostasis, the scholastics call a particular substance.[39] As Richard Cross says, \"The account of the union according to which the human nature is an individual substance an account that was, as we have seen, standard among the thirteenth century high scholastics is structurally very similar to the account offered by Nestorius... Both accounts require that there be two concrete particulars in Christ, one divine and one human.\"[40] The later Latin scholastics, in their effort to maintain the integrity and reality of the human nature, ended up affirming a 'particularity' that is indistinguishable from the Nestorian hypostasis.\n\nBy the time of Aquinas, the 'two-natures' doctrine had become so robust that it required what was essentially a Nestorian metaphysics of two concrete beings in one person. As Thomas Joseph White says, \"Aquinas’s later teaching in the De unione... acknowledges a created esse for the humanity. This risks positing Christ as two 'things' (res) in a way that the Summa avoids. It brings him closer to a model where the humanity is a complete particular entity existing in the Word.\"[41]\n\nGoing back to the semantics, the abovementioned scholars note that Leo managed to bypass the two persons baggage and limitations of the Greek, and provided a clarity through Latin persona and substantia. Moreover, the Syriac terminology expressed their (and by proxy Nestiorius's) theology and emphasis on the distinctnes of the distinct natural properties, much like Cyril of Alexandria in his dialogue with the Antiochene school; in the reunion formula and second letter to Succensus.\n\nCyril in his second letter to Succensus says, \"If the same one is understood to be perfect God and perfect man... then how can there be a perfection if the nature of man no longer endures? ... each [essence] is understood to remain in all its natural characteristics.\"[42]\n\nCyril in his letter to John of Antioch (Laetentur Caeli | 433 A.D.) says, \"As to the evangelical and apostolic expressions concerning the Lord, we know that theologians treat some as common, as referring to one person, and distinguish others as referring to two natures, and they deliver the God-befitting ones to the divinity of Christ, but the humble ones to his humanity.\"[43]\n\nNestorius’s use of hypostasis was intended to guarantee the ontological permanence of the two natures... He feared that if there were only 'one hypostasis' after the union, one of the natures (likely the human) would be absorbed or swallowed up by the other. He insisted on two hypostases because he believed that a nature (physis) cannot exist in the abstract; it must have a concrete, individual expression. By 'two hypostases,' he meant that the divinity remained divine and the humanity remained human even after they were joined.\n\nAs scholars would explain regarding the Nestorian controversy, Nestorius was a defender of the antiochene (dyophysite) theology, expressing the distinctness of the two natures of Christ, albeit audaciously. Whose religious and political disputes with the Alexandrians caused as scholars call it 'a linguistic tragedy of miscommunication.' Teaching that there exists two natures and two hypostases (concrete existents) within the one person of Jesus Christ.\n\nNestorian Schism\n\nNestorianism became a distinct sect following the Nestorian Schism, beginning in the 430s. Nestorius had come under fire from Western theologians, most notably Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril had both theological and political reasons for attacking Nestorius; on top of feeling that Nestorianism was an error against true belief, he also wanted to denigrate the head of a competing patriarchate.[44] Cyril and Nestorius asked Pope Celestine I to weigh in on the matter. Celestine found that the title Theotokos[21] was sufficiently orthodox, and authorized Cyril to ask Nestorius to recant. Cyril, however, used the opportunity to further attack Nestorius, who pleaded with Emperor Theodosius II to call a council so that all grievances could be aired.[25]\n\nIn 431 Theodosius II called the Council of Ephesus. The council ultimately sided with Cyril, who held that the Christ is of (not in) two natures (hypostases) perfectly united into one nature (hypostasis) without mixture or separation,[45] and that the Virgin Mary, conceiving and bearing this divine person, is truly and sufficiently called the Mother of God (Theotokos). The council accused Nestorius of heresy, and deposed him as patriarch.[46] Upon returning to his monastery in 436, he was banished to Upper Egypt. Nestorianism was officially anathematized, a ruling reiterated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, a number of churches, particularly those associated with the School of Edessa, supported Nestorius - though not necessarily his doctrine - and broke with the churches of the West. Many of Nestorius' supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire of Iran, home to a vibrant but persecuted Christian minority.[47] In Upper Egypt, Nestorius wrote his Book of Heraclides, responding to the two councils at Ephesus (431, 449).[20]\n\nChristian denomination tree\n\nMajor denominational families in Christianity:\n\nThis box: \nview\n\ntalk\n\nedit\n\nWestern Christianity\nEastern Christianity\nProtestantism\nAnabaptism\nAnglicanism\nLutheranism\nReformed\n(Latin Church)\nCatholic Church\n(Eastern Catholic Churches)\nEastern Orthodox Church\nOriental Orthodox Churches\nChurch of the East\nSchism (1552)\nAssyrian Church of the East\nAncient Church of the East\nProtestant Reformation\n(16th century)\nGreat Schism (1054)\nNestorian Schism (431)\nChalcedonian Schism (451)\nEarly Christianity\nGreat Church\n(Full communion)\n\n(Not shown are ante-Nicene, nontrinitarian, and restorationist denominations.)\n\nChurch of the East\n\nThe Daqin Pagoda, controversially claimed to be part of an early Nestorian church in what was then Chang'an, now Xi'an, China, built during the Tang dynasty (AD 618-907)Entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, with a female figure dressed in a Tang dynasty costume, AD 683-770\n\nThe western provinces of the Persian Empire had been home to Christian communities, headed by metropolitans, and later patriarchs of Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The Christian minority in Persia was frequently persecuted by the Zoroastrian majority, which accused local Christians of political leanings towards the Roman Empire. In 424, the Church in Persia declared itself independent, in order to ward off allegations of any foreign allegiance. By the end of the 5th century, the Persian Church increasingly aligned itself with the teachings of Theodore of Mopsuestia and his followers, many of whom became dissidents after the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). The Persian Church became increasingly opposed to doctrines promoted by those councils, thus furthering the divide between Chalcedonian and Persian currents.[8]\n\nIn 486, the Metropolitan Barsauma of Nisibis publicly accepted Nestorius' mentor Theodore of Mopsuestia as a spiritual authority. In 489, when the School of Edessa in Mesopotamia was closed by Byzantine Emperor Zeno for its pro-Nestorian teachings, the school relocated to its original home of Nisibis, becoming again the School of Nisibis, leading to the migration of a wave of Christian dissidents into Persia. The Persian patriarch Babai (497-502) reiterated and expanded upon the church's esteem for Theodore of Mopsuestia.\n\nNow firmly established in Persia, with centers in Nisibis, Ctesiphon, and Gundeshapur, and several metropoleis, the Persian Church began to branch out beyond the Sasanian Empire. However, through the sixth century, the church was frequently beset with internal strife and persecution by Zoroastrians. The infighting led to a schism, which lasted from 521 until around 539 when the issues were resolved. However, immediately afterward Roman-Persian conflict led to the persecution of the church by the Sassanid emperor Khosrow I; this ended in 545. The church survived these trials under the guidance of Patriarch Aba I, who had converted to Christianity from Zoroastrianism.[47]\n\nThe church emerged stronger after this period of ordeal, and increased missionary efforts farther afield. Missionaries established dioceses in the Arabian Peninsula and India (the Saint Thomas Christians). They made some advances in Egypt, despite the strong Miaphysite presence there.[48] Missionaries entered Central Asia and had significant success converting local Turkic tribes.\n\nThe Anuradhapura Cross discovered in Sri Lanka strongly suggests a strong presence of Nestorian Christianity in Sri Lanka during the 6th century AD according to Humphrey Codrington, who based his claim on a 6th-century manuscript, Christian Topography, that mentions of a community of Persian Christians who were known to reside in Taprobanê (the Ancient Greek name for Sri Lanka).[49][50][51]\n\nNestorian missionaries were firmly established in China during the early part of the Tang dynasty (618-907); the Chinese source known as the Nestorian Stele records a mission under a Persian proselyte named Alopen as introducing Nestorian Christianity to China in 635. The Jingjiao Documents (also described by the Japanese scholar P. Y. Saeki as \"Nestorian Documents\") or Jesus Sutras are said to be connected with Alopen.[52]\n\nFollowing the Arab conquest of Persia, completed in 644, the Persian Church became a dhimmi community under the Rashidun Caliphate. The church and its communities abroad grew larger under the caliphate. By the 10th century it had 15 metropolitan sees within the caliphate's territories, and another five elsewhere, including in China and India.[47] After that time, however, Nestorianism went into decline.\n\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\nIn a 1996 article published in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Fellow of the British Academy Sebastian Brock wrote: \"the term 'Nestorian Church' has become the standard designation for the ancient oriental church which in the past called itself 'The Church of the East', but which today prefers the fuller title 'The Assyrian Church of the East'. The Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East signed by Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV underlines the Chalcedonian Christological formulation as the expression of the common faith of these Churches and recognizes the legitimacy of the title Theotokos.\"[53]\n\nIn a 2017 paper, Mar Awa Royel, Bishop of the Assyrian Church, stated the position of that church: \"After the Council of Ephesus (431), when Nestorius the patriarch of Constantinople was condemned for his views on the unity of the Godhead and the humanity in Christ, the Church of the East was branded as 'Nestorian' on account of its refusal to anathematize the patriarch.\"[54]\n\nSeveral historical records suggest that the Assyrian Church of the East may have been in Sri Lanka between the mid-5th and 6th centuries.[49][50][51]\n\nSee also\n\nNestorius\n\nMiaphysitism\n\nMonophysitism\n\nHypostatic union\n\nNestorian Evangelion\n\nNestorianism and the church in India\n\nChristian influences in Islam\n\nCitations\n\n^ Brock 2006, p. 177.\n\n^ Wood, Philip John (Jan 2022). \"Miaphysites in Iraq during the Last Great War of Antiquity (c. 604-28) and its Aftermath\". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 73 (1): 20-37. doi:10.1017/S0022046920003061. ISSN 0022-0469.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 4.\n\n^ \"Nestorianism\". Oxford English Dictionary.\n\n^ Driver, G. R.; Hodgson, Leonard. The Bazaar Of Heracleides. Oxford University Press - Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts.\n\n^ Chesnut 1978, pp. 392-409.\n\n^ a b Burgess 1989, pp. 90, 229, 231.\n\n^ a b c Meyendorff 1989.\n\n^ Brock 1999, pp. 281-298.\n\n^ Brock 2006.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 3-5.\n\n^ Brock 1996, pp. 23-35.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, pp. 4-5.\n\n^ Seleznyov 2010, pp. 165-190.\n\n^ a b c Stopka, Krzysztof (2016). Armenia Christiana: Armenian Religious Identity and the Churches of Constantinople and Rome (4th-15th Century). Wydawnictwo UJ. pp. 62-68. ISBN 978-83-233-9555-3 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Kleinbauer, W. Eugene (September 1972). \"Zvartnots and the Origins of Christian Architecture in Armenia\". The Art Bulletin. Vol. 54, no. 3. p. 261.\n\n^ Bosch, David (1991). Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Orbis Books. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-60833-146-8 - via Google Books.\n\n^ Hogan. Dissent from the Creed. pp. 123-125.\n\n^ Martin Lembke, lecture in the course \"Meetings with the World's Religions\", Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, Spring Term 2010.\n\n^ a b Hodgson & Driver 1925.\n\n^ a b Artemi, Eirini (December 2012). \"Cyril of Alexandria's critique of the term Theotokos by Nestorius Constantinople\". Acta Theologica. 32 (2): 1-16. doi:10.4314/actat.v32i2.1. Retrieved 2019-10-22.\n\n^ Palmer-Anghel, Martin; Ramsay, Jay; Kwok, Man-ho (1995). Kuan Yin: Myths and Prophecies of the Chinese Goddess of Compassion. London: Thorsons. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-85538-417-0.\n\n^ Neely, Brent (July 2017). \"At cross purposes\". Transformations. 34 (3): 176-213. doi:10.1177/0265378816631552. JSTOR 90010414. S2CID 171352591. Retrieved September 7, 2022.\n\n^ Bentley, Jerry (1993). Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 105.\n\n^ a b \"Nestorius\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 29, 2010.\n\n^ Nestorius; Driver, G. R.; Hodgson, Leonard (1925). The Bazaar of Heracleides. Clarendon Press. p. 96.\n\n^ McGuckin, John (2004). Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology, and Texts. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. p. 153.\n\n^ Nestorius; Driver, G. R.; Hodgson, Leonard (1925). The Bazaar of Heracleides. Clarendon Press. p. 336.\n\n^ Bethune-Baker, J.F. (1908). Nestorius and His Teaching: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence. Cambridge University Press. p. 45.\n\n^ a b Brock, Sebastian (1996). \"The 'Nestorian' Church: A Lamentable Misnomer\". Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 23-35.\n\n^ Babai the Great. Liber de Unione (Book of Union), Chapter 1. Translated by Vaschalde, A., CSCO vol. 79/80, Syr. 34/35, 1915. Cf. Chediath, G. (1982). The Christology of Mar Babai the Great. Oriental Institute of Religious Studies. p. 172.\n\n^ Babai the Great. Liber de Unione (Book of Union), Chapter 4. Translated by Vaschalde, A., CSCO vol. 79/80, Syr. 34/35, 1915. Cf. Grillmeier, A. (1995). Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. 2, Part 2. Mowbray. p. 248.\n\n^ Leo the Great. The Tome of St. Leo. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. p. Section 4.\n\n^ Frend, W. H. C. (1972). The Rise of the Monophysite Movement. Cambridge University Press. pp. 2-5, 144.\n\n^ Price, Richard (2005). The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon. Vol. 1. Liverpool University Press. pp. 27-30.\n\n^ Kelly, J. N. D. (1978). Early Christian Doctrines. HarperOne. pp. 338-339.\n\n^ Grillmeier, Aloys (1975). Christ in Christian Tradition. Vol. 1. John Knox Press. pp. 526-530.\n\n^ Anastos, Milton (1979). Studies in Byzantine Intellectual History. Variorum. p. Chapter 5.\n\n^ Cross, Richard. (1996). \"Aquinas on Nature, Hypostasis, and the Metaphysics of the Incarnation.\" The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 171-202. doi:10.1353/tho.1996.0022\n\n^ Cross, Richard. (2002). The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus. Oxford University Press. p. 43.\n\n^ White, Thomas Joseph. (2015). The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology. The Catholic University of America Press. p. 89.\n\n^ Cyril of Alexandria. \"Second Letter to Succensus.\" in St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 51-110, translated by John I. McEnerney, Catholic University of America Press, 1987, p. 191.\n\n^ Cyril of Alexandria. \"Epistle 39 (To John of Antioch).\" in The Fathers of the Church: St. Cyril of Alexandria, Letters 1-50, translated by John I. McEnerney, Catholic University of America Press, 1987, pp. 151-152.\n\n^ \"Nestorianism | Definition, Natures of Christ, History, Councils, & Churches | Britannica\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2026-06-11.\n\n^ Fairbairn, Donald (2021-04-01). \"The Council of Ephesus of 431: Documents and Proceedings. Translated by Richard Price\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 72 (1): 450-453. doi:10.1093/jts/flab055. ISSN 0022-5185.\n\n^ \"Cyril of Alexandria, Third Epistle to Nestorius, with 'Twelve Anathemas'\". Monachos.net. Archived from the original on July 4, 2008.\n\n^ a b c \"Nestorianism\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 28, 2010.\n\n^ Campbell, Ted (1996). Christian Confessions: A Historical Introduction. Westminster: John Knox Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-664-25650-0 - via Google Books.\n\n^ a b \"Mar Aprem Metropolitan Visits Ancient Anuradhapura Cross in Official Trip to Sri Lanka\". Assyrian Church News. Archived from the original on 2015-02-26. Retrieved 6 August 2013.\n\n^ a b Weerakoon, Rajitha (June 26, 2011). \"Did Christianity exist in ancient Sri Lanka?\". Sunday Times. Retrieved 2 August 2021.\n\n^ a b \"Main interest\". Daily News. New York, NY. 22 April 2011. Archived from the original on 2015-03-29. Retrieved 2 August 2021 - via HighBeam Research.\n\n^ Riegert, Ray (2006). The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks. Ulysses Press. pp. 9-23. ISBN 1-56975-522-1 - via Google Books.\n\n^ \"Common Christological Declaration between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East\". Retrieved 8 February 2020.\n\n^ \"The Assyrian Church of the East: A Panoramic View of a Glorious History- Mar Awa Royel\". Church of Beth Kokheh Journal. 2017-10-04. Archived from the original on 2019-10-25. Retrieved 2019-10-25.\n\nBibliography\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 1. London: Joseph Masters - via Google Books.\n\nBadger, George Percy (1852). The Nestorians and Their Rituals. Vol. 2. London: Joseph Masters. ISBN 9780790544823 - via Google Books. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London & New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192 - via Google Books.\n\nBethune-Baker, James F. (1908). Nestorius and His Teaching: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107432987 - via Google Books. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1996). \"The 'Nestorian' Church: A Lamentable Misnomer\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 23-35. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-03-06. Retrieved 2020-11-07.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials\". Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. New York & London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281-298. ISBN 9780815330714 - via Google Books.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2006). Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 9780754659082 - via Google Books.\n\nBurgess, Stanley M. (1989). The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 9780913573815 - via Google Books.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens [Eastern Synodicon or Compendium of Nestorian Synods] (PDF) (in French). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nChesnut, Roberta C. (1978). \"The Two Prosopa in Nestorius' Bazaar of Heracleides\". The Journal of Theological Studies. 29 (29): 392-409. doi:10.1093/jts/XXIX.2.392. JSTOR 23958267.\n\nHill, Henry, ed. (1988). Light from the East: A Symposium on the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre. ISBN 9780919891906 - via Google Books.\n\nHodgson, Leonard; Driver, Godfrey R., eds. (1925). Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9781725202399 - via Google Books. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nJugie, Martin (1935). \"L'ecclésiologie des Nestoriens\" [The ecclesiology of the Nestorians] (PDF). Échos d'Orient (in French). 34 (177): 5-25. doi:10.3406/rebyz.1935.2817.\n\nKuhn, Michael F. (2019). God is One: A Christian Defence of Divine Unity in the Muslim Golden Age. Carlisle: Langham Publishing. ISBN 9781783685776 - via Google Books.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563 - via Google Books.\n\nReinink, Gerrit J. (2009). \"Tradition and the Formation of the 'Nestorian' Identity in Sixth- to Seventh-Century Iraq\". Church History and Religious Culture. 89 (1-3): 217-250. doi:10.1163/187124109X407916. JSTOR 23932289.\n\nRossabi, Morris (1992). Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the first journey from China to the West. Kodansha International Ltd. ISBN 4770016506.\n\nSeleznyov, Nikolai N. (2010). \"Nestorius of Constantinople: Condemnation, Suppression, Veneration: With special reference to the role of his name in East-Syriac Christianity\". Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 62 (3-4): 165-190.\n\nStewart, John (1928). Nestorian missionary enterprise, the story of a church on fire. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.\n\nWigram, William Ainger (1910). An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church or The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire 100-640 A.D. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. ISBN 9780837080789. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781907318047.\n\nLuise Abramowski, \"Der Bischof von Seleukia-Ktesiphon als Katholikos und Patriarch der Kirche des Ostens,\" in Dmitrij Bumazhnov u. Hans R. Seeliger (hg), Syrien im 1.-7. Jahrhundert nach Christus. Akten der 1. Tübinger Tagung zum Christlichen Orient (15.-16. Juni 2007). (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2011) (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity, 62)\n\nLeonard, Pinto (2013). \"A Brief History of Christianity In Sri Lanka\".\n\nExternal links\n\n\"Unofficial Web Site of the 'Church of the East'\". Nestorian.org.\n\nLieu, Sam; Parry, Ken. \"Manichaean and (Nestorian) Christian Remains in Zayton (Quanzhou, South China)\". Macquarie University. Archived from the original on July 19, 2008. Retrieved January 24, 2010.\n\nDickens, Mark (1999). \"The Church of the East\". Oxus Communications. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2010.\n\n\"Nestorius and Nestorianism\". The Catholic Encyclopedia."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-nestorianism"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5790}, {"slug": "reference-qatayef", "title": "Qatayef", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "Qatayef, katayef, atayef or qata'if (Arabic: قطايف [qɑˈtˤɑ:jɪf]) is an Arabic dessert. It is a type of sweet dumpling filled with cream and nuts, or a filled folded pancake with a thickness similar to a Scottish crumpet. It is prepared by pouring batter onto a hot surface, cooking...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Qatayef\nQatayef asafiri, with cream and nut filling\n\nAlternative namesYassi kadayif[1]\n\nTypeDumpling, pancake\n\nPlace of originMiddle East\n\nRegion or stateEgypt, Levant\n\nMain ingredientsSemolina flour, flour, sugar, yeast[2]\n\n  Media: Qatayef\n\nQatayef, katayef, atayef or qata'if (Arabic: قطايف [qɑˈtˤɑ:jɪf]) is an Arabic dessert. It is a type of sweet dumpling filled with cream and nuts, or a filled folded pancake with a thickness similar to a Scottish crumpet. It is prepared by pouring batter onto a hot surface, cooking it on one side, it is then stuffed, folded, and then fried, baked, or eaten fresh.\n\nIn many Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan and Egypt, qatayef is regarded as a seasonal specialty tied closely to Ramadan, appearing in markets and bakeries almost exclusively for the duration of that month. It is eaten daily after iftar and sometimes at suhoor, making it one of the most anticipated festive sweets of the Ramadan season.[3]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe Arabic word qaṭaːyif (Arabic: قطايف) is derived from the Arabic root q-ṭ-f, meaning to pick up or to pluck.[4][5] In Ottoman Turkish, the name yassi kadayif (lit. 'flat qatayif') came into use to differentiate between tel kadayıf (lit. 'hair qatayif', known as knafeh in Arabic) and the pancake known in Arabic as qatayef.[6][7][1]\n\nHistory\n\nAlthough some believe that qatayef originated in the Fatimid Caliphate (909-1171),[8] their history dates back to the Abbasid Caliphate, 750-1258 CE.[9][10] Qatayef was mentioned in a 10th century Arabic cookbook dating back to the Abbasid Caliphate by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq called Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ (Arabic: كتاب الطبيخ, The Book of Dishes).[11] The book also contained a recipe titled \"Qatayef that were made for Harun al-Rashid\"; an 8th century Caliph (786 - 809).[12][11]\n\nIn Europe, qatayef is mentioned as cataif in the 13th-century Latin cookbook Liber de ferculis.[13] During the 9th century, thin qatayef, then regarded as high quality, where used to wrap a type of marzipan to create lauzinaj.[14] Medieval Arabic cookbooks typically used crushed almond as filling, one 13th century recipe provided Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi called for a filling of almond and sugar, and instructed to fry the qatayef in sesame oil after they are stuffed and folded.[15][16]\n\nLiterary mentions of qatayef are plentiful in medieval Arabic literature, like the works of the poets Ibn al-Rumi, Ibn-Hussain al-Jazzar,[17][18] and Ibn Nubata.[17] 15th century Egyptian author Al-Suyuti wrote a letter titled Manhal al-laṭāyif fī alknāfh wāl qaṭāyif, with qatayef mentioned in the title, during a time in which the price of qatayef surged, which was protested by Egyptians.[18][19]\n\nFood historian Gil Marks noted that Ibn al-Qataifi (lit. 'son of the qatayef maker') was a surname of family of Jews in Egypt, highlighting qatayef's popularity.[20]\n\nAn 1844 French-Syrian-and-Egyptian-Arabic by Swedish Orientalist Jacob Berggren described qatayef being made from a fine flour batter that is poured from a spoon into molds arranged on a pan, then eaten sweetened by honey or grape syrup.[21] In 1935, German Orientalist Gustaf Dalman noted in his book Arbeit und Sitte in Palaestina (\"Work and customs in Palestine\") that Arabs in Palestine made kataif from flour, sourdough, and cold water, which were cooked on a pan and stuffed with nuts, and sometimes sent to a bakery to be baked in sesame oil. He compared them to European pancakes.[22]\n\nTradition\n\nArab Muslims commonly serve it during the month of Ramadan.[23]\nArab Christians, particularly in the Levant, also eat it during some celebrations, like Eid il-Burbara.[24][25] Due to its ubiquity in Muslim communities during Ramadan, some Christians also consume qatayif during the Muslim holy month alongside Muslims.[26] The ubiquity of qatayef is attributed to its ease of preparation and the affordability of its ingredients, making it available in areas like the Gaza Strip,[27][28] or during the Lebanese liquidity crisis.[29]\n\nOutside the Arab world, qatayef are a Ramadan staple among Turkish Muslims, they are typically fried and eaten for iftar.[1][30][31][32] Yassi kadayif (\"Flat qatayef\") are patented by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office and have a geographic indication for the region of Malatya, the patent specifies that yassi kadayif is made from 3 different types of flour.[33][34]\n\nQatayef is common during Ramadan in the regional cuisines of Egypt,[20] Palestine,[26][2] Lebanon,[29] Jordan,[35] Syria,[20] and Turkey.[7]\n\nPreparation\n\nQatayef is the general name of the dessert as a whole and, more specifically, the batter. It is usually made out of wheat or semolina flour, baking powder, water, yeast, and sometimes sugar. The result of the batter being poured onto a round hot plate appears similar to pancakes, except only one side is cooked, then stuffed and folded.[26][36][37]\n\nAlthough some vendors make qatayef manually, machines that automate automate the process exist.[35][38][39] The machines work by automatically pouring the batter on a heated conveyor belt then passing them under a set of fans to cool down. Said machines can produce 50 kilograms of qatayef in under an hour.[39]\n\nQatayef satati is deep fried (or baked) pastry filled with either unsalted sweet cheese a mixture of any of hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, raisins, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, rose extract, and cinnamon. It is served with a hot sweet syrup or sometimes honey. Assafiri qatayef (قطايف عصافيري) is filled with whipped cream or qishta (قشطة), folded halfway, and served it with scented syrup without frying or baking.[40][41]\n\nQatayef was traditionally prepared by street vendors as well as households in Egypt and the Levant. Modern variations, with fillings such as Nutella, are also consumed.[42][43]\n\nIn pop culture\n\nA 2025 Egyptian TV series by Sameh Hussein was named Qatayef, in reference to the sweet.[44][45]\n\nWorld records\n\nThe Guinness world record for largest piece of qatayef was set in Bethlehem, Palestine, in 2010, and had a mass of 104.75 kilograms (230.9 lb).[46][47][48]\n\nConsumption\n\nQatayef are the most popular Ramadan dessert in several Arab countries; in Ramadan of 2015, Al Ghad reported that 120 million individual pieces of qatayef were consumed in Jordan, totaling 6 million kilograms, with other Ramadan desserts like asabe Zainab trailing behind.[49] One store in Nazareth was reported to sell over 1 ton of qatayef per day in 2016.[50]\n\nHealth concerns\n\nThe high sugar, fat, and calorie content of qatayef has been reported as a cause for health concerns, particularly when fried, in news outlets such as Al Jazeera Arabic,[51] CNN Arabic,[52] Al Arabiya,[53] and Asharq Al-Awsat.[54] These reports advise those with health issues to instead consume qatayef made of whole grain flour, use honey instead of qatir syrup, use a filling of nuts or low-fat cheese over the high-fat qishta, avoid deep-frying, or simply abstain.[54][52]\n\nGallery\n\n Levantine qatayef with syrup, served as a plain pancake or fried after being stuffed.\n\n Home made qatayef, both sides visible.\n\n Contemporary qatayef with Nutella filling.\n\n Folded qatayef, not yet stuffed or fried.\n\n Qatayef, cone-shaped, fried, stuffed with qishta, topped with pistachios and qatir syrup.\n\nSee also\n\nList of Middle Eastern dishes\n\nList of pancakes\n\nMandugwa, a similar Korean dessert\n\nKnafeh\n\nStuffed dates\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Beyond borders: Tracing culinary exchange between Turkish and Arab cultures\". Türkiye Today. Retrieved 23 November 2025.\n\n^ a b \"\"القطايف\" و\"الخروب\" عنوان موائد الغزيين في رمضان\". Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ \"List of Tables\", From Good King Wenceslas to the Good Soldier Švejk, Central European University Press, pp. 195-196, 2005-10-15, retrieved 2026-02-24\n\n^ Freytag, Georg (1830). Lexicon Arabico-Latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus, adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris, confectum (Vol.1 ed.). C. A. Schwetschke et filium. p. 468.\n\n^ Badawi, Al-Saïd; Abdel-Haleem, Muhammad (2008). Arabic - English Dictionary of Qurʾanic Usage. BRILL. p. 767. ISBN 978-90-04-14948-9.\n\n^ \nIsin, Mary [in Turkish] (8 January 2013). \"Kadayif\". Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-898-5. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ a b Ergil, Leyla Yvonne (18 November 2022). \"Turkish desserts that will warm your heart this winter\". Daily Sabah. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ \"The Ramadan Experience in Egypt\". Archived from the original on 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2018-06-18.\n\n^ \"The sweet history of Qatayef\". Roya news. Archived from the original on 2018-05-17. Retrieved 26 August 2018.\n\n^ \"In Gaza, Qatayef tradition thrives during Ramadan\". GULF NEWS. Retrieved 26 August 2018.\n\n^ a b al-Warrāq, Ibn Sayyār (Nov 26, 2007). Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens: Ibn Sayyār Al-Warrāq's Tenth-century Baghdadi Cookbook. Translated by Nawal Nasrallah. BRILL. p. 422. ISBN 978-90-04-15867-2. Retrieved 30 August 2018.\n\n^ \nElias, Leila Salloum; Salloum, Muna (2 December 2013). The Sweets of Araby: Enchanting Recipes From The Tales Of The 1001 Arabian Nights. The Countryman Press. pp. 118-119. ISBN 978-1-58157-180-6. Retrieved 11 April 2026.\n\n^ Martellotti, Anna (2001). Il Liber de ferculis di Giambonino da Cremona: la gastronomia araba in Occidente nella trattatistica dietetica [Giambonino da Cremona's Liber de ferculis: Arab gastronomy in the West in dietary treatises] (in Italian). Schena. ISBN 978-88-8229-272-0. Retrieved 27 April 2026.\n\n^ Davidson, Alan (2014). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. pp. 661-662. ISBN 978-0-19-967733-7. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ Salloum, Habeeb; Salloum, Muna; Elias, Leila Salloum (25 June 2013). \"QATA'IF\". Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of Traditional Arab Sweets. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85773-341-2. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ al-Karīm, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn (2005). A Baghdad Cookery Book: The Book of Dishes (Kitāb Al-ṭabīkh). Prospect Books. ISBN 978-1-903018-42-2. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"في مديح القطايف\" [In praise of qatayef]. Ultrasawt (in Arabic). 28 Apr 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"على مائدتك في رمضان.. اعرف أصل حكاية القطايف\" [On your Ramadan table... Learn the origin of the story of Qatayef]. Al-Arabiya (in Arabic). 21 February 2026. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ منهل اللطايف فى الكنافة والقطايف. Al-Hilal (in Arabic). No. 4. 1 April 2003. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ a b c Marks, Gil (17 November 2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. pp. 141-142. ISBN 978-0-544-18631-6. Retrieved 27 April 2026.\n\n^ \nBerggren, Jakob (1844). Guide français-arabe vulgaire des voyageurs dt des francs en Syrie et en Égypte: avec carte physique et géographique de la Ssyrie et plan géométrique de Jérusalem ancien et moderne, comme supplément aux voyages en orient [A French-Arabic guide for travelers and Franks in Syria and Egypt: with a physical and geographical map of Syria and a geometric plan of ancient and modern Jerusalem, as a supplement to travels in the Orient] (in Arabic and French). Leffler et Sebell. p. 268. Retrieved 28 Apr 2025. [dough made with the finest flour, well beaten and well kneaded, which is poured with a spoon into molds arranged in a pan, and filled with melted butter or sesame oil: they are then arranged with a kind of iron spatula on a metal tray, and honey or dibs (grape syrup) is poured over them; sometimes a multi-layer pastry is made from it, filled with nuts and flavored with honey]\n\n^ Dalman, Gustaf (1935). Brot, Ol und Wein [Bread, Oil and Wine] (in German and Arabic). G. Olms. pp. 144-145. Retrieved 28 Apr 2026.\n\n^ Naanou, Paul; Rhodes, Sam (2020). \"Cultural Connections: Exploring the Mathematics of Qatayef\". Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12. 113 (12): 1034-1038. doi:10.5951/MTLT.2020.0164. ISSN 0025-5769. S2CID 230629195.\n\n^ \"عيد البربارة: من هي القديسة التي \"هربت مع بنات الحارة\"؟\" [Saint Barbara's Day: Who is the saint who \"ran away with the girls of the neighborhood\"?]. BBC News Arabic (in Arabic). 3 Dec 2020. Retrieved 23 December 2025.\n\n^ \"\"قطايف، قمح مسلوق وضحكات الاطفال\": كيف يحتفى بعيد القديسة بربارة من جيل الى جيل؟\" [\"Qatayef, boiled wheat and children's laughter\": How is Saint Barbara's Day celebrated from generation to generation?]. SBS. 4 Apr 2023. Retrieved 23 December 2025.\n\n^ a b c Reem Kassis (29 Mar 2022). \"The Dessert That Tastes Best One Month Out of Every Year\". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2025.\n\n^ \n\"\"القطايف\" تُحلّي مرارة العيش.. غزة تتمسك بطقوس رمضان\" [Qatayef sweetens the bitterness of life... Gaza clings to Ramadan traditions]. Anadolu Agency (in Arabic). 2026. Retrieved 18 February 2026.\n\n^ \"\"القطايف\".. حلوى شعبية لفقراء وأغنياء غزة\" [Qatayef: A popular dessert enjoyed by both the poor and the rich in Gaza]. Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ a b \"Amid soaring inflation, Lebanese look for cheaper alternatives to traditional Ramadan desserts\". Arab News. 17 April 2023. Retrieved 12 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Bayramın vazgeçilmezi 'yassı kadayıf'\" [The essential of Eid: 'flat kadayıf']. Anadolu Agency (in Turkish). 23 Jun 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Malatya'nın baklavası: \"Yassı kadayıf\"\" [Malatya's baklava: \"Flat kadayıf\"]. TRT Haber (in Turkish). 3 June 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Malatya'da ramazanın olmazsa olmazı yassı kadayıf\" [Flat kadayıf, a must for Ramadan in Malatya]. Hurriyet (in Turkish). 8 May 2019.\n\n^ \"MALATYA YASSI KADAYIFI\" (PDF). ci.turkpatent.gov.tr (in Turkish). Retrieved 23 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Esnafa, Yassı Kadayıf Coğrafi İşaret Tescil Belgesi dağıtıldı\" [Flat Kadayif Geographical Indication Registration Certificate was distributed to tradesmen.]. ERTV (in Turkish). 3 October 2022. Retrieved 23 November 2025.\n\n^ a b \"Qatayef: Ramadan's Iconic Sweet Preserves Tradition and Popularity in Jordanian Markets\". The Jordan News Agency. 2026. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ Jeffes, Jane; Mousa, Sally (21 April 2023). \"Recipes for Ramadan: Sally Mousa's qatayef (folded pancakes), five ways\". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 November 2025.\n\n^ Kassis, Reem (13 Apr 2022). \"Qatayef Asafiri (Stuffed Semolina Pancakes) Recipe\". NYT Cooking. Retrieved 2 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Qatayef, a sweet end to the Ramadan fast\". Ynetnews. 18 July 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"بالفيديو: طرق سكب القطايف.. حلوى العائلات الأردنية برمضان\" [Video: Ways to pour Qatayef... a Jordanian family dessert during Ramadan]. Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 2019. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ \"Qatayef with nuts قطايف بالمكسرات\". Egyptian Cuisine and Recipes. Retrieved 2018-03-14.\n\n^ \"القطايف.. الحلوى الرمضانية الأولى بالأردن\" [Qatayef...the number one dessert in Jordan]. Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 2012. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ Sadat, Jehan (2002). A Woman of Egypt. Simon & Schuster. p. 48.\n\n^ Abu-Zahra, Nadia (1999). The Pure and Powerful: Studies in Contemporary Muslim Society. Ithaca Press. ISBN 978-0-86372-269-1.\n\n^ \"قطايف سامح حسين.. اسماً على مسمى بمحتوى مختلف خلق له شعبية\" [Sameh Hussein's Qatayef... a name that lives up to its meaning, with a unique content that has earned him popularity.]. Youm7 (in Arabic). 12 March 2025. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ \"سامح حسين: تفاعل واسع على مواقع التواصل بـ \"قطايف\" الممثل المصري\" [Sameh Hussein: Widespread interaction on social media with the Egyptian actor's \"Qatayef\"]. BBC News Arabic (in Arabic). 14 March 2025. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ \"فلسطين تدخل غينيس مجدداً...\" [Palestine enters Guinness again...] (in Arabic). 2010. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ Stub, Zev (3 December 2025). \"Guinness World Records says it stopped taking records from Israel after October 7\". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ \"Largest qatayef\". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 24 February 2026.\n\n^ \"الأردنيون أكلوا 120 مليون حبة قطايف برمضان\" [Jordanians ate 120 million pieces of qatayef during Ramadan]. Al Ghad (in Arabic). 2015. Retrieved 27 April 2026.\n\n^ \"(فيديو) الناصرة.. هنا أصل الكنافة الخشنة\" [(Video) Nazareth... This is the origin of the coarse knafeh]. The New Arab (in Arabic). 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2026.\n\n^ \"كيف تؤثر حلويات رمضان على الجسم؟\" [How do Ramadan sweets affect the body?]. Al Jazeera (in Arabic). 2026. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"خطوات بسيطة لتحضير قطايف صحية خلال شهر رمضان\" [Simple steps to prepare healthy qatayef during Ramadan]. CNN Arabic (in Arabic). 7 March 2025. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ \"سموم تهدد الصحة.. مختصون: السمبوسك والقطايف خطر على القلب والمعدة\" [Toxins that threaten health... Experts: Samosas and Qatayef are dangerous for the heart and stomach]. Al Arabiya (in Arabic). 5 March 2026. Retrieved 28 April 2026.\n\n^ a b \"طرق صحية لتناول القطايف لمرضى السكري\" [Healthy ways to eat qatayef for diabetics]. Asharq Al-Awsat (in Arabic). 23 Feb 2026. Retrieved 28 April 2026."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-qatayef"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2637}, {"slug": "reference-history-of-the-middle-east", "title": "History of the Middle East", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Middle East, or the Near East, was one of the cradles of civilization: after the Neolithic Revolution and the adoption of agriculture, many of the world's oldest cultures and civilizations were created there. Since ancient times, the Middle East has had several lingua franca: Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Middle East, or the Near East, was one of the cradles of civilization: after the Neolithic Revolution and the adoption of agriculture, many of the world's oldest cultures and civilizations were created there. Since ancient times, the Middle East has had several lingua franca: Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Arabic.[1][2][3] The Sumerians, around the 5th millennium BC, were among the first to develop a civilization. By 3150 BC, Egyptian civilization unified under its first pharaoh.[4] Mesopotamia hosted powerful empires, notably Assyria which lasted for 1,500 years. For centuries after the 7th century BC, the region was dominated by Persian powers like the Achaemenid Empire.\n\nIn the 1st century BC, the Roman Republic conquered most of the region, and its successor, the Roman Empire, that ruled from the 6th to 15th centuries AD referred to as the Byzantine Empire, grew significantly more. Roman pagan religions were replaced by Christianity in the 4th century AD. From the 3rd to 7th centuries, Rome ruled alongside the Sasanian Empire. From the 7th century, Islam spread rapidly, expanding Arab identity in the region. The Seljuk dynasty displaced Arab dominance in the 11th century, followed by the Mongol Empire in the 13th century.\n\nIn the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire invaded most of Anatolia, and dissolved the Byzantine Empire by capturing Constantinople in 1453. The Ottomans and the Safavid dynasty were rivals from the early 16th century. By 1700, the Ottomans were pushed out of Hungary. After the Portuguese colonised Bahrain in 1521, making Bahrain the first Middle Eastern country to be fully colonised by a European power, it opened up pathways for the British Empire to gain control over the Persian Gulf in the 18th and 19th century, whilst the French colonial empire extended into Lebanon and Syria. Regional rulers sought modernization to match European powers. A key moment came with the discovery of oil, first in Persia (1908), then in Bahrain (1932),[5] and other Gulf states later discovering oil, which lead to increased Western interest within the region. In the 1920s to 1940s, Syria and Egypt pursued independence, in 1948 Israel became an independent state.\n\nThe British, French, and Soviets withdrew from much of the region during and after World War II. In 1947 the United Nations plan to partition Palestine was voted in favor for a Jewish homeland. Amid Cold War tensions, pan-Arabism emerged in the region. The end of European colonial control, the establishment of Israel, and the rise of the petroleum industry shaped the modern Middle East. Despite economic growth, many countries faced challenges like political restrictions, corruption, cronyism and overreliance on oil. The wealthiest per capita are the small, oil-rich Gulf states, namely Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.\n\nSeveral key events shaped the modern Middle East, such as the 1967 Six-Day War,[6] the 1973 OPEC oil embargo in response to US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War,[6][7] and the rise of Salafism/Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia that led to rise of Islamism.[8] Additionally, the Iranian Revolution contributed to a significant Islamic revival.[9] The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War, and regional conflict was soon made part of the war on terror. In the early 2010s, the Arab Spring triggered major protests and revolutions in the region. Clashes in western Iraq in 2013 set the stage for the Islamic State (IS)'s expansion. The Middle Eastern crisis, that began in October 2023 with the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas has led to profound interconnected events in the region as a result, including the current 2026 Iran war bringing the United States and Iran into a direct military conflict.\n\nPrehistoric period\n\nThe earliest human migrations out of Africa occurred through the Middle East, namely over the Levantine corridor, with the pre-modern Homo erectus about 1.8 million years BP. One of the potential routes for early human migrations toward southern and eastern Asia is Persia.\n\nHaplogroup J-P209, the most common human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup in the Middle East today, is believed to have arisen in the region 31,700 ± 12,800 years ago.[10][11] The two main current subgroups, J-M267 and J-M172, which now comprise between them almost all of the population of the haplogroup, are both believed to have arisen very early, at least 10,000 years ago. Nonetheless, Y-chromosomes F-M89* and IJ-M429* were reported to have been observed in the Iranian plateau.[12]\n\nThere is evidence of rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishermen was replaced by a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 6000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile, where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society.[13]\n\nAncient Levantines and their descendants exhibit a decrease of ~8% local Neolithic ancestry, which is mostly Natufian-like, every millennium, starting from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Medieval period. It was replaced by Caucasus-related and Anatolian-related ancestries, from the north and west respectively. However, despite the decline in the Natufian component, this key ancestry source made an important contribution to peoples of later periods, continuing until the present.[14] The presence of Neolithic Iranian ancestry among modern Levantines can be attributed to migrations during the Bronze Age.[15]\n\nNeolithic agriculturalists, who may have resided in Northeast Africa and the Middle East, may have been the source population for lactase persistence variants, including ‍-‍13910*T, and may have been subsequently supplanted by later migrations of peoples.[16] The Sub-Saharan West African Fulani, the North African Tuareg, and European agriculturalists, who are descendants of these Neolithic agriculturalists, share the lactase persistence variant ‍-‍13910*T.[16] While shared by Fulani and Tuareg herders, compared to the Tuareg variant, the Fulani variant of ‍-‍13910*T has undergone a longer period of haplotype differentiation.[16] The Fulani lactase persistence variant ‍-‍13910*T may have spread, along with cattle pastoralism, between 9686 BP and 7534 BP, possibly around 8500 BP; corroborating this timeframe for the Fulani, by at least 7500 BP, there is evidence of herders engaging in the act of milking in the Central Sahara.[16]\n\nAncient period\n\nThe ancient Near East was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture and currency-mediated trade (as opposed to barter), gave the rest of the world the first writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular and mill wheel, created the first centralized governments and law codes, served as birthplace to the first city-states with their high degree of division of labor, as well as laying the foundation for the fields of astronomy and mathematics. However, its empires also introduced rigid social stratification, slavery, and organized warfare.\n\nCradle of civilization, Sumer and Akkad\n\nThe earliest civilizations in history were established in the region now known as the Middle East around 3500 BC by the Sumerians, in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), widely regarded as the cradle of civilization. The Sumerians and the Akkadians-who extended their empire to northern Mesopotamia (now northern Syria)-and later Babylonians and Assyrians all flourished in this region.\n\n\"In the course of the fourth millennium BC, city-states developed in southern Mesopotamia that were dominated by temples whose priests represented the cities' patron deities. The most prominent of the city-states was Sumer, which gave its language to the area (presumably the first written language), and became the first great civilization of mankind. About 2340 BC, Sargon the Great (c. 2360-2305 BC) united the city-states in the south and founded the Akkadian dynasty, the world's first empire.\"[17]\n\nDuring this same time period, Sargon the Great appointed his daughter, Enheduanna, as High Priestess of Inanna at Ur.[18] Her writings, which established her as the first known author in world history, also helped cement Sargon's position in the region.\n\nEgypt\n\nSoon after the Sumerian civilization began, the Nile valley of Lower and Upper Egypt was unified under the Pharaohs approximately around 3150 BC. Since then, Ancient Egypt experienced 3 high points of civilization, the so-called \"Kingdom\" periods:\n\nThe Old Kingdom (2686-2181),\n\nThe Middle Kingdom (2055-1650) and, most notably,\n\nThe New Kingdom (1550-1069).\n\nThe history of Ancient Egypt is concluded by the Late Period (664-332 BC), immediately followed by the history of Egypt in Classical Antiquity, beginning with Ptolemaic Egypt.\n\nThe Levant and Anatolia\n\nThereafter, civilization quickly spread through the Fertile Crescent to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and throughout the Levant, as well as to Anatolia. Ancient Levantine kingdoms and city states included Ebla, Ugarit, Kingdom of Aram-Damascus, Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Judah, Kingdom of Ammon, Kingdom of Moab, Kingdom of Edom, and the Nabatean kingdom. The Phoenician civilization, encompassing several city states, was a maritime trading culture that established colonial cities in the Mediterranean Basin, most notably Carthage, in 814 BC.\n\nAssyrian empires\n\nMesopotamia was home to several powerful empires that came to rule almost the entire Middle East-particularly the Assyrian Empires of 1365-1076 BC and the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911-605 BC. The Assyrian Empire, at its peak, was the largest the world had seen. It ruled all of what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, and Bahrain-with large swathes of Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Sudan, and Arabia. \"The Assyrian empires, particularly the third, had a profound and lasting impact on the Near East. Before Assyrian hegemony ended, the Assyrians brought the highest civilization to the then known world. From the Caspian to Cyprus, from Anatolia to Egypt, Assyrian imperial expansion would bring into the Assyrian sphere nomadic and barbaric communities, and would bestow the gift of civilization upon them.\"[19]\n\nNeo-Babylonian and Persian empires\n\nFrom the early 6th century BC onwards, several Persian states dominated the region, beginning with the Medes and non-Persian Neo-Babylonian Empire, then their successor the Achaemenid Empire known as the first Persian Empire, conquered in the late 4th century BC by the very short-lived kingdom of Macedonia of Alexander the Great, and then successor kingdoms such as Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid state in Western Asia.\n\nAfter a century of hiatus, the idea of the Persian Empire was revived by the Parthians in the 3rd century BC-and continued by their successors, the Sassanids from the 3rd century AD. This empire dominated sizable parts of what is now the Asian part of the Middle East and continued to influence the rest of the Asiatic and African Middle East region, until the Arab Muslim conquest of Persia in the mid-7th century AD. Between the 1st century BC and the early 7th century AD, the region was completely dominated by the Romans and the Parthians and Sassanids on the other hand, which often culminated in various Roman-Persian Wars over the seven centuries. Eastern Rite, Church of the East Christianity took hold in Persian-ruled Mesopotamia, particularly in Assyria from the 1st century AD onwards, and the region became a center of a flourishing Syriac-Assyrian literary tradition.\n\nGreek and Roman Empire\n\nIn 66-63 BC, the Roman general Pompey conquered much of the Middle East.[20] The Roman Empire united the region with most of Europe and North Africa in a single political and economic unit. Even areas not directly annexed were strongly influenced by the Empire, which was the most powerful political and cultural entity for centuries. Though Roman culture spread across the region, the Greek culture and language first established in the region by Macedonia continued to dominate throughout the Roman period. Cities in the Middle East, especially Alexandria, became major urban centers for the Empire and the region became the Empire's \"bread basket\" as the key agricultural producer. Ægyptus was by far the most wealthy Roman province.[21][22]\n\nDuring the time that mystery cults were introduced to the region, traditional religions were often criticized and the cults gained societal influence.[23] These cults formed around gods like Cybele, Isis, and Mithra.[23]\n\nAs the Christian religion spread throughout the Roman and Persian Empires, it took root in the Middle East, and cities such as Alexandria and Edessa became important centers of Christian scholarship. By the 5th century, Christianity was the dominant religion in the Middle East, with other faiths (gradually including heretical Christian sects) being actively repressed. The Middle East's ties to the city of Rome were gradually severed as the Empire split into East and West, with the Middle East tied to the new Roman capital of Constantinople. The subsequent Fall of the Western Roman Empire therefore, had minimal direct impact on the region.\n\nByzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire)\n\nThe Eastern Roman Empire, today commonly known as the Byzantine Empire, ruling from the Balkans to the Euphrates, became increasingly defined by and dogmatic about Christianity, gradually creating religious rifts between the doctrines dictated by the establishment in Constantinople and believers in many parts of the Middle East. By this time, Greek had become the 'lingua franca' of the region, although ethnicities such as the Syriacs and the Hebrew continued to exist. Under Byzantine/Greek rule the area of the Levant met an era of stability and prosperity.\n\nMedieval period\n\nPre-Islam\n\nIn the period between the 5th and 7th century, the Middle East was generally separated into small, weak states; with the Sasanian Empire of the Persians in what is now Iran and Iraq, and the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia and the Levant dominating the region.The Byzantines and Sasanians fought with each other a reflection of the rivalry between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire seen during the previous five hundred years. The Byzantine-Sasanian rivalry was also seen through their respective cultures and religions. The Byzantines considered themselves champions of Hellenism and Christianity. Meanwhile, the Sasanians thought themselves heroes of ancient Iranian traditions and of the traditional Persian religion, Zoroastrianism.[25]\n\nThe Arabian peninsula already played a role in the power struggles of the Byzantines and Sasanians. While Byzantium allied itself with the Kingdom of Aksum in the horn of Africa, the Sasanian Empire assisted the Himyarite Kingdom in what is now Yemen. Thus the clash between the kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar in 525 displayed a higher power struggle between Byzantium and Persia for control of the Red Sea trade. Territorial wars soon became common, with the Byzantines and Sasanians fighting over upper Mesopotamia and Armenia and key cities that facilitated trade from Arabia, India, and China.[26] Byzantium, as the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, continued control of the latter's territories in the Middle East. Since 527, this included Anatolia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt. In 603 the Sasanians invaded, conquering Damascus and Egypt. It was Emperor Heraclius who was able to repel these invasions, and in 628 he replaced the Sasanian Great King with a more docile one. The fighting weakened both states, leaving the stage open to a new power.[27][28]\n\nThe nomadic Bedouin tribes dominated the Arabian desert, where they worshipped idols and remained in small clans tied together by kinship. Urbanization and agriculture was limited in Arabia, save for a few regions near the coast. Mecca and Medina (then called Yathrib) were two such cities that were important hubs for trade between Africa and Eurasia. This commerce was central to city-life, where most inhabitants were merchants.[29] Nevertheless, some Arabs saw it fit to migrate to the northern regions of the Fertile Crescent, a region so named for its place between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that offered it fertile land. This included entire tribal chiefdoms such as the Lakhmids in a less controlled area of the Sasanian Empire, and the Ghassanids in a similar area inside of Byzantine territory; these political units of Arab origin offered a surprising stability that was rare in the region and offered Arabia further connections to the outside world. The Lakhmid capital, Hira was a center for Christianity and Jewish craftsmen, merchants, and farmers were common in western Arabia as were Christian monks in central Arabia. Thus pre-Islamic Arabia was no stranger to Abrahamic religions or monotheism, for that matter.[30]\n\nIslamic caliphates\n\nWhile the Byzantine Roman and Sassanid Persian empires were both weakened by warfare (602-628), a new power in the form of Islam grew in the Middle East. In a series of rapid Muslim conquests, Arab armies, led by the Caliphs and skilled military commanders such as Khalid ibn al-Walid, swept through most of the Middle East, taking more than half of Byzantine territory and completely engulfing the Persian lands. In Anatolia, they were stopped in the Siege of Constantinople (717-718) by the Byzantines, who were helped by the Bulgarians.\n\nThe Byzantine provinces of Roman Syria, North Africa, and Sicily, however, could not mount such a resistance, and the Muslim conquerors swept through those regions. At the far west, they crossed the sea taking Visigothic Hispania before being halted in southern France in the Battle of Tours by the Franks. At its greatest extent, the Arab Empire was the first empire to control the entire Middle East, as well as three-quarters of the Mediterranean region, the only other empire besides the Roman Empire to control most of the Mediterranean Sea.[31] It would be the Arab Caliphates of the Middle Ages that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant ethnic identity that persists today. The Seljuk Empire would also later dominate the region.\n\nMuch of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centres in the Middle East, but Iberia (Al-Andalus) and Morocco soon broke away from this distant control and founded one of the world's most advanced societies at the time, along with Baghdad in the eastern Mediterranean. Between 831 and 1071, the Emirate of Sicily was one of the major centres of Islamic culture in the Mediterranean. After its conquest by the Normans the island developed its own distinct culture with the fusion of Arab, Western, and Byzantine influences. Palermo remained a leading artistic and commercial centre of the Mediterranean well into the Middle Ages.\n\nIslamic culture and science\n\nReligion always played a prevalent role in Middle Eastern culture, affecting learning, architecture, and the ebb and flow of cultures. Muhammad's introduction of Islam inspired achievements in architecture, the revival of old advances in science and technology, and the formation of a distinct way of life. Islam primarily consisted of the five pillars of belief, including confession of faith; the five prayers a day; to fast during the holy month of Ramadan; to pay the tax for charity (the zakat); and the hajj, the pilgrimage that a Muslim needed to take at least once in their lifetime. Islam also created the need for spectacularly built mosques which created a distinct form of architecture. Some of the more magnificent mosques include Al-Aqsa and the former Mosque of Cordoba.[32]\n\nIslam unified the Middle East and helped the empires there to remain stable. Missionaries and warriors spread the religion from Arabia to Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Mesopotamia. This created a mix of cultures, especially in Africa, and the mawali demographic. Although the mawali would experience discrimination from the Umayyad, they would gain widespread acceptance from the Abbasids and it was because of this that allowed for mass conversions in foreign areas. \"People of the book\" or dhimmi were always treated well; these people included Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians. However, the crusades started a new thinking in the Islamic empires, that non-Islamic ideas were immoral or inferior; this was primarily perpetrated by the ulama (علماء) scholars.[32]\n\nArabian culture took off during the early Abbasid age, despite the prevalent political issues. Muslims saved and spread Greek advances in medicine, algebra, geometry, astronomy, anatomy, and ethics that would later find its way back to Western Europe. The works of Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, and Euclid were saved and distributed throughout the empire (and eventually into Europe) in this manner. Muslim scholars also discovered the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in their conquests of south Asia. The use of this system in Muslim trade and political institutions allowed for the eventual popularization of it around the world; this number system would be critical to the Scientific Revolution in Europe. Muslim intellectuals became experts in chemistry, optics, and mapmaking during the Abbasid Caliphate. In the arts, Abbasid architecture expanded upon Umayyad architecture, with larger and more extravagant mosques. Persian literature grew based on ethical values. Astronomy was stressed in art. Much of this learning would find its way to the West. This was especially true during the Crusades, as warriors would bring back Muslim treasures, weapons, and medicinal methods.[33]\n\n11th century\n\nArrival of the Seljuk Turks\n\nThe dominance of the Arabs came to a sudden end in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands in Central Asia. They conquered Persia, Iraq (capturing Baghdad in 1055), Syria, Palestine, and the Hejaz. Egypt held out under the Fatimid caliphs until 1169, when it too fell to the Turks.\n\nDespite massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the Christian Byzantine Empire continued to be a potent military and economic force in the Mediterranean, preventing Arab expansion into much of Europe. The Seljuks' defeat of the Byzantine military in the Battle of Manzikert in the 11th century and settling in Anatolia effectively marked the end of Byzantine power. The Seljuks ruled most of the Middle East region for the next 200 years, but their empire soon broke up into a number of smaller sultanates.\n\nFirst Crusade (1096-1099)\n\nThe Seljuk victory at the Battle of Manzikert led to them controlling the cities of Edessa and Antioch. Around 1078, the Seljuks formed the Sultanate of Rum, whose capital was at Nicaea in northwest Anatolia. The Seljuks controlled Jerusalem by 1087. Alexios I Komnenos, who became Byzantine emperor in 1081, realized that the Seljuks' growth could help him in his battle for control of Anatolia.[34][35]\n\nIn March 1095, Komnenos appealed to the states west of the Byzantine Empire for help. In November, in the Council of Clermont in France, Pope Urban II called for soldiers from across Europe to go east to take back the \"Holy Land\" for Christianity. This was an opportunity to strengthen the Catholic Church, and for the Pope to become the head of a unified Catholic and Orthodox church. 60,000 Christians, including thousands of knights, joined the cause, partially in order to protect Christian sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This mission, the First Crusade, began in 1096. This was the first of the Crusades, a series of religious wars in Europe and the Middle East from the 11th to the 13th centuries.[34][35][36]\n\nFour large armies headed east: the first was headed by Godfrey of Bouillon, the duke of Lower Lotharingia, and they arrived at Constantinople in December 1096. The second, headed by a Norman from Italy named Bohemond. Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was the most prominent Crusader at the start of the expedition; he led the third army. The fourth was led by Robert Curthose. The latter three armies reached Constantinople in April 1097. In May, the armies reached Nicaea, which surrendered to the Byzantines. In July, the armies headed for Antioch, reaching the city in October. The city, with strong defensive walls, was besieged by the Crusaders until they took the city in June 1098. In January 1099, three of the armies headed for Jerusalem, while Bohemond stayed in Antioch. In June, the 1099 Siege of Jerusalem started, and the Crusaders took the city in July. The Crusaders massacred the non-Christian population of the city. The First Crusade ended with the establishment of multiple Crusader states in the region: from north to south, the County of Edessa, Principality of Antioch, County of Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.[34][35]\n\n12th century\n\n1138 Aleppo earthquake\n\nIn October 1138, an earthquake struck Aleppo (located on the Dead Sea Transform), which had hundreds of thousands of residents at the time. The city's walls and citadel were destroyed, killing an estimated 230,000 people. Crusader and Muslim forts, at Harem and Atarib respectively, were also destroyed.[37]\n\nSecond Crusade (1147-1153)\n\nIn 1144, the Seljuks took back the city of Edessa, prompting Pope Eugenius III in December 1145 to call for the Second Crusade, protecting the achievements the Crusaders had made decades prior. Unlike the first war, these Crusaders were led by kings; two armies were commanded by Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France. In 1147, their armies reached Constantinople. Upon entering the Levant, the Crusaders faced heavy Seljuk resistance, and their war effort began collapsing after failing to take Damascus in 1148. Bernard of Clairvaux, an influential French saint who had advocated for the war, determined that its failure lied in the \"sinfulness of Europeans\", and only through the \"purification and prayers of Christian[s]\" would God allow crusading knights to succeed; this became a core tenet of popular piety in medieval Europe.[38][39][40]\n\nFounding of the Ayyubid dynasty (1171-1187)\n\nNajm al-Din Ayyub was the patriarch of a Kurdish warrior family in the mid-12th century. He was appointed by the Seljuks as governor of Damascus, and with his brother Shirkuh, he united the Syrians as one front in preparation for another war with the Crusaders. In 1171, Ayyub's son Saladin, a Sunni living in Egypt, abolished the unpopular and failing Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He was a vassal of his father until Ayyub died in 1173, and then he moved to Syria and proclaimed himself as his father's successor. From 1174 to 1186, in an act of jihad, a type of Islamic religious struggle,[41] Saladin conquered and united the Muslims of Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine under the Ayyubid banner. He was seen as a \"a generous and virtuous but firm ruler, devoid of pretense, licentiousness, and cruelty\". In 1187, at the Battle of Hattin, Saladin trapped and destroyed a Crusader army, giving the Ayyubids the opportunity to overrun the Kingdom of Jerusalem and take back its capital.[42][43][44]\n\nThird Crusade (1189-1192)\n\nIn response to the recapture of Jerusalem, in October 1187, Pope Gregory VII called for the Third Crusade, with similar goals to the previous wars. The new Crusader leaders were Frederick Barbarossa, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE); Philip II of France; and Richard I of England. In 1190, as Barbarossa's army traveled through Cilicia, he died. Lacking leadership, his soldiers either died, returned to Germany, or, in rare cases, made it to the Levant.[39][40]\n\nIn 1191, the English landed at Cyprus, ending the local rebellion against Byzantine rule led by a man named Isaac Komnenos who proclaimed himself ruler of the island. The Cypriots were forced to pay taxes to the Crusader war effort, and generations of Crusaders controlled the island until 1571. In the Levant in 1191, the English captured the cities of Acre and then Jaffa. In 1192, as the English were garrisoned in Acre, Saladin launched a siege of Jaffa. The English returned to the city and fought the Ayyubids; the battle ended in a stalemate. The English left for home, as Richard I had to deal with domestic affairs, and the Third Crusade ended.[39][40] Saladin died in 1193.[45]\n\nCrusade of 1197\n\nFrederick Barbarossa's successor, Henry VI, set out for the Levant with an army in the Crusade of 1197. The Germans successfully captured Beirut from the Ayyubids, but later that year, Henry VI died in Sicily. In 1198, while the Germans were besieging Toron, they received the news of the emperor's death, and abandoned the siege to return to Germany.[46]\n\n13th century\n\nFourth Crusade (1202-1204)\n\nJerusalem was still controlled by the Ayyubids in August 1198, when Pope Innocent III called for the Fourth Crusade to once again try recapturing the city for Christianity. At the time, the English, French, German, and Spanish monarchs were dealing with their own domestic affairs; Richard I of England vowed to return to the Middle East to finish the job of taking Jerusalem, but he died in 1199. The Crusader armies were thus commanded by \"second-tier\" noblemen from France, led by the Italian Boniface I, Marquis of Montferrat.[45]\n\nBoniface; his liege Philip of Swabia; and Alexios IV Angelos-son of Isaac II Angelos, who was Byzantine emperor before he was deposed by his successor, Alexios III Angelos, in 1195; agreed to use the Crusade as an opportunity to storm Constantinople and depose Alexious III. The Crusaders declared war on the Byzantines, and entered Constantinople. In July 1203, Isaac II and Alexios IV were made co-emperors. Alexios III's son-in-law, Alexios V Doukas, was installed as emperor in January 1204. Doukas had Alexious IV strangled to death, and Isaac II imprisoned; the latter died in prison. In April 1204, Doukas demanded the Crusaders leave Constantinople. Instead, they committed the Sack of Constantinople, robbing the city of its wealth and goods. Parts of the Byzantine Empire were given to the Republic of Venice and its allies. Doukas fled the city and met up with Alexios III to join him as fugitives. However, Alexios III blinded him. Doukas was then captured by the Crusaders, who killed him as revenge for ordering Alexious IV's death.[45][47][48][49][50]\n\nFifth Crusade (1217-1221)\n\nIn 1215, Pope Innocent III called for another crusade to retake Jerusalem from the Ayyubids. The Fifth Crusade began in 1217. This time, the Crusaders decided to weaken the Ayyubids by capturing their cities in North Africa and Egypt, predicting the dynasty had a weak hold over that area. The Crusaders captured Damietta in Egypt, but in general, their plan did not work, as they had less soldiers, military equipment, and ships than needed; the Crusader leaders also disagreed over how to go about the war. The Ayyubids defeated them on the banks the Nile in August 1221. The Crusaders were forced to abandon Damietta, and once again return to Europe without taking Jerusalem.[51][52][53]\n\nMongol invasion of Persia (1218-1223)\n\nThe Mongol Empire was founded in modern-day Mongolia in 1206, led by Genghis Khan. He was the first \"Khagan\", the ruler of all the Mongol peoples. Over 12 years, the Mongols spread out from the eastern Eurasian Steppe into west and east Asia, brutally conquering much of the continent's land with a large army of effective cavalry and archers. In 1218, 100,000 Mongol soldiers entered the Khwarazmian Empire in Persia, and captured the Khwarazmian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Muslims were massacred; their irrigation systems and some of their cities were completely destroyed, leading them to nickname Genghis Khan the \"Accursed One\". From 1221 to 1223, the Mongols conquered the lands encircling the Caspian Sea.[54][55]\n\nIn 1227, Genghis Khan died, and his son Ögedei Khan became the new Khagan. Ögedei split the empire into four areas; one owned by him, and the others individually owned by his three brothers. Tolui received the Middle Eastern quadrant. Initially, this did not mean Ögedei's brothers led the government in their respective areas; he ultimately governed the whole empire for decades.[54][55]\n\nSixth Crusade (1228-1229)\n\nFrederick II became Holy Roman Emperor in 1220, during the Fifth Crusade. His legitimacy as emperor was questioned by Pope Innocent III and Innocent's successor, Honorious III. Before the crusade was over, Frederick promised to go south and join the Crusaders, but this did not happen. After the Crusade ended, he expanded the Holy Roman Empire into central Europe and Sicily, encircling the country of the Papal States which the Pope ruled. Honorious III asked Frederick to honor his pledge to retake Jerusalem, for its own religious sake and to take pressure off of the Papal States. Frederick agreed to start the Sixth Crusade in August 1227, but delayed his departure to illness. Honorious' successor, Gregory IX, then excommunicated Frederick from the Catholic Church as punishment for not following his pledge to go.[53][56]\n\nThis incident did not demotivate Frederick, and he sailed to the Levant with a well-equipped army of 12,000: 10,000 infantry and 2,000 knights. They landed at Acre in September 1228. Frederick entered negotiations with Levantine religious leaders such as those in the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, but they would not negotiate with someone who was now outside the church. Frederick was able to talk with them through military commanders associated with him, but who were seen as technically independent of him. Promising the religious leaders hereditary land and military promotions, Frederick was able to make an agreement in 1229 to expand the Kingdom of Jerusalem's Levantine territory and allow Christians to reoccupy most of Jerusalem.[53][56]\n\nSeventh Crusade (1248-1254)\n\nIn the fifteen years following the Sixth Crusade, many Ayyubid cities on the Mediterranean coast started allying with the local Crusader states out of convenience. This was because, after the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil died in 1238, his successors started fighting over control of the region which destabilized these cities. In August 1244, the Muslim Khwarazmians took Jerusalem back from the Christians, and in October, a Christian army was defeated by the Ayyubids at the Battle of Forbie in Gaza, which stabilized and strengthened Ayyubid control. The Christians remaining in Jerusalem were massacred, and their holy sites were destroyed. Pope Innocent IV called for the Seventh Crusade, which was led by Louis IX of France. Louis wanted to take both Jerusalem and Egypt from the Muslims. The Crusaders captured Damietta in 1249, and then went to Mansourah in 1250, where they were routed by a Muslim army. Louis was captured and ransomed back to the Crusaders, who returned home once again.[57]\n\nFounding of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250)\n\nMamluks were enslaved Muslim soldiers who made up armies in the Abbasid Caliphate. These armies had Mamluk generals, who, in 1250, formed the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria. The sultanate was officially a part of the Abbasid government, and ruled for centuries. These Mamluks had no relation to the Mamluk dynasty in India, which also existed in the 13th century.[58][59]\n\nSiege of Baghdad (1258)\n\nThe siege of Baghdad and the death of Abbasid Caliph al-Musta'sim in 1258 temporarily ended the caliphate.[60] When the Khagan Möngke Khan died in 1259, any further Mongol expansion in the region was halted, as the regional military leader Hulegu Khan had to return to the Mongol capital Karakorum for the election of a new khagan. His absence resulted in the first defeat of the Mongols by the Egyptian Mamluks during the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.[61] Issues began to arise when the Mongols were unable to reach a consensus as to whom to elect Khagan. Additionally, conflict occurred between traditionalists who wished to retain their nomadic culture and Mongols moving towards sedentary agriculture. All of this led to the fragmentation of the empire in 1260.[62] Hulegu carved out his Middle Eastern territory into the independent Ilkhanate, which included most of Armenia, Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, and Iran.\n\nThe Mongols eventually retreated in 1335, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuk Turks.\n\n14th century\n\nBlack Death (1346-1353)\n\nThe Black Death was a pandemic of the plague that spread throughout the Old World-but mostly Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa-from 1346 to 1353. The disease was caused by bacteria Yersinia pestis, carried to humans by fleas on rodents, and then from human to human. It originated in Central Asia, and was unknowingly brought to Crimea via Mongol warriors, as well as traders (Mongols and others) who used the trade routes that connected Europe and Asia (such as the Silk Road). It is likely that Genoese trading ships-with either infected humans or flea-carrying rats onboard-brought the plague from Crimea to the Byzantine Empire in 1347, when sailing back to Italy through Constantinople. From then until 1349, the Black Death spread from Byzantine territory down through the rest of the Middle East. Around 30% to 50% of the population in any infected area died from the disease.[63][64][65]\n\nTimurid conquest of western Asia (1370-1405)\n\nTimur was a warlord who grew up in the Barlas tribe of Turkic Mongols that lived in the region of Transoxiana (roughly modern Uzbekistan), within the Chagatai Khanate (the territory of the Chagatai line of khans descended from Chagatai Khan, son of Genghis Khan). From 1364 to 1366, Timur and his brother-in-law, Amir Husayn, conquered Transoxiana, but around 1370, Timur had Husayn assassinated. In Samarkand, Transoxiana's main city, Timur declared himself a sovereign of the Chagatai line who would restore the Mongol Empire to its former glory. This began the Timurid dynasty that controlled the Timurid Empire.[66][67] \n\nIn 1380, the empire conquered the nearby region of Kashgar, and in 1383, Timur entered Persia. From 1383 to 1394, the empire conquered eastern and southern Persia, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia. In 1399, Timur launched an expedition towards Mamluk and Ottoman territory. Timur regained control of modern Azerbaijan, and then captured Aleppo, which was sacked, before moving to Damascus and reducing the city's power by deporting its artisans to Samarkand. In 1401, the Timurids besieged Baghdad, killing 20,000 of its residents. At the Battle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated the army of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. Timur received offers of capitulation from the Mamluk sultan and Byzantine emperor, then returned to Samarkand in 1404. In December 1404, Timur set out on a conquest of China, but died in February 1405. Before he died, he had divided his empire's territories between his sons and grandsons.[66][67]\n\n15th century\n\nFall of Constantinople (1453)\n\nThe Ottomans conquered almost all of Anatolia and the Balkans in the late 14th century, forcing Constantinople into vassalage and then fighting the Hungarians. In 1422, Ottoman sultan Murad II besieged Constantinople, but stopped to deal with another rebellion in the Ottoman Empire. In 1444, Murad suffered a defeat in the Balkans, prompting him to abdicate his throne to his son, Mehmed II. In 1446, Murad returned to being the sultan, and remained as such until he died in 1451, again succeeded by Mehmed.[68][69]\n\nBy the 1450s, a weakened Byzantine Empire had lost much of its territory in wars with the Balkan states and Roman Catholic armies. The population of Constantinople, weakened by two centuries of sporadic raids, had dropped in population from 400,000 in the 12th century to 40,000 to 50,000. Mehmed planned to finish Murad's goal of conquering the city, and in 1452, he made peace with Hungary and Venice. In April 1453, he led an army to Constantinople, and besieged the city. In May, the city fell to the Ottomans, ending the Roman Empire after 1500 years of continuous existence.[68][69]\n\n16th to 17th centuries\n\nBy the early 15th century, the Ottomans had become the region's largest power. The Mamluks held them out of the lower Middle East for a century, but in 1514 Selim the Grim began the Ottoman conquest of the region. Syria was occupied in 1516 and Egypt in 1517, extinguishing the Mamluk line. Iraq was conquered almost in 40 years from the Iranian Safavids, who were successors of the Aq Qoyunlu.\n\nThe Ottomans united the whole region under one ruler for the first time since the reign of the Abbasid caliphs of the 10th century, and they kept control of it for 400 years, despite brief intermissions created by the Safavids and Afsharids.[70] By this time the Ottomans also held Greece, the Balkans, and most of Hungary, setting the new frontier between east and west far to the north of the Danube. Regions such as Albania and Bosnia saw many conversions to Islam, but Ottoman Europe was not culturally absorbed into the Muslim world.\n\nBy 1699, the Ottomans had been driven out of Hungary, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and parts of the western Balkans in the Great Turkish War. In the Great Divergence, Europe had overtaken the Muslim world in wealth, population and technology. Some historians argue that science had already been in decline in the Muslim world since the 14th century[71] while other argue that sciences still continued until the 17th century.[72][73][74] The Industrial Revolution and growth of capitalism magnified the divergence, and from 1768 to 1918, the Ottomans gradually lost territory.\n\n18th century\n\nNader Shah\n\nNader Shah has been described as \"the last great Asiatic military conqueror\".[75] Following his assassination in 1747, his empire quickly disintegrated, and Iran fell into a civil war.\n\nFrench invasion of Egypt and Syria (1798-1799)\n\nIn February 1798, during the French Revolutionary Wars, the general Napoleon-a leader of the French Directory, the new French government-requested the Directory, who were at war with the British, to cancel their planned invasion of Britain. He instead began planning a French invasion of Egypt, then ruled by the Mamluks. This was intended to halt British trade in the region, make France pose a threat to British possessions in India, and \"obtain assets for bargaining in any future peace settlement\". France also planned to make a progressive government in Egypt to bring them [the Egyptians] back to their former status. To achieve this, France brought along scholars and scientists to study and report on Egyptian society. Napoleon and his army sailed to Egypt in May 1798.[76][77]\n\nThe Royal Navy, commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson, sailed to Egypt to fight the French navy. On land, in July 1798, the French won against the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids. However, at the Battle of the Nile in August, Napoleon's fleet at Abu Qir was all but destroyed by the British. French communication lines were severed, and Napoleon worked to make his soldiers self-sufficient. The Egyptians resented French occupation, and were further angered in September, when Ottoman sultan Selim III declared war on France. In February 1799, Napoleon marched the French into Ottoman Syria and besieged Acre, a strategic position beneficial for them to capture. The siege failed, and in May, the Napoleon brought his forces back into Egypt. In July, Ottoman naval forces arrived at the shore of Abu Qir, but failed to maintain a bridgehead so they could fight the French on land. Napoleon decided to return to France, and in August, slipped past the British blockade and went home. The remaining French troops were eventually defeated by an Anglo-Ottoman expedition in 1801 and evacuated by the British to Europe.[76][77]\n\nThe French researchers who had been studying Egyptian society discovered the Rosetta Stone during their work. It is a stone from ancient Egypt inscribed with the same message written in five different writing systems: two forms of the Greek language, the Egyptian language, and two forms of hieroglyphs. The latter two writing systems were hardly understood by European researchers. They were compared with the Greek and Egyptian alphabets-which European researchers did know-and decoded, leading to new understanding of hieroglyphs.[76][78]\n\n19th century\n\nGreece, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria achieved independence during the 19th century, and the Ottoman Empire became known as the \"sick man of Europe\", increasingly under the financial control of European powers. Domination soon turned to outright conquest: the French annexed Algeria in 1830 and Tunisia in 1878 and the British occupied Egypt in 1882, though it remained under nominal Ottoman sovereignty.\n\nIn 1878, as the result of the Cyprus Convention, the United Kingdom took over the government of Cyprus as a protectorate from the Ottoman Empire. While the Cypriots at first welcomed British rule, hoping that they would gradually achieve prosperity, democracy and national liberation, they soon became disillusioned. The new colonial administration imposed heavy taxes to pay off Ottoman Crimean War loans (guaranteed by both Britain and France) on which the Ottomans had defaulted. Agitation against the taxation was incessant and became a source of nationalist anger towards the British.[79]\n\nThe British also established effective control of the Persian Gulf, and the French extended their influence into Lebanon and Syria. In 1912, the Italians seized Libya and the Dodecanese islands, just off the coast of the Ottoman heartland of Anatolia. The Ottomans turned to Germany to protect them from the western powers, but the result was increasing financial and military dependence on Germany.\n\n20th century\n\nFinal years of the Ottoman Empire\n\nIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers tried to modernize their states to compete more effectively with Europe. In the Ottoman Empire, the Tanzimat reforms re-invigorated Ottoman rule and were furthered by the Young Ottomans in the late 19th century, leading to the First Constitutional Era in the Empire that included the writing of the 1876 constitution and the establishment of the Ottoman Parliament. The authors of the 1906 revolution in Persia all sought to import versions of the western model of constitutional government, civil law, secular education, and industrial development into their countries. Throughout the region, railways and telegraph lines were constructed, schools and universities were opened, and a new class of army officers, lawyers, teachers, and administrators emerged, challenging the traditional leadership of Islamic scholars.\n\nThis first Ottoman constitutional experiment ended soon after it began, however, when the autocratic Sultan Abdul Hamid II abolished the parliament and the constitution in favor of personal rule. Abdul Hamid ruled by decree for the next 30 years, stirring democratic resentment. The reform movement known as the Young Turks emerged in the 1890s against his rule, which included massacres against minorities. The Young Turks seized power in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and established the Second Constitutional Era, leading to pluralist and multiparty elections in the Empire for the first time in 1908. The Young Turks split into two parties, the pro-German and pro-centralization Committee of Union and Progress and the pro-British and pro-decentralization Freedom and Accord Party. The former was led by an ambitious pair of army officers, Ismail Enver Bey (later Pasha) and Ahmed Cemal Pasha, and a radical lawyer, Mehmed Talaat Bey (later Pasha). After a power struggle between the two parties of Young Turks, the Committee emerged victorious and became a ruling junta, with Talaat as Grand Vizier and Enver as War Minister, and established a German-funded modernisation program across the Empire.[80]\n\nIn August 1914, Enver Bey signed an alliance with the German Empire, which he considered the most advanced military power in Europe. It was created as part of a joint effort to strengthen and modernize the weak Ottoman military and to provide Germany with safe passage into the neighbouring British colonies.[81][82] Germany also needed the Ottoman Empire on its side. The Orient Express had run directly to Constantinople since 1889, and prior to 1914, the Sultan had consented to a plan to extend it through Anatolia to Baghdad under German auspices. That would strengthen the Ottoman Empire's link with the industrialized Europe and give Germany easier access to its African colonies and to trade markets in British India.[83]\n\nWorld War I (1914-1918)\n\nIn 1914, Enver Pasha's alliance with Germany led the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of the Central Powers against the Entente, an alliance that included Russia, Great Britain and France. The British saw the Ottomans as the weak link in the Central Powers, and concentrated on knocking them out of the war. When a direct assault failed at Gallipoli in 1915, they turned to fomenting revolution in the Ottoman domains, exploiting the awakening force of Arab, Armenian, and Assyrian nationalism against the Ottomans.[81] The British found an ally in Sharif Hussein, the hereditary ruler of Mecca believed by many Muslims to be a descendant of Muhammad, who led an Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, after being promised independence.\n\nThe Entente won the war and the Ottoman Empire was divided according to the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. Most of its territory was ceded to Britain and France. The Turkish War of Independence led to the creation of the modern Turkish state. The war transformed the region in terms of shattering Ottoman power which was supplanted by increased British and French influence; the creation of the Middle Eastern state system as seen in Turkey, TransJordan (Jordan), Iraq and Saudi Arabia; the emergence of explicitly more nationalist politics, as seen in Turkey and Egypt; and the expansion of oil industry, particularly in the Gulf States.[84][85]\n\nAftermath of World War I\n\nOttoman defeat and partition\n\nWhen the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies in 1918, the Arab factions who had fought alongside the Entente did not get what they had expected. The British and French governments had concluded a secret treaty before the armistice, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, partitioning the Middle East amongst themselves. The Lloyd George ministry had in 1917 issued the Balfour Declaration, promising the international Zionist movement their support in re-creating the historic Jewish homeland in Surya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria).[86]After the Ottomans withdrew, Arab leaders proclaimed an independent state in Damascus, but this was not recognized by France. After a four month-long war, the kingdom surrendered to French forces on 25 July 1920, ending its existence.[87]\n\nSyria became a French protectorate as a League of Nations mandate. The Christian coastal areas were split off to become Lebanon, another French protectorate. Iraq and Surya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria) became British mandated territories. Iraq became the \"Kingdom of Iraq\" and one of Sharif Hussein's sons, Faisal, was installed as the King of Iraq. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own.\n\nMeanwhile, the fall of the Ottomans and the partitioning of Anatolia by the Allies led to resistance by the Turkish population, under the Turkish National Movement led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish victory against the invading powers during the Turkish War of Independence, and the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923. Atatürk, the Republic's first President, embarked on a program of modernisation and secularisation that pushed Turkey both economically and culturally closer to Europe and away from the Arab world. He abolished the caliphate, emancipated women, enforced western dress and the use of a new Turkish alphabet based on Latin script in place of the Arabic alphabet, and abolished the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts.\n\nMandatory Palestine, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt\n\nAnother turning point came when oil was discovered, first in Persia (1908) and later in Saudi Arabia (1938) as well as the other Persian Gulf states, Libya, and Algeria. The Middle East possessed the world's largest untapped reserves of crude oil, that were also amongst the easiest to extract. Oil is the most important commodity in the 20th century. The discovery of oil in the region made many of the kings and emirs of the Middle East immensely wealthy and enabled them to consolidate their hold on power while giving them a stake in preserving western hegemony over the region.[88]\n\nAs the West became dependent on Middle Eastern oil exports and British influence steadily declined, American interest in the region grew. Initially, Western oil companies established dominance over oil production and extraction. However, indigenous movements towards nationalizing oil assets, oil sharing, and the advent of OPEC shifted the balance of power towards the Arab oil states.[88]\n\nBritain was granted a Mandate for Palestine in April 1920 at the San Remo Conference, and, in July 1922, this mandate was approved by the League of Nations. Ottoman Surya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria) became the British Mandate of Palestine and was placed under direct British administration. The Jewish population of the area, consisting of indigenous Jews and those of recent migrations from Europe, numbered less than 8 percent in 1918, the rest of the population being primarily Muslim and Christian. Jews had been driven from their ancient homeland since the time of the bible. Under the British mandate, Zionist settlers were initially granted wide rein to immigrate, buy land from absentee landlords or others willing to sell, set up a local government and later establish the nucleus of a state, all under British protection. Arab Palestinian discontent with British policies and increasing levels of Jewish immigration led to numerous riots and the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, which led Britain to issue the White Paper of 1939 restricting all Jewish immigrants from coming to the Mandate.[89]\n\nThe territory east of the Jordan River and west of Iraq was also declared a British Mandate when the Council of the League of Nations passed the British-written Transjordan Memorandum in September 1922. Most of the Arabian peninsula, including Mecca and Medina, though not incorporated into either a British or French colonial mandate, fell under the control of another British ally, Ibn Saud, who in 1932, founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.[90]\n\nIn the early 20th century, Syria and Egypt made moves towards independence. In 1919, Egyptian anti-colonial activist Saad Zaghloul orchestrated mass demonstrations in Egypt known as the 1919 Egyptian revolution, in which 800 Egyptians were killed and 1,600 wounded along with 61 European soldiers and civilians; Zaghloul would go on to serve as Prime Minister of Egypt. In 1920, the French defeated Syrian forces in the Battle of Maysalun and the British defeated Iraqi rebels when they revolted. In 1922, the nominally independent Kingdom of Egypt was created following the British government's issuance of the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence.[91]\n\nWorld War II (1939-1945)\n\nIn 1939, World War II began when Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. It was mainly fought between the Allies (including Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) against the Axis powers (including Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan). Germany occupied much of Europe.[92] In the Holocaust, Germany murdered millions of people in concentration camps throughout occupied Europe, including six million Jews.[93]\n\nThe French Third Republic, an Allied power, was invaded by Germany in May 1940. In June, Germany won and split France into two governments, the northern half of the country under direct German control, and the southern under the semi-autonomous Vichy France, which collaborated with Germany.[94][95] Syria was put under the administration of Vichy France.[96]\n\nThe Middle East was essential to the British Empire, and Germany and Italy worked to undermine British influence there. Hitler allied with the Muslim leader Amin al-Husseini-in exile since he participated in the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine-as part of promoting Arab nationalism to destabilize regional British control. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran since 1941, tried to keep his country neutral in the presence of Axis agents. The handover of Syria to Vichy France threatened British communication lines between Europe and India, which was a British colony; this was exacerbated by Germany's successful invasion of Greece.[96][97]\n\nIn accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, Egypt allowed Britain to operate facilities related to the war effort in Egypt's territory, though most Egyptians favored neutrality or supported the Axis. The British were angered by Hussein Sirri Pasha's neutral stance, and in 1942 as German forces neared Egypt, UK ambassador to Egypt Miles Lampson forced Farouk to replace Pasha with Wafd Party politician Mostafa el-Nahas in the Abdeen Palace incident. The confrontation furthered Farouk's hostility towards the British, and Egypt only declared war on Germany and Japan in 1945.[98][99]\n\nIn Iraq, a pro-British regime headed by the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah and Prime Minister Nuri as-Said ruled the country. Iraq severed relations with Germany on 5 September 1939 following the outbreak of World War II in Europe. However, Nuri tread carefully between his close relationship with Britain and dependence on pro-German Iraqi army officers and cabinet members. In 1941, a coup d'état led by four Iraqi nationalist army generals, known as \"the Golden Square\", overthrew al-Ilah and as-Said's regime. The Golden Square intended to use the war to press for full Iraqi independence following the limited independence granted by Britain in 1932.[100]\n\nIn May 1941, the Anglo-Iraqi War began as the British forces invaded Iraq and defeated the pro-Nazi Iraqi regime. The Golden Square fled the country, and al-Ilah and as-Said were installed as the leaders of Iraq once more.[100] British-led forces also captured Syria and Lebanon from Vichy France to secure their regional control and provide security for their forces in Egypt.[101] Meanwhile, the Allies were worried Germany would try to access Iranian oil reserves, and the Soviets needed new supply routes to other Allied states after Germany invaded the western Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. These factors prompted the successful Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in August 1941.[102]\n\nWhen World War II ended, the British,[103] French, and Soviets, withdrew from most parts of the regions they had occupied both before and during the war and seven Middle Eastern states gained or regained independence later on: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, and Cyprus.\n\nEstablishment of the State of Israel (1948)\n\nIn Palestine, conflicting forces of Arab nationalism and Zionism created a situation the British could neither resolve nor extricate themselves from. The Holocaust created a new urgency in the Zionist quest to immigrate to Palestine and create a Jewish state. A Palestinian state was also an attractive alternative to the Arab and Persian leaders as a means of undermining British and French and perceived Jewish influence in the region under the logic of \"the enemy of my enemy is my friend\".[104]\n\nThe Arab-Jewish struggle culminated in the 1947 United Nations plan to partition Palestine. This plan sought to create an Arab state and a separate Jewish state in the narrow space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but Arab leaders rejected it.[105]\n\nIn May 1948, when the British Mandate expired, the Zionist leadership declared the State of Israel. In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War which immediately followed, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia intervened and were defeated by Israel.[106] About 800,000 Palestinians fled from areas annexed by Israel and became refugees in neighbouring countries, thus creating the \"Palestinian problem\", which has troubled the region ever since.[107] Approximately two-thirds of 758,000-866,000 of the Jews expelled or who fled from Arab lands after 1948 were absorbed and naturalized by the State of Israel.[108]\n\n1952 Egyptian revolution\n\nIn Egypt, civil conflict between left- and right-wing radicals, and Egyptian opposition to the continued British occupation of the Suez Canal, led to the 1952 Egyptian revolution. In July 1952, Farouk was overthrown in a coup by the Free Officers, a group of Egyptian nationalist military officers led by Major General Mohamed Naguib and General Gamal Abdel Nasser.[109][110][111]\n\nThe Egyptian monarchy was dissolved, and in June 1953, Egypt became a republic. A council of eleven military officers led by Nasser, the Egyptian Revolutionary Command Council, governed the country with \"carefully controlled manipulation\" of the populace. Political parties were banned. Naguib was made Egypt's president, but was effectively a puppet ruler, answering to the council. However, his position threatened Nasser's influence, so in 1954, Nasser mobilized a coalition of supporters (including the working class, the Muslim Brotherhood, police officers, and members of the former political parties) and overthrew Naguib, placing him under house arrest. Nasser was made prime minister.[109][110][112]\n\nBritannica writes that in Nasser's 1954 book Philosophy of the Revolution, he \"outlined his aspiration to be the leader of the 55 million Arabs, then of the 224 million Africans, then of the 420 million followers of Islam\". He initially had a moderate diplomatic approach with Israel, Britain and the Sudanese people in southern Egypt, the last of whom wanted independence. In 1953, Egypt agreed to a Sudanese provisional self-government, and Sudan became an independent republic in 1956.[109][112]\n\n1953 Iranian coup d'état\n\nAfter World War II, Britain continued to maintain a presence in Iran, effectively controlling Iran's oil industry through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh became Iran's prime minister, and his democratic and nationalist government took control of the Iranian parliament. The parliament voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry, leading the UK's MI6 to \"secret[ly] campaign to weaken and destabilize Mosaddegh\". The Shah, influenced by the MI6 campaign, attempted to oust Mosaddegh from the Iranian government with a parliamentary decree. This failed and only strengthened Mosaddegh, while weakening the Shah. The British government then used anti-communist rhetoric to persuade the U.S.-now in the Cold War against the Soviets-to cooperate in overthrowing Mosaddegh.[102][113][97]\n\nIn the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and MI6 funded agents in Iran who were \"used to foment unrest\" against Mosaddegh through \"harassment of religious and political leaders and a media disinformation campaign\". In August 1953, Mosaddegh was overthrown after deadly fighting in Tehran, and the CIA sanctioned the Shah becoming the singular leader of Iran. Mosaddegh was put under house arrest until his death. The coup and its effects created the conditions for the 1979 Iranian revolution.[102][114]\n\nSuez Crisis (1956)\n\nThe Suez Crisis in 1956 originated in Egypt's growing support for Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, communist allies. In response, the U.S. and U.K. decided not to finance Egypt's construction of the Aswan Dam across the Nile. This provoked Nasser into nationalizing the Suez Canal in July 1956, seizing the British and French Suez Company. The U.K. and France, thinking that Nasser might close off the canal-thus cutting off petroleum shipments to Europe-began a military response against Egypt. In October, Israel joined the conflict, advancing towards the canal. This interfered with the British and French plan, and they forced Israel to stand down. In November, the two countries occupied the canal; the U.S., disapproving of this, led a campaign in the United Nations (UN) to force the British and French out of the canal. Egypt ultimately won control over the canal, and the U.K. and France lost much influence in the Middle East.[111][115]\n\nModern Middle East\n\nThe modern Middle East was shaped by three things: departure of European powers, the founding of Israel, and the growing importance of the oil industry. These developments eventually led to increased U.S. involvement in the region. The U.S. was the ultimate guarantor of the region's stability as well as the dominant force in the oil industry after the 1950s. When revolutions brought radical anti-Western regimes to power in Egypt (1954), Syria (1963), Iraq (1968), and Libya (1969), the Soviet Union, seeking to open a new arena of the Cold War, allied itself with Arab socialist rulers.\n\nIn the mid-to-late 1960s, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar took power in both Iraq and Syria. Iraq was first ruled by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, but was succeeded by Saddam Hussein in 1979. Syria was ruled first by a Military Committee led by Salah Jadid, and later Hafez al-Assad until 2000, when he was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad.\n\nCyprus independence and conflict (1960-present)\n\nIn 1960, Cyprus gained independence from British rule. Archbishop Makarios III, a charismatic religious and political leader, was elected its first independent president, and in 1961 it became the 99th member of the United Nations.[116] Between 1955 and 1974, conflict arising between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots led to Cypriot intercommunal violence and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The Cyprus dispute remains unresolved.\n\nSix-Day War (1967)\n\nTensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors rose in 1966 and 1967, as Palestinian armed groups and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked each other in bursts. In 1967, Soviet intelligence released a report falsely claiming that Israel was going to start an offensive against Syria, which prompted Gamal Abdel Nasser to mobilize his forces in solidarity with Syria and prepare for war. In the Six-Day War in June, Israel invaded and captured the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. The war ended with Israel's continued control of the territories when all countries involved agreed to a ceasefire.[117] \n\nThe Arab countries had 18,000 casualties in the war, while Israel had 700. In November 1967, UN Resolution 242 called for Israel to return the conquered territories in exchange for a lasting peace, which the country did not do. One million Palestinians now lived under Israeli occupation.[117] With an overwhelming Israeli victory, many viewed the defeat as the failure of Arab socialism. Militant and fundamentalist Islam filled the \"political vacuum\" that was made.[118]\n\nWar of Attrition (1967-1970)\n\nThe Arab position, as it emerged in September 1967 at the Khartoum Summit, later become known as the \"three nos\": no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel. In 1968, Nasser announced his plans to take back the Sinai Peninsula, receiving aid from the Soviets to make up for Egyptian losses in the war. The War of Attrition started with limited fighting. The war paused with a mutual ceasefire as both countries built up their forces. In 1969, a larger-scale war began, minorly involving Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria in an eastern front. In 1970, Nasser asked for direct military support from the Soviets, who began air strikes on Israelis in Egypt. This led to the U.S. mediating another ceasefire, ending the war with no territorial changes.[119][120][121]\n\nYom Kippur War, the PLO, and the Camp David Accords (1973-1979)\n\nAfter the War of Attrition, new Egyptian president Anwar Sadat expressed willingness to reach an accord with Israel based on UNSC resolution 242, but Golda Meir rejected the proposal, leading to the Yom Kippur War. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria invaded the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights to take them back. The U.S. sided with Israel, and the Soviet Union with Egypt and Syria. In 1974, the three warring states agreed to ceasefires and the construction of a UN buffer zone between Egypt and Syria.[122] The Sinai Peninsula stayed under Israeli occupation.[123]\n\nIn 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was created as an umbrella organization for underground anti-Israel Palestinian rebels. They grew in the post-1967 occupation, and in 1969, Yasser Arafat was made their chairman. PLO's many factions have different ideologies, from wanting to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with a religiously equal state, or negotiating with Israel for peace. In the 1970s, some PLO factions engaged in guerrilla warfare against Israel and elsewhere from the PLO's headquarters in Jordan, before Jordan forced them out in 1971. The PLO moved to Lebanon. In 1974, Arafat ordered the end of attacks outside of Israel, and Arab states recognized the PLO as the legitimate Palestinian governmental body.[123]\n\nThe 1978 Camp David Accords mediated by the U.S. led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, in which Israel agreed to stop occupying the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt unsuccessfully tried to get Israel to recognize a Palestinian state which governed Gaza and the West Bank; Israel still sought to destroy the PLO. The accords' \"Framework for Peace in the Middle East\" put off peace between Israel and Palestine for a later time.[123][124]\n\nWhite Revolution and the Iranian Revolution (1963-1979)\n\nFrom 1963 to 1979, the Shah reformed Iran in the White Revolution. A Western ally, he rapidly urbanized, secularized, and Westernized the country, while forgoing democracy and human rights. Women received more liberties, land was redistributed to families, literacy increased, tribal groups were given greater autonomy, and the economy boomed from oil. Contrarily, political opposition was marginalized and censored, and dissidents were surveilled, harassed, or tortured. Ulama Shia scholars were undermined by secular leaders, and the economic changes did not reach everyone equally.[125][126][127]\n\nShi'ite leaders disliked secularization and women's rights-one leader was the populist and anti-Western Ruhollah Khomeini, who was exiled from Iran in 1964 by the Shah.[125][126][128] However, he still had influence there, and called for the Shah's overthrow. During the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown. The Shah died from health issues in Egypt, and Khomeini became the country's leader. He made Iran a Shi'ite theocratic state, cut ties with the West, and rolled back women's rights. He stayed in power until 1989.[125][127][128][129]\n\nShi'ite militants held 66 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran from 1979 to 1981. The hostage takers wanted the U.S. to extradite the Shah to Iran to be put on trial for human rights abuses. The U.S. did not comply, and stopped buying Iranian oil, which hurt the U.S. economy. The Shah's death did not end the crisis, and U.S. president Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 presidential election amidst an oil-related recession. In 1981, when Carter's successor Ronald Reagan took office, the hostages were freed.[130]\n\nLebanese Civil War (1975-1990)\n\nThe PLO's move to Lebanon, and Israel's wish to destroy the PLO, partially led to the Lebanese Civil War, which was fought from 1975 to 1990.[123][131] Fighting was between the Lebanese Army; Israel; Syria; the PLO; the Lebanese Front, representing the country's traditional Christian elites; the Lebanese National Movement of leftists, Arab nationalists, and Sunnis; and the Amal Movement of Shi'ite populists. The war ultimately led to Israel and Syria occupying different parts of Lebanon until 2000 and 2005, respectively.[131]\n\nDuring the 1982 Lebanon War, Israel invaded Lebanon, seven years into the civil War.[132][133] The invasion was ostensibly because of attacks launched on Israel by PLO members located in Southern Lebanon. Israel reached as far as west Beirut, where the PLO had its main stronghold, putting that part of the city under siege. 19,000 people died under the siege. Those PLO members made an agreement with Israel to leave Lebanon for Tunisia, while Israel occupied Southern Lebanon until 2000, supporting proxy wars there.[133][134]\n\nIn 1982, Lebanese president-elect Bachir Gemayel was assassinated by a Syrian nationalist potentially under orders from Hafez al-Assad.[134][135] Soon after, the Kataeb Party right-wing Lebanese militia, coordinating with the IDF, carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 2,000 to 3,500 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.[133][136][137] Out of this conflict came Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite political party and militant organization opposed to Israel, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia, and supported by Iran.[133][138] In 1983, a terrorist attack by the Islamic Jihad Organization on an American military barrack in Beirut killed 300 American and French soldiers.[134]\n\nIran-Iraq War (1980-1988)\n\nSaddam Hussein became the president of Iraq in 1979. The Shi'ite revolution in Iran concerned Hussein, who thought that majority-Shi'ite Iraq would face a similar uprising. He also wanted to overturn the 1975 Algiers Agreement, which let Iran control the Shatt al-Arab waterway in exchange for Iran withdrawing support for an insurgency by northern Iraqi Kurds. The Shatt al-Arab had been Iraq's only way to access the Persian Gulf. Hussein had begun relying on Iraq's minority Sunni population when in 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, starting the Iran-Iraq War. Hussein considered this militarily viable because Iran's military was considered to be weakened after the revolution. Iraq first captured the oil-producing region of Khuzestan, but Iranians intensely resisted, and by 1982, all the Iranian territory that Iraq had taken was reclaimed. Nevertheless, the war continued for another six years at great cost for both sides.[139][140]\n\nAssassination of Anwar Sadat (1981)\n\nIn 1981, on the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by a group of Islamic extremists while he was inspecting troops in Cairo. They disliked that Sadat negotiated with Israel and let the Shah die in Egypt instead of extraditing him to Iran. The perpetrators were led by Khaled el Islambouli, who had connections to the terrorist group Takfir Wal-Hajira. Takfir Wal-Hajira was partially funded by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Sadat in 1980. Sadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, who put hundreds of people on trial for conspiracy in the assassination.[141] In the following years, Mubarak continued following the terms of the Camp David Accords, and improved relations with other Arab states, Israel, and the U.S.[132]\n\nIran-Contra affair (1985-1987)\n\nIn the 1980s, the U.S. supported the Contras-fighting the Marxist Nicaraguan government-financially and militarily, as Ronald Reagan feared Marxism spreading through Central America. Supporting the Contras was soon banned by the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, Americans in Lebanon were being held captive by Shi'ites supporting Iran; the U.S. publicly denied negotiating with terrorists or aiding Iran during its war with Iraq, labeling Iran a terrorist state. Secretly, starting in 1985, Reagan sold Iran weapons in exchange for the hostages' release, diverting some sales revenue to the Contras. This was publicized in 1986, but Reagan was not punished for the illegal act.[142][143][144]\n\nFirst Intifada (1987-1993)\n\nIn 1977, the right-wing political party Likud won the Israeli elections, leading to Israel expropriating more land and furthering settlements in the West Bank. Palestinian protests following the invasion of Lebanon increased Israel's repression in Gaza and the West Bank. The conditions for a Palestinian uprising were greater as certain Palestinians challenged the PLO's leadership and viewed Israel, which in the mid-1980s had a significant number vying for peace, as more receptive to Palestinian protests.[145][146][147]\n\nIn 1987, an Israeli caused a vehicle crash that killed four Palestinians, as revenge for the fatal stabbing of an Israeli in Gaza years prior. The crash led to the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising-involving the PLO-against Israel. It started as protests and turned into a military conflict against the occupiers. 2,000 people died, around three quarters being Palestinian deaths. In 1988, the PLO denied the U.S.' deal of making peace with Israel on the condition that the PLO acknowledge \"Israel's right 'to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries'\". The Intifada politically and economically hurt Israel, who elected politicians favoring peace in the 1992 elections.[145][146][147]\n\nDissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)\n\nThe fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in the early 1990s had several consequences for the Middle East. It allowed large numbers of Soviet Jews to emigrate from Russia and Ukraine to Israel, further strengthening the Jewish state. It cut off the easiest source of credit, armaments, and diplomatic support to the anti-western Arab regimes, weakening their position. It opened up the prospect of cheap oil from Russia, driving down the price of oil and reducing the west's dependence on oil from the Arab states. It discredited the model of development through authoritarian state socialism, which Egypt, Algeria, Syria, and Iraq had followed since the 1960s, leaving these regimes politically and economically stranded. Rulers such as Saddam Hussein increasingly relied on Arab nationalism as a substitute for socialism.\n\nIn most Middle Eastern countries, the growth of market economies was said to be limited by political restrictions, corruption, and cronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects and over-dependence on oil revenues. The successful economies were countries that had oil wealth and low populations, such as Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the ruling emirs allowed some political and social liberalization, but without giving up any of their own power.\n\nYemeni unification and civil war (1990-1994)\n\nIn 1990, North and South Yemen unified as the Republic of Yemen, whose constitution outlines a liberal parliamentary democracy led by a popularly elected president and a bicameral legislature, one house being popularly elected and the other elected by the president.[148] The first president of the republic was Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the following years, southern Yemenis felt they had a lesser status than the northerners, and tried to split off from the north. Saleh disallowed this, starting the Yemeni civil war of 1994. He ultimately maintained the union.[149] In the 2000 Treaty of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ceded land to northern Yemen.[150]\n\nGulf War, 1991 Iraqi uprisings, and the 1998 bombing of Iraq\n\nIn 1990, Iraq-with the world's fifth-largest army-invaded Kuwait in retaliation for oil-related economic disputes between the two countries. The Kuwaitis strongly resisted Iraq, but within days, the capital of Kuwait City was captured. Kuwaiti emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah fled to Saudi Arabia and established a government-in-exile, to which 350,000 Kuwaitis fled. Iraq was supported by Algeria, Jordan, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen, while Kuwait was supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and other Gulf states. As Iraqi troops neared Saudi Arabia, Saudi King Fahd asked his allies to respond militarily, which the Soviets supported.[151]\n\nThe U.S. launched Operation Desert Shield, deploying more than 400,000 troops and backed by an international coalition. Iraq stopped plans to invade Saudi Arabia. Iraq then established the Republic of Kuwait occupation government led by Colonel Alaa Hussain Ali. The occupiers \"began a systematic campaign of pillage, rape, torture, murder, and theft\".[151][152] Hussein used the Kuwaiti crisis to end the Iran-Iraq War, as Iraq accepted Iranian terms and stopped occupying parts of Iran. In 1991, the coalition's Operation Desert Storm started, led by U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf. It involved air, ground, and naval offenses. Iraq, outnumbered and using ineffective weaponry, was quickly defeated. Iraqi casualties vastly outnumbered the coalition's. Iraq was forced into making peace and recognizing the re-established Kuwaiti emirate's sovereignty.[151]\n\nIn the war's aftermath, Kurds in northern Iraq started a rebellion against Hussein's government, which was brutally suppressed. This caused the coalition countries to establish a no-fly zone over parts of Iraq. As part of the war's peace terms, Iraq had to cooperate with UN investigators who would search the country for the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Iraq refused to cooperate with the UN, leading to the 1998 bombing of Iraq by the U.S. and U.K.[151][153]\n\nOslo Accords (1993-1995)\n\nThe 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO were initially a significant step towards peace between Israel and Palestine. The accords advocated a two-state solution, and in a slight weakening of Israel's post-1967 occupation of Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank were allowed limited self-governance by the Palestinian Authority. The agreement had the goal of ending the Israel-Palestine conflict by May 1999, but this did not happen. In 1995, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who was against the accords. This brought up concerns about Israel's national security, which led to the 1996 election of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was against the accords, as prime minister. Netanyahu refused to negotiate with Yasser Arafat. While Netanyahu's successor Ehud Barak resumed negotiations, tensions between Israel and Palestine had once again started to rise.[154][155][156]\n\n21st century\n\nSecond Intifada (2000-2005)\n\nThe 2000 Camp David Summit, meant to further peace between Israel and Palestine, failed. Also that year, Israeli politician Ariel Sharon, leader of Likud, visited the Temple Mount-a holy site for both Jews and Muslims in the Old City of Jerusalem-to promote Israeli sovereignty over the site. Sharon's visit and rioting by Israeli Arabs led to the Second Intifada, an uprising by Palestinians against Israeli security forces in Palestine which lasted until 2005. The Intifada and the failure of the Camp David summit, Britannica writes, \"convinced a majority of Israelis that they lacked a partner in [Yasser] Arafat to end the [Israel-Palestine] conflict\".[157][158][159]\n\nIn response to a wave of suicide bombings at the height of the Intifada in 2002, Israel built a barrier in the West Bank. 10% of the West Bank's territory effectively became under the control of Israel through the barrier's construction.[160][161] In 2003, Sharon, then the prime minister of Israel, announced Israeli security forces would withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Arafat died in 2004, leading to negotiations between Israel and a more moderate Palestinian government, which led to an agreement for a ceasefire in 2005. In 2005, Israel withdrew its military and settlers from the Gaza Strip, but still patrolled the territory's borders and airspace.[157][159][161]\n\nStart of the war on terror (2001-2011)\n\nIn 1988, Osama bin Laden-an Islamist, pan-Islamist, and jihadist of the wealthy bin Laden family which had connections to the Saudi royal family-founded al-Qaeda, a militant terrorist organization. In 1996 and 1998, he declared war on the U.S. in response to their foreign policy in the Middle East, such as their permanent military presence in countries like Saudi Arabia.[162] On 11 September 2001 (9/11), al-Qaeda launched coordinated terrorist attacks targeting various U.S. landmarks, killing almost 3,000 people. U.S. president George W. Bush launched a \"war on terror\" against terrorist organizations worldwide, including al-Qaeda and their supporters.[163] The U.S. invaded Afghanistan to find bin Laden and dissolve the Taliban government which was harboring al-Qaeda in the country.[164] In 2002, Bush proclaimed that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea constituted an \"axis of evil\" which supported anti-American terrorism.[165] His administration worked to falsely tie Iraq to 9/11, and claim that Iraq, too, was harboring al-Qaeda.[166][167][168] This was while the U.S. maintained relations with Saudi Arabia, who have been more credibly accused of working with the perpetrators of 9/11.[169][170][171]\n\nIn 2002, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld developed a plan to invade Iraq, remove Hussein from power, and turn Iraq into a democratic state with a free-market economy, which he hoped would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East.[172][173][174] The U.S. falsely claimed that Iraq was developing and hiding WMDs which could be used to harm the U.S. or other western democracies.[175][176][177] British Prime Minister Tony Blair sided with the U.S.[178][179] In 2003, a U.S.-led international coalition invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein's government. Hussein was captured, put on trial for crimes against humanity in 2005, and was found guilty before being executed in 2006.[180][181]\n\nWhen Hussein's government collapsed, Iraq's major cities were subject to widespread looting, and the occupation soldiers came under attack by a new Iraqi insurgency.[182] The insurgency was driven by al-Qaeda, now present in Iraq, under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The return of formerly-persecuted Shi'a Muslims to the country created a civil war with the Sunnis-who had just lost significant power with the dissolution of the ruling Ba'ath Party, and were radicalized by al-Zarqawi.[183][182][184] U.S. troop deaths rose, while they tried to recreate Iraq as a democratic country with free elections.[182] In the U.S. in 2004, it was publicized that U.S. soldiers working at the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison, which held Iraqi prisoners of war, had engaged in widespread torture and abuse of the inmates; these soldiers were prosecuted by the military, and it had a negative effect on the war's popularity in the U.S.[182][185] In 2006, al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. bombing.[184] In 2007, amidst greater numbers of U.S. deaths in a \"grave and deteriorating\" war, Bush started a surge of American troops in Iraq; it is debatable if successive U.S. gains in Iraq were due to the troop surge, or other concurrent factors.[182]\n\nFurther conflict involving Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon (2000-2009)\n\nStarting in 2000, Israel and Hezbollah engaged in skirmishes over land disputes and the detention of Lebanese nationals by Israel. In 2006, Hezbollah fired a series of rockets into northern Israel and had ground troops cross the border into Israel, where eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped. This began the 2006 Lebanon War, which lasted until August, when Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah agreed to follow UN Resolution 1701.[186][187][188]\n\nThe Palestinian militant organization Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. Israel recognized the West Bank's administration as being led by the moderate Fatah, who came in second in the election. Hamas, who only succeeded in governing the Gaza Strip, was declared a hostile group. Israel started a blockade around the Gaza Strip, closing border crossings and limiting imports into the strip. Hamas attacked Israel multiple times, before they made a six-month ceasefire agreement that lasted from June to December 2008. Once the agreement was over, the military conflict restarted with greater intensity, starting the Gaza War of 2008 to 2009. The war ended with another ceasefire agreement, but the blockade by Israel as well as Egypt has continued until the present day.[157][161][189]\n\nDubai in the 21st century\n\nIn the first decades of the 21st century, the Emirati city of Dubai underwent rapid development in previously barren desert land. This included the 2010 opening of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at 2,717 feet.[190][191] In 2016, Forbes wrote that Dubai could be \"the most important city\" of the century, noting that its growth increased the population of the UAE by around 1.3 million in the previous decade.[192]\n\nArab Spring (2010-2012)\n\nIn the early 2010s, the Arab Spring revolutionary wave created major protests and uprisings against several Middle Eastern and Arab-majority countries' governments. It started in 2010 with the Tunisian revolution, which forced the resignation of president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. In 2011, the Egyptian Revolution forced the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak. In Bahrain, protests against the government were violently suppressed. Protests in Syria against Bashar al-Assad were also violently suppressed, leading to the Syrian civil war which has been ongoing since 2011. In Yemen, protests forced the resignation of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was succeeded by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi; Hadi's government was unstable, leading to the Yemeni civil war, which has been ongoing since 2014.[193][194][195] In Libya, a civilian uprising against Muammar Gaddaf, led to the 2011 Libyan civil war. U.S.-led NATO forces entered the war on the rebels' side. Gaddafi was killer later that year, and a new national government was formed in 2012.[196] This government was unstable, and Libya became a leaderless state. The region's historical human slave trade returned to Libya, and slave markets were set up in its major cities.[197][198]\n\nModern Yemeni conflicts (2003-present)\n\nIn 2003, the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi movement began an insurgency against Saleh's government-which persecuted Zaydi Shi'ites-as well as Saudi Arabia.[149][199] In 2009, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula formed in Yemen, causing Saudi Arabia to secure their border with Yemen.[150] The Yemeni civil war, ongoing since 2014, has been fought between the Republic of Yemen government; the Houthis and their Supreme Political Council government; al-Qaeda; and each faction's allies. In 2014, the Houthis took over the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, and Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was put under house arrest. He escaped to Saudi Arabia in 2015. Saudi Arabia and the UAE fought alongside the Republic of Yemen, but the Houthis maintained their holdings. The Houthis captured the city of Aden in 2018, influencing the UAE to withdraw from Yemen.[200]\n\nSyrian civil war and the Islamic State (2011-present)\n\n2012 was successful for Syrian rebel groups opposing al-Assad, establishing a foothold in Aleppo. The Battle of Aleppo became a stalemate in 2013. The civil war soon became a proxy war, as al-Assad received support from Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia, while rebel groups-starting to have their own infighting-received support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the U.S.[201] In 2013, hundreds of civilians in Damascus were killed in a chemical attack by the Syrian government.[201][202][203] This caused debate in the U.S., U.K., and France over whether they should militarily intervene in Syria; this was opposed by China, Iran, and Russia. In September, Syria, the U.S., and Russia made an agreement that al-Assad would rid Syria of chemical weapons, which was successfully carried out. Meanwhile, the Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist al-Qaeda affiliate, had military success in Syria.[201]\n\nIn 2013, the Islamic State (IS) militant organization began an offensive that captured large swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory. IS fought those two governments, as well as various anti-Assad rebel groups. In 2014, IS proclaimed themselves a caliphate led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as caliph. They launched many terrorist attacks worldwide.[201][204] IS' growth overshadowed the successes of the Al-Nusra Front.[205] In 2016, the Al-Nusra Front cut ties with al-Qaeda and soon dissolved, then was succeeded by Tahrir al-Sham in 2017.[206]\n\nThere was an international military campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria from 2013 to 2017, which fed into the Syrian civil war. The U.S. and a coalition of Arab countries bombed IS; Russia bombed IS and unrelated Syrian rebel groups, falsely claiming they [Russia] were mostly targeting IS. The U.S. allied with Kurdish-aligned forces such as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey and the Kurds continued their decades-long war with each other, while both were allied with the U.S. and fighting IS. Turkey backed Syrian rebels along the Syria-Turkey border, and the Turkish military directly occupied part of northern Syria in 2016 to fight IS and the Kurds. IS was thus fighting three simultaneous fronts: al-Assad, Kurds, and Turkey, as well as each of their allies.[201][207][208][209]\n\nOutnumbered, IS lost control of three major cities: Aleppo, Raqqa, and Deir al-Zour. The group was \"effectively defeated\" by 2018.[207][201] In 2018, Israel targeted Iranian soldiers stationed in Syria.[201] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in Syria in 2019, when he committed suicide amidst an attack on him by U.S. forces.[210][211] While the original IS organization declined, a branch of IS based in south-central Asia, named Islamic State - Khorasan Province, became more powerful in the 2020s.[212][213]\n\n2014 Gaza War\n\nIn 2014, Hamas militants kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers, and two Israelis retaliated by murdering a Palestinian teenager. Large demonstrations by groups in both Israel and Palestine led to exchanges of rocket fire between Israel and Hamas. Israel launched a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas' underground tunnel network that was used to store their missiles. Israel successfully destroyed them, limiting Hamas' ability to greatly attack Israel for around a decade, and influencing the two to make a ceasefire agreement.[214]\n\nCOVID-19 pandemic (2020-present)\n\nIn 2019, the deadly Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is transmitted by the contagious coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, was first detected in China. In 2020, the disease spread worldwide, the spread being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.[215] Jon Alterman writes for the Center for Strategic and International Studies that the Middle East \"navigated [COVID-19] better than many initially had feared\", as its governments prioritized preventative measures against the disease, such as distributing COVID-19 vaccines.[216] Compared to other regions of the world, Middle Eastern countries generally had lower rates of death (Jordan and Lebanon being exceptions), and less national economies faced massive decline (Lebanon and Syria being exceptions), even for countries economically dependent on tourism.[216][217]\n\nLebanon liquidity crisis and Beirut explosion (2019-present)\n\nLebanon was already facing a national economic crisis when the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated their economic decline. This crisis worsened in 2020, when the city of Beirut was heavily damaged in a large explosion; a stockade of ammonium nitrate had been negligently left in the Port of Beirut for years-until the stockade exploded, destroying most of the port and creating a shockwave which damaged much of the city. At least 200 people were killed, 6,000 injured, and 300,000 were made homeless.[218][219][220]\n\nIsrael's conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, Middle East crisis (October 2023-present)\n\nIn 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu returned as Israeli prime minister, cementing what CNN referred to as \"Israel's likely most right-wing government ever\".[221][222][223] In 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Hundreds were taken hostage by Hamas. It was the deadliest day in the history of Israel, which declared war on Hamas.[224][225][226] Hezbollah began rocket attacks on Israel, and Israel responded with air strikes.[227][228] Israel also conducted air strikes on Gaza, followed by a full land invasion. By November 2024, 43,000 Gazans-both civilians and militants-have been killed in the war, and most of the strip has been destroyed.[224][229][230]\n\nThere were multiple peace talks between Israel, Hamas, and the U.S., but most of these failed.[231][232] Joe Biden, U.S. president from 2021 to 2025, minorly held back Israel's plans for Gaza,[233][234][235] while at the same time supplying Israel with weapons.[236][237][238] Some countries and international organizations accused Israel of genocide by deliberately shooting, bombing, and starving Gazan civilians en masse. Meanwhile, Iran formed an anti-Israel \"axis of resistance\" with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Yemeni Houthis.[224][239][240][241][242] The Houthis attacked shipping in the Red Sea in 2023, leading to a U.S.-led military response.[243][244]\n\nIn 2024, Iran and Israel launched air strikes at each other.[245][246] Israeli intelligence then carried out a widespread attack in Lebanon, by flooding the country with electronic devices such as pagers which had been rigged to explode. The devices were intended to be sold to Hezbollah members, though some civilians were killed.[247][248][249] Israel then invaded Lebanon, escalating their conflict with Hezbollah.[227][250]\n\nIn 2025, the Houthis made a ceasefire with the U.S., pausing their fighting in Yemen and Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea; the deal did not include an end to the Houthis' attacks on Israel.[251] Later, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Iran, beginning the Twelve-Day War. Iran responded with strikes against Israel, and the two countries have continued bombing each other since. Israel claimed their strikes were intended to destroy Iran's ambitions to build nuclear bombs for themselves; however, Iranian civilians were targeted in some cases. Israel then strengthened its occupation of the West Bank. In his second term as U.S. president, Donald Trump brought the U.S. into the war on Israel's side, by striking three Iranian nuclear sites.[252][253][254] As a result, the Houthis ended their ceasefire with the U.S., and Iran unsuccessfully tried striking a U.S. military base in Qatar.[255][256]\n\nDissolution of Ba'athist Syria (2024)\n\nIn 2024, a coalition of Syrian opposition armies captured Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assad to flee the country-likely to Russia-ending Ba'athist Syria.[257][258] Since 2022, al-Assad had received less support from Russia, which was \"bogged down\" in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[259] Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of Tahrir al-Sham since 2017, became president of Syria's new national government in 2025.[260][261]\n\nIran War (2026)\n\nShortly after Iranian forces massacred tens of thousands of protesters in early 2026, Israel and the United States launched extensive airstrikes on Iran, assassinating its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and sparking the 2026 Iran war. In Lebanon, the Hezbollah-Israel conflict escalated to another war, while the Houthis in Yemen clashed with Saudi Arabia.[262]\n\nSee also\n\nTimeline of Middle Eastern history\n\nGenetic history of the Middle East\n\nList of modern conflicts in the Middle East\n\nBy country:\n\nHistory of Bahrain\n\nHistory of Cyprus\n\nHistory of Egypt\n\nHistory of Iran\n\nHistory of Iraq\n\nHistory of Israel\n\nHistory of Jordan\n\nHistory of Kuwait\n\nHistory of Lebanon\n\nHistory of Oman\n\nHistory of Palestine\n\nHistory of Qatar\n\nHistory of Saudi Arabia\n\nHistory of Syria\n\nHistory of Turkey\n\nHistory of the United Arab Emirates\n\nHistory of Yemen\n\nReferences\n\n^ Richard, Suzanne (2003). Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader (Illustrated ed.). EISENBRAUNS. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-57506-083-5.\n\n^ \"World Factbook - Jordan\". 17 January 2023. Archived from the original on 9 January 2021.\n\n^ \"World Factbook - Kuwait\". 11 January 2023. 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Retrieved 29 December 2024.\n\n^ Elizabeth Monroe, Britain's Moment in the Middle East, 1914-1956 (1963) online Archived 21 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Lewis 1995, pp. 348-350.\n\n^ Benny Morris (2008). 1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war. Yale University Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-300-12696-9. Retrieved 13 July 2013. Bevin regarded the UNSCOP majority report of 1 September 1947 as unjust and immoral. He promptly decided that Britain would not attempt to im- pose it on the Arabs; indeed, he expected them to resist its implementation… The British cabinet...: in the meeting on 4 December 1947... It decided, in a sop to the Arabs, to refrain from aiding the enforcement of the UN resolution, meaning the partition of Palestine. And in an important secret corollary... it agreed that Britain would do all in its power to delay until early May the arrival in Palestine of the UN (Implementation) Commission. The Foreign Office immediately informed the commission \"that it would be intolerable for the Commission to begin to exercise its authority while the [Mandate] Palestine Government was still administratively responsible for Palestine\"... This... nullified any possibility of an orderly implementation of the partition resolution.\n\n^ Rabinovich, Itamar; Reinharz, Jehuda (2007). Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present. Brandeis. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-87451-962-4.\n\n^ Warf, C.; Charles, G. (2020). Clinical Care for Homeless, Runaway and Refugee Youth: Intervention Approaches, Education and Research Directions. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-40675-2. By 1948, the majority of Palestinians, about 700,000 to 800,000 people from 500 to 600 villages, were displaced. 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(1999), The Oxford History of Islam (Illustrated ed.), New York City: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-510799-9\n\nGuzman, Gregory (1985), \"Christian Europe and Mongol Asia: First Medieval Intercultural Contact Between East and West\" (PDF), Essays in Medieval Studies, 2\n\nHourani, Albert (2013), A History of the Arab Peoples (Updated ed.), Faber and Faber, ISBN 978-0-571-30249-9\n\nLewis, Bernard (1995), The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, New York: Scribner\n\nMonroe, Elizabeth (1963). Britain's Moment in the Middle East, 1914-1956. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. Archived from the original on 21 September 2018 - via Questia.\n\nMansfield, Peter; Pelham, Nicolas (2013), A History of the Middle East (4 ed.), Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-7181-9967-8\n\nQuataert, Donald (2000), The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-139-44591-7\n\nStearns, Peter N.; Adas, Michael; Schwartz, Stuart B.; Gilbert, Marc Jason (2011), World Civilizations: The Global Experience (6th ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Longman, ISBN 978-0-13-136020-4\n\nWawro, Geoffrey (2008), Historical Atlas: A Comprehensive History of the World, Elanora Heights, NSW, Australia: Millennium House, ISBN 978-1-921209-23-9\n\nFurther reading\n\nCheta, Omar Youssef. \"The economy by other means: The historiography of capitalism in the modern Middle East.\" History Compass (April 2018) 16#4 DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12444\n\nCleveland, William L. and Martin Bunton. (2016) A History of the Modern Middle East. 6th ed. Westview Press.\n\nFawaz, Leila Tarazi. A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War (2014)\n\nFawcett, Louise, ed. International relations of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2013)\n\nGause III, F. Gregory. \"'Hegemony' Compared: Great Britain and the United States in the Middle East.\" Security Studies 28.3 (2019): 565-587. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2019.1604987\n\nGoldschmidt, Arthur, and Lawrence Davidson. A concise history of the Middle East (Westview Press, 1991)\n\nIssawi, Charles. An economic history of the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge, 2013) Excerpt and text search\n\nIssawi, Charles, ed. The Economic History of the Middle East 1800-1914: A Book of Readings (1966) online\n\nKirk, George Eden. A short history of the Middle East: from the rise of Islam to modern times(Methuen, 1964) online\n\nStearns, Peter N. (2007), A Brief History of the World, The Teaching Company\n\nVasiliev, Alexey. Russia's Middle East Policy: From Lenin to Putin (Routledge, 2018).\n\nWorth, Robert F., \"Syria's Lost Chance\" (review of Elizabeth F. Thompson, How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: the Syrian Arab Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of Its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance, Atlantic Monthly, 466 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVII, no. 15 (8 October 2020), pp. 31-33. Worth writes (p. 33): \"Perhaps things would have been different if the Syrians had been left to govern themselves a century ago.\"\n\nExternal links\n\nArticles From Our Experts - Qatar Digital Library - an online portal providing access to previously undigitised British Library archive materials relating to Persian Gulf history and Arabic science\n\nThe Middle East : peace and the changing order from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives\n\nAncient Civilizations Medicine\n\nAssyrians\n\nMiddle East: Primary Cultural and Historical Zones"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-history-of-the-middle-east"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 21812}, {"slug": "reference-mandaic-language", "title": "Mandaic language", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Mandaic, or more specifically Classical Mandaic, is the liturgical language of Mandaeism and a South Eastern Aramaic variety in use by the Mandaean community, traditionally based in southern parts of Iraq and southwest Iran, for their religious books. Mandaic, or Classical Mandaic, is still used by Mandaean priests...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mandaic\n\nࡋࡉࡔࡀࡍࡀ ࡖ ࡌࡀࡍࡃࡀࡉࡉࡀ‎\nLishāna ’d Mandāyì\n\nIncantation bowl from Mesopotamia dated between the 5th and the 8th century, inscribed in Mandaic, in the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland\n\nNative toIraq and Iran\n\nRegionIraq: Baghdad, Basra; Iran: Khuzistan\n\nEthnicityMandaeans\n\nNative speakers(5,500 cited 2001)[1]\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern\nSoutheastern\nMandaic\n\nEarly formsProto-Afroasiatic\n\nProto-Semitic\n\nOld Aramaic\n\nMiddle Aramaic\n\nEastern Middle Aramaic\n\nWriting systemMandaic alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3Either:\nmid - Mandaic\nmyz - Classical Mandaic\n\nGlottologmand1468\nnucl1706\nclas1253\n\nMandaic, or more specifically Classical Mandaic, is the liturgical language of Mandaeism and a South Eastern Aramaic variety in use by the Mandaean community, traditionally based in southern parts of Iraq and southwest Iran, for their religious books. Mandaic, or Classical Mandaic, is still used by Mandaean priests in liturgical rites.[2] The modern descendant of Mandaic or Classical Mandaic, known as Neo-Mandaic or Modern Mandaic, is spoken by a small group of Mandaeans around Ahvaz[3]: XXXVI-XXXVIII, 1-101  and Khorramshahr[4] in the southern Iranian Khuzestan province.\n\nLiturgical use of Mandaic or Classical Mandaic is found in Iran (particularly the southern portions of the country), in Baghdad, Iraq and in the diaspora (particularly in the United States, Sweden, Australia and Germany). It is an Eastern Aramaic language notable for its abundant use of vowel letters (mater lectionis with aleph, he only in final position, ‘ayin, waw, yud) in writing, so-called plene spelling (Mandaic alphabet)[5] and the amount of Iranian[6] and Akkadian[7] language influence on its lexicon, especially in the area of religious and mystical terminology.\n\nClassification\n\nClassical Mandaic is a South Eastern Babylonian Aramaic language, belonging to the same Mesopotamian dialect continuum as Babylonian Talmudic Aramaic and Koiné Babylonian Aramaic, and is not to be conflated with Syriac or other North Eastern Aramaic varieties. Its linguistic formation is rooted in the Aramaic of Babylonia from the early Parthian period onward, and its speakers derive from a local Babylonian Aramaean population. The language preserves clear and systematic Mesopotamian features across phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, including extensive inheritance from Akkadian (especially Late Babylonian), which points decisively to an indigenous development within southern Mesopotamia. In contrast, Neo-Mandaic displays minimal Persian influence but is largely limited to later lexical borrowings. There are no demonstrable Western Aramaic influences in the language.[8]\n\nUsage\n\nThis southeastern Aramaic dialect is transmitted through religious, liturgical, and esoteric texts,[9][10] most of them stored today in the Drower Collection, Bodleian Library (Oxford),[11] the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), the British Library (London), and in the households of various Mandaeans as religious texts. More specific written objects and of linguistic importance on account of their early transmission (5th-7th centuries CE) are the earthenware incantation bowls and Mandaic lead rolls (amulets) (3rd-7th centuries CE),[12]: 4  including silver and gold specimens[13] that were often unearthed in archaeological excavations in the regions of their historical living sites between Wasiṭ and Baṣra,[14][15] and frequently in central Iraq, for example (Bismaya,[16] Kish,[17] Khouabir,[18] Kutha,[19] Uruk,[20] Nippur[21]), north and south of the confluences of the Euphrates and Tigris (Abu Shudhr,[22] al-Qurnah[23]), and the adjacent province of Khuzistan (Hamadan).[24][25]\n\nHistorical names\n\nIn nineteenth-century biblical scholarship, Mandaic was commonly called \"Zabian\" (abbreviated Zab.), not to be confused with Sabaean (Sabaic), an unrelated South Arabian language. The name derives from one of several Western designations for the community which include Mendæans, Nazareans, Galileans, and Christians of St. John.[26] Keil and Delitzsch, for instance, use the abbreviation \"Zab.\" in their Commentary on the Old Testament (1866) to cite a Zabian (Mandaic) cognate of a Hebrew term alongside its Syriac equivalent.[27] Lexicographer Wilhelm Gesenius mentioned \"Zabian or Nazoraean\" (i.e. Mandaean) in a lexicographical essay published in 1823, republished in the tenth edition of his lexicon (1886).[28]\n\nPhonology\n\nConsonants\n\nLabial\n\nDental\n\nAlveolar\n\nPalato-\nalveolar\n\nPalatal\n\nVelar\n\nUvular\n\nPharyngeal\n\nGlottal\n\nplain\n\nemphatic\n\nNasal\n\nm\n\nn\n\nStop/\nAffricate\n\nvoiceless\n\np\n\nt\n\ntˤ\n\n(t͡ʃ)\n\nk\n\nq\n\n(ʔ)\n\nvoiced\n\nb\n\nd\n\n(dˤ)\n\n(d͡ʒ)\n\ng\n\nFricative\n\nvoiceless\n\nf\n\nθ\n\ns\n\nsˤ\n\nʃ\n\nx\n\n(ħ)\n\nh\n\nvoiced\n\nv\n\nð\n\nz\n\n(zˤ)\n\n(ʒ)\n\nɣ\n\n(ʕ)\n\nApproximant\n\nw\n\nl\n\nj\n\nTrill\n\nr\n\nThe glottal stop [ʔ] is said to have disappeared from Mandaic.\n\n/k/and /ɡ/ are said to be palatal stops, and are generally pronounced as [c] and [ɟ], but are transcribed as /k, ɡ/, however; they may also be pronounced as velar stops [k, ɡ].\n\n/x/and /ɣ/ are noted as velar, but are generally pronounced as uvular [χ] and [ʁ], however; they may also be pronounced as velar fricatives [x, ɣ].\n\nSounds [tʃ, dʒ, ʒ] only occur in Arabic and Persian loanwords.\n\nBoth emphatic voiced sounds [dˤ, zˤ] and pharyngeal sounds [ħ, ʕ] only occur in Arabic loanwords.[29]\n\nVowels\n\nFront\n\nCentral\n\nBack\n\nClose\n\ni iː\n\nu uː\n\nMid\n\ne eː\n\nə\n\n(o) oː\n\nɔ\n\nOpen\n\næ\n\na\n\nɑː\n\nA short [o] is often replaced by the short /ɔ/ sound.[29][30]\n\nAlphabet\n\nMandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. It consists of 23 graphemes, with the last being a ligature.[31] Its origin and development is still under debate.[32] Graphemes appearing on incantation bowls and metal amulet rolls differ slightly from the late manuscript signs.[33]\n\nLexicography\n\nLexicographers of the Mandaic language include Theodor Nöldeke,[34] Mark Lidzbarski,[35] Ethel S. Drower, Rudolf Macúch,[36] and Matthew Morgenstern.\n\nNeo-Mandaic\n\nNeo-Mandaic represents the latest stage of the phonological and morphological development of Mandaic. Having developed in isolation from one another, most Neo-Aramaic dialects are mutually unintelligible and should therefore be considered separate languages. Determining the relationship between Neo-Aramaic dialects is difficult because of poor knowledge of the dialects themselves and their history.[4]\n\nAlthough no direct descendants of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic survive today, most of the Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken today belong to the Eastern sub-family of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Mandaic, among them Neo-Mandaic that can be described with any certainty as the direct descendant of one of the Aramaic dialects attested in Late Antiquity, probably Mandaic. Neo-Mandaic preserves a Semitic \"suffix\" conjugation (or perfect) that is lost in other dialects. The phonology of Neo-Mandaic is divergent from other Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects.[37]\n\nThree dialects of Neo-Mandaic were native to Shushtar, Shah Vali, and Dezful in northern Khuzestan Province, Iran before the 1880s. During that time, Mandeans moved to Ahvaz and Khorramshahr to escape persecution. Khorramshahr had the most Neo-Mandaic speakers until the Iran-Iraq War caused many people to leave Iran.[4] Ahvaz is the only community with a sizeable portion of Neo-Mandaic speakers in Iran as of 1993.[3]\n\nThe following table compares a few words in Old Mandaic with three Neo-Mandaic dialects. The Iraq dialect, documented by E. S. Drower, is now extinct.[38]\n\nMeaning\n\nScript\n\nOld Mandaic\n\nIraq dialect\n\nAhvaz dialect\n\nKhorramshahr dialect\n\nhouse\n\nࡁࡀࡉࡕࡀ‎\n\nbaita\n\nbejθæ\n\nb(ij)eθa/ɔ\n\nbieθɔ\n\nin, ins\n\nࡁ\n\nb-\n\ngaw; b-\n\ngu\n\ngɔw\n\nwork\n\nࡏࡁࡀࡃࡀ‎\n\nebada\n\nwad\n\nwɔd\n\nəwɔdɔ\n\nplanet\n\nࡔࡉࡁࡉࡀࡄࡀ‎\n\nšibiaha\n\nʃewjæ\n\nʃewjɔha\n\nʃewjɔhɔ\n\ncome! (imp.pl)\n\nࡀࡕࡅࡍ\n\natun\n\ndoθi\n\nd(ij)ɵθi\n\ndoθi\n\nSample text\n\nThe following is a sample text in Mandaic of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[39]\n\nMandaic: \nࡊࡅࡋ ࡀࡍࡀࡔࡀ ࡌࡉࡕࡋࡉࡓ ࡔࡀࡅࡉࡀ ࡁࡏࡒࡀࡓࡀ ࡅࡀࡂࡓࡉࡀ࡞ ࡁࡉࡍࡕࡀࡅࡕࡉࡓࡕࡀ ࡏࡕࡄࡉࡁࡋࡅࡍ ࡅࡋࡅࡀࡕ ࡄࡓࡀࡓࡉࡀ ࡈࡀࡁࡅࡕࡀ ࡀࡁࡓࡉࡍ ࡀࡊࡅࡀࡕ ࡖࡍࡉࡄࡅࡍ ࡀࡄࡉࡀ࡞‎\n\nTransliteration: Kul anaša mitlir šauia b-ʿqara u-agria. Bintautirta ʿthiblun u-luat hraria ṭabuta abrin akuat ḏ-nihun ahia.\n\nEnglish original: \"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.\"\n\nSee also\n\nJewish Babylonian Aramaic\n\nNorth Eastern Aramaic\n\nAkkadian language\n\nSamaritan Aramaic language\n\nWestern Aramaic languages\n\nCitations\n\n^ Mandaic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)\nClassical Mandaic at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)\n\n^ Ethel Stefana Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1937; reprint 1962); Kurt Rudolph, Die Mandäer II. Der Kult (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Göttingen, 1961; Kurt Rudolph, Mandaeans (Leiden: Brill, 1967); Christa Müller-Kessler, Sacred Meals and Rituals of the Mandaeans”, in David Hellholm, Dieter Sänger (eds.), Sacred Meal, Communal Meal, Table Fellowship, and the Eucharist: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, Vol. 3 (Tübingen: Mohr, 2017), pp. 1715-1726, pls.\n\n^ a b Rudolf Macuch, Neumandäische Texte im Dialekt von Ahwaz (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1993).\n\n^ a b c Charles Häberl, The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009).\n\n^ Theodor Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik (Halle: Waisenhaus, 1875), pp. 3-8.\n\n^ No comprehensive and individual study exists yet except for some word discussions in Geo Widengren, Iranisch-semitische Kulturbegegnung in parthischer Zeit (Köln: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1960) and the etymological sections in Ethel Stefana Drower and Rudolf Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).\n\n^ Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Assyriological Studies 19; Chicago: The University of Chicago: 1974).\n\n^ \"MANDAEANS v. MANDAIC LANGUAGE\". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 2026-04-18.\n\n^ Ethel Stefana Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1937; reprint 1962).\n\n^ Ethel Stefana Drower, The Book of the Zodiac (sfar Malwašia) D.C. 31 (Oriental Translation Fund XXXVI; London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1949).\n\n^ Ethel Stefana Drower, \"A Mandaean Bibliography\", in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1953, pp. 34-39.\n\n^ Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen (2002), The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people (PDF), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195153859, archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-10-11, retrieved 2022-05-05\n\n^ Christa Müller-Kessler, \"A Mandaic Gold Amulet in the British Museum,\" in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 311, 1998, pp. 83-88.\n\n^ M. Thevenot, Relations de divers voyages curieux, première partie (Paris, 1663-1672), map with Mandaean villages.\n\n^ J. Heinrich Petermann, Reisen im Orient, Vol. II (Leipzig: Veit, 1861), pp. 66, 83-123, 447-465.\n\n^ Henri Pognon, \"Une incantation contre les génies malfaisantes, en Mandaite,\" in Mémoires de la Soceté de Linguitiques de Paris 8, 1892, p. 193\n\n^ Peter R. S. Moorey, Kish Excavation 1923 - 1933 (Oxford: Oxford Press, 1978), pp. 123-124.\n\n^ Henri Pognon, Inscriptions mandaïtes des coupes de Khouabir (Paris: H. Wetter, 1898; reprint Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1979), pp. 1-5.\n\n^ Christopher Walker apud Jehudah B. Segal, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 2000), pp. 35-39.\n\n^ Rudolf Macuch, \"Gefäßinschriften,\" in Eva Strommenger (ed.), Gefässe aus Uruk von der Neubabylonischen Zeit bis zu den Sasaniden (Ausgrabungen der deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft in Uruk-Warka 7; Berlin 1967), pp. 55-57, pl. 57.1-3.\n\n^ J. P. Peters, Nippur or Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates, Vol. II (New York, 1897); Hermann V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands During the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: A. J. Molman and Company, 1903), p. 326; James A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Publications of the Babylonian Section 3; Philadelphia, 1913), pp. 37-39, 242-257; Christa Müller-Kessler (ed.), Die Zauberschalentexte der Hilprecht-Sammlung, Jena und weitere Nippur-Texte anderer Sammlungen (Texte und Materialen der Frau Professor Hilprecht-Collection 7; Wiesbaden 2005), pp. 110-135, 143-147.\n\n^ François Lenormant, Essai sur la propagation de l’alphabet phénicien dans l’ancien monde, vol. II (Paris, 1872), pp. 76-82, pls. X-XI; Edmund Sollberger, \"Mr. Taylor in Chaldaea,\" in Anatolian Studies 22, 1972, pp. 130-133.\n\n^ Christa Müller-Kessler, \"Interrelations between Mandaic Lead Rolls and Incantation Bowls,\" in Tzvi Abusch, Karel van der Toorn (eds.), Mesopotamian Magic. Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives (Ancient Magic and Divination 1; Groningen: STYX, 1999), pp. 197-198, pl. 209.\n\n^ Cyrus H. Gordon, \"Two Magic Bowls in Teheran,\" in Orientalia 20, 1951, pp. 306-311.\n\n^ Christa Müller-Kessler, \"Zauberschalen und ihre Umwelt. Ein Überblick über das Schreibmedium Zauberschale,\" n Jens Kamran, Rolf Schäfer, Markus Witte (eds.), Zauber und Magie im antiken Palästina und in seiner Umwelt (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 46; Wiesbaden, 2017), pp. 59-94, pls. 1-8, map, ISBN 978-3-447-10781-5.\n\n^ Conder, Josiah. An Analytical and Comparative View of All Religions Now Extant among Mankind. London: Jackson and Walford, 1838, pp. 643-644.\n\n^ Keil, Carl Friedrich, and Franz Delitzsch. Commentary on the Old Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, [1866] 1996, p. 347.\n\n^ Koehler, Ludwig, et al. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994-2000, pp. lxxiii-lxxiv.\n\n^ a b Macuch, Rudolf (1965). Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ Malone, Joseph (1967). A Morphologic Grammar of the Classical Mandaic Verb. University of California at Berkeley.\n\n^ Rudolf Macuch, Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965), p. 9.\n\n^ Peter W. Coxon, “Script Analysis and Mandaean Origins,” in Journal of Semitic Studies 15, 1970, pp. 16-30; Alexander C. Klugkist, “The Origin of the Mandaic Script,” in Han L. J. Vanstiphout et al. (eds.), Scripta Signa Vocis. Studies about scripts, scriptures, scribes and languages in the Near East presented to J. H. Hospers (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1986), pp. 111-120; Charles G. Häberl, “Iranian Scripts for Aramaic Languages: The Origin of the Mandaic Script,” in Bulletin for the Schools of American Oriental Research 341, 2006, pp. 53-62.\n\n^ Tables and script samples in Christa Müller-Kessler, “Mandäisch: Eine Zauberschale,” in Hans Ulrich Steymans, Thomas Staubli (eds.), Von den Schriften zur (Heiligen) Schrift (Freiburg, CH: Bibel+Orient Museum, Stuttgart Katholisches Bibelwerk e.V., 2012), pp. 132-135, ISBN 978-3-940743-76-3.\n\n^ Theodor Nöldeke. 1964. Mandäische Grammatik, Halle: Waisenhaus; reprint Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft with Appendix of annotated handnotes from the hand edition of Theodor Nöldeke by Anton Schall.\n\n^ In his masterful translations of several Mandaic Classical works: 1915. Das Johannesbuch. Giessen: Töpelmann; 1920. Mandäische Liturgien (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Phil.-hist. Kl. NF XVII,1) Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung; 1925: Ginza: Der Schatz oder das grosse Buch der Mandäer. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.\n\n^ Ethel S. Drower and Rudolf Macuch. 1963. A Mandaic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. This work is based on Lidzbarski’s lexicrographical files, today in the University of Halle an der Saale, and Drower’s lexical collection.\n\n^ Rudolf Macuch, Neumandäische Chrestomathie (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1989).\n\n^ Häberl, Charles G. (2019). \"Mandaic\". In Huehnergard, John (ed.). The Semitic languages. Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 679-710. doi:10.4324/9780429025563-26. ISBN 978-0-367-73156-4. OCLC 1060182406. S2CID 241640755.\n\n^ Ager, Simon. \"Mandaic alphabet\". Omniglot.\n\nGeneral and cited references\n\nAl-Mubaraki, Brayan Majid (2001). A Mandaean Language Teaching Book. Sydney: Al-Mubaraki. ISBN 0-9585705-9-0.\n\nAl-Mubaraki, Brayan Majid; Mubaraki, Brayan; Al-Mubaraki, Majid Fandi (2006). A Mandaic Dictionary. Sydney: Mandaic Aramaic. ISBN 1-876888-10-5.\n\nBurtea, Bogdan (2012). \"Mandaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 670-685. ISBN 9783110251586. OCLC 1030912322.\n\nEthel S. Drower and Rudolf Macuch (1963). A Mandaic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.\n\nCharles G. Häberl (2009). The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.\n\nHäberl, Charles G. (2012). \"Neo-Mandaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 725-737. ISBN 9783110251586. OCLC 1030912322.\n\nKim, Ronald (2008). \"Stammbaum or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 505-510.\n\nRudolf Macuch (1965). Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic. Berlin: De Gruyter.\n\nRudolf Macuch (1989). Neumandäische Chrestomathie. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz.\n\nMacuch, Rudolf (1993). Neumandäische Texte im Dialekt von Ahwaz. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3447033827.\n\nJoseph L. Malone (1997). \"Modern and Classical Mandaic Phonology\", in Phonologies of Asia and Africa, edited by Alan S. Kaye. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.\n\nMüller-Kessler, Christa (2009). \"Mandaeans v. Mandaic Language\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nTheodor Nöldeke (1862). \"Ueber die Mundart der Mandäer\", Abhandlungen der Historisch-Philologischen Classe der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 10: 81-160.\n\nTheodor Nöldeke (1964). Mandäische Grammatik, Halle: Waisenhaus; reprint Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft with Appendix of annotated handnotes from the hand edition of Theodor Nöldeke by Anton Schall.\n\nSvend Aage Pallis (1933). Essay on Mandaean Bibliography. London: Humphrey Milford.\n\nFranz Rosenthal (1939). \"Das Mandäische\", in Die aramaistische Forschung seit Th. Nöldeke’s Veröffentlichungen. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, pp. 224-254.\n\nRainer M. Voigt (2007). \"Mandaic\", in Morphologies of Asia and Africa, in Alan S. Kaye, ed., Phonologies of Asia and Africa. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.\n\nExternal links\n\nMandaic lexicon online; Archived 2016-04-01 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSemitisches Tonarchiv: Tondokument \"Ginza Einleitung\"-A recording of the opening of the Ginza Rabba spoken by a Mandaean priest.\n\nMandaic.org; Archived 2018-11-04 at the Wayback Machine Information on the Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr\n\nUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in Mandaic"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mandaic-language"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2654}, {"slug": "reference-christianity-in-the-ottoman-empire", "title": "Christianity in the Ottoman Empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Under the Ottoman Empire's millet system, Christians were considered dhimmi (meaning \"protected\") under Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax.[1][2]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Under the Ottoman Empire's millet system, Christians were considered dhimmi (meaning \"protected\") under Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax.[1][2]\n\nOrthodox Christians were the largest non-Muslim group. With the rise of Imperial Russia, the Russians became a kind of protector of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire.[3]\n\nConversion to Islam in the Ottoman Empire involved a combination of individual, family, communal and institutional initiatives and motives. The process was also influenced by the balance of power between the Ottomans and the neighboring Christian states.[4] However, most Ottoman subjects in Eastern Europe remained Orthodox Christian, such as Greeks, Serbs, Romanians, Bulgarians, while present-day Albania, Bosnia, and Kosovo had larger Muslim populations as a result of Ottoman influence.\n\nCivil status\n\nUnder Ottoman rule, dhimmis (non-Muslim subjects) were allowed to \"practice their religion, subject to certain conditions, and to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy\" (see: Millet) and guaranteed their personal safety and security of property.[5] In exchange for the guarantee of said security, citizens who fell under the category dhimmis paid a jizya, which was a tax exclusive to dhimmis.[6] In addition, Dhimmis had certain rules to follow that other Muslim citizens did not. For example, Dhimmis were forbidden from even attempting to convert Muslim citizens to their religious practice,[7] and during some periods, the state decreed that people of different millets should wear specific colors of, for instance, turbans and shoes - a policy that was not, however, always followed by Ottoman citizens.[8] The Ottoman Empire was therefore not a state with legal equality of religions, non-Muslims were inferior, legally, to Muslims.[9] While recognizing this inferior status of dhimmis under Ottoman rule, Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, argues that, in most respects, their position was \"very much easier than that of non-Christians or even of heretical Christians in medieval (Catholic) Europe.\"[10] For example, dhimmis rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and with certain exceptions, they were free in their choice of residence and profession.[11]\n\nReligion as an Ottoman institution\n\nThe Ottoman Empire constantly formulated policies balancing its religious problems. The Ottomans recognized the concept of clergy and its associated extension of religion as an institution. They brought established policies (regulations) over religious institutions through the idea of \"legally valid\" organizations.\n\nThe state's relationship with the Greek Orthodox Church was mixed, since the Orthodox were not killed, they were, in the beginning, the vast majority and taxpayers, they were encouraged through bribes and exemptions to convert to Islam. In turn, they could not proselytize Muslims. The church's structure was kept intact and largely left alone (but under close control and scrutiny) until the Greek War of Independence of 1821-1831 and, later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, during the rise of the Ottoman constitutional monarchy, which was driven to some extent by nationalistic currents. Other churches, like the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (1766) and Archbishopric of Ohrid (1767), were dissolved and their dioceses placed under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.\n\nEventually, Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire (contracts with European powers) were negotiated, protecting the religious rights of Christians within the Empire. The Russians became formal protectors of the Eastern Orthodox groups in 1774, the French of the Catholics, and the British of the Jews and other groups.[12]\n\nConversion\n\nHistorians Apostolos Vakalopoulos and Dimitar Angelov give assessment on the first Ottoman invasions of Europe and their imposition of Islam to the Native Balkan Christians:[13]\n\nThere is insufficient documentation of the process of conversion to Islam in Anatolia before the mid-15th century. By that time it was about 85% complete according to an Ottoman census, although it lagged in some regions such as Trabzon. In the Balkans, the general trend of conversion started slowly in the 14th century, reached its peak in the 17th century, and gradually petered out by the end of the 18th century, with significant regional variations.[4] Conversion of Christians (and Jews) continued till the very end of the Emprire in early 20th century.[14]\n\nThe earliest converts to Islam came from the ranks of the Balkan nobility and military elites, who helped the Ottomans administer their native provinces. Although conversion was not required to obtain these posts, over time these local ruling elites tended to adopt Islam. Some scholars view proselyting Sufi mystics and the Ottoman state itself as important agents of conversion among broader populations. Other scholars argue that intermarriage and professional patronage networks were the most important factors of the religious transformation of the broader society.[4] According to Halil İnalcık, the wish to avoid paying the jizya was an important incentive for conversion to Islam in the Balkans, while Anton Minkov has argued that it was only one among several motivating factors.[15]\n\nFrom the late 14th to the mid-17th century, the Ottomans pursued a policy of imposing a levy of male children (devşirme) on their Christian subjects in the Balkans with the goal of supplying the Ottoman state with capable soldiers and administrators. The compulsory conversion to Islam which these boys underwent as part of their education is the only documented form of systematic forced conversion organized by the Ottoman state.[4]\n\nFor strategic reasons, the Ottomans forcibly converted Christians living in the frontier regions of Macedonia and northern Bulgaria, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries. Those who refused were either executed or burned alive.[16]\n\nAccording to Islamic law, the religion of the children was automatically changed after their parents converted. Many families collectively converted and their petitions as per Islamic customs for monetary help to the Ottoman Imperial Council are known. As marriages between non-Muslim men and Muslim women were forbidden under Sharia law, the refusal of husband to convert to Islam resulted in a divorce and the wife gaining custody of the children. Seventeenth-century sources indicate that non-Muslim women throughout the empire used this method to obtain a divorce.[4]\n\nThe Ottomans tolerated Protestant missionaries within their realm, so long as they limited their proselytizing to the Orthodox Christians.[17] With the increasing influence of Western powers and Russia in the 18th century, the process of conversion slowed down, and the Ottomans were pressured to turn a blind eye to re-conversion of many of their subjects to Christianity, although apostasy was de jure prohibited under penalty of death.[4]\n\nReligion and the legal system\n\nThe main idea behind the Ottoman legal system was the \"confessional community\". The Ottomans tried to leave the choice of religion to the individual rather than imposing forced classifications. However, there were grey areas.\n\nOttoman practice assumed that law would be applied based on the religious beliefs of its citizens. However, the Ottoman Empire was organized around a system of local jurisprudence. Legal administration fit into a larger schema balancing central and local authority.[18] The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire aimed to facilitate the integration of culturally and religiously different groups.[18]\n\nThere were three court systems: one for Muslims, another for non-Muslims (dhimmis), involving appointed Jews and Christians ruling over their respective religious communities, and the \"trade court\". Dhimmis were allowed to operate their own courts following their own legal systems in cases that did not involve other religious groups, capital offences, or threats to public order. Christians were liable in a non-Christian court in specific, clearly defined instances, for example the assassination of a Muslim or to resolve a trade dispute.\n\nThe Ottoman judicial system institutionalized a number of biases against non-Muslims, such as barring non-Muslims from testifying as witnesses against Muslims. At the same time, non-Muslims \"did relatively well in adjudicated interfaith disputes\", because anticipation of judicial biases prompted them to settle most conflicts out of court.[19]\n\nIn the Ottoman Empire of the 18th and 19th centuries, dhimmis frequently used the Muslim courts not only when their attendance was compulsory (for example in cases brought against them by Muslims), but also in order to record property and business transactions within their own communities. Cases were brought against Muslims, against other dhimmis and even against members of the dhimmi's own family. Dhimmis often took cases relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance to Muslim courts so that they would be decided under shari'a law. Oaths sworn by dhimmis in the Muslim courts were sometimes the same as the oaths taken by Muslims, sometimes tailored to the dhimmis’ beliefs.[20] Some Christian sources points that although Christians were not Muslims, there were instances which they were subjected to shari'a law.[21] According to some western sources, \"the testimony of a Christian was not considered as valid in the Muslim court as much as the testimony of a Muslim\".\n\nPersecution\n\nThe Ottoman Empire's treatment of its Christian subjects varied during its history. During the golden age of the empire, the millet system promised its Christian subjects better treatment than non-Christian populations experienced in Christian Europe, while during the decline and fall of the empire, the Christian minorities suffered a number of atrocities.[22] Notable cases of persecution include the Constantinople massacre of 1821, the Chios massacre, the Destruction of Psara, the Batak massacre, the Hamidian massacres, the Adana massacre, the ethnic cleansing of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913, the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon and the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide and Assyrian genocide, all of which occurred during the Greek War of Independence or during the last few decades of the empire under the influence of Pan-Turkism. The share of non-Muslims in areas within Turkey's current borders declined from 20 to 22% in 1914, or approximately 3.3.-3.6 million people, to around 3% in 1927.[23] Some Christians in the Empire also suffered the injustice of being forced in a status of concubinage.[24]\n\nIn the time of the Austro-Turkish war (1683-1699), relations between Muslims and Christians who lived in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire gradually deteriorated and this deterioration in interfaith relations occasionally resulted in calls for the expulsion or extermination of local Christian communities by some Muslim religious leaders. As a result of Ottoman discrimination, Serbian Christians and their church leaders, headed by Serbian Patriarch Arsenije III, sided with the Austrians in 1689 and again in 1737 under Serbian Patriarch Arsenije IV. In the following punitive campaigns, Ottoman forces conducted atrocities against the Christian population in the Serbian regions, resulted in the Great Migrations of the Serbs.[25]\n\nDevşirme\n\nBeginning with Murad I in the 14th century and extending through the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire employed devşirme system. This was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects and raising them in the religion of Islam.[26][27][28]\n\nTaxation\n\nTaxation from the perspective of dhimmis was \"a concrete continuation of the taxes paid to earlier regimes\"[29] and from the point of view of the Muslim conqueror was a material proof of the dhimmis' subjection.[29] [30] Christians were forced to pay disproportionately higher taxes than Muslims within the empire, including the humiliating poll-tax. Even pregnant mothers had to pay jizya on behalf of their unborn children.[31] In Aleppo in 1683, French Consul Chevalier Laurent d'Arvieux noted that ten-year-old Christian children were forced to pay the jizya.[32] Jizya collected from Christian and Jewish communities was among the main sources of tax income of the Ottoman treasury.[33]\n\nReligious architecture\n\nThe Ottoman Empire regulated how its cities would be built (quality assurances) and how the architecture (structural integrity, social needs, etc.) would be shaped.\n\nPrior to the Tanzimat (a period of reformation beginning in 1839), special restrictions were imposed concerning the construction, renovation, size and the bells in Orthodox churches. For example, an Orthodox church's bell tower had to be slightly shorter than the minaret of the largest mosque in the same city. Hagia Photini in İzmir was a notable exception, as its bell tower was the tallest landmark of the city by far. They also needed not exceed mosques in grandeur or elegance. Only some churches were allowed to be built, but this was considered suspect, and some churches even fell into disrepair.\n\nSee also\n\nHistory of the Eastern Orthodox Church under the Ottoman Empire\n\nChristianity in Turkey\n\nReferences\n\n^ Cane, Peter; Conaghan, Joanne (2008). Millet system - Oxford Reference. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199290543.001.0001. ISBN 9780199290543.\n\n^ Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2006-10-27). Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85771-757-3.\n\n^ Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: from the late Middle Ages to World War One, Randall. Lesaffer, 2004, p.357\n\n^ a b c d e f Tijana Krstić (2009). \"\"Conversion\"\". In Ed. Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Alan Masters (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. InfoBase Publishing. pp. 145-147. ISBN 9781438110257.\n\n^ Lewis (1984) pp. 10, 20\n\n^ Sharkey, Heather J (2017). A history of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 65-66. ISBN 978-1-139-02845-5. OCLC 987671521.\n\n^ Sharkey, Heather J (2017). A history of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-139-02845-5. OCLC 987671521.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Mansel, Philip (1997). Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924. London: Penguin Books. pp. 20-21. ISBN 978-0-14-026246-9.\n\n^ Todorova Maria, \"The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans\", in Carl L. Brown (ed.), Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East, New York, 1996, p. 47.\n\n^ Lewis (1984) p. 62, Cohen (1995) p. xvii\n\n^ Lewis (1999) p.131\n\n^ Braude, Benjamin (2014). \"Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Abridged Edition\" (PDF). Lynne Rienner Publishers.\n\n^ Vakalopoulos, Apostolos Euangelou (1970). Origins of the Greek Nation: The Byzantine Period, 1204-1461. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813506593.\n\n^ Baer, Marc David, \"Honored by the glory of Islam : conversion and conquest in Ottoman Empire\", Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 247. [1]\n\n^ Tramontana, Felicita (2013). \"The Poll Tax and the Decline of the Christian Presence in the Palestinian Countryside in the 17th Century\". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 56 (4-5): 631-652. doi:10.1163/15685209-12341337.\n\n^ Duĭchev, Ivan (1977). Histoire de la Bulgarie: des origines à nos jours. Horvath. p. 251,259. ISBN 9782717100846.\n\n^ The Crimean war: A holy war of an unusual kind: A war in which two Christian countries fighting a third claimed Islam as their ally, The Economist, September 30, 2010.\n\n^ a b Lauren A. Benton “Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900” pp.109-110\n\n^ Kuran, T.; Lustig, S. (2012). \"Judicial biases in Ottoman Istanbul - Islamic justice and its compatibility with modern economic life\". Journal of Law and Economics. 55 (2): 631-666. doi:10.1086/665537. JSTOR 665537. S2CID 222321949.\n\n^ Al-Qattan, Najwa (1999). \"'Dhimmis in the Muslim Court: Legal Autonomy and Religious Discrimination'\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 31 (3): 429-44. doi:10.1017/S0020743800055501.\n\n^ A Concise History of Bulgaria, Richard J. Crampton, 2005, p.31\n\n^ George A. Bournoutian (2006). A Concise History of the Armenian People (5th ed.). Mazda Publishers. p. 191. At its best, during the Ottoman golden age, the millet system promised non-Muslims fairer treatment than conquered or non-Christian subjects enjoyed under the Europeans. At its worst, during the decline and fall of the empire, the Christian minorities were subjected to extortion and pogroms.\n\n^ Pamuk, Şevket (2018). Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey since 1820. Princeton University Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-0691184982.\n\n^ Sharkey, Heather J (2017). A history of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge. pp. 67-68. ISBN 978-1-139-02845-5. OCLC 987671521.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Pavlowitch 2002, pp. 19-20.\n\n^ Hain, Kathryn. \"Devshirme is a Contested Practice\". utah.edu. University of Utah. Retrieved 13 June 2020.\n\n^ James L. Gelvin (2016). The Modern Middle East: A History. Oxford University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-19-021886-7.\n\n^ Hanson, Victor Davis (2007-12-18). Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-42518-8.\n\n^ a b Cl. Cahen in Encyclopedia of Islam, Jizya article\n\n^ Sharkey, Heather J (2017). A history of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-139-02845-5. OCLC 987671521.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule. Duke University Press. 22 January 1991. pp. 26, 80n11. ISBN 9780822382553.\n\n^ Arvieux, Laurent d' (1735). Memoires du chevalier d'Arvieux, envoyé extraordinaire du Roy à la Porte, Consul d'Alep, d'Alger, de Tripoli, & autres Echelles du Levant. Contenant Ses Voyages à Constantinople, dans l'Asie, la Syrie, la Palestine, l'Egypte, & la Barbarie, la description de ces Païs, les Religions, les moeurs, les Coûtumes, le Négoce de ces Peuples, & leurs Gouvernemens, l'Histoire naturelle & les événemens les plus considerables, recüeillis de ses Memoires originaux, & mis en ordre avec des réfléxions. Par le R.P. Jean-Baptiste Labat, de l'Ordre des Freres Prêcheurs. Tome premier [-Tome sixième]. p. 439.\n\n^ Peri, Oded (1990). \"The Muslim waqf and the collection of jizya in late eighteenth-century Jerusalem\". In Gilbar, Gad (ed.). Ottoman Palestine, 1800-1914 : Studies in economic and social history. Leiden: E.J. Brill. p. 287. ISBN 978-90-04-07785-0. the jizya was one of the main sources of revenue accruing to the Ottoman state treasury as a whole.\n\nSources\n\nCohen, Mark R. (1995). Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01082-3.\n\nFrazee, Charles A. (2006) [1983]. Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521027007.\n\nLewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00807-3.\n\nLewis, Bernard (1999). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry Into Conflict and Prejudice. W. W. Norton & Company press. ISBN 978-0-393-31839-5.\n\nLewis, Bernard (2002). The Arabs in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280310-8.\n\nPavlowitch, Stevan K. (2002). Serbia: The History behind the Name. London: Hurst & Company. ISBN 9781850654773.\n\nFurther reading\n\n\"Κεφάλαιο 8. Τα χριστιανικά κράτη και οι υπήκοοί τους στον οθωμανικό χώρο\" (PDF) (in Greek). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-09-17. Retrieved 2019-09-17. (\"Chapter 8. Christian States and their Nationals in the Ottoman Territory\")\n\nHofmann, Tessa. \"The Invisibles: Hidden Christian Nation (s) in 20th-Century Türkiye.\" Armenological Issues 2.1 (29) (2025): 19-46."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-christianity-in-the-ottoman-empire"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3017}, {"slug": "reference-elbegendi-midyat", "title": "Elbeğendi, Midyat", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Elbeğendi (Kurdish: Xerabê Kefrê;[2][a] Syriac: Kafro Tahtoyo, lit. 'Lower village')[2][4][b] is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Midyat, Mardin Province in Turkey.[9] The village is populated by Syriacs and had a population of 46 in 2021.[10][1][c] It is located atop Mount Izla in the region of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Elbeğendi\n\nNeighbourhood\n\nElbeğendiLocation within Turkey\n\nCoordinates: 37°16′59″N 41°24′29″E / 37.283°N 41.408°E / 37.283; 41.408\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nProvinceMardin\n\nDistrictMidyat\n\nPopulation (2021)[1]46\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nElbeğendi (Kurdish: Xerabê Kefrê;[2][a] Syriac: Kafro Tahtoyo, lit. 'Lower village')[2][4][b] is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Midyat, Mardin Province in Turkey.[9] The village is populated by Syriacs and had a population of 46 in 2021.[10][1][c] It is located atop Mount Izla in the region of Beth Rishe in Tur Abdin.[17]\n\nIn the village, there is the Church of Mor Yaqub and Mor Barsaum and the Chapel of Our Lady.[18]\n\nHistory\n\nIn the Syriac Orthodox patriarchal register of dues of 1870, it was recorded that Kafro Tahtoyo (today called Elbeğendi) had 17 households, who paid 22 dues, and was served by the Church of Morī Ya‘qūb, but did not have a priest.[7] In 1914, it was inhabited by 250 Syriacs, according to the list presented to the Paris Peace Conference by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation.[19] They belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church.[20] It was located in the kaza of Habab (attached to the kaza of Nusaybin).[21] Amidst the Sayfo, the village was attacked and some survivors took refuge at the nearby Monastery of Mor Malke whilst others went to ‘Ayn-Wardo.[22] Several hundred Christians at the Mor Malke Monastery, mostly refugees from Kafro Tahtoyo, retaliated and attacked Sheweske on 21 August.[23] About 8 families returned to the village in 1916.[24]\n\nThere were 274 residents in 1960.[8] By 1966, 310 Turoyo-speaking Christians in 37 families inhabited Kafro Tahtoyo.[8] By 1994, only a few families remained in the village and most of the houses had been abandoned.[25] The village was forcibly evacuated by the Turkish army in 1995 due to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.[26] The villagers emigrated abroad to Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden.[27] The village, including the church and its graves, was consequently plundered and nearly completely destroyed and all the trees in the surrounding area were cut down.[24]\n\nIn February 2002, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Timotheus Samuel Aktaş and two representatives from the village requested permission to return to Kafro Tahtoyo from the Governor of Mardin.[25] The application was approved by Temel Koçaklar, the vali of Mardin, on 28 February 2002.[25] The construction of new homes and renovations to the church began in 2004.[28] In 2006, 17 Syriac families returned to the village from Augsburg and Göppingen in Germany, and Trüllikon and Zürich in Switzerland.[29] To help revive the local economy, some returnees started businesses in the village.[30][15] The Chapel of Our Lady at Kafro Tahtoyo was consecrated on 15 August 2008 with the financial support of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg.[31] A Syriac man from Kafro Tahtoyo was shot by Kurdish shepherds in 2008 after he had instructed them to take their herds off his land.[32] In late July 2019, Syriac properties in Kafro Tahtoyo were struck by suspected arson attacks.[12]\n\nDemography\n\nThe following is a list of the number of Syriac families that have inhabited Kafro Tahtoyo per year stated. Unless otherwise stated, all figures are from the list provided in Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World, as noted in the bibliography below.[33][d]\n\n1915: 30[35]\n\n1966: 37\n\n1970: 46[36]\n\n1978: 44\n\n1979: 37\n\n1981: 23\n\n1987: 15\n\n1992: 5[36]\n\n2013: 12[27]\n\nNotable people\n\nIskender Alptekin (1961-2010), Syriac politician\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also spelt as Harabekefri, Harabkefri, Harapkefri, Haraba Kefri, Kharaba Kafra, Kharaba Kefri, Keferi, or Xırabê Käfrê.[3]\n\n^ Alternatively transliterated as Käfro taḥtäito, Kafro Tachtayto, Kafro-Tahtayo, Kafro Tahtayto, or Kafro Tahtoyto.[5] Also called Lower Kafro or simply Kafro, in contrast with Upper Kafro (Kafro Elayto).[6] Also known as Ḫarābī Kafrō.[7] Nisba: Käfrōyo.[8]\n\n^ For the use of the term \"Syriac\" to refer to the population of Kafro Tahtoyo.[11][12][13] For use of the term \"Assyrian\".[14][15] The terms \"Syriac\" and \"Assyrian\" are used to refer to the same group of people.[16]\n\n^ The size of a single family varies between five and ten persons.[34]\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b \"31 Aralık 2021 Tarihli Adrese Dayalı Nüfus Kayıt Sistemi (ADNKS) Sonuçları\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\n^ a b Biner (2020), p. x.\n\n^ Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 325; Sinclair (1989), p. 325; Barsoum (2008), p. 15; Ritter (1967), p. 14; Keser Kayaalp (2021), p. 282.\n\n^ \"Kafro\". Kafro (in German). Retrieved 7 June 2025.\n\n^ Courtois (2004), p. 226; Courtois (2013), p. 146; Gaunt (2006), p. 232; Güsten (2016), p. 11; Ritter (1967), p. 14.\n\n^ Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 325; Palmer (1990), p. xx; Gaunt (2006), pp. 231-232.\n\n^ a b Bcheiry (2009), p. 54.\n\n^ a b c Ritter (1967), p. 14.\n\n^ \"Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri\". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 6 July 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2022.\n\n^ Andrews & Benninghaus (1989), p. 206.\n\n^ Güsten (2016), p. 11; Oberkampf (2012), p. 130; Samur (2009), p. 331; Çaglar (2013), p. 122.\n\n^ a b Pınar Tarcan (29 July 2019). \"Fires in Syriac Villages: 'Even if It is Not Sabotage, There is Gross Negligence'\". Bianet. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\n^ \"Syriac families returning to Turkey facing problems\". Hürriyet Daily News. 9 August 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\n^ Özüpekçe, Işık & Dalgıç (2023), p. 1634; BarAbraham (2021), pp. 168-169.\n\n^ a b Dilan Karaman (17 June 2020). \"The village that came back to life\". Inside Turkey. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\n^ Omtzigt, Tozman & Tyndall (2012), p. i: \"In this book the authors of the different chapters made their own choice regarding the use of the names Suryoye, Syriacs, Syrians, Assyrians, Arameans, Syrian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Syrian Catholics, Syrian Protestants, Chaldean and others. The different names should be read against the background of changes in the context of living, different ideas about the historical past of the same group of people and in the context of different opinions regarding the best name to be used.\"\n\n^ Barsoum (2008), p. 15; Birol (2017), p. 175; BarAbraham (2021), p. 171.\n\n^ Oberkampf (2012), pp. 124, 135.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), pp. 232, 425.\n\n^ Jongerden & Verheij (2012), p. 325.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), p. 425.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), pp. 202, 232.\n\n^ Gaunt (2006), p. 241.\n\n^ a b BarAbraham (2021), p. 168; Oberkampf (2012), p. 122.\n\n^ a b c BarAbraham (2021), p. 168.\n\n^ Brock (2021), p. 168; Güsten (2016), p. 11; BarAbraham (2021), p. 168.\n\n^ a b Courtois (2013), p. 146.\n\n^ BarAbraham (2021), p. 169.\n\n^ Çaglar (2013), p. 122; Güsten (2016), p. 11.\n\n^ Özüpekçe, Işık & Dalgıç (2023), p. 1634.\n\n^ Oberkampf (2012), p. 135.\n\n^ Güsten (2016), p. 30.\n\n^ Brock (2021), p. 168.\n\n^ Brock (2021), p. 167.\n\n^ Courtois (2004), p. 226.\n\n^ a b Oberkampf (2012), p. 122.\n\nBibliography\n\nAndrews, Peter Alford; Benninghaus, Rüdiger, eds. (1989). Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey.\n\nBarAbraham, Abdulmesih (2021). \"Returning Home: The Ambivalent Assyrian Experience in Turkey\". Poligrafi. 26 (101/102): 153-176.\n\nBarsoum, Aphrem (2008). The History of Tur Abdin. Translated by Matti Moosa. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 1 April 2021.\n\nBcheiry, Iskandar (2009). The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Register of Dues of 1870: An Unpublished Historical Document from the Late Ottoman Period. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 21 March 2025.\n\nBiner, Zerrin Özlem (2020). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 26 November 2024.\n\nBirol, Simon (2017). \"Interpretation of the 'Sayfo' in Gallo Shabo's Poem\". In David Gaunt; Naures Atto; Soner O. Barthoma (eds.). Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide against the Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire (PDF). pp. 157-177. Retrieved 6 November 2024.\n\nBrock, Sebastian (2021). \"The Syrian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century\". Eastern Christianity, Theological Reflection on Religion, Culture, and Politics in the Holy Land and Christian Encounter with Islam and the Muslim World (PDF). Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust. pp. 155-181. Retrieved 12 August 2022.\n\nÇaglar, Ayşe (2013). \"Rescaling cities, cultural diversity, and transnationalism: Migrants of Mardin and Essen\". In Steven Vertovec (ed.). Anthropology of Migration and Multiculturalism: New Directions. Routledge. pp. 113-138.\n\nCourtois, Sébastien de (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans. Translated by Vincent Aurora. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 20 November 2024.\n\nCourtois, Sébastien de (2013). \"Tur Abdin : Réflexions sur l'état présent descommunautés syriaques du Sud-Est de la Turquie, mémoire, exils, retours\". Cahier du Gremmamo (in French). 21: 113-150.\n\nGaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 21 May 2023.\n\nGüsten, Susanne (2016). A Farewell to Tur Abdin (PDF). Retrieved 18 October 2024.\n\nJongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle, eds. (2012). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. Retrieved 20 November 2024.\n\nKeser Kayaalp, Elif (2021). Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press.\n\nOberkampf, Horst (2012). \"Almost a Miracle - Syriacs are Returning to their Homelands\". In Pieter Omtzigt; Markus K. Tozman; Andrea Tyndall (eds.). The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery (PDF). LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 121-138. Retrieved 17 October 2024.\n\nOmtzigt, Pieter; Tozman, Markus K.; Tyndall, Andrea, eds. (2012). The Slow Disappearance of the Syriacs from Turkey and of the Grounds of the Mor Gabriel Monastery (PDF). LIT Verlag Münster. Retrieved 17 October 2024.\n\nÖzüpekçe, Salman; Işık, Muhammed Said; Dalgıç, Sevgi (2023). \"Midyat İlçesi Kırsal Yerleşmelerinin Toponimik Sınıflandırması ve Coğrafya Öğretiminde Toponimi Kavramı\". Turkish Studies (in Turkish). 18 (4): 1633-1650. doi:10.7827/TurkishStudies.71374. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\nPalmer, Andrew (1990). Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier: The Early History of Tur Abdin. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 15 July 2020.\n\nRitter, Hellmut (1967). Turoyo: Die Volkssprache der Syrischen Christen des Tur 'Abdin (in German). Vol. 1. Franz Steiner Verlag.\n\nSamur, Hakan (2009). \"Turkey's Europeanization Process and The Return of the Syriacs\". Turkish Studies. 10 (3): 327-340. Retrieved 6 June 2025.\n\nSinclair, T.A. (1989). Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey. Vol. III. Pindar Press. ISBN 9780907132349."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-elbegendi-midyat"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1672}, {"slug": "reference-syriac-chant", "title": "Syriac chant", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Syrian chant is one of the oldest Christian chants in the world.[1][2] Due to the lack of information concerning early musical manuscripts, it is conjectural to what extent the modern repertoire reflects the early traditions.[1][2] What we know of the sound in Syrian chant is mainly derived from...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syrian chant is one of the oldest Christian chants in the world.[1][2] Due to the lack of information concerning early musical manuscripts, it is conjectural to what extent the modern repertoire reflects the early traditions.[1][2] What we know of the sound in Syrian chant is mainly derived from modern performances.[1] Modern performances have a sparse texture and are highly ornamented. The setting within which Syriac chant takes place is also only understood through the modern performances of Syriac chant. The chant seems to be designed to resonate throughout the building it is performed in. This suggests that the setting was always a church building or a room that reflected the sound of the walls and ceilings. There is some difficulty in studying Syrian chant due to the geopolitical conflict throughout Syrian Christian history.[3] Many of the conflicts have resulted in persecution of Syrian Christians which may account for the oral tradition of Syriac chant.[1] The history of Syriac chant is derived from diaspora and persecution.[3]\n\nHistorical setting of Christian chant\n\nHistorically, Syria has had a long attachment to Christian chant.[1] Due to geographical locations, modern day Syria was one of the first areas to be exposed to Christendom brought by the early disciples of Christianity from Jerusalem.[3] Syrian chants have been spread throughout regions of the world by Syrian immigration.[4] This diaspora has brought many of the Syrian liturgical traditions to both neighboring and distant countries.[1][4] The movement of a people, forced or unforced, establishes a desire to bring their culture with them.[5] The Christian chants of Syria have remained thus far as oral traditions and have been passed down through the generations, who have kept loyally to their faith and culture.[1] Ethnomusicologist Dorchak discusses the use of culture as a means to strengthen and resist culture loss when threatened.[5] A culture attacked and marginalized throughout its history will rely greatly on its cultural values/ principles.[5] This oral transmission of religious chants present in Syrian culture is signet of a culture strengthened by marginalization and diaspora. The cause for the majority of Syrian diaspora is due to geopolitical and religious conflicts.[1][3] Syria has been a place of conflict due to its rich resources and geographical placement bridging Europe to North Africa as well as the many different religious beliefs present within the Middle East.[3]\n\nSince the introduction of Christianity and the first Syrian chants, Syrian culture has been confronted by such empires as\n\nthe Roman Empire prior to the conversion of Constantine;\n\nthe Persian Empire's conquest in 611;\n\nthe Islamic conquests led by Mohamad prior to his death in 632, A.D.;\n\nthe Shi'ites and the religious persecution of rural regions of Syria, home to previous Islamic conquest; the conflicts of the crusades and the Islamic forces of the Middle East.[3]\n\nThe main expulsion of Syrian Christians was during the Ottoman rule in the Levant and the massacres that took place in Damascus.[3]\n\nThese historical events provide sufficient context to why Christian Syrian chant may have remained an oral culture and is lacking in historical or archeological sources. There may have been a musical notation system invented for Syrian chant but is no longer known of as it lost through the many conquests Syria has faced. The most recent diaspora has led to Syrian refugee camps throughout the Middle East and the destruction of Syrian cities and villages, along with architecture and culture.[4]\n\nSyrian Christian chant\n\nThere are historically six schools of chant, which have branched out due to the chants being passed on through oral transmission.[2] Syrian chant is esteemed above all other types of song in the Syrian church. It is the greatest form of prayer and the most representative feature of the Syrian Orthodox church.[6][1] Chant is integral to the Syrian church and has been a practice that has created a distinction in the Syrian practice of worship to that of its neighboring Christian orders.[6][1]\n\nEthnomusicologist Tala Jarjour explains that there are only a few sources on early Syrian chant and one must analyze its current form and reflect upon it in historical contexts.[7] In Jarjour's book, Sense and Sadness; Syriac Chant in Allepo, she mentions that the Arabic word for Syrian chant is Hasho. \"Hasho is best thought of as a construct that exists at the intersection of emotionality, spirituality, musicality and knowledge\".[8] Jarjour also explains that the earliest known source of Syrian chant is from the Napoleonic conquest to Egypt.[1] Villoteau was one of Napoleon's scholar's, who accompanied the conquest into Egypt and made notes of the Syriac chant he encountered.[1] Villoteau wrote down details about the chant in which he mentions that the Syrian nation chose to sing songs that expressed the identity of its people.[1]\n\nSound of Christian chant\n\nThrough modern renditions found on YouTube we can get a general understanding of how Syrian chant would have sounded. The chant usually begins with a highly ornamented and free rhythm pattern. There appear to be multiple voices singing and taking turns. Each singer sings solo for their section of the chant. Jarjour explained earlier that Hasho, Syrian chant, is a coming together of emotionality, spirituality, musicality and knowledge.[2] Music examples on YouTube are often a monophonic texture filled with melodic ornamentation. The ornamentation notes draw emotion, while the content is no doubt prayer and is spiritually rooted. The catechesis of the prayer provides knowledge. These are inline with what we are to understand about Syrian chant.[9] The other features of the songs is how it resonates through the building it is recorded in. The texture of the songs are usually thin but due to the acoustics in the buildings they are sung in, the sound becomes more dense with the echoes and sound-waves bouncing off the walls and ceilings. Many of the Syrian chant videos also use scales and intervals that resemble the western diminished or diminished 7th intervals. There is some harmonization but each voice tends to follow the same melodic contour. The chants will occasionally sound like rounds. The timbre is usually dark and the range of pitch is wide. It is important though to understand that these observations are made from modern chants found on YouTube. The observations may not reflect the historical chants.\n\nThe Context of Christian chant\n\nThe chant seems to be designed to accommodate the acoustics of the building. This reflects an interesting feature of the chant as it was likely sung to bounce of the walls and ceiling of the church. Whether this is a technological advancement of the architecture to be designed to bounce the sound or the singing was sung the way it was to accommodate the acoustics, the sounds and prayers to carry throughout the buildings of the Middle East. The chants were reached by all present. These elements are no doubt intertwined in a particular way that give Syrian chant its distinctive qualities.[2] The earliest information that Villoteau gathered was all derived from a priest that he encountered in Syria. Although Villoteau attempted to transcribe some of the chants, they used the Arabic quartertone's making the chant near-impossible to transcribe.\n\nDifficulty in studying Syrian Christian chant\n\nSyrian chant has been misrepresented in academics as well as misunderstood culturally due to wrongful association with other cultural chants.[1] Although the Syriac beliefs are in union with the Catholic Church, Syrian chant is designed for a specific style of celebration that other forms of Catholicism do not use. Although it is from the Levant, it cannot be associated or counted synonymous with Islamic chant, which is dominant in the East.[1] It has traits that suggest a derivative of the Arabic musical system but it does not have associations with any maqamat (plural of maqam used in Arabic music). It is understood as a model musical system yet it does not have any existing music theory.\n\nDue to the orality of its tradition and the minimal writing on the chant, little is known about its early years.[1] Syriac Christians have been marginalized throughout their existence in the Middle East which may account for the missing information.[10] The first known source to write about Syrian chant was Villoteau,[1] who wrote down details about the chant. The information that Villoteau gathered was all derived from a priest that he encountered in Syria.[1] Although Villoteau attempted to transcribe some of the chants, they used the Arabic quartertone's.[1] This proved difficult to interpret as the Syrian Christians only used oral language to pass on the chants which meant the music was not scripted or theorized.[1] This is possibly due to the persecution Syrian Christians and how they have thus relied predominantly on oral language to pass on the chants which meant the music was either destroyed or was never transcribed from oral to notation.\n\nEarly Church\n\nIn the early church, the music consisted of hymns and antiphonal psalmody. The earliest extant work is the Gnostic Psalter of the 2nd century, a collection of Psalm texts in hymn form reflecting a Gnostic theology. The first orthodox work are the hymns of Ephrem the Syrian (306-373), some of which are still used today. Both hymns and antiphonal psalmody were brought by St. Ambrose to Milan and are apparently the basis for Ambrosian chant.\n\nModern Syrian chant is much more rhythmic and syllabic than Gregorian chant.\n\nDiaspora\n\nSyriac Chants from South India.\n\nThe Christian liturgy that developed in Syriac as the Christian Aramaic came to be known in the early Christian era flourished in South India among Saint Thomas Christians. Early Christian chants by such saintly poets as St. Ephrem the Syrian became part of the Christian experience in this part of the world.\n\nSee also\n\nBeth Gazo\n\nSyriac sacral music\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Jarjour 2015a.\n\n^ a b c d e Jarjour 2015c.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Shoup 2018.\n\n^ a b c Della Gatta 2019.\n\n^ a b c Hayes 2013.\n\n^ a b Jarjour 2016.\n\n^ Jarjour 2015b.\n\n^ Jarjour 2018, p. 52.\n\n^ Jarjour 2018.\n\n^ Nettl, Bruno; Turino, Thomas; Wong, Isabel; Capwell, Charles; Bolman, Philip; Dueck, Byron; Rommen, Timmothy (2015-09-25). Excursions in World Music, Sixth Edition. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-35029-3.\n\nSources\n\nDella Gatta, Marisa (2019-05-27). \"A 'nation in exile': the renewed diaspora of Syrian Armenian repatriates\". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 46 (3): 339-357. doi:10.1080/13530194.2017.1403308. ISSN 1353-0194. S2CID 218603543.\n\nHayes, Ian (2013). \"Ian Russell and Anna Kearney Guigné (eds.). Crossing Over: Fiddle and Dance Studies from Around the North Atlantic 3. (Aberdeen: Elphinstone Institute and St. John's: Memorial University, 2010. Pp. 317, ISBN 9780954568269.) Kenneth E. Nilsen (ed.). Rannsachadh na Gaidhlig 5: Fifth Scottish Gaelic Research Conference. (Sydney: Cape Breton University Press, 2010. Pp. 366, ISBN 9781897009468.)\". Ethnologies. 35 (1): 204. doi:10.7202/1026464ar. ISSN 1481-5974.\n\nJarjour, Tala (2015a). \"Syriac Chant at the Negotiation of Source and Method in the Two Music-\"ologies\"\". Yearbook for Traditional Music. 47: 45-63. doi:10.5921/yeartradmusi.47.2015.0045. JSTOR 10.5921/yeartradmusi.47.2015.0045.\n\nJarjour, Tala (2015b). \"Ḥasho: Music Modality and the Economy of Emotional Aesthetics\". Ethnomusicology Forum. 24 (1): 51-72. doi:10.1080/17411912.2015.1018918. ISSN 1741-1912. S2CID 143522933.\n\nJarjour, Tala (2015c). Dueck, Jonathan; Reily, Suzel Ana (eds.). Chant as the Articulation of Christian Aramean Spirithood. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199859993.013.35. ISBN 978-0-19-985999-3.\n\nJarjour, Tala (2018). \"Sense and Sadness\". Oxford Scholarship Online. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190635251.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-063525-1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nShoup, John A. (2018). The History of Syria. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-5835-2.\n\nVelimirović, Miloš (1990). \"Christian Chant in Syria, Armenia, Egypt, and Ethiopia\". In Crocker, Richard; Hiley, David (eds.). The New Oxford History of Music: v.2 The Early Middle Ages to 1300 (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 3-9. ISBN 0-19-316329-2.\n\nJonathan Dueck sand Suzel Reily, ed. (May 2016). \"The Survival Story of Syriac Chants among the St. Thomas Christians in South India\". The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities - Joseph J. Palackal. Oxford Handbook Online. pp. 440-460.\n\nJarjour, Tala (2016-05-05). Dueck, Jonathan; Reily, Suzel Ana (eds.). \"Chant as the Articulation of Christian Aramean Spirithood\". The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199859993.013.35. ISBN 978-0-19-985999-3. Retrieved 2021-11-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nExternal links\n\nEncyclopedia of Syriac chants"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syriac-chant"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2101}, {"slug": "reference-al-malikiyah", "title": "Al-Malikiyah", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Al-Malikiyah (Arabic: ٱلْمَالِكِيَّة, romanized: al-Mālikīyah;[1] Kurmanji Kurdish: Dêrika Hemko;[2] Syriac: ܕܪܝܟ), also known as Derik, is a city in northeastern Syria and the center of an administrative district belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. The district constitutes the northeastern corner of the country, and is where the Syrian Democratic Council...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Al-Malikiyah\n المالكيةDêrika Hemko\n\nCity\n\nDerik\n\nAl-Malikiyah from the southwest\n\nAl-MalikiyahLocation in Syria\n\nCoordinates: 37°10′N 42°08′E / 37.167°N 42.133°E / 37.167; 42.133\n\nCountry Syria\n\nGovernorateal-Hasakah\n\nDistrictal-Malikiyah\n\nSubdistrictal-Malikiyah\n\nElevation500 m (1,600 ft)\n\nPopulation (2004)\n\n • Total26,311\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (AST)\n\nArea code052\n\nAl-Malikiyah (Arabic: ٱلْمَالِكِيَّة, romanized: al-Mālikīyah;[1] Kurmanji Kurdish: Dêrika Hemko;[2] Syriac: ܕܪܝܟ), also known as Derik, is a city in northeastern Syria and the center of an administrative district belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. The district constitutes the northeastern corner of the country, and is where the Syrian Democratic Council convenes. The town is about 20 km (12 mi) west of the Tigris river which defines the triple border between Syria, Turkey and Iraq. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Al-Malikiyah had a population about 26,311 residents in the 2004 census. Other sources claim that the city has a population of 39,000 as of 2024.[3] It is the administrative center of a nahiyah (\"subdistrict\") consisting of 108 localities with a combined population of 125,000. The town is inhabited by Kurds, Assyrians, Arabs and Armenians.\n\nEtymology\n\nThere are two theories on the local Syriac and Kurdish name of the city. The first theory is that the city is named after an ancient monastery ('dayr' in Syriac) located in its vicinity, while the second one argues that the name \"Dêrik\" stems from the Kurdish word du rek meaning 'two roads'. In 1957, the town was named \"Al-Malikiyah\", after a Syrian army officer Adnan al-Malki.[4] In 1977, a decree was issued to ban all non-Arabic place names. Therefore the Kurdish and Syriac-Aramaic names were banned from being used.[5]\n\nHistory\n\nThe city is located in the middle of Hesinyan plain between the Tigris and Safan rivers. The region was controlled by the Kurdish Bohtan principality[6] until 1848 and inhabited mostly by the Kurdish Hesinyan tribe, giving the plain its name. Before attaining the size of a city, Derik village was given by the prince Bedirkhan Botani to Hemko Hesinî, who was a military leader for Botan principality in its last years, hence the city has its alternative name: Dêrika Hemko.\n\nAfter World War I, the French enlisted help from the Kurdish Milli tribe to control the whole region east of Euphrates river up to the Tigris. The French chose the village of Ayn Dywar as the center for the region, but in 1927 they moved the administrative center to Derik. And since then the village developed into a city .[7]\n\nAs of 2004, Al-Malikiyah is the fifth largest city in Al-Hasakah governorate.\n\nSyrian Civil War\n\nAs a result of the ongoing civil war, Al-Malikiyah is currently controlled by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). On 21 July 2012, the ethnic Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) reportedly captured Al-Malikiyah, which is located just 10 kilometers from the Turkish border,[8] although another report stated that fighting was still going on in the city.[9] On 22 July, it was reported that YPG forces were still fighting for Al-Malikiyah, and one young Kurdish activist was killed after Pro-Assad government forces allegedly opened fire on protesters.[10] In November 2012, government forces withdrew from the city.\n\nKurdish-led authorities subsequently installed the \"Dêrik prison\" for captured Islamic State members in al-Malikiyah. In April 2019, the prison was the site of a major prison escape attempt by about 200 ISIL detainees, including several French jihadists. The breakout was foiled, however, and some prisoners were distributed to other detention centers.[11]\n\nIn May 2020, reports emerged that Russia had begun building a new military base in Qeser Dib, a village outside of al-Malikiyah.[12][13] In 2021, the United States Army constructed a Forward operating base 3.8 kilometers south of the city. The base is operated by United States Special Forces and a Combat Action Team, who routinely conduct patrols near the city in Bradley Fighting Vehicles.[14][15][16][13]\n\nOn 2 February 2022, four civilians were killed after an armed Turkish drone bombed a power station near the city.[17]\n\nDemographics\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±%\n\n198113,225-    \n\n1994-    \n\n200426,311-    \n\nThe population consists mostly of ethnic Kurds and Assyrians in addition to a small minority of Armenians. The northern half of the town is mainly inhabited by Muslim Kurds, and the southern part by Syriac Christians.\n\nAs of November 2014, 200 ethnic Armenians remain in the city out of a pre-civil war figure of 450.[18]\n\nNotable people\n\nJarjis Danho\n\nHevrin Khalaf\n\nFaia Younan\n\nSherwan Haji\n\nBahoz Erdal\n\nGallery\n\n New Syriac Orthodox Church on Main street\n\n New Church dome\n\n Chaldean Catholic Church\n\n Chaldean Catholic Church and School Building\n\n Looking east\n\nSee also\n\nSyrian civil war\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"سوريا.. توتر بين موسكو وواشنطن في القامشلي\". Al Arabiya (in Arabic). 21 January 2020. Retrieved 16 August 2020.\n\n^ \"Li Dêrikê kurd, ereb û xirîstiyan bi hev re dijîn\". Rûdaw (in Kurdish). 2 March 2017. Retrieved 16 August 2020.\n\n^ \"al-malikiyah\". AuroraReach. Retrieved 2024-11-01.\n\n^ \"A light on Derik s history and churches\". North Press Agency. Retrieved 2019-11-16.\n\n^ Gunter, Michael (2014). Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War. London: Hurst. p. 21. ISBN 9781849044356.\n\n^ \"The 63th anniversary of the Arabization of Derik's name to Malikiya-ARK NEWS\". ARK News. 24 March 2020. Retrieved 2025-11-01.\n\n^ \"صقر ابو فخر | التراجع المسيحي في الشرق: مشهد تاريخي :: | جريدة السفير\". Assafir. 2013-12-19. Retrieved 2017-05-01.\n\n^ \"City of Derik taken by Kurds in Northeast Syria\". Firatnews. Archived from the original on 2012-08-02. Retrieved 2013-08-29.\n\n^ \"Ban: Syrian regime 'failed to protect civilians'\". CNN. 22 July 2012. Retrieved 2013-08-29.\n\n^ \"Armed Kurds Surround Syrian Security Forces in Qamishli\". Rûdaw. Retrieved 2013-08-29.\n\n^ Georges Brenier (11 April 2019). \"INFO TF1/LCI - Syrie : des cadres français de Daech impliqués dans une mutinerie\". LCI. Retrieved 12 April 2019.\n\n^ \"Russian military in NE Syria: Russia establishes new military base Al-Malikiyah (Dayrik)\". SOHR. 28 May 2020.\n\n^ a b \"Americans, Russians compete for Kurdish support in northeast Syrian border area\". Kurdistan24. 21 February 2021.\n\n^ \"US forces patrol in Syria's Derik countryside\". April 10, 2021.\n\n^ Serbest (April 20, 2021). \"American forces conduct patrol in Syria's Derik countryside\". North Press Agency.\n\n^ \"Anti-Daesh coalition to set up military base along Turkish-Syrian border\". Arab News. February 16, 2021.\n\n^ \"Turkish offensive : Four people killed amid Turkish airstrikes on power station near Al-Malikiyah (Dayrek)\". Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 2 February 2022.\n\n^ \"Demoralized, Syrian refugees return home | Middle East\". DW. 2014-11-17. Retrieved 2017-05-01.\n\n37°10′N 42°08′E / 37.167°N 42.133°E / 37.167; 42.133"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-al-malikiyah"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1091}, {"slug": "reference-tell-brak", "title": "Tell Brak", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell Brak (Nagar, Nawar) was an ancient city in Syria; it is one of the earliest known cities in the world.[3] Its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the modern village of Tell Brak, 50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city, Al-Hasakah Governorate. The...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Brak\n\nNagar, Nawar\n\nTell Brak as seen from a distance with several excavation areas visible\n\nLocation within Near EastShow map of Near EastLocation within SyriaShow map of Syria\n\n36°40′03.42″N 41°03′31.12″E / 36.6676167°N 41.0586444°E / 36.6676167; 41.0586444\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nPeriodsNeolithic, Bronze Age\n\nCulturesHalaf culture, Northern Ubaid, Uruk, Kish civilization, Hurrian\n\nLocationAl-Hasakah Governorate, Syria\n\nHistory\n\nBuilt6500 BC\n\nSite notes\n\nHeight40 metres (130 ft).[1]\n\nArea60 hectares (150 acres).[2]\n\nExcavation dates1937-1938, 1976-2011\n\nArchaeologistsMax Mallowan, David Oates, Joan Oates\n\nPublic accessyes\n\nWebsitetellbrak.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk\n\nTell Brak (Nagar, Nawar) was an ancient city in Syria; it is one of the earliest known cities in the world.[3] Its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the modern village of Tell Brak, 50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city, Al-Hasakah Governorate. The city's original name is unknown. During the second half of the third millennium BC, the city was known as Nagar and later on, Nawar.\n\nStarting as a small settlement in the seventh millennium BC, Tell Brak's urbanization began in the late 5th millennium BCE and evolved during the fourth millennium BC into one of the biggest cities in Upper Mesopotamia, and interacted with the cultures of southern Mesopotamia.[4][5] The city shrank in size at the beginning of the third millennium BC with the end of Uruk period, before expanding again around 2600 BC, when it became known as Nagar, and was the capital of a regional kingdom that controlled the Khabur river valley. Nagar was destroyed around 2300 BC, and came under the rule of the Akkadian Empire, followed by a period of independence as a Hurrian city-state, before contracting at the beginning of the second millennium BC. Nagar prospered again by the 19th century BC, and came under the rule of different regional powers. In c. 1500 BC, Tell Brak was a center of Mitanni before being destroyed by Assyria around 1300 BC. The city never regained its former importance, remaining as a small settlement, and abandoned at some points of its history, until disappearing from records during the early Abbasid era.\n\nDifferent peoples inhabited the city, including the Halafians, Semites and the Hurrians. Tell Brak was a religious center from its earliest periods; its famous Eye Temple is unique in the Fertile Crescent, and its main deity, Belet Nagar, was revered in the entire Khabur region, making the city a pilgrimage site. The culture of Tell Brak was defined by the different civilizations that inhabited it, and it was famous for its glyptic style, equids and glass. When independent, the city was ruled by a local assembly or by a monarch. Tell Brak was a trade center due to its location between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia. It was excavated by Max Mallowan in 1937, then regularly by different teams between 1979 and 2011, when the work stopped due to the Syrian Civil War.\n\nName\n\nThe original name of the city is unknown;[6] Tell Brak is the current name of the tell.[7] East of the mound lies a dried lake named \"Khatuniah\" which was recorded as \"Lacus Beberaci\" (the lake of Brak) in the Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana.[8] The lake was probably named after Tell Brak which was the nearest camp in the area.[9] The name \"Brak\" might therefore be an echo of the most ancient name.[8]\n\nDuring the third millennium BC, the city was known as \"Nagar\", which might be of Semitic origin and mean a \"cultivated place\".[10] The name \"Nagar\" ceased occurring following the Old Babylonian period,[11][12] however, the city continued to exist as Nawar, under the control of Hurrian state of Mitanni.[13][14] Hurrian kings of Urkesh took the title \"King of Urkesh and Nawar\" in the third millennium BC.\n\nAlternative theories\n\nAlthough there is general view that the third millennium BC Nawar is identical with Nagar,[15] some scholars, such as Jesper Eidem, doubt this.[16] Those scholars opt for a city closer to Urkesh which was also called Nawala/Nabula as the intended Nawar.[16]\n\nHistory\n\nDates (BC)\n\nBrak period\n\nPeriod designation in northern Mesopotamia\n\n6500-5900\n\nA\n\nProto-Hassuna/Pre-Halaf (Samarra-related)\n\n5900-5200\n\nB\n\nHalaf\n\n5200-4400\n\nC\n\nNorthern Ubaid\n\n4400-4200\n\nD\n\nTerminal Ubaid/Late Chalcolithic 1/LC1\n\n4200-3900\n\nE\n\nNorthern Early Uruk/Late Chalcolithic 2/LC2\n\n3900-3600\n\nF\n\nNorthern Middle Uruk/Late Chalcolithic 3/LC3\n\n3600-3200\n\nNorthern Middle Uruk/Late Chalcolithic 4/LC4\n\n3200-3000\n\nG\n\nNorthern Middle Uruk/Late Chalcolithic 5/LC5\n\n3000-2900\n\nH\n\nPost-Uruk\n\n2900-2600\n\nJ\n\nNinevite 5\n\n2600-2400\n\nK\n\n2400-2300\n\nL\n\nPost-Ninevite 5\n\n2300-2100\n\nM\n\nAkkadian\n\n2100-2000\n\nN\n\nPost-Akkadian\n\n2000-1850\n\nMiddle Bronze I\n\n1850-1500\n\nP\n\nMiddle Bronze II/Khabur\n\n1500-1275\n\nQ\n\nMitanni\n\n1275-900\n\nR\n\nMiddle Assyrian\n\n900-600\n\nS\n\nNeo-Assyrian/Iron II\n\n600-330\n\nPost-Assyrian\n\n320-150\n\nSeleuicid/Hellenistic\n\n150-224\n\nT\n\nParthian/Roman\n\nEarly settlement\n\nIn Brak Period A (c. 6500-5900 BC), the earliest small settlement is dated to the proto Halaf culture c. 6500 BC.[17] Many objects dated to that period were discovered including the Halaf pottery.[18]\n\nIn Brak Period B (c. 5900-5200 BC), the Halaf Culture [19] Halaf culture transformed into Period C (c. 5200-4400 BC) Northern Ubaid,[20] and many Ubaid materials were found in Tell Brak including coba bowls, diagnostic pottery for the Terminal Ubaid period.[21][22] Excavations and surface survey of the site and its surroundings, unearthed a large platform of patzen bricks that dates to late Ubaid,[note 1][21] and revealed that Tell Brak developed as an urban center slightly earlier than better known cities of southern Mesopotamia, such as Uruk.[24][25]\n\nLate Chalcolithic\n\nThe first city\n\nIn southern Mesopotamia, the original Ubaid culture evolved into the Uruk period.[26] The people of the southern Uruk period used military and commercial means to expand the civilization.[27] In Northern Mesopotamia, the post Ubaid period is designated Late Chalcolithic / Northern Uruk period,[28] during which, Tell Brak started to expand.[21]\n\nBrak Period E\n\nTell Brak Period E (c. 4200-3900 BC; Late Chalcolithic 2; Northern Early Uruk Period) witnessed the building of the City's Walls,[29] and expansion beyond the mound to form a Lower Town,[21] becoming a proto-urban city with a size of c. 55 hectares.[30]\n\nComparison can be made with Hamoukar in LC1-2 period, where the early urban settlement has been described as \"a vast low or flat scatter of pottery and obsidian\".[31] The population density at both settlements was very low at that stage, so they appeared more like a scattering of various small sites in the same area: \"... new indicators of social complexity appeared simultaneously with dramatic settlement expansion at Brak and Khirbat al-Fakhar [Hamoukar], although not in the form known from later periods of northern Mesopotamian history. Both were extensive \"proto-urban\" settlements of low or variable density, with few other parallels elsewhere in the Near East.\"[31] Another example is, Khirbat al-Fakhar already reached a massive size of 300 ha, or larger than the contemporary Uruk, itself.[31]\n\nArea TW of the tell (Archaeologists divided Tell Brak into areas designated with Alphabetic letters.[32] See the map for Tell Brak's areas) revealed the remains of a monumental building with two meters thick walls and a basalt threshold.[33] In front of the building, a sherd paved street was discovered, leading to the northern entrance of the city.[33] Area TW covered an area of nearly 600 square meters up to a depth of 10 meters.[34] A number of beveled rim bowls diagnostic of the Uruk period were found in the TW area.[35][36]\n\nBrak Period F\n\nTell Brak Period F can be subdivided into two phases early (c. 3800-3600 BC; Late Chaltolihic 3) and late (c. 3600-3000 BC; Late Chaltolihic 4).\n\nIn the Early Brak Period F (c. 3800-3600 BC; LC3), the early city-state continued to expand and reached the size of 130 hectares.[37] Four mass graves, mainly sub-adults and young adults were discovered in the submound, Tell Majnuna, 600 meters north-east of the main mound (built entirely of rubbish over two centuries), and they suggest that the process of urbanization was accompanied by internal social stress, and an increase in the organization of warfare.[38][39][40][41][42] The first half of period F (designated LC3), saw the erection of the Eye Temple,[note 2][37] which was named for the thousands of small alabaster \"Eye idols\" and \"Spectacle-topped idols\" figurines discovered in it.[note 3][48] Those idols were also found in area TW.[49]\n\nIn Late Brak Period F (c. 3600-3000 BC; LC4) interaction with Southern Mesopotamia increased,[50] and an Urukean colony was established in the city.[51][52] With the end of Uruk culture c 3000 BC, Tell Brak's Urukean colony was abandoned and deliberately leveled by its occupants.[53][54]\n\nBrak Period G & H\n\nThe Brak Period G (c. 3200-3000 BC; LC5), saw the site contracting during the following periods H and J, and became limited to the mound.[55] In the Brak Period H (c. 3000-2900 BC; Post-Uruk), evidence exists for an interaction with the Mesopotamian south, represented by the existence of materials similar to the ones produced during the southern Jemdet Nasr period.[56]\n\nEarly Bronze\n\nBrak Period J & K\n\nDuring the Brak Period J (2900-2600 BC) and K (2600-2400 BC) the city remained a small settlement during the Ninevite 5 period, with a small temple and associated sealing activities.[note 4][55]\n\nKingdom of Nagar\n\nAround c. 2600 BC, a large administrative building was built and the city expanded out of the tell again.[55] The revival is connected with the Kish civilization,[61] and the city was named \"Nagar\".[62] Amongst the important buildings dated to the kingdom, is an administrative building or temple named the \"Brak Oval\",[63] located in area TC.[64] The building had a curved exterior wall reminiscent of the Khafajah \"Oval Temple\" in central Mesopotamia.[65] However, aside from the wall, the comparison between the two buildings in terms of architecture is difficult, as each building follows a different plan.[66]\n\nThe oldest references to Nagar comes from Mari and tablets discovered at Nabada.[67] However, the most important source on Nagar comes from the archives of Ebla.[68] Most of the texts record the ruler of Nagar using his title \"En\", without mentioning a name.[67][68] However a text from Ebla mentions Mara-Il, a king of Nagar;[67] thus, he is the only ruler known by name for pre-Akkadian Nagar and ruled a little more than a generation before the kingdom's destruction.[69]\n\nAt its height, Nagar encompassed most of the southwestern half of the Khabur Basin,[69] and was a diplomatic and political equal of the Eblaite and Mariote states.[70] The kingdom included at least 17 subordinate cities,[71] such as Hazna,[72] and most importantly Nabada, which was a city-state annexed by Nagar,[73] and served as a provincial capital.[74] Nagar was involved in the wide diplomatic network of Ebla,[61] and the relations between the two kingdoms involved both confrontations and alliances.[68] A text from Ebla mentions a victory of Ebla's king (perhaps Irkab-Damu) over Nagar.[68] However, a few years later, a treaty was concluded, and the relations progressed toward a dynastic marriage between princess Tagrish-Damu of Ebla, and prince Ultum-Huhu, Nagar's monarch's son.[10][68]\n\nNagar was defeated by Mari in year seven of the Eblaite vizier Ibrium's term, causing the blockage of trade routes between Ebla and southern Mesopotamia via upper Mesopotamia.[75] Later, Ebla's king Isar-Damu concluded an alliance with Nagar and Kish against Mari,[76] and the campaign was headed by the Eblaite vizier Ibbi-Sipish, who led the combined armies to victory in a battle near Terqa.[77] Afterwards, the alliance attacked the rebellious Eblaite vassal city of Armi.[78] Ebla was destroyed approximately three years after Terqa's battle,[79] and soon after, Nagar followed in c. 2300 BC.[80] Large parts of the city were burned, an act attributed either to Mari,[81] or Sargon of Akkad.[82]\n\nAkkadian period\n\nFollowing its destruction, Nagar was rebuilt by the Akkadian Empire, to form a center of the provincial administration.[83] The city included the whole tell and a lower town at the southern edge of the mound.[62] Two public buildings were built during the early Akkadian periods, one complex in area SS,[83] and another in area FS.[84] The building of area FS included its own temple and might have served as a caravanserai, being located near the northern gate of the city.[85] The temple was dedicated to the god Šamagan, god of animals of the steppe.[86] The early Akkadian monarchs were occupied with internal conflicts,[87] and Tell Brak was temporarily abandoned by Akkad at some point preceding the reign of Naram-Sin.[note 5][90] The abandonment might be connected with an environmental event, that caused the desertification of the region.[90]\n\nThe destruction of Nagar's kingdom created a power vacuum in the Upper Khabur.[91] The Hurrians, formerly concentrated in Urkesh,[92] took advantage of the situation to control the region as early as Sargon's latter years.[91] Tell Brak was known as \"Nawar\" for the Hurrians,[93] and kings of Urkesh took the title \"King of Urkesh and Nawar\", first attested in the seal of Urkesh's king Atal-Shen.[15][94]\n\nThe use of the title continued during the reigns of Atal-Shen's successors, Tupkish and Tish-Atal,[92][95] who ruled only in Urkesh.[93] The Akkadians under Naram-Sin incorporated Nagar firmly into their empire.[96] The most important Akkadian building in the city is called the \"Palace of Naram-Sin\",[note 6][96] which had parts of it built over the original Eye Temple.[97][98] Despite its name, the palace is closer to a fortress,[96] as it was more of a fortified depot for the storage of collected tribute rather than a residential seat.[99][100] The palace was burned during Naram-Sin's reign, perhaps by a Lullubi attack,[82] and the city was burned toward the end of the Akkadian period c. 2193 BC, probably by the Gutians.[82]\n\nPost-Akkadian kingdom\n\nIn Brak Period N,[101] the Fall of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2154 BC), saw Nagar becoming a center of an independent Hurrian dynasty,[102] evidenced by the discovery of a seal, recording the name of king Talpus-Atili of Nagar,[103] who ruled during or slightly after the reign of Shar-Kali-Sharri (r. 2217-2193 BC).[104]\n\nUr III Dynasty?\n\nThe view that Tell Brak came under the control of Ur III is refuted,[note 7][106] and evidence exists for a Hurrian rebuilding of Naram-Sin's palace, erroneously attributed by Max Mallowan to Ur-Nammu of Ur.[107] Period N saw a reduction in the city's size, with public buildings being abandoned, and the lower town evacuated.[108] Few short lived houses were built in area CH during period N,[108] and although greatly reduced in size, archaeology provided evidence for continued occupation in the city, instead of abandonment.[note 8][112]\n\nMiddle Bronze\n\nMari Period\n\nDuring Brak Period P (c. 1820-1550 BC; MB II), Nagar was densely populated in the northern ridge of the tell.[113] The city came under the rule of Mari,[114] and was the site of a decisive victory won by Yahdun-Lim of Mari over Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria.[115] Nagar lost its importance and came under the rule of Kahat in the 18th century BC.[12]\n\nLate Bronze\n\nMitanni Period\n\nDuring period Q, Tell Brak was an important trade city in the Mitanni state.[116] A two-story palace was built c. 1500 BC in the northern section of the tell,[113][117] in addition to an associated temple.[118] However, the rest of the tell was not occupied, and a lower town extended to the north but is now all but destroyed through modern agriculture.[119] Two Mitannian legal documents, bearing the names of kings Artashumara and Tushratta (c. 1380-1345 BC), were recovered from the city.[120]\n\nAssyrian period\n\nFollowing the death of king Tushratta, the Mitanni Empire collapsed. In the west the Hittites came and created a vassal buffer state in the region of Hanigalbat, while the Assyrians later took territory from the east. Tell Brak was destroyed between c.1300 and 1275 BC,[119] in two waves, first at the hands of the Assyrian king Adad-Nirari I (r. 1305-1274 BC), then by his successor Shalmaneser I.[121]\n\nIron Age\n\nLittle evidence of an occupation on the tell exists following the destruction of the Mitannian city, however, a series of small villages existed in the lower town during the Assyrian periods.[122] The remains of a Hellenistic settlement were discovered on a nearby satellite tell, to the northwestern edge of the main tell.[122] However, excavations recovered no ceramics of the Parthian-Roman or Byzantine-Sasanian periods, although sherds dating to those periods are noted.[122] In the middle of the first millennium AD, a fortified building was erected in the northeastern lower town.[122] The building was dated by Antoine Poidebard to the Justinian era (sixth century AD), on the basis of its architecture.[122] The last occupation period of the site was during the early Abbasid Caliphate's period,[123] when a canal was built to provide the town with water from the nearby Jaghjagh River.[122]\n\nSociety\n\nPeople and language\n\nThe Halafians were the indigenous people of Neolithic northern Syria,[note 9][125] who later adopted the southern Ubaidian culture.[20] Contact with the Mesopotamian south increased during the early and middle Northern Uruk period,[43] and southern people moved to Tell Brak in the late Uruk period,[126] forming a colony, which produced a mixed society.[56] The Urukean colony was abandoned by the colonists toward the end of the fourth millennium BC, leaving the indigenous Tell Brak a much contracted city.[127][128] The pre-Akkadian kingdom's population was Semitic,[129] and spoke its own East Semitic dialect of the Eblaite language used in Ebla and Mari.[130] The Nagarite dialect is closer to the dialect of Mari rather than that of Ebla.[74]\n\nNo Hurrian names are recorded in the pre-Akkadian period,[87][131] although the name of prince Ultum-Huhu is difficult to understand as Semitic.[132] During the Akkadian period, both Semitic and Hurrian names were recorded,[84][129] as the Hurrians appear to have taken advantage of the power vacuum caused by the destruction of the pre-Akkadian kingdom, in order to migrate and expand in the region.[91] The post-Akkadian period Tell Brak had a strong Hurrian element,[133] and Hurrian named rulers,[129] although the region was also inhabited by Amorite tribes.[134] A number of the Amorite Yaminite tribes settled the surroundings of Tell Brak during the reign of Zimri-Lim of Mari,[134] and each group used its own language (Hurrian and Amorite languages).[134] Tell Brak was a center of the Hurrian-Mitannian empire,[120] which had Hurrian as its official language.[135] However, Akkadian was the region's international language, evidenced by the post-Akkadian and Mitannian eras tablets,[136][137] discovered at Tell Brak and written in Akkadian.[138]\n\nReligion\n\nThe findings in the Eye Temple indicate that Tell Brak is among the earliest sites of organized religion in northern Mesopotamia.[139] It is unknown to which deity the Eye Temple was dedicated,[6] and the \"Eyes\" figurines appears to be votive offerings to that unknown deity.[43] The temple was probably dedicated for the Sumerian Innana or the Semitic Ishtar; Michel Meslin hypothesized that the \"Eyes\" figurines were a representation of an all-seeing female deity.[140]\n\nDuring the pre-Akkadian kingdom's era, Hazna, an old cultic center of northern Syria, served as a pilgrimage center for Nagar.[141] The Eye Temple remained in use,[142] but as a small shrine,[143] while the goddess Belet Nagar became the kingdom's paramount deity.[note 10][142] The temple of Belet Nagar is not identified but probably lies beneath the Mitannian palace.[113] The Eblaite deity Kura was also venerated in Nagar,[132] and the monarchs are attested visiting the temple of the Semitic deity Dagon in Tuttul.[68] During the Akkadian period, the temple in area FS was dedicated to the Sumerian god Shakkan, the patron of animals and countrysides.[85][146][147] Tell Brak was an important religious Hurrian center,[148] and the temple of Belet Nagar retained its cultic importance in the entire region until the early second millennium BC.[note 11][10]\n\nCulture\n\nNorthern Mesopotamia evolved independently from the south during the Late Chalcolithic / early and middle Northern Uruk (4000-3500 BC).[51] This period was characterized by a strong emphasis on holy sites;[150] the Eye Temple was among the most important of these in Tell Brak.[151] The main room of the building containing \"Eyes\" idols in area TW was lined with wooden panels.[37] The building also contained the earliest known semi-columned facade, a character also associated with temples in later periods.[37]\n\nBy late Northern Uruk and especially after 3200 BC, northern Mesopotamia came under the full cultural dominance of the southern Uruk culture,[51] which affected Tell Brak's architecture and administration.[126] The southern influence is most obvious in the level named the \"Latest Jemdet Nasr\" of the Eye Temple,[45] which had southern elements such as cone mosaics.[152] The Uruk presence was peaceful as it is first noted in the context of feasting; commercial deals during that period were traditionally ratified through feasting.[note 12][126][153] The excavations in area TW revealed feasting to be an important local habit, as two cooking facilities, large amounts of grains, skeletons of animals, a domed backing oven and barbequing fire pits were discovered.[154] Among the late Uruk materials found at Tell Brak is a standard text for educated scribes (the \"Standard Professions\" text), part of the standardized education taught in the 3rd millennium BC over a wide area of Syria and Mesopotamia.[155]\n\nThe pre-Akkadian kingdom was famed for its acrobats, who were in demand in Ebla and trained local Eblaite entertainers.[69] The kingdom also had its own local glyptic style called the \"Brak Style\",[156] which was distinct from the southern sealing variants, employing soft circled shapes and sharpened edges.[157] The Akkadian administration had little effect on the local administrative traditions and sealing style,[158] and Akkadian seals existed side by side with the local variant.[159] The Hurrians employed the Akkadian style in their seals, and Elamite seals were discovered, indicating an interaction with the western Iranian Plateau.[159]\n\nTell Brak provided great knowledge on the culture of Mitanni, which produced glass using sophisticated techniques that resulted in different varieties of multicolored and decorated shapes.[120] Samples of the elaborate Nuzi ware were discovered, in addition to seals that combine distinctive Mitannian elements with the international motifs of that period.[120]\n\nPrior to the Nuzi ware, the predominant ceramic tradition at Brak is known as Khabur ware. Nuzi ware retains some shapes of Khabur ware, as well as some of its surface decorations. The fourth and last phase of Khabur ware (around 1500 BC) is generally contemporaneous with Nuzi ware. Both of them occur in parallel for some time at Brak before the Khabur ware disappears.[160]\n\nWagons\n\nSeals from Tell Brak and Nabada dated to the pre-Akkadian kingdom revealed the use of four-wheeled wagons and war carriages.[161] Excavation in area FS recovered clay models of equids and wagons dated to the Akkadian and post-Akkadian periods.[161] The models provide information about the types of wagons used during that period (2350-2000 BC),[162] and they include four-wheeled vehicles and two types of two-wheeled vehicles; the first is a cart with fixed seats and the second is a cart where the driver stands above the axle.[116] The chariots were introduced during the Mitanni era.[116] None of the pre-Mitanni carriages can be considered chariots, as they are mistakenly described in some sources.[116][162]\n\nGovernment\n\nThe first city had the characteristics of large urban centers, such as monumental buildings,[163] and seems to have been ruled by a kinship based assembly, headed by elders.[164] The pre-Akkadian kingdom was decentralized,[165] and the provincial center of Nabada was ruled by a council of elders, next to the king's representative.[166] The Nagarite monarchs had to tour their kingdom regularly in order to assert their political control.[165][167] During the early Akkadian period, Nagar was administrated by local officials.[84] However, central control was tightened and the number of Akkadian officials increased, following the supposed environmental event that preceded the construction of Naram-Sin's palace.[118] The post-Akkadian Nagar was a city-state kingdom,[168] that gradually lost its political importance during the early second millennium BC, as no evidence for a king dating to that period exists.[115]\n\nRulers of Tell Brak\n\nKing\n\nReign\n\nNotes\n\nEarly period, possibly ruled by a local assembly of elders.[164]\n\nPre-Akkadian kingdom of Nagar (c. 2600-2300 BC)\n\nMara-Il\nFl. late 24th century BC.[69]\n\nEarly Akkadian period, early 23rd century BC.[83]\n\nUrkesh dominance, the Urkeshite king Atal-Shen styled himself \"King of Urkesh and Nawar\",[169] so did his successors who ruled only in Urkesh.[93]\n\nAkkadian control, under the rule of Naram-Sin of Akkad.[96]\n\nPost-Akkadian kingdom of Nagar\n\nTalpus-Atili\nFl. end of the third millennium BC.[170]\nStyled himself \"the sun of the country of Nagar\".[91]\n\nVarious foreign rulers such as Mari,[114] Kahat,[12] Mitanni,[116] and Assyria.[171]\n\nEconomy\n\nThroughout its history, Tell Brak was an important trade center; it was an entrepot of obsidian trade during the Chalcolithic, as it was situated on the river crossing between Anatolia, the Levant and southern Mesopotamia.[172] The countryside was occupied by smaller towns, villages and hamlets, but the city's surroundings were empty within three kilometers.[50] This was probably due to the intensive cultivation in the immediate hinterland, in order to sustain the population.[50] The city manufactured different objects, including chalices made of obsidian and white marble,[41] faience,[173] flint tools and shell inlays.[174] However, evidence exists for a slight shift in production of goods toward manufacturing objects desired in the south, following the establishment of the Uruk colony.[126]\n\nTrade was also an important economic activity for the pre-Akkadian kingdom of Nagar,[88] which had Ebla and Kish as major partners.[88] The kingdom produced glass,[173] wool,[69] and was famous for breeding and trading in the Kunga,[175][176] a hybrid of a jenny (a female donkey) and a male Syrian wild ass.[177][176] Tell Brak remained an important commercial center during the Akkadian period,[178] and was one of Mitanni's main trade cities.[116] Many objects were manufactured in Mitannian Tell Brak, including furniture made of ivory, wood and bronze, in addition to glass.[120] The city provided evidence for the international commercial contacts of Mitanni, including Egyptian, Hittite and Mycenaean objects, some of which were produced in the region to satisfy the local taste.[120]\n\nEquids\n\nThe kungas of pre-Akkadian Nagar were used for drawing the carriages of kings before the domestication of the horse,[179] and a royal procession included up to fifty animals.[180] The kungas of Nagar were in great demand in the Eblaite empire;[175] they cost two kilos of silver, fifty times the price of a donkey,[179] and were imported regularly by the monarchs of Ebla to be used as transport animals and gifts for allied cities.[175] The horse was known in the region during the third millennium BC, but was not used as a draught animal before c. 18th century BC.[176]\n\nDonkey burials\n\nBurials of a donkey and a dog were found at Tell Brak as early as the Akkadian period (2580-2455 BCE). They were not accompanied by human interment. Six donkey skeletons and one canine skeleton were found; they were buried below a temple courtyard.[181]\n\nAlso, later, during the Babylonian period, they were found at Tell Ababra in Iraq.[181] Tell Ababra was located in the Hamrin Basin area of Iraq, which is now covered by Lake Hamrin.[182]\n\nAt Tel 'Akko (near Acre, Israel), a donkey was found buried together with a dog, and a part of the upper jawbone of a pig. The burial was dated at the end of the Middle Bronze Age.[181]\n\nSimilar sacrifices of donkeys were also found in large numbers at Tell el-Dab'a in the Nile Delta of Egypt dating to the Middle Bronze Age. Also, similar sacrifices were found at Tel Haror.[181][183]\n\nSite\n\nSoundings were conducted in 1930 by Antoine Poidebard although little was published.[184][4] After a survey of the area in 1934, Tell Brak was excavated for three seasons by the British archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, husband of Agatha Christie, in 1937 and 1938.[185] The artifacts from Mallowan's excavations are now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, National Museum of Aleppo and the British Museum's collection;[186] the latter contain the Tell Brak Head dating to c. 3500-3300 BC.[187][188] Two small cuneiform tablets were found and a half dozen fragments, all in the Akkadian period script.[189]\n\nA team from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London, led by David and Joan Oates, worked in the tell for 14 seasons between 1976 and 1993.[190][191] Finds included several Uruk Period numerical tablets and a number of cuneiform tablets and inscriptions.[192][193][194] After 1993, excavations were conducted by a number of field directors under the general guidance of David (until 2004) and Joan Oates. Those directors included Roger Matthews (in 1994-1996), for the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge; Geoff Emberling (in 1998-2002) and Helen McDonald (in 2000-2004), for the British Institute for the Study of Iraq and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Finds included a large cache of carnelian, gold, silver, and lapis lazuli beads, late 3rd millennium arrowheads, stone maceheads, a range of ceramic wares, and an alabaster statuette of a seated bear.[195][196][197][198][34][199]\n\nIn 2006, Augusta McMahon became field director, also sponsored by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq.[82] A regional archaeological field survey in a 20 km (12 mi) radius around Brak was supervised by Henry T. Wright (in 2002-2005).[200] The survey data was combined with LANDSAT and 1960s era CORONA satellite images as well as historical photographs.[201] Many of the finds from the excavations at Tell Brak are on display in the Deir ez-Zor Museum.[202] A number of Proto-Literate clay tokens were found at the site, mainly in Uruk leveling fill but in one case in a stratified context. Most of the finds were pellets but also cones, discs, and ovioid bullae. In Late Uruk fill a number of large stone spheres and polished teardrops were found.[203]\n\nExcavations took place in the spring of 2011; archaeological work was then suspended due to the Syrian Civil War.[204] According to the Syrian authorities, the camp of archaeologists was looted, along with the tools and ceramics kept in it.[205] The site changed hands between the different combatants, mainly the Kurdish People's Protection Units and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[206] In early 2015, Tell Brak was taken by the Kurdish forces.[207]\n\nSee also\n\nChagar Bazar\n\nCities of the Ancient Near East\n\nHamoukar\n\nTall Al-Hamidiya\n\nTell Aqab\n\nTell Chuera\n\nTell Leilan\n\nTell Mozan\n\nReferences\n\nInformational notes\n\n^ Patzens are large rectangular bricks that come in different sizes.[23]\n\n^ The temple have multiple levels, the earliest two are named the red and grey levels respectively,[43] and they date to LC3.[44] The third level (the white level) is dated to period LC5 (c. 3200-3000 BC),[43][45] while the fourth and current visible one is named the \"Latest Jemdet Nasr\", and also dates to the late fourth millennium BC (LC5).[46] Excavations revealed two rebuilding following the \"Latest Jemdet Nasr\" building, and they date to the Early Dynastic period I.[46][47]\n\n^ Dated to the temple's grey level.[43]\n\n^ The temple is located in area TC, adjacent to the so called \"Brak Oval\" building.[57] It is dated to the Ninevite 5 period,[58] period J c. 2700 BC.[59] The temple consist of a single room with a mud brick altar,[58] and contained a cache of over 500 sealings.[60]\n\n^ The nature of the Akkadian early period is ambiguous, local texts do not reflect the reign of Sargon or his successors.[88] Two bowls bearing Rimush's inscription were discovered in the palace of his nephew Naram-Sin, however, they could have been diplomatic gifts to a local ruler.[89]\n\n^ Some of the building's bricks had Naram-Sin's name stamped on it.[96]\n\n^ Max Mallowan discovered a seal in 1947 and attributed it to Ur-Nammu of Ur; this led to the assumption that Ur controlled Tell-Brak.[105] However, the translation of the seal showed no sign of Ur-Nammu's name\n\n^ Harvey Weiss suggest the total abandonment of Nagar within fifty years following the Akkadians departure,[109] and attribute the event to a climatic disaster.[110] However, this view is controversial.[111]\n\n^ Previously, the Halafians were seen either as hill people who descended from the nearby mountains of southeastern Anatolia, or herdsmen from northern Iraq.[124] However, those views changed with the archaeology conducted by Peter Akkermans, which proved a continuous indigenous origin of Halaf culture.[124]\n\n^ Belet is the feminine form of Bel, the east-Semitic title of a lord deity.[144] Belet-Nagar is translated as the lady of Nagar.[145]\n\n^ Belet-Nagar's worship was spread in wide areas, during year 8 of Amar-Sin's reign, a temple of Belet Nagar was erected in Ur.[149]\n\n^ Geoff Emberling argues for a southern forced take-over instead of a peaceful interaction.[52]\n\nCitations\n\n^ Bowden 2012, p. 48.\n\n^ Oates 2009, pp. 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFOates2009 (help)\n\n^ Andrea (2019-07-31). \"Tell Brak\". www.arch.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-09-14.\n\n^ a b Poidebard, A., I934. La Trace de Rome, Paris.\n\n^ Sołtysiak, Arkadiusz (2015-04-01). \"Early urbanization and mobility at Tell Brak, NE Syria: the evidence from femoral and tibial external shaft shape\". Homo. 66 (2): 101-117. doi:10.1016/j.jchb.2014.09.003. ISSN 0018-442X. PMID 25511782.\n\n^ a b Bertman 2005, p. 31.\n\n^ Max 1994, p. 29.\n\n^ a b Mallowan 1959, p. 24.\n\n^ Mallowan 1947, p. 10.\n\n^ a b c Eidem 1998, p. 75.\n\n^ Oates, Oates & McDonald 1997b, p. 143.\n\n^ a b c Bryce 2009, p. 492.\n\n^ Bryce 2009, p. 493.\n\n^ Oates & Oates 2001, p. 379. sfn error: no target: CITEREFOatesOates2001 (help)\n\n^ a b Buccellati 1999, p. 241.\n\n^ a b Matthews & Eidem 1993, p. 205.\n\n^ Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 4, 5.\n\n^ Matthews 1997, p. 129.\n\n^ Brooke 2014, p. 204.\n\n^ a b Forest 2009, p. 190.\n\n^ a b c d Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 4.\n\n^ [1] Oates, Joan, \"The Terminal Ubaid (LC 1) Level at Tell Brak\", Publications de l'Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes 27.1, pp. 65-86, 2012\n\n^ Moorey 1999, p. 307.\n\n^ Yoffee 2015, p. 159.\n\n^ Oates 1987, p. 193-198.\n\n^ Glassner 2003, p. 31.\n\n^ Brooke 2014, p. 209.\n\n^ Peasnall 2002, p. 372.\n\n^ Demand 2011, p. 74.\n\n^ Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 6.\n\n^ a b c Ur 2010.\n\n^ Emberling et al. 2001, p. 31.\n\n^ a b Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 5.\n\n^ a b Emberling, Geoff, and Helen McDonald, \"Excavations at Tell Brak 2001-2002: Preliminary Report\", Iraq, vol. 65, pp. 1-75, 2003\n\n^ Oates, Joan, \"Tell Brak: Uruk Pottery from the 1984 Season\", Iraq, vol. 47, pp. 175-86, 1985\n\n^ [2] Fragnoli, P., et al., \"Pottery production, early urbanization and the Uruk phenomenon at Tell Brak in Upper Mesopotamia\", Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 17.9, pp. 1-25, 2025\n\n^ a b c d Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 7.\n\n^ Sołtysiak, Arkadiusz, \"Tell Majnuna (Syria), season 2006\", Bioarchaeology of the Near East 2, pp. 77-94, 2008\n\n^ [3]Sołtysiak, Arkadiusz, and Agata Chilińska-Drapella, \"Tell Majnuna (Syria), seasons 2007-2008\", Bioarchaeology of the Near East 3, pp. 53-58, 2009\n\n^ Sołtysiak, Arkadiusz, \"Death and decay at the dawn of the city. Interpretation of human bone deposits at Tell Majnuna, areas MTW, EM and EMS.\", Instytut Archeologii UW, Warszawa, 2010\n\n^ a b Ferguson 2013, p. 220.\n\n^ McMahon, Augusta, et al., \"Late Chalcolithic Mass Graves at Tell Brak, Syria, and Violent Conflict during the Growth of Early City-States\", Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 201-20, 2011\n\n^ a b c d e Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 199.\n\n^ Oates & Oates 2002, p. 152.\n\n^ a b Emberling 2002, p. 87.\n\n^ a b Emberling 2002, p. 84.\n\n^ Matthews 1997, p. 171.\n\n^ Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 198.\n\n^ Oates & Oates 2002, p. 151.\n\n^ a b c Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 8.\n\n^ a b c Averbeck 2003, p. 92.\n\n^ a b Algaze 2013, p. 84.\n\n^ Aubet 2013, p. 174.\n\n^ Demand 2011, p. 83.\n\n^ a b c Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 9.\n\n^ a b Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 200.\n\n^ Sołtysiak 2009, p. 36.\n\n^ a b Akkermans & Schwartz 2003, p. 216.\n\n^ Porter 2012, p. 186.\n\n^ Ur 2010, p. 411.\n\n^ a b Ristvet 2014, p. 217.\n\n^ a b Ur, Karsgaard & Oates 2011, p. 10.\n\n^ Kolinski 2007, p. 358.\n\n^ Emberling et al. 2001, p. 21, 31.\n\n^ Emberling et al. 2001, p. 31.\n\n^ Emberling et al. 2001, p. 33, 34.\n\n^ a b c Eidem, Finkel & Bonechi 2001, p. 99.\n\n^ a b c d e f Eidem, Finkel & Bonechi 2001, p. 100.\n\n^ a b c d e Eidem, Finkel & Bonechi 2001, p. 101.\n\n^ Ristvet 2014, p. 84.\n\n^ Sallaberger & Pruß 2015, p. 85.\n\n^ Ristvet 2014, p. 82.\n\n^ Ristvet 2014, p. 66.\n\n^ a b Lipiński 2001, p. 52.\n\n^ Bretschneider, Van Vyve & Leuven 2009, p. 5.\n\n^ Podany 2010, p. 57.\n\n^ Liverani 2013, p. 208.\n\n^ Biga 2014, p. 103.\n\n^ Podany 2010, p. 58.\n\n^ Archi, Alfonso; Biga, Maria Giovanna (2003). \"A Victory over Mari and the Fall of Ebla\". 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In Henrickson, Elizabeth F.; Thuesen, Ingolf (eds.). Upon this Foundation: The 'Ubaid Reconsidered. Proceedings from the 'Ubaid Symposium, Elsinore, May 30th-June 1st 1988. Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications. Vol. 10. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-87-7289-070-8. ISSN 0902-5499.\n\nAkkermans, Peter M. M. G. (2000). \"Old and New Perspectives on the Origins of the Halaf Culture\". In Rouault, Olivier; Wäfler, Markus (eds.). La Djéziré et l'Euphrate syriens de la protohistoire à la fin du second millénaire av. J.-C.: Tendances dans l'interprétation historique des données nouvelles. Subartu (SUBART). Vol. 7. Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-2-503-51063-7.\n\nAkkermans, Peter M. M. G.; Schwartz, Glenn M. (2003). The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c.16,000-300 BC). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-79666-8.\n\nAlgaze, Guillermo (2013). \"The End of Prehistory and The Uruk Period\". In Crawford, Harriet (ed.). The Sumerian World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-21912-2.\n\nAnthony, David W. (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-3110-4.\n\nArchi, Alfonso (2002). \"Formation of the West Hurrian Pantheon: The Case Of Ishara\". In Yener, K. Aslihan; Hoffner, Harry A.; Dhesi, Simrit (eds.). Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-053-8.\n\nArchi, Alfonso (2009) [2008]. \"Eblaite\". In Brown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-08-087775-4.\n\nAstour, Michael C. (2002). \"A Reconstruction of the History of Ebla (Part 2)\". In Gordon, Cyrus Herzl; Rendsburg, Gary (eds.). Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language. Vol. 4. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-060-6.\n\nAubet, Maria Eugenia (2013). Commerce and Colonization in the Ancient Near East. Translated by Turton, Mary. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51417-0.\n\nAverbeck, Richard E. (2003) [2002]. \"Sumer, the Bible, and Comparative Method: Historiography and Temple Building\". In Chavalas, Mark W.; Younger. Jr, K. Lawson (eds.). Mesopotamia and the Bible: Comparative Explorations. T&T Clark International. ISBN 978-0-567-56900-4.\n\nBertman, Stephen (2005) [2003]. Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\nBiga, Maria Giovanna (2014). \"Inherited Space - Third Millennium Political and Cultural Landscape\". In Cancik-Kirschbaum, Eva; Brisch, Nicole; Eidem, Jesper (eds.). Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space: The Emergence of the Mittani State. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-026641-2.\n\nBillington, Clyde E. (2005). \"Othniel, Cushan-Rishathaim, and the Date of the Exodus\". In Carnagey Sr., Glenn A.; Carnagey Jr., Glenn; Schoville, Keith N. (eds.). Beyond the Jordan: Studies in Honor of W. Harold Mare. Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59752-069-0.\n\nBonatz, Dominik (2014). \"Tell Fekheriye in the Late Bronze Age: Archaeological Investigations into the Structures of Political Governance in the Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont\". In Bonatz, Dominik (ed.). The Archaeology of Political Spaces: The Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont in the Second Millennium BCE. Topoi - Berlin Studies of the Ancient World. Vol. 12. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-026640-5.\n\nBowden, James (2012). \"The Voices of Tell Brak\". Archaeological Diggings. 19 (4). Hornsby, N.S.W.; Down D.K. ISSN 1322-6525. OCLC 47261199.\n\nBretschneider, Joachim; Van Vyve, Anne-Sophie; Leuven, Greta Jans (2009). \"War of the lords, The Battle of Chronology: Trying to Recognize Historical Iconography in the 3rd Millennium Glyptic Art in seals of Ishqi-Mari and from Beydar\". Ugarit-Forschungen. 41. Ugarit-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86835-042-5.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nBrooke, John L. (2014). Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87164-8.\n\nBryce, Trevor (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-15908-6.\n\nBuccellati, Giorgio (1999). \"Urkesh and the Question of Early Hurrian Urbanism\". In Hudson, Michael; Levine, Baruch (eds.). Urbanization and Land Ownership in the Ancient Near East. Peabody Museum Bulletin. Vol. 7. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-87365-957-4.\n\nBurney, Charles (2004). Historical Dictionary of the Hittites. Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras. Vol. 14. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6564-8.\n\nCampbell, Stuart (2012). \"Northern Mesopotamia\". In Potts, Daniel T. (ed.). A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Vol. 1. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-6077-6.\n\nCharles, Michael; Pessin, Hugues; Hald, Mette Marie (2010). \"Tolerating Change at Late Chalcolithic Tell Brak: Responses of an Early Urban Society to an Uncertain Climate\". Environmental Archaeology. 15 (2). Maney Publishing: 183-198. Bibcode:2010EnvAr..15..183C. doi:10.1179/146141010X12640787648892. ISSN 1749-6314. S2CID 128896094.\n\nCharpin, Dominique (2010) [2008]. Reading and Writing in Babylon. Translated by Todd, Jane Marie. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-04968-0.\n\nCollins, Paul (2003). \"Frieze From a Temple Altar\". In Aruz, Joan; Wallenfels, Ronald (eds.). Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-043-1.\n\nCollon, Dominique (1995). Ancient Near Eastern Art. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20307-5.\n\nDemand, Nancy H. (2011). The Mediterranean Context of Early Greek History. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-4234-5.\n\nEidem, Jesper; Finkel, Irving; Bonechi, Marco (2001). \"The Third-millennium Inscriptions\". In Oates, David; Oates, Joan; McDonald, Helen (eds.). Excavations at Tell Brak, Volume 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-9519420-9-3.\n\nElger, Katrin (August 4, 2014). \"Monuments Men: The Quest to Save Syria's History\". Spiegel Online. Retrieved December 26, 2016.\n\nEmberling, Geoff; McDonald, Helen; Charles, Michael; Green, Walton A.; Hald, Mette Marie; Weber, Jill; Wright, Henry T. (2001). \"Excavations at Tell Brak 2000: Preliminary report\". IRAQ. 63. Cambridge University Press - On Behalf of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial): 21-54. doi:10.2307/4200500. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200500. S2CID 130179245.\n\nEmberling, Geoff (2002). \"Political Control in an Early State: The Eye Temple and the Uruk Expansion in Northern Mesopotamia\". In Al-Gailani Werr, Lamia; Curtis, John; Martin, Harriet; McMahon, Augusta; Oates, Joan; Reade, Julian (eds.). Of Pots and Plans: Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria presented to David Oates in Honour of his 75th Birthday. NABU Booksellers. ISBN 978-1-897750-62-9.\n\nEmberling, Geoff (2015). \"Mesopotamian Cities and Urban Process, 3500-1600 BCE\". In Yoffee, Norman (ed.). The Cambridge World History, Volume 3: Early Cities in Comparative Perspective 4000BCE-1200CE. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19008-4.\n\nEvans, Jean M. (2003). \"Tell Brak in the Akkadian Period\". In Aruz, Joan; Wallenfels, Ronald (eds.). Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-043-1.\n\nEvans, Jean M. (2008). \"The Mitanni State\". In Aruz, Joan; Benzel, Kim; Evans, Jean M. (eds.). Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-295-4.\n\nFerguson, R. Brian (2013). \"Prehistory of War and Peace in Europe and the Near East\". In Fry, Douglas P. (ed.). War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-985900-9.\n\nForest, Jean-Daniel (2009). \"The State: The Process of State Formation as Seen from Mesopotamia\". In Pollock, Susan; Bernbeck, Reinhard (eds.). Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-3723-2.\n\nGarfinkle, Steven J. (2013). \"Ancient Near Eastern City States\". In Bang, Peter Fibiger; Scheidel, Walter (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518831-8.\n\nGlassner, Jean-Jacques (2003) [2000]. The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer. Translated by Bahrani, Zainab; Van de Mieroop, Marc. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7389-8.\n\nGuichard, Michaël (2014). \"Political Space - Local Political Structures in Northern Syria. The Case of the Country of Ida-Maras in the Eighteenth Century BC\". In Cancik-Kirschbaum, Eva; Brisch, Nicole; Eidem, Jesper (eds.). Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space: The Emergence of the Mittani State. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-026641-2.\n\nHamblin, William J. (2006). Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-52062-6.\n\nJawad, Abdul Jalil (1965). The Advent of the Era of Townships in Northern Mesopotamia. Brill. OCLC 432527.\n\nJennings, Justin (2011). Globalizations and the Ancient World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-49292-8.\n\nKolinski, Rafal (2007). \"The Upper Khabur Region in the Second Part of the Third Millennium BC\". Altorientalische Forschungen. 34 (1-2). Walter de Gruyter. doi:10.1524/aofo.2007.34.12.346. ISSN 2196-6761. S2CID 201100256.\n\nEidem, Eidem (1998). \"Nagar\". In Edzard, Dietz-Otto (ed.). Nab - Nuzi. Vol. 9. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-017296-6. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)\n\nKuz'mina, Elena E. (2007). Mallory, James Patrick (ed.). The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. Translated by Pitina, Svetlana; Prudovsky, P. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-16054-5.\n\nLæssøe, Jørgen (1963). People of Ancient Assyria: Their Inscriptions and Correspondence. Translated by Leigh-Browne, Frederick Sebastian. Routledge. OCLC 2086093.\n\nLaSor, William Sanford (1988). \"Syria\". In Bromiley, Geoffrey W.; Harrison, Everett F.; Harrison, Roland K.; LaSor, William Sanford (eds.). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Vol. 4 (fully revised ed.). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-3784-4.\n\nLeick, Gwendolyn (2002). Who's Who in the Ancient Near East. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-78796-8.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2001). Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. Vol. 80 (2 ed.). Peeters Publishers & Department of Oriental Studies, Leuven. ISBN 978-90-429-0815-4. ISSN 0777-978X.\n\nLiverani, Mario (2013). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.\n\nMallowan, Max Edgar Lucien (1947). \"Part I. Brak and Chagar Bazar: Their Contribution to Archaeology\". IRAQ. 9 (1). Cambridge University Press - On Behalf of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial): 10-47. doi:10.1017/S002108890000615X. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 132151508.\n\nMallowan, Max Edgar Lucien (1959). Twenty-Five Years of Mesopotamian Discovery (1932-1956). British School of Archaeology in Iraq. OCLC 928965616.\n\nMatney, Timothy (2012). \"Northern Mesopotamia\". In Potts, Daniel T. (ed.). A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Vol. 1. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-6077-6.\n\nMatthews, Donald; Eidem, Jesper (1993). \"Tell Brak and Nagar\". IRAQ. 55. Cambridge University Press - On Behalf of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial): 201-207. doi:10.2307/4200376. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200376. S2CID 191403234.\n\nMatthews, Donald M. (1997). The Early Glyptic of Tell Brak: Cylinder Seals of Third Millennium Syria. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis- Series Archaeologica. Vol. 15. University Press Fribourg Switzerland. ISBN 978-3-525-53896-8.\n\nMax, Gerald E. (1994). \"Ancient Near East\". In Wiegand, Wayne A.; Davis. Jr, Donald G. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Library History. Garland Publishing. ISBN 978-1-135-78757-8.\n\nMcDonald, Helen (1997). \"The Beads\". In Oates, David; Oates, Joan; McDonald, Helen (eds.). Excavations at Tell Brak, Volume 1: The Mitanni and Old Babylonian periods. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-9519420-5-5.\n\nMcIntosh, Jane (2005). Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-965-2.\n\nMcMahon, Augusta; Oates, Joan; al-Quntar, Salam; Colantoni, Carlo; Hald, Mette Marie; Karsgaard, Philip; Khalidi, Lamya; Sołtysiak, Arkadiusz; Stone, Adam; Weber, Jill (2007). \"Excavations at Tell Brak 2006-2007\". IRAQ. 69. Cambridge University Press - On Behalf of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial): 145-171. doi:10.1017/S0021088900001091. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 131779390.\n\nMcMahon, Augusta (2012). \"The Akkadian Period: Empire, Environment, and Imagination\". In Potts, Daniel T. (ed.). A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Vol. 1. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-6077-6.\n\nMcMahon, Augusta (2013). \"North Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium BC\". In Crawford, Harriet (ed.). The Sumerian World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-21912-2.\n\nMichałowski, Piotr (2003). \"An Early Dynastic Tablet of ED Lu A From Tell Brak (Nagar)\". Cuneiform Digital Library Journal. 3. Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. ISSN 1540-8779.\n\nMiller, Douglas B.; Shipp, R. Mark (1996) [1993]. An Akkadian Handbook: Paradigms, Helps, Glossary, Logograms, and Sign List. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-0-931464-86-7.\n\nMoorey, Peter Roger Stuart (1999) [1994]. Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-042-2.\n\nOates, David (1982). \"Tell Brak\". In Curtis, John (ed.). Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery, the Work of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1932-1982. British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-903472-05-0.\n\nOates, David; Oates, Joan; McDonald, Helen, eds. (1997a). \"The Excavations\". Excavations at Tell Brak, Volume 1: The Mitanni and Old Babylonian periods. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-9519420-5-5.\n\nOates, David; Oates, Joan; McDonald, Helen, eds. (1997b). \"Historical Commentary\". Excavations at Tell Brak, Volume 1: The Mitanni and Old Babylonian periods. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-9519420-5-5.\n\nOates, David; Oates, Joan (2001a). \"Archaeological Reconstruction and Historical Commentary\". In Oates, David; Oates, Joan; McDonald, Helen (eds.). Excavations at Tell Brak, Volume 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-9519420-9-3.\n\nOates, David; Oates, Joan (2001b). \"Tell Brak\". In Trümpler, Charlotte (ed.). Agatha Christie and Archaeology. British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-1148-3.\n\nOates, David; Oates, Joan (2002). \"The Reattribution of Middle Uruk Materials at Tell Brak\". In Ehrenberg, Erica (ed.). Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt in Honor of Donald P. Hansen. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-055-2.\n\nOates, Joan (1987). \"A Note on 'Ubaid and Mitanni Pottery from Tell Brak\". IRAQ. 49. Cambridge University Press - On Behalf of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial): 193-198. doi:10.2307/4200272. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200272. S2CID 162275365.\n\nOates, Joan (2001). \"The Third-millennium Pottery\". In Oates, David; Oates, Joan; McDonald, Helen (eds.). Excavations at Tell Brak, Volume 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. ISBN 978-0-9519420-9-3.\n\nOates, Joan (2005). \"Archaeology in Mesopotamia: Digging Deeper at Tell Brak\". 2004 Lectures (PDF). Proceedings of the British Academy. Vol. 131. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-726351-8. ISSN 0068-1202.\n\nOates, Joan (2007). \"Monumental Public Architecture in Late Chakolithic and Bronze Age Mesopotamia, with particular reference to Tell Brak and Tell al Rimah\". In Bretschneider, Joachim; Driessen, Jan; van Lerberghe, Karel (eds.). Power and Architecture: Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. Vol. 156. Peeters Publishers & Department of Oriental Studies, Leuven. ISBN 978-90-429-1831-3. ISSN 0777-978X.\n\nPeasnall, Brian (2002). \"Ubaid\". In Peregrine, Peter N.; Ember, Melvin (eds.). Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Volume 8: South and Southwest Asia. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. ISBN 978-0-306-46262-7.\n\nPerry, Tom (February 22, 2014). \"Syrian Kurds Take Town From Islamists: Watchdog\". Reuters. Retrieved December 26, 2016.\n\nPeyronel, Luca (2006). \"Excavations at Tell Brak, Vol. 2: Nagar in the Third Millennium BC\". Orientalia. 75 (4). Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. OCLC 557711946.\n\nPeyronel, Luca; Vacca, Agnese (2013). \"Natural Resources, Technology and Manufacture Processes at Ebla. A Preliminary Assessment\". In Matthiae, Paolo; Marchetti, Nicolò (eds.). Ebla and its Landscape: Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East. Left Coast Press. ISBN 978-1-61132-228-6.\n\nPodany, Amanda H. (2010). Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-979875-9.\n\nPorter, Anne (2012). Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76443-8.\n\nRaccidi, Mattia (2013). \"Wagons and Carts in the 3rd Millennium BC. Syrian Jazirah: A Study Through the Documentation\". In Veldmeijer, André J.; Ikram, Salima (eds.). Chasing Chariots: Proceedings of the first international chariot conference (Cairo 2012). Sidestone Press. ISBN 978-90-8890-209-3.\n\nRistvet, Lauren (2014). Ritual, Performance, and Politics in the Ancient Near East. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-19503-1.\n\nSallaberger, Walther (2007). \"From Urban Culture to Nomadism : A History of Upper Mesopotamia in the Late Third Millennium\". In Kuzucuoğlu, Catherine; Marro, Catherine (eds.). Sociétés Humaines et Changement Climatique à la Fin du Troisième Millénaire: Une Crise a-t-elle eu Lieu en Haute Mésopotamie?, Actes du Colloque de Lyon (5-8 décembre 2005). Vol. 19. l'Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes. ISBN 978-2-906053-94-6. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)\n\nSallaberger, Walther; Pruß, Alexander (2015). \"Home and Work in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia:\"Ration Lists\" and \"Private Houses\" at Tell Beydar/Nabada\". In Steinkeller, Piotr; Hudson, Michael (eds.). Labor in the Ancient World. International Scholars Conference on Ancient Near Eastern Economics. Vol. 5. Islet Press. ISBN 978-3-981-48423-6.\n\nSołtysiak, Arkadiusz (2009). \"Short Fieldwork Report: Tell Brak (Syria), Seasons 1984-2009\". Bioarchaeology of the Near East. 3. Department of Bioarchaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. ISSN 1898-9403.\n\nSommerville, Quentin (March 15, 2015). \"Volunteering with the Kurds to fight IS\". BBC. Retrieved December 26, 2016.\n\nUlmer, Rivka (2009). Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash. Studia Judaica: Forschungen zur Wissenschaft des Judentums. Vol. 52. Walter de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110223934. ISBN 978-3-11-022392-7. ISSN 0585-5306.\n\nUr, Jason (2009). \"Emergent Landscapes of Movement in Early Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia\". In Snead, James E.; Erickson, Clark L.; Darling, J. Andrew (eds.). Landscapes of Movement: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective. Penn Museum International Research Conferences. Vol. 1. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-1-934536-53-7.\n\nUr, Jason Alik (2010). \"Cycles of Civilization in Northern Mesopotamia, 4400-2000 BC\". Journal of Archaeological Research. 18 (4). Springer: 387-431. doi:10.1007/s10814-010-9041-y. ISSN 1059-0161. S2CID 145000732.\n\nUr, Jason; Karsgaard, Philip; Oates, Joan (2011). \"The Spatial Dimensions of Early Mesopotamian Urbanism: The Tell Brak Suburban Survey, 2003-2006\". IRAQ. 73. Cambridge University Press - On Behalf of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial): 1-19. doi:10.1017/S0021088900000061. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 33518626.\n\nvan Soldt, Wilfred H (2010). \"The Adaptation of the Cuneiform Script to Foreign Languages\". In de Voogt, Alexander J.; Finkel, Irving L. (eds.). The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17446-7.\n\nWeiss, Harvey (1983). \"Excavations at Tell Leilan and the Origins of North Mesopotamian cities in the Third Millennium B.C.\". Paléorient. 9 (2). Association Paléorient: 39-52. doi:10.3406/paleo.1983.4340. ISSN 0153-9345.\n\nWeiss, Harvey (2012). \"Quantifying Collapse: The Late Third Millennium Khabur Plains\". In Weiss, Harvey (ed.). Seven Generations Since the Fall of Akkad. Studia Chaburensia. Vol. 3. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-06823-9. ISSN 1869-845X.\n\nWeiss, Harvey (2013). \"The Northern Levant During the Intermediate Bronze Age: Altered Trajectories\". In Steiner, Margreet L.; Killebrew, Ann E. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000-332 BCE. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-166255-3.\n\nWilhelm, Gernot (2008). \"Hurrian\". In Woodard, Roger D. (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-46933-3.\n\nWossink, Arne (2009). Challenging Climate Change: Competition and Cooperation Among Pastoralists and Agriculturalists in Northern Mesopotamia (c. 3000-1600 BC). Sidestone Press. ISBN 978-90-8890-031-0.\n\nYoffee, Norman (2015) [2012]. \"Deep Pasts Interconnections and Comparative History in the Ancient World\". In Northrop, Douglas (ed.). A Companion to World History. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-30547-8.\n\nFurther reading\n\nGeneral\n\nBiga, M. G., \"The Marriage of Eblaite Princess Tagrisˇ-Damu with a Son of Nagar's King\", Subartu, IV, 2, pp. 17-22, 1998\n\nOates, Joan, and David Oates, \"An open gate: Cities of the fourth millennium BC (Tell Brak 1997).\" Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7.2, pp. 287-297, 1997\n\nOates, David; Oates, Joan (1989). \"Akkadian Buildings at Tell Brak\". Iraq. 51: 193-211. doi:10.2307/4200303. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200303. S2CID 162449952.\n\nOates, Joan (1982j). \"Some Late Early Dynastic III Pottery from Tell Brak\". Iraq. 44 (2): 205-219. doi:10.2307/4200163. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200163. S2CID 163191059.\n\nWilhelm, G. (1991). \"A Hurrian Letter from Tell Brak\" (PDF). Iraq. 53: 159-168. doi:10.2307/4200345. ISSN 0021-0889. JSTOR 4200345. S2CID 162464364.\n\n[4] Ur, Jason A., \"Urban form at Tell Brak across three millennia.\", in Preludes to Urbanism: Studies in the Late Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia in Honour of Joan Oates, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2014\n\nExcavation Related\n\nAmbers, J., \"Radiocarbon results from Tell Brak\", Iraq 55, pp. 198-199, 1993\n\nBowman, S. G. E., and J. C. Ambers, \"Radiocarbon Dates for Tell Brak, 1987\", Iraq, vol. 51, pp. 213-15, 1989\n\nClutton-Brock, Juliet, \"A Dog and a Donkey Excavated at Tell Brak\", Iraq, vol. 51, pp. 217-24, 1989\n\nClutton-Brock, Juliet, and Sophie Davies, \"More Donkeys from Tell Brak\", Iraq, vol. 55, pp. 209-21, 1993\n\nEmberling, Geoff, et al., \"Excavations at Tell Brak 1998: preliminary report.\", Iraq, pp. 1-41, 1991\n\nFielden, Kate, \"Tell Brak 1976: the pottery.\", Iraq 39.2, pp. 245-255, 1977\n\nFielden, Kate, \"A Late Uruk pottery group from Tell Brak, 1978\", Iraq 43, pp. 157-166, 1981\n\nMallowan, M. E. L., \"Excavations at Brak and Chagar Bazar\", Iraq, vol. 9, pp. 1-259, 1947\n\n[5] Roger Mathews, \"Excavations at Tell Brak 4: Exploring an Upper Mesopotamian Regional Centre, 1994-1996\", McDonald Institute Monographs, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, July 15, 2003 ISBN 978-1902937168\n\nOates, David, \"The Excavations at Tell Brak, 1976.\", Iraq 39.2, pp. 233-244, 1977\n\nOates, David, \"Excavations at Tell Brak, 1978-81.\", Iraq 44.2, pp. 187-204, 1982\n\nOates, David, \"Excavations at Tell Brak, 1983-84.\", Iraq 47, pp. 159-173, 1985\n\nOates, David, \"Excavations at tell brak 1985-86.\", Iraq 49, pp. 175-191, 1987\n\nOates, David, and Joan Oates, \"Excavations at Tell Brak 1990-91.\", Iraq 53, pp. 127-145, 1991\n\n[6] Oates, David, and Joan Oates, \"Excavations at Tell Brak. v. 1: The Mitanni and Old Babylonian periods\", McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1997\n\n[7] Oates, David, and Joan Oates, \"Excavations at Tell Brak. v. 2: Nagar in the third millennium BC\", McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2001\n\nOates, Joan, \"Excavations at Tell Brak, NE Syria, 1992.\", Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3.1, pp. 137-140, 1993\n\nExternal links\n\nPiotr Michałowski, \"Bibliographical information (Tell Brak & related matters)\n\nSciAm: Ancient Squatters May Have Been the World's First Suburbanites Archived 2020-06-21 at the Wayback Machine\n\nDeath and the City: Recent Work at Tell Brak, Syra - Oriental Institute video/audio lecture Archived 2013-11-11 at the Wayback Machine\n\nWhite-Levy Brak publication project\n\nBISI Webinar: Prof Augusta McMahon on 'From Tell Brak to Lagash' - Augusta McMahon - Feb 21, 2022\n\nArchaeology breakthrough after spy satellite images unveiled world's 'first city' - Express - Mar 8, 2022"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-brak"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 10882}, {"slug": "reference-saint-thomas-christians", "title": "Saint Thomas Christians", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani, or Nasrani Mappila, are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala (Malabar region),[7] who, for the most part, employ the Eastern and Western liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity.[8] They...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint Thomas Christians\n(മാർ തോമാ നസ്രാണി)\nSaint Thomas cross\n\nTotal population\n\nApprox. 6,000,000 (2018)[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nIndia (Kerala, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai); UAE (Dubai); Oman; Kuwait; USA (New York metropolitan area, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Tampa, Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area); Canada (Toronto, Edmonton, Whitehorse); UK (London, Birmingham); The Netherlands (Amsterdam)[2][3]\n\nLanguages\n\nVernacular: Malayalam\n\nLiturgical: Syriac (Aramaic)[4]\n\nReligion\n\nChristianity\n\nSaint Thomas Christian denominations\n\nCatholic\n\nSyro-Malabar Church (East Syriac Rite)\n\nSyro-Malankara Church (West Syriac Rite)\n\nOriental Orthodox (West Syriac Rite)\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nMalabar Independent Syrian Church\n\nAssyrian Church of the East (East Syriac Rite)\n\nChaldean Syrian Church\n\nOriental Protestant Christianity (Reformed-West Syriac Rite)\n\nMalankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church\n\nSt. Thomas Evangelical Church of India\n\nProtestant\n\nSaint Thomas Anglicans of the Church of South India (C.S.I. Rite)\n\nPentecostal Saint Thomas Christians (riteless/nonliturgical)\n\nRelated ethnic groups\n\nMalayalis,[5] Knanaya, Cochin Jews, Assyrians[6] \n\nThe Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani, or Nasrani Mappila, are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala (Malabar region),[7] who, for the most part, employ the Eastern and Western liturgical rites of Syriac Christianity.[8] They trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.[9][10] The Saint Thomas Christians had been historically a part of the hierarchy of the Church of the East but are now divided into several different Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and independent bodies, each with their own liturgies and traditions.[9] They are based in Kerala and they speak Malayalam.[5][11] Nasrani or Nazarene is a Syriac term for Christians, who were among the first converts to Christianity in the Near East.\n\nHistorically, this community was organised as the Province of India of the Church of the East, by Patriarch Timothy I (780-823 AD) in the eighth century, it was served by bishops and a local dynastic archdeacon.[8][12][13] In the 14th century, the Church of the East declined in the Near East, due to persecution from Tamerlane.[14][15][16][17][18] Portuguese colonial overtures to bring St Thomas Christians into the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, administered by their Padroado system in the 16th century, led to the first of several rifts (schisms) in the community.[19][20][21] The attempts of the Portuguese culminated in the Synod of Diamper, formally subjugating them to the Portuguese Padroado and imposing upon them the Roman Rite of worship. The Portuguese oppression provoked a violent resistance among the Thomasine Christians, that took expression in the Coonan Cross Oath protest in 1653. This led to the permanent schism among the Thomas' Christians of India, leading to the formation of Puthankoor or Puthankūttukār (\"New allegiance\" ) and Paḻayakūṟ or Pazhayakūr (\"Old allegiance\") factions.[22] The Paḻayakūṟ comprise the present day Syro-Malabar Church and Chaldean Syrian Church which continue to employ the original East Syriac Rite.[8][23][24][25][26][27] The Puthankoottukar, who continued to resist the Catholic missionaries, organized themselves as the independent Malankara Church and entered into a new communion with the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, inheriting from them the West Syriac Rite, replacing the old East Syriac Rite liturgy.[28][8][29]\n\nThe Chaldean Syrian Church based in Thrissur represents the continuation of the traditional pre-sixteenth century church of Saint Thomas Christians in India.[30][31] It forms the Indian archdiocese of the Iraq-based Assyrian Church of the East, which is one of the descendant churches of the Church of the East. They were a minority faction within the Paḻayakūṟ faction, which joined with the Church of the East Bishop during the 1870s.[32]\n\nThe Eastern Catholic faction is in full communion with the Holy See in Rome. This includes the aforementioned Syro-Malabar Church, which follows the East Syriac Rite, as well as the West Syriac Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.[33][8] The Oriental Orthodox faction includes the autocephalous Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and Malabar Independent Syrian Church along with the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, an integral part of the Syriac Orthodox Church headed by the Patriarch of Antioch.[28]\n\nOriental Protestant denominations include the Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India.[34] Being a Reformed church influenced by Anglican missionaries in the 1800s, the Mar Thoma Church employs a Reformed variant of the liturgical West Syriac Rite.[35][36] The St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India is an evangelical faction that split off from the Marthoma Church in 1961.[37] Meanwhile, the CSI Syrian Christians represents those Malankara Syrian Christians, who joined the Anglican Church in 1836 and eventually became part of the Church of South India, a United Protestant denomination. The CSI is in full communion with the Mar Thoma Syrian Church.[38][39][40][41] By the 20th century, various Syrian Christians joined Pentecostal and other evangelical denominations like the Kerala Brethren, Indian Pentecostal Church of God, Assemblies of God, among others. They are known as Pentecostal Saint Thomas Christians.[42][43]\n\nTerminology\n\nThe Saint Thomas Christians have also been nicknamed such due to their reverence for Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is said to have brought Christianity to India. The name dates back to the period of Portuguese colonisation. They are also known, especially locally, as Nasrani or Nasrani Mappila. The former means Christian; it appears to have been derived from the Hebrew word Netzer or the Aramaic Nasraya from Isaiah 11:1. Nasrani is evolved from the Syriac term for \"Christian\" that emerges from the Greek word Nazōraioi, Nazarene in English. Mappila is an honorific applied to members of non-Indian faiths and descendants of immigrants from the Middle East who had intermarried with the local population, including Muslims (Jonaka Mappila) and Jews (Yuda Mappila).[44][45] Some Syrian Christians of Travancore continue to attach this honorific title to their names.[46] The Government of India designates members of the community as Syrian Christians, a term originating with the Dutch colonial authority that distinguishes the Saint Thomas Christians, who used Syriac (within East Syriac Rite or West Syriac Rite) as their liturgical language, from newly evangelised Christians who followed the Roman Rite.[47] The terms Syrian or Syriac relate not to their ethnicity but to their historical, religious and liturgical connection to the Church of the East, or East Syriac Church.[44]\n\nHistory\n\nOrigin\n\nAccording to tradition, Thomas the Apostle came to Muziris on the Kerala coast in 52 AD[48][49][9] which is in present-day Pattanam, near Kodungallur, Kerala.[50] However, the visit of St. Thomas is still a matter of dispute among historians.[51]\n\nThe Cochin Jews are known to have existed in Kerala in the 1st century AD,[10][52] and it was possible for an Aramaic-speaking Jew, such as St. Thomas from Galilee, to make a trip to Kerala then.[53] The earliest known source connecting the Apostle to Northwest India, specifically the Indo-Parthian Kingdom, is the Acts of Thomas, likely written in the early 3rd century, perhaps in Edessa.[54]\n\nA number of 3rd and 4th century Roman writers also mention Thomas' trip to India, including Ambrose of Milan, Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, and Ephrem the Syrian, while Eusebius of Caesarea records that St. Clement of Alexandria's teacher Pantaenus from Alexandria visited a Christian community in India using the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew in the 2nd century.[55][56]\n\nThe tradition of origin of the Christians in Kerala is found in a version of the Songs of Thomas or Thomma Parvam, written in 1601 and believed to be a summary of a larger and older work.[57][58] Thomas is described as arriving in or around Maliankara and founding Ēḻarappaḷḷikaḷ (Seven great churches): Kodungallur, Kottakavu, Palayoor, Kokkamangalam, Nilackal, Niranam and Kollam.[59] Some other churches, namely Thiruvithamcode Arappally (a \"half church\"),[60][61][62] Malayattoor and Aruvithura are often called Arappallikal.[63] The Thomma Parvam also narrates the conversion of Jews, natives, and the local King at Kodungallur by St Thomas. It is possible that the Jews who became Christians at that time were absorbed by what became the Nasrani Community in Kerala.[53][64] The Thomma Parvam further narrates St Thomas's mission in the rest of South India and his martyrdom at Mylapore in present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu.[65][66] According to legend, the community began with Thomas's conversion of 32 Brahmin families, namely Pakalomattom, Sankarapuri, Kalli, Kaliyankal, Koikara, Madapoor, Muttodal, Kottakara, Nedumpilly, Palackal, Panakkamattom, Kunnappilly, Vazhappilly, Payyappilly, Maliakkal, Pattamukku, Thaiyil, etc.[67][68][69]\n\nWhile there is much doubt on the cultural background of early Christians, there is evidence that some members of the St Thomas Christian community observed Brahmin customs in the Middle Ages, such as the wearing of the Upanayana (sacred thread) and having a kudumi.[74] The medieval historian Pius Malekandathil believes these were customs adopted and privileges won during the beginning of the Brahmin dominance of medieval Kerala. He argues that the Syrian Christians in Kerala, integrated with Persian Christian migrant merchants, in the 9th century to become a powerful trading community and were granted the privileges by the local rulers to promote revenue generation and to undermine Buddhist and Jain traders who rivaled the Brahmins for religious and political hegemony in Kerala at the time.[70][73]\n\nAn organized Christian presence in India dates to the arrival of East Syriac settlers and missionaries from Persia, members of what would become the Church of the East, in around the 3rd century.[75][76] Saint Thomas Christians trace the further growth of their community to the arrival of Jewish-Christians (early East Syriac Christians) from the region of Mesopotamia led by Knāi Thoma (anglicized as Thomas of Cana), which is said to have occurred either in the 4th or 8th century.[77] The subgroup of the Saint Thomas Christians known as the Knanaya or Southists trace their lineage to Thomas of Cana, while the group known as the Northists claim descent from the early Christians evangelized by Thomas the Apostle.[78] The traditional histories of the Thomas Christians note that the immigration of the Knanites reinvigorated the church of India, which was at the moment of their arrival deprived of ecclesial leadership.[79] The arrival of the migrants is also associated with connecting the native Church of St. Thomas with the Syriac Christian tradition of the Church of the East.[1][80][81]\n\nDuring this time period Thomas of Cana received copper plates of socio-economic and religious rights for his relations, his party, and all people of his religion. The granting of these plates is noted to have enhanced the social position of all the ancient Christians of India and secured for them royal protection from the Chera dynasty. The Thomas of Cana copper plates were extant in Kerala until the 17th century after which point they were lost.[82][79][75]\n\nClassical period\n\nAs the community grew and immigration by East Syriac Christians increased, the connection with the Church of the East, centred in the Persian capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, strengthened. From the early 4th century the Patriarch of the Church of the East provided India with clergy, holy texts, and ecclesiastical infrastructure, and around 650 Patriarch Ishoyahb III solidified the Church of the East's jurisdiction over the Saint Thomas Christian community.[86][87] In the 8th century Patriarch Timothy I organised the community as the Ecclesiastical Province of India, one of the church's Provinces of the Exterior.[13] After this point the Province of India was headed by a metropolitan bishop, dispatched from Persia, the \"Metropolitan-Bishop of the Seat of Saint Thomas and the Whole Christian Church of India\".[8][12] His metropolitan see was probably in Cranganore, or (perhaps nominally) in Mylapore, where the shrine of Thomas was located.[12] Under him were a varying number of bishops, as well as a native Archdeacon, who had authority over the clergy and who wielded a great amount of secular power.[12]\n\nSome contact and transmission of knowledge of the Saint Thomas Christians managed to reach the Christian West, even after the rise of the Islamic empires.[88] Byzantine traveller Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote of Syrian Christians he met in India and Sri Lanka in the 6th century.[89][87][90] In 883 the English king Alfred the Great reportedly sent a mission and gifts to Saint Thomas' tomb in India.[88] During the Crusades, distorted accounts of the Saint Thomas Christians and the Nestorian Church gave rise to the European legend of Prester John.[91]\n\nThe port at Kollam, then known as Quilon, was founded in 825 by Maruvān Sapir Iso, a Persian Christian merchant, with sanction from Ayyanadikal Thiruvadikal, the king of the independent Venad or the State of Quilon, a feudatory under Sthanu Ravi Varma Perumal of the Chera kingdom.[96][97] Sapir Iso is usually identified either as the East Syriac Christian merchant who led the East Syriac bishops Mar Sabor and Mar Proth to the Christians of Malabar or as the first of those two bishops. This accompanied the second Assyrian migration into the Malabar coast other than the Knanaya migration. The two bishops were instrumental in founding many Christian churches with Syrian liturgy along the Malabar coast and were venerated as Qandishangal (saints) since then by the Thomas Christians.[98] It is believed that Sapir Iso also proposed that the Chera king create a new seaport near Kollam in lieu of his request that he rebuild the almost vanished inland seaport at Kollam (kore-ke-ni) near Backare (Thevalakara), also known as Nelcynda and Tyndis to the Romans and Greeks and as Thondi to the Tamils, which had been without trade for several centuries because the Cheras were overrun by the Pallavas in the 6th century, ending the spice trade from the Malabar coast.[99] The Tharisapalli plates presented to Maruvan Sapor Iso by Ayyanadikal Thiruvadikal granted the Christians the privilege of overseeing foreign trade in the city as well as control over its weights and measures in a move designed to increase Quilon's trade and wealth.[100]\n\nThus began the Malayalam Era, known as Kollavarsham after the city, indicating the importance of Kollam in the 9th century.[101]\n\nThe great distances involved and the geopolitical turmoil of the period caused India to be cut off from the church's heartland in Mesopotamia at several points. In the 11th century the province was suppressed by the church entirely, as it had become impossible to reach,[102] but effective relations were restored by 1301.[103] However, following the collapse of the Church of the East's hierarchy in most of Asia later in the 14th century, India was effectively cut off from the church, and formal contact was severed. By the late 15th century India had had no metropolitan for several generations, and the authority traditionally associated with him had been vested in the archdeacon.[104]\n\nMS Vatican Syriac 22 is the oldest known Syriac manuscript copied in India.[8][105] It is a lectionary of Pauline Epistles copied in 1301 AD (1612 AG) in Kodungallūr (Cranganore, Classical Syriac: ܫܸܢܓܲܲܠܐ, romanized: Shengala) at the Church dedicated to Mar Quriaqos.[105][106][98][107]\n\nMS Vatican Syriac 22 has the following passage about the \"Catholicos-Patriarch of the East\" and the \"Metropolitan of India\" in folio 93r- 94v:\n\nThis holy book has been copied in the royal, renowned and famous town Shengala, which is in Malabar in the land of India, in the holy Church dedicated to the Mar Quriaqos, the glorious martyr... whilst our blessed and holy father Mar Yahballaha the fifth, the Turk, qatoliqa Patriakis of the East, the head of all the countries, was great governor, holding the offices of the Catholic Church of East, the shining lamp which illuminates its regions, the head of the pastors and Pontiff of the pontiffs, Head of great high priests, Father of the fathers... The Lord may make long his life and protect his days in order that he may govern her, a long time, for her glory and for the exaltation of her sons. Amen...\n\nAnd when Mar Jacob, Metropolitan Bishop was the overseer and governor of the holy see of Saint Thomas the Apostle, that is to say governor of us and of all the holy Church of the Christian India. May God grant him strength and help that he may govern us with zeal and direct us according to the will of his Lord, and that he may teach us His commandments and make us walk in His ways, till the end of time, through the intercession of the holy Apostle St. Thomas and all his colleagues ! Amen!..\n\n- MS Vatican Syriac 22\n\nThis manuscript is written in Estrangela script by a very young deacon named Zakharya bar Joseph bar Zakharya who was just 14 at the time of writing.[8][108][105][106] The scribe refers Catholicos-Patriarch of the East Yahballaha III as Yahaballaha the fifth.[8] Johannes P. M. van der Ploeg comments that this may indicate that the patriarch was not well known among the Indian Christians.[109]\n\nIn 1490, a delegation from the Saint Thomas Christians visited the Patriarch of the East, Shemon IV, to bring a bishop for India.[111] One among them was Joseph the Indian, who later became famous for his visit to Rome and the account of Malabar in Book VI of Paesi novamente retrovati (1507) by Fracanzano da Montalboddo.[8] The patriarch responded positively to the request of Saint Thomas Christians, and appointed two bishops, Mar Thoma and Mar Yohannan, dispatching them to India. These bishops, and three more (Mar Yahballaha, Mar Dinkha and Mar Yaqov) who followed them in 1503-1504, reaffirmed and strengthened traditional ties between India and the Patriarchate. They were later followed by another bishop, Mar Abraham, who died in 1597. By that time, Christians of the Malabar Coast were facing new challenges, caused by the establishment of Portuguese presence in India.[112][8][113]\n\nPortuguese contact\n\nThe Saint Thomas Christians first encountered the Portuguese in 1498, during the expedition of Vasco da Gama. At the time the community was in a tenuous position: though thriving in the spice trade and protected by their own militia, the local political sphere was volatile and the Saint Thomas Christians found themselves under pressure from the rajas of Calicut and Cochin and other small kingdoms in the area. The Saint Thomas Christians and the Portuguese newcomers quickly formed an alliance.[114]\n\nThe Portuguese had a keen interest in implanting themselves in the spice trade and in spreading their version of Christianity, which had been forged during several centuries of warfare in the Reconquista.[115] Facilitating their goals was the Padroado Real, a series of treaties and decrees in which the Pope conferred upon the Portuguese government certain authority in ecclesiastical matters in the foreign territories they conquered. They set up in Goa, forming a colonial government and a Latin church hierarchy under the Archbishop of Goa, and quickly set to bringing the Saint Thomas Christians under his authority.[116]\n\nThe Portuguese subjection of the Saint Thomas Christians was relatively measured at first, but they became more aggressive after 1552, the year of the death of Metropolitan Mar Jacob and of a schism in the Church of the East, which resulted in there being two rival Patriarchs-one of whom entered communion with the Catholic Church. Both patriarchs sent bishops to India, but the Portuguese consistently managed to outmaneuver them, and effectively cut off the Saint Thomas Christians from their hierarchy in 1575, when the Padroado legislated that neither patriarch could send representatives to India without Portuguese approval.[117]\n\nBy 1599 the last Metropolitan, Abraham, had died, and the Archbishop of Goa, Aleixo de Menezes, had secured the submission of the young Archdeacon Givargis, the highest remaining representative of the native church hierarchy.[118] The Archbishop convened the Synod of Diamper, which implemented various liturgical and structural reforms in the Indian church. The Synod brought the parishes directly under the Archbishop's purview; anathematised certain \"superstitious\" social customs characteristic of their Hindu neighbors, including untouchability and a caste hierarchy; and purged the liturgy, the East Syriac Rite, of elements deemed unacceptable according to the Latin protocol.[119] A number of Syriac texts were condemned and ordered burnt,[120] including the Peshitta, the Syriac version of the Bible.[121] Some of the reforms, especially the elimination of caste status, reduced the Saint Thomas Christians' standing with their socially stratified Hindu neighbors.[122] The Synod formally brought the Saint Thomas Christians into the Catholic Church but the actions of the Portuguese over the ensuing years fueled resentment in segments of the community, and ultimately led to open resistance to their power.[123][124][75]\n\nDivision and defiance\n\nOver the next several decades, tensions seethed between the Portuguese and the remaining native hierarchy, and after 1641 Archdeacon Thomas, the nephew and successor to Archdeacon George of Cross, was often at odds with the Latin prelates.[125] In 1652, the escalating situation was further complicated by the appearance in Mylapore of a mysterious figure named Ahatallah, who claimed to have been sent by the Pope, from the Church of Antioch to serve as \"Patriarch of the Whole of India and of China\".[125][126]\n\nAhatallah made a strong impression on the native clergy, but the Portuguese quickly decided he was an impostor, and put him on a ship bound for Europe by way of Goa. Archdeacon Thomas, desperate for a new ecclesiastical leader to free his people from the Padroado, travelled to Cochin and demanded to meet Ahatallah and examine his credentials. The Portuguese refused, stating the ship had already left for Goa.[126] Ahatallah was never heard from in India again, inspiring false rumours that the Portuguese had murdered him and inflaming anti-Portuguese sentiments even more.[127][8]\n\nThis was the last straw for the Saint Thomas Christians; in 1653, Thomas and community representatives met at the Church of Our Lady in Mattancherry to take bold action. In a great ceremony before a crucifix and lighted candles, they swore a solemn oath that they would never obey Padroado Archbishop Francisco Garcia or the Portuguese again, and that they accepted only the Archdeacon as their shepherd.[127] \nThere are various versions about the wording of oath, one version being that the oath was directed against the Portuguese, another that it was directed against Jesuits, yet another version that it was directed against the authority of Catholic Latin Church.[128] The independent Malankara Church regards the Coonan Cross Oath as the moment their Church regained its independence from the Catholic Church, which they lost during the Synod of Diamper.[129]\n\nAfter the events of Coonan Cross Oath three letters were circulated claiming that they had been sent by Ahathalla. One such letter was read at a meeting at Edappally on 5 February 1653. This letter granted to the archdeacon some powers of the archbishop. On hearing it, a vast crowd enthusiastically welcomed Archdeacon Thomas as the governor of their Church[130] and four senior priests were appointed as his counsilors, namely, Anjilimoottil Itty Thommen of Kallisseri, Kuravilangad Parambil Palliveettil Chandy, Kaduthuruthi Kadavil Chandy, Angamali Vengur Giwargis Kathanar. At a further meeting held at Alangat, on 23 May 1653, another letter was read stating that it was from Ahathalla. It instructed the Saint Thomas Christians in the absence of a bishop, twelve of the cattanars (priests) might lay their hands on Thomas, and that this would be adequate as episcopal consecration.[130] The authenticity of these letters is not clear. Some are of the opinion that these letters might be forged by Anjilimoottil Itty Thommen Kathanar who was a skilled Syriac writer.[130] The letters were read with enthusiasm in the churches of the Thomas Christians and Archdeacon Thomas was later proclaimed bishop in a ceremony in which twelve priests laid hands on him, elevating him as Metropolitan with the title Thoma I[131][132] and he added such ancient titles as 'Metran of All India', 'Gate of India'.[133]\n\nAt this point, the Portuguese missionaries attempted reconciliation with Saint Thomas Christians but were not successful. Later, in 1657, Pope Alexander VII sent the Italian priest Joseph Sebastiani as the head of a Carmelite mission of the Propaganda Fide to regain the trust of the dissident St. Thomas Christians.[134] Sebastiani and other Carmelites pressed that the ordination of the archdeacon as metropolitan by the priests in the absence of another bishop was not in accordance with Church laws.[135] They succeeded in convincing a large group of Saint Thomas Christians, including Kadavil Chandy, Palliveettil Chandy and Vengur Giwargis, and Thoma I began to lose his followers. In the meantime, Sebastiani returned to Rome and was consecrated as bishop on 15 December 1659. He reached Kerala again in 1661, being appointed as the Vicar Apostolic of Malabar by the pope. Within a short time period he restored majority of the churches that had been with Thoma I to Catholic Church. However, in 1663, with the conquest of Cochin by the Dutch, the control of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast was lost. The Dutch declared that all the European missionaries had to leave Kerala. Before leaving Kerala, on 1 February 1663, Sebastiani consecrated Palliveettil Chandy was consecrated as the bishop of the Thomas Christians who adhered to Catholic Church. He soon also designated himself as 'Metran of All India' and 'Gate of India'.[136]\n\nThoma I, meanwhile sent requests to various Oriental Churches to receive canonical consecration as bishop. In 1665, Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, a bishop sent by the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius ʿAbdulmasīḥ I, arrived in India and the faction under the leadership of Thoma I welcomed him.[8] The bishop was sent in correspondence to the letter sent by Thoma I to the Oriental Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. Bishop Abdul Jaleel consecrated Thoma I canonically as a bishop and regularised his episcopal succession.[142] This led to the first lasting formal schism in the Saint Thomas Christian community. Thereafter, the faction affiliated with the Catholic Church under Bishop Palliveettil Chandy came to be known as Paḻayakūṟ (or \"Old Allegiance\"), and the branch affiliated with Thoma I came to be known as Puthenkur (or \"New Allegiance\").[143] These appellations have been somewhat controversial, though, as both parties considered themselves the true heirs to the Saint Thomas tradition, and saw the other party as schismatic.[144] The Paḻayakūṟ faction was also known as Romo-Syrians[145] and organized as the Syrian Catholic Church whereas the Puthenkur faction was also known as Jacobite Syrians[145] and organized as the Malankara Syrian Church.[146]\n\nBetween 1661 and 1665, the Paḻayakūṟ faction (Syrian Catholics) claimed 72 of the 116 churches, while Archdeacon Thoma I and the Puthenkur faction (Malankara Syrians) claimed 32. The remaining 12 churches were shared between the two factions until the late nineteenth century.[147] The Paḻayakūṟ faction is the body from which the modern Syro-Malabar Church and Chaldean Syrian Church descend. The Puthenkur faction is the body from which the Jacobite, Orthodox, CSI Syrian Christians, Marthoma, St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and Malabar Independent Syrian Church originate.[8][148][149]\n\nThis visit of Gregorios Abdal Jaleel gradually introduced the West Syriac liturgy, customs and script to the Malabar Coast.[150] The visits of prelates from the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch continued since then and this led to gradual replacement of the East Syriac Rite liturgy with the West Syriac Rite and the Malankara Church affiliated to the Miaphysite Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Communion.[8] Furthermore, ʿAbdulmasīḥ I sent Maphrian Baselios Yaldo in 1685, along with Bishop Ivanios Hidayattullah who vehemently propagated the West Syriac Rite and solidified the association of the Malankara Church with the Syriac Orthodox Church.[8]\n\nThe main body of the Paḻayakūṟ faction (Syrian Catholics) came to be known as the Syro-Malabar Church. They continued with their East Syriac traditions and stayed within the Catholic Church with Diophysite creed.[151][8] They had to remain under the foreign Latin bishops, with the only exception of Palliveettil Chandy and Kariattil Ousep.[152] Their Indian East Syriac Catholic hierarchy was restored on 21 December 1923, with Augustine Kandathil as the first Metropolitan and head.[153]\n\nFailed attempts for reunification and solidification of the schism\n\nA minority within the community of Saint Thomas Christians tried to preserve the use of the East Syriac Rite and re-establishing ties with Patriarchs of the Church of the East, who occasionally sent envoys to India.[30] At the beginning of the 18th century, Bishop Shemʿon of ʿAda (d. c. 1720)[154] and in (c. 1708), Bishop Gabriel of Ardishai (d. c. 1733) arrived to India, sent by the Chaldean Patriarch.[30] Bishop Gabriel temporarily succeeded in reviving the traditionalist community, but was faced with prolonged rivalry, both from West Syriac (Jacobite) and Latin Catholic (Propaganda Fide and Padroado) leadership.[155]\n\nIn 1751, Jacobite Maphrian Baselios Shakrallah Qasabgi came to Kerala.[156] He was highly instrumental in replacing the East Syriac Rite with West Syriac Rite among the Puthenkur faction.[156] He was accompanied by Gregorios Hanna Bakhudaidi,[157] the Jacobite Archbishop of Jerusalem, and Yukhannon (Ivanios) Christophoros of Mosul,[157] whom the Maphrian consecrated as a bishop during his tenure in Kerala.[156] The delegation was sent from the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate to firmly establish West Syriac Rite among the Puthenkur and regularise the orders of their leader, Thoma V.[156][158] However, Thoma V died without having reconsecrated, but having himself consecrated his successor as Thoma VI.[156][159] Thoma VI strongly resisted the efforts of the delegation.[158] Very often the Syriac Orthodox delegates selected their own candidates and ordained them as priests, without consulting Thoma VI.[158] Meanwhile, the Paḻayakūṟ were being increasingly subjugated by their colonial Latin ecclesiastical administrators.[158]\n\nThoma VI, therefore, initiated efforts to reunify both the factions.[160] However, the Carmelite missionaries working among the Paḻayakūṟ were reluctant to reciprocate to his efforts fearing that the indigenous bishop would take away their authority and influence over the faction after the proposed reunification of the Saint Thomas Christians was fulfilled.[158] On the other hand, the Syriac Orthodox delegates were extending their influence upon the Puthenkur, insisting the faction to shift to the West Syriac Rite.[156][158] Shakrallah, immediately prior to his death, consecrated Kurian Kattumangat as Bishop Abraham Koorilose in 1764.[156]\n\nBy 1770, Gregorios and Ivanios had Thoma VI reconsecrated as 'Dionysios I'.[28][156] Thoma VI had to receive all orders of priesthood from the tonsure to the episcopal consecration.[161] Thoma VI received support from Paḻayakūṟ leaders, who informed him of the ill-treatment and discrimination that they faced from the missionaries.[158] Consequently, two priestly leaders among them: Kariattil Iousep Malpan and Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar decided to meet the Pope to convey the message of Thoma VI.[158] The Jacobite delegates were soon at odds with Thoma VI and hence in 1772 they raised Abraham Koorilose to the Metropolitan rank at the new Mattancherry Church in Cochin,[156] constructed by Shakrallah. Abraham Koorilose received recognition from the Rajah of Cochin.[156] Kariyattil Iousep, accompanied by Paremmakkal Thoma and two other deacons, made the trip from Kerala in 1778[158] and he was consecrated as the Archbishop of Cranganore in 1782.[152] However, the efforts drastically failed because of the unexpected death of Iousep while in Goa.[152][158][162] Varthamanappusthakam, written by Thoma Kathanar in 1785, provides the detail of this journey until the death of the archbishop.[152][158]\n\nFollowing this, in 1787, representatives from eighty-four Paḻayakūṟ churches assembled at Angamaly and drew up the Angamāly Padiyōla against the colonial Latin hegemony, declaring their allegiance to the Paremmakkal Thoma and urged for the reinstatement of their native East Syriac hierarchy.[158] Meanwhile, Dionysios I (Thoma VI) managed to imprison his rival, Abraham Koorilose who finally escaped from the states of Travancore and Cochin where the majority of Saint Thomas Christians lived to Anjoor in the territory of the Samuthiri (Zamorin of Calicut).[156] There Koorilose spent his days in prayer and meditation in a hut. A few relatives and friends joined him there. This group, originally known as the Thozhiyur Church, was later confirmed as an independent Syrian Church in Malabar by the Madras High Court, through a verdict in 1862.[167] Subsequently, they took the name Malabar Independent Syrian Church.[156][168]\n\nBritish period\n\nIn 1795, the kings of Travancore and Cochin entered into tributary alliance with the British East Indian Company to repel the attacks from Tipu Sultan. The states soon became client regimes of the company: both were forced to disband their military. The political order of the states also began to collapse. Saint Thomas Christians were hit hard by the loss of their privileged military role, their kalari network was dissolved and many families lost their livelihood.[169] The trading class, as well as the office bearers, also suffered the setback and many Europeans who visited the states between 1801 and 1820 noted the poor and depressed condition of Saint Thomas Christians of the Puthenkur. Some partisan fund allocation for the churches by the British officials triggered a breakdown in the relationship between Saint Thomas Christians and prominent Hindu castes, at least temporarily.[170] In 1815, the British Resident, Colonel John Munro, founded a seminary in Kottayam, for the theological education of Jacobite Christian priests and invited the Anglican missionaries to teach there. This could be regarded as the beginning of the relationship between the CMS (Church Mission Society) and the Saint Thomas Christians of the Puthenkur.[171]\n\nFurther divisions\n\nAs a protest against the interference of the Anglican Church in the affairs of the Puthenkur faction of the Saint Thomas Christians, the Metropolitan, Cheppad Dionysios, convened a Synod at Mavelikara on 16 January 1836. There it was declared that Malankara Church would be subject to the Syrian traditions and Patriarch of Antioch.[172] The declaration resulted in the separation of the CMS missionaries from the communion with the Malankara Church.[39][173] Cheppad Dionysios, abdicated during the tenure of an Antiochian prelate named Yuyakim Koorilose[174] (arrived c. 1846, d. c. 1874).[28] During his stay in among the Puthenkur, Koorilose completed the transition to West Syriac ritual practices.[174] However, a minority from the Malankara Church, who were in favour of the Reformed ideologies of the missionaries, stood along with them and joined the Anglican Church.[39][173] These Saint Thomas Anglicans, were the first Reformed group to emerge from the Saint Thomas Christian community and they worked along with the missionaries in their evangelical, educational and reformative activities.[39][175][176] By 1879, the Diocese of Travancore and Cochin of the Church of England was established in Kottayam.[177][178] On 27 September 1947, the Anglican dioceses in South India, merged with other Protestant churches in the region and formed the Church of South India (CSI); an independent United Church in full communion with all its predecessor denominations.[40][41] Since then, Anglican Syrian Christians have been members of the Church of South India and also came to be known as CSI Syrian Christians.[178]\n\nIn 1860, tired of their Latin subjugation, the Paḻayakūṟ sent a delegation headed by Antony Thondanatt (d. c. 1900) to Mosul to make a plea to the Chaldean Catholic patriarch to consecrate a bishop of their own rite for them.[30] In response, Patriarch Joseph VI Audo consecrated Thomas Rokos,[30] titular archbishop of Basra,[179] and dispatched him to visit the alienated Malabar Christian flock in 1861.[30] However, the mission failed due to the protests of the apostolic delegate at Mosul, Henri Amanton, and the vicar apostolic of Verapoly. As a result, the Pope forced the Patriarch to call back the bishop.[180][181][30] There was yet another incident on 5 June 1864. Patriarch Joseph VI consecrated Elias Mellus, bishop of ʿAqra,[182] and sent him to India. But this effort too was met with the same fate as before and Mellus was called back in 1882.[183][184] Meanwhile, in 1862, an attempt was made to reestablish direct ties between traditionalist Christian communities in India and the Assyrian Patriarch Shimun XVIII consecrated the aforementioned Thondanatt as Abdisho, the Metropolitan of India, but his task proved to be very difficult and challenging. He intensified his activity after 1882, fulfilling the aspirations of local Christians of the East Syriac Rite for the full re-establishment of traditional ecclesiastical structure. Until his death in 1900, he partially succeeded in organizing the local church, that was named the Chaldean Syrian Church.[185] After his death, local Christians appealed to Shimun XIX, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East in Qochanis who was forthcoming, and in December 1907 consecrated Abimalek Timotheus as metropolitan bishop for India. He reached his diocese in February 1908, and took over the administration.[186][187] He organized ecclesiastical structures, and continued with revitalisation of the East Syriac Rite.[30][188]\n\nBy June 1875, there were two factions among the Malankara Church: Conservative Party and Reform Party. Mathews Athanasius was the Malankara Metropolitan approved by the Governments of Travancore and of Cochin and he was supportive to the reforming of the Jacobite church with evangelistic ideologies. Hence the group with Mathews Athanasius was known as \"Reform Party\"[35][189] The conservative faction, under the leadership of Metropolitan Pulikkottil Joseph Dionysious II, opposed the attempts to do away with the age-old traditions of the church, which resulted in a stir in the community.[189] Being invited by this faction, the Antiochene Patriarch Ignatius Peter III arrived in Kerala.[190] In June 1876, at the synod of Mulanthuruthy, presided over by the Patriarch, the Syrian faction formally came under the Antiochene Patriarchate.[174][191] The synod condemned Mathews Athanasius for abstaining from it, but his followers stayed firm with him.[189] His successor Thomas Athanasius and the bishop's faction lost the lawsuit to the Patriarchal faction in the Royal Court of Travancore on 12 July 1889.[192] Nonetheless, the Reform Party continued as an independent Church and thereafter a series of suits arose on the rights over churches and associated properties. Later they chose the name Mar Thoma Syrian Church.[189][35]\n\nIn 1911, Patriarch Ignatius ʿAbdullāh II excommunicated Vattasseril Geevarghese Dionysios (Dionysios VI), the Malankara Metropolitan,[28] due to dispute of authority over the properties of the Malankara Church.[174] This led to the division of the Church into two groups, with one group accepting the supreme authority of the patriarch and the other supporting Dionysios VI.[174] The group led by Dionysios VI invited Patriarch Ignatius ʿAbdulmasīḥ II, who was deposed from Patriarchate by the Turkish authorities.[174] In 1912, ʿAbdulmasīḥ II arrived in India and he consecrated Baselios Paulose I (d. c. 1914) as Maphrian (Syriac Orthodox Catholicos).[174] This was not recognised by the Syriac Orthodox Church.[193] Previously ʿAbdulmasīḥ II himself had declined the request for the installation of a Maphrianate for India in 1902 during his patriarchate.[194] The independent group under Metropolitan Dionysios VI, known as the 'Metropolitan's Party', started endorsing the claims for autocephaly.[194][174] The other group, known as the 'Patriarch's Party', remained loyal to the Patriarch and was led by Coorilos Paulose, succeeded by Athanasius Paulose.[28][195] The two sides filed a series of lawsuits in the civil courts and some parallel attempts to reconcile both the parties also took place. In 1958, bishops of both the parties sealed their reconciliation and signed a treaty which in turn recognised the autonomy of reunited factions, with its own synod of bishops under the presidency of the Catholicos.[28][196] The verdict of the Supreme Court of India in 1958, legitimizing the autonomy of Kerala church, was instrumental in this formal reconciliation between the two sides. In 1964, Patriarch Ignatius Yaʿqub III consecrated Baselios Augen I (d. c. 1975) as the Catholicos.[28] Nonetheless, in 1975, both the parties split again with the decision of the Universal Syrian Synod, held in Damascus, to depose the Catholicos in Kerala and Baselios Paulose II was consecrated as the Catholicos for the 'Patriarch faction'.[28] Today the West Syriac Oriental Orthodox community in India is divided between the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church) and the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (an autonomous church under the Antiochene Patriarchate).[28][174][197][194]\n\nIn 1930, a section of the Malankara Church under the leadership of Archbishop Geevarghese Ivanios and Jacob Theophilos left the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church[198] and came into communion with the Catholic Church. They are known as Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.[33] On 11 June 1932, Trivandrum was recognised as a Metropolitan See sui juris, with Thiruvalla as its suffragan.[33] On 10 February 2005, the church was raised to the status of a Major archiepiscopal church. The canonical installation of Cyril Baselios as the first Major Archbishop took place on 14 May 2005 and simultaneously the title 'Catholicos' was legitimized.[199] The St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI), inaugurated on 14 September 1985, comes under the Syro-Malankara Catholic Archbishop of Thiruvalla.[33]\n\nIn 1961, there was a split in the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church which resulted in the formation of St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India.[200][201]\n\nPentecostalism began to spread among Saint Thomas Christians from 1911, due to American missionary work.[42] The first Syrian Pentecostals came from Kerala Brethren, who were in turn mostly ex-Marthomites.[202][203][204] As the movement gained momentum, groups of people from all traditional St. Thomas Christian denominations became part of various emerging Pentecostal and evangelical fellowships.[203][205] Pentecostals from Syrian Christian background spearheaded the movement in Kerala and to a lesser extent in India, by providing the necessary leadership for establishing denominations like Indian Pentecostal Church of God, Assemblies of God in India, Church of God (Full Gospel) in India, The Pentecostal Mission and many other Neo-charismatic churches.[43][206][207][208] The Syro-Malabar Church too has a very active Charismatic ministry, operated through establishments such as the Divine Retreat Centre, Muringoor.[209][210]\n\nInvolvement in politics\n\nParticipation based on caste and community divisions and sympathies has been a feature of politics in the present day state of Kerala and its predecessor entities. Until the mid-20th century the primary cause of the divisions between the various communities was competition for rights and resources.\n\nLike other communities, Saint Thomas Christians have been involved in regional politics on a community basis. In 1888, Travancore became the first princely state in India to establish a Legislative Council, which was reformed as the Sree Moolam Popular Assembly in 1904. A few Saint Thomas Christian leaders were elected to the Legislative Council but there was resentment that their share of the available seats was proportionately less than that of other prominent castes. This resentment led to a series of campaigns for equal representation both in the legislature and in government positions.[211] Jatiaikya Sangham, an organization formed with an objective of reuniting the Paḻayakūṟ and Puthenkur communities, came up with the idea of a newspaper that resulted in the establishment of Nasrani Deepika by Nidhirikkal Manikkathanar in 1887.[212] Newspapers such as the Nasrani Deepika and Malayala Manorama disseminated their grievances.[213]\n\nIn 1918, Saint Thomas Christians formed the League for Equal Civic Rights, which sought the opening of all branches of government service to Christians, Muslims and avarna Hindus, as well as an end to the practice of untouchability. Their demands were partially met in 1922 when the Revenue Department was separated from the Devaswom, a semi-government organization that managed the Hindu temples, thus removing the restriction on non-Hindus and avarnas in the executive service. In the 1920s, Saint Thomas Christian leaders such as George Joseph were advised by Mahatma Gandhi to detach from Vaikom Satyagraha, an agitation for the temple entry rights of avarna Hindus, as he considered the issue to be one of concern to Hindus alone.[213][214] Titus Theverthundiyil was one of the 78 marchers selected by Gandhi to take part in the 1930 Dandi March, to break the British salt monopoly.[215]\n\nWith the institution in 1932 of a bicameral legislature in Travancore, four Saint Thomas Christians found a place in among the 24 seats of the lower house, but not comparable with other forward castes.[211] The 1931 census recorded over 31 per cent of the population as being Christian, compared to around 4 per cent in 1820.[216] Some restrictions were imposed on Saint Thomas Christian parishes to start new schools and later on the Diwan attempted to take over the schools owned by the community.[213] There followed a period of fierce confrontation between the Diwan and Saint Thomas Christians-many leaders were arrested, prominent news papers were banned and large banks owned by the community members were liquidated.[213][217] In 1937, general elections were held and Joint Political Congress played a significant role to attain much better representation for allied communities.[218] T.M. Varghese was elected as the Deputy President of the Assembly where C. P. Ramaswami Iyer was the ex officio President. On the collapse of Joint Political Congress due to internal conflicts, Saint Thomas Christian leaders allied with Nairs in a common platform- Travancore State Congress where they fought together for responsible government and also to oust Iyer.[211] Abraham Marthoma mobilised Syrian Christians against the divan's move not to unite with free India.[219] In the three-member Cabinet of Travancore formed after the first general elections in 1948, Varghese was a Cabinet Minister.[220] However the first Saint Thomas Christian to become a minister in the central government of India was Padma Vibhushan John Mathai, who served as India's first Railway Minister and subsequently as India's Finance Minister,[221] taking office shortly after the presentation of India's first Budget, in 1948.\n\nOn 1 November 1956, the state of Kerala was formed and the Communist Party of India formed the first government of the state in 1957 on winning the assembly elections. Though the government initiated the legislation process for reforming the land and the education sectors, these were considered as infringements over the rights by the school managements and landowners, who were predominantly Saint Thomas Christians and Nairs.[222] The disagreements of the Saint Thomas Christians further widened and they allied with Nair Service Society to mobilize against the government, which culminated in a violent struggle, called the Liberation Struggle, in 1958.[223] The Communist government was dismissed on 31 July 1959 and the President's rule was imposed in the state under Article 356 of the Constitution of India.\n\nPopulation\n\nWriting in 2010, Devika and Varghese noted that \"[The St. Thomas Christians] are at present a substantial minority, a powerful presence in all fields of life in Kerala.\"[224]\n\nDemographics\n\nThe Saint Thomas Syrian Christians form 12.5 percent of the total population of Kerala and 70.73 percent of the Christians in the state. K. C. Zachariah notes that the 20th century was period of significant transition for the Saint Thomas Christians in terms of its demographic and socioeconomic status. Around 1900, the community was concentrated in a few areas, was geographically static and \"... was characterised by very high death rate, very high birth rate, very early age at marriage, and 10 to 12 children per married woman\". The population had increased eight-fold during the preceding century, from a base figure of about 100,000, and comprised nearly 50 per cent children. But, the population growth of Saint Thomas Christians came down drastically after the 1960s, with the lowest birth rate, highest age at marriage, highest family planning user rate, and lowest fertility rate compared to other communities in Kerala. The proportion of children has come down to less than 25 percent. The absolute and relative size of the community is in a diminishing trend and is approaching a zero population growth regime.[225]\n\nAs of 2001, in Kerala, more than 85 per cent of the Saint Thomas Christian population live in the seven southern districts of the state-Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Idukki, Ernakulam and Trissur. They have also migrated to other cities in India like Ooty, Mangalore, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Migration steeply increased in the post-independence period and major destinations were United States of America, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and the Middle East. According to a rough estimate, 20-25 percent of the Saint Thomas Christians live outside the state of Kerala.[226]\n\nWith respect to Christian denomination, 55% of Saint Thomas Christians in the Indian state of Kerala belong to the Catholic Church.[227] In 1980, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church (Reformed) had a church membership of around 400,000 communicants, while the Syriac Orthodox Church (Oriental Orthodox) had 1,400,000 members.[228]\n\nEthnic divisions\n\nInternally the Saint Thomas Christian community is divided into two ethnic groups, the majority and older group known as Vadakkumbhagar or Northist and the minority and younger group as Tekkumbhagar or Southist also known as Knanaya. \n\nOne tradition traces the origin of these ethno-geographical epithets to the city of Kodungallur, the historic capital of the medieval Chera dynasty. The early converts of Saint Thomas the Apostle and those who later joined the faith in India are believed to have initially resided on the northern side of the city of Kodungallur and for that reason became known as Vadakkumbhagar or Northist.[229][230][231][232]\n\nIn either the 4th or 8th century, the Syriac Christian merchant magnate Knai Thoma is believed to have arrived and settled in southern Kodungallur with a cohort of merchants and clergymen. Because they dwelled on the southern side, the descendants of Thoma's migration became known as Tekkumbhagar or Southist.[229][230][231][232] Since the nineteenth century, the Southist community is also known by the appellation K'nā'nāya (Syriac for Canaanite), an adjectival epithet coined from the name Knai Thoma.[233]\n\nSocioeconomic status\n\nEven though the Saint Thomas Christians had to compromise their social and religious privileges in the aftermath of Portuguese subjugation, they started reemerging as a powerful community from the 19th century onward. They played a pioneering role in many spheres such as banking, commerce, cash crops, print media, the film industry, etc.[234] Around 2003, among Saint Thomas Christians, 17.4 percent of the adult population are self-employed-the highest rate statistically among all the communities in the state of Kerala.[235] Saint Thomas Christians lead all others with respect to per capita ownership of land, with many of them owning large estates. With changing conditions, they have shifted from the agriculture of rice and coconut to plantation based agriculture and the trading of rubber, spices and cash crops. They also take a prominent role in the educational institutions of Kerala and throughout India.[236] The educational accomplishments of the community have helped its members to attain a good proportion of the Central and State Government jobs.[234] Kerala Government in the year 2024 happened to present the community wise account of the government employees in its Legislative Assembly. According to the data, out of the then total 5,45,423 government employees in the state, 73,713 are from forward Christian communities, ie., Saint Thomas Christians, which accounts for the 13.5 percent of the total government employees.[237][238] With their level of education and limited employment opportunities within the state of Kerala, they became the community with the highest rate of migration. Their resultant foreign remittances have also helped the socioeconomic progress of the community. According to the Kerala Migration Survey (1998) by the Center for Developmental Studies, Kerala, Saint Thomas Christians top all other communities in Kerala with respect to the Socioeconomic Development Index which is based on parameters such as the possession of land, housing & consumer durables, education and employment status.[226]\n\nSyrian Christian caste status\n\nDespite the sectarian differences, Saint Thomas Syrian Christians share a common social status within the Caste system of Kerala and is considered as an Upper caste community.[239]\n\nIn historic kingdoms of Kerala such as those of Cochin and Travancore, Saint Thomas Christians were granted caste privileges that put them on the same level as Upper caste Hindus.[71] Anthropologist, L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer recorded that they were given privileges in addition to those granted to groups such as Nairs, such as the right to have enclosures in front of their houses, which was otherwise only granted to the Brahmins, and were placed \"almost on par with the Sovereigns\".[240] They followed the same rules of caste and pollution as did Hindus, and sometimes they were considered to be pollution neutralisers.[241] Decree II of Action IX of the Synod of Diamper enforced by the Portuguese Inquisition in 1599 prohibited the practice of untouchability by the Saint Thomas Christians except in practical circumstances when required by law and when it was necessary to ensure social contact with the Varna Hindus.[242]\n\nThey tend to be endogamous, and tend not to intermarry even with other Christian groupings. Internal division of Saint Thomas Christians into Northists and Southists and also into a number of sects based on the ecclesiastical orientation makes the pattern of segmentation an exceedingly complex. Forrester suggests that the Northist-Southist division forms two groups within the Saint Thomas Christian community which are closely analogous to sub-castes.[239]\n\nSocio-cultural and religious identity\n\nSaint Thomas Christians are a distinct community in terms of culture and religion. Though their liturgy and theology remained that of East Syrian Christians of Persia, their lifestyle customs and traditions were basically Indian. It is oft-quoted: \"Nazranis are Indian in culture, Christian in faith and Syrian in liturgy\".[243]\n\nAt present, Saint Thomas Christians represent a multi-cultural group. Their culture is largely derived from East Syriac, West Syriac, Jewish, Hindu,[244] and Latin liturgical influences, blended with local customs and later elements derived from indigenous Indian and European colonial contacts. Their language is Malayalam-the language of Kerala-and Syriac is used for liturgical purposes.\n\nJewish influence has been observed in Malabar Nasrani liturgy and traditions.[4][244] Their celebration of Mass was and still is called the Qurbana, which is derived from the Aramaic language term Qurbana (ܩܘܪܒܢܐ), meaning \"sacrifice\". Nasrani Qurbana used to be held in Syriac until the early 20th century.[245]\nSaint Thomas Christians typically follow the social customs of their Hindu neighbours, and their devotional practices can show the vestiges of Hindu symbolism.[246] Social sins like untouchability entered their practices, and the Synod of Diamper abolished it.[247] The sacraments related to birth, marriage, pregnancy, death, etc., also adapted nuances from Hindu religious practices. Even today, tying Minnu, a Hindu symbol of marriage, is the most important rite in Christian marriages. In 1519, Portuguese traveler Duarte Barbosa, on his visit to Malabar, commented on the practice of Saint Thomas Christian priests using Kudumi similar to that of Hindus in his manuscript Book of Duarte Barbosa.[248]\n\nIn the social stratification of medieval Malabar, Saint Thomas Christians succeeded in relating their social status with that of upper-caste Hindus on account of their numerical strength and influence, and observance of many Brahmin and upper caste customs.[247][249] In the 13th and 14th centuries, many Saint Thomas Christians were involved in the pepper trade for the local rulers, and many were appointed as port revenue officers. The local rulers rewarded them with grants of land and many other privileges. With growing numerical strength, a large number of Saint Thomas Christians settled in the inland pepper-growing regions.[250] They had the right to recruit and train soldiers, and Christian trainers were given the honorary title Panikkar like their Nair counterparts.[251] They were also entitled to collect the tax, and the tax collectors were honored with the title Tharakan.\n\nLike Brahmins, they had the right to sit before the kings and ride horses or elephants like the royals.[247] They were protectors of seventeen lower castes and communities and hence were called Lords of Seventeen Castes.[247][252] They did not allow the lower castes to join their community for fear that it could imperil their upper-caste status.[252][253] The regal period ended when the community fell under the power of the rajas of Cochin and Travancore.[254] They owned a large number of Kalaripayattu training centers, and the rajas of Travancore and Cochin, including the renowned Marthanda Varma, recruited trained Christian warriors to defend their kingdom.[255]\n\nUpper-caste Hindus and Saint Thomas Christians took part in one another's festival celebrations. In some places in Kerala, the Hindu temples and Saint Thomas Christian churches were built on adjoining sites by the Hindu kings. Until the 19th century, Saint Thomas Christians had the right of access to Hindu temples, and some leading Saint Thomas Christians held the status of sponsors at Hindu shrines and temple festivals.[256] In the 19th century, however, Saint Thomas Christian integration with the Hindu caste system was disrupted: their clean-caste status was questioned in some localities, and they were denied access to many Hindu temples. They tried to retaliate by denouncing Hindu festivals as heathen idolatry. Clashes between upper-caste Hindus and Saint Thomas Christians occurred beginning in the late 1880s, especially when festivals coincided. Internecine violence among various Saint Thomas Christian denominations aggravated their problems.[257]\n\nExisting traditions, music, rituals and social life\n\nSaint Thomas Christians still retain many of their ancient traditions and rituals, both in their social and religious life. Before the 1970s, the Nasrani Qurbana was sung only in Syriac. Many of the tunes of Saint Thomas Christian worship in Kerala, especially those in the East Syriac tradition, are remnants of Syriac tunes of antiquity.[258][259][260]\n\nSaint Thomas Christians observe Holy Thursday with high reverence. The day is referred to as Pesaha, a Malayalam word derived from the Aramaic or Hebrew word for Passover-Pasha or Pesakh (פסח). The tradition of consuming Pesaha Appam after the church service is observed by the entire community under the leadership of the head of the family. Special long services followed by the Qurbana are conducted during the Pesaha eve service in the churches.[261][262]\n\nThe community observes Lent, locally called Anpathu noyambu ('the fifty days' fast') or the Valiya noyambu (Sawma Rabba, 'the Great Fast'), from Clean Monday or the preceding Sunday (called the Pētūrttà ['looking back'], this is the original practice and it still prevails among the Chaldean Syrian Church)[263] to the day before Easter, abjuring all meat, fish and egg. They also traditionally observe a 25-day fast that ends on Christmas Day.[264]\n\nGenerally, footwear is removed before entering the church and women cover their heads with a veil, scarf, shawl, mantilla (known as nettu; Malayalam: നെറ്റ്), or the end of a sari during worship.[265]\n\nOn the day of Palm Sunday, known as Oshana or Hoshana Sunday, flowers are strewn about the sanctuary, loaned from the Hindu ritual of offering flowers, and the crowd shouts \"Oshana\" (ܐܘܿܫܲܥܢܵܐ ʾōshaʿnā; 'save, rescue, saviour' in Aramaic). Then, palm leaves are blessed and distributed after the Mass is recited.[266]\n\nThe celebration of Mass is commonly called the Holy Qurbana, regardless of whether it is the East Syriac Holy Qurbana or West Syriac Holy Qurobo. The Holy Qurbana is mostly conducted in Malayalam. However, large parts of the Holy Qurbana are sung in Syriac. During the 20th century, the Qurbana-kramam (i.e., the book containing the order of worship) was translated into English for the benefit of worshipers who lived outside Kerala and did not know how to read or write Malayalam.\n\nSaint Thomas Christians use East Syriac term Māràn Īshoʿ Mîshîħa (Jesus's name in Aramaic[267]) to refer to Jesus of Nazareth.\n\nThe Saint Thomas Christians, particularly of the West Syriac Rite, pray the canonical hours of the Shehimo seven times a day.[268]\n\nAnother surviving tradition is the use of muthukkuda (ornamental umbrella) for church celebrations, marriages, and other festivals. The church celebrations include traditional drums, arch decorations, ornamental umbrellas, and Panchavadyam. Their use has become popular all over Kerala.\n\nThe sacraments and ceremonies of Saint Thomas Christians related to house-building, birth, and marriage have close similarity with those of Hindus in Kerala.[269] The sacrament of death reflects Christian canonical themes to a limited extent, with a noticeably significant influence from Hindu culture. Emphasis is placed on concepts related to eternal life after death and the anticipation of Jesus's final coming.[270]\n\nSaint Thomas Christians do not marry close relatives. The rule is that the bride and groom must not be related for at least five or seven generations.\n\nSaint Thomas Christians generally prefer arranged marriages, and the prospective partners see each other in the Pennukanal (bride-viewing) ceremony at the bride's home.[271]\n\nSaint Thomas Christian marriage customs are uniquely different from Western Christian marriage and local Hindu marriage customs. For example, engagement and marriage are usually performed together in the same service. Unlike Western Christian traditions, there is no direct ring exchange between groom and bride during engagement; rather, it is offered and mediated by the Kathanar, who represents Jesus, symbolising that it is God who brings the couple together into marriage.[272] The tying of the Minnu (Mangalasutra) and the giving of the \"Manthrakodi\" or \"Pudava\" to the bride are the major wedding rituals loaned from Hinduism. Manthrakodi, a silk saree with a golden zari border, is blessed by the priest and is placed by the bridegroom by covering the hair of the bride; it symbolises the \"Pudavakodukkal\" ceremony of the Nambudiri Brahmins, wherein the bridegroom places a silk cloth by covering the head of the bride.[271][273]\n\nSaint Thomas Christians widely use Nilavilakku (a lighted metal lamp), Kindi, Kalasha, and other bronze articles in their houses and churches.[274][275]\n\nThe night before the marriage, a ceremony known as Madhuram Veppu is conducted. The ceremony is conducted separately for the bride and the groom. It includes the maternal uncle serving the bride and groom sweets. The tradition is borrowed from the Knanaya (Southist) community's tradition called Chantham Charthal, wherein the couple is served sweets. Chantham Charthal for the bride includes applying Henna, Sandalwood, and turmeric over the palms and legs as a symbol of purity. The groom's face is cleanly shaved as part of a ritual. All the traditions are accompanied by the Panan Pattu performed by the Panan caste, who sings the grants and privileges given to the Syrian Christians.[71][276][277]\n\nThe traditional dress of a Saint Thomas Christian woman is the Chattayum Mundum, a seamless white garment now limited to older female adherents. Following the general trend, the Sari and Churidar have become predominant among the younger generations.[264][278]\n\nMany artforms, such as Margamkali (an ancient dance form performed in a circular configuration with a Nilavilakku at the centre) and Parichamuttukali (an ancient martial dance form in which Syrian Christian men with swords and shields follow the movements and steps of Kalaripayattu), still exist amongst the Saint Thomas Syrian Christian community.\n\nA vachanapetty (Malayalam: വചനപ്പെട്ടി) is a spiritual box filled with Biblical verses, each written on a small slip. These verses are selected at random during prayer.[279]\n\nChurch architecture\n\nThe earliest documentary evidence is the Quilon Syrian copper plates, which refers to the construction of the church of Tharisapally in Quilon between 823 and 849 AD. Antonio Gouvea, Portuguese envoy to Malabar, mentions in his 16th-century work Jornada that almost all the churches of Saint Thomas Christians followed the models of Hindu temples of that period, but were distinguished by the huge granite cross in the front yard of the church. Despite the external similarity with temples, the structuring of the church's interior space always followed the East Syriac architectural theology. Thus, the contemporary style is formed as an amalgamation of Indian architecture and Assyrian liturgical concepts.[280] The church is arranged east-to-west, with the interior structured into three levels: the madbaha (sanctuary), the qestroma (choir), and the haykla (nave).\n\nThe madbaha, arranged in the topmost platform at the eastern side of the building, represents Heaven. The primary altar is attached to the eastern wall. To the north of the madbaha is the diaqonikon (sacristry); to the south is the baptistery. The madbaha is protected with rails and is veiled by a red curtain most of the time; this is opened during the Holy Qurbana (Eucharist). An oil lamp within the sanctuary is always kept glowing to represent God's presence. The madbaha is connected to the qestroma and haykla by a low-walled path called the sqaqona. The qestroma contains seats for the choir and lower clergy. The haykla contains an elevated platform or bema, which includes an altar, two lecterns for reading, and chairs for higher clergy. Worshipers stand before the altar, with separate seating for men and women.\n\nThe main entrance is on the western side of the building; a vestibule, pillars, pilasters, and other architectural ornaments adorn the front end, and a flag mast stands in the front yard. One or two bells are installed in the backyard to signal the timing of ritual services, the death of a church member, or to inform the public of calamities.[281][282]\n\nThe Persian Crosses\n\nThe East Syriac churches of the Saint Thomas Christians use the Persian cross as their symbol. They call it the \"Nasrani Menorah\"[283] or \"Mar Thoma Sleeva\" (St. Thomas's Cross).[284] There are several interpretations for the Saint Thomas Christian symbol. The interpretation, based on Jewish tradition, assumes that its design was based on the Jewish Temple Menorah, an ancient symbol in Judaism, which consists of a seven-branched lamp stand (candelabra).[283] The St. Thomas Cross also appears on the official emblem of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.\n\nThe interpretation, based on local culture, states that the cross-without the figure of Jesus-with flowery arms symbolising \"joyfulness\" points to the resurrection theology of Paul, and the downward-facing bird (most likely a dove) on the top represents the role of the Holy Spirit in the resurrection of Jesus. The cross indicates Jesus. The lotus symbolizes God the Father, who has begotten the Son in Christianity. The three steps indicate Calvary and symbolise the Church, the channel of grace flowing from the cross. The lotus may also symbolise the cultural association with Buddhism, and the cross over it shows that Indian Christianity was established in the region in which Buddhism arose.[284][285]\n\nChristian conventions\n\nThe Maramon Convention is one of the largest annual Christian gatherings in Asia.[286] It takes place in Maramon, near Kozhencherry, during February on the vast sand-bed of the Pamba River next to the Kozhencherry Bridge. The first convention was held in March 1895 for 10 days.\n\nAnother major convention in Kerala is the annual Central Travancore Convention held at Saint Stephen's Cathedral, Makamkunnu of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.[287][288] The first convention was held in 1915.\n\nOne of the biggest conventions of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is the Kallooppara Orthodox Convention.[289] It takes place on the Koithottu sand banks of the Manimala River with over 5,000 annual participants.[290] This convention was started in 1943 lasting 8 days.\n\nRanni Orthodox Convention is an annual convention of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.[291] The convention is now held in Ranni town at Mar Gregorios Catholicate Centre and began in 1967.\n\nMallapally Orthodox Syrian Convention of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is an annual convention in Mallapally, Pathanamthitta.[292] The first convention took place in 1989 at Mallapally Valiyapally (St. John's Bethany Orthodox Valiyapally).\n\nTrivandrum Orthodox Convention is an annual convention organized by Trivandrum Orthodox Diocese.[293] The convention takes place at Holy Trinity Aramana, Ulloor and was started in 1988.[294]\n\nNotable Saint Thomas Christians\n\nIn literature\n\nIn The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, the novels feature a Syrian Christian family. \n\nSee also\n\nSaint Thomas Christian denominations\n\nIndo-Persian ecclesiastical relations\n\nIndia (East Syriac ecclesiastical province)\n\nNestorianism and the church in India\n\nChristianity in Kerala\n\nChristianity in India\n\nChurches of Kerala\n\nSuriyani Malayalam\n\nSources\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Thomas (2018), p. 4.\n\n^ \"Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Chicago (Syro-Malabarese)\". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 23 January 2015.\n\n^ \"The Stcei\". Indianchristianity.com. Retrieved 24 September 2017.\n\n^ a b Ross, Israel J. (1979). \"Ritual and Music in South India: Syrian Christian Liturgical Music in Kerala\". Asian Music. 11 (1): 80-98. doi:10.2307/833968. JSTOR 833968.\n\n^ a b King, Daniel (12 December 2018). The Syriac World. Routledge. p. 784. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\n^ \"J-L283 Syrian Christians of India descend from J-Y146401 that lived in the Levant 900 BC and likely Europe before that - Mygrations\". 4 November 2019.\n\n^ Perczel (2013), p. 416.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Brock (2011a).\n\n^ a b c Fahlbusch, Erwin; Bromiley, Geoffrey William; Lochman, Jan Milic (2008). The Encyclodedia of Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2.\n\n^ a b Israel Museum (1995). The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities. UPNE. p. 27. ISBN 978-965-278-179-6.\n\n^ Considine, John Joseph; Kernan, Thomas (1942). Across a World. Longmans, Green. p. 67.\n\n^ a b c d Baum & Winkler (2003), p. 52.\n\n^ a b Bundy, David D. (2011). \"Timotheos I\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\n^ \"How did Timur change the history of the world\". Archived from the original on 12 December 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2026.\n\n^ \"10 Terrors of the Tyrant Tamerlane\". 15 January 2018. Archived from the original on 15 September 2024.\n\n^ [1] \n\n^ \"The Forgotten Church of the East\". Eurasia.sil.org.\n\n^ \"The Church of the East: Two Thousand Years of Martyrdom and Mission\". 27 January 2016. Archived from the original on 17 April 2024.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 111.\n\n^ \"Christians of Saint Thomas\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 9 February 2010.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 134-136.\n\n^ Perczel, István (September 2014). \"Garshuni Malayalam: A Witness to an Early Stage of Indian Christian Literature\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 17 (2): 291.\n\n^ Encyclopedia Britannica (2011). Synod of Diamper. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. Retrieved 23 December 2011.\n\n^ For the Acts and Decrees of the Synod cf. Michael Geddes, \"A Short History of the Church of Malabar Together with the Synod of Diamper &c.\" London, 1694; Repr. in George Menachery (ed.), Indian Church History Classics, Vol.1, Ollur 1998, pp. 33-112.\n\n^ F. L. Cross; E. A. Livingstone, eds. (2009) [2005]. \"Addai and Mari, Liturgy of\". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd rev. ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192802903.\n\n^ \"India - Report on the Census of Travancore - Census 1871\". censusindia.gov.in. Retrieved 8 December 2024.\n\n^ \"India - Cochin, Part I, II, Vol-XIX - Census 1941\". new.census.gov.in. Retrieved 8 December 2024.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k Joseph (2011).\n\n^ \"Kerala Syrian Christian, Apostle in India, The tomb of the Apostle, Persian Church, Syond of Diamper - Coonan Cross Oath, Subsequent divisions and the Nasrani People\". Nasranis. 13 February 2007.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Brock (2011c).\n\n^ George, V. C. The Church in India Before and After the Synod of Diamper. Prakasam Publications. He wished to propagate Nestorianism within the community. Misunderstanding arose between him and the Assyrian Patriarch, and from the year 1962 onwards the Chaldean Syrian Church in Malabar has had two sections within it, one known as the Patriarch party and the other as the Bishop's party.\n\n^ \"Church of the East in India\". Archived from the original on 15 May 2011. Retrieved 2 October 2010.\n\n^ a b c d Brock (2011b).\n\n^ South Asia. Missions Advanced Research and Communication Center. 1980. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-912552-33-0. The Mar Thoma Syrian Church, which represents the Protestant Reform movement, broke away from the Syrian Orthodox Church in the 19th century.\n\n^ a b c Fenwick (2011b).\n\n^ \"Ecumenical Relations\". marthomanae.org. 9 May 2016. Archived from the original on 1 July 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2017.\n\n^ \"Mission & Vision\". St. Thomas Evangelical Church of India (steci) is an episcopal Church. Archived from the original on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2020.\n\n^ Dalal, Roshen (18 April 2014). The Religions of India: A Concise Guide to Nine Major Faiths. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-81-8475-396-7.\n\n^ a b c d Neill (2002), pp. 247-251.\n\n^ a b Fahlbusch, Erwin; Lochman, Jan Milic; Bromiley, Geoffrey William; Mbiti, John; Pelikan, Jaroslav; Vischer, Lukas (1999). The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 687-688. ISBN 978-90-04-11695-5.\n\n^ a b Melton, J. Gordon; Baumann, Martin (21 September 2010). Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices, 2nd Edition [6 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 707. ISBN 978-1-59884-204-3.\n\n^ a b Anderson, Allan; Tang, Edmond (2005). Asian and Pentecostal: The Charismatic Face of Christianity in Asia. OCMS. pp. 192-193, 195-196, 203-204. ISBN 978-1-870345-43-9.\n\n^ a b Bergunder, Michael (6 June 2008). The South Indian Pentecostal Movement in the Twentieth Century. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 15-16, 26-30, 37-57. ISBN 978-0-8028-2734-0.\n\n^ a b Županov, Ines G. (2005). Missionary Tropics: The Catholic Frontier in India (16th-17th centuries). University of Michigan. p. 99 and note. ISBN 0-472-11490-5.\n\n^ Malieckal, Bindu (2005). \"Muslims, Matriliny, and A Midsummer Night's Dream: European Encounters with the Mappilas of Malabar, India\". The Muslim World. 95 (2): 300. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2005.00092.x.\n\n^ Mathur, P. R. G. (1977). The Mappila fisherfolk of Kerala: a study in inter-relationship between habitat, technology, economy, society, and culture. Kerala Historical Society. p. 1.\n\n^ Vadakkekara (2007), p. 52.\n\n^ Zacharia, Paul; Lynn Johnson. \"The Surprisingly Early History of Christianity in India\". Smithsonian Magazine.\n\n^ \"Thomas The Apostole\". 8 February 2011. Archived from the original on 8 February 2011.\n\n^ \"Search for India's ancient city\". 11 June 2006.\n\n^ \"Arrival of St. Thomas-The visit of St. Thomas is still a matter of dispute among historians. There are only very limited details about him in the Bible\". Kerala Tourism (Archived). Government of Kerala. Archived from the original on 14 January 2025. Retrieved 10 July 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\n^ Bayly (2004), p. 244.\n\n^ a b Thomas Puthiakunnel, (1973) \"Jewish colonies of India paved the way for St. Thomas\", The Saint Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India, ed. George Menachery, Vol. II., Trichur.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 99; Klijn (2003), p. 15; Childers (2011); Medlycott (1912).\n\n^ Eusebius, Book V Chapter 10; Frykenberg (2008), p. 103; Baum & Winkler (2003), p. 52; Medlycott (1912); Whitehouse (1873), pp. 12-20.\n\n^ \"Indian Christianity\". Indianchristianity.com. Retrieved 15 June 2026.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 92.\n\n^ \"The Song of Thomas Ramban\" in Menachery G (ed); (1998) The Indian Church History Classics, Vol. I, The Nazranies, Ollur, 1998. ISBN 81-87133-05-8\n\n^ Whitehouse, Thomas (1873). Lingerings of light in a dark land: Researches into the Syrian church of Malabar. William Brown and Co. pp. 23-42.\n\n^ James Arampulickal (1994). The pastoral care of the Syro-Malabar Catholic migrants. Oriental Institute of Religious Studies, India Publications. p. 40.\n\n^ Orientalia christiana periodica: Commentaril de re orientali ...: Volumes 17-18. Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum. 1951. p. 233.\n\n^ Adrian Hastings (15 August 2000). A World History of Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-8028-4875-8.\n\n^ Department of Tourism. \"Seven and half Churches (Ezhara Pallikal)\".\n\n^ Muthiah, S. (1999). Madras Rediscovered: A Historical Guide to Looking Around, Supplemented with Tales of 'Once Upon a City'. East West Books. p. 113. ISBN 818-685-222-0.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 99.\n\n^ Mundadan & Thekkedath (1982), pp. 30-32.\n\n^ Mani, Thattunkal Zachariah (2016). ThomaaSleehaayude Kerala ChristhavaSabha Onnaam Noottaandil. T.Z.Mani. p. 14.\n\n^ Ayyar, L. K. Anantakrishna (1926). Anthropology of the Syrian Christians. Cochin Government Press. p. 3.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 101-102.\n\n^ a b Malekandathil (2010), pp. 38-61.\n\n^ a b c Menachery (2000).\n\n^ Brown (1956), p. .\n\n^ a b Malekandathil (2014).\n\n^ [70][71][72][73]\n\n^ a b c Medlycott (1912).\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 102-107, 115.\n\n^ Medlycott (1912); Kollaparambil (1992), pp. 1-20; Frykenberg (2008), p. 113; Fahlbusch, Bromiley & Lochman (2008), p. 286.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 113; Baum & Winkler (2003), p. 52; Swiderski (1988a).\n\n^ a b Kollaparambil (2015), p. 129.\n\n^ Neill (2004), pp. 42-43.\n\n^ Nedungatt (2001), p. 41: Related with East Syriac Church: The spatial separateness of the St Thomas Christians from Christian centres in other lands was not in every way absolute, as at an early stage of their history they found themselves in rapport with the East Syriac Church. Neither their traditions nor their posterior documents exhibit any sign of constraint or bad blood occasioned by such a relationship. On the other hand everything goes to show that it was a happy working arrangement. Their being in dire straits early on in their history and the arrival on the scene of the progenitors of the present-day \"Southists\" as benefactors, appears to coincide with the Community's acceptance of fellowship with the East Syriac Church. - Dr. Benedict Vadakkekara\n\n^ D'Aguiar, Rev. J. Monteiro. 'The Magna Carta of St. Thomas Christians', K. S. P., no. 4, p. 172 and 195.\n\n^ Burjor Avari - India, the ancient past, Taylor & Francis, 2007, p.221, ISBN 0-415-35615-6\n\n^ Pothan (1963), pp. 102-105.\n\n^ Werner Sundermann; Almut Hintze; François de Blois (2009). Exegisti Monumenta: Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims-Williams. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 38. ISBN 978-3-447-05937-4.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler (2003), p. 53.\n\n^ a b Walker (2011).\n\n^ a b Frykenberg (2008), p. 112.\n\n^ Cosmas Indicopleustes (24 June 2010). J. W. McCrindle (ed.). The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk: Translated from the Greek, and Edited with Notes and Introduction (2010 ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 48, 119-120, 365-366. ISBN 978-1-108-01295-9. Retrieved 3 November 2012.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 105, 110.\n\n^ Silverberg, Robert (1996). The Realm of Prester John, pp. 29-34. Ohio University Press. ISBN 1-84212-409-9.\n\n^ Liščák (2018), pp. 4-5.\n\n^ Massing, Jean Michel; Albuquerque, Luís de; Brown, Jonathan; González, J. J. Martín (1 January 1991). Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-05167-4.\n\n^ Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic-Islamic World, 1100-1500: Divergent Traditions. BRILL. 17 June 2021. p. 176. ISBN 978-90-04-44603-8.\n\n^ Liščák (2018), p. 5.\n\n^ Kerala Charithram P.59 Sridhara Menon.\n\n^ V. Nagam Aiya (1906), Travancore State Manual, p. 244.\n\n^ a b Perczel (2018).\n\n^ \"History\". Quilon.com.\n\n^ Yogesh Sharma (2010). Coastal Histories: Society and Ecology in Pre-modern India. Primus Books. p. 78. ISBN 978-93-80607-00-9.\n\n^ Malekandathil (2010), p. 43.\n\n^ Fiey, J. M. (1993). Pour un Oriens Christianus novus; répertoire des diocèses Syriaques orientaux et occidentaux, p. 96. Beirut: Orient-Institut.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 343, 391.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler (2003), p. 105.\n\n^ a b c Van der Ploeg (1983), p. 3.\n\n^ a b \"MS Vatican Syriac 22 & MS Vatican Syriac 17: Syriac Manuscripts copied in South India\". Nasranis. 6 April 2012.\n\n^ Mingana (1926), p. 451-452.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 378.\n\n^ Van der Ploeg (1983), p. 4.\n\n^ Jordanus, Catalani; Yule, Henry; Parr, Charles McKew donor; Parr, Ruth (1863). Mirabilia descripta: the wonders of the East. London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society. p. 23, para. 31.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ Antony, Martin Thomas (5 June 2010). \"The Story of Joseph, the Indian; A Historical Appraisal of the Affairs of St Thomas' Christians in the Pre Portuguese period\". Nasranis.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), pp. 20, 347, 398, 406-407.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler (2003), pp. 106-111.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 122-124.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 125-127.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 127-128.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), pp. 130-134.\n\n^ Neill (2004), pp. 208-210.\n\n^ Medlycott (1912); Takahashi (2011); Neill (2004), pp. 208-214; Vadakkekara (2007), p. 78; Prasad (2009), p. 484.\n\n^ \"Tracing the heritage of Syrian Christians\". The Hindu. 21 February 2011.\n\n^ Van der Ploeg (1983), p. .\n\n^ Prasad (2009), p. 484.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 136.\n\n^ Takahashi (2011).\n\n^ a b Frykenberg (2008), p. 367.\n\n^ a b Neill (2004), pp. 316-317.\n\n^ a b Neill (2004), p. 319.\n\n^ Census of India (1961: Kerala). Office of the Registrar General. 1965. p. 111. There are various versions about the wording of swearing, one version being that it was directed against the Portuguese, another that it was directed against Jesuits, yet another that it was directed against the authority of church of Rome.\n\n^ Neill (2004), p. 319: \"...which to this day all members of the independent Malankara church of Kerala regard as the moment at which their church recovered its independence and returned to its own true nature.\"\n\n^ a b c Neill (2004), p. 320.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 368: \"Archdeacon Thomas, having been elevated to High Metran by the laying on of hands by twelve cattanars, took the title of Mar Thoma I.\"\n\n^ Neill (2004), pp. 320-321.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 361: \"At the beginning, most remained with the old Archdeacon who, after his elevation at Koonen Cross to the position of Metran, took the title Mar Thoma I and added such ancient titles as 'Metran of All India', 'Gate of India'.\"\n\n^ Mundadan & Thekkedath (1982), pp. 96-100.\n\n^ Neill (2004), p. 323.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 361: \"...the Dutch permitted 'old party' Catholics to be placed under the 'guidance' of the Carmelites and allowed them to keep Mar Alexander Parampil (aka Alexander de Campos) as Vicar Apostolate. He soon also designated himself as 'Metran of All India' and 'Gate of India'.\"\n\n^ a b Menachery (1973, 1982, 1998)\n\n^ a b Podipara (1970).\n\n^ a b Brown (1956).\n\n^ a b Tisserant (1957).\n\n^ Mundadan & Thekkedath (1982), p. .\n\n^ [28][137][138][139][140][141]\n\n^ Vadakkekara (2007), p. 84; Frykenberg (2008), p. 361; Fernando & Gispert-Sauch (2004), p. 79; Chaput (1999), pp. 7-8; Perczel (2013), p. 425.\n\n^ Vadakkekara (2007), p. 84.\n\n^ a b The Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society. Vol.3. Mythic Society. 1911. p. 141. This incident marks an epoch in the history of the Syrian Church, and led to a separation of the community into parties, namely the Pazhayakuru (the Romo-Syrians) who adhered to the Church of Rome according to the Synod at Diamper; and the Puttankuru, the Jacobite Syrians, who after the oath of the Coonan Cross got Mar Gregory from Antioch, acknowledged the spiritual supremacy thereof. The former owed its foundation to the Archbishop Menezes and the Synod at Diamper in 1599 and its reconciliation after the revolt to the Carmelite Bishop Father Joseph of St.Mary whom the Pope appointed in 1659.\n\n^ Neill, Stephen (1970). The Story of the Christian Church in India and Pakistan. Christian Literature Society. p. 36. At the end of a period of twenty years, it was found that about two - thirds of the people had remained within the Roman allegiance; one - third stood by the archdeacon and had organized themselves as the independent Malankara Church, faithful to the old Eastern traditions and hostile to all the Roman claims.\n\n^ MacKenzie, Gordon Thomson (1901). Christianity in Travancore. Travancore Government Press. p. 28. ISBN 9781230341651. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Amaladass (1993), pp. 14-15.\n\n^ Frykenberg (2008), p. 249.\n\n^ Vadakkekara (2007), p. 88.\n\n^ Perczel (2013), p. 417.\n\n^ a b c d Brock (2011d).\n\n^ Medlycott (1912); Koonammakkal (2013), pp. 266, 267, 276; Thalian (1961).\n\n^ \"Archbishop Simon Dominicus\". Catholic-hierarchy.\n\n^ Brown (1956), pp. 115-117; Mooken (1977), pp. 50-51; Mooken (1983), pp. 25-26; Neill (2002), pp. 62-65; Perczel (2013), pp. 428-431.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Fenwick (2011a).\n\n^ a b Perczel (2013), p. 427 and note.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Malekandathil (2013).\n\n^ Neill (2002), p. 67.\n\n^ Neill (2002), pp. 68-69.\n\n^ Neill (2004), pp. 67-68.\n\n^ Perczel (2013), pp. 431-432.\n\n^ Mathew, N.M. (2006). History of the Marthoma Church (in Malayalam). Vol. 1. pp. 205-207.\n\n^ Kochumon, M.P. Saintly bishops of Kattumangat (in Malayalam). pp. 42-44.\n\n^ Varghese Kassessa, K.C. History of Malabar Independent Syrian Church (in Malayalam). p. 45.\n\n^ Fenwick, John (2009). The Forgotten Bishops. NJ: Georgias Press. pp. 200-246.\n\n^ [137][138][139][140][163][164][165][166]\n\n^ Burgess, Michael (2005). The Eastern Orthodox Churches. McFarland. p. 175. ISBN 0-7864-2145-2.\n\n^ Bayly (2004), pp. 281-286.\n\n^ George Joseph, The life and times of a Kerala Christian nationalist, Orient Blackswan, 2003, pp. 33-39, ISBN 81-250-2495-6\n\n^ Neill (2004), p. 241.\n\n^ Cherian, Dr. C.V., Orthodox Christianity in India. Academic Publishers, College Road, Kottayam. 2003.p. 254-262.\n\n^ a b Bayly (2004), p. 300.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Varghese (2011).\n\n^ \"Missionaries led State to renaissance: Pinarayi\". The Hindu. 13 November 2016.\n\n^ \"Kerala to celebrate CMS mission\". Church Mission Society. 9 November 2016.\n\n^ \"A History of the Church of England in India, by Eyre Chatterton (1924)\". anglicanhistory.org.\n\n^ a b \"Church of south India (CSI)\". keralawindow.net.\n\n^ \"Archbishop Thomas Rokuss\". Catholic-Hierarchy.\n\n^ Martina, Giacomo (1986). Pio IX (1851-1866). Pontificia università gregoriana. pp. 372-374. ISBN 8876525432.\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 34.\n\n^ \"Bishop Jean-Élie Mellus\". Catholic-Hierarchy.\n\n^ \"Church of the East - India\".\n\n^ Wilmshurst (2000), p. 75.\n\n^ Mooken (1987).\n\n^ Mooken (1975), p. 11-26.\n\n^ Perczel (2013), p. 435-436.\n\n^ Vadakkekara (2007), p. 103.\n\n^ a b c d Varghese, A.P. - India: History, Religion, Vision and Contribution to the World, Atlantic Publishers 2008, ISBN 978-81-269-0903-2, pp. 376-378\n\n^ M.P. Varkey, Pulikkottil Joseph Mar Dionysious II, Metropolitan of Jacobite faction of Malankara Church.(Malayalam), Malayala Manorama. 1901.\n\n^ Cheriyan, C.V., Orthodox Christianity in India. Academic Publishers, College Road, Kottayam. 2003. p. 294.\n\n^ Mathew, N.M. (2007). History of the Marthoma Church (in Malayalam). Vol. II. p. 125.\n\n^ Kiraz, George A. (2011b). \"ʿAbdulmasīḥ II\". Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition.\n\n^ a b c Kiraz (2011a).\n\n^ K Mani Rajan (2017). Holy Fathers of The Syrian Orient Entombed in Kerala (PDF). JSC Publications. pp. 111-116.\n\n^ A History of Eastern Christianity - Taylor & Francis, pp. 372-374.\n\n^ Vadakkekara (2007), p. 94-96.\n\n^ Cherian, Dr. C.V., Orthodox Christianity in India. Academic Publishers, College Road, Kottayam. 2003.p. 354.\n\n^ Chediath, Geevarghese (2012). The Malankara Catholic Church (PDF). Vadavathoor: OIRSI publications. pp. 201, 226. ISBN 978-81-88456-91-8.\n\n^ Rev. Thomas, P.T. & Rev. P.C. Zachariah. It Happened in The Mar Thoma Church. 1961.\n\n^ Thomas, K.T. & Rev. T.N. Koshy. Faith on Trial. Ernakulam. 1965.\n\n^ Valayil C, John (22 February 2018). Transnational Religious Organization and Practice: A Contextual Analysis of Kerala Pentecostal Churches in Kuwait. BRILL. pp. 96-108. ISBN 978-90-04-36101-0.\n\n^ a b John, Stanley (10 December 2020). The Rise of 'New Generation' Churches in Kerala Christianity. Brill. pp. 271-291. doi:10.1163/9789004444867_014. ISBN 9789004444867. S2CID 234532613.\n\n^ Kumar, P. Pratap, ed. (December 2019). \"Nidan: International Journal for Indian Studies\". Nidan: Journal for the Study of Hinduism. 4 (2): 7-18. ISSN 2414-8636.\n\n^ Karkkainen, Veli-Matti (26 August 2009). The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 72-87. ISBN 978-0-8028-6281-5.\n\n^ \"Thomas Christians - Later developments\". Encyclopedia Britannica. 13 June 2024.\n\n^ Anderson, Allan (13 May 2004). An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity. Cambridge University Press. pp. 124-127. ISBN 978-0-521-53280-8.\n\n^ Samuel, Joy T. 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University of California Press. pp. 155-156. ISBN 978-0-520-04667-2.\n\n^ Devika & Varghese (2010), p. 11.\n\n^ Zachariah (2006), p. 3.\n\n^ a b Zachariah (2006), p. .\n\n^ Landy, Thomas M. (21 February 2014). \"Syrian- and Latin-rite Catholic churches side-by-side in Kerala\". McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture. Retrieved 5 October 2025.\n\n^ World Christianity: South Asia. WVI. 1980. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-912552-33-0.\n\n^ a b Vellian (1986), p. 0-1.\n\n^ a b Malekandathil (2003), pp. 19-20.\n\n^ a b Podipara (1971), p. 2.\n\n^ a b Frykenberg (2008), p. 113.\n\n^ Kollaparambil (1992), pp. 84-85.\n\n^ a b A Kumar - Social Reforms in Modern India, p. 180, Sarup and Sons 2001, ISBN 81-7625-227-1\n\n^ Kunniparampil Curien Zachariah et al. - Dynamics of migration in Kerala: dimensions, differentials, and consequences, pp. 85-89, Orient Blackswan, 2003, ISBN 81-250-2504-9\n\n^ \"Syrian Christians are in a class of their own\". The Hindu. 31 August 2001. 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(1979) Ritual and Music in South India: Syrian Christian Liturgical Music in Kerala (pp. 80-98). vol 11, no 1. doi: 10.2307/833968\n\n^ Prasad (2009), pp. 484-487.\n\n^ a b c d Prasad (2009), pp. 482-483.\n\n^ Collins (2007), p. 142.\n\n^ Ananthakrishna Iyer (1926), pp. 205-219.\n\n^ Bayly (2004), pp. 246-247.\n\n^ Pothan (1963), p. 58.\n\n^ a b Vadakkekara (2007), p. 325-330.\n\n^ Amaladass (1993), pp. 15-19.\n\n^ Census of India, 1961, India. Office of the Registrar General, p. 290.\n\n^ Bayly (2004), p. 273.\n\n^ Bayly (2004), pp. 274-279.\n\n^ Bayly (2004), pp. 310-315.\n\n^ Palackal, Joseph J. (2005). Syriac Chant Traditions in South India (PhD, Ethnomusicology thesis). City University of New York.\n\n^ Palackal (2016).\n\n^ Palackal, Joseph J. (2020). Shafiq Abouzayd (ed.). \"The Survival Story of the Sound, Sentiments, and Melodies of the Aramaic Chants in India\" (PDF). ARAM Periodical. ARAM Society: 287-292.\n\n^ \"Palm Sunday (Kuruthola Perunnal), Maundy Thursday (Pesaha), Good Friday (Dukha Velli) And Easter Among Saint Thomas Christians Of India\". NSC Network. 25 March 2007 [Updated: 12 October 2014]. Retrieved 16 June 2012.\n\n^ Weil, S. (1982) \"Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cananite Christians and Cochin Jews in Kerala. in Contributions to Indian Sociology, 16.\n\n^ \"Syro-Malabar Catechesis\". Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 8 July 2021.\n\n^ a b \"Syrian Christians in India\". Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily. 6 September 2010. Archived from the original on 10 May 2013 - via HighBeam Research. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)\n\n^ \"Cross-Cultural Head Coverings\" (PDF). University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 2020. p. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 August 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024. 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Sources of the Syro Malabar Law. Oriental Institute of Religious Studies India. ISBN 9789382762287.\n\nKoonammakkal, Thomas (2013). \"Syro-Malabar History and Traditions\". In Bruns, Peter; Luthe, Heinz Otto (eds.). Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 259-276. ISBN 9783447068857.\n\nLiščák, Vladimír (2018). \"Mapa mondi (Catalan Atlas of 1375), Majorcan cartographic school, and 14th century Asia\" (PDF). In C. A. Brewer (ed.). Proceedings of the International Cartographic Association. 28th International Cartographic Conference: 2-7 July 2017, Washington DC, USA. Vol. 1. Art. 69. Bibcode:2018PrICA...1...69L. doi:10.5194/ica-proc-1-69-2018.\n\nMalekandathil, Pius (2003). Jornada of D. Alexis Menezes: A Portuguese Account of the Sixteenth Century Malabar. LRC Publications. ISBN 81-88979-00-7.\n\nMalekandathil, Pius (2010). Maritime India: Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean. Delhi: Primus Books. ISBN 978-93-8060-701-6.\n\nMalekandathil, Pius (28 January 2013). \"Nazrani History and Discourse on Early Nationalism in Varthamanapusthakam\". NSC Network.\n\nMalekandathil, Pius (19 March 2014). \"Nazrani Christians and the Social Processes of Kerala, 800-1500\". NSC Network. Retrieved 6 September 2015.\n\nMedlycott, A. (1912). \"St. Thomas Christians\". The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 4 July 2021.\n\nMenachery, George (2000). Thomapedia. Thomapedia. ISBN 81-87132-13-2. OCLC 56405161.\n\nMenachery, George, ed. (1982). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India. Vol. I. Trichur: St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India.\n\nMenachery, George, ed. (1973). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India. Vol. II. Trichur: St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India.\n\nMenachery, George, ed. (2010). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India. Vol. III. Trichur: St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India.\n\nMenachery, George, ed. (1998). The Indian Church History Classics, Vol. I, The Nazranies. Ollur, Trichur, India: South Asia Research Assistance Services. ISBN 81-87133-05-8.\n\nMingana, Alphonse (1926). \"The Early Spread of Christianity in India\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 10 (2): 435-514. doi:10.7227/BJRL.10.2.7.\n\nMooken, Aprem (1975). Mar Abimalek Timotheus: A Biography. Trichur: Mar Narsai Press.\n\nMooken, Aprem (1977). The Chaldean Syrian Church in India. Trichur: Mar Narsai Press.\n\nMooken, Aprem (1983). The Chaldean Syrian Church of the East. Delhi: National Council of Churches in India.\n\nMooken, Aprem (1987). Mar Abdisho Thondanat: A Biography. Trichur: Mar Narsai Press.\n\nMoraes, George M. (1964). A History of Christianity in India: From Early Times to St. Francis Xavier: A. D. 52-1542. Bombay: Manaktalas.\n\nMundadan, Anthony Mathias (1943). History of Christianity in India. Vol. 1. Bangalore: Church History Association of India.\n\nMundadan, Anthony Mathias; Thekkedath, Joseph (1982). History of Christianity in India. Vol. 2. Bangalore: Church History Association of India.\n\nMundadan, Anthony Mathias (1967). The Arrival of the Portuguese in India and the Thomas Christians Under Mar Jacob, 1498-1552. Bangalore: Dharmaram College.\n\nMundadan, Anthony Mathias (1970). Sixteenth century traditions of St. Thomas Christians. Bangalore: Dharmaram College.\n\nMundadan, Anthony Mathias (1984). Indian Christians: Search for Identity and Struggle for Autonomy. Bangalore: Dharmaram College.\n\nNedungatt, George (2001). The Synod of Diamper Revisisted. Pontificio Istituto Orientale. ISBN 8872103312.\n\nNeill, Stephen (1984) [1966]. Colonialism and Christian Missions. New York: McGraw-Hill.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2004) [1984]. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521548854.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2002) [1985]. A History of Christianity in India: 1707-1858. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521893329.\n\nPalackal, Joseph J. (2016). \"The Survival Story of the Syriac Chants among the Saint Thomas Christians in South India\". In Suzel Ana Reily; Jonathan M. Dueck (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-061417-1.\n\nPerczel, István (2011). \"Four apologetic church histories from India\". In Baby Varghese; Jacob Thekeparampil; Abraham Kalakudi (eds.). The Harp. Vol. 24. Gorgias Press. pp. 189-218. ISBN 9781463233136.\n\nPerczel, István (2013). \"Some New Documents on the Struggle of the Saint Thomas Christians to Maintain the Chaldaean Rite and Jurisdiction\". In Peter Bruns; Heinz Otto Luthe (eds.). Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 415-436.\n\nPerczel, István (2018). \"Syriac Christianity in India\". In Daniel King (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. pp. 653-697. ISBN 978-1-317-48211-6.\n\nPodipara, Placid J. (1970). The Thomas Christians. London: Darton, Longman and Tidd.\n\nPodipara, Placid (1971). The Varthamanappusthakam. Pontifical Oriental Institute. ISBN 978-81-2645-152-4.\n\nPothan, S.G. (1963). The Syrian Christians of Kerala. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.\n\nPrasad, Rajendra (2009). A Historical-Developmental Study of Classical Indian Philosophy of Morals. History of Science, Philosophy, and Culture in Indian Civilization. Vol. 12. Delhi, India: Concept Publishing Company. ISBN 978-81-8069-595-7.\n\nSwiderski, Richard M. (1988). Blood weddings: the Knanaya Christians of Kerala. New Era Publications. OCLC 614902709.\n\nSwiderski, Richard Michael (1988a). \"Northists and Southists: A Folklore of Kerala Christians\". Asian Folklore Studies. 47 (1). Nanzan University: 76-80, 80-83. doi:10.2307/1178253. JSTOR 1178253.\n\nTakahashi, Hidemi (2011). \"Diamper, Synod of\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nThalian, George (1961). The Great Archbishop Augustine W. Kandathil, D. D.: the Outline of a Vocation. Bp. Louis memorial press.\n\nThomas, Sonja (2018). Privileged Minorities:Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India. University of Washington Press.\n\nTisserant, E. (1957). E. R. Hambye (ed.). Eastern Christianity in India: A History of the Syro-Malabar Church from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Translated by E. R. Hambye. Westminster, MD: Newman Press.\n\nVadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: A Historiographical Critique. Delhi: Media House. ISBN 9788174952585.\n\nVan der Ploeg, J. P. M. (1983). The Christians of St. Thomas in South India and their Syriac Manuscripts. Rome; Bangalore: Center for Indian and Inter-Religious Studies; Dharmaram Publications.\n\nVarghese, Baby (2011). \"Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nVellian, Jacob (1986). Symposium on Knanites. Syrian Church Series. Vol. 12. Jyothi Book House.\n\nWalker, Joel T. (2011). \"Fars\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nZachariah, K. C. (2006). The Syrian Christians of Kerala: Demographic and Socioeconomic Transition in the Twentieth Century. Thiruvananthapuram: Orient Longman. ISBN 9788125030096.\n\nPrimary sources\n\nEusebius. Knight, Kevin (ed.). Church History. Translated by McGiffert, Arthur Cushman.. Book V Chapter 10 \"Pantaenus the Philosopher\".\n\nFurther reading\n\nAntony, Martin Thomas (13 September 2009). \"Catalogue of ancient Nasrani Churches, their affiliations and population statistics in the background of division and attempts of Reconciliation - A review of Literature\". Nasranis.\n\nIyer, K.V. Krishna (1971). \"Kerala's Relations with the Outside World\". The Cochin Synagogue Quatercentenary Celebrations Commemoration Volume. Cochin: Kerala History Association. pp. 70, 71.\n\nHarris, Ian C., ed. (1992). Contemporary Religions: A World Guide. Harlow: Longman. ISBN 9780582086951.\n\nLandström, Björn (1964). The quest for India : a history of discovery and exploration from the expedition to the land of Punt in 1493 B.C. to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 A.D., in words and pictures. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.\n\nJoseph, Mariamma (1994). Marriage Among Indian Christians. Jaipur: Rawat Publications. ISBN 978-81-7033-215-2.\n\nMathew, N. M. St. Thomas Christians of Malabar Through Ages. CSS Tiruvalla. 2003.\n\nMenachery, George. (2000) Kodungallur - The Cradle of Christianity in India, Thrissur: Marthoma Pontifical Shrine.\n\nMenachery, George (ed.). (1982/1973/2010). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopedia of India, 3 volumes, Trichur: St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India.\n\nMenachery, George (Ed.with Ponnumuthan, Aerath). (2006) Indian Christians and Nation Building, CBCI-KCBC Kochi-Alwaye.\n\nMenachery, George (Ed.with Snaitang). (2011) India's Christian Heritage, Church History Assn. of India, Bangalore (DVK).\n\nMenachery, George & Chakkalakal, Werner (ed.) (1987) Kodungallur: City of St. Thomas, Azhikode, 16 pp.\n\nMiller, J. Innes. (1969). The Spice Trade of The Roman Empire: 29 B.C. to A.D. 641. Oxford University Press. Special edition for Sandpiper Books. 1998. ISBN 0-19-814264-1.\n\nPodipara, Placid J. (1970) \"The Thomas Christians\". London: Darton, Longman and Tidd, 1970. (is a readable and exhaustive study of the St. Thomas Christians.)\n\nPoomangalam C.A (1998) The Antiquities of the Knanaya Syrian Christians; Kottayam, Kerala.\n\nPuthur, B. (ed.) (2002): The Life and Nature of the St Thomas Christian Church in the Pre-Diamper Period (Cochi, Kerala).\n\nSamuel, V. C. (August 2007) [February 1992]. The Growing Church: An Introduction to Indian Church History (PDF). Divyabodhanam series. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Kottayam: Divyabodhanam Publications. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 July 2019.\n\nTamcke, M. (ed.) (2001): Orientalische Christen zwischen Repression und Migration (Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 13; Münster: LIT).\n\nThayil, Thomas (2003). The Latin Christians of Kerala: A Study on Their Origin. Kristu Jyoti Publications. ISBN 81-87370-18-1\n\nTisserant, E. (1957) Eastern Christianity in India: A History of the Syro-Malabar Church from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Trans. and ed. by E. R. Hambye. Westminster, MD: Newman Press.\n\nVellian Jacob (2001) Knanite community: History and culture; Syrian church series; vol. XVII; Kottayam: Jyothi Book House.\n\nVeluthat, K. (1978). Brahmin settlements in Kerala: Historical studies. Calicut: Calicut University, Sandhya Publications.\n\nVisvanathan, Susan (1993) The Christians of Kerala: History, Belief and Ritual Among the Yakoba. New Delhi/Madras/New York: Oxford University Press\n\nVisvanathan, Susan (1989) \"Marriage, Birth and Death-Property Rights and Domestic Relationships of the Orthodox Jacobite Syrian Christians of Kerala\", Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XXIV No. 24, 17 June 1989.\n\nVisvanathan, Susan (1986) \"Reconstructions of the Past among the Syrian Christians of Kerala\", Contributions to Indian Sociology (Sage Publishers), July 1986; vol. 20, 2: pp. 241-260.\n\nVisvanathan, Susan (2010).\"The Status of Christian Women in Kerala\", in 'World Christianity: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies', edited by Elizabeth Koepping, London: Routledge, 2010.\n\nVisvanathan, Susan (2011) \"The Eucharist in a Syrian Christian Church\", in T.N.Madan (edited) 'India's Religions: Perspectives from Sociology and History'. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.\n\nExternal links\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nThe Syro Malabar Church\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church)\n\nMalankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church Archived 10 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine\n\nPopulation of Christians in India and Kerala based on 2001 report of Indian census\n\nThe Nasrani Syrian Christian Network\n\nProject for preserving the manuscripts of the Syrian Christians of Kerala Archived 28 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-saint-thomas-christians"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 18046}, {"slug": "reference-karamlesh", "title": "Karamlesh", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Karamlesh (Syriac: ܟܪܡܠܫ,[1][2] Arabic: كرمليس; also spelled Karemlash, Karemles, Karemlish, etc.) is a town in northern Iraq located less than 18 miles (29 km) south east of Mosul.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Karamlesh\n ܟܪܡܠܫ\n\nKaramleshLocation within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 36°18′13″N 43°24′46″E / 36.30361°N 43.41278°E / 36.30361; 43.41278\n\nCountryIraq\n\nGovernorateNineveh\n\nDistrictAl-Hamdaniya District\n\nPopulation (2018)\n\n • Total1,000+\n\n 3,000 prior to ISIS invasion\n\nTime zoneGMT +3\n\nKaramlesh (Syriac: ܟܪܡܠܫ,[1][2] Arabic: كرمليس; also spelled Karemlash, Karemles, Karemlish, etc.) is a town in northern Iraq located less than 18 miles (29 km) south east of Mosul.\n\nIt is surrounded by many hills that along with it made up the historical Assyrian city of Kar-Mullissi (written URU.kar-dNIN.LÍL[3]), which means \"the city of Mullissu\" in Akkadian. Its Assyrian residents fled to Kurdistan Region because of the planned escape from the Peshmerga following the invasion of the town by ISIS forces in August 2014. The town was liberated by Iraqi Security Forces from ISIS rule on October 24, 2016, as part of the larger Battle of Mosul.\n\nHistory\n\nPatriarchal seat of the Church of the East\n\nKaremlash was the seat of the Nestorian patriarch Denha II (1336/7-1381/2) for at least part of his reign. The continuator of the Ecclesiastical History of Bar Hebraeus mentions several contacts between Denha II and the Jacobite church in Karamlish between 1358 and 1364. At this period Karemlash had Jacobite and Armenian communities alongside its Nestorian majority, and its village chiefs styled themselves 'emirs'. The prosperity enjoyed by the village during the reign of Denha II presumably came to an end when the patriarchate was relocated to Mosul at an unknown date in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.[4]\n\nAfter Iraq War\n\nKaremlash was relatively calm following the US-led Iraq War. In late 2003, the town came briefly under the control of the 101st Airborne Division (377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion).[5]\n\nThe town showed strong support towards the Assyrian Democratic Movement during the parliamentary and local elections in 2005, 2007 and 2010.[6] The town also received thousands of Assyrian and other Christian refugees from other parts of the country after waves of violence against them. In response to the influx of refugees, Sarkis Aghajan and the Supreme Committee of Christian Affairs built and renovated new homes, churches, cemeteries, infrastructure and a complex for Armenian Refugees, among other improvements.[7]\n\nOn August 6, 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took over the town, causing all of its inhabitants to flee to Erbil. During their occupation of the city, they burned an 80-year-old Assyrian woman to death for \"failing to comply with the strict laws of the Islamic State\"[8] and destroyed a large portion of the historic Mar Behnam Monastery.[9]\n\nOn October 24, 2016, the city was liberated by the Iraqi Army, which on the same day, returned crosses to the domes of some of the main churches.[10]\n\nSecurity\n\nThe Popular Mobilization Forces currently run the security in the Town.[11]\n\nPeople\n\nThabet Habib Yousif Al Mekko (1976-2025), Catholic bishop of Mosul.\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nAssyrian homeland\n\nAssyrians in Iraq\n\nProposals for Assyrian autonomy in Iraq\n\nBartella\n\nBakhdida\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nOriginally based on an article by Habib Hannona and Fred Aprim on karemlash.com, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, used with permission.\n\n^ Borghero, Roberta. \"Some Features of the Verbal System of the Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Karamlesh\". Neo-Aramaic Dialect Studies. Gorgias Press. pp. 75-90. ISBN 978-1-4632-1161-5.\n\n^ \"Bahra no 192 Sun. 3 Oct. 2010\" (PDF). zowaa.co.uk. Retrieved 16 July 2020.\n\n^ \"rinap/rinap3/qpn-x-places/Kar-Mullissi[1]\". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-10-20.\n\n^ Wilmshurst, EOCE, 218-19\n\n^ \"U.S. Soldiers Adopt Assyrian Village with Educational Results\" - www.Gulf1.com, 28 December 2003; Spc. Joshua Hutcheson\n\n^ نتائج الانتخابات في سهل نينوى Zahrira.net\n\n^ \"Karamles\".\n\n^ BasNews Islamic State Militants Burn Christian Woman in Nineveh Village Archived 2015-05-27 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Isis 'blows up famed 4th-century Mar Behnam Catholic monastery' in Iraq\". 19 March 2015.\n\n^ \"بسام النصرالله on Twitter\". Twitter. Retrieved 2016-10-24.\n\n^ Contested Control: The Future of Security in Iraq's Nineveh Plain."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-karamlesh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 663}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-france", "title": "Assyrians in France", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "French Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܦܪܲܢܓܝܵܐ, French: Assyriens) are French citizens of Assyrian ancestry. There are around 30,000 - 40,000 most of whom are concentrated in the Paris metropolitan area.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in France\nܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܦܪܲܢܓܝܵܐ\n\nMemorial of the Assyrian genocide in Paris\n\nTotal population\n\n30,000 - 40,000[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nParis, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic and French\n\nReligion\n\nChaldean Catholic, Syriac Orthodox , Assyrian Church of the East\n\nFrench Assyrians (Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ܕܦܪܲܢܓܝܵܐ, French: Assyriens) are French citizens of Assyrian ancestry. There are around 30,000 - 40,000 most of whom are concentrated in the Paris metropolitan area.\n\nHistory\n\nThe community has a history in France dating back to the First World War, with most arriving during the 1920s in Marseille as a result of the Assyrian genocide.[2]\n\nThe bulk of the Assyrian presence dates back to the early 20th century, when some Assyrians, fleeing the Assyrian genocide, found refuge in France.[1] Others arrived from rural south-eastern Turkey (especially Mardin, Tur Abdin, Şırnak and Siirt) as a result of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1960s and 70s. Their numbers swelled after the Iraq War in 2003 by those arriving from Iraqi cities.\n\nPopulation\n\nThere are 30,000 - 40,000 Assyrians living in France. The first Assyrians arrived in Marseille France in the 1920s as refugees from the genocide of the Assyrians by Turks during World War One, in which up to 275,000[3] Assyrians were killed, as well as 1 million Greeks and 1.5 million Armenians.[4] Around 10,000 of Assyrians live in Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris. They are generally compared to French Jews who are seen as inward-looking, conservative and well-integrated in the French society.[5] 10,000 (of 16,000) Assyrians live in Sarcelles.[6]\n\nNotable French Assyrians\n\nMaria Theresa Asmar\n\nFrançois David\n\nHenri Jibrayel\n\nAgha Petros\n\nAshur Sarnaya\n\nPascal Esho Warda\n\nSee also\n\nThe Last Assyrians\n\nAssyrians in Belgium\n\nNotes\n\n^ a b Wieviorka & Bataille 2007, pp. 166\n\n^ \"Assyrians Establish National Federation in France\". AINA. Retrieved 20 June 2019.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847.\n\n^ AINA, 2018\n\n^ Wieviorka & Bataille 2007, pp. 167\n\n^ \"Assyrians Establish National Federation in France\".\n\nExternal links\n\nAssociation des Assyro-Chaldéens de France\n\nAssyrians Establish National Federation in France\n\nReferences\n\nWieviorka, Michel; Bataille, Philippe (2007). The lure of anti-Semitism: hatred of Jews in present-day France. BRILL. ISBN 9789004163379."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-france"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 383}, {"slug": "reference-tikrit", "title": "Tikrit", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tikrit (Arabic: تِكْرِيت, romanized: Tikrīt [ˈtɪkriːt]), historically romanized as Tekrit,[2] is a city in Iraq, located 140 kilometers (87 mi) northwest of Baghdad and 220 kilometers (140 mi) southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. In 2012, it had...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tikrit\n تِكْرِيت\n\nCity\n\nTop-bottom, R-L:\n University of Tikrit \n Mosque • Tigris River\n\n Aljamia District\n\nFlag\n\nTikritLocation of Tikrit within Iraq\n\nCoordinates: 34°36′36″N 43°40′48″E / 34.61000°N 43.68000°E / 34.61000; 43.68000\n\nCountry Iraq\n\nGovernorateSaladin\n\nDistrictTikrit\n\nGovernment\n\n • MayorOmar Tariq Ismail\n\nElevation[1]137 m (449 ft)\n\nPopulation (2012)\n\n • Total160,000\n\nTikrit (Arabic: تِكْرِيت, romanized: Tikrīt [ˈtɪkriːt]), historically romanized as Tekrit,[2] is a city in Iraq, located 140 kilometers (87 mi) northwest of Baghdad and 220 kilometers (140 mi) southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. In 2012, it had a population of approximately 160,000.[3] Tikrit is widely regarded as the cultural capital of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, with control of the city carrying symbolic weight due to its former prestige. \n\nThe inner city is notable for also being a university town as it is frequented by students of the city's major university, the University of Tikrit which attracts talent from around Iraq. \n\nOriginally created as a fort during the Assyrian empire, Tikrit was the birthplace of Muslim military leader Saladin. Many Iraqi government officials during the Ba'athist period (1968-2003) were from Tikrit; former president Saddam Hussein was born in the village of Al-Awja, 13 km south of the city. \n\nFollowing the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition, Tikrit was one of the cities in Iraq's \"Sunni Triangle\" which were core to an anti-coalition insurgency by Sunni militants-notably, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). In 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), ISI's successor, captured the city, and massacred 1,700 cadets of the Iraqi Armed Forces there. It was the second-deadliest terrorist attack in history. During the Second Battle of Tikrit in 2015, Iraqi government forces regained control of the city,[4] while 28,000 civilians were displaced.[5] Tikrit has been peaceful since then.\n\nHistory\n\nBronze Age to Hellenistic period\n\nAs a fort along the Tigris (Akkadian: Idiqlat), the city is first mentioned in the Fall of Assyria Chronicle as being a refuge for the Babylonian king Nabopolassar after his failed assault on the city of Assur in 615 BC.[6]\n\nTikrit is usually identified as the Hellenistic settlement Birtha.[7]\n\nChristian presence\n\nUntil the 6th century, Christianity within the Sasanian Empire was predominantly dyophysite under the Church of the East, however, as a result of Miaphysite missionary work, Tikrit became a major Miaphysite (Oriental Orthodox Christian) center under its first bishop, Ahudemmeh, in 559.[8] Under Marutha of Tikrit, the bishopric was elevated into a maphrianate and the city's ecclesiastical jurisdiction extended as far as Central Asia.[9]\n\nThe city remained predominantly Syriac Orthodox Christian in the early centuries of Islamic rule and gained fame as an important center of Syriac and Christian Arab literature. Some famous Christians from the city include its bishop Quriaqos of Tagrit who ascended to become the patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, theologians Abu Zakariya Denha and Abu Raita, and translator Yahya ibn Adi.[10]\n\nFrom the ninth century Christians of Tikrit began to migrate northwards due to restrictive measures taken by some Muslim governors. Many settled in Mosul and villages in the Nineveh Plains, especially Bakhdida, as well as Tur Abdin.[11] The Christian community received a setback when the governor ordered the destruction of the main cathedral known popularly as the \"Green Church\" in 1089. The maphrian and some of the Christians of Tikrit had to relocate to the Mor Mattai Monastery, where a village named Merki was established in the valley below the monastery. A later governor permitted the reconstruction of the cathedral. However, instability returned and the maphrian moved indefinitely to Mosul in 1156.[11]\n\nRegardless, the city remained an important center of the Syriac Orthodox Church until its destruction by Timur in the late 14th century. A Christian presence has not existed in the city since the 17th century.[10]\n\nByzantine to Ottoman periods\n\nThe town was also home to the Arab Christian tribe of Iyad. The Arabs of the town secretly assisted the Muslims when they besieged the town. The Muslims entered Tikrit in 640; it was from then considered as part of the Jazira province. It was later regarded as belonging to Iraq by Arab geographers.[10]\n\nTikrit was briefly controlled by the Nizari Ismailis. After a failed Seljuk campaign against it, the Nizaris handed it over to the local Shia Arabs there.[12]\n\nThe Arab Uqaylid dynasty took hold of Tikrit in 1036.\n\nSaladin was born there around 1138.[13] The modern province of which Tikrit is the capital is named after him.\n\nThe city was devastated in 1393 by Timur. During the Ottoman period Tikrit existed as a small settlement that belonged to the Rakka Eyalet; its population never exceeded 4,000-5,000.[10]\n\nWorld War I and Ba'ath Party connections\n\nThe city is Hussein's birthplace. Many senior members of the Iraqi government during his rule were drawn from Hussein's own Tikriti tribe, the Al-Bu Nasir, as were members of his Iraqi Republican Guard, chiefly because Hussein apparently felt that he was most able to rely on relatives and allies of his family. The Tikriti domination of the Iraqi government became something of an embarrassment to Hussein and, in 1977, he abolished the use of surnames in Iraq to conceal the fact that so many of his key supporters bore the same surname, al-Tikriti (as did Hussein himself).[14] Hussein was buried near Tikrit in his hometown of Al-Awja following his hanging on 30 December 2006.\n\nIraq War of 2003 and aftermath\n\nIn the opening weeks of the 2003 US-led invasion, many observers speculated that Hussein would return to Tikrit as his \"last stronghold\". The city was subjected to intense aerial bombardment meant to throw Hussein's elite Republican Guard troops out of the city. On 13 April 2003, several thousand U.S. Marines and other coalition members aboard 300 armored vehicles converged on the town, meeting little or no resistance. With the fall of Tikrit, U.S. Army Major General Stanley McChrystal said, \"I would anticipate that the major combat operations are over.\"[15]\n\nAfter the fall of Baghdad, Hussein was in and around Tikrit. He was hidden by relatives and supporters for about six months. During his final period in hiding, he lived in a small hole just outside the town of ad-Dawr, 15 kilometres (9 mi) south of Tikrit on the eastern bank of the Tigris, a few kilometers southeast of Al-Awja (although the story of having been found in a hole specifically has come into question as being a piece of war-time propaganda). \n\nOn 18 April 2010, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed in a raid 10 km (6 mi) southwest of Tikrit in a safe house.[16]\n\nISIL insurgence (2011-15)\n\nThe Islamic State of Iraq launched an attack on 29 March 2011 that killed 65 people and wounded over 100.[17] Reuters news agency included the attack in its list of deadliest attacks in 2011.[18]\n\nOn 11 June 2014, during the Northern Iraq offensive, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) took control of the city. Hours later, the Iraqi Army made an attempt to recapture the city, which resulted in heavy fighting.[20] On 12 June, IS executed at least 1,566[21] Iraqi Air Force cadets from Camp Speicher at Tikrit. At the time of the attack there were between 4,000 and 11,000 unarmed cadets in the camp.[22] The Iraqi government blamed the massacre on both IS and members of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party - Iraq Region.[23] By July 2014, government forces had withdrawn from Tikrit.[24][25]\n\nOn 25 September 2014, Islamist militants destroyed the Assyrian Church there that dated back to 700 AD.[26] The historic Al-Arba'een Mosque was detonated as well, damaging the cemetery surrounding it.\n\nIn March 2015, the Iraqi Army along with the Hashd Shaabi popular forces launched an operation to retake Tikrit from IS.[27] On 31 March, the Iraqi government claimed the city had been recaptured by the Iraqi Army with the help of Shia militias.[4]\n\nNotable people\n\nSaladin (1137 - 1193), was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty who recaptured Jerusalem\n\nSaddam Hussein (1937 - 2006), President of Iraq from 1979 until 9 April 2003\n\nBarzan al-Tikriti (1951 - 2007), one of three half-brothers of Saddam Hussein, and a leader of the Mukhabarat\n\nAli Hassan al Majid (1941 - 2010), an Iraqi politician and military commander who was Saddam's defence minister, interior minister and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service\n\nAhmed Hassan al-Bakr (1914 - 1982), Iraqi politician who served as the president of Iraq, from 17 July 1968 to 16 July 1979\n\nHardan al-Tikriti, Iraqi military officer and politician\n\nGeography\n\nTikrit is about 160 kilometers (99 mi) north of Baghdad on the Tigris River.[28]\n\nThe city is located within the semi-undulating area. It penetrates the branch and valleys and ends with very sloping slopes towards the Tigris River, with a height ranging between 45-50 meters.\n\nCulture and community\n\nThe Tikrit Museum was damaged during the 2003 Iraq War.[29][30]\n\nThe University of Tikrit was established in 1987 and is one of the largest universities in Iraq.\n\nTikrit Stadium is a multi-use facility used mostly for football matches and serves as the home stadium of Salah ad Din FC. It holds 10,000 people.\nThere is also a new world-class stadium that meets FIFA standards with a capacity of 30,000 seats being built in Tikrit.[31]\n\nAirports\n\nThe city of Tikrit has two small airports; Tikrit East Airport and Tikrit South Airport.\n\nTikrit railway station\n\nTikrit railway station is a former railway station located on the western side of Tikrit, Iraq. The station was originally built during the Ottoman period with German involvement as part of the development of the Baghdad Railway, a railway project constructed with significant Imperial German engineering and investment. The building was later expanded and modernized during the Ba'athist era. During the 1980s, it operated as a regular passenger station on the Iraqi Republic Railways (IRR) Northern Line, providing services between Tikrit, Baghdad and northern Iraqi cities such as Mosul. \n\nAlthough the station building, railway infrastructure and former trains remain at the site, they are no longer in active use due to the decline of Iraq's railway network following decades of conflict and damage.\n\nMilitary facilities\n\nThe Iraqi Air Force has had several air bases at Tikrit: the Tikrit South Air Base, the Tikrit East Air Base and Al Sahra Airfield (Tikrit Air Academy, formerly Camp Speicher).\n\nGallery\n\n Tikrit Old Town\n\n Tikrit Old Town\n\n Modern-day view of the Monastery at Tikrit\n\nReferences\n\n^ Philip Gladstone (10 February 2014). \"METAR Information for ORSH in Tikrit Al Sahra (Tikrit West), SD, Iraq\". Gladstonefamily.net. Retrieved 16 June 2014.\n\n^ \"Tekrit, Mesopotamia. 1918-10-18. The mast of No. 7 Station, 1st Wireless Signal Squadron, stands ...\" www.awm.gov.au. Retrieved 2026-07-29.\n\n^ \"Iraqis - with American help - topple statue of Saddam in Baghdad\". Fox News. 9 April 2003.\n\n^ a b \"Iraq hails victory over Islamic State extremists in Tikrit - Times Union\". www.timesunion.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.\n\n^ \"Islamic State crisis: Thousands flee Iraqi advance on Tikrit\". BBC News. 5 March 2015. Retrieved 10 April 2015.\n\n^ Bradford, Alfred S. & Pamela M. With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. Accessed 18 December 2010.\n\n^ Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, s.v. Birtha\n\n^ Maas, Michael (18 April 2005). The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian. Cambridge University Press. pp. 260-. ISBN 978-1-139-82687-7. Retrieved 4 July 2013.\n\n^ \"88- Marutha of Takrit (d. 649)\". SyriacStudies.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2012.\n\n^ a b c d Gibb, H. A. R. (2000). \"Takrīt\". In Kramers, J. H. (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 10 (Second ed.). BRILL. pp. 140-141. ISBN 9789004112117. Retrieved 4 July 2013.\n\n^ a b Rassam, Suha (2005). Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Gracewing Publishing. pp. 67-68. ISBN 978-0-85244-633-1. Retrieved 4 July 2013.\n\n^ Lewis, Bernard (2011). The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam. Orion. ISBN 978-0-297-86333-5.\n\n^ Malcolm Lyons and D.E.P. Jackson, \"Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War\", pg. 2.\n\n^ MacFarquhar, Neil (2003-01-05). \"THREATS AND RESPONSES: ALLEGIANCES; In Iraq's Tribes, U.S. Faces a Formidable Wild Card (Published 2003)\". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-03.\n\n^ \"Major combat over\". The Age. 15 April 2003. Retrieved 15 August 2014.\n\n^ \"Al Qaeda's two top Iraq leaders killed in raid\". Reuters. April 19, 2010.\n\n^ \"Two journalists among scores killed in insurgent operation in Tikrit\". IFEX. 30 March 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2012.\n\n^ Cutler, David (23 February 2012). \"Timeline: Deadliest attacks in Iraq in last year\". Reuters. Retrieved 24 April 2012.\n\n^ \"Iranian-backed Shiite militias lead Iraq's fight to retake Tikrit - The Long War Journal\". 4 March 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2015.\n\n^ Fassihi, Farnaz (13 June 2014). \"Iran Deploys Forces to Fight al Qaeda-Inspired Militants in Iraq\". Wall Street Journal. Online.wsj.com. Retrieved 7 October 2014.\n\n^ \"ERROR\". rudaw.net.\n\n^ \"Survivors from the Speicher massacre: We were 4000 unarmed soldiers fell into the hands of ISIS\". Buratha News Agency (in Arabic). 7 September 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.\n\n^ \"ISIS, Saddam's men or a third party who killed 1700 soldiers in camp Speicher in Iraq?\". CNN Arabic (in Arabic). 10 September 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2014.\n\n^ \"Iraqi forces withdrawn from militant-held Tikrit after new push\". Reuters. July 16, 2014.\n\n^ \"Rebels repel Iraqi attempt to retake Tikrit\". Al Jazeera. 16 July 2014.\n\n^ \"Islamists Destroy 7th Century Church, Mosque in Tikrit, Iraq\". 25 September 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2014.\n\n^ Al-Jawoshy, Omar; Arango, Tim (2 March 2015). Hassan, Falih; Saleh, Ahmed (eds.). \"Iraqi Offensive to Retake Tikrit From ISIS Begins\". NY Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 28 July 2019.\n\n^ Shewchuk, Blair. \"SADDAM OR MR. HUSSEIN?\" (Archive). CBC News. February 2003. Retrieved on June 24, 2014.\n\n^ Iraq - The cradle of civilization at risk ( Archived April 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine)\n\n^ Another war casualty: archeology ( Archived April 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine)\n\n^ ملعب صلاح الدين الأولمبي سعة 30 ألف متفرج يدخلُ مرحلةً جديدةً من العمل مع الفندق, alnahar.news\n\nExternal links\n\nHow Tikrit has Changed the War - Counteroffensive in Tikrit March 2015\n\nIraq Image - Tikrit Satellite Observation Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine\n\nBBC NEWS: Tikrit: Iraq's last stronghold"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tikrit"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2402}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-exodus-from-iraq", "title": "Assyrian exodus from Iraq", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian exodus from Iraq refers to the mass flight and expulsion of ethnic Assyrians from Iraq, a process which was initiated from the beginning of Iraq War in 2003 and continues to this day. Leaders of Iraq's Assyrian community estimate that over two-thirds of the Iraqi Assyrian...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Assyrian exodus from Iraq refers to the mass flight and expulsion of ethnic Assyrians from Iraq, a process which was initiated from the beginning of Iraq War in 2003 and continues to this day. Leaders of Iraq's Assyrian community estimate that over two-thirds of the Iraqi Assyrian population may have fled the country or been internally displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 until 2011. Reports suggest that whole neighborhoods of Assyrians have cleared out in the cities of Baghdad and Basra, and that Sunni insurgent groups and militias have threatened Assyrians.[1] Following the campaign of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Iraq in August 2014, one quarter of the remaining Iraqi Assyrians fled the Jihadists, finding refuge in Turkey and Kurdistan Region.[2]\n\nThe Guardian published that the violence faced by Assyrians has led to a drop in their numbers in Iraq from at least 800,000 in 2003 to 400,000 in 2011.[3] The 2009 Catholic Almanac puts the numbers much higher-a drop from 1.5 million mostly Assyrians in Iraq in 2003 to just 500,000 in 2009.[4] Some estimate the updated number of Assyrians in Iraq at just 300,000. The UN High Commission for Refugees estimated in 2007 that one third of 1.8 million Iraqi refugees were Assyrians.[5] A similar percentage of the 1.6 million internally displaced within Iraq in 2007 were likely Assyrians, many of whom had fled Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul to the relatively stable Kurdistan Region.[5]\n\nBackground\n\nA 1950 CIA report on Iraq showed that Assyrians comprised 4.9% of the Iraqi population during the 1940s.[6]\n\nTotal population\nChaldean Catholic\nSyriac Catholic\nSyriac Orthodox\nAssyrian Church of the East\n\n165,000\n98,000\n25,000\n12,000\n30,000\n\nThe report goes on and states 20% of the Assyrians live in Baghdad and 60% in Mosul.\n\nThe Iraqi Minorities Council and the Minority Rights Group International estimated that Iraq's pre-war Assyrian population was 800,000.[7]\n\nTimeline\n\nDuring Iraq War (2003-2011)\n\nAssyrians in post-Ba'athist Iraq have faced high rate of persecution by fundamentalist Sunnis since the beginning of the Iraq War. By early August 2004 this persecution included church bombings, and fundamentalist groups' enforcement of Muslim codes of behavior upon Christians, e.g., banning alcohol, forcing women to wear hijab.[8] The violence against the community has led to the exodus of perhaps as much as half of the community. While Assyrians only made just over 5% of the total Iraqi population before the war, according to the United Nations, Assyrians are over-represented among the Iraqi refugees (as much as 13%) who are stranded in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.[9][10][11]\n\nDuring Iraqi insurgency (2011-2017)\n\nBy 2011, a large number of Assyrians had found refuge in their villages in Nineveh Plains and the Kurdistan Region.[12] This led some Assyrians and Iraqi and foreign politicians to call for an Assyrian autonomous region in those areas.[13] \n\nStarting from 2013, however, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant led to ethnic cleansing of the Assyrian people, including Assyrian refugees,[14][15][16] in Iraq and Syria. This intensified following their Northern Iraq offensive in mid 2014.[17] Most of the land that ISIS conquered in Northern Iraq was part of the Nineveh Plains, which had been the only area left in Iraq that was safe for the Assyrians. By August 2014, the Christian population of the Nineveh Plains was reduced by 60%, and almost all of the main population centers of the region were lost to ISIS.\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Population 'under attack', Radio Free Europe\". Rferl.org. Retrieved 2012-06-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh\". BBC News. 2014-08-07. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ Mardean Isaac (2011-12-24). \"The desperate plight of Iraq's Assyrians and other minorities\". the Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2015.\n\n^ Bunson, Matthew (September 2008). 2009 Catholic Almanac. Our Sunday Visitor, Publishing Division. p. 77. ISBN 9781592764419. Retrieved 5 March 2015. assyrian exodus iraq war.\n\n^ a b Isaac, Paul (2007-05-08). \"The assault on Assyrian Christians\". The New York Times.\n\n^ \"Archived copy\". Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved October 31, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)\n\n^ Jackson, Patrick (2007-07-13). \"Middle East | Crushing Iraq's human mosaic\". BBC News. Retrieved 2012-06-18.\n\n^ \"Analysis: Iraq's Christians under attack\". BBC News. 2004-08-02. Retrieved 2010-04-25.\n\n^ Qais al-Bashir (2006-12-25). \"Iraqi Christians celebrate Christmas\". Yahoo! News. Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-01-07.\n\n^ http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geusM03GBKm5MAw7VXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByMDhrMzdqBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=12dpb27io/EXP=1247948212/**http://www.iraqslogger.com/downloads/Iraqis_in_Jordan.pdf. Retrieved October 31, 2013. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)\n\n^ http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geuyrT32BK5qIAHqhXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTBybnZlZnRlBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=12cuifo46/EXP=1247949139/**http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/projects/idp/200706iraq.pdf. Retrieved October 31, 2013. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)\n\n^ Rizan, Ahmed. \"Displaced Mosul Christians celebrate Easter in Nineveh Plain\". Archived from the original on 4 May 2011. Retrieved 5 June 2011.\n\n^ Timmerman, Kenneth (1 March 2011). \"TIMMERMAN: Iraqi Christians to Congress: Please help\". The Washington Times. Retrieved 5 June 2011.\n\n^ Rodriguez, Meredith (August 8, 2014). \"Chicago-area Assyrians march against ISIS, others protest airstrikes\". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2014.\n\n^ Bowcott, Owen; Jones, Sam (August 8, 2014). \"Isis persecution of Iraqi Christians has become genocide, says religious leaders\". The Guardian. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2014.\n\n^ McQuade, Romsin (July 30, 2014). \"Iraq's persecuted Assyrian Christians are in limbo\". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on August 9, 2014. Retrieved August 8, 2014.\n\n^ Levs, Josh (August 7, 2014). \"Will anyone stop ISIS?\". CNN. Archived from the original on August 7, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-exodus-from-iraq"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 964}, {"slug": "reference-fall-of-harran", "title": "Fall of Harran", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Fall of Harran refers to the siege and capture of the Assyrian city of Harran by the Median and Neo-Babylonian empires.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Fall of Harran\n\nPart of the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire\n\nDate610-609 BC[1]\n\nLocationHarran, Şanlıurfa, Turkey\n\nResult\n\nMedo-Babylonian victory\n[2]\n\nFall of the Assyrian Empire[3][4][5]\n\nBelligerents\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire\nMedian Kingdom\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\nNabopolassar\nCyaxares\nAshur-uballit II\n\nStrength\n\nUnknown\nUnknown\n\nCasualties and losses\n\nUnknown\nUnknown\n\nThe Fall of Harran refers to the siege and capture of the Assyrian city of Harran by the Median and Neo-Babylonian empires.\n\nBackground\n\nFrom the year 639 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been suffering from a decline in their power, culminating in Babylonian and Median invasions of their lands. The city of Arrapha fell in 615 BC, followed by Assur in 614 BC, and finally the famed Nineveh, the newest capital of Assyria, in 612 BC. Despite the brutal massacres that followed, the Assyrians survived as a political entity and escaped to Harran under their new king, Ashur-uballit II.[6] Establishing Harran as a capital for the Assyrians caught the attention of the Babylonian King Nabopolassar[6] and Median King Cyaxares, who were determined to forever destroy the threat of Assyrian resurgence.\n\nSiege\n\nAssyrian annals record no more events after 610 BC[6] - the presumed date of the siege. The siege lasted for another year before the city finally fell in 609 BC.[7] \n\nAftermath\n\nWith the fall of Harran, the Assyrian empire ceased to exist as a state.[8][9][10] Remnants of the former Assyrian empire's army met up with the Egyptian forces that had defeated the Kingdom of Judah at Megiddo but their combined forces were defeated again the same year at the Siege of Harran and in 605 BC at Carchemish, ending the Egyptian intervention in the Near East.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Lipschitz, Oded (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-57506-095-8.\n\n^ Liverani, Mario (2013-12-04). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 539. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.\n\n^ Liverani, Mario (2013-12-04). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 539. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.\n\n^ Frahm, Eckart (2017-06-12). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.\n\n^ Oxford Bible Atlas \"Ashuruballit assumed control over what remained of Assyria in Haran, but Haran too was captured by the Medes and the Babylonians in 610 and the might of Assyria was ended\"\n\n^ a b c Stephen Bertman (14 July 2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. OUP USA. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-19-518364-1.\n\n^ Grant, R.G. (2005). Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 18.\n\n^ Liverani, Mario (2013-12-04). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Routledge. p. 539. ISBN 978-1-134-75084-9.\n\n^ Frahm, Eckart (2017-06-12). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.\n\n^ Oxford Bible Atlas \"Ashuruballit assumed control over what remained of Assyria in Haran, but Haran too was captured by the Medes and the Babylonians in 610 and the might of Assyria was ended\""}], "sources": ["wikipedia-fall-of-harran"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 484}, {"slug": "reference-science-in-the-ancient-world", "title": "Science in the ancient world", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Science in the ancient world encompasses the earliest history of science from the protoscience of prehistory and ancient history to late antiquity. In ancient times, culture and knowledge were passed through oral tradition. The development of writing further enabled the preservation of knowledge and culture, allowing information to...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Science in the ancient world encompasses the earliest history of science from the protoscience of prehistory and ancient history to late antiquity. In ancient times, culture and knowledge were passed through oral tradition. The development of writing further enabled the preservation of knowledge and culture, allowing information to spread accurately. \n\nThe earliest scientific traditions of the ancient world developed in the Ancient Near East, with Ancient Egypt and Babylonia in Mesopotamia. Later traditions of science during classical antiquity were advanced in ancient Persia, Greece, Rome, India, China, and Mesoamerica. Aside from alchemy and astrology that waned in importance during the Age of Enlightenment, civilizations of the ancient world laid the roots of modern sciences.\n\nAncient Near East and North East Africa\n\nMesopotamia\n\nAround 3500 BC, in Sumer (now Iraq), the Mesopotamian people began preserving some observations of the cosmos with extremely thorough numerical data. \n\nMathematics\n\nPythagorean theorem has demonstrated evidence of ancient writing forms. It was recorded in the 18th century BC on the Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet known as Plimpton 322. The columns of numbers in the tablet generates several Pythagorean triples such as (3, 4, 5) and (5, 12, 13).[1]\n\nAstronomy\n\nBabylonian astronomy was \"the first and highly successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena.\"[2] According to the historian Asger Aaboe, \"all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy, in the Hellenistic world, in India, in Islam, and in the West-if not indeed all subsequent endeavour in the exact sciences-depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive and fundamental ways\".[3]\n\nScribes recorded observations of the cosmos such as the motions of the stars, the planets, and the Moon on clay tablets. The cuneiform style of writing revealed that astronomers used mathematical calculations to observe the motions of the planets.[4] Astronomical periods identified by Mesopotamian scientists remain widely used in Western calendars: the solar year and the lunar month. Using data, Mesopotamians developed arithmetical methods to compute the changing length of daylight during the year, and to predict the Lunar phases and planets along with eclipses of the Sun and Moon. \n\nOnly a few astronomers' names are known, such as Kidinnu, a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician. Kiddinu's value for the solar year is in use for modern calendars. Hipparchus used this data to calculate the precession of the Earth's axis. Fifteen hundred years after Kiddinu, Al-Battani used the collected data and improved Hipparchus' value for the precession. Al-Batani's value, 54.5 arc-seconds per year, compares well with the current value of 49.8 arc-seconds per year (26,000 years for Earth's axis to round the circle of nutation). Astronomy and astrology were considered to be the same thing, as evidenced by the practice of this science in Babylonia by priests. Mesopotamian astronomy became more astrology-based later in the civilisation, studying the stars in terms of horoscopes and omens.[5]\n\nArchaeology\n\nFollowing the Late Bronze Age collapse, the practice of various sciences continued in post-Iron Age Mesopotamia. For instance, in the nascent history of archaeology, king Nabonidus of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was a pioneer in the analysis of artifacts. Foundation deposits of king Naram-Sin of the Akkadian Empire dated circa 2200 BC were discovered and analyzed by Nabonidus around the 550 BC.[6][7] These deposits belonged to the temples of Shamash the sun god and the warrior goddess Annunitum in Sippar, and Naram-Sin's temple to the moon god in Harran, which were restored by Nabonidus.[6] Nabonidus was the first known figure in history to make an attempt at dating archaeological artifacts found at excavated sites,[8] though his estimates were inaccurate by hundreds of years.[6][8][7]\n\nEgypt\n\nNeolithic inhabitants constructed Nabta Playa megalithic structures, in Aswan located in Upper Egypt.[11] These structures served to coordinate astronomical observations, religious practices and alignment with solar patterns and annual flooding cycles. These practices have been linked with the emergence of cosmology in Old Kingdom Egypt.[12]\n\nArchaeological evidence has suggested that the Ancient Egyptian counting system had origins in Sub-Saharan Africa.[13] Also, fractal geometry designs which are widespread among Sub-Saharan African cultures are also found in Egyptian architecture and cosmological signs.[14]The Ishango bone, according to scholar Alexander Marshack, may have influenced the later development of mathematics in Egypt as, like some entries on the Ishango bone, Egyptian arithmetic also made use of multiplication by 2; this however, is disputed.[15] \n\nSignificant advances in ancient Egypt included astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Egypt was also a centre of alchemical research for much of the Western world.\n\nArchitecture, engineering, and mathematics\n\nAncient Egyptian geometry was a necessary outgrowth of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile. The 3-4-5 right triangle and other rules of thumb served to represent rectilinear structures, including architecture such as post and lintel structures.\n\nWriting\n\nEgyptian hieroglyphs served as the basis for the Proto-Sinaitic script, the ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet from which the later Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Cyrillic alphabets were derived. The city of Alexandria retained preeminence with its library, which was damaged by fire when it fell under Roman rule,[16] being destroyed before 642.[17][18] With it, a large amount of antique literature and knowledge was lost.\n\nMedicine\n\nThe Edwin Smith Papyrus is one of the first medical documents still extant, and perhaps the earliest document that attempts to describe and analyse the brain: it might be seen as the very beginnings of modern neuroscience. However, while ancient Egyptian medicine had some effective practices, it was not without its ineffective and sometimes harmful practices. Medical historians believe that ancient Egyptian pharmacology was largely ineffective.[19] Nevertheless, it applies the following components: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of disease,[20] which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and according to G. E. R. Lloyd[21] played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BC) also contains evidence of traditional empiricism.\n\nAccording to a paper published by Michael D. Parkins, 72% of 260 medical prescriptions in the Hearst Papyrus had no curative elements.[19] According to Parkins, sewage pharmacology first began in ancient Egypt and was continued through the Middle Ages. Practices such as applying cow dung to wounds, ear piercing and tattooing, and chronic ear infections were important factors in developing tetanus.[22] Frank J. Snoek wrote that Egyptian medicine used fly specks, lizard blood, swine teeth, and other such remedies which he believes could have been harmful.[23]\n\nAncient Nubia\n\nMedicine\n\nNubian mummies studied in the 1990s revealed that Kush was a pioneer of early antibiotics.[24]\n\nTetracycline was being used by Nubians, based on bone remains between 350 AD and 550 AD. The antibiotic was in wide commercial use only in the mid 20th century. The theory states that earthen jars containing grain used for making beer contained the bacterium streptomyces, which produced tetracycline. Although Nubians were not aware of tetracycline, they could have noticed that people fared better by drinking beer than just consuming the grain itself. According to Charlie Bamforth, a professor of biochemistry and brewing science at the University of California, Davis, \"They must have consumed it because it was rather tastier than the grain from which it was derived.\"[25]\n\nMathematics\n\nBased on engraved plans of Meroitic King Amanikhabali's pyramids, Nubians had a sophisticated understanding of mathematics as they appreciated the harmonic ratio. The engraved plans are indicative of much to be revealed about Nubian mathematics.[26] The ancient Nubians also established a system of geometry which they used in creating early versions of sun clocks.[27][28] During the Meroitic period in Nubian history, the Nubians used a trigonometric methodology similar to the Egyptians.[29]\n\nPersia\n\nIn the Sasanian Empire, great attention was given to mathematics and astronomy. The Academy of Gondishapur is a prominent example in this regard.[30] Astronomical tables date to this period, and Sassanid observatories were later imitated by Muslim astronomers and astrologers of the Islamic Golden Age. In the mid-Sassanid era, an influx of knowledge came to Persia from the West in the form of views and traditions of Greece which, following the spread of Christianity, accompanied Syriac language. In the Early Middle Ages, Persia became a stronghold of Islamic science. After the establishment of Umayyad and Abbasid states, many Iranian scholars were sent to the capitals of these Islamic dynasties.\n\nGreco-Roman world\n\nThe legacy of classical antiquity included substantial advances in factual knowledge, especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and astronomy. Scholars advanced their awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems, especially those related to the problem of change and its causes.[31] In the Hellenistic period, scholars frequently employed the principles developed in earlier Greek thought: the application of mathematics and deliberate empirical research.[32]\n\nScientific practices\n\nIn classical antiquity, the inquiry into the workings of the universe took place both in investigations aimed at practical goals, such as calendar-making and medicine, and in abstract investigations known as natural philosophy. The ancient people who are considered the first scientists may have thought of themselves as \"natural philosophers\", as practitioners of a skilled profession, or as followers of a religious tradition.\n\nScientific thought in classical antiquity became tangible beginning in the 6th century BC in the pre-Socratic philosophy of Thales and Pythagoras. Thales, the \"father of science\", was the first to postulate non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena such as lightning and earthquake. Pythagoras founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical.[33]\n\nIn about 385 BC, Plato founded the Academy. Aristotle, Plato's student, began the \"scientific revolution\" of the Hellenistic period culminating in the 3rd and 2nd centuries with scholars such as Eratosthenes, Euclid, Aristarchus of Samos, Hipparchus, and Archimedes. Plato and Aristotle's development of deductive reasoning was particularly useful to later scientific inquiry.\n\nArchitecture and engineering\n\nAstronomy\n\nThe level of achievement in Hellenistic astronomy and engineering is shown by the Antikythera mechanism. The astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first known person to propose a heliocentric model of the Solar System, while the geographer Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth.[34] Hipparchus produced the first systematic star catalogue.\n\nMathematics\n\nThe mathematician Euclid laid down the foundations of mathematical rigour and introduced the concepts of definition, axiom, theorem and proof still in use today in his Elements.[35] Archimedes is credited with using the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi.[36] He is also known in physics for his studies on hydrostatics and the principle of the lever.\n\nMedicine\n\nIn medicine, Herophilos was the first to base his conclusions on the dissection of the human body and to describe the nervous system. Hippocrates and his followers were the first to describe many diseases and medical conditions. Galen performed many audacious operations-including brain and eye surgeries-that were not tried again for more than a millennia.[37]\n\nMineralogy\n\nTheophrastus wrote some of the earliest descriptions of plants and animals, establishing the first taxonomy and looking at minerals in terms of their properties such as hardness. Pliny the Elder produced the encyclopedia Natural HIstory in 77 AD. He accurately describes the octahedral shape of the diamond. His recognition of the importance of crystal shape is a precursor to modern crystallography, while mentioning numerous other minerals presages mineralogy. He also recognises that other minerals have characteristic crystal shapes, but in one example, confuses the crystal habit with the work of lapidaries. He was also the first to recognise that amber was a fossilized resin from pine trees because he had seen samples with trapped insects within them.\n\nIndian subcontinent\n\nMathematics and engineering\n\nExcavations at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and other sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) have uncovered evidence of the use of \"practical mathematics\". The people of the IVC manufactured bricks whose dimensions were in the proportion 4:2:1, considered favourable for the stability of a brick structure. They used a standardised system of weights based on set ratios, with the unit weight equaling approximately 28 grams (1 oz). They mass-produced weights in regular geometrical shapes, which included hexahedra, barrels, cones, and cylinders, thereby demonstrating knowledge of basic geometry.[39] Inhabitants of the IVC also tried to standardise the measurement of length to a high degree of accuracy. They designed the Mohenjo-Daro ruler, whose unit of length (34 millimetres (1.3 in)) was divided into ten equal parts. Bricks manufactured in ancient Mohenjo-Daro often had dimensions that were integral multiples of this unit of length.[40][41]\n\nThe main authors of classical Indian mathematics (400 AD to 1200 AD) were scholars like Mahaviracharya, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhāskara II. Indian mathematicians made early contributions to the study of the decimal system, zero, negative numbers, arithmetic, and algebra. Trigonometry, having been introduced to ancient India through Greek works, was further advanced in India. The modern definitions of sine and cosine were developed in India. \n\nThe Hindu-Arabic numeral system was developed in ancient India and spread to the later Islamic world to Al-Andalus where it was adopted (without the zero) by the French monk Gerbert of Aurillac, who would become Pope Sylvester II. Sylvester spread its usage throughout medieval Europe in the 11th century with the reintroduction of the Greco-Roman abacus calculating tool.[42] The Bakhshali manuscript features negative numbers; it was compiled at an uncertain date between 200 AD and as late as 600 AD,[43] after which they were used with certainty by Indian mathematician Brahmagupta.[44]\n\nMedicine\n\nMehrgarh, a Neolithic IVC site, provides the earliest known evidence for in vivo drilling of human teeth, with recovered samples dated to 7000-5500 BC.[45]\n\nAyurveda medicine traces its origins to the Atharvaveda and is connected to Hinduism.[46] The Sushruta Samhita of Sushruta appeared during the first millennium BC.[47] Ayurvedic practice was flourishing during the time of the Buddha (around 520 BC), and in this period ayurvedic practitioners were commonly using mercuric-sulphur medicines. An important ayurvedic practitioner of this period was Nagarjuna. During the regime of Chandragupta II (375-415 AD), ayurveda was part of mainstream Indian medical techniques, and continued to be so until the Colonial period.\n\nAstronomy\n\nEarly astronomy in India, as in other cultures, was intertwined with religion.The Rigveda is one of the oldest pieces of Indian literature. Rig Veda 1-64-11 & 48 describes time as a wheel with 12 parts and 360 spokes (days), with a remainder of 5, making reference to the solar calendar.[48] \nClassical Indian astronomy documented in literature spans the Maurya Empire (with the Vedanga Jyotisha) to the Vijayanagara Empire (with the Kerala school). Classical Indian astronomy can be said to begin in the 5th century. Aryabhata produced the Aryabhatiya and the lost Arya-siddhānta, and Varāhamihira wrote the Pancha-siddhantika. Indian astronomy and astrology are based upon sidereal calculations, though a tropical system was also used in a few cases.\n\nAlchemy\n\nAlchemy was popular in India.[49] Indian alchemist and philosopher Kaṇāda introduced the concept of anu, which he defined as matter which could not be subdivided. This is analogous to the concept of the atom in modern science.[50]\n\nLinguistics\n\nLinguistics (along with phonology and morphology) first arose among Indian grammarians studying Sanskrit. Hemachandra wrote grammars of Sanskrit and Prakrit. His Siddha-Hema-Śabdanuśāśana included six Prakrit languages.[51] He produced the only known grammar of Apabhraṃśa, illustrating it with the folk literature.[52] Pāṇini's Sanskrit grammar contains a particularly detailed description of Sanskrit morphology, phonology, and roots.[53]\n\nChina and East Asia\n\nInventions\n\nIn his Science and Civilisation in China, Joseph Needham outlined China's \"Four Great Inventions\" (papermaking, compass, printing, and gunpowder). Needham highlighted the Han dynasty in particular as one of the most pivotal eras for Chinese sciences, noting the period's significant advancements in astronomy and calendar-making, the systematic documentation of living organisms in early forms of botany and zoology, and the philosophical skepticism and rationalism of the age embodied in works such as the Lunheng by Wang Chong.[54]\n\nConcurring with Needham, professors Jin Guantao, Fan Hongye, and Liu Qingfeng emphasize the Han dynasty as a unique period for Chinese scientific advancements comparable to the medieval Song dynasty. They also write that the protoscientific ideas of Mohism developed during the Warring States period could have provided a definitive structure for Chinese science, but was hindered by Chinese theology and dynastic royal promotion of Confucianism and its literary classics.[55] Needham and other sinologists indicate that cultural factors prevented Chinese achievements from developing into what might be considered modern science, as the religious and philosophical framework of Chinese intellectuals hampered their efforts to rationalize the laws of nature.\n\nEngineering\n\nGreek astronomer Eratosthenes is the first known inventor of the armillary sphere in 255 BC. It is uncertain when the armillary sphere first appeared in China, though the Western Han astronomer Geng Shouchang was the first in China to add an equatorial ring to its design in 52 BC, with Jia Kui adding an ecliptic ring in 84 AD, followed by Zhang Heng adding the horizon and meridian rings.[56] \n\nWorks by Zhang Heng were highly influential throughout later Chinese history. As a horologist, Zhang demonstrated the movement of recorded stars and planets by being the first to apply the hydropower of water wheels and water clock timer for automatically rotating the assembled rings of his armillary sphere,[57] a model that would directly inspire the liquid escapement in astronomical clockworks pioneered in the Tang dynasty by Yi Xing and used by Song dynasty scientist Su Song in building his chain drive and water-driven astronomical clock tower.[58] Zhang was not the first in China to utilize the motive power of waterwheels, since they were used in ferrous metallurgy by Du Shi to operate the bellows of a blast furnace to make pig iron, and the cupola furnace to make cast iron.[59] Zhang invented a seismometer device with an inverted pendulum that detected the cardinal direction of distant earthquakes.[60] It is unclear if Zhang invented or simply improved the designs of the odometer cart for measuring traveled distances and the non-magnetic south-pointing chariot that used differential gears to constantly point southward for navigation,[61] though Three Kingdoms era engineer Ma Jun created a successful model of the chariot.[62]\n\nThe odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).[63]\n\nCartography\n\nIn cartography, Qin maps dating to the 4th century BC have been discovered and the Western Jin dynasty official Pei Xiu is the first known Chinese cartographer to have used a geometric grid reference that allowed for measurements on a graduated scale and for topographical elevation,[64] though this might have been based on a rectangular grid system in maps made by Zhang Heng that are now lost.[65]\n\nMathematics\n\nIn regards to mathematics, The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, compiled in its entirety by 179 AD during the Eastern Han, is perhaps also the first text to utilize negative numbers. These were symbolized by counting rods in a slanted position, while red rods symbolizing negative numbers versus black rods that symbolize positive numbers may date back to the Western Han period.[66]\n\nZhang Heng approximated pi as 3.162 using the square root of 10 (with an 8:5 ratio of the volume of a cube to an inscribed sphere),[67] though this was less accurate than the earlier Liu Xin who calculated it as 3.154 using an unknown method.[68] Zhang's calculation was improved upon by Three Kingdoms-era mathematician Liu Heng in his 263 AD commentary on The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, providing a pi algorithm with a value of 3.14159,[69] while Liu Song and Southern Qi-era mathematician Zu Chongzhi reached a value of 3.141592, the most accurate figure Chinese would achieve before exposure to Western mathematics.[70] \n\nAstronomy\n\nA lacquered wooden suitcase from the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, dated to the first lunar month of 433 BC, decorated with a star map depicting the twenty-eight mansions among constellations in Chinese astronomy[71]\nEarly Chinese astronomy provides an example of the exhaustive documentation of the natural world and observable universe that often preoccupied Chinese scholars. Chinese star names are mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty.[72] Lists of stars along the ecliptic in the Chinese Twenty-Eight Mansions were provided on lacquerware of the 433 BC Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng and in the Lüshi Chunqiu encyclopedia of Qin statesman Lü Buwei, but it was not until the Han dynasty that full star catalogues were published that listed all stars in the observable celestial sphere.[71] The Mawangdui Silk Texts, interred within a Western Han tomb in 168 BC, provide writings and ink illustrations of Chinese star maps showing Chinese constellations as well as comets.[73] The Warring States-era astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De are traditionally thought to have published star catalogues in the 4th century BC,[74] but it was the star catalogue of Sima Qian (145-86 BC) in his \"Book of Celestial Offices\" (天官書; Tianguan shu) in the Records of the Grand Historian that provided the model for all later Chinese star catalogues.[75] Chinese constellations were later adopted in medieval Korean astronomy and Japanese astronomy.[76] Building upon the star catalogue of Sima Qian that featured 90 constellations,[77] the star catalogue of Zhang Heng published in 120 AD featured 124 constellations.[78]\n\nNascent scientific ideas were established during the late Zhou dynasty and proliferated in the Han dynasty. Much like the earlier Aristotle in Greece, Wang Chong accurately described the water cycle of Earth but was dismissed by his contemporaries.[79] However, Wang (similar to the Roman Lucretius) inaccurately criticized the then-mainstream Han Chinese hypotheses that the Sun and Moon are spherical and that the Moon is illuminated by the reflection of sunlight-the correct hypotheses being advocated by astronomer and music theorist Jing Fang and expanded upon by the polymath scientist and inventor Zhang Heng.[80] Zhang theorized that the celestial sphere was round and structured like an egg with the Earth as its yolk, a geocentric model that was largely accepted in the contemporary Greco-Roman world.[81]\n\nWriting and linguistics\n\nAnalytical approaches were also applied to writing itself. Though the Erya of the Warring States period provides a basic dictionary, the first analytical Chinese dictionary to explain and dissect the logographic Chinese written characters, with 9,353 characters listed and categorized by radicals, was the Shuowen Jiezi composed by the Eastern Han philologist and politician Xu Shen.[82]\n\nMedicine\n\nA seminal work of traditional Chinese medicine was the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon) compiled between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, which viewed the human body's organs and tissues (zangfu) through the lens of the metaphysical five phases and yin and yang. The Huangdi Neijing also stated a belief in two circulatory channels of qi vital energy.[83] Physicians of the Han dynasty believed that pulse diagnosis could be used to determine which organs in the body emitted qi energy, and therefore the ailments suffered by patients.[84] The Huangdi Neijing is the first known Chinese text to describe the use of acupuncture, while golden acupuncture needles have been discovered in the tomb of Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan (d. 113 BC) and stone-carved artworks of the Eastern Han period depict the practice.[85] The Huangdi Neijing is also the first known text to describe diabetes and link it to the excessive consumption of sweet and fatty foods.[86] \n\nIn surgery, Han texts offered practical advice for certain procedures such as clinical lancing of abscesses.[87] The first known physician in China to describe the use anesthesia for patients undergoing surgery was the Eastern Han physician Hua Tuo, who utilized his knowledge of Chinese herbology based in the Huangdi Neijing to create an ointment that healed surgical wounds within a month.[88] One of his surgical procedures was the removal of a dead fetus from the womb of a woman whom he diagnosed and cured of her ailments.[88] Hua's contemporary physician and pharmacologist Zhang Zhongjing preserved much of the medical knowledge known in China by the Eastern Han period in his major work Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Injury and Miscellaneous Disorders) as well as the Jingui Yaolüe (Essential Medical Treasures of the Golden Chamber ).[89] \n\nOutside the major canon of Chinese medicine established during the Han period, modern archaeology has revealed previous Chinese discoveries in medicine. The Shuihudi Qin bamboo texts, dated to the 3rd century BC, provide some of the earliest known descriptions of the symptoms of leprosy (predating the Roman author Aulus Cornelius Celsus and perhaps also the Indian Sushruta Samhita, the oldest version of which is indeterminable).[90] The Mawangdui silk texts of the 2nd century BC provide illustrated diagrams with textual captions for exercises in calisthenics.[91]\n\nPre-Columbian Mesoamerica\n\nWriting\n\nDuring the Middle Formative Period (c. 900 BC - c. 300 BC) of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, either the script of the Zapotec civilization or the script of the Olmec civilization (with the Cascajal Block being perhaps the earliest evidence) represent the earliest full writing systems of the Americas.[92] \n\nThe Maya script, developed by the Maya civilization between 400-200 BC during its Preclassic period, was rooted in the Olmec and Zapotec writing systems, and became widespread in use by 100 BC.[93] The Classic Maya language was built on the shared heritage of the Olmecs by developing the most sophisticated systems of writing, astronomy, calendrical science, and mathematics among urbanized Mesoamerican peoples.[94]\n\nMathematics\n\nThe Maya developed a positional numeral system with a base of 20 that included the use of zero for constructing their calendars, with individual symbolic characters for numbers 1 through 19.[95][96]\n\nAstronomy\n\nThe Zapotec created the first known astronomical calendar in Mesoamerica, though this was possibly under heavy influence by the Olmecs.[94][97] \n\nMaya writing contains easily discernible calendar dates in the form of logograms representing numbers, coefficients, and calendar periods amounting to 20 days (within 360-day years) and even 20 years for tracking social, religious, political, and economic events.[96]\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Mathematics\". 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New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. pp. 113-124.\n\n^ Seife, Charles (2000), Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, New York: Penguin Books, p. 77, Bibcode:2000zbdi.book.....S, ISBN 978-0-670-88457-5\n\n^ Hayashi, Takao (2008), \"Bakhshālī Manuscript\", in Helaine Selin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, vol. 1, Springer, p. B2, ISBN 9781402045592\n\n^ Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, p. 90. ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Coppa, A.; et al. (6 April 2006). \"Early Neolithic tradition of dentistry: Flint tips were surprisingly effective for drilling tooth enamel in a prehistoric population\". Nature. 440 (7085): 755-6. Bibcode:2006Natur.440..755C. doi:10.1038/440755a. PMID 16598247. S2CID 6787162.\n\n^ Indian medicine has a long history. Its earliest concepts are set out in the sacred writings called the Vedas, especially in the metrical passages of the Atharvaveda, which may date as far back as the 2nd millennium BCE. According to a later writer, the system of medicine called Āyurveda was received by a certain Dhanvantari from Brahma, and Dhanvantari was deified as the god of medicine. In later times, his status was gradually reduced until he was credited with having been an earthly king who died of snakebite. - Underwood & Rhodes (2008)\n\n^ Dwivedi & Dwivedi (2007)\n\n^ Sidharth, B. G. (1998). \"The Calendric Astronomy of the Vedas\". Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of India. 26: 108. Bibcode:1998BASI...26..107S - via NASA Astrophysics Data System.\n\n^ \"Alchemy - Indian, Chemistry, Philosophies | Britannica\".\n\n^ Singh, Bal Ram (2003). \"Use of Chemistry to Understand Vedic Knowledge\" (PDF). Contemporary Views on Indian Civilization. World Association for Vedic Studies. pp. 388-399. ISBN 978-0-9666386-1-5.\n\n^ \"Shri Siddha Hemachandra Shabdanushashanam (Sanskrit Grammar)\". 1934.\n\n^ Datta, Amaresh, ed. (1987). \"Aacharya Hemachandra Suri\". Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: A-Devo. Sahitya Akademi. pp. 15-16. ISBN 978-81-260-1803-1.\n\n^ Cardona, George (1997). Pāṇini: a survey of research (Reprint d. Aufl. 1976 ed.). New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 978-81-208-1494-3.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph. (1972). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 1, Introductory Orientations. London: Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, p. 111. ISBN 0-521-05799-X.\n\n^ Jin, Guantao, Fan Hongye, and Liu Qingfeng. (1996). \"Historical Changes in the Structure of Science and Technology (Part Two, a Commentary)\" in Chinese Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, 165-184, edited by Fan Dainian and Robert S. Cohen, translated by Kathleen Dugan and Jiang Mingshan. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 178-179. ISBN 0-7923-3463-9.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., p. 343; de Crespigny, R. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 CE). Koninklijke Brill. p. 1050. ISBN 978-90-04-15605-0.\n\n^ Morton, W. Scott and Lewis, Charlton M. (2005). China: Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., p. 70; Loewe, Michael. (1968). Everyday Life in Early Imperial China during the Han Period 202 BC-AD 220. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, p. 107.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., pp. 30, 466, 532.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., p. 370; Wagner, Donald B. (2001). The State and the Iron Industry in Han China. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Publishing; pp. 75-76. ISBN 87-87062-83-6.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., p. 30; Huang, Ray (1997). China: A Macro History. Revised edition. New York: An East Gate Book, M. E. SHARPE Inc., p. 64. ISBN 9781563247316; Wright, David Curtis (2001) The History of China. Westport: Greenwood Press, p. 66.\n\n^ Yan, Hong-sen (2007). Reconstruction Designs of Lost Ancient Chinese Machinery. History of Mechanism and Machine Science. Vol. 3. p. 128. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6460-9. ISBN 978-1-4020-6459-3.; Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., pp. 40, 281-283; Balchin, Jon. (2003). Science: 100 Scientists Who Changed the World. New York: Enchanted Lion Books, p. 27. ISBN 1-59270-017-9.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., p. 40.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2: Mechanical Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. reprinted: Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd., pp. 281-283\n\n^ Hsu, Mei-Ling (1993). \"The Qin maps: A clue to later Chinese cartographic development\". Imago Mundi. 45: 90, 97. doi:10.1080/03085699308592766.\n\n^ Nelson, Howard (1974). \"Chinese Maps: An Exhibition at the British Library\". The China Quarterly. 58: 359. doi:10.1017/S0305741000011346. S2CID 154338508.; de Crespigny, Rafe. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, p. 1050. ISBN 90-04-15605-4; Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, pp. 106-107, 538-540. ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, pp. 89-91. ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Yan, Hong-sen (2007). Reconstruction Designs of Lost Ancient Chinese Machinery. History of Mechanism and Machine Science. Vol. 3. p. 128. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6460-9. ISBN 978-1-4020-6459-3.; Berggren, Lennart; Borwein, Jonathan; Borwein, Peter (2004). Pi: A Source Book. p. 27. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-4217-6. ISBN 978-1-4419-1915-1.; de Crespigny, Rafe. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, p. 1050. ISBN 90-04-15605-4.\n\n^ Arndt, Jörg; Haenel, Christoph (2001). Pi - Unleashed. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. pp. 177-176. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-56735-3. ISBN 978-3-540-66572-4. S2CID 46515097.; Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, pp. 99-100. ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, pp. 100-101. ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Berggren, Lennart; Borwein, Jonathan; Borwein, Peter (2004). Pi: A Source Book. pp. 20, 24-26. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-4217-6. ISBN 978-1-4419-1915-1.\n\n^ a b Sun, X.; Kistemaker, J. (1997), The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society, Koninklijke Brill, pp. 16-19, Bibcode:1997csdh.book.....S, ISBN 90-04-10737-1\n\n^ Sun, X.; Kistemaker, J. (1997), The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society, Koninklijke Brill, p. 16, Bibcode:1997csdh.book.....S, ISBN 90-04-10737-1\n\n^ Loewe, Michael. (1994). Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, p. 61. ISBN 0-521-45466-2.\n\n^ Cullen, C. (1980), \"Joseph Needham on Chinese Astronomy\", Past & Present (87): 46ff, doi:10.1093/past/87.1.39\n\n^ Sun, X.; Kistemaker, J. (1997), The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society, Koninklijke Brill, pp. 18-22, Bibcode:1997csdh.book.....S, ISBN 90-04-10737-1\n\n^ Kanas, N. (2007). Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography. Springer / Praxis Publishing. pp. 40-41. ISBN 978-0-387-71668-8.\n\n^ Kanas, N. (2007). Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography. Springer / Praxis Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-387-71668-8.\n\n^ de Crespigny, R. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 CE). Koninklijke Brill. p. 1050. ISBN 978-90-04-15605-0.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, p. 468 ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 3; Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd, pp. 227, 411-414. ISBN 0-521-05801-5.\n\n^ Huang, Ray (1997). China: A Macro History. Revised edition. New York: An East Gate Book, M. E. SHARPE Inc., p. 64. ISBN 9781563247316; Balchin, Jon. (2003). Science: 100 Scientists Who Changed the World. New York: Enchanted Lion Books, p. 27. ISBN 1-59270-017-9.\n\n^ Shaughnessy, Edward L. (2010), \"The Beginnings of Writing in China\", in Christopher Woods (ed.), Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, p. 217, ISBN 978-1-885923-76-9\n\n^ Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. (2006). Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., pp. 181-182. ISBN 0-87220-710-2.\n\n^ Hsu, Elisabeth. (2001). \"Pulse diagnostics in the Western Han: how mai and qi determine bing,\" in Innovations in Chinese Medicine, 51-92. Edited by Elisabeth Hsu. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Madrid, and Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, p. 75. ISBN 0-521-80068-4.\n\n^ Omura, Yoshiaki. (2003). Acupuncture Medicine: Its Historical and Clinical Background. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., pp. 15, 19-22. ISBN 0-486-42850-8.\n\n^ Medvei, Victor Cornelius. (1993). The History of Clinical Endocrinology: A Comprehensive Account of Endocrinology from Earliest Times to the Present Day. New York: Pantheon Publishing Group Inc., p. 49. ISBN 1-85070-427-9.\n\n^ Hsu, Elisabeth. (2001). \"Pulse diagnostics in the Western Han: how mai and qi determine bing,\" in Innovations in Chinese Medicine, 51-92. Edited by Elisabeth Hsu. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Madrid, and Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, pp. 28-29. ISBN 0-521-80068-4.\n\n^ a b de Crespigny, Rafe. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, p. 332. ISBN 90-04-15605-4.\n\n^ de Crespigny, Rafe. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, p. 1055. ISBN 90-04-15605-4.\n\n^ McLeod, Katrina C. D.; Yates, Robin D. S. (1981). \"Forms of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of The Feng-chen shih\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 41 (1): 152-153 & footnote 147. doi:10.2307/2719003. JSTOR 2719003.\n\n^ Loewe, Michael. (1994). Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, p. 65. ISBN 0-521-45466-2.\n\n^ Palka, Joel W. (2010), \"The Development of Maya Writing\", in Christopher Woods (ed.), Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, p. 226, ISBN 978-1-885923-76-9\n\n^ Palka, Joel W. (2010), \"The Development of Maya Writing\", in Christopher Woods (ed.), Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, pp. 226-227, ISBN 978-1-885923-76-9\n\n^ a b \"Mesoamerican civilization | History, Olmec, & Maya | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-10-24.\n\n^ \"Numerals and numeral systems | Examples & Symbols | Britannica\". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-10-24.\n\n^ a b Palka, Joel W. (2010), \"The Development of Maya Writing\", in Christopher Woods (ed.), Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond, Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, p. 227, ISBN 978-1-885923-76-9\n\n^ Price, T. Douglas; Gary M. Feinman (2005). Images of the Past (Fourth ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-286311-0. p. 321\n\nBibliography\n\nThe odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).The odometer cart, depicted in Eastern Han art, was most likely invented in Western Han China by Luoxia Hong around 110 BC and separately by the Greeks (either Archimedes in the 3rd century BC or Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD).Nasser, Mona; Tibi, Aida; Savage-Smith, Emilie (1 February 2009). \"Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine: 11th century rules for assessing the effects of drugs\". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 102 (2): 78-80. doi:10.1258/jrsm.2008.08k040. PMC 2642865. PMID 19208873.\n\nNeedham, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China, volume 1. (Cambridge University Press, 1954)\n\nPedersen, Olaf. Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.\n\nSardar, Marika. “Astronomy and Astrology in the Medieval Islamic World.” Metmuseum.org, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/astr/hd_astr.htm.\n\nTibi, Selma (April 2006). \"Al-Razi and Islamic medicine in the 9th century\". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 99 (4): 206-207. doi:10.1177/014107680609900425. PMC 1420785. PMID 16574977.\n\nUpton, Joseph M. (1933). \"A Manuscript of 'The Book of the Fixed Stars' by ʿAbd Ar-Raḥmān Aṣ-Ṣūfī\". Metropolitan Museum Studies. 4 (2): 179-197. doi:10.2307/1522800. JSTOR 1522800."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-science-in-the-ancient-world"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 7674}, {"slug": "reference-history-of-syria", "title": "History of Syria", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The history of Syria covers events which occurred on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic and in the region of Syria. The territory of the Syrian Arab Republic was occupied and ruled by several empires, including the Sumerians, Egyptians, Amorites, Ugarites, Hittites, Mitanni, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Phoenicians,...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The history of Syria covers events which occurred on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic and in the region of Syria. The territory of the Syrian Arab Republic was occupied and ruled by several empires, including the Sumerians, Egyptians, Amorites, Ugarites, Hittites, Mitanni, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Arameans, Persians, Greeks and Romans.[1] Syria is considered to have emerged as an independent country for the first time on 24 October 1945, upon the signing of the United Nations Charter by the Syrian government, effectively ending France's mandate by the League of Nations to \"render administrative advice and assistance to the population\" of Syria, which came in effect in April 1946. \n\nOn 21 February 1958, Syria merged with Egypt to create the United Arab Republic after plebiscitary ratification of the merger by voters in both countries, but seceded from it in 1961, thereby recovering its full independence. From 1963 until 2024, the Syrian Arab Republic was ruled by the Ba’ath Party, with the Assad family exclusively in power since 1971. Following the fall of the Assad regime, Syria entered a political transition under the transitional government on 29 March 2025.\n\nPrehistory\n\nThe oldest remains found in Syria date from the Palaeolithic era (c.800,000 BCE). On 23 August 1993, a joint Japan-Syria excavation team discovered fossilized Paleolithic human remains at the Dederiyeh Cave some 400 km north of Damascus. The bones found in this massive cave were those of a Neanderthal child, estimated to have been about two years old, who lived in the Middle Palaeolithic era (ca. 200,000 to 40,000 years ago). Although many Neanderthal bones had been discovered already, this was practically the first time that an almost complete child's skeleton had been found in its original burial state.[2]\n\nArchaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth. Syria is part of the Fertile Crescent, and since approximately 10,000 BCE it was one of the centers of Neolithic culture (PPNA) where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The Neolithic period (PPNB) is represented by rectangular houses of the Mureybet culture. In the early Neolithic period, people used vessels made of stone, gyps and burnt lime. Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidence of early trade relations. The cities of Hamoukar and Emar flourished during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age.\n\nAncient Near East\n\nThe ruins of Ebla, near Idlib in northern Syria, were discovered and excavated in 1975. Ebla appears to have been an East Semitic speaking city-state founded around 3000 BCE. At its zenith, from about 2500 to 2400 BCE, it may have controlled an empire reaching north to Anatolia, east to Mesopotamia and south to Damascus. Ebla traded with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, as well as with peoples to the northwest.[3] Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt. Scholars believe the language of Ebla was closely related to the fellow East Semitic Akkadian language of Mesopotamia[4] and to be among the oldest known written languages.[3]\n\nFrom the third millennium BCE, Syria was occupied and fought over successively by Sumerians, Eblaites, Akkadians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Amorites and Babylonians.[3]\n\nEbla was probably conquered into the Mesopotamian Akkadian Empire (2335-2154 BCE) by Sargon of Akkad around 2330 BCE. The city re-emerged, as the part of the nation of the Northwest Semitic speaking Amorites, a few centuries later, and flourished through the early second millennium BCE until conquered by the Indo-European Hittites.[5] The Sumerians, Akkadians and Assyrians of Mesopotamia referred to the region as Mar.Tu or The land of the Amurru (Amorites) from as early as the 24th century BCE.\n\nParts of Syria were controlled by the Neo-Sumerian Empire, Old Assyrian Empire and Babylonian Empire between the 22nd and 18th centuries BCE.\n\nThe region was fought over by the rival empires of the Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians and Mitanni between the 15th and 13th centuries BCE, with the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1050 BCE) eventually left controlling Syria.\n\nWhen the Middle Assyrian Empire began to deteriorate in the late 11th century BCE, Canaanites and Phoenicians came to the fore and occupied the coast, and Arameans and Suteans supplanted the Amorites in the interior, as part of the general disruptions and exchanges associated with the Bronze Age Collapse and the Sea Peoples. During this period the bulk of Syria became known as Eber Nari and Aramea.\n\nFrom the 10th century BCE the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935-605 BCE) arose, and Syria was ruled by Assyria for the next three centuries, until the late 7th century BCE, and was still known as Eber-Nari and Aram throughout the period. It is from this period that the name Syria first emerges, but not in relation to modern Syria, but as an Indo-European corruption of Assyria, which in fact encompassed the modern regions of northern Iraq, north east Syria, south east Turkey and the northwestern fringe of Iran. (see Etymology of Syria)\n\nAfter this empire finally collapsed, Mesopotamian dominance continued for a time with the short lived Neo-Babylonian Empire (612-539 BCE), which ruled the region for almost 75 years.\n\nClassical antiquity\n\nPersian Syria\n\nIn 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, King of Achaemenid Persians, took Syria as part of his empire. Due to Syria's location on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, its navy fleet, and abundant forests, Persians showed great interest in easing control while governing the region. Thus, the indigenous Phoenicians paid an annual tribute of only 350 talent compared to Egypt's tribute of 700 talents. Furthermore, Syrians were allowed to rule their own cities, in that they continued to practice their native religions, establish their own businesses, and build colonies all over the Mediterranean coast. Syria's satraps used to reside in Damascus, Sidon or Tripoli.\n\nIn 525 BCE, Cambyses II managed to conquer Egypt after the Battle of Pelusium. Afterwards, he decided to launch an expedition towards Siwa Oasis and Carthage, but his efforts were in vain as Phoenicians refused to operate against their kindred.\n\nLater on, Phoenicians contributed dearly to Xerxes I's invasion of Greece. Arwad aided the campaign with its fleet, while land troops helped in constructing a bridge for Xerxes's army to cross the Bosphorus into mainland Greece.\n\nDuring Artaxerxes III's reign (358-338 BCE), Sidon, Egyptians, and eleven other Phoenician cities started to revolt against the Persian rulers. The revolutions were heavily suppressed in that Sidon was burnt with its citizens.[6]\n\nHellenistic Syria\n\nPersian dominion ended with the conquests of the Macedonian Greek king, Alexander the Great in 333-332 BCE after the Battle of Issus which took place south of the ancient town Issus, close to the present-day Turkish town of Iskenderun. Syria was then incorporated into the Seleucid Empire by general Seleucus who started, with the Seleucid Kings after him, using the title of King of Syria. The capital of this Empire (founded in 312 BCE) was situated at Antioch, then a part of historical Syria, but just inside the Turkish border today as well.\n\nA series of six wars, Syrian Wars, were fought between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE over the region then called Coele-Syria, one of the few avenues into Egypt. These conflicts drained the material and manpower of both parties and led to their eventual destruction and conquest by Rome and Parthia. Mithridates II, King of Parthian Empire, extended his control further west, occupying Dura-Europos in 113 BCE.[7]\n\nBy 100 BCE, the once formidable Seleucid Empire encompassed little more than Antioch and some Syrian cities. In 83 BCE, after a bloody strife for the throne of Syria, governed by the Seleucids, the Syrians decided to choose Tigranes the Great, King of Armenia, as the protector of their kingdom and offered him the crown of Syria.[8]\n\nRoman Syria\n\nThe Roman general Pompey the Great captured Antioch in 64 BCE, turning Syria into a Roman province and ended Armenian rule,[3] establishing the city of Antioch as its capital.\n\nAntioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire, after Rome and Alexandria, with an estimated population of 500,000 at its zenith, and being a commercial and cultural hub at the region for many centuries later. The largely Aramaic-speaking population of Syria during the heyday of the empire was probably not exceeded again until the 19th century. Syria's large and prosperous population made it one of the most important Roman provinces, particularly during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.[10] In the course of the second century AD, the cities of Palmyra and neighboring Emesa (modern-day Homs) rose to wealth and prominence and both would be notably active in the third century, both in resisting the Parthian Empire but also in raising up Roman usurpers.[11]\n\nUnder the Severan dynasty, Syrian nobles administered Rome and even rose to imperial title, such as the matriarch of the family, Julia Domna, who descended from the Emesan dynasty of priest-kings of Elagabalus and who married Septimius Severus in 187. After the ascension of Domna's two sons to the throne and their eventual death, the Severan dynasty was usurped by Macrinus, a prominent figure in Roman court and a Praetorian prefect. Domna's sister Julia Maesa returned to Emesa, taking her enormous wealth, and her two daughters and grandsons with her.[12] Back in Emesa, her grandson, Elagabalus.[12] Soldiers from Legio III Gallica who were stationed near Emesa would visit the city occasionally,[12] and were persuaded to swear fealty to Elagabalus by Maesa who used her enormous wealth[13] and claimed that he was Caracalla's bastard.[12] Elagabalus later rode to battle against Marcinus, and entered the city of Antioch emerging as emperor, with Marcinus fleeing before being captured near Chalcedon and executed in Cappadocia. Whatsoever, his reign lasted only a short 4 years, filled with sex scandals, eccentricity, decadence, and zealotry. Realizing that the popular support for the emperor was fading, Julia Maesa decided to replace him with her younger grandson, his cousin Severus Alexander, and convinced Elagabalus to name him as his heir and give him the title of Caesar, but after revoking his far more popular cousin of his titles and ranks, and reversing his consulships, the Praetorian guard cheered on Alexander, naming him emperor and slaying Elagabalus and his mother. Severus Alexander's rule was longer, and unlike Elagabalus' disastrous rule, was filled with domestic achievements and he earned the popularity and respect of his people, something Elagabalus never had. He ruled for 13 years, before eventually losing the popularity he once had and being slain by the Legio XXII Primigenia.\n\nAnother Emperor of Syrian origin was Philip the Arab, born in modern-day Shahba, he reigned from 244 to 249. His reign enjoyed relative stability, he maintained good relations with the senate, reaffirmed old Roman virtues and traditions, and started many building projects, most popularly in his hometown, renaming it Philippopolis, and raising it to civic status. Whatsoever, the creation of a new city, alongside the massive tribute to the Persians, he had to raise taxes to high levels and stop paying subsidies to the tribes north of the Danube, which were essential to keeping the peace with them. Nonetheless, his reign ended shortly after Decius usurped the throne, killing Philip and emerging as the new emperor.\n\nDuring the Roman-Sasanian war of the 3rd century, the Romans, struggling in the early stages of the Crisis of the Third Century depended on Odaenathus, the King of the Syrian city-state of Palmyra to secure the Roman East from the Persian invaders and to regain lost Roman territories, so Odaenathus rode north leading the Palmyrene army, and regained Armenia, Northern Syria, parts of Asia Minor from the Persians, and even reached the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, thus weakening the Persians and securing the Roman East, before he was murdered by his own nephew, Maeonius.\n\nYears later, Palmyra rose in rebellion against the Roman Empire under the leadership of Zenobia, Odaenathus' widow and Queen Mother of Palmyra, who led her armies to conquer Syria, Asia Minor, Arabia and Lower Egypt in a series of campaigns in which she annexed almost the entire Roman east, all while the Roman Empire was struggling during the Crisis of the Third Century, ruled by incompetent emperors and torn apart by civil war. Whatsoever, the Palmyrene Empire was short lived; once the Roman general Aurelian rose to power, he rode east, defeated Queen Zenobia in battle twice, and rode to Palmyra to reconquer it and subsequently sacked it around 273 CE, which effectively put an end to Palmyrene civilization.\n\nByzantine period (395-636/37)\n\nWith the decline of the empire in the west, Syria became part of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire in 395. The province was subsequently divided into three, smaller provinces. Syria Prima, with the capital remaining at Antioch, and Syria Secunda, with its capital moving to Apamea on the Orontes, and the new province of Theodorias, with Laodicea as its capital.[14] By then the empire had converted to Christianity, in the history of which Syria had played a significant role; Paul the Apostle had converted on the Road to Damascus and emerged as a significant figure in the Church of Antioch.\n\nSyria remained one of the most important regions of the Byzantine Empire, and was of strategic importance, being occupied by the Sasanians between 609 and 628, then recovered by the emperor Heraclius. Byzantine rule in the region was lost to the Muslims after the Battle of Yarmouk and the fall of Antioch.[14]\n\nMedieval era\n\nIn 634-640, Syria was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the form of the Rashidun army led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, resulting in the region becoming part of the Islamic empire. In the mid-7th century, the Umayyad dynasty, then rulers of the empire, placed the capital of the empire in Damascus. Syria was divided into four districts: Damascus, Homs, Palestine and Jordan. The Islamic empire expanded rapidly and at its height stretched from Spain to India and parts of Central Asia; thus Syria prospered economically, being the centre of the empire. Early Umayyad rulers such as Abd al-Malik and Al-Walid I constructed several splendid palaces and mosques throughout Syria, particularly in Damascus, Aleppo and Homs.\n\nThere were Christians (mostly ethnic Assyrians) in this era that held several governmental posts. In the mid-8th century, the Caliphate collapsed amid dynastic struggles, regional revolts and religious disputes. The Umayyad dynasty was overthrown by the Abbasid dynasty in 750, who moved the capital of empire to Baghdad. Arabic - made official under Umayyad rule - became the dominant language, replacing Greek and Aramaic in the Abbasid era. For periods, Syria was ruled from Egypt, under the Tulunids (887-905), and then, after a period of anarchy, the Ikhshidids (941-969). Northern Syria came under the Hamdanids of Aleppo.[15]\n\nThe court of Saif al-Daula (944-967) was a center of culture, thanks to its nurturing of Arabic literature. He resisted Byzantine efforts to reconquer Syria by skillful defensive tactics and counter-raids into Anatolia. After his death, the Byzantines captured Antioch and Aleppo (969). Syria was then in turmoil as a battleground between the Hamdanids, Byzantines and Damascus-based Fatimids. The Byzantines had conquered all of Syria by 996, but the chaos continued for much of the 11th century as the Byzantines, Fatimids and Buyids of Baghdad engaged in a struggle for supremacy. Syria was then conquered by the Seljuk Turks (1084-1086), during the reign of Malik-Shah I. Afterward, Nur ad-Din of the Zengid dynasty controlled the region between Aleppo and Damascus in 1154, taken from the Burid dynasty. Later on, Syria was conquered (1175-1185) by Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.\n\nDuring the 12th-13th centuries, parts of Syria were held by Crusader states: the County of Edessa (1098-1149), the Principality of Antioch (1098-1268) and County of Tripoli (1109-1289). The area was also threatened by Shi'a extremists known as Assassins (Hassassin) and in 1260 the Mongols briefly swept through Syria. The withdrawal of the main Mongol army prompted the Mamluks of Egypt to invade and conquer Syria. In addition to the sultanate's capital in Cairo, the Mamluk leader, Baibars, made Damascus a provincial capital, with the cities linked by a mail service that traveled by both horses and carrier pigeons. The Mamluks eliminated the last of the Crusader footholds in Syria and repulsed several Mongol invasions.\n\nIn 1400, Timur Lenk, or Tamerlane, invaded Syria, defeated the Mamluk army at Aleppo and captured Damascus. Many of the city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans, who were deported to Samarkand.[16][17] At this time the Christian population of Syria suffered persecution.\n\nBy the end of the 15th century, the discovery of a sea route from Europe to the Far East ended the need for an overland trade route through Syria. In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered Syria.\n\nOttoman era \n\nOttoman Sultan Selim I conquered most of Syria in 1516 after defeating the Mamlukes at the Battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo. Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918, although with 2 brief captures by the Iranian Safavids, notably under Shah Ismail I and Shah Abbas. Ottoman rule was not burdensome to the Syrians because the Turks, as Muslims, respected Arabic as the language of the Koran, and accepted the mantle of defenders of the faith. Damascus became the major entrepot for Mecca, and as such it acquired a holy character to Muslims, because of the barakah (spiritual force or blessing) of the countless pilgrims who passed through on the hadj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.[18]\n\nThe Ottoman Turks reorganized Syria into one large province or eyalet. The eyalet was subdivided into several districts or sanjaks. In 1549, Syria was reorganized into two eyalets; the Eyalet of Damascus and the new Eyalet of Aleppo. In 1579, the Eyalet of Tripoli which included Latakia, Hama and Homs was established. In 1586, the Eyalet of Raqqa was established in eastern Syria. Ottoman administration did not foster a peaceful co-existence amongst the different sections of Syrian society but Each religious minority - Shia Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Armenian, and Jewish - constituted a millet. The religious heads of each community administered all personal status law and performed certain civil functions as well.[18]\n\nAs part of the Tanzimat reforms, an Ottoman law passed in 1864 provided for a standard provincial administration throughout the empire with the Eyalets becoming smaller Vilayets governed by a Wali, or governor, still appointed by the Sultan but with new provincial assemblies participating in administration. The territory of Greater Syria in the final period of Ottoman rule included modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and parts of Turkey and Iraq.\n\nDuring World War I, French diplomat François Georges-Picot and British diplomat Mark Sykes secretly agreed on the post war division of the Ottoman Empire into respective zones of influence in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. In October 1918, Arab and British troops advanced into Syria and captured Damascus and Aleppo. In line with the Sykes-Picot agreement, Syria became a League of Nations mandate under French control in 1920.[19]\n\nThe demographics of this area underwent a huge shift in the early part of the 20th century when Ottoman troops along with Kurdish detachments conducted ethnic cleansing of its Christian populations. Some Circassian, Kurdish and Chechens tribes cooperated with the Ottoman authorities in the massacres of Armenian and Assyrian Christians in Upper Mesopotamia, in southeastern Turkey, between 1914 and 1920, with further attacks on unarmed fleeing civilians conducted by local Arab militias.[20][21][22][23][24] Many Assyrians fled to northeastern Syria during the Simele massacre in the early 1930s in Iraq and settled mainly in the Al-Hasakah Governorate governate in the Jazira Region.[21][22][23][24] and burned the town.[25] The town was destroyed and the Christian population, about 300 families, fled to the towns of Qamishli and Hasakah.[26] During the great war, Kurdish tribes attacked and sacked and villages in Albaq District immediately to the north of Hakkari mountains. According to lieutenant Ronald Sempill Stafford, a large numbers of Assyrians and Armenians were killed.[21]\n\nIn 1941, the Assyrian community of al-Malikiyah was subjected to a vicious assault. Even though the assault failed, Assyrians were terrorized and left in large numbers, and the immigration of Kurds from Turkey to the area have resulted in a Kurdish majority in Amuda, al-Malikiyah, and al-Darbasiyah.[27] The historically important Christian city of Nusaybin had a similar fate when its Christian population left after it was ceded to Turkey through the Franco-Turkish Agreement of Ankara in October 1921. The Christian population of the city crossed the border into Syria and settled in Qamishli, which was separated by the railway (new border) from Nusaybin. Nusaybin became Kurdish and Qamishli became a Syriac Christian city. While many Kurds have lineage in Syria for centuries[28], things soon changed, with the immigration of Kurds beginning in 1926 following the failure of the rebellion of Saeed Ali Naqshbandi against the Turkish authorities.[27] During the 1920s, waves of Kurds fled their homes in Turkey and settled in northeastern Syria where they were granted citizenship by the French mandate authorities.[29]\n\nModern history\n\nFrench Mandate\n\nIn 1919, a short-lived dependent Kingdom of Syria was established under Emir Faisal I of the Hashemite dynasty, who later became the king of Iraq. In March 1920, the Syrian National Congress proclaimed Faisal as king of Syria \"in its natural boundaries\" from the Taurus mountains in Turkey to the Sinai desert in Egypt. However, his rule in Syria ended after only a few months following a clash between his Syrian Arab forces and French forces at the Battle of Maysalun. French troops took control of Syria and forced Faisal to flee. Later that year the San Remo conference split up Faisal's kingdom by placing Syria-Lebanon under a French mandate, and Palestine under British control. Syria was divided into three autonomous regions by the French, with separate areas for the Alawis on the coast and the Druze in the south.[30]\n\nNationalist agitation against French rule led to Sultan al-Atrash leading a revolt that broke out in the Druze Mountain in 1925 and spread across the whole of Syria and parts of Lebanon. The revolt saw fierce battles between rebel and French forces in Damascus, Homs and Hama before it was suppressed in 1927.\n\n The French sentenced Sultan al-Atrash to death, but he had escaped with the rebels to Transjordan and was eventually pardoned. He returned to Syria in 1937 and was met with a huge public reception. Elections were held in 1928 for a constituent assembly, which drafted a constitution for Syria. However, the French High Commissioner rejected the proposals, sparking nationalist protests.\n\nOn 14 May 1930, the French high commissioner promulgated a constitution for the Syrian State. On 22 May 1930, the State of Syria was declared the Republic of Syria and a new Syrian Constitution was promulgated by the French High Commissioner.[31]\n\nSyria and France negotiated a treaty of independence in September 1936. France agreed to Syrian independence in principle although maintained French military and economic dominance. Hashim al-Atassi, who had been Prime Minister under King Faisal's brief reign, was the first president to be elected under a new constitution, effectively the first incarnation of the modern republic of Syria. However, the treaty never came into force because the French Legislature refused to ratify it. With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria came under the control of Vichy France until the British and Free French occupied the country in the Syria-Lebanon campaign in July 1941. Syria proclaimed its independence again in 1941, but it was not until 1 January 1944 that it was recognised as an independent republic. There were protests in 1945 over the slow pace of French withdrawal. The French responded to these protests with artillery. In an effort to stop the movement toward independence, French troops occupied the Syrian parliament in May 1945 and cut off Damascus's electricity. Training their guns on Damascus's old city, the French killed 400 Syrians and destroyed hundreds of homes.[32] With casualties mounting Winston Churchill ordered British troops to invade Syria where they escorted French troops to their barracks on 1 June. With continuing pressure from the British and Syrian nationalist groups the French were forced to evacuate the last of their troops in April 1946, leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that had been formed during the mandate.[33]\n\nIndependence, war and instability\n\nSyria became independent on 17 April 1946. Syrian politics from independence through the late 1960s were marked by upheaval. Between 1946 and 1956, Syria had 20 different cabinets and drafted four separate constitutions.\n\nIn 1948, Syria was involved in the Arab-Israeli War, aligning with the other local Arab states who wanted to prevent the emergence of the new state of Israel.[34][35] The Syrian army entered northern Israel but, after bitter fighting, was gradually driven back to the Golan Heights by the Israelis. An armistice was agreed in July 1949. A demilitarized zone under UN supervision was established; the status of these territories proved a stumbling-block for all future Syrian-Israeli negotiations. It was during this period that many Syrian Jews, who faced discriminations, fled Syria as part of Jewish exodus from Arab countries.\n\nThe outcome of the war was one of factors behind the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état by Col. Husni al-Za'im, in what has been described as the first military overthrow of the Arab World[35] since the Second World War. The coup was caused due to the disgrace the army faced in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and thus, sought to relieve itself of that shame. This was soon followed by another coup by Col. Sami al-Hinnawi.[35] Army officer, which was caused by the alienation of Za'im's allies. Adib Shishakli seized power in the third military coup of 1949, in an attempt to prevent a union with Iraq. A Jabal al-Druze uprising was suppressed after extensive fighting (1953-54). Growing discontent eventually led to another coup, in which Shishakli was overthrown in February 1954. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, founded in 1947, played a part in the overthrow of Shishakli. Veteran nationalist Shukri al-Quwatli was president from 1955 until 1958, but by then his post was largely ceremonial.\n\nPower was increasingly concentrated in the military and security establishment, which had proved itself to be the only force capable of seizing and, perhaps, keeping power.[35] Parliamentary institutions remained weak, dominated by competing parties representing the landowning elites and various Sunni urban notables, whilst the economy was mismanaged and little was done to better the role of Syria's peasant majority. In November 1956, as a direct result of the Suez Crisis,[36] Syria signed a pact with the Soviet Union, providing a foothold for Communist influence within the government in exchange for planes, tanks, and other military equipment being sent to Syria.[35] This increase in Syrian military strength worried Turkey, as it seemed feasible that Syria might attempt to retake İskenderun, a matter of dispute between Syria and Turkey. On the other hand, Syria and the Soviet Union accused Turkey of massing its troops on the Syrian border. Only heated debates in the United Nations (of which Syria was an original member) lessened the threat of war.[37]\n\nIn this context, the influence of Nasserism, Pan-Arab and anti-imperial ideologies created fertile ground for the idea of closer ties with Egypt.[35][38] The appeal of Egyptian President Gamal Abdal Nasser's leadership in the wake of the Suez Crisis created support in Syria for union with Egypt.[35] On 1 February 1958, Syrian President al-Quwatli and Nasser announced the merging of the two states, creating the United Arab Republic.[33] The union was not a success, however.[35] Discontent with Egyptian dominance of the UAR, led elements opposed to the union under Abd al-Karim al-Nahlawi, to seize power on 28 September 1961. Two days later, Syria re-established itself as the Syrian Arab Republic. Frequent coups, military revolts, civil disorders and bloody riots characterized the 1960s.\n\nBa'athist Syria (1963-2024)\n\nIntra-Ba'ath power struggles (1963-1970)\n\nThe 8 March 1963 coup, resulted in installation of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), a group of military and civilian officials who assumed control of all executive and legislative authority. The takeover was engineered by members of the Ba'ath Party led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. The new cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members; and Salah al-Din al-Bitar became the Syrian premier.[33][35]\n\nThe 1963 Ba'athist coup marked a \"radical break\" in modern Syrian history, after which Ba'ath party monopolised power to establish a one-party state and shaped a new socio-political order in Syria by enforcing its state ideology.[39] Since the establishment of Ba'athist state, Syria has been ruled as a totalitarian system marked by the pervasive grip of Ba'ath party over all aspects of daily life. Civil society, political activities, economy, religious life, culture, social activities, etc. have been monitored, controlled and repressed by the state through Ba'athist organizations and the dreaded secret police.[40]\n\nBa'ath party's National Command was overthrown early in 1966 by ultra-leftist military dissidents of the party led by General Salah Jadid. Under Jadid's rule, Syria aligned itself with the Soviet bloc and pursued hardline policies towards Israel[41] and \"reactionary\" Arab states especially Saudi Arabia, calling for the mobilization of a \"people's war\" against Zionism rather than inter-Arab military alliances. Domestically, Jadid attempted a socialist transformation of Syrian society at forced pace, creating unrest and economical difficulties. Opponents of the government were harshly suppressed, while the Ba'ath Party replaced parliament as law-making body and other parties were banned. Public support for his government, such as it was, declined sharply following Syria's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War,[42] when Israel destroyed much of Syria's air force and captured the Golan Heights.[43][44]\n\nConflicts also arose over different interpretations of the legal status of the Demilitarized Zone. Israel maintained that it had sovereign rights over the zone, allowing the civilian use of farmland. Syria and the UN maintained that no party had sovereign rights over the zone.[45] Israel was accused by Syria of cultivating lands in the Demilitarized Zone, using armored tractors backed by Israel forces. Syria claimed that the situation was the result of an Israeli aim to increase tension so as to justify large-scale aggression, and to expand its occupation of the Demilitarized Zone by liquidating the rights of Arab cultivators.[46] The Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan said in a 1976 interview that Israel provoked more than 80% of the clashes with Syria.[47][48]\n\nConflict developed between right-wing army officers and the more moderate civilian wing of the Ba'ath Party. The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the PLO during the \"Black September\" hostilities with Jordan reflected this political disagreement within the ruling Ba'ath leadership.[49] On 13 November 1970, Minister of Defense Hafez al-Assad seized power in a bloodless military overthrow (\"The Corrective Movement\").[50]\n\nSyria under Hafez al-Assad (1970-2000)\n\nUpon assuming power, Hafez al-Assad moved quickly to create an organizational infrastructure for his government and to consolidate control. The Provisional Regional Command of Assad's Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party nominated a 173-member legislature, the People's Council, in which the Ba'ath Party took 87 seats. The remaining seats were divided among \"popular organizations\" and other minor parties. In March 1971, the party held its regional congress and elected a new 21-member Regional Command headed by Assad.\n\nIn the same month, a national referendum was held to confirm Assad as president for a 7-year term. In March 1972, to broaden the base of his government, Assad formed the National Progressive Front, a coalition of parties led by the Ba'ath Party, and elections were held to establish local councils in each of Syria's 14 governorates. In March 1973, a new Syrian constitution went into effect followed shortly thereafter by parliamentary elections for the People's Council, the first such elections since 1962.[33] The 1973 Constitution defined Syria as a secular socialist state with Islam recognised as the majority religion.\n\nOn 6 October 1973, Syria and Egypt initiated the Yom Kippur War by launching a surprise attack on Israel. After intense fighting, the Syrians were repulsed in the Golan Heights. The Israelis pushed deeper into Syrian territory, beyond the 1967 boundary. As a result, Israel continues to occupy the Golan Heights as part of the Israeli-occupied territories.[51] In 1975, Assad said he would be prepared to make peace with Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from \"all occupied Arab land\".\n\nIn 1976, the Syrian army intervened in the Lebanese civil war to ensure that the status quo was maintained, and the Maronite Christian Lebanese Front remained in power. This was the beginning of what turned out to be a thirty-year Syrian military occupation. Many crimes in Lebanon, including the accused assassinations of Rafik Hariri, Kamal Jumblat and Bachir Gemayel were attributed to the Syrian forces and intelligence services although were not proven to this day. In 1981, Israel declared its annexation of the Golan Heights. The following year, Israel invaded Lebanon and attacked the Syrian army, forcing it to withdraw from several areas. When Lebanon and Israel announced the end of hostilities in 1983, Syrian forces remained in Lebanon. Syria also switched side and began to oppose the Lebanese Front. Through extensive use of proxy militias, Syria attempted to stop Israel from taking over southern Lebanon. Assad sent troops into Lebanon for a second time in 1987 to enforce a ceasefire in Beirut.\n\nThe Syrian-sponsored Taif Agreement brought the Lebanese civil war to an end in 1990. The Syrian Army's presence in Lebanon continued until 2005, exerting a strong influence over Lebanese politics. The assassination of the popular former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was blamed on Syria, and pressure was put on Syria to withdraw their forces from Lebanon. On 26 April 2005 the bulk of the Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon[52] although some of its intelligence operatives remained, drawing further international rebuke.[53]\n\nAbout one million Syrian workers went to Lebanon after the war to find jobs in the reconstruction of the country.[54] In 1994 the Lebanese government controversially granted citizenship to over 200,000 Syrian residents in the country.[55] (For more on these issues, see Demographics of Lebanon)\n\nThe government was not without its critics, though open dissent was repressed. A serious challenge arose in the late 1970s, however, from traditional Sunni Muslims, who rejected the Ba'athist program. Repulsed by the sectarian minority rule by the Alawites, Muslim groups launched popular uprisings across Syria, seeking the overthrow of Hafez al-Assad and establishment of an Islamic government. In response, Assad began to stress Syria's adherence to Islam. At the start of Iran-Iraq War, in September 1980, Syria supported Iran, in keeping with the traditional rivalry between Ba'athist leaderships in Iraq and Syria. The arch-conservative Muslim Brotherhood, centered in the city of Hama, was finally crushed in February 1982 when parts of the city were hit by artillery fire and leaving between 10,000 and 25,000 people, mostly civilians, dead or wounded (see Hama massacre).[56] The government's actions at Hama have been described as possibly being \"the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East\".[57] Since then, public manifestations of anti-government activity have been limited.[33] Amidst the pressure of the time, Hafez al-Assad also cracked down on secular and liberal dissent, jailing and torturing prominent Syrian figures like lawyer and former judge Haitham al-Maleh, political leader Riad al-Turk, writer Akram al-Bunni, and poet Mohammed al-Maghout.[58]\n\nWhen Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Syria joined the US-led coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War. This led to improved relations with the US and other Arab states. Syria participated in the multilateral Southwest Asia Peace Conference in Madrid in October 1991, and during the 1990s engaged in direct negotiations with Israel. These negotiations failed over the Golan Heights issue and there have been no further direct Syrian-Israeli talks since President Hafez al-Assad's meeting with then President Bill Clinton in Geneva in March 2000.[59]\n\nAfter securing his control over the Syrian government, Assad initially chose his brother, Rifaat al-Assad, as his successor, but Rifaat's attempted power grab while Hafez was in a coma in 1984 led to his exile in Europe.[60] Following the incident, Bassel al-Assad was groomed to succeed his father.[61] Hafez's efforts to make Bassel the next president of Syria intensified in the early 1990s;[62] after Hafez's election victory in 1991 in an election where Hafez was the only candidate, the president was publicly referred to as \"Abu Basil\" (Father of Bassel).[63] Shortly after Bassel died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar al-Assad was recalled to the Syrian Army. State propaganda soon began elevating Bashar's public image as \"the hope of the masses\" to prepare the public for a continuation of the rule of the Assad family.[64][65] Soon after the death of Bassel, Hafez al-Assad decided to make Bashar the new heir apparent.[66]\n\nSyria under Bashar al-Assad (2000-2024)\n\nHafez al-Assad died on 10 June 2000, after 30 years in power. Immediately following al-Assad's death, the Syrian Parliament amended the constitution, reducing the mandatory minimum age of the President from 40 to 34. This allowed Bashar Assad to become eligible for nomination by the ruling Ba'ath party. On 10 July 2000, Bashar al-Assad was elected president by referendum in which he ran unopposed, garnering 97.29% of the vote, according to Syrian Government statistics.[33] Bashar al-Assad's reign continued the totalitarian practices of his father, through brutal repression of political dissidents and clampdown on civil society movements. All political opposition is banned. Patronage networks of a few parties in the Ba'ath party-led National Progressive Front loyal to Assad regime are allowed to operate under the strict management of Ba'athist Political Security Directorate.[40]\n\nThe period after Bashar al-Assad's election in the summer of 2000 saw new hopes of reform and was dubbed the Damascus Spring. The period was characterized by the emergence of numerous political forums or salons where groups of like-minded people met in private houses to debate political and social issues. The phenomenon of salons spread rapidly in Damascus and to a lesser extent in other cities. Political activists, such as Riad Seif, Haitham al-Maleh, Kamal al-Labwani, Riyad al-Turk, and Aref Dalila were important in mobilizing the movement.[67] The most famous of the forums were the Riad Seif Forum and the Jamal al-Atassi Forum. Pro-democracy activists mobilized around a number of political demands, expressed in the \"Manifesto of the 99\". Assad ordered the release of some 600 political prisoners in November 2000. The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood resumed its political activity. In May 2001 Pope John Paul II paid a historic visit to Syria.\n\nHowever, by the autumn of 2001, the authorities had suppressed the pro-reform movement, crushing hopes of a break with the authoritarian past of Hafez al-Assad. Arrests of leading intellectuals continued, punctuated by occasional amnesties, over the following decade. Although the Damascus Spring had lasted for a short period, its effects still echo during the political, cultural and intellectual debates in Syria today.[68] While Bashar had pledged to undertake economic liberalization, in practice, the new policies exacerbated corruption and cronyism of Ba'ath party oligarchs loyal to the Assad family.[40]\n\nTensions with the USA grew worse after 2002, when the US claimed Damascus was acquiring weapons of mass destruction and included Syria in a list of states that they said made-up an \"axis of evil\". The USA was critical of Syria because of its strong relationships with Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine and Hezbollah, which the US, Israel and EU regard as terrorist groups. In 2003 the US threatened sanctions if Damascus failed to make what Washington called the \"right decisions\". Syria denied US allegations that it was developing chemical weapons and helping fugitive Iraqis. An Israeli air strike against a Palestinian militant camp near Damascus in October 2003 was described by Syria as \"military aggression\".[69] President Assad visited Turkey in January 2004, the first Syrian leader to do so. The trip marked the end of decades of frosty relations, although ties were to sour again after 2011. In May 2004, the USA imposed economic sanctions on Syria over what it called its support for terrorism and failure to stop militants entering Iraq.[70] Tensions with the US escalated in early 2005 after the killing of the former Lebanese PM Hariri in Beirut. Washington cited Syrian influence in Lebanon behind the assassination. Damascus was urged to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, which it did by April.[71]\n\nFollowing the Qamishli massacre in 2004, the Syrian Kurds protested in Brussels, in Geneva, in Germany, at the US and UK embassies, and in Turkey. The protesters pledged against violence in north-east Syria starting Friday, 12 March 2004, and reportedly extending over the weekend resulting in several deaths, according to reports. The Kurds allege the Syrian government encouraged and armed the attackers. Signs of rioting were seen in the towns of Qameshli and Hassakeh.[72]\n\nRenewed opposition activity occurred in October 2005 when activist Michel Kilo and other opposition figures launched the Damascus Declaration, which criticized the Syrian government as \"authoritarian, totalitarian and cliquish\" and called for democratic reform.[73] Leading dissidents Kamal al-Labwani and Michel Kilo were sentenced to long jail terms in 2007, only weeks after human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni was jailed.\nAlthough Bashar al-Assad said he would reform, the reforms have been limited to some market reforms.[56][74][75]\n\nOver the years the authorities have tightened Internet censorship with laws such as forcing Internet cafes to record all the comments users post on chat forums.[76] While the authorities have relaxed rules so that radio channels can now play Western pop music, websites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Amazon have been blocked,[77] but were recently unblocked throughout the nation.[78][79]\n\nSyria's international relations improved for a period. Diplomatic relations with Iraq were restored in 2006, after nearly a quarter century. In March 2007, dialogue between Syria and the European Union was relaunched. The following month saw US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi meet President Assad in Damascus, although President Bush objected.[80][81][82][83] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice then met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Egypt, in the first contact at this level for two years.[84][85][86]\n\nAn Israeli air strike against a site in northern Syria in September 2007 was a setback to improving relations. The Israelis claimed the site was a nuclear facility under construction with North Korean help.[87] 2008 March - When Syria hosted an Arab League summit in 2008, many Western states sent low-level delegations in protest at Syria's stance on Lebanon. However, the diplomatic thaw resumed when President Assad met the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris in July 2008. The visit signaled the end of Syria's diplomatic isolation by the West that followed the assassination of Hariri in 2005. While in Paris, President Assad also met the recently elected Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman. The two men laid the foundations for establishing full diplomatic relations between their countries. Later in the year, Damascus hosted a four-way summit between Syria, France, Turkey and Qatar, in a bid to boost efforts towards Middle East peace.\n\nIn April 2008, President Assad told a Qatari newspaper that Syria and Israel had been discussing a peace treaty for a year, with Turkey acting as a mediator. This was confirmed in May 2008 by a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The status of the Golan Heights, a major obstacle to a peace treaty, was being discussed.[88]\n\nIn 2008, an explosion killed 17 on the outskirts of Damascus, the most deadly attack in Syria in several years. The government blamed Islamist militants.[89][90][91]\n\n2009 saw a number of high level meetings between Syrian and US government diplomats and officials. US special envoy George J. Mitchell visited for talks with President Assad on Middle East peace.[92][93][94][95] Trading launched on Syria's stock exchange in a gesture towards liberalising the state-controlled economy.[96][97][98] The Syrian writer and pro-democracy campaigner Michel Kilo was released from prison after serving a three-year sentence.[99][100] In 2010, the USA posted its first ambassador to Syria after a five-year break.[101][102][103]\n\nThe thaw in diplomatic relations came to an abrupt end. In May 2010, the US renewed sanctions against Syria, saying that it supported terrorist groups, seeks weapons of mass destruction and has provided Lebanon's Hezbollah with Scud missiles in violation of UN resolutions.[104][105][106] In 2011 the UN's IAEA nuclear watchdog reported Syria to the UN Security Council over its alleged covert nuclear programme.[107][108]\n\nSyrian Civil War (2011-2024)\n\nSyrian Civil War is an ongoing internal conflict between the Syrian army and the Syrian opposition groups composed of different factions. Encouraged by the events of Arab Spring, there were massive anti-government protests in Damascus and the southern city of Deraa in March 2011. Protestors demanded political freedom and the release of political prisoners. This was immediately followed by a government crackdown whereby the Syrian Army was deployed to quell unrest and killed hundreds of civilians. This led to widespread outcry, fuelling further protests across all provinces in the country.[112][113]\n\nSecurity forces shot and killed a number of people in Deraa, triggering days of violent unrest that steadily spread nationwide over the following months. There were unconfirmed reports that soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians were summarily executed.[114] The Syrian government denied reports of executions and defections, and blamed armed militias for causing trouble.[115] What started as peaceful protests would eventually evolve into armed resistance following months of deadly crackdown launched across Syria by Bashar al-Assad's security apparatus. Tens of thousands of civilians got killed and displaced and by 2012, the situation had become a full-blown civil war.[116]\n\nIn July 2011, some of the anti-Assad groups met in Istanbul with the view of bringing together the many opposition groups, both internal and external to Syria. They agreed to form the Syrian National Council. Rebel fighters were joined by army defectors on the Turkish-Syrian border and declared the formation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). They began forming fighting units to escalate the insurgency from September 2011. From the outset, the FSA was a big-tent coalition of organized and largely independent resistance militias. All Free Syrian militias got unified under the Supreme Military Council in December 2012.\n\nAs the Syrian army recaptured the Homs district of Baba Amr in March 2012, the UN Security Council endorsed a non-binding peace plan drafted by UN envoy Kofi Annan. However, the violence continued unabated. A number of Western nations expelled senior Syrian diplomats in protest. In May, Assad regime's use of heavy weaponry and the massacre of over a hundred civilians in Houla, near Homs, led to widespread outcry and international condemnation.The fifteen nations of the U.N. Security Council unanimously denounced the Assad government for massacring civilians by firing heavy weapons.[117] The U.S., U.K., and eleven other nations jointly expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats from their territories.[118][119]\n\nThe UN reported that, in the first six months, 9,100-11,000 people had been killed during the insurgency, of which 2,470-3,500 were actual combatants and rest were civilians.[120][121][122] The Syrian government estimated that more than 3,000 civilians, 2,000-2,500 members of the security forces and over 800 rebels had been killed.[123] UN observers estimated that the death toll in the first six months included over 400 children.[124][125][126][127] Additionally, some media reported that over 600 political prisoners and detainees, some of them children, have died in custody.[128] A prominent case was that of Hamza al-Khateeb. Syria's government has disputed Western and UN casualty estimates, accusing their claims as being based on false reports originating from opposition groups.[129]\n\nAccording to the UN, about 1.2 million Syrians had been internally displaced within the country[130] and over 355,000 Syrian refugees had fled to the neighboring countries of Jordan,[131] Iraq,[132] Lebanon and Turkey during the first year of fighting.[130][133]\n\nInvestigations by United Nations Human Rights Council and human rights organizations like the Amnesty International have found that vast majority incidents of mass-killings, torture, summary executions, war crimes, chemical attacks, attacks on cultural properties have been perpetrated by Syrian Arab Armed Forces and Ba'athist security apparatus.[134] The conflict has the hallmarks of a sectarian civil war; the leading government figures are Shia Alawites, whilst the rebels are mainly Sunni Muslims, who form the majority of Syrian population. Although neither side in the conflict has described sectarianism as playing a major role,[135] the UN Human Rights Council has warned that \"entire communities are at risk of being forced out of the country or of being killed.\"[136]\n\nThe Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, GCC states, the US and the European Union have condemned the use of violence by the Syrian government and applied sanctions against Syria. China and Russia have sought to avoid foreign intervention and called for a negotiated settlement. They have avoided condemning the Syrian government and disagree with sanctions. China has sought to engage with the Syrian opposition.[137] The Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have both suspended Syria's membership.[138][139]\n\nIn June 2012 a number of high-ranking military and political personnel, such as Manaf Tlas[140] and Nawaf al-Fares, fled the country. Nawaf al-Fares stated in a video that this was in response to crimes against humanity by the Assad government.[141] In August 2012, the country's Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said President Assad's resignation could not be a condition for starting peace negotiations.[142]\n\nAfter heavy fighting, a fire destroyed much of the historic market of Aleppo in October. A UN-brokered ceasefire during the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha soon broke down as fighting and bomb attacks continued in several cities. By this time, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent estimated that 2.5 million people had been displaced within Syria, double the previous estimate. According to the anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, almost 44,000 people have died since the insurgency against began. According to a UN report, the humanitarian situation has been \"aggravated by widespread destruction and razing of residential areas. ... Towns and villages across Latakia, Idlib, Hama and Dara'a governorates have been effectively emptied of their populations,\" the report said. \"Entire neighborhoods in southern and eastern Damascus, Deir al-Zour and Aleppo have been razed. The downtown of Homs city has been devastated.\"[136]\n\nIn November 2012, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, commonly named the 'Syrian National Revolutionary Coalition' was formed at a meeting hosted by Qatar. In December 2012, the US, EU members, Gulf Cooperation Council, Turkey and Arab League members moved quickly to recognise the coalition as the \"sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people\" rather than the former main rebel group, the Syrian National Council. The USA and Persian Gulf states wanted a reshaped opposition coalition to include more Syrians who were fighting on the ground-as opposed to those who had been in exile for decades-and one that was more broadly representative of all Syria's regions. At the same time, the U.S. added al-Nusra Front (now defunct)-one of the most successful rebel military groups-to its terrorist list, citing ties to al-Qaeda. On 20 December 2012, a UN Independent Commission of Inquiry stated that Islamist militias in Syria operate independently of the secular opposition's Supreme Military Command and that some are affiliated with al-Nusra. Many of the insurgents are foreign fighters; \"Sunnis hailing from countries in the Middle East and North Africa,\" and participate in the revolution by fighting under the banners of Islamist militias. The inquiry also reported that Ba'athist regime and state-sponsored deathsquads like the Shabiha have been involved in the extensive mass-killings and sectarian attacks against Sunni families.[136]\n\nA sarin gas attack occurred in Syria, near Damascus, on 21 August 2013. The attack is alleged to have been carried out by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad according to French and United States' government's intelligence.[143][144][145] The attack led to increased international pressure on the Assad government and demands by pro-democracy opposition activists and liberal internationalists for international military intervention in Syria led by United States and allies.\n\nRussian involvement in the Syrian civil war began in late 2015, turning the tide of the conflict in the government's favour. On 22 December 2016, the city of Aleppo was fully captured by the pro-government forces.[146] As of 2022, more than half a million people have been killed in the civil war, with pro-Assad forces responsible for more than 90% of the civilian deaths. Around 14 million people have been forcibly displaced, of which around 6.8 million are externally displaced outside the country, resulting in the largest refugee crisis in the world.[116]\n\nFall of the Assad regime (2024)\n\nThe rebel offensive, which had begun on 27 November, continued its advance into Hama province following their capture of Aleppo.[147][148][149] On 4 December, fierce clashes erupted in Hama province as the Syrian army engaged rebel forces in a bid to halt their advance on the key city of Hama. Government forces claimed to have launched a counteroffensive with air support, pushing back rebel factions, including HTS, around six miles from the city. However, despite reinforcements, the rebels captured the city on 5 December.[150] The fighting led to widespread displacement, with nearly 50,000 people fleeing the area and over 600 casualties reported, including 104 civilians.[151]\n\nRebel forces reached the outskirts of Homs on 5 December, beginning a three-day battle for the city. Simultaneously, an HTS-coordinated[152][153] mass uprising led by a coalition of Druze tribes and opposition forces captured the southern cities of Suwayda and Daraa by 6 December,[154] and rapidly advanced northwards to encircle Damascus over the following day.[155] Homs was captured by rebel forces by the early morning of 8 December, leaving no major regime strongholds between the rebel advance and Damascus itself.[156]\n\nCut off from the Alawite heartland of Tartus and Latakia governorates, faced with a rebel pincer from both north and south bearing down on Damascus, and with no hope of foreign intervention from the regime's Russian and Iranian benefactors, Assadist authority over remaining regime-held territories rapidly disintegrated.[157][158] The Syrian Arab Armed Forces melted away as its soldiers abandoned their weapons and uniforms,[159] many deserting across the border to Iraq and Lebanon. Opposition forces captured the capital Damascus on 8 December, toppling Bashar al-Assad's government and ending the Assad family's 53-year-long rule over the country.[160] Assad fled to Moscow with his family, where he was granted asylum.[161][162]\n\nPost-Ba'athist Syria (2024-present)\n\nOn 8 December 2024, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali announced that the Syrian government would hand over power to a new elected government following the departure of Assad from Damascus, and Ahmed al-Sharaa announced further that al-Jalali will \"supervise state institutions until they are handed over\". Al-Jalali later noted to Al Arabiya that he and Ahmed al-Sharaa had been in contact prior to the announcement to discuss the handover.[163]\n\nAl-Sharaa subsequently became the country's de facto leader as head of the HTS.[164] On 9 December, HTS released a video of al-Sharaa, al-Jalali and Mohammed al-Bashir, the head of the de facto government in Idlib.[165] On the same day, following the fall of the Assad regime, the Prime Minister of the Syrian Salvation Government, al-Bashir,[166] was tasked with forming a transitional government after meeting with al-Sharaa and outgoing Syrian Prime Minister al-Jalali to coordinate the transfer of power.[167] The next day, he was officially appointed by the Syrian General Command as the prime minister of the transitional government.[168][169]\n\nShortly after the fall of the Assad regime, Israel commenced a ground invasion of the Purple Line buffer zone near the Golan Heights, as well as commencing a series of airstrikes against Syrian military depots and naval bases.[170][171] The Israeli Defense Forces claims that it is destroying Ba'athist military infrastructure, including chemical weapons plants, so that the rebels cannot use them.[170] Despite the collapse of the Assad regime, Turkish-backed Syrian National Army fighters in northern Syria continued their offensive against U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) forces until a ceasefire was reached on 11 December.[172][173]\n\nAfter the regime change, al-Sharaa was formally appointed as the President of Syria by the Syrian General Command for the transitional period during the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference in Damascus on 29 January 2025.[174] On 8 March 2025, the UK-based SOHR reported that Syrian security forces and pro-government fighters had committed a massacre of more than 700 Alawite civilians during clashes in western Syria.[175] On 10 March 2025, the SDF agreed to merge with the Syrian Armed Forces after SDF leader Mazloum Abdi met with al-Sharaa.[176] Three days later al-Sharaa signed an interim constitution covering a five-year transitional period.[177]\n\nOn 29 March 2025, the Syrian transitional government was announced by al-Sharaa at a ceremony at the Presidential Palace, Damascus,[178] in which the new ministers were sworn in and delivered speeches outlining their agendas.[179] The government replaced the Syrian caretaker government, which was formed following the fall of the Assad regime.[180]\n\nSee also\n\nFranco-Syrian Treaty of Independence (1936)\n\nHistory of the Levant\n\nHistory of Asia\n\nHistory of Damascus\n\nHistory of the Middle East\n\nList of presidents of Syria\n\nList of prime ministers of Syria\n\nOttoman Syria\n\nRulers of Damascus\n\nPolitics of Syria\n\nSyria\n\nSyrian Social Nationalist Party\n\nTimeline of Syrian history\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Syria\". 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Retrieved 12 June 2011.\n\n^ a b Kassam, Becker, Kamal, Maria (16 May 2023). \"Syrians of today, Germans of tomorrow: the effect of initial placement on the political interest of Syrian refugees in Germany\". Frontiers in Political Science. 5 1100446: 3. doi:10.3389/fpos.2023.1100446.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Security Council Press Statement on Attacks in Syria\" (Press release). UN. 27 May 2012. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 1 June 2012.\n\n^ \"Several countries expel Syrian diplomats as EU mulls joint expulsion\". Al Arabiya. 29 May 2012. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.\n\n^ agencies. \"Executions reported in Syria\". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 31 May 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2012.\n\n^ \"Syria: Bodies of 23 'extreme torture' victims found in Idlib as thousands rally for Assad\". www.telegraph.co.uk. 15 March 2012. 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Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs. 19 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 May 2013. Retrieved 14 August 2012.\n\n^ \"Syria ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf al-Fares, defects from Assad's regime\". CBS News. 12 July 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.\n\n^ \"Syria envoy says Assad resignation is not up for discussion\". BBC News. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2012.\n\n^ \"French Intelligence: Syria Used and Will Use Sarin Gas\". Arutz Sheva. 3 September 2013.\n\n^ Sanger, David E.; Schmitt, Eric (3 September 2013). \"Allies' Intelligence Differs on Details, but Still Points to Assad Forces\". The New York Times.\n\n^ Sayare, Scott (2 September 2013). \"French Release Intelligence Tying Assad Government to Chemical Weapons\". The New York Times.\n\n^ \"Syria's government recaptures all of Aleppo city\". Al Jazeera.\n\n^ \"Syria: US, Germany, France, UK call for de-escalation\". DW News. 2 December 2024. Retrieved 2 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Fighting Worsens Already Dire Conditions in Northwestern Syria\". The New York Times. 4 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrian hospital hit in air attack on opposition-held Idlib\". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 5 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syria rebels capture major city of Hama after military withdraws\". www.bbc.com. 5 December 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrian army launches counterattack as rebels push towards Hama\". France24. 4 December 2024. Retrieved 4 December 2024.\n\n^ \"What was behind Daraa's rapid fall, and did HTS participate?\". syriadirect.org. 8 December 2024.\n\n^ Christou, William (14 December 2024). \"'The army just ran away': how Bashar al-Assad lost his brutal grip on Syria\". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Anti-Assad rebels take most of southern Syrian region of Deraa, say reports\". BBC. 6 December 2024. Retrieved 7 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syria's Government Battles Multiple Rebel Uprisings\". The New York Times. 7 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrian army quits Homs, cutting Assad off from coast\". Reuters.\n\n^ Vijay Prashad (11 December 2024). \"The fall of the Assad government in Syria\". peoplesdispatch.org. Retrieved 13 December 2024.\n\n^ Samia Nakhoul; Maya Gebeily; Parisa Hafezi; Suleiman Al-Khalidi (13 December 2024). \"Assad's final hours in Syria: Deception, despair and flight\". Reuters. Retrieved 14 December 2024.\n\n^ Christou, William; Michaelson, Ruth (8 December 2024). \"Syrian rebels say they have advanced into Damascus as residents report sound of gunfire\". The Observer. London. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 8 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrian rebels topple President Assad, prime minister calls for free elections\". Reuters. 8 December 2024. Retrieved 8 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Ousted Syrian leader Assad flees to Moscow after fall of Damascus, Russian state media say\". AP News. 8 December 2024. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrians celebrate end of the Assad family's half-century rule after president flees to Moscow - CBS News\". www.cbsnews.com. 8 December 2024. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Ex-Syrian PM to supervise state bodies until transition\". Al Jazeera. 8 December 2024. Archived from the original on 9 December 2024. Retrieved 8 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Ahmed al-Sharaa named Syria's transitional president\". www.bbc.com. 31 January 2025. Retrieved 22 March 2025. Ahmed al-Sharaa has been Syria's de facto leader since leading the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad\n\n^ Saleh, Heba; Jalabi, Raya (9 December 2024). \"Syrian rebels seek to consolidate control\". Financial Times. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ \"المعارضة السورية تكلف محمد البشير بتشكيل حكومة انتقالية\" [Syrian opposition assigns Mohammed al-Bashir to form new government]. Al Jazeera Arabic (in Arabic). 9 December 2024. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Syrian rebels name Mohammed al-Bashir head of transitional government\". Le Monde. 10 December 2024. Retrieved 10 December 2024.\n\n^ Ula, enab10 (10 December 2024). \"Mohammed al-Bashir to head Syria's transitional government\". Enab Baladi. Retrieved 15 February 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ \"Der Islamist im Anzug: Wer ist der syrische Übergangspremier Mohammed al-Bashir?\" [The Islamist in a suit: who is the Syrian interim prime minister Mohammed al-Bashir?]. Die Presse (in German). 10 December 2024. Retrieved 10 December 2024.\n\n^ a b Bergman, Ronen (8 December 2024). \"Israeli Ground Forces Cross into Syria, Officials Say\". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ Fabian, Emanuel. \"Israeli strikes in Syria target weaponry it fears could be acquired by hostile forces\". The Times of Israel. ISSN 0040-7909. Retrieved 9 December 2024.\n\n^ \"As Assad falls, fighting intensifying over northern Syria town\". VOA News. 8 December 2024.\n\n^ \"Kurdish-led Force Announces US-brokered Truce In Syria's Manbij\". Barron's. 11 December 2024.\n\n^ \"General Command appoints Ahmed al-Sharaa as President of Syria\". Enab Baladi. 29 January 2025. Retrieved 9 February 2025.\n\n^ \"2 days of clashes and revenge killings in Syria leave more than 1,000 people dead\". Associated Press. 9 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Kurdish-led SDF agrees to integrate with Syrian government forces\". BBC News. Retrieved 11 March 2025.\n\n^ \"Syria gets temporary constitution for five-year transition\". www.bbc.com. 14 March 2025. Retrieved 17 March 2025.\n\n^ \"نص الإعلان الدستوري لسوريا 2025\". الجزيرة نت (in Arabic). Retrieved 29 March 2025.\n\n^ \"وزراء الحكومة السورية يقدمون خططهم ويؤدون القسم الدستوري\". Syria TV (Fadaat Media) (in Arabic). 29 March 2025. Retrieved 29 March 2025.\n\n^ \"At protest, Tel Aviv mayor vows to shut down the country if the government ignores a High Court ruling\". The Times of Israel. ISSN 0040-7909. Retrieved 29 March 2025.\n\nBibliography\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Syria\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 305-309. (See pp. 308-309.)\n\nFedden, Robin (1955). Syria: an historical appreciation. London: Readers Union - Robert Hale.\n\nHinnebusch, Raymond (2002). Syria: Revolution from Above. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28568-2.\n\nZisser, Eyal (2007). Commanding Syria: Bashar Al-Asad And the First Years in Power. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-153-3.\n\nFurther reading\n\nZuhair Shalaq (1989). Min Awraq al-Intidab: Tarikh Ma Aghfalahu al-Tarikh [From the Papers of the Mandate: History That History Overlooked]. Beirut: Dar al-Nafais. LCCN 90962841.\n\nExternal links\n\nLanguage Log Fact check: India wasn't the first place Sanskrit was recorded - it was Syria\n\nHistory of Syria, Lebanon & Jordan 1700-1950 Archived 13 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSyria and Palestine from 1920\n\nSyrian President Bashar al-Assad: Facing down rebellion from BBC News"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-history-of-syria"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 13471}, {"slug": "reference-adad-nirari-ii", "title": "Adad-nirari II", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Adad-nīrārī II (also spelled Adad-nērārī, which means \"Adad (the storm god) is my help\") reigned from 911 BCE[2] to 891 BCE. He was the first King of Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He instigated the first renewed period of major expansion following that of the Middle Assyrian Empire...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Adad-nīrārī II\n\nKing of Assyria\n\nKing of the Four Corners of the World\n\nKing of the Universe\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign21 regnal years\n911-891 BCE\n\nPredecessorAshur-dan II (Middle Assyrian Empire)\n\nSuccessorTukulti-Ninurta II\n\nBorn10th century BCE\n\nDied891 BCE\n\nSpouseBabylonian princess, daughter of Nabu-shuma-ukin I[1]\n\nIssueTukulti-Ninurta II\n\nFatherAshur-dan II\n\nAdad-nīrārī II (also spelled Adad-nērārī, which means \"Adad (the storm god) is my help\") reigned from 911 BCE[2] to 891 BCE. He was the first King of Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He instigated the first renewed period of major expansion following that of the Middle Assyrian Empire which had begun in 1365 BCE under Ashur-uballit I and ended after the death of Ashur-bel-kala in 1053 BCE.\n\nBiography\n\nAdad-nīrārī II's father was Ashur-dan II, whom he succeeded after a minor dynastic struggle. It is probable that the accession encouraged revolts amongst Assyria's nominal vassals in nearby regions of Anatolia, the Levant and Iran.\n\nHe firmly subjugated the areas previously under only nominal Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting troublesome Arameans following a battle at the junction of the Khabur and Euphrates rivers in 910 BC. After subduing Neo-Hittite and Hurrian populations in eastern Anatolia, Adad-nīrārī II then twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing a large area of land north of the Diyala River and the towns of Hīt and Zanqu in mid Mesopotamia in the same year. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin I later in his reign. He also campaigned to the west, subjugating the Aramean cities of Kadmuh and Nisibin and their territories. Along with vast amounts of treasure collected, he also secured the Kabur river region.[3] His reign was a period of returning prosperity to the Middle East region following expansion of Phoenician and Aramaean trade routes, linking Anatolia, Egypt under the Libyan 22nd Dynasty, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.\n\nAdad-nīrārī II's son was named Tukulti-Ninurta II who continued to successfully expand Assyrian territory and wage war against Assyria's enemies.[3]\n\nBecause of the existence of full eponym lists from Adad-nīrārī II's reign down to the middle of the reign of Ashurbanipal in the 7th century BC, year one of his reign in 911 BC is perhaps the first event in ancient Near Eastern history which can be dated to an exact year, although the Assyrian King List is generally considered to be quite accurate for several centuries before Adad-nīrārī's reign, and scholars generally agree on a single set of dates back to Ashur-resh-ishi I in the late 12th century BC.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Chen, Fei (2020). Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Brill. p. 89. ISBN 9789004430921.\n\n^ Bertman, Stephen (2005). Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Oxford UP. p. 74.\n\n^ a b Healy, Mark (1991). The Ancient Assyrians. New York: Osprey. p. 6.\n\nFurther reading\n\nAlbert Kirk Grayson (1991). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114-859 BC). University of Toronto Press."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-adad-nirari-ii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 484}, {"slug": "reference-qamishli", "title": "Qamishli", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Qamishli[nb 1] is a city in northeastern Syria on the Syria-Turkey border, adjoining the city of Nusaybin in Turkey. The Jaghjagh River flows through the city. With a 2004 census population of 184,231,[1] it is the ninth most-populous city in Syria and the second-largest in Al-Hasakah Governorate after...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Qamishli\n القامشلي\nQamişlo\n\nCity\n\nQamishliLocation of Qamishli in Syria\n\nCoordinates: 37°03′17″N 41°13′41″E / 37.05472°N 41.22806°E / 37.05472; 41.22806\n\nCountry Syria\n\nGovernorateAl-Hasakah\n\nDistrictQamishli\n\nSubdistrictQamishli\n\nEstablished1926 (1926)\n\nElevation455 m (1,493 ft)\n\nPopulation (2004)[1]\n\n • Total184,231\n\nTime zoneUTC+2 (EET)\n\n • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)\n\nArea code+963 52\n\nGeocodeC4564\n\nQamishli[nb 1] is a city in northeastern Syria on the Syria-Turkey border, adjoining the city of Nusaybin in Turkey. The Jaghjagh River flows through the city. With a 2004 census population of 184,231,[1] it is the ninth most-populous city in Syria and the second-largest in Al-Hasakah Governorate after Al-Hasakah. Qamishli has traditionally been a Christian Assyrian majority city,[7] but is now predominantly populated by Kurds with large numbers of Arabs and Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians. It is 680 kilometres (420 mi) northeast of Damascus.[8]\n\nThe city is the administrative capital of the Qamishli District in Al-Hasakah Governorate, and the administrative center of Qamishli Subdistrict, consisting of 92 localities with a combined population of 232,095 in 2004. Qamishli was the de facto capital of the DAANES,[9][10] until it was moved to Ayn Issa.[11]\n\nEtymology\n\nThe city was initially a small village inhabited by Assyrians called ܒܝܬ ܙܠܝ̈ܢ (Bēṯ Zālīn), meaning \"House of Reeds\".[6] The modern name is the Turkish calque of this name; kamış means \"reed\" and -lı suffix denotes \"place with\" in Turkish.\n\nHistory\n\nThe city was established in the 1920s by Assyrians escaping the Assyrian genocide who fled from northwestern Iran and southern Turkey. They built a small town under the French Mandate which they initially called Bet-Zalin. In 1926, it was renamed Qamishli and served as a station on the Taurus railway.[12] One of the funders of the early development of the city was Masoud Asfar, an Assyrian who survived the Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895) as a young child. Masoud, along with stepbrother, whose last name was Najjar, established the Asfar & Najjar Corporation, a company that produced wheat in Qamishli. Throughout the 1920s-1940s, the Asfar & Najjar Corporation funded hospitals, Assyrian schools, and churches throughout the city. At the same time, many Armenians and Assyrians, fleeing persecution in Iraq and Turkey, moved into the region.[13] This was followed by the emigration of Kurds from Turkey, most of whom settled in the countryside and then began to move to the city. However, in the 1960s and until the late 1970s, when Assyrians still constituted two-thirds of the city's population, the government of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party - Syria Region actively confiscated Assyrian farms, lands, and areas, causing an Assyrian exodus.\n\nQamishli is considered a center for both the Kurdish and the Assyrian ethnic groups in Syria. It was heavily settled by refugees from the Assyrian genocide. Assyrians were the majority in the city until the 1970s, when Kurds from the surrounding countryside moved into the city in numbers. Qamishli is renowned for its large Christmas parade, and Newroz and Kha b-Nisan festivals.\n\n21st century\n\nIn March 2004, during a chaotic soccer match, the Qamishli riots began when visiting Arab fans from Deir ez-Zor started praising Saddam Hussein to taunt the Kurdish home fans. The riot expanded out of the stadium and weapons were used against people of Kurdish background. In the aftermath, at least 30 Kurds were killed as the Syrian security services took over the city.[14]\n\nIn June 2005, thousands of Kurds demonstrated in Qamishli to protest the assassination of Sheikh Khaznawi, a Kurdish cleric in Syria, resulting in the death of one policeman and injury to four Kurdish civilians.[15][16]\n\nIn March 2008, according to Human Rights Watch,[17] three more Kurds were killed when Syrian security forces opened fire on people celebrating the spring festival of Newroz.\n\nSyrian Civil War and after the conflict\n\nWith the civil war and the Rojava conflict from 2011, the city grew into a major political role, being the de facto capital of the DAANES. Part of the city, as well as an area to the south which includes Qamishli Airport, remained under the administration of the Syrian government until the rebel offensive in December 2024. Unlike many Syrian cities, Qamishli has not seen large-scale fighting during the war, although it has been attacked by unknown perpetrators in 2015 and by Islamic State in 2016, as well as brief skirmishes between DAANES and Syrian forces in 2016 and 2018. Qamishli is home to Chirkin prison, which houses detained Islamic State militants.[18]\n\nOn 17 August 2020, Syrian forces reportedly clashed with US troops near Qamishli, which resulted in the death of one Syrian. Two other Syrian soldiers were said to have been injured during the clash, state media added.[19][20]\n\nIn 2022, the Syrian government remained in control of a large part of the city centre as well as a substantial rural area to the south, including the airport, the border crossing, various government buildings, and many residential neighbourhoods. The government still organised the production and the distribution of the harvest in the southern countryside, and organised flights between Qamishli and other Syrian cities, as well as Beirut. However, most of the city was under the administration of the DAANES.[21]\n\nThe city came fully under Kurdish forces control in December 2024, when Ba'athist Syrian forces handed over control with little fighting.[22]\n\nFollowing the 2026 northeastern Syria offensive, the Syrian transitional government forces entered the city on 3 February as part of a ceasefire agreement.[23][24][25]\n\nOn 4 March 2026, a stray Iranian ballistic missile originally headed for Turkey impacted a field in Qamishli, and failed to explode.[26]\n\nClimate\n\nThe Köppen climate classification subtype for this climate is \"Csa\" (Mediterranean climate; dry-summer subtropical climate). The summers tend to be dry and warm, with July being the hottest month of the year, while the winters are usually cold and wet, with January being the coldest month and having an average of 11 days of rain. In total, around 53 days of rain occur every year.[27]\n\nClimate data for Qamishli (1991-2020, extremes 1952-present)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nRecord high °C (°F)\n\n23.6\n(74.5)\n\n24.5\n(76.1)\n\n32.0\n(89.6)\n\n37.4\n(99.3)\n\n41.0\n(105.8)\n\n46.0\n(114.8)\n\n48.5\n(119.3)\n\n47.3\n(117.1)\n\n45.0\n(113.0)\n\n38.6\n(101.5)\n\n29.8\n(85.6)\n\n27.4\n(81.3)\n\n48.5\n(119.3)\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n11.3\n(52.3)\n\n13.1\n(55.6)\n\n17.4\n(63.3)\n\n22.9\n(73.2)\n\n30.0\n(86.0)\n\n37.0\n(98.6)\n\n40.6\n(105.1)\n\n40.2\n(104.4)\n\n35.3\n(95.5)\n\n28.4\n(83.1)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\n13.2\n(55.8)\n\n25.7\n(78.3)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n3.3\n(37.9)\n\n4.1\n(39.4)\n\n7.1\n(44.8)\n\n10.9\n(51.6)\n\n15.9\n(60.6)\n\n21.3\n(70.3)\n\n24.5\n(76.1)\n\n24.1\n(75.4)\n\n20.1\n(68.2)\n\n15.8\n(60.4)\n\n9.1\n(48.4)\n\n5.0\n(41.0)\n\n13.4\n(56.1)\n\nRecord low °C (°F)\n\n-11.3\n(11.7)\n\n-9.5\n(14.9)\n\n-6.7\n(19.9)\n\n-2.9\n(26.8)\n\n4.6\n(40.3)\n\n10.0\n(50.0)\n\n15.3\n(59.5)\n\n15.8\n(60.4)\n\n9.8\n(49.6)\n\n1.2\n(34.2)\n\n-3.0\n(26.6)\n\n-6.7\n(19.9)\n\n-11.3\n(11.7)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n66.0\n(2.60)\n\n59.0\n(2.32)\n\n55.2\n(2.17)\n\n46.7\n(1.84)\n\n22.4\n(0.88)\n\n2.5\n(0.10)\n\n0.6\n(0.02)\n\n0.2\n(0.01)\n\n1.3\n(0.05)\n\n18.8\n(0.74)\n\n36.8\n(1.45)\n\n59.9\n(2.36)\n\n361.1\n(14.22)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n8.3\n\n7.8\n\n7.7\n\n6.4\n\n3.8\n\n0.4\n\n0.1\n\n0.1\n\n0.4\n\n2.9\n\n4.0\n\n6.8\n\n48.0\n\nAverage relative humidity (%)\n\n71\n\n68\n\n64\n\n60\n\n47\n\n29\n\n24\n\n24\n\n27\n\n39\n\n57\n\n70\n\n48\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n148.8\n\n154.0\n\n204.6\n\n222.0\n\n288.3\n\n339.0\n\n356.5\n\n350.3\n\n312.0\n\n254.2\n\n192.0\n\n148.8\n\n2,970.5\n\nMean daily sunshine hours\n\n4.8\n\n5.5\n\n6.6\n\n7.4\n\n9.3\n\n11.3\n\n11.5\n\n11.3\n\n10.4\n\n8.2\n\n6.4\n\n4.8\n\n8.1\n\nSource 1: NOAA (sun 1961-1990)[28][29]\n\nSource 2: Deutscher Wetterdienst (humidity, 1974-1978),[30] Meteo Climat (record highs and lows)[31]\n\nDemographics\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±%\n\n198192,990-    \n\n1994144,286+55.2%\n\n2004184,231+27.7%\n\nIn 1939, French mandate authorities reported the following population numbers for different ethnic/religious groups in Qamishli city centre.[32]\n\nArabs\n\nKurds\n\nAssyrians\n\nArmenians\n\n7990\n\n5892\n\n14,140\n\n3500\n\nQamishli is an ethnically mixed city. Kurds make up a majority of the city's population,[33] which also has many Arabs, Assyrians,[34] and Armenians.[35]\n\nReligion\n\nMuslims\n\nMore than 80% of Qamishli's inhabitants are Sunni Muslims. They are mainly Kurds, followed by Arabs.\n\nChristians\n\nThe city is considered to be a Christian center in Syria, and was a Christian-majority city for much of its history.[36]\n\nIn the 1930s it is estimated that out of the town's population of 23,000 individuals, 20,000 of those were Christians.[37]\n\nBefore the civil war, the Christian population of Qamishli was about 40,000, of whom 25,000 belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Church, the biggest church in the city. As of 2014 it was believed that half of all Christians had left the city.[38]\n\nOnce a Christian-majority city, the rural migration to Qamishli has increased the Kurdish population of the city. In addition, since the PYD militia took control of the city in 2012 they carried out a Kurdification process touching all aspects of life, starting by changing the name of the city to Qamishlo, to cultural and social aspects of the city. The Christian and Arab population in the city were fiercely opposed to the PYD rule. Half the Christian population left by 2017 although no fighting happened in the city.[39]\n\nChurches in the city\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Saint Jacob of Nisibis (كنيسة القديس مار يعقوب النصيبيني للسريان الأرثوذكس)\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Our Lady (كنيسة السيده العذراء للسريان الأرثوذكس)\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (كنيسة مار افرام السرياني للسريان الأرثوذكس)\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Saint Quriaqos (كنيسة مار قرياقوس للسريان الأرثوذكس)\n\nSyriac Catholic Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (كنيسة القديسين مار بطرس وبولس للسريان الكاثوليك)\n\nAssyrian Church of Saint George (كنيسة مار جرجس للآشوريين)\n\nAssyrian Church of Saint Ephrem (كنيسة مار أفرام للآشوريين)\n\nChaldean Catholic Church of Saint Jacob of Nisibis (كنيسة القديس مار يعقوب النصيبيني للكلدان الكاثوليك)\n\nArmenian Orthodox Church of Saint Hagop (كنيسة القديس هاكوب الأرمن الأورثوذكس)\n\nArmenian Catholic Church of Saint Joseph (كنيسة مار يوسف الأرمن الكاثوليك)\n\nNational Evangelical Presbyterian Church (الكنيسة الأنجيلية المشيخية الوطنية)\n\nJews\n\nHistorically, Qamishli was also home to a significant Jewish community. The origin of the Jews of Qamishli (unlike the Jews of Damascus and Aleppo who are a mixture of Sephardi Jews and Musta'arabi Jews) is the adjoining city of Nusaybin, on the other side of the Turkish-Syrian border. As after the foundation of Turkey in 1923, the major economic hubs were allocated to Turkey, the French Mandate authorities deemed it necessary to encourage the settlement or foundation of new villages and towns in the region.[40] The current town was founded in 1926 by the French Mandate, which following encouraged the settlement of the population in Nusaybin, which is located just across the border.[40] Within a few years, Qamishli was more populous than Nusaybin.[40] The major part of the Christian, and also of the Jewish population from Nusaybin moved to Qamsihli.[40] In the 1930s the Jewish population of Qamishli numbered 3,000. After the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1947, the situation of the Jews of Qamishli deteriorated. The exodus of Jews from Syria peaked due to violence, such as the 1947 anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo. By 1963, the community had dwindled to 800, and after the Six-Day War it went down further to 150, of whom no one remain today.[41]\n\nNeighborhoods\n\nQamishli is divided into several districts, which are further divided into neighborhoods.\n\nThis is a list of the neighborhoods of Qamishli.\n\nAl-Zahra (Al-Wusta)\n\nAl-Qusour\n\nAl-Muwazafin\n\nQudour Bek\n\nAl-Gharbiyah\n\nCorniche\n\nAl-Arbawiyah\n\nAl-Ashouriyin (Assyrian)\n\nAl-Siryan (Syriac)\n\nAl-Bashiriyah\n\nTay\n\nAl-Thawra\n\nAl-Golan (Berkila)\n\nQanat al-Suways\n\nAl-Antariyah\n\nMaysaloun\n\nAl-Hilaliyah\n\nJurnak\n\nAlaiya (Hattin)\n\nMahmakiyah\n\nJumaayah\n\nHalko\n\nTransportation\n\nQamishli Airport was closed to civilians in October 2015, but later reopened. As of October 2026, it is inactive awaiting renovation works.\n\nMedia and education\n\nThe Kurdish-language newspaper Nu Dem has its headquarters in Qamishli.[8]\n\nWhile prior to the Rojava conflict, there had been no institution of higher education in northeastern Syria, in September 2014 the Mesopotamian Social Sciences Academy started teaching.[9][42] Following the University of Afrin,[43] in July 2016 the Jazira Canton's Board of Education officially established the second Syrian Kurdish university in Qamishli. The University of Rojava initially comprised four faculties: Medicine, Engineering, Sciences, and Arts and Humanities. Programs taught include health, oil, computer and agricultural engineering, physics, chemistry, history, psychology, geography, mathematics, primary school teaching, and Kurdish literature.[44][45]\n\nSports\n\nAl-Jihad SC is the largest football club in the city and plays at 7 April Stadium.\n\nNotable people\n\nAram Tigran, singer\n\nArsen Grigoryan, singer\n\nViyan Antar, Kurdish (YPJ) fighter\n\nCiwan Haco, singer\n\nSanharib Malki, footballer\n\nGregorius Yohanna Ibrahim, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo\n\nIgnatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church\n\nGabriel Asaad, Assyrian Musician\n\nSalim Barakat, novelist and poet\n\nAgop Donabidian, football coach and former player\n\nMihemed Şêxo, kurdish folk singer\n\nNoureddin Issa Ahmed, Governor of Hasakah (2026-present)\n\nSee also\n\nArmenian Catholic Eparchy of Qamishli\n\nAssyrians in Syria\n\nKurds in Syria\n\nExplanatory notes\n\n^ Also known as Al-Qamishli, Kamishli, Kamishly, Qamishlo or Zalin (Arabic: ٱلْقَامِشْلِي, romanized: al-Qāmišlī;[2] Kurdish: قامیشلۆ, romanized: Qamişlo;[3][4][5] Syriac: ܩܡܫܠܝ or Syriac: ܩܡܫܠܐ, romanized: Qamishlo; Classical Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܙܠܝ̈ܢ, romanized: Bēṯ Zālīn, lit. 'House of Reeds'[6])\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"2004 Census Data for Nahiya Qamishli\" (in Arabic). Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics. Also available in English: UN OCHA. \"2004 Census Data\". Humanitarian Data Exchange.\n\n^ \"سوريا: قتلى وجرحى في ثلاثة انفجارات تهز مدينة القامشلي\" (in Arabic). Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 24 December 2019.\n\n^ \"قامیشلۆ.. ساڵیادی شەهیدبوونی کەمال دەروێش و شێخموس یووسف بەرز ڕاگیرا\" (in Kurdish). Welat TV. 2024-11-03.\n\n^ \"Şaredariya Qamişlo bajar paqij dike\" (in Kurdish). Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved 24 December 2019.\n\n^ \"بەکاتی قامشلۆ\". Rûdaw (in Kurdish). 2019-12-10. Retrieved 24 December 2019.\n\n^ a b \"Qamishli\". syriaca.org. Retrieved 2025-08-24.\n\n^ \"From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava's New Capital\".\n\n^ a b Zurutuza, Carlos. \"Syria's first Kurdish-language newspaper\" (Archive[link removed]). Al Jazeera. 18 October 2013. Retrieved on 22 October 2013.\n\n^ a b \"A Dream of Secular Utopia in ISIS' Backyard\". The New York Times. 2015-11-29. Retrieved 2016-05-10.\n\n^ Radpey, Loqman (September 2016). \"Kurdish Regional Self-rule Administration in Syria: A new Model of Statehood and its Status in International Law Compared to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq\". Japanese Journal of Political Science. 17 (3): 468-488. doi:10.1017/S1468109916000190. ISSN 1468-1099.\n\n^ \"Ain Issa: from an obscure town to SDF headquarters\". Enab Baladi. 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2020-12-18.\n\n^ \"Al-Qāmishlī | Syria\". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-06-14.\n\n^ \"From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava's New Capital\".\n\n^ James Brandon (February 15, 2007). \"The PKK and Syria's Kurds\". Terrorism Monitor. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation. p. Volume 5, Issue 3. Archived from the original on November 7, 2007.\n\n^ Blanford, Nicholas (June 15, 2005). \"A murder stirs Kurds in Syria\". USA Today.\n\n^ Fattah, Hassan M. (July 2, 2005). \"Kurds, Emboldened by Lebanon, Rise Up in Tense Syria\". The New York Times.\n\n^ \"Syria: Investigate Killing of Kurds\". Human Rights Watch. 23 March 2008. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ Perry, Tom (October 10, 2019). Kasolowsky, Raissa (ed.). \"Turkey shelled prison holding IS foreign fighters Kurdish-led administration\". Reuters.\n\n^ \"Deadly clash reported between U.S. and Syrian forces\". CBS News. 17 August 2020.\n\n^ \"Syria says U.S. forces clash with Syrian troops, killing 1\". ABC News.\n\n^ \"'We have nothing': Syrian Kurds risk their lives crossing into Turkey\". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ \"Landmark SDF deal hailed as positive step for Syria and Kurds\". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 2025-03-12. After Bashar al-Assad was toppled in late December, Kurds took control of Qamishli International Airport, but were not able to operate it.\n\n^ \"Syrian state forces deploy in Kurdish-run city under ceasefire deal\". Reuters. 2 February 2026.\n\n^ Fallaha, Ahmad; Homsi, Nada (2026-02-02). \"Syrian forces begin deployment to Hasakah, Kobani and Qamishli cities under deal to integrate SDF-held areas\". The National. Sareen, Syria. Retrieved 2026-02-03.\n\n^ Al Jazeera Staff (2026-02-03). \"Syrian forces enter Qamishli under ceasefire deal with SDF: State media\". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 2026-02-03.\n\n^ \"Video People gather around unexploded missile intercepted by NATO over Syria\". ABC News. Retrieved 2026-03-05.\n\n^ \"Qamishli, Syria Köppen Climate Classification (Weatherbase)\". Weatherbase. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ \"Kamishli Climate Normals 1991-2020\". World Meteorological Organization Climatological Standard Normals (1991-2020). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived from the original on 2 September 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2023.\n\n^ \n\"Kamishli Climate Normals 1961-1990\". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived from the original on 2017-10-10. Retrieved April 26, 2017.\n\n^ \"Klimatafel von Kamishly / Syrien\" (PDF). Baseline climate means (1961-1990) from stations all over the world (in German). Deutscher Wetterdienst. Retrieved April 26, 2017.\n\n^ \"Station Kamishli\" (in French). Meteo Climat. Retrieved April 26, 2017.\n\n^ Altug, S (2011). \"Sectarianism in the Syrian Jazira: community, land and violence in the memories of World War I and the French mandate (1915- 1939)\". Utrecht University Repository. hdl:1874/205821.\n\n^ The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts, pg. 15\n\n^ See also the article Terms for Syriac Christians\n\n^ (in Armenian) Ծննդավայրս՝ Գամիշլի կամ Եղէգնուտ Archived 2012-03-01 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"al-Qamishli - Syria\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ Joseph, John. Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition. p. 108.\n\n^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH (24 November 2014). \"Islamischer Staat: Die Kirche der Jungfrau in Qamischli\". FAZ.NET. Retrieved 24 April 2016.\n\n^ Balanche, Fabrice (13 April 2017). \"From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava's New Capital\". The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Retrieved 9 December 2020.\n\n^ a b c d Schmidinger, Thomas (2017-03-22). Krieg und Revolution in Syrisch-Kurdistan: Analysen und Stimmen aus Rojava (in German). Mandelbaum Verlag. p. 63. ISBN 978-3-85476-665-0.\n\n^ \"Jews of Syria\". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 23 February 2022.\n\n^ \"First New University To Open In Rojava\". Rojava Report. 31 August 2014. Retrieved 7 July 2016.\n\n^ Sardar Mlla Drwish (18 May 2016). \"Syria's first Kurdish university attracts controversy as well as students\". Al Monitor. Archived from the original on 21 May 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2016.\n\n^ \"'University of Rojava' to be opened\". ANF. 2016-07-04. Archived from the original on 2017-01-04. Retrieved 2016-07-04.\n\n^ \"Kurds establish university in Rojava amid Syrian instability\". Kurdistan24. 2016-07-07. Retrieved 2016-07-07.\n\nExternal links\n\n\"From Qamishli to Qamishlo: A Trip to Rojava's New Capital\", Fabrice Balanche, Fikra Forum of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 13 April 2017\n\n\"Amnesty Raises Kurd Issue\", on Kurds in Qamishli, 2005"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-qamishli"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3241}, {"slug": "reference-shimun-xix-benyamin", "title": "Shimun XIX Benyamin", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin (1887-18 March 1918) (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܒܢܝܡܝܢ ܫܡܥܘܢ ܥܣܪܝܢ ܘܩܕܡܝܐ) served as the Catholicos-Patriach of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1903 to 1918. He was consecrated a metropolitan on March 1, 1903, by his uncle, the Catholicos-Patriarch, and was eighteen years old when...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mar\nBenyamin XIX Shimun\n\nCatholicos-Patriarch of the Church of the East\n\nMar Shimun XIX Benyamin on or before 1913\n\nChurchAssyrian Church of the East\n\nDiocesePatriarchal Diocese of Qodshanis\n\nSeeHoly Apostolic See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nInstalled30 March 1903\n\nTerm ended18 March 1918\n\nPredecessorMar Shimun XVIII Rouel (1860/1861-1903)\n\nSuccessorMar Shimun XX Paulos (1918-1920)\n\nOrders\n\nRankCatholicos-Patriarch\n\nPersonal details\n\nBorn1887\nQodshanis, Hakkari, Ottoman Empire\n\nDied3 March 1918(1918-03-03) (aged 30)\nSalmas, Persia\n\nDenominationChristian, Assyrian Church of the East\n\nResidenceQodshanis, Hakkari, Turkey and later Urmia, Persia\n\nOccupationCleric\n\nMar Shimun XIX Benyamin (1887-18 March 1918) (Syriac: ܡܪܝ ܒܢܝܡܝܢ ܫܡܥܘܢ ܥܣܪܝܢ ܘܩܕܡܝܐ) served as the Catholicos-Patriach of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1903 to 1918. He was consecrated a metropolitan on March 1, 1903, by his uncle, the Catholicos-Patriarch, and was eighteen years old when he succeeded him to the patriarchal see at Qudshanis for 15 years.\n\nLife\n\nHe was an ethnic Assyrian, born in 1887 in the village of Qochanis in the Hakkari Province, Ottoman Empire (modern-day southeastern Turkey). His paternal uncle and immediate predecessor was Mar Shimun XVIII Rubil, patriarch from 1860 to 1903. His father was Eshai, a brother of Shimun XVIII Rubil, and his mother was Asyat, daughter of Kambar from Iyl. He had six siblings: Isaiah, Zaya, Paulos (who succeeded him as Patriarch), David, Hormizd, Surma.[1] His brother Hormizd was later killed while studying in Istanbul during the deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915.[2]\n\nDeath\n\nMar Shimun and Simko Shikak had planned to meet for future cooperation against the Turkish and Iranian governments, and eventually met in March 1918 in Kuhnashahir in Salmas. The meeting appeared to have gone well until the end, when Mar Shimun prepared to leave. Simko reportedly signaled to his men, who were hiding on the roof, to open fire, and they killed Mar Shimun and 150 of his armed guards.[3][4][5] Others estimated the death toll at 75. There were reports from contemporaries that a Kurdish associate of Simko tried to warn Mar Shimun of the plot while serving tea, although too late.[6] Simko also allegedly drank his blood in a blind rage.[7][8] Followers and relatives of Mar Shimun began looting the districts of Urmia and Salmas and killing inhabitants, although Simko and his men had already retreated to the mountains and were unharmed, and the retaliation did not benefit the Assyrian forces, who were later forced to withdraw. The events seriously damaged Assyrian national aspirations.[3]\n\nQuotes\n\n\"It is impossible for me and my people to surrender after seeing the atrocities done to my Assyrian people by your government; therefore my brother is one, my people are many, I would rather lose my brother but not my nation.\"[9]\n\nSee also\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nOur Smallest Ally\n\nAssyrian volunteers\n\nReferences\n\n^ Shumanov, Vasily. \"Mar Binyamin Shimmun\". The Lighthouse.\n\n^ Mar Benyamin\n\n^ a b The Political Development of the Kurds in Iran: Pastoral Nationalism, F. Koohi-Kamali, 2003, pp. 76-77, ISBN 978-0-230-53572-5.\n\n^ The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, 2020, pp. 209, ISBN 978-1-9787-7420-9.\n\n^ The Clash of Empires and the Rise of Kurdish Proto-Nationalism, 1905-1926: Ismail Agha Simko and the Campaign for an Independent Kurdish State, Mehrdad Kia, 2023, pp. 116-118, ISBN 978-3-031-44973-4.\n\n^ The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural And Political Legacies, Hannibal Travis, 2017, pp. 152, ISBN 9781138284050.\n\n^ Kurds: A Concise Handbook, Mehrdad Izady, 2015, pp. 57, ISBN 978-1-135-84490-5.\n\n^ For Lust of Knowing: Memoirs of an Intelligence Officer, Archie Roosevelt, 1988, pp. 251, ISBN 978-0-297-79297-0.\n\n^ Mar Benyamin\n\nSources\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBaumer, Christoph (2006). The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity. London-New York: Tauris. ISBN 9781845111151.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1992). The Church of the East and the Church of England: A History of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198267447.\n\nCoakley, James F. (1996). \"The Church of the East since 1914\". The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 78 (3): 179-198. doi:10.7227/BJRL.78.3.14.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781907318047.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial site of the Assyrian Church of the East\n\nThe Invitation of the Patriarch Mar Binyamin at www.aina.org (First-hand account by Malik Daniel Bar Malik Ismail of Mar Benyamin's assassination)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shimun-xix-benyamin"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 755}, {"slug": "reference-maria-theresa-asmar", "title": "Maria Theresa Asmar", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Maria Theresa Asmar (1804-c. 1870) was a Chaldean author, foremost known for her book Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess,[1] which consists of two volumes and 720 pages. This book was composed some time in the early nineteenth-century, describing her travels through Assyria,[2] Chaldea,[3] Mesopotamia,[4] Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Maria Theresa Asmar\n\nBorn1804\nNineveh, Ottoman Empire\n\nDiedbefore 1870\nFrance\n\nMaria Theresa Asmar (1804-c. 1870) was a Chaldean author, foremost known for her book Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess,[1] which consists of two volumes and 720 pages. This book was composed some time in the early nineteenth-century, describing her travels through Assyria,[2] Chaldea,[3] Mesopotamia,[4] Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine and the harem system used in the Ottoman Empire. The book was finally translated into English in 1844. Maria Theresa Asmar died in France before the Franco-Prussian War, and was known as \"Babylon's Princess\" in Europe.\n\nLife\n\nIn describing her origins, Asmar notes: \"I am descended from a family in the East, who derive their origin from the Brahmins, and have long professed the Christian religion in the church of Travancore; a church which, according to history, was originally planted by Saint Thomas, the apostle of our Lord in the Indies. My ancestors, some centuries ago, according to the tradition of our family, left Travancore for Persia, and finally migrated to Bagdad.\"[5] She was an adherent of the Chaldean Catholic Church.\n\nIt is worth noting that, Asmar was a descendant of Mar Joseph IV Lazar Hindi \"the Indian\" of Diyarbakir,[6] who led the Chaldean Catholic Church between 1759-1796. Asmar also claimed descent from Mar Joseph V Augustine Hindi \"the Indian\" (?-1827) of Diyarbakir,[7] who was a successor of Mar Joseph IV. Indeed, the Asmar family's influence, particularly within clerical circles of the Chaldean Catholic Church are notable. Asmar also claimed Mar Basilius Asmar, the Archbishop of Diyarbakir as her uncle.[8] According to the family records of the district of Tel-Keppe, the Asmar family settled in the district of Nineveh some time in the nineteenth-century. The family originally hailed from Diyarbakir in south-east Turkey.[9] \n\nFacing tremendous obstacles, Asmar, set up a school for women in Baghdad and welcomed with open arms western Christian missionaries, who then bribed the Turkish government to give them the licence for the school and forbid Maria to carry on with her project. Left frustrated and angry to have been treated this way by fellow Christians, she sought sanctuary with the Arab Bedouins. She set about recording their daily lives, everything from the weddings and celebrations to their assaults on other tribes. She explains in great detail Bedouin life.\n\nIn her book, she describes how her family fell to a plague[10] and martyrdom because of their Christian faith.[11] She eventually took refuge with Emir Beschir, the governor of Lebanon,[12] at the Beiteddine Palace.[13] From there she moved on to Europe where she was repeatedly robbed and fell into poverty. Her old friend from Lebanon, too, fell into poverty when he had been dethroned, thus leaving Maria without anything to sustain herself financially. After staying twelve years in Europe - she wrote her book, making an account of the events that led up to that point.\n\nBibliography\n\nMemories of Maria Theresa Asmar An Iraqi Woman's Journey into Victorian London (2009), Emily Porter PhD (editor). Fadaat House for Publishing, Distributing and Printing, Amman, Jordan.\n\nReferences\n\n^ Asmar, Maria (1844). Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess, Maria Theresa Asmar, written by Herself and tr. into English. London: Henry Colburn. p. 1.\n\n^ Ibid. 75\n\n^ Ibid. 103\n\n^ Ibid. 75\n\n^ Ibid. 1\n\n^ Ibid. 235-236\n\n^ Ibid. 236\n\n^ Ibid. 236\n\n^ Jammo, Yousif Hermiz. The Remains of Nineveh or the History of Telkaif. Reprint 1993. Baghdad: 1937.\n\n^ Ibid. 3\n\n^ Ibid. 316\n\n^ Ibid. 142\n\n^ Ibid. 43\n\nExternal links\n\nDigitized copy of Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-maria-theresa-asmar"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 588}, {"slug": "reference-mardin-province", "title": "Mardin Province", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Mardin Province (Turkish: Mardin ili; Kurdish: Parêzgeha Mêrdîn; Arabic: محافظة ماردين; Classical Syriac: ܡܪܕܝܢ ܗܘܦܪܟܝܐ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in Turkey. Its area is 8,780 km2,[2] and its population is 870,374 (2022).[1] The largest city in the province is Kızıltepe, while the capital Mardin is the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Mardin Province\n\nProvince and metropolitan municipality\n\nAncient city of Dara\n\nLocation of the province within Turkey\n\nCountryTurkey\n\nSeatMardin\n\nGovernment\n\n • GovernorTuncay Akkoyun\n\nArea8,780 km2 (3,390 sq mi)\n\nPopulation (2022)[1]870,374\n\n • Density99.1/km2 (257/sq mi)\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (TRT)\n\nArea code0482\n\nWebsitewww.mardin.bel.tr\nwww.mardin.gov.tr\n\nMardin Province (Turkish: Mardin ili; Kurdish: Parêzgeha Mêrdîn; Arabic: محافظة ماردين; Classical Syriac: ܡܪܕܝܢ ܗܘܦܪܟܝܐ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in Turkey. Its area is 8,780 km2,[2] and its population is 870,374 (2022).[1] The largest city in the province is Kızıltepe, while the capital Mardin is the second largest city.\n\nDistricts\n\nMardin Province is divided into 10 districts:\n\nArtuklu\n\nDargeçit\n\nDerik\n\nKızıltepe\n\nMazıdağı\n\nMidyat\n\nNusaybin\n\nÖmerli\n\nSavur\n\nYeşilli\n\nDemographics\n\nMardin Province is a linguistically, ethnically and religiously diverse province.[3] The dominant ethnic groups are Arabs, Arameans, and Kurds, of which Kurds constitute a majority.[4] Other minor groups include Armenians, Chechens and Turks, while Jews lived in the area before migrating to Israel around 1948.[5] The Chechens settled in the region during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877/1878.[4]\n\nThe distinctive Mhallami community also reside in the district.[6]\n\nThe province is considered part of Turkish Kurdistan.[7] In 1990, it was estimated that Kurds constituted 75% of the population.[8]\n\nSocial relations\n\nSocial relations between Arabs and Kurds have historically been difficult with hostility, prejudice and stereotypes but have in recent years improved.[9] Arabs with Assyrians did not take part in the Kurdish-Turkish conflict and the position of the two groups have been described as being 'submissive' to the Turkish state, creating distrust between them and the Kurds. Kurds perceived Arabs as spies for the state and local Arabs in Mardin city tended to exclude and dominate local politics in the city.[10] Arabs started losing their grip on Mardin city in the 2010s and the Kurdish BDP won the city in the local elections in 2014. Mardin city had previously been governed by pro-state parties supported by local Arabs.[11]\n\nDespite the difficult relations, Arab families have since the 1980s joined the Kurdish cause,[9] and Arab and Assyrian politicians from Mardin are found in Peoples' Democratic Party including Mithat Sancar and Februniye Akyol.\n\nLanguage\n\nMother tongue, Mardin Province, 1927 Turkish census[12]\n\nTurkish\nGreek\nArmenian\nFrench\nItalian\nEnglish\nArabic\nPersian[a]\nJewish[b]\nCircassian\nKurdish\nTatar\nAlbanian\nBulgarian\nSyriac[c]\n\n11,864\n25\n22\n11\n7\n3\n51,734\n-\n71\n15\n109,841\n1\n49\n1\n9,812\n\nIn the first Turkish census in 1927, Kurdish and Arabic were the first language for 60.9% and 28.7% of the population, respectively. Turkish stood as the third largest language at 6.6%. In the 1935 census, Kurdish and Arabic remained the two most spoken languages for 63.8% and 24.9% of the population, respectively. Turkish remained as the third largest language at 6.9%.[13] In the 1945 census, Kurdish stood at 66.4%, Arabic at 24.1% and Turkish at 5.6%.[14] In 1950, the numbers were 66.3%, 23.1% and 7.5% for Kurdish, Arabic and Turkish, respectively.[15] The same numbers were 65.8%, 16.5% and 12.9% in 1955, and 66.4%, 20.9% and 8.6% in 1960.[16] In the last Turkish census in 1965, Kurdish remained the largest language spoken by 71% of the population, while Arabic remained the second largest language at 20% and Turkish stood at 8.9%.[17]\n\nA 2018 estimate put the Kurdish language at 70%, Arabic at 30% and Syriac at less than 1%.[4]\n\nReligion\n\nIn the Ottoman yearbook of 1894-1895, Mardin Sanjak had a population of 34,361 and 75.8% adhered to Islam. The largest religious minority was Syriac Orthodox Assyrians who comprised 9.9% of the population, followed by Catholic Armenians at 8.3%, Catholic Assyrians at 3.4%, Protestants at 1.6% and Chaldeans at 0.9%.[18]\n\nReligion, Mardin Province, 1927 Turkish census[19]\n\nMuslim\nCatholic\nProtestant\nOrthodox\nArmenian\nChristian\nJewish\nOther religion\nUnknown\n\n163,274\n1,634\n157\n1\n118\n3,601\n490\n9,521\n1,660\n\nMuslims comprised 90.5% of the population in 1927, while Christians of various denominations stood at 3.1% and Jews at 0.3%.[20] In 1935, Muslims comprised 91.2% of the population, while Christians remained the second largest minority at 5.3%. The Jewish population declined to 72 individuals from 490 in 1927.[21] In 1945, 92.1% of the population was Muslim, while Christians were 3.8% of the population.[22] The same numbers were 93.2% and 6.8% in 1955.[23] In 1960, Muslims constituted 93.7% and Christians remained at 6.3%.[24] Same numbers were 91.9% and 5.7% in 1965.[25]\n\nIt was estimated that 25,000 Assyrian members of the Syriac Orthodox Church still lived in the province in 1979.[26] Only 4,000 Assyrians remained in the province in 2020, most having migrated to Europe or Istanbul since the 1980s.[27]\n\nEconomy\n\nIn Mardin agriculture is an important branch accounting for 70% of the province's income.[28] Bulgur, lentils or wheat and other grains are produced.[28] In the capital, there are many civil servants, mostly Turks.[28] Close markets for foreign trade are Syria and Iraq.[28]\n\nHistory\n\nThe first known civilization were the Subarian-Hurrians who were then succeeded in 3000 BCE by the Hurrians. The Akkadian Empire gained control around 2230 BCE and were followed by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians again, Romans and Byzantines.[29]\n\nThe local Assyrians, while reduced due to the Assyrian genocide and Kurdish-Turkish conflict, hold on to two of the oldest monasteries in the world, Dayro d-Mor Hananyo (Turkish Deyrülzafaran, English Saffron Monastery) and Deyrulumur Monastery. The Christian community is concentrated on the Tur Abdin plateau and in the town of Midyat, with a smaller community (approximately 200) in the provincial capital. After the foundation of Turkey, the province has been a target of a Turkification policy, removing most traces of a non-Turkish heritage.[30]\n\nInspectorate General\n\nIn 1927 the office of the Inspector general was created, which governed with martial law.[31] The province was included in the First Inspectorate-General (Turkish: Birinci Umumi Müfettişlik) over which the Inspector General ruled. The Inspectorate-General span over the provinces of Hakkâri, Siirt, Van, Mardin, Bitlis, Sanlıurfa, Elaziğ and Diyarbakır.[32] The Inspectorate General were dissolved in 1952 during the Government of the Democrat Party.[33] The Mardin province was also included in a wider military zone in 1928, in which the entrance to the zone was forbidden for foreigners until 1965.[34]\n\nState of Emergency\n\nIn 1987 the province was included in the OHAL region governed in a state of emergency.[35] In November 1996 the state of emergency regulation was removed.[36]\n\nLargest cities\n\n   Largest cities or towns in Mardin Province (2021)\n[37]\n\nRank\n\nPop.\n\n1\nKızıltepe\n184,124\n\n2\nMardin\n129,864\n\n3\nNusaybin\n84,445\n\n4\nMidyat\n83,148\n\n5\nDerik\n20,566\n\n6\nDargeçit\n14,976\n\n7\nMazıdağı\n13,117\n\n8\nYeşilli\n10,846\n\n9\nGökçe\n10,190\n\n10\nOrtaköy\n10,096\n\nGallery\n\nIslamic monuments in Mardin Province\n\n Minaret of the Grand Mosque of Mardin (12th century) and the view of the Mesopotamian plains. \n\n Kasimiye Madrasa (14th century)\n\n Zinciriye Madrasa (14th century)\n\n View of Savur and the grand mosque in the center \n\n Abdullatif Mosque (14th century)\n\nChristian monuments in Mardin Province\n\n Mor Gabriel Monastery \n\n Mor Yuhanun Church \n\n Mar Jacob Church in Nusaybin \n\n Dayro d-Mor Hananyo monastery\n\n Syriac Orthodox Church in Midyat\n\nBibliography\n\nDündar, Fuat (2000), Türkiye nüfus sayımlarında azınlıklar (in Turkish), ISBN 9789758086771\n\nNotes\n\n^ Acemce, which can also refer to the Achomi language.\n\n^ Yahudice, which can also refer to the Hebrew language or any Judeo-Arabic dialect.\n\n^ Süryani, which can also refer to the classical extinct liturgical Syriac language.\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports\" (XLS). TÜİK. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ \"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri\". General Directorate of Mapping. Retrieved 19 September 2023.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). p. 344. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ a b c Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). p. 346. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). p. 345. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). p. 249. ISBN 9789944360944.\n\n^ \"Kurds, Kurdistān\". Encyclopaedia of Islam (2 ed.). BRILL. 2002. ISBN 9789004161214.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\n^ Mutlu, Servet (1996). \"Ethnic Kurds in Turkey: A Demographic Study\". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 28 (4): 517-541. doi:10.1017/S0020743800063819. ISSN 0020-7438. JSTOR 176151. S2CID 154212694. Archived from the original on 19 June 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2021.\n\n^ a b Costa, Elisabetta (2016). Social Media in Southeast Turkey: Love, Kinship and Politics. UCL Press. pp. 14-15. ISBN 9781910634530.\n\n^ Biner, Zerrin Ozlem (2019). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. xiv-xv. ISBN 9780812296594.\n\n^ Costa, Elisabetta (2016). Social Media in Southeast Turkey: Love, Kinship and Politics. UCL Press. pp. 13-14. ISBN 9781910634530.\n\n^ Nûbihar, Altan Tan- (28 November 2022). TURABİDİN'DEN BERRİYÊ'YE AŞİRETLER, DİNLER, DİLLER, KÜLTÜRLER (in Turkish). Pak Ajans Yayincilik Turizm Ve Diş Ticaret Limited şirketi. p. 531. ISBN 978-9944-360-94-4.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), pp. 157 & 164.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), pp. 179-180.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 188.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), pp. 200-201, 209-210.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 220.\n\n^ Tosun, Mehtap (2018). \"Dissolution of Craft in the Context of Ethnicity, Gender and Class\" (PDF). Middle East Technical University: 118.\n\n^ Aydın, Suavi (2000). Mardin: aşiret, cemaat, devlet (in Turkish). Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı. p. 371. ISBN 978-975-7306-67-2.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 159.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 178.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 175.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 203.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 212.\n\n^ Dündar (2000), p. 223.\n\n^ Christian Minorities of Turkey: Report Produced by the Churches Committee on Migrant Workers in Europe. 1979. p. 12. Retrieved 4 January 2020.\n\n^ \"Turkish Assyrians worry about declining community, fragile heritage\". The Arab Weekly. 6 June 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2020.\n\n^ a b c d Costa, Elisabetta (2016). \"Introduction\" (PDF). Social Media in Southeast Turkey. Vol. 3. UCL Press. p. 18. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1g69z14.5. ISBN 9781910634530. JSTOR j.ctt1g69z14.5.\n\n^ \"- Antik Tatlıdede Konağı - Mardin\". www.tatlidede.com.tr. Archived from the original on 5 January 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2018.\n\n^ Üngör, Uğur (2011), The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 245. ISBN 0-19-960360-X.\n\n^ Jongerden, Joost (1 January 2007). The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatical Policies, Modernity and War. BRILL. p. 53. ISBN 978-90-04-15557-2.\n\n^ Bayir, Derya (22 April 2016). Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law. Routledge. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-317-09579-8.\n\n^ Fleet, Kate; Kunt, I. Metin; Kasaba, Reşat; Faroqhi, Suraiya (17 April 2008). The Cambridge History of Turkey. Cambridge University Press. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-521-62096-3.\n\n^ Jongerden, Joost (28 May 2007). The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatial Policies, Modernity and War. BRILL. p. 303. ISBN 978-90-474-2011-8.\n\n^ Biner, Zerrin Ozlem (8 November 2019). States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-9659-4.\n\n^ \"Turkey, Country Assessment, November 2002\" (PDF). Ecoi. Retrieved 8 April 2020.\n\n^ \"31 ARALIK 2021 TARİHLİ ADRESE DAYALI NÜFUS KAYIT SİSTEMİ (ADNKS) SONUÇLARI\" (XLS). TÜİK (in Turkish). Retrieved 16 December 2022.\n\nExternal links\n\nMardin Weather Forecast Information\n\nPictures of the capital of this province\n\nArticles about the Syriacs and photos of Midyat\n\nMardin photos\n\nTourism information is available in English at the Southeastern Anatolian Promotion Project site.\n\nMardin Travel Guide\n\nhttps://twitter.com/MardinBuyukshr\n\n37°21′47″N 40°54′31″E / 37.36306°N 40.90861°E / 37.36306; 40.90861"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-mardin-province"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1960}, {"slug": "reference-late-ottoman-genocides", "title": "Late Ottoman genocides", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The late Ottoman genocides is a historiographical theory which sees the concurrent Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides,[1][2][3] that took place from the 1910s until the 1920s, as parts of a single event rather than separate events, which were initiated by the Young Turks.[2][4] Although some sources, including The...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The late Ottoman genocides is a historiographical theory which sees the concurrent Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides,[1][2][3] that took place from the 1910s until the 1920s, as parts of a single event rather than separate events, which were initiated by the Young Turks.[2][4] Although some sources, including The Thirty-Year Genocide (2019) written by the historians Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, characterize this event as a genocide of Christians,[3][5][6] others such as those written by the historians Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer contend that such an approach \"ignores the Young Turks' massive violence against non-Christians\", in particular against Muslim Kurds.[7][8][9]\n\nOverview\n\nUğur Ümit Üngör, a Dutch-Turkish historian and professor of genocide studies, explains that the mass violence and enslavement which occurred in the late Ottoman Empire and its successor state includes, but is not limited to, the Adana massacre; the persecution of Muslims during Ottoman contraction; the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides; the 1921 Koçgiri massacres; \"the mass violence against Kurds from the 1925 Sheikh Said conflict to the 1938 Dersim massacre\"; the 1934 Thrace pogroms, through the 1955 Istanbul pogrom against Greek and Armenian Christians.[10]\n\nOther scholars sometimes also include the earlier Hamidian massacres of Christian Armenians in the 1890s or the deportations of Kurds between 1916 and 1934.[11]\n\nSee also\n\nDestruction of the Thracian Bulgarians\n\n1915 genocide in Diyarbekir\n\nGreat Famine of Mount Lebanon\n\nMassacres of Christians in the Later Ottoman Empire\n\nReferences\n\n^ Smith 2015, pp. 1-9.\n\n^ a b Roshwald 2013, pp. 220-241.\n\n^ a b Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (4 November 2021). \"Then Came the Chance the Turks Have Been Waiting For: To Get Rid of Christians Once and for All\". Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.\n\n^ Shirinian, George N. (2017). Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78533-433-7.\n\n^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 3-5. ISBN 978-0-674-24008-7.\n\n^ Gutman, David (2019). \"The thirty year genocide: Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894-1924\". Turkish Studies. 21. Routledge: 1-3. doi:10.1080/14683849.2019.1644170. S2CID 201424062.\n\n^ Schaller, Dominik J.; Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008). \"Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies-introduction\". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (1): 7-14. doi:10.1080/14623520801950820. S2CID 71515470.\n\n^ Schaller, Dominik J.; Zimmerer, Jürgen, eds. (2013). Late Ottoman Genocides: The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-99045-1.\n\n^ Akçam, Taner (2011). The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity. Princeton University Press.\n\n^ Üngör, Uğur Ümit (June 2008). \"Seeing like a nation-state: Young Turk social engineering in Eastern Turkey, 1913-50\". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (1). London and New York: Routledge: 15-39. doi:10.1080/14623520701850278. ISSN 1469-9494. OCLC 260038904. S2CID 71551858.\n\n^ Deringil, Selim; Adjemian, Boris; Nichanian, Mikaël (2018). \"Mass Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire: A Discussion\". Études Arméniennes Contemporaines (11). OpenEdition Journals: 95-104. doi:10.4000/eac.1803. ISSN 2425-1682. S2CID 165468004.\n\nWorks cited\n\nRoshwald, Aviel (2013). \"Part II. The Emergence of Nationalism: Politics and Power - Nationalism in the Middle East, 1876-1945\". In Breuilly, John (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 220-241. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199209194.013.0011. ISBN 9780191750304.\n\nSmith, Roger W. (Spring 2015). \"Introduction: The Ottoman Genocides of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1). Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 1-9. doi:10.3138/GSI.9.1.01. ISSN 2291-1855. JSTOR 26986011. S2CID 154145301.\n\nFurther reading\n\nÜngör, Uğur Ümit (2012). \"Disastrous Decade: Armenians and Kurds in the Young Turk Era, 1915-25\". In Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (eds.). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Islamic History and Civilization. Vol. 51. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 267-295. doi:10.1163/9789004232273_010. ISBN 978-90-04-23227-3. ISSN 1380-6076. S2CID 130614294."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-late-ottoman-genocides"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 654}, {"slug": "reference-shamiram-urshan", "title": "Shamiram Urshan", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Shamiram Urshan (1938 - 25 June 2011), also known as Shamiram Ourshan and occasionally Shamiram Oshana (Syriac: ܫܡܝܪܡ ܐܘܫܥܢܐ), was an Assyrian American singer and entertainer originally from Iran, who gained popularity in the 1980s.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Shamiram Urshan\n\nBorn(1938-06-14)14 June 1938\nTehran, Iran\n\nOriginSeattle, Washington\n\nDied25 June 2011 (aged 73) \n San Jose, California\n\nGenreAssyrian music\n\nOccupationsSinger, dancer\n\nYears active1978-1987\n\nShamiram Urshan (1938 - 25 June 2011), also known as Shamiram Ourshan and occasionally Shamiram Oshana (Syriac: ܫܡܝܪܡ ܐܘܫܥܢܐ), was an Assyrian American singer and entertainer originally from Iran, who gained popularity in the 1980s.[1]\n\nBiography\n\nShamiram was born in Tehran as the youngest of four children. She started singing, playing instruments and acting in school plays at the age of eight. She performed for the Iranian national TV in high school. After finishing high school, Shamiram taught dance to kindergarten children and was asked to perform at the Indian embassy in Tehran.[1] \n\nShe married at the age of 22 in 1960. She moved to the United States in 1970 with her husband, where she settled in Seattle, eventually giving birth to three children. 33 years later, Shamiram moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her grandchildren. She died on 25 June 2011 in San Jose, and was survived by her two sons, both servicemen in the United States Army, and one daughter.[2]\n\nMusic\n\nHer musical interests included those in Persian, Turkish, Arabic and Hindi. Her professional career began in 1978, when she released her first album, titled Shamiram after the Assyrian queen Semiramis. The album was very well received internationally which led to singing engagements around the world including Europe, North America and Australia. Her style was influenced by Greek music.[1] \n\nShe released three more albums during the 1980s and toured Europe and Australia. A compilation album was later released in 1995.[2]\n\nDiscography\n\nShamiram (1978)\n\nDreams (1982)\n\nAshikoota (1984)\n\nFeelings (1987)\n\nBest of Shamiram (compilation) (1995)\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"SHAMIRAM URSHAN\". Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2019.\n\n^ a b Talia, Helen. \"Assyrian Singer \"Shamiram Urshan,\" is Laid to Rest\". Qeenatha.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\nExternal links\n\nShamiram Urshan Archived 21 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Qeenatha"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shamiram-urshan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 339}, {"slug": "reference-syrianska-if-kerburan", "title": "Syrianska IF Kerburan", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Syrianska IF Kerburan is a Swedish based football club in the city of Västerås. The club, formed in 1977 by Syriac-Aramean immigrants, has advanced through the league system and is currently playing in the fourth highest Swedish league, Division 2.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Syrianska\n\nFull nameSyrianska Idrottsföreningen Kerburan\n\nFounded1977 (1977)\n\nGroundSolid Park Arena,\nVästerås\nSweden\n\nChairmanZeki Can\n\nCoachPeter Lenell\n\nLeagueDivision 2 Norra Svealand\n\n2012Division 1 Norra, 12th (relegated)\n\nHome colours\n\nAway colours\n\nSyrianska IF Kerburan is a Swedish based football club in the city of Västerås. The club, formed in 1977 by Syriac-Aramean immigrants, has advanced through the league system and is currently playing in the fourth highest Swedish league, Division 2.\n\nHistory\n\nSyrianska IF Kerburan was established in 1977. The first name on the club was Kerburan IF, because of the large Assyrian immigrants from the village of Kerburan, Turkey.[1] The name was later changed to Syrianska IF Kerburan in 1993.[2]\n\nThe club is affiliated to the Västmanlands Fotbollförbund.[3]\n\nCurrent squad\n\nAs of 2 May 2015.\n\nNote: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.\n\nNo.\n\nPos. \n\nNation\n\nPlayer\n\n1\n\nGK\n\n SWE\n\nHousnein Agodomou\n\n2\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nMarcel Kaya\n\n3\n\nDF\n\n PER\n\nGabriel Medina\n\n4\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nJonas Kouao\n\n5\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nRigest Hysko\n\n6\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nDennis Persson\n\n7\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nJonathan Bahar\n\n9\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nAllan Kosik\n\n11\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nTemesgen Berhane\n\n14\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nAlexander Persson-Njie\n\n17\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nDavid Hasler\n\nNo.\n\nPos. \n\nNation\n\nPlayer\n\n18\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nMattias Floren\n\n19\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nLucas Özgun\n\n21\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nMarkus Hanna\n\n22\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nNathan Hands\n\n23\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nKevin Sharro\n\n28\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nTaher Mahallatian\n\n30\n\nGK\n\n SWE\n\nSebastian Karacan\n\n77\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nRobin Blomme\n\n88\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nMikael Zaytoun\n\n97\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nRodi Mahmoud\n\n99\n\nGK\n\n PER\n\nMichael Quintero\n\nSeason to season\n\nSeason\n\nLevel\n\nDivision\n\nSection\n\nPosition\n\nMovements\n\n2006*\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nNorra Svealand\n\n4th\n\n2007\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nNorra Svealand\n\n2nd\n\n2008\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nNorra Svealand\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2009\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n10th\n\n2010\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n3rd\n\n2011\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n9th\n\n2012\n\nTier 3\n\nDivision 1\n\nNorra\n\n12th\n\nRelegated\n\n2013\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nNorra Svealand\n\n* League restructuring in 2006 resulted in a new division being created at Tier 3 and subsequent divisions dropping a level. [4]\n\nAttendances\n\nIn recent seasons Syrianska IF Kerburan have had the following average attendances:\n\nSeason\n\nAverage attendance\n\nDivision / Section\n\nLevel\n\n2005\n\n544\n\nDiv 2 Östra Svealand\n\nTier 3\n\n2006\n\n380\n\nDiv 2 Norra Svealand\n\nTier 4\n\n2007\n\n416\n\nDiv 2 Norra Svealand\n\nTier 4\n\n2008\n\n904\n\nDiv 2 Norra Svealand\n\nTier 4\n\n2009\n\n978\n\nDiv 1 Norra\n\nTier 3\n\n2010\n\n1,297\n\nDiv 1 Norra\n\nTier 3\n\n2011\n\n690\n\nDiv 1 Norra\n\nTier 3\n\n* Attendances are provided in the Publikliga sections of the Svenska Fotbollförbundet website. [5]\n|}\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian football teams in Sweden\n\nReferences\n\n^ Arameiska-Syrianska KIF Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Syrianska IF Kerburan - Västerås\n\n^ \"Kontaktuppgifter och tävlingar - Västmanlands Fotbollförbund - Svenskfotboll.se\". Retrieved 2011-01-14.\n\n^ \"GAIS - Lagfacta - Syrianska IF Kerburan\". Retrieved 5 September 2010.\n\n^ \"Kontaktuppgifter och tävlingar - Svenska Fotbollförbundet - svenskfotboll.se\". Retrieved 2010-12-09.\n\nExternal links\n\nSyrianska IF Kerburan - official site"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-syrianska-if-kerburan"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 501}, {"slug": "reference-assyrians-in-finland", "title": "Assyrians in Finland", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "The majority of them living in Oulu,[1] while other smaller communities are seen in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, and as well in Turku and Jyväskylä.[3] They are mostly refugees from Iraq and Iran;[4] this is in contrast to the Assyrian population in neighboring Sweden, where the majority are...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrians in Finland\nTotal population\n\naround 500[1]\n\nRegions with significant populations\n\nHelsinki, Oulu\n\nLanguages\n\nNeo-Aramaic · Finnish\n\nReligion\n\nPredominantly Christianity\n(majority: Syriac Christianity; minority: Protestantism)\n\nThe Assyrians in Finland (Finnish: Assyrialaiset) comprises migrants of Assyrian ancestry and their descendants born in Finland.\n\nDemographics\n\nIn 2001, there were only 115 Assyrians in Finland.[2] Within six years, the number tripled.[1]\n\nThe majority of them living in Oulu,[1] while other smaller communities are seen in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, and as well in Turku and Jyväskylä.[3] They are mostly refugees from Iraq and Iran;[4] this is in contrast to the Assyrian population in neighboring Sweden, where the majority are from Turkey, Iraq, and Syria.\n\nThe population is split religiously between Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic members. Chaldean Catholics attend a Catholic church in Oulu where the services are conducted by Italian priests in the Finnish language.[3] Church of the East members attend their services in Lutheran churches.[4]\n\nHistory\n\nAssyrians in Finland began arriving noticeably for the first time in 1991.[4]\n\nIn April 1994, the community in Oulu founded the social club \"Assyrian Society of Finland\", recognized by the Finnish government. The club organizes trips, picnics, and Assyrian cultural events, and holds bi-annual elections. Mr Paulus is the current president of the club.[4]\n\nAdaptation\n\nSome Assyrians have opened Pizza restaurants with names such as Nohadra[5] and Nineveh, referring to Assyrian cities in their homeland.[4]\n\nAssyrian refugees who enjoy permanent residency status and those who have already obtained Finnish citizenship are eligible to vote in the country's elections.\n\nAll are required to attend language classes which lasts from three to six months.[4]\n\nSocial services in Finland is popular among Finnish Assyrian. They usually go picnics and trips to explore the Finnish culture.\n\nCuisines\n\nThey normally preserves their traditional food, such as Dolma, Biryani and other Assyrian dishes, to greet Finnish people.\n\nFestivals\n\nLadies who preserve their Orthodox Christian religion make celebrations for the anniversaries of the Orthodox Bishopics.\n\nNotable people\n\nAntonio Yakoub (born 2002), footballer\n\nSee also\n\nSimo Parpola, prominent Finnish Assyriologist\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Assyrian Association Founded in Finland\". Assyrian International News Agency. 18 October 2007.\n\n^ Jeff (November 13, 2001). \"Taken from Zinda... Assyrians in Finland\". Retrieved 2 September 2017.\n\n^ a b Youkhanna, Rol Yacoub (1999-05-19). \"Assyrians in Finland\". Zinda Magazine. Retrieved 2007-03-05.\n\n^ a b c d e f Androw, Patrous (2001-11-12). \"Assyrians in Finland\". Zinda Magazine. Retrieved 2007-03-05.\n\n^ \"Nohadra - Gourmet-henkinen ravintola\" (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 2005-02-21."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrians-in-finland"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 421}, {"slug": "reference-joseph-hazzaya", "title": "Joseph Hazzaya", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Joseph Hazzaya (Syriac: ܝܘܣܦ ܚܙܝܐ, romanized: Yawsep Ḥazzāyā; born c. 710) was an 8th-century Syriac Christian writer, ascetic and mystic. The nickname Hazzaya means 'the seer' or 'the visionary'. He belonged to the Church of the East.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Joseph Hazzaya (Syriac: ܝܘܣܦ ܚܙܝܐ, romanized: Yawsep Ḥazzāyā; born c. 710) was an 8th-century Syriac Christian writer, ascetic and mystic. The nickname Hazzaya means 'the seer' or 'the visionary'. He belonged to the Church of the East.[1]\n\nThe main source of biographical information on Joseph is the Book of Chastity of Isho'dnah of Basra, written a century or so after his death. He was born to a Persian family of Zoroastrian religion in the village of Nimrud about 710. During the reign of the Caliph Umar II (717-720), the villagers rebelled and the seven-year-old Joseph taken captive by the caliph.[1] He was sold as a slave to an Arab in Sinjar, who later sold him to a Christian from Qardu. There, Joseph became familiar with the ascetic life of the monks of the monastery of John of Kamul. He requested to be baptized and was freed by his owner in order to enter the monastery of Abba Sliba as a novice.[1][2] His brother also converted to Christianity and took the name Abdisho.[2]\n\nAt the end of his novitiate, Joseph moved back to Qardu and lived as a hermit for some years. He then became the abbot of the local monastery of Mar Bassima, before moving to Mount Zinai in Adiabene to resume the life of a hermit. Again, he was persuaded to become the abbot of the local monastery of Rabban Bakhtisho. He continued in this office until his death.[1]\n\nAbdisho bar Berika claimed that Joseph wrote 1,900 treatises,[3] but only ten were extant in Abdisho's time.[1] He is generally regarded as a systematizer of the mystic and ascetic practices of the Church of the East. His most systematic work, A Letter on the Three Stages of the Monastic Life, is misattributed to Philoxenus of Mabbug in the manuscripts.[1] Like Philoxenus, Joseph taught that the monastic life fosters the charismatic gifts.[4] He belonged to the same theological family as Isaac of Nineveh, Simon of Taibuteh and John of Dalyatha.[5] He was the first to synthesise the three contemplations of the Hellenistic scholar Evagrius Ponticus (4th-century) with the tripartite division of the Syriac John of Apamea (5th century).[6][7] Among his other works are the treatise On the Divine Essence, the Chapters of Knowledge and the Book of Questions and Answers.[7] Many of his works, such as the Treatise on the Workings of the Grace of God, are erroneously transmitted under his brother's name.[1][2]\n\nAt a synod held in 786-787[1] or 790,[8] the Patriarch Timothy I condemned Joseph Hazzaya and two other ascetic authors, John of Dalyatha and John the Solitary, for heresy.[1] According to Timothy, Joseph rejected prayer and the divine office as impediments to receiving the charismatic gifts. He also supposedly slipped into Messalianism, claiming that a gmirā (person who had achieved perfection) did not need prayer, the office, scripture reading or manual labour.[1] These charges are not substantiated by any of Joseph's surviving writings,[1] but David Wilmshurst considers them unsurprising if Joseph claimed to be a \"privileged recipient of divine revelation\" as his nickname implies.[8]\n\nThe date of Joseph's death is unknown. Karl Pinggéra believes he was alive at the time of the synod,[6] but Micheline Albert believes he was already dead by then.[7]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k Robert A. Kitchen (2011), \"Yawsep Ḥazzaya\", in Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Gorgias Press.\n\n^ a b c Sebastian P. Brock (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kottyam: St Ephrem's Ecumenical Research Institute. pp. 61-62.\n\n^ Scher, Addai (1910). \"Joseph Hazzaya\". Revista degli Studi Orientali. 3: 45.\n\n^ McDonnell, Kilian; Montague, George T. (1990). Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. ISBN 0-8146-5009-0.\n\n^ Vesa, Benedict (2017). \"Joseph Hazzaya and the Spiritual Itinerary\". Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai - Theologia Orthodoxa. 62 (2): 105-118. doi:10.24193/subbto.2017.2.08. Retrieved July 16, 2020.\n\n^ a b Pinggéra, Karl (2018). \"Joseph Hazzaya\". In Oliver Nicholson (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. p. 836.\n\n^ a b c Albert, Micheline (2005) [2002]. \"Joseph Hazzaya (the Seer)\". In André Vauchez (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. James Clarke & Co.\n\n^ a b Wilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. East and West Publishing. p. 137."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-joseph-hazzaya"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 750}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-nationalism", "title": "Assyrian nationalism", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Assyrian nationalism, sometimes known as Assyrianism, is a movement among the Assyrian people that advocates for their independence or autonomy in the historic Assyrian heartland in northern Mesopotamia, in what is today northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian nationalism, sometimes known as Assyrianism, is a movement among the Assyrian people that advocates for their independence or autonomy in the historic Assyrian heartland in northern Mesopotamia, in what is today northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran.\n\nThe Assyrian people culturally and demographically descend from the ancient Mesopotamian Bronze Age civilisation of Assyria, which was centred on the cities of Ashur and Nineveh and at its height conquered most of West Asia, with multiple empires controlling from Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran from its heartland in northern Mesopotamia. The Assyrian empire lasted from perhaps as early as the 25th-century BC until its collapse around 7th-century BC.[2][3]\n\nThe movement emerged in the late 19th century in a climate of increasing ethnic and religious persecution of the Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire, and is today commonly espoused by Assyrians both in the Assyrian diaspora and Assyrian homeland. \n\nThe Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) recognises Assyrians as an indigenous people of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and the fringes of northwestern Iran,[4] as does the Political Dictionary of the Modern Middle East.[5]\n\nThe movement is widely considered a failure or not yet successful due to the Assyrian genocide, widespread opposition by ethnic Assyrians across denominational lines for a variety of religious, tribal, political, and survival reasons, and a failure to bring about Assyrian autonomy or independence.[6]\n\nIdeology\n\nThe ideology of Assyrian nationalism is based on the political and national unification of ethnic Assyrian followers of a number of Syriac Christian churches (mainly those originating in, or based in and around Upper Mesopotamia) with classical, Akkadian-influenced Syriac (Suret) as its cultural language and Eastern Aramaic dialects as spoken tongues. Its main proponents in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century were Naum Faiq, Freydun Atturaya, Ashur Yousif, Malik Khoshaba and Farid Nuzha.\n\nAssyrians did not always act collectively, but were involved in secular and left-leaning political movements that emphasised socioeconomic justice, minority rights, and Assyrian interests.[7]\n\nWithin the Syriac Christian population in the near east as a whole, 'Assyrianism' is confined specifically by certain geographic, ethnic, linguistic and confessional boundaries. Geographically and linguistically, an 'Assyrianist' position is held by those who speak Eastern Aramaic dialects or live in the historic Assyrian heartland and demographically and culturally descend from the ancient Assyrians.\n\nTheologically, the position is a little more complex. Followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church usually adhere to an Assyrianist position, although sometimes the term Chaldo-Assyrian is used.\n\nMembers of the Chaldean Catholic Church should not be confused with the ancient Chaldeans, an extinct Semitic ethnic group which migrated to southern Mesopotamia from the Levant during the 9th-century BC, were assimilated and adopted native Mesopotamian culture (including language, practices, and religion) and played key roles in Babylonian and Assyrian history and dynastic conflicts before going extinct during the 6th-century BC following the conquest of Babylon by the Achaemenid Empire. The name 'Chaldean' would later come to refer to a Babylonian, a Mesopotamian, or the land of southern Mesopotamia, as well as be used interchangeably throughout history with 'Assyrian' as an ethnic name for the Assyrian people. It was for this reason that it ended up as the name of the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1552.\n\nEastern Aramaic-speaking populations who follow the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church who live or descend from those who lived in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and the southern Caucasus tend to regard themselves as Assyrian, whereas formerly Western Aramaic-speaking and now almost exclusively Arabic-speaking Levantine members of these churches from the rest of Syria, Lebanon and south-central Turkey often espouse an Aramean, Phoenician (more common among Maronite Christians) or even Greek heritage (see Arameanism and Phoenicianism).\n\nThis is in part due to the term Syriac being generally accepted by the majority of scholars to be a 9th-century BC derivation of Assyrian, which for many centuries was used in specific and sole relation to the Assyrians and Assyria, and in part because the majority of the Christian population of these areas are not geographically or demographically from what was Assyria or Mesopotamia, and thus do not identify with an Assyrian heritage or descent as the pre-Arab, pre-Islamic Mesopotamian Assyrians from Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran and the Caucus do.\n\nAccording to Raif Toma, Assyrianism goes beyond mere Syriac patriotism, and ultimately aims at the unification of all \"Mesopotamians\", properly qualifying as \"Pan-Mesopotamianism\". This variant of Assyrianism is independent of Christian, ethno-religious identity and qualifies as a purely ethnic nationalism, in that it identifies the Assyrian people as the heirs of the Assyrian Empire, and as the indigenous population of Mesopotamia, as opposed to Arabism, which is identified as a chronologically later, non-indigenous, and foreign intrusive element. This is expressed for example in the Assyrian calendar introduced in the 1950s, which has as its era 4750 BC; then thought to be the approximate date of construction of the first temple to Ashur.\n\nOrganizations advocating Assyrianism are the Assyrian Democratic Organization, Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, Assyrian Universal Alliance (since 1968) and Shuraya (since 1978). The Assyrian flag was designed by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1968.[8]\n\nMordechai Nisan, the Israeli Orientalist, also supports the view that Assyrians should be named specifically as such in an ethnic and national sense, are the descendants of their ancient namesakes, and denied self-expression for political, ethnic and religious reasons.[9]\n\nDr. Arian Ishaya, a historian and anthropologist of UCLA, states that the confusion of names applied to the Assyrians, and a denial of Assyrian identity and continuity, is on one hand borne out of 19th- and early 20th-century imperialism and condescension on the part of the west, rather than by historical fact, and on the other hand by long-held Islamic, Arab, Kurdish, Turkish and Iranian policies, whose purpose is to divide the Assyrian people along false lines and deny their singular identity, with the aim of preventing the Assyrians having any chance of unity, self-expression and potential statehood.[10]\n\nNaum Elias Yaqub Palakh (better known as Naum Faiq), a 19th-century advocate of Assyrian nationalism from the Syriac Orthodox Church community in Diyarbakır, encouraged Assyrians to unite regardless of tribal and theological differences.[11]\n\nAshur Yousif, an Assyrian Protestant from the same region of southeastern Turkey as Faiq, also espoused Assyrian unity during the early 20th century, stating that the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Orthodox Assyrians were one people, divided purely upon religious lines.[12]\n\nFreydun Atturaya (Freydon Bet-Abram Atoraya) also advocated Assyrian unity and was a staunch supporter of Assyrian identity and nationalism and the formation of an ancestral Assyrian homeland in the wake of the Assyrian genocide.[13]\n\nFarid Nuzha, an influential Syrian-born Assyrian nationalist, was deeply critical of the leaders of the various churches adhered to by Assyrians, accusing the Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church and Syriac Catholic Church of creating divisions among them and advocating that their joint ethnic and national identity should be paramount.[14][15]\n\nIndependence movement\n\nThe ideology of Assyrian independence is a political movement that supports the creation of Assyria as a nation-state corresponding to part of the original Assyrian homeland, in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq and other areas in the Assyrian homeland. The issue of Assyrian independence has been brought up many times throughout the course of history from before World War I to the present-day Iraq War. The Assyrian-inhabited area of Iraq is located primarily but not exclusively in the Nineveh Governorate region in northern Iraq where the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh was located.[16] This area is known as the \"Assyrian Triangle.\"[17] Assyrians are generally found all over northern Iraq, including in and around the cities of Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, Dohuk, Amedi and Rawandiz, and there are a large number of exclusively Assyrian towns, villages, hamlets and agricultural communities in the north, together with others that have significant Assyrian populations. Other communities exist over the borders in southeastern Turkey (Mardin, Diyarbakır, Harran, Bohtan, Kültepe, Hakkari), northeastern Syria (Al-Hasakah, Qamlishi Khabur delta) region and northwestern Iran (Urmia).\n\nIn post-Ba'thist Iraq, the Assyrian Democratic Movement (or ADM) was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation.[18]\n\nSymbols\n\n Shamash sun symbol, which was used in ancient Mesopotamia. This iconography later gave rise to the Assyrian flag which was adopted in 1968.\n\n Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called Lamma, it was later depicted from Assyrian times as hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion under the name Lamassu. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art.[19]\n\n A Neo-Assyrian relief of Ashur as a feather robed archer. It appears on the Assyrian flag.\n\n Emblem of Nineveh Plain Protection Units\n\nSee also\n\nArmenophile\n\nAssyrian flag\n\nAssyrian Socialist Party\n\nAssyrian Universal Alliance\n\nDawronoye\n\nDiaspora nationalism\n\nFreydun Atturaya\n\nNationalism and ancient history\n\nNaum Faiq\n\nAssyria\n\nIraqi nationalism\n\nPan-nationalism\n\nPhilhellenism\n\nZionism\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Assyrian Flag - Assyrian Universal Alliance\". Archived from the original on February 17, 2009.\n\n^ Düring 2020, p. 133.\n\n^ Liverani 2017, p. 536.\n\n^ Unrepresented Nations and People Organization (UNPO). Assyrians the Arab Christians People of Iraq [1]\n\n^ Korbani, Agnes G. (1995). The Political Dictionary of the Modern Middle East, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America.\n\n^ Lundgren, Svante (5 June 2024). \"The Rise and Fall of Assyrian Nationalism\" (PDF). Revue d'Histoire de l'Université de Balamand. 45. Lund University: 60. ISSN 1608-7526.\n\n^ Benjamen, Alda (2022). Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space (PDF). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108838795. Retrieved 28 January 2026.\n\n^ \"Assyria\". Crwflags.com. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008. Retrieved 2011-12-28.\n\n^ Nisan, M. 2002. Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle for Self Expression. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.\n\n^ \"Intellectual Domination and the Assyrians\". Nineveh Magazine, Vol. 6 No. 4 (Fourth Quarter 1983), published in Berkeley, California.\n\n^ \"Neo-Assyrianism & the End of the Confounded Identity\". Zinda. 2006-07-06. \"The fact remains that throughout the last seven years and the last 150 years for that matter the name Assyrian has always been attached to our political ambitions in the Middle East. Any time, any one of us from any of our church and tribal groups targets a political goal we present our case as Assyrians, Chaldean-Assyrians, or Syriac-Assyrians - making a connection to our \"Assyrian\" heritage. This is because our politics have always been Assyrian. Men like Naum Faiq and David Perley emerging from a \"Syriac\" or \"Jacobite\" background understood this as well as our Chaldean heroes, General Agha Petros d-Baz and the late Chaldean Patriarch Mar Raphael BiDawid.\"\n\n^ \"The hindrance before the advancement of the Assyrian people was not so much the attacks from without as it was from within, the doctrinal and sectarian disputes and struggles, like Monophysitism (One nature of Christ) Dyophysitism (Two natures of Christ) is a good example, these caused division, spiritually, and nationally, among the people who quarreled among themselves even to the point of shedding blood. To this very day the Assyrians are still known by various names, such as Nestorians, Jacobites, Chaldeans\"\n\n^ Aprim, Fred. \"Dr. Freidoun Atouraya\". essay. Zinda Magazine. Retrieved 2000-02-01. \"AD (February 1917) Hakim Freidoun Atouraya, Rabbie Benyamin Arsanis and Dr. Baba Bet-Parhad establish the first Assyrian political party, the Assyrian Socialist Party. Two months later, Kakim Atouraya completes his \"Urmia Manifesto of the United Free Assyria\" which called for self-government in the regions of Urmia, Mosul, Turabdin, Nisibin, Jezira, and Julamaerk.\"\n\n^ Farid Nazha tog vid där Naum Faiq slutade, Hujada.com\n\n^ 2.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Farid Nazha, Bethnahrin.nl\n\n^ Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression By Mordechai Nisan\n\n^ The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great By Arther Ferrill - Page 70\n\n^ John Pike. \"Assyrian Democratic Movement\". Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved 2011-12-28.\n\n^ \"Iraqi Artists Use Modern Technology to Change Views of Heritage Sites\". Al-Fanar Media. 2022-02-04. Retrieved 2022-04-05.\n\nSources\n\nDüring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108478748.\n\nLiverani, Mario (2017). \"Thoughts on the Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Kingship\". In E. Frahm (ed.). A Companion to Assyria. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 534-546. ISBN 978-1118325247.\n\nFurther reading\n\nBecker, Adam H. (2015). Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-14531-0.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian Nationalism: A Mechanism For Survival\n\nThe Origins and Development of Assyrian Nationalism, by Robert DeKelaita\n\nNeo-Assyrianism & the End of the Confounded Identity\n\nAssyrian Men\n\nNationalism Archived 2017-10-18 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-nationalism"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2111}, {"slug": "reference-hasakah", "title": "Hasakah", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Hasakah[nb 1] is a city in northeastern Syria and the capital of the Hasakah Governorate. With a 2023 estimated population of 422,445,[8] Hasakah is populated by Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians and Chechens. Hasakah is 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the city of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Hasakah\n الحسكة\nHesîçê/Hesekê\nܚܣܝܟܐ\n\nCity\n\nAssyrian church in Hasakah\n\nHasakahLocation in Syria\n\nCoordinates: 36°30′42″N 40°44′32″E / 36.51167°N 40.74222°E / 36.51167; 40.74222\n\nCountry Syria\n\nGovernorateHasakah\n\nDistrictHasakah\n\nSubdistrictHasakah\n\nElevation300 m (980 ft)\n\nPopulation\n\n • Estimate (2023)422,445[1]\n\nDemonym(s)Arabic: حسكاوي, romanized: Ḥaskāwi\n\nTime zoneUTC+3 (AST)\n\nArea code52\n\nGeocodeC4360\n\nHasakah[nb 1] is a city in northeastern Syria and the capital of the Hasakah Governorate. With a 2023 estimated population of 422,445,[8] Hasakah is populated by Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians and Chechens. Hasakah is 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the city of Qamishli. The Khabur River, a tributary of the Euphrates River, flows west-east through the city. The Jaghjagh River flows into the Khabur from the north at Hasakah. After Ayn Issa came under the control of the Syrian transitional government, Hasakah became the new capital of the DAANES.\n\nIt is characterized by its fertile lands, abundant water, beautiful nature, and numerous archaeological sites. It has also witnessed a major modern urban renaissance, and numerous agricultural and industrial projects have been established around it. Over the past two decades, it has suffered from the drying up of its main river, the Khabur, which has led to the loss of much of its agricultural land, forcing many of its people to migrate internally to the interior provinces, especially the capital of Syria, Damascus, and Daraa in the south, to work in industrial factories and on agricultural lands.[9]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nAn ancient tell has been identified in the city centre by Dominique Charpin as the location of the city of Qirdahat.[10] Another possibility is that it was the site of the ancient Aramean city of Magarisu, mentioned by the Assyrian king Ashur-bel-kala, who fought the Arameans near the city.[11] The etymology of Magarisu is Aramaic (from the root mgrys) and means \"pasture land\".[12] The city was the capital of the Aramean state of Bit-Yahiri, which was invaded by Assyrian kings Tukulti-Ninurta II and Ashurnasirpal II.[13]\n\nExcavations in the tell discovered remains dating to the Middle-Assyrian, Byzantine and Islamic eras. The last level of occupation ended in the fifteenth century.[2] A period of 1,500 years separated the Middle-Assyrian and Byzantine levels.[14]\n\nThere are numerous other archaeological tells in the surrounding area, such as Tall Sulaymānī, which is 7.6 kilometers to the north of the city.\n\nIn Ottoman times, the town was insignificant.[15] Today's settlement was established in April 1922 as a French military post, which soon grew into a town.[15] The establishment of new cities in northern Syria was deemed necessary by the authorities of the French Mandate because after the foundation of Turkey, all major economic centers were allocated to Turkey.[15] After the Armenian genocide and Assyrian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, many refugees fled to the area after their expulsion and began to develop it in the 1920s.\n\nContemporary\n\nDuring the French mandate period, Assyrians fleeing ethnic cleansing in Iraq during the Simele massacre, established numerous villages along the Khabur River during the 1930s.[16] French troops were stationed on Citadel Hill at that time. In 1942, there were 7,835 inhabitants in Hasakah, several schools, two churches and a gas station. The new city grew from the 1950s to become the administrative centre of the region. The economic boom in the cities of Qamishli and Hasakah was a result of the irrigation projects started in the 1960s, which transformed northeastern Syria into a cotton-growing area.\n\nOn 23 March 1993, a large fire broke out in the Al-Hasakah Central Prison after prisoners protested the conditions there, leaving 61 inmates dead and 90 others injured. The detainees accused the police chief and the Syrian forces of having set the fire. The government blamed five inmates, who were executed on 24 May 1993.[17][18]\n\nSyrian Civil War\n\nOn 26 January 2011, in one of the first events of the 2011 Syrian protests,[19] Hasan Ali Akleh from Hasakah poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire, in the same way Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi had in Tunis on 17 December 2010. According to eyewitnesses, the action was \"a protest against the Syrian government\".[20][21] [22]\n\nIn the Battle of Hasakah of summer 2015, the Syrian Government lost control of much of the city to the Islamic State, which was then captured by the Kurdish YPG. Afterwards, some 75% of Hasakah and all of the surrounding countryside were under the administration of the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava, while only some inner-city areas were controlled by the Syrian government.[23][24][25] The United Nations estimates that violence related to the civil War has displaced up to 120,000 people.[26] On 1 August 2016, the Syrian Democratic Council opened a public office in Hasakah.[27]\n\nOn 16 August 2016, the Battle of al-Hasakah (2016) started, with the YPG and Asayish capturing most of the remaining areas held by government forces.[28] On 23 August 2016, an agreement between the YPG and the Syrian Army resulted in a ceasefire within the city.[29] Al-Hasakah has since been part of the Jazira Region in the framework of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.[30][31]\n\nOn 20 January 2022, al-Sina'a prison came under attack by Islamic State forces who attempted to free ex-IS fighters incarcerated there. Following the initial attack, clashes spread to the neighbourhoods of al-Zuhour and Ghuwayran as imprisoned Islamic State militants attempted to escape. After a 6-day battle, SDF and Coalition forces managed to push back the attack and secure the area. After thwarting their attack on Ghweran prison, they barricaded themselves in the Faculty of Economics building in the Syrian government-controlled areas in the city of Hasakah, targeting civilians and the movements of the internal security forces' vehicles. Accordingly, international coalition warplanes bombed the college building.[32][33]\n\nHasakah Security Box\n\nThe Hasakah \"Security Box\" was a Syrian government enclave within Hasakah, established in August 2016.[34] It contained a prison, immigration office, mayor's palace, police headquarters, and local army command center.[34][35][36]\n\nFollowing the capture of the city from ISIS in 2015, government forces controlled 25% of the city while the YPG controlled 75%.\nOn August 16, 2016, a small skirmish erupted into the Second Battle of al-Hasakah between the Asayish alongside the YPG and the Syrian government. After a week-long battle, Kurdish fighters secured control of over 95% of the city.[37] Russia mediated a ceasefire that was put into place on August 23, 2016, according to which only police officers and interior ministry forces were allowed to return to the \"Security Box\" to protect the government's department buildings.[38]\n\nIn July 2018, the Syrian Army raised the Syrian flag over the Al-Nashwa District, which was previously controlled by the YPG and the Asayish security forces in the city of Hasakah.[39] However, in September through November 2019, Asayish forces were still present in al-Nashwa district and able to make arrests.[40][41]\n\nIn January 2021, government-controlled parts of Al-Hasakah and Qamishli, came under siege by the Asayish due to disputes with the Damascus government.\n\nIn March 2023, the US conducted retaliation strikes against IRGC forces in the city, after a drone attack which killed a US contractor.\n\nIn August 2024, the SDF imposed another week-long siege on the enclave in retaliation for cross-border attacks by tribal militias on SDF positions in Deir ez-Zor, originating from government-controlled areas. The siege was once again lifted through Russian mediation efforts.[42]\n\nAfter the fall of the Assad regime\n\nThe city came under full control of the Kurdish forces on December 6-7, 2024 after the fall of the Assad Regime. Ba'athist Syrian forces handed over control of the remaining territory to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with no resistance.[43][44] \n\nFollowing the 2026 northeastern Syria offensive, the Syrian transitional government forces entered the city on 2 February as part of a ceasefire agreement.[45]\n\nClimate\n\nAl-Hasakah has a Mediterranean-influenced semi-arid climate (BSh) with very hot dry summers and cool wet winters with occasional frosty nights.\n\nClimate data for Al-Hasakah (1961-1990)\n\nMonth\n\nJan\n\nFeb\n\nMar\n\nApr\n\nMay\n\nJun\n\nJul\n\nAug\n\nSep\n\nOct\n\nNov\n\nDec\n\nYear\n\nMean daily maximum °C (°F)\n\n10.7\n(51.3)\n\n13.4\n(56.1)\n\n17.9\n(64.2)\n\n23.6\n(74.5)\n\n30.6\n(87.1)\n\n36.6\n(97.9)\n\n40.2\n(104.4)\n\n39.5\n(103.1)\n\n35.5\n(95.9)\n\n28.2\n(82.8)\n\n19.6\n(67.3)\n\n12.5\n(54.5)\n\n25.7\n(78.3)\n\nDaily mean °C (°F)\n\n5.2\n(41.4)\n\n7.4\n(45.3)\n\n11.3\n(52.3)\n\n16.4\n(61.5)\n\n22.6\n(72.7)\n\n28.3\n(82.9)\n\n31.5\n(88.7)\n\n30.4\n(86.7)\n\n25.8\n(78.4)\n\n19.1\n(66.4)\n\n11.7\n(53.1)\n\n6.7\n(44.1)\n\n18.0\n(64.4)\n\nMean daily minimum °C (°F)\n\n0.6\n(33.1)\n\n2.4\n(36.3)\n\n4.9\n(40.8)\n\n9.3\n(48.7)\n\n14.1\n(57.4)\n\n19.1\n(66.4)\n\n22.4\n(72.3)\n\n21.5\n(70.7)\n\n16.4\n(61.5)\n\n10.8\n(51.4)\n\n5.2\n(41.4)\n\n2.2\n(36.0)\n\n10.9\n(51.6)\n\nAverage precipitation mm (inches)\n\n51.5\n(2.03)\n\n41.3\n(1.63)\n\n44.1\n(1.74)\n\n49.0\n(1.93)\n\n18.2\n(0.72)\n\n0.5\n(0.02)\n\n0.2\n(0.01)\n\n0.0\n(0.0)\n\n2.1\n(0.08)\n\n16.5\n(0.65)\n\n23.3\n(0.92)\n\n42.2\n(1.66)\n\n288.9\n(11.37)\n\nAverage precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm)\n\n7.0\n\n6.4\n\n6.6\n\n6.2\n\n2.7\n\n0.2\n\n0.1\n\n0.0\n\n0.1\n\n2.5\n\n3.8\n\n6.2\n\n41.8\n\nMean monthly sunshine hours\n\n142.6\n\n159.6\n\n210.8\n\n234.0\n\n303.8\n\n357.0\n\n393.7\n\n356.5\n\n297.0\n\n248.0\n\n192.0\n\n142.6\n\n3,037.6\n\nMean daily sunshine hours\n\n4.6\n\n5.7\n\n6.8\n\n7.8\n\n9.8\n\n11.9\n\n12.7\n\n11.5\n\n9.9\n\n8.0\n\n6.4\n\n4.6\n\n8.7\n\nSource: NOAA[46]\n\nDemographics\n\nHistorical population\nYearPop.±%\n\n19427,835-    \n\n198173,426+837.2%\n\n1994119,798+63.2%\n\n2004188,160+57.1%\n\nIn 1939, French mandate authorities reported[47] the following population numbers for different ethnic/religious groups in al-Hasakah city centre:\n\nArabs\nKurds\nAssyrians\nArmenians\n\n7,133\n360\n5700\n500\n\nIn 1992, Al-Hasakah was described as \"an Arab city with a growing Kurdish population.\"[48] Christians-mostly Assyrians, plus a smaller number of Armenians-also live in the city.[49][50]\nIn 2004, the city's population was 188,160. Al-Hasakah has an ethnically diverse population of Arabs, Kurds and Assyrians, with a smaller number of Armenians.[49][50]\n\nReligion\n\nThere are more than forty mosques in the city, as well as at least nine church buildings, serving a large number of Christians of various rites. The Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary is the episcopal see of the non-metropolitan Syriac Catholic Archeparchy of Al Hasakah-Nisibis, which depends directly on the Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch.\n\nChurches in the city\n\nSyriac Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George (كاتدرائية مار جرجس للسريان الأرثوذكس)\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Our Lady (كنيسة السيدة العذراء للسريان الأرثوذكس)\n\nSyriac Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Assumption (كنيسة سيدة الإنتقال للسريان الكاثوليك)\n\nAssyrian Church of Our Lady (كنيسة السيدة العذراء للآشوريين)\n\nChaldean Catholic Church of Jesus the King (كنيسة يسوع الملك للكلدان الكاثوليك)\n\nArmenian Orthodox Church of Saint John the Baptist (كنيسة القديس مار يوحنا المعمدان للأرمن الأرثوذكس)\n\nArmenian Catholic Church of the Holy Family (كنيسة العائلة المقدسة للأرمن الكاثوليك)\n\nNational Evangelical Presbyterian Church (الكنيسة الإنجيلية المشيخية الوطنية)\n\nJesus The Light of the World National Evangelical Church (كنيسة الاتحاد المسيحي يسوع نور العالم)\n\nEconomy\n\nAgriculture and natural resources\n\nThe economy of Hasaka is based on agriculture. The Jazira region, in which the city is situated, has long been known as \"breadbasket\" and \"green island\". In 2011, the region's wheat production made up 55% of Syria's total output, with Hasakah alone contributing more than 50%. Meanwhile, the region's cotton yield made up 78% of Syria's total production during that year, with Hasakah contributing 35%.[51][52]\n\nIn 2011, the Al-Hasakah Governorate accounted for roughly 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Syria's output of around 380,000 bpd. The region also holds a substantial amount of natural gas reserves.[52]\n\nFollowing the Syrian civil war and in particular the Turkish occupation of Rojava many acres of farmland were rendered unusable, as Turkish forces cut off the Allouk water station in Serê Kaniyê (Raʾs al-ʿAin). This also led to a deterioration in the city's health conditions.[53][54] Additionally Abdullah Al-Fares, a professor of economics at the University of Aleppo, attributes the decline in agricultural output to prolonged droughts, decreasing rainfall, large-scale displacement of farmers, rising production costs, a reduction in irrigated farmland due to soaring fuel prices and power outages, the lack of fertilizer, and a decline in seed quality. The displacement of farmers and power outages in particular were caused by Turkish airstrikes, which severely damaged the Hasakah region's only power station. Oil extraction in the region also stalled as energy became scarce, oil tankers were targeted by ISIS sleeper cells, and roads and infrastructure were damaged by Turkish airstrikes.[52][55][56]\n\nDevelopment under the DAANES\n\nOver the years various projects have been undertaken by the Autonomous Administration's Economic Authority and the Kongreya Star to improve the city's economic standing and promote women's empowerment. These include agricultural projects for displaced women from Serê Kaniyê, the Centre for Co-operative Societies, which cultivates barley in the region, the Ishtar Women’s Bakery, Demsal (lit. Season), which offers seasonal products, as well as numerous sewing and textile workshops, canned food factories, dairy farms, restaurants, and clothing shops.[57][58][59][60][61][62][63]\n\nDistricts\n\nThe city of Hasakah is divided into 5 districts, which are Al-Madinah, Al-Aziziyah, Ghuwayran, Al-Nasra and Al-Nashwa. These districts, in turn, are divided into 29 neighborhoods.[64]\n\nEnglish Name\n\nArabic Name\n\nPopulation\n\nNeighborhoods (Population)\n\nAl-Madinah\n\nالمدينة\n\n30,436\n\nAl-Matar al-Shamali (9,396), Center / Al-Wusta (6,067), Municipal Stadium / Al-Malaab al-Baladi (5,802), Al-Matar al-Janoubi (4,714), Al-Askari (4,457)\n\nAl-Aziziyah\n\nالعزيزية\n\n56,123\n\nAl-Salehiyah (21,319), Al-Ghazal (11,199), National Hospital / Al-Mashfa al-Watani (11,108), Al-Talaia (4,883), Abou Amshah (4,435), Al-Mufti (3,179)\n\nGhuwayran\n\nغويران\n\n34,191\n\nSports City / Al-Madinah al-Riyadiyah (8,418), Al-Thawra (8,180), Al-Taqaddum (7,623), 16 Tishreen (5,595), Al-Zuhour (3,367), Abou Bakr (1,008)\n\nAl-Nasra\n\nالناصرة\n\n42,070\n\nTell Hajjar (10,343), Al-Kallasah (9,721), Al-Meshirfah (8,074), Al-Qusour (7,672), Al-Beitra (2,423), Al-Mashtal (2,306), Al-Maaishiyah (1,531)\n\nAl-Nashwa\n\nالنشوة\n\n25,340\n\nAl-Rasafah (12,618), Al-Masaken (4,968), Al-Khabour (3,805), Al-Liliyah (2,977), Villas / Al-Villat (972)\n\nSports\n\nAl-Jazeera SC is the largest football club in the city and plays at Al-Hasakah Municipal Stadium.\n\nGallery\n\n Saint George Syriac Orthodox Cathedral\n\n Chaldean Catholic Church\n\n Tell Hajjar neighborhood\n\nNotable people\n\nHammouda Sabbagh, politician\n\nIgnatius Joseph III Yonan, the Syriac Catholic Patriarch of Antioch\n\nSaid Gabari, Kurdish musician\n\nSee also\n\nSyriac Catholic Archeparchy of Hasakah-Nisibis\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also known as Al-Hasakah, or Al-Hasaka (Arabic: ٱلْحَسَكَة, romanized: al-Ḥasaka;[2] Kurdish: Hesîçê/Hesekê;[3][4][5][6] Syriac: ܚܣܝܟܐ, romanized: Hasake[7])\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\n^ \"world population review\". Al Hasakah population Estimate 2023. world population review.\n\n^ a b \"انهاء أعمال التنقيب في \"تل الحسكة\" الأثري\". esyria.sy. 2009. Retrieved 18 August 2015.\n\n^ \"ئەمریکا؛ بە نیازین هێز لە سوریا و عێراق زیادبکەین\" (in Kurdish). NRT TV. 2023-08-25.\n\n^ \"Interview: \"When COVID-19 does arrive, these water cuts will kill people\" - Sara Montinaro from Kurdish Red Crescent\". Rojava Information Center. 2020-07-11. Retrieved 2020-11-08.\n\n^ \"Turkey cuts off water to Heseke. \"Without water there is no life\"\". Women Defend Rojava. 2020-03-13. Retrieved 2020-11-08.\n\n^ \"ISIS member captured in Heseke countryside\". ANF News. Retrieved 2020-11-08.\n\n^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “al-Ḥasake - ܚܣܝܟܐ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified December 9, 2016, http://syriaca.org/place/213.\n\n^ \"Al Hasaka Population Estimate 2023\". World Population Review.\n\n^ \"محافظة و مدينة الحسكة\". محافظة و مدينة الحسكة (in Arabic). Retrieved 2025-09-11.\n\n^ Hartmut Kühne (2010). Dūr-Katlimmu 2008 and Beyond. p. 41. ISBN 9783447062091.\n\n^ Trevor Bryce (2009). The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the fall of the Persian Empire. p. 439. ISBN 9781134159079.\n\n^ American University of Beirut (1984). Land tenure and social transformation in the Middle East. p. 5. ISBN 9780815660712.\n\n^ Antti Laato (1997). A Star is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations. p. 107. ISBN 9780788504204.\n\n^ \"أخيراً نطق تل \"الحسكة\" الأثري\". esyria.sy. 2009. Retrieved 18 August 2015.\n\n^ a b c Schmidinger, Thomas (2017-03-22). Krieg und Revolution in Syrisch-Kurdistan: Analysen und Stimmen aus Rojava (in German). Mandelbaum Verlag. p. 63. ISBN 978-3-85476-665-0.\n\n^ Fernandez, Alberto M. (1998). \"Dawn at Tel Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 12 (1).\n\n^ \"بعد 28 عاماً على حريق سجن الحسكة أهالي 61 ضحية مازالوا بانتظار تحقيق العدالة\". 25 March 2021.\n\n^ \"Refworld | Syria: Whether a fire was set at Hasaka prison on 24 March 1993 killing around 60 people\".\n\n^ \"أبرز محطات الثورة السورية خلال الأيام الماضية.wmv\". Al Jazeera. 24 April 2011. Archived from the original on 2021-12-19. Retrieved 2 November 2011.\n\n^ \"Information on the death of a young man who burned himself in Al Hasakah\". free-syria.com. Archived from the original on 30 January 2011. Retrieved 30 January 2011.\n\n^ \"Syrian suicider is \"Hasan Ali Akleh\". Damascus has banned a demonstration in support of Egypt\". Middle East Transparent. Archived from the original on 2011-02-05. Retrieved 30 January 2011.\n\n^ \"أبرز محطات الثورة السورية خلال الأيام الماضية.wmv\". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2026-02-11.\n\n^ \"Kurds 'gain ground in Syria's Hasakah' in ISIS fightback\". Al Arabiya English. July 25, 2015.\n\n^ \"IS-extremisten rukken op in Syrië\". Nieuwsblad. 1 August 2014. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2014.\n\n^ Halabi, Alaa (24 June 2014). \"Hasakah residents fear ISIS rally in east Syria\". al-Safir. Retrieved 11 August 2014.\n\n^ \"Kurds secure Syria's Kobani as Islamic State targets northeast\". Reuters. 28 Jun 2015. Archived from the original on January 30, 2016.\n\n^ \"Inauguration of the 1st MSD office\". Hawar News Agency. 2016-08-01. Archived from the original on 2016-08-04. Retrieved 2016-08-03.\n\n^ \"Syria: YPG launches assault to take all of Hasaka\". Al Jazeera. 24 August 2016.\n\n^ \"Agreement to halt fighting in Hasaka enforced at 14:00 p.m.\" Syrian Arab News Agency. August 23, 2016.\n\n^ \"'I am here': New census in northern Syria seeks to document unregistered Syrian Kurds\". Syria:direct. 29 September 2016. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 11 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Syrian regime supporters protest against Rojavan federalism in Hasakah\". ARA News. 2 October 2016. Archived from the original on 14 December 2017. Retrieved 11 December 2016.\n\n^ \"Coalition warplanes bombs building, group of ISIS cells holed up in Al-Hasakah - ANHA | HAWARNEWS | English\". hawarnews.com. Retrieved 2022-01-29.\n\n^ \"Ghuwayran prison attack | International Coalition jets attack building ISIS holed up in Al-Hasakah • The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights\". The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights. 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2022-01-29.\n\n^ a b Izat Charkatli (August 23, 2016). \"New deal reached for Hasakah in Hmeimim Base\". Al-Masdar News. Archived from the original on November 10, 2017. Retrieved January 12, 2017.\n\n^ Rodi Said; Tom Perry (23 August 2016). \"Syria Kurds win battle with government, Turkey mobilizes against them\". Reuters. Retrieved 23 August 2016.\n\n^ Ralph Ellis (August 23, 2016). \"Syrian military, Kurdish fighters reach ceasefire in Hasaka\". CNN. Retrieved January 12, 2017.\n\n^ Wladimir van Wilgenburg (August 24, 2016). \"Kurds triumph in battle against Syrian regime\". ARA News. Archived from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved January 12, 2017.\n\n^ Qehreman Miste (August 24, 2016). \"Hasakah: Truce reached between Syrian regime, Kurds after Russian mediation\". ARA News. Archived from the original on October 21, 2016. Retrieved January 12, 2017.\n\n^ \"Syrian Army raises flag over Hasakah district formerly controlled by Kurdish forces\". 11 July 2018. Archived from the original on July 11, 2018. Retrieved 11 July 2018 - via Al Masdar News.\n\n^ \"SDF kidnaps dozens of orphans and hundreds of youths in eastern Syria\". Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Anas al-Jarjawi. Geneva, Switzerland. 2019-09-18. Retrieved 2019-11-14. According to local reports, the so-called military police and the Asayish forces, the security arms of SDF, arrested hundreds of young people of the Arab tribes this week [...] at Al-Quds park, Marshou, al-Kahrabah and al-Nashwa roundabouts in al-Hasaka.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)\n\n^ @RojavaNetwork (2019-11-14). \"+++Two ISIS womens [sic] fleeing from Al-hol camp were arrested by Asayîş internal security force in al-Nashwa neighborhood, Hasake city\" (Tweet) - via Twitter.\n\n^ \"SDF lift siege of Syrian regime-held areas of Qamishli, Hasakah\". The New Arab. 16 August 2024. Archived from the original on 2024-09-13. Retrieved 2025-03-09.\n\n^ \"Iran Update, December 7, 2024\". Institute for the Study of War. 7 December 2024. Retrieved 2025-03-09.\n\n^ \"Celebrations in Hassakeh as the SDF has taken full control over the government pockets in Hassakeh and Qamishlo\". Liveuamap.com (Original source is Scharo Maroof on X). 6 December 2024. Retrieved 2024-12-11.\n\n^ \"Syrian state forces deploy in Kurdish-run city under ceasefire deal\". Reuters. 2 February 2026.\n\n^ \n\"Hassakah Climate Normals 1961-1990\". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (FTP). Retrieved April 26, 2017. (To view documents see Help:FTP)\n\n^ Algun, S., 2011. Sectarianism in the Syrian Jazira: Community, land and violence in the memories of World War I and the French mandate (1915- 1939) Archived 2019-12-09 at the Wayback Machine. Ph.D. Dissertation. Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. Page 11. Accessed on 8 December 2019.\n\n^ Vanly (1992), p. 116.\n\n^ a b \"Kurds Assert Control of Hasakah: The Battle for Rojava (Dispatch 3)\". VICE News. Retrieved 13 August 2015.\n\n^ a b IS fighters stage surprise attack on key Syrian border town, The Associated Press, Yahoo News\n\n^ \"Hasaka | European Union Agency for Asylum\". euaa.europa.eu. September 2020. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ a b c Attiya Khalaf Al-Attiya (11 February 2025). \"Resource-rich yet underdeveloped, Syria's northeast could pay dividends\". en.majalla.com. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ Sallon, Hélène Sallon (15 September 2022). \"In Al-Hasakah, Syria, water is becoming a rare commodity\". Le Monde. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"Water crisis in Al-Hasakah - Tens of civilians, mostly children, arrive in hospitals after having consumed unpotable water\". Syrian Observatory For Human Rights. 9 June 2024. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"ISIS sleeper cells kill oil tanker driver in Syria's Hasakah\". North Press Agency. 14 November 2024. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ Enab, Baladi (25 October 2024). \"Turkey continues its escalation in northeastern Syria\". Enab Baladi. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ HACî, RONÎDA (18 October 2024). \"Demsal Cooperative promotes women's economic empowerment in Hasakah\". JINHAGENCY News. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"Explainer: Co-operatives in North and East Syria - developing a new economy\". Co-operation in Mesopotamia. 8 November 2020. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ Ramadan, Delal (6 June 2023). \"Women's Economy Committee promotes women's economic empowerment\". JINHAGENCY News. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"Important projects for women's economy\". ANF News. 15 October 2018. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"مركز التعاونيات يباشر بزراعة الأراضي بالحسكة\". Ronahi (in Arabic). 10 December 2018. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"Agricultural projects for displaced women from Serêkaniyê\". ANF News. 1 January 2021. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ \"Serving over 11 villages - Al-Hasakah governor inaugurates new bread bakery with a capacity of 14 tons of bread a day\". The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights. 2022-09-30. Retrieved 2025-03-10.\n\n^ Al-Hasakah subdistrict population 2004 census Archived 2013-04-08 at the Wayback Machine\n\nWorks cited\n\nVanly, Ismet Chériff (1992). \"The Kurds in Syria and Lebanon\". In Philip G. Kreyenbroek; Stefan Sperl (eds.). The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. New York City, London: Routledge. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-415-96691-7."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-hasakah"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3931}, {"slug": "reference-shibaniba", "title": "Shibaniba", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell Billa (also Tell Billah, Tall Billa, and Baasheikhah) is an archaeological site near Bashiqa in Nineveh Province (Iraq) 20 kilometers northeast of Mosul.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Billa\n\nShibaniba\n\nTell Billa\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n36°26′1″N 43°20′54″E / 36.43361°N 43.34833°E / 36.43361; 43.34833\n\nTypesettlement\n\nLocationNineveh Province, Iraq\n\nSite notes\n\nArea12 ha (30 acres)\n\nExcavation dates1850, 1930-1934\n\nArchaeologistsA.H. Layard, E.A. Speiser, C. Bache\n\nTell Billa (also Tell Billah, Tall Billa, and Baasheikhah) is an archaeological site near Bashiqa in Nineveh Province (Iraq) 20 kilometers northeast of Mosul.\n\nHistory\n\nThe site consists of a large mound and covers around 30 acres (12 ha). There is some evidence of occupation as far back as the Uruk period, including some Hurrian presence in the middle second millennium. An Uruk period cylinder seal was found at the site, a presentation scene of Istar.[1] A few preliterate clay tokens were also found.[2] On Stratum V a number of copper weapons, mainly axe heads and lance butts. One lance butt was inscribed with cuneiform characters.[3]\n\nEarly Bronze\n\nIn 2022 it was proposed that Tell Billa was the site of the Ur III period (ca 2100 BC) city Šimānum (possibly known as Asimānum during the Akkadian Empire).[4]\n\nLate Bronze\n\nBeginning in Middle Assyrian times the ancient city, not far from Assur, was named Šib/manibe in the Middle Assyrian period and Šibaniba in the Neo-Assyrian period. Its earlier name is not known.\n\nThe Hurrian artifacts were identified in the excavators' Stratum 3. The comparison with the similar artifacts from Nuzi led Speiser to conclude that the Hurrians settled at Billa before they moved on to Nuzi.[5]\n\nThe majority of excavated material, however, is from the Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian times, including glyptic and epigraphic material.[6] Ninety One Middle Assyrian tablets (ca. 1400-1000 BC) are attested from Tell Billa/Shibaniba.[7] Several Middle Assyrian faience items were also found at Tell Billa.[8] The name Shibaniba relates to this period of its history.[9]\n\nSome ceramic remains of the Parthian period were found at the site.[10]\n\nExcavations\n\nAfter some minor soundings done by Austen Henry Layard around 1850, Tell Billa was excavated between 1930 and 1934 by a team from the University of Pennsylvania and the American Schools of Oriental Research.[11] The excavation was led by Ephraim Avigdor Speiser with Charles Bache.[12][13][14][15][16][17] The work was complicated by the fact that the mound was divided up among 18 owners including\na Jacobite church.[18]\n\nAt the same time, these scholars explored the related nearby ancient site of Tepe Gawra, which is located about 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast of Billa.[14]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nReferences\n\n^ Sollberger E. and J. R. Kupper, \"Inscriptions roy-ales sume ́ riennes et akkadiennes\", Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1971\n\n^ Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, \"An Ancient Token System: The Precursor to Numerals and Writing\", Archaeology, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 32-39, 1986\n\n^ Speiser, E. A., \"An inscribed lance-butt from Tell Billah V\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 50.1, pp. 11-13, 1933\n\n^ Edmonds, Alexander Johannes, and Petra M. Creamer, \"More to Tell About Billa!\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1515/za-2022-0011\n\n^ [1] Speiser, E. A., \"The Pottery of Tell Billa\", The Museum Journal XXIII, no. 3, pp. 249-308, September, 1933\n\n^ Creamer, Petra M. \"A Neo-Assyrian Provincial Palace at Tell Billa\", IRAQ 83, pp. 25-44, 2021\n\n^ Digital Tell Billa tablets at CDLI\n\n^ Puljiz, Ivana, \"Faience for the empire: A Study of Standardized Production in the Middle Assyrian State\", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 111, no. 1, pp. 100-122, 2021\n\n^ Jacob J. Finkelstein, \"Cuneiform Texts from Tell Billa,\" Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 7, pp. 111-176, 1953\n\n^ Haerinck, E., \"Twinspouted Vessels and Their Distribution in the near East from the Achaemenian to the Sasanian Periods\", Iran, vol. 18, pp. 43-54, 1980\n\n^ Layard A H, \"Nineveh and its Remains: with an account of a visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdistan, and the Yezidis, or devil worshipers; and an inquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient Assyrians\", John Murray, London, vol. 1, 1849\n\n^ \"The Expedition to Tell Billa and Tepe Gawra\", Bulletin of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, vol. 3(2), pp. 59-66, 1931\n\n^ \"Developments at Tell Billa and Tepe Gawra\", Bulletin of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, vol. 3(3/4), pp. 94-95, 1932\n\n^ a b \"Excavations at Tell Billa and Tepe Gawra\", Bulletin of the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, vol. 3(5), pp. 126-130, 1932\n\n^ [2] E. A. Speiser, \"The Bearing of the Excavations at Tell Billa and at Tepe Gawra upon the Ethnic Problems of Ancient Mesopotamia\", American Journal of Archaeology, vol. XXXVI, pp. 29-35, 1932\n\n^ Charles Bache, \"Work of the Baghdad School\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 51, pp. 20-26, 1933\n\n^ Charles Bache, \"From Mr. Bache's First Report on the Joint Excavations at Tepe Gawra and Tell Billah\", 1932-3, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 49, pp. 8-14, 1933\n\n^ \"University of Pennsylvania Museum - Baghdad School Expedition at Billah (letter from E. A. Speiser)\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 40, pp. 11-14, 1930\n\nFurther reading\n\nCharles Bache, \"From Mr. Bache’s Reports on the Joint Excavation at Tell Billah\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 50, 1933\n\nCreamer, Petra M, \"Domestic Architecture and Household Structure at Late Bronze Age Tell Billa\", Ancient Near Eastern Studies 58, pp. 147-172, 2021\n\nGalter, Hannes D., \"Texts and Fragments: Ein Tonnagel Adaneraris II. Aus Tell Billa\", Journal of cuneiform studies 41.2, pp. 235-236, 1989\n\nGoodman, Reed Charles, \"Tell Billa's Bull Pendant: A Connection to Middle Assyrian Assur\", Assyromania and More. In Memory of Samuel M. Paley, hrsg. v. Friedhelm Pedde, Nathanael Shelley (marru 4)., pp. 187-196, 2018\n\nDonald Matthews, \"Middle Assyrian Glyptic from Tell Billa\", Iraq, vol. 53, pp. 17-42, 1991\n\nClaudio Saporetti, \"Middle Assyrian Texts of Tell Billa\", (Graphemic Categorization, No 3), Undena Publications, 1990, ISBN 0-89003-159-2\n\nSpeiser, Dr., \"The Excavation of Tell Billah: Letter from Dr. Speiser to the Directors of the American School of Oriental Research in Baghdad and of the University Museum,(October 30, 1931)\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 44.1, pp. 2-5, 1931\n\nSpeiser, Dr., \"Tell Billah: Letter from Dr. Speiser to the Directors of the American School in Baghdad and the University Museum.\" Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 45.1, pp. 32-34, 1932\n\nSpeiser, E. A., \"An Assyrian Document of the Ninth Century BC from Tell Billah\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 54.1, pp. 20-21, 1934\n\nC. L. Wooley and E.A. Speiser, \"Excavations at Ur;the Pottery of Tell Billa\", The Museum Journal, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 249-308, 1933\n\nSpeiser, E. A., \"Gleanings from the Tell Billa texts\", Symbolae ad iura orientis antiqui pertinentes Paolo Koschaker dedicatae, Leiden, Brill, pp. 141-50, 1939\n\nSpeiser, E. A., \"The Cuneiform Tablets from Tell Billa\", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 71, pp. 23-24, 1938\n\nExternal links\n\nDigitizing Tell Billa - work on publishing 1930s digs\n\nExpedition video from the University of Pennsylvania Museum 4\n\nExpedition video from the University of Pennsylvania Museum 3\n\nExpedition video from the University of Pennsylvania Museum 2\n\n3rd Millennium BC cylinder seal from Tell Billa - possibly lost\n\nArchaeological site photographs from the Oriental Institute\n\nDigital Tell Billa tablets at CDLI"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-shibaniba"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1225}, {"slug": "reference-arbela", "title": "Arbela", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Arbela may refer to: Astronomy Arbela Sulcus, a grooved terrain on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Places Greco-Roman name of the city of Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq Arbel, Israel Irbid, Jordan Arbela, Ohio, United States Arbela Township, Michigan, United States Arbela, Missouri, United States Other uses Arbela (bug), a genus...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Arbela may refer to:\n\nAstronomy\n\nArbela Sulcus, a grooved terrain on Jupiter's moon Ganymede.\n\nPlaces\n\nGreco-Roman name of the city of Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq\n\nArbel, Israel\n\nIrbid, Jordan\n\nArbela, Ohio, United States\n\nArbela Township, Michigan, United States\n\nArbela, Missouri, United States\n\nOther uses\n\nArbela (bug), a genus of insect\n\nBattle of Arbela, fought in 331 BC near modern Erbil, Iraq\n\nChronicle of Arbela, a religious text\n\nSee also\n\nArabela (disambiguation)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-arbela"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 71}, {"slug": "reference-tanbur", "title": "Tanbur", "category": "Arts & traditions", "summary": "The term Tanbur[a] can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia.[2] According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, \"terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur (or tambur) is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tanbur\nMusician and luthier Ghobad Ghobadi (تنبورقبادی), a face of Yarsanism, plays a Kurdish tanbur. Ghobadi makes tanburs in the Yarsan tradition.[1]\n\nString instrument\n\nClassification\nPlucked string instrument; fretted lute\n\nRelated instruments\n\nBağlama (Saz)\n\nBalkan tambura\n\nBouzouki\n\nÇifteli\n\nDotara\n\nDramyin\n\nDutar\n\nRawap\n\nPamiri rubab\n\nSataer\n\nSetar\n\nSato\n\nSetor\n\nSitar\n\nTamboori\n\nTambouras\n\nTamburica\n\nKurdish tanbur\n\nTurkish tambur\n\nYaylı tambur\n\nTanpura\n\nTar\n\nTembor\n\nThe term Tanbur[a] can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia.[2] According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, \"terminology presents a complicated situation. Nowadays the term tanbur (or tambur) is applied to a variety of distinct and related long-necked lutes used in art and folk traditions. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other terms.\" These instruments are used in the traditional music of Iran, Iraq, India, Armenia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan (especially Avar community), Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.[3][4][5]\n\nOrigins\n\nTanburs have been present in Mesopotamia since the Akkadian era, or the third millennium BC.[2]\n\nThree figurines have been found in Susa that belong to 1500 BC, and in hands of one of them is a tanbur-like instrument.[6]\nAlso an image on the rocks near Mosul that belong to about 1000 BC shows tanbur players.[6]\n\nPlaying the tanbur was common at least by the late Parthian era and Sasanian era,[7] and the word 'tanbur' is found in middle Persian and Parthian language texts, for instance in Drakht-i Asurig, Bundahishn, Kar-Namag-i Ardasher-i Pabagan, and Khosrow and Ridag.[note 1][6]\n\nIn the 10th century AD, Al-Farabi described two types of tanburs found in Persia, a Baghdad tunbūr, distributed south and west of Baghdad, and a Khorasan tunbūr.[2][6] This distinction may be the source of modern differentiation between Arabic instruments, derived from the Baghdad tunbūr, and those found in northern Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sindh and Turkey, from the Khorasan tunbūr.[2]\n\nThe name spread widely, eventually taking in Long-necked string instruments used in Central Asian music such as the Dombura and the classical Turkish tambur as well as the Kurdish tanbur.[2][8] Until the early twentieth century, the names chambar and jumbush were applied to instruments in northern Iraq.[2] In India the name was applied to the tanpura (tambura), a fretless drone lute.[2] Tanbur traveled through Al-Hirah to the Arabian Peninsula and in the early Islamic period reached the European countries. Tanbur was called 'tunbur' or 'tunbureh/tunbura' in Al-Hirah, and in Greek it was named tambouras, then went to Albania as tampura, in Russia it was named domra, in Siberia and Mongolia as dombra, and in Byzantine Empire was named pandura/bandura. It travelled through Byzantine Empire to other European countries and was called pandura, mandura, bandura, etc.[6]\n\nLater the Iranian (Kurdish) tanbur became associated with the music of the Ahl-e Haqq, a primarily Kurdish ghulat religious movement similar to a Sufi order, in Kurdish areas and in the Lorestān and Sistan va Baluchestan provinces of Iran, where it is called the 'tembûr'.[9]\n\nTypes\n\nKurdish Tanbur\n\nNowadays Kermanshahan tanbur (or Kurdish tanbur or tembûr or tanboor or tanbour) is played all over Iran, and that is what is called just \"tanbur\" in Iran nowadays. Kurdish tanbur is mainly designed in Kermanshahan (about Kermanshah Province), Kurdistan Province and Lorestan. Kermanshahan tanburs are more famous and accepted and are specially designed in Kermanshah's Goran Region and Sahneh.[6]\nThe tanbur is currently the musical instrument used in Ahl-e Haqq (Yarsani) rituals, and practitioners venerate tembûrs as sacred objects.[8]\n\nThere is also a Taleshi tanbur in small region Talesh in the north of Iran, and Tanburak (Tanburg) in Balochistan in the southeast of Iran.[10] But Kermanshahan tanbur is the main and the most famous tanbur in Iran.[6][11]\n\nThe Kurdish tanbur has a narrow pear-shaped body that normally is made with 7 to 10 glued together separate ribs. Its soundboard is usually made of mulberry wood and some patterned holes are burned in it. The long neck is separate, and has three metal strings that the first course is double. The melody is played on the double strings with a unique playing technique with three fingers of the right hand. Kurdish tanbur is associated with the Kurdish Sufi music of Western Iran.[3]\n\nIt measures 80 cm in height and 16 cm in breadth.[9] The resonator is pear-shaped and made of either a single piece or multiple carvels of mulberry wood.[9] The neck is made of walnut and has fourteen frets, arranged in a semi-tempered chromatic scale.[9] It has two steel strings tuned in fifth, fourth, or second intervals.[8][9] The higher string may be double-coursed.[8][9]\n\nCentral Asia\n\nThe Afghan tanbur (or tambur) is played mainly in the North of Afghanistan, in Mazar Sharif and Kabul. Afghan tanbur used to have a wide, hollow neck and gourd-like body, but nowadays they seem to resemble more the Herati dutar, but its body contour is rounder, and the neck is hollow. It is similar to the Tajik setor. The body is made from one piece of (mulberry) wood, and the neck is separate, and the neck usually has some decoration. It has three courses (either single or double) of metal strings. The Afghan tanbur is played in the same style as the normal tanbur and sitar, with a wire finger plectrum. The music can be accompanying singing and dancing, or (more rarely) playing classical ghazals.[4] The Afghan tanbur has sympathetic strings.[12]\n\nThe Tajik/Uzbek tanbur has four metal strings that run over a small loose bridge to a bit of wood at the edge of the body. It is always played with a wire plectrum on the index-finger. Its body is carved from a hollowed out piece of mulberry wood, and the front is made from mulberry. Its neck is often decorated with inlay bone or white plastic.[4] It can also be played with a bow.[13]\n\nThe Uyghur tembor is played in Sinkiang. Its neck is very long (almost 5 feet long) and has five friction pegs. It has five metal strings that are in fact three courses, both first (fingered) and third are double.[4]\n\nTurkish tambur\n\nThe Turkish tambur has a very long thin neck and its body is made of about 20 to 25 thin wooden ribs in a very round shape. It has six (three pairs of) metal strings.[3]\n\nThe yaylı tambur is also played in Turkey.[3] Derived from the older plucked tambur, it has a long, fretted neck and a round metal or wooden soundbox which is often covered on the front with a skin or acrylic head similar to that of a banjo.\n\nOther plucked string instruments\n\nKazakhstan's National instrument the dombra (or dombyra or dombira or dombora) looks quite similar to the dutar although it is made of staves, and it has a flat peghead instead of a neck extension.[4]\n\nThe Russian domra and national instrument balalaika are derived of similar Turkic origins.\n\nThe Afghanistan dambura is mainly played in the North of Afghanistan. It has two slightly different kinds: the Turkestani dambura and the Badachstan dambura.\n\nTurkestani dambura is fretless, and has two gut or nylon strings fixed to T-shaped flat pegs, and run over a small wooden bridge to a pin at the end of the body.[4]\n\nThe Badachstan dambura is similar to the Turkestani dambura, but it is a bit smaller, and the neck and body are carved from one single piece of (usually mulberry) wood.[4]\n\nThe Punjabi tanburag is a long-neck lute with a big bowl, and has three metal strings, called tanburag [tanboorag] or dhambura, but also called damburo, or kamach(i).[4]\n\nThe Indian Tanpura (tanpura, tamboura or taanpura or tanipurani) is found in different forms and in many places even as electronic tanpura.\n\nThe Shirvan tanbur has a pear-shaped form and belongs to the same family of instruments as the saz. The total length of the tanbur is 940 mm. The length of the body is 385 mm, the width is 200 mm and the height is 135 mm. The length of the neck is 340 mm, and the length of the head is 120 mm. The Shirvan tanbur ranges from the \"do\" of the first octave to the \"mi\" of the second octave.\n\nThe Pamiri tanbur is considered to be a more solemn instrument. Its tone is deeper and its tuning more complex than that of the rubab. The tanbur is 80-85 cm in length, and is carved from the trunk of a mulberry or apricot tree. Its sounding board is made of goat or sheep skin. Its unfretted fingerboard has a hollow to create a more powerful voice, and its top is shaped like a half moon. It has seven nylon strings and an eight-string, which duplicates the highest note.[14]\n\nSimilar instruments include the Tambura, Tamburica, and the Ukrainian bandura. The Greek tambouras is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family, similar to the Turkish saz and the Persian tanbur.\n\nFurthermore, the fretted Tanbur influenced the design of many instruments other than those above, notably:\n\nThe baglama (saz) is found in the Caucasus, Iran, Turkey, northern Syria, western Iraq, and Southeast Europe.[2] In Turkey, the terms bağlama and saz both refer to a long-necked lute used in folk music.[2] Closely related are the Greek bouzouki and the buzuq, an instrument found in urban areas such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut.[2]\n\nThe dutar and setar, found in Iran and Central Asia, are derived from the Khorosanian tunbūr.[2]\n\nIn the Balkans, the Tambura is a stringed instrument that is played as a folk instrument in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, and Serbia (especially Vojvodina). It has doubled steel strings and is played with a plectrum, in the same manner as a mandolin.\n\nAlso in the Balkans, the Tamburica or Tambura in Hungary, (Bosnian: Tamburica, Bulgarian: Тамбура, Croatian: Tamburica, Serbian: Тамбурица, meaning \"little Tamboura\"; Hungarian: Tambura; Greek: Ταμπουράς, sometimes written tamburrizza) refers to any member of a family of long-necked lutes popular around the Balkans, particularly Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Serbia (especially Vojvodina), North Macedonia where it is an essential instrument to the Macedonian folklore, alongside the kaval and the bagpipe, Slovenia, Croatia (especially Slavonia). It is also known in Burgenland. All took their name and some characteristics from the Persian tanbur but also resemble the mandolin, in that its strings are plucked and often paired. The frets may be moveable to allow the playing of various modes.\n\nOther instruments\n\nThe name also came to apply to several other instruments of different classes including:\n\nDrums such as the tabor and tambourine.[15]\n\nThe tanbūra (lyre) is a bowl lyre of the Middle East and East Africa. It takes its name from the Persian tanbur via the Arabic tunbur (طنبور), though this term refers to long-necked lutes.[16] The instrument plays an important role in zār rituals.[16] The instrument probably originated in Upper Egypt and the Sudan[16] and is used in the Fann At-Tanbura in the Persian Gulf Arab states.\n\nSee also\n\nDombra\n\nKurdish music\n\nBalochi music\n\nTurgun Alimatov\n\nCategory:Eastern lutes players\n\nPandura\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also variously spelt, romanized or translated as: Tanbūr, Tambur, Tembur, Tanbuur, Tampur, Tempur, Tanbura, Tampolles, Tanpura, Tanpenes, Tembûr, Tambura, Tamboura, Tanboor, Tanbour, Turunbo, Tænbur, Tenbur, Tənbur, Tänbur, Tanbo'er, etc.\n\n^ fa:خسرو و ریدگ\n\nReferences\n\n^ Sohrabi, Dariush. \"استاد قباد قبادی\" [Master Qobad Qobadi] (in Persian). Master Qobad Qobadi...A scholar of the language...a tanbur player and tanbur maker...Master Qobad Qobadi was born in...the Dalahu region, in the Qolkhani tribe...devoted himself to learning the tanbur and the maqamat yari...Perhaps the turning point in Qobad Qobadi's life can be considered his entry into the field of Yarsan tanbur making...Yari's experience and knowledge of playing and his acquaintance with the noble authorities, along with the training in the techniques of tanbur making, soon turned the famous instrument named Qobad Qobadi into one of the most famous tanburs in Yarsan... In such a way that many masters and players of the instrument consider his instrument to be one of the highest quality tanburs used.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k Scheherezade Qassim Hassan; Morris, R. Conway; Baily, John; During, Jean (2001). \"Tanbūr\". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. xxv (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. pp. 61-62. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.\n\n^ a b c d \"ATLAS of Plucked Instruments - Middle East\". ATLAS of Plucked Instruments. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2013.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h \"ATLAS of Plucked Instruments - Central Asia\". ATLAS of Plucked Instruments. Archived from the original on May 21, 2011. Retrieved February 27, 2013.\n\n^ McCollum, Jonathan (2014). \"Tambur(iv) [tampur, tanbur, tanpur].\" New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Second Edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199743391.\n\n^ a b c d e f g \"تنبور (یا تمبور/ طنبور)\". Encyclopaedia Islamica. Archived from the original on June 23, 2013. Retrieved March 3, 2013.\n\n^ Jean During, Spirit of Sounds : The Unique Art of Ostad Elahi (1895-1974), ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITY PRESS, ISBN 978-0-8453-4884-0, ISBN 0-8453-4884-1\n\n^ a b c d Shiloah, Amnon (2001). \"Kurdish music\". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. xiv (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.\n\n^ a b c d e f Scheherezade Qassim Hassan; Morris, R. Conway; Baily, John; During, Jean (2001). \"Tanbur\". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. xxv (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. pp. 61-62. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.\n\n^ \"Grup Müştak Hıdırellez 2016\" (PDF). alevibektasikulturenstitusu.de. Alevitisch-Bektaschitisches Kulturinstitut E. V. 8 May 2016. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2016. In the Northern parts of Iran, Northwest of Gilan province, a version of Tanbour called Taleshi Tanbour is played in Taleshi people Rituals.\n\n^ درویشی, محمدرضا. \"تنبور - کرمانشاهان (Tanbur-kantot-Kermanshahan)\". دایرة‌المعارف سازهای ایران. تهران: موسسه فرهنگی هنری ماهور. pp. 95, 213, 303. ISBN 9646409458.\n\n^ \"Instruments, Tanbur\". akdn.org. Aga Khan Development Network. Archived from the original on 13 October 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2016.\n\n^ Cerys Matthews, BBC Radio 6, 22 June 2018\n\n^ \"Main Page\". Archived from the original on 2010-07-06. Retrieved 2010-06-06.\n\n^ Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary 1977, \"Tambourine\".\n\n^ a b c Poché, Christian (2001). \"Tanbūra\". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. xxv (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. pp. 62-63. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.\n\nExternal links\n\nAtlas of Plucked Instruments: Central Asia\n\nAnalysis and Physical Modeling of Tanbur from the Helsinki University of Technology (Turkish Tambur)\n\nThe Sounds of Music in Ancient Israel"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tanbur"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2460}, {"slug": "reference-oriental-orthodox-churches", "title": "Oriental Orthodox Churches", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Oriental Orthodox Churches are a communion of Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology.[1] In 2020, it was estimated that the Oriental Orthodox Churches had 72 million members.[2] The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is one of the oldest branches in...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Oriental Orthodox Churches\n\nClockwise from top:\n\nEtchmiadzin Armenian Apostolic Cathedral;\n\nSaint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral;\n\n Malankara Orthodox Catholicate Palace;\n\nHoly Trinity Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedral;\n\nSaint George Syriac Orthodox Cathedral;\n\nEnda Mariam Eritrean Orthodox Cathedral\n\nClassificationNon-Chalcedonian\n\nOrientationEastern Christianity\n\nTheologyOriental Orthodox theology\n\nPolityEpiscopal\n\nStructureCommunion\n\nAutocephalous churches\nEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\nCoptic Orthodox Church\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nEritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\nLanguage\nCoptic\n\nClassical Syriac\n\nGeʽez\n\nArmenian\n\nMalayalam\n\nKoine Greek\n\nlocal languages\n\nLiturgy\nAlexandrian\n\nWest Syriac\n\nArmenian\n\nFounderJesus Christ, according to sacred tradition\n\nSeparated fromRoman state church\n\nMembers71,865,000 (2020)\n\nOther names\nOriental Orthodoxy\n\nMiaphysite churches\n\nOriental Orthodox Communion\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches are a communion of Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology.[1] In 2020, it was estimated that the Oriental Orthodox Churches had 72 million members.[2] The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is one of the oldest branches in Christianity.[3]\n\nAs some of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Oriental Orthodox Churches have played a prominent role in the history and culture of countries and regions such as Armenia, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, the Levant, Iraq and the Malabar region of southern India. As autocephalous churches, their bishops are equal by virtue of episcopal ordination. Their doctrines recognize only the first three ecumenical councils as valid.[4][1]\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox communion is composed of six autocephalous national churches: the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria; the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and its constituent the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church in India; the Armenian Apostolic Church comprising the autocephalous Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin in Armenia and the Catholicosate of Cilicia in the Levant and of diaspora; the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.[5][6][3]\n\nThe Malabar Independent Syrian Church-based in India-and the British Orthodox Church in the UK are independent Oriental Orthodox churches, having formerly been part of one of the mainstream Oriental Orthodox churches.[7]\n\nOriental Orthodox Christians consider themselves to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, and its bishops as the successors of Christ's apostles. Three primary rites are practiced by the churches: the western-influenced Armenian Rite, the West Syriac Rite of the Syriac Church (including its Malankara Rite) and the Alexandrian Rite of the Copts (including the Ge'ez rite of the Ethiopians and Eritreans).\n\nOriental Orthodox Churches shared communion with the imperial Roman church before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, and with the Church of the East until the Synod of Beth Lapat in AD 484,[8] separating primarily over differences in Christology.\n\nThe majority of Oriental Orthodox Christians live in Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Syria, Turkey and Armenia, with smaller Syriac communities in Western Asia decreasing due to persecution.[3][9][10][11] There are also many in other parts of the world, formed through diaspora, conversions, and missionary activity.\n\nName and characteristics\n\nThe name \"Oriental Orthodox Churches\" was formally adopted at the Conference of Addis Ababa in 1965. At the time there were five participating churches, the Eritrean Church not yet being autocephalous.[12]\n\nOther names by which the churches have been known include Old Oriental, Ancient Oriental, Lesser Eastern, Anti-Chalcedonian, Non-Chalcedonian, Pre-Chalcedonian, Miaphysite or Monophysite.[13][12] The Catholic Church has referred to these churches as \"the Ancient Churches of the East.\"[14]\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches are in full communion with each other, but not with the Eastern Orthodox Church or any other churches. Like the Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox Churches includes several self-governing churches. Slow dialogue towards restoring communion between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox groups was renewed in the mid-20th century;[15][16] and dialogue is also underway between Oriental Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church, and others.[17] In 2017, for example, the mutual recognition of baptism was restored between the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Catholic Church.[18] Baptism is also mutually recognized between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church.[19][20]\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches are generally considered to be more conservative with regard to social issues.[21][22] All mainstream Oriental Orthodox Churches are members of the World Council of Churches.[23]\n\nHistory\n\n1st century-Chalcedon\n\nEarly Christians established prominent churches throughout the Middle East and North Africa, most notably Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Other prominent sees were established in present-day Sudan and Ethiopia, according to John Chrysostom.[24] These churches, altogether, formed the state church of the Roman Empire by 381.\n\nAfter Christological controversies denouncing Arianism and Nestorianism was proclaimed through the imperial Roman church from the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Ephesus,[25][26][27][28] the churches comprising the state-sanctioned and recognized Roman church would then schism over Miaphysitism and Chalcedonianism. Amongst those accepting the Chalcedonian Definition at the Council of Chalcedon, those now-Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches believed that Christ is \"one person in two natures.\"[29]\n\nTo the hierarchs who would lead Oriental Orthodoxy, the description of Christ as \"one person in two natures\" was tantamount to accepting the once-condemned Nestorianism, which expressed itself in a terminology incompatible with their understanding of Christology. Nestorianism was understood as seeing Christ in two separate natures-human and divine-each with different actions and experiences; in contrast Cyril of Alexandria advocated the formula \"one nature of God the Incarnate Logos\"[30] (or as others translate, \"one Incarnate nature of the Word\").[31]\n\nPost-Chalcedonian schism\n\nFollowing the Chalcedonian council, the majority of the early Church of Alexandria, Antioch, and Armenia rejected the terms of the council.[32][33] This would later cause the predominantly-Greek, Chalcedonian minority to establish the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, separate from the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[33] It would also lead to schisms in Antioch, resulting in the separate Syriac Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, and Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.[34]\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches were therefore often called \"monophysite\" by the imperial Roman Christians-although they continually reject this label-as it is associated with Eutychian monophysitism; they prefer the term \"miaphysite.\"[35][36] The Oriental Orthodox would later be accused of Eutychian monophysitism by Evangelical Protestants proselytizing in predominantly Eastern and Oriental Orthodox regions.[37]\n\nIn the years following Chalcedon, the patriarchs of Constantinople intermittently remained in communion with the non-Chalcedonian patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch (see Henotikon), while Rome remained out of communion with the latter and in unstable communion with Constantinople. It was not until 518 that the new Byzantine Emperor, Justin I-who accepted Chalcedon-demanded that the church in the Roman Empire accept the council's decisions.[38]\n\nUnder Islamic conquest\n\nDuring the early Muslim conquests, Egypt was conquered from the Eastern Romans/Byzantines. According to Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, the Muslims \"despoiled the Egyptians of their possessions and dealt cruelly with them\" whilst also noting Amr ibn al-As \"took none of the property of the Churches, and he committed no act of spoilation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days.\"[39][40] Despite the conquest of Egypt and initial peace between Christians and Muslims, Egypt's Umayyad rulers taxed Christians at a higher rate than Muslims, driving merchants towards Islam and undermining the economic base of the Coptic Church.[41] Although the Coptic Orthodox Church did not disappear, the Umayyad tax policies made it difficult for the church to retain the Egyptian elites.[42]\n\nWithin Roman Syria and during the Muslim conquest of the Levant, John III of the Sedre and other Syriac Orthodox bishops were brought before Umayr ibn Sad al-Ansari to engage in an open debate regarding Christianity and represent the entire Christian community-including non-Syriac Orthodox communities, such as Greek Orthodox Syrians.[43]\n\nSince the early Muslim conquests, Oriental Orthodox Christians have endured moments of peace and persecution between themselves and the Arab-Islamic communities governing the Middle East and North Africa. The Copts have endured persecution into the 21st century, with some facing abduction and forced conversion.[44][45] The Armenian and Syriac Orthodox churches also faced persecution and genocide, with the one Syriac scholar stating, \"Oriental Christianity was literally decimated finally through the cruel representative of the Mongolian-Islamic fanaticism.\"[46][47]\n\nAttempted reunions\n\nBy 862, the Armenian Apostolic and Syriac Orthodox churches held the Council of Shirakavan with the Eastern Orthodox Church in efforts to seek Christian unity and clarify Christological positions.[48] By the 12th century, the Council of Hromkla was held between the Armenians and the Greeks, to finalize an attempted union with the Eastern Orthodox Church.[49][50]\n\nIn the 15th century, during the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence, the Oriental Orthodox attempted to enter full communion with the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.[51]\n\n19th-early 20th centuries\n\nAttempted Western missions and schisms\n\nBy the 19th century, French-born former Catholic Jules Ferrette was allegedly ordained into the episcopacy by Ignatius Peter IV of Antioch to establish an Oriental Orthodox mission in the West.[52][53] No original document has been known to exist, although Ferrette presented a purported, official English translation signed by the British consul in Damascus, Syria.[54]: 45-52 \n\nJoseph Rene Vilatte was also ordained into the episcopacy by Malankara bishops Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares, Athanasius Paulose Kadavil, and Gregorios of Parumala. Vilatte was named \"Mar Timotheos, Metropolitan of North America\", with the apparent blessings of Ignatius Peter IV.[55][54]: 31-44  There are claims that nobody has ever seen the original Syriac language form of Vilatte's credentials.[56]: 67 [55]: 159  According to Brandreth, no Syriac authority had authenticated the signatures depicted in a photostatic copy of a purported translation of the Syriac document;[54]: 34  however, Iganitus Peter IV did excommunicate Vilatte as a bishop for ordaining others contrary to their canon law in 1898.[56]: 67 [54]: 31-44 \n\nBy the early 20th century, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church re-established the Catholicos of the East. Syriac Orthodox patriarch Ignatius Abded Mshiho II enthroned Murimattathil Paulose Ivanios as Baselios Paulose I, Catholicos of the East, on the Apostolic Throne of St. Thomas at St. Mary's Church in Niranam on 15 September 1912.[57] The Malankara Orthodox Syrian and Jacobite Syrian Church disputed ecclesiastical authority over the Indian subcontinent.[58]\n\nIn 1932, following controversies surrounding Ferrette and Vilatte, and clergy claiming apostolic succession through them, Ignatius Aphrem I of Antioch issued a notice which stated, amongst other things:[59]\n\n\"[T]o all whom it may concern that there are in the United States of America and in some countries of Europe, particularly in England, a number of schismatic bodies which have come into existence after direct expulsion from official Christian communities and have devised for themselves a common creed and a system of jurisdiction of their invention.\"\n\n\"To deceive Christians of the West being a chief objective of the schismatic bodies, they take advantage of their great distance from the East, and from time to time make public statements claiming without truth to derive their origin and apostolic succession from some Apostolic Church of the East, the attractive rites and ceremonies of which they adopt and with which they claim to have relationship.\"\n\n\"[W]e deny any and every relationship with these schismatic bodies [...]. Furthermore, our Church forbids any and every relationship and, above all, all intercommunion with all and any of these schismatic sects and warns the public that their statements and pretentions as above all altogether without truth.\"\n\nIn 1943, a group of clergy descending from Ferrette and Vilatte held the Council of London, which repudiated Aphrem's decree.[59] These would merge into the Catholicate of the West, which by the end of 20th century became the British Orthodox Church.[60][61]\n\nEthiopian autocephaly and Oriental unity\n\nIn 1959, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was granted autocephaly by Coptic pope Cyril VI,[62] and by 1965, the Addis Ababa Conference was held between the autocephalous Oriental Orthodox churches. After the Addis Ababa Conference, the Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches was established.[63]\n\nLate 20th-early 21st centuries\n\nAmongst the Oriental Orthodox, ecumenical dialogue increased with other Christians in the late 20th century, and several independent sacramental churches, bishops and other clergy would be received into the Oriental Orthodox Churches.\n\nIn the 1970s, Shenouda III and the Coptic Orthodox Church received an independent sacramental bishop and their jurisdiction-Jan Frederik Nico Blom van Assendelft-Altland and the Primitive Apostolic Orthodox Church of the Syro-Byzantine Tradition-into their church.[64][65] This would form the French Coptic Orthodox Church, and Altland would be reconsecrated as Marcos; he would serve until his death in 2008.[66]\n\nFrom several meetings between the authorities of the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodoxy, reconciling declarations emerged in the common statement of Syriac patriarch Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas and the Roman pope John Paul II in 1984:\n\nThe confusions and schisms that occurred between their Churches in the later centuries, they realize today, in no way affect or touch the substance of their faith, since these arose only because of differences in terminology and culture and in the various formulae adopted by different theological schools to express the same matter. Accordingly, we find today no real basis for the sad divisions and schisms that subsequently arose between us concerning the doctrine of Incarnation. In words and life we confess the true doctrine concerning Christ our Lord, notwithstanding the differences in interpretation of such a doctrine which arose at the time of the Council of Chalcedon.[67]\n\nHowever, despite the progress made in ecumenical dialogue, many Oriental Orthodox authorities like Coptic pope Shenouda III remained skeptical about the Chalcedonian churches, continuing to view their Christology as Nestorian.[30]\n\nIn 1986, the Copts and Romans created a common formula expressing an official Christological agreement between one another.[68] In 1990, another Christological agreement was formulated between the Malankara Orthodox Syrians and Romans.[69] In 1996, another common declaration was declared by the Armenians and Romans.[70] The Oriental Orthodox have also signed similar Christological declarations with the Greek Orthodox churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Romania; however, the remainder of mainstream Eastern Orthodoxy has either sought further clarification or rejected dialogue.[71]\n\nIn 1993, the Eritrean Church achieved its autocephaly after independence from Ethiopia.[72] Its autocephaly was granted by Shenouda III. A year later, the Coptic Orthodox Church would receive another independent sacramental bishop and jurisdiction-the Orthodox Church of the British Isles (formerly the Catholicate of the West, and later the British Orthodox Church).[73] By 2015, the British Orthodox Church departed from the Coptic Church as a non-canonically recognized church.[74]\n\nBy the first quarter of the 21st century, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favor of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's legitimacy following centuries of administrative dispute amongst Malankara Christians.[58][75] As of 2025, administrative disagreements continued between the two churches. These disagreements extended between the Malankara Orthodox, the Coptic Orthodox, and the Catholicate of Cilicia.[76][77]\n\nOrganization and leadership\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches are a communion or fellowship of six autocephalous (that is, administratively completely independent) national churches.[13] The Oriental Orthodox Churches maintain an ancient apostolic succession and the historic episcopacy.[78] The various churches are governed by holy synods, with a primus inter pares bishop serving as primate. The primates hold titles such as patriarch, catholicos, and pope. The Alexandrian Patriarchate, the Antiochian Patriarchate along with Patriarchate of Rome, were some of the most prominent sees of the early Christian Church, and amongst contemporary Oriental Orthodoxy.\n\nOriental Orthodoxy does not have a magisterial leader like the Catholic Church, nor does the communion have a leader who can convene ecumenical synods or have collective honorary primacy like the Eastern Orthodox Church. Meanwhile its ecumenical dialogues and internal church relations are led by the Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches, which acts as the permanent representative council of its member churches.[79]\n\nBelow is a list of the six autocephalous Oriental Orthodox churches forming the mainstream body of Oriental Orthodox Christianity, and their associated liturgical ritual families. Based on the definitions, the list is in the alphabetical order, with some of their constituent autonomous churches and exarchates listed as well. Amongst the Oriental Orthodox, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's autocephaly has been primarily disputed by the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and its autonomous Jacobite Syrian Church of India;[58][76][77] the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is not a recognized member of the Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches, the regional conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches in North America.[5]\n\nAlexandrian Rite\n\nCoptic Rite\n\nCoptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria\n\nFrench Coptic Orthodox Church\n\nGe'ez Rite\n\nEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\nEritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\nWest Syriac Rite\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\n\nMalankara Rite\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nJacobite Syrian Christian Church\n\nArmenian Rite\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church\n\nMother See of Holy Etchmiadzin\n\nArmenian Patriarchate of Constantinople\n\nArmenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem\n\nHoly See of Cilicia\n\nThere are a number of churches considered non-canonical, but whose members and clergy may or may not be in communion with mainstream Oriental Orthodoxy. Examples include the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Celtic Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church of the Gauls, the British Orthodox Church, and the Tigrayan Orthodox Tewahedo Church. These organizations have passed in and out of official recognition, but members rarely face excommunication when recognition is ended. The primates of these churches are typically referred to as episcopi vagantes or vagantes in short.\n\nAdherents\n\nAccording to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Oriental Orthodoxy is the Christian tradition \"most important in terms of the number of faithful living in the Middle East\", which, along with other Eastern Christian communions, represent an autochthonous Christian presence whose origins date further back than the birth and spread of Islam in the Middle East.[80] In 2018, Oriental Orthodox population was estimated at more than 50 million.[81] Collectively, the Oriental Orthodox Churches claim to have approximately 87 million members.[3]\n\nAs of 2011, it was the dominant religion in Armenia (94%) and ethnically Armenian unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (95%).[82][83] However, almost the entire Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled in 2023 after an Azerbaijani offensive retook it.[84]\n\nOriental Orthodoxy is a prevailing religion in Ethiopia (43.1%), while Protestants account for 19.4% and Islam - 34.1%.[85] It is most widespread in two regions in Ethiopia: Amhara (82%) and Tigray (96%), as well as the capital city of Addis Ababa (75%). It is also one of two major religions in Eritrea (40%).[86]\n\nIt is a minority in Egypt (<20%),[87] Syria (2-3% out of the 10% of total Christians), Lebanon (10% of the 40% of Christians in Lebanon or 200,000 Armenians and members of the Church of the East) and Kerala, India (7% out of the 20% of total Christians in Kerala).[88] In terms of total number of members, the Ethiopian Church is the largest of all Oriental Orthodox churches, and is second among all Orthodox churches among Eastern and Oriental Churches (exceeded in number only by the Russian Orthodox Church).\n\nAlso of particular importance are the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in Turkey and the Armenian Apostolic Church of Iran. These Oriental Orthodox churches represent the largest Christian minority in both of these predominantly Muslim countries, Turkey and Iran.[89][90]\n\nChurch\n\nMembers\n\nSelf-reported\n\nYear(s)\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church (Etchmiadzin)\n\n6,000,000\n\n8,023,000\n\n2021-2024[91][92]\n\nArmenian Apostolic Church (Holy See of Cilicia)\n\n800,000\n\n1,285,000\n\n2021-2024[93]\n\nCoptic Orthodox Church\n\n9,000,000\n\n12,000,000\n\n2021-2024[94][95]\n\nEritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\n3,030,000\n\n2,000,000\n\n2021-2024[96][97]\n\nEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church\n\n36,000,000\n\n60,000,000\n\n2024[98][99]\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\n1,200,000\n\n2,000,000\n\n2011-2024[100][101]\n\nSyriac Orthodox Church of Antioch\n\n1,700,000\n\n1,430,000\n\n2021-2024[102][103]\n\nTotal(s)\n\n57,730,000\n\n86,738,000\n\nTheology\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches are distinguished by their recognition of only the first three ecumenical councils during the period of the state church of the Roman Empire: the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the Council of Ephesus in 431.\n\nOriental Orthodoxy shares much theology and many ecclesiastical traditions with the Eastern Orthodox Church; these include a similar doctrine of salvation and a tradition of collegiality between bishops, as well as reverence of the Theotokos and use of the Nicene Creed.[104][105] They also share the doctrine of ancestral sin and deification.\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox accept the seven sacraments of baptism, chrismation, the Eucharist, penance and confession, anointing of the sick, holy orders, and marriage.[106]: 79  In Oriental Orthodoxy, the sacraments or mysterion \"can be defined as the main task of the Church in which Christ dispenses Himself to the congregation.\" This understanding is viewed as a combination of Augustine of Hippo and Gregory of Nyssa's teachings.[106]: 79 \n\nIn Oriental Orthodoxy, marriage consists of a monogamous, heterosexual couple;[107][108][109] and same-sex marriages, the ordination of LGBTQ+ individuals, and homosexual activities have been formally condemned throughout the Oriental Orthodox Churches.[110][22][111] In the Coptic Orthodox Church, identifying with the LGBTQ+ community \"is considered a sin for which a person should repent or otherwise be expelled from the community\" and in 2003, a meeting was organised for all Egyptian churches to unite against LGBTQ+ rights; the Coptic Orthodox Church also practices conversion therapy.[21]\n\nThe sacrament of baptism is performed by both immersion and sprinkling;[106]: 82  the ordained are considered \"participants in the one priesthood of Christ\" and \"When a man is selected to become a member of the diaconate, priesthood or bishopric, he officiates sacraments not on account of a priesthood intrinsic to him but rather as one who derives his functionality from his participation in the priesthood of Christ.\"[106]: 90 [112]\n\nAlongside Catholicism, Anglicanism, and some Lutherans in particular, the Oriental Orthodox affirm that an indelible mark or imperishable character is received at ordination.[112][113][114] Oriental Orthodoxy accepts baptisms and ordinations from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and considers their understanding of sacramental character \"the middle path forged by Basil the Great.\"[106]: 70-78  \n\nThe primary theological difference between the two communions of Eastern (or Byzantine) and Oriental Orthodoxy is the differing Christology. Oriental Orthodoxy rejects the Chalcedonian Definition, and instead adopts the miaphysite formula,[35][36] believing that the human and divine natures of Christ are united in one incarnate nature. Historically, the early prelates of the Oriental Orthodox Churches thought that Chalcedonianism implied a possible repudiation of the Trinity, or a concession to Nestorianism.\n\nThe break in communion between the imperial Roman and Oriental Orthodox churches did not occur suddenly, but rather gradually over two to three centuries following the Council of Chalcedon.[115] Eventually the two communions developed separate institutions, and the Oriental Orthodox did not participate in any of the later ecumenical councils.\n\nChristology\n\nThe schism between Oriental Orthodoxy and the adherents of Chalcedonian Christianity was based on differences in Christology.[1] The First Council of Nicaea, in 325, declared that Jesus Christ is God, that is to say, \"consubstantial\" with the Father.[25][26] Later, the third ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus, declared that Jesus Christ, though divine as well as human, is only one being, or person (hypostasis). Thus, the Council of Ephesus explicitly rejected Nestorianism, the Christological doctrine that Christ was two distinct persons, one divine (the Logos) and one human (Jesus), who happened to inhabit the same body.[27]\n\nTwenty years after Ephesus, the Council of Chalcedon reaffirmed the view that Jesus Christ was a single person, but at the same time declared that this one person existed \"in two complete natures\", one human and one divine.[29][116]\n\nAt times, Chalcedonian Christians have referred to the Oriental Orthodox as being monophysites-that is to say, accusing them of following the teachings of Eutyches (c. 380 - c. 456), who argued that Jesus Christ was not human at all, but only divine. Monophysitism was condemned as heretical alongside Nestorianism, and to accuse a church of being monophysite is to accuse it of falling into the opposite extreme from Nestorianism. However, the Oriental Orthodox themselves reject this description as inaccurate, having officially condemned the teachings of both Nestorius and Eutyches. They define themselves as miaphysite instead,[35][36] holding that Christ has one nature, but this nature is both human and divine.[117]\n\nWorship\n\nOriental Orthodox Christians-such as Copts, Syrians and Indians-use a breviary such as the Agpeya and Shehimo, respectively, to pray the canonical hours seven times a day while facing in the eastward direction towards Jerusalem, in anticipation of the Second Coming of Jesus; this Christian practice has its roots in Psalm 119:164, in which the prophet David prays to God seven times a day.[118]\n\nRitual purification plays a major role in worship across the autocephalous and autonomous Oriental Orthodox churches.[119][120] Before praying, they wash their hands and face in order to be clean before and to present their best to God; shoes are removed in order to acknowledge that one is offering prayer before a holy God.[121][122] In this Christian tradition, it is customary for women to wear a Christian headcovering when praying.[123]\n\nAlthough the Coptic,[124][125][126][127] Ethiopian,[128][129][130][131] and Eritrean Orthodox do not require or endorse these practices,[132][133] followers of these churches commonly abstain from pork, circumcise their males, and follow other cultural practices that are close to Old Testament practices.[134][135][136][137]\n\nThe Oriental Orthodox Churches also maintain differing compilations of the biblical canon including the Peshitta, Coptic and Orthodox Tewahedo canons, and the Armenian canon.\n\nRelationship to the Church of the East\n\nThe Assyrian Church of the East is sometimes incorrectly described as an Oriental Orthodox church,[138][139][140] though its origins lie in disputes that predated the Council of Chalcedon and it follows a different Christology from Oriental Orthodoxy. The historical Church of the East was the church of Greater Iran and declared itself separate from the state church of the Roman Empire in 424-427, years before the Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Theologically, the Church of the East was affiliated with the doctrine of Nestorianism, and thus rejected the Council of Ephesus, which declared Nestorianism heretical in 431. The Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches in fact developed as a reaction against Nestorian Christology, which emphasizes the distinctness of the human and divine natures of Christ.\n\nSee also\n\nInterparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy\n\nList of Christian denominations\n\nOriental Orthodoxy in North America\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c \"Orthodox Christian Churches\". The Pluralism Project. Harvard University. Retrieved 2020-11-25.\n\n^ Zurlo, Gina A. (2022). Global Christianity: a guide to the world's largest religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic. ISBN 978-0-310-11361-4.\n\n^ a b c d \"Orthodox churches (Oriental)\". World Council of Churches.\n\n^ Hindson & Mitchell 2013, p. 108.\n\n^ a b \"Member Churches\". Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Dicastery For Promoting Christian Unity\". christianunity.va. Dicastery For Promoting Christian Unity. Retrieved 2024-06-24.\n\n^ Winkler, Dietmar (2019). \"The Syriac Church Denominations: An Overview\". In King, Daniel (ed.). The Syriac World. Routledge. p. 119. ISBN 9781138899018.\n\n^ Brock 1999, p. 282.\n\n^ Cardin, Adele (2024-10-05). \"The Fading Light: Christianity's Struggle in its Middle Eastern Birthplace\". The Rio Times. Retrieved 2024-11-16.\n\n^ Jenkins, Phillip (January 25, 2024). \"Is this the end for Mideast Christianity?\". Baylor University. Retrieved November 15, 2024.\n\n^ \"Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century\". Pew Research Center. 2017-11-08. Retrieved 2024-11-16.\n\n^ a b Boutros Ghali 1991, pp. 1845b-1846a.\n\n^ a b Keshishian 1994, pp. 103-108.\n\n^ II, John Paul (25 May 1995). \"Ut Unum Sint: On commitment to Ecumenism\". Vatican. Retrieved 2023-02-12.\n\n^ \"Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, First Agreed Statement\". Orthodox Joint Commission. 14 December 2013. Retrieved 15 February 2024.\n\n^ \"Middle Eastern Oriental Orthodox Common Declaration - March 17, 2001\". Syriac Orthodox Resources.\n\n^ \"Dialogue with the Assyrian Church of the East and its Effect on the Dialogue with the Roman Catholic\". Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California, and Hawaii. Retrieved 2 June 2016.\n\n^ Bergoglio, Francis. \"Apostolic Journey to Egypt: Courtesy visit to H.H. Pope Tawadros II (Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Cairo - 28 April 2017)\". Vatican.\n\n^ Harden, Rachel (2007-05-16). \"Agreed on baptism in Germany\". Church Times. Archived from the original on 2022-06-25. Retrieved 2019-01-08.\n\n^ Fanning 1907.\n\n^ a b Noralla, Nora (2024-03-13). \"The Quiet and Dangerous Anti-LGBTQ+ Ideology of The Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church\". The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy -. Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ a b \"Ethiopian Orthodox Church denounces 'Western influence on homosexuality', calls for government resistance\". Cyber Power Tigray Media. Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ Roberson, Ronald G. (1995). Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Interchurch Marriages: And Other Pastoral Relationships. USCCB Publishing. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-55586-097-4.\n\n^ \"The Establishment of the Ethiopian Church\". Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b \"Arius and the Council of Nicaea\". EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b \"The Creed\". Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b stjohn (2023-06-23). \"Ecumenical Council of Ephesus\". St. John Armenian Church. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Theological Throw-Down\". The Armenian Church. 2023-08-03. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b \"The Chalcedonian Creed\". The Westminster Standard. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b III, Shenouda (1999). \"Nature of Christ\" (PDF). copticchurch.net. St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church. Retrieved 30 November 2014.\n\n^ Cyril of Alexandria (1881) [ca. 438]. From His Second Book Against the Words of Theodore. Translated by Pusey, P. E. Oxford: J. Parker and Rivingtons. Retrieved 30 November 2014 - via The Tertullian Project.\n\n^ Jenkins, Phillip (2017-07-05). \"More than 60 million Christians belong to churches that rejected the Chalcedonian Creed\". The Christian Century. Retrieved 2025-06-06. Chalcedon was widely rejected in those ancient Eastern churches that had the best claim to direct continuity from the apostolic age. In Egypt, Syria, and Armenia, hatred of Chalcedon sparked protests, riots, and even civil war. Dissident churches rejected the empire's official position, and these anti-Chalcedonian bodies claimed the support of large majorities of the population. The divisions fatally weakened the Roman Empire in the East, making possible the Muslim conquests of the seventh century.\n\n^ a b Haddon, Hazel (2012-03-24). \"Egypt's other Christians\". Ahram Online. Retrieved 2025-06-06. In 451 AD, theological disagreements led the Egyptian Church to split from most of the other churches of the time. The Egyptian church, which went on to become the Coptic Orthodox Church and to represent the majority of Egyptian Christians, disagreed with the decisions of the Chalcedon church council.\n\n^ Louth, Andrew (2011). \"Why Did the Syrians reject the Council of Chalcedon?\". In Price, Richard; Whitby, Mary (eds.). Chalcedon in Context: Church Councils 400-700. Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts. Liverpool University Press. pp. 107-116. ISBN 978-1-84631-177-2. OCLC 263994549. OL 25561373M. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b c Winkler 1997, p. 33-40.\n\n^ a b c Brock 2016, p. 45-52.\n\n^ \"Egyptian church History\". Evangelical Times. 2000-09-01. Retrieved 2025-06-06. The eastern church, in turn, was further divided. Some followed the Council of Chalcedon's teaching, which declared that Christ enjoyed distinct divine and human natures. Others embraced the heterodoxy of the Monophysites, who claimed that Christ had only a single, divine nature, albeit clad with his human nature. The Egyptian churches embraced the latter error, rejecting Chalcedon and separating from the Byzantine churches. Gradually all churches, eastern and western, lost their focus on the Bible and the gospel. The biblical tradition of Athanasius gave way to liturgy, formalism and superstition. Those who were true Christians found themselves isolated and persecuted by both Roman and Byzantine churches.\n\n^ Kirsch 1910.\n\n^ Charles, Robert H (1913). The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu: Translated from Zotenberg's Ethiopic Text, Chapter CXV: paragraph 7.\n\n^ Charles, Robert H (1913). The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu: Translated from Zotenberg's Ethiopic Text, Chapter CXXI: paragraph 3.\n\n^ Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchange in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 93.\n\n^ Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Encounters and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 93.\n\n^ Ginkel, Jan J.; Berg, Hendrika Lena Murre-van den; Lint, Theo Maarten van (2005). Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Peeters Publishers. p. 98. ISBN 978-90-429-1418-6.\n\n^ Saleeb, Demiana (2023-04-12). \"A Timeless Struggle: Copts in Egypt\". Geopolitical Monitor. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Celebrating the Freedom of Religion\". Voice of America. 2025-06-03. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"The Great Loss of the Armenian Clergy During the Armenian Genocide\". horizonweekly.ca. 2020-04-15. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"A Short Overview of the Common History\". Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese for the Eastern United States. Retrieved 2025-06-06. Oriental Christianity was literally decimated finally through the cruel representative of the Mongolian-Islamic fanaticism.\n\n^ Kazaryan, Gevorg (2020-01-01). \"ԳԵՎՈՐԳ ՂԱԶԱՐՅԱՆ ՇԻՐԱԿԱՎԱՆԻ ԺՈՂՈՎԻ ՊԱՏՄԱԿԱՆ ՆՇԱՆԱԿՈՒԹՅՈՒՆԸ\". Երևան, Գիտություն.\n\n^ Karekin, I. (1999). \"Ecumenical Trends in the Armenian Church\". The Ecumenical Review. 51 (1): 31-39. doi:10.1111/j.1758-6623.1999.tb00377.x. ISSN 1758-6623.\n\n^ \"History of Armenia by Vahan Kurkjian • Chapter 38\". penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Ecumenical Council of Florence (1438-1445)\". EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"British Orthodox Church\". gedsh.bethmardutho.org. Archived from the original on 2025-05-20. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ Anson, Peter F. (2006) [1964]. \"Jules Ferrette, Mar Julius, Bishop of Iona, and alleged Patriarchal Legate of the Syrian Jacobite Church for Western Europe\". Bishops at Large. Independent Catholic Heritage. Apocryphile press. ISBN 0-9771461-8-9.\n\n^ a b c d Brandreth, Henry R. T. (1987) [First published in 1947]. Episcopi vagantes and the Anglican Church. San Bernardino, California: Borgo Press. ISBN 978-0-89370-558-9.\n\n^ a b Kiraz, George Anton (July 2004). \"The Credentials of Mar Julius Alvares, Bishop of Ceylon, Goa and India Excluding Malabar\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 7 (2): 158. ISSN 1097-3702. Archived from the original on 2004-08-23. Retrieved 2012-11-08.\n\n^ a b Appolis, Émile (1963). \"En marge de la Séparation: les associations culturelles schismatiques\" [Margins of Separation: religious associations' schismatics]. Revue d'Histoire de l'Église de France (in French). 49 (146): 47-88. doi:10.3406/rhef.1963.1719. ISSN 2109-9502.\n\n^ \"About the church\". Niranam St. Mary's Orthodox Syrian Church. 2009. Archived from the original on 27 January 2010. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ a b c \"Why Kerala's Malankara Christian factions are in a centuries-old power struggle\". India Today. 2024-12-05. Retrieved 2025-05-24.\n\n^ a b Anson, Peter F. (2006) [1964]. \"Churches Claiming the Ferrette Succession\". Bishops at Large. Independent Catholic Heritage. Apocryphile press. ISBN 0-9771461-8-9.\n\n^ Anson, Peter F. (2006) [1964]. \"The Catholicate of the West (Catholic Apostolic Church), otherwise known as The United Orthodox Catholic Rite and The Celtic Catholic Church\". Bishops at Large. Independent Catholic Heritage. Apocryphile press. ISBN 0-9771461-8-9.\n\n^ Clarke, Peter (2004). \"Independent episcopal churches\". Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. Routledge. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-134-49970-0. As Mar Georgius (and with tites including Patriarch of Glastonbury, Apostolic Pontiff of Celtia, etc.), he was the leader of the Catholicate of the West, which became the Orthodox Church of the British Isles. Under Newman's nephew and successor, William Newman Norton, this Church was eventually brought under the legitimate jurisdiction of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Cairo in 1994. Following a common schismatic pattern in such Churches, some of its priests rejected this new alliance and split off to form the British Eparchy of the Celtic Orthodox Church, giving their allegiance to a French Primate. Both of these British Churches are tiny.\n\n^ \"Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church | History, Beliefs & Practices\". Britannica. 2025-04-16. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"About Addis Ababa\". Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"الأنبا مرقس مطران تولون ومارسيليا، فرنسا\". St-Takla.org. Retrieved 2026-10-05.\n\n^ Persson, Bertil (1990). Independent Bishops: An International Directory. Apogee Books. p. 15. ISBN 9781558883079.\n\n^ \"Metropolitan Marcos - Coptic Orthodox Church\". Retrieved 2026-10-05.\n\n^ \"Common declaration of Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Moran Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East (June 23, 1984) | John Paul II\". Vatican.\n\n^ \"Priest in dialogue group thinks Copt decision is temporary\". Aleteia - Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Declaration of the Joint International Commission Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. 1990-06-30. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ \"Common Declaration of Pope John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin I\". Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. 1996-12-13. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ Jeffrey Gros; Harding Meyer; William G. Rusch, eds. (2000). Growth in Agreement II. Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations at World Level 1982-1998. World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission.\n\n^ \"The Eritrean Orthodox Church\". CNEWA. Retrieved 2025-06-06. In July 1993, with the support of the government, the Eritrean Orthodox appealed to Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church for separation from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and autocephalous status. In early September 1993 Ethiopian Patriarch Paulos and Archbishop Philippos of Asmara sanctioned jointly the separation of their churches, while stating their desire to work closely together. On September 28, 1993, the Coptic Holy Synod responded favorably to Eritrea's request and authorized the training in Coptic monasteries of as many as ten future bishops for the Eritrean Church. In February 1994 the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches signed an agreement in Addis Ababa that reaffirmed the autocephalous status of both churches, and recognized a primacy of honor of the Coptic Church among the Oriental Orthodox churches in Africa. On June 19, 1994, Pope Shenouda ordained five new Eritrean bishops in Cairo.\n\n^ \"Press Release on the union of Coptic and British Orthodox Churches\". The British Orthodox Church within the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate. Archived from the original on 2010-11-30. Retrieved 2022-11-18.\n\n^ \"Joint announcement from the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom and the British Orthodox Church of the British Isles | The British Orthodox Church\". britishorthodox.org. Retrieved 2025-06-07.\n\n^ Ameerudheen, T. A. (2017-11-19). \"A century-old church dispute in Kerala flares up again as Supreme Court rejects plea on leadership\". Scroll.in. 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Retrieved 14 October 2013.\n\n^ \"Foreign Ministry: 89,000 minorities live in Turkey\". Today's Zaman. 15 December 2008. Archived from the original on 20 May 2011. Retrieved 16 May 2011.\n\n^ Golnaz Esfandiari (2004-12-23). \"A Look At Iran's Christian Minority\". Payvand. Retrieved 2012-03-21.\n\n^ \"The Armenian Apostolic Church\". CNEWA. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"Armenian Apostolic Church (Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin) | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1962-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"Armenian Apostolic Church (Holy See of Cilicia) | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1962-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"The Coptic Orthodox Church\". CNEWA. Retrieved 2025-12-29.\n\n^ \"Coptic Orthodox Church | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1948-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"The Eritrean Orthodox Church\". CNEWA. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 2003-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"Groups - Religious Profiles | US Religion\". The Association of Religion Data Archives (the ARDA). Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1948-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ Syrian Orthodox Churches in India, doi:10.1163/2211-2685_eco_SI.122, retrieved 2026-03-11\n\n^ \"Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1948-01-01. Retrieved 2026-03-11.\n\n^ \"The Syrian Orthodox Church\". CNEWA. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ \"Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1961-01-01. Retrieved 2025-12-28.\n\n^ St. Maurice and St. Verena Coptic Orthodox Church - Divine Liturgy on YouTube\n\n^ \"The Transfiguration: Our Past and Our Future\". Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles.\n\n^ a b c d e Youssef, Andrew (2022-11-19). Oriental Orthodoxy Unveiled. Agora University Press. ISBN 978-1-950831-39-5.\n\n^ \"Sacraments of Holy Matrimony\". CopticChurch.net. Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ \"Mathrimony\". St. Mary's Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ \"Holy Matrimony - Պսակ | Armenian Apostolic Church\". Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ III, H. H. Pope Shenouda (2004-05-13). \"Coptic Orthodox Church Formally Condemns Homosexuality, Ordination of Homosexuals and Same-Sex Marriages\". Coptic Orthodox Metropolis of the Southern United States. Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ Itai, Daniel (2024-03-07). \"Ethiopia's largest church condemns LGBTQ community\". Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News. Retrieved 2026-09-13.\n\n^ a b \"Priesthood (Holy Orders) in the Holy Syriac Orthodox Church\". OurSaints.org. Retrieved 2026-06-29.\n\n^ \"Armenian Apostolic Church Beliefs: The Complete Guide\". The Eastern Church. Retrieved 2026-06-29.\n\n^ \"Sacramental Rites in the Coptic Orthodox Church by H.G. Bishop Mettaous\". www.copticchurch.net. Retrieved 2026-09-12.\n\n^ \"Chalcedonians\". TheFreeDictionary. Retrieved June 11, 2016.\n\n^ \"Council of Chalcedon\". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2025-06-06.\n\n^ Davis 1990, p. 342.\n\n^ \"Prayers of the Church\". Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Archived from the original on 25 July 2020. Retrieved 25 July 2020.\n\n^ Bradley, Ian (2 November 2012). Water: A Spiritual History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4411-6767-5.\n\n^ H. Bulzacchelli, Richard (2006). Judged by the Law of Freedom: A History of the Faith-works Controversy, and a Resolution in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. University Press of America. p. 19. ISBN 9780761835011.\n\n^ Cecil, Lady William (1906). A Sketch of Egyptian History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Methuen. p. 399. Prayers 7 times a day are enjoined, and the most strict among the Copts recite one of more of the Psalms of David each time they pray. They always wash their hands and faces before devotions, and turn to the East.\n\n^ Kosloski, Philip (16 October 2017). \"Did you know Muslims pray in a similar way to some Christians?\". Aleteia. Retrieved 25 July 2020.\n\n^ Duffner, Jordan Denari (13 February 2014). \"Wait, I thought that was a Muslim thing?!\". Commonweal. Retrieved 26 July 2020.\n\n^ Ibn Assal, Al Safy (1996). \"The Collection Of Safey Ibn Al-Assal\" (PDF). stmary-church.com. Retrieved 2025-07-19. In the new Testament, circumcision (of the flesh) is a custom/tradition not a commandment because it already has been replace with baptism. In the old testament circumcision had to be performed on the eighth day after birth to be legal, but in the new such is not required.\n\n^ Ibn Assal, Al Safy (1996). \"The Collection Of Safey Ibn Al-Assal\" (PDF). stmary-church.com. Retrieved 2025-07-19. About food, nothing is forbidden except those which were forbidden by the Apostles in the Book of Acts and their Cannons in which they said: “That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.”.\n\n^ \"Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States - Q&A\". suscopts.org. Retrieved 2025-07-18.\n\n^ Al-Makari, Athanasius (July 2002). معجم المصطلحات الكنسية (in Arabic). p. 29. Retrieved 23 July 2025. إلا أنه قد جرت العادة عند الأقباطحتى اليوم أن يتم ختان الذكر قبل تعميده بغية منفعة صحية، وليس تتميمًا لشريعة دينية. وتذكر قوانين البابا كيرلس ابن لقلق (1235-1243 م) هذا الأمر\n\n^ Bausi, Alessandro (2022). \"The Confession of King Gälawdewos (r. 1540-1559): A Sixteenth-Century Ethiopian Monophysite Document against Jesuit Proselytism\". ResearchGate. And concerning circumcision, we are not circumcised as the Jews, because we know the words of Paul the spring of wisdom, who saith, 'Circumcision availeth not, and uncircumcision availeth not, but rather a new creature, which is, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.' And again he saith to the men of Corinth, 'He that hath received circumcision, let him not receive uncircumcision.' All the books of the doctrine of Paul are in our hands, and teach us concerning circumcision and uncircumcision. But the circumcision that is practised amongst us is according to the custom of the country, like the tattooing of the face in Ethiopia and Nubia and the piercing of the ear amongst the Indians. And what we do (we do) not in observance of the Law of Moses, but according to the custom of men.\n\n^ Abir, Mordechai (28 October 2013). Ethiopia and the Red Sea: The Rise and Decline of the Solomonic Dynasty and Muslim European Rivalry in the Region. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-28090-0.\n\n^ Bausi, Alessandro (2022). \"The Confession of King Gälawdewos (r. 1540-1559): A Sixteenth-Century Ethiopian Monophysite Document against Jesuit Proselytism\". ResearchGate. And concerning the eating of swine's flesh we are not prohibited from it, as the Jews are, by observance of the Law. Him also who eats thereof we do not abhor, and him who eats not thereof we do not compel to eat, as our Father Paul wrote to the Church of Rome, saying, 'Let not him who eateth despise him who eateth not; and, God receiveth all'. The Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, all is clean to the clean, but it is evil for a man to eat with offence. And Matthew the Evangelist saith, 'There is nothing that can defile the man except that which cometh forth from his mouth, but that which is in the belly goeth forth and is contained in the draught, and is cast out and poured forth; and (thus) He maketh all meats clean'.\n\n^ Daoud, Marcos (2015) [1959]. The Liturgy of the Ethiopian Church. Kingston, Jamaica: Ethiopian Orthodox Church. p. 41. ISBN 151886466X. Henceforth, let us not be circumcised like the Jews. We know that He who had to fulfil the law and the prophets has already come.\n\n^ \"Gizret - ግዝረት [Circumcision]\". 9 January 2022.\n\n^ Pope Shenouda III (1985). On Priesthood. Retrieved 23 July 2025.\n\n^ Appiah, Anthony; Gates, Henry Louis (2005). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press. p. 566. ISBN 978-0-19-517055-9. It emphasizes the dietary laws and rules of circumcision found in the Old Testament of the Bible, and in addition to the Christian Sunday Sabbath, Ethiopia Christians observe the traditional Jewish Saturday Sabbath, as do the Ethiopian Jews.\n\n^ Ian Bradley (2 November 2012). Water: A Spiritual History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4411-6767-5.\n\n^ H. Bulzacchelli, Richard (2006). Judged by the Law of Freedom: A History of the Faith-works Controversy, and a Resolution in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. University Press of America. p. 19. ISBN 9780761835011. The Ethiopian and Coptic Churches distinguishes between clean and unclean meats, observes days of ritual purification, and keeps a kind of dual Sabbath on both Saturday and Sunday.\n\n^ N. Stearns, Peter (2008). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World. Oxford University Press. p. 179. ISBN 9780195176322. Uniformly practiced by Jews, Muslims, and the members of Coptic, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, male circumcision remains prevalent in many regions of the world, particularly Africa, South and East Asia, Oceania, and Anglosphere countries.\n\n^ Bryner, Erich (2004). \"Die orthodoxen Kirchen von 1274 bis 1700\" (PDF). www.eva-leipzig.de. Retrieved 2023-02-12. S. 114 ff: \"Die Orientalischen Orthodoxen Kirchen\" (miaphysitische und dyophysitische Kirchen)\n\n^ \"The Assyrian Church\". World Council of Churches. World Council of Churches. Retrieved 27 May 2026.\n\n^ artin Tamcke: Orientalische orthodoxe Nationalkirchen. In: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). 4. Auflage. Band 6, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, Sp. 653\n\nSources\n\nBetts, Robert B. (1978). Christians in the Arab East: A Political Study (2nd rev. ed.). Athens: Lycabettus Press. ISBN 9780804207966.\n\nBoutros Ghali, Mirrit (1991). \"Oriental Orthodox Churches\". In Atiya, Aziz Suryal (ed.). The Coptic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-897035-6. OCLC 22808960.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1999). \"The Christology of the Church of the East in the Synods of the Fifth to Early Seventh Centuries: Preliminary Considerations and Materials\". Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity. New York and London: Garland Publishing. pp. 281-298. ISBN 978-0-8153-3071-4.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2016). \"Miaphysite, not Monophysite!\". Cristianesimo Nella Storia. 37 (1): 45-52. ISBN 9788815261687.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nCharles, Robert H. (2007) [1916]. The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu: Translated from Zotenberg's Ethiopic Text. Merchantville, NJ: Evolution Publishing. ISBN 9781889758879.\n\nDavis, Leo Donald (1990). The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology. Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-5616-7.\n\nFanning, William Henry Windsor (1907). \"Baptism\" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nHindson, Ed; Mitchell, Dan (2013). The Popular Encyclopedia of Church History. Harvest House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7369-4806-7.\n\nKeshishian, Aram (1994). \"The Oriental Orthodox Churches\". The Ecumenical Review. 46 (1): 103-108. doi:10.1111/j.1758-6623.1994.tb02911.x. ISSN 0013-0796.\n\nKirsch, Johann Peter (1910). \"Pope St. Hormisdas\" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nKrikorian, Mesrob K. (2010). Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Christology in the Tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Peter Lang. ISBN 9783631581216.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nOstrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (1997). \"Miaphysitism: A New Term for Use in the History of Dogma and in Ecumenical Theology\". The Harp. 10 (3): 33-40.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches in America\n\nCommon Declaration of Pope John Paul II and HH Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (archived 19 July 2011)\n\nJoint Declarations Between the Syriac Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-oriental-orthodox-churches"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 8236}, {"slug": "reference-council-of-seleucia-ctesiphon", "title": "Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, also called the Council of Mar Isaac, met in AD 410 in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Sasanian Empire. Convened by King Yazdegerd I (399-421), it organized the Christians of his empire into a single structured church, which became known as the Church...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, also called the Council of Mar Isaac, met in AD 410 in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Sasanian Empire. Convened by King Yazdegerd I (399-421), it organized the Christians of his empire into a single structured church, which became known as the Church of the East. The Council is often compared to Constantine's Edict of Milan from approximately a century earlier.[1] The events of this council are documented in the Synodicon Orientale.\n\nPreviously, the Persian state persecuted those Christians, fearing that their loyalty lay with the Roman Empire, which under Constantine the Great had legalized Christianity and with which the Sassanid Empire was repeatedly at war. Persecution had been most severe under Shapur II (309-379).[2] Shapur I (241-272), the second Shahan-shah (king of kings) of the Sasanian dynasty had advanced as far as Antioch in 260, and both he and Shapur II deported eastward much of the population of the invaded territories to strengthen the Persian economy.\n\nYazdegerd I adopted a policy of engagement with the Roman Emperor in Constantinople and with the Christian minority in his own empire. In 409, he allowed the Christians to worship openly and to have churches. Zoroastrianism continued to be the official religion, and apostasy from it was punishable by death.[3]\n\nAt the suggestion of a bishop from the Roman side of the frontier, a council of bishops was called to organize the Persian Christians as a single Church, with a single bishop in each diocese and with one bishop to act as their head collectively throughout his empire (See Maruthas of Martyropolis).\n\nEstablishment of the Church of the East\n\nThe Council, presided over by Mar Isaac, archbishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, arranged the Persian Church in ecclesiastical provinces, with the bishops in each province grouped around a metropolitan, the arrangement approved by the First Council of Nicaea (325) in the civil provinces of the Roman Empire.\n\nThe archbishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital city, who is referred to in the acts of the council as the Grand Metropolitan, was to hold authority throughout the Church and for that reason was called (probably only from a later date) the Catholicos.\n\nThe 410 council set up six provinces, which became known as the interior provinces, according as other provinces, referred to as exterior provinces, were recognized further afield within the empire and even beyond it.\n\nIn order of precedence, the six interior provinces were:\n\nSeleucia-Ctesiphon, in what is now central Iraq\n\nBeth Lapat, in western Iran\n\nNisibis, on the border between today's Turkey and Iraq\n\nPrat de Maishan, Basra, southern Iraq\n\nArbela, Erbil, Kurdistan region of Iraq\n\nKarka de Beth Slokh, Kirkuk, northeastern Iraq[4][5][6][7]\n\nThe council marked a major milestone in the history of the Church of the East and of Christianity in Asia in general.\n\nUncertain early example of the Filioque\n\nThe synod also declared its adherence to the decisions of the First Council of Nicaea and adopted a form of the Nicene Creed.[8] The creed is found in two different recensions, each of which is recorded in much later manuscripts. The first recension is East Syriac and comes from Church of the East sources. The second is West Syriac and comes from Syriac Orthodox sources.[9] The East Syriac recension contains: \"And in the Holy Spirit\"[10] while the West Syriac recension contains: \"And we confess the living and Holy Spirit, the living Paraclete, who is from the Father and the Son\".[11][10] There has long been controversy among scholars about the relation between the two texts. The development of the Persian creed is difficult to trace, since there were several recensions prior to 410.[12] The first recension is textually closer to the original Nicene Creed. On the other hand, some scholars claim that the second represents the original text of the Seleucia-Ctesiphon Council, and that the words \"who is from the Father and the Son\" in the second recension are the earliest example of the Filioque clause.[13] \n\nSee also\n\nCatholicos\n\nDioceses of the Church of the East to 1318\n\nList of patriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nPatriarchs of the Church of the East\n\nSynod of Beth Lapat\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nReferences\n\n^ MTS, Roselin Aravackal (2014-01-01). \"THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE PATRIARCHATE IN THE CHURCH OF THE EAST OVER ITS FIRST FOUR NATIONAL SYNODS\". Asian Horizons. Retrieved 2022-06-17.\n\n^ Wilhelm Baum, Dietmar W. Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History (Routledge 2003), pp. 7-14\n\n^ Wigram 1910, p. 89 questionable source.\n\n^ Canon XXI of the council\n\n^ Baum and Winkler (2003), pp. 15-16\n\n^ Jean-Baptiste Chabot, Synodicon orientale ou Recueil de synodes nestoriens (Paris 1902), pp. 271-273\n\n^ T.J. Lamy, \"Le concile tenu à Séleucie-Ctésiphon en 410\" in Compte rendu du troisième Congrès scientifique international des catholiques tenu à Bruxelles du 5 au huit septembre 1894. Deuxième section : Sciences religeuses (Brussels 1895), pp. 250-276\n\n^ Wigram 1910, pp. 97-100; Williams 2013, p. 390.\n\n^ Brock 1985, p. 133; Panicker 2002, p. 58.\n\n^ a b Brock 1985, p. 133, quoted in Panicker (2002, pp. 58-59)\n\n^ Price & Gaddis 2005, p. 193: \"We acknowledge the living and holy Spirit, the living Paraclete, who [is] from the Father and the Son.\"\n\n^ Williams 2013, p. 388.\n\n^ Williams 2013, pp. 388, 390; Price & Gaddis 2005, p. 193.\n\nSources\n\nBrock, Sebastian (1999) [chapter first published in 1985]. \"The Christology of the Church in the East in the synods of the fifth to early seventh centuries: preliminary considerations and materials\". In Ferguson, Everett (ed.). Doctrinal diversity: varieties of early Christianity. Recent studies in early Christianity. Vol. 4. New York: Garland. pp. 126, 133 in 1985 original (pp. 282, 289 in 1999 faximile). ISBN 978-0-81533071-4.\n\nChabot, Jean-Baptiste (1902). Synodicon orientale ou recueil de synodes nestoriens (PDF). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.\n\nPanicker, Mathunny John (2002). \"Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon 410\". The person of Jesus Christ in the writings of Juhanon Gregorius Abu'l Faraj commonly called Bar Ebraya. Studien zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte. Vol. 4. Münster [u.a.]: LIT Verlag. pp. 58-59. ISBN 978-3-82583390-9.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410563.\n\nPrice, Richard; Gaddis, Michael, eds. (2005). The acts of the Council of Chalcedon. Translated texts for historians. Vol. 45. Translated by Price, Richard; Gaddis, Michael. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN 978-0-85323039-7.\n\nRenard, John (2011). Islam and Christianity: theological themes in comparative perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52025508-1.\n\nWigram, William A. (1910). An introduction to the history of the Assyrian Church, or, The Church of the Sassanid Persian Empire, 100-640 A.D. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press (published 2004). ISBN 1-59333-103-7. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - 1910 first edition at the Internet Archive\n\nWilliams, Daniel H. (2013). \"The evolution of pro-Nicene theology in the Church of the East\". In Tang, Li; Winkler, Dietmar W. (eds.). From the Oxus River to the Chinese shores: studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. 3rd International Conference on the Church of the East in China and Central Asia, June 4-9, 2009 in Salzburg, Austria. Orientalia-patristica-oecumenica. Vol. 5. Zürich; Berlin: LIT Verlag. pp. 387-395. ISBN 9783643903297.\n\nCurtin, D.P. (2021). Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, under Mar Isaac 410 AD. Philadelphia, PA: Dalcassian Publishing Company. ISBN 9781088234327."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-council-of-seleucia-ctesiphon"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1208}, {"slug": "reference-jacob-of-nisibis", "title": "Jacob of Nisibis", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "Jacob of Nisibis (Syriac: ܝܥܩܘܒ ܢܨܝܒܢܝܐ, Yaʿqôḇ Nṣîḇnāyâ; Greek: Ἅγιος Ἰάκωβος Ἐπίσκοπος Μυγδονίας; Armenian: Յակոբ Մծբնայ Yakob Mtsbnay), also known as Jacob of Mygdonia,[6][note 1] Jacob the Great,[7] and James of Nisibis, was a hermit, grazer and the bishop of Nisibis until his death.[8]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nJacob of Nisibis\n\nHead reliquary of St. Jacob of Nisibis, Hildesheim\n\nBishop of Nisibis\n\nBornNisibis, Roman Empire\n(modern-day Nusaybin, Mardin, Turkey)\n\nDied337/338[1] or 350[2][3][4][5]\nNisibis, Roman Empire\n(modern-day Nusaybin, Mardin, Turkey)\n\nVenerated inChurch of the East\nEastern Orthodox Church\nOriental Orthodox Church\nEastern Catholic Churches\nRoman Catholic Church\n\nMajor shrineChurch of Saint Jacob of Nisibis\n\nFeast\n\nFriday after the First Sunday of Qaitha (Church of the East)\n\n13 January & 31 October (Eastern Orthodox Church)\n\n26 January (Ethiopian Orthodox)\n\n15 July (Syriac Orthodox Church & Roman Catholic Church)\n\n18 Tobi (Coptic Orthodox Church)\n\nJacob of Nisibis (Syriac: ܝܥܩܘܒ ܢܨܝܒܢܝܐ, Yaʿqôḇ Nṣîḇnāyâ; Greek: Ἅγιος Ἰάκωβος Ἐπίσκοπος Μυγδονίας; Armenian: Յակոբ Մծբնայ Yakob Mtsbnay), also known as Jacob of Mygdonia,[6][note 1] Jacob the Great,[7] and James of Nisibis, was a hermit, grazer and the bishop of Nisibis until his death.[8]\n\nHe was lauded as the \"Moses of Mesopotamia\", and was the spiritual father of the renowned writer and theologian Ephrem the Syrian.[7] Jacob was present at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea, and is venerated as a saint by the Church of the East, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, and Eastern Catholic Churches.\n\nBiography\n\nJacob was the son of prince Gefal,[3] and was born in the city of Nisibis in Mesopotamia in the 3rd century AD.[7] It is claimed that he was a relative of Gregory the Illuminator.[7] Jacob earned the title \"Confessor of the Faith\" for his suffering during persecution by Emperor Maximian.[7] Jacob became an anchorite in c. 280 in the mountains near Nisibis where, according to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, he survived on herbs and fruits, and chose to wear no clothes, build shelter, or light fires for warmth.[9] Jacob became famous, and received visits from Sheria, bishop of Arbela (r. 304-316), according to the Chronicle of Arbela.[10]\n\nIt is stated in legend that Jacob resolved to climb Mount Qardu, traditionally believed to be the resting place of Noah's Ark, and recover a fragment of the ark upon hearing from the hermit Maroukeh that local people doubted the Great Flood.[11] Jacob ascended the mountain and rested close to the summit; in his sleep, an angel placed a fragment of the ark close to him, and instructed him to awake.[11] He brought the relic to the hermit Maroukeh and, according to Jacob's hagiography, a sacred spring appeared where he had rested, reputed to have healing properties.[11]\n\nA number of miracles are credited to Jacob by Theodoret in Historia Religiosa (Religious History), in which he had a boulder explode beside a Persian judge who had given an unjust judgement.[12] Also, in one incident, Jacob cursed boastful, promiscuous women by a spring so that their hair became white, and the spring disappeared.[13] The women subsequently repented, and the spring returned; however, the women's hair remained white.[13] Additionally, a group of people attempted to deceive him whereby they asked for money to fund the burial of a man they had lain down and covered with a sheet with the illusion of death; consequently, the man died, and the people repented and thus the man was resurrected as a result of Jacob's prayers.[13]\n\nDisagreement exists as to the date of his consecration as bishop of Nisibis as it is argued it took place in c. 300,[9] and he is recorded as the city's first bishop by Ephrem the Syrian.[14] However, Jacob is credited as the successor of Babu, the first bishop of Nisibis (r. 300-309), by the Catholic Encyclopedia,[15] who Ephrem states was in fact Jacob's successor.[14] In his Chronography, Elijah of Nisibis states that Jacob was consecrated bishop in 308.[10]\n\nThe Chronicle of Edessa states that he constructed the first church in Nisibis in c. 313 - c. 320.[1] Miles, Bishop of Susa, is said to have contributed a large quantity of silk from Adiabene to the church's construction.[7] The foundation of the School of Nisibis is also attributed to Jacob.[13] Jacob attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and opposed Arius.[1] Ephrem purportedly accompanied Jacob to the council; this, however, is considered apocryphal.[16] Jacob attended the funeral of Metrophanes of Byzantium in 326.[6]\n\nJacob was present at the siege of Nisibis by Shapur II, Shah of Iran, in 337/338,[note 2] and according to Theodoret, with encouragement from the city's population and Ephrem, Jacob ascended the walls and prayed for the city, and cursed the besiegers.[17] The Martyrologium Hieronymianum relates that he died on 15 July, the thirtieth day of the siege, according to the Chronicle of 724.[18] Gennadius and Ephrem record that Jacob was buried within the walls of Nisibis.[18] Theodoret adds that the Iranian army was afflicted by a swarm of gnats and flies summoned by Jacob, and Shapur II subsequently abandoned the siege.[17]\n\nJacob is counted amongst the signatories of the Council of Antioch in 341;[4] however, his presence at the council is unrecorded in other sources.[7] In 350, according to the Chronicon Paschale, Jacob helped defend Nisibis against Shapur II again, and as he was wearing the imperial regalia, was confused for Emperor Constantius II.[19] Shapur II challenged him to fight outside the city, where it was revealed he was an apparition and the Iranian army withdrew as a result.[19]\n\nRelics\n\nThe Tomb of Saint Jacob of Nisibis located at the newly-excavated Church of Saint Jacob of Nisibis in Turkey.\n\nThe fragment of Noah's Ark discovered by Jacob was later brought to Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Armenia.[11]\n\nTheodoret relates that the Jacob's bones were transferred from Nisibis to Edessa following the city's cession to Iran on 22 August 363.[20][21] His relics were later moved to Constantinople in 970,[22] according to the Menologion of the Armenians at Venice.\n\nFragments of the Jacob's skull were donated to Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany in 1367 by Lippold von Steinberg after the Battle of Dinklar.[23]\n\nIn 2018, his relics were brought from the Armenian Church of Saint George in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, to Canada, where they were taken to the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator in Montreal on 17 June, and the Armenian Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto on 24 June.[24]\n\nWorks\n\nSeveral homilies previously attributed to Jacob by Gennadius of Massilia and others are now understood to be the work of Aphraates.[1] The misidentification arose from Aphraates' assumption of the name Jacob upon becoming bishop.[25] Letters and canons, as well as other works, formerly attributed to Jacob are known to be written in a later period.[1]\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\n^ Antiochia Mygdonia was a Seleucid colony in ancient Mesopotamia. In the classical Roman period it was known as Nisibis. Today it is the Turkish town of Nusaybin.\n\n^ From 337-350, Shapur II attacked Nisibis on three occasions, as it was the great city of Northern Mesopotamia and the bulwark of the eastern provinces: \n\nthe first Siege of Nisibis took place in 338;\n\nthe second in 346;\n\nand the third in 350, lasting three months.\n\nCitations\n\n^ a b c d e Bundy (2013), p. 602\n\n^ January 13/January 26. Orthodox Calendar (PRAVOSLAVIE.RU).\n\n^ a b St James the Bishop of Nisibis. Orthodox Church in America - Lives of the Saints.\n\n^ a b Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould (M.A.). \"S. JAMES, B. OF NISIBIS. (CIRC. A.D. 350.).\" In: The Lives of the Saints. Volume the Seventh: July - Part I. London: John C. Nimmo, 1898. pp. 351-357.\n\n^ Frend (1972), p. 8\n\n^ a b Great Synaxaristes: (in Greek) Ὁ Ἅγιος Ἰάκωβος Ἐπίσκοπος Μυγδονίας. 31 Οκτωβρίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.\n\n^ a b c d e f g Venables (1911)\n\n^ Jotischky, Andrew (2011). A hermit's cookbook: monks, food and fasting in the Middle Ages. London New York, NY: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-2393-1.\n\n^ a b Hinson (1995), pp. 198-199\n\n^ a b Vööbus (1951), p. 28\n\n^ a b c d Our Patron Saint James of Nisibis. Armenian Apostolic Church\n\n^ Brown (1971), pp. 87-88\n\n^ a b c d St. James (Jacob) bishop of Nisibis, July 15. Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch: Archdiocese of the Western U.S.\n\n^ a b Bundy (2000), p. 191\n\n^ Vailhé (1911)\n\n^ Mathews (2006), p. 162\n\n^ a b Lightfoot (1988), p. 124\n\n^ a b Burgess, pp. 8-9\n\n^ a b Whitby (1998), p. 196\n\n^ Harvey (2005), p. 124\n\n^ NISIBIS. Encyclopaedia Iranica\n\n^ Cross & Livingstone (2005), p. 861\n\n^ Kunstschätze erhalten. Bistum Hildesheim (in German)\n\n^ \"Holy Relics of Sourb Hagop of Mtsbin (St. Jacob of Nisibis) in Montreal\". Hayern Aysor. 21 June 2018. Retrieved 6 September 2018.\n\n^ Albert (1907)\n\nBibliography\n\nAlbert, Francis X.E. (1907). \"Aphraates\". The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\nBrown, Peter (1971). \"The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity\". The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 61. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. pp. 80-101.\n\nBundy, David (2000). \"Vision for the City: Nisibis in Ephrem's Hymns on Nicomedia\". Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice. Princeton University Press. pp. 189-206.\n\nBundy, David (2013). \"Jacob of Nisibis\". Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson. Routledge. p. 602.\n\nBurgess, R. W. (1988). \"The Dates of the First Siege of Nisibis and the Death of James of Nisibis\". Byzantion, Vol. 69, No. 1. Peeters Publishers. pp. 7-17.\n\nCross, Frank Leslie; Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press.\n\nFrend, W. H. C. (1972). \"The Monks and the Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century\". Past & Present, No. 54. Oxford University Press. pp. 3-24.\n\nHarvey, Susan Ashbrook (2005). \"Julian Saba and Early Christianity\". Wilderness: Essays in Honour of Frances Young. A&C Black. pp. 120-134.\n\nHinson, E. Glenn (1995). The Church Triumphant: A History of Christianity Up to 1300. Mercer University Press.\n\nLightfoot, C. S. (1988). \"Facts and Fiction: The Third Siege of Nisibis (A.D. 350)\". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 37, H. 1. Franz Steiner Verlag. pp. 105-125.\n\nMathews, Edward G. (2006). \"A First Glance at the Armenian Prayers Attributed to Surb Eprem Xorin Asorwoy\". Worship Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East. St Vladimir's Seminary Press. pp. 161-175.\n\nVailhé, Siméon (1911). \"Nisibis\". The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n Venables, Edmund (1911). \"Jacobus, bp. of Nisibis\" . In Wace, Henry; Piercy, William C. (eds.). Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century (3rd ed.). London: John Murray.\n\nVööbus, Arthur (1951). \"The Origin of Monasticism in Mesopotamia\". Church History, Vol. 20, No. 4. Cambridge University Press. pp. 27-37.\n\nWhitby, Michael (1998). \"Deus Nobiscum: Christianity, Warfare and Morale in Late Antiquity\". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, No. 71. Wiley. pp. 191-208."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-jacob-of-nisibis"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1782}, {"slug": "reference-f-murray-abraham", "title": "F. Murray Abraham", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "F. Murray Abraham (born Murray Abraham; October 24, 1939) is an American actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he has received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award, four Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. He...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "F. Murray Abraham\n\nAbraham in 2026\n\nBornMurray Abraham\n (1939-10-24) October 24, 1939\nPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.\n\nOccupationActor\n\nYears active1965-present\n\nSpouse\nKate Hannan\n ​ ​(m. 1962; died 2022)​\n\nChildren2\n\nAwardsFull list\n\nF. Murray Abraham (born Murray Abraham; October 24, 1939) is an American actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he has received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award, four Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. He came to prominence for his portrayal of Antonio Salieri in the drama film Amadeus (1984) for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor.\n\nAbraham made his Broadway debut in the 1968 play The Man in the Glass Booth. He received an Obie Award for Outstanding Performance for his roles in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1984) and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2011). He returned to Broadway in the revival of Terrence McNally's comedy It's Only a Play (2014), receiving a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play nomination.\n\nHe has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men (1976), Scarface (1983), Amadeus (1984), The Name of the Rose (1986), An Innocent Man (1989), Last Action Hero (1993), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Dillinger and Capone (1995), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), Finding Forrester (2000), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Isle of Dogs (2018) and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019).\n\nHe was a regular cast member on the Showtime drama series Homeland (2012-2018), which earned him two nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. He also acted in Louie (2011-2014), Mythic Quest (2020-2021), Moon Knight (2022) and The White Lotus (2022), with the latter earning him nominations for a Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nAbraham was born Murray Abraham on October 24, 1939;[1][2][3][4] in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Fahrid \"Fred\" Abraham,[5] an automotive mechanic, and his wife Josephine (née Stello; 1915-2012),[6][7][8][9] His father emigrated with his Assyrian family from Muqlus, a small village in the Valley of the Christians within Ottoman Syria (now in the Talkalakh District of Homs Governorate, Syria), at age five;[10][11] his paternal grandfather was a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.[3][12][13] His mother, one of 14 children, was Italian American and the daughter of an Italian immigrant who worked in the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania.[3] He had two younger brothers, Robert and Jack, who were killed in separate car accidents.[5]\n\nAbraham was raised in El Paso, Texas. Murray and his two younger brothers were altar boys in the St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in El Paso.[12][13] He attended Vilas Grammar School, and graduated from El Paso High School in 1958.[14] He was a gang member during his teenage years.[3] In El Paso, Abraham worked in the Farah Clothing factory owned by a Lebanese American family[15] before launching a career in acting.[16] He attended Texas Western College (later named University of Texas at El Paso), where he was given the best actor award by Alpha Psi Omega for his portrayal of the Indian Nocona in Comanche Eagle during the 1959-60 season.[17] He attended the University of Texas at Austin, then studied acting under Uta Hagen at HB Studio[18] in New York City. He secured several backstage jobs before making his professional debut.[19]\n\nAbraham added \"F.\" to his stage name in honor of his father, Fahrid.[20] He has stated that \"Murray Abraham just doesn't seem to say anything. It just is another name, so I thought I'd frame it\".[2]\n\nCareer\n\n1965-1978: Early roles\n\nAbraham began his professional acting career on the stage, debuting in a Los Angeles production of Ray Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit in 1965.[21] He made his Broadway debut in the 1968 play The Man in the Glass Booth. He made his film debut as an usher in the George C. Scott comedy They Might Be Giants (1971). He can be seen as one of the undercover police officers along with Al Pacino in Sidney Lumet's Serpico (1973) and in television roles including the bad guy in one fourth-season episode of Kojak (\"The Godson\"). His early film roles include small parts as a cabdriver in the theatrical version of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), a mechanic in the theatrical version of Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1975). He also played a police officer in the Alan J. Pakula Watergate film All the President's Men (1976), and acted in the comedy films The Ritz (1976) opposite Rita Moreno and The Big Fix (1978) alongside Richard Dreyfuss.\n\nBy the mid-1970s, he also had steady employment doing commercials and voice-overs. Most notably, he played \"the leaf\", one of four costumed characters, in television and print commercials for Fruit of the Loom underwear.[22] In 1978, he gave up this work. Frustrated with the lack of substantial roles, he said: \"No one was taking my acting seriously. I figured if I didn't do it, then I'd have no right to the dreams I've always had.\" His wife, Kate Hannan, went to work as an assistant and Abraham became a \"house husband\". As he described it: \"[S]he was paying the bills and I swallowed my Tex-Mex macho-ism and learned a little humility. It was a harsh lesson, but an important one, good lesson.\"[13]\n\n1983-1986: Breakthrough and acclaim\n\nAbraham gained greater prominence when he appeared as drug dealer Omar Suárez in the gangster film Scarface (1983). Then, in 1984, he played envious composer Antonio Salieri in the Academy Award for Best Picture-winning Amadeus (1984), directed by Miloš Forman. Abraham won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role, an award for which his co-star in the film Tom Hulce, playing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, had also been nominated. He also won a Golden Globe Award, among other awards, and his role in the film remains his most famous.\n\nAbraham's relatively low-profile film career subsequent to his Academy Award win has been considered an example of the \"Oscar jinx\". According to film critic Leonard Maltin, professional failure following an early success is referred to in Hollywood circles as the \"F. Murray Abraham syndrome.\"[23] Abraham rejected this notion and told Maltin, \"The Oscar is the single most important event of my career. I have dined with kings, shared equal billing with my idols, lectured at Harvard and Columbia. If this is a jinx, I'll take two.\" In the same interview, Abraham said, \"Even though I won the Oscar, I can still take the subway in New York, and nobody recognizes me. Some actors might find that disconcerting, but I find it refreshing.\"\n\nAbraham also joined The Mirror Theater Ltd's Mirror Repertory Company in 1984. He joined MRC the week after winning his Oscar for Best Actor for his work in Amadeus because he wanted to work with MRC Artist-in-Residence Geraldine Page (to whom he would eventually present her own Academy Award the following year) and would star opposite her in MRC's The Madwoman of Chaillot.[24]\n\nFollowing Amadeus, he made many stage appearances, starring in Shakespearean productions such as Othello and Richard III. He appeared in other plays by the likes of Samuel Beckett and Gilbert and Sullivan and played the lead in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (for which he received an Obie Award). He also gave notable performances as Pozzo in Mike Nichols's production of Waiting for Godot and Malvolio in Twelfth Night for the New York Shakespeare Festival. His next film role was in The Name of the Rose (1986), in which he played Bernardo Gui, nemesis to Sean Connery's William of Baskerville. In its DVD commentary, the director of the film, Jean-Jacques Annaud, described Abraham as an \"egomaniac\" on the set, who considered himself more important than Connery because Connery did not have an Oscar.[25] Despite the on-set tensions, the film was a critical[26] and commercial success.\n\n1989-2000: Established actor\n\nAfter the release of The Name of the Rose, Abraham tired of appearing as villains and said he wanted to return to his background in comedy.[27] From May 10 through July 14, 1991, Abraham portrayed the title character in American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) production of King Lear, directed by Adrian Hall, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[28] In 1994, Abraham portrayed Roy Cohn in the first Broadway production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America at the Walter Kerr Theater, replacing Ron Leibman in the role.\n\nOver the next decade or so, Abraham had fewer prominent roles, but he did have substantial supporting roles in Peter Yates' An Innocent Man (1989), Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995), and Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester (2000), where he again played the nemesis to Connery. He played Ahdar Ru'afo, the villain in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998). He had a significant role in Brian De Palma's adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), but chose not to be credited due to a contract dispute.[3] He continued his association with classical music by narrating the plot summaries of the operas of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle in the 1990 PBS broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, to the largest viewing audience of the Ring Cycle in history, conducted by James Levine.\n\nIn the 1997/98 Broadway season, he starred in the new chamber musical Triumph of Love opposite Betty Buckley, based on Marivaux's classic comedy. The production did not find a large audience, running 85 performances after its pre-opening preview period.[29] He has also taught theater at Brooklyn College.[30]\n\n2001-present: Career resurgence\n\n In 2001, Abraham played Cyrus Kriticos in the supernatural horror film Thirteen Ghosts. In 2008 he starred in Shark Swarm, a film in the Maneater film series, as Professor Bill Girdler. Abraham played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice for the Off-Broadway Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) in March 2007, which was performed at the Duke Theater in New York and also at the Swan Theater, part of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He reprised this role in February 2011, when he replaced Al Pacino in the Public Theater's production.\n\nAbraham was the primary narrator for the PBS series Nature between 2007 and 2010, narrating 32 episodes (plus one more in 2013). A 2009 guest appearance on Saving Grace began a new phase of Abraham's career, wherein he became gradually more prolific onscreen. Further guest appearances include roles on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Louie, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as a recurring role on The Good Wife between 2011 and 2014. Abraham's most notable television role came about through Showtime's drama series Homeland, in which he portrayed black ops specialist Dar Adal. This role resulted in his first Emmy Award nomination in 2015, followed by a second in 2018.\n\nIn the 2010s, he featured prominently in two widely acclaimed films: first as folk music impresario Bud Grossman in the Coen brothers' drama Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), then as the mysterious Mr. Moustafa in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). He was nominated along with the ensemble for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for the latter. That same year he returned to Broadway portraying Ira Drew in the revival of Terrence McNally's comedic play It's Only a Play. Abraham starred alongside Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, and Rupert Grint. For his performance he earned a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. In 2016, he played the title role in Classic Stage Company's production of Nathan the Wise.[31]\n\nHe reunited with Wes Anderson voicing a role in stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs (2018), voiced Grimmel in DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), and played Tony in the Disney+ 2019 live-action Lady and the Tramp. \n\nFrom 2020 to 2021 he acted in the Apple TV+ comedy series Mythic Quest. In 2022, he was fired after being accused of inappropriate behavior while on set.[32] In a response statement, Abraham apologized and stated that he never intended \"to offend anyone, I told jokes, nothing more, that upset some of my colleagues and as a result lost a great job with wonderful people.\"[33] \n\nIn February 2022, it was revealed that Abraham would be voicing Khonshu in the superhero limited series Moon Knight, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[34] He starred in the 2022 film adaptation of The Magic Flute based on the opera of the same name. That same year he played Dr. Carl Withers in the Netflix series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022). In 2023, he portrayed Judge John Sirica in the HBO political drama limited series White House Plumbers.[35]\n\nMurray acted in the second season of the HBO series The White Lotus (2022) playing the flirtatious widower Bert Di Grasso, earning nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Also in 2023 he acted in the film Mother, Couch alongside Ewan McGregor, Taylor Russell, and Ellen Burstyn. The film premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.[36] In 2024 it was announced that Abraham would return to the stage as David Siegel in the Stephen Schwartz musical The Queen of Versailles starring Kristin Chenoweth at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston.[37] The production then moved to Broadway, with previews beginning at the St. James Theatre on October 8, 2025, opening night on November 9, and closing on December 21st after 32 previews and 49 regular performances.[38]\n\nPersonal life\n\nMarriage\n\nAbraham was married to Kate Hannan for 60 years, from 1962 until her death on November 19, 2022.[39] They have two children and one grandchild.[40][41]\n\nIncidents\n\nIn 1993, while filming the movie Surviving the Game in rural Washington State, Abraham was involved in a car crash in which another driver was killed, while Abraham was injured.[42] In January 2010, Abraham scuffled with a thief in the dressing room area during a public rehearsal at the Classic Stage Company in New York City.[43]\n\nReligious beliefs\n\nAbraham has spoken about his faith: \"I've attended many churches. I grew up as an Orthodox Christian and I was an altar boy. I love the Society of Friends, the Quakers. I attended their meetings for almost fifteen years. I'm now [in 2008] attending the First Presbyterian Church of New York because they're such a generous, terrific church with outreach. They reach out to old people, to homeless, to A.A., to cross-dressers: it's truly a church of the teachings of Christ. Religion is essential to my life.\"[44]\n\nActing credits and accolades\n\nAbraham received the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama for his performance in Amadeus (1984). In his acceptance speech, he praised co-star Tom Hulce,[45] who was also nominated. Abraham also received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.\n\nHe has also received a Grammy Award nomination[46] and four Primetime Emmy Award nominations.[47] He earned four Screen Actors Guild Award nominations with the ensemble casts of Homeland, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The White Lotus. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for The White Lotus in 2023.[48] He earned two Obie Awards for his work in theater for his performances in Uncle Vanya (1984) and The Merchant of Venice (2011). \n\nIn July 2004, at a ceremony in Rome, he was awarded the \"Premio per gli Italiani nel Mondo\". This is a prize distributed by the Marzio Tremaglia Foundation and the Italian government to Italian emigrants and their descendants who have distinguished themselves abroad.[49] \n\nIn 2009, he was recognized by the Alumni Association of the City College of New York with John H. Finley Award in recognition of exemplary dedicated service to the City of New York.[50] In 2010, Abraham was the recipient of the Gielgud Award (Theater) for that year.[51] In 2015, Abraham was an inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame.[52] \n\nAbraham has an honorary degree from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.[53]\n\nSee also\n\nList of actors in Royal Shakespeare Company productions\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"Getting to Know F. Murray Abraham\". La Stage Times. Archived from the original on October 12, 2013. Retrieved November 14, 2013.\n\n^ a b \"Academy Award-Winning Actor F. Murray Abraham | The Diane Rehm Show from WAMU and NPR\". The Diane Rehm Show. Retrieved November 14, 2013.\n\n^ a b c d e Salomon, Andrew (February 15, 2007). \"The Lion in Winter\". Backstage.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2007. Retrieved February 15, 2007.\n\n^ Suskind, Alex (October 8, 2014). \"F Murray Abraham on Homeland, Broadway and turning 75: 'I am afraid of nothing on stage'\". The Guardian. Retrieved February 8, 2022.\n\n^ a b Stark, John (March 18, 1985). \"His Meanie Role in Amadeus Makes Nice Guy F. Murray Abraham the Man to Beat for the Oscar\". People. Retrieved September 20, 2016.\n\n^ \"JOSEPHINE ABRAHAM Obituary (2012) El Paso Times\". Legacy.com. Retrieved February 8, 2022.\n\n^ How I Got My Equity Card Archived 2011-04-21 at the Wayback Machine. Actorsequity.org. Retrieved on 2012-10-15.\n\n^ Abraham, F. Murray. \"How Actor F. Murray Abraham Is Helping Syrian Refugees\". AARP. Retrieved June 1, 2021.\n\n^ Abraham, F. Murray (April 10, 2017). \"Opinion | F. Murray Abraham: Open Our Doors to Syrians\". The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2021.\n\n^ Obituary of Adele Hendricks Abraham (1923-2019), aunt of Murray Abraham, where it is stated she, three of her sisters and her brother Fred Abraham were born in Myklos, now in Syria. Obituary of Marion Abraham Unsell (1914-1998), aunt of Murray Abraham, who died in El Paso in 1988 where it says she was born in Myklos in today's Syria\n\n^ Coltin, Jeff (2016). \"Actor F. Murray Abraham on Syrian refugees and de Blasio's New York\". cityandstateny.com.\n\n^ a b Long, Trish (2008). \"Mom recalls boyhood of star-to-be\". El Paso Times.\n\n^ a b c \"F. Murray Abraham\". The American. Retrieved January 25, 2026.\n\n^ Tales from the Morgue: Hometown stars - F. Murray Abraham. Elpasotimes.typepad.com (2008-07-10). Retrieved on 2012-10-15.\n\n^ Zanetell, Myrna (September 1, 1995). \"Farah, Incorporated\". tshaonline.org. Texas State Historical Association (TSHA).\n\n^ Orfalea, Gregory. \"The Arab Americans\". Aramcoworld.com.\n\n^ Hamilton, Nancy (1988). UTEP: A Pictorial History of the University of Texas at el Paso : Diamond Jubilee, 1914-1989. Texas Western Press. ISBN 978-0-87404-208-5.\n\n^ \"HB Studio - Notable Alumni | One of the Original Acting Studios in NYC\". Hbstudio.org. Retrieved February 8, 2022.\n\n^ \"Casting News | Category | Backstage\". Archived from the original on March 4, 2007.\n\n^ Farber, Stephen (September 20, 1984). \"The New York Times: Best Pictures\". The New York Times. Retrieved September 20, 2016.\n\n^ \"F. Murray Abraham to Appear in a Staged Reading of \"Fragments\" by Edward Albee at Black Box PAC\". March 13, 2024.\n\n^ Buchalter, Gail (June 1, 1986). \"'Fruits' of Success, Briefly\". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 1, 2014.\n\n^ \"Is winning an Oscar a curse or a blessing?\". Archived from the original on December 7, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) film.com (2007).\n\n^ Nemy, Enid (April 26, 1985). \"BROADWAY\". The New York Times. Retrieved February 8, 2022.\n\n^ Jean-Jacques Annaud, The Name of the Rose DVD commentary, Warner Home Video, 2004.\n\n^ \"The Name of the Rose (Der Name der Rose)\". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 14, 2013.\n\n^ Stark, John (October 6, 1986). \"An Evil F. Murray Abraham Fights Friar Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose\". People. Vol. 26, no. 14. p. 112. Retrieved November 24, 2017.\n\n^ \"King Lear at American Repertory Theater Loeb Drama Center 1991\". www.abouttheartists.com.\n\n^ The official source for Broadway Information. IBDB. Retrieved on 2012-10-15.\n\n^ Span, Paula (September 29, 1986). \"F. Murray Abraham, Take 1\". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 17, 2017.\n\n^ Glitz, Michael (April 14, 2016). \"Theater: F. Murray Abraham Anchors Nathan The Wise\". The Huffington Post.\n\n^ Roundtree, Cheyenne (April 14, 2023). \"F. Murray Abraham Was Kicked Off 'Mythic Quest' for Sexual Misconduct\". Rolling Stone.\n\n^ Otterson, Joe (April 20, 2023). \"F. Murray Abraham Apologizes After 'Mythic Quest' Dismissal: 'I Told Jokes That Upset Some Colleagues'\". Variety.\n\n^ \"Moon Knight Image 3\". DMED Media. Archived from the original on February 15, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.\n\n^ Sepinwall, Alan (May 1, 2023). \"'White House Plumbers' Gives Watergate the 'Veep' Treatment and Misses Big\". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 10, 2025.\n\n^ \"Charades, UTA Board 'Mother, Couch' With Taylor Russell, Ewan McGregor (EXCLUSIVE)\". Variety. July 31, 2023. Retrieved August 29, 2023.\n\n^ \"Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham Set for Pre-Broadway Premiere of Stephen Schwartz's The Queen of Versailles in Boston\". Broadway.com. Retrieved February 10, 2024.\n\n^ Rosky, Nicole. \"3 Broadway Shows Close Today\". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved January 28, 2026.\n\n^ \"KATE ABRAHAM OBITUARY\". Legacy.com. Retrieved January 13, 2023.\n\n^ González, María Cortés. \"Josephine Abraham, 96, loved life, according to famous son F. Murray Abraham\". ElPasoTimes.com. Retrieved June 15, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)\n\n^ \"The Movie : F. Murray Abraham\". Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 28, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). amadeusimmortal.com\n\n^ Seattle Times News Services, Seattle Times Staff (September 5, 1993). \"Actor Hurt In Highway Crash\". The Seattle Times. Retrieved January 12, 2023.\n\n^ Healy, Patrick (January 26, 2010). \"F. Murray Abraham: Action Hero\". The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2010.\n\n^ Signore, John Del (April 21, 2008). \"F. Murray Abraham, Actor\". Gothamist.com. Archived from the original on August 26, 2015. Retrieved February 8, 2022.\n\n^ \"F. Murray Abraham Academy Awards Acceptance Speech\". Academy Awards Acceptance Speeches. Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. March 25, 1985. Retrieved July 27, 2025.\n\n^ \"F. Murray Abraham\". GRAMMY AWARDS. Recording Academy. Archived from the original on June 13, 2025. Retrieved February 27, 2026.\n\n^ \"F. Murray Abraham\". Television Academy. Archived from the original on February 12, 2026. Retrieved February 27, 2026.\n\n^ Kirsten, Chuba; Lewis, Hilary (December 12, 2022). \"Golden Globes: List of Nominees\". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 12, 2022.\n\n^ \"* INFORM *\". comunicazioneinform.it. July 6, 2004. Retrieved May 11, 2026.\n\n^ \"Finley Awards\". www.ccnyalumni.org. Retrieved May 11, 2026.\n\n^ F. Murray Abraham Gielgud Award 2010. Vimeo.com (2011-01-17). Retrieved on 2012-10-15.\n\n^ \"Theater Hall of Fame Ceremony, Honoring Susan Stroman, F. Murray Abraham, Philip J. Smith and More, Presented Tonight\". Playbill.com. May 4, 2015. Retrieved June 3, 2015.\n\n^ \"Honorary Degree Recipients\". Rider University. July 22, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2025.\n\nExternal links\n\nF. Murray Abraham at IMDb\n\nF. Murray Abraham at the Internet Broadway Database\n\nF. Murray Abraham at the Internet Off-Broadway Database (archived)\n\nF. Murray Abraham at the TCM Movie Database (archived)\n\nYahoo! Movies Biography"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-f-murray-abraham"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3813}, {"slug": "reference-philoxenus-of-mabbug", "title": "Philoxenus of Mabbug", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Philoxenus of Mabbug (Syriac: ܐܟܣܢܝܐ ܡܒܘܓܝܐ, Aksenāyâ Mabûḡāyâ; died 523), also known as Philoxenus of Hierapolis, Xenaias, and Akhsenaya, was one of the most notable Syriac prose writers during the Byzantine period and a vehement champion of Miaphysitism.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Saint\nPhiloxenus of Mabbug\n ܐܟܣܢܝܐ ܡܒܘܓܝܐ\n\nSyriac Orthodox Icon of Saint Philoxenus of Mabbug\n\nBishop of Mabbug,\nTeacher of the Church\n\nDied523\nPhilippopolis (Thrace), Thrace, Roman Empire\n\nVenerated in\nOriental Orthodox Churches\n\nFeast\n10 December (Syriac Orthodox Church)\n\nAttributeswriting commentaries and treaties; scholar, writer, and defender of the faith\n\nPhiloxenus of Mabbug (Syriac: ܐܟܣܢܝܐ ܡܒܘܓܝܐ, Aksenāyâ Mabûḡāyâ; died 523), also known as Philoxenus of Hierapolis, Xenaias, and Akhsenaya, was one of the most notable Syriac prose writers during the Byzantine period and a vehement champion of Miaphysitism.\n\nLife\n\nPhiloxenus was born between 440 and 455 in the village of Tahal, in the district of Beth Garmaï east of the Tigris, modern-day Iraq. Though a he was a subject of Persia by birth, all of his known public life was spent within the Byzantine Empire. His family originated from Ecbatana in Media, and he had at least two siblings, including a brother named Addai who was a teacher at the School of Edessa. The claims that he had been a slave and was never baptized seem to be malicious fabrications by his theological opponents after his death.[1][2]\n\nHis birth name was Akhsnoyo (Syriac: ܐܟܣܢܝܐ), which means stranger, rendered in Greek as Xenias. Upon his consecration as bishop by Patriarch Peter II (Peter the Fuller) of Mabbug, his name was changed to the Greek Philoxenus (\"lover of strangers\").[3][4]\n\nHe was educated at Edessa, possibly at the famous \"School of the Persians\", which was eventually expelled from the city in 489 due to its connections with Nestorianism. During his studies, rivalry at the school was fierce between the Theodorian and Cyrillian theological factions. Although trained in the East Syriac rite, Philoxenus later introduced elements of this tradition into the West Syriac rite. His anaphora shows a connection to the ancient liturgy of Addai and Mari.[1]\n\nEpiscopate\n\nAfter leaving Edessa, Philoxenus moved to Antioch, where he openly supported Miaphysitism and the Henotikon. He was expelled by Calandio, the Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, for this doctrinal difference. In 485, Peter the Fuller, the non-Chalcedonian patriarch, consecrated him bishop of Mabbug (Hierapolis). At that time, the city was still a flourishing pagan centre dedicated to the fertility goddess Atargatis.[1]\n\nPhiloxenus played a leading role in church politics. In 512, he had a hand in the deposition of the Chalcedonian patriarch Flavian II of Antioch and in the installation of Severus of Antioch. He also participated in the Synod of Tyre (513-515) presided over jointly with Severus, where the Henotikon was upheld and Chalcedon was anathematised as heretical.[5]\n\nFollowing the ascention of Emperor Justin I in 519, a harsh crackdown on Miaphysites began throughout the empire. Philoxenus was arrested and exiled to Philippopolis in Thrace, where he died, martyred by suffocation of smoke on 10 December 523.[6][1][7]\n\nBackground\n\nThe years which followed the Council of Chalcedon (451) were a stormy period in the Syriac Church. Philoxenus soon attracted notice by his strenuous advocacy of Miaphysitism.\n\nWhen Calandio, the Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, was expelled by the Miaphysite Peter the Fuller in 485, Philoxenus was ordained bishop of Mabbug.[8] It was probably during the earlier years of his episcopate that Philoxenus composed his thirteen homilies on the Christian life.\n\nSyriac Bible\n\nLater he devoted himself to the revision of the Syriac versions of the Bible, and with the help of his chorbishop Polycarp produced in 508 the so-called Philoxenian version, which was in some sense the received Bible of the Syriac Miaphysites during the 6th century. In the meantime he continued his ecclesiastical activity, working as a bitter opponent of Flavian II of Antioch, who was patriarch of Antioch from 498 to 512 and accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon.\n\nWith the support of Emperor Anastasius I Dicorus, the Miaphysites ousted Flavian II in 512 and replaced him with their partisan Severus of Antioch. Of Philoxenus's part in the struggle we possess not too trustworthy accounts by hostile writers, such as Theophanes the Confessor and Theodorus Lector. We know that in 498 he was staying at Edessa; in or about 507, according to Theophanes, he was summoned by the emperor to Constantinople; and he finally presided at a synod at Sidon which was the means of procuring the replacement of Flavian by Severus. But the triumph was short-lived. Justin I, who succeeded Anastasius in 518 and adhered to the Chalcedonian creed, exiled Severus and Philoxenus in 519. Philoxenus was banished to Philippopolis in Thrace, and afterwards to Gangra in Paphlagonia, where he was murdered in 523.[9]\n\nWritings\n\nApart from his redoubtable powers as a controversialist, Philoxenus is remembered as a scholar, an elegant writer, and an exponent of practical Christianity. Of the chief monument of his scholarship - the Philoxenian version of the Bible - only the Gospels and certain portions of Isaiah are known to survive (see William Wright, Syr. Lit., 14). It was an attempt to provide a more accurate rendering of the Septuagint than had hitherto existed in Syriac and obtained recognition among Syriac Miaphysites until superseded by the still more literal renderings of the Old Testament by Paul of Tella and of the New Testament by Thomas of Harkel (both in 616-617), of which the latter at least was based on the work of Philoxenus.\n\nThere are also extant portions of commentaries on the Gospels from his pen. Of the excellence of his style and of his practical religious zeal we are able to judge from the thirteen homilies on the Christian life and character which have been edited and translated by E. A. Wallis Budge (London, 1894). In these he holds aloof for the most part from theological controversy, and treats in an admirable tone and spirit the themes of faith, simplicity, the fear of God, poverty, greed, abstinence and unchastity. His affinity with his earlier countryman Aphrahat is manifest both in his choice of subjects and his manner of treatment. As his quotations from Scripture appear to be made from the Peshitta, he probably wrote the homilies before he embarked upon the Philoxenian version. Philoxenus wrote also many controversial works and some liturgical pieces. Many of his letters survive, and at least two have been edited. Several of his writings were translated into Arabic and Ethiopic.\n\nThemes\n\nPhiloxenus was a prolific writer whose works continue to influence Christian thought. For him, theology was not merely an intellectual pursuit but the essential path to divine knowledge. He regarded the struggle against heresy as no less important than the struggle against sin and saw it as a central aspect of asceticism.[10]\n\nLegacy and veneration\n\nPhiloxenus of Mabbug is considered a champion of Miaphysitism and one of the most venerated saints in the Oriental Orthodox tradition. He is celebrated as a master of theology, poetry, and the sciences, and a significant contributor to the golden age of Syriac culture.[11] The Syriac Heritage Project describes him as \"a master of eloquence and a distinguished philologist. An outstanding person in intelligence, knowledge and deeds, he was also abstinent and God-fearing. His style was stately and lucid. He masterfully portrayed good manners and sublime Christian virtues, producing a book on the perfect life which contains much benefit and is written in an infinitely beautiful style.\"[3]\n\nHis feast day in the Syriac Orthodox Church and Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is on December 10,[12][13] and his relics are interred in Midyat in the Syriac Orthodox cultural region of Tur Abdin (modern-day Turkey), where his veneration remains strong.[14]\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d Bondi (1976), p. 5.\n\n^ William Ainger Wigram (1910), An introduction to the history of the Assyrian Church or the church of the Sassanid Persian Empire, 100-640 A.D., Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, UK.\n\n^ a b \"Syriac Heritage Project - Pheloxinus of Mabbug\". www.syriacheritageproject.org. Retrieved 12 October 2025.\n\n^ Fr. K. Mani Rajan, M.Sc., M.Ed., Ph.D. (2007), p. 84. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFFr._K._Mani_Rajan,_M.Sc.,_M.Ed.,_Ph.D.2007 (help)\n\n^ Bondi (1976), pp. 5-6.\n\n^ Bondi (1976), p. 6.\n\n^ Fr. K. Mani Rajan, M.Sc., M.Ed., Ph.D. (2007), p. 85. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFFr._K._Mani_Rajan,_M.Sc.,_M.Ed.,_Ph.D.2007 (help)\n\n^ Bar Hebraeus, Chron. eccl., I, 183\n\n^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). \"Philoxenus\" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.\n\n^ Michelson (2014), p. 205.\n\n^ Dinno (2017), p. 8.\n\n^ Rajan (2007), p. 85.\n\n^ \"St. Philoxenus of Mabbug - Northeast American Diocese Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". www.neamericandiocese.org. Retrieved 14 October 2025.\n\n^ \"Philoxenos of Mabbug\". www.syriaca.org. Retrieved 14 October 2025.\n\nBibliography\n\nBondi, Roberta C. (1976). Three monophysite christologies: Severus of Antioch, Philoxenus of Mabbug and Jacob of Sarug. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-826712-6.\n\nMichelson, David Allen (2014). The Practical Christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-872296-0.\n\nRajan, K. Mani (2007). Martyrs, Saints & Prelates of The Syriac Orthodox Church (PDF). Vol. 1. The Travancore Syriac Orthodox Publishers.\n\nThis article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). \"Philoxenus of Mabbug\". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.\n\nDinno, Khalid S. (2017). The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis, Then Revival. Gorgias Eastern Christian studies. Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias Press, LLC. ISBN 978-1-4632-0575-1.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1967). \"Alphonse Mingana and the Letter of Philoxenus to Abu Afr\" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 50 (1): 199-206. doi:10.7227/BJRL.50.1.10.\n\nMeyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press.\n\nFurther reading\n\nMichelson, David A., \"The Practical Christology of Philoxenos of Mabbug\", Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.\n\nWalters, James E., \"The Philoxenian Gospels as Reconstructed from the Writings of Philoxenos of Mabbug\", Hugoye, Journal of Syriac Studies 13.2 (Summer 2010)."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-philoxenus-of-mabbug"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1645}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-siege-of-jerusalem", "title": "Assyrian siege of Jerusalem", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian siege of Jerusalem (c. 701 BC) was an aborted siege of Jerusalem, then capital of the Kingdom of Judah, carried out by Sennacherib, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The siege concluded Sennacharib's campaign in the Levant, in which he attacked the fortified cities and devastated the...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Siege of Jerusalem\n\nPart of the Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant\n\nHezekiah's Wall\n\nDate701 BC\n\nLocationJerusalem, Kingdom of Judah\n\nResult\n\nInconclusive\n\nBoth sides claim victory\n\nBelligerents\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\nKingdom of Judah\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\nSennacherib's Rabshakeh\nSennacherib's Rabsaris\nSennacherib's Tartan\nKing Hezekiah of Judah\nEliakim ben Hilkiyahu\nYoah ben Asaf\nShebna\n\nThe Assyrian siege of Jerusalem (c. 701 BC) was an aborted siege of Jerusalem, then capital of the Kingdom of Judah, carried out by Sennacherib, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The siege concluded Sennacharib's campaign in the Levant, in which he attacked the fortified cities and devastated the countryside of Judah in a campaign of subjugation. Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, but did not capture it.\n\nSennacherib's Annals describe how the king trapped Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem \"like a caged bird\" and later returned to Assyria when he received tribute from Judah. In the Hebrew Bible, Hezekiah is described as paying 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold to Assyria. The biblical story claims that Sennacherib marched on Jerusalem with his army only to have it struck down near the gates of Jerusalem by an angel, prompting his retreat to Nineveh.\n\nAccording to biblical archaeological theory, Siloam tunnel and the Broad Wall in Jerusalem were built by Hezekiah in preparation for the impending siege.\n\nBackground\n\nIn 720 BC, the Assyrian army captured Samaria, the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, and carried away many Israelites into captivity. The virtual destruction of Israel left the southern kingdom, Judah, to fend for itself among warring Near-Eastern kingdoms. After the fall of the northern kingdom, the kings of Judah tried to extend their influence and protection to those inhabitants who had not been exiled. They also sought to extend their authority northward into areas previously controlled by the Kingdom of Israel. The latter part of the reigns of King Ahaz and King Hezekiah were periods of stability during which Judah was able to consolidate both politically and economically. Although Judah was a vassal of Assyria during this time and paid an annual tribute to the powerful empire, it was the most important state between Assyria and Egypt.[1]\n\nWhen Hezekiah became king of Judah, he initiated widespread religious changes, including the breaking of religious idols. He re-captured Philistine-occupied lands in the Negev desert, formed alliances with Ascalon and Egypt, and made a stand against Assyria by refusing to pay tribute.[2] In response, Sennacherib attacked Judah, laying siege to Jerusalem.\n\nSiege\n\nSources from both sides claimed victory, the Judahites (or biblical authors) in the Tanakh, and Sennacherib in his prism. Sennacherib claimed the siege and capture of many Judaean cities, but only the siege-not capture-of Jerusalem.\n\nHebrew account\n\nThe story of the Assyrian siege is told in the biblical books of Isaiah (7th century BC), Second Kings (mid-6th century BC) and Chronicles (c. 350-300 BC).[3] As the Assyrians began their invasion, King Hezekiah began preparations to protect Jerusalem. In an effort to deprive the Assyrians of water, springs outside the city were blocked. Workers then dug a 533-meter tunnel to the Spring of Gihon, providing the city with fresh water. Additional siege preparations included fortification of the existing walls, construction of towers, and the erection of a new reinforcing wall. Hezekiah gathered the citizens in the square and encouraged them by reminding them that the Assyrians possessed only \"an arm of flesh\", but the Judeans had the protection of Yahweh.\n\nAccording to 2 Kings 18, while Sennacherib was besieging Lachish, he received a message from Hezekiah offering to pay tribute in exchange for Assyrian withdrawal. According to the Hebrew Bible, Hezekiah paid 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold to Assyria-a price so heavy that he was forced to empty the temple and royal treasury of silver and strip the gold from the doorposts of Solomon's Temple. Nevertheless, Sennacherib marched on Jerusalem with a large army. When the Assyrian force arrived, its field commander Rabshakeh brought a message from Sennacherib. In an attempt to demoralize the Judeans, the field commander announced to the people on the city walls that Hezekiah was deceiving them, and that Yahweh could not deliver Jerusalem from the king of Assyria. He listed the gods of other nations defeated by Sennacherib then asked, \"Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me?\"\n\nDuring the siege, Hezekiah dressed in sackcloth (a sign of mourning), but the prophet Isaiah assured him that the city would be delivered and Sennacherib would fail.[1] According to Isaiah, an angel then killed 185,000 Assyrian troops overnight.[2] Some scholars believe this number has been transcribed incorrectly, with one study suggesting the number was originally 5,180.[4][5] Another scholar advises that the biblical narrative is marked by legendary embellishments that end with a miracle that saves Jerusalem.[6] Dan'el Kahn says that the large number is an exaggeration, but 5,180 is far too low.[7]\n\nAssyrian account\n\nSennacherib's Prism, which details the events of Sennacherib's campaign against Judah, was discovered in the ruins of Nineveh in 1830, and is now stored at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, Illinois.[2] The Prism dates from about 690 BC, and its account is taken from an earlier cuneiform inscription dating to 700 BC.[8] The text of the prism boasts how Sennacherib destroyed 46 of Judah's cities and trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem \"like a caged bird.\" The text goes on to describe how the \"terrifying splendor\" of the Assyrian army caused the Arabs and mercenaries reinforcing the city to desert. It adds that the Assyrian king returned to Assyria where he later received a large tribute from Judah. This description varies somewhat from the Jewish version in the Tanakh. The massive Assyrian casualties mentioned in the Tanakh are not mentioned in the Assyrian version.\n\nAfter he besieged Jerusalem, Sennacherib was able to give the surrounding towns to Assyrian vassal rulers in Ekron, Gaza and Ashdod. His army still existed when he conducted campaigns in 702 BC and from 699 BC until 697 BC, when he undertook several campaigns in the mountains east of Assyria, during one of which he received tribute from the Medes. In 696 BC and 695 BC, he sent expeditions into Anatolia, where several vassals had rebelled following the death of Sargon II. Around 690 BC, he campaigned in the northern Arabian deserts, conquering Dumat al-Jandal, where the queen of the Arabs had taken refuge.[9]\n\nOther theories\n\nHerodotus wrote that the Assyrian army was overrun by mice when attacking Egypt.[10] Some Biblical scholars take this to an allusion that the Assyrian army suffered the effects of a mouse- or rat-borne disease such as bubonic plague.[11][12] Even without relying on that explanation, John Bright suggested it was an epidemic of some kind that saved Jerusalem.[13] The Babylonian historian Berossus also wrote that it was a plague that defeated the Assyrian army in the siege, reporting a \"pestilential distemper\" which claimed the life of 185,000 soldiers on the first night of the siege, consistent with the biblical account.[14]\n\nHenry T. Aubin writes in The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 B.C.[15] that the Assyrian army was routed by an Egyptian army under Kushite (Nubian) command.[16] However, Nazek Matty argues in her archaeological analysis that Aubin's Egyptian hypothesis is unlikely.[17] D.D. Luckenbill said that because there is no mention of a purported Egyptian victory over the Assyrians in the Babylonian Chronicle (\"which was not slow to record Assyrian reverses\") the defeat of the Egyptians at the hands of the Assyrians in 701 BCE as documented by Sennacherib must be accurate.[18] Paul Evans states that even the Egyptian records do not chronicle a military victory by Egypt against Assyria in 701 BCE.[19] According to a hypothesis that is now supported by the majority of scholars in this area, the discrepancy is due to two sieges, one in 701 BCE resulting in an Assyrian victory against Judah, Egypt, and their allies; the other in 687-686 BCE resulting in a failure for the Assyrians, and that the Bible combined the two sieges into one. Even if there was only one siege in total, it was not as much as a success as Sennacherib's account put out.[20]\n\nThe idea that there were two sieges of Jerusalem has been refuted by many Assyriologists in recent years, so that currently the vast majority of scholars hold that there was only one campaign against Judah by Sennacherib. This sole invasion happened in 701 BCE.[21][22]\n\nIn popular culture\n\nAn 1813 poem by Lord Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib, commemorates Sennacherib's campaign in Judea from the Hebrew point of view. Written in anapestic tetrameter, the poem was popular in school recitations.\n\nAncient sources\n\nBook of Kings\n\nBook of Isaiah\n\nBook of Chronicles\n\nSennacherib's Annals\n\nAntiquities of the Jews, Titus Flavius Josephus\n\nSee also\n\nSiege of Jerusalem (disambiguation), in particular Siege of Jerusalem (597 BC) and Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC)\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Malamat, Abraham (January 4, 1976). A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-39731-6 - via Google Books.\n\n^ a b c \"Pritchard, James B. ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 2nd ed. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1955), 287ff\". Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2013-07-15.\n\n^ Evans 2023, p. 89.\n\n^ Bright, John (2000). A History of Israel. Old Testament library. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. p. 301 fn. 13. ISBN 978-0-664-22068-6. Retrieved 4 January 2025.\n\n^ Lobban, Richard A. (2021). Historical Dictionary of Ancient Nubia. Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 343. ISBN 978-1-5381-3339-2. Retrieved 4 January 2025.\n\n^ Lemche, Niels Peter (2008). The Old Testament between Theology and History. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-664-23245-0.\n\n^ Kahn, Dan'el (2020). Sennacherib's Campaign against Judah: A Source Analysis of Isaiah 36-37. Society for Old Testament Study Monographs. Cambridge University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-108-49594-3. Retrieved 4 January 2025.\n\n^ Kalimi & Richardson 2014, pp. 53-54.\n\n^ Grayson 1991, p. 111-113.\n\n^ The History Of Herodotus, Book 2, Verse 141\n\n^ \"Sennachrib\", New Bible Dictionary, InterVarsity Press, 2nd Edition, Ed. J.D.Douglas, N.Hillyer, 1982\n\n^ Caesar, Stephen W. (2017). \"The Annihilation of Sennacherib's Army: A Case of Septicemic Plague\" (PDF). Jewish Bible Quarterly. 45 (4): 222-228. S2CID 218529968.\n\n^ \"A History of Israel\", John Bright, SCM 1980, p.200\n\n^ Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 10, chapter 1, section 5\n\n^ Aubin, Henry (2002). The rescue of Jerusalem : the alliance between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC. Toronto: Doubleday Canada. ISBN 9780385659123.\n\n^ Bellis, Alice Ogden, ed. (2019). \"Jerusalem's Survival, Sennacherib's Departure, and the Kushite Role in 701 BC: An Examination of Henry Aubin's Rescue of Jerusalem\". The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. 19. Lausanne: Swiss French Institute for Biblical Studies: 1-297. doi:10.5508/jhs29552.\n\n^ Nazek Khalid Matty (2016), Sennacherib's Campaign Against Judah and Jerusalem in 701 BC; pp. 178-180; De Gryuter, Berlin/Boston.\n\n^ Paul S. Evans, History in the Eye of the Beholder? Social Location and Allegations of Racial/Colonial Biases in Reconstructions of Sennacherib's Attack on Judah; The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures; 2012; v.12; a.5; p.18 \n\n^ Paul S. Evans, History in the Eye of the Beholder? Social Location and Allegations of Racial/Colonial Biases in Reconstructions of Sennacherib's Attack on Judah; The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures; 2012; v.12; a.5; p.19\n\n^ Breasted, James; Daniel, Luckenbill. \"The Annals of Sennacherib\" (PDF). University of Chicago Press: 12-13. Those who hold the two-campaign hypothesis [...] they are now in the majority feel that the difficulties presented by the Old Testament story [...] are most easily overcome by assuming a first western campaign in 701 in which the Assyrian king defeated [...] and a second campaign in 687 or 686, when he met a crushing defeat. The Old Testament is supposed to have telescoped the two campaigns at once.\n\n^ Paul S. Evans; The Invasion of Sennacherib in the Book of Kings; 2009; pp.15 -16; Leiden, Brill.\n\n^ William R. Gallagher; 1999; p.9; Leiden Brill.\n\nBibliography\n\nEvans, Paul S. (2023). Sennacherib and the War of 1812: Disputed Victory in the Assyrian Campaign of 701 BCE in Light of Military History. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-70897-7.\n\nGrabbe, Lester (2003). Like a Bird in a Cage: The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE. A&C Black. ISBN 9780826462152.\n\nGrayson, A.K. (1991). \"Assyria: Sennacherib and Essarhaddon\". In Boardman, John; Edwards, I. E. S. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume III Part II. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521227179.\n\nKalimi, Isaac; Richardson, Seth (2014). Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-26562-2.\n\n31°46′06″N 35°12′49″E / 31.768319°N 35.21371°E / 31.768319; 35.21371"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-siege-of-jerusalem"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2123}, {"slug": "reference-old-aramaic", "title": "Old Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from early Aramaic inscriptions and dated to the 10th century BCE through the 8th century BCE.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Old Aramaic\n\nAncient Aramaic\n\nRegionFertile Crescent (northern and western Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Egypt (Sinai), Jordan, Iraq, southern Turkey), northern Arabia (Bahrain)\n\nEraIron Age and classical antiquity (c. 900-750 BCE),\n evolved into Imperial Aramaic (c. 750-300 BCE)\n\nLanguage familyAfro-Asiatic\n\nSemitic\nWest Semitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nOld Aramaic\n\nEarly formProto-Semitic\n\nDialects\n\nSamalian\n\nWriting systemPhoenician alphabet\nAramaic alphabet\n\nLanguage codes\n\nISO 639-3oar\n\nGlottologolda1245\n\nOld Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from early Aramaic inscriptions and dated to the 10th century BCE through the 8th century BCE.\n\nEmerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Fertile Crescent in the Early Iron Age, Old Aramaic was adopted as a lingua franca, and in this role was inherited for official use by the Achaemenid Empire during classical antiquity. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum and the development of differing written standards.\n\nThe language is considered to have given way to Middle Aramaic by the 3rd century BCE (a conventional date is the rise of the Sasanian Empire in 224 CE).\n\nAncient Aramaic\n\n\"Ancient Aramaic\" refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent and Bahrain. It was the language of the Aramaean city-states of Damascus, Guzana, Hamath and Arpad (all in modern-day Syria). Distinctive royal inscriptions at Sam'al have been interpreted by some scholars as a distinctive variant of Old Aramaic, by others as an independent but closely related Samalian language.\n\nThere are inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the ninth and eighth century BCE. The inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The alphabet of Aramaic then seems to be based on the Phoenician alphabet, and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that in time, a more refined alphabet, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as a lingua franca[2] of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian.\n\nFrom 700 BCE, the language began to spread in all directions but lost much of its homogeneity. Different dialects emerged in Assyria, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt. However, the Akkadian-influenced Aramaic of Assyria, and then Babylon, started to come to the fore. As described in 2 Kings 18:26, envoys of Hezekiah, king of Judah, ask to negotiate with Assyrian military commanders in Aramaic so that the common people would not understand. Around 600 BCE, Adon, a Canaanite king, used Aramaic to write to the Egyptian Pharaoh.\n\nThe first Old Aramaic inscription found in Europe, but originally from (Ptolemaic?) Egypt, is the Carpentras Stele, published by Rigord in 1704.[3]\n\nImperial Aramaic\n\nAfter 539 BCE, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, the Achaemenids adopted the local use of Aramaic. \n\nWhen the Achaemenids extended their rule westward, they adopted this language as the vehicle for written communication between the various regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did.[4]\n\nThe term \"Imperial Aramaic\", originally German \"Reichsaramäisch\", was coined by Josef Markwart in 1927.[5][6][7]\n\nIn 1955, Richard Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an \"official language\", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language.[8] Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought.\n\nImperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Old Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 331 BCE), Imperial Aramaic or a similar dialect would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages. Aramaic script and, as ideograms, Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts.[9]\n\nOne of the largest collections of Imperial Aramaic texts is that of the Persepolis fortification tablets, which number about five hundred.[10] Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, Elephantine in particular (see: Elephantine papyri). Of them, the best known is the Wisdom of Ahiqar, a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical Book of Proverbs. In addition, current consensus regards the Aramaic portion of the Biblical book of Daniel (i.e., 2:4b-7:28) as an example of Imperial (Official) Aramaic.[11]\n\nAchaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loanword from a local language.\n\nA group of thirty Aramaic documents from Bactria has been discovered, now forming the Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents, and an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the fourth century BCE Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdia.[12]\n\nOld Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew both form part of the group of Northwest Semitic languages, and during antiquity, there may still have been substantial mutual intelligibility. In Tractate Pesahim of the Babylonian Talmud, Hanina bar Hama said that God sent the exiled Jews to Babylon because \"their language [Aramaic] is close to the language of the Torah [Hebrew]\".[13]\n\nBiblical Aramaic\n\nBiblical Aramaic is the term for the Aramaic passages, written in Aramaic square script, interspersed in the Hebrew Bible. These passages make for a small fraction of the entire text (of the order of 1%), and most of it is due to the Aramaic parts of the Book of Daniel:\n\nGenesis 31:47 - translation of a Hebrew place-name.\n\nEzra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26 - documents from the Achaemenid period (5th century BCE) concerning the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.\n\nJeremiah 10:11 - a single sentence in the middle of a Hebrew text denouncing idolatry.\n\nDaniel 2:4b-7:28 - five subversive tales and an apocalyptic vision.\n\nBiblical Aramaic presented several challenges for later writers who were engaged in early Biblical studies. Since the time of Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), Biblical Aramaic was misnamed as \"Chaldean\" (Chaldaic, Chaldee).[14] That label remained common in early Aramaic studies, and persisted up into the nineteenth century.[15][16][17] The \"Chaldean misnomer\" was eventually abandoned, when modern researchers showed that Aramaic dialect used in Hebrew Bible was not related with ancient Chaldeans and their language.[18][19][20]\n\nBiblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. It is theorized that some Biblical Aramaic material originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty.\n\nPost-Achaemenid Aramaic\n\nThe conquest by Alexander the Great did not destroy the unity of Aramaic language and literature immediately. Aramaic that bears a relatively close resemblance to that of the fifth century BCE can be found right up to the early second century BCE. The Seleucids imposed Koine Greek in the administration of Syria and Mesopotamia from the start of their rule. In the third century BCE, Koine Greek overtook Aramaic as the common language in Egypt and Syria. However, a post-Achaemenid Aramaic continued to flourish from Judea, Assyria, Mesopotamia, through the Syrian Desert and into northern Arabia and Parthia.\n\nUnder the category of post-Achaemenid is Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official language of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judaea (142-37 BCE). It influenced the Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean. Hasmonaean also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms.\n\nBabylonian Targumic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in the Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan, the \"official\" targums. The original, Hasmonaean targums had reached Babylon sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century CE. They were then reworked according to the contemporary dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow.\n\nGalilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee. The Hasmonaean targums reached Galilee in the 2nd century, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was not considered an authoritative work by other communities, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended. From the 11th century onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative, the Galilean version became heavily influenced by it.\n\nBabylonian Documentary Aramaic is a dialect in use from the 3rd century onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the 12th century, all Jewish private documents are in Aramaic. It is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps because many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout the Jewish community from the start, and Hasmonaean was the old standard.\n\nThe Nabataean language was the Western Aramaic variety used by the Nabateans of the Negev, including the kingdom of Petra. The kingdom (c. 200 BCE - 106 CE) covered the east bank of the Jordan River, the Sinai Peninsula and northern Arabia. Perhaps because of the importance of the caravan trade, the Nabataeans began to use Aramaic in preference to Ancient North Arabian. The dialect is based on Achaemenid with a little influence from Arabic: \"l\" is often turned into \"n\", and there are a few Arabic loan words. Some Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions exist from the early days of the kingdom, but most are from the first four centuries CE. The language is written in a cursive script that is the precursor to the modern Arabic alphabet. The number of Arabic loan words increases through the centuries, until, in the 4th century, Nabataean merges seamlessly with Arabic.\n\nPalmyrene Aramaic is the dialect that was in use in the city state of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert from 44 BCE to 274 CE. It was written in a rounded script, which later gave way to cursive Estrangela. Like Nabataean, Palmyrene was influenced by Arabic, but to a much lesser degree.\n\nThe use of written Aramaic in the Achaemenid bureaucracy also precipitated the adoption of Aramaic-derived scripts to render a number of Middle Iranian languages. Moreover, many common words, including even pronouns, particles, numerals, and auxiliaries, continued to be written as Aramaic \"words\" even when writing Middle Iranian languages. In time, in Iranian usage, these Aramaic \"words\" became disassociated from the Aramaic language and came to be understood as signs (i.e. logograms), much like the sign ⟨&⟩ is read as \"and\" in English and the original Latin et is now no longer obvious.\n\nUnder the early third-century BCE Parthian Empire, whose government used Koine Greek but whose native language was Parthian, the Parthian language and the Aramaic-derived writing system used for Parthian both gained prestige. This in turn influenced the adoption of the name pahlavi (< parthawi, \"of the Parthians\") for their use of Aramaic script with logograms. The Sasanian Empire, which succeeded the Parthian Arsacids in the mid-3rd century CE, subsequently inherited/adopted the Parthian-mediated Aramaic-derived writing system for their own Middle Iranian ethnolect as well.[21] That particular Middle Iranian dialect, Middle Persian, i.e. the language of Persia proper, subsequently also became a prestige language. Following the Muslim conquest of Persia by the Arabs in the seventh-century, the Aramaic-derived writing system was replaced by the Arabic script in all but Zoroastrian usage, which continued to use the name pahlavi for the Aramaic-derived writing system and went on to create the bulk of all Middle Iranian literature in that writing system.\n\nLate Old Eastern Aramaic\n\nThe dialects mentioned in the last section were all descended from Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic. However, the diverse regional dialects of Late Ancient Aramaic continued alongside them, often as simple, spoken languages. Early evidence for these spoken dialects is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, the regional dialects became written languages in the 2nd century BCE and reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not dependent on Imperial Aramaic. They show a clear division between the regions of Mesopotamia, Babylon and the east, and Judah, Syria, and the west.\n\nIn the East, the dialects of Palmyrene and Arsacid Aramaic merged with the regional languages to create languages with a foot in Imperial and a foot in regional Aramaic. The written form of Mandaic, the language of the Mandaean religion, was descended from the Arsacid chancery script.[22]\n\nIn the kingdom of Osroene, centred on Edessa and founded in 132 BCE, Aramaic was the official language, and local dialect gradually developed into a language of wider regional significance, known as the Edessan Aramaic, and later (since the 5th century CE) specifically labeled as the Syriac language.[23]\n\nOn the upper reaches of the Tigris, East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from Hatra, Assur and the Tur Abdin. Tatian, the author of the gospel harmony known as the Diatessaron, came from the Seleucid Empire and perhaps wrote his work (172 CE) in East Mesopotamian rather than Edessan Aramaic or Greek. In Babylonia, the regional dialect was used by the Jewish community, Jewish Old Babylonian (c. 70 CE). The everyday language increasingly came under the influence of Biblical Aramaic and Babylonian Targumic.\n\nLate Old Western Aramaic\n\nThe western regional dialects of Aramaic followed a similar course to those of the east. They are quite distinct from the eastern dialects and Imperial Aramaic. Aramaic came to coexist with Canaanite dialects, eventually completely displacing Phoenician and Hebrew around the turn of the 4th century CE.\n\nThe form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best attested, and is usually referred to as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form is Old East Jordanian, which probably comes from the region of Caesarea Philippi. This is the dialect of the oldest manuscript of the Book of Enoch (c. 170 BCE). The next distinct phase of the language is called Old Judaean into the 2nd century CE. Old Judaean literature can be found in various inscriptions and personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud and receipts from Qumran. Josephus' first, non-extant edition of his The Jewish War was written in Old Judaean.\n\nThe Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the 1st century CE by pagan communities living to the east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often then called Pagan Old Palestinian, and it was written in a cursive script somewhat similar to that used for Old Edessan Aramaic. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some of the Western Aramaic tendencies found in the otherwise eastern Old Edessan Aramaic gospels (see Middle Aramaic versions of the Bible).\n\nIn the 1st century CE, Jews in Roman Judaea primarily spoke Aramaic (besides Koine Greek as the international language of the Roman administration and trade). \nIn addition to the formal, literary dialects of Aramaic based on Hasmonaean and Babylonian there were a number of colloquial Aramaic dialects. Seven dialects of Western Aramaic were spoken in the vicinity of Judaea in Jesus' time. They were probably distinctive yet mutually intelligible. Old Judaean was the prominent dialect of Jerusalem and Judaea. The region of Ein Gedi had the Southeastern Judaean dialect. Samaria had its distinctive Samaritan Aramaic, where the consonants he, heth and ayin all became pronounced the same as aleph, presumably a glottal stop. Galilean Aramaic, the dialect of Jesus' home region, is only known from a few place names, the influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature and a few private letters. It seems to have a number of distinctive features: diphthongs are never simplified into monophthongs. East of the Jordan, the various dialects of East Jordanian were spoken. In the region of Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken.\n\nThe three languages influenced one another, especially Hebrew and Aramaic. Hebrew words entered Jewish Aramaic (mostly technical religious words but also everyday words like ‘ēṣ \"wood\"). Vice versa, Aramaic words entered Hebrew (not only Aramaic words like māmmôn \"wealth\" but Aramaic ways of using words like making Hebrew rā’ûi, \"seen\" mean \"worthy\" in the sense of \"seemly\", which is a loan translation of Aramaic ḥāzê meaning \"seen\" and \"worthy\").\n\nThe Greek of the New Testament often preserves non-Greek semiticisms, including transliterations of Semitic words:\n\nSome are Aramaic like talitha (ταλιθα) that can represent the noun ṭalyĕṯā (Mark 5:41).\n\nOthers can be either Hebrew or Aramaic like Rabbounei (Ραββουνει), which stands for \"my master/great one/teacher\" in both languages (John 20:16).\n\nReferences\n\n^ Panammuwa II and Bar-Rakib: Two Structural Analyses, K. Lawson Younger, Jr., University of Sheffield Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Bae, Chul-hyun (2004). \"Aramaic as a Lingua Franca During the Persian Empire (538-333 B.C.E.)\". Journal of Universal Language. 5: 1-20. doi:10.22425/jul.2004.5.1.1. Retrieved 2018-12-20.\n\n^ See Porten, Bezalel; Yardeni, Ada (1999). Textbook of Aramaic documents from ancient Egypt: Ostraca & assorted inscriptions. Hebrew University, Dept. of the History of the Jewish People. ISBN 978-965-350-089-1. and \"Aramaic - Examples of writing\". Mnamon: Ancient writing systems in the Mediterranean.. The stele is known as KAI 269.\n\n^ \"Aramaic\" at Encyclopædia Iranica\n\n^ Margaretha Louise Folmer; M. L. Folmer (1995). The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period: A Study in Linguistic Variation. Peeters Publishers. pp. 10-. ISBN 978-90-6831-740-4.\n\n^ Gzella 2015, p. 158.\n\n^ Josef Markwart, “Np. āđīna ‘Freitag’,” Ungarische Jahrbücher 7, 1927, pp. 91: \"In der Bedeutung 'bestimmte (kommende, zukünftige) Zeit’ ist das Wort zaman schon ins Reichsaramäische und von da ins aramaisierende Hebräisch und ins Nabatäische und aus diesem später ins Arabische übergegangen. [Footnote: So nenne ich die aramäische Kanzleisprache der Achaimeniden, in welcher die Mehrzahl, wenn nicht alle, aramäischen Inschriften und sämtliche Papyri der Achaimenidenzeit, sowie die aramäischen Stücke in den Büchern 'Ezra und Daniel abgefaßt sind. Daß Kautzsch und noch der Schweizer Karl Marti (Kurzgefaßte Grammatik der biblisch-aramäischen Sprache. Berlin 1896 S. 4) diese Sprache W est aramäisch nennen konnten, war ein grober Salto mortale, der nur dadurch verständlich wird, daß die Verfasser vom aramäischen Sprachgute des uzvärisn, d. h. von den aramäischen Ideogrammen des Mitteliranischen keine Kunde hatten.]\"\n\n^ Frye, Richard N.; Driver, G. R. (1955). \"Review of G. R. Driver's \"Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B. C.\"\". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 18 (3/4): 456-461. doi:10.2307/2718444. JSTOR 2718444. p. 457.\n\n^ Geiger, Wilhelm; Kuhn, Ernst (2002). \"Grundriss der iranischen Philologie: Band I. Abteilung 1\". Boston: Adamant: 249ff. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)\n\n^ Stolper, John A. Matthew (2007). \"What are the Persepolis Fortification Tablets?\". The Oriental Studies News & Notes (winter): 6-9. Archived from the original on 14 February 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-13.\n\n^ Collins 1993, p. 710-712.\n\n^ Naveh, Joseph; Shaked, Shaul (2006). Joseph Naveh (ed.). Ancient Aramaic Documents from Bactria. Studies in the Khalili Collection. Oxford: Khalili Collections. ISBN 978-1874780748.\n\n^ Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 87b\n\n^ Gallagher 2012, p. 123-141.\n\n^ Gesenius & Prideaux-Tregelles 1859.\n\n^ Fürst 1867.\n\n^ Davies 1872.\n\n^ Nöldeke 1871, p. 113-131.\n\n^ Kautzsch 1884a, p. 17-21.\n\n^ Kautzsch 1884b, p. 110-113.\n\n^ Beyer. p. 28 n. 27; Wiesehöfer, Josef; Azodi, Azizeh. Ancient Persia. pp. 118-20.\n\n^ \"Iranian Scripts for Aramaic Languages,\" in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 341 (2006), pp. 53-62.\n\n^ Healey 2007, p. 115-127.\n\nSources\n\nBeyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 9783525535738.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (1989). \"Three Thousand Years of Aramaic Literature\". ARAM Periodical. 1 (1): 11-23.\n\nCollins, John J. (1993). \"The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic, by Zdravko Stefanovic\". Journal of Biblical Literature. 112 (4): 710-712. doi:10.2307/3267414. JSTOR 3267414.\n\nDavies, Benjamin (1872). A Compendious and Complete Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. London: Asher.\n\nFürst, Julius (1867). A Hebrew & Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament: With an Introduction Giving a Short History of Hebrew Lexicography. London: Williams & Norgate.\n\nGallagher, Edmon L. (2012). Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004228023.\n\nGesenius, Wilhelm; Prideaux-Tregelles, Samuel (1859). Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures. London: Bagster.\n\nGzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789004285101.\n\nHealey, John F. (2007). \"The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 115-127.\n\nKautzsch, Emil F. (1884a). Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen: Mit einer Kritischen Erörterung der aramäischen Wörter im Neuen Testament. Leipzig: Vogel.\n\nKautzsch, Emil F. (1884b). \"The Aramaic Language\". Hebraica. 1 (1-2): 98-115. doi:10.1086/368803. JSTOR 527111.\n\nKautzsch, Emil F. (1902). Die Aramaismen im Alten Testament untersucht. Halle: Niemeyer.\n\nKitchen, Kenneth A. (1965). \"The Aramaic of Daniel\" (PDF). Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel. London: Tyndale Press. pp. 31-79. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-10-31. Retrieved 2020-11-24.\n\nLipiński, Edward (2000). The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Leuven: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908598.\n\nT. Muraoka & B. Porten (2004). A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic. Handbook of Oriental Studies, The Near and Middle East. Brill.\n\nNöldeke, Theodor (1871). \"Die Namen der aramäischen Nation und Sprache\". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. 25 (1-2): 113-131. JSTOR 43366019.\n\nFranz Rosenthal (1995). A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic. 6th revised edition. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.\n\nStefanovic, Zdravko (1992). The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old Aramaic. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 9780567132543.\n\nYounger, Kenneth Lawson (2016). A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities. Atlanta: SBL Press. ISBN 9781628370843."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-old-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3716}, {"slug": "reference-ancient-near-east", "title": "Ancient Near East", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Ancient Mesopotamia,[1][a] the ancient Levant,[b] ancient Egypt, ancient Elam, ancient Anatolia or Asia Minor, the ancient South Caucasus and Armenian highlands,[2][c] and ancient Northern Arabia (including Dilmun).[d] It is generally not considered to include Pre-Islamic Arabia...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Ancient Mesopotamia,[1][a] the ancient Levant,[b] ancient Egypt, ancient Elam, ancient Anatolia or Asia Minor, the ancient South Caucasus and Armenian highlands,[2][c] and ancient Northern Arabia (including Dilmun).[d] It is generally not considered to include Pre-Islamic Arabia as a whole, the ancient Berbers, or ancient Nubia, though it is sometimes classified as encompassing ancient Iran[e], ancient Cyprus, Ancient Carthage, and the Aegean civilization[f]. Due to their subject matter and scope, ancient Near East studies and Near Eastern archaeology, including the subfields of Assyriology, Egyptology and Hittitology, are among the most prominent research fields in ancient history. Other fields include Classics, Classical archaeology, biblical studies, biblical archaeology, Jewish studies, Christian studies, Iranology, Sinology, and Indology, some of which overlap with them. Historically, the Near East denoted an area roughly encompassing central West Asia and Egypt, having been focused on the lands between Greece in the west, Iran in the east, the Caucasus in the north, and Arabia in the south. It therefore largely corresponds with the central core area of the modern-day geopolitical concept of the Middle East. It was strongly influential on Christianity, the later Islamic world and civilization, which conquered and absorbed its remannts with the exception of indigenous non Arabized Jews, Assyrians, Mandaeans, Syriac Arameans and Armenians, all of who directly descend from it, and moderately so on the later Western world and civilization via the Aegean civilization, the Orientalizing period, the Greco-Persian wars, the Hellenistic period, the Roman and Eastern Roman empires, and Christianity, while being distinct from yet to some degree culturally related and ancestral to them.\n\nThe history of the ancient Near East opens with Sumer's rise in the 4th millennium BC and spans the Bronze Age and Iron Age; its terminus is debated, variously set at the Achaemenid Empire's founding in the 6th century BC, the Macedonian Empire's founding in the 4th century BC, or the early Muslim conquests' onset in the 7th century AD.\n\nIt was within the ancient Near East that humans first practiced intensive year-round agriculture, which led to the rise of the earliest dense urban settlements and the development of many now-familiar institutions of civilization, such as social stratification, centralized government and empires, and organized religion (see: ancient Near Eastern religions) and organized warfare. It also produced the first writing system, the first alphabet (i.e., abjad), the first currency, the first legal codes, and the invention of the wheel, advances that founded astronomy and mathematics.\n\nDuring this period, the region's previously stateless societies largely transitioned to building states, many of which gradually came to annex the territories of their neighbouring civilizations. This process continued until the entire ancient Near East was enveloped by militaristic empires that had emerged from their own lands to conquer and absorb a variety of cultures under the rule of a top-level government.\n\nThe concept of the Near East\n\nThe phrase \"ancient Near East\" denotes the 19th-century distinction between the Near and Far East as global regions of interest to the British Empire. The distinction began during the Crimean War. The last major exclusive partition of the east between these two terms was current in diplomacy in the late 19th century, with the Hamidian massacres of the Armenians and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire in 1894-1896 and the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as \"the Near East\" and \"the Far East\". Shortly after, they were to share the stage with ''Middle East'', a term that came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times.\n\nAs Near East had meant the lands of the Ottoman Empire at roughly its maximum extent, on the fall of that empire, the use of Near East in diplomacy was reduced significantly in favor of the Middle East. Meanwhile, the ancient Near East had become distinct. The Ottoman rule over the Near East ranged from Vienna (to the north) to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula (to the south), from Egypt (in the west) to the borders of Iraq (in the east). The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire.\n\nPeriodization\n\nAncient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, of the Near East. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics.\n\nCopper Age\n\nChalcolithic\n(5000-3300 BC)\n\nEarly Chalcolithic\n\n5000-4500 BC\n\nUbaid period in Mesopotamia\n\nLate Chalcolithic\n\n4500-3300 BC\n\nUruk period of Sumer, Predynastic Period of ancient Egypt, Proto-Elamite period in Iran, Ghassulian, Gerzeh\n\nBronze Age\n\nEarly Bronze Age \n(3300-2100 BC)\n\nEarly Bronze Age I\n\n3300-3000 BC\n\nJemdet Nasr period in Mesopotamia, Protodynastic to Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, settlement of Phoenicians\n\nEarly Bronze Age II\n\n3000-2700 BC\n\nEarly Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia\n\nEarly Bronze Age III\n\n2700-2200 BC\nOld Kingdom of Egypt, Akkadian Empire, early Assyria, Old Elamite period, Sumero-Akkadian states, Marhasi Jiroft\n\nEarly Bronze Age IV\n\n2200-2100 BC\nSecond half of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, First Intermediate Period of Egypt\n\nMiddle Bronze Age \n(2100-1550 BC)\n\nMiddle Bronze Age I\n\n2100-2000 BC\nThird Dynasty of Ur\n\nMiddle Bronze Age II A\n\n2000-1750 BC\nMinoan civilization, early Babylonia, Egyptian Middle Kingdom\n\nMiddle Bronze Age II B\n\n1750-1650 BC\nSecond Intermediate Period of Egypt\n\nMiddle Bronze Age II C\n\n1650-1550 BC\nHittite Old Kingdom, Minoan eruption\n\nLate Bronze Age \n(1550-1200 BC)\n\nLate Bronze Age I\n\n1550-1400 BC\nHittite Middle Kingdom, Hayasa-Azzi, Middle Elamite period, New Kingdom of Egypt\n\nLate Bronze Age II A\n\n1400-1300 BC\nHittite New Kingdom, Mitanni, Hayasa-Azzi, Ugarit, Mycenaean Greece\n\nLate Bronze Age II B\n\n1300-1200 BC\nMiddle Assyrian Empire, beginning of the high point of Phoenicians\n\nIron Age \n\nIron Age I \n(1200-1000 BC)\n\nIron Age I A\n\n1200-1150 BC\nTroy VII, Hekla 3 eruption, Bronze Age collapse, Sea Peoples\n\nIron Age I B\n\n1150-1000 BC\nNeo-Hittite states, Neo Elamite period, Aramean states\n\nIron Age II \n(1000-539 BC)\n\nIron Age II A\n\n1000-900 BC\nGreek Dark Ages, traditional date of the United Monarchy of Israel\n\nIron Age II B\n\n900-700 BC\nKingdom of Israel, Urartu, Phrygia, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Kingdom of Judah, first settlement of Carthage\n\nIron Age II C\n\n700-539 BC\nNeo-Babylonian Empire, Median Empire, fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phoenicia, Archaic Greece, rise of Achaemenid Persia\n\nClassical antiquity \n\nAchaemenid\n\n539-330 BC\nPersian Achaemenid Empire, Classical Greece\n\nHellenistic & Parthian\n\n330-31 BC\nMacedonian Empire, Seleucid Empire, Kingdom of Armenia, Kingdom of Pergamon, Ptolemaic Kingdom, Parthian Empire\n\nRoman & Persian\n\n31 BC - 634 AD\nRoman-Persian Wars, Roman Empire, Parthian Empire, Kingdom of Armenia, Sassanid Empire, Byzantine Empire, Muslim conquests\n\nBackground: prehistory\n\nPaleolithic\n\nEpipalaeolithic Near East\n\nKebaran culture\n\nNatufian culture\n\nNeolithic in the Near East\n\nPre-pottery Neolithic A\n\nPre-pottery Neolithic B\n\nPre-pottery Neolithic C\n\nPottery Neolithic\n\nChalcolithic\n\nEarly Mesopotamia\n\nThe Uruk period (c. 4000 to 3100 BC) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to the early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period.[3] Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization in southern Mesopotamia.[4] The late Uruk period (3400 to 3200 BC) saw the gradual emergence of cuneiform script and corresponds to the early Bronze Age.[5]\n\nHistory\n\nBronze Age\n\nEarly Bronze Age\n\nSumer and Akkad\n\nSumer hosted many early advances in human history, such as schools (c. 3000 BC),[6] making the area a cradle of civilization. The oldest excavated archaeological site in Sumer, Tell el-'Oueili, dates to the 7th millennium BC, although it is likely that the area was occupied even earlier.[7][8] The oldest layers at 'Oueili mark the beginning of the Ubaid period, which was followed by the Uruk period (4th millennium BC) and the Early Dynastic periods (3rd millennium BC). The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the world's first empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia.\n\nElam\n\nAncient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province. In the Old Elamite period, c. 3200 BC, it consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered on Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered on Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Elam was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire in the 9th to 7th centuries BC; however, the civilization endured up until 539 BC when it was finally overrun by the Iranian Persians. The Proto-Elamite civilization existed from c. 3200 BC to 2700 BC, when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms, this corresponds to the late Banesh period. This civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, Sumer. The Proto-Elamite script is an early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language (which was a language isolate) before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform.\n\nThe Amorites\n\nThe Amorites were a nomadic Semitic people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites (\"the Mar.tu land\") is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan, although their ultimate origin may have been Arabia.[9] They ultimately settled in Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa, and later Babylon.\n\nMiddle Bronze Age\n\nAssyria, after enduring a short period of Mitanni domination, emerged as a great power from the accession of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC to the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC. Assyria rivaled Egypt during this period, and dominated much of the near east.\n\nBabylonia, founded as a state by Amorite tribes, found itself under the rule of Kassites for 435 years. The nation stagnated during the Kassite period, and Babylonia often found itself under Assyrian or Elamite domination.\n\nCanaan: Ugarit, Kadesh, Megiddo.\n\nThe Hittite Empire was founded some time after 2000 BC, and existed as a major power, dominating Asia Minor and the Levant until 1200 BC, when it was first overrun by the Phrygians, and then appropriated by Assyria.\n\nLate Bronze Age\n\nThe Hurrians lived in northern Mesopotamia and areas to the immediate east and west, beginning approximately 2500 BC. They probably originated in the Caucasus and entered from the north, but this is not certain. Their known homeland was centred on Subartu, the Khabur River valley, and later they established themselves as rulers of small kingdoms throughout northern Mesopotamia and Syria. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni. The Hurrians played a substantial part in the history of the Hittites.\n\nIshuwa was an ancient kingdom in Anatolia. The name is first attested in the second millennium BC, and is also spelled Išuwa. In the classical period, the land was a part of Ancient Armenia. Ishuwa was one of the places where agriculture developed very early on in the Neolithic. Urban centres emerged in the upper Euphrates river valley around 3500 BC. The first states followed in the third millennium BC. The name Ishuwa is not known until the literate period of the second millennium BC. Few literate sources from within Ishuwa have been discovered and the primary source material comes from Hittite texts. To the west of Ishuwa lay the kingdom of the Hittites, and this nation was an untrustworthy neighbour. The Hittite king Hattusili I (c. 1600 BC) is reported to have marched his army across the Euphrates river and destroyed the cities there. This corresponds well with burnt destruction layers discovered by archaeologists at town sites in Ishuwa of roughly the same date. After the end of the Hittite empire in the early 12th century BC a new state emerged in Ishuwa. The city of Malatya became the centre of one of the so-called Neo-Hittite kingdom. The movement of nomadic people may have weakened the kingdom of Malatya before the final Assyrian invasion. The decline of the settlements and culture in Ishuwa from the 7th century BC until the Roman period was probably caused by this movement of people. The Armenians later settled in the area since they were natives of the Armenian plateau and related to the earlier inhabitants of Ishuwa.\n\nKizzuwatna was a kingdom of the second millennium BC, situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey, encircling the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The centre of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, situated in the highlands. In a later era, the same region was known as Cilicia.\n\nLuwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian speakers gradually spread through Anatolia and became a contributing factor to the downfall, after c. 1180 BC, of the Hittite Empire, where it was already widely spoken. Luwian was also the language spoken in the Neo-Hittite states of Syria, such as Melid and Carchemish, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished around 900 BC. Luwian has been preserved in two forms, named after the writing systems used to represent them: Cuneiform Luwian and Hieroglyphic Luwian.\n\nMari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometres north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria. It is thought to have been inhabited since the 5th millennium BC, although it flourished from 2900 BC until 1759 BC, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.\n\nMitanni, a Hurrian kingdom in northern Mesopotamia, existed from c. 1600 BC and attained its peak in the 14th century BC. It spanned present-day southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northern Iraq (roughly corresponding to Kurdistan), centred on the capital Washukanni, whose exact location remains undetermined by archaeologists. The Mitanni language showed Indo-Aryan influences, especially in the names of gods.[10] The spread to Syria of a distinct pottery type associated with the Kura-Araxes culture has been connected with this movement, although its date is somewhat too early.[11]\nYamhad was an ancient Amorite kingdom. A substantial Hurrian population also settled in the kingdom, and the Hurrian culture influenced the area. The kingdom was powerful during the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1800-1600 BC. Its biggest rival was Qatna further south. Yamhad was finally destroyed by the Hittites in the 16th century BC.\n\nThe Aramaeans were a Semitic (West Semitic language group), semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who had lived in upper Mesopotamia and Syria. Aramaeans have never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. Yet to these Aramaeans befell the privilege of imposing their language and culture upon the entire Near East and beyond, fostered in part by the mass relocations enacted by successive empires, including the Assyrians and Babylonians. Scholars even have used the term 'Aramaization' for the Assyro-Babylonian peoples' languages and cultures, that have become Aramaic-speaking.[12]\n\nThe Sea peoples, a confederacy of seafaring raiders from the second millennium BC, entered the eastern Mediterranean, sparked political unrest, and sought to penetrate or dominate Egyptian territory late in the 19th dynasty and especially in Year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty.[13] The Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term \"the foreign-countries (or 'peoples')[14] of the sea\"[15][16] in his Great Karnak Inscription.[17] Although some scholars believe that they \"invaded\" Cyprus, Hatti and the Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.[18]\n\nBronze Age collapse\n\nThe Bronze Age collapse is the name given by those historians who see the transition from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age as violent, sudden and culturally disruptive, expressed by the collapse of palace economies of the Aegean and Anatolia, which were replaced after a hiatus by the isolated village cultures of the Dark Age period in history of the ancient Middle East. Some have gone so far as to call the catalyst that ended the Bronze Age a \"catastrophe\".[19] The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of a technological history that saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region, beginning with precocious iron-working in what is now Romania in the 13th and 12th centuries.[20] The cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Palestine, the scission of long-distance trade contacts and sudden eclipse of literacy occurred between 1206 and 1150 BC. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter (for example, Hattusas, Mycenae, Ugarit). The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the rise of settled Neo-Hittite and Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC, and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.\n\nIron Age\n\nDuring the Early Iron Age, from 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire arose, vying with Babylonia and other lesser powers for dominance of the region, though not until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BC,[21][22] did it become a powerful and vast empire. In the Middle Assyrian period of the Late Bronze Age, ancient Assyria had been a kingdom of northern Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq), competing for dominance with its southern Mesopotamian rival Babylonia. From 1365 to 1076, it had been a major imperial power, rivaling Egypt and the Hittite Empire. Beginning with the campaign of Adad-nirari II, it became a vast empire, overthrowing the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and conquering Egypt, the Middle East, and large swaths of Asia Minor, ancient Iran, the Caucasus and east Mediterranean. The Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Middle Assyrian period (14th to 10th century BC). Some scholars, such as Richard Nelson Frye, regard the Neo-Assyrian Empire to be the first real empire in human history.[23] During this period, Aramaic was also made an official language of the empire, alongside the Akkadian language.[23]\n\nThe states of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms were Luwian, Aramaic and Phoenician-speaking political entities of Iron Age northern Syria and southern Anatolia that arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BC and lasted until roughly 700 BC. The label \"Neo-Hittite\" is sometimes restricted to Luwian-speaking principalities like Melid (Malatya) and Karkamish (Carchemish), while the cultural term \"Syro-Hittite\" extends more broadly to all entities that appeared in south-central Anatolia after the Hittite collapse, such as Tabal and Quwê, and to those in northern and coastal Syria.[24][25]\n\nUrartu was an ancient kingdom of Armenia and North Mesopotamia[26] which existed from c. 860 BC, emerging from the Late Bronze Age until 585 BC. The Kingdom of Urartu was located in the mountainous plateau between Asia Minor, the Iranian plateau, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus Mountains, later known as the Armenian Highland, and it centered on Lake Van (present-day eastern Turkey). The name corresponds to the Biblical Ararat.\n\nTwo related Israelite kingdoms known as Israel and Judah emerged in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. The northern Kingdom of Israel, with its most prominent capital at Samaria, was the more prosperous of the two kingdoms and soon developed into a regional power; during the days of the Omride dynasty, it controlled Samaria, Galilee, the upper Jordan Valley, the Sharon and large parts of the Transjordan. It was destroyed around 720 BC, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The southern Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, survived longer. In the 7th century BC, the kingdom's population increased greatly, prospering under Assyrian vassalage. After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 605 BC, the ensuing competition between the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire for control of the Levant resulted with the rapid decline of the kingdom. In the early-6th century BC, Judah was weakened by a series of Babylonian invasions, and in 587-586 BC, Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed by the second Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II, who subsequently exiled the Judeans to Babylon.\n\nThe Neo-Babylonian Empire designates Babylonia under the 11th (\"Chaldean\") dynasty, spanning from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 623 BC to the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC and including the reign of Nebuchadrezzar II. The last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, came from the Assyrian city of Harran and was not Chaldean. Through the centuries of Assyrian domination, Babylonia enjoyed a prominent status, and revolted at the slightest indication that it did not. However, the Assyrians always managed to restore Babylonian loyalty, whether through the granting of increased privileges, or militarily. That finally changed in 627 BC with the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, and Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar the Chaldean a few years later. In alliance with the Medes and Scythians, Nineveh was sacked in 612 and Harran in 608 BC, and the seat of empire was again transferred to Babylonia. Subsequently, the Medes controlled much of the ancient Near East from their base in Ecbatana (modern-day Hamadan, Iran), most notably most of what is now Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and the South Caucasus.\n\nFollowing the fall of the Medes, the Achaemenid Empire was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over most of the Near East and far beyond, and the second great Iranian empire (after the Median Empire). At the height of its power, encompassing approximately 7,500,000 km2 (2,900,000 sq mi), the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity, and the first world empire. Covering three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa), the empire stretched from its core in modern-day Iran to modern Iraq, the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Abkhazia), Asia Minor (Turkey), Thrace (parts of eastern Bulgaria), Macedonia (roughly corresponding to present-day Macedonia in northern Greece), many Black Sea coastal regions, northern Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Central Asia, parts of Pakistan, and all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya.[27] It is noted in western history as the foe of the Greek city states in the Greco-Persian Wars, for freeing the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, and for instituting Aramaic as the empire's official language.\n\nIn 116-117 AD, most of the ancient Near East (excepting several more marginal regions) was briefly re-united under the rule of the Roman Empire under Trajan.[28]\n\nSee also\n\n Asia portal\n\nAncient near eastern cosmology\n\nAncient Near East studies\n\nDiplomacy in the ancient Near East\n\nEconomy of Urartu\n\nGenetic history of the Middle East\n\nLevantine pottery\n\nList of cities of the ancient Near East\n\nList of museums of ancient Near Eastern art\n\nReligions of the ancient Near East\n\nNotes\n\n^ Modern-day Iraq and northeastern Syria, as well as parts of southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.\n\n^ Modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Israel, and Cyprus.\n\n^ All of modern-day Armenia, in addition to the Turkish Eastern Anatolia Region, northwestern Iran, southern Georgia, and western Azerbaijan.\n\n^ Modern-day southern Iraq, southeastern Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain.\n\n^ Media, Parthia, and Persis\n\n^ The Minoan, Mycenaean, and Cycladic cultures\n\nReferences\n\n^ Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea (1998). Daily Life In Ancient Mesopotamia. Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313294976. Retrieved 28 February 2015.\n\n^ \"Armenian Highland\". Encyclopædia Britannica. August 28, 2017.\n\n^ Crawford 2004, pp. 18, 40.\n\n^ Crawford 2004, p. 18.\n\n^ Crawford 2004, pp. 194-197.\n\n^ Samuel Noah, Kramer (1959) [1956]. History Begins at Sumer. Anchor Books. pp. xviii-xix, 1. ISBN 978-0-385-09405-4. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Huot, Jean-Louis; Vallet, Régis (1990). \"Les Habitations à salles hypostyles d'époque Obeid 0 de Tell El'Oueili\". Paléorient. 16 (1): 125-130. doi:10.3406/paleo.1990.4527.\n\n^ Altaweel, Mark; Marsh, Anke; Jotheri, Jaafar; Hritz, Carrie; Fleitmann, Dominik; Rost, Stephanie; Lintner, Stephen F.; Gibson, McGuire; Bosomworth, Matthew; Jacobson, Matthew; Garzanti, Eduardo (2019). \"New Insights on the Role of Environmental Dynamics Shaping Southern Mesopotamia: From the Pre-Ubaid to the Early Islamic Period\". IRAQ. 81: 23-46. doi:10.1017/irq.2019.2. ISSN 0021-0889. S2CID 200071451.\n\n^ \"Amorite (people)\". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014.\n\n^ von Dassow, Eva, (2014). \"Levantine Polities under Mittanian Hegemony\". In: Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Nicole Brisch and Jesper Eidem (eds.). Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space: The Emergence of the Mittani State. pp. 11-32.\n\n^ James P. Mallory, \"Kuro-Araxes Culture\", Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.\n\n^ Professor Simo Parpola, (University of Helsinki) (2004). \"National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times\" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2011.\n\n^ A convenient table of sea peoples in hieroglyphics, transliteration and English is given in the dissertation of Woodhuizen, 2006, who developed it from works of Kitchen cited there.\n\n^ As noted by Gardiner V.1 p. 196, other texts have \n\n ḫȝty.w \"foreign-peoples\"; both terms can refer to the concept of \"foreigners\" as well. Zangger in the external link below expresses a commonly held view that \"sea peoples\" does not translate this and other expressions but is an academic innovation. The Woudhuizen dissertation and the Morris paper identify Gaston Maspero as the first to use the term \"peuples de la mer\" in 1881.\n\n^ Gardiner, Alan H. (1947). Ancient Egyptian Onomastica. Vol. 1. London: Oxford University Press. p. 196.\n\n^ Colleen, Manassa (2003). The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah: Grand Strategy in the Thirteenth Century BC. New Haven: Yale Egyptological Seminar, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-9740025-0-7.\n\n^ Line 52. The inscription is shown in Manassa p. 55 plate 12.\n\n^ Several articles in Oren.\n\n^ Drews, Robert (1995). The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca 1200 B.C. United States: Princeton University Press. p. 264. ISBN 978-0-691-02591-9.\n\n^ See A. Stoia and the other essays in M.L. Stig Sørensen and R. Thomas, eds., The Bronze Age - Iron Age Transition in Europe (Oxford) 1989, and T.A. Wertime and J.D. Muhly, The Coming of the Age of Iron (New Haven) 1980.\n\n^ \"Assyrian Eponym List\". Archived from the original on 2016-11-14. Retrieved 2020-03-26.\n\n^ Tadmor, H. (1994). The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria. p. 29.\n\n^ a b Frye, Richard N. (1992). \"Assyria and Syria: Synonyms\". PhD, Harvard University. Journal of Near Eastern Studies. And the ancient Assyrian empire, was the first real, empire in history. What do I mean, it had many different peoples included in the empire, all speaking Aramaic, and becoming what may be called, \"Assyrian citizens.\" That was the first time in history, that we have this. For example, Elamite musicians, were brought to Nineveh, and they were 'made Assyrians' which means, that Assyria, was more than a small country, it was the empire, the whole Fertile Crescent.\n\n^ Hawkins, John David; 1982a. \"Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia\" in Cambridge Ancient History (2nd ed.) 3.1: 372-441.\n\n^ Hawkins, John David; 1995. \"The Political Geography of North Syria and South-East Anatolia in the Neo-Assyrian Period\" in Neo-Assyrian Geography, Mario Liverani (ed.), Università di Roma \"La Sapienza\", Dipartimento di Scienze storiche, archeologiche e anthropologiche dell'Antichità, Quaderni di Geografia Storica 5: Roma: Sargon srl, 87-101.\n\n^ Urartu article, Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2007.\n\n^ \"The Achaemenid Empire\". Expedition Magazine, Penn Museum. Retrieved August 18, 2026.\n\n^ Griffin, Miriam T. (2000). \"Trajan\". In Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Rathbone, Dominic (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 11, The High Empire, AD 70-192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 96-131. ISBN 978-0-521-26335-1.\n\nSources\n\nCrawford, Harriet (2004) [1991]. Sumer and the Sumerians. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82596-2.\n\nFurther reading\n\nFletcher, Banister & Dan Cruickshank. Sir Banister Fletcher's a History of Architecture. 20th ed. Architectural Press, 1996. ISBN 0-7506-2267-9. Cf. Part One, Chapter 4.\n\nHallo, William W. & William Kelly Simpson. The Ancient Near East: A History. 2nd ed. Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1997. ISBN 0-15-503819-2.\n\nPittman, Holly (1984). Art of the Bronze Age: Southeastern Iran, Western Central Asia, and the Indus Valley. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780870993657.\n\nSasson, Jack. The Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, New York, 1995.\n\nScarre, Christopher & Brian M. Fagan. Ancient Civilizations. 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, 2007.\n\nMarc Van de Mieroop, History of the Ancient Near East: Ca. 3000-323 B.C., Blackwell Publishers, 2nd ed., 2006 (first published 2003). ISBN 1-4051-4911-6.\n\nExternal links\n\nAncientNearEast.site - Website specialized in the history of the Ancient Near East and its cultures, such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Persians, or Ancient Egypt.\n\nThe History of the Ancient Near East - A database of the prehistoric Near East as well as its ancient history up to approximately the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans ...\n\nVicino Oriente - Vicino Oriente is the journal of the Section Near East of the Department of Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences of Antiquity of Rome 'La Sapienza' University. The Journal, which is published yearly, deals with Near Eastern History, Archaeology, Epigraphy, extending its view also on the whole Mediterranean with the study of Phoenician and Punic documents. It is accompanied by 'Quaderni di Vicino Oriente', a monograph series.\n\nAncient Near East.net - An information and content portal for the archaeology, ancient history, and culture of the ancient Near East and Egypt\n\nFreer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution - The Freer Gallery houses a famous collection of ancient Near Eastern artefacts and records, notebooks and photographs of excavations in Samarra (Iraq), Persepolis and Pasargadae (Iran)\n\nThe Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives - The archives for The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery houses the papers of Ernst Herzfeld regarding his many excavations, along with records of other archeological excavations in the ancient Near East.\n\nArchaeowiki.org - A wiki for the research and documentation of the ancient Near East and Egypt\n\nETANA - Website hosted by a consortium of universities in the interests of providing digitized resources and relevant web links\n\nAncient Near East Photographs - This collection, created by Professor Scott Noegel, documents artifacts and archaeological sites of the ancient Near East; from the University of Washington Libraries Digital Image Collection\n\nNear East Images - A directory of archaeological images of the ancient Near East\n\nBioarchaeology of the Near East - An Open Access journal"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ancient-near-east"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5033}, {"slug": "reference-assyrian-volunteers", "title": "Assyrian volunteers", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Assyrian volunteers was an ethnic, but not exclusively, Assyrian military force during World War I, led mainly by General Agha Petros Elia of Baz and several tribal leaders known as Maliks (Syriac: ܡܠܟ) under the spiritual leadership of the Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Shimun Benyamin. The volunteers were allied...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyrian volunteers\n\nThe flag that was raised by General Agha Petros Elia of Baz, commander of the Assyrian forces during World War I\n\nActive1914-1920\n\nDisbanded1920\n\nAllegianceEntente\n\nSize20,000-25,000[1][2] (Assyrians and Armenians)\n\n6,000-8,000[3] (After World War I)\n\nNickname\"The Christian Army of Revenge\"\n\nEngagementsMiddle Eastern theatre of World War I\n\nPersian Campaign\n\nAttack Of Baz[4]\n\nTyari Offensive[5]\n\nHakkari Expedition 1915[6]\n\nBattle of Urmia 1915[7]\n\nBattle of Apenshai[8]\n\nBattle of Bar Shena[8]\n\nBattle of Bar Shena and Walto[8]\n\nHakkari Expedition 1916\n\nHakkari Expedition 1917\n\nBattle of Seray Mountain\n\nBattle of Oramar\n\nUrmia Clashes\n\nBattle of Charah\n\nBattle of Suldouze\n\nBattle of Ushno\n\nBattle of Urmia April 1918\n\nBattle of Urmia June 1918\n\nBattle of Sawcubilax\n\nFirst Battle of Salmas[9]\n\nSecond Battle of Salmas[9]\n\nBattle of Derbend[9]\n\nCapture of Hakkari (1919)[10]\n\nMesopotamian campaign\n\nBattle of Sharqat\n\nBattle of Mosul 1918\n\nCaucasus Campaign\n\nBattle of Bitlis[11]\n\nDefense of Van (1915)\n\nAssyrian rebellion\nSimko Shikak revolt (1918-1922)[9]\nSimko Shikak revolt (1926)[9]\n\nCommanders\n\nNotable\ncommandersAgha Petros\nMalik Khoshaba\nDawid Mar Shimun\nMar Shimun Benyamin (spiritual leader)\nMalik Yaqo\n\nThe Assyrian volunteers was an ethnic, but not exclusively, Assyrian military force during World War I, led mainly by General Agha Petros Elia of Baz and several tribal leaders known as Maliks (Syriac: ܡܠܟ) under the spiritual leadership of the Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Shimun Benyamin. The volunteers were allied with the Entente Powers, and described by the English pastor and author William A. Wigram as Our Smallest Ally.[12] They were also dubbed \"The Christian army of Revenge\" by the British officer Edward Noel.[13]\n\nBackground\n\nPrior to World War I, the Assyrian tribes of the Hakkari mountains enjoyed complete and semi-independence, each tribe was led by a Malik (ܡܠܟ) who also functioned as a military leader during wartime. The independent Assyrian mountaineers were referred to as Asiratte or Asherat.[14]\n\nThe country of the independent Assyrian tribes of Bet Tkhuma, Bet Baz, Bet Jelu, Bet Tyari, Bet Kasrani and Bet Diz occupied the upper valley of the Zab River. This country was known as Hakkari. The village of Mellawa marked the border between the independent and semi-independent tribes.[14]\n\nThe British diplomat James Rich wrote:[14]\n\nTo reach Asia Minor by this route he (the envoy) would have to pass through the wild and inaccessible country of the Chaldean Christian Tribes who, I believe are the only Christians in the East who have maintained their independence against the Mohammedans, to whom they have rendered themselves very formidable. The men are all remarkable for their strength, size and bravery, and it is said to be less safe to pass among them than through the Mohamadean tribes. They inhabit the country between Amadia and Julamerk.\n\nIn reaction to the Assyrian Genocide and lured by British and Russian promises of an independent nation, as the Assyrians armed themselves and put up resistance, Talaat Pasha sent the order to permanently drive them from the Hakkari mountains.[15]\n\nThe Assyrians led by Agha Petros of Bit-Baz tribe and Malik Khoshaba of the Bit-Tyari tribe, fought alongside the Allies against Ottoman forces in an Assyrian struggle for independence. Despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned, the Assyrians fought successfully, scoring a number of victories over the Ottomans, Kurdish tribes, and Persian forces[note 1]. This situation continued until their Russian allies left the war, and Armenian resistance broke, leaving the Assyrians surrounded, isolated and cut off from lines of supply, with many fighting their way to fellow Assyrian communities in Iraq and Syria, which were under British control. The sizable Assyrian presence in south eastern Anatolia which had endured for over four millennia was thus reduced significantly by the end of World War I. Between 275,000 and 300,000 Assyrian civilians were estimated to have been slaughtered by the armies of the Ottoman Empire and their Kurdish allies, totaling up to two-thirds of the entire Assyrian population.\n\nEngagements\n\nOver the summer of 1915 the Assyrians successfully held off the far larger Ottoman army, Kurdish militia and tribal forces fighting with the Ottomans. The Ottomans, unable to break the Assyrians, then brought in heavy artillery and ammunition that, together with an overwhelming advantage in numbers and supplies, eventually overwhelmed the lightly armed and outnumbered Assyrians. The Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late. Assyrians defended themselves against tremendous odds and conducted an orderly retreat. Despite the extreme situation, they managed to bring all of their women and flocks and herds safely to Persia.[17] Survivors of fighting age joined the Assyrians of northwest Persia, northern Iraq and northeast Syria, including those from Salamas and Urmia to form an Assyrian army, and had a real prospect of fighting with the Russians to evict the Ottoman forces from Persia, and historic Assyria.[18]\n\nAgha Petros\n\nUnder the command of Agha Petros, the Assyrians had quite a few successful engagements over the Ottoman forces. Most notably at Suldouze where Petros’ 1,500 horsemen overcame the forces of Kheiri Bey's (8,000 men).[19][20] Petros also defeated the Ottomans in a major engagement at Sawcubilax and drove them back to Rawandiz.[9][21]\n\nAfter the invasion of Mosul by the Young Turks, the Assyrian army, led by General Agha Petros, fought intensively and successfully against the Ottoman army and their Kurdish allies, and pushed them out of Mosul and the whole area, leading to Britain's control of the region. The battles are described in detail by surviving letters of Petros and British officials.[22]\n\nLieutenant Gasfield (British Liaison Officer) and French Surgeon-Major Jean Caujole (French military physician) personally recorded-in their diaries from the Urmia and Salmas fronts-Agha Petros’s tyrannical rule over his own community and the pressure he exerted to turn villagers into militiamen.[23]\n\nIn his book *The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan*, W.A. Wigram states that Petros was involved in fraudulent activities in British Columbia and had collected money under the pretext of building an orphanage in Macedonia.[24] According to some historians,[25] he fled the country just as the Canadian police were about to arrest him and subsequently went to Rome, where he presented himself as a Syriac tribal leader seeking to bring his tribe-originally of the Church of the East-into the fold of the Chaldean Catholic Church\n\nSome historians also describe Petros Elia as a man driven solely by his own ambitions.[26] Military advisors from the Entente Powers reported that Petros was conspiring against Patriarch Shimun XXI and attempting to ruin his reputation in the eyes of the Entente. In their reports, Lieutenant Gasfield and French Surgeon-Major Caujole noted that he was not held in high regard even by his own subordinates[25]\n\nReports from the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate of Security state that Agha Petros raided Assyrian/Nestorian villages in the region-whether neutral or loyal to the Ottoman Empire-forcibly conscripting young men into a militia unit under the command of the Russian army and seizing the logistical resources of villages that resisted.[27]\n\nMalik Khoshaba\n\nMalik Khoshaba led forces in counterattacks against the far larger Ottoman Army during and after the period known as the Assyrian Genocide with some success. Khoshaba was known for his bravery, cruelty and military capabilities during this time.\n\nDuring the first summer of the arrival of the Assyrian refugees in Iran, the Assyrians of Lower Tyari under the leadership of Malik Khoshaba were settled around the mountains of Seray where they were besieged by Turkish and Kurdish forces under the command of Khalil Pasha. During the night, Malik Khiyo of Ashitha (17 years old at the time) observed two groups crossing his front, positioned himself in an artillery observation post and directed a moonlight strike to hold off the enemy. Two of Khoshaba's patrols were successful in capturing Turkish and Kurdish soldiers to gather intel about their positions. Khoshaba was also successful in preventing the enemy's field guns from damaging his post at dawn, while also bringing in twenty-four Turkish prisoners and personally killing four Turkish soldiers. By 7:30am, the enemy was beaten by the men of Khoshaba and Khiyo of Ashitha.[28] On 13 August 1917, in Seray and Mavana, the Assyrians were surrounded by the 5th and 6th Divisions, under the leadership of Iskander Pasha, who vowed to annihilate the Assyrian race with their Persian allies. Khoshaba decided to withdraw his men to their defences for the night, and to send out patrols to halt the enemy moving towards Seray. By 10:30pm the Assyrians had captured eighty-eight prisoners and a mass of arms. Khoshaba, who could speak fluent Turkish, questioned the prisoners, most of whom claimed no reinforcements would be arriving. Khoshaba also translated a captured code of signals which would call for mortar bombs. Early the following morning, Khoshaba captured more Turkish prisoners; among them was a Turkish army colonel, second in command to Iskander Pasha.[29]\n\nThe Assyrian forces under the command of Malik Khoshaba and General Agha Petros numbered some 6,000 men, flanked by Allied (mainly Russian) troops. Their task at the time was to hold the front against the Turks who were attempting to advance on the city of Baku, in which they were successful in doing so for seven months (January - July 1918) while surrounded by enemy forces.[30]\n\nAssault on the Kurdish Fortress of Charah\n\nAssyrians attacked the Fortress of Charah on March 16, 1918 after the murder of Mar Shimun.[31] Simko Shikak, who was responsible for the murder of the Assyrian patriarch Mar Shimun was staying in the fortress. The fortress had never been conquered despite numerous attempts by the Iranian government.[31] During the battle, Simko was panic stricken after seeing the Assyrians rip apart his forces.[31] While the battle was going on, Simko managed to flee, abandoning his men.[31] After one day of fighting, the Kurds were decisively defeated. According to sources, Charah was completely red from the dead Shikak fighters.[31]\n\nAfter World War I\n\nDuring the peace conferences in Paris in 1919, the Assyrian delegation asked for a state in Diyarbekir Vilayet and northern Mesopotamia in Iraq, others requested a British protectorate in Upper Mesopotamia, northern Mosul, and Urmia. This was however rejected by Great Britain and the U.S. delegates.[32] The Assyrians tried to retake the region, but the Turks and Kurds objected to the Assyrians desire to retake their ancestral lands in Hakkari, and an attempt to occupy the region by Agha Petros failed. In 1924 Turkey formally occupied northern Hakkari and expelled the last Christian inhabitants who still remained in the region.[32]\n\nDeath toll\n\nThe Assyrian delegation at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and in 1923, at the Lausanne Conference estimated that between 250,000-275,000 Assyrians died during the Assyrian genocide around half the prewar population of 600,000[33]\n\nSee also\n\nAssyrian independence movement\n\nNotes\n\n^ In Urmia clashes[16]\n\nReferences\n\n^ The French gave us 20,000 Lebel rifles, whilst several French officers, together with the few Russian officers who had remained behind, set about organisms our Assyro-Chaldean army, the numbers of which had grown to more than 20,000\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015-02-01). Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8605-6.\n\n^ Kaymaz, İhsan Şerif (2003). Musul sorunu petrol ve Kürt sorunlarıyla bağlantılı tarihsel-siyasal bir inceleme (in Turkish). Otopsi. p. 181. ISBN 978-975-8410-31-6.\n\n^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik (2020). Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945. Translated by Michael, Ramon. ISBN 979-8564099837.\n\n^ A Question of Genocide P. 257\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2006). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-4632-1081-6.\n\n^ Tejirian, Eleanor H.; Simon, Reeva S. (2012). Conflict, conquest, and conversion : two thousand years of Christian missions in the Middle East. Columbia University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-231-13864-2.\n\n^ a b c Assyrians and Two World Wars\n\n^ a b c d e f \"آغا بطرس: سنحاريب القرن العشرين\" (PDF). نينوس نيراري. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-08-12.\n\n^ Kızılkaya, Abdulkadir (Gûzereşî) (2024). Suhbeta Sed Eşîran. Nûbihar Yayınları. p. 46. ISBN 9786256605176. Retrieved 2025-10-29.\n\n^ 1931, p. 35\n\n^ Wigram, William Ainger (1920). Our Smallest Ally; Wigram, W[illiam] A[inger]; A Brief Account of the Assyrian Nation in the Great War. Introd. by General H.H. Austin. Soc. for Promoting Christian Knowledge.\n\n^ Reynolds, Michael A. (2011-01-27). Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908-1918. Cambridge University Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-139-49412-0.\n\n^ a b c Aboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. ISBN 9781604975833.\n\n^ Gaunt, David; Bet̲-Şawoce, Jan (May 2017). Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I. Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781785334993.\n\n^ Werda, Joel E. (1924). The Flickering Light of Asia, or, the Assyrian Nation and Church. Assyrian International News Agency.\n\n^ Wigram, William Ainger (1920). Our Smallest Ally: A Brief Account of the Assyrian Nation in the Great War. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. p. 26.\n\n^ Naayem, Shall This Nation Die? (New York, 1921)\n\n^ Joseph Naayem, Shall this Nation die?, Chaldean Rescue, New York, 1920, p. 277 online version\n\n^ Naayem, Shall This Nation Die?, p. 281\n\n^ استشهاد مارشمعون .ونزوح الاشوريين الى بعقوبة Archived 2010-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, Zahrira.net\n\n^ Assyrian military activity in iraq during ww1\n\n^ Caujole, Jean (1922). Les Tribulations d'une Ambulance Française en Perse, 1917-1919.\n\n^ Rev. W.A. Wigram (1922). The Cradle of Mankind, life in Eastern Kurdistan, Second Edition. Londra: A & C Black, Ltd. pp. 218-219. online version Archived 11 December 2023 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ a b (in French) Méthy Daniel, L'action des grandes puissances dans la région d'Ourmia (Iran) et les Assyro-Chaldéens: 1917-1918 in Studia Kurdica n°1- 4.5, 5, Paris,1988, ISSN 0765-1074, p86.. online version Archived 11 December 2023 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Rev. W.A. Wigram (2002). The Assyrians and Their Neighbours. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1-931956-11-1.\n\n^ T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA), Fon Kodu: DH.EUM.5.Şb (Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü 5. Şube), Dosya No: 24, Gömlek No: 18 (1916-1917 tarihli istihbarat raporları).\n\n^ Haddad, Eva (1953). The Assyrian, The Rod of My Anger. E. Haddad. pp. 57-62. ISBN 9780646284187. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Haddad, Eva (1953). The Assyrian, The Rod of My Anger. E. Haddad. pp. 87-96. ISBN 9780646284187. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Yacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, A History. Oxford University Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-19-063346-2.\n\n^ a b c d e Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik (2020-11-13). Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945. Ramon Michael. p. 152.\n\n^ a b Nisan, M (2002). Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1375-1.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2015). \"The Complexity of the Assyrian Genocide\". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 83-103. doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.05. ISSN 2291-1847."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyrian-volunteers"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2492}, {"slug": "reference-tyari", "title": "Tyari", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Tyari[a] (Syriac: ܛܝܵܪܹܐ, romanized: Ṭyārē)[1][2] is an Assyrian tribe and a historical district within Hakkari, Turkey. The area was traditionally divided into Upper Tyari (Tyari Letha[3]) and Lower Tyari (Tyari Khtetha[3])-each consisting of several Assyrian villages. Both Upper and Lower Tyari are located on the western bank of...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tyari[a] (Syriac: ܛܝܵܪܹܐ, romanized: Ṭyārē)[1][2] is an Assyrian tribe and a historical district within Hakkari, Turkey. The area was traditionally divided into Upper Tyari (Tyari Letha[3]) and Lower Tyari (Tyari Khtetha[3])-each consisting of several Assyrian villages. Both Upper and Lower Tyari are located on the western bank of the Zab river.[4] Today, the district mostly sits in around the town of Çukurca.[5][6][7] Historically, the largest village of the region was known as Ashitha.[8] According to Hannibal Travis the Tyari Assyrians were known for their skills in weaving and knitting.[5]\n\nBefore 1915, Tyari was home to Assyrians from the Bet Tyari tribe as well as a minority of Kurds and Armenians. Following the Assyrian genocide, Ṭyārāyē, along with other Assyrians residing in the Hakkari highlands, were forced to leave their villages in southeast Anatolia and fled to join their fellow Assyrian brethren in modern-day northern Iraq[9] (Sarsink,[10] Sharafiya,[11] Chammike[12] and various villages in the Nahla valley[13]), northeastern Syria (Tel Tamer[14] and Al Hasakah), Armenia, Georgia and, from the late 20th century, to western countries. The Tyari tribe was, according to Robert Elliot Speer, one of the Assyrian \"ashirets\".[9] In 1869 there were 15,000 Tyari Assyrians living in 2,500 houses in the Tyari district according to John George Taylor in a report to the Earl of Clarendon.[15] The Tyari Assyrians lived across 51 different villages and constituted 50,000 members - making it the most powerful among the semi-independent Assyrian tribes.[16] The Tyari district is located in the boundaries of the ancient Neo-Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene.[17]\n\nIt is worth particular notice that the most central parts of this region are, and have been from time immemorial, entirely inhabited by the Nestorians, to the exclusion of every other class of people. A great part of the Independent tribes of Tiari [Tiyari] and the whole of the tribes of Tekhoma, Bass, Jelu and other smailer tribes, are included in the boundaries of Adiabene.\n\n- Asahel Grant, \"The Nestorians, Or, the Lost Tribes\", [18] (1841)\n\nEtymology\n\nTyari may be a variation of the ancient \"Autiyara\" (Assyria). American historian Albert T. Olmstead describes in his work History of the Persian Empire how the Persian General Vaumisa wins a battle in the Autiyara districts located in Tyari and mentions that this is where Assyrian Christians maintained independence until modern times.[19]\n\nIn Syriac, the word ṭyārē (ܛܝܪ̈ܐ) is the plural form of ṭyārā, meaning \"sheepfold\" or \"grazing area\".[1] Indeed, the Assyrians of Tyari were renowned even amongst neighboring Kurds and Armenians for their yogurt, cheese and other dairy products mostly made from sheep or goat's milk. They were also famous for their textiles,[5] which again were spun and woven from sheep's wool. They also made woolen felt for their characteristic conical caps, a style dating back to the Assyrian Empire.[20]\n\nMilitary engagements\n\nOne of the reasons the Assyrians of Tyari were able to stay independent for so long despite being significantly outnumbered by Turks, Kurds and Arab Muslims was their fighting ability. The Assyrians of Tyari were especially known for being a fierce, warlike people. It was said that they were the best fighters in West Asia, along with the Assyrian tribe of Tkhuma.[21] Their Muslim neighbors stated that in order to stand a chance they needed to outnumber the Assyrians of Tyari or Tkhuma five to one, and have superior modern weapons.[22] Assyrians of Tyari used much older weaponry and manufactured their own weapons and ammunition.[22]\n\nIn 1834 the leader of the Soran Emirate Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz tried to subdue the Assyrians of Lower Tyari, but suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the vastly outnumbered Assyrians. They then chased the Kurds and Turks back to Amadiya.[23] This defeat played a major role in the collapse of the Soran Emirate.[24][23][25][26]\n\nIn 1844, Kurds from the Chull region seized fifty sheep from the Nestorian settlement of Matha’d Kasra. Shortly afterward, Bedirhan Bey dispatched three hundred men to Berawola, where they took 1,050 more sheep. As a result of these raids, only a small number of livestock remained in the Tiyari region. During their travels through the mountains, the missionaries Smith and Laurie passed a village that had been attacked by Kurds at midnight the previous day.[27]\n\nIn 1880, Ubeydullah's militia, with the support of mercenaries from the Tyari tribe, invaded the northwestern Kurdish territories of Qajar dynasty in attempt to expand his control.[28]\n\nIn 1907 the Ottomans sent troops to Hakkari to stop fighting between the Assyrians of Tyari and Kurds. The Ottoman troops were successful in subduing the Kurds. The Assyrians of Tyari, however, defeated them and the Ottomans were routed and had their weapons seized.[29]\n\nIn 1915, the Assyrian tribes\nof Lower and Upper Tyari were attacked by Ottoman troops from Mosul under Vali Haydar Bey, supported by Kurdish irregulars. At the same time, the kaymakam of Djulemerk and the Artosh Kurds launched an assault on Upper Tyari. The Assyrians were forced to abandon their valleys, seeking refuge in higher mountains and later in Persia, where many perished en route. Rashid Bey of Barwari Bala was noted for his particular violence during this campaign, devastating Lower Tyari and murdering Malik Yosip, the father of Malik Khoshaba.[30]\n\nFollowing the Assyrian Genocide of World War One which began in 1915, the Tyareh tribe, along with all other Assyrians took part in the Assyrian War of Independence against the offending Ottoman Empire and their Kurdish and Arab allies, allying themselves with the British, Russians and Armenians (victims of the Armenian Genocide). The Tyareh, under Malik Khoshaba took part in scoring a number of notable victories against the Ottomans and Kurds despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned. However Following the Russian withdrawal after the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the collapse of Armenian lines the Tyareh and other northern Assyrian tribes were forced to fight their way to British lines in Northern Mesopotamia and Northern Persia.\n\nIn the early 1930s, the Assyrians consisting mainly of Tyarayeh and Tkhoumnayeh successfully defeated the Iraqi army in Dairabun killing 33 and wounding 40, including three officers, while the Assyrians suffered significantly less losses. The Iraqis were armed with modern weapons and attack planes given to them by the British, while the Assyrians were only equipped with old rifles.[31]\n\nIn the 1930s, the Iraqis admitted that one Assyrian soldier was equal to three Arab soldiers and saw the Assyrians as a huge threat to Iraq militarily if Assyrians went against the British.[32]\n\nDialect\n\nThe dialect of Tyari belongs to the Ashiret group, along with the dialects of e.g. Tkhuma and Baz, of the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects.[33] Like Jīlū, the Tyari dialect is a very distinct Assyrian Neo-Aramaic dialect. Unlike the Jilu, Baz and Gawar dialects (which are very similar to each other), this one is more \"thick\". It is, in a way, a sort of a \"working class\" accent of the Assyrian dialects. Dialects within Tyari, and especially the Western group, have more in common with Chaldean Neo-Aramaic than with Iraqi Koine (similar to General Urmian). The Tyari dialect is divided into two main sub-dialects; upper Tyari and lower Tyari.[34]\n\nMany Tyari speakers can switch back and forth from Tyari to \"Assyrian Standard\" (or \"Iraqi Koine\") when conversing with Assyrian speakers of other dialects. Some speakers tend to adopt a form of verb conjugation that is closer to the Iraqi Koine or Urmian Standard. This is attributed to the growing exposure to Assyrian Standard-based literature, media, and its use as a liturgical language by the Assyrian Church of the East. Furthermore, it is customary for Assyrian artists to generally sing in Iraqi Koine for them to be intelligible and have widespread recognition. Songs in Tyari dialects are usually of the folk-dance music genre and would attract certain audiences.[35]\n\nExamples in Tyari compared to Koine[36]\n\nEnglish\n\nAssyrian Koine\n\nTyari dialect\n\nHair\n\n'ch:osa\n\n'chawsa\n\nPigeon\n\n'yo:na\n\n'yawna\n\nFasting\n\n'so:ma\n\n'sawma\n\nBenefit\n\n'ph:ayda\n\n'pheda\n\nBody\n\n'phaġra\n\n'phaxra\n\nLord\n\n'a:ġa\n\n'a:xa\n\nRank\n\n'darġa\n\n'darxa\n\nExamples\n\nEnglish\n\nTyari dialect\n\nNote\n\nHouse\n\nBεθα[37]\n\nThis is also common in the village of Araden[37]\n\nHer house\n\nBεθα diya[37]\n\nHe descends\n\nṣāle[33]\n\nHe rises\n\nqā'im[33]\n\nHe does not drink\n\nla-šate-Ø (Ashitha)[34]\n\nle-šate-Ø (Halmun)[34]\n\nDeath\n\nmθta (Ashitha)[34]\n\nmawθta (Halmun)[34]\n\nIllness\n\nmaṛ'a[34]\n\nWool\n\n´amṛa[34]\n\nShe says\n\n´amra[34]\n\nExamples of /*ṯ/ shift to /š/[38]\n\nEnglish\n\nTyari dialect\n\nAssyrian Koine\n\nChicken\n\nkṯεša[38]\n\nܟܬܵܬ݂ܵܐ / ktatha[39]\n\nOil\n\nzεša[38]\n\nܙܲܝܬܵܐ / zéta[40]\n\nDrink\n\nštεša[38]\n\nܫܬܵܝܬܵܐ / shtéta[41]\n\nSuffixes\n\nAlthough possessive affixes (beti - \"my house\") are more convenient and common among Assyrian speakers, those with Tyari and Barwari dialects take a more analytic approach regarding possession, just like modern Hebrew and English.[42]\n\nVillages and sub-clans in Tyari\n\nUpper Tyari[43][44]\n\nClan\n\nBne Qalatha\n\nDadoshoshnaye\n\nBne Roomta\n\nWalto\n\nSingle Village Clans\n\nSub-clan or settlement\n\nQalatha\n\nDadosh\n\nMar Sawa\n\nSerta\n\nSiadohr (Siyador)\n\nChamba D'Malik\n\nMabua\n\nSarispeedon\n\nMatha D Mat Mariam\n\nKoe (Ko)\n\nMalota\n\nBet Mariggo\n\nRoomta\n\nKhadiana\n\nKokha\n\nChamba D'Hasso\n\nChamikta\n\nResha D'Nahra\n\nMazrogeh\n\nChamba D'Nene\n\nShwawootha\n\nChamba D'Elia\n\nDarawa\n\nIshta D'Nahra\n\nZorawa\n\nLower Tyari[43][44]\n\nClan\n\nBne Be-Alahta\n\nBne-Matha\n\nBne-Lagippa\n\nAshita\n\nBne Rawel\n\nSingle Village Clans\n\nSub-clan or settlement\n\nBe-Alahta\n\nLizan\n\nLagippa\n\nBe-Marqus\n\nRawel (Ravole)\n\nMinianish\n\nSalabakkan (Ravola d-Salabkhan)\n\nZarne\n\nKurkhe\n\nBe-Qasha-Khoshaba\n\nShurt (Shurd)\n\nZawitha\n\nMatha D'Qasra\n\nChamba d-Be-Susina\n\nBe-Odishka\n\nBorish\n\nNashe d-Matha\n\nChammanaye\n\nKhatibnaye\n\nBe-Rabin\n\nBe-Merwatte\n\nDivision of sub-clans and settlements according to the Diocese of Mar Shimun\n\nSource:[45]\n\nLower Tyari:\n\nGaramoon\n\nHalamoon\n\nTcalluk\n\nArosh\n\nHor\n\nTeire Rezen\n\nAsheetha (Ashita)\n\nBarwar (Barwari Bala)\n\nZaweetha\n\nMinyanish\n\nMerghe\n\nKurkhe\n\nLeezan (Lizan)\n\nOomra Tahtiya\n\nZerni\n\nKarukhta\n\nChamba d'Beth Soseena\n\nMatha d'Kasra\n\nBe-Zeezo\n\nLagippa\n\nBe-Alahta\n\nBne-Matha\n\nBe-Rawole (Rawel, Ravula)\n\nShoord\n\nRawloa d'Salabeken\n\nWalto:\n\nChamba Hadtha\n\nZorawa\n\nSeerta\n\nShwawootha\n\nMatha d'Mart Miriam\n\nKhadiana\n\nReshe d'Nahra\n\nUpper Tyari:\n\nSerspeedho\n\nSiyadhor\n\nChamba d' Be Ellia\n\nChamba d'Nene\n\nChamba d'Coordhaye\n\nMezzraa\n\nMrateetha\n\nBe-Nahra\n\nBe-Zrako\n\nRoomta\n\nJeiatha\n\nReshe d'Nahra\n\nAina d'Aleete\n\nDoora Allaya\n\nKalaytha\n\nMezraa d'Kalaytha\n\nChamba d'Melek\n\nBe-Dalyatha\n\nDadosh\n\nMabbuaa\n\nKo\n\nChamba dKoodkhe\n\nBe-Meriggo\n\nRoma Smoka\n\nChamba d'Hasso\n\nDarawa\n\nMalota\n\nClothing\n\nAbout the national dress worn by the Tyari men in the Bakuba camp, Brigadier-General Austin wrote; \"Fine upstanding fellows they are, ...their legs, encased in long loose baggy trousers of a greyish hue originally, but so patched all over with bits of blue, red, green and other colors that their pants are veritable patch work. A broad cloth, \"Kammar band,\" or waist band, is folded several times round the trunk of the body, and a short cut-away jacket of amazing colors, worn over a thin cotton variegated shirt. The head-dress consists of conical felt cap as depicted in frescoes of Assyrians of thousands of years ago, and which has survived to this day.\"[46]\n\n\"Among them are a number of Tyari men, whose wild looks, combined with the splendour of their dress and arms, are a great interest. […] Their jackets are one mass of gold embroidery (worked by Jews), their shirts, with hanging sleeves, are striped with satin, their trousers, of sailor cut, are silk, made from the cocoons of their own silkworms, woven with broad crimson stripes on a white ground, on which is a zigzag pattern; and their handsome jack-boots are of crimson leather. With they white or red peaked fell hats and twisted silk pagris, their rich girdles, jewelled daggers, and inlaid pistols, they are very imposing.\"[47]\n\nIsabella L. Bird wrote in her work \"Journeys In Persia And Kurdistan\" about a Tyari man wearing a white conical cap.\n\nOn his head, where one would have expected to see a college “trencher”, was a high conical cap of white felt with a pagri of black silk twisted into a rope, the true Tyari turban.\n\n- Isabella L. Bird, \"Journeys In Persia and Kurdistan\", [48] (1891)\n\nFamous Tyari Assyrians\n\nBishops and priests\n\nMar Addai II, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East - Ashitha, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Gewargis III Sliwa, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East - Ashitha, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Narsai Toma, Metropolitan of Kirkuk of the Ancient Church of the East - Lagippa, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Toma Giwargis, Metropolitan of Nineveh of the Ancient Church of the East - Matha D'Qasra, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Daniel Yakob, Bishop of California of the Ancient Church of the East - Ashitha, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Yacoub Daniel, Metropolitan of Australia and New Zealand of the Ancient Church of the East - Ashitha, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Emmanuel Elia, former Bishop of North America of the Ancient Church of the East - Ashitha, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Zaia Khoshaba, Metropolitan of North America of the Ancient Church of the East - Lagippa, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Aprem Daweed, former Bishop of Dohuk of the Ancient Church of the East - Ashitha, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Gewargis Younan, Bishop of Chicago of the Ancient Church of the East - Minyanish, Lower Tyari\n\nMar Odisho Oraham, Bishop of Western Europe of the Assyrian Church of the East - Rumta, Upper Tyari [49]\n\nMar Aprem Natniel, Bishop of Syria of the Assyrian Church of the East - Sarespido, Upper Tyari\n\nAssyrian Lawyers\n\nOliver Slewa Qaraya\n\nAssyrian Singers\n\nAdwar Mousa\n\nJuliana Jendo\n\nLinda George\n\nSargon Gabriel\n\nGeorge Homeh\n\nAssyrian tribal leaders\n\nMalik Khoshaba Yosip, (Lower Tyari)[50]\n\nMalik Ismail II (Upper Tyari)[50]\n\nRais Khiyo Odisho (Chammānāyā)[51]\n\nMalik Barkho (Bé-Allatha)[50]\n\nHurmiz Malik Chikko (Dadoshnāyā)[52][53]\n\nMalik Yaqo d'Malik Ismael, (Upper Tyari)[50]\n\nZadoq Nwiya, (Ashitha, Lower Tyari)[50]\n\nSayfo Keena, (Bnay l'Gippa, Lower Tyari)[50]\n\nRayis Booko, (Ashitha, Lower Tyari)[50]\n\nRayis Yawp Sawkho, (Chamba, Upper Tyari)[50]\n\nRayis Warda Oshana, (Rarwa, Upper Tyari)[50]\n\nLazar Marqus (Ashitha, Lower Tyari)[54]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian tribes\n\nList of Assyrian settlements\n\nAssyrian independence movement\n\nBarwari\n\nJilu\n\nNochiya\n\nÖveç, Şemdinli\n\nBeyyurdu, Şemdinli\n\nNotes\n\n^ Also spelled with a final -e or -y in place of -i, with a -i- or -iy- in place of -y-, or with any combination thereof (e.g. Tiare, Tiari, Tiyare, etc.).\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Maclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the Dialects of Vernacular Syriac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 241.\n\n^ Payne Smith, Robert (1879-1901). Thesaurus Syriacus (in Latin). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1464.\n\n^ a b Odisho, Edward Y. (1988). The sound system of modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Harrassowitz. p. 21. ISBN 3-447-02744-4. OCLC 18465409.\n\n^ Aboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans : intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-62499-167-7. OCLC 819325565.\n\n^ a b c Tribal Structure.\n\n^ \"map: villages and monasteries\". www.aina.org.\n\n^ Assyrian villages in Hakkari\n\n^ Bet Benyamin, Gewargis (2001). \"The Tyari Tribes\". Zinda Magazine.\n\n^ a b Speer, Robert Elliot. \"Robert Elliott Speer Manuscript Collection; Series II: Correspondence; Box 32, File 32:8\". Internet Archive.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015-03-01). Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press. p. 279. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748686025.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5.\n\n^ \"Sharafiya\". www.ishtartv.com. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015-03-01). Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press. p. 317. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748686025.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015-03-01). Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 329-334. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748686025.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015-03-01). Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press. p. 125. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748686025.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5.\n\n^ Donabed, Sargon (2015-03-01). Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press. p. 60. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748686025.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5.\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey (2008). Neo-Aramaic dialect studies. Gorgias Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-59333-423-9. OCLC 862139304.\n\n^ Aboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans : intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-62499-167-7. OCLC 819325565.\n\n^ Grant, Asahel (1841). The Nestorians. New York, Harper & brothers. p. 165.\n\n^ Olmstead, Albert T. (1970). History of the Persian Empire. University of Chicago Press. p. 114. On June 11 Vaumisa won his own second victory in the district Autiyara in the Tiyari Mountains, where until our own day the \"Assyrian\" Christians maintained a precarious independence.\n\n^ Layard, Austen Henry, 1817-1894. (1858). Nineveh and Its Remains. Appleton. p. 194. OCLC 12578949.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)\n\n^ Emhardt, William Chauncey; Lamsa, George M. (2013-01-01). The Oldest Christian People: A Brief Account of the History and Traditions of the Assyrian People and the Fateful History of the Nestorian Church. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-62032-675-6.\n\n^ a b Wigram, William Ainger; Wigram, Sir Edgar Thomas Ainger (1914). The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan. A. and C. Black. p. 293.\n\n^ a b Ross, Mosul, 19 November 1847. From Ross to Layard, 61,63,79\n\n^ Aboona, Hirmis (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-1-61336-471-0.\n\n^ Ross, Henry James (1902). Letters from the East. J. M. Dent & Company. pp. 62-63.\n\n^ Laurie, Thomas (1853). Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians. Gould and Lincoln. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-7905-5103-6. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Murat Gökhan Dalyan. IX. Yüzyılda Amerikalı Misyonerlerin Hakkâri Günlüğü 1830-1870-Diaries Of American Missionaries In Hakkari 1830 1870 (in Turkish).\n\n^ McDowall, David (1997). A Modern History of the Kurds. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 54. ISBN 978-1-86064-185-5.\n\n^ McCarthy, Justin; Arslan, Esat; Taskiran, Cemalettin; Turan, Omer (2006-09-29). The Armenian Rebellion at Van. University of Utah Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-87480-870-4.\n\n^ Yacoub, Joseph (2016). Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide : a History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-063346-2.\n\n^ Stafford, R. S. (2006). The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press, LLC. pp. 145-146. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0.\n\n^ Stafford, R. S. (2006). The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press, LLC. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0.\n\n^ a b c Coghill, Eleanor (1999). \"The Verbal System of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Haig, Geoffrey; Khan, Geoffrey, eds. (2018-12-03). The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia. De Gruyter Mouton. doi:10.1515/9783110421682. ISBN 9783110421682. S2CID 239586461.\n\n^ Solomon, Zomaya S. (1997). Functional and other exotic sentences in Assyrian Aramaic, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, XI/2:44-69.\n\n^ Y. Odisho, Edward (1988). The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Harrassowitz Verlag.\n\n^ a b c Coghill, Eleanor (2008-12-31), \"Some Notable Features in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects of Iraq\", in Coghill, Eleanor; Borghero, Roberta; Fox, Samuel Ethan; Sabar, Yona; Kapeliuk, Olga; Cohen, Eran; Fassberg, Steve; Mutzafi, Hezy; Talay, Shabo; Arnold, Werner (eds.), Neo-Aramaic Dialect Studies, Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, pp. 91-104, doi:10.31826/9781463211615-007, ISBN 978-1-4632-1161-5, retrieved 2020-06-17\n\n^ a b c d Talay, Shabo (2008). The Neo-Aramaic Dialects of the Tiyari Assyrians in Syria: With Special Attention to Their Phonological Characteristics. Gorgias Press. p. 47.\n\n^ \"SargonSays\". sargonsays.com. Retrieved 2020-07-02.\n\n^ \"SargonSays\". sargonsays.com. Retrieved 2020-07-02.\n\n^ \"SargonSays\". sargonsays.com. Retrieved 2020-07-02.\n\n^ Solomon, Zomaya S. (1994). Basic sentence structure in Assyrian Aramaic, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, VIII/1:83-107\n\n^ a b \"Social System\". www.tyareh.org. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ a b Yonan, Gabriele (1996). Lest we perish : a forgotten Holocaust : the extermination of the Christian Assyrians in Turkey and Persia. Peace Palace Library: Assyrian International News Agency. p. 193. OCLC 889626846.\n\n^ Aboona, Hirmus (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans : intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. pp. 291-292. ISBN 978-1-62499-167-7. OCLC 819325565.\n\n^ Brigadier-Gen. H.H. Austin (1920). The Baqubah Refugee Camp. The Faith Press, London.\n\n^ Bird, Isabella L (1891). Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan : including a summer in the Upper Karun region and a visit to the Nestorian rayahs. Cambridge University Press. p. 314. ISBN 978-1-108-01470-0. OCLC 601117122. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)\n\n^ Bird, Isabella L. (1891). \"Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan\"date=1891. pp. 284-285.\n\n^ \"Voice of the east-July-August-2015\" (PDF). news.assyrianchurch.org. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Donabed, Sargon (2015-03-01). Reforging a Forgotten History. Edinburgh University Press. p. 103. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748686025.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-8602-5.\n\n^ \"The Fate Of Assyrian Villages Annexed To Today's Dohuk Governorate In Iraq And The Conditions In These Villages Following The Establishment Of The Iraqi State In 1921\". www.aina.org. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ \"Leaders & Heroes\". www.tyareh.org. Retrieved 2020-04-25.\n\n^ Rowe, Paul (2019). The Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-138-64904-0. OCLC 1135999690.\n\n^ Ismael, Yaqou D'Malik. Assyrians and Two World Wars: Assyrians from 1914 to 1945. Ramon Michael. p. 47."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tyari"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3397}, {"slug": "reference-adad-nirari-iii", "title": "Adad-nirari III", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Adad-nīrārī III (also Adad-nārārī, meaning \"Adad (the storm god) is my help\") was the King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC.[nb 1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Adad-nīrārī III\n\nKing of Assyria\nKing of the Universe\n\nThe Tell al-Rimah Stele was discovered in 1967 and commemorates Adad-nirari III’s campaigns in the West.[1]\n\nKing of the Neo-Assyrian Empire\n\nReign811-783 BC\n\nPredecessorShamshi-Adad V\n\nSuccessorShalmaneser IV\n\nDied783 BC\n\nIssueAshur-nirari V\n Shalmaneser IV \nAshur-dan III\nTiglath-Pileser III?\n\nFatherShamshi-Adad V\n\nMotherShammuramat\n\nAdad-nīrārī III (also Adad-nārārī, meaning \"Adad (the storm god) is my help\") was the King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC.[nb 1]\n\nFamily\n\nAdad-nīrārī was a son and successor of king Shamshi-Adad V, and was apparently quite young at the time of his accession, because for the first five years of his reign, his mother Shammuramat[3] was highly influential, which has given rise to the legend of Semiramis.[4]\n\nIt is widely rejected that his mother acted as regent, but she was surprisingly influential for the time period.[5]\n\nHe was the father of kings Ashur-nirari V, Shalmaneser IV, and Ashur-dan III. Tiglath-Pileser III described himself as a son of Adad-nīrārī in his inscriptions, but it is uncertain if this is true.\n\nBiography\n\nAdad-nīrārī's youth, and the struggles his father had faced early in his reign, caused a serious weakening of Assyrian rulership over their indigenous Mesopotamia, and made way for the ambitions of officers, governors, and local rulers.\n\nAccording to Adad-nīrārī's inscriptions, he led several military campaigns with the purpose of regaining the strength Assyria enjoyed in the times of his grandfather Shalmaneser III.\n\nAccording to the eponym canon, he campaigned in all directions until the last of his 28 years of reign (783 BC), and he was the builder of the temple of Nabu at Nineveh. Among his actions was a siege of Damascus in the time of Ben-Hadad III in 796 BC, which led to the eclipse of the Aramaean Kingdom of Damascus and allowed the recovery of Israel under Jehoash (who paid the Assyrian king tribute at this time) and Jeroboam II.\n\nDespite Adad-nīrārī's vigour, Assyria entered a several-decades-long period of weakness following his death.\n\nSee also\n\nCalah Slab\n\nSaba'a Stele\n\nShamshi-ilu\n\nTell al-Rimah stela\n\nNotes\n\n^ This assumes that the longer version of the Assyrian Eponym List, which has an additional eponym for Adad-nīrārī III, is the correct one. For the shorter eponym list the ascension year would be 810 BC.[2]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Tell Al Rimah Stele, IM 70543, in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad.\n\n^ Shea, William H. \"A Note on the Date of the Battle of Qarqar.\" Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 29, no. 4, 1977, pp. 240-242.\n\n^ Georges Roux: Ancient Iraq, Penguin Books, London 1992, ISBN 0-14-012523-X, page 302.\n\n^ Reilly, Jim (2000) \"Contestants for Syrian Domination\" in \"Chapter 3: Assyrian & Hittite Synchronisms\" The Genealogy of Ashakhet Archived 2012-03-11 at the Wayback Machine;\n\n^ Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture by William H. Stiebing Jr.\n\nFurther reading\n\nKirk Grayson, A. (1996). Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (858-754 BC). University of Toronto press.\n\nExternal links\n\n Media related to Adad-nirari III at Wikimedia Commons"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-adad-nirari-iii"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 492}, {"slug": "reference-assyriska-bk", "title": "Assyriska BK", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Assyriska BK is a Swedish football club based in Västra Frölunda, Gothenburg.[1] The club was formed in 1985 by Assyrian immigrants[2] and is currently playing in Division 2 Västra Götaland which is the fourth tier of Swedish football.[3] They play their home matches at Ruddalens IP in Västra...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Assyriska BK\n\nFull nameAssyriska Bollklubb\n\nNicknameABK\n\nFounded1985 (1985)\n\nGroundRuddalens IP\nVästra Frölunda, Gothenburg\n\nCapacity5,000\n\nChairmanEngin Aslan\n\nManagerAhrun Çiçek\n\nLeagueDivision 2 Västra Götaland\n\n2019Division 2 Västra Götaland, 8th\n\nHome colours\n\nAway colours\n\nAssyriska BK is a Swedish football club based in Västra Frölunda, Gothenburg.[1] The club was formed in 1985 by Assyrian immigrants[2] and is currently playing in Division 2 Västra Götaland which is the fourth tier of Swedish football.[3] They play their home matches at Ruddalens IP in Västra Frölunda.[1] Assyriska BK are affiliated to the Göteborgs Fotbollförbund.[4]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Assyrians who had settled in Gothenburg formed in 1976 the football club Göteborgs Assyriska Idrottsförening (GAIF) that was attached to the Assyriska Mesopotamiska Association in Gothenburg.[2]\n\nAfter a couple years of football experience they formed in 1985 Assyriska BK (ABK) as a sports division of the Assyriska Mesopotamiska Association in Gothenburg. ABK was reformed into an independent association and formed with the objective of promoting their sporting interests in the Assyrian Association in Gothenburg. The club has its base within the Assyriska Association of Västra Frölunda with over 1,000 members.[2] Since their foundation Assyriska BK has participated mainly in the middle and lower divisions of the Swedish football league system. Over the years the club has expanded and has today several youth teams.[5]\n\nIn 2016 Assyriska BK was promoted for the first time in the club history to Division 1 which is the third tier of Swedish football.\n\nIn 1985 Yousif Sifo played on the team and has held all scoring records.[6][7]\n\nSupporters\n\nAssyriska BK's official fan club was formed in 2008 under the name Ultras Suryoye Göteborg, also known as USG.[8]\n\nCurrent squad\n\nAs of 19 February 2020\n\nNote: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.\n\nNo.\n\nPos. \n\nNation\n\nPlayer\n\n1\n\nGK\n\n SWE\n\nDavid Asmar\n\n2\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nMustafa Ayoub\n\n3\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nPeter Björlund\n\n4\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nMattias Ucar\n\n5\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nMark Fezarit\n\n6\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nSargon Cicek\n\n7\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nDaniel Albano Neves\n\n8\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nRamsin Khoshaba\n\n9\n\nFW\n\n KEN\n\nChristopher Mbamba\n\n10\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nGabriel Garis\n\n11\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nArvin Shojaee\n\nNo.\n\nPos. \n\nNation\n\nPlayer\n\n12\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nMeriton Qoraj\n\n13\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nMarkus Kaplan\n\n14\n\nMF\n\n NGR\n\nSheriffdeen Sulaimoh\n\n15\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nLucas Isacksson\n\n17\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nSocras Lutonda\n\n19\n\nGK\n\n SWE\n\nTobias Sörensen\n\n20\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nHakan Köse\n\n21\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nDaniel Savari\n\n22\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nEmil Eliasson\n\n23\n\nMF\n\n SWE\n\nRasmus Andernil Bozic\n\n24\n\nDF\n\n SWE\n\nJake Weisbrod\n\n99\n\nFW\n\n SWE\n\nKamal Mustafa\n\nCurrent staff\n\nHead coach: ' Ahrun Çiçek\n\nAssistant coach: George Kalyun\n\nAssistant coach: Daniel Stanisic\n\nGoalkeeper coach: Juan Ramon\n\nPhysical Coach: Sohell Kassal\n\nSeason to season\n\nSeason\n\nLevel\n\nDivision\n\nSection\n\nPosition\n\nMovements\n\n1999\n\nTier 7\n\nDivision 6\n\nGöteborg C\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2000\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 5\n\nGöteborg B\n\n9th\n\n2001\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 5\n\nGöteborg B\n\n8th\n\n2002\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 5\n\nGöteborg B\n\n9th\n\n2003\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 5\n\nGöteborg B\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2004\n\nTier 5\n\nDivision 4\n\nGöteborg B\n\n5th\n\n2005\n\nTier 5\n\nDivision 4\n\nGöteborg B\n\n6th\n\n2006*\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 4\n\nGöteborg B\n\n5th\n\n2007\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 4\n\nGöteborg B\n\n4th\n\n2008\n\nTier 6\n\nDivision 4\n\nGöteborg B\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2009\n\nTier 5\n\nDivision 3\n\nSydvästra Götaland\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n2010\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nSödra Götaland\n\n9th\n\n2011\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nNorra Götaland\n\n2nd\n\n2012\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Götaland\n\n2nd\n\n2013\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Götaland\n\n4th\n\n2014\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Götaland\n\n4th\n\n2015\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Götaland\n\n7th\n\n2016\n\nTier 4\n\nDivision 2\n\nVästra Götaland\n\n1st\n\nPromoted\n\n* League restructuring in 2006 resulted in a new division being created at Tier 3 and subsequent divisions dropping a level.[9]\n[10]\n[11]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Assyrian football teams in Sweden\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b \"Assyriska BK - Kontakt\". Archived from the original on 11 September 2010. Retrieved 27 September 2010.\n\n^ a b c \"Assyriska BK - Historia\". Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2012.\n\n^ \"Tabell och resultat - Div 2 Västra Götaland, herrar - Svenskfotboll.se\". Retrieved 22 December 2012.\n\n^ \"Kontaktuppgifter och tävlingar - Assyriska BK - Svenskfotboll.se\". Retrieved 27 September 2010.\n\n^ \"Assyriska BK - Ungdom\". Retrieved 2 December 2012.\n\n^ \"Assyriska BK har vunnit serien\". Archived from the original on 22 December 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Assyriska klart för ettan efter bragdsäsong\". Retrieved 1 October 2016.\n\n^ \"Ultras Suryoye Göteborg\". Retrieved 24 July 2012.\n\n^ \"GAIS - Lagfacta - Assyriska BK\". Archived from the original on 23 September 2012. Retrieved 27 September 2010.\n\n^ \"Södra Götaland - Division 2 - Fotbollsserier 2010 - Fotboll - everysport.com\". Retrieved 29 September 2010.\n\n^ \"Sweden Final Tables - Clas Glenning\". Archived from the original on 3 October 2010. Retrieved 29 September 2010.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyriska BK - official website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-assyriska-bk"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 806}, {"slug": "reference-seleucid-empire", "title": "Seleucid Empire", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Seleucid Empire (/sɪˈljuːsɪd/ sih-LEW-sid[7]) was a Greek state[8] in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator in 312 BC, following the division of Alexander the Great's Empire,[9] and was ruled by the Seleucid dynasty[10] from Seleucia and later...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Seleucid Empire\n\n312-63 BC\n\n Inscribed tetradrachm of Seleucus I with symbols of the Seleucid monarchy[a]\n\nSeleucid territory in 281 BC, on the eve of the murder of Seleucus I Nicator\n\nCapital\n\nBabylon (312-305 BC)\n\nSeleucia (305-240 BC)\n\nAntioch (240-63 BC)\n\nCommon languages\n\nGreek (official)[3]\n\nOld Persian\n\nMiddle Aramaic[3]\n\nReligion \n\nOlympianism / Hellenism\n\nBabylonian religion[4]\n\nHellenistic Judaism\n\nZoroastrianism\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nBasileus \n\n• 305-281 BC Seleucus I (first)\n\n• 65-63 BC Philip II (last)\n\nHistorical eraHellenistic period\n\n• Wars of the Diadochi 312 BC\n\n• Battle of Ipsus 301 BC\n\n• Start of the Seleucid-Parthian Wars 238 BC\n\n• Roman-Seleucid War 192-188 BC\n\n• Maccabean Revolt 167-160 BC\n\n• Seleucia taken by Parthians 141-129 BC\n\n• Battle of Ecbatana 129 BC\n\n• Annexed by Rome 63 BC\n\nArea\n\n303 BC[5]3,000,000 km2 (1,200,000 sq mi)\n\n301 BC[5]3,900,000 km2 (1,500,000 sq mi)\n\n240 BC[5]2,600,000 km2 (1,000,000 sq mi)\n\n175 BC[5]800,000 km2 (310,000 sq mi)\n\n100 BC[5]100,000 km2 (39,000 sq mi)\n\nPopulation\n\n• 301 BC[6] 30,000,000+\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nMacedonian Empire\n\nParthian Empire\n\nMaurya Empire\n\nProvince of Syria\n\nGreco-Bactrian Kingdom\n\nHasmonean kingdom\n\nOsroene\n\nElymais\n\nThe Seleucid Empire (/sɪˈljuːsɪd/ sih-LEW-sid[7]) was a Greek state[8] in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator in 312 BC, following the division of Alexander the Great's Empire,[9] and was ruled by the Seleucid dynasty[10] from Seleucia and later Antioch until its annexation by the Roman Republic under Pompey in 63 BC.\n\nAfter receiving the Mesopotamian regions of Babylonia and Assyria in 321 BC, Seleucus I began expanding his dominions to include the Near Eastern territories that include modern Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon, all of which had been under Macedonian control after the fall of the former Achaemenid Empire. At the Seleucid Empire's height, it had consisted of territory that covered Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia and what are now modern Kuwait, Afghanistan and parts of Turkmenistan in Central Asia.\n\nThe Seleucid Empire was a center of Hellenistic culture. Greek customs and language were privileged; the wide variety of local traditions had been generally tolerated, while an urban Greek elite had formed the dominant political class and was reinforced by steady migration from Greece.[11][12][13] The empire's western territories were repeatedly contested with Ptolemaic Egypt-a rival Hellenistic state. To the east, the Seleucid-Mauryan war with the Indian ruler Chandragupta of the Maurya Empire in 305 BC led to a political alliance and the cession of territories conquered by Alexander along the Indus River, east of Bactria.\n\nIn the early second century BC, Antiochus III the Great fought the Roman-Seleucid war into Hellenistic Greece, but his attempts were thwarted by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies at the Battle of Magnesia. The Seleucids were forced to pay war reparations and had to relinquish territorial claims west of the Taurus Mountains in southern Anatolia, marking the gradual decline of the empire. Mithridates I of Parthia conquered much of the remaining eastern lands of the Seleucid Empire in the mid-second century BC, including Assyria and what had been Babylonia, while the independent Greco-Bactrian Kingdom continued to flourish in the northeast. The Seleucid kings were thereafter reduced to a rump state in Syria after a civil war, until their conquest by Tigranes the Great of Armenia in 83 BC, and ultimate overthrow by the Roman general Pompey in 63 BC.\n\nName\n\nContemporary sources, such as a loyalist decree honoring Antiochus I from Ilium, in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire (ἀρχή, archḗ) and as a kingdom (βασιλεία, basileía). Similarly, Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia.[14]\n\nThe rulers did not describe themselves as being of any particular territory or people, but starting from the 2nd century BC, ancient writers referred to them as the Syrian kings, the kings of Syria or of the Syrians, the kings descended from Seleucus Nicator, the kings of Asia, and other designations.[15]\n\nHistory\n\nPartition of Alexander's empire\n\nAlexander, who quickly conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, died young in 323 BC, leaving an expansive empire of partly Hellenised culture without an adult heir. The empire was put under the authority of a regent, Perdiccas, and the vast territories were divided among Alexander's generals, who thereby became satraps at the Partition of Babylon, all in that same year.\n\nRise of Seleucus\n\nAlexander's generals, known as diadochi, jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire following his death. Ptolemy I Soter, a former general and then current satrap of Egypt, was the first to challenge the new system, which eventually led to the demise of Perdiccas. Ptolemy's revolt created a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC. Seleucus, who had been \"Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry\" (hetairoi) and appointed first or court chiliarch (which made him the senior officer in the Royal Army after the regent and commander-in-chief Perdiccas since 323 BC, though he helped to assassinate him later) received Babylonia. Antigonus eventually forced Seleucus out of Babylon around 315 BC and he fled to Egypt.\n\nAt the battle of Gaza in 312 BC, Ptolemy I Soter and Seleucus defeated Demetrius. After this battle Seleucus spent the winter in Syria, and with his army travelled across Syria and advanced back toward Babylon, arriving in there in April 311 BC. \n\nBabylonian War and initial conquests (311-309 BC)\n\nSeleucus declared himself \"general\" and \"strategos autokrater of Asia\" around May-June 311 BC shortly after arriving in Babylon. His goal was to usurp Antigonos' power. Antigonos reoccupied Syria shortly thereafter. When Seleucus arrived in Babylon he faced resistance from the Antigonid military governor Diphilus, who commanded a citadel in the city. Seleucus and his army captured the citadel and took control of Babylon in August 311 BC, implying months of resistance.[16]\n\nNicanor, a prominent Antigonid loyalist and military commander, raised a substantial force that aimed to retake Babylon from Seleucus. He and his army marched from Ecbatana (most likely utilizing the Royal Road that passed along the Diyala River valley) and eventually reached Opis near the Tigris around September 331 BC.[16]\n\nSeleucus responded immediately with a far smaller army and hid his men in the marshes along the Tigris. Nicanor was unaware of Seleucus' presence in the area and set up a camp. Nicanor's guards were attacked stealthily during the night and his army quickly surrendered. Nicanor escaped to Ecbatana and Seleucus proceeded to capture Susiana, where he remained for winter quarters.[17]\n\nSeleucus continued his campaigning the following year in the spring/summer of 310 BC, subsequently launching a full-scale invasion of Media and killing and deposing Nicanor. With Nicanor removed from power, Seleucus was easily able to establish control and conquer the Upper Satrapies.[17]\n\nAntigonos sent his son Demetrius to Babylon with a very large army to recover the city around the summer of 310 BC. Seleucus was absent from Babylon during this time and his general Patrocles conducted the defense. Patrocles ordered all civilians to vacate the city and requested aid from Seleucus, who was in Media. When Demetrius arrived he found the city empty and immediately captured the twin citadels.[17] Demetrius left the city around March 309 BC after facing resistance from the second citadel, and left his general Archelaeus in charge. Around August 310 BC Antigonos' army invaded the city, and a large-scale war broke out between Antigonos and Seleucid in Babylon, which continued up to August 309 BC[18]. The fighting is likely encapsulated by Polyaenus[19]:\n\nSeleucus met Antigonus in battle; the issue of the battle was evenly poised. When night approached both armies decided to adjourn until the next day. The troops of Antigonus, taking off their arms, made camp, but Seleucus instructed his soldiers to eat and sleep in their arms while maintaining battle order. Just before dawn Seleucus’ army advanced, ready armed and drawn up in order of battle, and the Antigonid men, caught unarmed and in disarray, soon yielded the victory to their foes\n\n- Polyaenus, Stratagems, 4.9.1\n\nThis was the final war between Seleucus and Antigonos over Babylon. All Antigonid forces were removed from Babylon by 308 BC.\n\nSeleucid-Mauryan War (305-303 BC)\n\nChandragupta Maurya (Sandrokottos) founded the Maurya Empire in 321 BC after the conquest of the Nanda Empire and their capital Pataliputra in Magadha. Chandragupta then redirected his attention to the Indus River region, and by 317 BC, he conquered the remaining Greek satraps left by Alexander. Expecting a confrontation, Seleucus gathered his army and marched to the Indus. It is said that Chandragupta could have fielded a conscript army of 600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants.[20] According to Appian,\n\nHe [Seleucus] crossed the Indus and waged war with Sandrocottus [Maurya], king of the Indians, who dwelt on the banks of that stream, until they came to an understanding with each other and contracted a marriage relationship.[21]\n\nWhile the Greek sources have been interpreted by some as a Mauryan victory,[22][23][24][b] the details of the conflict,[24] and if there was in fact a pitched battle,[29] are unknown, and Jansani warns that \"there are very little details about the battle or skirmish they fought, and that none of the ancient authors depicted either Seleucus or Chandragupta as the clear victor of this battle. This lack of information about the encounter and the ensuing treaty means that it is impossible to reconstruct them.\"[30] Wheatley and Heckel suggest that the degree of friendly Maurya-Seleucid relations established after the war implies that the hostilities were probably \"neither prolonged nor grievous\".[31]\n\nChandragupta received, formalized through a treaty, territory west of the Indus, including the Hindu Kush, modern day Afghanistan, and the eastern part of Balochistan province of Pakistan, bordering on the Indus.[32][33] Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.\n\nIt is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucus's daughter, or a Macedonian princess, a gift from Seleucus to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture, Chandragupta sent 500 war elephants,[34][35][36][37][38] a military asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Chandragupta, and later Deimakos to his son Bindusara, at the Mauryan court at Pataliputra (modern Patna in Bihar state). Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandragupta's reign, which have been partly preserved to us through Diodorus Siculus. Later Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt and contemporary of Ashoka the Great, is also recorded by Pliny the Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court.[39]\n\nThe Indians occupy [in part] some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians: Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta Maurya) in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants.[40]\n\nOther territories ceded before Seleucus' death were Gedrosia in the south-east of the Iranian plateau, and, to the north of this, Arachosia on the west bank of the Indus River.\n\nWestward expansion\n\nFollowing his and Lysimachus' decisive victory over Antigonus at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus took control over eastern Anatolia and northern Syria.\n\nIn the latter area, he founded a new capital at Antioch on the Orontes, a city he named after his father. An alternative capital was established at Seleucia on the Tigris, north of Babylon. Seleucus's empire reached its greatest extent following his defeat of his erstwhile ally, Lysimachus, at Corupedion in 281 BC, after which Seleucus expanded his control to encompass western Anatolia. He hoped further to take control of Lysimachus's lands in Europe - primarily Thrace and even Macedonia itself, but was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus on landing in Europe.\n\nHis son and successor, Antiochus I Soter, was left with an enormous realm consisting of nearly all of the Asian portions of the Empire, but faced with Antigonus II Gonatas in Macedonia and Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Egypt, he proved unable to pick up where his father had left off in conquering the European portions of Alexander's empire.\n\nBreakup of Central Asian territories\n\nAntiochus I (reigned 281-261 BC) and his son and successor Antiochus II Theos (reigned 261-246 BC) were faced with challenges in the west, including repeated wars with Ptolemy II and a Celtic invasion of Asia Minor-distracting attention from holding the eastern portions of the Empire together. Towards the end of Antiochus II's reign, various provinces simultaneously asserted their independence, such as Bactria and Sogdiana under Diodotus, Cappadocia under Ariarathes III, and Parthia under Andragoras. A few years later, the last was defeated and killed by the invading Parni of Arsaces-the region would then become the core of the Parthian Empire.\n\nDiodotus, the Seleucid governor for the Bactrian territory, asserted independence in around 245 BC, although the exact date is far from certain, to form the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. This kingdom was characterized by a rich Hellenistic culture and was to continue its domination of Bactria until around 125 BC when it was overrun by the invasion of northern nomads. One of the Greco-Bactrian kings, Demetrius I of Bactria, invaded India around 180 BC to form the Indo-Greek Kingdoms.\n\nThe rulers of Persis, called Fratarakas, also seem to have established some level of independence from the Seleucids during the 3rd century BC, especially from the time of Vahbarz. They would later overtly take the title of Kings of Persis, before becoming vassals to the newly formed Parthian Empire.[41][42]\n\nThe Seleucid satrap of Parthia, named Andragoras, first claimed independence, in a parallel to the secession of his Bactrian neighbour. Soon after, however, a Parthian tribal chief called Arsaces invaded the Parthian territory around 238 BC to form the Arsacid dynasty, from which the Parthian Empire originated.\n\nAntiochus II's son Seleucus II Callinicus came to the throne around 246 BC. Seleucus II was soon dramatically defeated in the Third Syrian War against Ptolemy III of Egypt and then had to fight a civil war against his own brother Antiochus Hierax. Taking advantage of this distraction, Bactria and Parthia seceded from the empire. In Asia Minor too, the Seleucid dynasty seemed to be losing control: the Gauls had fully established themselves in Galatia, semi-independent semi-Hellenized kingdoms had sprung up in Bithynia, Pontus, and Cappadocia, and the city of Pergamum in the west was asserting its independence under the Attalid dynasty. The Seleucid economy started to show the first signs of weakness, as Galatians gained independence and Pergamum took control of coastal cities in Anatolia. Consequently, they managed to partially block contact with the West.[44]\n\nRevival (223-191 BC)\n\nA revival would begin when Seleucus II's younger son, Antiochus III the Great, took the throne in 223 BC. Although initially unsuccessful in the Fourth Syrian War against Egypt, which led to a defeat at the Battle of Raphia (217 BC), Antiochus would prove himself to be the greatest of the Seleucid rulers after Seleucus I himself. He spent the next ten years on his anabasis (journey) through the eastern parts of his domain and restoring rebellious vassals like Parthia and Greco-Bactria to at least nominal obedience. He gained many victories such as the Battle of Mount Labus and Battle of the Arius and besieged the Bactrian capital. He even emulated Seleucus with an expedition into India where he met with King Sophagasenus (Sanskrit: Subhagasena) receiving war elephants, perhaps in accordance of the existing treaty and alliance set after the Seleucid-Mauryan War.\n\nActual translation of Polybius 11.34 (No other source except Polybius makes any reference to Sophagasenus):\n\nHe [Antiochus] crossed the Caucasus Indicus (Paropamisus) (Hindu Kush) and descended into India; renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus the king of the Indians; received more elephants, until he had a hundred and fifty altogether; and having once more provisioned his troops, set out again personally with his army: leaving Androsthenes of Cyzicus the duty of taking home the treasure which this king had agreed to hand over to him.[45] Having traversed Arachosia and crossed the river Enymanthus, he came through Drangene to Carmania; and as it was now winter, he put his men into winter quarters there.[46]\n\nWhen he returned to the west in 205 BC, Antiochus found that with the death of Ptolemy IV, the situation now looked propitious for another western campaign. Antiochus and Philip V of Macedon then made a pact to divide the Ptolemaic possessions outside of Egypt, and in the Fifth Syrian War, the Seleucids ousted Ptolemy V from control of Coele-Syria. The Battle of Panium (200 BC) definitively transferred these holdings from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids. Antiochus appeared, at the least, to have restored the Seleucid Kingdom to glory.\n\nExpansion into Greece and war with Rome\n\nFollowing the defeat of his erstwhile ally Philip by Rome in 197 BC, Antiochus saw the opportunity for expansion into Greece itself. Encouraged by the exiled Carthaginian general Hannibal, and making an alliance with the disgruntled Aetolian League, Antiochus launched an invasion across the Hellespont. With his huge army he aimed to establish the Seleucid Empire as the foremost power in the Hellenic world, but these plans put the empire on a collision course with the new rising power of the Mediterranean, the Roman Republic. At the battles of Thermopylae (191 BC) and Magnesia (190 BC), Antiochus's forces suffered resounding defeats, and he was compelled to make peace and sign the Treaty of Apamea (188 BC), the main clause of which saw the Seleucids agree to pay a large indemnity, to retreat from Anatolia and to never again attempt to expand Seleucid territory west of the Taurus Mountains. The Kingdom of Pergamum and the Republic of Rhodes, Rome's allies in the war, gained the former Seleucid lands in Anatolia. Antiochus died in 187 BC on another expedition to the east, where he sought to extract money to pay the indemnity.\n\nRoman power, Parthia and Judea\n\nThe reign of Antiochus III's son and successor, Seleucus IV Philopator (187-175 BC), was largely spent in attempts to pay the large indemnity, and Seleucus was ultimately assassinated by his minister Heliodorus.\n\nSeleucus' younger brother, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, now seized the throne. He attempted to restore Seleucid power and prestige with a successful war against the old enemy, Ptolemaic Egypt, which met with initial success as the Seleucids defeated and drove the Egyptian army back to Alexandria itself. As the king planned on how to conclude the war, he was informed that Roman commissioners, led by the Proconsul Gaius Popillius Laenas, were near and requesting a meeting with the Seleucid king. Antiochus agreed, but when they met and Antiochus held out his hand in friendship, Popilius placed in his hand the tablets on which was written the decree of the senate and told him to read it. The decree demanded that he should abort his attack on Alexandria and immediately stop waging the war on Ptolemy. When the king said that he would call his friends into council and consider what he ought to do, Popilius drew a circle in the sand around the king's feet with the stick he was carrying and said, \"Before you step out of that circle give me a reply to lay before the senate.\" For a few moments he hesitated, astounded at such a peremptory order, and at last replied, \"I will do what the senate thinks right.\" He then chose to withdraw rather than set the empire to war with Rome again.[47]\n\nOn his return journey, according to Josephus, he made an expedition to Judea, took Jerusalem by force, slew a great many who had favored Ptolemy, sent his soldiers to plunder them without mercy. He also spoiled the temple, and interrupted the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation, for three years and six months.[48]\n\nThe latter part of his reign saw a further disintegration of the Empire despite his best efforts. Weakened economically, militarily and by loss of prestige, the Empire became vulnerable to rebels in the eastern areas of the empire, who began to further undermine the empire while the Parthians moved into the power vacuum to take over the old Persian lands. Antiochus' aggressive Hellenizing (or de-Judaizing) activities provoked a full scale armed rebellion in Judea-the Maccabean Revolt.[49] Efforts to deal with both the Parthians and the Jews as well as retain control of the provinces at the same time proved beyond the weakened empire's power. Antiochus orchestrated a military campaign, capturing Artaxias I, King of Armenia, and reoccupying Armenia.[50] His offensive ventured as far as Persepolis, but he was forced from the city by the populace.[51] On his return home, Antiochus died in Isfahan in 164 BC.[52]\n\nCivil war and further decay\n\nAfter the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid Empire became increasingly unstable. Frequent civil wars made central authority tenuous at best. Epiphanes' young son, Antiochus V Eupator, was first overthrown by Seleucus IV's son, Demetrius I Soter in 161 BC. Demetrius I attempted to restore Seleucid power in Judea particularly, but was overthrown in 150 BC by Alexander Balas-an impostor who (with Egyptian backing) claimed to be the son of Epiphanes. Alexander Balas reigned until 145 BC when he was overthrown by Demetrius I's son, Demetrius II Nicator. Demetrius II proved unable to control the whole of the kingdom, however. While he ruled Babylonia and eastern Syria from Damascus, the remnants of Balas' supporters-first supporting Balas' son Antiochus VI, then the usurping general Diodotus Tryphon-held out in Antioch.\n\nMeanwhile, the decay of the Empire's territorial possessions continued apace. By 143 BC, the Jews in the form of the Maccabees had fully established their independence. Parthian expansion continued as well. In 139 BC, Demetrius II was defeated in battle by the Parthians and was captured. By this time, the entire Iranian Plateau had been lost to Parthian control.\n\nDemetrius Nicator's brother, Antiochus VII Sidetes, took the throne after his brother's capture. He faced the enormous task of restoring a rapidly crumbling empire, one facing threats on multiple fronts. Hard-won control of Coele-Syria was threatened by the Jewish Maccabee rebels. Once-vassal dynasties in Armenia, Cappadocia, and Pontus were threatening Syria and northern Mesopotamia; the nomadic Parthians, brilliantly led by Mithridates I of Parthia, had overrun upland Media (home of the famed Nisean horse herd); and Roman intervention was an ever-present threat. Sidetes managed to bring the Maccabees to heel and frighten the Anatolian dynasts into a temporary submission; then, in 133, he turned east with the full might of the Royal Army (supported by a body of Jews under the Hasmonean prince, John Hyrcanus) to drive back the Parthians.\n\nSidetes' campaign initially met with spectacular success, recapturing Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Media. In the winter of 130/129 BC, his army was scattered in winter quarters throughout Media and Persis when the Parthian king, Phraates II, counter-attacked. Moving to intercept the Parthians with only the troops at his immediate disposal, he was ambushed and killed at the Battle of Ecbatana in 129 BC. Antiochus Sidetes is sometimes called the last great Seleucid king.\n\nAfter the death of Antiochus VII Sidetes, all of the recovered eastern territories were recaptured by the Parthians. The Maccabees again rebelled, civil war soon tore the empire to pieces, and the Armenians began to encroach on Syria from the north.\n\nCollapse (100-63 BC)\n\n-100INDO-\nGREEKSSAKASSargatShuleSABEANSMEROËAKSUMKUCHATesinskyWUSUNKhotanLOULANOrdos\ncultureJINDONGHUYUEZHIKANGJUDinglingsSarmatiansSELEU-\nCIDSPTOLE-\nMIESPARTHIAN\nEMPIRESUNGASSATAVA-\nHANASHAN\nDYNASTYXIONGNU Main polities in Asia, circa -100[53][54][55][56]\n\nBy 100 BC, the once-formidable Seleucid Empire encompassed little more than Antioch and some Syrian cities. Despite the clear collapse of their power, and the decline of their kingdom around them, nobles continued to play kingmakers on a regular basis, with occasional intervention from Ptolemaic Egypt and other outside powers. The Seleucids existed solely because no other nation wished to absorb them-seeing as they constituted a useful buffer between their other neighbours. In the wars in Anatolia between Mithridates VI of Pontus and Sulla of Rome, the Seleucids were largely left alone by both major combatants.\n\nMithridates' ambitious son-in-law, Tigranes the Great, king of Armenia, however, saw opportunity for expansion in the constant civil strife to the south. In 83 BC, at the invitation of one of the factions in the interminable civil wars, he invaded Syria and soon established himself as ruler of Syria, putting the Seleucid Empire virtually at an end.\n\nSeleucid rule was not entirely over, however. Following the Roman general Lucullus' defeat of both Mithridates and Tigranes in 69 BC, a rump Seleucid kingdom was restored under Antiochus XIII. Even so, civil wars could not be prevented, as another Seleucid, Philip II, contested rule with Antiochus. After the Roman conquest of Pontus, the Romans became increasingly alarmed at the constant source of instability in Syria under the Seleucids. Once Mithridates was defeated by Pompey in 63 BC, Pompey set about the task of remaking the Hellenistic East, by creating new client kingdoms and establishing provinces. While client nations like Armenia and Judea were allowed to continue with some degree of autonomy under local kings, Pompey saw the Seleucids as too troublesome to continue; doing away with both rival Seleucid princes, he made Syria into a Roman province.\n\nCulture\n\nThe domain of the Seleucids stretched from the Aegean Sea to what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, therefore including a diverse array of cultures and ethnic groups. Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians, Georgians, Persians, Medes, Mesopotamians, Jews, and more all lived within its bounds. The immense size of the empire gave the Seleucid rulers a difficult balancing act to maintain order, resulting in a mixture of concessions to local cultures to maintain their own practices while also firmly controlling and unifying local elites under the Seleucid banner.\n\nThe government established Greek cities and settlements throughout the empire via a program of colonization that encouraged immigration from Greece; both city settlements as well as rural ones were created that were inhabited by ethnic Greeks. These Greeks were given good land and privileges, and in exchange were expected to serve in military service for the state. Despite being a tiny minority of the overall population, these Greeks were the backbone of the empire: loyal and committed to a cause that gave them vast territory to rule, they overwhelmingly served in the military and government. Unlike Ptolemaic Egypt, Greeks in the Seleucid Empire seem to rarely have engaged in mixed marriages with non-Greeks; they kept to their own cities.\n\nThe various non-Greek peoples of the empire were still influenced by the spread of Greek thought and culture, a phenomenon referred to as Hellenization. Historically significant towns and cities, such as Antioch, were created or renamed with Greek names, and hundreds of new cities were established for trade purposes and built in Greek style from the start.[58] Local educated elites who needed to work with the government learned the Greek language, wrote in Greek, absorbed Greek philosophical ideas, and took on Greek names; some of these practices then slowly filtered down to the lower classes. Hellenic ideas began an almost 250-year expansion into the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asian cultures.\n\nSynthesizing Hellenic and indigenous cultural, religious, and philosophical ideas - an ethnic unity framework established by Alexander - met with varying degrees of success. The result was times of simultaneous peace and rebellion in various parts of the empire. In general, the Seleucids allowed local religions to operate undisturbed, such as incorporating Babylonian religious tenets, to gain support.[59] Tensions around the integration of Judaism were present during the reign of the Seleucid governments. Though previous governments had managed a relatively seamless integration of Judean religious and cultural practices, the rule of Antiochus IV introduced significant changes. Antiochus IV instigated a bidding process for the High Priest position-this led to Menelaus, a radical Hellenist, outbidding Jason, a moderate Hellenist who upheld many traditional Judean practices.[60] The shift from Jason to Menelaus unsettled the Jewish populace due to Menelaus's more extreme Hellenistic leanings.[61] Aggravating the situation, Antiochus IV initiated a series of religious persecutions. This cumulated in a localized revolt in Jerusalem. Antiochus IV's violent retaking of the city and the banning of traditional Judean practices led to the eventual loss of control of Judea by the Seleucid government, paving the way for the rise of an independent Hasmonean kingdom.\n\nMilitary\n\nAs with the other major Hellenistic armies, the Seleucid army fought primarily in the Greco-Macedonian style, with its main body being the phalanx. The phalanx was a large, dense formation of men armed with small shields and a long pike called the sarissa. This form of fighting had been developed by the Macedonian army in the reign of Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. Alongside the phalanx, the Seleucid armies used numerous native and mercenary troops to supplement their Greek forces, which were limited due to the distance from the Seleucid rulers' Macedonian homeland. The size of the Seleucid army usually varied between 70,000 and 200,000 in manpower.\n\nThe distance from Greece put a strain on the Seleucid military system, as it was primarily based around the recruitment of Greeks as the key segment of the army. In order to increase the population of Greeks in their kingdom, the Seleucid rulers created military settlements. There were two main periods in the establishment of settlements, firstly under Seleucus I Nicator and Antiochus I Soter and then under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The military settlers were given land, \"varying in size according to rank and arm of service'.[63] They were settled in 'colonies of an urban character, which at some point could acquire the status of a polis\".[64] The settler-soldiers were called katoikoi; they would maintain the land as their own and in return, they would serve in the Seleucid army when called. The majority of settlements were concentrated in Lydia, northern Syria, the upper Euphrates and Media. Antiochus III brought Greeks from Euboea, Crete and Aetolia and settled them in Antioch.[65]\n\nThese Greek settlers would be used to form the Seleucid phalanx and cavalry units, with picked men put into the kingdom's guards' regiments. The rest of the Seleucid army would consist of native and mercenary troops, who would serve as light auxiliary troops. While the Seleucids were happy to recruit from less populated and outlying parts of the Empire such as the Arabs and Jews, Iranian peoples in the east, and inhabitants of Asia Minor to the north, they generally eschewed recruiting native Syrians and native Mesopotamians (Babylonians). This was presumably mostly from a desire not to train and arm the people who were an overwhelming majority in the trade and governmental centers of the Empire in Antioch and Babylon, risking revolt. While a revolt in a remote place could be put down by resolute action from the center, an uprising in Syria-Coele would have undermined the kingdom's very existence.[66]\n\nFollowing losses of territory in Asia Minor during the Roman-Seleucid War, King Antiochus IV sponsored a new wave of immigration and settlements to replace them and maintain enough Greeks to staff the phalanxes seen at the military parade at Daphne in 166-165 BC. Antiochus IV built 15 new cities \"and their association with the increased phalanx... at Daphne is too obvious to be ignored\".[67]\n\nEconomy\n\nAs a hegemonic empire, much of the state's wealth accumulation centered around maintaining its sizable military.[68][69][70][71] While the motive is simple enough, the Seleucid Empire boasts of a sophisticated political economy that extracts wealth from local temples, cities (or poleis), and royal estates; much of which was inherited from their Achaemenid predecessors. Recent discussion indicates a market-oriented economy under the Seleucids.[71] However, evidencing limits our understanding of the Seleucid economy to the Hellenistic Near-East; that is, through their holdings in Syria, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia. Little is known about the economy of the Upper Satrapies.\n\nMonetization\n\nCurrency plays an increasingly central role under the Seleucids; however, monetization was nothing new in their newly acquired lands.[71] Rather, the introduction and widespread implementation of currency is attributed to Darius I's tax reforms centuries prior;[71] hence, the Seleucids see a continuation rather than shift in this practice, i.e. the payment of taxation in silver or, if necessary, in kind.[68] In this regard, the Seleucids are notable for paying their sizeable armies exclusively in silver.[70] Nevertheless, there are two significant developments of currency during the Seleucid period: the adoption of the \"Attic Standard\" in certain regions,[71] and the popularization of bronze coinage.[70]\n\nThe adoption of the Attic standard was not uniform across the realm. The Attic standard was already the common currency of the Mediterranean prior to Alexander's conquest; that is, it was the preferred currency for foreign transactions.[70] As a result, coastal regions under the Seleucids-Syria and Asia Minor-were quick to adopt the new standard.[70] In Mesopotamia, however, the millennia-old shekel (weighing 8.33 g silver) prevailed over the Attic standard.[70] According to Historian R. J. van der Spek, this is due to their particular method in recording price, which favored bartering over monetary transactions.[71] The Mesopotamians used the value of one shekel as a fixed reference point, against which the amount of a good is given.[71][72] Prices themselves are accounted in terms of their weight in silver per ton, e.g., 60 g silver, barley, June 242 BC.[72] The minute difference in weight between a shekel and didrachm (weighing 8.6 g silver) could not be expressed in this barter system, and a Greek tetradrachm would be \"a far too heavy denomination...in daily trade.\"[71]\n\nBronze coinage, dating from the late fifth and fourth century, was popularized as a \"fiduciary\" currency facilitating \"small-scale exchanges\" in the Hellenistic period.[71][70] It was principally a legal tender which circulated only around its locales of production; however, the great Seleucid mint at Antioch during Antiochus III's reign (which Numismatist Arthur Houghton dubs \"The Syrian and Coele-Syrian Experiment\") began minting bronze coins (weighing 1.25-1.5g) to serve a \"regional purpose.\"[73] The reasons behind this remain unclear. However, Spek notes a chronic shortage of silver in the Seleucid empire.[71] In fact, Antiochus I's heavy withdrawal of silver from a satrap is noted by the Babylonian astronomical diaries (AD No. - 273 B 'Rev. 33'): \"purchases in Babylon and other cities were made in Greek bronze coins.\"[71] This was unprecedented because \"in official documents [bronze coins] played no part\";[71] it was a sign of \"hardship\" for the Seleucids.[71] Nevertheless, the low denomination of bronze coinage meant it was used in tandem with bartering; making it a popular and successful medium of exchange.[70]\n\nAgriculture\n\nAgriculture, like most pre-modern economies, constituted a vast majority of the Seleucid economy. Somewhere between 80 and 90% of the Seleucid population was employed,[68] in some form, within the prevailing agricultural structures inherited from their Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid predecessors.[70] These included temples, poleis, and royal estates. We should clarify that the term poleis, according to Spek, did not confer any special status to cities in the Seleucid sources; it was simply the term for \"city\"-Greek or otherwise.[68] Regardless, agricultural produce varied from region to region. But in general, Greek poleis produced: \"grain, olives and their oil, wine...figs, cheese from sheep and goats, [and] meat.\"[70] Whereas Mesopotamian production from temple land consisted of: \"barley, dates, mustard (or cascuta/dodder), cress (cardamom), sesame and wool\"; which, as the core region of the Seleucid empire, was also the most productive.[71][68]\nRecent evidence indicates that Mesopotamian grain production, under the Seleucids, was subject to market forces of supply and demand.[71] Traditional \"primitivist\" narratives of the ancient economy argue that it was \"marketless\"; however, the Babylonian astronomical diaries show a high degree of market integration of barley and date prices-to name a few-in Seleucid Babylonia.[72] Prices exceeding 370g silver per ton in Seleucid Mesopotamia was considered a sign of famine. Therefore, during periods of war, heavy taxation, and crop failure, prices increase drastically. In an extreme example, Spek believes tribal Arab raiding into Babylonia caused barley prices to skyrocket to 1493 grams of silver per ton from 5-8 May, 124 BC.[72] The average Mesopotamian peasant, if working for a wage at a temple, would receive 1 shekel; it \"was a reasonable monthly wage for which one could buy one kor of grain= 180 [liters].\"[72] While this appears dire, we should be reminded that Mesopotamia under the Seleucids was largely stable and prices remained low.[71] With encouraged Greek colonization and land reclamation increasing the supply of grain production, however, the question of whether this artificially kept prices stable is uncertain.[71]\n\nThe Seleucids also continued the tradition of actively maintaining the Mesopotamian waterways. As the greatest source of state income, the Seleucid kings actively managed the irrigation, reclamation, and population of Mesopotamia.[71] In fact, canals were often dug by royal decrees, to which \"some were called the King's Canal for that reason.\"[68] For example, the construction of the Pallacottas canal was able to control the water level of the Euphrates which, as Arrian notes in his Anabasis 7.21.5, required: \"over two months of work by more than 10,000 Assyrians.\"[68]\n\nRole of the state-political economy\n\nAs a hegemonic empire, the state's primary focus was maintaining its sizable army via wealth extraction from three major sources:[70] tribute from autonomous poleis and temples, and proportional land-tax from royal land.[74][75] The definition of \"royal land\" remains contested. While all agree poleis do not constitute royal land, some remain uncertain over the status of temple land.[76][74] Yet, they commanded notable economic power and functioned almost independently from the state.[69] Nevertheless, the Seleucid manner of extraction, in contrast to earlier regimes, is considered more \"aggressive\" and \"predatory\".[75][69]\nIn theory, the Seleucid state was an absolute monarchy that did not recognize private property in our modern sense.[76] Any land that was not delegated to the poleis or temples was considered private property of the sovereign;[76] thus, considered as Royal Land and liable to direct tax by the state. Here, a \"proportional land-tax\", that is, a tax based on the size of one's plot, is collected by the local governor (or Satrap) and sent to the capital.[74] However, there is no evidence for the amount that was taxed on any given region.\n\nTribute was heavily levied on poleis and temples. Although tribute is paid annually, the amount demanded increases significantly during wartime. During a civil war in 149 BC, Demetrius II demanded the province of Judaea to pay 300 talents of silver, which was seen as \"severe.\"[74] But this was far from an isolated case. In fact, the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries in 308/7 BC note a hefty 50% tax on harvest \"from the lands of the temple of Shamash (in Sipprar or Larsa).\"[76] Nevertheless, annual tribute was \"a long-accepted and uncontroversial practice.\"[69] Also, royal land was regularly donated to the temples and poleis; albeit under the assumption that a greater share of revenue is given to the state in exchange.[76][75]\n\nThe controversial practice of temple \"despoliation\", however, was a regular occurrence under the Seleucids-in contrast to earlier times.[69] Although the Seleucid kings were aware and appreciated the sacrosanctity of religious treasures, their concentration in these places \"proved irresistible\" in the face of \"short-term fiscal constraints.\"[69] As an example, Antiochus III's despoliation of the Anahit Temple in Ecbatana, wherein he procured 4000 silver talents, was used to fund his Great Eastern campaign.[69] According to historian Michael J. Taylor:[69]\n\nIt is difficult to believe that these monarchs who knew enough to bow before Nabu, bake bricks for Esagil, and enforce kosher regulations in Jerusalem, would be blithely aware of the political hazards of removing Temple treasures. It is more likely that they knew the risks but took them anyway.\n\nA rebellion in 169 BC during Antiochus III's campaign in Egypt demonstrates that these \"risks\" occasionally backfire.[75] The increasingly bold interference is due, in large part, to the appointment of provincial high-priests by the monarch himself.[75][68] Often they were his court \"favorites\",[68] whose prerogatives were purely administrative; essentially, they served to collect tribute for the state.[75] Unsurprisingly: \"native elites profoundly feared that the arrival of a Seleucid official might quickly cascade into a wholesale removal of Temple treasures.\"[69]\n\nAcademic discussion\n\nInterpretations on the Seleucid economy since the late 19th century traditionally fell between the \"modernist\" and \"primitivist\" camps.[71][70] On one hand, the modernist view-largely associated with Michael Rostovtzeff and Eduard Meyer-argues that the Hellenistic economies operated along price-setting markets with capitalist enterprises exported over long distances in \"completely monetarized markets.\"[70] On the other hand, the primitivist view-associated with M.I. Finley, Karl Polanyi and Karl Bücher-interprets ancient economies as \"autarchic\" in nature with little to no interaction among each other. However, recent discussion has since criticized these models for their grounding on \"Greco-centric\" sources.[68][77]\n\nRecent discussion has since rejected these traditional dichotomies.[71][70][77] According to Spek and Reger, the current view is that the Seleucid economy-and Hellenistic economies more broadly-were partially market-oriented, and partially monetarized.[71] While the market was subject to forces of supply and demand, a majority of produce was still consumed by their producers and was, hence, \"invisible\" to the observer.[71][70]\n\nFamily tree of Seleucids\n\nSee also\n\nSeleucid army\n\nSeleucid dynasty\n\nHellenistic period\n\nGreco-Bactrian Kingdom\n\nHasmonean Judea\n\nIndo-Greek Kingdom\n\nParthian Empire\n\nCilician pirates\n\nNotes\n\n^ The horned horse, the elephant, the anchor, and the goddesses Nike and Tyche were common Seleucid symbols.[1][2]\n\n^ Military historian John D. Grainger concludes that Seleucus invaded India, and was defeated, but states that \"[b]eyond that, it is not possible to go without further evidence.\"[25] There is \"little or no evidence\" for the idea that Chandragupta drove back Seleucus' forces as far back as Bactria.[26]\nOther authors are equally cautious.. Basham states that Seleucus \"seems to have suffered the worst of the engagement.\" Romila Thapar speaks of \"a campaign against Seleucus, in which Chandragupta seems to have been successful, judging by the terms of the treaty of 303 BC.\"[27] Kulke and Rothermund state that Chandragupta \"stopped his march east,\" and then present the terms of the peace treaty.[28] Keay states that \"perhaps he was roundly defeated. The terms of the peace treaty certainly suggest so.\"[22]\n\nReferences\n\n^ Cohen, Getzel M; The Hellenistic Settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa, p. 13.\n\n^ Lynette G. Mitchell; Every Inch a King: Comparative Studies on Kings and Kingship in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, pp. 123-124.\n\n^ a b Richard N. Frye, The History of Ancient Iran, (Ballantyne, 1984), 164;\"Greek was the official and dominant written language of the Seleucid empire, but Aramaic continued in use..\"\n\n^ Julye Bidmead, The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia, (Gorgias, 2004), 143.\n\n^ a b c d e Taagepera, Rein (1979). \"Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 600 B.C. to 600 A.D.\". Social Science History. 3 (3/4): 121. JSTOR 1170959.\n\n^ Grant, Michael (1990). The Hellenistic Greeks: From Alexander to Cleopatra. History of Civilisation. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 21-24, 48. ISBN 0-297-82057-5.\n\n^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. \"Seleucid, n. and adj.\" Oxford University Press, 1911.\n\n^ Niknami & Hozhabri 2020, p. viii: \"Most of the Asiatic occupations of Alexander, Iran as the core of them, were given to Seleucus I at first. Thus, Iran came under the ruling of the Seleucid. The Seleucid was a Greek state that commanded Western Asia between 312 and 64 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by Seleucus I.\";\nEckstein 2009, p. 106: \"By 201-200 it appeared that the old structure would be replaced by a tremendous expansion in the power of two already formidable Greek states-Antigonid Macedon and the Seleucid Empire-or perhaps even that one of these two formidable powers would emerge the sole victor\"\n\n^ Jones 2006, p. 174: \"...and the Greeks, or at least the Greco-Macedonian Seleucid Empire, replace the Persians as the Easterners\";\nSociety for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1993, p. 211: \"The Seleucid kingdom has traditionally been regarded as basically a Greco-Macedonian state and its rulers thought of as successors to Alexander.\"\n\n^ Baskin & Seeskin 2010, p. 37: \"The wars between the two most prominent Greek dynasties, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria, unalterably change the history of the land of Israel... As a result the land of Israel became part of the empire of the Syrian Greek Seleucids\";\nGlubb 1967, p. 34: \"In addition to the court and the army, Syrian cities were full of Greek businessmen, many of them pure Greeks from Greece. The senior posts in the civil service were also held by Greeks. Although the Ptolemies and the Seleucids were perpetual rivals, both dynasties were Greek and ruled by means of Greek officials and Greek soldiers. Both governments made great efforts to attract immigrants from Greece, thereby adding yet another racial element to the population\"\n\n^ Glubb 1967, p. 34: \"In addition to the court and the army, Syrian cities were full of Greek businessmen, many of them pure Greeks from Greece. The senior posts in the civil service were also held by Greeks. Although the Ptolemies and the Seleucids were perpetual rivals, both dynasties were Greek and ruled by means of Greek officials and Greek soldiers. Both governments made great efforts to attract immigrants from Greece, thereby adding yet another racial element to the population\"\n\n^ Hause, Steven C.; Maltby, William S. (2004). Western civilization: a history of European society. Thomson Wadsworth. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-534-62164-3. The Greco-Macedonian Elite. The Seleucids respected the cultural and religious sensibilities of their subjects but preferred to rely on Greek or Macedonian soldiers and administrators for the day-to-day business of governing. The Greek population of the cities, reinforced until the second century BC by immigration from Greece, formed a dominant, although not especially cohesive, elite.\n\n^ Victor, Royce M. (2010). Colonial education and class formation in early Judaism: a postcolonial reading. Continuum. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-567-24719-3. Like other Hellenistic kings, the Seleucids ruled with the help of their \"friends\" and a Greco-Macedonian elite class separate from the native populations whom they governed.\n\n^ Sherwin-White & Kuhrt 1993, p. 40.\n\n^ Nigel Wilson (2013). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. Routledge. p. 652. ISBN 9781136788000.\n\n^ a b McTavish, John E. (2019). \"A New Chronology for Seleucus Nicator's Wars from 311-308 B.C.E.\". Phoenix. 73 (1/2): 62-85. doi:10.7834/phoenix.73.1-2.0062. ISSN 0031-8299.\n\n^ a b c Siculus, Diodorus (1947). Library of History (Loeb Classical Library ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 19.92.5.\n\n^ Finkel, I. L.; van der Spek, R. J. (2018). Diadochi Chronicle (BCHP 3). Livius.org.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)\n\n^ Polyaenus (1994). Stratagems. Translated by Krentz and Wheeler. Ares Publishers.\n\n^ Pliny, Natural History VI, 22.4\n\n^ a b Appian, History of Rome, \"The Syrian Wars\" Archived 4 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine 55\n\n^ a b Keay 2018, p. 84.\n\n^ Basham, Arthur. The Wonder That Was India. Grove Press. p. 51.\n\n^ a b Grainger 2014, pp. 108-110. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGrainger2014 (help)\n\n^ Grainger 2014, pp. 109. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGrainger2014 (help)\n\n^ Grainger 2014, pp. 108. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGrainger2014 (help)\n\n^ Thapar, Romila (2004). Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. University of California Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0520242258.\n\n^ Kulke & Rothermund 2016, p. 39. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKulkeRothermund2016 (help)\n\n^ Kosmin 2014, p. 33-34.\n\n^ Jansari 2023, p. 35.\n\n^ Wheatley & Heckel 2011, p. 296.\n\n^ Vincent A. Smith (1972). Aśoka. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-1303-1.\n\n^ Clark, Walter Eugene (1919). \"The Importance of Hellenism from the Point of View of Indic-Philology\". Classical Philology. 14 (4): 297-313. doi:10.1086/360246. S2CID 161613588.\n\n^ Vijay Katchroo. Ancient India, p. 196\n\n^ William Hunter. The Imperial Gazetteer of India. p. 167\n\n^ C. D. Darlington. The evolution of man and society. p. 223\n\n^ Tarn, W. W. (1940). \"Two Notes on Seleucid History: 1. Seleucus' 500 Elephants, 2. Tarmita\". Journal of Hellenic Studies. 60: 84-94. doi:10.2307/626263. JSTOR 626263. S2CID 163980490.\n\n^ Partha Sarathi Bose (2003). Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy. Gotham Books. ISBN 1-59240-053-1.\n\n^ Pliny the Elder, \"The Natural History\", Chap. 21 Archived 28 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ \"Strabo 15.2.1(9)\".\n\n^ a b c Engels, David (201). \"Iranian Identity and Seleucid Allegiance: Vahbarz, the Frataraka and Early Arsacid Coinage\". In K. Erickson (ed.). The Seleukid Empire, 281-222 BC: War within the Family. Swansea. pp. 173-196.\n\n^ a b c Erickson, Kyle (2018). The Seleukid Empire 281-222 BC: War Within the Family. ISD LLC. p. 175. ISBN 9781910589953.\n\n^ Kosmin, Paul J. (2018). Time and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire. Harvard University Press. p. 207. ISBN 9780674976931.\n\n^ Castrén, Paavo (2011). Uusi antiikin historia (in Finnish). Otava. p. 244. ISBN 978-951-1-21594-3.\n\n^ Kosmin 2014, pp. 35-36.\n\n^ Polybius, Histories, Book 11, 1889, p. 78, trans. Friedrich Otto Hultsch, Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh\n\n^ \"Livy's History of Rome\". mu.edu.\n\n^ Flavius Josephus, The War of the Jews 1.1§2 Archived 13 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine\n\n^ Chanukah, Shabbat 21b, Babylonian Talmud\n\n^ Debevoise 1938, p. 20.\n\n^ Debevoise 1938, pp. 20-21.\n\n^ Debevoise 1938, p. 21.\n\n^ Coatsworth, John; Cole, Juan; Hanagan, Michael P.; Perdue, Peter C.; Tilly, Charles; Tilly, Louise (16 March 2015). Global connections: Volume 1, To 1500: Politics, Exchange, and Social Life in World History. Cambridge University Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-316-29777-3.\n\n^ O'Brien, Patrick K., ed. (2007) [2002]. Atlas of world history (Concise revised ed.). New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-19-521921-0.\n\n^ Fauve, Jeroen (2021). The European handbook of central Asian studies. Ibidem Press. p. 403. ISBN 978-3-8382-1518-1.\n\n^ Török, Tibor (July 2023). \"Integrating linguistic, archaeological and genetic perspectives unfold the origin of Ugrians\". Genes. 14 (7) 1345. MDPI. Figure 1. doi:10.3390/genes14071345. ISSN 2073-4425. PMC 10379071.\n\n^ Haubold, Johannes (2013). Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature. Cambridge University Press. p. 135. ISBN 9781107010765.\n\n^ Kosmin 2014, pp. 106-107.\n\n^ Julye Bidmead, The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia, 143.\n\n^ Tcherikover, Victor (2004). Hellenistic civilization and the jews (Reprint ed., 2. print ed.). Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson. ISBN 978-1-56563-476-3.\n\n^ Brutti, Maria (1 January 2006). The Development of the High Priesthood during the pre-Hasmonean Period: History, Ideology, Theology. BRILL. doi:10.1163/9789047408758_006. ISBN 978-90-474-0875-8. S2CID 244761541.\n\n^ \"History of Iran: Seleucid Empire\". iranchamber.com. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 11 November 2007.\n\n^ Head, 1982, p. 20\n\n^ Chaniotis, 2006, p. 86\n\n^ Chaniotis, 2006, p. 85\n\n^ Bar-Kochva, Bezalel (1989). Judas Maccabaeus: The Jewish Struggle Against the Seleucids. Cambridge University Press. pp. 95-111. ISBN 0521323525. . For the dismissive Greek attitudes toward Syrians, Bar-Kochva is citing Martin Hengel's 1976 work Juden, Griechen und Barbaren, p. 77.\n\n^ Griffith, 1935, p. 153\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j van der Spek, Robartus Johannes (2000). \"The Seleucid State and the Economy\" In Production and Public Powers in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society Supplementary. pp. 27-36. ISBN 978-0906014257.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i Taylor, Michael J. (2014). \"Sacred Plunder and the Seleucid Near East\". Greece & Rome. 62 (2): 222-241. doi:10.1017/S0017383514000175. JSTOR 43297500. S2CID 162810470.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Reger, Gary (2003). \"The Economy\" in \"A Companion to the Hellenistic World\" by Andrew Erskine. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Limited. pp. 331-353. ISBN 978-1-4051-3278-7.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v van der Spek, Robartus Johannes (2004). \"Palace, Temple and Market in Seleucid Babylonia\". Topoi: 303-332 - via Academia.\n\n^ a b c d e van der Spek, Robartus Johannes (2014). \"The Volatility of Prices of Barley and Dates in Babylon in the Third and Second Centuries BC.\" In Documentary Sources in Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman Economic History, by Heather D. Baker and Michael Jursa. Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow Books. pp. 234-259. doi:10.2307/j.ctvh1dn9m.15. ISBN 9781782977582.\n\n^ Houghton, Arthur (2003). \"Some Observations on Coordinated Bronze Currency Systems in Seleucid Syria and Phoenicia\". Israel Numismatic Journal. 15: 35-47 - via Academia.\n\n^ a b c d Mittwoch, A. (1955). \"Tribute and Land-tax in Seleucid Judaea\". Biblica. 36. No.3 (3): 352-361. JSTOR 42619061.\n\n^ a b c d e f Gilles, Gorre; Honigman, Sylvie (January 2013). Egitto: Dai Faraoni Agli Arabi.\" Kings, Taxes and High Priests: Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleukid Policies. Milan: Dipartimento di Studi letterari, filologicie linguistici dell'Università degli Studi di Milano. pp. 105-119. ISBN 978-8862276412. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2020.\n\n^ a b c d e van der Spek, Robartus Johannes (1993). \"New Evidence on Seleucid Land Policy\". In De Agricultura: In Memoriam Pieter Willem de Neeve, by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Pieter Willem de Neeve. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. pp. 303-332. ISBN 978-90-50-63070-2 - via Research Gate.\n\n^ a b Aphergis, Gerassmimos George (October 2008). \"The Seleucid Economy\". The Classical Review. 58 (2): 520-522. JSTOR 20482569.\n\nSources\n\nBaskin, Judith R.; Seeskin, Kenneth (2010). The Cambridge Guide to Jewish History, Religion, and Culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68974-8.\n\nDebevoise, Neilson C. (1938). A Political History of Parthia. University of Chicago Press.\n\nEckstein, Arthur M. (2009). Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25992-8.\n\nGlubb, John Bagot (1967). Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. Thames & Hudson. p. 34. OCLC 585939.\n\nGrainger, John D. (2020) [1st pub. 2015]. The Seleucid Empire of Antiochus III. 223-187 BC (Paperback ed.). Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-52677-493-4.\n\nJansari, Sushma (2023). Chandragupta Maurya: The creation of a national hero in India. UCL Press.\n\nJones, Kenneth Raymond (2006). Provincial reactions to Roman imperialism: the aftermath of the Jewish revolt, A.D. 66-70, Parts 66-70. University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 978-0-542-82473-9.\n\nKeay, John (2018) [2000]. India: A History. Harper Perennial. p. 84. ISBN 978-0006387848.\n\nKosmin, Paul J. (2014). The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in Seleucid Empire. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72882-0.\n\nNiknami, Kamal-Aldin; Hozhabri, Ali (2020). Archaeology of Iran in the Historical Period. Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-41776-5.\n\nSherwin-White, Susan; Kuhrt, Amelie (1993). From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire. London: Duckworth. ISBN 978-0-520-08183-3.\n\nWheatley, Pat; Heckel, Waldemar (2011), \"\"Commentary (Book 15)\"\", Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus: Volume II, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-927759-9\n\nSociety for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1993). The Journal of Hellenic studies, Volumes 113-114. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.\n\nFurther reading\n\nOvertoom, Nikolaus (2020). Reign of Arrows: The Rise of the Parthian Empire in the Hellenistic Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197680223.\n\nChrubasik, Boris (2016). Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire: The Men who would be King. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198786924.\n\nG. G. Aperghis, The Seleukid Royal Economy. The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire, Cambridge, 2004.\n\nLaurent Capdetrey, Le pouvoir séleucide. Territoire, administration, finances d'un royaume hellénistique (312-129 avant J.C.). (Collection \"Histoire\"). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007.\n\nD. Engels, Benefactors, Kings, Rulers. Studies on the Seleukid Empire between East and West, Leuven, 2017 (Studia Hellenistica 57).\n\nA. Houghton, C. Lorber, Seleucid Coins. A Comprehensive Catalogue, Part I, Seleucus I through Antiochus III, With Metrological Tables by B. Kritt, I-II, New York - Lancaster - London, 2002.\n\nR. Oetjen (ed.), New Perspectives in Seleucid History, Archaeology and Numismatics: Studies in Honor of Getzel M. Cohen, Berlin - Boston: De Gruyter, 2020\n\nMichael J. Taylor, Antiochus the Great (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2013).\n\nWünsch, Julian (2022). Großmacht gegen lokale Machthaber: die Herrschaftspraxis der Seleukiden an den Rändern ihres Reiches. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 9783447119054.\n\nExternal links\n\nLivius, The Seleucid Empire Archived 19 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine by Jona Lendering\n\nGenealogy of the Seleucids Archived 18 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine\n\nSeleucid Research Bibliography, compiled and maintained by the Seleucid Study Group Archived 24 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine\n\n\"Persia\" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 187-252."}], "sources": ["wikipedia-seleucid-empire"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 9404}, {"slug": "reference-1843-and-1846-massacres-in-hakkari", "title": "1843 and 1846 massacres in Hakkari", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "A series of massacres in Hakkari in the years 1843 and 1846 of Assyrian Christians were carried out by the Kurdish emirs of Bohtan and Hakkari, Bedir Khan Beg and Nurullah Beg along with allied Assyrian tribes who were against the rule of Shimun XVII Abraham.[1][2] According to...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "A series of massacres in Hakkari in the years 1843 and 1846 of Assyrian Christians were carried out by the Kurdish emirs of Bohtan and Hakkari, Bedir Khan Beg and Nurullah Beg\nalong with allied Assyrian tribes who were against the rule of Shimun XVII Abraham.[1][2] According to Dr. Smith, the population lost as a result of these events was between 10,000 and 15,000, of which around 10,000 were killed during the first campaign. Another American missionary, Justin Perkins, estimated that approximately 7,000 Assyrians were killed in Tehoma alone in 1846.[3]\n\nBackground\n\nOttoman affairs\n\nBy the 19th century, the weakened Ottoman Empire had started losing control over Upper Mesopotamia. The empire seemed on the brink of collapse when Muhammad Ali revolted in Egypt and took control of Syria. It was then that Kurdish Emirs found an opportunity to assert their independence.\n\nAmong them was Ibrahim Pasha, a Kurdish Emir whose dominion included a region extending from Diyarbakır to Aleppo, and who fought alongside Muhammad Ali against the Ottomans and their allies from the Shammar tribe in Jazira.[4] Despite the failure of Muhammad Pasha in his Syrian campaign, the events showed the vulnerability of the Ottomans and encouraged Kurdish aghas to try and increase their control in the region.[5]\n\nBritish fears of another French attempt similar to Napoleon's Egyptian campaign contributed to an increase of British influence. As these events unfolded, the British appointed Hormuzd Rassam, an ethnic Assyrian archaeologist from Mosul, and brother-in-law of Britain's ambassador in the city, as a delegate to expand British influence to the areas of the independent Assyrian tribes.[6]\nBritish and American Protestant missionaries, such as Justin Perkins and Asahel Grant, started visiting the area in the same period. They generally showed great sympathy to the Assyrian Christians.[7]\n\nThe Kurds, however, were wary of them, and the Assyrians' hospitality towards the foreigners only increased their suspicion.[8] The \"hostile intention of the Kurds towards the Assyrians\" was well known to British officials.\"[9] On 27 January 1842, Canning wrote to the foreign secretary, Lord Aberdeen, informing him that the \"Nestorians\" have been subdued by a \"Kurdish Bey\" acting in concert with the Ottomans.[9]\n\nKurdish internal conflicts\n\nWar broke out in Hakkari in 1839 between Nurullah, brother of the former Emir, who governed from Bash Qal'a, and Suleyman his nephew whose capital was in Gullamerk. The Assyrians were also split in their allegiances, according to their distribution. Most of them, including the Patriarch of the Church of the East Shimun XVII Abraham, supported Suleyman as the rightful successor to his father.[10]\n\nThe conflict turned into a massacre when Nurullah defeated his opponent and retaliated by attacking Assyrian villages and the Patriarchate of Qudshanis in 1841. This led to a permanent rift in relations between the Kurds and Assyrians in general. However, not all Assyrians allied themselves with the Patriarch. Some took advantage of his weakness to join Nurullah.[7]\n\nThe region descended into another war after a disagreement between Vali of Mosul, Mohammed Pasha, and the Kurdish Agha Ismael Pasha of Amedi. The latter resorted to Nurullah of Hakkari and Badr Khan, the ambitious emir of Buhtan. The three formed an alliance and called Assyrians to join them. The Patriarch however refused to do so after receiving promises from Mosul to protect them in case of the Kurds decided to retaliate again. War between the Kurds and Ottomans broke out in summer 1842.[11]\nThe next months were particularly calm in Hakkari with the Kurds busy with the war in Mosul, and missionary Asahel Grant commenced building a large religious school in the Christian Assyrian town of Ashitha and provided it with Syriac books and scriptures from Mosul in September, 1842.[12] The Kurdish campaign ended the same month with failure, and the Assyrians were blamed for refusing to intervene in the war. Rumours spread that Grant built a castle to be used against the Kurds, and Nurullah protested to the vali of Erzurum. In addition, Ibrahim Pasha of Mosul was also alarmed by the rumours and the increased missionary activities in the region. He described in a letter to the Porte how Grant and the Christians built a huge building containing at least 200 rooms.[12]\n\n1843 massacre\n\nIn early 1843, Nurullah sent for a meeting with the patriarch and the latter apologized using the weather, his religious duties, and the presence of a guest, the British missionary George Badger, as a pretence. It seemed that the patriarch made his decision after being convinced by Badger to distrust the Kurds and to request assistance from the English or the Porte if the Kurds were to attack.[13] Once Badger left, Nurullah renewed his alliance with the Badr Khan and Ismail Pasha, and requested permission from the Vali of Mosul to subjugate the Christians.[13]\n\nIn July 1843, the Kurdish alliance, along with Assyrians that were against the rule of Shimun XVII Abraham[14] led by Badr Khan, attacked the Assyrians in Hakkari, destroyed their villages and killed many of them.[15][16] Many of those who participated in the massacres had taken advantage of the weak connections between the Assyrian tribes, and many were forced to leave their homes due to the massacre.[17] Hormuzd Rassam tried using his influence with the Vali of Baghdad Najib Pasha to pressure Badr Khan for the release of prisoners, which included close relatives of the Patriarch of the Church of the East who had in the meantime taken refuge in Mosul.[6][18] His attempts only led to the release of about 150, one of whom was the sister of the patriarch, while the rest were distributed as war booty between Agha's and Mullahs.[19]\n\nOn August 3, Kurdish forces had succeeded in \"subduing the tribes and it was reported that 'still the slaughter is not yet ended, and several who have attempted to flee have been murdered...'\". Then the invaders had turned \"against the district of Tiyari, where they had succeeded in occupying the villages and indulged in the cruelest acts against its people\". Even \"those who had not opposed the Kurdish invasion had been treated in the same way as the fighters.\" The patriarch's mother's body was chopped into four pieces. Many women and young children \"were taken captive to be sold as slaves.\"[9] On 21 August 1843, the British consul Abbott reported on \"the role of the Kurds\" in the massacres of Assyrian tribes who attacked the Kurds first. The \"prime agitator for the attack from the frontier was the 'Shaik'\" of the Kurds of Bradost\". The Kurdish tribes were \"marching in large numbers directly to the Assyrian provinces.\"[9] According to the wali of Mosul, the number of Kurdish soldiers was estimated at 100,000, although the Assyrians themselves are said to have estimated it at 70,000. The Kurdish soldiers were united from all across the Middle East.[20]\n\nIt was reported that the \"killing and destruction continued apace. Corpses lay everywhere. The surviving men and women were forced to carry unbearable loads of booty for very long distances, while being lashed all along the way until they fell from torture and exhaustion\". Ross wrote: \"They were tortured in an awful manner to force them to expose what they call hidden treasures, while others were killing them just for entertainment and as sport and games'. The tribes \"were all but encircled and left with no safe route to escape\" the slaughter. Those that tried to flee had to take a route that passed through the hostile Kurds of Berwar. One group after another was caught and slaughtered \"while trying to escape\".[9] It is estimated by contemporary sources that the victims of the assault of 1843 numbered ten thousand, but according to Adoona, that figure \"cannot represent the total victims of the attack\".[9]\n\nDeath of Malik Ismail\n\nA crucial event in the conflict was when Bedir Khan Beg's forces captured Malik Ismael. As Ismael lay severely wounded, he defiantly declared, \"This arm has taken the lives of nearly twenty Kurds; and, had God spared me, as many more would have fallen by it!\" Soon after, Bedr Khan Beg ordered his men to execute Ismael by beheading him and throwing his body into the river.\nIsmael's wife and many Assyrians were taken prisoner.[16] However, a few managed to escape by crossing the Upper Zab river and to avoid being chased, they destroyed the Lezan bridge behind them on the orders of Mar Shimun.[15]\n\n1846 massacre\n\nAnother massacre was inflicted by Bedir Khan in 1846, even against those Assyrians who joined him in his first campaign of massacres in 1843.[14] Bedir Khan killed 7,000 Assyrians just in Botan.[21] This massacre received international attention through western press; it also woke European politicians and public opinion to the plight of Christians. This led the European countries to pressure the Porte to intervene and stop the massacres.[22]\n\nAftermath\n\nIn 1844 George Percy Badger working with Mar Shimun put the losses at 4,000 Assyrians dead.[23] The Kurdish massacres were a precursor to the later incursions which ended both the autonomous status which the Assyrian tribes enjoyed, and that which the Kurds in the mountainous areas had as well. The government saw the communal conflict as an opportunity to overthrow the last Kurdish emirates in 1847, establishing direct control of the entire region.[22] A battalion was sent to the region in 1847, and clashed with the Kurds in several battles that ended with the arrest of both Badr Khan and Nurullah, and their exile in the same year.[24] Later on, the Hakkari province was established and governed from Başkale.[25]\n\nDue to the massacres of 1843-1846 committed by the troops of the Kurdish leader Bedr Khan Beg against the independent Assyrian tribes, \"the long-Iasting existence of the Assyrian people as an independent body\" was ended.[26]\n\nSee also\n\n1860 Lebanon conflict\n\nHamidian massacres\n\nAssyrian genocide\n\nList of conflicts in the Near East\n\nReferences\n\n^ Laurie, Thomas (1874). Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians. D. Lothrop & Company.\n\n^ Gaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 62. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3\n\n^ Murat Gökhan Dalyan. IX. Yüzyılda Amerikalı Misyonerlerin Hakkâri Günlüğü 1830-1870-Diaries Of American Missionaries In Hakkari 1830 1870 (in Turkish).\n\n^ Gaunt & Beṯ-Şawoce 2006, p. 30\n\n^ Gaunt & Beṯ-Şawoce 2006, p. 31\n\n^ a b Aboona 2008, p. 218\n\n^ a b Joseph 2000, p. 75\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 76\n\n^ a b c d e f Aboona 2008, pp. 199-212\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 74\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 78\n\n^ a b Joseph 2000, p. 79\n\n^ a b Joseph 2000, p. 82\n\n^ a b Gaunt, David (2020). \"The Long Assyrian Genocide\". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 62. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3\n\n^ a b Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians (Classic Reprint). D. Lothrop & Company. 1874.\n\n^ a b Aprim, Frederick. Assyrians From Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein.\n\n^ Astourian, Stephan; Kévorkian, Raymond (2020-11-01). Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.\n\n^ It was reported that the \"Kurdish leader Bedr Khan had invaded the country of the Christian tribes, bent on destroying them through a campaign of terror, in which large numbers had been killed and others taken captive to be sold as slaves.\" Aboona, 2008, p. 199-212\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 219\n\n^ Jwaideh, Wadie (2006-06-19). The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development. Syracuse University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-8156-3093-7.\n\n^ O'Shea, Maria T. (2004). Trapped between the map and reality : geography and perceptions of Kurdistan. Internet Archive. New York : Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-94766-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)\n\n^ a b Gaunt & Beṯ-Şawoce 2006, p. 32\n\n^ Taylor, Gordon (2007-05-01). Fever and Thirst: An American Doctor Among the Tribes of Kurds, 1835-1844. Chicago Review Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-0-89733-657-4.\n\n^ Joseph 2000, p. 85\n\n^ Aydin, Suavi; Verheij, Jelle (2012). Jongerden, Joost; Verheij, Jelle (eds.). Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915. Brill. p. 38. ISBN 9789004225183.\n\n^ Aboona 2008, p. 284\n\nLiterature\n\nStafford, R (2006) [1935]. The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0..\n\nJoseph, J (2000). The modern Assyrians of the Middle East: encounters with Western Christian missions, archaeologists, and colonial powers. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11641-2.\n\nGaunt, D; Beṯ-Şawoce, J (2006). Massacres, resistance, protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-59333-301-0.\n\nAboona, H (2008). Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: intercommunal relations on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire. Cambria Press. ISBN 978-1-60497-583-3..\n\n37°30′N 43°42′E / 37.5°N 43.7°E / 37.5; 43.7 (massacres location)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-1843-and-1846-massacres-in-hakkari"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2129}, {"slug": "reference-malankara-orthodox-syrian-church", "title": "Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church", "category": "Faith & communities", "summary": "The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC)[6], (Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܡܠܢܟܪܝܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܐܘܪܬܘܕܟܣܝܬܐ ܕܗܢܕܘ) also known as the Indian Orthodox Church (IOC)[7] or simply as the Malankara Church,[8] is an autocephalous[9][10][4] Oriental Orthodox church headquartered in Devalokam, near Kottayam, India. It serves India's Saint Thomas Christian (also known as Nasrani)...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nമലങ്കര ഓർത്തഡോക്സ് സുറിയാനി സഭ\nܥܕܬܐ ܡܠܢܟܪܝܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܐܘܪܬܘܕܟܣܝܬܐ ܕܗܢܕܘ\n\nCatholicate Palace\n\nTypeAutocephaly\n\nClassificationChristian\n\nOrientation\nOriental Orthodox\n\nSyriac\n\nScripturePeshitta\n\nTheologyOriental Orthodox\n\nPolityEpiscopal\n\nGovernanceEpiscopal Synod\n\nCatholicosBaselios Marthoma Mathews III\n\nRegionIndia and the Nasrani diaspora\n\nLanguageSyriac, Malayalam, Konkani, Hindi, English, Tamil and other Indian regional languages\n\nLiturgyWest Syriac Rite (Malankara Rite)\n\nHeadquartersCatholicate Palace, Kottayam, Kerala, India\n\nFounderThomas the Apostle (according to tradition)\n Dionysius VI[1][2]: 285 [3]\n\nOrigin\n\nc. 52 AD (Saint Thomas Christianity, by tradition),\n\n1912 (Establishment of Catholicate)[4]\n\nIndependence1912 (Separation from the Syriac Orthodox Church)[4]\n\nSeparated fromSyriac Orthodox Church\n\nBranched fromSaint Thomas Christians, Malankara Church\n\nSeparationsSyro-Malankara Catholic Church (1930)[5]: 197 ,\n\nOther namesഇന്ത്യൻ ഓർത്തഡോക്സ് സഭ\n(Indian Orthodox Church)\nമലങ്കര സഭ\n(Malankara Church)\n\nOfficial websitemosc.in\n\nThe Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC)[6], (Syriac: ܥܕܬܐ ܡܠܢܟܪܝܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ ܐܘܪܬܘܕܟܣܝܬܐ ܕܗܢܕܘ) also known as the Indian Orthodox Church (IOC)[7] or simply as the Malankara Church,[8] is an autocephalous[9][10][4] Oriental Orthodox church headquartered in Devalokam, near Kottayam, India. It serves India's Saint Thomas Christian (also known as Nasrani) population. According to tradition, these communities originated in the missions of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century (circa 52 AD).[11] It employs the Malankara Rite, an Indian form of the West Syriac liturgical rite.\n\nThe Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church traces its origin back to the historic Malankara Church and its association with the Syriac Orthodox Church. Between 1909 and 1912, differences regarding the extent of authority of the Patriarch of Antioch led to a division within the Malankara Church. As a result, two ecclesiastical bodies emerged: the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC) and the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church (JSCC), both of which claim continuity with the Malankara Christian tradition.\n\nSince 1912, the MOSC has maintained the office of the Catholicos of the East, who also holds the title of Malankara Metropolitan. The current Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan is Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, who serves as the primate of the church. In 1934, the MOSC adopted a constitution to systematize the function and administration of the church. It defined the conditional authority of the Patriarch of Antioch, and vested the powers of temporal and spiritual administration in the supreme hierarch who possesses the offices of the Catholicate and the Malankara Metropolitanate.[12]\n\nThe Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox Churches. Despite multiple efforts toward reconciliation, disputes between the MOSC and the JSCC, primarily concerning ecclesiastical authority and administrative matters, have continued, including legal proceedings and local conflicts.[3][13][2]: 272 \n\nThe Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church accepts miaphysitism,[14][15] (not to be confused with monophysitism), which holds that in the one person of Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are united in one (μία, mia) nature (φύσις - \"physis\") without separation, without confusion, without alteration and without mixing[16] where Christ is consubstantial with God the Father. Around 500 bishops within the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem refused to accept the dyophysitism (two natures) doctrine decreed by the 4th ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon in 451, an incident that resulted in the second major split in the main body of the Christian Church (after the Nestorian schism). While the Oriental Orthodox churches rejected the Chalcedonian definition, the sees that would later become the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church accepted this council.[17]\n\nSelf-reporting roughly 2.5 million members (with external estimates of roughly 1 million)[18][19] across 32 dioceses worldwide, a significant proportion of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's adherents reside in the southern India state of Kerala with the Malankara communities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South America, Australia and New Zealand.[20] The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online estimated the church has approximately 1.2 million members.[21]\n\nHistory\n\nEarly history\n\nAccording to tradition, Christianity first arrived in India with Thomas the Apostle during the 1st century AD, evolving into Saint Thomas Christianity over several centuries.[22] While isolated and generally independent in administration, Indian Christians maintained contact with the Christian hierarchies of Antioch, Persia, and potentially Alexandria.[23][24] The Saint Thomas Christians had relationships with the Persian Church of the East from at least the 6th century onward. The Indians inherited its East Syriac dialect for liturgical use and gradually became Syriac Christians in ritual and doctrine. They received clerical support from Persian bishops, who traveled to Kerala in merchant ships on the spice route.[25] For much of this period, Saint Thomas Christians were under the leadership of an archdeacon (a native ecclesiastical head with temporal powers, deriving from the Greek arkhidiākonos).\n\nDuring the 16th century, efforts by the Portuguese Padroado-an arm of the Catholic Church-to bring the Saint Thomas Christians under the administration of the Latin Church and attempts to Latinize the Malankara Rite led to the first of several rifts in the community. These divisions intensified following the 1599 Synod of Diamper. Saint Thomas Christians who were opposed to the Portuguese Padroado missionaries took the Coonan Cross Oath on 3 January 1653.[26][27][28] The Dutch East India Company expulsion of the Portuguese from much of Malabar enabled the reconciliation of some Saint Thomas Christians and the Catholic Church, with this group eventually evolving into the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church that adopted the Chaldean Catholic Church's East Syriac Rite and Diophysite christology.\n\nMalankara Church\n\nMany Saint Thomas Christian chose to remain independent from the Catholic Church. Patriarch Gregorios Abdal Jaleel, the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem, witnessed the 1665 ordination of Thomas as Bishop Thoma I, who forged a renewed relationship with the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and Saint Thomas Christians, which laid the foundation for adopting West Syrian liturgy and practices over the next two centuries. Those who supported the indigenous church leader of Malankara, Thoma I, and adopted West Syrian liturgies and practices and Miaphysite faith evolved into the Malankara Church.[29][30][31][32][33]\n\n19th and 20th centuries\n\nThe Arthat Padiyola declared that the administration of Arthat Church was independent and the bishops from Rome, Antioch, and Babylon had no role in the Malankara Church hierarchy, despite continued efforts to integrate the remaining independent Saint Thomas Christians into these patriarchates. In 1807, four gospels of Holy Bible in Syriac were translated to Malayalam by Kayamkulam Philipose Ramban. The Malankara Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kottayam was established in 1815 under the leadership of Pulikottil Ittup Ramban (Mar Dionysius II). The Mavelikara Synod (Padiyola) led by Cheppad Mar Dionysius rejected the suggestions put forward by Anglican missioneries and Reformation group and declared the beliefs and theology of Malankara Church were same as the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch.\n\nGeevarghese Dionysius of Vattasseril, who became the Malankara metropolitan bishop in 1908, played a significant role with the other clerical and lay leaders of Malankara in re-establishing the Catholicate of the East in India in 1912. Relations with the Syrian Orthodox Church soured in 1909, as Patriarch Ignatius Abded Aloho II who arrived in India claimed temporal jurisdiction over the Church. Dionysius rejected the request, leading to the Patriarch issuing an encyclical deposing him, and thus emerged two factions in the Church.[34] The faction that supported the Patriarch came to be called as \"Bava Kakshi\" (Patriarch Faction) and the faction that supported the Malankara Metropolitan came to be known as \"Methran Kakshi\" (Metropolitan Faction).[35][36] The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, wishing to retain its autocephaly, appealed to emeritus Patriarch Ignatius Abdul Masih II who, according to later Syriac Orthodox sources, was deposed by a Synod in 1903.[37] He enthroned Murimattathil Paulose Ivanios as Baselios Paulose I, Catholicos of the East, on the Throne of St. Thomas at St. Mary's Church in Niranam on 15 September 1912.[38]\n\nIn 1934, the Malankara Church adopted a constitution to regulate its administration, parishes, and institutions. In 1947, Saint Gregorios of Parumala was declared as a saint by the Church. In 1952, the official residence of the Malankara Metropolitan and the Headquarters of Malankara Church was shifted to Devalokam from Old Seminary. In 1958, The Supreme Court declared Catholicos Baselios Geevarghese II as the legitimate Malankara Metropolitan, and the two factions of the Malankara Orthodox Church rejoined. In 1964, Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch participated in the enthronement ceremony of the Catholicos and Malankara Metropolitan, Baselios Augen I. In 1995, the Supreme Court of India declared the MOSC constitution adopted in 1934 was valid.\n\n21st century\n\nIn 2002, fresh elections were conducted in Malankara Association under the observation of Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court declared Catholicos Baselios Marthoma Mathews II is the official and legitimate Malankara Metropolitan and also declared that this decision cannot be disputed in any platform. In 2003, Vattasheril Dionysius VI was declared as a saint. In 2012, the centennial of the establishment of the church and Catholicate were celebrated with history classes and church publications.[39] On 3 July 2017, a major verdict by the Supreme Court of India declared the MOSC legally applicable to all parishes in disputed possession between the MOSC and Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.[40]\n\nHierarchy and doctrine\n\nThe spiritual head of the church is the Catholicos of the East, and its temporal head is the Malankara Metropolitan. Since 1934, both titles have been vested in one person; the official title of the head of the church is \"The Catholicos of the Apostolic Throne of Saint Thomas and The Malankara Metropolitan\". Baselios Marthoma Mathews III was enthroned as the Malankara Metropolitan and the Catholicos of the East. He is the ninth Catholicose of the East in Malankara and the 21st Malankara Metropolitan.\n\nOriental Orthodox Churches, including the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, accept only the first three ecumenical councils: the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople, and the Council of Ephesus. The church, like all other Oriental Orthodox Churches, uses the original Nicene Creed[41] without the filioque clause.[42] Like the Syriac Orthodox Church, it primarily uses the liturgy of Saint James in Malayalam, Konkani, Kannada, Hindi, English and other Indian languages.\n\nLiturgy and canonical hours\n\nThe church has used the Malankara Rite, part of the Antiochene Rite, since the 17th century.[43] The Jacobite Church and the Maronite Church also belong to the same liturgical family. In the first half of the fifth century, the Antiochene church adopted the Liturgy of Saint James. In the 4th and 5th centuries, The liturgical language of fourth- and fifth-century Jerusalem and Antioch was Greek, and the original liturgy was composed in Greek.\n\nAfter the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Eastern Church was divided in two; one group accepted the council, and the other opposed it. Both groups continued to use the Greek version of the Saint James liturgy. The Byzantine emperor Justin (518-527) expelled the opponents from Antioch, and they took refuge in the Syriac-speaking Mesopotamia on the Roman-Persian border (modern eastern Syria, Iraq, and southeastern Turkey). The Antiochene liturgical rites were gradually translated into Syriac, and Syriac hymns were introduced.\n\nGregorios Abdal Jaleel came to Malankara from Jerusalem in 1665 and introduced Syriac Orthodox liturgical rites. The most striking characteristic of the Antiochene liturgy is its large number of anaphoras (celebrations of the Eucharist). About eighty are known, and about a dozen are used in India. All have been composed following the Liturgy of Saint James.[44] The liturgy of Mor Addai is still in use, in anaphora form, similar to the Maronite Sharar[45][46]. The anaphora of St. John Chrysostom is sometimes used[47].\n\nChristians of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church pray the canonical hours of the Shehimo at fixed prayer times seven times a day.[48]\n\nSaints\n\nIn conformity with other Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and also with the Roman Catholic Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church adheres to the tradition of seeking the intercession of saints. Several have been canonized: \n\nGeevarghese Gregorios of Parumala: Entombed in St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Parumala, and canonized by Geevarghese II in 1947\n\nBaselios Yeldo: Entombed in St. Thomas Church, Kothamangalam, and canonised by Geevarghese II in 1947\n\nGeevarghese Dionysius of Vattasseril: Entombed in the Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam, and canonized by Mathews II in 2003\n\nAntonio Francisco Xavier Alvares: Entombed in St. Mary's Orthodox Church, Ribandar, and declared a regional saint by Paulose II in 2015. (Not officially canonized a saint)[49]\n\nFr. Roque Zephrin Noronah: Entombed in St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral, Brahmavar, and declared a regional saint by Paulose II in 2015 (Not officially canonized a saint)[50]\n\n Geevarghese Gregorios of Parumala\n\n Geevarghese Dionysius of Vattasseril\n\n Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares\n\nMetropolitan\n\nThe temporal, ecclesiastical and spiritual administration of the church is vested in the Malankara Metropolitan, subject to the church constitution which was adopted in 1934.[51] The Malankara Metropolitan is president of the Malankara Syrian Christian Association (Malankara Association) and its managing committee, and trustee of community properties. He is the custodian of the Pazhaya Seminary and other common properties of Malankara Syrian Community. He is also the custodian of vattipanam interest which was deposited in Travancore Government by Marthoma VII. He is elected by the Malankara association.\n\nList of Malankara metropolitans\n\nThoma I (1653-1670)[52]\n\nThoma II (1670-1686)\n\nThoma III (1686-1688)\n\nThoma IV (1688-1728)\n\nThoma V (1728-1765)\n\nThoma VI (1765-1808)\n\nThoma VII (1808-1809)\n\nThoma VIII (1809-1816)\n\nThoma IX (1816)\n\nDionysius II (1816)\n\n Mar Philoxenos II (1816-1818)\n\nDionysius III (1817-1825)\n\nDionysius IV (1825-1852)\n\nMathews Athanasius (1852-1877)\n\nDionysius V (1865-1909)[53]\n\nDionysius VI (1909-1934)[54]\n\nGeevarghese II (1934-1964)[55] From 1934 Malankara Metropolitan also holds the office of Catholicos of the East of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.\n\nAugen I (1964-1975), also Catholicos of the East\n\nMathews I (1975-1991), also Catholicos of the East\n\nMathews II (1991-2005),[56] also Catholicos of the East\n\nDidymos I (2005-2010), also Catholicos of the East\n\nPaulose II (2010-2021), also Catholicos of the East\n\nMathews III (15 October 2021 - present), also Catholicos of the East[57][58]\n\nCatholicate\n\n\"Catholicos\" means \"the general head\", and can be considered equivalent to \"universal bishop.\"[59] The early church had three priestly ranks: episcopos (bishop), priest and deacon. By the end of the third century, bishops of important cities in the Roman Empire became known as metropolitans. The fourth-century ecumenical councils recognized the authority of the metropolitan. By the fifth century, the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch gained control of the churches in surrounding cities.[60] They gradually became the heads of the regional churches, and were known as patriarchs (common father). \n\nOutside the Roman Empire, patriarchs were known as catholicos. There were four catholicates before the fifth century: the Catholicate of the East, the Catholicate of Armenia, the Catholicate of Georgia and the Catholicate of Albania. The archdeacons reigned from the fourth to the 16th centuries; in 1653, the archdeacon was elevated to bishop by the community as Mar Thoma I.\n\nThe Catholicate of the East was relocated to India in 1912, and Baselios Paulose I was seated on the apostolic throne of St. Thomas as the Catholicos of the East by the disposed Patriarch of Antioch Abdul Masih. The headquarters of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Catholicos of the East is the Catholicate Palace at Devalokam, Kottayam, Kerala, which was consecrated on 31 December 1951. The new palace, built in 1961, was dedicated by visiting Armenian Catholicos Vazgen I. \n\nThe Holy Synod and Managing committee designated H.G.Dr. Mathews Mor Severios to the new Malankara Metropolitan and Catholicos of Malankara Church succeeding Baselios Marthoma Paulose II. He was consecrated as the 22nd Malankara Metropolitan during the Malankara Association that took place on 14 October 2021 at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Parumala and enthroned as the 9th Catholicos of Malankara Church on 15 October 2021.[61] Relics of St. Thomas are kept in the catholicate chapel, and Geevarghese II, Augen I, Mathews I and Paulose II are interred there.\n\nList of Catholicos of the East of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nBaselios Paulose I (1912-1913)\n\nVacant (1913-1925)\n\nBaselios Geevarghese I (1925-1928)\n\nBaselios Geevarghese II (1929-1964)\n\nFrom 1934 Catholicos is also holding the office of Malankara Metropolitan.\n\nBaselios Augen I (1964-1975)\n\nBaselios Mar Thoma Mathews I (1975-1991)\n\nBaselios Mar Thoma Mathews II (1991-2005)\n\nBaselios Mar Thoma Didymos I (2005-2010)\n\nBaselios Mar Thoma Paulose II (2010-2021)\n\nBaselios Mar Thoma Mathews III (2021-present)\n\nAdministration\n\nUntil the 17th century, the church was administered by the archdeacon (Malankara Moopan).[62] The elected archdeacon was in charge of day-to-day affairs, including the ordination of deacons to the priesthood. Ordinations were performed by Persian bishops visiting India. The Malankara Palliyogam (a forerunner of the Malankara Association) consisted of elected representatives from individual parishes. The isolation of the Malankara Church from the rest of Christendom preserved the apostolic age's democratic nature through interactions with Portuguese (Roman Catholic) and British (Anglican) colonialists. From the 17th to the 20th centuries, the church had five pillars of administration:\n\nThe Episcopal Synod, presided over by the Catholicos of the East\n\nThe Malankara Association, presided by Malankara Metropolitan\n\nThree trustees: the Malankara metropolitan and priest and lay trustees\n\nThe Malankara Association's managing and working committees[63][64]\n\n1934 church constitution\n\nEnvisioned by Dionysius VI, the church's general and day-to-day administration was codified in its 1934 constitution. The constitution[65] was presented at the 26 December 1934 Malankara Christian Association meeting at M. D. Seminary,[66] adopted and enacted. It has been amended three times. Although the constitution was challenged in court by dissident supporters of the Patriarch of Antioch, Supreme Court rulings in 1958, 1995, 2017 and 2018 upheld its validity.[67]\n\nThe constitution's first article asserts the relationship between the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Malankara Church. The second article addresses the establishment of the Malankara Church by St. Thomas and ascribes primacy to the Catholicos. The third article regards the church's name. The fourth article describes the faith and its traditions. The fifth article examines church governance canon law.[68]\n\nMalankara Association\n\nThe elected Malankara Association, consisting of parish members, manages the church's religious and social concerns. Formerly the Malankara Palli-yogam (മലങ്കര പള്ളി യോഗം; Malankara Parish Assembly, its modern form is believed to have been founded in 1873 as the Mulanthuruthy Synod, a gathering of parish representatives in Parumala. In 1876, the Malankara Association began.[69]\n\nThe church constitution outlines the association's powers and responsibilities. The Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan is the president, and the diocesan metropolitan bishops are vice-presidents. All positions are elected. Each parish is represented in the association by an elected priest and laypeople, proportional to parish-membership size.\n\nCo-trustees\n\nThis is a list of co-trustees (priest trustee & lay trustee) elected by the Malankara Association of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church:[70][71]\n\nYear of Election\n\nClergy Trustee\n\nDuration\n\nLay Trustee\n\nDuration\n\n1869\n\nPunnathra Chacko Chandapilla Kathanar\n\n21 Oct 1869 - 13 Sep 1886\n\nKulangara Ittychan Pailey\n\n12 Oct 1869 - ?\n\n1886\n\nKonat Kora Yohannan Kathanar\n\n13 Sep 1886 - 9 Mar 1890\n\nKunnumpurath Kora Ulahannan, Kottayam\n\n13 Sep 1886 & \n31 Mar 1892 - 24 Feb 1901\n\n1892\n\nKonat Kora Mathan Malpan\n\n31 Mar 1892 & \n23 Nov 1895 - 7 Sep 1911\n\n-\n\n1901\n\n-\n\nC. J. Kurien (Kunnumpurath Ulahannan Kora), Kottayam\n\n25 Apr 1901 - 7 Sep 1911\n\n1911\n\nPalappalil Mani Paulose Kathanar Pampakuda\n\n7 Sep 1911 - 21 Dec 1955\n\nChirakadavil Kora Kochu Korula, Kottayam (d. 1931)\n\n07 Sep 1911 - 31 May 1931\n\n1931\n\n-\n\nE. I Joseph, Kottayam\n\n10 Jul 1931 - 15 Jul 1946\n\n1958\n\nManalil Jacob Kathanar\n\n26 Dec 1958 - 28 Dec 1965\n\nOoppoottil Kurian Abraham, Kottayam\n\n26 Dec 1958 - 12 Dec 1978\n\n1965\n\nThengumthottathil T. S. Abraham Cor Episcopa\n\n28 Dec 1965 - 28 Dec 1982\n\n-\n\n1980\n\n-\n\nPadinjarekkara P. C. Abraham, Kottayam\n\n1 May 1980 - 21 Mar 2007\n\n1982\n\nKonat Abraham Malpan\n\n28 Dec 1982 - 3 Mar 1987\n\n-\n\n1987\n\nFr. Mathai Nooranal\n\n29 Dec 1987 - 29 Nov 2002\n\n-\n\n2004\n\nFr. Dr. O. Thomas\n\n10 Jun 2004 - 21 Mar 2007\n\n-\n\n2007\n\nFr. Johns Abraham Konat\n\n21 Mar 2007 - 7 Mar 2012\n\nM.G. George Muthoot\n\n21 Mar 2007 - 7 Mar 2012\n\n2012\n\nFr. Johns Abraham Konat\n\n7 Mar 2012 - 1 Mar 2017\n\nM.G. George Muthoot\n\n7 Mar 2012 - 1 Mar 2017\n\n2017\n\nFr. Dr. M.O. John\n\n1 Mar 2017 - 4 Aug 2022\n\nGeorge Paul (d. 2019)\n\n1 Mar 2017 - 26 Nov 2019\n\n2022\n\nFr. Dr. Thomas Varghese Amayil\n\n4 Aug 2022 - present\n\nRonny Varghese Abraham\n\n4 Aug 2022 - present\n\nDioceses\n\nThe following are Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church dioceses:[72]\n\nDioceses\nTerritory\nIncumbent Metropolitan\n\nThiruvananthapuram Diocese\n\nThiruvananthapuram and Kanyakumari\n\nH. G. Dr. Gabriel Mar Gregorios[73]\n\nKollam Diocese\n\nKollam\n\nH. G. Dr. Joseph Mar Dionysius\n\nKottarakkara Punaloor Diocese\n\nKottarakkara, Punalur\n\nH. G. Yuhanon Mar Thevodoros\n\nAdoor Kadampanad Diocese\n\nAdoor, Kadampanad\n\nH. G. Zacharias Mar Aprem[74]\n\nThumpamon Diocese\n\nThumpamon\n\nH. G. Abraham Mar Seraphim\n\nNilakal Diocese\n\nNilackal and Ranni regions\n\nH. G. Joshua Mar Nicodimos\n\nMavelikara Diocese\n\nMavelikara\n\nH. G. Abraham Mar Ephiphanios\n\nChengannur Diocese\n\nChengannur\n\nH. G. Mathews Mar Thimotheos\n\nNiranam Diocese\n\nNiranam\n\nH. G. Yuhanon Mar Chrysostamos\n\nKottayam Diocese\n\nKottayam\n\nH. G. Yuhanon Mar Dioscoros\n\nKottayam Central Diocese\n\nKottayam\n\nBaselios Marthoma Mathews III\n\nIdukki Diocese\n\nIdukki\n\nH. G. Zachariah Mar Severios\n\nKandanad West Diocese\n\nKandanad\n\nBaselios Marthoma Mathews III\n\nKandanad East Diocese\n\nKandanad\n\nH. G. Thomas Mar Athanasius\n\nKochi Diocese\n\nKochi\n\nH. G. Yakob Mar Irenios\n\nAngamaly Diocese\n\nAngamaly\n\nH. G. Yuhanon Mar Policarpos\n\nThrissur Diocese\n\nThrissur \n\nH. G. Yuhanon Mar Meletius\n\nKunnamkulam Diocese\n\nKunnamkulam\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Yulios\n\nMalabar Diocese\n\nMalabar\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Pachomios\n\nSulthan Bathery Diocese\n\nWayanad\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Barnabas\n\nBrahmavar Diocese\n\nKarnataka, Goa\n\nH. G. Yakob Mar Elias\n\nBangalore Diocese\n\nBangalore, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Philoxenos (Asst.)\n\nMadras Diocese\n\nTamilnadu, Andaman Nicobar and Sri Lanka\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Philoxenos\n\nBombay Diocese\n\nMaharashtra\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Coorilose\n\nAhmedabad Diocese\n\nMadhya Pradesh, Gujarat , Rajasthan and Oman\n\nH. G. Geevarghese Mar Theophilos\n\nDelhi Diocese\n\nUttar Pradesh,Punjab,Haryana, Delhi and United Arab Emirates\n\nH. G. Youhanon Mar Demetrios\n\nCalcutta Diocese\n\nChhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and parts of - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura, and West Bengal\n\nH. G. Alexios Mar Eusebios\n\nUK, Europe and Africa Diocese\n\nUK, Europe\n\nH. G. Abraham Stephanos\n\nNortheast America Diocese\n\nAmerica\n\nH. G. Zachariah Mar Nicholovos\n\nSouthwest America Diocese\n\nAmerica\n\nH. G. Thomas Mar Ivanios[75]\n\nCanada Diocese[76]\n\nCanada\n\nH. G. Zachariah Mar Nicholovos\n\nAsia Pacific Diocese[76]\n\nAsia and Pacific Regions\n\nH. G. Yuhanon Mar Dioscoros\n\nMetropolitan bishops\n\nThe church's episcopal synod has the following diocesan bishops:[77][78][76]\n\nDiocesan Bishop\nMetropolitan of Diocese\nNotes\n\nBaselios Marthoma Mathews III\n\nKottayam Central, Kandanad West, Trivandrum Diocese[73], Bangalore Diocese, Asia Pacific Diocese and Canada Diocese\n\nCatholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan.\n\nThomas Athanasius\n\nKandanad East Diocese\n\nYuhanon Meletius\n\nThrissur Diocese\n\nKuriakose Clemis\n\nValiya Metropolita[79] - Retired\n\nGeevarghese Coorilose\n\nBombay Diocese\n\nZachariah Nicholovos\n\nNortheast America Diocese\n\nAsst. Metropolitan of Canada Diocese[80]\n\nYakob Irenios\n\nKochi Diocese\n\nGabriel Gregorios\n\nRetired[73]\n\nYuhanon Chrysostamos\n\nNiranam Diocese\n\nYuhanon Policarpos\n\nAnkamali Diocese\n\nMathews Theodosius\n\nOn Leave\n\nJoseph Dionysius\n\nKollam Diocese\n\nAbraham Ephiphanios\n\nMavelikara Diocese\n\nMathews Thimothios\n\nChengannur Diocese\n\nAlexios Eusebios\n\nCalcutta Diocese\n\nYuhanon Mar Dioscoros\n\nKottayam Diocese\n\nAsst. Metropolitan of Kottayam Central,[81] Asia Pacific Diocese[82]\n\nYouhanon Demetrios\n\nDelhi Diocese\n\nYuhanon Thevodoros\n\nKottarakara-Punalur Diocese\n\nYakob Elias\n\nBrahmavar Diocese\n\nJoshua Nicodemos\n\nNilackal Diocese\n\nZacharias Aprem\n\nAdoor-Kadampanadu Diocese\n\nGeevarghese Yulios\n\nKunnamkulam Diocese\n\nAbraham Seraphim\n\nThumpamon Diocese[83]\n\nAbraham Stephanos\n\nUK, Europe, Africa Diocese\n\nThomas Ivanios\n\nSouthwest America Diocese\n\nGeevarghese Theophilos\n\nAhmedabad Diocese\n\nAsst. Metropolitan of Bombay Diocese\n\nGeevarghese Philexinos\n\nMadras Diocese\n\nAsst. Metropolitan of Bangalore Diocese[84]\n\nGeevarghese Pachomios\n\nMalabar Diocese\n\nGeevarghese Barnabas\n\nSulthan Bathery Diocese\n\nZachariah Severios\n\nIdukki Diocese\n\nAsst. Metropolitan of Kandanad West Diocese[85]\n\nMonasteries and convents\n\nMonasteries\n\nName\nLocation\n\nMonastery of Saint Thomas, Vettikkal\n\nVettikkal\n\nMount Tabor Monastery, Pathanapuram\n\nPathanapuram\n\nThe Bethany Ashram\n\nPerunad\n\nBethlehem Ashram\n\nChengamanad, Kottarakara\n\nSt. George Dayara\n\nOthera\n\nSt. Paul’s Ashram\n\nPuthuppady, Kozhikode\n\nSt. Basil Dayara\n\nPathanamthitta\n\nHoly Trinity Ashram\n\nAngady, Ranni\n\nMar Kuriakose Ashram\n\nKumbazha North\n\nMar Baselius Dayara\n\nNjaliakuzhy, Vakathanam\n\nMount Carmel Ashram\n\nMathilakom, East Kallada\n\nMount Horeb Ashram\n\nMuthupilakad\n\nMGD Ashram and Balabhavan\n\nKarunagiri, Karukachal\n\nChrista Sishya Ashram\n\nThadagom , Coimbatore (T.N.)\n\nMar Gregorios Bethel Ashram\n\nKuttikonam, Kunnicode\n\nSt. George Mount Ashram\n\nChayalode\n\nSt. Thomas Ashram\n\nNellipathy, Agali P.O., Palakkad\n\nSt. Thomas Karunya Vishranthi Bhavan\n\nTrivandrum\n\nSt. Thomas Karunya Ashram\n\nTrivandrum\n\nSt. Thomas Karunya MAS, SAF, SHF\n\nTrivandrum\n\nMount Calvary Ashram\n\nPattazhy, Kottarakara\n\nSt. George Ashram\n\nKulamudi, Mylom, Kottarakara\n\nMount Tabore Ashram\n\nMathuramala, Pattazhi\n\nMar Augen Ashram, Piramadom (S)\n\nPampakkuda\n\nSt. Gregorios Mount Ashram\n\nKottarakara\n\nSt. Thomas Ashram\n\nSooranad, Kollam\n\nBethany Ashram\n\nKunnamkulam\n\nBethany Ashram\n\nKuzhimattom\n\nSt. Anthony's Ashram\n\nThannithodu\n\nSt. Thomas Ashram\n\nBhilai\n\nGregorian Community\n\nRoha\n\nSt. Anthony's Ashram\n\nMallapally\n\nMount Olive Ashram\n\nIdukki\n\nConvents\n\nName\nLocation\n\nBethany Convent\n\nRanni - Perunad\n\nMount Tabore Convent\n\nPathanapuram\n\nSt. Mary Magdalene Convent\n\nAdupputty, Kunnamkulam\n\nBethlehem Convent\n\nKizhakkambalam, Alwaye\n\nNazareth Convent\n\nKadampanad South\n\nBasalel Convent\n\nSooranad, Kollam\n\nSt. Mary’s Convent\n\nKozhimala, Vallamkulam\n\nSt. Mary’s Asha Bavan\n\nKozhimala, Vallamkulam\n\nSt. Paul’s Convent and Balikabhavan\n\nPuthuppady, Kozhikode\n\nMount Carmel Convent\n\nEast Kallada, Kollam\n\nGethsemon Convent\n\nAdichanalloor, Kollam\n\nHoly Cross Convent\n\nSreekariyam - Trivandrum\n\nSt. Mary’s Convent\n\nThumpamon\n\nSt. Gregorios Convent\n\nKalanthode, NITC, Kozhikode\n\nGregorian Community\n\nRoha\n\nSt Thomas Convent\n\nBhilai\n\nSpiritual organizations\n\nThe church has a number of spiritual organizations:\n\nOrthodox Syrian Sunday School Association of the East (OSSAE)[86]\n\nOrthodox Christian Youth Movement (OCYM)\n\nMar Gregorios Orthodox Christian Student Movement (MGOCSM)[87]\n\nDivyabodhanam (Theological Education Programme for the Laity)\n\nSt. Paul's & St.Thomas Suvishesha Sangam (National Association for Mission Studies)\n\nOrthodox Sabha Gayaka Sangham\n\nMalankara Orthodox Baskiyoma Association\n\nServants of the Cross\n\nAkhila Malankara Prayer Group Association\n\nAkhila Malankara Orthodox Shusrushaka Sangham (AMOSS)\n\nMission Board and Mission Society\n\nMinistry of Human Empowerment\n\nAkhila Malankara Balasamajam\n\nSt. Thomas Orthodox Vaidika Sanghom\n\nMarth Mariam Vanitha Samajam (women's wing)\n\nSruti School of Liturgical Music\n\nEcological Commission\n\nArdra Charitable Trust[88]\n\nSeminaries\n\nThe two major seminaries which offers bachelor's and master's degrees in theology are Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam[89] and St. Thomas Orthodox Theological Seminary, Nagpur.[90] The Malankara Orthodox Seminary at Kottayam is the first Orthodox Seminary in Asia established in year 1815.\n\nEcumenical relations\n\nThe church was a founding member of the World Council of Churches.[91] Catholicos Geevarghese II and other metropolitan participated in the 1937 Conference on Faith and Order in Edinburgh; a church delegation participated in the 1948 WCC meeting in Amsterdam in 1948, and the church played a role in the 1961 WCC conference in New Delhi. Metropolitan Paulos Gregorios was president of the WCC from 1983 to 1991.\n\nThe church participated in the 1965 Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches in Addis Ababa.[92] It is a member of the Faith and Order Commission, the Christian Conference of Asia\nand the Global Christian Forum. A number of primates of sister churches have visited, including Patriarch Justinian of Romania in February 1957 and in January 1969; Catholicos of All Armenians Vazgen I in December 1963; Armenian Patriarch Derderian of Jerusalem in December 1972; Patriarch Pimen I of Moscow in January 1977; Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II in September 1982; Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie in 1986, Patriarch Teoctist Arăpașu of Romania in 1989; Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I in November 2000; Metropolitan (later Patriarch) Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church in December 2006; Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II in November 2008, Patriarch of Ethiopia Abune Paulos in December 2008; the Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia Aram I Keshishian in February 2010, and Patriarch of Ethiopia Abune Mathias in November 2016.\n\nIn May 2025, a trilateral meeting involving the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Church (of the Great House of Cilicia) took place at the Monastery of Saint Pishoy in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt to commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.[93][94] During this meeting, Pope Tawadros II and Catholicos Aram I expressed their solidarity and support for the decision made by the universal synod of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch not to participate in any liturgical celebrations or formal theological dialogues in the presence of representatives of the \"separated faction of the Church in India\".[95] Additionally, the Coptic and Armenian representatives extended an invitation to discuss the ongoing rift between the two claimants to the title of Catholicos of the East, in the presence of the Patriarch of Antioch; in response, while welcoming the peace mediation efforts, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (MOSC) issued a statement denouncing the aspects of the joint declaration and also cited the ordination of a new Maphrian in India by Antioch as a violation of its jurisdictional authority.[96][97]\n\nOn 10 November 2025, Catholicos Mathews III was received by Pope Tawadros II in Cairo, and a meeting was held.[98] Following discussions, the formation of a joint committee between the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church was proposed, mediated by the Coptic and Armenian Churches.[99]\n\nOrder of St. Thomas\n\nThe Order of St. Thomas, the church's highest award is presented to heads of state and churches by the Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan. Recipients include Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, Patriarch of Ethiopia Abune Paulos, Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia Aram I, and Patriarch of Ethiopia Abune Mathias.[100]\n\nSee also\n\nList of Malankara metropolitans\n\nList of metropolitans of the Indian Orthodox Church\n\nReferences\n\n^ \"St. Vattasseril Geevarghese Mar Dionysios\". Pilning, Bristol: St. Mary's Indian Orthodox. Retrieved 5 May 2022.\n\n^ a b Attwater, Donald (1937). The Dissident Eastern Churches. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.\n\n^ a b Brock, Sebastian P. (2018). \"Thomas Christians\". In Mardutho, Beth (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 9 July 2022.\n\n^ a b c \"The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Retrieved 9 July 2022.\n\n^ Attwater, Donald (1935). \"The Malankarese\". The Catholic Eastern Churches (1937 revised ed.). Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company.\n\n^ Thomas Arthur Russell (2010). Comparative Christianity: A Student's Guide to a Religion and Its Diverse Traditions. Universal-Publishers. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-59942-877-2. The Malankara Orthodox Church of India(also called by a variety of names, such as the Malankara Church). It is located in Kerala, India.\n\n^ \"Home\". Northeast American Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 20 June 2022.\n\n^ John; Anthony McGuckin (November 2010). The Encyclopedia Of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, 2 Volume Set. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwells. p. 878. ISBN 978-1-4443-9254-8. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, also known as Indian Orthodox Church also Malankara Church, is one of the major and oldest churches in the world.\n\n^ Lucian N. Leustean (2010). Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945-91. New York: Routeledge Taylor & Francis Group. p. 317. ISBN 978-0-203-86594-1.\n\n^ Fahlbusch; Lochman; Mbiti; Pelikan (November 2010). The Encyclopedia Of Christianity, Volume 5 S-Z. Gittingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck&Rupercht. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2. The autocephalous Malankara Orthodox Church is governed by Holy Episcopal Synod of 24 Bishops presided over by His Holiness Moran Mar Baselios Mar Thoma Didimos Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan.\n\n^ The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 5 by Erwin Fahlbusch. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing - 2008. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2.\n\n^ Jacob, Jossi. \"Synodality and Conciliarity in the Life of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian Orthodox Church)\". In Irina Paert; Andrey Shishkov; Alison R. Kolosova (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Conciliarity in Modern Orthodox Christianity. The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 483-485.\n\n^ FP Staff (27 September 2019). \"Malankara church row: All you need to know about century-old dispute between Jacobite, Orthodox factions in Kerala\". FirstPost. Retrieved 27 April 2020.\n\n^ Winkler 1997, p. 33-40.\n\n^ Brock 2016, p. 45-52.\n\n^ The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity by Ken Parry 2009 ISBN 1-4443-3361-5 page 88 [1]\n\n^ \"Catholic Encyclopedia: Henoticon\". Newadvent.org. 1 June 1910. Retrieved 30 June 2013.\n\n^ Varghese, Baby (2011). \"Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". In Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 22 September 2016.\n\n^ \"Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church | World Council of Churches\". www.oikoumene.org. 1 January 1948. Retrieved 11 March 2026.\n\n^ \"The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 31 May 2022.\n\n^ Syrian Orthodox Churches in India, doi:10.1163/2211-2685_eco_SI.122, retrieved 11 March 2026\n\n^ Baby Varghese (2010). \"Renewal in the Malankara Orthodox Church, India\". Studies in World Christianity. 16 (3). Edinburgh University Press: 226-244. doi:10.3366/swc.2010.0102. ISSN 1354-9901.\n\n^ \"St. Thomas Christians\". Catholic Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 25 January 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2020 - via New Advent.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. \"Thomas Christians\". eGEDSH.\n\n^ Frykenberg 2008, p. 93; Wilmshurst 2000, p. 343.\n\n^ Brown 1956, p. 100.\n\n^ Baum & Winkler 2003, p. 115-116.\n\n^ Neill 2004, p. 316.\n\n^ Vadakkekara 2007, pp. 84, 86; Frykenberg 2008, p. 361.\n\n^ \"Synod of Diamper.\" Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 23 December 2011.\n\n^ For the Acts and Decrees of the Synod cf. Michael Geddes, \"A Short History of the Church of Malabar Together with the Synod of Diamper &c.\" London, 1694;Repr. in George Menachery, Ed., Indian Church History Classics, Vol.1, Ollur 1998, pp.33-112\n\n^ Thekkedath, History of Christianity in India\"\n\n^ Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, \"Eastern Christianity in India\"\n\n^ Daniel, David (July 1972). The Orthodox Church of India: History. Printaid, New Delhi. pp. 210-215.\n\n^ \"A feud that began in 19th century: What happened before Jacobite-Orthodox locked horns\". 6 February 2019.\n\n^ \"From 1599 to today: Tracing Kerala's Jacobite vs Orthodox church battle\". 8 August 2017.\n\n^ Kiraz, George (2011). \"Abdulmasīḥ II\". In Goerge A. Kiraz (ed.). Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition. Gorgias Press. Retrieved 28 December 2025.\n\n^ \"About the church\". Niranam St. Mary's Orthodox Syrian Church. 2009. Archived from the original on 27 January 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2010.\n\n^ \"Centenary celebrations of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church begin | Kochi News - Times of India\". The Times of India. 3 November 2011.\n\n^ \"Kerala church split\". scroll.in.\n\n^ \"The Creed | Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". mosc.in.\n\n^ \"Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches | Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". mosc.in.\n\n^ \"Liturgy Holy Qurbana St. Thomas Indian Orthodox Church\". indianorthodoxireland.ie. 13 May 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2019.\n\n^ \"Malankara Orthodox Church - Holy Qurbana\". Malankaraorthodoxchurch.in. Archived from the original on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 23 October 2012.\n\n^ \"Evolution of Liturgical Traditions\". syriacorthodoxresources.org. Retrieved 20 October 2026.\n\n^ Lang, Uwe Michael (1 January 2007). \"West Syrian Liturgical Theology (Liturgy, Worship and Society). By Baby Varghese\". The Heythrop Journal. doi:10.1111/J.1468-2265.2007.00325_9.X.\n\n^ \"Evolution of Liturgical Traditions\". syriacorthodoxresources.org. Retrieved 20 October 2026.\n\n^ Kurian, Jake. \"\"Seven Times a Day I Praise You\" - The Shehimo Prayers\". Diocese of South-West America of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 2 August 2020.\n\n^ Philip, Dr. Ajesh T.; Alexander, George (May 2018). The Mission Untold. Western Rites of Syriac-Malankara Orthodox Churches. Vol. I. India: OCP Publications, Alappuzha. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-387-80316-3.\n\n^ Philip, Dr. Ajesh T.; Alexander, George (May 2018). The Mission Untold. Western Rites of Syriac-Malankara Orthodox Churches. Vol. I. India: OCP Publications, Alappuzha. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-387-80316-3.\n\n^ \"1934 constitution of The Malankara Church (മലങ്കരസഭ ഭരണഘടന)\". Archived from the original on 2 May 2018. Retrieved 29 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Coonan Cross Oath History\". Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 29 February 2020.\n\n^ \"Royal Court Verdict declared Pulikottil Joseph Dionysius as the rightful Malankara Metropolitan\".\n\n^ \"In 1929, Travancore High Court declared Dionysius of Vattasseril will remain as the Malankara Metropolitan (Vattipanam Suit)\".\n\n^ \"In 1958, Supreme Court of India declared Baselios Geevarghese II is the rightful Malankara Metropolitan (Samudayam Suit)\".\n\n^ \"Supreme Court Order July 12, 2002 | Malankara Orthodox TV\".\n\n^ \"Supreme head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church passes away\". The Hindu. 12 July 2021.\n\n^ \"Ordination of the new Malankara Metropolitan & Catholicos. H.H Moran Baselios Marthoma Paulose 2 is the present Malankara Metropolitan.Baselios Marthoma Paulose 2 is the 21st Malankara Metropolitan\". November 2010. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 29 February 2020.\n\n^ \"The Catholicate of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church\". Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church. Retrieved 12 March 2020.\n\n^ \"The Catholicate of the Malankara orthodox Syrian Church |\". mosc.in. Retrieved 14 January 2024.\n\n^ \"Catholicos of the East | our-church\". stthomasorthodoxcathedral.com. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 6 November 2019.\n\n^ Niranam Granthavari (Record of History written during 1770-1830). Editor Paul Manalil, M.O.C.Publications, Catholicate Aramana, Kottayam. 2002.\n\n^ \"The Managing Committee\". mosc.in.\n\n^ \"The Working Committee\". mosc.in.\n\n^ \"Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Constitution\" (PDF). 1934. The Malankara Church is a division of the Orthodox Syrian Church. The Primate of the Orthodox Syrian Church is the Patriarch of Antioch.\n\n^ \"The Constitution of the Malankara Orthodox Church\". mosc.in.\n\n^ Rajagopal, Krishnadas (16 November 2017). \"SC says no review of Malankara Church verdict: Upholds 1934 constitution of Church\". The Hindu.\n\n^ \"The Constitution of the Malankara Orthodox Church\". Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Retrieved 14 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Malankara Association\". malankaraorthodoxchurch.in. Archived from the original on 25 April 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2012.\n\n^ \"Malankara Association\". mosc.in. Retrieved 15 April 2023.\n\n^ \"Malankara Association\". www.ovsonline.in. Retrieved 15 April 2023.\n\n^ \"Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Dioceses\". mosc.in. 1 November 2024. Retrieved 10 April 2018.\n\n^ a b c \"Kalpana No. 232/2025 - H.G. Dr. Gabriel Mar Gregorios Metropolitan: Kalpana to all Parish\" (PDF). mosc.in. Retrieved 30 November 2025.\n\n^ \"Kalpana No. 194/2025 - H. G. Mar Aprem, Metropolitan (Adoor-Kadampanad)\" (PDF). mosc.in. Retrieved 28 November 2025.\n\n^ \"His Grace Thomas Mar Ivanios Metropolitan\". Archived from the original on 28 October 2022.\n\n^ a b c \"Kalpana No.267/2024 - New Diocese\" (PDF). mosc.in. 1 November 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.\n\n^ \"Holy Synod\". mosc.in. 2019.\n\n^ \"Kalpana No. 344/2022 Appointments of Bishops\" (PDF). mosc.in. Retrieved 27 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Kalpana No. 248 - H G Mar Cleemis Valiya Metropolita\" (PDF). mosc.in. Retrieved 26 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Appointments of Asst. Metropolitan of Canada Diocese (Kalpana No. MOSC/CMM/270/2024)\". neamericandiocese.org. Retrieved 5 November 2024.\n\n^ \"Appointments of Asst. Metropolitan of Kottayam Central Diocese\". www.malankarasabha.org. Retrieved 12 July 2024.\n\n^ \"Appointments of Asst. Metropolitan of Asia-Pacific Diocese Kalpana No. MOSC/CMM/271/2024\". malankarasabha.org. Retrieved 5 November 2024.\n\n^ \"Kalpana No. 240 - Thumpamon Diocese Mar Seraphim Metropolitan\" (PDF). mosc.in. Retrieved 27 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Kalpana No. 242 - Bangalore Diocese Mar Philaxenos Metropolitan\" (PDF). mosc.in. Retrieved 27 September 2023.\n\n^ \"Appointments of Asst. Metropolitan of Kandanad West Diocese\". www.malankarasabha.org. Retrieved 10 July 2024.\n\n^ \"OSSAE website\". ossae.org.\n\n^ \"MGOCSMwebsite\". mgocsm.in/index.php.\n\n^ \"Spiritual Organisation\". mosc.in. Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.\n\n^ \"Orthodox Theological Seminary Kottayam\". Retrieved 13 March 2020.\n\n^ \"St. Thomas Orthodox Theological Seminary {STOTS), Nagpur\". Retrieved 13 March 2020.\n\n^ \"World council of churches, Amsterdam 1948\". archive.org. 1948. p. 230.\n\n^ \"Addis Ababa Conference\". theorthodoxchurch.info. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 31 December 2018.\n\n^ \"Meeting of the Representatives of the Oriental Orthodox Synods in the Middle East at LOGOS Papal Center in Celebration of the Council of Nicaea - Coptic Orthodox Church\". Retrieved 21 May 2025.\n\n^ Egypt, Daily News (17 May 2025). \"Patriarchs of Eastern Orthodox Churches arrive in Cairo to commemorate 1700th anniversary of Council of Nicaea\". Dailynewsegypt. Retrieved 21 May 2025.\n\n^ \"Three Oriental Orthodox Churches seek to resolve dispute in Malankara Church in India\". The Hindu. The Hindu Bureau. 19 May 2025. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 21 May 2025.\n\n^ Service, Express News (21 May 2025). \"Malankara Orthodox Church says 'no' to joint declaration in Kerala\". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 21 May 2025.\n\n^ Chandran, Abhilash (20 May 2025). \"Oriental Orthodox Churches intervene to mediate Malankara Church dispute\". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 23 May 2025.\n\n^ \"കാതോലിക്കാ ബാവാ കോപ്റ്റിക് ഓർത്തഡോക്സ് സഭാതലവനുമായി കൂടിക്കാഴ്ച്ച നടത്തി\". Manorama Online. 10 November 2025. Retrieved 12 November 2025.\n\n^ @BishopAngaelos (10 November 2025). \"A privilege to be in Cairo today accompanying His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, as part of an official delegation with HE Metropolitan Thomas and Bishop Angelos, to welcome HH Catholicos Mar Basilios Mar Toma Mattius\" (Tweet) - via X (formerly Twitter).\n\n^ \"Recipients of the order of St. Thomas\". Malankaraorthodox.tv. Retrieved 1 August 2018.\n\nBibliography\n\nBaum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar W. (2003). The Church of the East: A Concise History. London-New York: Routledge-Curzon. ISBN 9781134430192.\n\nBrock, Sebastian P. (2016). \"Miaphysite, not Monophysite!\". Cristianesimo Nella Storia. 37 (1): 45-52. ISBN 9788815261687.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)\n\nBrown, Leslie W. (1956). The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.\n\nFahlbusch, Erwin Fahlbusch, Geoffrey William Bromiley (198), The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8028-2417-2 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n\nFrykenberg, Robert E. (2008). Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-826377-7.\n\nJoseph Cheeran, et al.(2002) Tradition and History of Indian Orthodox Church, p. 300-423\n\nMenachery, George (1973). The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India Vol. II.\n\nMenachery, George (1998). The Indian Church History Classics: The Nazranies.\n\nNeill, Stephen (1966). Colonialism and Christian Missions. New York: McGraw-Hill.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2004) [1984]. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521548854.\n\nNeill, Stephen (2002) [1985]. A History of Christianity in India: 1707-1858. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521893329.\n\nTamcke, Martin (2009). Die Christen vom tur Abdin: Hinführung zur Syrisch-orthodoxen Kirche. Verlag Otto Lembeck. 3874765806.\n\nVadakkekara, Benedict (2007). Origin of Christianity in India: A Historiographical Critique. Delhi: Media House. ISBN 9788174952585.\n\nVan der Ploeg, J. P. M. (1983). The Christians of St. Thomas in South India and their Syriac Manuscripts. Dharmaram Publications.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2000). The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913. Louvain: Peeters Publishers. ISBN 9789042908765.\n\nWilmshurst, David (2011). The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East. London: East & West Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781907318047.\n\nWinkler, Dietmar W. (1997). \"Miaphysitism: A New Term for Use in the History of Dogma and in Ecumenical Theology\". The Harp. 10 (3): 33-40.\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website of the Indian (Malankara) Orthodox Syrian Church\n\nComplete website of Catholicos of The East and Malankara Metropolitan\n\nMalankara Orthodox Syrian Church Constitution of 1934\n\nIndian Orthodox Radio | E - Radio from the Shores of Malankara to the World\n\nIndian Orthodox Herald: News about the Catholicate of the East\n\nMatha Mariam Media: A Complete Orthodox Web Portal maintained by Trivandrum Diocese\n\nICON Indian Christian Orthodox Network - Catholicos of the East\n\nMalankara Orthodox TV"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-malankara-orthodox-syrian-church"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 7069}, {"slug": "reference-osroene", "title": "Osroene", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Osroene (/ɒzˈriːniː/; Ancient Greek: Ὀσροηνή), also spelled Osrhoene, was an ancient kingdom and region in Upper Mesopotamia. The Kingdom of Osroene, also known as the Kingdom of Edessa (Classical Syriac: ܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܐܘܪܗܝ, \"Kingdom of Urhay\") after its capital city (now Şanlıurfa, Turkey), existed from the 2nd century...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Osroene\n\n132 BC-AD 638[1]\n\nThe map above includes Osroene as a tributary kingdom of the Armenian Empire under Tigranes the Great.\n\nStatusKingdom, vassal state, province\n\nCapitalEdessa\n(modern-day Şanlıurfa, Turkey)\n\nCommon languagesAramaic (official)\nKoine Greek\nArabic \nPersian\nParthian\nArmenian\n\nReligion Christianity c. 200 AD (State religion)[2][3] (contested)\n\nDemonymOsroenian\n\nGovernmentMonarchy\n\nKing \n\nHistorical eraHellenistic Age\n\n• Established 132 BC\n\n• Disestablished AD 638[1]\n\n Preceded by\nSucceeded by\n\nSeleucid Empire\n\nOsroene (Roman province)\n\nOsroene (/ɒzˈriːniː/; Ancient Greek: Ὀσροηνή), also spelled Osrhoene, was an ancient kingdom and region in Upper Mesopotamia. The Kingdom of Osroene, also known as the Kingdom of Edessa (Classical Syriac: ܡܠܟܘܬܐ ܕܒܝܬ ܐܘܪܗܝ, \"Kingdom of Urhay\") after its capital city (now Şanlıurfa, Turkey), existed from the 2nd century BC up to the 3rd century AD, and was ruled by the Nabataean Arab Abgarid dynasty.[4][5][6][7][1][8] They were generally allied with the Parthians.[1][9]\n\nHistory\n\nThe Kingdom of Osroene enjoyed semi-autonomy to complete independence from the years of 132 BC to around AD 213. The kingdom's population was of mixed culture, being Aramaic and then Syriac-speaking from the earliest times.[10] The city's cultural setting was fundamentally Semitic (Syrian-Aramaic and Arab), alongside Greek and Parthian influences.[9][11][12]\n\nThe ruling Abgarid dynasty was deposed by the Romans during the reign of Roman Emperor Caracalla (r. 211-217), probably in 213, and large parts of the kingdom of Osroene were incorporated into the already existing Roman province of the same name.[13] Whether the kingdom of Osrhoene continued to exist as a rump state in the following decades is a matter of debate-in each case, it briefly existed during the reign of Roman emperor Gordianus III (238-244).[14] Christianity came early to Osroene. From 318, Osroene was a part of the Diocese of the East. By the 5th century, Edessa had become a main center of Syriac literature and learning. In 608, the Sasanian emperor, Khosrow II (r. 590-628), took Osroene. It was briefly reconquered by the Byzantines, but in 638 it fell to the Muslims as part of the Muslim conquests.\n\nBackground and context\n\nOsroene, or Edessa, was one of several states that acquired independence from the collapsing Seleucid Empire through a dynasty of the nomadic Nabataean tribe from Southern Canaan and North Arabia, the Osrhoeni, from 136 BC. Osroene's name either derives from the name of this tribe, or from Orhay (Urhay), the original Aramaic name of Edessa.[15] Arab influence had been strong in the region.[9]\n\nOsroene endured for four centuries, with twenty-eight rulers occasionally named \"king\" on their coins. Most of the kings of Osroene were called Abgar or Manu and settled in urban centers.[16]\n\nOsroene was generally allied with the Parthian Empire.[1][9] After a period under the rule of the Parthian Empire, it was absorbed into the Roman Empire in 114 as a semiautonomous vassal state, and incorporated as a simple Roman province in 214. \n\nChristianity in Edessa\n\nEdessa was celebrated as the first kingdom to adopt Christianity as its official religion. There were two main Christianizing movements at Edessa, one that came from Nisibis in the east in the first century and the second that came from Antioch in the west in the end of the second century. There is a mention of a Christian synod in Osroene in 197 AD but scholars have doubted its authenticity. At the end of the second century a bishop of Edessa was consecrated in Rome but had to go to Antioch to be confirmed. The connection between Antioch and Edessa became close by the end of the second century and the see of Edessa became subject to Antioch in the early third century.[17] \n\nEdessa was regularly described as the 'capital of Mesopotamia' in early Syriac manuscripts. The earliest dated Christian literary manuscript in any language was written in November 411 AD, a fragment of Isaiah is dated 459-60 AD, a manuscript containing Genesis and Exodus is dated 463-4 AD, and the earliest dated Gospels in any language were completed in October 510 AD, although there are undated Gospel manuscripts which probably are from the fifth century.[18][19][20]\n\n\"First Christian kingdom\" claim contested with Armenia\n\nThere is an apocryphal legend, the Doctrine of Addai (late 4th or early 5th century), and an anonymous history, the Chronicle of Edessa (mid-6th century), claiming that Osroene was the first state to have accepted Christianity as state religion,[21][22] but some scholars believe there is not enough evidence to support that claim.[23][24] \n\nBy the end of the second century Christianity was well established in Edessa in various forms, some texts belong to the early third century and provide unambiguous evidence for Christianity at Edessa, such as the account of the flood at Edessa in 201 CE which is preserved in the Chronicle of Edessa, fragments of Bardaisan's works preserved by later writers and the Book of the Laws of the Countries written in the School of Bardaisan. By the end of the third century Christianity had spread to surrounding villages.[25] \n\nBy c. AD 200, the Church in Edessa must have been of some size to judge from the expansion of Christianity in the early third century in Osroene and neighboring Adiabene, as according to the Chronicle of Arbela there were more than twenty bishoprics in the region bordering the Tigris in AD 224.[26] Edessa was known as a Christian city at a very early date, but the countryside was only Christianized during the 4-5th centuries by Syriac-rite monks and ascetics of the Church of the East and the Antioch-aligned churches.[27] \n\nGeneral opinion is that the official adoption of Christianity happened during the reign of Abgar VIII the Great (177 - 212), who was either Christian himself or not at all hostile to Christians, as the Christian writer Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160 - c. 240) stayed at Abgar the Great's court in 195, and a Christian inscription was produced in Edessa, which is from the same period or few decades later than the Inscription of Abercius from 216.[28] It is estimated that Christianity was preached in Edessa since 160 - 170,[29] and a flood in 201 destroyed \"the temple of the church of the Christians\", indicating a community large enough to have had a building of notable importance to the city at the time.[30] The earliest known Syriac writer, Bardaisan (154-222), was active in the city, and contemporary coins dated 179-192 clearly show Abgar VIII the Great wearing a tiara with a cross.[31][32] The dates and circumstances of the Christianization of the kings and the Kingdom of Osroene are still debated[33][34][35][36] and the claim of becoming the first Christian kingdom is contested by Armenia.[37][38][39] \n\nIn the Church of the Virgin in Dayr al-Suryān in Egypt, built in the middle seventh century and monumental paintings applied in later centuries, a number of narrative scenes of conversion as the central theme were painted. There are remains of a painting of King Abgar of Edessa with the mandylion, while on the same wall there is a painting of Constantine the Great on horseback holding the sign of the cross in his first battle as a Christian. The paintings are making a clear statement: Constantine was the first Christian Roman emperor but Edessa had a Christian king almost three centuries before. On an opposite wall fragments are preserved of St. Gregory the Illuminator's conversion of the Armenians. The unique conversion scenes were probably painted as a carefully planned addition after the eighth century, covering scenes of the Pentecost, and it is possible that the church building had a geographical symbolism as Ethiopia is equaled with the south, Armenia with the north, and Byzantium and Edessa with the east.[40] The first Armenian Christian king Tiridates the Great is absent from the depiction.\n\nPopulation and culture\n\nMost of Osroene's rulers were sedentarized Arabs from the Nabataean Abgarid dynasty, and the kingdom's population was primarily of mixed Semitic origins, being Aramaic-speaking from the earliest times.[9][10] Before emerging as an early and important center for Syriac Christianity,[41] Edessa was a major centre for cult worship in the Near East, with devotees of Atargatis and Sabians mixing with those of Mesopotamian/Palmyrene Bel and Nabataean Dushara worshippers, among other pre-Islamic Arabian cults (such as the twins Monimos and Azizos).[42]. Its overall cultural setting was hybridized and syncretic, incorporating Babylonian, Aramaean, Arab, Jewish, Iranian, Indian and Hellenistic influences.[11][12][43] A centre of local reaction against Hellenism, its Arab dynasts became increasingly influenced by Syriac Christianity, presaging Rome's later embrace of monotheism.[44]\n\nIn his writings, Pliny the Elder refers to the natives of Osroene and Commagene as Arabs and the region as Arabia.[45] Abgar II is called \"an Arab phylarch\" by Plutarch,[46] while Abgar V is described as \"king of the Arabs\" by Tacitus.[47]\n\nThe Edessene onomastic contains many Arabic names.[48] The most common one in the ruling dynasty of Edessa being Abgar, a well-attested name among Arabic groups of antiquity.[49] Some members of the dynasty bore Iranian names, while others had Arabic names.[1] Judah Segal notes that the names ending in \"-u\" are \"undoubtedly Nabatean\".[1] The Abgarid dynasts spoke \"a form of Aramaic\".[1]\n\nIt was in the region in which the legend of Abgar V originated.\n\nIn Roman sources\n\nThe area of the kingdom was perhaps roughly coterminous with that of the Roman province of Osrhoene. The great loop of the Euphrates was a natural frontier to the north and west. In the south Batnae was capital of the semi-autonomous principality of Anthemusias until its annexation by Rome, in AD 115. The eastern boundary is uncertain; it may have extended to Nisibis or even to Adiabene in the first century AD. Ḥarrān, however, only 40 km south of Edessa, always maintained its independent status as a Roman colonia.[1]\n\nEdessa, the capital of the ancient kingdom, was a fortress of considerable strength and a staging post both large and nearest to the Euphrates. It was an important road junction; an ancient highway, along which caravans carried merchandise from China and India to the West, meeting there a north-south road connecting the Armenian Highlands with Antioch. Inevitably, Edessa figured prominently on the international stage.[1]\n\nIn 64 BC, as Pompey waged war on the Parthian Empire, Abgar II of Osrhoene had sided with the Romans when Lucius Afranius occupied Upper Mesopotamia. The king was initially an ally of the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus in his campaign against the Parthians in 53 BC, but Roman historians allege that he betrayed Crassus by leading him to deviate from his safe route along the river and instead into an open desert, where the troops suffered from the barrenness and thus were vulnerable to cavalry attack. Abgar is said to have met with Surenas, the Parthian general, and informed him of the Roman movements. The enormous and infamous Battle of Carrhae followed and destroyed the entire Roman army. Just prior to the battle, Abgar made a pretext to ride away. However, modern historians have questioned whether Abgar intended to betray the Romans and instead may have simply been leading them along an old Arab trade route.[50] According to a Syriac source, Abgar died later that year.[1]\n\nIn the early 2nd century AD, King Abgar VII joined the Emperor Trajan's campaign into Mesopotamia and entertained him at court. The king later rebelled against the Romans, however, which led to the Roman general Lucius Quietus sacking Edessa and putting an end to Osrhoene's independence in 116. In 123, during the reign of Hadrian, the Abgarid dynasty was restored with the installation of Ma'nu VII, and Osroene was established as a client kingdom of the Empire.[51] After the Roman-Parthian War of 161-166 under Marcus Aurelius, forts were built and a Roman garrison was stationed in Nisibis. In 195, following a civil war in which Abgar VIII] had supported Pescennius Niger, the eventually victorius Septimius Severus mounted an invasion of the kingdom and possibly annexed some of its territory[52] but allowed the Abgar VIII to retain his kingdom.[53] In 213, Abgar IX was summoned to Rome by Caracalla, deposed and murdered, and the remaining territory incorporated into the Roman province of Osroene.[54]\n\nAccording to legends (without historical justification), by 201 AD or earlier, under King Abgar the Great, Osroene became the first Christian state.[55][56] It is believed that the Gospel of Thomas emanated from Edessa around 140. Prominent early Christian figures have lived in and emerged from the region such as Tatian the Assyrian, who came to Edessa from Hadiab (Adiabene). He made a trip to Rome and returned to Edessa around 172-173. Tatian was the editor of the Diatessaron, which was the primary sacred text of Syriac-speaking Christianity until in the 5th century the bishops Rabbula and Theodoret suppressed it and substituted a revision of the Old Syriac Canonical Gospels (as in the Syriac Sinaiticus and Curetonian Gospels).[57]\n\nThen, Edessa was again brought under Roman control by Decius and it was made a center of Roman operations against the Sasanian Empire. Amru, possibly a descendant of Abgar, is mentioned as king in the Paikuli inscription, recording the victory of Narseh in the Sassanid civil war of 293. Historians identify that Amru as Amru ibn Adi, the fourth king of the Lakhmids, which was then still based in Harran, not yet moved to al-Hirah in southern Mesopotamia.[58]\n\nMany centuries later, Dagalaiphus and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene, accompanied Julian in his war against the Sasanian emperor, Shapur II, in the 4th century.[59]\n\nRoman province\n\nThe state of Osrhoene was considerably reduced probably during Caracalla's reign, in c. 213; large parts of the territory fell to the Roman province of Osrhoene that had been established in 195. Some scholars even think that the Osrhoenian monarchy was completely abolished in around 213.[14] The province of Osrhoene was a frontier province, lying close to the Persian empires with which the Romans were repeatedly at war, and was taken and retaken several times. As it was on the frontier it had a Roman legion stationed there. Legio III Parthica and its Castrum (homebase) may have been Rhesaina, but that is uncertain.\n\nFollowing Emperor Diocletian's tetrarchy reform during his reign (284-305), it was part of the diocese of the East, in the praetorian prefecture of the same name.\n\nAccording to the late-4th-century Notitia Dignitatum, it was headed by a governor of the rank of praeses, and it was also the seat of the dux Mesopotamiae, who ranked as vir illustris and commanded (c. 400) the following army units:\n\nEquites Dalmatae Illyriciani, garrisoned at Ganaba.\n\nEquites Promoti Illyriciani, Callinicum.\n\nEquites Mauri Illyriciani, Dabana.\n\nEquites Promoti indigenae, Banasam\n\nEquites Promoti indigenae, Sina Iudaeorum.\n\nEquites Sagittarii indigenae, Oraba.\n\nEquites Sagittarii indigenae, Thillazamana.\n\nEquites Sagittarii indigenae Medianenses, Mediana.\n\nEquites Primi Osrhoeni, Rasin.\n\nPraefectus legionis quartae Parthicae, Circesium.\n\n(an illegible command, possibly Legio III Parthica), Apatna.\n\nas well as, 'on the minor roll', apparently auxiliaries:\n\nAla Septima Valeria Praelectorum, Thillacama.\n\nAla Prima Victoriae, Tovia -contra Bintha.\n\nAla Secunda Paflagonum, Thillafica.\n\nAla Prima Parthorum, Resaia.\n\nAla Prima nova Diocletiana, inter Thannurin et Horobam.\n\nCohors Prima Gaetulorum, Thillaamana.\n\nCohors Prima Eufratensis, Maratha.\n\nAla Prima Salutaria, Duodecimo constituta.\n\nAccording to Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, \"there were some very learned men who formerly flourished in Osroene, as for instance Bardaisan, who devised a heresy designated by his name, and his son Harmonius. It is related that this latter was deeply versed in Grecian erudition, and was the first to subdue his native tongue to meters and musical laws; these verses he delivered to the choirs\" and that Arianism, a more successful heresy, met with opposition there.\n\nRulers\n\nKings of Edessa/Osroene\n\nKing\nReign\nComments\n\nAryu\n132-127 BC\n\nAbdu, son of Maz'ur\n127-120 BC\n\nFradasht, son of Gebar'u\n120-115 BC\n\nBakru I, son of Fradasht\n115-112 BC\n\nBakru II, son of Bakru\n112-94 BC\nRuled alone\n\nBakru II and Ma'nu I\n94 BC\nRuled together\n\nBakru II and Abgar I Piqa\n94-92 BC\nRuled together\n\nAbgar I\n92-68 BC\nRuled alone\n\nAbgar II, son of Abgar I\n68-53 BC\n\nInterregnum\n53-52 BC\n\nMa'nu II\n52-34 BC\n\nPaqor\n34-29 BC\n\nAbgar III\n29-26 BC\n\nAbgar IV Sumaqa\n26-23 BC\n\nMa'nu III Saflul\n23-4 BC\n\nAbgar V Ukkama, son of Ma'nu\n4 BC-7 AD\n1st tenure\n\nMa'nu IV, son of Ma'nu\n7-13 AD\n\nAbgar V Ukkama\n13-50 AD\n2nd tenure\n\nMa'nu V, son of Abgar\n50-57 AD\n\nMa'nu VI, son of Abgar\n57-71 AD\n\nAbgar VI, son of Ma'nu\n71-91 AD\n\nInterregnum\n91-109 AD\n\nAbgar VII, son of Ezad\n109-116 AD\n\nInterregnum\n116-118 AD\n\nYalur (Yalud) and Parthamaspates\n118-122 AD\nRuled together\n\nParthamaspates\n122-123 AD\nRuled alone\n\nMa'nu VII, son of Ezad\n123-139 AD\n\nMa'nu VIII, son of Ma'nu\n139-163 AD\nFirst tenure\n\nWa'el, son of Sahru\n163-165 AD\nInstalled by the Parthians\n\nMa'nu VIII, son of Ma'nu\n165-177 AD\nSecond tenure\n\nAbgar VIII the Great, son of Ma'nu\n177-212 AD\n\nAbgar IX Severus, son of Abgar\n212-214 AD\nDeposed by the Romans; Osroene incorporated as a Roman province (colonia)[60][1]\n\nMa'nu IX, son of Abgar (?)\n214-240 AD\nMaybe ruled only in name[61]\n\nAbgar X Frahad, son of Ma'nu\n240-242 AD\nMaybe ruled only in name[14]\n\nSee also\n\nEdessa\n\nAramaic language\n\nSyriac language\n\nSyriac Christianity\n\nSyria (region)\n\nDiocese of the Orient\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k Segal 1982, p. 210-213.\n\n^ Ball, W (2001). Rome in the East: the transformation of an empire. Routledge. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-415-24357-5.\n\n^ Frankfurter, David (1998). Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. BRILL. p. 383. ISBN 90-04-11127-1.\nIt was around 200 CE that Abgar IX adopted Christianity, thus enabling Edessa to become the first Christian state in history whose ruler was officially and openly a Christian.\n\n^ Bowman, Alan; Garnsey, Peter; Cameron, Averil (2005). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30199-2.\n\n^ \"Osroëne | ancient kingdom, Mesopotamia, Asia | Britannica\".\n\n^ Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 978-0-02-865943-5.\n\n^ Roberts, John Morris; Westad, Odd Arne (2013). The History of the World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-993676-2.\n\n^ Laet, Sigfried J. de; Herrmann, Joachim (1996). History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. UNESCO. ISBN 978-92-3-102812-0.\n\n^ a b c d e Lieu 1997, p. 174-175.\n\n^ a b Healey 2014, p. 394-396.\n\n^ a b Sartre 2005, p. 500.\n\n^ a b Healey 2014, p. 396.\n\n^ Mosig-Walburg 2018, pp. 372-373.\n\n^ a b c Mosig-Walburg 2018.\n\n^ Mango 1991.\n\n^ Fortescue, Adrian (1923). The uniate Eastern churches: the Byzantine rite in Italy, Sicily, Syria and Egypt. Burns, Oates & Washbourne, ltd. p. 22.\n\n^ Segal, J. B. (1980). \"When did Christianity come to Edessa?\". In Bloomfield, Barry Cambray (ed.). Middle East studies and libraries: a felicitation volume for Prof. J.D. Pearson. London: Mansell. pp. 179-191. ISBN 978-0-7201-1512-3.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P. (2006). The Bible in the Syriac tradition. Gorgias handbooks (2nd revised ed.). Piscataway (N.J.): Gorgias press. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-59333-300-3.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian Paul (2013). \"Manuscripts copied in Edessa\". In Bruns, Peter; Luthe, Heinz Otto (eds.). Orientalia Christiana: Festschrift für Hubert Kaufhold zum 70. Geburtstag. Eichstätter Beiträge zum christlichen Orient. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 109-128. ISBN 978-3-447-06885-7.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian P.; Van Rompay, Lucas (2014). Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts and fragments in the library of Deir Al-Surian, Wadi Al-Natrun (Egypt). Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. Leuven Paris Walpole: Uitgeverij Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-2962-3.\n\n^ Shahîd, Irfan (1984). Rome and the Arabs: a prolegomenon to the study of Byzantium and the Arabs/Irfan Shahîd. Washington, D.C: Dumberton Oaks research library and collection. pp. 95-112. ISBN 978-0-88402-115-5.\n\n^ Shahîd, Irfan (1998). \"Arab Christian Pilgrimages in the Proto-Byzantine Period (V-VII Centuries)\". In Frankfurter, David (ed.). Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. BRILL. p. 383. ISBN 90-04-11127-1.\nIt was around 200 CE that Abgar IX adopted Christianity, thus enabling Edessa to become the first Christian state in history whose ruler was officially and openly a Christian.\n\n^ \"Osroene\" at Encyclopædia Iranica\nThe fame of Edessa in history rests, however, mainly on its claim to have been the first kingdom to adopt Christianity as its official religion. According to the legend current for centuries throughout the civilized world, Abgar Ukkama wrote to Jesus, inviting him to visit him at Edessa to heal him from sickness. In return he received the blessing of Jesus and subsequently was converted by the evangelist Addai. There is, however, no factual evidence for Christianity at Edessa before the reign of Abgar the Great, 150 years later. Scholars are generally agreed that the legend has confused the two Abgars. It cannot be proved that Abgar the Great adopted Christianity; but his friend Bardaiṣan was a heterodox Christian, and there was a church at Edessa in 201. It is testimony to the personality of Abgar the Great that he is credited by tradition with a leading role in the evangelization of Edessa.\n\n^ Ball, Warwick (2000). Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire. Psychology Press. p. 91-95. ISBN 978-0-415-11376-2.\nMore significant than Bardaisan's conversion to Christianity was the conversion -reported by Bardaisan - of Abgar the Great himself.\" The conversion is controversial, but whether or not he became a Christian, Abgar had the wisdom to recognise the inherent order and stability in Christianity a century before Constantino did. Ho encouraged it as essential for maintaining Edessa's precarious balance between Rome and Iran. Thus, it is Abgar the Great who lays claim to being the world's first Christian monarch and Edessa the first Christian state. More than anything else, a major precedent had been set for the conversion of Rome itself. // The stories of the conversions of both Abgar V and Abgar VIII may not be true, and have been doubted by a number of Western authorities (with more than a hint at unwillingness to relinquish Rome's and St Peter's own primogeniture?). But whether true or not. the stories did establish Edessa as one of the more important centres for early Christendom.\"\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian (1992). \"Eusebius and Syriac Christianity\". In Attridge, Harold W. (ed.). Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press. pp. 224-229. ISBN 978-0-8143-2361-8.\n\n^ Barnard, L. W. (1968). \"The Origins and Emergence of the Church in Edessa during the First Two Centuries A.D.\". Vigiliae Christianae. 22 (3): 161-175. doi:10.2307/1581930. ISSN 0042-6032. JSTOR 1581930.\n\n^ Drijvers, Han J. W. (1999). \"The Persistence of Pagan Cults and Practices in Christian Syria\". East of Antioch: studies in Early Syriac Christianity. Collected studies series. Aldershot: Variorum. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-86078-146-2.\n\n^ Ramelli, Ilaria (2009). Bardaisan of Edessa: a reassessment of the evidence and a new interpretation. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. pp. 6, 34. ISBN 978-1-60724-074-7.\n\n^ Guscin, Mark (2016). The tradition of the image of Edessa. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 9-10. ISBN 978-1-4438-8581-2. OCLC 935985663.\n\n^ Ashbrook Harvey, Susan (2006). \"Syria and Mesopotamia\". In Mitchell, Margaret M.; Young, Frances Margaret (eds.). The Cambridge history of Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-521-81239-9.\n\n^ Drijvers, H. J. W.; Healey, John F., eds. (1999). The old Syriac inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene: texts, translations, and commentary. Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung: der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten (Handbook of Oriental studies, Near and Middle East) (in English and Classical Syriac). Leiden, Netherlands; Boston: Brill. pp. 35-41. ISBN 978-90-04-11284-1.\n\n^ Healey, John F. (2009). Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period: Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period. Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. Oxford: OUP Oxford. pp. 13-15. ISBN 978-0-19-155484-1.\n\n^ Brock, Sebastian (2004). \"The earliest Syriac literature\". In Young, Frances; Ayres, Lewis; Louth, Andrew; Casiday, Augustine (eds.). The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Cambridge University Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-521-46083-5.\nModern scholars have taken basically two very different approaches to this legend (which obviously reflects the general search for apostolic origins, characteristics of the fourth century). Some would dismiss it totally, while others prefer to see it as a retrojection into the first century of the conversion of the local king at the end of the second century. In other words, Abgar (V) the Black of the legend in fact represents Abgar (VIII) the Great (c. 177-212), contemporary of Badaisan. Attractive though this second approach might seem, there are serious objections to it, and the various small supportive evidence that Abgar (VIII) the Great became Christian disappears on closer examination.\n\n^ Ramelli, Ilaria L. E. (2006). \"Possible Historical Traces in the Doctrina Addai\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 9 (1): 51-127.\n\n^ Ramelli, Ilaria L. E. (2013). \"The Possible Origin of the Abgar-Addai Legend: Abgar the Black and Emperor Tiberius\". Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 16 (2): 325-341. doi:10.31826/hug-2014-160112.\n\n^ López Calero, Sergio; Muñoz Gallarte, Israel (2024). \"A Christian Away from Home: The Greek Sources of Abgar's Legend Revisited\". In Hjälm, Miriam L.; Zawanowska, Marzena (eds.). Strangers in the land: traveling texts, imagined others, and captured souls in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions in late antique and mediaeval times. Studies on the Children of Abraham. Leiden Boston (Mass.): Brill. pp. 226-242. ISBN 978-90-04-69179-7.\n\n^ Atiya, Aziz Suryal (1980). A history of eastern Christianity (Enl. and updated by the author with new preface, supplement to part I, supplementary bibliography ed.). Millwood, N.Y: Kraus Reprint. p. 305. ISBN 978-0-527-03703-1.\n\n^ Thomson, Robert W. (2002). \"Syrian Christianity and the conversion of Armenia\". In Seibt, Werner (ed.). Die Christianisierung des Kaukasus: Referate des Internationalen Symposions, Wien, 9.-12. Dezember 1999. Denkschriften. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. pp. 159-169. ISBN 978-3-7001-3016-1.\n\n^ Ball, Warwick (2009). Out of Arabia: Phoenicians, Arabs, and the discovery of Europe. Asia in Europe and the making of the West (1. publ ed.). London: East & West Publ. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-907318-00-9.\n\n^ Innemée, Karel C.; Rompay, Lucas Van; Zielińska, Dobrochna (2024). \"The Church of the Virgin in Dayr Al-Suryān (Wadi Al-Natrun): Architecture, Art, and History between Coptic and Syriac Christianity\". In Bolman, Elizabeth S.; Johnson, Scott Fitzgerald; Tannous, Jack (eds.). Worlds of Byzantium: Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval near East. Cambridge University Press. pp. 281-322. ISBN 978-1-108-49209-6.\n\n^ Keser-Kayaalp & Drijvers 2018, p. 516-518.\n\n^ Warwick, 2016 & 99. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWarwick201699 (help)\n\n^ Warwick 2016, p. 103. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWarwick2016 (help)\n\n^ Harrak 1992, p. 209-214.\n\n^ H. I. MacAdam, N. J. Munday, \"Cicero's Reference to Bostra (AD Q. FRAT. 2. 11. 3)\", Classical Philology, pp.131-136, 1983.\n\n^ Ring, Steven. \"History of Syriac texts and Syrian Christianity - Table 1\". www.syriac.talktalk.net. Archived from the original on 2018-02-27. Retrieved 2018-02-26.\n\n^ Guscin, Mark (2016). The Tradition of the Image of Edessa. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 13.\n\n^ Drijvers 1980, p. 153.\n\n^ Retso, Jan (2013). The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. Routledge. p. 419.\"Abgar, is a well-known name among Arabic-speaking groups in antiquity, the Nabataeans included.\"\n\n^ Sheldon, Mary Rose, \"Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome: Trust in the Gods But Verify\", pg. 92\n\n^ Ball, W (2001). Rome in the East: the transformation of an empire. Routledge. p. 90.\n\n^ Southern, Pat, \"The Empress Zenobia: Palmyra's Rebel Queen\", 2009: pg. 36\n\n^ Birley, Anthony, \"Septimius Severus: The African Emperor\", 1999: pg. 115\n\n^ Sinclair, T.A., \"Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume IV: pg. 196\n\n^ Cheetham, Samuel (1905). A History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries. Macmillan and Co. p. 58.\n\n^ Lockyer, Herbert (1988). All the Apostles of the Bible. Zondervan. p. 260. ISBN 0-310-28011-7.\n\n^ L.W. Barnard, The Origins and Emergence of the Church in Edessa during the First Two Centuries A.D., Vigiliae Christianae, pp.161-175, 1968 (see pp. 162,165,167,169).\n\n^ A. T. Olmstead, \"The Mid-Third Century of the Christian Era. II\", Classical Philology (1942): 398-420 (see p. 399)\n\n^ E. Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Vol. I, Chapter XXIV [1] Archived 2007-02-04 at the Wayback Machine.\n\n^ Sartre 2005, p. 508.\n\n^ Mosig-Walburg 2018, pp. 384-386.\n\nSources\n\nAndrade, Nathanael J. (2013). Syrian Identity in the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-24456-6.\n\nDrijvers, Hendrik J. W. (1980). Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-06050-2.\n\nDrower, Margaret Stephana; Gray, Eric William; Sherwin-White, Susan Mary (2012). \"Osroëne\". In Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony; Eidinow, Esther (eds.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (1986). \"Ephraem, the Deacon of Edessa, and the Church of the Empire\". Diakonia: Studies in Honor of Robert T. Meyer. Washington: CUA Press. pp. 25-52. ISBN 978-0-8132-0596-0.\n\nGriffith, Sidney H. (2002). \"Christianity in Edessa and the Syriac-Speaking World: Mani, Bar Daysan, and Ephraem, the Struggle for Allegiance on the Aramean Frontier\". Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. 2: 5-20. doi:10.31826/jcsss-2009-020104. S2CID 212688584. Archived from the original on 2019-09-10. Retrieved 2020-12-19.\n\nHarrak, Amir (1992). \"The Ancient Name of Edessa\" (PDF). Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 51 (3): 209-214. doi:10.1086/373553. S2CID 162190342. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-08-09.\n\nHealey, John F. (2007). \"The Edessan Milieu and the Birth of Syriac\" (PDF). Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. 10 (2): 115-127.\n\nHealey, John F. (2014). \"Aramaean Heritage\". The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria. Leiden: Brill. pp. 391-402. ISBN 978-90-04-22943-3.\n\nKeser-Kayaalp, Elif; Drijvers, Hendrik J. W. (2018). \"Edessa\". The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 516-518. ISBN 978-0-19-256246-3.\n\nLieu, Samuel (1997). \"EDESSA\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. VIII/2: Economy V-Education XX. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 174-175. ISBN 978-1-56859-051-6.\n\nLuther, Andreas (1999). \"Die ersten Könige von Osrhoene\" [The First Kings of Osrhoene]. Klio. 81: 437-454.\n\nMango, Marlia M. (1991). \"Osrhoene\". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.\n\nMillar, Fergus (1967). The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-440-01769-1.\n\nMillar, Fergus (1987). \"Empire, Community and Culture in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs\". Journal of Jewish Studies. 38 (2): 143-164. doi:10.18647/1337/JJS-1987.\n\nMillar, Fergus (1993). The Roman Near East, 31 BC - AD 337. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-77886-3.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2004). Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Government, Society and Culture in the Roman Empire. Vol. 2. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-5520-1.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408-450). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25391-9.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2006). Rome, the Greek World, and the East: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East. Vol. 3. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-7665-7.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2011). \"Greek and Syriac in Edessa: From Ephrem to Rabbula (CE 363-435)\". Semitica et Classica. 4: 99-114. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.102508.\n\nMillar, Fergus (2012). \"Greek and Syriac in Fifth-Century Edessa: The Case of Bishop Hibas\". Semitica et Classica. 5: 151-165. doi:10.1484/J.SEC.1.103053.\n\nMosig-Walburg, Karin (2018). \"Ma'nu paṣgribā, Vater des Königs Aelius Septimius Abgar X. Ein ,king in waiting'?\" [Ma'nu paṣgribā, father of King Aelius Septimius Abgar X. A 'king in waiting'?]. In Ruffing, Kai; Droß-Krüpe, Kerstin (eds.). Emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est. Beiträge zur Wirtschafts-, Sozial-, Rezeptions- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Antike. Festschrift für Hans-Joachim Drexhage zum 70. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 371-387. ISBN 978-3-447-11087-7.\n\nSartre, Maurice (2005). \"The Arabs and the desert peoples\". In Bowman, Alan K.; Garnsey, Peter; Cameron, Averil (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 12, The Crisis of Empire, AD 193-337. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30199-2.\n\nSegal, Judah (1982). \"Abgar\". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I/2: ʿAbd-al-Hamīd-ʿAbd-al-Hamīd. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 210-213. ISBN 978-0-71009-091-1.\n\nSommer, Michael (2018). Roms orientalische Steppengrenze. Palmyra - Edessa - Dura Europos - Hatra. Eine Kulturgeschichte von Pompeius bis Diocletian [Rome's oriental steppe frontier. Palmyra - Edessa - Dura Europos - Hatra. A cultural history from Pompey to Diocletian]. 2nd edition. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, ISBN 978-3-515-11681-7, esp. pp. 227-271.\n\nExternal links\n\nNotitia dignitatum\n\n37°09′30″N 38°47′30″E / 37.1583°N 38.7917°E / 37.1583; 38.7917"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-osroene"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 5325}, {"slug": "reference-al-mada-in", "title": "Al-Mada'in", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Al-Mada'in (Arabic: المدائن, al-Madāʾin; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: מחוזא Māḥozā; lit. 'the cities')[1] was an ancient metropolis situated on the Tigris in what is now Iraq. It was located between the ancient royal centers of Ctesiphon and Seleucia, and was founded by the Sasanian Empire. The city's name was...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "33°06′N 44°35′E / 33.100°N 44.583°E / 33.100; 44.583\n\nal-Madāʾin Location within modern-day Iraq\n\nAl-Mada'in (Arabic: المدائن, al-Madāʾin; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: מחוזא Māḥozā; lit. 'the cities')[1] was an ancient metropolis situated on the Tigris in what is now Iraq. It was located between the ancient royal centers of Ctesiphon and Seleucia, and was founded by the Sasanian Empire. The city's name was used by Arabs as a synonym for the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon, in a tradition that continued after the Arab conquest of Iran.[2]\n\nFoundation and constitution\n\nAccording to myth, al-Mada'in was constructed by the legendary Iranian kings Tahmuras or Hushang, who named it Kardbandad. The city was then later rebuilt by the legendary Iranian king Zab, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great (r. 356-323 BCE) and the Sasanian emperor Shapur II (r. 309-379 CE). According to another folklore, the names of five (or seven) cities that al-Mada'in comprised were Aspanbur, Veh-Ardashir, Hanbu Shapur, Darzanidan, Veh Jondiu-Khosrow, Nawinabad and Kardakadh.[3]\n\nSasanian period\n\nAccording to Perso-Arabic sources, Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sasanian Empire, was greatly enlarged and flourished during their rule, thus turning into a metropolis, which was known in Arabic as al-Mada'in, and in Aramaic as Mahoza.[3] The oldest inhabited places of al-Mada'in were on its eastern side, which in Arabic sources is called \"the Old City\", where the residence of the Sasanians, known as the White Palace, was located. The southern side of al-Mada'in was known as Aspanbar, which was known by its prominent halls, riches, games, stables, and baths.[3]\n\nThe western side was known as Veh-Ardashir (meaning \"the good city of Ardashir\" in Middle Persian), known as Mahoza by the Jews, Kokhe by the Christians, and Behrasir by the Arabs. Veh-Ardashir was populated by many wealthy Jews, and was the seat of the Church of the East patriarch. To the south of Veh-Ardashir was Valashabad.[3]\n\nIn 495, during the turbulent reign of Emperor Kavad I, Mahoza (as the Jews called the city) was the scene of a Jewish revolt led by Exilarch Mar-Zutra II. After the king denied Jews the right to organize their own militia, Mar-Zutra took advantage of the confusion into which Mazdak's communistic attempts had plunged Persia and led a successful military revolt that achieved political independence for the Jews of Mahoza. The Jewish state lasted seven years until 502 CE, when Kavad finally defeated Mar-Zutra and punished him with crucifixion on the bridge of Mahoza.[4]\n\nIn 540, Khosrow I (r. 531-579) resettled captives from Antioch to the south of Aspanbur, a place which became known as Weh Antiok Khosrow, a Middle Persian name meaning \"better than Antioch, Khosrow built this\". It was known by the locals of the place as Rumagan (\"town of the Romans\"), while the Arabs knew it as al-Rumiya[3] (also spelled Rumiya).\n\nIn 590, a member of the House of Mihran, Bahram Chobin repelled the newly ascended Sasanian ruler Khosrow II from Iraq, and conquered the region. One year later, Khosrau II, with aid from the Byzantine Empire, reconquered his domains. During his reign, some of the great fame of al-Mada'in decreased, due to the popularity of Khosrau's new winter residence, Dastagerd. In 628, a deadly plague hit al-Mada'in and the rest of the western part of the Sasanian Empire, which even killed Khosrau's son and successor, Kavadh II.[5]\n\nIn 629, al-Mada'in was briefly under the control of Mihranid usurper Shahrbaraz, but the latter was shortly assassinated by the supporters of Khosrau II's daughter, the banbishn Boran. Al-Mada'in then continued to be involved in constant fighting between two factions of the Sasanian Empire, the Pahlav (Parthian) faction under the House of Ispahbudhan and the Parsig (Persian) faction under Piruz Khosrow.\n\nRashidun and Umayyad period\n\nIn 636, the Muslim Arabs, who had since 633 invaded the territories of the Sasanian Empire, defeated them during a great battle known as the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah. The Arabs then attacked Ctesiphon, and seized some parts of al-Mada'in.[3]\n\nThe Muslim military officer Khalid ibn 'Urfuta quickly seized Valashabad and made a peace treaty with the inhabitants of Rumiya and Behrasir. Terms of the treaty were that the inhabitants of Rumiya were allowed to leave if they wanted to, but if they did not, they were forced to acknowledge Muslim authority, and also pay tribute (jizya). When the Muslim military officer (and one of the companions of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad) Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas arrived to al-Mada'in, it was completely desolated, due to flight of the Sasanian royal family, nobles, and troops. However, the Muslims had managed to take some of the troops captive, and many riches were seized from the Sasanian treasury and given to the Muslim troops.[3] In 637 Sa`d made al-Qa'qa' ibn 'Amr al-Tamimi responsible for the defense of al-Mada'in, and Shurahbil ibn al-Simt as the governor of al-Mada'in.[3] The Persian companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Salman the Persian was buried in al-Mada'in in 656/7.\n\nIn 661, al-Mada'in was under control of the Umayyad Caliphate, which had put an end to the Rashidun Caliphate. A certain Simak ibn 'Ubayd al-'Absi served as the governor of the metropolis in 663, and another person named Ishaq ibn Mas'ud served as its governor in 685. The Azariqa, a faction of the Kharijites, attacked al-Mada'in in 687/8, and massacred its inhabitants. The city was then governed by Kardam ibn Martad ibn Najaba, and some time later by Yazid ibn al-Harith al-Shaybani. In 696, the Kharjite leader Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani briefly occupied al-Mada'in.[3] In 697, Mutarrif ibn al-Mughira was made the governor of al-Mada'in, and later in 701, Hanzala ibn al-Warrad and Ibn 'Attab ibn Warqa' were appointed as the combined governors of the metropolis. Some time later, the governorship of al-Mada'in was abolished.[3]\n\nAbbasid period\n\nIn 750, the Abbasid family captured al-Mada'in and the rest of Iraq, and declared themselves as the new caliphate. In 754, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur briefly held his court at Rumiya (which was included in al-Mada'in). He also had his prominent military officer Abu Muslim killed at the same place. In 755, the White Palace of al-Mada'in was destroyed under the orders of al-Mansur, who wanted to create a new city, which would later get completed in 762, and would be known as Baghdad, and would become the new capital of the Abbasid Caliphate (although he ordered the White Palace to be restored, it remained in decay).[3] After the foundation of Baghdad, the decline of al-Mada'in became faster, and many of the inhabitants resettled in Baghdad, while the Church of the East patriarch and the exilarch were forced to move to the city. Nevertheless, the patriarch Timothy I founded a hospital at al-Mada'in in 790.[3]\n\nDuring the Fourth Fitna (809-813) between Caliph al-Amin (r. 809-813), and his brother al-Ma'mun (r. 813-833), al-Mada'in was captured in 812 by al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayn, who then marched towards Baghdad.[6] In 817, the people of Baghdad revolted, and proclaimed the Abbasid prince Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi as their leader. The rebels also managed to capture Baghdad's surrounding regions, which included al-Mada'in. One year later, al-Mada'in was recaptured by al-Ma'mun's Persian officer al-Hasan ibn Sahl, and by the next year, Iraq was once again under the control of al-Ma'mun.[7]\n\nDuring the Abbasid civil war (865-866), Abu'l-Saj Devdad, a relative of the Iranian prince Khaydhar ibn Kawus al-Afshin, was put charge in the defense of al-Mada'in in 865.[8] The Abbasid caliphs al-Mu'tadid (r. 892-902) and al-Muqtafi (r. 902-908) further ruined al-Mada'in by digging it up for building materials to construct the Taj Palace in Baghdad.[3] In August 942, a battle occurred at al-Mada'in between a combined Hamdanid-Turkish army and the Baridis, who both fought for the de facto rule over Iraq. The battle ended in a Baridi defeat.[9]\n\nBuyid period\n\nIn 945, the Iranian Buyid prince Ahmad ibn Buya seized al-Mada'in including the rest of Iraq, and made the Caliph his vassal. In 974, the Turkish rebel Sabuktakin seized al-Mada'in and much of Iraq from Mu'izz al-Dawla's son and successor Izz al-Dawla, however by 975 the rebels were defeated.[10] However, one year later, after the death of the Buyid supreme leader Rukn al-Dawla, a civil war ensured between Izz al-Dawla and his cousin, 'Adud al-Dawla, who ruled Fars, Oman, and Kerman. 'Adud al-Dawla eventually managed to emerge victorious, and conquer all of Iraq.\n\nAfter the death of 'Adud al-Dawla in 983, he was succeeded by his son Samsam al-Dawla, who, however, met resistance by his brother Sharaf al-Dawla, who conquered Fars and Kerman. In 987, Sharaf al-Dawla captured al-Mada'in and then conquered the rest of Iraq. Between 999 and 1002, the Asadis and the Uqaylids made several incursions into Iraq, and even captured al-Mada'in. In 1002, they defended al-Mada'in from a counter-attack by Sharaf al-Dawla's brother and successor, Baha' al-Dawla (r. 988-1012).[11] A battle shortly ensured at Hillah between a combined Asadis-Uqaylids army and a Buyid army under Abu Ja'far al-Hajjaj, who had received reinforcements by Bedouins and the Kurdish Annazids. The battle ended in a Buyid victory, and resulted in the reconquest of al-Mada'in and the rest of Iraq.\n\nSeljuq period and Abbasid insurgency\n\nIn 1055, the ruler of the Turkic Seljuk Empire, Tughril, invaded Iraq and made the Buyid ruler of the region, Al-Malik al-Rahim, his vassal. In 1199, the Jews of al-Mada'in complained about the construction of a mosque that was close to their synagogue. They then openly revolted, and attacked the leader of the mosque and his supporters, with ended in a Muslim defeat. The Muslims then complained to al-Nasir's secretary and requested for aid. Al-Nasir agreed to help, and had the synagogue destroyed.[10]\n\nMongol, Jalairid, Kara Koyunlu, Timurid, and Aq Qoyunlu period\n\nSafavid and Ottoman period\n\nThe tomb of Salman the Persian was restored during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-40) and was further restored in 1904-1905.\n\nPopulation and religion\n\nDuring the Sasanian period, population of al-Mada'in was heavily mixed, it included Arameans, Persians, Greeks, and Assyrians. Several religions were also practiced in the metropolis, which included Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. The population also included Manicheans, who continued to be mentioned in al-Mada'in during Umayyad rule.[3] Much of the population fled from al-Mada'in after the Arab capture of the metropolis. However, a portion of Persians remained there, and some important figures of these people are known to have provided Ali with presents, which he, however, refused to take. After the Battle of Siffin, the Persian population of al-Mada'in disappeared.[3]\n\nDuring the early Islamic period, the population of al-Mada'in consisted of tribal Arab leaders from Kufa, leaders of the Banu Azd, and figures of prominent Muslim families, who were, unlike the rest of population, not tribal.[3] A companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman was one of these Arab leaders from Kufa, and is known to have had a Christian or Jewish woman from al-Mada'in as his wife, who, he, however, was forced by the Rashidun Caliph Umar to divorce because of the population of marriageable Muslim women in the metropolis was enough to marry.[3]\n\nHowever, during this period much of the population of al-Mada'in resettled in the cities of Basra and Kufa, Wasit, and Baghdad. But at the same time people also moved to the metropolis from Kufa, Basra, and other places. Prominent figures such as Hilal ibn Khabab (who was from Kufa) and Nasr ibn Hajib al-Qurashi (who was from Khorasan) also moved to al-Mada'in.[3] A very small minority of Zoroastrians also seems to have lived in the metropolis, such as the father of the Khurramite Babak Khorramdin, who had resettled in Azerbaijan and married a local woman, who bore him Babak. During the 13th century, the majority of al-Mada'in's population was Twelver Shia Muslim farmers.[3]\n\nArchaeology\n\nAl-Mada'in has received considerable interest from archaeologists since the 18th century; the most famous landmark there is the Taq-i Kisra.\n\nExcavation sites and ancient suburbs include:\n\nSeleucia\n\nCtesiphon (previously thought to have been Opis, whose exact location is not confirmed)\n\nAspanbur (Also written Isbanir, Asbanabr, Aspanbar, Asfanur)\n\nVeh Ardashir (Also Bahurasir, Coche, Choche)\n\nValashabad (Balashkert), founded by Vologases I\n\nal-Ma’aridh\n\nTell al-Dhaba’I\n\nTell Dhahab\n\nUmm an Sa’atir\n\nThe site partially overlaps with the modern town of Salman Pak.\n\nSee also\n\nFiruz Shapur\n\nTalmudic academies in Babylonia\n\nReferences\n\n^ Jastrow, Marcus. \"מָחוֹזָא\". Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi, and Midrashic Literature. Cf. The Martyrdom and History of Blessed Simeon Bar Sabba'e, col. 810-811\n\n^ Kröger 1993, pp. 446-448.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Morony 2009.\n\n^ Geoffrey Herman (2012). A Prince Without a Kingdom: The Exilarch in the Sasanian Era. Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, German. p. 295. ISBN 9783161506062. Retrieved 15 January 2014.\n\n^ Shapur Shahbazi 2005.\n\n^ Rekaya 1991, p. 333.\n\n^ Rekaya 1991, pp. 335-336.\n\n^ Madelung, \"Banu Saj\"\n\n^ Amedroz & Margoliouth 1921, pp. 31-32.\n\n^ a b Kennedy 2004, p. 224.\n\n^ Kennedy 2004, p. 293.\n\nSources\n\nNeggaz, Nassima (2021). \"al-Madāʾin\". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.\n\nMorony, Michael (2009). \"MADĀʾEN\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nAmedroz, Henry F.; Margoliouth, David S., eds. (1921). The Eclipse of the 'Abbasid Caliphate. Original Chronicles of the Fourth Islamic Century, Vol. V: The concluding portion of The Experiences of Nations by Miskawaihi, Vol. II: Reigns of Muttaqi, Mustakfi, Muti and Ta'i. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.\n\nRekaya, M. (1991). \"al-Maʾmūn\". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VI: Mahk-Mid. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 331-339. ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.\n\nKennedy, Hugh (2004) [1986]. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century (Second ed.). Harlow: Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-40525-7.\n\nZarrinkub, Abd al-Husain (1975). \"The Arab conquest of Iran and its aftermath\". In Frye, Richard N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1-57. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.\n\nBosworth, C. E. (1975). \"Iran under the Buyids\". In Frye, Richard N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 250-305. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.\n\nKröger, Jens (1993). \"CTESIPHON\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 4. pp. 446-448.\n\nShapur Shahbazi, A. (2005). \"SASANIAN DYNASTY\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition. Retrieved 30 March 2014.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Shahr (province) of Asuristan (extract from the Encyclopedia of Iran)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-al-mada-in"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2433}, {"slug": "reference-siege-of-lachish", "title": "Siege of Lachish", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The siege of Lachish was the Neo-Assyrian Empire's siege[1] and conquest of the town of Lachish in 701 BC.[2] The siege is documented in several sources including the Hebrew Bible, Assyrian documents and in the Lachish relief, a well-preserved series of reliefs which once decorated the Assyrian king...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Siege of Lachish\n\nPart of Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant\n\nAssyrian siege-engine attacking the city wall of Lachish, part of the ascending assaulting wave. Detail of a wall relief dating back to the reign of Sennacherib, 700-692 BC. From Nineveh, Iraq, currently housed in the British Museum.\n\nDate701 BC\n\nLocationLachish, Kingdom of Judah\n\nResult\n\nAssyrian victory\n\nLachish captured\n\nBelligerents\n\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\nKingdom of Judah\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\nSennacherib\nUnknown\n\nStrength\n\nUnknown\nUnknown\n\nCasualties and losses\n\nUnknown\nHeavy\n\nThe siege of Lachish was the Neo-Assyrian Empire's siege[1] and conquest of the town of Lachish in 701 BC.[2] The siege is documented in several sources including the Hebrew Bible, Assyrian documents and in the Lachish relief, a well-preserved series of reliefs which once decorated the Assyrian king Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh.[3][4][5]\n\nBackground\n\nSeveral kingdoms in the Levant ceased to pay taxes to the Assyrian king Sennacherib. In retribution, he initiated a campaign to re-subjugate the rebelling kingdoms, among them the Kingdom of Judah. After defeating the rebels of Ekron in Philistia, Sennacherib set out to conquer Judah and, on his way to Jerusalem, came across Lachish: the second most important of the Jewish cities.\n\nBattlefield\n\nThe battlefield was the walled city of Lachish, situated on a hill. The northern part of the hill is steeper than the southern side and due to that the gate is situated there.\nOn top of the fact that the hill as of itself is quite high, the wall further makes the city hard to breach.\nInside the city itself there was a castle with significant walls.\n\nForces of each side\n\nAssyrian army\n\nThe Assyrian Army was the most effective force of its time and was divided mostly into three different categories:\n\nInfantry, which included both close-combat troops using spears, and archers. There were also hired mercenaries throwing stones (slingers). The infantry was highly trained and worked alongside military engineers in order to breach sieges.\n\nCavalry; Assyrian cavalry were among the finest in the ancient Middle East and included both close-combat cavalry units with spears and mounted archers, which could both use the agility of the horses alongside long-range attacks.\n\nChariots, which were not used as much in sieges as in regular land engagements.\n\nJudean army\n\nThe Judean military force was insignificant compared to the professional and massive Assyrian army and mostly included local militias and mercenaries. There were barely any cavalrymen and chariots in the Judean army which mostly included infantry, either for close combat (spearmen) or long range combat (archers), they were also significantly less organized. (This section doesn’t provide any historical sources to support their claims.)\n\nSiege\n\nDue to the steepness of the northern side of Lachish the Assyrian Army attacked from the south, where the Jewish defenders situated themselves on the walls.\nThe Jewish defenders threw stones and shot arrows at the advancing Assyrians; the Assyrians started shooting arrows and stones themselves, creating a skirmish between the two armies. Meanwhile, Assyrian military engineers built a ramp to the east of the main gate where Assyrian and Jewish troops began engaging in close combat. The Assyrians meanwhile brought siege engines to the ramp and broke the wall; the Jewish defenders could not hold the Assyrian army and retreated, with some attempting to escape from the other side of the hill.\n\nSubjugation\n\nThe city was captured by the Assyrians, its inhabitants led into captivity and the leaders of Lachish tortured to death. The town was abandoned, but resettled after the return from Babylonia.\n\nAssyrian reliefs portraying the siege of Lachish clearly show battering rams attacking the vulnerable parts of the city.[6]\n\nThe siege and capture of the town of Lachish, one of the fortress towns protecting the approaches to Jerusalem, is unique in that it is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (II Kings 18; II Chronicles 32)( MICAH 1:13 ) and in the Annals of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib. Not only that but the event is depicted on the walls of Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh.[7]\n\nThe British Museum has a superb set of relief carvings which depicted the siege in some detail. It shows the Assyrian soldiers firing arrows, and slingstones, and approaching the walls of Lachish using mudbrick ramps. The attackers shelter behind wicker shields, and deploy battering rams. The walls and towers of Lachish are shown crowded with defenders shooting arrows, throwing rocks and torches on the heads of the attackers.\n\nThe captions for the relief at the British Museum say:\n\nBooty from Lachish\" Assyrian, about 700-692 BC\n\nFrom Nineveh, South West Palace,\n\nRoom XXXVI, Panels 8-9\n\nAfter the capture of Lachish, Assyrian soldiers carry off plunder from the governor's palace: a bundle of scimitars, round shields, a chariot, a throne, and a pair of incense-burners. Below, Judean prisoners move in families, taking their goods and animals with them into exile.\"\n\nPanels 9-10\n\nThe procession of prisoners from Lachish continues, moving through a rocky landscape with vines, fig trees, and perhaps olives in the background. Officials regarded as responsible for the rebellion against Assyria are treated more severely: two of them are being flayed alive.\n\nPanels 11-13\n\nSennacherib, on a magnificent throne, watches as prisoners are brought before him and sometimes executed. There is a tent behind him, his chariot is in the foreground, and his bodyguard are stationed around. The King's face has been deliberately slashed, perhaps by an enemy soldier at the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC.\n\nPanels 14-16\n\nThis panel, which closes the Lachish series, shows the base camp from which the siege was conducted. It is fortified, with a road through the middle. Servants are at work in tents, and two priests are performing a ceremony in front of the chariots on which are mounted the standards of the gods.\n\nThe reliefs continues showing the looting of the city, and defenders are shown being thrown over the ramparts, impaled, having their throats cut and asking for mercy. A bird's eye plan of the city is shown with house interiors shown in section.\n\nAftermath\n\nAfter he captured the second most important city in Judah, Sennacherib encamped there and then sent his Rabshakeh to capture Jerusalem.\n\nCultural references\n\nThe Siege of Lachish is the subject of an eponymous song (and single) by metal band Melechesh.\n\nAncient sources\n\nLachish relief - A relief that was featured in Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh, it was identified by the text in it: \"Sennacherib King of the Universe, King of Assyria, sits on a throne and the spoils of Lachish are paraded before him.\"\n\nFurther sources for the conflict in general:\n\nBook of Kings\n\nBook of Isaiah\n\nBook of Chronicles\n\nSennacherib's Prism\n\nAntiquities of the Jews, Titus Flavius Josephus\n\nSee also\n\nList of artifacts significant to the Bible\n\nList of conflicts in the Near East\n\nReferences\n\n^ Garfinkel, Yosef; Carroll, Jon W.; Pytlik, Michael; Mumcuoglu, Madeleine (2021). \"Constructing the Assyrian Siege Ramp at Lachish: Texts, Iconography, Archaeology and Photogrammetry\". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 40 (4): 417-439. doi:10.1111/ojoa.12231. ISSN 0262-5253. S2CID 239247575.\n\n^ Walton, John H.; Matthews, Victor H.; Chavalas, Mark W. (2000-11-08). The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-1419-0.\n\n^ The Illustrated Dictionary and Concordance of the Bible - Page 566 by Geoffrey Wigoder\n\n^ Ussishkin, David (1990). \"The Assyrian Attack on Lachish: The Archaeological Evidence from the Southwest Corner of the Site\". Tel Aviv. 17 (1): 53-86. doi:10.1179/tav.1990.1990.1.53. ISSN 0334-4355.\n\n^ Dalley, Stephanie (2017-05-18), \"Assyrian Warfare\", in Frahm, Eckart (ed.), A Companion to Assyria (1 ed.), Wiley, pp. 522-533, doi:10.1002/9781118325216.ch26, ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4, retrieved 2023-02-26\n\n^ Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible - Page 157, by David Noel Freedman\n\n^ The Siege of Lachish\n\nFurther reading\n\nEdelman, Diana. 2000. \"What If We Had No Accounts of Sennacherib's Third Campaign or the Palace Reliefs Depicting his Capture of Lachish?\" Biblical Interpretation 8, nos. 1-2: 88-103.\n\nFinkelstein, Israel, and Nadav Na'aman. 2011. The Fire Signals of Lachish: Studies In the Archaeology and History of Israel In the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Persian Period In Honor of David Ussishkin. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.\n\nUssishkin, David. 1982. The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib. Tel-Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Institute of Archaeology.\n\n--. 2015. \"Sennacherib's Campaign in Judah: The Conquest of Lachish.\" Journal for Semitics 24, no. 2: 719-58.\n\nUssishkin, David, and Miriam Feinberg Vamosh. 2015. Biblical Lachish: A Tale of Construction, Destruction, Excavation and Restoration. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.\n\nGarfinkel, Yosef; Carroll, Jon W.; Pytlik, Michael; Mumcuoglu, Madeleine (2021-10-14). \"Constructing the Assyrian siege ramp at Lachish: Texts, Iconography, Archaeology and Photogrammetry\". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 40 (4): 417-439. doi:10.1111/ojoa.12231. ISSN 0262-5253. S2CID 239247575.\n\nExternal links\n\nImages of the Assyrian Reliefs of Lachish"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-siege-of-lachish"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1444}, {"slug": "reference-ctesiphon", "title": "Ctesiphon", "category": "Places & heritage", "summary": "Ctesiphon (/ˈtɛsɪfɒn/ TESS-if-on; Middle Persian: 𐭲𐭩𐭮𐭯𐭥𐭭, Tyspwn or Tysfwn;[1] Persian: تیسفون; Ancient Greek: Κτησιφῶν, Attic Greek: [ktɛːsipʰɔ̂ːn]; Syriac: ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ[2]) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about 35 kilometres (22 mi) (22 mi) southeast of Baghdad. Ctesiphon served as a royal...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ctesiphon\n\nArabic: المدائن al-Madā'in\n\nArabic: طيسفون Ṭaysafūn\n\nClassical Syriac: ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ Qṭēspōn\n\nAncient Greek: Κτησιφῶν Ktēsiphôn\n\nMiddle Persian: 𐭲𐭩𐭮𐭯𐭥𐭭 Tēsifōn\n\nPersian: تیسفون Tisfun\n\nMap of the metropolis of Ctesiphon in the Sasanian era\n\nLocation within Iraq\n\n33°5′37″N 44°34′50″E / 33.09361°N 44.58056°E / 33.09361; 44.58056\n\nTypeSettlement\n\nLocationSalman Pak, Baghdad Governorate, Iraq\n\nRegionMesopotamia\n\nHistory\n\nBuiltc. 120 BC\n\nAbandonedc. 800 AD\n\nSite notes\n\nExcavation dates1928-1929, 1931-1932, 1960s-1970s\n\nArchaeologistsOscar Reuther, Antonio Invernizzi, Giorgio Gullini\n\nConditionRuined\n\nCtesiphon (/ˈtɛsɪfɒn/ TESS-if-on; Middle Persian: 𐭲𐭩𐭮𐭯𐭥𐭭, Tyspwn or Tysfwn;[1] Persian: تیسفون; Ancient Greek: Κτησιφῶν, Attic Greek: [ktɛːsipʰɔ̂ːn]; Syriac: ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ[2]) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about 35 kilometres (22 mi) (22 mi) southeast of Baghdad. Ctesiphon served as a royal capital of the Iranian empires for over eight hundred years, in the Parthian and Sasanian periods.[3] It fell in 637, during the Muslim conquest of Persia.[4]\n\nCtesiphon developed into a rich commercial metropolis, merging with the surrounding cities along both shores of the river, including the Hellenistic city of Seleucia. Ctesiphon and its environs were therefore sometimes referred to as \"The Cities\" (Mahuza, Arabic: المدائن, romanized: al-Mada'in). In the late 6th and early 7th century, it was listed as the largest city in the world by some accounts.[5]\n\nDuring the Roman-Parthian Wars, Ctesiphon fell three times to the Romans, and later fell once during Sasanian rule.[6] It was also the site of the Battle of Ctesiphon in 363 AD. After the Muslim invasion and conquest, the city fell into decline and was depopulated by the end of the 8th century, its place as a political and economic center being taken by Baghdad, the Abbasid capital. The most conspicuous structure remaining today is the Taq Kasra, sometimes called the Arch of Ctesiphon.[7]\n\nNames\n\nThe Latin name Ctesiphon derives from Ancient Greek Ktēsiphôn (Κτησιφῶν). This is ostensibly a Greek toponym based on a personal name, although it may be a Hellenized form of a local name, reconstructed as Tisfōn or Tisbōn.[8] In Iranian-language texts of the Sasanian era, it is spelled as Tyspwn, which can be read as Tīsfōn, Tēsifōn, etc. in Manichaean Parthian, in Middle Persian 𐭲𐭩𐭮𐭯𐭥𐭭 and in Christian Sogdian (in Syriac alphabet) languages. The New Persian form is Tisfun (تیسفون).\n\nTexts from the Church of the East's synods referred to the city as Qṭēspōn (Classical Syriac: ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ)[2] or some times Māḥôzē (Classical Syriac: ܡܚܘܙ̈ܐ) when referring to the metropolis of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.\n\nIn modern Arabic, the name is usually Ṭaysafūn (طيسفون) or Qaṭaysfūn (قطيسفون) or as al-Mada'in (المدائن \"The Cities\", referring to Greater Ctesiphon). \"According to Yāqūt [...], quoting Ḥamza, the original form was Ṭūsfūn or Tūsfūn, which was arabicized as Ṭaysafūn.\"[9] The Armenian name of the city was Tizbon (Տիզբոն). Ctesiphon is first mentioned in the Book of Ezra[10] of the Old Testament as Kasfia/Casphia (a derivative of the ethnic name Cas, and a cognate of Caspian and Qazvin). It is also mentioned in the Talmud as Aktisfon.[11] In another Talmudic reference it is written as Akistfon, located across the Tigris River from the city of Ardashir.[12]\n\nLocation\n\nCtesiphon is located approximately at Al-Mada'in, 35 km (22 mi) southeast of the modern city of Baghdad, Iraq, along the river Tigris. Ctesiphon measured 30 square kilometers, more than twice the surface of a 13.7-square-kilometer fourth-century imperial Rome.[13]\n\nThe Taq Kasra was once a part of the royal palace in Ctesiphon and is estimated to date between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD.[14] It is located in what is now the Iraqi town of Salman Pak.[15]\n\nHistory\n\nParthian period\n\nCtesiphon was founded in the late 120s BC. It was built on the site of a military camp established across from Seleucia by Mithridates I of Parthia. The reign of Gotarzes I saw Ctesiphon reach a peak as a political and commercial center. The city became the Empire's capital circa 58 BC during the reign of Orodes II. Gradually, the city merged with the old Hellenistic capital of Seleucia and other nearby settlements to form a cosmopolitan metropolis.[16]\n\nThe reason for this westward relocation of the capital could have been in part due to the proximity of the previous capitals (Mithradatkirt, and Hecatompylos at Hyrcania) to the Scythian incursions.[16]\n\nStrabo abundantly describes the foundation of Ctesiphon:\n\nIn ancient times Babylon was the metropolis of Assyria; but now Seleucia is the metropolis, I mean the Seleucia on the Tigris, as it is called. Nearby is situated a village called Ctesiphon, a large village. This village the kings of the Parthians were wont to make their winter residence, thus sparing the Seleucians, in order that the Seleucians might not be oppressed by having the Scythian folk or soldiery quartered amongst them. Because of the Parthian power, therefore, Ctesiphon is a city rather than a village; its size is such that it lodges a great number of people, and it has been equipped with buildings by the Parthians themselves; and it has been provided by the Parthians with wares for sale and with the arts that are pleasing to the Parthians; for the Parthian kings are accustomed to spend the winter there because of the salubrity of the air, but they summer at Ecbatana and in Hyrcania because of the prevalence of their ancient renown.[17]\n\nBecause of its importance, Ctesiphon was a major military objective for the leaders of the Roman Empire in their eastern wars. The city was captured by Rome four or five times in its history - three times in the 2nd century alone. The emperor Trajan captured Ctesiphon in 116, but his successor, Hadrian, decided to willingly return Ctesiphon in 117 as part of a peace settlement. The Roman general Avidius Cassius captured Ctesiphon in 164 during another Parthian war, but abandoned it when peace was concluded. In 197, the emperor Septimius Severus sacked Ctesiphon and carried off thousands of its inhabitants, whom he sold into slavery.\n\nSasanian period\n\nBy 226, Ctesiphon was in the hands of the Sasanian Empire, who also made it their capital and had laid an end to the Parthian dynasty of Iran. Ctesiphon was greatly enlarged and flourished during their rule, thus turning into a metropolis, which was known by in Arabic as al-Mada'in, and in Aramaic as Mahoze.[18] The oldest inhabited places of Ctesiphon were on its eastern side, which in Islamic Arabic sources is called \"the Old City\" (مدينة العتيقة Madīnah al-'Atīqah), where the residence of the Sasanians, known as the White Palace (قصر الأبيض), was located. The southern side of Ctesiphon was known as Asbānbar or Aspānbar, which was known by its prominent halls, riches, games, stables, and baths. Taq Kasra was located in the latter.[18][19]\n\nThe western side was known as Veh-Ardashir (meaning \"the good city of Ardashir\" in Middle Persian), known as Mahoza by the Jews, Kokhe by the Christians, and Behrasir by the Arabs. Veh-Ardashir was populated by many wealthy Jews, and was the seat of the church of the Nestorian patriarch. To the south of Veh-Ardashir was Valashabad.[18] Ctesiphon had several other districts which were named Hanbu Shapur, Darzanidan, Veh Jondiu-Khosrow, Nawinabad and Kardakadh.[18]\n\nSeverus Alexander advanced towards Ctesiphon in 233, but as corroborated by Herodian, his armies suffered a humiliating defeat against Ardashir I.[20] In 283, emperor Carus sacked the city uncontested during a period of civil upheaval. Some historians have claimed that Galerius marched on Ctesiphon and was able to capture it. However, this is never explicitly stated in any source and is still a matter of debate among scholars.[21]\n\nHence that he returned it to the Persian king Narses in exchange for Armenia and western Mesopotamia is also likely to have never happened. In c. 325 and again in 410, the city, or the Greek colony directly across the river, was the site of church councils for the Church of the East.\n\nAfter the conquest of Antioch in 541, Khosrow I built a new city near Ctesiphon for the inhabitants he captured. He called this new city Veh-Antiok-Xusrō, or literally, \"better than Antioch Khosrow built this\".[22] Local inhabitants of the area called the new city Rumagan, meaning \"town of the Romans\" and Arabs called the city al-Rumiyya. Along with Weh Antiok, Khosrow built a number of fortified cities.[23] After a campaign in 573, John of Ephesus wrote that no fewer than 292,000 persons had been deported from Dara, Apamia, and other Syrian towns to Veh-Antiokh. John would later cite a letter stating no more than 30,000 prisoners were deported. It's thought that the first number he gave is not to be taken literally.[24]\n\nIn 590, a member of the House of Mihran, Bahram Chobin repelled the newly ascended Sasanian ruler Khosrow II from Iraq, and conquered the region. One year later, Khosrow II, with aid from the Byzantine Empire, reconquered his domains. During his reign, some of the great fame of al-Mada'in decreased, due to the popularity of Khosrow's new winter residence, Dastagerd.[25] In 627, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius surrounded the city, the capital of the Sassanid Empire, leaving it after the Persians accepted his peace terms. In 628, a deadly plague hit Ctesiphon, al-Mada'in and the rest of the western part of the Sasanian Empire, which even killed Khosrow's son and successor, Kavad II.[25]\n\nIn 629, Ctesiphon was briefly under the control of Mihranid usurper Shahrbaraz, but the latter was shortly assassinated by the supporters of Khosrow II's daughter Borandukht. Ctesiphon then continued to be involved in constant fighting between two factions of the Sasanian Empire, the Pahlav (Parthian) faction under the House of Ispahbudhan and the Parsig (Persian) faction under Piruz Khosrow.\n\nDownfall of the Sasanians and the Islamic conquests\n\nIn the mid-630s, the Muslim Arabs, who had invaded the territories of the Sasanian Empire, defeated them during a great battle known as the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah.[18] The Arabs then attacked Ctesiphon, and occupied it in early 637.\n\nThe Muslim military officer Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas quickly seized Valashabad and made a peace treaty with the inhabitants of Veh-Antiok-Xusrō and Veh-Ardashir. The terms of the treaty were that the inhabitants of Veh-Antiok-Xusrō were allowed to leave if they wanted to, but if they did not, they were forced to acknowledge Muslim authority, and also pay tribute (jizya). Later on, when the Muslims arrived at Ctesiphon, it was completely desolated, due to flight of the Sasanian royal family, nobles, and troops. However, the Muslims had managed to take some of the troops captive, and many riches were seized from the Sasanian treasury and were given to the Muslim troops.[18] Furthermore, the throne hall in Taq Kasra was briefly used as a mosque.[26]\n\nStill, as political and economic fortune had passed elsewhere, the city went into a rapid decline, especially after the founding of the Abbasid capital at Baghdad in the 760s, and soon became a ghost town. Caliph Al-Mansur took much of the required material for the construction of Baghdad from the ruins of Ctesiphon. He also attempted to demolish the palace and reuse its bricks for his own palace, but he desisted only when the undertaking proved too vast.[27] Al-Mansur also used the al-Rumiya town as the Abbasid capital city for a few months.[28]\n\nIt is believed to be the basis for the city of Isbanir in One Thousand and One Nights.\n\nModern era\n\nThe ruins of Ctesiphon were the site of a major battle of World War I in November 1915. The Ottoman Empire defeated troops of Britain attempting to capture Baghdad, and drove them back some 40 miles (64 km) before trapping the British force and compelling it to surrender.\n\nPopulation and religion\n\nUnder Sasanian rule, the population of Ctesiphon was heavily mixed: it included Arameans, Persians, Greeks and Assyrians. Several religions were also practiced in the metropolis, which included Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. In 497, the first East Syriac patriarch Mar Babai I, fixed his see at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, supervising their mission east, with the Merv metropolis as pivot. The population also included Manicheans, a dualist church, who continued to be mentioned in Ctesiphon during Umayyad rule fixing their \"patriarchate of Babylon\" there.[18] Much of the population fled from Ctesiphon after the Arab capture of the metropolis. However, a portion of Persians remained there, and some important figures of these people are known to have provided Ali with presents, which he, however, refused to take.[18] In the ninth century, the surviving Manicheans fled and displaced their patriarchate up the Silk Road, in Samarkand.[29]\n\nArchaeology\n\nA German Oriental Society expedition led by Oscar Reuther excavated at Ctesiphon in 1928-29 mainly at Qasr bint al-Qadi on the western part of the site.[30][31][32][33] In winter of 1931-1932 a joint expedition of the German State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art continued excavations at the site, focusing on the areas of Ma'aridh, Tell Dheheb, the Taq-i Kisra, Selman Pak and Umm ez-Za'tir under the direction of Ernst Kühnel.[34]\n\nIn the late 1960s and early 1970s, an Italian team from the University of Turin directed by Antonio Invernizzi and Giorgio Gullini worked at the part of the site on the other side of the Tigris, which they identified as Veh Ardashir. Work mainly concentrated on restoration at the palace of Khosrow II.[35][36][37][38][39][40] In 2013, the Iraqi government contracted to restore the Taq Kasra, as a tourist attraction.[41]\n\nGallery\n\n 1824 drawing by Captain Hart\n\n 1923 Iraqi postage stamp, featuring the arch\n\n Remains of the arch in Ctesiphon, 1932\n\n Remains of the arch in 2022\n\n Remains of the arch in 2008\n\n North end of the arch\n\n 2017 Ctesiphon Exhibition at the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin\n\nSee also\n\nList of cities of the ancient Near East\n\nOpis\n\nAchaemenid Empire\n\nRachae\n\nSasanian Empire\n\nSchool of Seleucia-Ctesiphon\n\nReferences\n\n^ Kröger, Jens. \"Ctesiphon\". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 12 December 2016.\n\n^ a b Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon - ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.\n\n^ \"Ctesiphon: An Ancient Royal Capital in Context\". Smithsonian. September 15, 2018. Retrieved 2018-09-21.\n\n^ History of Civilizations of Central Asia. UNESCO. 2006. p. 46. ISBN 978-9231032110.\n\n^ \"Largest Cities Through History\". geography.about.com. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2015.\n\n^ Kröger, Jens (November 2, 2011). \"CTESIPHON\". Iranica.\n\n^ Eventually no less than four Sasanian rulers were quoted as its builders: Shapur I (241-273), Shapur II (310-379), Chosroes I Anushirvan (531-579) and Chosroes II Parvez (590-628). Kurz, Otto (1941). \"The Date of the Ṭāq i Kisrā\". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. (New Series). 73 (1): 37-41. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00093138. JSTOR 25221709. S2CID 162160996.\n\n^ E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913-1936, Vol. 2 (Brill, 1987: ISBN 90-04-08265-4), p. 75.\n\n^ Kröger, Jens (1993), \"Ctesiphon\", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 6, Costa Mesa: Mazda, archived from the original on 2009-01-16\n\n^ Ezra 8:17\n\n^ Talmud Bavli Tractate Gittin. pp. 6a.14.\n\n^ Talmud Bavli Tractate Eruvin. pp. 57b.\n\n^ \"Metropolitan Museum\". February 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2024.\n\n^ Farrokh, K. (2007). \"The rise of Ctesiphon and the Silk Route\". In Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War, p. 240.\n\n^ \"Taq Kasra (Ctesiphon)\". www.eamena.iconem.com. Retrieved 2025-11-23.\n\n^ a b Farrokh, K. (2007). \"The rise of Ctesiphon and the Silk Route\". In Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War, p. 125.\n\n^ \"LacusCurtius • Strabo's Geography - Book XVI Chapter 1, 16\". penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 25 November 2015.\n\n^ a b c d e f g h Morony 2009.\n\n^ Houtsma, M. Th. (1993). E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. BRILL. p. 76a. ISBN 9789004097919.\n\n^ Farrokh, K. (2007). \"The rise of Ctesiphon and the Silk Route\". In Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War, p. 185.\n\n^ Udo Hartmann The Tetrarchy,284-305, in: The Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles, Bd. 3, hrsg. v. Michael Whitby u. Harry Sidebottom, Chichester 2017, 1071-1081\n\n^ Dignas & Winter 2007, p. 109.\n\n^ Frye 1993, 259\n\n^ Christensen (1993). The Decline of Iranshahr: Irrigation and Environments in the History of the Middle East, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1500. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 87-7289-259-5.\n\n^ a b Shapur Shahbazi 2005.\n\n^ Reade, Julian (1999). Scarre, Chris, ed. The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World: The Great Monuments and How they were Built. Thames & Hudson. pp. 185-186. ISBN 0-500-05096-1\n\n^ Bier, L. (1993). \"The Sassanian Palaces and their Influence in Early Islam\". Ars Orientalis, 23, 62-62.\n\n^ Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1895). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Asiatic Society. p. 40.\n\n^ John van Schaik, Ketters. Een geschiedenis van de Kerk, Leuven, 2016\n\n^ Schippmann, K. (1980). \"Ktesiphon-Expedition im Winter 1928/29\". Grundzüge der parthischen Geschichte (in German). Darmstadt. ISBN 3-534-07064-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)\n\n^ Meyer, E. (1929). \"Seleukia und Ktesiphon\". Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin. 67: 1-26.\n\n^ Reuther, O. (1929). \"The German Excavations at Ctesiphon\". Antiquity. 3 (12): 434-451. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00003781. S2CID 163969599.\n\n^ Upton, J. (1932). \"The Expedition to Ctesiphon 1931-1932\". Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 27 (8): 188-197. doi:10.2307/3255274. JSTOR 3255274.\n\n^ Fowlkes-Childs, Blair. “Ctesiphon.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ctes/hd_ctes.htm (July 2016)\n\n^ G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi, First Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Season 1964, Mesopotamia, vol. I, pp. 1-88, 1966\n\n^ G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi, Second Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Season 1965, Mesopotamia, vol. 2, 1967\n\n^ G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi, Third Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Season 1966, Mesopotamia, vol. 3-4, 1968-69\n\n^ G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi, Fifth Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Season 1969, Mesopotamia, vol. 5-6, 1960-71\n\n^ G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi, Sixth Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Seasons 1972/74, Mesopotamia, vol. 5-6, 1973-74\n\n^ G. Gullini and A. Invernizzi, Seventh Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Seasons 1975/76, Mesopotamia, vol. 7, 1977\n\n^ \"Iraq to restore ancient Arch of Ctesiphon to woo back tourists\". rawstory.com. May 30, 2013. Archived from the original on January 1, 2014. Retrieved September 23, 2013.\n\nBibliography\n\nM. Streck, Die alte Landschaft Babylonien nach den arabischen Geographen, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1900-1901).\n\nM. Streck, \"Seleucia und Ktesiphon,\" Der Alte Orient, 16 (1917), 1-64.\n\nA. Invernizzi, \"Ten Years Research in the al-Madain Area, Seleucia and Ctesiphon,\" Sumer, 32, (1976), 167-175.\n\nLuise Abramowski, \"Der Bischof von Seleukia-Ktesiphon als Katholikos und Patriarch der Kirche des Ostens,\" in Dmitrij Bumazhnov u. Hans R. Seeliger (hg), Syrien im 1.-7. Jahrhundert nach Christus. Akten der 1. Tübinger Tagung zum Christlichen Orient (15.-16. Juni 2007). (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2011) (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity, 62),\n\nMorony, Michael (2009). \"MADĀʾEN\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nKennedy, Hugh N. (2004). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century (Second ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 0-582-40525-4.\n\nAmedroz, Henry F.; Margoliouth, David S., eds. (1921). The Eclipse of the 'Abbasid Caliphate. Original Chronicles of the Fourth Islamic Century, Vol. V: The concluding portion of The Experiences of Nations by Miskawaihi, Vol. II: Reigns of Muttaqi, Mustakfi, Muti and Ta'i. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.\n\nRekaya, M. (1991). \"al-Maʾmūn\". The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume VI: Mahk-Mid. Leiden and New York: BRILL. pp. 331-339. ISBN 90-04-08112-7.\n\nKennedy, Hugh N. (2004). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century (Second ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd. ISBN 0-582-40525-4.\n\nZarrinkub, Abd al-Husain (1975). \"The Arab conquest of Iran and its aftermath\". The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1-57. ISBN 978-0-521-20093-6.\n\nBosworth, C. E. (1975). \"Iran under the Buyids\". In Frye, R. N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 250-305. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.\n\nKröger, Jens (1993). \"CTESIPHON\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 4. pp. 446-448.\n\nShapur Shahbazi, A. (2005). \"SASANIAN DYNASTY\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition. Retrieved 30 March 2014.\n\nDignas, Beate; Winter, Engelbert (2007). Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2 May 2023.\n\nFurther reading\n\nDaryaee, Touraj (2022). \"The Bones of Khosrow: The Sacred Topography of Ctesiphon\". Electrum. 29: 267-284. doi:10.4467/20800909EL.22.018.15788. S2CID 253169197.\n\nExternal links\n\nCtesiphon and Taq Kasra photo gallery\n\nCtesiphon Exhibition by the Islamic Art Museum at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 2016 (Video)\n\nCtesiphon (profile at the Metropolitan Museum of Art)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ctesiphon"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 3476}, {"slug": "reference-ninos-gouriye", "title": "Ninos Gouriye", "category": "People & diaspora", "summary": "Ninos Gouriye (born 14 January 1991) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a winger for Rotterdam amateur side Neptunus-Schiebroek.[1]", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Ninos Gouriye\nPersonal information\n\nDate of birth\n (1991-01-14) 14 January 1991\n\nPlace of birth\nHengelo, Netherlands\n\nHeight\n1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)\n\nPosition\nWinger\n\nTeam information\n\nCurrent team\nNeptunus-Schiebroek\n\nYouth career\n\nHVV Tubantia\n\n2002-2011\nTwente\n\nSenior career*\n\nYears\nTeam\nApps\n(Gls)\n\n2011-2012\nTwente\n3\n(0)\n\n2012-2013\nHeracles\n38\n(13)\n\n2013-2015\nADO Den Haag\n15\n(1)\n\n2014-2015\n→ Excelsior (loan)\n23\n(2)\n\n2015\nAstra Giurgiu\n4\n(0)\n\n2016-2017\nCambuur\n9\n(1)\n\n2017-2019\nVendsyssel\n40\n(9)\n\n2020-2021\nFirst Vienna\n7\n(1)\n\n2022-2023\nXerxesDZB\n\n2023-2024\nCVV Zwervers\n\n2024-\nNeptunus-Schiebroek\n\nInternational career\n\n2008\nNetherlands U17\n1\n(0)\n\n2012\nNetherlands U20\n5\n(1)\n\n* Club domestic league appearances and goals as of 17 November 2024\n\nNinos Gouriye (born 14 January 1991) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a winger for Rotterdam amateur side Neptunus-Schiebroek.[1]\n\nClub career\n\nHe joined ADO Den Haag from Heracles in summer 2013[2] and was then loaned to Excelsior a year later.[3]\n\nHe also formerly played for the Dutch Eerste Divisie club Cambuur as a forward.[4]\n\nInternational career\n\nGouriye played 5 games for the Netherlands national under-20 football team[5] and once for the U17s.[6]\n\nPersonal life\n\nGouriye's brothers, Sargon and Teglat, and his cousin Arthur, are also footballers.[7][8]\n\nCareer statistics\n\nAs of match played 26 January 2018[9]\n\nAppearances and goals by club, season and competition\n\nClub\n\nSeason\n\nLeague\n\nNational Cup\n\nLeague Cup\n\nOther\n\nTotal\n\nDivision\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\nApps\nGoals\n\nFC Twente\n\n2011-12\n\nEredivisie\n\n3\n0\n0\n0\n-\n2[a]\n0\n5\n0\n\nHeracles Almelo\n\n2011-12\n\nEredivisie\n\n12\n4\n2\n1\n-\n-\n14\n5\n\n2012-13\n\n26\n9\n4\n0\n-\n-\n30\n9\n\nTotal\n\n38\n13\n6\n1\n-\n0\n0\n44\n14\n\nADO Den Haag\n\n2013-14\n\nEredivisie\n\n15\n1\n2\n0\n-\n-\n17\n1\n\nExcelsior (loan)\n\n2014-15\n\nEredivisie\n\n23\n2\n5\n2\n-\n-\n28\n4\n\nAstra Giurgiu\n\n2015-16\n\nLiga I\n\n4\n0\n2\n0\n1\n1\n-\n7\n1\n\nCambuur\n\n2016-17\n\nEerste Divisie\n\n9\n1\n1\n0\n-\n-\n10\n1\n\nVendsyssel\n\n2016-17\n\n1. Division\n\n13\n3\n3\n2\n-\n1[b]\n0\n17\n5\n\n2017-18\n\n15\n5\n0\n0\n-\n-\n15\n5\n\nTotal\n\n28\n8\n3\n2\n-\n1\n0\n32\n10\n\nCareer total\n\n120\n25\n19\n5\n1\n1\n3\n0\n143\n31\n\n^ Appearances in the Europa League\n\n^ Appearance in the 1. Division promotion play-offs\n\nHonours\n\nClub\n\nAstra Giurgiu\n\nLiga I: 2015-16\n\nReferences\n\n^ Hollandsk kantspiller stopper i Vendsyssel‚ bold.dk, 16 April 2019\n\n^ \"Ninos Gouriye verruilt Heracles voor ADO Den Haag\". Tubantia (in Dutch). 6 July 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2026.\n\n^ \"Ninos Gouriye komt Excelsior versterken\". Excelsior Rotterdam (in Dutch). 25 July 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2026.\n\n^ A Dutch player signed when Astra defeated a Dutch team\n\n^ \"Ninos Gouriye\". OnsOranje (KNVB - Dutch FA) (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 August 2026.\n\n^ \"Ninos Gouriye\". OnsOranje (KNVB - Dutch FA) (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 August 2026.\n\n^ Broertje en neefje Sargon Gouriye naar Quick'20\n\n^ \"Arthur Gouriye streeft met Tubantia naar handhaving in Eerste klasse F Noord\". Archived from the original on 28 March 2012. Retrieved 5 August 2011.\n\n^ Ninos Gouriye at Soccerway. Retrieved 6 February 2018.\n\nExternal links\n\nNinos Gouriye at Voetbal International Archived 19 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine (in Dutch)\n\nNinos Gouriye at Soccerway\n\nNinos Gouriye at ÖFB (in German)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-ninos-gouriye"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 532}, {"slug": "reference-fall-of-nineveh", "title": "Fall of Nineveh", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Fall of Nineveh, also called the Battle of Nineveh, was a major battle that marked the climax of the Conquest of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC. After the Assyrian defeat at the Fall of Assur, an allied army which involved the combined forces of Medes and...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Fall of Nineveh\n\nPart of the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire\n\nPainting titled The Fall of Nineveh by John Martin\n\nDateMay-August 10, 612 BCE[1][2]\n\nLocationNineveh36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.35944°N 43.15278°E / 36.35944; 43.15278\n\nResult\n\nMedo-Babylonian victory[3]\n\nBelligerents\n\nNeo-Babylonian Empire\nMedian Kingdom\nNeo-Assyrian Empire\n\nCommanders and leaders\n\nNabopolassar\nCyaxares\nSinsharishkun †\n\n Location within Iraq\n\nThe Fall of Nineveh, also called the Battle of Nineveh, was a major battle that marked the climax of the Conquest of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC. After the Assyrian defeat at the Fall of Assur, an allied army which involved the combined forces of Medes and the Babylonians besieged Nineveh (in modern-day Mosul) and took what was, at that time, one of the greatest cities in the world. The fall of Nineveh led to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the dominant state in the Ancient Near East over the following three years.[4] Archeological records show that the capital of the once-mighty Assyrian Empire was extensively de-urbanized and depopulated in the decades and centuries following the battle. A garbled account of the fall of the city later led to the story of the legendary king Sardanapalus.\n\nBabylon became the imperial center of Mesopotamia for the first time in over a thousand years, leading to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, claiming imperial continuity as a new dynasty.\n\nBackground\n\nThe Neo-Assyrian Empire emerged in the 10th century BCE and peaked in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, succeeding the Middle Assyrian Empire (1366-1074 BC) as the largest empire the world had yet seen. By the reign of Ashurbanipal, it controlled or held in vassalage most of the nations and city-states from the Caucasus Mountains (modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) in the north to Egypt, Arabia and central Iran/Persia in the east to Cyprus and the Hellenic and Phoenician Mediterranean coasts of Anatolia and the Levant in the west.\n\nHowever, after the death of King Ashurbanipal in 631 BCE, the once mighty empire was becoming increasingly volatile, with Assyria proper erupting into a series of internal civil wars. This led many of the subject states, many of which had their own political dynasties, to become restive, whereas neighboring states and groups, such as the Medes, Babylonians, and Chaldean became increasingly hostile under the Assyrian hegemony.\n\nThe Assyrians had, by the accounts of their own records, been brutal rulers even by the standards of the time, and thus had accumulated many hitherto impotent enemies. It had been weakened by a three-front struggle to maintain power in Egypt, wage a costly but victorious war against the Elamites, and put down rebellions among their southern Mesopotamian Babylonian kinsmen, even though the core of the empire had been largely at peace. The Assyrian monarchs wrote constantly of internal danger and fear of palace intrigue and rebellion.\n\nUpon the death of Ashurbanipal, a series of bitter and bloody wars of succession occurred, weakening the empire - from 625 BC onward, the empire's domination over the Middle East, Asia Minor, Caucasus and Eastern Mediterranean gradually began to fade.\n\nAn alliance was formed between external states, such as the Chaldeans, who took advantage of the upheavals in Assyria to take control of much of Babylonia with the aid of the Babylonians themselves. This precipitated the Neo-Babylonian Empire, whose goal was to overthrow the Neo-Assyrian Empire, seize the capital Nineveh, and transfer the seat of Mesopotamian power to Babylon.\n\nNineveh was not only a political capital, but home to one of the great libraries of Akkadian tablets and a recipient of tribute from across the near east, making it a valuable location to sack. The Assyrian chronicles end abruptly in 639 BC after the destruction of Susa, the capital of Elam, and the subjugation of a rebellious Babylon ruled by Ashurbanipal's own brother Shamash-shum-ukin. Business records are missing after 631 BC.\n\nThe Medes were ruled by King Cyaxares. Although initially defeated by the Assyrians, he rebuilt his army and attacked Nineveh in conjunction with other warring factions.\n\nThe primary sources are written afterwards, by a victorious Neo-Babylonian from the reign of Nabopolassar (The primary chronicle is numbered 21901, which was translated by C. J. Gadd in 1923, and can be found in the British Museum), by the Babylonian tradition set down by Herodotus much later, by a Hebrew tradition attributed to Nahum, and by references in Egyptian chronicles, all of which were hostile to Assyria. There are also legends that have grown up in the centuries afterwards, among peoples who descend from one of the involved nationalities, including the still Mesopotamian Eastern Aramaic speaking and Christian Assyrians of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria.\n\nAccount of the battle\n\nOne of the recountings of the actual battle is taken from the excerpts of Persica, written by Ctesias, preserved in Diodorus Siculus and Photius, whose account may have been mixed with accounts of other battles.[6]\n\nAccording to a Babylonian clay tablet discovered in the 19th century named the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle, there was a bitter 12-year struggle between Babylon and Assyria, as well as civil wars in Assyria itself. They describe that in the tenth year of Nabopolassar (616 BC) the Babylonians defeated the Assyrian army and marched up the river, sacking Mane, Sahiri and Baliḫu.\n\nThe conflict was renewed the next year, with the Assyrians mustering their army and driving the Babylonians back to Takritain. Nabopolassar stationed his army in the fortress of Takritain, and the two armies fought there the next year. The Assyrians were beaten and retreated to Assyria.\n\nThe Babylonians then allied with the Medes and Scythians. The Median army took Tarbiṣu, near Nineveh, and encamped nearby; they then attacked the city of Assur, with the Babylonian text recounting how in 614 BC their Median ally destroyed Assur's temples and sacked the city, but their army did not reach the city until after the plundering had been done.[7]\n\nIn 612 BC, the Babylonians mustered their army again and joined with Median king Cyaxares encamping against Nineveh. In May, they laid siege to the city for three months and, in August, finally broke through the defenses and began plundering and burning the city. The major factor in the city’s downfall was the Medes.[8] The Assyrian King Sin-shar-ishkun was killed in the siege. His brother Ashur-uballit II was made King of Assyria. He refused to submit, however, and successfully fought his way out of Nineveh, founding a final capital at Harran. The fighting and the looting of the city continued until August 10, after which the invading forces withdrew.[2]\n\nAccording to tradition laid out in Diodorus, the Tigris river flooded the city. While his account is often suspect, this aspect has been given attention. The allied armies entered the area of the outer wall and fought to enter the palace. According to one theory, the invading forces diverted the Khosr River, a tributary of the Tigris, generating a flood that allowed them to breach Nineveh's walls.[9] Temples were looted and the palace was burned, though this did not destroy the city, and may have aided the preservation of clay texts.\n\nAftermath\n\nThere would be several more campaigns against Assyria by the Neo-Babylonians and their allies, including one against an allied Egyptian-Assyrian army. Thus, while the Fall of Nineveh was a turning point in the war, Ashur-uballit II would fight on for several more years. His ultimate fate is not known or recorded - he may have been killed at the Fall of Harran in 609 BC (which ended the Assyrian Empire) or at Carchemish in 605 BC (where Egypt and remnants of the army of the former Assyrian Empire were defeated); or he may have simply disappeared into obscurity.\n\nSee also\n\nBattle of Nineveh (627 CE)\n\nFall of Babylon\n\nBook of Nahum\n\nSack of Thebes\n\nSiege of Baghdad\n\nReferences\n\n^ Lipschits 2005, p. 18.\n\n^ a b \"ABC 3 (Fall of Nineveh Chronicle)\". Livius. 11 July 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2026.\n\n^ A Companion to Assyria \"The decisive blow came in 612, when Babylonian and Median armies, after a two-month long siege, conquered Nineveh\"\n\n^ Georges Roux - Ancient Iraq p 376\n\n^ Discussion, with many photographs in Nylander, Carl (1980). \"Earless in Nineveh: Who Mutilated \"Sargon's\" Head?\". American Journal of Archaeology. 84 (3): 329-333. doi:10.2307/504709. ISSN 0002-9114. JSTOR 504709. S2CID 193037843.\n\n^ J.D.A. MACGINNIS (1988). \"Ctesias and the Fall of Nineveh\". Illinois Classical Studies. 13 (1): 37-42. JSTOR 23064050.\n\n^ The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule : page 18\n\n^ Encyclopedia Iranica \"Finally, after three months of siege, in August of 612, the joined forces of the Medes and Babylonians stormed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and took it. The major part in the city’s downfall was played by the Medes.\"\n\n^ \"Water Conflict Chronology\". Pacific Institute. 2025. Retrieved 24 August 2026.\n\nBibliography\n\nDandamayev, M.; Grantovskiĭ, È. (1987). \"ASSYRIA i. The Kingdom of Assyria and its Relations with Iran\". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 8. pp. 806-815.\n\nDandamayev, M.; Medvedskaya, I. (2006). \"MEDIA\". Encyclopaedia Iranica.\n\nFrahm, Eckart (12 June 2017). A Companion to Assyria. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-3593-4.\n\nLipschits, Oded (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-095-8.\n\nExternal links\n\nMesopotamian Chronicles: Fall of Nineveh Chronicle\n\nThe fall of Nineveh Archived 2016-10-24 at the Wayback Machine"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-fall-of-nineveh"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1557}, {"slug": "reference-tell-sheikh-hamad", "title": "Tell Sheikh Hamad", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "Tell Sheikh Hamad (Arabic: تل الشيخ حمد), also Dur-Katlimmu, is an archeological site in eastern Syria on the lower Khabur River,[1] a tributary of the Euphrates.", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Tell Sheikh Hamad\nDūr-Katlimmu\n\nRuins of the \"Red House\" of Tell Sheikh Hamad exposed by excavations (6th century AD)\n\nLocation within Near EastShow map of Near EastLocation within SyriaShow map of Syria\n\n35°38′36″N 40°44′25″E / 35.64333°N 40.74028°E / 35.64333; 40.74028\n\nPeriodsLate Chalcolithic period, Bronze Age, Iron Age\n\nCulturesMitanni, Assyrian\n\nLocationSyria\n\nRegionAl-Hasakah Governorate\n\nTell Sheikh Hamad (Arabic: تل الشيخ حمد), also Dur-Katlimmu, is an archeological site in eastern Syria on the lower Khabur River,[1] a tributary of the Euphrates.\n\nHistory\n\nChalcolithic\n\nThe site of Tell Sheikh Hamad was occupied from the Late Chalcolithic period (Late Neolithic, M4), when it was a small settlement.[2]\n\nLate Bronze Age\n\nMitanni Period\n\nIn the Late Bronze Age, the region surrounding Dur-Katlimmu was part of the Mitanni Empire and the kingdom of Hanigalbat. Following the fall of the stronghold Carchemish to Šuppiluliuma I of the Hittites, and the assassination of great king Tushratta in 1345 BC, the Mitanni Empire struggled with civil war and outside pressure until it fell. A quantity of Hittite pottery was found at the site.[3]\n\nAssyrian Period\n\nDuring the reign of Shalmaneser\n\nThe city was established as the capital of a new Assyrian province by Shalmaneser I (r. 1263-1234 BC) following the collapse of the Mitanni Empire. He put Ibašši-ilī son of Adad-nirari I, his brother, as the founder of the dynasty on the royal throne. Dur-Katlimmu (Tell Seh Hamad) became the capital of this kingdom on the lower Habur River. The ruler bore the title 'grand vizier' (sakallu rabi'u) and 'king of the land of Hanigalbat' (sar mat Hanigalbat).[4]\n\nIron Age\n\nNeo-Assyrian Period\n\nEnd of the Assyrian Empire\n\nDuring the fall of the Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), sections of the Assyrian army retreated to the western corner of Assyria after the fall of Nineveh, Harran and Carchemish, and a number of Assyrian imperial records survive between 604 BC and 599 BC in and around Dur-Katlimmu, and so it is possible that remnants of the Assyrian administration and army still continued to hold out in the region for a few years.[5]\n\nAfter the fall of the Assyrian Empire\n\nAfter the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Dur-Katlimmu became one of the many Near- and Middle-Eastern cities called Magdalu/Magdala/Migdal/Makdala/Majdal, all of which are simply Semitic language toponyms meaning \"fortified elevation, tower\".[1][6]\n\nExcavations\n\nIn 1878 Hormuzd Rassam dug some test trenches and removed a stele fragment.[7] The site was excavated during 32 excavation campaigns between 1978 and 2010, led by Hartmut Kühne.[8]\n\nExcavations have recovered 550 cuneiform Akkadian and 40 Aramaic texts belonging to a senior guard of Ashurbanipal.\n\nIn July 2020, French archaeologists excavated Tell Sheikh Hamad during the Syrian Civil War, according to the Anadolu Agency.[9]\n\nSee also\n\nCities of the ancient Near East\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b Kühne, Hartmut, ed. (2005), Magdalu/Magdala: Tall Seh Hamad von der postassyrischen Zeit bis zur römischen Kaiserzeit, Volume 1, Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Seh Hamad/Dur-Katlimmu, Berlin: Harrassowitz.\n\n^ Bryce, Trevor; Birkett-Rees, Jessie (2016). Atlas of the Ancient Near East: From Prehistoric Times to the Roman Imperial Period. Routledge. p. 99. ISBN 9781317562108.\n\n^ Pfalzner, P. 1995. Mittanische und Mittelassyrische Keramik. Berlin\n\n^ YAMADA Masamichi, « The second military conflict between ‘Assyria' and ‘Ḫatti' in the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I », Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale, 2011/1 (Vol. 105), p. 199-220. DOI : 10.3917/assy.105.0199. URL : https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-assyriologie-2011-1-page-199.htm\n\n^ Parpola, S.; Whiting, R.M., eds. (1997), Assyria, 1995, (Symposium Proceedings), Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.\n\n^ cf. Hoffmeier, James Karl; Millard, Alan Ralph, eds. (2004), The Future of Biblical Archaeology: Reassessing Methodologies and Assumptions, (Symposium Proceedings), Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, p. 105.\n\n^ Rassam, H. (1897): Asshur and the Land of Nimrod, being an account of the discoveries made in the ancient ruins of Nineveh, Asshur, Sepharvaim, Calah, Babylon, Borsippa, Cuthah, and Van, incl. a narrative of different journeys in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Asia Minor, and Koordistan, Cincinnati.\n\n^ Kühne, Hartmut, ed., \"The Citadel of Dur-Katlimmu in Middle and Neo-Assyrian Times\" (3 Volumes: Harassowitz Verlag, Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad / Dūr-Katlimmu vol. XII, 2021). ISBN 978-3-447-06168-1\n\n^ \"French archaeologists conduct excavations in Syria\". Anadolu Agency. 15 July 2020.\n\nExternal links\n\nBasalt stela of Adad-Nirari III - British Museum"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-tell-sheikh-hamad"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 711}, {"slug": "reference-northeastern-neo-aramaic", "title": "Northeastern Neo-Aramaic", "category": "Language & literature", "summary": "Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) is a grouping of related dialects of Neo-Aramaic spoken before World War I as a vernacular language by Jews and Assyrian Christians between the Tigris and Lake Urmia, stretching north to Lake Van and southwards to Mosul and Kirkuk. As a result of the Assyrian...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Northeastern Neo-Aramaic\n\nNENA\n\nGeographic\ndistributionTraditionally spoken northeast to the plain of Urmia in Iran, southeast to the plain of Mosul in Iraq, southwest to Al-Hasakah Governorate in Syria and as northwest as Tur Abdin in Turkey. Diaspora speakers in North America, Europe and Israel (the Jewish dialects).\n\nLinguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic\nSemitic\nCentral Semitic\nNorthwest Semitic\nAramaic\nEastern Aramaic\nNortheastern Neo-Aramaic\n\nSubdivisions\n\nChristian:\n\nSuret\n\nKoy Sanjaq Christian Neo-Aramaic\n\nChristian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Barwar\n\nChristian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Senaya\n\nChristian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia\n\nNeo-Aramaic dialect of Qaraqosh\n\nNeo-Aramaic dialect of Bohtan\n\nNeo-Aramaic dialect of Hertevin\n\nJewish:\n\nInter-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic\n\nTrans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic\n\nSanandaj Jewish Neo-Aramaic\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Barzani\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Betanure\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Dohok\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Koy Sanjaq\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Challa\n\nLanguage codes\n\nGlottolognort3241\n\nNortheastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) is a grouping of related dialects of Neo-Aramaic spoken before World War I as a vernacular language by Jews and Assyrian Christians between the Tigris and Lake Urmia, stretching north to Lake Van and southwards to Mosul and Kirkuk. As a result of the Assyrian genocide, Christian speakers were forced out of the area that is now Turkey and in the early 1950s most Jewish speakers moved to Israel. The Kurdish-Turkish conflict resulted in further dislocations of speaker populations.[1][2] As of the 1990s, the NENA group had an estimated number of fluent speakers among the Assyrians just below 500,000, spread throughout the Middle East and the Assyrian diaspora. In 2007, linguist Geoffrey Khan wrote that many dialects were nearing extinction with fluent speakers difficult to find.[1]\n\nThe other branches of Neo-Aramaic are Western Neo-Aramaic, Central Neo-Aramaic (Turoyo and Mlahso), and Mandaic.[1] Some linguists classify NENA, as well as Turoyo and Mlahso, as a single dialect continuum.[3]\n\nInfluences\n\nThe NENA languages contain a large number of loanwords and some grammatical features from the extinct East Semitic Akkadian language of Mesopotamia (the original language of the Assyrians) and also in more modern times from their surrounding languages: Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, Azerbaijani and Turkish language. These languages are spoken by both Jews and Christian Assyrians from the area. Each variety of NENA is clearly Jewish or Assyrian.\n\nHowever, not all varieties of one or other religious groups are intelligible with all others of the group. Likewise, in some places Jews and Assyrian Christians from the same locale speak mutually unintelligible varieties of Aramaic, where in other places their language is quite similar. The differences can be explained by the fact that NENA communities gradually became isolated into small groups spread over a wide area, and some had to be highly mobile due to various ethnic and religious persecutions.\n\nThe influence of classical Aramaic varieties - Syriac on Christian varieties and Targumic on Jewish communities - gives a dual heritage that further distinguishes language by faith. Many of the Jewish speakers of NENA varieties, the Kurdish Jews, now live in Israel, where Neo-Aramaic is endangered by the dominance of Modern Hebrew. Many Christian NENA speakers, who usually are Assyrian, are in diaspora in North America, Europe, Australia, the Caucasus and elsewhere, although indigenous communities remain in northern Iraq, south east Turkey, north east Syria and north west Iran, an area roughly comprising what had been ancient Assyria.[4]\n\nGrouping\n\nTuroyoHertevin dialectQaraqoshBohtanMlaḥsôAlqoshBarzaniInter-ZabBetanureZakhoTrans-ZabBarwarKoy Sanjaq (Christian, Jewish)Urmia (Christian, Jewish)Sanandaj (Christian, Jewish) Red markers represent Christian Neo-Aramaic varieties while blue represents Jewish ones and purple represents both spoken in the same town.\n\nSIL Ethnologue assigns ISO codes to twelve NENA varieties, two of them extinct:\n\nSuret (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic) [aii], 235,000 speakers (1994)[5]\n\nSuret (Chaldean Neo-Aramaic) [cld], 216,000 speakers (1994)\n\nJudeo-Aramaic languages, spoken by Jewish communities in Israel\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Barzani [bjf] (Israel), extinct\n\nTrans-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic [huy], 10,000 speakers (1990s)\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho [lsd] 7,500 speakers (1990s)\n\nJewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Urmia [trg], 4,500 speakers (2000)\n\nInter-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic [aij], 2,200 speakers (1990s)\n\nNeo-Aramaic dialect of Bohtan [bhn] (Georgia), 1,000 speakers (1990s)\n\nNeo-Aramaic dialect of Hertevin [hrt] (Turkey), 1,000 speakers (1990s)\n\nKoy Sanjaq Christian Neo-Aramaic [kqd] (Iraq), 900 speakers (1990s)\n\nChristian Neo-Aramaic dialect of Senaya [syn] (Iran), 460 speakers (1990s)\n\nList of dialects\n\nBelow is a full list of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects from the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Database Project (as of 2023):[6]\n\nDialect\nReligion\nCountry\nRegion\n\nSulemaniyya, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nQaraqosh (Baghdede)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nTisqopa\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAradhin, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nKarəmlesh\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nDerabun\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAnkawa\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nBillin\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nAshitha\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nUmra d-Shish\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBaṭnaya\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nSanandaj, Jewish\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nShōsh-u-Sharmən\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAlqosh\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nPeshabur\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nKoy Sanjaq, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nArbel\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nBēṣpən\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nMēr\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nIšši\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBaznaye\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nGaznax\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nHarbole\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nHertevin\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSardarid\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nBohtan\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSanandaj, Christian\nChristian\n Iran\nW\n\nRustaqa\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nDobe\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nRuwanduz\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nSaqǝz\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nTelkepe\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nIṣṣin\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nMar-Yaqo\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nTən\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBarzani\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBetanure\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nShǝnno\nJewish\n Iran\nNW\n\nBokan\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nAmedia, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nZakho, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nZakho, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nUrmia, Jewish\nJewish\n Iran\nNW\n\nDiyana-Zariwaw\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nSablagh\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nJilu\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nChallək\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nDarband\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nBebede\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nDere\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nNargəzine-Xarjawa\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAqra (Xərpa)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAqra (town)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nXarjawa\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nMangesh\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBidaro\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nHamziye\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nGargarnaye\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBarwar\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nNerwa, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nSalamas, Christian\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nBne Lagippa\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nKerend\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nKoy Sanjaq, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nTikab\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nQarah Ḥasan\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nBijar\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nBariṭle\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBaqopa\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nSharanish\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nZawitha\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nSolduz\nJewish\n Iran\nNW\n\nSulemaniyya, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nḤalabja\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nXanaqin\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nQaladeze\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nNerwa, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nMeze\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nShaqlawa, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nHassana\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nMarga\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBersive\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nQarawilla\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nChalla, Jewish\nJewish\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSāt\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBāz (Maha Xtaya)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nṬāl\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSarspido (duplicate?)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nVan\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nHalana\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBnerumta (Upper Tiyari)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTel Tamməṛ (Upper Tiyari)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nWalṭo (Upper Tiyari)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSarspido (Lower Tiyari)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nHalmun\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTxuma Gawaya\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTxuma Mazṛa\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTxuma Gudəkθa\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTxuma Gəssa\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTxuma Bərəjnaye\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nArbuš\nChristian\n\nBāz (Khabur)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nDīz\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nJilu (Khabur)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nŠamməsdin Nočiya\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nŠamməsdin Iyyəl\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nŠamməsdin Marbišo\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBarwar\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nGawar, Christian\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nQočanəṣ\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nVan (Timur, Khabur)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSaṛa (Khabur)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nSaṛa (Armenia)\nChristian\n Georgia, Armenia\n\nLewən\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nUrmia, Christian\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nBne ~ Mne Maθa (Lower Tiyari)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBne ~ Mne Belaθa (Upper Tiyari)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBāz (Aruntus)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nMawana\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nGawilan\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nSalamas, Jewish\nJewish\n Iran\nNW\n\nKomane\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nDerəgni\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBədyəl\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nEnəške\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nTəlla\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nDarbandoke\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nShiyuz\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nQasr Shirin\nJewish\n Iran\nW\n\nBāz (Shwawa)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nBāz (Aghgab)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nShahe\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBəjil\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nUmra\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nGargarnaye (Azran)\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nDohok, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nJənnet\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nHoz\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nHarmashe\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nDohok, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nHawdiyan\nChristian\n Iraq\nNE\n\nAradhin, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAzax\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nBāz (Rekan)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nYarda\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nAlanish\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nGzira\nJewish\n Turkey\nSE\n\nGawar, Jewish\nJewish\n Turkey\nSE\n\nDawadiya\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nChalla, Christian\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nNəxla (Gerbish)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nNəxla (Dinarta)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nNuhawa\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nNəxla (Sanaye)\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nSandu\nJewish\n Iraq\nNW\n\nShaqlawa, Jewish\nJewish\n Iraq\nNE\n\nDehe\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nGramun\nChristian\n Turkey\nSE\n\nTazacand\nChristian\n Iran\nNW\n\nAmedia, Christian\nChristian\n Iraq\nNW\n\nReferences\n\n^ a b c Khan, G. (1 January 2007). \"The North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Journal of Semitic Studies. 52 (1): 1-20. doi:10.1093/jss/fgl034.\n\n^ Bird, Isabella, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, including a summer in the Upper Karun region and a visit to the Nestorian rayahs, London: J. Murray, 1891, vol. ii, pp. 282 and 306\n\n^ Kim, Ronald (2008). \"\"Stammbaum\" or Continuum? The Subgrouping of Modern Aramaic Dialects Reconsidered\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 128 (3): 505-531. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 25608409.\n\n^ Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.\n\n^ Lewis, M. Paul; Gary F. Simons; Charles D. Fennig, eds. (2015). \"Assyrian Neo-Aramaic\". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (18th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Archived from the original on 2016-07-21. Retrieved 2026-02-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)\n\n^ Khan, Geoffrey. \"Dialects\". The North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Database Project. Retrieved 2023-10-07.\n\nSources\n\nCoghill, Eleanor. \"Some notable features in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects of Iraq\". Neo-Aramaic Dialect Studies. Gorgias Press. pp. 91-104. ISBN 978-1-4632-1161-5.\n\nFox, Samuel Ethan (1994). \"The Relationships of the Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 114 (2): 154-162. doi:10.2307/605827. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 605827.\n\nFox, Samuel Ethan (2008). \"North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic and the Middle Aramaic Dialects\". Neo-Aramaic Dialect Studies. Gorgias Press. pp. 1-18. ISBN 978-1-4632-1161-5.\n\nGutman, Ariel (2018). Attributive constructions in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic. Language Science Press. ISBN 978-3-96110-081-1.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2007). \"Grammatical borrowing in North-eastern Neo-Aramaic\". Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT]. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 197-214. doi:10.1515/9783110199192.197. ISBN 978-3-11-019919-2.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2012). \"North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 708-724. ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey; Napiorkowska, Lidia, eds. (2015). Neo-Aramaic in Its Linguistic Context. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0410-5.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2018). \"Remarks on the Historical Development and Syntax of the Copula in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Aramaic Studies. 16 (2): 234-269. doi:10.1163/17455227-01602010. S2CID 195503300.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey (2020). \"The Perfect in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 978-90-272-6090-1.\n\nKhan, Geoffrey; Noorlander, Paul, eds. (2021). Studies in the Grammar and Lexicon of Neo-Aramaic. Semitic Languages and Cultures. Vol. 5. Open Book Publishers. doi:10.11647/OBP.0209. ISBN 978-1-78374-952-2. S2CID 231785174.\n\nRagagnin, Elisabetta (2020). \"Some Notes on Turkic and Mongolic Elements in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Varieties\". Eine hundertblättrige Tulpe - Bir ṣadbarg lāla. De Gruyter. pp. 361-371. ISBN 978-3-11-220924-0.\n\nMutzafi, Hezy (2005). \"Etymological Notes on North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". Aramaic Studies. 3 (1): 83-107. doi:10.1177/1477835105053516.\n\nMutzafi, Hezy (2006). \"On the Etymology of Some Enigmatic Words in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic\". Aramaic Studies. 4 (1): 83-99. doi:10.1177/1477835106066037.\n\nMutzafi, Hezy (2018). \"Folk Etymology in the North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects\". Aramaic Studies. 16 (2): 215-233. doi:10.1163/17455227-01602007. S2CID 195509710.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Database Project by Geoffrey Khan et al. (University of Cambridge)"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-northeastern-neo-aramaic"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 1917}, {"slug": "reference-iraq-levies", "title": "Iraq Levies", "category": "History & archaeology", "summary": "The Iraq Levies (also known as the Assyrian Levies) was a predominantly Assyrian force[4] and the first Iraqi military force. They were established by the British, who controlled Mandatory Iraq.[5] The Iraq Levies originated in a local armed scout force raised during the First World War. After Iraq...", "sections": [{"title": "Preserved reference text", "text": "Iraq Levies\n\nThree members of the RAF Levies arrive at Liverpool aboard SS Orbita in 1946.\n\nActive1921-1955\n\nCountryIraq\n\nAllegianceUnited Kingdom\n\nBranchBritish Army\nRoyal Air Force\n\nTypeAir force\n\nSize40,000 Assyrians[1] + Unaccounted Ethnic Groups\n\nNicknameAssyrian Levies\n\nEngagementsMahmud Barzanji revolts\nKirkuk Massacre of 1924\nWorld War II\n • Anglo-Iraqi War\n • Syria-Lebanon campaign\nAhmed Barzani revolt[2]\nSimko Shikak revolt (1918-1922)[2]\nSimko Shikak revolt (1926)[2]\nSurchi Revolt\n • Battle of Aqra Dagh\n • Defense of Jujar\n\nCommanders\n\nNotable\ncommandersDawid Mar Shimun\nAgha Petros\nMalik Khoshaba\nMandu Zaia\nMalik Yaqo\nMalik Ismail II[3]\nZaia Giwargis\n\nThe Iraq Levies (also known as the Assyrian Levies) was a predominantly Assyrian force[4] and the first Iraqi military force. They were established by the British, who controlled Mandatory Iraq.[5] The Iraq Levies originated in a local armed scout force raised during the First World War. After Iraq became a British Mandate, the force was composed mostly of Assyrians but also some Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen who lived in the north of the country, and the nascent Iraqi Army was recruited first from the Arabs who had joined the Iraqi Levies and later from the general Arab population (Beth-Kamala). Eventually, the Levies enlisted mainly Assyrian soldiers with British officers. The unit initially defended the northern frontiers of the Province of Mosul, which was claimed by Turkey, and massed its army across the frontiers. After 1928, the prime role of the Levies was to guard the British Royal Air Force bases located in Iraq.[6]\n\nThe Levies fought alongside the British during the Anglo-Iraqi War, helping defeat Axis-aligned Iraqis, along with distinguishing themselves by their \"loyalty to the British and their fighting prowess\". The force thereafter grew and survived until it was disbanded in Habbaniya, west of Baghdad, following the end of the British presence in Iraq in 1955.[7] The Assyrians also served in campaigns in Syria and Lebanon and were deployed in other theatres of the Second World War, including in the Balkans and Italy.\n\nHistory\n\nThe Iraq Levies traced their history to the Arab Scouts organized in 1915 by Major J. I. Eadie of the British Indian Army, who served as a Special Service Officer in Al-Muntafiq, Ottoman Iraq. He recruited forty mounted Arabs from the tribes around Nasiriyeh for duty under the Intelligence Department as bodyguard for political officers in southern and central Iraq. By 1918, the Arab Scouts had increased to 5,467 Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Marsh Arabs, Yazidis and Assyrians.[6][8]\n\nOrganisation\n\nIn 1919, the force changed its name twice, first to the Militia and then to the Iraq Levies in July, when Iraq became a British Mandate. On 12 August 1919, the force became known as the \"Arab and Kurdish Levies\".[6] Also in 1919, the Iraq Levies were split into a strike force of 3,075 men, based in Baquba, and district police force of 1,786 men.[8] On 1 August 1919, the Levy and Gendarmerie Orders were published in which the control of the Levies and the duties of the Inspecting Officer of the Levies, which had been limited to inspection and administration, were defined. That put the Levies under the control of three different men: the inspecting officer, the political officer of the area and the local administrative commandant. The budget was dealt with by the Inspecting Officer except in the northern Iraqi provinces of Kirkuk, Sulaimani and Mosul Liwas, where it was dealt with by political officers.[6] Laterm the Levies came under their own OC Iraq Levies.\n\nThe Levies consisted of a headquarters (first located in Baquba, then Hinaidi, and then in Habbaniya), a hospital (also in Habbaniya) and numerous numbered field companies. Some of the field companies were later organized into battalions for mobile operations.\n\n1920s\n\nAt the 1921 Cairo Conference, the mission of the Levies was defined as \"to relieve the British and Indian Troops in Iraq, take over outposts in Mosul Vilayat (province) and in Kurdistan, previously held by the Imperial Garrison, and generally to fill the gap until such time as the Iraq National Army is trained to undertake these duties\".[8][9]\n\nUntil 1921, the Levies had consisted primarily of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens and Shabaks, and the Assyrians had fought independently alongside the Armenians and Allied Forces in an Assyrian war of independence during the First World War. Now that an Iraqi Army was to be formed, the Arabs and other Muslim peoples were required to join it rather than to go to the Levies. It was decided to enlist ethnic Assyrians in the Levies.\n\nThe Assyrians were prized for their discipline, loyalty, bravery and fighting skills by the British, and were Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox or Chaldean Catholic Christians and, speaking Eastern Aramaic, a Semitic ethnic and religious minority in a population that was generally Arab or Kurdish and Muslim.[10] In July 1922, orders were issued in which no more Arabs were to be enlisted, as they were required to join the new Iraqi Army, and those serving could not re-engage. A 1922 treaty between Britain and Iraq allowed for the continued existence of the Levies as \"local forces of the Imperial garrison\" and specified that its members were \"members of the British Forces who are inhabitants of Iraq\".[8]\n\nBy 1923, the ethnic composition of the Iraq Levies had become 50% Assyrian, with a large minority of Kurds, as well as an attached battalion of Marsh Arabs and a few Armenians, Mandeans and Turcomans.\n\nIn July 1928, the Levies were transferred from the Colonial Office to the Air Ministrym and its headquarters was transferred to Hinaidi.\n\nBy 1928, the Levies had become entirely Assyrian. The Marsh Arab battalion became the 7th Battalion of the Iraqi Army. The force then expanded rapidly and became known as \"Shabanas\", a Turkish word meaning a semi-military gendarmerie. Its primary duty was now to protect Royal Air Force bases in Iraq.\n\nAs the Assyrian force became more disciplined, it rendered excellent service. During the 1920s Arab rebellion, they displayed, under conditions of the greatest trials, steadfast loyalty to their British officers.[5]\n\nIn 1920, during the Iraqi Revolt, the Arabs, alongside Kurdish and Turkmen tribes, attacked Assyrian refugee camps, but Assyrian forces managed to defeat the rebels by being excellent fighters with great experience in battle, having successfully fought against Ottomans, Kurds, Persians and Azaris during the First World War.[5] In 1919, the Kurds revolted in northern Iraq, where Levies were tasked with suppressing the rebellion. The rebellion ended in a Kurdish defeat, but the Kurds did not accept British rule, and the idea of establishing a country for Assyrians started other Kurdish revolts.\n\n1930s\n\nIn 1931, Levies and Iraqi Army units were patrolling Barzan District. Government troops implied government control, which Shaykh Ahmad still wanted to avoid.[11]\n\nOn 1 June 1932, the Levies presented a signed memorial to their commanding officer stating that \"all the men had decided to cease serving as from 1st July\". The reason was Britain had \"failed adequately to ensure the future of the Assyrian nation after the termination of their mandate over Iraq\".[12]\n\nFollowing abortive negotiations through Assyrian officers, British troops were brought in from Egypt to take over the guard and garrison duties of the Levies. Assyrian civilian and religious leaders issued a statement urging all ranks of the Levies to continue in \"loyal and obedient service\" until a national petition to the League of Nations could be responded to. The effect of the intervention was to calm concern amongst the majority of Levies, who resumed their former duties, but 250 men were discharged from service.[12]\n\n1940s\n\nIn 1940-41 the Battle of Habbaniya took place. During the Rashid Ali rebellion in 1941 the base was besieged by the Iraqi Army encamped on the overlooking plateau. The siege was lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, No. 1 Armoured Car Company RAF, and the RAF's Iraq Levies. The subsequent arrival of a relief column (Kingcol), part of Habforce sent from Palestine, then a British mandate, combined with the Habbaniya units to force the rebel forces to retreat to Baghdad. The Levies then recruited an additional 11,000 men, mostly Assyrians but also some Kurds and Yezidi.\n\n\"They had dug trenches and were determined on destroying the Assyrians and taking their properties and possessions. Assyrians painfully remembered the massacre of 1933 in Simele and the surrounding villages and pledged 'Never Again!' They remembered the raping and pillaging of defenseless Assyrian villagers.\"[13]\n\nBy 1942, the Iraq Levies consisted of a Headquarters, a Depot, Specialist Assyrian companies, 40 service companies and the 1st Parachute Company, which consisted of 75% Assyrian and 25% Kurd. The new Iraq Levies Disciplinary Code was based largely on the Indian Army Act.\n\nBy 1943, the Iraq Levies strength stood at 166 British officers controlling 44 companies: 22 Assyrian, five mixed Assyrian/Yizidi, ten Kurdish and four Arab. Eleven of the Assyrian companies served in Palestine and another four served in Cyprus. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were active in Albania, Italy and Greece. In 1943/1944 the Iraq Levies were renamed the Royal Air Force Levies.\n\nIn 1945, after the Second World War, the Levies were reduced to 60 British officers and 1,900 other ranks. The RAF Regiment took over command of the Levies and Army personnel were gradually replaced by RAF personnel. During October 1946 the Levies battalions were redesignated as wings and squadrons to conform to the RAF Regiment procedure. In December the Kurdish Squadrons in Cyprus and the Persian Gulf were returned to Iran.\n\n1950s\n\nThe RAF Levies continued its escort and guard duties into 1954, when it consisted of 1,200 Assyrians, 400 Kurds and 400 Arabs. The RAF Levies were disbanded on 2 May 1955, and King Faisal was present along with members of the government, as RAF Habbaniya and RAF Shaibah were handed back to the Iraqi government although the RAF remained at Habbaniya until May 1959.[14] Of 515 Assyrians, 195 volunteered for service in the Iraqi Army. At 0800 hours on 3 May 1955, the Levy's quarter guards were relieved by guards from the Iraqi Army. A minor and passing event but it did signify the end of an era as now the Levies had ceased to exist.[14]\n\nThe British offered financial compensation, vocational training and resettlement in civilian life to members of the RAF Levies. Those members with 15 or more years of service were pensioned off. Those with less than 15 years were given a gratuity of one month pay for each year of service. Also, the Levies received full pay up to and including 2 May. Those who were to be discharged on that day received pay and a ration allowance for 28 days terminal leave, plus a civilian clothing allowance and a free railway pass to their homes. Those Levies receiving vocational training had their current rates of pay and allowances continue until the end of their training.[14]\n\nLevy ranks and uniforms\n\nLevy officer ranks were derived from ancient Assyrian military ranks:\n\nRab Khaila: force leader\n\nRab Tremma: leader of 200\n\nRab Emma: leader of 100\n\nRab Khamshi: leader of 50\n\nThroughout most of their history, the Levies wore standard British tropical service and battle dress uniforms, though with RAF rank insignia after 1943. The most distinctive feature was a slouch hat with brim turned back in the Australian style, worn with a white plume for parade.\n\nMedals awarded to the Levies\n\nCross of Saint George\n\nThe Russian Empire recommended and awarded the Cross of Saint George to eight Assyrian members in 1917 during the First World War.\n\nOrder of the British Empire\n\nA total of ten Orders of the British Empire were awarded to officers of the Iraq Levies.\n\nFive OBEs were awarded to:\n\nRab Khaila Zaya Giwargis - 1926\n\nRab Emma Shayin Giwargis - 1926\n\nRab Emma Daniel Malik Ismail - 1922\n\nRab Khamshi Zaia Giwargis - 1926\n\nFive MBEs were awarded to:\n\nRab Kaila Dawid Mar Shimun [honorary]\n\nRab Tremma Yacouv Khoshaba\n\nRab Tremma Odishu Natan\n\nRab Emma Shlimon Bukho\n\nRab Khamshi Eshu Hamzo\n\nMilitary Cross\n\nThe Military Cross was awarded to the following personnel;\n\nThe original Military Cross awarded to Shlimon Slivo.\n\nRab Emma Stepan Nissan\n\nRab Emma Isaac Sulaqa Gilyana - 1928\n\nRab Emma Shamoon Khoshaba - 1928\n\nRab Emma Baijan Peko\n\nRab Emma Ozariu Tamraz - 1926\n\nRab Khamshi Eshu Saper - 1928\n\nRab Khamshi Shlimon Sliwa - 1926\n\nMilitary Medal\n\nThe Military Medal was awarded to the following personnel;\n\nRab Emma Warda Eshu\n\nCQMS 65347 Baitu Marqus - 1928\n\nCorporal Nikola Dinkha\n\nCorporal 55416 Mishu Miro - 1927\n\nMentioned in dispatches\n\nSix members of the Iraq Levies were Mentioned in dispatches:\n\nRab Emma Malam Odai - 1929\n\nRab Khamshi Barkhu Hormis - 1929\n\nCorporal 55416 Barhku Babu - 1928\n\nPrivate 55994 Khanania Yakob - 1929\n\nCorporal 1171 Gewergis Shinu - 1944\n\nLance Corporal 10575 Menaz Gerwergis - 1944\n\n\"The King has been graciously pleased to approve that the following be Mentioned in recognition of distinguished services in the Middle East:-\n\n... Lincoln Regiment - Capt. H. J. C. Thomas, MBE (64588), attached Iraq Levies...\"\n\n(London Gazette, 23 December 1941)\n\nMedal for Long Service and Good Conduct\n\nOver 300 Medals for Long Service and Good Conduct awarded for over 15 years' service in the Levies.\n\nKing George Medal with Clasp\n\nDozens of King George Medals with Clasp were awarded in 1922 for operations in Rawanduz, in northern Iraq.\n\nGeneral Service Medal with Iraq Clasp\n\nThe General Service Medal for Iraq was established in 1924 and was awarded to the Levies by King Faisal I for operations in Iraq between 1924 and 1936.\n\nSecond World War Medals\n\nThree different Second World War medals were awarded to members of the Iraq Levies.\n\nThe War Medal 1939-1945 - Awarded to Levies after 28 days of service in the Second World War.\n\nThe 1939-1945 Star - Awarded to Levies after six months service in the Second World War.\n\nThe Italy Star - Awarded to parachute company personnel who served in Albania, Italy and/or Greece.\n\nSee also\n\nRAF Iraq Command\n\nRAF Habbaniya\n\nRAF Shaibah\n\nRAF Regiment\n\nKirkuk Massacre of 1924\n\nSimele massacre\n\nIraqforce\n\nFor similar units see:\n\nMesopotamia Rifles\n\nAden Protectorate Levies\n\nReferences\n\n^ 40,000 Assyrians fought in the Levies\n\n^ a b c \"آغا بطرس: سنحاريب القرن العشرين\" (PDF). نينوس نيراري. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2018.\n\n^ Office, Great Britain Colonial (1920). Report to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of 'Iraq. p. 52.\n\n^ Bet-Shlimon, Arbella (21 May 2019). City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk. Stanford University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-5036-0914-3.\n\n^ a b c Stafford, R. S. (2006) [1935]. The Tragedy of the Assyrians. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-59333-413-0.\n\n^ a b c d Browne, J. Gilbert (1932). The Iraqi Levies 1915-1932. London: Royal United Service Institution. Retrieved 16 November 2016.\n\n^ Nisan, Mordechai (1991). Minorities in the Middle East: a history of struggle and self-expression. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-89950-564-0.\n\n^ a b c d \"Chronological History of the Iraq Levies\". Assyrian Levies.com. Archived from the original on 24 April 2009.\n\n^ Pollack, Kenneth Michael (2002). Arabs at War: Military effectiveness, 1948-1991. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-80323-7-339.\n\n^ Deighton, Len (1993). Blood, Tears and Folly : An objective look at World War II. New York, New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06017-000-4.\n\n^ MacDowall, David (2004) [1994]. A Modern History of the Kurds (3rd rev. and updated ed.). London, UK: I.B. Tauris. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-85043-4-160.\n\n^ a b Stavridis, Stavros T. (8 March 2004). \"Britain, Iraq and the Assyrians: The Nine Demands\". Zinda. X (2).\n\n^ \"The biography of brave Assyrians in Habbanyia\". Nineveh On Line. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2007.\n\n^ a b c Solomon, Solomon (Sawa) (1996). The Assyrian Levies. ATOUR Publications. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2012.\n\nExternal links\n\nAssyrian battle of Albania at YouTube\n\nA comprehensive website on the Assyrian RAF Levies\n\nRAF Habbaniya Association website"}], "sources": ["wikipedia-iraq-levies"], "related": [], "image": null, "note": null, "kind": "preserved_reference", "word_count": 2686}], "sources": [{"id": "bible-webbe", "title": "Holy Bible: World English Bible British Edition with Deuterocanon", "publisher": "World English Bible translation project / eBible.org", "url": "https://ebible.org/bible/details.php?id=eng-webbe", "type": "Biblical primary source", "access": "Public-domain Bible wording; full retained text and local chapter references at /bible/", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "bible-genesis-translations", "title": "Genesis 10:11: comparison of published Bible translations", "publisher": "Bible Gateway / named translation publishers", "url": "https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Genesis%2010%3A11", "type": "Biblical translation comparison", "access": "Public comparison; individual translations retain their own terms; linked for the Asshur/Nimrod subject question", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "bible-judith-usccb", "title": "The Book of Judith: introduction", "publisher": "United States Conference of Catholic Bishops", "url": "https://bible.usccb.org/bible/judith/0", "type": "Named ecclesial interpretation", "access": "Public introduction; rights retained by USCCB; cited as an identified interpretation of Judith", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "bible-pul-imj", "title": "Ancient Near Eastern Art collections: stele of Tiglath-Pilesar III (biblical Pul)", "publisher": "The Israel Museum, Jerusalem", "url": "https://museum.imj.org.il/imagine/collections/departments/24", "type": "Museum identification and context", "access": "Public collection listing; cited for the historical identification of Pul, separate from the biblical name", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "bible-official-titles", "title": "SIL Translator's Notes on 2 Kings 18:17", "publisher": "SIL translation specialists, hosted by the United Bible Societies TIPs project", "url": "https://tips.translation.bible/story/sil-translators-notes-on-2-kings-1817/", "type": "Translation and terminology notes", "access": "Public specialist notes explaining Tartan, Rabsaris and Rabshakeh as official titles; commentary is identified separately from Scripture", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "met-assyria", "title": "Assyria, 1365-609 B.C.", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/assyria-1365-609-b-c", "type": "Institutional collection", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "unesco-ashur", "title": "Ashur (Qal'at Sherqat)", "publisher": "UNESCO World Heritage Centre", "url": "https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1130/", "type": "Institutional collection", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "met-lamassu", "title": "Human-headed winged bull (lamassu)", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/322608", "type": "Institutional collection", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "met-caravan", "title": "Cuneiform tablet: caravan account", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325851", "type": "Institutional collection", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "khorsabad-ministry", "title": "Khorsabad", "publisher": "French Ministry of Culture, Grands sites archeologiques", "url": "https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/khorsabad/en/khorsabad-0", "type": "Institutional collection", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "cambridge-mesopotamian-languages", "title": "Mesopotamian Languages", "publisher": "University of Cambridge, Department of Archaeology", "url": "https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/about-us/mesopotamia/mesopotamia-history/mesopotamia-languages", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "cambridge-nena", "title": "The North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic Database Project", "publisher": "University of Cambridge", "url": "https://nena.ames.cam.ac.uk/", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "gedsh-aramaic", "title": "Aramaic", "publisher": "Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, electronic edition, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Aramaic", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "gedsh-syriac", "title": "Syriac Language", "publisher": "Aaron M. 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Murre-van den Berg, GEDSH, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Urmia.html", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "nena-urmi", "title": "Urmi, Christian", "publisher": "University of Cambridge, NENA Database Project", "url": "https://nena.ames.cam.ac.uk/dialects/225/", "type": "Academic fieldwork and recordings", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "unami-nineveh", "title": "UN visit to Christian and Shabak communities in the Ninewa Plains, 3 October 2018", "publisher": "United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq", "url": "https://iraq.un.org/en/167143-un-deputy-special-representative-alice-walpole-hears-firsthand-concerns-and-hopes-christian", "type": "Dated institutional reporting", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "gedsh-diaspora", "title": "Diaspora", "publisher": "Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Diaspora.html", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "gedsh-assyrians", "title": "Assyrians", "publisher": "James F. Coakley, GEDSH, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Assyrians.html", "type": "Scholarly interpretation of naming", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "gedsh-printing", "title": "Printing", "publisher": "James F. Coakley, GEDSH, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Printing.html", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "gedsh-edessa", "title": "Edessa", "publisher": "Amir Harrak, GEDSH, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Edessa.html", "type": "Scholarly reference", "access": "Public resource; check individual reuse terms", "checked": "2026-10-26"}, {"id": "aebp-countries", "title": "Countries and peoples", "publisher": "Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Countries/index.html", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "aebp-tiglath", "title": "Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria (744-727 BC)", "publisher": "Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Kings/Tiglath-pileserIII/index.html", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "aebp-sargon", "title": "Sargon II, king of Assyria (721-705 BC)", "publisher": "Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Kings/SargonII/index.html", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "aebp-babylonia", "title": "Babylon and the cities and tribes of Southern Mesopotamia", "publisher": "Chaitanya Kanchan and Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Countries/Babylonia/index.html", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "oracc-egypt", "title": "Egyptian in hieroglyphic script", "publisher": "Nimrud: Materialities of Assyrian Knowledge Production / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/nimrud/ancientkalhu/thewritings/egyptian/index.html", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "met-egypt", "title": "Egypt in the Late Period (ca. 664-332 B.C.)", "publisher": "Department of Egyptian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/egypt-in-the-late-period-ca-712-332-b-c", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "bm-chronicle", "title": "Babylonian Chronicle, British Museum 1896,0409.6 (BM 21901)", "publisher": "The British Museum, object 1896,0409.6", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1896-0409-6", "type": "Primary-source museum object record", "access": "Original tablet catalogue for events between 616 and 609 BCE, including Nineveh and Harran; the tablet is a later copy recording events, not a historical boundary dataset.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "oracc-shalmaneser", "title": "Shalmaneser III: royal inscriptions (Q004636)", "publisher": "Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/riao/Q004636/", "type": "Historical atlas reference", "access": "Public resource; original scholarship retains its own rights", "checked": "2026-10-25"}, {"id": "oracc-rinap", "title": "Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP)", "publisher": "University of Pennsylvania / Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (ORACC)", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/s.html", "type": "Edited primary inscription corpus", "access": "Public searchable editions of royal inscriptions; cited for historical context and independent records of royal claims, not as proof of every biblical or theological interpretation", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "met-rulers-assyria", "title": "List of Rulers of Mesopotamia", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/de/toah/hd/meru/hd_meru.htm", "type": "Scholarly chronology", "access": "Dynastic reference dates; chronology conventions and alternative dates remain possible", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "met-nineveh-history", "title": "Nineveh", "publisher": "Michael Seymour, The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/de/essays/nineveh", "type": "Scholarly museum essay", "access": "Historical and archaeological synthesis; distinguish palace material from earlier urban development", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "aebp-kings", "title": "Kings of late eighth-century Assyria", "publisher": "Karen Radner and Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Kings/index.html", "type": "Specialist scholarly reference", "access": "Kingship context; not a substitute for a specific royal inscription edition", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "aebp-shalmaneser-v", "title": "Shalmaneser V, king of Assyria (726-722 BC)", "publisher": "Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Kings/ShalmaneserV/index.html", "type": "Specialist scholarly reference", "access": "Succession, letters and royal material; uncertainty around the fall of Samaria retained", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "aebp-governance", "title": "Running the empire: Assyrian governance", "publisher": "Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/essentials/governors/assyriangovernance/index.html", "type": "Specialist scholarly reference", "access": "Royal ideology contrasted with administrative correspondence and provincial records", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "aebp-deportation", "title": "Mass deportation: the Assyrian resettlement policy", "publisher": "Karen Radner, Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/essentials/governors/massdeportation/", "type": "Specialist scholarly reference", "access": "Interpretive essay on deportation; caution about state propaganda, survivor voices and estimates", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "met-levant-chronology", "title": "The Eastern Mediterranean and Syria, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D.", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History", "url": "https://82nd-and-fifth.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/04/wae.html", "type": "Scholarly chronology", "access": "Regional chronology including 609 BCE; historical dating distinct from biblical narrative", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "bm-lachish-panel", "title": "Lachish assault relief, British Museum 124904", "publisher": "The British Museum", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1856-0909-14_1", "type": "Museum object catalogue", "access": "Physical palace relief and findspot; Assyrian royal representation is selective", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "bm-lachish-deportees", "title": "Lachish prisoners relief, British Museum 124908", "publisher": "The British Museum", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1856-0909-14_5", "type": "Museum object catalogue", "access": "Object records prisoners and displacement; depiction does not tell their individual stories", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "bm-ashurbanipal-tablet", "title": "Prayer tablet, Library of Ashurbanipal, British Museum 1881,0204.188", "publisher": "The British Museum", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1881-0204-188", "type": "Museum object catalogue", "access": "Concrete surviving tablet in a royal collection; not proof of a modern-style public library", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "aebp-vassals", "title": "Representing Assyrian interests in the vassal states", "publisher": "Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc2.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/essentials/diplomats/representingassyria/index.html", "type": "Specialist historical study", "access": "Explains the difference between annexed provinces, dependent kings, tribute and political relations.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "aebp-israel", "title": "Israel, the House of Omri", "publisher": "Assyrian Empire Builders, University College London / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/essentials/countries/israel/", "type": "Specialist historical study", "access": "Describes northern Israelite provincial annexations, vassal kingship and Damascus in 732 BCE; do not infer exact boundaries from this essay.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "unicode-syriac-names", "title": "Syriac Unicode character names (U+0700-U+074F)", "publisher": "Unicode Consortium", "url": "https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/charts/nameslist/0700/", "type": "Technical character standard", "access": "Stable Unicode character identifiers and names, not a pronunciation guide or manuscript palaeography", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "unicode-syriac-standard", "title": "The Unicode Standard: Syriac script, chapter 9", "publisher": "Unicode Consortium", "url": "https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode16.0.0/core-spec/chapter-9/", "type": "Technical character standard", "access": "Directionality, joining and type styles; same coded letters may render in different fonts", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "hmml-serto", "title": "Syriac Scripts - Serto", "publisher": "Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, HMML School", "url": "https://hmmlschool.org/syriac-serto/", "type": "Institutional palaeography training", "access": "Manuscript-based discussion of Serto shapes, dating and mixed hands; manuscript images retain their own rights", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "hmml-east", "title": "Syriac Scripts - East Syriac", "publisher": "Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, HMML School", "url": "https://hmmlschool.org/syriac-east-syriac/", "type": "Institutional palaeography training", "access": "East Syriac manuscript letterforms and vocalisation; style is not synonymous with one modern speech variety", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "hmml-estrangela", "title": "Syriac Scripts - Earliest Estrangela", "publisher": "Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, HMML School", "url": "https://hmmlschool.org/syriac-earliest-estrangela/", "type": "Institutional palaeography training", "access": "Dated early manuscript hands and diagnostic letterform comparisons", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "nena-dialects", "title": "North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialect catalogue", "publisher": "University of Cambridge, NENA project", "url": "https://nena.ames.cam.ac.uk/dialects/", "type": "Academic dialect documentation", "access": "Community and locality-labelled dialect descriptions; coverage varies by locality", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "nena-alqosh", "title": "Alqosh dialect - recordings and grammatical description", "publisher": "University of Cambridge, NENA project", "url": "https://nena.ames.cam.ac.uk/dialects/49/", "type": "Academic fieldwork and recordings", "access": "Actual locality-labelled speech samples and analyses; audio is not relicensed for this archive", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "nena-ankawa", "title": "Ankawa dialect - recordings and grammatical description", "publisher": "University of Cambridge, NENA project", "url": "https://nena.ames.cam.ac.uk/dialects/26/", "type": "Academic fieldwork and recordings", "access": "Speaker and locality-specific records, not representative pronunciation for every Assyrian or Aramaic variety", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "oha-australia-ethics", "title": "Guidelines for ethical practice in oral history", "publisher": "Oral History Australia", "url": "https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/guide-ethical-practice/", "type": "Professional ethical guidance", "access": "Public ethical guidance; consent, choice of access conditions, and participant review. Guidance is not a substitute for a signed, project-specific agreement.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "oha-australia-practice", "title": "Practising oral history", "publisher": "Oral History Australia", "url": "https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/guidance/practise/", "type": "Professional oral-history practice", "access": "Research planning, high quality recording, preservation and informed consent; externally hosted guidance, not a licence to reuse interviews.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "nla-oral-history-rights", "title": "Rights and the Oral History and Folklore Collection", "publisher": "National Library of Australia", "url": "https://www.library.gov.au/services/copyright-library-collections/rights-and-oral-history-and-folklore-collection", "type": "Library collection rights policy", "access": "Written access and publication agreements; conditions differ per interview and transcript. NLA policy describes its own collection.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "nla-oral-history-access", "title": "Using the Oral History collection", "publisher": "National Library of Australia", "url": "https://www.library.gov.au/research/access-collection/using-oral-history-collection", "type": "Library collection access guide", "access": "Separates finding, researching, copying and publicly reusing oral histories; consult the item-level catalogue record.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "bm-black-obelisk", "title": "Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, BM 118885 (1848,1104.1)", "publisher": "British Museum, object interpretation presented via Google Arts & Culture", "url": "https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-black-obelisk-of-shalmaneser-iii/KgEVw2i89-H2Aw?hl=en", "type": "Primary royal monument with museum catalogue interpretation", "access": "Institutional attribution and translated tribute caption; the scene expresses Assyrian royal claims and is not a photographic record of Jehu himself. Images not copied.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "imj-sennacherib-prism", "title": "The Assyrian Campaign in Judah as Told in the Sennacherib Prism", "publisher": "The Israel Museum, Jerusalem", "url": "https://imj.org.il/en/exhibitions/special-display-assyrian-campaign-judah-told-sennacherib-prism", "type": "Primary inscription object with institutional analysis", "access": "Describes the 691 BCE prism and 701 BCE Judah campaign; royal claims must be read separately from 2 Kings 18-19, Isaiah 36-37 and 2 Chronicles 32. Museum article, no images copied.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "bm-taylor-prism", "title": "Taylor Prism / Sennacherib annals, British Museum 91032", "publisher": "British Museum", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?keyword=WCT20387", "type": "Primary inscription object catalogue", "access": "Museum collection record for prism 91032 (691 BCE), linked as an external object not a licensed image or verified line-by-line edition.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "rinap-tiglath-corpus", "title": "RINAP 1: Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V corpus", "publisher": "Oracc / Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap1/corpus", "type": "Scholarly editions of primary royal inscriptions", "access": "Source text editions and editorial commentary; a catalogue landing page is not itself a verified quotation of individual lines.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "rinap-sargon-corpus", "title": "RINAP 2: Sargon II corpus", "publisher": "Oracc / Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/corpus/", "type": "Scholarly editions of primary royal inscriptions", "access": "Identified Sargon II inscriptions including Khorsabad annals; campaign entries require edition-specific verification and careful distinction from Isaiah 20.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "bm-lachish-camp", "title": "Lachish camp and royal entourage relief panel, British Museum 124913", "publisher": "British Museum", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1856-0909-14_11", "type": "Primary archaeological object record", "access": "Palace relief panel from Room XXXVI of Sennacherib's Southwest Palace at Nineveh; physical representation and curatorial interpretation, not direct eyewitness testimony.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "tcma-corpus", "title": "Archival Texts of the Middle Assyrian Period (ATMAP/TCMA)", "publisher": "Oracc / Jacob Jan de Ridder and project contributors", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/", "type": "Specialist edited primary administrative text corpus", "access": "Online corpus with transliterations, translations, findspots, bibliographies and provenance notes. Its 3,000+ texts are a corpus description, not representative of every inhabitant.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "tcma-law", "title": "Middle Assyrian Laws, palace edicts and scholarly tablets", "publisher": "Oracc / Archival Texts of the Middle Assyrian Period", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/LawsandScholarlyTablets/index.html", "type": "Specialist corpus reference to normative primary texts", "access": "Law collections and scholarly/ritual texts; normative wording alone does not prove day-to-day enforcement. The older proposed Tiglath-pileser I temple library interpretation is disputed.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "tcma-bibliography", "title": "ATMAP/TCMA bibliography of Middle Assyrian archive scholarship", "publisher": "Oracc / Archival Texts of the Middle Assyrian Period", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/Bibliography/", "type": "Specialist secondary bibliography and edition locator", "access": "Bibliographic route for granaries, clothing, ration lists, agriculture, labour and historical chronology. Titles point to research; they are not substitutes for individual tablet edition checks.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "tcma-assur", "title": "ATMAP/TCMA Assur findspot archive and glossaries", "publisher": "Oracc / Archival Texts of the Middle Assyrian Period", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/assur/hub.html", "type": "Primary archive portal / specialist glossary", "access": "Findspot-specific text and proper-name indexes; a lexical entry is not itself evidence of an occupation's prevalence.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "tcma-taban", "title": "ATMAP/TCMA Middle Assyrian texts from Tabete (Tell Taban)", "publisher": "Oracc / Archival Texts of the Middle Assyrian Period", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/taban/withlem", "type": "Primary tablet and document-type catalogue", "access": "Texts include receipts, allocations, letters, lists and purchase documents; preserve distinctions of findspot and period before comparison.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "fu-dur-katlimmu", "title": "Excavation at Tell Sheikh Hamad (Dur-Katlimmu), project history", "publisher": "Freie Universitaet Berlin, Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology", "url": "https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/en/e/vaa/forschung/projekte_abgeschlossen/tell_schech_hamad/index.html", "type": "Institutional archaeological research history", "access": "Excavations identified Middle Assyrian Dur-Katlimmu and later settlement phases; early-period archives must not be confused with the later Neo-Assyrian Red House corpus.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "harvard-dur-katlimmu-seals", "title": "The Glyptic Evidence of the Middle Assyrian Period from Dur-Katlimmu", "publisher": "Harvard University, Shelby White and Leon Levy Program", "url": "https://whitelevy.fas.harvard.edu/glyptic-evidence-middle-assyrian-period-dur-katlimmu", "type": "Archaeological finds and seal-impression study", "access": "Research describes 666 registered fragmentary cuneiform tablets and seal impressions in a specific administrative deposit. Object count is not an ancient census.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "fales-veil-assyrian", "title": "Veiling in Ancient Near Eastern Legal Contexts (Frederick Mario Fales)", "publisher": "Edizioni Ca' Foscari / Frederick Mario Fales", "url": "https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/v4/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-522-3/veiling-in-ancient-near-eastern-legal-contexts/", "type": "Peer-reviewed scholarly interpretation of Middle Assyrian legal texts", "access": "Frederick Mario Fales (2021), in Headscarf and Veiling, pp. 89-100, DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-521-6/006. Full chapter consulted, especially pp. 93-98 and MAL A 40-41. CC BY 4.0. Original explanatory paraphrases, not a new translation; quotations reproduced within the chapter retain their original attribution.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "reculeau-water-habur", "title": "Water management and irrigation in Middle Assyrian Dur-Katlimmu", "publisher": "The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago", "url": "https://isac.uchicago.edu/publications/irrigation-early-states-new-directions", "type": "Academic discussion of archives and agrarian management", "access": "Herve Reculeau, chapter 9, Opener of Canals, Provider of Abundance and Plenty, in Stephanie Rost (ed.), Irrigation in Early States, OIS 13 (2022), pp. 209-268. Consulted pp. 214-216 and 228-229 for Middle Assyrian irrigation and personnel. Original summaries retain the distinction from the earlier Mari system. PDF linked from the publication page; no protected images or translations reproduced.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "water-assyria-jstor", "title": "Water for Assyria: Politics and Water Management at the Lower Habur", "publisher": "Hartmut Kuehne / JSTOR academic edition", "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcm4fg3", "type": "Academic research collection", "access": "Bibliographic access to specialist analyses of Assyrian irrigation and regional water history; consult individual chapter rather than infer a specific field's yield.", "checked": "2026-10-29"}, {"id": "tcma-kaj-247", "title": "KAJ 247, Middle Assyrian receipt, CDLI P282259, VAT 08971", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282259", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Assur, M 09 Archive, excavation Ass 14446 df. Labour/temple entry; workers and receipt interpretation retain editorial question marks.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-marv-10-07", "title": "MARV 10, 07, palace footwear receipt, CDLI P282957, VAT 10052", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282957", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Assur M 07 Archive, excavation Ass 21101 s. Palace footwear assigned to an individual described as a hostage; campaign wording is uncertain.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-kaj-233", "title": "KAJ 233 / KAV 207, equine barley allocation, CDLI P282245, VAT 08950", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282245", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Assur M 09 Archive, excavation Ass 14446 p*. A receipt for barley associated with a service horse and a dated eponymy; not a general army ration schedule.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-marv-1-12", "title": "MARV 1, 12, ten-day ration account, CDLI P281896, VAT 18012 and VAT 18088", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P281896", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Assur. Documents a dated allocation for multiple defined groups guarding the inner city, not the diets of the general public.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-kaj-144", "title": "KAJ 144, lead and house transaction, CDLI P282157, VAT 08609", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282157", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Assur M 11 Archive, excavation Ass 14987 b. Administrative legal record involving lead and a house sale; partial reading and genre are marked uncertain.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-billa-30", "title": "Billa 30, barley receipt from Shibaniba, CDLI P282711, UM 33-58-133", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/billa/P282711", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Tell Billa/Shibaniba, Ashur-kashid archive. Barley payment, witnesses and date, with explicitly broken names and uncertain imposition terminology.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-kaj-118", "title": "KAJ 118, palace straw receipt, CDLI P282131, VAT 08819", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P282131", "type": "Edition of primary cuneiform tablet", "access": "Assur M 10 Archive, excavation Ass 14327 by. Palace straw documented in a named administrative custody chain; quantity does not reveal total grain harvest.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "met-62-85-3", "title": "Cuneiform tablet with two cylinder seals, Met accession 62.85.3", "publisher": "Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ancient West Asian Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325514", "type": "Institutional primary archaeological object catalogue", "access": "Middle Assyrian clay administrative object, approximately 13th century BCE. Public-domain image status is stated by the Met; a published translation was not identified in this catalogue.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oracc-atf-primer", "title": "Oracc ATF Primer: editing, damage, query and collation conventions", "publisher": "Oracc, University of Pennsylvania", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/doc/help/editinginatf/primer/", "type": "Documentation of cuneiform transcription conventions", "access": "Defines broken signs in square brackets, damaged graphemes (#), uncertain readings (?) and unknown x. This technical guide is not an ancient document or a translation of any named tablet.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oracc-atf-translations", "title": "Oracc translations: supplied, uncertain and broken text conventions", "publisher": "Oracc, University of Pennsylvania", "url": "https://oracc2.museum.upenn.edu/doc/help/editinginatf/translations/index.html", "type": "Documentation for scholarly translation conventions", "access": "Explains editorially supplied translations, uncertainty notes and relationships between transliteration and translation. Technical conventions do not make the site's editorial glosses independent Akkadian translations.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oxford-cuneiform-conventions", "title": "A Note on Typographical Conventions, The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture", "publisher": "Oxford University Press", "url": "https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/27992/chapter/211695199", "type": "Academic reference on cuneiform signs, normalization and translation", "access": "Explains how transliteration preserves sign values and differs from normalized forms; scholarly typography may vary by edition. Source is a methods reference, not evidence for an individual Assyrian transaction.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oracc-riao-jehu-caption", "title": "Shalmaneser III 088 (Q004693): Black Obelisk Jehu caption", "publisher": "Royal Inscriptions of Assyria online (RIAo), RIMA 3 / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/riao/ria5/Q004693", "type": "Edited royal inscription primary source", "access": "Obelisk second tribute caption, obverse line 1; historical edition by A. Kirk Grayson, updated by MOCCI; CC BY-SA 3.0 edition. Read the original edition; no local text transcription mirrored.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oracc-rinap2-ashdod", "title": "Sargon II royal account (Q006488): Ashdod, lines 90-109", "publisher": "Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 2, Grant Frame / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/Q006488", "type": "Edited royal inscription primary source", "access": "Directly consulted RINAP 2 edition, lines 90-109 concerning Ashdod. Original transliteration and scholarly translation remain at the institutional URL; royal first-person narrative is not neutral modern reportage.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oracc-rinap3-sennacherib22", "title": "Sennacherib 022 (Q003496): Judah and Hezekiah, column iii", "publisher": "Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3, A. Kirk Grayson and Jamie Novotny / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap3/Q003496", "type": "Edited royal inscription primary source", "access": "RINAP 3 composite prism edition with British Museum 91032 among listed exemplars; relevant column iii lines 18-49. Attribution of a master edition does not mean each line is preserved identically on a single artefact.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "rinap-tiglath-menahem32", "title": "Tiglath-pileser III 032 (Q003445), Menahem of Samaria in tribute list", "publisher": "Hayim Tadmor, Shigeo Yamada and the RINAP Project / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap1/Q003445", "type": "Direct edited royal inscription", "access": "RINAP 1, text 32, obverse line 1. British Museum BM 118899 + BM 118900 are identified exemplars. Text is an Assyrian tribute notice, not a siege record.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "rinap-tiglath-peqah42", "title": "Tiglath-pileser III 042 (Q003455), Pekah and Hoshea in damaged inscription", "publisher": "Hayim Tadmor, Shigeo Yamada and the RINAP Project / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap1/Q003455", "type": "Direct edited royal inscription with damaged reading", "access": "RINAP 1, text 42, obverse 15'-18'. The edition flags 'I/they killed' as textually ambiguous; no reading is independently collated in this archive.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "rinap-sargon-samaria7", "title": "Sargon II 007 (Q006488), Samaria display-inscription passage and variant apparatus", "publisher": "Grant Frame and the RINAP Project / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/Q006488", "type": "Direct edited royal inscription, composite witness", "access": "RINAP 2 text 7, lines 23b-25a and editor's line 24 notes; main exemplar 27,290 with variant 27,280 and apparently 24,280. Identical underlying edition URL to separately scoped Ashdod source record; this entry limits the passage to Samaria.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "rinap-sargon-nimrud74", "title": "Sargon II 074 (Q006555), Nimrud Prism Samaria narrative and variant reading", "publisher": "Grant Frame and the RINAP Project / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/Q006555", "type": "Direct edited royal inscription with disputed count", "access": "RINAP 2 text 74, column iv lines 25-38. Its Samaria count is disputed and restorations are visible; the commentary records different readings from Q006488; never treat it as an exact modern demographic statistic.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "rinap-sargon-annals1", "title": "Sargon II 001 (Q006482), restored Khorsabad annal account of Samaria", "publisher": "Grant Frame and the RINAP Project / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap2/Q006482", "type": "Direct edited royal inscription, heavily restored passage", "access": "RINAP 2 text 1, lines 12-17. Large portions of the Samaria account are restored from parallel royal records; an edited reconstruction is not independent confirmation of every detail.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "saa-samaria-corn-tax", "title": "SAA 1 220 (P334789), The Corn Tax of the Samarians, original edited administrative letter", "publisher": "State Archives of Assyria Online / ORACC, University of Pennsylvania", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/P334789", "type": "Primary cuneiform administrative letter", "access": "SAA 01 220, obverse lines 4-6 and reverse lines 1-9; Arihu to Nabu-duri-usur; discusses uncertainty over Samarian grain taxes. Not a list of deportees or proof of a specific migrant's identity.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "aebp-kings-road", "title": "The King's Road: the imperial communication network", "publisher": "Karen Radner / Assyrian Empire Builders, UCL, ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Governors/TheKing%27sRoad/index.html", "type": "Specialist synthesis of Neo-Assyrian administration", "access": "Explains relay and provincial communications, SAA 1 177 and road-station obligations. Infrastructure context, not an identified itinerary for any Israelite exile group.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "bm-tiglath-census-relief", "title": "Tiglath-pileser III: Assyrian scribes and displaced captives, British Museum 1848,1104.5", "publisher": "The British Museum Collection Online", "url": "https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1848-1104-5", "type": "Primary visual material: museum object", "access": "A wall panel of counting spoil and captives; paired with BM 118882 in the same pictorial scene. Museum attributes it to campaigns in southern Iraq, not Samaria; 728 BCE production date.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "cambridge-naaman-deportees", "title": "Locating sites of Assyrian deportees in ancient Israel and Southern Palestine", "publisher": "Nadav Na'aman / McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge", "url": "https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/d0f17023-393a-4f22-aa2e-6267ba6017b0", "type": "Peer-reviewed edited volume chapter: archaeological interpretation", "access": "Chapter in The Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire (2016); repository records DOI 10.17863/CAM.128784, rights all reserved. Interpretive context, not primary testimony for any named family.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "oxford-faust-provinces", "title": "The Empire in the Southwest: Reconstructing Assyrian Activity in the Provinces", "publisher": "Avraham Faust / Oxford University Press", "url": "https://academic.oup.com/book/39739/chapter-abstract/339783538", "type": "Scholarly archaeological synthesis (abstract)", "access": "The Neo-Assyrian Empire in the Southwest (2021), chapter 7, pages 181-213, DOI 10.1093/oso/9780198841630.003.0007. Abstract accessible; full scholarly argument may require institutional access. Warns administrative evidence is unevenly distributed.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "aebp-governors-overview", "title": "Governors: Neo-Assyrian administration and research overview", "publisher": "Karen Radner / Assyrian Empire Builders, UCL, ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/aebp/Essentials/Governors/index.html", "type": "Specialist thematic index", "access": "Index for governors, palace scribes, communication, resettlement and administration. Orientation only, not an original tablet or direct textual quotation.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "saao-downloads", "title": "State Archives of Assyria Online - maintained downloadable SAA catalogues", "publisher": "State Archives of Assyria Online / ORACC", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/downloads/", "type": "Institutional source catalogue and edition downloads", "access": "Lists SAA 01-21 text data and catalogues; an index for verifying manuscript and edition identities, not proof that individual letter line locations have been personally collated.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "gedsh-chaldeans", "title": "Chaldeans - historical ecclesiastical and modern identity terms", "publisher": "James F. Coakley / Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Beth Mardutho", "url": "https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Chaldeans", "type": "Independent specialist historical dictionary", "access": "Independent Syriac-studies reference: explicitly distinguishes (1) Chaldean Catholic church members and (2) later modern ethnic name applications; identifies the 1445 brief and nineteenth-century revival. The entry does NOT publish an ancient Kaldu-to-modern Catholic genealogy. The original papal document has not been collated here.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "parker-2018-chaldaean", "title": "The Ambiguities of Belief and Belonging: Catholicism and the Church of the East in the Sixteenth Century", "publisher": "Lucy Parker / The English Historical Review, Oxford University Press (2018)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cey334", "type": "Peer-reviewed early-modern church history", "access": "English Historical Review 133(565), 1420-1445. The accessible abstract describes the emergence of the East Syrian Catholic church in the 1550s and cautions against anachronistic fixed confessional categories; full journal article may require access.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "hanoosh-2019-chaldean-identity", "title": "The Chaldeans: Politics and Identity in Iraq and the American Diaspora", "publisher": "Yasmeen S. Hanoosh / I.B. Tauris, Bloomsbury Academic, Portland State University (2019)", "url": "https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/wll_fac/134/", "type": "Academic ethnographic historical monograph", "access": "University-hosted abstract of a 2019 academic ethnographic book; distinguishes modern Aramaic-speaking East Syriac Catholics in northern Iraq from the ancient Mesopotamian namesake. Explains development of contemporary identity; does not demonstrate ancient Kaldu lineage. Full book unavailable outside institution and NOT independently examined.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "donabed-2012-appellative", "title": "Rethinking Nationalism and an Appellative Conundrum: Historiography and Politics in Iraq", "publisher": "Sargon G. Donabed / National Identities, Taylor & Francis (2012)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2012.733208", "type": "Peer-reviewed Assyrian-oriented identity interpretation", "access": "Peer-reviewed Assyrian-oriented cross-denominational historical argument, National Identities 14(4), 407-431, DOI 10.1080/14608944.2012.733208 (corrected full version of original 14(2), 115-138). This advocates historical Assyrian continuity across church labels; does not itself document an individual genetic lineage.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "iranica-ancient-chaldeans", "title": "Chaldeans (Kaldu): ancient West Semitic tribes of southern Babylonia", "publisher": "Muhammad A. Dandamayev / Encyclopaedia Iranica (1991; updated 2013)", "url": "https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chaldeans-kaldu-west-semitic-tribes/", "type": "Independent specialist ancient history reference", "access": "Independent ancient-history entry on Kaldu tribes attested in southern Babylonia in ninth-century BCE royal records. Ancient referent only. Do not use as direct proof of the ancestry of present-day Chaldean Catholics.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "vatican-2001-church-of-east-unity", "title": "Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East", "publisher": "Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity / Holy See (2001)", "url": "https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/fr/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiesa-assira-dell-oriente/altri-documenti/2001---orientamenti-per-lammissione-alleucaristia-fra-la-chiesa-/testo-in-inglese.html", "type": "First-party interchurch institutional history", "access": "Direct Catholic-Assyrian interchurch guidance acknowledges a shared Church of the East background and sixteenth-century moves into communion with Rome. Official position for church history, not independent academic proof of modern ethnic identity.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "hanoosh-2016-appellations", "title": "Minority Identities Before and After Iraq: The Making of the Modern Assyrian and Chaldean Appellations", "publisher": "Yasmeen S. Hanoosh / The Arab Studies Journal 24(2), 2016", "url": "https://www.christianitymiddleeast.gr.cemmis.edu.gr/resources/annotated-bibliography/227-minority-identities-before-and-after-iraq-the-making-of-the-modern-assyrian-and-chaldean-appellations", "type": "Academic article - independent scholarly abstract", "access": "Annotated bibliography identifies 2016 study tracing modern Assyrian and Chaldean naming and missionary encounters; linked listing only, not an audited full article. Distinguishes development over several centuries from simplistic late-1990s invention.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "wiley-payne-ancient-chaldaeans", "title": "Chaldaeans (ancient southern Mesopotamian tribes)", "publisher": "Elizabeth E. Payne / The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Wiley (2016)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah30233", "type": "Independent specialist ancient-history encyclopedia entry", "access": "Public academic abstract distinguishes ancient Chaldaean tribes of southern Mesopotamia from any modern church designation; this is ancient-history reference evidence only, not an original ancient tablet or genealogical bridge. Full entry not independently consulted.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "rollig-batsh9", "title": "Wolfgang Rollig, Land- und Viehwirtschaft am Unteren Habur in mittelassyrischer Zeit (BATSH 9, 2008)", "publisher": "Wolfgang Rollig / Harrassowitz; Freie Universitaet Berlin Refubium", "url": "https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/35581", "type": "Scholarly primary-text edition and institutional summary", "access": "Edition of 106 written finds on agricultural production and livestock. Repository abstract consulted for crop names, herder accounting and harvest threats; no individual tablet line or numerical yield is attributed to the abstract.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-tabt05a-134", "title": "TabT05A-134, letter of Lulayu to Labetu, P532045", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder; primary edition Shibata 2015", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P532045", "type": "Edited primary Middle Assyrian letter", "access": "Tell Taban letter, obverse 1-14 and reverse 15 through left edge 32. Discusses wellbeing, medicine, auspicious days, extispicy and supplies. Original explanatory paraphrases of the published edition; uncertain signs and damaged names are not independently collated.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-tabt05a-151", "title": "TabT05A-151+, flour receipt and envelope, P532046", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA, Jacob Jan de Ridder (2020); Shibata 2012 and Llop / Shibata 2016", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P532046", "type": "Edited primary Middle Assyrian administrative tablet", "access": "Obverse 1-7, bottom edge 8 through reverse 15, and envelope 1-7. Original explanatory paraphrases of the edition, released under CC BY-SA 3.0. The relationship of later uses to the received flour total is uncertain. Named places are not a single itinerary.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "tcma-kar139", "title": "KAR 139, Ishtar ritual, VAT 15421, P369116", "publisher": "Oracc ATMAP/TCMA; editions by Ebeling, Menzel and Meinhold", "url": "https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/tcma/P369116", "type": "Edited primary Middle Assyrian ritual", "access": "Ashur, N 04 Archive; opening ritual instructions and beer libations in obverse 1-6. Original explanatory paraphrase, not a new translation or an independently collated text.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "harvard-dur-katlimmu-citadel", "title": "The Citadel of Dur-Katlimmu in Middle and Neo-Assyrian Times", "publisher": "Harvard University, Shelby White and Leon Levy Program / Hartmut Kuehne", "url": "https://whitelevy.fas.harvard.edu/citadel-dur-katlimmu-middle-and-neo-assyrian-times", "type": "Archaeological publication project report", "access": "Building P, provincial centre and grand-vizier setting. Its 668 registered texts are a report-specific count, distinct from the glyptic report's 666 fragments and BATSH 9 repository's 677 written finds.", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "met-old-assyrian-caravan-66-245-10", "title": "Cuneiform tablet: caravan account, 66.245.10", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325851", "type": "Primary object with museum curatorial interpretation", "access": "Public catalogue; historical explanation follows the museum reading, not a new independent tablet collation", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "met-old-assyrian-letter-66-245-1", "title": "Cuneiform tablet: private letter, 66.245.1", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/325842", "type": "Primary object with museum curatorial interpretation", "access": "Public catalogue; historical explanation follows the museum reading, not a new independent tablet collation", "checked": "2026-10-30"}, {"id": "wikipedia-assyria", "title": "Assyria", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1381892011", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-assyria/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-old-assyrian-period", "title": "Old Assyrian period", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1365518855", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-old-assyrian-period/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-middle-assyrian-empire", "title": "Middle Assyrian Empire", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1370959309", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-middle-assyrian-empire/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-neo-assyrian-empire", "title": "Neo-Assyrian Empire", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1381556878", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-neo-assyrian-empire/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-assyriology", "title": "Assyriology", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1371095684", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-assyriology/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-assyrian-law", "title": "Assyrian law", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1327692812", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-assyrian-law/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-military-history-of-the-neo-assyrian-empire", "title": "Military history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1371442469", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-military-history-of-the-neo-assyrian-empire/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-library-of-ashurbanipal", "title": "Library of Ashurbanipal", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1381072565", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-library-of-ashurbanipal/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-sayfo", "title": "Sayfo", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1370631734", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-sayfo/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-simele-massacre", "title": "Simele massacre", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1372452829", "type": "Preserved encyclopaedia reference", "access": "Full text retained locally under CC BY-SA 4.0", "checked": "2026-10-25", "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "local_url": "/articles/reference-simele-massacre/"}, {"id": "wikipedia-aramaic", "title": "Aramaic", "publisher": "Wikipedia contributors", "url": 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